#portrait (dyvj)

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

who do each of the altruists view as the most dangerous/formidable hound to fight?

I have a few Hounds-thinking-on-Altruists asks! They're all on my radar but for now I'll address one of the easier ones (need to keep my actual writing time in mind!)

Portrait - depends how exactly his encounter shook out. If Ghoul absorbed a construct, he has them SUPER high on his list, otherwise it'd be competing between Paradigm, Ghoul, and Architect (i.e. if Paradigm got the drop on him, they're higher, and so on)

Surpass - usually Dime unless they ran away or she completely kicked their ass, otherwise Architect.

Vantage - Architect unless Dime is very violent. (otherwise, she views Architect as more dangerous for having a powerful underling)

Arcade - Rampage, as she significantly counters him.

Enfilade - Hand-to-hand specialised Paradigm, otherwise Fracture because he can tank her shit.

Phalanx - Architect, since she considers him the brains of the operation.

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

Hounds' Altruist hot takes - Portrait

Portrait

Architect

Behaviour: Dislikes anyone that would take a hostage, and doesn't particularly respect the ruthlessness.

Abilities: Someone who can change the terrain is always of interest to Portrait. Considers him to be a handful, given his mobility and defensive capabilities. Very curious about how their powers interact.

Rampage

Behaviour: Reminds him of a hothead he knows, and not in a good way.

Abilities: Oh great, someone else who's going to truck my constructs left right and centre.

Fracture

Behaviour: ...That's gotta hurt, right?

Abilities: Should be containable (as in, possible to pin down with the constructs), but Portrait doesn't much like the resources he'd have to expend to do it. Not great if all three have to pile on to take someone out of the fight.

Ghoul

Behaviour: Thinks they're pretty smart and knows their way around fighting with a disadvantage.

Abilities: Mentioned this previously, but considers them massively more dangerous if they drained him or his constructs. Portrait Does Not Like that someone can just eat his constructs. Otherwise, finds them to be surprisingly annoying to deal with.

Wyrd

Behaviour: Cocky. Not sure why. Not like they've earned it.

Abilities: Not a threat. The constructs don't really care about a baseball bat.

Dime

Behaviour: N/A (variance)

Abilities: Oh what the heck is this. Don't like the tendrils don't like the nodes/mutations, the carapace is a Problem if the constructs can't deal with it. Why do they have no face. Why do they have no eyes (or ALL the eyes)

frigging weird.

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

can i forcefem portrait

I don't think estrogen fixes Portrait

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

Can't wait for the next patron update! I'm sure my 11% Subterfuge Dime will do a great job acting normal and not suspicious. Though I worry Troy does not understand the canonically cataclysmic levels of Rizz he is inviting home...

TROY WAS AN UNEXPECTED DELIGHT TBH. He fully realised as a person as I wrote that conversation; like I knew what Portrait the hero was like, but not Portrait the dude, if that makes sense.

but YEAH have fun handling this brick-subtle dimes!

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

The evidence fades every update. But Alistair being Portrait will always be cannon in my heart. We stan a timid king💘

oh man next update is gonna be the real nail in the coffin when they're in the same place at the--

sorry what was that? why? uhh

don't worry about it!

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

How would the glory hounds (and altruists) treat their fans? (Phalanx especially. If Phalanx had a million fans I am one of them, etc etc etc)

oh I've got thoughts on this.

Vantage is a consummate professional, meaning she can come across as a little distant, but she does make time for fans and puts her whole heart into representing the Hounds well.

Enfilade is a deer in the headlights. She's comfortable in combat, she's not comfortable in social, and she comes from a background where anything she had to say in public was rigorously scripted and planned out. She's nervy enough about it to be accidentally rude at times.

Surpass loves the spotlight. A little too much, probably. She likes to show off and wow the fans, though there's also a like... tangible barrier she prefers to maintain. Crowds are fine, one to one is less fine. She can do it in short bursts, but she'd rather not spend a lot of time. She gets uncomfortable.

Portrait is great with fans and as mentioned in his game bio, does a lot of outreach within Alderbrook, so he probably has the most direct involvement with fans out of anyone (though he'd say that it's more involvement with people, you know?). Always ready to make out a personalised autograph.

This is Arcade's *scene*. He's the poster boy for the Hounds a lot of the time. He's charismatic and good with people, and he has an image as The Guy for the fans. It's a bit more... calculated than it may come across; like, the corporate side of the Hounds put him into those positions on purpose. He does genuinely like doing it though, he's just conscious about his image.

