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DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL - PLOT POST 1

DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call...The Twilight Zone.
LINKS
OOC FAMILY INFO/WORKSHIPPING: Info on family setup
NETWORK POST
PLOT SYNOPSIS
The New Hires won't remember how they got there - was it because of a mission? A Stuff storm hitting the rig? Remembering how it all started seems as much of an impossible task as escaping.
Trapped in a black and white world that follows the rules of a sitcom, the group will have to navigate the sitcom situations they're forced into, all while snooping around and uncovering the mystery of what's Nick-at-Nighted the world around them.
But escaping won't be easy. There is a Presence here that doesn't want them to leave, and the townspeople - and slightly less human minions - will do everything they can to force them to stay. If trapped for too long, the New Hires might find themselves being made into main cast members, all past traces of their original personality disappearing forever.
SETTING
On the surface, the town of Darlington looks as darling as its name. Nuclear families greet their neighbors and go through life with a gee whillickers attitude. Husbands go to work and come back with a "honey, I'm home," teens go to pep rallies every other day, and wives do their wifely duties and make sure a 4 course meal is on the table every night, gelatin mold desserts - and sometimes main courses - set perfectly every time.
It's a perfect place - but only by a very narrow definition of "perfect."
This "perfection" is enforced by the npcs in the town. Whenever a character acts out of line with the nature of the town, nearby townspeople will turn and stare menacingly, pointing and screaming if they don't correct the behavior or recant what they've said. This screaming will start to get deafening before long, and risk bursting ear drums - and other organs - if the PCs don't change their actions.
All while the town's laugh track cackles away.
Their arrival to Darlington comes with little fanfare, but they do hear a voice in their heads, with the booming clarity of an announcer, saying:
It's time for Jorgmund Knows Best, starring the New Hires, with the people of Darlington, brought to you by FOX, the unreality repellant that gives you something extra!
LOCATIONS

Click for larger map
Darlington High School: The town's high school, home to various cliques of teenagers, and containing secrets that can only be discovered after dark.
Sheriff's Station: The sheriff seems like a typical sitcom sheriff, neighborly and helpful, but the sheriff's station has carefully guarded files that might be of interest to the New Hires.
Abandoned Factory: In such a sunshiney town, why is there an abandoned building?
Library: Information about the town can be found here, including a section with town records.
TV Studio: The possible source of strange broadcasts that can be found on TVs in Darlington.
???: A completely unassuming house.
Abandoned Mall: Another abandoned building, and one that's outside of time. This shopping mall is a decade or two early for the time period in the sitcom. Perhaps something useful can be found inside.
Murnjgod Appliances: The TV's in the window of Murnjgod Appliances sometimes display cryptic messages that might offer clues or puzzles to be deciphered.
DETAILS
- All non-human New Hires will be humanized.
- All New Hires will temporarily lose their powers.
- Characters cannot leave town. Every time they try they'll find themselves re-entering again.
- New Hires will near-constantly hear a laugh track during "sitcom" situations but it will sometimes go away for private conversations.
- During "sitcom" scenarios there is a strong sense that New Hires are being watched, but it sometimes goes away in private.
- New Hires will wake up in their "character's" clothes and be missing whatever gear they would've had on a mission. They'll possibly be able to recover their mission gear later.
- The only exception is their comms. They'll find these in their houses.
SITCOM SCENARIOS
The characters will be forced into a variety of sitcom scenarios, hampering their progress in investigating and escaping the town. They will be teleported to the location of the scenario (such as their home) and every time they try to leave, they'll just magically come back through the same door. The scenario has to be acted out for characters to escape it.
Players will be allowed to invent their own scenarios and almost anything that would fit a 50s or 60s sitcom is fair game. The boss comes to dinner, the characters accidentally break grandma's urn at the neighbors' dinner party and have to hide it, the wife or husband has to manage holidays at the in-laws, the sitcom wife gets a new job at a chocolate factory to have extra money for shoes and the conveyer belt moves too fast, etc.
SITCOM SCENARIO EXAMPLES
- A new job has your character and a buddy in over their head, always an inch away from being fired, with their new boss adding to the chaos by asking for completely unrealistic standards.
- Through a set of comical misunderstandings the gang winds up arrested, but fortunately gets exonerated by the end of the episode.
- The boss is coming over for dinner and his exacting standards mean there might be a firing by the end of the night.
- You're having dinner with the neighbors as a way of burying the hatchet from a long feud, and accidentally knock over the urn with great-gamgam's ashes. You have to hide what happened and somehow replace them.
- The in-laws are in town and are impressive in every way. You're feeling competitive, so good thing there's a ridiculous obstacle course at a town event to compete against the bro or sis-in-law in. Time to take it too seriously.
