The Bear and Barnacle

Hey, all --

You may have noticed that we haven't done an event post this month. Actually, we were sort of wondering if someone would notice. We've gotten crazy busy with school, work and cross-country moves, and we know everyone else is equally swamped.

Let us know your thoughts. Would someone like to make another effort to jumpstart the comm? Or have we hit the point where we should just disband? The RP shelf life generally is about a year to eighteen months, and we're well into Year Two, so we've certainly had a good run.

If no suggestions are forthcoming, we're thinking we'll just leave the comm in place and let things run their quiet course. And of course, there's always YM threading!

So, thoughts?

This month the topic is jokes! What type of jokes do you like? What do you think is funny? Tell us your favourite one or make up a new one!

*stage-whispers* You can even tell the naughty ones! I promise not to tell Iago if you say bad words in front of me.


Appropriate to the season, we think! Unsurprisingly the tag is jokes.

This month's topic is bathrooms. Tell us what yours looks like, your dream bath, things you done in them, the contents of your shower, bathing habits, sharing a bathroom, etc! If it involves bathrooms, baths, or showers, it's fair game!


Yeah, I'm sure everyone's glad that the 6 year old is back to picking topics. :P And yes, the tag for this month is bathrooms. We do encourage memories, art, plots, and random explanations!

One of the conveniences of Margate – perhaps in order to balance out the minor inconveniences like being trapped in a random tourist city far from home and family for an indefinite period – is that the natives don't notice anything out of the ordinary. Let the imports walk down the street in period dress or flasher raincoats or drag, let them have horns and tails and a suspicious lack of birth certificate – somehow the ordinary townspeople just fail to realize that something massively strange is going on.

This month, someone's going to notice “something odd about you.”

Choose any one “normal” your character associates with and have them detect something odd about your character. The degree and kind of oddity they detect are entirely up to you, as is, naturally, your character's response thereto. Is thereto a word?

The tag is “noticing" and this brings us back to our regular posting schedule. Have fun!

First of all, I want to give a welcome to our two new players who have joined us in the last couple of months, Ed's player and as of yesterday, Faramir's. Welcome, lovelies!

A few other notes:

1) Thanks for keeping up on your post tagging, just don't forget include threadtags.

2) Iago and Dora will be returning in the next few days so the topics return to their control and will be less... well, terrifying and less Ivonka-like. :P

3) From this point on, Iago and Xellos will be working at the Pub on separate days (even and odd days respectively) rather than having overlapping schedules- so just keep this in mind in your play.
New 3. Iago and the NPC Ivonka are running the pub now, since we regretfully have been forced to ban Xellos and his player for the sake of the game and its collection of lovely players.

4) Just in case you've not looked at them recently (though they've not changed), check out the Rules and remember that this game is meant as low stress FUN! Email if you have questions or concerns.

5) You can always suggest topics and events to us! Be responsible for your characters' fates. I'll be screening comments to this post so you can just provide them here for us to surprise everyone with. The post really is screened. The now deleted comment below, which many of you emailed complaints about, was deliberately unscreened by its poster while she still had mod-access.

I am informed that Iago will be returning soon. Then this is the last of these godforsaken topics I must give, yes?

If you must have something, tell of your weapon of choice. Then order, eat, and get out.

Um ... what she said! :D Tag is "weapons."

*long, long stare* You are still here.

This topic will be no good for some of you, I think. Tell us where else in Margate you are when you are not in my hair.

As I said. No good for some of you.

Inspired by the fact that several of the characters have mentioned other favorite restaurants/coffee shops/dark alleyways in their threads: For this topic, you'll be talking about/ficcing about/sketching/visiting/committing arson (whatever) in someplace other than the Pub (either in Margate or elsewhere for those who do travel). In other words, where does your character spend their free time? A tad self-defeating, mind you, but Ivonka's still in charge.

The tag is "not here," because, um, the last one caused an unfortunate accident with the condiment shakers. She says it's a pity we couldn't remember which one was salt but really our own fault.

You all need something to talk about, yes? Well. There will be no funny business from you lot this month.

You shall talk about "My appreciation of those who cook for me." Now order and sit.

And no, while she would like everyone to, you don't have to talk about Ivonka -- Xel or your landlady or dear old Mum will be fine too.

Just to annoy Ivonka, the tag is "kiss the cook."

