The Harbinger of Ferocity

Post a random fact about yourself.

I cannot sing neither can I hold a tune or keep in time to music. Music at large is a mystery to me as I find myself entertained by it but incapable of exercising any amount of agency on it that would be reflective or meaningful.

Cara's Originally Titled OoC Hangout Thread ♥ (Still)

We received snow as well off of the range here and over the course of two days. Being alongside said mountains too means that this snow has all but come to thaw already under the blinding rays of the sun. It went as quickly as it came, which is disappointing. I could do with a few days of nothing but snowfall.

What went wrong with Expanding Horizons?

As an individual who did a sizable portion of the framework that ultimately went all unused, here are some takeaways of importance from my perspective.

The first is, is that the public has no idea what it wants. If you tell them something as a designer and they have an issue with it as players, take their input but do not feel obligated to go with it. A massive failure was that Expanding Horizons caved to the pressure of demands. People wanting it done sooner, topics up faster, rules rewritten their specific way, on and on. Have your plan with the other designers and members of the section staff, unify that plan internally, and go with it; all of you, even if you personally disagree. Making endless concessions will never work and someone will always be dissatisfied.

What would be next in the second is under no circumstances make character creation flexible. This was mostly an issue with Expanding Horizons because of the fact it was intended to work for free to advanced players and characters of any kind. The leniency was too lenient and players quickly, as they are want to, began developing characters who were specifically made to be better than those ones before. This comes down to having good rules and just employing them, as well as having at least two approving officials for the character sheets. Continued, if a player has an issue with it, that is their issue, not your own. Do not make a habit of employing special exceptions; if a character is too overpowered, deny it without second guessing until it is change. That creep of power increase will destroy any fantasy that gives the semblance of balance.

Third I would state is to have all of the ground work done before the threads open. Unlike Expanding Horizons with a fandom this is far easier, there are entire wikis, movies, books, and the like available. Consolidate those with easy to access links, have a story and plot written out - as in, write the actual overarching plot and implement it from the start and move it along, with or without the players - and have a universal, standardized format for everything and sufficiently pinned and annotated threads. Official posts should look identical across those posting, no matter the section staff member, so players can understand them efficiently. A further recommendation is try to limit the number of starting locations and events so people have a reason to begin interacting with one another.

The fourth and last I would say is to be proactive, in that the threads need the the section staff to actively participate with their own characters and the obvious of those who are non-player characters. They must be reliable, not prone to disappearance or slack, and be consistently active in and out of the game within its section. If someone does disappear, find a comparable or better replacement as soon as possible until they return, at which point the section staff can decide what to do. Do not accept the "They are busy, they will be back soon!" argument.

This all in mind I have touched on what sank the original concept to the dark depths a few times in the past but as a fandom persistent world, many of those issues are resolved by themselves. That leaves these suggestions really as the best I can offer. All in all, best of luck in your endeavors and those participating in the section, @Star Lord.

Post a random fact about yourself.

I am afraid as much as the cats were interesting, I cannot find that show interesting, @Gunther. I too have never watched any of it, that was the most and only I have ever seen, but the writing of the comedy was a bit grating. Then again as noted here, I do not understand the concept of humor well. I appreciate your effort all the same and I suppose that leads me into this fact; I still do not understand what makes mainstream shows popular.

🌌 Ultraverse: Strifes and Triumphs. (Superhero RP, Always Open). 🌌

Los Angeles, California
Obscure Alley
@Shard@Prosaic@Count Cuddles

The sheer sleekness of the pantherine form was displayed artfully in the motionless tiger, where its ears had folded flat back to the skull, and its eyes peered watchfully just over rim of the last brick. It was virtually indistinguishable from any other random subtle feature of the brickwork, let alone a rooftop and one of the few times its camouflage would have been in its favor. Yet that seemingly predatory intensity was betrayed by one clue the cat gave away, as the very tip of its long, narrow tail twitched from side to side; a sign of curiosity and thought.

This came, as it rightfully should have, the moment some dark, blackened blade appeared in the hands of the leading person. Predator's eyes dilated and became more intense, all of the cat loaded like a spring put under pressure in response. Yet rather than springing into the fight or out of danger, the striped animal eased its tension as another joined them. This one was as ornately dressed as the first, not as subdued as the one with the mask! The high contrast of their colors, yellow upon black, conjured immediate emphasis - aside from them sliding in after sprinting, yellow glow in tow - on who this personality was. Yes, these were "ultras", at least two of them were and the third probably was not feigning either.

There came a blink to the tiger's eyes, not that it needed to as it was sincerely capable of staring for hours on end, and soon the whole of the cat limbered up and came to laying, as if nothing had ever happened. One moment a cocked hammer ready to strike, the other now mostly a thing possessed of wondrous inquisitiveness. Granted it did not profile itself, not that it could regularly have even been seen, habits were difficult to break regardless, but now it merely sized them up.

The last member of their little trio had simply, with a slight limpness to them, shared a handshake following a draft from their flask. All in all, they seemed less alarmed than before. So perhaps it wasn't the feline that had their attention. For Predator this, alongside the other details, was good enough reason to cruise back behind the rim of the building and draw closer. Seeing was not enough, listening was important too, and all the ambient noise of the environment did wonders to drown out the benefits of having such sharp hearing knack. This all would find itself resolved as the tiger bounded with little effort from its perch down on to the next roof, avoiding the metal conditioning units and fragile solar panels for the rubberized coating.

