June 2025 Test Drive Meme

[singmod]

JUNE 2025 TDM

PROMPT ONE — ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST: A new group of arrivals find themselves lost in the frozen wilds and vulnerable to the dangers of nature. With luck, they make it to the town of Milton, and to a friendly face offering food, warmth and shelter — and the current inhabitants, their fellow survivors.

PROMPT TWO — WHAT LIES BENEATH: New fissures caused by seismic activity within the Northern Territories physiologically alters the Interlopers who check them out.

PROMPT THREE — SUFFOCATION RISK: Interlopers find it hard to breathe, and need a helping hand to catch a breather.

ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST

WHEN: Mid-month.
WHERE: Milton, Milton Outskirts.
CONTENT WARNINGS: potential animal attacks, potential injuries, potential cold injuries/hyperthermia risk.

'You are the Interloper. You are not part of nature’s design.'

It’s the last thing you hear. A dark, deep voice. Impossibly ancient. You feel afraid. Maybe you’re dreaming, maybe you’re wide awake. You saw the lights, and then your world went dark. But you hear it in the blackness, you won’t forget those words.

These are the words of the Darkwalker, you’ll soon come to find.

You awaken. You are not where you were before. It’s different for everyone, there doesn’t seem to be much of a pattern in where you find yourself. You may open your eyes to find yourself in a cold, dim and dank cabin. The air is stale, dust hangs in the rays of weak sunlight that shine through the tiny windows. Someone lived here once, but they aren’t to be found. This place has been ransacked, abandoned long ago. It is quiet. The wood creaks around you.

Or perhaps you may awaken to find yourself shivering in the yawning maw of a cave, the freezing stone below you. Or maybe you’re unfortunate enough to sit up to find yourself lying in the snow, in the middle of the wilderness. Snow lies thick around you. It’s freezing out. You haven’t felt a cold like this before in your entire life. Cruel and biting. You have no idea where you are, and what’s worse — you are completely alone.

The sun is bright, enclosed in light fog. It is a strange kind of twilight.

You may feel different, too. Any powers or magics you may have feel... absent. Disconnected. Things that may not have affected you previously now do. Something in you has changed.

You know you can’t stay where you are. You’ll need to move, try to work out where you are and how you came to be here. So you walk, head out into the unknown, in hope of finding a trail or a road. You’ll find one soon enough. It’s here you may find someone else in the same boat as yourself, equally freezing and confused. You’ll both need to keep going. It won’t be easy. You hear howls of wolves around you, and the terrain is difficult: slips and falls are likely. You’re completely vulnerable out here in the open.

Or it’s possible you may come across someone else here. Someone who looks far better prepared to deal with the freezing cold and frozen landscape, out hunting or gathering. They’ll likely offer help and get you into town. However, for the unlucky ones who don’t come across anyone, you’ll carry on until you see it: the lazy trail of smoke rising in the air. Fire. Not just one, but several. Civilization...?

Follow it, and soon enough the way you’ve taken will certainly become a path or road. Unfolding before you in the mountainous forests, you’ll see the most welcome of sights: a small mining town tucked up in the valley. Battered, rusted road signs will direct to “MILTON, POP. 947”. You’re almost there, you keep going, and it looks like other people have had the same idea as you. In fact, you’ll hear the muffled sounds of life. People! In the town!

As you head into the outskirts and then further into town, you’ll find it’s a little easier to walk but the cold has gripped you hard. You’ll find the buildings, both shops and homes, some are dark and lifeless, some of them are boarded up, some of them are occupied. People are going about their business, or stood watching from their tiny porches of their small, timber homes. For a town this big, there doesn’t seem to be many people. Several dozen at most, but no more.

Towards the center of town, you’ll find the building from which the biggest of the smoke trail rises: a school-house of sorts, or some kind of community hall. Perhaps both. You’ll find more and more people all drawn to this place, each and every one of them in the same position as yourself (and your companion, if you’ve found one). Some are in worse states than others: some are bloodied, nursing bite wounds or cuts; others might have some other kind of injury sustained in the journey here from falls. Others may look as if they could faint from the cold at any second.

The door opens, and you’re greeted by the gnarled, wizened face of an elderly man, dressed in thick furs. He has a kind face. He smiles warmly, and with pity, ushering you in with haste.

“Ah. Once more, you poor souls come.” he nods gravely. No, this is not the first time that this has happened. “I am Methuselah. I welcome you, Newcomer, although I’m sorry for how you’ve come to find yourself here. You are not the only one, the lights are changing things. Come. Mother Nature has not been kind to you, but there are plenty here to help.”

The room is dim, lit only by natural daylight through the windows. A roaring fire sits at one end of the huge hall. It crackles, bright and cheerful... and warm. Even as big as this place is, the room is pleasantly warm. You’ll also find basic cots set up down one side of the hall, and while it seems there's a few people already living here, there's enough space for those in need of them. There's places to rest for a moment and get your bearings, or just trying to recover from the cold. Down the other side are tables and chairs, and long tables laden with food, drinks and bottled water similar to one might find at a soup kitchen. Once again, Methuselah offers a feast, aided by some of the other Interlopers.

There are canisters with hot herbal teas, mostly. But some coffee can be found. There’s also soup and stew and trays of charred deer and rabbit meats, plus some grilled fish. It’s very basic, but it’s hot and filling. A feast for those who have battled the cold to come here.

Methuselah will continue to busy himself, still; there is plenty to do. He will fetch blankets, tend to wounds, serve food and drinks — aided by a handful of others in the Hall. Your fellow survivors, but those who have been here for some time now. He does not have much time to talk. More and more people seem to be coming in from the cold. He will not stop to sit and rest until everyone is seen to, taking up a place by the fire to gaze silently into its flames.

He will encourage newcomers to get warm and eat, and when they are ready to — they can explore the town and find one of the many empty homes to call their own. He will not speak much, but gesture to your fellow survivors. They will have better answers than him.

WHAT LIES BENEATH

WHEN: The month of June.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: supernatural ailments; mental manipulation; altered physiological states; potential character injuries; potential dangerous situations; potential cold injuries.

The world has gone quiet since last month’s quake that caused a considerable amount of damage around the Milton and Lakeside regions. Newer Interlopers have been met with a town still in the process of being repaired and rebuilt, and some properties have been abandoned all together, used only for spares and repairs of homes that are actually occupied. Milton was home to some thousand people in its hey-day, now it remains a shell of itself. Some hundred or so people making this place a home in a harsh and unforgiving world.

But the world is not completely quiet: tremors and minor quakes can still be felt as time goes on. These tremors don’t have the same impact as earlier quakes, but they’re enough to give someone pause — keeping Interlopers on their toes.

What’s more is the damage caused by this ongoing seismic activity is dotted all over the landscape: scars are beginning to show in the earth itself, or rather — open wounds.

The fissures are small and unassuming, but can easily snag someone’s attention. Even more curious about them is the occasional strange vapours that seem to curl and lazily rise from these fissures. The vapours are a faint green in colour, almost sickly, and there’s plenty enough in you to make you feel like you should keep well away from these rising fogs. But there’s something about curiosity and cats, after all.

The vapours won’t kill you, no. They certainly won’t do you any physical harm, either. No instant burning of the strange, caustic fog that plagued Interlopers last year, nor the sickness that Glimmerfog brought.

But getting close enough to the vapours to examine them will cause a change in you. It’s more of an insidious thing: gradual and slow, changes in your behaviour over the course of a week. Feeling a little more anxious than normal; snapping at people you interact with; avoidance of others; the feeling of being watched and a growing paranoia. You feel like the animal that has known the feel of the snare, or seen the barrel of the gun. Hunted and small.

Soon enough, this slow chipping away at your mind is enough to cause you to snap: fight or flight.

Fighters are lost into states of pure rage. They are combative, blind to anger in a desperate bid to survive — seeking out their dangers to face them head on. They are volatile, difficult to reason with. They will cause damage to anything around them, or anyone. They will cause damage to buildings, objects — smashing their way through whatever stands in their way. They will fight with those around them — their fellow Interlopers — lost in perceived threats.

