In Darkness - OOC

First, make sure you guys have read (and responded to) this. There are a lot of you who haven't signed in one way or the other, and I'd like some response before the end of the weekend, either way, so I can make appropriate edits.

Second, plot!

Sunday night/Monday morning in the dark hours, all of the food will be removed from the hotel and the stores. Any characters stashing food in their room will be drugged to sleep and have the food removed from their room. There will be plenty of bottled water, some basic cooking elements (oil and flour, salt and spices, things like that). There will be a note on the fridge Monday morning that says "Happy Hunting!" complete with a yellow smiley-face sticker.

Wednesday morning, a boat will arrive at the island to "rescue" them. The crew will be people they've never seen before, so it's nothing so glaringly obvious as the minions and Heads who post on the network. The crew of the boat will claim to be a rival company who broke off from the current set of experimenters a decade ago and ever since have been trying to rescue the current lot of experiments. So they'll possess the technology to send people home from the point of abduction, memories intact (or not, as the people so choose), or to send people to other realities besides their own (like, Jaime's totally going to Firefly-verse XD)

Thursday, people will be home. Any back-to-canon/return home posts you want to play out, you can stick in the alt-comm. You can even start them preemptively and just fore-date them to Thursday, so they're done by Friday.

Friday, the characters remaining for v2 will wake up in their assigned rooms. Most of them are the same, but some who lost their suitemates are now in singles, and we had a pair suite up. From Friday and beyond, all posts should go in the ED comms, and not the ID ones.

All right. Hopefully this makes sense with my early-morning coherence. If not, questions for clarity, throw them at me.

'kay guys. Just a reminder!

Phobias start tomorrow and will continue through the week for our lucky contestants. :)

If you need anything clarified or anything like that, hit me up.

First, disregard the journal. Login/out isn't worth it with the connection at my desk. (Is not a good connection; takes forever).

That said, as some of you might have seen yesterday, I was kicking around an idea on twitter of introducing a wild-card element to the island. This would be in the form of a boat of some sort (likely not a large one) stranding on the island with crew native to the world.

Since this has potential to radically alter the course of the game (like, if it goes the way where some people escape and call for help and bring more rescue boats), I thought I'd see what your thoughts on the matter were.

I don't have much by way of details (it's a rough sketch, honestly), so if you guys want to build on this or run by some if/thens, I'm cool listening.

If you'd rather not introduce the element at all, also cool.

The other ways it could maybe go:

- the crew are integrated into the experiment
- some people do escape (characters are dropped) but can't send help
- we prematurely move to the land of ice and snow (instead of doing it later in the game)
- ???
- profit!

So, totally up for discussion. Yay, nay, yes if, no but, lay it on me.

First, I'd like you to meet my good friend phobia list!

Second, please see the relevance to next week's plot: The following characters get a week of phobia.

I know this is a little far in advance (it's not this Monday, but the following one), but I wanted everyone to have a chance to think about it if nothing immediately springs to mind.

This is a select plot, which means the characters were generated by random rolls. If you don't want to play this round, lemme know ASAP so we can replace your kid with someone else. Or if the one that was rolled is someone you weren't comfortable playing with a phobia, we'll swap them out for another one of yours.

Dave Stutler - Fear of circles/rings
Arthur Pendragon - Fear of self / being alone
Faye Valentine - Fear of England/English culture
Ichabod Crane - Fear of Books
Trini Kwan - Fear of Plants
Lily Evans - Fear of Doors
River Tam - Fear of Sleep
Salem - Fear of Food
John Allerdyce - Fear of Bathing/Showering

The details:

Monday (11/1) the above characters will wake up with a phobia. The phobia will vary in degrees at random throughout the week. So perhaps at times they'll be able to confront their fear with just a case of the shakes, and at other times the mere idea of their fear has them huddling in a corner trying to hide (unless they have a fear of corners >:D ).

The fear can be anything, though it's suggested it be something they're likely to encounter on the island (for example, a fear of dragons ... isn't going to do much to them).

If you have questions, hit me up. Once you've figured out what phobia your kid's struck with, comment away.

Okay, so:

1) Communications cut out at 11:59:59 PM tonight between the islands. AS people can network each other, and Barren people can network each other, but one island can't reach the other. Edit They can try to send messages across the island, but will be met with a "communication failed" response.

2) Webcams are going away during the night.

3) Tomorrow before I go to work, I'll post up the video write-ups >:D They're written, but ... you know. Patience and all that. Please be aware that while YOU know the videos were staged, your character doesn't. They can assume it, hope it, etc, but no one's going to know they're faked. 'cause the editing team is that awesome.

