![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
September 2023 TDM
SEPTEMBER 2023 TDM
You wake up completely alone in an unfamiliar place. The forest around you is awash in the pleasant warmth of late summer. Any time-telling devices have stopped working and nothing looks familiar. But the visitors center has maps and information on the area, and with a bit of looking around you find the name of a nearby town: Ashbrook.
Welcome to Ashbrook's very first TDM. Take a look at our navigation page to get started, or skip right to the prompts below! TDM threads may be kept as game canon.
While Ashbrook is an invite-only game, you do not need an invite to play on the TDM.
Please direct any TDM-specific questions you may have here.
Welcome to Ashbrook's very first TDM. Take a look at our navigation page to get started, or skip right to the prompts below! TDM threads may be kept as game canon.
While Ashbrook is an invite-only game, you do not need an invite to play on the TDM.
Please direct any TDM-specific questions you may have here.
Of Monster and Men
What:
Lost in the woods with friends and 'friends'
When:
Throughout September
Warnings:
Stalking, paranoia, violence, being lost in the woods
With summer nearing its end and school already begun, it seems as if every teen's got a story to tell.
One of them that's pretty popular starts off like any other. Couple of kids go into the woods, one of them goes missing, and gets found later on — but they're not right, it's not them; the rest of the story goes as it goes and the group ends up dying or scared half to it by the week's end, tormented by the Goatman. The story has its variations depending on the person telling it. Sometimes there's a creature staring from the treeline; or unexplainable, not quite human voices calling from outside the campfire's light. No matter what the creature is hard to identify, and you can only really catch it by spotting oddities in the way it mimics its victims.
The stories aren't just stories, though. In any other town they might be, but in Ashbrook, they're warnings. You're cutting through the woods after class, or heading back to the car at the end of a camping trip, or maybe you're even a new arrival stumbling your way home. No matter what, there's an odd scent, sharp and metallic, that's following you around. It disappears when you think about it; maybe it's the mind playing its tricks after hearing the stories, or the stress of being somewhere unfamiliar?
But when you glance at your companion they're suddenly gone; look away and back and they're suddenly there again. It can happen a few times and it does. You try not to think about it, but it nags at the back of your mind — how well do you really know the person beside you? Are you sure they're safe? Are you sure they're really them? You decide to press on, sure you're imagining things.
Until you discover the eviscerated body of the person you've been traveling with.
You hear footsteps behind you.
TL;DR
- There's a Goatman that's said to roam the woods and slip unnoticed into groups, disguising itself as someone else. You won't ever catch it taking someone, just the mangled corpses it leaves behind.
- The Goatman has an acrid scent to it, metallic like blood in the back of your throat, but it doesn't linger enough to tell who it's coming from.
- The Goatman can take on the face of anyone at all. Identifying it is tricky, but possible — but it requires you the know the person it replaced well enough to spot the oddities.
- The Goatman will also play dead while disguised as a member of a group, in hopes of inspiring paranoia in its victims.
- Characters can experience visceral, gruesome deaths in this prompt, due either to the Goatman or to the paranoia of their traveling companions.
Ghost on the Shore
What:
An encounter on a foggy night
When:
Evenings in September
Warnings:
Drowning, compulsive behavior
As summer turns to autumn, fog from the rivers rolls steadily over the town in the early evenings, and only dissipates in the morning's rays. Visibility is low, but it's perfect if you want to go for a quiet evening stroll or pre-dawn jog. It's just you out there — you and one other person.
You don't know if they were there a second ago. And maybe it's just the cover of the fog making it hard to see but... they seem familiar. You feel drawn to follow the path they take. No matter how hard you try they don't slow or respond to yelling, and you never catch up. You eventually find yourself at the river's edge, one foot ahead of the other as you've seemingly started to tread the depths of it. You can't see the person you were following but you're certain they've gone into the water. You just need to follow them, and never mind how cold and swift the river runs.
But maybe that didn't happen. Maybe you thought you heard someone calling your name and snapped out of it. Your first instinct may be to get out of there and away from whatever had you hypnotized in the first place, but then you see it: someone else still chasing after a phantom.
If your first instinct isn't to help, as a decent person should, there's something like a soft voice as the wind caresses your ear, pleading for you not to let them near the water, not to let them sink... and you move, for whatever good enough reason your mind conjures, to help those who have yet to wake.
TL;DR
- Characters see a familiar face on foggy knights. They're driven to follow them, because who wouldn't want to see an old friend or even enemy?
- Unfortunately, characters will never reach that person. They can walk all they want, run or sprint, but the other will remain both unresponsive and just out of reach.
- Eventually, the phantom will attempt to lead their victim into the river, where they will likely drown if not rescued.
