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𝖘𝖆𝖑𝖙𝖇𝖚𝖗𝖓𝖙 𝖒𝖔𝖉𝖘. ([personal profile] saltburntmods) wrote in [community profile] draino2025-11-01 09:00 am
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𝐈'𝐌 𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍 ▣ NOVEMBER TDM





NOVEMBER 2025 TDM: INDULGENCE


Welcome to SALTBURNT, a panfandom smut/thriller game based off the film Saltburn, where characters are encouraged to indulge their deepest desires. The money never runs out and the liquor never stops pouring, so you may as well indulge from the bounty. Of course, things are rarely what they seem, and the manor itself seems to have a consciousness of its own. Throw parties, trash the house, engage in youthful merriment, but remember — dangers come out at night, and no one, no matter how rich you are, is safe from demons lurking in the shadows.

Threads can be considered game canon, provided the players agree. Players can also start fresh upon acceptance into the game. In game characters can post to the TDM directly, using « NEW CHARACTER/IN GAME» in the header. There will be a spot below for new characters to link their toplevels for easy access. Alternatively, prompts on the Test Drive can be used for in game logs.







WELCOME TO SALTBURNT


CONTENT WARNINGS: n/a.

It's the hangover more than the light streaming in through half drawn curtains that wakes you up, your brain rattling in your skull, your mouth dry and cottony, your stomach churning with whatever it is you drank last night. If self preservation is your strong suit, you might turn over in bed and see a few painkillers laid out for you on a silver dish, accompanied by a glass of water. If it isn’t, stay in bed and wallow — eventually a maid will be in to tear your curtains open, saying, "Breakfast is served," and scurrying out quietly, invisibly. Breakfast? Maybe it’s normal for you. Maybe it isn’t.

You're drawn from the room, either by the mystery, or an undefinable urge that could be supernatural in origin, or could be your hunger catching up to you. It's almost nostalgic, the walk to the dining room — have you been here before? Were you drawn up to this estate in a car? Haven’t you done all this already? Maybe you mosey around a library, maybe you run into your suite mate in your adjoining bathroom. Regardless, seemingly all hallways, covered in priceless artworks and ancient relics from times long past, lead to the dining room, where a comically long table houses the Balfours and their many guests, who seem just as disgruntled and confused as you. No matter. "The breakfast is self-serve," they say. But not the eggs.

If you want to leave, you’ll have to tell Giles, the housekeeper, who will arrange a car for you that mysteriously, or perhaps suspiciously, never arrives. Unfortunately, confronting Giles about it is near impossible, as he’s as good at being invisible as the rest of the house staff. Of course, there’s no reason why you can’t just walk out. The front gates are easy enough to jump over, even if the walk towards them gives you a strange sense of foreboding, or just outright discomfort, as if the ground itself doesn’t want you to leave. Those more sensitive or fragile might find they can’t make the jump, no matter how physically able, or desperately wanting. Still, a strong person could continue on, over the fence and into the lush English countryside. The feeling doesn’t dissipate, though — this sense of wrongness, almost sickness, like a weight on your back. Walk into the evergreen, carry on, but the strongest will make it perhaps a mile or so before the weight of dread and paranoia brings you to your knees, and then to your face, flat in the middle of a dirt road. What were you thinking? Is this really better?

Wake up with a hangover, in a bed, the curtains drawn, the maid saying, "Breakfast is served," before scurrying out. The painkillers are there, just like you remember. In fact, it’s all exactly how you remember, as if you never left an imprint the first time, or any mess you made was cleared away while your back was turned. Walk to the dining room, find everyone there eating away at their breakfast. It’s self serve, naturally. Just not the eggs.

"We dress for dinner," says Portia, with a kind, if discerning smile. "Black tie."



TREAT YOURSELF

CONTENT WARNINGS: pressing of hard limits (examples including suffocation & drowning)

On the questionable hideous backside of the manor is a strangely modern addition — new to Saltburnt is MALICE, an all-inclusive spa experience available to meet the needs of any guest who requires an additional pick-me-up. Upon opening a set of heavy doors marked only with an M., cool air bundled with the delicate fragrance of white tea and artemisia immediately envelops your skin. Gleaming marble floors glitter across the lobby, staff dressed in identical red stepping forward to serve you your choice of fruit-infused sparkling water, each glass tinted with the barest hint of color — finger lime green to boost your energy levels, dragon fruit pink to warm your cheeks (and other areas), golden starfruit for a shimmering veil of calm to settle upon your troubled mind. The lobby itself is open for mingling, live piano music providing a backdrop as you decide on your services, with gentle massages available for your shoulders and feet as you wait, and staff members on standby to offer complimentary manicures for those ragged cuticles. It seems they’re willing to do anything to provide both comfort and preserve good taste — they’ll silently come forward to shine your shoes, lint roll your clothes, or offer a selection of creams for any hands they deem too dry.

