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memesville2021-03-10 05:07 pm
robbies) wrote in memesville2021-03-10 05:07 pm
Entry tags:
TDM - MARCH/APRIL 2021
TEST DRIVE MEME - MARCH/APRIL 2021
It's the day the devil in us gets released.
“Help me. Please, help me…”
A child’s voice, calling out for aid. There’s no rhyme or reason for when it comes to you. It’s so quiet, a whisper in the deepest, darkest corners of your mind. Were it not for the sharp, stabbing pain it pulls out of you, you could ignore it. You could even pretend it’s just your imagination.
It all happens so quickly and powerfully. Left in the dust, your brain struggles to process it all. Blacking out is the least it can do, but it’s also all it can do, and it does so before you even have a chance to fully register just how young the voice is, and how deeply, heartbreakingly lost it sounds.
When you finally awaken with your bare feet tangled in soft sheets, a layer of fuzzy fleece or slinky silk clinging to your body like another layer of skin, the sunlight pouring in from the window next to your bed momentarily blinding you, and the cries of happy children playing outside of it carrying faintly, it all becomes very clear—
Something is horribly wrong.
A child’s voice, calling out for aid. There’s no rhyme or reason for when it comes to you. It’s so quiet, a whisper in the deepest, darkest corners of your mind. Were it not for the sharp, stabbing pain it pulls out of you, you could ignore it. You could even pretend it’s just your imagination.
It all happens so quickly and powerfully. Left in the dust, your brain struggles to process it all. Blacking out is the least it can do, but it’s also all it can do, and it does so before you even have a chance to fully register just how young the voice is, and how deeply, heartbreakingly lost it sounds.
When you finally awaken with your bare feet tangled in soft sheets, a layer of fuzzy fleece or slinky silk clinging to your body like another layer of skin, the sunlight pouring in from the window next to your bed momentarily blinding you, and the cries of happy children playing outside of it carrying faintly, it all becomes very clear—
Something is horribly wrong.
MARCH 1st.
 |
It becomes very clear very quickly that this isn’t a simple kidnapping.
By the time you make it down to the living room, you’ll notice that the television is on; someone must have forgotten to turn it off before they went to bed. On it, the morning news is playing. “With their charity luncheon a rousing success, the Happy Home Association later donated all of their proceeds to the Santa Rosita Planning Commission. Debra, a member of the HHA, said the amount they donated more than ensures that 1961 will be an eventful year for us here in our fair town…” |
GETTING TO KNOW THE NEIGHBORS.
| As you get acclimated, you gradually begin to learn more about this strange new world you’ve found yourself in. You’re in a neighborhood on the east side of a town called Santa Rosita located… somewhere in California (wherever or whatever that might be). The year is 1961. If it wasn’t clear enough, your neighbors are more than willing to humor you if you ask. Even if you accost them with questions and demands. Sure, you and your family are a little kooky, and you have a very overactive imagination, but the key to any good joke is playing along! And how could something like “I’m from the future, from another world” be anything but a joke? A. DRINK UP.With March incoming, spring is in the air and everybody seems to be excited to get out of their house and enjoy the good weather. Birds are chirping, the sun is shining, and guys and gals alike are out to take a brisk walk and socialize! Wanting to make sure you’re feeling truly welcome to the town, whether you’re brand new or went through such a wild winter with them, your neighbors will be on their way with gifts aplenty. Delicacies such as tomato aspic and potato salad and bologna cake will ensure that your fridge is full to bursting, and no matter how you try to demur, they’re insistent that you accept their offerings.March also brings with it St. Patrick’s Day, and some of your neighbors are feeling festive! A knock at the door, and you’ll find yourself confronted with a plate full of 7-Up Cheese Aspic, wiggling and bright. “I saw this recipe and just knew I had to try it!” the beaming cook says, pushing it into your hands. “And with St. Patrick’s Day coming up, we should all be getting in the spirit, right?” The combination of cheese cubes, raw onions, and green olives in a mixture of lime jello and fizzy 7-Up might be a bit off-putting to some. But you never know until you try! Go on, give it a whirl! |
 |
B. SPRING CLEANING.
It’s a beautiful, picturesque Saturday in the neighborhood—the sun rising, banishing the dark shadows of night, the birds beginning to peep and tweet, the morning dew sparkling on the grass…“Morning, neighbor!”
