TDM - OCTOBER 2020

[robbies]

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.

---

OCTOBER 1st.

It becomes very clear very quickly that this isn’t a simple kidnapping. If you’re twenty years old or older, the bedroom you wake up in is very clearly a couple’s bedroom — with separate beds like a modest, modern couple of course! A similarly lost and confused stranger is in the other. They are your counterpart, for everything in this room has a matching counterpart — the nightstand and lamp each of you have beside your beds, the framed pictures on the wall, even your pajamas. If you’re under twenty years old, your room is smaller but more personalized, filled with comic books, model kits, stray baseball cards littered around the floor. Dolls, fashion magazines of people dressed from a bygone era, stacks of vinyl records neatly arranged next to a record player. And then there are the pictures. They’re everywhere in the house — in a frame on your nightstand, hung on the walls, stuck in the photo albums and scrapbooks lying on your desk or tucked away in drawers. Here you are on your wedding day, exchanging vows with your partner. Here’s you sitting in a fishing boat with one of the younger members of your house. Here’s a picture of you at ten years old getting ready for the first day of school. All of the photographs are aged, sepia, even yellowed and dusty in frames hung for a long, long time. 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?

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.

---

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Comments

rufus shinra ( final fantasy vii )

[corporative]

01: ARRIVAL.

[Waking up somewhere strange, somewhere unexpected, wasn’t exactly on the docket. From the wide-windowed expanse of an executive office to a cozy couple’s bedroom (with a dream wedged in-between), the transition itself is nothing short of jarring — the kind of jarring that feels like ice in his veins when he opens his eyes, the slow heralding of panic that Rufus can keep tamped down in the next moment, sitting up to orient himself in a situation impossible to parse. Fingers tighten into the bedsheets, pulling up wrinkles around his hands, his whole frame tightening as though a spring coiled, ready to face whatever threat is surely looming nearby.

But it’s— nothing, really. An empty bedroom, a pair of nightstands and a lamp for each. Quaint, kitschy, maybe a little eerie without context, but no great danger ready to leap at his throat, or send a knife prying into his back. An assortment of picture frames on one nightstand draws his eye, and Rufus stands as if pulled forward by the bright faces smiling wide through the glass; but he pauses when another awareness hits, the realization that he’s not alone, another form still asleep — or waking up! — on the bed opposite of his.]

Well, then.

[The frown etched across his face twists into a thin smile, almost-patronizing, but it’s the usual facade that greets a stranger, another variable he doesn’t know how to approach. Well, maybe that isn’t exactly true: Rufus knows exactly how to approach, and that’s with a—]

Rise and shine. [A forward step, and then a hard lean with his hands into the side of the bed, skewing the mattress with his force without flat-out doing something as childish as shaking the bemdframe.] You know what they say about the early bird.

[Wake! Up!]

02: AUNT MYRNA'S PARTY CHEESE SALAD.

[What a fine assortment of individuals to make up his fake new family. What a fine feast to greet them with, too, full of wobbly gelatin molds of various colors and unfortunate see-through shapes. Rufus stands at the head of the dining room table, arms crossed, taking in the sight — the food was so nigh overflowing that there isn’t enough room on the kitchen counters — left to wonder if this was supposed this trite, this laughable. Luridly picturesque. Are they supposed to play the part of a perfect family unit? Now that would certainly be something of an act, wouldn’t it?]

Think of it like a test of courage. [A sweep of his hand to indicate the feast spread out amongst them, so much food — and more than just the wiggly kind; meat and veggies, steaming warm and scintillating to any with an empty stomach. He smiles, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.] First one to take a bite of anything here wins bragging rights. Throw in an introduction regarding who you are and what you make of all of this? Even better.

[The truth of the matter is this: he isn’t taking the first bite. Hunger can gnaw at him for a week, but unless he makes certain they’re not keeling over first from poisoned food of questionable origin, then sorry. Someone else can take the plunge.]

You first. [Yes, he’s looking at you.] The green one looks especially... interesting.

03: ALWAYS RESPECT THE DEAD.

[Anyone with a pair of working eyes can see the difference, just peering out a window with the blinds drawn up: the houses with a stalwart jack-o-lantern lit on their porches, blazing bright, are immune from the undead children that go from door-to-door, likely bringing nothing good in their wake. And they’ve been fortunate that one’s been set out on their own porch, keeping this particular household free of any decomposing visitors.

