A New Day Has Dawned...
A new day has dawned. When night fell on Easton, New York, on the first day of 2019, everything was still ordinary. Over the space of a few months, everything gradually became a hell of a lot more hectic for the harried residents of the city.
Empowered individuals became more common by the day. Some decided to use their powers for good—as the old, respected traditions of heroism dictated. Some, in contrast, decided to use their powers for evil.
Then supernatural creatures and not-so-supernatural ones practically came pouring out of the woodwork. That was extremely jarring. The public vaguely knew that empowered individuals and other such things existed, though never in such numbers—incidents were mostly concentrated in other places (and therefore of little concern).
But why did that happen?
The answer is simple—Easton is a paranormal singularity, and pulls everything odd towards itself. That discovery is still causing political conniptions.
Join the residents of Easton, and pave the way to tomorrow with your actions—good or evil!
—JumpingFruit, the GM, in this post
Empowered individuals became more common by the day. Some decided to use their powers for good—as the old, respected traditions of heroism dictated. Some, in contrast, decided to use their powers for evil.
Then supernatural creatures and not-so-supernatural ones practically came pouring out of the woodwork. That was extremely jarring. The public vaguely knew that empowered individuals and other such things existed, though never in such numbers—incidents were mostly concentrated in other places (and therefore of little concern).
But why did that happen?
The answer is simple—Easton is a paranormal singularity, and pulls everything odd towards itself. That discovery is still causing political conniptions.
Join the residents of Easton, and pave the way to tomorrow with your actions—good or evil!
—JumpingFruit, the GM, in this post
The Good, The Bad, And The Spandex III: Electric Boogaloo is the latest iteration in the TGTBATS Play-By-Post Game / Forum Roleplaying Game series (currently being GM'd by JumpingFruit). Like in the previous RPs, players play various superheroes, supervillains, and everything in between. The game is set in Easton, New York, a few months after the start of 2019.
Like all the others, the game eventually ended due to waning player interest. After several years, a reboot was launched. Signups can be found here.
Tropes Featuring In This RP:
- Anti-Hero: Since this is a Superhero RP, these types of characters also show up with regularity. Examples include Collateral, the Thespian, and much, much more.
- Art Attacker: The defining trait of the Inspired—whatever they define as "art" gives them powers based around it. Since nothing is truly impossible in art, they can be Reality Warpers, at the low, low price of falling to Madness.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Ial Lesson AKA The Thespian has this as a power. He can read posts and even rewrite his own death! As a lesser example, the RP sometimes references previous iterations by having characters Lampshade the Déjà Vu either out loud or in their thoughts.
- The Cape: Many characters are such things, such as Goldrush, Masked Rider Genesis, and almost the whole of the JFI. This is unsurprising due to Spandex's nature.
- Celebrity Superhero: Divisively so in-universe, Justice Force International. Some do not appreciate how they do their heroics, with press releases, scandals and public identities. More or less, they're Youngblood done right—with all the wrinkles and complications that arise from being superheroes and celebrities.
- City of Adventure: Easton City is pretty darn weird.
- Continuity Lock-Out: Seeing as the sheer amount of lore involved in the previous iterations is...very intimidating, rules were implemented to prevent lore overloads in the hopes of not driving off new players.
- Continuity Reboot: Why else would this RP be called Spandex III? This gave people plentiful opportunities to rework old characters and introduce new ones.
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Crazy Is Cool: The setting. Forget mythological creatures and magic, we have aliens with plasma-generating organs running around, Magical Sea Snails, people from alternate worlds...the list goes ever on. - Even Evil Has Standards: Myrkaan, a demon, shows disdain for the Neo-Nazis he manages to manipulate into doing his dirty work for him.
- Evil Counterpart: Myrkaan to Mikael, both being technically the same person. Mikael however has stayed a hero, whereas Myrkaan has become a devastatingly powerful demon who schemes to enhance his own power and prestige. Where Mikael proudly makes use of everything he has, Myrkaan plunders the powers from others using a grotesque vampiric draining power referred to as devouring the souls of his enemies.
- Fanservice: There are some pretty loving descriptions of certain characters' attractive or muscly physiques. No need to expound.
- Kudzu Plot: Pretty much a given due to Spandex's nature as a freeform RP. After experiencing several explosions of such instances, rules were implemented to help control this kind of thing.
- Magical Library: Easton City Library is this, complete with Flying Books, its own Genius Loci / Alien Geometries, and Magic Librarians.
- Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: See the title.
- Playing with Fire: Jeff Drovan AKA Blazeforce and Ignatius (a fire spirit) can both throw around flames.
- Shout-Out: Several—Masked Rider Genesis is a reference to Kamen Rider, while Jumping Bean's golden Battle Aura and martial arts references both Dragon Ball and Iron Fist. Tyulla, a primordial Slime Girl, also references Dragon Ball in that she acts somewhat like Majin Buu and has the ability to Beam Spam.
- Superheroes Stay Single: Subverted—many of the heroes are very eager to either get into relationships or hook up.
- Undying Loyalty: Sir Bayard is still guarding the graves of his comrades and waiting for his Lord to return to him against all reason.
- Wuxia: Jumping Bean, Red Tiger, and Black Wolf all have this shtick.
