Social Justice and Statistics

The philosophy of social justice is a direct consequence of statistics, and hence solidly scientifically backed.  I don't think people realize this, so I will try to explain my viewpoint here.

Social justice is not the only possible interpretation of the numbers, but it is a valid interpretation - a reasonable conclusion to draw from the data. I will argue that when analyzed, a piece of social statistics will lead to one of only three possible conclusions, outlined below.

Let us take an example: Consider the black incarceration rate in the United States. Black male Americans are six times as likely to be incarcerated as white male Americans. Why?

As soon as you have asked "why", you have done something very, very important. You have asserted that a statistical structure such as this has an underlying why - a reason. You have asserted that it is not random. You have asserted that a reason can be found.  That this is so is a statistical inevitability. If you flip a coin seven times and it comes up heads six times, you have good reason to suspect that the result is not random. If you flip it seven million times, and it comes up heads six million, you have fact. Fact, at least, with the same certainty that a certain particle in a lab behaves so-and-so, or that such-and-such a chemical compound reacts in a certain way. There are roughly 300 million Americans, more than enough data points to make statements about fact. So. We can be certain that there is some reason for this anomaly.

The social justice interpretation is that this is due to a system underbuilt by invisible privilege - underlying structures in society that actively discriminate against black men, that, though largely unseen by whites, pervasively and actively games the system against black men.

It seems to me that those who disagree with this interpretation instead typically call the reason "black culture" - the argument that nothing is wrong with the system at large, merely with the culture in which black males grow up; with gangs, crime, welfare, laziness. Black men are simply the result of a culture that creates criminals.

And here is where a four-year old can push the discussion further. "Why? Hey, why?" the four-year old will ask. The four-year old asks a good question.

If it is the case that a culture consisting of 40 million or so Americans raises lazy criminals, why, we have enough data points to make further assertions. So now, instead of dealing with the questions "Why are black Americans commonly incarcerated?" we are dealing with the question "Why does black culture create criminals?".

Well, maybe it is because of some kind of systematic,  underlying, invisible structure in black culture that actively lead black men into lives of crime. But culture does not exist in a vacuum. If it is only because black men are raised in ghettos, well, where did the ghettos come from? Maybe because of some systematic, underlying structure in culture...

We can continue down this rabbit hole of cultural cause-and-effect until we arrive at some true root cause, some social inequality or injustice, at which point we have - again - asserted the truth of the social justice paradigm, just at some deeper, more fundamental level. Or we can continue down it until the data points become so few, and so blurred, that it all seems like random happenstance - but "random happenstance" in these matters is people making decisions. It is true that if you flip a billion coins, you might find some pattern arising out of total randomness. If you view people's decisions as coins being flipped, sure. But to do so is to wash your hands of any choice you ever make in your life; not an unscientific viewpoint, but most certainly a cowardly one. It is to claim that all our problems are just the outcome of coin flips, and there is nothing we can do to change them. It is to claim that we are both acting without cause (as there is no underlying reason for the coin's result) and without agency (as we have no influence over it). We call this viewpoint nihilism. 

What remains? Well, there is the third, obvious interpretation: That black people are genetically more prone to crime than whites. That would certainly explain the statistical results, and it means white people can't be blamed for this outcome as they just happen to be naturally superior, law-abiding citizens.

Given only the data points that black men are more likely to be incarcerated than whites, this isn't a viewpoint that I can disprove with statistics. Which means you are entitled to believe it. You in that case have "a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement" - which is the textbook definition of racism. 

I cannot tell you not to be a racist. You're entirely entitled to that opinion. I can however tell you that if you're not on the side of social justice, you are either a nihilist or a card-carrying racist.

Observation

To some, this is probably very old hat. To others, it might be new. I am articulating it so as to remember it myself, because I think it is a good way of grounding knowledge in the absence of more solid data.

This is an observation - a learning without anything really solid underpinning it. But I think it is true, and therefore I will write it down. The observation is this:

1. When individuals or large masses of people complain about or conversely like something, it is for a reason.

And the more important corollary,

2. The reason is not always the reason stated.

Now; while this may seem like a simple observation, it has one very useful immediate consequence - namely, that whenever we observe a social movement, it is never without reason. It follows that it is never logical to dismiss the opinion of any group - no matter how seemingly stupid or irrational from our point of view - because their behaviour is for a reason, making it fundamentally rational given its premises. The tricky thing is figuring out what those premises are.

Consequence of this point: If tens of thousands of people are upset about something, there is a problem somewhere. There is never no problem. Nor is the problem ever trivial, or they wouldn't be this upset. If I insult a book, I can inflame hundreds of thousands of fans to come after me - but not for the trivial reason of the book itself. If people are willing to go to war over a book, it means something more to them than just the information contained within. It is in some sense personal - representing community, power, self-worth or any number of things. It wouldn't do this without some sort of historical context around it because the action of latching onto the book so hard is itself not without reason.

