A Metaguard Christmas Carol

[The Wild West Pyro]

We have been in the chatroom for a while and we currently have a summary of what would bring about the BAD FUTURE that the Ghost of Christmas Future (currently Morgan Le Fay) shows Mister A.

This is how the timeline proceeds in order for that bad future to happen.

1) Defeating Cthulhu in Christmas present does NOT stop the Fourth Wall falling. Perhaps it turns out Mister A was right about all fictionals needing to be sent back (something we MIGHT have trusted hi m on if we had been given more evidence that it was true –which in fairness, is something he couldn’t control; or if he’d just behaved in a way we found more trustworthy –which he COULD have controlled but refused to, and started terminating any instantiations who showed promise.)
2) So the Fourth Wall falls... Deanna escapes her prison/asylum/wherever and now that the wall is so broken down she CAN get into the void – she continues her plan to kill mister A
3) Some of the instantiations realise there’s a threat even if their father won’t accept it, and bring the human Metaguards into the void to try and stop Deanna
4) The Metaguards fail mostly due to their unfamilarity with the void, Mister A is killed, Deanna instantly gains control over the void and all the instantiations.
5) So then, while the Metaguards are just sort of staring at her and pointing out that ‘yeah reality’s still ending’ Deanna demonstrates the advantages of human imagination and does what Mister A could not do – she fixes the wall. Not sure how yet, but she DOES. The Metaguards don’t like putting such power in her hands, but what choice do they have? The world is literally ending RIGHT at that very moment, and she’s the only hope they have.
6) In the wake of her basically saving the world, Deanna announces her total control overthe void and, thus, both reality and fiction. Some Metaguards have the anticipated ‘AW, HELL NO!' response. In the resulting... debate, Eli is killed, and Deanna decrees that they are all either with her (and alive)o r against her (and dead)
7) Not wanting anybody else to die, some Metaguards agree to stay provided others are set free (who stays with Deanna and who gets away will be decided by you as individuals –we’ll have a thread where you can choose for yourselves, or something and will discuss any specifics with you).
8) After this has happened, some Metaguards stay with Deanna, others escape. Cut forward to two years later or so and the Metaguards who stayed with Deanna are just trying to make things better for those she subjugates. While the other Metaguards are rallying one last ditch attempt at a coup which ,of course, fails miserably because this is meant to be a really bad future.

I will make no mystery of the fact some people are going to die here. Anybody have anything against themselves being one of those killed SAY SO now.

PLEASE NOTE: I am also adding an imperative that any Metaguards under the age of eighteen will NOT be killed in the story even if they're okay with it and are not permitted to suggest they can be. I know these Metaguards are just fictional avatars of ourselves and not REALLY us, guys, however familiar we are, but the lines tend to blur around here quite a bit, and that sort of thing has the potential to get us into a lot of trouble. This is a story, that's all. Let's not do anything phenomenally stupid.

About the last ditch coup thing, is it possible we could do some variation on the Barricade Last Stand from Les Miserables? The movie's sequence on that was brilliant, and it could end quite tragically for some, some falling and others like me surviving but getting horribly injured in the process. Note: Is this going to be comical or anything?

[Endless Sea]

We have been in the chatroom for a while and we currently have a summary of what would bring about the BAD FUTURE that the Ghost of Christmas Future (currently Morgan Le Fay) shows Mister A.

This is how the timeline proceeds in order for that bad future to happen.

