CONFLUENCE 03

[metamods]

THUNDERSTRUCK

This time there was warning. Any being with precognitive abilities finds themselves brought to their knees a few hours before the event, plagued with a hazy vision of chaos and fear. There's not enough detail to say what is to happen, but at least they have the where and when.

Excelsior, Washington.

The people seem annoyed when they are told to evacuate. After all, Excelsior was built to last. This is a city exempt from the unpredictability of nature. They have weather control systems set up to ensure nothing disrupts their research. This a city built upon scientific advancement, with every inch of infrastructure reliant upon it, and they are confident that they are safe within its borders.

And even without the stubborn minority, the Alliance knows there isn't enough time for a full evacuation. But still, they try. They call upon every available hero to race toward whatever chaos may be about to drop over the city. The Society has sent a few faces too, more quietly. Whether to help or hinder is anyone's guess, as there's whispered encouragement to do both.

The city isn't anywhere near empty when the air goes very still. Everyone and everything pauses and looks skyward as a few drops of rain begin to fall, and the artificial sky fades to reveal roiling clouds.

The Confluence begins.

ITS RAINING (SUPER) MEN

Rain slashes sideways as the skies darken, taking unnatural colors with every flash of lightning. It's beautiful and awe-striking, but knowing that somehow this bizarre phenomenon is the calm before the storm keeps anyone on the ground from enjoying it. Even the those who lack self preservation in the scientific community don't want to investigate the cause of this.

There's a flash of light and a boom. Those still caught in the streets waiting evacuation brace themselves.

And then people begin to fall.

If you are one of these people, you awaken to find yourself hurtling towards the ground at breakneck speed. You come into awareness just in time to register you're about to make impact with the ground, or a car, a building, whatever is underneath you. The impact pulverizes the surface strike, leaving a sizable crater, and as you pull yourself up you find yourself unharmed. Yet there's energy crackling in the air around you. If there are bystanders near you they whip out cellphones to capture the occurrence for their followers or for scientific posterities, crowding around the craters a buzz of excitement. Some of the more fearful ones simply turn and begin running in hopes they can beat the storm.

CRYPTO OR CRYPTID

Confluences give people powers. That's part of the deal. And while those of you who just fell from the sky are discovering your new gifts, others are also suddenly uncovering their own brand new talents.

Excelsior isn't exactly known for natural superpowers. Most of its heroes are self-made geniuses, armed with metasuits or other augments. Those that do have powers got them from scientific accidents, transforming due to experiments gone wrong or accidentally tumbling into toxic waste. They have emergency medical protocols ready for that - not for random people on the street suddenly gaining abilities.

Newly empowered townspeople may jump in to help deal with the evolving chaos, but their lack of control of their powers makes them a bigger threat than whatever threat they were trying to stop. Others will shamelessly take advantage of the chaos to live their villainous dreams, robbing stores and taking revenge on their shitty bosses, landlords, or exes.

The reserve members of the Guardian Alliance spring into action. The heavy hitters are elsewhere, trying to deal with the loss of power and getting the city back online, and so you're left with the rookies trying to keep pace. Many of them are inexperienced and unable to keep up with the raw power and ruthlessness of newly awakened metas. Fantastic, an aerokinetic and one of the newer recruits, seems to be the only one even remotely holding his own.

It's clear they need your help to contain this!

The storm doesn't peter out after the new arrivals have all landed, either. The panic and chaos below seems to fuel it to a second peak. Clouds roil, electricity snakes, and the thunder builds into a deafening crescendo. Then with one final, blinding burst of light, everything goes dark and quiet.

The power is out.

More than just the power — Excelsior is out. The powergrid has been downed, its internal networks corrupted, anything that makes the city function is completely fried, that last surge of the storm apparently having acted as an EMP blast. All of Excelsior's internal systems are now offline. The lights are all out.

Vehicles are stalled out in the streets. And then comes the first crashing boom of a falling hover car. There are more still in the air, but anyone who might be in a position to save them will have only moments to do so before they smash apart on whatever or whoever is unlucky enough to be stuck below them.

And it's not just that. Hospitals are now without power.

VLOG SQUAD STRIKES BACK

In every disaster, the best and worst of human nature can be found. The best shines in every outstretched hand and combined effort, in every life saved. The worst is a gaggle of young adults that live together in the city's least favorite content creator house, known with equal parts irritation and secondhand embarrassment as The Vlog Squad. It seems five of the eight streamer/vlogger/influencers have developed meta powers, including one with the power to record, edit, and broadcast with her mind. The entire group made an on-stream pact to become (non-guild affiliated) supervillains, and their views are skyrocketing.