- Characters can be snapped out of this trance by a whisper on the wind they can't quite identify. Those that are will be compelled to seek out and help anyone still in a trance. Just don't wait too long, or you'll find the other party willingly taking a dive six feet under.
Toil and Trouble
What:
It's time to learn magic!
When:
Weekends in September
Warnings:
None
A more welcoming rumor is about the Witch of the Woods. The teens describe her as a stern but beautiful woman who's willing to teach anyone who comes seeks her out. Bring her a suitable offering and knock three times on her door in the middle of the night, and she'll answer to teach you what she knows of the supernatural and magic.
... Thankfully, no one has to find out how wrong that is right now. There are flyers, decorated childishly with bat and cauldron stickers, inviting the reader to the "Witch's Retreat". These flyers seem to appear when a Visitor glances away for a second to pick something up, or gently drift down right into their hands. Even the most skeptical, scoff-likely of Visitors will find their interest piqued in the days before it, mind drifting back to the promise of help in their unusual situation.
The retreat itself is headed by a middle-aged woman, who's narrowed gaze inspects the people who've come before she grumbles something under her breath and waves her hand.
"Look in the tree holes for your books and pick a partner to pair with — they aren't the kinds of things you'd want to test on your own. First rule: Always have a third hand. Second: Don't do it in public if you can help it. Final: Don't even try skipping ahead, because they won't answer you."
Whatever that means. It's time to learn magic.
The Witch — if pressed, she'll begrudgingly allow the students to address her as 'Ms. Spinner' — will force characters together with a surprisingly powerful shove of her hand if she passes and you aren't already paired with someone too, so don't think you can get out of this little exercise by going solo! You can't. As far as the promised spirituality goes... listen to the voice within, find your inner peace, and the rest'll come naturally. The Witch isn't too pressed for you whelps to understand off the bat, though she won't leave you out on a limb either.
TL;DR
- The characters — Visitors, as they're referred — are able to learn basic level magic with the help of the Witch.
- Pair up and practice. This is essential to the process, and the Witch will force unpaired individuals to partner up.
- Anything higher level magic won't come to the character; it may feel like there's a kind of blockage, even to those who're used to magic themselves.
- The Witch isn't open to questions about the town in particular (are you here to gossip or learn?) and won't answer anything about it, so stay on task if you want answers to your questions.
A Day In The Life
New Visitors may wake up in the woods, but that's not where they're going to be spending all of their time. They have homes, jobs, work, entire lives they need to attend to. They'd better get to it!
A Visitor will be instinctively drawn towards both their home and job; they will always know how to navigate the former, and may find the tasks they perform at the latter suspiciously easy. Outside of that, their life will be incredibly normal for the first few days. No one will acknowledge the strangeness in the woods, and a Visitor's insistence that they're not from around here will be treated like a joke.
And then suddenly it's weird again. They wake up one day and realize they have a different job, perhaps even a different home. They will lose any instinctive understanding they may have had of their old job and gain similar understanding of their new job. Visitors will retain all of their memories of their previous job, but if they bring it up to the townsfolk none of them will have any idea what they're talking about.
TL;DR
A Visitor will be instinctively drawn towards both their home and job; they will always know how to navigate the former, and may find the tasks they perform at the latter suspiciously easy. Outside of that, their life will be incredibly normal for the first few days. No one will acknowledge the strangeness in the woods, and a Visitor's insistence that they're not from around here will be treated like a joke.
And then suddenly it's weird again. They wake up one day and realize they have a different job, perhaps even a different home. They will lose any instinctive understanding they may have had of their old job and gain similar understanding of their new job. Visitors will retain all of their memories of their previous job, but if they bring it up to the townsfolk none of them will have any idea what they're talking about.
TL;DR
- This prompt is meant to allow players an opportunity to experiment with the role mechanic, without forcing them to retcon their threads if they receive a markedly different role after applying.
- Retconning is, of course, still an option - but if you want to give your character another bit of existential confusion, this is the prompt for you.
OOC Notes
If your character dies... While characters may die during the TDM, these deaths do not count towards a character's death count. If a character dies, they will vanish the instant they lose consciousness. The dead character will reappear safely back at the nearest visitors center, and both they and any witnesses will have only a hazy recollection of the event.
If a character TDMs but doesn't app... You have the option of having your character remember these characters. ICly, characters that TDM but do not apply will simply vanish without a trace under mysterious circumstances.
If you have any questions, please direct them here. Enjoy your new life.
If a character TDMs but doesn't app... You have the option of having your character remember these characters. ICly, characters that TDM but do not apply will simply vanish without a trace under mysterious circumstances.
If you have any questions, please direct them here. Enjoy your new life.
