wearethechampions

Hello everybody and welcome to Airlocked's official Golden End Announcement post! This is mostly just an FAQ for Golden End, so that all the answers will be centered in one place.

After an amazing year and an outstanding show, we're proud to announce that the requirements for Golden End were successfully met! As a result, as promised, we're having a big open Golden End Celebratory log, open to friends and family of the characters!

- Is this open to anyone?

Yes, and no. It's definitely open to characters and players who were not in any of the canon rounds of Airlocked, but you do have to sign up on this spreadsheet before you can post to the log. The signups will be open until Tuesday 4/10 at 11:59pm EST, in time for the log to go up on Wednesday morning around 10am EST.

- I won't be around right away on Wednesday, can I still sign up?

Absolutely! Make sure that the castmate you're supposed to be a guest of knows you'll be tagging in late, but even though the log is going up on Wednesday it will be up and taggable for approximately all eternity.

- Are there any restrictions on outsiders?

A few! The criteria are:

-Must be closely connected to a participating character (e.g. Takumi or Xander couldn't have one of his siblings' retainers for a guest, but he could have his own).

-Must have a positive relationship with a participating character (e.g. Akande couldn't have Tracer or Winston for his guests, but he could have Reaper, Sombra, Widowmaker, or Moira).
--"Positive" doesn't have to be sunshine and rainbows, but any further than a Shonen Rival type relationship (e.g. Atem/Yugi and Kaiba) would be stretching it.

-Guests can have a negative relationship with a different participating character or characters, so long as they are not the "guest" of that character (e.g. Ravus could be Lunafreya's guest, but not the guest of anyone else).

-No more than two (2) guests per participant. The only exception to this is using a bonus slot.

- What's a bonus slot?

A bonus slot is basically: if you know for whatever reason that you don't need both of your guest slots, you can essentially "burn" one or both of them in order to provide someone else with an extra castmate! We're kind of going by the honor system on this, but if we see the signups post start creeping up toward the 176 character limit with several bonus slots in use we may have to crack down on it.

- My character has a pet/young child that they miss very much, do I need to find someone to play them if I want to see them?

Children under 8 years old and any companion creature (Pokemon, pets, etc) can just be NPCed by the player of their owner, without sacrificing a character slot. Or if you're playing a guest and have a pet or a young child, they can be brought along as well.

- Can I bring a castmate who died in canon?

Please do! The same mechanics that brought the Champions back from the dead are in use here, so feel free to bring your Tragic Anime Moms and your Lost Lenores and anyone else who kicked it in canon.

- My canon has various routes/alternate timelines/endings, do I have to match with my castmate?

We do prefer you do so - at least for major plot beats! For example, any guest of Xander's should be from Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright, while any guest of Takumi's or Mozu's should be from Conquest.

For determinant deaths and non-death divergences, we encourage you to talk to your castmate and ask if they have any strong preferences but unlike major plot points you are not beholden to your castmate's established timeline.

- Anything else I need to know before I sign up?

Well, if you weren't a participant in Airlocked you should probably familiarize yourself with the plot, but if you haven't been following along so far it's the responsibility of the person recruiting you to fill you in.

The main thing to know is that time passed as normal back in each character's home world. Meaning that Airlocked participants who weren't dead in canon have been missing for...varying lengths of time! The amount of time each Champion has been missing depends on which round they were in, but the rough numbers are as follows:

Season 1/Round 4: 2 years
Season 2/Round 1: 13 months
Season 3/Round 2: 11 months
Season 4/Round 3: 8 months

An additional week and change will pass between the Grand Finale of Airlocked and the celebration, putting the celebration roughly equivalent to April 13th ICly (happy birthday, Jane!).

- My character is from an ongoing canon, I don't even know what'd happen in the time that's passed!

You have two options for guests, depending on yours and your castmates' preferences.

