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TDM NO. 1
TDM № 1 : December 2023
Part I; Chapter 1. Fires We Don't Put Out
Part I; Chapter 1. Fires We Don't Put Out
Hey, neighbor, welcome to the very first TDM for Silent Spring, a semiprivate suburban 60s horrorgame based loosely on the likes of We're Still Here, Holly Heights, and similar. Characters wake up in the uncannily idyllic early 1960s suburbia of Sweetwater, Maryland, an integrated bedroom community of Washington, DC - in the same household as a complete stranger to whom they have apparently always been married, at least according to the eerily and unwaveringly chipper neighbors who seem to know a little more than they should. This TDM will give you a place to test out the setting and get some sample threads if you're going to apply for an invite. Right now there are at least 20 slots available to the general public.
This game and its world, including this TDM, heavily feature nuclear panic, the Red Scare, conformism, sexism and restrictive gender roles, heteronormativity/gender binarism as it relates to being forced into a 'nuclear family', surveillance, gaslighting, brainwashing/propaganda, disinformation, pollution/contamination, poisoning, loss of control, and uncanny valley. IC consequences can involve anything from social shunning to sleep deprivation torture, brainwashing, and nonconsensual administration of large doses of haloperidol. These are the crux of the game and cannot be opted out of — this game offers a very specific flavor of horror and it is up to players whether or not they want to engage. The atmosphere is a dystopia, and while people can certainly bond with each other in extreme circumstances, the point of this game is not an ingame domestic AU, found family, 'adopting' other characters, etc. Although this TDM has been opened for everyone to enjoy, I ask that you be respectful of the work I've put into cultivating a very specific environment. You have full permission to borrow this setting/premise for PSLs focusing on those things.
I. National Everyone-Smile-at-One-Anotherhood Week
Maybe you were on your deathbed, taking your last gasping breaths. Maybe you had just drifted off into sleep. Or maybe you were just in the middle of another ordinary day—but whatever the case may be, you now wake staring at an unfamiliar popcorn ceiling, dressed in a coordinating pajama set or nightgown straight out of the Sears catalog. A complete stranger lies asleep beside you. Perhaps a dog or a cat you don't recognize lies sleeping on a red tartan bed on the floor behind the mahogany footboard.
This is your house, but it’s not your house: on one of the twin dressers in the room, the morning light reflects off the cover glass on a framed photograph of the two of you standing side-by-side and smiling like figures in a Norman Rockwell painting, maybe with a third, also unrecognizable younger party in the foreground between you. A Civil Defense booklet titled ”Survival Under Atomic Attack” hangs halfway off the corner of the dresser, its pages and cover curling upwards with wear atop a dogeared Macy’s Christmas catalog. The other dresser hosts a watch box and a compact radio: yours, if you’re the one wearing the coordinating flannel shirt and pants, or your new husband’s, if you’re in a babydoll-style nightie.
It’s not immediately clear if you’ve found yourself in the fifties or the sixties, at least until you throw on the robe hanging on the back of the bedroom door and head out into the driveway at some point. There you find a rolled newspaper tossed onto the concrete beside a shiny new car, dated December 1, 1960.
Prompt Details:
— All characters wake in a normal human body with any disability aids (including glasses or contact lenses) converted to the most common form of them in the 60s unless a modern development like a sip/blow powerchair is needed for them to be playable. Although cutting edge technologies like myoelectric limbs were just starting to come around at the time, they were not common and readily accessible, and therefore are not allowed.
— Characters have no powers, and regains will not happen in this game. If they biologically need something to function that is fantasy in nature (ex: have to drink blood), that need is gone and replaced with only a normal human’s needs.
— Characters will find their belongings, up to 3 items from home, around the house in normal places for each item to be: a book on the shelf, a framed photo on a flat surface, etc. Items that don’t exist in the regular universe in 1960 may not be brought (ex: gameboy, pokeball, wizard’s staff).
— Characters may bring one normal, non-livestock pet, or may meet said pet for the first time when they wake up in Sweetwater. They can also be petless.
— No items or weapons from after 1960 are allowed, and no weapons more powerful than a hunting rifle or handgun can be brought with them. One weapon per character.