“Hello, pal!”
“Time to brush off the cobwebs, huh, fellows?”
“You said it!”
And as one, several lawn mowers come to life with a synchronized roar, breaking the peace of your quiet Saturday morning.
All over the neighborhood, windows are being thrown wide and the mops and brooms, hedge clippers and lawn mowers, gardening and carpentry tools alike are being brought out as the townsfolk set to combing every inch of their house and yard (and in Mr. Martin’s case, literally!) to bring it to order after a long winter. Everybody has a job, from the oldest old man to the youngest child, and everybody’s pitching in to do their part and ensure Santa Rosita enjoys another beautiful year.
And don’t think they’ll leave you, their new neighbor and best friend, out of the picture! You might emerge from your house one day to pick up the paper and find there’s a Robbie in your front yard, whistling cheerfully as he prunes your front hedges. One of your neighbors might make a cracking joke about how they can’t have you feeling left out as he rolls his lawn mower into your yard, or you might receive some new gifts in the form of seedlings and sprouts all ready to be hardened off and planted (you do know what that means and how to do it, don’t you?). Careful—if you let that salt linger too long on your car, one of the well-meaning neighbor kids might take some initiative and wash it for you! Watch out—first they’ll come for you with the hose for a laugh, but then they’ll come for your wallet when they beam and hint that, “Oh, it was nothing… I was happy to do it…”
HAPPY FAMILIES.
 |
It becomes very clear very quickly that this isn’t a simple kidnapping… Hey, hold on a second—haven’t we been through this already? When your eyes open to the sound of your alarm, there’s something pinging at the back of your mind—you might not be able to place what it is right away, but something’s wrong. Maybe it’s the feeling of your pajamas, or maybe the sheets are a slightly greener shade of blue, or maybe your alarm is a tiny bit shriller than it usually is… but whatever it is, it’s got all your senses on alert. Getting up and out of bed, it may become immediately obvious—or maybe not, if your “spouse” has already woken up and gone downstairs for the day. But sooner or later, you’ll find that your loving family is no longer your loving family. Something weird is going on with Santa Rosita, and whatever force brought you here seems to be on the fritz. Your “family” can change by the day—you might go to bed in your home on Mockingbird Lane and wake up in an entirely new family on Loomis Drive. Curiously, your belongings seem to travel with you… most of the time. Sometimes they’ll be lost in transit, and that lovely little black dress you bought at Honeybee’s has somehow ended up in one of your neighbors’ closets. Hopefully you’re on good terms with your neighbors so that you can get your stuff back! Your neighbors seem entirely nonplussed by the frequent swapping of households. Ask any of them and they’ll say you’ve always lived there, that your son has always been your son, and you’ve never had a daughter, silly! As all the photos in your house seem to change along with them, it’ll be hard to find anything that might prove them wrong. |
TOPSY-TURVY.
While your families are constantly shifting, that doesn’t seem to be the only thing going sideways. The entire city of Santa Rosita seems to be in a state of flux—days might go from mild at dawn to scorching by noon and back to December snow by dusk. Winds howl in single gusts before dying down, and rain falls such that you can stand on one side of the curtain of rain and stay dry while you stick your hand into the deluge two feet away.
Doors in your home cannot be trusted; similar to December, it’s possible for them to open up to entirely different locations. However, unlike December, the doors don’t all lead to a singular place—where they’ll lead at any given moment is anyone’s guess! You might find yourself on the other side of town, back at the site of the now-gone Christmas village, or even in one of your neighbors’ houses. Maybe you can use your bedroom for a quick commute to work or school if you get lucky or are persistent enough? Curiously, locations like city hall and the police department never pop up when you find somewhere new on the other side of your door; neither will NPC households.
