#and de facto controls half the city. what do you do? what CAN you do?

[notbecauseofvictories]

This is going to sound negative, but I think Snuff deserves to be the last Discworld book. I mean, Raising Steam is good in certain ways, a fond elegy to the characters and plots a reader has come to know so well. I don't even object to the visceral pleasure of the earlier novels giving way to something diffuse, harder to pin down. (Unseen Academicals felt like this---a wonderful novel, but not actually a victory; just a plot that rearranged matters in an interesting way.) But there's a sort of...ill magic setting in, by the time you get to the scene where Vetinari gives medals to our wonderful shining heroes of the railway.

Namely, they're too good at this.

Vimes uses the Summoning Dark multiple times, and without even the terrified self-doubt he was showing in Snuff. (I have other issues with Snuff, but that was an interesting thread to pull.) Vetinari not-too-discretely points the Black Clerks at a problem, and it is solved; when necessary, he goes undercover working on something he personally considers vaguely distasteful, and yet becomes the center of a folk song. Moist neither sleeps, nor eats nor makes love to his wife (except sometimes, too rarely in his opinion) but rushes all over doing the railways' job for---what? for why?

They're too good, they've climbed too high; Vimes and Vetinari are edging into myth while still being alive, and Moist was already half of a song anyway, has been since he put on the golden suit.

I'm not saying it's not an interesting setup, because strangely it is. But it feels like the start of something, not closure at all, because what else is Discworld good for if not to tackle the fact that everything glowy and laden with awe will not remain such. Because, you know, that's how the world works.

[snarp]

Last night's overly-complicated dream: a Dungeon Meshi setting-based game, with a plot structured like Dragon Age: Origins.

Most of the player origin storylines were very short and basic, and re-used a lot of dialog and NPCs - the game had even shipped with the dwarf one glitched and unfinishable, to my outrage.

There was one exception, obviously originally intended to be the only player character: a half-foot raised within a small enclave of a plot-relevant elven religious/military order (based on the Canaries and the Grey Wardens), which was itself located in a soon-to-be-razed half-foot ghetto within an orcish dungeon kingdom (visually based on the darkspawn Deep Roads sections from "A Paragon of her Kind," and also on a disintegrating mall in Elizabethtown, KY).

This player character's adoptive father is an early plot-relevant boss, an orc general who is a bull chimera - basically, a minotaur - who was in a brief political (?) marriage with the half-foot "mayor," who was implicitly the prior dungeon lord. After this woman's death, he was pressured to give the toddler player character to the elf cultists to ensure that she had no potential "heir".

...But he maintained contact with the player, calls them his "daughter" (regardless of player-selected gender, according to Tumblr complaints), and reminisces sadly about her mother. His continued visits to the elf cult may even be how its senior members infiltrated the orcs' political structure and convinced them to get involved with The Blood Lord (final boss, basically The Demon/The Archdemon) who convinced their leader to build a golem army and conquer the outside world.

The elf cult's purpose in most places is stated to be "killing vampires"... but naturally its members are very prone to going mad with bloodlust, and there are always a few who get brainwashed by The Blood Lord and decide that they really ought to be serving the vampires/become vampires themselves/etc. 

The player character's sect is pretty much cooked by the time she finishes the tutorial section. There are a bunch of plot-relevant conversations she can have with her dad and other orc-aligned characters trying to convince them that their "allies" in the blood cult are "turning this shit into a Dragon Age game". (The comedic dialog choices invariably have bad consequences, which tells me that Ryoko Kui probably did not make the gameplay design choices.) 

Ultimately, she always has to flee and choose which potential ally to try to mobilize first against the orc invasion: a human city-state, a gnomish university, or the elf-queen. In each case, she has the option of going to the local cultists and warning them first. 

This is always clearly-telegraphed as a bad move, but it's also clearly the devs' "canonical" choice to go immediately to the elf capital and try to warn what the player character believes to be the "high priestess" of their cult. She will there learn that only four cult members are still in the elvish capital, the hundreds of others having disappeared years ago, leaving behind the "unworthy" as they went on a doomed/evil quest... to the dungeon the player just fled.

Two of these four "unworthies" will join your party permanently, and one - the one your news has turned into the order's de-facto "leader", a cranky middle-aged woman who looks like Cithis with her head shaved - is romanceable *only* if you're playing as the female half-foot cultist and she's the very first person you warn about the orcs. She will disappear from the plot of the game entirely if you fail to do this.

Additionally: the game has kinda Soulsborne-y action gameplay, but it's heavily-geared towards stealth and avoidance of enemies. The cultists' skillsets - particularly the half-foot cultist and Not-Cithis - are mechanically by far the easiest way to play the game. The dream spent like 20 minutes making me do boring grindy swordfights with the glitched dwarf origin.

Most boss fights encourage the player to control one or more plot-relevant allies who have specialized skills that will do most of the actual damage. Not-Cithis is the best character for the final boss fight, and also the fight with your minotaur dad - *if* you want to permakill him.

[thefilmsnob]

Barbie: **** out of 5

As I was leaving a screening of Barbie amidst a sea of elated fans, I overheard someone saying, “That was so much better than I thought it would be.” Honestly, I didn’t share the sentiment. That’s because I was certain it would be great the second that I learned it was Greta Gerwig’s next project. A wonderful actor and writer, Gerwig eventually directed her first film Lady Bird in 2017 followed by Little Women in 2019, both extraordinary works and two of the best reviewed movies of the last decade. I wasn’t excited for Barbie; I was excited for Gerwig’s third feature.

That feature is half of the ‘Barbenheimer’ cultural phenomenon. Never in a million years would I have pictured Gerwig, the de facto Queen of Indie Films, at the center of two blockbusters vying for box office dominance…in the same week! What’s more, her film is actually winning the financial battle against Oppenheimer, the second film in that portmanteau whose director, Christopher Nolan, churns out blockbusters like Mattel churns out plastic dolls.

One such doll, Barbie, is the star of this film and an American institution launched in 1959 whose instantly recognizable brand floods the hallways of countless stores. Some might view the film as cynical commercialism—this two-hour showcase definitely won’t hurt sales—but, that opinion is reductive. The opening scene alone defies expectations and reminds us of the exceptional talent behind the camera, including co-writer Noah Baumbach, who’s even more ‘indie’ than Gerwig, and both her creative and romantic partner.

You may not know the people behind the camera, but you do know the star in front of it. Possessing otherworldly beauty (narrator Helen Mirren has a killer line about this) and exceptional acting skills, Margot Robbie’s casting is a no-brainer, which is ironic considering how inclusive the cast is; dozens of Barbies inhabit Barbieland, composed of various races, body types and gender identities. That goes for the Kens as well. But, Robbie plays Stereotypical Barbie, a crucial aspect of the story that the film makers stress often, mainly to highlight a standard that impressionable, vulnerable young people experience so often.

And so, the perfect Barbie played by the perfect actor lives a perfect life in a hot pink utopian society where the Barbies hold all positions of power while the Kens, including Beach Ken (a priceless Ryan Gosling), chill at the beach and try, unsuccessfully, to woo the ladies. The nonchalance of Barbie’s rebuff of Ken speaks volumes about this social hierarchy. Robbie’s Barbie has a daily routine, executed as if a child were controlling her, rituals that include sipping from an empty cup and floating from bedroom to driveway because what child would walk her doll down every stair?

This occurs on a meticulously constructed set, realized by designers Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer. Built on a solid foundation of whimsy and charm, this community—whose geographic and temporal relationship with the ‘real world’ wisely is left ambiguous—is the product of stunning practical effects in place of tempting CGI. Like in recent films, interestingly, such as Beau is Afraid and Asteroid City, the set resembles a colourful diorama, at once fantastical and tactile. It’s a world of make-believe you can otherwise almost reach out and touch, just like the toys that inspired it.

But toys don’t have sudden preoccupations with mortality like Barbie does during a dance number, handled with perfect comedic timing by Robbie. She’s also horrified by newly flat feet and patches of cellulite. It’s around this point when the story shows it has more on its mind than just brand promotion. That trend continues as Barbie consults Weird Barbie (the delightfully weird Kate McKinnon) who’s an outcast yet the wisest of them all. Lurching about, contorting herself and giving those big-eyed, alien-like looks that McKinnon has mastered, she tells Barbie to find the girl who’s controlling her in the real world.

With Ken stowing away in Barbie’s convertible, the two arrive in Los Angeles’s Venice Beach, enveloped in neon spandex. There’re some standard fish-out-of-water moments played for laughs, sure, but Gerwig and Baumbach also use this framework to explore a myriad of social issues with the same amount of fervor used to entertain. After being ogled relentlessly at the beach, Barbie is cat-called by some construction workers, but that cliché is subverted as Barbie simply and unexpectedly explains that she lacks genitalia. It’s brilliant.

As with Gerwig’s previous films, it’s difficult to pin down a specific message; she explores numerous issues and isn’t one to tie things up in a neat little package. The stories have feminist underpinnings, but they’re never reduced to simple dichotomies like ‘women are good/men are evil’. Yes, men are portrayed as misogynists occasionally or embody corporate greed in the case of the idiotic Mattel executives led by a pompous Will Ferrell as the CEO. We also see the dangers of an impressionable air head like Ken learning of the patriarchy and introducing its flaws to Barbieland, hopefully bringing attention to how insufferable bro culture can be. Yet, Gerwig’s brand of feminism is sympathetic to male struggles too, especially toward the end, even if much of their behaviour is rightly judged.

Mattel isn’t even immune from judgment; the writers get away with a surprising amount aimed at the company, specifically regarding their toys’ negative influence on body image and self- esteem. For a film maker to resist the pressures of both studio executives and the heads of the represented brand, especially with the huge stakes of a blockbuster production, is truly remarkable and a testament to the audacity of Gerwig who’s unwilling to sacrifice her artistic integrity. Mattel also deserves some credit for acknowledging their shortcomings and vowing to do better. Everyone wins here.

That includes the audience, most importantly. Not only are we treated to hilarious, candy-coloured entertainment, but we’re given a smart film for adults that kids will also enjoy and whose insight will benefit both. It challenges corporate power, the patriarchy, beauty standards and stereotypes while promoting inclusion, autonomy and self-confidence, mostly in creative and entertaining ways though, occasionally, unlike Gerwig’s previous films, a bit too overtly if not altogether preachy. America Ferrera, with a soulful and honest performance as the Mattel employee Gloria, gives a tirade about society’s ridiculous expectations of women; it’s hard to refute her argument, but the delivery feels too familiar in this otherwise unique experience.

It’s an experience that relies heavily on its two leads, both marvellous. Gosling eschews his usual dead-eyed intensity for a relaxed turn as a lovable nitwit and does so effortlessly (no offence). It’s Robbie’s (Barbie) world, however, and we’re all just accessories. The roll is deceptively complex, requiring an actor with more than just beauty to be at once effervescent and existentially preoccupied. Both her performance and the story are capped off with one final word that recalls a line (also the final one) by Nicole Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut, appropriate considering Barbie begins with an explicit reference to another Stanley Kubrick masterpiece. It’s a word that Robbie announces with aplomb when it would otherwise be whispered with embarrassment; a word she wields like a weapon, charging forward into a new life in the name of unapologetic femininity.

[lucius-the-sinful]

I'll send you way too many! Feel free to pick 5 or something, lol.

1: Where in the Faerûn is your Tav from?

8: Who are they suspicious of?

11: Weapon of choice?

13: What are their thoughts on killing? Is it a necessary evil or do they enjoy it?

17: Do they enjoy life as an adventurer?

19: How do you think they'll meet they're end?

20: Would they destroy the elder brain or control it?

21: What is your Tav's favorite spell?

22: What languages is your character fluent in?

28: Is your character the de facto leader of the party? Or do they consider someone else to be the leader?

29: Does your Tav want to utilize the tadpole powers or not?

30: What's your favorite thing about your Tav?

erm. im going to answer all of them because i love to yap.

1: Where in the Faerûn is your Tav from?

Gale is from the city of Calimport (unfortunately for him). He was in Baldur's Gate on a, uh, "business trip" when he was kidnapped by the mindflayers.

8: Who are they suspicious of?

Initially, Human Gale (who does not like being called Human Gale). Mostly because of the needing to eat all (3 pieces) of their gear. That could be turned around for a nice profit.

11: Weapon of choice?

answered here :)

13: What are their thoughts on killing? Is it a necessary evil or do they enjoy it?

Despite not being a vampire in this version (yet) he very much loves killing. Something about thunderwaving a poor soul off a cliff is deeply satisfying to Gale. Good ole stabbings are good too.

17: Do they enjoy life as an adventurer?

It is much preferable to what his life was before, so he will take it over that any day.

19: How do you think they'll meet they're end?

Never.

(content warning: suicide)

Okay if I'm being honest, I think his past will catch up to him. Either he will be unable to be truly free of his father and be punished for daring to escape and end up taking his own life (possibly resulting in the forfeiting of his soul for the taking???) or some similar awful end.

20: Would they destroy the elder brain or control it?

He wants to control it so bad. But he is convinced not to.

21: What is your Tav's favorite spell?

Thunderwave :)

22: What languages is your character fluent in?

If I go based off of his 3.5 D&D sheet for our campaign: Common, Abyssal, Infernal, Celestial, Elven, Dwarven, and Halfling. I think I'll probably keep it for this AU :)

28: Is your character the de facto leader of the party? Or do they consider someone else to be the leader?

I feel like he is more "face of the party" than the leader, being the ultra charismatic one and all.

29: Does your Tav want to utilize the tadpole powers or not?

He totally abuses it. Until he is asked if he wants to become a half ilithid. Tentacles can be fun, not on him though.

30: What's your favorite thing about your Tav?

In our campaign, I'd say he is just the most fun I've had with a character (as far as roleplay goes) in a very long while. I think its just his personality, and I say that's the same for this AU. He's a brat at times, but he's also witty and charming and lovable in his own way. Oh, and I love his design. I cooked c:

[bunnidarling]

About Averyll:

1: Where in the Faerûn is your Tav from? Averyll grew up in the country between Candlekeep and Baulder’s Gate. His mum and dad have an inn off of the Coast Way

2: What is your character's alignment? Chaotic Good

3: Race and subclass? Half-Elf Bard

4: If your Tav was a companion, where would they be found? Maybe just wandering along the risen road somewhere between the abandoned inn and Wakeens Rest.

5: Dark Urge or no? Nope

6: What companion are you platonically close with? Karlach is his ride or die BFF but he’s friendly with all of the companions. 

7: Romantically close with? Astarion and Halsin

8: Who are they suspicious of? The Dream Visitor 

9: Is your Tav from Baldur's Gate? Why are they travelling there? He spent a lot of time there as he traveled up and down the Sword Coast practicing bardic arts. 

10: Are they proficient in playing any instruments? Yes- viola

11: Weapon of choice? Rapier / Shortbow

12: What is their orientation? Like sexual orientation? Gay. Gay and slutty. 

13: What are their thoughts on killing? Is it a necessary evil or do they enjoy it? He doesn’t enjoy killing mindlessly, but can’t help getting swept up in the bloodlust during a good battle. 

14: What hobbies does your Tav have? He enjoys writing stories and drawing. 

15: What NPC's do they like? Which one's do they dislike? NPC’s they like: Dammon, Alfira, Isobel and Dame Aylen, Madame Lucretius NPC’s they dislike: Cazador, Gortash, Lorroakan, Roland, Auntie Ethel

16: Do they have a favorite creature in the Faerûn? They’ve become quite fond of owlbears and cave bears lately. 

17: Do they enjoy life as an adventurer? He does! Both his parents were adventures, so he came by it honestly. He hadn’t gone on too many adventures beyond the cities along the Sword Coast before the abduction. 

18: What would your Tav be doing if they weren't kidnapped on the Nautiloid? Probably continue their travels up and down the swordcoast. Had they not been kidnapped they likely may have found up in some kind of adventure. It would find them eventually. 

19: How do you think they'll meet their end? Dang. Hard to say! Probably shooting their mouth off to the wrong person at the wrong time, but that charisma is just too. Damn. high! So I’d like to imagine they’d die cuddled up with their loved ones safe and warm in bed. 

20: Would they destroy the elder brain or control it? Destroy!

21: What is your Tav's favorite spell? Faerie Fire/Cure Wounds

22: What languages is your character fluent in? Common and Elvish 

23: What do they do after the absolute crisis? Its a really hard choice for him because of how much he loves Karlach, but seeing Astarion run off smoking nearly broke his heart. He chased after him, sending Wyll in his stead. He and Astarion are currently adventuring through the underdark to find a cure for Astarion’s sun sensitivity. 

24: Does your character believe in the afterlife? Not really. 

25: What arcana major best represents your Tav? The Fool

26: What animal best represents your Tav? The swallow

27: What was their life like before the events of BG3? Pretty interesting. Averyll was still close with his parents, but had left the nest as it were. He was in the process of finding himself as he journeyed from country to city singing his stories.

28: Is your character the de facto leader of the party? Or do they consider someone else to be the leader? He’s the leader and he’s pretty bewildered as to -why-. He’s the youngest and the least experienced and everyone relies on his decisions. It's a little overwhelming but he’s doing his best. 

29: Does your Tav want to utilize the tadpole powers or not? Hell yeah gimme them worms

30: What's your favorite thing about your Tav? He’s a good kid. He has his flaws, of course, but has a big heart. He wants to do right by the people he cares about and try to leave the world better than he found it. If he can make someone laugh or smile with his songs or quips it makes his day. I also love how he seems incredibly innocent and is VERY much not.

