BlueSky44

How to Run a Multi Arc Role Play

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Hello there.

We are very pleased to be able to present this guide on how to develop and run a long term, multi storyline roleplay. With more and more roleplays reaching landmarks on the guild, it's becoming more common than ever before to see GMs cross the finish line and complete the story they set out to tell. For some, it's a bittersweet moment - you have accomplished something fantastic, but you aren't ready to say goodbye to those characters and that world just quite yet. In order to keep the good times rolling, one solution is to make a sequel - same characters, same world, just a new plot.

Between the two of us, we have brought three roleplays to their ultimate conclusion and completed nine storylines. It's been a bumpy road and not every roleplay has worked out, but the success of roleplays like X-Men and Darke Magyk have given us a lot of experience for how to create a multi arc storyline that entertains the roleplayers and (hopefully) does its characters justice.

We hope that this guide helps any GM who is thinking about starting a roleplay and wanting to have multiple storylines - as well as the GM who has finished their storyline and is eager to set up the next adventure for the characters.

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First thing that you need to remember is that like any RP you have, you need to start off somewhere. This one is fairly simple, you have a story that you want to put out there, and now you want to kick the RP off and see about getting some ideas. However, there are a few things that you should keep in mind, since otherwise you'll feel like a fish out of water in this sort of thing. I know I did, and the first story arc I did for my X-Men role-play I only had a basic idea of what I was doing, since it was the first full fledge RP I was going to try and do, and some people had told me that superhero RPs tend to die out fairly quickly, so here are a few things you should have ready before you put that interest check up to start getting our players.

• Role-Play Title - This isn't something that is necessarily required, but generally a good idea over all, since the title is the first thing that will catch the eye of new players and draw them in. Also, keep in mind that this title can change multiple times before you finally settle on one - almost like writing a story of some sort, sometimes if you don't have the fully fleshed out idea, it is difficult to come up with a title. Do not feel like the name of your RP has to be the same one as for the IC if you come up with something better.
• Character Sheet - Make sure you have your character sheet already to go. Since even if you don't put this into the interest check post, people will still ask for it if they are interested in making a character. Most of the time, putting this and all needed information for filling it out in the interest check is definitely a step in the right direction. It's up to you what should be included here - and there is plenty of great discussion here on the guild about what should be in a character sheet.
• The World - Another thing to keep in mind is what sort of world are the characters in. You don't have to know everything about the world yet, but at least enough to feel comfortable in answering questions from your players. Like for me, the main question that popped up was Are the Avengers a thing? The simple answer to that question in my role-play even though it centers around the X-Men is that yes, they do, but they also are not the only ones around. For me, I have it so that most of the movies up through the first MCU Avengers movie are canon (Except for the Incredible Hulk, as I prefer Bruce Banner's comic origins). This sort of thing, if it wasn't obvious, is majorly important especially for role-plays surrounding Fandoms or a world that people know. When it came to the X-Men team before our current group, I by passed the X-Men movies and went straight to the 90's animated cartoon, using that group since I preferred it better then to the movies as a whole. It might take you a while to build up your world, to figure out a lot of things for it, however if you have a basic idea of what sort of world you want to build up, this will help you figure out how to answer questions about what sort of characters they can make and how they fit into the world.
• First Story Arc - You don't have to have everything planned out to the last part. Since you have to take into account your players and the choices that they make regarding their characters and how they effect the world. Giving your players the choice to effect the world that they are in aside from just dealing with the first story arc's main problem or villain is a good thing to keep in mind. Even with all of this, you can still have a basic idea of what sort of arc you are going to have. Who is the villain? What are they trying to accomplish? Are you tossing the characters right off into the deep end or having a gradual build up? Information on Brainstorming Story Arcs will be mentioned in the next section for more information.
• The First OOC Post - This isn't necessarily required, however it does prove to be useful, as it helps you to organize your thoughts and ideas for the story, as well as give you something to reference right off the bat. Some people (myself and Morose included) tend to use the first OOC post as the Interest Check for the role-play. It makes it a bit easier on both yourself, and on your players, to have all of that information readily available at the drop of a hat. They might still ask questions, but they tend to be fewer if you have most of the information about everything right there in front of them from the start then if you only have a basic premise and the character sheet for your interest check. This also means that if they don't mesh with your GMing style, they usually can tell just by how the OOC is formatted, saving you and them some heartache if it isn't a good fit.

This isn't a complete list of everything that you should keep in mind before you even start out. Some people decide to just wing it and see what happens, and that's alright too. I admitted to my players that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing for the first arc of X-Men, and they were fine with that. I was winging it the entire time, but as the arc went along I did become a bit more organized, as I'd know where the group would be going, so I'd make floor plans and maps of sorts of the buildings so I'd have a better understanding of what it was that the characters would see. There are so many things that would help you to keep track of your ideas, to help you with creating this role-play that you want to make, and hopefully one that you would be proud of. This may sound like a lot, but trust me, from the perspective of someone who didn't expect their role-play to last for very long and is now been going on for more then two years, you will be glad you took these things into account before you even started looking for players.

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Now, you've got your first story arc already off and running, you have your players enjoying themselves and no one really wants to say good bye to their characters ever. (*cough cough* my X-Men players who want the RP to go forever) So the question is, now what do you do? The main conflict of the role-play is almost over, and soon the role-play will just be sitting there, collecting dust because the characters are done with their story, and the role-play is finished.

Just because the original idea you have for the role-play is over, doesn't mean that it has to be the end!

There are several different ways to approach this issue, you could have a sequel role-play that takes place from the point of view of the next generation of characters, but still set in the same world. Or you could do the approach I did, which was to create more storylines for characters to make their way through. This is hardly ever the easiest thing to do - actually for me, when I was first creating X-Men I had a total of five villains and storylines that I wanted to go through, three of the five were based off of comic book story lines, then the first and last arcs were ones completely of my own creation. Even though I took inspiration from comic books, even the ones that were based off of comic story lines I put a spin on them to make them my own, make them different.

