Timefix: August 17th

(ie, well after the gods go public, but before their really big concert.)

El-Ahrairah had suggested the DAS-SQUEE Totally-Not-A-Botany-Lab; Yavanna had countered with the Courtyard; Ananke had proposed New Caledonia. Yavanna had suggested the Tparc Pterry (lots of trees), El-Ahrairah had countered with the Parc Tolkien (no trees, lots of grass), and Ananke had shown a surprising knowledge of the New Cal city and proposed the Arboretum.

So Yavanna sat on a bench outside the glass-domed buildings, tossing an Araucaria pine-cone from hand to hand. Most passers-by gave him a wide berth, though one teenaged agent did ask for his autograph. Apart from that, he just fumed quietly to himself, waiting for the other god to arrive.

So here we are! I have no idea what Yavanna's grudge against El-Ahrairah is - the two ideas that spring to mind are the dramatic ('your dad is harassing me and you're not doing anything about it') and the ridiculous ('your rabbit ate my sapling'), but it could be anything. :) Scape, if you've got an idea, stick it in.

An idea I didn't slot into this opening is that the regular Monday market in the Parc Tolkien (it's a grassy area just off the town square) has been moved to the square, because the field has been taken over for Party in the Parc prep. I'll work it in later if an opportunity presents itself.

hS

Timefix: August 7th (4 days after Yavanna's concert; 5 days after the Council of the Gods; 2 days after the beginning of Rumors)

There were a truly surprising number of auditoriums in HQ. Sure, everybody knew about the Large Auditorium, the Small Auditorium, and the Really Very Tiny Auditorium, but there had to be at least half a dozen more. Gaia wasn't sure how many people had known about the Who Do You Think You Are, Apollo? Auditorium before this, but he was pretty sure it'd be all over HQ by the time they were done with it.

He walked over the truly impressive stage again, making sure it would be able to stand up to or recover from anything the new gods could throw at it. ... Well, anything they could throw at it accidentally, anyways. They could probably break anything if they tried hard enough. He then slipped into the backstage area, which somehow managed to be even more impressive than the stage. It was so well-stocked that he wouldn't be surprised if somebody could live in the rooms back here - or several somebodies, really. And as for performance gear, well... there were at least fifty different guitars, more drum sets than he could count, enough microphones for a modern World One army, pianos, violins, flutes, tubas, and - well, he could be there for at least an hour listing off the instruments there that weren't barely-known oddities from an oft-forgotten corner of a canon maybe three people knew. And the storage room for those was so big he was surprised he hadn't found some sort of instrument dragon hiding away there. ... Though that did give him an idea for later.

Not that musical equipment was all of it, oh no - costumes of all sorts, for anything from a boyband to a Shakespearean production (though how much difference was there, really?), props and set pieces for plays, magic equipment - not that he really thought any of them would be bothering with that, but hey, someone might be into it - puppets of various sorts, and some really odd stuff - he thought he might have seen the equipment to record a movie buried in one of those rooms. Honestly, he hadn't had time really get into everything - maybe he'd ask the Ellimist to retroactively tell him before anybody else got here, or something, but he didn't think it'd be that big a deal. He had checked the quality on everything here, and was pretty sure it'd all meet the standards of the other gods. And if it didn't, well, he was pretty sure they'd find a way to whip up anything needed.

Back out to the front again, this time to survey where the audience would be. This auditorium was definitely larger than the Large Auditorium, but how much, he couldn't say. Honestly, there might only be a hundred or so extra chairs relative to that one, and he might not notice, but the large, empty space, which would probably end up serving as a dance floor tonight unless literally all the gods chose something you couldn't really dance to, between the stage and the seats meant this auditorium could probably seat at least two thousand with the extra chairs that were stored there. He grinned, imagining what would come. Some might call it hubris. Some would reply that hubris is a concept for people who aren't gods. Some would say to that that, given the fluctuating numbers of PPC employees, how could he be sure there were two thousand or more people who could even attend? Some would answer by saying that anything is possible when you believe, and are also, you know, a god. Some would question how that answered anything. Some would ignore that question and continue fantasizing about the huge numbers their concert was going to pull. They were gods, after all - by the end of tonight, this room would be packed, he was certain of it.

He pulled out his... well, phone was the closest word, and checked the clock, then nodded to himself. He'd gotten it right this time - it was just about time for the other gods to show up. He'd arranged it so they'd get at least a bit of time to themselves, hopefully, to get ready for everything, clear up any problems, make sure that everything would run smoothly, and unless some of Yavanna's audience from last time were especially eager, they'd have the run of the place for a while. ... Or, well, that, or unless someone stumbled across the giant, multicolored jade construct he'd attached to the entryway to make sure nobody missed the place. That could also happen. But really, he was sure it'd be fine - now, it was just time to wait for the rest to arrive.

So, looks like I'll give this a go! As is probably obvious but I figure I'll say it anyways, this is intended to be a performance by several of the gods - and if everyone is interested in sliding in, I'd honestly be thrilled. As it stands, I'm thinking I'll leave this for at least a day or two, to make sure everybody's gotten a chance to have their god show up and mark their place, before the show properly starts.

