Monthly Plotting Post | February

[pumpkinhollow]

Monthly Plotting Post | Feb

FREAKY FEBRUARY!!

Hey all! Rose here! Blessed Imbolc and Happy Chinese New Year/Lunar New Year to all those who celebrate them! As we start to ring in the spring, Team Pumpkin is SUPER excited to bring you a ton of cool stuff!

I don't have a ton of preamble this month, aside from a few housekeeping items: please read the new game rules on our State of the Game post carefully, as well as the outline for our Merrymeet event. Also just as a heads up, because Merrymeet tends to be somewhat involved, and we have a mingle planned for Harbor Day (the anniversary of the post-Sail Migration potluck event), we will be giving a WIDE berth between our Feb event, Garden of Woe, and our March event, March Sadness. You have a lot of time between the two, so take your time at Merrymeet!

TDM

All Month

Our Winter TDM has one more reprint before we transition into Spring! The Valentines-esque changes really brought some new life to the event, so we’ll be leaving them as-is this time to give you crazy kids more opportunities to enjoy that Tunnel of Love. We look forward to seeing what epic conclusions the town-wide snowball war reaches by the end of February!

Since we’re going to be changing the Pokemon appearance schedule for 2025, we’re thinking we might like to give people one last crack at getting some cute grass and fairy-type friends during the month of March or April, possibly as a separate mini-event. Outside of that, we’re absolutely open to any Spring themed spookies, hijinks, or fun times you all can think of for the next season’s TDM. It will run through March, April, and May and we’re looking for warm-weather activities, floral themes, and plant-based mischief! Feel free to visit our suggestion box below.

GARDEN OF WOE

Main Event - February 15th

Content Warnings:
Depression, loss, forced mood alteration

Merry meet, merry part, and merry meet again! It’s time for Pumpkin Hollow’s beloved spring fertility, flower, and romance festival. For those who were not here last year, Merrymeet is a formal outdoor garden party which takes place in the town square and festival green. Attendees are invited to dress in their floral finest to dance, eat, and welcome the spring as the weather slowly grows warmer! The event will commence with the procession of the Floral Court, the crowning of the Flower Queen, and the planting of the first flower!

But before we can have any of those things, we must elect the Flower Queen! Nominations for Flower Queen will be open below from now until 2/7. They can be for any person of a feminine-aligned gender who is over the age of 18, and should be someone who represents kindness, gentleness, and grace, as well as someone who has brought joy to others who deserves to have that joy reciprocated and recognized. You cannot nominate yourself. Once someone has nominated you, you must accept the nomination to be officially considered for candidacy. From 2/8 - 2/14, we will have a ballot box available on Google Forms where everyone can vote for the Flower Queen! (Players can vote once per character.)

Any Flower Queen candidates who did not win the vote will be members of the Floral Court and will be a part of the procession that leads the Queen to her seat of honor, where the rest of her court will share her table. Each member including the Queen will be asked to choose a courtier of any gender to be their plus-one at said head table. Then later, the Queen will be asked to take part in a ceremony in which she places a tulip bulb into the ground and blesses it, thus planting the first flower of the year. Her presence will also be requested the following year to crown the new queen. (Last year’s Flower Queen, Mary Dahl, is sadly no longer present, so the Queen from the year before that will be doing the honors again. Her name is Juniper Sweetwater, the local luthier.)

A note for this event: due to most player characters having heftier budgets this year, free outfit rentals will only be available to laggards and characters who have been in PH less than two months. All other PCs will need to purchase a Stylish or Lavish outfit for the normal price listed on the Shops page.

Of course, not all can be sunshine and rainbows. This is Pumpkin Hollow, after all. Partway through the event, an unfamiliar musical act will take the stage to play a haunting melody that will cause partygoers to think only of lost love, heartbreak, homesickness, and joyful times that can no longer be, filling the hearts of everyone in attendance with pain. This is the work of Efrain, the Prince of Sorrow’s Song, attempting to fuel his grand symphony and make his bid for power in the coming months. The band will be protected, which means that the only way to counteract this cruelty is to find ways within oneself and in others.

