024-027 » neither reward nor punishment

[villagemod]

WHO: Everyone.
WHERE: Eastern/Central/Western Mathias + ???
WHEN: Days 024-027
WHAT: The consequences of their actions.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. PM this account to have a warning added!
NOTES: Plotting post over here! The next log will be posted January 23rd.

RECOMMENDED ♫ Deadly Avenger "Onryo" 怨霊

DAYS 024-025
CONSEQUENCES
“There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments —
there are consequences.”
— Robert G. Ingersoll
When the unwilling residents of Mathias Township wake on the morning of the 24th day, they will find themselves in yet another set of frustratingly unnerving circumstances. None of them are where they last remember being, and some of them have strange marks on the palms of their left hands. It's all incredibly unsettling, but truthfully they should be used to it by now. No one will remember traveling to their new location.

Residents can wake up anywhere within their new location and in any position. Curled up in a bed, sprawled on a couch, huddled beneath a coffee table, propped against a wall... Wherever they are, they will themselves to be in quite an unusual state. While they are wearing whatever clothing items they went to sleep in, plus their shoes and a coat. The newest arrivals to Mathias Township will perhaps stand out for being slightly more appropriately dressed than their new neighbors. They are all a bit damp, physically worn out, and half-frozen from their apparent walk through a blizzard.

Each of the four locations is inescapable — residents are trapped, with exterior doors and windows being shut tight and a blizzard raging outside. The locations are stocked with fresh food and water and a large pile of firewood for the fireplaces in each building. The circumstances residents will face, however, may vary wildly between locations as the forces at work in Mathias respond to the recent actions of certain individuals.


BOARDING HOUSE | GREY GULL
NEW HOUSE | MYSTERY MANSION

These residents will wake with a mark on their left hand palms, a spiraling black symbol similar to those some may have seen around town. All marks are identical and cannot be removed, but will have seemingly vanished from their skin on the morning of the 26th day.

Castiel, Daisy Johnson, Dean Winchester
Elena Gilbert, Elijah Mikaelson, Helen Magnus
Phil Coulson, Quentin Coldwater, Sherlock Holmes

DAYS 026-027
IN THE AFTERMATH
After their ordeals of the past two days, the unfortunate residents of Mathias Township will be grateful to find that they were back where they are supposed to be, a chill still clinging to their clothes in whatever place they went to sleep the night of the 23rd day. New arrivals will wake in the living room of the boarding house. None of the residents will wake with anything in their possession from the locations in which they were previously trapped, including any notes or documentation they may have made during their time there.

---

CONDITIONS UPDATE

— SNOW continues to fall heavily on Days 024-025, resulting in white out conditions from the wind that blows in gusts of over 35 mph; the temperature also drops drastically, making conditions extremely dangerous for residents. The blizzard clears on Day 26 and residents are left with a cold, calm world covered in white.

— THE FOG remains blocking the paths in the forest, urging residents to stay huddled within the town proper, and it also now blocks the northern section of town, beginning just before where residents know the chasm in the earth to be. Venturing into the fog is... ill-advised.

— DISAPPEARANCES continue to plague the town. Kylo Ren and Thomas Richardson have vanished without a trace.

— NO NEW DEATHS have occurred in town, but there is a new "grave" in the small makeshift graveyard near the schoolhouse. Rey's corpse has been moved and covered with stones to wait for the ground to thaw enough for a proper burial.

— THE LANTERNS will be gone from the morning of Day 024. No trace of them remains.

---

OOC UPDATES

— A GIFT for everyone! As a thank you for being part of this spooky little game, every character in the game is being gifted 2 Activity Points. These may be banked over here — instead of linking to an AC post, you may put "New Year gift" in that field. Happy 2021, friends!

— NEW LAYOUTS have been installed for our communities! Huge thanks to our Eldritch Librarian Stars for putting in the time to get this place looking shiny. (You may have also noticed some new page layouts being installed — these are also our Librarian's handiwork!)

— DISCOVERIES have been collected and collated for your review. Please note that this is OOC information only, put together for the purpose of helping you as players see connections and possibilities for CR and your own character's potential avenues of exploration and investigation. (If we are missing something, please report it so we can add it to the list.)