Flighters are lost into states of pure fear. They’ll break down in crying fits, hysteria and abandon all logic — avoiding their dangers. They will try to escape from wherever they may be — wanting to run out into the wilds, putting them in potentially more dangerous situations. They could end up getting lost in the wilds, or encountering dangerous wildlife like moose, wolves or bears. Or perhaps even onto thin ice on bodies of water. They will hide whenever they can: under beds, in caves, anywhere their minds might tell them are places of safety.

To those around them, it’s finding a way to try and bring the affected Interloper back to their senses. It’s a little stumbling in the dark: wrangling flighters back to the safety of town, like trying to calm a spooked horse and give them a sense of safety and care and connection might be enough to bring them back to their sense. Fighters can arguably be dealt with the same way, but some might need restraining or fighting back in order to knock some sense into them. Perhaps even literally. Drawing blood in a fight with Fighters will also… strangely calm the affected Interloper down.

Affected Interlopers will be a little shaky afterwards. But a stiff drink or a hot meal and some rest will end up soothing them. Hopefully they won’t go poking around those fissures again.

SUFFOCATION RISK

WHEN: The month of June.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: supernatural afflictions; themes of suffocation; themes of co-dependency/unhealthy codependency; potential character death/near-death experience; medical emergencies.

You think that maybe it’s the weather. The Northern Territories have been known for unsettled and sometimes ferocious climate — this is the world of endless winter, after all. But June marks a period of calm as the midsummer draws near. Occasional biting winds are the only disturbances to that calm. Other than that, it’s just damn freezing. Even with the midsummer upon the world and the still weather — the world is frigid.

The cold often bites at one’s lungs, and maybe that’s all you think it is at first. Each breath is like ice, hard to catch, and you feel like you’re suffocating sometimes. Overexertion seems to make it worse, whether you’re hiking up a particularly difficult piece of terrain or carrying a heavy load.

Interlopers will need to stop to rest often, and even then it feels like you still can’t quite get your breath back. This breathlessness will slowly get worse over time, until it’s almost unbearable.

Until it ends up nosediving into something more horrifying. One day, it’s the worst it’s ever been. It feels like you’re drowning. Your breaths are shallow and quick. Your vision blurs and warps, a shimmer of dull prismatic at the corners of your eyes. The world grows smaller around you, your hearing growing dim and distorted. You cough and splutter, gasping for air that you cannot seem to breathe in.

Panic sets in. You are suffocating, and if something isn’t done quickly enough, you will die.

But there’s a strange pull in you, too. A need. A person. You get a sensation of them, something about them. Their hair colour, their voice, their smile. Maybe it’s someone you know, maybe it’s a complete stranger, but something in you pulls you towards them.

As the world closes in on you, everything zeros in on that person. They can help. Hopefully you have enough time to reach them, hopefully you can find them. Maybe they’re searching for you too, in the exact same predicament — unable to breathe and trying to find that person to help.

Reaching that person and touching them will finally allow you to breathe. Like the air is clear, and breaths are painless again. It’s like an instant balm, and slowly the world grows back again — vision and hearing restored. You don’t know why, but this person, whoever they are — has given you your breath back.

You’re spared from the affliction, for a short time. Soon enough, it will return, and you’ll need to find that person again. Or just keep them close for a little while.

FAQs

ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST

1. Arrival threads can be treated as game canon.

2. Items characters have brought from home can be found either strewn around them when they awaken, or in the community hall — as if someone left them out for them to collect. Methuselah will not know how they got there, and will be quite bemused by the happenings.

3. Reminder that all characters are now depowered upon arrival. They can choose not to notice it at first, or can immediately sense something is different about them.

4. If asked any personal questions, Methuselah will smile and say "Oh, you don't want to know about an old man like me. But I have lived all over in these parts for all my life." He will be more concerned with trying to help Newcomers, and is genuinely concerned for them and their well-being. Other Interlopers will say much of the same — there's little to know about him.

5. More information about Milton can be found here.

WHAT LIES BENEATH

1. Characters can be affected multiple times by the vapours.

SUFFOCATION RISK

1. The length of time Interlopers are 'stuck' together to combat the Suffocation Risk affliction is player choice. It could be a couple of days or even weeks — with the affliction itself ending by the end of the month.

2. Both Interlopers can be suffering from Suffocation Risk, or just one.

3. Interlopers who do not reach the person in time will die. They could potentially be revived through CPR, however — provided they are found quick enough.

TALES FROM THE NORTHERN TERRITORIES NEWSLETTER

Comments

QUESTIONS

[singmod]

Ask them here.

noah | xenoblade 3 | newbie

[offseers]

( i. methuselah's feast )

[ 'You are the Interloper. You are not part of nature’s design.'

noah glances at the mark on his hand. it's still there. even though his Blade can no longer be called. he would say it bodes ill, but he's too tired to care. his body is heavy, his knuckles are raw. it's tempting to lie down in the cold and simply . . . wait.

but.

he couldn't. so he trudges through the snow, arms crossed. shivering away. he remember a distant memory. he doesn't even look up as he passes people by, though he may glance at them curiously. noting their facial features. wrinkles. white hair.

he can't help it, even now. sometimes he stares too long. sometimes, his expression grows bitter before it melts away into contrition. ]

Sorry.

( ii. what lies beneath — fighter ) cw: violence, self-inflicted harm

[ is this how he felt? noah can't help but wonder. compare. he may never know the truth. N was cold all over. everything about him was cordoned off. vicious. ruthless. a cruelty beyond compare. and now, N mocks him in his head. laughing.

"Isn't she your Mio?"

noah yells. slams his fists against the ground. feels his aching knuckle bruise over and over. he tried. he tried. the grief claws at his heart and the rage, oh the rage. it boils over. ]

( iii. suffocation risk )

[ even now, though. noah can't help himself. even when he feels mired in his own despair, he can't help but reach out. a comforting hand on a shoulder. a light touch to someone's palm. fingers that exist to hold onto you. ]

It's all right. It'll be all right.

( iv. wildcard )

[ got a prompt in mind? please pm up this journal! ]

I

[desperate_times_right]

[Chloe always comes down from the farm for these feasts to scope out the new people. Unfortunately this month the constant sunlight is leaving her feeling sick and irritable so she's not quite as gregarious as she normally is at these events.

She spots a kid staring at her and gives him a hard look.]

Got something to say?

ii

[meadqueen]

[This attitude is everywhere right now, it seems. First Frodo taking a swing at her because they had refused to serve him in the alehouse in Silverpoint and now this.]

What are you doing?

iii

[notarat]

[ Even with the words Noah is saying, it doesn't seem like the other is hearing them all that well - or maybe it's hard for Billy to process them right now, considering he definitely looks like he hasn't been able to really get air. His face is very pale, and something about the gaze in his eyes is very panicked.

And.. honestly, the fact that he doesn't immediately shy away from that touch is saying enough about how wildly out of it he is because of the lack of breath. He just sits there, allowing it to rest against him, and..

Oh, Christ. He can actually breathe. It's still not great, but it's-- a little better, at least.

Still sounding very out of breath, the man manages to at least say: ]

I thought I was going to die. [ Again. ]

i

[solitarysoul]

[Levi doesn't like being looked at much, so he shrinks back when he notices Noah staring.]

I-i-its okay. Y-you're new here, right?

Maelle | Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 | fresh meat c:

[shewhograspsthesky]

[OOC Note: Spoiler Opt-Out can be found here. Please pm if you have any particular concerns. Her canonpoint is post-game from a particular ending, so there will be differences from canon.]

Act 2 Epilogue Spoilers+ are inevitable, don't look.

[Arrival]
Cold and soaked through to the bone, a red-headed girl seems determined to cling to the fire of the hall. Her expression twists from her scars, emphasizing in deep grooves of warped skin the maddening questions she can't ask. For a moment between bouts of shivers she'll hold out her hand and make a gesture, a twist of the wrist as though she were conducting a piece of music. When the result she seeks eludes her, her expression only sours.

