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.

---

▶ NAVIGATION ◀
COMMS	logs | network | ooc | memes
OOC INFO	premise | rules | faq | taken | applications | hiatus/drop/canon updates | reserves | mod contact
SETTING INFO	calendar | setting | housing | npcs | death and tranquilizing | event suggestions/engagements

Comments

ɪᴀɴ ғᴏᴡʟᴇʀ → ᴏᴄ

[wittingly]

good morning sunshine

[ Ian's not a morning person — he fights with everything in him to stay under for at least twenty minutes every day, wrestling with the universe and life, bargaining with himself with the sweet sweet consolation of coffee. Today is no different; he doesn't notice the new sheets, the new pillows, the new smell. Not for a while, not until he either emerges of his own volition or the sound and presence of another person startles him. In either case, his head will pop up from beneath the duvet, curls askew, lips parted, confused as all-fuck and too groggy at first to really comprehend.

Absurdly, he greets anyone in the room with a calm yet confused: ]

Hey, man.

[ Tone light, brow furrowed, a quick scope of the room to confirm yep, nope, definitely not his apartment. After that, waking up comes pretty quickly. His slowly rising anxiety levels stay hidden behind an impressive facade of calm, his chill reminiscent of your typical stoner despite the fact that he clearly hasn't partaken since waking up. It'll lead to a really interesting combination of total freak-out and mellow tone, a nice reserved toned-down panic attack with an oft-repeated manta. ]

What the fuck. But really, what the fuck? What the fuck is this?

( part 2 )

[ Or maybe catch him a few days later standing out there on his front stoop before a placid-faced Robbie holding a gelatin mold, posture calm and nonconfrontational. He's locked in something of a stand-off with them as they hold up the jiggling, completely unappealing tray. ]

Nah, no thank you. We appreciate the gesture, but that's okay. We've got plenty.

[ Followed in turn by a wan, "Oh, I insist! It's Aunt Myrna's secret recipe!" ]

That's cool, man. I'm sure she's great, but I-- honestly, like I've got an entire dining room table of food right now, it's just gonna go to waste.

[ "Nonsense! I'm sure once you try it you won't be able to get enough."

Ian's patience seems as endless as his resolve. ]

I think we're gonna have to agree to disagree on that one. I really appreciate what you're doing, maybe we can do some other kind of thing — I don't know, like coffee? Maybe next week we can do like a dinner thing?

[ "We'd love to have you, but only if you're returning this tray after you've eaten!" So pleasant, so unphased, so not taking the hint. Ian, equally as polite, does not seem to be baking down. Firmly but kindly: ]

I'm not taking that. I'm sorry. We're at maximum gelatin capacity. Gelatin quota exceeded.

[ And so it will go for an impressively long time if nobody intervenes. ]

i'm supposed to be a teacher

[ If his initial panic upon arriving had been immense, it's nothing compared to his complete freak-out when shit hits the fan. That television switching on sets the hair on the back of his neck on end, sends goosebumps down his arms, has a nervous twisting happening deep down in his gut. He stands frozen, confused, knees locked in the middle of the living room trying to understand what that garbled Poltergeist style voice is saying. When the knock does come, it startles him with an outright visible jolt.

”Trick or treat.” ]

Ahaha, nope!

[ Announced declaratively, before he lurches forward to slam the bolt shut on the door. ]

Fuck that, fuck that whole entire thing, I've seen enough movies to know not to open that shit. That's how they fucking die every time, doing some dumb shit like just opening the fucking door--

[ To whit, the window breaks. Anybody in the vicinity is going to be a victim of his hands forcefully dragging them back out of the way unless they shrug him off, accompanied by an urgent repetition. ]

Back door, back door, back door, go, go-

[ When in doubt, run your ass off.

Right until he runs into one on the street and actually sees it in all its absolutely horrifying glory. Muddy and wet and more importantly, decomposing. Decomposing, and standing. and staring in a fucking halloween mask. A dead kid, a rotting corpse. They don't have shit like that where he's from.

He goes blank. He just goes fully blank, frozen like a deer in the headlights, pulse pounding in his ears and his perception of the world sort of tilting left before snapping back, then right before snapping back, light headed and uncomprehending. ]

misc.

