Bounce

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Sweet baby Jesus on a jetski!

@Hound55

This is totally getting used in a post.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Also, actually typing up that admission about not reading IC posts made me feel really regretful, giving me a bit of perspective of how that sounds. I'm the GM, I should be ontop of shit in the IC aswell as the OOC to make sure everything's kosher, at the very least. Or be able to provide a reference for what the current events are in-game for curious newcomers that are either thinking about applying or are out of the loop.

I apologize to all of you and am making a vow that henceforth, I shall remain up-to-date on the goings on of the game and will begin reading every post that isn't mine from the beginning right now. I won't "like" a post until I've fully read it. If I've already liked your post, you'll be getting an unlike followed by a new like.

This has been a public service announcement by Master Bruce.

@Master Bruce

As someone who has GM'd several large games (never again), the piece of advice I'd have here is to not burden yourself with unrealistic expectations. For yourself or for us.

Even if you make an effort to read every post, you're not going to key on every detail. So there's still likely to be moments where someone goes "Holy crap, how did @Byrd Man get THAT into a post?" and you're going to have no idea what they're talking about, because you read that post and completely missed the one sentence that off-handedly mentions Constantine finding a time travel bath tub, going back to 1937, and changing his name to Adolf Hitler -- thrusting all of us into a noir film version of Prime Earth/Earth-616.

_{...plus I'm really hoping that you don't notice my subplot to have Kai-ro become an amalgamation with Roma and rule the 7 Realms with an emerald fist from the Starlight Citadel...}

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Also, I just now realized that @Master Bruce's admission of not reading posts yet means all those likes he gave out are meaningless trophies.

@Retired

Participation ribbons are never meaningful... less. I mean, meaningless.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

I think it's unreasonable to expect everyone to read every post.

It's completely natural to prioritise the posts that interest you, so I wouldn't beat yourself up about not reading everything all at once or skimming over some posts because everyone does it. One of the nice things about playing in games like this is that you can look back, having read the posts that were initially interesting to you, and take the time to read some of the work that perhaps wasn't instantly relevant to your character or your posts and find some real gems in there.

@Morden Man

Let's not turn the OOC thread into a procession of critiques about one another's posts, shall we?

Ultimately we're all here to have fun. If you want someone's opinion about what you can improve upon, ask them via PM. Not everyone is comfortable with having their writing publicly assessed and I'm concerned about the atmosphere it might create for them to have to wade through critiques of other people's writing.

@Morden Man

The problem I see is that you have no way of knowing who is readings your posts, who is skimming, and who is skipping over them completely, so you may PM someone who isn't even in your "target audience" (for lack of a better term). Hence why when I asked for feedback on Kai-ro's story, I did it in the OOC so that anyone who may have an opinion could chime in and I wasn't making assumptions about who was reading them. Plus, often times I read something and don't have a strong opinion about it. So I know that, just because I do read a post, doesn't mean that I'm going to have a lot of constructive feedback for it.

I did get a reply by private message, rather than in the OOC post, so there is always that. People could ask for feedback, so that we know who is seeking it, and the replies could be PM'd.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

But, who knows? A certain Green Lantern could unexpectedly meet them during their travels...

@Star Lord

I may take you up on that.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

I'm with @AndyC on this one.

I'm making this up as I go for the most part. I have in mind the story that I want to tell for this arc, which really is just universe building in establishing what the Green Lantern Corps is about, who the major players are, and what their connections are to one another.

I have a couple of ideas of plot hooks that I'm debating that I could run once the story shifts to Earth, but I'm playing this one by the seat of my pants pretty much.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

@Byrd Man

Echoing Nightrunner's sentiments. I thoroughly enjoyed the Constantine arc.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

G R E E N L A N T E R N

"MARY JANE'S LAST DANCE" || PART VII || POST THEME [ The Last Leaf Falls ]

---

---

All Green Lanterns had a set of quarters requisitioned for their use on Oa.

They all came back here, eventually.

Kai-ro stood in the doorway of his. Only the second time that he'd ever set foot inside of them. A stranger in his own home.

When he had been a hopeful selected by his ring, he had stayed in the familiar surroundings of a communal barracks with the other hopefuls. Now, as a fully commissioned agent of the Corps, Kai-ro was housed apart. His apartment was close to Ch'p, though the H'lven was actually married with children.