One of them jumps off a building to demonstrate how he can put holes in everything below him.

Playlist, the ringleader with a sizable following on Youtube and TikTok, has the ability to Freeze, Rewind, Fast Forward reality. Be unlucky enough to be caught in her gaze and find yourself frozen in place, talking in reverse, or zipping around faster than you can control. Good luck getting someone to understand you when you sound like a chipmunk.

Then there's there's the second in command, Filter, an up and coming Instagram star. Filter's powers seem to be tied to their phone. If they get a picture of you in the air - welcome to anti-gravity, you're now stuck floating like a balloon until someone can get you back to Earth. If they slap a sepia filter on an unflattering photo of you, you're now encased in stone until someone drops a compliment. Each filter does something a little different and the unfortunate effects are yours to find out.

The rest of their squad is less notable, both in terms of power and in terms of following. There's a young man who can project his voice for miles around. A young woman who can compel people to dance to the beats dropped by her literal soundcloud. There's one unfortunate fellow whose only real power seems to be to turn people's heads into emojis for 30 seconds.

They're targeting known heroes, but will settle for property damage if it means getting attention. New metas may find themselves accosted by a unpleasant young adult with a camera, mockingly asking if they plan to become heroes. No matter the answer, the result is the same - they'll mock your choice and reasoning and try to get away with a cruel prank.

POWER RESTORED

The power is restored. With it, a belated message makes it to guild and society phones: the guild says restrain the Vlog Squad however you can and await authorities.

Meanwhile a very different message hits the airwaves. Mechanima's digitized voice comes across official channels, torn between amusement and annoyance. He says deal with them, don't care how you do it, but start with the broadcaster.

Once that's done, the guild places a call back to its headquarters to bring everyone back with a teleportation spell. The spell reaches out for whatever metahumans it can find in the area and pulls.

All the metahumans who were involved in the Confluence — new arrivals and old — to a white training space that has already transformed into a luxurious waiting room.

Atomight arrives quickly and makes the following announcement:

Thank you for your help out there. The casualties would be so much higher were it not for those of you who risked your lives to save strangers. To those of you grappling with your new abilities, please rest assured that this room will give you a much needed reprieve. We have staff on site who can work with you to gain control of you new abilities, and nullifiers if you find it's still too much.

You are the third set of newly powered individuals this confluence has brought. Though many of you are native to this world, others among you have come from far off universes. To those of you who have been flung far from home, we'll put you in connection with the others. Many of them are here today and can advise you of what your new reality is here.

We of the Guardian Alliance are committed to doing everything we can to get you home, and to give you some time to get your feet under you. And as this may be your home for a while longer, I wish to formally extend an invitation to those of you who wish to use your powers to defend the innocent to join us.

They hand out cellphones to all present. Once everyone gathered has been looked over and attended to they're directed to the Diadem in and handed a credit card.

Later into the night, another message comes across those phones. The Society of Villainous Reformation formally extends an invitation to all those villainously inclined. Reply for more info.

IN SUMMARY

• New arrivals are falling from the skies. They're unharmed despite what should be a lethal impact. People in the city also begin developing superpowers upon landing.


• Players are free to create their own powered NPCs for these encounters and can use them.


• A notable group of online content creators called the Vlog Squad have developed powers and are terrorizing the city and are livestreaming every minute thanks to their powers.


• The Vlog Squad has declared on camera that they do not intend to join any guild and are already showing signs of disrespecting the code. For those already committed to guilds, this means:

  Atomight will ask player characters in the Guardian Alliance to deal with them peacefully.
  
  Mechanima demands that members of the Society of Villainous Reformation deal with them — whether this means incapacitating them, forcing them to join, or killing them is their choice.

• If anyone wants to engage Mechanima or Atomight, HERE is a top level where we will summarize their responses to PC questions and comments. Please also reply to this comment with what your character plans to do with the Vlog Squad. We encourage you to make posts on the OOC comm plotting out conflict and responses. You may also use this top level to ask event-specific questions about the effects on this page! (Please refer general questions about the setting to the FAQ, and refer any player plots to the PLOTTING page.)

VLOG SQUAD ENCOUNTERS

For each event with a clear antagonistic NPC force — such as the Vlog Squad, in the February arrival — interested players can pitch their characters' encounters with those NPCs. Whether characters are heroic and suited to the role or not, the aim is the group effort of pitching in, so we highly encourage collaborating on these encounters. Once enough NPC encounters have been submitted, we'll determine if and how the trouble has been addressed, and select one of those encounters to be the final, conclusive one in the game. Everyone else's encounters will also have taken place, but may have been temporary stopgaps in addressing the conflict rather than a conclusive blow. For this Confluence, we are asking that submissions be finalized by 3/5.