[ A few randos:

→ Catch him coughing up and choking on a poisoned peppermint, clutching his throat in obvious distress.
→ He'll be wandering around the block party with his party hat still on, sup-nodding people and chewing on chips like it's the most casual thing you've ever seen. He'll greet just about anyone with a pleasant, "Hey, man." He can also be caught singing the obnoxious Halloween song.
→ Catch him accidentally slipping up in a discreet corner somewhere with a creeping glow snaking up his hands right before an innocuous object shows up in it; house key, fork, pencil, whatever he needs at the time.
→ Anything else; I'll roll with it. Hit me at rifting for your q&a needs. ]

gelatin quota exceeded

[mijo]

[ Nacho is coming out of the house next door with plans to explore the neighborhood, when he notices Ian on the porch one house over, trying to politely decline a gelatin mold from (presumably) one of their other neighbors. It's the point at which he hears 'gelatin quota exceeded' that his lips twitch up into a not-quite smile, and he decides to go try to help.

He crosses to the fence between their houses and leans his forearms on it, speaking into Ian's yard. It's not a huge yard, so they can hear him easily. ]

Hey, neighbor. Ma'am. [ The latter to the overenthusiastic Robbie. ] I doubt you'll convince him. My wife's been practicing with new molds, I'm surprised his family hasn't drowned in the stuff already.

[ It's fairly smooth, his tone friendly without any hint of a lie. ]

orphan black buddies

[wittingly]

[ Perfect Pin-curl Patricia turns her placid smile on Nacho, blinking somewhat blankly at the new variable in this situation. There's a very clear moment of does not compute in which Ian looks over -- his expression very clearly reads are you seeing this shit?

And then in a frustrating display of victory, Patty pulls her trump card by bending down to delicately place it on his stoop.

"Well, I'm sure he'll grab hit later."

As though he wasn't home, or standing directly in front of her face. She stands again brightly, posture perfect, to beam a smile at both of them.

"You boys have a nice day, now! Only nineteen more until Halloween!"

Ian's lips press into a flat, displeased line as she toddles off. All the same, he shoots a companionable appreciative grimace Nacho's direction. ]

Thanks, man. It was worth a shot.

omg they are!

[mijo]

[ Well, he did his best. And he did catch the moment of blankness on Patty's face, but also does his best not to show how uncomfortable it makes him. Then she breaks the eye contact to put the gelatin mold down and bid them farewell -- once her back is turned Nacho gives in to the urge to shudder. These people creep him out worse than the soulless monsters he's stuck working with back home, and that's saying something.

His neighbor, however, doesn't give off the same vibe, and Nacho's lips quirk just slightly. It's more sympathetic than friendly, as much as he knows he should try for the latter. He needs people, here. People who aren't Robbies. And they do live next door to one another. ]

I tried, sorry. It's like they're not programmed to understand no.

[ He uses that word intentionally. Programmed. They're just sort of... fake? Not in a way like it's an act, but like they're not real, or have been brainwashed or something. Nacho's not an expert. But since his neighbor seems normal and thus probably not from around here, either, Nacho extends his hand over the fence. ]

Ignacio Varga.

[wittingly]

[ He descends his steps at an easy pace, mindful of the gelatin mold — as satisfying as it might be to step on it or kick it over, he's not that brand of petty. Not because he doesn't think about it, but because it soothes his ego to think of himself as the bigger person.

A couple of ambling steps bring him over to the fence, and he shakes hands with one of those self-aware sideways smiles. It's a clear nonverbal commentary on how fucking weird this situation is, but it's too obvious to even bother pointing out. ]

Ian Fowler. You just get here?

[mijo]

[ It would also be gross to clean up, Nacho's pretty sure. Better the guy just take it inside and dump it.

His handshake is firm and steady, but brief. His arm returns to the fence, forearms resting on it with hands folded over one another. Kind of closed off, even though he initiated this conversation. ]

Yup. Seems like there are a bunch of people here who aren't meant to be. By your phrasing I'm guessing you're one of us.

peppermint

[doneisdone]

[Before he even knows what's happening, two bony fingers are in his mouth and poking down his throat, a similarly skeletal hand gripping the back of his head to keep him from struggling.]

