TDM #11 - Unrestrained Summer Fun

[pumpkinhollow]

Pumpkin Hollow Gazette: Summer Issue 2025

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

6/13/25 | TDM #11 - Unrestrained Summer Fun [First Edition]
Summer Pokémon Types - Fighting, Water, Fire, Dragon

WELCOME TO PUMPKIN HOLLOW

By Yorick Aberdeen

The crop for which the town is named.

Blessed summer, Pumpkin Hollow! Kora’s season is fully upon us, which means that it’s time for sun, sea, and seasonally appropriate supernatural incidents! (Hopefully less of that last one, but you know how it is around here.) This is also the time of year when we celebrate the anniversary of the very first offworld ferry to arrive in Pumpkin Hollow. We will be forever grateful for the mysterious ferryman and his deliveries of diverse and wonderful new community members. This place certainly is livelier after two whole years!

If you’ve just landed on the island, welcome! You’ve made it just in time for such wonderful summer festivities as the Cucumber Festival and the Summer Solstice celebration on the beach. You may also spot our local summer goddess, Kora of Summer and Sea, around town!

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!

SUMMER WEATHER REPORT

By Phil Connors

Stunning art of Tawny Beach

Get ready for Nature’s big party! Summer is the season of being a little too cozy with the big fireball in the sky, so it’ll be our longest days and shortest nights yet. The temperatures will mostly be warm and mild, but don’t let your guard down! We’ll still get the occasional heat wave, and summer thunderstorms can roll in fast. Even still, the fauna and flora are lush and alive, and the generally-mild weather and long light means it’s the perfect time to spend all day outside. Go grab your friends and have a party, go on a hike, or spend the day at the beach! Just make sure you bring bathing suits in case things get wet and wild. Yes, to your backyard barbecue too.

UNDERWATER TREASURE HUNT OFFERED BY CALLOWAY'S CURIOS

By Timothy Stoker

An eerie scene.

Toward the end of May, one of our local fishing vessels made a surprising discovery using their on-board dredging equipment. The Mipha’s Grace, operated by Captain Zelda of Hyrule, has been commissioned by local oddities shop Calloway’s Curios for several years to do periodic “dredge days” in search of rare curiosities that may have been lost to the sea. While they often turn up small bits of underwater treasure and unusual objects, even the occasional artefact, it would appear that this most recent dredge has unearthed (unoceaned?) an entire shipwreck at the bottom of the Black Jade Sea.

While Gil Calloway, the owner of Calloway’s Curios, had a professional diver in his employ at one point some time ago, he currently has no such staff to retrieve the items. As such, he has decided instead to turn the shipwreck into a paid attraction. Because that can’t possibly go wrong, can it?

For the low, low price of 100 Brass, you can don a pair of goggles, down a Potion of Water Breathing, and take up a handy harpoon to try your luck at finding sunken treasure in the cracked hull of the Ruthless Advance. You can keep any treasure you find--- or sell it to Calloway. Likely for a fraction of the price he’ll sell the damn thing for later. Try not to die! But if you do, you can always have another go tomorrow.

BLUE ISLAND CRABS MAKE LANDFALL FOR LONGEST HATCHING SEASON ON RECORD

By Melanie King

There's a whole family of them that have knives now.

It's that time of year again, Hollowites: crab season is upon us, and this year it's looking to be a long one. Blue Island Crabs are infesting the island in record numbers, scurrying up from the beach and into your homes. Any open window, door or unbuttoned pocket is an invitation that they will happily exploit so that they can steal your stuff—yes, yours. Height is no barrier to them, they'll stack themselves up like a human tower. So if you think you're safe, think again, and check your locks.

This reporter has lost three styluses and one lunch already, plus keeps having to stop her cat from picking fights he can't win (I think his title gives him illusions of grandeur). If you find yourself being harassed by these pinchy blue menaces—grab a broom or something, you're kind of on your own with this one. Good luck!

