TDM #10 - Wither and Bloom [FINAL REPRINT]

[pumpkinhollow]

Pumpkin Hollow Gazette: Spring Issue

We ask that all toplevels include the age of the character (or at least a rough estimate) for TDM posts, to ensure that players both old and new can quickly make informed decisions about how to interact with a given character. We also ask that if someone lists a prompt as having an age preference, that it be respected. This is specifically for TDMs unless otherwise stated. Thank you!

Pumpkin Hollow Gazette

12/13/24 | TDM #10 - Wither and Bloom [First Edition]
Spring Pokémon Types - Grass, Fairy, Ground, Bug, Normal

WELCOME TO PUMPKIN HOLLOW

By Yorick Aberdeen

The crop for which the town is named.

Greetings, Hollowites, old and new! We are pleased to bring you yet another riveting issue of the Pumpkin Hollow Gazette. Or perhaps this is your very first one?

For nearly two years now, the mysterious ferryman has brought new and interesting faces across seas and stars and dimensional planes to reach our fair island. Since then, our community has grown larger and infinitely more interesting--- and we’re glad you’re joining us! Just in time for the weather to be just lovely.

This time of year tends to be a bit lighter on town-wide events due to this being a vitally busy time for our local agriculture industry, but we urge you to get involved with planting season and spend some time in nature. Who knows? You might even catch sight of our goddess of Land and Spring if you spend enough time among plants! Just don’t look into the trees--- they look back.

We invite you, as with all those who came before you, to enjoy your stay at the Oak & Iron tavern inn while you settle in. Please stop by Town Hall to discuss opportunities for work and more permanent housing! All newcomers get 100 Brass in their pocket upon arrival as well, so we encourage you to take advantage of this as well. Reach out to your neighbors for help if you need it, and don’t forget to pick up your copy of the Pumpkin Hollow Gazette whenever you need the local news!

SPRING WEATHER REPORT

By Phil Connors

The breeze will make your clothes smell great!

Start dusting those homes and beating those blankets! The days are getting longer, and with it, the winds are getting warmer. Spring is here! We’ll see some days that are still chilly and windy, but the more warm and temperate phases will get more common later in the season. We’re also entering the rainy period, meaning flowers are springing out of the ground and we’ll be seeing some very beautiful sunrises on misty mornings. Color is coming back to the isle, the frogs are in the rivers, and the insects and lambs are in the fields. It’s a good season to be outside.

Which means it’s also a good season to do laundry! Join us for our Community Laundry Day, where we all do our much-needed chores together and hang-dry our laundry in the warm and breezy weather! Join us on the green for some team washing. Water provided. Bring your own tubs, soap, and of course, clothes!

COMMUNITY EVENTS KEEP TOWN LIVELY ALL SPRING

By Timothy Stoker

The gazebo in town square, beside the festival green, is the place to be this season.

Legend has it that this time last year, a packed ferry arrived with a mass influx of offworlders, and an emergency potluck dinner was held to welcome the crowd. Now, this reporter wasn’t here just yet when that happened, but stories tell of a gathering of epic culinary proportions that heralded a new age of prosperity for Pumpkin Hollow. Sounds like something worth celebrating! Now that the weather has turned lovely once more (as elaborated on above by our own Phil Connors), the town has decided to celebrate the anniversary of the newly dubbed “Harbor Day” by revisiting that potluck idea. Drop by the Temple of Sacred Roots every other Friday from now until June to sample the cuisine of your new neighbors and local businesses. New residents need only bring themselves!

Also, in the spirit of spring cleaning, residents will also be selling or giving away their old items every weekend, weather permitting, in a series of mass yard sales. Some of our more modern residents supplied the term “yard crawl” for the event, which was deemed to be fitting. So come out on Saturday and Sunday mornings and afternoons to see what useful used items you can take off your neighbors’ hands! It’s a great way for new residents to decorate their new homes cheaply and get some new clothes.

