Good catch on the red blood, Renee!

And yes, SubRosa, you did a good job in showing that Dogman is quite dangerous even if he's not at the same scale as some others. He can pack a lot of power into a single blow.

I like how you handle some of the details here. Specifically, I'm thinking of Cray not wearing the suit. It tells the reader a lot about his role. It also shows a lot about January when she feels the twinge of regret regarding Belle Isle; she did more than anyone to save the day, but as someone who loves the city and its people, she still wishes she could've done more.

January's reaction is also making me wonder about the toll all this heroism is taking. She's done some dangerous things, and has seen/stopped some pretty horrible ones. The team seems like they'd be pretty supportive, but January would have to open up a bit more about what she's going through.

Also a good bit with Cray taking a more skeptical tone regarding the Dog Man, despite being the more forgiving one when he worked with Blood Raven. It's good advice though; like he says, an open mind still benefits from a screen door.

Interesting planning here overall.

Acadian: One of the things that Cray brings to the table is a large measure of professionalism, which we see here in his boring paperwork like after action reports and dossiers on villains. Jan and her friends may be essentially amateurs at all this, but they behave like seasoned pros, thanks to Cray behind the scenes.

January is going to go some interesting places with her research. Not necessarily accurate research. But interesting.

As ever, thank you for finding those nits for me to fix. Having a proofreader is a goddessend.


WellTemperedClavier: January does feel really bad about the mess that Belle Isle was turned into. Unlike movie supers, she usually tries her darnedest to avoid destroying the city she is ostensibly fighting for. Thankfully because it was a park, it was not people's homes being ruined. But it is still her duty to protect that place, the same as the rest. And having attempts at clean up being mired down by obstructionist politics does not help. That will eventually translate into action being taken next book.

January has a long journey to go with her PTSD, starting with admitting it to herself, and then her others.

When I was writing that I realized that everyone was originally being a little too receptive to the Dogman not being the bad guy. So I went back to add in Cray being the skeptical one. It does work as he is the old school pro, who has seen this stuff played out hundreds of times over the decades. OTOH, when I think back to his time working with Blood Raven, she was definitely the bad cop, to his good cop. It is funny how he can go from being on one end of that to the other, without really changing his views, just because of how different it is working with Blood Raven vs January.

It reminds me of something Mike Duncan of the Revolutions podcast once said about the French Revolution. Things swung between extremes so wildly during that revolution that a person could go from being on the far left, to being on the far right, without ever changing their values.






Beethoven's 5th Symphony- Metal

The Avar Khaganate was real


Book 11.16 - Raven Sisters

July 12th, evening

"So it's Friday night, the first weekend since the world almost ended Monday evening. Everybody is out celebrating the fact that yes, we are all still alive. That means it's time to party, and get drunk, and dance, and play beer pong, and have wild and totally consensual and protected sex with people we might even know."

January's mother Barbara ruefully shook her head as she leaned nearer to the microphone set up on the desk in front of her. It was borrowed from Blackjack, as were the headphones clapped down over the fifty-some year old woman's red hair.

"And we are sitting in the den, because we're giant book nerds." January added. She too spoke into another borrowed microphone, and wore another pair of borrowed headphones.

She wore her Iron Maiden tee, depicting their mascot Eddie from the Killers album cover. This was a special occasion. It wasn't everyday that you recorded your first podcast episode with your mother after all. The shirt was special too of course. Her mother Barbara had given it to her on her nineteenth birthday. Barbara had bought it at a Maiden concert herself when she had been the same age. So it was sort of a family tradition.

January looked around. She had listened to plenty of podcasts, but she had never actually thought much where one recorded them. Some people joked about doing them from their closet. MeTubers often seemed to do their shows in their bedrooms or living rooms. So she really did not expect to do it in an actual recording studio. But she had not expected to do it in the family den either.

Well, it was more of a study than a den. Given that it was in the Witch House, January was not sure if a family had ever used it, probably not a normal one at least. Then again, her life has not been normal for some time now. Sometimes it was hard to remember what normal even was anymore.

To be honest, it was not much of a study really either. The bookshelves that lined the walls were almost entirely empty. Only the arcane tomes that Blood Raven had taken from the Hierophant's lair were on display, packed into one low shelf along the floor. Before them a giant globe rose up from the ground, encased in a heavy wooden stand. It looked like something that might have graced the study of Queen Elizabeth or her court wizard, Dr. John Dee. For all January knew, either might be literally the case.

They were all clustered in the back of the room, and surrounded a giant wooden desk. Numerous cords snaked across its surface. They trailed from the mics and headphones that January and her mother used, and led to an external USB hub in the center of the table. This in turn led back to where Blackjack lurked with a laptop and an extra monitor. January and her mother sat across from one another at the middle of the desk. Ryo in the meanwhile sort of hovered in the background, half vanished in the shadows along the wall.

"January, you're coming in kind of high and tinny," Blackjack's voice came over the headset that she wore. "Turn your gain down some."

"Which one is that?" January stared at the buttons and knobs on her microphone. None of them meant anything to her.

"It's the one over by the-" Blackjack was cut off when Ryo leaned across the desk and fiddled with the appropriate control.

"Is this better?" January wondered. "I don't know what to do. Do I just talk? Maybe I should sing. I'm Crazy for this Crow..."

"That's a lot better, thank you." Blackjack nodded soberly from where he sat nearby. Ryo leaned back a moment later, and once more nearly disappeared into the background.

"So when do we start recording?" Barbara asked. "I'm getting kind of antsy to get going."

"We have been recording for some time now," Ryo intoned flatly.

"Oh great," Barbara shook her head. "This will sound so professional."

"Sorry, you can't edit audio," Blackjack shook his head. "It's a proven fact. Once you press record, all you can do is go right on through to the end. Any mistakes you make are just happy accidents."

"Thank you Bob Ross," January murmured.

"I'm surprised you kids know who that is?" Barbara said. "He was a little before your time. He was back in my day."

"I think it was in an ancient history class I took," January replied smoothly. "He was one of those Five Good Emperors of Rome, right?"

"Well, he was one of the good ones at least," Barbara laughed.

"Okay, so this is a podcast," Barbara cleared her throat, and became more serious. "This is our podcast."

"Who are you?" January asked meaningfully into her mic.

"Well you know who I am honey, I'm your mother," Barbara gave her a somewhat reproachful look.

"I know that, but the... one or two people... who are sure to listen to this don't," January replied.

"Right, that's how you start a podcast. You introduce yourself. This is going so well..." The older woman murmured. Then her voice gained confidence and went on. "Hello, my name is Barbara Ryan, and welcome to the Heroes and Villains podcast. My pronouns are she and her."

"Hi!" January spoke up in her perky phone voice. No matter how hard she tried, it could never be contained or constrained. "I'm She and Her, and my pronouns are Janu..."

January's words trailed off when she realized her gaffe, and hid her face behind one hand. Blackjack immediately burst out into peals of laughter, and her mother was not far behind. Barbara at least had the decency to try to hide her grin behind her hand. Ryo of course, was nonplussed, as he usually was.

"Now that is pure Queen energy!" Blackjack declared. "You are She and Her."

"I am," January forced had to fight to keep from laughing herself in order to force the words out. She was never going to hear the end of that! "My pronouns are January and Ryan. Well technically Ward at the time of this recording. But that's only until I get my court date to change it."

Barbara showed her affinity for public speaking - something January suspected that she learned from decades of putting on events at the library - by quickly getting things back on track.

"The music that you presumably listened to as the episode started was Beethoven's 5th Symphony, performed by Blackjack Schwartz on electric guitar. He is also our engineer. Finally our audio editor is Ryo Kuroda." Barbara looked from each young man to the other, before returning her gaze to her daughter. "So what is this podcast about January?"

"You're asking me?" January said. "I mean, this was your idea. You wrote a whole script!"

"I know, but this is the part where you explain to the audience what we do here." Barbara replied.

"This is going so well..." January tried not to laugh again. "I'm the audience stand in, at least for this series. I come knowing nothing, or less than nothing. My job is to be educated by the researchment brilliance of you, my mother, as you regale us with the tale of some hero and/or villain from history, possibly someone who is a bit of both. At least until it is my turn to present a topic and you get to be the audience stand in."

"Because real life gets really complicated, and really messy," Barbara went on. "We can't expect our heroes to be perfect. Just a few nights ago a man who once fought for Nazi Germany threw down against an alien horde intent upon devouring our very planet. That was alongside many others of course, such as our very own Great Lakes Alliance. Still, he is one of the reasons why we are still alive today to talk about him, rather than going out and doing something totally rad like partying, shooting off fireworks, and other fun things."

"That's right people, gather around the fireplace, turn down the lights, and listen as we kick off the podcast with a series on none other than Janos Heisen. He won the Nobel Prize for his work in the field of quantum physics. Some would say he's the man who discovered it in the first place. Science and sci-fi nerds like my daughter probably know him from that, or for the Heisen Uncertainty Principle, which he also formulated."

"But he is also the man who wore a suit of powered armor for Germany in World War Two, and fought from France to Russia and parts in between. He spent half of his time on the battlefield, and half in the laboratory. That meant he could never really accomplish enough to matter in either place. Meta-humans have been a reality in warfare since the Red Baron and Grognard in World War One. But Nobel-winning metas are another matter altogether. Sometimes a person can do more to influence the world in a lab than on a battlefield. Take Robert Oppenheimer for example, who was not a meta, and never fired a gun in his life. Yet he is the man who became death, the destroyer of worlds."

"This split focus may be why Heisen failed to create the atomic bomb for Hitler. Or that may have been his plan all along. Because the Nazi bomb program never really got far. Hitler didn't really trust that 'Jewish science', and interestingly enough, before the war Heisen had been accused of being a 'White Jew': an Aryan who acted like a Jew. There had even been an attempt to put him in a camp, which he staved off by appealing to Himmler. Well, his mother talked to Himmler's mother, and that was the end of that problem for Heisen."

"Never underestimate Mom Power," January murmured.

