Do I have a thing for anime Cat Girls lately?

 

I grew up with dogs. My family always had dogs. One or two at most. But cats were not something we had as kids. I think it might be a Scottish thing. My dad, and my uncles, all seemed to hate cats. I did have a cat when I was around 18. A black tailless Manx. I don't remember how I got him. Maybe a relative (they are originally from Scotland). I named him Salem, after Sabrina the Teenage Witches cat in the comics. I got him right after a bad breakup with my high school sweetheart. Salem barely made it out of kittenhood when I got home from a weekend trip and got told by my parents he got smooshed by a car. Knowing my parents, there was probably a 50/50 chance they just didn't want a cat around the house. Or since they were Scottish, I should say "hoose."  It was a period in my life I thought the world was trying to get me to off myself. And since I was raised by European immigrant Catholics, I thought God was too. Man, we sure had it easy as teens, eh? But anyway, I never had another cat. 

I did like cat things though. I remember using Cat Lord for one campaign or another back in the day. I think as some tie in with Lovecraft's Cats of Ulthar or whatever it was. Of all the cool things in MM2 he might have been my favorite entry at one time. 

Dogs had a superpower or two, but to me cats were off the charts. The flexibility, the agility. When they got stuck in a tree I was all like "you're Spider-Man. Just climb down!"

Yeah, for most of my life I occasionally had cat things pretty much just in games. In the 80's I played in some sessions on and off of the supers rpg "Supergame" over a couple of years, being a part of initial play testing at Aero Hobbies in Santa Monica as a kid, and a couple or three years after that a few times at the home of some friends of Aero owner Gary Switzer. (look here for some tidbits on my youthful Aero days). It used Supergame as the system, since they were all friends with the creators. I remember almost nothing. Well, two things. One, when I scribbled a pic of my character (I am no artist), one of the "ladies" declared that Aimee, the co-creator and artist of the game had "nothing to worry about." 

Her work was so groundbreaking,
everybody should have worried

The other thing I remember is my character Manx. I don't think I had an origin, he was simply a young cat human hybrid. A year or two later, when we were doing V and V or Champs, one of my buddies tried his hand at some sessions, and I used Manx for them. That would be it for Manx for several decades. He left my gaming zeitgeist. 

Until summer last year, that is. I was getting in on a handful of games to learn the system. One of them was set in Marvel 1980 (two guys from this would form the beginning of my current group). It was an eager effort by the GM, who was new to it as well but giving it a go. The games were OK, but the three or so session we had only occurred every month or so. The guy had young kids and school or something. Also it was based on stuff going on in the comics, and our characters to me felt like sidekicks to existing ones. 

But what came out of it was me using Manx again after all these many years. I gave him a last name: McAllister. And a full origin. Manx had a Scottish Father and a German mother. The dad was a physicist, and she a bio-chemist. World renown, and pioneers in Quantum science. They had built prototype teleport pods in the late 1960's. As a kid Manx and his pet cat went inside a pod and it got activated. Boom, catman. 

Yep. 

At 21 years old Manx McAllister was a child of rich and famous scientists, and going to college in New York, himself a brilliant scientist. I reconsidered his look, which back in the day was a black manx (like my old cat Salem) covered in fur. For this I considered a look akin to Fritz the Cat.

Yeah. No. 

I settled on a far more human look. I yoinked the appearance of Manx from a character from another pornographic source, an old funny animal comic Omaha The Cat Dancer. 

I will post deets about those Manx related sessions of the current campaign next, but during the games last year I was already planning to use Manx, and his family, for this campaign. But its 2046, so Manx McAllister is 86 years old. 

Got a little more human looking in old age.

For me the fun was not just revisiting Manx, but was in creating his family. Manx was CEO of McAllister Scientific, a research compound that are pioneers in Quantum engineering. I conceived of his son Manx jr, who I decided would be a biologist like his grandmother. He only appeared on a view screen in the sessions at Manx's birthday party, as I had him doing research in The Savage Land (hopefully to be a place visited in future sessions), but I imagined him as a bit of a hedonist and ladies man.

"Hello, laaaaadies..."

But now we get to the Cat Girls thing I promised in the post title. I needed Manx to have grandkids. I looked back and remembered two of my first cat girl crushes from way back. The were named Una Puma and Ana Puma, from an anime called "Tank Police".