And finally, on Wednesday evenings the Festival Green will be hosting “Swift Social” events (to be held in the Oak & Iron in the event of rain). A reimagining of last year’s popular charity speed dating event, this new Swift Social is expanded to include individuals seeking platonic relationships as well--- though that doesn’t mean romance is off the menu! The 10 Brass will be used to support the town’s medical community and the Autumn Leaves Dormitory House for Young Residents. So come out and make a friend or meet someone cute--- it’s for charity!

Fearsome Fae Antics Cause Town-Wide Trouble

By Melanie King

Up to no good, probably.

Things have been getting tricksy around town as, apparently, the fae population are staging the prank war to end all prank wars—or so local experts are telling us. If, like this reporter, you thought you were just having terrible luck with forgetting where you put things down or waking up with horrible bedhead, surprise! You've actually been caught in the crossfire of the fairies' games and may be entitled to financial compensation. (Not really. That's a joke.)

It looks like their antics are escalating significantly over time from harmless inconveniences to active dangers, so beware of any unusual sounds, behaviours or visual phenomenon you may encounter. Alluring or pleading voices from the woods, ghostly lights, critters acting oddly—if it's out of the ordinary, think twice. Or it might be the last time you think at all (at least, until tomorrow morning).

Fiendish Floral Figures Take Root Around Town

By Yorick Aberdeen

How eerie!

Spring is a time of year characterized by new life and by fresh floral blooms. It’s said that the land is Serranai’s canvas, and flowers are her paint. There is no debating that watching the Spring goddess’s artistry come to life in her season of power is an activity beloved by all! However, the Department of Supernatural Affairs is currently investigating some strangely behaved plant life.

While sightings have been somewhat rare, locals have been reporting eerie structures made out of flowering vines or woven flower stems that take the shape of hollowed out humanoid silhouettes. The poses seem to indicate motion and appear capable of springing to life at any moment, but the strange figures never seem to actually move --- at least, not that anyone has actually seen. However, many have cited that upon looking away from the figures and looking back, they appear to be closer. Those who have had direct contact with these floral armatures of people are also reporting some kind of ongoing allergic reaction from the encounter. Symptoms include severe shortness of breath, unpleasant itching that feels like it is coming from beneath the skin, and intense bouts of emotion which vary from person to person.

The Pumpkin Hollow Board of Safety is currently investigating long-term effects of contact with these beings and advises residents to avoid them. They seem highly resilient to fire, impact, and tearing, and while cutting with a sharp implement seems to have some success, it’s inadvisable to get close enough to the things to use such tools in the first place. Local alchemist Aeryn Sallek and local non-magical chemist Sally Boyle are currently working together to develop an herbicidal blend that is safe for human skin contact and potentially consumption to try and deal with the flowery menaces, which the Board of Safety has begun calling “Hanahilators”. But don’t let the name frighten you--- steering clear of these freaky floral followers should be a more than sufficient safety measure until the threat can be dealt with. Probably, anyway!

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Further Details...

Yard Crawl

Participate in the Yard Crawl as either a buyer, a seller, or both! When you take on a job in Pumpkin Hollow, you are supplied with permanent housing outside the Oak & Iron as part of your start-up kit, and most of them are full of old and worn furniture and clothes left behind when they were abandoned. Get rid of some of it or find something new at the Spring Yard Crawl! Plus, some of the native residents will also be selling or giving away their own old things.

Here’s how the Brass shakes out:

• Buyers can spend 50 Brass and get a haul of their choice of used or free clothing, furniture, or small decorative items. All of it will be of decent to low quality and relatively unremarkable design, so nothing extravagant. (Although a lone exciting knick knack could be considered passable!) Reminder that newcomers are given their first stipend of 100B upon arrival, so new characters are welcome to participate--- you’ll just need to mark that on your ledger if/when you app in. Ask for help if you have questions about this!


• Sellers can make 50B off of their participation but must make a toplevel. Only apped-in characters that are not Laggards can participate as a Seller.


• Those who are both buying and selling end up with a net zero of Brass, but all the aforementioned rules apply!


• Transactions related to the Yard Crawl can be applied to a character’s ledger three times --- once per month for the duration of this TDM!