Grand sweeping trends do not come out of nowhere; and the only way to change the turn of the behaviour is to address the root of the problem. If people are angry, and you know why they are angry, the problem is fixable. If you do not know why, it likely isn't.

An Unmentionable Event, part 1

Miss Winchester had found herself in quite a conundrum. It appeared that she didn't have anything to wear, which was perhaps an ordinary problem for a young lady in the finer circles of Eisenkrone Academy; but in this particular instance, the conundrum pertained less to the shifting fancies of fashion, and more to the fact that her wardrobe appeared to have disappeared into thin air while she slept.

“Oh my,” was Miss Winchester's expert assessment of the situation, “Oh dear me, my wardrobe seems to have vanished.”

It was an astute observation, owing to the fact that she was a well educated lady with a keen eye for detail; it was also, fortunately, an observation she made to herself, being dressed only in her night-gown, beneath which she wore very little in the ways of modesty, and above which she was similarly undressed. This left her in the precarious state of having only a single layer of clothing between her and the world at large, which was, of course, a dreadful dilemma.

Had the matter vexing Miss Winchester been something other than a matter of acute embarrassment, she should of course have summoned her loyal butler Ralph; or failing that, her close friend Cecil. Alas, she knew they were both quite passionate young men, prone to shock and – in Cecil's case – behavior he might later regret. Given that the situation presented a mystery, her good friend Mr. “Sherlock” Lloyd Wilder might perhaps have suited the situation – but Miss Winchester wouldn't dream of calling on a friend whilst improperly dressed. Indeed, it seemed she must solve this situation by her own accord.

Miss Winchester leaned forwards, taking good care that her backside wasn't pointing toward a person, depiction of a person, or anything that might with a helping of imagination resemble a person. She knelt down towards the ground, narrowing her eyes, and nodded solemnly to herself.

“I say! A clue!” she said, to herself. For indeed, there where the wardrobe had been was instead positioned on the floor a small copper coin, valued at five Teutonian pfennigs. Miss Winchester stood up, straightening her back. It seemed perfectly clear to her that the culprit must have left the coin there as some kind of calling card; she imagined some manner of gentleman thief, calling himself Monsieur Five-Pfennig, who no doubt crept about at night like a dreadful rapscallion and made away with extremely heavy wardrobes. Presently her eyes swept over the floor to see if the thief had left some other manner of clue.

“I say!” said Alice, indeed saying it, as she spied something sticking out from underneath her door. It appeared to be one of her unmentionables, wedged between the door and the door-frame. “A trail!”

Regrettably, the trail led out into the corridor. Miss Winchester was getting quite excited about pursuing this dastardly thief, but not so excited that she would even in her wildest dreams burst out into the hallway whilst naked both beneath and above her clothes. That would be dreadfully rude to her fellow club members, who after all even now had nothing but a few dozen feet of solid stone between their virgin eyes and her own indecent state of dress. But! What if some of her unmentionables were likewise scattered in the corridor? Why, she should die of embarrassment!

“I daresay,” she said, indeed daring to say it, “I shall quickly have to formulate a plan!”

 And so, grabbing needle and thread from her dresser, she began her work.  

Facets of Fantasy: Legacy

“You will live as long as I. Maybe even longer. You know that, right?”

“Yes, Teacher.”

The street was full of noise. All around them Kyoto rose, with its face of glass and steel and concrete, and its voice of bicycle bells and street vendors and bustling crowds. A city more than one million strong, a city that dwarfed the city of his youth – the same city, the same Kyoto as it had been then. But his youth seemed a million years ago now. In reality, it was scarcely more than a century.

“I'm barely an old man. If the cycle had not begun... Who knows how long I would have lived?”

His student nodded. A giant of a man, a blond foreigner from a land he'd barely known in his youth; the land of the Eagle. A strange man to inherit the Sword. A strange man to guard the Book of Truth. But he had been the best choice; he had humility, despite his strength. And he was skilled, moreso than any of his other students. It had been the best choice.

“How old are you really, Teacher?”

He thought.

“I was born in the Edo era. I am one-hundred and sixty-two years old. My body is perhaps sixty.”

“How does that happen, Teacher?”

His voice was like a child's. He barely spoke Japanese, and his words were simple, clumsy. David. Like the small man from the Christian Bible. Though he wasn't small. Or Christian, at least as far as the Teacher knew.

“The Sword keeps you alive. The doctor... Your friend, he says it does something to DNA. Rewrites it. The old ones said it rewrites your destiny; maybe that is what they meant. Listen carefully: Now that you have inherited it... I am going to die. Every day I go without it, it's as if I age a year.”

“But Teacher – you said nothing-”

“Draw the Sword.”

“But-”

“Draw it.”