THINGS IN PARADESIUM GET WET, WILD, AND WEIRD THIS SUMMER

By Timothy Stoker

In the words of an ancient proverb from this reporter's homeworld: YOLO

Seems we’re full of unusual discoveries this issue of the Gazette! According to a report to the Pumpkin Hollow Board of Safety from early June, local mine worker Ellen Ripley stumbled upon a new tunnel into Paradesium that led to some unique structures while looking for a secluded cave. (She did not specify to what end she was looking for said seclusion, but it is worth noting that Constable CT, head of the Department of Supernatural Affairs, was with her at the time of the report. Do with that information what you will.)

For those unfamiliar, Paradesium is the name of a magical subterranean jungle located beneath Crane’s Ridge that was discovered some time last year. It has already proven to be full of numerous interesting things such as exotic creatures, magical stones, tropical fruit, healing herbs, and ancient ruins once belonging to a long-lost clan of Bedrock Dwarves. It is also home to your beloved neighbor and mine, Emersay the Sphinx. However, this new side entrance seems to house yet-undiscovered features that struck Ripley, 30, as “kind of resort-like”.

Inspectors from the Pumpkin Hollow Board of Safety, accompanied by a few volunteers with more modern eyes, have investigated the large campus of structures and have determined it to be a water park. This is further supported by the wooden signage at the tunnel entrance, which bears the phrase, “ACTION PARK PARADESIUM.” Apparently, the number of water rides set up there appear to be functional, if not a bit ramshackle, and even have running water that no one has been able to turn off. Safety Board members advise people to stay away from the park, as it is currently not staffed and has yet to be thoroughly inspected for adherence to safety regulations. But they’re also not telling you that you can’t, if you’re feeling adventurous. They don’t have the authority to fire me for saying so. Stay safe!

GIANT WATERMELON CLAIMS MAIN STREET

By Phil Connors

There are worse problems to have, at least.

You’ve probably seen the new addition to the Square by now. Most people have. “Is it real,” you might ask, and the answer is yes: a giant watermelon the size of Town Hall has appeared in the middle of town, here to quote an anonymous member of our staff as “a four-storey sticky-fest.” We’re not really sure what to do with several tonnes of water weight on Pumpkin Hollow’s front porch, but what’s a watermelon good for… except eating?

That’s right, grab your spoons and your scoops! No one’s going hungry for the rest of the season, because we’re chowing down! Some people have even decided on a more creative route: this reporter is looking out of the window of the news station and can see people carefully carving out some melon windows and melon furniture already. Next thing you know, we’re going to have a rival melon radio. Luckily, none of it seems to be going bad, so feel free to keep going until all of it is gone. Please.

INFAMOUS "TURNIP WITCH" NO LONGER AT LARGE

By Yorick Aberdeen

The culprit!

Breaking news! Two years after an infamous curse ruined the 16:53 Cucumber Festival by turning all the cucumbers into turnips, the notorious “Turnip Witch” has at last been identified as Yvette Ovoshchnoy. An extremely prolonged and arduous manhunt had nearly gone cold before mischievous cackling was overheard by the supernaturally acute hearing of Pumpkin Hollow Postal Service employee Kelaiah “Godpoke” Voxx while on their normal mail route. They discovered the home of the trouble-making turnip terror in the side of Crane’s Ridge near the notably dangerous Lake Sal-Co-Penn. Their filing of a request for a formal address to be established for the remote abode with the post office led to an investigation, which uncovered evidence of illegal vegetable magic taking place on the premises. Warrant in hand, the Pumpkin Hollow Constables were finally able to arrest Ovoshchnoy. She is currently awaiting trial for repeated instances of vegetation perpetration, with charges including tampering with community resources, violating magical consumables regulations, and obstruction of town functions.

