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duplicitymemes2019-09-12 04:47 pm
duplicitymods) wrote in duplicitymemes2019-09-12 04:47 pm
Entry tags:
TDM #8
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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. The hellish summer heat is finally starting to subside, and the cool breeze suggests autumn is approaching. |
 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. |
 The weather’s getting cooler, and people have begun transitioning from summer clothing to the sweaters and jackets of early fall. With jackets come pockets, and with pockets come a bizarre uptick in robberies. Then again, perhaps the correlation is flawed. In the Down, getting robbed is a constant threat. Gangs of street toughs look for lone or inattentive people who look like they’ve got valuables on hand. Uncontracted Submissives are particularly easy to rob, since authorities have little time to bother with a lowly Submissive without a Dominant to advocate for them. One particularly nasty gang of young adult men, the Bulldogs, hangs out near the train, looking to ambush unwary Submissives fresh out of Orientation. They are prone to violent muggings and will simply beat up their target and leave them in a gutter when they’re finished robbing them. In the Up, the streets are nominally safer, but there have been reports of a group of college-aged Submissive women taking advantage of their designation to attack travelers. They, too, stand near the train and the orientation center, looking to seduce passersby into an alley where a group of them can beat and mug their victims, usually Dominants looking to capitalize on their pretty appearances. But you’re truthfully at risk anywhere in the city. The new arrivals are easy targets, and any brazen thief might get the idea to make some quick cash. The authorities are spread too thin to help, but perhaps LIErs can look out for one another? Or they might just get in on the thievery. Everyone’s out for themselves, after all. |
( CW: potential dubcon, drugs, BDSM/sexual torture, prostitution, public use ) Surrounding a large building near the orientation center in the Up, banners and fliers announcing the beginning of the inaugural Duplicity High Tech Sexpo, a trade show for businesses and manufacturers of adult novelties. Since this is the expo’s first year, admission is free and many excited volunteers are handing out vouchers all over the city. These vouchers can be exchanged for goods and services within the expo, but have no monetary value outside of it. Even if you refuse them, you’ll likely find two or three of them tucked into your bag or pocket. Inside the expo hall, there are dozens of booths pitching a variety of entertainments. Many offer interactive demonstrations, showing off their tech for the crowds of interested onlookers. Competition is fierce, and booths try to attract attention and customers through any means necessary. There are private rooms all around the expo for potential customers to try out the products. Booths will also happily accept volunteers for demos, or try to recruit them by bribing them with cash or free samples. There’s a nasty rumor going around that some are recruiting volunteers via more illicit means, like drugging and dressing them up, but surely that’s an exaggeration… Some of the smaller booths sell more traditional toys and accessories: leashes and collars, specialty lubes and massage oils, fetish gear, strap-ons, dildos and vibrators in myriad shapes and sizes, and other basic items. Others advertise apps for the devices, the most notable of which is HUGGR (which LIErs may recognize as a poorly rebuilt sex-themed version of a certain other app.) The closer you get to the big-ticket sponsor booths, the more elaborate and fantastic the products become. One of the most eye-catching demos is for the Climax VR Headset. You and a partner both wear a VR headset, which displays a collaborative virtual scenario. Both partners can alter the setting and surroundings however they like, and any sexual activity conducted in VR transmits real sensations to their bodies. You can come together without ever physically touching. Symphony Hydraulics have a large, loud booth where crowds gather to watch perhaps the most outrageous demo: a variety of fucking machines. Volunteers get stripped, strapped in, and turned on, brought to screaming orgasms in front of the whole crowd. There is a fifteen minute break between demos on each machine, as some poor intern hurriedly washes and sanitizes them between uses. In the interim, they offer smaller, portable versions for sale or rent at the expo. (Some may note that a few of the Symphony Hydraulics staff members look a bit familiar.) Does all this high-tech equipment have you overwhelmed? Wish you could go back to a simpler time? Sir Robert’f Bedroome Provifionf (sic) is helmed by historical reenactor Robert Plum, who has also created his own line of medieval torture device-themed sex toys. Need a chastity belt to keep your Submissive all to yourself? A rack with an attached spreader-bar? An iron maiden with soft vibrating silicone ticklers inside? All the stocks and whips and chains you could ever need? Sir Robert has you covered. Of course, everything on display is harmlessly altered for sexual novelty purposes, but one might also ask to see Sir Robert’s “special” merchandise in the back. Perhaps the most unassuming booth at the expo belongs to Grandma Hattie’s Snacks and Sweets. Grandma Hattie, a kindly old Submissive, has partnered with a tech company to produce what appear to be completely normal vending machines, stocked full of her tasty homemade bread, snack cakes, and other baked goods. Vouchers are good for a free sample of any treat from a vending machine. They taste amazing and have no apparent odd effects-- until 10 minutes after consumption, when you suddenly gain an insatiable craving for a random kink. Your craving will dominate your thoughts for three hours, or until it is appeased. |