The Sword unfolded from David's arm, shining, living metal, from the ancient times. From the previous cycle. If the Teacher was old, then the Sword was – how old? How many guardians had held it? How many bodies had it bonded to, like it now bonded to David's? The thick strands of biomass flowed from his powerful forearm, intertwined at the hand, forming the hilt. The weapon purified, intensified, distilled into liquid metal and poured out to form the glinting blade, the blade that could cut through anything. A symbiont, the doctor had called it. A living creature, bonded with the host.

He admired it. He had never seen it like this before, in another man's hands – not since his own Teacher drew it that fateful night in Satsuma.

“This blade will be your life, David Blaze.”

“Yes, Teacher.”

“You will use it to guard the Book of Truth. Until it passes to another. Until you die. Only then will the Sword move on. Only then will your duty end. It is not seemly for a Guardian to grow old in peace.”

The student caught on. His clear blue eyes searched the old man's face, searched for a clue beneath the snow-white eyebrows, between the crow's feet that lined his ancient eyes.

 “This blade will be your life, David Blaze. And yes. When your teaching is complete... it will also be my death.”

Facets of Fantasy: Empire

Salt water splashed her face, and the smell of the ocean lingered around her. She wrapped the brown cloak tighter about herself, frowning at the fabric – so rough, and so dark, not at all the garb she was used to. When they arrived, in that strange northern country, she'd wear what she wanted to. This she swore.

“Naimitsu.”

She was there. She was always there.

“How long will the trip be?”

“Eight days. This is a fast ship, but the crew is Nipponese, Miss Tsuru, and-”

She hated the name. "Tsuru". It was a necessary name, a disguise like the rags she was wearing, but she hated it still - a common name, a mere animal. Noble, perhaps, but not suited for her. 

“And I must stay hidden for now. I know. Not that I care.”

“There are many Nipponese students at the Academy as well. If they find out-”

“Do what you must.”

Naimitsu bowed. It was hard to read her body language, but a lifetime with her had taught Akane plenty. This was the solemn bow, the bow of regret. The bow that told Akane just what Naimitsu was willing to do, in the name of the Empire. In the name of the Empress.

“I will act as I choose when we reach the shore. I don't care about the daimyo's warnings. If there are threats, you remove them. Is that understood, Naimitsu?”

“Yes, Miss Tsuru.”

There was darkness in her eyes. Akane didn't know what became of those Naimitsu called 'threats'.

Not that she cared.

Facets of Fantasy: Sea

Once, when he was very young, he had gone out to see the ocean. He couldn't remember how old he was, but even now, it seemed to him as though it was his very earliest memory that still dwelt in his brain. He had gone to the sea with someone – an adult, perhaps a priest, perhaps even his father. It had been a man, nonetheless. The man had showed him the great ocean, and the ships sailing upon it, and he had spoken.

“Son-” he had probably said, or maybe “Young man”, or possibly even “Aust” - Aust couldn't remember the exact words. “Son – I think the only way you can understand Creation is by looking at the sea. It's perfect. It's so smooth, and flat, and beautiful, and untouched – and yet it hides so many secrets. Some are beneficent – people to meet, beautiful sights to see – but some are dreadful: Storms, whirlpools, terrible monsters. Always remember, though, that there is someone responsible for everything. Someone is causing everything in the world – nothing “just happens.” Just as every island has its ruler and every storm has its port, someone cares for everything in this world, and when you grow up, you will be responsible for something too. Maybe one day, you'll have your own island.”

But then again, he thought, what is the sea? Water. He had mastered water long ago. The sea meant nothing to him, now. Salt water. He could rule water, make it bend to his will, make it sing and dance if he wanted to – but sometimes, when he looked at the sea, a little of it splashed his face, and he could have sworn it came from his eyes.

Facets of Fantasy: Tears

The man's breath was heavy with alcohol, his accent stained by the tongue of Those-We-Raid. He raised a hammer high. He spat. He said, “This is what we do with rebels.” The hammer fell. The shoulder broke.

He woke up, sweating. Long hair tangled in his face, blinded, but he could feel the pain shoot up and down his useless arm again. The bedroll stank of urine. The young'uns said Varro wet himself from fear, in his nightmares. The truth was more prosaic; age. His bladder played tricks on him, had been for a few years now. Probably some sickness he'd caught in his youth... back in the slave days. Back when they broke his shoulder.

He couldn't sleep. Rolling out of the cloth, he climbed to his feet with his good arm, grunting as he went. The camp was silent.

Except, of course, for the newcomers. They were sleeping nearby. He wondered if Harkon knew about it, the way he spoke in his sleep. His tongue was thick and strange, the language of the Far West, where a mighty Empress had a fleet of a thousand ships. Varro didn't speak it, not a lick, but he understood the feelings well enough. Was it a greater shame to piss or to weep in one's sleep? Varro didn't know, and he was too old to let shame rule him.

The old man had lost his clan. Let him sleep and not feel shame.

