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duplicitymemes2021-03-09 06:59 pm
duplicitymods) wrote in duplicitymemes2021-03-09 06:59 pm
Entry tags:
TDM #17
« « « TEST DRIVE MEME » » »
« « « ALL ON DISPLAY
» » » MAIN NAVIGATION « « «
It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit. Yet, solace is found in the lies we tell each other, comforted by the peace of knowing that we're not alone in our depravity, and once on this path, sin itself becomes the lesser of two evils masked in a cloud of normalcy. This is how Duplicity has functioned since the beginning. The divide of power and social standing is overt in that Dominants influence the decisions made both publicly and privately while Submissives cater to the rules presented to them. It is the way of Duplicity to assign random designations at birth with no leeway in altering what has been given. Climate in the Up is far stricter than that of the Down; violating outlined personas for a Dominant or Submissive while in full view of others is punished by degree of infraction. In the Down, many tend to turn a blind eye to these sorts of offenses. To counteract the discovery of the Deceit Gene – a natural "negative" response to all stimuli – the L.I.E.S. program was founded. The program had been designed to introduce new subjects to the current environment and test for the Deceit Gene through immersion in Duplicity's standing society. Sexual impulses and encounters increase the chances of detecting the gene within these individuals. Participants are typically released from L.I.E.S. after a year; however, results have remained unsatisfactory and testing still continues. ... and you're here! Finally! Welcome to Duplicity. After choosing a door and stepping through to the other side, the first thing that greets you are the enthusiastic faces of people in medical scrubs and pristine lab coats. Their enthusiasm translates to eagerness as they strip you of your clothes to perform a thorough examination—you will be healed, bathed, and given a clear plastic top and pants along with clear plastic boots to wear until your items can be processed and delivered to your residence later in the evening. You are also given a device that accesses the network as well as the time and location of orientation. If you enter Duplicity into the Up, congratulations! You're a Dominant, which means you are immediately picked up by a limo after processing and taken to your high rise. Here, it is two Dominants per floor with separate apartments. If you enter Duplicity into the Down, congratulations! You're a Submissive, which means you are directed towards public transportation with the address of the motel you'll be living in. Here, it is two Submissives per room with a shared common space for all rooms. Enjoy your free time until orientation! Participation is mandatory by all new and old arrivals. The weather is rather wet and rainy. Very, very rainy. |
» » » ALL ABOARD
 It's time for the monthly Duplicity train tour. Seats are in pairs and randomly assigned to Dominants and Submissives alike. Traveling from Fiddler's Square, the train journeys through various parts of the Up, showcasing society and examples of lifestyle. Along the way, frequent stops are made; a variety of passengers can be seen exiting and entering the doors. A Dominant with a kneeling Submissive takes a seat near the front of the train at one stop. A small group of Submissives board and sit closer to the LIERS at another, all seemingly content in their roles. As the tour continues through the Up, the train passes close to the Market and White Wall Bridge and zips by North Park before heading into the Down and bypassing Red Wall Bridge and South Park. The train makes a "final" stop at Riddler's Square, where inhabitants of the Down are instructed to return to their temporary housing. Those who live in the Up are permitted to stay on the train and revisit the same locations while returning. |
« « « RAIN RAIN GO AWAY
 (cw: aphro, dub-con, violence, marking)Ice and chilly weather have begun to give way to rain instead, with overcast skies and dark clouds a seemingly constant sight. While the overabundance of rain is an annoyance and comes with the usual series of problems, such as leaky ceilings, mold growth, and gutters or storm drains overflowing, this time the rain carries with it another problem altogether. A weather advisory warning is broadcast to every device, as well as on news networks and radio. The rain, at least for a few days, is not ordinary rain. Whether you're in the Up or the Down, when the water hits clothing it eats away at it. The more water it absorbs, the more the material disintegrates until the wearer is left naked. When the rain comes in contact with skin (or is ingested) the effects seem to differ depending on where you are in Duplicity. In the Up, it's relatively harmless and merely has an aphrodisiac effect, leaving individuals feeling hot and bothered, more sociable and touchy feely. Those in the Down, however, are not so lucky. As the rain seeps through the soil from the Up, it ends up laced with toxins, causing a range of less pleasant side effects for anyone unfortunate enough to come into contact with it. Aside from the aphrodisiac, those who get caught in the rain may develop an uncomfortable, itchy rash, leaving them looking rather spotty for a few days. Those who can't resist scratching at themselves will find a newfound pleasure to the relief it brings and start to crave the feeling or sight of similar marks. In worst case scenarios, individuals will become addicted to marking themselves and others, perhaps even to the point of breaking skin. Effects may last for several hours after exposure and will stack with repeated exposures. In all cases, getting off will bring temporary relief but will not alleviate the symptoms entirely. Plastic coverings seem to be unaffected by the rain and, as word spreads, the Natives in Duplicity form a mad rush buying up umbrellas. Unless a character is lucky, they may find themselves unable to purchase - or even borrow - one. Theft of umbrellas becomes widespread in the Down, often escalating to violence, and even the Up isn't safe from thugs trying to steal and resell this suddenly hot commodity. There's another side to all of this, however. Due to the shortage of umbrellas, it isn't uncommon to see Dom/Sub pairs sharing umbrellas together. If anything, it's encouraged as a means to strengthen their bond. Enterprising Subs and Doms alike may even sell their "services" to escort individuals who would otherwise end up soaked. |