I'm somewhat tentatively setting the date to August 7th - I think that ought to work as a relatively early point in the month, and is early enough that it's possible that nobody else has performed yet, though I'm definitely not definitively positioning this as everyone but Yavanna's first performance, and gives it enough time after Yavanna's concert for word to have really spread, and enough time after the Council for everyone who heard about it there to have time to design their performances.

For performance order... well, I'm open to suggestions if this doesn't sound like it will work, but otherwise, I'm going to say, for at least an idea of how we'll kick things off, that I'd appreciate it if everyone could say if they'd rather perform towards the beginning, middle, or end. When things properly kick off, I'll randomly pick someone who's interested in performing towards the beginning to start us off, which will be in this section under the actual beginning. If you're willing to be in that pool, please make sure you can have a decent expectation of posting a performance within twenty-four hours of the kick-off going up. If you're pretty sure you'll be able to do that and something changes, just send me a message (preferably over Discord, though I'll try and check my email) or edit your post - I'll double-check everyone's preferences before the kick-off to make sure I've got a good idea of when everyone wants to go. Once the kick-off is up, if you've got a specific spot you'd like, feel free to message me if there's a specific slot you'd like, though that will be first-come, first-served.

As another note, if anybody has any ideas for interesting things they'd like to go down during their performances, go ahead and swing those by each other and/or me - as long as however it's done doesn't start to slow down the train, I certainly have no objections. And while I'm thinking about the substance of the performances, consider the technology sufficiently advanced enough and the magic dramatic enough that you can include whatever special effects you want, and it can easily be assumed that any preparations were done during the shifts between gods.

And speaking of the shifts! This RP is also open to anybody who isn't playing a god. There will be enough time between performances for conversations to happen and such, which for the moment I'm thinking will happen in sub-sub-threads. It's also definitely possible for the gods to wander through the crowd when they're not on stage - Gaia almost certainly will be, when he's not making sure everything's running smoothly!

Alright. That's all the notes I can think of for now, so let's see what happens from here!

Timefix: August 5th (2 days after Yavanna's concert)

Have you heard?

What they're saying in HQ!

Agent Kaitlyn (Department of Floaters, but in her heart really DCPS) looked up from her drink. "Oh hey, this sounds fun!"

"It won't be," Selene predicted, swirling her own glass. "That's Kayleigh and bjam; when was the last time Team Morale Officer did anything actually fun?"

"On their behalf: ouch," Kaitlyn said, pressing a hand to her chest. "They do their best."

"I'm sure they do."

Amongst the Sues and agents grim

To sing their songs to you!

"See?" Selene flicked a hand at Kayleigh, who was now dancing on the table. "It's just a self-referential meta-filk."

"But kind of bouncy," Kaitlyn said, bopping her head. "Come on, this is a bit fun."

"It's really not."

They're a rumour,

Or on I-CEP.

"It's not even a very good filk," Selene grouched. "You can't stand on a table and shout about how nobody's heard of you."

"I'm not... sure..." Kaitlyn turned in her chair and watched the pair. "I don't think this is about them. I think I've heard the same rumours."

Selene blinked. "What?"

They're a rumour

A feel-great program in a single step!

"That's right!" Kaitlyn jumped up, knocking her chair over. "There's meant to be these singer-deities who've just reappeared in HQ after ninety years!"

Selene stared at her. "But the PPC's only-"

"And when they sing it's like... well, I don't know what it's like," Kaitlyn admitted, "but I want to!"

"There hasn't been a PPC for ninety-" Selene tried again.

Kaitlyn drained her drink dry and beamed at her partner. "I'm gonna go find out more," she said. "You coming?"

"No, I'll just-" Selene began, but Kaitlyn was already running off across the cafeteria. The vampire stared after her, then laid her head down on the table with a thunk. "And to think," she told her half-full glass, "this started out such a normal day..."

This is not intended to interrupt any ongoing RPs (such as the Council), or to say that nothing else can happen before the 5th. I'm just opening up the options... this micro-RP is not expected to feature the gods themselves, but rather the rest of HQ gossiping about them. What have they heard? I have no idea!

Anyone can participate, whether they're also writing a god or not. It's been generally agreed that we shouldn't reference a god's performance until their author has written or described at least one. So feel free to talk about Yavanna's concert(s, possibly?), but no others - unless you're that god's writer! If you don't want to actually write a performance, this is an opportunity to get even a vague idea down on paper.

Kayleigh and bjam are here to be interacted with if you want, but you can also just strike up conversations elsewhere in the cafeteria. :)

hS

Timefix: 2 August 2020

"Once again, we return."

Each of the gods had received an invite to the gathering. Not all had responded - some had no interest in their fellows, some found more interesting things to do, some found themselves unavoidably detained.

Those who attended found a large circular table, each of its twelve chairs ("thrones" would be too grandiose a word, though a couple did appear to be Galactic Tyrant-brand Executive Pivoting Helium-Cushioned Mobile Thrones of Glory) marked with the symbol of a god. Ananke stood by the door, greeting each of them as they arrived. When all had settled into place, she walked slowly around the table and began to speak.

"Children," she said, a smile creasing her lips, "welcome to the Recurrence. By now you have all come to know who you truly are, and to remember the things you can do. This is well and good - you are the gods, and your powers are your right and privilege."

