ph_ooc | Monthly Plotting Post

Monthly Plotting Post | January

Happy New Year, all!

We've had a super busy beginning of the year here in Pumpkin Hollow, doing a number of housekeeping things already and making some changes that we think will benefit the game, with some tidying of mod pages and a very exciting Calloway's refresh on the way. The team is working really hard to bring you guys a fresh and shiny 2026!

We've had some time off from major plot developments, but with the fall of Eligos just around the bend, we only have a few more months before shit starts getting real again. And now that we've had a pretty chill November and December, it's time for things to get meaningfully spooky again! Buckle in--- January's going to be a wild ride!

WINTER TDM

December - February

Since the amount of characters TDMing/apping in has been pretty reduced these past few months, we've elected to spare ourselves a little trouble and stop reprinting the TDM on a monthly basis. We can always bring back the practice if it feels necessary later, but for the moment we're putting a pause on it and just posting each quarterly TDM once!

We have another two months with the Winter TDM, so if you'd like to check out any of those prompts, you still have time! We also have LOTS of new friends with toplevels this time around, so make sure to say hi! (Right after I say we've had more sparse new prospective players, of course. We'll see if the trend continues!)

JANUARY EVENT - Escape from Unknown Kadath

January 17th

For three years running now, our January event has been dream themed in some capacity. Our first year featured a dream of an alternate timeline where everyone was native to the planet of Concorde and transported to Pumpkin Hollow's past to see the island as it was before the Barrier. Our second year, last year, featured the extremely popular "Nightmare in Dreamland" event that trapped all the residents in a bubble of endless dreaming sleep, blending memory and nightmare. And this year, we get a sneak preview of Nyarlathotep's world--- and the kind of dangers we'll face down during Pumpkin Hollow's Endgame.

Deep within the Dreamlands, a mysterious realm that can only be accessed by the sleeping mind, there exists a hidden city buried deep within the impossible mountains housing a towering palace that is believed to be home to the gods of dreams. In whispers exchanged between cats, the name of this forbidden citadel has been spoken across space and time. Kadath. And it also just so happens to be where our own Nyarlathotep occasionally makes his home. And he thinks you all could use a little vacation. After all, it's been so long since you've been off the island. A little travel would do you some good, wouldn't it?

The specifics of the event are still a work in progress, but currently the intended vibe is a Labyrinth-esque eldritch castle maze exploration with dream logic, nightmare visions, Lovecraftian monsters, and a little bit of that Scooby-Doo chase scene nonsense. We're also plotting for a major reveal to at last come to fruition. It's about time someone had a word with Dr. West.

CURRENT METAPLOT

July 19th

There haven't been any major developments as of late, but we have a bit of a heavy one on the way--- the death of Eligos is intended to be a two-month event taking place over March and April, due to launch on the Ides of March in true treasonous fashion. However, there is a small snag there. Unlike with Mendel and Jean or Efrain and Nimona, there's no clear-cut individual that we can think of off-hand to lead the charge against Eligos. We have until March, but if anyone would like to put forward their character for this or help us decide on a direction for it, we'd appreciate it!

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Plotting post time!

I know we tend to do a lot (if not nearly all) our plotting on the discord, but I find it's easier sometimes to write stuff out on Dreamwidth and think and reply at a message board pace, rather than the chatroom pace. So, thinking aloud...

I haven't tagged around as much as I'd like to! November I focused on the Fear event threads, December was... extremely overshadowed by holiday stress, financial stress related to dental work, and the decreasing sunlight. Now we're past most of that, so I'm working on wrapping up older threads to better start fresh.

My big plotting plan is to get more cr rolling for Papyrus. I want to get him to meet more of the rest of the game's cast, whether over at the Winter TDM, or waiting until the January horrors begin.

BUT ALSO, I'd like to follow up on people he's run across before, both from the tdm and those he ran across in the horrors!

Anyone he's met, that he could identify a name and a mailing destination for, he sent a snowman card and a bone with a ribbon on it - the note did not explain the bones.
If you think our threads so far might've warranted more of a gift, I'm happy to chat about ideas for it, here or in my discord thread! I focused on actual specific gifts for the characters with whom Papyrus had a completed October event thread, on the basis of those having had a certain Impact, and wanting to save my brain from thinking of more gifts. :P

Plotting wise... in general, I find it easier to start with very tangible hooks, and see where threads go from what the other characters / players bring to it, so... current thoughts, based on what's out there, of top levels I might write in the next few days?

- From Candlelight Revelry, I can see him following the procession to gawp at the skeleton-painted horses, and see firsthand a little bit more how much humans associate skeletons with death.

