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soddersays2020-08-26 04:27 pm
sodder) wrote in soddersays2020-08-26 04:27 pm
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SEPTEMBER 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME
SEPTEMBER 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME
Welcome to September's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: CHILDREN/YOUNG ADULT HORROR.
All Test Drive Memes contain at least one clue to the Deerington's upcoming in-game events for the month! Keep your eyes peeled! But...not literally.
Characters may die during TDMs, but you do not need to count it towards a game-canonical death unless you want to. Consider it a freebie. All TDMs can be considered game canon as TDMs introduce minor aspects about the world of Deerington that can be revisited by characters later on in the game. You may also use TDMs for your application writing sample as well as AC.
CW: Evil dollhouses, potential body horror (turning into a doll), heights, pranks with the potential to cause harm, some stalking vibes
Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!
THE EVIL DOLLHOUSE
When you wake up, you find you're not in your own bed, your own room, or even your own house. The room is well decorated, almost Victorian in fashion. The bed is pretty uncomfortable and you're not even sure the mattress is a real mattress. The chairs look like they might be made of plastic and the doors are flimsy. But it might not be what catches your eye, especially if you look out the window.Through the clear panes (which also seem to be plastic), you will notice you do not see the town of Deerington, or even the outdoors at all. You see a living room that feels larger than life. There aren't any people in it, but as you look around at the fake looking furnishings and the strange view, you might be hit with a realization: you're inside a dollhouse.
The dollhouse has three floors for those who explore; the second floor you woke up on has two bedrooms and a fake little bathroom, all decorated in the same Victorian dollhouse style as the room you originally found yourself in. The bottom floor has a cute little kitchen with small porcelain dolls sitting around the table, a living room with all the basic furniture one would expect to find (in fact, it looks a great deal like the living room outside the windows), and an office filled with books that can't actually be pulled out of the shelves. On the very top floor is an attic. It's dusty and filled with broken toy beds and chairs, a few shattered doll pieces, and on the far wall you'll see another bookshelf. All seems... fairly standard, really, if you're used to seeing dollhouses.
But what there doesn't appear to be is an exit.
While searching, you may run into another Sleeper. A friend or a stranger, it's clear you're both stuck here together. And the longer the time ticks by, the more concerning things get. You might not notice at first, but anyone inside the dollhouse starts slowly... changing. It seems to go at a different pace for everyone, but the results are always the same. Your skin will start to become porcelain, your cheeks more rosy, your clothes made of cheaper cloth material, your joints become stiffer, and your eyes will start to become more and more glass like. If you don't get out of the dollhouse soon, it's clear that you may become the next doll at the kitchen table.
Searching the house again may feel fruitless, but keen observers may find light scratches on the floor in front of the bookshelf in the attic. Maybe they were like that because of someone moving things around or maybe there's a reason. If you decide to eventually pull the bookshelf aside, there will be a large door in the wall. It may seem strange, given that the wall only leads to the outside, but it's the only door to the outside that actually opens. You expect it to open up into the living room, but instead you'll see the grass of the park below. Far below. It's likely you could get hurt jumping, especially if you've started to turn to porcelain, but what other choice do you have?
Once characters take the plunge, they will find that they land rather softly in the grass, despite how high the jump may have seemed. As soon as you are out of the dollhouse, your body will have returned to complete normal.
And the house with the dollhouse in the living room will be nowhere in sight.
THOSE PESKY KIDS
You start off thinking maybe you're just forgetful and moved minor pieces around in your house without paying attention. You might think you're just seeing strange things out of the corner of your eye, because why wouldn't you? It's Deerington. Things are always strange. But each day, there's something weirder going on. Small objects might turn into entire rooms being rearranged, strange sightings out of the corner of your eye might turn into you swearing you saw a lake monster running through the street, and you swear you can hear the rattling of chains or the sounds of someone telling you to leave echoing in your house at night or following you down the street.A haunting seems plausible. It wouldn't be the first time in Deerington. But no amount of herbs burned, or exorcisms performed, or chants and spell cast will make these things go away. In fact, they seem to just becoming more and more frequent, and more and more intense. Eventually, the strange creatures you see running around may start to try and attack you. They may start to try and kill you. But they always run off before you can attack back or show yourself to be stronger than them. It's probably the first time the monsters have ever been so easily scared.