Her blue eyes darkened a little behind her veil, as if shadowed by past memories. "But be cautious in the miracles you share. Even in this place," she flicked a hand, taking in the whole of HQ, "mortals are fragile beings. The divine should not toy with the lives of the earthly, even if - or should I say, when - they reject and resent you.

"You will be hated. You will be loved. But most of all," the smile flashed across her face again, "you will be brilliant. And I am here to serve you. Simply ask, and I will share with you all that I know. For you are the children, and I am Ananke, and this is how it has always been."

There she is at last - trouble Necessity herself. I'm actually really pleased with how her portrait turned out.

This is after all the ascensions, but before Yavanna's concert. The gods are currently known mostly to whoever's run into them, and their musical powers are essentially unknown.

If it comes up, the circle image is the seating plan in the chamber. So Yavanna, for instance, is between the Ellimist and the Raven Queen.

I'll kick-start the RP - Yavanna has something to say - but after that go nuts. The gods can talk to each other (though wait until someone is known to be there), or to Ananke. Feel free to write her responses yourself if you want, but I'll also be around to answer questions in-character.

One note about the setup that I should get out of the way, intended solely for those who've read/looked up The Wicked + The Divine: Spoiler mostly for the end of this event.

If anyone needs to know more about why all of this is happening (looking at your investigation, Scape, which I think is brilliant by the way), feel free to drop me an email. I can provide spoilers for either WikDiv or this event, but obviously prefer not to do so here!

hS

HQ could be so fascinating.

At least, that's what the little girl currently wandering through the halls was thinking. Selena Hawke had stumbled through a plothole. Again. This wasn't exactly a new occurrence for her. As long as her brother was here, she'd probably keep popping up. For now, though, she took the chance to walk her way through the halls and enjoy her free time.

She rounded a corner, narrowly twirling around a woman who was standing in the hall. Selena gave a cheerful wave, about to greet the woman before she noticed the veil. "Salve, Signora, are you alright?" The girl knew enough to understand what that veil meant. "Is there anything you need?"

Her attention was momentarily distracted when a glass ball rolled into her foot. She glanced down, then picked it up and looked up and down the hall. They were the only ones there. She had no clue where it came from, but after a moment she noticed it start to glow.

"Signora, is this yours?" Selena thought the lady might have smiled at that, though the veil made it hard to tell.

"No. It's yours."

~~

So, descriptions: Selena is a fairly normal looking 10 year old girl. Black hair, with a single brown streak in the front. Blue eyes, a short floral dress, and a massive smile.

As for her role, she's taking the role of Meridia. Best image I could find for her: Here you go. Particulars are entirely up to you, but I'm assuming something light based, given Meridia is a goddess of Light, Life, and Energy.

Hopefully that's a good intro, and thanks for the fun Hs!

Jiwon was walking down the halls of PPC HQ, headed for the Cafeteria while at the same time trying to not think about going to the Cafeteria. His fox tail swished behind him as he walked, twitching upwards on occasion when it brushed the floor. He fiddled with the pearl necklace hanging around his neck, making sure it was still there. It was, and he mentally relaxed a little before continuing his casual walk down the corridors.

He silently hoped he wouldn’t run into anyone on the way. Growing up as a sheltered, upper-class kid in his homeverse didn’t exactly make him the most social of people. It didn’t help that there had been the whole cultural “hiding the fact that you’re a kumiho from the humans” he had to constantly worry about as well. It was honestly one of the reasons he liked this place; not having to always wear a hat or tuck your tail into your pants for hours was nice.

He rounded a corner and nearly bumped into a veiled old woman dressed entirely in black standing in the middle of the corridor. At first, Jiwon thought she was waiting for someone, but when he began to pass her, he couldn’t help but notice her head slowly turning to follow his movements, and he stopped.

Jiwon was a little concerned.

Then her entire body turned to face him, and then he was really concerned.

“Um… ma’am?” he mumbled, then the wind picked up. Then he noticed, at the end of the hall, what appeared to be a floating, slowly spinning umbrella drifting down the corridor towards the two of them. He was starting to go from concerned to outright spooked.

“What’s going on-” he started, but the old woman calmly raised a hand, palm outward, and he stopped.

Their eyes locked, and Jiwon found himself unable to look away. The wind picked up speed, and the umbrella at the end of the hall picked up speed, spinning and gliding faster and faster towards him, and-

Alright, then. I think it took me way too long to think of this, but here we go.

So, description. Jiwon’s a 16-year-old Korean and kind of short, standing around five and a half feet tall. He has fox ears and a tail due to being a kumiho, and his resting expression looks somewhat tired. He’s clean shaven and has straight black hair, with his bangs pushed to the side out of his eyes. He sometimes wears traditional Korean hanbok with a pearl necklace from home, but he doesn’t have to be if it fits the scene better. Or if you think you can work it into the god form, that might be fun too.

Er. Speaking of. I was thinking of Mary Poppins. I think it might be kind of a stretch (she’s never directly referred to as a god or anything), but she does some really weird things in some of the books and stageplays that go a bit past the whole Disney magical nanny thing and dips into some honestly less fairy-tale-esque and more freaky stuff. I think there’s this one scene in the musical where she up and banishes someone to hell in a cage.

