#rev19

the Manus Vindictae work, like, OKAY as initial antagonists? like, don't get me wrong, in retrospect with the Foundation being Basically Fascist, it does come off as a little weird that the main Resistance group are... also like that, but in the opposite direction. it's kind of a tired trope.

HOWEVER. while there are a lot of parallels, i'm not 100% certain that arcanists on the whole are intended to represent racial oppression SPECIFICALLY?

consider:

the Foundation specializes in essentially forcing arcanist children to "act human," with jessica's event SPECIFICALLY being designed around a program that determines how "dangerous" you are based on how acceptable your answers are to what amounts to a personality test

a large number of arcanist characters have flat affects, "strange behavior", and/or intense interests that society as a whole frowns upon

a large number of arcanist characters ALSO are shown to be socially awkward and have difficulty "fitting in" and/or understanding the emotions of others

it is TEXTUAL that arcanists have less logical thoughts and are more creatively oriented, whatever the hell that means

i think given all this, it might be a BIT less of a stretch to say that arcanists as a whole are both metaphorically representative of and quite literally all neurodivergent. the Foundation requires most of its employees to "act human" and discard any "unseemly" interests, after all.

taking them this way, i think the Manus Vindictae work a little better -- they're still neurodivergent, but are specifically the type of people who are radicalized or join cults because someone has preyed on that part of them. at the same time, given how harshly they treat mixed arcanists or even just those who don't agree with them, they're also kind of a cipher for people with "acceptable" neurodivergencies that then turn around and gleefully demonize/dehumanize people with "unacceptable" forms of neurodivergence (yknow -- low empathy, personality and/or cluster-b disorders, systems/plural people).

maybe it's just wanton theorizing on my part, but i do feel like this explains why the Manus Vindictae and the St. Pavlov Foundation have one key thing in common:

i feel like we could maybe use some conversation starters? so here's an ask game!

There's someone else in the room with K -- it knows this before it turns around, it knows what being watched feels like. It turns only slightly, enough to catch them in its peripheral vision and no more.

It knows who this is, on a practical level. Lock has a habit of referring to his "boss" sometimes, and K has picked up enough about what being Lock's boss entails to come to the reasonable conclusion that whoever they may be, they're not human. It'd resolved to leave well enough alone -- it didn't mind him metaphorically working two jobs, and clearly neither did his boss.

Now, though, there's a little more uncertainty than before. Whoever this is, they don't quite seem like an arcanist either. Something about them feels out-of-place, and-

"Ah, calm down," the other person says, head tilted slightly to the side as they lean back against the desk. "I'm just here to check in on ████, there's really no need to panic."

... ████? Who's ████ -- why can't it remember that name? K's memory is far from eidetic, but that's different from not being able to remember something it knows it was aware of a minute ago. It can feel the blank space where information used to be. It does its best to maintain its composure. Grips the side of its coat with one hand tightly to stop from digging its fingernails into its palm.

"Hm." A small smile flits across the other person's face as they narrow their eyes to look over K again. K recognizes that kind of smile from itself. The hole in the pit of its stomach grows slightly, but it forces that fear down. It's dealt with worse, it tells itself.

"You are really quite interesting," they say, straightening up and walking past K. They put one hand on its shoulder sympathetically. "We should talk sometime, K. Though -- not now. I seem to have caught you off guard."

How the hell do they know its name -- no, there's no need to panic, it's because ████ probably told them, only it can't remember who ████ is. K stares as ████'s boss leaves the room, making damn sure they're gone before it finally drops its shoulders in relief.

rev19 oc drawings! this is K, a 6☆ Intellect unit that would deal heavily in buffs/debuffs -- like, super heavily, it's a Counter-based unit that doesn't deal any damage with incantations at all!

might color this later! for now, there's some info on its story below the cut.

(...and we'll all be the weak and the weary sometime...)

Eyes, 5☆ Spirit caster. Not an arcanist. Definitely not a human. Something older, then. Something stranger and wilder. (Fair Folk. They're fae.)

They're Lock's nominal "boss," really the two are more just friends but they'll occasionally check up on him to see how he's doing. Pinion and K are both suitably unnerved by them, which really, is just funny, you know? They don't mean any harm. If they did, they'd have done something about those two by this time.

--

Design notes:

(confused about these characters? click here for an overview post!)

K

Lived in Los Angeles in the 1990s before the Storm specifically so I could make it feasible for it to have read House of Leaves before the book came to print in early 2000.

When it's not being a complete and total menace to every single power structure within sight, it likes to cook. It's pretty good at cooking but is still trying to figure out baking -- K's used to improvising on the fly and isn't good at following exact directions.

Its Udimo is a California condor -- a vulture.

Its distaste for chess isn't just part of the card shark theming. It really, genuinely does not care for the game, especially not the weird superiority complexes people get about being good at it.

Both its basic incantations and its Inheritance are named after solitaire variants :)

Would have a visual novel style event sidestory with multiple endings, similar to Jessica's but with no dice rolls and a heavier focus on doing multiple paths to unlock different possibilities.

PINION

Is engineered to regenerate or heal from lost body matter incredibly efficiently while also serving as a universal donor. Has hypertrophic (raised) scarring in a few places where they... "donate" from... particularly frequently.