1) Defeating Cthulhu in Christmas present does NOT stop the Fourth Wall falling. Perhaps it turns out Mister A was right about all fictionals needing to be sent back (something we MIGHT have trusted hi m on if we had been given more evidence that it was true –which in fairness, is something he couldn’t control; or if he’d just behaved in a way we found more trustworthy –which he COULD have controlled but refused to, and started terminating any instantiations who showed promise.)
2) So the Fourth Wall falls... Deanna escapes her prison/asylum/wherever and now that the wall is so broken down she CAN get into the void – she continues her plan to kill mister A
3) Some of the instantiations realise there’s a threat even if their father won’t accept it, and bring the human Metaguards into the void to try and stop Deanna
4) The Metaguards fail mostly due to their unfamilarity with the void, Mister A is killed, Deanna instantly gains control over the void and all the instantiations.
5) So then, while the Metaguards are just sort of staring at her and pointing out that ‘yeah reality’s still ending’ Deanna demonstrates the advantages of human imagination and does what Mister A could not do – she fixes the wall. Not sure how yet, but she DOES. The Metaguards don’t like putting such power in her hands, but what choice do they have? The world is literally ending RIGHT at that very moment, and she’s the only hope they have.
6) In the wake of her basically saving the world, Deanna announces her total control overthe void and, thus, both reality and fiction. Some Metaguards have the anticipated ‘AW, HELL NO!' response. In the resulting... debate, Eli is killed, and Deanna decrees that they are all either with her (and alive)o r against her (and dead)
7) Not wanting anybody else to die, some Metaguards agree to stay provided others are set free (who stays with Deanna and who gets away will be decided by you as individuals –we’ll have a thread where you can choose for yourselves, or something and will discuss any specifics with you).
8) After this has happened, some Metaguards stay with Deanna, others escape. Cut forward to two years later or so and the Metaguards who stayed with Deanna are just trying to make things better for those she subjugates. While the other Metaguards are rallying one last ditch attempt at a coup which ,of course, fails miserably because this is meant to be a really bad future.

I will make no mystery of the fact some people are going to die here. Anybody have anything against themselves being one of those killed SAY SO now.

PLEASE NOTE: I am also adding an imperative that any Metaguards under the age of eighteen will NOT be killed in the story even if they're okay with it and are not permitted to suggest they can be. I know these Metaguards are just fictional avatars of ourselves and not REALLY us, guys, however familiar we are, but the lines tend to blur around here quite a bit, and that sort of thing has the potential to get us into a lot of trouble. This is a story, that's all. Let's not do anything phenomenally stupid.

About the last ditch coup thing, is it possible we could do some variation on the Barricade Last Stand from Les Miserables? The movie's sequence on that was brilliant, and it could end quite tragically for some, some falling and others like me surviving but getting horribly injured in the process. Note: Is this going to be comical or anything?

I kinda think we're trying not to let any harm come to the younger members here. This isn't supposed to be a gore-fest, this is supposed to be a Christmas Carol adaptation. No horrible injuries, no matter how much you want them. There may be some swearing, natch, but otherwise, I think we're trying to keep this clean.

[The Wild West Pyro]

OK then.

" Don't destroy the dreams of children."- Eiji Tsuburaya, the creator of Rodan, Mothra, Ultraman, Ultra Q and Godzilla.

Make them laugh. I will be rereading my Puffin Classics copy of A Christmas Carol in order to help. Try to put in some shout outs if you can to Dickens and the ARG. Make it hilarious, and overall enjoyable.

[Scarab]

I kinda think we're trying not to let any harm come to the younger members here. This isn't supposed to be a gore-fest, this is supposed to be a Christmas Carol adaptation. No horrible injuries, no matter how much you want them. There may be some swearing, natch, but otherwise, I think we're trying to keep this clean.

Precisely, Endless. This is a story about us, not an attempt to pick us all off in the most brutal way possible. I always considered guts and gore to be innately contradictory to true emotion anyway. You can never really move somebody with gore. Make them go 'oh yuck' maybe but why on EARTH would I want to do that with the people I call friends? The sad parts of this are hard enough to deal with as it is!

In the original Christmas carol, the saddest scene of all was a chair in the corner and a crutch without an owner.

[Guyshane]

I actually don't mind being horribly killed in a brutal fashion...in retrospect I might watch too many horror movies

[Scarab]

The audition for the Cheshire Cat will be posted soon.

[Scarab]

Thanks to Eli I have also discovered that recording to MP3 devices apepars to work quite well, this will also be acceptable if the quality is high enough.

The one Eli uses is an APPLE iTOUCH MP3 sooo anything of that quality or higher works.

[Scarab]

Cheshire Cat auditions ARE OPEN: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=840

Mister Administrator Auditions: OPEN

Narrator Auditions: OPEN

[Scarab]

Okay so, the Future Scenario for the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come has been hashed out in the chatroom. A huge thank you to everyone who showed up to leave comments or help out. I know that place is a bit like the M1 motorway sometimes (quiet for hours then suddenly –whoosh, everybody’s on the road at once and nobody's going in the same direction).

Before I explain, may I point out how insanely tricky it is to come up with a plausible plot involving a full on Metaguard rebellion, in the style of A Christmas Carol, without having that rebellion become a story in and of itself? BlackWolfe deserves all the limes for doing this, guys, is all I’m saying.

