Lets Make A Twisted Small Town

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

For some reason, that reminds me of The Harper Valley PTA song.

I'm guessing that in this case, Widow Jones keeps her window shades completely down without any encouragement...

<edit>dammit, got Johnson and Jones the wrong way about... thought that one was too good...

[jason taylor]

John Smith is a janitor at the school. He always has been, and apparently always will be.

Secret: John Smith is the town's Genus Loci.

[Phantasm]

A bit of a paranormal twist for the town, use as needed:

Dr. Rick Thompson is the town's general practitioner, a small-town doctor with an affected Southern accent and a pleasing bedside manner. His son, Jack, is the local high school's starting quarterback. Dr. Thompson claims his wife died of complications during a "routine" surgery at the hospital he used to work at, which is why he "retired" to being a small-town doctor. He even makes house calls!

Their secret: Dr. Thompson's wife, Vicki, is a flesh-eating zombie he keeps chained up in the basement as he researches a cure. She was a medical researcher looking into a cure for leukemia when one of her potential "cures" mutated. He moved away from the big city to a small town in order to keep the damage to a minimum should she infect him or Jack - or get loose.

In a more mundane Harper Valley PTA/Twin Peaks twisted town, Mrs. Thompson really is dead; one day she just went murderously insane, resulting in Rick and Jack having to kill her.


(Honestly, I prefer the impending zombie apocalypse secret... we've got too many mundane killers in this town already.)

[Kromm]

We have quite a few killers, but "twisted" doesn't have to mean "homicidal." To round things out a little, here are some folks who aren't murderous.

—

Matt Lawrie runs the service station on the south side of town. "Gas, tires, shocks, and brakes / Lawrie's boys got what it takes!" Many locals fill up there simply because heading out to Winkler's truck stop to save a few cents per gallon isn't worth the hassle of entering and exiting a busy highway. Lawrie's also has a surprisingly successful used-car lot attached.

His secret? In his downtime, Matt dresses up as a clown – a terrifying clown. JT's transgenic pollen awakens homicidal mania in some, but Matt's "abnormal psychology" is just a giggling love of freaking people out. He chooses rainy or foggy nights, when visibility is low; he loves to liven up grainy security footage, but he occasionally lurks in one of the town's parks or on the side of the highway. Serenity Falls has a lot of clown sightings, and they're mostly Matt – mostly.

Of course, given the sheer number of killers in Serenity Falls, it's probably only a matter of time before somebody shoots the clown or hits him with a car. Then "killed ol' Matt" will become that person's secret. And that might not mean the end of the clown sightings . . .

—

Hamish "Ham" Duggan is one of Lawrie's handful of employees. He has an appalling sense of fashion and a bizarre sense of humor – in fact, a lot of people think he's the clown. But he's just a used-car salesman, running Mat's lot. You'd think that would be a boring job in a small town, especially a small town where quite a few people have money and prefer new cars, but business always seems to be booming.

His secret? Business is booming because many of the people drifting into town, hiding bodies, and generally being sketchy want to acquire or get rid of cars in a hurry. Ham doesn't know about their crimes, but he has a good memory for faces, and occasionally finds strange stuff when cleaning cars for sale: a little blood here, some strange white powder there, a cartridge casing under the seat, even a picture of JFK one time.

Like his boss, his activities make him a target. Sooner or later, somebody is going to decide the car they sold wasn't "clean" enough – or worse, some enterprising soul is going to find a vehicle that one of the town's psychos used in a crime and then abandoned, and sell it to Ham. Then he'll know too much.

—

Lise Duggan (née Perrault) is Hamish's wife, originally from Louisiana. She puts up with Ham's tacky clothing and tackier humor because the same charm that helps Ham sell cars makes it hard not to like him anyway. She draws the line at "Ham and Lise sandwich" jokes, though. She's a stay-at-home mom, and looks after her twins, Sylvie and Roch (yes, she did the naming).

Her secret? Sylvie and Roch are artistically talented, but not in a normal way. After meeting townsfolk, they draw portraits . . . which all too often show horrific details, like bloody knives in hand or sad little faces peering out of attic windows. Lise keeps these hidden away from everybody, including Ham. She hasn't decided whether to show them to a psychologist.

Eventually, like any good mom, Lise probably will want to talk to somebody about the kids' drawings. At which point the children will doubtless end up exposed to one of the town's numerous creeps. What would happen next is anybody's guess, but if it were bad, Lise would ask her two beefy brothers back on the bayou for help. Loïc and Bastien aren't killers, but they're definitely hoodlums.

