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silentspringmemes2024-04-06 07:40 pm
silentspringmods) wrote in silentspringmemes2024-04-06 07:40 pm
TDM NO. 3
TDM № 3 : April 2024
Part I; Chapter 4. And I'm Screaming At The Top of My Lungs
Part I; Chapter 4. And I'm Screaming At The Top of My Lungs
Hey, neighbor, welcome to the third 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.
This TDM is open to both prospective players and current players - please specify whether you are a current player or a prospective player in your toplevel!
Openings
As of this TDM, a total of 24 player slots are open. Players may app 2 characters in the same app round so long as they are in different roles.
Game Tone and Blanket Warnings
APRIL 2024: THE SECOND AND THIRD PROMPTS IN THIS TDM FEATURE A SEMI-GRAPHIC, PUBLIC NPC SUICIDE.
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, nuclear horror, and uncanny valley. At different points in the setting backstory there are suicides, domestic violence, murder, slow death/suffering, trauma of minors, NPC parental death, flashbacks to combat zones, gaslighting, and other, similarly heavy subjects. IC consequences can involve anything from social shunning to sleep deprivation torture, brainwashing, physical torture (for severe crimes) 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. This is a horrorgame, and it has upsetting themes. Minors are not allowed in this game - as adults, it's the players' responsibility to self-regulate what they consume based on content warnings and avoid things they find too distressing to engage with.
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 April 1, 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 early 1961 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 1961 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 April 1, 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 early 1961 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 1961 are allowed, and no weapons more powerful than a hunting rifle or handgun can be brought with them. One weapon per character.
II. It's time to leave the capsule if you dare
CW: SEMI-GRAPHIC SUICIDE.
On the morning of the second, the usual controlled burn warning for the forest beyond the Sweetwater Atomic Energy Plant is issued; citizens are informed that it will go on for the next 3 to 5 days. The usual rules apply: keep your windows closed, limit how much you go outside. The wind gradually carries the diffuse, unnatural smoke into the air of the neighborhood, smelling a bit like burning plastic—certainly not the rich, smoky smell of burning wood.
Around 7:30 in the morning the next day, a man staggers down the middle of Haven Street, dragging his feet in their knee high wellington boots like they’re made of lead—one shuffling step, then another. His shoulders hang.
He’s dressed as though he’s descended from space, a lone astronaut taking first steps on the surface of a hostile planet. A gas mask with soulless circular eye holes covers his face and wraps around his head down to his neck; a white rubberized NBC suit engulfs the rest of his body—except for a two-inch tear ripped through the fabric on one thigh, exposing it to the chill April air outside of the suit, bits of frayed material hanging over the edge of the ravine torn through his pants leg like the spikes on a venus flytrap as it grows longer with his movements. A thicker pantomime of the kitchen gloves on the side of every Haven Street sink covers his hands up to mid forearm. Charcoal streaks his boots and the legs of his suit as he shuffles forward.
The front door of one of the houses swings open. A teenage girl runs down the steps, the ends of her black bob still in its rollers. Characters may recognize her from the memory shared on New Year’s Eve.
Or maybe they don’t. Maybe they’ve just arrived in the neighborhood, and she’s just a teenager half-ready for school, in her school uniform and bobby socks shoved into fuzzy pink house slippers.
“Mister! Excuse me, Mister—”
The man doesn’t turn his head. Slowly and mechanically, he removes the mask and hood, then unzips the long front zipper of the suit and sheds it like a rubberized chrysalis. The mask falls from his limp hand; he steps out of his boots, standing in the pool of protective equipment at his feet dressed in nothing but sweat-drenched underclothes. Trancelike, he peels off each wet cotton layer until he stands naked in the middle of the street, sweat glistening on his skin in the morning light, revealing cracked, chapped knuckles and dry pink flesh. A rash blossoms across his naked back, a darker red at its edges, like a drop of ink spreading out on a paper towel. He bends down, reaches into the top of one discarded wellington boot, and pulls out a gun.
Candace’s eyes widen in immediate recognition. “No!” she screams, breaking into a run, the flat soles of her house slippers slapping against the pavement. “No!”
He presses the cold barrel of the gun into the soft flesh under his chin.
“No, no, no! No! Stop!”