SITCOM NPCS
Players will handle their own sitcom scenarios and are allowed to god general npcs in the plot themselves. Every scenario should involve at least one npc. If the New Hire doesn't act along with the scenario the npc(s) will slowly turn to face them. The laugh track will roar into a rising crescendo. If they keep fighting the scenario, the npcs will then point and start screaming, their voices a deafening screech mixed with TV static. The screaming can start to cause damage the longer it goes on, like a crushing head ache, and bleeding from the eyes and ears. If kept up too long, it becomes fatal.
The character will have to stop fighting the scenario and start acting along to make the npc stop screaming. The npc(s) will then segue smoothly back into acting it out.
BLACKOUTS
New Hires will each remember the basics of who their "character" is supposed to be, but this implanted knowledge will feel more like they've read a writeup of their personality and personal history rather than having the actual memories. Over time, they may find themselves blacking out and in those moments, they'll act like the actual character, their personality temporarily subsumed.
Over time the blackouts will get more frequent and the character may start getting absorbed by the sitcom world.
The blackouts can be paced by the player. A player can opt out of these moments by handwaving that the plot will end before their character started having their blackouts.
PLOT PART 1
The characters will find themselves scattered through the town of Darlington, wearing the clothes of their "characters" and will start facing their first sitcom scenarios while trying to regroup.
Future plot parts will allow characters to decide where to investigate and players will be able to sign up for npced threads.
OPT-OUTS
Players may opt out of plot by playing in the alternate plot during this one or engaging in normal threading on the rig.
MOD QUESTIONS
Hiccup, Robbie, and Cammie
On the upside? There wasn't a hypnotized vampire trying to crawl into bed with him. On the downside, he still had no clue where he even was.
Which meant it was time to explore. His first sight, after grabbing his comm from the end table and opening the door, was a big fluffy black Newfoundland. Despite everything, the dog was somehow still recognizable.
"Toothless?" Hiccup asked, to which the dog gave an affirmative chuff.
"Well, this is gonna get annoying quickly."
Laughter rings through the house, coming from everywhere and nowhere.
"Yep. There it is. I don't suppose you can still breathe fire, can you?"
Toothless gave him the flattest look a dog could muster.
"Didn't think so, but it was worth a check."
Knowledge trickled into his brain. Which was incredibly concerning, considering he had no clue where it came from, but it was at least useful for now. Apparently, he was now "Harvey" Haddock, an auto mechanic and a single father to two teenagers.
Hopefully, they were other New Hires, Hiccup thinks as he goes to knock at the other two bedroom doors. He really didn't want to have to start figuring this out by himself.
"Guys, up and at 'em! We've got a problem."
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When something loud wakes him up, his first instinct is to swat the alarm clock off the nightstand. It hits the floor with a muffled donk and then a sproing as a gear implausibly shoots through the clockface.
There’s a titter of laughter, which only makes him grumpier. He rolls over and puts the pillow over his head.
“It’s Saturday,” he protests hopefully. Robbie doesn’t want to think too hard about what day it is or isn’t. He’s warm and, if everything is quiet, ready to drift back to sleep.
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Bunny
At some point in trying to flee into the wilderness of this strange town, he blacked out and woke up mid-pruning a rhododendron outside a high school. Now the shears are lying on the grass and Bunny is in the bush, having the other half of the panic attack he woke up in.
Unfortunately for him, the bush is not quite large enough to conceal a full adult human, and the children he's never met before are starting to stare.
Re: Bunny
She'd come to in what looked like math class, surrounded by a hoard of escapees from the 'before' part of some kind of marijuana scare-tactics video, with the knowledge that she was supposed to answer to 'Stacy LaValley' and that she's only this side of being a miscreant. She'd quickly excused herself from class due to (insert demure eyelash flutter here) 'lady troubles'. Then she'd booked it as fast as she could power-walk down the hallway and through the first set of double-doors she'd seen.
There's got to be someone else here. If she's alone in this mess, she's going to scre--
Oh, hey, there's a man crouched in the rhododendron bushes, and he has thoughtfully abandoned his sheers. Those look hefty, and maybe he has information: hiding in the bushes is not something normal people do, no sirreebob! Stacia approaches, darting in quick to grab the sheers and then back out of range of getting grabbed herself.
"Well, well, well," she says. "What do we have here?"
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The bad news, in no particular order: Dan still doesn't know how to read, and none of the janitorial supplies are in bottles the colors and shapes that he's used to. The laugh track is more than alarming. The townsfolk seem about a second from going postal if you stop playing along.