Come on then, get it out, [comes the bored yet still forceful command, and the woman removes her hand once it seems like his gag reflex will kick in properly.

Making friends!]

[wittingly]

[ Well, this is undeniably terrifying. He's never had his head gripped by a stranger before, let alone their fingers shoving themselves into his mouth to caress his tonsils.

It works, though -- he spasms in her hold until she relents, and he bows forward to gag up a little red and white hard candy that rolls innocently to a stop at their feet.

He sticks there a for a second in that posture, hands on his thighs, catching his breath. After a few seconds he manages to look over, eyebrows knit in bemusement and lingering distress. ]

Thanks. Jesus, there's something in that fucking candy, I swear. I don't know what it is, but--

[ He trails off uselessly, a shake to his head.

Whatever it was made his throat swell up and tasted absolutely awful. ]

[doneisdone]

You just go about popping in your mouth whatever a stranger gives you, do you?

[Although the woman doesn't sound angry, per se, she's definitely scolding him, and the brusqueness of her voice gives her words a judgmental edge. Still, she helpfully brushes off his shoulders and the front of his shirt.]

S'pose you won't anymore.

[She nods down to the mint.]

Seen people walking about choking and bleeding and carrying on, you're just the latest. What sort of shambolic ritual is this?

[wittingly]

No, I--

[ He starts, then stops to grimace at the absolutely appalling taste of the saliva in the back of his throat, residual toxic taste from the mint on the ground. He drags his tongue over the back of his hand in a desperate bid to get rid of it. ]

It's Halloween.

[ Which is not an answer to her second question, but rather a continuation of the first — like it ought to explain everything. He drags his sleeve down his hand to start licking his shirt fibers instead, to varying degrees of efficacy. ]

It's supposed to be-- like this innocent... kids go door to door, they get candy, not--

[ Vague gesture at the house with his gross sleeve. ]

There's usually a lot less bleeding involved. As in, none.

Gotta save teach

[miaoudel]

[There's another child behind the one locking Ian in place - only instead of a Halloween mask, this one's wearing a black bandana over the top half of his face, with eyeholes cut in, and a baseball bat that he's swinging with merciless speed into the first child's head.

There's a sharp crack and the child goes down, but Adrien just jumps over it and grabs Ian's wrist firmly.]

Come on, we have to move!

[wittingly]

[ That baseball bat comes down with such velocity that something cracks, and a spray of -- something disgusting, be it old blood or swamp or mud sprinkles wet and warm across Ian's face. He flinches, eyes wide, mouth splitting open to say-- absolutely nothing, because what the fuck is happening?

That tug at his wrist does, at least, seem to stir his brain back into activity, even if it feels like he's floating third-person over his body watching this scene unfold in a detached and surreal way. ]

You just-- broke-- what is that?

[ Though it doesn't take much resistance, it does take some to get this tall, bulky bastard to move his feet away from the scene of the crime. ]

[miaoudel]

Whatever it is, it's not an Akuma. [Which is a shame, that would make life a lot more straightforward.] We can worry about the details later!

[There's a surprising air of authority to the figure that barely tops out at five feet, and Adrien's grip is unpleasantly sticky, but firm on Ian's wrist as he yanks him down the dark street, looking around sharply.] We need to find a house with a candle still on, they're not attacking there!

[wittingly]

A what--

[ It's breathed out into the night air rather than really begin a question; there's no time to actually learn what the hell an Akuma is. Honestly, his brain probably wouldn't fucking retain it at this moment, which is no easy feat.

He's happy to concede authority to literally anyone right now. A particularly confident cornish game hen would probably get his vote. He is seriously, seriously out of his depth.

Okay, but a task to focus on — that helps. Okay. He can do that. candle, candle, candle-- ]

Ummm-- !

[ Which is his extremely articulate way of bringing attention to a house toward the end of the block.

He's normally so well spoken, god, he really is. ]

[miaoudel]

[Adrien would care more if they weren't running for their life - as is, the strained umm-ing is enough to get his attention, glancing back for a moment before he focuses on the light, and he grins sharply.]

Good job! Keep going! [And he does some weird spinning move, that should push Ian into a full sprint while Adrien stays in place, wielding his stick with both hands and preparing to defend.] I'll be right there, make sure that candle stays lit!