But what’s this? A ragtag group of adorable strangers, come to help spread whimsy, have arrived on the island! Thanks to some secret organizing by the mods n’ pals, the February event will have special guest characters played by five of Pumpkin Hollow’s finest! Stay tuned for more details on this special mini-event-within-an-event, March of the Bizzyboys! I’ll leave it to our guest players to reveal themselves via plotting posts so that people can strategize how to get in on the action.

Recap in Brief:

• Flower Queen NOMINATIONS are from Feb 1-7


• Flower Queen VOTING is from Feb 8-14


• Candidates for Flower Queen must be nominated by another person, then accept the nomination to finalize it.


• All candidates get a place in the Floral Court. They will sit at a special table and will each get a plus-one.


• The Flower Queen will have several obligations during the festival and must be prepared to perform them.


• Free formalwear rentals are ONLY available to Laggards and new characters (less than 2 months since apped). More established characters will need to be prepared to spend 300-500B on a formal outfit.


• The latter half of Merrymeet will be when things go sour. Having your character leave early will serve as our opt-out.


• Five guest characters played by non-mods will be available for this event! You are encouraged to plot with them.



CURRENT METAPLOT
The next two months are about to be a doozy when it comes to the meta plot. Efrain will be making appearances in February and March before his final stand at the end of March will take place, which will leave Aster as heir apparent to the Throne of Hell. Meanwhile, Nyarlathotep’s identity remains hidden.

Additionally, Shen Qingqiu has discovered something very interesting in the basement of Dr. Elias Coldwood… Perhaps someone should talk to him about that!

Our current roadmap for the main mystery of Pumpkin Hollow is projected to last through to Fall or Winter of 2025, followed by a roughly 4-6 month pre-endgame event series. As we move forward toward many major events, we’re going to be looking for ways to empower characters to fight back against the looming threats through boons, demon deals, items, and rewards for personal achievements.

We’d like to remind folks that we are open to OOC guesses as to Nyarlathotep’s identity! DM Rose on Discord with your guess and three pieces of supporting evidence for a yes or no answer. Regardless of whether you get it right, you cannot tell any other player or use this information ICly, but if you’re correct we’ll add you to a special side chat we’re all piling into like sardines to yell in! Currently there are seven players who know the identity of Nyarlathotep (not counting mods). Come join the Vault of Eldritch Secrets!

(CODE)

Comments

QUESTIONS/COMMENTS/CONCERNS

[pumpkinhollow]

[lovethyneighb_or]

So: Mulcahy basically already lives in deep mourning about his old regrets and lost love, homesickness and being forever astray from Earth, and being a broken and changed enough man with so many people lost far from home that he's never going to have the same joys again, day-to-day, all the time. Would it be cool or fine if he was largely unaffected (lapis lazuli voice "i've felt worse") and spent time at Merrymeet trying to help others, since the demons are protected?

Re: QUESTIONS/COMMENTS/CONCERNS

[heatherbythesea]

Forever late, I know...

Since Heather is a merrow (fae) with a mesmerizing voice who often uses songs as vehicles for her spells, I think she should be EXTRA susceptible to Efrain's influence. I'll be putting up a top-level for Heather soon, and if you would like to tap Heather to do some mayhem at Merrymeet please do.

TDM Suggestion Box!

[pumpkinhollow]

Put your spring TDM suggestions here!

🌷FLOWER QUEEN NOMINATIONS 🌷

[pumpkinhollow]

Any person of a feminine-aligned gender over the age of 18. Must be nominated by someone other than themself and be prepared to be active in the Feb event. Must reply to the nomination comment to accept it in order to finalize. Please communicate nominations OOCly!

[skeletonkeay]

Gerard Keay would like to nominate Alice Dyer for Flower Queen.

[sunshinesally]

Sally Boyle would like to nominate Fever for Flower Queen.

[misbegottendreamer]

Drelasa Veloth would like to nominate Magne Hikiishi for Flower Queen.

[2onostromo]

Ellen Ripley would like to nominate Agent Connecticut for Flower Queen.

[staybizzy]

Capochin Bastone would like to nominate Drelasa Veloth for Flower Queen.

[amourtician]

Dr A.T. Menelikov would like to nominate Dahlia Leeds for Flower Queen.

