duplicitymemes | TDM #22

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TDM #22

« « « TEST DRIVE MEME » » »

« « « ALL ON DISPLAY

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 paper gown 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 highrise. 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.

Winter is here and snow flurries are common in the Up while the slush collects in the Down.

» » » ALL ABOARD

After stepping through the door and participating in orientation, LIERS are assembled together in the Up for a tour of Duplicity in its entirety. 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.

« « « WINTER WONDERLAND

As a particularly heavy snowstorm blows across the city, Duplicity finds itself blanketed in white. The morning after the storm, many citizens seem to be in a particularly mischievous mood and snowballs are a common sight flying through the air. A projectile meant for someone else may hit you square in the face if you're not careful — and then it's on. Joining these impromptu snow battles is encouraged, no matter a person's designation, and even Submissives teaming up to pelt unsuspecting Dominants with snowballs is generally taken in the spirit of good fun. Not everyone is throwing snow, of course — some are rolling much larger balls and shaping them into lewd snow figures.

Those feeling chilled after playing in the snow may experience the urge to warm up with someone else, skin to skin. Whether they're a stranger or a familiar face, holding hands, kissing, or getting down and dirty with the nearest willing partner is invigorating. It might even be the only way to really feel warm again.

« « « DUBIOUS DELIVERIES

(cw: aphro, humiliation kink)

Want to make some quick cash? After exiting the train in the Down, there seems to be a questionable character hanging about the station. Dressed in a trenchcoat and looking more like a flasher than the businessman he claims to be, this shady recruiter offers easy money in exchange for a simple delivery. Just take a package and drop it off at the address on the label. Really, that's it! Stop asking questions.

Should characters decide to open the package themselves instead, they'll discover one of the following: glitter — so much glitter, lube (appears normal, but actually contains hot pepper and will cause more than a mild tingling sensation if used anywhere sensitive), a package of flavored condoms mysteriously labeled "every flavor" (none of them taste good), candy or perfume containing an aphrodisiac that, in addition to the usual libido-boosting effect, will also cause an intense craving for humiliation.

It seems to be one of those services that allows one to send anonymous prank gifts, and they're hiding behind LIERs as couriers. There's no return address or company information on or inside the package, except for a card marked Encoded Sin Corp — which does not seem to be a real company if the name is searched.

Whether characters end up delivering the package — maybe even to a fellow LIER — or get into some trouble along the way, someone is getting a nasty surprise.

« « « SURPRISES FOR SALE

(cw: aphro, dubcon, excessive fluids, exhibitionism, public use)

A small winter market has been set up along one of the major streets in the Up with stalls selling a variety of goods ranging from knitted hats and scarves, soaps, scented lotions, candles, jewelry, artwork and assorted crafts to hand-dyed bondage rope and kinky leather accessories. Food and drink stands are plentiful as well. Strings of lights crisscross the street between the roofs of the shops, providing a cheerful glow, and there are tables set up in the street itself for people to sit and chat while having a snack — if they can stand the cold.

Some of the most popular treats being sold are hot chocolate, eggnog, marshmallow snowmen, and sugar cookies decorated like snowflakes. Of course, their popularity may have something to do with the effects they produce when consumed.

• The hot chocolate simply gets one all hot and bothered.
• The eggnog may cause heavy production of sexual fluids, a desire to be filled or covered with someone else's cream, or all of the above.
• The marshmallow snowmen will make those who eat them want to invite others to use them as they please, desiring nothing more than to be molded into the perfect fucktoy.
• The sugar cookies seem to induce all sorts of different cravings — after all, no two snowflakes are alike!

These effects tend to last at least an hour and may, in some cases, last up to a full day.

One of the jewelry shops sells an unusual selection of compass pendants and bracelets. The compass arrows spin round and round lazily while the pieces are on display. Once worn, however, that changes. The arrow will settle on a direction, but instead of pointing north it will lead directly to another person. Perhaps you should speak to them? You may even begin to feel magnetically drawn to them yourself… In the event that two people have compasses that point them at each other, the attraction will be even stronger — nearly impossible to deny.

There is another shop which sells intricately designed pocket watches and small clocks. When these timepieces are stared at for an extended length of time or picked up and handled, characters will feel a brief but strong connection to their past and experience a vivid flashback to some moment that was, in whatever way, meaningful for them. After reliving the memory, they will feel compelled to speak about it to whoever is nearby.

« « « 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:

If your character likes it hot, they are a Dominant. If your character prefers the cold, they are a Submissive.

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!

Test Drive threads can be used as activity proofs for characters currently in-game.

Please remember to mark any necessary content, and have fun!!

» » » MAIN NAVIGATION « « «

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Ephemera shrugs. ]

Life support and a full environmental seal in case I get tossed out an airlock. I can't fly but I can do a controlled fall from pretty damn high. I had a shield originally. Ran into people running all sorts of freaky enhancements. But you don't wanna run out of power in the middle of a fight.

[ Kazu nods, he can see it needing that kind of an energy source with the added information. ]

Running out of power isn't usually the issue my team has. What kind of freaky enhancements?

No?

[ That's interesting. Ephemera rocks back on his heels, trying to think. He's not an engineer, but he's been around long enough to know how to handle his own gear. He can do his own repairs, rig modifications - to some degree, at least. And now he's run into someone with similar gear who isn't even from home.

First time for everything, he supposes. ]

Speed, all kinds of shields. Heard of a guy who could jump back in time, if you can believe that shit. The real fancy ones run with a smart AI. Makes you better at everything.