"That's right, so do what your mother says," Barbara declared, "she just might be the only thing keeping you from a concentration camp someday."

"Yes ma'am," January breathed.

"This is just an ultra-high overview right now of course," Barbara said. "We will get into this in depth later. We should have an entire episode just on Heisen in the Second World War, if not two of them. But the simple overview is that he participated in most of the really big campaigns and battles. France in 1940, Barbarossa in 1941, etc... Whenever things were really, really important he would get sent in to bolster Germany's meta-humans at the front. When things were quiet he would get sent back to Germany to work on the A-Bomb, and his own suit of powered armor."

"So what about war crimes?" January asked. "Did he do any? That is one of the main things everyone wants to know."

"I mean, as much as war is a crime period, then yes," Barbara said. "As far as anything like Babi Yar... well he wasn't directly involved in the Holocaust or say, things like the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre. But that is not to say his hands were clean. Like Heinz Guderian or Adolf Galland, every victory he achieved on the battlefield enabled other people to do all those things behind him. And the fact is, none of that was a secret to anyone in Nazi Germany. They were making home movies while they committed war crimes, and sending the film back home to be developed."

"Heisen was captured by the Russians in Berlin at the end of the war, and was held in a prison camp until Stalin died in 1953. Some people say he was the only man Stalin feared. Though I would say that honor went to General Zhukov. Heisen was no threat to him."

"In any case, during the power struggle after Stalin died, Heisen escaped from the gulag and returned to his native land of Avarica. He wound up pulling off a complicated set of diplomatic moves between the Soviets and Western Allies, which ended up with all of them withdrawing their forces from the country, in exchange for Avarica declaring permanent neutrality. That of course was not simply everyone being nice. A neutral Avarica created a perfect nexus for espionage and backroom diplomacy during the Cold War, as it was a place where agents of both sides could come and go with ease. It benefited everyone."

"Heisen became Avarica's first chancellor at what many historians call the beginning of that nation's Golden Age. Once again, it was finally a truly sovereign nation, for only the second time in a thousand years. A decade later he stepped down from leadership, and was replaced by an actually democratically elected chancellor and parliament."

"You mean like 'we got the funk'?" January quipped.

"No, not the George Clinton and Bootsy Collins kind of Parliament. The other, boring kind that makes laws." Barbara smiled. "Afterward, he did get funky in various ministries in Avarica. He was the head of their Ministry for Education and Science, and later their Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, etc... But by around 2000 he stepped away from all that, and 'retired'. By that I mean he has been doing pure scientific research and exploration, in between smacking down Abyssals and occasional supervillains of course."

"So is he a German, or not?" January asked. "I think that's a good place to start right? I mean, that's what confuses a lot of people."

"Yes he is, and by that I mean no, he's not," Barbara explained. "It's complicated, which is the whole point of this show. Put a pin in that, because we are going to circle back to it once we get to him. Short answer right now, is that he was born in Avarica, and is an Avarican citizen. Long answer is that yes, he is ethnically German, which at a certain time and place had vaster legal and social meanings than it does today."

"But first we have to turn back the sundial to the Sixth Century CE, to the Avar Khaganate, which was created by the Pannonian Avars. This is to distinguish them from the other Avars who remained in the Caucasus while they moved west into Europe. In 557 these steppe bros galloped into recorded history by sending an embassy to the Byzantine Empire. Which of course was just the Eastern Roman Empire, and did not call themselves Byzantines. But that is a whole other series. A whole other podcast in fact."

"Over the course of the next few centuries the Avars swept into Eastern Europe, and created a large kingdom in and around the Great Hungarian Plain. However, they soon came under pressure from the Carolingian Empire in the west, and other steppe nomads from the east, notably the Bulgars and the Magyars, aka the Hungarians. They survived the pushes from Charlemagne's Empire in the west, but not so much the other groups from the east. Eventually they were pressed back into the area between the Danube and the Alps, in the area we now know today as Avarica."

"This isn't an Avarican history series. That could be its own entire podcast as well. So to cut to the chase, what had once been a steppe nomad khaganate gradually transformed into a Christian Medieval state. A major step in that process was in the palindrome year of 1001, when both Avarica and Hungary converted to Christianity as part of a diplomatic agreement with the Pope. That got the Holy Roman Empire off their backs by taking them out of 'Crush the Pagans' mode."

"So hold up, the whole country just flipped a switch and turned Christian overnight, thanks to a treaty?" January questioned. She already knew the answer to this of course. But it was her job as audience stand in to ask these things.

"It was quite common," Barbara explained. "Christianity usually did not spread through Europe from the bottom up as a totally grass roots movement. Rather it was more often imposed from the top down. A king or emperor became Christian, and then made it the official state religion. That forced everyone else to do the same, or at least pretend to in public."

"It's debated of course, like everything in history," she went on. "There were indeed regular, common people becoming Christian all the time while this was going on. For example, long before the Western Roman Empire fell apart the old Pagan religions within its borders had become moribund. People were looking for something new, that spoke to them, and early Christianity could be very appealing. For example, it was one way that young women could escape from forced marriages. So there were a lot of Christians in Rome before it became the official state religion there."

"Christianity was not alone however. A lot of other different religions and sects spread through the late Roman Empire as well. Christianity just happened to be one that was eventually embraced by an Emperor and his descendants. That institutional power gave it the leg up it needed to crush the other contenders. From there on it became a glacier that inexorably spread across Europe, repeating the same pattern over and over again."

"But this top down approach is also why it took so long for Paganism to be completely eradicated in Europe," Barbara continued. "Even centuries after a country officially became Christian, the Church knew better than to bother the peasants on nights like May Eve. They let them get their Paganism on the down low, so long as they showed up to Mass on Sunday."

"Lithuania is a good example. It was originally filled with Pagans. The Teutonic Knights in Germany spent centuries trying to convert them the old-fashioned way: by raiding them on a regular basis, killing people, enslaving them, and destroying their settlements. Then the Queen of Poland came along and romance was in the air. And by romance I mean a political pact, because the only way monarchs can do politics is by having children get married. By this time Poland had long since been Christian themselves. So part of the deal was the Lithuanian ruler becoming Christian too. Just like that, the entire country became Christian with him. It also created the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which became a powerful force in the region for centuries."

"And it was then illegal to not be Christian," January noted. "It was the same way in Scandinavia, except usually without the marriages. It was one way that rulers cemented power. Render unto Caesar because he is God's chosen one is good publicity."

"Yes, as a king there was a lot to be said for adopting the new religion." Barbara explained. "In addition to the PR boost, the Church was filled with men who could read, write, and count. They were more than happy to take over - and indeed create - a civil bureaucracy to handle the day to day running of the kingdoms of Europe. That left the kings free to do the really important tasks of ruling: like hunting, drinking, and sexually harassing women."

"And now that I think about it, I recall that Christian merchants would not trade with Pagans," January added. "So by being Pagan, you were shut out of European markets. I've read that one of the many, many reasons that the Viking Era began was that legal trade with Europe was forbidden to the Pagan Norse. So they went a-viking - as in a verb rather than a proper noun - and took what they could not buy. That is certainly not the only reason for the sudden explosion of Norse travel and trade and warfare out of Scandinavia. But it is speculated to be a thread in that gigantic tapestry."

"We also have to remember that just because Christianity became the official religion of the state, people in the countryside did not just immediately stop being Pagan." Barbara said. "As we said before, it took centuries, and longer, for that to happen. Even as recent as the 20th Century, peasants in France were venerating Saint Guinefort. He was not an official saint canonized by the Church. The people just made him one all on their own. He was a dog - a literal dog - who was believed to protect children, and people would go out into the woods to pray to his spirit for help."

"Praying to the ghost of a magic dog for divine intervention," January mused. "That sounds a lot like Paganism to me..."

"It sure does." Barbara agreed. "And you can be sure that the Catholic Church was not too keen on it. But to get back on track, in the case of the Avarican Khans - and I am not sure if they were even called that at this point anymore - officially going Christian meant a massive geopolitical and economic shift. That's why this was a political treaty. If they had not done it, then there is a good chance Avarica would have been obliterated by the Holy Roman Empire. Well, the entity that came to be known as the HRE, as it wasn't called exactly that quite yet. It was the Ottonian fragment of the Carolingian Empire at that time."

Ryo leaned forward and spoke into January's microphone in a low, nearly monotone voice. "The ghost of Voltaire compels me to declare that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, Roman, nor an empire."

Then he moved away so that January could use the microphone one more.

"We are of course, legally obligated to say that every time the HRE is brought up." January added.

"As it was, Avarica had only barely survived the attacks by the earlier Carolingian Empire in the 800s." Barbara went back to her script. "If history had turned out slightly differently, then we might not be talking about Avarica at all today. Instead that region might be called the East Marches or Ost Marches, or something like Ostria instead."

"Still, it was not all heart emojis for the now Medieval Christian Avaricans. They spent the next thousand years wedged between more powerful empires: the Holy Roman Empire and later the Hapsburgs to the west, and the Hungarians and later Ottomans to the east. They were a buffer state of one after another, and for centuries the wars of larger nations were played out across Avarica's rivers and fields."

"So as the saying goes, Avarica was nowhere special, but it was on the road to everywhere special," January observed.

"Exactly," Barbara agreed. "In this time the land of Avarica became a melting pot of different ethnicities. Well, it had been all along really. Before the Avars came it had been the homeland of the Gepids, an ethnically German people. Then came not only the Eurasian Avars, but a whole slew of different groups of Slavs: the Slovaks, Moravians, Bohemians, and the like."

"At first the Slavs lived under Avar rulership, but were socially separate from the nomads. The Avars themselves appear to have been ultimately East Central Asian in origin, from somewhere around modern Mongolia, maybe even farther east of there. But eventually the two cultures blended together, as always happens when different groups of people get thrown in with one another. Later you add Bulgars, Hungarians, Ottomans and more. Then throw in some more ethnic Germans after Hapsburg dominance began and you end up with a real chunky marinara of peoples."