 (CW: potential dubcon, objectification) By far the largest and shiniest booth comes from expo sponsors Sexy Metal Incorporated, who have set up a display of their incredible high-tech sexbots. These life-sized dolls are made of extremely realistic material that feels like warm human skin, and come with state-of-the-art mechanics that give them lifelike movement. Engineers show off how the bots can be plugged into a computer and programmed to act any way the buyer likes. They come in a wide variety of customizable appearances and eerily, some of the bots on display look exactly like people you may know. Booth staff encourage customers to buy these dolls, or to rent them and give them a try onstage in front of the fascinated crowds. If that’s not kinky enough, one of the engineers has purchased a VR headset from another booth, and programmed it to interface with the bot’s controls. Care to slip inside the silicone skin of another person? |
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: In celebration of our one year, pick whichever role you want for your character! » A Pocket Full of Pennies: Feel free to come up with any free-roving gangs or petty criminals you like for your characters to tangle with. » New Flesh Like A Glove: Characters can spend money on items at the expo, or may exchange vouchers for what they want. Each voucher has a value of about $5 within the expo and they may be acquired by finding them, having them handed to characters/stuffed in their pockets or bags by expo volunteers, or paid them in exchange for “volunteering” at booths. Characters may indeed try before they buy, either out in the open or using one of the provided private rooms with a partner. The expo has a staff of unpaid student interns tasked with cleaning and sanitizing products if they are used but not purchased. Grandma Hattie’s snacks can inspire characters to have any kink you may desire. » Perfection of the Digital: Sexbots can resemble any player characters, including brand new arrivals/test drive characters. They can also resemble characters that yours knows from home. The engineers have no explanation for this, and the one who identifies himself as the designer will shrug and say he gets inspiration from many places. The sexbots are hot-ticket expensive merchandise, so security is tight around the booth. Characters who attempt to steal or destroy a sexbot (for instance, one who looks like themselves) will be quickly set upon by guards, who are meant to eject them from the expo. However, many of the guards will take bribes from other booths to provide them model “volunteers,” drugged into complacency. If characters want to acquire a sexbot permanently, they will have to buy it or exchange a hefty 50 vouchers for it. Please remember to mark any necessary content, and have fun!! |
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And it takes Quentin a lot longer than a second to react, to force his eyes away as they seem to rove all over Ereuvir. From the tips of his pointy ears (!!) and the frankly very revealing outfit. Nipples showing through the sheer shirt on either side of the black submissive line, leather pants looking all but painted on and the strange blue light in the eyes looking back at him when Quentin's finally done and looks up sharply.
"I-- wait, what? No, I wasn't. Looking?" He tries to explain, hands pushed deep in to the pockets of his black hoodie and his hair falling in to his face. "But yeah, this is. A lot."
Still, pointy ears and those antlers that has Quentin clenching his hands hard inside his pockets not to reach out to touch because they're fucking antlers. On his head. And they're fuzzy.
Ereuvir looks like an elf, only better because the elves in the movies always looked too human and he doesn't. That there might be flirting going on, is not even registering at all, since all of Quentin's attention is on either trying not to look too much at the booths or on trying not to stare back at Ereuvir like an idiot.
This is how long it takes him to notice that he's still kind of standing way too close and still inside the circle of Ereuvir's arms and he takes a hurried step back. "I- uh, I'm sorry about that. I. You look like an elf." Quentin's mouth says stupidly, before he snaps it shut.
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"Ah, my apologies! My name is Ereuvir Valbanise," he bows slightly, "Lord of the Underworld."
No. No, Quentin has definitely heard him correctly.
"And yourself?"
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"I'm Quentin, and no. I've read about them? In books?" and Penny hadn't really mentioned anything about antlers, fucking antlers when he mentioned the Underworld. It seems like a pretty big thing not mention but also, this guy hadn't said Hades. He'd said Ereuvir. And Quentin looks at him curiously. Pretty and dark-haired and looking like none of this bothers him all that much, and maybe it didn't. Maybe this was something a person got used to after a while.
"Nice to meet you? You're, uh, a submissive?" he nods at the black line and trying to ignore the rest of Ereuvir's outfit. "Is that-- are you--" he makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat and throws a hand towards the nearest booth. "Did they-- are you okay?"
