InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I want to live, Clarence!"

FRIDAY THE 13TH
There’s a strange sense of dread that accompanies the thick fog that rolls in from the north, covering the island and obscuring the sun. Everything appears bleak, in unnatural shades of gray. The clocktowers are the only obvious structures in color.

It's clearly magical in nature, but no danger senses ping and nobody can get a good reading on what, exactly, the fog is or what its deal is; it's as if it's nullifying powers that might be used against it.

There’s a ticking sound, tick tick tick, that can be heard across the island. It starts slow and builds over a tense 11 minutes. At 11:11AM, the clocktowers in Goosetown and Octoberville both let out one eerie, drawn out chime. Then, suddenly, all speakers on the island crackle to life and a slowed down, distorted version of “I’m Your Puppet” by James and Bobby Purify plays over them.

Meanwhile, polaroids fall over the island from the dreary sky. Multiples of the same ones, with only Tale names written on their labels. They’re photographs of every current islander’s Tale… but from their past life, with a frown drawn over their lips, their eyes scribbled out, and tears drawn on their cheeks. (With the exception of Peter and Jack, who have photos of themselves from their time on the island but with scribbled on smiles— congratulations on living, boys!)

When the song ends, the rain of photos stops but the eerie fog is here to stay until 11:11PM, when it dissipates and all color is returned.

YOUR PAST LIFE AND YOU

Hello! This is a very spooky event that seems like it has more going on to explore, but we want to be upfront about the photographs: what you see is what you get! We’ll be largely hands-off as mods during this event aside from any interactions with the special volunteer spot below and we won’t be fielding questions about character past lives because it’s not relevant at the moment. Try not to overthink it too much and just have fun with your characters learning what they used to look like and speculating on what kind of person they were based on an image alone!

Here’s an overly detailed rundown on the photograph portion of people’s past lives, just to preemptively answer any questions. We’re leaving the first one outside of the cut because it’s the most important and involves player consent, but we’ll collapse the rest so the page isn’t huge. Please read this before contacting us with questions! Maybe your question is already answered.

• There are multiple photographs, but you must ask player permission before assuming your character saw another’s photograph. This is especially true for Jack, who is purely a player character but whose backstory involves being one of the original islanders. Jenny is also currently on hiatus.
  
  Ali would also like for Peter's photos to remain undiscovered for now. We both don't have the time or bandwidth for hammering out and finetuning meta details for player consumption at the moment. Sorry!
  📷 CLICK ME FOR MORE INFO ON PAST LIVES

  If you don’t want your character to see their past life photograph and don’t want anyone to find it, you don’t have to! You don’t have to have them engage with this plot. Maybe there was only one copy of their photograph and it fell into the sea or a sheep ate it, never to be seen again. No big deal.
  
  

  The photographs are of every current islander from their previous life, regardless of whether they lived on the island or not. They’re all from before they died but not necessarily from 1971 like the infamous trio of photographs that were discovered in the Wizard Tower. There are no dates or real names listed, only their Tale names. There are no photographs of Tales that aren’t currently in-play, with the exception of our NPC characters. (Mother Goose, The Frog, and now The Well’s photographs all make an appearance and will become public knowledge with this event!)
  
  

  All characters are adults in their photographs and they are the only subjects of their photograph. Only adults (18+) lived on the island and they were adults when they first arrived, no children were allowed and Tales planning families moved off-island because it had better infrastructure and less unpredictable magic. (Only Peter and Jack know this for a fact, so this is OOC info atm just to avoid any player confusion.) We want to avoid any implication that children were killed. These are strictly some adult-only 🔞 above-board mysterious deaths.
  
  

  Your character won’t experience flashbacks or inklings or intuitively glean any additional information from these photographs except for what they see with their own eyes. You, the player, can decide what they look like and what they’re wearing and they can guesstimate what year they lived in based on their attire. If they didn’t die on the island in 1971, they died some time before when your character was born. There can be any number of years between reincarnations, so you can be generous with your math and err on the safe side. Again, if they were on the island then they needed to be an adult.
  
  

  You don't have to give your character a name or a PB or even describe them if you don't feel like it. If you want to give them a PB, it's just for fun and not an official claim. If another player apps a present-day character with the same PB you used for this event, your past life PB will just be retconned, nbd.
  
  The 'must be living' PB rule still applies to past life characters. Please be respectful of real people.
  
  Our NPC PBs that are taken but not on the taken list are: Stevie Nicks, Sam Elliott, and Olivia Hussey.