The Grand and Illustrious All-inclusive Off Topic Topic | Forums

[T.O.O.O.]

I have absolutely no idea what in heck is going on with that, but I don't think TOOO even knows about this thread. I have only ever seen him post in the A&C.

And you would be absolutely right. I just discovered this thread. (facepalm)

Well, with everybody back at the Adventure & Catastrophe Hotel, we may never know what happened in that mountain stronghold. I was kinda hoping Murinna would meet up with Boppy and Dorian and Discover Something. The Taste of Copper was my idea of a Hint... that, *sigh* never got resolved. Ah, well. Would have been interesting, though.

Any the way, I have just written a Pseudo-Magnum Opus to tie up my Pocket Universe story and bring it to a Sort of Grand Finale. If we are truly back home, I have an interesting idea for TOOO and his old friend The Spread Eagle... even if I have absolutely no idea what he, Jasmine and "Bob" the Dancing Peria have been doing in... erm, now I have to remember the name of the Age they were in. Then, I have to figure out what Angie Eagle has been doing and whatever happened to Scully and her Merry FBI Agents.

I know, I know - I created WAY too many characters.

[jahura]

Well, this is what happened for me.

Stories used to work so well before because there was open communication between writers and excerpts would sometimes be reviewed before posting, or there would be a collaborative pow-wow where ideas would be tossed around and tested for continuity and contingency.

We don't have that here. It's just freaking anarchy, now. Every writer for himself. I don't do well in anarchy.

This thread, according to Tora's character thread, is designated for plot discussion - but look at the title. The All Inclusive Off-Topic Topic. Literally that means you can discuss the Olympics or the situation in the Middle East and other things that have zip to do with the A&C, much less Uru. No wonder T.O.O.O. missed this thread despite it being in the top five since its creation. The title is misleading. But the general consensus was we use this thread for plot discussion. OK.

Still, not a lot of discussion about plot has taken place. It's I've done this and I posted that and no room for feedback, so writers get bent out of shape if someone challenges their post. There's no explanation of why you are posting and where would you like to go with it, and when someone takes a different direction in where the story may be going, it's you didn't read it. No. That writer doesn't have telepathy and your clues didn't provide a clear and predictable outcome.

Then there are proprietary characters. Some writers who participate have such rigid ideas about their characters and what they should do and how they should react that pre-approval from that writer is necessary in order to avoid a blowout. Yes, there's a character guideline thread, but much of it is tl;dr and more fitting to a wiki than a forum thread. Mostly, the proprietary writers get snippy when their
character is portrayed as anything out of their ideal and the OT comments start flying back and forth.
My band-aid to that problem was just to pretend they weren't there and stick to the characters I could forge. Handling the wolves, the fairies, and the nymphs seemed like a safe alternative once MN ragequit (Yes, you did. We're all busy people and have greater commitments, too but still find the time when we want to.) over my stating he was lead. He didn't want to be, but somebody needed to provide direction and T.O.O.O. and Zander were the only ones left. So I went with Plan A.

The Werewolf Cult Idea In a Nutshell, posted April 1, 2012

I gave Marae some of my idea about the werewolf cult on the A&C but my mind is still dwelling on it. I think it best not to go there if other writers already have ideas about where that's going to go. But since it had been bugging me today, here's the summary for anyone interested.

The 'cult' in question that chased the werewolves out of the caves are comprised of feral screaming teenage lycanmaniac fangirl nymphs. They mob any werewolf in the open, constantly fantasizing about them "wolfing out" and rescuing them from their plight, whatever that may be. Think "Team Jacob". They came in with the merchant caravan (since it's a traveling mall of sorts) and have set up a sort of tent city in the valley below the stronghold. They have a couple of high-powered telescopes with which they spy on the stronghold, and if any movement is detected the valley echoes with a creepy chorus of "squeeeeeeeee!"

Naturally, these werewolves live in utter fear and revulsion of these nymphs. Letting the wolf out is kind of a private thing for them after so many centuries of it being a taboo subject. The leader of the society explains it to the explorers as 'might as well ask any of you to do a striptease for their enjoyment'. Tully would reply, "that's not so bad", get an elbow nudge from Marae, then say, "oh, yes, very bad," then get another nudge, then say, "it depends on the tipping", to which Marae would then smile and nod in agreement because that's the Nyrond she knows and loves. But, I digress.