[gold-rhine]

fallout new vegas inazuma u will always be famous in my heart :(... top tier fanfic concept fr

i knooow, it will always be famous for both of us, anon. like inazuma is PERFECT for fnv

like. raiden is literally just animewaifu house. dictator, isolated and self-absorbed, who keeps main resource of the region hub under control and tries to preserve it unchanged, like before the war, like??? so isolated from reality, they do not even have a body de facto and only interact with the world thru robots. Powerful, but blind to the inevitability of change and that their little city under the snow globe which they thought unchanged DID already change

traveler is ofc a courier. platinum chip is gnosis. Benny is played by Ayato, a manipulator and disruptor from within the dictator's system, but instead of Benny representing "tribals" who try to basically cosplay pre-war aesthetics without understanding them and those showing that House's dream is dead, it's impossible to keep the past alive, you can only keep its dead shambling corpse. But Ayato is the subversion of another kind, he DOES know all of the traditions that raiden wants to preserve, but he doesn't give a fuck, uses them as a pretense to cover for what he actually wants to do, and so the past once again loses meaning and turns into aesthetics only

yes man is played by scara, and he still HAS to do everything he's asked, but he doesn't have to be polite about it, so he's still an insufferable cunt. ayato stole him from yae's basement, and courier can steal him from ayato and play wild card

all islands are not just scattered world quests, but each a political faction.

Serrai, a small but vicious band of pirates and yokai, left there from when they destroyed raiden's fleet by unleashing the storm

the fucking weird ultraconservative isolationist cult who worships thunder bird (thunder bird is dead. (they also child sacrifices))

watatsumi, who seem so nice and good, until you learn that their island is built on literal bones of vishaps. Enka event, vishaps are sentient faction too, and watatsumi can only function if they grow fertile corals grafted onto literal vishap children, kept in captivity. But watatsumi need resources and they can't survive without it, what do we do. like!! thats literal genshin canon and genshin did nothing with it

and ofc fatui, who are playing both raiden and the rebels. signora can finally have a meaningful role to play

both inazuma and fnv center around the themes of change and conflict, idolization and desire to live in the past vs moving forward, denial of catastrophe of war and living inside of a fake snow globe vs trying to build smth new. a singular flourishing city and the crumbling badlands around. half of inazuma already covered in radiation, come on!

tldr hoyo plagiarized fnv, but thats not a problem, the problem is that they did it BADLY, and it could have been GOOD asdfghj

[itsbenedict]

Two-Faced Jewel: Thunderbrush 0

Know Your Ghost Botany

"I'm not missing anything, right? You two are from that magic university down south, and you've got some sort of... mission from them that involves a dangerous unknown divine artifact... and you don't know exactly what you're going to do with it in a huge jungle city haunted by the ghost dryad mafia?" "...Look here. You're going to need all the help you can get."

Story so far | Session log index | Previous session

Last time: the party agreed to smuggle a vampire out of town in exchange for fabulous riches. This time: said vampire briefs them on what awaits them at their next destination.

Miriko Watchwood, former general manager at the late Cabana Jim's Luxury Resort and Spa, has a secret: while she was compelled to work in Jim's service as a resort manager, there was nothing stopping her from carrying out her original line of work- as a mafia informant. Ana, ghost dryad of the "Watchwood" crime family, tasked her with spying on the rich and powerful guests at Corolos' most decadent luxury resort, and passing back information to Thunderbrush. Which means... she's pretty familiar with where they're going, and its criminal underworld.

She starts by trying to get a sense of what kind of information the party needs.

Looseleaf explains very vaguely that they're on a research trip to the local university, in order to study... oh, something or other. It's not all that important.

Saelhen is... not a secret assassin from the elven capital city, right? Right. She's normal, probably.

Miriko, sighing, opts not to press any harder on the party's obviously shady motives. It's not like she's one to talk. She unfurls a map on the counter of the onboard bar.

She provides the party with a detailed briefing on the many, many factions present in the city of Thunderbrush.

First and most important: the white circle, Tonnera Mighty. The only living dryad left in Thunderbrush, de facto ruler of the city. Her root system and canopy cover half the city, and she can demolish anything she likes with a flick of her massive roots. She orders around the local Ecumene of Harmony, and concerns herself with the beautification of the city (and herself.)

She also controls the municipal faction of the city guard- and ostensibly controls the wall-guard faction, though her control over that half is weak. The captain of the wall-guard, Constance Virtue, nominally answers to Tonnera, but word has it that she runs a tyrannical protection racket on the outskirts of town, where the Stumps run their gangs.

Who are the Stumps? Hundreds of years ago, the dryad city was attacked by masked elves, who chopped down and murdered nearly the entire dryad population. A select few of the elder dryads, though, managed to preserve their souls with some sort of unknown necromancy, and thereafter set up criminal enterprises to fund their continued existences. Those are the Stumps.

Number 20, under the canopy, is Evelyn, one of the few ghost dryads who don't run overt criminal gangs. She's the one of greatest interest to the party, because she's the power behind the power at Thunderbrush Metropolitan University- their destination. Her lackeys are the Student Council, who are reputedly extremely nosy and weirdly intense for an academic organization.

The rest, Miriko has the details on:

Fallen, dryad of the Sounds. Source of much of Thunderbrush's instability, she's the one who most openly agitates against Tonnera's rule. She believes Tonnera engineered the attack to gain personal power, and her enormous cadre of anarcho-treemmunist revolutionaries have been doing their damnedest to knock her down a peg.

Comare, dryad of the Green Hats. Your classic Godfather-ass mafia mafia, commanding large sums of money and extorting people at crossbow-point while dressing all fancy. You come to her on the day of her daughter's wedding and ask her to not steal your stuff? Fuhgeddaboudit.

Acacia, dryad of the Owls. They style themselves a neighborhood watch that wants to protect Thunderbrush from dangerous outsiders- and what more profitable way to do that then stealing dangerous outsiders' weapons and magic items? Miriko suspects they work closely with Constance Virtue, corrupt guard captain.

Ana, dryad of the Watchwood. An information brokerage that specializes is spying, blackmail, and miscellaneous subterfuge. Ana is Miriko's employer, as the name would indicate, and Miriko is fairly light on further detail.

Philia, dryad of the House. She's basically just a shitty landlord, and makes most of her money off exploiting tenants rather than actively doing crime elsewhere. Means she's one of the safer ones to hang around near, if you're not targeting her people- she wasn't lying, that protection money do protection.

Manga Love (Nii-sama to his gang), mangrove dryad of the Jumoku Jaguars. The only force in the city who doesn't lowkey hate elves for what happened with Timber Towers, because he is a huge weeaboo and runs his gang like a ninja clan. The village hidden in the swamp! Believe it! Miriko notes that they seem to be protecting some secret hidden in the nearby woods...

Will-O, dryad of the Ashtray (singular: Butts), and the victim of the first attempt to just straight-up burn down a dryad lich. Totally blackened but survived the process- came out of it with fire powers, even. He and Manga Love are transmasc, which generally you have to be if you're a guy dryad. The Ashtray are a disorganized gaggle of anti-authoritarian teens.

Danger Danger Danger. Danger is her first, last, and middle name. Lives outside the walls and tames/enthralls various jungle monsters for personal defense, and makes some money on the side acting as a safehouse for criminals who can't be seen in the city. Doesn't have a gang proper.

Dogwood, dryad of the Underdogs. Oddly private, and her gang- particularly her elite agents, the Six Feet- haven't been seen in the city in some time. Miriko suspects they're preoccupied with some sort of internal strife.

Dionysia, dryad of the Oaken Casket (members: Dead Bloaks). Generally harmless as these gangs go- she makes a business out of getting Substances of various sorts into the hands of citizens whose ecumenes forbid them, and throws wild parties for the local university kids.

Sycamori, dryad of the Mementos. They play whatever their business is extremely close to the chest, and Miriko has very little idea how exactly they make their money. They've been seen in contact with various ecumenical higher-ups, and the Deathseekers' Guild for some reason. What's their deal?

Kudzu, dryad of the Gentle Chains. Perhaps the most despicable gang- they're slavers, and they were Cabana Jim's primary supplier, a fact which isn't known to anyone but them and the Watchwood, who occasionally extort them. Miriko's done business with them in the past on Jim's behalf.

Redmaple, dryad of the Saplings. The Saplings primarily just defend themselves from other gangs, but are occasionally pressured or threatened into doing odd jobs for other Stumps. They fancy themselves heroic, but they easily cave to threats and have been forced to do some nasty stuff.

Dead Jane, apparently catatonic ghost dryad whose husk drains the life from everything in a wide radius around her. Her territory is sort of a dead-zone, guarded by zombies and wraiths animated by swarms of revenant bugs. Other gangs occasionally make use of her as a body disposal service.

Naberia, dryad of the Lichen. The Lichen are pretty much a joke, kicked around and bullied by the rest because their dryad is a lazyass tyrant who doesn't actually support them.

Ivy, dryad of nobody because she's been built into one of the walls and imprisoned by the guard, who're rumored to conduct tests on her to try and find ways to threaten the other dryads.

Roselei, dryad of the Thorns. Roselei is small, but employs the most dangerous assassins in the city (and perhaps the world) and has a fearsome reputation. You do not fuck with Roselei or else you die. Conversely, if you want someone to die, you can pay Roselei a lot of money to make it happen.

Sawdust- it's not her name, it's just what everyone calls her because that's what she'll be if anyone ever gets their hands on her. Apparently, Sawdust sold out Ivy to the city guard- told them some sort of secret or gave them a magic thing or something that allowed her to be subdued. The only reason she's not dead is a) ghost dryads are hard to kill, and b) she lives out in the jungle beyond the walls, where no one's super interested in going out there to try it.

Coco, dryad of the Beech Boys. She's not a beech, or a boy, she's a palm tree, but she can fling undead coconuts full of minions halfway across the city for unexpected bombing raids. She mostly just hangs around the docks buying up piers and colluding to inflate prices, though.

That's a lot of factions! That's kind of an absurd amount of factions! Maybe I didn't need to come up with that many factions!

One thing that all the Stumps have in common is... their corpses are cheap housing, if you don't mind a ghost sipping on your essence while you sleep. Since no one lives in them unless they're desperate, they tend to attract the desperate as tenants and minions, hence the state of crime and poverty in most of their territories.

Miriko also goes into more detail on the situation with the elf attack hundreds of years ago, which is common knowledge in Thunderbrush:

Hmmmm. Kinda suspicious! And on top of all that, there's a movement gathering steam to blame Tonnera for it- and everyone's trying to use the brouhaha to put pressure on everyone else for their own agendas. It's a complicated web of allegiances and conflicts, but... if they're lucky, and they're telling the truth about being there for a normal research project, none of it should be their problem!

After receiving all that exposition, Looseleaf opts to look around for Vayen, the party's resident mysterious asshole with a sinister agenda he won't tell anyone about.

He's got to cough up some of those secrets of his! There's a lot on the line! But... he kind of insists he doesn't have a secret agenda, and is exactly as in the dark about what the mission will bring as the rest of them.

Benedict (GM): [I know where we're going, but I don't have any idea what we're doing when we get there- besides following the arrow.] [Like you, my task is to go where it points and see what happens when you get there.] [I'm a researcher. I'm researching.] Looseleaf: [Ooookay, I guess. I'll take that for now. Might come back to this later though. Followup question: you need money, right?] Benedict (GM): [...Yes?] [Don't you?] [Blacksky is expensive proportional to its prestige. Who's paying your way?] Looseleaf: [...Honestly, not really.] [I think I have a scholarship or something. They kind of fought to get me in their doors and made me all kinds of ridiculous promises, actually.] Benedict (GM): [Hmph. Lucky you, no student debt.] Looseleaf: [I consistently get the impression that everyone in Arcane Arts thinks I'm wasting my time taking any classes outside of the spellcasting curriculum, but, anyways.] [So... you need money to pay student debt? How much?] Five thousand gold is the baseline for an art school- it can't be much more than that, right? An order of magnitude up at most. Benedict (GM): He raises an eyebrow. [4000 a year. Why?] Looseleaf: [Trying to figure out how much it'd cost to pay you off.] Benedict (GM): [...Ha. I wouldn't bother.] [It'd cost more than you have to make me risk betraying the confidence of Restricted Arts.] Looseleaf: [You're implying there is a finite cost, there?] [It's conceivably payable?] [And I just don't happen to have it, at the moment?] [What people have and don't have can change very quickly, you know.]

Vayen's secrets apparently can't be bought for what Looseleaf can afford- but for a thousand gold, he's willing to tell her what it would take. And... almost without thinking, she agrees, much to his shock.

Vayen, apparently, is after Saelhen's bracer. He wants it. On him. He's pretty sure it won't come off unless she dies- and if Looseleaf can get it off her arm and onto his, he'll do whatever she asks.

Apparently... Restricted Arts didn't even know about the bracer until Saelhen had already stolen it. Somehow, they were kept completely in the dark about its acquisition- which is strange, because they're usually the ones keeping secrets. He doesn't know who could've contained that information or why, but it's extremely suspicious.

Meanwhile, Saelhen is trying some stuff. She's noticed Vayen sometimes seems to react imperceptibly when she activates the bracer, so she tries turning invisible in the middle of that conversation so Looseleaf can observe how Vayen reacts.

In the other world, something needle-like pricks her in the arm and doesn't come out.

Looseleaf asks for confirmation that the test is what Saelhen's up to, and...

Ha ha ha! This is probably fine!

Next time: the party arrives in Thunderbrush, at long last! Probably they won't get in any fights with gangsters or divulge way too much secret information to the press.

[srfirefox]

We're obsessed with it because we don't have any kind of functional public transit outside of a handful of cities. Cars are considered the de facto default regardless of where you are.

Where I live there we have some buses. And since my car got smashed, I'm glad that it exists because replacing my car quickly isn't going to happen.

But in all but the worst traffic cases it takes half the time to drive to the grocery store (3 miles away) as it does to ride. And I have to transfer buses once. And the bus home only arrives once every 15 minutes. And on the way home there's no bus lane through one of the corridors out of the city, which means the bus gets stuck in traffic during rush hour too. Which means that a big grocery trip with a car once a week or less saves a ton of time and effort over a couple smaller ones that I can take on the bus.

So I can see why even city people think cars are just better. Because compared to what I just described for a 3 mile journey, being stuck in traffic but in control of your vehicle doesn't sound so bad.

It doesn't have to be this way. The problem is, to make public transit better, space must be taken from cars for things like bus lanes and bike lanes and tram lines. That's a scary prospect when the only public transit a car user knows is the absolute garbage we have now. Because they don't think "oh, I can use this much improved public transit to do my business and it will be easier and more comfortable than driving." They think "oh no, now I'll be stuck in rush hour for twice as long." And that's understandable!

I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I do believe that a good public transit system is both worthwhile and possible. And it's not whatever this garbage is.

I am BEGGING for an open-world game with a functioning train or tram.

Like, you actually have to wait for it in real-time, physically step on, then wait for your stop with the ability to actually explore it and chat with the other riders

No loading screens

And when you aren’t on it, you can look over and see it doing its route without you, picking up and dropping off patrons whether you’re there or not

please i need a video game that captures the joy of free public transit

[lindsayrps]

trying to be where you are

it’s been a few months, now, since theo hawke has become the de facto entertainment for the palace, a designation that he, honestly, still struggles with more than he would ever prefer to admit. it’s fine, he thinks, if he gets to spend most of his time in the place he had called home since arriving, moving freely about the city and using his time as he saw fit to use it, only spending a few hours within the walls of the palace when the need arose. there are days, however, where the empress requests his presence there for hours on end and for no particular reason, in his mind, except to cater to her whims for being entertained whenever the mood struck and those days, they’re a little more difficult.

a lot more difficult, really.

(she says something about inspiration for his future works, too, and while he doesn’t necessarily agree with that, lately, he doesn’t say as such because that’s a good way to get thrown out permanently.)

as winter births spring, it becomes easier, he supposes. it’s no longer necessary to be trapped within the walls of the palace, gaze fixed on the world outside blanketed in snow from in front of the beyond massive windows that line the walls wherever he looked and around whatever corner he turned. nature comes alive; flowers bloom and leave son the trees flutter in the breeze, chirping birds dotting the branches. with the sun high in the sky and a warmth that the last several months had been devoid of, this is the weather he enjoys the most.

one days like this, theo tucks a pencil in his pocket along with a book of poetry and some blank paper and ventures through the garden of the palace until he reaches a pond that feels more like a lake in all its grandeur. it’s far enough away that the palace doesn’t loom over it, blue waters sparkling and rippling under the spring sun. shedding his jacket, he lays it out as flat as possible on the grass and, fishing the pencil and book out of his pockets, sits down on it, a barrier between him and the pond water specked grass.

at first, he tries to write some but the words don’t quite come as easily as he’d expected them to. every time, he writes a few words and then scribbles them out, starting again and repeating the cycle until he decides to give up and read instead. theo’s chosen john donne, this time, and the more he reads and gets lost in the words of one of his countrymen, the more he loses track of time passing, only brought back to reality when a shadow casts itself across him as he half lies on his side in the grass. on first instinct, an admittedly large part of him thinks he’s in trouble, that someone from the palace had been searching for him because the empress had wanted to speak to him and they couldn’t find him until just now.

he prepares for the worst, then, only breathing a sigh of relief when he glances up and finds he’s been found out by anna markova, instead. they haven’t gotten to know each other very well, given that they can’t exactly spend a whole lot of time with each other except only for a few moments here and there, if at all. he likes her, though. she doesn’t seem to be like the other ladies here. sure, everyone pretends they’re interested when they’re at his readings but anna takes what feels like a genuine interest in his works, says they’re good in the brief moment of time she’s allowed to approach him after his readings before being ushered off with everyone else. she doesn’t treat him like he’s a toy waiting to be played with or a puppet to be controlled at will.

he appreciates that.

