Event № 1 : January 2024

[silentspringmods]

Event № 1 : January 2024
Part I; Chapter 2. Silence tells me secretly everything

universe/setting information, role assignment, and FAQs

I. A Thought Is Haunting Me

January 1st.

CWs: nonconsensual memshare/receiving of memories, flashbacks to combat zone and injury, blood, hearing loss/burst eardrum, panic attacks.

Just in time for New Year's Eve, the town square that held a magnificently decorated 15-foot Christmas tree last week now has a glittering silver ball to rival New York's own waiting atop a flagpole rooted in the same spot. Strings of lanterns illuminate the snowy brick courtyard, lined with stands offering hot cocoa, ciders, and various warm snacks, or perhaps characters are more interested in obtaining a pair or two of silly New Year's glasses that allow them to look through the numerals 1961. Eventually, though, all goes quiet for the exciting countdown.

'Five... four... three... two... one!

The ball drops, and confetti streams down onto the square (and the people standing in it!) as the Sweetwater High School Marching Band picks up a jaunty rendition of the New Year's classic Auld Lang Syne—but characters will likely find themselves distracted by the dark spots that appear in their fields of vision, gradually expanding until everything is eclipsed entirely by soft blackness. They feel less and less of the world around their bodies, numbness starting at their fingertips and toes and creeping up their extremities until they feel touchless, floating, completely absent of sensation. Then something replaces it: fragments, or perhaps all of what follows.

The world flashes black, then returns, hazy and doubled, half obscured by smoke as you lie face down on the hard, rocky earth. One ear shrieks, a whine that grows higher and higher. Hot blood streams down the other earlobe and drips onto your neck, washing off sweat and grime as it trickles toward your collar. Pain slices through what you think must be your eardrum like a jackknife shoved into your skull. You cough, throat burning, ribs protesting the movement. A coppery taste, a warmth, fills your mouth. You check with your tongue and all of your teeth are there; the blood is coming from your broken lip. The hair on top of your head feels hot and wet. You know your cheek is scraped open from the gritty sting taking up most of your face.

The doubled image of a medic gets into your face, his lips silently moving. You try to shake your head, to communicate that you can’t hear him over the shriek of your own tinnitus, but your neck is too stiff. Your brain slams against your skull and your head feels like it’s been hit with a brick. Blood drips off of your brow and into your eye.

The medic squeezes your shoulder and pushes off, scrambling across the debris until he disappears in the gray-brown smoke. There’s a moment of irrational fear: he’s leaving you here to die. You’re hit somewhere and you’re last in triage. You’ve heard about soldiers not feeling the gunshot until much later. When he and his buddy come back with a stretcher, surprise mingles with the dread of being lifted.

You shut your eyes tightly, trying to recalibrate your vision, but it still swims with the pitch and yaw of the rocky earth beneath you. When you open it, he’s trying to look into your eyes, hand on your shoulders, his lips finally moving in a pattern you recognize: Going home. Going home.

Going home.

You close your eyes.

*

You stare at a long tawny finger as you wind it into the red plasticized cord of the phone set, doing nothing when it begins to throb against its tethers, the single physical sensation anchoring you in reality.

“Listen to me. I need you to be calm and handle this. Someone will be there in thirty minutes, Ron. You need to keep it under control until then or we’re going to be in a world of shit you can’t even imagine—Put up roadblocks. Say a convict got loose. I don’t care. Do what you have to. Don’t call me unless it’s resolved or someone’s fucking dying, Ron, do you understand me?”

*

The door opens as the emergency light comes on, flickering. The room fills with the suffocating stench of diesel. A candystriper’s golden-brown hands wrap around your thin wrists, pulling you as she rocks back on the heels of her wet tennis shoes with all of her might. Tears stream down her cheeks, strands of relaxed hair hanging in her eyes. She chokes her words out around sobs of her own, eyes wild with terror, screaming: Miss Ruby, you have to get up! You have to get up, Miss Ruby! But your legs won't move. Your breaths shudder ragged in the air just like the volunteer's.

At 12:01, characters return to consciousness: but there are little changes, twinges that make this a bit realer than a dream. Perhaps their index finger twinges as blood returns to it and the impressions a tight phone cord left on their skin fade, or maybe they find themselves wiping a few droplets of blood from the corner of their jaw. Perhaps their ears ring, gradually giving way to clearer sound—or maybe they awake sitting on the ground with their arms around their bent knees, face wet with tears, overcome with a raw panic unlike anything they’ve ever felt. How very odd.