But anyways, I think it would be kinda funny to see how this setup works. If it’s acceptable, that is. If it isn’t, feel free to tell me. Even so, it was fun to write this.

Anyways, thanks for the whole setting-up thing! It’s fun reading.

The hyena cub bounded back and forth as they came around the corner. “Lunch time! Lunch time!”

Ilcharheen smiled down at Alfajiri. “Yes, I’m ready to eat, too.”

Alfajiri froze and pricked his ears forwards, left, right. “What’s going on?”

Ilcharheen stopped and looked around. “What? I don’t see any—” But that was the problem. There were no other students in the hallway. “Oh, this doesn’t feel right.”

Alfajiri lifted his nose into the air and started sniffing, loudly. “Someone’s here, though. No . . . not a someone . . .” He suddenly raced off, nose to the ground, trailing something down the hall.

Ilcharheen’s eyes widened, and she took off after her friend. “Don’t leave me alone! What is it?”

Between snuffles, Alfajiri muttered, “Don’t know, new smell.” He sniffed his way into an open classroom door.

Ilcharheen caught up and had one brief moment to see Alfajiri’s ears prick up and his head whip around, before the door slammed shut between them. She stared, paralyzed for a moment.

“Ilcharheen?” Alfajiri started scrabbling at the other side of the door, the scratching of his claws muffled.

“Alfa!?” Ilcharheen lunged forward and grabbed the knob, but it was locked. She turned it frantically, then started pounding on the door. “Alfa!” She looked up and down the hallway, hoping for someone to help, and not quite getting her wish.

The veiled woman was right behind her. Through the veil, Ilcharheen could see the woman’s eyes: a beautiful, powerful blue, radiating a sense of wonder and ancient mystery.

Ilcharheen had grown up in the Calormene Empire. She had been raised to distrust eyes like those.

The eyes of the lion.

Ilcharheen found herself gasping for air and shrank down against the wall, helpless before her culture’s greatest boogeyman. “Aslan!” she shrieked.

“Wait, really?” asked Alfajiri through the door.

“No, not him,” the woman said, reaching down towards her. “Not him at all . . .”

~ ~ ~

I don’t think I’ve actually described Ilcharheen yet at any point. We can just stick with standard Calormene features: black hair, brown eyes, dark skin, patterned robe (feel free to skip patterning for time’s sake), pointy-toe shoes.

And she is indeed becoming Tash, the Lucifer stand-in of Narnia. Because when hS used Aslan as an example, my brain immediately went, “But what if, instead of that, the opposite of that?”

—doctorlit has a weird fascination with Tash, honestly

Henry Robinson was feeling grouchy. This wasn't an especially uncommon occurrence these days, but it was extra-unpleasant on the heels of what had been a pretty fun camp-out in the Miss Cam Courtyard. A few Sprout Posies had all gotten together, so there had been lots of kids around, including some that Henry didn't see at all otherwise, like the two Illian-Sims girls. Of their family, he liked Tanfin better—Tanfin was older, and he was cool, albeit maybe a little bit too cool for Henry—but he'd aged out a couple years ago. Jasmine, however, was his age, and Bella was just a year younger. Henry wasn't a huge fan of Bella, because she'd had a tendency to glomp him when they were younger, and he hadn't forgiven her yet. As for Jasmine, sometimes she was fun, but other times she was just... Henry didn't know. You couldn't say someone was a girl like it was a bad thing. But, he thought very quietly to himself, she was, though.

And here he was, stuck with the two of them, the last ones to get picked up this morning. They were annoyed that Tanfin was late, and Henry was grouchy because he'd stayed up late and he was tired and Sprouts was stupid anyway, and Bella kept trying to cheer him up, and Jasmine was ignoring him when he really wanted to talk to her instead, and he just didn't want to be here anymore.

It wasn't fair. Somehow, he'd thought turning eleven back in February would solve all his problems, but it hadn't. He'd thought he would feel older; he'd thought people would treat him differently; he'd thought he would at least be a bit taller. Bella had gotten taller than he was, and so what if she was half elf, it was still insult added to injury. And he'd still had to wait some more until he could go to Hogwarts (HFA, really, but close enough), the thing he most looked forward to in the whole entire multiverse, and even now it was still thirty whole days off. And why was he still waiting here when Ilraen was supposed to come get him and hang out with him the rest of the day until Mom was done with work? Sometimes he wished the time would hurry up and go already.

In the midst of glaring down at the ground and poking a fresh hole in it with a stick, he heard Bella say something. He looked up to tell her again to leave him alone, but stopped short with his mouth hanging open.

There was a woman in black standing there. A veil covered her face, but Henry knew she was looking at him, somehow. Her eyes were so blue...

(( Jasmine and Bella appear with permission from hS. Couldn't resist running with the Sprouts setup. ^_^

(( Henry, for anyone who doesn't know, is the Mpreg child of Harry Potter by Severus Snape, and he rather looks it. He has a long face and a tendency to look like he's scowling when he's really just thoughtful. He's begun growing his hair out, because he got the Potter "perpetually messy" curse and he figures being able to tie it back will help, and also cool people have long hair.

(( And he's about to become the avatar of the Ellimist, which may or may not mean turning blue...? {= D

(( ~Neshomeh is not normally awake this early, but since she happens to be up at the moment, figured she'd get this in while there's still time! ))

Bored. Again.