A glistening spiral staircase leads to the upper floor, where full services are rendered in various rooms — and there are so many to choose from. In fact, Malice seems like a timely addition for the guests who’ve been away from the luxuries of the manor and might be feeling a little rough around the edges, both in body and mind. You can undress into your choice of robe, slip, or breezy linen set, both fluffy and silken options available in several pastel colors, with matching slippers. A steamy bath house beckons anyone looking for a warm, relaxing soak, creamy soaps and sweet oils lined up neatly for your use. If that’s not hot enough, the sauna is right next door, where you can feel free to sweat out your inner demons by any means necessary. Still not right for you? The hot tubs and jacuzzis provide a stunningly high view of the gardens, an especially beautiful sight when glimmering at night, the perfect scene to enjoy a heated soak — or the expertly percussive jets beneath the water. Order a drink from the staff, sit back, and relax, with or without a partner (or two, or three).

Once you’re done with a soak or a sweat, head to the expansive massage area, broken up into various rooms and spaces to meet individual needs. A deep tissue massage from the highly trained staff will have your muscles purring, but for those in search of something more, there are options aplenty. A hot stone massage to release that muscular tension you’ve been carrying, or maybe you’d prefer ice? Or wax? Choose from a curated selection of scents for your aromatherapy experience, each fragrance stimulating an urgent desire to be touched in a new place. The massage oils only enhance the experience further, the warm glide of it awakening and emboldening you to pursue a pleasure you’ve been dreaming about for too long. A discreet package called A Sacred Time for Two allows you and a guest of your choice to experience a massage together, either from the staff, or left to your own devices in a private room. Speaking of private rooms, there’s an even more illicit package available to those in the know — The Sacred Eye, which will allow you to watch any massage of your choice through an enclosed, one way mirror. The show gets good once inhibitions are lowered to indulge in private desires, so you’ll certainly want to consider it.

For those who really went through it under the Shepherd’s questionable care, there are a variety of skin enhancements on the menu. Come in for a cooling facial or full-body exfoliation that will leave you polished, gleaming, and unnaturally desirable to those who might have never looked at you before. For those seeking a bit more sensory deprivation, a warming marine body wrap and eye mask will leave you cleansed and refreshed, inside and out. And don’t be shy — the staff has seen it all, including the jagged scars you’ve been carrying from your recent ordeal or any earlier traumas. The first scar treatment can be done in house, and you’ll be sent along your way with a glass jar of the creamy, tingling ointment to be applied daily over the next several weeks — with the understanding that your results will be poor if you apply it yourself. Make sure you find a trusted set of hands to smooth over your scars each night for the most effective results.

The staff is happy to provide all these services and more, making you as comfortable as possible and catering to all special wellness requests. Enjoy the offerings — you’ve earned the luxury of solace and leisurely relief, after surviving this long. And for those of you who wander deeper into Malice, there are a few more experiences to be had, though these are not for the faint of heart.

Welcome to the Iron Rooms of Malice, where wellness takes on a much fiercer meaning. The services in the Iron Rooms are for those looking for a deeper, more profound relief than an orgasmic massage or an intense sauna session can provide. No room is the same as the next, because each room is tailored to the guest that checks in — and the moment you cross the threshold, a signed release automatically populates at the lobby’s reception desk, absolving Malice of any harm, mental, physical, or emotional, that you might sustain. Distantly, you think you hear faraway screams, moans, scratching and banging. Still, your need propels you forward, a deep, wrenching ache to shed your identity, to tap into something darker, something that washes you clean in a way that the previous spa rooms couldn’t. But cleansing requires a price, and the Iron Rooms will demand payment.

