When It All Goes Wrong Again
| When It All Goes Wrong Again | |
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| Dates run: | January 26th-28th, 2007 |
| Run By: | Azzy, Tapestry, Rossi |
| Read the logs: | When It All Goes Wrong Again |
"Don't touch me, you freaks!"
Contents
Cast
David Haller, Julio Richter, Lorna Dane, Angelica Jones, Forge, Shiro Yoshida, Crystal Amaquelin, Kyle Gibney, Laurie Collins, Tommy Jones, Amanda Sefton
Thomas Glorian, Charles Xavier
Timing
Plot Summary
On a routine field trip excursion to the Metropolitan Museum of art, the students amuse themselves before going in by watching a street performer named Thomas Glorian. Glorian is also a petty thief, con artist, and mutant who has a low-level telepathic power activated by touch. He unfortunately decides to mark David Haller as his target.
That night, Glorian has Haller dream his fondest wish. Only, due to the nonlinear thought processes of Haller's fractured mind this desire finds itself realized through a complex scenario in which he was never a mutant -- and nor was anyone else, ever. Glorian's prodding sets off a chain reaction, and the delusion becomes contagious. The students who were with Haller on the field trip along with the few staff get sucked into a very powerful dream, and everyone is where they would have been if they had not manifested. Julio, Angel, Shiro, Amanda, Laurie and Tommy all have decently happy lives. Julio never blew up a city, Angel still lives in Seattle, Shiro's father is still alive, Amanda is not disowned (and dating Kurt!) and Laurie and Tommy are the popular kids at their high school. Some, on the other hand, have no-so-happy lives. Kyle's still in jail for GTA (and short), Forge is at a dead-end job at a car-rental service, Crystal's parents and sister were assassinated and she's become a foul-mouthed spoiled princess, and Lorna has a perfect life but is she is so dead on the inside.
Meanwhile, no one is able to wake the residents from their shared dream. After Amanda is located at the brownstone unconscious the common thread between all the victims becomes apparent, and Charles Xavier quickly determines the root of the problem. With the help of Cerebro Scott Summers, Marie D'Ancato and Sam Guthrie are sent to retrieve an also comatose Glorian. Xavier cannot break the dream without risking serious psychic complications, so he allows the students and staff time to work the way out of their coma themselves while he tries to come up with another plan.
Glorian himself has been split into two selves, one where he is as he would have never manifested...a petty thief and con man. Yeah, big stretch there. The other is a dream self that cannot fully manifest itself except in forms of dream logic. Which means various appearances in the television, and a talking seagull.
Eventually, Julio follows the directions of the dream Glorian and crosses the border into Nogales, Arizona, where he meets Forge, also being driven by the same advice of a talking commercial, having stolen a car to get there. They have no idea who the other is, until they shake hands. Then their memories come back.
After meeting Angel on a pier, and Glorian's dream seagull, (henceforth dubbed "Bob"), they are directed to the Deus Ex Phonebook, which contains a map to Lorna's house. Lorna is hosting a dinner party with Wonderbread the Fiancé, his brother who bears a disturbing resemblance to Alex Summers, and Shiro and his father. Lorna interrupts Shiro and the Alex-a-like in a compromising position and then they have a heated argument over who loves the boy more, accidentally making skin-to-skin contact and remembering, and then continuing the argument anyway. Then it gets crashed by the three kids and a seagull. They decide to track down the others on the field trip, which involves stealing a small plane that just happens to have Crystal on it. Crystal and Lorna have the catfight of all catfights before Crystal remembers. Our happy heroes make their way to Montana to break Kyle out of jail, which involves putting the kids in ridiculous outfits and another catfight between Lorna and Crystal. After breaking out Kyle and witnessing his re-manifestation, the rest of the group's powers return as well. They are then directed to New York, along with Laurie and Tommy (whose very happy lives are very unhappily interrupted) and Amanda as a horribly lost German tourist, who ends up slapping Lorna when she tries to touch the Brit. In New York, they find the missing pieces; Haller, trapped in his fondest wish/worst nightmare and Thomas Glorian. In order to break out of the dream, the two men have to meet and physically touch. It's not a stretch to say both men run like hell rather than be fondled by strange people. Haller even has a small moment in a convenience store, which leads to some unanswered questions.
After a series of comedically escalating events in which all logic breaks down, Haller and Glorian do finally shake hands. And the dream breaks, all students and staff who were afflicted waking up in the medlab, finding not even 32 hours have passed.
Related Links
External Links
Trivia and Meta
Trivia
As a result of the increasingly thin line between David Haller and Peter Petrelli from Heroes there is a lot of reference made to the self-same show. Haller is a male nurse with floppy hair, Forge steals a Nissan Versa from the dealership, etc..
The cards that Glorian all draws when he does his trick with Haller, make up the dead man's hand. Because the plotrunner is that big of a dork.
Meta
Plotrunners: Azzy - (idea, running), Tapestry - (running, PR), Rossi - (running, organization)
Glorian was suggested as a villian after Mastermind was taken, (X2), and Azzy and Tapestry remembering his cameo appearance in an issue of GenX where he made the kid's dreams come true. It's also the reason why he appears as a seagull for the plot. The name was changed to "Thomas Glorian" from Thomas Gideon to avoid confusion between him and the game's version of Gideon Faraday.
The reason why the plot is called "When it All Goes Wrong Again" is because Azzy was forced to come up with a title other than "that What if? plot" and she happened to be listening to the self-same song by Everclear at the time she was asked.
The fact that this plot could be considered the game's version of The Age of Apocalypse (Legion causing a funky alternate universe because of his screwed up brain) was completely unintended by both Azzy and Tapestry. Again. They need to quit doing that.
