A LIST OF PLOTLESS TOWN RP-FRIENDLY CHARACTER IDEAS & CONNECTIONS INSPIRED BY MOVIES! (PART 1)

click here for part two.

i collected a couple of plot ideas from some of the movies i thought had interesting stories or characters that i hope can help you with your applications / character connections. please note that a lot of these are, by no means, the actual plots of the films and are only inspired by them. i’ve taken the liberty of making a couple of edits for them to be ‘plotless town rp-friendly’. also, i would’ve separated them by category (platonic, romantic, familial, etc.) but tbh a lot of these can be taken in any way so feel free to put your own spin on them, too, or even make combinations!

trigger warnings: nothing too specific, but there are light mentions of death, road accident, infidelity, illness, injury, drug addiction.

now, without further ado:

BAY OF ANGELS  // muse a met muse b on a vacation several years ago, brought together because they were both from the same home country and realized that they were traveling to run away from something. muse a came to learn that this wasn’t muse b’s first rodeo, and where this was the first time that muse a had tried to run away from their problems, muse b had been running for most of their life. muse b initially wished to emulate the same free-spirited, high-risk-high-reward principles that muse a lived by. however, muse b started to display totally erratic behavior that prompted muse a to question whether they were making the right choices. eventually, they went home. jump to present day where they meet again in their home country— muse b has toned down somewhat due to a traumatic event (a hard lesson to learn for them) meanwhile, muse a’s life remains the same cycle of events they can’t seem to break free from.

CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 // muse a suspects they are sick but refuses to go to the doctor to have it checked. most of their days are plagued with this feeling of doom enshrouding them, causing them to have a general distaste for life. they meet muse b who has profoundly positive disposition towards life. their company helps muse a to come to terms with the fact that perhaps their illness is something they should deal with. with muse b’s help, muse a starts to find meaning in death.

HAPPY OLD YEAR // muse a left town / the country for college, leaving behind all their friends and family, cutting all ties in a heartbeat, only to come back several years later a completely changed person who subscribes to the idea of minimalism and wants to get rid of all the clutter in their life, material or otherwise. this brings them to reconnect with muse b (and a variety of other muses if the mun wishes) when they find their old belongings and return them in order to be ‘minimalist’ and get rid of all the garbage in their home, which means getting rid of memories, too. however, muse b, who has now moved on from muse a and is with someone else, isn’t too pleased with having muse a back in their life. muse a is desperate to find the closure that muse b isn’t giving them, primarily because muse b knows that muse a is after starting over on a clean slate only to clear their conscience and not to make amends.

YI-YI: A ONE AND A TWO // muse a and muse b were each other’s first and greatest loves but are currently married to other people. when they are reunited through a chance encounter, they decide that it’s better to have each other in their lives as friends than not at all. they realize they still do have feelings for each other but because of their spouses, know that they can never be anything else other than friends. thus begins a journey of trying to bring their old selves back into the light as new people.

MIKEY AND NICKY // muse a and muse b are best friends since childhood. muse a is neurotic, childish, and wildly impulsive, and often has to depend on muse b to get them out of trouble only to show very little gratitude for it, much to muse b’s chagrin. in fact, muse b often finds themself thrown under the bus in muse a’s favor, though it’s not entirely muse a’s fault: muse b is an enabler. however, muse b can’t quite seem to quit muse a (either because they love the feeling of being needed and there’s no one who needs them more than muse a or maybe they’ve been in love with muse a since childhood— or both) until a certain event causes muse b to question whether they are healthy for each other at all.

IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE // muse a and muse b are neighbors, both living with their significant others. both muse a and muse b often see each other in the hallways or share an elevator up to their apartment when they come home from work. maybe they even carpool sometimes. however, they spare very little in the way of words until one day, muse a breaks down while drunk and admits that they think their partner is cheating on them. in an attempt to comfort them, muse b reveals that they think the same thing of their own partner. desperate for answers, they conduct an investigation until they realize that their partners are cheating on them with each other. muse a and muse b become each other’s support system, as they try to coach each other through an impending breakup all the while realizing that they might be developing feelings for each other and must now choose between indulging their feelings or deny themselves the hypocrisy.

TAKE THIS WALTZ // muse a meets muse b on a trip out of town and they instantly connect. they share the same flight back home and even a cab ride from the airport. however, they soon realize that muse b is muse a’s new neighbor, which makes things plenty awkward considering how a) they’ve been borderline flirty the whole time and b) muse a is married to someone who they now consider to be far less interesting in comparison to muse b. regardless, once they’ve recognized a mutual attraction with each other, muse a demands for muse b to keep their distance, only to keep running into each other everywhere, much to muse a’s chagrin.

LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE // muse a is witness to a terrible road accident involving a pedestrian. muse a takes the pedestrian and their sibling, muse b to the hospital where muse b’s sibling is declared dead on arrival. despite being total strangers, muse a stays with muse b through the entire process. eventually, muse a takes muse b home but muse a refuses to let muse b leave, claiming they don’t want to be left alone in the house that they previously shared with their now deceased sibling. having money troubles of their own and on the brink of an eviction, muse a ends up staying with muse b not just for the night but for the week until they get comfortable enough with each other that muse b invites muse a to officially live with them to help with their financial problems, but mostly because they don’t know how to handle their grief alone.

