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

selina kyle, dc comics (rebirth)

[catlady]

i. october 1st
[ open to any and all potential family members, even if just for the tdm! ]

[ this is her big ye, her beautiful dark twisted fantasy. she knows something is amiss here and there's no way this is anything but bad, but she used to dream about this kind of thing: the perfect family, the perfect home with its perfect white picket fence, in some perfect little town where everyone has a story and a smile to spare. it's all things she didn't have growing up in the streets of gotham's east end, her own parents far from perfect. all things she'd long put aside because she's the business of taking and she's not interested in unrealistic, intangible, unobtainable things and this is the kind of thing that only exists in black and white television.

still, she finds herself here in what is intended to be her perfect home with its perfect white fence to house her perfect family. she walks through the hallways and up and down the stairs for what might be third or fourth time, examining the photos on the walls and the little tchotchkes about to make the house feel lived-in. a wedding photo catches her eye: the selina in the photo the picture perfect bride in white satin, her groom standing proudly beside her. ]

Well, isn't that something. [ she lifts her hand, examining the wedding ring on her finger meant to complete the illusion. ] And let me guess, the kids in these photos are supposed to be mine, too, right?

[ this is going to be interesting. ]

ii. don't be a square!

[ it's not exactly selina's idea of a fun time, but the block party does provide an excellent opportunity for a bit of reconnaissance. it's a chance for her to get up close and personal with her new neighbors and see if she can find some kind of glitch in the simulation, so to speak. try to get a read on them. she tries her best to blend in with the crowd, her face mostly hidden behind a pair of large, black sunglasses, but try as she might these people sniff her out like bloodhounds. it's only a matter of time before one of them announces her to the whole damn neighborhood.

she improvises the best she can, using the mostly uneaten plate of food in her hands as an excuse to keep conversations light and keep her from being asked to participate in any of the little games set up around the block. she hangs back and falls back on old habits, trying to read the crowd, but it's just not the same -- the people aren't the same.

not the people who are originally from here, at least. ]

I think I might actually miss Gotham...

iii. always respect the dead fuck the dead tbh

[ although she'd claim she's all about the art of self-preservation, selina's not really one to wait it out when shit really hits the fan. maybe that's bat and his little gang of do-gooders rubbing off on her, sparking something almost resembling heroic. it just had to be zombie kids, huh? and she just had to wear a halloween costume that is completely impractical in a fight. (look, it'll be another five years before julie newmar dons the lamé catsuit and selina spent the late 50s and early 60s banned by the comics code authority. we're going for accuracy.)

she patrols the street, looking for houses with unlit candles in their pumpkins, joining the other brave idiots willing to risk their skins to protect their more naive and defenseless neighbors. seriously, how is this becoming a theme with her? first raina creel and her drug-fueled zombies taking over los angeles villa hermosa and now this. good thing selina's not exactly above punching a child. ]

Get back! Go back inside, get someplace safe, and stay there! [ she calls out, trying to hold back one of these horrible children from making their way into the house. ] And you! Where are your manners?

iv. wildcard

[ not feeling any of these prompts? feel free to throw something different my way. felinefatale for questions, plotting, friendship, etc. ]

Absolutely fuck the dead

[miaoudel]

[Funnily enough, Selena is not the only cat-themed "superhero" running around smacking wet children.

There's a group of small, screaming children running from two of the creepy damp zombies, and a blond youth wearing paper cat ears, a long black belt for a 'tail' and a black bandana with eyeholes cut into it, and he's using a broken hockey stick like a staff to bat the zombies' hands back.] You know, I think you've had enough sugar for one night!

[catlady]

[ yeah. they're really going to have to have a chat about that once all this is over and done with, because she's not so great at sharing and, again, not above punching a child. (okay, so they'll probably end up bonding or some stupid crap. gosh.)

selina spots him from down the street, and while he might be holding his own for the moment, she's pretty sure he's about to be zombie chow. she makes quick work of the kid trying to get into the house, grabbing hold of him as she makes a run for it so she can just... fling him into some bushes. ]

Isn't it past your bedtime, kitten? [ she mocks, but she'll be helpful and join in the fight. ] You're gonna get yourself killed out here.

