Bluff City 12: When Justice Is Done Pt. 0
Transcribers: easyin#0253 [0:00:00-0:13:00], Jess (JortsMachoooo#6341) [13:00-end]
Austin [as Hector Hu]: Hello and good evening Bluff City. It is your voice and your servant, Hector Hu—
[Music: When Justice is Done by Jack de Quidt starts playing]
Austin [as Hector Hu] (continued): —and it is also something else—you know what it is? It is a beautiful, seventy degree, late summer evening and I am coming to you live from WBRK The Break with a full six hour block of creed, conjecture, and of course, call-taking too. And speaking of the phones, I hear a ringing right now so let's go right to line one.
Ali [as Chris Andrews]: Hi Hector, it's—it’s Chris? Chris Andrews?
Austin [as Hector]: Christine! So good to hear from you again. How can I offer you guidance this fine night?
Ali [as Chris]: [Chuckle] Well, I was just calling ‘cause I was curious what you thought about this whole Goldfinch thing? Like, do you think she's really gone for good? We're gonna be okay, right?
Austin [as Hector]: Thank you so much for your words, Chris. I know that your lips give breath to the feelings running through the hearts of so many people here in Bluff City tonight. The shining beacon of justice, Goldfinch, has left us behind for mysterious reasons and that can make all of us feel alone. When the cords of life get all tangled and confused it's like—it's like on a holiday morning when you get that new VCR and the new TV combination unit and all the cords—all the cords get all tangled and you look at the—you look at the manual—the paper manual and it's all written in confusing technological jargon with the inputs and the outputs and the—all you know is you got a lot of tangled cords and you feel alone. I know that. I know that—that's how it feels when a city is left without a guardian.
Austin [as Hector] (continued): But what does the Lord tell us? Joshua 1:9—you remember this, right Chris? Right Bluff City? The Lord, they say to us: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened; do not be dismayed.” Why? Why should we not be dismayed? Because there is strength in each other. Goldfinch was not alone, was she? Her love, her partner, Waxwing, she still prowls the streets for evildoers. And what does Proverbs say? “When justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous, but a terror to evildoers.” And she is not alone. She has you too, Chris. And she has others—the young, the determined, the heroic. And I tell you this because I know it—because I have been to the other world where there is naught but evil, naught but destruction, naught but regression, and fear of the new. And this—this is Bluff City and this is not that place. This is the city of life—the city of creation absurd and beautiful.
Austin [as Hector] (continued): And listen—listen to the scripture always because it is our guide. Listen to Isaiah 41. What's it heed us do? What's it heed us do, “O coastlands''? It says: “Listen to me in silence, O coastland. Let the people renew their strength. He”—the evildoer—“he gives up nations before him, so that he tramples kings under foot. He makes them like dust with his sword. He pursues them. And the coastlands have seen and are afraid. The ends of their earth tremble.” And yet Isaiah says what? Isaiah says that “everyone helps their neighbor and says to their sibling ‘Be strong.’ The craftworker strengthens the goldsmith, and they who smooth the hammer—they who strike the anvil? They say of the soldering, ‘It is good.’ They strengthen it with nails so that it cannot be moved.” That is you, Bluff City. You can be the craftworker. You can be the goldsmith. But if you cannot find strength to be either, that is okay. Have faith in your neighbor, have faith in your sibling. They will strengthen you with nails so that you—you cannot be moved.
[Music ends]
Austin: (Laughing) Welcome to Friends at the Table, [Keith laughs] an actual play podcast focused on critical worldbuilding, smart characterization, and fun interaction between good friends. You’re gonna have to listen to the—to the fucking Clapcast to get why I’m—everyone's laughing. I’m Austin Walker, your host. Thank you for joining me and supporting us on our Patreon for this new Bluff City episode. Joining me today, you already heard the laughter of one Keith Carberry.
Keith: Hi, thank you. Clapcasts are only a dollar. You can find me on twitter @keithjcarberry. You can find the let's plays that I do at youtube.com/runbutton. Oh, you can also follow the Run Button twitter @runbutton on Twitter. I don’t ever talk about that.
Austin (overlapping): Hey yeah, that's a good thing, people should do that. That's on Twitter.
Keith: Yeah.
Art: It's—It's @runbuttonontwitter?
Austin: Oh my god.
Keith: @ru—yeah, @runbuttonontwitter, or you can follow the alt account @runbutton.
Austin: There you go. I like the alt a little bit more.
Art (overlapping): I'm gonna go register @runbuttonontwitter.
Austin: Okay. Also joining us, you can hear the voice, the—the soothing sounds of Art Martinez-Tebbel.
Art: Hey, tonight we’re getting the Christian version [Austin laughs] of Art Martinez-Tebbel.
Austin: (Laughing) Why do we keep doing this?
Art (overlapping): I'm gonna be doing Christian contemporary—
Austin: Why do we—[Art laughs] I have no idea when that Clapcast is gonna come out, Art!
Art: Uh, okay, just cut that. Hi, (laughing) I'm Art. You can find me on twitter @atebbel.
Austin: Leave all that in. [Art laughs] Also joining us, [laugh] Janine Hawkins.
Janine: I’m Janine Hawkins. I'm @bleatingheart on twitter.
Austin: And also Jack de Quidt.
Jack: Hi, I'm Jack de Quidt. You can find me on twitter @notquitereal, and find the music for Bluff City and all the Friends at the Table shows at notquitereal.bandcamp.com.
Austin: You can follow the show @friends_table. You can follow us on tw—on Patreon, obviously, at patreon.com/friends_—friendsatthetable? Hm… friendsatthetable.cash. You can follow us—there is a—there is a great facebook group that you can follow, that you just search for “Friends at the Table”. And as always, shoutouts to people who hang out in the—over in the fan discord, which you can find a link to somewhere on our twitter page, probably. Today we are playing Masks: A New Generation by Brendan Conway. You know, we don't normally go down the—like the entire list of people who edit a book? You know we don't go like “Oh, developmental editing by Mark Diaz Truman. Copy editing by Amanda Valenteen”—Valentine, probably Valentine—or whatever. But, yo, the art in this book is so good, I just want to shout out—
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: —the art director, Marissa Kelly, and the illustrati—the illustrator, Michael Lee Lunsford, and the additional art and coloring by Brooke Carnevale.
Keith: Oh, and the layout by Daniel Solis and Hal Mangold.
Austin: And you know what, the indexing by J. Derrick Kapchinsky is just really great. And the proofreading by Shelley Harlan and Katherine Fackrell, and I think that’s everybody on this book. Okay. It’s a really pretty book, like I have a physical copy of this book, and the physical copy is fantastic except for one thing, which is there is no playbooks [laugh] in it? Only the PDF has the playbooks in the book.
Keith: What?
Austin: Yeah, like, it’s weird. That’s why, like, if you look at the book, it’s “Masks: Playbook Edition Core Book 05/24/18”? But the physical book is just like “yeah go download the playbooks if you want.” And that was frustrating for me on a plane.
Keith: That—
Janine: Hm.
Keith: —you're—that would be frustrating on a plane. But that does make sense for ju—for like “Well it’s—we want to print these out, anyway.”
Janine: Yeah I always kinda—
Austin (overlapping): Y—yes.
Janine (overlapping): —hate digging through the book for the—for the playbooks…to be honest, but…
Austin (overlapping): No I always want the playbooks to be separate, also.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: But when I’m on the plane like “Oh cool,” like—you know, when you open up to a mov—to a—it still has the chapter about the different—the different playbooks? But it just has the, like, “Oh here’s how you can play it.” So, like, when you do the—the whatever move, [stammers] “When you activate your doomsign as The Doomed playbook,” and say “Wait a sec, what the fuck’s a doomsign? I don't know what any of this means.”
Keith: You’re right.
Art (overlapping): Well, like, and—
Keith (overlapping): You should send an email or something to Brendan Conway,
Austin (overlapping): Yeah Brendan—
Keith: Mark Diaz Truman, Amanda Valentine, Shelley Harlan—
Austin (overlapping): (Laughing) Oh my god.
Keith: —and Katherine Fackrell, and Amanda Kel—and [Janine sighs] Marissa Kelly and Michael Lee Lunsford, and Brooke—
Austin (overlapping): I hate this.
Keith: —Carnevale and Daniel Solis and Hal Mangold and J. Derrick Kap-chinsky. Kapchinsky.
Art: The supplemental information is also not in the playbook PDF? And, like, the supplemental information on these is really good.
Austin: What do you mean by the supplemental…
Art (overlapping): So like playing—the playing “blank” or—
Austin (overlapping): Oh yes. Yes, yes, yes.
Art: —notes on your moves and, like, suggested moves from other playbooks are all really good...
Austin: Yes. Yes.
Art: ...things? And they're, like, not there if you just read the play—like, I want—I want everything...
Austin: Yeah.
Art (overlapping): —all together all the time.
Austin: Me too. In case you didn't know—
Keith (overlapping): And separate also. All the time.
Austin: Also I want—yeah. I'm very hard to please. If you don't know, Masks is a superhero—is a game about superheroes who are also teenagers. I should actually just read my agenda really quick. My agenda is to make Bluff City feel like a comic book; to make the player characters’ lives feel super heroic; and to play to find out what changes. And then my principles, because that's fun—I'll go over those for the first—for this session: describe like a comic book; address yourself to the heroes, not the players; make your move by misdirect; make threats real; give up to fight another day; treat human life as meaningful; make Supers seem outlandish, creative, and cool; give villains drive to feature their humanity—drives to feature their humanity; make adults seem childish and short-sighted; support people, but only conditionally; ask provocative questions and build on the answers; be a fan of the PCs; treat your NPCs like hammers—square peg, round hole; remind them of the generations that came before; think in the gutters between panels; and sometimes, disclaim decision making.
Austin (cont.): It’s a really cool book. It’s a really cool game. It’s a Powered by the Apocalypse game so if you’ve heard us play games like The Sprawl or Dungeon World, you will be very familiar with the basics of this game. It also reminds me a lot of The Veil, in that it has traits—unlike The Veil it locks moves to specific traits—to specific stats basically. But the stat numbers do change based on your emotional state in a given moment. Which are, like, conditions, which we’ll get into. But today we’re just gonna talk about the setting and we’re just gonna talk about character creation—or just go through character creation. Does that sound good for everybody on the call?
Art: Yeah.
Keith (overlapping): Yeah.
[Jack and Janine hum in agreement]
Austin: Alright, we already talked about lines and veils off mic. Kinda going standard here. Nothing more than what we normally talk about. I think for me, the thing that I would say is, like, I definitely want to go PG-13 here, minus language. Like I think we probably swear more than any PG-13 thing ever does.
Art: Yeah, PG-13—
Keith (overlapping): You get two fucks I think.
Art (overlapping): —only gets one fu—I thought you only get one fuck?
Keith (overlapping): Oh is it one fuck?
Art: [stammers] You get—maybe it’s two fucks, but—
Austin (overlapping): Well we just used them both. So…[laugh]
Keith: Maybe it’s a veil and it’s—
[Jack laughs]
Art (overlapping): —you definitely, you definitely can’t do—you can’t do “fucking.” It can’t be the verb form.
Keith: Oh.
Janine: We could just have Ali bleep everything.
Austin: That would be real funny.
Keith (overlapping): Oh, that would be fun.
Austin: She would hate us.
Jack: (Laughing) That's so much work.
Austin: Don’t do that.
Janine: We have to clap every time we swear so she can find it.
Austin: [Laugh] So she can see it. [Janine laughs] Great. You can’t clap for yourself—[Bleep over someone saying “shit”]—someone else has to race to—[Clap]
Keith: Listen—
[Everyone laughs]
Austin: Ali’s gonna see that—oh god. Okay. So, big picture stuff. We set up this game a little bit in the last intro. As always, our Bluff City intros tease what’s coming next a little bit. And if you listened, there was a first—for the first time ever the two—two of the Bluff City episodes in the World Wide Wrestling RPG games actually had two different narrators. One of them—the second one was Waxwing, and the first one was Goldfinch. In this version of Bluff City I’m imagining, which is pretty much concurrent, I would say, with like our Fiasco—it’s post-Fiasco game, but like in that same—InSpectres, World Wide Wrestling, it’s in that timeline. Right? It’s in that part of the bigger Bluff City timeline. There—[Keith sneezes] Bless you.
Keith: (Muffled) Thank you.
Austin: There were a pair of superheroes in Bluff City, Waxwing and Goldfinch, who were like, basically like what if Batman and Superman were, like, lesbian lovers and also a team? And like Superman, Goldfinch was not from here. Goldfinch was an alien of some kind, other dimensional or—or from outer space, or some other comic book bullshit. And, like Superman, Goldfinch had been separated from her people. There’s a—Art, have you—have we—I don’t think we’ve talked about Kandor on mic before. Do you want to give like a—
Art: The—
Austin: —a 30 second Bottled City—
Art: Yeah, Bottle City of Kandor? Yeah.
Austin: Yeah.
Art: So there is a city on Krypton—Krypton is Superman's planet—called Kandor, and sometime before Krypton blew up—uh, spoilers, Krypton blows up [Austin chuckles]—Brainiac came and turned—and miniaturized Kandor and put it in a bottle? And this is—this is mostly a silver age thing—
Austin: Mhm.
Art: —but Superman rescues the city of Kandor, but is unable to—to return it to full size. So he keeps it in the fortress of Solitude and tries to—to fix it. And along the way there are many stories about people going into Kandor, little tiny superpeople coming out of Kandor—
Art (overlapping): —Nightwing and Flamebird are the two heroes of Kandor, and the—the adult Dick Grayson Nightwing, who he becomes after being Robin, is named after—
Austin: (Fascinated) Huh!
art/: —the Kandorian Nightwing, who inspired him.
Austin: I had no idea.
Art: And then when they—when they went to the modern era, they just threw all that out.
Austin: Okay.
Keith (overlapping): And this is all real?
Austin: Right, this is all—like Krampus—
Art (overlapping): It’s all happening in real life.
Austin: —this is real. Unlike our show, which is functional. And here’s the difference between Superman and Goldfinch. Goldfinch gets in the bottle. Goldfinch returns Kandor to size. And I’ll figure out the specifics between character creation day and the day we actually sit down to record this. When I have a little more about, like, what I think the superhero world of this setting looks like. But...you know...she leaves. She rescues her people, she returns them to their rightful place, and she goes back with them. She decides that Earth, and Bluff City, are not her home, and that what’s more important is this—this other place that she was originally from. And so, we’re entering Bluff City in this moment of, like, strange...superheroic—superheroic void, in some sense? Waxwing is still here. Waxwing is very much, in my mind, very Batman-y in terms of, like, gadgets and—you know, maybe she can fly—like, actually fly. But she’s very much, like...Batman or, um...or maybe even a little bit like...Star—Starman? The...what the fuck’s his real name—Jack?
Art: Jack Knight? The—
Austin (overlapping): Yeah. Jack Knight. The cool one? The nine—
Art (overlapping): —the quote unquote “Modern Starman.”
Austin (overlapping): —the nineties Starman. [Laugh]
Art: (Quietly) Yeah.
Austin: The...the one who is, like—
Keith (overlapping): Who is Starman?
Austin: So—ugh, we can’t just do this. We can’t just go to Wikipedia. Starman is a really cool comic book, and you should get all the Starman omnibuses. They’re—they’re one of my favorite comics. Deeply into the notion of legacy, and like, recurring—the way in which superheroes are remade, both fictionally—both inside of their fictions—
[Timestamp 00:15:00]
Austin (continued): --and also as fictional media works over time. Because, like, there’s a Starman who just looks like a—like Flash Gordon. There’s a Starman who is just David Bowie, but blue. And there’s a Star—and the Starman of—the nineties Starman is, like, grunge-rock Starman who has, like, a cool—you would love Starman, Keith. Actually, I think everyone on this call—
Keith (overlapping): What came first, the David Bowie song “Starman,” or the David Bowie Starman Starman?
Austin: Probably the former. [Laugh] Uh, in any case, she’s kind of just like a regular—Waxwing is just kind of around at this point, and heartbroken because her partner left? Went home. And that is the kind of—that plus you’re teens with superpowers, and school let out, and it’s the summer, and I suspect—in my heart, when we first started talking about this, it was like, everyone’s a senior, or at least there’s a couple of seniors—senior, like, class among you who might be leaving Bluff City soon. And so there’s lots of decisions about, like, “Do I go—do I go away to college in Philly or in Wyoming? Or do I stay here and—” et cetera? Is that still territory people want to...play around in?
Keith: Sorry, what’s the territory?
Austin: The, like, “Do I stay or do I go” bit of, like, “I’m a teenager and I have local roots but I also have...I’m also—I’m also a teenager, and like what if I—”
Keith (overlapping): Yeah.
Austin: “—left this small town bullshit and go and had—went and had a big life?”
Jack: It feels very, like, in keeping with the way we think about Bluff City.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: Where, like, people from bigger cities are constantly coming to Bluff City and telling our characters—
Austin (overlapping): (Laughing) Right.
Jack: —that it’s better there?
Austin: Right. Yeah.
Jack: And all our characters are like “Ugh!”
Austin: Right, and like—
Jack (overlapping): “You live in Trenton.”
Keith (overlapping): I—I’ve personally done this arc a few times with other characters, but I’m also not, like, you know, over it?
Austin: Right, well also maybe you can play the character now who’s like “No, Bluff City rocks. Like Bluff City’s cool as shit.” Up to you, you know? Other—other things. Superheroes I think exist—in Masks, it takes place in what is kind of a metropolis analogue. Bluff City is not that. You know, I kind of feel like Bluff City has had superheroes from time to time. But I don’t think it’s been...this sort of, like, anything goes? Over the course of the future of Bluff City, we’ll get into some of the weird inconsistencies of, like, “Hey, there’s supernatural shit here. But also, there are mobsters stealing birds! And, like...”
Keith: “Baseball aliens!”
Janine: I mean, superheroes fight mobsters.
Austin: That’s true. They do.
Janine (overlapping): That happens.
Austin: They do. They do.
Jack: All the time.
Art (overlapping): Baseball one is fiction, I’m—don’t wanna—
Austin: That’s exactly right. [Chuckle] Or is it?
Keith: Or is it?
Art: Is it not?
Austin: Is it?
Keith: It is.
Austin: Or is it?
Keith: Well, or is it?
Austin: You can’t see my eyebrows, but—
Keith (overlapping): Based on a true story.
Austin: Right. Dot dot dot. The end?
Art (overlapping): (Laughing) Based on a true story?
Keith: Like “Free Willy” is.
[Jack and Austin laugh]
Austin: Um...alright—
Keith (overlapping): Is it?
[Austin laughs]
Art: (Laughing) Is Free Willy based on a true story?
Keith: I don’t know, is it? I said it, but is it?
Austin: Is it?
Keith: (Laughing) Is it?
Austin: Who could say?
Jack: It’s fucking episodist. [Laugh]
Austin: So...there are...I’d say besides, like, Waxwing, who’s still here, there are a few other superheroes that are, like, low-level superheroes. I very much feel like we’re talking, like, um...the sort of stuff that’s in, like—I guess for people who only watch, like, Marvel stuff—think about the Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones—like, ground level style superheroics? More than the...um...the kind of Marvel—the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe intergalactic aliens stuff? I think that probably happens in the world, but not in Bluff City at the highschooler level, as much? Unless people want to go all the way to eleven with it. It’s up to y’all.
Keith: I...I feel, personally, that...the...the stakes should be scaled down in the same way that Bluff City is scaled down from a metropolis.
Austin (overlapping): Yes. Yes.
Janine: Yeah...
Austin: Right. Or, like, that small scale—things that look like they’re small scale, we focus on them in a way. And Masks is built for this—
Keith: (Muffled) Yeah.
Austin: —where it’s about character—it’s about character interaction. It’s about personal growth and a framing of those things as superheroic and important—just as important. You know—
Keith: There’s also—there’s also plenty of stuff that’s, like, super important to a lot of people that is—that is less grand in scale than “The world is at stake.”
Austin: Yes. A hundred percent. So! With that said, how about we just start getting into characters?
Keith: Okay.
Austin: Are there any other questions about the world? Or about anything else?
Keith: Um...I do know...whether or not “Free Willy” was based on a true story.
Austin: Thank you, can you give me that—
Art (overlapping): It was not.
Keith: It—it is...it is—I can’t tell anymore, because [Janine chuckles] New York Times is very confusing and—I don’t know what this title means—“The whale who would not be freed.” I don’t know if the whale refused to go, or if this is just New York Times passive voice and they wouldn’t let the whale go?
Janine (overlapping): Oh, I th—I think that might actually be about the whale after “Free Willy.” What happened to that whale.
Keith: Oh! Oh, that’s a different—okay.
Janine: Because there was a whole big campaign to get that whale free, but that whale had—had lived in captivity, so they, like, trained it up to let it go, but then it just, like, found people and hung out with people.
Austin: “Free real”—”Free Willy” is real. Says—
Keith: There you go. “Free Willy” is real.
Austin (overlapping): —says—says Metro.co.uk.
Keith: No, the—yeah, so the one that I was reading about was Keiko—was 1979. So the...
Austin: Yeah, which is—
Keith: ...yeah.
Austin: —pre “Free Willy,” right?
Keith: Pre—yeah, that’s pre-Willy.
Austin: That’s—[Laugh] hmm.
Janine: Mm...
[Austin laughs, disgusted by the joke]
Austin: [Sigh] We’ll get into some more details—thank you, car.
Janine (overlapping): About “Free Willy.”
Austin: (Laughing) —about “Free Willy” as we make characters. But, for now, let’s start talking about playbooks. So, there are a bunch of playbooks. We have the base ones. We also got the ones from the...Halcyon City...whatever. Expansion. And the...
Keith: (Muffled) Uh-huh.
Austin: ...their, like, Shield-style, Aegis. Ae-jis? Aegis expansion...
Janine: Krampus.
Austin: ...and—the Krampus expansion. And I think everyone’s picked theirs. So let’s go around. Let’s go in the order of the names on the bottom of my screen. Janine, which playbook did you pick?
Janine: Uh, I picked The Protégé.
