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Sodder ([personal profile] sodder) wrote in [community profile] soddersays2021-02-25 12:33 am
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MARCH 2021 TEST DRIVE MEME




MARCH 2021 TEST DRIVE MEME









Welcome to MARCH's Test Drive Meme! This month's Test Drive's theme is: PSYCHOLOGICAL 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: psychological horror that deals with gaslighting, losing one's grip on reality, being trapped and restrained, threat of drowning, threat of being eaten, sensory deprivation, bleach, blood, violence, haunting apparition of a child, injury by rusty implements

Don't forget to tag content whenever necessary. Have fun!

IMPORTANT INFO FOR PROSPECTIVE PLAYERS: This past month we were excited to announce that Deerington will be entering a new chapter in a few short months. This new chapter will involve a permanent setting shift that you can read about in more detail on this post. All prospective players are welcome to ask any questions they have on the linked post.










THE WALLS HAVE EARS. AND EYES.


With all of the shifting in Deerington, it's not shocking when you start to feel like something in your home or workplace has begun to shift. You can't put your finger on what it is. Your furniture is exactly where it should be. Nothing seems moved. Maybe it's just Deerington paranoia acting up. God knows Sleepers have plenty to be paranoid about.

Then you start to notice little oddities. Scratch marks on the baseboards of your bedroom. If you have a bedframe with posts you might notice what looks like human bite marks have taken out chunks of the material. Only surely no one's gone around biting your bed? When you walk by windows, you start to think you see a trick of the eye and you could swear you see bars on the other side of your window. What? No. You don't have bars on your bedroom windows...

You're just seeing things. You're just seeing things. But maybe you're hearing things too. You can hear scuttling in the walls - maybe the rats from February? No, no...This is different. It sounded too big. More of a sliding shuffle than a scuttle. Maybe you look into your vents just to make sure but there's nothing to find. Nothing at all.

Then you start to look at your walls. Was that stain always there? Was it just part of the wallpaper or paint? Hmm...You don't remember there being a stain there.

You keep looking at the stain. Maybe it only takes a few days or a few hours but eventually, you start to see a face in the stain. If the stain's big enough you could swear it looks like...a person crawling. No. No! That's ...Just your imagination. Get a grip. But that stain may start to look like it has eyes, eyes looking right at you. Or the design in your wallpaper might start to look like a face is tucked among the floral patterns, eyes staring right at you.

You start to notice creeping figures out and around Deerington. While you're shopping for groceries you swear you can see a woman crawling from one aisle to the next, quick and scurrying. Were you the only one who saw that? Surely not? Maybe others have too. Then you see more women crawling across yards and you feel paralyzed with fear because they all look like that stain on your wall.

When you come back the stain has moved.

This drives many mad. You start to obsess over the stain. Maybe you even break apart your walls to see if there's really a person behind them. Maybe you start to peel the wallpaper off your walls or try to repaint everything to hide it. But the more you do, the more you sink down into paranoia. Eventually you start crawling around, trying to see if you can conjure up these creeping figures. You find yourself scratching at the baseboards and gnawing on furniture, becoming the very creeping fiend you feared.

Maybe you even eventually start to creep into people's homes, into their walls, to start the cycle of madness all over again. The only way to break free of this cycle is to catch one of the people in the walls, take their hand and pull. If you win this tug of war, you and the figure you chased in your madness into the walls will fall back into the three dimensional space of regular Deerington and you'll find the person you were chasing was just another sleeper trapped in the cycle like you. If you lose... you find yourself falling into an endless void and when you slow to a stop--


WASH AWAY THE MADNESS. PURGE THE SIN.


--You find yourself floating in midair in the middle of a sterile white room. You lost the tug of war with the other sleeper in the walls, or perhaps you were just walking down the street and got distracted by your reflection moving strangely in the storefront window and touching it pulled you through the glass and landed you here. Regardless of how you got here, now you are in what looks like a room that belongs in a hospital. Somehow you are also dressed in white pants and a t-shirt and there's a hospital bracelet on your wrist that has your name and blood type printed on it as well as a patient number. Beside you is another sleeper, either the one who you lost the tug of war to or a completely new one. You are able to speak to each other in this space and there is a slight echo as you do, enjoy it while it lasts.