-Option one is that you can roll with it and agree on a new "canon" timeline that was affected by the character in question disappearing for however many months, or fill in the time gap with headcanon on how the guest/castmate moved on, for those who are the guest of a character who died in canon.
--Option one-and-a-half, for canons that have had new material come out or have canon that goes past the death of the Airlocked participant, is to take the guest/castmate from their latest possible canonpoint. In the case of Airlocked participants who weren't dead at their original canonpoint, you can work out a new "canon" timeline to that canonpoint as if the Airlocked! participant had disappeared from their Airlocked canonpoint.

-Option two is that any guests can be brought in from the same canonpoint as their castmate as if their friend had just disappeared a couple hours before, and they have to be brought up to speed on how much time has passed.

- Can I bring a close castmate of my own character?

We prefer you leave the slots open for other people to fill first, but if your canon is so old/obscure that not many people play from it you can bring one (1) castmate for yourself. However, keep in mind that this will be mostly for the purpose of interacting with other characters and their castmates; you can write your own tearful reunions without needing to make a whole account for it. As a general rule, selfcest (aka tagging back and forth with your own accounts) is frowned upon.

Alternately, if you can't find anyone to play castmates from your canon, you can assume that up to two specific castmates have also been invited to the party, and are just kind of hovering in the background. If you want them to meet one Airlocked participant in particular, you can NPC them into a thread. This option is only available to players from Airlocked who have problems finding someone to play one or two specific characters who would otherwise be there. If you make an account to play these characters yourself, you have to use one of your guest slots and sign up on the spreadsheet.

- Can I bring a canonmate for someone else even if they're from the same canon as my character?

Yes, absolutely! If the character you're bringing would count as a close castmate for your own character as well, we assume that you've already exhausted all the options for finding a third party to play them before doing it yourself (see: last question), but if there's no real reason for your character to interact with the one you're bringing as a guest then that's more than okay.

- So... This is gonna be a big log, huh? What happens if we hit captcha?

No matter how many logs hit captcha, we the mods will put up an overflow post each time until Sunday, 4/15. If the active log fills up after that point, it'll be up to the players to post a new overflow log or to just take ongoing threads to PSLs.

- I have more questions!

Feel free to ask them below! Or if you don't have any questions, feel free to use this as a place to put a concrete Most Wanted Castmates list for your character, no matter how much of a pipe dream it is, or to advertise potential castmates for your friends or if you have guest slots that you're willing to give up.

It's that time, everyone! Weekly check-in!

Living characters must submit two twenty-comment threads with two different characters per week. Threads must be from week 7 or the afterparty log.

Check-in will close at 12 pm EST on Friday (3/30).

As a reminder we will also be awarding incentives as a reward for checking in on time! Submitting the minimum amount of comments for both threads (20 comments total) characters will receive one free item from the Benefactors. This is essentially the same as a free roll for the Benefactors' Hold. For another 30 comments (50 total), characters will receive a Sabotage/Boon. If you're a total all-star and turn in two threads that total 100 comments (or 50 from your character) in one week, you get a one-time Shield Token. This means if your character is approached with a Sabotage, you can spend the shield token to bounce that sabotage back on the character who targeted yours. Each character cannot hold more than one Shield Token at a time, and they cannot earn more than two Shield Tokens over the course of the game. The mods will reply to your AC with what rewards you have earned.

AC threads may come from the weekly mingle log or any player-posted logs from the check period, but since the trials have their own activity requirements they are ineligible for the activity check. When submitting your comments please add the number of total comments in the threads at the time of submission as this makes it quicker and easier for the mods to calculate if a Boon or Sabotage has been earned. On that note, remember that in order to earn a Boon or Sabotage you must have your AC in by 5 pm EST on the Tuesday of that week.

Failure to meet AC without informing the mods will result in a strike. Two weeks in a row will result in an automatic death roll. AC will go up on Sundays for the previous Sunday-Friday, and will close at 12:00 pm (EST) on the following Friday. Activity checks will be screened, to preserve some sense of secrecy for the distribution of Boons and Sabotages.

It's that time, everyone! Weekly check-in!

Living characters must submit two twenty-comment threads with two different characters per week. Threads must be from week 5, the meeting log, or the afterparty log.