— REMINDERS — Don't forget about the bulletin board. Please continue reporting your updates to locations, plots, and discoveries. The map of Mathias has been added to the locations page for ease of reference. Make sure your character's sanity level is kept updated. Prospective players are still joining the TDM, so it's recommended to track new top-levels so you don't miss them.

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Comments

[abrightboy]

Malcolm shrugged a shoulder.

"I'm a behavioural scientist. I know angry when I see it. I know she had some complaints about her ability to move up in the Bureau. I had the highest solve rate in violent crimes nationally. But... my medications are for mental health disorders. Ostensibly, she decided I was unstable and a liability. That, because my father is a predatory psychopath, I could be susceptible to latent psychopathy and narcissism. But I think that was what she sold the Bureau. It was sure what they dragged out at the disciplinary when they fired me. The thing is, I got the high profile cases because I closed them. With me out of the picture, there was room for someone else to get the prestige."

[thering]

All this career talk isn't making too much sense to Doc but he tries to follow, nodding along and probably humming at the right intervals. Or at least, he hopes so. What he's gathering is that she got rid of him so she could be more prominent in her field. That sentiment he can understand, even if careers weren't as complicated during his time. Or nearly as important.

"Raylan has been told and also thinks of himself an angry man. I think he is capable of requiting your feelings. But he might be afraid to."

[abrightboy]

Interesting.

Malcolm considered that.

“I don’t know if ‘angry’ is the right word,” Malcolm mused. “It’s not his guiding star. Something went on with his father in his childhood. I’d guess some sort of abuse. Because he didn’t grow up to be an abuser, then I’d suggest he’s been abused in other interpersonal relationships. He doesn’t necessarily recognize love without a component of abuse. He’s definitely never been able to process his feelings about any of that in a healthy or productive way, which is why his emotional repression bursts out as anger when he reaches capacity. That would lead to a simplistic diagnosis of ‘angry’ but.... nobody’s born broken, Doc. Someone breaks us. The culture you both grew up in of rampant toxic masculinity makes anger the only acceptable emotion for a man to display, so most of your - and his - strong emotions break the surface as anger. You both need a safe place to surface them in their true forms to start healing.” He paused, then looked at Doc as something occurred to him. “Is that what you guys do at night?”

[thering]

Doc levels Malcolm with a kind of blank stare, blinking a few times as he rambles on. There's- a lot to unpack there, to be sure. Idly he wonders if Malcolm does that with everyone or just to Raylan before thinking that yes, he probably does that with everyone. Maybe not to that level, but. Doc doesn't overanalyse people like this before establishing some kind of relationship with them. He's not sure if Malcolm should do it less or if he should do it more.

"There's-- I-- wwwuh- we don't do any-- We drink. At night." Doc's not sure why he is getting a little defensive but it did sound a little accusatory. If it had something to do with the night they spent in bed together, Doc doesn't want to talk about it.

"Do you do this with everyone, Malcolm? I am not saying it is irrational." It completely is, Malcolm. "And I think we both know he would not like it, but. He is more than the sum of his broken pieces and the effort he puts in to keep everything together. He doesn't want you to dig in deep and-- try to explain his 'mechanisms' or fix him. He just-- wants you to live a good life, and maybe he thinks he isn't good for that. His perceived flaws about himself matter to him, and until you can accept them without telling him he's a good man..." Doc makes a soft noise and shrugs. "I'm not sure he would believe you."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm listens to 'we drink' with slightly raised eyebrows and no comment but... it's totally what they're doing. Hunh.

"Nobody likes it," Malcolm supplies by way of an answer to Doc's question and to his assertion that Raylan wouldn't like it. "Nobody likes to be seen. But it's how I... process the world. It's about understanding people, not fixing them. But..." He scrunches up his forehead faintly. "He is a good person. I get why he would think he's not one, but... you don't think it would be helpful for him to hear that he's... good and... appreciated? That's not a denial of his flaws. I could list those too, but that isn't... productive. What ultimately matters is what you put into the world. And if you put something good into the world, you should get something good out of it, not... kicked around for the effort. What if the result of him putting something good into the world was being treated well for once?"