• Deanna takes over the void and announces her rule over all fiction. Being a believer in keeping your enemies close, she offers the Metaguards a choice: either they help her rule, or die. Their response is a resounding and almost unanimous ‘get lost!’ Sicon and Qara distract Deanna long enough for the majority of Metaguards to escape.
• So the escaped Metaguards now see Qara, Sicon, anybody else who chooses to stay, as prisoners of war... except as time goes on, they appear more and more to be working WITH Deanna. This leads to confusion amongst the Metaguards.
• This is the point in time where Mister A arrives, with the ghost of future, Morgan le Fay. With the Metaguards growing increasingly disheartened by the fact that their former allies are seemingly working with Deanna. He is understandably confused.
• Meanwhile, turns out Qara and Sicon are hoping to make Deanna behave less harshly. Of course it fails. Deanna makes an announcement that she is going to wipe out an entire fictional world. Her Metaguard allies decide to send a message to the rebels, who agree to a secret meeting in spite of the fact some of them no longer trust Qara or Sicon.
• Turns out it’s a ruse. Deanna didn’t trust them at all and she has no plans to attack a fictional world. She KNEW the Metaguards on her side would try and contact their former allies to warn them, and she’s using a tracking device –something magical, I suspect, in order to find where the Metaguard rebellion is hiding.
• Just as the rebellion is discussing whether to defend the world they believe is under threat, Deanna shows up leading Qara and Sicon and basically apprehends the entire rebellion with her Instantations. She gives a speech about how she’s ‘returning our faulty property’ and how that Sicon and Qara just led her RIGHT to the hideout, aaaaand the whole jig descents into confusion of who to trust, who’s being honest and in the chaos, mistakes are made...
• Aaaand that’s where the hardest scene of the lot plays out, and where it gets tricky for BlackWolfe (like I said, guys, all the limes). I’m not going to post that here because we haven’t fully discussed it with those involved yet, but let’s just say if anything is going to convince Mister A of the need to start treating the Metaguards like people rather than tools, and respecting the fourth wall’s proper role a bit more? This is it.

Comments? Please feel free to either discuss them here or take them to the Christmas Carol Chat.

[RotavatoR]

I hope you will allow me to quote something from the chatroom.

a) how did the wall break again b) how does Deanna get in the void c) how do the rest of us get in the void d) how does Deanna kill Prime e) how does Deanna fix the wall f) how does Deanna survive in the void g) how do any of us survive in the void

(I posed some of these questions in the CC-chat a day earlier, but whatever)
Will this be addressed in the Carol? And if so, how?

[BlackWolfe]

I hope you will allow me to quote something from the chatroom.

a) how did the wall break again b) how does Deanna get in the void c) how do the rest of us get in the void d) how does Deanna kill Prime e) how does Deanna fix the wall f) how does Deanna survive in the void g) how do any of us survive in the void

(I asked some of these questions in the Carol chat a day earlier, but whatever)
Are we going to answer these questions in the Carol? And if so, how?

A) There are two possibilities. One, that leaving three members of the Cabal on the real side of the wall did weaken it. I don't like this because it undermines the lesson Mr. A should be learning regarding his treatment of others ("SEE? WE WERE CORRECT THE ENTIRE TIME."). The one that I favor is that Mr. A sealed the wall without leaving it open to any sort of interaction at all, effectively damming up fiction without leaving a release valve.

B) [insert shrug emoticon here] Something to do with the busted Wall?

C) Same as (B)

D-G) Got some ideas. Will bring them up later, battery's dying and it's a little complex.

[Qara-Xuan Zenith]

Uh... RR, I listed those plot holes totally out-of-context. Some of them we've already kinda-sorta dealt with, even.

A) We wait to hear how the Wall broke the FIRST time, and depending on what it is, figure out how to re-use it. Make it A's fault for not learning from his mistakes.

B,C,F,G) We don't even need to set it in the Void, to be honest. Or something to do with the Wall breaking.

D) ?? We came up with a couple possibilities, none of which are particularly compelling, but I have faith in Wolfie.

E) That depends on A).

and stuff.

[Scarab]

Uh... RR, I listed those plot holes totally out-of-context. Some of them we've already kinda-sorta dealt with, even.