"We should probably also throw in a little more context about the Holy Roman Empire and the Hapsburgs. When Charlemagne died, he divided up his empire between his three sons. If you have ever seen the movie Ran or read King Lear, you know this always ends well. Only two of these mini-empires survived. One was in what is now France. The other was the Ottonian dynasty in Germany."

"That Ottonian state evolved into the HRE. It was not really a single, unified nation like we know them today. Rather it was a patchwork of different baronies, duchies, principalities, free cities, and the like spread across what is now Germany. They had an electoral college of prince-electors, who as the name implies, elected each emperor after the last one died. Not that this was in any way a democracy. It was a feudal oligarchy comprised of the upper crust of society competing for who got to call the most shots. Like all politics, it was filled with bribes, threats, back-room deals, alliances, betrayals, murders, and wars."

"The Hapsburgs were a noble family from Central Europe that rolled into this setting, and gradually cemented power both within and without the Holy Roman Empire. Over time they acquired vast personal estates in what are now northern Switzerland, Bavaria, and Czechia. They started out from Hapsburg Castle (people were really original with names back then) in Switzerland. But they soon moved their capital to Prague, in Bohemia, where it would remain for nearly a thousand years."

"Because some of their lands were in the Holy Roman Empire, that made them prince-electors. They used this position to get various members of their family elected to emperor for nearly the entire history of the HRE. Or they married off their daughters to said emperors, and made them part of the family. So while they did not directly own the Holy Roman Empire, for nearly its entire existence it was essentially an extension of Hapsburg dominance over Central Europe."

"This all came tumbling down when a dude you might have heard of named Napoleon Bonaparte came along at the start of the 1800s."

"Boney!" January cried. "Or as he was also commonly known on the street: Nappy B."

"Some might say he was the original Napster." Barbara smiled. "Well in 1806 he was totally downloading Europe. In the process he did not just overrun the Holy Roman Empire, he simply abolished it entirely and replaced it with a creation of his own: the Confederation of the Rhine. Avarica was not important enough for the Napster to put one of his relatives on its throne to rule, as he did in many other places. But like the new Confederation, it became a constitutional monarchy with a bicameral legislature separate from the Prince who now ruled it. Also like the new Confederation of the Rhine, it was now a protectorate of France."

"As listeners may be aware, Napoleon's own empire did not last another decade. In 1812 he made the classic blunder of invading Russia. But at least that gave us a cool overture by Tchaikovsky. Then a year later in 1813 he lost the Battle of Leipzig, and that was pretty much the final death knell of his empire. After that he had to flee to France, with the armies of the Sixth Coalition hot on his heels. A year later Nappy B was forced to abdicate as the Coalition forces went through France like Thai food goes through my insides."

"Even though it was freed of French domination, the Holy Roman Empire still never made a comeback after this. As a political entity it was kaput, and was replaced by a new German Confederation. In reality this still left Germany a patchwork of mostly independent states, with Prussia being the most powerful. It would remain this way until Bismarck united them all into what we now think of as the modern Germany in 1871. Technically as the German Empire, then later the Weimar Republic, etc..."

"In the meantime the Hapsburgs continued to roll coal in the south, now ruling directly over their own empire in Central Europe and much of the Balkans. It was made up of both their ancestral homelands in Bohemia and Bavaria, and other states they had conquered over the centuries. That included Avarica, as well as places like Hungary, Transylvania, Slovenia, Galicia, Bosnia, Dalmatia, and so on.

"During the wave of revolutions that swept across Europe in 1848 Avarica rose up to claim its independence from the Hapsburgs, just as practically everyone else was doing across the continent. For a brief period it became a republic. But like all the other revolutions in this period, theirs failed too. When the dust settled Avarica reverted back to a constitutional monarchy that was subservient to the Hapsburg Emperor, who was still based in their ancient capital of Prague."

"The Hapsburg Empire finally disintegrated at the end of the First World War. With that all of its former holdings were divided into independent states. That included the Republic of Avarica, which was now truly free of foreign domination for the first time in a thousand years. Well, at least until the Nazis annexed it in the run up to the Second World War two decades later."

"So today we know that Avarica lies just south of Germany and Czechia, west of Hungary, north of Slovenia, and east of Switzerland. It was in this place, still part of the aging Hapsburg Empire, that little Janos Heisen was born. He came into the world in a two room apartment in the city of Windna, on the banks of the River Danube, on the sixth of December, 1902."

Barbara went on to lay out the story of Janos Heisen, the world's greatest scientist, pacifist world leader, pioneer in education, and strident activist for safeguarding the world's ecology. It was a long story. Hours and hours long in fact. They did not break up until after midnight, with enough material for at least four episodes of over an hour each. That gave them a month of podcasting done ahead of time. Given how January knew that real life could interrupt even the most finely laid schedules of mice and women, having all that done ahead of time was a relief.

Through it all January tried to be a good podcast co-host, by not stepping on her mother's toes too much, but also continuing to interject in order to clarify things that the audience might not understand. Sometimes the things she did not understand herself. World history had never been her strongest suit, at least not when it strayed from barbarians burning down Rome or plundering the British coast. Those were the interesting parts. Things got a little fuzzy for her beyond that.



January's Pronoun gaffe was inspired by the intro of the SS Andrea Doria episode of the Well There's Your Problem podcast.

* * *

Wow, these two can really fill up some hours with this slice of European history! Barbara is clearly a history nerd but Jan manages to add some flavor and interest. And we’re only up to when the subject hero/villain was born before you summarize the rest of his history.

Everything I know about podcasting would not fill a matchbox so I am learning some things. Sort of like with Renee and her tarot card readings.


Nits -
"January, your {you’re} coming in kind of high and tinny,"
"I {it?} was quite common," Barbara explained. "Christianity usually did not spread…’

It's actually very realistic, to me, that Cray would change sides, so to speak. Things change very rapidly in the real world, like you say. They change even more rapidly on social media, which is one reason I stay away from it these days.

I have to admit I'm a little uncomfortable with how breezily Barbara describes Janos's Nazi past. This obviously ties into some of the earlier discussions about how you can't always find clear heroes and villains in history. Still, there needs to be some accounting for what Janos did in any description of him. Admittedly I don't know the specifics of his biography; maybe he was coerced, or limited in his service (the debate as to whether or not he deliberately sabotaged the Nazis' atom bomb efforts indicates there's some level of ambiguity as to his involvement).

I know that you know all of this. I'm just saying what would be on my mind if I lived in this world and were listening to the podcast.

I quite liked how granular you were in Avarica's history. You incorporated just about all the migrations, conversions, and political movements that'd be relevant. And even though change can be very rapid, it can also be very gradual, like the example you give about paganism. So many of the old ways kept lingering after people had officially "converted".

Avarica as a melting pot almost seems like Austria-Hungary in miniature: a myriad collection encompassing the whole of Central/Eastern Europe. I've been kind of fascinated with the Habsburgs for a while now, so I like seeing them referenced. It was an odd polity in that it was simultaneously really old-fashioned (being almost medieval in its outlook regarding monarchy) and strangely progressive (relatively tolerant). Josef Roth's The Radetzky March, detailing the empire's final days, is one of my favorite novels. Roth doesn't pull any punches in showing just how rotten and ossified the empire had become, but at the same time, it provided a certain type of home. This was particularly important for Roth, given that he was Jewish.

The Habsburg Empire being ruled from Prague is also intriguing. Can't help but wonder if Emperor Rudolf II had a bigger legacy in this version of the world, especially considering the presence of magic.

One thing I'm curious about: when the Avarican monarchy returned to the Habsburg fold, did it maintain much power? I'm wondering if it ended up being like a second Hungary, with a fair amount of autonomy.

This post has been edited by WellTemperedClavier: Jul 14 2023, 03:39 AM

Clavier, I did go back and add more to the brief overview of Heisen in WWII, as you requested. I really can't get into it all. That would be a novel, or a series of them, in its own right. But the TLDR is that Heisen was comparable to people like Heinz Guderian. He was not directly complicit in the Holocaust or war crimes, but every victory he achieved enabled others to do said war crimes. And like everyone in Germany, he knew they were going on.

Great! It was addressed quite well and adds a lot of texture to the story.

Oh, you don't have to include Chessie! Seems you've got a lot of other stuff to get to as it is, hon. Chessie's pretty much a joke. Not taken nearly as seriously as Nessie. I am really interested in the new hero from B'more though, the Korean who's chosen to live in Mount Vernon.

Hey, if you have a few minutes. Have I ever linked you to this superhero song? All Mighty Senators were a Baltimore band, regionally popular up and down the east coast, so I'm not sure if they ever made it to Michigan. Anyway, that's about superheros. I used to go dancing to them all the time. They also do an action hero song (Chuck Norris.. etc.)

Oh no, I don't feel sorry for Stockton. I've fallen into a serious Stockton Rush/Ocean Gate wormhole over the past month, seriously, I've run out of stuff to watch/read about those negligent fools. So yeah, thanks for that. Behind The Bastards... I'll check it out.

--------------------------

A monster from DnD sounds about right! Like a kobold, perhaps.

Cray's lair is wicked fab. I love all the details about how it's all laid out. You'd think some guy wearing all black speaking in an unidentifiable foreign accent would be in charge here, not somebody dressed like Mister Rogers. Whenever Cray speaks I can't help but think he's doing so in that ultra-gentle tone of voice, meant to set young children at ease.

Blood Raven's got an occult room! Or had one.

Ah, so there is some connection to Higher Pants. Maybe so, anyway,.



Nice! Never thought of it that way. And yeah, was gonna say, seems like since there are plenty of existing legends about this Dogman dude that reading up on them might glean a few ideas.

wow, so only 5 days have passed since Belle Isle.

Mom's seen Maiden, goodness. I wonder how she wound up with deadbeat dad, then. I guess it's like people change, huh? Maybe Jan's father was once a cool dude.

