My post above was inspired by "The Complete Dark Shadows Instruction Book".  Contributors: Martin Davenport, Judy Phillips, Teri Darcy, Jane Harris, Cathy Vocke, Liz McGillicuddy, Alane Megna

http://www.natural-innovations.com/ds/llib.html

 

RE: Names for Nina/Michelle's BF

You could possibly go a bit self-referencial:  Lon?  Michael (after Michael "I was a Teenage Werewolf" Landon)? Michael also fits for Michael J. "Teen Wolf" Fox.  However, be prepared for comparisons to Teen Wolf, in which Fox has complete control over his changes for comic effect....

OTOH, you also have the Lychans in the Underworld films who also have control over their changes.

Thanks for the head's up.  I apologize and will keep that in mind.

Mea culpa.

I don’t how many of you are familiar with the Burning Man Festival.  It takes place in Black Rock, Nevada in the desert, where for a week leading up to Labor Day, a temporary intentional community springs up.  This community can be upwards of 20 to 30,000 people, who bring their own camping supplies, food and water.  The highlight of the event is the burning of a giant wooden human effigy (a la The Wicker Man only without the religious overtones and human barbecue).  As I understand it, and I don’t claim to completely understand it, it is an entirely secular ritual, done more for entertainment than as a religious rite.  The original Burning Man festival has inspired “regional burns”, Burning Man-like events on a smaller scale held around the country.  There is one such event held in North Carolina, held on a family owned tract of 940 acres of mountain wilderness.  There about 3,000 folks do in the woods what Burning Man does in the desert, a temporary intentional community where there is no monetary exchange for things.  It’s a gift ecomony, where anything anyone wants or needs is offered gratis.  There are artists of all kinds, bikers, musicians, deejays, Radical Faeries, hippies of the old school, Goths, satanists, pagans, and so on, and of course many many people who breathe, dance and perform with fire.

A friend was at one such event in Maine and it started me thinking about another possible story for a hypothetical Dark Shadows: The Next Generation.

The current head of the Collins family is the son of David Collins, who as we all know , as a child claimed to see and talk and play with ghosts, and gazed into crystal balls, and contemplated (and even attempted) murder.  He grew out of that eventually, grew up got married and was head of the Collins family empire for a long time before stepping down and putting his son in his place.  David’s stepping down was not entirely by choice as in his later years began to revert to claims of seeing ghosts and making frightening predictions.  Generally, it was thought he was going senile and was gently moved aside.  I confess that in my mind’s eye, I always see and elderly Louis Edmonds playing David (think Joshua Collins but in 2008).

Enough backstory.  This would be an ongoing B or C plot for the last part of a season.  The organizers of a Burning Man-like regional burn approach the patriarch of the Collins Family to request permission to hold such an event on their vast estate.  David Collins goes completely nuts over the idea, and, as would frequently happen when he was a child, no attention is paid to the crazy coot.  It will bring a few thousands possible tourists to their “artist colony” community that might drop some dough into the local economy on the way to or from the event.  No harm is seen as being done, because with these kinds of temporary communities, while there are few rules, one of the most important is to leave the place in the same condition it was when you arrived.  Permission is granted.  The event happens.  Everything goes as planned.  The effigy, usually a man or at least gender neutral, is unusually fashioned specifically as a woman.  The night of the Burn is a festival party like atmosphere.  There is a wide swath of bare land around the effigy where only those in charge of the actually setting the fire and various fire performers are.  Now this is supposed to be a completely religion free “ritual” but the person speaking before setting effigy alight falters in his speech and suddenly alters it slightly (not enough to really sound like a religious invocation, but definitely in that direction).  He sets the effigy on fire and it’s a glorious party night for the revelers.  David’s son attended the burn (because despite his dismissal of his father’s rants) wanted to be sure that nothing “supernatural” took place.  Satisfied all is well, he returns to Collinwood.

The revels last way into the night.  By dawn, everyone has gone back to their campsites to sleep.  Of the effigy nothing remains but a pile of ashes.  In the woods at the edge of the clearing where the burn occurred, old David Collins peers intently at the ashes.  The pile breaks as if something is inside them.  While a horrified David watches, a beautiful naked woman stands and begins to brush herself off.

A terrified David whispers, “Mother.”

Fade to black.  End of season

[beavis] heheheh you said "revamped" heh heheh heheh [/beavis]

Now you've got me thinking about the film Lair of the White Worm, where Amanda Donahoe's character seduces a boy scout and then bites him on the, um.... willie.... 

I'm personally greenlighting that idea, Nelson!   Good one!

*Blush*  Thank you.