Swift Social

Under the Swift Social toplevel posted from the mod account, join the fun by posting a starter with the provided code to create a profile card! Then comment on someone else’s starter with one of the following icebreaker questions to get started:

Which would be more surprising to see on your doorstep, a unicorn or a walrus?
If you could commit any crime with no consequences, what would it be?
If you were caught in a trap and the only way to escape from it with your life was to do something genuinely impressive, what would be your approach?
If you had to live on only one food for the rest of your life, what would you choose?
If you were held at knife point and instructed by your assailant that you must call someone on their sending stone, and if they do not answer, you die, who would you call?
Which would be most frightening to encounter in a dark alley: a ghost, an alien, or a horse?
If you could have any wish granted for you, no matter how big or small, what would it be? (Cannot ask for more wishes, that’s cheating!)
What’s a subject that you could confidently teach an hour-long class on with no preparation?
If you could instantly become an expert in any skill, what would you choose?
Make your own!

Be advised that you must post a comment with your profile card so that any Swift Social partners you have can reference it for your age and preferences.

Fae Pranks

It’s a fairy prank war! A few of the local fae courts are using Marrow Isle as their battle ground, since the demons made it trendy. They’re mostly out to prank each other--- but they’re also happy to practice their tricks on you! And fairies have some very odd ideas about boundaries when it comes to pranks. Here’s a few examples of some of the tricks you might encounter, ranging from silly to genuinely dangerous:

• A truly outrageous amounts of butterflies


• Sightings of Edwin the Headless Postman, a Dullahan (this is a played character that a mod will tag out with, please leave an OOC note if you’d like to opt out)


• Will-o-wisps that lead you in circles or into danger


• Fae dance parties that will have you dancing yourself to death!


• Missing objects


• Mysteriously spoiled milk


• Your hair got braided or extra tangled while you were asleep


• Weird sounds in Prague Mill after dark. Is it haunted?


• Strange women crying in the forest or by the Bluffs, but when you approach them to try and help, you find yourself suddenly in life-threatening danger!


• Create your own! Have fun with it, get spooky or goofy as you see fit.

Floral Fiends [cw: body horror, death]

Loosely inspired by the Hanahaki disease and the film Annihilation, Hanahilators are uncanny figures made out of flowers that move when they are not being watched. If they catch you, they will grab you, but seemingly have no interest in harming you as they will relent as soon as they’ve touched you.

However, once you have pollen on you, the effects begin to take hold, and flowers begin growing within your body, first in your lungs and then pushing into the rest of you. These parasitic blooms feed off of your strong emotions and are influenced by the emotions which define you. (Feel free to use the Victorian flower language to determine what kinds of flowers you get!) Once strong enough, the vines begin feeding on your body, destroying it and leaving behind a brand new Hanahilator. But don’t worry, you’ll be back to your old self tomorrow, so enjoy the opportunity to explore the island as a ghost! Apped in characters should remember to fill out a Death Certificate! It’s a relatively rare encounter, so don’t worry about running into one if you don’t want to.

Pokémon

Each season, new types of Pokémon can be found in nature around the island! They cannot be captured as the technology does not exist on Marrow Isle, but they can be befriended and kept as pets. Since there is no PC, each person can have no more than six. You can befriend any Pokémon whose primary type matches the list at the top of the newspaper. (Eevee can be caught in any season.) Legendaries are off limits for obvious reasons, and mythicals can be encountered for fun but not kept! Evolutionary stones can be found in Paradesium, the magical subterranean jungle beneath the mountain to the North. Every type will be available at some point throughout the year, so if you don’t have access to your fave yet, check back next season!

Comments

[thaumatophage]

We're just two monsters.

"How do you know that?" Kitty blurts out, fear twisting her insides. Nobody knew, except Mr. Rambo 'cause she'd told him, and he's gone. Now with just a look she's been disassembled to what she truly is: a monster, a murderer, designed only to consume and destroy.

