At The Gates OOC

ITEM ONE: Haven's Easter Baskets. I forgot to actually post about these, but I am using the magic of backdating to make them happen nonetheless. Every Havenite received a basket, though the baskets varied in size and shape and condition, and every basket had the usual expected mish-mash of sugary items. There was a lot of candy per basket - it's best not to ask how Cass managed it, but he decided high-calorie goodness would help Haven bounce back from recent traumas.

Bonus Baskets! For Lily, no chocolates - but a basket of Various Colorful Things To Draw With, Not Brand New But All In Quite Good Condition, perched atop a huge roll of that wide, thick paper used to cover workstations and line shelves. For Nives, a hefty bottle of booze she could pull the cork from with her teeth and a pirate hat with bunny ears. Also a fake parrot, because Cass and Em got a tiny bit carried away. For Ophelia, no regular candy - just every variety of colorful foil-covered bunny and an map directing her back to her room where a cage with a lop-eared, twitchy-nosed, spotted-furred bunny would have mysteriously installed itself. For Tori, a veritable case of water balloons that when filled with (holy) water reveal themselves to be even more unmistakably phallic than the usual sort of water balloon. And for Vaughn, no candy - his basket is more of a medium-sized wooden packing crate, filled with horrifying Tesco's own label gin.

ITEM TWO: The Gem's Poker Nights. Also due to the magic of backdating and my whims, The Gem now hosts semi-regular poker nights in one of the back rooms. They are nominally invite only, but if your character has any reason at all to be a regular - a fondness for gambling, a fondness for whores, a fondness for gossip and information and the sort of seeing who is out and about that one can do on truly neutral ground (no fights. Absolutely none. Which doesn't mean wheeling and dealing and threatening and arguing can't occur, because they can and ought and I'm sure they shall), then clearly they have garnered a standing invite at some point. Current known semi-regular attendees are Declan, Dickie, Furtur (also known as the only demon The Gem's wards will allow in), Gideon, Irene, John Constantine, Riley, Saul and Yoshi - and I'm looking to build that list so as to let us weave our webs of connections a little tighter, so let me know if any of yours would be interested! No angels or demons, though - sorry, the Gem's wards won't let you guys in anyway - and no one who is banned from The Gem, though I don't think anyone in play right now is.

tl;dr: Cass is ridiculous and Madam is running poker nights.

Hello Gates! I'm Cairo (czolgosz, friend me if you so please) and some of you have been subjected to my antics before, but some of you are utter virgins and that makes me INCREDIBLY excited to be here, ydek.

Anyway let's try to get to the point, because I have a feeling this is going to be long. :| I'm bringing in Dickie Blackwell, who is best described as...some of you might remember when I made that entry back in, oh, December or so, whining because there was no way an undead Dickensian street urchin could become a reality? Well. His history-til-now, as concisely as possible: he was born in 1839 to a prostitute, got thrown out on the street when he was 9 or so, survived as a thief until he was 14, at which point his gang turned on him and drowned him in the Thames. And then a deranged surgeon-cum-occultist (or it could be the other way around, idk) resurrected him to be his personal surgical guinea pig for the next century or so. But Dickie did get his revenge just a few weeks ago when he bludgeoned the doctor into an unholy mess during the recent plot (I am pretty proud of that incorporation, ngl) though he's not, it should be noted, actually dead.

Dickie himself is a fierce little thing, all quick wits and survival instincts and suspicion. He's not particularly good or bad, just primarily concerned with himself. He's been 14 for a long time and he's sort of eternally stuck there, emotionally — he might have a little touch of Peter Pan syndrome, though he's nowhere near innocent (see last paragraph).

I think I'll refer you all to the wanted plot section of his app to prevent this from getting massive — but even as that's long, I'll just say I need, in no particular order: 1) somewhere for him to crash, because even though he's undead and doesn't have to sleep, it's still not safe to be out wandering London at night (or during school hours, even), b) Librarians to investigate the not-quite-dead doctor thing, c) people his age (or "age"), for, idk, stuff, d) prostitutes, e) some manner of employment, but nothing so nefarious as work, f) people who might be interested in him for whatever reason. He is uniquely exploitable, I assure you.