However, as the first arc kept going along, and people were wanting to keep playing these characters, I turned that number of five arcs I originally had planned and multiplied it by three... and now have ideas for a grand total of fifteen story arcs! This was a lot more arcs then I had originally thought of, but if we were with the original five arcs, the role-play for X-Men would almost be over, as we are currently on arc number four.

Brainstorming these ideas wasn't exactly easy, I mean sure, there were mobs of different Marvel villains I could use for inspiration, but I wanted to keep things a bit different, make them more then just cookie cutter comics of sorts, and kept that in mind when brainstorming them. Now, here are a few things that might help you figure out how to keep your role-play going, even if you are nearing the end of your original story line.

• Have a Co-GM - This isn't a required step, however I can definitely say from experience that having a Co-GM who you can bounce ideas off of definitely helps. Morose is one of the best Co-GMs ever, as she helps me to figure out what exactly works, and what doesn't. Another thing you can do with a Co-GM is test out ideas, see if you think that they'd work in any sort of setting. For me, Morose and I would run little "Test Collabs" that was just messaging back and forth on discord, and we'd sort of role play using our characters to see if something would work as an arc or not. This is also part of the reason I was able to come up with so many arc ideas. I'd say "Hey, it would be interesting to have this villain in the role-play, but I don't know what sort of thing they'd do." And we'd message back and forth, coming up with ideas that could be used as the main conflicts with that villain as the main antagonist, or an organization, or an idea. Just having someone you trust who you can bounce ideas off of and test things out with, that definitely helps to make a difference as you realize what works and what doesn't even before you bring the ideas and arcs over into the role-play and to your players.
• What's the main conflict? - The nice thing about running story arcs is that these storylines can build up into a larger overarching storyline - like how the MCU took Iron Man and made the Infinity Saga from that foundation. It's important to keep in mind the big picture of the roleplay. You may have all of these smaller conflicts, but in order for it to kind of flow together, or make sense in the long run, you should have somewhat of an idea of what the greater story is for the entire role-play. Which brings us to our next point.
• How do these stories connect? - All of your arcs should find a way to stay together. Things that happen in a previous arc should still carry over as memories for other characters and things like that. For example, the very first arc of X-Men had the death of a character named Oshea. His death still has impacts on everything, even three arcs after he initially died. Keep these things in mind as you are planning out ideas.
• Good Ideas and Bad Ideas - Don't worry, you will have good ideas for story arcs, and you will have bad ones, but that is okay. Some arcs just don't work out, or problems arise that even if you tested out the story line you didn't catch. These things are going to happen, and that's okay, some things work, some things don't, but making mistakes is the only way you'll learn and it will help you for the next time around.
• When does the arc take place compared to the others? - Keep track of your time table, and keep things realistic. You can't have all of your arcs take place in the span of one week, it makes things feel rushed, and remember some arcs might take a few days to get through in the IC. For instance, most of my arcs are scheduled for a few months a part, except for the time difference between the first two arcs. My second arc, Days of Future Past dealt with the leader of an organization known as OMEN running in the election for President of the United States, but the first arc took place at the beginning of the year 2019 when the next election was in 2020. So the arc had a time jump of over a year and a half because of that, but I've decided to try and keep things a bit more consistent and keeping my time table a bit shorter, so that it's more of a few months between arcs, so the characters aren't aging too quickly. This is something you need to keep an eye on, especially if you plan on still keeping these characters around for a while, if time goes by too quickly, people might have to find new faceclaims or something for their characters to show them as aging.
• Names For Your Arcs - Each arc should have their own names, an easy reference point that people can use when talking about previous arcs. For me, I have all four of my arcs are referred to by a different name. The first arc is called the Brotherhood, second Days of Future Past, the third is Enter Mesmero, and the fourth and current one is known as House of M. Also another fun thing to do would be to come up with a sort of "name" for the different sets arcs as a whole. For me, my role-play is based off of comic books, so I have considered the whole role-play X-Men: Darkness Rising as a comic book series, and I have each arc labelled as a different "issue" in that comic series as opposed to just calling them different arcs.
• Bringing in things from previous arcs (including villains!) - I did sort of mention this before in the parts about conflict and keeping an eye on the bigger picture, however there are other things that can be mentioned about it. This is generally true for superhero role-plays, as I know that a lot of comic book heroes have their core group of villains who are usually causing problems. Reoccurring villains are a major thing to keep an eye on, as this also helps to make creating other arcs around those villains, as they can come back and try to get revenge on the characters.
• Read, Read, Read - If you are low on inspiration for that new storyline, don't try to force it. Read books in the same sort of genre. Watch movies on that subject. You will find something that just clicks and settles into place, perhaps even where you don't expect it. Struggling with a fantasy roleplay? Go watch Lord of the Rings! Re-read Narnia again! Read some fanfiction about Shrek and Fiona, even.

This isn't a complete list, and you don't have to do everything listed, think of this more of as guidelines for a few things that you should keep in mind when it comes to brainstorming new arcs. A few things might be missing from this, as there are probably hundreds of things you should take into account when brainstorming new arcs.

Always remember, just because an arc doesn't turn out the way that you want to, or just because you don't think an arc is worth pursuing because it won't be fun for your players, that's okay. Things will work out, or they might not, it's all part of the learning curve for figuring out what to do. I can definitely say that out of the current arcs I have done for X-Men, the third arc was probably the worst so far, but that's fine with me, and I'm still learning a thing or two.

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Nearing the end of your first arc, you might be thinking that you need to draw in more people, that you need to get more people involved in the role-play. This is a standard thing, as any role-play will die out if you don't have any more people. Individuals will leave role-plays for any number of reasons, but you want to keep the game going, so of course, you have a few choices to make in regards to how are you going to draw in new players.

