Psychonaut
this is a god-dream
posthuman
/ˌpōstˈ(h)yo͞omən/
adjective
relating to or characteristic of
persons that exist in a state
beyond natural humanity
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01 JAN 2018
Following an astronomical event later called the Bright Night,
approximately one percent of the human race acquires supernatural powers.
Every violent conflict on Earth escalates dramatically.
Mankind descends into chaos.
01 JAN 2019
The worst of the fighting has been over for more than half a year now.
Synahuman society has reassimilated metahumankind for the most part,
though regional and individual acceptance varies.
31 DEC 2019
Fighting breaks out at a New Year's Eve party in Union Square, San Francisco.
As various metahumans enter the fray, mayhem spills out into the streets.
You are there.
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You remember where you were when it happened. You probably remember everything about it.
January 1st, 2018, exactly one second into the new year - the beginning of the Bright Night, the end of the world as we knew it - the moment that comet made the fireworks look dim, streaking white and blinding across the waxing moon. One second more and the power went out as a storm of auroras filled every corner of the sky, emerald and indigo and violet and ultramarine and colors some had never seen before and others none could recognize in slithering stripes like a million alien hands writing on the heavens, matrices of patterns of symbols too many and too vast for our little mortal minds to comprehend. It shone through the clouds brighter than the morning sun, a beacon signaling the dawn of a new age that blazed for exactly fifty-eight seconds before vanishing entirely.
You'll never forget the looks you exchanged with your fellow revelers while searching fruitlessly for words: silent stares of wide-eyed wonder orders of magnitude beyond what any petty human revelation could ever evoke. You'll never forget how so many people stayed so quiet for so long anywhere outside of a funeral, as though mourning the death of a hundred-thousand-year streak of uninterrupted normality. Their reactions were burned into your mind almost as clearly as that neon night sky. You'll never forget that last hour of your old life.
There's a lot you won't forget: that morning's historic hangover headache that throbbed away the last wisps of a sleepful of psychedelic dreams, that shuddering dread as the enormity of last night's memories came rushing back, that eerie realization that the TV seemed to have turned itself on. Every channel broadcast a live feed from the United Nations. Even they couldn't explain it, but they didn't have to. The footage spoke for itself:
batlike wings bursting out of a man's back, ram horns twisting from his forehead; a girl's eyes changing color, sliding smoothly through the visible spectrum; a woman lifting a hand wreathed in flame; a boy turning to smoke and scattering into the wind. Something was happening all over the world, changing people in ways lifted straight out of a comic book.
You could be forgiven for not paying attention, though - maybe you were watching it happen to someone nearby. Maybe it was happening to you.
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Looking for six to ten skilled writers to play metahumans present at the New Year's Eve brawl,
whose involvement thrusts them into local celebrity or forces them into hiding.
You are encouraged to write complex characters with conflicting motives
that will tempt them toward both sides of the aisle. Further, while you'll be starting
with one main character, you will be welcome to add more as the story
progresses beyond the events of Union Square.
I'm hoping to create a serious, intricate role play that realistically portrays
a version of our world where superpowers have only recently come to exist.
A minimum of three high-effort posts per week will be required.
Interested? Message me with the following:
Who is your character?
Where did they come from?
Why are they in San Francisco?
What are their powers?
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art by David Ambarzumjan
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