Questions/comments/etc can pretty please be posted here, or if you're feeling chatty, I'm on AIM at watson xxxx (which is a screen name from when I was 15-ish so do not mock its decorative x's please. :|) And now I'm off to procure some noms and enjoy this unseasonable weather~ :>

tiff here! i brought a present for you all this fine st. patty's evening. friend her here if you would.

anyways, a short summary because i am a TAD bit buzzed:

naberius here has been puttering around the earth for about three hundred years, most of it wasted in the following places: tibet, spain, india, and now, london. naberius has about nineteen legions of demons in hir thrall and jurisdiction over the arts and rhetoric. as a result, naberius has the dream voice you've always wanted – bedroom when she wants, squeaky when it's convenient, a low, demonic rumble when relaxed. at this time, she passes herself off as priyanka kapoor – sometimes disclosing she's a demon but never stupid enough to give her real name. she passes her time by seducing and leaving and upsetting lifestyles, so if you would like in on that, please let me know here.

she's rather free at the moment; currently looking for a job so if you would like to work with this fine piece of work, do tell. she is here to have been previous one night stand-ness come to haunt or future fling or bitchy frenemy – think of her as the little dramatic instigator of the group, having no real quest at the moment and instead spending her time just fucking around. she's the deadbeat of all demons, but she makes it sound like she isn't.

okay now i am back to drinking. adios muchachos.

i AM NOT DEAD. but i do have a mock practical exam in the latter half of this week, so i won't really be around at all until, mm, maybe thursday/friday evening.

but then i am around for writing! i know i owe tags across the board.

xoxo

Hey Gatesians! I'm still alive, despite all evidence to the contrary. A thousand apologies to everyone for my unexpected, unannounced, badly-timed absence. I'm currently stuck in the wilderness without much internet access, so it may be a few more days before I can make a proper return, but I will be back as soon as physically possible in order to pick up the pieces and try to make up for what I've missed. Please, please feel free to email me if you want to discuss logistics or plot or how to keep moving forward, and keep an eye out for super belated tags as soon as I can get to them.

I LOVE YOU GUYS, BEGGING FORGIVENESS, ETC. And see you soon omg.

♥, Zoe

Greetings & salutations! My name is Chelsie & I am incomparably new (I think I still have that patented new-girl smell) ... but I have not arrived to you empty handed! I bring Cyril Stone, younger brother to ritual & Librarian recruit.

Cyril is a Natural alchemist & that lends itself well to the manipulation of metal (think Magneto without the cool helmet) & an understanding of the way things work. Prior to being accepted to the Library, this god-like excitement & limitless ambition managed to give him the curse of Orestes ... & all those other parent killin' folk.

Oh yes, he killed his mother & father. Not on purpose. So that is making him very interested in brewing the elixir of life.

Being that his mother was a Librarian & an individual of surpassing skill, he was accepted into the recruit program. He has only lately begun to practice Occultism. He's not excellent at it because he doesn't necessarily have the patience and the skills necessary to learn (but he is trying). On his wish list is telepathy and exorcism.

& his fist in his brother's face. Oh ho.

Central to the understanding of Cyril is, I think, the knowledge that he has this inner tension and guilt guiding him. He is curious. He is afraid to be curious. He has always had a very ambivalent relationship with right and wrong but the Library (which protects him), mandates his actions. Etc.

Anyhoo.

I'd love to play with you! I have a cdj at omystarling & a tumblr at ~knightsofsummer. It's super cool to meet all of you.

:)

I know a looot of people are also super swamped with RL stuff right now, but sadly I have to add myself to the wagon -- I tried to stay on top of things & maintain my HARDCORE TAGGING SPEED, but I'm at the point where I have to admit defeat and call hiatus.

So! I'll be FULLY out of commission for about one week thanks to my cross-continental + international move. But think of it this way: it gives people a chance to hit back any tags they owe me :] I'll be up for hella tons of backlogging for the plot once I'm back around March 1st or 2nd, so do be prepared for me rapping on your doors around then ♥

- Julie

EDIT: HAHAHA despite thinking I wouldn't be able to, I managed to write the two starters I owed people! NOW THE BALLS ARE IN EVERYONE ELSE'S COURTS WHILE I AM ELSEWHERE. HOP TO, MINIONS.

hey guys! it's tiff here, player of sachiel & yoshinori. i come here bringing gifts, mostly in the form of a teenage girl who just so happens to be the game's in-resident werewolf. (and as always, if you want to plot more re: the other two, i would LOVE that, so please give me everything you have!)

but going back to theo, as she likes to be called:

