stateofdecay | Thanksgiving @ Lundegaard (Forward-Dated to 11/28)

Thanksgiving at Lundegaard

Order of Events

ARRIVALS/VIBES @ 3:30 PM

MINGLING, DRINKS, & APPS @ 4:15 PM

DINNER @ 5:00 PM

LEADERSHIP BINGO @ 7:00 PM

LINE DANCING @ 8:00 PM

Vibes & Playlist

Mismatched furniture, tableware, and cutlery in the B&B, dining hall, and town hall. Wooden carvings of animals hung up with burlap ribbons and hand turkeys made by schoolchildren. Bouquets of dogtooth daisies and boughs of marescent leaves in red, orange, and gold. The smell of freshly baked bread, hay, and woodsmoke. Warm lights from firepits, candles, and dim, flickering fluorescent bulbs.

John played some of these chill tunes.

ON THE MENU

Drinks & Appetizers
🍹 Maggie's Pear Kombucha
🥛 Malted Milk
🍹 Whatever other drinks folks brought
🧀 Charcuterie board

Mains & Sides
🦃 Turkey
🍗 Pan-fried goose in (mostly) huckleberry sauce
🥗 Green and red leaf lettuce salad in lemon vinaigrette
🥬 Mustard greens with salt pork
🥔 Mashed potatoes au gratin
🍞 Sausage hand pies
🍞 Dinner rolls
🍽️ Any other food folks brought

Desserts
🥧 Apple pie
🍮 Baked egg custard
🫐 Wild berries in cream
🍽️ Any other dessert folks brought

VOLUNTEER SLOTS

VOLUNTEER 1 arrives too early and is enlisted to help whip cream by Lundegaard's resident tree whisperer, Alice Samayao. On the bright side, your forearm strength is going to be off the chain once you're done...

After they're released from hwhippin' it, Volunteer 1 sneaks away with some whipped cream to playfully smash it into VOLUNTEER 2's face.

DUTCH and DUKE RATTRAY spy a ladder leaning against the roof of the barn and climb on up. They get a nice view of Lundegaard in the crisp autumnal night. But—whoops—Bill Rhoades takes the ladder away when they're not looking. Dutch and Duke have to jump down (safely) from the roof into a bale of hay. Oof.

VOLUNTEER 5 stuffs themselves on food. Feeling wretched and incredibly sleepy, they knock out in an empty barrel. VOLUNTEER 6 finds them 30 minutes later. You good?

COURT SLAUGHTER makes a daring request during line dancing and gets all the dancers grooving to Rihanna's "S&M" (feat. Britney Spears). Vrow.

GAMES & DANCING

Leadership Bingo
Quaid and John have prepared 3x3 bingo cards using old notebook paper (so... bingo leaves), each randomly populated with the names of community leadership (sans John). The winner gets the honor of being THE BIG TURKEY of the evening and a dozen apple donuts.

Line Dancing
To these classic tunes! Before the outbreak, John spent some time at his local senior citizens center carefully observing line dances and at times participating. So while he claims he can't dance, he is able and willing to help anyone pick up the steps.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Mara shows up very early to help her mother-in-law cook several dishes for Lundegaard's dinner offerings. She is in an absolutely rotten mood the entire night. Although she's put a little more effort into her appearance than she has been lately, she is still dressed plainly except for the faux-leopard print jacket she first debuted at Whitney's Halloween party earlier this year.

John, torn between giving Mara space and offering her a drink of malted milk, makes the likely incorrect choice of offering her malted milk. After that he gives her a respectfully wide berth, though.

"Is this milk?" Mara asks upon being handed the drink, apparently taken aback by the offering.

"Malted," John adds, trying to be helpfully clarifying. He seems unaware of the social faux pas that is offering an adult woman a glass of milk, as you would a child. "Like a Whopper. But liquid. And no chocolate."

"Does it have alcohol in it?"

His knee-jerk reaction is to tell Mara he can fetch her alcohol for the malted milk, make her a spin on a White Russian, but something about her demeanor gives him pause. “Nonalcoholic,” he replies, forcing himself not to move.

Mara samples the drink. Her reaction is largely inscrutable: she has in fact been given a full glass of slightly sweetened milk. That is a true fact. She finds she neither particularly enjoys or dislikes it, but the errant thought occurs to her that milk is a rarity in the world now and she may never have the opportunity to drink it again.

So even though she would usually consider drinking a full glass of milk to be a clinically insane action, she instead lifts it to him in a sort of toasting motion. She is going to drink the entire thing. For no reason other than that she can.

"Thanks," she says.

“Not at all,” John replies.

Completely unaware of Mara’s thought journey though vaguely aware that something in her reaction merits observation, John mentally settles in to watch her drink the glass of milk. Like some sort of a sicko.

Mara wanders off to talk to someone else after taking only one more sip of the beverage. She nurses it throughout the next thirty minutes or so before finishing it at a very metered pace, but she does drink it all eventually.

Nat has been watching Mara most of the night, trying to hide the concern that's been growing. "How'd it go," she asks about the cooking when she's finally able to corner Mara, a glass of water in her hand for the other woman.

"Oh, fine," Mara says, accepting the glass of water from Nat. As is her wont when someone hands her a glass of water, she drinks the entire thing without pausing for breath and then sets the glass down on the table. "A lot of chopping. My wrist is still fucked up."

Unphased by the chugging, Nat reaches for Mara's hand as if to confirm the statement for herself, fingers gentle as she prods at the bones of the leader's wrist. "Can't afford you fucking up any more of yourself," she gives a small flash of a smile. "Does that mean the vegetables are going to look a little massacred?"

She rolls her wrist and presents it to Nat for inspection.

"They'll taste the same," is all she has to say in defense of her chopping skills.

Nat gives Mara's wrist a final squeeze before releasing it. "Naomi good?"

Mara is declared...

Best at Knowing Trouble from a Distance

Thanksgiving @ Lundegaard (Forward-Dated to 11/28)

ARRIVALS/VIBE CHECKS: Mara Kaufman

ARRIVALS/VIBE CHECKS: Mara Kaufman

ARRIVALS/VIBE CHECKS: Mara Kaufman

ARRIVALS/VIBE CHECKS: Mara Kaufman

ARRIVALS/VIBE CHECKS: Mara Kaufman

ARRIVALS/VIBE CHECKS: Mara Kaufman

ARRIVALS/VIBE CHECKS: Mara Kaufman

ARRIVALS/VIBE CHECKS: Mara Kaufman

ARRIVALS/VIBE CHECKS: Mara Kaufman

ARRIVALS/VIBE CHECKS: Mara Kaufman

ARRIVALS/VIBE CHECKS: Mara Kaufman

ARRIVALS/VIBE CHECKS: Mara Kaufman

ARRIVALS/VIBE CHECKS: Mara Kaufman

ARRIVALS/VIBE CHECKS: Mara Kaufman

Re: ARRIVALS/VIBE CHECKS: Mara Kaufman