APRIL STATE OF THE GAME

[metamods]

STATE OF THE GAME

THIS MONTH

01 APRIL 2023
⚔︎ STATE OF THE GAME
⚔︎ CONFLUENCE LOG
⚔︎ CR MEME

20 APRIL 2023
⚔︎ RESERVES OPEN
⚔︎ ACTIVITY CHECK-IN BEGINS

25 APRIL 2023
⚔︎ ACTIVITY CHECK-IN ENDS
⚔︎ RESERVES CLOSE
⚔︎ APPLICATIONS OPEN

30 APRIL 2023
⚔︎ APPLICATIONS CLOSE

⚔︎ LITTLE LOVE - Something strange seems to be happening with the local farm animals. The cows are going on strike, refusing to cooperate with their farmers. Milking efforts will be met with resistance, many cows opt to stay high up in the hills or walk away when farmers come close. Colorful goats rampage around town, each color seeming to have gained it's own ability. Green goats can speak, and speak they do. In fact, they never shut up. They go on about the great strike of 2023, how the cows deserve better treatment, the goats demand higher quality hay, and their brother Barry over there is the worst. Pink goats are flying through the clouds and eating rooftops, and blue have gained super strength-combined with their habit of ramming headfirst into each other, that can't go well at all.

⚔︎ CENTRAL CITY - It begins slowly: first, there are only a few citizens walking through their usual daily routines slowly, sitting at their desks at work but not working, not responding to others who speak to them. Then, it starts spreading. Social media blows up with theories on what's going on, why this seems to be happening. Does it have to do with the confluence? What is happening with them. . ?

⚔︎ SUNSET FALLS Remember the raves that had plagued Sunset Falls last month? A few rumors spreading across Twitter claim that the cause was the local ghostly crew. With the help of a few locals with the ability to communicate with the dead, they created a drug that would make possessing humans significantly easier. While this possession didn't end with the ghosts taking over, it did cause the person they were possessing to be significantly more reckless while the undead enjoyed the feeling of being fleshy once again. The significant amount of ghosts who lingered around raves also caused the shifts in the abandoned buildings.

As it turns out, the rumors were spread by the kids who were originally involved with creating the drugs--and with the dwindling number of teens willing to let ghosties take a ride in their bodies, the death count starts to lower drastically. While there may be numerous teens going through some pretty bad withdrawal symptoms causing low turnout in local schools, it also means the raves come to a jarring halt. Sunset Falls experiences a lull in supernatural activity, but surely that's not going to last for long.

⚔︎ EXCELSIOR - Posted across town are fliers with images of the Starfallen and other known Metas who frequent Excelsior - images of them doing some generally frowned upon activities. Whether they were picking their nose while walking down the street in hopes no one would see it, or walked out of the house with lettuce between their teeth. Maybe they committed a terrible, horrible crime - or maybe the images were heavily edited to make it look like they had when they hadn't. Rob a bank lately? No? Well everyone sure thinks you did! Known Metas may find themselves becoming victims of bad press and encouraged to leave Excelsior - unwillingly, if needed. Ever been kidnapped? Starfallen may find themselves thrown into the back of vans, picked up off the street, and tossed just outside of city limits with only what they had on their backs. Some unlucky ones may even find themselves being held for ransom.

HOUSEKEEPING

Hello, Heroes!


⚔︎ Plotting Comments will now be answered on a weekly basis. Our current plan is for Fridays.

⚔︎ The mod team is working to catch up on some of the behind the scenes things. Because of this, we will not be putting up a big event log this month. Instead, we've included an event in the confluence log. We will be responding to questions and engagements on this post regularly to facilitate movement of the plot.

⚔︎ Related to the above: we are running through a few game changes! Some upcoming (and current) mod posts may be formatted a little different than they have been in the past. We're working on improving the way we put up game information. If you have any suggestions, please reach out to us on MOD CONTACT.

⚔︎ Have any fun plans? Hit us up on PLAYER PLOTS! If you want to follow up on an event, investigate the setting or interact with a NPC, you can also hit up SETTING ENGAGEMENT and NPC ENGAGEMENT respectively.