– daughter of an occultist/Market Vendor and has had peripheral knowledge of the Market & magic for the majority of her life
– parents knocked out of the picture by a particularly vengeful werewolf who didn't take kindly to mrs rhyme selling wards against his kind & such
– subsequently raised by her mother's second-cousin and then, once it became clear she was a werewolf as well, handed over to the second-cousin's dead husband's brother, a man she calls Gershwin.
– incidentally, he was also an occultist and helped her gain control over her werewolf-y tendencies, but not without pissing her off as well. mistreatment is the way to raise a child, apparently. that, and consistent experimentation.
– as a result? she ran away, because that's what fourteen year old girls do. but that was four years ago.
– currently working at the Shamrock as a waitress and holding down a tiny, tiny toenail of a flat on her lonesome.

i would love, love, love to get her involved with Havenite folk (as Lis can tell you, she was intended to join that motley crew) as well as whatever comes her way. check out her app. i'm really exhausted so this was a terrible introduction, but her profile will explain anything that i skipped over (as well as making her seem like an actual character rather than a list of bullet points, nahwhatimean, jelly bean??).

It is now the early hours of Day Two: chaos is running riot, London is in a mess and for Librarians, orders are spewing out from Rome like tickets at a good restaurant on a Saturday night. At the Library, confusion is going wild and crazy: the precogs have all simultaneously stopped producing any kind of output (apparently in nightmares of their own) and half the Librarians themselves are experiencing reactions to the magic pouring out from ground zero.

Librarians being dispatched to deal with the gold in Hyde Park

Librarians are being sent to investigate the source of the issue.

Any and all Monitors are being sent to their particular patrols to deal with the fall-out (mind wiping, clear up, etc), any special targets for Monitoring are being checked up on.

Reinforcements from Rome will arrive about midday, including a large number of Praetorians to deal with the massive numbers of demons and beasts that are causing havoc.

Triage centre within the Library in the mess hall: partners are required to keep telepathic tabs on one another at all times to ensure no one is lost in the shuffle.

Tags: !plot: london burning, plot post

Hi kids! So as you can see, shit got real and we're beginning the accompanying fall-out. Figuring out how best to participate?

The Party thread got written up and posted by Rory. Anyone who could feasibly have gone to the bash should go and post over there -- remember, this is the beginning; if you have a predetermined scenario for your nightmare/fantasy, you can always start with the collective here.

Journal posts! Nina's taunting the masses, Jacques is being talkative, but feel free to comment on the weirdnesses, tracking down one another, because the world outside is a very very strange place right now.

Librarians! This is magic gone absolutely batshit and someone needs to find and switch it off whilst there is madness going on -- so many people will need to have magic erased from their understanding, so many demons going deliriously crazy, etc. This is the worst case scenario, the Code Black, etc. Praetorians are out there, but feel free to have a "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?" kind of conversation. Orders have gone out for everyone to do something, and it's a case of combat-zone.

Everyone's fantasies and nightmares are overlapping -- dreams tend to absorb bits and pieces of one another, after all -- so there are zombies wandering some parts of London, there is a unicorn in Trafalgar Square, there's a sink-pit in Oxford Circus and the world is being sucked into it. Whatever you can think of is happening right now, and your characters can interact with the calamity or they can flee from it, but the chaos is not simply contained to player-characters.

As we said, we've slowed game time so this is the first night/night of the party and feel free to make a mess. When we start up Day Two, it'll be the daylight hours of the following day (so likely, Librarians cleaning up the mess and the triage at Haven) and Day Three will be any residual affairs you want to get in order before we re-start time again.

Go and pull the world to pieces!

Tags: !plot: london burning, mod-post

HI EVERYONE! I cannot tell you how excited I am to (finally) be here after months of holds and concepts. Well, I should probably start out by saying who I am: I'm Ruby, 23, living in Southern California (today, we're hitting the 80s in temperature) and I can be found at DARETOCHASE via aim or @gmail.com, as well as despoir.

I have Itkal, a third generation Nephilim, but you'd know her as Brielle LeBlanc, formerly known as Anastaise LeNoir for the past two hundred years or so. Unlike the badass first-gen Nephilims, her powers are a bit more diluted and she'll probably die of old age before they do, but that's just a random tidbit, there are more of those in her journal!

What's different about Brielle is that she doesn't hold the same grudge against THE HEAVENS ABOVE!! as other Nephilim's do. She whole heartedly believes that God still has a purpose for them (Nephilim's), nevermind that her grandfather was killed for being one. She sees herself more angel than human and takes a rather fascinated approach toward them, 'collecting' particular humans to protect and look over, but also as companions because she hates to be alone. She studies magic, mostly in the form of potions, healing and shielding spells, and ways to block her angelic/Nephilim blood. Currently, she's living in the London Nephilim Safehouse.