After a moment of weightlessness, your bare feet touch the ground, which feels cold like concrete but is as white as the white subway tiled walls. There also appears to not be any light source, it just comes from everywhere and you may notice you're not casting a shadow. And neither is the albino german shepard that's appeared in the room with you. It looks friendly enough and you get the sense that it wants to guide you somewhere as it turns to walk through an open door that has suddenly appeared in the room.

Follow the dog and you'll find yourselves in an all white hallway, only there's a mirrored ceiling and the yellow stains of age on the peeling white wallpaper move in ways that make you uneasy. Almost immediately, you'll notice that there is no sound, not even from the dog or your own steps, not even your own heartbeat can be heard. But oddly, you can hear your own breathing, so loud in the otherwise utterly silent space that you speak to your companion just to have a different sound, but your voice is muted as well. Charades might be the only choice of communication between you two for some time. And as you continue on in this odd liminal space, out of your peripheral vision you'll notice your reflections on the ceiling above acting oddly, walking backwards or twirling in a childlike fashion while you are walking a straight line.

Spend long enough in this never ending silent white and bright hall with nothing but your breath to remind you that you're physically occupying this space and you start to feel on the edge of your sanity. After pulling your gaze from the disorienting reflections and stains on the wall, you look for the dog, but the dog is gone and in its place far down the hall is a small child dressed in white from head to toe with very little skin showing. It feels like it's been so long since you heard a voice that when the child speaks your ears hurt, blood trickles out. Wait, that can't be right... is it because of the silence from before or is the voice just supernaturally immense?

"GET OUT."

Is all the child says before water starts slowly rising up from the floor, but take a whiff and you catch the strong chemical scent of bleach. You and your companion must rush to find an exit or another creative solution to the problem at hand before you are drowned, and there will be no holding one's breath and swimming with your eyes open if you are submerged in bleach so you must act quickly. At the end of the long hall where the child stood there is a red light, but if you run towards it, it seems to only get further away.

If you can't go forward or back, then through the walls is the only solution. It is difficult though, at all the spots on the walls that are white, they are indestructible. It's the aged, yellow stains that are perpetually moving and shifting that are the weak points. Together, you must try to corner the shifting stains to stay still long enough for you to kick and punch your way through very thick walls. The stains seem to move away from anyone experiencing strong emotions and towards those who are calm and collected, and the key is to get them to stop moving entirely.

Once you burst through the thick wall and escape drowning by bleach, you'll either find yourself back in Deerington, or...



BREAK MY CHAINS AND I'LL BREAK YOURS.


You stumble into a mostly empty and dimly lit surgical room with blood on the floor and old dinge and rust on tiles and sinks. If you came here from the white hallway slowly filling with bleach, the pungent liquid will spill into the space as you enter, but turn around to look at the hole you and your companion made and you'll see it magically stitch itself up, like a wound in flesh speed healing rather than tile and drywall reorienting itself. However, it's possible to arrive here from Deerington without going through the white hall and that's by passing an empty lot in town. You could have sworn that lot had a house or a store the other day, but instead there's a dingy storage shed that draws you in with an intoxicating scent that wafts from a jagged hole in the side. No matter where you came here from, when you walk through, one or more other sleepers can walk through holes in the other walls at the same time and each hole will stitch up behind you.

It's too late to turn back once you're in and you barely have time to realize the danger you're clearly in when you are struck from behind and knocked unconscious. No matter what your body is made of or what abilities you have, you are knocked out cold... and when you awaken you are chained in the center of the room to a rusy old cair. The other sleeper or sleepers you found yourself with in this place are in the same situation facing you and on the floor in between you is a pile of old rusted keys of varying shapes and made of all different kinds of metals. The only thing these keys seem to have in common is the look of sharpness on every edge, like if you picked them up too hastily you could slice open your hand and get a tetanus infection from the rust.