⚔︎ For the May application round, any current player can extend one invitation. Players planning to invite someone this round should comment below with the player's information!

⚔︎ This game has an unofficial DISCORD SERVER! As a reminder, the moderators will not be monitoring the server's contents. However, players who have issues in the server are still welcome to bring their concerns to us at MOD CONTACT, just as they would with Plurk.

Players unsure whether this affects their characters can check on the GUILDS page. As characters are removed from the Diadem Hotel, players should comment to the HOUSING page with updates on where they are staying. The deadline for February arrivals is MAY 27.

⚔︎ JANUARY ARRIVALS LOSE THEIR FREE RIDE! When characters first arrived, the guilds promised to help them get their footing. Per notices sent to each occupied room, characters have until APRIL 27TH before their stay at the Diadem Hotel comes to an end. Characters who commit to a guild may take advantage of the associated housing subsidy or may use their own personal income to secure private housing.

DROPS

The following characters will vanish in the coming Confluence:

Lana Baumgartner, Diana Prince, Miku Kohinata, Erika Kurumi, Eliot Spencer, Lois Lane, Alec Hardison, Tsubasa Kazanari

Please coordinate with the mods if you would like to claim some or all of their belongings.

GETTING TO KNOW YOU —

Welcome, new heroes! Please use the form below to introduce yourself and start plotting if you'd like:

<B>Player Name & Pronouns:</b> <B>Preferred Communication:</b> Plurk, Discord, DM, etc. <B>Character Name & Journal:</b> <B>Guild Affiliation:</b> Is your character susceptible to being swayed into membership? Or will they take the hard path and stay unaffiliated? <B>Character Motivations & IC/OOC Goals:</b> What does your character want? You can list short term and long term goals, but also emotional needs that aren't being fulfilled. What do you want to do with them in game? What ideas do you already have? <B>Plot/CR Hooks:</b> What kinds of things does your character get up to that might throw them in the path of someone else's plot, or that you would like other players to engage with? What role does your character play in their canon plot? What role might they play in others' plots, and what would it take to get their attention? Are they an antagonist, a researcher, a tech whiz?

Comments

INVITES

[metamods]

[infirmiere]

name ⟶ emily
contact ⟶ iluvroadrunner6

[sunmon]

pink (verhoeven)

Re: INVITES

[lowercase_el]

Mila - gravenrose

[dothelokimotion]

Name: Juu
Contact: vilani

QUESTIONS

[metamods]

[sunmon]

Player Name & Pronouns: tifa (she/they)
Preferred Communication: protects

Character Name & Journal: Alina Starkov (sunmon)
Guild Affiliation: None yet! Left to her own devices, she will get pressured into joining the Alliance by people who want to market her; her own philosophies are more in line with the Society, however.
Character Motivations & IC/OOC Goals: Theoretically, Alina's goal is to get back to Ravka, because they need her to save the world! She feels immense pressure to get back to that, in part by her disappointment that she's not Special Enough here. However, it's also a responsibility she has tried to avoid in the past, and she may find that being relieved of it is actually pretty appealing ...
Plot/CR Hooks: I'm interested in Alina getting used as an idol-type figure who's more hero icon for publicity purposes than doing anything of real substance and making a difference for people's lives.

[realists]

Player Name & Pronouns: emma (she/her)
Preferred Communication: baleinette @ plurk or baleinette#3692 @ disco, let's get involved structurally

Character Name & Journal: jyn erso (realists)
Guild Affiliation: shrug emoji, we just don't know, it is a mystery
Character Motivations & IC/OOC Goals: she wants a fucking nap, thank you very much, tbh my motivation at the start is always just to find my sea legs and i've never done a crau before so this is new and exciting
Plot/CR Hooks: jyn is a crau from a game where she was given powers and she's 3/4 of the way to being the next avatar so she's actually dead useful. (she's also dead.) her powers have the unfortunate side effect of making her chest glow blue and vantablack tank tops weren't super readily available so she's stuck with a very obvious power display that she would like to make less obvious. she is also jason todd's snake's best friend (jyn + basil forever)