Right now, Dan's supposed to be playing along as "Jackie", that clueless Casanova who just happens to end up in Mrs. Johnson's yard while she's hanging her "married lady panties" out to dry while looking for a baseball the schoolkids hit over the fence. Between the schoolkid townsfolk who was accompanying him and running into Mrs. Johnson, there's about ten minutes and a hundred yards Dan can afford without being watched by some sort of chaperone.
It's a well-timed ten minutes and a well-spaced hundred yards, because he runs into a man looking in the throes of panic in the bushes almost immediately after getting out of the schoolkid's sight. He drops to his knees, giving the man space but close enough to talk quietly.
"I'm not here to hurt you. Are you okay? Can I help?"
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Wrath
Scenario One
As she ventures into the kitchen, thinking that some ration bars wouldn't go amiss, there's a knock on the door. Puzzled, she opens it to reveal a woman she's never met, wearing a similar style of dress and pearls. She looks almost alarmingly like Beverly. "Phyllis!" the woman says.
"Who?" Wrath has a vague notion of who Phyllis might be--where did that come from?--but she's not Phyllis. She's Wrath.
The woman slaps her lightly on the arm. More worryingly a bunch of disembodied voices laugh. Wrath glances around, but sees no one. "Oh Phyllis, you joker."
Wrath points at herself questioningly. More disembodied laughter, louder this time.
"Keep working on this act, and you'll do great in the variety show next week!" The woman says cheerfully. "I was just stopping by to see if you've decided what kind of pie you're going to make for the bake sale."
"...bake sale?"
"It's tomorrow, darling! You'd better get a move on. Everyone in town's been talking about your pie for months."
More laughter. It's really putting Wrath's nerves on edge. "But I don't--"
"You'll be fine, dear. Anything you like. Except not cherry. That's what I'm making. I wouldn't want to have to have a little cat fight with you." The woman makes a teasing scratching motion. "But fine, don't tell me. I like surprises."
"Okay?"
"See you tomorrow, darling." The woman kisses her on the cheek. Wrath has to remind herself that it's really not Beverly as she walks away.
She turns to face the kitchen. "But... I don't know how to make a pie."
More laughter, sounding like it's coming from inside the kitchen. She can't shake the feeling that she's being watched. She opens all the cabinets and drawers, looking for a speaker or a camera drone or something. There's nothing, just more laughter.
Helplessly, she decides she'd better at least try to make a pie. She's never done that before, but it can't be that hard, right? Not as hard as dismantling a tank with a plasma blade.
Which is why, twenty minutes later, the kitchen is filled with billows of smoke and something is on fire in the oven.
Scenario 2
With no better ideas, she goes to where she somehow knows the grocery store is. Her pie was a disaster, apparently she's expected to come up with a pie before tomorrow, and she doesn't want to fail this mission even if it makes no sense to her.
She brought a recipe book with her. She's having a hard time reading it without the help of text-to-speech, but she's doing her best to hunt down the ingredients it says the pie requires.
She starts dumping random things into her cart that just sound good to her, frustrated. The disembodied laughing voices seem to find this really funny.
Scenario 3
Then she notices a bakery across the street. They have pies. She could just buy one, right?
The man behind the counter winks at her. "Bakes sale tomorrow, huh? It'll be our little secret."
"Am I not allowed to buy a pie for that?"
Laughter.
"All I've got left is a cherry pie, little lady," the man says.
But didn't the woman who looked like Beverly say she was making a cherry pie? And they'd get in a fight? Wrath frowns. It's just a pie. It shouldn't feel this difficult.
1.
Just as he's exiting the bedroom he smells the smoke and starts to rush, finding Wrath in the kitchen in front of the oven, which is bellowing black smoke.
"Turn it off!" he urges, but soon enough he's there close enough to switch it off himself.
Re: 1.
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"You need to come outside. Get away from the smoke!" Ugh, this is a voice used to shouting orders... How much smoke inhalation can humans take? Alloran has absolutely no idea. It has never come up.
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Rowena / "Grandma Wendy"
[Rowena should be alarmed at being snatched up from her home and plopped into what appears to be a television world, but she's been tampering with space and time to a level that was sure to upset one of the major players upstairs, so this is objectively mad, but also not entirely unforeseen. No, she's not alarmed, but she is pissed.
She's pissed that her magic appears to be gone entirely, which - well, one doesn't get to be a three hundred-year-old witch without going through a few dry spells, no pun intended - is certainly a sobering thought, she's pissed that the eye makeup she spent half an hour on this morning has completely lost its luster in the monochrome of this world, and she's pissed that her character and thus her accent are, apparently, American.
Bless Americans, you love to party with them but hate to move in.
