TDM 001 ● JUNE 2025

[uruz]

TDM: ONE

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PRELUDE

(content warnings: dream horror, loss of autonomy, mild body horror, cult undertones )


You’ve had this dream before.

A moon cracked wide, spilling tendrils from its craters like bleeding silk. A sky starless and slow. And on the horizon: a wave. Massive. Black. Still. It creeps forward every time like sunrise. It hushes before collapse, but every time before this, you wake up just in time.

But not tonight. You can't outrun it even if you tried— it comes crashing down on you at last, swallowing you like a gaping black hole. Saltless, soundless, the water devours. But instead of drowning, you drift, suspended in velvet dark. And in that dark, her voice breathes.

“You don’t have to fall with it.
Let me in.
I can give you everything you’ve ever hungered for.
A place.
A purpose.
Stay.”

She offers. And you— your mouth, your mind— give an answer before you even know you’re speaking. Yes.

The tide recedes. The dark peels away like silk. You awaken beneath a canopy of gold, in a garden that hums with warmth and longing. Soft grass. Strange trees. Fragrant fruits in every color, dripping with light. And a mask upon your face, no straps, no weight, yet it clings to your skin like it was always part of you. You don't want to remove it. You could, maybe . . . But it would feel like tearing your skin away.

She no longer speaks to you, but her orchard breaths a sigh upon your arrival. A force tugs at the edges of your thoughts, beckoning you to contact the web you're now a part of. Welcome, Vessel.

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YOU CAN THREAD THE NEEDLE

(content warnings: sensory manipulation )

An orchard stretches around you in impossible directions, the horizon blurred like wet paint. Trees curl and arch with an elegance that feels practiced— like they’re posing for someone watching. Their trunks shimmer faintly. Leaves flutter even when there is no wind.

You are not alone. Others stir nearby, familiar or unfamiliar, though that distinction begins to blur. You may not know them, or perhaps you have the feeling you do even if you've never met them in your life. Either way, you might wish to know them.

From the strange branches within the orchard hang fruits shaped like stars, teardrops, or glass bells. Each one pulses faintly, waiting to be plucked. Their effects are subtle but powerful, crafted to cater to your desire and wonder:

🍎A pearlescent orb, cool and slick to the touch, whose taste floods you with a future that might be: a fleeting vision of joy, belonging, or beauty you didn’t know you craved. Whoever is nearby sees a glimpse of it too.
🍎A silver-veined citrus, fizzing like champagne. When shared between two, it evokes the feeling of a first time— first love, first rebellion, first triumph — even if you’ve never lived it. The emotional residue lingers between you.
🍎A blood-orange fruit with velvet skin, which when bitten into, causes your voice to harmonize with another’s— even if you weren’t speaking. You’ll find yourselves finishing each other’s thoughts, or speaking a secret you both forgot you held.
🍎A waxen, translucent fig, which grants you a small miracle: something you longed for appears beside you, conjured from dream. It might be a lost keepsake. A voice. A scent. A face.
🍎A smooth, silver fruit with a mirrored skin. When bitten, it briefly reflects the dreamer’s true self — not as they are, but as they wish to be. For a moment, others may see it too. The illusion clings for a time, making the character appear more like their ideal self in body, presence, or aura.
🍎A dark plum that glows faintly pink, almost heart-shaped, and warm to the touch. Its juice runs red and sticky, clinging to the lips. To taste it is to be filled with longing— for intimacy, for sensation, for touch. The desire may be gentle or overwhelming, but it lingers, tuned to the presence of someone nearby. It is not mindless. It is focused.

At the center of the orchard is a fountain, still and inviting. Its water tastes like clarity— and for a moment after drinking, your thoughts shape your surroundings. What you create might intertwine with what another dreams beside you.

Sleep does not speak in words. She breathes through the trees, hums through the soil, stares through your mask. Her voice, barely a whisper:

“Thread the needle, My Vessel.
Want.
Want, and see what answers you.”

You feel it,— if you resonate with another, something will change. Maybe the orchard will shift again. Maybe it already has.

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THE DAYLIGHT RECEDES

(content warnings: grief, loss, emotional vulnerability)

The orchard is gone. In its place stretches a landscape of ashen grass, supple and fragrant underfoot, warmed by a pale light that doesn’t seem to come from the sun. All around, a soft breeze stirs the fields— endless, loamy, and quiet. The air smells like soil after rain. It is peaceful here. But not happy.