When the werewolves first arrived in the Now Here they lived in caves for shelter while the development of their domiciles on the mountain was under construction. Back then there wasn't quite the widespread mania there is now, as there was little sympathy for lycanphiles, but every so often a few would find and come through the Faerie gate and be a total nuisance. Many years back, a band of Nyronds sold them some parts from a vending machine as talismans and charms to ward off the horde, as well as atomizers of "satyr pheromone" which did kind of smell like old goat. None of these things had the desired effect, and by the time they discovered this the Nyronds were far gone. Therefore they had to invent their own security measures.

The road to the gateway of the stronghold is rife with booby-traps. A sparkly bracelet serves as bait for a snare. A trained guard badger lays in wait in its den. A spirit catcher traps anyone who might try to astral travel their way inside. Signs point the wrong way. A pressure mine is disguised as an industrial sized can of Bumble Bee albacore. Mirrors on the towers foul up any photographic attempts. You get the idea. They want to be left alone and in peace. Thus it's on the intrepid and clever forumites to find their way around these traps. When they finally reach the gate, the hooded sentry argues with them because he is reluctant to let Tasha in due to her young age - until he realizes she's a wulf and hurriedly admits the group inside.

The problem is, the werewolves control the Faerie gate, which is sealed with a big round metal door. They're not about to tell the group where this gate is or how to open it, of course. They don't want to open that door and let more nymphs in! When the group does discover the door at the back of one of the old caves, it's strangely reminiscent of a Journey Door - only with a paw print instead of a spiral hand. You guessed it - touching five paw print journey cloths unlock the door which reveals a grotto where the Faerie gate awaits. Along the way, they tell the tale of the werewolf quest for peaceful existence.

I wrote this idea back when I had decided to steer clear of the Now Here aspect. I was trying to integrate some of the ideas that were thrown out in the Off-Topic thread. It seemed to me there was a building up of these werewolves to be evil monsters because Toz's modeling is quite black and white. Since Toz was writing his own character as afflicted with a werewolf curse, I took a hint that Toz was writing a tale in which he was the catalyst and the "good" werewolf. I got the idea from MN's announcements of what he posted that he was following this track. My idea would be in complete conflict. So I sat on it.

I write my ideas in a blog journal of which many of the A&C writers have access. But there, like here, everyone has other things to do, and hijacking a story simply wasn't on my to do list. Had I known MN had no intention of directing at that time, I could very well have by posting it on the Off-Topic thread and taking in the feedback. Instead, I just wrote a passive participation in the nymphs because they could be silly fangirls just observing the happenings in the stronghold.


After it seemed like everyone else had given up and walked out except for Zander and T.O.O.O., I went forth with my idea and there wasn't a whole lot of objection to it. Zander got confused with the modern werewolves inside the stronghold, and apparently didn't read Part 2 on my blog.

The Werewolf Cult Idea In a Nutshell, part 2 posted June 30, 2012

Still going with the door and the idea that the werewolves just want to be left alone, the matter is further elaborated by the origin of the werewolves in the first place and how they came to Now Here in the first place. Tired of being stalked by fangirls and glory-seeking werewolf hunters, we still establish they came to this world for their own safety and independence. Their religion is more politics than spiritual, however, much like conservatives in a minority administration. The origin of the stronghold they occupy is unknown - it was abandoned when they came to it. Most of their religious lingo is code for 'enemy'.

Living in a politicoreligious society doesn't bar them from the comforts of modern day life. Inside the fortress they are relaxed and more themselves - humanoid, technologically on par with first world societies, and just as paranoid. Many of them have explored the Cavern prior to finding a home in Now Here, and have brought some of that technology (along with linking books and a Cloth) to their new home.

As Champ would put it to the A&C visitors, "don't confuse us with weremen. Our ancestors were once apes like yourselves."

They have good reason to be paranoid. On the other side of the Gate is the Sidhe Queen's army. They have been waiting for an opportunity to break through since the werewolves put up the Yeesha door. The Sidhe call Now Here the Queen's Preserve, as it was once mostly untouched wilderness. It was temporarily a hospice for a dying people who the previous Queen was beholden, but now the present Queen wants it back and those werewolf squatters gone. Letting in the nymphs was part of a past attempt to rid the land of them, but it backfired, of course, and now the nymphs are little more than a potentially destructive nuisance to either side. As annoying as they are to the werewolves, the occasional captured starstruck nymph had been most useful in giving the werewolves necessary information about the Sidhe - most important, their weaknesses.

