@AquaTheLita
As promised, I'm putting together an official summary of things for you now — or at least, a good list of where everyone is and how they got to that point. Thankfully, I think I explained enough things in-person that I shouldn't have to type out
too extensive of a summary.
Also, I bolded every character's name at least once — just to make it easier to skim through this giant block of text to find info on a specific fandom.
——
So, like I said before, most of our characters are gathered in or around the TARDIS.
Doctor Who,
Dragon Age,
Red vs Blue,
Final Fantasy,
Fire Emblem,
Fullmetal Alchemist,
Homestuck, and
Night Vale are all sort of crowded around the entrance and the console room (which is currently modeled after the TARDIS interior of the
Eighth Doctor's era, by the way).
Hetalia's also there, theoretically, but his owner hasn't been around to post for him for quite a while, making it feel like Hetalia really isn't there anymore. Thankfully, it's easy to think of this as him being in "Canada-mode" as far as the RP is concerned. Also, there's also the
Beatles and
Touhou, who are technically in the console room but are sort of off to the side as they're currently resting on account of injuries sustained during the Trickster arc — though they're in fairly decent shape thanks to Final Fantasy's healing potions. And, like I said,
Sherlock is lost in the TARDIS corridors somewhere, talking to a past version of the Beatles, because timey-whimey stuff.
The reason why this group's so huge is because it used to be three separate groups not too long ago, who were all brought together as things calmed down towards the end of the Trickster arc. Doctor Who, Sherlock, Beatles, Touhou, and Hetalia were all in the TARDIS together before the other groups showed up — along with
Megaman, who left to go search for Attack on Titan, as Touhou heard that AoT had turned into a Trickster Titan, and therefore she was incredibly concerned about his current status and whereabouts, but she was too weak to go looking for him herself.
Not long after that, one of the other groups came knocking at the TARDIS doors — particularly that of Final Fantasy, Dragon Age, RvB, Fire Emblem, and FMA, though the Doctor was particularly shocked to see FF as his airship had crashed not too long ago, and he and his group had assumed him dead. FF had survived the crash thanks to an incident with a triceratops that caused him to fall through a portal and land safely elsewhere just before the crash occurred (yeah, it's weird, but the details aren't important). After that incident, FF spent a short bit of time gathering the aforementioned rag-tag group, all of whom seemed to join up with him pretty much one after the other before they all made their way to the TARDIS. Anywho, they're all still just sort of getting acquainted or re-acquainted with each other and filling each other in on everything that's happened with the Tricksters recently (except for Sherlock, who had already wandered off and gotten lost at this point).
The group that arrived pretty much immediately after them was that of Night Vale, Homestuck,
Hunger Games, and
Attack on Titan, who all arrived in Night Vale's Strexcorp helicopter, which is still parked not far from the TARDIS. AoT hasn't really moved very far from the helicopter, though, as he's still feeling awful due to his post-Trickster hangover, and he's currently sort of just sitting on the ground, feeling miserable. HG's still at his side because she's concerned and wants to help him in some way. And that's why I didn't list HG or AoT among everyone else in the big group, as they're kind of off to the side, doing their own thing. Relevant: poor Touhou doesn't even know that AoT's just outside, and Megaman left pretty much right before he and the others showed up.
As for Megaman's current whereabouts: he recently encountered
Metal Gear near the Dai Gurren (which is this big ship thing that's owned by a fandom who's technically listed as a drop-out at this point), who apparently is missing an arm. Looks like Megaman's trying to figure out how to help him as a helicopter is on its way to recover Metal Gear.
Elsewhere entirely, we have
Trigun,
Steven Universe (sort of),
Clannad, and
Deadpool all together — with the unconscious Indominus Rex lying not too far from them. Like I mentioned in-person, Trigun and SU fused together to create Triguniverse, who, in her brief existence, protected Night Vale's group from Tricksters (allowing them to escape and eventually meet up with Doctor Who and the others), and helped
Jurassic Park and
Jurassic World round up escaped dinosaurs. Eventually, she tried to take on Indominus Rex, which left her badly injured enough to de-fuse, and caused SU to revert back to her gemstone form — which essentially means that her body is gone and that she's just a dormant consciousness inside a rock for the time being — and that rock is currently in Trigun's possession, though she's not entirely sure what SU's current form really entails or how to bring her back. At any rate, de-fusing and SU getting 'poofed' meant that it was time to run the fuck away from I-Rex. It was then that Trigun encountered Clannad and tried to urge her to also run away, but the ditzy robot didn't seem to acknowledge any sort of danger. Thankfully, by then, I-Rex was getting pretty sluggish due to the injuries sustained from fighting Triguniverse and the tranquilizers that Jurassic Park shot her up with. So, it was pretty easy for Deadpool to show up and blast her with a bazooka, knocking her unconscious.
I have no idea where
Jurassic Park and
Jurassic World are at the moment. Long story short, their owner sort of went on hiatus at some point during all this chaos, and, even after her return, those particular characters really haven't been re-introduced since, meaning that they're essentially free characters for now. You'd have to ask Clirkus where they are if you want to do anything with them.
Also,
Cowboy Bebop and
Space Dandy are both searching for Trigun in Bebop's ship, and are also essentially free characters for the time being.
Other free characters include
Avengers and
FIFA. I suggest contacting their owners if you want to interact with any of them (and feel free to just tag them in this thread by typing '@' and their username). Unfortunately, though, Jurassic Park/World and Avengers don't seem to be viable options at the moment, as their owners are among the list of members who seem to have vanished in recent weeks.
As for which group would be best to interact with, well… like I said, a lot of our members seem to be AWOL currently — though I'm assuming it's just because of how busy this time of year is for a lot of people (myself included, really). Thing is, though, this means that any groups involving characters whose owners are absent are somewhat frozen for the time being. If you try to initiate an interaction with any characters owned by absentee players, you'll be stuck for an indefinite amount of time — which is normally a bad thing, but, if you're also crazy busy, then it
might actually work out well for you, as you wouldn't have to worry too much about things for a while.
But, I'd definitely err on the side of caution with this strategy, and I certainly wouldn't recommend it if you're looking forward to getting into the RP sooner rather than later.
All that said, the only group that doesn't have this problem is that of
Megaman and
Metal Gear — which is probably for the best, as it's a nice small group, which are much easier to handle (a massive group like the one around the TARDIS might not be the best idea for someone who's new to all this (not to mention I already told you what a fucking mess RvB is, so… yeah)). As for free characters:
FIFA,
Cowboy Bebop, and
Space Dandy are all viable options.
Sooo… yeah. Just let me know which option you feel like going with for getting your character started (and feel free to tag any relevant usernames to sort of get a conversation started), and of course, speak up if you have any questions (I realize that this was written in a sort of backwards and disorganized way, so… yeah). Once you know what you're doing, though, you're pretty much set to jump into the IC with an intro post. (But make sure you brush up on the rules before jumping in!)
Also, to anyone else reading this: Don't hesitate to correct me if you think I made any mistakes or forgot anything essential. I didn't exactly have my eyes glued to the IC the whole time, and, though I did double-check things I was unsure about, the vast majority of this was written off of memory.