THE FALL // muse a is in an outpatient physical rehabilitation facility after suffering from a near-fatal injury when they meet muse b. the pair are polar opposites in terms of their attitudes towards recovery: where muse a is more hopeful, muse b only throws pity parties for themself considering that this injury might prevent them from fully getting back to doing what they love. despite this, the two form an unlikely bond where muse b is completely enthralled with muse a, who tells them stories about their travels and their career and all the amazing things they’ve done, without realizing until they’re in too deep that they are all fabricated versions of the truth and muse b falls for every single one of them. what started as little white lies becomes a source of anxiety for muse a when the lies just get bigger and bigger.

COLUMBUS // muse a is a young, aspiring [insert career here] but to pursue this passion, they must leave their hometown, which they have constantly been refusing to do despite the numerous opportunities having been presented to them on account of the fear that no one else is going to take care of their mother (who, in the movie, is a recovering drug addict but it can be for any reason or relative in this case). muse b’s father is a well-known [insert career that muse a wants here] and is in town to hold a lecture/exhibit/performance/etc etc depending on the career, but then he suffers from a stroke. muse b, despite being estranged from their father for having been scrutinized by the man for most of their life, is forced to come to town and take care of him being their closest living relative. they meet muse a by chance, only to learn shortly after that they are a huge fan of muse b’s parent’s work. having spent their whole life in this town, muse a becomes muse b’s tour guide of sorts, while inadvertently helping each other come to terms with their relationship with their parents and how they can be kinder to themselves.

SECRET SUNSHINE // after their spouse’s passing, muse a moves from the big city to their spouse’s much, much smaller hometown so they can raise their child there. they meet all of the important figures of their spouse’s childhood including muse b, a local shopkeeper and an old friend of their spouse’s, who, despite muse a’s reluctance, helps them adjust to small town life. the pair eventually closer to each other and muse a to their spouse as they find out more about who they were before they met.

THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU // (originally lgbtqia+ and written about older characters with grown children, but make of this plot what u will, tbh) muse a and muse b are best friends. both married, both with grown kids. muse a’s spouse died a long time ago so they’ve had plenty of time to help muse b take care of their spouse in the couple of months leading to that spouse’s death. in the process, the pair have grown intimate (with muse b’s spouse’s knowledge— in fact, they encouraged muse a to ‘take care’ of muse b in the event of their passing and wouldn’t trust anyone else to do so) but haven’t told their families yet in fear of what they might think of them given their age and how they’re basically uncles/aunts to each other’s children.

Playing the Banjo

Elsewhere University meets Gravity Falls again. Fiddleford tries to secure the release of his Fae-captured roommate.

A sequel to The Other Backup School, though it can probably be read independently.

on AO3

Fiddleford knew better. Really, he did.

It hadn’t taken him that long to figure out the secret of Elsewhere University, to connect the rumors to the old stories he’d heard in childhood. He knew darned well that humans weren’t the only ones prowling around on campus--and he wasn’t thinking of the crows, either, though something was probably up with them too, come to think of it.

Fiddleford knew the rules of the game well enough, too. Never tell anyone your real name. Never voice the “please”s and “thank you”s that had been practically ground into him ever since he’d learned to talk. Have iron and salt on you at all times, just in case. Put cream and sugar outside your door every once in a while as an offering, a small gesture of goodwill.

And above all else, don’t go looking for trouble.

But that had been before his roommate left one night with six fingers on each hand and came back with eight. Or rather, before something that wore his roommate’s face but got the number of fingers wrong returned to the room in Tesla’s stead.

The thing that had taken Tesla’s place was doing a pretty poor job of pretending to be a student, truth be told. It rarely put pen to paper except to fill the page with strange spiral symbols, rarely opened its mouth except to let out a shrill, high-pitched laugh that made Fiddleford’s blood run cold.

Fiddleford knew that few students remained missing through the end of the school year, that the RAs had some sort of arrangement that brought back those that had been taken in all but the most unusual cases.

Fiddleford also knew Tesla well enough to suspect that, given how unusual he was in so many other aspects, his roommate might well be one of the unusual ones in this case as well.

And meanwhile Tesla’s grades had plummeted as the thing that took his place resolutely refused to turn in anything but those strange spirals when assignments came due, and Fiddleford wasn’t doing much better himself, finding it hard to concentrate when sharing his room with a creature that often stared at him as if examining a zoo specimen and always seemed to give off a loud laugh when Fiddleford was most trying to concentrate...

Three weeks in, and Fiddleford knew he couldn’t go on like this much longer.

And so, three weeks and a day after his roommate was taken away by forces unknown and replaced with a rather poor simulacrum of the real thing, Fiddleford went to one of the dark corners of the campus that students knew to avoid, the spot where shadows fell with no visible source, and cleared his throat as he glanced down at the note card he had prepared.

“I humbly request an audience with the one who has taken my roommate, who goes by Tesla, in the hopes that I might negotiate his safe return.”

For a moment, the air was still, with no clear sign that his request had been overheard.

Then the shadows shifted, and out of them arrived something that looked like a bit like a spider, but with a few more legs and a lot more eyes. Its eyes covered its entire body, each a slightly different hue than its neighbors, creating a veritable rainbow of eyes that were all firmly fixed upon Fiddleford.

