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silentspringmemes2024-02-02 11:33 pm
silentspringmods) wrote in silentspringmemes2024-02-02 11:33 pm
Entry tags:
TDM NO. 2
TDM № 2 : February 2024
Part I; Chapter 3. Out of the Mist Your Voice Is Calling
Part I; Chapter 3. Out of the Mist Your Voice Is Calling
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—or, if they're under 18, they awaken as the legally recognized child of the aforementioned couple. 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.
Openings
As of this TDM, a total of 18 player slots are open. Players may app up to two characters; one of the two will not count toward a player slot.
There are 8 openings for players who app at least one Wife;
There are 4 openings for players who only app a Husband;
and there are 6 openings for players apping at least one character under 18.
Game Tone and Blanket Warnings
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.
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 February 2, 1961.
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 February 2, 1961.
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. Smoke gets in your eyes
A few days after characters arrive, a large tower of black smoke begins to rise against the February sky, a dark column at the treeline just beyond the cooling towers that mark the location of the distant Sweetwater Atomic Energy Plant. The radios, if characters turn them on, advise of a two-day controlled burn going on in the forest during the dead season, managed by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, and suggest that characters keep windows closed to minimize “nuisance smoke” in the home. The whole town takes on the faint smell of smoke as the wind pushes it toward the patchwork of subdivisions: not the pleasant smell of wood burning or food cooking, but something much less organic, a close neighbor to the smell of burning plastic. Characters may, from time to time, notice the faintest passing metallic taste in their mouths.
Otherwise, it’s a slushy, snowy Maryland winter like any other, and the previous month’s snow—which had mostly melted by the time of the controlled burn—returns before too long, dusting the town in a few shallow inches of brilliant white. It’s enough for school to close for a few consecutive snow days—perhaps a good time for newly assigned children to explore the town or earn a few dollars shovelling driveways?
The salt trucks and plows do a pretty good job of keeping the streets cleared, but something odd begins to surface on the surface of the pavement as they continue to salt and scrape: numbers spraypainted on the pavement, varying by location: 1, 2, 3, or 4. Characters have about a week to realize that the numbers correlate to sectors in a quadrant covering what seems to be the entire town before roadblocks appear at the major street junctions connecting adjacent quadrants, manned by civil defense and the Sweetwater police force.
A disaster preparedness drill, the radio informs them, will be taking place for the next week. Characters who do not have critical business in a sector other than Sector 4, where Haven Street and the neighborhood bunker is located, will not be allowed to pass through, and those that are allowed to pass through for critical work (such as at the hospital in Sector 3 or the fire department in Sector 1) are subjected to trunk and body searches.
Unfortunately, most of the shops in town, including the grocery store, are clustered around the town park in Sector 1, unavailable to Haven Street’s residents. As the week goes on, neighbors may have to swap and borrow to make sure that they have everything they want—not need, of course, because the government of the town of Sweetwater would never let this go on long enough to create a serious need without providing for the citizenstrapped contained within the cordoned sectors. Might as well get to know each other!
Otherwise, it’s a slushy, snowy Maryland winter like any other, and the previous month’s snow—which had mostly melted by the time of the controlled burn—returns before too long, dusting the town in a few shallow inches of brilliant white. It’s enough for school to close for a few consecutive snow days—perhaps a good time for newly assigned children to explore the town or earn a few dollars shovelling driveways?
The salt trucks and plows do a pretty good job of keeping the streets cleared, but something odd begins to surface on the surface of the pavement as they continue to salt and scrape: numbers spraypainted on the pavement, varying by location: 1, 2, 3, or 4. Characters have about a week to realize that the numbers correlate to sectors in a quadrant covering what seems to be the entire town before roadblocks appear at the major street junctions connecting adjacent quadrants, manned by civil defense and the Sweetwater police force.