You know, that's a really good point about podcasts. Barbara seems to think they're like polished interviews perhaps, and she's shocked that they're already recording. But isn't that the truth: even the best podcasts I've heard have an element of disorganization. Going off-topic, and so on, 📼 That's part of their appeal, imo.



I've heard this on some Hulu show lately, what does this phrase mean? My daughter tried to explain, but I didn't really get it.

Really true about the way religion's been instituted. Christianity started as the most humble of relgions, but for whichever reason it's been chosen again and again as State-Sponsored. And then they get most of those early messages wrong, imo.

Anyway, mom & daughter, sharing a podcast. Now that's special.

This post has been edited by Renee: Jul 15 2023, 04:38 AM

Acadian: It turns out Barbara actually read a few of those books while she was working in the library!

I want the podcast to be a major part of Barbara and Jan's lives going forward. I see it eventually becoming their primary source of income, as it is for some people IRL. So I wanted to spend some time actually podcasting, to show what it sounds like. It also gave me an ideal opportunity to do some world building, and explain how the Crowverse's Avarica is different from Austria in the real world.

TBH, podcasting is just talk radio. But without a radio station. So there is no gatekeeping. Anyone can do it so long as they have a microphone, computer, and audio software. That is really good, and can be really bad, just like the rest of the internet. It allows knowledgeable people to talk about the things they know a lot about. It also allows idiots to spout nonsense to their hearts content, often very harmful nonsense.


WellTemperedClavier: Avarica is very much a melting pot, simply because of its position. It is right in the middle of things, so everyone is going through there to get to everywhere else. So it does turn out a lot like RL Austria simply from geography. Working out the history, I basically started with the point of divergence from the real world being that the Avar state was not wiped out by Charlemagne's empire. From there on everything else happened more or less like in the our world, except the nature of Avarica.

So the Crowverse has the Hapsburgs. But they did not settle in Austria. Instead they put down roots in what is now the Czech Republic, in Prague. But they still created the same empire as before, and they were still assailed by the same enemies: the Ottomans, the French, the Prussians, etc... And they still ended the same way after World War One.

I have not really heard of Rudolf II until you just mentioned him. He probably was a wizard in the Crowverse. But you have to remember that magic before the Tunguska Event was not like it is now. It was not like super powers allowing people to fly or throw fireballs. It was a lot more subtle, and filled with long, elaborate rituals and workings. So I don't imagine his reign turning out differently. He spent a lot of time doing magic, at the cost of his statecraft. So in the end he comes across as an ineffectual ruler, but also a leading light in the Enlightenment and arts, who pushed the world ahead overall.

I don't see Avarica ever having the special place that Hungary did within the Hapsburg Empire. The Hapsburgs used the Hungarians as sort of an attack dog to keep the other ethnicities in their empire in line. That in turn gave the Hungarians a bigger seat at the table compared to everyone else. I don't see Avarica as ever being that. So they were probably more like Slovenia, or Dalmatia, basically just puppets.


Renee: Mishipeshu is literally nothing but an ancient rock carving, and a collection of folk tales, and I was able to use that portray him/it as an impressive character. I don't see any reason why Chessie could not be the same in the Crowverse.

That song is wild.

That gentle tone is indeed Cray's usual voice. He is based on Gambi from the TV show Black Lightning. So he has a gruff, but soft voice and tone.

January's father was indeed, once much less of a dick than he is now. A lot of people change for the worse as they age, and their lives don't turn out the way they had hoped. Or they just get rich, and lose the ability to feel empathy for others.

Most of the best podcasts I listen to are train wrecks! Well There's Your Problem is about engineering disasters, and they describe their own show as a disaster itself. I deliberately wanted to show some of that unpolished nature here, and included Jan's pronoun gaffe as but one more example of it not going quite as anyone expected.

People listing their preferred pronouns is something that I think started on social media. It is simply some stating how they want to be referred, as She/Her, or He/Him, or They/Them, etc... It's a subtle show of support for transpeople, whose voices might not match their gender identities. It also drives white supremacists crazy, which is reason enough to do it. Because they are horrified at the thought of referring to a trans person by their preferred pronouns. They hate any act of empathy for others.









As always today's locations can be found on the Stormcrow Google Map



Nassau Waypoint Pic 01


Nassau Waypoint Pic 02


Book 11.17 - Raven Sisters

July 13th, afternoon.

"When people say visit scenic Michigan, I don't think this is what they had in mind."

Lighthammer held his hands up to indicate the empty basement in which they all clustered. Little puffs of dust kicked up from the bare concrete under their feet. The rust and oil stains indelibly printed into the floor hinted at former machinery that had been long-since removed. The brick walls were equally barren, except for places where they had been broken open to create long, empty channels in the otherwise crumbling masonry. It was a sure sign that scrappers had come along at some point to rip out all the copper wiring.

"What do you mean, this is Pure Michigan baby!" Gadget laughed. Like Cleveland's superhero, he wore his super suit. In Gadget's case it was a set of powered armor that glowed soft blue. They all were decked out in their 'work' attire. January was clad in her Stormcrow armor, and Ôkami in his samurai gear. Only Xochitl stood out, wearing a miniskirt and spaghetti top that left her shoulders bare.

A rat squeaked in the shadows, as if to underscore the meta-inventor's words.

"Even Boo agrees," Ôkami breathed. Then ninja/samurai abruptly stopped and looked up at the ceiling overhead. "Make way villainy, hero coming through."

"He's right, she's here," January said. Like her partner, she too had sensed the other woman's approach in astral space. She was easy to sense. Her aura was a bright glow in the magical realm, compared to the dull grayscale of mundane humans. She was also the only other human in the empty industrial building.

Within a few moments the newcomer revealed herself to be Blackhawk. She too was clad in her metal armor, emblazoned with a medicine wheel across the chest. January noted that the +5 enchantment that Blood Raven had placed on the armor during the Battle of Belle Isle had faded away. Now there was nothing but a faint whiff of the arcane about the other woman, like the scent of perfume still hanging in the air in the wake of its wearer.

"Blackhawk!" January slipped into her perky phone voice once more. "I want you to meet someone. This is my apprentice, Xochitl."

"Sochi, like the city where they had the Olympics recently?" The First Nations woman replied. She stepped forward to greet the teenager, who shook her head.

"No, like the flower, in Nahuatl," Lighthammer said. "Yeah, I found out too, just a few minutes ago."

"It's a common mistake," the teen sighed, and shook the other woman's offered hand. "Ever since those Olympics, everyone does it."

"You should hear all the January jokes I hear every February." January breathed.

"I don't want to sound like I don't appreciate the fabulous natural wonderland of your home state," once again Lighthammer waved his hands to indicate the industrial decay that surrounded them. "But can we get it in gear? I don't like the way that rat in the corner is eyeing me."

"That is a giant miniature space rat," Gadget murmured.

"You should see some of Toronto's old, run-down buildings," Blackhawk shrugged. "Every city has them. It's a good place to meet though, nothing to trace back to anyone's identities. Still, we could have met at Green Island, in Lake Erie."

"Just wait, and you'll see why we're here." Gadget practically bragged.

"Okay now watch what I am about to do, and mostly importantly feel it," January said to Xochitl. "Study the rune. It's just a pentacle with a few extras. It's a great example of how anything can be a rune. It's not the design, but the power and intent bound up within it that is the key."

With that January closed her eyes and reached out to the Waypoint Network. The pentacle hidden under their feet answered her call, and glowed to brilliant life and power. January allowed her awareness to sink past the rune itself, and connected her consciousness to all of the other runes that it was connected to. She flipped through them like pages in a book, until she found the one she wanted.

"Ok everyone hold on to me." She opened her eyes once more. She was careful to keep her focus on the network, and the waypoint that she had chosen. Xochitl, Gadget, and Ôkami were no strangers to the teleportation network, so they instantly stepped closer and laid their hands on her shoulders. Xochitl gently folded her fingers into January's. She stretched out her other hand, and felt Lighthammer take hold of it in a firm grip. A moment later Blackhawk took her wrist, and they were ready to go.

January closed her eyes again, and made a final push with her energy. The waypoint that she had selected flared to brilliant life. The industrial basement disappeared, only for its rusty, dusty concrete to be replaced with broken, sun-bleached concrete. This new concrete floor appeared to be a flat building foundation. But it had broken and worn apart, and new green shoots of grass and bright flowers rose up from the cracks.

Above them was the wide bowl of a clear blue sky, from which the sun beat down hot from overhead. The air felt humid and damp, and the reason why became clear soon enough. For to one side stretched out the wide, flat expanse of a marsh, which eventually gave way to an actual lake of green water. To the other three sides rose a wall of trees and tropical plants. Insects buzzed loudly, and birds sang brightly.

In the distance January heard the roar of an engine that slowly grew louder and louder. Her eyes scanned the firmament, and she found the author of a sound a moment later. It was a massive jet airliner that had just taken to the sky. It passed directly overhead, and she could see its wheels slowly retract up into its fuselage and wings as it sped off into the distance.

"Okay, that was a neat trick," Blackhawk nodded. "I didn't know you could do that."

"I can't," January admitted. "The magic isn't in me, it's in the runes. Blood Raven set up this network to get around the city more quickly, without being noticed."

"Well, it certainly did the latter." Lighthammer whistled. "But this doesn't look like Metro Airport. Is our ride to Blackwood's place going to find us here?"

"It's not Metro," January turned to down a long, arrow straight dirt road that led off in to the direction that the plane had come from. "We're in Nassau."

"The Bahamas?" Blackhawk's eyes opened wider. "Okay, now I am impressed."

"Did you get a good look at the rune?" January turned her attention from her fellow supers to her apprentice. "Did you feel how it works?"

"I think so," Xochitl frowned. "It was... I'm not sure. It was complicated."

"I know." January nodded, and laid a comforting hand on the younger woman's shoulder. "I still don't know how it works myself. I just know that it connects distant points of spacetime with one another for a brief instant. How it does that, I dunno..."

"The important thing is this is an example of runic magic in action." January continued. "You don't have to understand it all right now. I just wanted you to see it again, and experience it first hand. One day you will be making these yourself."

