#Prodigy hacks to level up

[psychemochanight]

This may sound bad, but there's something I've noticed that bothers some of Nightwing fans, and it's not exactly something new (since Jason's first appearance, actually)-

And for many, as a new batfamily member appears, the writers seem to take away or diminish some quality in Dick to enhance it in another character

Let me explain:

One of the reasons why many people initially disliked Jason (not the only reason, by far), is that they saw him as a copy of Dick, even if they both had their differences, many did not feel that Jason had anything "special" that separated him from Dick.

And for those who say the difference is that Jason was cheerful and Dick wasn't, no, that's a modern thing, and that interpretation was given especially because it was the time when Dick was more "angry" as Discowing; same with those who say that Jason was the only model student, when in fact, Dick was also a star student, there is even a panel where some students dismiss the possibility that he is Robin because Dick was a "bookworm".

That's partly why many applauded the change he made in becoming Red Hood, because it gave the character something that set him apart, that made him unique.

With Tim is when this change that they make to Dick (more the fandom than the writers themselves, but it is growing in them too) was most noticeable, to enhance Tim's qualities.

When talking about Tim (and God knows how much I adore canon Tim, he's so damn cool), people ALWAYS downplay Richard's detective skills to highlight Tim's. To make him look like the only good detective in the family after Batman.

People forget that Dick was originally like a mini-copy of Batman, but he was destined to surpass him. Not just in combat, but in detective skills as well. Before they even thought about a new Robin, there were already hints that Dick was, and would be, better than Batman.

Even with the appearance of other family members, Dick's abilities were still pointed out. I'm not talking about his physical agility, but his mental agility.

Dick was a genius, just like the other members of the family, he was ALWAYS pointed out as someone so intelligent, someone logical. He also has extraordinary skills with technology, He didn't need someone to back him up with hacking issues 24/7, he could do it himself, not always, but most of the time.

Now, what they point out the most is his physical agility and leadership (characteristics that he always had), but they leave aside his other aspects, such as combat ability and above all, his capabilities as a detective, like someone intelligent.

Some even bring up that Ra's called Tim "detective", when in reality he also called Dick that, and I'm pretty sure he also called Jason that at some point.

I want to clarify, that with this I am NOT saying that Tim's skills are inferior, AT ALL. I am one of those who think that Tim was the one who finished polishing Robin's name, the one that gave it a meaning beyond being Batman's sidekick, the one who turned Robin into his own hero. Tim is probably a prodigious detective, but like Dick, he too needed help honing those skills. Damn, it was Dick himself who taught Tim how to be a full-fledged detective.

But seriously, I'm not saying this to put Tim down, but to talk about the need to put Dick down in order to elevate others.

Even with Cass this happened, Cass fans throw away Dick's abilities to bring out Cass's when that is not necessary, like, It is more than possible to highlight the qualities of your favorite characters without putting down the others.

There were even times where people were putting Dick down for Damian, and I honestly didn't even understand why, but aha.

I think you're getting my point across, right?

Again, I am NOT trying to say that ANY character's skills should be nerfed, on the contrary, I feel like people should stop doing that just to level up other characters' abilities.

The fact that Dick is also a prodigious detective does not make Tim any less of a detective ? The fact that he also knows how to handle technology does not make Barbara any less competent at her job ? Just because he's an excellent fighter doesn't make Cass the weakest ???? God, just because he was a light in Batman's life too doesn't make Jason any less of his son!

Partly yes, it was the writers' fault for giving Dick too many abilities from the start, which made it harder for later characters to stand out in their own fields, but, fr, taking away his abilities to getting up the rest is not the solution at this point either.

And as I said, this mostly comes from before there were even other members of the batfamily, Dick's only purpose was to be better than Batman, it wasn't even the plan to be his own person yet. Probably for a while, the plan could even be that the next Batkid would accompany Dick as the next great detective, and then the next batkid would take the mantle and so on, a chain. I'm not saying that's the case, but that's honestly what it seems like from the way their abilities are written, at least before they started really developing them as their own individual person.

Something I love about part of the fandom is that there are people who understand that Dick was an inspiration, so that his younger siblings did not inhibit his abilities, but rather learned from him, and then surpassed him with their owns, just as Dick did with Batman. Idk.

And... Yeah, that's just me complaining about my favorite character being downgraded when he's clearly way more capable than the fandom gives him credit for <3

This is me btw

[nightsky652]

Yandere Prodigy

Her name is Aqua, she is a prodigy.

She is a quiet and serious girl, also considered a kuudere. She doesn't show her emotions, but her words and actions make her obvious infatuation with you.

She is a little tall, has long blue hair, and gray eyes. She is quite beautiful, typically dressing in long dresses.

A super genius with an IQ over 200, considered one of the brightest minds of the century. She excels in mathematics, physics, chemistry, economics, medicine, and law. Her abilities surpass those of normal persons.

Since childhood, she found everything boring and didn't get along with other kids. She was different, not playing with toys or engaging in childish activities. She preferred reading over playing with others.

She saw everything in gray until she met you, a cheerful kid who, like everyone else, enjoyed playing childish games. However, she saw something different in you, something that caught her attention. It was as if you were the only point of color in a world of gray. She wanted to know more about you, to find out why you were completely different from everyone else.

Years later, after observing you from afar for a long time, she finally discovered it was love. Realizing she was in love, she also became aware of all the strange things she had been doing while trying to figure out the reason you were so different. This included collecting your hair, observing you from a distance, measuring you while you slept, among many other things. However, she knew she couldn't stop; she wanted to know everything about you.

Her great intelligence also helps her get closer to you. She knows your schedule by heart, where you'll be at every moment of the day, allowing her to find you whenever she wants.

In high school, she was considered a worldwide genius, participating in international competitions and excelling in math without needing to study. She took advantage of her position as a genius to become a tutor, with a clear goal in mind: to become your tutor.

It's normal for you to struggle with an exam or a topic from time to time. When that happens, she jumps at the opportunity to offer help with your studies, using it as a chance to spend more time together, go to your house, and stay up late studying together.

Being skilled with computers and programming, she can hack into your account to see your school schedule, know which classes you'll have and with whom. She uses this information to adjust her schedule so that you have most to all classes together, helping you with any questions you may have during class.

She also uses her hacking skills to access your computer and account, having access to your history and front camera. She loves watching you through it, especially when you put on a cute face while concentrating on reading or when you laugh at a video. She doesn't regret learning to program and hack just to do these things.

She uses your history to research topics you like, making it easier to talk to you about these things. It also helps her find a gift you might really like for your birthday or in Christmas, ensuring she updates her information about you from time to time.

She enjoys playing video games, and when you were younger, she used to go to your house to play with you. She was very good at it, practicing to beat you every time because she found it adorable how you concentrated when trying to win or when you lost.

She studies hard to fulfill her future plan, which involves having you always by her side. Despite her natural talent and prodigy, she dedicates herself to achieving this dream.

In the future, she will create her own company, becoming the CEO, and it will become an international-level company in a short time thanks to her well-planned strategies and skills in economics. The company will sell some of the revolutionary inventions she has created.

Once she is the CEO and her company has enough power, she will have everything she needs to keep you always by her side. She will offer you a job, a well-paid position as her personal assistant. You won't be able to refuse the offer; it has too many benefits.

Once you start working for her, you will sign a confidentiality agreement, but there were some small print and legal gaps that worked to her advantage, which you didn't notice.

The contract was to prevent you from sharing information about her or the company, but mainly to prevent you from reporting her for the things she was going to do. Violating the contract would have serious consequences.

The small print of the contract included that you had to be available to help her 24/7, requiring you to move practically next to her if you lived on your own, with your family, or with your girlfriend.

Another small print included the duration of your contract, about 10 years. You cannot resign during this time, or you would violate the contract and face legal problems.

In summary, the contract worked in her favor, and once signed, she would have you in the palm of her hand for a decade. She would make you renew the contract without you realizing it if she deemed it necessary, in case you hadn't learned by then that you belonged to her.

If you were to reject the job despite the absurd benefits presented, she would be a bit concerned because she thought you would accept instantly. However, she had already planned what to do in that situation, so there would be no problem.

In case you rejected her job offer, she would take care of tarnishing your name and putting you on the blacklist of any company or place you applied to work at. No matter how much you studied or if you had a degree or a doctorate, no one would want to go against a big company like the one she owns, so you would be constantly rejected from the jobs you applied to.

You would inevitably end up crawling back to her feet, after falling into despair and being rejected from every job, you begged for the position she offered you earlier. Aqua would act hard to get, but only to pressure you into accepting the new contract she made for you, thicker than the previous one, with more restrictions for you. Being desperate for the job, you would be more likely to sign anything she gave you.

After seeing how you resisted the first time, she wanted to make sure it didn't happen again or prevent it as much as possible. This new contract would help her keep you under control.

As her assistant, you would spend most of the time with her in her private office. She could work while staring at you, and although it would make you uncomfortable, you couldn't do anything to make her stop. She was your boss, and she could do anything she wanted. After signing and discovering some clauses you didn't read well, you began to doubt if accepting the job was a good idea.

One advantage of your contract with her is that you have several days of vacation, despite being a newcomer. You might try to use one of these days to get away from your boss and rest from her penetrating gaze. You could even go with your girlfriend and enjoy time together, if you're still together, but you didn't take into account that there was a legal gap in the contract. As you had to be available 24/7 as her assistant, you could only go on vacation if she went with you, something she would surely do.

If you don't have a girlfriend, she will suggest that you share a room, offering to pay for the room, saying that you deserve it for working so hard. Although her true intentions are to choose the hotel where you will stay, so she can make modifications thanks to her contacts. For example, accidentally having a confusion and ending up sleeping in a room with a double bed instead of two, or asking to install a secret camera in the shower so she can record and watch you shower. She would treasure that recording like a treasure; these are just some of the things she can do.