Anyone who looks into it further may start to find weird clues lying around after a monster has been chased off. Footprints that don't look quite monster-like, tapes or records that when played will make strange rattling sounds like the chains you've been hearing, a piece of rubber that looks a lot like the monsters skin... Huh. The more you follow the clues, the more they'll lead you towards the answer to your dilemmas; these aren't hauntings.
They're pranks.
People can work together to catch a monster or ghost (or killing it, if you decide to); catching them will lead to them getting quite flustered and angry, struggling to get away. Pull off the mask or the sheet and underneath you'll find... a very disgruntled townsperson. Maybe your business was taking too much money away from theirs and they were hoping you'd close down with enough scares, maybe you talked back to them one time and they were looking for revenge, maybe you ruined their house or garden when you were fighting the things in Deerington that actually try to kill you, or maybe they were just having some "harmless" fun; they all have a different excuse, but they're clearly angry about getting caught.
They woulda gotten away with it if it weren't for you pesky Sleepers, after all.
Character Arrival
You can read how all characters arrive in Deerington here.There is not a collective "all these characters showed up at the exact same moment" occurrence in Deerington. Since characters fall asleep, die, or pass out at various times throughout all their worlds, it wouldn't make too much sense if they arrived in game all at the exact same time. There should be some discrepancy between character arrival, whether by a couple minutes, hours, or even days up to a week.
The players are entirely in control of how/when they want to play their characters arriving in Deerington. For TDMs, you can play it like your character has just arrived and that can be maintained as your game canon, or you can wait until game events for that moment. Or you don't need to acknowledge it at all. The flexibility for character allows a bit more of an organic feel to the character arrival situation, so please play it to whatever feels right for you.
If you are interested in having an "arrival" introduction for one of your TDM prompts, you are more than welcome to explore that option.
cw: alcoholism reference
But Ozpin doesn't hover up above; for once, his two feet are firmly planted on the ground, standing without support. Qrow takes half a step back, a half-uttered sound of surprise squeaking through his throat as his eyes stare wide, deer in headlights--or perhaps a crow.
He's really here, isn't he. After leaving everyone to pick up his pieces, here he is again. Against his own will, quite possibly, and quite frankly somewhat miraculously. Not from a time before the Fall of Beacon, that much becomes clear immediately, but then...how? Did Sodder resurrect this body like it did Ruby's? Why was he separated from Oscar's?
But every one of these questions die on his tongue before he can think to utter them, in the face of Ozpin continuing to speak. The good you've done has real value to those people. And to me. It burns like hellfire in his chest, worse even than the pain of Tyrian's poison when he was dying on the way to Mistral. He feels like he wants to scream, to break things....to drink, just to dull the agony. Hearing him talk like this floods him with the emotions he'd felt when he was seventeen and adrift, a cursed child of misfortune who had nothing to offer but a talent at fighting, turned against the defenseless. Ozpin had a way of making people believe they could become the best versions of themselves, that they could make the world a better place if they just tried.
All Qrow ever, ever wanted was to belong. To matter. Ozpin gave him that, smashed it into a million pieces, and now hands him the shattered pieces in a mosaic of what could still be, as if he really believes that. As if it's not just another beautiful lie.
He should walk away. He should tell Oz he doesn't need him anymore, that he never wants to see his face again for the rest of his life.
He wants to. But it's a lie too, and his traitorous throat won't speak it. It's too late to sew back up the pieces of his heart he just ripped out for this man who isn't an apparition after all, so he digs his talons in and starts on the rest. Maybe if all this tainted blood is finally purged, he can try to find something like peace.]
No, I don't understand, Ozpin.
[Not Oz. He holds back that affectionate nickname, unwilling even as he bares his soul to let him have the pieces.]
