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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.
STORMFRONT | THE BOYS | OTA - warning for s2 spoilers
[She'd lived through this era before and, honestly, it hadn't been her favorite. Half because at that time she hadn't yet figured out how to navigate the pure, amazing, infuriating hypocrisy of the Americans, and half because, having seen 2020, frankly having wifi was the shit. Not to mention streaming. Now Stormfront was back to three channels, none of them playing anything original.
But having lived it before, it made it all the more apparent there was still something different about this world. The news didn't line up with what she remembered and the smiles were...strange. Oh, she also didn't have her goddamn powers and had suffered a not so minor, several hour long rage attack because of that for the first day. But. It was time to move on from temper tantrums. Sans internet she'd have to do information gathering the old fashioned way: face to face.
All through October, dressed in nice high waisted trousers and tucked in floral print shirt, she set out to meet the neighbors. She brought (re-gifted, fuck making this poison herself) gelatin salads and a faultless, practiced, smile and she knocked on each door in the neighborhood to introduce herself herself as 'new in town' and sniff out just what kind of company she'd found herself in.]
Hi there, I'm Klara. It's lovely to meet you.
TRICK OR TREATING / ALWAYS RESPECT THE DEAD
[Sticking to the picture perfect mom, she'd gone with era appropriate costuming and dolled herself up as (that liberal nutjob) Jackie O, down to the pearls and white gloves. She's also spent the night dolling out candy to the kids, a bit of a wistful smile on her face for the younger ones, and shaking a teasing finger at any adults out and about alone tonight.
At least until the undead came around. The switch from sweet housewife passing out candy to huntress on the prowl was instantaneous. Rather than waiting inside, she instructed her 'family' to board up the house and set out into the streets, still in red skirt, heels, and all, with hunting rifle in hand.]
God bless the second amendment.
playing house —
He's dreaming. He's possibly drugged or maybe just delusional, but the absolute last thing he remembers is not this, it couldn't be any less this, and the longer he goes on with no connection to anything familiar, the angrier he gets. He needs to get back to what he knows. But somehow, against every possible instinct he has to just let loose, he's been holding onto himself by a thread. That is, until the knock at the door.
He could just let it go. Could, but they might knock again. These fuckers are persistent. And maybe if he opens the door to whoever it is this time, he can let off a little bit of steam.
Angelo scoops himself off the couch and strides over to the door, wrenching it open like it deserves to be pulled off its hinges for getting in his way, his expression already curdling towards hostile. ]
I already have about ten of those, [ he says flatly, eyeing the salad she's carrying with great disdain. ] So fuck off.
no subject
[Her smile doesn't falter for a moment, just shifts more into a sarcastic smirk than saccharine sweet. She punctuates the reply by tossing the whole snack, platter, gelatin, weird fruit shit and all, off into the bushes in front of his house.
Let the dogs have it.]
I'm still Klara. Got any booze in there? My fake husband drank all my good stuff.
playing house
He gets the door, standing with a tumbler of booze in his hand and an unlit cigarette in his mouth, squinting at Klara like she's a Jehovah's Witness he fucked up by opening the door to. The cigarette goes into his shirt pocket so he can speak without it dropping. ]
Hi. I'm Ray.
[ He sounds wary as hell, looking her over, seeing the gelatin mold she's brought. Does he invite her in, or...? More than the era they're supposedly trapped in, it's his Southern hospitality that tells him that, probably, yes he does.
Which also means, unfortunately, accepting the jello mold, holding it awkwardly in one hand. ]
Did... you... wanna come in?
no subject
[Her voice is carefully accentless by American standards, the kind of all American voice shared by network news broadcasters and politicians that gives no hint to region of origin.
She lets herself in, not exactly shoving him aside, but making sure he doesn't have time to rethink his offer before she's in and looking around at all the items- seeing, maybe, if someone else had half the family photos before settling down.]
When did you move in, Ray?
no subject
[ Forgive him for sounding a little distracted while he answers, hands full, closing the front door with his foot. Ray's own accent, Appalachian and Southern, would probably flag him as a newcomer around here to most, even though it's actually been years since he's lived in the South.
He moves across the threshold to set the jello mold down... somewhere, on whatever counter-like surface he encounters first, and then looks back to Klara, trying to think of what's around he can offer her. Booze is probably a safe bet, right? ]
Go on an' have a seat. Can I fix you a drink? [ There's a little home bar that he drifts over toward, refilling his glass and setting aside a second one. ] House came pretty fully stocked with the stuff, not that I'm complainin'.
no subject
[She's looking at photographs, checking out cabinets, basically making herself comfortable confirming that his place looks more or less the same as hers.]
I 'moved in' about the same time. Where are you really from, Ray? Or when?
no subject
So far, not much luck there. ]
I'm supposed to be in New York, actually. Definitely post-JF-freakin'-K. I'm so not the "nuclear family"-type. [ He clinks ice into her glass, watching her assess the place. ] What're you havin'? Whiskey?
no subject
[But clearly not impossible, to her thinking. She gives a nod, though, to the whiskey.]