This is your house, but it’s not your house: on one of the twin dressers in the room, the morning light reflects off the cover glass on a framed photograph of the two of you standing side-by-side and smiling like figures in a Norman Rockwell painting, maybe with a third, also unrecognizable younger party in the foreground between you. A Civil Defense booklet titled ”Survival Under Atomic Attack” hangs halfway off the corner of the dresser, its pages and cover curling upwards with wear atop a dogeared Macy’s Christmas catalog. The other dresser hosts a watch box and a compact radio: yours, if you’re the one wearing the coordinating flannel shirt and pants, or your new husband’s, if you’re in a babydoll-style nightie.
It’s not immediately clear if you’ve found yourself in the fifties or the sixties, at least until you throw on the robe hanging on the back of the bedroom door and head out into the driveway at some point. There you find a rolled newspaper tossed onto the concrete beside a shiny new car, dated December 1, 1960.
Prompt Details:
— All characters wake in a normal human body with any disability aids (including glasses or contact lenses) converted to the most common form of them in the 60s unless a modern development like a sip/blow powerchair is needed for them to be playable. Although cutting edge technologies like myoelectric limbs were just starting to come around at the time, they were not common and readily accessible, and therefore are not allowed.
— Characters have no powers, and regains will not happen in this game. If they biologically need something to function that is fantasy in nature (ex: have to drink blood), that need is gone and replaced with only a normal human’s needs.
— Characters will find their belongings, up to 3 items from home, around the house in normal places for each item to be: a book on the shelf, a framed photo on a flat surface, etc. Items that don’t exist in the regular universe in 1960 may not be brought (ex: gameboy, pokeball, wizard’s staff).
— Characters may bring one normal, non-livestock pet, or may meet said pet for the first time when they wake up in Sweetwater. They can also be petless.
— No items or weapons from after 1960 are allowed, and no weapons more powerful than a hunting rifle or handgun can be brought with them. One weapon per character.
II. Death of a Salesman
You haven’t had much time to acclimate to your new life—maybe a day or two at the most—before there’s a knock on your door. When you open it, a man in a hat and a brown two-piece suit smiles at you, holding a briefcase in one hand and a brand new vacuum cleaner in the other.
“Hey there! My name’s Charlie and I’m here to tell you all about the latest in vacuum technology. Is the man of the house home?”
Regardless of what you say, Charlie the vacuum salesman finds a way to barge into your home and set up his briefcase and vacuum in the center of the living room. He insists that everyone in the family join him to watch, and then the demo begins as he tells the family how inadequate their current vacuum is and how the dirt it leaves behind will make you sick and make your wife look like she can’t keep up with running the house—but if she just buys this vacuum, she’ll be the envy of all of her friends, and isn’t it great timing that there’s a Christmas special on this very unit right now?
He tells the family he’ll give them ‘a moment to think on it’ while he fills up the water canister for the steamer function in the kitchen sink. Characters can hear the faucet running and then shutting off, but the salesman doesn’t emerge with a water tank—he emerges with a butcher’s knife.
“You took too long!” He announces. “I better get to the next house!”
With that, he charges, and begins to attempt to slice or stab whoever’s closest. You’re in luck, or at least it initially seems—it’s two or maybe even three against one. But once you attack him, you’ll notice something odd—the salesman doesn’t seem to react to being sliced at or stabbed, and if your character has a gun, gunshots don’t stop or even slow him. Shooting him in the head, cutting his jugular vein, or beating him on the back of the head are the only ways to kill him - good luck!
Should your household manage to kill him before he kills you, something even stranger happens. The moment he takes his last breath, lying in a pool of his own blood, there’s a knock on the door. If characters ignore it or say “one moment please!”, the knocks get more and more vehement until the hand is practically banging on the door. If they still ignore it, the neighbor strolls around to the window and looks in to see if they’re home, cupping her hands to the glass— but doesn’t react to the dead body. Instead she just smiles brightly, gives an enthusiastic little wave, and points to the door.
When characters finally open the door to let her in, they’ll notice that she’s holding a mop and bucket, smiling brightly.
“I thought you could use a little help cleaning up the mess!”, she says, barging past just like the salesman did before her. At no point does she stop smiling, or seem to register that it’s a dead body—she just starts mopping up the pool of blood, occasionally dunking her mop into the soapy pink water of the bucket, never referring to it as anything other than the vague “the spill”.
