STATE OF THE TAXON: SUMMER LOVIN' EDITION
HOT FUN IN THE SUMMER TIME
The climate is sticking to mild San Fracnisco, but you an expect things to be hotter down at the brand new beach. Temperatures will max out at 85F/30C, just enough to get the sand nice and toasty between your toes, with a gentle onshore breeze to keep it comfortable.
“Comfortable” would be a good word to describe the entire city this month: there is an overall sense of vacation holidays and a relaxed, resort-like vibe enveloping the town. The Extras will seem just a bit more cheery and helpful, happy to accommodate the citizens’ every wish. Along with this will come a wave of cheesy souvenir shops selling a wide variety of “I ♥ Taxon” t-shirts, mugs, hats, magnets, shot glasses, bottle openers, and stuffed hamster plushies wearing “I ♥ Taxon” t-shirts. Apparently the aliens are tyring their best to be reassuring and welcoming in the newly re-arranged and spiffed-up city.
ALSO: Our very own Buffy Summers is organizing a beach party, so if your character want in on that there’s the post to check out.
REMINDERS
→ PLEASE fill out your permissions meme if you haven't already! We need one from everyone.
→ Head on over here and leave us links to your plurks and twitters to be added for additional contact information, if you're so inclined!
→ Go ahead and make a phone post, too, if you so desire!
→ Don't forget, you can glitch your character individually at any time by going through our glitch requests, get your character more stuff from home with item petitions, and have them earn money by getting them a job.
→ Remember to use the hiatus post in the mod journal when you go on hiatus. A post in the OOC comm is much more likely to escape our notice than a comment to the official post.
→ Check out the calendar for events and the activity records for your current activity check status.
→ TAG ALL OF YOUR POSTS! When you make posts and when you tag into someone else's. Commenting on a post, but failing to tag your character will not count towards the activity check. Please remember to do this so proper credit is given and active characters remain free of being swept.
If all else fails, or is just hard to find, hit up our link directory featured right at the top of the mod journal. Also, you don't have to wait for one of the HMDs to give us your thoughts. If you have ideas for Taxon that you'd like to share with us (including more cultural events, which we’d love to do more of), you can comment at any time to the suggestions or complaints posts.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Since we missed out on Spring Cleaning, we’ve moved it over to the summer!
Last month, in addition to redoing the city map, we updated the templates on the wiki for all your location pages! They now match the character infoboxes and are much easier to fill out without the wiki doing strange things to your line breaks. Don’t forget to check your location/item/vehicle pages and fill out the information on them, including permissions.
We also rewrote the Expanded FAQ, so be sure to check it out! Hopefully the information there now is more clear and concise, and if there’s anything that’s still confusing please let us know. Following the additions we made after the Game HMD, we’ve also expanded the information available on the Aliens, and the Glitch List.
Additionally, after the events of the Sanctuary Glitch last month, when you thread a character leaving the Arrival Room in your intro posts you are free to have them end up on any floor of the Sanctuary itself. We'll be editing the application, basic, and expanded FAQs to reflect the new change!
This month we’re looking to continue our efforts to make all the Taxon information clear, concise, and available for you. We’ll be making more posts throughout the month involving cleaning up our rules and possible changes to the activity check system, polls so we can plan our larger glitches months in advance, and other announcements as new ideas are implemented throughout the game, so please keep an eye on the modly posts tag here in the OOC community.
FREEBIES
In keeping with the atmosphere redolent of summer, the giveaways this month will be decidedly relaxing in nature. Anything your characters would want to enjoy the new water features (swimsuits, sunscreen, towels, snorkels, flippers, goggles, etc.) will be free from the stores and hatches. Other beachgoing gear - lounge chairs, massive umbrellas, colorful fruity drinks with little paper umbrellas - will also be free of charge.
In addition, summer get-together items will be free. Everything from hot dogs to the hibachis to grill them on to the “Kiss the Cook” apron to wear while you’re grilling your free hot dogs on your free hibachi, as well as nasty cheap light beer to swill while all of the above is going on will included on the freebie list.
IS IT REAL? OR IS IT HIDDEN REFLECTIONS?
Starting today and lasting all month long, the shiny bits of Taxon will be behaving oddly. Even characters that normally wouldn't register a reflection will end up subjected to their shenanigans.
→ Regular Mirrors: When a character looks into a normal mirror of any size, it will show them their deepest desires. An image of a loved one they wish they were with, them decked out in the finest bling as ruler of all, a better, stronger version of themselves, whatever you can imagine your character would want most (either above all things or just in that moment) can happen in their reflection.
→ Reflective Surfaces: Other surfaces that can act as mirrors (panes of glass, still waters, shiny metals like doorknobs, knives, or hubcaps, etc.), however, will reflect a character's true nature. Positive or negative, their overall nature or their true feelings in that moment. It may show them as an unrepentant monster, a vision of themselves from the past, give away that they're laughing when trying to fake seriousness, or any other interpretation you can imagine.
These effects will be fleeting and occasional, so feel free to use them as much or as little as you like. You can also have the images shown to your characters in mirrors or other surfaces be visible to others, but that's also up to you.
WE’LL STILL HAVE THE SUMMER AFTER ALL
Take off your heels, find somewhere nice to be alone, do not be sad when the sun goes down, and take your characters for a ride because it is meme time! Catch up on CR, build new stuff, and plan your doings for the month.
What's been going on: A quick summary of what's up with your character and how they're doing.
Things to do this month: Anything you'd like to do with them this month. CR requests, plot requests, "I'd really like them to have x kind of development but idk how to go about it, any ideas," whatever you want to get to this month or a plot you want to start rolling for the months to come.