- Papyrus is already attending Givingstide and participating in the secret Santa exchange, but he could cross paths with familiar or unfamiliar faces there

- I need to throw Papyrus at some Yuki-Onna threading, whether it's him that the spirit has decided to try dating, his efforts to wingman for someone else, or both. His canonical dating-related things are wonderfully ridiculous, and exploring that in conjunction with a potentially murderous spirit who demands to be wooed? Chef's kiss.

- Heinrich Unheimlich, could definitely play with that via the stuffed bunny of a children's book Papyrus owned back underground. Probably leaning horror comedy, possibly seeking out a ghost friend or a ghost psychologist friend to help convince this clearly haunted doll to stop haunting him?

- Tree fae, yes, because listen. Papyrus "will not kill you under any circumstances, unlike any other monster that hits you with attacks" Undertale is a character with a very high self-control. So I love to throw him into mind control and puppetry situations, where he's horrified by his own actions, whether at the time or in retrospect. I welcome prompts like this. I don't have specifics in mind of what he'd be pressured into doing here, yet, but something with this, yes.

- Wildcard, I'm generally down for chatting other options, and while the other existing prompts aren't jumping at me with half-formed ideas to explore, I've no doubt something fun could come of any of those.

I’m not gonna lie, Grace being tag-teamed by Yuki-Onna demanding a date and Papyrus trying to wingman would be genuinely hysterical

Re: Rose’s idea, it would be even funnier if Yuki-Onna first went on a date with Papyrus and THEN Grace 😂

I replied in the discord, but I need to affirm it here too - yeah, that sounds delightful. He's learned from his failure, and he's going to help his new dangerous lady spirit friend out! And he's got experience from back home helping to wingman two of his friends into finally confessing to each other, so...

I definitely want to hit up Papyrus again for some Shenanigans, and I think the Heinrich Unheimlich would be some hilarious potential for sure!!

For Grace:

She’s getting a little sick of marvelous cities that want to fuck with her. Even if the golden architecture and veined marble is pretty to look at. She would like a luxurious vacation, and it’s going to be wildly irritating that she can’t enjoy this one because the damn hallways won’t STAY STILL.

When it first sinks in that they’re here at the mercy of a mushy-named freak, she’s going to be very upset, but default to “play along until I know more”. If there’s a way to influence her environment by being incredibly stubborn and thinking really hard at it, she’s going to do that, as her feet are chronically planted firm on the ground.

Best case scenarios include her teaming up with a group of people she knows and finding stability in the role of “voice of reason”. Worst case scenarios include her on her own with an acute awareness of how unreliable her perception is. It could be fun to have something toy with her while she tries to keep her composure. I’ll probably have her dream up the voice-changer since she’s been fiddling with it in her free time… or maybe she just uses her own voice, haha!

I imagine her dreamscapes will be overwhelmingly themed after Rapture around 1957 or 1958, when the flesh was showing but the landscape was still glitzy. Her priority will be getting out, with a new, sizable grudge against Narly.

For others:

If there’s a way in which Degas could be useful, I would of course love to do that 👍 Or if there’s another needed NPC!

Splendid~ I think Grace will be like… not super pleased about the threat of death, obviously, but she’s also used to serenely maintaining the fiction of a normal social situation even with people who could pulverize her so, like, she’d be down to try. She’s had a dry spell.

pppppossibly something that'll be addressed in the log itself, but will we have anything from the physical world on us when we're teleported? mainly thinking in terms of people with various medical aids, since i know weapons and the like might be unfun when it's about the nightmare zone

Dear Dr. Harvey, please save him from the extremely creepy doll! Just look how awful and ominous it is!!!! /points
Doll: sits there
Papyrus: bones, rattling with nerves

Papyrus is adorable and I would love to have him meet Zack or Sephiroth especially! (Or both of them!) They could easily meet him at Givingstide. Or if we wanted to do one on one, Zack could be at Givingstide and Seph at Candlelight Revelry, but I don't know if you'd be up for two different threads with my characters at once, lol.

He's HERE to help you, sir!!! Clearly whatever spirit's possessing this spooky doll just needs someone to help it through its problems, that'll work, right 🫡

(Fortunately, Harv'll stay pretty scared of the thing even while trying to help out, so that might end up being enough fear to satisfy Heinrich's needs and keep the doll from actually killing them...)

He is adorable, but the sort of adorable where it's fun to occasionally go, hehe, don't forget that Undertale has some tragic and horrifying stuff under its adorable pixel art humor!