"You think so?" Xochitl asked, the eagerness barely concealed in her voice.

"I know so," January declared with absolute certainty. "Remember, a conjure woman who doubts, is a conjure woman who fails."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Xochitl rolled her eyes. "There are no mights, no maybes, etc... We had that talk already, like a thousand times."

"So why Nassau?" Lighthammer asked. "Why not just link straight to Blackwood's place in the Virgin Islands?"

"Because this is where I grew up." A voice rang out from the lake. Rising up from a column of water was Calypso. The Caribbean heroine was in her oceanic form. Her body was primarily covered in fine green scales, save for irregular dark blue patterns that were contrasted by brighter swathes of pink to red. She had no hair. Instead her head was framed with spiny fin rays that created a delicate nest of fans that framed her features. Otherwise she was human in shape, with two arms and two legs, though both her fingers and toes were webbed.

She wore her coral green armor. It girded her shoulders, chest, waist, and wrists with its intricately carved designs. Beneath this she wore a body suit of dark gray leather strips that criss-crossed her frame in a cross-hatch design. A coral headpiece covered her forehead and cheeks, but left her spiny fins bare.

In one hand she held Bagua, her staff of solid water. It was topped by the Taino symbol for water, a whirlpool created from two parallel lines that swirled around one another. As ever, it whispered in the astral with the voice of the sea, of crashing waves, and gently lapping water.

"Calypso!" January cried. "I am glad you could make it. Now we just have one more person to wait for."

"Hey girl," Lighthammer smiled as he sauntered over to Calypso. "How you doin?"

"Lighthammer!" The Caribbean heroine's smile was a glittering bed of pearls. "I am well. How does Cleveland treat you?"

"Well I..." But the light-based hero's words trailed away when an aircraft hovered into view over the treetops from the south. Even though it was clearly made of metal, it looked like a giant, flying spider. Neither plane nor helicopter, this aircraft did not possess wings or rotors or even jet engines.

It was generally oval in shape, divided into two distinct segments, like a spider. The cockpit formed the first segment, and was encased with giant bubble canopies all around. This jutted forward from the larger abdomen behind. A line of four engine nacelles ran along each side of this larger body segment, and smaller windows bubbled out between them. These nacelles swiveled around on spars or legs that jutted from the body, and looked like jet engines mounted on rods. But no fire or sound erupted from the nozzles of the nacelles. Instead they simply glowed with blue light. January saw these nacelles change their orientation as the craft moved in and slowly turned in the air, before finally setting down.

A ramp opened up in the rear of the spidercraft. This revealed a cargo bay large enough to drive a vehicle directly in or out. The metal floor was dotted with fittings that straps or cables might tie down into. The walls and ceiling were unfinished, leaving metal frames and stringers bare for the length and height of the interior.

The jump seats and folding bunks nestled between the longitudinal beams reminded January of a flying camper. So too did the living amenities situated within the hull, such as a microwave, water cooler, refrigerator, and a small stove and oven. There was even a tiny bathroom and shower stall. Emergency gear such as life vests and parachutes were also neatly packed along the walls. Spaced among the gear and utilities were those small bubble canopies that she had seen from the outside, which allowed the sun to fill the interior with light.

The cockpit was situated in the nose of the vessel, and was elevated from the cargo area. Here two seats were set within the bubble canopies at the very front of the ship. Another pair were set just behind them and to either side, giving them a pyramidal layout. A long console ran down the center of the space, and smaller panels were laid over the transparent walls and ceiling in some places. These all bristled with enough buttons, dials, knobs, and sticks to over-stimulate even a technophile. Finally a green heads up display glowed with brilliant life upon the two main canopies themselves, providing all sorts of navigational and environmental information.

Standing in the rear hatchway was Viuda. As her usual, the Puerto Rican superheroine was clad in her slender, form-fitting powered armor. As befitting her namesake, it was painted black and bore a red hourglass upon her belly, while similar red trimmings accentuated her shoulders and arms. Her helmet was built like a hoodie, whose hem was again lined in scarlet. It left her face completely obscured, and was dominated by a pair of oversized white eye pieces that bulged like the twin canopies at the very nose of her aircraft.

"Hola amigos!" she said with a wave.

This was a nice review of many things – Blood Raven’s waypoint network, Xochitl’s ongoing mentorship under Stormcrow, and, finally, sort of a reintroduction of most of the Raven coven members. With the large cast you have in this story, reviewing who is who periodically is welcome.

"Even Boo agrees," Ôkami breathed. Then ninja/samurai abruptly stopped and looked up at the ceiling overhead. "Make way villainy, hero coming through."
- - This was fun to hear (as a BGII fan) and quite appropriate coming from the gamenerd Okami. Giant miniature space rat indeed!

I look forward to discovering why Stormcrow has assembled the gang in Nassau. Perhaps a set of super armor for Xochitl?


Nit: ’Beneath this she was a body suit of dark gray leather strips that criss-crossed her frame in a cross-hatch design.’ - - Either I am misunderstanding your intent or perhaps you meant the word ‘wore’ instead of ‘was’?

Good to see some of the January's Caribbean friends again. And it's a nice showcase of some of the powers at the team's disposal. Going from Michigan to the Bahamas is no mean feat. I also quite liked the abruptness of the transition. The sudden brightness and humidity drives home the point that they're using magic.

Acadian: Much of this Book is simply picking up the pieces left behind from the Battle of Belle Isle and the end of Season One. This current stretch of posts will be part of that process of creating the new path forward for the Great Lakes Alliance, and the Sisters of the Raven.

Jan does have a huge collection of friends and allies. Honestly, it can seem like a lot. But it is in keeping with one of the major themes of the Crowverse - that no one is an island, doing it all on their own. January succeeds precisely because she forms these relationships with other people, everywhere she goes.

I could not resist the Minsc and Boo remark, given that Avery and Ryo are both gamer nerds. As soon as I wrote the part about Lighthammer commenting about the rat, I knew I had work in a Boo-like squeak.

It won't be a super suit for Xochitl. She's only 15! Though granted, she wants one already.

That nit was supposed to be 'wore' rather than 'was', thanks for catching that.



WellTemperedClavier: If I only had the time and energy, I would love to do spin-off shows to concentrate solely upon characters like Viuda and Calypso in the Caribbean, or Riven and Thunderbolt in San Fran, or Silverlight in DC.

Blood Raven's teleportation network has grown far beyond what I originally intended it to be. But it is working out nicely, allowing me to move the story to locations beyond Detroit upon occasion.




As always you can follow the team's progress on the Stormcrow Google Map


Book 11.18 - Raven Sisters

"She sprechen sies Yankee doesn't she?" Lighthammer raised the back of one hand over his face as he murmured to January. His raised eyebrow gave January the distinct impression that he was being facetious.

"That's ok, I can translate for you Lighty," Xochitl smiled and pressed forward. She said something in Spanish to Viuda, and other woman replied in the same fashion. It all went by much too fast for January's High School language classes to keep up with.

"Lighty?" Cleveland's superhero puffed up his chest in mock injury. "Can we at least stick to Lightguy?"

"Come on Marteau de Lumière," Blackhawk mock punched Lighthammer in his armored shoulder. "She said come on board."

"You speak Spanish?" January wondered. "I mean, aside from French?"

"Hell no," The Canadian replied as she stepped into the ship. "What else would she be saying, eat my shorts?"

January followed her and the others on board. As she had expected, Gadget was practically in love with the spidercraft. He ran his armored fingers across the stringers and hull plates with envy, and stared out the windows to marvel at the eight nacelles outside that powered the craft.

"It's good to see you again Widow," January said as she stepped into the back of the Charlotte. She shook hands with Viuda and smiled. Then she made introductions all around. Viuda stopped her when she came to Xochitl.

"We introduced ourselves already," Viuda explained. "So you have an apprentice now? That's interesting."

"It's sort of a work in progress," January rubbed her hand along the back of her neck. "I'm still learning things too. But at least we can learn together. And I have a lot of sisters who can help."

"Speaking of which, how are things going with your boyfriend, in the Sargasso Sea," January winked to Calypso.

"Oh, not you too," the aquatic heroine sighed as she climbed aboard the spider craft.

"Boyfriend?" Lighthammer raised an eyebrow. January could not tell for sure, but for a moment she thought she sensed a genuine pang of distress in the man's voice.

"Janos is not my boyfriend," Calypso huffed, "in spite of how much certain busybodies might like to make it so."

She shot a look to Viuda that made it plain who said busybodies might be.

"Janos?" Now Gadget was the one to ask.

"The Technocrat," Viuda answered before Calypso could reply. "She calls him Janos, because you know, he's totally not her boyfriend."

"He doesn't like being called the Technocrat," Calypso said. "It's a name his critics put on him when he was Chancellor of Avarica. He's just a friend, and an ordinary man."

"Sure, an ordinary man over a century old, living in a robotic suit, who invented quantum mechanics, led the most advanced society on the planet, and has been to Jupiter and the Sun." Gadget summed things up succinctly.

"Damn, when you put it like that, what chance has a brother got," Lighthammer murmured under his breath.

"Oh, you are doing rather well so far Lightguy." Calypso smiled and tapped the light-based hero on the shoulder as she walked by. Her form shifted then. Away went the scales and spiny frills. She returned to her human form, with dark brown skin and a halo of curly black hair.

Lighthammer smiled then, and suddenly January realized that he and Calypso had been flirting! Usually it took her at least a week to notice that sort of thing. Clearly, she had leveled up her social perception skills.

"I have been working with Janos - and other scientists and engineers and even fishermen - on cleaning the oceans of plastics and other wastes," Calypso explained more seriously. "It is hard work. So far everything turns out to have... complications."

"It would have been pointless of us to save the world Monday night, if we just go on to destroy it ourselves." Ôkami's voice came from the shadows between two of the hull's structural supports.

"Honestly, I don't think people like us can save the world from humanity," Viuda breathed. "Only humanity can do that, through political action, legislation, treaties and the like. We can't fix the entire planet's problems on our own."