[AlexanderHowl]

Elizabeth Wilder is the captain of the cheerleading squad at Serenity Falls Senior High School. With raven hair, gray eyes, and dark skin, everyone thinks that she is adopted because she does not resemble the rest of her family but her features comes from her father, who is Souix and Finnish, and her mother, who is Lenape and Norwegian. She is surprisingly kind for a cheerleader and a senior and she is popular because she is compassionate and kind to everyone.

Secret: Elizabeth suffers from a controllable form of psychosis, but the drugs that she takes to control her insanity supresses her natural genius. When she stops taking her drugs, her IQ increases from 12 to 16, and she gains High Pain Threshold and Berserk (12), Impulsiveness (12), and Xenophilia (12).

Dark Secret: During her freshman year, Elizabeth went off her medications and ended up pregnant with twins. Her parents adopted the twin girls as their own and moved the family from NYC to Serenity Falls to allow Elizabeth a new start. Unknown to her parents but known to Elizabeth, the twin girls are the basted children of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, who encountered Elizabeth at a diplomatic party that she had crashed during her psychotic period. For one week, she entertained the Crown Prince before he left NYC.

[Phantasm]

Don't we allready have a head cheerleader?

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Diane Carraccio is the all-American girl next door: a blonde, blue-eyed, beautiful, head cheerleader, chorus soloist, straight-A honors high school senior who recently turned eighteen.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Elizabeth Wilder is the captain of the cheerleading squad at Serenity Falls Senior High School. With platinum hair, blue hair, and tanned skin, everyone thinks that she is as fake as Barbie because she does not resemble the rest of her family but her features comes from her father, who is Souix and Finnish, and her mother, who is Lenape and Norwegian. She is surprisingly kind for a cheerleader and a senior and she is popular because she is compassionate and kind to everyone.

Secret: Elizabeth suffers from a controllable form of psychosis, but the drugs that she takes to control her insanity supresses her natural genius. When she stops taking her drugs, her IQ increases from 12 to 16, and she gains High Pain Threshold and Berserk (12), Impulsiveness (12), and Xenophilia (12).

Dark Secret: During her freshman year, Elizabeth went off her medications and ended up pregnant with twins. Her parents adopted the twin girls as their own and moved the family from NYC to Serenity Falls to allow Elizabeth a new start. Unknown to her parents but known to Elizabeth, the twin girls are the basted children of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, who encountered Elizabeth at a diplomatic party that she had crashed during her psychotic period. For one week, she entertained the Crown Prince before he left NYC.

So which is it?

[AlexanderHowl]

Obviously, there is a Serenity Falls Senior High School for the children of the townsfolk and a Serenity County Senior High School for the children of the countryfolk. Diane Carraccio is the head cheerleader of Serenity County Senior High School while Elizabeth Wilder is the head cheerleader of Serenity Falls Senior High School. While Diane and Elizabeth often find themselves on opposite sides of the court during games, they are actually best friends.

Elizabeth is the only person who knows about Diane's pregnancy other than Jack and Diane knows that Elizabeth's twin sisters are actually her daughters. Elizabeth is trying to convince Diane to come clean to her parents, so that Diane's parents can adopt Diane's child and raise the child as their own. In addition, Elizabeth knows about the murder because she was in the city visiting her maternal grandparents and helped Diane hide the body (Elizabeth had forgotten her meds, so she had entered one of her psychotic phases, which was one of the reasons why Diane was not caught).

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Don't we allready have a head cheerleader?




So which is it?

As to that, I'm prepared to allow two high schools. The national average in the United States is about .2 high schools per 1,000 inhabitants, and Serenity Falls has about 10,000 inhabitants. However I would prefer it if the rival cheer captains aren't clones of each other. Yes blue-eyed blonde is the stereotype but...

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

As to that, I'm prepared to allow two high schools. The national average in the united states is about .2 high schools per 1,000 inhabitants, and Serenity Falls has about 10,000 inhabitants. However I would prefer it if the rival cheer captains aren't clones of each other. Yes blue-eyed blonde is the stereotype but...

Gimme a few to make Diane a brunette....

[AlexanderHowl]

I do not think that they are clones, but more psychological reflections of each other. Diane is a normal girl who is becoming corrupted by her sense of power over the people in her life (and by the sense of power that comes from taking a life). Elizabeth is a lunatic who wants a normal life and is willing to sacrifice her genius by taking anti-psychotics so powerful that they reduce her intelligence by four standard deviations.

However, I would not mind changing Elizabeth to a raven-haired beauty with gray eyes that turn from slate to steel when she is off her meds. Her dark skin comes from her Native American heritage, one-quarter Lenape and one-quarter Sioux, and her gray eyes come from her European heritage (one-quarter Finnish and one-quarter Swedish). She could be the head cheerleader of North Serenity Falls while Diane would be the head cheerleader of South Serenity Falls (or East versus West). I will do it right now.