• Create a new Interest Check This is an obvious potential solution. Use the update OOC you likely have for the next story arc, and put that up for an interest check. Have the title of your role-play as the title line of the Interest Check along with something along the lines of "Accepting New Players".
• Add that to the title line of the role-play Add the words "Accepting New Players" to the title line for the role-play, as this will also allow people to tell if you are accepting new players to a role-play already in motion.
• Change the Join Status in the RP topic Most people will change this part of the topic to say "Full" if they are no longer accepting new players. Change this line to say "Apply" or "Jump-In" depending on the role-play to let people know about it.
• Start a new OOC topic I personally do not like this idea, however it is another option. You can start up another topic for the next arc so that it pops up easily and people might not think that they are jumping in immediately to another role-play already in motion.
• Be Welcoming If any potential player messages you, be kind and open to them. Don't act rude or argue, don't kind of sound annoyed when they ask questions. This is pretty standard, treat them how you as the GM want to be treated, and potential players will come to you and maybe even join in. Do this, and you'll already make a good first impression with any new players you have.
• Don't Hurt Your Original Players Be careful about wanting to bring in a new group of players, as the original players are the ones who stuck by you through your first arc (or several) so keep that in mind when opening up to new players. Be sure to keep things civil between players and if a new person starts causing problems with your original players, talk things out and hopefully stop any sort of problems from becoming bigger then necessary.
• Only about 1 out of every 3 players sticks around So don't get discouraged if you don't get a lot of people staying in the game once the next arc starts. If you manage to keep one person, be glad that you did, as that is definitely an accomplishment.

As with everything else, these are just simple suggestions to help you get some sort of idea as to what you could possibly do to generate more players to your role-play. Players leave, due to personal reasons, getting kicked by the GM, or a variety of other reasons. You need to be prepared to try and figure out what works best for you in order to gain more players.

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People learn and grow from their experiences - and so, it makes sense that the same is true for characters. At some point in your long term roleplay, your characters will have changed from who they were initially created to be - and that's great! A static character is not nearly as interesting as one who changes throughout the course of the story. Periodically, you will want to have your players update their original character sheets to account for these changes. It is up to you how often that is - Blue and I will usually ask people to do these at the end of an arc, but it might be more appropriate for you to ask for these updates halfway through depending on what is happening.

Common updates needed to be made for characters are:

• Age - Characters will have birthdays! Unlike in Pokémon, people don't remain the same age for an eternity.
• Personality - People are constantly changing. Your personality that you have today is probably different from how you were a year ago. This is true especially for teenagers and young adults, as they're trying to figure out who they are.
• Knowledge - As you encounter new situations, you learn new things! Maybe a character has picked up a new trade. It is up to you as the GM to determine how knowledge is gained. Blue and I usually give out 'skill rewards' at the end of each arc, with the skill based on what the character did throughout the storyline (i.e. someone who worked on a mystery the entire time might learn Deduction).
• Relations - Friends get into fights and drift apart. Romances are kindled. Enemies are made. Odds are, your character will have different opinions and feelings about the other characters at the end of the arc than when they started the arc.
• Appearance - Just as your personality changes, so do your looks. Does your character say fuck it and shave their head? Did they get a bad scar from a boss fight in your last storyline? Did they lose a limb? (@Nallore :P )
• Occupation - Did they get initiated into a covert organization and quit their day job? Were they promoted to be the Police Captain at their precinct? Did they become the head of their coven?

Now, that list is hardly exhaustive, but you get the idea. The beauty of a long term, multi arc roleplay is that you can see character development that is normally cut short by single storyline roleplays. 'Leveling' the characters also gives you an opportunity to reward your players for their hard work and dedication, perhaps by giving them a specialty item to add to their inventory.

Lastly on this point, it is always a good idea to check in with your roleplayers at the end of a storyline or significant chunk of roleplay about their character's story arcs. I usually will pose a question along the lines of what do you think is next for Jack?. It can be helpful to open a conversation about where they want their character to go and the ideas they want to explore, but also to determine when they want to shelve a character and start working on a new challenge.

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Ideally by this point, you already have your next storyline typed and ready to go. You may or may not have already written the first in character post for it, and if you haven't, perhaps you could use a little downtime. Now idle downtime can be a death sentence for a roleplay - even with the best of intentions, having no activity in a thread can cause people to feel less concerned about posting in it once it is time to return. But since this guide isn't to teach you how to GM and how to get players to post (there are tons of guides dedicated to that subject), instead we would like to share with you a system that keeps your players engaged and grabs you a little bit of breathing room as the GM!

Now depending on how things are designed, you will likely have some sort of a timeskip between your arcs. Blue prefers to only have a one to three month timeskip, while I tend to go for a half year timeskip. You can use the timeskip to your advantage - tell your roleplayers they can do timeskip collabs and posts! If your arc ended in April and the next arc starts in December (in character time wise, of course), people can write posts and collabs giving little snippets of what their characters were up to during that time. Think of it like letting them write a bunch of post credit scenes at the end of a Marvel movie.

Here are some common timeskip collabs and posts our roleplayers have done:

• Relationship Development - Do the two characters who were crushing on each other go on their first date? Or maybe the long time couple gets engaged? Do strangers become close friends?
• Group Events - Maybe after defeating the Big Bad, the group is going to throw a party! Everyone gets together for a big collab about drinking too much eggnog and playing Secret Santa, while you have a moment to finish putting together your plans for the new arc.
• Confrontations - Fight, fight, fight! There will inevitably be tension between characters. This might be a good time for two characters to work out their differences (or not) before the next arc.
• Teasers - This one in particular is really only done by the GM or the Co-GM. If you know who the villain is going to be for your next arc or what the storyline will be based on, you can post a brief little scene that will help build hype for it. For example, running a DC roleplay and the next villain is the Reverse Flash? Maybe narrate a scene in Central City from the perspective of a security guard right before they're killed by a speedster. Or running a political intrigue roleplay set in medieval times? Show a scene of the rival kingdom making clandestine plans to attack the protagonist's kingdom!