Austin: Awesome! Do you want to give me the high-level of what that playbook is?
Janine: Um, would that be the, like, slanted text beside the picture of this cool lady?
Austin: Sure, that’s—
Janine (overlapping): (Laughing) Okay.
Austin (overlapping): —totally a way to do that. Yeah.
Janine: (Reading) “You’ve proved yourself to an experienced hereo—hero. They think you’ve got what it takes. They’ve been training you for a while, and now you have to decide: do you want to be them, or will you find your own path?”
Austin: Awesome. [Janine clears throat] Let’s go—let’s go through the list here. Uh...Jack? How about you?
Jack: I’m gonna be playing The Star. Their description is: (Reading) “Being a hero isn’t just about doing right. It’s about being seen doing right. Let them think you’re shallow for loving the spotlight and the cameras, for making speeches, for smiling so much. You’ll be a hero in all the ways that matter.”
Austin: Uh, Art?
Art: I’m gonna be The Yule Lad.
Austin: (Groaning at joke) Okay...
[Keith and Jack laugh]
Keith: Clapcasts! Only a dollar!
Austin: You’re right, [Janine chuckles] that’s a name. That’s a name that I can’t (laughing) stand.
[Art and Jack laugh].
Art: I’m gonna be playing The Bull playbook. (Reading) “You’re big, strong—”
Austin (overlapping): (Laughing) The Bull Lad. [Laugh]
[Keith laughs]
Art: The Bull Lad...(continues reading) “You’re big, strong, and tough. You know what fighting really is, and you’re good at it. Sure, you’ve got a soft side too, but you only show that to the people you care about most. Everybody else? They can eat your fist.”
[Austin chuckles]
Janine: That’s where the Yule Lad connection comes in.
Austin: That’s it! [Art chuckles] Fist-eatin’. [Janine chuckles] Uh, and last but not least, Keith Carberry.
Keith: Hi! I, uh—I didn’t—I don’t have—I don’t know where the slanty text is, but I know about my character—
Austin (overlapping): (Exasperated) Oh my god...
Keith (overlapping): —I’m The Beacon! Basically, he’s a—he doesn’t have superpowers, and his whole deal is, uh...people are like “You’re gonna fucking die! [Laugh] You—stop trying to do this.” And then you’re like “No, I want to.” And the—I guess, the push and pull is, like, he could stop whenever he wants to, but like, he just feels like he has to do some hero shit.
Austin: Right, so —
Art (overlapping): Keith, would you like me to read your slanty text?
Keith: Um...I...[Austin chuckles] yeah—uh...yeah. [Austin laughs] Oh, I found it. I found it. [Austin laughs] (Reading) “You don’t have to do this. You can probably have a safe, decent, simple life. It’d be nice, but come on. Superpowers! Aliens! Wizards! Time-travel! You’re outta your depth, but who cares? This is awesome! Everybody should try it!”
Austin: Great. Good. Uh, alright, so those are your big picture things. Do people have, like, Names and Look, and Moves and stuff that they’re—that they’re ready to go through? Or do you wanna—
Janine (overlapping): (Muffled) I—I do.
Austin (overlapping): —talk through some of that stuff?
Keith: So, I had one thing that I wanted to talk through, and that was sort of, like, I had—I had this idea...um...like, before reading the playbook—or, not the playbook—before reading the book—
Austin: Mhm.
Keith: —and then, as it developed—as I read the playbook, I was like “Oh, the playbook is about a different thing than the thing that I want to do.” So I want to come at it from an angle that makes sense for what we’re playing...
Austin: Okay.
Keith: So, uh...my—my original angle was, like, a sort of....like, an—a sort of, like—like, at the end of his game superhero? Like, young-ish still, but because he doesn’t have superpowers, he doesn’t have that long in the game?
Austin: Mhm.
Keith: But because this is a teenage game...
[Art coughs]
Austin: It is.
Keith: ..or, like a young—
Austin (overlapping): And it explicitly is.
Keith (overlapping): —it said, like, sixteen to twenty, is what it said.
Austin (overlapping): Yeah, yeah. You could definitely be twenty.
Keith: So...so the—the angle my—my two angles that I want to pitch would be...I would play that character that would be the guy I was imagining in twenty years, but right now he’s still twenty. Or, like, this is so rough that I’m twenty and I’m already almost out of it. Like, sort of...like...esports style, like you’re retired—
Austin: Yeah...
Keith: —at twenty-four, or whatever.
Austin: Yeah. I like that a lot. I also...I mean, there’s also the version of it that uses that other weird playbook, which is the time-traveller one.
Keith: Oh! The dual—the two people!
Austin: The—well, so it’s—you are one of those people...uh...god, what is it—which book is that?
Art (overlapping): N—it’s the—it’s the Jean Gray and all-new X-men. You’re the—you’ve come from the past. Like, your present version is out there—like, an older version of you exists in the world—
Austin: Right.
Art: —and you are the young, idealistic version of this gruff old person.
Austin: Right, so there’s a version where you played—it’s The Innocent. Which is: (Reading) “Time-travel’s great! Or so you thought, until you landed in a strange new world with a dark, broken, damaged, dangerous adult version (laughing) of yourself. [Art wheezes] Not what you’d wanted to become! Question is, what are you gonna do about it?”
Keith: Um...that is—that sounds darker than my—
Austin (overlapping): That does sound darker.
Keith (overlapping): —original idea. ‘Cause my—
Austin (overlapping): I mean, you’re—you’re play—you’d be playing the young plucky version who’s like “I can push my body to do whatever I want!”
Keith: Yeah, ex—yeah. Yeah.
Austin: But I do think the version of it that—I also really do like the version of it that is like “I’m twenty years old, and I’m in—I’m in junior college—or I’m in community college, and I’m, like—my whole body is just falling apart, because—”
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: “—I’m pushing it.” Not in a way that we would...[stammers] I think we would linger on it fictionally, and it’d be about taking care of yourself?
Keith: Yeah, it’s bad. It’s a bad thing.
Austin: Yeah...I like that general idea, and I think that The Beacon—I think that The Beacon does...work for that? As long as—
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: —we frame some of the stuff around Drives that way. Does that make sense?
Keith (overlapping): Right. Yeah.
Austin: Okay. Um...alright. So, you look at the rest of that sheet and look at things in terms of, like, how can we make that work. Janine, it sounded like you were ready to go on some stuff?
Janine: Uh, yeah. I have—I think most things...more or less nailed down? There’s some—
Austin (overlapping): Okay.
Janine: —stuff that, like, because...it involves another character in the fiction, I kind of, like, want you to—to, like, bounce off of...
Austin: Sure.
Janine: ...bounce that off? Um...
Austin: And I’ll note, real quick—so let’s—we’re gonna go through your sheet, we will talk about your Names and your Look, we’ll talk about your Abilities, we’ll talk about your Labels, which are the stats in this. We’ll talk about...your...Backstory Questions? Except that we will not...um...let me see, one second. Uh...duh-duh-duh...yeah, no. We’ll-let’s do Backstory Questions and then we will...we’ll—maybe we’ll save the “When our team first came together” question until we know about who all the characters are. Same thing with Influence. That we’ll do after we know everybody. Does that make sense? [Short pause] Okay! So...what is your Name?
Janine: Uh, okay...so...my character’s Real Name is Chanti Park? Which, in case you think I’m not on my bullshit, Chanti is short for Chanticleer.
Austin: Okay. Good.
Janine: Um, which is a fancy—it’s a good word. And she is a....her...her mother is Black, and her father is Korean. My sort of touchstone for her is...um...(laughing) I immediately forgot her name, even though I’ve been looking at pictures of her for a half hour.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Janine: [Deep inhale] Yoon Mi-rae. Um...
Austin: Spell—can you spell that really quick?
Janine: Y-O-O-N space M-I...
Austin (overlapping): Mhm.
Janine: ...optional space R-A-E.
Austin: Gotcha. [Pause] Oh sure.
Janine: She’s like a—she’s like a...Korean pop star, rapper...she’s very cool. Uh...so she’s kind of—kind of my touchstone for the character. She’s very, like, fashionable. She has curly hair, kind of on the looser end. She goes through a lot of hair styles, that—[Austin chuckles] that lady, but um...[clicks tongue] and her Hero Name is Grouse?
Austin: Like the bird, or like the complaining?
Janine: Like both.
Keith (overlapping): Wait, or like G-R-O-S-S?
Austin: So—yeah, real quick, just going by the Look stuff here, can you give us, like, the body, uniform, and costume stuff? Or the clothes and costume stuff from the sheet?
Janine: Uh...yes...[Art chuckles] soI think she’s...fairly...like, lean and toned. And, you know, fashionable clothes. Colorful costume. I imagine her costume is a lot like...I have a picture that I quite like of the greater sage-grouse.
Austin: Like, so the bird is the point—sorry—
Janine: Yes, like the bird.
Austin: Ah. Like the bird.
Janine: Um...but it’s like—it’s, like, brown, black, and white. Lots of, like, sort of texture and stripes and things? And also just, like, a big furry kind of fluffy white collar piece?
Austin: Oh, that’s a good picture of a bird.
Janine (overlapping): With some sticky-uppy parts on the back.
Austin: Yeah, I like this.
Janine: Yeah...I’m probably like a—
Austin (overlapping): Ah, cool.
[Timestamp 00:30:00]
Janine: —a face mask that’s, like, [indiscernible]. Something like that.
Austin (overlapping): And what are her—like, what are her civilian clothes like?
Janine: Um, I have her down as, like, pretty fashionable. Like, she probably wears—
Austin (overlapping): Okay.
Janine: —she’s probably like, of the chokers-and-velvet set right now.
Austin: Okay, the chokers-and-velvet set. (Laughing) Of course. [Janine laughs] You know, the normal...how old is she?
Janine: Uh, I think she’s probably like eighteen, nineteen.
Austin: Okay, cool.
Janine: Older teen, but—yeah...
Austin (overlapping): Ah, so—so, just grad—so, was a senior? Graduated?
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: Okay. Cool. Um...let’s talk about Abilities. So with The Protégé: (Reading) “You are someone’s protégé. Your powers largely mimic theirs, but each of you is in some way unique. Pick one ability you both share and one ability for each of you that is uniquely yours.” So. What is the Ability you share with your protégé and who is your protégé? [Laugh]
Janine: Um. Men—Mentor?
Austin: Sorry, your Mentor. [Janine laughs] My bad. Excuse me. [Scoff] Who is—well, we’ll also get to your protégé later based on—
Janine (overlapping): Well...[laugh]
Austin: —what you told me earlier. [Laugh]
Janine: I didn’t know if I wanted to—to blow that in this, or if we wanted to save that.
Austin: We should say it.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: Keep people hyped.
Janine: So, her shared Ability—her Mentor is Waxwing. Which is...the—what was the other one? Gold...
Austin: Finch. Goldfinch—
Janine (overlapping): Goldfinch, right.
Austin (overlapping): —is the one who left, yeah.
Janine: Yes. Um...so, the—her Shared Ability, I think makes sense for it to be Stealth?
Austin: Sure. Yeah, that makes sense.
Janine: Her Unique Ability—well, actually I’ll do Mentor’s Ability first. Weapons and Gadgets—
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: —seems also what you said.
Austin: Mhm.
Janine: And her Unique Ability is Bird Telepathy.
Austin: So she can...
Keith: Sick.
Austin (overlapping): ...talk to birds...
Keith: Yeah, that’s sick.
Janine (overlapping): Yeah.
Austin: Can she...she can’t fly?
Janine: Um...I don’t really—
Austin (overlapping): That’s fine, ‘cause I can just put that right in the—right in the chamber. Of just, like—
Keith: Can a grouse not fly? I don’t know if a grouse can fly.
Janine (overlapping): That’s the thing is I want to say grouses are also ground birds. They might be able to fly a bit, but...
Keith: Yeah, I think they’re, like, a flutterer—
Austin (overlapping): There you go.
Keith (overlapping): —like a turkey.
Janine (overlapping): I don’t—I also—
Austin (overlapping): It’s like, they are—yeah.
Janine (overlapping): —I don’t think flight was one of my options.
[Art coughs]
Austin: Oh, your—your—well...Telepathy/Telekinesis actually is one power, so you could, like, float—
Janine (overlapping): Okay—
Austin: —if you wanted.
Janine: —I didn’t know if it was, and also, I—
Austin: Yeah...
Janine: —I considered putting Bird Telepathy/Telekinesis, but that sounds (laughing) like nonsense.
Austin: Well no, that’s a cool thing!
Janine (overlapping): Bird Telekinesis, but I guess that’s...
Austin: Well like, let’s just imagine—is like, can you control flocks of birds all at once?
Janine: I was just gonna say, like, those things of, like, fl—bird flocks moving in weird shapes.
Austin (overlapping): (Enthusiastic) Yeah...
Janine: Okay.
Austin: Let’s do that. That’s—
Janine (overlapping): Alright, I’m on board.
Keith: Like a mur—like a murmuring?
Austin: Yeah. Yes.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: Exactly. So yeah, totally.
Janine: Alright.
Austin: So does that mean that—
Keith (overlapping): Is it murmuration?
Austin: I think it’s a murmuration. Can you fly—can you hover while doing that? Or can you—can you self-telekinesis or can you only Bird Telekinesis? Are you fl—are you being lifted by a bunch of birds?
Janine: That might be the thing, right?
Austin: Yeah, maybe...
Janine (overlapping): That might be the thing that’s, like, if I’m building this on her being able to talk to birds, which I very much am, then the thing is maybe that, like—[sigh] maybe even that, like, a thing she can do is she can make birds capable of lifting heavier stuff. ‘Cause she’s, like [Austin exhales a laugh] influencing their movements—
Austin (overlapping): Totally. This—
Janine (overlapping): — or something? You know...
Austin: —this book—so you’ll note that, like, this is really a free form thing, for people listening. This is not a game where you have moves like “Shoot your laser eyes!” or whatever. Or like “Roll your—your telepathy has seven sub-moves!” or whatever. It’s like, “Here’s what your Abilities are.” And then all the Moves that you’re rolling are—are either really general interesting things, you know, like...uh...let’s see, Unleash your Powers, which is a very general thing, which is like “Hey, use your powers to overcome an obstacle.” Or Directly Engage a Threat, or Assess the Situation. Um, and then your specific, like, playbook powers—your playbooks are about who you are as a person more than who you are as a set of superpowers, right? And so—I mean, we’ll get to your Moves in a second, and you’ll see how that—how that works out. But, yeah. I think that that—I think that that totally works. Um...do you wanna mention...who one of your—your telepathic bird friends is?
Janine: Um, [Art coughs] I think we can actually—when we do the Questions—
Austin (overlapping): Oh, we’ll answer that. Okay.
Janine (overlapping): —I think that might—
Austin: Sounds good.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah. Sounds good. Okay. Um, so, (Reading) “You have a Mentor, someone who’s taught you, trained you, given you aid, or raised you up. Someone who might have confided you—” sorry—”who might have confined you a bit too rigidly to a single path. Which Label do they embody, and which do they deny?” And these Labels are the stats of this game. Savior, Danger, Freak, Superior, and Mundane.
Janine: So this is one—this is the thing that I kind of wanted to tentatively say and bounce off of you, right? And I have it down as, um, Waxwing Embodying Savior but Denying Superior? But I don’t know if that’s necessarily true for that character as she’s...
Austin: As I imagine her, kind of?
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, so let’s go over what these stats all do really quick. So...um...Danger is a...or, let’s start with the—let’s do the list that’s on your page here. Freak does Unleash your Powers, which lets you kind of just generally overcome obstacles, reshape your environment, extend your senses. That’s you being like “Hey birds, tell me what’s going on over there.” Or “Hey birds, like, can you—can you stop this, you know, giant truck that’s, like, flying towards—” whatever. (Jokingly) I don’t know what weird bird power shit you do. But, you know, some weird bird power shit. That would be Unleash your Powers. So it’s, like, really leaning into whatever your powers are. Or—or doing something super stealthily I guess, right? Danger is fighting stuff—is Directly Engage a Threat. Which is really—the way that that works in this game is really cool. Saviour is Defending. So, when you defend someone or something from an immediate threat, you roll Savior. That’s also a really good way to add Team to the Pool, which if you’re listening to Twilight Mirage, it’s sort of—this game has a Gambit-type system, where you kind of have a pool of bonus points that the whole team has. And a big part of this game is adding and pulling from that stuff as you play, and Defend does that. Superior is Assess the Situation, which is like “Hey, what here can I use to blank? What is the biggest threat?” Those questions. Um, and Provoke Someone is kind of bait someone into doing something. And that’s Superior. You can also think about Superior as just being like “I have—I’m a fucking superhero. I’m good at this shit. I’m—or I’m very smart. I’m better than other people, and that means that I have a responsibility,” or “that means that they’re less than me,” depending on how you play it. And then, Mundane, which is Pierce the Mask or Comfort or Support—and Pierce the Mask is when you are, like, trying to...um, see who a person is [Art coughs] at their heart. What their plans are, how you could influence them, stuff like that. And then Comfort and Support is like “Hey—hey buddy. It’s me, your friend. Let’s be friends. Hey.” You know. “Feel better.” Et cetera. Comforting and Supporting. So, given all of that, I definitely think she embodies Savior.
Janine: Mhm.
Austin: I think that that’s the right type of [pause] hero for her? You know, they are very much the guardians of Bluff City—or they were the guardians of Bluff City and very much about saving people. Um...[sigh] I guess the thing—
Janine (overlapping): Superior doesn’t—I—Superior is tough because, like, the things it does are correct for her, but the attitude doesn’t necessarily seem—
Austin: Well—
Janine: —like it would be?
Austin: —so that’s the thing, is I actually maybe I go the other way, which is like, they were a pair and I could imagine the world in which—if I’m—if we’re using—if we’re really just kind of, like, tweaking Batman and Superman, that style of—those style of characters, um...Goldfinch is the one who would have Savior, right? Who was like—
Janine: Mhm.
Austin: —you know, indestructible. Could fly around. Would swoop in and save the day and take the hit for somebody else. And...you know, Waxwing is the one who was one step ahead. Who was Assessing the Situation. Who was Provoking—it’s like, Waxwing is the one who, like...be a little smarmy. Who would, like, shittalk somebody. And then Goldfinch is the one who would be like, you know, “I can tell that you still have good in there!” And so, for that reason, I actually think maybe Superior is—
Janine: Yeah...
Austin: —is hers. And at that point, the thing that she’s trying to pull out from you is like “Hey, you have powers. That means that you have this responsibility. You have a certain...you have a certain quality that the other people in Bluff City don’t have, and that means something. You can’t pretend to not be that.” Um...does that work for you? For what her Embodies actually is?
Janine: Yeah. So what would her Denies be, though?
Austin: I mean, the easy one is Mundane, but I actually don’t know that that’s right. Like, um...[sigh] it might be...Danger? It might be like “Hey, there’s always a way to get around...someone? You don’t al—don’t throw fists?” You know? It might be—’cause what are her—her Abilities now, based on what you’ve written, are Stealth and Weapons and Gadgets—I guess Weapons and Gadgets does suggest being cool with some danger, huh?
Janine: Yeah...
Austin: Um...maybe it’s...hmm...
Janine: The other tempting thing is like—well she’s not, like—Freak, like—
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: —she doesn’t really do that, but that also—I don’t know.
[Art clears his throat]
Austin: That seems to go against the thing that we’ve set up with Superior—
Janine (overlapping): Yeah...
Austin: —as being about...um, you know, maybe it’s—[stammers] the question ends up being—here’s the thing. How long has she been your Mentor? Because if it’s post Goldfinch, there’s a world in which Savior is the one that she is not...that she’s Denying.
Janine: I imagine it is post Goldfinch.
Austin: Then yeah, then let’s—
Janine (overlapping): I don’t know that, like, pre Goldfinch, she would’ve—like, I don’t imagine this character as ever having had any contact with Goldfinch.
Austin: Right. Right. Um...
Janine: So being her girlfriend’s protégé, like, you would expect there’d be overlap there, but—
Austin: Yeah...yeah, but like—so maybe this is like “Listen, Goldfinch put herself in front of every fucking bullet, and...at the end of the day, that’s not the way that we can save this place.”
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: Like, she wanted to save her home so bad that she left this place behind, and that’s not it. You know? That’s not the way to do it. So yeah, let’s do that.
Janine: Okay.
Austin: And that’s—this stuff can fluctuate over time. It—where we can start playing like “Mmm, that doesn’t feel right.”
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: And change it. Alright, so that’s your Mentor. Um...next up, really quick, your Labels. What are your—what are your labels currently? [Cough]
Janine: Um...so, I—you get one point to put into a thing, right?
Austin: Yeah, so the way that this game works is every playbook has a set of them already? Uh, and then you get to move—you get to add one somewhere.
Janine (overlapping): Yeah. Um, so I’ve done that, and my—so my base Labels are—I have zero Freak, (laughing) zero Danger, one Savior, two Superior, zero Mundane.
Austin: Perfect. Um, so, very Superior, a little bit Savior, and then zero across the board, right?
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: Alright. Cool! Uh, let’s talk about your...Moves. ‘Cause you don’t have any—you don’t have any...Conditions, which are, like, things that hurt you. So what Moves did you pick?
Janine: Um, I picked Been Reading the Files. Uh...which is where you—(Reading) “You’ve learned about the superhuman world through your mentor’s resources. When you first encounter an important superpowered phenomenon, you roll plus Superior. On a hit—” et cetera. It’s like a—
Austin (overlapping): Et cetera. Yeah.
Janine (overlapping): —you know, research-y thing. Yeah.
Austin: You get to know about supervillains, and super—
Janine: Yes.
Austin: —and superpowered shit because you’re the protégé—or, you’re the protégé of someone who’s done all this before.
Janine: Yeah. Um...I also took Venting Frustration. (Reading) “When you directly engage while you are Angry, you can roll + the Label your mentor denies and clear Angry.”
Austin: Interesting. Okay.
Janine: I’m not sure if that’ll come up, but I like that for the character, so I picked it.
Austin (overlapping): Yeah, totally. And then...
Janine: And then I picked Be Mindful of Your Surroundings. (Reading) “When you assess the situation before entering into a fight, you may ask one additional question, even on a miss.”