The next thing you might notice is the heavy breathing of another person nearby, and when you look you see a large man in a soiled button down, jacket and khakis. He looks like a pro wrestler that went to a court hearing that then got blown up and he was the only survivor. But more striking than his size and attire is the fact that in place of a human head is just a black smoky blur with what looks like hundreds of eyes poking through the darkness, and when he turns, his face is nothing but a gaping circular maw with rows and rows of jagged teeth that spin like a food processor. The man doesn't speak, the only sound that seems to come from that horrifying void that is his head is haunting and hard to describe. It gazes at its prisoners with its infinite eyes for a moment, washes blood from its hands in one of the sinks along the wall and then lumbers over to the only exit while sharpening a butcher's knife.

It is rather clear what his intentions are. But why leave a pile of keys and not kill and eat you now? Who cares what game he's playing, what test you're undergoing? Time to figure out how to get free and obviously the keys are important. The chairs can be moved, tilted over and pushed, but they are heavy and you'll have to work together to get the right leverage to start picking up keys and testing them on each other's locks which are placed by your hands bound behind your backs. Your hands are so tightly bound that you have to use the keys blindly on the other person's lock, and don't forget that those keys are sharp and hard to hold too. One of you will get free first, but then the haunting sound and the thump of his feet can be heard in the next room. Do you leave your companion to the monster or risk it and try the other keys?

Whatever your choice, the door to get out is locked and unbreakable, but there's a vent high above it that you can get through alone with great difficulty, but will be much easier and faster with the help of your fellow sleeper. The moment you are inside and moving through the vents, the hulking man with the void head will let out an ear shattering screech and chase you from below, the butcher knife and other stabbing objects will slice through the bottom of the vent and you'll have to dodge and weave until you see the light at the end. Kick the exit vent open and you'll crawl out onto grass outside any building in town.


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.
ghostharasser: <user name =seishirou> (126)

Cw: Emeto mention

[personal profile] ghostharasser 2021-02-25 09:42 am (UTC)(link)
It’s her. It’s (probably) really her! He honestly feels like he’s about to have some kind of coronary, he doesn’t know if he should be happy, or scared, or upset, or oh- Oh-no. The swirling torrent of emotions get to him badly enough to set off his already touchy nausea and he has to brace himself against his desk to keep from losing it all over the floor. Ugh, he went almost four days without losing his lunch, that would have been a terrible way to end that streak.

His response takes a few minutes, but once he’s pulled himself back together, his voice is a lot more steady.

“Are you outside? What can you see around you? A street? A building? Anything. Stay right where you are, I’m going to come find you. Please don’t wander off, okay?” He starts to waver again at the end of that sentence, the desperation leaking through, but that’s fine, Dipper’s already out the door, clambering down the stairs far faster than he should be in his current state.
Edited (Meh sentence structure ) 2021-02-25 09:44 (UTC)
sparklehorror: (Da fuck)

[personal profile] sparklehorror 2021-02-25 09:56 am (UTC)(link)
"Uhhhhhhh."

Well, now her brother sounds, like. Legitimately upset, not just in-his-head upset. There is a big difference between these two things.

Streets and trees with people in them mean nothing, and she looks around for something that has words on it.

"I'm at...the Dearly Diner...? Is that a raccoon?"

Is McGucket here.
ghostharasser: <user name =seishirou> (79)

[personal profile] ghostharasser 2021-02-25 10:08 am (UTC)(link)
McGucket is not here, and it’s a shame because he would have built them a giant robot to obliterate this place ages ago. Alas, the raccoon is unrelated.

Dipper bursts out of the front door and heads towards the edge of their driveway on Shepherd Road, holding the walkie-talkie tightly in his hands. Dearly Diner, she said. That was ...a little on the other side of town, but not very far if he cut through a few places.

“Got it, I’ll be there soon,” And then he pauses, going still with terror at the thought of her going quiet on the other end. “I-In the meantime, what um. What’s the last thing you remember? Before waking up here?”