Tears run down her cheeks as she pushes herself harder, runs faster, and reaches out to grasp his naked arm— The single gunshot echoes through the neighborhood. Blood splatters across her school uniform as the body collapses atop the heap of PPE, jaw hideously mangled, skull open. The girl screams, and screams, and screams, arms rigid, fingers spread, body shaking as she collapses onto the asphalt.
“Oh my God,” she whispers as characters approach, her bottom lip quivering under half-applied Covergirl lipstick, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”
Neighbors open their doors and run out into the street–including a woman with skin a few shades darker than the girl’s in a floral apron and yellow playtex kitchen gloves, shoving stunned neighbors out of the way with a single scream:
“Candace! Candace, baby, Candy,” she sobs, immediately crouching behind her daughter and wrapping her arms around her shaking body as she continues to wail, brown eyes blown wide, face flecked with someone else’s blood. Her mother’s hands shake in their rubber gloves as she fumbles across her body, checking her rigid arms and legs and face as though making sure her child is intact, and then she pulls her up; Candace’s legs buckle underneath her and almost send her back onto the pavement, but her mother catches her by the arms in a hard uncomfortable grab in the split second before she falls. “Mama’s here. Your mama’s here. You’re going to be okay, alright, baby? You’re going to be okay, it’s all going to be alright—Stop looking at her!” she screams through her own tears, even though all but a few eyes are on the body, “Stop looking at her! We’re going to get you washed off, baby, come on, you’re okay—”
She fumbles with the ties of her apron and strips it off, draping it over her daughter’s head as though to hide her face as a Cambodian woman several inches shorter and a decade or two older than her breaks from the crowd and takes the girl’s other arm, rubbing her bare skin, trying to make eye contact, issuing urgent reassurances - characters who have explored the shopping Sweetwater has to offer may recognize her as Mrs. Hăk, from the Hăk Asian Market on the other side of town. A family friend? Her husband places a hand on her back, saying something in hushed, equally urgent Khmer. She rebukes him insistently and immediately returns her attention to the task of shepherding the shellshocked girl away from the scene; her husband takes a step back, arms hanging by his sides, helpless.
Addendum.
Characters may or may not experience this vision in addition to the above prompt.
For a fleeting moment, before police arrive, characters who have come out in the first few minutes hear a voice: the same man older arrivals heard over the phone on New Year's Eve, hysterical with emotion. "No. No. Fuck! Fuck! Motherfucker! Son of a fucking bitch! Motherfucking son of a fucking bitch! Cowardly fucking son of a bitch! Worthless shiteating Commie bastard!" He lets out a single shout after that, echoing through witnesses' brains, the only sound other than hushed words in the background, inaudible but serious, delivered like order—"Fuck!"—and then the memory takes on sight as he slams a recognizable hand down on the shiny black hood of a car. The skin on the outside of some characters' hands even sears and burns, like they themselves have held the outside of their fist on metal heated by Maryland's late summer sun, leaving something a little more minor than a large oven burn.
His sight eclipses the gore in the middle of the street entirely, until it blots out everything around the characters who see the vision: a middle aged man behind the steering wheel of a car, his head tilted back against his stationwagon's bloody headrest, mouth hanging open, eyes half-lidded and glassy like a supermarket fish, not having even had time for their finite well of tears to evaporate.
"You've killed us," they feel themselves tell the corpse in the same man's voice, now laden with a new, hollow calm, and let out a disbelieving laugh. "You've fucking killed all of us."
And then they're staring at the body of the man in the suit again, their mouths never having opened.
On the morning of the second, the usual controlled burn warning for the forest beyond the Sweetwater Atomic Energy Plant is issued; citizens are informed that it will go on for the next 3 to 5 days. The usual rules apply: keep your windows closed, limit how much you go outside. The wind gradually carries the diffuse, unnatural smoke into the air of the neighborhood, smelling a bit like burning plastic—certainly not the rich, smoky smell of burning wood.
Around 7:30 in the morning the next day, a man staggers down the middle of Haven Street, dragging his feet in their knee high wellington boots like they’re made of lead—one shuffling step, then another. His shoulders hang.
