Okay, everybody… I’m finally done, and I know it’s late, and I know some of you are in bed - but in true Cherry Tradition, here I am with a huge plot twist right at the end of the night!
I’d like to start off by saying that the Lux Lewis story genuinely plagued my brain for an entire, like, year and a half of my life - and not even in a bad way! I loved it to death. I spent so much time planning out every aspect of it - I created an entire world, and an entire mystery for everyone to solve, and poured my heart into it; and I am so proud of every single thing we’ve all written together within that timeline.
In an ideal world, we would carry that storyline out until the very last moment I had planned for Lux and the Candy Girl’s Saga - if I could turn back time, we would have focused on it, and gotten it DONE within our first year here! But on the way toward the end of Lux’s plot, we sort of got to play around with the LDB, and Blaire’s murder, and the Phantom, and all of these different plot twists and mysteries… and I think that’s genuinely where Cherry thrived, and I think giving us the freedom within our story to explore mysteries and insane plot twists without being tied down to such an extensive central plot line is going to do all of our muse some good.
For the last few months, I have genuinely toiled over what to do about Lux and Candy and Hargrove. I knew I needed to find a way to wrap it up; I could feel myself losing passion, and I think everyone and everything kind of came to a standstill. I knew exactly where we we’re going, and I knew exactly how we would get there; I planned everything out to a T, and wondered why it was all kind of petering out, but I think planning to hit so many story points is exactly where we lost so much of our momentum.
At a certain point, I came to the conclusion that the best thing for me creatively - and for Cherry moving forward - is to put the story of Lux Lewis, and THIS timeline to a close and to start in a Reboot of CHERRY, USA.
What I’ve come up with is a brand new era for us called CHERRY, CA: THE CHERRY COAST.
I know that probably sounds scary, or strange - but just trust me on this one, because I’ve put a lot of thought into it. Just like Spider-Man reboots, we won’t be starting over on our characters… we’ll simply be placing them into a new branch of our multiverse. Some things will stay constant, a la Ben Parker dying, or Peter getting bitten… But other things will vary.
Not everything in their past HERE, in Cherry ‘96, actually happened to them: not all background characters and NPC’s will be exactly the same, even if they share the same name or face as their CHERRY, USA counterpart.
There will be a new timeline, and a new storyline - but that timeline and storyline have been thoroughly based off of the MAJOR events of CHERRY, USA, and where all of your characters are NOW instead of the baseline I wrote of them back when Cherry first began.
There will be some big changes:
CHERRY IS GOING TO 1985! I know we’ve always been a 90’s rp, and I know that’s what you all joined… But I think in the spirit of rebooting and freshening up everyone’s muse, this is going to be a good move for us! Worst case scenario, we can always jump into a new era, or back into the 90s, and I have complete faith that you will all be able to handle it with literary grace.
LUX LEWIS WAS NOT AND IS NOT DEAD. She IS a horrible person - and in fact as you read through our new timeline will show that she was definitely not someone to be trusted in their lives! She will take over a large part of the Candy Girl and LDB storyline in this universe… and though she is not deceased, she will not be a present character in THE CHERRY COAST… at least not yet!!!!!
Our new timeline is going to be mixed-up, mashed-up version of CHERRY, USA’s MAJOR PLOT CHANGING events, and the Gang in High School! This essentially means Carousel Cove happens in Rory, Noah, Zev’s, and Donny’s (YES, I SAID DONNY! A NEW CHARACTER NAME? HMMM….) freshman year, and all of the drama unfolds from there!
I’ve genuinely done my best to try and like hit relationship plot points as references in terms of time elapsed within the rp instead of exact plots!!! And I’ve tried to lay everything out in a way that will kind of give everyone good flexibility within reorganizing… THAT BEING SAID! If you’d like something moved around on the timeline that doesn’t clash with a truly major plot point, it can definitely be switched around! If you’d like anything added, or if any relationship points need to be moved around to fit certain plots y’all have, just let me know! I tried to do my best to include where I thought all of our major things were, but as you’ll kind of find out… I basically rebuilt our RP from the ground up in the last few weeks!! And I’m expecting to have forgotten something or mixed something up SOMEWHERE.