If you still have a girlfriend, your boss will accompany you, regardless of whether it bothers your girlfriend or not. It's in the contract, after all. She will suggest a hotel owned by one of the company's partners because it is a prestigious hotel, and they will get a considerable discount. In the hotel, she will use her influence to ruin the moments you and your girlfriend can have together, and to hurt her.

At night, you won't be able to sleep or be together peacefully because apparently the upstairs and next-door floors are under construction, and the noise of drills, hammers, and others won't let you sleep peacefully. Also, during meals, the waiters might "accidentally" trip and spill food or drinks on your girlfriend, ruining the elegant clothes she brought for your date at this beautiful hotel.

If these small annoyances are not enough to separate you, she will take more extreme measures. If any accident were to happen in the hotel, it could easily be covered up by the hotel owner. There would be no witnesses, and security videos would mysteriously be deleted. It's the perfect place to get rid of the woman who has what she has desired so much.

Your new home would be quite nice; it's an apartment on the same floor and building as Aqua. It's a very nice and exclusive place with a lot of security. Thanks to the generous salary from your new job, you can afford it. You are obligated to live there; according to the contract, you must always be close in case your boss needs you.

Naturally, your room would be monitored through the hidden cameras she installed before you moved in. If she thought you might bring your girlfriend, she could prevent you from getting too comfortable and would call you immediately for help with something as her assistant. You would have to go with her at that moment, ruining the quality time you had planned to spend with your girlfriend.

Since she can't spend time with your girlfriend because you have to live next to your boss, and every time she visits, there seems to be an urgent matter that forces you to leave, your relationship won't last long, just as Aqua had planned. She would take advantage of your sadness after the breakup to get closer to you.

[buzzdixonwriter]

The End Of An Error

AI is good for crunching large amounts of data to find patterns within it. Humans then need to analyze those patterns. For research, it might be extremely useful. However, since most of us here are creators of one stripe or another, I'll focus on what it's doing there. It's wreaking havoc among musicians who previously found some sort of steady, reliable income through Spotify and other streaming services. AI generated music crowds out all but well established acts and old standards; musicians struggling to break through find their support in live performances and merchandise. AI generated blog posts and emails are already dominating those venues, perversely causing more and more people to ignore them. In fiction writing it enables mediocre writers to hack out acceptable mediocre genre fiction at prodigious rates. There, too, it will eventually undermine itself as discerning readers look for something more original and idiosyncratic. Original writers will need to put more time into promoting / marketing themselves, and the revenues will probably dip the way they have for musicians, but the ones who weather through it will survive. Artists are already being hard hit. Top line design jobs will still go to humans who can understand the wants and needs of other humans, but for lots of lower level art jobs it will be easier to generate / steal art (full disclosure: I gleefully swipe AI generated art when I find something that fits my fictoids when I post them on my blog; unlike public domain art I post, the AI prompters get no credit or recognition). The next big sh!t hammer to fall will be AI video. Already passable short films have been made using AI generated clips skillfully edited together.

 It helps that most of these are short-shorts of a horror / sci-fi / fantasy nature since AI’s inability to remain consistent can play into the air of unreality found in those genres.  Once AI learns how to stay on model it will be a major game changer. Elsewhere I've said I have no objection against people using AI for personal amusement, creating their own music videos, mashing up art, creating political satire, etc. But doing that is going to undermine mass media by creating user-specific content. What that will do culturally is anybody's guess; what happens to cultural touchstones when there isn't one version of Gilligan's Island but a three hundred million? There's a lot of practical uses real artists can find for AI (musicians trying out different orchestrations, artists doing a variety of concepts before settling on the one they want to develop, writers creating prompts for themselves, etc.) but it's already disrupting the creative sphere.

 © Buzz Dixon

[therollinkaagenda]

Kalinka navigation notes from Mega Man 4

The GameCube MegaMan anniversary collection included a few unique features, one of which was adding optional 'navigaters'- hint systems introduced in X5(?) That involve a character calling you at certain points when enabled in the settings - in this case similar to calling Roll in Megaman and Bass, being activated by simply pausing.

What is most exciting about this feature is that in mm4, it gives a ton of new dialogue to one of my favorite characters and one of the series most criminally underutilized: Kalinka Cossack. I intend to analyze and overanalyze every one of these calls over the course of my playthrough; after all, this is debatably canon and probably contains more lines for her than all of the other classic series games combined.

This is NOT a transcript, just notes on what Kalinka is saying during my playthrough and my occasional thoughts about it, and I will be skipping over repeated advice or otherwise uninteresting dialogue, and condensing similar points into one note.

General:

-Kalinka is likely responsible for establishing this call, despite being captured by Dr. Wily. This likely involved creating a communication device compatible with Rock's receivers, masking it's signal, and making it a video call for fun I guess, all under her genius captor's nose. It's possible that she had help from protoman, but i suspect that she did most of the mechanical stuff - after all this game puts her intelligence on full display

- another major point is that Kalinka can see where MegaMan is, what he is doing, and what obstacles are ahead of him- I'm not sure whether she somehow is receiving feedback from Rock's sensors, hacking security cameras and other equipment, or some other third thing,, but either way is impressive in it's own right

- Kalinka seems to know how the vast majority of robots work, but often doesn't know the actual names of enemies. Because of this, it seems she doesn't seem to be reading from any type of manual or guide, and limited prior knowledge - meaning she is likely coming up with the majority of her advice on the spot. This makes the accuracy of her statements quite impressive.

- this will become more apparent as I recount more examples, but this game paints Kalinka as a sort of genius prodigy - seems like she learned a lot from her father, but she is brilliant in her own right too

- Kalinka will occasionally speak as if she was fighting instead of Megaman, especially later in the game (ex: 'what if I used X weapon). This is most likely a series of typos, but I feel like it's worth mentioning

Toad Man:

-Kalinka is immediately able to tell for certain that the wind is strong enough to push Rock around despite him being a robot, before he ever tries to jump; same mostly applies to the effects of water flows later in the level.

-Kalinka knows that the snail miniboss is vulnerable when it's eyes are open

-Kalinka not only has a general idea of what Toad Man's weakness is, but also knows that he's freaking pathetic

Bright Man:

- I don't know why Kalinka is introducing herself now, but I guess that the Dev's thought most people would start with Bright Man??? Toad man is right there???

-Kalinka seems to already know how the enemies in bright Man's stage affect the lighting

-Kalinka not only knows how dangerous spikes are, but that the grasshopper robots are safe to ride on and will move in a predictable pattern

- upon seeing the split path in the stage, she knows that nothing to important is on the bottom path, and when exploring the bottom path she wants you that you may not be able to return if you don't have energy for Rush

- on the main path, she will warn you about hitting the lightbulb enemies and about the falling red platforms

-Kalinka knows that Bright Man is weak to water, and that being in the air during the time freeze makes you less vulnerable to his attacks

Pharaoh Man:

- Kalinka will immediately warn Rock about the quicksand

-Kalinka will once again inform you that jumping on certain enemies is necessary to proceed, with some additional caution reflecting that these robots have projectiles. During the final section, she will advise you to take the higher platforms

- Kalinka pretty much successfully deduces Pharaoh Man's weakness, in this case it's made clear that she is coming up with this on the spot.

Ring Man

- Kalinka knows how the rainbow platforms (and their alternative later in the level) work

- Kalinka explains how to deal with the hippo minibosses, and later that the rain flush ruins them

- Kalinka explains how to defeat the Whopper minibosses, and later that they can bet skipped with a time freeze

- Kalinka knows that the mono loaders will be one-shot by charge shots

- Kalinka knows that Ring Man is weaked by heat, and advises you on how to avoid his attacks

Dust Man

- Kalinka immediately tells Mega Man to hit sheild attackers from behind

- Kalinka warns Rock about enemies launched from bottomless pits

- Kalinka informed Rock of appearing platforms

- Kalinka warns Rock about the Press

- Kalinka tells Rock how to deal with breakable blocks, and seems to be working with Beat (Beat acts as a series of arrow signs in this game)

- Kalinka gives a detailed idea of how to avoid Dust Man's attacks, but only has a vague idea about his weakness

Skull Man

- Kalinka tells Mega Man to use charge shots against Zato, and that only charge shots work on Skeleton Joes

- Kalinka tells Rock that one enemy is only vulnerable from the front

- Kalinka warns Rock about caterpillar enemies

- Kalinka seems to know relatively little about Skull Man compared to the other robot masters, as both her idea of what his weakness is and her advice for fighting him, while accurate, are rather short. This seems to support the idea that skull man was built specifically for fighting MegaMan as per Wily's demands

Dive Man

- Kalinka warns of enemies in the water

- Kalinka states that uncharged attacks are more effective against moby, and that it's vulnerable to flash stopper

- knows that mega man can't defeat the jellyfish robots

- Kalinka knows how mega man operates in water

- Kalinka gives Rock advice about dodging dive man's attacks. Interestingly, she recommends using the normal buster- this may be more evidence that she doesn't know Skull Man, or perhaps she just knows that using the skull barrier against Dive Man is very risky

Drill Man

- Kalinka tells Megaman about the map

- Kalinka advices that Rock defeats a crusher enemy with rapid fire

- Kalinka recommends using charge shots against the blue enemies

- Kalinka gives Rock advice about dealing with the dust shoots that drop rocks

- Kalinka tells Rock how to use the switchs

- Kalinka tells Rock to move when Drill Man is underground, and recommends using a weapon that is 'sure to capture', an odd but useful hint towards his weakness

IMPORTANT: Kalinka seems to acknowledge that Drill Man is the final stage in my playthrough - unsurprisingly, it seems likely that her dialogue may change slightly depending on the order the stages are completed. However, I have yet to confirm this and do not know the extent to which it happens if true.

