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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.
no subject
[Whether or not it's good is beside the point. It's a status thing. Like those terrible cockentrices they used to eat in Tudor period.]
There's no dairy in the shrimp-jello business, at least.
[No to be a serpent about it but: dairy bad.]
no subject
[ His tone is dry, nose still wrinkled. Jell-O was certainly no indicator of high status where and while Ray was growing up. The opposite, if anything. ]
Well then, they can have it, why give it all away to us?
[ Hospitality, sure, but there are limits. But, speaking of hospitality, where are his manners? Ray offers his hand. Crowley seems sane, at least, compared to many of the people Ray's encountered here so far. ]
Ray, by the way.
no subject
[He doesn't think they've been transported back in time to a town actually in the early 60s, that would be weird, but it wouldn't explain everything that's happening.
He reaches out to shake the offered hand, grip sure.]
Crowley. I'm very modern going by my maiden name, according to this lot.
[Wryly said, because he's annoyed by the whole production.]
no subject
Crowley is... the last name, then? Maybe Ray should have introduced himself like that, too. Oh well. ]
Is that... German? French? [ His eyebrow arches a bit, although it doesn't really matter. ] Then what kinda game do you think they're playin' at?
no subject
[He's been Crowley long before Ua Cruadhlaoich was anglicised to sound the same, but he's come up with various backstories before for himself and Irish fits well enough. The hair helps sell it.]
Haven't figured that bit out yet. Some kind of experiment, maybe? [Before, he'd assumed punishment. That doesn't make sense with all these other people running around, though.] Or someone's just playing silly buggers.
[Someone very powerful.]
no subject
[ Thickly sarcastic, at least at the end; Ray isn't totally convinced that this isn't Hell. Or a bad dream, some kind of hallucination, VR gone wrong, or... God, there's so many explanations he could try to believe, all of them harboring their own weirdly compelling (if unsettling) logic.
Or, like Crowley's just suggested: ]
An experiment, huh? [ Ray considers it, arms folded. ] Like a reality show, or the creepy kind?
no subject
If it were a reality show, you'd expect more prompting, or more interesting shit to happen. Watching us muddle through the first week or so would get boring real fast.
no subject
[ That's probably a lie. Forcing a bunch of strangers into family units in a simulated 1950s/60s suburban neighborhood sounds like it could make incredible TV. Just think of all the drama.
Being on this side of it, though? No thank you. ]
Plus maybe it's like one of those hidden camera-type deals, y'know? Or What Would You do?
no subject
[It's pretty fucking bad already, actually!! Not that he has any plans to admit that out loud, since his existential (and romantic???) crisis is his own problem and not the sort of thing he wants to discuss with strangers.]
Did have a look for cameras though, I've not found anything yet. Could be really well hidden, but you'd think the sort of tech for this time would be noticeable.
no subject
Well, it was just a theory. And anyway, this is almost too much effort to go to for whatever shitty budget they'd have to be workin' with, 'specially when you consider all the potential lawsuits. [ A pause. ] Where'd you look?
no subject
He doesn't recall signing any waivers. He's a demon, he's careful about what he puts his signature to.]
Uh... [A bit hesitant, but only because:] Everywhere, just about. Took apart the phone, the record player, the TV and half the kitchen Pulled all the clothes out of the closet, checked all the cabinets, the bookshelves. Wasn't anything that really stood out.
[Sometimes a demon gets a bit manic and pulls apart his house. What about it.]
no subject
Yeah, uh... same here, mostly. It all looked a little too perfect, if anything. I mean, all them photos?! That's gotta be, like... y'know... CGI, or...
[ Clones? Robots? Actors?? Really, really good photoshopping... ]
Plenty of booze though, at least. So there is that.
no subject
I mean, they did it with Carrie Fisher, right? But I dunno, no photos of me exist as a kid, s'weird to see it.
[That could just mean that like... no one took photos of him when he was a child, not necessarily that he was never a child.]
Can't argue the booze, would be nice if it wasn't mostly American, but needs must.
no subject
Ray cocks his head a little to the side in thought. ]
You're tellin' me. Now if we only just had some weed to weather out this whole nightmare with, too... [ A brief head shake. ] Wait, why don't you have any baby pictures?
no subject
Fortunately, he's halfway decent at coming up with lies on the spot. He has to do it almost every time Hastur or Ligur corner him with questions.]
My mum was in a cult, was a whole thing. [Privately, he thinks this is Hilarious.] The seventies were a bit odd.
[That's approximately when he should've been a child, if he's working off his appearance.]
no subject
[ Ahem. Awkward question, that. ]
Still, I wish it was the 70s, cuz then I would so be baking up a big ol' batch of brownies right about now. Which is ironic, I know, cuz I probably wouldn't even need 'em half as much as I do right now.
no subject
He can never tell Aziraphale these thoughts.]
Oh, don't worry, it wasn't the Mansons.
[He figures that's sort of where the hesitation lays, because no one wants to have a conversation about murder cults.]
There's got to be someone in this entire town that smokes weed. Could break into the police station, see if they've got any contraband.
no subject
[ A brief shudder. The tragedy that ruined Kool-Aid for everyone, honestly.
Ray can somewhat relate, though; even if he wasn't raised in a literal cult, being a gay boy raised in the Evangelical Baptist South probably comes pretty close to cults on the scale of "upbringings that will fuck you up for life." ]
You're probably right, but I dunno the first thing about buyin' drugs in a Goddamn mid-century suburb. If we were at least in Los Angeles then we could've probably just walked down the street and bought some cocaine by now, but who's gonna be crazy enough to sell around here?
[ ... Someone, he hopes! Ray makes a mental note to follow-up with some housewives on investigating this matter. ]
no subject
I'm loathe to even say this out loud, but I reckon our best bet would be teenagers.
[The worst of all humans.
Not that he necessarily has anything against teens, he just... doesn't understand them. Kids make perfect sense to him, and adults are easy to manipulate, but teens are creatures of their own that don't fall into either category and are therefore impossible to deal with.]
no subject
Ugh.
[ He nods, though. If anyone's likely to be carrying around here then teenagers are probably the best place to start. ]
Better keep our eyes and ears open for any of them grungy garage bands, then.
no subject
[Someone might have spent the 90s in dive bars listening to grunge music, what about it.
Still:]
Did they saddle you with kids? Could be an in.
[Thank someone no one thought to grace him and Aziraphale with a child to look after, they're barely managing themselves.]
no subject
[ Ray says it with an edge of bitterness, eyes narrowing slightly. He doesn't necessarily mind kids in, like, the abstract (and his friend Lana's daughter is about the cutest little thing you'll ever see, periodt) but this is too much. He couldn't even keep his pets alive.
Sighing a bit, Ray pulls a pack of cigarettes -- sadly neither marijuana or Ray's usual brand, just what he found available -- and shakes one out, lighting it and taking a drag before he speaks further. ]
Wait, and you didn't? Jesus, how the Hell is that fair? I don't have a maternal-- paternal bone in my entire body, I don't know how to talk to kids!
no subject
[What a vague and ambiguous sentence! That he barely even thinks twice about because he's trying not to look jealous about that cigarette.
He could ask for one, like a normal person, but if Aziraphale catches him smoking, he'll be cross with him.
This is a perfectly normal thought for a demon to have.]
They're easy, really, just don't talk down to 'em. Most are smarter than you'd think, and they know when you're being patronizing.