Keep her talking so she doesn’t vanish on him, Dipper tells himself, as he runs down the street towards the diner.
sparklehorror: (Happy: It is how it is)

[personal profile] sparklehorror 2021-02-27 05:49 am (UTC)(link)
"Well, we were, um. On the bus, going home from Gravity Falls."

Which explains why she isn't quite managing to sound perky, no doubt. Let's be real. If she'd been pulled here from the middle of summer, she'd be taking all this in without batting an eyelash, and probably in trouble already. But for all that Mabel's made her peace with going home, the weight of her sadness over it is keeping her calmer than usual.

"I was working on my sticker designs, but -- I guess I must have fallen asleep."
ghostharasser: <user name =seishirou> (80)

[personal profile] ghostharasser 2021-02-27 06:08 am (UTC)(link)
Mabel bringing up something that specific does a lot to ease the fear and suspicion in him about whether or not the town was pulling some kind of awful prank. In the few times Dipper’s had to deal with illusions of Mabel, there was always something off about it, about the way she acted or how she spoke. He’s yet to see her in person, but even this little much is already sounding more promising than any other instance.

So, he manages to keep his pace, only stopping here and there to catch his breath. He’s in better shape than before, but this much activity is still doing a lot to wind him. Ugh, he was only about half way there, too.

“The ones for the Shack, right? That Soos asked you to make? I remember that,” even if it’s been so long ago now. He has to take a moment to catch his breath. “Which ones did you come up with?”

If Mabel is perceptive she might pick up that Dipper is purposefully keeping her talking. She might also catch the way he let go of the button right as a coughing fit hit him.
sparklehorror: (Suspicious: (unsure))

[personal profile] sparklehorror 2021-02-27 06:27 am (UTC)(link)
Hmmm. She does pick up on the latter, yes. Being the primary person responsible for things like patting her brother's back when he works himself into a nauseous tizzy, she is usually pretty in tune with his needs, even when he isn't directly beside her.

Unless, you know, he goes and gets possessed by a nightmare demon while she's busy with an art project or something, but in Mabel's defense nothing triggers laser focus like a deadline.

"...the sasscrotch. The weird vane," she lists off vaguely. The word "flu" from Dipper's earlier rambling floats around in the part of her brain reserved for words that Mabel has heard and has not processed, just out of reach. "Grunkle Stan's fez. Hey, Dipper? Are you okay?"
ghostharasser: <user name =seishirou> (28)

[personal profile] ghostharasser 2021-02-27 06:39 am (UTC)(link)
Give him a second, he’s climbing a fence so he can cut through the golf course. This is going to cut his run time in half if it doesn’t somehow manage to kill him, instead.

“Hold on, Mabel,” He says with the distinct rattling of a chainlink fence in the background. “I’m almost- whOA!

Static.
sparklehorror: (Scared: Cause for concern)

[personal profile] sparklehorror 2021-02-27 06:58 am (UTC)(link)
Oh no.

"He -- hey! Dipper! Dipper, come in!"

Alarmed, Mabel shakes the walkie-talkie a little. She doesn't know where to go to find her brother if he just got into trouble. At home it would be much more likely that he just tripped over something he should have seen coming from a mile away, but the last time Mabel tried to get him over the walkie-talkie and failed he came home muttering about leaving her behind for an apprenticeship, so any and all walkie-talkie weirdness makes the entire situation AUTOMATICALLY TERRIBLE!
ghostharasser: <user name =seishirou> (146)

[personal profile] ghostharasser 2021-02-27 07:23 am (UTC)(link)
It’s quiet on the other end for an agonizing forty-five seconds before Dipper’s voice finally crackles back through. “-Is it working? Mabel?”

So, it turns out that chainlink fences are still a fairly effective Dipper Deterrent. He got over the side of the fence and, predictably, lost his footing and flung himself off on the other side. His walkie-talkie hit the turf with enough force to knock the batteries loose and send them rolling into a sand pit. But he’s fine, everything is fine.

He considered briefly stealing one of their golf carts, but saw one of the Authority lurking near by and decided not to test his luck.

