@Ruby In attempts to be fair, as I've already had one character and you have none yet, I'll give up my claim on Cyclops to you. Plus since you want to run the whole X-Men team, you would need an RP structured like this, whereas I can play Cyclops in any Marvel RP that accepts canons. So go and have fun with those wacky mutants.
I still do intend to create a second character sometime soon. Maybe Rocket and Groot travelling the universe as bounty hunters. Maybe Iron Lad, a character I've played in an RP that died, messing around with the timeline and fighting many different iterations of Kang. Or maybe something else, I don't know.
If anyone is finding it hard to read do let me know and I will adjust for readability as best I can.
I find your lack of dialogue colors disturbing but otherwise see no problems with the formatting. Also, while I'm at it, really enjoying your posts so far.
@Martian as someone who's been in a few of these I'd recommend not making a character just cause you can, but waiting till something truly clicks.
Coming up with an arc you wanna write for a particular character, and ideally it should be an arc you can only tell with said character, is hard. It's very rewarding when it goes your way.
Though, for anyone who gets the itch to just write a particular scene for a character, I wanna make a mention of the excellent idea of Variety Hour. You end up just having one or a couple scenes in you for a particular character or you wanna write an epic collab with a buddy? This is the place to go.
Going with her bunker backstory. She gets bit as a child, powers discovered by Ezekiel Sims. Ezekiel believes Morlun is hunting her and stuffs her into a bunker for a few years. It isn't until Doctor Strange discovers her claiming there isn't a Morlun that he knows of so he takes her to the Sanctum Sanctorum until he can find out why someone put her down there.
I'll play a little into Doctor Strange but not a lot. It gives Cindy a lot more to do since she'll not only be adapting to life as a 'normal' kid but she can also jump into spider stuff with Strange's help.
@Master Bruce It affects Spider-Man's story potentially in the future with an Ezekiel Sims and maybe a Morlun. However, that is all very distant and I don't think would affect anything you have planned. Could be something to collab on in the future.
And for anyone else, if you wanted to play as Doctor Strange, the slot is still open. He'll just come with this caveat of having Cindy to watch out for.
If that's fine, I'll go ahead and finish what I have written out.
Updated my CS with supporting cast and antagonists as well as forthcoming arc and issue names. Nothing major but figured people might like to take a look. Hoping to also have my next post up sometime tomorrow night or Friday night.
C Y C L O P S ⭙ S T O R M ⭙ N I G H T C R A W L E R ⭙ B E A S T R O G U E ⭙ W H I T E Q U E E N ⭙ M A G I K ⭙ S Y N C H
C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T
"While you slept, the world changed."
Charles Xavier had a dream that humans and mutants could live in peace, together, to shape a brave new future. A time when prejudice will be defeated, a vision for what could be that even Charles would admit is far greater than himself. Charles champions every person's uniqueness, setting aside differences such as race, sexuality, or mutantcy. Because the world has never been one in which his dream has yet to become reality, Charles understood there were places and moments when mutants would have to fight and sacrifice for that dream. After graduating Oxford, after fighting in the Korean War and coming face to face with the nefarious Shadow King, Xavier resolved to lead the effort to protect humanity from those like him that failed to share his hopes for the future. To that end, Charles Xavier created the first team of the X-Men to champion every soul on the planet.
Xavier and his partner Erik Lensherr would create Cerebro, a machine designed to detect and monitor mutant brain waves, to help locate mutants of all kinds and affiliations. What began as a handful of teenagers in training would eventually become a large, diverse, roster of mutants forming various teams all with the ultimate goal of fighting for Xavier's vision. When the first time would find itself captured and cut off by the living island of Krakoa, Charles would ready a new generation of X-Men with the likes of Wolverine, Storm, and Colossus. The original five were returned, and the new X-Men mostly stuck around to continue on with the struggle. Whether fighting extremists from their own mutantkind, or extremists from humankind, the X-Men and their various teams would remain the vanguard for the vision of peaceful co-existence and shared progress.
In time, Xavier would expand the Xavier Institute for the Gifted along with each new generation and new team. His efforts, and the efforts of his disciples, would extend from education to business to political organization to legal activism. If there was a front on which to fight for his prophetic words towards the future of the world, there would be X-Men and their allies to wage that fight. The Xavier Institute would be destroyed, and rebuilt, many times. The various X-teams would call locations around the globe, and into space, home at one point or another.
