fhplotterywheel | Noir Weekend!

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Noir Weekend!

We all know and love Soap Opera Weekend, so we thought we would riff on that idea, but with a twist!

Yes, on the weekend of July 12-13th, Fandom Island (and those hanging around on Ingvar, if the stolp bug menace hasn't vacated the dorms by then) will be experiencing its very first Noir Weekend!

What does Noir Weekend consist of? If you opt in to playing along, you'll get to poke at copious noir tropes, black and white/period icons, shenanigans with private dicks and speakeasies (as dirty as you want to interpret that) and plenty of dangerous dames, skirts, birds, and molls. Prohibition is going strong, which means that the bars can only legally be serving soft drinks and sarsaparilla, though there may be rumors of secret rooms where something a little harder can be bought--for a price. Monologuing runs rampant. And if there aren't antics involving tommyguns before the end of the weekend, someone is doing something wrong somewhere. But no worries, any and all damage caused will revert back to normal again on Monday morning!

Picture this! (all characters mentioned being used w/out permission just for illustrative and brainstorming purposes) Please listen to this while reading to get into the mood:

Fandom Island. A seedier hive of scum and villainy you won't find this side of NYC. The air is always hazy with fog and cigarette smoke and the streets run with rainwater, illegal booze, and sometimes even blood. At the aptly-named Devil's Nest, a man known to associates and enemies alike only as 'the Viking' runs girls, games, and gin. When it comes to having dirty hands, no one's are much dirtier than his boy, Lips, who does brisk business in records and "violin cases," if you know what we mean. Most of the cops are on the take and the ones that ain't have a hard time keeping their backs free of lead. Not that they ain't got problems of their own. The Baltimore Bay Butcher's killed seven ~~NPC~~ people and counting and even though times are tough, Satriale's shop has always got plenty of pork. Every heart's got a secret, every business has got a backdoor, and every one has to pay the piper in the end.

This is...Fandom Noir.

It'll be structured very much the same way Soap Opera Weekend is, with OCD neatly tucked into this very post for you to all noodle about your characters' backstories, and what's becoming of the bits of the island you all know and love.

Brainstorming and question threads are all neatly posted within for your convenience!

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Two elements are needed for a good Noir setting. The first is darkness. Dark clouds, constant rain, no daylight--all necessary for those distinctive chiaroscuro shadows. Somehow for this event, it will never be daylight. Like Sin City, it's just somehow always nighttime. Nighttime and raining. This doesn't strike anyone as strange or weird, it's just How Things Are--unless, of course, your character remains untouched by Fandom whimsy. Then they can feel free to be as confused by the omnipresent darkness as you'd like!

The second is the city. Streetlamps to illuminate our anti-heroes as they walk in the rain. Alleys for our anti-heroes to be dragged down. Bars and speakeasies, warehouses, seedy offices, gambling casinos, all of these and more are backdrops for whatever our characters are going to get up to. As such, Fandom Town will be undergoing some changes, too.

Folks who currently own or manage a business can ping in here and decide what changes, if any, are going to affect their shops. They may end up becoming something completely different, staying the same, or keeping up a similar front for all kinds of nefarious activities. NPC stores are moddable as usual, though any active PC employees should have the final say. A list of businesses can be found at

ft_directory.

We need some kind of classy joint what our femmes et hommes fatale can work at, all respectable like, what with the torch songs and the big bands.

I would love to volunteer the Magic Box for this. Rinoa's going to be one of those femme fatales singing the torch songs, and she has a bodyguard wrapped around her little finger (waves to Squall).

Plus I have images of her as a hostess-and-or-prostitute from some J-drama soooooooooo

I might say in this reality of noir-land she doesn't own it, exactly, she's just one of its stars. (Anybody want to volunteer to be the shadow owner of the place? Rinoa might be banging you on the side to STAY one of the stars ... )

I also need help potentially renaming it, although I want to keep "Magic" because, see, it's where the magic happens

I dunno. Calling it the Magic Box and making it a home for, err, ladies of the evening strikes me as HILARIOUS.

Oh my goodness yes.

Okay question! Should the Magic Box not be Torchland Express, then, and just a plain old brothel? OR should the stage be a front for what goes on below decks? I.e., all of the singers and waitresses can be had, for a price, if you know who to ask ...

Door number two is the sleazier option...

Oh, I know, the owner is trying to run a legit business, but someone's putting the squeeze on 'em to 'diversify their offerings'!