This month, tell us about art. Have you a favorite piece of what is called fine art, or perhaps a least favorite one? Are you yourself perhaps an artist? What is your opinion of art in general?

Tag is "art," and as usual, anything goes -- memories, conversations, art posts ... whatever. And a happy belated Halloween to all!

Dora sneaks into the pub, but not very successfully for her obvious attempt to sneak past everyone while wearing dark glasses and a button-down white shirt ("borrowed" from Jack's laundry basket) she's belted around like a trench coat. Her hair is slicked back and pitch black, and her lips are vivid red.

She glances about then drags a chair over to the cork board on the back wall. It doesn't take long before she's pinned up a whole series of Polaroid pictures, each labeled with a name (occasionally spelled right). She's made frequent to obsessive use of the camera Iago gave her in the last few months and these are only the tip of the photographic iceberg, but they're some of her favourites.

( View Dora's... Handiwork? With Update. )

This month's event is Dora's brainchild. Your job is to take the picture (hotlinking is encouraged) and provide a post in which your character explains what they were doing when she snapped the picture. Since Dora took them, they must have occurred IN Margate at any point since this past Christmas. Feel free to post this as a Margate memory or an actual explanation to... someone? :P

We encourage everyone to play and to have fun with this distinctly silly event. However, for those who simply can't make it work or don't want to demonstrate their sense of humor or creativity, if you do not post about the picture, it does not exist. Come on, be brave! Have fun!

For those and only those characters who Dora has not yet met (including our two newest characters and Teddy), you may add in your own picture to the mix.

The tag for this is polaroids.

Credit to Mairelyn for Dumbledore's picture, jamew85 for Rincewind's, and DarkJediPrincess for Xellos'.

This month's topic is disguises! Have you ever had to use one? Are you using one now? What sort of disguises do you like? Have you ever seen a really silly one? What do you think would be the best disguise?

And and and I have a big surprise for everyone! I'm still working on it but it will be done soon and will be a surprise even to Iago! Only Val knows what I'm doing. *giggles* I'm going to put it in the pub in TWO weeks. *nods eagerly* So everyone will want to see. Except for Ivonka. *shifty eyes*


You guessed it: the tag is disguises.

The bouncy rambling translates to the six year old has taken over this month's event. So um... be afraid? Maybe?

Hey, sorry for the off-topic post, but everyone ought to know they're one mod short yet again. I had a mishap with a scalding-hot bowl of ramen and neither my left leg nor my laptop will ever be the same ...

No, really, I'm fine, but I'm slow with comments and email right now so if you need anything gamewise, Pre_Raphaelite1 is your girl.

This month your character will be speaking in rhyme. All the time. Any form of rhyme will do; limericks, sonnets, and couplets too, sensical or nonsensical, it's all up to you!

The characters will feel a compulsion to speak this way. Night and day. As usual, normal Margate residents will not notice anything odd, unless the rhyming gets particularly bizarre, then you can decide whether or not they give it a nod.

The challenge is part of the fun. Have a good one!

The tag is "rhyme." Er ... lime. *nods* *eats cod*

This month's topic is FIRE! Any and all kinds of fire, real or magical or meta- meta-four-icle!




And this month's topic and delay is brought to you by the letters C and A and the bloody wildfire that started on Monday 8 houses away and forced the evacuation of my and C's family. Luckily as of today, it's 45% contained and has been downgraded to voluntary evacuations. No structures have been lost because the firefighters rock (and were 2 miles away at the Oak Glen fire when this one started). And no, neither C nor I started it. It was always burning... since the world's been turning. ;)

Oh almost forgot, because I'm sure no one could figure this out on her own, the tag for this topic is fire.

As opposed to an Unfriendly Mod? Or an Unfriendly reminder?

Aaaaanyway, I just want to remind everyone to please tag their posts for the threads that happen. I've gone through all the posts on the front page of the comm and added the necessary tags. But if you could just spend a couple of minutes going back to tag your characters' posts with the relevant "characterthread" tags, that would be lovely. Especially as I know some of you are still playing on older posts.

Also, I just have to say it's grand to see new players coming into the game. Please pimp us out to your friends!

And finally, once more, I'd like to ask everyone (players and characters alike) if they have suggestions for topics and/or events! You can leave them in comments here or email them to me at preraphaelite1 at gmail dot com.

For this event, you'll be answering your doorbell.