“Come with me” was all it said before turning around and walking away.

Fiddleford followed.

As he followed, the world around him grew darker and darker, until all he could see was the dimly-glowing creature guiding him and the occasional flicker of light off in the distance. This went on for some length of time--Fiddleford didn’t know how long, as there was nothing to help him regain his bearings in the pitch-black of his surroundings, and only after the fact did he think to bring a watch. Eventually, though, the darkness parted, revealing Tesla, who was splayed out on what passed for ground, and his eyes were closed and he wasn’t moving and--

Without thinking, Fiddleford rushed to his roommate’s side to check his vital signs.

Tesla had a pulse, and that alone was enough for Fiddleford to feel as though some great weight had been lifted. He was breathing, too, his breaths shallow but steady. But he didn’t move, didn’t respond to Fiddleford calling his name (or what passed for his name at Elsewhere), didn’t react at all to being jabbed in the side.

Fiddleford started to speak, though he was unsure of what exactly to say, what words could possibly address the situation in front of him--roommate gone, Taken, and now... “He’s--”

“Sleeping.” The many-eyed creature finished Fiddleford’s sentence for him.

“Did--did you do that?” The question was more direct than was polite, Fiddleford knew, but the words came out before he could think them through.

The other speaker, however, took its time before responding. “It’s easier for both of us. He needs the sleep, and he can be quite the nuisance when awake.”

Despite everything, Fiddleford had to struggle not to laugh at the creature’s statement. It was true that he’d known his roommate to be a nuisance from time to time, but Fiddleford never expected to have those feelings echoed by another, let alone by one who could say nothing but the truth.

“What do you want in exchange for him?”

The creature looked at him for one long moment before replying. “What do you have to offer?”

“I...” Fiddleford trailed off when he realized he hadn’t thought this far ahead. What did he have that was worth as much as Tesla? His own life, perhaps, but that hadn’t been the trade he was seeking out. There had to be something else, something he could give to get his roommate back, nuisance though he could be...

“You are the one known as Banjo, are you not?”

The creature’s words disrupted Fiddleford’s train of thought, but sent him reeling in an entirely new direction. Tesla had spoken of him--that was how the creature knew his safename, it had to be. But what, then, has Tesla said about him? What had his roommate decided was important enough to tell his captor?

“I am, yes.”

“Are you a musician, then?”

Fiddleford hesitated for a moment before steeling his resolve.

“Yes, I am.”

He didn’t mention that his majors were scientific rather than musical in bent, or that he could count on one hand the number of formal music lessons he’d had. He could play a handful of instruments (for a certain definition of “play”). When it came down to it, he was a musician, of a sort, and that was enough. It had to be.

“Excellent. I know what I want, then. I want your music--your music in exchange for... him.” The creature waved one limb dismissively in the general direction of Tesla.

One long, awkward moment passed in silence before Fiddleford said, “Do you have any instruments I could use? I’m not great at singin’ on my own...”

“Oh, you misunderstand.” The creature grew closer, its many eyes fixed on Fiddleford, who had to stop himself from instinctively retreating in turn. “I’m not looking for one piece of music, one performance before you return to your world. I think you’d agree that my end of the bargain is more valuable than that. No, I want all of your music, from now until the end of time. You will be a Banjo that cannot play.”

Fiddleford thought about it for a minute. Music was big in his family--his name had a musical instrument in it, for Chrissake--and giving it up entirely would be a steep price to pay. On the other hand, as far as he could see, the only alternative was going back without his roommate, coming this far only to leave Tesla behind, dooming him to whatever fate the Fair Folk had in mind for him...

No. No, that was entirely unacceptable.

“And he’ll wake up, and be himself, just like before--”

“Nobody is ever quite the same as they were before, especially after coming here.” the creature interrupted.

“Goldurnit, you know what I mean.” Fiddleford muttered under his breath, before raising his voice once again. “But it’s--it’s him there, not another replica?”

One part of the creature bobbed up and down in what Fiddleford assumed was meant to be a nod. “Your roommate for your music. That is the deal. Unless you had something else in mind...?”

“No. I’ll--I’ll do it.”

The creature extended a leg, and the gesture was familiar enough, even when the body emulating it was not. Fiddleford grasped the extended limb (he hadn’t been sure what to expect when touching it, but what he noticed most was the cold, like he was holding onto an icicle), and the two shook on their deal.

“Take him. He is yours to deal with now.” The creature walked away, though most of its eyes remained fixed on Fiddleford and Tesla.

Fiddleford picked his roommate up--had he always been that light?--and walked away, trying to retrace his footsteps.

The world faded back into view, as if a great fog was suddenly lifted, and Tesla’s eyes fluttered open.

“What’s going on?” Tesla murmured.

“Me saving your butt from a three-week nap, or whatever it was you were doin’ there, that’s what.”

Tesla blinked a few times before speaking up again. “Did you say it’s been three weeks?”

“Sure did. Did you think it was less or more?”

Tesla hesitated for a moment before responding. “...less.”

“Can you walk? Because I’d really rather not carry you all the way across campus...”

“I--I think so.”

Fiddleford set Tesla down. Tesla’s first few steps were shaky, and Fiddleford nearly went to catch him more than once before realizing that his roommate wasn’t actually about to fall, but Tesla was able to stumble his way in the direction of their dorm without much help.