"Careful, someone might accuse you of being a Socialist," Gadget murmured sarcastically. "Won't someone think of the billionaires?"

That brought snortles from all around. Viuda ensconced herself in the pilot's chair. January motioned for Gadget to join her up front in the co-pilot's seat. As she expected, he immediately began questioning the spider-themed heroine on the nature of Charlotte's propulsion and other systems.

Soon they were off talking about Coulomb's law, electrostatic attraction and repulsion, and the like. Gadget was like a child on Christmas. January could tell he was excited, because he started talking with his hands. He only did that when he was really, really geeking over something terribly technological.

The Charlotte rose up into the air even as her owner explained her inner workings. January imagined that only Gadget understood any of it. For the rest of them it was the view out of the windows that captured their attention, for as the spidercraft lifted up, it gave them an expansive view of the island which they had teleported onto.

To the west lay the long, concrete runways of the airport. It ended before a two-lane road roughly half a mile from Blood Raven's waypoint. Now they could see that the teleportation point was situated in a wide swath of wetlands, bordered on the north by the emerald green waters of a large lake. This in turn was dotted with numerous islands, and its irregular shoreline often blended seamlessly into the marshlands around it. So sometimes it was hard to tell where one ended, and the other began.

To the east stretched out the suburbs and downtown areas of a massive city. It looked like half the island was taken up by the urban sprawl. Here and there small patches of green interrupted the streets and buildings. But mostly it was the latter. The shores were lined with white sand beaches, and dotted with numerous marinas and resorts. People flocked to and fro, like tiny ants in the distance.

The waters were a mouth-watering turquoise where they hugged the shore. The edges of the reefs underneath were clearly delineated by the sharp transition to a deep blue in color that the waves took farther out. January imagined that in these points the depth of the water must increase dramatically, and she suspected that underwater cliffs must plunge down into total darkness at those points.

She shivered slightly at the thought. She had read enough Lovecraft to imagine the horrors that might dwell in such cold, lightless depths, forever hidden from the rays of the sun. Surely loathsomeness dreamed and waited in those depths, waiting for decay to spread across the tottering cities of humans. January had no desire to meet such loathsomeness. She had more than enough of that lately.

"So you're from around here," Lighthammer asked Calypso casually. "That's why Blood Raven has a teleporter down here?"

"Yes, in fact, I grew up right over there, down by the water." The Bahamian superheroine pointed out one of the bubble view ports on the side of the craft. "My parents came over from Haiti in '94, and I was born here after that."

"So how did you meet Blood Raven?" Xochitl asked.

"When I was twelve she was here on a case. Embarked upon a quest as she might say," Calypso smiled warmly. "My parents helped her. My mother was working at the Grand Hotel at the time, and my father is a taxi driver. So they knew the ins and out of Nassau in a way a Detroiter never could, not even a Witch Queen such as our mentor."

"Afterward she told me that the way I swam, and could stay underwater for ten minutes at a time, was unusual." Calypso explained. "She said it was magic, and I was the one using it. She said that I had been doing so all of my life. That is when she started teaching me."

"So do your parents know then?" Xochitl asked. "About the magic I mean?"

"Oh yes," Calypso said. "They were fine with it. In fact, they were usually there when Blood Raven was teaching me. She would come right to the house. It was on the down low so far as anyone else knew of course. She wasn't flying in with all the flowing red hair and cape and all. That would have drawn a lot of attention."

Xochitl took some time to digest that. January could easily imagine what she was thinking. Should she tell her parents about her being a magician? For the moment they were completely in the dark. That certainly seemed the safest way for everyone. But January knew better than most that keeping parts of your life secret from the people closest to you had a way of wearing on you.

She pushed those thoughts away, and stopped being a teacher. Instead she forced herself to relax, and just be a tourist for a while. She looked out one of the windows to take in the view below. The entire island was relatively small, January would guess only about twenty miles or so from end to end, and much narrower along its waist. In no time at all the Charlotte flew clear of the land entirely, and soared out over ocean. January noted the differences in the water below. To one side it was that deep, nearly indigo shade that spoke of great depths. To the other was that soft turquoise, that hinted at shallow reefs and sandbars below.

They followed a great stretch of these shallows, and islands both large and small flanked them to either side. Viuda took a sharp left turn as a massive landmass came up to the south. She indicated that it was Cuba, and from there she headed east along the Great Antilles. More islands passed by to either side, the small Turks and Caicos to the left, and the large landmasses of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico to the right.

It was simply breathtaking. Even with that slight twinge of thalassophobia in the back of January's mind, she could not deny the natural beauty that surrounded her. The water looked so clear and pure. The islands were rimmed with white beaches that rose to green mountains. It was paradise. January wished she could stay, for a day, or week, or all month. After everything that had happened recently, a vacation would be nice.

"Now this a place to live," Blackhawk said what January was thinking. "I envy you spider woman. Your morning drive to work is incredible."

"It's not all sunshine and rainbows," Viuda murmured. "The last half a millennia has not been so kind to this part of the world."

"Yeah, lot of that going around," the First Nations heroine nodded along soberly.

Spiderwoman puts Gadget in the copilot seat and much technogeekery ensues!

A little more info on Viuda and even some flirtation with Lighty.

Jan is very different from Blood Raven and this shows in how she handles her role as Xochitl’s mentor. Jan is young (unlike Blood Raven) and doesn’t have all the answers (also unlike Blood Raven) so I think she is wise to lean in to that and emphasize that there is much that she can teach her young apprentice but perhaps just as much they will learn together.

Still looking forward to learning what Jan's purpose down here in the Caribbean is.

All: I think I will go back to the once a week schedule. It looks like that will be easier for everyone involved.


Acadian: I knew from the moment that I introduced Viuda, that Gadget was going to be geeking out over her flying spidercraft.

This section of the story in the Caribbean is going to be heavy on the flirtiness. Maybe being paradise, it just brings out the horniest in people.

As ever, while January is obviously heavily influenced by Blood Raven. She definitely does things very differently than her mentor. She could never have the same kind of relationship with Xochitl that Blood Raven would.

We are getting close to finding out what the Crowpany is doing down in the Caribbean. By next week's episode we should finally get to it. For now, more flirting.





Blackwood's Villa 01

Blackwood's Villa 02

Blackwood's Villa 03

Blackwood's Villa 04


Jean-Paul


Ouran High School Host Club





Book 11.19 - Raven Sisters

They finally came to a stretch of land and sea that January recognized. It was the Independent Virgin Islands, so named for their decades-old independence from both the United States and Great Britain and their union into a single polity. Flying past below was the island of Saint Thomas, and its major city of Charlotte Amalie East. This was where Harper had gated January on her previous visit. From there she had flown to Blackwood's estate under her own power. She even saw Blackbeard's Castle pass by underneath them. From there it was all familiar ground, air, and sea.

Now they hopped from isle to isle, to the far end of the island chain. Viuda took another turn as when they reached this last island. Rather than continue straight ahead and fly over the large city within the spur of land that ran to the south, they instead banked in the opposite direction. They followed the land to the north, around a cape and a tall hill. Here she brought the spidercraft down to hover low over the beach, and finally touched down upon the soft brown sand below.

They filed out of the spidercraft, and took in their surroundings. The air was hot, but when January breathed in deeply, it was refreshingly clean and clear. A few white clouds scudded across the blue bowl of the sky overhead. The sea crashed noisily upon the beach under their feet, inviting them all to wet their toes and come in. Opposite the turquoise waves rose up a steep hill, covered in greenery. Here and there were breaks in the trees, revealing estates of the wealthy.

Viuda led them to a wooden stair that curled up the rocky, brush-studded hillside. January had not even seen the path from the air, thanks to the way the tree tops closed in over most of its sinuous course. They came to a fork in the steps, and the Caribbean heroine led them to the left. In no time at all they went through a wooden gate, and January noted the light upon its surface that began blinking as soon as they entered, and the cameras ensconced high in the trees above.

So they had done the equivalent of ringing the doorbell. Granted, Blackwood was expecting them. But it was only polite after all.

Soon they were standing beside a large rectangular building made of wood. January recognized the Japanese architecture immediately. It was part of Mr. Blackwood's estate, which sprawled across the hillside with several such buildings. In fact, she recognized the building itself. This was his workshop, which lay set off to one side of the two main houses. She saw those as they circled around the shop. From there another path led up to a garage, which bordered the single road that curved around the hillside.

But they took another path, which wound farther across the slope to the two main houses. Both of these were also rectangular. One was three stories tall, and rose up farther back in the hillside. The other was only two stories tall, and was set kitty corner to the first building. They seemed to grow together at the corners, making them look like they might be a single structure.

Tall windows filled the walls of these main houses, and balconies protruded from the higher floors. These provided shade for the deck that lined the ground floor, and ran from one building to the next. An infinity pool stretched out on the side of the houses facing the water. Its edges were bordered by a Japanese zen garden and carefully manicured trees. A narrow wooden bridge even gently arced across the water to the far side, flanked by small, artificial waterfalls that tumbled over several large stones. A tiny island even rose from within the pool, sprouting a decorative tree.

Standing on the patio, January gazed out past the infinity pool. The way the hill dropped out of sight, it gave the impression that the pool stretched out into the blue waters of Caribbean Sea beyond. Green islands rose up miles in the distance. Some were long fingers of land, others only tiny bumps against the horizon. Small boats slid between them with brightly-colored sails. White clouds drifted by lazily overhead, and in the distance January heard the distinctive long, squealing trill of a Caribbean crow.

"Allo my friends," came a distinctly French accent. January and the others turned to see the author of the sound. It was Jean-Paul. He was clad in a brilliant red swimsuit that left none of his physique to the imagination. His lean muscles ripped in the sunlight, revealing a least a six pack of abs, if not an entire case of them.

