Lurker > Inviso

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Up until this point, Alice was a fun character, but she was also a little one-note in her characterization. Sure, there was a hint of vulnerability, but largely, her purpose in the plot was to just be a little chaos gremlin. I said it to Scarlet early on, but the three early-campaign teens represented the three parts of Freuds theory of the psyche: Freddy the responsible superego, Jaime the centered ego, and Alice, the unbridled id. But once that shoe dropped, and Brennus finally had to crush Alices dreams by coming out to her, we really got to start exploring Alice as a person in her own right, rather than just a semi-goofy character in the context of the campaign.

She blew up at Brennus, accusing him of leading her on, which he only KINDA did. Admittedly, Pepper boosted Alices perception of Brennus feelings far more than anything Brennus himself ever did, and to a certain extent, Alice just wanted to believe that a handsome prince would be attracted to her the same way she was attracted to him. Still, that explosion went off, and Brennus was public enemy number one for Alice and Pepper for a while after, Alice out of humiliation, and Pepper due to a miscommunication that made her think Brennus had behaved in an uncouth manner towards Alice (because for all her faults in how she handled the situation, Alice at least had the wherewithal to avoid outing Brennus against his will).

Its important to note that, despite the immense level of power she can theoretically wield, Alice is an extremely insecure person. She puts on this persona of a badass who doesnt give a shit about what the world thinks about her, but thats clearly a faade meant to mask how fragile and lonely she is inside. If you go out of your way to scare people off, then you can at tell yourself I chose to scare them away. They couldnt handle me, so really, I didnt need THEM. Its a defense mechanism to keep yourself from thinking that you tried everything you could, and people still hated you or abandoned you.

One of the most heartbreaking things about Alice is when she discusses her family life, and how her mother left because she couldnt deal with the kind of magical power Alice had. Alice didnt choose to be the way she is, yet her mother didnt care and abandoned her all the same. And then her father, the one who actually stuck around and loved his daughter in spite of all the difficulties she caused, got turned into an OMAC. He didnt CHOOSE to leave her, but the man she knew and loved was gone all the same. Theres something devastatingly pathetic about the visual of an OMAC strapped to a chair to keep from getting loose and hurting people, while still being hooked up to beer cans so at least hes not without nourishment (wella certain KIND of nourishment).

Largely because of her mother (though Im sure her fathers fate did not help), Alice started building walls to keep from getting hurt again, and only people she deemed worthy, who proved that they werent going to leave, could get past her jagged exterior. She let her guard down with Pepper, and that pushed her to let her guard down with Brennus, and he broke her heart. Or at least, he let her down. It was a moment that I feel brought back all those feelings of scorn and rejection from her own mother, and it was just awful to watch Alice self-destruct the way she did. It was at this point that Pepper truly considered Alice a friend beyond just being forced to interact with her, and it sucks to see a friend suffer.

Alone and isolated, Alice lashed out, and when the world seems like its against you, who else can you lash out at besides God Himself? I dont remember the EXACT specifics of HOW (I feel like it was related to trying to tap into the Spectre), but Alice physically went to go meet and confront God. However, Jesse wasnt exactly boasting or exaggerating when he said he killed Godor rather he hired someone to do it for him. When Alice got to Heaven, she met up with the Saint of Killers, who is not the kind, benevolent God of the New Testament. He took offense to this brash teenaged girl coming in and leveling insults and threats his way, so he brought her back down to Earth in a very harsh manner. Alice came stumbling back into Zonn Zorr all bloody, with a new Christian scar across the whole her back.

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Alice, meanwhile, was the only other girl in Peppers age range (aside from Minerva) for a good long while in the campaign, at least until we finally rescued Traci in week 29. Heres the thing about that: Pepper spent her teenaged years attending private schools as a pretty, rich, popular girl (the first two traits largely influencing the third). Her friends in high school and college were largely the kinds of bitchy, mean girls that achieve popularity in those formative years. Alice is very much the antithesis of ANY of that sort of lifestyle; shes more the kind of girl that Peppers friends would go out of their way to harass and spread rumors about, if only to make her life miserable. Yet at the end of the world, Alice was Peppers only real option for female companionship, and in a way, I think that forced scenario was one of the greatest catalysts in the campaign for expanding Peppers horizons.

You see, Pepper is extremely nerdy at heart, but this isnt a trait she was ever able to express around her popular peer group, because they cared more about fashion and boys and their own interpersonal drama. Though Pepper tried her best to keep her nose clean in that regard, she still went along their bitchy attitudes as a willing accomplice. Because of this, much like so many other aspects of her life, she spent her high school years largely devoid of a personality and persona that she could call her own. She was just another blonde in a sea of blondes. She started to come out of her shell in college, largely with some distance from the will of her family, but still, at the end of the day, she tended to gravitate to where she felt safest. Alice is absolutely not what Pepper could consider safe, yet theres something intensely freeing about that.

Alice just doesnt give a fuck what other people think about her (or at least she pretends not to). Shes a punk and a rebel, and shes doesnt like changing who she is just to make others feel comfortable. From their earliest interaction, Pepper tried to do the whole friendly Mormon thing, and Alice just wasnt gonna play nice. Something about this tough girl pulling no punches was just appealing to Pepper. Sure, there were instances where Alice was absolutely terrifying, like when she transformed into a demonic, Etrigan-based version of herself to call Pepper out, but ultimately, in those early days of the campaign, Pepper didnt have other options; she couldnt just run away from her fears, and as such, she had to learn to face them. Now granted, I as her player also found Alice extremely cool, and I pushed the issue, but I feel the need to psychologically justify things after the fact as well.

Theres almost a fifty-fifty split in the campaign between the magic and non-magic elements of the universe, and while Pepper resides in the realm of science, Alice is very much her magical counterpart. For me, personally, as a player, Ive struggled with the magical aspect of the plot, because its difficult for me to justify it from an in-character perspective. Pepper is very much a scientific mind, and the concept of magic, through that lens, would be confusing at best, and terrifying at worst. But I think having Alice as a character who is relatable and accessible (rather than some aged magician/wizard/demon/whatever), has at least allowed Pepper to accept certain aspects of the magical realm, and shes helped bridge that gap, even though its still somewhat of a struggle to connect at times.

Eventually, the two girls played off one another enough that Pepper actually started indulging in some more delinquent attitudes (like swearing or, GASP, trying marijuana for the first time). Sidenote: Alice going magically possessed and commanding Pepper to bring me marijuana was one of those fun, early examples of the kind of cavalier attitude that Alice brought to the campaign. But Pepper rubbed off on Alice a bit as well, and while I think Alice definitely made the stronger imprint of the two, there were still instances early on where Alice tried tempering herself to be more like Pepper, if only to try and appeal to Brennus.

Hoo boy, that storyline was a trip, and I fully admit that I fed the flames. After all, Peppers primary examples of female bonding prior to Zonn Zorr came in the form of boy talk. From her perspective, Alice CLEARLY had a crush on Brennus (including ditching her typical goth attire in favor of a more conservative sweater), and Brennus was just a really sweet and honorable guy who seemed really friendly to Alice, without being sex-obsessed like most boys. Pepper just kept egging Alice on and egging Alice on and egging Alice on, and Brennus was rather oblivious to how his actions might be interpreted. He actually told Alice to meet him, alone, in a bathroom stall, and didnt realize the implications of this until Alice aggressively started making out with him.

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1. Black Alice (Lori Zechlin)

Looking back on the top twenty or so of my list, its clear I like deep and complex characters, but its also clear that Im a big fan of weird, quirky personalities that bring light-hearted levity to the campaign. As we reach my number one character on the list though, I feel like Alice is the perfect combination of those two approaches. Thats not to say someone like Cheetah or Freddy cant bring levity on occasion, nor is it to say that someone like Starsa or Patch cant bring complexitybut with Alice, it feels like a perfect divide between the two approaches, without becoming a cumbersome mess overall. Plus, Alice is one of a handful of NPCs that has really and truly interacted with a large number of the PC cast, thus providing so many interesting and unique angles to her characterization.

Alice is one of the many, many, MANY characters on this list who I was not around for their initial appearance. We had a mission to Dayton (which appealed to a pair of our Ohioan players) via the Oblivion Bar, where Detective Chimp wanted us to look into a young witch going by the name Black Alice. The investigation of Dayton eventually led the field team to a neighborhood codenamed Alicetown, specifically because it was where Black Alice herself was protecting the place from the Societys incursion. There was a fun little briefing from her dog, Rover, which led to one of the most delightful locations weve gotten on any city map in the campaign thus far (only Wives R Us comes close): The Parking Lot Behind Dennys. Yeah, Alice is a bit of a punk and a bit of a delinquent, and she likes to smoke weed in a Dennys Parking Lot. Whats wrong with that? What else are you gonna do at a Dennys? Eat there?

Anyway, I digress. Over the course of the session, the party ran into Alice multiple times, and she was displeased to see them. I mean, she created a magic bubble around her neighborhood and didnt exactly LIKE having to deal with intruders. Its here that we learned exactly WHY Alice was considered so powerful, because her magic specialty is that of mimesis. She can absorb the innate powers and persona of other magicians (or otherwise magical entities) and use them freely. During the course of that first mission, we got to witness Alices transformations into Blue Devil, Enchantress (I think), Nightshade, Phantom Stranger, and finally Zatanna. That last one came as Alice, believing herself to be the ultimate badass of the campaign, thought she could face off against the Spectre and survive. Needless to say, Im glad the party was able to talk her down from that suicide mission, and get her back to Zonn Zorr in one piece.

To repeat a little bit, since I covered this with Jaime and Freddys write-ups, early in the campaign, Pepper was in desperate need of just genuine companionship and normalcy, and she sought that by trying to band together any and all older teens that happened to join Zonn Zorr. This meant that Pepper quickly tried to befriend all of Freddy, Alice and Jaime, and on-paper, some of those are more compatible than others. With Freddy, hes a mature, organized person, which plays well into Peppers own scientific mind. With Jaime, hes struggling through a very similar life situation to Pepper, and hes basically a normal guy whos in WAY over his head. Both of them are perfectly reasonable in terms of friendship, and theyre both relatively polite and reserved, in comparison to the kind of dickhead frat bros that Pepper would utterly despise being around.

Underleveled posted...

Two minutes in I love Morriah and hate Sami

I also cannot stand Sami. Even pre-season, I looked through the bios and immediately hated him.

Xuxon posted...

@Inviso Do you want to trade again next round h1?

I cannot. I'm already in an established trade with Suprak, and I cannot guarantee (especially after last year) that there would even BE a second hour. Believe me, I wish I could, but I'm going to have to decline. You should find a different person to trade with for Faris though!

6:05:02

Aerith

(3) Spirited Away

Ramza

This is what led us to the next stage of Cheetahs story. She wanted to travel to Lamumba to re-upp the ritual that gave her the power of the Cheetah in the first place, and though Pepper was not the one to put it on the big board (I couldnt think of a justification that would fit Peppers super serious teachers pet personality), eventually the mission was scheduled to benefit both Cheetahs desires, and those of Catman. Cheetah was entirely interested in her own goals, so despite having a walkie talkie, she ran off to deal with the ritual she needed to bolster her strength, while the rest of us dealt with Catmans end of the bargain (described in his write-up). But in the emotional aftermath of Catmans realization, he ran off and left us to find Cheetah, who had gone radio silent. While this wasnt necessarily out-of-character, this was still on the heels of the LAST time shed gone on a field mission and wound up minus an armso we had reason to worry.

We wound up meeting her ritual allies and everything seemed okay at first, with us engaging in a similar ritual ourselves. Pepper dove right in, perhaps spurred on by Cheetah offering to give Pepper the same kind of strength and power she herself had obtained. But it was all a trap, and we wound up unconscious, only to awaken imprisoned beneath the temple, with our powers being very slowly siphoned away. It turns out that Lamumba is ruled over by the spirits of the lion, the cheetah, and the leopard, and those three spirits are at war, so the temple of the cheetah is trying to siphon power from whomever they can to gain an edge. This meant luring back their champion (and a group of the champions unsuspecting allies) and stealing their powers away.

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Yes, when we woke up in their clutches, we found ourselves faced with a protector goddess (who is still in our med bay, I believe), but more importantly to THIS write-up, we discovered the all-to-human Barbara Ann Minerva. Where she got clothes and a pith helmet, I dont know. Its magic, Ill just say its magic. And let me tell youall of the things that were just inferences and assumptions about Cheetah? They were completely validated when we interacted with her original form. From minute one of meeting us again, Barbara was just whiny and weak and pathetic, and she couldnt think for a second that she was anything more than worthless. I mean, in the context of a TTRPG, shes not wrongbut still.