I...wasn't a good person, when you met me. I get you needed time, to make sure I could be trusted. That I was yours. But--
[And here, he wavers, as though unsure he's ready to do this after all. There's no going back, though. The Rubicon, as it were, is crossed, here.]
...But wasn't it enough, when I parted ways with my own sister for you? Wasn't it enough after we lost Summer, and I still went out on your front lines, to be your eyes and ears? Wasn't it enough--
[This time, his voice really does crack. A drip of moisture lands on Ozpin's shoe.]
Wasn't it enough when Tai decided he was done, and it was just me left of our team? Would it ever have been enough?
[Before he'd met Ozpin, he'd had nothing to give except his ability to hurt people. Ozpin gave him a purpose, a reason to live more than simply survive, as it was in the tribe.
In return, Qrow gave him his life and his soul and anything else he could carve out of himself for the dream and the desperate hope that he could somehow actually leave the world a better place than he entered it, cursed harbinger of misfortune or otherwise. That he could live up to the faith Ozpin put in him.
He has nothing left to give, now. When he speaks again, his voice is soft. The anger and bitterness leeched out into something tired, drained of energy to his very bones.]
You didn't hide it to protect me. Not really. You did it to protect yourself, because you thought I wouldn't be yours anymore, if I knew.
[. . .]
That's the real funny thing, Ozpin. You would've been wrong. If you'd ever trusted me enough to give me a real choice.
no subject
But he has learned, over and over again, that he has to. He keeps what secrets he can, and failing that, he just... has to bear the loss.
Qrow's voice hitches with tears because of him, and he does not think he can. ]
I...
[ It hits like a blow: Ozpin bit out like a curse, and I was yours said like a certainty. He knows it. Qrow is— was— beyond all others in this lifetime. But trusting Qrow with his life and more, trusting him within the terms of the fight against Salem, is not the same as spilling the whole messy truth of it: everything he regrets, every part of himself he flinches from and tries to bury. Everything that haunts him.
He has not heard the name Ozma spoken in centuries. He hasn't wanted to. He... does not do well, when reminded of all that he's lost. Of all that he will continue losing, again and again without rest until the day Salem wins. Until the day he fails or lets her.
How could he have confessed that? The true weight of it all? There is no way to convey how tired a soul can be, faced with the prospect of eternity. Of failing again and again, ceaselessly, at the hands of someone he had loved.
You did it to protect yourself. Qrow isn't wrong. He was protecting himself from precisely this. ]
Qrow...
[ He is left breathless with the ache of it, at You would've been wrong. In its wake is a brief, ringing silence. ]
It's... more than that. It was nothing you did or didn't do.
[ He shifts forward half a pace, wanting to reach out and knowing better than to try. ]
I was afraid of losing you, yes. [ This is admitted soft and low. ] I did not want to see you fall to the same despair I did. I intended to bear it so that no one else would have to. You have seen the mistakes I've made. [ The lives he wasted in miserable solitude, the lives he stole, and worse— their crusades, their children— ] I am not proud of the man I have been, but I have come to terms with the burdens I bear.
[ Even that is sometimes tenuous. He has hidden behind his lives and his circle and even his Maidens. He has leaned heavily on those who still have the willpower to go out and do good.
Qrow did not need to know the full miserable truth of it. Ignorance may have deprived him of a choice, but it had been kinder. It had hurt less for the both of them. ]
I never meant it as a lack of trust in you.
no subject
[He can't help it; the spiteful words slip out of his tongue before he even thinks about them. Ozpin knows perhaps as well as anyone that almost without exception, jokes about luck like this are reserved for the deepest, most profound bitterness. He can't help but feel angry at the excuse. After all, he'd hidden the truth of his Semblance from his nieces for seventeen years, but he'd never pretended that he'd hidden it for a noble reason. He couldn't bear to tell them because he feared the potential for rejection. He'd feared seeing the girls look at him with the same eyes the tribe always had. It was for himself, nothing more or less.
