Fa la la la la...

[lucetimods]

HEY GUYS REMEMBER ACTIVITY CHECK? GO DO IT.

Ahem.

Gently drifting snow. That sharp nip in the air. The scent of pine and hot chocolate... yes, my friends, it is that time again. I present to you our gift for the holidays: a Christmastime event!

This event will last from the 19th to the 25th of the month, appropriately ending on Christmas, and during that time, the town of Luceti will be transformed. It will happen somewhat gradually, but changes will be noticeable from the very start. On the 19th, it will start to snow, and the whole village will suddenly look something like this and this! Luceti will turn into a veritable winter wonderland. As the days go by, there will be increasingly more Christmas touches to be found - like lights strung up along the buildings, snowmen and candy canes appearing in the snow, and even some reindeer straying around the edges of the woods. Garlands will appear in houses and apartments, along with stockings on the walls. Colorful wreaths will appear on doors. By the 22nd, the fountain in the plaza will vanish to be replaced with an enormous, fully decorated Christmas tree. And don't worry - if your character celebrates another religion, they may find little ornaments and aesthetic touches dedicated to that faith sprinkled about their home or apartment. There will also be plenty of snow - bunches of little flurries throughout the week, with steady snowfall on the 19th and one or two more days later on.

Sounds lovely, right? Enough to put everyone in good spirits? Perhaps encouraging warmth and love for one's fellow villager? I hope so, because promptly on the morning of the 19th, little elves are going to appear by the dozens all over the village! Residents will wake up in the morning to find the little guy (or gal!) sitting on a bookcase, or a shelf, or a bedside table, smiling sweetly. Yes, these elves are alive, and they are watching you! Whether asked or not about their purpose, the elves will explain that they are there to help Santa decide if the character in question is naughty or nice.

Every day leading up to Christmas, the elf will ask the character it is observing to do something for it. These requests will be largely innocent and good-spirited - they may involve baking cookies, performing a good deed, decorating one's house, and so on. Obviously, if characters comply, they will be deemed Nice. If they don't comply or even try to hurt the elves, they will of course be marked Naughty. The behavior of the villagers towards the elves will determine what gift they receive.

You do not need to check this with us! Each mun is allowed to handwave elves for their characters and come to the ultimate decision of whether their character will be deemed naughty or nice. We leave that up to your discretion! Also, not every single character needs to have an elf - there might be just one elf per apartment or household, though that elf will then look after every person in the residence. Feel free to work that out amongst yourselves in the post; you do not need to inform us mods what you're doing!

Now, let's go through some specifics.

Gifts

Obviously, all the people deemed Nice will receive a special gift at the foot of their bed on Christmas day. These gifts may be personalized and may be items from home! But as we reserve the right to make sure these gifts fall within appropriate bounds, there will be a comment below where you can sign up with your character's gift. (It doesn't have to be right this moment, but try to get to it at least two days before Christmas so we have time to go over it.) We won't approve every single one - but what we will do is inform you if your gift isn't possible. If you receive no such comment you're good to go!

Naughty characters have a number of options. It's up to you guys! They could receive nothing, or receive the traditional lump of coal. Or a cactus. Something unpleasant if not outright harmful. Or, in a bit of a twist, they will still receive a gift - just one they specifically would not want. Say your character hates cats - here's a kitten! Scared of water? Here's some goggles and a swim suit. Think oranges are disgusting? Have a bag of them. These gifts will be mostly pranks, and will always skirt just below anything like malicious - but characters may find them a little off-putting or a little creepy nonetheless. Naughty gifts do not need to be registered with us.

Finally, just to balance out this list of options a little, a ridiculously huge pile of presents will appear beneath the tree in the village square on Christmas day. However, none of these gifts will be anything particularly special - that is, none of it can be world specific or something that can only be obtained via missions. You might find a deluxe set of hot cocoa or lovely bath products or a teddy bear or a board game - all nice things, but fairly generic.

Requests

Elves may ask a single request a day, or they may ask several. While many requests will be innocent... some will be quite a bit stranger. They will border on the bizarre and ridiculous - like baking a shaving cream pie or balancing on one foot for ten minutes. Elves that ask these sorts of requests will also frequently remind their charges that if they don't comply, Santa will know... because Santa sees everything. When you're sleeping... when you're awake... and you absolutely don't want to be naughty, do you...?

(These elves, for the record, are strictly optional. Most will be of the more innocent variety.)

This should come off as unsettling. Perhaps mildly creepy. But it will never cross the line into malice or anything too seriously uncomfortable. But characters may find their elf staring at them just a little too often, with unblinking eyes...

Ahem.

We thought it would be helpful to give you guys a more solid list of potential requests as examples. You may use these or come up with your own!

• Bake something - a pie, cookies, a cake.


• Wrap a gift for a friend and deliver it!


• Put some simple decorations up in your home. (The elf may provide these, or ask your character to make them.)


• Do a favor for a stranger - hold a door open, return something they've dropped, or just strike up a friendly conversation.


• Try ice skating! Even better - bring a friend!


• Go caroling! It won't matter if you can't really sing.


• Help someone - friend or stranger! - with some chore or task that needs doing.


• Have a snowball fight!


• Build a snowman. Or any kind of snow statue! (Something lewd or gross will not net you Nice points, though.)

