#whyyyyyyyy does he 'want' to go back to a woman he met for a day (or two?) a decade ago????!!!

[the-redhead-in-a-dress]

Can we have a Menagerie AU, but its Spock and La'an abducting Chris together and stealing the Enterprise to bring him to Una whose been exiled to an Illyrian colony...

[see notes for my feelings on the Menagerie ep]

[nevermindirah]

Dorothy Freeman facts

By facts I of course mean headcanons, because Nile's mom doesn't get a first name in canon (or even confirmation that her last name is Freeman). All we know about her is the picture on Nile's phone lock screen (which is Kiki Layne's real-life mom and brother!) and a few lines that Nile tells Andy about her. I’ve been collecting my Dorothy headcanons for a while now to eventually make a post, and @mprosperossprite​‘s excellent post giving non-Americans context for what it means that Nile is from the South Side of Chicago prompted me to go ahead and share this. Disclaimer that I’m white and I will absolutely make corrections if it’s pointed out that I’ve caused harm with any of this.

So here have some fun facts about the version of Mama Freeman who lives in my head rent-free:

Her family and growing up:

she was born in the mid-'60s and named after Dorothy Dandridge

I can’t decide whether she was born in Chicago or moved there later on (maybe with Nile’s dad?) and when in the waves of the Great Migration her family left the South

she came of age in the "post"-Civil Rights movement and went to college in the mid-80s when a lot of what are now the foundational classics of Black feminism were being written

she was a young adult when Anita Hill risked so much to report that a Supreme Court nominee had sexually harassed her, and as a result she HATES Joe Biden

Marriage and babies:

she met Nile's father — I can’t decide how they met and I have two competing headcanons for his name, either Gideon for the hefty Biblical masculinity vibes (Giddy for short among family, that man loved to laugh) or Carl, which started out as a shitty Carl’s Jr burger chain joke that turns out to be perfect (it means free man!), and @knoepfchen​ used it in the sequel to if you do take a thief where Carl is alive!! — and Dorothy was a little skeptical of his near-religious devotion to the military but he was really hot and really devoted to her and they made it work

she's a little pissed that she was right but it's unbearable if she thinks about it too often

it's going to be a long, long time before she can look back on pictures of Baby Nile stomping around the house in her dad's combat boots (this is a Gina Prince Bythewood headcanon, whyyyyyyyy can I not find a link to where she said this)

she named their second baby Indus, Indy for short (this is nearly as established fanon in Book of Nile circles as how much Booker loves eating pussy, and Indy Freeman as a young adult is portrayed by either Aldis Hodge or John Boyega I don’t make the rules)

Work:

Dorothy did some office jobs but nothing really grabbed her, and she was probably gonna have to move for her husband's career, so she decided on teaching — high school humanities

she’s been active in CTU (one of the strongest teacher’s unions in the US) her whole career and one year she was on the bargaining committee and her babies know damn well never to trust a boss, not even one who says all the right things — if she ever finds out the way Nile said "like Quynh?" when Andy promised to protect her, she will lose her mind with pride

(Nile was 18 and freshly graduated from high school in 2012 when CTU went on strike for the first time in a generation and she brought her mom snacks on the picket line)

one of her very favorite things is getting her students to laugh despite themselves at her "oh my GOD you're so EMBARRASSING" old-people jokes

she's one of those teachers who can get 30+ teenagers to go dead silent with judicious application of body language

she's known to occasionally go easy on grading subjective things like essays when she knows students are having a particularly rough time at home, but the second she gets the feeling they're taking advantage and not trying their best that shit is over and they better mind their Ps & Qs

she's the kind of person who says old-people shit like that

she gives her students assignments like "help 5 neighbors register to vote" and "write a compare/contrast table about the candidates in this local election" and "research 5 different ways you could get grant money to do X" and other practical civic-minded shit

standardized testing is her supervillain origin story, just kidding it’s Rahm Emanuel, why the fuck did Obama trust that asshole

After her husband died:

she would have lost her goddamn mind if it weren't for her church friends after her husband died, people from the church raised money so they could make ends meet while his pension paperwork was taking forever, church friends watched Indy so Nile could go out for the soccer team, etc etc

she sold her and her late husband's house and moved to a 3-bedroom co-op unit when Nile started high school, it's more affordable and it meant she didn't have to worry about household repairs in the same way, she can use a wrench if she needs to but she doesn't have time and it just makes her grief flare up (co-op housing has a long history in Chicago and other US cities (like Washington DC where I live) as a way for Black people to access decent, affordable housing in the face of entrenched discrimination)

the move meant putting a longer commute between her and church, but she didn't even bother looking for a church closer to their new home, she loaded the kids into the car on the weekends, parking is hell in their new neighborhood but it's worth giving up a hard-won parking spot to not have to wait so long for the L on Sunday mornings