However—because there’s always a ‘however’—Rufus can see, gazing out through the window, the state of their smiling pumpkin just beyond. Either the wick of the candle within’s been eaten down to wax, or a stiff breeze has blown in through the eye-holes, but either way, the light looks dim. Flickers on occasion, flirting with going out entirely. The children shuffling just across the street pause, twist their bodies in their house’s direction, as though waiting for the inevitable.]

Can’t have that, can we?

[Risk assessment is an easy thing when the worst-case scenario is having one’s face ripped off by an undead kid. Rufus turns to housemate nearby:]

Go grab a candle. [He’s already got a lighter in his pocket, stolen from a drawer elsewhere.] You’re coming with me outside.

WILDCARD.

(( hit me with whatever you like! anyone can be a family member for any of these prompts, too!))

( prompt: always respect the dead. )

[thricefold]

Right.

[ to zita's credit, she's quick to act: she hurries into the kitchen, rummaging through drawers and cabinates until she finds the pack of candles they had used for the pumpkin earlier.

she returns with a candle in one hand, alone with a fistful of newspaper in case they need extra kindle to encourage the fire. not only that but she's bringing a weapon with her, in case they need to defend theselves. while a frying pan isn't much, when one thinks about it, it's better than nothing. ]

Do you want to handle candle duties? I can watch your back while you do so.

[corporative]

Looks to me like you’ve ready to give them a fight, so why not?

[Already prepared, already wielding a frying pan in-hand, with a candle and a clutch of newspaper in the other. Rufus won’t criticize creativity in the heat of the moment; he’s sure cookware can bash a zombie-kid’s skull in with enough determination, after all.

He holds out a hand, palm-up for the candle and newspaper—]

Let me take that off your hands.

[And then, afterwards, another moment to peer at the window.]

I don’t think I need to reiterate that we need to be quick about it — even so, looks like they’re eying our dying pumpkin outside, so they might be quicker on their feet when they see us open the door.

[He glances at her sidelong, eyebrow lifting.]

Don’t want you freezing up.

[thricefold]

[ she hands over the materials to him while her face scrunches up at the reminder that they could get jumped the second they step out of the porch. the idea of being rushed will never fail to put her on edge but if it comes down to that then alright.

zita takes a deep breath and nods, steeling her expression and getting a better grip on the frying pan so it doesn't fly out of her hand in mid-swing. ] Don't worry. I won't let that happen.

I've learned from my mistakes to never do that again.

[ looking out the window, she hisses a bit to see the flame in the pumpkin beginning to flicker even more.

it's now or never. ] On the count of three?

2

[oldmanfive]

[The only thing Five is interested in is the cup of coffee he is holding in his hand. This he can trust, since he actually made it, unlike the rest of the shit that is crowding the table and counters. He looks up at Rufus with the driest of expressions, because he is reminding him too much of his actual father and he hates his actual father. ]

I'm not eating any of this shit. I'll stick with the coffee.

[ He takes another sip to prove his point. He had enough of Jell-O molds from the time he spent at Elliot's place. He wasn't about to start indulging in them now, especially not when they are being shoved at them by the Stepford Wives. ]

[corporative]

[Well, this kid’s got a mouth on him. Rufus is unfortunately oblivious to the father comparison, else he’d have laughed at the missed opportunity for irony regarding his own — so, really, the only other option is to grin and act even more Rufus Shinra-like.]

You can’t live off of coffee forever, you know. What’s wrong, the neighbor’s gelatin not look at all enticing to you?

[The answer is a blatant “no” all around, and applies to Rufus as well.]

If they were hoping to kill us, there might have been easier ways to go about it.

[Note how he is pointedly not going to eat, despite this.]

[oldmanfive]

You'd be surprised how long I can go with actually eating.

[ He's not even joking, considering he spent over forty years scavenging and surviving on his own in a post apocalyptic wasteland. He gives Rufus a flat stare at that question. Haha very funny. ]

Gelatin molds are inventions of the devil. Let's take one gross food and stuff it with more gross crap. Yeah that makes sense. [ He leans back in his chair, continuing to sip his drink. ] When I decide to brave any of the food in this place, rest assured it is not going to be anything made by the Stepford Wives out there. They can shove all this crap up their asses.

[ He's such a delight, this one is. ]

[corporative]

[A veritable delight, but to Rufus’ credit, he doesn’t seem too offended. Instead, he huffs a bit in dry amusement, crossing ‘round a table corner to pull out a chair and sit. Across from him, a clear, mountainous gelatin jiggles as though in laughter.]