Entering is a shock to the system, the room personalized for you and only you — that is to say, the room takes the form of one of your hard limits or deepest fears, wrested to the surface and made manifest before you. If you dread restraints, gags, or deprivation, you’ll find any variety of these waiting for you, your limbs powerless as you’re bound or roped, your sight hidden behind a blindfold. If drowning plagues your nightmares, you’ll feel the sensation of rising waters, the room shaking as the walls grow closer, shimmering with the rush of the sea waiting to swallow you. If you fear death, the room becomes your own coffin, sealed with iron, the air running out despite your efforts to tear your way free. Whether you’re surrounded by gunfire and smoke, chained to a hospital bed, screaming in a cage, enduring the brush of lips from a person long dead, or suffering blows that leave you bruised, your fears and limits are yours to face. Yours to take on. And yours to master, in whatever way you can survive.

The cleansing comes when you divest yourself of your fears, even for just a moment, to reach the relief you’re searching for within the walls of Malice. Ask for the aid of a loved one or even a stranger to listen to your undisclosed confessions, or to help you push even further to find the agony of pleasure in your fear, tapping into your darkest desires and stretching yourself to your deepest, most intimate limits. The screaming and scratching you heard earlier? Maybe some people are still trapped in their fears. And yet, also to be heard are the sounds of ecstasy, of moans and sobs of euphoria, of overwhelming pleasure and relief. The room will shift to your needs, if your intentions are true. But the longer you cower, the worse your fear will grow — and the Iron Rooms will hold you captive until you face the truth.






REDRUM


CONTENT WARNINGS: n/a

As you take your time to recover, the Balfours move full steam ahead to catch up with the social season — it’s so tacky to miss certain holidays on account of some crazed man’s murder games, after all. The announcement of the very prestigious COUPLES COSTUME CONTEST comes with the expectation of mass participation, or else endure Portia’s cold stares for the rest of the month. It doesn’t matter if you’re actually a couple, since the overall sordid state of romance is both expected and understood. It does matter if you’re fashionable. Dynamic. A visionary with the ingenuity to think Canadian tuxedos are the height of fashion. Luckily, the Halloween gods have smiled down upon you, or Bunny just threw a fit until Portia and Jonty relented to his demented ideas, but you reap the benefits — there’s a never before seen Spirit Halloween popup towering in the lawn. Shop to your heart’s content as you put together a costume fit to win. It’s all on the Balfours’ tab, after all. (Submit to the couples costume contest here, where a winner will be randomly selected!)

In the evening, a portion of the manor is transformed into Saltburnt’s very own haunted house, despite the complaints of certain guests that “we’ve already lived through enough horror.” It seems that’s your own fault, and has nothing to do with Portia’s party agenda, which leans into the Victorian romantic gothic aesthetic (someone told her was very trendy at the moment). Dress to impress as you traverse the maze-like rooms of the manor, drenched in crushed velvet and cobwebs, flickering candles leaving each space in perpetual gloam. With no expense spared, there are attractions in every room.

Adorning the walls are paintings of Balfour ancestors whose eyes seem to not only watch you, but undress you, warming your body with a phantom touch beneath your clothes. As if it wasn’t uncomfortable enough to have the feeling of a stranger groping you, you don’t know what’s hiding around each corner — a shambling mummy, a guy wearing flannel and wielding a chainsaw, a bespectacled doctor holding vials of poison that will leave you paralyzed. Of course, these are paid actors that the Balfours have hired for the festivities — aren’t they? They’re not actually trying to kill you. Right? Jonty was the one who was supposed to make sure the background checks actually checked out. In any case, you really don’t want to find out what happens when one of them catches you, so hopefully you wore shoes you can run in. Fast.

And there are so many places to run. Some of you stumble upon a heavy door, dragging it open to escape the freak chasing you, only to be thrust into an unruly crowd of even freakier-looking people. In the center? A makeshift ring, with two banged-up people inside. Congratulations, you’ve found The Pound, a fight club where you can pummel the monsters of the haunted house. Go ahead and get in the ring and take out some of those frustrations on the nearest reanimated corpse or Frankensteinian monster. For those who keep running, you might burst into a hot house of psychedelic plants and mutated butterflies. Ingesting or even touching some of these flowers, leaves, or thorns can leave you dizzy, flushed, touch-starved, and with an extreme desire to confess a secret — or else you’ll overheat and lose consciousness. What happens in the hot house stays in the hot house.

If you’re looking for a more refined and less bloody experience, visit the tea room for a crimson cup and a plate of sugar-dusted ladyfingers. As you settle into your chair, steel touches your ankles and wrists as manacles slither over you and clamp shut, trapping you to your seat and sapping you of your strength, your eyelids drooping. When you look up again, you recognize the person sitting right across from you, trapped in the same position — a friend, a lover, an enemy, or anything in between. Two staff members dressed as clowns stand beside you, teacups in hand, ready to serve you your sips since you’re presently rendered immobile. You want to leave? You are the room’s entertainment, and the scene you set will be judged in terms of performance value. Air some dirty laundry, have that argument you’ve been meaning to bring up, confront your killer or the person you love with the truth of how you feel — just make sure it’s honest and juicy.

