duplicitymemes | TDM #4 ( revised )

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TDM #4 ( revised )

« « « TEST DRIVE MEME » » »

« « « HERE WE ARE AGAIN

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.

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.

Oh, and one more thing. It's fucking cold. Better bundle up.

» » » LIES TRAVEL IN COMPANY

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.

« « « END IN THE DISCORD

While the societal climate between Dominants and Submissives remains somewhat neutral throughout Duplicity, there has been the occasional whisper of defiance and call for equality. Yet, demonstrations and visible proof of this unhappiness spreads faster by word of mouth on a day exactly when you need it most.

Welcome to Autonomy, a "traveling" nightclub that is never in the same place twice. People wanting to attend only learn of its lucrative location and password hours before it opens for business. Tonight, I choose the third door will get you inside and into the temporary freedom club Autonomy has to offer. In this circle, there are no assigned designations and no consequences for taking a role that isn't the one given by society. So, a Dominant may become the Submissive they've always wanted to be—or vice versa. Dominants and Submissives alike are able to mingle without repercussion and be themselves. Food, drinks, and private areas for more intimate – or if your preference is sexual – encounters are provided. Donations are accepted at any point during the night to further Autonomy's attempts of spreading the fulfillment that comes from being untitled.

On the night you choose to visit, Autonomy is holding a random lottery for temporary connections. When entering, you have the choice of submitting your name into this drawing to be paired with someone else in the club regardless of designation. A short while later, a message will pop up on your device with the name and information of your partner, and whether or not you choose to meet them is purely at your discretion. Having more than one connection isn't completely unusual either.

» » » TABLE IT FOR LATER

Gratification of being a successful Dominant or Submissive isn't necessarily simple. Learning curves are to be made, and mistakes will happen. Led by a Dominant and Submissive couple – Miriam and Victoria, who have been paired for twenty-two years – a monthly meeting for unattached Dominants and Submissives is held in the conference room of Morning Wood motel in the Down. The meeting starts a few minutes after nine and has no designated end time. The couple introduce themselves and explain the purpose of the meeting: learn the proper method for a new kink and possibly find your perfect partner. The space is intimate and well-stocked with refreshments.

To begin, Victoria, while blindfolded, balances on her hands and knees with her back perfectly level. Her partner, when ready, places various items on the level surface–a full cup, a plate. The Submissive is meant to hold the items until the Dominant believes she's reached her limit. The exercise is one of trust and understanding. The demonstration is a short one, followed by Miriam removing the blindfold and soothing her Submissive. The words are whispered low and with care, clearly a method that is specific to this couple. The process is concluded with the pair handing out workups, videos, and answering questions. Anyone wishing to practice Purposeful Submission can do so in the open room with a random volunteer, aided by the couple, or can find someone to take to one of the rented rooms. Sex may follow any scene but is not necessarily included. Experimenting with unattached Dominants and Submissives allows for new relationships to form.

« « « MOD & OOC NOTES

Please read carefully.

On each Test Drive Meme, there will be a section noting character roles based on birthdays; these will vary each TDM. On an IC level, character 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 chose "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. All characters who have blue eyes or one blue eye and another color are Submissives. All characters who have brown eyes or one brown eye and another color are Dominants. Characters with any other color eyes are Dominants. To use this TDM as a door pass please link this on your app and place whether it is Dominant or Submissive.

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

» » » MAIN NAVIGATION « « «

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[And he has her for that thankfully, and she's here, and perhaps he's not the best at accepting help, but at least the help is there should things become too much for him.

Unlike some of the others here, it sounds like. His expression turns grave, suddenly-- that some are really suffering here, it's not something he's had time to consider yet.]

It's that bad down there, is it?

[There's a pause then, whilst he stares intently at the handle of rum, doesn't lift his gaze even as he asks it--]

And...Asrochka...is he...?

[But he lets the question die before its fully formed.]

Asra, yeah. He—we've... we've gotten pretty close. Being the only remnants of home, it... it makes sense, right?

[She laughs, a bit bashful at what she's about to admit.]

Though, uh... well, with the previous 'you' here, I'll leave the details up to Asra to explain, but you two, ah... well, there was a miscommunication, at a certain point, and I... meddled a bit. You were both happy with the results, though! I straightened some things out for him, gave some advice...

[It makes sense. Of course it does, and the fact is, he's glad she had someone from home, even glad that Asra had someone too, because perhaps the mistakes of the past have loomed large for him, still weigh on him daily even now, but he has thought - lately - that he's come to see those mistakes in a way he hadn't grasped before. He knows, now, that Asra didn't lay the curse on him, and that he'd been selfish, and asked for things the magician couldn't give him.

