saltburnmods: (Default)
๐–˜๐–†๐–‘๐–™๐–‡๐–š๐–—๐–“๐–™ ๐–’๐–”๐–‰๐–˜. ([personal profile] saltburnmods) wrote in [community profile] draino2024-05-13 07:36 am
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"๐“๐‡๐”๐’" โ–ฃ 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 isnโ€™t, 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 itโ€™s normal for you. Maybe it isnโ€™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 โ€” have you been here before? Were you drawn up to this estate in a car? Havenโ€™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, youโ€™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 heโ€™s as good at being invisible as the rest of the house staff. Of course, thereโ€™s no reason why you canโ€™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 doesnโ€™t want you to leave. Those more sensitive or fragile might find they canโ€™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 doesnโ€™t 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, itโ€™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. Itโ€™s 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 youโ€™ve 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, youโ€™re expected to arrive in costume. (0 points awarded for historical accuracy โ€” this isnโ€™t school, you arenโ€™t 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, thatโ€™s 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 littleโ€ฆ 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 didnโ€™t 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


restored: (ss | 016)

bucky barnes | mcu

[personal profile] restored 2024-05-14 05:11 pm (UTC)(link)
WELCOME TO SALTBURNT - BREAKFAST
[This...is decidedly not where he fell asleep last night. Isn't the familiar plain white ceiling of an apartment he's still struggling to call home. The air isn't tinged with cigarette smoke, and the covers are decidedly free from black fur. And yet despite how wrong the whole situation is, his only reaction at first is to squeeze his eyes shut all over again. Is to try and block out the light that feels like laser boring in to his head. The urge to vomit is there, despite knowing he hasn't eaten in more than a day. But with the way his vision swirls when he finally tries to blink his eyes back open again, well...

Maybe that's a lie. Maybe he's just forgotten whatever he got up to yesterday. And if that's the case, where the hell is he?

Heading out the room only serves to confuse him further. There's a sense of deja-vu creeping up on him that he's wholly uncomfortable with addressing. There's pictures on the walls, plush carpet beneath his feet. An age to the building that's entirely unlike anything he's seen in this city before.

(City? No. It was a house, wasn't it? A mansion. With an estate...)

There's no chance to question it further though. Not once the scent of freshly cooked bacon hits his nose. And in no time whatsoever, he has a plate full of food that he's practically inhaling even before he's taken a seat at the table. Who cares how classy this place is. He's hungry.

Hope it doesn't put you off your own meal, pal.]

WELCOME TO SALTBURNT - GROUNDS
[Inevitably, after he's filled his stomach, Bucky heads out in to the grounds, wanting to try and get a better idea of just where he is. The fact he isn't stopped at the door does come as a surprise to him. Doubly so when his lack of a cuff goes ignored. (His mark is gone. So clearly they must have changed his designation, right?)

One quick lap of the grounds, and then he's making a beeline for the fence. Or rather, the spot a few feet away from it where he ends up doubling over as he tries his best not to empty the contents of his stomach. Each step closer makes the feeling worse. And even once he's close enough to curl his fingers around the bars of the fence, to crush them in his grip, he ends up abruptly backing away. Ends up trying to put space between himself and the fence far more quickly than his feet allow.

Which is how he ends up stumbling into the warm body behind him. How he ends up wrapping his hands round their arms and pressing the top of his head to their chest as he stares down at the grass between them. As he tries to remember how to breathe.

Give him a moment. He's figure out how awkward this is soon enough.]

LET THEM EAT CAKE
[Having to dress up for a party isn't exactly new to him. Nor is having the choice of clothing picked out for him either. The style, however- Being able to actually cover up is a new one. Even if it clearly isn't a style shared by everybody currently milling around the grounds. But if he really needed more proof that this isn't the same city he was once forced to call home, the fact he doesn't feel like he's being watched at every moment certainly gives it away. Leaves him a whole lot more relaxed than he's used to.

Of course, it probably also helps that he's already on his third glass of whatever it is he's drinking. Something a damn sight sweeter than anything he'd usually pick, but strong enough to hit the spot. And leaves him loose enough not to question it as a plate full of something that's supposedly cake is thrust into his hands, and devoured just as quickly. Free food is free food, and he's done living on an empty stomach. No matter how the food might look.

Though when he ends up chomping down on a diamond that'd snuck its way into the frosting of his cake, the rest of his plate ends up being abandoned. And instead, it's back to a liquid diet again. One he's all too happy to turn to as he starts making his way around the grounds again, his gaze narrowing in on the human-shaped cake that someone's slicing in to.

Is that what he'd been eating?]