4) One of the stores in the Algul Siento Mall is now a Halloween store. It has decorations, candy, costumes, etc. It is active as of now.

5) I'm starting a new tree in the Jaime-armor thread, so we can get to finding the armor instead of bullshitting around with small talk. You're all very encouraged to hop into that post; new tree or join an existing one. you're also encouraged to find some armor around the island in your own threads ('cause hey. Great chance to do narratives that count for activity checks, eh, eh?) Body pieces and helmets only; no ... paw-mitts or anything like that. And remember, it'll take a group (or magic) to move the body-pieces.

Any questions, comments, suggestions, etc. hit me up.

Right. Since no one screamed "oh no Halo that's an awful idea" on twitter, we'll roll with it.

Tuesday, 11:59:59 PM, communication between the islands is going to cut off.

Matt's going to post an "Oops. I guess they had 'til Tuesday; they're all dead now" message in the network, visible only to the Algul Siento residents.

Friday 8 AMish, the old!island people will wake up on the new!island, in their appropriate rooms. Not sooner, 'cause, drugs. The people they're in bed with/sharing rooms with that are already present can wake up whenever because they weren't put as deeply under, but the old!island transplants shouldn't be coming out of the drugs 'til at least 7:45/8ish.

Wednesday, and Thursday, however ... mmm, chaos. Algul Siento people think old!island is dead. Old!island is coping with bears and wondering why no one on new!island is answering them ...

BWAHAHAHAAHAHHAHAHA!!

:;cough:: 'kay. that's it.

Hello, and welcome to our lottery-plot writeup!

As promised, I am doing this before clicking tiles.

Since we are very anti-bear death (Sam petitioned very hard for this and overrode Matt's "shoot 'em up" plan), this is going to be a hide-and-seek sort of plot.

You can read about the bears here, and Isadora has the answers people need; she's networking with Didymus but will do a post later to educate the masses so the IC bit's covered.

What's going to happen is this:

The armor is going to be scattered across the old island, and some will be in the buildings. Jaime's power is going to be half-crippled for this so it won't be a matter of her being able to find everything, but she will be able to point the search parties in the general direction of the armor pieces before her brain breaks. None of it will be across the white line 'cause that's just cruel.

The armor is heavy, because it's made of "sky-iron" and is used by very, very large bears. Like, Hulk could probably haul a bit of it around by himself, but for most everyone else, it's going to be bare-minimum 2 person job to haul the larger pieces. One Jayne-sized man can handle a standard helmet (and might struggle with a more elaborate one), and someone slightly smaller could probably drag one with pauses.

We're going to have fifteen pieces scattered around on Monday, and that will give a clue as to what's going on when the first piece is found. I assume it will be stumbled on by accident, so if someone wants to call first-find, lemme know; that way we won't have all of us finding the armor first. XD

To the ice bears, their armor is like their dæmon or their soul. They are nothing without it, and they will kill whatever stands between them and it. They forge it themselves (they have opposable thumbs) and it's very personal to them. They will not be pleased upon learning that their armor was stolen.

In regard to powers to neutralize the bears ...

They are sentient and can be reasoned with.

Stunning spells, binding spells, and confunding spells will work, but not for very long.

They won't be felled by human physical attacks because ... uh. They're giant polar bears.

The Force can be used to slow them down/trip them up.

There's still no ammunition for the firearms, so shooting them is right out.

If people get clever and try to rig some traps, those may work on a mod-discretion basis.

I'm not angling for any casualties on this one, but they are certainly capable of killing characters, very easily. So it's an option if you want to take it >:D Matt's hoping they knock down the hotel, and I hope they'll be incited to damage it, but is not something I'm going to force. Characters will be moved either way; this was just the convenient IC reasoning.

If you have questions or your character's power wasn't covered on the list as will/won't work, go ahead and hit me up for clarification. Or if anything else needs clarification. I'm here for you, yo.

We're having our first-ever mod's-choice mini-plot, woo!

Since bears aren't 'til Thursday (omg omg omg I swear I'll get that written up before I start clicking paradise quest tiles again), I thought we should have a little something to do.

Also, I want to see how long I can make Lily glare hatefully at me before she gives up and moves into someone else's head >:D

So, Matt has decided to have his minions place items in people's rooms over the course of the weekend (today or tomorrow; take your pick)

Jaime is getting Mal's unloaded gun
Lily is getting the Grimhold
Ichabod is getting one of Katrina's necklaces, splashed with blood
Luke is getting Vader's helmet
Lizzy is getting something of Saul's (your call)
Remus is getting Sirius' wand
Aang is getting Katara's necklace

To the players whose characters didn't find something ... I didn't know any of your kids well enough to make any trauma-calls, so you are welcome to comment with an item and I'll add it to the list.

