[OOC] [Sidereal] EXORCISM STUFF

[curriculum_fictae]

SO I GUESS we're gonna have ourselves a good ol' exorcism of Martin Blackwood. There's already been an IC meeting as well as a plurk on the subject, but it's time to actually map this thing out.

Normally I would take this time to give everyone multiple weekends to pick from, but given there's only two full weekends left in January annnnd one of them is imminent, we're going to need to center on January 24th - January 26th! That being said, I do have some leeway on exactly which day to start the post off, so that's where the poll comes in.

Regardless of when the event starts, everything will be ICly forward dated to whenever we're done. (Probably about one IC day.) Also, I will be running anchor on all NPC needs, so if none of the dates below work for you, I will be happy to run threads for you whenever available. I'm also planning on continuing threads until forever, so if you're a slow tagger all is well.

Poll #23277 MARTIN BLACKWOOD'S MAGICAL EXORCISM ADVENTURE

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 14

View Respondents

When would you prefer to have this event start?

View Answers

Thursday, January 23rd
6 (42.9%)

Friday, January 24th
5 (35.7%)

Saturday, January 25th
6 (42.9%)

Sunday, January 26th
4 (28.6%)

Tuesday, January 27th
2 (14.3%)

No Preference
4 (28.6%)

During which dates will you be available to participate?

View Answers

Thursday, January 23rd
9 (75.0%)

Friday, January 24th
7 (58.3%)

Saturday, January 25th
11 (91.7%)

Sunday, January 26th
10 (83.3%)

Tuesday, January 27th
9 (75.0%)

During which dates will you NOT be available to participate?

View Answers

Thursday, January 23rd
3 (30.0%)

Friday, January 24th
4 (40.0%)

Saturday, January 25th
0 (0.0%)

Sunday, January 26th
3 (30.0%)

Tuesday, January 27th
4 (40.0%)

(Threads will definitely continue past January 27th, but if I know which days you're available I'll try to prioritize you on those days.)

So what all's going to go down during this post? Well, there will be three primary groups available, with one being locked (main exorcism group) and the other two (guard Martin, fight off Lonely fragments) will be flexible. I am also 100% open to doing something outside of those options, but that's generally where I'm counting on people to slot in. You are welcome to change your mind, do both things, etc.; this is just me trying to generally gauge how to focus my planning energies.

Generally speaking, the flow of events will go like this:
+ Everyone gathers in the exorcism location to mingle/prep/discuss
+ Subaru and Magnus pull the Lonely out of Martin
+ The area temporarily becomes the world's worst beachfront property
+ At some point, Things Go Wrong and the Lonely splits into multiple fragments
+ The biggest chunk goes into Pyxis, as planned
+ The rest splits into monsters for people to fight/kill/get hurt by
+ Eventually all of the pieces are gathered up/destroyed (but consequences/scarring remains)
+ Magnus will either keep or destroy his box of Lonely
+ Martin wakes up ... fine? Probably??? (The ritual will be successful, but he will need recovery time)

How did my character find out about it/what kind of prep is involved? If you didn't get a chance to thread out asking ICly, then you can assume your character got lured into Martin's flat with cake and somehow signed up that way. Everyone who attended that meeting (or signed up) was asked to come to the exorcism with some kind of token made by (or given to them by) a loved one, preferably someone currently in Sidereal. I'll probably start the exorcism post off with a general "make friendship bracelets and mingle" thread, as you do. Or you can thread things out ahead of time - Martin definitely got out the word at least an IC day in advance.

What kind of sweet, sweet consequences will I be able to inflict on my characters? Glad you asked! See this comment for a list of stuff and feel free to ask questions. Note that the deets posted are GUIDELINES that match up with TMA canon. You are welcome to have Something Else More Fun Happening.

Comments

CHARACTER GROUPS

[curriculum_fictae]

Tell me which general group your character intends on being a part of during the exorcism! Or tell me what other things you'd like to do. You're welcome to do any combination of things; I just want to know how much to prep for each thing (and give folks some ideas on what to do.)

TEAM EXORCISM

[curriculum_fictae]

Already locked to Subaru, Magnus, and Jon+Martin. (Martin will be incoherent so that I can focus on running Lonely shenanigans.)

TEAM PROTECT MARTIN

[curriculum_fictae]

(aren't we all on this team)

Sign up here if your character will be sticking close to Martin during the exorcism to make sure the Lonely doesn't immediately try to yeet itself back into him. This is generally intended for characters that won't be fighting directly but still want to provide moral support, set up extra guards, generally take a less violent route, etc.