No, the charge capacity of our holons guarantees they can run for far longer than we'd ever be able to stay in them, unless you decide you don't care about having a body anymore. They did upgrade one unit's power supply significantly at that point but I don't know the technical details.

[ Time travel does sound pretty unbelievable but they're literally in another universe right now and others from their worlds can be from different times. Kazu can accept that it's possible at this point. ]

Smart AI? Are there also stupid AI?

Don't care about having a body?

[ That's - huh. That's a whole other thing, isn't it?

Ephemera huffs a little. ]

Kinda. Regular AI do what they're programmed to. They learn, but only within certain parameters, right? Smart AI, they're based off of people. Actual fucking people. So they're about as smart as you can get. Dangerous too, though. They go crazy after a while.

Mm, this suit wasn't originally developed for exactly what my team do in them. The technology that enhances physical abilities by reading neural impulses is just also perfect for our program -- we wear them to help upload into our holons.

[ Wait hold up if smart AI are just digitized people then it's the same thing as gen:LOCK, isn't it? That doesn't bode well for Chase, the teammate who abandoned his body... ]

...why do they go crazy? And how long is 'a while'?

Holon?

[ Ephemera tips his head to the side. ]

Short version is that they get too smart for their framework. Start thinking themselves into loops, start getting pissed. And then they get nasty. Takes about seven years.

They are... hm. Are you familiar with mecha? A large robot designed for combat, except instead of having a pilot inside we become the robot by transferring our minds into it. Since our enemy's nanotech destroys organic material, holons are unaffected and can go into combat where it's been deployed without the soldier instantly dying.

[ Hmm. Seven years to think in loops? No, that can't be what's wrong with Chase. ]

I see.

From comic books. They're not real back home.

[ But Rodriguez was a nerdy fuck underneath all the layers of utterly terrifying sniper, so Ephemera knows a bit. Enough to get a decent picture, anyway. ]

Huh. Guess that's one way of doing it. Effective strategy?

[ Kazu takes a moment to consider the question, like he's not sure how to answer it. So much has happened since the program began and the situation has changed so many times... in the end he decides to only go into it if Ephemera asks, replying very simply. ]

It used to be. But the smoke is no longer the biggest problem.

My original point was to get to the limitations. It's not power, it's what we call 'uptime'. The longer you're in the cyberbrain the more your mind changes, and after a certain point your consciousness becomes incompatible with your physical brain. No going back.

[ So, that's a lot to take in. Ephemera processes it silently, trying to line it up with what he knows from back home. Trying to figure out what fits and what's entirely new. ]

So then you'd be, what? Stuck as a digital projection?

Yes, exactly. Our teammate who exceeded uptime to complete a battle no longer has a physical form outside of his holon. We understood the choice and have tried to make him as comfortable as possible by upgrading our shared mindspace, but...

[ He shrugs, the implication clear that it really sucks. And maybe Ephemera will get now why he was so concerned about AI made from people going crazy. ]

Well, shit.

[ Ephemera's not entirely sure how to process that. How he's meant to. But he understands the sacrifice, in the end. Or at least in the abstract. In war, you do what you have to. Not everyone comes out whole. ]

That's a rough way to live.

And it's probably the least of the issues he has to face at the moment, if you can believe that. Since it wasn't a huge change for him physically.

[ Ephemera blinks. ]

Not sure I follow.

[ Explanation time, then... Kazu wasn't around when this happened, but he knows the story. ]

Chase was actually in the first official battle of the war. He was an interceptor pilot who sacrificed himself to temporarily disable the smoke and buy everyone else time to retreat when the city fell. The damage he took was beyond anything they could regenerate, some problem with how being partially destroyed by nanotech affected him, so the only way they could keep him alive was on life support in a tank. For the past four years he was just a torso, head, and one arm. Losing his body still changed a few things, but in terms of interaction with the world things aren't really different.

Huh.

[ Ephemera rocks back on his heels, processing that. He almost asks how Chase survived that shit in the first place but doesn't. Ephemera knows better than most what a person can endure in the aftermath. ]

That's rough. Takes a lot to survive something like that.

Yeah. I don't know if I could have, myself.

[ He might not have made it through a lot of traumas his teammates have... compared to the rest of them his life had been pretty easy. Shit, he's the only one of them who still has a family. It's a hard pill to swallow knowing he created most of his own problems and won't have a chance to fix them now. ]

The program probably gave him purpose, if not hope that he'd be physically functional again.

That's something, anyway.

[ Ephemera watches Kazu for a moment. ]</small You can do a lot, if you have a mission.

[ Kazu meets Ephemera's gaze, looking almost as if he's searching for something. A mission, hm? So there's more to it than cigarettes and survival. ]

Do you have one, here?

[ That's a harder question. It doesn't have a simple answer. Ephemera exhales slowly. ]

Depends on the day. It's complicated. I had one when I showed up, and now I'm trying to let it go.

I don't understand.

[ Why would he let go of it? :|aaa ]

[ Ephemera watches him for a long, silent moment. ]

I wanted to burn my enemies alive.

[ ...okay, that's some dark shit. And there's definitely no need to point out that it'd be a torturous way to go, because. What little he can see of Ephemera right now is half covered in what look like burn scars. This guy Knows. It's not just any enemy, huh? ]

Revenge?

Revenge.

[ It's said without much emotion. He wonders if that's an improvement over the rage that twisted through him in the early days. Maybe.

Maybe not. ]

I live with it now. What they did. What I tried to do to them. I live with it.

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