I don't understand. What am I doing wrong? She thinks to herself as her exasperation billows. She shakes her arms to dislodge the doubts and frustration and tries again in vain.

How did I mess things up this time? A rasp of a sigh escapes her as her one eye wanders the room. When eyes meet her she'll turn away, regretting the glimpse she took.

[What Lies Beneath: Fight]
It's in a quiet corner that she decides to lunge and fleche at a tree with her rapier. A stab, a jab, a cut, a slice. The bark breaks and cracks. The snow falls in clumps from its disturbed branches. And yet she persists with abandon. She might eagerly go after a wolf next.

It would be unwise to disrupt her lest her rapier turn against you instead.

[Suffocation Risk]
Since the fire, breathing has always been painful. So when the pain worsens, she's slow to react, slow to acknowledge the problem is beyond her normal. She brushes it off and ignores it. Until one morning the pain constricts and tightens. She strains and coughs, holding her throat. No smoke, no fire, why can't she breathe?

When she stumbles outside, it's in search of the one in her mind. The wicked winds only feel like they're trying to steal away what little breath she has left. She tries to clear her throat over and over with no reprieve as the world seems to spin. Finally, she stumbles and falls.

[Pick your Own Adventure]
[PM if you want to hash anything out c:]

suffocation (I’m canonblind but spoiler agnostic so go wild)

[desperate_times_right]

[Chloe is outside of the farmhouse working on the pipes for the greenhouse’s boiler when she spots a flutter of movement, which eventually resolves into a kid collapsing in the road.

At first she assumes the girl just slipped on some ice she hadn't seen, but when she doesn't get up, Chloe drops her tools and rushes to her side.

Weakened as she is by the sun, she hopes that she won’t have to carry her anywhere.]

Hey, kid. You okay?

Arrival

[meadqueen]

[It’s like looking at her own ghost. When Maelle looks around the room, she’ll spot a woman looking at her. She's got long red hair pulled into a high ponytail, and while the scars on her face suggest the claws of an animal more than fire, there is a patch over her right eye. A young wolf dozes at her feet.

When the younger woman looks away, she adopts a bit of a guilty expression.]

I apologize. What were you doing just now?

Arrival. Spoilers are fine!

[solitarysoul]

Um

[Levi watches Maelle attempt to do something.]

I-if you knew magic or something like that it won't work here.

arrival; (game spoilers for anyone reading)

[noahram]

( He's been sitting solemnly by the fire at the community hall, soaking in the warmth and staring absently into the flames. His face has been wiped clean, but his clothes are bloodied and dirty, and he hasn't yet found the motivation to accept the offer of cleaner clothes.

It's when he gets up to get a cup of tea that he sees a glimpse of red hair in the corner of his eye. His heart skips a beat. It seems too good to be true, but he turns and he sees her, and it's like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders. Suddenly, his situation doesn't seem so bad. )

Maelle!

( His excitement slows as he gets close to her, expression turning to concern as he gets a better look at her. )

frédéric "freddie" lavoie | original character - modern realistic setting | current player!

[faa]

[ I already play Vasya (m1895) but figured I'd toss someone on the TDM this round! Character warnings. Freddie's a former-military, 33-year-old lapsed Catholic commercial pilot who has spent the past 4 months skating under the radar with severe undiagnosed bulimia. He's friendly, genuinely kind, and can be fun to be around, but he has some serious commitment/intimacy issues stemming from the parental divorce that made him a devout atheist at age 7 and getting cheated on during his first deployment ten years ago which have left him chronically incapable of attaining the intimacy he craves. Instead he just chases it with a life full of hookups, which he consistently self-sabotages by ghosting or calling it off after two or three meetings before he actually gets the kind of affection he's seeking. Despite his poor body image and repressed feelings of inadequacy, he gives the impression of someone confident and in-control - when in reality he spends each day feeling like he's holding on by his fingernails. Synopsis & full info! ]

I. JE N'VEUX PAS ÊTRE UN AMÉRICAIN IDIOT (BIENVENUE À UN NOUVEAU GENRE DE TENSIONS!)
arrival | CWs: contextual pejoratives, discussion of complex irl ethnolinguistic tension, mentions of french-canadian stereotypes

[ Freddie Lavoie—LAVOIE, FRÉDÉRIC IAN on the last page of the passport in his back pocket—hasn't been to Canada in... Christ, at least five years? It'd have to have been at least three, because he definitely hasn't been since before his last deployment. He can't really remember what was on the radio at the time, so there's not really a good way to pin it to any one moment in the past decade.

When he was last here is getting into the weeds. He needs to focus on the situation at hand, and he does so deliberately. Why, exactly, he's shuffling up to a sign that reads MILTON, CANADA — 2 KM AHEAD in his dreams remains unclear, though he's sure a therapist would slap a bright red "Daddy Issues" label on it and call it a day the moment she heard about the okayish Québécois father part of the equation that makes up whatever the hell is going on with him now. At the moment, Freddie finds himself significantly more concerned with the bone-chilling voice that woke him from sleep-within-sleep in some rickety old shack and his seeming inability to wake despite recognizing this as a dream. That's pretty fucking unnerving.

There's an element of absurdity to all of this. He's not dressed for the weather in the dream in the slightest; while his pilot's jacket provides at least some measure of protection against the cold as he pushes open the front door and it almost falls off its hinges, it's not nearly enough, and he's cold within a few moments of standing outside— made worse by the snow getting into his black dress shoes and soaking through his matching unwarm polyester men's dress socks as he traipses through the snow in the direction of the road's dead end. There is no driveway to connect the shack to said road.

He's not sure what, exactly, he has to do to wake up. He's tried pinching himself several times, and he's felt the pain as vividly and clearly as he would while awake. The chill is more vivid than it should be in a dream. Usually that kind of discomfort would wake him up; even the uncomfortable burn of the acid reflux he's developed of late has been enough to jolt him from sleep in the past.

So why can't he wake up now?

He doesn't know, but he knows he might as well follow the dream's logic and see if there's anyone to ask in the town ahead so he can wake up and stop freezing his ass off in dreamland. Once he's on the road, he follows it, walking along the edge of the cracked asphalt and stepping over gaping ravines torn into the pavement by what he assumes to be either some sort of tectonic activity or grave misappropriation of construction equipment.

It takes about thirty minutes of this before he reaches the next breadcrumb: a sign planted to mark the city's outer limit. Milton, Pop. 947. Smoke from someone's chimney trails into the air beyond the treeline. And then there are people, all going about their daily activities while paying no mind to the man in the crisp commercial pilot's uniform that stands out so starkly against their well-worn winter clothing.

Milton, Canada. That's an Anglo name, so it's fair to say he's not dreaming about anywhere he's personally familiar with, but the French-Canadian population has scattered across the country enough by this point that half of these people might be Francophone.

...There's also a distinct possibility that they might not be, and might feel a little equivocal about their daily activities being interrupted by some fucking guy named Frédéric and start anticipating an attitude; at worst, whether he's being rude and interrupting or asking for help might depend on the twin accents aigu on the Canadian passport in his back pocket. Best to keep that card in the deck until he knows if disclosing his father's point of origin would be shooting himself in the foot, especially given that, as far as he's concerned, the specific genre of French-Canadian accounting for half of his parentage haven't exactly gone out of their way to endear themselves to the rest of the country, or assimilate, depending on who you ask.

And if one asks Freddie Lavoie, well, he gives less of a shit one way or the other than he probably should, but he's never taken the extra three seconds to set himself apart from all the Smiths and Taylors and Browns of the world by writing the diacritics omitted from his American documents, so maybe he's in the business of appeasing the Anglos too.

Sorry, Papa. Too late to stop now, especially given the circumstances. ]

Excuse me. Where am I? [ If it's a year other than 2025, Freddie's not aware of it, so one had better believe he's shoving a hand into his back pocket and holding up his closed Canadian passport. For all he knows, Milton could be some right-wing natalist cesspool in rural Saskatchewan. ] I'm a citizen. Do you know what's going on here?