Their most iconic scene was this (NOT work safe):

They were murderous criminals. My McAllister twins would be brilliant quantum scientist outside of party-happy "woo girls" the world's foremost physicists, and actual good girls. 

Party time.

Science time. 

I just wanted interesting relatives of Manx, was not necessarily going for the sexy. But this may have been when I started realizing, though no furry I, that I might like cat chicks. 

And as the fates would have it, weeks later I discovered Chainsmoker Cat. 

She's not the sexy one on the show. 

from the Wiki:

Set in a modern-day world where cat-people, known as "beastfolks", co-exist with humans, the series follows the daily misadventures of Yaniko, a catgirl who lives in a small apartment building in Nyagamihara (based on Sagamihara), Japan, and is addicted to smoking, regardless of the damage to her environment, her psyche, or her family. As the series progresses, Yaniko's friends and other troubled catgirls with their own issues are introduced, along with their human landlord, who tolerates their antics.

That's it. I watched a ton of youtube clips before watching a couple episodes (its on Netflix, but I watched elsewhere). But the opening titles I saw on youtube had me hooked right off the jump.

Despite being about addiction, poverty, and opression, the show is funny as hell. Yaniko cares about nothing but smoking ciggies. As the title would suggest. She cannot go more than a few minutes without lighting up. It is her one true joy. 

The addiction: Yani's entire life is cigarettes. I have never seen a ciggy addict like her. Heavy smokers have stinky house from the smoke, but otherwise normal people with a life and job etc. But I think Yaniko is also chronically lazy. And very Gen Z. She gets anxious to the point of being sick from the thought of having to clean her place and take a bath so her sister can visit (which young, put together sis does. While wearing a hazmat suit). 

The poverty: Yani can't keep a job because she can't go very long without a smoke. "When I smoke I forget my worries" she says. Most of the other cat girls, addicts or now, can keep themselves together. But none of them make much money when they do work because...

Opression: Maybe the most interesting thing about the setting, a normal Japanese working class neighborhood, but apparently in this Japan there are "Beastfolk," and they are an underclass. They can have jobs, but only menial labor. They go to school with humans, live with humans, go to bars with humans, but in one scene where Yani plays soccer with some kinds (these scenes happen on the way home from a ciggy run), and a couple of cops put an end to it. And there are rules about cross marriage. 

So the beastmen, or "Anthros" which I think is the in setting scientific name for them, often dress well and try to fit in. I'm only like three sessions in, so not sure if their are different drinking fountains, bus and train sections, and race specific diners. But I don't think so. It's just sort of a part of life. The cat girls are second class like its just the nature of things. I have yet to see human on anthro violence. But there was a mention that the cats can jump 8 meters. They have fangs. So maybe the humans are just keeping them down enough to not get killed by them.

Over episodes new cat friends appear, some living in Yani's building. Most have their own addictions going on. Alcohol, drugs, video games. I assume later episodes have sex and other addictions. 

The show is super controversial right now. In Japan for sure. "Freeters" are looked down upon like the cat girls in that world, and there is fear it is glorifying a "nothing" lifestyle. In the US Netflix is getting hit by complaints about the show. Can you imagine? All the shit Netflix gets up to. 

OK, I don't think I have a cat lady thing. No more than other things. I mean, a cat girl is better than a dog girl, I love dogs, but. Sort of unclean. A couple of cat girls in an old anime, Maxine and Tabetha McAllister in the game, then discovering this show is a coinkydink. I like a lot of anime girls. Female images in real life or in art are appealing to me. Nothing wrong with that. And the thing is, looking at aime versions is where its OK to stare. 

I grew up in Los Angeles. Downtown. Hollywood. My native Venice Beach. So I have seen and know people like on this show. Folk with demons. Maybe like us.  If you live in a big town or a city then you know. I can handle it and think its funny to see how Yani fails. You prob can too. But farts, poops, vomit (oddly always rainbow colored) are the order of the day. But Ren and Stimpy prepared us for that stuff, eh?

Next post will be about the session where I introduce the group to the McAllister Family and the scientist shenanigans they get up to. My version of "The Backrooms" is involved. Its where the first real bloody combats goes down, with some characters getting severely injured. They got tested hard. Stay tooned.