She figures out the way this works quickly enough; the townsfolk are certainly loud enough that it's hard to miss your cue. At the very least she doesn't have to play the role of a housewife, which sets her teeth on edge. The very idea of having to sit around baking a pie and primping for Hubby to get home sends a cold chill down her her quite progressive and liberated spine, thank you.
No, instead she's been cast as the bitchy mother-in-law ("to whom?" she asked, but the townsfolk didn't seem to have answers for her, so it's become "to whomever's doorbell she's ringing") and is tasked with making "surprise visits" to her "Babypies" and "Schnookums", who all have something to hide and rest assured, none of it's more interesting than an exploded pie or mud tracked on the ceiling. Right now, it means making housecalls to complete strangers and hoping that playing along with this ridiculous charade will soon yield the dividend of it being over. She has a companion assigned to her to pretend to be the father-in-law, whom she's calling Bernard. She has no idea if his name is Bernard, but that doesn't stop her.
She rings the doorbell.
Knock knock, who's there?. The Wicked Witch, my dear. That's a mean thing to call your mother-in-law!]
Hello, hello! Don't mind your mommy dearest out here - I think your welcome mat might be broken! Instead of "welcome", it says "no in-laws zone"! How funny!
[All the jokes about having a bell rung that Rowena wants to tell would grind the laugh track to a nervous halt, but at this innocuous one, it giggles.]
II. Jack Spicer
[Rowena's also picked up that she's supposed to be "Grandma Wendy" to a high school boy named Jack, who's staying with her while his parents are on an otter-hunting vacation in Vail. Rowena isn't sure if "otter hunting" is a thing, but if it is it's certainly the demesne of filthy rich people, so that isn't so bad. Her impressions are proven fairly well-accommodated by the big manor she's supposedly looking after Jack at.
She and Bernard walk in, and as she hangs up her coat she trips slightly on the tripod to a telescope. The laugh track snickers. She shakes her fist.]
Jack! [She puts her hands on her hips and yells.] Jack, if you were going to use space-age technology to look for stars, I hope you would at least use it to look for your common sense first!
[A delighted laugh track, as if Rowena is a comedic miracle.]
Re: Rowena / "Grandma Wendy"
To highlight this, she is somehow the only one who is a accompanied by a narrator, a disembodied voice who happens to speak in courier.]
Guinivere opens the door. It's Grandma Wendy.
Grandma Wendy!
[She supposes that the narrator can be helpful when it comes to cues and stage directions, but Wendy, really? The same name of her abusive girlfriend who killed her dog because she wanted more attention? She has been here for exactly ten seconds and something already triggered her, great. She rightfully panics.]
It has been a long time since Grandma Wendy made her last surprise visit, and she has yet to meet her son's new wife Phyllis. What Guinivere hasn't told her is that her new stepmother is only a couple of years older than her, that she herself fainted on the job during her first day and that Stacy, her little sister, has apparently joined a group of young delinquents in her school. Now she is all alone to deal with the situation, having to make sure not to break old Grandma Wendy's fragile heart. What a poor, unlucky girl.
[The audience laughs, delighted at such premise.]
Do come in! [A nervous laugh comes out but she tries to repress it, muffling into an odd squeal. The crowd laughs.] I, um, my parents aren't home right now. They are picking up Stacy from school. [Hopefully she hasn't done anything bad this time.] I can-- I can entertain you in the meantime!
[With a gesture, she invites the lady in, falling dead silent once she takes a seat. Awkward silence equals increasingly loud laughter from the crowd.]
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I
She looks down at the mat. ]
...that's not what it says?
[ And then up at the two people on the step. She and North are pretend-married here, apparently, which is weird, so if these are in-laws, that makes them... his parents? She has, of course, never seen a picture of North's parents. But she knows how North and South look, which is nothing like these people.
This is all incredibly confusing. ]
...did you adopt?
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[Anna's out getting a few things for supper at the store, leaving Ray at home, waiting for the knock at the door. He picks up a throw pillow from the couch, giving it a fluff before putting it back down. Then pausing and changing the position just slightly because obviously that's not quite how it was when Anna had put it there.]
[He jumps when the doorbell rings, forcing himself to take a breath and push his hand back through his hair, patting it back into place and straightening his daysuit jacket before going to the door.]
Mom, Dad! I'm so glad you...
[He trails off because...this isn't right. Not just the way he sounds. But the people are wrong. 'Mom' had brought up images in his mind's eye of a shorter, African-American woman. Sometimes with braided hair, sometimes in other natural styles. 'Dad' had been a broad-shoulderd man with a beard and moustache, brown hair and a red headband, of all things.]
[His eyes flicker over the two people, who very much do not look like the people he'd thought about, enough to break through the facade of implanted personality. Enough to remember that his name is Remy and...okay. He can play along with this.]