As if that wasn’t enough, ghosts and goblins seem to appear and disappear with the changing of the hour. Paranormal activity of all types run rampant, ranging from innocuous to intense. You may return home to find that everything in your kitchen has been shifted by two inches… or you may wake up to find your dresser floating midair and coming back down to the ground with a resounding crash! Ghosts appear, dressed in any style and fashion up through those of 1961 (or sometimes, strangely, in clothing that’s odd and futuristic for Santa Rosita’s quaint streets), and it might be possible to find other mythical creatures around the town from time to time, though the storybook unicorns and witches seem to disappear whenever you get too close. Further, there’s something that seems to have taken up residence under your bed, though it’s never there when you try to look or catch it. But how else do you explain its cold, withered, knobbly fingers as they lock around your ankle if your leg hangs off the bed at night? Its sharp nails scratching at your heels as it tries to grab you when you get out of bed in the middle of the night? The sound of breathing that fills your room at night and the faint clammy breath on your face in the instant before you open your eyes?
Wandering packs of zombie children may show up in your neighborhoods in the night—surely you’ve stocked up on pumpkins to make a new jack-o’-lantern, right? Doppelgangers and ferthurs appear and disappear in shifts; you may be looking out the window when it happens: A slight shift in the air, almost like a video ripping, and they’re gone, transported back to wherever they came from. Maybe they were chasing you when they disappeared; you might turn around to find that nothing is there (was it ever?).
Still other are the mysterious figures you might see around town. You’ll find that no matter how often you see them, you’ll never be able to describe them to someone else; the words will escape you every time. Are they short? Tall? Stout? Petite? Dark hair? Light hair? Smiling? Frowning? Nobody who sees them can agree, but one thing is for sure: They’re watching you, and they’ll appear at random, whether that’s standing in your corner watching you sleep or trailing after you through the grocer’s. None of the NPCs will notice these figures, though they do seem to give them a wide berth if possible—almost like they can unconsciously sense the prospect of danger.
The only respite from the chaos seems to be that not everything happens at once, and at other times of the month the city is downright peaceful. There’s no reason or rhyme to the starts and stops of the monsters, the figures, the doors or the weather; check the almanacs and mark the night skies (when it isn’t hidden behind snowfall or turbulent clouds), but try as you might, you won’t be able to find a pattern.
All you can do is hope that this passes quickly.
Doors in your home cannot be trusted; similar to December, it’s possible for them to open up to entirely different locations. However, unlike December, the doors don’t all lead to a singular place—where they’ll lead at any given moment is anyone’s guess! You might find yourself on the other side of town, back at the site of the now-gone Christmas village, or even in one of your neighbors’ houses. Maybe you can use your bedroom for a quick commute to work or school if you get lucky or are persistent enough? Curiously, locations like city hall and the police department never pop up when you find somewhere new on the other side of your door; neither will NPC households.
As if that wasn’t enough, ghosts and goblins seem to appear and disappear with the changing of the hour. Paranormal activity of all types run rampant, ranging from innocuous to intense. You may return home to find that everything in your kitchen has been shifted by two inches… or you may wake up to find your dresser floating midair and coming back down to the ground with a resounding crash! Ghosts appear, dressed in any style and fashion up through those of 1961 (or sometimes, strangely, in clothing that’s odd and futuristic for Santa Rosita’s quaint streets), and it might be possible to find other mythical creatures around the town from time to time, though the storybook unicorns and witches seem to disappear whenever you get too close. Further, there’s something that seems to have taken up residence under your bed, though it’s never there when you try to look or catch it. But how else do you explain its cold, withered, knobbly fingers as they lock around your ankle if your leg hangs off the bed at night? Its sharp nails scratching at your heels as it tries to grab you when you get out of bed in the middle of the night? The sound of breathing that fills your room at night and the faint clammy breath on your face in the instant before you open your eyes?