He’s dressed as though he’s descended from space, a lone astronaut taking first steps on the surface of a hostile planet. A gas mask with soulless circular eye holes covers his face and wraps around his head down to his neck; a white rubberized NBC suit engulfs the rest of his body—except for a two-inch tear ripped through the fabric on one thigh, exposing it to the chill April air outside of the suit, bits of frayed material hanging over the edge of the ravine torn through his pants leg like the spikes on a venus flytrap as it grows longer with his movements. A thicker pantomime of the kitchen gloves on the side of every Haven Street sink covers his hands up to mid forearm. Charcoal streaks his boots and the legs of his suit as he shuffles forward.
The front door of one of the houses swings open. A teenage girl runs down the steps, the ends of her black bob still in its rollers. Characters may recognize her from the memory shared on New Year’s Eve.
Or maybe they don’t. Maybe they’ve just arrived in the neighborhood, and she’s just a teenager half-ready for school, in her school uniform and bobby socks shoved into fuzzy pink house slippers.
“Mister! Excuse me, Mister—”
The man doesn’t turn his head. Slowly and mechanically, he removes the mask and hood, then unzips the long front zipper of the suit and sheds it like a rubberized chrysalis. The mask falls from his limp hand; he steps out of his boots, standing in the pool of protective equipment at his feet dressed in nothing but sweat-drenched underclothes. Trancelike, he peels off each wet cotton layer until he stands naked in the middle of the street, sweat glistening on his skin in the morning light, revealing cracked, chapped knuckles and dry pink flesh. A rash blossoms across his naked back, a darker red at its edges, like a drop of ink spreading out on a paper towel. He bends down, reaches into the top of one discarded wellington boot, and pulls out a gun.
Candace’s eyes widen in immediate recognition. “No!” she screams, breaking into a run, the flat soles of her house slippers slapping against the pavement. “No!”
He presses the cold barrel of the gun into the soft flesh under his chin.
“No, no, no! No! Stop!”
Tears run down her cheeks as she pushes herself harder, runs faster, and reaches out to grasp his naked arm— The single gunshot echoes through the neighborhood. Blood splatters across her school uniform as the body collapses atop the heap of PPE, jaw hideously mangled, skull open. The girl screams, and screams, and screams, arms rigid, fingers spread, body shaking as she collapses onto the asphalt.
“Oh my God,” she whispers as characters approach, her bottom lip quivering under half-applied Covergirl lipstick, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”
Neighbors open their doors and run out into the street–including a woman with skin a few shades darker than the girl’s in a floral apron and yellow playtex kitchen gloves, shoving stunned neighbors out of the way with a single scream:
“Candace! Candace, baby, Candy,” she sobs, immediately crouching behind her daughter and wrapping her arms around her shaking body as she continues to wail, brown eyes blown wide, face flecked with someone else’s blood. Her mother’s hands shake in their rubber gloves as she fumbles across her body, checking her rigid arms and legs and face as though making sure her child is intact, and then she pulls her up; Candace’s legs buckle underneath her and almost send her back onto the pavement, but her mother catches her by the arms in a hard uncomfortable grab in the split second before she falls. “Mama’s here. Your mama’s here. You’re going to be okay, alright, baby? You’re going to be okay, it’s all going to be alright—Stop looking at her!” she screams through her own tears, even though all but a few eyes are on the body, “Stop looking at her! We’re going to get you washed off, baby, come on, you’re okay—”
She fumbles with the ties of her apron and strips it off, draping it over her daughter’s head as though to hide her face as a Cambodian woman several inches shorter and a decade or two older than her breaks from the crowd and takes the girl’s other arm, rubbing her bare skin, trying to make eye contact, issuing urgent reassurances - characters who have explored the shopping Sweetwater has to offer may recognize her as Mrs. Hăk, from the Hăk Asian Market on the other side of town. A family friend? Her husband places a hand on her back, saying something in hushed, equally urgent Khmer. She rebukes him insistently and immediately returns her attention to the task of shepherding the shellshocked girl away from the scene; her husband takes a step back, arms hanging by his sides, helpless.
Addendum.
Characters may or may not experience this vision in addition to the above prompt.