Austin: Okay, cool! That’s really good.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: And again, lines up nicely with the Superior stuff.
Janine: Mm-hmm...
Austin: Alright, so before we move on, let’s do that—I guess Background Questions. Um, so, I will ask them. How did you first meet your Mentor?
Janine: Uh, [awkward laugh] I think this is the situation where...um...where Waxwing was trying to handle a situation that was dangerous, and then just found a teen handling it? [Austin laughs] And that situation that was dangerous, was Rupert the bird [Jack and Austin chuckle] causing a fracas. Um...
Jack: He’s back!
Janine: He’s back! In sidekick form.
Austin: (Laughing) Mhm.
[Jack laughs]
Janine: Um, and...so the—you know, Chanti was—was, like, in this sit—in the right place at the right time, and had her, like—her awakening moment of, like, “Oh, I can just talk to this bird, and—and calm it down—it seems fucked up and mad, but [Austin chuckles] we can just have a chat here and it’s okay.” [Laugh]
Austin: [Laugh] Good. Great.
Janine (overlapping): And Waxwing’s just like (laughing) “What the fuck?”
Austin: Welcome home, Rupert.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: When and why did you choose to train with them?
Janine: I imagine it’s probably one of those things—right in that moment an offer was probably extended—or close to that moment, because, like, obviously she has...an ability. Um...that, left unchecked, could be problematic, or weird, or...
Austin: Right, right.
Janine: ...you know.
Austin: Maybe you develop into being a supervillain if not brought under—
Janine: Exactly.
Austin: —her...wing. Dammit.
Janine (overlapping): You don’t just walk away from someone who’s talking to a mean bird. [Austin laughs] You, like, probably get involved.
Austin: [Laugh] That—
Janine: As a responsible adult in the community. [Laugh]
Austin: Tell that to every other character in our first Fiasco game.
Janine: Well, true. Um...and so I think—
Austin (overlapping): Why—okay. Go ahead.
Janine: —that Chanti decided to...train with her just ‘cause she, like, didn’t...know what else to do? Like when she became aware that she could do weird stuff, it’s just like “Well...” It’s very much like, “Well, I have a musical talent, I should probably learn piano or something, I guess. Well, I can talk to birds, I should probably study with a superhero, I guess.” [Austin laughs] It’s very much that, like, academic...mindset of, like, “Well you train the thing.”
Austin: Right.
Janine: “You do the thing. You train the thing the adult says you should, and...”
Austin: “And that’s what you should do.” Yeah.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: [Clears throat] Who else outside the team—[stammers] I’m skipping the next one ‘cause we just answered—
Janine: Yeah. Yeah.
Austin: —why they agreed to train you. Who else outside the team knows about your training?
Janine: Um, Rupert the bird. But—[laugh]
Austin: Uh-huh.
Janine: —I think her mom...and not her dad? But her mom knows.
Austin: Okay. Uh, is that just because, like, you’re tighter with your mom than your dad?
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: Okay.
Janine: I think the dad is maybe a little bit uptight.
Austin: (Laughing) Okay. Why do you care about the team?
Janine: Um...I think it is also one of those things of like...it’s the...not local friend group, but like, when you are a teenager, there is a degree of, like, acquaintances of convenience, and...and feeling close to people because they’re the people who are around you and they’re doing the things you do—
[Timestamp 00:45:00]
Janine (continued): —and they have more or less the interests you have. Um...I think it is—it is that kind—it’s the kind—it’s very much the kind of caring [Austin clears throat] I think that, like, if she goes away to college someone else. dissolves—somewhere else, dissolves.
Austin: Right. I will say, briefly, that...there is a pretty clear...[sigh] we can play it that way, but...it is, like, one of those things that this game is based on is the notion that the team is important to everybody in the team.
Janine: Yeah, I mean—
Austin (overlapping): That, like, tomorrow if it stopped happening, you would feel sad about it, even if you knew it was the right choice.
Janine (overlapping): But that’s totally how those relationships are...
Austin: Okay. I—I’ve seen those relationships—
Janine (overlapping): Right, like?
Austin: I’m watching Riverdale right now, and—
Janine: Ah...
Austin: —I’ve seen that sort of, like, relationship of convenience played as being...nothing. So...I just want to make sure that everyone on the table is, in general, like on the same page—
Janine: Mhm.
Austin: —like the—the way that the book is designed, the way that the game is designed is that the team matters. Even if you’re—even if you were playing The Delinquent, who is the character who is supposed to not care about people, they actually care a whole bunch. [Coughs] ‘Scuse me.
Art: How far into Riverdale are you?
Austin: Uh, I am in season two, and boy are the fucking wheels coming off of that boat.
Keith: I’m hearing that I should watch it, but I’m also hearing that no one knows what it is, and it’s also very weird.
Austin: It’s a CW teen drama—
Art (overlapping): Best show on TV.
Austin: —with, like, a lot of great aesthetic choices.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: It’s—its—the first season’s really good.
Art: Both seasons are fantastic.
Austin: I’m enjoying the second season, but...
Art: The Sabrina spinoff can’t get here fast enough.
Austin: Is that happening?
Art: Netflix—it’s gonna be a Netflix show, but yes.
Austin: Okay. Sure. Okay. Um...
Keith: We’re talking about the teenage witch.
Art (overlapping): I’m sorry—uh...
Austin: Yeah. She lives next door to—or, she lives a city away from Archie. A town away.
Keith (overlapping): Does she really?
Austin: Yeah. Like in the comics.
Keith: In the comics.
Art: And that city has been mentioned in the show.
Austin: Is that Greenvale?
Keith: I would love—I haven’t seen seasons one or two. Would love to see a season three of Riverdale that is about weird ass magic shit.
Austin: Honestly, season one and two are...
Keith: Magicky?
Austin (overlapping): Have the—eh, no...but like...
Keith: They’re weird—I’ve heard that they’re weird.
Austin: They’re weird. Um...I’m enjoying it a lot. Anyway, we should keep moving. Uh, we don’t need to go over your Moment of Truth or your Team Moves. Those can come up in play. Um...is there anything—oh, oh, oh! We need to know—I need to know what you got from your Mentor. Or what Mentor stuff you can use. You have Mentor’s Resources—(Reading) “Three resources your Mentor gave to you and the team.”
Janine: Yeah, um...
Austin: And the team, so everyone should be like “Ooh...”
Keith: Mmm...
Janine: I think—
Keith (overlapping): Pays to have a protégé.
Janine (overlapping): —the ones that make the most sense...uh, I’m like—I’m, like, torn on these ‘cause I don’t know Waxwing’s specific deals...
Austin: I—me either. We’ll figure ‘em out right now.
Janine: The one that—
Austin (overlapping): You know?
Janine (overlapping): —makes the most sense is a hidden base.
Austin: A hundred percent. Under the boardwalk. One hundred percent. Right?
Janine: That’s pretty good, yeah...
Keith (overlapping): Oh...is it near the arcade?
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Is it near one of the four arcades?
Austin: Uh-huh. Totally.
Keith (overlapping): (Laughing) On this boardwalk?
Austin: Yes. It’s underneath one of the arcades.
Keith: Is it the good one that still has some working older machines, or is it, like, the ones that are only TIme Crisis?
Austin: Oh, it’s definitely the good one.
Keith: Okay, cool. Sick.
Austin: Uh, the reason I’ve been watching Archie—or, Riverdale is because I wanted to run this game, and in Riverdale it would definitely be the cool old one, because in Riverdale, Jughead belongs to—well, Jughead has a relationship with the Southside Serpents. And at the Southside Serpents bar—which is the White Wyrm, W-Y-R-M, uh...they definitely just have a Mortal Kombat 2 machine hooked up. And, like, it’s—
Keith (overlapping): (Muffled) That’s sick.
Austin: —it’s on screen, like a lot. They play that game. It’s cool. Anyway.
Keith: There’s a sandwich shop near me that, just for no reason, has like a wicked old Ms. Pac-Man cabinet—
Austin: Nice.
Keith: —and I don’t know why.
Austin: Nice. So yeah, it’s—it’s like a retro arcade. It’s like an arcade you spend...you know, twelve bucks to come in and then you can play games for as long as you want. That’s what it is. It was a regular arcade that was doing terrible, and then...Waxwing...bought it. And turned it into this other one.
Keith: Did they start selling alcohol there, [Austin coughs] ‘cause that is, I think, what makes arcades popular again.
Austin: No, it’s not. It’s a dry arcade.
Keith (overlapping): It’s just a twelve-dollar—it’s a dry arcade?
Austin: Yeah, well—so she met Goldfinch there when it was still a cool regular arcade. That’s—that’s—well, she didn’t meet—’cause we already established they met wrestling. But that was, like, their first date—was they went to this arcade on the boardwalk. And so now, you know, they bought it together years later and now it fucking...Goldfinch is gone. Cool. Anyway...sorry, I’m deep in my sad relationship shit. Um...what are the other two?
Janine: Um...I’m trying to think of, like, things you give shitty teen superheroes. Not shitty, but like, [Austin laughs] things you—you give them that, like...you know, some of these things, I don’t think—like I wouldn’t give them surveillance equipment.
Austin: No, or a chem lab. (Laughing) You don’t want them—
Janine (overlapping): (Laughing) No...
Austin: —just cooking meth under the arcade.
Janine: Oh, god. Um, I think—so a hidden base. I’m a little—I’m torn—so I’m torn on—there’s four and I need two of them. I’m torn on a vehicle, a supercomputer, communicators, or a weapon of last resort. I think I really want a weapon of last resort, actually. Um...
Austin: I’m glad that you were like “I wouldn’t give them surveillance equipment—”
Janine: Well...
Austin: “—but a weapon of last resort, sure.”
Janine: The thing I’m thinking of is like—a weapon of last resort feels like a bad choice you make when you’re sad...
Austin: Oh, yeah.
Janine: It feels a hundred percent like...she just lost someone, she’s training someone up who is, like, not...peak competence compared to people she’s used to working with.
Austin: Yes.
Janine: Her thing is like probably “I don’t want this kid to get fucking killed because I didn’t tell them a word or something they needed—”
Austin: Right.
Janine: “—or some bullshit.” Like—
Austin: Is the weapon of last resort a thing you can carry around with you, or is it something that’s in the base?
Janine: I think that’s the third thing, is a vehicle. It’d probably be in the (laughing) vehicle.
Austin: Sure. So ve—it’s a vehicle.
Janine (overlapping): That probably solves it.
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: Teens need a car. They just do.
Austin (overlapping): What—yeah, what is the vehicle?
Janine: Um...
Austin: There’s four of you, right? So, any car will work.
Janine: That’s true...I don’t know a lot about, like, supercars.
Austin (overlapping): But does it have other stuff in it? Is it a van? Is it a...is it a—
Janine (overlapping): I’m—I’m so bad at, like, vehicle things...
Austin (overlapping): Other people in the call, what type of car are you hanging out in?
Janine (overlapping): (Laughing) I just keep thinking it’s a hatchback, but like, that’s not—
Austin: Alright, well—
[Janine and Austin laugh]
Austin: I’m glad—[laugh]
Janine (overlapping): How do you make a hatchback cool? Is it like a really—is it like a heavily modified Yaris or something? Like—
[Austin continues laughing in the background]
Austin: Do you remember that bit in some game that we played once, where I was like “So...uh, Art. What is this thing’s weakness?” And everyone at the table was like “You could say anything. You could say its knees.” And then Art was like “It doesn’t have a weakness.” Do you remember that? [Janine laughs] Moment? That’s this, where—[Keith laughs] it just says “A vehicle.” This is a superhero game. You could be like “It’s a flying invisible jet,” and what you went with was (laughing) “It’s a Yaris.”
Janine: [Laugh] Well, now that I’m thinking about it, it feels like it should maybe—
Art (overlapping): It’s got some real cool band stickers on it.
Keith (overlapping): Well, is it a 2018 Yaris?
Janine (overlapping): —amphibious or something.
Austin: Okay, once—on at a—once at a time, let’s hear everybody’s thoughts about the Yaris. [Laugh]
[Janine laughs]
Keith: Is it a new model?
Art: Should have some really cool band stickers on it.
Austin: One, it is—definitely has good band stickers on it. Two, I don’t know, is it a new model? Is it (laughing) next year’s Yaris?
Janine: Hang on, I’m googling “sci-fi Yaris.”
Austin: Oh, my god. Yaris’s aren’t in sci-fi.
[Keith laughs in the background]
Jack (overlapping): There’s nothing here! There’s nothing here. This is...
Keith: It could be one of those, like, weird, old, like—like eastern-european hatchbacks. Have you seen those? It was like a...what is it—is it the Yugo? Is that the weird old car? Yeah, the Yugo. It’s—how about a Yugo?
Austin: A Yugo is a cool car.
Janine: Hang on, I typed “amphibious future car”...and some of these look dope, so...I wanna—I wanna change—
Austin (overlapping): Oh, those are cool.
Janine (overlapping): —like, an amphibious future Yaris, at least.
Keith: Okay.
Janine: I don’t want it to—I would like it to be able to do water stuff, because yeah, it’s a coastal city.
Austin: Yeah, it’s a coastal city.
Keith: Can it—
Janine (overlapping): Flying doesn’t matter so much, but...
Keith: I—I feel like—I mean now we’re—oh, now we’re in the—that’s way in the future.
Austin: That’s a future car.
Keith: That’s a future car. So we can’t just say that it’s a waterlogged Yugo. [Laugh]
Janine (overlapping): It’s tires look like they’re made out of cocktail shakers.
[Keith cracks up]
Austin: Yeah, you’re not...wrong. I like this picture of this woman just standing on top of it with a suitcase or something?
[Janine laughs]
Keith: Yeah...well, that’s how you get out of it. You climb out of the top.
Austin: [Laugh] Okay. I’m cool with this.
Janine (overlapping): You can fit four people in there.
Keith (overlapping): No, I think that’s real. That’s how you get in.
Janine (overlapping): There’s four seats. There’s four seats in there, so it’ll work.
Austin (overlapping): There are four seats.
Janine: And a giant fingerprint.
Austin: Shoutouts to—to Bacon Nan...Beichen Nan—it’s probably not “bacon.” The Amphi-X...amphibious vehicle Dubai 2030. Um, yeah. This is cool. I’m good with it. Alright. It think that that’s every—
Art (overlapping): Does this have four seats?
Austin: —it does have four seats. If you zoom in the top—
Keith (overlapping): Yeah.
Janine (overlapping): Yeah.
Art: Oh yeah. It’s gonna be—I—shotgun.
Austin: Mm. [Laugh]
Keith: Okay, now...this is a cool future car, but I do just wanna...make sure that we don’t—[Janine laughs, Keith bursts out laughing]
Janine: That has two flats on the—on the same side. [Austin and Keith laugh] How do you do that?
Keith: No, it’s just turning!
Austin: Mm...that’s worse, honestly.
Janine (overlapping): (Skeptical) Mmm...
Keith (overlapping): It’s—
Art: (overlapping): No...
Austin: If it does that when it turns?
Janine: It’s gonna tip over...
Keith (overlapping): It’s—no, that’s part of the Yugo’s appeal, is that it’s only broken. It can’t—[Janine snorts] it can’t be something that’s not broken.
Austin: Keith, I have a solution.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin (overlapping): You have this car. [Laugh]
[Keith laughs]
Janine: Counteroffer...
Austin (overlapping): Which is totally in line...okay—
Keith (overlapping): Oh, now that’s cool.
Austin: That’s a cool car. [Laugh]
Keith: Is that—is that canopy for—is that for shade, or is that for if it rolls, or is it solar power?
Art: If that’s amphibious—
Austin (overlapping): Good question.
Art: —we’re all gonna drown. There’s no walls on this.
[Janine and Austin laugh]
Keith: No, it’s a canoe! The fl—the bed is a canoe.
Janine (overlapping): It’s just seats on a surfboard with inflatable tires. That’s how it’s amphibious. [Laugh]
Austin (overlapping): We’re moving on. We’re moving on. Uh, who wants to go (laughing) next?
[Janine chuckles]
Keith: I—I have—I’ve pretty much worked through—through this, I—
Austin: Alright.
Keith: There’s a really easy path to—to what I want to do.
Austin: Alright, so here—what’s your—what’s your—what’s your hero’s name?
Keith: My hero’s name—I’m—right now, I’m on Franklin Bano. That’s my superhero’s name.
Austin (overlapping): Okay. That’s your—wait, is that your Real Name, or is that your Hero’s Name?
Keith: That’s my real—sorry, that’s my Real Name, is Franklin Bano.
Austin: Okay. Do you have a Hero Name?
Keith: Keith Carberry. [Laugh]
Austin: I—no. (Laughing) Not allowed.
Keith (overlapping): No, no, no, no. Um...
Austin: (Laughing) Not twice.
[Jack laughs]
Janine: Car Keithberry.
Keith: I just wanted to scootch in there under Art to get rejected for a name.
Austin: Gotcha. (Laughing) I see.
Keith: Uh, I don’t have a Hero Name yet. I don’t know that I...do I need a...secret identity? I’ll come up with the—oh, I guess I need a Hero Name regardless, right?
Art: If you don’t have powers, you need a code name, or people are just gonna shoot you in the face while you sleep.
Janine (overlapping): Yeah, he’s a person who’s like...into the idea of being a superhero, so it seems weird he wouldn’t have a name...
Austin: Uh, here’s a question—
Keith (overlapping): Yeah...
Austin: —do you have a mask on? Like do you hide your face?
Keith: Um...no. I don’t hide my face. I don’t hide my face.
Austin: Okay...so you’re just getting by...somehow.
Keith: I’ve got a suit!
Austin: I—no, no, no, but I’m just saying, no one has been like “Oh, I’ll google him.” [Jack laughs] “Hey Siri, who is that?”
Keith (overlapping): Oh I just—I just wa—I just wasn’t—I just wasn’t thinking secret identity. I can get, like—you can have a Hero Name without a secret identity.
Austin: Totally, I’m just—
Keith (overlapping): Right?
Janine (overlapping): You’re—[pause] aren’t—
Austin: I’m curious why does a—why does a villain not just come fuck you up? Or your first few—
Keith (overlapping): They can fucking try.
Austin: Or someone you care about. That’s why superheroes have—
Keith (overlapping): Ah, that’s not part of it, right?
Austin: —that’s why superheroes have—
Keith: Ugh...but—I’ll come—I’ll come up with a secret—I’m not opposed to a secret identity, I just thought of a Real Name before I thought of a Hero Name, so...
Austin: I get you. I like Franklin. I like Franklin Bano.
Keith (overlapping): That’s what I’ve got, is Frank—Franklin. Yeah.
Austin (overlapping): We can come up with a—with a...with a name. It’d be—or, a Hero Name that’s cool.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Uh, let’s go through your—the rest of this stuff, though. Um, so—
Keith: Yeah! Let’s do it.
Austin: What is your Look?
Keith: Um, so...I’m—I’m thinking...um...so that—at some point—I’m wearing draft number one of my costume, still.
Austin: (Laughing) Okay.
Keith: And...I think I did a pretty good job, but it’s old, and I got—I’ve had, you know, the shit kicked out of me a bunch of times, and it’s like—like the col—the big thing is, like, the color’s faded. I imagine that it’s—it, like—it used to be, like, a nice...uh, like a nice blue...with, like, some acc—like, accented colors, and it’s sort of—they’ve all kind of run together, and the blue’s now like a fade—like all faded...
Austin: Sure. Um, what do you wear when you’re not—I’m sure your details around what that looks like will come together once you know what your name is—
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: —‘Cause you don’t have a whole thing.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: If, you know, there’s a—there’s the thing on the sheet that has all the Look stuff, what type of clothing do you wear? What type of face do you have? What—what ethnicity are you?
Keith: Um....um...
Austin: And he/him pronouns, it sounded like?
Keith: Yeah. He/him.
Austin (overlapping): Okay.
Keith: And...I’m—so...for clothing—it’s—I think—clothing is, like, out-of-costume clothing, not—
Austin: Yes.
Keith: Right?
Austin: Yes.
Keith (overlapping): Yeah, so...I’m gonna go...
Austin (overlapping): Yes, so it’s like—you’re hanging around.
Keith: ...like, ca—like, comfortable casual?
Austin: Okay.
Keith: Um...
Austin: It’s like jeans-and-t-shirt type of—type of dude?
Keith: Yeah, I mean all of his money goes into hero stuff.
Austin: Right.
Austin: So he’s not—he doesn’t have, like...he—you know, he tries to look nice, but I can’t go out there buying, like, you know, hundred and eighty dollar jeans.
Austin: Okay, so we;ve already got a fashion dilemma, because you’re wearing old jeans and fucking...Chanti? Is, like, hyper fashion. Love it. Good.
Keith: Well the—the costume is flashy, it’s just faded.
Austin: Gotchu. Right. I just meant—
Keith (overlapping): Stylish. Stylish, flashy...
Austin: —I just meant your—like, in down time, when you’re hanging.
Keith: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I’m in a hoodie...
Austin: Right. (Laughing) Exactly.
Keith: It’s a nice hoodie. Like, it’s soft.
Austin (overlapping): Chanti’s also in a hoodie, it’s just made out of some rare material, and was seven hundred dollars. [Laugh]
Keith: Yes. Yeah. My hoodie...
Art: I have a very specific hoodie-oriented look, so we really have to be—[laugh]
Keith: Okay, it’s a...
Austin (overlapping): —(laughing) careful here...
Keith (overlapping): ...it’s a zip-up—it’s a...zip-up sweatshirt with no hood.
Austin: Okay. Thank you. I appreciate you making room on the table. Um, what are your Abilities?
Keith (overlapping): And it’s red. It’s maroon.
Austin: Great.
Keith: It’s navy red.
Austin: Ah, I hate it. [Keith cracks up] I hate that you said that. (Reading) “If you have superpowers, they’re pretty minor or not noticeable. If you have Skills, you carry the necessary equipment. Choose two of the following six: bow and trick arrows, camouflage and stealth, fazing, swords, martial arts, and acrobatics.”
Keith: Um, so I had this from the—from the very beginning. No...superpowers.
