BDE Announcement: The Ghosts of Christmas!

[rebelseekspizza]

Hey-o, Fandom!

As we announced last week, this semester's BDE is running a little late: December 19th through 21st! No, that's not because we ran out of time - it's because the Three Ghosts of Christmas are visiting Fandom! And they're cranky.

And a little early, truth be told, but they've been asleep for a while: it happens.

The Past
On the morning of Friday, December 18th, the Ghost of Christmas Past will be the first to set foot on the island. He will appear to islanders in their dreams, being cryptic and drowning them in imagery from their pasts. Upon waking, Fandomites will find that their nightmares have come to life.

This can happen in three different ways. One: creatures that tormented your character in the past might appear on island, aggressive and ready to attack anyone who passes by. For instance, demons from Dante's limbo might manifest themselves across the island. These will be our baddies for the weekend - if you want to contribute yours to the pool, please describe them in the OCD below. Any such creature will disappear if it's been damaged enough.

Two: Moments from your character's past might replay themselves in the physical world around the character, visible to everyone around them. For instance, Darth Sion might appear to reenact the beginning of the traumatizing battle that nearly cost Atton his arm. When the moment is finished, whatever NPCs were conjured will vanish.

Three: Something evil from a character's past appears, as in option two, but they'll taunt the character instead of reenacting anything. They will also vanish with time, but that time can vary from a few minutes to the entire stretch of the plot. So Darth Sion might appear, but instead of repeating the moment, he'll have some new choice taunts for Atton. Note that all of this hails from the character's subconscious-- so the constructs will only know what the character knows, and say what the character would expect them to say.

Creatures conjured through the Ghost of Christmas Past will keep turning up on the island during the BDE, and you'll be able to continue to have visions and so on until the morning of Monday the 21st.

The Present
On Saturday, December 19th, Fandomites will receive visions chastising them for matters they've left unresolved at that present time. The Ghost of Christmas Present will appear during these dreams. Upon waking, characters will find they can feel everyone else's feels. Yep: it's an empathy plague! Considering characters can still be tormented by their visions at this point, it's not gonna be a lot of fun feels, either. Some people will be better at shunting this stuff away than others (such as Jedi), but emotional shielding won't work as well as it usually does.

The Future
And yep: on Sunday, December 20th, it's time for the Ghost of Christmas Future, who comes bearing confusing nightmares with ghoulish imagery of the worst times in people's futures. These don't need to be what canonically happens; much like Reunion Weekend, you can pick and choose from any number of AUs you come up with yourself.

When Fandom wakes, the future-visions won't go. They'll remain as glimpses in the corner of your eyes... or tableaux which, like Christmas Past, play out in front of all of your friends. At this point, the magic will have seeped into the buildings themselves-- walls might suddenly manifest terrifying phrases from a character's future in screaming white letters, again, visible to everyone. For instance, Edward might get Nothing is true, everything is permissible - the Assassin's Creed - or have a wall suddenly declare Justice runs in crimson rivers; Dante might see the words I loved you, brother somewhere.

Everything from days one and two will remain active, too, which'll lead to a nice clusterfuck.

But wait, this lasts four days!
Yep! Our research team will discover on Sunday that the solution involves finding the True Meaning of Christmas (TM), and the books will be clear that it helps to have little happy children around, too. Kids under 8 will be immune to the ghosts and their effects, so they won't have to fear any harm. On Sunday night, a group of fighters will create a safe corridor towards the park, while organizers set up for a rollicking early Christmas party.

Monday morning will see a Very Fandom Christmas Celebration-- and the joy will disperse those nasty ghosts.

Anyway, sign-ups follow down below! Your deadline is Tuesday, December 15th.

ETA: The OCD for the fighty team mentions Friday night; this should be Sunday night. Apologies.

Comments

Sign-ups!

[rebelseekspizza]

I Want To Contribute A Monster!

[rebelseekspizza]

Got a regular mook or baddie you'd like to make available for the rest of the island to fight? These will swarm the island on Friday. Please give as much detail as you can!

Re: I Want To Contribute A Monster!

[trigons_child]

Raven's brothers, the other six of the Deadly Sins: Lust, Wrath, Envy, Sloth, Gluttony, and Greed. Like her, they are half-demon, half-human, and they all have powers related to their specific sin. (They're more specialized than Raven and don't have her same abilities to teleport, heal, etc.)

Envy: can induce jealousy or can take the appearance and powers of object of envy. (Ex. if he sensed Raven envied Karla, he could shapeshift into Karla and have all her abilities and powers. This would only be with the object of envy's permission, of course -- same holds true for all the brothers' powers.)

Lust: causes others to fall passionately in love with him (or another target of his choosing) and want to do anything to please him.

Wrath: superhuman strength and endurance; can also induce mindless rage in others.

Greed: can induce greed in others.

Sloth: induces sloth; can instantly turn the bodies of others into what they would be like if they were insanely lazy (like the sloth victim in Se7en).

Gluttony: instantly consumes the energies and lifeforce of his targets or causes them to be completely overcome with hunger.