Dipper Pines | Gravity Falls
[It's practically embarrassing, how easily and how quickly the illusion works. He's only been desperately tearing the town apart on the brink of hysteria trying to find his sister. He's found no leads, no sign of her, no hint that she exists in this wretched place, that by the time he's come across the river, he's exhausted and emotionally spent.]
[He's telling himself to keep it together, stay strong. Getting upset like a little kid isn't going to help anyone. He just needs to keep looking...]
[So really, the moment he sees even the vaguest outline of person who could resemble Mabel, he's already walking. Hope and terror springing forth in his chest simultaneously.]
Mabel? Mabel!
[What starts as a slow walk turns quickly into a full sprint as a very distressed twelve year old makes a beeline for the river.]
[Toil and Trouble.]
[Dipper's experience with Witch's isn't the most ...positive. However, the promise of learning something makes it impossible for him not to go and at least investigate. It's not like he thinks magic isn't real. It's absolutely real, and he's done some himself more than once. The journals are full of spells and hexes and the like.]
[He's skeptical of how easily this person is just giving up the secrets and willing to teach a bunch of strangers. So ...he is wary of The Witch for the entire time he's there, but he is, if nothing else, a diligent student who is reading and taking notes as if he were working on math homework.]
...So to do this right, we need to carefully ration out the black salt for the circle. It says we'll need some for a later step and it's not advised to take some from the circle, since it compromises the protection of the barrier.
[He looks up at his partner, after jotting that down in a thick worn-looking journal.]
Do you have the candles?
[A Day in the Life.]
...This is the worst.
[A dramatic thing to be spoken by a very short 12-year-old as he stares down the entrance of the elementary school. Not even a middle school!! Some small town K-8th grade elementary school! Jeez.]
It was literally the middle of summer yesterday! And now I have to go back to school!? I have got to get out of here.
Ghost on the Shore
That's not her! Turn back!
[ He's coming in low, a blurry outline in the fog above the river. ]
no subject
[Dipper is generally more of a rational person, and perhaps if it hadn't been his sister he was chasing, he might have seen the illusion for what it was. But, after trying to hunt her down, turning over every inch of this place that he could, and feeling more and more helpless that he might be stuck here without his sister...]
[He's a little more inclined to throw caution to the wind.]
[Hopefully Reyson is fast, Dippers got one foot in the river.]
no subject
If you go in there, you'll die!
[ Reyson could be faster; Dipper's knee deep before he gets to him and that is what has him panicked enough to forego further negotiations and, ah. Grab the child up by the back of the vest and fly straight up from there. It is a rather hawk tribe way of going about things. It would be more effective if Reyson was also built like a hawk but land people in general are usually not expecting this kind of thing. ]
no subject
[It is sad but this is not the first time, nor will it be the last time, that Dipper has been scruffed entirely off the ground.]
[Luckily being whisked right into the air like he's having some kind of lucid dream is enough to snap him out of it.]
Whoa!
no subject
Listen to me. Nobody's best friend or little sister is out there, this place is haunted.
If this Mabel shows up later and I must tell her you drowned in a ghost river looking for her I will be very upset.
[ He sounds out of breath. The hawks make this kind of thing look much easier than it actually is. Why can't you have hollow bones like a civilized person, child. ]
no subject
...Y-Yeah. That's fair.
[Wow, he really did go kind of nuts for a second. He looks back at the river, as if seeing it for the first time.]
Jeez...I really lost my marbles for a second. What the heck was that, even?
no subject
Some manner of spirit. They can be persuasive, although this one seems more creative and ill-hearted than those I am used to.
I don't think it has seen any of the people it is pretending to be.
no subject
[And not afraid of heights.]
Yeah...Most of the ghosts I've dealt with in the past have been ...way more direct and objectively murderous than this, and left when they got what they wanted.
[This seemed ...especially targeted and malicious, but Dipper can take some guesses about their intent. Reyson brings up an interesting point, too and the gears start turning.]
I wonder if it's luring people out into the water as some kind of unresolved revenge plot. Like, maybe they got killed in the river themselves.
no subject
I certainly didn't kill this person - but revenge doesn't pair well with clear thinking.
[ He's had his bad days he should know. ]
Perhaps we only resemble the villain who wronged it.
ghosts!
So...what does it mean that he cannot see anything unusual in the river, after having heard that voice? He doesn't even see any of the typical kinds that live in waters like this, let alone something that might be luring people in. He'd like to study this water, but -- ah. That'll have to wait.
Dipper will find an older man with white hair and only one visible eye approaching him as he tries to give chase after his sister, placing a hand firmly on his shoulder.]
Don't. There's nobody there.
no subject
No, dude, I just saw her! Look! What if she gets swept away!?
[This is the voice of a kid who's on the edge of hysteria. He's been looking all over for his sister and has come up empty-handed. He's not used to being alone without her and it's very obvious.]