Also, we may or may not be hasing a Dug soon. After I write up the bear plot. (Also, one of you lottery people needs to do a network post with the clues. You can fight over it but it can't be me 'cause I draw the line at commenting to myself. That, and Chase doesn't care. XD).

Okay. For this weekend's lottery:

Bruce Banner
Sir Didymus
Ichabod Crane
Chase Collins

will be participating. and oh dear god do I ever not look forward to Chase in a social scene. XD he might bring out the Hulk. idek. ::Dead dead so dead::

I don't know what it's going to be yet. Riddles, probably, as soon as i figure out which way I want the clues to go. Then someone's going to have to take responsibility for posting it in the network.

... or posting the riddles themselves in the network ::amused:: because really, what's to stop them from doing that? ahahahaha. ::cough::

um. so right, tradition stands. Lottery post will go up late night friday, though the actual meeting's saturday at noon. but a lot of us are nightowls or some junk? idek.

if your kid isn't going to show up, drop us a line so we know not to wait on you for threads.

Does anyone need a writeup on how the lotteries work or do we all have that down by now? I guess for reference you could click the "!lottery" tag and lookit the other writeups. Same deal. Friday morning there are tickets, and the "winners" have instructions to meet in a room (Different room though since this hotel is shorter; I'll address that in the header when I stick up the post) Saturday at noon, and we thread from there. >:D

'allo, 'allo!

Just touching base to report on our activity status.

We did lose one player who ... didn't do anything all last month anyway. People are welcome to notice Dana Scully missing as of right now, if they are at all inclined.

Everyone else did sign in, and everyone who wasn't meeting the new requirements is aware and has promised to improve.

There is a very small but growing chance Mandy might be returning to us. She's checking the stability of her muses in our other game (or will be), and seeing where things are going from there. If she thinks there's a good chance things will go well, she'll shuffle back over here.

And if she doesn't, I'll eat her soul.

As for the move plot which is Wednesday (as in, the characters signed up for the mid-week move are being swiped to the new island Tuesday night/Wednesday morning), is everyone pretty clear how that's going down? The small group is being relocated, but will still be able to network with the people on the old island, but can only thread with people on the new island. New applicants will be sent to the new island as well. The lottery will be held on the new island, but the plot will take place on the old one, but not until Friday (the 22nd), because Matt does love screwing with his captives.

There will also be webcams while the groups are split, so have fun with that. >:D Once everyone's on the new island, no more webcams.

Once the groups are merged (the 24th, 'cause the moon's on the 25th XD), the new writeup and cast list will be put in the mod journal and the faq will be updated.

If anything's not clear or you have suggestions/comments/questions/concerns, hit me up.

So, since we did opt to go with putting EQ magnitues in headers, here is a sample one. You don't have to put the duration if you don't want (they'll go between 2-30 seconds though, if you wanted to).

I do have a few requests:

Nothing over a 6.2 without contacting me about it first, since I don't want the island destroyed, and a bunch of 7.0+s over the course of the week can do that.

No more than one 5.5+ a day, please, so check the headers.

No more than one quake every hour, so please try to be specific with your times in the headers. (I mean "lunchtime" can be anywhere from 10:30 - 3 PM, so ...y'know =P )

We'll use the wiki richter scale page (here) unless someone feels like googling up a better one with more specific examples. 'cause there's a difference between 4.0 and 4.7. this I know. =P

Yes, some of the shacks will fall down in the bigger quakes. The contents of the stores and mall will shift while quaking.

I will be kind and say that the plumbing and electricity will remain intact despite quake magnitudes >:D

If you have questions, ask. I will likely get back to you after sleep 'cause is about that time.

I ... feel so horribly delayed with this write up. I mean, right? I usually have them done a week in advance and junk XD (whatever. I've been busy and stressed and I kept breaking the internet and ... and half of us are on hiatus and junk).

So right. This week, we are hasing earthquakes. For those of you who don't live in California or have never felt one ... I don't know how to describe them. The ground shakes or the ground rolls or buildings break or the world falls down. Things rattle, fall off shelves. Sometimes if they're deep quakes, the world just kind of heaves and rolls.

These are going to be all sorts of quakes. From tiny little 2-second tremors to building-shaking 30-second monsters. They will happen at random, so if you set up a post just try to skim the other posts set around the same time and if an earthquake was mentioned as being one thing, try to keep continuity in your post. Like, if Jaime has a post and is like "omg 9.0 at noon" and your pup has a noon post, please don't make yours a "i barely felt that" 'quake.