A disaster preparedness drill, the radio informs them, will be taking place for the next week. Characters who do not have critical business in a sector other than Sector 4, where Haven Street and the neighborhood bunker is located, will not be allowed to pass through, and those that are allowed to pass through for critical work (such as at the hospital in Sector 3 or the fire department in Sector 1) are subjected to trunk and body searches.
Unfortunately, most of the shops in town, including the grocery store, are clustered around the town park in Sector 1, unavailable to Haven Street’s residents. As the week goes on, neighbors may have to swap and borrow to make sure that they have everything they want—not need, of course, because the government of the town of Sweetwater would never let this go on long enough to create a serious need without providing for the citizens
III. Everybody's somebody's fool
You didn’t think Valentine’s Day would come to pass without a quintessential 1960s cocktail party, did you? On the 14th of the month, Marjorie again plays hostess in the large, well-groomed neocolonial at the end of the cul-de-sac, offering a spread complete with cheese balls, deviled eggs, and fondue. Or maybe shrimp are more your character’s style? Either way, there is no shortage of rather… quirky hors d’oeuvres and assorted canapes to blunt the effect of the cocktails her husband mixes up, or her signature punch, if characters would rather have that.
While characters’ closets contain an item or two of cocktail attire from the 1960s lives they’ve stepped into, there are also a lot of other things in their closets, things that would catch some glances or invite gossip by the NPC partygoers. It’s best to avoid a faux pas in an environment like this - maybe some second opinions on outfits are warranted? And of course, it wouldn’t reflect well on one spouse for their partner to show up underdressed… or to not show up at all without a pretty good alibi.
Characters may notice, at various points in the night, that Marjorie’s gaze wanders from person to person, that at times she seems to be watching different partygoers. This probably isn’t the best place for subversive speech, but it’s a good chance to meet one’s neighbors, and perhaps an even better chance to try and get some information out of Marjorie.
While characters’ closets contain an item or two of cocktail attire from the 1960s lives they’ve stepped into, there are also a lot of other things in their closets, things that would catch some glances or invite gossip by the NPC partygoers. It’s best to avoid a faux pas in an environment like this - maybe some second opinions on outfits are warranted? And of course, it wouldn’t reflect well on one spouse for their partner to show up underdressed… or to not show up at all without a pretty good alibi.
Characters may notice, at various points in the night, that Marjorie’s gaze wanders from person to person, that at times she seems to be watching different partygoers. This probably isn’t the best place for subversive speech, but it’s a good chance to meet one’s neighbors, and perhaps an even better chance to try and get some information out of Marjorie.
IV. Don't tell me why, kiss me goodbye
cw: non-graphic depiction of woman in labor
When characters go to sleep on the night of the 15th, the edges of the town again begin to merge with their unconscious minds as they did on New Year's Eve, a sequence of fragmented images: a beautiful young woman’s face contorts in agony, the bindi above the bridge of her nose crumpling between tight brows as she pants through bared teeth, her shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs. Two older women, both with salt-and-pepper hair, stand on either side of her in an urban hospital room, rubbing her back as it jerks with her weeping. The roots of her hair are drenched with sweat; tears stream around the hand of her mother-in-law as it rests on her flushed cheek. A young woman with hair tucked under a scrub cap leans over one of her elders and says something to the soon-to-be mother.
Two occupied pairs of loafers face each other on a glossy tiled floor. A woman’s voice echoes over a speaker: Now boarding, Flight 17501, DCA to LaGuardia. First-Class passengers on Flight 17501 from DCA to LaGuardia may now board. The same hand that wound into the telephone cord reaches out and shakes a broader one several shades darker, decorated with a proportionally heavy chain-link watch.
“Professor.
My congratulations to your daughter.”
A few days later, the televisions downstairs crackle to life, playing in black and white a short video. The young woman from the dream stands in front of the camera in what appears to be a walled garden, wearing a short-sleeved shirt with a plain but brightly colored sari flaring out across it sidha pallu style and holding an infant; her thick black hair is now in a long braid tucked to the right, capped off with trendy Sadhana cut bangs. She waves at the camera, then holds up the baby’s wrist as to wave too. The child is small, and young—maybe one month old.