Yet despite it all, the forces of fear and prejudice of humanity would time and time again be their greatest foe. Whether in the form of a firebrand politician quick to scapegoat the mutant population, or the robotic mutant hunters known as the Sentinels, or para-military anti-mutant organizations on nearly every continent on the globe. The X-Men would be there for old and new mutant alike, from the scared and unable to control their powers, to the veteran mutant grown world weary and isolated. When the world would need heroes of every cut and stripe in order to save the world, or even the universe, the X-Men and their allies would always answer the call.
Their losses, however, have begun to mount in recent years. Charles Xavier, himself, was thought dead for years as he took refuge on alien worlds to heal and recover from a lifetime of conflict and crusade. The very first of Xavier's students, Jean Grey, would give her life to save the universe from a Phoenix Force that she could not control in the moment. When the Xavier family mansion was once again destroyed this time by ancient mutant Apocalypse and his Horsemen, and with it attached Xavier Institute and modernized Jean Grey School for the Gifted led by none other than long time enemy turned part time ally Magneto. Though an Age of Apocalypse was averted, new homes were needed.
The official new training academy and school for young mutants is the new Institute for Gifted Youngsters, on the outskirts of Genosha's capital city, Hammer Bay. While Xavier's Mansion is mostly a husk of its former self, it's rumored the subterranean levels are one of the bases of operations for the current day iteration of the X-Men, along with several other sites; an island recently gifted to mutants by the Mayor of San Francisco off the coast of the city, an unnamed and secret outpost in the Australian Outback, and the remains of Asteroid-M in a high orbit of Earth. There is a facility on Genosha known only as the House of X, technically said to be another operating base for various X-teams, including the X-Men. There are even whispers of a base hidden within the unexplored and unconfirmed Savage Land that it sometimes used by the mutant team.
Recently Xavier has returned to Earth, refreshed, and healed so fully he is said to once again have the use of his legs, having joined the leading body of the mutant nation of Genosha at the side of his long time friend and rival, Magneto. Xavier has yet to hold an audience with any human officials, or make any public appearance on Genosha, and even the world's best spy agencies can only report he took a short trip to somewhere in the Pacific with Douglas Ramsey recently before a quick return to Genosha. On Genosha, itself, there is wild talk throughout the mutant population of nearly sixteen million, though details vary wildly and many accounts seem at odds with each other, there is one reoccurring theme to all of it:
Xavier lied.
C H A R A C T E R M O T I V A T I O N S & G O A L S
"My family has spent our entire lives being hunted and hated. The world has told me that I was less when I knew I was more. Did you honestly think that we were going to sit around forever and just take it?"
Survival, and what happens when a long held dream is declared irrelevant by both sides. What new conflicts emerge? What new ventures are born? What dream comes on the heels of the one you have been so thoroughly awoken from? This is the story of where you go from there, and what new beginnings come from the end of the long held, often fought over, status quo. More than anything, exploring the areas of gray in a reality where the right answer isn't readily available anymore, leaving everyone involved with hard decisions to make.
While mutantkind may have to change, the X-Men will remain the X-Men: champions of love and compassion and tolerance, ready to fight for humans and mutants alike against foes that simple vigilantes and individual heroes could not hope to overcome alone. The fun of the tale comes in the telling, and the natural progression that comes with the story unfolding. That makes this team, and the greater narrative of the mutantkind they represent, so exciting to dig into one post at a time, one event at a time. We may know the note we want the mutant story to end off on, the destination we want to eventually reach in character, but the journey is likely have a surprise or two waiting for us.
And that's just way too exciting, given this group of characters.
C H A R A C T E R N O T E S
Naturally, it starts with him. While still the leader, in spirit, Charles will be just as busy dealing with a future for all mutants as he will dealing with the X-Men and the various off-shooting teams. Will he be able to work with Magneto? Can some sort of foundation for the future be laid out? It's true he won't be a scene stealer or an every moment kind of presence, the shadow of Charles Xavier will always loom large over a story involving the X-Men and the mutants that comprise them.