Austin: Right.
Keith: Not even little ones. Um, but I am gonna pick, um...I am gonna pick Martial Arts and Acrobatics.
Austin: Okay. So you’re a jumpy—you’re a jumpy boy. You do jumps—
Keith (overlapping): Jumpy boy.
Austin (overlapping): —you do kicks. You do some...
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: ...shoulder throws. You do some...
Keith: Yeah, a roll...
Austin: A roll or two. Yeah, sure.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Awesome. Um...so that is, like, in line—the way that you pitched—can you explain how you pitched this character to us in chat earlier today, ‘cause I think that’ll help people at home a lot.
Keith (overlapping): Yeah, okay. So this is—this is the original premise that I carried into...after I learned what—that this is about kids.
Austin: (Laughing) Uh-huh.
Keith: Uh...which I think I mentioned earlier. Okay. By the way, I have a very specific moment that inspired my character and it’s the very end of a Johnny Knoxville video detailing all of his worst injuries and being asked if it was worth it, and he laughs and goes “Yeah, it was.” [Austin chuckles] And it was, like, really good. And he has, like, a charming laugh. And the video was just brutally disgusting.
Austin: Right. I’m glad you didn’t link that video.
Keith (overlapping): What a...horrific video, yeah. It was, like—
[Timestamp 01:00:00]
Keith (continued): —and the way he speaks so casually about these... just horrendous injuries that he got literally fucking around. I mean, fucking around for a lot of money—
Austin: Yes.
Keith: But, like, just disgus—and he’s so—he was so funny about describing it. And I was like “This is...this could be my (laughing) Masks character.”
Austin: Right. And you got there quicker than he did. That’s like the thing, right? Is like—
Keith (overlapping): Yeah. Yeah-yeah-yeah.
Austin (overlapping): —you’re twenty. He’s thirty-eight now. Or forty now. Or whatever.
Keith (overlapping): Right. Yeah. So, the—so I’m—I really want this character to walk the line between still having something to prove and then also, like, being like “I’ve got—I...am washed out of this already.”
Austin: Right.
Keith: “I’m too—I’m almost done. But I still...am glad that I did it. And I still am glad that I’m still doing it, even though I...hate it. Even if I—even if it hurts.”
Austin: [Laugh] Art in the chat notes that Johnny Knoxville is forty-seven! Jesus.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Alright. So what are your two—
Keith: He looks like Rivers Cuomo now, it’s weird.
Austin: [Chuckle] Oh, weird. What are your two Beacon Moves?
Keith: Um...where is that at? Which one is that?
Austin (overlapping): That is the next page.
Keith: The—not the Labels. Oh, the—
Austin: Nope. The Moves
Keith: You skipped a bit.
Austin: Oh, n—no, we have to do—we do—
Keith: No? We’re doing Beacon Moves first? Okay, I do have those.
Austin: Yeah, I’m doing it based on the book. The way—
Keith: Oh, okay.
Austin: —the book goes through these. So—or, no, you’re right. You’re right. You’re right. We do Labels first.
Keith: Okay. Um...
Austin: So yeah, what are your Labels?
Keith: So, I just want to make sure—the ones that are highlighted, that’s what I’ve got to start with.
Austin (overlapping): That’s what you’ve already got, yeah.
Keith: Right now, minus one Danger, minus one Freak, plus two Savior, zero Superior, and plus two Mundane.
Austin: Right.
Keith: And...
Austin: And you get to add one anywhere there.
Keith: Yeah...I was—[sigh] I think that...I think that what I’ve gotta do is be plus three Savior. I’m adding one to Savior.
Austin: Okay, so very good at defending people.
Keith: Yeah...and I—I...[sigh] I think that that choice is, like, because of the specific moment that this character is in? Like—
Austin: Mhm.
Keith: —like I’m adding plus one as I’m inhabiting this guy.
Austin: Right.
Keith: Not, like—if this was three years ago, it might have been...you know—
Austin: Sure.
Keith: —let’s bring Danger up, or...
Austin: Uh, and these will change during play. That’s the other thing. Unlike a lot of—
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: —Powered by the Apocalypse games, these move up and down...in interesting ways throughout play. So this is—
Keith: (Muffled) Yeah.
Austin: —definitely like, when we come in, your Savior is at three.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Can you fill those in—in your Label sheet after we’re done this little—this little—
Keith: Yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah. Yeah.
Austin: Alright. Uh, so now, let’s talk about Beacon Moves.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: You get two.
[Pause]
Keith: Um...so, I’m going to do....I think the—two of these, I think, really came to as directly for this guy that I’m trying to make.
Austin: Mhm.
Keith: So the first—the first one that I chose was...uh...Suck It, Domitian—
Austin: Mhm.
Keith: —which, um...I don’t know if that means anything other than the emperor—(laughing) the Roman emperor.
Austin: Uh, I think...
Keith: The authoritarian emperor?
Austin: Yeah, I guess that must be it, right?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: ‘Cause there’s no other mention of that character—of Domitian in the—in the...
Keith: I looked.
Austin (overlapping): In the beac—or, in the book. Right, ‘cause I was like “There must be a character. There must be a character in this book.”
Keith (overlapping): There’s not. I really think it’s just, like—like, I guess I’m the Roman Senate, I guess. Uh. [Austin chuckles, Keith laughs]
Austin: Oh, you know what? You know what?
Keith: What?
Austin: You know what? It is a Hawkeye reference.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: There we go. It’s Kate—
Keith: So that one—it is once removed from a reference to the Roman emperor.
Austin: Yes. (Reading) “Kate, talking about how the Roman emperor Domitian could fire four arrows at once between his fingers while Clint is shown shooting only three off. Then later, Kate fires five arrows at once. Kate: Suck it Domitian.” Good. Good.
Keith: Alright. Alright. Um...
Austin: Anyway, (laughing) what’s that Move do?
Keith: (Reading) “When you stand strong while dramatically under fire, roll + Savior instead of + Danger to directly engage a threat.”
Austin: So it lets you—as long as you’re just like “Yeah, I’m gonna just be right here. I’ll take my knocks—”
Keith: Yeah. Well I think it’s—I think I—
Austin (overlapping): “I can fight strong.”
Keith: —I think it’s got even worse than that. I don’t think it’s “I’ll take my knocks.” To me, it feels like—this is, like, a make or break...thing for you.
Austin (overlapping): You’re right. There is—in fact, the book actually goes into that. Again, this book is actually really good at teaching people how to play their classes or their playbooks. It says (reading) “Suck It, Domitian requires you to be dramatically under fire. That means the odds are against, or you’re up against some terrifying threat. If the situation’s well in hand, chances are you’re not dramatically under fire. Of course, you’re often underpowered compared to your opposition, so it shouldn’t be too hard to get there.” Which is a cool...
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: ...good little write-up of how that Move actually functions in play. So.
Keith (overlapping): Yeah. Um...
Austin: So that’s one.
Keith: And then my second one is Pretty Much a Superhero. (Reading) “When you bring up your superhero name to someone important (your call) for the first time, roll + Savior. On a hit, they’ve heard of you; say which of your exploits they’ve heard about and which Label they think applies. On a 7-9, the GM will tell you something else they’ve heard, and pick a second Label they assign to you. On a miss, they don’t take you seriously, or mistrust you moving forward.”
Austin: Interesting. Okay. Cool! So that—that is a good, like, way for you to move socially as someone who is well known as just a regular ass person who uses this superhero name. Great.
Keith: Yeah, and I—I also think, like, just getting—being emotionally caught up in whether, like...
Austin: Yes.
Keith: ...the thing you’re doing is even...working for anyone, and then having that, like...the push and pull with “Well if no one knows me, why am I doing it?” versus, like, “The things that I’m actually doing are helping people.”
Austin: Right. Right-right-right. Um, I think based on the rest of the—based on the—in the book, there might also be an Influence thing here. Which is, like, you get Influence over them. We’ll talk about Influence momentarily, but...
Keith: Um, I don’t—
Austin (overlapping): But we’ll wrap back around.
Keith: —think this one is one of the Influence ones, ‘cause I think—
Austin: Well—
Keith: —there was another Move that gives me Influence.
Austin: So the book specially says...(Reading) “Pretty Much a Superhero is your chance to control NPCs first impressions of you. It only triggers when you think the other character is actually important—”
Keith: Oh.
Austin: “—and lets you frame how they see you, though the GM can complicate it on a 7-9. Whatever Label you pick is the one they reflect back at you through their Influence.”
Keith: Okay.
Austin: So, either...I guess the—if you are being Influence by them, it’s like “Hey, they see you as whatever Label you say—”
Keith (overlapping): Oh, okay.
Austin: —or vice versa. So yeah, you’re right—
Keith (overlapping): I guess that makes sense, ‘cause—
Austin: —give Influence, but it—it might change how that...relationship looks.
Keith: Yeah. That’s true, ‘cause I get to name what they think of me, which sounds like—
Austin (overlapping): Right. Exactly.
Keith: —Influence to me. [Laugh]
Yeah. Alright. Yeah. Right. Sure. Um...let's quickly go through Backstory, and then we’ll do Drives.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: Uh, how did you get your Skills?
Keith: Um...[sigh] so...can I—can I answer this and the costume one together?
Austin: Hundred percent.
Keith: And can I answer it with a question?
Austin: (Laughing) Sure.
Keith: Have you seen Samurai Flamenco? [Laugh]
Austin: Mhm!
Keith: Um...
Austin: It’s great. It’s very cute.
Keith: Yeah, it’s really good.
Austin: I didn’t see all of it. I’ve only seen, like...five episodes or something. But, it’s really good.
Keith (overlapping): It—the second season is not as...good. It gets cra—it turns into, like, a huge—like, Power Rangers Megazord type-thing—
Austin: Mmm...mhm.
Keith: Um, which is an interesting, like, genre shift that they do.
Austin: Sure.
Keith: But it is not—it’s just not as good. Happens to be not as good.
Austin (overlapping): Right. Right-right-right.
Keith: Um...but I—I think it’s just like...at some point, probably when I was younger than old-enough-to-be-a-superhero, I was just like “This is what I’m going to fucking do.” [Austin laughs] And...like, you know, I—you know, I begged a parent to take me to karate or whatever. Uh, and learned, like regular-person martial arts and just never stopped. And knitted a suit—knitted a suit?
Austin: Knitted a suit—made a suit.
Keith (overlapping): Made a suit out of material.
Austin: Right. [Pause] Out of sweatshirts that you got from—
Keith: (Laughing) Yes. That—yeah, they’re all hoodies.
Austin (overlapping): —the thrift store. Right, yeah. Okay, right.
Keith: My character’s very hoodie-based.
Austin: [Laugh] Great. Uh, so that’s—so you were young. You were like twelve or ten or not—like, you were a kid.
Keith: Yeah, I was a kid. I—yeah, I was a kid when I started gaining the skills. And then I was, you know, older when I built the suit. But—
Austin: Okay.
Keith: —same—same sort of through-line.
Austin: So you—were you working as a would-be superhero through high school? Like, were you fifteen, and like...karate-chopping shitheads?
Keith: Yes. Yeah.
Austin: Okay. So you’ve been doing it for a minute. That’s the thing—that’s part of why you’re so beat up.
Keith: Right. Yeah.
Austin: Okay.
Keith: The second—the second I...could, like, beat up an adult, I was doing it.
Austin: [Chuckle] Great. Or saving people. Or whatever. Jumping through glass—
Keith (overlapping): Well, a lot of the time—you know, a lot of times when you’re saving somebody, an adult wants to attack you.
Austin: [Laugh] Right. Um...who outside of the team thinks you shouldn’t be a superhero?
Keith: Uh, everyone...uh, my family...um...everyone.
Austin: (Laughing) Okay. Do—wait, do people know that you do this? Does your whole family know that you do this?
Keith: I’m gonna say that—yeah, immediate family...like...yeah. Parents, siblings, um...friends. Um...yes.
Austin: I should note really quick that, like, the...um...the—one of the things the book sets up about the city—obviously their city isn’t Bluff City, but I’m gonna hold this true here—is that like, yeah, people know about superheroes and...things could go either way in terms of—
Keith (overlapping): Yeah.
Austin: —superheroes being legal or not. Sometimes they’re legal, sometimes they’re not.
Keith: Well...the other thing I wanna point out about this question is that I think it’s asking, like, because I don’t have superpowers, who in the public—
Austin (overlapping): Yes.
Keith: —is like—is being like—like “This guy’s gonna get himself killed.”
Austin: Yes, a hundred percent.
Keith (overlapping): And I think that at different points, pretty much anybody could think that.
Austin: Gotcha. Okay. Uh, why do you try to be a hero?
Keith: Um...so when—when I’m twelve, and I’m taking...like, martial arts lessons at the...you know...whatever sort of—whatever the closest martial arts place is.
Austin (overlapping): The Bluff City, like, community center or whatever, right?
Keith: Yeah. Yeah. Uh...um...I think—Steve’s American Dojo.
Austin: Right.
Keith: That’s a thing that’s nearby where I live. Um...
[Austin and Jack laugh]
Austin: It’s such an American thing.
Keith: [Laugh] I think at that—I think that there’s like al—like almost an...there’s just like a—like a little kid idea of like “Oh, I wanna be the—the thing I wanna be!” You know?
Austin: Right.
Keith: And there’s, like, and attraction to like “I wanna—yeah, I wanna be a superhero! Superheroes are cool!”
Austin (overlapping): And you just never shook it. You still think superheroes are cool?
Keith (overlapping): I think you—I don’t think I shook it until I started doing it? And then, once you start doing it, you have to re-choose, like...like is...like, how strongly do I feel about, like, the work that I’m doing. And I guess it’s strong enough to be doing it for five or six years and to be, like—
Austin: Right. So you think it’s a responsibility—
Keith (overlapping): —deteriorating.
Austin (overlapping): —you think it is worth it to do—okay.
Keith (overlapping): Yeah, I think it it’s a responsibility.
Austin: Okay. Why do you care about the team?
Keith: Um...am I the old—am I the oldest person on the team?
Art: Uh, I don’t know about Jack, but yes.
Jack: Wait, how old are you again?
Keith: I’m as old as this game lets you be. [Laugh]
[Austin chuckes]
Jack: Oh, yeah, definitely.
Austin: (Laughing) Okay. [Keith laughs] Like twenty, is what we’re—
Keith (overlapping): Twenty.
Austin: —is what I’m saying.
Keith: Yeah, it says sixteen—
Jack (overlapping): Four hundred years old!
[Keith and Austin laugh]
Keith: Well, okay, so the thing it does say is—
Austin (overlapping): Alright, if you’re an alien, you could be. That is true. If you were an alien—
Keith (overlapping): The thing that—
Austin (overlapping): —you could be that.
Keith: Yeah, the book is like “If you’re a thousand years old, your alien still has to, like, in mind and body be a teenager”—
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: —is basically what it says.
Art: That sounds horrible.
Austin: Yeah. [Keith laughs] Yup!
Keith: Well it’s not horrible if you’re meant to live eighty-thousand years.
Art: No—
Austin: Fair.
Art: —being a teenager for a thousand years—it sounds—like, unless you’re an infant for nine-hundred and ninety-nine years, [Austin and Keith laugh], are a teenager for your thousandth year, and then an adult at one-thousand-one...
Keith (overlapping): Wait so you’re saying that you want this alien species to be teens for even less time.
Art (overlapping): We have to keep moving. It’s already very late.
Keith: Okay. Uh...I—
Austin: Why do you care—yeah.
Keith (overlapping): —I think—I think I had another team move on, and I think—
Austin: Mmm...
Keith: —this is, like, my—this is, like, my second chance at having a team.
Austin: Okay. So you had, like...did you have a team when you were in highschool and you were the one who stayed behind?
Keith: Yes.
Austin: Like you had three other friends who—
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: —were a clique together.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: And, like, y’all help people, and they went to, like...Temple University, and you were [Keith laughs] here...or—
Keith: My cousin went to Temple University.
Austin: Oh really? Good. Perfect. [Laugh]
Keith (overlapping): That’s why I—yeah, that’s why I laughed.
Art: Art in the chat, you said what?
Art: Ew, Keith is a townie.
Austin: Yeah. Keith is a townie.
Keith: No! You know, I don’t think it’s—I mean I think part of it is that I’m a townie, but the other part of it is that, like, they have fucking superpowers, man. They were like—
Austin: Right. Right.
Keith (overlapping): —this is our shot.
Austin: Right. “I’m gonna move to the—Philly. I’m gonna move to a big...to like, a big market that has—needs real superheroes.”
Keith: Yeah. “There’s a market there, you guys. (Laughing) We gotta capitalize on these...crimes.”
Art: When you were like sixteen-seventeen, there was, like, the twenty year-old who didn’t go to college and still wants to hang out with the high school kids? That guy was weird.
Austin: That guy was weird. It’s not—eh, you’re not wrong. Um...alright! Uh...so last but not least—
Keith: But we’re coworkers, Art. That’s—it’s different.
Austin: It’s different. You work at the arcade. (Excited) Oh, do you all work in the arcade? Is that, like, your cover?
Keith: Oh, do we, like, sneak kids extra, like, tokens? That’s sick.
Austin: No, I—mmh. I mean, [Janine laughs] like, when you tell your—not you, ‘cause you’re twenty. But when you tell your—
Jack: It’s like—
Austin: —the people who—
Janine (overlapping): He’s a manager.
Austin (overlapping): Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah. Right. Jack, (laughing) what were you gonna say?
Jack: It’s like “Aw, we gotta go out to the arcade tonight.” And the parents are like “Ah, the arcade again. They work you too hard.” And we’re like “Yeah, sure they do.” [Austin laughs] “Where’d you get those bruises from?” “Uh, you know, lifting...”
Austin: “Arcade—” [Laugh]
Jack (overlapping): “...arcade cabinets.” Yeah. It’s just—[laugh]
Keith (overlapping): “The kids are brutal. The kids are nuts there.” [Laugh]
Jack: (Laughing) “The kids are just the worst.”
Austin: “I was on bouncer duty tonight.”
Keith: “I had to wear the mouse costume.”
Austin: [Laugh] Alright, so the thing that makes The Beacon The Beacon are Drives. Everybody levels up in the game when you fail rolls—or, you get XP when you fail rolls. And when you use some other key kind of stuff throughout the game. But one of the things that The Beacon has are Drives. (Reading) “Choose four Drives to mark at the start of play. When you fulfill a marked Drive, strike it out and choose one. Mark Potential”—which is XP—”clear a Condition, take Influence over someone involved. When your four marked Drives are all struck out, choose and mark four new Drives. When all Drives are struck out, change playbooks, retire from the life, or become a paragon of the city.” So, what are your four starting Drives?
Keith: Okay. Um...I liked this. I like the Drives. Um...”Lead the team successfully in battle.”
Austin: Good one.
Keith: “Outperform an adult hero.”
Austin: Good one.
Keith: Um...”Reject someone who tells you you shouldn’t be here.”
Austin: Uh-huh.
Keith: And...punch—it was punching. It was punching someone—yeah, “Punch somebody you probably shouldn’t”
Austin: Uh, wait, where’s that at?
Keith: Third—third one.
Janine: So, “Punch someone—”
Austin (overlapping): Oh, punch someone—
Janine: “—you probably shouldn’t?”
Keith: Yeah.
Austin (overlapping): Yeah. Uh-huh!
Janine: (Laughing) Okay...
Austin: Well, you know, that means something different when you’re just—
Keith (overlapping): Like the mayor.
Austin: Oh, okay. I was gonna [Janine laughs] go with someone who’s really strong. But you went with “The mayor.”
Keith: The mayor.
Austin: So, okay. Good.
Keith: The mayor might be really strong! [Laugh]
Austin: I mean, he—
Janine (overlapping): Or that guy who won’t leave the Mortal Kombat cabinet.
Keith: And—
Austin: Right. [Laugh]
Keith: —the mayor’s a villain. We have a secret villain mayor.
Austin: I mean, we might. Right? I guess—
Keith: Yeah, we might.
Austin: —my question is: how far away is...Noirlandia from here? Is Steve Harvey the mayor yet?
Keith: Sure! Yeah.
Austin: I—people who were in that game, was that just Jack and Art?
Keith: It was me—I was there.
Austin: Oh, you were there.
Jack (overlapping): Yeah, I was—
Keith: Yeah, it was me, Jack, Art, and Ali.
Jack (overlapping): How long...how long had he been the mayor for...at that point?
Austin (overlapping): I felt like we established that he kind of swept into power...at some point.
[Timestamp 01:15:00]
Jack: Oh, damn, yeah.
Austin: Right?
Jack: What if we—what if we, like, at this point say provisionally, Steve Harvey is the mayor?
Austin: His name is Ollie Fraser, just as a reminder.
Jack: (Laughing) Ollie Fraser, yeah.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Jack: And, uh...and check?
Austin: Yeah—
Jack: Come back to it?
Austin: —let’s—yes. Yes. A hundred percent.
Jack: Provisionally. Let’s provis—let’s have a provisional Mayor Fraser.
Austin (overlapping): Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah. I will go listen to that after this...
Keith: And, by the way, there’s no reason why a different mayor couldn’t be a villain.
Austin: Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred—hundred—hundred percent.
Jack (overlapping): Yeah, all mayors, every mayor.
Austin (overlapping): ‘Cause we know—
Jack: Except Sadiq Khan. He’s great.
Austin: Wh—who?
Keith: That’s the London mayor.
Jack (overlapping): Sidiq Khan, mayor of London?
Austin: Oh, okay. Um...the...the...the...one thing we do know is that the—the chief of police is definitely corrupt, because that was when the action movie—the action movie world game takes—took place, in this general era...also. Obviously, it was fictionalized, but—but we do know that Clarence B. Grimes, uh was...believe it or not, with a name like that, corrupt. So.
Keith: Uh, there was a—the last mayor of Boston had a really good villain name. Uh, Mayor Menino.
Austin: Good name.
Keith: Really good villain name. That guy sucks. [Laugh]
Austin (overlapping): People should...people should listen to...Crimetown?
Keith: Oh, Crimetown’s fun.
Austin: It’s so good—
Ar (overlapping): Yeah, it’s a great podcast.
