CHATTER POST #2

[367]

This is probably overdue, huh?

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Quantum Leaping 101

[367 367]

Hello! Since we have the first Quantum Leap coming up tomorrow, here are some notes about mechanics and what to expect...

• Once Ambrose and his crack research team determine that realities are going to align correctly for a leap, he'll alert everyone to get prepared! At most, the teams will have one week to prepare. At least, they'll have a few hours to prepare. Everyone stay on your toes! Assume that he'll contact the person whose reality they're about to visit and expect them to pass it on, so if players want to post about their upcoming leaps, they can.
  
  Opportunities to leap this way are few and far between. If a character decides not to leap when their chance comes around, they will not get another one, so it's now or never. If you don't anticipate wanting to run a plot, feel free to have your character reject the opportunity.


• When the teams are prepared to leap, they'll join Ambrose in his room and he'll perform a ritual that involves intricate arcane symbology that is written across floors, walls, and windows (don't worry about it, Charles) and requires everyone to stand in a specific spot. The character whose reality they're leaping to will be at the center of the chaos.
  
  When Ambrose kicks the ritual off, the Siege Perilous will begin to glow and so will the symbols all over the room as they draw energy from it. The characters will feel their bodies go rigid and they'll experience that sensation of being pulled out of their bodies, followed by an overwhelming rush as their consciousness passes through time and space and across realities and crashes into a new physical form that may or may not be familiar. It's a lot!


• When leaping to different realities, the characters will find themselves in an echo of that reality, a reflection of its past that will not actively impact the that reality's timeline. This will allow them to step into the past and investigate without causing chaos in another timeline. So they can't make anything worse...but they also can't make anything better.
  
  That said, Ambrose does encourage them to try not to go off script. If the things that were supposed to happen don't happen, they won't see or experience what their other selves did and they won't be able to figure out how they ended up going through the Siege Perilous!


• When leaping to different realities, characters will end up in the body of that reality's version of them so long as they're (a) alive and (b) in the general area. If that isn't the case, they'll find themselves inhabiting the body of whoever's around. This could be some rando on the street or it could be another comic character that's present but not being played by anyone else. Have fun with this, sow a little chaos, why not.


• The character that is originally from a given reality will arrive there more quickly than everyone else because they already have an anchor there. They'll be alone in their reality for a short time (likely just a few hours and no longer than one day) before the others catch up. This is mostly for fun and to let players dig into the alternate realities a little! Feel free to play out scenes during this window or just decide what the character got up to.


• Only the character originally from a reality will have their memories of that reality. These memories are mostly complete, though the time leading up to their encounter with the Siege Perilous becomes increasingly unclear. Everyone else will just be relying on what others tell them or what they pick up along the way.


• Some characters may have different skills in different universes. It's up to players to determine if their characters are able to make use of those skills through muscle memory or if they'll be struggling to do things that are normal for their alternate selves. This could be anything from knowing how to ride a horse or shoot a gun in Emma's Wild West timeline to having unlocked different aspects of their powers. Characters will not innately retain these skills upon returning to 367, but maybe it could give them some inspiration or a jumping off point if they feel so inspired!


• Ambrose is attempting to drop the characters at a point in the timeline close when they passed through the Siege Perilous. He's hoping that this will provide information about the entity behind all of this. The mod will provide any information relevant to this aspect of things when working with you on your IC/OOC, though this will be slow going so we have time to play around in all the realities we want~


• If something goes horribly sideways and someone dies, they'll snap back to their own body prematurely. While they will not retain any physical injuries, they'll retain the memory of the experience in full. Yikes. If this occurs and they return early, they'll find the symbols in the room still aglow and Ambrose in a trance, alight with energy and seemingly holding onto the spell that sent them there.


• Generally speaking, time passes differently between realities, but when two realities are aligned the passage of time between them synchs up. This means that the time spent in the alternate reality and the time that passes in 367 are roughly the same. Not quite down to the minute, but close enough!

...I think that's it! Hopefully this is helpful. If you have any questions, though, please drop them below.

Things Kurt Bought For His Friends At Comicon

[blauerdamon kurt wagner ⚔️ nightcrawler]

Things Kurt found for people at Comic-Con.

Rogue & Remy
• Body pillows of one another.
• A variety of off-brand cat themed trinkets.

Emma
• At least 5 prints of beautiful paintings of herself, and one pinup of Scott.