Check-in will close at 12 pm EST on Friday (3/16).

As a reminder we will also be awarding incentives as a reward for checking in on time! Submitting the minimum amount of comments for both threads (20 comments total) characters will receive one free item from the Benefactors. This is essentially the same as a free roll for the Benefactors' Hold. For another 30 comments (50 total), characters will receive a Sabotage/Boon. If you're a total all-star and turn in two threads that total 100 comments (or 50 from your character) in one week, you get a one-time Shield Token. This means if your character is approached with a Sabotage, you can spend the shield token to bounce that sabotage back on the character who targeted yours. Each character cannot hold more than one Shield Token at a time, and they cannot earn more than two Shield Tokens over the course of the game. The mods will reply to your AC with what rewards you have earned.

AC threads may come from the weekly mingle log or any player-posted logs from the check period, but since the trials have their own activity requirements they are ineligible for the activity check. When submitting your comments please add the number of total comments in the threads at the time of submission as this makes it quicker and easier for the mods to calculate if a Boon or Sabotage has been earned. On that note, remember that in order to earn a Boon or Sabotage you must have your AC in by 5 pm EST on the Tuesday of that week.

Failure to meet AC without informing the mods will result in a strike. Two weeks in a row will result in an automatic death roll. AC will go up on Sundays for the previous Sunday-Friday, and will close at 12:00 pm (EST) on the following Friday. Activity checks will be screened, to preserve some sense of secrecy for the distribution of Boons and Sabotages.

It's that time, everyone! Weekly check-in!

Living characters must submit two twenty-comment threads with two different characters per week. Threads must be from week 3 or the afterparty log.

Check-in will close at 12 pm EST on Friday (3/2).

As a reminder we will also be awarding incentives as a reward for checking in on time! Submitting the minimum amount of comments for both threads (20 comments total) characters will receive one free item from the Benefactors. This is essentially the same as a free roll for the Benefactors' Hold. For another 30 comments (50 total), characters will receive a Sabotage/Boon. If you're a total all-star and turn in two threads that total 100 comments (or 50 from your character) in one week, you get a one-time Shield Token. This means if your character is approached with a Sabotage, you can spend the shield token to bounce that sabotage back on the character who targeted yours. Each character cannot hold more than one Shield Token at a time, and they cannot earn more than two Shield Tokens over the course of the game. The mods will reply to your AC with what rewards you have earned.

AC threads may come from the weekly mingle log or any player-posted logs from the check period, but since the trials have their own activity requirements they are ineligible for the activity check. When submitting your comments please add the number of total comments in the threads at the time of submission as this makes it quicker and easier for the mods to calculate if a Boon or Sabotage has been earned. On that note, remember that in order to earn a Boon or Sabotage you must have your AC in by 5 pm EST on the Tuesday of that week.

Failure to meet AC without informing the mods will result in a strike. Two weeks in a row will result in an automatic death roll. AC will go up on Sundays for the previous Sunday-Friday, and will close at 12:00 pm (EST) on the following Friday. Activity checks will be screened, to preserve some sense of secrecy for the distribution of Boons and Sabotages.

It's that time, everyone! Weekly check-in!

Living characters must submit two twenty-comment threads with two different characters per week. Threads must be from week 1 or the intro log.

Check-in will close at 12 pm EST on Friday (2/16).

As a reminder we will also be awarding incentives as a reward for checking in on time! Submitting the minimum amount of comments for both threads (20 comments total) characters will receive one free item from the Benefactors. This is essentially the same as a free roll for the Benefactors' Hold. For another 30 comments (50 total), characters will receive a Sabotage/Boon. If you're a total all-star and turn in two threads that total 100 comments (or 50 from your character) in one week, you get a one-time Shield Token. This means if your character is approached with a Sabotage, you can spend the shield token to bounce that sabotage back on the character who targeted yours. Each character cannot hold more than one Shield Token at a time, and they cannot earn more than two Shield Tokens over the course of the game. The mods will reply to your AC with what rewards you have earned.