[He manages a smile that doesn't look very forced, straightening himself a bit.]
Sorry about that. Caught my foot on the carpet. And you know better than that, Mom. You're always welcome in our home.
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Robbie - Detention
He’s tried everything he can think of to get out. He made it to the nurse’s office once, on a pretty good impression of tonsillitis, only to have a miraculous recovery or... something. Either she saw through his routine, or he blew a brain cog and stopped faking it. He still can’t figure out how he wound up getting sent to seventh period, where he was handed an ungraded test with a note on it to see the teacher after school. In block letters, red sharpie.
That’s when he knew they meant business. ]
I didn’t cheat.
[ Robbie sounds sure, and proud. He only dimly recalls taking a test, but he knows that he’s not a cheater. Not on any planet. ]
You know I didn’t cheat.
[ Whether he’s saying it to the teacher or another authority figure in an office, during the subsequent detention with whatever faculty drew the short straw, or to his fellow accused, Robbie’s refrain doesn’t waver. He stops short of accusing anyone else of cheating, though. He doesn’t remember seeing anyone trying to spy his paper or asking what the answer was.
Even if he WAS going to cheat, which he’d rather step in dog poop than do, he was all right at geometry in high school. And he’s taken higher math since - he’s not out of practice. ]
So I hope you’re prepared for detention til spring, because if the only way out is lying and saying I did something I didn’t do, I will write lines until my hand wears down to the nub.
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[So he goes through the day pretending to be a human high school student. He can tell that something is amiss in the actual logic and structure of this world, because he actually doesn't have to sit through a whole school day. Events seemed to zip from different scenarios that play out like some kind of televised drama - or perhaps a comedy, given the enigmatic laughter coming from nowhere.]
[It isn't long before he's fast forwarded to a situation where he finally recognizes someone.]
[He's arguing as he's shoved through the door.]
- it was geometry, and not even multi-dimensional planar geometry, and you think I needed to cheat? The unmitigated gall -
[And he's bodily shoved into the detention room because he's arguing the point with the teachers so vociferously they have to physically push him right out of the conversation mid-rant.]
[He stumbles before catching himself, but once he does he manages to look poised on the heels that were the only shoes in his closet this morning. The imperious look on his face doesn't detract from the bad girl look he's sporting: a black pencil skirt, a black nearly midriff-bearing top, and a little purple jacket.]
[A thing no one has ever learned about him until this very moment, due to omnipresent gaudy yellow boots? He has legs that go on for miles. ]
[His sour expression only stops being sour when he sees a familiar face in the room. Then it abruptly brightens to an expression of relief - and greater optimism about their situation. He walks over, still poised on those heels, and primly takes a seat at the desk next to Robbie, eyes on the door to scout for more familiar faces.]
[He murmurs to Robbie sidelong, clearly sounding scandalized.]
Apparently. I cheated. On an exam.
At math.
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Locked to the "Price" household to figure out their shit
[He's not sure what he's dressed like. Someone that bowls, definitely. There's a vest involved and oversized slacks that are belted high on his waist. He's still got a metal grill spatula in his hand and an apron on that says "Grill Sergeant." His hair is also now in an almost comically severe buzz cut.]
[He throws the spatula aside, and tries to find someone else in the house that might have answers, whether they're friend or foe.]
[Right now he's shaken. He knows he lost time, because the last thing he remembers is being on the rig and he has no clue how he wound up in the back yard of a random house grilling some hot dogs. He can also feel it pressing in - someone else's identity, someone else's personality, their history. It's not as bad as it was with Epsilon, much more distant like a description in a book, but it's still terrifying, especially since he doesn't know the cause. Something is trying to influence his mind to pour another identity in and he's already had to fight that fight once. He doesn't want to have to do it again.]
What the fiscal responsibility is going on?
[A pause as he realizes his mouth temporarily was controlled by something else. The yelling gets more high-pitched and alarmed.]
And why the French fries can't I say funky fresh?
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[ South comes to her senses in the kitchen. She finds herself in the middle of stacking a tray with plates, chilled bottles of some generic non-alcoholic beverage, and— what the fuck is she doing? Her consciousness snaps back into reality as Wash's yelling fills the home and then there's a sudden crash as she drops the tray, jumping back instinctively and looking down at the mess.
She's wearing... a dress. And heels. And an apron, tied around her waist. Her hair is pulled back away from her face, for once, styled in a neat 50s bob, and even in the monochrome setting it'll be obvious to anyone who can see it that her signature dye job is gone. ]
What the flower power is— [ that was not at all what she meant to say ] —what the French toast is happening? Where the fruit juice are— for fluff's sake!