"you know, if you’re trying to hide from everyone in the palace, you’re not doing a very good job of it out here in the open." she says, her tone equal parts chiding and teasing, further proven by the slight smile that dances across her face as she folds her hands in front of her. "you may look like an ant but we can still see you from the windows."

"well," theo starts, shifting to sit up, legs stretching out in front of him. he sets his book down in the grass beside him with a shrug of his shoulders. "maybe i’m not hiding, just hoping the right person finds me."

"and am i the person you were hoping for?" she asks, presumably as innocently as possible. maybe she doesn’t really know how bold it is to ask such a question, maybe she is genuinely curious if she is the one person he wouldn’t have minded finding him out here so far from the steps of the palace.

theo twists around to face her, examining her face for a minute. "i would hate to be the cause of your inflated ego, miss markova." he says, finally, "so, i’m afraid i can’t answer that in good faith."

"please, call me anna." a pause, she moves from behind to beside him, asks, "may i join you?"

"anna." theo nods, "of course." he shifts over on the jacket enough to allow her room to sit beside him. it feels…wrong, in a way, but she does and he watches her out of the corner of his eye as she adjusts her skirts around her, smoothing them down with her hand.

"have you written anything new lately?" she asks, glancing over across the pond before turning to fix her gaze on him. it makes him feel…nervous, for some reason.

"uh, i me—no. it’s been difficult lately." he shakes his head, avoiding her gaze. there’s no use in trying to sugarcoat the writer’s block he’s experiencing nor is there any use in mentioning that he may or may not have written a few lines about her in the hopes it could spark something more intentional within his writing, not when nothing substantial had come from it. it’s just a few scribbled lines on the backs of paper, paper he is suddenly hoping isn’t hiding away in the pockets of his trousers. picking up the book beside him, then, he holds it up for her. "just reading. john donne?"

anna shakes her head, looks what theo thinks is sheepish at her lack of knowledge about donne. he doesn’t fault her for it. he’s not sure how far reaching english poetry gets outside of england, after all.

"death be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so." theo recites, by heart, the opening lines of one of his favourites.

"you’ve memorized it?" she asks, surprise colouring her tone. 

"not all of it," he shrugs. "just a few lines." read enough poetry and some of it just sticks with you, at least that’s what he’d always told himself whenever he’d found himself remembering certain lines rather than whole, entire poems. 

"it sounds interesting." she says and from anyone else, he wouldn’t believe them but he does with her.

"here," he opens the book, flicking through pages until he lands on a different poem, holding it out for her to take from him. he’s not so quick to pull his hand back when her fingers brush against his, but when he does, he uses it to drag a finger along the opening lines. "batter my heart, three person’d god," his finger drifts further down the page, towards the end, "take me to you, imprison me, for i, except you enthrall me, never shall be free, nor ever chaste, except you ravish me."

"what’s it about?" she asks, lowering the book down to her lap.

"i’m not sure." theo’s brow knits together, watching as she delicately flips through the pages of the book, "nobody can seem to agree on one particular meaning. i’m of the opinion that it can have many, no one interpretation is more correct than any other."

"what about this one?" she lifts the book and shows him the page.

"love, more or less." he says, then recites a few lines, "licence my roving hands, and let them go, before, behind, between, above, below."

"sounds…" she trails off, as if she’s unsure of how best to describe the poems he’s read to her.

"erotic?"

anna tilts her head in his direction, brow rising at his choice of words. "provocative, i’d say."

"all the best poets are." theo doesn't entirely know how true that is—many poets are the best at their craft without being as…frank about certain subjects the way donne is, that doesn’t make them any less than him or anyone else.

"does that make you a bad poet?" anna closes the book, hands it back to him. "i don’t recall any of your poems being like this."

"you’re right, none of them are like this." he agrees with a nod and a laugh. this time it’s his turn to fix her with his gaze, "maybe i just haven’t found the right inspiration yet."

[curlsofsagesmoke]

More Analysis of Leadership in TMNT because I Cannot Be Stopped

(really at this point these are just notes for myself as I work on my really long really ambitious tmnt fic, but this is also kind of a follow up to that first analysis I did of the Leo/donnie leadership plot line.)

I've already discussed Leo and donnie as leaders, but I was thinking about season 3, and there are some really interesting moves that the writers make in terms of Raph maturing as a leader in Northampton (and donnie kind of getting the short end of the stick, but what else is new).

so aside from how poorly the writers handled the Leo/donnie plot, which I discussed in the post I linked above, it seems like the season two finale was meant to be the writers' way of saying "hey look we gave donnie a chance to lead and he fucked up, so now we're gonna pass the mantle onto raph." because raph does slip into the leader role in Northampton.

on the one hand, it's annoying to see donnie's leadership potential get shunted aside yet again. I do think all four of them have the potential to be great leaders if they have the chance to mature and develop their skills, so I'm not mad at raph getting the chance to be a good leader. however, the writer's spent two seasons building up donnie's potential as leader, and, as I've mentioned before, we get no closure from them abandoning this plot line. in the farmhouse arc, donnie (and Mikey!) gets forced into that goofy, slightly less competent younger brother role that we saw most often in season one (regarding the a-team/b-team thing).

on the other hand, I love to see any kind of character development for these characters, because it's so rare for anyone in TMNT (2012) to go through lasting change. like seriously, there is not one single stable character arc in the entire show. and raph does make a pretty good leader! his problem with leading (seen in New Girl in Town) is that he panics under pressure. out at the farmhouse, where the threats aren't as serious as the ones they faced in the city, raph becomes a pretty good leader. he's the one watching over and encouraging Leo, training with April and casey, and attempting to continue donnie and Mikey's training in the forest. he's calmer, seems less angry, and is more mature. we do love to see it.

admittedly, this could've fit in really well with the "donnie as leader" plot started in seasons one and two. the invasion was a huge blow to donnie's pride and it probably did shake his confidence in himself a lot. if the plot line had continued into season three, the farmhouse arc could've been a good way for donnie to kind of recover from the failure that was the invasion. we could've seen him struggle to accept his mistakes and learn to overcome his self doubt, the way that Leo did in season one (many times).

raph becoming the de facto leader could've fit in, too! not only would it have been an obstacle for donnie to overcome (aka accepting that just because raph is a good leader on the farm doesn't mean donnie is a bad one in the city) but it probably would've been a good character move for raph, too. raph would've gained a deeper understanding of Leo's burdens and responsibilities, and it's a good way to show how he's matured over the course of two and a half seasons.

and the vision quest episode (kind of the only episode in the whole farmhouse arc where anyone undergoes any kind of serious character development) would've been sick as hell if this plot was continued. because as it stands, vision quest doesn't make a whole lot of sense. they all have challenges to overcome, but the writers tried to force the characters back into the roles they occupied in season one. donnie needed to learn to use his strength as well as his mind, raph needed to learn to control his temper, mikey needed to learn to focus, and Leo needed to overcome his injury (which the splinter-ghost implies is a mental/spiritual block that Leo put in his own path).

but that doesn't make any sense! it's been two and a half seasons at this point, and there should've been more nuanced challenges. Raph's temper in season three isn't nearly as bad as in season one, and it doesn't make sense for him to have to go through that whole learning moment again. same with mikey and his focus; yes he's still immature and easily distracted, but not nearly as much as in season one. donnie's strength challenge is dumb, too, because it's not strength that allows him to defeat tiger claw---it's leverage, which is more of a mental victory than a physical one. and don't even get me started on Leo. "pain is all in your head" is quite possibly the worst lesson in the history of fiction. Leo went through serious trauma and almost died, and splinter-ghost expected him to simply ignore it, as if it was like doubt holding him back? he need physical therapy, not to have to fight a giant shredder in some kind of weird spirit world.

imagine this instead. Mikey's challenge is stillness. he doesn't have a problem focusing when he needs to, but he's a very physical person, and he needs to learn to use his head: to calm himself down, to be still, etc. etc. Raph's challenge is similar. he needs to learn to control his emotions; not just anger, but also his panic and anxiety. he needs to pull himself back into the moment when he gets overwhelmed and prevent himself from panicking when things go wrong. donnie's challenge is confidence. after the invasion, understandably he's shaken and he's probably having trouble trusting himself as a leader, so he needs to learn to accept failure and trust his skills and his instincts. and Leo's challenge is patience. at the farmhouse he gets frustrated really easily by how slowly he's healing, and in the invasion he lost his patience really fast when he and donnie fought. during the vision quest he needs to learn to have patience with himself and not push his limits too far.

I don't even have a conclusion for this little rant. at this point I'm just salty about the writing in the show---not that the writing is straight up bad. it just seems like the writers didn't care about the characters enough to include character depth, character arcs, or meaningful relationships between the characters when they were writing the show. but I guess that's why I'm writing that fic; if you can see the problem, you can fix it, and boy do I see a lot of problems.

[vampiresuns]

Anatole’s Family Tree

this is Anatole’s family tree down to it’s basics, and you can have some info about everyone under the cut. I apologise for the intersecting lines, but family colours will help distinguish Florentino and Matilda from the Radošević they married.

hexagon is for he/him, circle for she/her, rounded edges for they/them

Vitale Cassano

Aquarius sun, Scorpio moon, Capricorn rising, Leo Mercury, Scorpio Mars, do NOT fuck with this man.

Former Consul of Vesuvia, responsible for the biggest (to date) expansions in the Vesuvian public space, the reason why Vesuvia was an attractive, rich location with solid public funding which ended up going to hell with Lucio’s administration, but that’s another story.

If he knew that his hard work would go to hell like it did, he would’ve made a coup to change the course of history.

Fuck around and find out in human form. His entire energy is condensed in this post. 

Had the art of delivering insults diplomatically down to an art, however. “You’re tacky and I hate you” would destroy a diplomatic relation; “I believe a less heterodox decision which might hold the weight of this agreement with less attached risk” doesn’t.

Friends with Dragoslav Radošević parents, as in those friends you call uncle when they’re not really related to you, but kind of are by default of closeness anyway. Befriended him because he was the most eccentric person in the room and he was bored.

Amparo Mediavilla

Is that even her actual family name? Who the hell are the Mediavilla? Where does her money come from? She says she’s from Karnassos but literally no one knows (she does, she just won’t tell). Has a brother named Seraphim Mediavilla, and that’s all you need to know.

Vitale was well aware she was probably a smuggler, but he likes her surprisingly present honour code anyway. Plus, she was fun, she was different, she was efficient. We stan.

She’s half the reason why the Cassano’s library in the Vesuvian Palazzo they inhabit in the Heart District is basically an open research centre for all of those travellers who seek knowledge. The Cassano have almost always have an open doors policy — the Consul acts in behalf of the people, and the people are allowed to go to the Consul. Amparo expanded and bettered that system, to the point it acted as Vesuvia’s public library and the biggest reason why the Palace didn’t quite have one — it was an understanding that it wasn’t needed. The only time the Consul’s Palazzo has been closed to the people of Vesuvia is during the plague. 

Longest lashes ever seen in a person.

Somehow already knew the Radošević, they liked her honest opinions and her distaste for explaining herself.

Luciano “Lucenzo” Cassano

Vitale’s baby brother, they had a significant age difference.

Known later as ‘Great Uncle Lucenzo’, literally no one called him Luciano but Vitale when he wanted him to stop doing something stupid. Not that Lucenzo thought his ideas were stupid, after all, this man was an architect and patron of the arts, and Goldgrave’s favourite loose canon ball.

He was not allowed to set a foot in Firent. When you asked him why, he kept changing the story.

Met his wife at an orgy. Yes, you read that right.

Octavia Cassano

Sweet lady, do no harm, take no shit, appreciates a good laugh in life.

Met Lucenzo at an orgy. She made a joke, and the person she was focusing on didn’t find it funny, but Lucenzo did.

Came from another prominent Vesuvian family. Worked with her BIL, Vitale, in developing social policy plans and judicial reforms in Veusuvia. Which also went to hell. If she was alive today, Portia would be her favourite and would literally fight to have her work with her.

Greenest eyes this side of the straight of seals.

Agrippina & Iovanus Cassano

Amparo’s and Vitale’s children, Agrippina is two years older than Iovanus.

Agrippina stepped down from becoming the Consul out of personal preference. They were a scholar and proficient historian, very talented in the art of mixing a good drink as well. Closest to the Prakran intellectual circles and is one of the notable alumni of the Prakran University. One of her later acquaintances, Rosario Aster, would eventually become Anatole’s tutor in History and Politics before he went to university himself.

Agrippina partly worked as a diplomat attaché, wasn’t a full on freedom fighter simply because there wasn’t an uprising to be one in. If Vitale is the MO of the Cassano, Lucenzo their spark, and Amparo their zest, Agrippina is, surprisingly, their political compass. Agrippina and Lucio weren’t on the best terms, they were in awful terms actually. The Cassano and him are simply like oil and water, it just doesn’t mix.

Iovanus took after Vitale and became the Consul. He was less of a surprise stew than the father, though, and inevitably, his best focus became damage control.

His entire vibe is moomin going on a murderous rage and then holding back. He’s folding the knife. For now. Iovanus was a pain in the ass to have as a predecessor in the position of Consul because this man constantly had his patience tested and his city funds used in things he didn’t want to do. Responsible, along with Agrippina, with the current functioning of the Council of Vesuvia and it’s final opening before Anatole’s times. What that composition and functioning is, is something I might, one day, decide to write down, but not today for the sake of staying on topic.

They’re the closest thing to the “spirit” of a tribune of the plebs I can think of, without like, either of them ending up dead like the Gracci brothers.

Cassandra Cassano

Finally some fucking scientist/mathematician. Mathematician wife of Agrippina. Did some political economy, but that hadn’t been invented yet, mostly liked numbers for the sake of numbers and finding out what she could do with them.

Having in mind that when I say ‘Vesuvian’ I mean solely location and original seat, not ethnicity, comes from a Vesuvian Family which settled in Venterre. Studied in Zadith and Prakra, but met Agrippina during some diplomatic function.

She was someone else’s date, and Agrippina was working with Iovanus is some diplomatic relations, and Agrippina literally said they were happy and willing to stay to seal the negotiations if Cassandra would go out with them. Cassandra was bored off her skin, and said yes.

They married by the end of the year.

Valerian Cassano

Iovanus’ husband. Renaissance man in the humanities department, very savant, a virtuoso, but his true passion was the performing arts. Darling of Vesuvian opera and theatre.

Met Iovanus through Lucenzo (patron of the arts, remember?). Iovanus went to every single of his plays for a year, made some very light advances as a “fan”, until Valerian asked him what his deal was. Iovanus was disarmed by gorgeous light amber eyes and witty snark, having no option but to admit his feelings.

Cemented the Cassano-Radošević relationship with Goldgrave. Most of the family thought it healthy for a dose of ‘get of your high-horse’ check.

Hated the Colosseum with a black tar vitriol.

He was Elysian Radošević’s (Anatole’s great grandmother on the Radošević side) best friend.

Matilda Cassano & Krešmir Radošević

Here’s where the story gets a bit sad. Inherited all of the snark of Valerian, but wanted nothing to do with her family’s ventures.

They just didn’t click. She always thought her fathers were very dedicated men, but needed to let loose a little. She was here for a fun time, not a long time. Which was sadly, literal.

For the longest time, it was an understanding that her cousin Cassiopeia would inherit the consulship from Iovanus, which Matilda didn’t love. She didn’t want the Consulship, but thought she was entitled to it. She could be the Consul and Cassiopeia do the job.

Cassiopeia did not like the idea, specially because within the Cassano it’s an open rule that the title falls on whomever willingly wants to take the mantel, number one. Number two, it came with an awareness of your social position and what good you could do with it, having in mind you weren’t really necessary for society. Someone else could be the Consul, the people, if given a chance, would govern themselves. It’s part of the Cassano mythos that surrounds them that they’re a protective line between misused political power and the people of Vesuvia. So, no, Matilda shouldn’t be the Consul.

Honestly, did Iovanus and Valerian spoil her too much? They have no clue. They just think she might be wired that way, because she always disliked it.

She married the fourth of the equivalent generation of the Radošević siblings, Krešmir Radošević.

Krešmir was a bit of a loose shot, doing “useful” things because he had to, not because he wanted to, so they took to each other like fish to water. They both wanted to have fun, the problem was they wanted to have fun with no respect of the world around them. Krešmir had middle child syndrome, which became worse after his youngest sibling, Ilnya, died at 27.

They had two children: Vladislav Radošević and Valeriy “Valerius” Radoševic.

Sadly, they passed away when Vlad was 14 and Val 4. They went on a holiday, leaving the kids with Mircea Radošević (Krešmir older brother) and Florentino Cassano (Matilda’s cousin and Mircea’s husband), as Iovanus and Valerian were in no place (out of grief) to take care of the children, and Mircea and Florentino were their de facto care takers already.

Now, onto the Radošević, so mind you, we’re going back a couple of generations.

Dragoslav Radošević

PRIME recipient of the Radošević tradition of breeding polymaths/”renaissance people”. This man spoke 6 languages, knew astronomy, economy, mathematics, accountancy, a bit of law and a whole lot of history. Excellent chess player.

No one’s exactly sure what the hell he did, he did too many things. Some sort of diplomacy was clearly his most usual job. Big friends with Agrippina, Cassandra and Iovanus. Everyone thought he’d marry Agrippina but both of them dry heaved at the possibility.

He was a bit of a character though. Very conspicuous man with particular rituals. Taciturn man, too, but overall amicable.

