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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.
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Maybe it's a trick. Could be my lot, they'd do something like this.
[Is that reassuring? He doesn't know, he just can't stand how heartbroken Aziraphale looks.]
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[No offense, but come on.
Crowley is closer; Aziraphale sniffs, tilts his head, tries everything he can think of to wake up his Heavenly senses... and still, nothing. At all. Just a faint smell of skin and hair and the dust of the room.]
We should take stock. Figure out where we are. Maybe... maybe that will help.
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[Definitely not reassuring.
He immediately feels guilty for saying it, which is followed up by guilt that he's so close to Aziraphale when he's clearly not wanted. He winces, knowing that so much is written on his face and hating the lack of glasses, wanting to cut himself off.
The decision earns a sharp little nod, he gets up and backs off, circling around the bed to the wardrobe. It opens easily, and Crowley finds it filled with clothes. Feminine on one side, masculine on the other, obviously meant to belong to a man and woman.]
Clothing's all retro. [It's an odd twist, something to focus on other than the strange, yawning emptiness where his sense of the supernatural should be.] Look at this.
[He pulls out a dress, red with a flared skirt, covered in polka dots.]
Like something out of the fifties. S'even got a petticoat.
[No one wears petticoats these days.]
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No, Aziraphale thinks. No. This isn't Hell's style, and it certainly isn't Heaven's — to punish without informing. They'd want Aziraphale and Crowley to know, to feel that fear, to wait for the inevitable and delight in their suffering.
While Crowley investigates the wardrobe, Aziraphale sits up and scans the room. It strikes him as very conservative; neat, tidy, bland. The photos on the wall look like generic family portraits, a smiling couple who —
A smiling couple —
Aziraphale throws his blanket off and goes skittering to the wall, and snatches a photo from its place there, and stares at it with shocked eyes.]
Um. Cr— Crowley?
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He comes to stand beside Aziraphale, looking over his shoulder at the photo, all the air suddenly rushing out his lungs. It's the two of them, younger, somehow, looking for all the world like a regular, happy couple. Something constricts in his chest, and it takes a moment for him to find any words.]
I — wh — ngk. [He closes his mouth, exhales shakily, and tries again.] This isn't real.
[That much is obvious now. This can't be real.]
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What he's testing is its real...ness. It's real. It's absolutely real, unless — unless someone has figured out how to make hallucinations that much more convincing, or maybe —
Maybe.
Uh.
He looks up at the wall again, at the other photos. It's a small selection, but much the same: Them. Together. Like that. Human, and very clearly in l—
In lo...
A couple.
Quietly:] I think it is.
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He shouldn't want it, either, but then, he wants so many things he shouldn't.
The thought gives him some clarity, at least. Motivates him to stop gawking and actually find some answers beyond what this room can provide.]
I'm putting some damn clothes on, and then we're going to find out what the heaven is going on here.
[Back to the closet it is, pointedly not looking at the photos that make his useless heart ache or at Aziraphale and what's likely his shock or disgust at all of this. He can focus on the practical side of things, and right now that's finding some wearable clothes in amongst the pastels and skirts.]
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He's not shocked. He's not disgusted, either.
He's confused. He's unsettled. He's spent so much time thinking of the various ways things could go wrong for them, and this...
No part of this ever crossed his mind. How could it have?]
A good idea.
[He'll remain where he is for now, to give Crowley space.]
Do they... er, whomever "they" may be, if there even is a they... believe you to be my — wife?
[What with the skirts and the pastels and the nightgown and... such.]
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Seems that way, doesn't it?
[His voice sounds too harsh, the words snapped, but that's... better, isn't it? Better than Aziraphale thinking he wants any of this. Still, he immediately feels guilty for it, and amends:]
Might have to do with the fact I was playing at being a nanny.
[He's been presenting female for the purpose, even if he's mostly been a bloke for the past two millennia.]
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They might be missing a few of the key responsibilities of each role, like trimming symmetrical hedges and raising a well-adjusted child, but they're both still employed so they can't be doing that poorly.
— but he thinks better of making that point, and keeps his mouth shut.]
Mm.
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Instead, he tugs off the nightgown to toss aside, exposed and vulnerable for a few seconds before pulling on a forest green turtleneck. It's not the ideal outfit, but better than anything else in the closet.
