TDM - JANUARY 2021

[robbies]

TEST DRIVE MEME - JANUARY 2021

Good to the last gasp.
CW: gaslighting, potential mentions and depictions of trauma and other problematic material, body horror, dolls, violence

---

“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 outside of it carrying faintly, it all becomes very clear—

Something is horribly wrong.

---

JANUARY 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, the morning news is playing. The newscaster, a man in a gray suit and horn-rimmed glasses, keeps shuffling his paperwork on his desk as black and white footage of people in the midst of celebration — throwing streamers, wearing paper hats, toasting flutes of bubbly liquid — is interspersed between his droning report: ”New Year's Eve was in full swing last night as citizens from all over Santa Rosita came together to ring in 1961. A surge in ginger ale and sparkling cider beverage sales was reported by Honeybees as early as eight o'clock in the evening, a boon for the store…“

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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. CLOWN AROUND. If December was a time for sweet treats and good food, January is the month where everyone is trying to unload their leftovers. Who better to enjoy them than you, the newest family on the block? Your neighbors have quite a bit of food to share: Throughout the month, they'll stop by to say hello, bringing a new sugary dish with them each time. As always, jello molds are a staple. One plate turns into three turns into five, and by the end of the first week of January, you're likely to end up with a collection of jiggling pink, green, and orange lumps taking up space in your fridge. From mountains of Whip 'n Chill to Broken Window Glass cake, you'd be forgiven in thinking that there's no end to it. And yet, there's the occasional exception. Someone comes by with a Bundt cake lathered in vanilla icing and topped with rainbow sprinkles. Were it not for the giant candy clown head topping it, it would almost look good enough to eat. "There's a rumor going around that you've been a bit under the weather, so I thought this would cheer you up!" they say, right before thrusting the technicolor nightmare into your hands, the clown's dead pink frosted eyes staring up at you. Your neighbor is quick to tell you to eat it while the icing is still fresh (you never know who might lick it off when you're not looking, eh kids?), but not that the clown itself is made out of styrofoam. That's something you'll just have to find out for yourself when you take it back inside and start chowing down!

B. SNOW DAY

What awakens you one cold Friday morning isn't the blare of your alarm clock or your family getting ready to start their day or even the chilly air that tickles your toes as they poke out from the bottom of your covers, but the sound of hooting and hollering outside your window. The sight that awaits you when you go to investigate is something out of a Norman Rockwell painting: The entire neighborhood is outside, playing and carrying on in the snow. While everyone was sleeping, Santa Rosita got four inches of snow, more than enough for the schools to close but not enough to stop everyone from enjoying it.

And enjoy it they are! Children build snowmen in their front yards while their fathers work on shoveling their driveways. Most, however, are busy erecting snow forts in their yards and the middle of the street, running back and forth as they collect ammunition for an ongoing snowball fight that takes up half of the neighborhood. Nobody is spared from their assault, not even the adults, and especially not the newly arrived ones who leave the house. Good luck getting the mail, mom and dad!

"Come on! There's plenty of snow!" one young boy yells at you over a snowdrift. "You can join my team!"

"Nuh-uh!" another boy shoots back. "You can join my team!"

And on and on it goes. Well, for the pacifists among you, making snow angels is always an option!

---

THROUGHOUT JANUARY.

CW: gaslighting, potential mentions and depictions of trauma, and other problematic material