While you do not have to give your players this downtime, it really is nice on the GM to have a bit of breathing room. There are a lot of updates that you have to make in between arcs and while you might have most of them done, it's never fun or a good idea to rush these things. We'll discuss more in the next section how to organize all of the information to make it easy for you and your players to use, but here is a general checklist of things a GM needs to do in this in between arc time!

• Recruitment - Between arcs is the best time to score new players. For information on how to do this, see the recruiting section.
• Update the Original OOC Post - It's a new storyline, which means that the information listed there likely needs to be updated. Characters have died, roleplayers have withdrawn, maybe you even have gotten a bit more nifty when it comes to aesthetics and want to give the entire OOC a facelift. Either way, this is the time to do it!
• Level Characters - Again, see the section above on how to do this!
• Update Links - You'll want to have links to the start of each storyline displayed, so now is the time to make sure that you are prepared there and ready to go.
• Write the First IC Post of the Arc - I find that my best introductory posts for an arc come if I have spent time and planning on them. You put all of the work into planning the roleplay, so do the same for the actual writing. This post is going to energize your roleplayers as it is fresh material, as well as set the tone for the new arc and potentially introduce new key players.
• Contact Players - You will want to get in touch with your players and ask for feedback on the first arc, as well as just to check in with them and make sure they're good to go for the new one. Additionally, there will likely be a few people who have asked to join and you couldn't work them in just yet - now is the time to PM them, see if they're still interested, and tell them to go apply!
• Update NPCs - In addition to updating your own characters, you are responsible for maintaining all of the information you put out there on NPCs. Maybe it's all the same NPCs in the new storyline, maybe you're adding a lot of new ones. Either way, this is the time to do that as well.
• Gush - Okay, this one isn't a rule but honestly, do it. You and your roleplayers just completed something HUGE. Go over to the Let's Gush thread and show some appreciation for them, as well as share your accomplishment with all of the guild.

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The more you work on the organization of your information and keeping track of it, the easier your life will be later on. That being said, even with the best of organization systems, you're going to make a mistake. You will miscount the number of years between two events or forget if Shelly knew Abby before the Senior Prom Disaster. This doesn't mean not to try your best to keep track of things - just to be forgiving with yourself when things do go awry and do your best to fix them.

For maintaining continuity, keep a timeline of key events handy. This could be stored in the OOC of your roleplay, kept on a notepad on your computer, placed in a PM to yourself, or even put in your character storage on the site. A mistake would be to try to include every event, no matter how minor. Instead, record the big picture things - include that Jessica's body was first discovered by Kyle on January 28th, but not that Erika was listening to pop songs as she walked to class on January 29th. Now I advocate for keeping this timeline somewhere that all roleplayers can see it, assuming it doesn't have spoilers/things you want to keep secret. Why? Simple. Everyone forgets things. Seeing the timeline can help jog memories, as well as aid new roleplayers in getting a quick summary of what happened so far in the IC before they jump in.

The next biggest challenge is finding a way to organize your new information, while preserving the old. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I have included some screenshots below with examples on how Blue and I organize our OOC's in order to show the new information, but keep the old information available for reference (and nostalgia).

Example - Darke Magyk

In the Darke Magyk example, the premise portion of the OOC for the previous storylines is kept in the zeroth post under a hider. Under characters, I have subscripts that denote when characters we active - for example, Arya Rincewind was in the first and second storylines, so she has a subscript 1 and 2 there. Mona Windrider was introduced in the second storyline, so she only has the subscript 2. I then have hiders for the deceased characters in the previous storylines, allowing a fresh look for the OOC, while keeping the information that will most likely need to be referenced available.

Example - X-Men

Blue of course has a different style. She includes links in the OOC to the starting post for the previous arcs, without keeping the old premises around for the old storylines. Some people may prefer this as it gives a cleaner look and requires less writing, while others might want to keep the old premises to reference or just for a trip down memory lane. There is no right or wrong way here.

However you choose to organize it, I recommend having these sections in your OOC:

• Overview - This may or may not change as you go to a new storyline, but this will give your players a good idea as to what sort of roleplay you are imagining this to be.
• Premise - This is your sales pitch for the storyline you are on. Be interesting and mysterious - draw them in!
• Characters - Having a list of the characters that are currently active is going to make your life easier, rather than having to remember if Timothea is being shelved for this arc or not.
• Rules - Again, I am not here to tell you what rules you should have, there are other GM guides for that. You should have your rules visible in your OOC and if you need to update them as things go along, do so! Rules are there to give you a framework to operate within.
• Resources - Character sheet codes, links to wikipedia pages, maps that you've drawn... These are going to help your roleplayers out. You might decide you like a different CS format when you finish a storyline and that's perfectly fine. Just let people know they will need to edit some things.

If you need help with how to present information clearly, there are tons of guides here telling you just how to do that. I find that having headings and hiders is a fairly helpful way to keep things relevant, as well as color coding text you think is extra important.

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The Uncanny X-Babies - Concluded

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@eclecticwitch@FailingForward@Nallore@FantasyChic@Morose

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Andrew Rossi and Demetria Clarke

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Location:Briefing Room

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"Well yeah it's odd, I mean seriously, Harrison Snow died only weeks ago and this is getting a little bit ridiculous if you ask me," Sapphire muttered under her breath, agreeing with what Evelyn and Wesley were saying about how Gardner hadn't given them much information at all. The least the woman could have done was to make sure that they knew what they were doing. After all, this was a group that had a majority of new people in it, so why the hell did she think nothing of it.