“What did you give?” Tesla asked.

“Huh?”

“You got me back. What did you have to give in return?”

Fiddleford was quiet for a long moment before replying, “Nothing I couldn’t live without.”

Tesla looked at him, his eyes silently asking what his mouth had yet to voice, before simply nodding in response.

“Now c’mon, let’s get you back before it gets too dark out.”

Ford had thought he knew what the worst sound in the world was.

He could have sworn that the worst sound imaginable was his roommate’s loud, twangy banjo music that always seemed to start up at the most inopportune of moments.

Ford knew better now.

The real worst sound in the world, he now knew, was the long, dull silence where banjo music should have been.

And so here I am, asking bluntly – is the closedown of the country the right answer to the coronavirus? I’ll be accused of undermining the NHS and threatening public health and all kinds of other conformist rubbish. But I ask you to join me, because if we have this wrong we have a great deal to lose. I don’t just address this plea to my readers. I think my fellow journalists should ask the same questions. I think MPs of all parties should ask them when they are urged tomorrow to pass into law a frightening series of restrictions on ancient liberties and vast increases in police and state powers. Did you know that the Government and Opposition had originally agreed that there would not even be a vote on these measures? Even Vladimir Putin might hesitate before doing anything so blatant. If there is no serious rebellion against this plan in the Commons, then I think we can commemorate tomorrow, March 23, 2020, as the day Parliament died. Yet, as far as I can see, the population cares more about running out of lavatory paper. Praise must go to David Davis and Chris Bryant, two MPs who have bravely challenged this measure. It may also be the day our economy perished. The incessant coverage of health scares and supermarket panics has obscured the dire news coming each hour from the stock markets and the money exchanges. The wealth that should pay our pensions is shrivelling as share values fade and fall. The pound sterling has lost a huge part of its value. Governments all over the world are resorting to risky, frantic measures which make Jeremy Corbyn’s magic money tree look like sober, sound finance. Much of this has been made far worse by the general shutdown of the planet on the pretext of the coronavirus scare. However bad this virus is (and I will come to that), the feverish panic on the world’s trading floors is at least as bad. And then there is the Johnson Government’s stumbling retreat from reason into fear. At first, Mr Johnson was true to himself and resisted wild demands to close down the country. But bit by bit he gave in. The schools were to stay open. Now they are shutting, with miserable consequences for this year’s A-level cohort. Cafes and pubs were to be allowed to stay open, but now that is over. On this logic, shops and supermarkets must be next, with everyone forced to rely on overstrained delivery vans. And that will presumably be followed by hairdressers, dry cleaners and shoe repairers. How long before we need passes to go out in the streets, as in any other banana republic? As for the grotesque, bullying powers to be created on Monday, I can only tell you that you will hate them like poison by the time they are imposed on you. ll the crudest weapons of despotism, the curfew, the presumption of guilt and the power of arbitrary arrest, are taking shape in the midst of what used to be a free country. And we, who like to boast of how calm we are in a crisis, seem to despise our ancient hard-bought freedom and actually want to rush into the warm, firm arms of Big Brother. Imagine, police officers forcing you to be screened for a disease, and locking you up for 48 hours if you object. Is this China or Britain? Think how this power could be used against, literally, anybody. The Bill also gives Ministers the authority to ban mass gatherings. It will enable police and public health workers to place restrictions on a person’s ‘movements and travel’, ‘activities’ and ‘contact with others’. Many court cases will now take place via video-link, and if a coroner suspects someone has died of coronavirus there will be no inquest. They say this is temporary. They always do. Well, is it justified? There is a document from a team at Imperial College in London which is being used to justify it. It warns of vast numbers of deaths if the country is not subjected to a medieval curfew. But this is all speculation. It claims, in my view quite wrongly, that the coronavirus has ‘comparable lethality’ to the Spanish flu of 1918, which killed at least 17 million people and mainly attacked the young. What can one say to this? In a pungent letter to The Times last week, a leading vet, Dick Sibley, cast doubt on the brilliance of the Imperial College scientists, saying that his heart sank when he learned they were advising the Government. Calling them a ‘team of doom-mongers’, he said their advice on the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak ‘led to what I believe to be the unnecessary slaughter of millions of healthy cattle and sheep’ until they were overruled by the then Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir David King. He added: ‘I hope that Boris Johnson, Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance show similar wisdom. They must ensure that measures are proportionate, balanced and practical.’ Avoidable deaths are tragic, but each year there are already many deaths, especially among the old, from complications of flu leading to pneumonia. The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) tells me that the number of flu cases and deaths due to flu-related complications in England alone averages 17,000 a year. This varies greatly each winter, ranging from 1,692 deaths last season (2018/19) to 28,330 deaths in 2014/15. The DHSC notes that many of those who die from these diseases have underlying health conditions, as do almost all the victims of coronavirus so far, here and elsewhere. As the experienced and knowledgeable doctor who writes under the pseudonym ‘MD’ in the Left-wing magazine Private Eye wrote at the start of the panic: ‘In the winter of 2017-18, more than 50,000 excess deaths occurred in England and Wales, largely unnoticed.’ Nor is it just respiratory diseases that carry people off too soon. In the Government’s table of ‘deaths considered avoidable’, it lists 31,307 deaths from cardiovascular diseases in England and Wales for 2013, the last year for which they could give me figures. This, largely the toll of unhealthy lifestyles, was out of a total of 114,740 ‘avoidable’ deaths in that year. To put all these figures in perspective, please note that every human being in the United Kingdom suffers from a fatal condition – being alive. About 1,600 people die every day in the UK for one reason or another. A similar figure applies in Italy and a much larger one in China. The coronavirus deaths, while distressing and shocking, are not so numerous as to require the civilised world to shut down transport and commerce, nor to surrender centuries-old liberties in an afternoon. We are warned of supposedly devastating death rates. But at least one expert, John Ioannidis, is not so sure. He is Professor of Medicine, of epidemiology and population health, of biomedical data science, and of statistics at Stanford University in California. He says the data are utterly unreliable because so many cases are going unrecorded. He warns: ‘This evidence fiasco creates tremendous uncertainty about the risk of dying from Covid-19. Reported case fatality rates, like the official 3.4 per cent rate from the World Health Organisation, cause horror and are meaningless.’ In only one place – aboard the cruise ship Diamond Princess – has an entire closed community been available for study. And the death rate there – just one per cent – is distorted because so many of those aboard were elderly. The real rate, adjusted for a wide age range, could be as low as 0.05 per cent and as high as one per cent. As Prof Ioannidis says: ‘That huge range markedly affects how severe the pandemic is and what should be done. A population-wide case fatality rate of 0.05 per cent is lower than seasonal influenza. If that is the true rate, locking down the world with potentially tremendous social and financial consequences may be totally irrational. It’s like an elephant being attacked by a house cat. Frustrated and trying to avoid the cat, the elephant accidentally jumps off a cliff and dies.’ Epidemic disasters have been predicted many times before and have not been anything like as bad as feared. The former editor of The Times, Sir Simon Jenkins, recently listed these unfulfilled scares: bird flu did not kill the predicted millions in 1997. In 1999 it was Mad Cow Disease and its human variant, vCJD, which was predicted to kill half a million. Fewer than 200 in fact died from it in the UK. The first Sars outbreak of 2003 was reported as having ‘a 25 per cent chance of killing tens of millions’ and being ‘worse than Aids’. In 2006, another bout of bird flu was declared ‘the first pandemic of the 21st Century’. There were similar warnings in 2009, that swine flu could kill 65,000. It did not. The Council of Europe described the hyping of the 2009 pandemic as ‘one of the great medical scandals of the century’. Well, we shall no doubt see. But while I see very little evidence of a pandemic, and much more of a PanicDemic, I can witness on my daily round the slow strangulation of dozens of small businesses near where I live and work, and the catastrophic collapse of a flourishing society, all these things brought on by a Government policy made out of fear and speculation rather than thought. Much that is closing may never open again. The time lost to schoolchildren and university students – in debt for courses which have simply ceased to be taught – is irrecoverable, just as the jobs which are being wiped out will not reappear when the panic at last subsides. We are told that we must emulate Italy or China, but there is no evidence that the flailing, despotic measures taken in these countries reduced the incidence of coronavirus. The most basic error in science is to assume that because B happens after A, that B was caused by A. There may, just, be time to reconsider. I know that many of you long for some sort of coherent opposition to be voiced. The people who are paid to be the Opposition do not seem to wish to earn their rations, so it is up to the rest of us. I despair that so many in the commentariat and politics obediently accept what they are being told. I have lived long enough, and travelled far enough, to know that authority is often wrong and cannot always be trusted. I also know that dissent at this time will bring me abuse and perhaps worse. But I am not saying this for fun, or to be ‘contrarian’ –that stupid word which suggests that you are picking an argument for fun. This is not fun. This is our future, and if I did not lift my voice to speak up for it now, even if I do it quite alone, I should consider that I was not worthy to call myself English or British, or a journalist, and that my parents’ generation had wasted their time saving the freedom and prosperity which they handed on to me after a long and cruel struggle whose privations and griefs we can barely imagine. - Peter Hitchens https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8138675/PETER-HITCHENS-shutting-Britain-REALLY-right-answer.html 

