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memesville2020-10-25 11:03 pm
robbies) wrote in memesville2020-10-25 11:03 pm
Entry tags:
TDM - OCTOBER 2020
TEST DRIVE MEME - OCTOBER 2020
Everyone's entitled to one good scare.
CW: Violence, death, mouth trauma, vomiting, needles, razors
“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 baseball 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 baseball outside of it carrying faintly, it all becomes very clear—
Something is horribly wrong.
OCTOBER 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, a cartoon pack of cigarettes and accompanying cigarette dancers prance around a black and white pumpkin patch, joined by dancing skeletons, ghosts and witches as a cheerful little earworm blares: ”Thirty days til Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, thirty days til Halloween—“ |
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. AUNT MYRNA'S PARTY CHEESE SALAD.Over the course of the week, your neighbors will come by unannounced, each with a new homecooked meal to welcome you to their cozy little side of town. Meatloaf, potato salad, lamb chops. Gelatin molds — lots of gelatin molds.Someone even comes by to drop off a gelatinous yellow lump of pineapple, green peppers, celery and yellow cheese swimming in a soupy mixture of sour and whipped cream. “It’s my aunt Myrna’s recipe!” they gush once they drop the casserole tin into your hands, proceeding to rattle off every ingredient. Well, at least you won’t be starving anytime soon. When you bring it back in to your kitchen - and its cheery wallpaper and its floral patterned Pyrex dishware, you and your new...family(?) all stare at the cheese salad, the gelatin, the curiously frosted meatloaf spread. A smorgasbord courtesy of the insistent generosity! Who will take the first bite? |
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B. DON'T BE A SQUARE!
You can only avoid the cheer and the neighbors for so long, even as you sit inside enjoying all the amenities of your new home. The television can only turn its volume up to five, after all! One bright and sunny Saturday, the weather crisp and clear, news broadcasts and reruns of The Ed Sullivan Show are drowned out by the music in the neighborhood. Eventually it’s too much to bear — you simply must put on your shoes and go discover the source of that infernal racket.Why, it’s the block party! Haven’t you seen the invitation — with instructions — sitting in your mailbox, silly? Wear a badge so everyone on the block can know you’re new and welcome you to their extended family!
Well! Each neighbor was supposed to set up a table with snacks and drinks and entertainment on their front lawn. Carter Mayhew, one of your Robbie neighbors, has a whole ring toss obstacle course set up for boys to play with, and his wife is cheerfully and blandly instructing a group of girls on jump rope rhymes. Colorful streamers hang from every lamppost and mailbox, balloons and party favors galore. Like you, there are even a few newcomers to Santa Rosita that are caught just as unaware of this event — though others are being welcomed in by husbands and wives and children, caught in conversations about building decks and the upcoming Halloween festivities.
Before you can decide if returning home or joining the party is your choice, a plate with chips and dips and yes, more gelatin is shoved into your hands and a party hat snapped on to your head.
“The guest of honor has arrived! Come and meet your neighbors, neighbor!”
THROUGHOUT OCTOBER.
|
Life falls into a peaceful haze for the next several days. Dull, unassuming, tranquil. As the month drags on, the spirit of Halloween begins to manifest in Santa Rosita, from the pumpkins people start putting out on their doorsteps to the smiling faces of paper skeletons pressed against their windows. And then, towards the end of the month, something terrible happens. You hear it first through word of mouth, rippling through Santa Rosita like a wave, dark murmurs accompanied by sad sighs and downturned eyes. Soon, you start to read about it. Grim business, they say. A tragedy. How could something like this happen. People stop talking about it by the end of the week. Best just to forget about it. Every day, that cigarette commercial comes on. It’s impossible to escape it. And every day, the number of days in the song changes, counting down. ”Thirteen days till Halloween—” “Eight more days til Halloween—” “Three more days til Halloween, Halloween, Halloween…” |
HALLOWEEN.
CW: Violence, death, mouth trauma, vomiting, needles, razors
|
October 31st. It sneaks up on you whether you like it or not. When dawn breaks on Halloween day, things are as serene as they’ve ever been as men do yard work, raking leaves as their wives bake fresh pie and cookies in the house, the spicy scent of cinnamon, apple and pumpkin wafting through the neighborhood on chilly October wind. There’s a smile on every child’s face as they skip off the school bus in the afternoon, running into their houses to get their costumes ready. As it begins to get dark, the residents of Santa Rosita start lighting their jack-o-lanterns. One by one, little balls of light flicker to life on every porch and doorstep, jagged smiles grinning in the dark. For the entire night, nobody blows the candle inside their pumpkins out. It’s a tradition, a very old one, and traditions are just another way of saying rules. And Halloween in Santa Rosita, as it turns out, lives and dies by the rules. |
