Replacing the Zippo

Mount. Elements said:

In the story I vaguely remember, I think that the Scoobies found someone who either had tons of life force to drain or was acceptable to kill. I know that doesn't help much, and I'm now wondering if this was an alt-power story.

If we can't think of anything, then I'd suggest destroying the mummy because that feels kinder than letting her stay like that forever. I also don't feel right about letting a student die to awaken her.

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Oh, the student doesn't have to die to awaken her. She just wakes up super hungry and mindlessly grabbed the first person within reach. She would be absolutely miserable without that first kiss, but it is avoidable.

Perhaps an option on researching ways to help her would have been useful?

[jk]What we need is some kind of accept- feed her vampires.

[x]Plan: Less skeevy than it looks at first glance
-[x]Look for ways to share life force, such that several people can donate at once to her initially, before breaking the connection.
-[x]In the likely event that such an option doesn't exist or is unachievable, plan to restrain her. Something like strapping her to a table with steel bands.
-[x]Make it so that a person can kiss her, a third person can break the connection, and she herself can't force the connection to continue.
-[x]Explain knowledge of this as coming from gossip at the bar about non-vampire immortals.

Any additional knowledge available that would break this plan?

Tascion said:

-[x]Explain knowledge of this as coming from gossip at the bar about non-vampire immortals.

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Is Xander still going to the bar, or was that a summer-only thing? Also, has the mummy ever woken up before for the vampires to know about it?

Mount. Elements said:

Is Xander still going to the bar, or was that a summer-only thing? Also, has the mummy ever woken up before for the vampires to know about it?

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I think there's some confusion.

I'm suggesting Xander mislead as to the precise source of his knowledge, by suggesting that he's heard of such things from the bar.

It doesn't matter if he's still going to the bar, or if the bar flies ever actually mentioned any such thing. They might have, as Xander was asking about all kinds of horror movie stuff. That was well beyond vampires.

Xander is still going to the bar, if not as regularly. Oh, that gives me an idea!

Ok, now that I have time, and my cold is a bit better, I'm going to try to see if I can come up with something. I think the first problem here is convincing the others that the mummy girl should be saved. As far as the others are concerned, everything supernatural is bad except Angel because he has a soul. They were willing to go along with Xander's game idea because it wasn't dangerous, but trying to save a mummy that can kill people will be a much harder sell. Marcie and Willow might help us, but it would be much better if we could get everyone on board.

On that note, we should probably think of a reason for group activities like art or games before we try again. Maybe we could do some research on how to deal with high-stress situations and how people in combat manage their mental health. The group activities should be presented as a way to help everyone, not just Buffy, or she'll take it badly.

Going back to the mummy, if we can't convince the others, then our main choices are either destroying it or making sure it doesn't wake up. If this is the only time we'll ever have access to the mummy, then destroying it ends her suffering. If we think we'll be able to come up with a way to free her in the future when Xander has more knowledge, fighting ability, and reputation, then we can make sure she doesn't wake up.

[X]Try to prevent the mummy from ever waking up

I think I'll just hope that Xander will have another opportunity to save the mummy girl at some point in the future, possibly after this quest ends.

[X]Try to prevent the mummy from ever waking up

I feel this is the best option at this juncture with what options we reasonably have available to us, and we maybe get a new scoobie with Ampata.

Life happens it's totally okay to take a break.

I think the biggest problem with doing something about the mummy is convincing everyone else to be on board with the plan to save her. So far, everyone's general experience with the supernatural has been negative. Giles has been tipped off to keep an eye on the mummy so secretly saving her isn't a particularly good idea either. On the other hand, if we can get past the first negative reaction, I think that people will warm up to her pretty quickly.

If we don't go for saving the mummy, then I'd vote for either doing a movie night to help everyone relax a bit or learning more about the supernatural community at the bar. The bar is about getting a line in on the current supernatural happenings, which feels more useful than researching stuff that Giles already knows about. I'm not sure how we'd look into Spike and Druscilla other than hanging out at the bar.

I am going to warn that actions for the mummy are going to be long term, so even if you take the action now it's not gonna get immediate results

[X]Learn more about the supernatural community at the bar
-[X] Keep your ears open for any news about Spike and Druscilla, but don't be the first to bring them up.

After thinking more about this, I feel like Xander might want to be able to give Giles current information about the supernatural world while also trying to find out if Spike & Druscilla's actions are deviating from show canon.

Though, if we're not worried about any big upcoming dangers, then it might be a good idea to do some research on how soldiers and their support staff destress so that we can make a case for the rest of the group on why we should be doing group activities to destress. Research should get Willow and Giles on board while making it harder for Buffy to turn down any group activities out of hand. Let me go ahead and create a vote for that too.

[X] Do research on how soldiers and their support staff destress and stay sane while in combat zones. Then make a case to the others about why it would be a good idea to find group activities to help everyone destress.
-[X] Suggest art as a possible group activity, and ask if anyone else has any ideas for other group activites.

[X] Do research on how soldiers and their support staff destress and stay sane while in combat zones. Then make a case to the others about why it would be a good idea to find group activities to help everyone destress.
-[X] Suggest art as a possible group activity, and ask if anyone else has any ideas for other group activites.

Mental health matters.

[X]Learn more about the supernatural community at the bar
-[X] Keep your ears open for any news about Spike and Druscilla, but don't be the first to bring them up.