There’s no business like show business! And business is hopping at the Starlight Drive-In, which has been boasting about its all-new film premiering on January 2nd and playing all month long. The critics are raving, the townspeople are flocking, and plans to go to the drive-in seems to be all anyone can talk about. “Make sure you get there early to see the serials,” many of them suggest, eyes wide with excitement. “I couldn’t look away!” Whether you come with your family, your friends, or simply come on your own, the lot is packed, Robbies and normal townsfolk alike beaming as they hook the individual speakers onto their cars. Apropos of the cold weather, the concession stand has added seasonal items to their menu, serving up hot chocolate and kettle corn in addition to its usual soda and popcorn. Watching a movie against a backdrop of gently falling snow while you're sipping on steaming chocolate and melted marshmallows has a certain je nais se quoi to it that even you have to admit is appealing. At last, when it's finally dark enough to start, the projector clicks on from the booth in the back of the lot and the movie begins. A. COMING ATTRACTIONS. The movie, Curse of the Doll People, is a horror flick. A real chill-o-rama, starring actors you've never heard of playing a group of archeologists who unknowingly trigger a deadly curse that sets a group of murderous living dolls upon them. The poster pasted on the ticket booth promises it'll be the most fun you'll have screaming. Unfortunately, you have to sit through several minutes of previews first. The coming attractions aren't anything special — a bunch of westerns, a romance, even a beach musical. Far from being bored to tears like you might be, the people in the cars around you are glued to the screen, popping snacks into their mouths and whispering their commentary among themselves. The movie is the reason why everyone's here, sure, but you don't just get one flick out of going to the pictures! There's also the serials, little 5—10 minute long chapter plays that tell a story in pieces. Nothing can beat those, and when the first one starts, everyone sits in rapt attention as if it were the feature presentation itself. But as the scene opens up on a sight that is instantly familiar to you, and your own face stares back at you from the projection screen, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary film. You watch your memories play out in grainy black and white footage, aired for all the world to see. Or perhaps not — though you may not realize it, the movie playing out on the screen differs from person to person. No one sees the same thing. The person next to you might see one of their worst fears come to life, whether imagined or real, practical or fantastic. You might see one of the worst moments of your life — the death of a friend, your hated enemy bringing you to the brink of death, your absolute lowest point — exactly the way you remember it... save for the way your double on the screen occasionally turns to face the audience, staring directly at you with a knowing smirk and a wink. Or the way your loved ones will sometimes go off-script, gazing at you with pleading eyes as they beg you to help them. The people of Santa Rosita will see an exciting battle between two pirate ships, swashbuckling and cannon fire in place of the traumas you're witnessing. When the serial ends on a cliffhanger, much to the disappointment of everyone around you, it's almost a mercy. "Tune in next week for the thrilling second part!" Well, you will, won't you?

---

END OF THE MONTH.

CW: body horror, dolls, violence

Aside from the horror of the drive-in, January might seem to be passing calmly... until one night, something changes. In the middle of the night, once you fall asleep in your comfortable bed (or on your couch, or with your head lolling against the kitchen table), a nightmare comes to you. The shift from whatever dreams you were having to the cold, dark void you find yourself standing in happens gradually and quietly. So too does the image that plays out in your mind's eye: From out of the darkness, a featureless mannequin stands ramrod straight, facing you with its arms pressed rigidly to its sides. It has no face, no identifying marks, no features at all. It's a blank slate in every sense of the word... until it isn't. Slowly, the material of the lower half of its face begins to split as a searing pain tears through your own, as if invisible fingers are ripping your lips off inch by inch. The slit on the doll's face widens and deepens until, finally, mercifully, its new mouth opens as yours disappears, replaced by a flat, smooth barrier of skin. Like it was never there to begin with. The pain returns, this time in your arms and neck — right as the doll's own begin to jerk. Your joints are hardening, seizing up as the doll's arms go from minutely twitching to slowly flexing. While every nerve and bone from your fingertips all the way up to your shoulders grows heavy, the doll tilts its head and looks down at its hands, as if seeing them for the first time. By the time it takes its first step, you've taken your last: the pain has spread to your feet, ankles and toes hardening and locking into place. Every part of you is claimed this way; what isn't taken by force simply fades from your body and shifts into being onto the doll's, your skin replacing its cloth body, your clothing dressing it, your hair filling out its head. Your tongue goes numb as the licks its newfound lips, coarse cloth and batting surging up from your lungs and all the way to the back of your throat. By the time it's over, you can't move. You can no longer breathe. All you can do is stare at the perfect, eyeless double of yourself standing before you. As your eyes begin to burn, the last thing you see before everything goes black is the sly curve of a smile — your smile — before the face wearing it turns away and walks back into the darkness. Luckily, you wake up to a room full of sunshine and the distant sound of traffic as the neighborhood gets ready for another beautiful day. The morning air feels cold and dry on your skin. You're you. As much as you've always been. Right?

A. DOPPELGANGER.

It's the kind of morning that makes you want to sing. Where the sky was once dull and grey, it's now a deep blue. Barring the usual hustle and bustle on the streets of Shadyside, the first sound that greets you when you wake up is the steady beat of water trickling outside your window as the snow begins to gently melt under the rays of the sun. You may even hear the chirp of a bird! January, in all its dreariness, is nearly at an end.

When you leave the room to go downstairs — or upstairs, if you slept in the living room — the house is quiet and flooded with sunlight. With how perfectly silent everything is, it's easy to mistake the calm for solitude and think you're alone.

This is not the case.

