#ism lucas

Boxed In, CHcG: best of the best, inaccurate accurate events :))

The events of swtd would take place around the same time as the events of ism. Like, as Desmond’s in the CU, Caz is going through it on the rig.

They escape around the same time as well, with @milestonekestrel ‘s (so sorry for the @) Caz survives AU occurring in correspondence to the everybody lives AU. (If that’s alright of course :O)

Desmond goes back to working as a therapist, in part so he can help monitor the remaining effects of Agent Rainbow, as Lucas, Rosemary, and the rest of the gang do their own parts in helping everyone heal from the event (whether the people affected are aware or not).

The Caz survives AU happens as normal (though things might change depending on if the thing with Billy, Addair, Finlay, all that stuff, happens here). At one point, they end up in America (for whatever reason), in Washington, and, of course, Milton Haven.

Caz is still not doing so great, even with Suze’s (and maybe Billy’s) help, and so, after hearing about Dr. Wales from one of his other patients (in other words, one of the gang figuring out that something’s Not Right with the new guy in town and trying to send him Desmond’s way via his clearly worried partner), Suze gets Caz to give the man a call and see about scheduling an appointment.

And so, Caz ends up in Desmond’s office, and decides, what the hell right? Everybody in town already thinks he’s nuts so why not play into it? It’s not like there aren’t any weirdos in town already, like that lighthouse keeper who talks to shadows, or the girl with long hair who keeps staring at him, and getting mad when he stares back.

Caz tells Desmond everything, and I mean everything. That morning, in the canteen. Getting fired. The helipad, and the drill hitting something. Raffs in the bell, Finlay telling him about Gibbo, his brief encounter with the man, or what was left of him. He talks about the Infected, how they seemed to talk like themselves, knew things only they did, like Addair’s kids, or Trots’ lover on the mainland. He talks about all of it, expecting to be laughed out of the office, or sent away to some looney bin with all the other crazy people who rave on about the monsters of their friends, and colorful goop that twisted their vision, and seeing their dead friends in the corners of their eyes years afterwards.

What he didn’t expect, was a look of sympathy and understanding. For his therapist to call someone mid-session, and for that someone to be over in less than 5 minutes, and bring along the Park Ranger that everybody says is a lunatic.

That someone’s name is Rosemary, a scientist, and the Park Ranger is Lucas, a veteran that’s experienced something very, unsettlingly similar back during his time in the war. They ask him a shite load of questions, like, what did these monsters say (nonsense ramblings), what color was the thing that did all of it (every color, really), what did the monsters look like (they looked… I… w-why am I being interrogated? Who are you?! And who the fuck is that creepy purple cunt in the corner!? He’s - it’s - he’s mocking me!).

Eventually, after a lot of not-explaining and promises of more answers, he goes with them to their base of operations (Lucas’ cabin) to discuss the matter further. The burst of confidence Caz had when he’d gone to Desmond’s office that morning has left him, and he doesn’t really want to recount the details of what happened in the rig. Lucas, Rosemary, Desmond, and the seemingly random people they keep calling seem reluctant to talk about whatever the hell they went through as well. Apparently the government is involved somewhere?

By all accounts, their situations seem to be the same, more or less. Apparently, Lucas had been infected by the thing years and years ago, and Desmond had recently been through his own adventure with it. With his limited information, Caz is able to deduce that Rosemary wasn’t infected, but she’s been working around the Shape for years, until a few years ago. The people they’re calling have all had their own encounters with it.

And suddenly, Caz (and maybe Suze and maybe Billy) isn’t alone in this. There’s a whole group of survivors - hell, a whole town, even if they aren’t aware of it, and they know how to deal with it, to an extent. They’re all infected, this whole damn town is infected, and they’re all more or less going about their normal lives, almost unaffected. At least, the majority of people are almost unaffected.

Desmond, Lucas, the lighthouse keeper Allen, the weird girl Virginia, and an angry, lowkey parental man, Max, they’re all working to mitigate the effects of the Shape in the townsfolk. At least, that’s what Caz has gathered from their half-conversations and their very specific questions.

On the flip side, holy shit, Meyer was a lot more widespread than they thought. Not even Rosemary knew about this, and she was the head researcher at one point! And the poor man’s crew, all killed in an experiment gone horribly wrong (or right, if you ask Meyer, probably). Lucas relates to him with the loss of his platoon and the disbelief from those around him, Desmond relates to him with the long, near hopeless fight for his mind.