She says something, her brown eyes warming, although of course the soundless film doesn't capture her words. The camera comes closer to the baby, showing her face, giving different angles, then pans out, sweeping across the garden: well-kept, clearly maintained by someone who cares about it quite a bit. Guava and Chinese hibiscus border the brick wall with a well-pruned mango tree standing sentry, and the compound leaves of a young neem tree sway gently in the breeze in the foreground. One of the women from the delivery room, somewhere in her fifties or sixties, steps into the screen to stand beside the new mother, looking into the camera with the same eyes, her own creased at the edges with decades lived.
Be careful. I love you, she mouths in Hindi, although the video has no sound—and characters, even without any prior knowledge, will find that somehow they know the exact content of what was just expressed—and more than that echoes in their minds.
Be careful.
I love you.
Ishani needs her grandfather.
The young woman smiles a little thinly at the the camera as the video comes to an end, her eyes glistening, and says something in parting, again waving and holding up the baby’s hand as though to wave too; the older woman presses a hand to her lips and blows a kiss with a wistful smile that holds a trace of pain—and briefly, characters look at the screen and realize that her face has metamorphosed into that of someone they care very deeply for, holding direct eye contact with them, visible to any other parties in the room. The video ends, leaving them—and, if they’re unlucky, another member of the household—standing in the living room, staring at a blank screen.
When characters go to sleep on the night of the 15th, the edges of the town again begin to merge with their unconscious minds as they did on New Year's Eve, a sequence of fragmented images: a beautiful young woman’s face contorts in agony, the bindi above the bridge of her nose crumpling between tight brows as she pants through bared teeth, her shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs. Two older women, both with salt-and-pepper hair, stand on either side of her in an urban hospital room, rubbing her back as it jerks with her weeping. The roots of her hair are drenched with sweat; tears stream around the hand of her mother-in-law as it rests on her flushed cheek. A young woman with hair tucked under a scrub cap leans over one of her elders and says something to the soon-to-be mother.
Two occupied pairs of loafers face each other on a glossy tiled floor. A woman’s voice echoes over a speaker: Now boarding, Flight 17501, DCA to LaGuardia. First-Class passengers on Flight 17501 from DCA to LaGuardia may now board. The same hand that wound into the telephone cord reaches out and shakes a broader one several shades darker, decorated with a proportionally heavy chain-link watch.
“Professor.
My congratulations to your daughter.”
A few days later, the televisions downstairs crackle to life, playing in black and white a short video. The young woman from the dream stands in front of the camera in what appears to be a walled garden, wearing a short-sleeved shirt with a plain but brightly colored sari flaring out across it sidha pallu style and holding an infant; her thick black hair is now in a long braid tucked to the right, capped off with trendy Sadhana cut bangs. She waves at the camera, then holds up the baby’s wrist as to wave too. The child is small, and young—maybe one month old.
She says something, her brown eyes warming, although of course the soundless film doesn't capture her words. The camera comes closer to the baby, showing her face, giving different angles, then pans out, sweeping across the garden: well-kept, clearly maintained by someone who cares about it quite a bit. Guava and Chinese hibiscus border the brick wall with a well-pruned mango tree standing sentry, and the compound leaves of a young neem tree sway gently in the breeze in the foreground. One of the women from the delivery room, somewhere in her fifties or sixties, steps into the screen to stand beside the new mother, looking into the camera with the same eyes, her own creased at the edges with decades lived.
Be careful. I love you, she mouths in Hindi, although the video has no sound—and characters, even without any prior knowledge, will find that somehow they know the exact content of what was just expressed—and more than that echoes in their minds.
Be careful.
I love you.
Ishani needs her grandfather.