Cheers

Justice Incorporated - "The Battle of the Bars" or "Pain Don't Hurt"

 

Back in the day I ran a session for a couple of my Champions players for their street level characters. In it, they spent a week being bouncers at a run down bar, the "kind of place where they sweep up teeth and glass eyes at night." It was called "Bronco Bills Bustin Beer hall," and if you ever saw a certain violent 80's actioner about philosophical bouncers, you can summon an image up in your manly mind...

"The Double Douche..."

Will also accept whatever that country bar in
the Blues Brothers was called.

In that session (it may have been two. I'm talking like 30 years ago) dealing with drunk bar bullies was how it started, then for the final fight some ninja's or some shit were brought in by the owners enemy to deal with the super bouncers. It was a fun rip off of one of my favorite 80's head cracking flicks. 

I did touch on the place in sessions back in the day, cleaned up and just called "Bronco Bill's" but not for fights. I recall it did pop up as a meeting place or something. I think maybe a detective character followed somebody there or something. 

Anyway, not long ago I finally saw the old John Travolta movie "Urban Cowboy." Pretty boring movie, but it did give me an idea. I was still in the low combat phase of this campaign, with the players role playing like crazy and doing character development and stuff. But I was purposefully going slow on that. I still wanted to indulge in some low-stakes chickenshit and surreal/silly sort of set ups before I started doing classic hero stuff. So I decided to sort of go 80's crazy and do a Roadhouse/Urban Cowboy mashup. 

The salad days of Vinnie Barbarino. Before Xenu
got his aliens claws on him

So I had Bronco Bills continue in success, to the point where the once run down shopping area it sat in was undergoing gentrification (and yes, I was purposefully interjecting commentary on that subject, with both good and bad coming in with it). 

The outside entrance had all this neon and a 30' tall digital screen above that constantly showed scenes from old cowboy movies, shows, and commercials...

Welcome to flavor country

Other high end business had appeared on courtyard. A multilevel Asian American restaurant, a couple of cleaned up parking structures, and another bar "Club Future."

"The Courtyard." Upper left corner is the Club Future front entrance. Bronco Bills on the upper right. Parking structures on the middle and lower left, and lower right is the big Asian restaurant. The middle of the map reprsents the center of the courtyard with a fountain, trees, benches, and a foodtruck that showed up on weekend nights.

I like this roach coach because it looks like its from 
a Mobius story in Heavy Metal magazine

Bronco Bills has been owned for a couple years or so by Shelly West, who is from a rich horse ranch family.

 Also she happens to be the aunt of Juniper "Cowgal" West from the first sessions auditions scenario. This will be important. My conceit here that Bronco Bills is very popular with the popular Urban Cowboy scene, where folk dress up in western gear and hang out drinking beer and smoking cigarettes and listening to Country Rock (it made a big comeback). 

The new bar on the corner, Club Future, caters to a sort of Future Traditionalist scene, young folk in to vintage 1980's new wave and cosplay. Geeks. It is owned by a young girl in her early 20's named Ginger Jones.

So here is the setup. Shelly West the Bronco Bill's owner is fairly unaware of it, but the Urban Cowboys had been picking on the Club Future patrons who come into the courtyard where the Urbans like to drink and smoke. Nobody put in the hospital yet or anything, but it is perhaps impacting Club Future. 

Ginger happens to be the goddaughter or Patricia Kyono. The daughter of her old college best friend. That was the "in" for the adventure. Kyono asks the group to go to Club Future for a weekend evening and act like security (which Ginger so far has woefully little of) and hamper down any violent or threatening antics from the UC's. 

When the PC's entered the scene, it was early in the day and ginger showed up to open the club. She always showed up before other staff. She showed them around. Pointed out a small back lounge to use as a green room, and as staff showed up they were introduced to the couple of servers, and also the couple of bartenders. One was sort of a celebrity DJ/Mixologist names "DJ Drinkypoo." He both spun the discs and made high end cocktails at the same time. And there was the one security guy, "Clive Alive." This guy secretly had Might 1 and regeneration, and both him and Drinkypoo and their salaries is one reason the financials for Club Future were on the margins. 

The cowboy club  also operated as a regular bar, so they opened early in the day. So by the time some Future Trads arrived to dance at Club Future, there were already some drunk UC's in the courtyard ready to bully any lingering Trads, but a couple of the characters showed up to shut it down. 

Then arriving on a loud Harley was June "Cowgal" west. The interloper who caused some chaos for clicks at the first session Auditions scenario. 