The haunted house, thankfully, doesn’t seem to extend to the garden, where you can make an escape for popcorn, gummy worms, and your choice of fresh cranberry-apple punch with rum or straight blood orange whiskey. Grab a blanket and stretch out on the lawn with a cuddle buddy or three for an evening of scary movies projected onto a giant inflatable screen, or take a nighttime stroll through the maze, which, oddly enough, is growing corn now. For those of you who really don’t know how to sit still, you can go bobbing for apples, explore the art station for face or body painting (does it tingle a little?), or carve a pumpkin to display along the garden’s edge. Portia will not entertain any protests that it’s “too soon” for pumpkins — it’s tradition, after all. If you're in the mood for a cozier kind of quiet, hay rides loop along the grounds from sunset to moonlit midnights, each wagon lined with a soft quilt for couples to huddle under. The driver promises absolute discretion for mouths that steal kisses and hands that wander beneath blankets, riding slowly along the lantern-lit paths to give you all the alone time you need with your sweetheart.

Sparkling with fairy lights and decorated with lace is the extremely popular pumpkin spice latte booth, where you can order something ready-made or take a stool to concoct your own personalized latte. Behind the booth, there’s a more illicit version of bobbing for apples going on, where some of the drunker guests are bobbing for the shiny fruit squeezed between a pair of breasts. Feeling a little more rambunctious as the night carries on? Some guests have gotten ahold of cartons of eggs and have decided to pelt the southernmost wall of the manor, well out of Portia’s eyesight in a form of protest. That, or just to honor the trick part in Trick-or-Treat.



SHE THINKS SHE'S MADE OF CANDY

CONTENT WARNINGS: nsfw prompts (including lactation & a/b/o themes).

No season is complete without a grand finale, this time in the form of a rave as the Otherworld welcomes you home. You’ve had a difficult time of it lately, and after all that suffering the heedless debauchery of the Otherworld feels like a welcome reprieve even for the most anal of guests. The theme? A MOONLIT GRAVEYARD. The expanse of the ceiling glitters with stars, the tables switched out for coffins, tombstones for chairs, the bar a slab fit for a body awaiting its time at the morgue. You have death trauma, you say? There’s no better way to get over that than to push yourself right into it, falling into the indulgences that the Otherworld has to offer. The dress code? Dead sexy. As soon as you come in, you’re greeted with crystal bowls of bright candy, a holiday indulgence that feels irresistible, even to those lacking a sweet tooth. Pick your poison (or three)!

CANDIES OF THE MONTH

For an interactive game, feel free to click on whichever of the below candies appeals to your character, and reveal a (horny) side effect. Alternatively, click them all and find whichever side effect most appeals to you! Be warned — you are never going to get these stains out.












Whether you’ve stuck to your favorite or doubled or tripled up, you’ll feel the effects of these special treats within minutes, all of them with the bonus impact of lowering inhibitions. Not a dancer? You’re suddenly feeling a lot more compelled to grind it up on the dance floor with anyone who asks, or even with those who don’t. The starry rave lights reveal an increasingly more colorful room as the night goes on — mouths smeared with glitter, clothes wet with glowing stains (very difficult to remove). It’s time to let go. To release — literally. It’s called catharsis, and you can thank the Otherworld later. To assist with your sudden load problem, you’ll find a bucket full of vibrators labeled ONE PER PERSON, PLEASE, and another stuffed to the brim with condoms — specifically, candy corn flavored. Please use responsibly. A person can only be filled so many times, you see.

In addition to the unholy amount of bodily fluids on the dance floor, you’ll notice several doors available to you, very much likened to the doors of a mausoleum. It’s anything but dead behind them though — they each lead to a themed playroom for you to roleplay your fantasies. Enter a doctor’s office staffed with scantily clad nurses for a thorough examination, become one of Dracula’s many panting brides in the highest tower of his castle, or stroll through a pet adoption agency where you’re the one collared and leashed in a cage, eager to perform so that someone might see your value and take you back to theirs tonight. Join the roundtable of horny wizards as they cast sexy spells to get you off, or take the stage in a see-through leotard as you perform a solo show for the audience. One room to the side bursts with racks and racks of costumes and floor to ceiling tri-fold mirrors for you to don any identity you please. There are rooms to tickle every part of the imagination, if you’re brave enough to enter.

