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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.
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I think it's the best, but I may be bias. [Considering she was the ruler and all.
She would certainly know to try and find people like her who had woken up here for help rather than any of the odd townsfolk.
A phone? She shook her head in reply. ] Can't you just go up to each other and talk? Why do you need a little box to communicate? It's much nicer having a conversation face to face.
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It's really not hard to be better than here. Where are you from?
[May as well make small, get to know you, talk while he looks over the FLUID.]
You can, sure. But this is a lot faster than trying to track someone down, or calling for help in an emergency.
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A place called Arendelle. On the Arenfjord.
[ She considers the idea of tracking someone down quickly. If Arendelle had technology like this, it certainly would have saved her a trip up the mountain to talk down her sister. And that's just one of the times she can think of that would have been helpful. ]
I guess you have a point. I've lived my whole life not having something like this. I mean we have letters, and I can send my sister messages on the wind and that's pretty quick, but nothing like this.
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[He is genuinely apologetic. Really. Hearing someone hasn't heard of your home is probably difficult, no matter who you are.]
It's a lot faster than letters, that's for sure. I can't speak for the wind, but... definitely faster than a letter. Do you want me to show you how?
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That's not surprising. I mean, if you know this technology, you must be from somewhere else. Don't worry about me, I'm not alone here. I ran into my fiance a short while ago.
[ She gives a little nod, because Kristoff had been as lost as she had regarding the device. ]
Yes, please. I'd like to know how to communicate with everyone.
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[There, nailed it!]
[He nods, and pulls out his own FLUID to show her. Going through the steps slowly and steadily - from selecting the message, to picking the recipient.] Then you just type in what you want to say... and hit the send button, here.
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It is, he doesn't want me here but, I can take it. [ Ohh you sweet summer child.
Quick on the pick up, it looks like a little light goes on in her mind. ] Ohhh! That button. I kept confusing it with this one over here.
What's the difference between a video...voice...and text?
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[For extremely depressing reasons this poor girl doesn't need to know right now. It's more important to get her up to date on the FLUID.]
That's okay. It can take some practice. [He'll pull up examples, though - ] Video means you see the person calling you, and they see you. Voice is just hearing your voices.
Text is the same as a letter, but instant.
no subject
[ Sorry Shiro, she really can be naive.
She gives a nod, following his lesson.]
Oh, I wish we did have something like this at home. It would be really nice to actually see Elsa, rather than just send her a letter.
no subject
I am glad to see him. Really glad.
[you're better together than you are apart - oof. He keeps going, though, moving on.]
Hey, if we have our way, maybe you can bring one with you when we get everyone home.
no subject
Good. I'm glad, true love shouldn't be separated.
[ And she doesn't even know the pain it causes.
But she is intrigued at that idea. ]
Ohhh. That is an idea! [ Her thoughts go to Olaf. ] Maybe, I will. Though I have a friend who has a warning about technology, so it might be better to let our technology develop naturally.
no subject
[Safer that way.]
A warning? What do you mean?
no subject
Oh it's probably nothing, but he talks about how technology will be our downfall, or something like that. [ She'd gotten distracted many times during their conversations. ]
I guess maybe since technology can break, the idea is that if you become too reliant on it, you'll have no means to be without it.
no subject
[He shrugs though - maybe it's different in her world. He has no way of knowing.]
But, just about everything we rely on is a form of tech, in its own way, isn't it?
no subject
[ The second thought she can actually weigh in on though. ]
Very true, and everything that is new takes time to adjust too. Kristoff...my fiance, hated a machine that was made to assist with ice harvesting, but it did really offer assistance. So long as you don't forget who the people doing the work are, technology can be a help, but I think it should be only that...a bit of extra help.
no subject
[The second one is a little... more difficult to think about. Where does "help" start and stop? Does 'putting someone into safe stasis for thousands of years' count as help? It certainly kept someone important to him alive, after all.]
[But better topics.]
Wait. Ice harvesting? That's - really something you can just farm?
no subject
[ Right, with technology he would know the ice machines. ]
It's required where or when we come from. Men, go out on the frozen lakes to the north when the ice is at it's thickest and they use horses to draw the lines before they cut it with these very large saws. Then they pack them tightly together in ice houses until the warmer months when they deliver them. One of Arendelle's richest trades is in ice.
no subject
[That's pretty impressive. And he sounds it, too.]
And that's what your fiance does?
no subject
Yes! In fact the last few years he's been running the entire trade really, my sister put him in charge of it all. He's our country's Ice Master. It's tough work, and very dangerous, but he loves it.
no subject
Ice master for the whole country, huh?
He sounds like he's something else.
no subject
[ Not even Deerington could take that look away. ]
He really is. Too hard on himself, but aren't we all?
no subject
[.... hahahaha.]
no subject
The only people I have ever seen that seem to have a heightened sense of self worth are those that probably shouldn't.
I mean, my ex was completely in love with himself, and he had absolutely no reason to be.
no subject
Ah. I'm sorry to hear that... Can't imagine that was easy to deal with.
no subject
Oh, he got what he deserved. I just mean to say that I think a certain amount of self doubt can hold a person accountable. But like everything, it's all about balance.
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