« « « SUPPLEMENTAL INCOME
 (cw: substance abuse, altered states, coercion, fluids, physical body changes)A new "holistic" pharma company named SQuIRT is opening up in Duplicity and is paying a pretty penny for people to trial run their new line of supplements. These supplements are supposed to increase a person's vitality and energy levels, but the side effects are what the company is really looking out for. Some of the side effects aren't so bad and could include:
While others might find their own reaction to be a little more severe:
Subjects must take the supplements for at least a week, otherwise they'll receive no compensation for their troubles. All new arrivals will find themselves automatically enrolled in these trials, whether they want to be or not, and expected to report to the clinic. Of course they don't have to take the supplements, but the payout is certainly enticing, especially for those unfortunate enough to be branded Submissives. |
« « « STICKY FINGERS
 (cw: violence)Crime runs rampant in the Down as always but now, with the nastier side effects of the rain creating an ongoing problem, some unsavory types are sneaking their way into the Up where the effects aren't so hazardous. The result is an uptick in crime in places that are usually considered safe. Be careful how you carry yourself - and your valuables. Those who look like easy pickings may find their pockets empty. Cameras in public areas are being vandalized as well, while homes and businesses are seeing a rise in graffiti. Most of the graffiti is merely obscene, but some is outright seditious. Good luck explaining the latter to the authorities if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. One of the smaller gangs that has a presence in the Down is taking particular advantage of the rain's disruption to expand their territory into the Up. Known as the Bulldogs, their members are young men and they have a reputation for violent muggings and assaults - mainly targeting Submissives. They loiter in groups near the train and the elevator between the Up and the Down to ambush the alone and unwary. At night, they also prey on those walking home from bars or clubs who may not fully have their wits about them. In addition to beating up their victims for money, some of the Bulldogs are engaging in an informal competition over who can steal the most umbrellas - with bonus points awarded for whatever else they feel like. LIERs are worth double points by default, so watch out! |
« « « MOD & OOC NOTES
Please read carefully. On each Test Drive Meme, there will be a section noting character roles; these will vary each TDM. On an IC level, characters will still have gone through the doors but assignments OOCly are still randomized. When applying, there is a section of the application that denotes whether the character chooses "left" or "right". When participating on the TDM, there will be a third option. Players may link either a top level or a thread (five or more comments from their character) from the TDM and title the link as "Door Pass". This means that the player is choosing to take the designation that they were randomly assigned on the TDM, rather than taking the designation of a door. If the player decides to select a door rather than use the pass, then they are trying their luck; they may get the same designation they had on the TDM or the opposite. Once the application is submitted, players can't change their choice. To assign roles to characters for this TDM, use the following guide: Players can choose whether to assign their character as a Dominant or Submissive on this TDM for the Door Pass for March Applications only. For May's Application round, threads started here may be used as samples however they will not be eligible for a Door Pass in May. Characters will need to use a thread from May's TDM, using those Door Pass rules, for an application after the March round. To Note: Characters can only swap their designation for one of the following reasons: an event occurs that allows it or there are OOC reasons that make it a necessity. Any swap always requires mod approval and each character can only ever switch once. Characters that are being reapped will keep their previous designation but players can choose to use new TDMs with different designations for fun! THERE WILL BE NO APPLICATION ROUND IN APRIL Please remember to mark any necessary content, and have a good time!! |
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She slides in the door after Bass, careful not to let it open too far. Even with the man holding back the two of them, she doesn't want to be responsible for an accidental escape. Then she's crouching down to give the beagle a cheerful, two handed scratch about the ears.
"You're Max, huh? You're much cuter than our Max. Don't tell Liz I said that. But you are!" She baby talks to the dog then offers the cat her hand, figuring that the feline's going to be a bit more standoffish.
"Jeremy just a cute name or is it in honor of somebody?"