“Sorry, I fell off a fence. I’m cutting through the-” He has to stop dead in his tracks to let that coughing fit pass. Oh god his heart feels like its going to beat right out of his chest between the flu, the running, and the situation, but he can’t stop. She’s so close.

“-I’m cutting through the golf course. I’m almost there.”
Edited 2021-02-27 07:24 (UTC)
sparklehorror: (Suspicious: squiiiiiiints)

1/2

[personal profile] sparklehorror 2021-02-27 07:25 am (UTC)(link)
Bro.
sparklehorror: (Happy: Earnest enthusiasm)

2/2

[personal profile] sparklehorror 2021-02-27 07:26 am (UTC)(link)
Two seconds later:

"-- ooh! A golf course!"

Priorities. But is it mini golf or old man golf.
ghostharasser: <user name =seishirou> (122)

[personal profile] ghostharasser 2021-02-27 07:50 am (UTC)(link)
“Don’t get your hopes up, there’s no mini golf course, which is frankly, appalling,” He wheezes before he steels himself and looks out across the golf course. The Diner was on the other side.

Off he goes in a full sprint.

Probably when he stops, his heart will explode and he’ll throw up his insides, but all that matters right now is that he gets across. So, he lets the communication fall quiet while he runs, and soon enough the Diner finally comes into view. He just has one more fence to clear and she should be right there. Hopefully. As long as she didn’t move.

Mabel might actually hear the sound of the fence rattling from behind the building this time, while her scruffy, winter clad gremlin of a twin brother scuttles over the side.
sparklehorror: (Suspicious: That's happening)

[personal profile] sparklehorror 2021-02-27 08:05 am (UTC)(link)
"Laaaaame."

Fidgeting in the chill air, Mabel does hear the fence and runs over immediately, calling out her brother's name even as she still clutches the walkie-talkie. Maybe it's the weirdness of the situation overall or maybe it's just how awful Dipper sounds, but she really just needs to be in contact with her twin right now. She wants to hold onto his sleeve, or maybe even have an Awkward Sibling Hug, complete with pats. These things always make her feel better.

She skids to a stop just short of the fence, though, watching him climb. She fully expects her brother to fall flat on his face again and she has zero intention of catching him. Look, there is no need for the both of them to end up bruised.
ghostharasser: <user name =seishirou> (74)

[personal profile] ghostharasser 2021-02-27 08:38 am (UTC)(link)
Hearing her voice frankly is what makes him loose his grip on the fence. It startles him badly and before he can correct himself, he’s plummeting down onto the frozen grass below. At least it wasn’t something harder! He hits the ground with a thud, rolling over onto his back and groans.

Everything is spinning and he thinks maybe his body might be shutting down on him after all of that, but the silhouette of his sister(s) is right there, and he can’t let himself just black out yet.

“...Mabel?”

Yeah, he doesn’t sound great. He also looks ...really different from what she saw of him last. His hair is a little scruffier, his clothing is all new and foreign, and he has a large eyepatch covering his right eye. About the only thing that’s familiar about how he’s dressed is Wendy’s hat, but it looks like it’s been through hell.

sparklehorror: (Scared: Oh fuck oh geezus)

1/2

[personal profile] sparklehorror 2021-02-27 08:50 am (UTC)(link)
Alright, well, Mabel was expecting her brother in his customary gremlin form and not this weirdly grizzled version who looks like he lives in a zombie film and she is horrified. With a sharp intake of breath she drops the walkie-talkie entirely and scurries over, dropping to her knees without any concern at all for the cold against her bare legs.

"Dipper! What happened to you?" She reaches out to grab his shoulders, and just barely resists shaking him. That has gone very poorly for her in the past. "You look terrible! Did something try to eat you! Why do you have an eyepatch! Are you a pirate now?!"
sparklehorror: (Angry: You did NOT)

2/2

[personal profile] sparklehorror 2021-02-27 08:51 am (UTC)(link)
Abruptly, she lets out an enormous, scandalized gasp.

"Do you have scurvy?"