[ But there's still reason enough for a citizen to know French without being French, and it's entirely possible that this person speaks English as a secondary language, as is the case with Matthieu Lavoie, and would very much appreciate the gesture of addressing them in their own language and their own dialect. Appreciate, ie, be more likely to help, especially if they recognize him as like.

And that's what he needs. Help.

So Freddie immediately offers the translation on the heels of the initial probe in English, not realizing, of course, that they're both just going to come across in the same language as the listener's thoughts, albeit accented. Anyone who can set apart I am Québécois from a mention of the same group at a native speaker's tempo, he figures, is at least sympathetic enough to put time into learning more than Je m'appelle Chad. ]

《 Hey, excuse me, are you able to help me? I'm Québécois. I don't know where I am or what's going on here. 》

II. I'VE BEEN LIVING IN A MOVIE SCENE, PUKING AMERICAN DREAMS
methuselah's feast | CWs: binging and purging, internalized fatphobia, orthorexic thoughts, emeto

[ Even in his dreams, Freddie purges.

Because that's what this is. A dream. And that's what he's doing. Vomiting in another unfamiliar bathroom.

It's rough this time, like it sometimes is, and he has to use his hand, like he did back when he was new to doing all of this—but he has to do it. The alternative is far worse, no matter what the old man said about diseases stalling in their progression here: Freddie Lavoie isn't in the business of just believing random old dream wizards, first of all, and second of all, he doesn't even want to think about how many calories he just consumed after discreetly inhaling his bodyweight in red meat and bread because he'll probably throw up a second time, not on purpose. Even if his blood sugar should be stabilized here (sounds unlikely), his weight sure as shit won't be. And that's motivation enough.

So is the rising sense of anxiety, the feeling of being a rat trapped in a flooding cargo hold. He wants to wake up. He wants to wake up.

The feeling of absolution after he's emptied himself is the nearest substitute, even if his throat sears and the insides of his cheeks are on fire and it's making his eyes water. He sniffs, straightens up, wipes his mouth, flushes and rises to his feet. He needs to wash his hands before he lances himself and uses the familiar battery-operated meter he found little too conveniently in the shack beside his passport and gun.

The old man told him he won't be able to find many strips other than the ones he came with, but that he shouldn't need them. Well, that was before Methuselah presumably saw him consume enough bread to feed a small village, which should be enough to convince him to revise that answer. It's worth expending a strip. He'll try harder tomorrow.

He stifles a hard, reflexive cough when a little residual acid prickles at the back of his throat on his way to the sink. And then he realizes someone is staring, like they've just heard the whole gory thing. The back of his neck burns; it feels intimate, voyeuristic, a violation, regardless of whether or not they just wandered into it. His tone is more than a little indignant, questioning. ]

Can I help you?

III. I'M UP ON ZILLOW, ACCENT PILLOWS
misc arrival | CWs: standard character-specific warnings.

[ Well, no matter where he ends up crashing tonight, it's going to be one hell of a downgrade from the apartment in Queens in every regard except for floorspace. So that's what Freddie tries to focus on: not the loss of electricity, or the lack of takeout, or lack of hot water, or shitty insulation, or the fact that all of the houses around here look like something from a shitty New England horror movie or the cabin in the woods from Cabin in the Woods, but the floorspace. And he'll have a yard, even if it's covered in snow all-year-round.

He'll be a homeowner in hell, but he will be a homeowner...

He has no fucking idea where people are and aren't occupying, though, because he doesn't know the area. And he needs somewhere to sleep tonight if he's going to sleep (and then hopefully wake up in the real world). Being that there are no real estate agents here, he's just going to have to ask for help—in his first language this time, given that people seem able to understand you no matter what you're speaking. ]

Hey, excuse me, sorry to bother. My name's Freddie, I just got here. Do you know where people are moving to, generally?

I couldn't find a realtor.

IV. WILDCARD

Feel free to shoot me a DM on discord @ redmaresociety or PP bluehellgazette if you'd like to plot something! In general, Freddie's going to be spending most of his time exploring and trying to scrounge and stockpile any useful items he can.

iii - I'll be using spoiler tabs until collapse kicks in c:

[shewhograspsthesky]

Le Spoilers

[A teenager with long red hair turns to his question. Her face warped from scars of fire and her right eye missing, an empty socket that contrasts the light blue of her left. Her voice sounds like grating sand against soft tissue. With an emphasized shrug she gestures around them.]

I was told to just pick one. It doesn't seem like too many are bothered where you go.

i.

[extramuralise]

[ Irving knows only the very basics in beginner conversational French, but instinct and decorum already have him reaching into the depths of his memory banks to call up what he can when he hears the man — military of some caliber, he's assuming, based on the man's kit — speaking in what is either simply accented English or, in fact, actual French, because if there's some foolproof way to know the difference in this place Irving certainly hasn't cottoned on. ]

《  Hello, sir. Yes, I will help you. You are in the...  》er, the Northwest Territories, I-I can...《  take you to... food. Manges? 》

[ He makes a gesture with his hand like he's putting food in his mouth, since that seemed to work the last time he encountered a language barrier. Not that this is really a barrier in so much as... Irving just doesn't want to be rude and force someone who might not be a native English speaker to think they have to switch to English, even though in the end there is effectively no difference. ]

《  I speak only a little not very good French, sorry, but can understand all here speaking.  》[ He gestures to himself now, then to Freddie. ] Um... that is,《  everyone language understanding? But warm inside, you can follow me please.  》

[ Dammit, where is Hodgson when you need him? He's always been more comfortable speaking French. Irving is well-aware he is making himself look very foolish unnecessarily, and now that he's gotten this far, he regrets making the attempt to begin with. His face flushes pink, equal parts from cold and from embarrassment. ]

Sorry, can you... did you understand anything I just said?

iv. @gildedlife

[faa]

[ There's still a part of him, even after meeting John Irving, even knowing that he's in a dream, that remains convinced that this part of the unrealness is especially not real.

It's true enough that people dream about celebrities. But Captain Fitzjames from the doomed Franklin expedition Papa told him about on one of his custody days when he was like 12 isn't really that, he's just... a notable figure in history most Americans don't even know of.

But he still makes the walk. All the way to Lakeside, in fact, where he's been told Captain Fitzjames resides. He's not sure what the goal of the visit is—obviously he has some questions he'd like to ask if this is actually real, but he's not really at the step of mentally composing them yet. He's just seeing if anyone answers when he knocks on the front door of the cabin with the correct number on it.

So that's what he does. He stands there catching his breath after the trek and knocks on, allegedly, Captain James Fitzjames' door. ]

furiosa | mad max | current character

[imperatour]

i. methuselah's feast

[ There's a pattern to when the newcomers arrive. Furiosa had casually charted it against the phases of the moon, but that's disappeared with the constant sunlight. It's really coincidence that she's made an overnight trip to Milton this day in search of nails and wood screws to make progress on repairing her house that was significantly damaged in the earthquake.

She dries her socks and boot by the fire while she helps herself to a generous pour of tea from the thermos. Strangely, she hasn't been truly hungry in months. ]

I prefer that one. A clean and bright taste to help stay alert. Almost cooling despite the fact that it's warm.

[ She means minty, but the specific flavors got lost long ago in the apocalypse. ]

ii. what lies beneath

[ Each tremor of the earth sends her further on edge. Usually so unshakable, the rumble of the ground beneath her shouldn't unnerve her, but their house is still half crumbled and progress is slow.

And to make it worse, the fissures spew out vapors in thick blankets.

Usually she's content to offer only a cool and stoic look, a weapon and her expression a suitable deterrent for anyone she wants to scare off. Apparently that isn't satisfying her now, though. Max usually handles splitting firewood (much easier to manage that chore with two hands), but Furiosa has recently co-opted the axe. Anyone unwise enough to cross her in the woods gets the brunt of a particular brutal threat as she smacks the axe into a thick tree trunk with a sickening thwack. ]

Get the fuck out of here.

iii. wildcard

[ hit me with something else! dm me or hit me up on plurk beehaw ]

closed to max

[imperatour]

[ It's slow at first. She almost doesn't notice it.