Further investigation has revealed that Ovoshchnoy, 36, comes from a long line of Ozhivetan farming hedge mages. She is the first of her name to incorporate baneful magic into her family’s traditional practice, however, and immigrated to Pumpkin Hollow before the barrier, apparently on the lam for a massive chickpea heist in Evgiakti. When asked if she had anything to do with the giant watermelon in Town Square, Ovoschnoy made an obscene gesture at the reporter on scene with both hands and a “really wet fart noise,” according to Tim. “Like seriously, it was absolutely disgusting,” he continues. Regardless, justice is served for vegetables everywhere with the so-called Turnip Witch at last in custody.

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Further Details...

Shipwreck
[CW: art of spider-like creature contained in link]

The Wreck of the Ruthless Advance can be found just off the northwest side of the island, near the base of Ripjaw Falls. Rides out that way are available just once per day, in the early morning aboard the Mipha’s Grace. Captain Zelda is a DTNPC, meaning a formerly played character that was converted to an NPC upon drop rather than removed from the game. You may use her in your threads as you deem appropriate.

Once you arrive, the Mipha’s Grace crew will lower you into the water in a dinghy. The wreck’s location is marked by a buoy to which your boat can be anchored with the provided rope. You have a small vial filled with effervescent blue liquid, the color that the sea looks in dreams. Tropical fruit flavored, for your convenience. Down it to gain the ability to breathe underwater, then don your provided waterproof goggles and grab your net bag and harpoon, and descend into the water.

Resting peacefully on the seafloor, the corpse of a massive ship can be found, broken and battered. The side of it still bears its name in intimidating black font. The Ruthless Advance. How long has she slept here?

The interior is vast and dangerous, eerie and devoid of life or even death. No fish nor human remains can be found. Not even a stray bone. But there is hidden treasure, and, for those with worse fortunes, something lurking in the darkness. Something that yearns to be close to you. Something that will never leave you alone. Your new Constant Companion.

Once it latches on to you, the Constant Companion will follow you until you are completely out of the water. Despite its smallness, your boat is safe. You can kill the Companion, but unlike other creatures, it returns to life immediately. You have precisely 90 seconds before it reappears. It is best to flee.

Oh, and try not to get the bends. You are still susceptible to decompression sickness!

Roll a D20 to see how you fare.

20 - You find 1000 Brass! You also find a beautiful piece of jewelry or a vintage but well-crafted metal weapon, seemingly untouched by time.

19-16 - You find five bits of pretty treasure in good condition, which can be kept or sold to Gil Calloway for 100B each. You don’t have to sell all of it.

15-14 - You find a small, handheld item from your homeworld. It is waterlogged and crusted with salt, but not so damaged that it can’t be salvaged with some care. The item should be non-magical or have a small, simple, just-for-fun magic. If it is a weapon, it can’t be longer than your forearm. Otherwise, it’s up to you.

13-10 - You find 200B and a really cool seashell. You doubled your money and came away with a souvenir!

9-5 - You found some interesting junk. It’s not worth anything. But it’s pretty cool. Flip a coin to determine if you encounter the Constant Companion (heads no, tails yes) or decide for yourself if you’d like to!

4-2 - You found 500b worth of treasure, but you also found the Constant Companion. You may lose some or all of your treasure in your escape attempt!

1 - You found nothing but danger. You do not survive your encounter with the Constant Companion and spend the rest of the day as a ghost. However, when you return to life the following morning, you wake up on the beach, inexplicably finding yourself with a prize of your choice from those listed above! (If you choose the 20 prize, the amount of Brass is halved to 500, but you can still have the jewelry or weapon.)

Each character may only OOCly pay the 100B for a dive and claim a prize once per release of this TDM (3 times in total if present for all three months it runs), but ICly they can go multiple times if the player wants. Divers are strongly encouraged to go in pairs, and pairs of divers can roll once for a prize they both get (does not need to be split) or roll per diver for different prizes. Good luck!

Action Park

Welcome to Action Park Paradesium!