Had a very long, stable marriage with Elysian, his wife. Survived the death of two of their children. The death of Ilnya hit Dragoslav more than anyone would expect, but he had a very “let me grief in private” stance. The key to understand a Radošević is that their mentality is “whatever happens to you, whatever life throws at you, you find a way to survive it.”

His is a family of eccentrics, inventors, patron of the arts, humanists and scientists; when he says his family, he means the Cassano too.

No rumour ever mattered to any of them, and Dragoslav & Elysian were a prime example of it. Theirs is a family of academics full of anxieties about the world surrounding them, whose sorrows were scars they rarely showed. Private yet with an extensive, and international, circle of acquaintances who deemed them all charmingly strange on their best days; prideful, analytic, often with a drink in hand. 

Had a sister who had three partners, all of them women, too.

Elysian Radošević, nee Juriša

Wallachian by birth, first person in her family (aside from one aunt the Juriša did NOT speak about) to marry someone who wasn’t a Wallachian in a couple of generations. Not that she minded, everything I said about Drago, applies to Elysian.

She was a child of high society, bonded with Valerian, her best friend, out of their love for Operettas, though while Valerian went pro, she was an amateur — still, very good at it.

Excellent piano player, loved a well crafted, ingenious garden.

Beacon of the Radošević righteous rage. The Radošević are meant to be from a place called Balkovia, which is modelled after Yugoslavia, with many of the “bumps” in actual history colliding (A/N: Anatole is a latine-slav like me, for a reason). Elysian was the friend of artists and partisans, and had absolutely zero respect for certain kinds of leeches in political power. Zero national pride in this one, but at least, she came from a place were partisans stood (or used to) stand up to injustice.

In her dignified clothes with her amiable smile, she will bite ankles. Try her, you just try Elysian Radošević and she’ll remind you of all those people who ever said: They shall not pass.

Ambrozije Radošević

Diplomat, politician, eldest of Dragos and Ely’s children.

Inherited his father’s temperance but also had Elysian’s "Excuse Me, What The Fuck Is This Shit” attitude. Still, many times when he talked about his job, he had to stop his mother to go out and bite ankles.

Was the Radošević rage an answer against the grief of living and growing, against the cycle of dying and rebirth, and a cry of this is not enough, what I get is not enough? Maybe. Ambrozije liked to theorise about it.

Married Eloise Isaković and had two children: Kuzma and Lucija.

Best fencer of his generation.

Eloise Isaković

Didn’t take the Radošević surname solely to spite her family. She was disinherited for wanting to marry a Radošević. Her father said “if you want to marry then be a housewife for those freaks and I’ll take you out of University.”

The Radošević were like not in my fucking watch.

You bet Elysian and Dragoslav had words about that.

Percy Shelley, if Percy had been a woman, and also an anthropologist.

Will make femur jokes.

Kuzma & Lucija Radošević

Less in the centre of things than the rest of the family, out of virtue of “dear God, I get they’re my family but these people are fucking weird.”

The Addams energy was too much for them.

Kuzma is an alchemist and an inventor, moved to Zadith to study, never came back. He has two daughters and a wife, though.

Lucija became a diplomat for Balkovia, has a seat beyond the straight of seals. More traditional for diplomacy than Ambrozije by all means.

Very Dad please not now, but she does love the old man.

Married, never had children.

Neuma Radošević

Painter, a gay who can do maths, so that’ll have you knowing she’s stronger than you already. Perspective does not scare her.

Little does.

(Moths do, for some reason).

Claimed to have zero magical ability, but it was heavily disputed because how the hell did she paint like that.

Travelled a lot with her bohemian artist found family.

Never married.

Anatole loved watching her paint as a kid, she taught Valeriy to paint and about art as well. Big difference was Valeriy had a better hand for it than Anatole did, who literally can’t draw to save his skin.

Mircea’s favourite.

Mircea Radošević

Distinguished man, owns my heart.

“That was nOT POLITE”

Pretty level headed, has a big heart and a lot of will to help people. Just don’t be impolite, or he won’t like you.

Yes, he’s a libra.

An Architect, got to meet the other Architect in the family Lucenzo Cassano. That’s, in fact, how he met Florentino. Of course Lucenzo had an apprenticeship for Dragoslav son, but of course. The rest is history. Longest lasting marriage in both the Cassano and the Radošević tree by virtue of them gaving gotten together fairly young, and in the furture dying of a very, very old age.

He enjoyed travelling and the finer, beautiful things in life. If you want to equate his views to anyone in the real world, think about William Morris saying “I do not want art for a few; any more than education for a few; or freedom for a few.”

Aristically, somewhere between Gaudi and Morris.

Worked in several restoration projects both in Balkovia and Vesuvia.

Lived in Vesuvia on and off with Florentino and the children, which meant Vlad and Val were raised right between the vortex of everything that is the Cassano and the Radošević.

As polite and diplomatic that he is, he isn’t really a doormat, and if there’s anyone he would throw hands for it’s for his children (yes, he sees them as his children), and Anatole. Disrispect tha boy in front of him and he will throtle you and say you did it to yourself.

Florentino Cassano

Nicknamed Floren, Florence, Florens, Flolo, Tino, Tinino, Antonino.

Very responsible, big sense of family. Closest in personality to Vitale Cassano, his grandather.

Son of Agrippina and Cassandra, took after Cassandra’s love for numbers, but mixed it with Agrippina’s eye for politics and his Aunt Octavia’s knack for political economy (even if it had’t been invented yet).

 Financier and investor worked in the public sector, ran the coffer of the Council of Vesuvia for a while, but quitted out of management differences with certain people in Court and up. Still very willing to help people of all backgrounds manage their assets though.

A bit of a hardass, when Matilda and Krešmir died he said of course they would, as it was very in the likes of them to get so lost in the moment and their ideal world where they had no earhtly responsibilities to forget they had two young sons.

Still, when Vlad and Val first called him “Dad” or “Father”, respectively, he kinda cried big tears. Freaked Vlad out because he thought he had done something wrong. Florentino was quick to tell him he hadn’t.

Ilnya Radošević & Blasio Abadzić

Ilnya was another one of those Radošević that you weren’t exactly sure what the hell was it that they did, because they seemed to have a lot of eggs in different baskets. Was an astronomer, though.

Strongest intuition/six senth in the Radošević. Another of those cases where it was definitely magic (Ilnya was clairvoyant) but they all passed it off as having another explanation.

Was the most joyful, had the most contagious laughter and the quickest, most wicked sense of humour.

I’m not entire sure how Blasio and them met, they haven’t told me yet, but it was one of those meetings which changes your life forever.

Blasio is equally irreverent, if not more. This one post of a man playing the guitar and an old man dancing to it is the exact vibe Blasio had (he’s the old man dancing, the man playing the guitar would be his grandson Milenko — who’s Anatole’s cousin however many times removed).

They lived in Vesuvia. Ilnya was a court scientist. The Cassano library has a try globe map that was their work with a court cartographer. It has a map of the region, of the world, and of the stars for navigation purposes.

Ilnya died of sepsis at the age of 27, going on 28. To this day, no one knows exactly what took them out.

After Ilnya died, the Cassano offered to take Blasio and their twins Atanasie (pronounced Ah-ta-na-SY) and Violeta in with them to ease of the expences of raising two kids as a single father. He accepted.

Blasio was a composer and dramaturg. He took it as a personal goal not to let the joy escape from his life after becoming a widower. Said carrying on with joy and irreverence was his job, as if to preserve his spouse’s legacy.

Vladislav Radošević

Whatever name theme you sense with him and his wife, don’t @ me about it!!! I remade this entire family on a whim, I will take my headcanons about other things and build from them.

Eldest of the V² brothers, if people had soulmate marks, his soulmate would be his brother. Vlad has always felt responsible for him and, unlike him, remembers much of how they parents actually were or how carelessly negligent they could be. His defence against grief was becoming taciturn and “distancing” himself from things. It didn’t always really work for him, but he sure did try.

Grew up with the mistaken feeling that the rest of their families were taking care of him and his brother as a favour. He eventually wrapped his head around the idea that it wasn’t a favour.

Called Mircea and Florentino “Father”/”Dad” for the first time when he was 16, never went back. It wasn’t like he didn’t spent a lot of time being brought up by them due to his own parents absences.

Taciturn, remarkably inventive and intelligent, has a bit of trouble coming out of his shell. Prefers to observe, then pounce. Other than this, his main personality trait is “I love my wife, I love my son.”

An alchemist, works in what would be closest to biochemical engineering.

Mircea and Florens discovered he would be very suited for that field because when he was a kid he kept designing buildings to show Mircea. They clearly showed he had not a predisposition to become an architect, but whatever weird, inexplicable mazes he created always came with solutions attached and clever mechanisms.

He’s a problem solver, he’s just shaking years of bad mental health habits of his shoulders.

A scorpio and a cat person. Has two cats with Louisa, Kiki and Keke (their actual names are Cyrila and Cecilia).

Yes, his brother is also a scorpio, yes his son is also a scorpio. They get along, however.

Met Louisa in some sort of medical-alchemy conference/symposium (whatever that would be aplicable to the time, what matters to me is that you get the idea). Louisa didn’t like his attitude, called him out, and Vlad simply blinked, apologised, and did better.

A second apology and further conversations ended up with them falling in love.

If Vlad knows what allowing himself to love and live feels like, it is because of Louisa and Anatole.

He gets pegged.

Speaks five languages and won a regional fencing championship when he was in his early 20s. Still thinks his brother is better at fencing than he is.

Louisa De Silva

Latin American, eldest of three sisters (Paris and Alma being the other two De Silva sisters). She emmigrated from her native country to a. study medicine b. because there was a Dictatorship at the time, and her parents suspected Louisa would not keep quiet enough to guarantee her safety.

She personally swore never to go back until there were no active traces of said dictatorship left in her country. Nothing, not even the war that eventually rose up in Balkovia has made her change her mind, and probably nothing will. Once she is set on what is right, she is set.

Met Vlad as mentioned above. She didn’t appreciate his initial “careful” cynicism, but also didn’t believe he was as insufferable as most people thought he was. Someone with attention to detail, determination and who prefers to stand back from social situations, who hasn’t actually done anything nefarious, offensive or in bad taste isn’t a bad person.

Once she paid him a visit and he opened the door shirtless because he thought it was his brother, and Louisa almost wheezed in front of him.

“I’m going to sleep with Radošević” “But you don’t have to?” “No, no, I’m gonna.”

Speaks five languages.

Speaking of the war I mentioned: there was a war in Balkovia which began little before Anatole was born, and therefore around 29 years before the events of the game. At the time, Vlad and Louisa were already together, and planning to move to Vesuvia. However, the war began, Vlad felt torn about leaving and not helping, not that he wanted to admit it, and Louisa said “well, I did not leave a country ridden with injustice to passively see war crimes being committed.” As soon as she could after Anatole was born she volunteered as a field doctor.

And she is good. “Louisa De Silva” would absolutely resonate in Nazali’s or Julian’s fellow doctor knowledge level of notoriously good.

Aquarius sun, Saggitarius moon, she’s active, independent, unconventional, friendly, very understanding and highly humanitarian. Louisa loves people and cannot stand injustice. Loves and craves learning and is very sincere. She can be a bit impulsive, but she’s good at coming back from it.

Much of Anatole’s sense of social duty and sometimes even social fight is due to Louisa.

Vlad and Val call her Lulu. Anatole always calls her Mamá. Always. It doesn’t matter what language he’s speaking, she is his Mamá.

Louisa De Silva, santa patrona del pueblo que lucha.

Often dragged Vlad and Val into some of her schemes. Val loves to complain about it, but he actually adores his SIL.

Valeriy “Valerius” Radošević of the Cassano of Vesuvia, former Consul of Vesuvia and Court Advisor.

Here is where I would like to clarify and remind the (very patient) reader that this is my own interpretation of Canon, and I’ve triedto build with it from what little we were told of this specific character, Vesuvian lore, and the story I wanted to tell. I tried to do my best with the interpretation of the character, but know you’re in no obligation to adhere to my ideas.

Some people can call him Val, namely, his parents, his nephew, his SIL and his brother. Literally anyone else he will bite your head.

Inherited his mother’s and his namesakes witty snark, even if it’s not always witty.

I have the personal hc that Lucio cannot, for the life of him, pronounce slavic names, so Valeriy became Valerius, though his family already called him Valerius because it was the one nickname he accepted.

However, for the most part, his family calls him Valeriy, in contrast to Vesuvian citizens, who call him Valerius.

Doesn’t remeber his parents, and doesn’t like to think about them. It is very tragic that they died, but they left him, and he has no time for people like that. His brother, however, had always been there. So have been Mircea and Florentino.

I’ve always hc he had one big love in his youth, but couldn’t actually stand the idea of an empty marriage based on status and decided to never marry.

Wasn’t always this high and mighty. He has always been a complicated man, with complicated tastes and even a snob, but he was raised in two multicultural families, based in two multicultural cities. What I personally hc happening here is that he truly hates his job. He does like the sense of status and the power that comes with it, but the responsibility? The state of things when he took over from Iovanus? The paperwork? The staleness of it all? And to do it for a city that ate itself up?

He would’ve given his cousin Cassiopeia his left arm to take the position for him, but in the end, he was subject of what he thought everyone expectations were. He feared more not being enough in the eyes of his grandfather, who did not want to repeat the same mistakes he did with Matilda, than saying “Nono Iovanus I actually hate this job with all my soul.”

But then again, the power attached to it.

I fully believe that if you had given Valerius a position that was, say, a cultural authority of sorts? Where he could focus on the arts, theatre, food and those sort of things? He would’ve thrived. The city would’ve been leagues away from where it was if he would’ve been allowed to solely focus on art.

Instead, he has to fix people’s problems, and he doesn’t want to. It isn’t that he doesn’t care in the slightest — he does, in the distant sense of people should not be dying left and right, and cities should be ran by competent Statespeople. Of course he believes that! He’s a Radošević and a Cassano of Vesuvia, who do you take him for. It was his family that 500 years ago stepped up into the position due to their sheer excellence, of course he believes that.

Just for the love of everything you deem holy, do not fucking leave that fixing to him. He’s begging you, and he doesn’t actually beg

(At least that’s what he says in public)

 While he doesn’t quite like magic, or rather, doesn’t quite understand it and takes a lot of self proclaimed magicians as frauds (and an insult to good peope’s intelligence), he’s never had a judgamanetal attitude towards Anatole’s magical sensitivies. Most of what he sees about it is his inordinate aptitude for languages. He tends to take it as his nephew being simply Better, because if this man is something, that thing is proud.

He eases off after the events of the game where he can simply be a court advisor and give himself a chance. Not that it excuses or ammends any mistake that he committed, but it’s a place to start. He can do that, he thinks.

His was the decision to close during the Plague, and for the first time, the Palazzo the Cassano inhabit in the Heart District to the City.

His grandafther Valerian was (is) still alive while he’s the Consul, and tried to reach out to help him when he began to do deals with the Devil many times, but Valerius sucks at letting people help him. Officially worse than his brother at it.

He is, however, the best fencer in the family, and he is one of the best singers, he just doesn’t do any of both much in front of people. What he does when he’s at home is none of your business.

While I could feel pages of headcanons about this man, but I will try to stay on topic, and mostly address my previous post about the subject of Valerius’ and Anatole’s relationship, which, now that I’ve reworked the families into a story I do feel excited to tell most of it no longer applies.

The timeline is p much the same, both with Valerius, and with Anatole travelling with tutors to study and visiting whenever he could.

His feelings when Anatole dies stay the same. The difference is Anatole's family does know he dies when he stands as the Apprentice (normally, he doesn’t, he just stands as an Arcana OC). During the time of the plague, Vlad and Louisa travelled to Vesuvia to help, so they do know their son died.

What ends up breaking Val is not only losing his nephew (and again for what) but also seeing his brother and his SIL completely break. It was his job to protect him, and he didn't do it. He wasn’t enough.

I headcanon that when Anatole doesn’t die, one of his deals with the Devil is that no harm comes (from the Court) to Anatole. I also hc that for someone who has such pride in his intellect (which is there, he is pretty smart) he did rather unsuitable dealings with the Devil, by which I mean he dealt in really awful terms that he, himself, would’ve berated anyone else to have done out of their sheer idiocy of not fully using their leverage.

The main difference with the post is that Anatole and Valerius do not suffer their family anymore. The Radošević and the Cassano are opinionated and very "If something happens to one of us, it happens to all of us" but they're good, eccentric, people-leaning people, albeit wealthy. Hence, why I personally hc that what happens here is that he hates the job but loves the status, but the status carries the responsibility of people asking him for things, and he doesn’t want to be asked for things. He will be in his room if you need him, and please do not need him.

(In Anatole’s case, it's finding his place in the world. It’s a journey of diaspora and of becoming. To win, you must first know yourself)

Vlad and Louisa adore him to bits still, complicated as he is.

Anatole and Valerius do fight in some of the LI routes and during those three years before the game begins.

Everything else stands.

Atanasie and Violeta Radošević, and Aurora Radošević

Thank you with bearing with me so far, I love you.

Atanasie and Violeta are twins, cousins of Vlad and Valeriy, children of Ilnya and Blasio, the happy eccentric duo.

Grew up right amid the Radošević and the Cassano, and it really goddamn shows. They’re en aunt and uncle/counsins saying criptic things with a drink in hand, and you’re not entirely sure if they’re portetns of doom or not, but good for them!

Best violinists in the family though. Play the most instruments as well, as Blasio was a composer and multi-instrumentalist. Neither of them are professional musicians though.

Atanasie is a traveller and explorer, think of the eccentric explorer archetype without the Colonialism nor the grave robbing. Would, objectively, get along the best with Julian. He’s another of those people who knows a lot of things about different topics, but now like cursed/forbidden/borderline illegal things.