This happened, from time to time - whatever had caught his fancy suddenly lost its luster, and Apecian, now having nothing to fix his attention on, was left very, very, very bored. But he wasn't one to sulk about it - well, he tried not to be, anyways. So he was here, in the Courtyard, idly looking for someone who wouldn't mind doing something with him.

You wouldn't think you'd be able to find a tangle of trees as thick as the one he was currently walking through in this sort of place, but, well, HQ had a way of twisting itself up and throwing impossibilities at you that you just sort of had to get used to. Not that landscapes weren't completely insane in actual worlds half the time, anyways.

As he picked his way over a snarl of roots, he saw a woman, dressed in black. He broke into a grin and started walking towards her - yes, a person! - then paused when he saw the veil over her face. That was one of those mourning veils, wasn't it? Should he back off for a while, give her some space...? But, no - she wasn't crying, or anything, and was actually walking towards him. He nodded to himself, and started towards her again.

"Hey there," he called, once she was within earshot. "Do I know you?" Didn't hurt to ask, what with how some people went through faces around here.

Apecian was pretty sure she smiled at that, but those eyes - those eyes - made it even harder to tell than it would have been otherwise.

"Yes," she said.

Alright, so let's go! First, the easy part - descriptions! Apecian is a lightly-built guy, just shy of six feet, and has dark, slightly curly hair that he would keep short if it ever bothered to grow that much. His eyes have slit pupils, and it's rare to catch him without at least a bit of a smile on his face. For a (hopefully) usable image reference, allow me to pull his from his page and put it here.

... Goodness gracious that's back from when everyone was using Rinmaru wow I need to write something Soon yeesh.

Anyways - as for who he'll be taking the role of? I'm going with Exalted's Gaia. She's not the Greek Earth Mother, I'm pretty sure she's just called Gaia because whenever you have a character with earth-ish powers and anything resembling a maternal bent. It's not the maternal aspect I'm focusing on here, though - Exalted's Gaia is effectively the concept of Growth itself. She is - for a very oversimplified description which mightn't be wholly accurate since I may or may not be speedrunning rulebooks (2E, if you're curious) as a refresher to make sure I get in on time and most of them are very light on details about her - the idea of a thing being able to become more than it is. I'm pretty sure, anyways. She does have powers over the natural world of Creation, but those may or may not apply here since those powers come from it being her literal body, in the same way as the other Primordials have control over their bodies (though theirs are a lot weirder).

Assuming this is an acceptable submission, for his godly form, whatever he's wearing might be best if it looks... complete, but incomplete. Like there's something more yet to be added. Or maybe just like he hasn't quite grown into it yet. And now that I think about it, it probably ought to have some draconic elements added in, and fire, water, and air influences. And also probably ought to have some... actually, honestly, I'm not entirely sure what aesthetic Exalted is going for. ... Or if that's too much, which it could be and which is perfectly understandable, a more classic earth deity aesthetic with minimalistic senses would work. By which I mean chop off as much as feels amusing, because what's the point of fancy clothes if you're just going to literally burst out of them in a minute or three anyways?

...or at least, she had every intention of being busy. As she padded through the halls of headquarters, she mentally catalogued the possibilities for today. She needed to train, she needed to spend more time in a human disguise, she needed to find some trinkets or tradeable things so she could start saving up, but all those thoughts seemed to be slipping out of her mind. She simply kept padding along the concrit floors, a vague stew of regret bubbling in her thoughts. She shook her head in an attempt to clear it. "There's no time to think about them, alright? I just need to go," she told herself. "What's done is done. Leave the dead behind." She decided she'd go to the holodeck, get some training done. She'd do a thousand other useful things that day, too, just to make a point to herself. But as she took her first step and started to find something to not-focus on, her eyes snapped towards an old woman, a woman that surely hadn't been there before. She slunk close to the floor, having decided that she did not trust whoever this might be. Despite the Calico's attempts to evade the woman, Ananke looked at her, and the Calico saw. She felt a wound open in her side as she began to fall.

((So, The Ambitious Calico is, fortunately, a calico. Slightly smaller than you might expect of a housecat, but other than that she looks as you'd expect a calico to look. Her eyes are a typical feline yellow. She occasionally wears a belt/skirt covered in pouches/bags, but just as often doesn't. I've given her Stone, from her home canon of Fallen London... if you need help with Stone, please let me know, Fallen London is extremely stingy with its lore. Stone is a mountain known as the Mountain of Light in the South of the Neath, and is generally connected to themes of sacrifice, healing, life, and kindness, for the curious. Apologies for the odd lorebits.))

Maryanne didn't know how it got in there, but it was very interesting to watch - it looked sort-of like a crane, only it was black and had a weird frill around the base of its neck with a white-orange-red gradient. It didn't seem to care about its surroundings or the small number of kids staring at it.

A small sprite highly reminiscent of a peacock shifted in unease from where she was tucked against the crook of Maryanne's neck. "I don't trust that thing," Pommi said softly, a mild quiver in her voice.

"I didn't know peacocks were territorial." Maryanne snickered, though her tone was light and clearly in jest.

Pommi groaned, probably rubbing her face in exasperation. "We're not having this conversation again. I'm not literally a peacock and that bird should not be trusted."

