So, you may have heard through the grapevine that I have a slight Polyvore obsession. And with RP and RL being relatively slow the last few weeks, I spent some spare time making present polyvores for my characters. Not all of my characters, though, and not for everyone they have CR with, because after a while I ran out of ideas.

SAYING THAT....here we go. Feel free to add any gifts you found to the comments. Or feel free not to, since this is just one of my ways of nerding.

Avery

- Vincent
- Säde
- Adrien
- Hadyn
- Katya
- Cadogan
- Evan
- Ethan

Zoe

- Evan & Riley
- Annie & Chives
- Blythe
- Hadyn
- Sophie
- Victor

Elisha

- Eileen
- Katya

Jordan

- Devon

Alasdair

- Elani
- Riley
- Evan
- James-McCartney Puppies
- Cordelia

This morning Victor and Zoe left for the Spade Outpost so that she can audit the hell out of their accounts to see if that helps fish out the embezzling culprit. This will take two days; after that, Victor is taking her off to Paris/Vienna for a real honeymoon.

They shall return in 5-7 days. I know. I'm so exact.

We were discussing how sometimes it can be hard to figure out things for our characters to get involved in or maybe we're not sure what to do to develop meaningful CR with other characters...hopefully this will help.

Basically, the idea is:

1. Post a comment with a list of whichever characters you'd like to develop some kind of plot or CR for.
2. Make sure to put in what you're interested in doing if you've got any ideas
3. Look around other people's comments and if you see something you'd like to get one of your characters involved in...discuss!
4. Make a connection and make the magic happen. :)

Disclaimer: no obligation to do this, just trying to get the juices flowing. :)

( List of Plot Things So Far Below )

But...Avery has left for vacation in Italy and will be back in a week. Presumably Ethan will be joining her after Amy's challenge.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday sees a bevy of beauties leaving the Deck for Venice, where they will enjoy a spa weekend, questionable entertainment provided by the bridesmaid, wining, dining, shopping and most importantly pampering of the bride, one Zoe Kattalakis. They'll return either Sunday at some point or Monday morning depending on the individual. Absent will be:

Zoe, Sophie, Blythe, Annie, Edie, Leona, Riley and Teresa. It's rumored certain menfolk may make an appearance, some known and some not known (oh, Blythe). Shenanigans may be watched here. They probably all have their cell phones in case anyone really needs to get hold of one of them.

Until Monday!

Tomorrow is the first night of Passover, and lucky Elisha has been Summoned to New York to partake in a seder with his straight out of Gossip Girl charming Kagan relatives. He's dragging Hadyn, Eileen, and possibly Leona along with.

They will return from war by Wednesday at the very latest.

So we thought it might be helpful if there was a place players could come and put down what their characters were up to in regards to the plot, since there's a few things happening at once and we don't necessarily want something to get overlooked or toes stepped on. Plus people who aren't sure where they should get involved might get ideas. And basically everybody can hash out what they want to here. So...go to town? <3

To get things started, there's a few comment headers below for threads, if you've got something going on with that. Feel free to create your own threads if there's something we forgot (probably did, it's getting late!).

Since this is a little unusual circumstance. We thought we'd draw your attention to it.

After a plethora of outbursts over the years, among other things, and Clive and Katya's desire to show that the Spades are not the Suit they once were, after the fight Julien picked wit Säde on the Green recently, he has been summarily demoted back to the position of Nine of Spades and imprisoned in the Spade dungeons until April.

What does this mean for you?

Well,if you've harbored any ambition to create/make your character Ace of Spades...here is your opportunity. The rank is considered open and is not being held for anyone (not even Julien /tear).

Questions, comments, want some links to the context....please put them in the comments below.

:)

Hey Cards~

So right I already posted for her and nonsense but here is a shiny intro post for Evangeline Darcey Mae Huntly! Cousin of Zoe, she's a learning resources specialist, which basically means she helps all those high schoolers in the Deck choose classes/get into college. Also Alasdair's ex and she hates him okay so don't even talk to her about him (though she brings him up all the time) (she likes holding grudges okay). Peppy, cheery, ridiculous; you know you want to be best friends with her, so all ye Deckbabies, come and get some CR~ :D

Just to keep everyone up to date...it may now be noticed that the King of Spades is nowhere to be found. Also missing is a suitcase's worth of clothes (and the jewelry he bought for Athena recently), if anyone is likely to go looking for such things. Rumors are running wild as to where he's gone.