But yeah, I'm generally open to doing multiple threads w/ the same player, and sometimes multiple threads with the same character going! It's especially fun if things time out for boomeranging back and forth, that way there's always at least one tag in the inbox, you know?

I will say, though, that I also usually prefer that parallel threads like that be fairly tonally different - like, Knuxie and I had 2 threads going with Mettaton and Papyrus, but one was lighthearted festival chatter while the other was from the fear event. They counter-balanced nicely. :P

To that end... Do you think both those thread ideas would be fairly upbeat, slice of life affairs, or do you see extra angles that either thread might include?

I've got some canon familiarity to work with for trying to offer hook ideas if it helps, as I'm reasonably familiar with base game FF7, Advent Children, and I have a passing gist of the story / spoilers of Crisis Core but didn't play it myself.
(I haven't touched the remake, but I know some of its gist too, especially some of the meta things implied to be going on... :3c)

True!

Cool! And indeed, lol. I love to have things to respond to.

I think if we did Seph at Candlelight and Zack at Givingstide, the Seph one would lean more serious and the Zack one would be more upbeat.

Nice! I haven't actually played Undertale, but have familiarity with it from friends who have, and I always enjoy seeing a Papyrus around. :) I did a thread with one once, but I can't recall if it was you or another one, lol.

(I have only played a bit of a mod of Rebirth that lets me play as Seph beyond Chapter 1, lol. Very interested to see what happens in part 3, though. I think most people want to see Seph restored to sanity and redeemed by now.)

I think Papyrus's reassurances re: the threat of death will vary depending on how his date went (it is entirely possible for him to have apologetically turned her down even with it, so he might know from experience it's a real threat), but he'll have some sort of encouragements for them both either way. "Going on a date won't kill you forever, why not get out there" might be in the list somewhere.

With their scaredy-cat powers combined, they just might survive encountering a stuffed bunny...!!!! I love it.

Harvey taking his story completely seriously even when the doll isn't as obviously up to things will put him firmly in Papyrus's appreciated persons list. He's too used to being a younger brother and dealing with all manner of teasing, and being humored and patronized by a fair few other people beyond that. :')

Oh my god this is going to be hysterical. Grace like “well I guess I didn’t have anything else planned with my afternoon”

I'm having trouble pinning down which of the prompts Candlelight refers to...? Are you thinking of the mourner's night prompt? I'm assuming so, w/ that leaning more serious, but want to doublecheck.

Givingstide party lighthearted shenanigans with Zack makes sense, though I have to raise at least one possibility for giving pause - Papyrus, skeleton monster, meet multiple SOLDIERs, professional monster hunters. :P

as tagging before goes... Possibly, but I'm not sure offhand! If we did, it was probably on a Bakerstreet or Fortanon meme, I don't think he's crossed paths with a Sephiroth in a game before.

..."beyond chapter 1" is an exciting phrase to hear, I hadn't heard we get any Sephiroth playtime yet. May need to bug my roommate to lend me their copy again. But yeah, agreed! Big Bad that's bad because lulz or whatever is something that tends to tire out quickly, but Hojo and prez Shinra are both right there for that vibe.

But yeah, Sephiroth has way too many stacks of bad circumstances and manipulation against him, and still he had that window of time where he had purpose and camaraderie and seemed fairly happy, if in that always striving to bigger things way. (You might be shocked that I, a Papyrus fan, also enjoyed what I saw of Genesis's theatrics.) It's nice to explore who Sephiroth wants to be with those pressures at a remove, being in a context where few or none of those people expect things of him.

Ooops, yeah, that's what I meant. :)

Zack will likely take pause at first, for sure! But he's from a "canon" point after Advent Children and has a pretty different worldview than the kid who erroneously thought just having wings makes a monster.

I want to say it was either Snakes Tolliver or Radley that this Papyrus was talking to, hm.

Yes, he can be briefly played in chapter 1 of Rebirth! The PC version has neat mods that do things with that.

Indeed! I love playing him sane, especially at a point after the horrible things happened and he's now trying to pick up the pieces from all of that. I want him to be able to find the happiness he could never seem to keep hold of for long.

Genesis can be fun with his theatrics, lol. I usually find him very petty where it comes to Seph interaction, but I like writing for him in fics. I had considered bringing him in when the guests came, but ultimately decided I'd prefer it to be Zack instead. (I know I could have brought them both, since two were allowed.) I can't recall now if I actually created a Genesis journal or just made icons in case....

Oh, that's fun. Has Zack been open with many in the game about having been dead for what, 7ish years? Maybe not as a hook for Givingstide, but cr down the road - Papyrus is a little unnerved by having *died* died back at the start of November.

