Young Writers Society

Welcome to Charming Acres.

By all accounts, Charming Acres is a peaceful little town that never has any sort of trouble. It's not that any trouble that arises is swiftly dealt with. The trouble just never appears in the first place. It's clear to the people of Charming Acres why no one would want to cause trouble - everyone is happy there! There's always something new to do: you can swing by the cafe, the theater always plays the best films, and the library always has new books on the shelves.

But something is wrong with Charming Acres.

Charming Acres is a peaceful little town set in the 50s. Your character comes from a time and place that isn't an American suburb from the 50s. Even more so, you don't know how you suddenly got to Charming Acres, or why you're dressed in clothing that makes you look like you're from the 50s. You can try asking other people there what's going on, but they'll just give you strange looks.

There are others like you. But will you be able to find them, and find a way out of Charming Acres?



Please read the rules down below if you want to join the roleplay! They should clear up any questions you might have and also let you know what to expect.

1. Please include a description of your character in your first post - you can throw it into a spoiler using the code down below and put it at the top of your post.

Code: Select all

[spoiler]Put your description here![/spoiler]

2. Feel free to pick characters from whatever you want. They can be from another roleplay, a storybook, a novel or even a fanfiction of yours. The world, time and plot they're from ultimately just impacts how they interact with this roleplay (like how long it's been since the 1950s in their story) so it's really up to you.

3. You can have as many characters as you want, but there'll come a point where you can no longer add new ones because it would alter the plot too much. I'll make sure to say something when that happens, so don't worry about it for now.

4. Please don't write for anyone else's characters. It's hard to predict what someone else might have their characters do, and it takes away some of the fun for the other writers.

5. You're free to have your character guess what the plot is, but don't make any plot-altering decisions with talking about with me first. You can PM me or chat in the spoilers of our posts if you have an idea - I love scheming! I just want to make sure your schemes can be incorporated into what I'm already scheming.

6. Don't post multiple times in a row, and make sure everyone has a chance to get a response in. There's going to be times where it makes more sense to post back-and-forth between two people, but try avoiding it unless you absolutely have to - it prevents the other writers from getting too behind and feeling like they aren't involved with the story.

7. Have fun!

Harper was on the side of the road. That was the first thing she noticed. She had not been on the side of the road a few moments before. She had, in fact, been on her way to a meeting.

The meeting.

Oh, no, she couldn't be missing that. She looked around. Her grimoire was on the ground, in the dirt and the dust. Her eyes widened when she saw that and she snatched it up quickly and dusted it off. That was when she noticed the sign.

Welcome to Charming Acres

She wrinkled her nose and clutched her book to her chest, only to noticed that she wasn't in the clothes she'd been wearing before. A pink dress with white polka dots now clung tightly around her waist and flared out with layers of petticoats underneath, reaching past her knees.

She gasped when she first saw it, then pressed her lips together, her nose crinkled in an expression of disgust.

Where are my clothes?!

Adam first realized something was wrong when he saw what he was wearing. The shirt, it wasn't ugly perse, but he certainly didn't own a shirt like it. He'd been on his way to pick up Rachel from her ballet recital and take her out for her ice cream.
That was what was nice about living in Altadena. It was essentially living in Los Angeles, but with a small town feel.

He'd spaced out for a moment when he'd noticed the shirt. Just then, a sky blue Cadillac, probably a '57 model, drove by. Adam remembered the car well from his childhood. Once, he and his father were at the dealer and they'd seen a car just like the Cadillac that had just drove by. Adam asked if they could test that one.

"No," his father had said. "That's for rich people."

Adam shook his head at the memory and turned back to the sidewalk when he noticed the sign.



What on earth? Before he could ponder the answer to that question, he caught a glimpse of the rest of his outfit. He'd never dress like this. His khaki pants were high waisted, and his dark brown hair was slicked back with gel. He wore shiny black oxford shoes. Even his father never dressed like this back in the day.

What was going on?

