Hey, you!
"I can't believe you vibe checked him with a bible."
—RevScarecrow, lamenting Twitch Chat's penchant for violence.
The Town of Nowhere is a subseries of Vinesauce and an Actual Play of a rather unorthodox form of Tabletop RPG gameplay created by RevScarecrow. Using various self-photoshopped assets made to mimic CGA graphics, Rev acts as a Game Master for his Twitch chat's sole Player Character, whose main goal is to find a sister not even they can remember in a West Texas town where monsters and other magical beings live in relative normalcy. Because any chat member can submit what they want said character to say or do to a majority vote, however, things tend to go Off the Rails in unprecedented ways.
The series' first stream was on December 3rd, 2019, and its final one was on October 2nd, 2020. A playlist can be found here
. Rev later released condensed versions of the streams which remove the long pauses necessary for chat to make decisions on how to proceed. A playlist of the condensed videos can be found here.
This series contains examples of:
- Ambiguous Gender: The chat has not decided on a gender for No, so they are consistently referred to as "they". The only thing Chat has decided so far about No's gender is that they are transgender, as evidenced by their choice to get transgender and bisexual pride flag nail art at the nail salon.
- Bittersweet Ending: No manages to seemingly kill the sewer creature with a bomb, and the HDG brings over alternate versions of everyone who has died... but they're now a wanted fugitive for blowing up the motel, and Christopher, the motel manager, still dies due to the explosion.
- Cosmic Entity: There are at least two presented within the narrative so far, and one has come to No to ask for help.
- Creepy Good: The Home Depot employees, who are revealed to worship the god who is trying to return lost things to the town — and escort No safely back to their motel room afterwards. They also wear long robes and chant “Home Depot, (incorrect slogan)” every other sentence.
- Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: When being harassed by a vampire begging them to invite him in, No eventually decides to sleep with the door open, just to taunt him.
- Driving Question: Who is this supposed sister who sent you the letter? Why do you have no recollection of her despite being in the picture she included? What exactly is the mysterious cult in town plotting?
- Eldritch Abomination: Whatever the Home Depot God is, it definitely fits into this category. It's unknown what exactly is taking things from the town, but it's likely to fit into this category as well.
- Faking and Entering: Played With. No stealing as much food as they can from Darrell's refrigerator is a good cover for their true objective (a letter addressed to Elise from them), but they aren't exactly Darrell's friend or a prime suspect... and their theft was less motivated by strategy than by hunger.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Near the end of episode 9, No peeks out from behind the Starbucks to see themself step off of the bus like they did in episode 1, and hides as their past self pulls out their map. Sure enough, if you go back to the beginning of episode 1, when Rev first pulls up the Starbucks scene, before pulling up the map for the chat, there's a familiar face peering out from behind the building, which is gone after he puts away the map.
- Horror Hunger: Noah, who we first meet having just finished eating the cashier at the 7/11. Fortunately downplayed when we learn more: Noah is afflicted with a curse that requires him to eat flesh, but the 7/11's cashier is a zombie who can simply respawn after being killed and has kindly made an arrangement with Noah to let him be eaten once a week so Noah can keep the curse in check without any moral dilemma.
- Hot for Preacher: No romantically pursues Noah from seeing him in the first episode, and then discovers he's a preacher in the local church. They discuss religious concepts with him, while maintaining the exact same attitude.
- Level-Map Display: One of these is nearly always visible on the main screen, complete with a Knightly representation of the PC.
- Magic Mirror: Not the talking example — when No looks into a mirror in their motel room, a dried blood stain is visible on the wall behind them. It can't be seen in real life, but when No touches that same spot on the wall with their hand the texture is notably different.
- Magic Realism: 8-eyed, 5-foot grackles, skeletons with deer skulls, fairies, vampires and (possibly) cultists all living among humans with little to no fuss? Yup, sounds like West Texas.