How it works:

• Reply to the relevant top-level comment with an encounter and/or questions about the encounter. The mods are happy to go back and forth with before locking in exactly what a character or group of characters does. Any conversations between characters and NPCs will most likely be happening prior to combat unless specified by the players.


• The mods ask that players present two options. In one version, the character or group of characters kills, immobilizes, or otherwise apprehend the villain(s). In the other version, one way or another, the villain escapes or overcomes the character or group of characters. Players who wish to have a specific spot in the timeline (near to the beginning or near to the end) should make this request explicit, and the mods will make efforts to accommodate this.


• The mods will RNG the results for the final encounter. For all other submissions, the escape/overcome option is selected. Open calls for collaboration which result in multiple player characters contributing to an idea or solution (see: Kamala Khan's solution to the Cerberus fight) have a much higher chance of being the final encounter, as we want to reward player collaboration and innovation. Please be sure that after everyone has weighed in you return to the top-level comment to report exactly what is happening and who is doing what.


• The mods will reply to player submissions with a brief outline of how all of the run-ins go, whether it's a fight or a slapstick series of hilarious accidents that involves the character(s).

Request NPC encounters using the following form —
<B>Characters involved:</b> Name (username) <b>Details of the encounter:</b> What's the plan? <B>How might the villain escape or overcome the player character(s)?</b> <B>How would the player character(s) kill, immobilize, or apprehend the villain?</b>

EXAMPLE—

Character(s) involved: The Iron Giant and Hank Hill
Details of the encounter: Hank will ride in Iron Giant's hand as they search the city for the Vlog Squad, eventually spotting them in a public park. They land explosively in the middle, throwing all of the squad off of their feet while the Iron Giant sends out a signal to scramble their livestreams and begins trying to catch the offenders up in both hands. Hank will try to tackle at least one of them.

How might the villain escape or overcome the player character(s)? Playlist slow motions Iron Giant and they easily duck its grasp, and Filter leaves Hank floating upside down as they make their escape.

How would the player character(s) kill, immobilize, or apprehend the villain? Iron Giant grabs Playlist before she can slow it, then picks up and captures all but Emoji; Hank throws a branch and beans that guy right in the head. Iron Giant gathers him up too, and they turn them in to the first batch of emergency responders they find.

Comments

Harry Osborn | OTA

[nepotis]

01. ONCE MORE, FROM THE TOP   ▉ ▊ ▋ ▍ ▎

[ One second, Harry is in Kansas, arguing with an alien helicopter from inside its cockpit as it tries to fly away from a mechanical dragon, having just fallen from the sky. The next, he's back to falling, into a large city this time, in the middle of a rainstorm. He lands in a crater in what was once a parking lot, hair slicked to his forehead by the rain, and yells an anguished cry at the sky. ]

Fucking— Not again!! Taylor, where are you!??!

[ Because obviously this is Spinister's fault. ]

02. GET THAT CAMERA OUT OF MY FACE   ▉ ▊ ▋ ▍ ▎

[ Harry largely tries to keep to himself, staying out of the fray of metahumans either committing crimes or trying to stop them. He stays on the sidelines, slinking away, keeping his collar turned up to hide the patches of deformed skin on his neck. All this stress is aggravating the tremor in his hands, another telltale sign of his goddamned disease. He would much rather go without notice, thank you very much.

But once he hears who is responsible for this fracas, you can bet he's seeking out one of those fucking "influencers" to let them know exactly how he feels. He corners one guy, clearly with the intent to hurt him. He doesn't have Max Dillon at hand to serve as his muscle, so he's going to have to get his hands dirty. The guy looks scared, and activates his power as a defense mechanism, turning Harry's head into a giant emoji. ]

🤬

[ Harry swears, but the words come out of his mouth as a censor bar of symbols. Undeterred by this development, he closes the distance between himself and the vlogger, and throws a punch right in his face. The guy staggers back, blood beginning to flow from his nose. And though Harry's knuckles are stinging from the impact, he can feel distantly that the tremor has stopped. He throws another punch, and he can feel the skin on his neck knit back together, healing.

Oh... This is interesting.