Notes:
—Characters can experience all of the memories, or players can pick and choose.
—Characters do not have to be in the square to receive the memories.

II. In the Valley of the Dolls We Sleep

January 13-15th.

CWs: violence, entrapment, hypnosis, living mannequins, dismemberment.


'New year, new you!' the cheery saleswoman on the radio and television ads for the local two-story department store proclaims ad-nauseam, becoming more and more of a regular guest in characters' homes as time marches on toward the 15th of the New Year. There are great sales to be had, and would you look at that, characters have a few gift cards to this very store in their respective purses and wallets! Over time, the voice of the young woman in the advertisement almost seems to grow more insistent, even though the same ad plays every time: surely it's just familiarity altering one's perception of her voice, right?

On the morning of the 13th, characters wake up to the sound of every radio and television set in the house turned on and blaring the ad. The saleswoman reminds them that time's running out, and that the sales will only last for another 48 hours before they're gone. If characters can't hear, they only make it as far as the living room before the television screen comes into view, the same message scrolling across the bottom of the screen in large close-captioning... even if they haven't turned it on. This time, something feels different, and characters find themselves compelled as though by a supernatural force to go check out the sales being advertised.

Characters may notice once they're inside of the building that it's only new arrivals here: the townspeople of Sweetwater seem to have already done their shopping! Fortunately, there are still some great items left. It may be when looking at that cashmere sweater or a nice pair of snowshoes that characters catch a tiny flicker of movement out of the corner of their eye: but when they turn in that direction, there's nothing except a faint, nagging sense that something's not right. It happens again as they pass through the store—and then, with no warning, the faceless, eyeless mannequins throughout the store burst into motion at the same time as the sales associates collapse to the floor unconscious, attacking characters with inhuman strength and whatever items they have at their disposal with the intent of bludgeoning them to death.

If characters try to escape from the way they came, they will find that the automatic doors and fire doors are all locked as though from the outside. The windows cannot be opened or broken, nor can the glass of the doors—they're trapped here. Really, truly trapped.

To make matters worse, the mannequins, unlike the salesman, seem truly impervious to... everything. Guns can pierce them, but they have no blood to lose or brain to damage. They can be dismembered, but they're strong, and hard to pull apart; even if a mannequin's head is removed, the body will still function. Characters have one advantage, however: the mannequins are not as intelligent as human beings, and seem to mostly lack object permanence. If characters can stay silent and out of sight after finding somewhere to hide, the mannequins will drop their pursuit after about fifteen minutes of trying to get to them.

The mannequins stay alive for 48 hours, and the doors stay locked for the same amount of time. Characters who do not find a way to sleep risk sleep deprivation symptoms similar to the ones detailed in the explanation of modes of torture in Sweetwater, and will be slower, weaker, and less able to fight off or escape from the mannequins. 48 hours is also a very long time to go without water, which can only be obtained from the sinks in the bathrooms... both of which feature nicely dressed mannequins in one corner.

Notes:
— The departments of the store are as follows:

- Women's Clothing
- Men's Clothing
- Children's Clothing
- Furs
- Baby/young child supplies
- Home appliances
- Kitchen
- Decor
- Furniture
- Toys
- Hunting, Fishing, and Outdoors (hunting-style guns, ammunition, snowshoes, fishing rods, flies/fly-tying equipment, dog beds, hunting blinds)
- Tools ( Limited. There aren't any electric saws or more specialized tools like bolt cutters to be found, but simpler "Little Joey picked this out for you, Dad!" wrench/screwdriver sets, branch loppers, lawnmowers, snowblowers, etc. - in general assume that there aren't any power tools player characters can use to bulldoze the mannequins with, but there might be some tools that could help with other things... )
- Fine Jewelry/Watches
- Ladies' Gloves

— Deaf characters and characters who wear earplugs to bed will be awoken by their spouse moving, or will randomly wake up even though they can't hear the ad.
— Players who wish to opt out can say that their character simply slept through it and woke up after the doors to the department store had already locked.
— The mannequin limbs are inert after they've been removed, but the mannequins can still operate without a head.
— Characters may try to investigate at the risk of leaving cover. If a character is able to get close enough to the service desk on the second floor, they may also notice that one of the customer service associates, a teenage girl, lies slumped over the counter as opposed to on the floor with her coworkers, an unlabeled, recently installed button depressed beneath her shoulder—she was leaning forward before she lost consciousness. If her body is moved, the button stays anchored in place. If characters check it again, hours later, they'll notice that it can't be depressed or lifted, but seems a little higher—almost as if it takes a set amount of time to return to resting.