Juniper West honestly grew up on a horse ranch, and after her teens started streaming videos of her riding but also popular for modeling and makeup tips. Rich to begin with, her modeling and streaming got her a decent following. And in more recent times she fully adopted the Urban Cowboy scene and is very popular in that. 

As Bronco Bill's owners favorite niece, Cowgal is big in that scene, and when she shows up and finds out that some of these people from the Justice Inc auditions were around, she went out in the courtyard and caused a fuss. "you're threatening my people!"

In tow was "Glen." an Urban Cowboy wanna be tough guy (as Rank 2, he could actually give a normal person a hard time, but any of the characters would flatten him unless he got lucky shots in). Glen fancied himself as dating Cowgal, but he is basically just a simp. He gets in Paladins face "why you wearing a mask, coward?" Paladin decided not to thump the dude. Honestly, I keep giving the characters opportunity for violence, but they often just stay chill. 

He's also Glen in the movie Urban Cowboy. BTW
played by the guy who was FBI director on Xfiles.

But more significantly was the presence of Wyatt Winchester. Now in his 50's, he was one of the first members of the old Justice Incorporated as "The Marshall" two decades before. I decided that for a few years he was involved with bar owner Shelly West and had given her niece Cowgal training in fighting and other performative cowboy skills in recent years. Even though he was also a bouncer manager at his girlfriend's Western club, he was only mildly aware of the bullying going on in the courtyards, so he backed up Cowgal and was even ready to throw some hands. 

this is probably not the last time I
will dip into the old characters of 
people I never see again

Cowgal and company huffed away, but she immediately got on the horn. That Ginger lady is bringing in these metahuman types to threaten her people? Fuck that. She made a call to Yuri "Heisenbrain" Heisen whom she met with some of the rejects in the parking lot after the auditions sessions. Heisenbrain had already gotten them together during the week to form a group called The Redeemers, and coming toot sweet to help Juniper West's aunt and the Urban Cowboys on this evening. 

So Heisen middle left, above him is Schnoz, to his right is Count Carl. Below him is 
Savio Totalpackage, down again is Sally Strong, and her left is Ragdoll. 

Later that night, it happened fast. Heisenbrain, a workshop scientist inventor who has different portable tech in each appearance. Here he brought shield projector belt for some protection, a collapsable concussive force rifle, a device that deadens electricity and disrupts wireless enough not to turn down the lights of music, but to scramble cameras and handheld devices. The main item he wanted to try in the field was his Enhancement ray pistol, where he can give somebody with normal strength and stamina a good enough boost to add 30 to their health and give Mighty 1 and Sturdy 1 to them. His plan with that was to enhance the normals Ragdoll and Savio when the time was right. 

Both Ragdoll and Count Carl had gotten into Club Future without any trouble. Ragdoll was on the dance floor and Count Carl was at the main bar, floating a couple feet off the ground, enjoying a cocktail.  

While Ragdoll was just sort of a Harley Quinn clone, Count Carl was a little more interesting. When I was creating NPC's to practice the system a year ago, I was calling him "Carl Cleric" for some reason. By now he was count. Originally from the 1960's, he was a vampire who hunted other vampires and monsters and such. Armed mostly with a mallet and stakes, he had Mighty 1 and could fly and phase through walls as well as other things. I originally was going to have him be German, but for some reason I started talking as him with a cockney accent. That maybe goes with his swinging 60's look I guess. 

This was around the time we knocked off for the night, and continue this the following week. Amber did not make the first part of the session, so when we started again I had her flying in the neighborhood sort of spying for incoming trouble. She did see someone over the club area. Her old nemesis from the very first session, the young inventor Blimpkrieg. 

Though he was updated a bit during the week by Heisenbrain, he was not really a match for Seraph as she flew into and through him and got a high damage number, knocking him out. He floated unconscious as she swooped down to the clubs. 

Unseen during the entire encounter was Schnozz, the street tough with a giant nose and Mighty 1, he was watching the back door. 

Heisenbrain used his enhancement ray to boost up both Ragdoll and Savio a bit. It did not matter much... even with her agility and martial arts skill Paladin smacked Ragdoll away, realizing even with Mighty 1 now, she was still no match for him. He was basically all about melee skills. He hits hard and is hard to hit. Regenerator as well, though that would not really enter into things until a bloodbath a couple sessions later. 

