ribboncutter

Acts
Act 1 (Pre-nap)
Span of time
3 years, 4th grade to 6th grade
Mint from ages 9-10 to 12-13
Locations
Foamfield
Foamfield Elementary
Foamfield Jr. High
Character introductions
Mint
Sunrosa
Parasite
Character deaths
1. Sunrosa (in the transition between acts)
Act 2 (Post-nap)
Span of time
Undecided, multiple years (anywhere from 3 to 6)
Locations
Foamfield
Foamfield Quarry
Mint's home
Other various unnamed areas of the American midwest
Character introductions
Mailwash
Act 3
Span of time: Undecided (not very long)
Undecided, though not very long
Locations
Foamfield
Foamfield Quarry
Wrestling ring
* Character deaths
1. Sunrosa (in Mint's mind)
2. Mailwash
3. Mint
4. Parasite

Mint's progression of character archetypes
* Mint S. Decot -> Stagnant -> Investigator -> Antagonist

Chronological progression of events

  • ACT 1

  • Young Mint and Sunrosa's story begins in the 4th grade (age 9-10)

    • Mint: Timid girl who has just started her transition, desperate to fit in and make friends but frequently ends up alone. In her own head a lot.
      • Mint feels already distant from her family, they appear blurrier and blurrier to her as she ages. She has 4 siblings and her parents, and a pet she doesn't really care for. She never thinks about their names or what they do. Enjoys drawings and making comics, comes up with this entire inner universe she adds onto every day as a way of coping with the stresses of school.
    • Sunrosa: Girl further into her transition, who's more confident in herself than Mint, but not carefree, who aspires to be a scientist, who has been through a lot, and finds Mint weird initally
      • Sunrosa was an only child. She felt incredibly alone most of her life, her parents have also divorced at some point, leaving her only with her mother. Her mother is overprotective of her.
  • Mint wakes up from a nap in the middle of class. She's embarassed about it but the teacher is just concerned more than anything.

    • Eventually just shows how anxious Mint starts out off the bat. A frail anxious girl who is in her first year of living as her actual gender.
  • Mint meets Sunrosa

    • They are both sat at the same lunch table and eventually start to make conversation with each other after a few days
    • Both bond over being trans
    • Mint's appreciation for nature and exploration compliments Sunrosa's love for science and animals
    • Sunrosa and Mint are reluctantly paired up with each other in class frequently
      • Mint awkwardly invites Sunrosa to her birthday party where Mint falls asleep and Sunrosa chokes on extremely thick cheese from pizza
  • Mint's obsessesion over disasters, natural disasters mostly, is shown with the drawings in her journal

    • Seemingly wishing for a natural disaster to happen in her area, foreshadowing the nap
  • Mint and Sunrosa meet Parasite

    • Sunrosa befriends Parasite
    • The two share a very strange but strong bond together. Though sometimes she scares Sunrosa a bit.
    • Sunrosa introduces Mint to Parasite, who which she does not initally get along with at all
    • Over time Mint and Parasite's differences tear Sunrosa from Parasite
    • Parasite grows bitter and begins antagonizing Mint and Sunrosa
  • Parasite steals a book out of Mint's backpack during Mint and Sunrosa's first meeting

    • She finds this out long after she has reluctantly become friends with her
  • Sunrosa watches a horrifying thing happen along with Mint, they swear never to tell anyone about it and this ties the two of them together permanently