#resistthelockdown #whatsreallygoingon

Missed Classic: Asylum – (Almost) Lost (My Mind)

by Will Moczarski

Med Systems Marathon Overview: (a) 1980 Summary (b) Reality Ends (1980) (c) Rat’s Revenge / Deathmaze 5000 (1980) (d) Labyrinth (1980)

Map of the World

My next session is devoted almost exclusively to mapping. I try the silver key, the brass key and the inmate with all of the doors and get caught several times because only guards are allowed in the offices, I leave too many doors open or I walk into a trap. The offices are not even recognizable – whenever I go to the northeast (I assume) corridor, that’s apparently where they are. I soon figure out that wearing the guard’s uniform lets me walk that corridor unharmed but I don’t find anything new apart from four more doors I cannot seem to open. The inmate can pick one of the locks there but it’s only a trap: “Come in! Lobotomy time!” says a voice from the inside, ending my game once more, telling me: “You are now very calm.”

Am I really? I wish! There’s another obstacle posed by my friend, the lock-picking inmate. Whenever I start feeding him cigarettes at varying rates, he will turn on me and call the guards, that little traitor. After a while I notice that the building is somewhat asymmetrical, consisting of five corridors in the main part and a small loop in the east (I assume). The five corridors link into one another, making it impossible to map the construction by using generic tiles. I painfully redraw the whole map and try to make it fit somehow but maybe it’s just for the best to let the corridors coexist without linking them to some kind of non-functional structure. Or could it be…a pentagram? That seems likely but so far I cannot really get it to work. I’m not the cartographer I thought I was, obviously. At least I find a new room with another inmate. An ugly face appears at the grate and when I let the other inmate (my chain-smoking friend) pick the lock, he tells me that I sure am ugly and offers me his glasses. The glasses, however, turn out to be a novelty nose. I imagine something along the lines of the nose glasses from Zak McKracken and a hundred thousand junk stores.

As I don’t seem to be able to discover anything else, I set out to mapping the maze. This poses a problem as I’ve already hit the inventory limit (although the screen doesn’t look like I should have) and need to decide what I want to take with me. Because I get pushed into the maze with no means to go back, I need to carry everything I might need. I decide to leave everything that I’ve used at least once already – the hand grenade, the newspaper, the coat – but still cannot carry all of the keys. I’ll have to gamble a little more, but maybe I’ll see what I would have needed once I’ll need it.

What I get for being nosey.

Horrible Mazes

And it’s back to mazes. While Deathmaze 5000 and Labyrinth consisted only of those, Asylum has so far provided a more attractive framework. The maze proper is endowed with all of the niceties of its predecessors, as I will soon discover. Mapping this beast is nothing short of frustrating, and it doesn’t take long until I feel that maybe I belong in an asylum after all. The starting section is not too bad. I can map a small area but then I hit an invisible wall in the middle of a corridor. SPLAT! At least it’s not an invisible guillotine this time, and I get a chance to work on this puzzle. As my inventory is rather empty at this point of the game, it’s simply a matter of trial and error. And pretty soon I attempt to wear the novelty nose, as I still remember distinctly how the inmate described it as glasses. Maybe the mix-up is really down to a bug and the glasses will allow me to see something I otherwise wouldn’t be able to see? And that’s exactly what happens. Wearing the nose makes me see a small keyhole of sorts. It appears in the middle of nowhere but I won’t complain. Unfortunately, none of my keys seem to fit. Should I have brought the pin from the grenade? I resort to some more trial and error before restoring again, and I get lucky although I’m none the wiser for it. PUT PEG IN HOLE makes the invisible wall disappear and a box containing a bucket appears in front of me. The game also tells me that the mirror disappeared and that the water can flow freely now. What mirror? What water? Is it inside the bucket? Was it…oh right, the vanishing cream. Despite all these twisty little passages looking alike, I didn’t even think that the invisible wall might in fact be a mirror. Did I shove the peg up my own novelty nose then? If so, why did it accomplish anything? Am I doomed to be an invisible ageless, faceless, gender-neutral, culturally ambiguous adventure person forever?

The next part of the maze is much more challenging. I find a spot that feels like a teleporter but I can’t put my finger on the point where it actually begins to drop me elsewhere. Also, I don’t know anything about the dimensions of this maze – Labyrinth and Deathmaze 5000 were more outspoken about the features of their levels, if I remember correctly. Another obstacle is a revolving door. This one at least notifies me of its presence, and it seems to take me both ways which is a relief. Still it makes me erase and redraw more often than I’d like to. The only item I come across (apart from the bucket) is a bat. I assume that there will be monsters in the asylum, too.

Beyond the revolving door

After some more careful mapping, I come across a note. When I read it, it tells me to LOOK UP! If I try to do that, a piano comes falling out of nowhere and I’m dead. This is one of the many slapstick elements that the previous two games also contained – they appear to be part of the Med Systems corporate identity, or maybe William Denman was just a huge Laurel & Hardy fan in the 80’s. Not too far from the note I find some flies. My hands are full although I don’t seem to have reached the inventory limit yet which is odd. Looking at the inventory screen, I notice that there are three types of items: I carry the BAT in my hands, almost everything else in my pockets, and I can wear the coat and the nose (“being worn”). If I drop the bat, pick up the flies and then pick up the bat again, I can get around this little problem. Maybe it’s even supposed to be realistic: While my hands are full, (carrying the bat) I cannot pick up anything else.

Moving on, I spend some time figuring out how the revolving doors work. It seems that they are actually made up of four tiles and revolve both ways. If I enter from the left, I end up on the other side of them; I can also turn back which is unusually convenient for this game. Entering the doors in the same direction twice gives me access to a new area containing lots of corridors, nooks and crannies as well as a ball. As I already have the bat, this seems consistent. I really hope that there won’t be any Zork references like, say, a baseball maze. The section doesn’t contain anything else but the last part of the maze is packed with action. When I enter the revolving doors from the right I can reach the northeastern quadrant of my map which I was previously unable to enter or explore. Moving east, a “carpenter builds a wall” just behind me. Isn’t it enough to be shoved into the damn maze, game? Do you have to wall me in, too?