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Because Bass had him shot for treason, but. Details. Ones he wasn't going into.
It only soothed his conscience a little to think that Jeremy probably would've been killed at the Tower by the mutineers or, if he'd stayed in Philly, by the nuke. But he'd fucked up and that was something he was working on dealing with in the wake of therapy, an actual diagnosis and meds. It wasn't the only guilt he had, but it was the largest, because it had been the most deliberate. Ben, he'd wanted alive; Danny, he hadn't cared about, but, ultimately, when you shoot a helicopter down with a rocket launcher then point it at another one, you cannot be surprised when the men in it shoot back to defend themsaelves. That was war; it was regrettable, but the kid made his own choice to engage, and kill five other people who hadn't been much more than kids his age, as well.
He pushed off those thoughts as best he could, though thgey fed into her question, and moved to the bar, pouring himself a whiskey, then glancing at her.
"Whiskey or coffee? Or whiskeyin coffee?" It was before noon, but he didn't really care.
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She exhales softly as though he's pressed her with a tough question, then responds with, "Whiskey in coffee." It would at least keep her appearing sober and alert if they drank a lot. She doesn't care for the hour; she knows how these things work sometimes. Comes from owning a bar.
She gives Max one last pat before she stands and follows Bass over to the bar.
"You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to, you know," she points out gently. "I know I'm Alex's friend and that might make you feel like you have to be more open with me. But if this is tough, we don't have to."
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He briefly detoured to the kitchen for coffee, bringing the mug back to dose it liberally with a generous pour of whiskey. Crimson has made him remember what normal people who aren't functional alcoholics drink, but he's still generous with his own pouring.
With another tilt of his head, he led the way to the living room, settling on the sofa, where Jeremy promptly joined him, while Max had attached herself to Maria--she'd accepted her second daddy was never going to be as liberal with the affection as her main daddy, but he, at least, let her stay in the same room as him, even on the bed, sometimes, though she learned not to jump up after he was asleep and not able to control his well-ingrained fear with rationalizations.
He petted the cat easily, though, accepting the uncomplicated and not-panic inducing affection, as he turned his mind back to her question. "Let's see...the highlights between 25-year-old me and grown-up me?" Yes. 25 now seemed not grown up. Christ, he was getting old.
"He didn't know what loss was; hadn't yet got the harrowing late-night call telling him some drunk had killed his parents and little sisters as they drove home from a movie on Black Friday. He hadn't held his wife as she bled out in his arms because there wasn't any power to run the ultrasound that might have told the also non-existant doctor his daughter had wiggled into the wrong position in her mother's womb, and they could have found a way to deliver her safely instead of him digging two more graves. He still believed in happy endings and other fairytale nonsense." he cleared his throat, realizing he'd gotten too dark. "He believed in his country and the flag he had sworn to uphold, even while that country told him he couldn't serve if anyone asked or he told about the people he liked to sleep with or the fact that he was the stereotypicsl idiot in love with his straight best friend. He thought nothing could break that friendship, couldn't fathom the thought of betrayal, believed fully in the concept od loyalty; it wasn't even in his nightmares that he might wake up one day to a gun pressed to his temple and see that face he'd followed into war, into hell, staring back at him, couldn't imagine the same mouth could say 'I'm nothing without you' and, then, 'You're nothing to me.' He believed in love. In trust. In the idea of a future. He trusted his friend. His squadron. His corps. He believed 'Semper Fi' was something to live by. He couldn't imagine the country he loved would end the damn world, that when he had scrabbled back from the brink of extinction, built a bastion of safety for the people who believed in him, that his erstwhile country would drop a fucking nuke on his City, burning his citizens--theircitizens in ablaze of unholy fire, and then blame him for it. He was so goddamn naive, and innocent. He believed in God and forgiveness, and thought the good guys always won. He thought he deserved to be loved. I know now, he wasn't really quite right in the head--had the same stuff the doc's got me on meds for--but he didn't have multiple levels of PTSD, yet. Didn't have even enemy blood on his hanfs, yet, let alone innocent," he spit that out, a bit, took a drink before going on.
"He liked to party, was in danger of getting written up for possession of weed or even Molly if a rave was coming up, but he didn't need this"--a wave of his glass in the air--"to look at himself in the mirror. He though he deserved to be loved, didn't question the motives of everyone he met, didn't brace himself for betrayal, for the knives in his back everyone he'd trusted, everyone he'd loved had put there. He slept at night without waking up in a cold sweat or screaming from the nightmares of war and apocalypses--apocalypsi? I don't know the plural anymore than Buffy did. He loved without reservation, gave all of himself, believed the best about people. He was a naive, innocent idiot who probably deserved what he got for hoping for so much from life." Another long drink. "And Alex was probably much, much better with him here. I couldn't believe he seemed glad to have me back."