TEAM STAB THE LONELY

[curriculum_fictae]

Sign up here if your character is here to WRECK THIS ENTITY'S SHIT, YEAHHHH. Generally this is for the more violently inclined characters who are going to be actively hunting down Lonely fragments to prevent them from escaping into Sidereal.

TEAM POPCORN

[curriculum_fictae]

If you're really just here to watch. Mostly just sign up here if you want your character to be present but don't really want to engage with the Lonely / don't want them to do anything in particular.

TEAM SOMETHING ELSE

[curriculum_fictae]

Because I'm sure I'm not covering everything that folks want to do.

CONSEQUENCES AND DETAILS

[curriculum_fictae]

So dealing with any TMA entity is a nasty business! And consequences are sweet, delicious fun. Unless they aren't, in which case they are FULLY optional and you don't have to play with any of them.

Here is a general guide to what sorts of things the Lonely MIGHT do to you!

• Feelings of numbness/lack of feeling/emptiness


• Sudden paranoia that nobody likes you and will never like you ever again


• Sudden paranoia that nobody else in Sidereal is real and you are the only sentient creature living here


• All faces in Sidereal are now blank (magical prosopagnosia)


• Faded color scheme/slowly fading out


• Temporary amnesia (either other people forget you or you forget other people)


• Uncontrollable bursts of invisibility


• Uncontrollable teleportation


• The sudden urge to sneak up on people all the time, you monster

What is important to note is that all of the above needs to be at least somewhat temporary. If the exorcism results in ten new Martins, then that's too much of a failure.

So which characters are vulnerable to the Lonely? Well, basically, if you want them to be vulnerable, then they are. But here are some examples of risk factors for being afflicted:

• Didn't bring an anti-Lonely token


• Has no significant loved ones, or has lost them


• Outcast/ostracized in some way


• Disconnected from a group or power larger than themselves


• Immortal or otherwise doomed to outlive loved ones


• Broken marriage, lifebond, etc.

And to balance it, here are things your characters can do to resist the Lonely while in its grip:

• Focus on a loved one


• Come with the recommended token/friendship bracelet


• Remember that friendship is magic


• Generally ignore feelings of creeping dread


• Logic, arguments, yelling


• Smooching, especially dramatic smooching


• Buddy system


• Shounen spirit in general

NOTE: All of these things are flexible, so if you see a factor or a consequence that isn't on this list, go for it!

ONE MORE THING--

[curriculum_fictae]

If you're planning on engaging with the Lonely directly in any way, I would deeply appreciate it if you comment here with at least one lonely/trauma button that I can push while sending the Lonely at you. I am happy to laser target anything that you'd love to have your character deal with as a result of this event.

Re: ONE MORE THING--

[bidenhander]

good lord the sword misses her lady and her girls and her wife and the rest of the court and while she's endured loneliness on an actually cosmic scale before and come thru fine it's still miserable to be without people she genuinely, truly loves, esp since there isn't anyone here she'd be capable of ever loving half as much, yet, she just doesn't have anyone she's invested in caring about that way.

she's not quite fully vulnerable to the lonely's grip because if she were truly disconnected from them she'd feel it and also her clothes were literally made for her to wear by them, they're a constant ever-present reminder that even if she's temporarily apart she is always loved and when your love is god-punching tier strong-willed it's probably not really possible to be overcome by outside manipulation that way, but she is, still, deeply lonely in at least this sense of no one she loves is here to love her, all the same.

Re: ONE MORE THING--

[selfdissecting]

Putting this here too for organizational purposes!

Maeve's various trauma buttons can be pressed by:

—Treating her as though she isn't real and preying on her issues with identity/self-permanence (People Will Forget I Exist As Soon As They're Done Talking To Me)

—Exacerbating her existing feelings that she doesn't know herself/has no identity besides Making Others' Lives Better For Them

—Insinuating everyone she does get along with will leave her for some reason or another or are only keeping her around to Use Her

—Making any reference to Bugsy, who got Eldritch Sibling Blood Pact Bonded to Maeve for life. unfortunately, for D&D Campaign Reasons, Bugsy has completely fallen out of contact with Maeve and she doesn't know whether they just got tired or her or if something happened or what, but it feels like a part of her is missing

—Implying she's incompetent at her job and that Vesper & Phosphor and the Partners (her bosses) dislike her. the same goes for her coworkers like Pascal, Yves, or Ceciliano

Re: ONE MORE THING--

[longmayireign]

Molly's trauma are:

- he is dead, he will never return to the people he knows
- he died before, and remembers nothing of the person he was before that death, there's a deep seated part of him that's worried that person might resurface, overtaking who he is now, or that now that he's died a second time he'll revert back to the empty husk he was when he first crawled out of his grave.