Scattered across the fields are half-buried remnants: old beds, cracked record players, wilted bouquets, melted candles, notes scrawled on napkins— things lost in the moments between love and loneliness. Everything here feels half-remembered, yet painfully familiar. If a character reaches for one of these objects, they may hear a voice whispering a name they have tried to forget, or one they wish they'd remembered sooner.

In the distance, a shrouded figure walks the fields, unhurried, always just out of reach. Their back is turned, but their presence pulls like gravity. Some may choose to follow. Some may wait. And some may realize they’re walking beside someone else— a stranger who seems to carry a memory they, too, once held.

This is a moment of reflection. Interactions blossom from shared worries, slow confessions, or uncanny synchronicities. Characters might recognize something in another, such as a gesture, a phrase, a scent— and feel that thread begin to tug. Best follow its lead . . . You won't be able to leave unless you do.

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EVERYTHING WE LOVE RESETS

(content warnings: body horror, transformation, loss of autonomy, psychological horror, cosmic dread )

You awaken— or perhaps you never truly slept. The orchard is gone. The fields have withered. All is silence now, and the air is soaked in dread.

A still, uncanny plane stretches out before you: rotted soil, stagnant pools, shattered glass trees that hum with an almost-familiar voice. Echoes of what the dream once offered—sweet fruit, blooming things, beauty— remain only as scars on the land. Their pleasures have fermented into menace. The dreamscape is collapsing.

Sleep, ever present, ever watching, does not weep. She has already taken what she wants, and you see her teeth stretched too wide in the shadows. In the reflection that splits back at you. In the soundless breeze with much more bite and possession than the gentle caress of invitation. She whispers, from the shadows between dying stars:

"You said yes. Now let me see what you become."

The mask on your face tightens, no longer decoration. A binding. You are no longer merely dreaming— Your skin may change fluidly, or break down through the bones violently. Your flesh may split, brimming with power, or your blood could burn like lava oozing through your veins. You may even experience it again, and again, and again; a different beast or burst of magic each time. Whether painful or painless, You are now either Token, or Offering. You may not yet know what that means— But your body does.

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EVEN WHEN WE RUN WITH DEATH

(content warnings: body horror, fungal infections, parasitism, loss of agency, cosmic horror, violence, death, cult imagery)

Your surroundings bend and break with growing instability: The sky splits open, revealing a bleeding red moon, weeping tendrils like raw nerves. It feels wrong in a way you have no words for. It sees you. And it beckons for blood.

The dream does not want peace now. It wants performance. It wants pain. And above all, Sleep wants you all to herself. She watches from the broken heavens, humming in delight as you run, as you fight, as you fracture under the weight of your becoming. Perhaps you turn on each other, frightened with what you have become or too frazzled to control yourself, or the newfound power you possess.

There are other things to look out for, though. Creatures stalk this unraveling plane: malformed creatures with mutated faces and fungal blooms bursting from their orifices, or tendrils slithering from what were once mouths and eye sockets. Once Vessels. Hosts. They may speak with familiar voices. They may try to barter, or bite. Those with hands and fingers may try and force your eyelids to part, to tilt your gaze to the sky above you, chanting in tongues that drill into your brain stem. Hushing in song. Whispering Look at her. She is Beautiful.

If you are caught, if you gaze up at Her for too long— you too will suffer the same fate. Fungal bursts and tendrils will spurt from your mouth, invade you from the inside and reach out to her in sacred reverence. It's a horrible way to go. If this is an end you find, you too, despite your pain, may begin to smile. You might have even more reason to attack your fellow Vessels. They too, must see Her beauty like you do.

The song stutters. The dream recoils when you succumb to the worst of Her parasitism, even though you don't lose consciousness. It is not Sleep who speaks next. In your last few seconds of awareness, you hear in your ears, in your mind, in your soul, snarling and thick with fury:


“What have you done?”

The world begins to scream. You begin to fall.

The dream is over.

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NOTES

➤ Welcome to Somnia’s first TDM! All TDMs will be considered game canon.
➤ You are free (and encouraged!) to experiment with the Tether mechanic as well as Vessel options and the Network to your liking; this is a dreamscape, so multiple/different situations for you to really test which option you like most is possible.
➤ All TDMs take place within a dreamscape, meaning characters can interact with the setting without needing to apply. Come have fun with us!
➤ Mod invited players may currently extend one invite per player. Interested players who do not have mod invites or a friend to get an invite from may comment to the appropriate top level to solicit one, or, solicit one from the mod here. Please keep in mind that soliciting an invite does not guarantee one.
➤ Questions? Please direct them to the designated questions comment linked below!