[ One heel-clad foot steps on a piece of broken glass as she leans against the kitchen counter and tries to gather her senses. No longer focused on the unsettling sensation of her words not being her own, she starts to feel that second identity establishing itself in her head. Nancy Price. Housewife, mother, only child—
...what? That's not right. None of this is right, but that can't be right, not at all.
She stands from the counter and turns, ready to storm out of this damn house—and then she recognises the voice that had startled her from her own fugue state, as she sees Washington and that second identity puts a second name to the face. ]
...you have got to be kidding me.
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Your family gets a milk delivery!
He places it on someone's front door, and announces 'Milk delivery' in his usual dead tone while ringing the doorbell. The door is opened and the crowd cheers at him appearing, like a guest star, on some family's scene.]
oh boy oh boy oh boy
Do you know how to make a pie?
Re: oh boy oh boy oh boy
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oh my god i screamed XD
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I feel so bad for him oh no
man's been running short of luck in this forsaken game (and I love it)
hope this is okay; it was just too funny
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Merton
[Waking up in a black and white world to the disembodied voice of a television announcer, was oddly not the weirdest thing to have ever happened to him. At least not that on its own.
But “waking up” fully dressed in ratty, ill-fitting jeans and a t-shirt, standing in a 1950’s style kitchen that looked like it had been turned into a confectionery war zone, that definitely brought this situation pretty high up on his list of weirdest things to have happened to him.
The place was covered in eggs, milk, and batter, with flour drifting through the air. A ridiculous number of pitiful attempts at cakes, cookies, and burnt breakfast items taking up space on the tables and counters. And in the middle of looking around the room in stunned confusion, he yelped at the sight of black smoke plumbing up from the stovetop oven. Startled enough to miss that first peel of disembodied laughter, he launched himself into switching it off, grabbing the pan of burnt pancakes and flicking on the stovetop fan before the smoke could gather on the ceiling.
He doesn't miss that second bout of laughter though, the unsettling noise nearly sending him jumping out of his skin in the middle of trying to frantically fan away the smoke still coiling off the frying pan. He impulsively brandishes the pan with a shriek, holding it out in front of him like a weapon and sending the burnt pancakes flying to land on the floor with a wet slap.]
2. Good Kids Don't Ditch
[”Now, shouldn’t you be in school young man?” Was a line that had quickly gone from mildly irritating to barely registered background noise as he wandered the town.
Just leaving the place turned out to be a none option. Because of course it was. When were these things ever that easy? So he took to picking his way around the town, trying to look for anything that looked significant or out of place. Anywhere that he could possibly start looking for answers.
He really should have paid a little more attention to the locals that kept trying to accost him, instead of just waving them off and ignoring them. Maybe if he’d played along, humored them just a little, the town wouldn’t have sicked Jeb on him. Jeb, the comically shifty town degenerate, honed in on the ‘ditcher’ and quickly became a thorn in his side. Sticking to him like glue as he tried to talk him into helping him with this or that wacky and dangerous scheme, enticing him with a promise of cigarettes, cigars, or booze.
As annoying as that was, Jeb’s more insidious goal seemed to be subtly guiding him somewhere. Something Merton didn’t catch on to until the man was suddenly shoving him into what had looked like a patch of high weeds.
Landing on wooden boards that had gone soft with rot, he didn’t even get a chance to try and scramble off of them before they cracked under his weight and sent him plummeting. Water broke his fall and by the time he resurfaced and grabbed hold of the well’s brick lining a cartoonishly evil chortle was bouncing down the walls. ]
[”Still alive down there, kid?”]
Still ali- are you insane!?
[”I’ll take that as a yes. Hey, do me a favor will, ya?”]
You tried to kill me and you want me to do you a favor?!
[”Oh, don’t be so dramatic. Your fiiiiine. Tough kid like you. You are a tough kid, right? Sneakin’ around, playing hooky?”]
[There’s a stretch of silence as those words sink in.]
That’s what this is about? Ditching school?! [It was hard to tell if that was actually directed at Jeb or the town itself. This was one hell of a way to drive home a lesson about not ditching school.] If I die down here I’m going to figure out how to pull a Sadako and come after you!
[”Yeah? Good luck with that, mac. Whatever that’s supposed’ta mean. Now about that favor. There’s a little something that got dropped down that well a while back. You swim on down to the bottom, find it for me, and I’ll pull you’s back up. Deal?”]
BITE ME!
[”Okay. Alright. I can see you need some time to cool down and think it over. How’s about I give you an hour, come back and see whether or not you’ve changed your tune? How’s that sound?”]