[deadthenred]

idea: jyn can explain to bucky how cool & handsome eugendies is

[hackrid]

but does it glow blue when orcs are near

[reneger]

basil will be happy to see her!!

for a snake

and jason too maybe

[purplexing]

Player Name & Pronouns: Aya (she/her)
Preferred Communication: trilobite_punch@plurk.com or trilobite Punch#4073 on the disco
Character Name & Journal: Donatello / Muser name="purplexing">
Guild Affiliation: Unaffiliated unless he can be smoozed otherwise
Character Motivations & IC/OOC Goals: Recognition is always somewhere on the list of Donnie desires. He wants to be acknowledged for his genius and despite initial concerns, there is a potential here that he hasn't had back home. Of course, there's also more competition. For now he'll just be getting settled into things, which might be considerably easier with at least one of his brothers present.
Plot/CR Hooks: Donnie's the overachieving scientist and tech expert of his team. He usually does what he pleases in regards to what he programs and creates, simply because he's never been questioned about it or told he shouldn't or can't. Aside from his fun mystic-tech abilities he's got something new to explore although as of yet he's unaware of. That probably won't last very long. I am also totally fine with winging things and seeing where things go so come at me!

[levelshift]

These nerds need to catch up in Central!

Also this is a down the road thing because I have no idea how it could come about or why, but Donnie definitely needs to do some tactile computer interfacing with Accelerator's brain choker supercomputer at some point.

[a_gaggle_of_ghosties]

...depending on what those mystic-tech abilities are, a certain Sith Lord might be even more interested in him.

He's been wanting to set up a backup network for the Starfallen for a while now, but even though he's familiar with what he's trying to replicate, that doesn't help him figure out how to do it with this technology. And that's before getting into all the other problems.

[hackrid]

Player Name & Pronouns: eri (she/they)
Preferred Communication: PM please!

Character Name & Journal: claudia donovan hackrid
Guild Affiliation: Unlikely to align herself, though I would be really intrigued to see if the game changes her over time enough to change her mind and join up?
Character Motivations & IC/OOC Goals: Motivation-wise, I'm thinking Claud will be a combo of I'll get over it I just have to be dramatic first and if I pretend like everything's fine it'll be fine, which will help me keep her from falling down a pit of bad thoughts and despair. Her mindset upon entry is a bit rocky. She's like a rescue dog that's only recently gotten settled in a forever home; now displaced, she's probably going to be a little bitey.

OOCly, I'm looking for goofs and shenanigans up top to start. Get her arrival squared, get her settled, and commence hacking and teleportation fail starters.

specific broad ic goals:
- see if artifacts exist as in her homeworld, and if warehouses are a thing
- practice her teleportation badly
- figure out the meme scene in this world (important)
- determine who's got the best takeaways
- fix her steampunk cell phone
- research if cherrie currie is here and if she's a meta (extremely important)

Plot/CR Hooks:
- hacking it right in all the wrong places (knock knock this server center looks interesting oops i doxxed everyone on that particular stack)
- ...and this evening the role of annoying little sister you want to strangle but don't because she's useful will be played by claudia donovan...
- the damsel is usually grateful but instead claudia is taking out her frustrations with this bold and brave new world on you, her knight in wingèd eyeliner
- the newbie teleporter is stuck in [insert stuck place that isn't up a tree bc i already did that on the tdm] are there any flyerfighters in the audience

[definecat]

Greetings. I'm Bugly(she/her), and I play this cat-shaped blob of protoplasm as well as Bart Allen/Kid Flash from DC comics. I also have played a Claudia, so I am so glad to see this.

You did forget that anyone sharing space with her has a chance of having any electronic or mechanical devices either given free upgrades or getting cannibalized for parts. I mean, who doesn't need an AI in their toaster?