"Could just be that she trusts us enough or something to get the job done correctly, you never know. I mean yeah, we aren't exactly the best group around, I'll give you that, but most of us have some experience of sorts in things like this, so maybe it's just she isn't sure what we should do and this is just her way of seeing what we can do," Andrew commented, shaking his head slightly. It was kind of a weird thought, but he usually tried to see the best in people, unless they prove to them otherwise, and Rae Gardner had some big shoes to fill. So to him it was understandable if she didn't fully know what she was doing or something.

There were 3 other people in the room, who up until this point had been relatively quiet, which was a bit surprising in the case of one of the 3, however it was Psylocke who decided to speak first. "Gardner isn't that bad of a person, I agree with him, odds are that she's just not entirely sure what sort of jobs she's supposed to give us. Now, do you have any sort of guest list for us to look at so we know whose going to be there?"

"Uh, yeah, sure," he said, before he pulled up a guest list of sorts. Looked like just about every rich person in the entire country was going to be there, even a few from outside of the US. It was definitely going to be quite a large group of people, around 100 people were invited in total. "And honestly I would be perfectly fine shrinking down to not be seen, since I truly do not want to have to argue with anyone if I can't help it at all..."

"Then why don't you do it?" Sapphire asked him with a bit of a smirk.

"Wow, you are not the nicest person around are you?"

"No, I'm not."

"Just great..."

"Can you two not argue, what would make the most sense based on the floor layout would to at least have a few people keeping an eye on the entrances and exits, that way we won't have to worry hopefully about anyone coming in unannounced."

"Makes sense..."

Gambit and Rogue had been relatively quiet for the most part themselves, however they did speak up somewhat now, well, more of Gambit did a bit. He smirked, enjoying the idea of all of these rich people being around. "Ma colombe.... Maybe I can help liberate some wallets from these rich fools, n'est-ce pas?"

In response to that, Rogue smacked him upside the head. "No Remy, otherwise you'll be the one causing problems and we don't want that at all!"

🦄 Machiavellian Masquerade - Chapter 1

Sister Penance

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Location: Confinement (Attic)
Skills: N/A
Hit Points: 4
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"Well if he decided to be dumb and such and took off out of the room that is his own fault. Not to mention even when leaving he was majorly contradicting himself with everything he does... Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I'm leaning towards that being a bad thing. He first declared that he wasn't leaving this room, then decides to go take off randomly leaving the rest of us. I personally hope he gets into some sort of trouble, since he didn't listen to his own words before he acted," Penance said into the darkness once it was fully established that yes, Titian was the one who had left the room for whatever reason. She doubted even he understood what thoughts were going through his own head.

She listened to the words of the others, nodding her head slightly in the darkness even though no one could see her. It was a bit annoying that no one had any sort of light source that could prove useful to them. Without a light source they were essentially just standing around in the dark, doing nothing at all. A few others from the sound of it were wandering around in the darkness, managing to navigate around or something. "Well hopefully you might be able to find a light source, since finding our way out of here is going to be a bit difficult if we can't see our hands in front of our faces at this rate."

The Gifted - Concluded

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Sapphire

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Location: The Mutant Underground - Washington D.C. Station
Skills N/A

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"Yeah, going back inside is probably a good idea if you ask me, I mean really, I hate the rain mixed with humidity... If it was just the rain with maybe a little bit of cold air, then I would be perfectly fine with it, I just can't stand this sort of weather," she commented, before she glanced over and saw Spark Plug with Glimpse. She was not thrilled seeing Glimpse again, hell she really didn't want to be in the same area as Glimpse really, as she still did not want to be around her at all.

"I'm heading back inside," she said to Havok, not even really acknowledging the other two or saying anything in their direction. Instead, she just turned around and made her way back inside, figuring that if she was going to get any sort of lecture from Veil might as well get that sort of thing out of the way. If she ran into Leighton for some reason, she'd just ignore the girl's existence, since otherwise she might try to kill her or something at this rate.

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Jack Theriot

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Location: Morlock Tunnels
Skills: N/A

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"I can understand that sort of thinking... Actually a lot of times I've been asked about why I hang around here, I mean, I've got a life up on the surface, I get by alright up there, but at the end of the day I always find my way back here. It's because I always feel like I belong, this place kind of gives a home to those who feel like they don't have one... With a family like I have well... Life gets hard, but these guys here, they are great. And sure, Erg and I don't really get along all too well, and sure I tease him a little bit, but honestly I'll have his back, and I'll still help everyone out here. If you feel like you need a place to belong you've certainly come to the right place..." Jack said, giving her a slight smile.

What he said was the truth, and he was used to this sort of thing, and helping others out no matter what. "I asked because you are still young, and you might not want to be a part of this life later on for some reason. It is your choice..." Another thought then crossed his mind, and he gave her another bit of a smile. "So, before you get that mark, thought I'd ask about something... Want to go to the zoo that's not far from here? Was planning on going up to the surface with Casper anyway, since Casper is likely going to bug me about getting waffles, I'll get you some food too if you want to. But you don't have to go along if you don't want to , just thought I'd ask..."

Ω Heroes of Olympus: The Next Age of Heroes Ω Officially Done

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Marygold Isley

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Location: Camp Half-Blood - Dining Pavilion

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"Yeah, being with the Athena team would be the obvious choice, I mean, sure the Ares group isn't that bad, but I mean still... The Athena group tends to think things through and plan out a few things as opposed to just charging in if you ask me, it seems that way anyway for the most part," she said, nodding her head at Eva. She was wondering a lot about the teams, and was really hoping to end up on the Athena team, since otherwise she didn't know how things would really go. Who knew what the Ares group would come up with for them to do?

Mary shook her head slightly at Eva's next statement, she hadn't been planning on anything really for after the game. "I wasn't really thinking much about what to do after the game, I mean, there isn't really much to do or something once the excitement for Capture the Flag is gone. I haven't gotten that far ahead in my sort of thinking for how the rest of the day is likely going to go," she said with a slight laugh.