AC threads may come from the weekly mingle log or any player-posted logs from the check period, but since the trials have their own activity requirements they are ineligible for the activity check. When submitting your comments please add the number of total comments in the threads at the time of submission as this makes it quicker and easier for the mods to calculate if a Boon or Sabotage has been earned. On that note, remember that in order to earn a Boon or Sabotage you must have your AC in by 5 pm EST on the Tuesday of that week.

Failure to meet AC without informing the mods will result in a strike. Two weeks in a row will result in an automatic death roll. AC will go up on Sundays for the previous Sunday-Friday, and will close at 12:00 pm (EST) on the following Friday. Activity checks will be screened, to preserve some sense of secrecy for the distribution of Boons and Sabotages.

Good afternoon, survivors! Since you guys have had some time to poke out a plan we're putting up a sign-up sheet so we the mods and you the players can keep track of who is going where and with who! The teams you guys have plotted out for yourselves are as such:

Team Celebrity, the beautiful distractions and their hardlight-equipped "body guards" going into the spaceport from the front through the crowd of curious fans. Please make sure you're specifying whether you'd like to be an "actor" or a "bodyguard"!

Team Baggage, the rogue option. This team will be making a go at sneaking in through the baggage claim to get to the "assets" being moved.

Team Mission Control( aka "Team Baby Driver"), the champions staying in the vehicle and having none of these shenanigans. They should be ready at any point to make a fast and furious getaway.

Team Rainbow, the team peeling off to attempt to liberate Cece and the R2 dead from the clutches of InterGal7 on their own. A warning though: going with this team will result in off-screen capture and missing out on plot hooks. This option should only be taken if you know you won't be around/able to be terribly active for the rest of the weekend.

Unless you've already opted to die and go straight to deadland when it's back online all choices are still eligible for Round 5 if you choose to join us!

Hello, Airlocked! We hope you've had a nice little break, but we interrupt your friendly holiday hiatus for a quick announcement and a couple of events!

As you know, we like to shake things up a bit and keep you wriggling on the hook in between rounds with little Intermissions, and since this hiatus is so big we have the time to take you on a little trip with two of them.

First off, we're starting with a little date with destiny for Deadland, and in accordance with the poll that has been going around it looks like the best date for everyone for that event will be this coming weekend, December 7-10. You do not have to be available every day of this event, nor is any participation required in order to "pass." However, we are more comfortable with the shorter notice for this event, given how many characters there are in deadland and therefore the probability that we will have at least enough participation to reach the desired conclusion.

Secondly, we also would like to announce the dates for the Survivors' Intermission. Again in accordance with the poll, this intermission will run from 1/11 to 1/14. There will be special secret signups for this intermission, in the form of a secret poll to help us later. ;)

Because these intermissions are meant to further the metaplot of the game and lead into the final round, the overall ending of these events will be immutable, and we want you to expect them each to end on kind of a low point overall. Think of this as like the ending of The Two Towers, or The Empire Strikes Back. Your characters' individual actions will help to shape how we get to the ending, but there's no real "win" condition for these events.

Now, for a less fun and friendly reminder. We the mods of Airlocked have a zero tolerance policy on harassment of any kind, and while we do encourage our players to work out minor conflicts between themselves we are always available, in the case of situations that may require additional mediation. However, we are only three people, and we are working very hard to provide a satisfying story, so we may not notice all conflicts between players.

We cannot act or intervene unless we are able to observe the issue ourselves, so if you think that there is an issue that requires our mediation, it must be brought to our attention first. If you have any problems with a fellow player, we encourage you to contact us privately on Discord or on Plurk sooner rather than later, so that we can decide how to intervene accordingly. We are here to help mediate disputes between players, and to try to find a solution that keeps everyone having fun.

It's that time, everyone! Weekly check-in!

Living characters must submit two ten-comment threads with two different characters per week. Dead characters need only comment to check-in as a formality. Threads must be from week 3 or the afterparty log.

Check-in will close at 12 pm EST on Friday (11/10).