It was definitely this Sidhe faction that routed the Hotel to Now Here in order to root them out. With the eclectic collection of beings from various worlds and dimensions, it was reasonable to believe at least someone in residence would be resistant to the werewolves' security measures. Added to this the boon was the established fact that back when the A&C residents visited Faerie proper not a single one of them wished to stay when their adventure came to an end, and it is predictable that none of these residents will wish to stay here, either. Now that the Hotel itself is back in place with only a placeholder in Now Here, the fae folk only need to manipulate the visitors into opening the door for them and letting them through.

So if anyone else wishes to participate, we can have the Castle Wolfenstein aspect in the form of Fae vs Werewolf doing endless battle, and we can have our fable aspect in writers deciding for themselves which side to take.

Zander also has a tendency to bulldoze the plot and shove it from point A to point W when he gets bored. He's used to me giving him an outline of what's going to take place beforehand when we're doing a story together and what the minute details and McGuffins mean to the outcome. We hadn't been able to do that here because PTs were borked and he has a gazillion friends on his blog of which I'm only one and I don't want to rely on E-mail because what address I have depends on what access I have and that changes more often than Kim Kardashian changes shoes. So much for communication.

One of the Cloths, for example, was supposed to be in a bakery (giving the effect of bread on fairies as a clue) and I was writing a scenario where Tully adopts the pretense of an official health inspector in search of that second Cloth so that he could be his Nyrond self pulling a con, seeking out the Cloth, and swiping some sweets as he goes along. Each of the Cloths weren't supposed to be easy to get to. This was their security system, after all. Each Cloth and its location was supposed to tell a story, much like the ones Yeesha provided in Uru.

This was taking some time, though, as I had a lot of offline demands of my time and I don't have anything that I can use away from home anymore to keep caught up in realtime. By the time I have it down and ready to upload, Zander posts Tully finding three more Cloths in a single post without any detail.
Rammo. Great, just great. Thanks, Zan. Love ya.

So, with one left, I had to work up to that, but I had to work fast. To speed up a plot, you have to provide conflict and chaos to up the tempo. Problem is, Zander's a pacifist and doesn't like writing about war. His Nyrond characters have mechanisms he wrote in where if they start a war or are responsible for a death, they die. It looked like this fairy who had shapeshifted into a mastodon was going to kill him by proxy by opening the door and letting in the Sidhe Queen's Armada - but he had plenty of opportunity to write Tully talking the mastodon out of it, wriggling away, or any number of possibilities if he only gave it some thought.

But he is presently working on another project, and that's where his mind is. So I waited for him to figure out something when he finished. Then *poof*, he posts them all going home.

This whole mess started with Toz god-moding the Hotel and its occupants to Now Here and ended with Zander god-moding them back. I try to patch with an idea of what happens when you god-mod a situation from the gods' point of view, but I just couldn't steer us out of the meta chat. I bring in Tully to provide history and try and help come up with some out-of-box solutions since he's supposedly good at that. I bring in Hugh because the other characters are placed there without their writer's consent or knowledge (which makes them hostages) and since Hugh strikes me as a black-ops kind of guy he'd be perfect to at least help figure out a way on that that aspect.
But Zander dismisses them both and can't stop blaming himself via meta chat how he's messed up things. Stick a fork in him, he's done. I gave up. I write Bast says leave them alone and Zander is only too happy to take that cue (for once) and post Zander and Jahura making a quick exit and everything fixing itself.

What we have here is a fail-yer to com-yew-ni-cate.

We are - all of us - operating on presumptions and assumptions and I'm just as guilty if not more so than the others. It was, after all, me that led on this. I failed. I apologize profusely for making an exponentially greater mess out of it. I have come to realize that my days of storytelling and dreams of being a writer have burned away.

Status of Hotel: Normal, restored by god-mod.

Status of Werewolves: Final Cloth still not found, nymphs running amok inside, fairy battalion still poised for attack, werewolves turning but have yet to respond to attack. If that even matters, now.

[T.O.O.O.]