That moment was like putting a final piece into place in a jigsaw puzzle. Cheetah is fierce and badass and independent, and she refuses to ever allow herself to be weak or at another persons mercy, because thats the kind of person she used to be. It didnt matter how smart she was or how much of an expert in her field she wasshe was always weak, pathetic, Barbara Ann Minerva. And that plays again into the relationship with Pepper, viewing Pepper as that pathetic, nerdy scientist that she hates about herself, only starting to warm up when Pepper took that first step towards true empowerment. Now granted, Pepper tries her best to bolster Barbara in those moments of weakness in Lamumba (because even Pepper wasnt a complete coward prior to unlocking her powers), but yeah, theres just this completely antithetical whininess about Barbara that makes her feel like a completely different person (even though that insecurity is still deeply entrenched in Cheetahs overall persona).

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As the icing on the cake though, when Hector was about to bestow his lion powers on Catman to name him the lion champion of Lamumba, Barbara resorted to heel tactics to leap in the way and claim that power for herself. As a result, she is not Cheetah for the time being, but rather than Lioness. We havent gotten a TON of content from her in this form, but it has certainly restored her cocky swagger. I do hope she returns to Cheetah eventually though, if only because dayum. Still, now it feels like shes really on a path where she and Peppers stories can get more complex and interesting, moving forward. That can only be good at this point, now that were on the right track.

Hint for #1: Every hint since the top ten has pointed to one person, and now its finally her time.

If this was the end of Cheetahs story, shed probably wind up right around where Jaime did as a character who I still find complex and interesting, but that negativity mightve soured her from a top tier placement. But I took some time to cool down and let Cheetah be for a while after that, to focus on other relationships. I felt bad about this though, because even though Scarlet didnt like having to alter Cheetahs characterization for me (and I do get that, which is why I was at least expecting to kind of break off communication when I didunlike what happened with Jaime), I just found her so fascinating, but it seemed like she was a character that no one else in the campaign had any real use for, or reason to visit. I DO feel bad about the characters that I like who dont get as much RP time as the bigger names, after all.

Thankfully, new opportunities arose to bolster Cheetahs story and land her in second place overall. While our last conversation post-Belle Reve may have ended on a sour note, Cheetah had taken notice of Peppers willingness to kill her (Cheetahs) abuser, and the first of endearment sparked in her as a result. She mentioned this to Spirit, while recuperating in the med bay, which at the very least opened that door back up again for a continued relationship between supervillainess and her potential protg. I still dont think Cheetah necessarily considers Pepper even halfway on her levelbut I do feel like theres a certain level of respect there that if perhaps not afforded to others around Zonn Zorr.

It's at this point in the write-up that I want to discuss a few aspects of Cheetahs personality (which tend to be what makes her such an interesting character). She is FIERCELY independent, often to her own detriment, as it leads to instances like getting an arm chopped off (or a later incident that will be discussed soon). Her entire personality AS Cheetah is that she is tough and she is a badass, and she does not need help from ANYONE else to accomplish anything. If you get in her way, or you dont outright give her what she wants, she will find a way to take it for herself. As such, aside from her fixation on Snapper, she doesnt really have a whole lot of interpersonal relationships among the other NPCs (and probably wouldnt have many among the PCs if not for mypersonal feelings for her). Everything about her is self-reliant, because she does not want ANYONE to hold even the slightest hint of control over her.

Supplementary to THIS, I have to mention that Pepper isnt exactly the first person to kind of idolize Cheetah and try to get close to her. During our mission to Brentwood Academy, one of the students that we found was a hyperactive girl in a leopard-print onesie who called herself Kitten. This was an absolute Cheetah fangirl, and she was batshit insane, based on the one time weve interacted with her. But Kittens presence in the campaign is kind of interesting when gauging Cheetahs personality overall. It would be one thing to have Pepper fangirl over Cheetah on her own, but with Kittens existence, suddenly we realize that Cheetah has experienced some degree of fangirling in the past.

But to make matters worse, Kittens fangirling is not particularly useful; shes JUST hyperactive and desperate. With that in mind, I can certainly understand the frostiness and slight contempt Cheetah displayed towards Pepper. Peppers not a warrior or anything like that, so from Cheetahs isolationist perspective, Pepper was just another weak nuisance. It wasnt until Pepper stepped up and did something Kitten could NEVER do (murder one of Cheetahs enemies), that Cheetah finally started viewing Pepper as more than just some leech. I might be reading too much into things and overly analyzing Cheetahs motivations, but just having Kitten as a counterpart to Pepper definitely helps show a distinction between the two girls, and why one has somewhat earned Cheetahs respect, while the other own earns her ire.

With all this in mind, Pepper happened to head back to the med bay at some point just before the Kobra attack, and Cheetah snagged her up. The pair finally had a heart-to-heart after Belle Reve, and for the first time, it was really Cheetah on the offensive. Its cliched to say this, but she was almost predatory, picking up on Peppers various insecurities to make a pitch to her to continue down the path she started back in Belle Reve. Ultimately, Peppers story is that of a girl who never had control in her life, and she wound up breaking the law to take some for herself. But this just led to moment after moment of her being subjected to other peoples whims and not really having her own choices taken into account. When Cheetah started offering the opportunity to make Pepper stronger and more independent like her, Pepper easily fell in line.

However, Cheetah does not take kindly to being pushed, and since Pepper happened to be the primary PC who spoke with her, Pepper also wound up receiving the brunt of aggression from Cheetah in her frustration at the lack of movement on any of her priorities. Things really came to a head when we were scheduled to hit Belle Reve prison, which was one of the locations that Cheetah specifically brought to our attention as a potential site of interest, shortly after arriving in Zonn Zorr. More than anything, Cheetah wanted to attend that particular mission because Belle Reve was where she was captured and tortured originally (before being shipped off to STAR Labs in Austin) for refusing to join the Society. It seems like a simple enough request to bring her along, because shes fucking CHEETAH. Shes a strong, speedster with claws who can take out most problems we might come across.

But keep in mind that Belle Reve was Miss Wallers domain. It was her prison, and she had a particular investment in its infiltration. Shortly before the mission, she kicked off the start of inducting villains into a new Suicide Squad, by hooking up new recruit Nocturna with a bomb bracelet. Nocturna was less-than-pleased with this arrangement, but she wanted to get her first mission over with in the hopes that she could get the bracelet off. Naturally, this meant Nocturna wanted to attempt the mission to Belle Reve, and that meant we suddenly had two NPCs vying for one spot on the snap.

Due to some generally questionable actions from Cheetah up to that point (alongside an unwillingness to be a team player), plus intense loyalty and brown-nosing to Miss Waller, Pepper pushed for Nocturna to join us alongside most of the PCs. This meant SOMEONE had to deliver the bad news to Cheetah, and Pepper took that responsibility, only to get violently attacked for her troubles. Not as much as Lush, mind you (since Scare had a last-minute engagement, and that meant we could bring 4 PCs/2 NPCs instead of 5 PCs/1 NPC), who got mauled and laid up for the duration of the mission, but stillPepper did not enjoy being physically manhandled, especially given her past. It was at this point that she was just about ready to sever ties.

Then the mission actually happened. Cheetah ran off and did her own thing (because again, not a team player), but we were at least able to use her as a distraction to break into the prison. Because of this we managed to get out with a LOT of prisoners: Harley Quinn, Simon LaGrieve, Savant, and Jigsaw Man, along with some captive guards, working for Hugo Strange and the Society. A lot of big things happened towards the end of that mission, honestly. I mean, Hugo Strange called Pepper by her real name, terrifying the SHIT out of her that her family was in legitimate danger. That was the frazzled mindset she had when Cheetah showed back up for our snap outhaving lost an arm.

Cheetah was just as out of it at that point as Pepper, going through shock of having another speedster outdo her and amputate a limbbut prior to the mission, shed let Pepper know that there was a particular woman in Belle Reve whod been in charge of her torture, and wed found this woman during our break-out. We had her hostage. And despite their confrontation just before snapping into the mission, Pepper still has that sense of loyalty and female empowerment. With a quick confirmation of the womans identity, Pepper murdered her. Not just killed in battle, which isnt a big deal in my opinion, but Pepper outright MURDERED a subdued captive, just to please a woman shed once considered a potential mentor.

In the aftermath of Belle Reve, Cheetah was laid up in the med bay for a long time. Spirit was able to regrow her arm, but its a whole new limb; its going to take some time to regain full functionality. Under normal circumstances, Pepper would be extremely apologetic and sympathizing, but if I recall the order of events correctly, Pepper went to visit Cheetah in the hospital on the same day that she got verbally eviscerated by Jaime the first time. So, she went into her time with Cheetah already in a foul mood, because someone shed been nothing but nice to had treated her like shit (out of nowhere, in her eyes). Given that Cheetah is far less tactful than Jaime, she was not exactly the right person to speak to at that time. Her immediate reaction to Pepper well-wishes was to essentially tell her to shut the fuck up and get the fuck out. Its only because Rex talked Pepper down that she didnt blow up entirely that day.

All kidding aside, I wanna take a BRIEF aside to comment on the general atmosphere in the wake of this session. Ive said before that Lush is the most interesting PC in the campaign, and in the span of a few hours (for her), she witnessed her boyfriend cheating on her with Cheetah, returned to Zonn Zorr after a week and found that her role as head chef in the mess hall had been usurped, AND Pixie had been taken hostage by Madame Xanadu in Oblivion. Again, you could say that Lush was upset about this. Enough to go a rampage in the mess hall kitchen and stab Jaime, thus furthering the divide between Lush and Pepper that started very early on in the campaign. I bring all of this up because in those days, a lot of Peppers motivations were spite-driven against Lush, which helped to inform her early relationship with Cheetah.

Now, I crafted Pepper as a nerdy kind of character. Her whole origin story is relatively classic supervillain stuff: scientist experiments in a lab, gets too ambitious and runs afoul of their own experimentation. And given that she gained metahuman powers from her lab accident, it only made sense to me that she would look up other metahumans who experienced similar incidents. Victor Fries (aka Mr. Freeze), Pamela Isley (aka Poison Ivy), and important to THIS write-up, Barbara Ann Minerva. Now, Dr. Minerva was not a lab scientist, but still, she was an anthropologist whose devotion to her work led to some (to Pepper at least) murkily-documented events that transformed her into an anthropomorphic cheetah. Pepper knew this, and while this may have been a perfect excuse to give ME cause to pester Cheetah regularly, it also gave Pepper a reason to kind of hover around this woman who she knows and harbors an inherent respect for.

Fangirling aside, I enjoyed the early days of the campaign with Cheetah, if only because it felt like she had a lot more in common than initially anticipated. Cheetah had been rejected by Snapper at this point, and she blamed Lush for this, which meant Pepper was all-too-willing to join forces to get revenge on the woman whod tortured and harmed her on multiple occasions at that point. Given Peppers chemistry background, she plotted to make serums and pheromones and all that good stuff, to try and wrest Snapper away from Lush and back into Cheetahs warm embrace. This goes back, in a way, to Pepper feeling a big brother/little sister sort of connection with Snapper in the early campaign, so naturally shed want her big brother to be with a smart and driven scientist, rather than a violent psychopath.

It was during this plotting that Pepper did her best to get Cheetah to open up to her and share her experiences. Now, Cheetah isnt exactly the most open book, and she is still a supervillain, and everything that entails. Still, those conversations, especially with the mindset that Pepper is the greenest of greenhorns and has NO experience with ANY of the things Cheetah has experienced in her life, were really nice. There are events much later on that give complexity to Barbara Ann Minerva, but even in those conversations, when she was recounting her first love, or the events that led to her transformationit broke my heart a little bit. Pepper is very much about female empowerment, and hearing this story about a woman as strong as Cheetah (who once flipped off Superman and Flash excluding her from their big charity race), still feeling weak and abused in how she became the way she isit struck a very familiar chord.

It was also during this time that we got to see a cute side from Cheetah too, because in her plotting against Lush, she needed to be able to use her own desk for chemistry stuff, but her tail kept getting too excited and in the way. She wound up doing the whole villain seduces (but not in a sexual way) the hero thing with Spirit to get him to give her some muscle relaxers to keep her tail from being a problem. However, said muscle relaxers werent just limited to her tail, and the end result was Cheetah getting hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh as fuck. It was here that she talked with Pepper about her first time having sex, and she even let Pepper do a LITTLE bit of petting, which was much appreciated on my part.