The bite in her throat, the cold stealing it from her. Needing to pause longer between the swings of hammers as she and Max lay rough cut boards back over the gaping hole in the roof of their house (Their house? The house.). Dragging a makeshift sled of lumber behind her, she has to stop, curling forward into a squat. Her throat feels tight and dry. She grabs a handful of snow off the ground, finding only fleeting relief in the way icy cool water slips down her throat.

They sleep in the same room now. They have to, the upper level of the cabin with a new impromptu skylight that might be tolerable if the temperature ever got above absolutely frigid and the sun ever went down. She's hung furs up on the windows to block out the light and provide additional insulation. They have two makeshift sleeping pads on the single mattress, set up so one's head is near the other's feet.

She sleeps better. It makes sense. It's practical to share the risk. She's used to hearing the breath of another person, not even Imperators having the privilege of private quarters. It took weeks to be able to fall asleep without the thundering of a pack of warpups past her head to lull her to sleep. But then she's regressing, waking up across the room with gasping breaths more and more. She says nothing, moves forward without complaint, but the hollows beneath her eyes tell a different story.

(Some nights, she turns to lay parallel next to him. Those nights, she sleeps better. This doesn't make sense.)

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knows this is a dream. The sun hangs high above her, oppressive and fatal, hot enough to bleach the bones that litter the endless sand. Far away, there is a thread of green tucked into a valley. She runs toward it, but it is always on the horizon. The sand eats at her feet, swallowing up her legs until her knees are beneath it. Still, she presses forward, mouth open and gasping. Her veins burn and muscles ache, precious clean air unable to make it to where her body needs it, her blood feeling like sludgy, spoiled oil than clean and lifegiving. She sinks up to her hips and she crawls forward with her hand. There's a man in front of her, but the sun is behind him. It casts his face in shadow, but she knows him anyway.

The wastes devour her, up to her neck and then dragging with the last inevitable pull. The man's hand reaches to cradle the back of her head, but it's too late. Sand floods her mouth, and she erupts out of sleep. She finds no relief released from the dream, reality as nightmarish and oppressive as her throat feels tightened together, breath impossible. With the last bit of air in her lungs, she can rasp just one word. A name. ]

Max.

Devi D | CRAU I Feel Sick | Arma

[artistwithasickness]

The Feast

FUUUUUUUUUCK!!

[The shout of frustration echoed around Devi and she was almost sure she heard a thump of snow somewhere, frightened off its branch by her disruptive nature. Everything she was accustomed to feeling was gone. The power that came to her as easily as breathing now was gone. She was back, back to being just A Girl, albeit a Girl with a kriss knife at the small of her back. The leather trench coat around her did little to fight against the biting cold that her LA sensibilities haaaated, just like the undershaved purple coif on her head did nothing to help warm her ears. She was powerless and stranded. ]

Goddamnit. [There was nothing she could do but move. Move or die. She had to find someplace to get some shelter before her fingertips and toes were taken by frostbite. In her black cargo pants and thin tanktop covered with a mesh shirt, Devi was less than dressed for the weather, though the big black boots she bore were better than nothing. She flips the collar of her jacket up and starts pushing. Thankfully, this wasn't much of a physical exertion, save for how tiring it was to try and fail to stay cold, and her legs keep working long after the rest of her goes numb.

By the time she finds the Milton sign, she's singing softly to herself. ]

One foot in front of the ooooother....

[She was damned grateful to see that set of doors, moreso when it gave way to a warm room and food, something she needed desperately. There wasn't any hesitation and zero questions about digging into the stew, taking the blanket draped around her with almost no acknowledgement of it. There was very clearly an order of operations to be minded here. Once she was fed and the blanket tucked around her, she went a-questioning. ]

Excuse me, sorry - I just, I just gotta break in here real quickly and ask - where the fuck am I?

--

What lies Beneath

[Alright fine. FINE. Fucking Canada. Wasn't even the good part but here she was stuck and deciding to make the best of it. The cold still bothered her deeply, what an unnatural place to decide to live, but the warrior in her couldn't stand to not know what was around. She looked a little ridiculous, big fur hat tied under a bright scarf and what must be at least 14 layers under the coat she wore, everything just a little too tight to be comfortable. It was overkill. It didn't matter. It made her feel better.

Especially when the ground starts shifting. ]

Didn't I get enough of this shit in LA? [she asks the sky, swearing again under her breath as she glances around and notes one of the fissures. ] Fuck,[she says darkly, sighing dramatically to herself as there was no decision but to go over and investigate. How dangerous could Canada be, on a geological level?

A few days later, that was made very very clear.

Devi was dressed in a lot less now, down to something more reasonable, and absolutely booking it across Milton. Anyone who was stupid enough to get in her way was hoisted and tossed to the side in move that looked more like dancing than its actual roots, along with a "Fucking move." Anyone who was stupid enough to try and stop her would find it significantly harder than expected - she was a kicker, and damned good at it. ]

Wildcard
[Find her in the Hot Springs, the Library, the Church, or anywhere in-between that and the community hall! She's also to be found exploring the outer edges of Milton.]

the feast

[notarat]

[ Though a rather long stay in this place has definitely desensitized Billy a little bit to the norms of his world, seeing a woman who looks like Devi and who talks like Devi is still.. a lot. It means he needs a moment to take in that she's speaking up to him at all, let alone that she's asking him something. During that moment Billy just stares, and then blinks, like he's trying to bring himself back to reality.

The last thing he'd need is for this woman to get aggressive, after all. Who knows what any of these new people will do. ]

Milton. [ He says, simply. It's a true answer, but likely not the one she was looking for - and unfortunately it seems like no one else gave her any answers about this before him.

Just Billy's luck, huh. ]

.. not where you were before, I mean.

armand | iwtv

[haram]

† ARRIVAL

« cw } ( referenced but not actual ) animal death »

[ "'You are the Interloper. You are not part of nature's design."

How deeply, terribly appropriate that seems, particularly now— Armand feels something hysterical trying to claw its way out of him, laughter that's entirely indistinguishable from screaming, or perhaps it's the other way around. He lurches unsteadily through the snow, shambling awkwardly like a broken puppet; a marionette with only a handful of remaining strings, just a dark silhouette cut out of the frozen landscape like an omen, a lantern-eyed ghoul that's managed to crawl and claw its way out of Hell.

It's so cold. Armand can't remember when last he felt this cold, or when he last felt the cold in any real, human way. He tries to warm himself by lighting fire in his palms, but nothing happens, confirming his fear that his Fire Gift is gone — or become somehow dormant, anyhow — right when he seems to need it most of all. God dispensing justice, Louis might call it: Armand can almost hear him now, sneering with contempt.

Not undeserved, no. But hard to hear nonetheless, even as only a mere whisper within his own head.

Armand couldn't say whether all this snow, and cold, the bitter, freezing wind, is more numbing or painful against his wearied flesh. Mostly, he wants to simply lie down and sleep, let the snow bury him alive until he either starves or, apparently, freezes to death. There's something terribly, terribly wrong with this place, more than even just the cold, but maybe, as usual, the wrong thing is actually him. If he had ever, at any point, been part of nature's design, himself, it's been a long, long time since such a thing remained true.

Somehow he keeps walking, wandering, until his glassy eyes see the sign welcoming him into Milton. Again, that hysterical urge: Paradise lost, but never regained, he thinks, and this time he does laugh, or scream, it makes no matter which. He can see and hear people some distance away, which is the only thing that stops him from grabbing one of the many rabbits he's passed by and disemboweling it, letting the intoxicating, steaming heat of its blood nourish him like hot soup to a mortal during wintertime; obviously by now he knows better than to be caught with bloody hands, bloody lips, someplace unfamiliar. Too demonic. Best to let himself be seen first as just a boy, a man, which has always been one of his more familiar faces to wear, if not altogether by choice.

