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

cw internalized ableism, sorta

[undiagnosed]

Something with enough time to shoot a bunch of guys on that crappy tourist attraction. [he takes another long drink, free hand gripping his cane a little tighter without his noticing. ah, pre-coma archer.] I'm actually the world's greatest secret agent.

[you'd think he'd be joking, with what he says, but he says it with a weird level of seriousness.]

God, you better not be KGB. I really can't be bothered dealing with some politically charged bullshit right now.

[m1895]

[ Sure you are, Buddy, he almost says, only to be stopped by the comment about the KGB he so casually throws out there and the joke about shooting civilians so clearly meant to draw his ire. He should be more spooked by the almost-accuracy than he actually is, but this time, offense wins out over fear: this place has primed him, frankly, and he's having none of it, because this clearly isn't a guess based in the facts he's so carefully hidden, it's a guess based in his name and his accent and American arrogance taken to an all-new level. ]

So because I am Russian, I must be KGB. I am emergency medical technician, asshole.

[ And NKVD before that, with marginally more competence and self-respect than Beria's grimy, backstabbing entry-level creeps, men who knew going into it the kind of man they'd chosen to serve under, though that's an entirely different subject. ]

[undiagnosed]

I mean, all the Russians I've met have been KGB. Hence the bridge thing.

[which-- okay, at least he didn't actually shoot a bunch of civilians? not any better that america was working in russia, though. not good for either of them.]

So you... come pre-loaded with vodka? You got any on you?

cw ableism

[m1895]

[ It almost sounds like he's trying to backpedal without actually apologizing for his xenophobia, which Vasiliy supposes is better than nothing—barely. Whether the following assumption is based in his nationality or his occupation isn't entirely clear, but unfortunately for him, the answer is a resounding no either way.

He half-raises his can of Bud Light in response like he's competing for the world's shittiest toast. ] I would not be drinking this if I did.

[ He doubts the man's a spy now, in light of the cane, but in a way, it lends merit to his claims. He could have been kneecapped or shot or something, enough to get him sidelined by the CIA but not enough to completely neutralize him as a physical threat right now, and most of the people in Washington are frankly evil enough to do continue serving the Capitalist state for free regardless of whether or not they're still on the roster. He can't decide if it's better or worse to have the enemy out in the open, to be stuck here living in the Barbie Dreamhouse with the possibility of his own extrajudicial murder constantly hanging over his head. At least it'll be difficult to prove during a time with no access to the state archives where everything Interr. Vasiliy Yegorovich Ardankin ever signed remains entombed. ]

it do be that way

[undiagnosed]

[archer being archer, naturally, doesn't really care for any faux pas, nor does he feel threatened by vasiliy. he doesn't really feel threatened by anyone, not even the people who've literally had guns to his head. a therapist would likely have a field day with that.

if he... you know. ever went to one.] ...Point.

[he concedes that with a wrinkle of the nose, like he doesn't want to admit vasiliy is right and he's not just obviously hiding some vodka somewhere.]

What're you doing so far from home, Dorothy?

pour one out..

[m1895]

[ This is more to the effect of what he expected when he approached the man, save for being called a girl's name. He says it like it's some kind of reference to American culture, though, and not like he's correctly insinuating that he likes other men and phrasing it as an insult, so Vasiliy lets it slide for the time being and assumes the best of his intentions, pausing to take a brief drag from what remains of the cigarette he lit prior to walking over here before he answers. ]

I woke up here, in this town. Before that I lived in Chicago. [ He pauses, deciding which fabricated reason for his presence in the states he's going to use today. He goes with the one that gives off intrigue and Kerouac masculinity, because as arrogant and obnoxious as the man is, he's still very attractive. ] I wanted change.

[undiagnosed]

[archer throws back more of his drinking, finishing what's in the glass. he coughs a little, then burps when he thumps his chest.]

В Чикаго много русских, [he says with a huff, just throwing that out there.] you got a spare one of those?

[archer isn't usually a smoker, but damn if this situation doesn't warrant one.]

Guess that rules the KGB out of this. For now.

[m1895]

[ Well that's unexpected. Vasiliy supposes he just assumed the guy was bumbling around like a tourist or using Google Translate like a voice changer or something. He quickly recalibrates, though, when the KGB comes up again. It's become clear by now that the accusation isn't based in any potentially dangerous observations, though the fact that he's undoubtedly going to be keeping a closer eye on him than other people isn't good.

He's not normally the type of person Vasiliy would offer a cigarette. At all. But arrogant Capitalist though he may be, it would be bizarre and suspicious not to, so he taps one out of the slim cigarette case in the breast pocket of his hideous trout-patterned shirt and holds it out. The fact that the man knows his language well enough to speak it apparently fluently helps, too, although he still replies in English. ]

Your Russian is good. How long have you been speaking?

[undiagnosed]

Uh, how long has the Soviet Union been around? [a beat...] Wait, it predates me by, like, a lot. Uh. About five years. You pick it up quickly when you'll get shot if you don't.

[he takes the cigarette, with absolutely no thanks and looks it over a few times before sticking it in his mouth and holding an expectant hand out for a lighter.]