He still couldn't, and knowing Alex still loved Michael just every day ate away a bit more of his belief in hope that the younger man had resurrected. Apparently the past twenty years had taught him nothing. Give him enough mood stabilizers and anti-psychotics and he reverted to a naive idiot, even though he knew better.
He mustered up a wry smile for Maria. "You're probably sorry you asked now, huh?"
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But she listens. She listens with the coffee cradled in her hands because after a little while, it seems disrespectful to take a sip, like she's just listening to light chatter. There may be whiskey in that cup, but it still smells half like coffee and it looks like nothing more than that.
She sets aside the mug on the coffee table when he seems finished and reaches out to touch his knee with a now overly warm hand.
"I'm not," she says. "I'm honestly overwhelmed, sure. But I'm not sorry I asked. I'm sorry you went through so much and so much was taken from you. I'm sorry too that you had to confront it all, too, here and in that way."
She shakes her head a little. "But Alex loves you. And Alex cares about good people. And hearing all that just tells me that you went through hell more than once and are still standing, still trying, still caring, which is a hell of a lot more than you can say for some people who have gone through less.
Maybe that guy didn't have as much on his shoulders, but you didn't deserve what you got."
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"I'm sorry - I didn't mean to go so far, but. I wasn't a good guy, Maria, not after Shelly and the baby died. The world went dark and violent, with bandits killing kids or forcing girls into whoring for them. We swore we'd stop it, bring law and order back, but we were brutal in how we went about it. Forget about due process--we didn't have the manpower to jail or care for prisoners--we could barely feed the people who turned to us for protection. The whole world just....fell apart, in ways you think could never happen. We never realized, you know...how much just doesn't work when the power is completely gone. When the government abdicates all responsibility for its people. But you can't quell anarchy from desperate people without some brutal measures, and once you cross one line...the others just get easier. We....got lost. I can say that now. We tried to save people and became the thing they needed saving from. And I...didn't see it. I took what Miles said we had to do, and I ran with it, until I went so far, he couldn't stand it, or me, anymore, and had to get out. But he helped me dig the pit we fell down, and then left me there."
It's clear that still guts him. "All he had to say was 'We've gone too far, Bass. We've gotta stop.' I ditched college and followed him to Camp Lejeune, into the nightmare of Iraq, again and again, and then into Hell. I'd have let it all go, followed him out, if he'd just said the word. The power, the notoriety--it's meaningless when you wake up and realize you're utterly alone and that no one in the world cares if you live and a lot of people are actively wishing you dead. But you never expect the one who finally comes for your head will be the one person you'd still die for without hesitating, you know? That will never, ever, make sense, no matter how I spin it. And when you see the eyes of the girl who once looked at you like you were her hero, cold and wishing you'd just die? You realize...you fucked up. But if I went back, I don't even know where I'd have to protest, where I'd stop him to change the outcome. Maybe, if I had, it'd all be different now. But I've never been able to say 'no' to him, no matter what he does, no matter how many times he lets me down. So the thought that I'd have found the nerve when he was the only family I had left? Is laughable."
He looked up from studying his whiskey to study her instead, vaguely remorseful. "You can just tell me to shut up, it's too much, at any time, you know. I'm being the worst host right now."
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But no due process, brutality to quell anarchy. Getting lost the way he's talking about. She's never had to deal with those kinds of decisions herself, no, but that doesn't mean Bass made the right ones.
"I don't want to tell you to shut up, Bass," she says with a frank tone of voice. Because that's rude, but just on the edge of what she's going to do.
"But maybe we should take a breather. I'm barely into Duplicity as it is. Trying to account for your world, too, is a lot."
And she doesn't want to hear it. She doesn't want him to out and out state something that she finds unforgivable.
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(But then again, maybe she's wrong. She and Alex don't talk about his tours of duty. She's there, but a part of her purposefully tries to keep things light so that they don't have to go there. Maybe Bass' brand of loyalty is what he expects in dire circumstances such as these.)
She nods a little, squeezes his knee gently before taking her hand back and reaching for her coffee.
"I'm glad to hear that. All that matters to me is that Alex is happy, too." Says the woman who broke up with her boyfriend so that he could be with Alex.
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He gave Maria a crooked smile, glad she wasn't running screaming for the hills, and shifted to let Jeremy curl up on his lap.
"I'm glad that's a goal we both have in common." Though he'd probably disapprove of the breaking up with her boyfriend thing.