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

[extroverting]

[ Her eyes light up. ] Me too!

[ Anna had plenty of experience being treated like a kid. She had always been the younger sister, so she was often seen and treated as such. Despite all she was capable of, it had only been recently she'd been treated like she could be responsible for things. In some ways her isolation had kept her young and naive, but she was shedding that skin now. ]

Oh I feel you there! I'm three years younger than my sister, and I think she only just realized I'm a capable adult.

[ For the moment she lets go of the pause in her sentence, side tracked by the question.

She gives an embarrassed little snort of a laugh. ]

Uh yeah... let's just say when you spend almost your entire life in a castle with dreams of romance, it makes a person... [ Desperate; that's what Hans had called her and she hated that word. ] Lonely. I sort of locked on to the first man I saw, and booooy, he was not who he presented himself to be the first time we met. In hindsight, I know now that relationships take more than five hours to develop.

[tagartist]

[ Chloe laughs as she digs into her pocket to find another cigarette. ]

Well at least she came around. I don't think anyone in my shit town would ever think I'm capable of anything.

[ She says that rather lightheartedly at least, having given up on caring what most of Arcadia Bay thought of her by now. It was just a fact that they had always assumed she'd stay a failure.

Listening to Anna's story, her brows raise as she lights her cigarette. She's sure she's probably been told enough by now that marrying a man you just met is insane, so she keeps it to herself. Blowing the smoke out of the corner of her mouth, she waits until it's gone before she finally speaks. ]

Most men are hard to trust even after five years. I'm glad he showed what a schmuck he was before you made a bigger mistake.

[extroverting]

[ Anna hasn't seen a cigarette quite like that before. Mostly people used pipes to smoke. It has quite a pungent smell to it, and she's not sure what she thinks of it. ]

Your town must be quite cruel then. I know some people never change their minds about things, but others do. Sometimes you just have to work harder to prove yourself. Though, you don't have to listen to me, I've been wrong many times. [ Even if she'd been right more often, she still saw so much that she did wrong. It was still hard to believe that she was the one who had put the pieces together in the enchanted forest.

She gives a nod and a tries to brush it off. ]

Oh he tried to kill me...and my sister to take over our kingdom. [ Her tone is awkward, like she knows she shouldn't be so forward with her stories, but she's rambling anyway. ] Last I heard he's mucking out stables, and I'm Queen so...jokes on him.

[tagartist]

Girl, you've got no idea. [ The words come out with a chuckle behind them, a shake of her head. ] I mean, not everyone is awful, but... Enough that it made the place feel like hell.

[ Her brows definitely raise further when she says Hans tried to kill her and she lets out a low whistle. ]

Damn. Talk about vindication. I hope you kicked his ass.

[extroverting]

You wouldn't be treated like that in Arendelle, that's for sure. Though...they might wonder about your clothes, but they wouldn't say anything about them. [ Wait, that might come across as a put down. ] You're clothes are fine though! It's just not a style Arendelle usually sees.

[ She gives a small smile. No matter how much the situation with Hans had impacted her and her trust, she still thought back with pride on the punch she'd given him. ]

Oh I made him sorry. I punched him overboard! Right into the water. And Elsa banished him.

[tagartist]

[ Chloe glanced down at the outfit she was wearing, the torn jeans and tank top from home that she had first arrived in in Deerington, and shrugged gently. ] It's not a usual style where I'm from either. I mean, there are definitely tons of other people who dress like me, but the point is more to go against what's expected.

[ To stand out, more or less, and it certainly did the trick in Deerington. She certainly broke away from the expectations the locals had for women.

Hearing her say she punched this ex-fiance of her gets a grin. Apparently, she finds this to be a very good thing. ]

Good for you.

[extroverting]

[ Go against what's expected? ]

Oh you really should meet my sister then. She definitely goes against the grain. I think she tried to be like everyone else, but it never really worked for her.

[ Anna probably would have done just fine with the styles Deerington had, though the dress she wore was still a little more conservative considering it was from the mid-nineteenth century. ]

It was satisfying.

So...how long have you been stuck here?

[tagartist]

Good for her to embrace it. Most people are hella lame, it's better to find your own way. Especially when you're... different than what they want you to be anyway.

[ That was a polite way to put it, she thinks.

Her cheerier attitude drops slightly at the question. It isn't that she's depressed by the answer for herself, but she knows how quickly the hope tends to drain out of people whenever she responds. She hates that part. ]

... Two and a half years. Give or take.

[extroverting]

[ Elsa had found hers, but she watches Chloe, listening closely to her words and what she's saying. Had Chloe been able to find her own way or figure out who she was? Anna doesn't mean to pry, but she can't help it, she has too. ]

Have you found yours?

[ And when Chloe gets even down, Anna feels the weight of it's discomfort. She cringes dramatically. ]

Yeesh, that is awhile! I hope it hasn't all be bad or anything.

[tagartist]

[ While the question might have made her more defensive only a year ago, she manages to give a small smile, one that holds a little more sadness to it than she'd probably like it to. Finding her own way has been a battle that had never been easy, but she's learned that seems to be the same for a lot of people. ]

Starting to.

[ She hopes, anyway.

There's a shrug at her length of time here as she goes to take another drag from her cigarette. ]

Some months are worse than others, but... I've made a home here. It's hard to see it as horrible now.

[extroverting]

[ That earns Chloe a genuine smile. ]

Just don't stop there, keep going. Sometimes even when you think you've found yourself you are only seeing half the pictures of your possibilities.

[ Cheesy maybe, but it still makes her think of Elsa and how she had come into being queen and opening up, only to find her place was still elsewhere.

The other part resonates with her too.]

I think you can make a home anywhere. Even when it's hard or scary. There are a lot of people here, and we have homes and food. I can understand. I've seen people make homes out of the the most difficult situations.

[tagartist]

[ Chloe lets out a small chuckle at the inspiring words. ]

You really are a Disney Princess, huh?

[ She shrugs, looking back towards her garage behind them, before returning her gaze to the girl beside her. ]

Don’t let my singing it’s praises lessen how fucked this place is, though. It’s... definitely the closest thing to hell there is.

[extroverting]

Well, I'm not quite sure what a Disney is, but I've been a princess all my life. Not too familiar with how other princess's act, so I couldn't tell you if it's a princess thing or not. For me, it's just a...[ survival thing ]...happier approach to life.

[ Anna nodded to the other warning. She'd been hearing similar things on her search, but it was hard to figure out just what she should do, or how to approach it. ] I'm not as naive as I once was, I know you have to approach some things with caution. Whatever this place is, I intend to survive it. It's not my first time battling in a nightmare world.

[tagartist]

[ She's holding back the rest of her chuckles, nodding along with that explanation. It's probably best to not ramble about childhood movies when Anna probably doesn't even know what a movie is. ]

I guess it's healthier than self-destructive addictions to suppress everything.

How many nightmare worlds have you been to, exactly?