There would come a time when he'd weep while awake, not giving a damn who saw.

Facets of Fantasy: Sisters

Agnes rolled up her sleeve and stuck a bare, grease-spattered arm into the machinery. Fingers closed around the misplaced wrench – a critical moment. Yank too hard, the cogs would break. Move too slow, she'd lose a hand. One.

Two.

Three.

With a grating metallic noise, wrench and arm and girl pulled free of the machinery, and the cogs began their slow, halting grind. The clock was running again.

“That looked dangerous.”

She turned around, startled, dropping the wrench. A tall apparition appeared before her, a terrifying woman in a charred school uniform. The skirt was riddled with holes, the blouse stained with something yellow and vaguely fluorescent. The stockings sagged in tatters around legs that seemed to have been viciously seared, and the same went for the arms, wrapped in bandages.

“Sis. You scared me.”

“That's why I waited.”

The taller girl sat down, looking into the gears as the clock went back up to speed, automatically adjusting itself with the Storm Astrolabe. It would soon have made up for lost time.

“You won an award, Agnes. Top of the class in Storm Lore.”

“This year too? Huh.”

Agnes wiped her hands on a piece of rough sackcloth, leaving only the rest of her completely covered in grease, from her round glasses to her shoes. She was dressed more practically, in worker's coveralls, with her hair cropped. Skirts and long hair were for people who didn't have to worry about getting dragged into the clockwork's innards. Like her sister.

“I couldn't make it. Clock needed fixing.”

“Right away?”

“It runs almost everything in Eisenkrone, you know. Including the scheduling. Somehow.” She paused, looking Amanda over. “...what happened to you?”

“Alchemy accident. I won an award too, but I didn't want to go there like this.”

“Which one?”

“Top of the class in Storm Lore.”

“This year too?”

“Mm.”

 They sat at the door of the clocktower, gazing out over the school. They didn't sit too close together. They both knew how the chemicals would react with the grease.  

Facets of Fantasy: An Ugly City

The skyline of New York twinkled, each little light bursting like a supernova straight into his eyes. Distant cars roared and honked in his ears, the exhaust mingling with the smell of sex in his nostrils, drifting from the apartment right behind him – from his own skin. He closed his eyes. New York wouldn't go away. It never did.

Three apartments over, a man hit his wife. Six apartments over, someone dropped their cellphone in the toilet, and swore. Thirteen apartments over a woman was crying. In Brooklyn, a cop shot a kid.

She came up behind him, a hand on his back. A jolt went through him, as he made his blood course through his body again. He hadn't heard her. Too busy taking in New York.

Now she was there, and he turned towards her. Brown tangled hair around an asymmetrical face, with a mouth that seemed twisted into a perpetual sneer. Dry lips, goop in her eyes, remnants of mascara clinging to her lashes. He smelled her breath, and with it, her six last meals and the exact time she'd been sleeping. He smelled what had become of those meals. And, of course, he smelled her blood, just beneath her skin.

“Harper. Moping again?”

“I'm afraid so, Miss Lennox. New York is such an ugly city, full of ugly people.”

She read his mind. He turned away, but too late. She was hurt.

“Do I really look like that?”

“All humans do.”

They were silent. He was naked, aware of the cold winter wind playing over his body but seeing no reason to care. She was wrapped in a sheet, her feet bare and cold on the balcony.

“What the fuck's the point, then? Why sleep with a stinking bag of body fluids, when you could be banging the Queen?”

Harper laughed. “First of all, one doesn't 'bang' the Queen of Vampires. But you have a valid point.”

He turned around to face her. His pale chiseled face sank into an expression of utter melancholy, his deep eyes searching hers. Licking his dry lips with a dry tongue, dry, always dry except when he had fed, he began to speak:

“-in all my endless years, haunted, tormented by my undying state, I've walked the Earth, in search of true love, in search of-”

She burst out laughing. It exploded in his ears, shattering the sounds of New York and any illusion of a romantic, immortal vampire. Suddenly he was just a naked guy on a balcony, looking rather stupid in the chilly night. Harper Anderson smiled, not the cool, sexy smile of an undying predator – but the awkward smile of a man being laughed at by his girlfriend.

“And that's why. I'm, uh... going to put some trousers on. Fetch me a beer, would you? Anything but that American stuff. I swear it tastes exactly like piss.”

The Waking Dead

And then one day, I woke up.

That's how it felt. Mid-sentence, almost, the latter half of a sentence that had taken me – how long? Five years, ten maybe? I don't know. I woke up to this wasteland, a place where the clocks had stopped, the lights were dead, the cities blown-out carcasses. Nobody there to keep track, not that I know if anyone could. World's gone crazy.

I musta killed people. I mean, I must have. If nothing else, I must've turned them. Made them... like us. You know? I even woke up with meat in my stomach. Heh. Brains, maybe. You know, like in the old movies? But I don't know what they eat. What I... ate. I don't think they're picky. They don't seem to be. They just eat.