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Comments

[faa]

I don't. Forgot it in my other pair of pants.

[ Freddie meets the quip (or, what he interprets as one) with one of his own, head cocked to one side with a fleeting what-can-ya-do grimace. He wonders why she doesn't just take off her glove, but doesn't ask; first, it seems rude, and second, he's not sure he wants her to, even if this is a little more difficult, because god only knows what's lurking under the average stranger's fingernails and the last thing he needs right now is to get some sort of diabolical foodborne illness like he did two months into his first deployment in Iraq. Once bitten, twice shy. There are no sinks here.

But if she peels the outer rind, there's probably a thinner, softer inner one, like the silky white membrane that encases the individual wedges in an orange, and he can peel that off before eating it. So it should be okay. And even if it's not, hypoglycemic beggars can't be choosers. ]

[longwillows]

[She has absolutely no reason not to take him at face value about forgetting his own knife, though the small titter she lets out in response certainly doesn't make it seem like she's taken that claim seriously.

Once she's managed to fully pierce the rind, she's able to work her finger underneath it without much trouble, even with the silky gloves on. It's certainly not the first fruit she's peeled since donning the full-body covering that would become a signature of Kalmiya Longwillow. With practiced ease she removes the peel in one lopsided but uninterrupted piece.

After a brief examination of the strange silvery veins, she gently tosses the peel to the lush ground and then wedges her thumbs into the center of the fruit so that she can split it in half. She very graciously offers the un-poked section of wedges to her companion, her eyes lit with an excited smile.] Looks like we didn't need it after all.

cw very vague needle/unsanitary/foodborne illness mentions

[faa]

[ Freddie quirks a brow, smiles. ]

It'd seem not. That's impressive. I don't know if I could do that without gloves on.

[ He takes the offered half of the citrus they are to share with a faint tremble to his fingertips, still pausing to hold it up to his nose for a cautious sniff before committing to unpeeling it. He can't think of any large fruits like this that are toxic, but this isn't the real world, and it's under no obligation to follow its logic. This could also be a nightmare yet to fully unfold.

It smells more tart than it does sweet, definitely some kind of citrus, as the peel she just removed and the silky white patina over his share of the fruit's wedged sections would imply. ]

Well. Only one way to find out if it's safe to eat, I guess.

[ And he really hopes that it is, and that finding himself in this world isn't a situation like it was while he was deployed in Iraq or Syria—no clean water, don't trust anything, don't brush your teeth with the tap water, get sick anyway at the DFAC because the American cooks didn't wash their hands. He'll never forget how sick he was, after he'd decided he needed more flavor than the already dubious Al Assad DFACs were able offer after a few weeks subjected to the Air Force's culinary ventures—plenty of people eat street food and are fine; 23-year-old Freddie Lavoie set foot in Iraq, immediately bet on the wrong horse (or lamb, as the case may be), and ended up receiving intravenous fluids, searing antiemetic injections, and heavy sedation for two days. Somehow he gets the sense his luck might be just as good here. ]

[longwillows]

[Once he takes his half, Kalmiya holds up her own hand and wiggles her flexed fingers for her own examination.] Thank you. I get a lot of practice in.

[There's the slightest undertone to that claim that could read like hand-related innuendo, but then, the playful lilt of her words sort of makes everything sound like innuendo. She breezes past it regardless, following his lead to give the peeled fruit a sniff, though hers is more out of curiosity than caution. It smells more enticing than any other citrus she's encountered; perhaps that's the desirous nature of the fruit metabolizing into the scent it gives off. Or maybe she's just hungry.

For the briefest of moments she thinks of capricious great fey, enticing mortals into the wilds with unspoken rules regarding consumption and gratitude. She already said yes, though. No fruit could be as powerful as her own word, coerced though it may have been.

She delicately peels off a single wedge of the citrus and then returns her gaze to her companion. Whether it's the careful sniff or the faint tremor in his fingers, she gets the impression that he's reluctant, so she offers with easygoing words.] I can go first, if you're worried.

[faa]

[ Did she just crack a joke about jacking off...? Damn, okay then. Some people are a lot more open about those things. And women have been progressively more outspoken about these topics in ways men usually are over the past decade or so. WAP and all of that. ]

No, we can—we can try it together, it's fine.