The second one is more the angle I'd like to go here, as I do want him to at least temporarily wind up as an empty husk by the end of this.

Re: ONE MORE THING--

[scrabblechampion]

Magnus has everyone I love will die trauma and maybe I'll never love again, but it's been addressed and he knows how to fight the Lonely now, so I think we can skip any direct Lonely confrontation.

He will set up the Magnus Bane Spa and Recovery Center in his bar for people to chill at and recover and have company. Magnus himself will be drained and sick for a few days but put up a front like a winner.

Re: ONE MORE THING--

[sweetreleafs]

Aerta's who planet is dead \o/ and before they all Died For Good they spent thousands of years in isolated torment, including her!

A very tiny number of survivors landed on Thusia with her, and she's spent centuries cultivating seeds from her home she brought in with her but like. Her whole planet. Is dead. And she likes to shove that knowledge deep deep down and kinda half pretend that only the life that happened post-Sabra is what Really Counts which also she knows is a Deep Betrayal of home.

There's also that she decided to be a monster instead of human. She is a dangerous forest hag that people fear for really good reason!! She's done a lot of murders of people who didn't deserve it, and is fully incapable of reintegrating herself with society at large whether she wanted to or not.

I think we have talked about Nico's Lonely Buttons but I'll probably be back to supply Ideas

Re: ONE MORE THING--

[unhappymedium]

I think most of his buttons are apparent and you have free reign over, but also:

What if Sidereal is just a dream? Or what if Subaru gets ripped away from Sidereal and sent back to his own world, to Empty Tokyo. He hasn't accepted it fully yet, but he wants to be in Sidereal where there can be Something Else with all these people.

I wouldn't mind an opportunity to use the sakura tree (eta: and eye) as an anchor/token too since it's tied to Seishirou, plus the tree doesn't like the Lonely encroaching on its guardian. What if Sakurazukamori Subaru...

Available for full offense if convenient, since they're in the maboroshi the sakura powers.

Re: ONE MORE THING--

[redskyrising]

Masego's very good at detecting and defending against mental influence, but he does have a crack in the wall of certainty he'd otherwise throw up. At the point of canon he's at, he's recently learned some things that suggest his parents are hiding information from him, which implies through certain canon metaphysics that his incubus dad may not actually view him as part of the family and could just be playing the doting papa for his human father's benefit. (Short version: all devils are deterministic creatures, and incubi have the core expression of "satisfying desire". Masego greatly desired the information Tikoloshe could have told him, and the contract that wed him to his husband allowed him to answer the desire of anyone in their family. Therefore, if he failed to respond to that desire, he must not see Masego as part of the family.

In fact the explanation ends up being that Tikoloshe, alone among every devil since the beginning of time, has gained actual, real free will through the influence of his husband and son, and withheld the information out of the desire to protect his child from something very dangerous. oops.)

do note that masego is not likely to fall for this for long, and he will be epically furious once he snaps out of it. which I for one encourage.

Re: ONE MORE THING--

[eudaimoniac]

Des is 100% always afraid that people are going to decide that he's too much trouble and leave him. He's very insecure about his past as a healer and is sure that if people find out about the big mistake he made, they'll think he's a monster. He worries sometimes that all of Sidereal is a hallucination.

Re: ONE MORE THING--

[stayedhuman]

The thing is that Gertrude is someone who is very self-contained out of necessity and is therefore only fortified against the Lonely insofar as she is even more so bloody-minded and stubborn and sure of who she herself is. Don't get lonely, get even.

She misses her cat and she does actually miss all her assistants, regardless of the fact that she would never admit it. She misses Adelard Dekker, and her relationship with Gerry, and she is more than keenly aware that a lot of the connections she doesn't have anymore are the result of her conscious choices.

Re: ONE MORE THING--

[andscene]

I think you know most of Double Trouble's nonsense by this point.