Austin: —and the names are incredible. I had, like—someone had recommended it to me, and then I recommended it to Janine. Uh, and I hadn’t listened to it yet. I was just like “Oh yeah, my friend Chris says this is really good.” And then, like, a day later, you had started listening to it, and then you just said—your whole response to me—I woke up or something, and it was like “All the names are really good. They just introduced a guy named Larry McGary.” [Janine and Keith laugh] Larry “The Machine” McGary. The lead of the crime family is named Patriarcha. And there’s a mob associate with the last name Badway. And it’s all so fucking good.
Keith: Crime—Crimetown is, if you haven’t heard of it, is—it’s basically about how—
Austin: Fuck, it’s good.
Keith: —corrupt the city of Providence...is. Was.
Austin: [Laugh] Definitely—
Keith: And it’s fun to, like—it’s fun to, like, drive around the city and be like “That’s a—that was built with mob money. That was built with mob money. That whole mall was built with mob money.”
Austin: [Cough] Yeah. Exactly. Um...
Keith: It’s an okay mall. It—
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: As far as malls go.
Austin: Janine says—to me, back in May, “A guy named quote ‘The Ghost’ is looking into selling drugs, so he takes his merchandise to his weed-smoking friend, quote ‘Jimmy Rabbit.’” Ugh, [Jack laughs] what a good game—what a good show.
Keith: Yeah...
Austin: Filled with real names.
Keith: My—my cousin who went to Temple also used to live in—in Providence, and used to—he worked at city hall, and used to pass, like—like real for real mob guys on his way to work. Just sitting outside it, being intimidating. Doing stuff like just eating food or holding wrenches.
Austin: [Laugh] Perfect. Um...alright. So I think that’s where we’re at with you. I think that that’s everything we needed to deal with...for now. Again, we’ll wrap back around for Influence and relationships and other fun stuff like that. Sounds good?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Okay. Jack or Art.
Art: Uh, I am ready, but it is easier if I go...last?
Austin: Yeah, I was gonna say, maybe?
Art: Because I—
Jack: Yeah...
Art: —have to pick—I have to pick people?
Austin: Oh, you do have to pick people.
Jack (overlapping): Oh...
Austin: That’s true. Jack—so, yeah, let’s go to jack. Let’s do Jack, Art, and then quickly try to do the stuff that Jack has to do...[Jack laughs] you know what I mean?
Jack: Yeah. Yeah-yeah-yeah. I’ll try and be quick.
Austin: Right. Jack.
Jack: Alright. So, I’m going to be playing The Star.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Jack: Um...my name is Hilda Quick.
Austin: Ooh.
Jack: I’m an exchange student from London.
Austin: Okay. Great. Love it.
Jack: London—
Austin (overlapping): Quick, Q-I—Q-I-C-Q? (Laughing) Q-U-I-C-Q?
Jack: Q-U-I-C-K. The usual—
[Austin cracks up in the background]
Austin: Right—
Jack: (Laughing) The usual way one spells quick.
Austin (overlapping): No, the second Q. That’s right. No, that’s not it? It’s not—
Jack: Yeah, no.
Austin: —”Quicq” (pronounced like kwi-kwi-ah)? Okay.
Jack: No, that’s not how they spell it. Uh, I uh....you know, so we know London exists in the world that Bluff City exists in. I don’t know what it’s like. Hilda probably does.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Jack: My...I guess I’m like seventeen, eighteen.
Austin: Okay.
Jack: (Laughing) Younger than—younger than Keith.
Austin: Yup.
Jack: Um, my super—
Austin (overlapping): I mean, are you—really, here’s the question, is: did you graduate from highschool, from Bluff City High this year? Or are you—
Jack: Yes.
Austin: Okay.
Jack: Yeah I did. Yeah, no—
Austin (overlapping): Alright. So—
Jack: —I came as a highschool...I don’t—I don’t think I—
Keith: You got drafted out of highschool. To...[Austin and Jack chuckle]
Austin: Did you—
Jack: (Laughing) To be a superhero. I guess what happened is it’s not an exchange thing. I guess, like, one of my parents came to work in Bluff City—
Austin: Right.
Jack: —and it was, like, the family was moved. But it was always going to be, like, a temporary thing. I don’t think there’s a risk that I’m gonna get called back to London...um, you know—
Austin: Right.
Jack: —suddenly? I don’t think it’s—I don’t think that the plot is like “You’ve got three weeks, and then you have to go back home.”
Austin: Right.
Jack: But at the same time, I’m not permanently in Bluff City. I mean, I don’t have a—I can’t—I guess I can’t legally work. That’s—that’s also...
Austin (overlapping): Yeah, totally.
Jack: Um...my superhero name is Paternoster.
Austin: What—one more time?
Jack: Paternoster. P-A-T-E-R-N-O-S-T-E-R.
Keith: What is that—what is that?
Jack: Um...it is the name of a prayer, it’s also Paternoster Square is, um—
Austin: Mmm...okay
Jack: —near St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Which will become clear for reasons that I am about to mention. Also a paternoster elevator is one of those terrifying amazing elevators that never stop.
Austin: Yeah that’s—I hate this.
Jack (overlapping): They just go (laughing) very slowly.
Keith: Wait, what do you mean they never stop? You just get on while they move?
Austin (overlapping): They just go.
Jack (overlapping): Oh, exactly what I say. Just climb in. Climb right in. You ever [stammers] ridden Haunted Mansion? What if it was that, but it was going up and down a building.
[Austin laughs]
Keith: Oh, that sounds good.
Austin (overlapping): I’m good.
Jack: Uh...Hilda Quick—
Austin (overlapping): Is it called that because—[cough] ‘scuse me. Because you should say—
Jack (overlapping): Because you say one when you get—[laugh] you should—I don’t know why it’s called a paternoster elevator. It might have been invented by someone called paternoster, or it could have been used in—
Austin: Uh, I looked it up...
Jack: Yeah?
Austin: It’s like—it’s like a rosary bead. It’s like a rosary.
Jack: Oh...
Austin: ‘Cause it’s kind—you’re rotating it the way that you rotate rosary beads.
Jack (overlapping): Oh...
Austin: It’s a loop?
Jack: Right.
Austin: It’s a loop, so you’re—yeah. Anyway. So it’s—yeah—
Jack (overlapping): Okay.
Austin: So.
Jack: Horrible. [Laugh]
Austin: Your name is basically “Our Father.”
Jack: Yes.
Austin: Okay.
Jack: Um...Hilda is—I’m just going down the list here. She’s a white woman with a broad smile.
Austin: Okay.
Jack: She wears designer clothing, but she wears the sort of clothing that a British person who is excited to be in a warmer country wears.
Austin: Oh, okay.
Jack: Which doesn’t necessarily mean...it’s not always bad. I have fallen into this—I am this person sometimes. Where you just take—
Austin (overlapping): A fashionable Brit who wears—who wears too little in America?
Jack (overlapping): You take a—take—[laugh] take advantage of wearing...lighter clothes—
Austin: Mmm...
Jack: And, you know, like, um...
Austin: Oh, I’ve seen this happen. Because you’ve done it in February, and then you’ve been like “Austin, it’s cold!” And I’m like “Yeah...”
[Janine laughs]
Jack: I have—yeah—
Austin: “...New York.”
Jack: —I’ve screwed myself over. I’ll tell you when I’ve also done it—I’ve done it in June and July. [Austin laughs] But yeah, so—
Keith (overlapping): But that one works, I think, though.
Jack: Yeah, that one does work. So I’m picturing, like—like, um...like baggy...not baggy, but like, um...
Janine: Loose-fitting?
Jack: Yeah, like oversized loose-fitting...white shirts, like, striped linen trousers.
Austin: Mhm.
Jack: Um, just sort of, like—I think she probably hoped that she would be going to the west coast—
Austin: Oh, buddy...
Jack: —and her—and her parents were like “How would you like to go to Bluff City? There’s casinos there.” And Hilda was like “Oh, okay. Casinos. Alright. [Laugh] That’s—[Austin snorts] let’s give this a go.”
Keith (overlapping): It’s still got a beach!
Austin: Uh, yeah, but I...[stammers] mmh.
Jack: Yeah...
Austin: We should go to Atlantic City on a trip. Real bad. [Jack laughs] Uh, so what is your—what type of costume do you have?
Jack: So...I just saw Solo.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Jack: And I think that...the sort of costume that Paternoster wears is like, um...Qi'ra has that—that, almost like a flying jacket, with...it’s not like fur, but it’s like some sort of—it’s like, um...it has like a fur-lined collar. Like a leather jacket with a fur-lined collar.
Austin: Mhm.
Jack: Like...shades of a fighter pilot, almost—
Austin: (Interested) Okay.
Jack: —but not—but not quite—like—
Keith: It’s a fancy bomber jacket.
Jack (overlapping): You don’t look at it and go...it’s like—yeah, you’d look at it and go “Oh, this is a designer piece” before you went “Oh, it’s a military piece.” But it’s definitely referencing that aesthetic.
Austin: Gotcha.
Jack: And...the other thing that you immediately notice about...um, Paternoster when she’s in—I guess, when she’s in her superhero mode is that she has strange wings that are made of stained glass.
Austin: Oooh...
Janine: Oooh...
Austin: Hence, (in a bad British accent) Paternoster.
Jack: Yes.
Austin: Gotcha.
Jack: There is a picture by an artist called...Johannes Voss? Um...and he did a piece...for a Magic the Gathering expansion—
Austin: Mhm.
Jack: —back in 2013, that looks like this—I’m just gonna post it in our Patreon chat as well.
Austin: It’s so good.
Jack: And this is exactly—it’s not even the case that I...want to, like, riff off this. This is what it looks like. [Austin chuckles] If anything, they’re bigger—
Janine: Oh man...
Jack: —they’re—they’re bigger wings. They’re like...you know. And they can—
Art: Huh.
Jack: —but they can also be tucked down into this sort of, like...it’s sort of the image that I have is almost of, like, the Victoria’s Secret runway wings as well. You know those, like, high wings that—
Austin: Right. Right-right-right.
Jack (overlapping): —come up behind the model’s back. Um, but these can also be spread out, like, extremely wide.
Austin: The card is Gift of Orzhova—
Jack: Oh yes, you can just search for it.
Austin (overlapping): —and it has incredible flavor text. [Clears throat]
Jack: What is the flavor text?
Austin: (Reading) “Remember by whose gift you ascend. Milana, Orzhov prelate.”
Jack: Holy shit.
Austin: It’s very good.
Keith: Um...
Jack: Well, so...oh, go on, Keith.
Keith: Oh, I was gonna ask—so I don’t know—I don’t know how much you guys have seen birds with big wings, right—but there’s this moment when a bird unfurls their—unfurls? They spread their wingspan—
Austin: [Laugh] Uh-huh.
Keith: —and you—you see this thing that was tiny, and you go like “This is enormous! This is an—”
Jack: Yeah. [Laugh]
[Austin laughs]
Keith: “—enormous bird!”
Jack: Yeah.
Keith: Is that what these wings are like? Or are they smaller—are they not that big.
Jack: No, they’re big.
Keith: They’re big.
Jack: They’re—they are—they are big—
Keith (overlapping): So there—we’re watching, like, a human-sized person and then all of a sudden, like, these wings...make, like—not make you seem bigger, like you realized how much bigger this person is.
Jack: Yeah, I’m—I’m sort of...I imagine that Paternoster’s wings sort of rise up from her back, rather than just straight out, but I’m sort of picturing, like, Michael Keaton’s wings in Spiderman: Homecoming? Where he has those—
Austin (overlapping): Mm...mhm.
Jack: —that huge, wide wing suit. And there’s that great image in the movie of him, like, swooping down and you can barely see that there’s a man...
Austin: Right.
Jack: ...on them, at first. And I love this image of, like, the light coming through these stained glass wings, and you just see this, like, body of a person, like, dangling from the middle of the wings.
Keith: i know that—
Austin (overlapping): [Clears throat] So...
Keith: —Paternoster’s wings is the name of an item in an RPG, [Austin laughs] but that sounds like the name of an item in an RPG.
Austin: Uh-huh.
[Keith laughs]
Jack: (Laughing) It really does.
Austin: Two questions—do those wings do anything except help you fly?
Jack: Um, I have, like—I have, like, fairly limited, um...you’ve played Prey, right?
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: You know how the typhon in Prey—you can never be quite sure what they’re made of, and one of the side effects of not being quite sure what they’re made of is that you’re never quite sure what it’s gonna do. Like, what properties it has.
Austin: Mhm.
Jack: Um, and I think that—that while Paternoster’s wings are solid, the light they reflect and refract...can move in strange ways, or can reach or something. And it’s not powerful enough to be light control, ‘cause that’s a different power—
Austin: Right. Right-right-right.
Jack (overlapping): —and I don’t wanna take—I don’t wanna take two powers there. But, while her main powers...
Austin (overlapping): For what it’s worth, I think that that would be fine...
Jack: Yeah...
Austin: —because—
Jack: Yeah...
Austin: —[stammers] here’s why. Because, at that point, the power that you would have is light control, do you know what I mean? Like—
Jack: Oh, yeah, you’re right. You’re right. Uh, but the wings are solid. Like you can touch them. They’re like—
Austin (overlapping): Right. Right, so you can, like—yeah.
Jack: —they are glass.
Austin: Okay. Um...cool. So like, it’s a—is it about, like, distracting people, or like—[stammers] like, um...
Keith: It sounds very intimidating.
Austin: [Cough] Yeah, it could be intimidating. It could be...misdirecting. Things like that.
Jack: Yeah, I think so. And I think—yeah. And I think in a—
Austin (overlapping): There’s entrancing...
Jack: Entrancing. In a combination as well with the—I don’t—[sigh] I’m reluctant to just make another reference immediately—Dishonored 2 has that great hypnotize power, which instead of—
Austin: Oh, we love Arkane here. [Dry laugh]
Jack: (Laughing) Instead of some sort of—[Austin coughs] there’s a really cool thing with that, right, which—where it—instead of it being like “You’ve affected someone’s mind,” you create an object—
Austin: Oh, right.
Jack (overlapping): —that is just hypnotic to look at.
Austin: Right.
Jack: Everything, including animals, is just drawn to this, like, remarkable—
Austin: Can you...
Jack: —moving object.
Austin: Can you change what the—do the wings display something, and can you change what that is?
Jack: They display patterns of color—
Keith: Every—
Jack: —and I can change the patterns of color. I can’t—
Austin (overlapping): But you can’t make—
Keith (overlapping): —every [indiscernible] season of weather.
[Jack laughs]
Austin: But you can’t, like—you can’t be like “Now it’s a candle.”
Jack: No.
Austin: “Now it’s your own face—”
Jack: No.
Austin: “—reflected”— okay.
Jack: I think it’s—I think it’s patterns of color, and I think that it is—it’s entrancing, and—I mean, it’s entrancing in the way that if someone swooped down wearing fucking stained glass wings, I’d be like “This is the greatest thing I—”
Austin: Uh-huh.
Jack: “—have ever seen in my life.”
Austin: Right.
Jack: But it’s also, I think, entrancing on another level.
Austin: Can you hide those wings, or your wings are just out?
Jack: Uh, I can—I can—
Austin: Do you go to school with those wings? Do people—do people in this world—
Jack: Oh, shit.
Austin: —know that you have these wings?
Jack: I do, because I am a superhero in London.
Austin: Oh, okay. So you’ve been a superhero.
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: And people—
Jack (overlapping): Absolutely.
Austin: Do people know who you are?
Jack: Uh, they do now, but they didn’t beforehand. In the same way that a lot of Americans feel about, you know, introductions to the British royal family. It’s just like “Oh wow! This is—”
Austin: Wh—okay—
Jack: “—Pippa Middleton? [Austin chuckles] Who’s this?”
Austin: But I mean, do people—did people in London know that you were the child of such-and-such a diplomat, or whatever your parents do?
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: Okay.
Jack: Yeah-yeah-yeah.
Austin: So you were very public—you were more Tony Stark in that sense, than...
Jack: Yeah, absolutely.
Austin: And so, what kept people from—I mean, I guess this is...eh, we can maybe get around to this in terms of...in—eh, let’s—I’ll finish the question. What does keep people from being like “Alright, we’re gonna go fuck up your parents.”
Jack: There’s a couple of reasons. One, I’m beloved.
Austin: Oh, okay.
Jack: Now, obviously there are—
Austin (overlapping): Villains love you, I’m sure...
Jack: (Laughing) There are gonna be people—right, but—[sigh] look, you can take out any two-bit...superhero, no one will notice. But if you take out Paternoster, there’s gonna be twenty-thousand people who are gonna—
Austin: I see.
Jack: —hunt you down. And there’s a flip side to that, right. Which, the other side is “Well, why don’t people just come and talk to you?” or whatever—
Austin: [Snort] Right.
Jack: —and the answer is “They do.”
Austin: (Laughing) Okay. Good. Uh, I mean, at that note, let’s keep moving. Labels. What are your Labels?
Jack: Uh, my Labels are...uh...Danger, minus one.
Austin: Mhm.
Jack: [Sigh] Not super dangerous.
Austin: (Laughing) Mhm.
Jack: Freak, plus one.
Austin: Mhm.
Jack: Huge—huge stained glass wings.
Austin: Yeah, you mentioned. Yup.
Jack: Savior, plus one.
Austin: Mhm.
Jack: Superior, plus two. I have huge stained glass wings.
Austin: Wings.
Jack: And then Mundane, minus one. But I’m bumping that up to zero with my...
Austin: You—you’re just a regular girl. You know.
Jack: ...thing. [Laugh] No! I’m—I’m—I’m not even Mundane.
[Timestamp 01:30:00]
Jack (continued): I am entirely neutral. I just look at them and they’re like “Wow, she has...stained glass wings, but she’s just like one of us.”
Austin: Yeah, it’s what I’m saying—yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um...does that...uh...I just keep wanting to do, like, these really bad practical questions, like ”How do you—”
Jack (overlapping): No, go ahead!
Austin: “—sit in chairs in school?”
Jack: It’s uncomfortable.
Austin: Okay!
Jack: I sit forward in a chair—sit forward in a chair...
Art: In the UK, do you have those annoying...um, chair-desk combos in your schools?
Jack: No, not really. Sometimes when we have to take exams...
Austin: Okay, so when you first come to Bluff City High and you do have one of those, it sucks...
Jack: It really (laughing) sucks. I’m just like “Oh god, this is the worst.”
Austin: Right.
Art: That’s what I exclusively had in school. That’s why—
Austin: Same.
Art: —I was asking. I feel like that’s—yeah, North American schools.
Jack (overlapping): Yeah, I had them when I went to Canada, and it was just like (laughing) “I don’t know what this is.”
[Austin laughs]
Keith: Wait, what are they that you had?
Austin: Like—
Jack (overlapping): Uh, like a—like chairs that you, like, pull a desk down onto, right? Like—
Austin: Yeah, like—
Jack: —the desk is kind of mounted on the arm of the chair. It fucking (laughing) sucks.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Oh....
Art: Yeah...
Keith: ...I—yeah, I had those once or twice. Those are weird. I like a whole desk.
Austin: I like a whole desk too.
Art (overlapping): Once or twice...
Austin: I know. I know. These people, they don’t know what they have. Alright, now talk to me about your Star Moves.
Jack: Okay! My Star Moves are...”Time for the Show.” (Reading) “When you put on a flamboyant display of your powers, roll + Superior. On a 7-9, name one NPC present. On a 10+, name two NPCs present. The names NPCs must either volunteer help or information, express admiration—” that’s kind of a weird one, ‘cause you could just be like “Nice!” [Austin laughs] (Continues reading) “—or ask for your help. GM’s choice. On a miss, your display catches someone watching in the wrong way.”
Austin: Oooh...oooh...
Jack: And “Take It From Me.” (Reading) “When you comfort or support someone who openly admires your celebrity persona, roll + Superior instead of Mundane.”
Austin: Mmm...um, so again, you’re in a situation where you’re able to do more just by...just via...the fact that you’re famous. Like, people are just like “Oh wow! Right, yeah!”
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: “You are better than us.”
Jack: Did I say that she has a broad smile?
Austin: You did say that she has a broad smile.
Jack: Yeah, like—
Austin: Yes, you did....
Jack: —she’s—
Austin: ...say that.
Jack: —she’s that kind of Tony Stark, where she’s just sort of like “Yeah! It’s cool. Hi, I’m (laughing) Tony Stark. Here—there are gonna be four movies where it’s revealed that I’m actually a deeply sad individual.”
Austin: [Laugh] Perfect. Um...I need to look into whether or not that Move—same as Keith’s one Move—does that—can that give you Influence. And I’ll just—
Jack: Mmm...
Austin: —did into the book, and—
Jack: Mhm.
Austin: I remember how Influence works in terms of, like...using it. But I don’t remember how it works in terms of...getting it, so...
Keith: Yeah, I—
Jack: Yeah...
Keith: —I remember reading a couple Moves in the playbook that specifically were like—
Austin: Yes.
Keith: —“You get Influence over this person.” So it would be weird, but also not unheard of, for an RPG book to just not explicitly say that...
Austin: Yeah, I guess this is—this is—this makes sense, actually, which is...[clears throat] it’s a PBTA game, which means it’s descriptive and...prescriptive. So, (Reading) “If a move gives someone Influence over you, then it means that you have to care about what they think of you. You might hate their guts, but their words still hit home. If you think that your character cares about what someone else thinks, then...anytime you want to give them, you can give them Influence.” But I think, based on the descriptive-prescriptive thing, we can just roll with it in terms of...
Keith: Okay, so—
Austin: ...the fiction. So like—
Keith (overlapping): —the things that seem like they’re effectively—
Austin: Right.
Keith: —gaining Influence are actually also giving you Influence.
Austin: When it makes sense in the fiction. I should—and there should always be time—
Keith: (Muffled) Got it.
Austin: —when like—like I can imagine...someone with this Star Move that admires you, and that would give you Influence over you, right? “Oh, they admire you. That means that they—”
Jack: Mmm...