[ That's stupid and he knows it. No matter who goes first, and he feels like it should really be him, both of them shouldn't go at the same time because the first person could always just drop dead or immediately start puking or something. The decision runs contrary to survival instinct, but for whatever reason—maybe just the increasingly pressing sense that he's not really in a position to wait much longer—he makes the offer anyway. ]

[longwillows]

[Though she seemed perfectly happy to take the bullet on this one, the glint of excitement in her eyes when he suggests they try together is obvious.]

If you're sure. [Though she gives him one more out in this, she uses the knuckles of the hand holding the rest of the fruit to push up the veil of her mask, revealing a glimpse of bronze lips and glittering gold skin as she prepares to eat.] On three? One, two...

[Kalmiya brings the single wedge up to her lips with an eager smile.] Three! [And then she pops the whole wedge in with all the gusto of someone who eats a lot of fruit. Perhaps that's the practice she was actually referring to? Hard to say.]

[faa]

[ The stranger is decidedly eager about this, bouncy, almost playful; she reminds him a bit of a very excited labrador retriever greeting a guest in the doorway. He can't say he's feeling quite so enthusiastic, but he doesn't exactly have much of a choice, so he peels the thinner silky white membrane from the first wedge and bites into it on her count, his mouth immediately flooding with the tangy juice.

The fruit is indeed some kind of citrus; it tastes good, the right mixture of sweet and tart. It tastes like it probably has enough sugar in it to stabilize him.

The taste of it is the last sensation his body has that anchors him to here.

Then he's in Iraq again, and he knows he's in Iraq, because he's pretty sure there's no other place on earth in which the sun and the heat are quite so brutal. His feet feel the remembered grit of sand under the thick, deep-treaded soles of combat boots. More notably, the heat surrounds him, pushing inwards from every angle against the heavy fabric of an Air Force field uniform. Heat rolls off of the exposed skin of his face and neck.

And then the sensation, the physical memory, begins to veer into something familiar and terrible: rising nausea that can only be described as wooziness, a swaying unsteadiness on his feet and sudden shaky weakness to his legs, a full-body tremor and burning heat to his face and sense of impossible-to-place dread encroaching upon his consciousness. His head hurts, specific to the front half of his brain. I am not well.

His shaking, damp hands begin to clumsily fumble with the snaps on the front of his uniform jacket. It's hard to make them do what he wants them to do. His mouth is dry. Jesus, his head hurts. He's so hot. He feels dizzy. His stomach hurts; his guts are cramping. He'd better sit down so he doesn't hit his currently unhelmeted head if this gets worse and he falls—so he awkwardly, shakily tries to bend into a squat, the intent being to lower himself onto the hard ground slowly and steadily.

His legs don't comply. They fold under him like a broken lawn chair, their muscles and tendons weak and lax. There's a little impact, a final surge of lightheadedness, and then blackness.

Moments later, his forehead and neck and face are wet and wonderfully cool. He feels lighter, like he's just in his sweat-soaked undershirt. Someone pats his cheek several times in rapid succession.

"You there, Lavoie? You have heatstroke, buddy. You just passed out."

He cracks open his eyes and regrets it. It's so bright in front of him, even though he can tell his body is in the shade, and his head hurts. Someone holds the hard plastic of a bottle to his lips.

"You need to drink. Small sips."

He grunts his understanding. Words are too much work, and he can't line them up in a coherent sentence in his swimming, heat-fried brain. Orange Gatorade, salty and sweet and artificial and wonderfully cold, splashes into his mouth. And then he's tasting the citrus again, and standing in the same orchard, and somehow he knows she just saw—felt—all of it. His cheeks burn. ]

What the fuck was—did you just feel that? Or—see it, I guess?

[longwillows]

[Kalmiya has perhaps a split second longer to savor the sumptuous sweet-tart juice that spreads across her tongue before it evaporates under a heat wave of dry recollection. Instinctively she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath in through her nose, trying to stabilize her suddenly weak knees.

Her now-empty hand clenches tightly, pressing the fine seams of her gloves into her skin as she tries to keep a pin in the location of her physical body. She squeezes her fist until she can almost feel the stitches in the fabric, at war with the oppressive heat and nausea and weakness that rocks her consciousness.