The entrance to the park can be found in the base of Crane’s Ridge, west of the train station. (Going east will land you at Lake Sal-Co-Penn, so be careful not to get turned around.) There is a warning sign near the entrance posted by the Pumpkin Hollow Board of Safety instructing residents to keep away… but a water park in an underground jungle? On a high fantasy Victorian gothic island? It might be a little hard to resist.

There’s no sunlight here, but the glittering glow of magical crystals simulate the summer sun in glimmering rays, and Paradesium’s tropical heat only increases the illusion. There are thatched cabanas and lounge chairs to enjoy, a changing room helpfully equipped with towels and swimwear of all sizes and even in more modern styles (you can OOCly choose the design), and even refreshment stands. They appear to be unmanned, each one equipped with a bell that says “ring for service” that summons no one. However, if you happen to speak what you’d like to order aloud after ringing the bell, you will find what you requested simply appears on the counter in front of you! Amazing! You don’t even have to pay for your soggy fries or sad nachos. Interestingly, all of the signage and food packaging has a 1980’s feel to its design.

The park itself seems to be built around and into the sides of a small rock feature, which resembles a miniature mountain. It’s dotted with lush flowers, moss, and palm trees that stick out between pathways, carved stone stairs, apparently man-made pools, and time-period-inappropriate fiberglass tubes.

There are a number of rides here. None of them seem particularly safe. But only some of them seem to be cursed or haunted.

The Grave Pool - The sign on it is supposed to say “wave pool”, but it has been vandalized to bear the aforementioned ominous nickname. This deep pool of water, equipped with setting-inappropriate inner tubes, pool noodles, and boogie boards, often stands completely still. However, whenever swimmers enter the pool, after about five minutes some sort of mechanism will begin making artificial waves. The deeper in you are, the higher the waves, and they grow in intensity and frequency before abruptly stopping after about ten minutes. Apparently this is intended to be fun.

The Skoot Chutes - A trio of slides consisting of metal chutes whose bottoms are lined with cylindrical steel factory rollers, like one might find on an assembly line. Water runs over the rollers from the top of the slides. Riders are equipped with a hard wooden sled, and infographic signs near the upper platform indicate a very particular way riders ought to sit. One might imagine the consequences of not sitting properly on one’s sled.

Backbreaker Falls - A row of relatively simple-looking body slides. They seem innocuous enough--- a steep drop with several small hills on the way down, seemingly intended for multiple riders to race on. However, the water pressure is high and the sides are low, making it very easy to fly out of one’s own lane or be flung into the splash pool violently. Some riders may also come away with small cuts, having slid over something sharp wedged in between the slide’s fiberglass sections. Are those… teeth? Eugh.

Unsocket Swings - Near the splashpool for Backbreaker Falls, there is a sort of rocky grotto made to look like a natural pool. Alongside several cliff-dive spots, there are also a handful of rope swings with wooden bars tied to the bottom to grab onto, allowing guests to swing and leap into the grotto below. These swings, however, have an uncanny tendency to yank a bit on the downswing in a way that is hard on the shoulders, earning these swings their name.

Hellsmouth Lazy River - An oddly ominous name for a lazy river, this looping lap-pool carries innertube-riding patrons on a strong current. Several small waterfalls are positioned along the course to potentially spray riders, but it is otherwise a relaxing way to tour the park. Unless, of course, you float down the part of the river that cuts through the mountain on which the park is built. Labeled “The Tunnel of Terror,” this long cave is extremely dark, and filled with frightful sights of the players’ choosing. What will you find in the mouth of hell? A tunnel of living, breathing flesh? A seemingly endless, incomprehensible void that unravels the mind? A cave of skittering insects? An abstract creature stalking you through the dark? Feel free to use these suggestions or create your own hell! The world is your terrible, terrible oyster.