Austin: But, I can also imagine—I can imagine a situation where it’s someone who is like...”You did good, kid.” Like, and that does something for you, hearing that, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you have Influence over them. So, we’ll just play it by ear a little bit, and make it make sense for when it makes sense. Alright. So that is your Moves. Let’s talk Backstory real quick.
Jack: Mhm.
Austin: When did you first appear (laughing) on-screen?
Jack: Um...I think—I think it’s that—I think it's like the first day of school, right?
Austin: Okay.
Jack: Um...I don’t think we really know much about Paternoster in London.
Austin: Mhm.
Jack: I think that it’s just people walking in the school...like—and (laughing) going like “Oh my god. Hang on a second.”
Austin: [Clears throat] Did you fly to school, or do you walk to school with your wings out?
Jack: Oh my god, I fly to school—
Austin: Okay.
Jack: —Austin!
Austin: Okay! Okay.
Keith: Do you fly to school in pace with the schoolbus so you can walk in which everybody?
Jack: Oh yeah, [Keith laughs] also, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Austin: Great.
Jack: Just like flying over the schoolbus.
Austin: Oh, can you not fit in the cool car? Damn. [Pause] What do you tell people about how you got your powers?
Jack: Um...uh, on the day that I was born...the, uh...stained glass window in the east wing of St. Paul’s Cathedral broke, and when they repaired it, there were—there were pieces missing that formed the shape of these two—
Austin: Mmm...
Jack: —I guess small wings at that point? Um...and I was born with a pair of—with a pair of wings.
Austin: Do they grow every year?
Jack: Yeah, they do. They grow—well, they’ve stopped growing.
Austin (overlapping): Do they have to rep—do they have to replace—for, like, the next sixteen years, did they have to—
Jack: (Laughing) No...
Austin: —every year, replace another piece of glass?
Jack: No.
Austin: Okay.
Jack: I don’t think so. I think—I think it’s like a seed. I think it was like a glass seed.
Austin: I see.
Jack: They’ve stopped—they don’t grow forever. I think they, you know...I stopped growing when I was—I don’t know when I stopped growing, but I’m not getting any taller. And I think it’s the same for Paternoster’s wings—
Austin: Gotcha.
Jack: —they’re just sort of, like—maybe they’re still growing a bit, but they’ll stop one day.
Austin: Um...who outside of the team supports your burgeoning star in every possible way?
Jack: Hm...um...it is...[sigh] man. I had this—I have a name, and I wrote down a name, but I don’t remember who this character is. (Laughing) I just wrote down a person’s name.
Austin (overlapping): Well what’s the—what’s the name?
Jack: Person’s name is Amanda Dialect.
Austin: Good name.
Jack: Um...god, what did I—what did I want? [Austin snorts] (Laughing) And how are they supporting me?
Austin: Are they just a bud? Are they a familiar member? Are they your agent or your...like a...
Jack: Oh, they’re my PR agent.
Austin: Your PR person?
Jack (overlapping): I have a PR agent.
Austin: Yeah, okay.
Jack: Yes. I have a PR person. Amanda Dialect. Ms. Dialect...
Austin: Hold old is she? Is she an adult?
Jack (overlapping): ...is my PR lady.
Austin: She’s like an actual full adult.
Jack: Yeah, she’s an—she’s an actual adult.
Austin: Okay.
Jack: I mean, I think she’s probably, like...in her mid-to-late twenties.
Austin: Okay.
Jack: Um...
Austin: Did she come with you from London, or is she a Bluff City original?
Jack: She is a Bluff City original. When...when I clocked that Bluff City had, like, active superheroes—or some active superheroes, and when my presence became very, like, big...um, I was like “Right, I should—I should hire someone.” And I had Ms. Dialect.
Austin: Okay. Um...who outside of the team loathes what you represent?
Jack: Principal Ossbone.
Austin: Excuse me?
Jack: Principal Ossbone?
Keith: P-A-P-L?
Janine: Ass-bone?
Jack: Ossbone. O-S-S-B-O-N-E.
Janine: (Jokingly) You sure?
[Jack laughs]
Keith: It’s—but the kids say “Principal Assbone.”
Austin: Right.
Jack: The kids definitely call him Principal Assbone.
Keith (overlapping): For sure.
[Janine chuckles]
Austin: Tell me about Principal Ossbone.
Jack: He’s British. He’s an old British man.
Austin: Oh, and he’s the principal of—
Keith (overlapping): Oh, oof.
Austin: —Bluff City High School?
Jack: Who is the principal of—yeah, I guess—does Bluff City have just one high school?
Austin: No, but you’re—
Keith (overlapping): Does Bluff City have two British people?
Austin: Two. Thr—[stammers]—
Jack (overlapping): [Laugh] Yeah, Bluff City has two—[laugh]
Austin: —and—and her parents.
Jack: Yeah, I guess—uh, no. I think one of my parents is an American, I think.
Keith (overlapping): The principal’s parents?
Austin: Ah...[laugh]
Jack: I think one of my parents is an American. Um...but this guy—especially ‘cause this guy is like—this guy is like “I know you’re not hot shit. Or, like—”
Austin: Right.
Jack: “—you think you are. But you’re like—I can see through what you’re trying to do here.”
Austin: “You’re British just like me.”
Jack: (In a coarse accent) “You’re British just like me.”
Austin: Right. [Laugh] Uh—
Jack: “But I’m older.”
Austin: [chuckle] (Imitating accent) “It’s me, Ossbone.” [Keith laughs in the background] Yeah. Uh—
Keith: I love—I love that he’s speaking like “I’m older.” [Laugh]
Austin: That’s it.
Jack: [Laugh] To a—to a child.
[Austin laughs]
Keith: “One of the ways we’re different. I’m older!”
Austin: Um...
Jack: (Laughing) “You think you’re older...”
[Austin laughs]
Keith: “You think you’re old now...”
Austin: [Groans] God. [Jack laughs] Um, why—
Jack: He also loathes what I represent, as well—
Austin: Yes.
Jack: —’cause I’m like—I should be studying in school. I should be, like...
Austin: Mhm.
Jack: ...(laughing) preparing for exams, and instead I’m going out and, like—also he’s a real nasty piece of work. And nasty-piece-of-work’s always hate superheroes.
Austin: That’s true. They do. They hate what they represent.
Jack: Sure do.
Austin: Why do you care about the team?
Jack: ‘Cause they’re great.
Austin: What’s that mean? Why are they great?
Jack: They are—
Austin (overlapping): Did you have a team in London?
Jack: No!
Austin: Okay.
Jack: I didn’t. And in fact, I—I didn’t get to do as much of what I like doing in London. Um, I think that there’s, uh...there’s a thing in the guidance for the Star, which is like “You’re not a villain. It’s important that you, like, care about the team—”
Austin: Right.
Jack: “—or, you care about what the team is doing—like, you’re on a team of heroes.” And I think that Paternoster just, like, likes the people she works with. And is like “Maybe we can do some good in this city together.”
Austin: Mhm. Cool! Um...alright. We need to know about your Audience. (Reading) “You’re a celebrity in this city. By default, your audience—” [coughs] ‘scuse me. (Continues reading) “—is a limited group of interested fans and you speak—you speak to them through after-action interviews and infrequent press conferences. Why does your audience love you? Mark all that apply.”
Jack: Um, I’m Stunning, Unique, and Beautiful.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Jack: (Playfully) And, in the game!
Austin: (Unimpressed) Ah. Nice. Yeah. [Keith laughs] Good. Great. Thanks, Jack. [Laugh]
Jack: Uh, and I am a Firebrand and a Rabble Rouser.
Austin: Okay.
Jack: Um...yeah. That’s why they like me.
Austin: So this is not a Charming, Well-Spoken, and Smart character, nor a Warrior for Justice?
Jack: I mean I think that they have aspects of that, but I don’t think that’s what they love me for.
Austin: Gotcha. Perfect. Two Advantages. Oh, well one of them, we know.
Jack: I have a PR agent—I have Ms. Dialect.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Jack: Um, and...I have a much wider audience.
Austin: Okay, so you were like—you’re not—it is not just a limited group of interested fans. Bluff City loves Paternoster!
Jack: “I guess they came out of a cathedral! Maybe.” [Chuckle]
Austin: Great. What are two demands your Audience makes of you?
Jack: They require constant stimulation.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Jack: And they require frequent bouts of drama.
Austin: Oooh. Gotta be dramatic. Alright, so just as a note, (Reading) “When you accept what your Audience tells you about yourself, clear a Condition. When you reject what your Audience tells you about yourself, on a hit, mark Potential and expect retribution.” Um, you can also—
Keith (overlapping): That’s a fun angle, is—
Austin: (overlapping): It is.
Keith: —accepting or rejecting what your Audience thinks about you.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Keith: I love that.
Austin: (Reading) “When you...”
Jack: So good.
Austin: “...when you seek help from your Audience, roll Superior. On a hit, someone in your Audience can hook you up. On a 10+, they only make a small demand. On a 7-9, their demands are a lot higher. On a miss, you’ve made a mistake, and your audience won’t help you until you’ve redeemed yourself in their eyes.” So, that’s fun. Um...Art! What is your Hero Name, Real Name, and your Look?
Art: I would like to do this a little...a little backwards.
Austin: (Exasperated) Okay.
Keith: I love this.
Art: I had to build—I had to build a—I don’t have a Real Name yet—
Janine (overlapping): He’s gonna make us wait for the name until the very end.
Art: He’s such a fucking Art, I swear.
Janine: What a (laughing) monster.
Austin: What a fucking piece of work.
Art (overlapping): Well I need—it’s not gonna make sense if I just jump into it, because [Keith laughs] I have a poem I need to read—
Janine: (Laughing) Oh my god.
Art: —before—
Austin: (Incredulous) Excuse me?
[Janine and Keith laugh in the background]
Jack: Is it a Yule Cat? [Laugh]
Art: [Laugh] Yeah—
Keith: Um, that’s a fun day-to-day exercise, is if someone meets you [Jack laughs] and they’re like “Oh, my name’s, you know, Keith. What’s your name?” Is like “Okay, hold on—”
Austin: “I gotta read—”
Keith: “—you need—we need to do a little backstory. I have a poem we need to read, and I have to go through Influences and also, like, my Drives.”
Austin: Oh my god. So where do we wanna start, Art?
Art: Um, I wanna start with—with, like—[stammers] with who—with who this person—I’m—I’m also going to play a young woman.
Austin: Okay.
Art: And I’m a little worried that I’m—that I’m inadvertently painting Keith as a bit of a creepster, but we just have to, like, push through it narratively I think.
Austin: Yeah—
Keith: Okay.
Austin: —we’ll be fine.
Keith: I promise my character’s prob—not a creep, I think. I haven’t played—I haven’t—
Austin: You haven’t—[stammers] here’s a note. Here’s a note. You could have taken the Move, Keith, Straight Up Creepin’—
Keith: Yeah. Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah.
Austin: —and you did not [Janine laughs in surprise] take that Move. [Laugh]
Keith: And I—I al—[laugh] I also considered taking that and then being like “Can we change the name [Austin chuckles] so I don’t have to say that ever.”
Austin: [Laugh] I’m sure that’s another comic reference that I don’t know. But...
Art: Um, so—so this—this young lady was a...a good boxer. She was a golden-gloves boxer.
Austin: Oooh. Okay.
Art: And then, she was a—she got the attention of some underground boxing people...[Austin sighs dramatically] in the mafia.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Art: Who kidnapped her.
Austin: Oh my god.
Keith: Oh, this took a turn. I wasn’t expecting that.
Art: And—and turned her into a...like, they did—they did some sort of, like, super-science-y experiments to make her the perfect boxer. And it failed.
Austin (overlapping): The mafia did super-sci—oh, it failed. So she’s less of a good boxer now?
Art: No, she’s like amazing, but she has, like, superpowers.
Austin: Wait—that sounds like they succeeded. [Laugh]
Keith: They failed upwards. They didn’t need to do the—
Janine (overlapping): Is she, like Widowmaker—
Art (overlapping): Yeah, they failed upwards.
Janine: —with punches?
Art: Um...I guess it succeeded, except, like, she got away.
Austin: Gotcha.
Keith: Oh, okay.
Austin: This is a thing—to be clear, this is a thing...from the book, right? The Bull, the playbook you are, says (Reading) “Someone or something changed you, made you into a perfect weapon.” And then your options are various things. Oh, no, I guess it’s all of these—
Art: Yeah.
Austin: (Continues reading) “Superhumanly tough, incredibly strong, and uniquely skilled at fighting. Decide how each of those abilities manifest.”
Art: Yes. Um, and I think it’s, like...um, it’s—I mean, it’s sort of like...how you just in—you would turn, like, a boxer up to, like, not even eleven. Like fifteen or sixteen.
Art: Sure. She’s—she’s amazingly strong. She has a hell of a chin. And, um...and she’s—
Austin: Like, what you mean there is like, in the bo—
Keith (overlapping): Good at being punched in the face.
Austin: Yes.
Art: Yeah. You actually—
Austin (overlapping): But also a good chin.
Art (overlapping): —can’t get better at being punched in the face. You can’t work on that. Don’t—if you’re listening to this at home, don’t try to practice getting punched in the face.
Austin: Okay.
Keith: (In a gruff voice) “Listen kid, you either got it or you don’t.”
[Austin laughs]
Art: And while that voice is in everyone’s mind, I would like to read my poem.
[Austin sighs]
Keith: The voice I just did? Okay.
Art: Yeah.
Janine: (Grimacing) Mm...[sigh]
Art: I think that was a sigh of recognition from Austin.
Austin: That was Janine, but...
Art: Oh, okay. I was hoping that no one would have it by now. But this gal is a bulldozer—
Austin: (Unimpressed) Okay.
Art: —with a wrecking ball attached. [Laugh]
Austin (overlapping): Wrecking ball attached. Uh-huh.
Art: She’ll leave a ring around your eye and treadmarks on your back. She’s an animal.
Austin (overlapping): (Still monotone) She’s an animal.
Art: She’s hungry. I’m gonna skip the next line, doesn’t really apply. Remember—
Austin: (Laughing) Wait! That’s not how poems work!
Janine (overlapping): (Laughing) That’s how this works. That’s totally how this works.
Art: You ain’t been hungry since Supreme Clientele. Remember what they told her when they took her in.
[Timestamp 01:45:00]
Art (continued): You wanted to be a fighter. You wanted to be a killer. You wanted to be...The Champ!
Austin: That’s good.
Art: The Champ is my—
Austin: The Champ—it’s a good—you people should...listen to...Ghostface Killah.
Art: Yeah.
Austin: The Champ. That—really, all of Fishscale is a fantastic album.
Art: Yeah. Um...I don’t have a—I don’t have a Real Name yet, I’m working on it.
Art: The Champ is good!
Art: Yeah. Um...well, ‘cause there’s also, like—there’s like a—there’s like a “not knowing a lot about your identity” component you can, like, put into here.
Austin: How do you mean?
Art: Well, ‘cause they talk about—in the...where is it? (Reading) “When building—”
Austin (overlapping): Uh, it’s in Backstory stuff, probably. Right?
Art: Right. Uh, yeah, it’s like—[stammers] you should, like be, like, really vague in your backstory...because, like, you want the GM to have...
Austin: Right.
Art: ...uh, space to, like, put in complications that you perhaps didn’t think of.
Austin: Right.
Art: Um, and so, like, for a minute I was like “Maybe I should have, like, a one—a one-name real name. Like Logan.”
Austin: Right.
Art: But I think I’m...leaning away from that, although I do want a hard consonant sound in the middle of the first name. [Laugh]
Austin: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Art: But I’m working on it. I’ll have it by the next time, I just need to get on it a little bit. Um...yeah, and I think, uh...there’s like—there’s sort of, like, a Daredevil component to what I was thinking about this. This is like a neighborhood hero.
Austin: Okay, so you came back to the community—also, just real quick, she’s she/her—you’re playing a woman—
Art: Yeah.
Austin: What’s the ethnicity? What is the—what are your hands like, apparently is one of your choices—[laugh] uh, clothing and costume.
Art: I’m leaning Hispanic/Latino—
Austin: Uh-huh.
Art: —because that is what I think boxing culture in the American northeast is really like these days.
Austin: Well like, especially in—I mean, like, I can speak from—I grew up on the block of Mike Tyson’s training gym.
Art: Mm...
Austin: I lived on that block for a little while as a kid. And that—the boxing culture of, like...Jersey—like you said, the mid-Atlantic, has become incredibly Latinx in makeup. Obviously still lots of Black folks—lots of people box. But yeah, absolutely.
Art: Yeah. Um, I’m going “Calloused hands.” I think that—“Battered” just feels a touch too far. And “Inhuman” and “Dirty” are not right at all.
Austin: No.
Art: Um, I think her, like, general look is kind of, like Rocky-training-montage. That, like...like a baggy sweatsuit, I think is a good default.
Austin: Yeah.
Art: But, like, not like—not like a nice...you know, this is...
Austin: You said you had a whole hoodie situation planned.
Art: Yeah, that’s a hoodie situation. He wears a hoodie in those.
Austin: I expected—no, but I expected you would have like “Well, I have this very special cool hero hoodie.”
Art: Well that’s—the costume is a cool special hero hoodie.
Austin: Okay.
Art: Um, it’s—it’s sort of just like a better version of street clothes. The hero—the heroic logo is like a championship belt print—
Austin: Love it.
Art: —on the center of the hoodie.
Austin: Uh, and does that, like, protect your face in some way? Like hide your face?
Art: Uh, I—[stammers] I believe—I’m going for like a Domino mask—
Austin: Okay. Sure.
Art: —and, uh, and a raised hood.
Austin: Cool. Um...do you work out at the Firebird Gym with Tawny Buck?
Art: Yeah, I think so.
Austin: Okay. Good. Important things to know. Alright, so...we know your Hero Name is The Champ for now, maybe that’ll change...
Art: No that’s staying. That isn’t her Real Name.
Austin (overlapping): Oh, that’s staying. That’s a hundred percent.
Art: Yeah.
Austin: Your Real Name might change.
Art: I read a—my Real Name doesn’t exist. It’s gonna change into a name.
Austin: (Humoring Art) Okay. [Art exhales a laugh] Um...what is your, let’s talk about your—
Art (overlapping): Gonna go from N/A to...thing.
Austin: —your Labels.
Art: Okay, so my default Labels are...plus two Danger, plus one Freak, minus one Saviour, plus one Superior, and minus one Mundane?
Austin: Uh-huh.
Art: And I had already marked up my Mundane one...
Austin: Okay.
Art: ...because also kind of, like, just like it’s the neighborhood hero kind of thing?
Austin (overlapping): Yeah. Yeah. I love it.
Art (overlapping): The like—the—a woman of the people.
Austin: Mhm.
Art: Um, what’s next? What are we...
Austin: B—uh, Moves.
Art: Moves. I took Thick and Thin Skin. (Reading) “Whenever you have Angry marked, take plus one ongoing to Unleash your Powers.”
Austin: So that means that, like—so—so the way this game works is one of the things I can do with my Moves is be like “You’re Afraid. You’re Angry. You’re guilty. You feel—” or, I could say “Take a Condition,” and you could say “Well, this makes me feel Hopeless.” And those Conditions change...give you minus two to a specific Move. So in this case, Angry gives you minus two to Comfort or Support or Pierce the Mask, and makes it harder—this is by default for everybody. It makes it harder for you to Comfort or Support people, or for you to Pierce the Mask and kind of see what’s in their hearts. In this case, though, if you mark Angry, you also get a plus one to Unleashing your Powers, which means that, like, when you want to punch through a wall or something, you’re gonna be better able to do that.
Art: Yeah, that’s what it is, is she has, like, basically and escalating and infinite punching power.
Austin: Awesome. Uh, what’s your second one?
Art: Uh, the other Move I took on that same line is Punch Everyone. (Reading) “Whenever you charge into a fight without hedging your bets, you can shift your Danger up and any other Label down.”
Austin: Which means you can bring that Danger up to a three, and you could say like “You know what? Right now, I don’t need to be Superior to anybody, or I don’t need to save anybody. Drop that one down.”
Art: Yeah.
Austin: Awesome. Cool.
Art: And I want to know that I...I want everyone to know that they have a Move that would’ve given me the old...Cassander move of being able to show up anywhere—
Austin: Yeah.
Art: —(Laughing) and I didn’t take it.
Austin: (Reading) “There When It Matters. When you defend someone, on a hit you can hold one instead of choosing from the list. Spend your hold when they are in danger later to arrive on the scene ready to help.” That would’ve been—you know? You know, maybe if we return to these characters at some point and you level up. Uh, alright. Backstory. Who changed you—we got that. Mafia.
Art: Mafia.
Austin (overlapping): The Veranda family, I’m guessing?
Art: Uh, yeah.
Austin: Okay. How did you escape from them?
Art: Um, I think they, like...I think she realized she had...become just exceptionally strong, and—and waited, and just sort of, like, punched through a wall one day. Like—
Austin: Okay.
Art: She was at, like, a sparring match. She, like, knocked the other person the fuck out. Maybe seriously harmed them. And then just, like...used a distraction to book it—to just “I’m getting out of here.”
Austin: Who outside of the team tries to take care of you now?
Art: Did I already use my mobster name?
Austin: ...no?
Art: Did we have a Vincenzo Dimartino?
Austin: I don’t think so.
Keith: I don’t think so.
Art: Alright. Vinny Dimartino is the person who—who, uh...who worked at the—
Austin (overlapping): Yep, sorry, we did.
Art: Ugh!
Austin: Uh, here’s what I know. (Reading) Vincenzo Dimartino sets up arsonists, gets things taken care of.”
Art: Mmm...
Austin: I think that might have been in Noirlandia?
Art: It must have been. I used the—I used the best three names in this. Alright, I’m gonna go for the different boxing training character.
Austin: Okay.
Art: This is my old trainer from back in the—back in the day. I don’t think I used this one. Marcus Aurelius Smith.
Austin: Great. Love it.
Art: An African American gentleman from around the way.
Austin: Uh-huh. Cutty from the Cut. Got it.
Art: Cutty from the Cut.