[decrypter]

Helena Adams would like to nominate Lyubov Morgenshtern for Flower Queen

[changehurts]

Grant Curly would like to nominate Anya Kovacs for Flower Queen.

[pineapplesalmon]

NOTE: She's already nominated, but César ain't changing his nomination, lmao. No need to reply to this one tbh.

César once again nominates Magne Hikiishi! :D (And no one is surprised.)

[abhorrently]

Fever nominates Sally Boyle for Flower Queen. (And Gwen for Flower Princess, if they'll do that.)

[goodweather]

Phil Connors would like to nominate Helena Adams for Flower Queen.

[ohioisforweirdos]

Tom is nominating Olivia Fleischmann!

[thethirteenthchild]

Dahlia Leeds would like to nominate Elsie for Flower Queen.

[redlightgreenlight]

Valdis nominataes Ylva for Flower Queen.

Meghan's OOC Plotting Post February!

[lordoftheozarks]

Look at me leading the charge this time! Getting back up on that horse properly now. These are all tentative, of course, and open for changes.

Lord Erik Osborne:
Erik has seen Merrymeet go bad before, so he's bringing a change of clothes with him this time. No need to get blood out of silk that way. Since his fiancée, Rive, has dropped to NPC status he'll still be technically taking her as his date but that will be handwaved. He'll be open for dancing and conversing with anyone. Plans in general with him are pretty loose right now so I'm fishing for new things to dig him into.

Max Maximum:
Max has made life difficult for himself by having three significant others (Valdis, Ylva, and Edgar) but he intends to court all three of them and dance with them and such for Merrymeet, regardless. This might also be a good time for the newly expanded poly pool to talk? Open for much plotting about that. In addition, Max would love to set up intimate dates with the significant others (and I'm up for playing those or handwaving as we desire.)

I have big plans for Max this month! I am finally going to make that post for him giving his fully illustrated sexual health and education classes as a special pre-valentines day mingle taking place inside the Velvet, Ambrosia, Silk. This does mean it will be age restricted to 20+ per the VAS rules, *however* I do plan to have Max do a supplemental demonstration that's tamer and aimed at younger ages somewhere outside the VAS too. I want everyone to be able to get involved if they want, so please suggest other options if you think of something better. IDK, maybe Max makes a special visit to the library. The point is I very much do not want people to feel they can't be included.

John Crichton:
Crichton will take Sally as his date to Merrymeet. Hopefully she can help him clean himself up enough to be presentable. He's going to be on his gaurd because, literally, what party has he been to here that didn't have something crazy happen? When it all hits that fan, he'll have to shift to work mode as an enforcer. If you want someone to bail your character out of danger, he can be your guy.

He's going to be putting more focus on trying to dig at the mystery of who Nyarlathotep is pretending to be, especially now that he's been reassigned to Valdis's special task force. This is also me oocly stating that I want to get more involved in metaplot stuff with Crichton so if you have a lead hook me in. I'd love to get him in the thick of it. Let him put that brain of his to something useful for a change. I'd love more co-worker CR in general.

Elsie:
Elsie is very flattered to be nominated for Merrymeet. She'll attend in her wilderness finest. She'd be glad to dance or converse with anyone. Please come bother her, she's always looking for new friends. Her father, Olwylder, King of the Court of Red Butterflies, might turn you into a caterpillar if you're mean to her, though.

The Butcher:
Because he is now an infernal servant of Efrain, Butcher will be a member of the infernal band that comes to play. He'll be looking much different than the last time people saw him (more on that in his post). He'll be approachable as a character you can yell at or fight if you want, or just talk to him, that's always an option.

Hit me up with any ideas or desires you have. I'm really hoping I'll be back up to speed as the winter finally ebbs and spring comes in.

[liesdontfindyou]

This won't be all I'll want to do with you this month I'm sure BUT CT and Crichton should definitely talk about the metaplot/Nyarly stuff, on top of that more personal conversation in the aftermath of the dreams.