OVERALL, Brielle is a friendly presence to humans, an innocent curious kitten to fellow Nephilims and also angels (though this is something to be discussed as, you know, they might want to kill her), and a good addition to any person or being as a friend. She may be naive but she's not stupid, and note that she could probably still crush your bones if she really wanted to.

Sorry, this got so long! I'd love any sort of plot and backstory and.. just help in general. It's kind of intimidating to be part of such an amazing game but everyone has been so very helpful! Now I'm off to prepare myself for this PLOT O' DOOM.

Good morning, you beautiful creatures. Just a note that the plot o' doom kicks off today! If you plan on being involved, please take a look over the linked post and check to make sure you have all your bases covered -- there've been a lot of brilliant ideas thrown into the comments, so it's easy to have missed something.

For people attending Morden's bacchanalia of a birthday party, please consider commenting on his original post. This will not only make our lives a little easier in terms of a headcount, but it can help segue into the event itself.

AS FOR THE EVENT. We're 'slowing' game time since everyone is understandably busy: three days of Gates!time = one week RL!time. This should help those of us who have to rely on the weekend.

FINALLY. I'm going to be bringing my laptop to work and trying to carve out some time to put up a series of small, scene-setting posts, but please don't let this stop you from plotting (and for those of you who prefer writing in gdocs, from getting started with logs living there). Rory will be handling setup for the party-goers -- he'll be putting a post up -- so anyone visiting Morden's tent at the Circus will have that to fall back on. And if you have a character who is going to be violent and/or destructive, consider putting up an open thread which damage-taking characters can respond to, or a descriptive narrative people can react to. It doesn't have to be a novel, but every bit helps. Thanks!

(Incidentally, activity checks are February 20. This plot is the perfect opportunity for everyone to make the check totally unnecessary. Since my birthday falls on the 20th, I would really appreciate it if you delicious fiends would make it an unneeded task. ♥)

Hiatus, aka, the rending asunder of my pitiful wee heart! Because of a pretty tremendously unfortunate conflagration of some personal and professional concerns (hopefully temporary), and because of the impending Awesomeness Hurricane of a plot, I'm going to have to hiatus for the next few weeks. Nothing could be further from what I'd like to do (which is naturally take this and run with it), but at this juncture it's unfortunately the only sane option for me, and the only respectful option w/r/t y'all, my awe-inducing fellow players. Naturally I'll be reading up on the the goings-down at every opportunity, and if any of you feel inclined to email me with every little thing--well, I wouldn't hate it. ;)

As for Iain, he'll be zapped off to the mainland for a mission of Utmost Importance for now, for acts of derring-do only a dead-affiliated Librarian with a penchant for the weird could complete, e.g. see his most recent post. ♥

HELLO, HEATHENS. So, we have some plot for you, and it is big. As you may have noticed, Morden's 445th birthday is coming up, and he will be having a party!

THINGS TO KNOW:
- Morden is part of the Circus. Morden manipulates reality.
- Joss is part of the Circus. Joss warps dreams/reality.
- Arazia will be attending the party. Arazia amplifies existing magic.

Things are going to spiral out of control. Morden's shindig will be affecting not just party-goers, but all of London -- it will be a hedonistic orgy of chaos, and peoples' fantasies and nightmares will be coming to life. [Technical explanation: Morden will be giving the perception of dreams/nightmares coming to life. If multiple people believe that is reality, Joss's magic makes it so. Arazia causes that to spread across London. If you are aware that you're facing a hallucination/dream, that will weaken it but not necessarily defeat it.] So not only will this be a case of living nightmares causing damage across the city, but demons will be opportunistically wreaking havoc, vampires will be lashing out, Marion's own djinn abilities will potentially kick in for more (localized) confusion, and the Corinthian is going to start killing.

It's going to be bloody. People will be hurt, can very well lose their lives -- PCs and just regular mundanes across London.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU:
- Chaos, chaos everywhere.
- This will be ongoing until the Market comes in and shuts things down by 'powering down' Arazia.
- The angels (JEGUDIEL, PENEMUE, SACHIEL -- I AM LOOKING AT YOU) will be able to wade in and take on demons.
- The Library is going to have so much damage control to perform. Not just trying to put out fires, but a long-lasting mess to clean up after the fact. Rome will doubtless send people in to help. (London Librarians may not like this.)
- ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN. Again: dreams, fantasies, nightmares. Ghosts could become corporeal. Danny will kick ass in Dumas's name. Jim will have so many superhero opportunities. Go big or go home, basically.