Originally, Ch'p's family had stayed on H'lven though, like so many others, they had become displaced with the war. At least they had Oa. Unlike many of the H'lven refugees now trying to find a place for themselves in a larger galaxy that seemed so aloof, so apathetic to the ongoing civil war in Sector 1014.

Passing through the interior of the small, one bedroom studio, the young Tibetan opened up the windows to help alleviate the layer of dust that had settled through disuse. The place felt empty, even though it was furnished. Generic, functional accent pieces that gave it the character and charm of a futuristic Ikea showroom.

Stepping into the bedroom, the boy was presented with a stuffed toy that lay on its side atop the bed. The creature was meant to represent a creature popular on H'lven, most closely resembling the wyvern of Earth's mythology.

It had been a gift to him from Ch'p's children, part of a housewarming they'd thrown him when he'd been inducted into the Green Lantern Corps and made partner to Ch'p.

The perks of which apparently included becoming extended family to a group of space chipmunks.

Picking up the stuffed wyvern, the Tibetan child hugged it to his chest as he spun around and fell back atop the bed. Something about the conversation with Salaak continued to eat at him, though he was hard-pressed to try and identify just why the Slyggian's attitude had bothered him the way that it had. It shouldn't have. Kai-ro had dealt with all manner of ill-tempered or rude people before. Their attitudes and emotions had no control over how he reacted in kind.

So why did Salaak's snide manner so easily set his blood on fire?

Turning onto his side, the young Tibetan was confronted with the reality of his own loneliness. If Ch'p were here, he would be over at their familial residence. They'd probably have dinner together, like they usually did. It was why Kai-ro never came home, because this wasn't what he thought of as home on Oa.

He could go see Ch'p's family, except...

The child's hands tightened as he gripped down on the stuffed animal. Sitting up, on the edge of the bed, the wyvern still held to his chest, the youth consciously tapped into the communication network through the ring.

A green construct, resembling a H'lven Green Lantern appeared in the room a minute later.

"Wait, wait, wait... Salaak said what?"

The Sentinel lingered in orbit of Scylla. Ch'p and Aya were hitting dead end after dead end. The authorities on the world below were sticklers for due process. Without a warrant, Ch'p wasn't getting anything. And he meant anything. Even the public filings for the purchase of the building. The Scylla authorities had access to all that information, and more. They just didn't play nicely with outside agencies.

Green Lantern Ch'p, I may have identified a media post of note.

Holding up one paw, the H'lven motioned for the green light hologram of the human boy to hold that thought. "Show me what you got, Aya."

"I take it things are progressing more smoothly on your end?"

H'lven's expressed a great deal of non-verbal communication through their tails. The way in which Ch'p's flattened out gave him the answer to his question even before Ch'p spoke. "The local authorities here are tossing up one road block after another," the H'lven remarked, reaching forward as he started pulling up a few other files. "This is interesting though. Aya found the public posting of the real estate transaction from when the club was apparently purchased... and Nova Financial is listed as the lien holder."

The holographic kid's eyes moved to the side for a moment, then looked back. "So... they took out a loan? What's unusual about that?"

"Back in the day, when Salaak and I were running around Sector 1418 doing counter drug ops, Nova Financial was a name that kept coming up," the H'lven recalled aloud.

"Wait, you and... Salaak?"

The chipmunk gave an odd sound that might have been part-grunt, part-laugh. "Who'd you think was my partner when I was a poozer?"

"I dunno... I just thought you were, I dunno, like, born old or something."

"Ha!"

Comments like those made it hard not to think of Kai-ro like he did his own kids. "No, back in the day it was me, Salaak, Kilowog, Abin Sur..."

"You knew Abin Sur?" Kai-ro blurted aloud, interrupting him. Had Ch'p never mentioned it before? Well, actually, why would it have ever come up? So, no. He probably hadn't.

"Wait, Salaak knew Abin Sur?"

The H'lven's tail sagged slightly. "We all knew Abin Sur," Ch'p recalled, his voice dropping to little more than a whisper. Perking back up, the diminutive Green Lantern seemed to square his shoulders again as he smiled and offered, "We all wanted to be Abin Sur..."

A different Corps.