Well, that explains what Toz meant when he said he thought the area had a Queen. It's a moot point, now.

[Zander Nyrond]

Yike. That's a very long list of ways I messed things up. Is it any wonder I couldn't stop blaming myself?

I don't have any defence. Sorry. I missed way too many hints, and got far too hung up on the fact that nobody else was writing, and then on damage limitation.

Jahura, your days of storytelling are not over in any sense. Neither are mine, though probably not here for a while. You made a point on LJ about not learning from past mistakes, and I think I just provided the worked example.

Maybe if the hotel thread recovers, I can come back in a while. If people don't mind, and if I promise to behave.

[jahura]

Zander, I don't mean to throw you under the bus. If it wasn't for my kvetching in the background we could have stopped when Pompeii was resolved and the Relto cleaned up. I wasn't satisfied with either the Relto story or the Pompeii story and wanted to do better. I knew - I knew - that Now Here was taboo turf for me but still I bully everyone into taking off so I can have an opening. Who do I think I am.

I came back resolved that I was going to be a good sport and cooperative and helpful this time and yet I come back worse than before. I pulled you into this and didn't foresee the consequences.

I'm just so fried right now Calliope rolls over in her bed and mutters into her pillow, "ugh, I can't do this. Come back tomorrow." That's not anyone's fault but mine. I too, gave up too easily too soon and misread cues and did more harm than good here. I tried to use this forum as therapy to clear some junk out of my head that was blocking my creative side and didn't do so well there. I'm right back where I started.

Maybe someday. But not now. I'm just going to take my lumps and go backstage and let the pros do what they do.

[T.O.O.O.]

Maybe we've gotten a bit rigid in our storytelling. I've been under the impression that the A&C thread is supposed to be free-form Round Robin storytelling, not really role-playing. I really don't think we should work within artificial guidelines (especially when some of us - like me - are unaware of them).

If someone messes with my story, even innocently, that's actually OK with me. I adapt to it. After all, the character of Jojo was the result of a misunderstand and (probably) a typo. But, in the end, we ended up creating a new and interesting character, and even an interesting short story of a newly created goddess seeking guidance. It actually worked out!

On top of that, even though it (temporarily) derailed my story, I found an alternate solution, and was even able to fit Jojo into it, which (I think) even enhanced the story!

So, I think the solution is to Stay Flexible. Adapt to changes. Or, as A Certain Poster (/me whistles innocently) put it, "Go with the flow!"

[MystNovice]

...

Blogs, huh?

I had thought the one upside to the forum makeover was that, with the PM system being ruined, all behind-the-scenes discussion would take place where I could see and contribute to it since I had never been deemed to be enough a member of this group over the past five years to be invited to the A&C Private Topic, but I was apparently mistaken. I see now why most of the things I wrote in this story were either ignored, shut down, or undone by other writers, resulting in my "pushing water uphill" comment. My contributions seem to have conflicted with a predetermined course of events of which I was unaware. But this does beg the question of how you saw me as being in the lead with everyone working against me.

I apologize again if I gave the impression of a "rage-quit", but I didn't so much leave as got busy for a week and came back to a story I couldn't recognize and didn't know where to start in getting back in to. Clear feedback was given that Boppy and Dorian wandering the basement was to come to nothing. That's really all I had going at that point in time, and I wasn't touching the suburbanite werewolf thing with a 21-1/2 foot pole.

Well, most of my characters are trapped in a frozen plotline, and at the moment, I have little idea where anyone is or how they got there. Aside from TOOO doing his own thing, all the other writers seem to have left, so I think I'm done with this place until something changes. At any rate, I seem to interminably be the outside man here, so I don't think I'll bother trying to contribute significantly to anything from this point on.

[T.O.O.O.]

Instead of turning this thread into a self-mutilation project, let's find answers.

First of all, please don't presume everyone knows about your blog. If you're going to do something like that, at least provide a link to your storyline. I really had no idea what was going on, and besides, I prefer to wing it, anyways. In retrospect, and looking over the last few pages, it all makes sense...now.