Things went off the rails for a little bit after that for two reasons, because the field team went to Central City and discovered Wonder Woman, as one of that citys Furies. Naturally, revealing this information led Cheetah to drop her Lush vendetta and fixate on killing Diana ahead of all other goals. The problem with that was that Im a very emotional role-player, and I tend to like nice, pleasant situations where people are just friendly with one another and theres minimal. Not ZERO friction, but like, not the sort of violent screaming matches that can sometimes occur. And given that Pepper is very big on female empowerment, and she knows Wonder Woman is a strong female role model whos only evil because of brainwashing, she was always going to try and push against Cheetah with regards to her anti-Wonder Woman vendetta.

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2. Cheetah (Dr. Barbara Ann Minerva)

I just want to start this write-up by saying, in case readers dont know: Im a furry. Shocker. With that being said, it is insane to me that there have been four instances of attractive furry women showing up in the campaign thus far, and Ive somehow managed to not be a part of THREE of those sessions. For all the jokes about characters awakening something in Vis, the only instance of me being present for a potential awakening is a random squirrel girl (not to be confused with Squirrel Girl) in Salt Lake City. Meanwhile, Candi (and Bambi and Sandi I guess) shows up in her skintight wetsuit, Churljenkins does a non-stripping striptease dance to I Touch Myself, and Cheetah? Well, were gonna get to that in just a moment. I just have a little bit more of a tangent to go on before we get to the actual meat of this write-up.

Cards on the table, I would be a goddamn liar if I didnt say there is a certain shallowness to my enjoyment of Cheetah. Like I said above, Im a furry, and when it comes to DC characters, Id already looked into the Barbara Ann Minerva version of Cheetah QUITE a bit before she EVER appeared in this campaign. However, unlike a lot of furries, who watched the Injustice for All two-parter of the Justice League cartoon and never bothered going any further than that (at least based on certain image websites), I developed more of an appreciation for the redheaded version of Cheetah, particularly when actually wearing clothing. Seriously, I cannot tell you how frustrating it is that the Justice League version gets SO much focus just because shes naked and made out with Batman one time. One thing about me is that, when it comes to furry women, theyve GOTTA have hair, or elses its TOO animalistic for me. As such, introducing Cheetah with one of the most seductive, redheaded avatar pictures of her is a MAJOR plus for me.

Now that Ive made EVERYONE reading this uncomfortable, lets get to the actual campaign content of this ranking. Despite everything in the above paragraph, I am not SO desperately pathetic of a person to give a character second place on my list because shes hot. Hell, there are several other anthropomorphic characters in this campaign that I find attractive, yet none of them made the cut for my top fifty-two. They just havent connected with me in a way that resonates with me from a story perspective. To be fair, I may have put more effort into interacting with Cheetah BECAUSE I find her attractive, but as a character, she still had to be interesting and complex to keep me engaged in those conversations since VERY early on in the campaign.

To set the stage for Cheetahs arrival in the campaign, I just want to remind readers of two things about Snapper Carr. First, he began a physical relationship with a very possessive Lush early on in the campaign. Second, Snapper was charged with a MASSIVE in Zonn Zorr as the field teams only means of moving in and out of Antarctica with regularity, and after a trip to Haven, he wound overexerting himself in bringing back the entire, five-person field team and Catman, plus Technomancer, Eric Shanner, Tomorrow Woman. The next mission after Haven had already been planned, but before it took place, we got called into a meeting by Miss Waller to let us know an uncomfortable fact: Snapper Carr had gone missing. His overexertion had gotten him stuck somewhere, with no means of contacting him. While we theoretically COULD have used our replacement teleporter (Multi-Man) to continue on with the mission as planned, no one in their right mind was going to leave Snapper hanging.

Though Multi-Man stepped up as our new teleporter though (after being killed numerous times to resurrect him with the teleportation superpower), he wasnt exactly good at it, at least not right away. Even Snapper has to have his helmet and specific coordinates in order to snap to the right locations, and Multi-Man didnt exactly have that working in his favor. Thus, when Multi-Man took the field team on their rescue mission, he wound up getting lost for what turned out to be a week of in-campaign time. This meant that, even though we scrambled a rescue mission within a day of Snappers disappearance, he was gone for a week before the field team even arrived at his last known location in Austin, and that meant a whole week of desperate efforts at survival, even without considering time passing for everyone else around Zonn Zorr. By the time the field team reached Austin, they found evidence of Snapper fleeing through STAR Labs, and even scrawling out a last will and testament. Naturally, we assumed the worst.

For one of us, it WAS the worst, because I should point out that Snappers girlfriend, Lush, was on the rescue team. And when we found him, he was not dead but ratherwellwe got one of those rare comic panels that Ive actually SEEN before. Because, you know, Cheetah. It turns out that the lucky sonuvagun with her in that panel was none other than Lucas Snapper Carr though, and this story actually kinda happened during the real Final Crisis plotline in DC Comics. However, in DC Comics, Snapper wasnt in the middle of dating a psychotic former supervillainess who was dealing with an existential crisis as the result of Zatanna being a fucking bitch. Needless to say, Lush wasupset at the sight of her boyfriend snuggled up in post-coital bliss with Cheetah.

Now, the rest of the session was pretty straight-forward. A rage-filled Lush helped her team battle against a pair of Austins Furies, Snapper and Cheetah were both rescued and successfully returned to Zonn Zorr, and the (not Final) crisis was resolved. Apparently, the Society was using Cheetahs DNA to experiment and created an expanding zone around Austin where people are becoming more animalistic. And we HAVENT gone back there yet! Forfor Pepper, I mean. Because shes from Texas. And goes to University of Texas-Austin. Yeah. Its purely for PEPPERS storyline purposes that I want to go back to a location thats filled with potentially sexy animal people. NO other reason. Yup.

Thursday for sure.

Xuxon posted...

Since charon already accepted I'll just trade with Inviso

Will do.

(3) The Emperor's New Groove

Any Ramza savers want to trade for Faris hour 1?

Granted, it was IMMEDIATELY after they agreed to disagree that Pepper to kiss him and made things awkward (largely because Freddy has never been kissed), but stilleven that scene was cute, and now that Peppers with Half-Life, I feel like she and Freddy are more able to just work together as colleagues, without any sort of sexual tension there. I think I still need to apologize to him for thatbut theres just so many conversations I need to have already. Im pretty sure were cool though, since weve gone on missions to get Freddys super strength (and walking ability!) from Nanaue, and then plant manipulation from Vyndktvx, and there hasnt been any awkwardness there! Hell, she still goes to the library to study with him on occasion, which is a nice bonding experience for two of the more studious members of Zonn Zorr to do together.

Thats all Freddy from my perspective, but he does have more going on for him than that. I already mentioned Brennus crush on him, which led to an interesting and unspoken rivalry for a time between Brennus and Pepper, and I think its kind of cute that Brennus has that one character he can really focus his affections on. But heres the funny thing. Weve talked about how Jaime has been the central figure of this weird love pentagon with Pepper, Traci, Brenda and Mistyand at least up until recently, Jaime has behaved like a teenaged boy who does EVENTUALLY want to have sex with SOMEONE. Yet despite having ZERO real inclination towards romance, Freddy has Jaime beat by a country mile.

Pepper has asked Freddy to kiss her (and if hed said yes, she ABSOLUTELY wouldve asked him out to Oblivion to Captain Marvel up and put his invulnerability to good use). Brennus has a blatant crush on him. Despite initially thinking hes an asshole for blowing up during the Superman Appreciation Day darts game, Traci has since set her sights on Freddy as a safe choice to punch her V-card (for similar reasons to Pepper). Having spoken to Pepper and Traci on the subject, SAOIRSE has mentioned that she wouldnt mind hooking up with the boyo. During our trip to the Aquacave, Minerva tapped into a fish that forced her to admit to a secret crush on someone, and that someone turned out to be Freddy. Theres the lingering question of whether Freddy and Mary Marvel are a thing, or just a brother/sister kind of bond. And then you have my personal favorite: Freddy x Alice.

This is the only one of Freddys MANY potential romances (well, aside from Mary) that has yet to have any explicit statement of its existence. Of course, no explicit statement is like, the baseline for anyone who ships ANY two fictional characters together, and I absolutely ship Freddy and Alice. Its the classic case of opposites attract, but beyond that, in recent months, theyve become much closer as a duo. Alice has tapped into Freddys magic a couple times now, and weve seen her drag him to Oblivion, and him recently calling her to help comfort Brennus. During the mission to get Vyndktvx, Freddy and Alice went full Captain Marvel together to help fight off the Spectre, and while Im sure there was standard concern for a teammate, Freddy wanting to protect Alice when she was struggling was pretty cute. I just think theyd be nice together, thats all. I want Freddy to be happy, and I want Alice to be happy, and I think they could make each whole in a really perfect way.

But anyway, theres still so much to do with Freddys storyline, and hes not even halfway done obtaining all of his powers yet. He has to get eight more, and hes working his ass off to do so, studying into the wee hours of the night. I fully intend to accompany him every time, so Im eager to see where the story goes, and he badly hes gonna kick Sabines ass.

Hint for #2: A female character who uses the initials B.A.; whos been spurned romantically by a male character in the campaign; has physically harmed a PC she considers to have done her wrong; has transformed into at least two different forms from her baseline over the course of the campaign; wound up in the med bay for a SEVERE injury after her arrogance led to her biting off more than she could chew during a demonstration of her powers; and Pepper is still her friend despite multiple occasions of utterly terrifying behavior.

While Pepper and many of the others tried to laugh and just generally have teenaged fun, when the time came to coax Freddy into playing along, he blew his fucking lid at everyone. His reaction isnt unreasonable, either. Freddy has more at stake than ANYONE else, because he is in a race against Sabine, AND without his full array of powers, he cant even help fight at a level he KNOWS hes capable of. He takes this shit seriously, which is a large part of what Pepper wanted his role to be in the Zonn Zitans in the first place: kind of the leader of the team. And just to make Scarlet feel a LITTLE bit awkward reading this write-up: seeing Freddy yell at our group for goofing off, then throwing a dart DIRECTLY into a bulls eye just to show that he COULD? SUPER fucking hot. Im just sayingshit like that is what pinged Freddy on Peppers (my) romantic radar after things fell apart with Jaime.

It was after that point, at least for a little while, that Pepper honestly straightened up and tried flying right. She scheduled training sessions with Alice and Jaime, trying to work to better their control and everything, in large part because she just wanted Freddys respect. While Pepper largely defers to WOMEN in positions of authority, Freddys level of maturity made him a guy that Pepper looked up to, and she aspired to meet his high standards. Hes just so serious and hard-working in spite of his age that its honestly impressive, and for a girl like Pepper, this is the kind of personality shes naturally drawn to. She considers herself highly driven and goal-oriented as well (depending on the level of my depression making me hate her or not), and she just really trusted Freddy in the absence of Lagoon Boy to kind of be that superhero partner she needed.

As mentioned in the Jaime write-up though, there was a point in the middle of the campaign when things started to fall apart. Im not gonna relitigate that, but I will point out that this was around the time when Pepper found her new purpose in Zonn Zorr, and started to earnestly pursue her plans of Society Infiltration and Drug Dealing to aid Society Infiltration. At this point, Pepper was already in that morally gray area with her cavalier attitude towards death, but this as definitely where she kind of stepped over that line towards the more villainous side of that gray. While Jaime blew up at her for this change (and I get his reasoning, because his character is meant to be more impulsive), Freddy took that same information and went a different route. But first, a TINY bit of exposition.

Around the time of Jaimes rejection, Pepper was kind of hit with a one-two punch in terms of field missions. First, we had Phoenix, where we faced the second stage of the Church of Blood (and up until we found out what their second test was, she was terrified that she would have to give up her virginity in some sort of Church ritual). This was actually the point where Pepper was willing to give herself up to Jaime, just so she would be able to say that first time was with someone she trusted and cared aboutand that did go well. But after THAT we had the lengthy Las Vegas mission, where a Society member attempted to force Pepper into sex (and she murdered him), and then she later got blackout drunk and woke up having had her first kiss with Vegas Jack of Spades.

These two instances really put Pepper in a mindset that she needed to find a guy who she could give herself to in-full. From her perspective, it was only a matter of time before something WORSE than Vegas went down. She already had a rough history, after all, given Bo Force Jr., and how she unlocked her powers in the first place. And at that point, she was fresh off of her infatuation with Jaime, and who better to make her feel safe and comfortable and respected than Freddy? The only problem was the open secret that Brennus had a major crush on Freddy. Since EARLY in the campaign, this was the case, and although Brennus seems to crush on ANY cute guy he lays eyes on, Freddy was largely his focus of attention. This was fine when Pepper had Jaime, but once that fizzled out, suddenly it became Well I like Freddy tooand youre not making a move on him. Pepper issued Brennus an ultimatum, and Brennus promptly turned that around to sell Pepper up the river and really push the narrative to Freddy that she was turning evil, and thus was a bad person.