Cossack Fortress 1

- Kalinka advises Megaman on how he can deal with the local ice physics. She also admits that they caused her to slip once

- Kalinka tells Rock when he needs to use Rush Coil or Balloon to proceed, and recommends using the Rush jet

- Kalinka tells Rock how avoid the moth bosses attacks and counterattack

Cossack Fortress 2

- Kalinka shows excitement when MegaMan enters the fortress proper, and asks him to help her and her father

- Kalinka tells Rock when the Rush jet is nessisary, saying 'all I have is a Rush Jet...', which i assume is a figure of speech but it's really funny to imagine that she just. Has a rush jet. No Rush, just the jet for Rush. And has somehow used that for everything she does in this game

- Kalinka tells Rock how to traverse the spike blocks, and that he can skip some with a balloon

- Kalinka tells Rock that certain walls can be destroyed by the drill bomb

- Kalinka tells Rock how to damage the room boss

Cossack Fortress 3

- Kalinka directly addresses the auto scrolling segment, ('here the background moves by itself') breaking the fourth wall

- Kalinka tells Megaman to defeat an otherwise invulnerable enemy with Dust Crusher (there seems to be a typo)

- Kalinka tells Rock how the golden platforms work, and how to use them

- Kalinka knows that this boss is weak to pharaoh shot, and asks mega man to defeat it quickly

Cossack Fortress 4

- Kalinka tells Megaman about a shortcut

- Kalinka states that Rock is the only one who can save her father...

- unlike any previous bosses, Kalinka gives no advice about fighting Dr. Cossack at all, and doesn't contact you during the battle. This is likely because she is being saved by Protoman

Wily fortress 1

- Kalinka thanks Megaman and promises to use the data she got from Wily's base to continue supporting him

- Kalinka warns Rock that the stage has a large number of metaurs

- Kalinka advises Rock on how best to deal with the disappearing blocks

- Kalinka gives advice on avoiding attacks from the metaur boss

Wily fortress 2

- Kalinka warns Megaman about the large number of spikes in the stage

- Kalinka gives a detailed description of how to deal with the boss

Wily fortress 3

- Kalinka states that Megaman is close to Wily and offers encouragement

- Kalinka affirms the the robot masters have the same weaknesses in the rematches

- Kalinka tells Rock how to use the Drill Bomb against the boss (it's worded poorly but I'll chalk it up to a typo)

Wily fortress 4

- Kalinka losses connection with Megaman, which smells like the Devs wanted to troll players by not telling them that the final boss can only be hurt by the fully charged Pharoh Shot, which would have been the single best thing for the hint system added in the remake to tell you. For shame devs, for shame.

------

If anyone has additional information or caught something I missed, it would be appreciated. While this project may have not been a direct addition to Rollinka, it's still greatly reaffirms much of what I already knew about Kalinka's character, and may be a useful resource for anyone writing Kalinka - which is like, half of writing Rollinka, so I think it's worth posting here.

[itsbenedict]

Bullet Proof: Postmortem

Waaaay back in the day, when I was 19 and I'd just discovered Dangan Ronpa (back when we put the space in the title, because all we had was the Orenronen LP and we called Ultimates "Super High-School Levels"), I decided to do my own. That was the heyday of forum adventures on the MSPA Forums, and there were no standards. I didn't know how to draw, but I decided to learn. I wanted to make a thing!

I got a good ways into it, honestly! It went through a few format changes, skipping over a couple cases in the middle in an abridged format on Tumblr, but I'd finally found my groove for the fourth case, playable from the perspective of the murderer. It was going well!

Then the MSPA Forums got hacked and the admins didn't keep any backups and everything was lost.

So that sucked! And once it became clear they were never going to recover the forums due to a mix of security incompetence and not giving a shit, I didn't really have a choice but to try and reboot it. I'd lost all the text, apart from a few garbled pages from a corrupted archive snapshot.

But... I've got way too much else I want to do at this point, and it's not looking too likely I'm going to have the time to come back to it. So if you want to know everything about what happened and where it was going...

You've clicked the readmore. So you do want to know all that. Here goes! Activate theme music.

You remember how it opened, right? It was a forum adventure, and at the time, I asked the readers to select an SHSL talent and gender as the protagonist entered the American branch of Hope's Peak Academy.

That was diegetic. "Alice Bayko" was an SHSL Impostor, or- I actually kinda waffled on having her not technically be SHSL anything, as she infiltrated the school with a false identity. She has, however, forgotten this, and her original identity and mission, leaving her with nothing but the mask. I believe there was a scene planned, or maybe a scene that did happen, I forget- where Alice would be called upon to demonstrate some sort of stage magic trick... and completely not know how to do any of that.

But what was she up to?

Well, that's a good question, with a complicated answer. Let's start pulling back the layers, here.

Seventeen students, and of the seventeen... somewhere between six and nine of them could be considered secret masterminds. Hilariously, I seem to have ordered this old banner issue in order of who's the most technically the ultimate mastermind, which was very cheeky of me. Would've been fun if someone ever caught that.

Let's start with...

Mastermind Level 1: Disguise

This creepy kid, SHSL Prodigy Billy Bookerton, was supposed to be the original secret mastermind in charge of the school. As came up in the adventure proper, this iteration of Hope's Peak was intended to be a safehouse from the ongoing despair apocalypse pictured in the Danganronpa canon. The son of the headmaster, he would control their Monokuma puppet and be in charge of faking to the outside world that this Monokuma-themed airship was in fact a murder-happy despair cult (like everywhere else on Earth somehow.)

This was not supposed to be a secret to the student body. And this 27-year-old man was not supposed to wake up in the body of a malnourished child and pose as a student. After events occurred, he found himself like this, with a note in his own handwriting instructing him to lay low and play this role.

What events occurred?

Mastermind Level 2: Blackmail

Also explained in the adventure proper, since these two were culprit and victim of the playable case 4: Gwendolyn and Ursula Schultheiss, SHSL Sysadmin and SHSL Retro Gamer nothing at all. Gwen was admitted to Hope's Peak on the basis of an actual talent, and pretty quickly gained control of their computer systems, sneaking Ursula in under the guise of Sakura Aran, and learning about the plan to escape Ultimate Despair by disguising the school and taking to the sky.

She thought that plan was really stupid.

Specifically, she thought Ultimate Despair was a flash in the pan, and it was ridiculous to think that some student riots all the way in Japan posed some sort of apocalyptic threat. (In her defense, this is a reasonable thing to think! It is ridiculous! Danganronpa's worldbuilding is fucking nonsense! But unfortunately for her, we're rolling with it.)

So she and Ursula hatched a plan to get rich. Hope's Peak is full of the progeny of the super-rich, like the Bright conglomerate. Obviously people like this would have loads of incriminating secrets, with which they could be blackmailed, and by which they would deserve to be blackmailed because screw those nepo babies. The plan was to run a Deception Game, not a Killing Game- they'd steal Billy's remote-control scary apocalypse terrorist, and pit everyone against each other in a contest to uncover each other's darkest secrets.

Once they had the dirt, they'd pretend to lose control and land the ship somewhere safe and sound, and Hope's Peak could deal with the scandal of the Monokuma hijacking and the consequences of their bonkers overreaction to some airhead fashionista's trendy protest.

If you recall, their plan went like this:

Each of them assumed that the other had somehow betrayed them and hijacked the school's systems on their own- Ursula retained control of the damaged Monokuma puppet, and Gwen retreated to her secret closet base to try and wrest control of the systems back from whatever super-hacker Ursula found to compromise her control. It took Gwen a few chapters (and accidentally murdering her sister) to realize that there was a...

Mastermind Level 3: Reality TV

It all started with SHSL Heir Henry Bright, heir to the Bright Conglomerate and active vice director of the company. Specifically, he directed vice. The Bright Conglomerate, in his opinion, did things too by-the-book, and were passing up big opportunities for growth in the organized crime sector. He was fostering connections with the Hit Deck (which led to the altercation that led to his and Dominique Martine's deaths in case 2), and...

Unlike Gwen, he didn't think the emergence of Ultimate Despair was nonsense. No, it was a growth opportunity. His plan was to invite a film crew to the airship and broadcast an exciting (fake) killing game to pander to this emerging despair-based market! With illicit funds provided by his contact in the Hit Deck (in exchange for his help securing a place on the ark for the Hit Deck's boss and trusted confidantes, posing as students), he assembled a team. Bribed some students, located an SHSL Doctor and some effects artists for realistic murder effects, did some networking, and...

...well, word gets around. The team he put together had bigger ambitions. A creative vision. One that had no room for executive meddling. They cut him out of the production team and forced him into the cast.

(I'm honestly not sure if this layer of convolution was necessary- I was on the fence about cutting him from the cast. The show's team might've found out about the school just because Gwen and Sakura screwed up the school's stealth measures. He's gotta kind of be there to explain the Hit Deck's presence, though, since aside from Dom none of them were actual Ultimates.)

Realer Reality TV

Before I reveal the members of the final mastermind tier, let's go over how they did this.

I never ended up using this portrait, but this is Davi Rossi, SHSL Doctor, though he prefers "Ultimate Necromancer". He's a graduate of the original Hope's Peak in Japan, and his technology is the cornerstone of the whole setup here- underneath the school, in the restricted areas in the body of the ship, he has a whole secret lab with vats of glowy chemicals and fancy futuristic surgical tools.

He can bring back the dead.

Well, sort of. He can do all sorts of repairs on ordinary tissues- lose a limb, get a vital organ mashed up, bleed out, he can fix that. He can make alterations to the body, too- such as surgically reverting someone's apparent age, or implanting remote-control death chips, or strategically weakening someone's skull.

He can even fix a certain degree of brain damage- the kind of stuff that might occur if you suffer blunt force trauma or total deoxygenation, where the brain is still mostly intact.

As a result, most victims are recoverable. When someone dies, he can bring them back again and again. However: he can't fully reconstitute the brain, and he has a number of limitations when it comes to working with it:

If the brain is completely torn apart or otherwise destroyed, he cannot revive the victim.

He can't directly mind-control anyone, nor can he insert false memories.

He can delete and rearrange memories, but not read minds, and memory deletion is episodic- he can't mess with specific facts, only spans of time.

