curriculum_fictae | [OOC] [Sidereal] EXORCISM STUFF

[OOC] [Sidereal] EXORCISM STUFF

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.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

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.)

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

(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.

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.

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.

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

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!

Edited 2020-01-17 00:03 (UTC)

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.

Did I miss anything? Ask me stuff here!

it is a beautiful day in sidereal and i am a horrible keeper of the peace

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.

MAGNUS IS HERE TO HELP!!11

Aerta, probably! She’s sort of interested in Eating The Lonely. What the hell is her plan and is it possible I don’t know. But she will be there for Martin since this is What He Wants.

... I'm pretty okay with Aerta gobbling up a fragment. Just. y'know, :9 one up for later.

Nico goes here! Metaphysically fuck her up if fucking her up is convenient. She will bounce back quickly because she’s a DMC and they

Maeve's got her knives and a single level in GOO Warlock. She's ready to go. ALSO I ACCIDENTALLY ANSWERED THE POLL UNDER MEKHANICALLOUS instead of Maeve's journal but it's all good babey.

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

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

stabby stabby.

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.

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.

o/ G'raha will be in this team. He can fight, but he doubts that his skills would help with the lonely. Also, he locked himself in a tower by himself for an indefinite amount of time to protect the world, knowing everyone he knew would be dead when he woke up. So lol.

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

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.

Edited 2020-01-23 20:31 (UTC)

The power of love compels you.

EEYYY

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 1 of 3

[OOC] [Sidereal] EXORCISM STUFF

CHARACTER GROUPS

TEAM EXORCISM

TEAM PROTECT MARTIN

TEAM STAB THE LONELY

TEAM POPCORN

TEAM SOMETHING ELSE

CONSEQUENCES AND DETAILS

ONE MORE THING--

COMMENTS? QUESTIONS?

Re: TEAM STAB THE LONELY

Re: ONE MORE THING--

no subject

Re: TEAM PROTECT MARTIN

no subject

Re: TEAM POPCORN

Re: TEAM STAB THE LONELY

Re: ONE MORE THING--

Re: TEAM STAB THE LONELY

Re: ONE MORE THING--

Re: ONE MORE THING--

no subject

Re: ONE MORE THING--

Re: ONE MORE THING--

Re: TEAM EXORCISM

Re: TEAM STAB THE LONELY