But, like any Myst game (or any "adventure" game, for that matter), I like exploration and discovery, and only resort to drama when exploration isn't possible in the storyline. I had a general idea of where I wanted my stories to go, but nothing set in stone. For example: originally I had the idea that Murinna would meet up with the rest of the group through the fairy gate. However, while I was putting the story together, the group moved on. So, I decided to punt. That's where the Clueless Swordsmen came in: there were originally meant as a plot device to get Murinna to the stream faster. Then, I realized they wouldn't give up that easily and figured, logically, they would follow her to the mountain stronghold, hoping to find her and whoever left the A&C-sized dent in the grass and the remains of a temporary campsite. What would happen after finding the gate to the werewolf stronghold? I had no idea, but, again, I was prepared to wing it.

And that's what I thought the A&C thread was all about - just simply making it up as we go along, keeping the story unpredictable and, therefore, more interesting. That's how I've been doing it. Sometimes, it works out - such as my story with TOOO, Jo and Dollina in XP2, or my Peria adventures. Sometimes, I hit a dead end, and story just sits there, unresolved - such as Angelo's trip to Taemara or Dollina chasing the bird-children. Or even Jasmine and Spread Eagle's adventure in Omallos.

But, again: that's OK. Who knows, some day I might come up with a solution to those stories. Nothing is set in stone.

Isn't that how the story should be?

[Zander Nyrond]

I don't know how the story "should" be. I plot. I can't help it. I make patterns and try to follow a logic and create a story. If plotting is not what this forum needs (and from your description, it definitely isn't), then it's better without me.I'm sorry MN is determined to leave whether we go or stay. I hope some of the others will drift back when they know I've gone.

[marae]

Hi all. I will just preface my comments by saying I have not yet had a chance to read everything since my last post in -- April, I believe? I will do so, but I felt it important to let people know I'm here, I'm alive, and I am still interested.

I want to apologize first of all for not being present for the last couple of months. I have been a bit out of touch, and will explain why shortly. Because I have been out of touch, I had no idea if people were still active in here, or what had happened in the story, and I knew when I came back I'd probably have a bunch of reading to do, and I just haven't been quite ready to tackle that. But I had an e-mail exchange with Zander yesterday (I felt I owed it to him to let him know why I hadn't spoken with him since our visit in May), and he gave me a heads up that things were a bit rocky in here. I'd planned to check in sooner or later; that revelation meant I'd best do so sooner.

I want you all to know that I have enjoyed what people have been writing (or had been writing when I last checked in), and it was so good to see us all in here working together again! I see we haven't forgotten how to fall apart, however. I'm just hoping we also have remembered how to pull back together.

I have been absent because after I returned home from my visit to England, I had to deal with some issues regarding my mother's health, and then just as we were getting that all in order, a tree fell on our house. Never have a tree fall on your house if you can possibly avoid it. I can ruin your whole year.

Yes, a sense of humor is indispensible in times like these.

We will be displaced for several months, and I am currently getting used to apartment life again. I joke that it's like being back in the dorms. But we're coping, and the good news is that not only are we getting a new roof, we're getting two new bedrooms, two new bathrooms, a new kitchen, and possibly a new upstairs office. We might even get a new living room and dining room if the roofing project extends that far.

I'm not getting my wing of the house redone, but I can live with that.

And in case you're wondering, yes, it was a BIG tree. It was an oak (not sure yet if it was a red oak or a black oak), well over a hundred years old, 35 inches in diameter. When it was lying across the house, the base was at the border of the back yard and the crown filled the front yard and extended across the driveway, effectively blocking it. It was very impressive.



What had happened was, the big storm (or more properly, the line of storms) of June 29 rolled across the country from Chicago and smacked into our tree in Maryland. The wind was strong enough to rip the very healthy tree up by the roots. It was quite a spectacular crash. Fortunately and miraculously, no one was hurt (even though my mother was at ground zero, with ceiling pieces falling all around her, nothing hit her), and we never lost power. As I told Zander, we had holes in the roof and cracks in the walls, but by golly, we had air conditioning! Also, we lost nothing of consequence in terms of personal property; other than one mattress and box springs and some rugs and carpeting (all of it quite hoary), all the damage was to the dwelling itself.

Well, actually, I misspoke. There was the matter of the cookie tins, which were holding up the ceiling in the kitchen. Those, I'm afraid, are toast.



So, life goes on, and now that I have gotten things organized enough that when the insurance company and the contractors finish haggling we can commence rebuilding, I have a little time on my hands. So here I am, ready to tackle another challenge.

I'm going to get caught up on my reading.