I think I... also made an exception so he could delete specific people? Which is clunky and doesn't really make sense in hindsight.

There's still a lot you can do by cutting up and rearranging the filmstrip of someone's memory- but except in one specific case, he only ever really used it to delete the last loop.

In case it wasn't obvious, this isn't the first killing game. This show has multiple seasons. It's been going a while- and while injuries that destroy the brain are rare, they're not nonexistent, and so there's quite a few students who died before the story began. There used to be a lot more students! That's why all the dorm rooms have bunkbeds!

And there's also unfortunately the one who received a fatal injury in this loop by blowing himself up with an improvised explosive device. Sorry, Mill!

(There's actually only a few people physically present running the show, since the show's been running for years now and they found that they really didn't need more than a skeleton crew to run it- Davi and some student plants, along with Monokuma drones and countless hidden cameras, are all that's necessary for production on the ground. There's no adult film crew present on the ship.)

(♪ Kids with guns. Kids with guns. Taking over. But they won't be long. ♪)

Davi is also responsible for rigging up the masterminds with the mental control rigs for the two Monokumas- and has a third Monokuma of his own, who was going to show up to treat Martha's injury during case 4, I think in literally the very next update planned before the forums exploded.

So who are the people in control of these Monokuma knockoffs?

Mastermind Level 5: Case 5

All that I just mentioned about Davi? You learn about this in the fifth case, after case 4 in which you play as either Sakura or Gwen after killing their sister and trying to avoid getting caught in the trial. You can't win case 4, but you can successfully stall and bullshit long enough for the trial to be interrupted by a sudden explosion before you can be executed.

Prior to case 4, Billy has disappeared into a secret passage, trying to track down the mastermind. Likewise, Flopsy-Turvy, Alice's rabbit, has also disappeared into a secret passage. Billy remains missing during case 4's trial.

After the explosion, the Monokumas call off the trial and lead the whole class to Davi's secret lab, which is the site of a set of murders.

Davi has been murdered via various small lacerations all over his body, including a slit throat.

Billy has been blown to bits by an explosion.

If Gwen or Sakura was executed during the trial, their corpse is found on a table in the lab.

Flopsy-Turvy, who was a robot all along, has been reduced to mechanical smithereens.

Violette, not dead anymore, but unable to speak aloud due to an incompletely healed throat injury

Some completely unfamiliar redhead kid, who doesn't know jack about anything and doesn't know how he got here.

The two survivors of this scene are naked save for some towels they found, and appear to have been spilled out from a couple of big glowy specimen tanks which were broken in the explosion that killed Billy and Flopsy. More on them later.

The subsequent investigation reveals all that stuff I just told you about Davi, blowing the setup wide open. In the course of that investigation, two of the masterminds find themselves confessing their involvement. After all- Davi's dead. There's no way they can run another season without someone to bring people back to life!

One in particular confesses before the other one- she doesn't care anymore, and she's happy to watch her co-conspirator squirm to try to avoid revealing his evil machinations to the people he desperately wants to think he's cool.

Lilakali Bhallu and Raymond Rizzini are my favorites. They suck so much. They hate each other quite a lot, and have gotten together and broken up like three different times. Their collective theme song is No Children by The Mountain Goats. They're like 25 at this point, stuck in the bodies of the teenagers they were when the show started filming and they fully agreed to be part of the production.

Why? Well, Lilakali hates everyone and enjoys seeing them turn on each other like rabid wolves repeatedly- and Raymond craves acceptance and is using his memory privileges and surveillance abilities to try over and over again to be Popular In High School (to no avail.) They're both pretty pathetic people.

Notably, they are both real students who're supposed to be here. I don't remember if I ever had Lilakali make any predictions, and she'll insist she's just making shit up, but I was gonna have her predictions all come true, because the Fortune Teller thing is a real talent. And Raymond really can make a pretty mean burger. (Cheekily, that old Tumblr post was supposed to have taken place in a previous season- you might notice Gwen in the background, who in this iteration was never convinced to leave her room for meals, instead sneaking out at night to raid the cafeteria.)

Lilakali also has an Edgy Backstory- she grew up in the circus, apprenticed under her grandmother, who refused to let her socialize with kids her age. She was supposed to learn the family divining techniques, not dance around like some harlot with a pack of urchins! Her grandma taught her to hate the world, and herself, and accidentally also her grandmother. One day, in a moment of perfect nihilist clarity, she took a Sixlizard cigarette lighter out of the trash, wandered amongst the tents, and burned down the entire circus, killing her grandma in the process. She looks back on that moment fondly as the happiest she's ever been.

Anyway. Those two are my favorites, but they're not the ultimate masterminds. In fact... they're quite sure there's supposed to be a third mastermind, and they suspect this third mastermind of having erased their memories of them and killing Davi. They can tell their memories were edited- they're fully aware of how the tech works and what the signs are, and they can tell there's big ugly gaps and gashes in their recollection of the past. Someone was missing, and Davi was being all cagey and weird about it. And last loop...

Well, what happened last loop is the direct cause of case 5. And at the end of the investigation... the two Monokumas go dead, and one giant Monokuma shows up, furious that Davi is dead and forcing the students to go to trial one more time. This will be the final execution- catching Davi's murderer.

Mastermind Level 6: Sailing No More

It doesn't take long into trial 5 for the identity of this giant Monokuma to be revealed- it's a mechsuit with a living person in it, not a robot, and he unmasks himself during the trial without too much objection once people start questioning... that confused redhead kid who they found at the crime scene. That character introduces himself as... the Super High-School Level Pilot, Nolan Cubbins.

Wait. What?

Didn't that guy die?

Well, you see--

--oh, shit, I forgot Tumblr has an image limit of 30 images per post. Uh, gonna have to break this up into two posts. Continue reading here!

[reasoningdaily]

Futureland - Walter Mosley

Futureland - Walter Mosley

Projecting a near-future United States in which justice is blind in at least one eye and the ranks of the disenchanted have swollen to dangerous levels, Mosely offers nine interconnected stories whose characters appear and reappear in each others' lives. For all its denizens, from technocrats to terrorists, celebs to crooks, "Futureland" is an all-American nightmare just waiting to happen.

Nine interconnected short stories capture the high-tech world of the United States in the near future, capturing the lives and fates of such characters as Ptolemy Bent, a child genius whose merciful actions land him in a privatized prison, and Fera Jones, a heavyweight boxing champ who abandons the ring for a political career. 75,000 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Futureland is bestselling mystery author Walter Mosley's first science fiction book since Blue Light, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Futureland's nine linked stories will provide an accessible and intelligent introduction to written science fiction for mystery or mainstream fiction fans who do not normally read the genre.

Experienced science fiction readers, however, may be less than satisfied with Futureland. Reading it, you might decide Mr. Mosley grew up reading SF, respects the genre, and still watches SF movies, but has read little SF written during or after the New Wave of the 1960s. However, something more may be going on here than a genre newcomer making beginning-SF-writer mistakes. Mr. Mosley may be deliberately, and craftily, creating SF accessible to his large non-SF readership and to others who are strangers to this genre.

Some have labeled Futureland cyberpunk, and it does present a dark, infotech-saturated, corporation-controlled future; but it is in fact an inversion of cyberpunk. Instead of that subgenre's cliche of cool, cutting-edge, street-smart, but not very believable outlaws who out-hack and outwit powerful multinational corporations, this Dante-esque collection presents outlaws and outcasts who may be street-wise, but who have little chance of overcoming the corporations and governments that control, and sometimes take, their lives. Like shockingly few other SF works, Futureland directly examines the lives of the working and the nonworking classes, the poor and the marginalized, the criminal and the criminalized. In other words, Futureland is set in a world quite alien to many veteran SF readers, and is therefore a book they should try. --Cynthia Ward

From Publishers Weekly

After the qualified success of his first science fiction novel, Blue Light (1998), Mosley (best known for such mystery fiction as the Easy Rawlins series) returns with nine linked short stories set in a grim, cyberpunkish near-future. Unfortunately, heavy-handed plotting and unconvincing extrapolation weaken the collection's earnest social message. "Whispers in the Dark" introduces prodigy Ptolemy Bent, who will grow to be the smartest man in the world in spite of his poverty-ridden childhood. Ptolemy reappears in "Doctor Kismet" as an adviser to assassins trying to kill the richest, most corrupt man in the world and as the brains behind a series of global plots to overthrow the status quo in "En Masse" and "The Nig in Me." Champion boxer and much-hyped female role model Fera Jones steps away from the ring to take hands-on responsibility for the influence she wields in "The Greatest." With its easily befuddled talking computer justice system, "Little Brother" is more Star Trek than high-tech cyberpunk. In more familiar territory for Mosley, PI Folio Johnson investigates a series of murders linked to Doctor Kismet in "The Electric Eye." Although packaged as SF, this book is likely to disappoint readers of that genre who've already seen Mosley's themes of racial and economic rebellion more convincingly handled by authors like Octavia Butler. Mystery fans, on the other hand, are far more likely to embrace this latest example of Mosley's SF vision, with its comfortably familiar noirish tone and characters, than they did Blue Light. (Nov. 12)Forecast: With a five-city author tour and national print advertising, both mainstream and genre, this title book should be slated for solid sales.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Mosley's first foray into writing science fiction since Blue Light (LJ 10/1/98), these interrelated stories, set in the near future, read as a natural but chilling extension of our present. From child genius Ptolemy Bent, sentenced to prison for euthanizing his grandmother and uncle, to female boxer Fera, who becomes a feminist icon for the 21st century, his characters battle for both personal survival and a chance to turn back the clock. In this futuristic world, privacy is little but a memory and prejudice and suspicion still sour race relations. Mosley's reputation as the best-selling author of the Easy Rawlins mysteries may entice a number of his regular readers to pick up this book, where they will find some of the same bleak outlook, flashes of insight, and true-to-life African American characters. An additional audience will come from iPublish.com, where the first two stories were previously published as e-books. Recommended for all public libraries. - Rachel Singer Gordon, Franklin Park P.L., IL Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Mystery star Mosley tries his hand at science fiction again, to better effect than in the novel Blue Light (1998). For these nine interconnected stories, he conjures a mid-twenty-first-century world in which one company is the most powerful force in the world and political correctness is the law. The only significant revolutionaries are black, and blacks and whites are still highly antagonistic. All Mosley's good guys are black, including the smartest man in the world, imprisoned for assisting the deaths of his ailing grandmother and uncle; the world's heavyweight boxing champ--a six-foot-nine-inch woman who goes into politics after KO'ing the male heavyweight champ in less than a minute of round one; a private dick who solves cases with the help of a greatly enhanced artificial eye; and a regular-joe worker who becomes the reader's eyewitness to the dawn of a new world when a backfiring biological weapon kills everyone who isn't at least 12.5 percent black. Lest that last bit of business seem too black-triumphalist, the worker-hero quickly discovers that intraspecies predation hasn't vanished. Ably slinging the technobabble to explain the odd wonder-gadget in his tales, and greasing them with plenty of "oh-baby" sex, Mosley creates sf in which Shaft and Superfly would feel at home. Can ya dig it? Ray Olson Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Walter Mosley is the author of the New York Times bestselling Easy Rawlins novels. He lives in New York City.