Phoenix | Nimona, Gaeta, and Radar

[incomingchoppers]

So as a general heads-up, life has wrung me out like a dishrag the past few weeks thanks to [gestures wildly at the state of US governance] and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. I'm also going back to the office five days a week pretty soon. Both of which mean I'll be more scarce and tagging more slowly than in the past! Y'all are a patient and kind bunch, so I'm not worried -- just please know that if I drag my feet on a thread, it's 100% not you, it's me. ❤️

Extremely relatedly, I'm kind of winging it plotting-wise this month. Nimona will be at Merrymeet for the whole shebang, the better to try and (unsuccessfully) rip Efrain's eyes out; Gaeta and Radar will both attend for at least part of it, but the length of their stay is TBD. If you want to thread with any of them, or handwave something fun they got up to during the party, hit me up!

Re: the metaplot -- I'm also interested in Gaeta assisting more with the hunt for Nyarlathotep. He's already helped CT with some research in the past, so if anybody wants/needs an in at the library, I can offer him up as your friendly neighborhood reference librarian. Maybe they can dig up more spooky books together, oooh.

And that's all I can think of for now, but yeah, you know where to find me to make some magic happen. Let's fuckin goooooo~

[lovethyneighb_or]

Besides constantly making grabby hands at you for mulcahy/radar and mulcahy/gaeta, I do want to do something with Mulcahy being the one guy to have looked at the nya book at some point & maybe gaeta could loop him in as investigations are ongoing?

Connor's Gang | Ellen Ripley, Grant Curly, The Lobby Boy

[2onostromo]

Ellen Ripley
January has been a doozy for this poor woman. Her first month is spent clambering through her own and other’s nightmares, and when she comes to she’ll be clawing to make sense of it all. Between long shifts, she seeks out those people she’s come across in dreams, poking them about their respective backstories or searching for a bit of comfort. If you want to play out a post-dreamscape scene, I’m happy to plot something! I’m eager to see how these dream events will contribute to CR now and in the future. Seeing that Ripley is new to the Hollow and hasn’t established herself much, building CR is something I’d really like to continue doing.

She will be (begrudgingly) attending Merrymeet to see what all the fuss is about. As of now, Ripley isn’t going with anyone, so if you’d like to take her up on this, I’m happy to chat.

I’m hoping to get her involved in the meta-plot in whatever way I can, as well! Want to join her for an investigation? Will she and her mystery solving buddy (YOU!) be curtailed by supernatural forces? Or will they come up empty handed, wondering where they went wrong? Whatever it is, let’s do it! Small, smaller or insignificant, any adventure is a fun one. The mineshafts are a setting I’d like to play around with too; there’s a lot of spooky potential there. Now, I will need to do some heavy catching up on the meta-plot since I myself am a newcomer. Hopefully that’s okay, and we can still write something fun.

Grant Curly
Curly will be doing lots of settling in. I’d like to take it easy with him— lord knows this man needs a break. He’ll be joining Anya for the Merrymeet, so if you’d like to pull this big guy aside for a chat, feel free! Otherwise you’ll find him on the Bluffs, fixing up his new home. You might also catch him with an old rowboat propped up in the yard, tools scattered around the ground, him puffing away at a cigar. Want to help Curly in his personal quest fix this ol’ rower? Want to join him for a ride through mysterious waters? Who knows what you might come across…

I’d also like to get him involved in some co-worker threads, so if your muse works on Mipha’s Grace, let’s chat!

The Lobby Boy
Given the name Hugo by Olivia Fleischmann, The Lobby Boy finds himself with a bit of an attachment. He may or may not be attending Merrymeet as a guest, though I’d love to get him involved as some kind of help. The Lobby Boy is best fitted to serve, so serve he shall. Maybe he tries his hand at passing out hors d'oeuvres and fails miserably. Maybe he finds himself pledging his allegiance to certain nefarious influences. Who knows! But I’m always up to throw him at anyone, so if you want to meet my nasty Lobby Boy, he’s here.

[liesdontfindyou]

We'll have to finish the thread first but CT and Ripley definitely will need to talk about the nightmares, which I figure we can ultimately use an inbox or my last open for? But also: she could actually rope Ripley into being her plus one for the flower court table as joking 'retaliation' for the nomination, if you want, lmao.

I also want Melanie and Curly to meet since she's Anya's friend but I've been trying to get in gear to send her to his nightmares first, honestly.