Hmmm, Snakes (plural, as opposed to Solid/Liquid/Plasma/Naked Snake) does sound familiar, too. Have you used a single username for that character?

Petty, absolutely - what I saw of Crisis Core showed a guy committed to a certain level of drama, between his love of a certain play and being petty and obnoxious with his friend/rival group. The sort of friction that helps ensure characters are less likely to work together, so that the tragedy that's already happened can fall into place! :P

But outside the confines of a story, and maybe especially a story that's being sold for action and betrayal, it is fun to explore the what-ifs of not being in a world pressing for that. It's a little funny to do so in a horror game, but at the same time, trying to heal amidst the horrors seems like it would be less stressful for him than trying to heal in an outright slice of life game - at least here he knows things are trying to kill him sometimes, as usual.

Mettaton:

I still don't have any concrete plans for Mettaton for January! He spent most of December spending time with friends, checking in on people, and performing for the holidays. A good time, indeed. Over-all, he's been pretty happy. If you're interested in doing anything with him, event wise or just normal every day stuff, let me know! I'd definitely like to get him more involved in things.

Marik:

Marik will have a busy January. >3 While he may have spent most of December attempting to be Normal and Nice (supposedly), he's growing restless and wanting to finally start taking action in getting more power. A brief breakdown of what he's been up to is:

- Therapy session/Birthday/Rebirth of the Sun spent with Dr. Harvey. He opened up to him about a lot of his true backstory but definitely painted it to make him sound like the victim. He purposely left out key details so the good doctor won't think he's a complete monster

- Lowkey and unintentionally terrorizing Mulcahy's holidays. His gifts were meant as a subtle nudge that he's watching, although that winded up with him getting rough-housed a bit by Gaeta later on.

- idk my BEF (best enemy forever) Harrowhark meeting. Bumping heads with her has certainly helped push him towards wanting to gain power. /insert gif of two cats smacking each other

- Getting into a deal with Tarantulas for a shawl he can't afford but absolutely needs because he is a little prince, which in turn introduces him to Neil.

- Continuing to work on his perfume variety.

Obviously he'll still be playing up the Good Boy act but at the start of the new year, he'll begin introducing himself as Marik Ishtar rather than Namu. Anyone who's met him prior too will be told once they interact again. Same with Mettaton if you'd like to do anything with Marik, just let me know!

Edited 2026-01-07 16:11 (UTC)

I don't think Zack has, but Seph may have said something to someone before Zack came. At Zack's "canon" point (which is my fic verse and not real canon, lol), he's alive again. I don't know how candid he'd be about having been dead, but if it comes up, he won't shy away from it. He would be happy to try to help Papyrus deal with such feelings.

Yep:

worstorganplayer

That's a pretty good description, lol. Seph honestly might not have cracked up if not for how Genesis treated him at Nibelheim. Something to think about, at least. At that point, Genesis was supposed to be rather nuts himself, but what makes it sticky is that he started treating Seph poorly before the deterioration started, so it makes it hard to tell how much is that and how much is his real feelings later.

It's hard to say. I do think Seph is making good progress at trying to heal, at least, and he likes that he can use his powers for good and try to protect people where possible.

HI I TOTALLY ALMOST FORGOT TO DO THIS---

It's time to nominate candidates for Flower Queen for our upcoming Merrymeet festival in February! Here are the rules:

- To nominate someone, another character (not played by the same player) must put in the nomination by commenting on this TL, and the nominee must reply with their acceptance. All nominees become members of the Flower Court and will be part of the Merrymeet procession, and get a plus-one.
- Dahlia was Flower Queen last year, and thus cannot be Flower Queen this year. She is in the Flower Court by default but cannot be voted for.
- Nominees must be women or femme-aligned/femme-presenting people, and must be over 18 years of age. They should be women who are community pillars known for their kindness, humor, joy, warmth, love, and/or personal growth journey, or it should be someone who needs or deserves to be recognized and uplifted by the people around them.
- DTNPCs are not eligible.
- Nominations close on February 6th and voting runs from Feb 7th to Feb 10th. Merrymeet will go live on Feb 15th.

Have fun!

Dahlia is nominating Fever for Flower Queen.

South is ~~predictably~~ nominating Haley.

Edited 2026-01-08 01:02 (UTC)

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Monthly Plotting Post | January

QUESTIONS/COMMENTS/CONCERNS

Papyrus

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Re: Papyrus

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Mettaton and Marik

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Flower Queen Nominations!

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