just when you thought luceti couldn't possibly be more of a soap opera...

[lucetimods]

Bonjour! Allo! Comment ça-va?

Yep. It’s time for a little light experimentation before the month runs out. After a big draft earlier in this cycle, we’re aiming for something fun for April’s closer. And we’d like to thank Elle, Vyc, and Yosh for the particular suggestion which has inspired this rousing round of cheesy drama this time around. Mmhm, folks -- for the equivalent of a long weekend, Luceti is gonna find itself dropped head-first into the very dramatic stylings of just about any soap opera you can imagine.


Here are the nuts and bolts: the event will run from Friday, April 26th to Tuesday, April 30th; as usual with these events, it will be optional, and so you’re free to have your character unaffectedly gawking at everyone else from the sidelines; we’ll outline a general idea below but do concoct or suggest or come up with your own soap opera situations if you have them -- if there are any possibilities you’re not sure about, you can run it by us in the MOD QUESTIONS thread below.

Now for the fun stuff. For the duration of the event (starting at 12:00AM on the 26th), Luceti’s population will find itself compelled to act, speak, and even look as though they’re all glamourous leads on your typical soap opera. Now, we know that plenty of different countries have plenty of different soap opera styles, so go ahead and stylize your character’s effects to match an American soap (rich with romance and luxury) or a British soap (complete with heavy accent and tight-knit working-class communities) or even a telenovela -- we are equal opportunity dramatists. If you would like more information on soap operas, please refer to this wikipedia page

What will really drive the heart and soul of this event are the hammy, over-the-top situations that will now accost your characters on the daily. Is someone suddenly pregnant after an ill-advised affair? Is Emil now playing his own long-lost twin sibling, turning up to sow evil wherever he goes? Has Aang been keeping a terrible secret from a dear friend who just now picked up the wrong diary and now he has to agonize over stealing it back? The important thing to keep in mind is that even if the problems you decide to play out are authentic for your characters, their reactions/emotions/solutions can be as illogical and dramatic as you like. Is someone about to spill your terrible secret to someone else? Better pull a gun on them. Or maybe try and poison their food. Or perhaps it’s better to seduce them and begin your own game of blackmail. Or maybe your character starts being unreasonably chatty on their own, setting up an elaborate journal broadcast to reveal their own secrets.

A few common soap opera elements to consider:

• Characters announcing dramatic plot-twists in their own life -- whether they’re true or not! Perhaps Rapunzel is suddenly compelled to tell everyone that she’s been hiding a gambling problem this whole time.
  
• Inconvenient moments are caught live on the journals for all to see. Are you caught destroying evidence? Taking candy from a baby? Stealing from your neighbours? Keeping a secret stalker shrine? Getting your naughty on?
  
• Accidental misfired filtered messages! Incriminating notes! Inconvenient objects! They all seem to be ending up in the wrong person’s possession.
  
• Characters are suddenly being played by ‘different actors’ -- for example, perhaps Buffy is now played by Kristy Swanson instead of Sarah Michelle Gellar. Hook yourself up with an icon account and have your character suddenly (and inexplicably) looking like a whole new person despite still being themselves. Bonus points if only some people around town notice the difference. And it needn’t only be live-action PBs. Hell, go ahead and have your character’s PB change mediums entirely.
  
• Two characters find out (after years of thinking they weren’t even from the same world) that they’re actually long-lost family members. No matter what the source, they believe it. And doggedly try to prove it to everyone else.
  
• Typically sophisticated and useful magic is now a cartoonish shadow of what it once was. Expect lots of stereotypical cauldrons and cliché rhyming spells.
  
• Deus ex machina solutions. Need something? You can be damn sure it’ll mysteriously turn up in the next scene. All of Haruhi’s soap opera problems would be solved if she could just get her hand on a particular book and -- lo and behold -- the next day she finds the same tome left out in the open while visiting someone’s house.
  
• Death is already impermanent in Luceti but -- for one almost-week only -- expect it to become even more impermanent. If a character dies in the service of a grand soap operatic plot, they won’t even be gone for a week. Instead, they’ll crop up mysteriously after only a few hours or perhaps a single day. Perhaps with some hilariously overblown death penalty -- loss of the ability to make right-hand turns, anyone? -- or else with no penalty at all. Penalties that are sustained will fade with the end of the event, the implication being that no event-related deaths were even authentic.
  
• Clones! Sudden inexplicable attraction! Ghosts! Sexual healing! Ludicrously unbelievable medical operations! Amnesia! Bullying! Crooked business! House fires! Illegitimate children! Evil twins! Seriously, pals. The sound stage is your canvas. Create plot-lines out of thin air or work with narratives you’ve already been building with your characters for months.

If you have any questions or concerns, please bring them up in the MOD QUESTIONS thread below. Otherwise, happy hamming!