A. ALWAYS CHECK YOUR CANDY.
Halloween isn’t just for the kids, although they certainly make up the bulk of who you’ll see out and about on the streets. Walking through Santa Rosita, your neighbors are as generous with handing out treats as they are with handing out gelatin molds and pot roasts, and they don’t discriminate. Adults are received just as warmly as children; the worst one can expect is a quirked eyebrow if they show up to a house without a costume.Apples, packs of gum, homemade cookies. Chocolate bars, nickels, popcorn balls. Your neighbors hand out all sorts of treats, most of them homemade. The Robbies are no exception, and it’s their treats that seem a bit more high quality than most, some of the candy they hand out being obviously expensive, brand names. The good stuff. They drop each treat into your bag with those same pleasant, mild expressions and too-tight smiles you’ve grown used to in your short time here.
Eventually, as everyone winds up doing at some point in the night, you decide to start digging into your treat bag to sample some of your well-earned goods — maybe in the comfort of your home, maybe outside on the streets. And that’s when the fun begins.
Maybe you bite into metal, the razor sharp end of a blade embedded into the apple or candy bar you’ve picked out burying itself in your gums, or splitting your tongue. Maybe it’s a needle, impaling itself straight through the roof of your mouth or a cheek. Or maybe it’s nothing that obvious. Maybe the realization that something is wrong comes moments after you’ve devoured that chocolate bar or cookie, the bitter aftertaste of rat poison hitting the back of your throat along with bile and the rest of the contents of your stomach as they rise up and out of your mouth.
Or maybe you’ll bite into plain, sweet chocolate or fresh fruit. That’s also part of the surprise. You really don’t know what you’ll get until you start eating.
B. ALWAYS RESPECT THE DEAD.
At ten o’clock, all the television sets in the neighborhood turn on, blaring to life right in the middle of that omnipresent cigarette commercial. The volume begins to rise of its own accord as your television starts to pick up interference, bursts of static squealing amidst the rising, screaming chorus of ”HAPPY HAPPY HALLOWEEN, HALLOWEEN, HALLOWEEN!”Breaking through the static, garbled and tinny, a child’s voice cries out.
“Can’t— I can’t hold them— back— Pumpkin— don’t blow the— out—”
And just as quickly as it cut in, the voice cuts back out. Commercial jingle notwithstanding, you’re alone once more. But not for long.
The doorbell rings. You can see them outside from your window: costumed children. Their masks and clothes are grimy and ragged from the muddy, slimy water they’ve been decomposing in for over a week. When they come to your door, squelching wetly as they shamble up the porch steps, they ring the bell or knock, as all polite children do. If you don’t let them in, they’ll find their own way, always by force. And once they find you, all they can gurgle in their reedy, waterlogged voices is, ”Trick or treat.”
From there, they attack.
With superhuman strength and speed, they tear and rip at anything they can get their hands on — clothing, skin, muscle, face, eyes. Being short and small, despite their strength, they're at a distinct disadvantage. They can even be thrown off, with some effort. But they don’t stay down for long, and attempting to hurt or mortally wound them only stalls them for a few moments, if that. How can you kill something that’s already dead?
Some in the neighborhood are willing to try and find out.
The only houses they seem to ignore completely are the ones with lit jack-o-lanterns still outside. They’ll loiter outside these houses, staring straight ahead at your door or window like they can see exactly where you are. But sooner or later, they’ll pass by and move onto the next house.
As long as the candles in carved pumpkins stay lit.
OOC INFO
Hello, and welcome to We're Still Here's first TDM! Here's a few things we'd like you to keep in mind:
The TDM is canon. You can treat this as the game's first real 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. Upon awakening from it, characters will find that time has jumped ahead to December 1st. You may also feel free to use similar reality and/or time distortions to explain why the family members your characters have in the TDM aren't the same as the ones they may be assigned to in the game proper.
If you would like to have Halloween content in your relaxed housing prompts, please feel free! You are not beholden to follow our prompts exactly so long as the spirit is maintained.
There is no Network prompt listed, but feel free to wildcard one for your characters anyway.
Although the TDM is canon in the sense that characters are free to remember its events when they app into the game, it does not count as an official plot heavy event, meaning that characters will not receive regains from participating in it.
With regards to the dead trick-or-treaters: you may NPC them however you'd like, but keep the details we've listed in their prompt in mind. They are supernaturally fast and strong, will ignore houses as long as they have a lit pumpkin on the porch outside, and will try to enter each house the moment the candle in the pumpkin goes out. Additionally, they can't be killed, but they can be momentarily stalled by injuring them. By November 1st, 6AM, they will disappear the moment the sun comes out.