( who you gonna call? gHOST FUCKERS )
On the upside, this isn't terribly unusual for Dazai, as he floats down the river -- feet in the air -- idly contemplating how long it'll take him to pass out, based on the amount of oxygen in his lungs and the current temperature of the water.
He floats by Dipper, ominously, a crow landing on Dazai's legs to peck half-heartedly at his dress shoes before it flaps away as Dazai's leg twitches, indicating that the man is still alive.
For now... ]
please go talk to his uncle about ghost fucking and not him.
[WAIT-]
Hey! Hey, you!
[Oh god, he was alive, right? Not for long if he doesn't do something. Quickly Dipper drops his backpack and riffles through all the things he's gathered (stolen) to find ...god it's like. Chalk twine but it's better than nothing. Dipper ties it to the end of coke bottle and throws it into the river, getting it about as close to Dazai as he can.]
Grab on! If you're still alive! Please still be alive!
[If he isn't, then that's trauma!]
no subject
He looks a little less concerned about the situation than he should be.
He eyes Dipper (while periodically falling back under the waves) and decides that, probably, he should not traumatize the small child. What if he's an orphan? Do kids these days even HAVE parents?
So Dazai, a little worse for the wear, finally starts swimming vaguely towards shore. It... kind of works. ]
no subject
Almost there, man! Just hang on a little more!
[At least until he gets close enough that Dipper just reaches into the river bodily pull him out himself.]
no subject
That was colder than I expected. [ Dazai does not seem to be shivering at all, which is extra weird, because his lips and fingers are a bit blue. He does just lay there on the ground, all of god's green dirt getting plastered to him. Clay. ]
no subject
[Small child in a slight state of panic. But also, why is this guy so unphased about being almost dead?? People here sure are fucking weird. Anyway, Dipper is already pulling off what he has for a coat and putting it on him. You might not be shivering but his lips are b--]
[Oh god, is this hypothermia???]
C'mon, we can't stay here. I-If we don't get you warm you might actually die.
no subject
He lets out one, extremely decisive shiver, and then stops again. ]
I walked here, so it might take awhile to get back... [ Ah. He definitely lost his keys in the river.
Oh well, he can pick his own door. ]
no subject
[Oh, he sees some lights in that building just over the bank. Maybe it's the convenience store he passed? That'll work. That should have something they can use until medical attention can happen? Can they trust the doctors here? Ugh, what else can he DO-]
Okay, so, bear with me here. You're like, twice my height so this is going to be super hard for me to do, so hold on--!
[If Dazai does not try to stop him, he is getting full body dragged in the shortest fireman carry possible by this 12-year-old. Dipper does not consider himself a particularly strong person, except for when there's some kind of crisis and then he can do things like fist fight a giant robot and punch metal grates. He will get him to this building even if it means Dazai's stupid noodly legs drag behind them.]
no subject
I think if I walk it'll keep my blood moving better. [ A beat, and then: ] If we walk back to the main road, we can probably hail a cab. [ Or steal a car, which Dazai is not terribly opposed to. ]
Your determination is very admirable, though. [ Short people are always so unwilling to admit they're tiny... it's so endearing... ]
days of our lifes......
[Strange that even children are involved in whatever this is, but not unheard of; Kanou's latest job takes him for a meandering stroll past the school if he wants to get doughnuts on the way, and that means that he gets to stand here, chewing thoughtfully on a glazed ring as Dipper despairs.
What a funny kid. He likes this one, he's decided.]
Want a doughnut? Brain food! It'll help make planning your uprising a lot easier. [stranger danger, weird man holding out sugared goods and smiling like a freak, oh no]
no subject
[He has Plans. He's so busy, random guy with donuts you have no idea.]
...You know taking food from strangers is like, the top stranger-danger warning, right?
[He does have a weird smile but at least he's not like. vomiting rainbows or headbutting mountains. Dippers seen worse, he's hard to unnerve. 'Uprising' however. That sounds promising.]
no subject
[The smile's completely gone and his gaze is icy, but once he's spat all of that nonsense out, Kanou's vapid smile returns quick smart. He even finishes off his doughnut and hums, attention turned towards the school instead.] If you don't want any, then you don't have to take them. I have a job to get to, but I just wanted to help~
You reek of being a little guinea pig like Kanou-san ☆ Don't you want to get out? Then keep Big Brother's gaze off of you and keep your planning private! Don't take my attention away~ I want to play first, so keep your nose clean. [What a weird way of saying 'but I want to kiss our captors on the face before anyone else shut the fuck up kid'. Bless.]
no subject
[As his sister would probably say: "Dude's got major Creep-o vibes."]
Right.
[That's a fair warning, though.]
You uh. You do that. I'm gonna go. [Into the school. Away from you.] But you're probably right. "Trust no one."