Good news, Dipper, it is definitely and undeniably your real actual sister.
ghostharasser: <user name =seishirou> (135)

Cw: Fucking. Scurvy discussion thanks mabel.

[personal profile] ghostharasser 2021-02-27 09:04 am (UTC)(link)
Ah, the world is slowly spinning to a stop now and he can kind of focus on Mabel who has rushed to his side. He holds his breath in terror for a moment to see if she tries to shake him, but lets it out when she doesn’t. Good, she remembers the ruined shoes from the last time she tried to do that.

She’s hammering him with a lot of questions, though. expected ones, and he’s desperately trying to figure out where to even start when the emotion starts welling up inside of him at the notion that yes, it’s really her. She’s here and-

And.

What. No! Scurvy isn’t like a cold, Mabel. It makes your gums bleed when you don’t have enough Vitamin C!”
sparklehorror: (Angry: COME OOOOOOOON)

[personal profile] sparklehorror 2021-02-27 09:09 am (UTC)(link)
"Vitamin C is something you definitely don't have enough of. Look at you! We need to get some fruit snacks into you, stat."

Now would be a time to dramatically whip a pack of fruit snacks out of her hair. Mabel does not do this, because she has been on that bus a solid hour and has thus already eaten the entire box. Alas.
ghostharasser: <user name =seishirou> (26)

[personal profile] ghostharasser 2021-02-27 09:23 am (UTC)(link)
God, Dipper would honestly kill for some fruit snacks right now, he hasn’t had them since the bus where he stole one out of the box before she hoovered them up.

“It’s fine! I’m fine! I’m just getting over-” A Death Flu. Ah, he uh. Maybe shouldn’t say that before he has a chance to explain this place better. “-The flu.”

He carefully pulls himself back up so he can finally really look at her. She really did look like she just came off the bus. It’s been five months, five agonizing months without her, and she’s finally right here. Anything else she might be saying now is getting firmly ignored as he reaches out to take her shoulders like he’s making extra sure she’s real, before he drags her into a hug.

He doesn’t even try to keep it together. He immediately starts shaking in her grasp.
sparklehorror: (Sad: Saying goodbye)

[personal profile] sparklehorror 2021-02-27 10:10 am (UTC)(link)
Mabel does not want his poopy flu and starts to tell him so, but he's got a solid hold on her before she can get the words out. Instinctively, she hugs him back, holding him tight. They don't have twin ESP or anything, but Mabel isn't stupid. Even if she doesn't know why, she understands that her brother needs her desperately in this moment.

But it's alarming, for Dipper to be this upset. They've never shied away from their Awkward Sibling Hugs, but Mabel can't recall the last time he's clung to her like this, and that means whatever's spooked him has to be so, so much worse than no valentines or Wendy turning him down or even -- no, she does remember. The last time Dipper reached for her like this it was when Gideon's dumb giant robot was tearing them apart.

It hits her, then, how confusing and bad all this is. How much she doesn't know, and how she saw a guy try to walk through a tree and get stuck, and her brother's wearing an eyepatch and that might mean he's only got one eye, and they're not on the bus home and the dream she had was weird and she doesn't think this is a dream now and whatever emotion Dipper has is just so big that she can practically feel him feeling it. All of it combines into something nasty and overwhelming, and Mabel tears up herself from sheer stress.

"Hey, Dipper...?" she asks. Her voice is terribly small and hesitant. "Where are we...?"
ghostharasser: <user name =seishirou> (95)

[personal profile] ghostharasser 2021-02-27 10:35 am (UTC)(link)
To his benefit, he tries to reign it in as fast as he can. He manages one choked sob before he forces the rest back. He hated crying in front of Mabel, he didn’t want her to think this was somehow her fault, he was just. Honestly, kind of a wreck.

He’s endured month after month of this place throwing them horrors and strife, of having to deal with Bill, of having to play emotional mediator between his uncles, of desperately trying to keep them all together so this place didn’t rip them apart. And worst of all, he’s had to do it all this time without her. He’s had to come to grips with just how awful it is being alone without his twin knowing he’d nearly condemned her to this very fate back home.