They're reasonably well-adjusted about not needing anybody, not having friends or people around them, etc, but it's starting to become more of a sticking point for them as they start making friends. They have no idea how to balance that desire for softness and closeness with the careful self-protecting independence they've cultivated for years. They're a Lonely that's very much starting to stray into "what if having people is... more fun..."

They thrive off attention and would greatly fear not being noticed or losing someone's attention that they care about. Or just losing their audience generally speaking.

They're actively starting to fall for Martin Blackwood (obviously) and have some insecurities there, especially about Martin choosing other people over them, or deciding that they're just no good and he could do better.

Re: ONE MORE THING--

[abardacttofollow]

Spoilers for the end of The Last Herald-Mage on highlight:

Yeah so, uh, Van dies in a self-sacrifice move that he sends Stef away for; Stef thinks at the time he's being sent to get backup and doesn't realize until he literally feels Vanyel explode. As well as the loneliness of a broken lifebond—which feels like his heart is literally bleeding out of an open wound in his chest basically, a big echoing space where you should feel someone else and they're not there—he's upset with himself for not realizing, angry at Van for not letting Stef choose whether to stay or go, trying just to get out one last work of art—to tell the world what really happened to Vanyel before anyone who wasn't there or didn't know him could romanticize it—before planning to go off and die. The book doesn't actually have THIS fucking miserable an ending but Stef doesn't know it yet.

He also like. Grew up on the streets with an abusive caretaker who he knew was planning on selling him into prostitution when he got too old to be useful to her as a sympathy ploy when begging, but he is comparatively over that one.

Re: ONE MORE THING--

[adhorsive]

Lord, he absolutely misses his prince (who goes by Dandelion and is the lead of their band) and his band and feels a lot like "What's the point of me being here for this? I'm not the good one, I'm just some guy". Literally Dandelion (who is an exiled sidhe) hasn't made his band swear fealty to him, and may not have realized that they all view him as their prince regardless. Star managed to get ride or die for one kind of oblivious Good Man who made him feel better about his life choices and that guy ain't here.

He also was rejected from his clan because he got kind of tired of murder. Made the mistake of seeing humans as people just once, talked to a guy, and well, fuck me, right? He is not by nature solitary but he's been turned away from his herd and living as a solitary faerie since.

He will (try to or successfully) act disaffected as the lonely throws things at him for some time but they will still hit home, but he's that type; literally when taking a shortcut through hell he pretends he's not feeling the literal emotional assault of that landscape, but you know, he's actually pretty vulnerable.

Re: ONE MORE THING--

[forjoyandwoe]

OOPS I FORGOT

- deeply afraid he will never see his brother or son Dante & Nero again
- was in total isolation for so long that he's afraid he won't know how to sustain his new connections with others that he has deeply wanted

Re: ONE MORE THING--

[sleepingmewty]

G'raha's last memory before waking up in Sidereal was shutting himself into an undefined amount of time alone in a tower because the weapons inside were too dangerous to leave unsealed. He knew that doing this would mean that everyone he knew and loved would be dead by the time he woke up.

So yeah. Self-isolation for the sake of the world is a thing.

Re: ONE MORE THING--

[floridagothic]

Fen is going to mostly be spectator/on the outskirts to make sure Martin and Des come out of it alright, but! Just in case:

Fen spent 200-ish years alone, during which time the rest of his druid circle just disappeared, and he has no idea what happened to them. He tries not to think about it, but sometimes he wonders if they left him behind on purpose and that he maybe did something wrong.

He's also becoming afraid of the possibility that as sidereal alters his history bit by bit (age ups/downs + elf memory conflicts), he'll go back to Faerun to find his other lover, Griel, is no longer waiting for him. Died in his absence, just written out of his life... you name it.

He also has absolutely killed innocent people before (usually accidentally), including like a 6 y/o girl, and he thinks some people might turn on him for it if they find out.

And he's lowkey terrified of ending up alone, but that hasn't actually really registered even with him yet.

COMMENTS? QUESTIONS?

[curriculum_fictae]

Did I miss anything? Ask me stuff here!

[andscene]

Haru + Zazzle + TK will be largely unavailable on Friday (it's my birthdaaaay) but we are available to start on Thursday night (*TK maybe less so as she is on a bus). Most to the point, we're setting aside most of Saturday during the day to be available to play (starting around 1 or 2PST on Saturday and going for however long). We'd be down to all play 'together' if that works but can also be split up.