Agents of SHIELD - Concluded

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Frederick Flynn

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Location: New York Sanctum -> Serval Industries First Floor (F36)
Skills: Fire Manipulation

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Once everyone was through the portal, Flynn walked through as well and found himself in front of what used to be Serval Industries. It definitely was an interesting building from the look of things. When Spider-Gwen and Captain Marvel took off into the sky to scout ahead, he thought about maybe taking off with them to see what was potentially up ahead for them, but decided against it in the end. He followed after the others inside of the building, just in time to see Sunshine take a shot at Raynor.

"Of course we're going against a kid, cause why wouldn't we be..." Flynn said when Tinley started attacking Sunshine. Problem with her whole, someone grab her, sounding scenario was that there were a whole bunch of other ways that Sunshine could attack them, even without the use of her hands and arms. With that, he took a slight deep breath, and fire blasted from his hand, heading straight towards Sunshine. It slammed into her and sent her flying backwards. "Alright, so what now?"

X-Men: Cosmic Crusades 👽

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@Morose@Nallore@FantasyChic@KazAlkemi@ColouredCyan@eclecticwitch
@Kirah@Trainerblue192@Achronum

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"Well, I met Erik in that reality way back in 1983, long before you were born. However, our lives took a different path, as in that reality he wasn't a king of anything at all, and our relationship was not exactly the best. In that reality he is still mad at me over the fact that there was a point in time when we weren't together and I had a relationship with Tony Stark... Which is what that image over there is of, when I met him at the Stark Expo," she said simply, pointing towards the image of her and Tony from before. "Mutants are the minority in that world as well, and are not exactly treated the best at all there either..."

"Look, how about we calm down a little bit okay? Watch what you're saying and how about everyone stops pointing fingers about what's going on. Alright, say you are right, reality was warped in some way, who would do that? And why? I mean, warping reality and completely rewriting everyone's memories in the process in order to accomplish that? That is not a good thing at all, they probably could just snap their fingers and we'd be gone like dust in the wind," he said, shaking his head slightly at Allison. This was definitely a bit of a screwy situation, that much was obvious, but how were they going to get out of that situation was a better question. Finding out who messed with everything was a priority, but the problem is, they don't know who, and they don't know what this person is capable of.

"I'll help you out, but let's just be clear, we have to be careful about every little thing that we do from here on out. Since think about it, odds are that whoever did this is likely close to those of us here at the Palace in some way. So if we draw attention to ourselves it's game over..."

"If humans are enslaved in this reality compared to your own, who stands the most to gain from that?" October proposed to Allison. "People do not do nefarious deeds for no reason - except for Cousin Elmor, but he's always been a bit funny that way...."

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"I probably could with magic, or I could just walk over and start pounding on their heads. You see, we don't tend to have mutants who hang around us all the time, so yeah, that sort of thing, not very likely, at all. Punching them in the head sounds like fun though, if you hit someone hard enough in the head to put them in a coma you can cause memory problems, bit of a fun fact there just for you," Klara responded coldly towards Max, glaring at him.

"...So, portal to what feels like somewhere in the US?" Lance asked slightly, there was a chill of cold air coming from the portal. As it may be the winter time in New York City at the moment, but it was summertime in Australia, and Lance shivered slightly at the cold air coming through the portal.

"Uh, no need for all of this," Banner said, rubbing his head slightly. "The team here has that thing handled...."

"Whatever you say, so, you coming through cousin or not?" Klara asked, looking over at Runa before wandering away slightly from the portal.

"...She seems like a nice one doesn't she?" Lance couldn't help but mutter.

"Not sure if ya can wipe their memories, Abercrombie maybe if she tries hard enough, mind control could potentially do that. Well, not really wipe memories, but probably hide them from view completely so that they in a sense can't remember what happened. Should hurry up still, the longer we stay here without checking in, the more quickly those at SHIELD will realize that something is seriously wrong. So if this plan of yours can potentially get us through that portal really really quickly, I'm all for it, but you need to get a move on, since odds are SHIELD is going to call and check in I'd think in the next 15 minutes to maybe a half an hour if we're lucky."

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"I'm in the don't kill her side of things... Since I also doubt Casper would want to risk being haunted by a psychopath's ghost," she said simply, looking over at Casper and Ben now, since they were the only two people that she could talk to at the moment.

"Look, killing her is not going to fix anything at all!" Jack said, shaking his head and looking over at his brother. "...Also fairly certain my brother doesn't want her ghost hanging around or something, like seriously, that would be messed up and suck horribly..."

Gambit walked into the room, blood on his hands. His sister had been taken to the hospital, but the other sister was still here. He knew that a prison wouldn't be able to hold her. She was a danger to everyone in this room. Before, she hadn't tried to kill a member of the Guild. "Tuez-la," he then said simply.

"Wait he can't be serious can he? No way! Don't kill her at all! Bad Remy damn it! This is not a good idea, at all, so what the hell????"

Jack was a bit taken a back by Gambit just flat out saying to kill Chrysi, she was his sister, but apparently it seemed like it didn't mean much to him. "...Wait are you serious? Like, really serious?" he asked, looking over at Gambit now.

"Bien sûr," Gambit said coldly.

"Casper, I know for a fact that you have been ignoring me for a little bit, but still, you need to do something right now and stop them from killing her, otherwise I can almost guarantee you'll be stuck in a living hell because I doubt she'd leave you alone!"