Wandering packs of zombie children may show up in your neighborhoods in the night—surely you’ve stocked up on pumpkins to make a new jack-o’-lantern, right? Doppelgangers and ferthurs appear and disappear in shifts; you may be looking out the window when it happens: A slight shift in the air, almost like a video ripping, and they’re gone, transported back to wherever they came from. Maybe they were chasing you when they disappeared; you might turn around to find that nothing is there (was it ever?).
Still other are the mysterious figures you might see around town. You’ll find that no matter how often you see them, you’ll never be able to describe them to someone else; the words will escape you every time. Are they short? Tall? Stout? Petite? Dark hair? Light hair? Smiling? Frowning? Nobody who sees them can agree, but one thing is for sure: They’re watching you, and they’ll appear at random, whether that’s standing in your corner watching you sleep or trailing after you through the grocer’s. None of the NPCs will notice these figures, though they do seem to give them a wide berth if possible—almost like they can unconsciously sense the prospect of danger.
The only respite from the chaos seems to be that not everything happens at once, and at other times of the month the city is downright peaceful. There’s no reason or rhyme to the starts and stops of the monsters, the figures, the doors or the weather; check the almanacs and mark the night skies (when it isn’t hidden behind snowfall or turbulent clouds), but try as you might, you won’t be able to find a pattern.
All you can do is hope that this passes quickly.
OOC INFO
Hello, and welcome to We're Still Here's third TDM! Here's a few things we'd like you to keep in mind:
We’re Still Here is taking a short pause for the months of March and April. This TDM will span both months and we encourage everybody to tag out, tag in, backtag, and start new threads as you please! Apps will reopen in May.
The TDM is canon. You can treat this as a real game-wide event and pick and choose what threads you would like your character to remember when they enter the game. For characters who app into the game, the events of the TDM will be treated like a dream.
Please note that there is a lot going on in this TDM — this is intentional! We wanted to give you, the players, a full world and event to play with that could last beyond the usual event or TDM cycle. You may cherry-pick from the above prompts as you please and take reasonable liberties as you would like; if you have any questions, you may use the mod top-level below to ask them.
For current players, the Housing page has been updated with new assignments! These assignments are temporary and will be subject to shuffling once more at the end of the pause. As detailed in the above prompts, you may play with shifting housing as often as you would please; for those of you who do not want to make use of this prompt, the new Housing assignments are there for your convenience.
There is no Network prompt listed, but feel free to wildcard one for your characters anyway.
Please be sure to label any threads with relevant content warnings as necessary. Any questions for the mods can be asked in the mod top-level below (please note that due to the pause, these questions may be answered more slowly than normal!). For new and prospective players, please make use of the Prospective Rolodex!
We’re Still Here is taking a short pause for the months of March and April. This TDM will span both months and we encourage everybody to tag out, tag in, backtag, and start new threads as you please! Apps will reopen in May.
The TDM is canon. You can treat this as a real game-wide event and pick and choose what threads you would like your character to remember when they enter the game. For characters who app into the game, the events of the TDM will be treated like a dream.
Please note that there is a lot going on in this TDM — this is intentional! We wanted to give you, the players, a full world and event to play with that could last beyond the usual event or TDM cycle. You may cherry-pick from the above prompts as you please and take reasonable liberties as you would like; if you have any questions, you may use the mod top-level below to ask them.
For current players, the Housing page has been updated with new assignments! These assignments are temporary and will be subject to shuffling once more at the end of the pause. As detailed in the above prompts, you may play with shifting housing as often as you would please; for those of you who do not want to make use of this prompt, the new Housing assignments are there for your convenience.
There is no Network prompt listed, but feel free to wildcard one for your characters anyway.
Please be sure to label any threads with relevant content warnings as necessary. Any questions for the mods can be asked in the mod top-level below (please note that due to the pause, these questions may be answered more slowly than normal!). For new and prospective players, please make use of the Prospective Rolodex!
happy families
You always introduce yourself like that? Nice to meet you too.