What?! Nononono! [He didn’t need an hour, his tune changed immediately at the threat of being stuck down there.] I’ll do it! I’ll do it! Don’t leave me! [There was no answer.] Jeb? Buuuuddy? [When he still doesn’t get an answer he makes a panicky little whine, looking down into the murky well water, weighing his options, before looking back up and screaming for help.]
Re: Merton
Narrative causality says that he be rescued by a dog. It's because of that, or possibly just because of excellent hearing, that a dog is now poking his head down the well.]
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Guts, Loken, Kerrigan
The first thing she does is cast out her senses - then freeze, terror ripping up her spine. It’s gone. The world is gone. She can’t feel it any longer, except where her body touches it. The web of being is snapped; the strands that ripple with every movement around her are limp in her soul. Her eyes snap open and she bolts upright, not sure what she expects to see. Half expecting to see a void.
It’s a treehouse? She blinks, feeling muffled. Wood boards creaks underneath her; outside the glasses window, she can see green leaves dancing. She feels cold, and glances down at herself.
She’s wearing fucking overalls?
"What," she says, in a tone of great resignation. "The fiddlesticks. Is going the ever-lovin’ heck on now?"
She processes what she just said.
"Are you sugaring me - what in the goshbuckles - horsefeathers - SUGAR!"
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To her, the dog is three-legged, one-eyed, and covered in scars. Further proof of its identity could easily be found on its neck; into its fur is carved the familiar rune that the man in his usual form would have.
The simultaneous lack of color and much sharper nose leaves him disoriented for a moment. Trees (and Saturday) are alot smellier when you're a dog. Nothing could beat the stink of troll entrails, though.
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Re: Guts, Loken, Kerrigan
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"Allie-Anne" is Not From Around Here, appears in some odd places, and doesn't know how to do some eighty percent of expected tasks. The rituals of helpless bewilderment he's expected to take part in seem to trend to brevity, which is probably a mercy, but the requirement also sets off some ugly things. He's not physically recognizable, but the glazed look and great stillness as he sits or leans on something are similar in humans.
Closed to Breq
"I don't want to be a human. They're so small and half-blind, and can't defend themselves properly, ractallesoth or not. But I especially don't want to be this human." It's been more than two hours, whatever else has happened. Alloran and Breq have managed to escape the presence of those drones that insist on playacting baffling scenarios. He keeps watch for them in one direction, fighting the urge to whip his head around on its flexible neck to catch whatever his single limited cone of vision can't see. It makes it worse that there's no color, but he hasn't asked. Possibly there's just something wrong with his assumed eyes.
Thought speech is inaccessible in a way distinct from how it feels when it's an option that he's barred from using. The organs simply aren't there, the cellular-scaled versions built into every morph. So this isn't a morph, so he's not really trapped, he keeps telling himself.
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Sort of. She's never been used to it. There are still moments where she misses everything she used to be so intently that it takes her breath away. Right now, she's managing. The lack of color is disturbing, though, as is the fact that she feels a little different somehow. This whole place feels off.
"Unfortunately, we seem to be stuck..."
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Cammie Goes to School
So, here's the thing: Cammie is kind of a genius. Unashamedly. Borderline child prodigy. Builds her own high-tech hearing aids, designs entire sets of armour for giant mechas, can hack her way through some serious cybersecurity with the right tools, that kind of smart. But she's always been terrible at school. Which is why it's kind of hilarious, kind of annoying, that this place has apparently cast her as the school nerd.
The last time she even stepped foot in a school she was 14 and dropping out to pursue vocational subjects (hacking, it was hacking). Said school was a secondary school in Scotland, not a 1950s American High School, so even her limited frame of reference isn't much help.
Worse yet, Cammie has no idea which of the students in this school are other New Hires, cast into roles, and which are townsfolk. It's not for lack of trying, but the whole place is monochromatic and everyone's dressed up all weird, how is she supposed to recognise faces seen only in passing? She's not. That's how.
So once she's separated from her 'brother', she's on her own. She tries to leave three times, but each time a teacher or another student hurries her back inside and to her next class. She plays along, tries to be 'Carrie', and tries not to think too hard about the fact she always knows the answers to the questions the teachers ask, which is... weird, especially because she keeps finding herself answering without trying to. Kinda creepy, really.
More often than not, she zones out. Maybe she even turns her aids off a couple times. And, naturally, it's whenever she does either of those things that a weird, generic teacher decides its time to sit someone next to her for... some reason she doesn't catch over the laugh track. Ah, shite.