As if this wasn’t challenging enough, suddenly I’m being chased by a murderer. I can’t attack him, evade him, talk to him or bribe him. Because this is slapstick country, I find the solution quite easily: showing him the note (just giving it to him is not enough!) prompts him to look up, and he is crushed by a piano. How I manage to jump away without jumping away, I don’t know. At least the murderer is out of my hair. Also, he conveniently drops an axe in front of the newly built wall. Watch out, carpenter: Heeeeere’s Johnny!

A reference to The Shining makes sense in a 1981 game, as the film was released the previous year. However, the parser refuses to be my film buff companion: hitting the wall with the axe does not work, neither does hacking it. I have to BREAK the wall with the axe which seems a little odd but at least I’m not stuck anymore. Searching the section nets me a hat and a steel key. Could this be my ticket to freedom?

Indeed it is. After mapping the final sector (and not finding anything else), I go back to the entrance and unlock the door with my new key. I get back to the asylum proper but there may be some new doors I previously wasn’t able to unlock. As I’ve got way too many items at this point, I once again put the ones I’ve already used into my stash house. Let’s see where the steel key will take me!

We’re stealing the towels!

If all of this seems straightforward, just take a look at my session time after you’ve finished reading this blog post – this game is HARD and I have omitted much of my trial-and-error gaming. Also, my save feature did not work up to this point. Treading through the whole first maze every time I die slowly became unbearable, though, and trying another emulator finally gave me the opportunity to use the game’s original save feature.

The steel key lets me access seven new rooms. In the first one, there is a guru meditating. He uses the mantra “Omm!” which is nice and all but I’m trapped. I try to MEDITATE, SAY OMM(!), use my items, turn around, LEAVE ROOM, you name it. Nothing works, so I have to restore. The next room is empty. The third room has an inmate called Renfrow who mutters that he needs flies. Wow, what an easy puzzle! Giving Renfrow (is this an anagram? CAPs if someone finds out!) the flies works, too, but he just eats them and gives me nothing in return. How do I know that he eats them? Just wait! Instead of dropping an item, Renfrow gives me a hint: “The room next door…” Ahhh, the empty room? I know: something must have materialized over there, right? Is that my reward? I take a heartening (but shortish) stroll there and get pushed from behind (by Renfrow?), then that little traitor calls the guards. “Never trust one who eats flies!”, the game says. Right. As I was curious, I played through the whole scenario again, and figured out that if I lock Renfrow in his room before heading to the empty room, nothing happens. This is a very nice touch but I’m still not getting my flies back. Let’s take a look at those other rooms.

The fourth room has a fisherman called Blake who is wearing boots. That description is somewhat suspicious and I get the sudden urge to steal Blake’s footgear. If I politely ask Blake whether he might give it to me, to my surprise the parser understands me perfectly: “What may I have for them?”, drones the merry fisherman. Impressive! As I have no idea what a fisherman who’s locked up in an asylum might be in dire need of, I decide to brute-force it and simply offer everything I have to the man. And I will be really glad I did that, too. After my encounter with Renfrow (and the game’s snarky comment) I normally wouldn’t have given the flies to anyone else but that is actually the solution. Indoor fly-fishing, I suppose – am I correct, Blake? Whatever the reason, Blake drops his boots immediately, wraps them in a nice box for me to pick up and I can strut around in them for eternity. Well, at least for a few in-game minutes.

The fifth room has water pouring out but the boots provide a firm grip, saving me from being washed away. This was probably supposed to be a puzzle that I solved accidentally. My reasoning was that the inventory limit may be linked to the items’ categories (in hands, in pockets, being worn) and that wearing the boots might save a slot. I restore to see what happens if I enter the room with no boots on, and the water still comes pouring out but now I am being washed away. With the boots, I can safely enter and retrieve an “ancient key”. Could this be for the guru? Maybe it’s not a physical key but some kind of koan?

After leaving the room, I am instantly confronted by three figures – at least, that’s what the parser tells me. I am informed that Exodor, lantern and burro are seeking truth. Good for them, right? They follow me everywhere and at first I think that I can’t interact with them in any way. It seems that this is another set-piece situation and I have to solve this puzzle to progress. I get the first hint by examining the three of them. When I start with Exodor, the parser comes up with its standard “nothing special” reply. Examing the lantern and the burro is more informative, as the game tells me that I am not carrying either one of them. So they are actually items in search of the truth? That’s odd.

It takes quite some time for me to realize that I need to bring out my inner Ultima IV player to get through this one. The solution is to return the stolen boots, at least that’s what I think might be the reason behind this. If I give them to Exodor, he drops the burro and the lantern and vanishes in the air. I always like me a good lantern in an adventure game but what is this burro? I know that it’s the Spanish word for donkey but am I really picking up a donkey? Did I unwittingly stumble into the Bloody Lip on Woodtick? (I know, that was a monkey.)

Not a mirror. Can’t you see the difference?

Two more rooms to go: the first one is pitch dark and I can’t light my lantern. The second one leads to a maze that seems identical to the first one. I start mapping and get stuck in front of the very same mirror, so I restore and bring my novelty nose. That trick does not work here, though, and I lost my peg in the first maze anyway. This is strange – why would they lock the same maze behind two different doors needing two different keys? Or does it turn into another maze after I have solved another puzzle? I decide to tackle the guru first. The game appears to unlock parts of its storyworld everytime I find a new key, so I should probably solve all of the open riddles before moving on. I also try the ancient key on the remaining doors, but that one doesn’t fit anywhere. As it’s so ancient, maybe I’ll need it for the endgame.