If Amparo Mediavilla had been alive to know him, she would’ve been really proud.

Violeta is a botanist and garden designer. The palace did ask her to work with them, but she went No ❤️. She, however, is responsible for the current design of the Palazzo’s winter garden, which in her biased yet correct opinion is the best room in it.

High femme eccentric queen, married Aurora who used to travel around with Atanasie. She’s an archeologist.

They have one son, Milenko, who is... an entire party.

Aelius Anatole Radoševic De Silva, of the Cassano of Vesuvia, former secretary of the Council of Vesuvia, and Consul of Vesuvia

Good ol’ Nana

Technically, that would be his entire ass title (which he correctly insists it’s a public office, not a nobiliary title, because a Consul is a public servant, and people just got mad with power for to long)

He hates it.

Please just call him Anatole, or Aelius if you’re not that daring.

I’m going to use this to talk a bit about Consul Anatole: along with Nadia, he introduced a series of social reforms, solidified them, and changed a lot of aspects of the way in which the City was run, in order to make corruption harder (Nana’s pride and joy are his Anti-Corruption directives) and to protect the reform on themsleves.

Adamantly against having a statue of him. Which was respected while he was alive, but a couple of generations down, they eventually built one, near the main square.

It points east, which is where the sun rises. It’s a metaphor for hope, and for Vesuvia to have the resilence to await for the dawn.

Milenko Radošević

His vibe is this picture of Javier Botet, meeting this meme, and the video of the old man and the younger man playing guitar, where he would be playing guitar. Oh, also, this picture of a guy floating in the Zadar floods of 2017, from this post. If this was a modern AU rest assured that WOULD be Milenko, and he doesn’t even live in Zadar.

When you see internet memes about how Slavs/people from the Adriatic are kind of weird, I want you to think of Milenko.

So yes, you would see him on a floatie down the canals of Vesuvia.

He’s a journalist and a writer, which has nothing to do with him being a character.

Tried to summon the Devil to show the Devil isn’t real. After the events of the game, if Anatole is involved in defeating the devil, he’s always offended he didn’t bring him along, he had points to prove.

Plays the guitar and the double bass.

Looks like an 80s goth, and we will not question how that’s mildly anachronistic. His favourite band would be The Cure. Also would have a soft spot for The Cranberries which he definitely took from Anatole.

When Belle and Sebastian wrote “colour my life with the chaos of trouble” in the Boy With The Arab Strap they were talking specifically about Milenko.

Chugs respect women juice harder than most people. If he chokes on it, then that’s how he dies.

Not allowed in several bars, has at least one sworn enemy in the Vesuvian nobility.

Him, Amparo Cassano (she’s down below) and Anatole are all in the same age range, and they’re a force to be reckon with.

Thank you for staying with me up to this point! We’re about to make another jump back. We’re following Lucenzo Cassano’s line now.

Atilia Cassano & Anzano Ventura

Atilia is the child of Lucenzo and Octavia. Closest thing to a community organiser. Need someone to organise a party? Atilia. A meeting? Atilia. To allocate human resources to enact some policy? Atilia.

Anzano is the son of two High Priests in Vesuvia from one of the temples in the Temple District, which is how they met Atilia.

Anzano doesn’t have a fixed profession, and takes things up according to their interests. Which are varied.

Cares more about their cat than they do about some people, both of them. Neither of them are the kind to wish ill on other people, but if ill falls on you as consequences of your actions, then that’s on you buddy.

Some of the things Anzano Ventura has said, without context: “My heart is green with hope.”

“Figure out what fortune has to hand you and spit twice in the face of the Gods.” It’s a saying from where they’re originally from. They’ve never properly explained what it means.

“These are not gentle waters we are sailing.” There is context for this one. They said this when the Plague began to surface in Vesuvia.

Atilia died a couple years before Anzano, who died of Plague.

This is how Anzano would’ve looked like in his early twenties.

Cassiopeia Cassano & Iris Ravella

If Valerius had not become the Consul, it would’ve fell on Cassiopeia. She was a Vesuvian diplomat and politician, member of the Council. Would’ve become the Consul anyway, but, respecting Iovanus’ wishes and trusting (correctly or not, it’s up to you) Valeriy’s potential, stepped aside.

Truly did not resent Matilda for harbouring peculiar feelings against her because Iovanus didn’t want to let her have the Consulship. Nor she did on Valeriy for his mistakes.

Iris comes from another prominent Vesuvian family. Theirs is a family of merchants, based in Centre City, who weren’t particularly thrilled about Iris marrying a Cassano.

Iris cared very little. They did it anyway.

Amparo Cassano

Last but not ever least.

Ballet dancer, fencer, deeply invested in politics. Amparo takes after the OG Amparo, her great aunt Amparo Mediavilla, in her daring, often without explanation ways, as she does in her honour code.

Sarcastic wit, a little bit petty. Would be one of those people who go “I licked it, so it’s mine.”

Takes up an interest in languages, as well as runes and tarot, though she’s not as good with languages as Anatole is. She says life gave him a magical advantage or otherwise she would’ve bested him. Anatole doesn’t doubt it.

Would climb to your window to impress you, with a sword to her hip. She’s that kind of bi.

Would definitely dance to Caramelldansen, and so would Milenko. Anatole would Not, but would look at Amparo dead in the eye and dance it when they’re alone, because he knows no one will believe her.

She calls him a ‘motherfucker’, to which he replies: “Do I LOOK like Oedipus to you.”

Loud mouthed, but with a good heart.

While her an Milenko are, technically, not actually related, they act like they are. They don’t care that’s not how it works.

Comrade Cassano? Comrade Cassano.

The world is her oyster and she’s about to slurp it.

Thank you so much for sticking with me to the end of this list. Means the world to me, as I’m happy to share the Radošević-Cassano with anyone who is willing to listen.

[longitudinalwaveme]

Smoke and Mirrors

Dramatis Personae

Wally West, the energetic, enthusiastic, and confident third Flash

Iris Allen, the wife of Barry Allen and a daredevil reporter

Mirror Master, alias Sam Scudder, a talented inventor and the de facto second-in-command of the Rogues

The Top, alias Roscoe Dillon, an arrogant elitist who is suffering from a mysterious disease

Weather Wizard, alias Mark Mardon, a rather dimwitted thief with an obscenely powerful weapon, the weather wand

The Trickster, alias James Jesse, a charming con man with no fashion sense

Script

Act I

(Enter Wally West and Iris Allen, who has just arrived to the Flash Airport of Central City)

Wally: Hi, Aunt Iris! How have you been? It’s so nice to have you back!

Iris: Hi, Wally. It’s good to be back. How’s your Uncle Barry been?

Wally: He’s been great. Really slow since he lost his super speed, of course, but otherwise, he’s fine. He even took down the Trickster all by himself!

Iris: I heard. It made a great story. (Pause) How have he and Bart been doing since I went on my trip?

Wally: Bart’s still really impulsive, and he scared Uncle Barry half to death when he ran to New York City and watched an off-off-Broadway show without telling anyone, but overall he’s been doing great. Uncle Barry enrolled him in sixth grade and he’s become friends with this girl named Carol and this boy named Preston, and he’s finally kind of adjusting to life outside the speed force. He’s still not crazy about Irey and Jai, though-he thinks they’re annoying tagalongs. Oh, and he discovered anchovy pizza for the first time, and, for some reason, he loves it! He’s eaten 45 slices in the past two days, and Uncle Barry says that he thinks he’ll single-handedly keep the neighborhood pizza place in business. (Pause) How was your trip?

Iris: I loved it! There’s nothing quite like the thrill of investigating the government of Kandaq.

Wally: But isn’t Kandaq led by Black Adam?

Iris: Yes. That’s why it was so much fun to investigate what he’s been up to! Before I did some snooping around, no one knew what he was doing because everyone was too scared to check, so I was able to write the biggest exposé of my career and take down a supervillain at the same time. It was awesome! I even got to interview Captain Marvel after he rescued me from Black Adam.

Wally: No wonder you won a Pulitzer. (Pause) So, besides risking your life, did you do anything else in Kandaq? I’ve heard it has delicious food.

Iris: (Laughs) Of course you would focus on the food.

Wally: Well, is it as good as Dick told me?

Iris: Actually, yes. The spices in particular are delicious-and unique to the country, too!

Wally: I’ll be right back. (Wally exits, then rapidly re-enters) That was delicious!

Iris: That’s my Wally. (Pause) And to finish answering your question, besides eating and investigating, I did a lot of sightseeing and even more souvenir-buying.

Wally: Sounds fun!

Iris: It was. (Pause) And in speaking of souvenirs….. (Pulls t-shirt out of bag) This is for you.

Wally: (takes shirt, reads) “I stood in the presence of the all-powerful Black Adam and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.” (Laughs) Thanks, Aunt Iris! I love it!

Iris: I thought you might. I also got a doll of Isis for Irey, a book on Kandaq’s history for Jai, a longer book on the same subject for your Uncle Barry, a necklace for Linda, a fan for Joan, a scrapbook for Jay, and Captain Marvel’s signature and promise to visit our house for Bart.

Wally: Sweet! (Pause) Do you have all your bags?

Iris: Yes, I do.

Wally: Then let’s get you home! (Pause, then in “official” voice) The West Delivery Service will get you there in three seconds, or your money back!

Iris: (Laughs) Definitely my Wally.

(Both Exit)

Act II

(Top is onstage, sitting at table and talking on the phone)

Top: (on the phone) Greetings, my darling. How are you? (Pause) Excellent. I’m glad to hear it. How fares the mission? (Pause) What sort of complications? You know as well as I do that I haven’t much time. If you do not find a cure soon, my powers will quite literally be the death of me. We do not have time for failure! (Pause) I’m sorry, honeybunch. I did not mean to snap at you. I am simply anxious. Even I cannot come out on top in a battle with the grave. (Pause) Of course I trust you, sweetums. Remember though, my darling, if my calculations are correct, I only have a month left. We must get the cure! (Pause) Well that, at least, is good news. If Allen likes you, it will not be long before he is willing to trust you enough to help you find the cure. (Pause) I love you, dearest. Farewell. (Puts phone away and puts on earmuffs) And now to enjoy my meal in peace.

(Enter Trickster, Mirror Master, and Weather Wizard)

Weather Wizard: So, how’d you guys find me?

Trickster: It’s simple, Wiz! We followed the reports of snowstorms in July.

Mirror Master: You aren’t exactly subtle, Mardon.

Weather Wizard: Fair enough. I guess being able to control the weather doesn’t leave much room for subtlety. (Pause) So, what do you two want?

Mirror Master: Your help. If there’s anyone who can keep the Flash away from our heists, it’s you. You’re more powerful than all of us-even me.

Weather Wizard: I know.

Trickster: And you’re modest, too.

Weather Wizard: Hey, if you could control the weather with a flick of the wrist, you’d be a little arrogant, too.

Trickster: Fair enough. (Pause) Say, last I heard, your wand was busted. How’d you get it working again?

Weather Wizard: (Defensively) None of your business. I just did, okay?

Trickster: (Suspiciously) Oh, really? Then let me see the wand.

Weather Wizard: No! You can’t touch it!

Trickster: Why not?

Weather Wizard: Because it’s mine, and you aren’t gonna touch it!

Trickster: (Grabs wand) Too late! I already have it!

Weather Wizard: Give it back! (Tries to grab wand, but fails and falls on his face)

Trickster: All right, Mr. Weather Wand. Make it rain! Bippity boppity boo! (Waves wand, nothing happens) That’s funny. I thought you said you fixed the wand, Wiz.

Weather Wizard: (Gets to his feet and grabs the wand back) Okay, so I exaggerated about being able to fix it. I’ve used the weather wand long enough that I was able to do a patch job and get it to make some snow, but it’s pretty much useless for any other form of weather. I can’t even make it whip up a decent blizzard!

Mirror Master: All you can make is snow? (Trickster notices the Top)

Weather Wizard: (Weakly) Yeah.

Mirror Master: Well, that’s just great. Here I was thinking that we had tornadoes, lighting, and hail on our side, and all we have is a glorified snow machine! (Pause) And when were you planning on mentioning the fact that you can’t make anything but snow, anyway? When the Flash showed up to take us to jail?

Weather Wizard: Well, to be honest, I hadn’t really thought out that far. I was trying to save face, not come up with a battle plan.

Mirror Master: (Despondently) There goes my Ferrari.

Trickster: Don’t give up on the Ferrari just yet, Sam! I have a way to salvage our heist!

Mirror Master: James, I already told you. I am not going to use a “whoopie cushion of doom” to stop the Flash. Unlike you, I have some dignity.

Trickster: First, the Whoopie Cushion of Doom is high comedy, and you should be honored that I offered to let you use it. Second, that’s not it.

Mirror Master: Then what is it?

Trickster: It’s the Top! He’s sitting right over there! (Points to Top)

Mirror Master: (Surprised) So he is.

Weather Wizard: What’s he doing here? I thought he and Golden Glider were in Hawaii on the fifth anniversary of their first date or something.

Mirror Master: Who knows with those two. Maybe they came home early.

Trickster: Came home early ? They never went ! They’ve been in Central City this whole time!

Weather Wizard: They have? But then why did they tell everyone that they were on vacation?

Mirror Master: Probably so they could spend time together without Captain Cold breathing down their necks. Given how overprotective he is, if I was dating Lisa, I would probably pretend to be out of the city, too. It’s hard to have romantic moments when you know that her big brother’s watching and will maim you if you look at her funny.

Trickster: Nah, that’s not it. If Roscoe was afraid of Captain Cold, he wouldn’t challenge his authority all the time. I think they’re planning something, something they want to keep secret from the rest of us, and I want to find out what it is. (Taps Top on shoulder) Hiya, Top!

Top: (Takes off earmuffs; Aside) Why me? (To Trickster) What do you want?

Trickster: Well, Mirror Master wants a Ferrari, and I want some excitement, so we need your help to rob the jewelry store on Fifth and Main.

Top: I am afraid that you will be disappointed. I am quite busy, and am being pressed to the top of my bent. I have no time for frivolities, Giovanni.

Weather Wizard: Giovanni? Who’s Giovanni?

Trickster: Me.

Mirror Master: You gave the Top an alias when he asked for your real name?

Trickster: (“Offended”) No! I’d never do anything like that! (Pause) I didn’t give him an alias when he asked for my real name. I gave you two an alias!

Weather Wizard: Your real name’s Giovanni?  

Trickster: Yep! Giovanni Giuseppi. My family is Italian.

Mirror Master: Then why do you always go by James Jesse?

Trickster: Because Jesse was our family’s stage name from the circus. Since we used an alias in our performances, I got used to being called James, so I eventually decided to just start using it as my regular name. Besides, it’s easier to say than Giovanni Giuseppi.

Mirror Master: Well, whoever you are, clearly, your plan failed. Dillon doesn’t want to get involved in our plan, and so it’ll be a bust.

Trickster: (Aside) Oh, ye of little faith. (To Mirror Master) I’ll be able to get him to come around. Trust me.

Mirror Master: Forgive me if I’m less than convinced. (Trickster walks over to Top)

Trickster: (To Top) What if I told you that there would be something in it for you?

Top: I would still refuse. As I already told you, I am quite preoccupied. Now, if you will excuse me, I am going home.

Trickster: (Stopping Top) Top, old buddy, just hear me out. If you don’t like it, I promise you can leave, but you’ve gotta at least learn what it is.

Top: We are not “old buddies”, but, since you seem determined to annoy me until I listen to what you have to say, I suppose I will give in to the inevitable and allow you to speak. But be quick about it. I am giving you five minutes- tops .

Trickster: You know what? Never mind. It was silly of me to think you would be motivated by something as small as an engagement ring. (Moves out of Top’s way; To Mirror Master and Weather Wizard) Come on, guys, let’s go. I’m sure I’ll be able to come up with something else.

Top: What was that about an engagement ring?

Trickster: Oh, you wouldn’t be interested in it, I’m sure.

Top: You are mistaken. Do tell me what you think I will get out of this heist.

Trickster: Are you sure? If you really are busy, I don’t want to bother you.

Top: No, no. I am fine. Please, tell me what you mean.

Trickster: Well, if you insist…..A few months ago, Lisa told me that she saw the perfect engagement ring at the jewelry store that we’re planning to rob, and that she would be thrilled if you proposed to her with it. But like I said, if you don’t want to help us….

Top: (Quickly) If it will please Lisa, I would very much like to help ensure that you come out on top .

Trickster: Great! Glad to have you aboard, pal!

Mirror Master: (Draws Trickster aside) How could you have talked to Glider “a few months ago”? You spent the last six months on a cross-country swindling trip and didn’t get back until three weeks ago!

Trickster: (Aside to Mirror Master) That’s right…..but he doesn’t know that.

Mirror Master: (Aside to Trickster) Clever.

Trickster: (Aside to Mirror Master) I know, right?  (Aloud) So, what’s the plan?

Act III

(Enter Wally and Iris)

Wally: Is there anything else you need me to do, Aunt Iris?

Iris: Wally, you’ve already gotten me home from the airport, unpacked all my bags, put everything away, pulled everything out when you put everything away wrong, put everything away in the right places, delivered my letter to your Grandpa Ira in Florida, fixed my car, and repainted the garage. You’ve done enough.

Wally: Aww, it was nothing, Aunt Iris.

Iris: It wasn’t nothing. That was a lot of work, and I really appreciate it. (Pause) By the way, you haven’t eaten much since you brought me home. You should probably get some food.

Wally: Good idea, Aunt Iris! (Wally exits, then quickly re-enters) I love Japanese food!

Iris: Did you really run all the way to Japan just to get food? Wally: Why not? I can get there and back in three seconds!