[arrayerofrazors]

The newcomer, with no sudden movements, gently taps the side of her own nose. "The kinda thing I am doesn't stop at smelling scents just 'cause that's what everything else smells. But I think you might be mistakin' my meaning here, youngblood. A monster ain't a bad thing to be, or a good one. It's just somethin' we are, like being from Maryland."

Those fangs in her pupils, the ones that aren't there...they're eating something, Kitty. Out of the air near you, not biting, which is odd since what else are fangs supposed to do? But no. They're filtering. Like baleen.

"You can call me Nyx, if you like names. Got one you like for yourself?"

[thaumatophage]

Nyx's revelation about scents and 'scents' doesn't really shock Kitty as a mechanism per se, but she's still rattled by the revelation, and the migraine-like pressure in her head.

(She's heard of Maryland before. Emily had grown up near there, hadn't she? Just don't ask Kitty to point it out on a map.)

There's something nearly imperceptible draining from the air by Nyx, too, like air slowly escaping a balloon, or water slowly circling a drain.

"I'm Kitty." Not a name she'd picked, but a name she liked; the only one she'd ever known.

[arrayerofrazors]

The name gets a little grin. So much like a Lost name...and it makes the earlier comment unintentionally funny. "Pleasure, Kitty. Been here long, by yourself? I've still got that new-arrival warranty on me."

[thaumatophage]

Been here long, by yourself?

"Nobody from home," she says very specifically. Nobody to mind her, either. Losing John still hurts. "But I've got some friends here. So, not really by myself, I guess."

She lets out a little snort of laughter at Nyx's joke. "Welcome to the party, I guess?"

[arrayerofrazors]

"Ain't my first. Depending on how you count, this is my..." her head tilts. Earth, the Hedge, the Fairest of Lands, the ship, the Village, "...sixth world."

[thaumatophage]

That actually makes Kitty grin. "I think that means you win. At least for the people I know who talk about it, this seems to be the first rodeo for most of us."

[arrayerofrazors]

"Here's hoping the prize is good this time, the ones besides Earth have mainly sucked." She sighs, a little wistfully. She's trying to figure out how to gently encourage Kitty to talk about the 'monster' bit, but the last thing she wants to do is scare the girl. One of the few good things Nyx has ever done with her life is help out kids a lot like her...

"...Care to sell me on this one?" she prompts, gently.

[thaumatophage]

"It's...people are kind here," Kitty says softly. "So far, I haven't met anyone outside the usual suspects who wants to kill me. Cultists, and so on." She says that so casually that it might be a little alarming. "I miss video games, but at least I don't have to be looking over my shoulder all the time. I miss my family and friends back home, but I'm not alone. I found people who care about me, even if some of them are gone now."

She lets out a long breath. Should she say? Well - Nyx has already guessed part of it. "And I'm not hurting people I care about by accident anymore."

[arrayerofrazors]

"That's an important step. Take it from one of the scary monsters; if you're gonna hurt someone, it's best to do it on purpose." Nyx traces something in the dust of the street; a skull, ringed by briars. "...I'm lucky, in a way. I have to hurt people with my body. I can lose my temper, or hallucinate somethin' and make the wrong call, but ultimately I'm just a real weird girl with a knife. Sounds like you had a bit of a touchier problem, youngblood."

Unspoken, yet gently there, is the invitation to talk about it.

[thaumatophage]

Kitty watches Nyx draw the symbol in the dust. That migraine pressure is pounding behind her eyes.

She hasn't really talked about it with anyone who's still here. And Nyx seems like she might understand.

"I'm not a person. Not really. I'm a weapon. Part thaumic construct, part organic." Her voice is hollow. "I'm always draining magic from around me to stay alive. I was supposed to spend time with some particular people, weaken them, and eventually destroy them completely, which would kill me, too. I didn't know. These people became the closest thing in the world I had to family, and I was hurting them all the time and supposed to kill them, and I didn't know."

[arrayerofrazors]

A little line, in the dust, underscoring that symbol. This is something Nyx has heard before. It is achingly, rendingly close to home...

Her left hand twitches, and she consciously forces it not to turn into blades. The youngblood doesn't need to see that.