If there's one thing Saltburnt is good at, it's throwing a party you'll never forget, and taking good, good care of you afterwards. When you're exhausted and coated in bodily fluids, disinterested or incapable of moving back to your room, take advantage of the temporary TROLLEY SYSTEM of Otherworld — that is, cheesily decorated golf carts with cobwebs and streamers, designed to drive you to and from your room. For a limited time only, so take advantage while you can!


DIRECTORY


groupwork: (👓 051.)

dwight fairfield, dead by daylight.

[personal profile] groupwork 2025-11-02 05:52 pm (UTC)(link)
WELCOME TO SALTBURNT
[ waking up in a bed is luxury - one that typically comes with a risk. lampkin lane has a handful of soft mattresses to choose from, but the sheets are old and filthy and sometimes the bed frames are broken, windows busted out, but one can get a decent night's sleep (or what passes for it) so long as The Shape doesn't find you. lery's memorial doesn't really have beds, per se, but a gurney stained with old blood and other mysterious fluids is only sometimes shocking for more than one reason.

garden of joy's motel is... passable. it's maybe the cleanest choice, but that isn't really saying much in the fog, and there's no telling where the dredge might be at any given moment, just waiting to grab you and drag you inside.

but this isn't lery's or lampkin or the garden, at least not from what dwight can tell. the room is too tidy, the bed too comfortable and warm, and there are no crows swooping in through the window to spy and give him away. outside of the room, the hallways are grand and unfamiliar, and dwight stands there with his body leaning halfway out of a bedroom door, peering cautiously like he's expecting someone or something to jump out at him if he's not careful, but - it's quiet. not as reassuring as it should be, but it's enough that he steps all the way out, closing the door quietly behind himself.

with a slow, deep breath, dwight nudges his glasses up by the corner of the black frame with the back of his hand, exhales a little unevenly, and starts... slinking down the hallway, peering behind every door on the way like he's looking for something specific - when he finds you! ]


Oh. [ he pauses, peers around the edge of the door, looks at you. ] Did you, uh. Did you find one yet?

[ hello? ]
BREAKFAST
[ it has been approximately a decade since dwight last tasted anything that wasn't rotten, or decorated with loose eyeballs or severed fingers. of course, that's just an estimate - time passes strangely in the fog, so maybe it hasn't actually been that long. regardless, dwight sits at the breakfast table and he looks at all of the food like he's unsure what to do with any of it or where to start. he doesn't think he's felt true hunger in at least - well, for a long time, but now he almost feels sick with it. surely it's a trap, right? the entity teasing so it can feed off of their despair when they realize it's all poisoned or contaminated or tasteless. but - fuck it, y'know? what's a little more suffering?

reaching out with an unsteady hand, dwight plucks a large croissant off of a platter of baked goods. he brings it back to himself a little too quickly, holds it with both hands for a minute close to his chest as his eyes shift to look at the strangers seated across from him, around him. there are so many unfamiliar faces, but the entity is always pulling people and places in. still, no one seems to be as concerned as he is, and none of them have keeled over or excused themselves to be sick, so maybe it's fine?

dwight makes like he's going to take a bite out of the croissant - and then just shoves the entire thing into his mouth in one go, eyes closing and shoulders sagging with some kind of relief despite the fact that he's most definitely going to choke. ]
Onhmhygob.

[ oh my god. ]
THE POUND
[ dwight's never been a fighter in the physical sense. in his life before the fog, he stood up to assholes in other ways - most recently and notably, by spiking his boss' drink before a meeting because he floated the idea by his coworkers as a joke and they laughed and thought it was funny and dwight has craved validation and acceptance all his life, so of course he dropped a little something in his boss' coffee. nothing harmful, or so he thought, and dwight's karma came for him in equal measure.

in the fog, dwight was limited to his adrenaline and his fists, and more often than not the entity would make sure he and the other survivors could only do so much against its predators. at night, by the campfire, usually tacky with blood, dwight would daydream about picking up one of the huntress' stray hatchets and hurling it back, or keeping it for a special occasion. he'd scratch at the fresh scab under his shirt and dream about reeling the gunslinger in on his own chain, or driving a knife through ghostface's robe between his ribs, just so they know what it feels like to be hunted. and then he'd feel sick and guilty and a little fucked up because he's not like them. he could never be like them.

but then, why does it feel so good, wailing on some random actor in a costume? why does it feel so fucking good to straddle someone's chest and crack his fist across their jaw. with heaving breaths, glasses askew, and sweat on his brow, dwight cocks his whole arm back, hand balled and knuckles red. his voice is unsteady, almost pleading. ]
Fi-fight back.
NETWORK
@ d.fairfield

hey quick question
how did everyone get here?
mpaa: (pic#18141129)

@woodsboro

[personal profile] mpaa 2025-11-02 06:41 pm (UTC)(link)
quick answer
everyone says the house
groupwork: (👓 031.)