Rather than turn around, he keeps his gaze averted as he absently straightens his clothes.]
I heard a child calling for help, before I woke up.
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[Aziraphale trails off, suddenly feeling stupid and strange. It's as if only now is it hitting him, this — this situation in which they've found themselves. This house, this place, wherever it is.
His brow furrows.]
Well. It's not as if I can detect any evil presence here, but I do remember having a bad feeling in my dream — if that's what it was.
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Didn't feel much like a dream, but... [He shrugs, unsure how to finish that sentence.] You can get dressed, looks like there's clothes that'll fit you in here. I can wait outside if you'd prefer.
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[He immediately feels bad for asking.]
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S'fine, I'll not go far.
[He grabs a pair of shoes from the closet; most of the pairs in his size appear to be heels, but he eschews those in favor of flats, not wanting to deal with balance when he can't use miracles.
And then he leaves, closing the door gently behind him. The intention is to stay nearby, but he ends up caught by the images lining the hall, more photos of the 'happy couple' and a few that are likely meant to be from their respective childhoods, filled with faces he doesn't recognize, including the younger version of his own.]
no subject
Specifically, it's Crowley in this context. You know, where they're apparently married. And have been for some time, by the looks of it.
Somehow.
Someone has mistaken Crowley for a woman — no, better yet: Someone has mistaken them both for human, and for a couple, and Aziraphale doesn't know what programme they've been watching but good Heaven have they got it all wrong.
Aziraphale finds the coziest looking clothes-that-are-but-aren't-really his, a beige sweater and slightly darker slacks, and loafers, and... he actually looks rather normal, like this. He passes, just as he always has. So this should be easy, right?
All except for that one detail.
He emerges, dressed, to find Crowley looking at more photos. Children. Smiling and young and bearing... an odd resemblance to the two of them, and Aziraphale's stomach wraps itself around his spine in a panicked fit.]
Are those —
[No. No, it can't be. It's an impossibility — why, it'd be a miracle, one on the very same level of —
But then again, all this.
He sputters.]
— ours?!
[Not like, are those our childhood photos.
Like, are those our children.
Is what he's asking.]
no subject
Aziraphale is wearing a jumper that looks unbearably cosy, and Crowley has to quickly slam down on his imagination lest it run away from him. At least Aziraphale provides an easy distraction.]
Uh, I think it's supposed to be us. You know, if we were kids.
no subject
Oh.
[Right. Of course. Duh.
Aziraphale, playing it cool, quietly clears his throat and half-nods.]
— strange.
[What he meant to say was "cute," because he guesses it is and because that feels like an appropriately human response, but it's more strange than cute.]
no subject
Would love to know how you expected that other option to work.
[It probably isn't the time to be a bastard about this, but teasing Aziraphale is second nature and slipping into a little back and forth might actually make him feel more himself, with this whole situation.]
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But when is there ever a good time for that?
Color rises to his cheeks.]
I don't know! You're clearly supposed to be a [He gestures at all of Crowley, albeit somehow vaguely so.] — so I'm assuming the, er, parts, as it were, must... c-correlate...
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You reckon they tossed in a functioning reproductive system along with the human eyes, huh?
[Making a joke out of this is better than actually confronting that possibility.]
this is now masters of sex
His own turns exasperated.]
I do reckon that, as a matter of fact! Would that be any more unbelievable than the rest of this, hm? Ovaries? A vagina? Have you even checked?!
[He goes still. Holds his hand up and shuts his eyes.]
Do not. Speak further. I am going outside.
[Goodbye.
He is going outside.]
Crowley isn't as pretty as Lizzy Caplan
That was a thing.
Crowley takes a few moments to make sure he's going to be able to string a sentence together in the wake of Aziraphale discussing his Effort, as it were, before following him outside.
To a picturesque American neighborhood. He stops on the porch, squinting in the early morning light and taking it all in.]
Don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto.
...fair
And then Crowley says something about Kansas.
He looks over and up, with a what does that have to do with a single thing right now? look on his face. Is Crowley suggesting they're in Kansas?
What?]
no subject
[He doesn't know why he thought Aziraphale might have at least seen The Wizard of Oz, whether in movie or musical form, but apparently even that's too modern for him.]
Have we lost our minds?
[It seems like a possiblility, all things considered.]
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