Charming

I started the podcast Malevolent and it features a cursed book and you guys know I'm a sucker for cursed books right???? you knew that. you were not surprised. ANYWAY.

This is a group of characters who are living with curses. These curses might have come from anywhere, but the affected character either currently believes or at one point believed they had come from a book they read. Their investigation of said cursed book put them in contact with London bookseller Ned Flourish (of Flourish & Blott's) who, as a major book nerd, found this extremely cool. Sorry about your curse and all but also he's geeking out about it.

I want Ned to serve as the centerpoint for getting these people in touch with each other both for ongoing investigations into how to break their various curses, but also just solidarity and ideas for how to continue living with them — half occult book club, half support group. It'll be quirky and fun and perhaps heartwarming but with a dark twist. Existing characters or new characters are cool for this. If you're using an existing character, you can retcon this curse into some amount of their past (I'm willing to do past threads where they start to get involved with Ned if you want!) or it can be a thing that presently impacts them, or it can be something that develops in the future (Ned can sell you a cursed book and you can figure it out later!) .

HERE ARE THE CURSES. Details are malleable and whatnot but I tried to brainstorm ones that would be fun to play - not pleasant but also not so dark as to prevent you from having lighthearted threads while you're afflicted, and with some fun potential for interesting open threads / plot developments related to the curses. WITHOUT FURTHER ADO:

— Curse of Foresight — — this one definitely came from a book, specifically a book that purportedly trained the reader to be a Seer. It seemed like it worked! But actually, your character isn't seeing the future — they're just experiencing their own life out of order, which leads to that feeling of deja vu / "I foresaw this" quite frequently. Practically: your character can't remember their entire past. Intermittently throughout their day they'll experience one of their own memories but won't realize it's a memory and will think it's happening in real time. They will spend most of the time confused and will have difficulty maintaining relationships with people.

— Curse of Strangers — — your character develops total face blindness. They don't recognize anyone unless there are context clues to help them — names exchanged, familiar accessories worn, etc. Is that your husband or a complete stranger addressing you so familiarly? This is a nightmare, have fun.

— Curse of Wakefulness — — your character does not sleep. I mean, their body does — but every time their physical body is asleep they end up jumping into the body of someone else and 'steering' for several hours. They are mentally exhausted. They are privy to information and experiences they logically should have no way to know. They miss dreaming.

— Curse of Trust — — your character will believe anything so long as it is said directly to their face and someone is looking them in the eye when it's said. Gullible to the extreme. Fine if no one knows to take advantage of it, right? So let's hope no one finds out...

— Curse of Extra Fingers — your character is clumsy to the extreme. They can do physical tasks if they're focusing on them, but the minute they start to multitask something is going to go wrong. Someone said something to you while you were carrying something? Yeah, hope that wasn't fragile...

— Curse of Animals — — all animals and beasts, magical and mundane, have an extreme aversion to your character. Horses pulling your carriage will buck or bolt; dogs will snarl at you; birds will poo on your shoulder. You get the idea. No amount of treats will persuade them to your side.

I give you Timothy with Curse of Foresight!

DONE AND DONE I will start you both threads once he's revived <3 Ivy's thread can be her buying the book? Or maybe the book was ordered by a criminal of some sort and she's picking it up as part of her investigation after the original customer was taken into custody? We can sync on details or we can just wing it ~

Kit, past thread, current thread? How established is this? Send me any thoughts you have, or as above we can wing it~

I'm torn between the Curse of Strangers or the Curse of Many Fingers as the gifts that keep on giving for Anthea.

(September 9, 2024 – 3:36 AM)Edward Flourish Wrote: [ -> ]DONE AND DONE I will start you both threads once he's revived <3 Ivy's thread can be her buying the book? Or maybe the book was ordered by a criminal of some sort and she's picking it up as part of her investigation after the original customer was taken into custody? We can sync on details or we can just wing it ~

Kit, past thread, current thread? How established is this? Send me any thoughts you have, or as above we can wing it~

Let's do Past thread, maybe late June (but I'm flexible, mid-June's just when his thread with Henry is lol)? We tend to do our best when winging it, I have always felt! Probably came to Flourish's to replenish his personal library and the book caught his eye out of academic interest. And now, lookit him. He's cursed. xD

Decision made. Sign Anthea for the Curse of Strangers.

Curse of animals for Thaddeus Flint - I imagine he buys a lot of booksof questionable origin.


its going to make things gross and annoying for him.

Take poor, now-gullible Aldous who just wanted a book about [insert culture here] to better entertain an incoming dignitary

I have started threads for all five of you! Let me know if anything about the premise doesn't work, happy to change things~

Still room for one more! If the general idea interests you but this specific curse doesn't we can change it. :-)

Threads revived for folks who said they wanted that <3

If your character needs SPEEDY RESOLUTION or anything shout at me

I don't mind non-speedy :D I just don't know what I'm doing or where we are heading :D :D Feel free to hit me up if we want to actually move towards #clubcursed