That's why, I guess, there aren't a lot of them. Most people never have time to get infected. Most people just die, ripped apart by the damn things. Like my friends were. Like I nearly was. But I, well, I was a coward. They shoulda put a bullet in by brain, but I never told them about that bite in my arm. It's healed, now – there's barely even a scar. I must have been under for a very long time. Last thing I remember, my head was swimming with a fever, and now- boom! Here I am. Mid-sentence. Somewhere. The city's called Fullerton, but the state, I've no idea. Indiana, maybe, judging by the plates on most of the cars. No idea how I got here – I must have migrated, with the rest, in search of more prey.

They're different, nowadays. No more mass migrations. No more mass anything. I suppose they must have run out of fresh meat, because the ones that's left, well... they're eating each other. You might have noticed. I'm surprised there are even any left.

But then there's me. I didn't get eaten. I got infected, just a bite, just a tiny little scratch – and then I died, and then I got better.

Nobody thought this was something you got better from. And what do I know? Maybe I'm the only one. But I'm alive.

I'll stay alive. Those idiot things don't seem to know about canned food, and the survivalists left behind plenty. Crazy as it seems, they ran out of bullets 'fore they ran out of beans. Poor suckers must have been swarmed from all sides by those things – by me. By us.

Well, that's how I got all this stuff. I found the shotgun, though it doesn't have no shells, and the shovel, and the chair, and the handcuffs. Thank God for the handcuffs. I don't know how I woulda gotten you in here without them. Risky enough, using myself as bait, and well... I don't want to have to kill you.

Please, fucking fuck you please, say something.

No?

I can't be the only one. You're in there, I know you are.

So wake.

The fuck.

Up.

Planet of Hats

We solved starvation. It was actually the last problem to go, despite how the technology had been around for ages - it was a matter of distribution, that was all. We'd worked out diseases, crime, climate change, et cetera, and now the final problem had been cracked; nobody needed to go hungry. We were done.

And, being done, we started questioning ourselves.

What would we do next? What else could our species possibly accomplish? We focused on entertainment, for a while - but it grew stale. We figured we'd work on technology, but without any real incentive to better ourselves, we invented nothing of consequence. We thought, perhaps, that we could focus on exploring the stars... but then it happened. We don't know who started it - someone, somewhere, just had an idea, and it spread like a wildfire.

Our civilization had gotten bored. It needed a hobby. It needed, desperately, some means of occupying itself, and so it invented one. It could have been anything, the Project, but this is what we chose. Who knows why?

It wasn't ubiquitous at first - not everyone joined the fad - but over time, over the course of generations, it began to change. It was the grandest project yet - the grandest project ever - a complete reinvention of ourselves. Every single member of our species, working together on an all-encompassing, planet-wide effort to change ourselves - not into something better, just into something different.

Centuries later, the travellers arrived. By then, we had forgotten. Only the Project remained. And so, when they arrived, we greeted them as we had always greeted, spoke as we had always spoke. As had always been our custom - as long as anyone could remember.

"Howdy, pardner. Welcome to the Wild West Planet - yee-haw!"

The Artful Narrowness of Taste

Recently I've been thinking about my old brain-spectre, Quality, again. Briefly put, I've been wondering - for a very long time - how the quality of art can be measured. They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, yet you can teach objective principles of painting, music, writing, et cetera - so obviously there is some objective mechanic at work. This is a conundrum.

Here is, I think, another piece of the puzzle: Narrowness. Let's illustrate with an example.

What is going on here? Simply put - the first picture is very well-made, requiring a great amount of skill - but it's not very narrow. It's an old woman and a dog. People have seen a great many pictures of old women and a great many pictures of dogs. Furthermore, humans have a strong sense of tribalism - and there's nothing tribal whatsoever about the first picture. It's (almost) universally human.

The second picture, on the other hand, pertains to a subculture. Not only does that make it a little more original, but it also speaks to a particular tribe. The picture says "I, the artist, have something in common with you, the viewer" - assuming the viewer, then, is a fan of rainow-fox-dog-things. Which we can presume a lot of those 145 people are.

Two forces are at work here. Firstly, the second picture is competing against a much smaller pool. There are fewer pictures pertaining to its subculture than there are pictures pertaining to old women. Second, and I think more importantly, the second picture sends a tribal message - it establishes a sense of connection via shared interests. Jokes are a good way to study this second phenomenon.

If I make a simple pun, it's instantly understandable to everyone who speaks English. It's extremely inclusive and, therefore, not very funny. On the other hand, if I crack a joke about that one time you and I did something, and compare it to a TV show we both love - why, I've established a strong sense of connection, and in the moment you're likely to find that hilarious. This is because it establishes a personal connection between you and I.