As a reminder we will also be awarding incentives as a reward for checking in on time! Submitting the minimum amount of comments for both threads (20 comments total) characters will receive one free item from the Benefactors. This is essentially the same as a free roll for the Benefactors' Hold. For another 30 comments (50 total), characters will receive a Sabotage/Boon. If you're a total all-star and turn in two threads that total 100 comments (or 50 from your character) in one week, you get a one-time Shield Token. This means if your character is approached with a Sabotage, you can spend the shield token to bounce that sabotage back on the character who targeted yours. Each character cannot hold more than one Shield Token at a time, and they cannot earn more than two Shield Tokens over the course of the game. The mods will reply to your AC with what rewards you have earned.

AC threads may come from the weekly mingle log or any player-posted logs from the check period, but since the trials have their own activity requirements they are ineligible for the activity check. When submitting your comments please add the number of total comments in the threads at the time of submission as this makes it quicker and easier for the mods to calculate if a Boon or Sabotage has been earned. On that note, remember that in order to earn a Boon or Sabotage you must have your AC in by 5 pm EST on the Tuesday of that week.

Failure to meet AC without informing the mods will result in a strike. Two weeks in a row will result in an automatic death roll. AC will go up on Sundays for the previous Sunday-Friday, and will close at 12:00 pm (EST) on the following Friday. Activity checks will be screened, to preserve some sense of secrecy for the distribution of Boons and Sabotages.

It's that time, everyone! Weekly check-in!

Living characters must submit two ten-comment threads with two different characters per week. Dead characters need only comment to check-in as a formality. Threads must be from week 1 or the intro log.

Check-in will close at 12 pm EST on Friday (10/27).

As a reminder we will also be awarding incentives as a reward for checking in on time! Submitting the minimum amount of comments for both threads (20 comments total) characters will receive one free item from the Benefactors. This is essentially the same as a free roll for the Benefactors' Hold. For another 30 comments (50 total), characters will receive a Sabotage/Boon. If you're a total all-star and turn in two threads that total 100 comments (or 50 from your character) in one week, you get a one-time Shield Token. This means if your character is approached with a Sabotage, you can spend the shield token to bounce that sabotage back on the character who targeted yours. Each character cannot hold more than one Shield Token at a time, and they cannot earn more than two Shield Tokens over the course of the game. The mods will reply to your AC with what rewards you have earned.

AC threads may come from the weekly mingle log or any player-posted logs from the check period, but since the trials have their own activity requirements they are ineligible for the activity check. When submitting your comments please add the number of total comments in the threads at the time of submission as this makes it quicker and easier for the mods to calculate if a Boon or Sabotage has been earned. On that note, remember that in order to earn a Boon or Sabotage you must have your AC in by 5 pm EST on the Tuesday of that week.

Failure to meet AC without informing the mods will result in a strike. Two weeks in a row will result in an automatic death roll. AC will go up on Sundays for the previous Sunday-Friday, and will close at 12:00 pm (EST) on the following Friday. Activity checks will be screened, to preserve some sense of secrecy for the distribution of Boons and Sabotages.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Round Four! As most of you have probably realized, and as many have theorized, this is Airlocked’s prequel round. Essentially, what this means for you is that the round is doomed.

What does this mean for you? It means that there will be no PC survivors. Everyone is going to die. However, this does not mean that everything is pre-determined. We’ve been purposefully vague about how exactly the first season self-destructed, because we want you all to have fun completely burning this game to the ground. We’ve all wondered what it would actually be like to get a bad end in a murdergame, and we want to give you all the latitude to wreak havoc without negatively affecting your chance at an overall Golden End.

Because of this, Round Four is much less structured than the previous three have been. While we would like to have at least four regular cases so that people can form the bonds that will make the deaths really hurt, we encourage everyone to have a role in determining how this will all ultimately fall apart. And, as always, you will be able to continue playing your characters in Deadland if you so wish!

Given the nature of this round, we understand if some people wish to change or withdraw their reserves. If so, please contact us as soon as possible.