For a fleeting moment, before police arrive, characters who have come out in the first few minutes hear a voice: the same man older arrivals heard over the phone on New Year's Eve, hysterical with emotion. "No. No. Fuck! Fuck! Motherfucker! Son of a fucking bitch! Motherfucking son of a fucking bitch! Cowardly fucking son of a bitch! Worthless shiteating Commie bastard!" He lets out a single shout after that, echoing through witnesses' brains, the only sound other than hushed words in the background, inaudible but serious, delivered like order—"Fuck!"—and then the memory takes on sight as he slams a recognizable hand down on the shiny black hood of a car. The skin on the outside of some characters' hands even sears and burns, like they themselves have held the outside of their fist on metal heated by Maryland's late summer sun, leaving something a little more minor than a large oven burn.
His sight eclipses the gore in the middle of the street entirely, until it blots out everything around the characters who see the vision: a middle aged man behind the steering wheel of a car, his head tilted back against his stationwagon's bloody headrest, mouth hanging open, eyes half-lidded and glassy like a supermarket fish, not having even had time for their finite well of tears to evaporate.
"You've killed us," they feel themselves tell the corpse in the same man's voice, now laden with a new, hollow calm, and let out a disbelieving laugh. "You've fucking killed all of us."
And then they're staring at the body of the man in the suit again, their mouths never having opened.
III. Load up, load up, load up with rubber bullets
CW: DEAD BODY FROM SUICIDE, POLICE AGGRESSION/INTIMIDATION, POSSIBLE MANHANDLING/NONLETHAL FORCE, FORCED CONFINEMENT.
Police are on the scene seven minutes later, patrol cars with lights on and sirens wailing proceeding down Haven Street single-file like a funeral procession, tailed by an ambulance.
“Everyone back!” Dick Clark shouts as he throws open the door of his patrol car and runs toward the crumpled body and pile of bloody PPE. “Go back to your homes and wait for further instruction!”
But there’s something tense in the way he holds himself, in the sharpness of his breaths—not hyperventilating by any means, but a very harsh, defined in and out, the faintest tremor on the exhalation. He steps closer to the body, putting himself between it and the onlookers—but there passes a moment before that in which he just stares deeply, as though looking right through it, mouth frozen in a hard line. Then he lifts his head, continues shouting orders. There’s something in his eyes, though. There’s something tired, and haunted, and stricken.
Shakily, the townspeople disperse, walking back to their homes with glances over their shoulders at the carnage. If characters falter, policemen will usher them into the nearest homes—even if it’s not their household, and is in fact a neighbor’s, although they only ever end up with other player characters—by force if necessary, and sometimes in groups as large as five people. All that seems to matter is getting everyone off of the street.
Watching through the windows, characters will see the area being taped off, a blanket draped over the naked body. The EMTs bring out a stretcher and load the still-covered body, bringing it back to the hearselike ambulance. Police officers with nightsticks patrol up and down the street, ready to force any escapees back inside.
An hour later, the first Civil Defense broadcast is issued over the radio and in close captioning on an otherwise blank black television screen, both of which turn on automatically in every home:
Might as well get to know your new family members better—or whatever neighbor you’re trapped with for the next 30-someodd hours.
Police are on the scene seven minutes later, patrol cars with lights on and sirens wailing proceeding down Haven Street single-file like a funeral procession, tailed by an ambulance.
“Everyone back!” Dick Clark shouts as he throws open the door of his patrol car and runs toward the crumpled body and pile of bloody PPE. “Go back to your homes and wait for further instruction!”
But there’s something tense in the way he holds himself, in the sharpness of his breaths—not hyperventilating by any means, but a very harsh, defined in and out, the faintest tremor on the exhalation. He steps closer to the body, putting himself between it and the onlookers—but there passes a moment before that in which he just stares deeply, as though looking right through it, mouth frozen in a hard line. Then he lifts his head, continues shouting orders. There’s something in his eyes, though. There’s something tired, and haunted, and stricken.
Shakily, the townspeople disperse, walking back to their homes with glances over their shoulders at the carnage. If characters falter, policemen will usher them into the nearest homes—even if it’s not their household, and is in fact a neighbor’s, although they only ever end up with other player characters—by force if necessary, and sometimes in groups as large as five people. All that seems to matter is getting everyone off of the street.
Watching through the windows, characters will see the area being taped off, a blanket draped over the naked body. The EMTs bring out a stretcher and load the still-covered body, bringing it back to the hearselike ambulance. Police officers with nightsticks patrol up and down the street, ready to force any escapees back inside.