Austin: Got it. I really appreciate that we’ve now...we’re really—Art, we’ve definitely synced up. We’ve definitely done the ole’ Hofstra mind sync, because I don’t know if you remember the first [cough] African American boxer—the first Black boxer of this—of Bluff City was Achilles Apollo.
Art: Uh-huh.
Austin: (Laughing) So now we got Achilles Apollo and Marcus Aurelius Smith. Love it.
Art: Uh-huh. We just have to jump another era forward.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Art: I think, uh...yeah. Leonardo...
Austin (overlapping): We can go from here, I mean—[Art laughs] from—yeah, exactly. We’re just going through time. Exactly.
Art: Yeah.
Keith: What’s this character’s name? Is there more, or do we get to know?
Austin: The character’s name is The Champ.
Keith: Oh, right, we did that part already. Wait—
Austin: We did.
Keith: Wait, hold on—
Art: Yeah, I read a poem.
Keith: Hold on.
Austin: (Indignant) It’s not a poem...
Keith: That was the name—I wasn’t—I thought this was the big name drop about what’s the...is that for a different thing?
Austin: No, it’s The Champ. That’s it. You—we did the drop.
Keith: Oh, that’s it?
Austin: Uh-huh.
Keith: I didn’t—I feel like that wasn’t—I don’t think, Austin—everyone would have rejected The Champ.
Austin: No!
Art: It’s—it’s like—it’s a lazy name, and it’s a long way to go for, like, a (laughing) song reference...
Austin: For the second hip-hop reference in a row...it’s—you know? I’ll let you have it ‘cause it’s a great song.
Art: Yeah.
Austin: And a fantastic album. And great production.
Janine (overlapping): I was really expecting it to be something like Cap’n Crunch, honestly. Like, I was expecting it to—
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: —interfere with a brand [Keith laughs] or be—[laugh] like...
Art: Yeah, um...
Austin: Can your Real Name be Cap’n Crunch?
[Janine laughs]
Art: It’s, uh...Skechers Payless.
[Janine, Austin, and Keith laugh]
Austin: Um...[laugh] uh, we need to do...keep moving. Alright, uh, so—
Art: Why are you—
Austin: —is that—wait, so, does Marcus Aurelius take care of you now?
Art: Yeah, I—
Austin: Or try to take care of you now?
Art: —I live—I live in—in the back room of the—the old boxing gym around the way.
Austin: Gotcha.
Art: Um, yeah.
Austin: Why do you try to be a hero?
Art: Um, I believe that I need to do—I need to use what I have to help the people who are being exploited by the criminal element of the city.
Austin: Cool. Why do you care about the team?
Art: Um...I think because...there was—there was, like, a—there was, like, a bad moment, you know? Where—where...you know...I got—I escaped, and I was—I was mad, and I was really, like, taking it—taking it out on people who I perceived as bad, but maybe were, like, kind of not so bad. And I was really, like, hurting people badly and this team—these people stepped in and, like—and stopped me, and cooled me down, and got me into, like, a...a better space, where I’m productively channeling my...
Austin: Cool.
Art: ...my anger and—and, uh...like, just—like...
Austin (overlapping): One of the things about this game is we don’t do origin stories—or, we don’t, like, play the origin. Y’all have been a team. Like, for the school year. You know? Um, which I like a lot. Uh, alright. So last thing for you, Art, on this—on this runthrough, anyway—the Bull’s Heart. (Reading) “You always have exactly one Love, and one Rival. You can change your Love or Rival at any given time...give the new subject of your affection or disdain influence over you. Take plus one ongoing to any action that impresses your Love, or frustrates your Rival.”
Art: Yeah, uh—
Austin: And you should understand both of these really broadly. You know, the—this can be...uh, you can understand Love as romantic love, as deep romantic affection. And Rival as true hatred. Or, you can understand Love as platonic or paternal or...uh...you know, filial or...or whatever...the broad, you know, fraternal—the huge rage of love is. And Rival, you can even understand as being something way closer to...um, affection or way closer to like ”Yeah, we’re on the same team, but we’re rivals. Like we’re—I’m gonna—” Legolas and Gimli. Glimli? Gimli. Gimli. Jimli? Jim Lee.
Art: Jim Lee.
Janine: Gimlet.
Art: Jim Lee, the comic book artist.
Austin: Right. Uh...[laugh] Jim “Gimlet” Lee. [Janine exhales a laugh] Got it.
Art: Yeah. And I was gonna take, uh...I was gonna take Jack as my Love and Keith as my Rival.
Austin: Uh, are y’all cool with that? Are y’all good with that?
Keith: I’m cool—
Jack: Yeah.
Keith: —yeah, I’m fine with that.
Austin: What is—can you define what that Love and Rival relationship is like?
Keith (overlapping): Yeah, I’m curious.
Art: I think, uh the love is more of, like, an infatuation.
Austin: Okay.
Art: This, like...you know...this—this...I mean, it’s like...[gasp] “I’m hanging out with a celebrity!”
Austin: Right. (Laughing) Okay.
Art: “I’ve gotta make sure that, like, I really nail this.” You know?
Austin: Uh-huh. I want to—yeah, you want to impress her.
Art: She’s so cool...
Jack: No, punching.
Austin: [Laugh] Right.
Art: Um, I’m gonna punch real good.
Jack (overlapping): Or, the correct amount of punching. [Laugh]
Austin: You’re—“She’s so pretty, and I punch through walls.”
Art: Yeah.
Austin: Right.
Art: “She’s so pretty I punch through walls. Yeah.”
[Austin laugh]
Austin: And your Rival—
Art (overlapping): I’ve spent all this time, like, looking at different...like, trying to look up different boxers in different weight classes, trying to figure out, like, what women boxers look like at different weights. And what I really found out is that it’s a lot of, just, height.
Austin: Yeah.
Art: That, like, every—
Keith: Huh.
Art: —every lady boxer I saw is just jacked to hell—
Austin: (Laughing) Yeah.
Art: —and it’s just like “This one’s five-seven, this one’s five-eleven.”
Austin: (overlapping): No, that’s a different game. That’s a different—
Keith (overlapping): Yeah, once you get that—right, yeah.
Austin (overlapping): That’s Aliens in the Outfield. [Jack chuckles] Jacked to Hell is—
Art: Mmm...
Austin: Uh-huh.
Art: And I think that my rivalry is more like, uh...like, just like—a kind of, like, gruff...like “Yeah, I don’t—I don’t care. I get it. You know more than I do, and I’m...I’m just better at—I’m better and cooler than you.”
Austin: [Laugh] Great. Is there any element of this that’s like—
Keith (overlapping): Wait, sorry, what was the first part of that, before the “I’m better and cooler than you”?
Art: The like “I get it, you’re more experienced, but...”
Keith: Oh, okay.
Art: “...but I’m better and cooler.”
Austin: Is there a bit of this that’s like “This guy chooses to do this day in and day out. He could stop whenever and he’s breaking his body.” And they did this to you. This is not a—
Art: Yeah...
Austin: —thing you chose, and...you actually feel like you have some responsibility because...
Art: Yeah, I think that’s definitely an aspect of this.
Austin: Do you think that—that Keith’s character should be a superhero?
Art: I mean...
Keith: Yeah, are you gonna fucking tell me what to do?
Art: I mean, no. I don’t. [Austin chuckles] But like...you’re doing a great job, I guess.
Austin: Okay. Good. There it is. Choose a role you commonly fulfill for your Love or your Rival.
Art: Now, is this—am I checking one for both?
Austin: Yes.
Art: Then I will take Defender.
Austin: Which says...
Art: (Reading) “When you leap to defend your Love or Rival in battle, roll plus Danger instead of plus Savior to defend them.”
Austin: Love it.
Art: Which I think works great, because one person I’m trying to impress, and one person I’m pretty convinced should just not be out here.
Austin: God. Brutal. Alright! Uh, so, let’s jump back to Jack really quick. So that he can go to bed. [Laugh]
Jack: Hm.
Austin: Uh, so, the rest of what we have to do are things that have to do with the team. And your relationship with other people on the team. So, there are a bunch of questions about when the team first came together. Uh, and then there are Relationships, and then Influence. Let’s start with...um, let’s start with when our team first came together. So...Jack, it says (reading) “We as a team attracted the attention of a major media outlet within the city thanks to our efforts. Who are they? Why did they support us?”
Jack: WBRK The Break.
Austin: Love it. So the radio station is just, like, big fans of the team?
Jack: Yeah, the radio station is just like...the—[laugh] the radio station is...’cause we—you know, Ross and the Boss are just the spo—the baseball guys, right?
Austin: Right. We know there’s more people. This is—
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: —Hector Hu is still around, as people who—
Jack (overlapping): Yeah, yeah.
Austin: —already listened to the intro have already heard.
Jack: But I think—I think, like—yeah, I think categorically, basically the entire radio station is just like “There’s a team of teen superheroes. That’s (Laughing) cool as hell!”
Austin: [Laugh] What, um—do y’all have a name?
Jack: Oh god. The Bluff City...how many of us are there?
[Timestamp 02:00:00]
Austin: Four. (Laughing) Great. Off to a good start. I know it’s late. It’s late.
[Jack laughs]
Jack: No, not yet. We don’t (laughing) have a name yet.
Austin: Great. Um...or, like, you could by the time we record the actual game.
Jack: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin: Alright, cool. Um...and they support you just because...what—why?
Jack: ‘Cause it’s—‘cause—‘cause we’re doing—we’re fighting the good fight...um, ‘cause we’re, uh, we’re exciting. Bluff City loves, um...you know. [Chuckle] Bluff City loves, uh...a spectacle.
Austin: Right.
Jack: And also, you know there’s a lot of—there’s a lot of...uh, dirty deeds and ill-gotten gains in this city, and it would be good if some plucky youngsters would could, [laugh] you know—
Austin: Yeah, and you know what—
Jack: —do bird telepathy showed up.
Austin: [Laugh] I think maybe this is part of it. Is...um...or, if I can suggest this, is when I look at the people who we’ve established as being part of WBRK, it’s Hector Hu. It’s Ross Rossy and "Bossman" Burke Bridges, who you know, they’ll just love—anything that represents Bluff City in a good light, they’re gonna like it. You know what I mean? Anyone who’s a hero for Bluff City, any time that they can say, like “Unlike those fat cats in Trenton, this city has real heroes.” [Jack laughs] “You know what I’m saying, Bossman.” Uh, and then...um...also there, Gabby Gabbs, who loves drama. Obviously Gabby Gabbs. Uh, and then, Nathaniel Bridges who...“This City is Going to Hell,” radioist and columnist—I think, throughout all of these people, there is a sort of...desperate hope that Bluff City doesn’t fall apart.
Jack: Mm.
Austin: And that—
Jack (overlapping): (Laughing) Which—well...
Austin: —people stop leaving. And that the youth can save the city in a sense, right? That like—
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: There needs to be...a next generation of people who—who help Bluff City. Um, I think there is almost a generational thing there.
Jack: Yeah, I agree.
Austin: Alright. So then, a few more things. Relationships. (Reading) “Blank might wind up being more of a star than me someday.” And “Blank would be a good sidekick. I try to keep them around.”
Jack: Damn. Um, so I think that, um, Chanti might wind up being more of a star than me someday.
Austin: Mm.
Jack: Um, in part because, like, the whole bird thing is great. There’s the association with Goldfinch—
Austin: Mhm.
Jack: —or, with Waxwing?
Austin: With Waxwing.
Jack: with Waxwing.
Austin (overlapping): With Waxwing, yeah.
Jack: There’s the association with Waxwing. And that’s all very exciting and, you know—and I think that there’s, like, potential...that’s such a weird thing, right? Being like a teen looking at another teen and going “I think there’s potential there.”
Austin: Uh-huh.
Jack: Um, but I think there’s—there’s part of that...and I think that The Champ would be a great sidekick. I try and keep them around.
Austin: Nice. Good. Um, alright. Influence. (Reading) “Choose how you see the team: as a means to an end or as something worthwhile on its own. If you see the team as a means to an end, give no one Influence. If you see the team as something worthwhile, give three teammates Influence.”
Jack: I think the team—I think that the team is worthwhile on its own. I—you know, I think that without the...I think that I honestly believe that without the team, I’d just be very beautiful and famous.
Austin: Uh-huh.
[Keith bursts out laughing]
Austin: [Laugh] Great.
Jack: And with the team, I’m very beautiful and famous, and I can work to, you know, find crime and—
Austin: Great.
Jack: —do stuff like that.
Austin: Uh, Influence is really great. I really love Influence as a...
Jack: It’s such a great mechanic.
Austin: It reminds me a lot of what we called Faith in T.M.—or, in Twilight Mirage or what is now called Obligation in the Veil. Um...it is, uh—(Reading) “Influence is a way of measuring whose words, actions, opinions, and example have meaning to you. If someone has Influence over you, then you care about what they think and say. By default, adults have Influence over PCs. The young heroes care what the adults tell them. Over time, they’ll be able to take Influence away from the people they don’t want to listen to. It’s a binary on/off thing. Someone either has Influence on you or they don’t. And vice versa, you either have Influence on someone or you don’t.” And, one, when someone with Influence over you tells you who you are or how the world works, you can either accept or reject that Influence. And if you accept it, the Labels can change, right? So like, if—so you’ve just given to everybody else around you, right? Jack?
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: What was your character’s first name again? Helen? Hella?
Jack: Hilda.
Austin: Hilda.
Jack: Hilda. [Laugh]
Austin: Hilda, not Hella.
Jack: Hella.
Austin: That’s a different one. Hilda. So if, you know—if one of the other players has a sit down with you, and they’re like “You know, you’re not such a big deal these days—you know, like, you’re not—you act so superior, you act so famous, but you’re just a person with wings.” Then, if you accept that, then your Superior might drop by one and maybe your Mundane goes up by one. Right? Uh, or, you can...[gasp] be like “No, actually, you don’t. That’s not true.” And then at that point, you’ve rejected their Influence. And one of the things that happens there is, like, Influence is kind of a good thing to have with somebody because when you have Influence—if you have Influence on someone or vice versa, you get plus one to all Moves towards that person. So that means that if someone wants to Defend you and they have Influence over you, then they get a plus one while trying to Defend you. They also get a plus one if they want to, for instance, Provoke you or Pierce your Mask, or Comfort and Support you. And then you can also cash in Influence in cool ways to, like, give them incentive to do what you want, basically. It’s like really putting the boot down and being like “Hey remember, I have Influence over you. [Chuckle] Like, take this seriously...” Um, so, again, we’ll get into all that as we play. So sounds like you give everybody some Influence.
Jack: Yeah! Handing it out.
Austin (overlapping): So everybody—everybody has Influence over...Hilda. Over Paternoster—naster? Noster. I always say—I keep saying “nas-tah” because...it’s late, I guess. Um...alright. I think that that’s it in terms of Influence stuff and Relationship for you, Jack. Alright. Who wants to go next?
Art: Mine are real easy.
Austin: Alright, let’s do you then. Let’s go the Bull’s...uh, when you’re—
Art (overlapping): ‘Cause my Relationships are just Love and Rival.
Austin: Oh. Okay, so we got those already.
Art: And my Influence is—my Love and Rival have Influence over me. [Laugh]
Austin: Okay, super easy. And your Relationships—can you read those, actually?
Art: Sure, uh, Paternoster is my Love. (Reading) “You’ve opened up to them about the worst parts of your past...”
Austin: Mhm.
Art: And, uh, Keith, what’s your—what’s your—give me your name again?
Keith: Uh, Franklin Bano.
Art: And Franklin Bano is my Rival. (Reading) “They try to control you at a crucial moment—me at a crucial moment.” I need to—so I...
Austin: Oooh, interesting. Okay.
Art: (Muffled) Yeah. Um...
Keith: Oh, is that what makes me a—seem like a creep? Is that the part?
Art: Well, and you’re also just hanging out with a bunch of younger women. If you—
Keith: We’re coworkers.
Art (overlapping): —knew a twenty year-old that, like, exclusively hung out with seventeen and younger, you’d be like—
Janine (overlapping): And he—he might not be straight, like we don’t know—it’s—I don’t—I don’t think we need to worry too much about it.
Art (overlapping): Sure, yeah, but like—[Austin chuckles] but like, on the surface, that would just look creepy.
Austin That’s fair, I—
Janine (overlapping): He’s also the only one—
Keith (overlapping): That’s fair.
Janine: —of us who doesn’t have magic powers, basically—
Keith (overlapping): I also went first!
Austin (overlapping): Sure.
Janine: —so that may go bad for him. [Small laugh]
Keith: I also—
Austin (overlapping): That’s also true. [Laugh]
Janine: We’re all kind of more—
Austin: Yes.
Janine: —good and able?
Keith: I...do a really good job—
Austin (overlapping): Right, also, we’re all good people.
Keith (overlapping): —on my own, thanks.
Janine: Also that.
Art (overlapping): Yeah, we are all good people. I was just—I was just talking about optics [Austin laughs] in a fictional world.
Austin: (Laughing) Right. Uh, Art, that’s all of yours. That’s pretty easy.
Art: Uh, yeah, and when the team first gathered, we defeated a dangerous enemy. Who or what was it?
Austin: Yeah!
Art: I don’t—I don’t know. I sort of want, like, The Fantastic Four—like, you’ve ever seen the cover of the first issue of The Fantastic Four?
Austin No—I—yes, but I don’t have it on hand.
Art (overlapping): And if not, do you want to take a moment? They’re, like, fighting this giant, like, green lizard.
Austin: (Laughing) Okay. That’s a choice. Is it like a sea monster?
Art (overlapping): And I want something like that.
Austin: Oh my god. Look at that green lizard.
Janine: I’m not gonna lie, I was—I was sitting here quietly in my head being like (mumbling) “Sea monster. I’m gonna get a sea monster. Just be a sea monster.”
Austin: It should be a sea monster. If it is—
Art: It should be a sea monster by the—or, by the—the—[stammers] what am I—what’s the matter with me? Ocean!
Janine: Water? [Laugh]
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: [Laugh] Oh...[Art laughs] boy. It’s late, huh? It’s three hours earlier over there, actually. So...
Art (overlapping): It’s least late for me. [Laugh] It’s only eight—eight-fifteen here, but um...you know, ocean’s a hard one.
Austin: (Unconvinced) Mh.
Art: [Laugh] What’s a good ocean lizard?
Keith: Like a serpent? Like a sea serpent?
Janine: There are, like, saltwater crocodiles and shit that are kind of creepy.
Keith: Jellyfish—
Art: What about some sort of, like, giant leg eel?
Keith: There are those in KOTOR—
Janine (overlapping): What’s a leg eel?
Austin (overlapping): Excuse me?
Janine: What the fuck is a (laughing) leg eel?
[Austin chuckles]
Art: It’s not real, but like an eel that has legs.
Keith: I—
Austin: (Whispering) Oh my god...
Keith: In the—in the—I get—[Janine laughs quietly] in a very...in a—I’m gonna—this is a stretch. I’m gonna say this is a similar vein...you guys know in KOTOR, when you’re on Dantooine and there are those flying giant manta rays?
Austin: Yeah, of course.
Keith: What if it was—it was a dual—it was flying and also ocean? It was evil—it was this horrible manta ray that could be wherever.
Janine: There are eels that have legs.
Austin: It’s called a Brith, thank you very (laughing) much.
Janine: I hate it...
Keith (overlapping): Brith.
Art: (overlapping): I just think...I just think eels are real creepy-looking.
Keith (overlapping): A jel—a jellied eel?
Janine: I’m really glad Jack isn’t on the call for this...
Austin: What if it’s—what if it’s a bunch—what if it’s, like, a Bloodborne eel boss. Where it’s a bunch of eels that have combined to become...
Keith (overlapping): Oh it’s a...it’s an eel king.
Austin: ...an eel king. The Eel King!
Keith: Love it.
Austin: You beat the Eel King.
Keith: I don’t know if Jack can handle the eel thing.
Austin: He doesn’t have to.
Janine (overlapping): It’s in the rear view.
Art (overlapping): Well it’s—it’s in the past.
Austin (overlapping): He’ll never hear this.
Janine: Yeah. It’s dead. We killed it.
Keith: Oh, we already killed it. Okay.
Austin (overlapping): Wait, whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa. You didn’t kill it. Did you kill it? [Pause] You sent it back home.
Art (overlapping): I think we dispersed it.
Janine: Uh—okay.
Austin: There’s a specific thing—
Art: Only one—wherever it is now, it’s one eel. [Laugh]
Janine: Sent it to an eel farm upstate.
Austin: Right. There was a thing I definitely should have read in this book that’s like “You probably didn’t kill anybody. You probably—you probably haven’t killed anybody yet.”
Janine: Okay.
Austin: Um...
Keith: Well...
Art: Can you even kill an eel king? ‘Cause it’s many eels.
Austin: That’s the question, right?
Janine (overlapping): You just...kill enough of them, and...
Keith (overlapping): It’s a sort of metaphorical killing. It’s like—
Austin: Yeah...
Keith: —yeah. It’s—
Austin: ...I should’ve—here’s the thing I should’ve read from the—this is—I meant to read. This is the very top. (Reading) “You all chose to be here. You aren’t killers. You aren’t—”
Janine: (Disappointed) Mm, alright...
Austin: “—illegal or openly hunted yet. And you aren’t beloved.” Except for the one who is.
Keith: Right. And that was—
Austin (overlapping): And even that is—if—
Keith: —in an addendum playbook, so...
Austin: Right.
Janine: Well we—
Austin (overlapping): Yeah, and I mean, the season’s set—
Janine (overlapping): —we just—we scared it away...
Austin: The se—okay, you scared it away. You saved people. That’s the important thing.
Art: I think we dispersed it. I think whatever was keeping it as an eel king...
Austin (overlapping): There you go!
Art: ...we got rid of, and now—
Keith (overlapping): I think there was...
Art (overlapping): —they’re just back to being many eels.
Keith (overlapping): ...there was a villain that was controlling the eels, and using it to make a big giant body suit of eels.
Janine: Ugh...
Keith: Yeah, I didn’t—
Art (overlapping): Well, I don’t think there was a—
Austin (overlapping): No [indiscernible], this is—
Keith (overlapping): I didn’t say it was gross!
