fhplotterywheel | The brains, they are storming (7/30/08)

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brainstorming

The brains, they are storming (7/30/08)

Hello and welcome to the latest brainstorming post. No idea too big or too small.

Here's the last brainstorming post if you want to take a look at ideas and do more work with them.

One of the ideas that came up last time was the concept of having things that could be useful to someone else's plot without knowing if someone had a need to make use of them. So we'll have an OCD "plot spare parts" thread for anyone who'd like to use it. (An example of a "plot spare part" is here in the previous brainstorming post).

OCD is up! Storm away!

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For things you need help with in terms of fine-tuning.

Last night, Mr. Eriksen opened Caritas (http://community.livejournal.com/fandomtownies/2995652.html) due to a 'whoops' moment.

What if, (since so many of us have more than one character) the wrong person 'felt compelled for inexplicable reasons' to open a business instead of the usual employee? For example, a Tuesday could have Murdock working at Turtle & Canary instead of G'Kar.

It could be a random week-long thing, to give an opportunity for more people to be involved and to allow more leeway to ensure things like classes aren't interfered with. Since we wouldn't want students (or teachers) missing their workshops.

I kinda love this. (A bodyswap plot with the same parameters could be fun too. It's been done several times on an individual level, but not gamewide that I can recall.)

Hmm. How about instead of swapping characters? Characters merge into one entity?

For people who only have one character they have the option of merging with other the characters of other muns?

o.O Your brain is squishy and delicious.

That's because it tastes like apples and cinnamon.

A bodyswapping, oooh. That could be fun.

Murdock in G'Kar's body: "I'm an alien!" *beat* "That's soo cool! Hrm, I wonder if these spots are everywhere..."

Or maybe something like a Freaky Friday where two people swap bodies, then have to go through the other person's day pretending to be that person?

Ha! You're welcome!

Randomly, I would love the idea of Fandom getting "stuck" somehow like in the movie Groundhog Day, repeating the same day over and over and over, but since the game plays out in real time it seems like that'd be impossible to do.

Actually Jack Harkness v1.0 played out that plot waaaay back when as a personal plot. Here's a link to the first day (http://time-agent.livejournal.com/13331.html"). And the next (http://time-agent.livejournal.com/13799.html). This went on for a few days.

And then she had to drop him, leaving him trapped in groundhog limbo.

Jack v2.0 rescued him out of it when she adopted him.

But as a plot, it was pretty cool

Yeah, I think that would be a logistical nightmare to pull off as a gamewide thing, but maybe on a smaller scale -- say 10-20, maybe 25, volunteers who get stuck in the loop, leaving others to figure out how to get them out of it, it could be workable?

Or what if the island got stuck in a loop and it was up to the alumni to figure it out and fix it?

Assuming we could come up with a way to get the entire island stuck in said time loop that would be playable, that's a possibility, but it presupposes working it out so the entire island is stuck. And the only ways I can think of to work that out involve massive OCD and limiting interaction to pre-set posts, which would kill a lot of spontaneity on a gamewide scale.

But if anybody else can think of something . . .

Well, I think we'd have to tweak the basic plot premise that everything is *exactly* the same somehow... otherwise, there would be no RP interaction.

But if we did it on a week where there were no classes... it could start on Monday and people could continue to think that it was Monday all week, meaning that the same people post their jobs, etc. So some things could be very similar, but no one would realize that Monday was happening over and over again.

So Lacey could keep opening the diner and thinking it's Monday, but it really should be Wednesday and different people could come in for different reasons.

I dunno... I'm kind of thinking out loud... but I think that tweaking the premise rather than duplicating it wholesale could definitely work as an RP plot.

And more blathering as I keep thinking about this:

Little things could be the same (like Dean Winchester's alarm clock playing "Heat of the Moment"), but they wouldn't necessarily clue the characters in.

And maybe somehow breaking the loop involves making the entire island time travel so that the missing days don't need to be made up.

We could always take the TNG approach to the groundhog day concept...

The day starts off like it normally does every day however at the end of the day there's a catastrophe and since we're in a loop it restarts itself.

The next day people either have a sense of Deja Vu with a few people remembering the entire event. The people who remember try to convince others to stop the catastrophe and with the catastrophe happening at the same time.

People who are off the island (Alumni or people traveling) can get the idea that something is wrong when someone from the island calls them on the same day and don't remember the day before etc. etc. etc.

And when everyone figures out what the catastrophe is and stops it from happening the time flow returns to normal.

Oh, I like that.

Would people on the island keep thinking that it was Monday again? (to pick a day randomly)

Exactly. And if I remember correctly it was the catastrophe itself that caused the time to loop again and again.

Which makes sense.

The only thing about time re-setting itself is that people would need to either handwave a whole week or simultaneously play out the loop and real time - either of which could get confusing.

Unless averting the catastrophe meant that time leapt ahead to catch up with the outside world.

ETA: And in re-reading what you wrote, you didn't actually say time would re-set, you said it would return to normal... so that could mean catching up with real time?

Edited 2008-07-30 20:44 (UTC)

I'd probably suggest what they did in the TNG episode as well.

Ideally the time loop is localized to the island and when the catastrophe is averted they join up with whatever REAL day the plot ends on.

You, sir, are made of win. Have some booze.

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The brains, they are storming (7/30/08)

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