[personal profile] groupwork 2025-11-02 08:35 pm (UTC)(link)
what's the slow answer?
the non-quick answer
mpaa: (pic#18141113)

[personal profile] mpaa 2025-11-02 08:37 pm (UTC)(link)
if i had one for you, i'd give it, but i don't. i woke up here like everyone else wakes up here.

i could space out all the letters more

make it slower
groupwork: (👓 034.)

[personal profile] groupwork 2025-11-02 08:50 pm (UTC)(link)
[ it seems condescending assholes are inescapable. ]

n o t h a n k s
:)
mpaa: (pic#18141114)

[personal profile] mpaa 2025-11-02 08:51 pm (UTC)(link)
just trying to make the medicine go down easier.

you hear any better answers, I'd love to hear them
Edited 2025-11-02 20:51 (UTC)
groupwork: (👓 005.)

[personal profile] groupwork 2025-11-02 09:09 pm (UTC)(link)
it can't just be "the house"
houses don't do that


[ not by themselves. something disguised as a house, though? like maybe a creepy cosmic-slash-eldritch entity... ]
mpaa: (pic#18141108)

[personal profile] mpaa 2025-11-02 09:56 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't disagree, besides the house in House and House II, and that wasn't the house. It was the stuff inside. Played on his fears. So, maybe it isn't the house, but everything in it.

You heard it moves around? Reconstructs itself?

(no subject)

[personal profile] groupwork - 2025-11-02 22:54 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

[personal profile] mpaa - 2025-11-02 23:03 (UTC) - Expand
basslines: (082)

welcome 2 saltburnt

[personal profile] basslines 2025-11-02 06:53 pm (UTC)(link)
[Oh, he says. Oh. He says something else, but Kate's ears have gone muffled, time slowing down and then speeding all the way back up again. She had thought, briefly and blissfully for the last few days, that being alone meant being free. But here's Dwight (and it is, she thinks - same voice, same face, same cadence) and -

And even if the opposite is true, at least she isn't alone.

First: she drops the towels in her arms. Second: she springs forward, arms wide and brutally strong as the wrap around him, hug bone-crushing in its intensity. Third: ]
Hi. I have no idea what you just said, but hi.

[Then, fourth: ] This hug is gonna be really awkward if you have no idea who I am.
groupwork: (👓 011.)

[personal profile] groupwork 2025-11-02 08:34 pm (UTC)(link)
[ dwight likes to think he's friends with everyone in the fog - killers excluded - and if not friends, then at the very least, acquaintances; the chances of survival in a trial are better when everyone at least gets along, right? but even with this mindset, kate's enthusiasm is a little bit alarming to dwight, who freezes in the doorway the second she starts running at him. is - does she know something he doesn't? should he turn and fucking book it too? is the wraith lurking just out of his line of sight?

before he can make any quick decisions, he's got an armful of kate and teetering balance as he bears her small but unexpected weight. reflexively, he loops an arm around the middle of her back and slaps his other hand against the doorframe to keep both of them from tumbling backward into the hall, and he exhales with some confusion. briefly, he wonders how long it's been since he's had any involvement in an actual hug, and then tries not to think about it at all because it's just. sad.

with his feet a little more grounded, dwight furrows his brow a little, his brain catching up, or trying to at least. ]


Kate. Hey, uh - hi. Why wouldn't - why wouldn't I know.. you...?
basslines: (163)

[personal profile] basslines 2025-11-14 07:00 pm (UTC)(link)
[It's already awkward, this she knows without even really having to think too hard about it. Jeff's always gotten this side of Kate: excitable, overly-familiar, painfully relieved to see a face that isn't going to spend an entire trial whooping and woeing, or giving her a hard time for trying to keep morale high. What's the point is surviving, Quentin said to her once, and it had really bummed her whole entire vibe for a month.

