Duplicity Game Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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duplicitymemes2022-01-10 07:43 pm
duplicitymods) wrote in duplicitymemes2022-01-10 07:43 pm
Entry tags:
TDM #22
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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. |
 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. |
 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. |
 (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. |
 (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. |
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!! |
cw | rigidish/period typical (victorian) religious moralizing wrt sex
His hands open and close uneasily at his sides, fingers curling against the palms restlessly, but after some moments he finally nods, looking back up to her face with an expression as void of tension as he can manage. ]
Yes, I understand that much, Miss Ives. [ He speaks it softly, though not so much she'd need to strain to hear. ] And I can assure you, I am... most capable, of... adapting, as may indeed become required of me. This is not to say I take any great pleasure in the fact my compliance will be judged according to how rigorously I am willing to profane my body so.
[ It's more complicated than that, but... but, then his eyes lock back with hers, face softening with relief at her invitation. ]
Tea sounds lovely-- I would be happy to happy to join you. [ A nod, more eager this time, then a faint, sheepish smile. ] I do hate to speak of such lurid matters so near a church.
aka nothing she isn't already used to irVING
Next to his subtle movements, which do draw her attention briefly when she makes note of them in her periphery, she is almost placidly still, features expressing smooth neutrality and yet approachable openness in regards to their conversation. She can already tell what it's taking from him in terms of the effort to speak on the subject in question, and it prompts her to press her lips together in a firmer line so her amusement at his self-imposed predicament doesn't betray her. ]
As long as you're aware. [ She knows she likely doesn't need to stress the importance of quota — or the consequences that exist for not meeting it — and she doesn't want to distress him any more than she may have already.
Besides, it seems they may be both more than prepared to shift to the prospect of a new subject, and her smile re-emerges in full when he proceeds to accept her invitation, as she shifts further away from her own pew and starts to move in the direction of the main annex doors, giving him ample time to fall in step beside her. ]
There's a shop in the Up that I frequent rather often, but it's a bit of a longer journey. My home, on the other hand, is not far at all, and I do enjoy hosting company. [ A pause, and then she feels compelled to add: ] Without expectation of anything... supplemental, of course. [ Given their environment, it seems prudent to mention that she has no ulterior motive in extending the invitation to him in the first place. ]
WELL GOOD BECAUSE CW MORE OF THE SAME!!!! + (implied) internalized homophobia
Even more than the sex, it's the prospect of Duplicity's Godlessness that most fills him with a deep and hopeless dread, how easy then it would become to simply step off the path towards righteousness and give in wholly to hedonism and sin, to deviancy, to wicked, shameless depravity--
... It's a fearlessness he's never been capable of, to be so unerringly confident in both feeling worthy of God's love, while at the same time also permitting himself to act without reserve in the ways his baser instincts and urges have been known to compel him to.
Irving's always felt he could live quite easily without sex before he could ever live without God. He can live with the repression, the restraint, the constant sacrifice and deeply buried sense of shame, in exchange for a world he can understand, order he can take comfort in rather than being lost among chaos... and yet here he stands, so desperate for any sign of God at all that he's here today attending a Catholic Mass, turmoil in him already brewing like a storm for the slips he's made already. Quota be damned, he must seek out better, God honouring ways of meeting it, if indeed he intends to at all.
(Not that he can disclose as much to her, obviously; what would she think of him to learn that a week or so in he's already met his first quota, succumbed both to temptation and aphrodisiacs as easily as any nonbeliever would?) ]
I am grateful to your hospitality-- though I am not nearly so improper as to presume it decent at all of me to intrude within your private chambers so soon after making your acquaintance. [ He smiles demurely, walking alongside her anyway, following wherever she may choose to lead him. ] Only if you deem it appropriate, of course.
[ Being a submissive, he doesn't actually have any money to buy her tea, though, so it's also somewhat of a relief that she's chosen to offer up her home. Irving looks at her for another moment, blinking before the rest of her implications sink in fully, at which point he quickly looks away again, heat spreading to his ears. ]
Nor would I ever presume... [ He clears his throat. ] You are quite safe with me, Miss Ives. That much I can promise you.
no subject
Now, she realizes that electively suppressing her wants had been the true danger, that she is stronger when she can embrace her preferences to their fullest degree rather than cowering away from them in shame. Being here has taught her that, among other lessons, though she can look at a man like John Irving now and recognize traces of the woman who had first arrived in this city, a woman who had not come into full acceptance of herself yet.
All that is to say that whatever he chooses to disclose to her, if it should indeed happen in due course, she is hardly in a position to cast judgment on him, not when she is still assessing the place her own faith holds within a world like this one. ]
You'd only be intruding on my sitting room, at any rate. [ She very nearly makes a quip about conducting her private business elsewhere, but thinks better of it, reaching into the pockets of her coat to retrieve her gloves and donning them for the walk to her home as they exit the church and turn down the street together.
His words are what still her, prompting her gaze to linger on him, an unknown emotion flickering across pale features at his insistence on decency — and after another moment, she stretches a hand out between them, seeking to take his arm in a proper escort. ] I cannot tell you how good it has been to make your acquaintance, Lieutenant. I feel as though you've brought a piece of home here with you, now that you've arrived. [ A pause, and then she adds: ] And I do hope that perhaps we can become good friends to one another, in time. Such a thing cannot be taken for granted, especially here.
no subject
To one's acceptance of it.
(Which is by no means an indictment, simply something he knows to be true, although he's yet to apply this particular experience to imagining a future within Duplicity. Heaven forbid he even humour that possibility.)
Both being from more or less the same era, it stands to reason that any disclosures that may or may not be still to come between them may likely be fairly slow-going, Victorian (and British) sensibilities being what they are, but that too is no indictment, rather almost its own rare and nearly obsolete form of intimacy: a slow unpeeling of one's outer layers piece by piece, a spiritual and emotional undressing. Irving is not used to being close with anyone in such capacities, although some part of him almost surely longs for it; to be understood is perhaps what all of mankind longs for, however deep down.
Irving doesn't flinch away from her touch, only very briefly surprised by it before he realizes what she's doing and offers his arm out to her more readily with a courteous, almost bashful smile. ]
I feel much the same for meeting you, Miss Ives. Though I've only just arrived. [ But Duplicity is so unlike home she certainly stands out as a breath of fresh air; a comforting sense of the familiar. ] But I think I should like that very much indeed, if you'll forgive me saying so. Perhaps it is rather... forward, but it is like you said: we must not take such connections for granted here.