IC Scene #2: New Kids and First Days
[The Stanley School for Special Students, Everton, Long Island. September, first day of fall semester, the present]
['When I first beheld the Stanley School, I thought it to be just the beginning of another chapter of my life. I had no idea how much it would change me..."
Sally Avril, from her memoir, The Bluebird of Happiness]
Sally walked along the meandering paths of the Stanley school. Her cane clacked with every step. But she would be healed enough to not need it within a week or so. To be honest, she was so far disappointed in the Stanley school. It seemed dingy, old and in need of repair. The layout of the campus was byzantine and some parts of the campus were simply hard to see or even locate.
It wasn't until she made it to her dorm that it struck the young woman that this obscurity was probably quite deliberate. Thomas House was the newest house on the Stanley campus. The three more senior houses had been so successful that team 1D had been budgeted and approved. And the newest house members had already agreed on their super team name via remote connection; the Wonders.
Thomas House was brand new, based on geometric constants and elegant math. It didn't match the older houses with their sampling of architectural styles long gone and now classic. The shiny new building seemed to Sally to scream out that this place was for the new kids, always catching up.
Within the house, the wall plaque listed the boys, girls and gender-neutral dorm rooms. She went to the girl's dorm. Communal living would take some getting used to. She missed her own bedroom back in faraway Queens. The room was empty and undecorated. The beds neatly made and the cabinets open. Sally must have the first to arrive of the new recruits. On one bed was a duffel bag, the large tag displayed her name.
The bag also had a message written in neat script. Besides the SHIELD logo, the words, "Remember Our Agreement! Now, go break a leg! :-) M. H." were visible. It would be just like her sponsor (parole officer, more like, Sally thought) to miss Sally's crutch and the irony entirely. Entering in the combination, Sally was able to bypass the tiny lock and saw the familiar bright and earnestly-stitched fabric within.
This bed would do as well as any. There was a tiny dry-erase board on the bed's headboard, underwhelming in a place with actual holograms elsewhere. She thought about which of her names to use, the mundane or the secret. She then simply wrote, 'Sally'. There would time to reveal secrets later.
And then she sat in the too-empty, cleaning-scented room and wondered what to do next.
OOC:
OK, this thread is now ready for your posts.
It willl start out freeform but will gradually move towards full rules compliance as I get all character details nailed down.
This is a completely optional thread because it is a very unusual one. This thread is almost pure exposition. I could simply describe your campus to you unfamiliar players or I can show you through the eyes of a wide-eyed rookie.
Sally Arvill, the Bluebird, is a very minor Mainstream Marvel Earth-616 character whose fate was a tragic one. But the very existence of the Stanley school may make the Earth-682 version of Bluebird yet have hope of something more. Bluebird is what too many teens might end up being in a world where only so many teens can truly be special. You can look her up or let her reveal herself as time goes by.
OK, Sally has entered the Stanley School for the first time and is discovering its mysteries. She has found her dorm and her place in it. Your characters are returning for their second time and probably dropping off their luggage and settling back in. The character dorms all have communal boys, girls and gender-neutral dorms. There is a kitchen, a game room with a pool table (there are some kinds of scenes you only have around a pool table) and an actual swimming pool (ditto with swimming pool scenes and a pool scene is about as risqué as this currently tame game will get, for the moment at least).
Regarding gendered dorms: Realistically, you aren't going to keep superpowered teens from 'fraternizing' if that is what they really want to do. The Stanley school is realistic enough to accept this. Their point of view is that they want such to be a character's own unpressured choice and the separate dorms remove stress for those who feel pressure.
You players are free to learn more this strange new world by having your characters interact with it. At this writing, the team assignments have not been set in stone, so be rather vague about those. Try not to be too destructive or confrontational in this thread, its true purpose is to reveal your new world to you. Then you get to knowingly break it. ;-) The reward for participating in this thread is knowledge. Your character may meet a new friend, unlock a new infinite door, or get a new gadget where other characters might not simply because you were a little more curious and cooperative.
Very soon, I will be introducing new characters into this thread including the majority of the young Wonders. Bluebird is the most conventional of all of them.
I look forward to what you shall come up with. You can suggest mundane elements of the campus to work into your posts. I will supply more wonder in a couple of days.
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:40, Wed 02 June 2021.