Squeezing Dwight, she decides the awkwardness is a suitable enough price for a familiar face. Knowing it's a familiar face is a gift; she's always wondered if it's just her that sometimes gets sent in, memory wiped one night and then fully stacked the next, like the Entity could never decide which flavour of terror she preferred from Kate Denson. Raw meat or well done; everything is a delicacy if you prepare it right, she supposes.

She says, after pulling back to hold him at arms length - to let him breathe, really: ]
Sorry. That was weird. The trial before the last I didn't know anyone until after it was done.
groupwork: (👓 006.)

[personal profile] groupwork 2025-11-16 03:58 am (UTC)(link)
[ it's not just her - dwight experiences the gaps too, though notably less and less as time's gone on, infrequent enough that he sometimes forgets the entity likes to play with them like that until one of his friends is staring at him with zero recognition in their eyes, or when it all comes back to him later at the campfire, his hands shaking and his shirt sticky with blood.

here, though, he recognizes kate, and he squeezes her back after some delay, chin bumping slightly against her shoulder as he shakes his head. ]


No, it's— [ not weird. he eases his hold on her as she does the same to him, but he doesn't really back away or put too much space between the two of them. if he's honest, he's relieved to have someone here with him - wherever here actually is - as selfish and shitty as it is. ] I get it.

[ dwight pauses for a beat, glancing down the hallway they're standing in before he looks at kate again. with his free hand, he nudges his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a knuckle. ] Do we know who else...?

[ who else is here with them - the other two survivors, the killer. poor guy's still under the impression this might be a trial in the entity's brand new arena, even though everything about this place feels off, at least compared to what he's used to in the fog. ]
basslines: (061)

[personal profile] basslines 2025-11-16 10:51 pm (UTC)(link)
I thought it was me, but now there's you. I've saw - so many other people.

[Here, she lowers her voice, says just between them: ] More than four of us. More than eight of us. There's so many people here I lost count.

[Which is to say: she's been operating under the same assumption. But one day has become two, has become three and four, then five, and trials can last so long but not like this.

But - and here is where hope always goes to die - the Entity is always throwing something new at them, isn't she? Why not this, too?]
ghostface: blood quantum (2019) (pic#16999510)

@hooker

[personal profile] ghostface 2025-11-02 10:13 pm (UTC)(link)
( )

you first. how do you remember getting here? (:
groupwork: (👓 015.)

[personal profile] groupwork 2025-11-02 10:48 pm (UTC)(link)
[ ]

i don't. not really
i was asleep? i think
somewhere else, and then i woke up here in a really nice bed
ghostface: the red road (2014) (pic#16564203)

[personal profile] ghostface 2025-11-02 11:07 pm (UTC)(link)
that's how it goes for most of us, one big foggy memory hole.

( wink wonk )

you show up with any of your friends, at least?
groupwork: (👓 031.)

[personal profile] groupwork 2025-11-02 11:32 pm (UTC)(link)
[ sq ui nt ]

oh.
okay. great.


[ not great. ]

a few.
does that normally happen?


[ otherwise that's an oddly specific thing to ask. ]
ghostface: blood quantum (2019) (pic#16563668)

[personal profile] ghostface 2025-11-02 11:52 pm (UTC)(link)
sometimes. i showed up with a few people i knew, too.
not all of them were friendly, though.
groupwork: (👓 046.)

[personal profile] groupwork 2025-11-03 03:34 am (UTC)(link)
this place seems big enough to avoid unfriendlies if you really want to
were you together?


[ or maybe it's really not that big and he's just used to being hunted in enclosed, restricted spaces that anything with a larger blueprint than autohaven seems massive. ]

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bring me dwight or ill kermit

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:)

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harbingerfm: (pic#18114963)

welcome

[personal profile] harbingerfm 2025-11-02 10:56 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Haddie's head is pounding, but she knows and feels it in her bones that this isn't some new stage for the entity. It doesn't feel right, it feels different, and those feelings of fractured reality have shifted into something more like a spider's web, fractling out in multiple directions with no tether point.

She's got the fluffy housecoat on over bloody mucky clothes, and her hair pulled back into a loose ponytail, her arms are folded across her chest as she mills through the hall looking for something more verifiable.

Nothing, so far, until she almost collides with —

Dwight? ]


Jeeee-sus.

When did you get here? And what are you looking for?
groupwork: (👓 006.)