An hour later, the first Civil Defense broadcast is issued over the radio and in close captioning on an otherwise blank black television screen, both of which turn on automatically in every home:
This is Dick Clark, your town police chief and Civil Defense director. Mandatory curfew has been enacted until 2 P.M. tomorrow. Draw all curtains and turn off all lights visible from outside of the home. Lock all doors, and do not exit the home until advised to do so. If any suspicious activity is noted outside of the home, do not exit to investigate. Call 911 immediately. . . This is Dick Clark, your town police chief…
Might as well get to know your new family members better—or whatever neighbor you’re trapped with for the next 30-someodd hours.
IV. Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air
No CWs apply.
In spite of the horrifying turn of events, the Junior Hunter Over Fences 2’ Division show in the ring down the road from the riding stable proceeds as planned on the sixth—although a line has been drawn through Candace’s name on the posted ring order and she’s nowhere to be seen on the day of the show. It’s a good chance for characters to familiarize themselves with their new neighbors, especially new high school classmates who are competing.
It’s a sunny day, a great time to grab a hot dog and lemonade from the concessions stand and mingle around—but despite the good time their human counterparts are having, the horses are nervous, eyes darting this way and that, acting up with little hiccups of resistance in the ring, pawing deep tracks into the sandy ground and sparse grass outside of the ring as they’re groomed outside of their trailers.
Both Walter Harvey Glickman, the stablemaster, and Jack Alvarez, an occasional fixture at the barn, can be seen on the showgrounds—the prior, coaching his riders, the latter, simply watching the competition. Jack sits in a manual wheelchair outfitted with knobbier tires than characters might be used to seeing; even without standing, his small stature is readily apparent, lean and certainly no taller than 5’4. His legs, in particular, are thin with prolonged disuse; his upper body is wiry, the flex of his muscles beneath his long-sleeved shirt implying good condition and frequent exercise. One of the riders, on a particularly rangy dark bay, stops to talk to him on her way out from the gate as Jack strokes the animal’s leg with apparent familiarity.
He also pays particular attention to the performance of a tall, lean grey mare—and is watching when she refuses the first roll-top, backing up and continuing to back up, nostrils flaring, eyes wide. She dances in place, hooves landing this way and that as her rider struggles to get her back under control; they manage a disorganized canter in a circle, coming back to the obstacle, and again there is a refusal—the mare, by this point, near hysterics. The disqualification is announced; the rider dismounts on the spot, holding the reins tight together under the horse’s chin, walking her back toward the gate as she trots in place, unable to dash forward as she clearly wants, snorting loudly through flared nostrils.
“She doesn’t like the smoke,” Jack says, sourly, with no apparent concern over who hears him. “Of course they’re all upset. They can’t breathe. Plant couldn’t even stop burning for one day.”
To make matters worse, the sunshine and crisp air that began the event are no longer by mid-afternoon. Clouds gather, and before too long it begins to sprinkle, then rain, despite mention of neither in the day’s forecast; the competition goes on, although event volunteers can be seen emptying water buckets and turning them upside down, with the exception of the large galvanized trough at the entrance of the ring, which they only manage to turn onto its side, unleashing a small flood on the patchy grass. Characters have the option of taking shelter under the covered pavilion where guests sit at picnic tables to enjoy their concessions, or perhaps they’d rather just go home after such a strange day; if they do take shelter, they’ll find themselves sharing tables with people they may or may not know: while there are several picnic tables, townie spectators seem to have had the same idea (though it’s worth noting that they don’t sit with player characters), and there just isn’t enough seating for anyone to sit alone.
In spite of the horrifying turn of events, the Junior Hunter Over Fences 2’ Division show in the ring down the road from the riding stable proceeds as planned on the sixth—although a line has been drawn through Candace’s name on the posted ring order and she’s nowhere to be seen on the day of the show. It’s a good chance for characters to familiarize themselves with their new neighbors, especially new high school classmates who are competing.
It’s a sunny day, a great time to grab a hot dog and lemonade from the concessions stand and mingle around—but despite the good time their human counterparts are having, the horses are nervous, eyes darting this way and that, acting up with little hiccups of resistance in the ring, pawing deep tracks into the sandy ground and sparse grass outside of the ring as they’re groomed outside of their trailers.