Waiting to greet you is a familiar figure. If you go downstairs, you'll see it sitting in your kitchen with its head bowed and its arms hanging limply at its sides; if upstairs, lying in your bed on its back. There's no mistaking who it is. Even at a distance, their hair, face, clothes and features all instantly recognizable, and you know who it is before you even fully register their presence:

You.

Motionless, your doppelganger looks more puppet than person. Its chest is still, not a single breath leaving its mouth. Its eyes are closed. They snap open when you get closer to it, wide enough to see the whites, as its head jerks up to look straight at you. In a staccato imitation of your voice, it chirps at you:

"Hi!"

"Good morning!"

"Hello!"

"Rise and shine!"

Your clone is a good imitation, but not a perfect one. Its movements are stiff and uncoordinated, like a marionette being commanded by unseen strings. Though its cheeks are rosy, its skin is pale and almost glossy with the texture of newly polished porcelain. None of these setbacks bother it in the very least. If left alone, it goes about the house mimicking your morning routine, though given how awkward just walking is for it, it's almost certain to do a very bad job. Still, it tries its hardest, following you all day around the neighborhood, trying to imitate your movements — all with a smile!

That is, until you become aggressive with it.

It doesn't take much to set your doppelganger off — a simple shove will do it. When that happens, its eyes will do the impossible and open even wider, its mouth yawning into a wail that pitches louder and louder. That's the point when it will lunge at you. Its hands will try to go for your throat, but not always. It's resourceful enough to improvise with whatever it has around it, whether that be a kitchen knife, a paperweight, or even a letter opener. Luckily for you, they're fragile. Just hitting them is enough to crack and chip away at their skin. With enough strength, their limbs can even come off. Unluckily, they don't stay down for long; even a severed appendage can be popped back into its proper ball-jointed place.

All the while, they never stop childishly whining and shrieking at you.

"Not nice!"

"Why are you so mean?!"

"Not nice, not nice, NOT NICE!"

The only way to shut them up for good is to keep pummeling them until they're nothing but a pile of doll parts. But be thorough — even a mouth that's nothing but a shard of porcelain can still talk.

---

OOC INFO

Hello, and welcome to We're Still Here's second 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 February 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. Additionally, starting today comments made to the TDM will now count towards Activity Check. Current players are permitted to use up to five comments from it for this month's Activity Check — half of the required amount to pass. The other five must be made within the game's communities.

If you would like to have January or other winter-themed 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.

A note about the drive-in theater: Players are in full control over what memories, phobias, or fears the serials before the movie will depict. You can also specify whether or not other characters will be able to see your character's serial. Be sure to label your threads with relevant content warnings if needed!

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Comments

Merton J. Dingle | Big Wolf on Campus

[freakenstein]

-January 1st-

[He'd died.

That's something he remembers very vividly. So waking up at all is a bit of a shock, but waking up in a brightly lit bedroom covered in sports memorabilia is definitely helping to add to the shock of the moment. For a fleeting second, he thinks he might be in Tommy's room. He'd never actually been in his friend's room. Always gotten the distinct feeling the other boy's parents weren’t all that fond of him, so he’d never really stuck around much. Never even been past the living room, come to think of it. So it wasn’t impossible that this was his room.

But Tommy wasn't into baseball as far as he knew. Or 1960’s style decor. And he was very sure he wasn’t into sweater vests. And...huh...well...those definitely weren't pictures of his friend or his family decorating the halls. They were of him...and a pack of strangers…

Panic setting in, he starts to make for a hasty retreat from the house when he gets to the door and sees snow outside. It hadn’t been snowing back home. It had been late spring, where the hell had snow come from?

And then the sound of the tv catches his attention. Going back further into the house against his better judgment, but leaving the door open in case he needs to make a run for it, he looked down at the ancient tube tv with a deepening look of concern as it went on about the exciting “New Year”. 1961]

Huh...So...this is hell. [He takes a better look around the room and the snowy scene outside the front room window.] Less flames than I thought there would be. Suppose it could be worse.

-Wakey, Wakey, Eggs and...Bundt Cake...-

[Despite politely taking the clown-tastic confection with a sweetness that may have been a bit too forced, bordering on mocking with the way he mirrored his new neighbors smile back at her as she left, he headed straight to the trash with it after kicking the door closed.

Looking up at one of his fellow housemates as he held the thing over the open kitchen trash he at least bothers to ask -]

We can agree this one is probably poisoned or something, right? We’re not actually going to try and eat this?