He slumps against the sign at the edge of town, looking ahead at the amount of ground he still has to cover before reaching the nearest building and feeling strangely tired, strangely afraid, because something must be very wrong with him for him to be feeling the cold like this. ]

Just for a moment, [ he whispers to himself, letting his eyes close. ] Just... to rest, not to sleep.

† WHAT LIES BENEATH

« cw } blood, self-inflicted wounds, auto-cannibalism (sucking his own blood) »

[ Truthfully, the vapours do not affect Armand in any large way that he has not already been feeling simply from the change in scene, the ceaseless sun, the insatiable hunger, or inability to access his abilities— anxiety and avoidance? Paranoia? Yes, of course, all of the above, but it isn't like he's known here, so what is the harm in hiding? He's felt hunted and small for so much of his life, just a feral, panic-driven creature more than ready to chew off his own leg to survive.

Rage boils in his bloodstream, but it remains an internal, rapidly escalating hysteria, driving him deep into the cold woods for protection and solitude. Here, creatures such as bears and bobcats can actually hurt him, and so can the cold, so can prolonged exposure to the harsh and elements... though ironically, not so much anymore this endless daylight, which isn't harmful to him, only maddening. When he laughs, it tastes of fear of blood.

He digs into the earth until his fingers are numb and bloody, trying to seek shelter somewhere— underground, or perhaps a cave if he can find one, but the ground is frozen, so hard and packed that he might as well be pawing at concrete. New plan, then: better to seek shelter indoors somewhere instead, and so he does, finding a quiet house and folding himself silently under the bed, eyes glowing. He'll have left a trail of bloody fingerprints in his wake without noticing, even as he sucks on those same fingers in sanctity the darkness. ]

𐕣 WILDCARD｡

Choose your own adventure⨾

—aka hit me up with anything else, and/or feel free to PM or plurk me @ reggiemantle to discuss further...!!

arrival

[bigbaddy]

That's a good idea if you want to freeze to death.

[ The words are rather plain - and definitely too direct, considering their content. But even though Bigby's voice sounds gruff, it doesn't necessarily sound malicious in nature. He isn't rooting for this stranger to actually freeze to death out here, after all.

But it can never hurt to imprint the dangers of this place on a new person rather quick. And this person has got to be new, somewhere between Bigby not having seen him before and what he's doing here, slumped against the sign as he is.

In fact, the way Bigby isn't showing real malice perhaps shows more in the way he does add, though after a moment - like he awkwardly had to work through something in his head here to be able to say this: ]

Need a hand?

Arthur Lester | Malevolent (podcast) | Current character!

[lestercraft]

Methuselah's Feast

Arthur lives in Milton directly, so he's a fairly persistent presence around the community hall. Plus it's an easy meal, when the new arrivals come, and as much as he welcomes it, it's an excuse as well to keep an eye on the fresh meat and see if anyone recognises him.

Because he's striking, to be sure - once-chestnut hair has healthy streaks of silver through his ragged beard, across his temples and through the wavy length that's long enough for a ponytail; but moreover, his right cheek and temple have an ugly friction burn that threatens his eye, half of his right ear is missing entirely - but his eyes are striking, once-brown now flecked with inhuman yellow, almost gold, that watch the newcomers with an intensity that borders unsettling.

Otherwise, though, he can be found at the piano tucked in the corner of the hall. Not actually playing it - he's playing with the papers that are pinned up around it, covered in writing and containing... notes? Of some sort. Clearly he's been working on them for a while, and collaboratively at that.

What Lies Beneath [CW: potential unhinged violence]

It's not like it's on purpose - there's a tremor that knocks Arthur off-balance, just enough for him to topple through a belch of smoke that's opened up unexpectedly just nearly. And immediately he's coughing in surprise, stumbling back with a look of wide-eyed horror for a moment - but when nothing seems to immediately change, he relaxes a bit.

And then for the rest of the week he's not relaxed at all.

Arthur's not exactly a relaxed person at the best of times, even with Charlie and John around to ground him. But as the week goes on he gets more terse, more snappish and less willing to entertain the usual array of minor slights that living in Milton generally builds up.

That being said - it takes a lot for Arthur to snap, even pushed this far. But it's going to be bad when he does.

Suffocation Risk; feel free to assume your character will fix it! [CW: Panic attack]

His lungs have never been that good. A premature birth and Spanish flu kicked his ass before he even turned twenty, and now his entire torso is more scar tissue than organs.

It's fine, at first. Nothing he can't power through if he just keeps his face covered with his scarf to make the air a little kinder. If he stays in their house or the hall a little longer to get some warm air in his lungs before he goes out. He can handle that.

Until eventually, suddenly, his throat feels like it closes over all at once, trying to draw a breath feels like his chest is trapped in a vice, and the panic that explodes in his chest, claustrophobic and visceral is enough to drown out anything that the fucking magical bullshit might have been trying to tell him because he's dropped hard to the ground, curled up tight with his forehead pressed against the icy ground and his gloved hands clawing at his throat like he can rip himself a new hole to breathe through and damn the consequences.

Wildcard

[Feel free to hit him up any other way you like!]

Methuselah's Feast

[shewhograspsthesky]

Because Clair Spoilers Maybe

[She walks over toward the wall of papers beside the piano. Initially, she had assumed he might play, but as he goes to the wall she briefly watches him quietly. She's only a little disappointed the piano goes ignored.]

What are you doing?

[Her voice is a rasp of sandpaper. She leans a little as though to get a closer look.]

Senshi | Left 4 Dead (anime)

[makebread]

ARRIVAL

A

It’s a shock to the system. One minute Senshi is preparing red dragon ham late at night and the next he wakes up on his back, freezing in a cave. Worst still is he lacks most of his supplies. He still has his adamantium pan and lid, the mithril kitchen knife and his rolls of dragon ham. He puts his knife into his kilt and stashed the ham into the pan. Lacking any real plan, he strolls out into the cold.

He wishes he has his cloak. It may not be much against such a bone biting chill but at least it’s something. “Laois?” The dwarf calls out, his round eyes squinting. “Chilchuck? Marcille?”

Nothing. He spots somebody in the distance - or is that a tree? “Hello?”


B

Senshi still doesn’t know what is going on or where his party are but he at least knows how to keep himself busy. Fully aware the kitchen already has their own system running and figures it wouldn’t do if he suddenly bustles in and start cooking strange meat they haven’t encountered before. Even if dragon meat is far more nourishing than what they currently have, Senshi at least want to hold off until he knows exactly what is going on.

Taking on a cup of tea, a bowl of soup and a plate of charred fish, Senshi sits down to the closest table, next to the closest person. “Hello there,” Senshi says, taking a meaty hand and daintily takes a taste of his soup. “Are you new here as well?”


C

[ Wildcard? Wildcard! ]

B

[bigbaddy]

Apparently Senshi wasn't the only one who had meat on the mind - because the guy he's sitting at the same table with is definitely having some of his place. In fact, there's only meat on there. It's not a whole lot of it, likely because even at this feast there isn't an unlimited supply of meat, but he didn't really bother to pick up anything else alongside the meat.

He looks up from his food when the other speaks up. For a second Bigby just stares, as if taking in Senshi's appearance - odd by the standards of this place, though not as odd compared to what Bigby is used to back home - and then shakes his head.

"Far from it. Been here for ages." His tone is a little gruff as he speaks. Though that might just be that resting gruff face Bigby has going on. "Guess it means I can answer questions though, if you got any."

teddy roberts | OC | new player, new character!

[tedandroses]

[ooc: standard disclaimer - as you may notice below, teddy uses rotating pronouns. please feel free to refer to them in narration in whatever way your character would (or makes you comfortable, obviously) upon first impression. short bio, more detailed impressions/permissions]

arrival
〚this is not nature's way〛

[Blinking into what feels like too much light with Scout nudging and licking their face is the least unfamiliar part of all this, Teddy reflects wryly as they get to their feet, taking stock of their surroundings warily.

Not that Teddy reckons a seizure would explain going from a hike -- and sure, winter, ish, but West Virginia winterish -- and waking up this far off a "somewhere else". The porch of a cabin, not a densely-wooded trail. Too-young mountains in the distance, treeless-peaked and angular; snow just stretching on. Cold like being slapped in the face.