[If this were a normal place, there'd be more than one way to interpret his question-- for instance, the normal thing to assume would be that this is his house and he wants to know why she's snooping around in the kitchen. But the only people that Lauren has come across here who think anything is at all unusual are the ones like herself-- the ones who aren't supposed to be here in the first place. Or so she gathers.]
Is this your first time waking up here? Not here in this house, anywhere in this town.
no subject
Scarcely had I begun to consider tolerating one family of strangers and now I’ve woken up with another in all my—- [No, not his.] All of these goddamn picture frames.
[It is decidedly not nice to meet anyone here.]
I’ve been here a week by my estimation if that’s even possible.
[Longest. Nightmare. Ever.]
no subject
This is the third house I've woken up in since I was brought here. [She says it calmly, matter-of-factly, and surprisingly not sarcastic-- it's just that there's a slight stress on 'was brought here.' I'm in the same boat as you.] If it's happening because of something we did, I don't know about it.
["sorry for inconveniencing you by making you tolerate me."]
You want to keep blaming me for it, or do you want to focus on whoever's doing this to us?
no subject
[He inwardly counts to five and decides to settle the fuck down a little.]
How long have you been here?
no subject
About as long as you have. I guess I'm just unlucky in terms of housing.
[She moves onto the next cabinet (so many dishes.)] I'm Lauren.
no subject
[He considers not introducing himself. He hates introducing himself. No saving “Barrington Whelk” really, but at least here (he assumes - hopes?) his last name doesn’t have the same connotations as it does in Henrietta. If his father exists in this universe he may just kill himself.]
Whelk. Lovely thought they’d give one no time to adjust. [Whoever “they” is.]
What are you looking for?
no subject
Anything that got left behind, if there were people living here before us. ["Anything" clearly excluding the things that are meant to be there.] Some people don't think of the good hiding places. I had a neighbor who kept all her cash in a mixing bowl at the top of her cabinet. [She snorts, even as she still feels a little sorry for poor old Mrs. Simms. But imagine storing all your eggs in one basket like that. One conveniently accessible basket.]
my brother in law's name is Christmas lmao
['When did this become my life?' he used to think. When did this become his life?]
People like us, or people like...[He makes a face.] Them. Whoever. The...neighbors whose lawn mowers all start at the same time.
[Creepy, thinks the man who literally committed ritual sacrifice at the tender age of seventeen. But really, it's creepy. How do they coordinate that?]
UNFORTUNATE.
In any case, Lauren is typically extremely perceptive about other people's reactions-- part and parcel of being a sharer, she thinks, some side effect of unconsciously latching onto people's microexpressions to soak up their pain-- but she's busy sifting through a bag of flour with a fork, and hasn't noticed yet that her hyperempathy is gone besides. All she hears is the discomfort in his voice that could come from anything-- synchronized lawn mowers, or being kidnapped in another world. That sort of thing.]
Not here, back home. Back where everyone's a real person. [Not that she knows if the others aren't, but whatever they are... he's right to draw that distinction between 'us' and 'them.'] And would react to things like waking up in a different house from yesterday, or a 'family' consisting of a white man and a Black girl for that matter.
no subject
A "family" consisting of two people who have never met no less. [His lips quirk in a lopsided frown.] I wonder then - perhaps you've wondered too - if what you call "home" and what I call "home" are two different places.
I've seen at least one person here from the middle ages, believe it or not. [He feels stupid immediately after saying that. Of course she can probably believe that. There's no reason not to given the circumstances.] You take my meaning.
no subject
(Lauren would think of aliens, sentient life from other planets, before she'd think of parallel universes. Personal biases.)
She looks over her shoulder to glance at Whelk more fully-- trying to image him fitting somewhere in the world she knew.] Yeah. I can believe it.
[It doesn't sound particularly pointed; she could just be agreeing with him. But Whelk's been judged, and he's been judged lacking. If he is from anywhere like her home, it would have to be... a company town, maybe. Somewhere where there are other people to keep him safe so he thinks it's worth his time complaining about the little things.]