[miaoudel]

[The call of the derogatory pet name makes him glance back - if he was in his real costume, the ears would have flicked in annoyance - which gives the zombie child a chance to swing; on impulse Adrien backflips away from its grab and settles into a low stance.]

I like to think I'm old enough to set my own bedtime. [But he seems delighted by the chance to banter.] I sharpened my claws and everything, I'm not leaving now!

[catlady]

[ okay, so he's got a few moves. not like he's the first teenager she's met who can hold his own in a fight, she comes from a world where no one bats an eye when some grown ass adult in a onesie takes in a teenager and puts them in incredibly dangerous situations.

so long as she doesn't have to look after him. ]

You're like, twelve. How sharp can your claws be? You've still got your milk teeth. [ banter and a fight, she's kind of missed this. selina decks one of those creepy little trick-or-treaters right in the face, regretting it almost immediately when it gets that cheap, polyester glove all gross and wet. ] Nice costume, though.

[ what? she very obviously likes cats. ]

[miaoudel]

I could say the same about you - don't you have grandkids to babysit? [Look he's fifteen and not about to take any snipes about being a baby, thank you. And like he has something to prove, he launches forward, using his hockey stick to vault into the air and slam both feet into a zombie, springboarding off it to send it tumbling wildly back as he flips again to land - stumbling, this time, he's not actually as agile as he is in his suit, but he's acceptably agile.] Yours too, though. Black's a timeless look.

[catlady]

I'm sorry, grandkids? How old do you think I am?

[ teenagers, so gosh darn disrespectful. she is 27 years old, thank you very much. she is in the literal prime of her life and she will never be this young, this fit, or this beautiful ever again, how very dare! (look, even she realizes this is absolutely not the sort of thing teenage boys care about, though... occasionally they might care too much.)

see, now he's just showing off. ]

Trust me, kid. My usual look isn't quite so colorful.

[ man, she misses her whip... ]

october 1st

[the_caped_crusader]

Nothing here is ours. Not the ring, not the pictures.

[ he's been watching dick van dyke on the couch since he's woken up, though watching was a relative term. maybe it was more like lost in his own thoughts while laura screamed "rob petrie, i want a divorce!" in the background to canned laughter. ]

It'll be important to remember that.

[catlady]

[ she wriggles her fingers, watching the diamond catch the light -- it's nothing terribly impressive, simple, but it's real. they'd be foolish to put a fake on the finger of a jewel thief if they were really trying to sell the illusion. besides, she has bruce to bring her back to reality, making quick work of whatever silly, stupid feelings that had worked their way to the surface. it's just a bunch of fake photos, set dressing. none of this is theirs. none of it stings even a little when he reminds her of this fact.

letting her hand fall to her side, selina turns away from the collage of photos hung on the wall and goes to take a seat on the arm of the sofa beside him. she's still got her hair in rollers, her nightgown all frilly and lacey and pink with slippers to match. ]

The kids are still asleep. Perhaps we should come up with some sort of game plan, here?

[the_caped_crusader]

[ he watches her as she sits, and remembers sometimes he can be a little blunt. as a small apology, he takes her hand in his and kisses the back of it. ]

Don't worry. We have all our lives to make our own memories. As for whoever's upstairs, we'll explain the situation the best we can.

[catlady]

[ 'a little blunt' might be a bit of an understatement, but what does he have to apologize for, exactly? everything's fine aside from the obvious -- and you know that's the truth because the word is italicized. the gesture gets a roll of the eyes from her, waiting for his grasp on her hand to loosen enough that she can take it back and cross her arms over her chest. ]

The only thing I'm worried about is whether or not someone's dosed you with something you haven't already built up an immunity to, because if you're naive enough to believe it's going to be that simple...