"It's just a bird." Maryanne waved off Pommi's concerns. "Not like it can do anything-"

The bird opened its beak and the split-second that took was all the warning they got before the air filled with the overwhelming sound of a beast. Maryanne stumbled backwards and tripped over a chair, her startled cry lost in the cacophony of children screaming and crying and that damn bird.

The ruffling sound of wings hitting air abruptly approached and something scraped against Maryanne's forehead, yanking at her bangs and then it was gone, the pain fading to a dull ache. Maryanne didn't even need to touch her hair to know that her hair clip was gone, Pommi was gone.

She didn't remember stumbling to her feet or charging out of the Nursery in chase of the bird. Afterward, all she could remember of the chase was light glinting off of the ornate hair clip sticking out of the thing's beak.

Maryanne stumbled to a halt somewhere in the Generic Halls of HQ, leaning against the wall for support as she caught her breath. There wasn't time before to really feel anything, but now that she was forced to stop there was nothing to hold back her fear and panic because Pommi was gone.

There was a clink of something metal falling to the ground. As Maryanne looked around for the source, something caught her eye and her body lurched forward before she could think. Only when she felt the smooth metal of her Miraculous clenched tight in both hands did she become aware of the fact that she was ungracefully sprawled over the floor in her haste, at the feet of the demon in bird form that'd stolen Pommi in the first place.

Maryanne didn't have the energy to do much other than glare. This did not seem to concern the bird.

As her breathing quieted, a soft tapping of steps could be heard. An old woman in mourning clothes appeared, and with that appearance the bird was gone.

They locked eyes. Maryanne blinked, and then everything was different.

Maryanne is taking up the mantle of Lady Kee'ra, a protector/warrior figure known for using a dagger. Maryanne herself is almost a carbon-copy of Marinette, though switch out the pigtails for a side ponytail and the white shirt with a solid red one.

Lady Kee'ra's design, as are the designs of her weapons, is based off of the warbaa'd (the bird that stole Pommi's Miraculous, in fact). She's cloaked in a sacred battle robe, and on the forehead of her mask is the Khura'inese character for death, a mark of resolve to fight to the end. Also! There's an in-universe TV show inspired by the legend of Lady Kee'ra, called The Plumed Punisher and it's a very good condensation/modernization(?) of Lady Kee'ra's design (the green shape is a magatama, a common item of spiritual power in Khura'inism).

And I'm stopping myself there. Let's say the the wiki pages alone were not up to my standards of fixation detail.

Alleb did not often have time to herself, but when she did, she went to the shrine.

She wasn’t sure when she had first discovered the shrine: it had been sometime during the early days, when electric lights had blinded her and the sight of red eyes--human, electronic, vampiric, alien--had sent her hand straight to her sword. The shrine had blended in almost perfectly with all the other wonders of this strange new world. Almost. It had stuck in her mind just enough that, when the dust had settled and she had re-established some manner of order in her life, she had remembered it. Had sought it out. It had taken days of searching the hills of New Caledonia to find it again. Like most of HQ, it seemed to run when pursued directly. She’d had to hunt out of the corner of her eye, immerse herself in the transient beauty of the grass and the flowers, distract herself just enough to only barely notice when it appeared in the periphery of her sight.

There. Hidden among the rocks in a little valley, shrouded by trees: a small half-collapsed monument of white stone.

She had it now, and she was able to turn and face it directly without the sight shrinking away. It was a small circular building, the roof domed and topped with a little spire. It was a room without walls, not meant for shelter, made of white stone and partially covered in dead ivy. The trees seemed to open up for her as she approached, their fallen leaves whispering away from her blue cloak. She was a splash of color in this place. The surrounding rocks were all in greys, the sparse plants either brown or faded sage, the monument itself a blank white. Wind whistled through the boulders and she shivered pleasantly, pulling her cloak tighter at the chill.

She walked up the three shallow steps and entered the monument. Stillness settled on her as a second cloak. Her eyes closed to slits, glinting blue briefly, and she took in a breath. She let her hands fall out of her cloak, palms outward, open.

This was a place of certainties, she thought. A place that knew what it was and what it would be and what would happen to it. A place that contained all the loneliness and all the peace of a graveyard and a sanctuary.

There was a sound behind her, a scrape on the stones, incongruous with the peace. Alleb spun, shocked. No one, nothing, had ever found her here. She had thought it was impossible.

A woman stood just outside the monument, one foot on the top step. She was dressed in widow’s weeds, black as night, black as a raven’s wing. She stepped up, her face wreathed in dark lace that completely obscured her.

“Pardon, lady,” Alleb said, bowing. “If you have respects to pay, I will leave.” She straightened and took only a single step towards the woman before a gloved hand barred her way. Startled, she looked back up at the woman, and through the lace their eyes met.

Alleb dropped to one knee, not daring to take her eyes away. “A messenger,” she breathed, “an angel.”

The blue of the woman’s eyes flashed and glowed, and Alleb’s own brown eyes flashed blue to meet them, and she could feel herself rising--becoming--ascending.

To death, maybe, she thought. Or to some greater adventure, some task which required more of her than she had to give. She closed her eyes as she felt herself transform and knew--a certainty--that it would be a great task indeed.