[purplexing]

< Claudia! Also this turtle flies- tech-assisted, naturally, jus' sayin'~~

[faceguy]

Leo here has teleportation also but it is currently broken (for reasons), so they could be “hey why doesn’t this work right why am I in a tree” buddies. And also memes, he can show her memes.

[harageous]

Whoa! Claudia. Hey, hey!

I did a rewatch of WH13 pretty recently, actually! I think that Eda and Claudia have the potential to get along like a house on fire. She'll be looking into plenty of magical artefacts and the like soon enough, which might also be something Claudia could be interested in.

Her human perspective could be useful against Eda's magical one. Plus, I mean she plans to run a future youtube about just throwing stuff into a big ol' hellmouth she's in charge of.

[deadthenred]

Player Name & Pronouns: Alex (she/her)
Preferred Communication: elsinore or PM!

Character Name & Journal: Bucky Barnes (deadthenred)
Guild Affiliation: He would default to unaligned but can definitely be persuaded otherwise.

Character Motivations & IC/OOC Goals: Bucky from this canonpoint wants to provide a way out of bad situations. That can mean people who were brainwashed like he was or just people who have made mistakes and feel they have nowhere else to go. Note: Bucky helping people usually makes things worse.
Plot/CR Hooks: He's a spy/assassin type, obviously, and also would identify as an ex-superhero, maybe. For someone who has dressed in tights since he was a teenager, he's always thought of himself as a soldier, not a vigilante, and I'm really interested in using this setting to give him different perspectives on (meta)heroism. He is also someone who used to be a teen hero and aged out of it and I'm always interested in having him meet either Young Avenger types or other people who have similar trauma, lol.

He also is a CRAU from Meadowlark for those that were in the game.

[reneger]

hey bucky


want to fuck with the mob

[ashasari]

Player Name & Pronouns: jessi she/her
Preferred Communication: crowbars / KNIFE FIGHTS#9413 @ disco

Character Name & Journal: Kell Maresh ashasari
Guild Affiliation: maybe alliance, more likely to rough it unaligned
Character Motivations & IC/OOC Goals: kell is, usually, someone who can travel between worlds! he can no longer do that! & he's left his brother back home, after feeling someone jam a sword through him to try and kill him, and said brother's only alive because his lifeforce is, literally, attached to kell's! this is the bad end he's fucked himself over to avoid.

but kell also somehow manages to place himself right in the middle of terrible things, so he'll likely get involved in trying to fix things, offer a hand, etc, even if he scowls and is grumpy the entire time while doing it.

Plot/CR Hooks: aas said above, kell can usually travel between worlds, and that's an ability he'd fight to try and fix even if it's useless. aside from that, he's a very powerful blood magician who's extremely hard to kill. his girlfriend but not girlfriend because using labels isn't lila's style is also here, and she's also the same kind of magician, so it'll be a lot of two people bleeding all over things until kell tells lila to stop because they're going a little too far.

so--

-- magicians that he can reach out to, to try and figure out away around whatever is keeping them stuck
-- he's from 1820 but with magic. he doesn't know how to use a phone. or what a credit card is. please help
-- who wants a 21 year old who acts like he's a grumpy old man half the time with a (near-)permanent scowl as a friend. he could use more friends. most of the ones who are still alive (by his memory) he semihates.

[hackrid]

claudia might be a good fit? her daily magic archivist duties include bullying her stubborn old fossil of a surrogate father into the 21st century. i'll hit up kell's phone snooping behavior when i get over there!

[knewaguy]

Player Name & Pronouns: oli | they/them
Preferred Communication: witchpunk

Character Name & Journal: James "Logan" Howlett (knewaguy)
Guild Affiliation: Undecided bc he's a stubborn old man.
Character Motivations & IC/OOC Goals: Logan's going to still want to Die but there's some serious irony in that he thought he did but look, here he is instead. He'll be in a sour mood, still wanting to just curl up like an old barn cat and eat shit but it's not in the cards for him, so. After a while of hiding out and trying to be unseen, he'll just. Continue to hide out and wanna go unnoticed but end up in people's business.
Plot/CR Hooks: Going to be slowly working toward getting Logan back on his feet, healed to some degree (temporarily, permanently) and see how that works with his already checked out mentality as he resumes the Wolverine mantle. Interested in adoptive family mechanics and anyone who wants CR with a challenging old guy that may not speak much, speak kindly (or at all) and especially excited for CR that won't take his bs easily, and persistently annoy him into caring about them.