Whiplash - An enclosed pipeline of a tube slide with many sharp twists and turns, the Whiplash boasts an impressive length and the highest upper landing. Riders climb into figure-8-shaped double inner tubes to ride down in pairs, descending into darkness on a fast-moving current. The light behind you quickly fades into nothing… and then, from behind you, you hear something else. In the darkness, a pair of human-like eyes with blown pupils and burning white sclera are situated over two rows of long white teeth. It’s hard to see its oil slick form in the darkness, but you can tell that it has many, many hands, and that it’s coming--- fast. Unarmed, wet, and trapped in the tube, you have only your downward descent to rely on in escaping from the creature. Work together to swerve through tight turns and speed down the Whiplash as fast as possible--- or meet the business end of those teeth, and a grisly fate.

Cannonball Loop - The most dangerous attraction here is probably the least haunted. It’s an enclosed-pipe body slide featuring a full loop in it that feels more like a thing you ride to survive for bragging rights than to enjoy. Just looking at it feels like a bad idea. There are at least three different spots in the slide that have escape hatches, and probably none of them are where you will need them to be if you ride this monstrosity and get stuck.

Create your own! - Players are welcome to invent their own Action Park rides, both magical and benign. Have fun!

No aspect of the park has any charges associated with it. The swimsuits and towels are free to use, as are the boogie boards, inner tubes, sleds, pool noodles, and the crappy “ACTION PARK PARADESIUM” t-shirts in the gift shop, and absolutely nothing is stopping you from taking any of them. Why the hell not? If this place is going to give you emotional damage or a traumatic brain injury, you might as well get some free snacks and a pool noodle.

Giant Watermelon

Definitely created by the Turnip Witch, this enormous watermelon seems resistant to bugs and rot (thank the goddesses), but not to stickiness. It’s the kind of juicy that would be a thrill to find in a slice of watermelon at a picnic, but significantly less so taking up an entire major street. It also seems to slowly regenerate when not being actively eaten or carved, which means that a fair bit of watermelon returns overnight. Removing chunks of melon from the main body of the watermelon will cause time’s normal impact on the stability and stinkiness of fruit to resume, so taking large portions home is not a viable strategy and will ensure that you get ants. But hey, free watermelon!

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 who has at least one type that matches the list at the top of the newspaper, or that can evolve into one. (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

[chenpathy]

Huh. That was— quick. Some would almost say prescient. (Alex, Alex would almost say prescient—but, no, that's silly. Normal people can't tell when someone else is thinking about something they can help with. Maybe he made a good guess?)

"They have aspirin here? Huh. I would've guessed that was beyond somewhere that looks right out of a fantasy campaign. Shows what I know." She takes the bottle and examines it idly, while adding— "But I'd appreciate the water. Thanks."

Ordinarily she'd rather not impose further, just go get it herself, but going back inside wouldn't be a great idea right now.

[incomingchoppers]

"Sure! Just a sec, lemme leave this with you -- "

He sets the bag full of clinking things next to Alex before vanishing inside the Oak & Iron. When he reemerges, not only does he have a cup of water, but a bowl too. He takes a seat next to Alex and offers her the cup; once it's off his hands, he lifts Nibbles out of his satchel and sets him down so he can drink from the bowl.

"Pretty loud in there, huh," he says sympathetically. "Didja just get here?"

[chenpathy]

For one alarming moment she thinks he's going to leave the rabbit and the relief when it's just the other bag is real. The only fluffy creature she's ever looked after is Shu-Shu the stuffed mouse—

Oh. This is the first time in maybe her entire life she's ended up somewhere without Shu-Shu. That's...

She pushes the thought down by the time Radar returns, accepting the water with another thanks and downing a couple of the pills.

"Fresh off the boat," she answers. "They let me out of orientation and told me to head over to claim my room. I got about as far as picking up my key."