If this had gone the same route as with Jaime, I would have been absolutely DEVASTATED. But Freddy isnt Jaime; Freddy is mature, and even though he cant really access his powers all the time (because Captain Marvel is magic-based and might draw forth the Spectre upon Zonn Zorr), hes still quite wise on his own. The next time Pepper went to speak with him after Brennus sabotage, they had what I would consider a respectful argument. Freddy made the case that drugs are awful, and they completely fucked up an otherwise decent person in Beautia Sivana. Pepper responded that her drug plans were simply an effort to take advantage of a market that already existed and at least allow Checkmate to gain some power through some control of the vice.

I feel like both sides had compelling arguments, and they were able to be respectful with one another in a way I truly enjoyed. Pepper, because shes played by me as a little too close to my true self, often gets into arguments where she gets stuck in her ways and gets emotional and just generally shuts down and burns bridges, but that didnt happen with Freddy. I came out of that scene with him feeling at least some level of respect between the two characters, and it didnt feel like Freddy hated Pepper for the kind of person she was becoming. He didnt have to necessarily approve, but it was nice to have him take a more mature approach, as a friend trying to talk to a friend.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/4/9/AAOJ0pAADYRZ.jpg
3. Freddy Freeman (Captain Marvel)

One of the earliest field missions of the campaign sent the team to Fawcett City, where they came across a Society cell run by Dr. Sivana and his twisted brood. After infiltrating a party (and doing drugs/having sex/becoming a dominatrix), the group found young Freddy Freeman being held captive and generally tortured by the family. The team rescued him, and he spent several weeks recovering in the Oblivion Bar, since the realization that he was a member of the Marvel family meant that his latent magical energy would be better concealed in a location off the grid, and away from the prying eyes of the Spectre. Soon though, Freddy had healed up, and he began to push for a restoration of his superhero persona, which started us out on a globetrotting expedition that continues to this day.

There are a few things its important to note about Freddy before I continue. First, on a surface level, you have the fact that Freddy is disabled and requires crutches to walk around. Not sure just HOW disabled he is from this, but I only bring this up because fact two about Freddy is that, going into the campaign, he was Captain Marvel, Jr., and he could freely assume that form and not only gain superpowers, but also gain the ability to walk unhindered. Now, I dont consider this the focal point of Freddys character, but I also feel like early on, there was a lot of self-loathing and a general feeling of impotence, as he was once able to shrug off the shackles of his disability and become a goddamn superhero, yet the events of the campaign have knocked him down and force him to have to regain what hed already grown accustomed to. But also, on the subject of Captain Marvel, Jr., not only is Freddy a legitimate superhero with the associated training, but hes also part of the Marvel family, and he has the connections with several other Marvels that color his desires to regain his powers in full.

Moving on, as I mentioned in my write-up for Jaime, early on in the campaign, I was playing Pepper as completely out of her depth when it came to superheroing. As such, she tended to gravitate towards whatever youths we brought back to Zonn Zorr, since that allowed her to create a sense of normalcy that had been missing in the wake of being ripped away from everyone she knew and held dear. More than that though, Pepper was a girl who had been sternly talked to by Hawkgirl in the wake of her more illicit activities and forced into the life of crimefighter, rather than crimecommitting. This didnt exactly paint the prettiest picture of Hawkgirl in Peppers mind, or of the superhero system at large, which is why it was vital that Peppers mentor be someone closer to her own age, who could at least relate to her a little more: Lagoon Boy. Its an odd pairing to be sure, but that colored Peppers perception when it came to forming bonds at Zonn Zorr.

Admittedly, a lot of Peppers attempts towards the ill-fated creation of the Zonn Zitans was about making a friend group more than anything else, but there was still a practical application to her mindset as well. If the youths sticking together and working together to bond and grow and form a genuine team would improve ALL of their skills, then having members like Freddy and Spirit would be immensely beneficial towards achieving actual success. However, despite being one of the more serious members of the group, even Pepper didnt take it seriously enough, and I think the beginning of the end really came when Zonn Zorr (not just the Zitans) had Superman Appreciation Day. This was the first time that all the youths (plus Traci at that point) really got together for a real meeting of the team, and it turned into a chance to kind of goof off and just hang out. For Freddy, that was definitely a no-go.

You see, up to that point, wed gone on a handful of missions with Freddy. His whole deal is that he lost his powers, but we knew where to go to find out what had happened. Brennus (an early friend with Freddy), and Pepper (eager to find out what was going on in Salt Lake City) accompanied him on his first quest, where we met up with Billy Batson, aka the former Captain Marvel who had since taken on the mantle of Shazam. With Captain Marvels considerable powers up for grabs, Billy tasked Freddy with assuming the mantle and undergoing the trials needed to gain all aspects of his power set. There was a catch though, in that a girl named Sabine was similarly undergoing the trials, and thus it would be a race to see who could achieve their goal first.

In Salt Lake City, Freddy got intuition from Shazam. At the Strait of Gibraltar, he got Wisdom from Chiron. And at an oasis in Tunis, he got Invulnerability from Ale. This was all handled pretty quickly, but its important to note two things: we did not really focus on Freddys next mission for about three or four months real-time, and while these three powers are helpful, theyre not especially useful in terms of aiding in combat settings. Even with those three powers, Freddy still largely needed to rely on the field teams to kind of carry him along. From personal experience with both early campaign Tali, and on-again/off-again Pepperits frustrating to feel like you cannot contribute to the same extent as the people who are carrying the heaviest load of work around you. This is where we were with Freddy by the time Superman Appreciation Day rolled around.

Given his position as Max Lords assistant, Miss Waller quickly adopted him into her employ, with L-Ron serving as her personal secretary. Its here that L-Ron really stands out as unique within the context of the campaign. Everyone else is either trying to find normalcy, or trying to find their purpose in terms of saving the world, and then you have L-Ron who feels like a character out of the Office. Hes like if Dwight was the receptionist instead of Pam/Erin. A better example would be Carol from Dilbert, but Scott Adams is a fucking lunatic and he can go fuck himself. The point is that having that office worker from hell makes for such a wonderful tonal shift at certain points in the campaign, especially since most of the time, his presence precedes a visit to Amanda Waller, where there is little in the way of light-hearted amusement. If youre going to see Waller, youd better have your game face on.

Now, you may notice that a lot of my top tier feature characters whove interacted with a large number of PCs. This is because if more players feel compelled to deal with a character, youre more likely to experience other aspects of said characters personality. Given how popular Amanda Waller is, you have to go through L-Ron to get an appointment with her, and this means EVERYONE has interactions with L-Ron in one way or another. As a result, you get situations like Brennus and Bloodfruit (two of the more chaotic and rules-averse characters) just generally being annoyed by L-Rons anal retentiveness. You get Lush scaring the shit out of him due to her status as a security threat. You get Rozetta generally being talked down to because its the only way L-Ron has to assert authority over the Queens golden daughter. Ultimately though, L-Ron is completely harmless, since if he ever steps out of line, theres Waller to stand in her doorway and give him a withering glare.

Its in these interactions that we get some fun character work from L-Ron. He has claws rather than hands, and thus despite regular slights and general rudeness from people, hes incapable of giving a middle finger. That doesnt stop him from raising his claws up in defiance, as though he DID have that capacity. Hes constantly found himself set upon by Data 7 in his (Datas) never ending quest to train (or play around with) every non-human in Zonn Zorr, which just means L-Ron is hilariously harassed and incapable of withstanding even the most minor of injuries without bellyaching. Also, for whatever reason, if you put ANY sort of hat on L-Ron, he will immediately shift his entire persona to that associated with sad hat. He got fitted with a karate headband and started speaking in kanji for crying out loud! Its just a series of wacky traits with L-Ron, and youre just about guaranteed to get something new with him every time he shows up.

Theres also this wannabe sinister side to him thats always plotting and scheming, but since hes incapable of subtlety, you get moments like him bragging about his master plans, realizing hes speaking out loud, then simply muting himself while still pacing around and gesticulating as though hes still at full volume. L-Ron really and truly considers him far above his station, but every action he takes flies in the face of this attitude. Hes destined to be a supporting player to the true power of Zonn Zorr, but I cant help but find him amusing whenever he thinks he can flex his nonexistent muscles as though ANYONE legitimately takes him seriously.

In Peppers case, its important to note that when it comes to Checkmate, shes very much a teachers pet/unbearable brownnoser. While Amanda Waller may not fall for this, and treats Pepper like any other agent, when it comes to office politics, L-Ron is ABSOLUTELY susceptible to Peppers charms. Really, flattery will get you EVERYWHERE when it comes to L-Ron, and Pepper learned very early in his tenure as Miss Wallers assistant that getting on his good side is ideal towards getting what you want. Pepper always makes a point to greet L-Ron warmly and give him a Vulcan high five (hes got pincers, so he can only really go for a high two), and she just generally does her best to be kind and friendly whenever possible. While this may have started out as a bit of a faade, Pepper has genuinely grown to like L-Ron, largely since shes nice to him and hes nice to her right back. Its a cordial relationship.

Having someone sincere with L-Ron I think lets him showcase his adorable side. While struggling with Miss Wallers coffee, Pepper helped him open sugar packets and showed him how he could do so as well, despite his clumsy claws. This endeared her to him from the get-go, and shes shown her loyalty on multiple occasions since. When L-Ron was complaining about everyone forgetting his (fictitious) birthday, Pepper made a point to grab a cupcake from the mess hall, just for him. Granted, L-Ron is a robot and cant ingest foodbut he certainly tried, and smeared the cupcake on himself in the attempt.

Beyond that though, L-Ron has proven a regular victim of kidnappings in Zonn Zorr (if you count twice as regular). Perhaps because of his close connection to Waller, or his former control over the Metal Men, people regularly assume (and rightfully so) that they can just capture and abuse L-Ron for whatever purposes they desire. During Peppers Christmas one-shot, she had to rescue L-Ron after hed gone missing, and it turned out he was kidnapped by Kid Karnevil, who wanted to use him as a means of removing his bomb bracelet so he (Karnevil) could escapeinto the icy wastelands of Antarctica, I suppose. Pepper wound up intervening in this matter, freeing L-Ron alongside her BFF Alice, and despite being zapped several times, L-Ron was no worse for the wear (if a little cocky about being rescued).

More recently though, Kobra attacked Zonn Zorr, and though he captured Sarah and Ari for more nefarious purposes involving their OMAC and Yellow Lantern status, L-Ron was largely just used as a control mechanism for the Metal Men. Poor L-Ron had to stand around, helplessly, as Harry Black used him for EEEEEEVIL, sending the reanimated bodies of the former Metal Men to attack the party and allow Kobras evil deeds to continue, unhindered. Due to miscommunication on my part, Pepper wasnt exactly the one who rescued L-Ron, but he was rescued nonetheless, and Pepper got to land the killing blow on one of the traitors. In the CUTEST moment hes had thus far (and the one that sticks with me), L-Ron sought comfort with his friend, and wound up wrapping his arms around her waist in a hug, like a scared little kid would with their mother. My heart MELTED at that scene, and its a big part of what got L-Ron this high. Hes just such an earnest little tryhard, and I cant help loving him for that.

Hint for #3: Has physically transformed during a field mission.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/8/4/AAcguBAADmAE.jpg
4. L-Ron

This top four was tough, because all four of them have occupied the one spot on my ranking at some point or another during the campaign. And when it comes to L-Ron, I think he could range anywhere between second and fourth, and I ultimately decided to put him down here in fourth because I feel like hes the last of the comic relief characters on my ranking, and the top three are more serious and complex characters overall. Its really just a matter of how Im feeling on any given day though, and L-Ron is great. I mentioned that Patch and Starsa (and Pixie/Susie, Canary to a lesser extent) are sorts of mascot characters for the campaign, but L-Ron should be right up there with them in terms of the potential he has to offer. I guess hes a little less likely to pop up randomly than they are (what with being stationed stoically as Miss Wallers personal secretary), but still, L-Ron is great.

First and foremost, Id like to state that Ive only played the barest minimum of Borderlands 2, and as such, I have limited knowledge of Claptrap as a character. Knowing L-Rons campaign personality is based off of Claptrap though, and having at least played a LITTLE of the game, I can absolutely see the influence in the best way. L-Rons whole deal is that he almost has an overabundance of self-esteem, despite in NO way warranting an overabundance of self-esteem. From the first time our PCs ran into him, he has had megalomaniacal tendencies, and all that personality is wrapped up in the body of a flimsy, three-foot-tall robot that cant even handle the most minor wrestling efforts from a shrunken Data 7.