A) We wait to hear how the Wall broke the FIRST time, and depending on what it is, figure out how to re-use it. Make it A's fault for not learning from his mistakes.

B,C,F,G) We don't even need to set it in the Void, to be honest. Or something to do with the Wall breaking.

D) ?? We came up with a couple possibilities, none of which are particularly compelling, but I have faith in Wolfie.

E) That depends on A).

and stuff.

A: Makes perfect sense, as wwe said last night, once we know what Mister A's mistakes were and what he's up to, I think it's entirely concievable that he's making those same mistakes AGAIN. I do like BQW's idea about the fourth wall beign seqalled TOO firmly. But whether it works without being a huge plot hole is another matter. Honestly I think it could work, but I don't think it should be all that relevant. Watever reason we come up with for the wall falling ag

B,C.F.G: Essentially I think what we came up with the other night works: WHATEVER causes the fourth wall the break this time causes it to happen at an alarming rate, aaaand Deanna gains the ability to follow through on the threats she was earlier incapable of. Mister A ignores the threat (admittedly he's... distracted) aaand so it goes. (Maybe the Metaguards tried to warn him that the fourth wall was in trouble again and he ignored them because so far as he was cocnerned, all the issues were solved.)

D) Yeah we're really struggling with thisd one. It;s funny how I have basically... accepted the fact that we may have to kill a couple of us, butand the rebellion against a fictional orwellian landscape is a GREAT idea, but the full scale battle with metaguards turning on each other? I can see how we'd have trouble with that. It makes ME uncomfortable, more so, ironically, than the death of two character (who I'm pretty sure are okay with this and hence, I've come to terms with).

[Scarab]

Quick bump note indiciating that we can always use more auditions particularly, at this point, for the Cheshire Cat. The script will be udnergoing retools in light of recent discoveries and plot events and all open auditions remain open.

I am hoping to open further auditions within the next 24 hours, so watch the Off Topic space.

[Scarab]

The Ghost of Chrstmas Yet to Come/Morgan Le Fay auditions are now open: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1019

[BlackWolfe]

Oh my god these auditions. You guys are fantastic, all of you!

[Scarab]

Oh my god these auditions. You guys are fantastic, all of you!

I know right.

Seriously, guys the quality we've been hearing from this is amazing, you're ALL good I have no idea how we're going to pick in the end. But keep in mind we'll be trying to make sure as many people as possible get to say a few lines as THEMSELVES too, so hopefully nobody will be left out!

[Scarab]

I have added a list of other examples of the existing character roles to the FAQ post, you can look here for informatiomn on how other actors have portrayed the characters: viewtopic.php?f=45&t=841

Now I'm off for 24 hours, see you when I get back guys!

[narrativedilettante]

So... does anybody have any idea if work is still being done on this?

[Pixelmage]

As far as I'm aware, BW is still on the writing. Only buried under three mountains of work and unable to get here. But, it's been a while, so I don't have info up to today.

[Scarab]

As far as I'm aware, BW is still on the writing. Only buried under three mountains of work and unable to get here. But, it's been a while, so I don't have info up to today.

This is my understading of the situation as well. Our poor writer is unfortunately being hit pretty badly by everything from work to a headcold right now, and this is just one more thing he's got on his shoulders to deal with. He can only write as fast as he can write, and will get to it in time. And if this thing takes until June, or something then hey, at least we'll be able to poke fun at ourselves in the reading, say for example:

Cheshire: Well, tis the season after all.
Mister A: ...The current human calender states the date to be July the Fourteenth 2013. I don't believe that's even the correct season.
BW: Look the creative process takes TIME okay? YOU try rewriting classic literature.

[narrativedilettante]

Actually, since it's taking us a while, we might try aiming for a December release. That is, assuming anyone has the attention span to keep working on it for that long.

[Scarab]

Actually, since it's taking us a while, we might try aiming for a December release. That is, assuming anyone has the attention span to keep working on it for that long.

Well I dunno if it's gonna take THAT long but... hey you know what? I'm not going to tempt fate by finishing that sentence. Let's just see what happens...

[S_o_S]

Any word on auditions?

[Scarab]

Any word on auditions?

Can't have anymore until I know for sure WHO the characters are going to be. I emailed BW about it a while back but he hasn't gotten back to me yet. The existing ones are still open, though.