The other student sits down next to her and Cammie blatantly squints at them, and if that doesn't give her away, the first words out of her mouth being: "So, are you a real person?" definitely will.
closed to Hiccup
[It's part of Harvey Haddock's backstory that she's no stranger. After he caught her trying to jack one of the classic cars Harvey was fixing up, and quickly fixed some of the issues with it to get it running again, he'd recognized a troubled teen where he saw one - and that she had mechanical aptitude. In a heartwarming moment, he'd offered her a job and she'd found a new father figure, the latter of which she can't find in her somewhat broken home with her stressed father, the vice principal at the school.]
[Of course, she hasn't quite lost her edge and sometimes is on the wrong side of the cliques at school, which is why her romantic interest in the boss's son and desire to join the family as Harvey's daughter-in-law is played up for comedy.]
[She crashes here sometimes and Harvey lets it go without comment. There's a pillow and blankets in the garage for a reason.]
[At first the true identity of "Brandy" might take a second to discern. He does look very different human, hair longer and a different color, eyes darker, no inhibitors on his face. But then Brainy sits up abruptly, throws the blanket off, and fluidly jumps to his feet in an action stance, ready to fight.]
[The fact he's wearing a somewhat tight pencil skirt stymies that somewhat. (At least he's got the legs for it?)]
Where the sprocket are we?
[A pause.]
Why can't I say sprocket?
[He stares at his hands, eyes going wide.]
And what the sugar happened to the pigmentation of - [he stares up at the garage, eyes bugged out] - everything?
[And if there's any doubt at all it's Brainy, an arched eyebrow...]
Fascinating.
Re: closed to Hiccup
You're in luck. All of those have the same answer. As far as Robbie, Cammie, and I managed to work out? We're stuck in a mid-20th century sitcom.
Kind of a brain-washy one, too. Robbie actually thought I was his dad for a minute.
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NORTH
Whenever he comes to from one of these occasions he puts a hand out. ]
I'm sorry, did I just...? I'm sorry.
HOUSEHOLD —
But of course, that can't go well. He realizes he's yelled for someone to help him—actually, to do it for him—and he has to apologize. ]
That wasn't me. I didn't mean it.
[ There's nothing else he can say. ]
ELSEWHERE —
High School
As soon as he came to, his whole demeanor shifted from disaffected eye-rolling teenager, to wide-eyed scared rabbit, flinching back from North and locking up. Under normal circumstances, he probably would have noticed the other man's equally drastic change in demeanor when the lecture very suddenly came to an end, with an apology no less, but his brain was in panic mode so instead, he just bursts into a nervous laugh.]
Hey, no hard feeling. Easy to get passionate about the old silent killer. [ He gives the cigarette box a little shake for emphasis while holding it up like the worlds most inefficient shield, before cautiously trying to hand them to North.]
How about I give these to you for safekeeping and I'll just-...[ "Leave", was what he wanted to say, but he probably shouldn't be open about trying to make a break for it. ]
...do laps? [ Cringing, he made a face like it hurt just to suggest that. ]
Household
closed to South
[The problem: There are two rooms. One with a single bed - which is now Dave's.]
[And another with two beds. In the same room. The only way that could be worst is if it was one bed, but fortunately this is based on the 50s.]
Oh heck no.
[He pauses then turns to South.]
Dibs.
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[ She'd hoped they'd have already gotten out of this hell hole before night rolled around, before the sleeping arrangements became a goddamn problem. Sure, she saw the two beds earlier when she found their damn comms, but she didn't exactly sit around and think about it then. They had shit to do.
But they're still stuck here. So, fuck. ]
Oh like heck— [ she'll never complain about the rig filter again, after this, this is so much worse ] —you do. You think you can call freakin' dibs? Seriously? What are you, twelve? This place shoved some of the teenager protocol in your head by mistake?
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closed to Wash and North
[ Just because they've agreed to a truce, doesn't mean South's plans change. The morning of the second day in this hellhole, she proposes the idea of having North stop by, to regroup and compare notes, over whatever the 'Price' household collectively manage to throw together for breakfast. ]
Neither of us wanna peeve him off. [ is one point made ] And he's in contact with different New Hires than we are, might help us figure out what we're doing. [ is another. ]
[ She still wants to see her brother. It's as simple as that. So, with the go ahead from Wash, and Dave forced off to school, she texts North again to ask him over. Suggests he think real hard about coming over to talk to them about their 'son's' performance in gym or something, so the hell world's less likely to bitch about him being out of position.
She spends the time it takes him to arrive pacing. Barely a second after he knocks, she throws the door open and—pausing for only a second to make sure it's actually him—pulls him into a hug. ]
Took you long enough, idiot.
[ The 'only child' thing really had her freaked, okay? ]
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Hey, now. I didn't know you missed me that badly.
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whoops I just realized I flipped to log
Re: whoops I just realized I flipped to log
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