    • IDEA 1: They find someone chained up in a cage outside and befriend them even though the chained up person keeps asking them to kill them. Sunrosa and Mint both agree to do so.
    • IDEA 2: Mint and Sunrosa find a girl who is running away from her family. It is clear that this girl has learning disabilities. They both keep this girl company while thinking of how they could contact her parents. Eventually this girl runs away from Mint and Sunrosa and they both later see her on the news as a missing person report. Days later Mint and Sunrosa both watch a news report that says the girl's body was found in a lake. They don't tell anyone about when they saw her.
    • IDEA 3: Mint and Sunrosa both find a very unusual looking rabbit in the forest that looks like it had been mauled by a much larger animal. The rabbit is very obviously suffering greatly, and so Mint and Sunrosa both kill it and bury it.
    • IDEA 4: Mint and Sunrosa both befriend someone and they all go exploring the nearby mountainside where they find an open mine shaft. The person they meet accidentally falls into the mine and is never seen or heard from again. Mint and Sunrosa are too afraid of getting in trouble so they both keep what happened a secret to them.
      • Expansion upon idea: Parasite is given a human name to start. She has no halo, a normal face with the ability to emote. She falls into the mine shaft and is abandoned by Mint and Sunrosa. She vows her revenge, even after death.
      • Alternatively: Mint and Sunrosa can push young Parasite into the mine shaft. This idea, while being tragic and shocking, is a bit incompatible with the idea of the parasite in Parasite's mouth being a punishment to her. It could also be that the parasite in her mouth is the manifestation of pure hatred for Mint and Sunrosa.
  • Mint and Sunrosa develop feelings for each other, falling for each other and spending all of their time together

    • It is clear they are both dating by the time the Nap happens, many little cute happenings between them for a long while
    • They both care for some bunnies in a ditch behind their school's playground
    • Share a cute first kiss moment
  • Hide and seek/separation moment

    • IDEA 1: Hide and seek - Rosa and Mint play hide and seek, Mint tells Rosa to go hide and then while searching for her The Nap happens
    • IDEA 2: Moving away - Mint learns that Rosa is moving away the day after the last day of 5th grade. They take their last walk home together and it comes time for Rosa to go her separate way, possibly forever, Mint says goodbye and is left standing alone. She starts to walk home and the road back home really starts to seem longer and longer to her. It's too difficult to continue. She finds a bench and lays down, getting sleepier and sleepier looking up at the leaves.
  • ACT 2

  • The Nap (aka: The Event)

    • What happens to the world
      • World is sent into chaos
      • Time gets loose, events fade into each other, surreal coloring, loud and quiet
      • Rabbits appear as a sort of godly managers to the mortal world, shown operating a factory where particles are made, seemingly put together like a cooking dish but glowing and ethereal, food items representing vast parts of humanity
      • Real life footage of industrial food preparation, mushy amalgamations of life being prepared into products, the end products being pushed out into space, into the air, the ground, the water, everywhere
      • Continued end of everything, people dissolving into things, animals fusing together, the entire world being turned to cloth, people's facial expressions turning to cloth and falling off their faces, the cloth all mending together, a complete blanket made of the fabric of everything, burning from every corner at once, smoldering, the ashes flying away into nothing, the world taking a nap
      • What is left is an oddly calming lonely world, everything looking as if it had been 100 years rotting
      • Humans seem to have nonsensical parts growing from them now. Halos, horns, wings
      • A sizable percentage of humans have been "blankified", being sealed into their surroundings, with the material of cloth overlaid, lifeless forever, their faces in complete fear and agony
    • What happens to Mint and Sunrosa
      • To be filled in here
    • What happens to Parasite
      • For the horrible things she did, The Nap grants her a curse
      • The rabbit gods force her mouth open, put a disgusting pulsating black creature into Parasite's mouth, then shuts it and removes her mouth
      • Leaves her unable to scream or yell, can only talk at a monotone voice, barely audible
      • The parasite inside of Parasite's mouth causes her so much pain and so much misery, and she feels that one day its destined to get out, and she knows that it will be horrible and everyone will suffer
    • Mailwash and Parasite bit
      • Letters and packages flood the entire sea, some of them washing up on the shore of a beach where a marriage is happening
      • The most perfect wedding you could ever imagine happens, everything in white, so bright it's hard to see, Mailwash and Parasite both stare each other in the eyes
  • Post-Nap Foamfield is introduced (The entire post-Nap plot takes place over 6 years or so)