[personal profile] groupwork 2025-11-02 11:30 pm (UTC)(link)
[ dwight turns a corner down a new hallway and immediately veers to avoid collision, his hands darting out like he's trying to get ahead of calming a wild animal - until he recognizes haddie. he heaves a heavy sigh of relief, dropping his hands. thank god.

his brows pinch a little. ]


Just... now? Or like, I don't know. [ he looks at his watch, as if that thing has worked in who knows how long. ] Twenty minutes ago?

[ dwight shakes his head slightly, glances backward over one shoulder. as unfamiliar and wrong as this place feels, dwight, unfortunately, isn't so quick or so willing to believe this isn't some kind of sick trick being played on them by the entity. ]

This place is huge. I'm - I can't find any generators. I feel like I've looked everywhere.
harbingerfm: (Default)

[personal profile] harbingerfm 2025-11-03 01:29 am (UTC)(link)
This isn't the same place. I can't explain how I know, but I just do. The entity's not here.

I don't feel the ravage at all. The overlaps are all different.

[ Does she sound crazy? Sure. She's used to it, though. The crazy, the darkness, the overlaps. She's faced it like a familiar friend. Like the one in front of her. ]

At first I thought maybe a hex totem? But none of that either.
groupwork: (👓 051.)

[personal profile] groupwork 2025-11-09 04:05 am (UTC)(link)
[ dwight nods even if he's not so sure, not so convinced, but if he's going to believe anyone about the lack of the entity's presence, it'd be haddie. and to her point, everything here feels less... oppressing, less ominous, at least by comparison to the woods he's been surviving in for too long now.

he puts his hands on his hips, decides that doesn't feel comfortable, and crosses his arms instead. ]


D'you think— [ he lowers his voice a little, takes a half step closer like whatever he's about to ask is something he doesn't want anyone to hear for whatever reason. ] D'you think we're... free?
suzzie: (014)

( breakfast )

[personal profile] suzzie 2025-11-02 11:07 pm (UTC)(link)
[Susie sits down next to Dwight after a beat, simply by chance. She's had the same disorienting experience waking up in the manor and spent a great part of her morning swallowing down panic at being alone, unable to find Frank, Joey or Julie anywhere. She wore that alarm on her face still, oily and faded pink hair clinging to her face - fingers hidden under the hem of a hoodie she pulls down to hide the dirt on her palms.

There are more people in this room than she's seen in a long time. And she lacks the confidence of her group, so she stays silent as she's seated and watches what people do. Some people hold their silverware a certain way, the fancy types. Orange juice is poured for her and breaks the bubble keeping her from partaking on a part of this fever dream she still isn't sure is real. She picks up her glass, drinking, and eventually clocks Dwight next to her.

Her glass slips in her hand a bit, and she catches it with her other palm. If she recognizes him - no, he probably doesn't recognize her, right? The masks, the shadows, the plethora of different hoodies she's cycled through... Maybe it's not even him. But maybe it is, and that means the others might...]


... You're gonna choke. Calm down.

[She feels like she's channeling Julie from the time she told her the same thing when she was starving and ate a whole box of poptarts.]
groupwork: (👓 049.)

[personal profile] groupwork 2025-11-02 11:24 pm (UTC)(link)
[ if dwight flinches at being addressed, it's only because he's mildly embarrassed about being perceived while he's two seconds away from suffocation-by-bread. for a moment, in the midst of buttery flakiness, he'd almost forgotten where he was - not that he actually knows where he is, not quite.

awkwardly, he makes a weak attempt to clear his throat, his eyes darting sideways at the girl beside him just long enough for him to catch a glimpse of faded pink hair from the corner of his eye. dwight pauses for a beat, maybe two, and then turns his head to look at her, cheeks bulging with pastry, and - she's just a girl. no mask, no knife curled into her palm like she was born with it in her fist. any amount of adrenaline that started to fill his veins immediately ebbs, and he looks away again, reaching to pick up a cloth napkin from the table. he unfolds it, and then just... sits there for a second.

should he try to swallow? should he spit half of it out into his napkin, in front of everybody? is it better to choke and cause a scene? he glances sideways again, nods his head even though he hasn't been asked anything, and then twists away from the girl beside him and ducks his head down so he can spit half of the chewed croissant out into his napkin, folding it away like a shameful secret. once he's finished chewing and swallowing, he turns back and offers an awkward, mildly anxious laugh, bumping his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his empty hand. ]


Ha ha. Sorry, I haven't - I don't usually get to eat. [ wait, he can save this. ] Breakfast.