Is that so? Well, I hope you know how to cook. I’m not one for nightly household dinners.

[Has Rufus ever cooked a meal in his life? The answer is very debatable.]

If you don’t eat, I can’t force you; what a shame. But maybe you can humor me with something else?

[oldmanfive]

[ Five simply scoffs and rolls his eyes, because he's not a cook no, but he knows how to survive. So he can figure things out.]

Well I made the coffee, didn't I? I know enough to get by and really what more do I need at this point?

[ Eating full meals was just a waste of time, they could be using to investigate the strange place they have found themselves in. ]

Depends on what it is. I'm not exactly in the mood to be humoring anyone at this rate.

[ While Five doesn't have his ability to teleport or time travel, he still has his fighting skills as well as his extensive knowledge of how to kill an individual in numerous ways with or without a weapon. Thus he narrows his gaze at Rufus assessing just how much of a threat the other man presents to him overall. ]

[corporative]

[Without his shotgun, or his dog, or his retinue of sharp-suited employees keen on doing violent dirty work, one could make the argument that Rufus isn’t much of a threat at all. Still, there’s a prying kind of sharpness to his curiosity, the same way a businessman gathers data before presenting a strong-armed offer; a coolness to his grin, just a veneer of something friendly when the reality is more unkind, hiding an agitation at being torn away from his world without warning. All of this is fixed upon the other as he leans an elbow into the dining chair’s armrest.]

Maybe not, but an exchange of information is beneficial for both parties. I ask you something, you get to do the same in turn — after a proper answer, of course.

[What better way to learn about who he’s stuck playing perfect nuclear family with?]

I’ll go first. What’s your name?

[oldmanfive]

[ Something about Rufus' demeanor begins to remind him of the Handler and that isn't a comparison he necessarily likes, since he hates her guts. However he's pragmatic enough to know that the other man has a point. He can concede that much. ]

Alright point taken. [ He takes a sip of his coffee as he crosses his legs. ]

It's Five. [ He replies without hesitation because he knows some people don't take to the fact that his name is a number. But that is his name and he has never seen the point in changing it. Even when Grace had came to him with suggestions for possible names that she thought would suit him.] And your name?

[corporative]

Rufus Shinra.

[Just “Rufus” would have worked well enough, but there’s a weight to the surname that can’t be ignored, carried like it means something to the world around him. That might not be the case any longer, but old habits die hard, as the saying goes.

As for Five sounding more like a number, well.]

And isn’t that a number, not a name?

[oldmanfive]

[ He's never heard of the last name 'Shinra' but it does sound like the sort of name that his father would interact with. 'Reginald Hargreeves' sounds equally pretentious as Rufus' last name. But he chooses to remain silent about it for the moment. ]

Gee, I've never heard that question before. [ He words practically ooze with sarcasm. ] Look I was adopted by an eccentric billionaire along with six others. He couldn't be bothered to give us actual 'names', so he just assigned us numbers. But unlike my siblings who picked out their own names years later, I didn't see the point. Name or number, it doesn't matter. It's irrelevant.

[ He has never let his number define him the way the others had. Thus he shrugs and continues drinking his coffee. ]

[corporative]

[That’s quite an explanation. Eccentric billionaire, was it? Rufus wonders, for a moment, if he should be thankful — if he should be appreciative that his own father was less eccentric and more strict businessman, leading the company with what he believed to be an iron fist, but not inclined to name his son with a number. Who thought he actually doted, from time to time, like a father should.

But his mind keeps going back to the image of the man with a sword protruding from his gut, the look of surprise he must have wore in that moment, and Rufus realizes in-tandem with his satisfaction that, no, appreciation still doesn’t apply.]

How contrarian of you.

[In the end, Rufus doesn’t care too much — if he wants to be called Five, he’ll call him Five.]

So that would make you— the second youngest, right? How old are you?

[oldmanfive]

I've always been complicated.

[ He holds no delusions of grandeur, he knows he was an asshole back then and he's still an asshole now. Though at Rufus' next question, he raises an eyebrow. The answer to that is going to sound insane without preface, but he shrugs. ]

Not exactly. I'm technically fifty-eight years old. A miscalculation left me stuck in this body.

1

[frozenbird]

Too early for bird jokes...

[Ibis stirs with mild irritation at the voice urging her up. While mentally trying to sort out who to be mad at, it occurs to her that she has no idea whose voice that is.

She sits up blearily, regarding Rufus with suspicion.]

...Who the hell are you?