III. Drill it in like J. Paul Getty

Throughout January.

CWs: torture, non-fatal electrical shock, restraints, medical/psychiatric abuse, nonconsensual drug administration, altered states of consciousness, needles/injections, gaslighting, brainwashing, sleep deprivation torture, antipsychotics overdose, smoking.

Should characters discuss the horrors of the month on the network, over the telephone, or in places where townspeople can hear, they’ll face the consequences. They go to bed the night of the offense as usual—and come into consciousness in a dark room, a basement of some sort, bound to a chair with leather restraints buckled onto their wrists, their ankles. A leather strap runs across their chest, holding it to the back of the hard wooden chair they’re bound to. A few feet away, the static electricity of a television box provides some measure of light as noisy waves ripple across the screen.

Upon further examination, there’s one more thing on characters’ left wrists, directly north of the leather straps holding it to the armrest: a set of electrodes and thin wires that run down and across the room.

“You’re awake. Good morning.” None other than the town’s private practice doctor, Norman Pollock, greets them, with the same matter of fact tone he’d use during a standard physical exam. “You seem to have lost sight of what makes Sweetwater so special, so we’re going to watch some videos, get your head on straight. We can’t have this kind of subversive behavior when the country’s already under attack, Sweetheart.”

He presses a button on the television remote—which characters might notice has a second, less refined one taped to its side—and a program comes on: What Communism Will Take From Us.

For the next 36 hours, the hour-long video plays on repeat, showing idyllic scenes right out of a Norman Rockwell painting, detailing the joys of the American way of life, emphasizing all of the ways subversive thoughts and actions undermine it, and how they hold the door open for the Red Menace. This is what’s at stake, what little towns like Sweetwater, Maryland have to use. Norman sits in a chair nearby, smoking cigarettes, reading issues of the New England Journal of Medicine, the remote never leaving his hand. The moment characters’ eyes close for longer than a single blink, the electrodes on their wrist deliver a nasty shock to help them wake up, growing in intensity with every additional offense. His never do for longer than a regular old blink.

By the end of the 36 hours, characters can expect reality to begin to blur at the edges, and may be experiencing auditory hallucinations, paranoia, and their minds wandering in ways they haven’t before. At 36 hours of sleep deprivation, the body cries out for it, desperate to rest. Maybe they erupt into hysterical laughter, or weep uncontrollably, or panic. Norman is unphased by all of it.

If characters try to fight back, or prove too argumentative and unwilling to learn, Norman will produce a glass syringe and draw up a thick fluid from a dark glass bottle, which, if characters have the necessary visual acuity to see, reads haloperidol. He jams the needle into their gluteus and injects; within 10 minutes, characters will feel very, very sedate, almost catatonic in their stupor. Effects vary from person to person, but it is not a pleasant experience: in addition to the deadness it brings on, hearts race and mouths go dry. It gets harder to swallow, or maybe a character’s vision begins to blur. The limbs contract in fits and jerks in the immediate and for the week the drug lasts. The face twitches uncontrollably, muscles ache in their rigid stiffness, and it becomes hard to stay upright throughout the week as the drug interferes with the character’s balance, making them dizzy and confused.

THE TOE TAG
If characters fight Norman, however, they may find that he backs against the nearby metal filing cabinet–knocking loose a piece of paper hanging from a half-open drawer when he does. It’s recognizable as a photocopy of a toe tag, the kind affixed to corpses in a morgue, but characters have seconds before their vision doubles and blurs too much for it to remain readable. Characters who are injected with haloperidol for subversion, either for talking about the murder or a different offense, may comment to the event post under the designated mod comment to take a shot at reading the tag. Remember, though, it’s probably best not to advertise that they saw anything out of the ordinary, or to even mention what happened to them, on a publicly visible communications channel…

They wake up in their own bed shortly after losing consciousness, and spend the next week corpselike.