[He’d made a point of not eating anything the neighbors gave them. Not the jello molds, the meatloaves, or the leftover fruit cake. Even if he saw his other “family members” eating it. There was a chance he might just be a bit paranoid.]

-Coming Attractions-

[Hell or no, how could Merton possibly pass up an opportunity to see an authentic drive-in movie, old-timey serials and all? The advertisements for it had even boasting a horror movie he’d never seen before, he wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Sitting on top of the car with whoever else the teen had managed to plead into coming with him, he was about as engrossed in the previews as the rest of the crowd, excitedly commentating on any of the movies being advertised that he recognized, and trying to nudge his companion into jokingly speculating with him on the ones he didn’t. For that short ten minutes or so, he was the happiest he’d been since he’d gotten here.

Then the serial started. And that was him on the screen. Not him right now, he wasn’t being recorded. That was him, back home, laying on his bedroom floor in a self-pity pile surrounded by empty Yoo-hoo bottles that may or may not have had some alcoholic additives before he’d downed them. And there was Lori trying to comfort him and-]

Oh, what the fuck...Nonono.

[Panicked, he looked around at the other attendees, who seemed oblivious, reacting as if they were watching something completely different. Looking back to his companion he nudges their shoulder and points to the screen.]

A-Are you seeing-?

-Doppelganger-

A -

[He woke up in a screaming cold sweat. Nightmares were nothing new, but that was...that was something else.

The doll, duplicate, thing slowly taking his form was bad enough on its own, but the painful creeping paralysis that had come with their exchange of features hit home hard. So like being turned to stone all over again, but far more agonizing, with every convulsive twitch setting his nerves on fire, and so fucking torturously slow. And that look on his doppelganger’s eyeless stolen face before it turned and everything went black, that smile had seared itself in his brain. The idea that there was another him, some malevolent replacement walking around back home while he was stuck here...it wasn’t exactly something that had occurred to him before, but now he couldn’t get the delirious thought out of his head.

Throat hurting as he tried and failed to catch his breath, he choked out a sob between harsh gulps of air, sitting up and rubbing at his arms as he unconsciously tried to reassure himself that they were flesh and blood, not stone or cloth.]

B -

[After that nightmare, his reaction to seeing his own form slumped over the kitchen table hadn’t been great. It probably wouldn’t have been great regardless, but it certainly hadn’t helped. There may have been a lot more screaming and running.

But creepy as the thing was, it didn’t seem to be out to hurt him. It made no moves to attack, just clumsily followed behind him or at his side, occasionally spouting chipper platitudes and awkwardly copying him. Monkey see monkey do. In a way, it was almost pitiable. And to that end, he couldn’t bring himself to hurt it, or even push it away. Instead of finding himself very reluctantly trying to help it as it awkwardly navigated the world around them, occasionally gently guiding it so it didn’t hit walls or street lamps. He didn’t particularly want to see how much worse that smiling porcelain face would look if it cracked as easily as it looked like it would.

At a stoplight, the thing almost walks right in front of traffic and he was forced to grab its arm and pull it back.]

Hey, hey, HEY! Watch it! Green means go, red means no!

( prompt: doppelganger, b. )

[sunborne]

Whoa!

[ unable and unwilling to let something like this from happening right in front of his eyes, daylight reaches out and grabs the other arm of the almost traffic victim. his expression one of shock and surprise but steels itself into determination and he helps with yank and pulling the person away.

it takes some effort but with both of them tugging the guy back, they're able to keep an unfortunate traffic accident from happening.

when he's sure the coast is clear, daylight huffs in relief and takes a step back to collect himself - and to give the trio more space as the light turns green and people surge forward, paying them no mind. ]

Good thing you have quick reflexes, buddy. Your friend would have-

[ daylight stops speaking when he finally notices the quality of the 'person' he just rescued, seeing it's not a person. ]

... Oh. [ he looks at the real individual, his expression one of sympathy. ] You too, huh?

[freakenstein]

[Quick as his reflexes might have been, he didn't really have the upper body strength to back them up, and there's a brief horrific moment when a rushing car nearly clips the fragile clone, only saved by someone else grabbing its other arm and helping to hall it back to the sidewalk just in time for the car to safely swerve by.]

[With a relieved huff of his own he looks up at the stranger who'd stepped in, giving the taller man a grateful breathless smile. But before he can thank him, he catches the change in Daylights expression, and when he says "You too, huh?" his face lights up with almost manic relief at the prospect of maybe finally getting some answers about what the heck was going on.]