    • Mint is reintroduced to the viewer
      • This is where Mint becomes her Stagnant form
      • Mint's daily routine is shown
      • Has a little garden and a cute cottage home
      • Very lonely but happy for the most part, though you feel that something is off
        • You see it in her eyes, the way she looks empty
    • Avoids any of the horrifying parts, what happened to all of the people, how truly horrifying it is to be blankified and how horrifying it is to find a person who has been blankified.
    • It seems the world has just returned to nature just a tiny bit more, the viewer unaware of just how much the world has changed in reality
  • Parasite in her true power is introduced and built upon (Parasite's first lifetime)

    • A total trainwreck nightmare of a lifetime, just generally distraught and unable to cope with the state of the world and herself
    • Commits suicide
    • A figure in a black raincoat appears at a graveyard and leaves a love letter on Parasite's grave
  • Mailwash is introduced

    • Shown delivering mail to Mint, very friendly neighborhood mailperson Mailwash
    • Sometimes has conversations with Mint sitting at her table for coffee
  • Mint recalls Sunrosa and the happiest times they had together while having a conversation with Mailwash

    • She trails off on the story
    • Mailwash asks where Sunrosa is, Mint doesn't answer, changes the subject
    • Mint is bothered internally that she hasn't seen Sunrosa in a while, despite being lovers. This sentiment grows over time.
    • It is made clear that this longing for Sunrosa is affecting her mental health
  • The very night, Sunrosa wakes up in Sunrosa Care Center

    • Sunrosa Care Center only exists in Mint's mind, her ideal future for Sunrosa where she became the scientist she had always wanted to be
    • Sunrosa Care Center is lightly peppered with the ongoings of Mint's current life
    • Sunrosa, whose character trends toward being more carefree over time, gets eventually tied down by the creatures she synthesizes. Her character shifts from being carefree toward being motherly.
    • Sunrosa hears the angels screaming in the sky, aware of a light that exists within it that she hopes to understand one day
  • For a reason the viewer doesn't know, Mint begins to search the tunnel at the bottom of the quarry for Sunrosa

    • This is where Stagnant becomes Investigator.
    • The deeper into her tunnel she gets the more otherworldly it becomes, she sees tunnels and hallways, manmade things, hears people, House of Leaves, as she continues to dig her way through obstacles and work things out in her mind
    • Interacts with Sunrosa Care Center, always bittersweet as they are daydreams in the end
    • Imagines Sunrosa as being with her during her digs, helping her along and being supportive to Mint when she gets tired
  • Parasite dies again later

    • Mailwash writes her a letter, the letter is shown and the full extent of Mailwash's power
    • Something in this sparks a growing hatred for Mint
  • Mint remembers Loveche, visits her grave

    • Sees a love letter left on Parasite's grave
    • Flash back to Parasite being the cause of all of her problems (This needs to be expanded upon. See iss2.), possibly even the cause of The Nap, filled with so much rage, so much sudden fear too now that she knows that someone cares about Parasite this much
  • Mint's search continues to be futile

    • Mint finds herself in another dangerous situation
      • Near-death situation that is jarring to her
    • Continual development of delusions
      • Almost ritual-like dedication to Sunrosa, including occasional blood sacrifices, unable to even entertain the fact that Sunrosa is gone forever
      • Finding things that look vaguely like Sunrosa and collecting them, believing they're hers or signs that she's here
      • Leirosa
    • Gradual shift toward violence and instability
      • Sometimes hurts herself in frustration
    • Has seem to have completely forgotten about her garden
      • Her garden is shown rotting, flies circling plants with blood
    • Home has fallen into disrepair
      • Roof is sagging, rooms flooded, holes in the walls
  • Mint decides to dig one last time to find Sunrosa in the tunnel, her mind completely dead at the point when she walks down the tunnel with her tools, the tunnel itself no longer looking as fantastical, just a dirt tunnel