[incomingchoppers]

Radar grins and sticks out a hand. "Well, nice to meetcha then! Welcome to the island. I'm Radar, that's not my real name but it's what everybody calls me, I been here a little over a year. So if you got any questions they didn't answer maybe I can help! Or if you wanna get a job quick so you don't have to stay at the Oak & Iron too long, I got a bunch of friends over at Town Hall who could help out."

This guy just exudes a low-level joy at all times, it seems like.

[chenpathy]

Alex lifts the wrong arm, realises, has to switch the water to her other hand, then finally grasps and shakes Radar's hand with the correct hand. Wow, Alex, get it together, that was just embarrassing.

"Alex. Which is my real name—or, technically, Alexandra is, but that's a mouthful, so..." Yeah that's not less fumble-y. Good job. Push on. "Thanks, I appreciate the offer. I'm— not really sure what my next step is. I don't have a lot of work experience."

Yeah, let's go with that. Not 'I spent my entire adolescence and young adulthood thus far in the system and the only job I've ever held down was as a server for the guy who just shot me down a mineshaft, so I'm not sure I really want to continue down that career path'.

(She tries to let the background radiation of Radar's joy ease some of the tension in her. It's— tricky, usually she has to focus very hard on not letting someone else's emotions effect her. With joy, it's safer, but it hasn't been all that long since she started being able to perceive positive emotion the same way in the first place, so the muscle is... poorly trained.)

[incomingchoppers]

"It's okay," he's quick to reassure her. (About the fumbling? About the lack of job experience? Yes.) "Not everybody here does. I got lucky on account of already knowing how to clerk from being in Korea, and then moving out to Baker Ranch was easy 'cause I grew up on a farm."

Well. Not easy, given the circumstances, but. The joy flickers briefly into a shimmer of blue, then rights itself.

"But if there's something you really like doing already there's probably someone who'll hire you, or train you on how to get better at it, you know? They're good at takin' care of people here."

Nibbles finishes drinking his water and sits back on his haunches to groom his whiskers. Once he's done and snuffling around the ground, Radar scoops him back into his lap.

[chenpathy]

There's a story there, in the flash of what echoes like grief, and Alex barely resists the instinct to dive into his surface thoughts and find out what. No, don't do that, what are you going to do with that? You're barely calmed down from the overload, there's no helping to be done, right now.

They're good at taking care of people, isn't that a nice thought. Another small, welcoming town willing to stick their neck our for the new faces. That should be reassuring. Should be.

"I'd have to think about that. What I even like doing. Even most of my hobbies aren't really employable skills." There's no illustrious career as a video game streamer waiting in a world with only basic electricity. And— "Mainly I play guitar." And only once has anyone ever got me on stage and they had to trick me into it.

[incomingchoppers]

"Really?" He grins. "I play drums! And bugle, and piano sometimes, but not since I got here really. You know even if you don't wanna get onstage there's probably somebody who'd want a guitar player for something -- "

Wait. She didn't say the onstage part out loud, did she. Oh, shoot.

Well, too late now. He plunges on, "Or there's always helping out at Empty Pockets when other people're performing, or... well, you don't gotta pick anything right away. And maybe while you're thinking you can ask if they got quieter rooms you can stay in for a while. They've gotta have something."

[chenpathy]

Did he—

Huh, normally she's having to remind herself what someone did and didn't say aloud, not what she said and didn't say aloud. Did she say that aloud? No, no she didn't. Did he just— guess? Did she say enough for him to guess that was a problem?

"Empty Pockets, huh," she barrels on, on instinct, even as the cogs internally continue to turn. There was the aspirin too... "I'll ask around, I guess. About work and maybe the room. They might have space to put me further from the bar, maybe."

That would be something, at least, until she can find a job and move out somewhere there won't always be a crowd hanging around.

"...did you—" Cutting herself off, she shakes her head. "Nevermind."

[incomingchoppers]

Radar's brow wrinkles.

"Huh? Did I what?"