The last thing that Quinn remembered was laying down on the bed in their motel room. Issac had just sat down in the chair and was reading through the information on their next case, and Gabriel was absentmindedly flipping through the channels on the other bed. It had been the first time all week that they had really gotten to relax, and Quinn had just been grateful for the chance to breath.

But now she was standing near a fountain in front of what looked like a diner, wearing an outfit that felt wrong in multiple ways. She glanced down to see what she was wearing. The sight of the dress was the first sign that something was seriously off, but the style and color clued her in to something else being at play.

She looked up.

"Am I in an episode of Doctor Who?" she whispered, staring at the 1950s-esque town before her. She should have asked Issac and Gabriel if time travel was a thing that existed.

Unsure of what was going on - but knowing that she had to try figuring it out, even if she was online - she left the diner behind to explore the rest of the town. She could return there later.

She wasn't sure how to approach the possibility of being from another time, so she didn't. She just observed, waiting for someone to say or do something that would give her the hint that she needed. People in the town didn't seem all that fond of her, anyways - they kept giving her strange looks when they saw her wandering around on her own.

She finally found someone potentially helpful in the form of a man staring at his reflection in a storefront. He was messing with every aspect of it - the top of the sweater vest, the collar of his shirt and the glasses he was wearing were all fair game.

Something about him seemed familiar, but she couldn't put her finger on what.

"Excuse me?" she asked, tapping him on the shoulder.

The man turned around.

He stared at her.

She stared at him.

"Q?"

"Gabriel?"

He gave her a look. "I didn't recognize you in that dress."

She eagerly returned it. "I didn't recognize you in that." She had no idea how to describe the outfit. Whatever it was, it was wholly un-Gabriel. There wasn't a single splash of black on the entire thing, and the glasses with the sweater vest made him almost look tame.

"Have you find Issac?" he asked.

She shook her head. "You're the first person I found who didn't give me a funny look - I think everyone else knows I'm not from here."

"That, or they think it's weird that you're walking around by yourself," Gabriel pointed out. "It's been awhile since it was the 50s, but you're a teenage girl with not adult supervision. It's a recipe waiting for disaster."

Quinn gave a small nod. She would have given more of a reply, but she was already thinking of a joke she could make at Gabriel's expense. It's what he deserved for scaring her all of the time. "So you can pretend to be my dad, then? Your clothes do look the part..."

Gabriel froze.


The missing member of their trio wasn't nearly as lucky as the other two that had been whisked into Charming Acres - not that he knew it. Instead, Issac found himself suddenly standing on the edge of an unfamiliar town wearing unfamiliar clothes. The clothes themselves were something he was used to, but this clothes didn't belong to him.

Issac frowned. The frown didn't look quite right, but Issac tried not to focus on that.

Instead, he turned his attention to the girl standing a short distance away from him. The pendant she had dangling around her neck looked almost familiar - in a general way, and not in a remotely specific one - and the dusty volume in her hands was undoubtedly a grimoire.

"Hello," he said, giving her a smile that failed to live up to expectations. "I'm Issac - are you a witch?"

This wasn't his reality. The reality of his parents, maybe. But even those towns in Montana where he'd spent his early childhood weren't like this. This was too pristine, too perfect. It was kind of life peddled by shows like Leave it to Beaver and Dennis the Menace and movies like Back to the Future that so many people believed to be true. Except, it wasn't.

Suddenly, Adam remembered an old episode of The Twilight Zone. He couldn't remember what the episode was called, but a man had gotten lost while on a walk and rediscovered the town he'd grown up in, the way it was when he was a child. This reminded him eerily of that. The man had been returned to the present day when faced with his younger self, who he told to let his childhood pass him by.

Except Adam hadn't ever really had an idyllic childhood, but before the divorce, before everything had come out about his father, things had at least been good. He'd loved his dad. Wanted to be more like him.

He turned and saw two people. A man in a suit and a younger woman in a dress. They looked to be lost too, but maybe that was just wishful thinking. Still, he took a chance.