    • Parasite discovers that Mint is not only alive, but that she now threatens the one person she loves
    • Parasite finds where Mint lives
    • Parasite follows Mint into a tunnel and beats her half to death, leaving her just barely alive
      • This is where Investigator becomes Antagonist.
  • ACT 3

  • In Mint's unconscious mind: Sunrosa Care Center: Sunrosa suffers, loses everything, all of the shrimps, everything, pushed to her limit

  • The Sunrosa Care Center narrative gets more surreal leading up to and beyond this point, taking place (in Mint's head) in parallel to Mint's narrative, getting more fucked up as Mint's psychology gets more fucked up. (See Passages/Derailment.txt)

    • Summary
      • The singing sky transforms into a screaming sky.
      • The sky shifts in color.
      • The artstyle shifts.
        • Sunrosa's hair gets darker over time. (Not just when the screaming starts)
      • Parasite's violence upon Mint is reflected upon Sunrosa's world in subtleties (Mint's trauma seeps into Sunrosa's world.).
      • Some things Sunrosa notices; other things she does not. Nonetheless, the shift in atmosphere comes with a parallel shift in Sunrosa's psychology. Terror gradually wells up within her. Nothing is right (House of Leaves surrealism). She hates it. She's going crazy! The world is going crazy! What of it is Sunrosa's psychology, and what of it is truly reality (What is reality in the first place!?)!?
      • The care center is alive.
        • Sunrosa listens in on her wall while looking for studs from which to hang something (or to hear whether something is on the other side or not). All she hears is a pulsating heart.
        • Sunrosa knocks a wall down and it starts bleeding.
          • Blood hallway (in reference to The Shining)
    • Chronological timeline
      • She wakes up shivering. She thinks she has a problem with her furnace, but in reality, the world is just drastically colder. The ground is blanketed with deep snow. It's completely silent, something very unfamiliar (the angels' chorus in the sky stops).
      • In the middle of the night, as Sunrosa's sleeping, the angels' chorus abruptly resumes, but it's no longer singing; it's screaming.
      • She wakes up immediately and rushes out the door (Maybe she would be more cautious than this.). The sky has shifted from its usual pale green, to a noisy blend of hot pink and deep red.
        • I want to illustrate these two events (the screaming beginning, and the sky shifting color) in a video. There should be a shot of the Care Center, at night, and calm. The shot lingers on the still frame for twenty seconds, before, in the space of one frame, the sky shifts color completely, and the screaming starts abruptly.
      • Sunrosa panics, her scientist's curiosity and intuition, and even her inner peace, replaced by terror. She runs back inside and hides, screaming contiguously between breaths, ironically alongside the chorus, from under her blankets.
      • She emerges from her blankets, hours later, hair noticeably darker and messier than before, eyes significantly more defeated than before, with dark bags hanging under them. She says nothing. She returns to bed, trying to pretend it was all a dream, but well aware that it isn't.
      • She gradually deteriorates psychologically as the terror fills every vacant crevice of her mind.
      • Under the constant screaming, she begins to pick up on a fainter sound, more audible in particular rooms, rooms that are deeper in the Care Center. It's a rhythmic thumping sound, around the pace of a beating heart. She grabs her stethoscope and brings it to the wall. It is a beating heart.
      • Her hair gets darker.
      • Like the screaming, she initially attempts to ignore it. She doesn't go back to hide in her bed, though. She just continues about her day like she never discovered it in the first place.
      • The layout of the Care Center shifts around periodically. At first, Sunrosa believes floor plan shifts to be a slip of her memory, but as the shifts become more drastic, she can no longer ignore them.
      • Her hair gets darker.
      • She thinks back to the beating heart, something she buried so deep, she had completely forgotten. The Care Center is alive.
      • Her hair gets darker.
      • She uses a sledgehammer to knock down the wall with which she listened with her stethoscope (which was beating the loudest). It only takes one hit before the entire wall is overcome by the pressure of an ocean of blood and guts, flooding down the hallway as she sprints away (just like The Shining!).
      • The Care Center situation has gotten so drastic that Sunrosa can no longer ignore any of it. She goes outside, and looks to the sky. It's terrifying, but it hasn't changed since the screaming began, and because it hasn't changed, it's better than the Care Center, because it's predictable. She would never go back to the Care Center. She desperately grabbed a couple shrimpules, wrapped them in a couple of blankets, and carried them out with her. She would be abandoning the rest of her creatures without even saying goodbye. (This is a very important parallel to Mint completely abandoning her search for Sunrosa to try and kill Parasite.)
      • Her hair gets darker.
      • They sit under a tree in the cold, slowly dying. A grim realization hits Sunrosa. She ponders it, sobbing. Time is running out. She removes the two blankets from the two shrimpules, and wraps them around herself. (Desperately fleeing to a snowy wasteland like this is an unintentionally close parallel to The Shining. I don't intend to change it.)
      • Her hair is black.
      • Sunrosa dies (see below: "Sunrosa dies in Mint's mind"), not of cold, but of death of the soul.
  • Mint can wrestle with what happened to her from within for a bit, all of it being a compartmentalization of Mint's problems, it all fades eventually though and leaves her with a clarity when she wakes