[mail-me-a-snail]

BOLD THE FACTS✨ rules: bold what applies to your oc

i was tagged by @swearingcactus !!! thanks for the tag, ive been dying to talk about vance forever n ever...

⭐PERSONAL⭐

vance grew up in a corporate family of four. they all lived in charter hill for most of his relatively, unexceptionally happy childhood. he had friends, crushes on the cute neighborhood boys, the works. he was mistakenly assigned female at birth and transitioned, much to his family's surprised delight, just before he took his place in arasaka's netrunning ranks. before he went by vance, he went by penn.

vance would often sneak out of the house to explore westbrook's neighboring districts, usually so he could klep tech he'd need for his cyberdeck/homemade daemons, or just to dick around and fuck with people by hacking little objects like radios and holo-ads.

Financial: wealthy / moderate / poor / in poverty

Medical: fit / moderate / sickly / disabled / disadvantaged / non-applicable

Class or Caste: upper / middle / working / unsure / other

Education: qualified / unqualified / studying / other

vance received a formal education growing up (given his family's corporate status) but he only ever finished a highschool level of education. he left soon after graduating and entered into a netrunning apprenticeship.

Criminal Record: yes, for major crimes / yes, for minor crimes / no / has committed crimes, but not caught yet / yes, but charges were dismissed

working as an assassin/netrunner for arasaka has its perks! the rare times he was caught in the middle of some corporate espionage (ie: carrying out a hit), arasaka always had just the right alibi for him. and for the crimes he did get away with...well i imagine they keep his file under lock and key so good luck to the ncpd on bringing him in for anything :3

⭐FAMILY⭐

vance isn't close with his family. both his mother and father fought in the war; they were never unkind to him or his sister maya, but they lacked a gentle touch. worse, still, that they carved their own spot for themselves in arasaka and have held on tight since. both parents would work late, late into the night, not coming home until early morning, so vance rarely saw either of them to begin with. vance tells johnny, kerry, and his other romantic partners the same story: he cut off contact with his family, including maya, because he never wanted to be part of that life again. but the truth is this: he knows he isn't worthy of their shared surname, so why associate himself with it?

Children: had a child or children / has no children / wants children

Relationship with Family: close with sibling(s) / not close with sibling(s) / has no siblings / sibling(s) is deceased

vance and maya are both prodigies in their own rights. maya is a weapons specialist, particularly for smart tech. she's chromed up to the wazoo. she'd set vance's arsenal up for every hit that he'd carry out; that was the only thing they could really ever bond over. she didn't ask after him when he left and didn't go looking for him, either. she was the first person vance came out to, and the one to suggest his first name: penn.

Affiliation: orphaned / abandoned / adopted / disowned (kind of) / raised by birth parent(s) / not applicable

⭐TRAITS AND TENDENCIES⭐

vance is autistic (im not projecting what!!!) so he has issues with remembering things and with socialization. he's a pro at masking and can talk with people at length--something arasaka taught him to do--but he has his off days where he goes out into the badlands just to be away from the overstimulating night city. he could go on forever about tech and rache bartmoss' books and kerry's music !! ask him about his daemons, he'd be happy to demonstrate them for u. he's pretty proud of his cupid daemon, but more on that sometime soon....

✨extroverted / introverted / in-between

✨disorganized / organized / in-between

he was actually pretty meticulous in his netrunning days, but now he accumulates little piles of stuff in his apartment (including half-baked, work-in-progress daemons, among other things)

✨close-minded / open-minded / in-between

✨calm / anxious / in-between / highly contextual

✨disagreeable / agreeable / in-between

✨cautious / reckless / in-between / highly contextual

✨patient / impatient / in-between

✨outspoken / reserved / in-between / highly contextual

✨leader / follower / in-between

✨empathetic / vicious bastard / in-between

✨optimistic / pessimistic / in-between

✨traditional / modern / in-between

✨hard-working / lazy / in-between

✨cultured / uncultured / in-between / unknown

he has knowledge of some things, like enough to say confidently that he's 100% a eurodyne fanboy. but if you told him about certain BDs or games or the rest of the night city music scene, he'd just stare at you blankly.

✨loyal / disloyal / in-between / unknown

✨ faithful / unfaithful / in-between / unknown

⭐BELIEFS⭐

vance doesnt believe in a god or follow a certain religion. he grew up practicing something like catholicism; he only prayed with joshua stephenson before his whole fucked up braindance crucifixion because he thought that was the right thing to do. he believes in The Forces That Be but he doesn't care enough to put a name to them.

Faith: monotheist / polytheist / atheist / agnostic

Belief in Ghosts or Spirits: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care / in a manner of speaking

tech ghosts, mostly, like johnny--or the rogue ai beyond the blackwall.

Belief in an Afterlife: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care / in a manner of speaking

Belief in Reincarnation: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care / in a manner of speaking

Belief in Aliens: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care

Religious: orthodox / liberal / in between / not religious

Philosophical: yes / no / highly contextual

he has his own personal philosophies, like his unwavering belief in luck and karma.

⭐SEXUALITY AND ROMANCE⭐

while vance's relationship (no pun intended) with romance is iffy at best, his personal philosophy vis-a-vis sex is that he's here to fuck nasty while he still can, especially with the relic on his ass. he doesn't care about being someone's one-time or frequent input (he's the latter, for river); this attitude, however, is pretty much a front because he doesn't know the first thing about romance, having foregone it entirely as a netrunner, and he's trying his best to mend that for johnny and kerry...

...that being said, his relationship with kerry is. weird. on one hand, he thinks kerry is only with him because of johnny (which is pretty possible). on the other, he kind of enjoys the way kerry looks at him like he hung the moon, even though he knows the other man is imagining someone else entirely. it's both nice and horrific to not be seen as v for once. he thinks, maybe, that's what it means to love.

they're in a happy relationship, they love each other, but they've got johnny's skeleton in the closet, and they're both trying to ignore it--johnny included.

Sexuality: heterosexual / homosexual / bisexual / asexual / pansexual

Sex: sex-repulsed / sex neutral / sex favorable / naive and clueless

Romance: romance repulsed / romance neutral / romance favorable / naive and clueless / romance suspicious

Sexually: adventurous / experienced / naive / inexperienced / curious

Potential Sexual Partners: male / female / agender / other / none / all

Potential Romantic Partners: male / female / agender / other / none / all

vance typically goes for masculine presenting individuals.

⭐ABILITIES⭐

vance is a great strategist, negotiator, and netrunner. while he isn't rache bartmoss or alt cunningham, he's good in his own right and learns fast. he relies mostly on his quickhacks, as his aim isn't capital p Perfect, but he also specializes in knife-throwing and sneaking up on people. he's not afraid to get down and dirty, either!!! the most he can draw is squiggles on his hands when he's bored (that, and/or stick figure renditions of johnny and kerry, much to the ghost's exasperation and kerry's delight)

Combat Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor/ none

Literacy Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

Artistic Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

Technical Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

⭐HABITS⭐

vance likes to party, likes to go to the bar after a tough gig and wind down--but only after a job. never during or before; he's made that mistake before, and he paid for it...literally. he lost a lot of good eddies that day.

Drinking Alcohol: never / special occasions / rarely / sometimes / frequently / alcoholic / former borderline alcoholic turned sober

Smoking: tried it / trying to quit / quit / never / rarely / sometimes / frequently / chain-smoker

he used to smoke on and off while working for arasaka, then quit when he left. he relapsed bc of johnny and has been trying to quite since, but he hasn't had much luck in that regard

Recreational Drugs: tried some / never / special occasions / sometimes / frequently / addict

Medicinal Drugs: never / no longer needs medication / some medication needed / frequently / to excess

was formerly reliant on tranquilizers and bounce backs, now just uses the latter to manage the seizures/pain the relic gives him.

Unhealthy Food: never / special occasions / rarely / sometimes / frequently / binge eater

he has a bad habit of forgetting to eat and can go quite a while before realizing it, so he ends up eating whatever's readily available, like vending machine snacks.

Splurge Spending: never / sometimes / frequently / shopaholic

vance's biggest weaknesses are nice clothes and even nicer bikes. someone stop him before he buys out arch's entire catalogue please

Gambling: never / rarely / sometimes / frequently / compulsive gamble

whooowee that was a long one !! thanks for reading if you got this far :] won't be tagging anyone, so if you'd like to do this for your own oc, feel free !!

[winterpinetrees]

The Human Protagonists

Hey wait, I thought The Gap Years was about some rich kids on a road trip? It is, I just like them less than the rest of the cast. Whoops.