Now within a short ways from their little enclave hidden away in the alley, it loomed over them, head ever so slightly canted. This was too good of an opportunity to learn about them, as at least one seemed remotely familiar; the outfit was, if the felid had it right, the same it had seen in passing in a paper. Then again costumes were not totally unheard of by many and from this angle it wasn't clear really just what the rest of it was adorned with. What was evident and on the wind was the scent of metabolized alcohol, which made the tiger glint with a pearly toothed smile.

"That explains a bit now." The wordless mouth uttered to itself, the overgrown roofwalker coming to lay down and allow the frontmost paws to hang clean off the ledge.

Post a random fact about yourself.

I had once donated half the entirety of my pay to support exoric feline conservation. It was simultaneously one of the best acts of charity I had carried out, being meaningful to myself as well as effective, in that it supported a large number of animals directly, but also tested my resource management in the form of budgeting. Needless to say, it is one of those aspects I am considering doing again.

Post a random fact about yourself.

I have a difficult time restraining myself from chuckling when people propose that humans were historically predatory animals, despite the fact that as far back as twenty-five million years ago, for which we have no shortage of fossil evidence of on, everything has been consistently preying on them up until the end of the Late Pleistocene and the start of the Holocene during the Greenlandian period. Amusingly, as an added note, I cannot help but crack a smile in knowing that timeline coincides with the rises of the felids with Proailurus on and that those historical techniques such as the skull-bite, specifically meant for hominids, continues as legacy in the modern jaguar. There is a reason I do not work directly with the public and am relegated to the paleontological and zoological realm.

Cara's Originally Titled OoC Hangout Thread ♥ (Still)

The sizable cat, in midst of hug, gives a low idle snarl and the slightest flicks of its bobbed tail. It is clear it is unsure whether to retaliate or appreciate the gesture, as one forepaw is lifted several inches from the ground while the sabertooth's jowls too were pulled, although in a distinctive feline grimace.

I tend to be more fatherly than "dad-like", which I am not so certain is a positive thing anymore with the way people expect life to be structured now.

🌌 Ultraverse: Strifes and Triumphs. (Superhero RP, Always Open). 🌌

Los Angeles, California
In Proximity To
@Shard@Prosaic@Count Cuddles

The roar of sirens in the distance was not exactly a strange occurrence in any of the city. That was one of the first things the tiger had come to reality with, that not everything and everyone was out to get them. Not that they were not, the slightest real evidence of a rogue big cat wandering the streets with people all about would evoke one significant response to say the least, the kind that made news headlines even if nothing at all happened. But it was really more the realization it wasn't always the sizable feline that was their impetus to appear.

That did little to stop the natural hesitation that came of freezing in place between a series of buildings to listen, as if a quarry had spotted the creeping ways of the beast. The nearest of the Predator's ears to the sound rotated in its direction, gauging the distance, even the speed with impressive precision, judging soon that all the coming noise was a fair ways away. Thankfully that was caused by the streets and the density of the people who lived in the city complicating it; the police just hadn't the same ability to get to wherever they were going with the same speed they had elsewhere. There was that bit about being able to hear or see them a great ways away with all the attention they drew to themselves too but the animal was not about to concede all of those minor details right now.

Instead, it resumed its soft pitter-patter across the asphalt, alarmingly quiet for something that made a large man look very tiny when they stood side by side. Instinctively those feet worked to avoid the small pools of water that gathered in the alley as it quickly surveyed the world vertical; a few fire escapes, ledges, but otherwise mostly wall with little foothold. After the curt surveillance, the tiger could not help answer the call of curiosity. Who and what was the source of the attention?

So with one vertical leap, covering over twice the height of the average man, the tiger's four soft feet landed it atop the first escape, which bizarrely did not so much as make a noise - the thought of "Light as a feather..." drifting through the Predator's mind, soon followed by, "As swift as the wind...". With sereneness ongoing, the five hundred pound cat leapt the equivalent of several stories and soon landed with the slightest of dull thuds atop the gravel packed roof, crouched low upon its legs, "... and as casual as the waves."

As it came, it was gone, soon walking over to survey from the low wall that cordoned off the ledge. It did not take long for the prying eyes of a watchful tiger to notice a distinctive movement that kept in rhythm with the wind and the odd pair it belonged to. Both appeared out of place and if the way they maneuvered was any indication, they had somewhere to be. One, with a vibrantly white cloak in tow, was the one that brought the attention forward, while the other wore some sort of strange, obscuring mask. In a way that tickled the animal at its core, it had heard of this before, that from its native land people did similar things to evade the ire of tigers. Was it that they were aware of the animal somehow?

Post a random fact about yourself.

There is one particular book sitting on my desk that I have sworn off reading until the situation is just right, as it will require a particular place and mindset, as well as atmosphere, to be in. It requires going to an unusual place in thought and is one of the more notoriously strange pieces of psychology, The Red Book.