It isn't entirely unfamiliar, this experience that's overtaking her, but it's a dire exaggeration of what she knows firsthand. What she's feeling is the boogeyman born from those experiences, the ever-present specter that haunts seasons of high sun and droughts in the town of Sanctuary and threatens their children and elders most of all. She didn't feel anything like it until she made her escape and no longer had the constant insulation of the Temple nor the fussy, overprotective hands of the clergy. But she knew the early signs—had prepared for them, in fact, knowing her greatest danger in escaping would not be getting caught, but in the terrain that laid between her and freedom.

Deep breaths. Deep breaths. These are not her feelings, not her memories. In, out. Count the stitches, don't think about the turning of the stomach and the collapsing of the legs.

Some kind of relief follows, but it isn't complete. She's—no, he's still sick. Someone is speaking. Heatstroke. Yes, that is one of Sanctuary's many names for this ailment. The taste that brings their bonded consciousnesses back to the present is utterly alien to her, almost chemical in nature, but after a moment it gives way to the more natural tang of the citrus they'd shared.

She's not sweating in actuality, but the phantom sensation of dampness lingers on her skin, and her excited posture has crumpled as she sets a hand on one of her own knees to steady herself.] Fuck, [she breathes out, clearly rocked by the memory. Deep breaths. In, out.

A few gulps of fresh, present air revives her enough to both lift her head and speak as she meets the man's eyes. There's still an edge of breathlessness to her words.] Wow— you got pretty fucked up.

[faa]

[ She stares at Freddie and Freddie stares at her. He supposes it could be more humiliating than it currently is, closer to the embarrassment he'd felt in the real moment, not this pantomime of it, once the oppressive sense of doom and overwhelming sickness finally left him and and only the facts of what just happened—he fainted in front of everyone a month into his first deployment like the heroine of a Jane Austen novel because it was too hot—remained.

But the stranger seems to be pretty fucked up about it too, like she felt how admittedly awful it was. He'd been quick to laugh it off, but—well, it hadn't felt good, physically. He laughs quietly, awkwardly. ]

Yeah, it was... not fun. I'd only been in Iraq for like a month and it was my first deployment, so I hadn't really had time to get used to it. It's like 110 degrees out during the day there. Or like above 40 Celsius, if that's the system you know.

[longwillows]

[It's a little hard for her to zero in on his reaction, distracted as she is by the lingering imagination of heat rolling along her neck, but the discomfort in that laugh makes her wonder if this is a shameful memory for him somehow.

She brushes off the pad of the knee she'd been braced on and straightens up—and then realizes that her sensory anchoring came with a casualty in the form of a very squashed dream-citrus, clutched in her free hand with juice and pulp soaking her glove.

Bothered more by the destruction of her snack than the mess, Kalmiya looks back to the man. There's some blankness in her face that indicates some of the details of his words don't land for her (where's Iraq? What is "celsius"?) but she gleans enough of the full picture that recognition sparks in her eyes once he's done.] We didn't have such precise methods of measuring the heat. But I understand. I grew up in a place like that.

new mexico and arizona just aren't real to him ig, cw oversimplifications of islam

[faa]

[ Shit, okay, judging by the look of unrecognition she reacts with, she's clearly not from the same world as himself, or at least from a time that predates the modern borders of the Middle East. Her having grown up in "a place like that", though, raises a little question mark in his mind when paired with the loose, exposed blonde bob fluffing out beside either cheek like a golden retriever's ears. No Islam there, then, or maybe she's just an atheist now that she's out. It still clocks as incongruous to someone whose primary experiences of the desert were late 2010s and early 2020s Iraq - it wasn't mandatory by his third deployment, not like it was under the clenching grasp of the self-proclaimed caliphate's Hisbah the first time around, but certainly still preferred by the cultural majority, which further cements the idea that she may not be from his world at all. ]

You did? The desert? What country are you from?

[longwillows]

[There are clearly some gears turning there, but she doesn't have the context to place what exactly has confused him about her statement. Perhaps the idea that she grew up unable to measure the weather to the degree?

She looks back down to her squashed fruit with a slight pout, lifting it a bit closer to her face to see if there are any salvageable chunks. She answers as she examines it.] Mm... We refer to the region as Central Eris, but I'm not really from a...

[She gestures with her free hand in an open-handed squeezing motion over the orange, indicating a vague sphere shape much larger than the (formerly) round citrus she holds.] Large consolidated territory like that. It was one of many small towns in the desert.