So! The comment "Deviantart Logic" seems to imply that someone has taken offence at this state of things. The explanation is simple: There's another subculture at work. This subculture might revolve around knowledge of advanced anatomy, drawing techniques, et cetera - an artists' subculture - or it might be based on a classical schooling, in which Michaelangelo and Leonardo are what Michaelangelo and Leonardo are to TMNT fans.

Both of these viewpoints are valid. In the former case, the person is saying "I appreciate the work that went into this picture, and feel a connection with the artist because of it". In the latter, the person is saying "I appreciate the resemblance to classical works of art, and I feel a connection with the artist because of it - as I imagine we both care deeply for the classical ideals". Whether or not this is true is, of course, irrelevant. I could (and have) write fanfiction for fandoms I do not care about in the least, and have people appreciate that work because of a perceived sense of belonging.

So - this is another little piece of the puzzle. I think it makes sense.

A Quote

“Condemnation by category is the lowest form of hatred, for it is cold-hearted and abstract, lacking even the courage of a personal hatred” - Wendell Berry

Fifteen - The Characters of Christmas Past

We have been:

The Raiders of the Lost Knark

Todd, the Bored Druid

Arthad, the Black Knight

Kråkmåns Höghatt, the Faithful Dwarf

Aust Galanodel, the Visionary

Vackeria, the Wild Woman

The Sleepless Fellowship

Beo, the Absurd Hero

Ling / Ree / Arepo, the God of Paradoxes

Naseef, the Man Who Should Be Dead

Freddy the Cat, the King of Tigers

Aust Skywalker, the Last of Ban Lam

The Wizards of Jalan City

Vincent Mario Giovanni Winthrop, the Entrepreneur

Luke, the Child of Misfortune

Pervoslav, the Russian Scientist

The French Thief

The Mathematician

The Vampires of Berlin

Athela, the Beautiful Beast

Dragomir Zhukov, the Rogue

Zetha, the Doll

Ulrich, the Patriot

Plus Eddie, Mr. Crane, and many others

The Rune Pilgrims

Vesper Kite, the Hero of the Empire

Wade, the Champion of Death

Sojiro Naraku, the Lovestruck Sorcerer

Ulf, the Northerner

The Fandango Four

The Ultimate Fighter

The Hybrid

The Littlest Vampire

The Fat Ninja

The Exalted of the East

Vincent Cale, the Bronze Falcon

Zaraki Kensei, the Sword Saint

Lily, the Drug Queen

Sharif, the Monster

The Guardians of Shinwa Taizen

Song Hui, the Mistress of the Mindscape

Hyun Wook, the Hopping Vampire

David Blaze, the American Samurai

The Scions of Japan

Shinichi Kurode, the Aquacop

Magnus Magnusson, Thorboy

...and Brian.

The Blood-Bearers of Quetzalcouatl

James Fleming, the Monkey Man of Mystery

Rederick von Steinberg XIII, the Faceless Rogue

Setsuna, the Ojou-sama, and Setsu, the Godchild

The Ragnarök Renegades

Simo Pohjonen, the Finnish Sniper

Yvain the Dangerous, alias Åke Björk, the Fake

The Iron Librarian

The Protectors of Ptolus

Gell, the Paladin

Lupi, the Honourable Psycho

Storm, the Wild Druid, and Logan, the Sun's Chosen

The Agents of PSI

Assistant Director Jack Hudson, the Werewolf

Special Agent Karen Lennox, the Mage

The Hope of House Tepet

Tepet Kalyna, the Princess of Creation

Tepet Taran, her Bodyguard

The Military History Club

Lloyd Wilder, the Prince of Britannia

Cecil Darashia, the Psychic Prodigy

The Kingslayers

Gabrian De Veers, the Cold Killer

Garrus, the Iron Man

The New Kardus

Gehenna, the God of Judgement

Gwendolen, the Human

…and many, many others.

May their stories live forever, and may there be still more heroes in our future.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Fourteen - BFFs

Here are some characters whose friendships were a huge part of their greatness.

Lloyd Wilder and Cecil Darashia - The Storm 'Verse, home of these two characters, revolves around two great principles: Passion and friendship. Despite their many differences, they exemplified both. Lloyd was a kind, friendly Prince, and Cecil a fierce, dangerous pauper – but they covered each others' weaknesses, both in combat and in social situations. Though they frequently misunderstood each other and caused unintentional trouble for themselves and their friends, they always had each others' backs – because that was the very first lesson they learned on their arrival to Eisenkrone Academy.

Gabrian and Garrus - This pair of Iron Heroes complemented each other very well, despite being mechanically rather similar. Both of them were damage-sponges, capable of enduring brutal beatings – and perhaps that was the cornerstone of their friendship in a sense, because they withstood terrifying punishments for each other. Garrus carried Gabrian out of a crumbling castle after a fight against the Demon King, and Gabrian delivered the death-blow to the dragon that nearly slew his friend. Theirs was a friendship worthy of Iron Heroes – a friendship forged in iron, and tempered in blood.

