outofsticks | JULY PLOTTING: HBOMBERGUY HAS RELEASED A VIDEO ESSAY ON US

SETTING UPDATES:

The beach is now permanently unlocked! Players may traverse freely between Aldric’s Grove and the seaside at any time via the tipped-over tree, bearing in mind that it’s a 3-day journey. The cabanas can be lived in as well while you’re there. The usual dangers of last month’s log (sirens, leviathans, coconut crabs, high tide) remain.
It’s the hottest point of summer, and temperatures are skyrocketing into the high 90s to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The sun shines brightly at all hours of the day, even at “night”, where it slightly dips below the horizon line and that’s as much as you get. If you’ve heard of Alaska’s summer solstice causing “two months of daylight”, it’s that.
There is now a tailor shop in the Grove courtesy of Ain, which will pop up about a day or two after everyone returns from the beach. Get your clothes patched up, get something custom-made, whatever you want.
- To avoid making the option to regain entire outfits defunct, requests for full articles through the tailor shop will take an in-game month to complete; if you want something urgently, going through Heimr & Ydalir will be faster (assuming your AC is submitted anyway!). Small requests (stitching up holes, adding embroidery or a patch, whatever) will not be subject to this waiting period.
Enciodes, in tandem with Moder and whoever else has previously volunteered to help, is working on restoring the burned town to a less burned state. While this isn’t completed yet, it will soon be safe to traverse and inhabitable within the coming months.
Mizuki and Livio have contributed to Callan’s corruption cure. At the time of writing, he isn’t quite fixed… but y’all are about 3.5 Guardians saved game-wide right now. The tide turns in your favour.
- The Sky Guardian and Sehul remain dead… for now.

PLOT UPDATES:

At the beginning of July, Moder will have solved the issue with the fog wall and the Creature trapping you all on the beach. The fog wall has yet again been parted like the Red Sea over the cliffside and stretching to the lighthouse, and the tipped-over tree that’s bound with vines is now safe to traverse. Everyone can now go back home! Or they can live at the beach forever, we suppose. The Capybus will reappear briefly to bring everyone back and shorten the usual travel time.
With everything back to normal, life continues as usual… for a period of about two weeks, until the Creature wakes up from its nap and everyone hears a voice in their heads saying, ”Huh… you guys are back already?” and after a string of more complaints about how you all smell like nasty seawater and sand, the world will shift, and suddenly everyone will be underwater in a sea base. A much larger one than that image shows, but a sea base nonetheless. Yes, this is Subnautica. We are aware of the copyright lawsuits in our inbox and we are ignoring them.
The sea base will include food enough for the two weeks you’ll be stuck here (rationed out — so big eaters might need to slow down to ensure survival), uncomfortable beds to sleep on, a handful of indoor planter boxes, and other supplies for survival — equipment to explore the ocean with and the sort. For this event, sea pressure will not be something you have to worry about, you will not be squashed to death while underwater. What you will have to worry about is all of the leviathans and other vicious wildlife that wants to eat you… some of which will happily attack the underwater base in an attempt to get to you.
The goal of this event is simply to survive for two weeks by whatever means characters see fit, whether that means trying to swim back to shore, hanging out in the base and never leaving, or going out to kill the leviathans that attack. The Creature considers this another “game” even though he’s too creeped out by the sea life to check in, and your reward will be another slight area expansion: The Lake will be an accessible location by the end of the month when you all are (yet again) freed from the sea. For those of you who’ve kept up with Callan’s saga, you know this either means something extremely good or extremely bad. :)

OOC UPDATES:

We are Aware that FF14 Dawntrail launches uh (checks notes) tomorrow. For those of you playing: Have fun, mark your spoilers if you talk in the Discord about it… we do expect some slowness while people are gaming so don’t feel rushed with the plot this month, enjoy games as well.
- We have a dedicated thread in the hyperfix channel (the first one) for Dawntrail spoilers. Please review the pinned rules before posting to avoid potentially spoiling anyone who wanders in.
We are currently holding a building in reserve for Enciodes: the archives/library, which will be going in the Burned Town when that’s finished being cleaned up. We make this note so that players don’t try to regain that exact thing since this is Rubie’s specific quest/goal, since we hate saying “no, pick something else” to you guys.
- That said, if other players would like to put a building in reserve, as long as it’s redeemed within a handful of months, we don’t mind working with you.
Starting in August, we will have some plot-heavier months and be going back into the thick of it. There will of course be lulls in between to avoid player burnout. There will also be a side plotline launching in August, which will involve Zahliya. More information will be available as the details are hashed out, but know this will involve limited sign-ups as is the nature of many of our sidequests. If player interest for this is through the roof, however, we will find a solution to make sure everyone can play. :)

Please use the following form for plotting:

Character:
Status: Who is your character? What did they get up to last month and how is it impacting this month? Did they discover something? Are they harboring a clue? HMM
Seeking: Any CR or plot thread you want to kickstart!
Not Seeking: Anything you'd like to avoid.
Anything Else: A permissions post, opt-in for a character-specific power or whatever else.
Meme: you know you have one.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Character: Luca Aurelius
Status: ???? He sure is.

Last month was interesting. He doesn't mind the heat but he's not the biggest fan of water. He got a little gay and has some crushes. Also he and Zahliya might have discovered a new interest. Anyway -

Luca doesn't have great affiliations being under the water. He will especially not have a great time when he sees a fucking leviathan go by. Blah blah blah, lore dumping. It's a literal god where he comes from and he already had to deal with the reminder of his ex so? Don't mind him grumping.

Unfortunately Luca will not have alcohol for anyone this time, but you're all welcome to ask. Maybe he'll pull something together. Probably not but...

Seeking: Honestly, more people should confront Luca about what a gay weirdo he s. He keeps isolating himself and getting mad at others. Someone should do something about that.

Not Seeking: Let's not be too intense because I'm baby but also [vague motions to Dawntrail]

Anything Else: I may be slow this month because of the aforementioned video game. Don't mind me. Feel free to nudge me if anything urgent needs doing.

Meme: luca when he finds out who's been putting him into situations

Do we have to talk about him? Please can we just skip him? No? Okay.

Character: Vash the Stampede

Status: A literal fucking idiot. Dude found out last month that in his future, he destroyed a city full of millions of people, then broke up??? with his boyfriend about it. He also helped Adrian with some stuff so at least there were some positives.

Good news! He's slightly less corrupted now. His eyes have gone back to normal so no more weird bug shit there. Bad news is that unfortunately he also lost a wing in fighting with Adrian, while another is damaged. Also he's still got fangs and claws though because I'm not letting him off that easily.

Depending on how breakup things resolve, he might still be a sad sack about that. Even if he isn't, he'll still be moping about the whole millions dead thing. And because everyone will be in close quarters, Vash will be making it everyone's problem. Sorry not sorry? He won't be loving the whole underwater thing either.

Seeking: Please be niceys to him. Vash needs to start working through some of his issues. No, Mizuki, he will not be going to therapy. But maybe he could use a more casual form? Who knows.

Not Seeking: Be niceys to him. Honestly I need a break from his melodrama. I say this every month and yet he still finds away. Goddammit.

Anything Else: Vash may or may not get a canon update somewhere in all of this. I'm largely waiting on what the July 4th Trigun panel reveals before I make decision on where, and also I want poor Weasel to get to make Livio suffer for once. But it's on the horizon. :)

Meme: