SEPTEMBER 2020 TEST DRIVE MEME

[sodder]

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!

Prompt One
Prompt Two
Character Arrival
Master Navigation

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.

Comments

[beastfootforward]

[Gar's face lights up with even more excitement as he witnesses Korra's awesome display of powers! Sure, Gar comes from a world of superpowers, where he knows plenty of people with powers similar to Korra's. But that doesn't make this any less entertaining, especially as he hasn't really met anyone with a combination like this!]

Whoa! That's some power combo you got there. So crash!!

[bend_it_like]

[ Korra laughs again, tossing all three up in the air and making a little breeze fly in and carry them away. If she keeps it small like this, it usually doesn't go horribly. ] Thank you! It's nice to be appreciated again. Back home, no one really cares about my bending anymore.

[beastfootforward]

[He keeps on watching, impressed. Did she just do something with the wind too??]

Who wouldn't appreciate this! [But something she said gives him pause. He blinks and raises a confused eyebrow.] Oh, you have some kind of bending power too?

[Another superpower? He's not sure why she's bringing it up while using her other powers though...]

[bend_it_like]

Oh, all of this, [ She makes a little flame again ] is what we call bending. Bending the elements.

And I dunno! I still think it's cool. But I guess I'm old news at all of 21. What, did your friends never get tired of your shapeshifting? Like, oh, hey, he's a bird again? That's kinda how it is with me. Look, Korra's bending metal now. Great. Been there, done that.

[beastfootforward]

Ohhhhh! [He hums as she explains what she means.] Noted. I'm used to bending being something you do with your hands or your body.

[He's only a little disappointed that she's not about to bust out some super yoga moves or something on top of all that.]

N-no one's tired of me! ...Although I guess as I spend more time around people, it becomes more... normal to them? [He shrugs, as he starts to understand her point. Not many of his friends marvel at his power anymore.]

[bend_it_like]

Right! Normal. I guess it's nice not being normal again. [ Korra laughs again, softly, and drops back to the grass with a thump. Maybe it was nice being normal, but it's also nice to have someone interested in her power, instead of just being a burden that is also boring.

She winds up another earth ball and lobs it for Naga, who was happily napping, but who's up in a second to run after it again. ] Is this place normal to you yet?

[beastfootforward]

Good question. [He says, his eyes following as Naga goes after the dirt ball. He folds his arms as he thinks that over.]

Parts of it are starting to feel normal. Mostly the day-to-day living. But less so some of the nightmarish things that happen sometimes around here... I don't think I'd want to find that stuff normal.

[bend_it_like]

I haven't really experienced that yet. [ Korra shakes her head, following his gaze. Naga trots back with the ball, none the wiser to their conversation ] But a heard about it. Honestly, just being here is kinda a nightmare. Has anyone ever... woken up?

[beastfootforward]

Like, back home? Yeah. I hear that's what happens when people disappear from this place.

[Then he frowns as he recalls-]

I also heard that sometimes people only wake up temporarily. When that happens, they're still kinda here at the same time just... covered in some weird veiny stuff? [He rubs at his head uncertainly.] It doesn't sound like a good time!

[bend_it_like]

So you can wake up. I was starting to wonder.

[ Korra shakes her head ] That does sound awful. So they come back, what, after spending some time awake? So even if you wake up, you might come right back.

[beastfootforward]

It seems like it's possible, but no one's been able to find out a way to do it for sure.

[He nods along sadly.]

That's right. And I don't think people remember this place in the waking world, either. So, lots that can be improved about this situation!

[bend_it_like]

So... [ She stares at Gar for a second ] How long have you been here?

[beastfootforward]

Just a few months. So, I'm kinda still getting the hang of things. But I guess I'm mostly settled in here, for now. [He prefers to ignore the possibility of being stuck here for a long, long time! He's sure they'll find the way out of this for good any day now!]

[bend_it_like]

What do you... do? [ Korra looks out at the town around the park. She hasn't been doing much aside from playing with Naga, talking with Mako, and trying to figure out how to get her bending under control. ] A few months is a lot of time to kill.

[beastfootforward]

[He answers with a soft shrug of his shoulders.]

A lot of things. Some of it's been settling in and ordinary everyday things, like errands and eating and sleeping. I go exploring, get to know the area and the people, make a bunch of friends and allies, and hang out with them. Plus I do train and do what I can to keep myself fit for fighting and to prepare for whatever weirdness this place wants to throw at us next. And I also try to learn more about the local mysteries so I can try to figure things out for myself?

Oh, that and I work as hero back home. So I try to do that kinda stuff here too.

[bend_it_like]

A hero? [ She snorts a laugh ] Sure, that's a thing.

What kinda mystery? Got any clues yet? I haven't really found much to do. Mako wants to teach me how to cook, but it isn't going great.

[beastfootforward]

Um, well this place has a whole web of mysteries going on? It's a lot to unpack, but I guess the main one is figuring out how to help the person whose dreams are causing all this. So that we might be able to wake up for good. Iiii haven't really found any clues myself yet to help out, but there are findings out there from some of the other people stuck here!

[He smiles.]

Cooking can be tough! I'm not that experienced at it myself. Although at least I don't have to worry about working with meat, cause I don't eat it.

[bend_it_like]

Huh. That's interesting. I guess that's a pretty good use of time. I might try to help out.

You're a vegetarian? That makes sense, I suppose. With what you can do.

[beastfootforward]

You can if you want. It's better than just waiting for who knows how long to wake up.

[He smiles and nods.]

Yep! Once you can turn into any animal, it kiiinda makes it feel awkward to eat them.

[bend_it_like]

Yeah, I'll see what I can do. I need something to entertain myself, anyway.

I get that. Where I'm from, there's a whole nation of people who are vegetarians, for similar reasons. Not that they can turn into animals. But because they respect life.

[beastfootforward]

Good for them! I can dig that. [He flashes an approving thumbs up.] It's not often you find a whole country of people who are ready to commit to that.

[bend_it_like]

They're something. [ She laughs, shaking her head. ] Or they will be. It's kind of a whole thing, they were all killed off, a long time ago. They're just rebuilding...

But, I guess that's not really important here. There are no airbenders here! Just me. And Mako. And he can't bend air anyways.

[beastfootforward]

[His smile does fade as she mentions the fate of those people.]

Oh no. ...I... I'm glad they're rebuilding.

[With that, he tries to move on to the less saddening subject.]

Mako, huh? A friend of yours?

[bend_it_like]

Yeah. [ Korra is grateful for the change of topic too. She smiles at Gar ] Mako. One of my best friends. He got here just before me.

Do you know anyone here? From back home?

[beastfootforward]

I'm glad you have someone that important here with you. [He says with a fond smile. What he wouldn't give to have his sister or one of his best friends around here too!]

I... do know some people here, but they don't exactly know me. I think we're all from different versions of the same place, or different times. It's reak confusing.