Slim has experienced a lot over the last decade or so, and lost just as much as he's gained. He's been married twice, met several time displaced children, and has tried to be everything the X-Men, and mutants as a whole, have needed him to be. The man is tired, and in need of a change. In a move that came as a surprise to some in the mutant, and hero, populations Cyclops will not be the field leader of the X-Men this time around. Instead he focuses on just being a good solider and a good defender of the new mutant nation of Genosha, even if he's been at odds with Magneto about the way Genosha went about it's origin since he stepped foot on the island. He was most often spotted touring Genoshan island defenses, and was said to be one of the ones to welcome Xavier back to Earth upon the Professor's arrival.
Love and life outside the trials of the X-Men seemed to fit Ororo, until it didn't. When Apocalypse and his Horsemen attacked Westchester, New York, she wasn't present and instead back on her home continent of Africa. Maybe it was guilt that forced her back to the fray, maybe it was a duty to her people, or just that she missed old friends...whatever the reason no one who's ever served on a team with the mutant known as Storm was surprised to learn she would lead the new iteration of the X-Men instead of Cyclops. She has co-led X-Men teams in the past, even led her own sub-units of the team, and all with success and distinction. That she has returned and jumped back into the fray has given many mutants hope in the future of the team.
The White Queen of the Hellfire Club is, to some, an odd choice for the X-Men. Some believe she joined recently, when the team was re-organized in Genosha. In truth, Emma Frost has been with the team for longer than that, and was one of the few who kept the line during the attack by Apocalypse and his Horsemen on the Xavier Institute. In the wake of Jean Grey's death, Emma Frost has helped fill the avoid of resident telepath, though her secondary mutation was just as useful in the fight that brought the school down, as she acted heroically in the line of fire to give students time to evacuate. She then personally oversaw and funded the efforts to get every single student to the new school in Hammer Bay. Though she would prefer if you didn't overly romanticize her actions during the battle, she finds such hyperbole the practice of the feeble minded and ignorant.
Few have had a harder time fitting into Genosha than Rogue. First there was a very, very public confrontation with Mystique that made every media outlet on the island and instantly went viral on the mutant verified social media network, X-Verse. Then a rumored, and often gossiped about, private feud with Magneto himself. Both of these were small compared to the drama of the island's favorite on-again, off-again romance: Rogue and Gambit. The latest, and loudest, was the actual coming to blows between a group of former Xavier students and former Brotherhood members, with Rogue and Gambit having been reported as the start of the entire episode outside Hammer Bay. It's been very clear that Rogue and the X-Men took off from Genosha right after this incident. The Southern girl just can't seem to catch a break, sugah.
Dr. McCoy has been almost a ghost. Save for one of the cooler heads trying to prevail in the recent rumble between former Xavier students and former Brotherhood members, there has been little to no sighting of the blue furball. While not as prevalent as the still trending #WhereIsWolverine, #FreeTheBeast trended long enough for the meme-minded to begin trending the follow-up #DicksOutForBeast. Actual news media based on Genosha quickly confirmed Dr. McCoy was still alive following the Battle of Westchester, leading Beast to register for X-Verse himself, and immediately ask for the distasteful memes to be set aside, along with several posts quoting literature, including the first: "I exist as I am, that is enough. - Walt Whitman." Given the massive wave of Harambe inspired meme responses, Dr. McCoy has returned to relative silence. Rumors are he's been hard at work on something with the mutant Sage, at the direction of Xavier, instead of joining the X-Men on their latest exit from Genosha.
One of the heroes of the Battle of Westchester, the toll taken on the blue-skinned teleporter was heavy. Though he spent most of the time since the battle recovering, the little time he has been on his feet again was spent touring Genosha and meeting with countless residents of the mutant nation. Many seem to consider Nightcrawler to be the spiritual leader of mutantkind, though that sentiment is less among those mutants who favored Magneto's vision for mutantkind of Xavier's vision for mutantkind. According to Sage, Nightcrawler is the most selfie'd member of the X-Men, with a nearly endless stream of Genosha citizens posting selfies with Nightcrawler. The pace of his touring and spiritual activism seemed to slow once Xavier returned, and there is talk the Professor and Nightcrawler have had some sort of falling out. Nightcrawler was confirmed as one of the X-Men that recently left Genosha by Genoshan news media.