Give me all the fingers you can spare.
no subject
Mind-control? [ He laughs a little, finally lighting his cigarette. ] Kinda ruins it if we don't actually think we belong here in Pleasantville, though, doesn't it?
no subject
[Even she doesn't sound at all convinced, but hard to eliminate anything right now.
She takes a seat in a chair, ankles neatly crossed.]
You know anything else that could cause this shit?
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
playing house
Uhuh. [ he sizes her up. ] Well, Klara. Why don't you tell me something about your past that nobody knows.
no subject
[She laughs at her own bad joke, but the faint lines around her eyes tighten as she sizes him up, the humor clearly a put on to a trained detective.]
But really, that doesn't exist, does it? If no one knew it, I wouldn't either. So, if we're playing games, stranger, why don't you tell me something from your past only you know?
no subject
[ bruce walks back into the house, leaving door (and a wordless invite) open to her. ]
I'll ignore the deflection for now, but as long as you're not one of them, come in. You can put the food in the trashcan.
no subject
Klara closes the door behind her and, keeping the man in her peripheral vision, starts looking at all the pictures on the wall.]
I don't think no one else knows that about you- I'll bet the list of things you like is the shorter one. But, no. I'm not. I'm about sixty years behind where I should be.
no subject
[ he replies coldly as he pours himself a cup of black coffee from the aluminum kettle. once that would have been a lie, but now that alfred was gone, there were few people who would have known much of him from before the time his parents were killed. he sets an additional cup in front of her, even if she didn't ask, and takes a seat. ]
Anyway, the time matches up, but I'll take a guess and say you're from another world. Klara your real name?
no subject
It really is my name. My whole family is in the ground, too. It makes this whole mockery even worse, doesn't it?
no subject
[ his blue eyes are even, probing. there's a depth and intuition behind them that he hides very well. gently, he takes a sip of his coffee. ]
The sort of old family sitcom that someone might watch when they're only a child. A little too pleasantly conformist to be something real.
no subject
[She stopped mid sentence, turning to fully smile at him.]
Not you, of course! You're just peachy. Even if you haven't given me your name yet. But I'm sure you've met the mom and dad bot 5000s out there.
(no subject)
trick or treating HELLO
Always the party pooper, he didn't bother dressing up. Being without his supersuit was hard enough for him, and he doesn't immediately recognize Stormfront without hers, either (especially not with that costume on).
But he knows that voice well enough, and when he hears it he stops hunting zombies and goes to investigate, treading carefully like this is some kind of trap. It takes him a moment to speak, and he doesn't manage to say much. ]
...how?
[ His voice is soft, almost a whimper. A little pathetic, really, but nothing she hasn't seen from him before. This shouldn't be possible. Last time he saw her she was - well, he'd rather not think about it. ]
brace for timeline shenanigans
[She takes aim and fires another headshot into an on-coming zombie before turning to him full.
It had been almost a month- a month all alone, without his powers. It made her heart ache for him. She'd lost hers, too, but she had a memory of being human, before her darling husband had changed everything. She could find her footing.
While they have a few moments before the next wave gets close enough to be a worry, she rushes forward and cups his chin with one gloved, gun powder scented hand.]
All these monsters and no powers. What have they done to us?
no subject
He leans into her touch, and although he still has no idea how she's alive and standing here, it has to be real. No one else touches him like that. ]
It's terrible. [ Speaking of whining: he lifts the sleeve of his shirt, revealing a large bruise on his upper arm. It's just a bruise, but he's never had one. Even when they tossed each other around like ragdolls he didn't get a single blemish on him. Fragility is new to him and he hates it with every fiber of his being. ] I'll kill them. Whoever did this to us, I'll kill them all.
[ Without his powers that's kind of an empty threat, but he's a romantic guy so he likes to threaten murder on his girlfriend's behalf whether he can accomplish it or not. ]
no subject
Yes, we will. Very, very slowly.
[Maybe not in their usual way, but it's not so terribly empty coming from a pair of mass-murderers. Assuming they can find them.
The day dreams will have to wait, however, because the kids they just beat the shit out of are pulling themselves back together. Stormfront steps back again, raising her gun.]
These little shits are starting to piss me off. Do you live near here?
no subject
He takes her by the hand and leads her back in the direction he came from. ]
Just down the street. The ingrates aren't home.
[ He's been trying his damn best to be a good father for his "family" and for some reason that's absolutely incomprehensible to him, they're not very enthusiastic about it.
But if it means they get the house to themselves, that's a silver lining. ]
no subject
[She sighed even as she turned into a light jog to keep up- or to pull him along, if need be. Blasting some heads off had been good fun, but it lost the appeal when they just got back up again.]
I loved my daughter, with everything in me. But there's just so much they can never understand. About how the world really works.