[chenpathy]

"Nothing." She pulls in on herself, knees up to her chest and arms around them, looking at the ground instead of anywhere near Radar. "It was a stupid thought. Forget I said anything."

Normal people don't know what people are thinking. Normal people don't know what people are thinking.

[incomingchoppers]

Oh.

Radar tries not to hunch in on himself too. Sure, people still sometimes look at him funny or get annoyed if he hears something he shouldn't, but it doesn't happen near as much on Marrow Isle as it would back home. There's enough weirdness around that a guy with ears like his hardly stands out at all. So when someone does get rattled by it, well -- after over a year on the island, it stings a little more than it might've before.

I was just trying to be nice.

He sighs, very quietly, and gathers Nibbles a little closer; gathers himself, too, squishing down that little spike of hurt so he can apologize properly. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to spook you. That's, um, that's why the guys in Korea started calling me Radar, on account of me just knowing things sometimes. Or hearing things a lot of people can't. Sometimes I mix up what people say out loud and what they haven't said, y'know? I didn't mean it."

[chenpathy]

She focuses in half on reflex, when the tinge of blue bleeds out around his figure in her periphery. Hears the quiet, dejected thought behind the apology that follows, an apology that makes no sense at all until it suddenly very much does.

He did hear that. All three times. How... she's always been the only one, the broken freak that medication couldn't fix.

(Sure, it's been useful lately, she'd maybe started to look at her abilities a little differently, but there's always that feeling in her chest. That old wound, never quite closed. Difficult. Broken. Unwanted.)

"No, that's—" Fuck. How does she reassure him that's not what she meant without exposing herself? Is there any use in not exposing herself to someone who can, apparently, also read her thoughts? "That's not what I meant. I mean, I'm— surprised, definitely, but— mm."

Fuuuuck.

[incomingchoppers]

Having been caught out like that, Radar's trying extra-hard to ignore anything except what Alex says out loud. He focuses on her mouth to make sure it's moving; lets the rest fade into the background, like the wash of noise coming from inside the Oak & Iron. But there's something about the way she's fidgeting, and the way some of her thoughts echo off the shape of what she's not saying -- it's kinda like navigating without his glasses. Even if he can't make out the details, he can see the outline of the big stuff.

"You can tell me if you want." Soft. "I won't tell anyone else, honest."

When you hear as much as Radar does, you get good at keeping secrets.

[chenpathy]

She thinks she believes him.

You learn to be a locked box when you know things you're not supposed to know. She got into the habit of keeping journals to let it out without it getting out (she'll have to get hold of another, if she's staying here). You also learn to get a sense of when someone's just feeding you a line, versus when their intentions are honest (this is different from if their words are honest, because what people mean and what they know or do are different things).

So, yeah, she thinks she believes him. Not that it makes it feel any more natural to answer.

"...you know, back home people mostly just call me crazy." Her head thunks back against the wall, gaze focused off in the distance. Easier not to look at people. "Bipolar, I think that's what they settled on. Easiest way to explain the mood swings and my 'delusion'. That I could see, feel, what other people are feeling. Their fear, their anger, their sadness—and what they're thinking because of it."

Her head turns just a touch, to catch him in her periphery. "Right now, you're thinking very hard about how you're doing your best not to repeat what I'm thinking. When you thought I was upset with you for listening, you— were thinking about how you were just trying to be nice."

[incomingchoppers]

Of course he kinda knew already. How could he not? Still, Radar's eyes have gone huge behind his glasses, and when she starts rattling off what he's thinking, he gets hit with an odd little apprehensive stab of, oh. Wow. That's what that feels like.

Because, yeah, he's had a couple people here poking around in his head -- really poking around if you count people like Mendel or Mr. Sheo. But this is the closest it's ever been to meeting someone who's like him: where it's not something you can really pick and choose about, or deliberately reach out to grab. Just something that you hear -- or see, or feel, in Alex's case -- that most people don't.