Evertt Thomas is more popular than he's comfortable with. Synch had a lot to do with the defense of students at the Battle of Westchester, and before that was already a known face in helping to establish a society on Genosha, to the point where none less than Magneto extended him the offer of becoming a government official: Synch turned it down. It wasn't really his style, and anyway, he was still getting used to having a life again. The circumstances of his new life remain mysterious, and he believes it has something to do with the Phoenix Force and Jean Grey, though that has more to do with dreams than objective fact. He was content to wander until he eventually found a place, until that place seemed to find him: Cyclops offered him a spot on the X-Men. Who turns down a spot on the X-Men? Maybe someone, but not Synch. Not this time. This time, he's determined to make the most of his new life that he can.
Where Magik has been, what Magik has been doing, has been hard for many to say. Many accounts have her as a breakout hero at the Battle of Westchester, though since then there has been little talk on the sword-wielder. Maybe in Limbo, she has been rumored to have visited various magicians around the world, but the most official news has been the most recent: Illyana Rasputin has joined the X-Men. There were rumors when she was seen alongside Cyclops at various Genoshan military installations along the island coast, but no less than Magik herself confirmed her status with the X-Men at a bar in Carrion Cove, before smashing more than a few mugs and being seen in a few pictures in the midst of a rowdy night with former New Mutants' teammates. Few X-Men experts seem to agree on whether Magik will prove boon or bust as a member of the X-Men, none other than Cyclops was recently quoted as very excited that the blonde hellspawn had agreed to take a roster spot on the active X-Men team.
S A M P L E P O S T
"...what is there to think about? Do you not want to?"
If he could have tripped over his own words, he probably would have. If anyone was practiced at slowing down and making sure the moment didn't get too fast, or too big, for them it was him; Scott Summers had spent more than his fair share of life in moments that easily could have gotten too big, or become too much. Even if he had been surprised, and surely, he had been surprised, it wasn't enough to leave him unsure, let alone flustered. Yet there was an excitement to it, and he only wished there also wasn't a unshakeable weight of guilt that hung over him at the same time. "It's not that, I do. Oh, I really do, it's just..."
The blonde woman staring him just seemed to know. Maybe it was the telepathy, he doubted it, maybe it was just that sixth sense about people and behavior that telepaths seemed to Scott to have, having spent so much of their time in the thoughts of others. Whatever it was, Emma Frost knew. And instead of anger, she just...smirked at him, amused.
"I'm sorry, is this amusing to you?"
The White Queen laughed, loudly, "Yes," she barely got out, nodding her head, "it really is." It didn't take the woman long to regain control and suppress to laughter back to that impossibly smug smirk, "What else is it supposed to be, Scott? There are two options: she's either dead, and you're incapable of moving on, which while some level of pathetic is at least...no, no it's just sad." Again, she stifled laughter in such a way it almost sounded like a giggle. "Or, best case, she's too busy somewhere playing multiversal godling, and you can't move on. Also pathetic."
She would have laughed again, had her back not pressed, hard, against the wall. Instead of laugh came a sudden, sharp, inhale and the barest sound of discomfort as Scott found himself pressing his body into her's...the smell of jasmine, his head swam, his heart racing, if it wasn't for that smell...a perfectly shaped brow perked at him from the woman's face, intrigue finally hitting her features.
Then, of course, the knock on the door came. He peeled off, and she straightened the leather bodice she wore under the white blazer he thought felt like silk, but what did he know about high fashion? It was probably cotton, or wool, or some wildly expensive thing. "Yeah?"
It was the bald, dark skinned Everett Thomas that poked his head in, before stepping all the way through and closing the door behind him. "Sorry to interrupt--"
"--oh," Emma Frost began, with renewed amusement, "you aren't."
Synch moved his gaze from Frost, to Summers, to Frost, to Summers. For some reason, in some way, the man didn't quite seem to buy that. "...cool. Yeah, uh, Storm told me to come tell you both to get a move on."
Scott sounded tense, still, "We'll be there in a moment. Thanks, Everett."
"Okay, 'cuz...she's pretty drunk."
Emma Frost sighed. "Which one?"
"The one who keeps calling me honey."
After a shared look, Scott felt a chuckle shake the weight off him in the moment, even if just slightly. Across the cement motor pool, from the hangar, he heard the southern drawl of the calling siren. His lips pursed, and his head nodded, as he came to terms with the situation. "Okay, Rogue is drunk. Storm?"