Has silver eyes. One is missing in their Insight 2 garment. I wonder why that is…

Can't fly or glide with their wings, as they're not fully developed, but can launch themself into the air pretty high if they channel arcanum through them. This tends to cause them to shed feathers.

Does charcoal and pencil sketches to work on their fine motor skills, as their joints tend to jolt a little bit in movement sometimes. Likes doing botanical illustrations. No plant has ever harmed them.

Genuinely does like Lock despite showing this by antagonizing him constantly. Is probably more loyal to him than they are to pretty much anyone else, including K.

LOCK

Knows his own soul number -- it's 451, an incredibly mundane number with no particularly interesting qualities to speak of (sarcasm). Even its digital root is simply a default 1.

Has brown-black eyes. One is silver in his Insight 2 garment. I wonder why that is...

Social chameleon that can be a totally unmemorable guy in whatever situation you put him in. When he isn't intentionally staying low-profile, he's rather blunt and deadpan.

Relatively adept with any given weapon he picks up thanks to a deal he has with Eyes.

Doesn't have an Udimo. If he's set as an assist unit, the suitcase will be empty, and if swapped in he literally just walks onto the battlefield from offscreen.

Would have a grid puzzle event sidestory very similar to Melania's but with more focus on taking out specific targets, kind of like a very simplified Invisible Inc.

EYES

Has possession of Lock's full name. Doesn't use it very often but will occasionally withhold it on request so that people straight-up forget what it is.

K and Pinion are incredibly unnerved by him -- Pinion because of his ominous politeness reminding them of the scientists that made them, and K because it has no idea how to read or predict him. For his part, Eyes thinks this is hilarious. He also quite likes K in general and thinks it's just fascinating to observe.

Actually just friends with Lock, who isn't even remotely intimidated by them. The two exchange information a lot, and Eyes is a big help to Lock when it comes to picking targets.

Can quite literally see through the eyes of the people they've made deals with. Doing this will cause the person's eyes to glow white slightly, but the person in question won't innately be aware someone is watching. Could possess people, but chooses not to -- that's boring.

How about 🧠🎶 , with 💕 being optional for Lock, maybe?

:O thankyou! i'm glad to bring askgames to the people :D

🧠: What was their original character concept? Do they have any specific theming?

Oh man, starting off with a banger -- Lock is a mess of original concepts, being a loose adaptation of a multifandom OC. Theming-wise though, the core concept remains simple: Rook Hemlock is normal, and that's what makes him dangerous. He is intentionally, incredibly normal looking -- he's got that four-star unit look, that Super Normal appearance, and it's exactly enough to make people think he's up to nothing whatsoever.

🎶: What's a song you associate with them? (And why?)

forget about choices, just get to it blame it on the voices that told you to do it you've got a revolver and some bullets; reach for the trigger and pull it!

Despite seeming very ordinary, when Lock gets a mission to do, he is going to do it. There is absolutely nothing you can do to stop him, and if you catch him doing whatever he's doing you are either going to die or he is going to lie to your face about how he definitely has to be doing what he's currently doing.

💕: Do you ship them with any characters, canon or otherwise? Who and why?

Lock's mostly aroace but he and Pinion are in a constant Situationship that might as well be a ship. The really frustrating thing for Lock is that, despite the fact that Pinion is a spooky living bioweapon font of body horror who is constantly being weird, he's also a little bit hot. He will, however, take this secret to his fucking grave.

📅: What time period/where are they from? How do they feel about that place of origin?

🎉: What thing(s) in the 21st century would they really like or enjoy?

📅: What time period/where are they from? How do they feel about that place of origin?

Eyes: I'm having trouble pinning down a specific period of years, but Wikipedia's telling me a lot of Celtic mythologies were in the Iron Age, so he's definitely from either around or before then. Eyes has been around. The Good Neighbors live for a long time, y'know?

They feel a lot of nostalgia for that era -- really miss their people and more importantly the amount of power they had -- but they're able to cope. After all, more modern times mean less awareness of the Folk mean more opportunities to get up to some shenanigans. He's gotten to steal so many abstract concepts from people who think that all fairies are tiny winged gremlin creatures and is having a great time.

Pinion: I... honestly haven't figured out a time period to fit them into yet, it's one of the really big gaps in their characterization right now. Maybe they're from around 1818, since that's when Frankenstein was first published and they definitely have a lot in common with the monster?

Whatever the case, they would prefer to not be back in the lab. And ideally to kill whoever put them in there in the first place.

🎉: What thing(s) in the 21st century would they really like or enjoy?

Eyes: Eyes is a people-watcher at heart, so they'd probably just appreciate the Internet in general? And also appreciate that people have moved away from using both silver and basic unalloyed iron in things, he has allergies.

I think they'd get a kick out of modern interpretations of the Fair Folk, finding it fun to see what humans ended up thinking of them. Elsewhere University is probably his entire jam.

Pinion: "Asshole" dialogue options in pretty much any RPG. They don't care if it actually impacts the plot or not, pissing people off is enrichment for them and the fact that no real feelings get hurt means it's a better coping mechanism.