I'm very much interested in trying to help the incan mummy. However, I think learning more general stuff would be better in the short term and more helpful in the long term. As for mental health, that was tried recently and didn't go as well as hoped. While I also want to revisit it, I think giving the topic a break would be reasonable.

Tascion said:

I'm very much interested in trying to help the incan mummy. However, I think learning more general stuff would be better in the short term and more helpful in the long term. As for mental health, that was tried recently and didn't go as well as hoped. While I also want to revisit it, I think giving the topic a break would be reasonable.

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A major reason that the previous attempt at improving mental health didn't work was because Xander didn't bother explaining anything. I think that the vote was to do a group activity, but we didn't vote to explain to the others why we should do a group activity to destress so Xander blurted out suggesting that the group create a game. I'm hoping that explaining our concerns to the others will go over a lot better.

Mount. Elements said:

A major reason that the previous attempt at improving mental health didn't work was because Xander didn't bother explaining anything.

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I agree that's likely a good part of why the effort failed, but I still think giving the topic a break is appropriate.

On a meta level, I don't like quickly rehashing votes that didn't work out or win. I consider moving on, at least until a topic can be revisited from a markedly different perspective, as generally more appropriate reflexive choice. I'm not saying that I won't absolutely never ever revisit a vote, just that I don't see an urgent reason to do it in this case.

Within the story, I think Xander trying to repeatedly get his friends to do things that interest him, even ostensibly in their own best interests, as the primary effort he exerts of his own initiative would be rather taxing.

Tascion said:

Within the story, I think Xander trying to repeatedly get his friends to do things that interest him, even ostensibly in their own best interests, as the primary effort he exerts of his own initiative would be rather taxing.

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For this part, I just want to bring up that the art suggestion is actually because Angel was an artist so the hope is that Buffy will enjoy the activity if it means spending more time with Angel.

Not super into the solider destressing part of the write in. I feel going with the movie idea is fine if we are going with trying to reattempt the relaxation idea. I'm also fine with the sub-section of that write in, as that was one of my first suggestions for the activity we should try (or music with Marcie as an instructor).

However I'm not sure I want to try again right now, I do think I don't want to wait long... but hmm what is the rest of this year supposed to be?

Reptile Boy: Uggh hate the episode, Cordellia... you're too important to keep getting into this much danger. Though they need to go down, not sure exactly how to go about that, because frankly I don't want either of Buffy or Cordy drugged. But its mostly just getting Buffy to the location to kill the Demon and the rest available for mook support.
Halloween: This will be fun and playing with the costume options will just be exciting, just going to be an exciting time.
Lie to Me: Great Episode, not a clue what to do here. Its a big emotional episode but it is one with very little Xander input normally and as such maybe more we could do, but also not sure if there is an easy solution to get extra time in it.
Dark Age: Love a Giles episode, but man do we already know the cheat code for this whole event, I think we can make time here FAST.
Whats my Line? 2 Parter: Maybe able to try a group activity here (also just interested if we're getting Kendra or jumping ahead to Faith, or a complete other Slayer) Honestly gaining a new teammate like theoretically in Lie To Me could be a fine time to try and retry a group activity?
Ted: Don't eat the cookies, and destroy Ted. All my friends hate Ted.
Bad Eggs: Boil them eggs, team. Lets Boil some eggs. Probably another way to cheat code this but boiling some eggs does a great start.
Surprise / Innocence: It would be nice to not have Angel lose his soul, but also still need to get a bazooka for "The Judge"
Phases: Oz, Oz, Oz, Oz!
Bewitched/Bothered/Bewildered: This event probably just isn't happening, free time slot?
Passion: Honestly anything past this point is probably really easily butterflied away like the episode above. Because we have no clue if we can stop Angel from finding happiness cuddling with Buffy after doing the deed (it is very clearly the moments after that give him the truest moment of happiness and not the act itself, but its very nebulous and his later attempts to boink his soul out of himself with Darla indicate that either he or the writers didn't quite understand their own original scene.)

So before the likely major butterfly points, trying when we get a "new member" (Ford / Kendra) or if we can speed run Angel slurping up Giles' demonic drug-magic debt collector, may be hard to suggest another easy time for redoing a group activity.

Hmm, I don't want to go the magic route, I'm not against continuing bar information gathering, I do feel for the Mummy Girl, but I don't think we're going to get a solution that we'll like. (In before we butterfly her becoming the big-bad swap with Spike somehow.) Certainly prefer the write-in ear out for Spike / Drusilla at the bar than outright, because Spike at least seems to respect the rules there so way safer.
Again movie night honestly isn't bad, neither is art / music with one of the instructor options (though yeah Art with teacher Angel is probably the one more likely to succeed with Buffy.)

Not quite sure, going to think a bit more.

ComiTurtle said:

Not super into the solider destressing part of the write in. I feel going with the movie idea is fine if we are going with trying to reattempt the relaxation idea. I'm also fine with the sub-section of that write in, as that was one of my first suggestions for the activity we should try (or music with Marcie as an instructor).

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I want to explain to the others what's going on because (1) Willow and Giles should be more invested if they know why Xander keeps suggesting group activities and (2) it feels a bit mastermindery to keep trying to get everyone to do actions to manage their stress levels without explaining why. The soldier-and-support-staff is just the closest equivalent that I thought of for Xander to research. If there's another group that Xander could research, I could be persuaded to vote for that instead.

It looks like it's a tie. Anyone want to break it?