This thing can to escalate to unbelievable proportions, and we really want it to. So! I am posting this tonight in hopes that it gives everyone time to think. Morden's party does not occur until February 9, this coming Thursday. That gives us better part of a week to come up with what our characters will go through, but to further complicate it, we want folks to use this post for plotting purposes. Feel free to ask questions, talk things out -- feedback might give you new ideas and directions to run in! Also, because it will be bloody, we've set up a second post here. We'd like for everybody who's participating to post with a list of their characters -- tell us who's making it through unscathed, who's open to be injured, and who might be up for death. More details are available on the post itself, and comments are screened for the element of surprise.

Edit: For those of you signing up for injury, death or the scale between, we're dice-rolling to find out the severity for each character and then, so it stays secret, emailing you the outcomes. What we suggest you do is confab to find someone who can provide your smackdown or be unfortunate-victim-of-it, but keep the outcome between the two (or three!) of you for now; if you're going to write this up in some way. We're going to be pausing time so a week equates to three IC days, which gives people time to write logs etc, and then at the end, we'll be posting everyone's stats so that everyone has an idea of the outcomes. We suggest keeping it secret until you're done playing, to keep that element of surprise (death is a nasty little gift at the end of the period, etc).

Zoe here! I haven't brought in a new character since last year so I feel completely excused.

This is Marko Velazquez. He is 26, an eternal optimist, still lives at home with his aunt and uncle (who took him in when he was 9, after he got shipped up from Spain by his grandparents), and worked as a dishwasher at the London Diner until recently! He got promoted to waiter, which isn't really a promotion depending on who you ask, surely. For most of his life, he's been totally ordinary, mundane and an eternal under-achiever who gets along with nearly everyone while they take continual advantage of his laid-back nature and unquestioning generosity. Not all that long ago (a couple of months ago), however, he had the pleasure of experiencing a late-blooming Natural ability manifest, which is his sonic scream. It's exactly what it sounds like: he's destroyed an underground club and a grocery store so far with just his voice. He's terrified to speak since then and has been toting around an actual notebook to write notes to people in when he has to, claiming eternal laryngitis.

His profile is here with the deets on his full life story and my plot ideas -- there's a ton of them so feel free to paw through and pounce on something! Hopefully he'll be dragged to Haven soon by a friend (Niiiiives?) and some hapless Librarian will catch up with him (takers?). Come at me, bros!

Hi, I'm new! My name is Cassie and I'm playing Helena Clemens, who eats souls in order to live longer and stay young. She is 368 years old. She's doing a lot of theater work in London but looking for ways that can get her access to more souls. You can read more about Helen in her app, but in sum: she's duplicitously two-faced, one half being the more public persona which is very loud and gay, deceptively carefree, and the other half being quiet, deadly, shrewd.

SO... HI! :D

Everyone, this is Balthazar. Balthazar, everyone. He probably watches your workouts & sexcapades before deciding to move into your skin. He's here to purr, shit-stir, and play the occasional entrepreneur.

Feed me plots. Anything!

~ Gia

So in celebration of the end of celebrations -- seriously, goodbye January and the fail of falling snow, bankruptcy post Christmas et-al -- I am reviving a meme we used to great success in Gate's first few months.

The morning after meme! This is that awful-terrible-no-good-wonderful set-up where no matter what your character was doing last night, they're waking up with someone else on the other side of the bed and facing that moment of 'who?' and all the delicious awkwardness that comes with tossing people together. Generally, this is of the wonderful-crack type meme but we have had lines play out from this affair before.

How it works: You comment with your character's journal, their name in the subject line. Other people then comment on that comment, with their character's name in the subject line -- and an opening to a ~morning after scene, a line of dialogue, anything. The way this really works is if everyone crawls over every post ridiculously and do not feel this is a moment for polished dialogue and witty words. This is nonsense, desirous of putting characters in hideously embarrassing situations for your own fun and ignoring their own sanity.

So, as will be forthcoming from the recent post, the Library is shutting down the Market temporarily as retribution for the whole 'you made ghosts dance like puppets on a string' Masquerade thing.

Which means the Market that ought be in town from the 17th to the 25th of January is not. Market grounds are empty, no one is there and the kit and kaboodle are out of town until February. Feel free to spit feathers/get irritated as charms and magic purchased last Market likely will be running out of juice if they're the renewable kind. The Library wielding heft is going to be pissing off the Merchants, so watch out for future plotlets spun as Library vs Market begins to kick off.

This of course means demons etc can take full advantage of the distractions. Please feel free to run with this in whatever direction you please; the Metropolitan will be reporting on it to shit-stir further, so go forth, multiply and take advantage!