He keeps punching, either until someone stops him or until he knocks the vlogger out. At the tail end of the emoji-head curse, Harry looks a bit more... impish. ]

😈

03. BACK AT THE DIADEM (cw: underage drinking)  ▉ ▊ ▋ ▍ ▎

[ Once the dust has settled, and the metahumans have been returned back to the Diadem, Harry tries to sit and understand what's happened, what is happening. And while he does his sitting and thinking, he wants a fucking drink, so he heads to the hotel bar. Of course, being only twenty, not twenty-one, the barkeep refuses to serve him. ]

You've got to be fucking kidding me. Do you know the kind of day I've had?! Can't you just bend the rules this once? Give me a break!!

[ Do you take pity on him and find a way to get a poor kid a drink? Or do you lecture him on his poor coping habits? ]

0X. WILDCARD   ▉ ▊ ▋ ▍ ▎

[ Want something else? HMU @ milennialfalcon to plot other options! I'll match brackets/prose, whichever you prefer. ]

1

[anthropophagite]

[ kaneki is there, nooooot exactly to help people but mostly to find people from his world if they happened to arrive. But of course, he isn't just going to ignored confused arrivals who literally fell off the sky, so as he sees harry, he rushes to him to offer a hand ]

Are you hurt anywhere? [ most likely note ] I'm sorry, I know this is all very confusing...1

[nepotis]

I'm fine.

[ Harry ignores the offered hand, getting to his feet on his own. He doesn't want to risk this kid noticing the deformed patches of skin on his neck and wrist. As soon as he's standing, he looks his would-be rescuer up and down, appraising him. ]

What are you, the welcoming committee?

[anthropophagite]

[ since the hand wasn't taken, Kaneki takes his hand back a bit awkwardly, pretending he never even offered in first place. ]

Eh? N-no, I'm... I'm just trying to help. [ something like that? He is not a hero, and he didn't expect to welcome strangers but here he is now ]

I'm Kaneki Ken. Uhm- you are probably confused about what is happening, but I can try to explain.

[nepotis]

[ Harry paces, trying to get his bearings. Though the fall didn't hurt, exactly, it still wasn't the most comfortable or pleasant experience. Especially considering it happened twice in a row, back to back.

He's not really in a mood to be friendly, so he just shoots Kaneki a withering glare. ]

Alright then. Hit me with whatever explanation you've got.

3.

[ikols]

[ A tall man leans over the bar and orders an ale, looking around the same age as Harry. The bartender serves him with no problem and as Loki finishes his first sip he notices the disturbance a few feet down. ]

Forget your ID or land without it?

[nepotis]

[ It's not fair, the difference that a year or two (or two thousand) makes, when it comes to what you can and can't order at a bar. Harry looks up, laughing mirthlessly. ]

Wouldn't you know? I left my license in another universe.

[ikols]

Dire for you.

[ Mischief in his smiling eyes, he glances to the bottles behind the bar then cocks his chin at the stranger. ]

Order a soda for now, is my advice.

[nepotis]

[ Harry tilts his head, trying to decipher the look in this stranger's eye. Is he making fun of him? No... He doesn't think so.

So he smiles, and waves the bartender back over. ]

A soda sounds perfect right about now. I'll have a coke, when you get a chance.

diadem

[discrepantly]

Well, that's not going to convince him, son.

[ the speaker is an exhausted-looking middle-aged man a little further down the bar, dressed in a neat suit and nursing a glass of whiskey.. with the half-full bottle sitting beside it. he glances toward the younger man, sitting up enough to smooth a few strands of hair back from his brow and then folding his arm over the back of the chair.

he takes a moment to take in harry's pallor, and with the bartender having moved on to clean glasses and studiously ignore harry, norman nudges the untouched glass toward him. he doesn't normally encourage this sort of thing, but they all deserve a drink after that. ]

[nepotis]

[ Harry really is looking a mess. The minor healing he got from punching emoji-head guy earlier is already beginning to wear off, the tremor reappearing in his hand where it rests on the bar. He shoots the middle-aged man a scathing look, clearly put out at the pathetic attempt at advice, but...

He does like the look of that glass.

So, begrudgingly, he walks over and takes it, sipping it and savoring the burn, before he bluntly says, ] Don't call me "son."

[discrepantly]

[ he doesn't respond to either the glare or the order, instead reaching over the bar to take a second glass, pouring for himself and leaning back on the stool. he downs the finger of liquor in a single long swallow--a waste of good whiskey, but he needs the bracing--then pours a second to linger over. ]

What do you suppose a room in this hotel costs a night? [ he taps a finger against the credit card lying on the bar, sliding it back and forth across the smooth wood, staring across the bar at the rows of bottles lining the mirrored wall. ] And there were.. ten? Twenty new arrivals, at least? [ the cards with no limits, the expensive hotel rooms, the technology available.. something just doesn't seem right. ]

[nepotis]

[ Harry watches the man down his drink, and wants so badly to do the same. But he still doesn't trust that he's going to be able to talk his way into anything more than this one glass, so he's going to sip his slowly and savor it. ]

What are you getting at?