A few days before the story begins, three extremely rich kids graduate from private rich kid high school in San Francisco. They have all been accepted to outrageously prestigious universities, but they’re taking a gap year first. They are tired of this life and they want one year of pretending to be normal before being dragged back to fundraising galas and tabloid news. So they’re taking a road trip. Money isn’t an issue so they’re going to drive off and not come back until they feel sane. It doesn't go to plan.

They are...

Brian Whitaker, a humanities kid who’s been declared a himbo by everyone but his closest friends.

Sierra Bracken, a quiet tech genius who actually knows that magic is real.

and Clay Shepard, the cynic who can keep a budget and pretend to be normal.

The intro said that there are four kids on the road trip. That wasn't a typo. The fourth is the true protagonist of the story. He's an unexpected addition to the party, Prince Marin Sondaica.

Name: Brian Whitaker

Pronouns: He/Him

Species: Human

Age: 18

Special skills: Strong, fast, and well-coordinated. A D1 level baseball player, wrestler, and skilled surfer. Solid knowledge of history, literature, and politics. Charming and liked by the media.

Appearance notes: 6’3 with a lean, athletic build. He is as tall as Ishtar, but takes up less space. He is a very conventionally attractive white boy with blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a significant tan. Brian is even more attractive by elven standards, which is a benefit and a problem. Brian has calloused hands and a few scars from various sporting accidents. Specifically, he has a small scar on his jaw.

Brian Whitaker drives the car. He endures constant jokes that he’s a himbo. Despite this, he is a humanities kid who gets nearly perfect grades. Brian is the third son of an old political dynasty. However, he thinks that gerrymandering is bad and can talk about all the ways that American democracy is broken for an hour on end without needing notes. Brian is charismatic, but he isn’t going to go into politics because he is a kind and honest person. He likes to think that he would sacrifice for the greater good. Brian was pretty neglected as a child but found that he could get noticed through sports. Now Brian is a varsity athlete and surfs all summer. This backfired, and now everyone thinks that he’s a dumb jock. They also think that he’s a playboy, which really isn’t accurate because he respects other people. Brian does live his life in search of feeling though. He’s a thrillseeker, a frequenter of high school parties, and a hopeless romantic. Next year he plans to attend Princeton as some sort of English major and join a fraternity.

…………

Name Sierra Bracken

Pronouns: She/her

Species: Human

Age: 18

Special skills: Genius mechanic and engineer. Skilled but not prodigious programmer. Upper body strength. Has a tiny bit of background knowledge about magic.

Appearance notes: 5’3 with a heavier build. She is half white and half latina. Light brown skin, black hair, and dark brown eyes. She is rarely seen without a pair of teal headphones and wears copper wire wrapped around both wrists.

Sierra Bracken is the oldest child of a Silicon Valley tech magnate. She has a genuinely positive relationship with both her parents (she’s the only one in the trio who does), and a complicated one with the media.

She is a tech genius who can build anything and hack… most things. She also has a special interest in nuclear physics, which means that she essentially has a special interest in magic. Sierra has spent enough time in university physics departments (In this world, being a physicist is a direct path to adventure…and sometimes death) and on tiny Internet forums to know that magic is real. She doesn’t know any of the details, but she knows the basic fact that humans are not alone in the universe. She is snarky but not particularly good at it and doesn’t have any close not-online friends other than Brian and Clay. She’s going off to MIT next fall. Sierra’s more nervous about this than she wants to admit and is thinking of the road trip as a way to say goodbye.

…………

Name: Clay Shepard

Pronouns: He/him

Species: Human

Age: 18

Special skills: Amazing liar and very good at reading people. First-aid. Wilderness survival skills. Street smarts. Sees the world the way it is and can make it work for him. Very accurate with a gun.

Appearance notes: 5’10 and skinny. He is white with sharp features and a perpetually tired expression. He has straight chin length brown hair, brown eyes, and ‘tortoiseshell’ glasses.

Clay Shepard hates his father, and his father hates him. His family earned their fortune relatively recently from America’s terrible healthcare system. He’s the middle child of the family, which is very helpful because he’s trying to be forgotten. (He’s thankful for the money, of course, but other than that he wants out. Clay has a strong moral compass. He’s also gay, and his father is both very corrupt and somewhat homophobic.) Clay wants to be a real doctor, and actually do no harm. As a result, he’s doing first aid on this quest. Clay also has extremely good people skills, honed by spending his nights and weekends around normal teens. He is an amazing liar, and knows how to say exactly what people want to hear. Clay's miserable home life has been getting to him, though. He doesn’t have much faith in humanity. The only thing keeping him from true cynicism and despair are his friends. Both the ones on the quest with him, and his more secret friends, a loose collection of lower class teenagers who by some miracle adopted him into the group as they explore the abandoned parts of the city and try to make adolescence work. Clay supplies them with money. Lots of money. As much as he can take from his father. He’ll attend Harvard next year as a pre-med student.

In a classic fighter-rogue-wizard-cleric D&D party, Brian is the fighter, Sierra is the wizard, Clay is the cleric, and Marin is the rogue.

[anti-katsuki-lounge]

Smth lighter from my last ask. Found a fic where Izu hates BK. It is an oneshot, Izu hating bk for all what he did to him(still in Aldera) should be canon.

The thing is, I can see Izu winning against bk or at least beating him up. Let me explain: yes. Bk has a quirk that can hurt you but bk is not that smart (not saying he is "so dumb he cant do anything. He is Patrick Star" but he is no genius) and Izu knows how his quirk works.

So imagine this BK decides to bully Izu bc why not? And Izu throws cold water on him and punch his nose.

Everyone is :😧😏cool

(I dont think people like Bk. I think they fear him)

And here the thing...if bk tells the teachers what happened to him...it would admit Izu is bettet than him, in his twisted mind.

Maybe Aldera can suffer a schim of sorts. Some teachers are willing to ignore what bk does bc "he will be to ua. He will he famous" and others are trying to do their job.

Canon could still happen. Izu saves BK (he ia a good person still) but when Izu is accepted by UA....Aldera is shock to see AM is favouring Izu and Bk is expelled.

Ok I hust gave a fic idea based on a fic lol.

So the thing is that canon tells us that Katsuki’s a prodigy with great instincts. However, Katsuki’s fighting style is some of the most basic shit I’ve seen. It’s literally this: right hook explosion, smokescreen feint, fly forwards, hit and run, etc. He’s never creative with it and someone with a basic level of fighting experience can definitely beat him. Izuku almost did while he was quirkless until Hori had Katsuki’s plot armor kick in (seeing as Izuku has seen Katsuki fight numerous times and is has analyzed Katsuki’s fighting style, he should’ve known that a smokescreen was coming). Also Katsuki makes insanely stupid mistakes due to his ego, like not running away during the summer camp arc. Hori’s idea of making Katsuki smart is to make him score the third highest on the midterms, have him say/do shit randomly that he shouldn’t know or had no foreshadowing of knowing (cooking, music, hacking, how shadows work, etc.), having people fall for the dumbest shit (Neito falling for an obvious smokescreen and lacking the foresight to grab onto his headband after having toyed with Katsuki and even having copied his quirk) and/or doing something and contradicting it immediately after (his whole “don’t look down on others” speech). Simply put, Hori wants us to think he’s a prodigy but fails at convincing us. Also, how can he have good fighting instincts when all he’s done is beat up those who can’t defend themselves. If anyone’s got fighting instincts it’s going to be those who’ve been professionally trained to fight (Shoto, Mashirao, and Tenya) or those who’ve constantly faced adversary and had to fight to survive (Mezou). He also solely relies on his quirk whereas other characters incorporate fighting techniques into their quirk usage (Mashirao, Itsuka, Ochako, etc.).

Lol this quickly turned into a why Katsuki being a fighting and academic genius makes no sense rant but I felt it was relevant 😂

[howlingday]

Salem: So what's all this talk about levels and rankings and whatnot? They're referring to the Equally Matched Aggressionlevel, or EMA level. The ranks go from as low as a Level 0, a non-threat, up to a Level 10, an extinction level threat. And it all started with, that's right, Ozma's prodigy...

Salem: See, about twenty years ago, at the Team STRQ home, there was this agent of mine named Iron Train. He shows up without a weapon, and no semblance, no aura, no nothing, and snatches Yang from her nap and demands a fight.

---------------------------------------------------

Summer: Step away from the girl.

Train: Oho, caution! You best get off the tracks when the Iron Train is comin'! Choo-!

Summer: Step! The fuck away! From the girl!

---------------------------------------------------

Salem: The guy runs at her like a dumbass and gets his legs hacked off because good ol' Summer Rose is a full-on psychopath, and as Summer's walking away with Yang, he looks up and says...

---------------------------------------------------

Train: FUCK YOU, YOU STUPID C-

Summer: (Leaps at him)

---------------------------------------------------

Salem: Slunk! Gets his entire head split in two like a watermelon. Ergo, NOT EQUAL.

Salem: So, if you're immortal, have a massive dick, a full force legion of henchmen, a top secret hide-out, and an absolutely terrifying second-in-command, you're at a minimum a Level 8.

Salem: If you have one henchman and just enough fare to ride a Rusted Spoon cab, you're a Level three at most.

Driver: Is your stop. (Salem grumbles)

Salem: Guess who's a three.

[clericofshadows]

Tell me something about what Regis was like as a kid?

ooooo fun question :) I ended up making a mile long post about this because I don't think I've really talked about it much, and I ran with the prompt lol

Despite never knowing his father, Atlas, Regis was a relatively happy kid up until his pre-teens. As a young kid, he loved being in space with his mother, Hannah, and despite visits to his father's side of the family being sparse, he was content just seeing his family through vid calls and occasional visits. Hannah didn't have much family, many only children in her family tree, so she never had much of a connection to the few family members that were on Earth, as well as no living maternal grandparents. So, most of the extended family was on Atlas's side.