Phalanx is guarded with fans. A little like Enfilade, there's complications around her ditching the DPR for independent heroing. She did not like having obligations to interact in the DPR. So yeah, in general she's pretty distant and has low tolerance for bullshit. She'll be polite but not warm.

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

hounds for the dnd question?

Sure!

Surpass - Takes mild offence to the implication that she'll only play a class that walks around whacking things with sticks, proceeds to take a 'whack first, questions later' approach to everything. But I could see this being either a barbarian or a sorcerer. Because y'know, what is a fireball but a big exploding stick?

Arcade - A smooth-talkin' disaster rogue.

Portrait - Wizard. Immediately gets a familiar. Protects familiar with his life. Somehow adopts half the animals the party encounters.

Enfilade - Plays paladin because it seems to make the most sense with her morals. Really tense about the whole roleplaying thing, and struggles to loosen up.

Vantage - Unholy cross class munchkin who will break the entire game given half a chance, and so restricts herself to DMing instead.

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

Secretary's DYVJ OC

Or, a study in character design by the secretary.

Hello my audience of fools and creatives, this is how me, the Secretary, designed past characters for Drink Your Villain Juice. I've designed a couple of the beloved gamers such as random one-off heroes (hello, Portrait, my beloved), and the one and only Wil (which some of you really love).

The background:

We have a free spot on the SCUM team, which is essentially a super-violent villain team doing very atrocious team for what appears to be no reason in particular. While this isn't entirely true since tragically people have motivations to hurt others (even if it's just fun!), SCUM attracts, well, scummy people and also people who may or may have no other choice than to choose these sorts of groups. They may be groomed into a role, forced to rely on violence to keep certain people at bay, or might just have been repeatedly failed by the systems than they were supposed to be protected by.

With this free spot in mind and the other characters already having fixed roles, we need a character to fit a specific niche.

The niche is secret for the audience, but essentially, we need a female character that counterbalances the other female characters within the team + illustrates a typical trope of villain characters. As you might have noticed, many of the characters within the story kinda play on tropes: Surpass is super(wo)man but a jerk, MC is a trope on the chosen hero being a villain, etc.

I'm pretty interested in making a character who might unironically have some sort of sex appeal going on. So let's brainstorm:

The base concept:

I think female characters within superhero fiction often have to rely on sex appeal to keep an audience engaged. It's rare to find a character like this within TV or comics or books that has any sort of depth to them - but the thing is, this is a one-off villain so how do I give the audiences the tool to discern the character's backstory. I have a couple of ideas:

Lack of armor and mask: This is a reckless character. She lacks foresight in protecting herself. Maybe she doesn't view herself in a good light, and maybe she doesn't even care if her face is shown to the world. Maybe she lost too much to care about her body being hurt and her face being plastered on every wall - or maybe that's exactly what she wants to punish herself.

Collected jewelry from her victims: A means to intimidate, really. If this is someone who has lost it all, gaining these small possessions mean that she holds controls over somebody. It might be tied to her power - or not! - but it is obviously tied to her psyche. Maybe she was riding the high life and it came crashing down, or maybe it's a physical manifestation of all the lives she had taken in the past as a physical mark on her body.

Trashy expensive clothes: To really solidifies the concept of someone who has lost it, maybe anchor the physical manifestation of the character by trashed wealth. Clothes that are too expensive or reserved for special occasions are being torn apart. They are mish-mashed because the character is holding down to past wealth despite the lack of coordination. What if she is also taking the clothes of the female victims? Could she be green with envy that someone is living the life she wanted to life or had lived?

With these three characters point, let's move to appearance.

The physical manifestation of her psyche, and what it means to be her:

She is an attractive woman down on her luck. She fits the specific standard of beauty within the region. She wears clothes and jewelry that are expensive, but obviously aren't hers by the way they don't fit. Her clothes are poorly mended clothes, showing that she tries to put forward a tidy image, with blood that doesn't seem to wash out, implying not everybody gave their clothes willingly. She also has too many necklaces, bracelets, and rings, especially wedding rings. If someone shone a light on her, people would be blinded by the dazzling. She wears too much makeup, caking her features, and it hides her real emotions from the cracks and drip of sweat that she is obviously exerting. Her lack of armour reveals a body that isn't honed for combat or physical exertion, implying that whatever makes her able to keep going is more psychological than physical. She may be a tad overweight, and "letting herself go" would most likely be what she would say about herself, but someone with a keen eye might be able to grasp that she is comfortable in this new life. She carries herself with a lack of confidence that makes herself appear as arrogant. She doesn't flinch, she doesn't get scared, she doesn't run - but she is clearly despondent at whatever her fate might be.