Your English is shitty. How long have you been speaking?

cw for impending russian chauvinism/imperialism

[m1895]

[ Jesus Christ, this man is rude, probably one of the most inconsiderate and overtly insulting Americans he has ever met—and that's saying something—but Vasiliy turns the wheel of his butane lighter and holds the wavering flame out in his direction anyway. The Soviet Union. When is he from? What does he know? Is he like Vasiliy himself?

Even the blatant, accurate remark is swept to the side by that one noun. Vasiliy makes a concerted effort to maintain his composure; he doesn't bother with informing the man that he simply doesn't give a shit enough to learn any more of their inconsistent language than he absolutely must. ]

One year. I speak enough to communicate meaning. [ half a beat, if that. ] You said Soviet Union. What year was it when you came here?

[undiagnosed]

[and yet: still handsome. archer lights the cigarette with a very vague noise that could be thanks, but likely not.

his instincts and muscle memory is telling him to case this guy thoroughly, but the fact he's not being paid is putting a huge wall in his brain about it. archer really, genuinely can't decide if he cares or not.]

Pssh. [he huffs, pssh. whatever.] Uh, yeah, good question. Definitely wasn't the 60's. I don't think. Italy isn't using a king?

[m1895]

[ Good question? The hell does that mean? His own instincts tell him this guy's being deliberately vague—probably. Which, in turn, raises the question—what is he hiding? Or who is he hiding from?

Vasiliy cocks his head to one side, gaze momentarily lingering on the man's mouth before he returns to steady eye contact. It's unfair that someone so attractive is so unapologetically abrasive, though he has the feeling his looks may be what allowed him to go so far in life acting like this to begin with. ]

You do not think? It is after 1960, then? [ The skin around his eyes tightens just barely as he composes his most pressing question into something coherent: ] In 1990s?

[undiagnosed]

[wow, really bothered about the year, huh? archer finishes his drink, takes a few long drags of his cigarette like he's actually giving this some thought.

spoiler alert: he is not.

finally, he shrugs a shoulder with a grunt.] Yeah, probably. Wait, does something happen to them?

[m1895]

[ Oh my God. For the time being, the fact that this man genuinely may not know what year it was in his own time—head injury? shock?—is eclipsed by the fact that he lives in a time when the Soviet Union didn't collapse. When the thing they all labored to build didn't crumble into dust.

Vasiliy takes a last drag before he even tries to explain it. ]

Yes. It - At late 1991 it collapsed. All of her territories split off. Capitalism seeped in. [ And now, the other question he's been avoiding: ] Who is head of your KGB?

[undiagnosed]

Uh, yeah, spoiler alert, capitalism is awesome. How are you living in Chicago and not realising that? I mean, do you miss the turnip fields that much?

[archer rolls his eyes at the question, though realises-- who is head of the KGB now? is katya still there? his heart hurts a little to think of her, so he shakes it off before he thinks too hard about it.]

Well, it was a dickhead cyborg, but he's cool now, so... [he puffs his cheeks out, blowing air out.] I want to say... a drinking bird desk toy?

ableist language warning

[m1895]

There are no turnip fields in St. Petersburg, idiot! There are no fields! It is city just like in West. [ Of course he's had political discussions with Americans before. He knows to expect this. And yet, the anger has reached its peak, no longer controllable. He doesn't shout, but he does raise his voice, harsh and clipped behind the accent. ] You would know this if you were not Western chauvinist.

And Capitalism is not 'awesome'. You enjoy it because you choose not to see suffering. Every block in Chicago there are homeless, addicts, insane. People who work at three jobs and cannot feed their family. The poor die because people like you would rather see them dead than pay the taxes for insulin, ambulances, antibiotics. [ He exhales a staggering breath, throwing what remains of his cigarette on the ground and grinding it out under the sole of his loafer. ] I would say you are a cruel man, but that would not bother you. You would not love capitalism if it could.

[undiagnosed]

[he flicks the cigarette away, turning to the table he's been leaning against to grab a couple of glasses, mixing the drinks within and throwing them back while vasiliy rants. he looks down at the glass and swirls what's left when judgment is passed and then... snorts and barks out something of a drunken laugh.]

Holy shit, you just dumped your Ante Kovac all over the sidewalk, huh?

mentions of childbirth/miscarriage

[m1895]

[ And that's his only response. Incredible. The rest of the world more-or-less fades to a low hum in the background of whatever this is. ]

What in the fuck is wrong with you? That is all you can say? To laugh? People are dying!

[ And it's so very clear that he's cut from the same cloth as the aristocrats who looked on indifferently as holes wore into the singular pair of shoes he wore to the factory he worked in, as women like his mother gave birth in unsterile tenement rooms and almost died of it, or, in the case of the only other pregnancy her body managed in such abysmal conditions, hinged on the brink of life and death during miscarriage.

There's no changing people this evil. He's wasting his breath here and endangering himself in the middle of McCarthy's time, something at the edge of his consciousness tries to remind him. He needs to leave. This man is probably CIA. ]

You are swine. You are all disgusting swine.

[undiagnosed]

Right? [he says, with a snort. he can't even be insulted properly-- at least, not by someone he doesn't care to put stock in the opinions of.] I mean, next time I travel back in time I'll give William Ogden a couple of pistol whips, but I doubt that'll change anything.