Kitty
• A plush toy Lockheed that is wearing her earliest costume.

Illyana
• An acrylic keychain with her sword and a cute little version of herself.

Laura
• A necklace that has two "blades" hanging from it, representing her claws.

Manny
• A small hand drawn illustration of him that Kurt commissioned from a well known artist.

Scott
• A dramatic print of Scott with his eye beams, and one pinup of Emma.

Teenage Dream Plot Details

[seeingred scott summers ⊗ cyclops]

hellooooo i'm finally getting a move on with my long-threatened time travel daddy issues plot. everything will be in the ic/ooc later this week but i wanted to put this particular part down early so people can think about what they want to do with their characters and maybe pre-plot some things???

The Timeline Needle weaves different strands of the timestream into the present day. You are replaced with a past version of yourself who is physically, mentally and emotionally a teenager, although you are still "you" and possess some characteristics from your present-day version. (No time paradoxes!)

• The past version is between the ages of 13 to 16. Choose whatever's the most interesting time to take them from.
• The past version arrives wearing clothes they would've worn at that age, and has the same haircut and physical characteristics (so no tattoos or scars of their adult self). Unfortunately, they still have their Siege Perilous mark.
• The past version can have all, some or no present-day memories, depending on what's most fun to play. This includes knowledge of skills (so they could have no memories past the age of 13 but their control of their powers is on par with their adult self, or they know how to fly the jet). They can have more impressionistic knowledge (e.g. "I don't know who you are, but I sense you're someone important to me" or "Somehow I feel like this office belongs to me").
• The past version has their full mutant powers, even if they were taken from a time before their powers awakened or before they developed their secondary mutations (e.g. a teenage Rogue would have all of her adult self's absorptions).
  • This is meant to show that the characters are still inherently their present-day selves (same with having their Siege Perilous marks). However, you can play them as either not aware of their powers, or needing to learn to control their "new" powers.

Characters can opt out, and instead get to act as their regular adult self who's now responsible for an X-Men team full of teenagers.

When characters are restored to their present-day forms, they will have memories of everything that happened while they were altered.

Re: Teenage Dream Plot Details

[seeingred scott summers ⊗ cyclops]

Scott will be 15 years old, at exactly the point after the X-Men saved him from Jack Winters but before he was taken into the X-Mansion. He'll have all of his present-day skills (although he won't know that until he actually tries to do things), and I'm flip-flopping on whether or not he'll remember people. He will at least know who Nightcrawler, Empath, White Queen and Dazzler are.

Laura... I am super undecided!!! If she's a teen then she would be a mute and extremely traumatized. I might give her a lot of her adult memories to make her more playable, or she'll just be an adult for this event.

Re: Teenage Dream Plot Details

[blauerdamon kurt wagner ⚔️ nightcrawler]

Kurt will be 13, from right before Xavier and Magneto count him. He's got all of his current skills, but none of his memories. He'll have an instinct that he can trust Cyclops, but he's going to immediately disappear into the metaphorical rafters of the mansion and try to hide from everyone. Xavier will have to re-zap English into his head. Hide and go seek?

Warren will be 16 from his glory days as The Angel, a teen vigilante superhero. He's going to assume he can start that up again, and may encourage others to join him. They don't need adult supervision. Teen Warren is way more energetic and enthusiastic than old man Warren.

Re: Teenage Dream Plot Details

[frost_queen Emma Frost ♕ White Queen]

Yasssssssss

Emma is going to be 13 years old, right before she got her powers. She's got no idea who anyone is, no idea how to use her powers with any finesse, and is just generally going to be unsure about this whole business. Will not fully trust, at least initially, that she likes this place and these people. Will respect peoples' privacy even less than usual. She seems to have a lot of cool clothes as an adult, though, so that's nice. I might have her accidentally mind spike everyone after they change because it's like her powers manifesting all over again 😌 FORGOT TO SAY she will have pretty much normal power control after her initial brain stab, except in the case of keeping her emotions locked up tight (enjoy seeing those feelings, Manny!)

Piotr is going to be 15 and Just Fine, thanks! He is confused about why he knows English, but he doesn't mind it! Nothing bad has happened to him yet, so he's just sweet and helpful and not brooding in the least. Will just want to paint, hang out with Illyana, and help any adults that need helping. He's very reliable!! He also probably doesn't look 15 because he's already tall.

