๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐. (
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draino2024-05-13 07:36 am
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"๐๐๐๐" โฃ MAY TDM
MAY 2024 TDM
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 โ 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. Prompts on the Test Drive can be used for in game logs.
WELCOME TO SALTBURNT
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 isnโt, stay in bed and wallow โ eventually a maid will be in to tear your curtains open, saying, "Breakfast is served," and scurrying out quietly, invisibly. Breakfast? Maybe itโs normal for you. Maybe it isnโt.
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 โ have you been here before? Were you drawn up to this estate in a car? Havenโt 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, youโll 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 heโs as good at being invisible as the rest of the house staff. Of course, thereโs no reason why you canโt 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 doesnโt want you to leave. Those more sensitive or fragile might find they canโt 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 doesnโt dissipate, though โ 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, itโs 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. Itโs self serve, naturally. Just not the eggs.
"We dress for dinner," says Portia, with a kind, if discerning smile. "Black tie."
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 โ have you been here before? Were you drawn up to this estate in a car? Havenโt 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, youโll 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 heโs as good at being invisible as the rest of the house staff. Of course, thereโs no reason why you canโt 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 doesnโt want you to leave. Those more sensitive or fragile might find they canโt 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 doesnโt dissipate, though โ 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, itโs 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. Itโs self serve, naturally. Just not the eggs.
"We dress for dinner," says Portia, with a kind, if discerning smile. "Black tie."
LET THEM EAT CAKE
CONTENT WARNINGS: sex, drugs, alcohol.
Up until now, the outdoors of Saltburnt have seemed immaculately well groomed, landscaped until not a leaf is out of line. However, on the night of a planned party you were all informed of, the grounds have transformed into a psychedelic fever dream before your eyes, with very little resembling the polished exterior youโve become acquainted with. Large fixtures have been erected around the grounds in a paid homage to Roman architecture, huge columns set up in invitation to the party beyond. Everything is bathed in pastel colors of pink, blue, yellow and green, opulent and gaudy in equal measures, everything decorated with golden filigree. The theme? Rococo. And yes, youโre expected to arrive in costume. (0 points awarded for historical accuracy โ this isnโt school, you arenโt being graded on anything but your appearance.)
Vanilla flavored cocktails line elaborately decorated banquet tables, and while alcohol seems readily in supply, any food other than snacking Doritos and caviar with mother-of-pearl spoons is hard to find. Of course, thatโs other than the dessert table, which is sorted with an arrangement of confections: macaroons of all colors, cupcakes, cookies, and of course, cakes. Some are imperially designed, with frilly icing decorations and sprinkle pearls on top, but the real showstopper cakes are the anatomically correct ones, shaped in the imagine of naked bodies. On first glance, the lifelike realness of them makes the bodies look like peaceful corpses laid flat against the sugary delights โ some, potentially, with an appearance uncannily like a guest like you, currently residing in Saltburnt. But, when someone cuts into one, it's plain to see the flesh is just fondant, the insides all cake and cream and jam. There is enough detail on the inside of the cakes that gives the impression, if you were to cut one horizontally down from head to toe, you'd see the perfect snapshot of the inside of a human body, organs, bones, and all.
Seeking other entertainment? In homage to the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, small diamonds have been hidden around the party, in red solo cups, in full liquor bottles, in plain sight, in trees and bushes. Collect, steal, and pickpocket as many as you can โ anyone with diamonds at the end of the party has been guaranteed a special prize from Portia herself, but you'll have to win to figure out what it is. (A replica of the Queen's necklace, lucky you!)
In addition, on the grounds there is a lifesize version chess, alternating colors between light and hot pink. Anyone interested will quickly be informed, this is SlapKiss Chess, where the rules are simple enough to follow. Chess as usual, only when one piece steps on the square of another piece, the first person to step off the square loses the ground and is kicked from the game. You can knock your opponent off however you like, through whatever means available to you. Naturally, things get pretty bloody and pretty PDA, depending on your poison of choice โ with the name of the game comes two very frequent weapons against your opponent.