IV. It's Freezing and I Am Watching You Shovel Snow

January 7th onwards.

It's a cold winter for Maryland, characters will hear their neighbors complain, and within a few days of the New Year they have reason enough to complain too: the snowstorm everyone's been talking about in the neighborhood clubs comes on the 7th of January, dumping a foot and a half of snow. Better grab that snow shovel, or find someone to help you if you can't! A snowstorm like this takes multiple visits outdoors to keep up with, so maybe now would be a good time to practice divvying up responsibilities with characters' new spouses or children—or for bachelors to seek out the help of a neighbor. Characters may also have to deal with a power outage lasting up to 14 hours—better visit a house that has power if they need anything, but at least this is the kind of experience that brings a parent and child or a new couple or even two members of the same community closer. At least in theory.

It’s not all near-death experiences, psychological torture, and power outages, though! Characters who find themselves in need of some R&R will be pleased to know that the local fire department has tested the municipal park’s pond and found the ice is now suitably thick for ice skating. Characters will find lace-up leather ice skates in their size hanging from their tied-together laces in the garage, though this probably isn’t the best way to learn to skate if they haven’t before, given the lack of rail to hold on to–unless they have a friend to help them balance?

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Sokka | Avatar: The Last Airbender | Child

[carniravenous]

I. A Thought is Haunting Me:

A. Mingle
[The real reason Sokka is wandering around the town square is his desire to eavesdrop on conversations and hopefully learn more about the locals. Unfortunately, he gets a little sidetracked once he learns there are snacks. He can be seen standing off to the side of the snack table trying to balance an armful of food and hot chocolate, which, as he takes a step, comes dangerously close to spilling on your character. Thankfully, he thinks fast and hurries to catch it. He's successful, but he ends up tragically dropping the several delightfully named "pigs in a blanket" that he was planning on eating.]

Aw, there goes my dinner.

B. Bad Memories
[After he wakes up, Sokka won't spend very long immersed in the uncomfortable feelings that result from the...dream? Vision? There's too much to do and he has too many questions; he can't just sit around and recover. But in the immediate aftermath, with his own traumatic memories of grief dredged up by the candystriper's sobbing words, he sits with his knees drawn up to his chest, tears on his face. It takes him a long moment, but he tries to wipe them away and collect himself.]

II. In The Valley of the Dolls We Sleep:

A. Fight Time
[Sokka actually loves shopping, and under most circumstances, would be glad to check out the department store with free money (gift cards) in hand. He's been wanting to shop for different clothes, in hopes of finding outfits that are a little easier to fight in than what he has at "home." This means it wouldn't have taken much coaxing to get him into the department store. Of course, when that choice is taken away from him and he finds himself heading toward it by creepy impulse, rather than by will, his feelings about shopping skew toward negative and make his current closet seem a lot less unappealing.

He's been in his share of battles before, but creepy mannequins are an entirely new experience. That doesn't mean he hesitates; as soon as he's under attack, he pulls his boomerang off of his back and starts throwing it around the room. His aim is true, and it's clear that he has a great handle on the physics of boomerang throwing, as he's able to hit multiple mannequins without issue. Unfortunately, a boomerang to the head does little to slow the mannequins down, which means that Sokka ends up acting entirely on the defensive until he manages to brainstorm a plan. If your character gets in the way of his boomerang, he'll yell out a loud:] Duck! [as he throws. If your character look like they're in need of help warding off the mannequins, he'll jump in front of them and use his boomerang like a club until your character can get away.]

B. Tripping Up Mannequins
[Amidst swiping his boomerang through the air and alternating between hiding and attempting to gain ground, Sokka has managed to knot a bunch of (ugly and incredibly unfit for fighting) clothes together to make the world's worst trip wire. Is your character loitering near one of the bathrooms in hopes of getting water? Hopefully they're ready for Sokka, who officially enlists them in his plan.]

I'm going to lure them out. [Quickly whispered, while he swings the clothes-rope like a lasso to indicate that he's going to toss it in your character's direction.] Get ready to trip them. [If they pull this off, the mannequins will hopefully fall into a pile, remaining down for the count for long enough to steal a very fast drink of water. Long-term, Sokka needs a better plan than this, but he needs water to survive and therefore think, so this is a first step until he scouts out the rest of the store.]