The Norlanders - Hoo boy, I doubt anyone has heard of these guys before. They were a Northern team of a berserker and a warrior-poet, appearing halfway through the Fairy Tale Game I ran in D&D a million years ago. Something about these two characters just clicked with each other. They were created to be friends, and they lived up to it – right up until the bitter end, surrounded by enemies in a pitch-black cave.

Thirteen - Freaks and Monsters

Today we take a look at some seriously scary characters.

Sharif - Sharif is the first character that springs to mind on this theme. An unkillable man-eating shapeshifter with a severely disturbed mind, Sharif reads like some horror movie monster but was, in fact, a Lunar Exalt from the Chronicles of the Bronze Falcon. He Exalted due to his tenacity and perseverance in surviving a famine, but he also killed and ate his brother in the process, something which... well, pretty much broke his mind. Only very barely human in any sense of the word, Sharif remained playable because of his strong loyalty to the Solar Exalted, who perhaps, perhaps, might one day fix him. Or, you know, just unleash him upon their unsuspecting enemies. And occasionally friends.

Wade, the Champion of Death - Wade was actually a quite benevolent character, but that didn't stop him from being scary and weird. Wade had fallen in love with Death itself, and devoted his life (or weird pseudo-life, as it were) to her service, harvesting souls and bringing euthanasia to those who needed it. An Arcana Evolved Champion of Death, Wade was very, very, very good at killing stuff, but only ever did it when appropriate – a death-dealer in moderation, inhuman yet with a strong moral code. As he found out near the end of his life, his predecessor Hamadathurian had not been thus restricted.

The Littlest Vampire - I have sadly forgotten his/her name, but this character – from Trigonometry Fandango, a freeform anime-themed game – was the creepy kid-trope incarnate. A soulless female vampire, forced to reside in the body of a little boy, the Littlest Vampire was a murderous little child who specialized in slashing tendons, so that people fell over and could be properly disposed of. Although his/her team also contained no less than two super-powerful killing machines, neither of them could really match him/her in terms of cold-bloodedness.

Athela - seductive, manipulative, psychotic. Likes: Crushing peoples' will, necrophilic threesomes, stalkers. Dislikes: Water, especially in Berlin. 'Nuff said.

Twelve - The Opposite of Optimized

You are really terrible at your job.

Tepet Taran - Sure, Taran did protect his princess and did eventually deliver her to the Blessed Isle – but that didn't stop him from being terrible at his job. A Dragon-Blooded socialite whose only real reason for existing was being married off to some other important House, Taran was chosen for a super-important world-spanning covert mission solely because nobody would really miss him. He did have a few redeeming skills, sure – he knew how to parry attacks (because “Not the face! Not my pretty face!”) and he could... Hm. I guess he could also jump kind of far? Either way, he wasn't exactly the best guy to drag along on a trek through the wilderness.

Todd Ark - Todd, a member of the Raiders of the Lost Knark, was admittedly pretty okay at being a druid – but kind of awful at being an adventurer. A half-fey druid with butterfly wings and antennae, he grew up in a home with a talking stump, fairies coming to visit, unicorns grazing in the garden and all kinds of weird phenomena – yet in spite of this he had the personality of a particularly bored desk clerk. What made him bad at his job was that, being a D&D character, he was supposed to kill monsters and take their stuff – but he was far more interested in relaxing hobbies like gardening or taking a leisure trip with his yacht.

Jack Hudson and Karen Lennox - basically the worst police duo ever. They got better after they turned into a werewolf and a wizard, admittedly, but for being an FBI agent and a highly trained NYPD officer, they were remarkably bad at actually solving crimes. It's a good thing they soon moved on from crime-solving and into the more esoteric realm of... um... whatever you call all the weird stuff they did.

Almost every character by VMGW's player - I tried really hard to pick just one, but I couldn't. The defining feature of his characters seem to be “really good at lots of things, none of them applicable or relevant to the adventure”. I suppose the best exception I can think of is Vesper Kite, who actually was pretty decent at serving the Empire and the Church by being a swordsman. He, uh... ended up murdering the Pope. There were reasons.

Eleven - Powerhouses of Powerful Power

Like the fist of an angry god.

Timothy Luvenhay - Tim takes the cake when it comes to being a powerhouse of powerful power. A four foot tall speedster, Tim had pretty much every power source you could stack onto a single character in the Arcana Evolved system. He could run so fast that battlefield composition didn't matter to him at all, he could turn into lightning, he could keep fighting even while dead, and this is all on top of his swordfighting skills which were his actual signature power. Tim single-handedly defeated a Rakshasa Mage King and his unbeatable undead bodyguard in the span of three rounds of combat, something I will never forgive him for.