Edit If you could drop any quake-notes in the header, that'd be killer.end edit

The quakes will be starting Monday at midnight (so, way late Sunday night), and will be ending sometime on Friday.

Also! We have the move on Wednesday. So there's a variety of things to react to this week. I want to say I'll clarify the move later, but since I'm flying home on Tuesday night, I guess not so much with a later clarification, huh?

The characters listed on the move list will be relocated to the new island Tuesday at midnight, so the missing persons reactions can be posted Wednesday morning (or ... Tuesday late-night, dated to Wednesday morning).

Everyone else will be moving after the bear plot, so ... in a couple of weeks.

I have probably left out something vital, scattered as I am right now, so if you have questions about any of it ... go ahead and comment and I'll get back to you on the confused point.

Monday (10/4)

Corrine Fisher - Pollux's necklace
Balthazar Blake - Veronica's necklace

Tuesday (10/5)

Ichabod Crane - Father's bible
Faye Valentine - Julia's lighter

Wednesday (10/6)

Harry Potter - Tom Riddle's diary
Daniel Peterson - New World Order badge

Thursday (10/7)

John Allerdyce - Wizarding pictures of LilyLu and Noah
River Tam - blue gloves (on floor)

Friday (10/8)

Sir Didymus - Sarah's vest
Isadora Raleigh - bottle of perfume from an ex-lover/former victim

'kay. If the assigned day doesn't work for you, let me know and I can swap you out for a day that works better, but most of you were on the 'no preference' side, so ... yeah.

Happy Effing Friday!

Edit Also, the music's cutting off at Noon rather than Midnight, so they get to have a peaceful afternoon and evening. :)

Good evening!

Is time to set up the next plot, and I wanted to give people ample time to reply.

This next plot is a select plot rather than a group-wide one, so only the following ten characters will be directly affected by it:

Sir Didymus - Sarah's vest
Corrine Fisher - Pollux's necklace
Isadora Raleigh - bottle of perfume from an ex-lover/former victim
River Tam - blue gloves (on floor)
John Allerdyce - Wizarding pictures of LilyLu and Noah
Ichabod Crane - Father's bible
Daniel Peterson - New World Order badge
Balthazar Blake - Veronica's necklace
Harry Potter - Tom Riddle's diary
Faye Valentine - Julia's lighter

What I need from you guys is an item of some significance to the character. Be it something sentimental (...yeah. you know where I went for Balthazar =/ ), something that would alarm them (something belonging to a left-behind significant other that said SO is never without), some relic of their past they thought they'd buried to forget, something that reminds them of a painful/traumatic time, etc. Something to shake them up, give them a startle, etc.

We're looking for smaller-ish items, books, jewelery, CDs if there's a significant song that would unnerve them, etc., something that can be left on their nightstand next week.

It will be a dated plot (2 items per day) so if you have a day preference to post your character's reaction, indicate that in the sign-up. :)

If you have questions or need suggestions, hit me up and we'll see what we can work out.

Oh, so bet you thought I forgot, didn't you? ::brow waggle::

First, our guaranteed moves:

Chase Collins
Sir Didymus/Ambrosius
Matt Prept
Faye Valentine

And then our random rolls, whoa:

Lily Evans
Severus Snape
Ichabod Crane
Bruce Banner
Hugo Weasley
Spike Spiegel
Magius

If you only have one (or two) characters and he/both are moved and you've changed your mind and rather he/one of them not be moved, you are welcome to change one of them. Just let me know ASAP. You have ... really, until the move (which is tentatively set for 10/13; to ensure a proper cast list, we might shift checks to mid-week the week prior rather than Friday, or end it early).

For the move, the island description writeup will remain in i_find until everyone is moved, then it will be placed in the mod journal. There will be a cast list in that journal as well, but I'm going to wait to see who we lose after checks before expending the effort to put people on it only to take them back off. For the duration of the bear plot, both hotels will have "complete" directories. That is to say, the old one will still list the moved people in their prior rooms, and the one on the new island will list everyone from the old island in the rooms they'll be moved into. And people in the new place can report these arrangements to the old place >:D

s'okay. That's that, and if you have questions or want to shake things up, go 'head and lemme know. I'll be here ... well, for a little while then we're going out to get noms, but then will be back again.

I am excite. Because we are epic and awesome.

Ahem. That said.

Next week's plot starts on Monday. I think at least one or two of you was here for the first incarnation of this, but for those who were not ...