Mistletoe

Ah, you didn't think we'd forgotten, had we? Early morning of the 24th, mistletoe will appear all across the village - in homes, hiding beneath doorways and hallway entrances and exits, and even out in the village as well, dangling beneath a tree branch or a particularly tall candy cane. Mistletoe will also be present in every single public building.

Should your character end up beneath the mistletoe with another, both will be stuck in place until they kiss! (It needn't be a kiss on the lips, though. Not unless you want it to be.) No worming out of this one. Should a character end up beneath mistletoe alone, they will feel an oddly strong desire to hang about until someone else comes along. This desire can, however, be resisted.

The mistletoe will have all disappeared by Christmas morning, so make it count!

Elves and Santa

How about some details on our helpful little friends? The elves are very lively and each will have a unique personality - again, this can be handwaved, but it's something for the characters to note if they so wish. They subsist on a diet of peppermint candies and orange soft drink, and they will sleep in the stockings that will appear on everyone's walls. They also like to nap in silverware drawers. They are very naturally curious - and when a character is away, they will absolutely snoop about your abode! They may go through your books and leave them open at embarrassingly soppy passages in romance novels, or drag your beloved teddy bear into view of the journal's camera. They will never steal or break anything - but characters can expect to find their things moved around and thoroughly rifled through.

Santa himself will not play too large a role - except on Christmas Eve night. Sharp-eyed characters who look to the sky may see his sleigh over head and hear his laughter from far away, as well as the ringing of sleigh bells. However, the man himself will never be seen on the ground.


As a final note, yes, you can opt out of this event! That is, if you so choose, no elf will appear for your character. The appearance changes will still affect their living place, however, but they will be able to remove the decorations if they so choose. (They'll just reappear the next day.) If you opt out of the elf option, your character will be unable to receive a special gift for Christmas - but said character would still be free to collect one of the generic gifts from beneath the tree.


And that's it! Use this post to plot and to sign up for gifts. Should you have questions, please as always submit them to the mod question thread below. The gift sign up thread will be just below it. Happy Holidays, one and all!

Comments

MOD QUESTIONS

[lucetimods]

[risingwinds]

So, I was thinking of making Rainbow Dash naughty. As of her current canon point, she HATES books and reading. Could I give her a Daring Do book out of irony, since she's yet to learn to appreciate the series?

[lucetimods]

Sure. In theory that's something that could show up in the item shop anyway, so it's not like a special home world request or anything. Go for it.

[savarin]

Can world-specific common items show up in the big pile of presents? Stuff like snacks or books from back home, nothing rare.

[lucetimods]

Nope, sorry! The point of the pile under the tree is that it's positively generic, and generic to Luceti only.

[lucetimods]

Oh, for the record, though, that stuff could easily show up in the item shop anyway.

[ja_janken]

So, in theory, what would happen if a character messes up one of the requests? Say, if the elf asks them to bake a pie and they accidentally burn their house down instead?

[lucetimods]

Well, that escalated quickly.

It depends on what you want to happen! You could have the character make it up to their elf if their elf is super upset they burned the house down. You could have the elf shrug, say eh, and count it as "you tried hard." It's really up to you and what you'd like to see happen!

[snikting]

What will happen if, say, the elf gets stabbed?

[lucetimods]

Um. I will cry with laughter, for one thing.

For another, it will die! A new elf will replace it the next day, but it's very likely it will be one of the more bizarro elves that ask bizarro requests, and it will be slightly wary.

[innerdragon]

Seeing as how people are asking for creatures from their respective worlds, would it be possible for a Pokemon Trainer to say... ask for a Pokemon?

[lucetimods]

If they're at their three limit, then no.

/forever shot for the awful joke

[ofwesternwinds]

This isn't really a question but more like a terrible idea

Someone should totally get this guy for an elf, y/y? 8V

[lucetimods]

screams

[fortunefail]

This is probably a no-go, but is it possible to receive one of these elves as a gift? Either as a naughty gift if the elf is particularly frustrating and/or intimidating to your character, or as a nice gift if the character actually enjoys the elf's company?

[lorentzian]

Unfortunately not. They count as part of the Shift and will disappear when it's over. They're too advanced to count as pets. Sorry!

[cryptgirl]

So if characters who hate cats can get a kitten for their naughty gift, does that mean a character can get a kitten as a nice gift? Or would that be better as one of the generic tree gifts?

[lorentzian]

I don't see why not. Sure! A kitten is probably a little too special to appear as a generic tree gift, anyway; wouldn't it wander off instead of staying put?

[blessingone]

So, it just occured to me:

Does Sophie get an elf? Or does this fall under children born in the enclosure not getting experimented on?

[lorentzian]

Hm.

Probably not, though if there is an elf for the household then that elf might at least watch over her. It won't ask any specific requests of her, though.

Another one of those horrible jokes rather than a serious question ^^;

[tapdancinskelly]

I'm going to hell for asking this but... can the naughty gift be a naughty gift?

[lorentzian]

LMAO FRED. I love Courage. Good choice.

[generalflirt]

Okay so for mission rewards you can't get not-your-world things but can you for the presents here? Specifically, I would like to get Masaomi a thunderstone for his Pikachu. Masa implied I could but I figured I should check

[song_princess]

Is there a way to rope the elf into helping make Christmas presents? AKA, can Leanne ask the elf for aid in gift making?

[somethingtoavenge]

Can the elf's be talked into changing their mind on requests if asked nicely? Like if your character can't bake and doesn't want to burn anything they can talk the elf into changing the request?