Gotham City is naturally going to be a focal point of any campaign in the DC Universe (just like Metropolis), and as our attention shifted to infiltrating Gotham, we became aware of several satellite cities nearby that might also have strategic value. Bludhaven got nuked, Bristol Township allegedly had a lot of the children of Gotham shipped there for reeducation (see: Ariana Dzerchenko), and Hoboken was the site of a major robotics laboratory headed by Will Magnus (and was the home of the Metal Men, several of whom I believe we met in Campaign Onebut that was either a Patchwork thing, or a Greensleeves things, or a Call For Aid thing that Tali wasnt really involved with, so I dont remember that well). We ultimately settled on eventually investigating Hoboken because it seemed like a simple enough mission, and with the close proximity to Gotham, there was a chance we might find Spirits older brother (who is himself a ghost, occupying the body of a robotic Jimmy Olsennot to be confused with robot Jimmy Olsen from Leesburg).

The Hoboken mission itself was a bit of a shitshow for the party. Not in a bad way, but rather, they got into Will Magnus lab to discover that it had been taken over by a rather menacing administrator who sought to make them suffer for their feeble attempts at usurping his power and authority. Just kidding, it was L-Ron, making a big show of force while ultimately being completely pathetic in his own right. Despite all attempts to convince him otherwise, L-Ron insisted that the party were minions of Darkseid, coming to seize him as the most vital and valuable commodity Hoboken and Will Magnus lab had to offer. As such, since he held complete authority over Magnus fleet of Metal Men, he opted to send them after the field team, one at a time, to impede their progress and hopefully destroy them before they might reach him and cause him harm.

When I say shitshow, what I mean is that the individual Metal Men were largely heavy hitters in one way or another, and they did a lot of damage to the team. I believe by the time they reached Platinum (essentially the final boss), they were hurting pretty bad, and she managed to down at least one of the team. And because of this (and his incessant and stubborn taunts over the intercom), by the time the field team reached the end of their journey and discovered the man behind the curtain (so to speak), they were just about ready to kick the ever-loving SHIT out of L-Ron. But he began stammering out information about Will Magnus (AND a very specific version of Jimmy Olsen) getting captured and hauled off as part of a so-called brain drain plot, he bought himself a little mercy. Given that, at the very least, L-Ron was against Darkseid, the team brought him back to Zonn Zorr.

Its at this point that the collective field team discovered that L-Ron was once the personal assistant of Max Lord (who was himself a person of interest after the revelation that he was Checkmates Black King). This led to some comedy in and of itself, because whether out of animosity for Max, or (understandable) animosity for L-Ron himself, Fire became aware of L-Rons presence in Zonn Zorr, and she was prepared to go on a warpath to end the little bastard. L-Ron, coward that he is, hid awaybut its always amusing to have that one character whos so completely wimpy that they flee in terror at the mere MENTION of potential violence against their person (or robot, in his case).

4 movies left with 11 days to watch them.

I'm sorry @illuminatusbubu . I really didn't want it to come down to our duo.

6:15:10

Faris

I think he was already upset about breaking his oath and sullying his honor, and for this random nobody to come up and whisper about secrets, like none of his hang-ups meant anything, just led to him snapping.

Also, on the subject of the rest of the episode, I wasn't the hugest fan of the first half of the episode, if only because it felt somewhat cheap to just NOW introduce like...three or four different characters whose presence would have a massive impact on the episode's climax.

However, that whole royal wedding party scene was one of the best the show has ever produced. Just the general claustrophobia, and the fact that so many people had such massive secrets and were all trying to make power plays against one another, as the scene just kept going on and on and on...it was super intense and honestly terrifying. Well done on the show runners for that.

(13) Aladdin

(7) The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

5:15:09

Aerith

I mentioned the stutter earlier, because there are times when its very pronounced, and then there are times when Ari starts to build her confidence, and the words flow like theres nothing stopping her at all. Its in those moments when you might realize that theres more to Ari than meets the eye. Shes not just some nerdy bookworm with a bit of a bratty, self-centered streak. No, its in these moments that an untapped power seems to emerge from deep within her. Remember the horrific painting she created back in Brentwood? Well, it turns out she painted that with a little help from the voice in her head that provides her with friendship in her darkest and loneliest of days. Its with this knowledge that suddenly, all of the pieces begin coming together to craft a fascinating character with a future I cannot wait to see.

VERY early into her time in Campaign Two, we began to get hints of a darker entity manipulating Ari beneath the surface of her timid exterior. Every so often, shed get into situations where someone would either annoy her or upset her in some fashion, and her eyes would flash yellow. Suddenly, Ari would zero in on the persons biggest insecurity, and shed shine a spotlight on it with complete precision. Worried about your family? Ari will remind you that theyre probably Equated or dead. Worried about your memory being erased? Ari will remind you that you were a horrible person before and might just become that way again? Concerned about the circumstances that allowed a criminal like Lex Luthor to so easily amass power, both before AND after his presidency? You bet your ass Aris going to remind you of how easy it was for him to manipulate the system and gain absolute control.

While most conversations with Ari eventually feature some sort of moment where the yellow glow takes control and terrifies everyone around her, theres clearly something extraordinarily sinister at play. When performing a routine check of new residents of Zonn Zorr for Star Sapphire potential, Starsa shivered and hid, rather than interact with Ari directly. In the Lantern/Ring world, after all, Yellow is the antithesis of both Green AND Pink, and something about Ari just sends up a ton of red flags for the most in-tune among us when it comes to emotional cores. Its because of this that Pepper began actively seeking Ari out beyond the sort of surface-level teenaged girl friendship stuff shes attempted with others around Zonn Zorr.

You see, that little voice in Aris head? I initially thought that it was Sinestro, attempting to break through the Green Lanterns barrier around Earth, in order to sway another being to the cause of the Yellow Lanterns. But it turns out that the voice is instead that of Parallax, and even more powerful entity of Sinestro that was able to take over Hal Jordan and wreak havoc across the galaxy (causing the current crisis where the Green Lantern Corps largely distrusts Hal, and humanity as a whole for the untold damage he did to their number via his uncontrolled actions). The fact that such a powerful being has his hooks in Ari is TERRIFYING, but at the same time, Pepper cant help herself but want to save this poor girl from the monster inside.

In a way, this allows for an intriguing storyline to develop, because Pepper similarly has a bit of darkness deep inside. Its not as extraterrestrial as Aris but theres a villainous streak in Pepper all the same. Whereas most would be frightened of Ari above all else, Pepper looks at her as a decent person who simply has developing powers that make people uncomfortable. With proper training and just a general atmosphere of people willing to work with her and maintain bonds with her, Pepper believes that Ari can be saved from whatever malevolent influence Parallax might have on her. Its with this in mind that Pepper went to Ari, humble, and tried to get her to engage in training and practice to hone her burgeoning skills, rather than letting them grow frenzied and unchallenged.

This all led to an interesting scene, because Pepper has been having a great deal of internal conflict over her role and her general sense of self. The role of Pepper Spray was thrust upon her, but is meant to be a force for good, while the role of Biohazard was her chosen persona, while serving as a force for evil. Biohazard is like kicking a baby bird from its nest and allowing Alyssa Davenport to spread her wings and soar, unconstrained by the morality of society. When shes acting as her villainous alter-ego, Alyssa is more confident, more charming, and just generally stronger as a person, even she even acknowledges this when the costume is off and shes back to her true self.

But Ari sees things differently; Ari hates timorousness and cowardice, as a result of her connection to the Yellow Lanterns and the power of their fear. In one of her moments of lucidity, she called Alyssa out, saying how she hates Pepper and wishes she could be brave like Biohazard. And in that moment, Alyssa could not disagree with that assessment. Recent events, like the general terror of a hallucination in Lamumba, and her prudish nature with regards to her boyfriend, left her wishing she could harness Biohazards confidence, even outside of her false persona. She begged Ari to practice control over her own powers, supplicating herself as she attempted to master her fear. But Alyssas Willpower is a terrible stat, and Ari just about broke her with the repeated images of her family, dead and violated, with no way to prevent it. In that moment, Ari took control and proved herself a potent force in Peppers mind.

Though Pepper experienced pure terror from Aris unbridled abilities, the end result was a similar situation to that of La Damas bloody display of power and authority. The terror of losing her family dwarfed any of Peppers other insecurities, and shes made an effort to overcome them all, spending time in Oblivion and getting over her sexual hang-ups with Half-Life. I havent had the chance to really interact with Ari since this scene, but that moment of her ordering Pepper to beglest she continue to inflict untold psychic damagestill lingers as such an intense moment that has me wanting more as a player. Aris story is SO interesting, and though Ive been more disconnected from the space storyline thus far, I can see myself getting invested once we have greater connections to the Yellow Lantern Corps, if only to further Aris storyline. For now though, shes just a great source of drama, and shes always great for putting PCs in their place, whether she means to or not.

Hint for #4: Has received a gift of some kind from Pepper.

Soon after Aris rescue, we returned to Gotham to alert Vari, and that brought him back to Zonn Zorr, reuniting the family once more. Vari once again got to dote on his daughter with pride, knowing she was destined for greatness, and he have even developed a second fatherly relationship with TNTeena. Everything is coming up Vari, it seems. Meanwhile, for Ari, she has taken up residence in the Zonn Zorr library, reading whatever sci-fi literature she can get her hands on (and perhaps being disgusted or annoyed by Jack Cross attempts at fiction). Its a quiet place (unless Brennus is loudly carousing around with Freddy), and she seems comfortable with the solitude. Heck, by holing up in the library, Ari seems to have even adopted a secondary protector, as Damon Matthews (our librarian) has made it quite clear that he wants no one messing with either Ari OR Freddy; theyre just good kids trying to read and better themselves, and hell not tolerate tomfoolery around them.

All of this is to say that Aris life in Zonn Zorr is pretty solid. Compared to a handful of orphaned kids weve brought back, or those whove had loved ones lost or killed (or gotten shot during one confrontation or another), Ari has not experienced a whole lot of hardship from the events of the campaign. Even when she was under lockdown in Brentwood, it doesnt seem like it was all that traumatic of an experience for her. Shes got a loving dad, and Damon is watching her backeverything seems to be going well. And yet, there are still hints of tension below the surface, and its there that Ari really manages to rise to the occasion and earn her spot in my top five.

One point I skipped over back in my recap of Campaign One was the fact that Ari speaks with a stutter. She tries her best to be clear and concise, but sometimes she just cant get the right words out, and is forced to replace her thoughts. In Campaign One, one of the reasons she got along with Tali (comparatively speaking) was because Tali didnt make light of her speech impediment. Who is Tali to judge, after all? She only just barely learned to speak English a year prior to meeting Ari, so to hear, the stutter didnt stand out in any sort of negative fashion. This stutter didnt go away between the campaigns, and not to make light of speech impediments, but its presence has become far more sinister this time around, than just service as a character trait to an otherwise bratty, teenaged girl.

Because Im me, and I tend to find myself drawn more towards the teenaged characters in these campaigns for one reason or another, Pepper wound up seeking Ari out in the wake of her return to Zonn Zorr. It helped that she took up residence in the library, where Pepper already spent a decent amount of time studying her criminal dossiers next to Freddy. For her part, Pepper has largely ignored Aris stutter, having experienced a somewhat similar issue with her younger sister, Hannah. If anything, she tries to be helpful by offering completions to Aris sentences, so she doesnt get stuck in a rut and frustrated at an inability to get her thoughts out as intended. Plus, Pepper is a bit of a sci-fi fanatic in her own right (albeit more in terms of fangirling over the Space Trek franchise and her first ever celebrity crush: Garfield Logan), so she has found common ground with Ari in that regard.

On paper, Ari is honestly one of the more compatible characters for Pepper in all of Zonn Zorr. I fully acknowledge that a lot of the early Zonn Zitans teenager stuff was largely due to Pepper being desperate for friendship and companionship and normalcy at a point when she felt very isolated and frightened by the post-apocalyptic world around her. But with Ari, there are some genuine connections you can make between the two girls. Both come from very loving families, although for VERY different reasons, theres probably some underlying tensions with their fathers. Both are into sci-fi and are generally more introverted (Peppers outgoing nature is more of a forced faade from years of Mormon communalism). And the biggest one of all is that both girls have extremely gray visions of morality, as Pepper would discover.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/9/4/AAQcMAAADflS.jpg
5. Ariana Dzerchenko

In Campaign One, Ariana Dzerchenko was one of the originally planned romantic interests for Jack Davison, the diminutive thief whose sole purpose in life was to look after and support his little brother, John. Jack was a bit shy and introspective, so Ari was viewed as a great choice for him, since she was also rather introverted. However, in a somewhat unexpected turn of events, Jack wound up sacrificing himself very early on in the campaign, in order to save Johns life after John had been captured, drugged, and cannibalized by a monstrous man in the unregulated and uncontrolled free-for-all territory between the south and central islands of Gotham City. Jack eventually found love in the form of Greta Hayes, aka Secret, but this didnt do much to help Ari.