Of course, the night does come to an end eventually. Pass out where you are or drunkenly make your way up to you room in a drug-induced stupor. Either way, you'll wake up hungover, in bed, trying to fill in all the blanks from last night.
Up until now, the outdoors of Saltburnt have seemed immaculately well groomed, landscaped until not a leaf is out of line. However, on the night of a planned party you were all informed of, the grounds have transformed into a psychedelic fever dream before your eyes, with very little resembling the polished exterior youโve become acquainted with. Large fixtures have been erected around the grounds in a paid homage to Roman architecture, huge columns set up in invitation to the party beyond. Everything is bathed in pastel colors of pink, blue, yellow and green, opulent and gaudy in equal measures, everything decorated with golden filigree. The theme? Rococo. And yes, youโre expected to arrive in costume. (0 points awarded for historical accuracy โ this isnโt school, you arenโt being graded on anything but your appearance.)
Vanilla flavored cocktails line elaborately decorated banquet tables, and while alcohol seems readily in supply, any food other than snacking Doritos and caviar with mother-of-pearl spoons is hard to find. Of course, thatโs other than the dessert table, which is sorted with an arrangement of confections: macaroons of all colors, cupcakes, cookies, and of course, cakes. Some are imperially designed, with frilly icing decorations and sprinkle pearls on top, but the real showstopper cakes are the anatomically correct ones, shaped in the imagine of naked bodies. On first glance, the lifelike realness of them makes the bodies look like peaceful corpses laid flat against the sugary delights โ some, potentially, with an appearance uncannily like a guest like you, currently residing in Saltburnt. But, when someone cuts into one, it's plain to see the flesh is just fondant, the insides all cake and cream and jam. There is enough detail on the inside of the cakes that gives the impression, if you were to cut one horizontally down from head to toe, you'd see the perfect snapshot of the inside of a human body, organs, bones, and all.
Seeking other entertainment? In homage to the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, small diamonds have been hidden around the party, in red solo cups, in full liquor bottles, in plain sight, in trees and bushes. Collect, steal, and pickpocket as many as you can โ anyone with diamonds at the end of the party has been guaranteed a special prize from Portia herself, but you'll have to win to figure out what it is. (A replica of the Queen's necklace, lucky you!)
In addition, on the grounds there is a lifesize version chess, alternating colors between light and hot pink. Anyone interested will quickly be informed, this is SlapKiss Chess, where the rules are simple enough to follow. Chess as usual, only when one piece steps on the square of another piece, the first person to step off the square loses the ground and is kicked from the game. You can knock your opponent off however you like, through whatever means available to you. Naturally, things get pretty bloody and pretty PDA, depending on your poison of choice โ with the name of the game comes two very frequent weapons against your opponent.
Of course, the night does come to an end eventually. Pass out where you are or drunkenly make your way up to you room in a drug-induced stupor. Either way, you'll wake up hungover, in bed, trying to fill in all the blanks from last night.
A MIDNIGHT'S DREAM
CONTENT WARNINGS: body horror, cannibalism, sex.
Things feel normal, for awhile. The first day after the party anything brewing inside feels like the byproduct of intoxicants ingested, so it's likely you're expecting to feel a little off. The next day, you wonder just how long this hangover is supposed to last. By the third day, something feels indefinably wrong, and you ache down to your bones.
Did you eat the cake? Probably, yes โ but did you find it a littleโฆ addictive?
There's an urge inside you, to taste it again. What part of the body did you eat before? The fingers? Suddenly, you need to sink teeth into whoever has fingers closest to you, even though you know what'll happen. You'll find flesh, blood, and bone, hardly any of it appetizing. And yet. The compulsion is undeniable, and once you get what you want, you bite down on someone's body where you feel the need and, shockingly, it tastes good. Sweet. Moreover, it feels good to be consumed. Eater and eaten alike, all of you want some more, gluttonous down to your core.