But the allure of space quickly wore off when he became a pre-teen, and he was tired of moving between ships and stations, never being on solid ground. He was always aware of how his father died (freak accident as a shuttle pilot), but it started to wear on him a bit as he got older. He wanted to live on Earth with his father's family, but his mother never relented, wanting to keep him close. This is due to her wishing that Atlas could've served closer to her and thinking he would still be alive because of it, but also, he was a pilot first and foremost, and never would've been happy on a large ship like a dreadnought.

By the time Regis was a teenager, he was definitely the rebellious type, always trying to find a way to convince his mother that space wasn't for him or make it hard for her to keep him on board. His most notable moment was him stealing a shuttle from the ship his mother served on when he was fifteen and piloting it back down to Earth.

He already knew how to make his own hacks and omnitool programs, so it wasn't a hard job for him (and it showed the Alliance how much of a tech prodigy Regis was, which led to Anderson, a good friend of Hannah's, taking notice and seeing if he was interested in serving. At the time, Regis was not, and was offended at the notion. This soured the relationship between them, and ultimately never recovered. Hannah was also trying to push him towards the Alliance, and Regis thought she put Anderson up to it. Did she? Sort of, but not to the extent Regis thought she did, but Regis can hold one hell of a grudge, and never really gets close to Anderson or hears Anderson out as a result of that.)

He was also very defensive as a teen, always quick to fight back. Regis also excelled in school, and he loved learning, the only time he was civil on the ships and stations, but any other time, he was a menace.

After his second eezo exposure and BAaT happened, Hannah took a more hands off approach, and Regis finally got the independence he wanted. Regis was angry that she sent him there without a second thought and blamed her for not checking in on him with the low level of communication, considering she was always a bit of a helicopter parent otherwise. After that Regis said he was going to live on Earth whether she liked it or not, and Hannah finally let him.

He finished school on Earth while living with his uncle (incidentally his father's twin brother, Adrian), got both of his tattoo arm sleeves since his mother never liked tattoos, got all of his facial piercings (including some others), he kept in contact with Kaidan that soon led into a long distance relationship as Regis went to university to study biotic implants and VI tech, and ultimately chose to enlist with Kaidan because he realized how beneficial the Alliance was for a biotic compared to normal civilian life. And to prove that he was going to get into the Alliance on his own terms.

This last bit isn't related to his childhood, but rather his relationship with his mother, but I think it still stands. Their relationship is better if they perceive it as superior officer and soldier, rather than mother and son. They communicate better over vid calls, but once in person, it starts to get volatile. Their relationship is best left to emails, honestly, but a small part of Regis wishes it could be a little better, but he isn't going to do a damn thing about it.

[alexversenaberrie]

This is Hiba’s sister Minerva:

Name: Minerva “Minnie” Ailyn Bridger-Wren

Gender: Female

Pronouns: She/Her

Year of Birth: 15 ABY

Place of Birth: Mandalore

Parents: Ezra Bridger (Father) and Sabine Wren (Mother)

Siblings: Hiba (Sister), Kanan (Brother), Eleni (Sister)

House: Kryze

Clan: Wren (Formally of House Viszla but switch affiliation with House Kryze by Countess Sabine Wren, Minerva’s mother, in 10 ABY.)

Titles: Princess of Knownwrest, Countess of Lothal, Senator of Mandalore, and Mayor of Sundari (During the Age of Resistance)

Appearance:

•5’3

•Light brown Skin (Middle Eastern X East Asian)

•Athletic

•Diamond-shaped face

•Has long natural black hair

•Brown eyes

Notable Skills:

•Combat: Unlike her sickly older sister, and like most members of her family clan, Minerva is well rounded in various combat skills. This includes hand-to-hand combat skills, martial arts, handling various types of Westar blasters, and being able to wield a light saber without issue

•Ship Building: Minerva is highly skilled in the construction and reconstruction of various ships that are used for transportation purposes. She first conceives blueprints of different ship designs that each have their own purpose. She has designed and built ships for her people on Mandalore, for the New Republic, for the Resistance, and currently for Rey’s newly established Jedi Order.

•Ship Engineering: Because Minerva builds different types of ships that each have their own purpose, she develops each and every one of them their own engineering needs that aims to not only allow them to travel for long periods of time, but also, design them to where they’re less likely to sustain major damage from collision or conflict with battle fleets and type-fighters in space. Reducing the mortality rate of all on board. She’s also developed software in her ships that allows pilots and their crew to immediately call for help from any neighboring planet to come to their aid when in distress, which again, saves lives and prevents tragedies.

•Athleticism: Due to constant training by both her parents and by Prince-Consort Din Djarin-Kryze, Minerva is very athletic.

•Computer Hacking: Minerva has a reputation for being to hack into both Imperial and First Order computer systems in order to obtain information about their future assaults, which then, can allow her to warn targeted planets ahead of time and prepare them to stand up against the invaders.

•Intelligence: Genius-level intelligence, excelled well at both the newly reestablished Royal Academy as a youth and in training with her clan. Considered prodigal.

•Diplomacy: Due to her skills in ship building, ship engineering, and in computer hacking, Minerva has earned herself the title of “Countess of Lothal”, where she conducts most of her work but has served as both a senator to Mandalore and as the mayor of the newly rebuilt Mandalorian capital of Sundari during the Age of Resistance.

Force Sensitive: No

Additional Information:

•She’s the second of four children born to Sabine and Ezra Bridger-Wren.

•Has been considered an engineering prodigy since she accidentally fixed Hera Syndulla’s ship “The Ghost” by defrosting its frozen engine with her mother’s flamethrower during a blizzard on Madurs. She was three years old at the time.

•She was born six months after her parents married on Lothal.

•Has a very tight-knit relationship with both her family clan and other members of the Ghost Crew.

•Although she lives on Knownwrest with her family, her main base is on Lothal.

Strengths:

•Has demonstrated willpower and determination by never going down without a fight.

•If her mind is set to it, she can get anything done.

•Her skills and knowledge with computer systems and how to hack them are dangerously adept.

•She’s constantly able to think things through and stay focused when in battle and during her builds.

•Has a strong void of fear.

Weaknesses:

•Despite being both a Senator and later a mayor, Minerva is not the best politician and has been known to sabotage the political careers of senators and other problematic political figures by hacking into their personal computing systems, exposing holo-messages that she deems “disturbing” and “scandalous”. Much to the dismay of everyone in the Senate.

•Can be very cocky at times.

•Is known to get reckless, which can result in freak accidents.

•She’s known to be very impulsive.

Armor:

•Helmet: A Wren-styled Nite-Owl helmet that was reforged from a helmet that once belonged to her late maternal Uncle Tristan Wren. She had decorated to look similar to what her mother’s helmet looked like she was still a member of the Rebellion with the “Wren feathers” crowned with two different color shades.

•Chest and Neck Pieces: Similar to her mother’s but features a decal that’s almost identical to one her maternal grandmother once had on her own armor during the Siege of Mandalore.

•Pauldrons: Similar to her mother’s but with a Starbird signet that serves as an ode to her mother and a wolf signet to represent the Jedi routes of her father.

•Gauntlets: Similar to her maternal grandmother’s in both style and how they function in combat.

•Hand armor: Similar to her mother’s.

•Knee Armor: Similar to Ahsoka Tano’s from when she served the Nite Owls during the Siege of Mandalore.

•Shin Guards: Heavy Shness shin armor that’s attached to the knee armor like her mother’s.

•Jet pack: Inherited from her late maternal grandmother.

Armor Color Scheme:

•Oxford Blue

•Heather

•Alien Grey

•Hematite

•Slate Grey

•Blue Rhapsody

•Shuttle Grey

•Light Gold

•Dull Yellow

•Oil (a shade of brown)

Soft Parts:

•Similar to her Mother’s.

Belt:

•A Single waist belt attached to a dull yellow sash that holds two holsters.

Weapons in Possession:

•2 identical Westar blasters

•1 Beskad Sword

It was also difficult to make XD

[marketingprofitmedia]

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[re-ikrmso]

small RAMBLE ABOUT Pokemon Fire Red Rocket (Romhack)

dude. listen, i know it's like. a cruel subversion for some people but I LOVED THAT ROMHACK. i don't have that same attachment and i write it off as an alternate universe. there is so much like headcnaons so effortlessly weaved into the story. its so. URGHHH. SO GOOD.

But just a small ramble here and there:

Personally, I believe Red in that Rom Hack...is just sociopathic/ or just has something that accounts for his lack of empathy. He CAN be taught different, except his uh...main caregiver/parent is Prof. Oak who is clearly...not the best influence. at all. Because I feel that some people may take Oak's words to heart when it's not really the case. Oak just thinks Red is just a puppet because that's what he thinks. We haven't seen much or ANYTHING from Red's perspective within the Rom Hack, but we do know these things at least according to oak:

Oak's word is law to Red

He "lacks" an emotional core+conscience.

"innately aggressive" with "unconstrained intelligence"

now while you can argue that "well if oak thinks red is a puppet and if red believes oak then he's just a puppet"

but me personally, i like to think Oak was just wrong on many levels, on regards to Red and the main character. They didn't need to be created in some lab (well i mean red's kind of. but whatever) to be fuckin prodigies. they just needed a REASON. Like, You don't Need to be a RED to be Champion. BLUE IS RIGHT THERE! Like, just how ironic would it be if it turned out Red and the main character were just naturally psychopaths but Oak chocks it up to something much larger? also, i like to think it leaves up room for pain. red looks up to oak, obviously but i do think he was listening the entire time. i dunno, like...it just feels it was NATURAL within Red's circumstances to go on the journey the way he did. he was always GUIDED by Oak. Well DUH, NO WONDER HE DID WHATEVER OAK WANTED! He also always had an interest in Pokemon! I do think that was genuine to some degree! Like, if Red was taught everything by Oak, then NO FUCKING WONDER HE FOLLOWS HIM! FOLLOWS HIS FATHER FIGURE! LIKE RED'S NOT A PUPPET. HE'S most likely JUST A KID who's NEVER had the chance to think twice on anything because Oak's word is law to him! and he also probably lacks self-awareness needed to properly look at his impacts on other people and why it should matter ot him but whatever. we don't know that much about the protag's or red's personality (WAHH) but we do know copycat is the best reflection we have. due to Fire Red Rocket being mostly paraell to an actual gameplay of Pokemon Red, we can assume most things said to Red are still applicable in THIS canon.

also another like slight thing that is very unrelated, but sometimes when character's are talking to a character but aren't facing them, i assume that the taking person is actually turned at a diagonal angle, or is like talking to them as they pace or something. i dunno, i think it gives the from more life that way.

so yeah wahh

[mmorgsticky]

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[be-gay-do-heists]

hello yall :) the holy month of elul started last night, which is typically a time for contemplation, so since it is impossible for me to stop thinking about leverage, i decided to write an essay. hope anyone interested in reading it enjoys, and that it makes at least a little sense!! spoilers for leverage redemption

-----

Leverage, Judaism, and “Doing the Work”: An Essay for Elul

When it comes to Elul and the approaching High Holidays, Leverage might seem like an odd topic to meditate on.