"Excuse me?" He said. "I take it you two aren't from around here."

He hadn't realized that someone else was present nearby, but Issac was good at masking his surprise - especially with a face that refused to show the emotions of its owner to their full extent.

"I'm not from here," he confirmed with a little duck of his head. He was still trying to concoct a story explaining how he could end up somewhere without knowing how when he realized how out-of-place the clothing they were all wearing was. He hadn't realized it before due to how little suits had changed since then, but the clothes the other two were wearing looked like they were from the 1950s.

He glanced back at the sign.

Then his gaze slowly traveled to the town. He could just barely make out the outfits people were wearing, and the details of the town itself. But the town looked like it was also from the 1950s. If he was so sure that time travel wasn't a thing that existed, he would have thought he had been sent to the past.

"Are you from here?" he asked, turning his attention back to the man.


It took Gabriel another moment to recover.

"No to the dad," he said, shaking his head and holding up a hand in protest. "Being an ageless being has its perks - I'm not going to age myself up to look like your dad. But I do have an alternative."

He glanced around.

Seeing nowhere too nearby, he grabbed Quinn by the wrist and dragged her into the nearest alleyway. The change happened so quickly that she almost missed it. Blond hair darkened into a brown that was just a few shades away from her own black hair, and the eyes peeking out from behind his glasses went from blue to a green that was identical to her own.

"Come on, little sis," he said, dragging her back out into the street. She still couldn't get over him changing his appearance - Issac was a constant. Gabriel, for the most part, was, too, but his changes usually involved minor things.

Not making himself look like they could be related.

They didn't get far before Gabriel skid to a stop.

There were a group of three people standing on the outskirts of the town. She could barely make them out from where they were standing, but Gabriel immediately perked up and started heading towards them. Quinn had to run to keep up.

"Hey, Issac!" he said.

One member of the trio - who, despite wearing an unfamiliar suit, was easy to recognize - turned and stared at the two. Understanding seemed to dawn on him a moment later, and he didn't even protest when Gabriel slung his arm around his shoulder.

Quinn caught her breath when she was standing beside them.

"Hi, Issac," she said, taking in a big gulp of air.

"Hi Quinn," Issac said. He looked over at Gabriel. "And hi, Gabriel - did you change your hair?"

Gabriel grinned. "You like it? You look good in that suit, by the way. It fits you."

Harper blinked. At first, she'd been stunned to be called a witch. She was, but that wasn't the point. People weren't supposed to be able to tell just at a glance. But then the other man had spoken and the others showed up and she couldn't get an answer in.

She watched the group reunite and walked up to them, noticing with disdain that she was wearing toe-pinching kitten-heeled pink shoes in the process. As a result, her steps were wobbly and she almost fell sideways after one particularly badly placed step. The heels were too thin. There was practically nothing to them at all!

Setting that aside to deal with later, she tapped the man who had pegged her as a witch on the shoulder. "I'm sorry, hi, I'm Harper, how, exactly, did you know about, well, that I'm a witch?" she asked in confusion.

Gabriel pulled away from Issac.

"You found a witch?" he asked, looking Harper over. "She doesn't exactly look like one."

Quinn and Issac both gave him a look.

Right now, Gabriel didn't exactly look like what he was, either. He seemed to get it from their expressions a second later, and held his hands up in mock surrender. Then Issac turned his attention back to Harper, giving her a smile that didn't look quite right.

"I saw your grimoire," he said, "and your pendant. I don't know either one specifically, but I've seen similar ones before."

Her grip tightened around her grimoire. "Oh. How do you recognize them? Are you a witch? Do you have a coven? Because I don't know how I got here and none of this is really in my wheelhouse when it comes to where my more mystical skills lie and I was just on my way to a meeting with my, er, group, and I really can't miss it completely. I can't really be late either, but I guess I don't have a choice on that matter anymore and I really need to get out of this blasted dress and these stupid heels before I break an ankle and my point is-" she paused to take a breath, "-do you have any idea how I can get back home?"