The young woman smiles a little thinly at the the camera as the video comes to an end, her eyes glistening, and says something in parting, again waving and holding up the baby’s hand as though to wave too; the older woman presses a hand to her lips and blows a kiss with a wistful smile that holds a trace of pain—and briefly, characters look at the screen and realize that her face has metamorphosed into that of someone they care very deeply for, holding direct eye contact with them, visible to any other parties in the room. The video ends, leaving them—and, if they’re unlucky, another member of the household—standing in the living room, staring at a blank screen.
V. Becoming what we are, collapsing stars
Characters attending the community college’s Spring/Summer semester to begin training for their new careers may notice a sign-up sheet posted outside of some of the classrooms in the science and engineering wing: a series of talks on astrophysics, open to the public, is being held by visiting lecturer Vikram Ravichandran, a tenured professor in the Physics Department of the Indian Institute of Science holding degrees in astrophysics and theoretical physics from the IIS and Oxford University, respectively. It’s quite an honor to have someone so qualified teaching in a little town like this, isn’t it?
If any characters puzzle about what might bring a man across the world to give talks in a town like this, their curiosity is dismissed, and they’re simply told that the professor is teaching while he looks for a quieter suburban life outside of the frenetic pace of Bengaluru. Who wouldn’t want to live and teach in America? His choice seems self-explanatory enough to the Americans of Sweetwater.
On the 19thth, the first talk is held, a thoroughly normal lecture on recent academic thought on the origins of the universe, followed by light refreshments, offering attendees a chance to meet their new classmates or perhaps to introduce themselves or pose questions to Dr. Ravichandran—although how much can be safely shared with him, as always, remains a looming question mark.
For the most part, though, Vikram has an approachable air—he's tall and speaks with a deep voice, and is certainly very intelligent in an eccentric sort of way, but he smiles and laughs in conversation throughout the night, diving deep into explanations with evident relish when asked. He gives the impression of someone who has been in academia for quite some time; with tenure has come the ability to relax. As odd as his presence in the town of Sweetwater is, he does seem to sincerely enjoy teaching—those particularly attentive to their surroundings might notice his name on the cover of one of the communal textbooks left out on one of the tables in the science department’s study area on their way back to the parking lot.
Notes:
— The Community College is now open! It features a cafeteria, campus center, library, gymnasium, athletics field, pool, and assorted classrooms. Characters who are registered as students have free access to all parts of the campus; characters who aren't students can access most of it, although they can't check out library books or access the gym or pool.
If any characters puzzle about what might bring a man across the world to give talks in a town like this, their curiosity is dismissed, and they’re simply told that the professor is teaching while he looks for a quieter suburban life outside of the frenetic pace of Bengaluru. Who wouldn’t want to live and teach in America? His choice seems self-explanatory enough to the Americans of Sweetwater.
On the 19thth, the first talk is held, a thoroughly normal lecture on recent academic thought on the origins of the universe, followed by light refreshments, offering attendees a chance to meet their new classmates or perhaps to introduce themselves or pose questions to Dr. Ravichandran—although how much can be safely shared with him, as always, remains a looming question mark.
For the most part, though, Vikram has an approachable air—he's tall and speaks with a deep voice, and is certainly very intelligent in an eccentric sort of way, but he smiles and laughs in conversation throughout the night, diving deep into explanations with evident relish when asked. He gives the impression of someone who has been in academia for quite some time; with tenure has come the ability to relax. As odd as his presence in the town of Sweetwater is, he does seem to sincerely enjoy teaching—those particularly attentive to their surroundings might notice his name on the cover of one of the communal textbooks left out on one of the tables in the science department’s study area on their way back to the parking lot.
Notes:
— The Community College is now open! It features a cafeteria, campus center, library, gymnasium, athletics field, pool, and assorted classrooms. Characters who are registered as students have free access to all parts of the campus; characters who aren't students can access most of it, although they can't check out library books or access the gym or pool.
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!
he's great! i'm afraid norton is going to persistently extrovert at him
[Unfortunately for Sherlock, Norton is very determined to keep talking and not deterred by overt unsociableness.]