Yup, that's it.

No, really. Let us explain.

Margate has been invaded. The invaders are a deluge of men and women of the worst sort: Those who wake you from your well-earned naps, interrupt your dinners, make it difficult for you to leave the house, and seem to revel in coitus interruptus. Yes, the door-to-door folk. One of the lost tribes of the ancient world, restless spirits, they wander the globe in an endless wearisome quest for inconvenient moments to knock.

Your post will be your character answering the door. We encourage interesting situations for the answering. One of fifteen types of ring-ers, pulled from a hat, will respond to the post. Insanity will ensue.

Thread-crashing is encouraged if you see someone else having a doorperson you'd love to see your character interact with, but your ring-er will be randomly selected. Those who have no fixed abode may be accosted on the street or in the Pub, but others are asked to use their homes. Some of you (yes, Rodolphus, yes, Joker, we're looking at you) may have interesting ideas as to the best way to dispose of an inconvenient cookie-selling Girl Scout (do you have those in Britain?). Go ahead. No one will stop you.

The tag is "ding-dong." Have fun.

We didn't forget! We'd planned to forget! Really! That's the topic for this month, forgetting.

What are you forgetting or have you forgotten? Anything important? Something silly? Did you get in trouble or did no one notice? Or have you or something you did ever been forgotten? How about things you wanted to forget but couldn't? Or have you been made to forget something? Like being obliviated?


The tag for this month's topic is, you guessed it, forgetting. At least we think so. We kind of forgot. We do like to keep it simple around here so that's probably it. Hope everyone is having a grand summer where ever they may be.

Also, Iago (et al)'s player and I will be catching up on threads the best we can now that we're back to having our own computers again. One laptop between that many voices is really, really not good. :P

For the July-August event, Margate residents will be followed around by the ghosts of someone from their past.

For ease of coordination, let the conditions be thus: Ghosts are apparent to everyone, but they are transparent to the point of near-invisibility in full sunlight. They can speak in voices audible to all. (Duca, as a special case, you may choose that Don Michele be visible to others, or add a second follower, as you choose.)

Depending on the personality of the individual in question, some may be more biddable than others -- i.e., it could vary from "Sure, I'll wait outside so you can use the bathroom" to the ghost telling others embarrassing stories about the character's childhood. That's entirely up to the player.

Ghosts can be persons living or dead, and their degree of importance to the character is also up to your choice -- no nervous collapses necessary unless you really want to. :) Friends, enemies, lovers, parents, teachers -- anyone goes! OCs are fine, but after some deliberation, we've decided on one restriction: no one who's already in Margate can be a ghostly follower. Dora, for example, couldn't be followed by Teddy.

EDIT: You will not need a separate journal for your ghost. They're attached to your character, and you'll be writing for both of them, i.e. godmodding your own ghost.

Have fun, and remember: If you don't talk to your ghostly followers about ghostnip, who will?

And on an RL note: Iago's, Dora's and the Joker's players are all off to Azkatraz, so those and associated characters are hiatus-ed. We'll all be back on the 24th. Additionally, Iago apologizes profusely to everyone, most especially Xel, for his absence but his damned host body is so reliant on that stupid machine that when the motherboard goes kapooft, he is helpless to maintain his life. Forgive him.

Who is your neighbor? What are they like? Do you even HAVE neighbors? Tell us about them!


Knock yourselves out! Feel free, as always, to interpret this liberally and post as you want- an encounter with them, a discussion about them, incriminating pictures of them, incriminating pictures they have of you *coughJackandZelcough* :P

The tag for this month is neighbors. (Yeah, yeah, American spelling because I say so. And I suck. And um... whatever.)

Outside the front door of each Margate inhabitant lies a box, neatly addressed with their name. For those who cohabitate, there is a box for each resident. The boxes are flat and light and have no magical or mechanical traits.

For those who open their boxes, they will find inside a t-shirt. One in their size and somehow very, very appropriate. Some t-shirts will have pictures. Others will have text. All will be perfectly suited to the individual.

Show us your t-shirt.


As always respond as you like. Your character can just start wearing the shirt or be shown opening it. Or if you want to simply post an image of what they received, that is great too. The shirt could be ideal, ironic, or insulting, whatever- (cause I'm sure if we had one, Lestat would love to receive a Team Edward shirt... :D ). Have fun!

The tag for this month is t-shirts.