Starting at exactly midnight on Sunday night (so very technically, Monday morning), there will be music piped through the hotel speakers. In the elevator, in the hallways, in the lobby, in the rooms. In the kitchen, in the library, in the rec area. Outside, in the mall, in the store. Everywhere. The end of the island farthest from the hotel (but still inside the line) will be the least affected.

Now, this will not be just any music. Oh no. It'll kick off with Ke$ha's Tik Tok at concert volume. Oh yes. They will be playing lots of dance type music (Lady Gaga and Ke$ha and Katy Perry and Black Eyed Peas) and then some classic rock -- the sort with the really long high pitched squealy guitar riffs in them? Like those. Possibly some rap as well, you know, for variety.

This will continue for the duration of the week. The volume will vary from "comfortable" background noise to "shake the windows" concert volume.

I think it's pretty straightforward, but if you have questions for clarity, fire away. :)

All right. Since everyone who replied seemed to think this was a good idea (or at least didn't think it sucked XD) we're going to go ahead and ... move early!

Not everyone, of course, because that defeats the purpose of a control group going early.

We're aiming for Wednesday, October 13, which is the week of Earthquakes and when the move is suggested. The lottery will follow that Friday, and the bears will arrive on the old island that Monday, and then ... everyone else moves. So it's roughly 12 days before the group move.

Remember: volunteering to move means your character cannot play in the bear plot. There may or may not be something going on at the new island that week, depending on what we think we want at that time. The bear plot is probably going to mostly be a hide-and-seek plot, because I feel bad killing the bears, who are really getting screwed over as it is since the Heads snaked their armor. The hotel's going to get totally trashed in the process though.

But I digress. The bear plot writeup comes later.

( Rambly! )

So, you guys really do have until Friday, but if everyone replies tonight/tomorrow/whatever, we'll roll up then. NOT THAT I'M TRYING TO ENCOURAGE YOU TO REPLY OR ANYTHING. ::cough::

Um. a few random facts that might influence your decisions if you're straddling a fence:

1) there will be ammo on the new island. not much, but some, because there are going to be JUNGLE BEASTIES at random and ... they might need shooting.
2) the network's available, so that method of interaction will be open
3) when the splinter group is moved, there will be webcams available on the laptops.
4) the new place is really nice, and has a proper infirmary that i haven't gotten around to updating about yet but TOTALLY WILL
5) you miss the last half of earthquakes, and all of ice bears, but you stand a chance of getting into the lottery as it will be held on new!island

Okay. That said, tell me what you want, baby!

All righty. Someday, I think I'll learn not to do plot writeups at obnoxious hours of the AM, but that day is not tonight.

( Follow the cut! )

If you have any questions/need clarification/think I got something wrong/your character doesn't have a soul per canon and you want to discuss effects ... comment and we'll discuss.

ETA Dementors are invisible to everyone but the wizards/spell-casters. See, because I miss glaringly obvious things is why I shouldn't write up plots at 2 am.

ETA 2 Dementors can be heard, and they cause cold. Cold, not colds. XD So even though they cannot be seen by non-wizards, they can be sensed.

For those interested, a sneak-peak of where they'll be moving to next month can be found here

Oh hai!

Something tells me I should have done this ... sooner. In fairness to me, I had a very busy weekend.

First, I updated the application slightly. It was mostly just adding a couple of parentheticals for clarity. No major changes to what we need to know, but things that people seemed to be unclear on ... have been clarified. Theoretically.
( Kidnappings )

If you didn't sign up the first time around and want to now, there's still time to do so. Up until Monday night, you can sign up to have your kid kidnapped.
( Lottery )

Third, the return of powers.
( Powers )

I think that covers everything for this week. Next weekend, we'll get into details on the dementor attack; we still haven't fine-tuned how that's going to be handled/played out yet, but hey. We have a week to line up our ducks XD

If you have any questions or need something clarified, please don't hesitate to comment, IM me, email me, hit the drop box, etc.

So. For those who haven't picked up on the trend yet, each post-lottery attack is an invasion of some in-game character's canon baddies. We're not talking signature villains like Voldyshorts or anything like that, but the minion types. When we had Pirates of the Caribbean kids, there was totally going to be a skeletal pirate invasion, but they have all dropped or died so ... that one got nixed.

The Dementors are from HP. Reavers were from Firefly. The calla wolves are from Jake's canon. the Ice bears (if we go that way >:D) are from Dora's canon. Daleks are up for consideration, but I have to read up on them since I'm not familiar with their canon, but assuming we still have characters from that canon, they'd be considered as well.

So this is an invitation to you. are there any minion-sorts in your character's canon you'd like to see in an invasion?