Eventually Caz goes home, tells Suze (and maybe Billy) everything (her reaction depends on how far into the Caz survives AU this is), and keeps in touch with the gang (reluctantly). He continues to go to therapy, which, despite the new revelations, is actually helping. Slowly, but it’s helping. Suze (and maybe Billy) are ecstatic, because Caz is getting help and making friends (also slowly). Until the Shape comes knocking once more.

Things change a lot here, depending on where I go with this. Is the Shape really connected with Agent Rainbow and vise versa, or are they separate, yet similar things? Is this farther into the Caz survives AU, or is it not? Either way, someone is getting stuck in the CU, and people are gonna get Infected. Caz and the others are going to have to fight the Shape (again), and they’re also going to have to fight Agent Rainbow (again). And people are going to get hurt.

Bonus points if ghost Finlay is here, and can see and interact with Desmond’s Agent Rainbow. Extra bonus points if Caz can also see him, and Desmond can see Finlay (though that’s mostly if we’re going the "Shape and AR are connected" route). Finlay and AR are always at each other’s throats, and it’s funny (though if AR is "good" or not, is up for debate. Really depends on your definition of "good".).

Even MORE bonus points if Fin and Tonia become support animal besties. Tonia would absolutely hate the pupper at first, but eventually warms up to him. In the CU, she’s just complaining to Desmond about Fin, and Desmond is like okay please let me focus on not going insane during my visit here.

Mega post from me, but oh my cheese mold this is fun to think about. Back when SWTD was just something I half-watched Eddie play on yt, I thought about an AU where it’s the ISM crew going through it on the rig, but now that I’m in the SWTD fandom, having it as a crossover is so fun.

So I made A LOT of ISM doodles XD

yes, most of them are headcanons

In Sound Mind

All my designs for them (I couldn't fit Desmond in there ;-;)

also- I made them after their demises (except Lucas, since he's still alive)

background kinda sucks but I don't care about it that much ;) (the main part are the characters anyway)

There’s about to be a whole lot of misunderstandings… at least he’s got a therapist now, that’s a plus :).

• The welcome mat outside Desmond’s door is see-through, lol.

• In the electronics section in Virginias level, when you stand on top of the cameras, you can double jump. Or at least I could.

• Virginia/Watcher’s head is actually completely cut off from her body, can only really tell when she’s crying in the toy area.

• One of the shopping carts got lodged between two very close shelves at one point, and interacting with it made it go into the floor. One of the wheels is sticking out, and it’s going crazy and it’s hilarious. Can’t get any good pics tho, :(.

• A couple lights at the mart are blue, and they’re right where you need to go. I wonder…….

• Every time you do a tape, the time on the clocks moves up, until they reach midnight at the End. Thought it was a cool detail.

• Tonia liked Virginia in particular, she gave her good scritchies I’m guessing.

• The telescope and chair and stuff on the roof of the Building are from Lucas’ stargazing, can’t believe it took me this long to figure that out DX<.

• In the office, there’s a little hole you can chill in, between the couch and the wall. Hhhooooolllleeeeee!!!

• One of the paintings looks like Micheal Myers, chilling on a chair. That is all.

• The faces in the little crawl space area in Max’s tape, so cool man.

• I was picking up the pill bottle in Max’s tape, y’know the one, and Rainbow walked up to me while I was doing so and said “Feeling lonely yet?” and poofed right after. Like bro I’m about to fight for my life in here gimme a sec will ya?

• There’s an incident report in Allen’s tape about Max’s accident, and I was rereading it when I realized that the "melting road" was never really explained. Like, Allen’s dream about Virginia is feasible I think, but there’s no other explanation given about the road, was there?

• the little game boy things that play music are awesome, and I’m not sure if Desmond/AR has one but if they do lord knows ima find that thing if it’s the last thing I do.

• Not me writing down the names of every minor character mentioned in notes and stuff, so I can make up hc’s about them. For instance, Thomas Khan is a closeted gay man and his favorite pastime is reading bird watching, and Sophia Delatore has like 13 different types of reptiles as pets, with at least 7 of them being different kinds of turtle.

I am so so normal about this game, I swear on my life (crossing fingers very obviously).

Rosemary makes no appearances in Virginias tape, even though she does in every other one, and while I understand that V’s tape is meant as an introduction to what’s coming up, I wanna believe that Rose was there in little subtle ways, like the blue lights so you know where to go in the maze of the store.

I also finally got all of the achievements. All I was missing was "Rodeo Clown" and the whole time I was on the Bull I was just like “where is that damn achievement oh god I’m gonna die”. The Bull spinning in circles trying to get you off is funny to me, idk why it’s just the visual.