It seems a curse has overtaken Saltburnt, turning everyone who ate cake into cake. Bones turn to cracked caramel, blood into loose icing. Oddly, it seems the only people safe from the curse, other than the people who didnโt eat anything, are the ones who won and wear their gifted diamond necklace, though that doesn't necessarily mean people won't try to take a bite out of them anyway, and it doesn't mean they wouldn't like being eaten too, depending on what they're into. It's all a frenzy, a fever dream. You eat and eat and eat and are eaten, shocked by how much flesh โ well, cake โ someone can lose.
On the fourth day, you wake up in your room again, as you have every other day, whole and unblemished, offended by the scent coming from outside your windows. Look, and find the sight of rotting cake abandoned in heaps, taking the form of errant limbs, spotted with mold and decorated with buzzing flies. Look for long enough, and you might once again find some weirdly similar to your own body, feeding hornets that flock to your sugary sweet flesh.
Weird dream, right?
Things feel normal, for awhile. The first day after the party anything brewing inside feels like the byproduct of intoxicants ingested, so it's likely you're expecting to feel a little off. The next day, you wonder just how long this hangover is supposed to last. By the third day, something feels indefinably wrong, and you ache down to your bones.
Did you eat the cake? Probably, yes โ but did you find it a littleโฆ addictive?
There's an urge inside you, to taste it again. What part of the body did you eat before? The fingers? Suddenly, you need to sink teeth into whoever has fingers closest to you, even though you know what'll happen. You'll find flesh, blood, and bone, hardly any of it appetizing. And yet. The compulsion is undeniable, and once you get what you want, you bite down on someone's body where you feel the need and, shockingly, it tastes good. Sweet. Moreover, it feels good to be consumed. Eater and eaten alike, all of you want some more, gluttonous down to your core.
It seems a curse has overtaken Saltburnt, turning everyone who ate cake into cake. Bones turn to cracked caramel, blood into loose icing. Oddly, it seems the only people safe from the curse, other than the people who didnโt eat anything, are the ones who won and wear their gifted diamond necklace, though that doesn't necessarily mean people won't try to take a bite out of them anyway, and it doesn't mean they wouldn't like being eaten too, depending on what they're into. It's all a frenzy, a fever dream. You eat and eat and eat and are eaten, shocked by how much flesh โ well, cake โ someone can lose.
On the fourth day, you wake up in your room again, as you have every other day, whole and unblemished, offended by the scent coming from outside your windows. Look, and find the sight of rotting cake abandoned in heaps, taking the form of errant limbs, spotted with mold and decorated with buzzing flies. Look for long enough, and you might once again find some weirdly similar to your own body, feeding hornets that flock to your sugary sweet flesh.
Weird dream, right?
DIRECTORY
no subject
[ There's not really any point speculating further. Though he's still thinking about Louis telling him not to eat the cake.
He takes a drink from their now shared glass unflinchingly, passes it back. ]
You sound like you've got some familiarity with that kind of thing. Spend a lot of time at parties like these?
[ He'd seemed competent at navigating them earlier, his smalltalk what drew Daniel in, but the tossing of the tie speaks to some ennui. However much or little Matt wants to tell him is fine; Daniel just likes listening to people talk about themselves. ]
no subject
I did my time, yeah. [ He sips. ] My parents threw a lot of dinner parties when we were kids. Still do, I'm sure.
[ With one more sip, he hands the glass back. His jacket, too, has started to feel stifling. Matt peels it off, leaving him in waistcoat and button-up. His sleeves are already rolled past the elbow, his one small act of rebellion against the evening's dress code. ]
What about you? You said you're an investigative journalist. Do you have an area of focus? Corporate corruption, the environment, those complicated human interest pieces where everybody picks a side ...?
no subject
[ He counts them out on his fingers, sounding emphatically disgusted by them all, but then gives a self-deprecating wave of that same hand as if to dismiss the passions of youth. ]
Two thousands I became all about intelligence. CIA scandals. Russian hackers. Snowden. Facebook selling your data.