Eventually, the cast DID meet Ari, when a summit arose in the aftermath of the Patchwork section of the campaign. This collection of territories contained some of the most lucrative factories in all of Gotham, and whichever territory got to claim control would earn a considerable leg-up over the rest of the city. Of course, most territories didnt see fit to send their leadership, instead opting for representatives to put their best feet forward. In the case of Oswald Cobblepot (aka Penguin), he sent one of his most trusted employees, the hard-working dock manager, Vari Dzerchenko. Vari has been one of the best dads across two campaigns (as I mentioned briefly during the Rex write-up), but as he had to leave his post in Penguins territory to attend the summit, he decided to bring his darling daughter along to keep an eye on her.

Vari absolutely adores his daughter, even going so far as to praise her for a vision he had that she would one day become a powerful member of the Green Lantern Corps. But, upon meeting and interacting with Ari for any length of time, it seemed apparent that she wasnt exactly up to the standards of the Green Lanterns (willpower is a key component of their corps). Rozetta (because Rozetta is a nerd who likes reading, and is an alien while Ari loves science fiction), and Tali (because she works in a library, has speech issues due to English not being her first language, and because shes played by me) both took to Ari, trying their best to befriend her and just generally make her feel comfortable around them. Ultimately though, Ari was just a bit too standoffish and bratty in the first campaign, and I feel like the core of her story never really got to come to fruition. She was a side character at best.

This brings us to Campaign Two, where Ariana Dzerchenko is a top five character (in my opinion). Once again, we met Vari Dzerchenko fairly early into our forays in Gotham City, and he remains one of the best dads around. However, this time, he couldnt watch out for his precious little future lantern. No, like most children in Gotham City, Ari was taken from her family and transported to Bristol Township, where it was hoped that she could be indoctrinated alongside countless other youths to become subservient Equated. Vari was naturally desperate to get his daughter back, and given that were not monsters (plus Pepper has strong emotions when it comes to family, and kids being put in harms way), we made a plan to breach the Brentwood Academy and get Ari back (along with Tefe Hollandwho was probably the more pressing concern to everyone other than me).

We get to Brentwood and start exploring the place, and the first hint that perhaps Ari had more going on with her this campaign was when we stumbled into the art gallery. One of the brainwashing methods the academy was using was to force the kids to paint pictures that would inspire the Equation to take root in their minds. We found Aris painting, and it was utterly disturbing, with great amounts of death, blood, and violence. Honestly, when we saw that, my heart immediately sank, because I assumed Ari had already been Equated, and that painting was just the result of an Equated mind being given free reign over a canvas.

It turns out, however, that this wasnt the case. We found Ari just fine, and she hadnt been Equated or anything like that. Steph had some choice words to say about her when questioned, but Steph thinks everyone is a little bit weird or beneath her by comparison. Honestly, when it comes to the plan of going to a location, finding a person of interest, and successfully extracting them back to the safety of Zonn ZorrAri has gotta be one of the easiest missions weve ever had. Now granted, she wasnt exactly the PRIMARY person of interest we were searching for, but still, we found her and we brought her back with zero real difficulty. Thats pretty nuts, given the number of steps required to rescue, say, Casey Washington, or Zoe Lawton.

Scare's right, and it seems fitting to start a new topic for the prestigious honor of making the top five of my list. The initial topic is here: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/80151700

As a quick recap for anyone who missed that first topic or doesn't want to have to scroll through all the posts to find out the list thus far, here we go:

HM. Honorable Mention OR Harry Matthews
52. White Lightning
51. Ice Sickle
50. Nightshade (Eve Eden)
49. Lono
48. Misty Kilgore
47. TNTeena
46. Shiny Happy Aquazon (Kim Kimura)
45. Carmen Leno
44. Toyman (Hiro Okamura)
43. Dewormer
42. Till'all
41. Mike the Rooster
40. Radio Tuner
39. Batgirl (Stephanie Brown)
38. Half-Life (Byron Stark)
37. Jesse Custer
36. Ramsey Robinson
35. Sarah Washington
34. Rover
33. Blackbat (Cassandra Cain)
32. Traci Thirteen
31. Nite-Wing (Tad Ryerstad)
30. Thinker (Clifford DeVoe)
29. Fiddler (Isaac Bowin)
28. Miracle Molly (Mary Kowalski)
27. Jack Cross
26. Leroy
25. King Shark "Nanaue"
24. Lucas "Snapper" Carr
23. Valentina Vostok (Negative Woman)
22. Deadshot (Floyd Lawton)
21. Arthur Joseph "A.J." Curry
20. Catman (Thomas Blake)
19. Squeak
18. Cheshire (Jade Nguyen)
17. Pixie
16. Crazy Shy Lolita Canary
15. Harley Quinn (Dr. Harleen Quinzel)
14. Susie "Su'zie" Thompkins (aka Candice Evergreen, aka Athena)
13. Bonny Hoffman
12. Stargirl (Courtney Whitmore)
11. Jaime Reyes (Blue Beetle)
10. Amanda Waller (Black Queen)
9. Rex the Wonder Dog
8. Patch (Boss, aka Parch)
7. La Dama
6. Star Sapphire Ring (Starsa)

As someone who only knows Eva based on official artwork and...*cough* other images, my thought process was as follows:

"I guess I'd choose Rei over Asuka. Whoever this Misato is, she's probably some rando who-" *looks up Misato* "Misato. Misato wins. Hands down. No contest."

HM. Honorable Mention OR Harry Matthews
52. White Lightning
51. Ice Sickle
50. Nightshade (Eve Eden)
49. Lono
48. Misty Kilgore
47. TNTeena
46. Shiny Happy Aquazon (Kim Kimura)
45. Carmen Leno
44. Toyman (Hiro Okamura)
43. Dewormer
42. Till'all
41. Mike the Rooster
40. Radio Tuner
39. Batgirl (Stephanie Brown)
38. Half-Life (Byron Stark)
37. Jesse Custer
36. Ramsey Robinson
35. Sarah Washington
34. Rover
33. Blackbat (Cassandra Cain)
32. Traci Thirteen
31. Nite-Wing (Tad Ryerstad)
30. Thinker (Clifford DeVoe)
29. Fiddler (Isaac Bowin)
28. Miracle Molly (Mary Kowalski)
27. Jack Cross
26. Leroy
25. King Shark "Nanaue"
24. Lucas "Snapper" Carr
23. Valentina Vostok (Negative Woman)
22. Deadshot (Floyd Lawton)
21. Arthur Joseph "A.J." Curry
20. Catman (Thomas Blake)
19. Squeak
18. Cheshire (Jade Nguyen)
17. Pixie
16. Crazy Shy Lolita Canary
15. Harley Quinn (Dr. Harleen Quinzel)
14. Susie "Su'zie" Thompkins (aka Candice Evergreen, aka Athena)
13. Bonny Hoffman
12. Stargirl (Courtney Whitmore)
11. Jaime Reyes (Blue Beetle)
10. Amanda Waller (Black Queen)
9. Rex the Wonder Dog
8. Patch (Boss, aka Parch)
7. La Dama
6. Star Sapphire Ring (Starsa)

However, shit got real for Starsa when our team hit Coast City for the second time. The first time, we were distracted by the fact that we knew Zatanna was in the city, and then we went searching for Hal Jordans air base (and by association, Carol Ferris air base). Starsa, in attendance, was very eager to explore and locate the source of Star Sapphire energy she could sense in the city. She assumed this was likely from her partner Star Sapphire power battery. But when our team returned to the city and investigated further, we discovered that the power battery had been abused and warped and destroyed in an effort by the Society to craft a new Star Sapphire for their own, nefarious purposes. Starsa was heartbroken over this revelation. Not only was her partner dead, but without her accompanying battery, Starsa herself would soon run out of energy, and would also die.

From this point on, one of the primary goals of the campaign became finding a way to get into space, and return Starsa to Zamaron, where she could replace her lost battery and continue living. During this period, we had a ticking clock element, as there was a hard, real world deadline in which to find a solution to Starsas problem. By this point, most of the campaign was enamored by Starsa, and at the very least didnt want her to die on our watch, so there was a push to force our way into the center of the Earth to reach Skartaris, and then utilize Skartaris as a means for projecting ourselves through space to escape the Green Lantern net and reach the Guardians homeworld (and the home of the Green Lantern Corps). After a few snags, we finally got a spaceship, and from there, it was smooth sailing to reach Zamaron and save our friend. It was a LOT of work to rescue Starsa, but it was decidedly worth it.

But beyond that, Starsa has rapidly grown into an independent personality in her own right. It started with her kinda getting lumped in with Data 7 and his little animal gang, since they were off having their own misadventures at first, and Starsa (being small) fit right in. Also, Patch has an OBVIOUS crush on her, constantly trying to reach out (Parchreach) and catch her, while asking if hes improved his potential for Star Sapphire partnership. I feel like Starsa doesnt notice this crush though, so she just humors him in a very matter-of-fact fashion, repeating the same percentage over and over again every time he asks How about now? This who plot point is somehow MORE amusing, because it loops Starsa into a BIZARRE web of romantic entanglements among the Big Troubles (and Big Troubles-adjacent) membership. Patch likes Starsa, but Data 7 likes Patch, but Pixie and Starro like Data 7, but T.C. likes Pixie. And meanwhile, Starsa has a little crush of her own (it seems) on Nikhto. The whole thing is just amusing, and great for the kinds of romantic drama I live for.

Additionally, Starsa (like Patch before her) has this sort of childlike innocence to her as a character. Every experience she has is brand new, and its like shes absorbing information with each passing day, to better understand the people around her. Often times, shell spout new information like its some secret that no one else knows (even though we either DO definitely know it, or its completely inaccurate). The reaction to this inevitably leads to a rather dejected Starsa tilting downwards and getting all sullen. She just wants to help us out, and how dare we make her feel bad for doing so!

This is one of my favorite aspects of Starsas personality though, because even though she has a voice, and she can talk in varying levels of excitement and sadness, its the fact that she can emote through physical actions as a sentient, floating ring. Admittedly, a lot of the examples I can think of are more recent (since arriving on Oa), but still, its really cute. When Starsa got imprisoned by the Green Lanterns (for fear of the Star Sapphires as an invading force), she got trapped in a little green bubble, and would constantly express her fear and sadness with a series of little bonk bonks against the inside of her prison. When shes fearful or angry about something, she buzzes, and when shes happy or has a secret (like various PCs secret crushes), she jingles. She also has a habit of asserting herself through bonks against peoples chests, letting them know she means business. Its a lot like Pixie, in a way, except Starsa is still completely cute and nave, and hasnt gotten the same kind of bratty energy.

Honestly, I feel bad not having more to say, because Starsa is just Starsa. Shes a character you have to see to believe, and shes adorable whenever she gets screentime (which is often). With a friendly Hi there!, she makes her presence known, popping up whenever she feels like, and I should point out that another great gag with her is how loud she can be. Starsa has little filter, and is all too eager to announce her presence, or to announce some new piece of information shes gathered. Its only when shes specifically told to go into stealth mode that she makes a concerted effort to quiet herself and become secret agent Starsa. This is made even more fun by her new disguise as a Green Lantern ring, which shes just ever-so proud of. Hal basically gave her busy work to do, to keep her from freaking out and getting imprisoned again, and Starsa is loving life as she infiltrates the Green Lantern Corps. This cant POSSIBLY end poorly, right?!

To finish this write-up, Id just like to recount one of the more recent Starsa moments that really solidified her as being just a step above La Dama, instead of side-by-side next to Patch. We went to Singapore, and prior to the mission, Pepper had been taught how to make an explosive that resembled chewing gum. Realizing the potential applications of this, Pepper bought some gum from a local vendor (and made an old woman happy in the process). Later in that very session, we were fighting an attack helicopter, so Pepper decided to try out her new explosive, chewing and spitting it out.