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"I can assure you, I'm fine," there's a low purr to it and then he laughs, "They've put me a bit out of my usual sorts, this isn't my normal choice of clothing for a start, nor is this event something I would normally be particularly delighted to attend. But I was curious and, once I was here, it seemed a shame to leave without experiencing the event to the fullest." He looks over at one of the booths, where most of the people who have been pressed into service, as it were, are also bearing the same lines,
"Ah," he thinks he understands a bit more the nature of the question, "You learn to do what you can, to both help others and to protect yourself. But they have all the power here, regardless of your designation. It's not how I would have chosen to design hell," there's a slightly sharper curve to his mouth for a moment, "but it's certainly not paradise."
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"Protect yourself? From that-" he gestures at the next one to walk on stage, wearing some kind of VR headset while gentle hands lead them to center stage for all to see. "Or from the re-education we'll be forced in to if we don't-- if we should fail to preform?"
It's a hard pill to swallow, not just waking up to the whole medical scrub-down or the really fucking bizarre Orientation meeting. It's not even the huge apartment that is his for now or the fact that some people might, at one point in time, have liked a lot of the things being shown off here. It's the forced aspect of it, it's the lack of choices. And this was the lord of the Underworld? And he's still being subjected to this?
"No? Because this whole rapeoholics anonymous expo really seems like hell to me. There's really-- I don't see how this could possibly get worse? I think I saw a sexbot of my best friend in one of those booths? And--and I mean, I could buy it, but they could always just make more of her."
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"I didn't say it wasn't hell. Just not my hell of choice," there's a slight curve of a smile there, a clear bit of gallows humor. And then, perhaps a bit darker, "At least attendance isn't mandatory, yes?"
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He slouches further down in to the seat, the paper napkin a small pile of paper scraps on the table in front of him.
"What happened? When you tried to help?" If not reeducation, then what? Prison? Locked up in some dungeon. Because this place seemed like a place that would most certainly have a creepy dungeon somewhere. "It kind of is, though? Maybe not-- maybe not here, but we still have to. There's. There's still no choice in this, even if we get to do it in private. And-- and the contracts? And that line meaning you have even less of a choice than I do? That's just fucked up."
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Ereuvir's lips curl and a certain amount of fondness enters his tone,
"Free will, in the sense of being able to utterly choose one's own destiny and sail wherever you will, is a human concept. I make choices, of course, but in the long term, I cannot choose what I am or what I was made to do. Why should it bother me to be branded so here? I understand why it is disturbing to others, conceptually, but for me," he makes another one of those open handed shrugs, "It hardly matters. Besides..." there's something even warmer in his tone, suddenly, softer, the tone of a man not just in love but utterly besotted, "my contracted partner is someone I never would have met under other circumstances. I haven't always loved her, but she's always been easy to kneel for, when the city demands it."
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"But why can't you chose? Not here, obviously, but where you came from. Couldn't you just have said 'fuck it' and left?" Or maybe it's in unsaid and insidious stuff that gets to beings like the Lord of the Underworld. Other people's expectations and the web you make in your own head, as to why you couldn't, shouldn't leave. "So, it's possible to find someone who wouldn't, you know-" Quentin makes some sort of hand gesture, waving his hands around at the nearest booth," abuse the situation?"
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"And yes, in fact," he thinks about it for a moment, "I'm sure such contracts exist among LIERs but I haven't met anyone who was brought here who I would say is in an abusive pairing. It's by far the norm that these contracts are, at worst, mostly indifferent and for survival, but usually mutually beneficial." Again with the smile turning warmer, "My lady and I do seem to be unusual in the opposite direction, in that even in my long life, I have rarely found such a sense of partnership as with her. If we did not have to be contracted by the city, I imagine we would have formed other contracts by now. I gather that is fairly unusual in this place, for LIERs and the native citizens alike."
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"Pairing? You make it sound like it's about love and not just a way to get people out of the Down. Or to get them to do things they might not want to, to get out." Always such a positive outlook on life, and Quentin huffs in annoyance. "Well, I hope everyone here finds that and that this whole-- whatever the hell this is? That it just. I can't-- this place is just."
Quentin waves his hand a little helplessly. "It's crap and I don't know why-- why people even go along with it? But. I'm happy for you. That this isn't horrible for you."
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"This place is inconsistent at best and that is likely the kindest thing I can say about it. I enjoy playing games and I have found the ones offered here to be... interesting. It does, however, rankle me that those I care about are submitted to the same. Howwever, I acknowledge that I've little choice in the matter and, if I want to have any kind of a life here, some amount of compliance is necessary," he looks back over at the expo floor, "If you wish to exercise some of that free will not 'going along with it', you're certainly welcome to. Eventually they will stop being polite about your interference and they have enough power to subdue gods. You can take several guesses as to why people seem accepting, even if they are not."