The TDM is canon. You can treat this as the game's first real 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. Upon awakening from it, characters will find that time has jumped ahead to December 1st. You may also feel free to use similar reality and/or time distortions to explain why the family members your characters have in the TDM aren't the same as the ones they may be assigned to in the game proper.
If you would like to have Halloween content in your relaxed housing prompts, please feel free! You are not beholden to follow our prompts exactly so long as the spirit is maintained.
There is no Network prompt listed, but feel free to wildcard one for your characters anyway.
Although the TDM is canon in the sense that characters are free to remember its events when they app into the game, it does not count as an official plot heavy event, meaning that characters will not receive regains from participating in it.
With regards to the dead trick-or-treaters: you may NPC them however you'd like, but keep the details we've listed in their prompt in mind. They are supernaturally fast and strong, will ignore houses as long as they have a lit pumpkin on the porch outside, and will try to enter each house the moment the candle in the pumpkin goes out. Additionally, they can't be killed, but they can be momentarily stalled by injuring them. By November 1st, 6AM, they will disappear the moment the sun comes out.
october 1st
[ he's been watching dick van dyke on the couch since he's woken up, though watching was a relative term. maybe it was more like lost in his own thoughts while laura screamed "rob petrie, i want a divorce!" in the background to canned laughter. ]
It'll be important to remember that.
no subject
letting her hand fall to her side, selina turns away from the collage of photos hung on the wall and goes to take a seat on the arm of the sofa beside him. she's still got her hair in rollers, her nightgown all frilly and lacey and pink with slippers to match. ]
The kids are still asleep. Perhaps we should come up with some sort of game plan, here?
no subject
Don't worry. We have all our lives to make our own memories. As for whoever's upstairs, we'll explain the situation the best we can.
no subject
The only thing I'm worried about is whether or not someone's dosed you with something you haven't already built up an immunity to, because if you're naive enough to believe it's going to be that simple...
[ she's still pretty irritated with him and, let's be honest, talking about hypothetical futures when their lives are pretty up in the air at the moment is strike two, but now she's actually starting to worry. she moves from the arm of the sofa to sit down beside him, cupping his face between her hands so she can get a better look at him. ]
Are you all right? What's the last thing you remember before we woke up?
no subject
[ his expression is thoughtful, as the wheels perpetually turn in his head. ]
It's not Crane's fear toxin. We're both having the same dream, after all. Maybe Doctor Destiny, but there are more people here than just us. I don't know how I know that, but... hm... I do.
no subject
Well, I'm thrilled to hear you've developed some kind of omniscience abilities since last night. That's going to be real helpful. [ all sarcasm, none of that concern lessening. ] Remember all those chats we've had about how we're supposed to be partners and how that doesn't work when you fall back on old habits and get all stuck in your own head? I dunno, Bat, this might be a good time to put some of that in action.
no subject
[ he accepts the kiss gladly, his eyes locked with hers so long as she's close to him. he knows that of everything here, they might be the only real things he's seeing. ]
Just... trying to narrow down the possibilities. I'm all ears for suggestions.
no subject
[ she pulls away from him just enough to get a good look at their living room, the whole look of it almost too perfectly mid-century. there's a tray on the credenza by the door with a stack of envelopes sitting inside of it and selina makes her way across the room to sort through them, she tosses him one addressed to mr. & mrs. bruce wayne. ]
Figuring out where and when we are might be a good start.
no subject
[ and that's the thing that selina doesn't get. when they're together in gotham, it's so much simpler, but bruce has been privy to things that no one person ever should be. planets and universes, the space between all of them, horrors of the multiverse and the implications thereof. 'where' and 'when' sounded like easy questions, but they were, in fact, sometimes the most difficult of all to answer. ]
But if I can at least eliminate some of the possibilities, it'll draw us closer to the answer. I can at least tell you that we seem to be sometime in the nineteen sixties, located in a city in California that doesn't exist.
no subject
[ yeah, yeah, yeah. blah, blah, justice league, blah, blah. even in her limited experience, selina's aware that whatever they're up against here is a lot bigger and more complex than she's used to facing. this isn't even the first time she's woken up in some strange place.
she wonders briefly if it works the same way between lois and clark, if he pulls the same weird, almost condescending superhero bullshit with lois as bruce is trying to pull with her right now. she straightens the pile of envelopes and postcards in hand, placing them back in the tray. the staircase sits directly to the right of her. ]
I'm going to go get dressed before anyone else wakes up. You let me know once you've cracked the case, hmm?