Art: I think this is, like, more supernatural—
Keith: It’s like—
Art: —maybe like a magic eel combining spell?
Keith (overlapping): Well...
Austin: Or, like, a meteor fell and the eels all went to the meteor and, like, became a super eel?
Janine (overlapping): (Quietly) Oh my god...
Austin: Around the meteor. And like—
Art (overlapping): Yeah! That’s a good one.
Austin: And you punch through the middle and then, like, the eels are like “Blargh!” and they moved away and you just shattered the meteor and they all dispersed.
Janine: (Grossed out) Ugh...
Keith: Okay, I like that. That’s fine.
Art: It was really—it was texturally gross, though.
Janine: Ew...
Austin (overlapping): Oh yeah, very gross. Super gross.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Alright, that’s all your shit, right?
Art: Yeah.
Austin: Alright. Uh, Beacon or...Protégé?
Janine: I can—
Keith (overlapping): I can go whatever order. If Janine has something, that’s fine.
Janine: I got stuff, that’s fine.
Austin: Alright, let’s go Protégé. Let’s go, uh...with you. (Reading) “When your team first came together, we all stuck together after all was said and done. Why? How did we keep in contact?”
Janine: Um, I think this is—this is kind of what I was getting at with “Why do you care about the team?” It feels very much like a...you know, [sigh] there are a bunch of heroes in Bluff City, but also it’s still Bluff City. Like, I bet there are more heroes in New York. I bet there are more heroes—
Austin: Totally.
Janine: —in other places. It’s one of those things where “Okay, we are all here. We’re all doing this thing. We’re all in this certain age bracket. If we’re not together then we’re probably alone...”
Austin: Right.
Janine: “...and that’s not good for a lot of reasons. Like, it’s dangerous and also lonely and it sucks, and it’s way cooler if you can, like, have people you hang out with at an arcade.” Um...
Austin: Did y’all already—so, I guess, there’s a question. Did Waxwing help bring the team together?
Janine: Um...
Austin: Like, did she say—did she see you do what you do, and then she said like “I can resource you. Stick together, this town needs kids like you.”
Janine (overlapping): Yeah, that—I mean, that makes sense if she’s furnishing our hideout and our car and our...
Austin: Yeah...yeah.
Janine: ...our (laughing) mystery weapon.
Austin: Uh-huh!
Janine: It does make sense that it—that it would be a thing where, like...where she sees them and is like “Hey, you know what you guys...you should—how about I set you guys up, and you make this a thing?”
Austin: Yeah. Cool. Uh, Relationships. (Reading) “You and blank teamed up a few times before the rest of you came together.”
Janine: Um....I think maybe The Champ? ‘Cause it just feels like there is some...um...potential for just, like, ending up in the same place at the same time.
Austin: Yeah. Yeah, totally.
Janine: In a way that makes sense.
Austin: Uh, and...(reading) “Your mentor is cautious. They ask you to keep an eye on blank.”
Janine: Paternoster.
Austin: Okay. Cool. Uh, Influence. (Reading) “Choose your demeanor. Playful or business?”
Janine: Um...I’m—I’m, like, torn on this. I think, like, I see this character as not being playful, as much as I would like—
Austin (overlapping): Yeah...
Janine: —to give Influence.
Austin: Yup.
Janine: I just don’t see her as being, like really spunky?
Austin: Yeah. Alright, then (reading) “If you choose Business—”
Janine: Yeah...
Austin: “—give Influence to no teammates.”
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: This can always change in play.
Janine It’s less fun, but...
Austin (overlapping): So.
Janine: ...you know.
Austin: Yeah, I mean that’s—this character seems very business-y to me.
Janine (overlapping): Yeah.
Austin: Very focused on doing well.
Janine: Lil—lil’ bit severe.
Austin: Yeah. Um...alright! That’s all your stuff—oh—yeah, that is. Alright, so, back to Beacon. To Franklin.
Keith: Hello.
Austin: Who I keep wanting to call “The Frank,” which is not...the name.
Keith (overlapping): That’s fine.
Austin: [Snort] Okay.
Keith: Frankie. Frankenstein.
Austin: Frankie? The Frank—
Keith: Whatever you got.
Austin: —is that your—is that your Masked name? Is Frankenstein? It’s like, that’s not—
Keith: (Muffled) Frankenstein?
Austin: —you don’t do that.
Keith (overlapping): ‘Cause I’m...’cause I’m always getting all beat up.
Janine (overlapping): Is it like a prototype costume that says “The Frank” on it, and then he was like—
Austin: [Chuckle] Yeah.
Janine: —“I can’t do that, ‘cause that’s just my name.”
Austin: “It’s just my name.” (Reading) “When our team first came together, we found signs that this incident was the start of something bigger.” [Keith groans] “What were the signs?”
Keith: Uh...I’ve been thinking about this one. I don’t know what the signs were. I mean for me—my, like...the way that I felt about the team was just, like—that I could be a part of another team was the sign that it was the start of something bigger. Um...’cause I had lost—
Austin: Right.
Keith: —the team that I had.
Austin (overlapping): Sorry—I think...that this means...the eel king was the start of something bigger.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: The meteor that caused the eel king to form was the start of something bigger.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: What were the signs that the eel king was not a one off threat?
Keith: [Sigh] Um...what were the signs that the eel king was not a one off threat? Um...
Austin: Like, is—was it something you analyzed inside of the meteorite? Meteoroid? I always forget. Meteorite? There’s one—
Keith: Meteorite—meteorite is a piece of a meteor.
Austin: And it landed?
Keith: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin: Okay.
Austin: Was it something in the meteor—right? Was it something—was it extra meteor—was it, like, you broke open—you recovered the meteorite and then there was writing on it? Was it...
Keith: Oh, so you’re saying there’s a—there’s a second job af—that’s...after this stuff—okay.
Austin (overlapping): That’s what this question is asking, I think. This is—this question to me—”We find signs that this incident—” meaning the Eel King incident—[laugh]
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: “—was just the start of something bigger. What were the signs?”
[Timestamp 02:15:00]
Austin (continued): Which, I don’t think—if it was, like, about the team it would say like “We knew—you know, based on these events during the fight, we knew that we were—we were about to start something bigger.” This feels like...it’s funny, ‘cause this is very much the investigative, Batman-y class. I can imagine this being—
Keith (overlapping): Is it a cop-out to be like “When—when that first...when we got that first meteor—we we punched apart that first meteor, did we—it, like, oh—we saw, like—we could see in the distance more meteors, like, hitting. Touch down.”
Austin (overlapping): Like in...I think that’s totally fair.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: What if it—okay, counter, though—
Keith: Okay.
Austin: —what if it dragonballed?
Keith: You mean there were seven meteors together and a dragon showed up?
Austin: No, what if there was one big meteor at the heart of the Eel King, and when the Bull punched it, it shot up into the sky and then split into, like, a hundred...meteorites.
Keith: Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah, that’s a fun—
Austin (overlapping): And then it’s like—
Keith (overlapping): —twist on my—on the same thing.
Austin: Right.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: And now it’s like “Well, each one of those little ones—they’re not gonna make an Eel King.”
Keith: Right—
Austin: “But...”
Keith: —but they’ll be one one-hundredth of a problem.
Austin: Right, like, maybe one of them lands in someone’s coffee and now they’re...the Coffee King. Or whatever.
Keith (overlapping): Coffee King. Yeah. Each—
Austin: You know.
Keith: —each sip of the coffee joined—somehow join together. [Laugh]
Austin: [Chuckle] But, like, this is like—this has created a bunch of new superheroes—
Keith (overlapping): Yeah. Yeah-yeah-yeah. A bunch of small problems...
Austin: —or, super-powered people. Yeah. Awesome. I like this a lot.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: That’s a good—that’s a good one. So yeah.
Keith: Right, I’m glad it’s not a cop-out. Um...
Austin: [Laugh] Yes. Uh, alright. So, next up...(reading) “Blank is awesome, and you take every chance you get to hang out with them.”
Keith: [Sigh] Well...The Champ is my Rival...
Austin: No, The Champ—you are The Champ’s rival.
Keith: I’m The Cha—
Austin (overlapping): That’s a—
Art (overlapping): Yeah...
Keith: —so, I could think that The Champ is awesome...
Austin: (Laughing) Yes! A hundred percent! [Laugh] And that could be the Legolas...
Art: It softens it a lot.
Austin: ...Gimli relationship, right?
Keith (overlapping): I don’t wanna—I don’t want—I think that that’s a fun dynamic. I’m not, like, sold on it and I also don’t wanna soften Art’s thing that...
Art: I think it’s—
Keith: ...Art did.
Art: —I think it’s fine to soften it. I think it’s fine for this to be...
Austin: A little more playful.
Art: ...a little more playful. ‘Cause, like, yeah, it doesn’t have to be—it doesn’t have to be serious, you know?
Austin: Well, it can carry the potential to get serious, right?
Keith: It does.
Art: Right.
Austin (overlapping): And that’s the thing...
Keith (overlapping): It has potential to be serious.
Austin: ...is that we—when we come—it’s like, when the camera opens in the first few panels, we can see that they’re counting off how many evil robots each of them destroyed, and they’re like “I’m one up on you this time,” or whatever. But then by, like, issue seven, it’s like (frustrated) “Just because you’ve been doing this for four years—”
Keith: Yeah...
Austin: “—doesn’t mean you know everything.” Right?
Keith: I—yeah. I...I also like it ‘cause I...I do think The Champ is probably the closest to my age, which also makes sense that’s a factor, because we’re young people.
Austin: Well there’s also just the, like, The Champ’s been through shit just like you.
Keith (overlapping): Yeah. Yeah. That all—
Austin: Right?
Keith: —that also. Yeah.
Austin: Um, like you put yourself through it—
Keith (overlapping): So yeah, I’m gonna—
Austin: —someone else put The Champ through it.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: But you both—you’ve both been through situations that have hurt you, so...
Keith: Right.
Austin: Alright, so then—
Keith (overlapping): I’m gonna—
Austin: —you’ve gotta—that’s one. Then, (reading) “You’ve gotta prove yourself to blank before you feel like a real hero.”
Keith: Oh, that’s—okay. So I guess the angle...the angle with Paternoster would be like “She’s famous...and...because she’s famous, that makes her feel like the realest hero here.”
Austin: Right.
Keith: Because, like, that’s the way that people—
Austin (overlapping): Yeah.
Keith: —get to know heroes, is that they’re famous.
Austin: Right.
Keith: And, um...but then the angle...
Austin (overlapping): That’s, like, extra validation.
Keith: Yeah. And then the angle with...what’s the Protégé’s name?
Austin (overlapping): Grouse.
Keith: With—with Grouse. Would be...
Austin: The Grouse or just Grouse? Janine?
Janine: Oh. Um, I think just...I don’t know. I think just Grouse, because it is—
Austin: Grouse.
Janine: —just Goldfinch and Waxwing, and...
Austin: And Waxwing, yeah.
Keith: Okay so the—[laugh]. (Laughing) Goldfish, Waxwing, and Grouse sounds like the weirdest fantasy—
Janine: Law firm?
Keith: —lawyer firm.
Janine: (Laughing) Yes.
Keith: Yeah...
[Austin laughs]
Austin: (Laughing) I’m glad you made partner.
Art (overlapping): Can I—can I introduce you to a—to a...New Jersey proverb?
Keith: Yeah!
Austin (overlapping): Yeah.
Art: Keith? Uh...(in an exaggerated Jersey accent) What? You think you’re better than me?
[Austin, Keith, and Janine laugh]
Keith: Um...well—
Art: You can take that for either one, honestly. But—
Keith: Yeah, so the...I was struggling—I was—I have—so I was gonna figure this out in play, was struggling with whether to, like...whether to, like, be excited by or to be, like...like, uh...annoyed with...Jack’s character?
Austin: Mhm.
Keith: ‘Cause I feel like I could go either way and it would—both of them would make sense. Um...but with Grouse, I feel like Grouse—like, Grouse—the Protégé’s sort of like a hero pedigree thing, where it’s just like—
Austin: Right.
Keith: —you’ve got—you’ve got, like, this real-ass hero vouching for you. And, like, you know what a real hero looks like. And so I feel—I think both of those would work pretty well?
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: So because I think...yeah, because I’m not sure about how to play with, um...Jack’s character yet, I think I’m gonna do “You have to prove yourself to Grouse.”
Austin: Okay. That sounds good to me.
Keith: I also think, like, having to prove yourself to the newest hero would be—might be fun.
[Janine chuckles]
Austin: Also true. Uh, alright. So then Influence. (Reading) “You are so excited to be here. Give Influence over to three of (laughing) your teammates.” Good. Easy.
Janine: Oh.
Keith: All of them. I’m giving one to everybody.
Austin: Love it.
Keith: I did—I also—before we move on, I did have a thought.
Austin: Yes.
Keith: Am I slash can I be, and should I not be, the Super-Saiyans-are-Real Guy? Is that—is that...
Austin: Wh-what? Who?
Keith: Super Saiyans are Real?
Austin: I don’t remember that one.
Keith (overlapping): I’m gonna prove to you that Super Saiyans are real. And I’m gonna do that by...
Austin (overlapping): Oh, is that the guy who does, like—the, like, AAAAAAAH.
Keith (overlapping): Like, he does the—yeah, it’s that guy.
Austin: Yeah. That’s a lot. You could...I mean...
Keith (overlapping): I’m not that guy anymore. That was me seven years ago.
Austin: Yes. I see what you’re saying. Yes. You were “Let me prove to you that Super Saiyans are Real”—
Keith: Right.
Austin: —and then that didn’t happen.
Keith: It didn’t happen.
Austin (overlapping): And now you’re like “But...”
Keith: I have—but I—but I still...
Austin: “But I will ride this...”
Keith: The—yeah, that wasn’t me—
Austin: “...shopping cart down this hill and into that Eel King.” [Laugh]
Keith: —that wasn’t—[laugh] Yeah. That wasn’t me being an idiot, that was me really fucking wanting...
Austin: Right.
Keith: ...a thing, and then trying to make it happen.
Austin: Right. Yeah. I love that.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: That’s good. Um, alright. So before we break, there are a couple other things, which is like...which is that we can answer a couple more of these “When our first—when our team first team together” questions even though...we don’t have those other playbooks here. And I’m not gonna do all of them, but there are a couple more that I just wanted to be like “Hey, what about—-hey, what about this one?” So. Um...(Reading) “When our team first came together, we saved the life of someone important, either to the city or to us. Who was it? Why are they important?”
Keith: Can you repeat the question?
Austin: You saved someone important when you beat the Eel King. Who was it? Why are they important to the city or to you?
Keith: Ossbone.
Austin: [Gasp] Did you save Ossbone?
Keith: [Laugh] I don’t know. I don’t wanna—(laughing) I don’t wanna—I don’t wanna force Jack to have saved...the principal. Their rival principal.
Austin: That’s fair, but also, saving Ossbone is pretty good. Other thoughts at the table?
Janine: Okay, hang on, are we saying Oz-bone or (laughing) Oss-bone, because when you say it Oz-bone, it sounds like you’re making fun of the guy from Spider-Man.
Keith: Who?
Austin: That’s—[Janine laughs] Osborn?
Janine: (Laughing) Yes. [Keith and Austin laugh] It’s like—[laugh] it sounds like you’re dunking on an Osborn [laugh].
[Austin laughs]
Austin: (Overdramatic) “Smooth moves, Oz-bone.” [Keith and Art laugh] Superheroes are good, actually. It turns out. Um...yeah. Uh...Oss-bone, I guess.
Keith (overlapping): It could also be—it could be—it could be evil mayor Steve Harvey that we saved.
Austin: It could be. It could be.
Keith: Um...it could be...
Austin (overlapping): His name is Ollie Fraser, thank you—[laugh] Hm. [Laugh]
Keith: It could be—it could—it could the fucking—it could be Hector. It could be Hector that we saved. That’s fun.
Austin: Hector Hu. Oh, that’s fun!
Keith: That’s fun.
Austin (overlapping): It could be Hector.
Keith: It could be Hector.
Austin (overlapping): Let’s—ooh, I like that. Hector’s a good one.
Keith (overlapping): That also’s why they’re our champions. ‘Cause we fucking saved Hector.
Janine: Yeah...that’s a good image.
Austin (overlapping): That’s Hector Hu. Yes. A hundred percent. Good. That helps me—that helps me with an intro, also.
Keith: Okay. Then we saved Hector.
Austin: ‘Cause now I get to—(laughing) now I can describe the fucking Eel King fight from Hector Hu’s perspective.
Keith: Yeah, I mean it—and we also get...we also get Hector Hu...uh...uh...what’s the word when you talk about something? With good—like, when you praise something? I guess—praise from Hector—
Austin: Praise?
Keith: Yeah—
Austin: Yes.
Keith: —there was a better word, but praise from Hector from, like, literal first-hand experience of like “These fucking kids saved me!”
Austin: Right. Right. Right
Keith (overlapping): “Like I was gonna be killed by one—one eel made up of a thousand eels.”
Austin: Right. The thing that’s wild is does that make the Eel King story more believable or less believable to those who didn’t see it firsthand?
Keith: Well it’s legend—it’s a legend.
Austin: Right. Exactly.
Keith (overlapping): It’s like whoever will—like, we don’t know.
Austin: It’s very Art Bell, again. Um, alright.
Keith (overlapping): It’s eighty percent we, like—we’re all pretty fucking sure it happened.
Austin: Um, here’s another good one. (Reading) “We destroyed something in the fight. Where was it? What did we destroy?”
Keith: Um...well it was by the bay right? Or it was—yeah, by the bay.
Austin: Yeah, I think it probably, like, made its way towards some sort of—some sort of...you know. Either...uh...docks or a pier or...
Janine: I’m—
Austin: ...something.
Janine: I’m thinking of, like, a ferris wheel, but part of that is because it—
Austin: Yes.
Janine: —feels like it’d be really cool...if, instead of actually, like, punching through the Eel King, like a disconnected ferris wheel got punched through the ferris wheel and then it, like, split it all up? Like when you get one of those...apple corers, that you, like, push down on an apple—
Keith: Apple what?
Janine: An apple corer?
Austin: Oh my god, we’re not doing this.
[Keith laughs]
Art: Ferris wheel was the first that came to my mind, too.
Austin: Okay. That all works for me.
Keith (overlapping): I like ferris wheel.
Austin (overlapping): Here it is, right?
Keith (overlapping): Buckets—all the buckets from the ferris wheel launching...
Janine (overlapping): Blooming onion maker. Like a blooming onion maker.
Austin: Like a blooming onion maker.
Keith: A blooming onion maker.
Austin (overlapping): You opened up the Eel King like a blooming onion. Jesus christ.
Art (overlapping): Do they sell those?
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: Uh, so...
Art: Oh...
Austin: ...here’s what it is. It’s the pier that the arcade is on. You fucked the ferris wheel there—that’s why Waxwing was around—[laugh] I think she owns that pier, probably. In her, like mundane—in her civilian clothes? And...you destroyed the—you fucked up the pier. The pier got fucked up. You know, you made sure no one was hurt. It was probably late at night, maybe. The ferris wheel was definitely turned on during this fight in some way. There was probably a cult that worshipped the Eel King. Right? There had to be. There had to be.
Janine: If there wasn’t then, there is now.
Art (overlapping): It depends how long you think it was. Yeah.
Keith (overlapping): Oh I had assumed that this was—
Austin (overlapping): I got it.
Keith: —the Eel King had just emerged, but we can do an “Well this is an older Eel King.”
Austin (overlapping): Here we go. Ready? There was a cult that took over an abandoned pier that had been an amusement pier. Had been abandoned. The—Waxwing owned the property and, like, had been using the area under it as a secret thing but hadn’t kept it up. Evil Cthulhu cult—Lovecraftian cult tried—believed at least, maybe they did—summoned a meteor from the cosmos. Came down, created a corrupted Eel King, which is also the name of this boss in Bloodborne 2, coming out next fall—it’s not actually. Sorry. And then when you defeated the corrupted Eel King, and the cult—the cult had turned on the ferris, it was a whole cool fight, you fought the cultists off, destroyed most of the pier. Waxwing shows up and is like “Hey...y’all are alright. You know? “You’re the Bluff City Birds of Prey—” that’s a—Birds of Prey is already a thing. You know what I mean.
Keith: How established was this cult? Was this like a weekender’s cult. Like a...like they only take their motorcycle out every other weekend or whatever? And they were all very surprised—
Austin (overlapping): I think it had been that for twenty—
Keith:—that some shit happened.
Austin: It had been that for twenty years, and then in the last years, someone new showed up—
Keith: Okay.
Austin: And was like “I can—I can fuck with this.”
Keith (overlapping): Was just like “We’re fucking serious.”
Austin: A hundred percent.
Janine: “I played a lot of The Secret World. I know how to make this real cool.”
Austin: Yes, exactly. [Keith laughs] I mean, like, do you want me to go all the way? Because I can tell you something, which is...you—there was something there who got away, and it was someone who had a horseshoe crab for a face.
Janine: Ew.
Austin: Which should mean something to the people who played Noirlandia here. Which is gross. And they got away. And they were the leader of this cult. So there is a weird—there is something happening for real here. Waxwing is like “Uh, shit.”
Keith: Is that that other world shit? Is that what that is?
Austin: That’s that weird other world shit from Noirlandia. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Keith: Yeah, Blough...Blu—Blough City.
Austin (overlapping): Hector Hu was like—the Blue-Blu-Blough City? Yeah, uh-huh. And so...you think maybe the cult called that from other Blough City—who knows? Um, but...Waxwing was like “Hey...we’re gonna repair this thing. It’s gonna be for—you’re gonna turn on the pier’s—
[Music: When Justice is Done by Jack de Quidt starts playing]
Austin (continued): —you know, we’re gonna reactivate the ferris wheel for real. We’re gonna make everything...tourist ready. And this summer, the—whatever. My pier is gonna activate again and is gonna be a cool place for kids to come hang out. And y’all are gonna run the arcade. And also underneath the arcade you can have a secret hideout, and it’s cool. Um, that’s my—that’s my suggestion for this.
[Music ends]
[Timestamp 02:31:24]