So long as it's occasionally paired with something else. Food-like things. But I'll leave that to you if you insist. To be honest, I'm a terrible cook so it's probably just as well.
What do you think all the barricades are about? [Norton skips topics abruptly, from brain to mouth without much pause in between.]
very good excellent please persist
[Sherlock considers them a moment, then gives a shrug, letting his hands fall wide.]
If this is all a delusion, I imagine they are a defense mechanism meant to shield my mind from whatever lies beyond. There will be a way past, but it will require searching. [He raises his mug to his face as he goes on, giving his words a muffled little echo.] And possibly pain. [Ssssip.]
If it is not a delusion...
[He considers again, then gives a shrug.]
It seems a strange amount of effort to go to merely to restrict our movements. Given what they have demonstrated they are capable of, I would expect something more efficient, if the goal were truly to keep us out of the other areas. Perhaps they are testing us, to see if we'll comply quietly?
[He looks balefully in the direction of the nearest checkpoint. Sherlock has no reason to go anywhere, not yet; he's still getting his bearings, still trying to get a sense of whether it is all a dream. But he doesn't care to go chasing secrets at the cost of torment. Not yet. Not without cause. So, he doesn't plan to test it himself.]
no subject
Anyhoo, I'm still fairly certain I'm not a mental construct, in part because I have thoughts of my own. Cogito ergo sum and all that. And I'm fairly sure the things I think aren't things you'd think. Let's just say things get very Freudian in here. Have you ever noticed how many things are shaped like a phallus?
no subject
I cannot say it occupies much of my attention.
[With brisk carelessness:]
But neither did stories of ghosts or monsters -- except as an opportunity to prove they did not exist. To dispel -- [here Sherlock slows down,] baseless fears, and -- [yeah, this is bringing up some memories for him, if the way his expression falls, and his eyes drift to the side, is anything to go by] -- on occasion, reveal a charlatan.
[Rochester had not been a charlatan. Had he? It had all been real. Hadn't it? Sherlock had not seen the creature with his own eyes. His own eyes cannot be trusted. If they cannot, where does that leave him? Here, apparently, unable to distinguish reality from delusion.
For a moment, Sherlock is clearly a million miles away, caught in whatever saying that reminded him of --
-- and then he's back, attention snapping back to Norton like a rubber band, eyes focused once more, as though nothing had happened.]
no subject
[But Holmes looks like his mind is in another world right now and Norton's not sure he even heard him or not.]
Is something the matter?
cw: description of being (briefly) eaten alive, smoking
Then, quickly, he shakes his head, in response to the question. Folgate believes in monsters? Ridiculous. The only monsters are --
(radial anatomy. tentacles. a mouth like a pit, lined with teeth. absolute darkness, pressure, the stench, the slime, seeping through his clothes as he was pushed down by contracting, constricting muscle immovable as steel, he could not breathe, he could not--)
...
-- Sherlock is not, he decides, equal to having a discussion about monsters. Not as separate from humanity, at any rate. The man waves a bony hand, like he's clearing smoke from the air in front of him.]
No, no. I am -- [His fingers on the tea mug grip it tighter, feeling the hard ceramic, the smooth texture of its glaze below his fingers. The other hand comes to meet it: perfectly round, solid, real. Ordinary.] -- quite all right. I could -- do with a smoke. Perhaps another...cup of tea.
[He is pulling himself together valiantly, treading water hard, but his head remains above the surface for now. The next words come out of him in a tone that's almost automatic, except that the pointed pause as he searches for words and the sarcastic emphasis on fascinating is a little too pointed to be fully autopilot babble.]
Thank you, this has been a...varied and fascinating discussion.
[From allusions to mental constructs to phallic fixations, this has been a weird first talk, and he's only barely pretending otherwise. But monsters are a bridge too far and Sherlock's definitely excusing himself -- not only in words and tone, but also by taking a step backwards, shifting his body back towards the front door of the house everybody is saying is his.]