"It's good to see you again Jean-Paul." Viuda beat January to greeting the attractive young man with a short hug. He stepped from a family room or lounge area, which was dotted with comfortable looking couches and chairs. To one side was a long table, with wicker chairs pulled up to it. The walls facing the sea were filled with floor to ceiling windows. One of the back walls held a widescreen television, from which an anime that January could not recognize played.

"Ouran High School Host Club," Gadget nodded to the TV screen. "You have good taste in anime."

"It is an oldie, but a goodie," the Frenchman declared. Gadget stepped forward to shake his hand. "It is good to meet you in the flesh. You should send us a 3D scan. We can reproduce your armor, and make it form-fitting as Viuda's is. I would love to... sculpt you."

"Well, that's a hard offer to turn down," Gadget murmured. "How would you do me?"

"Well, I make a three-dimensional duplicate of all our customers of course, so that Mr. Blackwood can properly tailor his work to them." Jean-Paul explained. "But I also often make preliminary sketches. Mostly to provide options for art design, color combinations, decals, trimming, and the like."

"Why don't you take your helmet off Gadget?" January gave her partner a knowing look. "You must be thirsty after that long trip. Maybe Jean-Paul could get you a drink?"

"Oh I'm not really-" Gadget fumbled over his words when January nudged him in the armored ribs. "I mean, yeah, I could really go for one of those tropical drinks right now."

With that he raised his hands and twisted this helmet to the side, breaking its airtight seal. He lifted it free of his head, and took a moment to run his armored fingers through his low-cut, curly black hair. He tucked his helmet under the crook of one arm. The softness of his brown skin was contrasted by his strong nose and jaw. A fine stubble dotted his chin and upper lip, and his dark eyes glittered in the sunlight.

January was not attracted to men. But like Michelangelo's David, she knew beauty when she saw it. She suspected that Jean-Paul's reaction was not quite so philosophical to her best friend's aesthetic charms however. He beamed from ear to ear, revealing a smile of perfect ivory teeth.

"I would love to get you something," the young man smoothly. "My Virgin Rum Punch is the talk of the isles."

"How uh, stiff is that?" Gadget smiled and cocked his head sideways.

"The stiffest," Jean-Paul insisted. "But it might be too much..."

"Oh, I like it hard," Gadget shot back. "Give it to me straight up, standing at attention-"

"Okay you two, enough flirting." Viuda insisted. She took Jean-Paul by the arm, and encouraged him to lead her away. "We are here to meet Mr. Blackwood, not play the Dating Game."

"You know, Blackwood might not appreciate you bringing a young stud to sniff around his main squeeze..." Lighthammer leaned down to whisper in January's ear as they followed the others through the compound of buildings.

"What are you talking about?" January wondered in hushed tone. "His main squeeze?"

"What, you think Blackwood just happens to have a guy who stepped off the cover of GQ working as his assistant?" Lighthammer replied. "Wake up and smell the coffee girl. Those two are..."

Cleveland's superhero made a rude motion, thrusting one of his fingers through the curled thumb and forefinger of his other hand. All the while he sang softly and nodded along to the beat he had created.

"Bow-wow, chika-wow, wow-wow..."

"OMG!" January hissed back, covering Lighthammer's hands with her own. She stared back at Jean-Paul. I mean, she knew that he was gay. There had never been a doubt in her mind. But she had never really thought that way about Mr. Blackwood. He was... old after all. Surely people that age did not think of sex, let alone do it! The very thought of such a thing boggled January's nineteen year old mind.

But come to think of it, the very first time they had met him via video conference, Hannah had instantly declared that the older man was gay. How had she missed that? She was a lesbian after all! She was supposed to have her gaydar in finely tuned order. But apparently her ability to read men was just as bad as that to read women, at least in that regard.

Then she frowned. Hannah. She had gone entire hours without thinking of the other woman, entire hours. She was so over and done with that. Definitely moving on with life. Without a doubt.

I agree with that very first statement from 11.7. I've been to Michigan before, my family has a bunch of relatives in Lansing and a couple other towns. Never saw any monsters or demons. That'd certainly affect tourism, though!

Interesting cast of characters today: Lighthammer, Okami, Blackhawk, Gadg-man, and the teen. Looks like Xochitl is starting Mysticsm 101 today.... X O C H I T L holy beans Batman, I got her name right! -- They're teaching her a few things today. Ah, back in the Bahamas. Wonder if they're going to pay a visit to Michael Caine's covert headquarters, today.

Calypso is here. I love this. This is so CW-ish! I can just picture the camera panning around as the water woman walks through the door. Calypso's got her own music, which plays lightly in the background whenever she appears. Like... flutes and piccolos



I bet it is. I'd love to take a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the notes you've typed up to keep track of all these individuals. Or do you just do it all in your head, Florens? - Me? I have to take notes. Even while gaming (no story).

Anyway, the two supers flirt. That makes sense. Must be tough to try dating outside of their superspectrum.



Good luck with that! I wonder if such a thing will ever be done. Well... it is well known how in Japan crime is so low, people rarely lock their bicycles, for instance. Police sometimes get bored enough to try inventing ways for perps to tempt themselves into committing acts, and so on. Which means it is possible we can fix our own foibles.

They're flying in the Charlotte, sweet.

I'd say Xochitl should NOT tell her parents about her magic abilities & friends. Not unless they are already conditioned to accept mystical forces and such. Doesn't sound like they are, though. She tells her folks, next thing she'll be sent off to reform bootcamp or something, to douse those wicked ways.

Ah, they are here with Sir Blackwood. Michael Caine was perhaps THE most prolific actor on the scene for a while back in the late '90s into the 2000s. Seemed like he was in every other movie back then. Hmm, is he going to make a suit for the teen?

Blackwood being gay don't surprise me. I bet he's played on both sides of the fence during his days.

This post has been edited by Renee: Jul 22 2023, 04:50 PM

Blackwood’s villa looks awesome! And it looks like the old armor artisan has himself a boytoy. It is so in character for Jan’s ‘gaydar’ to miss that on her first visit. Her naivete is an adorable part of who she is. So Viuda and Lighty are flirting, as are Jean-Paul and Gadget. And all poor Jan gets is a painful memory of Hannah. But she’s so over Hannah. Right? Definitely. Without a doubt.

And I appreciate this answer. Yeah I can imagine this would drive some bigots and such crazy.

I've never been to the Caribbean, but your descriptions really conjure a unique vibe for the place: limitless sea and sky, both so blue they almost hurt to look at, and all that beneath the hot sun.

Good to see the Blackwood Estate again. Looks like they're going to get Gadget fitted. And that Gadget may have unwittingly stumbled into drama.

Chuckling a bit at January's naivete regarding older people. I was the same way at her age.

Renee: Michigan is really nice if you like the outdoors, hiking, fishing, boating, hunting and the like. Once you get out of the few big cities like Detroit, it is just hundreds of miles of farmland, forests, and lakes. It actually is a big tourism state for that kind of thing.

Getting a haunted reputation would help the tourism industry! Ghost tourism is really big now. Everyone wants to go stay in a haunted hotel, and go on ghost tours. IRL the old Eloise state mental hospital was bought up by a guy who wants to turn it into a haunted hotel. Eloise has a reputation as being one of the most haunted places in the state.

Which makes me start to think that there definitely would be dragon tourism now that the Battle of Belle Isle is over, and the ghostly image of Y Ddraig Aur is floating in the air over Belle Isle. People would want to see that. When you add to that the various sites of battles that January and the Alliance have gotten into lately, like the Big Tire, downtown Ferndale, Eloise, etc... and there just might be superhero tours in the future. Especially when you consider that Jan and company are definitely friendly to the public. You just might get the chance to meet them if you went to Detroit. That is something I will have to try to work into things in the future. Maybe Jan and company could come across a cape tour taking place through the city.

You know, I am not sure what Calypso's music is. I do have theme music picked out for most of the characters. Like Lighthammer's is Protect Ya Neck by the Wu-Tang Clan, and Gola's is The Old God's of Appalachia, season two theme, by Landon Blood. I suppose Calypso's should be something Caribbean, like calypso music, or reggae? I don't know. Maybe something like this, it has a sense of majesty that I think fits her Or better yet, Now We Are Free from the Gladiator soundtrack sounds perfect for her.

I take a ton of notes. I have a whole folder of various text files of notes. I make one for every book with the plot of what happens. I also have others with my notes on people, places, and things. One on a timeline of events. Others of monster types. Others with future plot ideas. Plus a ton of subfolders of pictures to use for reference, especially of places. For every picture I post here, I have a about 4 or 5 more that I have saved.

The whole question of should Xochitl tell her parents about her magic is going to be an issue. Jan and her will be getting conflicting advice. On on hand there is people like Calypso who are all for it, as it worked out great for them. OTOH, there are people like Riven and Silverlight, who will caution against it, as their parents were both conservative, and equated magic, any magic, with devil-worship. I think you have the right idea, in that what Xochitl does needs to be based on how her parents are likely to react.

Michael Caine has had an amazing career. He was a hot young stud in the 60s and 70s, and he's still making movies today.


Acadian: I found Blackwood's villa on a house hunting site. It was going for a few million if I recall. It is the kind of house that if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it.

Everyone is flirting and having fun in the summer sun, except for Jan. But as you noted, she is sooo over Hannah. Absolutely.

I did not put much thought into Jean-Paul the first time he appeared a few books ago. I just knew that Blackwood would need to have some kind of Man Friday to help him out with things. I gave him a little more thought with his appearance in this book. He's a young artist who was blessed by genetics, who is basically spending a few years essentially living a life of adventure. He gets to meet supers from all around the world, without the danger of being blown up. In a few years he will want to move on and settle down to do his own thing. But for now, he's having the time of his life.


WellTemperedClavier: I have never been to the Caribbean either. It looks really nice though!

We should finally be getting to the reason for the Alliance's visit with today's episode.

I am channeling my own experience with January and her inability to process that fact that older people do indeed get busy. When I was in my 20s and even 30s, I could not imagine someone in their 50s having sex. It just did not compute in the slightest for me that that could even be a thing. Live and learn.