The climate is sticking to mild San Fracnisco, but you an expect things to be hotter down at the brand new beach. Temperatures will max out at 85F/30C, just enough to get the sand nice and toasty between your toes, with a gentle onshore breeze to keep it comfortable.
“Comfortable” would be a good word to describe the entire city this month: there is an overall sense of vacation holidays and a relaxed, resort-like vibe enveloping the town. The Extras will seem just a bit more cheery and helpful, happy to accommodate the citizens’ every wish. Along with this will come a wave of cheesy souvenir shops selling a wide variety of “I ♥ Taxon” t-shirts, mugs, hats, magnets, shot glasses, bottle openers, and stuffed hamster plushies wearing “I ♥ Taxon” t-shirts. Apparently the aliens are tyring their best to be reassuring and welcoming in the newly re-arranged and spiffed-up city.
ALSO: Our very own Buffy Summers is organizing a beach party, so if your character want in on that there’s the post to check out.
REMINDERS
→ PLEASE fill out your permissions meme if you haven't already! We need one from everyone.
→ Head on over here and leave us links to your plurks and twitters to be added for additional contact information, if you're so inclined!
→ Go ahead and make a phone post, too, if you so desire!
→ Don't forget, you can glitch your character individually at any time by going through our glitch requests, get your character more stuff from home with item petitions, and have them earn money by getting them a job.
→ Remember to use the hiatus post in the mod journal when you go on hiatus. A post in the OOC comm is much more likely to escape our notice than a comment to the official post.
→ Check out the calendar for events and the activity records for your current activity check status.
→ TAG ALL OF YOUR POSTS! When you make posts and when you tag into someone else's. Commenting on a post, but failing to tag your character will not count towards the activity check. Please remember to do this so proper credit is given and active characters remain free of being swept.
If all else fails, or is just hard to find, hit up our link directory featured right at the top of the mod journal. Also, you don't have to wait for one of the HMDs to give us your thoughts. If you have ideas for Taxon that you'd like to share with us (including more cultural events, which we’d love to do more of), you can comment at any time to the suggestions or complaints posts.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Since we missed out on Spring Cleaning, we’ve moved it over to the summer!
Last month, in addition to redoing the city map, we updated the templates on the wiki for all your location pages! They now match the character infoboxes and are much easier to fill out without the wiki doing strange things to your line breaks. Don’t forget to check your location/item/vehicle pages and fill out the information on them, including permissions.
We also rewrote the Expanded FAQ, so be sure to check it out! Hopefully the information there now is more clear and concise, and if there’s anything that’s still confusing please let us know. Following the additions we made after the Game HMD, we’ve also expanded the information available on the Aliens, and the Glitch List.
Additionally, after the events of the Sanctuary Glitch last month, when you thread a character leaving the Arrival Room in your intro posts you are free to have them end up on any floor of the Sanctuary itself. We'll be editing the application, basic, and expanded FAQs to reflect the new change!
This month we’re looking to continue our efforts to make all the Taxon information clear, concise, and available for you. We’ll be making more posts throughout the month involving cleaning up our rules and possible changes to the activity check system, polls so we can plan our larger glitches months in advance, and other announcements as new ideas are implemented throughout the game, so please keep an eye on the modly posts tag here in the OOC community.
FREEBIES
In keeping with the atmosphere redolent of summer, the giveaways this month will be decidedly relaxing in nature. Anything your characters would want to enjoy the new water features (swimsuits, sunscreen, towels, snorkels, flippers, goggles, etc.) will be free from the stores and hatches. Other beachgoing gear - lounge chairs, massive umbrellas, colorful fruity drinks with little paper umbrellas - will also be free of charge.
In addition, summer get-together items will be free. Everything from hot dogs to the hibachis to grill them on to the “Kiss the Cook” apron to wear while you’re grilling your free hot dogs on your free hibachi, as well as nasty cheap light beer to swill while all of the above is going on will included on the freebie list.
IS IT REAL? OR IS IT HIDDEN REFLECTIONS?
Starting today and lasting all month long, the shiny bits of Taxon will be behaving oddly. Even characters that normally wouldn't register a reflection will end up subjected to their shenanigans.
→ Regular Mirrors: When a character looks into a normal mirror of any size, it will show them their deepest desires. An image of a loved one they wish they were with, them decked out in the finest bling as ruler of all, a better, stronger version of themselves, whatever you can imagine your character would want most (either above all things or just in that moment) can happen in their reflection.
→ Reflective Surfaces: Other surfaces that can act as mirrors (panes of glass, still waters, shiny metals like doorknobs, knives, or hubcaps, etc.), however, will reflect a character's true nature. Positive or negative, their overall nature or their true feelings in that moment. It may show them as an unrepentant monster, a vision of themselves from the past, give away that they're laughing when trying to fake seriousness, or any other interpretation you can imagine.
These effects will be fleeting and occasional, so feel free to use them as much or as little as you like. You can also have the images shown to your characters in mirrors or other surfaces be visible to others, but that's also up to you.
WE’LL STILL HAVE THE SUMMER AFTER ALL
Take off your heels, find somewhere nice to be alone, do not be sad when the sun goes down, and take your characters for a ride because it is meme time! Catch up on CR, build new stuff, and plan your doings for the month.
What's been going on: A quick summary of what's up with your character and how they're doing.
Things to do this month: Anything you'd like to do with them this month. CR requests, plot requests, "I'd really like them to have x kind of development but idk how to go about it, any ideas," whatever you want to get to this month or a plot you want to start rolling for the months to come.