In the very first session of the campaign, I was calling her "Raggedy Ann.
But realized I didn't need another reference that aged me. So Now its Ragdoll.

Count Carl was not really into the fight, but he went ahead and took out his mallet and attacked Paladin. The man in black punched him hard and knocked him for a loop. 

Meanwhile, Igneous was taking on the muscle woman Sally Strong in the lobby. 

Both Sally and Iggy have Mighty 2 and some Sturdy 1 and 2 respectively. Also, Savio got hit with the enhancement ray ("hit me with the juice, old man!") but when he say Iggy was manhandling Sally, putting a crushing bear hug on her, Savio, who is smarter than he acts, went to the club bouncer Clive Alive, who was coming out of being knocked out by some kind of device from Heisenbrain, and asked if he could bum a cigarette. Savio stood out the rest of the encounter having a smoke.

Seraph showed up in the courtyard and saw both Cowboy bar owner Shelly and her boyfriend Wyatt Winchester, and asked them why they were victimizing Club Future. Shelly and Wyatt had no idea about the Redeemers coming in to cause trouble. They grabbed Cowgal and marched her into Club Future to put an end to the fight, and she did, yelling at Heisenbrain to call it off. 

The aggressors were told to leave (Cowgal promising they would get paid), and Cowgal made to apologize to owner Ginger. Going so far as to have Paladin escort Ginger into Bronco Bill's so Shelly could introduce her to the crowd, and to tell them they should be grateful for other businesses coming in to the area and to stop bothering patrons in the courtyard. 

Just as an aside, but I had an image I used for portrait a of Juniper West that her auntie had put up in the bar. It showed Juniper as a teen, in pre Cowgal days, actually working her families horse ranch. I wanted to humanize her a bit, because you can bet I will keep having her show up to stir the shit.

Before Cowgal, there was just Juniper West

The Redeemers were not much of a threat for the characters, Sally Strong maybe being the most effective of them besides Heisenbrain. And Yuri Heisen is not a villain really. He just liked chances to field test his inventions. But really, this group of kind of losers was just a taste of group combat for the characters. Bigger challenges were upcoming. 

But this was a couple of nice sessions to get the taste of the "neurodivergent situation" of the previous session out of my mouth.  Doing something a bit outside the typical comic book stuff such as the Bar Fight scenario was sort of fascinating the players. I mean, you come into a superhero game you expect to be right out in the streets slugging it out with real villains. That would be coming soon, but no rush. I like the chill speed things are going. But for sure these guys would need bigger challenges. It's going to come. 

Next time, the characters get places to live outside the office, and head towards their first big public fight. Stay tooned. 

Cheers

Justice Inc - the Campaign Continues (and an autistic player freaks out during an encounter)

 (note: halfway through this session I would have an interesting, and kind of troubling situation with one of the players. Most of the first half of the session was a meeting where a new players character was introduced. A mutant college girl with electrical abilities. The group doing the usual role play razzle dazzle. It was great. But the last hour or so of the night was not. Stay tuned.)  

So leaving off from last week, the characters had taken part in "auditions" for an unknown potential employer and met all kinds of weirdos (or at least maybe weirder than them). They passed the audition, informed by "Wilmington" of such, and piled into a couple of self-driving luxury limo vans to head to a meeting point. 

Meanwhile, some of the runners up of the auditions event had met in the parking lot and suggested to group together for their mutual benefit (they would eventually call themselves "The Redeemers"). I would be using them soon enough, but not in this session. But the sooner I start doing up challenges for the characters the better.

So they go to the venerable old Winston Bldg downtown. As I mentioned I used this building for the old Justice Incorporated games. In it were the JI offices (on a floor number and suite I never write down so probably different every time I mention it over the years).

There they meet Japanese Irish corporate CEO industrialist (and one of the richest people on the planet) Patricia Elizabeth Kyono in person. 

So they are informed of the history of her side thing Justice Incorporated. Once a street level organization, helping the downtrodden and higher-level people alike who find themselves victims of some unjust situation. With the organization in limbo for almost 10 years (in the setting), she wants to bring it back, this time with a group that has more power to it, similar to a typical superhero team situation. With an offer to maintain secret identity's if necessary, a place to stay if needed, and a few grand a month, she gets them to agree and gives them a special debit card, that can be used to withdraw cash, use as a bank card (Kyono owned bank of course), and even as a communication device and keycard to use the buildings private elevator and roof access. 