What's this, an Alleb? Egads!

For those of you confused by my sudden appearance: I was pretty active in the PPC about three or four years ago, but I don't think I've posted on the Board for about that long. I've been lurking since quarantine started but never found the right time to fully pop back in on the Board--until now! Thank you for putting this on, hS; I love the concept! Also, uh, how are you? And all the other lovely Boarders? It has been a while!

Oh, yes, RP stuff: Agent Alleb has become the Raven Queen! I debated a bit on what to choose, but the white shrine appeared in my mind and I Needed it so here we are. Alleb looks like this, and it'd be real cool if she could have like, a raven wing cloak or something. I dunno, I leave the design particulars to your discretion, hS! Maybe some kind of mask/crown? The Raven Queen is rather mysterious.

Also, a note on the eye color stuff: Alleb has brown eyes, but a trait of her people (Glimpses) is that their eyes will "glint" certain colors based on their loyalties. Alleb's glint blue.

Anyone, thanks again hS; I'm looking forward to the divine hijinks!

-Alleb

Sure, Elanor's birthday wasn't until November, and he was absolutely risking her finding the child-sized tool kit he'd enlisted Alex's help to find, but it would be worth it to see the smile on her face.

...Even if that smile would likely be a mischievous one after he would find her in the middle of unwrapping it the next day. Oh well; he never missed the chance to spoil the Time Tot, since her own mother certainly couldn't.

He rounded a corner and paused when he saw the old woman standing in the middle of the corridor, her face covered by a veil. Zeb had watched far too many horror movies with the Aviator—usually through his fingers, or with his face hidden behind his paws—to not instantly be put on high alert by her presence. Still, she seemed a little lost, so he took a half-step backwards, hugging the clumsily-wrapped present a little more tightly to his chest.

"Um... excuse me?" he called, and he got the horrible feeling the woman was smiling at him. "Are you okay?"

And then the smell of ozone filled the air.

Looks like Zeb's been tapped to become Kord! God of storms and lord of battle—a perfect fit for an Electric Pokémon, ne? :P (And yes, he's in his human form at the moment, which looks like this.)

Kittyauthor sighed, tapping her pencil, staring off into space. O'Ryan, on the other hand, was scribbling down numbers and letters, solving an equation he made himself, or, at the very least, trying to see if there was an answer. Sometimes, x was equal to everything, sometimes nothing. It was always fun to see where an equation would end.

Kitty, on the other hand, just wasn't really in the mood (which, for her, is strange) to solve the multiple equations she had given herself. She wanted to go wander the halls, get herself lost. She didn't quite know why. She had, for the longest time, felt lost. Lost, trying to fight the ghosts. It was her being a Mii in the past that made her look so young. She was only about three feet and two inches, less than half of O'Ryan's six and a half foot height. It made her look like she was ten or twelve. But yet, despite her past, she kept centering on that word.

Lost, lost within the labyrinth of the HQ, lost in Generic Surface, lost in–

"Kitty?"

Kitty jumped, jarring herself out of her own thoughts.

"Kitty, what's wrong? You're not acting like yourself," O'Ryan said, putting down his pencil. Due to his curse, said pencil had rolled off his table. "Dang it."

Kitty stopped tapping her pencil. "Nothing really. Still just thinking..." She sighed and got up from her seat. "I'm going to wander. Mind if I borrow your MP3 player?"

"Sure..." O'Ryan said. He wasn't sure why Kitty wanted to suddenly go for a walk. "Are you sure you're–"

"I'm fine, O'Ryan. Just... lost in my own thoughts today," Kitty replied. She grabbed the MP3 player and her headphones, then walked out of the RC.

She hummed as she went through the song list, finding something that was loud and distracting. She was so lost in finding that song that she didn't even notice the older woman until she bumped into her.

"Oh! I'm sorry!" Kitty quickly said. "I was just–"

The woman looked down at her. She wore a veil over her face, reminding Kitty of the wedding veil that many people wore, but it was black. That was the color she wore. Black. All black. Kitty shivered. Her eyes... a dazzling blue, not at all the the sky, or O'Ryan's eyes, but not like a Sue's eye. It sort of reminded her of... What did it remind her of? She kept looking at the eyes, so blue, so blue...

Snap

Changes Kitty's age again

So, uh, yeah. Kitty is three and a half feet tall, although you can make her god form taller. Here's what she looks like And, well, you know which god I chose. Lucian. That's why I had her focus her on the color blue because Lucian certainly has a lot of blue in his outfit.

Don't mind me being a bit awkward. This is the first Emergency second PPC RP I've participated in, so I'm still a little new at this.

But yeah. I hope that intro was okay.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Tiled floors, measured paces. The tap of a cane's heel on the floor, measured little metronome of sound, two steps each, one off the beat, one on. The heels of his top boots made more of a tap on the tiles, but they were in perfect time. Always. It was that or... well, right now, or did not bear thinking about. Even alone.

Click.

Especially alone.

Click.