Starsa, for reasons not immediately obvious at the time, soon thereafter dove into Peppers pack. I thought she was seeking shelter, but Starsa then emerged with a pack of chewing gum. It turns out, she was trying to help, not realizing that only the one piece of gum was explosive. She finished the fight tangled in a mess of gum in the pack, and feeling very foolish for her failed efforts. It was still cute though, and I give her credit for trying to help. Pepper did as well, and Starsa went from sad and droopy, to happy and peppy. It was, as usual, adorable. Thats ultimately Starsas chief trait, and in a world full of bleakness and cynicism, sometimes you need the bright and shining light of love to get you through the day.

Hint for #5: Has spent time in the Zonn Zorr library.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/8/6/AAOJ0pAADcgS.jpg
6. Star Sapphire Starsa Ring

I just ranked Patch a few spots below this one, and Starsa fills a very similar role in the campaign. If Patch is the returning character from Campaign One that serves as our overall mascot for the Scarletspeed7 Cinematic Universe, then Starsa is the mascot for Campaign Two overall. In that regard, Starsa edges out Patch just a LITTLE bit on my overall list, because she just has that little something extra to push her over the edge as a well-rounded (no pun intended) character that I dont think any of us expected when we were introduced to this sentient ring very early on in the campaign.

One of our earliest missions in the campaign involved traveling to Atlanta to meet up with an FBI resistance cell who could provide us with a thumb drive of information to further expand our network of knowledge in the face of the Equation having wreaked havoc on computer systems worldwide. The party took care of this simply enough (though they DID need to amputate a mans arm that had been taken over by the OMAC nanites), but we still had a great deal more to do in the city. Atlantas a big place, after all, and its a major hub of activity. So, we went back soon after and met with our FBI contacts, who were still seeking a means of disabling a dome over the city which was trapping cancerous energy from a Kryptonian super cancer. This dome had been created by a Star Sapphire, and thus is became a high priority to bring it down and free the people of Atlanta from the threat of Kancer.

The mission itself went a variety of places, mostly involving bad drivers and the introduction of the Church of Blood storyline, but ultimately, we reached our end goal. After fending off an army of Billy Numerouses (Billy Numeri?), we found ourselves face-to-face with Deborah Darnell, aka Star Sapphire. We tried to reason with her at first, but when youre a Star Sapphire, you wind up being somewhat irrational and unreasonable when it comes to your overall mission of using love as a weapon. She had us dead to rights, and was only willing to let us escape with our lives because to do otherwise would go against her loving prime directive, but then she fucked up in a massive way.

Deborah began shit-talking the Spectre, acting like she was more powerful than him and just generally blaspheming in a very anti-Ten Commandments sort of way. That was enough to get her on his shit list, and despite our efforts to save her (mainly Pepper accidentally thwacking her in the head with a thrown weaponI think it was my frisbee weapon), the Spectre pretty much wrecked her shit. I dont remember exactly whether he bit her in half, or just crushed her in a massive fist, but the end result was the same either way: a brutal and gruesome death for a villain who really shouldve just kept her mouth shut, and everything wouldve been okay. However, with Deborahs death, this left her accompanying ring without an owner, and with Earth encapsulated in a protective net by the Green Lantern Corps, there was no way for her to escape and return home to be reassigned to a new host.

With Starsa homeless and alone, Saoirse took her in, letting Starsa get comfortable in her pack, and Starsa quickly joined the ranks of supposedly inanimate objects with delightful personalities inhabiting Zonn Zorr (although I THINK Starsa was the first NPC to fit this description). So yeah, we have Twiggy (Saoirses wand familiar), Radio Tuner, Super Cycle, Duocide, and Starsa reigns supreme as the best of them (okay, MAYBE Twiggys better, but Twiggys also technically a PC character, and thus he doesnt make this sort of list). In the early days, we could always count on Starsa to scan any and all residents of Zonn Zorr, and shed provide her unique brand of color commentary (that pun IS intended) as to whether or not the person in question would be a suitable host to replace Deobrah. This made for funny situations where people had to question why they were unsatisfactory, but it also gave us some inconvenient options to serve as a new Star Sapphire: blind fortune teller Madame Xanadu, dead (but perhaps soon to be resurrected) Sue Dibny, Fury-fied Wonder Woman, and most recently, Greek God of Love himself, Eros (which Starsa went insane over, even beyond her standard attitude, trying to enlist Nikhto to hold Eros down for her).

If Starsa only served a utility role in this manner, shed still likely make the list, but shed also likely end up in a similar spot to fellow inanimate object Radio Tuner. Dont get me wrong; shes EXTREMELY useful in a utility role, since she does more than just tell us Star Sapphire potential. Since she comes along on almost every mission (specifically to scan for potential hosts), Starsa is also capable of serving as a mobile tactical device, providing data on various foes we might face, to better understand the methods through which we can best defeat them. She also tries her best to help in other ways, namely using her small lifting ability (or if shes REALLY feeling daring, her glowy Star Sapphire powers) to perform actions in combat and help us out.

scarletspeed7 posted...

Best write-up you've ever done. I think it really made me feel some proud in the complexity of El Paso.

<3

This became the big issue with the El Paso storyline, because at that point, myself and MI were largely at adds with how to proceed. I was very much in favor of La Dama and he was very much against her. You can honestly tell that we hit a snag because after about three or four weeks in a row of the storyline, it took us several months afterwards to finally get back and reach a conclusion. It did not help that during this time, we pieced further information that painted La Dama in a very negative light. La Llarona used to be a woman named Maria Salvaje who was an outspoken critic of La Damas criminal enterprises in El Paso, and La Dama set fire to her house in an effort to silence her. However, beyond just killing Maria, one of Marias children was in the house and died as well. Suddenly, La Dama was the child-killer kind of mafiosa (no matter how accidental this incident may have been).

Granted, La Llarona got her revenge once she was reborn as a magical water spirit, killing La Damas child and putting the two women into a stalemate. Ever the one to dig that knife in deeper though, La Dama had Marias OTHER daughter put up for adoption. Given that she already controlled the police and justice system, it was easy enough to grant a boon to a criminal dealing with a trumped-up traffic violation. Thus, Berto Reyes was granted clemency in exchange for adopting Marias daughter: thus giving us Milagro Reyes. Those of you paying attention at home might realize that this means Jaime suddenly has a direct connection to La Dama, as she essentially gifted him his little sister as a means of spiting Maria Salvaje.

This was ultimately the line of attack we planned on using, trying to convince an emotionally-driven La Llarona to back down from her complete and utter destruction of El Paso, to avoid harming her own daughter. La Dama took a more direct approach, driving to the Reyes familys home and forcibly bringing them to the border, where she could face down La Llarona in-person. Now, while we succeeded in our negotiations due to an absolutely CLUTCH Nat 20, it still could have been supremely easy for La Llarona to just lash out and end La Dama right then and there. Despite having minor magical abilities, La Dama cant compare to a literally water spirit of vengeance. But once again, La Dama didnt get as far as she has in life by playing stupidly.

Upon introducing La Llarona to her estranged daughter, Milagro, when it seemed like she wasnt completely onboard with our team-up plan, La Dama pulled out a small device, and suddenly, we all heard a beeping noise. This bracelet that Milagro had worn her entire life, since being adopted into the Reyes family, began pinging. Thats odd. And thats when La Dama pulled her ultimate trump card: when passing Milagro along to the Reyeses, shed equipped Milagro with a bomb bracelet like a member of the goddamn Suicide Squad, and said bracelet WOULD detonate if La Damas were to stop beating. In that moment, despite all her efforts to feign aloofness, La Llarona crumbled; she wasnt going to let her daughter die to achieve her revenge. Effectively, La Llarona was cowed by La Dama.

EVERYTHING about this storyline was amazing to me, because La Dama is just THE boss bitch of the campaign thus far. She has fucking balls of steel, and she succeeds on the back of intense levels of planning and intelligence that impress the shit out of an analytical character like Pepper (and myself, who is basically Pepper minus the drug stuff). I didnt even mention the massive power move La Dama pulled in making an alliance with Waller. We wanted to free Traci, and La Dama okayed this, so long as we ensured that Waller and Checkmate would fully back her ascension to power after the world was freed from Darkseid. This is a woman already making plans and already preparing for the best possible outcome, and shes gonna be the next president of Mexico if we have anything to say about it. Oh, and just in case you were wondering (because it is a monstrous thing to do), the bracelet? Not really a bomb. It was a complete bluff on La Damas part, because again, balls of steel.

Admittedly, her role in the Convoy was a bit lower key, because the Convoy was much more about the events blocking our path, rather than interpersonal conflict. Still, she had some great moments, like going toe-to-toe with Bane once her joined the team, and sending her Blackrock off to face down his female counterpart, secure in the knowledge that only one would be coming back alive, which eliminated a variable to her plans. And this all capped off with her and La Llarona fighting side-by-side to defend our final fortress long enough to help the refugees escape to Zonn Zorr. Shed already planned ahead for this scenario as well, convincing Saoirse to help her gain a method to ensorcel La Llarona in the event such a trap became necessary. With a magic acorn, she seemingly betrayed a weakened La Llarona and sucked her into captivity like a goddamn Suicune. And when we were safely out of harms way? She let her go, just to show that she could, and that La Llarona owed her (La Dama) her fucking life. Power fucking move right there.

Since then, La Dama has become Peppers partner in the drug trade, using her contacts to help spread some of Peppers product throughout the Society. La Damas just such an imposing and intimidating figure, yet I cant help but be drawn to her time and time again. Shes so intriguing, and its a shame that she almost feels unapproachable now that were back in Zonn Zorr, because I really want to get more from her. Well have to see what happens, because Im pretty sure Brennus is still contracted to directly kill her and fulfill his promise to La Llarona. It couldve been his chance, during the Kobra attack, but La Dama skates through another day. You know what they say: if you come as the queen, you best not miss. La Dama and Waller are BOTH examples of that thinking, and naturally, it gets them into my top ten.

Hint for #6: Is highly associated with a color.

I want to again make it very clear that the session Im about to refer to came within one week of Warpath, where a PC was killed (for the first time in two campaigns) as a direct result of me making a really bad decision that I still feel guilty about to this day. And one week later, I met La Dama for the first time. Prior to this meeting, we interacted with some of her underlings at the El Paso police station, one of whom had seemingly printed out a picture of Texan superhero El Diablo, while giving us a story that hed be captured by the Society. This stood out to us enough that, when we finally got to meet with La Dama, locked inside her limousine, the subject came up. Bloodfruit asked a question about El Diablo, which made La Dama suspicious, and this came back on Pepper with the lie of Yeah, Peppers from Texas so she knows all about El Diablo.

Again, we were locked in La Damas limousine, and we were trying at that point to get information that would allow us to rescue Traci Thirteen from La Dama siphoning away her magic; we were not the ones in control of this situation. And the second Pepper became the focus of this El Diablo discussion, La Dama did not waste any time. She immediately pulled out a knife and insisted that Pepper slice her own wrist open. In that moment, there were so many thoughts and emotions going through my head that it was almost impossible to process. One: is she telling me to kill myself? Two: Im gonna get acid blood all over the floor of her limo and thats just gonna piss her off. Three: this woman is a monstrous psychopath and we should just kill her. Four: if we just kill her, Tracis fucked and all of this, including Taliesins death will have been for nothing.

Ultimately, my brain settled on going along with what she wanted, but filing La Dama under fuck this bitch. Pepper sliced open her wrist and La Dama was IMMEDIATELY fucking investigating that shit. It wasnt for acid purposes, because Pepper was clutching that wrist like her grip was a tourniquet and focusing all her willpower of keeping her blood normal. But after a thorough investigation, La Dama determined Pepper was clean and immediately began grilling us about where wed REALLY heard El Diablos name from. In the immediate aftermath of this woman FORCING A PC TO SELF-HARM, we naturally didnt want to get anyone in trouble, but Officer Ybarras name came out all the same. There was no hesitation at that point; La Dama drove like a bat out of hell to the police station, entered, and shot Yolanda in the head, no questions asked.

Up until this point, I cannot stress enough that every action La Dama had taken since Id met her was one of a monster and a crime boss that we absolutely did not want to be involved with. We had Jaime back at Zonn Zorr and he was a good guy, and we knew La Dama was doing some truly heinous shit. No matter HOW psychotic La Llarona was, it seemed like the decision between the two women was clear. But then that light switch flipped in an instant when La Dama carved off Yolandas hand and revealed the saline solution and wiring within. Officer Yolanda Ybarra had been an OMAC the whole time, infiltrating La Damas organization as the OMACs are wont to do. Suddenly, her actions were not those purely of a mafiosa trying to flex her muscles and intimidate us, but rather those of an extremely shrewd and intelligent woman who didnt become a massive player in the drug trade by playing fast and loose with her own protection.