"Yeah." And he breaks into a grin all over again, the uncertainty washed away by eagerness. "Yeah! I was! Wow, and people didn't notice you were feeling or thinking the same thing as them? At all? Boy, you'd think somebody would've and realized you weren't crazy, jeez."

He huffs, a touch indignant on her behalf.

[chenpathy]

Alex lets out a laugh, despite herself. "You'd think, but mostly people just thought I was— volatile. Or, if they were feeling generous, the normal kind of hyper-empathetic. This stuff just isn't a thing, back home. Except, apparently, for me."

Which makes for a tremendously isolating experience. No one understood because why would they? Abilities like this are the realm of comic books, not real life. Of course the girl trying to tell people she felt so bad because she could literally feel someone else's depression trying to swallow her whole, or that she started a fight because someone else's anger took over, so on, so forth, didn't believe it.

(Doesn't mean it hurt any less.)

"So I've never met anyone else who can... do this. Or anything like it. You're the first."

[incomingchoppers]

Radar nods. "We don't got anything like it really where I'm from either," he says. "I mean my Uncle Ernest just knew stuff too, that's who my mom says I got it from, but that's all it was, you know? Hearing real good and maybe hearing a little too much most of the time. No magic or nothing. I didn't even know I was psychic til I got here."

His smile's smaller now, and sweeter.

"And all the other psychic people I met around here... I dunno. It's different. They can turn it on and off like a radio. I'm just -- on all the time. You're kinda the first person I met like that too."

[chenpathy]

"Wow, some people get all the luck." Powers you actually have control over? Seriously, lucky them. "Yeah. The closest I can get to turning it off is just... not focusing hard enough to hear. Even then I still feel it."

And focusing 'too much' can be as little as making eye contact for too long. Which is only some of the reason she avoids looking right at people a lot of the time, but definitely the most important.

"On a bad day its exhausting." She nods toward the pub, then just settles back. "But I guess you'd probably know that."

[incomingchoppers]

Radar pulls a face before making himself more comfortable to match; Nibbles stays cradled close to his chest. "Boy, do I. I'm good at sorting it all out, I don't even have to think about it most of the time, but the more people there are, the more I do have to think about it, y'know? It's a lot. I really like being around people but usually I gotta go somewhere quiet after I've been around 'em a while. Good thing the ranch is mostly animals."

[chenpathy]

"I've gotten— better, at handling it, over the years. I grew up in group homes. Lots of other kids around, all with their own very real problems that all just made my life even worse, because I got a taste of all of them. I guess, if nothing else, it made me learn how to cope."

Experience is certainly a teacher, if a harsh one. Honestly, it should be classed as cruel and unusual punishment for a teenage girl to go through puberty and developing superpowered empathy at the same time, but regulating that would mean people accepting such things exist.

"These days I can mostly handle it, even the bar would be manageable if I wasn't coming off... everything that led me here."

She doesn't want to think about that too hard.

[incomingchoppers]

He tries to imagine it: the weight of all those thoughts multiplied by feeling all those thoughts, too, so heavy your own emotions can barely stand upright beneath them. What if he didn't just hear the dark clouds of Hawkeye's bad days, but sink deep into the pit right alongside him? What if all the terror of those wounded soldiers swallowed him whole every time the choppers came, until he screamed and cried just as loud as they did? Radar only manages his own fear and sorrow by locking it up tight when he has to. He doesn't even know how he'd learn to cope like Alex did.

And that's not even getting into the stuff she's not thinking about. It sounds like a rumble of thunder right at the edge of hearing -- something big, something you can maybe pretend is just a harmless summer storm and not a tornado if you don't listen too hard. Radar doesn't even try to listen hard.

"Yeah," he sighs. "Miss Mortanne's awful nice, but dying's still dying. It's a lot to handle when you're still getting used to everything else on top."

He glances down to Nibbles, then back up to Alex.

"You wanna hold him for a little? Sometimes it helps."