Both Walter Harvey Glickman, the stablemaster, and Jack Alvarez, an occasional fixture at the barn, can be seen on the showgrounds—the prior, coaching his riders, the latter, simply watching the competition. Jack sits in a manual wheelchair outfitted with knobbier tires than characters might be used to seeing; even without standing, his small stature is readily apparent, lean and certainly no taller than 5’4. His legs, in particular, are thin with prolonged disuse; his upper body is wiry, the flex of his muscles beneath his long-sleeved shirt implying good condition and frequent exercise. One of the riders, on a particularly rangy dark bay, stops to talk to him on her way out from the gate as Jack strokes the animal’s leg with apparent familiarity.
He also pays particular attention to the performance of a tall, lean grey mare—and is watching when she refuses the first roll-top, backing up and continuing to back up, nostrils flaring, eyes wide. She dances in place, hooves landing this way and that as her rider struggles to get her back under control; they manage a disorganized canter in a circle, coming back to the obstacle, and again there is a refusal—the mare, by this point, near hysterics. The disqualification is announced; the rider dismounts on the spot, holding the reins tight together under the horse’s chin, walking her back toward the gate as she trots in place, unable to dash forward as she clearly wants, snorting loudly through flared nostrils.
“She doesn’t like the smoke,” Jack says, sourly, with no apparent concern over who hears him. “Of course they’re all upset. They can’t breathe. Plant couldn’t even stop burning for one day.”
To make matters worse, the sunshine and crisp air that began the event are no longer by mid-afternoon. Clouds gather, and before too long it begins to sprinkle, then rain, despite mention of neither in the day’s forecast; the competition goes on, although event volunteers can be seen emptying water buckets and turning them upside down, with the exception of the large galvanized trough at the entrance of the ring, which they only manage to turn onto its side, unleashing a small flood on the patchy grass. Characters have the option of taking shelter under the covered pavilion where guests sit at picnic tables to enjoy their concessions, or perhaps they’d rather just go home after such a strange day; if they do take shelter, they’ll find themselves sharing tables with people they may or may not know: while there are several picnic tables, townie spectators seem to have had the same idea (though it’s worth noting that they don’t sit with player characters), and there just isn’t enough seating for anyone to sit alone.
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!
I - Arrival
Which is to say, he's groggy when he emerges from his room, eyes still too sleep-blurred to make out the changes in the photos around the place.
The new litterbox near the kitchen however, unexpected and unsought, that he all but trips over in a collision of foot and box that sends scented gravel skittering all over the linoleum and a startled yelp from his mouth. But he quickly covers his mouth to muffle any further sounds, unsure whether this is a prank from his brother, something more ominous from a home invader, or... something else.
Re: I - Arrival
Nothing, yet, has made him despise this experience any less. He suspects he'll just hate it more the more time passes.
The sound of the gavel on the linoleum, and especially the startled yelp, alert him to the potential arrival of the man he's seen in the pictures he has examined. He adjusts his collar, leaving his toast for the doorway.
"Hello?"
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"Yyyyes, hello. Welcome to, my house?"
Likely in the kitchen, he concludes. It would be in the right direction, and there's that odd food smell to the air, after all...
"Usually I expect people to start making themselves at home after I invite them in."
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"I can't call it an invitation but -" He spreads his hands in what he hopes is a, 'I have no idea what's going on so I just went with it' gesture.
Besides, if he's going to be forced to share his space he should be able to pretend to get along, but it's useful to establish that he has every reason to consider it his space, too.
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He's stopped just outside the doorway, not far from one of the mystery photos he's never bothered taking down, and something about it... The photo isn't the same as he remembers it. Now it's featuring an almost unfamiliar face, uncannily like the one in front of him, standing next to the mostly-familiar face that Papyrus now finds in mirrors.
He remembers - the photos in his brother's assigned home had done the same thing, changing overnight to include another person, only to change back weeks later and erase most signs of the young teenager. He'd tried to put the sad mystery out of mind, but it's flooding back now with a jolt that wakes him at least halfway.
"Oh, you got kidnapped too! I didn't expect..." He grimaces. "Well, I don't know why I didn't expect, it's been happening loads. Um. Welcome to your new, home away from home! I'm afraid we're both in the same landlocked boat here."