It would take a miracle to fix her, but by that point, she might have killed too much to go back.

Tying it all together with a knot:

I opted for the name Spring Breaker. Spring Break is a time for young people to go out somewhere sunny and get tanned - or at least, that's what I've learned from Jersey Shore. I think this character might be a past college student, having ignited during her spring break, and losing what was making herself. Her power should also be based on water. It would make sense with the theme of womanhood being a failed state for her since water is often seen as a feminine and passive element. But she isn't passive, she only has an image of it to probably protect what she holds on to - which is her appearance. Maybe, her power could involve drowning people which a lot of sirens, which one could say that she is, are known to do to take the riches of sailors.

So what about a young woman who was on spring break and was involved in someone's death by drowning. She might have pushed them into the ocean, or maybe have forced them underwater, due to her envy for their wealth. She ignited with the ability to constantly relive that trauma that ruined her life. In a way to punish herself, she names herself Spring Breaker, lacks a real civilian or mask identity, and puts herself in situations where she finds herself forced to drown people. She also wants to go back to before, when she was able to buy expensive clothes and have the jewelry she liked, but every time she grabs someone's chain and puts it on her neck, she finds herself back in the pool causing her downfall.

Her place as a villain:

Spring Breaker is an infiltrator in SCUM. She is what one could be best described as an assassin, taking out targets in the surroundings of the fight, and slowing going toward the fight. She takes out people from the back and makes her way forward. Her power is simple: she coats anything she touches in a thin film of water, dry drowning those with the misfortune to be grappled by her. Her ignition gave her the compulsion to steal valuables - or maybe she had it all along but now has a very good excuse - which enables her ability to rob people. Her costume changes based on what happened last time. She might wear a two-piece swimsuit with a feathered boa one time, or a see-through babydoll dress with lace underwear, or maybe a full-length gown with three bullet holes she couldn't mend around the abdomen. In every case, she leaves behind her drowned and drowning bodies, stripped of valuables.

She is obviously a bad person, but it's hard not to pity her by the way she sulks around. Some may say she should be put down for her own good, but others think she should taken out for the bodies left in her wake. Spring Breaker thinks it's a bit of column A and column B.

Final notes:

i think i can fix her

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

how strong & how fast are the strongest & fastest people the public is aware of in dyvj?

I hesitate to put exact numbers because in a 'comic books' setting this type of stuff is often subject to fuzz (and generally people are a lot more resilient to damage than they necessarily would be).

However, Surpass can comfortably demolish brick walls or pick up cars, while her super speed is more on the lines of crossing a room in a split second (she's described as blurring rather than like, invisibly fast)

There are speedsters and ....strengthsters who are a cut above Surpass in the overall setting, but they're also sir-not-appearing-in-this-IF Probably

what would the cast wear to a costume party?

Mal - is the costume party

Wil - vampire, but with like sick ass makeup. and gets legitimately surprised when people are like "yeah obviously you'd be a vampire"

Teddie - sans sheet ghost

Kay - skeleton and super ham about it to try and make Teddie laugh

Dion - robot

CG - goes as like, King from Tekken

Alistair - something nerdy like an RTS character

Arcade - raver

Enfilade - is super awkward about the whole thing and overthinks resulting in a costume that kind of just looks like regular clothes even though she's being like a really specific character and is subsequently embarrassed and having to explain it constantly and winds up going home early thinking she's really bad at this

Surpass - herself. then laughs and reveals like, a wrestler costume

Vantage - like, a cat. really proud of the effort she put in Portrait - oh this guy is an extra motherfucker and probably like tailored the whole thing himself, and he isn't even necessarily anything specific he just wants people to see his like, rainbow fucking sequin and fake feathers cloak

Phalanx - Her armour. When asked, says "It is my costume, is it not?"

Silly question maybe, but are you a big superhero fan? Like, do you get all the comics, do you watch the media or do you have some basic knowledge and like it but you're not super invested. (Super, haha.)

I actually wrote about this a bit on my patreon! (public post)

I don't really watch superhero movies/shows/read comics these days. I'm not a big TV and film watcher so something really has to grab me to go and see it, and a lot of the more recent Marvel stuff is too heavy on the spectacle and light on the story/character for my tastes.

Love Spiderverse though. Those movies slap.