Re: Teenage Dream Plot Details

[allhell magik 🖤 illyana rasputin]

Illyana is 14/15ish, from shortly before she created her soulsword and escaped from captivity. She is a little feral at this point in her life but also hype to be out of her haunted dollhouse prison home, so it balances out. She can control her magic, armor, and stepping discs just fine but will need to figure out her soulsword and psionic shields before she can use them.

Remy is 16, extremely fresh off meeting Rogue, and also stupid. I think they're going to find their marriage license or something but not remember that they got fake married but besides this I am still noodling thoughts.

Re: Teenage Dream Plot Details

[passingthru KITTY PRYDE]

I'm so excited for thiiiis!

Kitty will be coming in at approx 14 years old, about to graduate high school, right after Xavier asked her to come to join the X-Men for the first time and she refused him. So high-anxiety, high-nerd time for Kitty; sorry about her in advance. She had most skills at this juncture anyway because she's an annoying genius, so she will probably be pretty adept at most of her current talents. But she keeps phasing unexpectedly so it'll take her a minute to get the precision she has now. Not sure if she'll know anyone except Xavier unless others came with him on this recruitment mission that just Failed!

Rogue is coming in from about the same time Remy is, so she's about 14 too. They're fairly newly traveling together, so she just ran away from Mystique pretty recently. I'm playing it so she did have a week or a few of Carol Memories and Personality which only ended when she ran away, so she's already primed to feel insane about this whole thing. Will be discovering she is married to the boy she just agreed to run away with. Horrifying.

Re: Teenage Dream Plot Details

[empata Manuel de la Rocha (Empath)]

Manuel's going to be away when this plot kicks off, so he'll miss out on the effects himself but come home to utter chaos. 😌 He's exasperated but will try to look after the lil' ones. Godspeed, sir.

Stupid Squad Danger Room Adventures

[frost_queen Emma Frost ♕ White Queen]

Emma has been running drills all week for all the squads that were offered to her - while she definitely made her squad do the most, all squads got paired up with others that weren't the Hellions.

I decided to make up one scenario for everyone's teams just for flavor, but feel free to say whatever you want happened in other ones!! (also feel free to ignore if you hate them)

Varmints (Rogue) vs Paragons (Manny) - Their task was competitive. Their job was to see how many enemy human combatants they could subdue and keep contained, and the Varmints eked out a victory.

Rapscallions (Remy) vs Paragons (Manny) - Their task was cooperative, and involved trying to corral baby dinosaurs into a pen. While there was technically no victor, the Paragons had the MVP who corralled the most dinosaurs.

Couriers (Warren) vs Hellions (Emma) - Their task was competitive. Their job was capture the flag, but with lots of traps meant to disable. The Couriers put up a good fight, but the Hellions prevailed.

Vanguards (Scott) vs Novices (Illyana) - Their task was competitive. Their job was to destroy as many drones (both ground and aerial) in a set amount of time. Both squads ended with the exact same number of drone destructions, leading to a tie.

Daredevils (Kurt) vs Fellowship (Kitty) - Their task was competitive. Their job was to evacuate a building filled with hostiles trying to stop them. The Daredevils performed exceptionally and won.

Re: Stupid Squad Danger Room Adventures

[empata Manuel de la Rocha (Empath)]

This is Cute~

Manny needs to get tips from his kiddos about dealing with dinos. (But he will not.)

Re: Stupid Squad Danger Room Adventures

[frost_queen Emma Frost ♕ White Queen]

Oh yeah also for our future selves, reference to this.

Re: Stupid Squad Danger Room Adventures

[frost_queen Emma Frost ♕ White Queen]

Come on Manny...

Stupid Squad Danger Room Adventures

[seeingred scott summers ⊗ cyclops]

Clemence Kadi was the leader of the Vanguards this week, and believed she could just solo this whole mission by draining everything/everyone in sight. While she destroyed quite a few drones early on, she overloaded and ended up injuring Marlowe Healy and Pax Perrine, who hit Clemence back with a concussive blast to knock her out. Braith Lilly pulled Clemence (and anyone else who needed it) out of danger, and Teddy Berge put them into a healing sleep.

With their leader down, Pax chose to take over, and the rest of the squad followed their lead without argument. This included older students Esther Khong (who just wanted to look competent in front of her secret crush Blythe Corvetto) and Sidney Pridemore (who was just having fun breaking stuff).