C. Sleep Time
[Guess who's made his way to the hunting section of the department store? Sokka, that's who! He's sporting a few newly forming bruises and a bloody lip to show for it, but he also has a brand new machete in hand, fishing line wrapped around one of his arms, and several packs of bullets stuffed into pockets. He's exhausted, so the priority is to find a place he can hide to rest. He makes his way to the furniture section, with hopes of barricading a sleeping spot.

He can be found shoving sofas around, wrapping fishing line around them to trip up anyone who comes near, and tossing bullets all around his sleeping area. The idea behind this is that they should trip the mannequins up and cause enough noise to wake him if he's danger of being attacked. Try not to slip if you approach him, but if you look like you're also in need of some rest, he'll flag you down with a wave...]

IV. ...And I Am Watching You Shovel Snow:

A. Snow Tower
[It's been months since Sokka was back home in the South Pole, and he misses it a lot, so he's happy to see that there's something about this place that he doesn't mind, which comes in the form of a snowstorm. His assigned father may not be interested in shoveling the driveway, but that's fine, because Sokka has a plan of his own. He clears all the walkways and gathers up a bunch of snow to...

Well, he wants to flex his art muscle and make a snowman of some kind, but he's well-aware of how the locals view him. Very few people here seem to take him seriously, and that's saying a lot, because Sokka isn't always taken seriously back in his world either. It bothers him because he feels like being treated as a child is holding him back. He has to go to school, when he would rather spend hours at the library researching this place. He also has to be home at a certain time in the evening, he has to defer (in theory) to a parental figure, and he has to deal with all the looks leveled his way because of his hair or boomerang and whatever else about him drives the locals crazy. So, making a snowman probably isn't going to help his case, which is tragic.

But that's okay, because he gets to work on something even better: a watchtower made entirely of snow. The neighbors will probably think he's just being a kid, which he accepts for this because it'll keep them off his back, but in reality, if he makes it tall enough, Sokka will be able to watch the neighborhood and defend his house from wayward salespeople or whomever else decides to come around. You can find him trying to gather up snow from random places: sidewalks, the street, even mailboxes, shoving it all on top of a wooden sled he found in his garage and dragging it back to his house.]

B. Network: Text
[It took him way too long to compose this message but finally:]

need help with your snow problem? i'm your guy! i'll shovel your snow for the low price of a hot meal. [He will also accept cold hard cash, though, if that's all you've got. He has big plans and small means, so he has to hustle a little.] i'll even take all the snow away when i'm done with it

Wildcard
[Hit me with something and I'll roll with it! Does not have to be event related, if you want to encounter Sokka in the library while he's reading or looking up maps, or out and about somewhere. Feel free to PM me if you want to work something out.]

ii a!

[regulararmybrat]

[Margaret lets out a shriek, ducking just in time for the boomerang to fly past her. It smacks the mannequin advancing on her in the head, causing its plastic head to crumple in and for it to stagger slightly. She scrambles forward, her knuckles white as she grips her makeshift weapon--a rolling pin she snatched from a destroyed window display.]

They won't stay down! [She glances back towards the mannequins. The things don't seem deterred, continuing to lurch towards them.] We'll need to find somewhere to hide!

[One of them tries to swing at Margaret, and she lets out a wild yell, kicking it as hard as she can. It topples onto its back, skidding against the ground as it tries to get back up again.]

[carniravenous]

[It's a relief to encounter someone who has fighting spirit. No offense to the other displaced people of this place, but Sokka has only met one other warrior so far, and he therefore went into this fight feeling like he was going to have to do a lot of protecting, especially since the guy who's supposed to be his parental figure is in here somewhere. He keeps imagining him standing around, possibly trying to hide behind people, not picking up any weapons — and he feels responsible for that, like it's his job to find and protect him, because who else will?

Thankfully, she is quick on her feet (and with ducking), and that's what gives Sokka the confidence to yell:]

Let me try something first! [She's right, but Sokka wants to be absolutely certain the mannequins can't be stopped before he retreats. He dives for his boomerang, snatches it, and then pounces on the mannequin she knocked down.] Cover me!

[He swings his boomerang downward with all his might, sharpened edge sinking into its plastic neck. He can't waste too much time trying to decapitate it, since there are more mannequins advancing on them, but he has to at least try, and so he yanks his boomerang free and then strikes downward again.]

[regulararmybrat]

I--There's a lot of them! I can't fight them off on my own!