But the rest is...complicated. And he lifts the bottle to his lips again because its an awful lot to take. As though he's missed some vital thing, stepped into something that doesn't belong to him.]

Hmmmm.

[The very picture of eloquence! But it's the best he can come up with right now. All of this, it will require some time to sink in.]

'Hmmmm' yourself!

[She puffs her cheeks out at him and reaches across, prodding him hard right in his bared sternum.

Then she pulls back, and leaves a single pinky extended.]

Just... promise me you won't pull your usual thing on him? You know the one; where you end up making everybody's choices for them and assuming you know both what's best for them and what they're thinking? That. Don't do that. Promise me, right now, Pepi as our witness. No wild, dramatic, runaway logic-leaps.

[There's a soft mrr as something soft winds around his calves.]

Ow!

[Though once again it's more for affect - and perhaps a delaying tactic - rather than an expression of pain because the words that follow her harsh prodding aren't really words he wants to hear. He doesn't know how to make that promise, because he wants to give away that much of himself again and again and again, it's the only way he knows how to be. Even if there's the small niggling reminder in him of what he's already begun to realise, to some small degree-- that what he thinks people want from him or want him to do isn't always what he gives them.

Rarely is.

And there's Pepi winding around his legs and he'll take this as his attempt to subvert the conversation.]

Pepi, what is it, do you want some attention?

[And he's leaning down to stroke the little cat then, to literally duck out of having to give an answer.]

No, Pepi, he's trying to slither out again—we don't reward that!

[Pepi, in her cattiness, gets in a few nice ear rubs and finishes rubbing her scent on his legs before slipping away, off towards a small dish of kitty food in the kitchen beyond.]

Ilya. Seriously. Asra's got tons of personal issues and biases himself. And he's willing to be honest and up-front about them now, if you'll let him. Just... let him? Please. I don't want to see you tearing yourself up or—or suggesting I go after him, or any weird needless nonsense.

[He remains ducked beneath the table for as long as Pepi deigns to let him pet her, but once she stalks off he slowly rises, thick hair tumbled into his face and expression curled in around a frown. Lips part in preperation for another excuse-- but there's Pasha's face, looking so earnest, and so with a heavy sigh he once again reaches for the rum bottle.

Asra being open and honest about anything sounds as unlikely as Julian acting with careful thought and rationality. If the magician really has said something like that, if Pasha really wants him to listen this badly--]

Look, I'll...I'll try. It's just, you know, it's me we're talking about. I sabotage things without even meaning to. I don't know how to stop myself. But I'll try not to do, um, any of those things you mentioned.

[And he knocks back more of the rum.]

Yeah, well, once upon a time you didn't know the first thing about medicine either. If you're smart enough to learn all that, you're smart enough not to have an excuse to learn this.

[She tilts back her beer, draining the whole thing in one fluid go and setting it down with a firm click on the countertop, eying him up.]

...say, you don't hare off and pretend you know a patient's symptoms better than they do, do you?

That's not the same. That's learning skills and retaining information, I can do that quite without difficulty. But the rest is...me, and I'm flawed, and not much good to be around for long.

[he says it, his words a little blurry around the edges, now. Though he looks down and away beneath her intense scrutiny.]

And obviously I wouldn't do that, a patient is generally going to be the one best placed to relay their symptoms. One should always listen to that. What are you getting at, Pasha?

So, just to totally make sure we're on the same page, here—

[She gestures between them, her eyes wide and earnest.

There's obviously a blow just waiting to land, somewhere in this.]

You understand, intellectually, that you as a separate person who can't read minds, cannot assume how somebody feels or automatically determine across the board what's bad for them, without their actual, literal, explicit explanations of their own feelings and experiences. Is what you're saying to me. Correct?

[He knows that expression. Knows she's going to hit him with something, that it's an inevitability. His expression turns vaguely guarded, his one visible eye narrowed, but--]

Well, obviously. Not unless one was a literal mind-reader, and I don't believe in those, by the way.

So, why exactly do you do that all the time?

[She gestures expansively, at nothing and everything.]

Every time you cut and run, that's usually what you're doing, Ilyushka.

[And there it is. He supposes he should have seen that one coming, only he didn't, and he opens his mouth to protest before abruptly closing it again. Is she right? Is that what he does?

He doesn't think so. But-- well. He doesn't tend to ask people if they want him to leave, does he? Only tells them, or up and leaves before they have the chance to stop him. Hmmm.]