Indy lived with her through college and he was gearing up to get his own place when Nile died, Dorothy was planning to move into a one-bedroom in the co-op building because she doesn't need so much space anymore, Indy took a day off from his new job (not so new anymore, her baby's so grown!) to help her sort things to donate when those dress-uniform Marines came to their door

part of her wishes she could've been home more and not had to rely on Nile so much for help with Indy, but he's turned out such a kind young man, and he's a much better cook than his sister is (was, oh God — no wait, is! she’s alive! what do you mean you’ve been alive all this time??)

some of the girls from church are encouraging her to check out this social dancing thing, nobody's pressuring her to date but there's definitely been some ribbing, and with Indy out of the house... maybe? probably not, but maybe

Her feelings and beliefs and likes and dislikes:

she's an absolute badass and also she's a soft human woman with lots of feelings

she's very, very traditional in some ways, and part of her mixed feelings about Nile following in her dad's footsteps is gender stuff, she's proud of her daughter and would never stand in the way of what Nile wants to do with her life, and if Nile came home and told her she's a lesbian she would never reject her, but if Nile came home and told her she's bisexual maybe she can just try focusing on men? “I love you sweetheart and I want you to be happy I just know how hard it is already for us in this world” type shit

she has been on team natural hair basically her entire life and one of the worst fights she and Nile ever had was over Nile wanting to straighten her hair as a pre-teen

Indy takes more after her and Nile takes more after their dad, she's so proud of both of them, but Dorothy's activism was mostly wearing her natural hair to work and daring bosses to give her shit, Indy's out there marching in the streets like her parents had and she WORRIES

she teases Indy for going to so many protests like he's using it as an excuse to meet girls, but she WORRIES

when she turns 60, she gets box braids with streaks of dark purple, subtle enough that it's still work-appropriate but it makes her smile, she may be old now but damnit she’s still pretty!

she loves Grey's Anatomy and Star Trek and she watched Bridgerton all in one day

she has a dirty-old-lady celebrity crush on Chris Hemsworth

if she's ever masturbated thinking about Donna Summer, well, that's nobody's business but her own (do non-Americans know about the queen of disco??)

If you want to read fic featuring Dorothy:

I won't have to leave alone, 1000 words, Nile has a nightmare and decides to go tell her family she's immortal

I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore, 65k, Nile adjusts to immortality and does a lot of soul searching about what it means to "do what we think is right", Booker goes to grad school for trauma studies, the working title of this fic was Booker Reads Edward Said and Gloria Anzaldúa and Goes Down on Nile and the final product has an annotated bibliography in the author's notes if you’re into that kind of thing, a lot of my Dorothy Freeman headcanons were born of my process writing this

Gather round the table, we'll give you a treat, 2279 words, college AU, Nile brings her Jewish boyfriend home for Christmas

a contribution I made to Shitty Old Guard Deaths: (Booker, USA, 2025, cause of death: a mother’s righteous wrath)

[bloodontheclocktower]

HEAPS: Edinburgh, Canberra, More Melbourne, The Script, The Wiki, and an Artist

So much has happened in the past month!

Games Everywhere

Before October, we were playing Blood on the Clocktower regularly in Sydney a bunch. In the past month there have been tonnes of games run not only in Sydney, but also in Melbourne, Canberra, and Edinburgh.

Our friend Sarah (a player from the first ever game of BOTC in 2014) lives in Edinburgh now, so we sent her a pre-release copy quick-smart as soon as we were able to build one. She immediately set about running sessions in which the Evil Team dominated (mwa ha ha ha), winning the first few games there until a Slayer could finally stem the tide and take a win for the Good Team.

The Slayer finds the demon

Join the Edinburgh group here if you want to get in on the action there.

We’ve been running heaps of games in Sydney and making a lot of space to welcome new players to the game. We’ve been playing in backyards, at Games Paradise, house parties, and Exiles Gaming Club. Frankly, it’s not always easy to keep track of where each copy of the game is among the regular Sydney storytellers and that’s a pretty great problem to have. Jump into the Sydney group here.