A different Ch'p. A younger Ch'p. An absolute idiot who didn't appreciate how young he'd been. Until one morning he'd woken up, looked himself in the mirror, and realized that he wasn't young anymore. And wondered where the time had gone.

And good friends. Some no longer with them. Others who were, but who had chosen to stand apart from whatever former friendships they might have once had.

Clarissi Salaak was one such name that came to mind there. It was the main reason why Ch'p had sent Kai-ro in his place to talk with his former partner. He should have known better.

No one wearing the ring of Abin Sur was going to get so much as the god damn time of day from Salaak.

Maybe that was an error on his part. Maybe he should have gone himself, except he hadn't spoken to Salaak in ten years. And wasn't really looking for a reason to change that now.

No, Ch'p had learned how to navigate the Corps by going around Salaak. It was something he hadn't wanted to teach his new partner, and so he'd sent Kai-ro to do the right thing. Not the thing that Ch'p would have done.

So now they'd just do it Ch'p's way. And Salaak could suck a...

"Ancient history. Before you were born," the H'lven offered dismissively, rousing himself from his own brooding. A change of subject was in order, before he started getting nostalgic. Nostalgia never ended with anything more than bitterness. At least in Ch'p's experience. "What are you doing for dinner tonight?"

"I dunno... I'll probably just go over to Biscuit Baron's."

The fast food joint? The H'lven tail twitched in a faintly amused wag. Now he definitely sounded like Ch'p's own kids. "Nah, kid. Head over to the house," Ch'p remarked, something wistfully. When was the last time that he'd been by there himself? A homecooked meal. Helping the boy with that new math that made absolutely no sense. Or arguing with the girl about why she wasn't going out of the house dressed like that.

Good times. "Tell the old lady I love her and I'll be home soon."

"You're staying out there?"

"This Nova Financial connection makes me curious," the H'lven noted, shutting down the monitor and turning his full attention to the hologram of the Tibetan child that he'd been paying only scant attention. "I'm going to sit on the place and see if anything comes up," the veteran Green Lantern said.

As for Salaak's decree that they stop investigating this murder and go write some parking tickets...

The H'lven's tail flicked dangerously behind him. Yeah, he definitely wasn't speaking to Salaak. It wasn't a situation that was going to end well. For anyone.

"Oh... okay."

The dejected tone immediately brought to mind conversations over subspace with his son. Another half-grunt, half-laugh. "Hey, kid, when you talk to Kilowog, ask him about that little maneuver at Tyegin," Ch'p noted simply.

The boy seemed to brighten up at the proffered bit. A distraction. A mission of his very own. "Oh, okay!"

It made for a good note to end the conversation on. "Night kid."

"Goodnight, Ch'p."

The green light hologram of the Tibetan youth faded out of view. Through his ring, Ch'p felt the connection between the two slip away, until the H'lven was left alone in the center of the Interceptor.

"Aya, pull up the files from..." the grizzled veteran began, pausing as tried to recall what the designation was that he'd filed the report under. "Two-eight-seven-nine-beta. The vice sting on Xabas. I want to look back through the case notes on Nova Financial."

The files you are requesting are archived. The archival data requires a level five clearance to access.

The tail flicked again. "Level five? There's no such clearance level."

Level five denotes information in the Book of Oa available only to the Guardians and the Clarissi of the Green Lantern Corps.

So Salaak had restricted all of the old case files? The H'lven's tail bristled, flattening out much as it had earlier. Drawing in a deep breath, Ch'p let go a heavy sigh. "Of course he has," the rodent uttered bitterly.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

Well, I'm not sure anyone cares. But @Master Bruce I'm going to have to leave. I've spent the last two days working myself into knots over this. This community wasn't all the welcoming to me and I feel very isolated and quite frankly ostracized. With my own well-being in mind, I bid you all adieu.

@Blue Demon

I have to say that I'm both surprised by this and also sorry to see you go.

CLOSED - Ultimate One Universe: Season One

So, I'm at about the halfway point for Mary Jane's Last Dance.

It's about to get really dark and hopefully have some plot elements/twists in it that will surprise you (that's the goal anyway), but I'm curious if anyone has any criticism for me to this point?

Once the entire plot is at its conclusion, I'll likely ask this again so that I can take any constructive feedback into account before I launch into the next arc.