It's...it's not quite the same though, is it? I'm not trying to tell people what their ailments are without asking. I'm the ailment, usually. And so it makes sense, to do the right thing and, you know. Leave. Before I disappoint them, or harm them in some way, or otherwise ruin things for them.

[But he's staring at the bottle again, away from her, slightly red in the face.]

[When she speaks again, this time it's with her voice dropped, low and lovingly mocking in the copied cadence of his own.]

Oh, don't be silly Pasha! I'm not trying to tell people what their ailments are without asking; I'm just assuming that I'm the ailment, usually, and acting accordingly for their sake! I never actually tell anybody anything. A simple mistake to make, but I'm sure you see things my way.

[She's looking him dead in the face.]

Because I'm right, always, and somehow simultaneously the worst ever, always, don't bother checking if that's true or not because I said so.

[He just stares at her for one long moment, the slight flush from before now deepening exponentially. Then he takes another swig of rum, for good measure, and keeping his eye averted he responds--]

I don't sound anything like that.

[Give him a moment...]

Do I?

[She gives him the flattest look, hands settling on her hips.]

Do you want me to answer that, or—as usual—was that just... you know, rhetorical?

[This time he doesn't say anything, just stares down at the table, sheepishly. Stays that way for several long moments before finally he sighs and sweeps a hand back through unruly red curls, before slumping down in his seat.]

I'll...try harder. It's just--

[But he prevents himself, just in time, from reiterating that he isn't any good, that he's a liability, that he's a bane on everyone else's existence. Doesn't want to be berated again. And maybe, possibly, in there somewhere, she may have a point.]

Oh, Ilya.

[She scoots around the side of the counter and ducks under his arm, nestling close.]

Let's try something, okay? Whenever that feeling comes up... whenever it does, imagine me using that voice to say whatever you're thinking. If it sounds silly, you might be being silly. It's more common than you might think.

[And despite the no-nonsense tack she's taken with him, or perhaps because of it - it's familiar, and he loves her, even if he hasn't been the very best at showing it - he curls his arm around her in turn and rests his chin on the top of her head. Sighs out all the exhaustion and confusion and dark feelings he's been wreathed in since awakening here. Or since, really, for as long as he cares to remember.]

Well, um. I suppose it'd put something of a dampener on any dramatic speeches I was trying to make.

[More seriously, though.]

But I'll try it, promise.

[She hugs his waist as tight as she always had, age two or twelve or twenty-whatever.]

Let's get one thing clear—your allotted number of dramatic speeches in front of me ended on the gallows, Ilya Devorak.

[Guilt blooms large in his chest at that, for the unthinking way he'd hurt her, the unthinking ways he could - and might, maybe will - hurt her again. But he knows better than to try and apologise this time, just reminds himself instead to stick as hard as he can to the promise he just made. Holds her a little tighter in return.]

That's...fair, Pasha.

[And he smiles into her hair.]

I'll do my best to keep them all out of your hearing. Really though, you can't expect me to give up on dramatic speeches entirely.

Of course not. It's you after all. I just get to collect my fee for each of these illegal speeches, that's all.

[She can feel that skittish guilt bubbling in him, held at bay for the moment, and the only thing she can think to do to make the lesson really stick this time is, well...]

...if you lost me forever, would you ever stop hurting, Ilyushka?

[She's in the mood to punish him, it seems. Though if anything the words have their effect, make him realise how much he deserves it, how unintentionally callous he's been. Because the thought of losing Portia fills him with a deep cold void, an ache like a knife slipped between the ribs and twisted. He hadn't considered it, what it might be like for her to watch him hang, how it felt for her after his arrest, both before she knew of his plan and after it. And she would have watched, wouldn't she, wouldn't have left him there to die alone, whether it was a permanent death or not.]

I wouldn't, Pasha. You know that.

[His voice is a little tight, a little raw.]

I've been a scoundrel, haven't I.

I can't make you stop doubting yourself or your worth, or whatever it is that trips you up every time.

[Though not for lack of trying.]

But you're not allowed to doubt me. Whether you're a doctor or scoundrel or murderer or anything, anything at all, I'm going to love you 'til my dying breath, Ilyushka.

[And yes his guilt is still a big and aching wound in him, the small slither of a voice is there in his head, telling him he doesn't deserve her after everything he's done, and all the ways he's failed her. But she is still here with him, despite all those things, still telling him that she loves him. And a splinter of that gets through and sinks in somehow past all the things he tells himself, all his internal darkness. That someone does love him, unfailingly, whether he deserves it or not.

Well, he certainly feels humbled. Just as well his face is hidden in her hair.]

All right. All right, I know you do. I love you, too.

TDM #4 ( revised )

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