- Mind Screw: The letter — despite being in the picture included with the letter, No has absolutely no recollection of their supposed sister the letter is from, let alone the times she reminisces about in it, and the one man in town named Darrell (the name of the "sister"'s husband) also has no idea who she is.
- Must Be Invited: After No checks into the motel, a man appears at the door with a pamphlet about vampires, claiming that they have been victim to unfair stereotypes, and asking to be invited in. When No refuses, he comes back wearing Groucho glasses and begging them to let him in because "there's vampires out here!" Naturally skeptical but not wanting to risk the possibility that the man really will get killed by vampires, No opts to leave the door open while also telling the man he isn't explicitly invited, so he can take refuge if he's human but can't enter if he's a vampire. No wakes up the next morning to find him gone, clearly never having entered.
- Named by Democracy: Like all the rest of the main character's actions and motivations, their name was decided by the Twitch chat — in response to the question "Can I have your name?" This was played straight, however — the chat also decided that their name is literally "No".
- New Skill as Reward: A skill called "bibe check" is awarded to No for discovering a new form of bible-based combat.
- They're also given the "Horticulture" skill to replace "Hordiculture" when they learn how it's spelled — and rudimentary knowledge of plant life — in the town library.
- No Ontological Inertia: Averted, No killing the sewer creature doesn't return to people it killed, but the HDG does bring over other versions of them to this reality.
- Powers That Be: The Home Depot God and the other entities they mention certainly fits into this category: they can see what is going on, although it is unknown if they can affect them. The fog of memory erasure plaguing the Town of Nowhere may fit into this category as well.
- Relationship Values: No's relations with characters that the viewers take a liking to, such as Noah and Raymond, are quantified with separate 0-100 values.
- Ret-Gone: Explained by the Home Depot god to be the reason No can't find any record of their sister, other than the letter she sent them. She isn't the first to be taken either - according to the god, some entity has been taking "people, things, ideas, thoughts" out of time and space.
- Scary Librarian: The giant moth who tears No's room apart while screaming "where is it?!" was actually looking for the book No took from the library the day before! Unsurprisingly, No agrees to return to the library and check it out properly this time.
- Take Away Their Name: Crystal, the barista at Starbucks, reveals herself to be a Fae when she steals No's name. Not just their name, though — their entire identity, and the very concept of the word 'no'.
- Throw the Book at Them: No's response to a vampire outside their door is to throw the motel bible at him. This then becomes an option in every choice the chat is presented with.
- Unfortunate Names: The main character, whose actions are decided by the Twitch chat, is just called No. Taken further when chat decides their last name is Where, which by consequence means their hypothetical sister is Elise Where... which can be read as Else Where.
- Wham Episode: The latter half of Episode 9. No and the other Home Depot employees split up to different areas of the town to investigate, but while on their way to 7/11, No realizes that they don't remember who Jim, one of the other employees, is. They go to the sewers with backup to check on this "Jim" person's last known location — but their backup goes missing while they're both in the sewers. No runs into a bloodied, bird-like bipedal creature who begins to menacingly approach them, when all of a sudden, they black out and are thrown into last week by the Home Depot Entity — literally. No wakes up in the back alley of Starbucks to the voice of the HDG telling them to stay out of sight, feeling like complete garbage. At the end of the episode, they realize that it's the Saturday they arrived in Nowhere, and watches themself step off the bus.
- What the Hell, Player?: Rev often says something to this effect in response to chat's... experimental impulsivity.
- World of Weirdness: The eponymous town crosses between this and a Fantasy Kitchen Sink: a majority of the townspeople encountered seem to be mythic or otherwise improbable beings, up to and including the Home Depot employees (probably) mistaken for cultists.
- You Sexy Beast: One of the first things the main character sees upon arriving in the town is a skeletal, deer-headed humanoid creature finishing eating a 7/11 cashier. Naturally, Chat immediately decided they needed to seduce him.