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He hopefully wouldn't have had to share a house with anyone, but you have to work with what you have.
"Can you tell me anything about... this place?"
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"Of course! I can tell you, at least several things about it."
But where to start...? Probably, not in the kitchen doorway. He angles to enter the room, and go about making some fortifying beverage for this. Coffee, probably. Teenagers surely like black coffee to go with the grim moods of youth.
"This place is... Well, it seems to be a 'suburb'," he starts, with careful pronunciation, "a town called Sweetwater by the people who live here... But it's fishy. Somehow it's 1961... and there's a barrier around the town, so none of us can leave. Our kidnappers really know their stuff..."
A mostly begrudging admiration, but it's there - unlike the barrier he knew before, this one is alarmingly permeable to everyone and everything but the kidnapped people. A feat of magic, or something, that he's still baffled by.
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"I see. I live in the city, but I've visited suburbs before. 1961 is before my time, so this is my first time visiting the year."
Ha. Ha. Look at how they can bond with 'jokes'.
"Have you spent a lot of time investigating this... barrier?"
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No, whatever tension Papyrus is hiding under a smile is more due to reconciling himself to the end of his illusion of safe solitude here. The idea that he'll need to keep up the performance and lies for a stranger in his own 'home', every day... At least he's done so around even his own brother before, and he's assuredly up to the task. Surely.
"Not... a lot, no."
It's an awkward concession, admitted with a likewise awkward expression and avoidance of eye contact - made easier by veering off to address the conveniently timed need to gather mugs, sugar, cream, and spoons onto a tray.
"Breaking mysterious barriers isn't exactly one of my skill sets... And, anyway, I've been working hard at not being double-kidnapped! It turns out, it's one of the things where doubling down doesn't make it better. Single-kidnapped, staying in town... There's usually plenty of amenities and entertainment! And, well, some neighbors also in the same landlocked boat fleet."
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Now he's stuck in this strange 'town', in the same house as a stranger, with nothing to protect him. It reminds him of his childhood, which would be enough to despise it no matter what.
He refuses to let that trap him. He's going to get out. He's going to have everything he worked for again, no matter what it takes.
"I'm afraid it's not one of mine, either. What do you mean by 'double-kidnapped'?"
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But then, he doesn't share the urgency for escape. The prospect of being trapped somewhere isn't, by itself, difficult for him to bear. The monster kingdom's captivity had gone on for centuries, after all, and their best chance for freedom had so recently disappeared with the murderous human's departure. Some days in Sweetwater, it's much easier to reach happiness than it had been underground. And that change in scenery is much of why - not only are they trapped within a town instead of a mountain, with no formal pressure for anybody to go killing anyone to get them all free, but now he and his brother can experience the sky. That alone is a kind of freedom, if he decides to think of it that way, and he usually does.
"Oh, the obvious kind, I would think. When you're already kidnapped, and sleeping at 'home'... Only to wake up in somebody else's basement, restrained!"
Nyeh heh. Heh. Maybe this is another joke for bonding over, because Papyrus offers a weak laugh as he starts bringing things over.
"Very shocking, if you don't know to expect it. Probably shocking even if you do... I don't know, I only got double-kidnapped once. But what's a little light electrocution between, uh, a kidnappee and a guy who really wants to show off his favorite movie?"
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John is all for 'jokes', of course. He has a great sense of humor. Probably. He could have a great sense of humor if he decided it was worthwhile, but it's not and he's fine. Besides, the most annoying person he knows has a 'sense of humor', and it's one of the big reasons he's annoying.
He can't quite manage to share even an awkward laugh at the image of that happening to Papyrus, even as it's important to form bonds. It sounds terrible.
After all, there's a chance it could happen to him.
"Did you... escape?" As much as it can be called an escape when it's back to this unsettling prison. It's still better than being electrocuted. And he doesn't know what a movie is.
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That sort of inane thought, too, is a helpful bulwark against the details of those hazy, painful, unwanted memories.
"In a manner of speaking... I woke up again at home."
Papyrus settles into his own seat, busying himself with actually adding things to his own cup at last. Not much sugar, but what some might call an excessive amount of milk.
"But, uh, it very clearly wasn't a dream! I was a little worse for wear. Dizzy. Tired. A little bit drugged. I managed to escape my own house, to get as far as the yard, at least."