  • Mint wakes up from her beating the next day

    • Mint recovers somewhat from her injuries and Mailwash notices how much pain she's in
    • She knocks on Mint's door and gets no response for two days, very out of the ordinary.
    • Mint, battered and frail, opens the door slowly for Mailwash on the third day. She is barely standing. Her face is horrifying.
    • Mint's lost sight in one eye, and nearly has lost her sight in her other eye
    • Mint has also temporarily lost her hearing due to some nondescript nerve damage, though regains it later
    • Mailwash understands that someone did something horrible to Mint
    • Mailwash begins to show a softer side of them, offering their comfort to Mint who very clearly in that moment is in so much pain
    • They spend an extra hour caring for Mint for a day or two, then a few more hours, then eventually just putting mail delivery on hold to care for Mint full-time.
    • As this begins to happen, uneasy but desperate, Mint starts to warm up to Mailwash being there, Mailwash offering plainly platonic comfort for the most part but Mint begins to mistake it for something more
    • She begins to delude herself and starts to believe that Sunrosa has come to help her. That Sunrosa is feeding her, that Sunrosa is caring for her every need.
      • Because she has lost her hearing and some of her sight, this is more credible
  • Mailwash makes a mistake

    • Mailwash, exhausted from their relationship with Parasite, starts to see something in Mint
    • Mailwash is torn on whether they should be together with Mint or if they should continue to be faithful to Parasite
    • Mailwash is continuously drawn to Mint, her injured self, the idea of how much of a savior they could be to her
    • Suddenly in a rare act of impulse for Mailwash, perhaps out of pettiness toward Parasite and her problems, perhaps out of pure sexual frustration, they decide to have sex with Mint.
    • Though in making this decision, they still try to make sure Mint is aware of what's happening. It appears she is, though says one thing beforehand that seems questionable
    • While they are having sex, Mint yells Sunrosa's name
    • This throws Mailwash off, Mailwash realizes that Mint is not well in her mind. They stop abruptly, thinking she might have a brain injury, and begins to back away from Mint
    • Mint is thrown out of her momentary delusion with a dead stare, and in her mind was a fantasy, a desire for Sunrosa to take care of her, to finally have sex with Sunrosa, something she never got to do, to be loved by Sunrosa in that way.
    • She is thrown out of her delusion so quickly that it frightens her. It frightens her and she begins to panic about what she's doing. She screams and attacks Mailwash, slashing at her with a knife.
  • This is the point at which Mint becomes Antagonist Mint