If characters ask her for help disposing of the body, she’ll bring in her husband, a similarly cardboard figure who assists the ‘man of the house’ with digging a grave-sized hole in the back yard and dropping the body in. The next day, the ground is undisturbed.
“Hey there! My name’s Charlie and I’m here to tell you all about the latest in vacuum technology. Is the man of the house home?”
Regardless of what you say, Charlie the vacuum salesman finds a way to barge into your home and set up his briefcase and vacuum in the center of the living room. He insists that everyone in the family join him to watch, and then the demo begins as he tells the family how inadequate their current vacuum is and how the dirt it leaves behind will make you sick and make your wife look like she can’t keep up with running the house—but if she just buys this vacuum, she’ll be the envy of all of her friends, and isn’t it great timing that there’s a Christmas special on this very unit right now?
He tells the family he’ll give them ‘a moment to think on it’ while he fills up the water canister for the steamer function in the kitchen sink. Characters can hear the faucet running and then shutting off, but the salesman doesn’t emerge with a water tank—he emerges with a butcher’s knife.
“You took too long!” He announces. “I better get to the next house!”
With that, he charges, and begins to attempt to slice or stab whoever’s closest. You’re in luck, or at least it initially seems—it’s two or maybe even three against one. But once you attack him, you’ll notice something odd—the salesman doesn’t seem to react to being sliced at or stabbed, and if your character has a gun, gunshots don’t stop or even slow him. Shooting him in the head, cutting his jugular vein, or beating him on the back of the head are the only ways to kill him - good luck!
Should your household manage to kill him before he kills you, something even stranger happens. The moment he takes his last breath, lying in a pool of his own blood, there’s a knock on the door. If characters ignore it or say “one moment please!”, the knocks get more and more vehement until the hand is practically banging on the door. If they still ignore it, the neighbor strolls around to the window and looks in to see if they’re home, cupping her hands to the glass— but doesn’t react to the dead body. Instead she just smiles brightly, gives an enthusiastic little wave, and points to the door.
When characters finally open the door to let her in, they’ll notice that she’s holding a mop and bucket, smiling brightly.
“I thought you could use a little help cleaning up the mess!”, she says, barging past just like the salesman did before her. At no point does she stop smiling, or seem to register that it’s a dead body—she just starts mopping up the pool of blood, occasionally dunking her mop into the soapy pink water of the bucket, never referring to it as anything other than the vague “the spill”.
If characters ask her for help disposing of the body, she’ll bring in her husband, a similarly cardboard figure who assists the ‘man of the house’ with digging a grave-sized hole in the back yard and dropping the body in. The next day, the ground is undisturbed.
III. We'll become silhouettes
Whoa there, Neighbor! I hope you and your picturesque new family didn't get so comfortable you lost sight of the looming Red Menace. No, it's not just confined to the silver screen: the Communist threat is everywhere, maybe even in your own home—and the skies above. Around 1:15 PM on December 20th, they hear the sound: the air raid sirens clustered like bananas atop the tall poles dotting the city come to life like singing frogs on a bank, sending out long, drawn out calls in a chorus of overlapping pitches. The radios in every room crackle on as if by magic, and a man's transatlantic voice reads the announcement:
"Your attention please. This is Ron Chapman, one of your official civil defense broadcasters with a special message. Military authorities have advised us that an enemy attack by air is imminent. This is a red alert. You are advised to go to your nearest shelter area immediately. Find shelter. There is not time to leave the city.
Your state civil defense director has just issued the following instructions: Please remain calm. Every precaution will be taken for your protection. Keep your radio tuned to this place on the dial throughout the alert period for information. Telephone service to your home may be cut off to permit military and civil defense authorities to carry out vital operations. Do not attempt to join your family or children if they are now separated. They will be cared for where they are. Obey your civil defense warden and find shelter NOW. Take shelter in your basement or in your nearest shelter area. If you can plug in your radio in the basement, take it with you. Use a portable radio set if you have one. Otherwise turn up the volume of your radio so that you can hear it in the basement. Keep calm, don't lose your head. If you are at work, obey your civil defense authorities. Go quickly and calmly to their designated shelter. If your children are at school, they are being directed to shelter by their teachers. If you are in an automobile, pull over to the curb and then go immediately to the nearest shelter area. Do not leave your car where it will block traffic.
