[SotP | June 2013]

[daretodo]

I feel like I actually have things to say this month, since… Basically my entire roster got a solid bit of character development in, but in lieu of making a big formal thing about it, with the pictures and what not, I'm just gonna do a quick recap (…until I word vomited everywhere).

☛ July Planning

- So… pretty much everyone's gone next month, right? If at all possible, I'd like to start hoarding private threads in June that I can post as needed throughout the summer, so if you've got an idea for something, holler and I'll set it up.

☛ Peter Parker

- Stepped up as the Lab rep for the Council. Getting Pete back on the Council has been a vague goal of mine since his meltdown two years ago, but I could never quite justifying him going through the nomination process again, just given where his head is at. Having him take on a Professional rep position was a nice compromise, since it spoke more to a personal sense of responsibility than any political ambition.

- Designed the RETs for Rapture. This was an idea I've been sitting on some time, since Pete's a canonical wizard when it comes to unusual forms of signals and tracking devices. It needed to be basic enough to be mass produced, so they aren't fancy, but I thought it might be an easy way to facilitate future plot.

- Hiding the fact that he's an empty husk of a person. That's the big one, and one I'm worried doesn't come across well-enough, given that his first-person narrative makes the reader tacitly complicit in his denial. It was a conscious decision on my part to play MJ 2.0's disappearance differently than the first, because I just didn't have the spoons to play him that volatile again, but essentially… He just hasn't dealt with it. He's barely spoken about it, he'd probably change the topic of conversation if it came up, and while this is physically taking its toll, he refuses to acknowledge that that's the reason why. Instead he cracks wise and tries not to let anyone look too close, with any and all kindness shown to him proving a constant source of surprise. (Poor Scott got all of my "AW, VALKYRIE IS SO ADORABLE, DON'T FUCK IT UP, JESS" flailing.) I could write an essay about this mental state, but suffice it to say that he is a tiny ball of mixed emotion shoved behind a brick wall. He doesn't want to feel anything, hence the return to work.

☛ Jamie Madrox

- Might be opening a pizza delivery service? Another idea I've been sitting on, because it's such a stupid idea -- but that's more or less supposed to be the point. X-Factor regularly points out silly superhero tropes while then engaging with them (cases in point: the naming of Strong Guy, the string of villains who declared themselves X-Factor's greatest enemy and then getting killed off before they'd ever even fought the team, etc), and I kind of like the notion of Jamie engaging in something that smacks of Gilligan's Island, with its coconut bowling alley and Harlem Globetrotters. I do actually have an idea of how it would work, but I'm going to wait until Rapture ends before taking the idea from 'Jamie and Layla talked about it after banging' to 'getting the thing built and finding staff.'

- 12 Angry Men. Will happen, also after Rapture. I was thinking he could do the casting in August, since July's no good for most folks. Actually kind of like the idea of doing auditions during Age/Sex switch for the lulz.

☛ Bucky Barnes

- Busy with Rapture. That's… More or less the bulk of it. He hates the place with every fibre of his being and can't stand going down there, but he's got work to do and so he does it with little complaint. Biggest priority right now is getting Lydia back to her family and ensuring more children aren't taken. So… That's what he's doing. He had a good thread with Steve and Tony that'll get posted on the 4th.

- Is buds with Spud. That gets its own point, because Spud is basically the only dude who's seen Bucky with a real smile on his face. Bucky's always most at ease with fellow soldiers, but with Spud, there's no complicated personal history or added formality of being his commanding officer. Just a simple new friendship.

☛ Matt Murdock

- Is going to be a father. Which I've known for a couple of months, now, but we were threading out the Home Plot in which he first made the discovery, and I'm quite pleased with how that turned out. Anyway, he's freaked out about it in a real, tangible way, and I'm kind of looking forward to playing out all the ways his latent Catholicism is going to reassert itself; he already proposed on the spot and you can be damn sure he's going to find a way to baptize that baby when it comes around.

☛ Thor Odinson

- Passed his two year anniversary. Had a really good showing for his EP, and I loved ALL of those threads. I'm particularly intrigued by the dynamics with the two Johnson brothers, as well as Danica, who is maybe my current favourite for ABSOLUTELY BIZARRE island friendships. He likes her a lot, but Jane's disappearance didn't happen too long ago, so he's a little torn between heart and certain carnal urges that he figured he'd outgrew. I'm using Jason Aaron's Thor: God of Thunder as a way to gauge just how much of a drunken, wenching Viking he was as a kid versus his mindset when he joined the Avengers, so… I mean, the compulsion to bang everything that moves is there, but it's also something he associates with the overall frivolity of his youth, which he's trying to get away from. One of the central themes of Thor was growing up, and he doesn't want to regress or betray Jane, especially with Hugin and Munin having just shown up. COMPLICATED THOR FEELINGS. WOO.

☛ Charles Xavier

- Had a home plot that I finally posted. Given that the nature of the home plot was more derping around in the sixties than anything intensely plot-oriented, it kinda meandered, but even with a lack of serious planning on my part, there was some good stuff in there that'll doubtlessly come into play again. If anything, it planted the idea of doing a time-loop set to Charles' exit point, if only so he could see that Erik's deviated enough from his movie path that he wouldn't put a Nazi coin through Shaw's head. Which would be nice! Maybe in a couple of months.

- Is now the Psych rep. I'd already decided months ago that Charles wouldn't run again as general rep but with this spot opening up, it made sense for him to do a lateral shift. I do have some plot ideas that are better suited with him in this position, but barring one that I'd like set up before August, I think I'll take it slow.

☛ Damian Wayne

- Is making rations for people heading down to Rapture. So if you don't want your character to be going hungry down there, well… They don't have to be anymore! Yay! Basically I wanted to give him something that was a) helpful and b) age-appropriate. His EP didn't get a lot of bites -- he remains, as ever, a very difficult character to have make friends -- but I still stand by the idea and hope people use it.

☛ Kate Bishop

- Getting out, making friends. Another one whose EP I thoroughly enjoyed. Half the reason I apped her again in the first place was wanting a way to interact with the younger half of the population, so I was pretty thrilled to get a chance to play off so many of them this month.

- Needs a reason to tell Billy and Teddy about what happened to their team. Which… she'd probably do this month, 'cause she's running out of reasons not to tell them. I might give her Pizza Dog as an item, as a way to kickstart the conversation. We will see, need to talk to Melly and Mala about that, I suppose.

☛ Future

- Maybe? I made reqs this month and there are a couple of folks I'm interested in, so I could technically reserve, but I probably won't. On the one hand, I'm kind of itching to play a doctor; I've only done it once, for… maybe a month, because it was just The Wrong Character for me to play at the time, and I've always wanted to try the profession again, albeit with someone else. On the other hand, I'm kind of itching to play an actual bad guy; I play a lot of dudes with huge guilt complexes who've done some pretty terrible things, but never someone who was actually pretty reprehensible and could, you know, live with it. The doctor would probably be easier to integrate, but the bad guy might be more interesting to play. Neither come with built-in canonmates, so I guess it just depends on a future whim.