Darke Magyk - Concluded

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Queen Valda

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Location: The Marram Marshes
Skills: Survival

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Valda was just looking around the cottage, taking in her surroundings a bit, to get an understanding of what sort of place they had found themselves in. Whenever you were in a new place, it was just common sense to do that, as to her sister's comment about going back, she thought about it for a moment. "I could, potentially, however it might not get us completely back to the Castle... I want to go back for Myrus as much as you do, but I don't think there is anything that we can do to help him right now..." she said, mentally kicking herself over that fact. They couldn't help Myrus, not right now anyway, so what good was she right now?

Then the ground started to shake.

She glanced over at the other two, before looking back at the ground. Focusing a bit, she tried to see if she could figure out what exactly was going on. What she came to the conclusion of was not what she wanted to think about, at all, "We need to get out of here now! The ground, it's not just crumbling, it's starting to split down the middle!" she said, looking over at her sister, panicking slightly somewhat at the thought that they were going to get swallowed by an island or something.

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Bruce Banner and Sylvi the Bard

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Location: Castle Courtyard (P13 -> T8, P6 -> N7)
Skills: Cosmic Manipulation

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Sylvi just stared at him, not sure what to do about the entire situation. Her throat was burning, and she was definitely beginning to feel the blood lust. "I-I-I don't want to hurt you Tate, at all... I'm so confused," she said softly, before she got up off of him, taking a few steps backwards away from him. Her brain was telling her to attack him, to try and bite him, to hurt her, but she didn't want to do anything like that. Sylvi started looking around, trying to find another blood source, anything at all.

"Trust me, sometimes punching a wall or another person tends to let off a lot of steam, honestly they are just being stuck up idiots who don't care about anyone else either. You'd think my sister would know better by now about that sort of thing. My uncle is literally the God of Mischief, I mean come on. She's just being stupid and needs to learn that being from Asgard honestly sometimes sucks and means that a lot of people from there think they are better then everyone else, why do you think that Loki tries to cause so much chaos? It is literally the nature of people from Asgard to be stuck up pricks for the most part..." he responded, shaking his head slightly. "I hate that my sister still calls me that honestly, I hate that she constantly goes "Oh look, your breaking the rules again!" honestly, if she'd learn to shut up for two seconds and actually think about other things aside from the "rules" that tell her that she shouldn't care about anyone here on Midgard maybe she'd actually grow up a little bit and learn that sometimes following the rules is the dumbest thing ever."

With that last sentence, he went into the Castle Courtyard, seeing the chaos around them. "...Well this is going to be fun," he said simply, flames dancing along his finger tips as he headed over towards where Mona and the others were. "I'll send you straight to Hel where you belong," he said, before he sent fire slamming into Venus, turning the vampire into ash.

Meanwhile, Sylvi backed away slightly from Tate still, glancing around, for anyone, or anything, that she could drink blood from. Problem was, she didn't want to hurt any one! Well, living anyway. However, her eyes came to rest on Mavis' body lying on the ground not too far away from where she was. Not like the girl was using her blood anymore anyway, wait, did she really just think that? "I'm sorry Tate..." she muttered, before she raced over to Mavis' body and started drinking her blood.

Bruce glanced over, seeing Tate nearby, as well as his girlfriend. Though something was incredibly odd about it, as now he saw the girl drinking blood from a dead body. Now Bruce was firmly starting to believe that maybe he should just live on Midgard indefinitely. Since all hell breaks loose when he's gone for a little while.

The Gifted - Concluded

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Sapphire

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Location: The Mutant Underground - Washington D.C. Station
Skills N/A

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Sapphire didn't really stick around to hear what was going on inside, but she was almost certain that Veil was going to not be too thrilled by how she had snapped. Honestly in her mind everyone deserved it, and she didn't very much care for any repercussions from it. It was in the past now, and that's all that could be said about it. That didn't make her feel any better though, as literally everyone started making a few snide comments about her while she was standing right there. Sure, they tended to do stuff like that to Havok all the time, but she at least hadn't teased him or insulted him while the newbies were standing right there. That definitely was not the way to stay on her good side. Sapphire hadn't just stormed off and away from everyone, she had gone outside, wanting some fresh air and to be away from just about everyone else.

"Hey, wait up! I don't have super speed, Sapphire!" Havok called out, about ten feet behind her as he headed outside. Almost instantly, it started pouring down rain outside. Washington D.C.'s weather was weird like that at times - fine but hot one moment, and raining hard the next.

"What do you want Havok?" Sapphire asked, just sort of standing in the rain not really caring, she didn't look over at him either. She kind of wanted to be alone, and was a little surprised that he had followed her outside and it wasn't Veil or something.

"We never got to finish making our bets and snide comments."

"Not exactly in the mood to do that anymore."

He stopped running, having finally caught up to her now. "So what are you in the mood to do, then?"

"Honestly? Nothing really, just mainly want to get away from them!" she said, when she said "them" her tone had a slight bite to it. It was clear she was still annoyed from everything and wasn't in the mood to really talk too much.

"Alright, so you're out here, now what?" he asked her. "Since if Glimpse is bad news like we think - and the new girl is obviously rich and we're dealing with Shaw, another rich dude, as our big bad to take down... Everyone in there who is blind to this is in danger without us."

"Honestly Havok, I don't really care anymore! Not like they'd listen to a damn word I said about anything, so why the hell does it even matter? Let me tell you flat out, it doesn't seem to matter at all."

Havok sighed slightly. He was a perfectionist at heart and wanted to be able to fix Sapphire's emotions, but clearly it wasn't working. Maybe the best thing he could do for her would be to give her space. "Alright. I'll leave you be. But Sapphire... we're a family, but if you don't think this family is the right fit for you, then there's no shame in leaving."

"...Sorry for snapping, just everyone in there was getting under my skin, a lot, and it honestly was not helping at all..."

He shook his head. "I'm not the one you should be saying sorry to, Sapphire. Sure, Spark Plug was being a bit of a dick to you - Glimpse is obviously a traitor - and the new girl seems to be a brat... but me, Veil, and the others? We're only trying to support you."