[ she's still pretty irritated with him and, let's be honest, talking about hypothetical futures when their lives are pretty up in the air at the moment is strike two, but now she's actually starting to worry. she moves from the arm of the sofa to sit down beside him, cupping his face between her hands so she can get a better look at him. ]

Are you all right? What's the last thing you remember before we woke up?

[the_caped_crusader]

A dream. And a girl. Crying for help.

[ his expression is thoughtful, as the wheels perpetually turn in his head. ]

It's not Crane's fear toxin. We're both having the same dream, after all. Maybe Doctor Destiny, but there are more people here than just us. I don't know how I know that, but... hm... I do.

[catlady]

[ she tilts his head back gently, then forward again, looking for something that might be off. she's not totally convinced, but she presses a pouty little kiss to his lips out of habit and lets her arms settle around his shoulders. ]

Well, I'm thrilled to hear you've developed some kind of omniscience abilities since last night. That's going to be real helpful. [ all sarcasm, none of that concern lessening. ] Remember all those chats we've had about how we're supposed to be partners and how that doesn't work when you fall back on old habits and get all stuck in your own head? I dunno, Bat, this might be a good time to put some of that in action.

ii.

[combatted]

[ She's been watched since she arrived — Dick isn't subtle, the brightly coloured party hat on and plastic plate in hand, held out like it's radioactive. He grasps it too well — at least any Wayne party would have been easy to navigate, at least... at least he could've looked across the room and caught Bruce's eye and they'd have vanished for a night of patrol and good old-fashioned work. ]

[ He's made his way up almost behind her when she talks, having eavesdropped enough, confirmed that this is a person that's not needlessly familiar, and his best bet, in this place. Dick steps into her view from the side, pretending to offer her something on his plate. Cookies, all untouched. ]

Hey, neighbour.

[ His tone is all sarcasm. At least it's her. ]

[catlady]

[ what does he think she is, some kind of amateur? of course she knows she's been watched. she wouldn't be her if she missed something like that. there's no mistaking that ass, even in a pair of real unflattering slacks. there's something off, though, and she can't quite pinpoint it from afar.

there's no sneaking up on her, really, just a dismissive glance from the corner of her eye as he offers up his plate to her. selina lets the silence settle between them, then lifts a hand to take one of the cookies. ]

Let me guess, they're baked with love?

fuck the dead [cw: zombie violence]

[onthe_threshold]

[While plenty of people on the street have wisely chosen to shelter inside their houses, trusting the jack-o-lanterns to keep the zombie children at bay, there are the brave and well-meaning folk like Selina out there fighting the good fight to protect others.

There's also the six-foot-five murder machine in a Mr. Rogers sweater walking down the middle of the street with a shovel, gleefully swinging it at the skulls of trick-or-treaters. He looks up when Selina shouts, and waves.]

Isn't this fucking great?

[catlady]

[ selina can always spot the psychopath. it's just a skill you start to develop in a place like gotham where there's very clearly something in the water and this guy? oh, he's definitely a psychopath and he isn't even a little ashamed of it. he's thrilled to have an excuse to take a shovel to the undead.

so, y'know, she's totally found her new bestie! (what? it's always smarter to be on the good side of these folks.)

he distracts her enough just enough for someone to get their hands on her, their... slimy, deceptively strong little hands. it gives selina the opportunity to do one of those super sick catwoman moves where she does a backflip off the kid's shoulders and slams them down onto the ground. ]

Ugh! You think this is great? This is a nightmare. I've got weird sludge all over my dress.

[onthe_threshold]

[To be fair, in this case it's really easy to spot the sadistic one.

Matt watches the backflip and his grin widens. Oh, here's another one from someplace else.]

That's a real pity, babe. But come on, you telling me this isn't way less frustrating than living in a fucking Rockwell painting?