[thering]

"I-- perhaps am not the right person to ask," Doc offers quietly, somewhat uncertain. He's not deliberately trying to be unhelpful, he just-- he's never tried connecting with Raylan on that level. He isn't sure if he has anything to offer. Sure, of everyone in town, he talks to Raylan the most, and it's likely that Raylan talks to him the most too. That doesn't mean anything considering they hardly share anything of themselves to anyone else.

"You could tell me a thousand times that I am a good man. It does not make me one." Maybe in the process of becoming Scheherazade and telling him a thousand stories about his goodness, he would eventually wear the Marshal down and win his love. It does not absolve the Marshal of his sins, or the sins of his father.

"We so rarely get what we deserve, Malcolm. And when we get something we do not deserve, all too often we simply squander it. Loving a man who does not love himself..." Doc's jaw shifts and he breathes out a shaky breath. "I don't much like- talking about the woman you know as 'Kate'. I never did raise a hand against her, but. On those unbearable days, when I drank and we fought..." The tip of his tongue runs over his teeth and he breathes out a sigh. They had been quite the spectacular fireworks. "I put her through hell and made her walk on embers and eggshells for making that mistake. He don't- he don't want that for you. Treating him well, treating him poorly - nothing will change that."

[abrightboy]

"I think in your case... believing that you're a bad man has made you a good one," Malcolm suggested. "You said you want to be one. And bad men don't want that. Being 'good' isn't something you're gifted with by only doing good things from birth. Being a good person means feeling remorse for the things you done to hurt people and trying to be better. You don't think you fall under that category?"

[thering]

"I thought we were talking 'bout Raylan," Doc points out quietly, hiding his expression behind the chamomile tea mug he's picked up and holding by the rim, shifting the focus back onto the troubled Kentucky boy. Taking a small sip, he averts his gaze from Malcolm's piercing stare, sweeping across the countertop and finding a spot on the askew rug to fixate on. Setting his cup down, Doc leans to one side a little. If they wanted to lay out his own troubles, they would need something a lot stronger than chamomile tea, and somehow get Doc feeling a whole lot less reserved than he is now. And as nimble as Malcolm has proved himself to be, he only lets his walls be scaled when he knows there's a bigger one he can hide behind.

"I'm just speculating about angry men. You would know them better than I would." Forcing a smile that manages to reach his eyes, Doc finishes his tea and brings it to the sink.

[abrightboy]

"I'm not sure that I do," Malcolm told him matter-of-factly. "But I've known bad men. Really evil ones. Plenty of them. You're not that. Neither of you."

[thering]

"Hmh," Doc grunts as he drapes the dishcloth over his shoulder and starts on his cup and the few dishes in the sink. "Much as I would advocate for the direct approach, 'Raylan, I don't think you're evil' is not how I would be starting that conversation." It's a bit lacking in the uh... Southern Charm department.

"Having said that, I think you're overthinking it. Just go with the flow. And if that's what ends up coming out, you can just roll with it." Probably easier said than done and requires more practice than it looks, but he doubts Raylan knows what he's doing either. They can be idiots together.

[abrightboy]

"...Yeah, I don't tend to start any conversations with my thought process. Like I said: nobody likes it."

He took a sip of his own tea, moving out of Doc's way to perch on one of the stools at the island.

"I'm just saying... when people don't think you're a bad man... it's not necessarily hero worship."

[thering]

That's funny. Doc starts his conversations with his thought process. Just about all the time, in fact. In this instance, maybe it should be something Malcolm does more of and Doc does less of.

"Maybe framing other men as 'good' and 'bad' isn't all that useful. Nobody knows anybody else and their deeds well enough to pass that sort of judgement. Sometimes the more you think you know someone, insisting they're good or bad or whatever you think of them, the more certain they are you don't know 'em at all." In Raylan's case perhaps the 'less is more' approach might work out better. He can work through his own... whatever issues he thinks he's got in his own time if he isn't told repeatedly what the science and the behaviour people believe about said issues.