NOTES
Still not completely sure whether Bucky's coming in as a CRAU from Duplicity or not. But for the purposes of the TDM, I'm going with yes. His canon point is pre-FATWS, despite the icons. (He's getting an update soon). There's also the added bonus of him being a literal white wolf too, thanks to a city event turning him in to a werewolf. But it's 100% emotion driven and is easily avoidable.
Edited 2024-05-14 17:12 (UTC)
achilles: (pic#15983723)

grounds

[personal profile] achilles 2024-05-15 11:19 am (UTC)(link)
( far be it from ash to interrupt important discovery โ€”ย but this feels important too, in a way he can't define. bucky is little more to him than a splotch of color in the distance, a dog inquisitively checking the confines of his cages, until ash's vision reasons out what he's seeing, and then it's clear to him why he was drawn, despite the uncomfortable clenching in his stomach the further he is from the castle, to the outer perimeter. that is bucky, the dog in the dark, forcing himself forward. that is bucky and he is ash, and they are like two magnets of opposite polarity, come crashing together.

like that, he isn't surprised when he finally has an armful of bucky, the breath knocked loose from his chest from emotion, from the hard hit of bucky's thick head. it makes him laugh, a little, arms stuck at his sides with bucky's impressive strength, so all he can do is bend his chin down to press a kiss to the top of bucky's head.
)

This is nice. Should I expect a punch next?

( he can't say he wouldn't deserve it. still, he knows bucky, and knows if he snaps his fingers, he'll be on his knees. small victories. )
restored: (cw | 015)

[personal profile] restored 2024-05-16 09:38 pm (UTC)(link)
[Later, perhaps, he'll kick himself for not picking up on that particular scent sooner. For not realizing that there were far more important things to deal with than testing the limits of the newest cage he's been trapped in. But even once its sunk in, even once he's finally aware of just who he's pressed up against, he doesn't move. Doesn't want to risk looking up and finding out that this is just his mind playing tricks on him yet again. Even with the kiss, even with that all too familiar voice breaking the silence, it's a chance he isn't ready to take. Its not like this'd be the first time he imagined this particular reconnection afterall.

But then the silence stretches on for a few beats too many, and he's finally able to force himself to move. Finally musters up some small piece of courage so he can straighten back up.]


You're not real.

[Sure, he may still be holding Ash's- No, this imposter's -arms. It doesn't make it any easier to believe that any part of this is really happening. Its been over a year since he last saw Ash in person. Since it was more than just a very good (or extremely bad) dream that brought them back together again. And now, here in this whole new location, he's supposed to believe that they've been reunited? Maybe he was wrong to think he'd escaped Duplicity. This really does feel like the kind of thing those assholes would do to their captives.

His hold drops abruptly, as though he's been burned. As though the space he puts back between them will be enough to stamp down that part of him that desperately wants to be wrong. Losing Ash had been one of the worst things that'd happened to him in that city. He isn't sure he could survive it a second time.]


What the hell do you want?
achilles: (pic#15700913)

[personal profile] achilles 2024-05-26 11:28 pm (UTC)(link)
( ash tries not to be stung by his rejection. it's softened in part by how clearly upset bucky is, though that doesn't exactly serve as a comfort, because ash doesn't want him anything but happy. you're not real. sometimes ash feels that way, ephemeral, incapable of enacting any significant change with the time he's been given. but bucky has never made him feel like that โ€” bucky has always been a world condensed into a person, two covers of a book and everything in between. the beginning and ending of everything.

still, ash isn't going to force him to be happy. if he were capable of doing that, maybe โ€” as it is, he folds his hands into his jacket's pockets, tilting his head back and looking down at bucky, his natural stoicism coming in handy to hide any tumultuous feelings he has. honestly, ash hasn't felt like he's belonged anywhere on the property until he found bucky, and now he knows where his place is: a step ahead of him, demanding he kneels before his king.

you could fill the whole mansion with things ash wants. for now? he takes a step forward, knocking his shoes against bucky's, fisting a hand in the front of his shirt.
)

I want a kiss. ( his hand moves up, cinching a bruising grip around bucky's chin. ) Then you can say I'm not real, James.
restored: (cw | 076)

[personal profile] restored 2024-05-27 11:22 am (UTC)(link)
[The demand- because he's long since learned that even a suggestion from the real Ash should be viewed as a command -is enough to stop him short. Has his jaw snapping shut as he stares back at the man. This all feels familiar in a way that he can't ignore. Is enough to stab a jolt of longing clear through his chest. And despite having spent seventy years as an emotionless husk, keeping those feelings off his face is an impossibility now.

Especially once the man- No, Ash. Once Ash takes ahold of his face like that. Once he reclaims that same ownership that's held from the first moment they met. It's enough to have Bucky break where he stands. Enough to let him give in to the moment, whether it's real or not. His anger is gone, his composure lost. All that's left now is the broken pieces of the man he used to be, ready and waiting for Ash to put him back together again as only he can.]


Don't leave me.

[The words are whispered, barely making it past the lump in his throat. The urge is there to drop to his knees. To reclaim his place at Ash's feet and beg for forgiveness for doubting him. But it's the order that keeps him from following through on that. That keeps him on his feet. And instead, he leans in to Ash's hold. Closes the last of that distance so he can finally offer up the kiss that was demanded from him. One he sinks in to without any hint of a fight.

Whether this is real or not, he needs Ash. Wants to remember what it's like to feel whole again. And with Ash here, maybe he has a chance. Just as long as he stops fighting it.]