The cabin itself seems to be thoroughly abandoned and obviously looted. (Looking for supplies or signs of life or -- hell, just a tiny bit of environmental storytelling: where's that "twelfth stranger on my doorstep since The Reckoning" diary entry when you need it!-- has an unreal, paranoid edge to it. But danger -- at least danger in the form of (kidnapper, cult member, feral undead monster??) -- doesn't immediately appear.

Just the cold. Bone-deep, freezing the tears straight from their eyes.
A more horrifyingly imaginable danger.

It at least allows Teddy to focus on practicalities. The two of them could stay here for a little while, melt snow for water maybe. But...not very long. None of the few electrical switches seem to work, there's nothing in the way of real food -- and worse, no usable hunting gear either, even if once someone might've used this cabin for that. He needs to get moving, find out where they are, if there's civilization nearby. Heat. Anything.

First things first: Teddy takes off the flannel she's wearing between jacket and shirt, then uses her multitool -- blessedly still on her -- to slice strips from the bottom of it. Those get tied around Scout's paws in the best approximation of booties she can manage. From collar to yoke, and a little above each cuff, is cut away to make Teddy herself some kind of face and hands protection, but the remaining shirt she wriggles onto Scout and secures with her harness.]

Let's go, huh? Let's go find some people.

[If anything, the quickness with which Scout takes that as a challenge, scanning for a scent, goes a long way toward making Teddy feel a little less doomed. "Go find" is one of her favorites. Nothing in Teddy's gut feels good about waking up somewhere new, rural and alone and advertising their location, but you can't look for help by being silent. They've got a dog and a mean multitool if it comes down to it. Hopefully it doesn't need to. Hopefully, there's someone around here that feels like a charitable neighbor. Or. A slightly less lost stranger to this place, even. So they call out across the -- valley, it looks like?:]

Hello? Can anyone hear me?

[The sound of his own voice is both familiar and unfamiliar -- there's something about the acoustics of certain places in the mountains that you just can't replicate where they aren't, at least Teddy hears it -- but he's not used to having sound muffled by snow. He'll intermittently try again -- maybe a little more urgently, even, if there's a sign of someone else, or when they get close to town.]

〚you are one of our own〛

[The man called Methuselah explains a little and nothing at all, at once. Teddy's nonplussed, but gift horses, mouths, et cetera. After the long confusing trek here, the very existence of shelter and other people -- a crackling fire, food and supplies that he welcomes her to, room to rest? -- it's enough to need a bit of a moment.

The first thing they do is get one of the bottled waters and pour it into a bowl for Scout. They aren't keen on drawing attention with her, but they're used to tending to her needs first. Under their breath:] There you go. That's my girl.

[Scout, for her part, will, after drinking thirstily, stay close by Teddy, lying down if Teddy finds a single place to sit. She's cautious of all this new stuff but she's mostly observant, aware of people but polite and almost unconcerned -- unless someone's aggressive.

[The smell of food makes Teddy's stomach growl, and honestly, the sort of food isn't a dissuasion. That familiarity with game as part of a diet is something Teddy's well aware is itself a thing that can draw comment by some people; it still, even now, sparks a little feedback loop: annoyance about the twinge of self-consciousness at not being bothered. Jesus. Dumber than shit..

Familiarity with game does mean she can, legitimately, offer to help. It's just what you do, when someone's welcoming to you. If there's no help needed with food, Teddy's not a bad hand at first aid, either, and she may poke in at anyone who might be hurt.]

Can I give you a hand with that?

[It is possible to get him to sit down and fucking eat something, but it takes a little doing.]

what lies beneath
〚i can feel it coming in the air tonight〛

cw: paranoia, fear of failure, yelling at the dog :(, self loathing, punching walls; possible physical fighting in threads with this one

Whatever the fuck is wrong with this place, I want at it.

[Teddy'd been trying to settle in. Writing down what he knows, what he wants to know, but also, just get used to living here. Like he would at home, taking long walks with Scout, even if a little more cautiously and during daylight hours: investigating the terrain, getting accustomed to the paths to and from places, becoming more used to the kinds of things that just exist in this ecosystem. And, yeah, investigating the bizarre cracks, a little bit --that part, the dog got told to stay well before where Teddy morbidly drew closer.

No matter what she does, though, no matter how many walks or curiosities herself with, she only feels more restless and irritated. It starts like an itch under her skin, frustrated that she doesn't know any more than when she started -- hell, all she can say for sure is that she doesn't understand a damn thing. Increasingly, suspicious and untrusting: why were they expected? Are the people who live here in on this, whatever 'this' is? Why would they just welcome more newcomers to a town already struggling?

It makes them feel tested. And feel like they're failing the test, which is the worst part. They can't afford to fail: not here by their own, in a strange place, just them and Scout. It's only worse when they can tell the dog knows they're unhappy. Or when little interactions irritate them, make them snappish and they can hear themself, irrational, : the parts of themself they like least. Failing. Failing. Do better. Be better.

When Teddy snaps and raises his voice at Scout -- for nothing, for nothing, for just being anxious -- he freezes, horrified and furious at himself. At this place. Slams her fist into the nearest wall and storms out, shoving past things and slamming the door as though she can walk out on herself. As though they can go fight whatever it is that they're not figuring out and get it done with.

Teddy's a tiny, angry figure heading into the dark alone; they're so heated as to be half incoherent (which they also hate). If they were thinking more clearly they'd wonder how the stress hadn't prompted a seizure. But they're still Teddy, and that means they're at least somewhat aware of the things; right now, maybe even hyper-aware. If someone approaches, they'll get a warning, if a snapped one in about twice as thick an accent as usual: ]

You'd best not be looking for me right now.

〚don't go to ground like me〛

[Afterward, after they're back to, more or less, normal -- Teddy will be keeping an eye out for the same sort of thing happening to others. People acting irrationally, however that may present itself. Even if they know it won't just be accepted, they might try to calm someone, or simply refuse to take bait: ]

I'm not going to hurt you.

wildcard
〚it's getting cold outside in the summertime〛

wildcard me! i'm MORE than happy to play with suffocation risk, also, but wasn't sure with absolutely no CR yet and being a bit late to the tdm. :P hit me up via PM or at wingedvoices for that or anything else!

what lies beneath

[desperate_times_right]

[In what is probably unfortunate for Teddy, Chloe reads this combination of height/voice/temper as “teenage boy” and she's not about to let a kid freeze to death even if he is an idiot.

Luckily for her it's night - or what passes for such in the northern summer - so she can go outside without feeling as many ill effects.

What he actually says in both accent and tone reminds her a bit of Raylan and Tim. It's a small world here sometimes so maybe they know each other.]

I dunno, I'm looking for the new kid who decided to wander off in the night alone, that you?

[It's not safe out here. There are a lot of vampires and vampire adjacent freaks and most of them aren't as nice as her.]

dick grayson ( dc comics )

[aerobat]

arrival;

( there had been a pier full of kids, burning. he'd been surrounded on all sides by fire, recently got punched in the head after recovering from getting shot in the head. so, nightwing? not in the best physical condition currently.

if one approaches the shock of black and blue in the snow quietly enough, if they know what to listen for, they might catch the slight hitch in his breath as he wakes up. the twitch of the fingers of a hand, after he realizes he's not surrounded on all sides, tied to anything, ominously being stared down, or any other unpleasant situation that tends to happen after he gets knocked unconscious and wakes up where he wasn't when he'd gone down in the first place.

instead, there's a low groan of relief as he rolls over in the snow, shoving the scratched up side down against the cold. )

I'm good. ( is he talking to you? or himself? who knows; it's not quite a murmur but it isn't an announcement either.

his eyes are still closed, but when he speaks up again, it's a little louder. )

Give me another five seconds, yeah? I'm good. I'll get up.

suffocation

( his chest is getting tight.

now properly dressed for cold weather with the nightwing suit under layers of fabric and cozy jackets, dick grayson checks through the city of milton. if one spots him early enough, he'll give a small smile, raise a hand in a wave and offer a friendly, )

Hey! Been around here long? I'm trying to find something -

( but if they find him later, one hand pressed over his chest as he sucks in breath after breath to no avail, they may manage to catch just a hint of panic on his face as he tries to find - them, his person, not that he - has a good idea of who they are. he's got a good feeling, he'll know them on sight, but he - he can't breathe, he needs - )

wildcard;

( throw whatever at me! or you can hit me up at crowbars and we can plot something out. )

suffocation

[computation]

[ Root is a slender woman bundled up in her own multitude of scavenged layers, long hair tumbling loose out of her toque despite the impracticality of it. There's a dog by her side, unleashed, a Belgian Malinois in his own little vest and protective handmade booties on his paws. She has a shotgun held easily in one hand, supported by a cross-body sling over her shoulder, and between that and the dog standing alert, she's ready to defend herself.

