#spadebuffalo

i also wanted to ask: is the Maria in chapter 1 of smgf Maria von Zuckerberg-Lorraine from the first draft of manorpunk? :o n do the poster's guild n the westphalian seattle polycule overlap a lot lol

LORE UNLOCKED

Yep! Our beloved protagonist had a brief fling with Maria Gurowski Kissinger Wong et al von Zuckerberg-Lorraine: member of the technocratic west coast Zuckerberg-Lorraine dynasty, senior munchmeister of the Westphalian Seattle Polycule, and Sunny's secretary of posting. Maria is a lot like Peaches - intense, philosophical, absurdly well-read - but while Peaches is normally detached and distant with only the occasional existential crisis, Maria has been mainlining existential crises since childhood (supposedly, Maria’s first spoken words were “semiotic bricolage”).

Maria is the black sheep of the severe and illustrious Zuckerberg-Lorraine dynasty. She was born with a genetic hormone disorder, rumored to be the result of gene therapy gone wrong, which leaves her chronically fatigued and unable to walk or stand for more than a few minutes at a time. While other Zuckerberg-Lorraines were shepherded into high-ranking positions in state bureaucracy or corporate management, Maria was given a (admittedly sizable) stipend and told to keep herself occupied.

She took advantage of her time, money, and lack of supervision to take a heroic amount of quaaludes and write Authoritarianism is Good When I Do It, a sprawling philosophical tome which, among other things, included her pitch for a new religion (the Human Rites, a “non-denominational faith designed to fulfill the human need for ritual with mechanistic efficiency and as few side-effects as possible.” It’s basically what you’d get if you took the off-brand Stardew Valley holidays and added a healthy dollop of the Cult of Reason. It didn’t take) and a list of all groups which she categorically distrusts, including:

chefs (“The restaurant kitchen rivals the war room in its obsession with rank and stratification; both are filled with French loanwords; French cuisine is to birds as the French colonial army was to Indochina”)

harpists (“I can only imagine the level of narcissism required to take an interest in such a haughty, reactionary instrument”)

Italians (“far too smug about their culture and cuisine, the smugness of a successful hoodwinking; the Risorgimento should have been definitive proof that nationalism was nothing but a cruel farce”)

speculative fiction authors (“for patently obvious reasons”)

Maria used the income from her book to trade her wheelchair for a custom-made six-legged ‘spider’ mechsuit, which she named Henrietta. In her free time, Maria enjoys riding Henrietta to businesses that aren’t wheelchair accessible just to piss off the managers. (“I would have used your ADA-compliant ramp IF YOU HAD ONE.”)

(Skaia) Whoops, I ended up putting my two cents in, which became like two dollars. Can’t seem to make “Keep Reading” cuts on Asks, so you get to deal with it all.

apparently the most popular rumor is he built it to get spiritual protection from someone buried in the same cemetery, on account of (and this is fact) having bought a "haunted" mansion also in the city. "haunted" because it was the site where a rich woman horrifically tortured and murdered enslaved people.

less debated according to google is that the tomb is a public eyesore in an already overcrowded centuries-old cemetery, he foreclosed on the mansion within two years, and that he got charged with domestic battery in public also in new orleans two years after the fact

(only knew abt the first part at the beginning of this ask, went on bit of a research journey before the end)