You had one o-

[But with his focus on Daylight, he doesn't notice the shift in his "friend". It's smile slowly fades, and it's glazed eyes grow wider. There's a moment where it looks like it might be in shock, and maybe it was. After all, it did just have something of a brush with death. But then it lets out an ear-splitting shriek that cut's Merton off as he tries to reflexively cover his ears. Only to have hands latch on to his arm and wrench as if trying to pull it off at the shoulder. And when that doesn't have the desired effect, the thing only managing to yank the kid in front of it, it kicks him into Daylight with another furious scream before charging the two of them.]

[sunborne]

[ daylight can barely get out his reaction, ]

Oh what the fuck—

[ before he tries to intervene again, this time a lot more proactive in his actions. he steps forward, taking the brunt of the charge for merton when the doll slams into him, nearly knocking him to the ground but he holds on strong. (when he meets up with nightbreak, he’s never going to complain about their training sessions ever again.)

people around them stare and gawk as the two of them grapple at the crosswalk, eyes wide and expressions horrified/mortified by the tussel. some go as far as to yell, ‘cut it out!’ or ‘leave them alone!’ but they seem frozen with indecision and uncertainty. he can’t blame them with how there’s an apparent and current attempt to scratch his eyes out right now.

speaking of his eyes... out of the corner of one, daylight notices how passerby seem to forget the second they look away or step far away enough. great. so no guaranteed outside help from the people of this town but he can’t exactly blame them for wanting to jump in— this doll is surprisingly strong. it won’t be long before he’s overpowered and he would like to avoid getting to that stage.

so— ]

Pocket! Pocket! [ he’s yelling to merton, jerking his head to right of his side, trying to indicate the pocket of his breaker. ] Got a switchblade there! Get it! Please!

Wakey, Wakey, Eggs and...Bundt Cake...

[ourworldnow]

Dude, that's free cake!

[There were pictures everywhere of them 'growing up' together as 'brothers.' That was creepy enough. But now this? Just wasting sweet, confectionery bliss? Louis had a face filled with overly exaggerated horror as he tried to move forward and grab the serving dish.]

Who hurt you that you'd even think that's okay?

[freakenstein]

That’s...a question with an unfortunately long answer.

[As Louis makes a grab for the other end of the cake tray, Merton doesn’t try to stop him or yank it away. The last thing he wanted was to end up with the dish splattered all over the kitchen in a scuffle over it. But he doesn't let go of it either.]

Oh, come on! Look at this thing, it doesn’t even look edible. If you want cake I can make cake. How can you eat anything made by the smiling nightmare people?

[ourworldnow]

I spent the last million years eating rabbit and bug stew, I wanna eat cake! This cake, the cake you make, whatever other cake they bring me. All of the cake!

[He is not letting go. This is serious, man. Way more serious than the whole snatched to the 60s deal. You don't toss cake.]

[freakenstein]

[Also still not letting go. Your health and well being is more important than cake, man!]

Even if it's possibly poisoned or in some other way inedible? You're really willing to take that chance?

[He gives brief pause as what Louis just said really settles in.]

Bug stew?

[ourworldnow]

Bug. Stew.

[Look at his serious, serious face.]

When we couldn't find rabbits or fish? Yeah, had to get something in it. So I am ready and willing to take all the chances. Put it on my grave: died happy. With cake.

[freakenstein]

...Okay. Fine. Bug stew wins it.

[Letting go of the cake sheet with some mild reluctance he steps back from it with his hands up.]

But, don't say I didn't warn you. And I'll keep your epitaph in mind.

[With any luck he was just being paranoid. Certainly wouldn't be the first time. But he also had two other theories in the work for why they kept feeding them, and neither of them was much more generous than "they're trying to poison us". A - They were trying to fatten them up to feed them to something, or maybe eat them themselves. Or B - They were feeding them like pets, trying to keep them alive for...something.

He supposed the other two options were at least better in that they would have more time. But he still wasn't changing his mind about not touching that food. Then again, he hadn't been the one apparently forced to eat bugs to survive, so it was admittedly easier for him to be picky.]

What kind of situation were you in back home that you were hunting rabbits, fish, and bugs?

[ourworldnow]

Yesssss.

[That hiss of success goes on a little longer than it would for a reasonable person. Louis plops the plate on the kitchen counter, ignoring the way it splatters a little due to the impact, and grabs the first utensil he can find- in this case a serving spoon- to take a big scoop out of his prize.]

Walking dead apocalypse. No joke. The plus side? I was the best looking person left on Earth.