Mr. Smith - Mister Smith was pretty much just a straight-up attempt at playing the system in the NWoD rules if I don't misremember, but he accomplished the feat quite admirably. A super-duper-secret agent, Smith featured only for around two sessions but packed enough firepower to take out even supernatural enemies without being noticed – which is quite a feat in a system where mortals are designed to be extremely squishy, even if he didn't get many chances to shine.

David Blaze - David, from the Japanese Mutant game, wasn't intentionally designed to break the game system or anything – far from it – but over the course of his career, he became pretty much synonymous with “unstoppable in combat”. Of course, since the game wasn't heavily combat-focused, this made him more of a specialist character than anything else; he still needed his friends in a multitude of situations – but when it came to plain fighting, David was pretty much the best. Only two things ever really posed a threat to him: the symbiote super-soldier Aku-Shin Kage, and the insane vampire that lived inside his closest friends' head.

Zaraki, again - Zaraki may have been a pretty silly character, but man that guy could kill stuff. When you make a character whose highest passion in life is “swords”, and that guy also happens to be a Solar Exalt... things die. A lot.

Ten - ...instead of these comedians

Today, we take a good look at hilarity.

Mr. White - Mister White makes the list again. A rotund, fat little man whose love of money was only exceeded by his love of chicken, Mister White was a banker in a freeform Wild West game whose special talent was being able to run ridiculously fast. That was it, really. He sucked at everything from gun-slinging to surviving in the desert, and the combination of being absolutely useless and completely obsessed with chicken makes him one of the funniest characters I have ever seen.

Zaraki - Zaraki was the poster child for “one-track mind”. He cared for exactly two things – swords and womanizing – and he cared about them to ludicrous degrees. He was a Solar Exalt in the Chronicles of the Bronze Falcon, and though he had his moments in the limelight, he was primarily a comedic character. To be precise, he was an idiot. Rarely have I seen any player commit so much to a funny concept, to the degree that he actually memorized a children's book because it seemed like something his character would do. Zaraki read it to his daughter, who was a genius prodigy. She wasn't amused.

Brian Ansiell - Scion of Anansi, Brian's special power was being able to convince anyone of anything – well, that, and causing mayhem. A character with no real motivation, Brian just stumbled through life and did whatever amused him, which put him in a multitude of wacky situations. He owned a pet jaguar for a while, he became a member of the Yakuza, and he almost kidnapped a celebrity chef. I doubt he ever really knew why he did... well, any of the things he did. I guess he didn't need a reason.

Ling Tem'Enneth - Ling “died” pretty early in the Arcana Evolved game, to be reborn as Ree Kaspathodex – which was perhaps for the best, because the original Ling was batshit crazy. He makes this list because I have rarely seen a character commit so hard to always having his hit points be in the single digits. Ling fell off roofs, fell out of trees, fell into thorny bushes... I don't remember any enemies actually hitting him in combat, but then again, there was rarely any reason to target him in the first place.

Nine - A Toast To Absent Friends...

These are the characters of some of the people I haven't played with for a good long while.

Vincent Mario Giovanni Winthrop, from Mage: The Ascension. An iconic character in every way, Mr. Winthrop was a stockbroker who could manipulate time. Constantly armed with his pocket watch (except for that one time it turned into raspberry ice cream as a Paradox backlash), Mr. Winthrop was a wealthy man and linguistic genius with no real applicable skills for the adventure – trademark of his player, who seemed to make a sport out of giving his characters powers that were entirely irrelevant to the task at hand.

Naseef, from Arcana Evolved: Breath of the Ancestors. Naseef was, on the face of it, a simple humble woodsman – and though his eventual career took a very different turn, it's his initial plain nature that makes him iconic. No frills, no bells and whistles, just a straightforward everyman trying to survive in a dangerous world. He was eventually corrupted by Requiem, a sword possessed by a powerful Spirit of Death, and turned into an avatar of death itself – before being redeemed at the Tree of Life, and swearing an oath to defend humanity.

Freddy the Cat, also from Breath of the Ancestors. Freddy was a happy-go-lucky thief and master of disguises, who – perhaps unlike the other characters in the story – remained more or less himself even as he grew and changed. It is precisely this happy-go-lucky nature that I think makes him iconic to his player; even in the face of dire tragedy, he kept on smiling. While he ultimately learned a lesson about responsibility, he never ceased to be an optimist.

Aust Galanodel, from Raiders of the Lost Knark. While Aust would reprise in Breath of the Ancestors, I think I liked the original Aust just a little bit better. Aust was an idealist, a visionary, and a mad scientist. He entered the story as an elf seeking to rescue his wife, but as his need for power constantly increased, so did his addiction to it. Aust was a futurist and transhumanist – or I suppose, trans-elf-ist – and his quest for greatness is something that rings through in all characters from his player. The first Aust, with his prosthetic ruby hand and mind-rewriting powers, stands out as the best example.