Video of Blackwood's Estate (RL Villa Katsura)

Mr. Blackwood

The Good Witch Azura

Y Ddraig Aur



Book 11.20 - Raven Sisters

"So you're an artist?" Xochitl chirped. The teenager pressed forward to walk beside Jean-Paul. "I'm an artist too! Can I see your work?"

"Sure, look around," Blackhawk spoke up. "He's the one who did the medicine wheel on my armor. And the racing stripes on Viuda's power armor."

"They are the crimson webs of the Widow, muahahaha!" Viuda announced in an overly exaggerated Transylvanian accent, as if she was trying to imitate Caribbean Dracula.

"I do some sketch work, mostly when I am spit-balling ideas," Jean-Paul said quite seriously. "Then I do another pass in color with those ones that pass the smell test. I have some sketchbooks laying around. Most are up ahead, in the workshop."

It was back there that Jean-Paul led them, to the first building that they had passed upon entering the compound. He paused at the door, and January had the distinct impression that some form of electronic scanning was taking place. It was not from anything obvious, just from the way he stopped and looked dead ahead, as if waiting for something. Now that she recalled, on her first visit Mr. Blackwood had done the same thing when he had led her within as well.

The double doors swung open, as if of their own accord, and Jean-Paul led them inside. An entire open room filled the ground floor, lending the impression of great space. January smelled sweet cedar from the numerous planks of wood that comprised the floors, walls, and struts that crisscrossed the ceiling overhead.

As with her previous visit, several long tables ran the center of the room, while racks bursting with various materials packed the walls. January recognized ordinary substances such as cotton or wool, and metal ingots that she took for steel, bronze, brass, and the like. She also recognized other, less common things stored within, such as kevlar and dragon silk. Finally, a cluster of bowls revealed a cornucopia of uncut gemstones and other bits and bobs.

An original Bob Ross painting depicting a snow-covered cabin before an icy lake decorated one wall. A cool blue aurora wove through the sky above the scene, and a snowy mountain rose up in the distance, completing the alpine setting. It was about as opposite as one could get from the real life tropical paradise that lay outside the building. Which January imagined was the entire point. It was probably the only time Blackwood or Jean-Paul ever saw snow.

Blackwood himself stood amid the long tables. Stretched out there was a white, long-sleeved tunic cut in gentle curves. A purple mantle covered the shoulders in a star-shaped design, and keeping with that theme, a gold star was set into the throat. Along with this was a long purple skirt, and big white floppy wizard's hat, with a purple interior.

"The Good Witch Azura!" January cried out the moment she saw the outfit.

"You know the anime?" Blackwood raised an eyebrow, and glanced down at the nearly finished outfit. "It is one of my cosplay commissions."

"Of course I know it, the Owl House is awesome!" January beamed.

Blackwood was a slender man, who January imagined might be somewhere between fifty and fifty thousand years old. It could be difficult for her to tell when they got up there. His short, curly brown hair had gone to gray at the temples, and he wore a pair of wire-framed glasses. He was dressed in an immaculately tailored suit, with creases that looked sharp enough to cut steel. The bright tropical flower pinned to his lapel softened his look though, as did the yellow tie that he wore.

He strode to meet them at the entry, and traded short hugs and handshakes all around. Blackwood knew everyone of course, except for Xochitl, whom January once more introduced as her apprentice. She wondered how many times she would have to say that for it to begin to feel normal? Apparently at least one more time.

"So my Allies, you said that you wanted to make a minor update to the appearances of your suits," Blackwood said. "Do you have a team livery that you would like to display?"

"Something like that," Gadget declared. "Maybe more of a declaration of solidarity. Something that tells the world where we stand, and whom with."

"Did you have something in mind," Blackwood inquired. "Jean-Paul here is a skilled artist. He performs all of the more challenging painting here."

"We already have something," January insisted. She looked to Xochitl. "Show him what you did for us."

The teenager pulled her phone from her purse, and spent a moment tapping its screen. Then she held it up for the older designer to see. Upon the rectangular screen was a watercolor painting of a golden dragon. One that looked quite similar to that whose image still glowed softly over the empty battlefield of Belle Isle.

"This is good," Jean-Paul noted. The young Frenchman took the phone gently from Xochitl's fingers to take a closer look. "The colors are vibrant. They really pop. This should show up well upon armor. Where did you get this from, if I may ask?"

"I did it!" Xochitl beamed. She looked almost as if she was about to explode.

"I should have known when you said that you were an artist," Jean-Paul shook his head ruefully. "My apologies. You have real talent."

"She does," Blackwood took the phone, and gave it a good look before nodding himself, and handing the device back to Xochitl. "I can work with this. It will be a simple affair to transfer the image to each of your armors. Or..."

"Or?" Blackhawk wondered.

"You might consider entering a pilot program for a new feature I have been working upon," Blackwood explained. "Rather than having to constantly return to me to upgrade your livery, I have created an outer layer to press over the suits. It is reactive to specific input, and allows one to change colors and designs at will."

"How thick is it?" Blackhawk asked. "Is it bulky?"

"Not at all," Blackwood insisted. "It is only a single molecule in width. So it will in fact be thinner than a standard coat of paint. Naturally it is self-regenerating, as all my meta-materials are."

"Sign me up," Viuda insisted. "It might be nice to do some temporary changes for things like holidays, or to show critical support for others."

"Absolutely," January nodded. She was already imagining a trans flag across her breastplate for the next Pride. Too bad it was a year away. Hopefully she wouldn't have to fight Nazis or Abyssals next time.

The others all agreed as well. With that Blackwood went to work, taking each member of the team in turn and upgrading their suits. Even Gadget - while his powered armor was of his own creation - accepted the cosmetic overlay. In the meanwhile Jean-Paul led the rest of them back to the main houses and the patio. There he served tropical drinks all around. January found the little umbrellas in each delightful, and indulged herself with a non-alcoholic Pink Mocktail.

When her turn came to receive the upgrade, she returned to the workshop. There she used the changing room upstairs to strip out of her suit, and hand it off to Blackwood. Soon enough he returned it to her, and she suited back up and returned to the others. For the moment it looked no different.

Once they were all complete, Blackwood showed them how to use the control interface. At the moment it used a simple phone app. Ryo quickly piped up that he could rewrite the code easily enough, to integrate it into their digital assistants. For the time being however, its controls were plain enough. One could change the color and texture to any portion of the suit. One could also upload any digital image, which the software could then add to the design.

January and the others soon went to work at this, and in no time at all Xochitl's rendition of Y Ddraig Aur rode upon all of their shoulders. Even Viuda and Calypso joined in by adding the dragon tags to their own armor. As Gadget had said, it was a show of solidarity.

Gadget of course, being Gadget immediately began playing with the options. In just seconds he had transformed his armor into brilliant rainbow of colors. With a few more tweaks, it was literally pulsing with each shade of light, and a disco ball popped up in one corner of his breastplate. It began to spin, scattering brilliant stars of light that swept across the face of his armor.

With that he began doing the classic dance moves from Saturday Night Fever, thrusting one finger skyward, while holding his other hand as his hip. A moment later his PA system began belting out a hip hop remix of Staying Alive.

"Now that is a man who is secure in his sexuality," Blackhawk nodded along to the beat.

"These days, yeah," January laughed along with Xochitl and the rest of them. Avery was always much better at parties than she was. "It took a long time for him to get there though."

"I used to think my life got weirder since I met you." Lighthammer shook his head. "But this takes the cake."

As if to belie his own words however, the laser-powered superhero joined Gadget on the ersatz dance floor and began a dance battle with the younger man. He was not as nimble on his feet as Gadget. January imagined that his prosthetic leg had a lot to do with that. But he made up for it with upper body moves and occasionally bursts of flight and aerobatics.

January could not stop smiling through it all. Today was a good day.



Gadget's changing suit colors was inspired by Captain Marvel

* * *

Correct, yeah.. especially with all those lakes y'all got up there. I remember going to Grand Rapids as a kid, to visit relatives and stuff. Lots of grand old homes and buildings, truly spectacular. Micigan only gets its urban reputation outside the state because that's where all the cars are made. Or were made.

Nice, didn't know that about Eloise. And with all the daily sightings of heroes in the area, super tours wouldn't have any problem attracting tourism dollars. Everybody'd want to see Blood Raven, though. The fact that she's the most elusive one would make quite a challenge.

Ha ha yeah, I thought of that too during the week: Calypso's music should involve steel drums or whatever those big, shiny bowls are called. The music gets made while tapping the inside of the bowls. That gladiator music could also work, but probably for when all the supers are gathered, like after they've pwn3d their latest foes.

That's right: Xochitl's parents were kind of conservative, I remember this. I recently saw Michael Caine in some movie from the '60s; indeed he was pretty darn cute back then (and thin). I had no idea his career spanned for such a long time!

-------

Hey, he's got a Bob Ross!





Hmm, a team livery. See, now this is something I'd imagine could only happen in this post-Branwen era, right? Or am I wrong? Such livery suggests more of a Lawful sort of compilation, rather than Neutral or Chaotic. Everyone's on the same page. Ah, so Xochitl is making the contribution, here. Interesting.

Disco music is really fun. One of the clubs in Baltimore had an awesome disco night back in the '90s, it wasn't the Hippo though, it was some other club. Anyway, Jan is actually smiling and fully relaxed, for once. Too bad the moment won't last!

The blondie in the Captain Marvel video looks sort of like Jan.

This post has been edited by Renee: Jul 29 2023, 05:24 PM

So the nature of the mysterious quest to Blackwood’s lair reveals itself. While very fun, it also showcases Xochitl’s skill as an artist and, as Gadget notes, the ability to display solidarity. So the Raven flock is now the Dragon coven. Dragonistas? Gotta work on that. . . . With the ability to flash anything from rainbows to Christmas lights, I should think today’s disco party to be just the first of many creative possibilities.

I must say it would be awesome if, at some point, the Good Witch Azura joined the Dragon club – replete with pointy hat and staff.