This station will continue to stay on the air throughout the alert period to bring you authentic information and official instructions. Stay tuned to 640 or 1240 kilocycles on your radio for official information. Refuse to listen to unauthorized rumors or broadcasts. This is your official civil defense broadcast . . . Your attention please. This is Ron Chapman, one of your official civil defense broadcasters with a special message . . ."
If characters are at the high school, teachers will usher them out of the classroom and down a single packed cement staircase in the direction of the basement, past a yellow and black sign on the wall over the hand railing that reads FALLOUT SHELTER. They don't visibly panic—but it's clear to almost everyone that the teachers are just as afraid as they are, if not moreso. They've simply been deliberately trained not to show it, though there is a quality to the eyes that training can never reach.
The portable emergency radios echo off of the cement floor and stacked barrels of drinking water lining the walls opposite unopened boxes of survival rations. Teachers call roll in strained voices, accounting for every student left in their care—and then, once everyone is in, the heavy metal door to the shelter is closed, shutting out the aboveground world as Principal Jones tells everyone to stay quiet so they can hear the portable radios.
Characters at home have the option of going into the basements of the homes they awoke in, which have some survival rations but hardly qualify as fully outfitted bunkers, or disregarding the civil defense office's commands and risking it to seek safety in the community fallout shelter beneath the Sweetwater Fire Department. It is up to each "couple" whether they split up or seek safety in numbers, whether they prioritize immediacy or amount of protection.
If characters decide to hunker down in the fallout shelter under the fire department, they will be joined by dozens of their terrified neighbors. Responses vary dramatically: some seem almost catatonic, as though unable to believe that the events before them are really unfolding; others weep with fear. A woman breaks free of her husband's arms, screaming that she has to get her son, but a firefighter keeps her from climbing back up the staircase more and more people stream down.
Regardless of where characters choose to shelter, they are trapped there for the next five hours, listening to the Maryland civil defense director's warning circulate over and over in the claustrophobic space. Now might be a good time to field any questions to Dick Clark, your town Civil Defense Officer and Police Chief.
—until at last, the message changes.
"Your attention please. This is Ron Chapman, one of your official civil defense broadcasters with a special message. Military authorities have advised us that the anticipated enemy attack has been diverted. You may now leave shelter and rejoin your families. This concludes the red alert. Your attention please . . ."
Uh oh. Hope you didn't say anything in the heat of the moment you might now regret.
"Your attention please. This is Ron Chapman, one of your official civil defense broadcasters with a special message. Military authorities have advised us that an enemy attack by air is imminent. This is a red alert. You are advised to go to your nearest shelter area immediately. Find shelter. There is not time to leave the city.
Your state civil defense director has just issued the following instructions: Please remain calm. Every precaution will be taken for your protection. Keep your radio tuned to this place on the dial throughout the alert period for information. Telephone service to your home may be cut off to permit military and civil defense authorities to carry out vital operations. Do not attempt to join your family or children if they are now separated. They will be cared for where they are. Obey your civil defense warden and find shelter NOW. Take shelter in your basement or in your nearest shelter area. If you can plug in your radio in the basement, take it with you. Use a portable radio set if you have one. Otherwise turn up the volume of your radio so that you can hear it in the basement. Keep calm, don't lose your head. If you are at work, obey your civil defense authorities. Go quickly and calmly to their designated shelter. If your children are at school, they are being directed to shelter by their teachers. If you are in an automobile, pull over to the curb and then go immediately to the nearest shelter area. Do not leave your car where it will block traffic.
This station will continue to stay on the air throughout the alert period to bring you authentic information and official instructions. Stay tuned to 640 or 1240 kilocycles on your radio for official information. Refuse to listen to unauthorized rumors or broadcasts. This is your official civil defense broadcast . . . Your attention please. This is Ron Chapman, one of your official civil defense broadcasters with a special message . . ."