Synch's head teetered this way-and that, before straightening again as his mind mulled it over, "Well...Kurt's doing what he can."
"What about the other one?" Emma stepped in, arms suddenly crossed, "the demon one?"
"Oh," Synch's eyes widened just slightly from recognition of who Emma meant, before breaking into a relaxed smile, "yeah, Illyana? Yeah, you know, she's just smashing glasses and asking if I want to see her sword every other minute. Totally fine, totally normal."
"My God..." Emma Frost sighed louder as her high-heel booted feet sounded with heavy thuds as she marched out of the pre-fabricated office across from the flightline on the far edge of the Genoshan military base. "I'm gonna--"
"--yeah," Scott responded, too quickly.
Emma paused at the door, just long enough to linger a look his direction as he was staring at the ground, "You gonna--"
"--oh yeah," he said, raising his head to meet her look, "Right now. C'mon, Synch, let me show you how to handle a drunken super-powered Southern woman with a tough exterior and broken heart she refuses to accept."
"Really, Cyclops," Synch closed his eyes for a beat of his heart, doing everything in his power to make sure his face conveyed the genuine, deep-felt, sarcasm of his voice, "Really, really grateful for this invite to the X-Men. I can't begin to tell you. So much."
"You betcha, Everett."
Emma was back to smirked, standing just outside the door, letting Scott and Synch go ahead of her, in no small part so she could enjoy the pain on Scott's face. "I think I like this Everett Thomas, Scott."
I don't know what the hell is wrong with me, but here's an one in the morning long ass post of Steven waking up. And there's a totally unrelated (to the overall arc and character) oldie song for y'all to listen to.
Speaking of songs, I am totally doing another playlist of every character because I have free time and love listening to music. So be on the lookout for that in the near future!
What's a character you've never seen portrayed or an idea you've never seen that you'd like too?
I'm horrible at keeping up with every entry in these games, but I'm always so shocked by the fact that there aren't more time traveler stories in these games. No fuck-up-savior-from-the-future tropes and no 'team of misfits who travel through time to fix time-errors' bullshit, despite those kind of stories being pushed from DC and Marvel all of the time. Though, I understand why, as I did consider doing a Legends Of Tomorrow sheet and then quickly dipped out once I realized I'd have to do historical research on my free time and not just for school...
@Hillan You don't remember my incredible run with Bart Allan as Impulse? It lasted all of two posts! For shame, Hillan. I thought you were better than that.
What's a character you've never seen portrayed or an idea you've never seen that you'd like too?
Funny enough, I don't recall seeing Doctor Strange in these games. Always seems like someone else is taking the title of Sorcerer Supreme and Strange appears as a supporting character or name drop.
@Hillan You don't remember my incredible run with Bart Allan as Impulse? It lasted all of two posts! For shame, Hillan. I thought you were better than that.
I'm horrible at keeping up with every entry in these games, but I'm always so shocked by the fact that there aren't more time traveler stories in these games. No fuck-up-savior-from-the-future tropes and no 'team of misfits who travel through time to fix time-errors' bullshit, despite those kind of stories being pushed from DC and Marvel all of the time. Though, I understand why, as I did consider doing a Legends Of Tomorrow sheet and then quickly dipped out once I realized I'd have to do historical research on my free time and not just for school...
I did A time traveller story, but it's hard to come up with one that doesn't have far reaching consequences or break time.
@Hillan You don't remember my incredible run with Bart Allan as Impulse? It lasted all of two posts! For shame, Hillan. I thought you were better than that.
I've got monopoly on incredible Flash runs with timetravelers, smh. All the others don't register.
"Sooo....on the Number Four, the Big Belly Double-Triple Cheeseburger....does that come with cheese?"
".....it's a cheeseburger."
".....so no?"
The withering glare that Rachel Roth gave the fat balding man on the other side of the counter could have curdled milk, but its effects were completely lost on him, as he scratched underneath the folds of his substantial gut that drooped out from the bottom of his shirt.
"Oh, right, right," he nodded with what must have been a painfully rare moment of clarity. "So, what kind of cheeses do you have?"
