Well, maybe not really.
I mean, we were always a small fringe PMD group that arose after the closing of PMD-E. But still, this was a group that was intended to finish up the stories of those left with an abrupt end.
Looking back, we should have tried to keep the group at that: make it a resting place for stories to conclude. The main reason I even wanted to be part of this was because I had worked so hard on Florin's character arc that I couldn't let it start over in some other group. And it took a long time, but at least I can say that I did finish the story I aimed to get out, and with the added bonus of finding out what a wonderful character Shilling could be in the process.
With almost a year since our last journal and so many failed attempts at getting out a mission that none of us were really motivated to get out in a timely fashion, I think it's safe to call this group finished.
We certainly won't be deleting the group as far as I know, and any of the stories you guys were able to create here can be finished in your own time, but yeah, we admins won't be able to give you guys more writing prompts.
If it helps any, let me summarize what we were planning for our next/final mission:
Peony and Albany of the Practitioners would call a bounty on Altima (my character)'s head for fear that their questionable practices would be brought to light.
The mayor and Merchant leader would see the call for a guild member's capture as unethical and try to get Albany to take the mission back.
The police force would be alerted about guild uprising.
Negotiations would fail and the practitioners and raiders guilds would almost start a war with the merchants and rescuers.
In the midst of the turmoil, the second stave (the Terra Stave) would be found and with the Torrent Stave would be tried to stop or control the warring Groudon and Kyogre... only for things to go terribly wrong and cause the titans to go primal instead of being calmed.
Suddenly in the midst of a war all of Kinez is in danger of being destroyed. The guilds face the titans to buy time for evacuations.
From there on with lives lost, the members could choose what to do with their teams, whether to kill them off in defending Kinez or retreating to a portal that could take them back to Tao or to another universe.
Personally, I had plans for Florin and company to make their way back to Tao and have a happy ending. Team Kerokero would lose Altima (so many things I wanted to do with that crazy slug v-v) and June would go to another universe (possibly with Frith following). Kurama and Winston of Team Tome would return to Tao as well, leaving Kira to retreat to the Grand Expanse with York (and start up a little miniseries together).
So with that summary, I hope that those who even remember this group can find a way to give their characters a resolution.
Looking back, I know that we aimed too high and tried to make this group a grand adventure, but the most active people here (me included) produce their works slowly and not up to par with an active RP group.
Thank you, everyone who gave this group a look and even made characters for it, but I'm afraid that since the three of us that run things the most have other more pressing stories to write, that this story won't get fleshed out anytime soon.
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Hum. I see that Kira had already given you guys a good overview of everything, so I'll make this quick.
I take responsibility for the failure of this group as a concept. Bramble, Kira, and Rodrigo had no part in its demise nor its misleading, not more than I did. But I'm being over-dramatic.
It was my idea in the first place to begin morphing the group from a simple place to post epilogues from PMD-E into its own entity. I suggested, somewhere along the line, that we should branch out on our own. Move on from that, build our own world, and try even to surpass PMD-E and fill the big void it created with all the ideas and promised mechanics that that group had never managed. Ones that I designed.
As you can see, very few of those promises we made--mostly on my behalf, and design-- ever actually came to fruition. It's those lofty promises that broke our productivity, and also that Kira and I began dating, the other admins began getting their own problems and...well. You can see where all that went.
We'd keep pushing it off and off, saying that the next big mission we had planned would blow the PMD world away with its unusual complexity and ever-deepening story lines, but as time moved on we kept finding less and less time to dedicate to free time.
Eventually, our lives just became too busy to give to the good maintenance of a group. It was actually a few months ago, nearly a year I think, that we decided to just make a single big super-mission to go out with a bang and give a taste of what we could been, but even that proved too much for us.
Finally, I moved over to Kira's home state to be closer to her and to fulfill my dreams of becoming a pilot, and yeah, that was probably the final nail in the coffin.
PK's group worked because PMD-E was what she lived in breathed. Go and read some of the things that Vee and others had posted about her-- PMD-E was everything she ever talked about outside of her work. She dedicated her whole life to that project and that's a big reason it became the beautiful thing that it did. None of us in the admins had the time nor, sadly, interest to even give a fraction of that. Don't get me wrong, I love PMD-R and the world we built. Every bit of concept writing and art I put out--much of which, unfortunately, didn't get to make it to final production-- I poured my heart into.
Maybe if we were all a few years younger and more free this could've worked. Maybe if we were a few years older, with stable lives and established livelihoods, this could have worked. As it is now, though...you know, I'm not even really sure that was the problem.
Cheers, guys, thanks for understanding and sticking it out with us this whole time. Most of us still in the group are friends on a personal level anyway, so, the community itself won't be going anywhere anyway. I hope that stays.
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Well, I suppose this is sort of a farewell to PMD-R. We had fun while it lasted and maybe I can squeeze in a few things about how my characters will conclude their stories in this universe, but for now it's time to face the facts that this group might not ever recover from our negligence.
Once again, thank you everyone for your support. We'll still be posting other stories for other groups for sure, so keep an eye out for anything that might interest you.
Farewell and thank you again.