If characters are at the high school, teachers will usher them out of the classroom and down a single packed cement staircase in the direction of the basement, past a yellow and black sign on the wall over the hand railing that reads FALLOUT SHELTER. They don't visibly panic—but it's clear to almost everyone that the teachers are just as afraid as they are, if not moreso. They've simply been deliberately trained not to show it, though there is a quality to the eyes that training can never reach.
The portable emergency radios echo off of the cement floor and stacked barrels of drinking water lining the walls opposite unopened boxes of survival rations. Teachers call roll in strained voices, accounting for every student left in their care—and then, once everyone is in, the heavy metal door to the shelter is closed, shutting out the aboveground world as Principal Jones tells everyone to stay quiet so they can hear the portable radios.
Characters at home have the option of going into the basements of the homes they awoke in, which have some survival rations but hardly qualify as fully outfitted bunkers, or disregarding the civil defense office's commands and risking it to seek safety in the community fallout shelter beneath the Sweetwater Fire Department. It is up to each "couple" whether they split up or seek safety in numbers, whether they prioritize immediacy or amount of protection.
If characters decide to hunker down in the fallout shelter under the fire department, they will be joined by dozens of their terrified neighbors. Responses vary dramatically: some seem almost catatonic, as though unable to believe that the events before them are really unfolding; others weep with fear. A woman breaks free of her husband's arms, screaming that she has to get her son, but a firefighter keeps her from climbing back up the staircase more and more people stream down.
Regardless of where characters choose to shelter, they are trapped there for the next five hours, listening to the Maryland civil defense director's warning circulate over and over in the claustrophobic space. Now might be a good time to field any questions to Dick Clark, your town Civil Defense Officer and Police Chief.
—until at last, the message changes.
"Your attention please. This is Ron Chapman, one of your official civil defense broadcasters with a special message. Military authorities have advised us that the anticipated enemy attack has been diverted. You may now leave shelter and rejoin your families. This concludes the red alert. Your attention please . . ."
Uh oh. Hope you didn't say anything in the heat of the moment you might now regret.
IV. There's no place like (your new) home for the holidays
What a stressful week–even if the townspeople don’t seem too phased by it. In fact, they’re acting as if nothing’s happened at all, and will laugh off any suggestion that anything different might be the case. The neighborhood Christmas party at the grand neocolonial home of HOA president Marjorie Taylor proceeds as planned on the 22nd of the month–Characters’ wardrobes, of course, already contain some cocktail attire, but if it doesn’t suit their tastes, they can find all of the latest fashions on display in the completely normal department store.
Punch made by Marjorie herself is served in a tremendous green Tupperware bowl, though those who would prefer a simple cocktail will have no trouble finding one on any of the bar carts around the house. Mistletoe dangles from the arch leading to the secluded hallway lined with doors to the guest room and downstairs bathroom, out of the sight of those who might judge a character for stealing a kiss from someone other than their new spouse. Married couples dance in the living room while their friends perch on the couch like an overloaded liferaft to watch. The air of the room is bright, jovial, loud - the red threat looms in the dark unknown beyond the windows, but for the moment, all is well. Enjoy yourself, neighbor!
Punch made by Marjorie herself is served in a tremendous green Tupperware bowl, though those who would prefer a simple cocktail will have no trouble finding one on any of the bar carts around the house. Mistletoe dangles from the arch leading to the secluded hallway lined with doors to the guest room and downstairs bathroom, out of the sight of those who might judge a character for stealing a kiss from someone other than their new spouse. Married couples dance in the living room while their friends perch on the couch like an overloaded liferaft to watch. The air of the room is bright, jovial, loud - the red threat looms in the dark unknown beyond the windows, but for the moment, all is well. Enjoy yourself, neighbor!
V. Slip a sable under the tree
Three days after Marjorie's successful neighborhood Christmas party comes Christmas morning. When characters head down the stairs (or step into the living room on the same floor, if they're the 'child' of one of the newly introduced couples), they'll find the fully decorated Christmas tree that greeted them upon their arrival now has a few presents wrapped in metallic reds and silvers resting at its base, one for each party in the household, addressed simply with From: Santa.
The catch? The wrapping paper is impossible to open, the ribbons are impossible to tie and uncut, until everyone sits down as a family and opens them together in a true representation of an old-fashioned American Christmas morning.