I'm from a suburb of Los Angeles, November of 2025. Farther from home than I've ever been, in multiple senses of the word.
ding ding ding you've unlocked whelk's first of many latin uses ding ding ding
Henrietta, Virginia, April of 2012. And quite the same.
[There's a conscious effort not to narrow his eyes at her that he might fail, but it's only because he gets the sense he's being scrutinized - or maybe he's the one scrutinizing, but he doesn't think anyone could blame him for that.]
How strange is something of this nature then, given when and where you come from? It isn't so terribly far in the future. [But something makes her feel very foreign somehow.
[Is it instinct or wishful thinking that no one else from his time and place should ever arrive here?]
My home isn't...a stranger to the supernatural, per se.
I had to reread this tag 3 times before I realized where the latin was lmao
What do you mean? You're familiar with this sort of thing?
no subject
[It dawns on him a little too late that it might have been a bad idea to bring this up. Sacrificial murder doesn’t have to be on the table for discussion just because the supernatural is though. He’d experienced plenty of other things in his youth as well.
[But no, nothing quite this intense. Not much at all in comparison, really.]
Only small things. [He sounds a little frustrated at his own comment.] The paranormal. Energy, or...spirits maybe. [His voice trails off a little, seemingly in thought, but really it’s due to some annoying whispers filling his ears.
[He wonders how whatever it is that causes them managed to follow him here. And then he wonders if “here” has anything to do with the line.
[Then he sighs and says.] My life was largely average. Boring.
But I saw some things.
no subject
[Her sharing, for instance, has a perfectly logical explanation: she's crazy. Fully psychosomatic, even if it's also truly crippling. Her personal theology too-- all based off of things she observed, not some supernatural protector.]
You know more about what could be happening here than I do.
no subject
[Is it safe here to share secrets that he wouldn't back home? Not all, certainly. But perhaps some.
[All the time this line of thinking takes shows in his hesitation. The whispers, of course, are not helpful in keeping a straight head, but he is quite practiced at ignoring them when the situation calls for it (as it so often does). When he speaks again, it's slow, careful.]
I should assert again that I've haven't the slightest idea how the two could be related, but there is...a phenomenon I studied. [Studied momentarily feels like a generous word, but the more he thinks about it, it's true. So much of his free time as a teenager was spent pouring over this research.]
It's called a ley line. Paths of supernatural energy that crisscross all over the world - all over the world.
Their convergences are powerful. And there's one near my town. [Somewhere. He'd never been able to find it.] Perhaps one near yours too. Or anyone's that's here.
Any number of things can happen when a ley line is awakened.
That's the best I can think based on my experiences.
no subject
Could there be one here? [Could it be like the old subways, back when people would spend the electricity required to transport strangers together? They've all slipped into their own little magic subway stations and got pulled along to... elsewhere? Or is it the sort of thing one could feel, if they knew to recognize it?] If there's one by my town, I don't know about it. [Which is maybe a good thing, since it stops other people from utilizing it too. Or is that part of the reason the whole world went crazy?]
no subject
I wouldn't be surprised if there was one, actually. The entire town could be a convergence, perhaps linked to those back in the real world. [The "real" world sounds rather a discomfiting thing to acknowledge out loud, and he frowns a bit at it, but quickly moves on.]
Some research says that ley lines mess with the circularity of time as well. I've mostly heard it in the context of voices - hearing those from the past or future when you're nearing the line.
But it's possible - perhaps probable - that an awakened line can...significantly increase those effects. [His mind goes to the vast array of mysterious disappearances around the world that have never been explained. Can the energy emitted through a ley line transport people across time? Dimensions?
[Whelk all at once seems and feels more awake - more alive - than he usually does. Normally talk of ley lines - thoughts of ley lines - usher in a roar of voices and flashes of memories that already torture him during his sleeping hours. The whispers come now, but not the flashes. And he feels young again for a moment.
[This sort of thing could almost become exciting if he could actually get somewhere with it.]
It's worth looking into. Certainly worth looking into.