Open | The city at the center of it all

[welcome_summer]

Who: open to all, 4th wall visitors more than welcome!
What: New faces and new cracks in the sky
When: August 2022 4th Wall- Weekend
Where: Central City
Content Warnings: If needed

[As Friday night rolls into Saturday, the repercussions of this Earth rejoining the multiverse are starting to become more clear. Missing persons reports are flooding the airwaves, the OurPowers metahuman-only social media network included. In Excelsior, it seems the newly-sentient tech devices are adding to the noise. News coming from Sunset Falls is terse-- there is also a Strong Magical Effect of some sort active in addition to the disappearances. Not even Little Love is immune; thankfully, the residents report no additional hazards.

But here in Central City, the citizens only grow more tense with each resident taken. A powderkeg with a long fuse that has just been lit. The sky is starting to crack, and the feelings of homesickness and fear are starting to spread.

It’s not the warmest welcome a visitor could receive, but the meta population has been put on alert for new arrivals, searching from rooftop to water’s edge. Central’s a VERY big city, but hopefully some generous souls can point you to the swanky Diadem Hotel in the end.

Resident metas, you might want to check in on your nearest and dearest before heading out. Some of you might be deploying to Sunset Falls or Excelsior soon, or making plans to get to Little Love before Central gets… too rough. Some of you might be adventuring Elsewhere very shortly. But maybe there is time to help out a fresh face, extricate them from a confrontation, give them the lowdown about this alternate Earth? After all, you were once new yourself.]

((4th-wallers, feel free to touch down here! Network/”text” threads welcome. Mingle to your hearts’ content))

Comments

[shrikesback]

"Don't suppose they have eye-catching logos that tell them apart that they mark all their stuff with to make sure I find the right one?" Wren asked, half a joke.

In their experience, villains, 'evil', whatever you wanted to call it wasn't always so clear right away. That was why it was dangerous, and why you had to be vigilant.

[robintohood]

Jason snorts. With some of the villains he's met throughout the years, the joke is also an oddly fair question too.

"Afraid not. Would be a hell of a convivence though," he replies.

[shrikesback]

Wren's own quick smile is hidden by the mask - it's really multipurpose, their face is too expressive more often than not.

"Sure would be. Well, I guess I don't have to worry about anyone recognizing this costume here and making assumptions. Small favors. I'll just have to be wary."

[robintohood]

Jason nods.

"In and out of costume. I guess a small comfort is you're not the only one playing dress-up. With all the mobs around, a lot of other people will try to do crowd control."

Himself included.

[shrikesback]

"Now I'm picturing being the only person wearing a costume - Awkward," Wren said with a shake of their head. They'd read plenty of stories that took place in worlds without masked and powered heroes but they'd been a thing in Wren's world at least as far back as modern history - and general assumption was before that as well, just under different descriptions and names.

It was comforting, in a way. Where there were people who had abilities beyond those of their fellow humans, they regularly had just as many that wanted to use them to help as used them for selfish reasons.

"Maybe if I can't get home right away I can help with that."

Assuming they don't manage to make things worse first.

[robintohood]

"At this point, it couldn't hurt. You're bound to find someone you can team up with," Jason says. "Even before the sky cracked up, there've been plenty of people who accidentally got dropped onto this Earth."

Jason's usually a loner vigilante but given the severity of the current situation, he wouldn't say no to help.

[shrikesback]

Teaming up. Right. That is what helping out would entail, wasn't it?

"... maybe a weird question but - how common is the type that cares more about entertaining themselves and just doing what they want and less about collateral damage among those here?"

Even with the voice modulator in the helmet working that makes Wren sound somewhat older, they're still clearly not that old. Yet there's an exhaustion to the question that feels like it must span an age of mankind itself.

[robintohood]

Jason pauses to think about how to answer that question. There's been a lot of crime in Central City. It's one of the biggest similarities the place has with Gotham.

"Are you talking about supervillains or just the general population here?"

[shrikesback]

Well. That kind of answered that question.

Wren wonders, briefly, if their world is somehow the Worst of all Worlds, even without a cracked sky.

"I'm talking mainly people who claim to be heroes, in spite of…" Wren gives a vague gesture meant to convey 'all of that'.

[robintohood]

Jason furrows his brow, thinking.

"Well, so far the heroes I've heard do seem actually heroic or at least come off as heroic-ish," he says. Though there's still the matter of his adoptive father not being ruthless enough to stop crime but that's a personal issue Jason doesn't want to get into.

[shrikesback]

It is a bit heavy for a first conversation, probably. As is getting into why Wren had to ask that.

"Right - team-ups then, great, no problem, excited for that," Okay maybe that's laying it on a bit but they certainly sound a bit more perked up at the idea with Jason's confirmation that generally the people who called themselves heroes were more heroic.

[robintohood]

It doesn't go unnoticed to Jason that there's likely a reason why Wren's asking such a question.

"I don't really know the guilds but not every cape here is an asshole. From what I've seen, you're bound to find good people."

[shrikesback]

"Your vote of confidence is taken into consideration," Wren said with a nod, rather than argue about their very unlucky past track record. It wasn't like they knew Jason enough to know if he was the over-optimistic or pessimistic type. Or what was considered an asshole.

Hell, another five minutes and he could decide Wren was the asshole. Not impossible. Wouldn't be the first time.