"Calling it 'cheese' would be generous," Rachel began, "But according to the packaging at least, we have American, Swiss, cheddar, and 'fiesta.'"
The fat man nodded absently, before declaring "I'll take mine with Pepper Jack."
Once again, the pale, purple-haired girl fixed him with a glare that could strip the paint off a car, then reiterated, "We have American, Swiss, ch--"
"Friend Rachel!" Kori exclaimed as she practically erupted from the break room, a soda cup filled to the brim with mustard in her hand and a bright yellow smudge on her lips, "I have the most glorious of news! I believe I now have the solution for our financial worries!"
Rachel raised an eyebrow, turning to her friend and ignoring the fat guy at the counter, and the twenty other people in line behind him. "You've discovered the secret to overthrowing the stranglehold of the corrupt and exploitative ruling class in order to bring about a worker's paradise?"
"No, but I have learned of an exciting business opportunity!" she beamed. "During my allotted fifteen-minute breaking of the room of baths, I was speaking to our co-worker Trevor..."
"The one who keeps trying to take pictures of your butt when he thinks you're not looking?"
"Yes, the same!" Kori nodded enthusiastically, her cup of mustard sloshing over. "He suggested that we engage in the starting of a small business, and said that we could make the fortunes! According to the Trevor, we would be perfect for selling ventilation equipment!"
"...ventilation equipment?"
"Uhhh, excuse me," the fat man at the counter muttered, "I'd still like to order a--"
"One second," Rachel dismissed him before turning back to Kori. "Trevor thinks we should sell ventilation equipment?"
"Oh yes, he was very enthusiastic about it! He said we should sell exclusively ventilation equipment!"
"Wait a second," Rachel's expression soured. "...'exclusively ventilation equipment?' What did he say, exactly?"
"His words with exactness were 'you two could make tons doing Only Fans!'"
"Of course," Rachel gave a deflated sigh. "First off, no, we are absolutely not doing that. Second of all, that has nothing to do with air conditioning."
"Then I have the confusion," Kori puzzled. "If 'only fans' does not mean selling equipment for conditioning of the air, then what is it?"
"It's...." Rachel stopped herself, looked back to the line of people, then back at her expectant friend, "it's...just come here, it's--"
Rachel whispered the answer into Kori's ear, and the orange-skinned girl went pale with shock.
"....oh," she managed, before her expression brightened. "Oh, that is even easier than selling ventilation equipment! We--"
"Absolutely not."
"Hey, can I please--"
"Number four with Pepper Jack that this restaurant chain has never carried, got it," she turned back to the register. "Will that be for here or to go?"
The fat man sputtered indignantly for a moment, and then with a thunderous crash, the ceiling collapsed.
The dining room of the Big Belly Burger filled with dust and rubble as people screamed and ran for cover, trying to scramble under tables or hide in the bathroom.
"Oh, thank God," Rachel muttered to herself, as the sudden violent burst of destruction at least broke up the mind-numbing tedium of her part-time job. When Sartre said 'hell is other people,' he must have been thinking of the fast food industry.
A tall, imposing figure floated down from the makeshift hole in the ceiling. A powerhouse with rippling muscles, purple skin, gleaming orange eyes, and a foot-tall, neatly-cropped mohawk.
"At long last, I have found your hiding place, Princess Koriand'r," the figure boomed. "I am Kallark, warrior of the Shi'ar Empire and supreme leader of the Imperial Guard. As per the bargain made between the Majestrix and Komand'r of Tamaran, you are to return with me to the Empire, to be my concubine. I offer you a choice: come peacefully, or watch the people of this world suffer."
Kori's sunny expression hardened as she wiped the mustard away from her lips, and engulfed her body in a flash of bright green light. In an instant, her tacky Big Belly Burger uniform was gone, replaced with the violet and silver dress of the Tamaranian royal family.
"I am not your property to take, Kallark," Princess Koriand'r challenged as she rose in the air to level with him, "And the people of this world are not the property of your empire. I offer you a choice: leave peacefully now, or be destroyed."
Kallark smirked at the Princess's challenge. "You have spirit, girl, but in time you will learn that--....you, pale one, what are you doing?"
Rachel stood at the counter register, pressing buttons.
"Clocking us out," she explained, before the air grew cold and shadows swirled around her. "The manager said we can't kick your ass on company time...."