    • Mint chases Mailwash, with a complete dead stare the entire time, she's had the last of strength taken from her, her last fantasy crushed, and she snapped. She no longer recognizes anyone, they're all bugs to her. They're all cockroaches that betrayed her. Nobody wanted to help her. Mailwash may as well be Parasite.
    • She ruthlessly chases Mailwash, climbing into their truck just as they start to drive away, the car starts to drive downhill, but Mint grabs Mailwash and throws them into the back of the truck. The back of the truck is littered with hundreds of Space-Time Love Letters, causing about an ankle-high sea that they both wade through.
    • The truck begins to freefall down the steep and long climb of a hill Mint lives on, and Mint is still trying, with everything in her, to kill Mailwash.
    • The momentum of the truck rolling down the hill brings the truck to almost breakneck speeds. Mint and Mailwash are pinned to the back of the truck, where the double doors are beginning to rattle and bend open.
    • Mailwash, knowing that the doors won't open unless they open the latch, then tries desperately to reach for the latch as Mint wraps herself around them and begins to bite them.
    • A sharp downhill bend is in the distance, and the truck is speeding toward it with no sign of stopping.
    • Mint tears through Mailwash's neck, ripping it open with blood gushing.
    • Mailwash panics and starts to flail about, rolling about with Mint and struggling to get her off of them. In this panic, they accidentally pull down the door latch.
    • Mailwash and Mint are both thrown out of the back of the truck, violently tumbling about, their limbs being folded in every direction. Love letters explode out of the truck, onto the cliffside, everywhere into the air.
    • Mint survives, but Mailwash is thrown off the cliff
    • The truck explodes
    • Mint is left alone on the pavement, with complete silence around her. She is face down and a bone is sticking out of her skin on her leg, the skin on her arms completely skidded down to nothing, blood seeping from everywhere on her.
  • Sunrosa dies in Mint's mind (begin timeline of Sunrosa Care Center deterioration and eventual Sunrosa death (above))

  • Mint begins to claw her way back up the steep hill road. The pavement is cracked and overgrown, covered in rocks, a sea of people who have been blankified are revealed, as being part of the rock walls, faces in pure agony, screaming, hugging each other, the horrific animals surrounding them, all of it seeming a bit more animated than usual, as if The Nap had never really ended.

  • Mint completely stops her search for Sunrosa and shifts her focus toward finding Parasite

  • Meanwhile, in complete despair from another dire mishappening, a situation of her own doing ultimately but with the details of what she did left to the viewer to assume, Parasite sends Mailwash a Space-Time Love Letter

    • The letter doesn't work, Parasite left wondering
    • Eventually understands that Mailwash is gone
    • Understands that The Next Nap is necessary for all of this to end, but doesn't know how to cause The Nap again
  • Parasite and Mint confront each other

    • Mint feels exhilarated that she can finally get her revenge against Parasite, for what she did to her when she was a kid, for messing things up between her and Mailwash (and for causing her to lose sight of Sunrosa)
    • Parasite only has Mint to blame at this point for what happened to Mailwash. Her rage absolutely explodes, and even with her injuries sustained from that prior mishappening, they push through the pain and fight Mint with every bit of their strength.
    • They have their "wrestling match", in a way. They grapple upon each other, both adept and suddenly professional-like.
    • Mint is trying to destroy the very last cockroach.
    • Parasite has realized she will never be saved by Mailwash again. That her curse is going to be hers to bear forever, alone. That the eternal pain she is about to endure will be at least a tiny bit better if she exacts her revenge upon who brought it.
    • Parasite kills Mint, but feels it isn't enough, it doesn't quell her rage. It boils within her, getting more and more intense, she desecrates Mint's body, she turns Mint's body into pulp with her hands, she is trying to grind the pulp into nothing, nothing, nothing, red everywhere, nothing but the sound of flesh and Parasite's blank face.
    • And even after Mint is completely gone, the rage still persists. Parasite wants to destroy more, to destroy the world.
  • Parasite causes The Next Nap

    • Wants to scream so much that her mouth finally opens up, unleashes the parasite that ends the world. The scream is piercing, clipping, the parasite's tendrils grab ahold of everything, tears Parasite apart, envelops the world whole.
    • She finally is free of her curse and everything is returned to nature once again
  • THE END