[She's a nurse, not a fighter, but it's not like this is the first combat situation she's been in. Most of the time, she's had to hunker down and let the actual soldiers deal with it, hoping and praying that she wouldn't be caught in the crossfire. But this time, it looks like she's going to be the one to defend herself, because the mannequins are coming fast and this kid is on the ground trying to hack off the mannequin's head. She smacks another one back with the rolling pin, looking around for something else she can throw to drive them back.

There, just out of reach--a clothes rack with all of the latest winter fashion. She throws the rolling pin as hard as she can at one of the mannequins, then dives for the clothes rack. With as much might as she can muster, she swings it around and slams it into the crowd of mannequins. They stagger back as the mass of heavy winter coats briefly entangle and slow them.]

Are you done yet?! [She shouts towards Sokka.] We don't have all day!

[carniravenous]

[Sokka is hurrying — he's doing his best! This experiment isn't without cause; they need to know if the mannequins can be killed to decide their next steps. If they can be, then it's just a matter of picking them off one by one, as best they can. But if they can't...well, running and hiding and coming up with an alternative plan it is. Which Sokka can do — he'd just rather something be easy for once.

But it turns out it isn't easy. For one, decapitating the mannequin is ridiculously difficult. His boomerang isn't the best weapon for it, and it keeps getting stuck in the plastic. For two, despite the fact that Sokka is literally hacking away at its neck, the mannequin keeps swinging at him — catching him in the side, in the back. And it's strong for being a doll. Ultimately, when he narrowly avoids a blow to the head, Sokka has to give up. The mannequin is mostly decapitated at this point, anyway, and it's clear that it hasn't slowed down at all as a result.]

I'm done, I'm done! [Sokka yells back as he yanks his boomerang free one final time, rolling off of the mannequin and out of the way of another strike. He's on his feet quickly, all but barreling into the woman as he guides her toward — somewhere else, he isn't exactly sure where they are going, considering this is his first time in a department store. But that's okay, they're going away, trying to leave the group of mannequins behind.] This way! [Said with more confidence than he feels as he turns back to throw his boomerang at the group that she managed to stagger with the clothes rack, seeking to keep them at bay before they regain momentum.] Knock down anything you can! [He quickly gestures to a display rack, hoping that a mess of objects will slow the mannequins down; he can't knock it over himself because he's too busy catching his boomerang as it returns.]

[regulararmybrat]

[Sokka doesn't have to tell her twice. She sprints after the kid, taking a moment to reach to the side and grab at the display rack. With a loud, incoherent yell, Margaret topples it over, trying to direct the perfectly poised holiday gifts and plastic display props into the path of the mannequins. As the mannequins untangle themselves from the clothes rack and stagger in their direction, they seem to trip and stumble over the obstacles in their way. Two of them fall over, writhing as they try to get back up again.]

Are you hurt? [She asks, gasping for breath as she runs.] Where are we going? There's bound to be more--

[As they turn the corner, she spots more mannequins lurking at the end of the hall. These ones seem to be dressed in fishing vests, parkas, and other outdoors-y gear, although they're nowhere near the outdoorsman shop. Their heads turn in Sokka and Margaret's direction, alerted by their footsteps on the linoleum tiles. Margaret skids to a halt, looking around for an alternative path. A kitchen supply store. Surely, there can't be that many mannequins in a place like that, right?]

This way!

[She moves to grab Sokka's arm and lead him towards the shop.]

iv-a at long last... cws in post

[m1895]

[ cws for anyone who might read the thread: vasiliy's an ethnic russian (privileged majority) who was in a position of power in the 1930s, when arctic indigenous peoples were being forcibly relocated, forced to self-identify a nationality, religiously/spiritually oppressed by forced secularization/"""modernization"""/sovietization attempts, etc. while he's more left-leaning compared to the party line on indigenous peoples, a) traditional soviet treatment of indigenous people will probably come up and b) he's still quite ignorant and has a lot of lack of exposure/misconceptions! racism and russophobia/subjective whiteness will probably come up in this thread. ]

-

[ ...Curious. Vasiliy watches the young man as he scoops up snow from the tops of mailboxes with two mittened hands and dumps it onto the sled he pulls behind him, then goes to the next one, and so on, and so forth. He's making... something unrecognizable to a 20th-century urban Russian; his best guess is... an igloo or something, or maybe he's just having fun with it, although he seems a bit old for the latter. Whatever the case is, he clearly knows more than Vasiliy does, judging by the intent with which he goes about collecting materials.