Re: I Want To Contribute A Monster!

[talentforlying]

JOHN HAS ENOUGH MONSTERS FOR EVERYONE! No, really, he does.

I gift you with Nergal. HAVE FUN.

Re: I Want To Contribute A Monster!

[nookiepowered]

Provided there are no objections from my canonmates, half of whom are you, Bo can offer giant barbarian underfae with serrated teeth and snake-tongues who otherwise look human, if all humans were built like heavily-tattooed pro-wrestlers. They're super strong, but relatively slow both physically and mentally, don't seem to talk, and fight two-handed with big-ass mallets.

(The only other monster from her own canon that Bo's actually met (and isn't related to) is a Pain Eater whose powers are so similar to the Christmas Ghosts themselves that it would make a terrible fighting opponent.)


From Bo's (and many other people's) in-game past, though, I can also offer up Lovecraftian Abominations, which are mutated Fandom animals as seen in le icons, with sharp, chompy teeth.

Re: I Want To Contribute A Monster!

[bestatmystery]

The Tackleford wiki's kind of terrible so I can't link to a page about it, but I offer up the Night Creeper (from The Case of the Unwelcome Visitor). He is a creepy smiling man who wanders around sucking the hope out of people in the dead of night and leaving them catatonic and grinning. . . .

Re: I Want To Contribute A Monster!

[allie-vamp.livejournal.com]

Allie's rabids are totally up for grabs.

They're like your basic zombie but with two extra twists. They have elongated claws, and because of the vampire part of the virus that caused them, they only come out at night. During the day they bury themselves in the ground and sleep.

I Want To Be On The Research Team!

[rebelseekspizza]

For those who wanna hit the books! We'll preplay the final revelation for Sunday morning.

I Wanna Be On Team Fighty Corridor Safety!

[rebelseekspizza]

For the fighty team on Friday night! This won't be preplayed - it'll be a big fighty post where you can mod bad guys or ask us for NPCs. This one is mostly a headcount, though fighty will be available across the city as well.

I Wanna Be On Team Party Planning!

[rebelseekspizza]

Assembling on Sunday night, Team Party Planning gets to hang out in the Community Center and brainstorm the best Christmas party ever! This post will go up on Sunday morning for SP purposes. Ideas will be incorporated into the party post for Monday.

Yes! You May Have My Baby!

[rebelseekspizza]

... for those of you with NPC kids who are willing to take them to the island to up the holiday cheer to the degrees most necessary. (It is not required for kids to show up, as we realize people might not want to put their children at risk. HOWEVER, all monsters will shy away from the children, as they're innocents, and they will definitely make the process easier.)

Questions!

[rebelseekspizza]

If you have them!

Re: Questions!

[wandering-stone.livejournal.com]

Will any guest journals be allowed for option three?

Re: Questions!

[myownface]

For the Christmas Past stuff, how 'hard canon' do events and characters have to be? For example, canon is pretty vague on whether or not the things Sparkle talks about in his past actually happened or if he's just being a little shit again, and they only get the briefest throwaway mentions when he does, about characters that don't appear in canon otherwise. Fair game to infer stuff went on, for that? Or would you rather we stick to actual canonical moments/characters that we see played out, or things that definitely did happen here on the island?

Mostly asking for visions/taunting sake, just to clarify. Making a nebulous aside-mention sort of character into a big baddie for other people to interact with would break my brain anyway.

Re: Questions!

[sharp_as_knives]

Is the future stuff also coming from the characters' subconsciouses, and so only what they might extrapolate? Or can it include things in canon they don't know?

Re: Questions!

[that_oldsaying]

Does the kids under eight mean purely physical age or would being mentally eight and under count them as a child?

Re: Questions!

[vdistinctive]

Sooooo for the Christmas Past stuff, you say that folks can be haunted by visions of something evil . . . with former bad guy characters, can that count as haunted by visions of evil shit they did? Basically, can Eliot be chased around by ghosts of innocent people he killed?

Re: Questions!

[sharp_as_knives]

Do the taunting past things have to be evil? Thinking Will Graham here. :)

Re: Questions!

[tigerundercover]

LATE COUPLE OF QUESTIONS as I dance around in ways to traumatize my characters:

For the Christmas past thing: a) can we do more than one of the options? Or would you rather people stick with one? b) for option three, are the taunting manifestations visible to other people, or only the one being haunted?

Re: Questions!

[wrongkindofsith]

How corporeal exactly are the taunters? Enough for a certain amount of badtouch to go along with the taunting?

Comments!

[rebelseekspizza]

For commentary!

Re: Comments!

[trigons_child]

Empathy plague? I am CACKLING. CACKLING I TELL YOU. Raven sez: WELCOME TO MY LIFE. ;)

RE: Comments!

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

My long national nightmare of BDEs while I'm on vacation is over!

Now I just have to find times around Star Wars viewings....

RE: Comments!

[throughaphase]

GDI this looks awesome and I will be pinging from Star Wars.

All four days DO NOT JUDGE ME.

OOC

[rebelseekspizza]

For gifs!