[ and no invitation to join her or anything. womp, womp, womp. ]
no subject
he walks back upstairs and meets selina in the bedroom, brow knit lightly with thought. ]
I mentioned a girl crying for help. In my dream, before I woke up here. Did you have something similar?
no subject
Bruce, please--
[ she kicks her slippers off, shoving them underneath the bed. there's a dress already laid out on the bed for her to change into -- a dark blue with long sleeves, trimmed in white. she pulls the dress on easily and then sighs, turning around for him to help zip her up. ]
In my dream, it was Maggie, or... I thought it was Maggie. When we were just kids, when she was just a sweet little kitten. That's what my subconscious latched on to. I never actually saw anyone.
no subject
[ he's already there before she's done turning around, looking down at the curvature of her neck and shoulder. ]
I thought it was me, back when I fell into the cave as a child, but it wasn't. It made itself clearer only as I started to wake up. It sounded like a little girl.
no subject
selina watches him from the mirror, waiting for him to make some kind of move here or pull the zipper up. ]
You think there's any chance that the kids in the other rooms have anything to do with this, or do you think they're more like us, just trapped here?
no subject
[ he zips her up and gives her a peck on her neck before sitting on the bed. he removes his pajama shirt, supposing he should get dressed as well. lucky for him, suits are suits. except maybe in the 70s. ]
I feel like I've done this before. Woken up with other people, spoken to other children. A sense of deja vu I can't quite shake. If any of it means anything, then I think they're likely just like us.
no subject
[ she doesn't have that same déjà vu feeling, just a feeling of displacement; she should be at home right now with maggie and the kids and the cats. she should be in her own bedroom, putting on her own clothing. selina lingers over by the mirror a little while longer, still examining herself in its reflection. she moves in a little closer and begins removing the curlers from her hair, one at a time, so she can assess the situation and attempt to make something out of a head full of ringlet curls. ]
If they're just like us-- that's better, right? [ she works her fingers through her hair, loosening the curls. ] I can only imagine that we're being watched or listened to, but it's better not to have to worry about them. Better that we're all on the same page.
no subject
[ he sighs first before standing to move over to the closet. if there's any comfort at all in this, it looks kind of like his closet back home? at least, there's a line of various monochromatic suits waiting for him. he doesn't consider the variety at all before picking one at random and setting it across the bed. ]
I also think that girl from our dream is our only lead, whoever she is.
no subject
[ and besides, as long as these ones don't depend on her to, y'know, live, it'll be fine.
it takes some practice to brush out the curls and get her hair to cooperate with her, there's a reason why she only ever did wigs back in the day. she'll have to rummage through the bathroom to find a few pins and spray a whole shit ton of aqua net on it to get it to sit just right, but she can look the part easily enough. selina might be out of her depth here, but blending in and keeping your head down is instinct for her, at least until she can suss out some answers. ]
I'm assuming this doesn't match anyone's MO closely enough to ping anything, but think real hard on this one: does any of this seem even a little familiar?
no subject
[ he slips the soft silk of the dress shirt over his shoulders with a sigh, lifting the collar. ]
No. This, in a lot of ways, doesn't even seem to be trying to convince us it's real. It seems to me like the intention is to let us all know that regardless of how we feel about this situation, we're playing by it's rules.
no subject
[ there's a hint of distraction in her voice as she goes back to posing in the mirror, really taking in the whole look. she supports her chest with both hands and, if bruce happens to look over her direction, he might catch her just full-on groping herself 'cause these bad boys could take out a fuckin' eye if she's not careful. (the amount of restraint here to not just start making laser gun noises. god.)
ahem.
her expression takes on something a bit more serious, her hands running down the front of her dress to smooth it. no longer feeling herself up, she turns back to bruce over by the closet, just watching him do his thing for a little while. she's still kind of irritated with him, but y'know, he's not terrible to look at. ]
So. What's the plan, then? We just wait until whomever is behind this reveals themselves or some kind of intention here?
no subject
[ he pushes the knot of his tie up towards his throat and pulls the floral pinch pleat curtains aside to stare out towards the neighbor's backyard suspiciously. ]
I doubt we'll get much information from the neighbors, but maybe the library. Old newspaper records, history of the town, blueprints of the city. Anything where we might find something suspicious.
no subject
she joins him by the window if only because it's on her way to the bathroom, stretching up onto her toes as she leans against him and rests her chin against his shoulder to get a better look outside. it all seems perfectly normal, sure, but she can't help but wonder if he was right. how many people in this town are just like them, plucked from their own lives and brought here? she brings an arm around him, holding him just a little closer. at least they've got each other. ]
Leave the microfilm and blueprints to me. I can only imagine you'll be expected to be the breadwinner here, it'll give me something to do in between all that housework and cooking I'm not going to be doing. [ she turns to press a kiss to his cheek, pulling away from him to head into the bathroom to finish getting ready. ] And not that one, Bat. I like the tie with the stripes.
[ y'know, 'cause he totally wanted her opinion. ]