Softly, so very softly, knowing the terrible weight of the question, she asks, "Would you like to be a person?"

[thaumatophage]

"...yeah." Her voice is quiet. "More than anything."

The weight of her entire brief existence bearing down on her feels like Atlas' burden.

[arrayerofrazors]

"Can't promise I've got the guidebook on how. But if I can keep my claws in this world and stop the howling Nothing from dragging me back out..." Nyx sighs. "...The first bit to understand is gonna be the hardest bit here, youngblood."

Dark eyes seek Kitty's. Steady, and with a warmth that the Darkling has only really shown to the very young, or to people she loves when she's drunk enough to admit that to them. "Bein' a person and bein' a monster aren't exclusive clubs. You didn't pick being a monster, and neither did I. But we can't ditch it either. That kinda willful denial of reality...that's a short and crooked road that only leads to madness, to hurtin' yourself, and then hurting other people because you're in pain. You follow?"

[thaumatophage]

Kitty nods, her green eyes meeting Nyx's for just a moment.

"I almost ran away when I found out. I didn't want to hurt people. Figured they'd be better off if I wasn't there, you know? And then they came looking for me, and convinced me to stay."

[arrayerofrazors]

"And now you're here, and still hungry," comes the murmured reply. "...Though maybe that part we don't talk about in the street. I'm gonna do my best, to be around. If I succeed...if I succeed, my door's open to you. Bein' a person is a bit of a bitch. Most humans don't even pull it off. But it's worth a shot, when it's what you really want."

[thaumatophage]

"I'd like it, if you could stay," Kitty says, her voice quiet again. "I don't have a whole lot of people who understand, I think."

[arrayerofrazors]

"It's the kinda thing no one should have to understand," comes the answer, with a little shrug. "It's good that it's rare. Even if it sucks for both of us. But...and I mean this as a stiff warnin'...don't take a bite outta me. Last person that tried didn't like what he saw, after. I dunno what'd happen, and it's not the sort of thing you want to find out, alright? First rule of magic is to not go fucking any toasters."

And the proverbial coin is flipped; is this one of the youngbloods for whom the unexpected vulgarity is absolutely hilarious, or nah?

[thaumatophage]

The vulgarity startles a laugh out of her. "You know, I think I read that in one of my textbooks once."

Or at least she had been told it, over and over, by Alec and Kami and Rowan and Baz: do not fuck with what you don't comprehend. And in Alec's case, don't start a fight unless you have a few dirty tricks up your sleeve and know you can win it.

"I'm not going to. On purpose, anyway. I can't really turn off the ambient drain, but..." She wiggles a hand. "I don't like 'taking a bite out of' people. It actually scares me that I can."

[arrayerofrazors]

"No point in hating your fangs when they're part of you." Slowly, no sudden movements, Nyx holds up her left hand, making a kinda claw pointed up towards the sky. It shifts; it's the oddest thing, no crunching of bones or shedding of flesh, it's almost like Kitty has been looking at it wrong the whole time, and is only just now realizing that the hand is a mass of filthy, rusty razors, segmented like fingers and dripping something unwholesome into the dust. "Second hardest part; we are what we are. Bein' your own enemy blows; you gotta live with you all the time. But. I've got places to be, and I suspect you do too. Next time, yeah?"

[thaumatophage]

The sudden shift, the hand becoming a terrifying collection of biohazard razors that she's sure Rowan would love to get their hands on to study, makes her feel better, oddly enough. It doesn't scare her. It's almost reassuring, in a way, seeing Nyx reveal her own monstrousness.

"Next time," she agrees, and nods. We are what we are. She's going to have to think hard about that.

[arrayerofrazors]

Nyx stands slowly - when did her hand change back? - but not slowly enough to avoid her knee popping audibly, which produces a beat-down groan that is Distinctly A Symptom Of Adulthood. "Keep well, youngblood. I gotta go see about kicking a weasel's ass for the rats, an' it's gonna end with a weasel up my pant leg, I just know it."

It will.

But for now, Nyx goes sauntering off, whistling the Monster Mash.