Iris: (laughs) Oh, Wally. You’ve gotta stop doing that before it rubs off on Bart.

Wally: I think it might be too late for that. He’s already running to New York City to watch off-off-Broadway, after all.

Iris: I know, but now that Barry doesn’t have his super speed, we need to dissuade him from doing that again. We can’t be calling you all the time because we can’t bring him back when he disappears to another continent. Without at least one parent with super speed, he needs to stay close to home so that we can help him if he gets into trouble.

Wally: I don’t mind bringing him home.

Iris: Yes, but I’m pretty sure your boss will mind if you have to keep leaving work to bring Bart home from Namibia or Laos or Bithynia.

Wally: But he knows I’m the Flash! I have to leave work all the time!

Iris: True, but there’s a difference between leaving work to stop crime or save people and leaving work to track down your cousin who went on a joyride.

Wally: Yeah, you probably have a point there.

Iris: As soon as he and Barry get home from their trip to the park, I’ll have Barry sit him down and have a little chat with him about running off to other states or foreign countries-assuming that he can focus long enough to get the message, that is.

Wally: Hey, do you mind if I stick around until they get back? I wanted to talk to Uncle Barry about the Rogues’ latest escape from jail.

Iris: Of course you can stay here! (Pause) And why didn’t you tell me that the Rogues escaped? That always makes for a good news story!

Wally: I don’t really know a lot about how it happened yet, so I guess it just slipped my mind.

Iris: In that case, I’ll have to do some investigating to find out how….after Barry, Bart, and I have our little chat, of course.

Wally: Have I ever told you that you’re awesome, Aunt Iris?

Iris: Not lately.

Wally: Well, you’re awesome. (Phone rings) Sorry! I have to get that! (Pulls out phone) Hello? (Pause) Oh, hi, Mrs. Rowen. Why are you calling? (Pause) Suspension? Why? They’re only kindergartners! (Pause) They did what? (Pause) Well, yes, I’m sure that the school having all its windows broken by dual sonic booms would be problematic, but they don’t know how to control their speed. I know they didn’t do it maliciously. (Pause) $600,000? Wow….That is a lot of money. I’m really sorry. I didn’t even know they were moving at supersonic speeds yet. Did anyone get hurt? (Pause) Two teachers are going to need stitches? Oh, no. I’m really sorry. I’m really, really, really sorry. (Pause) Yes, of course I’ll come meet with you. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I’ll be right there. Bye. (Puts phone away) Looks like I won’t be able to talk to Uncle Barry. My kids shattered all the windows at the elementary school when they accidentally created a sonic boom, and now I have to meet with their principal. I swear, parenting super-powered children is a million times harder than fighting supervillains. At least with supervillains, I don’t have to pay for the damages that they cause. I’ve gotta run. Bye!

(Exit Wally)

Iris: It’s at times like these that I’m glad Bart stayed in the Speed Force until he was old enough to know how to control his speed. (Pause) In speaking of Bart, there he and his dad are now. Hopefully, Bart will cooperate with the limits he sets on his travel, because if not, I’m not sure that Barry and I will be able to enforce them. Even Wally wasn’t as impulsive as Bart is.

Act IV (Enter Top, Trickster, Mirror Master, and Weather Wizard. Trickster is wielding a fearsome rubber chicken and a kazoo)

Mirror Master: Did everyone make it through the Mirror Realm all right?

Top: I feel more than a little nauseous, but otherwise, I am fine, since we managed to arrive at our intended destination.

Mirror Master: What are you implying?

Top: Nothing. It is simply that I would feel far more comfortable if I knew that the realm through which we traveled so shortly ago was controlled by a man who had at least completed his secondary education and who hailed from somewhere other than the part of town colloquially known as “Skid Row”. In all candor, your credentials do not inspire confidence.

Mirror Master: Hey, I might not have your fancy education, but I’m just as smart as you. How else do you think I discovered an entire alternate dimension?

Top: My supposition would be that the goddess Fortuna smiled upon an unworthy candidate with the freakish caprice for which she is known.

Mirror Master: Are you saying I just got lucky?

Top: Indeed.

Mirror Master: You’ve got some nerve, Dillon! I worked for years to learn how the Mirror Realm worked! Just because I’m from Skid Row doesn’t mean I’m stupid!

Top: My experience, and the experiences of my father, would suggest otherwise.

Trickster: Girls, girls, girls . You’re both pretty. Now, let’s start the heist already! I already deactivated the alarms, but they’ll come back on eventually. And besides, I’m bored!

Weather Wizard: Trickster’s right. I already created enough snow to slow down the cops, but that won’t hold them forever, and it won’t hold our friend in the red pajamas at all. We need to hurry.

Mirror Master: Well, if the Top is ready, so am I.

Top: I was not the one delaying us, but I am quite prepared to proceed in our enterprise. (To Trickster, as Weather Wizard and Mirror Master start grabbing jewelry) Where is the engagement ring that my beloved desires?

Trickster: (Looks around at the various rings) Let’s see…..I know it’s around here somewhere ….. (Finds a particularly ostentatious ring and points at it) Oh! There it is!

Top: Are you certain that that is what she desires? It seems a bit gaudy for her tastes.

Trickster: Of course I’m sure! (Aside) And I’m not lying. I’m sure she’ll hate it, and I’m sure that learning that he got outsmarted by a circus brat will take Mr.Phony British Accent down a few pegs. He’s smart, but he’s not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.

Top: You have my gratitude, Giovanni. (Takes ring) Is there nothing that you are inclined to take?

Trickster: Not really. I’m here to put on a show, not to take money. (Pulls out bottle of paint) Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to replace the bathroom sinks’ water with paint.

(Exit Trickster; Top analyzes jewelry and slowly begins to select the sophisticated jewelry)

Mirror Master: (To Weather Wizard) I know I said that I was getting a Ferrari, but I’ve been thinking it over, and I think I might get a Lamborghini instead. What do you think?

Weather Wizard: Which one’s faster?

Mirror Master: I’m not sure. Except for a three-day period where I was in possession of W. W. Wiggins’s stolen Ferrari, I’ve never actually owned a car.

Weather Wizard: (Surprised) You’ve never owned a car? How’s that possible? Before I became the Weather Wizard, I was the world’s biggest loser, and even I had a car. I mean, granted, I crashed it into a tree, but I had one!

Mirror Master: (Defensive) I grew up in the inner city. Have you seen the traffic in the interior of Central City? It’s a nightmare! There’s a reason everyone takes the subway to work. The traffic gets so jammed that cars are basically useless.

Weather Wizard: But you still live in the inner city. If there’s no use for one, why do you want it so bad?

Mirror Master: (Angrily) Because I’m tired of being poor! I’ve spent my entire life either in jail or in tiny two-room apartments on Baker Street, and I’m sick of it! I’m sick of always being behind on rent, I’m sick of wearing other people’s cast-offs, and I’m SICK of Roscoe implying that I’m stupid! I want a car because it would be a sign that I finally have enough money to get off of Skid Row! People would have to give me some respect then!  

Weather Wizard: If it makes you feel any better, without the weather wand, nobody gives me any respect, either. The only reason that I’m here right now is to earn back the reputation I lost when it broke. I don’t really need the money.

Mirror Master: You don’t?

Weather Wizard: Nah. I won a $20,000 poker game a few weeks ago.

Mirror Master: But you’re terrible at poker!

Weather Wizard: (Shrugs) I was playing against an 18-year-old who had just inherited his daddy’s company and had never played a game in his life.

Mirror Master: And Dillon says I’M the one who gets lucky!

Weather Wizard: Don’t take it personally, Sam. He’s a jerk to everyone-except Lisa, that is.

Mirror Master: What does she see in him, anyway?

Weather Wizard: That, my friend, is one of the great mysteries of life. He’s not even that attractive!

Top: (Comes over) It is not so mysterious as that. Unlike the rest of you ruffians, I am a man of birth, breeding, and education. Our relationship is a great boon for her social status, especially given the “trailer trash” from whence she comes-to use a colloquialism, of course-and I am certainly better company than any of you could hope to provide. Her selection of me as a paramor proves that she, alone among you “Rogues”, has taste.

Mirror Master: (Sarcastically) Yeah, you’re a real prince, Dillon.

(Alarm goes off)

Weather Wizard: Oh, no! The alarm! We must’ve lost track of time, and now the Flash is gonna show up and make me a laughingstock all over again!

(Enter Trickster)

Trickster: Where’s the Flash? He should be here by now!

Mirror Master: Who cares? Let’s get outta here!

Trickster: Wait! I want to fight the Flash! It’s no fun if I don’t get to fight the Flash!

Mirror Master: Trickster, we got what we came for! Now let’s go!

(All exit quickly, Mirror Master dragging a flailing Trickster)

Act V

(Mirror Master, Weather Wizard, Top, and Trickster are onstage, sitting. Trickster is pouting)

Weather Wizard: We...we actually did it?

Top: Obviously. We are here and not in jail, are we not?

Weather Wizard: I know that, I just can’t believe that we actually did it! We never get away with heists this big!

Mirror Master: You’re right, Mardon. It’s been over four years since we had a heist that the Flash didn’t stop….and we got away with it!

Weather Wizard: So, what do we do now?

Mirror Master: I….I don’t know. It’s been years since we got away with anything, so I haven’t had a plan beyond “get away” in years.

Weather Wizard: I guess you can buy your car now.

Mirror Master: Yeah. I guess so. (Sighs) It’s so weird that we’re not in jail right now.

Weather Wizard: Tell me about it. I haven’t had a run of luck this good in ages!

Top: It is not so peculiar as you are treating it. After all, I accompanied you on this heist, something I have not often done. It is not, therefore, terribly surprising that you were successful-I enabled you to come out on top .

Mirror Master: Dillon, do the world a favor and shut up. I’m not in the mood for your attitude.

Weather Wizard: (To Trickster) Hey, James, why are you so upset? We just got away with a million dollars! You should be on cloud nine!

Trickster: I’m upset because the Flash didn’t show up! He’s what makes crime exciting! Since he wasn’t there and we did it at night, I didn’t have an audience, and it wasn’t any fun! Besides, escaping changes up the game. How are we supposed to start the game over if we don’t get captured and have to escape again?

Weather Wizard: Now that you mention it, I did feel like our heist was lacking in that rush. It’s hard to feel excited when there’s no danger that you might be stopped.

Mirror Master: Yeah. It’s not enjoyable to beat him when he doesn’t even show up. (Pause) But hey, at least we’re rich now, right?

Weather Wizard: (Without confidence) Right. And I’m sure we’ll be able to come up with something to do. It’ll be great!

Trickster: (Petulantly) No, it won’t. The game’s been ruined!

Mirror Master: How has it been ruined? You don’t need the Flash to trick people.

Trickster: No, I don’t, but it’s not the same. I came back to Central City to play the game, and now the game has been ruined because the Flashes won’t play!

Weather Wizard: (Too cheerfully) Hey, why don’t we go get some ice cream? That’ll make us all feel better.

Mirror Master: Sure, why not?

Trickster: I guess so. But only if I can get gummy bears and rainbow sprinkles.

Top: I will pass on that offer. I have fulfilled my part of the agreement and must get back to work.

Weather Wizard: Okay. More for us, I guess.

Mirror Master: (Mutters) Good riddance.

Trickster: I had better get two dips, too.

(Exit Trickster, Mirror Master, and Weather Wizard)

Top: Ahh. Peace and quiet at last. (Pulls out cell phone) Hello, Lisa, darling. This is Roscoe. How fares the mission? (Pause) Allen is willing to help you get the cure? Good. Good. Very good. You, my sweet, are a veritable Sarah Siddons. (Pause) Oh, my apologies. I thought that was common knowledge. Sarah Siddons was a famous Shakespearean actress who was renowned for her life-like portrayal of Lady Macbeth in the 19th century, and you are quite as talented an actress. (Pause) Oh! I almost forgot. I have pleasant news as well, honeybunch. I appropriated the engagement ring that you so desired! (Pause) Wait, you never picked out a ring for that purpose? My profuse apologies, sweetums. It seems that I was misinformed. (Pause) Don’t worry, my dearest darling. The pain has been quite manageable, and given what you have just told me, I have no fear for my life. (Pause) Thank you, darling. Your snuggle-bunny loves you, too. Good-bye. (Puts phone away) TRICK-STER!

(Scene change. Enter Wally, in jewelry store)

Wally: Aw, come on! I’m getting sued by the school district AND I let the Rogues get away? Man, this just isn’t my day! (Pause) Oh, well. If there’s one thing that Uncle Barry’s taught me, it’s that a true hero never gives up. I’m sure to find them eventually-especially since they aren’t exactly subtle. (Pause) And if there’s one good thing about all this, it’s that things can’t possibly get worse! I’ll go get a quick snack, and then I’ll find Aunt Iris and Uncle Barry so that we can take down those Rogues- in a Flash!

[thelordofdarkreunion]

Magnificent Scoundrels- On the Great Journey

Another faction intro, this time from Halo.  It should probably be noted that, obviously, I do not own Halo.

A note on timelines: This takes place in 2552, in between Halo 1 and 2.  This is after the destruction of Instillation 04, and before Regret’s invasion of Earth.  

Halo Galaxy

Earth, Capital World of the UNSC

The room was much like any typical human conference room throughout almost any galaxy.  Plain.  Utilitarian.  Very, very grey.  The table, too, was a sleek grey, matching the walls, and the chairs strung around it were typical of almost any high-class office building.  Black, comfortable enough, and with wheels.  Many an alien had and still has noted with some amusement the human fascination for chairs with wheels on them.  Even the most hardened of generals and politicians always seemed to choose them over regular chairs.  Most curious.  But none of the aliens of this galaxy had ever noticed the subtleties of humanity.  No.  Here, there was only war between humanity and the theocratic alien empire known simply as the Covenant.  This war was the reason for the meeting in this seemingly plain conference room.

Master Chief John-117 sat silently in a chair suitably enlarged for his massive frame.  If one were not aware that there was a man beneath his heavy green armor, they might have mistaken him for a statue.  He had been sitting like this, back perfectly straight, for exactly one hour, one minute, and forty one… forty two seconds now.  He had arrived first to the meeting, as a good soldier should.  The rest of the participants trickled in between then and half an hour ago.  

He was currently playing a game in his head, one that he had come up with a long time ago.  The nature of this game was simple: who is everyone at the meeting?  What, or whom, do they represent?  What do they want?  For despite the fact that Master Chief had not moved in one hour, two minutes, and ten seconds, his mind was always alert.  Always searching for threats.  

The man at the head of the table was the easiest to know.  An old face, wrinkled but still incredibly sharp, coupled with a crisp, white dress uniform and rows upon rows of medals made him a soldier.  If one was more familiar with the current state of the UEG and UNSC, one would also instantly put a name with the face.  Fleet Admiral Lord Terrance Hood, chief of naval operations and the de facto leader of the war effort, and thus humanity as a whole.  John liked Lord Hood.  Helpful.  Practical.  A soldier through and through.  

The next was another old face, wearing the white uniform of an admiral.  However, this woman did not have the reassuring eyes of Lord Hood.  These eyes were old, cold, hard, and incredibly calculating.  While Hood might have been in charge, Admiral Margaret Parangosky was probably the most dangerous person in the room.  She was the head of ONI, the Office of Naval Intelligence.  Master manipulator, master spy.  She probably had enough information to destroy anyone else in the room.  Cold, calculating, and ruthless, she was nevertheless a curt and professional leader.  

The next, and the last one the Chief recognized, was another older woman.  Greying hair framed a wrinkled face and pure blue eyes, still glowing with intelligence.  Doctor Catherine Halsey, creator of the Spartan-II’s.  Creator of Cortana.  Scientist extraordinaire.  The only thing even close to a mother figure he ever had.  Yes, she was the one who kidnapped him from an unknown family and turned him into a living weapon… but she was still a mother figure, in a way.  Master Chief suspected he had Stockholm syndrome.  It didn’t really concern him.  It was just one more problem on a list of many.  Anxiety, depression, sociopathy, paranoia, violent PTSD.  He had it all.  He ignored it.  The only thing that mattered was the mission.  

All of the other members of the meeting could fit into three groups: the soldiers, the politicians, and the spies.  

The soldiers were the easiest to understand.  Either Army or Navy, they were no nonsense (for the most part) and practical.  Soldiers.  People he understood.  They had a duty, and they did it.  

Spies were, as they probably should be, the hardest to understand.  They were all from ONI, and were, by far, the least trustworthy in the room.  Hated and feared, they were the ones who oversaw much of the UNSC’s secret projects.  It was their agents who had kidnapped him as a baby for the Spartan program.  Lord Hood didn’t trust them.  Dr. Halsey didn’t trust them.  Master Chief didn’t trust them either.  Too concerned with power plays and secrets.  It was in their nature to be untrustworthy, just as it was in Master Chief’s nature to be blunt.  

The third group were the politicians.  While they might normally be the most problem faction, these were extraordinary times.  The United Earth Governments had no power.  The United Nations Space Command had taken full control under material law to repel the Covenant.  The politicians technically had no say-so, but they were still kept in the loop so as not to cause any problems.  No one wanted a rogue politician talking too much, and here Admirals Hood and Parangosky could keep an eye on them.  

None except Hood, several of the diplomats, and Parangosky were actually required.  Most, from Dr. Hasley, to the ONI spies, to the politicians were here either as precautions, in case something came up that would require their expertise, or so that they wouldn’t cause any problems.  Hood and Parangosky were crafty enough to realize that snubbing people was probably not the best idea for fostering a united war effort.  

“And now, Master Chief John-117, please present your finds,” asked Parangosky.  Oh, shit.  This was the part he had been dreading.  He absolutely despised talking to people, but this time he really didn’t have a choice.  