[ He leans back on an elbow, lets himself cast a professional eye over Matt's lanky frame (and that's all it is, right, a lifelong fascination with people, regardless of how many clothes they have on or how nice their forearms are, their wrists.) ]
Assuming mommy and daddy aren't feeding you at parties anymore, what do you do? My guess is... something in academics.
no subject
Luckily for Daniel, Matt isn't the best at noticing when other people are checking him out. At the (correct) guess, he laughs softly. Shoots Daniel a look, somewhere between ruffled and amused. (The phrase mommy and daddy comes the closest to genuinely needling him, but he's been drinking a little too much for it to really sting.) His fingers' lazing loops turn staccato, striking up a tap, tap, tap. ]
Grad school. For urban planning. I'm starting this fall. [ His eyes narrow in suspicion, lips quirking crookedly. ] What gave it away?
no subject
[ Sometimes he feels a bit like Poirot overexplaining in the final chapter, a magician showing the cards up his sleeve. It's his job to figure things out about people, to read them in the moment, get a good gut read. Having to pick apart why he made that call is a little awkward but he still respectfully does it. Fortunately it's nothing too sharp. He could have just directly called Matt a nerd and been done. ]
no subject
Guilty as charged, [ he allows. ] Though after that one diamond almost killed me, I think staying out here with the guy who saved my life is the rational choice.
[ A pause, as Matt reaches for the water bottle to top off the glass. ]
Okay, I hear it.
no subject
Yeah.
[ It's hearable.
Not that he particularly minds it. ]
Don't get self-conscious on me. I am, as the kids say, here for it. Tell me all about urban planning. You like Jane Jacobs?
no subject
Obviously Jane Jacobs, she's the original. For recent stuff, Janette Sadik-Khan--she used to be the transportation commissioner in New York, she wrote "Streetfight."
Of course, I'm just starting out. I'm sure after my first semester I'll have a way longer list.
[ Assuming he can make it past the front gate of this place, of course. Amazing that just yesterday, his biggest problem was student loans.
Matt offers Daniel the glass. ]
no subject
Don't get bogged down in theory and lose your voice, though. If you're getting into this because you've got ideas, visions - write those down early, stay true to them. I still come back to my early work, even if it's painfully bad.
[ Another sip. Sparkling water still feels hedonistic even though he has a dusty sodastream on a shelf in his kitchen. Something about this, the passing back and forth, feels like the camaraderie of a bottle even if his BAC is zero. It's nice. ]
Sorry, sorry. The problem with getting old is you try and make all your experience meaningful by turning it into unwanted advice. I haven't even done postgrad, my Masters was honorary, what do I know, huh?
no subject
You're fine. "I'm here for it." [ A teasing lilt to the phrase. Matt shakes his head gently. ] I hear you, though. I think urban planning is more grounded than a lot of fields, but there's also like, a lot of received wisdom about the best way to do something that isn't necessarily accurate.
[ He watches the tremoring in Daniel's fingers, the way it sets bubbles sparkling in the glass. He's not concerned, really; Daniel hasn't spilled a drop so far. But he's interested by the small physical particulars that set people apart. The way they occupy space and move through it. ]
Cities have a lot of problems. But I think at their best ...
You'll run into exactly the person you need to see on that day, whether you know them or not. Or find a new business on a block you've walked a hundred times. Or see a fucking coyote. You could look at a city as a miracle multiplier. The chances of something interesting dialed up to the density of the population.
no subject
[ This, this is the kind of bullshit that's has Daniel following him around the party like a cartoon character who's smelled a pie on a ledge. It's not just the topic, it's the way he talks about things; Louis had the same gift, of being able to capture something ephemeral when he spoke, and the charisma to make it engaging. His second wife, too, if it was a subject she was passionate about.