Blue | Daisy, Ruby, Alice, Gwen, CT, Melanie, Margaret

[liesdontfindyou]

[Blanket statement across all characters: I'm always very open to handwaving some CR stuff going on off-screen for the sake of keeping things manageable and maintaining CR in-between threads. So feel free to suggest stuff like that too!]

🔪CT: CT has a good chunk of nightmare stuff to follow-up on after the relevant threads wrap, which I'm happy to do via inboxes or logs! Otherwise, this month, CT's going to be spending a lot of time going through her notes and looking for places to dig into the Nyarlathotep situation—she'll want to do this as discreetly as you can with all knowing elder gods and demons around, so she'll mostly be approaching colleagues at the enforcers/department of supernatural affairs and other CR she's got reason to think can be discreet. I'm compiling her notes on the plot in general currently so I'm hoping to have that available for plot-related threads at some point.

She's also been nominated for Flower Queen, so she'll at least be at the head table during Merrymeet. As discussed w/ Connor she'll be taking Ripley as her plus one as playful retaliation for the nomination, lmao. She'll probably be there for the whole event, so open to doing stuff with her there!

I do want to continue to expand and deepen her CR circle as she starts opening up more. She's also still open to casual hook-ups and the like, though past that is more complicated. AND most importantly I do want to work up to her organising a social gathering—probably for folks from spacefaring worlds, aka the Space Trauma Crew.

💉Margaret: Once again besides post-dream talks, Margaret has also been nominated for Flower Queen, but as of yet does not have a plus one! She's still pretty new and its early days for most of her CR so I'm not sure who she'd ask, but I'm open to suggestions. She'll also probably stay for the whole event.

Mostly right now she needs to get some deeper CR and such! Medical and military types are always a good in, but it's not the only one. She'll also be open to playing the field a bit, as frankly she deserves to have a slut era. She's been vaguely introduced to the concept of sapphic attraction but has not processed that at all since, god help her.

👻Melanie: I'm unsure how long Melanie will stay at the event, but she will be there and looking to hang with friends and such. My focus with her is definitely also still expanding/deepening CR, but she's also probably going to be getting restless sitting idle and wishing she had a job, whilst still not knowing what job she's comfortable doing. And naturally she also has some dream follow-up to do.

🌹Ruby: Ruby's gonna be a bit of a mess after she gets out of her Oasis because I'm evil, and the event is not going to help matters! Efrain's the demon that's got her number so I think I have to keep her around for the whole thing. And she will absolutely need help because this'll hit her hard.

Outside the event she's been working on branching out her crafting into multi-use tools and jewellery with tools built-in that I'm trying to build up in advance of an eventual level 3 upgrade, so that's around as background stuff.

💾Alice: Alice has also been nominated for Flower Queen and will be at the whole event! She'll be taking Gerry as a friend. However the most interesting thing I have to offer for her re: Merrymeet is that thanks to her boon from Dahlia, she'll be able to provide herself and up to three people within arm's reach of her partial relief from the effects of Efrain's bullshit.

🩰Gwen and 🌼Daisy: Okay I'm gonna be real I don't have anything specific to say about these two outside of the fact that they will be at the event, but I am still open to plotting things with them!

Rose's Guys for February!!

[thethirteenthchild]

Dahlia will be participating in the Floral Court and running for Flower Queen! She will most likely choose Radar as her official plus-one because he's the only one with no other partners and she wants him to feel pretty too, but she'll absolutely be saving a dance for Laios and Daisy. I'm still looking to keep things a little lighter with her for a bit after the Gala and Casino blasted my ass clean off, but this may change if Dahlia's elected Flower Queen.

When Efrain takes over, Dahlia will be deeply impacted, allowing herself to crack, and her anguish may manifest as rage because of her domain, so look out!

Neil will be going alone this year unless someone asks him, but he will be going! I'd like to have him organize a coordinated strike against the band. Maybe someone might like to help him kill a demon? :3

Gerry is going as Alice's friend-date, being dateless himself this year. He adores Alice and will be very focused on Will Smith posing at her all day, but he also is looking forward to supporting Helena and Drelasa, since it's their big day too! I'm thinking when Efrain kicks in, Gerry may be somewhat catatonic, as he doesn't normally "deal" with negative emotions. (He just kind of ignores them.) He's also not in a great headspace right now after his nightmare and his breakup.