• Some say he went chasing after Athena, unable to continue without her here in the Deck. Opinions are mixed on whether this is romantic or idiotic.
• Some say he went off Deck to track down a particular leak of information about the Deck, among those who remember he used to do this under Medea and Sean.
• Some look at the Ace sidelong and believe he finally succeeded in killing the King (Julien would say, if asked, he wouldn't have kept it a secret and done it in front of everyone in a Challenge if that was his wish).
• Some think perhaps the pressure of being King of Spades simply finally got to him and David lost his wits and was hidden away by the Faces.
• And of course, if you want to come up with something else to gossip about, there are many more theories about where the King has gone to entertain.

So if you want to have your character wonder he where he is or talk to others about it, feel free. The Faces will not divulge much, if anything, since they're trying to keep quiet that he's gone (because of course they have no idea where he's gotten to). Eventually (soon enough), though, they'll have to admit publicly that he's gone away and they don't know when he will return. Probably about the same time that Katya names a new King to replace the old one (so on that note, applications for King of Spades are open).

Any questions about what's going on or discussion of the plot or what you'd like your character to know/find out, please stick 'em in the comments. :)

(PS. This post is relevant to things for those who haven't seen it.)

( Monthly Round Up )

Also ETA: The Calendar Has Been Updated. You can click on the image and it will take you to the actual calendar. From there you can get more details on the Events posted. Remember- not every month will be as jam packed as some. This is to give everyone a change to build up to new events coming. Sometimes you can glance ahead to the next month and see some of the stuff already added, and back a month to see what has already happened. And as always! Add a comment with a plot idea if you want to see it show up. Odds are with enough time, we might see how we can possibly work it in. :)

In Briony's last post, she and Cooper came up with the idea of a community garden to be put on the Green where the fallen trees are from Gustave's magic - sort of a way of taking what's been destroyed and making it into something the entire Deck can participate in.

I think it'd be a fun, light thing for people to participate in, and I can think of some Cards who'd probably be interested - but I'm wondering if people would like to volunteer their people to be people that Cooper and Briony talk to about it? I'd also love garden ideas! I vaguely have some idea of flowers around the perimeter and fruits and vegetables towards the center, but I haven't gardened since college, so anyone with more experience and ideas should throw them at us.

Thank you! :D

Muzy

So last night, the Magician tried to perform a massive spell to rejoin the Deck land with the Arcana so everybody can be one big happy family (ahahahah) again.

Thanks to Säde, this did not work and the spell kind of blew up in their faces. It also spread out across the entire Deck before it dissipated. Your character may have just seen a flash of light out of the corner of their eye. They may have felt a breeze where there was no wind. They may have felt a sudden surge of energy, even. If they were near a window looking toward the Green or they were outside, they definitely would have seen a large flash of light coming from the center of the Green.

Just something you may want them to reference. <3

Qi, Vi and I have been continuing Daisy's plot for Isaac as she'd planned - she'd already started set up and it's what she wanted for the character.

So with that in mind, assume that Isaac has been away from work for a couple weeks as the glioma has worsened. Last week, directly after the embassy came down, he and Urania left the Deck to see a specialist; Chives went with them. Unfortunately, Isaac's tumor has progressed beyond the point of him being able to recover from it, and both Chives and Urania will return to the Deck alone next week after he passes.

A memorial will be held in October.

Okay, darlings, the carnival begins tomorrow and I'm not putting up a post for it, so this serves to let people know what is there.

RIDES

1. Carousel: Permanent Fixture on the Green
2. Ferris Wheel: Rented by the Clubs
3. Tilt-a-Whirl: Rented by the Clubs
4. Octopus Ride: Rented by the Diamonds
5. Bouncy Castle: Rented by the Diamonds
6. Tunnel of Love: Rented by the Hearts
7. Kiddie Train: Rented by the Hearts
8. Detonator: Rented by the Spades
9. Dragon Ship: Rented by the Spades

GAMES

1. House of Mirrors/Funhouse
2. Strongman Game/High Striker
3. Target Games
4. Whatever else you want there to be

FOOD

1. Popcorn/Caramel Corn
2. Corndogs/Hotdogs/Hamburgers
3. Fried candybars and twinkies etc.
4. Ice cream
5. Sno-Cones
6. Beer/Ale/Assorted other beverages

I think that's it. Have fun y'all!

This is how it's going to go down:

Monday: Revue post. You can be in the audience, in a reception room, backstage, performing, what have you.

Tuesday through Friday: Carnival. There will be no specific post for this to prevent event fatigue, but feel free to post your characters as going to the carnival.

Friday: Song will post the ball.

Bam.

I have gotten completely zero notifs since yesterday, and it looks for the near future like it's going to stay that way. Every tag that was in my inbox before they cut off has been answered. Link me if you have answered my tags since or if I have missed any completely.

/fumes

/not to say that I will answer it right away since I'm posting this right before work, but so I don't miss the -GMT crowd

Let's pretend I'm not too lazy to get out of this account.