The kind of man Daniel has painted himself to be for most of his life would challenge the word miracle. But on this occasion he's uncharacteristically quiet. He does believe in miracles, you sexy thing (you sexy thing). ]
It's a risk multiplier as well, though. Service overload. People falling through the cracks. If anything can happen [ (light, pitched up, a vague implication of jazz hands) ] then, uh, anything can happen. My first beat was San Francisco, with the homeless, the addicts, the aids crisis.
[ He loved them, and joined them, and interviewed them the same as anyone else because he treasured their stories, but most of them weren't living miraculous. ]
no subject
Right. And I think that's a good encapsulation of the responsibility to design a city that works. For the people, places, wildlife it contains, so that you have--I mean we call it a safety net for a reason. A threshold where someone will catch you.
[ Matt's fingers start tapping out another drum riff, animated rather than nervous this time. He's surprised at how on the tip of his tongue it is to say, I enchanted a garden so the people who visit will be more likely to make friends. It's hard to measure friendship, but you can count social interactions. Do you know about loneliness and addiction? It's the loneliness that really kills us. At 25, Matt's an expert in loneliness. A connoisseur of fine tasting notes. And part of it comes from the fact that the work he's most proud of, the things he loves most in the world, are the things he can't share. His smile as he regards Daniel has turned a bit wistful. ]
no subject
Yeah. And what about manor estates, you think this place has the capacity for miracles? Or whatever you call them when they're bad.
no subject
There's an argument to be made it's still miracles. Just a question of direction. Let supernal be the vertical above the X-axis, infernal the one below.
But, ah--
[ Matt looks out across the lawn, trying to make out the forest's edge in the dark. ]
Originally, manors were supposed to be self-contained universes. You had fields, water source, fabrication, church. More like a piece of machinery designed to produce outcomes.
no subject
[ Interested but incapable of being totally serious about it when Matt says stuff like that. It's not disbelief so much as a sardonic awareness of how silly supernatural shit sounds, a lifetime's scepticism emerging in a nervous chuckle.
He takes a drink of water. ]
The outcome tonight being some people vomiting their guts up on the lawn. A lot of ill-advised hookups. And whatever people are winning for choking on diamonds.
no subject
Well. I won a very interesting conversation. [ One more small, lilting smile. ] So maybe manors are good for something after all.
[ He reaches for Daniel, fingers giving an inquisitive flutter. But he's reaching for the glass, it seems: his fingers crook for gimme. ]
no subject
The bottle he's been babying this whole conversation is empty. He considers it, the tiny triumph of not dropping it, and then abruptly, impulsively, sends it the way Matt's tie went - it sails out into the dark. If it breaks, it breaks inaudibly on the grass. Let the people who brought them here clean it up.
He rubs a hand over his face, digs a thumb into his eye socket. ]
It's late. I should turn in.
[ He can't live the party all night lifestyle these days. Groans a little as he shifts on the stairs, preparing to get up and discovering he shouldn't have sat on something cold and hard for so long. ]
I'll see you at breakfast.
no subject
He gets the destructive urge, of course. How could he not? He felt trapped in his parents' house as a kid. And longer than he should have as an adult. If he hadn't discovered a talent greater than himself, something undeniably worthy of nourishing, he might be there still.
Something to ponder either never or after he's had more alcohol. ]
Sounds good.
[ Matt takes a swig from the glass. Glances sideways to Daniel.
Hell, they probably know each other well enough by now. At least he hopes they do. He rises fluidly and offers Daniel a hand up. ]
I should probably try to sleep too.
no subject
Next time we do this: soft chairs.
no subject
Soft chairs, [ he agrees. Once Daniel's got his feet under him, Matt lets go. Their fingers brush incidentally as he pulls back. As he steps back, glass in hand, he says, ] Night, Daniel.