As you’ll see on our new Gang page… I’ve removed the skeleton connections! To be totally honest with you, we’ve all been playing these characters for a year, and you’ve all made them your own!!!! At this point, we KNOW our connections with each other, and I think for this round, we can really just use it all as a jumping off point for this new universe. ALL that I ask is that you stay in the spirit of your original connections and skeletons! Tweak things to your delight beyond that. This will honestly just help me in terms of keeping tracks of dynamics and Gang history, etc.
For our new OPEN characters, Donny and Danny (!!!!), i HAVE included connections for everyone!!! This is solely because they’re both new and deserve a fair shot at being integrating into a Gang that’s so solidly connected.
These characters ARE open to play, but unfortunately, until I have more time on my hands, I’m not sure we’ll be opening to new players for a hot second!!! I would LOVE to get a few new people after the holidays are over, but these two characters are up for grabs!! I will leave a poll for them for anyone interested.
HARGROVE IS NO LONGER A DRUG KINGPIN, HE IS NO LONGER THE DEAN OF THE SCHOOL NOR WAS HE EVER, AND HE IS NO LONGER EVIL PAST JUST BEING SORT OF AN ASSHOLE FATHER AND A MAJOR CAPITALIST! There will be new villains, and new NPC’S to absolutely hate… but I wanted to pass around the Main Villain, and the familial trauma on to another player!!! No spoilers!!
TOM TELLER AND CLARISSA DO NOT EXIST IN THIS UNIVERSE! I know this is devastating, but I hope our new girlie, DAWN, is just loved!!!
IF YOU WANT TO DROP SIDE CHARACTERS, CHANGE THEM, IF YOU WANT TO CHANGE ANYTHING ABOUT YOUR MAIN CHARACTER, IF YOU NEED A NEW FC, A NEW NAME, TO TWEAK YOUR BACKSTORY, ETC - NOW IS THE TIME TO DO IT!
I have laid out BASIC plot points on everyone’s character pages that will sort of get you kickstarted within our new universe! If you are not happy with your skeleton/bio, or would just like to make a change bc you’re feeling it - let me know!
One thing I do want to keep is everyone’s ages on the Gang page! I’ve aged everyone down a little to keep in track with our new timeline - everyone WILL still be CCU students! I just think it’ll be a little more organized if we keep everyone within their like connection circles in the same age groups/grades, etc!! I know this will make it easier on anyone who likes to make timelines!
THERE WILL BE A NEW MAIN, AND A NEW DISCORD SERVER! If you would like to make a new account, please go for it! Make a fresh start, on a fresh dash. My hope for this is just to kickstart our muse with characters we love in a new setting - I know there’s going to be some gaps, and plot holes to fill… But I truly do believe it will be worth it in the end.
To cap this all off, our format WILL change slightly! Cherry mysteries are gonna run more on a serialized sort of storytelling process!! What this basically means is that each new mystery, monster, murderer ( ? ), we tackle will be about 2-3 months long! It will sort of be up to everyone in the group if they’d like certain parts to carry on, or if they’d like to let it float away from their characters psyche from episode to episode. Think of it like Scooby Doo, Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, or any sort of serialized comic book! Some characters go through hell, and they’re good as new by the next issue, you know? If that’s the route you want to take so you don’t feel so stuck, you can do that! The only thing that needs to connect these mysteries is your character’s connections with each other.
I think it’ll make more sense once we’re all IN IT! But I think the system might just work better for anyone who might have felt stuck after so much TRAUMA was inflicted on their characters. The only trauma they HAVE to hold onto after plot events or Mysteries wrap is the trauma they acquired during the High School/Lux period of their lives!
That’s all I can think of for right now! I will send links to everything on our discord chat, and get us started ASAP. I love y’all, and I really do hope you all are as excited as I am about our new chapter. I think it’s going to be so fun, and so worth it. Thank you again for being here!
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