With the characters agreeing for now, they get introduced to Rachel, the offices receptionist and assistant. 

While permanent, off site accommodations are being looked into for the characters who need it, most of them crash at the offices which has three small bed chambers (not made for permanent stays) and a reception couch. Even with them staying there, and Rachel always being available, nobody has realized yet that she is a Life Model Replicant assistant model, produced by Kyono International. 

I am not exactly sure where Paladin came from 
(the Middle East maybe, the player said he came 
to have on a plane to attend the auditions, so he 
had no place to stay).

Seraph is a being from another dimension who had
been living in an abandoned warehouse, so she 
crashed at the office as well.

Igneous is a descendant of Titans who just wanders
the Earth. So he crashed there. 

Living in a professional workspace can be...
problematic to a certain degree

So not everybody had to live there. But the space is all appointed, with a main office, conference room, kitchenette and gym with small sauna. 

So yeah, most of the characters did go ahead and just start living there. And with the characters having got to know each other a bit, they went about their week. Seraph, the winged girl, actually trained a bit; some combat basics with paladin in the office, and with Igneous. He took her to an abandoned part of the railyard in town and had her fly around dodging big rocks he would throw. 

OK, so during that week of in game downtime I wanted to try something out. In my old campaigns, I would sometimes like to throw a quick encounter at a character solo. Like something designed to be quick, like 20 minutes max. Stop some muggers or something. 

I will call the player I did this with "C." He is a young dude in his late 20's I think, and I was fairly jazzed to get him on board originally because he has streamed probably at least 100 hours of running the Marvel Multiverse RPG online. Sessions with 4 or 5 players that went over four hours in some cases. I will admit I had only watched a few minutes of it here and there. Most of the videos have less than 5 views. I do not want to point him or his streams out, because as it turns out he clearly has some form of emotional issues and out of at least some compassion for it I do not want to identify him. 

But you don't have to look too deeply to find multiple instances of him identifying as neurodivergent in his videos. Like, totally embracing it. To me, using that term, is kind of broad. Forrest Gump and his chocolate box level of variety is what I think is under that umbrella. OK, cool. I always like to say "we are rpg players...we are all autistic." 

He seemed like a cool guy and I like him. It seemed a big surprise to him that I was calling for unique characters to be created. Like most others it seems who play this system, he prefers existing Marvel characters. Everybody is playing an X -Man character.  I was like, no, we get to be creative in my space. He came up with a character who was a Daredevil legacy character. His mentor was Matt Murdock in his 70's. The character was blind as well, but had Daredevil-like senses, but even more advanced. To the point he sort of had powers that gave him visions of possible future outcomes, and he could "see" down to the molecular level. Interesting. 

He was the one character in the group invested in crime fighting. That and C's experience running the game seemed a no brainer to try this.

OK, so back in the day I had this vigilante NPC I used for some Justice Incorporated stuff. Her name was "Sister Mary Alice," or "Malice." She was a revenant, a young nun who decades ago had been assaulted and killed and returned for vengeance. She would appear every few years for a time, having possessed the body of a young woman to use for her activities. 

Sister Mary could imbue her vessel with enhanced strength and resistance, and she could levitate, phase through matter, and teleport. She could also produce most any archaic weapon she wanted; swords, axes, spears, etc. Back in my old Justice Inc. campaigns she would commit murders that the characters would try to stop. I have her as Rank 4 in this system, which for sure made her a strong foe for any Rank 3 character. It's the strongest I ever had her in the history of my games. 

So, I would introduce her with this quick solo encounter. 

Also for this I created another female vigilante, "Devota," a young Latina woman in Day of the Dead makeup who was on a similar quest for vengeance as Mary's, but since she was mortal was using the pistols of her late Green Beret grandfather to take out men of violence. 

I actually had a T shirt long ago with a day of the dead lady on it, and back then I thought she might make a nice gritty vigilante character who was wronged by men and was taking her vengeance on them. I thought she would make an interesting indie comic book character. A wronged Catholic girl who brought justice to the hood. 

I was always fascinated by these. Growing up 
in Los Angeles I saw plenty of this over the decades.

You see the Dead Girl imagery a lot
on slot machines 

For this I would have Mary Alice raising from the grave once more and possessing some random young woman, in order to assist and protect this new, unpowered killer who was on a similar quest as hers. Local news reports spoke of dead gang members being found with both bullet and sword wounds. 