As previously announced, the end of August will involve a musical revue, followed by a carnival, followed by a ball. For the first, we need volunteers - currently Ana, Elle and I have characters involved (Elani, Tegan, Avery and Jordan) and there will be NPC performances, but it'd be nice if more people wanted to be involved. So.

• If your character can sing


• If your character is under the impression they can sing


• Or if you're willing to make their life pain by forcing them on stage

Please comment. :D You really just have to come up with a song to sing/number. I don't expect we'll be writing out the singing all that much.

So, apparently LJ and Gmail teamed up and decided that all my notifs for today were to be shoved into my spam folder.

JSYK, I wasn't ignoring any tags today, I legit thought no one was hitting them. :| Fuck you, Gmail and LJ.

/goes to furiously tag back

So there are quite a few adjustments coming to the House of Cards and we wanted to make sure everyone was aware of them before they happened. Some are bigger than others. Some require your participation. Please take the time to read this post in entirety. Thank you!

Applications

As of August 1^st, we will begin leaving applications open from the 1^st of the month until the 21^st of the month, every month. With this extended length, we will be approving applications on a first-come, first served basis, though please keep in mind that approvals still may not actually come through until the weekends, depending on mod availability. Still, you won't have to wait for apps to close to be approved.

They will be closed from the 22^nd through the end of the month for us to perform Activity Check and get things situated as usual (the AC grace period is still from the 22^nd to the end of the 28^th and that's based on GMT -5, more or less).

We'll also be leaving applications un-screened.

Characters

Starting in August, when we open up applications, we will also be extending the maximum number of characters a player is allowed to have from 5 to 9. Also, you will no longer be required to request permission to have more than four characters.

However, please keep in mind that if you aren't keeping up with your current characters and apply for a new one, we will likely tell you you'll need to drop one of the current characters or show some increase in activity before we'll allow you to bring the new character in.

Activity Check

Also beginning in August, we will change the AC requirements and make it the same whether you are a Face card or a Number. Yes, this means that for July, you still have to meet the current AC requirements.

Next month, we'll be looking for each character to participate in a minimum of three threads (if you have three threads within one post you've made, that counts, or if you tag around to three different characters, that will count. Tagging the same character three times would be frowned on). We will still expect threads to be at least five comments from each character.

So, for example, if I create a post with Julien's account and David, Athena, and Urania all reply to him and each thread has at least 10 comments, that would cover Julien for the month's AC.

But if David doesn't make any posts at all, but he replies to posts made by Julien, Rachel, and Eileen and each of those threads is at least 10 comments long, that would cover David for the month, even though he didn't make any posts himself.

Holds

There will be coming soon a section for people to request 'holds' for up to two weeks on specific PBs or Rank slots. During the time a hold is in effect, we will not accept any other applications for that particular PB or Rank. Please keep in mind that a hold does not guarantee your application will be approved and if not approved that PB or Rank will be opened again for others to apply.

Deck Internet

We've discussed the idea of people making posts as if they were on an internal "Deck Internet" type network with our very own Deckbook, Deck Twitter, Deck Youtube, and so on so characters could be making posts to these places and other characters could reply like they were on those websites.

This would NOT take the place of current posts, but would allow players another avenue for making posts if they don't want to always post in the SWS or the log format. Thoughts?

Move Questionnaire

We will be sending everyone a PM very soon requesting your opinion on the possibility of moving the game to DW. Note: we are not saying it's a given, but we would like to know what the playerbase thinks. All replies will be kept confidential between the mods and we really want to know your opinions on the matter, good or bad so feel free to let it all out. :)

Comment Pages Layout

We didn't forget the poll we had a while back and we are in process as we speak of getting the comment pages tweaked to hopefully make things work better.

Monthly Summary

We have on the table the idea of posting some kind of 'monthly summary' of biggish things that happen in the comm to make things easier to find for both new players to get a feel for what's happening in the game and for current players to find posts that might be interesting to catch up on.

Yes, we tried this before with the Daily Trump, but this time it will be a straight up fully OOC/Meta post that just posts links with thread titles and a short summary of interesting threads that have happened in the past month. We would still strongly encourage players to submit threads they think should go on the post, of course. :)

Character Bios and Information

We want to link each character's name on the Taken Cards page to their biographies...which all of you should have some form of since most all of you have had to fill in applications to join the game in the first place. :) This way it makes it easier for people to find the information about the characters without having to go all over the place for it.

We are also talking about making a post that lists all the current occupations in the game (we know there's the gdoc that some folks keep updated but we'd like something a little more formal) so new players can both see what sort of occupations people are using in the game and also see if something is already being done in a given Suit that doesn't really require a duplicate (like head of Guards, for instance, there don't need to be two in any given Suit).

So that's what's going on....questions, comments? Please put them in the comments!