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literature in action

Heroism, Humanism & Hijinks: Literature in Action - Week 15, Period 5 (Final)

The class was in the Danger Shop today for their final piece of assessment.

"Good afternoon. Inside you'll find Dickensian London. Namely, the London of A Christmas Carol. Something, however, had gone wrong. Despite being visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, Ebenezer Scrooge has not discovered the true meaning of Christmas and thus has not gone to Christmas dinner with the Cratchett family. Fix it."

[OOC: Thank you all for a wonderful semester and for hanging on with me while I tested the waters with Lit. You've been a great class. Hope to see you back next semester for a more organised Lit class!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You're in a mock-up of the book. You can talk to characters and find out what they know about Scrooge going off track, tweak the environment and even smack some sense into good ol' Ebenezer. Feel free to ping me in the OOC thread for character interaction (available after 4pm PST), play out your own interactions with the characters or sum up your solution in a paragraph or two. Completely up to you.

Conner ~~would have actually played it out more thoroughly if he had a copy of the book on hand for reference~~ took a long time to figure out what was going on, given that tact and constructive verbal exchanges were not exactly his strong point. It took a lengthy session of commiserating with Scrooge's nephew Fred over the pain of getting constantly stood up, and an unusually adept application of the "ol' McKnight charm" in a conversation with Scrooge's former fiancée Belle.

Which was a lot of talking for Conner.

So after stopping off at a pub to, ahem, refresh his dry throat, he somehow tracked Scrooge down at Big Ben of all places, and wheedled him into going to dinner with the Cratchits.

. . . Conner, who appreciated food in all its forms, was not in any way above describing Christmas dinner in all its glorious detail. That seemed to work well enough as far as softening Scrooge up enough to subject him to a slightly hokey (okay, very hokey) speech about the meaning of Christmas, and hustle him off to the Cratchits' place.

[...it was too long for the comment box. *facepalm*]

Layla headed for the Cratchett's house first, to check up on the family, to see exactly how tiny Tiny Tim was, and to assure them all that they would indeed have a very Merry Christmas as long as she had something to say about it. Then she went to talk to Belle, who thankfully let herself be won over by Layla's sweet-and-innocent act, and gave some good advice for how to try to win over Scrooge.

In the end, Layla figured that another emotional scare tactic might be best, since it had technically worked in the book. She tracked Scrooge down and declared herself to be the Ghost of Christmas Subjunctive, and between her description of how wonderful and delicious the dinner would be, her gentle threats of bodily harm if he didn't suck it up and start acting like a human being, and a few tears, she managed to convince him of the true meaning of Christmas after all, and gleefully sent him on his way to dinner.

[Now with actual English-speaking skills! *facepalm*]

Despite knowing that if three ghosts couldn't convince a guy to spend his christmas with his family, Cameron stilled decided to try and talk Scrooge into going. The conversation covered all the joys Cameron could think of from great food, presents, the smell of christmas trees and even singing carols. Scrooge sadly enough didn't agree.

Which lead to phase 2 of Cameron's action plan; badgering. He was pretty good at it as he followed Scrooge around and kept asking him why he wasn't going. Which strangely enough seemed to annoy Scrooge even more.

Phase 3 actually resembled phase 2 a lot as Cameron decided to tell every Christmas story he could think of in the hopes that Scrooge would get it.

In the end Scrooge caved. Whether he actually got the true meaning or he just wanted to shut Cameron up remained a mystery, though.

Dawn spent a good chunk of the class talking to Scrooge's family and friends, getting information about Scrooge.

She then ignored most of it and spent the afternoon camped out on Scrooge's couch, swinging her feet, singing The Song That Never Ends at the top of her lungs, and explaining about the demons that would come attack his house and steal his money if he didn't get over to the Cratchetts with some food and presents sometime before Christmas morning.

He called a priest and tried to exorcise her right about the time the sun came up. When she didn't disappear, he took off running for the shops like his feet were on fire.

Billy was a bit confused, having read the book recently, and listened to a recording of Patrick Stewart reading said book. Maybe it was a trick question? In any case, he knew where to find Scrooge. He went strait to Fred's house, asking directions of course. He looked quite ragged compared to everyone else, and the eye patch certainly gave the maid a start. He didn't bother trying to argue his way in, he simply said, in his best fake cockney accent (which wasn't that great but yay for holographic charectors not noticing such things), that he came on behalf of the Cratchitts, and that Bob, had extended his best wishes and invitation to dinner to Fred, and Scrooge, whom he'd spotted entering.
She looked at him dubiously but she did pass the message on. Fred of course could not abandon his guests, but Scrooge made his own goodbyes, and hurried to Camden Town.

And they all lived happily ever after. Except Billy who stepped in horse cookies.

The End

Molly's first thought was that something had gone wrong during the visitations. So, she decided to speak with the ghosts to see what they had said to Scrooge and see if it was correct.

She wasn't sure exactly where to go to find the ghosts, so she went to Scrooge's bedroom since that was where they had all appeared. "Hey, ghosts!" she called out. "We need a status report here!"

"What?" Marley and his understudy said in unison.

"What?" the other ghosts repeated, except for the ghost of christmas yet to come who wasn't much of a talker.

Molly paced in front of them. "Okay, Scrooge did not discover the true meaning of Christmas. I need to know what you all said to him or if anything odd happened during your visitations. Marley and... friend? You want to start?"

"We said the same thing we always say!"

"It's worked every other time."

"The problem must be with Scrooge. He must want out."

"Or he's gone crazy."

"Hmmmmm." Molly paced some more. "Anybody else? Did you do anything different or did Scrooge say anything different?"

"No!"

"We're fictional characters, not actors on Who's Line is it Anyway? We say what we're supposed to say and do what we've always done."

"Unless you get a loose canon like Scrooge. He's not happy with being cranky all the time. It makes people dislike him and he just wants to be liked."

"Maybe he has snapped."

"Hmmm," Molly said again. "Looks like I'll have to go talk to Scrooge. Thanks for talking to me."

"Come back and visit!"

"We have biscuits!"

"With sprinkles!"

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