Alive and Well | Afterliving OOC Community

There is no Maypole for May. Sorry everyone. Instead, you get a post about events! That'll make up for it right? Right. Right. Either way, it's a pretty relaxed month since we know a lot of you students have finals!

May 9th: End of Student Council Campaigns
May 9th-12th: Student Council Election Poll
May 12th: New Student Council Announced
May 21st: Interaction Log + GLITCH TEST #1: A Literally Small Glitch
May 29th-June 2nd: GLITCH TEST#2: Waking Up is Hard to Do
May 30st-June 6th: Activity Check

Student Council Campaigns/Elections
As detailed last month, your characters are free to campaign and try to win hearts in order to get themselves elected to the student council. Student council members receive the benefit of being safe from shadows during active student council meetings and also getting to plan some events! If you would like to sign your character up to run you may do so at any point until 7pm EST (4pm PST) on May 9th, the end of the campaign period. To sign your character up, click here! After 7pm, an IC poll will be put up for you to vote as your character. You will need to make absolutely sure you are logged in on your character's journal, as each character gets one vote. Do not vote for who you want to win, but rather who your character would want to win. (Otherwise all the campaigning would go to waste!) The new student council will be announced at the end of the poll on May 12th.

Interaction Log + A Literally Small Glitch
As usual, the monthly interaction log will be making an appearance this month on May 21st. However, during this log, there will be a small glitch. A very literally small glitch. As in for one of the days, all characters will find themselves shrunken down to the size of a tiny pebble. This is a one-day-only glitch but it's on the interaction log, so you can feel free to get to it as you will!

This is, without a doubt, a glitch. The only difference is how that glitch came about, of course. The short duration is suspicious, for one thing, and it is caused by something other than natural data corruption. Particularly since Ai should be preventing glitches, but since it's problematic for her to leave the safe area created in the housing zone she isn't able to prevent them.

Glitch Test #2: Waking Up is Hard to Do
If you thought that tiny glitch the week before was a pest, well.. let's hope you're not having any suspicious dreams that cause sleepwalking or talking in your sleep or other suspicious sleep activities.. Waking up is hard enough to do normally, but when you wake up in a strange place due to a glitch? Yeah, things can get a little weird. For the duration of this glitch, any time a character goes to sleep, they will end up getting teleported to a different spot in the afterlife. This can be literally anywhere (with permission if its in the personal space of another character, of course). On the floor in the bathroom? Sure. On the rooftop? Yep. On a library bookshelf with all the books knocked over? That's possible too. It's up to you.

The catch? This glitch works to draw people out of the safe housing zone without them being aware. You'd better be careful, or you'll end up getting taken by the shadows that are still about! And they are still about. So this event can be used for goofy fun times or it can be used to draw your character into a difficult situation with the shadows when they otherwise wouldn't bother leaving the safe zone. The event will last from March 29th until June 2nd and will be ended by an NPC post that reveals exactly what's behind these recent glitches.

Activity Check
Yep, I know, pain in the butt but it's that time again! Make sure you have 20 comments from each of your characters any time between the end of the last AC (April 6th) and the end of this one (June 6th).

That's it for May and as always, let a mod know if you have any questions!

August in the Afterlife!

August 2: Baseball Tournament (Details/Sign Up)
August 9: Special Message from an NPC
August 11: Last Day of Summer Break, Time Reset
August 13-15: Obon and the Appearance of Uranai Baba
August 28: Monthly Interaction Log

August seems like a pretty busy month, doesn't it? Some of the events are passive events or are things that mods will spawn, but there will be logs for two of the events, plus the Monthly Interaction log.

NPC Glitches and a Special Message
First of all, I'd like to mention the current status of NPCs during Summer Break: Through the end of summer break (August 11), about 95% of the NPCs have disappeared and the remaining ones have been glitching out. Glitching NPCs will look lost, aimlessly wandering, possibly twitching a bit and repeating phrases that don't necessarily go along with the conversation.

Say hello to one of them, they'll ask when the last time you showered was. What are you talking about? "We're going to be late for class--class--class." And other nonsense things like that. They might get stuck on words or say things that don't make any sense at all. There will only ever be 1-2 NPCs doing this at any given time, most of them will have disappeared. If your character encounters one of these NPCs, they might see them a few days later acting completely normal. Should someone ask what happened they'll say "The principal's friend helped me out."

On August 9th, shortly before the end of break, an NPC post will be made that will offer some insight and reveal that there may be someone or something behind all these strange happenings. Look forward to it!

End of Summer Break and the Time Reset
August 11 is the last day of Summer Break. Class assignments will go up, but characters will be able to notice that it's the exact same assignment as before, even down to the class year. NPCs will greet students as new students, either not remembering them or saying something to them like "We got into the same class again!" as though greeting an old friend, but nothing deep beyond that. If your character attends class, they may note that the class content is exactly the same as previously as well, rather than advancing. Any calendars and time keeping devices (clocks, watches, etc.) will seem to stop working for a day or so due to the adjustment, then go back to normal but will explicitly state the same time as they did before after they're done glitching.

Characters might notice that even if they've been here a year that they should have aged even just a little bit, but they're just the same. None of the NPCs have changed physically, though a few are starting to mention how excited they are for the school festival next month and that everyone needs to start doing their best and working toward making it successful! It's a very special event after all.

Obon and the Appearance of Uranai Baba
Obon is an event for commemorating your ancestors from August 13-15. In Buddhist religion, it is believed that during this time, the spirits of the deceased return to this world in order to visit their relatives. Lanterns get hung in front of the houses to guide the spirits, dances are performed, graves are visited and offerings are made.

Since afterliving takes place on the dead side, this event means that everyone gets to visit the world of the living as ghosts. You don't have to go alone, in fact it's encouraged that you go with a friend. Each individual will only get one day in their original worlds during Obon, so there will be time for you go travel with your friends. There's an old witch who's snuck into the world of the dead for this period as the walls separating the world of the living and the dead are much thinner this time of the year. This woman is Uranai Baba. Characters will be able to observe the world of the living after they are gone (player headcanon for this instance is fine), go munch out on some food offered up at shrines, and generally just hang out in the world of the living. Keep in mind that none of the living individuals can see them and while Uranai Baba will take them to their town, they will not be directed exactly toward people. They'll have to find them and they only have 24 hours.

Unfortunately, Uranai Baba does not seem to be under the same translation effects as the afterlife so characters will not be able to speak with her and that means that even if they didn't want to go, she won't be able to understand them and can drag them to the world of the living for 24 hours anyway, so don't worry about your character's personal willingness if you think they might hesitate. There will be a plot post put up closer to the event to iron out all these details!

Interaction Log
The interaction log will go up on August 28th and will cover events for the week, plus a special situation that occurs on one of the days that may turn out to be rather interesting to any characters who want to get involved in working on the mysterious NPCs and shadows!

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Alrighty~ That's it for now and make sure you're prepared for the Baseball Tournament, the closest event! Have fun and enjoy your August!