I had even had characters who moved around the city notice graphitti of Devota in rough parts of town, where she was already becoming an urban legend much like Malice was. 

So I had C's character on patrol in the bad part of town encounter her on the hunt. Actually, it was her disguised in trench coat and blond wig, luring several gang members to an alleyway then up on to a rooftop, before she revealed herself and started blasting. 

For the gang I used Baseball Furies from The Warriors

C's character showed up on the roof to confront it all. He seemed OK, until Devota started blasting on the gang members. This is where he started to have his apparent doubts. Sister Mary Alice rose up out of the rooftop as an apparition, created a sword, and ran it through one of the gangsters, at the same time telling Ghost not to interfere. At this point C was getting flustered, muttering "I don't know what to do!" and then "my neurodivergence!"

C was kind of paralyzed it seemed. Continuing to state things like "what should I do?"  I was all like "what do you want to do? What would this character do?"  I mean, this was a character based on Daredevil. And we know what he would do. Start punching faces maybe. 

It turned into a surreal situation. This guy ran over a hundred hours of this system online for a handful of people. I thought if anybody could help me make this a quick 15 minute encounter, it would be him. But I was I guess putting him on the spot. But it surprised me. I did stuff like this in all the genres I ever ran, something happen to a character while alone. Champions. Call of Cthulhu. Even Runequest. I think just a few minutes of that really gives a character some personal agency. Not all the time, but especially for a comic book thing. All the Avengers etc do some things alone. I have probably had people hesitate now and again. My past players were often friends of mine I had outside DnD. But this sort of gob smacked me. And I have the other players just hanging out while 10 minutes turned into 45. 

I finally coerced him to attack Mary Alice, and he did, but found his attack only did minimal damage. I told him she had great "Sturdy" and was a Rank 4 foe and he freaked out more. Again with the "but my neurodivergence!"  C had clearly decided at some point in his life that he would declare his neurodivergence at any opportunity. I had never encountered this before. If this was somebody new to rpg's you could expect some not knowing what to do. But I thought he would be perfect for this. Was meant to be the short showcase of the session but to me was a disaster. A failed experiment. 

I had the gang members scatter, and Devota took off down a fire escape, and Malice vanished as well.  I had the other players sitting there all that time just watching this play out. Not good. The teenager playing Ra-Ta the alien had checked out for the night. But I carried on for a bit to try and finish up the session.

C's character had called in the other characters Ghost to help search the area, but all the foes were long gone. 

I followed up with Kyono calling a meeting the next day to talk about a friend of hers, a goddaughter, who was running a night club and was having some trouble with the other nightclub across the street. We would get into the in the next session. But the waste of the better part of an hour and the seeming failure or doing little solo missions, left a bad taste in my mouth. 

We did not hear from C for several sessions, though he was still a member of the Discord. I think he was not there for the last 20 minutes or so of that session with the quiet freak out. At some point later, he messaged the group, just the other week "sorry guys, have been having some health issues." He did not mention neurodivergence there, but I am guessing yeah, he is dealing with issues. 

 It has been several sessions since that night, and I maybe should have tried to reach out. But I just gave him space. I hope it had nothing to do with a fairly gritty encounter. Guns and vengeance girls out of a Tarentiono movie. But shit, Quenten is one of my inspiration muses for style in my games (yes, even DnD) along with Sam Raimi and James Cameron. And Haven is, as I constantly stress, a kitchen sink. A pastiche world. Inspired by standard comics, cyberpunk, superhero deconstruction, gritty supernatural, future noir, anime, and 80's action movies. And I'm running for adults here.  Its going to be PG and sometimes its going to be rated R.

What're you gonna do. I could have handled it differently. I guess? I mean I was calm and kind during the encounter he was having a bad time with. Nobody else had much to say, maybe some being miffed by the wasted time.  Safe to say I am unlikely to try the "solo 20 minutes" things again. But maybe will have some split the party moments in the future that would be kind of like that. Anyway, as of today we are several sessions past that night, and I worked hard to present some fun stuff to make up for it, and it seems to be paying offing. Campaign is at the moment going well. 

Next I post on this, I will cover the following session that I based on two old movies, Roadhouse and Urban Cowboy. I called it "A night at Club Future." Cheers.