The next part takes a LOT of time. I go over all of my notes again and try anything that seems remotely reasonable. After taking a long break, I read it all once more with fresh eyes and one thing that previously eluded me suddenly appears in a different light. Time and again, I kept coming back to the strange phrasing of Exodor, the lantern and the burro all seeking truth. Surely the lantern is an inanimate object but what if the burro really is a donkey? Who could help him to seek the truth? The guru, naturally. Handing the burro over to the guru actually works and the wise man turns out to be a fakir, too, giving me “nails for a bed” in return. Better than the asylum bunks, I suppose. At first I think that I still cannot exit the room but I am just disoriented by the darkness, and after a few turns I can finally leave.

Any more puzzles inside the asylum proper? Renfrow, maybe, but honestly I don’t think so; it may be time to see whether the maze has changed.

At least it wasn’t a banana that made the mighty Donkey Kong fall.

The maze to end all mazes

Spoiler alert: it hasn’t. Hence, I try everything with that stupid second mirror. Wearing the hat doesn’t work. Hitting the MIRROR does not work. Hitting the WALL does not work. Hitting the GLASS does not work, either. I try the same thing with the bat but – you guessed it – does not work. I play guess-the-verb for quite a while, poke the mirror, break the mirror, kick the mirror, you name it. I try to brute-force it by using (almost) every verb from the vocabulary. I also try to hit the ball into the mirror, throw the ball at the mirror, throw the ball at the wall and so on. After a while, my half-hearted attempt to hit the BALL with the bat … succeeds. Just like that. I curse so loud that a neighbour rings me up to ask if I’m okay. Oh brother, I’m not sure – I may be ready for the actual asylum.

Behind the “glass wall” which now shatters (oh, that’s what it was!) there is more mapping goodness. I assume that the second maze is the same size as the first one, meaning 20 by 23 tiles, and plan the map accordingly. I soon stumble across an anomaly that makes me suspect another teleporter. Apart from that, I find some gold, another wall is built behind me, I find some marbles and I encounter a gorilla. Nothing too bad, right? Right. The gorilla is not impressed by my bat and simply ignores me if I hit it with it. The nerve of that primate! However, he does not really attack me either, he just won’t let me through to whatever it is he is guarding. Having finished both Deathmaze 5000 and Labyrinth, I still remember that throwing things at foes is almost always a good strategy, and this one is no exception. After trying some more reasonable items, I finally throw the marbles and the gorilla slips, making himself vulnerable to my cold-blooded attack. Eat my unforgiving bat, you beast! (It actually took me a lot more time to figure out that I could hit him now that he’s not on guard but the story just works better cut short.)

Beyond the gorilla, there’s a copper key, presumably so I can leave the maze. But there are still some sections I haven’t mapped yet. I find two more puzzles, and both are set in very long corridors. One of them is a corridor of 11 squares containing some 20 doors. Upon entering the corridor, another worksome carpenter builds a wall behind me. For now, I am trapped here. If I enter one of the doors, I emerge into a twisty little passage with another door at the end leading back to the corridor. However, the doors don’t match up – this is a mini-maze. I set about mapping the entry points and the exit points but soon get confused as the newly-built walls make the two ends of the corridor look exactly the same.

The Door can see into your mind! The Door can see into your soul!

Adventure game trick #71 helps me out, of course, as dropping an item will provide a visible clue which side of the corridor I’m at. I systematically go through every door and don’t really get a feel for the maze, however that proves to be unnecessary. Behind the final door, there’s a box of matches (literally) and I can light my lantern now. The door at the end of the passage now takes me back into the maze proper but what about my item?! Oh no, I messed up. I’ll have to do it all over again but at least now I know the right door. Right? As I have last saved upon entering the maze, that is kind of a pain. And it turns out that I have to pass through every door instead of just the right one – there is no right one. This time, I duly pick up the dropped item (it’s the gold, in case you were wondering) before entering the last of the 20 doors – it works and I get out of there, matches and gold in hand, er, pockets.

The other puzzle is where I’m currently stuck. There’s another long corridor on the south end of the maze. If I move along that corridor for too long, a roadster races towards me and runs me down. There is nothing I can do. Of course, the obvious solution is to drop the nails and hope that the roadster will drive right into them. However, if I drop them in the middle of the corridor and turn the other way, the roadster simply approaches from the other direction. If I stay at one end of the corridor and drop the nails in front of me, nothing happens – I have to move to get the roadster’s attention. Now where is the gorilla when you need him? At present, I’m out of ideas. I’ll try to solve this puzzle for a couple more hours and if I don’t happen upon the solution, I shall consult the official hint sheet for the game. This is not a request for assistance (yet) but if you want to give me hints in rot13, I shall look at them if it turns out to be necessary. As I already have the ancient key (which doesn’t fit anywhere so far and sounds endgamish but maybe I’m wrong) I feel that the ending may not be too far away. I could be wrong, though, and Asylum could, like Labyrinth and Deathmaze 5000, contain three more mazes.

Evel Knievel got the best of me.

Session time: 8 hours Total time: 10.5 hours

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/missed-classic-asylum-almost-lost-my-mind/