He's very obviously not white (or "white", if you're Russian, he thinks sourly) or black like most of the people here—he looks, to a Russian eye, like he might come from one of the indigenous Arctic peoples in Siberia and further north. Chukchi, maybe? Yupik? Nenet? There are so many, and the distinction is lost on him. Having never travelled further West than Moscow or further North than the now-St. Petersburg, he's only encountered maybe four or five people from the tribes of the North in his lifetime; for the most part, they'd had no interest in mingling with Russian society, and his fellow Russians (and Tatars, and Cossacks) had had little interest in intermarrying, themselves.

But right now? In this moment? The young man, whatever tribe he comes from, feels a hell of a lot more familiar than any of the people around him. At least they're probably from the same continent. When he stops at Vasiliy's own mailbox, he pauses in shoveling snow, sticking the shovel upright into the tall bank bordering the driveway. ]

What are you making?

hyped!

[carniravenous]

[Up until now, no one has asked Sokka that question. It hasn't bothered him; in his opinion, the less that the locals talk to him, the better, and when it comes to the new arrivals, Sokka hasn't been all that forthcoming, anyway. There's a lot that he's trying to protect back home, and he feels as though mentioning anything about the South Pole, the Four Nations, or his real family and friends might draw too much attention to them. It's easier to shuffle from house to house letting people think he's strange, or that his watchtower is childish, or that it's not worth asking him any questions. He's used to people assuming he's not all that bright as it is; this time, it at least seems to work toward his advantage, because he's more or less left alone.

Only when the question is actually posed does Sokka realize, with an internal start, that he's wanted someone to ask — to take even a passing interest in what he's doing, because it is personal to him. The watchtower will be (temporarily) useful, sure, but that's not all it represents to Sokka. It's a reminder of home — a small way of expressing something that has been continuously denied to him, even before he arrived here, with how long he spent in Fire Nation territory.

This man doesn't sound like a local, and Sokka is drawn to that. He himself fits in surprisingly well when it comes to his accent, but has other features that mark him as other. He refuses to compromise on his hair, for example, even though it'd probably make his life a little easier if he would — and even though he did once before. It's different here, without his sister and without any possessions other than his boomerang to remind him of home. This is one of the only ways in which he can express himself — as a warrior, as a member of the Southern Water Tribe, and as his father's son. Hence, the defining characteristics that might make the neighbors suspicious of some of the new arrivals establishes what Sokka considers to be some form of common ground.

And that's why he doesn't answer with sarcasm, or a quip, or even a simple explanation. He says:]

Watch. [And, flattens the snow on the guy's mailbox, quickly patting it down with his hand. Equally as quickly, he carves through the snow with a mitten-covered finger to create a small version of a wall. Then he scoops up snow from the ground to create a slender mound that towers above the rest. It isn't the best model of a watchtower given the speed at which he's created it, and also, the fact that it's resting on a mailbox, but Sokka tops it off by pulling a button off of his coat (he still hates everything about the clothes here, but this is for the sake of art) and setting it atop the tower.] That's me. [He then points to the mini-tower.] And that's a watchtower. [He then pokes holes in the flattened snow, each divot meant to represent houses that the watchtower stands above. If he had more time, he'd go all out by creating evil little salesmen, too, but restrains himself and simply adds:] You can do a lot with snow.

[If you ask him, everyone who's just shoveling it away is missing opportunities, but that means more snow for him.]

[m1895]

[ A watchtower. How does it stay upright? How hard would one have to pack the snow for it to not just cave in under the weight of a human body? Vasiliy squints the tiny diorama on the mailbox for a moment, assessing. It sounds fantastical, but he can recognize, at least, the limits of his own experience, and is humble enough to realize that the young man has probably known more about the handling of snow since early childhood than he does at 34 years old. ]

You are going to build it here? In the yard?

[ It sounds like the sort of thing that the Homeowners' Association would take quite a bit of objection for, a dark, dreading realization that turns his stomach. Hopefully it'll melt before the young man gets far enough for it to no longer be dismissed as having a good time in the snow. If they don't like the grass being too long, they probably won't like a watchtower. ]