[hackrid]

at the top of claudia's resume it says 'expert at adopting old grouchy codgers' so if you'd like to see if they vibe, i'm up for it! her cover letter includes anecdotes like 'put tracking technology on old fart's glasses because he couldn't stop losing them' and also 'wait, aren't arguments just loud conversations?'

there's a possibility his taciturn nature might strike them out, but i'd be up to see if she could be the type to yammer along at him anyway?

[overlyprecocious]

Player Name & Pronouns:Joann, she/they
Preferred Communication: goodnonsense@Plurk

Character Name & Journal: Tim, this journal
Guild Affiliation: probably gonna be unaffiliated
Character Motivations & IC/OOC Goals: one of Tim’s primary goals is and has been to be a part of the Batfamily, and there is a Batfamily of sorts here, so he’s definitely going to be figuring out how and if he can fit into this one. There’s also a mystery to be solved of the interdimensional Tim-napping that should keep him occupied. He’s also a Robin, so he’ll happily start some patrolling to help keep this new world safe, either solo or with a partner. I also want him to meet new people to fold into his “people?? I care about?? Can care about me back???” circle.
Plot/CR Hooks: Tim is Babby and would like to help people, as Tim and also as Robin. He's also going to be wandering around as a li'l cute photographer, getting into weird places to take his pictures if you want to be like ???? excuse. He's 14 and will be going to Sky High and will need to make some friends probably.

[morozova]

Player Name & Pronouns: mal (she/her)
Preferred Communication: resurrectionist @ plurk or pm

Character Name & Journal: Aleksander Kirigan/The Darkling (morozova)
Guild Affiliation: unaffiliated for now; on the one hand, I could see him tilting toward the Alliance by dint of perception, but he could potentially go with the Society, since they do align more with his actual philosophies.

Character Motivations & IC/OOC Goals: his primary, immediate goal is going to be adjusting because not only has he been pulled out of his own world — and a continent at war — but this world is a lot more advanced than what he's used to. He'll want to find a way back home, but will probably get sucked into things, particularly with the tension between the meta and non-meta communities, since that is his whole entire thing aside from the shadow magic.

OOCly, I'm going to focus on finding my feet and getting his arrival squared away. He's going to have to get a job; that's going to be hilarious. Longer-term, getting involved either in politics or media or political media would be cool , but in the more shorter-term sense I'll probably be keeping it at a more community level?

Plot/CR Hooks:

• he's a morally dubious dark wizard that can manipulate shadows (and eventually make terrible shadowy monsters) that has strong opinions about people with powers and the people without powers who despise them, who is here to be your bad mentor figure if you want it

• lover of arcane knowledge and metaphysical bullshit in general, so ...nerd friends?? learning about other kinds of magic and/or technology?

• he's from early 19th century Russia by way of avatar, so that is a whole ass thing

• functionally immortal (he's around 400+) but that aside he's also a living amplifier (so could potentially crank up your powers if you touch him, but he's massively prickly about this, also interested in having him talk with obviously non-human/supernatural beings

• getting involved on some community-level thing for advocating for meta-human rights/what have you. Letting to let his inner Magneto show a little bit, basically

[badbutsadboy]

So I play this guy from a magic world where his secretly human actual-historical-Puritan witch-hunting "uncle" (ie the guy who magically created him and lied about it) tried to kill all witches, so it might be fun for them to have some CR bc he'd trust someone more if they were the opposite and embraced and advocated for people having powers.

...until Hunter found out how extreme he was. Because he normally doesn't have magic and is fairly human himself, since he was magically cloned from one.