Martin will of course be going with Jon! He'll be helping to prepare tea for the celebration for part of it, though, and I'd like to take the opportunity to get him some good CR started before his canon update. I also think his Lonely connection will give him a slight edge against Efrain.

Tim I'm not sure about, since Sasha got DTNPC'd. He might take a light month again. Though he does have a weirdly friendly relationship with Butcher that will probably come into play lol.

Olivia will be in the Floral Court and is taking Tom as her plus-one since he's the OG Boyfriend, but will want to have a dance with Hugo (Lobby Boy) and Jimmy, as well as lots of other pretty people. I'd love to sign some folks up for flirty banter or take other opportunities to get her some positive CR after doing so much evil last month lmao

Anya is going to be in the Floral Court with Curly as her date! I will probably take a slightly light month with her since I balled so hard on the nightmare but would love to handwave some friend time! Otherwise, though, I'll mostly be focused on her with Curly.

Capochin is going to be helping Hector to manage the original Main Five Bizzyboys in the mini-event! How it'll work is that after Efrain's band starts to play, the original cast of canon Bizzyboys will appear as guest characters who will be tasked with trying to solve the "mystery" of why everyone is so sad and helping people to break Efrain's spell by being their ridiculous selves.

If anyone would like to be released from the sads by a little blue monkey, drop me a line on Capo's sub comment! He and Hector will be delegating mood-lifting shenanigans to Patty, Alexei, Vibiano, Bananathaniel, and Grujaja, as well as taking on some of them personally. I would love specific plans, but you can also just let me know you're interested so I can send you a Boy once the event drops. Threading with a Bizzyboy will significantly lessen the impact of Efrain's magic, so please drop us a line!

(Outside of that, though, Capo will probably just be having gay disaster moments with Hector.)

As for Efrain and company, they will mostly be playing music and will not be directly accessible for the most part, but I'm open to organizing a few demon deals with those interested in a fucked up and evil boon. Efrain himself will be there, as well as Sonata (False Comforts) and Baritone (Pain Unending) will be there.

March of the Bizzyboys plotting!!!

[staybizzy]

Wanna have the impact of Efrain's magic reduced so that you're better equipped to help your friends? All it takes is a little help from some whimsical little dudes!! Brought in by Faerie King Olwylder, the Boys themselves are largely immune to Efrain's song, and can help break others out of their funk by being funny and cute and very determined.

Available Bizzyboys, who can be requested by name or simply a surprise:
- Hector and Capochin themselves
- Patty, a kind-hearted ditz who is determined to stand up for herself (played by Kai)
- Alexei, a drama king with a huge appetite and dubious food standards (played by Liz)
- Vibiano, a high-maintenance fashionista who knows exactly how cool he is (played by Sid)
- Bananathaniel, a movie buff who is prone to really bizarre turns of phrase (played by Mani)
- Grujaja, the muscle, who is very tough but also easily overstimulated (played by Mira)

Let me know if you'd like a Bizzyboy delegated to your toplevel or if you have any specific plans in mind! The person playing the Bizzyboy will get the final say, of course, but let us know what strikes your fancy and we'll see what we can make happen!

mira's crew.

[abhorrently]

what is up guys i'm back after being sick knocked me out for a week. let's get down to it in the comments below.

fever.

[abhorrently]

fever has gotten nominated to be in the floral court, which is a state of affairs she's actually discontent with but didn't entirely know how to say no to. if you vote for her for flower queen she will think you lost your mind and not in the fun way. regardless, she's going to be there, and actually is still deciding on who to take as her plus one - please help, she's never actually had a date for an event before. this also means when shit starts going sideways, fever'll be there, though once it becomes obvious that the band can't be hurt she'll shift her focus to trying to get people the hell out of there.

beyond that, for the month of february she's mostly just coming back from the dream event which in practice means making sure phil doesn't rip out all his feathers, checking on friends, and trying to not think too hard about all the horrors while they're refusing to leave her thoughts. it's a vibe.