[catlady]

[ she pulls back, giving herself a bit of room to get a real good swing going when she kicks the kid's fucking head clean off and sends it flying -- still wrapped in its bedsheet ghost costume --- his general direction. like, they're already dead, right? ]

I sewed this! From scratch! I wasted a whole fucking weekend on this thing!

[ it's vanity thing, dude. ]

You wanna make yourself useful and help me over here?

[onthe_threshold]

Looks like you're doing just fine on your own. [Still, he makes his way over, absolutely destroying zombie children as he does so, whether with his makeshift weapon or with well-placed kicks.

He boots another kid away from Selina's general vicinity before he waves at her.]

Howdy, neighbour.

[catlady]

[ her instincts aren't wrong: he'd be handy to have on her side. selina's not defenseless, she's actually a pretty skilled fighter and, more than anything, she's not afraid to play dirty. it makes her vicious in a fight.

but, hey, if she doesn't have to break a sweat... ]

Uh, hello there. You enjoying the festivities?

October 1st

[covert]

[In that wedding photo, Selina looks as beautiful as she ever has. Dick looks irritatingly perfect, as is his habit, and she's still shining him right off the picture. It's maybe the most lovely, terrifying thing he's ever seen.

Naturally he's checked the house as evidence mounts up that he's not simply a proud best man in those photos. The kids he'd need to have been spectacularly precocious to have are one factor, along with the GREATEST DADDY IN THE WORLD mug in the bathroom with his face drawn on it in a childish scrawl and his toothbrush sitting at a jaunty angle. Holy – Best Men shouldn't do the groom that dirty.

He's by the bookcase by the time she makes it downstairs, maintaining his cool with an effort he hopes doesn't start to make him sweat. There's a stack beside him as he pulls each novel out, flicks through the contents (there's a great series of Housewife's Guides she could probably use as a weapon) and checks for notes, codes, keys – anything.]

Aren't they adorable? Almost takes my mind off the amount of therapy in all our futures.

my apologies!! that was... a week

[catlady]

[ she's the most beautiful girl in the world™, of course she killing it in these fake wedding photos. killing it in all these photos, really. the vintage style really suits her and according to these photos, she hasn't aged in a couple decades. the groom is, uhhhh... a surprise? but not much of this makes sense and if she has to be stuck here with anyone, well, bruce trusts dick and she can trust him, too. whatever is going on here goes deep. ]

Richard, please. I dress up like a cat and steal for a living, any child of mine was probably going to need a whole lot of therapy either way.

[ and that's exactly why children aren't in her future, but here they are seemingly responsible for these strangers. that detail might be one of the more distressing parts about this whole thing. ]

Do you think they're, uh, in... on all of this, or are they like us? We should probably be prepared for questions.

I'm not sure this week's an improvement

[covert]

[Not remembering posing for the pictures is a particular trip. He's examined them for digital alteration and to his untrained eye they're as genuine as they get. It just looks like the ventriloquist whose hand was shoved under his jacket must have somehow stayed out of sight.

She can trust him, in multiple ways, and he's familiar with the ways to trust her. It's not the worst situation to be in. Just one of the strangest.]

I can promise you, kids have grown up with stranger influences and turned out just fine.

[Yes, he's curling his wrist in a little flourishing gesture to himself, don't hurt his feelings.

But at that last point he sucks a breath in through his teeth.]

Kind of hope they're in on it, otherwise we're the therapists.

here's to this week!

[catlady]

Well, you turned out all right, I guess...

[ but dick has the benefit of having his own solid foundation, parents that undoubtedly loved him. it makes up for a lot of things. also kind of helps that he's bruce's favorite.

she leans against the back of the sofa, allowing her to take in the wall of photos as a whole and complete picture. you've got to admire the attention to details, creepy as it all is. selina's seen and had her share of strange and unexplainable experiences, but this one might take the cake. ]

I'm not so sure that's the preferable option, but I do hope everyone likes TV dinners.