“Yes, ma’am.”  His gravelly voice rang clearly through the room as everyone went silent.  “I met with the group you told me to.  Their dossiers are in my report.  They seem nice enough.”  He wasn’t quite sure if he was doing this right.  He didn’t have much practice talking to other humans.  Parangosky looked at him with an annoyed expression, but Hood held up a hand to forestall any comments.  

“I know you don’t particularly like to do this, Chief.  However, we need to know where everyone in these new galaxies stand.”  The politicians and various lower ranked officers gave sycophantic nods.  

“Yes, sir.”  A holoprojector sprang to life, displaying the various symbols of different inter-galactic powers.  “Most are either peaceful inter-species coalitions or human-supremacist empires.  From what Cortana has told me, the more human-supremacist and militaristic, the more likely they are to stand with us.”  The table broke out with murmuring.  

“Now what?” asked one of the Admirals.  “Who exactly is going to help us?  Can we actually trust them?”  

“The people I’ve seen are trustworthy,” responded the Chief.  If slightly bizarre, and, on several instances, slightly insane.  “Whether or not we can trust their governments is another problem.”  Thankfully, not my problem.  

“What about their weapons?” questioned an ONI agent.  

“Everything I’ve learned about their weapons is in my report.”  Honestly, what was the point of writing reports if no one was going to read them?

“Can we get any of these weapons?” pressed the agent.  Why are ONI agents so annoying?

“While the individuals I’ve met want to keep their own weapons, at least one is willing to sell them,” replied the Chief gruffly.  He hadn’t, and wouldn’t, tell them about Drake’s gift.  They would want to get their hands all over it, disassemble it, and he’d never get it back.  It was put to much better use in his hands.  At least it was in his opinion.  Although, Drake would probably be perfectly willing to sell anything from laser weapons to WMDs if the price was right.  The ONI agent began whining again.

“All the “militaristic” powers are fighting other things!  All the peaceful ones wouldn’t want to get involved in the Covenant War, and all the other ones would probably want to screw us over.”  Like you wouldn’t do the same thing if you were in their place, Master Chief wanted to say.  Bloody ONI.  

The Chief looked appealingly over to Hood, the question evident in his eyes.  Hood gave Master Chief a nod.

“Thank you, Chief.  You can sit down now,” he said.  Thank God.  John slumped into his seat.  He would much rather take on entire platoons of Covenant soldiers instead of doing even the most miniscule of talking, especially to these types of people.  Oh, well.  Sometimes being the greatest soldier in history had its drawbacks.  

High Charity

Capital and Holy City of the Covenant

High Charity was an utterly massive, near planetoid-sized space station, and the floating capital of the alien empire known as the Covenant.  Hundreds of kilometers in diameter, and home to billions of individuals, it was the Covenant’s religious center and practical homeworld.  High Charity was larger than moons, and more impressive than most planets, including most of those ruled by the UNSC.  It was here that, just like many a government, the leaders of the Covenant sat to discuss the current situation.  

The room itself was rectangular, and looked largely like some gladiator pit made of stainless steel.  In the “stands” were the members of the High Council, the legislative body of the Covenant.  Made up of only Sangheli and San’Shyuum, the two most respected species of the Covenant, it was their job to pass laws and rule the empire as a whole.  Lower down, at the edge of the “pit”, was an elevated dias, on which were three chairs.  The true rulers of the Covenant, the Hierarchs, sat here, in magnificent gravity thrones.  They were the High Prophets of Truth, Mercy, and Regret.  The religious leaders, and, due to its nature as a theocratic empire, the political leaders of the Covenant, it was their duty to guide the various races along the Great Journey.  Now, it was their duty to guide the Covenant into these new galaxies, to the ultimate goal of ascendance.  At the present moment, it was all they could do to keep the Council in order.

“What of the trial of Thel ‘Vadam?” shouted members from the stands.  The entire room was in an uproar, yelling at each other, yelling at the Prophets, yelling at the guards, yelling at anyone that would listen.  In fact, several of them were yelling just to yell, certain that no one really cared, but determined to add their weight to the conversation.  If, of course, the orgy of disorder could actually be called a conversation.  

“Yes!  What of the trial?” cried another.  

“Nay!  The trial is of limited importance now!  What of these new places?  What happens there?  We must know!”

“Indeed!  This is a pressing concern!  We must discuss this new development!  The trial can wait!” shouted someone else.

“No!  The trial is of immediate importance!  It must happen now!” called another Council member.

“What of the humans?  How are they affected by this?  Does the Covenant exist in these new galaxies?  Does humanity?  Do the Forerunners?”

“Enough!  There will be order in these chambers!” the shrill and somewhat warbling voice of the Prophet of Mercy called from his gravity throne.  

“Indeed!  I am ashamed of this behavior!” added the Prophet of Truth.  The voices died down to barely audibly muttering, then vanished completely as the Prophets looked around the room.  

“Good.  Now, on to the business of this session.  The High Council has convened for a special session.  While originally supposed to be for the trial of Thel ‘Vadam, it now takes a new purpose: we must discuss these new places and what exactly they mean for our future,” said Truth.  The Prophets of Mercy and Regret nodded along with him.  The voices swelled once again, murmuring, then threatening to break out in a crescendo of noise.  

“Order!” yelled Regret over the din.  The babble died down once more.  Despite the Prophets being San'Shyuum, a species that looked largely like bipedal worms with oversized craniums and were about as physically threatening as the description suggests, they were the religious leaders of the Covenant, and so their word was law.  Though the Council could technically oppose them, it rarely did so.  Those who called for the trial to take place immediately were gradually silenced, and the chamber came to order.  

“As it should be,” muttered Mercy crossly.

“Now, on to business.”  The ‘again’ in that sentence remained unsaid.  “Due to still unknown reasons, several other galaxies have appeared beyond the borders of ours.  We know not what they are.  We know not what they want.”  The Council started to murmur again.  

“Therefore, to make certain no one interferes, it is our duty to start down the Great Journey as soon as possible.  Thel ‘Vadam and his fleet, while unable to prevent its destruction, found one of the Sacred Rings.  It is but a short time when we find another.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Regret.  “We have located a Sacred Icon, needed for the firing of the Rings, on a human world.”  The Council broke out in shouting once more.

“We must retrieve it immediately!”

“Yes!  The Heretics have no right to hold such an artifact!”  

“Silence!” roared Truth once more.  He looked around at the assemblage, then continued.  “We shall retrieve this Icon as soon as possible.  The trial of Thel ‘Vadam shall happen, a fleet shall be prepared, the icon retrieved, and the Rings fired.”  The murmurings became positive.  

“Good.  Onwards, on the Great Journey, for the glory of the Covenant!”

And there we are.  As always, if you have any comments, questions, concerns, criticisms, or requests, feel free to ask!

[feitanswife]

Big long rant about what makes a good rival in Pokémon, subtext, plots that show rather than tell, character-focused narratives, and how much I FUCKING HATE ROSE

So seeing as I unceremoniously decided to design a Pokémon game as aneans of venting my anger at how tumblr discourse stole all the confidence I ever had, I’ve been researching what it is people like in a Pokémon game.

And I’ve realized something.

When it comes to rivals, SwSh accomplished what X and Y tried and failed to do.

Everyone says X and Y have terrible rivals, the worst in the series, and they’re pretty much right. But I could never bring myself to dislike the set up. It had good ideas

Good ideas that SwSh accomplished thoroughly.

The set up is something we only see in those two games: a large group of rivals, each with a different goal and personality. Some are nicer, some are more competitive, some don’t seem to care about the main point of the game much at all.

That SwSh did well was make each one of them still involved in being a trainer. Where X and Y failed was in making the rivals goals too varied, only one of them even cared about getting badges!

But in SwSh, everyone cared about getting badges and becoming stronger for different reasons

You want to dethrone Leon, beating a trainer who has never been beaten.

Hop is standing in his brother’s shadow and wants to beat him to gain the approval of those around him, (especially his family who don’t even have any pictures of Hop on the wall or anything)

Marnie wants to help her hometown and her family who are suffering from neglect by the government.

Bede wants the approval of Rose, his adoptive father who doesn’t give a shit about him .

All of these characters have different personalities, interests, motivations, and end goals, but they all are competing for the same title as a means to accomplish those separate goals.

The goal is not to be the champion, becoming the champion is a means to accomplish your goals.

Also, notably two characters have VERY similar goals, those being Hop and Bede, both seeking validation and approval, but their personalities are so different that you almost don’t notice how much their characters parallel.

That’s something about SwSh I really liked actually, the reliance on subtext. In a shocking irony, the first Pokémon game with any form of free camera, relies on a very narrow narrative view. You miss most of the “plot” But that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

No one tells you that Hop is the least favored child, that he’s constantly being compared to Leon and crushing under the weight of it. But Hop’s entire personality is built on being a people pleaser, of idolizing his brother, of being better because he’s Leon’s brother so he has to be. He’s clingy, so fucking clingy. Almost like he’s scared you’re going to leave him. His facade is shattered by one insult from Bede. His arc is told through his battles, constantly switching out his team, even replacing his first ever Pokémon, his Wooloo, for a few battles.

Rose forgets his adopted sons name who the fuck does that????? Bede has a Rolex but no father figure. Oleana sure as fuck doesn’t care about the kid, she doesn’t care about anything but her man (who walks around in public dressed like he got dressed in a dark dumpster btw)

And more on Rose, can we talk about how much the tower and Leon’s place in it means??? Like the whole game Leon is never seen wearing ANYTHING but his uniform, which is ugly as sin. That was on purpose. That isn’t really Leon’s outfit. That’s the outfit he’s forced to wear by the league. Once he’s no longer champion and out from under Rose’s thumb? He gets to dress however he wants, and his new outfit rally FEELS like Leon, it’s extravagant, it’s kinda funny, he keeps the hat but wears a suit, and it’s unabashedly HIS. He got a huge glow up in post game because he finally had the chance to be himself! Same with Bede!

Rose is toxic. There, I said it. Your MCM is fucking toxic and fucks up all his interpersonal relationships whether he knows it or not, he canonically cannot prioritize for shit, he was more worried about something thousands of years in the future than the thing happening the next day, and Oleana was a fucking enabler full stop.

The Galar region runs on Dynamax to the point where their biggest power plant is also a stadium. Very little is known about Dynamaxing other than one time it happened everywhere and was apocalyptic. Yet the entire region depends on it.

Who speaks out about how batshit this is? Piers. Whose town is in shambles, completely neglected by Rose, the de facto political leader of the region? Piers. Rose was willing to abandon a whole city because their gym leader didn’t fucking like Dynamaxing.

Leon not having any sense of direction is A FUCKING METAPHOR FOR HOW HE HASNT EVER HAD CONTROL OVER HIS LIFE BECAUSE HE WAS DEPENDANT ON ROSE’S SPONSORSHIP AND THUS HAS NO EXPERIENCE IN DIRECTING HIMSELF

The sponsorship mechanic is just as skeevy in Pokémon as it is irl! Just saying! You want to keep your spot? Better do everything the advertisers want cause they own your soul now!

The fact that you don’t know what exactly happened when Leon and Sonia ran off to fix shit, that doesn’t matter. That’s not the point! The plot was never about fighting through hoarded of grunts while an evil team leader laughs maniacally in the distance! We’re not in gen 1 anymore! We have actual narratives now!

Because SwSh is not the story of how Rose tried to fix an energy crisis by summoning ancient gods and causing an apocalypse. We had a few of those already!

If you want ducky psuedoscience masquerading as environmentalism might I direct you to gen 3?

Oh if you want batshit depressed scientists with enough money to make it everyone else’s problem too, gen 4 and gen 6 did that.

Want a generic bad guy who just turns out to be a punching bag for the player with very little proper motivation? There’s been like 10 Kanto games I’m sure you’ll get your Giovanni fix somewhere.

SwSh is the story of how selfishness, misplaced priorities, and enabling others toxic behavior will fuck up everyone around you.

Leon has no direction because he’s been a puppet since the day he let Rose sponsor him

Bede has no confidence because the closest thing he had to a family neglected him

Hop has no goal outside of Leon because he’s never been allowed to be anything but Leon’s little brother

Marnie has to take on all the responsibility for Spikemuth because her brother has lost his influence after falling out of Rose’s favor

Tl:Dr

the only reason people say SwSh has no story is because they literally have no idea what the word subtext means, didn’t bother to pay attention to the relationships between the characters, and wanted a stereotypical Fight The Evil Team plot so they can make Rose into one of their Big Baddie Daddies™️ when in reality he’s just a petulant man child who should have never been put in charge of anything, had absolute power over the region, and traumatized a bunch of children FOR LITERALLY NO FUCKING REASON

Maybe if you didn’t cheat your way through highschool English it would make sense you half-baked reddit-crawling dorito gremlins

[boonesfarmsangria]

Foals — math rock with a touch of the blues

The band’s frontman Yannis Philippakis talks about the ups and downs of success

When you’re at the stage of your career that Foals are, says Yannis Philippakis, you realise what you are missing. You can be, like Foals, a genuinely big band — all their six albums have reached the UK top 10; they can fill arenas; they headline festivals — but you operate with the dangers reduced. There is a management structure around you, a record label behind you, booking agents and promoters running your tours. There is no risk. The possibilities are known, rather than boundless.

“I feel I slightly sentimentalise nostalgia, how fast the time has gone, and how far away from the past I feel,” says Philippakis, Foals’ 33-year-old singer, guitarist, lyricist and de facto public leader, drinking coffee and smoking in the garden of a south London pub on a brisk Monday in early autumn. He is recalling Foals’ beginnings, in Oxford in the middle of the last decade, when they formed part of a scene of groups in the city indulging in the recondite, twitchy subgenre known as “math rock”.

“I didn’t appreciate how exciting and fertile it felt to be young and part of the scene, and to feel that what you were doing was, or had the potential to become, part of the cultural zeitgeist. It’s not just that, though. It’s the sense of endless options, the endless unknown, and also risk and things being precarious.” When Foals began, he says, “We saved and bought a Royal Mail van. I booked our shows, we made our own badges, we’d book a tour in a half term, and then we’d throw a house party afterwards. We made our name by being nimble, doing guerrilla house parties that could get out of control.

“There’s something about the organisation and the plotting of it now that I don’t find in any way exciting. But that’s how it has to be. Now that we have actually succeeded I feel proud and I think we’ve made some great music, but there is a kind of safety there that we’re trying to wrestle with.”

Foals have tried to wrestle with safety this year by defying conventional wisdom and releasing two albums within six months of each other. Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost — Part 1 came out in March, reached No 2 and was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. Part 2 follows later this month. The first record was loosely concerned with strife and conflict and the sheer bloody awfulness of things; the second deals — equally loosely — with the personal reaction to and aftermath of that. They are, Philippakis agrees, more or less the apocalyptic and the post-apocalyptic records. Though they sound more like a beefed-up Talking Heads than, say, Metallica.

The lyrics to this second album are twitchy and paranoid — on “Wash Off” he contemplates, wonderfully, the possibility of people assuming he has died in a plane crash in the Pacific. Was that just to tell a story, or is that the way he is? “The pH of my brain is that twitchy and that paranoid.”

There’s an edge to him that has cropped up throughout Foals’ career, and which, around the time of the album Total Life Forever in 2010, manifested itself in a series of self-flagellating, soul-baring interviews, which upset his family and which he now regrets. Things got better for him the following year, when he fell in love, but you don’t need to push too hard to get a sense of his unease. He notes, for example, how it is now impossible to make new friends, and it would be a lot harder for him to fall in love with someone.

“A lot of the people you meet are through the band, and then there’s a kind of hierarchy.” A power dynamic, in the sense that you are the guy in a big rock band, and they aren’t? “Yes, a power dynamic that doesn’t allow for the sense of playful equilibrium that is important to meeting someone and falling in love. I haven’t made many new friends for a long time. All of my closest friends are people that pre-existed the band, definitely. I’ve made new acquaintances. But it’s definitely a different thing.”

It’s the sense of endless options, the endless unknown, and also risk and things being precarious.

He says he used to use interviews as a form of counselling: “There’s a therapeutic quality in talking to strangers who are listening and asking probing questions. But that then being turned into the printed word that is discarded a few days later is cheapening something. Particularly when it’s private issues that are important and sensitive.” Now, though, he has got better at recognising his own problems and how to deal with them, rather than spilling them out for the benefit of whoever happens to pick up a newspaper.

“I definitely feel that I’m having to start self-determining when things are going too far,” he says. “I didn’t know there’s anyone really around me that is looking out for my health. I’m obsessive. I have character traits that aren’t necessarily the healthiest. I have to now try and put up parameters about things, and nobody else will do that for me. And that’s a problem in the music industry in general. So I’m having to be more mindful of that. Because I don’t want to burn out. I want to make music for 15 or 20 years, and I don’t want to be a husk. But there’s a part of me that’s attracted to oblivion as well.”

When Philippakis was first trying to put together groups, he used to woo potential bandmates in the same way people wooed the opposite sex in the days of C90 cassettes: by making mixtapes. First there were tapes of metal bands, then industrial groups such as Skinny Puppy and Einstürzende Neubauten (“No one wanted to be in that band”), and then noisy art-rock and post-rock bands like Sonic Youth and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. And you can hear something of the mixtape in Foals’ albums, especially the two Everything Not Lost albums, which encompass fairly gnarly rock, skittering electronics, funkily tropical music and more. Even in the age of track streaming, the notion of the album, the long form work that encompasses an arc and tells its listener a story is Philippakis’s love.

