pls talk more about cleveland im love her
(hereās a link to Clevelandās moodboard for anybody who wants to hear about our VTM campaign but is wondering who the fuck Cleveland is)
Cleveland isā¦or wasā¦Annunaki: in the Demon: The FallenĀ setting, theyāre the third House of the heavenly host, the one tasked with creating the Earth and everything on it. Their sphere was all material substance: what it was, how it acted, how it moved, and how you could move through it. They determined the perfect mathematics that govern physics and chemistry.Ā It was the Annunaki who decided that the shortest distance between any two points would be a straight line. (That means the Annunaki also have the simplest time suspending that rule, and Cleveland has left a string ofĀ āmagic doorsā behind her that link up places that have no business sharing a wall.)
The result of all of this is that talking to Cleveland can beā¦a little opaque. Sheās not withholding information on purpose, exactly, she just knows that you donāt understand the polyphasic quantum arcane way that she perceives the world, so, well, why waste her time trying to explain it? More than any other house, the Annunaki never understood people. The Annunaki knewĀ things. Cleveland can create enchanted devices that work miracles no problem, but talking to peopleĀ is difficult and frustrating and frightening. They donāt understand her, she doesnāt understand them, and, in her experience, practically everyone would rather exploit and enslave her for her talents than treat her with any kindness.
At heart, Cleveland has never fallen very far. She still has the pure and earnest desire to make things that are useful to others. A lifetime of abuse and neglect has not left her well-equipped to communicate her intentions, however. Cleveland is near to my heart because, wellā¦something I learned from being from an abusive household, and doing lots of relief work for other people from abusive households, is that in real life, people who have been mistreated for years and years usually arenāt big-eyed loveable woobies. A lot of the time, theyĀ arenāt very pleasant to be around. Cleveland is glib and dismissive and mistrusting and arrogant. Itās easy to dislike her. She never learned the social skills you need in order to be likable.
But sheās made it through with the better angels of her nature battered, but intact. She still lets herself hope for something better than what sheās known. She still chooses to be the active agent in her own life. Thatās so huge. I think thatās much harder than coming through a history of violence and mistreatment and seemingĀ ānormal.ā Cleveland is awkward and weird. Sheās still figuring out how to have positive relationships. But sheās picked herself up one more time than sheās been kicked down. Thatās what matters.