A friendly man who met us at PAX Australia runs a regular social deception night at Reload Bar in Canberra. He told them about BOTC and they invited us down to run some games. (We were so eager to get down there we almost left the game behind in Sydney. Fifteen minutes into the drive Steven asks “Do you have the grimoire?” and I respond “I thought you had it...” And then we had to go and get it. More driving, yaaaaaay.)

It was super awesome! So awesome that we’re going back next week! Everyone there got the game quickly and turnout was so high that we ran some of our biggest games ever. I was for sure the Evil storyteller that night (Evil won all three of my games) and Steven was the Good storyteller (Good won both of his).

BOTC with 20 players. That is a wonderfully crowded grimoire.

A win for the Good Team.

The Good Team executed the Saint!!! Whyyyyyyyy!!!!

Hey fun meta-game: See if you can guess who the demon is based on the post-game photos. (For the above, it was the woman first from the right of the frame. Evil got the Saint killed and won that way, but her bluff was solid.)

If you’re in Canberra on December 13 and want to join us you can find the details here. You better freaking hope you draw a red token from the bag if I’m the Storyteller in your game (Evil storyteller yesssss). The city should have it’s own pre-release copy of the game next year so join here if you want to get in on the action.

Finally, Steven just got back from a weekend in Melbourne running as many games as possible. Most importantly, he’s left a copy of the game behind with some very capable storytellers there to run regular games with. Saturday saw him at Queen of Spades Bar, Sunday at the Here Be Games monthly games day, and then Monday night they got to play at The Mystery Rooms in a freaking escape room themed as a freaking gothic church. I am so wonderfully jealous and also jealous of every player in Melbourne from now on. It’s such a great setting for the game, and the best part is that The Mystery Rooms are run by super rad people who are happy to host BOTC there again in future. If you’re in Melbourne and want to try this game, you just have to get in on this.

Jump into the Melbourne group here if you want to play in that city.

ARTIST, YES

Some of the biggest exciting news from the past month is that we have an artist! Aidan Roberts is on board to make the original art for the game and there’s already some awesome stuff in the pipeline. I’ve seen some of it. It’s legit good.

Here’s a fantastic work he made for a Blade Runner art competition earlier this year.

Aidan is just a super rad dude who in addition to being an amazingly talented artist is also an amazingly talented musician. Better yet, he’s putting those talents to good use on all fronts. I’m super excited to see what he dreams up for Blood on the Clocktower.

Check out his art here: http://www.aidanrobertsillustration.com/

Check out his music here: https://themapletrail.bandcamp.com/

BOTC’s Online Toys

The Technical Demon, Amy, has been crafting a bunch of fantastic online tools. The Script lets people create custom character lists. There are 200+ characters on the development end of things (we’ve been play-testing the heck out of them in some fun and strange combinations), but pretty soon we’ll put up a version to create custom scripts using the 70+ characters from the first three editions of the game that will pair with the pre-release copies that are out there.

There are plenty of good stories and innovative strategies for each character so we’ve made a wiki to record them. It’ll be up soon for you to tell us things we don’t know about how to play the Soldier or the Sweetheart or the Shabaloth or whatever. Like, I’ve played this game a metric tonne and I saw the draft entry for the Washerwoman and was like “Oh huh I didn’t know that was a thing you could do with that character.”

The Wiki, coming soon.

And we’re on Board Game Geek! We have an entry there, so please go rate us high (if you think we rate high) and add us to your wishlist if that is what you wish.

More Building! More Cities!

Melbourne now has its own pre-release copy of the game, joining Sydney, London, and Edinburgh as places where you can play all the time.

Our building session this week got cancelled when the printers were flooded out by a freak rainstorm. (There’s a city-wide conspiracy to pretend to the outside world that the weather in Sydney is always perfect, but sometimes yes it does actually rain and/or get cold.) We’ve rescheduled to next week and will start work on a copy for our storyteller in San Francisco. Blood on the Clocktower been through the US before on whistle-stop tours, but this will be the first copy to live in the States permanently. Then, we’ll probably have Canberra’s and Amsterdam’s copies ready to go in the new year.

Salisbury Festival IX - March 8-10 in Sydney

Just another reminder that the Salisbury Festival of Board Games is on in Sydney from March 8 to 10! It’s truly the most awesome thing. There will be Blood on the Clocktower there but also so much more. Full details are on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/events/865328406956834/

Things have been wild lately with this game and I hope they continue to be wild. It’s simply just tremendous fun.

Until next time,

Evin Donohoe Social Minion for Blood on the Clocktower