I intended to bear it so that no one else would have to. The words ring in his head. This conversation is disorienting in the way that he can never seem to feel certain of his feelings. One moment he's angry, the next his heart aches like it's splitting apart right down the middle. Still others, he's sapped of the ability to feel anything at all, exhaustion dragging at his heels as the weight of his wasted life crashes over him.
A few more drops fall to the ground by Ozpin's feet, and he doesn't look up, doesn't raise an arm to wipe his face. Even though the evidence is right there, he can't bear to show that much of his heart to this man, not while it's still bleeding so freely.
He digs his nails into the meat of his palms, leaving two sets of angry red half-moons there.]
...Did you ever think that maybe I'd want to bear it? You knew who I was, too. I know you did.
[On some level, he and Raven had probably both realized it early on, that Ozpin was onto them. It's just that by the time they did, they'd loved him too much to care. Even Raven had, once upon a time...in those halcyon days when STRQ was still whole, when their smiles lit up the picture he still keeps on his person nearly two decades later.]
You turned a cursed, murderous bandit into a Huntsman. You gave me a place in the world, and every day that went by, all I wanted was to become someone worthy of the title.
[Someone like Summer, like Tai...like Ruby. Someone who had come to Beacon Academy because defending the defenseless was their life's calling.]
I wanted to become the person you saw in me. And you're gonna stand there and act like you didn't tell me for my own good, when you know you would've just used me until my life was spent and then moved on to lie to the next sucker who needed something to believe in.
[Finally, finally, Qrow raises his gaze. There's something hard in them, despite the pain and fondness that still traitorously mingle there.]
Don't ever lie to me again, Ozpin.
no subject
He watches Qrow cry, his own shoulders sagging. In every lifetime there is a moment like this, someone of whom he is fond enough that it hurts all the more when things finally crumble. They do not usually fall to pieces this completely. He doesn't usually lose all his secrets all at once. He doesn't usually have every wrenching beat of the story laid out in full detail for everyone to watch.
He'd never expected it would be Qrow he'd grow so fond of, when he first found a fierce and terrified boy skulking through the halls of his academy. He had hoped for, but not dared to anticipate, loyalty like this. Trust like this. And here it is in shards.
You would've just used me until my life was spent. He cannot deny the grain of truth in it. Someday, Qrow will die. And Oz will move on. He will find another boy to take under his wing, and he will let Qrow fade from his memory. It is easier when he does. It is easier when he lets the names and faces blur, and lives with the amorphous guilt of turning away from their memories, rather than the acute hurt of each individual wound.
Don't ever lie to me again. How he would like to promise that and mean it. If only the world were so simple.
He breaks first: he looks away. ]
You now know the full story. The full truth. There is nothing more to keep from you.
[ There is a note of pleading in it. ]
I did not lie about what I saw in you, Qrow. I still see it now.
no subject
There is nothing more to keep from him, he says. He's run out of lies, but the next time he finds some, he won't hold them back. That's what Qrow hears. It's a frustration that burns hot and fierce, but it's nothing like the ache that shoots through him like a missile as Ozpin continues to speak. I did not lie about what I saw in you, Qrow. I still see it now.
He feels like his entire body is burning, every inch of his skin set ablaze by Ozpin's inability (refusal?) to understand. In a fit of desperation, he lunges forward and grabs Ozpin's collar, pulls back his other fist to hit Oz again, thinking for a moment that it'd be properly satisfying with this body, but then he stops. No, he's changed. He's decided to be better than that person lost in an alcoholic haze of despair all across Anima. Ozpin doesn't deserve to bring him that low again. He lets go just as suddenly as he'd grabbed him, as if he were holding a poisonous spider.]
Stop it. Just--just stop with the Headmaster shit for five goddamn seconds!
[He grits his teeth, eyes closing again.]
I-I'm not seventeen anymore. I don't...[he's shaking, again. Up close, Ozpin can finally see the tears streaked across his face.]