All right sold.

The Magic Box is a fabulous night club for the best singers in town. No alcohol here, this joint is legit. Except all of the singers are a little too well-paid, and the waitresses, too, and nobody's talking about those rumors that if you're a big spender and know the right code words, you can have any of them.

In fact, I shouldn't say waitresses; some of the wait staff and singers are male, and you can have them, too, which is even more hush-hush. But these are desperate kids.

Current employees totally get to decide if they want to work here or not, and if anyone else wants to work at the joint, just let me know. It's a big place, we have room for anybody that's interested -- maybe you're doing door security, or a bouncer, or waitstaff, or the trumpet player in the band, or one of the stars everyone applauds for. The world is your oyster!!!

Re: Town Brainstorming

angelo_wings - 2014-07-01 18:41 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Town Brainstorming

glacial_queen - 2014-07-01 18:46 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Town Brainstorming

furnaceface - 2014-07-01 19:04 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Town Brainstorming

spin_kick_snap - 2014-07-01 20:51 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Town Brainstorming

wwiii - 2014-07-01 20:52 (UTC) - Expand

Luke's is a classy joint, serving food and offering a nightly show, the kinda place that won't let you through the door without a dinner jacket and a tie. It's home to the well-to-dos and the want-to-dos alike, where the piano's always playing and the (non-alcoholic, of course officer!) drinks are always flowing, and all watched over by Grande Dame Pinkamena. She knows just what you like, and she and her girls will know just how to get it for you.

And, yes, Pinkamena will be shocked -- SHOCKED -- to find gambling in this establishment.

(Pinkie will totes be a pony -- this is just the noir-liest icon I have so far.)

Any need for a mildly disreputable but good-hearted coat check girl?

(I know I said waitress. I hadn't seen this comment yet.)

Mildly disreputable but good-hearted is practically in the job description.

Awesome!

What I'm thinking is I want to keep Caritas (and Kitty) unchanged, though the laws are different in the town, naturally. So Saturday I can post and people can come in because hey, alcohol!

And then I want the place to get raided by any cops in town.

Would people be up for this?

I almost feel like the cops should raid when Kitty tries to get one of them to settle their tab.

I love it.

And Tino only pours shots of cheap rotgut whiskey, no matter what people order.

Hannibal's house (former Efferton Manor/DOOMHAUS) should be completely habitable by then, and it really should get a secret basement...

If anybody needs reliable, absolutely illegal weapons provided to them over the course of this weekend, the Chilly Pipes ~~formerly Groovy Tunes~~ might happen to have a back room where such things can be acquired in exchange for a pretty wad of dough and maybe a few favours.

Of course, so far as anybody is concerned or dares to say aloud, the place only deals in perfectly legal musical instruments, and Jonothon Starsmore A.K.A. Lips, the shop's owner, got that wicked set of scars on his face after a riot following a gig he played before hopping across the pond to start a business in America. They had nothing at all to do with his then-fiancee paying good money to have him cut down after one of his hit jobs came a little too close to home and immediately went south, leaving her bleeding on a nightclub floor.

All of the wares you'll find at the Chilly Pipes come with a guarantee to knock an audience dead, one way or another. And violins are really very popular in this town.

But does he have a theremin?

Naturally!

He has no bloody idea what to do with it, and it's likely been sitting there for a while. They're still a fairly new instrument, after all.

But it opens up nicely. So that people can ~~hide shit in there~~ inspect its inner workings, and all.

Perfect! :D Hannibal will take several! His perfectly legitimate customers overseas would love a few!

Lips is so happy to see that new, alternative musical styles are really starting to take off!

Is Jono gonna be fishlippy for the duration?

Re: Town Brainstorming

furnaceface - 2014-07-09 02:25 (UTC) - Expand

Dite's Decadent Delights is, as always, open for business! Sublimate your craving for alcohol with these delicious candies and confections! Those who are in the know, however, have a secret passcode to get to the room in back where they can chase the dragon for a few hours.

[The lovely

begmetwice has given me permission to play with DDD while she is out of town!]

Edited 2014-07-09 04:44 (UTC)

~~Now in the right thread, sigh...~~

Turning the Boards into a classic 30s theatre... no big deal... showing the stage play, "Screen Door (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stage_Door)" and run by a very mysterious foreign gentleman who is only seen at night and likes the ladies and always wears Fine Dress. >.>

It is possible that the theatre has a high turn-over for leading ladies.

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