[ He's honestly never been someone who's thought all that much about what things cost. The side effects of being a trust fund child. ]

3

[fastandcurious]

[ Drift is just here to people watch, because actually drinking is off the table (nothing here is high enough proof to dent his sobriety, anyway). So when the young guy starts flipping his lid about not being served, that pulls his attention. Drift tilts his head. Is this a human thing? He's pretty sure this is a human thing. ]

They won't serve you?

[nepotis]

[ Harry turns to the guy, smiling sardonically. The bartender, for his part, turns to go clean some glasses now that Harry's tirade has been interrupted. ]

No! Would you believe, they're not accepting "I left my wallet in another universe" as a valid reason for not having ID.

[ Or in Harry's case, not having his fake ID. ]

[fastandcurious]

You have to have an ID to drink?

[ Maybe he should have read up on human laws. Oh no. ]

Kind of a strange rule. Is that stuff that dangerous?

[ Why else would you have to show documentation to get hold of it? ]

3

[vexish]

[Harley doesn't really think about things like underage drinking. It ranks so low on her list of priorities that she doesn't really get why this kid is at the bar raising hell. All she knows is he's loud, anad looks like he could use a drink. So while he's pitching his fit she orders two drinks.

And approaches him once he's finished, passing the drink off to him.]

Hope you like margaritas, kid.

I love how everyone's champing at the bit to get this kid drunk

[nepotis]

[ Harry's tirade has no effect on the bartender. One gets the impression he deals with entitled assholes on a daily basis. He simply ignores Harry's ranting, and turns to go bring a tray full of used glasses to the back to be washed.

Slumping slightly in his seat, Harry is bolstered when he looks over and sees an... eccentric, yet attractive woman handing him a margarita. ]

Margarita... It'll do. [ He takes the drink, holding it up in a silent toast, before taking a long sip. It's sweeter than his usual fare, but it'll serve the purpose he's after. ]

Any port in a storm, right? Thanks.

harley's only here to help she's innocent

[vexish]

That's a real nice way of being an asshole about a free drink, but sure. Any port in a storm, Captain.

[She raises her drink in a mock toast before proceeding to down half of hers in a single gulp. It's been a long week topped off by whatever this conversation is about to be, and she could really use a good night of getting blackout drunk to forget all about it. So she signals the bartender for another.]

3. god how is eddie being the 'good' person here

[frenchkissed]

No, dude. He's not gonna give you a break just because you happened to save the world from wannabe Twitch streamers.

( at least eddie is assuming this guy is a fellow hero type who got mixed up in all this shit.

eddie is three beers in because this guy is right; they've had a hell of a day. and because he's an adult. )

You want a Virgin Bloody Mary? We can get you one of those.

[nepotis]

[ Harry didn't save anyone from shit. He wants a drink for reasons completely unrelated to the Vlog Squad imbeciles. He's not a hero, he's just had a really long day. Few days, actually. ]

Is this a fucking joke to you?

[ He doesn't want a virgin drink! Straight tomato juice isn't going to quiet his demons. ]

[frenchkissed]

Is falling out of the sky into a world where super-powered teens have the ability to affect the space-time continuum a joke to me?

…Yeah? Sort of?

[forasecond]

"Yeah, you're not gonna get that guy to change his mind, he's a fucking asshole," the voice comes from a nearby definitely-a-teenager propped on a stool at the bar. There's a pathetic can of Coke in front of him that he's ostensibly ignored since the barkeep had set it in front him. He didn't kick him out, for reasons Five won't pretend to grasp, but he did staunchly refuse to serve him.

Granted, the other guy at least looks like he could be of age, whereas Five... decidedly doesn't. And who hasn't tried to pull the 'I'm older than I look' card on a bartender before? It's no wonder he isn't buying it, but that doesn't make it any less annoying.

[nepotis]

The bartender hands Harry a pity Coke of his own, which causes him to scoff, but he at least has someone else who understands his misery. Even if the other person looks to be about five or six years younger than even him.

Harry walks over to claim the stool next to the teen.

"Well, if he's not serving me then he's definitely not going to serve you."

[forasecond]

"Hmm, no, he won't. Not while I look like this." His nose scrunches in distaste. There's nothing that can be done about it right now, or maybe at all, but it never stops being an irritation that he's stuck in this body.

He considers it for a moment before tilting his head. "What would you say if I told you I know how we can solve this problem of ours?" he perks a curious eyebrow at the other man.