I don't want to hear you talk about what you saw in me, when I might as well have been one of Jimmy's robots to you!
no subject
(Again there is the impulse to just shut himself away, to watch from afar and make it all go distant. But he doesn't have the excuse, nor the trick of it, in this body. His selves are too thoroughly blended. There is no one to hide behind.)
He can feel Qrow's hand shaking where he holds him, in the moment before the man sharply lets go. Shirt rumpled, he regains his footing and looks back at Qrow and the tears running freely down his face. ]
Qrow. [ His tone is terribly gentle. ] Do you really believe it meant nothing?
[ The war will never end, but still the fight has value. Qrow will not live forever, was never meant to know the true and terrible shape of things, but still his presence at Oz's side meant a great deal. These are the only things that keep him going; this is all he has to live for. The fight and the convictions of the people who take it up at his side. Their bravery, their hope. ]
A life is not rendered worthless because it will end. The good you do has meaning. Of course it had meaning to me.
no subject
Maybe if Ozpin had apologized for all the lies. Maybe if he'd sworn he wouldn't do it again, or at least to try. Maybe if he hadn't met all of Qrow's raw feelings--vulnerability above and beyond anything he's ever shown anyone, including his own nieces--with excuses and placation.
Ozpin continues to ply him with these kind words about the value and meaning to his life and efforts, and all Qrow hears is more of the same lies. They don't hurt less just because they look beautiful. Like the thorns on a rose.]
I don't know what I believe anymore.
[There isn't anger to those words as he says them. They're not spit out in rage or out of spite. He doesn't shake when he says them. But there's a deep, interminable sadness to them, like an old scar that aches when the weather is bad.]
...The strong survive, the weak die. Those were the rules, in the tribe. I didn't learn how to care about humanity until Beacon.
[Once upon a time, an old man reached out his hand to a dusty old crow and opened up a whole new world. It had been his favorite fairytale.]
I learned for you.
no subject
There have been times he tried not to care. Whole centuries of trying. He's never been much good at it.
Qrow's voice goes tired, and he feels it in his bones. That dark, empty resignation of seeing your purpose broken, of realizing you are abandoned— he knew it the moment Jinn gave him his answer. ]
Then... perhaps you can believe I never wanted to cause you this pain.
I'm sorry.
[ For letting it turn out this way. For the whole sorry state of the world, for not having a way to solve it. He still thinks ignorance had been kinder. Or maybe he only hopes it— maybe he lost track of what is right a very long time ago. ]
no subject
It's a cruel irony, in a way; Ozpin was the first one to ever show Qrow what it felt like to be accepted for everything he was, the first to take to the iron shackles around his heart and hand him the keys to the world.]
But you'd do it again, wouldn't you? If you had the chance to do it over, you wouldn't be honest with me.
[Qrow doesn't have to wait for an answer. He knows it already.
He's not sure how he imagined this conversation would go; after Ozpin locked himself up in Oscar's mind, he was so angry, so devastated, so filled with despair his negligence almost got the kids killed. But things are different, now. He's stopped drinking. He's working on the Amity Project in Remnant, and building ... something with Clover here, that he dares not think too hard about.
He's not okay, but he's doing better. He's been standing on his own two feet without Oz for months, now. He owes it to Ruby and Yang to keep moving forward.]
I guess that means we have nothing more to say to each other, Oz.
[It's the first time he's said that nickname this entire conversation. The way he says it sounds like goodbye.
Finally, he turns halfway on his heel, looking at the wizard over his shoulder. His gaze is steady this time, drained of the desperation of before.]
...If you ever feel like apologizing for lying to me half my life, look me up.
no subject
Qrow turns away from him. Nothing more to say to each other. He thinks there is a great deal that could be said, but perhaps it's best to put some space between recent revelations and where they stand now. A careful distance between them, not the panicked escape of before. Whatever he may think of the secrecy, Oz is aware that his total retreat was... unkind. He intends to do better, here.
If Qrow ever allows him the chance.
He hangs his head, and finds that teardrops have left dark spots on the pavement. They stare up at him as Qrow walks away. ]