But she’s here now, and an unfair amount of weight is already lifting from his heart. He doesn’t have the time to feel guilty about it, about being happy she’s joined him in this hellscape, it’s already just too much that she’s here at all.

It takes a moment for him to answer, and his voice sounds rough.

“Deerington,” He says and then he falls quiet so he can figure out where to start. “It’s another dimension... created by someone with powers kind of like Bill’s. We’re all trapped here.”

He swallows.

“It’s been five months.”
sparklehorror: (Scared: Alarming...)

[personal profile] sparklehorror 2021-02-27 10:49 am (UTC)(link)
"You mean -- making dreams? And nightmares?"

Mabel reaches this conclusion immediately, because that's how she knows Bill best. They first met him when he went rifling around in Stan's dreams to try to find the code to his safe, and he imprisoned Mabel in a dreamworld all her own when he needed her out of the way. Because of that, all the other nonsense like possessing people and transforming into dumb carnivorous architecture to chase them around is secondary to her.

She pulls back a little, but keeps a firm hold on Dipper's sleeves.

"Is that why it felt so much like a dream when I got here? It -- it kinda still does, but -- it's all wrong. My dreams aren't like this at all!"
ghostharasser: <user name =seishirou> (79)

[personal profile] ghostharasser 2021-02-27 11:05 am (UTC)(link)
He lets her pull back, keeping hold of her sleeves in turn. His visible eye is red and he is absolutely crying without remorse. He only takes one of his hands back long enough to scrub at his face so he can see.

He nods. “Yeah, just like that, only I’m pretty sure Sodder is way more powerful than he is, but also way less ...malevolent, maybe.”

He’s still not totally sure on that front, and even more so after the whole Bill Plot mess when she failed to come forward for Bill’s stupid gamble of a plan. Either way, Dipper is able to slip into explaining facts and details and it’s doing a lot to get him calm again. His voice sounds a lot more steady when he continues.

“This place is still really dangerous, though. There’s monsters and nightmares and all kinds of crazy stuff getting thrown at us, and we haven’t figured out how to get out of here yet. There’s- a whole town’s worth of people from different dimensions and worlds that are all stuck here like we are.”
sparklehorror: (Scared: Cause for concern)

[personal profile] sparklehorror 2021-02-28 05:00 am (UTC)(link)
"For five whole months?"

Sure, she and Dipper have gone to weird places before, up to and including a gladiator arena overseen by a Time Baby in another dimension. Being pulled here in the first place isn't a strange concept and neither is the idea of meeting people from other dimensions entirely. But most of their previous adventures were over in the span of an afternoon, and they were ultimately asleep in their own beds each night.

And if Dipper's been here five months, he's been away way longer than just a summer already.

"Is it Sodder who's making the monsters...? Can't we talk to Sodder?"

Ah, she has no idea.
ghostharasser: <user name =seishirou> (90)

[personal profile] ghostharasser 2021-02-28 05:41 am (UTC)(link)
Dipper is excruciatingly aware of how long five months is, and the day he realized he’d been in Deerington longer than he’d been in Gravity Falls had been a difficult day to say the least. This is their new reality until someone can figure out how to fix it, and their last attempt had gone up in literal flames. The massive scar on his chest is a nice reminder of that.

In order to keep his hands busy while he explains to his sister what is frankly awful news, he starts to unbutton his coat. It’s probably 20 degrees out here and she’s dressed for the summer. He doesn’t want her getting sick when he’s only just now gotten over his.

“Yeah, for me, anyway. There’s people I’ve met that have been here for years,” He says, just to let that sink in a little bit. This situation is beyond anything they’ve been able to wriggle out of back home.

“...No, at least, if there’s a way to talk to her, we haven’t figured out how. We recently ...tried and let’s just say it went really badly.” The way he looks off to the side and winces seems to imply he isn’t kidding, nor is he exaggerating from how little he wants to elaborate. Instead, he just wordlessly drops his coat on her shoulders.

“...Come on. We shouldn’t stay out here, it’s freezing. Where did you wake up? You’ve probably got stuff we can take home.”

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