The TNT crime drama that ran from 2008-2012, and which released a new season this summer following its renewal, centers on a group of found-family thieves who help the victims of corporations and oligarchs (sometimes based on real-world examples), using wacky heists and cons to bring down the rich and powerful. In one episode, the team’s clients want to reclaim their father’s prized Glimt piece that had been stolen in the Shoah and never returned, but aside from this and the throwaway lines and jokes standard for most mainstream television, there’s not a ton textually Jewish about Leverage. However, despite this, I have found that the show has strong resonance among Jewish fans, and lots of potential for analysis along Jewish themes. This tends to focus on one character in particular: the group’s brilliant, pop culture-savvy, and personable hacker, Alec Hardison, played by the phenomenally talented Aldis Hodge.

I can’t remember when or where I first encountered a reading of Hardison as Jewish, but not only is this a somewhat popular interpretation, it doesn’t feel like that much of a leap. In the show itself, Hardison has a couple of the aforementioned throwaway lines that potentially point to him being Jewish, even if they’re only in service of that moment’s grift. It’s hard to point to what exactly makes reading Hardison as Jewish feel so natural. My first guess is the easy way Hardison fits into the traditional paradigms of Jewish masculinity explored by scholars such as Daniel Boyarin (2). Most of the time, the hacker is not portrayed as athletic or physical; he is usually the foil to the team’s more physically-adept characters like fighter Eliot, or thief Parker. Indeed, Hardison’s strength is mental, expressed not only through his computer wizardry but his passions for science, technology, music, popular media, as well as his studious research into whatever scenario the group might come up against. In spite of his self-identification as a “geek,” Hardison is nevertheless confident, emotionally sensitive, and secure in his masculinity. I would argue he is representative of the traditional Jewish masculine ideal, originating in the rabbinic period and solidified in medieval Europe, of the dedicated and thoughtful scholar (3). Another reason for popular readings of Hardison as Jewish may be the desire for more representation of Jews of color. Although mainstream American Jewish institutions are beginning to recognize the incredible diversity of Jews in the United States (4), and popular figures such as Tiffany Haddish are amplifying the experiences of non-white Jews, it is still difficult to find Jews of color represented in popular media. For those eager to see this kind of representation, then, interpreting Hardison, a black man who places himself tangential to Jewishness, in this way is a tempting avenue.

Regardless, all of the above remains fan interpretation, and there was little in the text of the show that seriously tied Judaism into Hardison’s identity. At least, until we got this beautiful speech from Hardison in the very first episode of the renewed show, directed at the character of Harry Wilson, a former corporate lawyer looking to atone for the injustice he was partner to throughout his career:

“In the Jewish faith, repentance, redemption, is a process. You can’t make restitution and then promise to change. You have to change first. Do the work, Harry. Then and only then can you begin to ask for forgiveness. [...] So this… this isn’t the win. It’s the start, Harry.”

I was floored to hear this speech, and thrilled that it explained the reboot’s title, Leverage: Redemption. Although not mentioned by its Hebrew name, teshuvah forms the whole basis for the new season. Teshuvah is the concept of repentance or atonement for the sins one has committed. Stemming from the root shuv/shuva, it carries the literal sense of “return.” In a spiritual context, this usually means a return to G-d, of finding one’s way back to holiness and by extension good favor in the eyes of the Divine. But equally important is restoring one’s relationships with fellow humans by repairing any hurt one has caused over the past year. This is of special significance in the holy month of Elul, leading into Rosh haShanah, the Yamim Noraim, and Yom Kippur, but one can undertake a journey of redemption at any point in time. That teshuvah is a journey is a vital message for Harry to hear; one job, one reparative act isn’t enough to overturn years of being on the wrong side of justice, to his chagrin. As the season progresses, we get to watch his path of teshuvah unfold, with all its frustrations and consequences. Harry grows into his role as a fixer, not only someone who can find jobs and marks for the team, but fixes what he has broken or harmed.

So why was Hardison the one to make this speech?

I do maintain that it does provide a stronger textual basis for reading Hardison as Jewish by implication (though the brief on-screen explanation for why he knows about teshuvah, that his foster-parent Nana raised a multi-faith household, is important in its own merit, and meshes well with his character traits of empathy and understanding for diverse experiences). However, beyond this, Hardison isn’t exactly an archetypical model for teshuvah. In the original series, he was the youngest character of the main ensemble, a hacking prodigy in the start of his adult career, with few mistakes or slights against others under his belt. In one flashback we see that his possibly first crime was stealing from the Bank of Iceland to pay off his Nana’s medical bills, and that his other early hacking exploits were in the service of fulfilling personal desires, with only those who could afford to pay the bill as targets. Indeed, in the middle of his speech, Hardison points to Eliot, the character with the most violent and gritty past who views his work with the Leverage team as atonement, for a prime example of ongoing teshuvah. So while no one is perfect and everyone has a reason for doing teshuvah, this question of why Hardison is the one to give this series-defining speech inspired me to look at his character choices and behavior, and see how they resonate with a different but interrelated Jewish principle, that of tikkun olam. 

Tikkun olam is literally translated as “repairing the world,” and can take many different forms, such as protecting the rights of vulnerable people in society, or giving tzedakah (5). In modern times, tikkun olam is often the rallying cry for Jewish social activists, particularly among environmentalists for whom literally restoring the health of the natural world is the key goal. Teshuvah and tikkun olam are intertwined (the former is the latter performed at an interpersonal level) and both hold a sense of fixing or repairing, but tikkun olam really revolves around a person feeling called to address an injustice that they may have not had a personal hand in creating. Hardison’s sense of a universal scale of justice which he has the power to help right on a global level and his newfound drive to do humanitarian work, picked up sometime after the end of the original series, make tikkun olam a central value for his character. This is why we get this nice bit of dialogue from Eliot to Hardison in the second episode of the reboot, when the latter’s outside efforts to organize international aid start distracting him from his work with the team: “Is [humanitarian work] a side gig? In our line of work, you’re one of the best. But in that line of work… you’re the only one, man.” The character who most exemplifies teshuvah reminds Hardison of his amazing ability to effect change for the better on a huge stage, to do some effective tikkun olam. It’s this acknowledgement of where Hardison can do the most good that prompts the character’s absence for the remainder of the episodes released thus far, turning his side gig into his main gig.

With this in mind, it will be interesting to see where Hardison’s arc for this season goes. Separated from the rest of the team, the hacker still has remarkable power to change the world, because it is, after all, the “age of the geek.” However, he is still one person. For all that both teshuvah and tikkun olam are individual responsibilities and require individual decision-making and effort, the latter especially relies on collective work to actually make things happen. Hardison leaving is better than trying to do humanitarian work and Leverage at the same time, but there’s only so long he can be the “only one” in the field before burning out. I’m reminded of one of the most famous (for good reason) maxims in Judaism:

It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you free to neglect it. (6)

Elul is traditionally a time for introspection and heeding the calls to repentance. After a year where it’s never been easier to feel powerless and drained by everything going on around us, I think it’s worth taking the time to examine what kind of work we are capable of in our own lives. Maybe it’s fixing the very recent and tangible hurts we’ve left behind, like Harry. Maybe it’s the little changes for the better that we make every day, motivated by our sense of responsibility, like Eliot. And maybe it’s the grueling challenge of major social change, like Hardison. And if any of this work gets too much, who can we fall back on for support and healing? Determining what needs repair, working on our own scale and where our efforts are most helpful, and thereby contributing to justice in realistic ways means that we can start the new year fresh, having contemplated in holiday fashion how we can be better agents in the world.

Shana tovah u’metukah and ketivah tovah to all (7), and may the work we do in the coming year be for good!

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(1) Disclaimer: everybody’s fandom experiences are different, and this is just what I’ve picked up on in my short time watching and enjoying this show with others.

(2) See, for example, the introduction and first chapter of Boyarin’s book Unheroic Conduct: The Rise of Heterosexuality and the Invention of the Jewish Man (I especially recommend at least this portion if you are interested in queer theory and Judaic studies). There he explores the development of Jewish masculinity in direct opposition to Christian masculine standards.

(3) I might even go so far as to place Hardison well within the Jewish masculine ideal of Edelkayt, gentle and studious nobility (although I would hesitate to call him timid, another trait associated with Edelkayt). Boyarin explains that this scholarly, non-athletic model of man did not carry negative associations in the historical Jewish mindset, but was rather the height of attractiveness (Boyarin, 2, 51).

(4) Jews of color make up 20% of American Jews, according to statistics from Be’chol Lashon, and this number is projected to increase as American demographics continue to change: https://globaljews.org/about/mission/. 

(5) Tzedakah is commonly known as righteous charity. According to traditional authority Maimonides, it should be given anonymously and without embarrassment to the person in need, generous, and designed to help the recipient become self-sufficient.

(6) Rabbi Tarfon, Pirkei Avot, 2:16

(7) “A good and sweet year” and “a good inscription [in the Book of Life]”