"...I'm also not one to usually apologize," she pointed out, shaking her head slightly. "And the new people are bad news if you ask me..."

Havok chuckled slightly. "Yeah, we know you aren't one to apologize," he said, rolling his eyes a bit. She reminded him of his brother in that manner. Cyclops never apologized to him whenever he messed up. "And of course they're bad news. Two rich brats show up on the same day? Did they miss the memo that the wealthy get automatically bumped up to at least the X-Factor league of teams?"

"Hey!" she said with a slight laugh, "I find that insulting!" She knew he was trying to cheer her up slightly, but there was a part of her mind that did not really want to laugh everything off. Namely the part of her memory that had been triggered by Leighton's words about everything. Only Veil actually knew about that memory, but now she was kind of wondering if maybe she should tell Havok about it.

"What? Everyone knows the hierarchy has the Avengers and the Fantastic Four as the A-list team, the X-Men as the B-list team, X-Factor as the C-list team, and then we're all the way down at the bottom, like, dirt level team."

"So nice about it Havok, but that is true."

He chuckled a little bit. "Hey, I just know that we're pretty much nothing in the grand scheme," he teased her. "We don't even get photoshoots - do you miss that?"

"Hell no, only reason I was with X-Factor was because they literally paid for me to go to school, I never even went to high school except for like, 2 months freshman year or so..."

Havok smirked at her, almost looking like he was about to flex his muscles. "I did it all - got my degree in geophysics. It's uh..." he faltered slightly. "Well, that's how I met Lorna."

"Yeah, X-Factor was the only reason I really went back to school to get a degree of any sort," she said, shaking her head slightly.

He nodded slightly. He could think about Polaris later. "So why join the Mutant Underground, then?"

"... I don't really know... I mean, I guess I just wanted to help out others, no matter how much they might annoy me."

"Well you are in luck, then, since there's a brat back inside who could really use your help," he told her gently.

"...The thing that set me off was the fact that she was all so nonchalantly going "Oh yeah, I froze a guy! But don't worry! He's completely fine! I just don't really want that to happen again!" Honestly, her tone of voice with something like that pissed me off... That combined with everyone else essentially making comments and it made me want to strangle just about everyone there!"

"Well, she seems like she's just discovered her powers recently," Havok shrugged. "And given how nice her clothes are, the worst thing that's probably happened to her before this was getting a pimple on picture day."

"That doesn't give her any sort of excuse about it! She didn't even sound like she cared about hurting someone even if it was an accident, so honestly, she's not just a brat, she's an emotionless brat who doesn't even deserve help!"

He sighed slightly. "I don't agree with Professor X on a lot of things, but I do know that everyone deserves help," Havok said, before he turned and headed back inside. There wasn't much else he could say.

Sapphire bit her lip slightly, before making a split second decision to tell him the one thing that up until now only Veil knew about, and she raced after him. "I killed someone the exact same way that brat was saying she accidentally used her powers on someone else, I didn't know about my powers and that is literally how I discovered my own abilities. Except unlike her I can't brush it off and literally watched as another person fell to the ground frozen solid, looking like a big block of ice and shattered into a million pieces."

Havok paused for a moment, looking back at Sapphire. "Life isn't fair."

"Oh yeah, I know that for a fact, but that's the thing. I can't help someone who one wasn't exactly being too nice to me, and two who doesn't seem to give a damn about something like that. I just can't at all."

"Then tell Veil you aren't going to help the newbie and that's that, then."

"Oh, she's also going to definitely going to be not too thrilled by the blow up or whatever... I'll talk to her about it later."

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Jack Theriot

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Location: Morlock Tunnels
Skills: N/A

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Jack waved slightly at Max when he went through the portal, and he raised an eyebrow slightly at Casper and James. The two were hitting it off somewhat well, that much was obvious, and it made him wonder what exactly was going through his brother's head. Then again, he stopped wondering that sort of thing, considering the fact that Casper spent half the time talking to Ben a bit, and from the sounds of it before James healed Casper his brother had been talking to his ghost friend about him. That sort of thing was a bit annoying, especially considering the fact that he only could hear half the conversation.

Deciding to just ignore their conversation and what sounded like obvious flirting, Jack wandered over to check up on Sunshine, since she was being oddly quiet, and that could be a bit worrisome from what he could tell about the teen. "Hey there Rookie, how are you doing?" he asked her as he walked over, giving her a bit of a smile, before deciding to ask her something. "I have a question for you... Are you sure you want to get that brand on your face? There isn't any really going back from it, and it's a commitment for it... So are you really sure you want to do it?"

🦄 Machiavellian Masquerade - Chapter 1

Sister Penance

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Location: Confinement (Attic)
Skills: N/A
Hit Points: 4
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"I don't think he's the smartest one around, he's more of the opposite of it if you ask me," Penance said simply when Titian made the comment about him thinking he was being the smartest person in the room. That was a dumb sort of thought for him to think truly, and as far as she knew, nothing had really warranted it. Since several people had just pointed out the problems with the words that he had spoken, and now he thought he was smarter then everyone else because they called him out? That was just an idiotic way of thinking.

Then of course, the lights decided to go out, and she was wondering what the hell happened to cause that. "Well this is certainly a bit of a predicament. Unfortunately, I do not have any sort of light source in my possession, did not expect to need one considering we are in a house that for the most part had power until now... And that man, just because everyone else was not seeming to buy what he was saying when he decides to throw a temper tantrum and break down the door like that, a bit of an over reaction."

"Though a light source is the least of our worries at the moment, as heat likely will be the more concerning thing, it is getting to be a bit chilly now isn't it?" she commented, her eyes flickering around the room ever so slightly, not too sure really what anyone else would say about everything. Considering at the moment it was obvious that no one else seemed to have a light source at the moment, which likely would cause some problems, and there didn't seem to be anyone coming to the room to check up on them.