One of these days my phone is gonna give up from how many notes I have, solely for this game. I haven’t fallen for a game this hard since, like, Portal, and even then I wasn’t this obsessed with it.

Im at Allen’s tape, like most of the way through, but at the pace I’m going it’ll take forever! And I might not even post it for longer until I’m very, very happy with it. Which will never happen cos I’m a bad writer who struggles to even distinguish between writing with past tense and present tense lmao.

For the, like, three ISM fans that exist outside the devs and stuff, it’ll be on Ao3 when or if I finish it.

• When Allen wakes up in the hospital, he’s greeted by his therapist, some dude with resting asshole face, the supposed town madman, and the girl that he dreamt up dying, who seems to have the same injuries he saw her with. He faints and everyone panics.

• Desmond accidentally scared the shit out of Lucas when he woke up. Lucas is working on something or other, and Desmond slowly sorted up behind him. He looked around for a second, saw Lucas, and asked him where they were. Lucas nearly cut his finger off, reached a never-before heard octave, and Desmond still hasn’t stopped apologizing a year later.

• Lucas went to visit Desmond one day, and found his home empty, even though he should be there. He panics for a couple hours, calling their friends to see if they’ve seen the man, and goes on a wild goose chase around town. In the end, he returns to Desmond’s apartment to check again and finds him. Turns out he was in the basement doing laundry. No one teases Lucas about it, though.

• Virginia gets a part-time job outside of her crafts business, working with Lucas around New Elysium. She doesn’t have to see anyone if she does want to, and she can get some fresh air. A win-win. Except for when she has to hide up in a tree to avoid a forest animal of some sort. Lucas stayed by her side for the rest of her time working with him.

• Max gets his dream job as a mechanic, thanks to Allen, and sometimes takes his daughter to work with him, to teach her the ropes. Turns out, she’s a natural, and vows to work with her dad one day. Max will kill anyone who speaks up about him crying afterwards without mercy.

• Dave has only a vague idea of what went down with Mayer and the government. He doesn’t really want to know. He just wants to make sure his amazing girlfriend is okay. He helps her the best he can after she gets out of the hospital, and stays with her as often as possible before she does, and would not hesitate to throw hands with anyone who looks at her wrong. She’s very flattered, and a little amused.

• Allen isn’t a big drinker, aside from special occasions, but when he does drink, he’s an emotional drunk. Bear hugs, heartfelt speeches, the works.

^ Max is the chill drunk. He mellows out, probably sleeps most of it off. The others have to haul him into bed whenever they go out for drinks.

^ Virginia doesn’t really drink. Whenever she does get drunk, it’s either with her friends, Dave, or just at home. She’s the barely-affected drunk, not even stumbling. Just a little looser with herself, less self-conscious.

^ Lucas is the happy drunk, cracking jokes and laughing at everything and anything. He gets all cuddly and flirty (with Desmond at least) and the others have to pull the drinks away because he forgets that it’s alcohol.

^ Desmond is the sad drunk. He gets all mopey and introspective, and sometimes he gets really frustrated with himself and stuff. He doesn’t drink much as a result.

^ Rosemary is the one who doesn’t drink at all. She never says why, but no one really minds. She doesn’t go out for drinks with them, but they can call her to carpool if they need to.

• For a bit, Rosemary stays off-grid after everything, but keeps contact with Lucas and Desmond. The others aren’t very keen on trusting her just yet, after what she did, but she doesn’t blame that in the slightest. After a while, she starts visiting every once in a while, to see how everyone is doing for herself. Lucas is just happy that’s she’s okay, and Desmond is happy about getting more answers to everything. The others warm up to her eventually. After an even longer while, she settles down in town and gets a job at the library.

• Tonia and Desmond still speak every once in a while, if he’s able to return to the CU after waking up (which would make since, if we’re entertaining the “brain absorbed the chemical” theory), and these talks help a lot with his mental health. He still doesn’t like the idea of going to a professional himself, but it’s fine. Probably.

^ The others try to convince him to see a therapist other than himself or his cat, but whatever happened in his past still keeps him from doing so.

^ Everyone else is seeking therapy, even Max.

• Allen has a mild nut allergy, and never tells anyone because “it’s not really that important”. One time, he and Virginia were having lunch at his house, and he accidentally eats something with nuts in it. Virginia absolutely freaks out, and almost calls an ambulance for him. They don’t tell the others about the incident, and it becomes an inside joke between them.