[abrightboy]

"It's hard to be the recipient of kindness and pretend it isn't kindness," Malcolm said quietly. "I don't normally... tell him what I think of him. Only if he asks or if he says something I don't agree with. It's never... I don't spontaneously just tell him how great he is. That wouldn't be keeping anything a secret at all, would it?" he pointed out with an awkward laugh.

[thering]

Oh, Malcolm. You are not subtle at all.

"How would you ever know if he is capable of returning your sentiments if you never give voice to them?" Doc has maintained that people sharing the same house shouldn't keep too many secrets from each other. He hasn't changed his stance on that.

"If the last time I saw Raylan was the last time I ever saw him, he knows what I think of him. And if this was to be our last conversation, you know what I think of you, too. I don't think anyone should leave this god-forsaken place with any regrets. If for no other reason than that, there is some value in the occasional spontaneous compliment."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm looked down into his cup, both hands wrapped around it as it sat on the counter.

"He knows I value his friendship. And that I think he's a good person."

[thering]

"Long as that's good enough for you, for right now." Baby steps will take them somewhere else somewhere down the line. But maybe they can afford to dally a bit in this place.

"You okay for willow bark?" he asks with his back turned to the sink, drying his hands. While he's happy for Malcolm to linger, Doc anticipates he will be handing Malcolm off soon, to Raylan or anyone else who might want to borrower the profiler for the afternoon.

[abrightboy]

"I'm. Um. Getting a little low, actually. I didn't want to... bother you about it. I wasted some. Dropped a couple of cups that had some in it," he admitted, shifting uncomfortably.

[thering]

"It happens. Maybe we should find you something made out of plastic, or wood." Doc doesn't care for the breakage or the apparent waste but he's worried about Malcolm cutting and burning himself.

"I found some plastic cups on the Amazon before," he declares. All that googling has been affecting his targeted ads. "The internet used to try to sell me whiskey and ammo. Now it's got all this weird shit people buy for infants." Modular, stackable plastic cups included. 21st century parents. It all seems so complicated.

"I am sure there is something more dignified to be found here for you."

[abrightboy]

"....Maybe we can find one of those metal... camping cups?" he suggested. He was worried they'd find plastic that wasn't suitable for hot liquids. "It's rustic here. There must be... camping stuff somewhere," Malcolm mused.

[thering]

"Hm. I'll see what I can find." Maybe he'll hit up that house that had the anchor rope, for the bridge. It seems like as good a place as any to start.

"With any luck they'll have a hunting knife and a tent, too." For when it's warm enough to be sleeping outside. Not that the snow and chill would stop Doc from making himself comfortable in the ice.

[abrightboy]

"What... do you need a tent for?" Malcolm asks suspiciously. The use of a camping knife is obvious.

[thering]

"Sleeping in the backyard if anyone else would like to stay with us," Doc answers almost immediately with a small shrug. They can maybe squeeze in one more person and then they're either going to have to do something about the garage or Doc is sleeping outside.

[abrightboy]

“What? No,” Malcolm said immediately. “You’re not sleeping outside! It’s winter! And you and Raylan started this house. Why can’t we modify the garage? We could make two bedrooms as roomy as the ones upstairs or four perfectly serviceable smaller ones,” he insisted.

[thering]

"We didn't start anything. He picked me up off the side of the road one night, not long before he met you." Yeah, okay, maybe that is starting something. It wasn't a conscious decision though.

"We don't have much by way of building or cladding material. Wouldn't be much warmer in there." Or less noisy. "Suppose it would keep us busy though. Our own home renovation project." Maybe there's nothing wrong with making themselves a little more comfortable even if they're still fantasising about escape.

"It's alright Malcolm. I would still be outside under an old rug if I hadn't met Raylan. I'm not picking a fight with mother nature."

[abrightboy]

"We can get building material from the houses that aren't being used. Ones that are already broken. The one I met Raylan in the first day I was here, where he was tearing the pipes out of the walls. We could get wood and insulation there. We just need lots of insulation. Lots of it. And maybe we can salvage a wood stove from one of the houses or garages just for heating in there," he said, becoming more animated as he went on, gesturing to the garage with both arms. "And we have to seal around the bay door. I'm sure we can find something to do that with."