“I still think about music on the album scale,” he says. “I don’t think about individual songs, I think about trying to make a body of work that sits alongside other records. There is something of inherent value in the album. Being able to live with music for longer than three minutes. And for things to unfurl themselves, and to have relationships and interactions between the songs. There’s something rich in that, that you don’t get by having just these disembodied pieces of music that are slotted into some larger grid.”

Just like making a mixtape, really. Except now he doesn’t need to recruit band members with them.

Interview || Michael Hann || FT

[hellyeahheroes]

Building Virgil Hawkins in D&D

I need to distract myself from this X-Men melodrama shit so I’m doing another D&D build. This time how about we try to build one of Dwayne’s McDuffie’s greatest creation, electric nerd from Dakota, who may be known to you as Static or

First, let us consider the goals of this build. We need to accurately reflect Virgil’s wide array of powers, including electric and magnetic abilities, some sort of healing and resistance to mind control and telepaths and few of Static’s iconic moves. And second, we need to get him his floating disc.

For Abilities, we will be using standard point array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8). As always I follow some of the guidelines from Tulok the Barbarian who inspired the creation of these builds. If you want or your DM tells you to roll or use point buy, go ahead and use this is a guideline. Remember that even numbers are better. We will prioritize Intelligence, Virgil is a textbook superhero with a textbook in each hand. Constitution will follow as de facto one of the most important stats in the game, then Dexterity and Wisdom, our lowest stats being Charisma and Strength. The base should look like this STR: 8 CON: 14 DEX: 13 INT: 15 WIS: 12 CHA: 10

Now for D&D outdated term for species, Race. As a Boom Baby Virgil is a Human of the Variant kind. Variant Human gets +1 to two Ability scores, I suggest rounding up numbers for Intelligence and Dexterity. You also get a bonus skill, choose Acrobatics

Variant Humans also get a feat. We will pick Magic Initiate, letting us grab two Cantrips and one 1st level spell from Cleric spell list - we can cast Cantrips as much as we want but we can cast 1st level spell only once per long lest and only on the lowest level. 

Sacred Flame forces a single target to make a Dexterity saving throw or take 1d8 radiant damage - this scales with your total level to 2d8 at 5th, 3d8 at 11th and 4d8 at 17th level - you can easily say it is one of Static’s bolts of electricity since radiant damage is basically light and light is s form of energy. 

Speaking of which, our second Cantrip will be Light. Upon touching an object, not larger than 10 feet in any dimension, you make it emanate bright light in a 20-foot radius and dim light in the next 20 feet. It lasts for one hour, until you cast it again or take an action to dismiss it.

For 1st level spell, we will pick Cure Wounds, which allows us to regain 1d8+ your wisdom modifier of hit points. This is one way to give Static his, admittingly minor, healing powers.

For the Background, we will customize one. Pick up two skills - Perception and Athletics. The former is one of the most important skills in the game and the latter is only skill tied to Strength - meaning that if your DM asks to have you roll a Strength save or check you can likely argue it should be Athletics check instead. Take proficiency with Herbalism Kit to make yourself healing potions and a free language of your choice, pick something campaign relevant. And Watcher’s Eye feature from City Watch’s background, which allows you to recognize easier secret hideouts of local law enforcement and criminal organizations.

Now for the Class. While he received his powers through a freak accident, Virgil is known from his creative and intelligent approach to his abilities, he clearly studied them and related physics to do what he can do. As such, we will make him a Wizard. Besides, this is an RPG nerd, I bet you he played enough D&D to know Wizard is Tier 1 class across the editions.

We get proficiencies with daggers, darts, slings, light crossbows and quarterstaffs (which is close to a weapon Static used in one of the incarnations but useless for the build), Intelligence and Wisdom saving throws and two skills, pick Investigation and Arcana, which is closest D&D fantasy setting has to science.

Wizard’s main powers are spells. You get a spellbook to which you copy spells, each new spell copied takes 2 hours and costs 50 gp. Each day during long rest you choose which spells to prepare for next day, equal in number and level to the numbers show in Spell Slots Per Day part of Wizard table plus your Intelligence modifier. They cannot be of a higher level than that of which you have available spell slots. I see it as Virgil having a notebook to which he writes down his new ideas how to use his powers and keeping notes on how they work.

If a spell asks you to make an attack roll it is with your proficiency modifier + your Intelligence modifier. If it asks for a saving throw, the difficulty of the save is those two modifiers plus eight. 

First, we learn Cantrips, small spells that Static can cas as many times as he wants. We start with 3 of them and my suggestions are:

Lightning Lure - the target must make a Strength saving throw of be pulled 10 feet towards you and take lightning damage - which scales up with your total level just like Sacred Flame above - if it ends 5 feet or less away from you.

Prestidigitation - just a number of minor utility effects that are fun to have and can easily be portrayed as you using your electric powers to make them happen.

Shocking Grasp - you make a melee attack, with an advantage if the target is wearing metal armor, on a hit you deal 18d lightning damage (see the mentions of scaling above, same deal here) and cannot take reactions until the start of its next turn. Virgil has a different name for it, obviously

We also start having six 1st-level spells in the Spellbook. I’ll list my suggestions and then will list spells for higher levels whenever you get new spell slots for it but remember, you can add any number of spells you come across as long as you have the money for it so if you see something that feels especially Static-like or just good to have, go ahead and get it. 

Shield is cast as a reaction to upcoming attack or an enemy casting Magic Missle, it lasts one round and gives you +5 to Armor Class and protects from Magic Missle

Absorb Elements is also a reaction spell letting you gain resistance to upcoming damage of any elemental type, and then deliver 1d6 damage of that type to the first person who hits you. I see it as some of Static’s resistance to other electric powers.

Witch Bolt deals the target 1d12 lightning damage AND you can then stay and concentrate for up to one minute, to make it take another 1d12 damage on each turn as long as you won’t do anything else, target doesn’t move from the area or won’t hide behind a cover, making you lose the sight of it. And it scales if you cast it from a higher spell slot, adding extra d12 for a level.

Feather Fall lets you slow the fall of up to five targets for one minute, if they land in this time they take no damage and land on their feet. Explain it as Virgil using some of his magnetic powers.

Chromatic Orb is another offensive spell, it allows you to make a ranged spell attack for 3d8 (+1d8 for each additonal level of a slot from which you cast it) damage of chosen type. Since this is Static you’ll be likely choosing lightning or thunder or maybe fire (as with any spell dealing fire damage I’ll bring up, just say the target got burned by lightning) as lighting ball, but acid, cold and poison are also available in a pinch.

Mage Armor increases your armor class to 13 + your Dexterity modifier, which may go a long way since you do not wear armor. Write it off as Static wrapping his body in a protective magnetic forcefield. Also, it stacks with Shield since it changes how your AC functions and Shield is a bonus to your AC, just saying for incoming conflict with the DM.

EXTRA: Tenser's Floating Disk lets you create a disc that can follow you and carry up to 500 pounds of weight but you cannot ride it as it has no power to move on its own. It is a poor substitute for Static’s disc but if you have a generous DM you might talk about it and work something out, maybe agree to combine it with your flying spells. If not, ignore this bullet point

Finally, you get Arcane Recovery, allowing you to regain some of your expended spell slots every short rest. These spell slots cannot be of level higher than 6th and their combined level cannot be higher than half of your wizard level rounded up.

On 2nd level Wizard gets to choose Arcane Tradition and we’ll pick School of Theurgy. it allows us to choose one of the Cleric domains and gain a limited number of benefits from it. We will explain it as Virgil trying to study nature of his powers from all angles, both Arcane and the Divine since we’re treating magic as replacement science for this build. We will choose Tempest Domain. From now on you whenever you can advance in levels you can replace one of the spells in your spellbook with Cleric Domain spell of a level you have spell slots for. If one of the spells I suggested isn’t working out for you or you picked a spare spell to replace (or just stumbled across it because it is also a Wizard spell), grab Thunderwave - it forces every creature in 15-feet radius from you to make a Constitution saving throw or take 2d8 thunder damage and be pushed 10 feet away from you.

You also get Channel Arcana, allowing you to copy effects of Cleric Channel Divinity feature, you can do it once per short or long rest (twice from 6th level and three times from 18th) and choose one of two options. Destructive Wrath lets you not roll damage on a spell dealing lightning or thunder damage - you just declare it deals maximum damage. Divine Arcana lets you add +2 to an attack roll or saving throw difficulty of a next spell you cast if it requires one.

The third option is Turn Undead, which basically frightens undead creatures that see you - everyone must make a Wisdom saving throw at your spell save difficulty or be turned for 1 minute or until it takes damage. It forces them to spend its turn moving away from you, makes them unable to willingly move closer than 30 feet towards you and is prevented all actions or reactions other than dash to get out of what doesn’t let it move or dodge if it cannot move. I guess we all know now why Static wasn’t in Blackest Night as he would make Nekron and all Black Lanterns run back where they came from.

And 3rd level you get 2 2nd level spell slots so I think it’s time we get you your Static Cling. We will need two spells for it. Spider Climb is a concentration spell that allows you to walk on walls up for one hour. Hold Person forces a Wisdom Saving throw to a forced target, making it paralyzed as long as you maintain concentration, up to one minute, with additional saving throws at the end of each of its turns. If cast from a higher-level spell slot it can affect an extra target for each level.

On 4th level, you get an ability score improvement, boost your Intelligence. For your next 3rd level spell pick Levitate, it lets you make yourself or another target float in the air and control on what height it is. Living creatures can move with speed as if they were climbing. If your DM is generous, convince them to let you combine it into one spell with Tenser’s Floating Disc. If not, cas it at a metal disc tied to your feet and move with your other leg like a skateboard or just try other tricks to get that effect, something may get past the DM.

You also learn a new Cantrip, Booming Blade lets you make a weapon melee attack. On a hit, the target is coated energy until your next turn and if it willingly moves, it will take 1d8 Thunder Damage, scaling to 2d8 once you reach 5th level, 3d8 on 11th and 4d8 on 17th, from 5th level the attack itself also deals extra 1d8 lightning damage and an additional 1d8 from levels 11th and 17th

5th level Wizard learns two 3rd level spells and you get a 3rd one on 6th level.

Protection from Energy grants you or someone else up to 1 hour of resistance to the chosen type of damage and lighting and thunder are both on the list of options

Lightning Bolt lets you deal to each creatures in 100 feet long and 5 feet wide line 8d6 lightning damage (+1d6 for each additional level from which you cast the spell) and a half on a Dexterity saving throw. 

Fly lets you give a target a flying speed of 60 feet for the duration but it is a concentration spell so be careful. Also, unlike Levitate if you are still in the air when it ends you fall on your face.

On 6th level, you also get your Arcane Tradition Feature. Arcane Acolyte lets you grab Tempest Cleric’s Wrath of the Storm, which you can use as a reaction when hit by a melee attack from a creature you can see to deal 2d8 lightning or thunder damage to it or half on a successful Dexterity saving throw.

On 7th and 8th Level you gain 1 4th level spell each. 

Elemental Bane lets you remove resistance from a target that fails its constitution save and take additional 2d6 damage each time it is dealt damage of chosen type. It is sadly concentration so you may need to cooperate with someone else on it. Consider it for a Black Lightning team-up. 

Storm Sphere creates a 20-foot radius sphere of whirring air that forces creatures inside to make a Strength saving throw or take 2d6 bludgeoning damage, turns area inside into difficult terrain and allows you to, while maintaining concentration on it, on each turn take a bonus action to make a ranged spell attack with an advantage against a target inside for 4d6 lightning damage.

On 8th level, you get an ability score improvement, but we will take a feat. Elemental Adept lets you ignore resistance to lightning damage and whenever you roll damage for them, you treat any 1 on the dice as a 2.

9th Level Wizard gets 5th level spells 

We will grab one from Tempest Domain - Call Lightning. It works only outside and creates storm clouds above you in 60-foot radius, then choose a spot and made it hit by lightning, dealing 3d10 lightning damage to all creatures within 5 feet from that point, half on a successful DEX save. You can maintain concentration up to 10 minutes to make this continue and make another lighting strike on each of your turns. It deals extra 1d10 damage when cast from a higher level and an extra 1d10 if there was already stormy weather when you cast it. I’m sure there is a scientific explanation on Virgil suddenly stepping on Storm’s territory but I sucked at physics.

We also get an extra 4th Level Spell. Fire Shield surrounds your body in thin flames for 10 minutes, no concentration, that provide you light and either a) resistance to cold damage and 2d8 fire damage to a creature that hit you or b) resistance to fire damage and 2d8 cold damage. Explain it as Virgil using electricity and it burning whoever touched him.

10th Level wizard gets a new Cantrip and a new 5th Level Spell

Our Cantrip will be Mage Hand, it creates an invisible hand that can do minor things for you up to 30 feet away. It cannot attack or activate magic items or carry more than 10 pounds but it is a good way to show Virgil’s magnetic powers performing minor tasks. 

Our 5th Level Spell is gonna be Wall of Force, it summons a, maintained by concentration up to 10 minutes, invisible wall through which nothing can pass, be it enemies, projectiles, spells or even ghosts (no, seriously) and it cannot be dispelled by Dispel Magic. The only way to destroy it is a Disintegrate spell.

On 10th level we get a new Arcane Tradition feature and School of Theurgy grants us Thunderous Strike from a Tempest Domain. Thunderous strike lets you push a Large or smaller creature up to 10 feet away from you whenever you deal it thunder or lightning damage.

11th Level Wizard opens for us 6th Level Spells. Chain Lighting hits a single target and then up to 3 other targets (+1 extra if you cast it from higher levels) within 30 feet from it and deals them 10d8 Lightning Damage, half on a successful Dexterity saving throw.

12th level wizard gets an Ability Score Improvement, cap your Intelligence as your most important stat.

13th Level Wizard gets 7th Level Spells. Forcecage traps creatures within 20 feet radius inside an invisible force-field that they cannot leave through nonmagical means, can’t be dispelled by Dispel Magic and traps even ghosts. It lasts up to 1 hour. Attempts at teleporting out of it are successful on Charisma saving throw so it’s a good thing we just maxed out our Save Difficulty.

14th Level gives us our last School of Theurgy Arcane Feature, Tempest Cleric’s Stormborn. You now have a flying speed equal your walking speed as long as you’re outside. Honestly, at this point, you can forgo other flying means and grab a disc and just say you use it to surf in the air, DM should understand.

15th Level means 8th Level Spells. Mind Blank for 24 hours, no concentration needed, gives immunity to psychic damage, sensing emotions, reading thoughts, frightened and charmed conditions through magical means and divination spells, even up to including freaking Wish. Cast one on you each morning to never fear you may get kidnapped and exposed to Anti-Life Equation

16th Level Wizard gets Ability Score Improvement, I suggest adding +2 to Constitution - many of your spells are concentration so you don’t want to blow that check and extra hit points (and remember, upgrading your Constitution grants you extra his points retroactively as well).

17th Level allows us to pick a 9th level spell. We will reach our last gift from Tempest Cleric - Destructive Wave. This spell deals every creature within a 30-foot radius from you 5d6 thunder damage and 5d6 radiant or necrotic damage or half of it on successful Dexterity saving throw. Amusingly enough it is a paladin spell that Cleric only gets as a bonus from Tempest Domain and we got it on a Wizard due to School of Theurgy. No one can say Virgil hasn’t studied his powers thoughtfully.

18th level grants us Spell Mastery, allowing us to pick a single 1st level spell and a single 2nd level spell. From now on when Virgil has them prepared he can cast them as Cantrips, as many times as he wants without spending a spell slot, but only at their lowest level, higher ones still require a spent spell slot. Don’t worry about your picks, if they don’t work changing them costs you only 8 hours of study.

We also get a 5th level spell slot and my recommendation is Hold Monster - it basically works like Hold Person but is not limited in who can it be used against. See it as Virgil improving his Static Cling power.

19th Level Wizard gets the last Ability Score Improvement but we will once again take a feat. Even better we will take the same feat as before - Elemental Adept, now granting its bonuses to another type of damage we’re dealing, thunder.

We get a new spell slot for 6th level spells. Globe of Invulnerability surrounds you with a 10-foot radius force field that can be upheld with Concentration up to 1 minute. No 5th level spell cast outside the globe can affect the area within it and vice-versa and this effect blocks one additional level of spells for each level of spell slot above 6th that you cast it from.

20th Level Wizard allows us to choose 3 3rd-level spells as Signature Spells. It basically works like Spell Mastery described above plus these spells are always prepared and do not count against our limit of spells prepared. They don’t even have to be spells we were discussing here, as that level has some fan-favorite utility spells like Counterspell, Dispel Magic or Haste.

We also get a new 7th level spell slot. Reverse Gravity causes everyone in a 50-foot radius to fly upwards for 100 feet and if they hit something on their way they take damage as if they feel on the ground from above.

And so we have it, Static as a 20th level Wizard. How playable it is? I mean, it’s a 20th level wizard, so a very much. You have several means to fly, can dish out a lot of damage and overcome resistance and have enough means to protect yourself and control the battlefield. On the downside you’re squishy and if Power Word: Kill won’t get you instantly, one or two hits should likely bring you down within the range. We didn’t cap Constitution which is means concentration is not as good as it should be, lack of armor and low Dexterity means we’re easy to hit and forces us to rely on all these protective spells and stay away from the first line. Finally, even with Elemental Adept Lightning and Thunder are things a lot of enemies will be resistant or even immune to. But unlike his comic book, D&D is a team effort so join forces with someone more durable, who can take a hit. And in a pinch remember you can pick up more spells than the ones I listed. Say what you want about him, but Static has shown he can think on his feet.

You have any suggestions or criticism about the build? Be sure to share them, And check out my previous Cassandra Cain and Nico Minoru builds.

- Admin