But she is, actually, supposed to be a good guy now, and Root is nothing if not controlled and deliberate, so she approaches the panicking, gasping man. She's tense and wary, ready to react if necessary, but she won't just stand by and watch someone suffocate. ]

Hey -- you need help?

Iwao Oguro | MHA Vigilantes | Prospective

[knuckledusta]

Arrival

[ He doesn't know where the fuck he is.

He doesn't know how the hell he got here.

But whoever the hell kidnapped him made a big fricking mistake, given they left him his knuckledusters.

Whenever he finds the villain responsible for this bullshit, you bet your ass he's going to beat the living hell out of them and that's just for starters. He's not getting any younger, after all, and the cold gets into anyone's bones.

...by which one means to say that there is a very large and muscular man making his way through the woods towards town, his face covered in half a mask, and he looks fit to rip someone to pieces with his perfectly human but still very scary looking teeth.

The narration suggestions explaining things fast. He's not completely unreasonable but he is violent by default. ]

What Lies Beneath

[ Oguro has a house of his own now, or what passes for one. He knows what's what around here.

That doesn't stop him from patrolling the little town he lives in now. It's not Naruhata, but he's still Knuckleduster, complete with the coat and the mask. It's on one of these patrols that he happens to encounters the fissure.

He hears it before he sees it, but he has to check it out, make sure that no one's hurt or in trouble near some of the earthquake damage; standard stuff. It's while he's peering around the ragged earth that he gets a faceful of something that makes his vision turn red and his (already considerable temper) flare.

...want a fight? ]

Wildcard

[ yarnzipan if you want to set up something! ]

What Lies Beneath

[shewhograspsthesky]

[She does not want a fight, thank you very much. Although a rapier is at her side, she has a stone in her hand and she chucks it near his foot. The purpose is to distract him, not hit him.]

Get away from there! Something's wrong with it.

[Her voice is a croaking rasp, especially as she tries to yell a warning. She doesn't realize she's probably a little too late.]

Vittorio Toscano | Dead by Daylight | Prospective

[fog_wise]

Arrival

[ Mt. Ormond? Or...

No.

Where is he? What realm of the Entity has he fallen into now?

Vittorio looks up through the trees, around him, towards the horizon and he sees nothing familiar. Specifically, he sees (and feels) no fog.

That should be impossible. This is impossible.

He feels the cold like a secondary thing, the strange gap in sensation taking up his attention. The Fog. He can't even feel it in the distance. There is no Fog here. Which means- ]

I have [ and it is so strange to hear his own voice through the crisp, clear air, to know- to know-

Can he even dream of it? ]

The Realms... [ He says it so quietly as he starts moving, as much to explore this new location, to assure himself of the truth of his thoughts, to ensure it is not just at the edge of his perception, waiting to kill his hope ] I am no longer in the Realms.

[ If you meet him along the way, you might see him reaching out to the trees, seeing how they move, looking at any wildlife, especially how it is alive and how it doesn't seem to care one whit about what he's doing. How he keeps listening for something that does not come. And whether you encounter him there or as he hits town, the words are the same. ]

...the Realms. The Trials. I'm... out of the Fog.

What Lies Beneath

[ He has always been one to explore, to understand, to study and learn. This happens while he's exploring, now established in his new home, curious about what he has been told and what mysteries remain.

The air changes as he gets near a fissure in the earth and he feels it again, his heartbeaat in his ears, a dozen dozen different instrumental tunes echoing through his memories of the sound of a Killer after him, the beginning of a Trial. The world spins, fear suffusing every inch of him, and he just starts to run.

Not again.

Not again. ]

Suffocation Risk

[ He is no stranger to having his mind meddled with, his emotions toyed with. When he feels the compulsion begin, his chest tighten, his nerves begin to twitch, there is almost relief.

Because unlike before, unlike how it has always been, he knows that there is a solution. He knows that there is someone who can make it better, who can make the shaking stop.

Some rational corner of him balks, rebels, has survived for so long on his own, has avoided attachment in the knowledge that whatever he wants will be taken from him and so it is best to want nothing. But here, now, those words pale, feel hollow, when he knows they can heal this ache.

...he's going to go find them. Whoever they are. Feel free to make it you or someone else nearby. ]

Wildcard

[ Up for anything else! yarnzipan if you want to plan! ]

Danny Rand | Marvel TV | potential app

[firetouched]

arrival.

---

( If Danny Rand had a nickel for every time he woke up confused in a snow-covered landscape, he'd have two nickels, which isn't much but it's weird that it's happened twice. This time, though, there doesn't seem to be a door leading into another world (at least, not that he can see), and he can confidently say this is not familiar territory.

But weirder things have happened, and they'll continue to happen, so he pushes himself up from the snow. With no familiar warmth to draw upon internally, the chill of the place seeps in through his hooded sweater. At least there appears to be some sort of town not far. The trudge through the snow isn't easy. It's deep enough that his feet sink into it, and his obvious limp doesn't help much. But he's nothing if not determined, so he grits his teeth and pushes against the cold.

Inside the community hall, the first thing he does is grab a cup of tea, grateful for both that and the provisions set out by the helpful people here. It's a hodge-podge of found clothing, but he's not one to balk at that. Simpler means are often better ones, and no one in their right mind is going to turn their nose up at another layer. Once he's collected something dry to wear, he sits by the fire, letting his socks and shoes dry out near the flames as he slips some wooly socks on. )

suffocation.

---

( It's an unfamiliar sensation. Years of being the Iron Fist means Danny's gotten used to running warm, and while he thought he'd adjust to the cold well enough, he was wrong. It feels strangely sharp in his throat and his lungs. Breathing should only ever hurt after a good fight. He tries different ways of breathing - through his nose, his mouth, under a scarf - but nothing seems to quell the discomfort for long. At times, he finds himself gasping, feeling short of breath for a brief moment.

Then the brief moments become longer. Danny thinks he can feel the air getting stuck somewhere as he tries to inhale. He tries to meditate to ease the anxiety starting to rise inside of him. He doesn't get anxious. He's supposed to be the zen one, the one who can refocus his mind and his body to attune to what it needs. The slow, deep breathing of the meditation only seems to make it worse, though. His lungs can't fill with air and then the clarity sets in.

He needs to find someone.

Danny doesn't know why he feels such a level of urgency. It doesn't matter. He can worry about it later (assuming there is a later). Rushing out into the snowy streets, he hurries along as much as he can, reaching out to the person he's looking for and trying to gasp out a sound to get their attention. )

wildcard.

---

Choose your own adventure! Anything around Milton or Lake Town or whatever is fair game.

suffocation

[the_second_noel]

[ Good news! Out in the streets is a guy who looks like Sam Spade got dropped into the frozen wilderness without a shaving kit. The wind is down for once, and the sound of someone gasping is surprisingly loud against the deadening blanket of snow. He raises an eyebrow in Danny's direction.

Oh. Wait. No. That's actually someone choking, fuck. Never mind wherever Charlie was walking before, because now he's crunchcrunchcrunching rapidly over and reaching for that outstretched hand. ]

Hey- what's happening? Can you talk to me?