That whole scenario changed everything for me, because even though Pepper was terrified of this woman, and still reeling from having to slash open her own wrist, it all tracked from a logical perspective. The OMACs are clearly a massive threat, both with their offensive capabilities and their sleeper cell potential, and yet here is a non-Society crime boss who is actively working up plans to ferret out OMACs and deal with them accordingly. For someone like Pepper, for whom intelligence and rationality are often times paramount in whether or not she feels like she can work with a person, La Dama instantaneously proved herself a solid ally to have around. For the rest of the party? Not so much. Spirit and Bloodfruit were more neutral, and Brennus fucking hated her guts (in large part due to the Traci stuff, and later because it came out that La Dama had killed one of La Llaronas children). But that complexity for an interesting character and an interesting storyline.

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7. La Dama

I said it with Cheshire and I certainly said it with Amanda Waller, but I LOVE a badass bitch that takes charge and gets things done. La Dama fits that category to a tee, and while weve gotten more CONTENT from Waller due to her close proximity, I feel like La Dama did more in her short time as one of the Convoy leaders (and even stepping up to assert her political dominance since connecting with Checkmate and moving into her tower in Zonn Zorr). Obviously, Waller and La Dama are both top ten characters on my list, but theres just that little bit of edge to La Damas character that gets her the nod overall for me.

Before I get into the meat of the write-up though, I need to rewind time a little bit and discuss Campaign One. This isnt an instance of La Dama being a character from No Mans Land or anything, but rather my mindset in these campaigns as a whole, to perhaps better illustrate where I came from in my initial assessment of her character. First and foremost, while I enjoy many aspects of DC, when it comes to heroes, your mileage can vary and I can understand a debate between them and Marvel. However, when it comes to villains, there is nothing in Marvel that stands up to the diversity of DCs rogues gallery. When it comes to interacting with and working with criminals, barring the outright irredeemable personas, its just more fun to consider that in a non-canon storyline, rather than sticking with the more obvious and heroic route.

That first campaign, one of Talis core traits revolved around the fact that she was the daughter of Ra Amun-Ka, a Pharaoh so malicious and despised that his legacy was buried and erased from history books, left only as a scary story to tell children. Keep in mind, the only living legacy Ra Amun-Ka was Tali herself, and as such, she became focused on rebuilding her family name is a positive and heroic way. And because she was treating No Mans Land as an opportunity to repair HER legacy, she (in her naivete and general lack of Gotham knowledge) believed in her hearts of hearts that the villains of Gotham would rise to the occasion when the chips were down, and it was almost her duty to give them the biggest benefit of the doubt possible.

Between Talis mindset and MY mindset, it led to the ONE time last campaign where I had an emotional breakdown because Talis zealotry amplified my own desire to work with villains to the point where I just about got her kicked out of the Clocktower by trying to convince Oracle that her dad was the bad guy in the cold war between Jim Gordon and Two-Face. Thats the kind of passion I have for proper DC villains, and its one place where I feel like Im somewhat detached from the other players, in that I kinda WANT to be morally gray and evil. I feel like at their cores, most of the other PCs are coming from a place of wanting to be heroes and occasionally having to bend the rules in spite of their ideals, whereas I embrace the villainy aspect a bit more, to my own detriment as a player. This, of course, led to me playing a drug dealer in Campaign Two.

All of that lead up is to show where my general mindset is going into my first encounter with La Dama. I was not on the first mission of the El Paso/Juarez/Convoy storyline, and as such, I did not meet La Dama right away. She met the initial party and offered a massive bounty for dealing with a wave of destructive beetles, but really, the focus of that first mission shifted to the back end, when the party met up with Jaime and his coyote friends, and they witnessed him being aggressively transformed into the Blue Beetle. Still, there was enough initial context to know that, while La Dama is certainly a powerful businesswomanpowerful enough to keep in the Societys good graces without actually joining themshe wasnt a SUPERVILLAIN or anything like that, and at least her goal had a positive end result for your average person in the city. Thats the first key trait needed to make an interesting bad guy that you kinda want to see succeed character in these campaigns for me.

Anyway though, I did not actually meet La Dama for a while after that first mission, although I certainly got invested in the plot due to Peppers Texas roots. We dealt with the beetles (to an extent), but it was largely suggested by most of the NPCs not under La Damas employ that shes horrible and we shouldnt want to work with her. This negative portrait continued being painted by the idea that La Dama controlled the hospital Jaimes mom worked at, and she would be fired if she helped anyone who La Dama perhaps did not want to receive medical attention. The whole city lived under the thumb of La Dama as a drug kingpin, is what Im saying. However, we soon traveled to Juarez, and while some players got onboard with La Llarona, I quickly identified her as a fucking irrational and emotional lunatic who perhaps wasnt the best judge of character when it came to whom we aligned ourselves with.

As the plotline continued on, we found ourselves dealing with the city of Warpath, and shit went south in a horrible way. I still blame myself entirely for the death of Taliesin, which marked the first PC death in either campaign. Keep in mind, this was early enough in the campaign that we were actually able to solidly continue a storyline week after week after week without having to directly plan for it (or just getting caught in a multi-session mission). We finished Warpath, and one week later, our same party (minus Taliesin) was right back to dealing with El Paso bullshit with La Dama and those opposing La Dama. We finally got around to dealing with another large chunk of beetles by blowing up a building (in comedy of errors due to an unfortunate Nat 1), which was enough to earn a modicum of La Damas respect, and give Pepper the chance to finally meet her in person. This is where our story really begins, because there are not a lot of characters that I can honestly say made a bigger splash in my first encounter with them.

(1) The Lion King

(2) Coraline

3:57:35

Faris

150

2:57:34

Aerith

Emet

My memory is bad, okay? ;_;

With Pepper, honestly, I find those interactions fun (but by sheer virtue of all the plates Im spinning with Pepper, I havent had the chance to get more than a handful), because Pepper is so self-serious, and Patch is just not having any of that. He calls her out on her goo clumps, which are the solidified sweat drops that her weird, internal body chemistry leaves lying around Zonn Zorr. But dont worry; Patch has a solution; he drew designs up and everything. Yeah, Patch drew a napkin on a napkin; its just a squarebut its still somehow the funniest little quirk of how proud he is of his drawing. And you know what? It was kinda useful. Patch gave Pepper the idea for his Patchented Sock Napkins, which Ive actually had to use once to negate a Nat 1 on Peppers notoriously-bad sneaking. She even gave a sock napkin to Pixie as a gift, but Pixie wasnot amused.

Of course, all of this pales in comparison to Patchs relationship with Data, which is the focal point of Patchs story in the campaign. On Datas end of things, Data has developed a crush on his little rat best friend, and this has complicated matters, because is being a heartbreaker with Pixie (and Starro by proxy), while simultaneously cockblocking T.C. from either his fellow cat, or the prim and proper Pixie. All of this is because Data just wants to cuddle and snuggle and be with Patch, but isnt sure how to process his feelings, or even if his feelings should be acknowledged in favor of more natural boy/girl or dog/dog relationships. Of course, the fact that Data would so much as hint at loving a rat has driven Pixies character development, and she finds it appalling and disgusting that not only would a mighty warrior dog like Data defer to a rat, but lower himself to romancing such a lowly creature. Someone get Pixie a fainting couch, quick!

Beyond the relationship stuff (which you know is my jam), Data has pushed Patch into a leadership position to control the Big Troubles gang, and its really cute and sweet. This isnt a tough gang that actually accomplishes much (well, aside from Datas Christmas one-shot, where they found a missile and traded the missile to Miss Waller for a secret base in the steam valve assembly). Its mostly just Data trying to coerce Patch into doing stuff by calling him boss, but Patch takes his role very seriously and ultimately overrules some of the smarter efforts Data makes to control things in his favor. Patch is the one handling most of the tryouts for the team, and is actually taking it seriously, while Data plays favorites, for example. Its just amusing, because if you tell someone theyre the leader long enough, theyre going to start taking that seriously and doing what THEY want. Its just amusing to see an ego building in such a tiny creature.

Ultimately though, all of that is great, but its just a combination of everything we get from Patch that lands him so high on this list. His cute little non-sequiturs and inability to keep a secret because he blasts his thoughts out loud and proud and fun little character quirks, and it just brings a smile to my face whenever someone uses one of the two Patch emojis to indicate a direction that Patch is either pointing or reaching. Hes a vital part of the campaign, and makes for a solid mascot without any real drawbacks to his time.

Hint for #7: Has darker-colored hair.

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8. Patch (aka Boss, aka Parch)

Patch is fucking adorable. I could honestly end the write-up right there and it would still totally justify this placement on my list. But, I mean, cmon now. The thing about Patch is that hes one of a handful of characters I would say could serve as a mascot for the campaign, and Ive already ranked several of those. But whereas Pixie and Susie, for all their content and comedic antics, still have moments of brattiness that hold them back a little bit, Patch is without burden. Patch is innocent and sweet and nave, and hes just generally incapable of doing or saying anything that might be construed in a negative fashion. Theres a reason why he has the most fanart of anyone else in the campaign. Granted, that reason is because Ermine is obsessedbut be that as it may, I think several of us are more than pleased with the various depictions of Patch that weve gotten thanks to Ermines hard-earned paychecks.

Admittedly, when it comes to discussing Patch in Campaign One, Im a bit lacking in knowledge. Campaign One was far more divided than Campaign Two, largely because we had two established parties, rather than ten players would could be divvied up depending on the missions. As a result, Im a little in the dark when it comes to most of the content that came up with the Greensleeves, and Im sure most of them are less knowledgeable about the events revolving around JLNML. Patch is one such character, in that he was associated with Ratcatcher, and naturally Artemis developed an affinity as an animal character he could talk to (to the point where Patch was on Artemis finale team alongside Isis and Hector the Lion, I believe?).

I only really remember him in Campaign One because Trish built and fitted him with a voice box, so that he could express his thoughts out loud, instead of needing to speak through Artemis. I believe this is the point where Artemis began deferring to Patch though, and allowing Patch to assume the mantle of Boss, even though I think the gang of Big Troubles was only established in Campaign Two. Also, just as a final funny note from Campaign One, there was a running gag about Riev, a rather stoic and serious sniper/assassin on the Greensleeves team, constantly leaving his base to find that someone had left flashlights outside. No one knew why, and I think Riev made several false accusations, but this was a total mystery until Campaign Two, when Patch revealed his animosity for Riev being so ungrateful for all the helpful flashlight Patch brought to him.

This is the essence of Patch thoughhes innocent and sweet, and ultimately, he just wants to help people out above all else. He lacks the killer instinct needed to be whatever kind of gang leader Data 7 wants him to be in this campaign. Again, I was not on the session where he made his triumphant return to our lives, but I know that he wound up solo with Minerva (or Nervie as he calls her), and he mostly just spent his time chattering away and giving sage advice as to how to best use the various supplies Rex insisted the party take with them on their mission. Minerva wound up being the one with all the supplies though, so the rest of the party was shit outta luck, but thats still fun. Patch certainly made the best of those supplies, so really, I think it was worth it.

But yeah, upon returning to Zonn Zorr and reuniting with his bested buddy Artemis (oops, I mean Data 7), Patch has been nothing short of a beam of light in the darkness of the apocalypse. Its nice to have a character whos so oblivious to the horrors of the world around him that hes just able to have fun little misadventures without getting weighed down by stress or depression. Now, I will give Patch a little bit of credit for occasionally guilting Data by mentioning that they lost Isis because of something he (Data) did, but thats more of a case of Patch just being unable to use tact of keep his mouth shut when necessary. Its like having a little kid around, and the younger they are, the more incapable of lying or politeness they are. Fortunately, Patch never comes across as a brat or anything like that.

Honestly, this isnt going to be a very in-depth write-up compared to some of the more recent entries on the list. I dont love Patch for being a heavily complex character or anything like that. But hes able to pop up in scenes every now and again to inject a light-hearted sense of comedy, and thats majorly appreciated on my part. I also appreciate how many of the PCs have had different relationships and interactions with Patch, so we get to see how hes viewed from several different sides. With Saoirse, shes a biologist, so she treats Patch like an animal she can actually talk to and question (which happens regularly, since Patch has a not-so-secret crush on Starsa, who lives in Saoirses pack). With Lush, theres just something amusing about having a little rat going full Ratatouille and trying to help out in the kitchen, but being forced to wash his hands first in order to be sanitary.

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And here's Alyssa with her loving family.

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To get us to a new page, here's Pepper's supervillain secret identity.