Characters will receive 1 extra item from their homeworld abiding by the starting inventory guidelines—but the item has to be deeply personal, and something that they're uncomfortable with others seeing... which, judging by the similar reaction their new housemates have to their own presents, almost seems to be by design. It could be a compromising photo, a piece of subversive literature, a relic of who they were and things they'd rather remain hidden... but whatever it is, they've now been seen with it.
The catch? The wrapping paper is impossible to open, the ribbons are impossible to tie and uncut, until everyone sits down as a family and opens them together in a true representation of an old-fashioned American Christmas morning.
Characters will receive 1 extra item from their homeworld abiding by the starting inventory guidelines—but the item has to be deeply personal, and something that they're uncomfortable with others seeing... which, judging by the similar reaction their new housemates have to their own presents, almost seems to be by design. It could be a compromising photo, a piece of subversive literature, a relic of who they were and things they'd rather remain hidden... but whatever it is, they've now been seen with it.
Players may keep TDM threads canon if both players are admitted, and TDMers are encouraged to play around with multiple possible family member matches. Have fun!
IV - DO YOU WANT TO PRACTICE MONOLOGUES TOGETHER? - Dec 22nd (XMas Party)
It's what she does best, as a poet.
But she does notice that a metaphoric alien spaceship landed on her world offering her a plate of food and an enthusiastic smile. The alien in question brings out a metaphorical gun and shoots her, forcing a small smile onto her own face in return.
"Oh no thanks. I'm fine. I'm not hungry..."
no subject
"Are you sure? Don't let the fullness of the plate fool you, some of these snacks will uncover appetite you didn't know you had."
Specifically, some of them will make a person hungry for other food, but saying so outright would be a little too rude to just say about strangers where they could overhear. Instead, he wiggles the plate like it's a lure on a fishing rod, like the movement makes the food more enticing.
no subject
Her face flushes red with embarrassment as she looks away. "S- sorry," she manages. A second later, she gives into the cruel demands of her new alien overlord.
"...M- maybe I am a- a little hungry... Um, thank you, um... s- sorry, I didn't get your name..." As she talks, she picks out a modest selection of food for her to nibble on.
no subject
"That's because, I hadn't yet introduced myself! Too busy proffering nutrition before salutations... That's the kind of concerned greatness I, Papyrus, am known for."
It's almost embarrassing that he had gotten so used to everyone knowing who he was that he's still out of the habit of introducing himself upfront, but, well. There's no sense in actually being embarrassed by it. That would distract him away from more important things.
"Today, a great server of food. Tomorrow, who knows?"
no subject
Don't mention how odd the name is don't mention how odd the name is don't mention how odd the name is-
"It's a bit of an odd name, isn't it?" DAMN IT. She turns her head away a little. "Erm, s- sorry."
After taking a bite, she manages to find a change in subject. Tomorrow, huh? Just like that, Yuri cannot help but offer up a little poem.
"Dusk descends his maple staircase, whilst his children, his shadows, dance in unrefined patterns.
They never had any plans to begin with.
And yet when the bottom of the stairs are reached, Dusk hangs his billowing midnight cape away.
Thus glancing through the window of the door
He seeks his favorite enigmatic desires.
He is left finding only an empty cage."
Yuri pauses for a moment, frowning a little. "That... that isn't my best. I've done better."
no subject
Instead he smiles wryly at himself, waiting while she gives the food a chance... then startles, as she offers poetry in turn. Finally, he applauds.
"Wow! Improvisational poetry...? I've never tried such woven wordplay on the fly before. I'm impressed!"
no subject
Still, Yuri can't help but blush in modesty and smile softly, fidgeting with her hair a little.
"Um, th-... thanks. I'm... I'm part of the Poetry Club back at school. It's not very big, but... I like it. And I like writing poems, especially ones deep in metaphor and open to interpretation. It... it really gets a person thinking."
no subject
It's been a couple weeks, but he's still only seen so many sunsets yet. Applying poetry to them hadn't begun to occur to him, not when he's still finding himself homesick and disoriented by the unfamiliar body and missing the people who should have been seeing the sun set with him.
Papyrus shivers just that little bit that would have been a rattle, before, and shakes off the feeling. Pulls up a practiced smile, and continues.
"B-But, in the meantime! I can tell you're a credit to your Poetry Club."