Agamemnon kept walking. Parade stiff, head high, every inch the confident and charming Regency dandy for all that he was but seventeen years. He was refined. His tailcoat was a rich red, a literal wine-dark rather than Homeric, that emphasized his slender waist and broadened his rather slight shoulders. His hard-wearing buff overcoat was pristine, though a discerning eye could spot areas where it had been diligently repaired and patched after encounters in the field. His boots gleamed, his cravat was elegantly knotted, the silver ferrule and handle of his cane shone like twin moons in the night sky of dark oak. He might have been in a tiled corridor walking away again, but in his mind's eye he could picture himself walking down the Strand, a man about town, a scholar, an officer, and a consummate gentleman.

Click.

And the more he imagined it, the less he saw of the brightly lit, airy surroundings of the DAS-SWEAR research facility.

Click.

And that was all to the good.

Click.

Click.

Poink wait what?

He looked down. The rabbit looked up. It was understandably aggrieved at having its reverie interrupted by a stout stick bouncing off its head. After affixing him with a glare that was entirely too intelligent for comfort, it hopped away down a darkened corridor, white bobtail flashing like a lighthouse in the gloom.

And against every single instinct in his rational mind, Agamemnon followed the rabbit. Because as peculiar a place as DAS-SWEAR was, and as preoccupied as he was, he was absolutely d*mned certain that there hadn't been a rabbit there when he'd glanced idly at the round a moment before.

He turned on his heel and walked down the dark corridor, pace brisk, stick in hand. It seemed to go on entirely too long, and get darker than DAS-SWEAR's environs had in years. He saw eyes, or the ghosts of eyes, flickering from open doorways as their owners zipped away to some safe hiding place. There were so many. But he followed the beacon white tail still, not knowing quite why, just that it was important.

More eyes came through the gloom, and Agamemnon was suddenly unsure how long he had been following the rabbit, or even how far. And now, he stopped, because the rabbit had. It had turned around to look at him, and there were so many more, and then Agamemnon looked up and up further into the imperious-radiant-blue eyes of-

"Stop," she said.

Agamemnon paused, and looked down briefly. The first three inches of his swordstick's blade were already leaving its scabbard, his knuckles white with the pressure of his grip, his stance low and purposeful like a knife-fighter. Every instinct was screaming at him to keep going, that this was an incursion of some manner or other, that the ancient-looking woman in the black gauze mask was dangerous, look at the eyes, nothing not born of glitter has eyes that blue, d*mn your fear and look into the eyes-

"Once again," she said.

Agamemnon sheathed his blade, muscle memory and years of training scattering like leaves. He looked around and saw all those hundreds and thousands of glinting eyes, soft does, solid bucks, mad hares, gathering like clouds before rain.

"We return," she said.

Agamemnon straightened. His swordstick swung briefly, an idle motion, before it fell from his shaking hand.

The woman smiled.

The rabbits leapt.

Click.

Agamemnon Wymbourne will, as if it wasn't entirely obvious, be taking on the godhood of El-Ahrairah. Because frankly it'd be awesome and also I want to make hS draw a bunny boy.

For that matter, let's discuss Agamemnon's appearance. He's quite short for his age by modern standards, at around five foot six and not doing much more in the way of growing. He still shaves, no massive hipster beard yet, and he has short sandy hair and kind, worried eyes. He dresses like a Regency gentleman, as described above - though he is slowly modernizing, as shown here by the absence of hat. This picture should give you an idea of the silhouette I'm going for, though you'll need to take away the hat and add a cravat and, hopefully, bunny ears. =]

I'm not familiar with this canon at all, so please tell me if I've got something egregiously wrong here. While it might just have been beginner's luck, the last time I started doing something without knowing what the hell I was on about, it turned out pretty well. =]

Could I use a god I made up or does the god have to be in an established canon already?

Also, would it be appropriate if I showed Kitty's partner, O'Ryan, being a little scared at Kitty not being herself (not being "Kitty" anymore, I mean. But still having her personality, like you established.)?

At first glance, the posted pasted to the Cafeteria's door wasn't particularly unusual. Of course, officially Building Maintenance came down with a tonne of bricks on anyone affixing things on their fixtures, but that had never stopped anyone before. This one showed a tree in autumn, which (other than starting a minor argument over whether it should actually be Fall, or perhaps Fading) seemed pretty uncontroversial. Just an ordinary picture of a tree, done in orange and red paint.

Then the first leaf fell.

PPC agents started to gather around the poster. They poked the painted leaves, jumped back when another one somehow peeled away and drifted away - and then, PPCers being who they are, went right back to poking. It took quite a while before someone noticed the words, written quite small on the bottom of the poster, tangled in the roots:

Yavanna. First performance. Small Auditorium. When the last leaf falls.

Trying out a micro-RP type thing. Do what you like with it; in a day or two I'll write Yavanna's entrance to the Auditorium, and a day or two after that, his performance. He's not present right now, but if there's any takeup he'll probably interact after he appears. :)

And if any other gods incarnate before the concert is over, they're welcome to share the stage.

hS

It's very hard for me to describe what I'm thinking of... it's presented in-universe as a religion that could conceivably be real, plus-or-minus some specific supernatural aspects of the otherwise real-world adjacent canon. (If it helps, I'm specifically pondering on Khura'in and Khura'inism of Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice.)

I might just have to get Henry involved, if I can figure out which god might fit him.

Quick question: I'm guessing you meant Aslan no, Apollo yes? Aslan being a primary world god and Apollo not?

~Neshomeh