#sona iatra

[thenugking]

honestly the main issue with A Baroness and Sona and Dev is that they don’t have any plot outside the genre tournament

and it’s really annoying because there’s a lot of nods towards the fact that Maedryn is grooming Sona as your replacement, which is a way more personal plotline than the genre tournament, or Val, or the auditors, or the tenure track, but you’re never even given the option to react to it??

And if there’s a future of the series, a COG game isn’t going to be able to handle all eight approval-meter characters being present very well. I’d much rather have the original group back, and they’re generally more popular, but in that case, the Sona and Maedryn plot thread just isn’t going to go anywhere, so what was the point in it?

And A Baroness could have been doing so much behind-the-scenes manipulation!! But nope.

Everyone except Val is super under-utilised and then Val ends up being unintentionally annoying, because the game forces an Important Relationship between you, and you’re there going, “Wait but what about my important relationships from the first game??” And then you don’t get to form an important relationship with Abie or Sona or Dev, because there’s nothing personal there, you only really interact with them within the confines of the tournament, so when you’re given the option to have them be your nemesis (WAY too early in the game btw) why would you? Want Sona to be your nemesis so you can fight her for your mother’s love?? Not possible, you’re only ever going to talk to her about the tournament, why give your possible nemeses any character development or plotlines at all??

[thenugking]

Grand Academy For Future Villains II: Attack of the Sequel, Chapter 7: The Seventh Chapter. A commentary for Three.

General CW for the whole thing: parental abuse, internalised dehumanisation as a trauma response. Three’s not doing well.

Specific CW for this chapter: kink mention and (unintentional) lack of aftercare, suicide ideation

Game 1

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9

Game 2

Chapter 0 | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6

Alternatively, read on Google Docs here

***

Loading Alarm Module…

UNAUTHORIZED INTRUDER IN THE MAILROOM

ALL FACULTY TO BATTLE STATIONS

ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT

You know, I was pleased at the end of the last chapter, when Three was able to catch a break to go and have some fun virtual reality sex. I forgot that in the middle of this, Val was going to break into the mailroom, and give DarkBoard an anxiety attack. And look, I don’t want to get too much into the details of Three’s sex life, but it’s not exactly a secret that they’re a massive sub. And they like their sex rough, and they are going to be finding themself pushed out of a very intense scene with zero warning, with their dom too distracted by a panic attack to provide any kind of aftercare. I tried to give them a good time.

In the days and weeks after, wild rumors sprout and grow. Val's gone, that much is indisputable. So is Professor Arthenes. Your performance with Sona and Glupe in the simulation was witnessed by the entire school, but it seems that only the auditors and your nemesis—and perhaps Professor Ulik—know the truth of what happened in the garden.

Anyway, there’s not a whole lot to talk about for most of this chapter, with Scorpius being the one in the garden. But if Professor Ulik knows what happened, it’s likely Three does too. So it’s Three that Scorpius goes to when ze wants to get back to the mail room and follow Val, and make sure ze’s okay.

Three certainly has some misgivings about this, but they don’t want Val to feel they have to follow their destiny. Being bound to a certain path you don’t necessarily want to follow is exhausting, and painful--well, at least it sounds that way. And Scorpius does always get results. Somehow.

Through Three’s experience with the gardens, DarkBoard’s help, and the auditors’ permission, Three and Scorpius get into the mailroom. Scorpius leaves to find Val, leaving Three there alone.

Three looks around for a moment, and wonders what it would be like, to just fall into someone else’s narrative, and truly become a background character, and have nothing they do and nothing that happens to them matter at all. Isn’t that the end goal of trying to numb their feelings and be nothing but a tool? And instead they’re stuck with conflicting loyalties, and constant fear, and imperfect grades, and always being so tired, and always feeling so guilty, and having to make their own decisions because Maedryn’s too distracted and DarkBoard’s too temperamental and Ulik’s too stressed herself and Xi’s too not physically here anymore. It would be so easy to just let go of everything. It would be such a relief.

But without them, Ulik would have to handle everything herself, and Maedryn would either lose control or put too much pressure on Sona, and DarkBoard would need a new minion, and Aurion would have to find someone else to practice his gloating monologues on. Narrative oblivion can at least wait a little longer.

#"This…this wasn't my plan. None of it was. The mailroom thing, Professor Arthenes—that was all Val. I don't know what to do."

Sona is taken aback for a moment, then bursts out laughing. "You really had me going there, Three! All right, all right, so you're not going to tell me, fine. Your mom's the same way, did you know that? Never tells me anything. She was the one who got me the dress code exemption for my cannon arm, though, so she's cool."

She gets up from your bed. "Hey. Speaking of your mother. Is she OK? I tried talking to her about getting Science Fiction into a new dorm, and she just started talking about restocking the cleaning fluid. I guess it's all the clones. She really is worried about the house tournament, though. Keeps talking about our place in reality and what happens to us if we get our accreditation revoked. Too complicated for me! But I'm gonna get through this just fine, and once I do, I'll remember you were my friend. If you were my friend. Are you my friend? Wait, don't answer that, it's too cheesy."

As seen in the last scene, Three isn’t particularly doing well. I mean, they’re doing better than my last playthroughs, where they had Val as their roommate, were very much caught up in Val’s destiny, didn’t have their own space to retreat to, and never caught a single break. But this year has very much been taking its toll on them and while they’re much more proactive than they were last year, that was born from a despair over the fate of the rebel faculty that never really went away, and they’re out of their depth in being expected to make decisions so much.

Sona confirms it was Maedryn that got her the dress code exemption, which is unsurprising, if still upsetting. She does seem… closer to Maedryn than Three is entirely comfortable with. And Three is worried about Maedryn too. They’d been hoping that maybe Maedryn was just struggling to differentiate them from the clones, but Sona getting the same treatment isn’t good.

Although Maedryn’s distraction could make it easier to take her down.

...Three isn’t entirely sure where that thought came from. Too many lectures on betrayal, probably. It doesn’t mean anything.

Anyway, Three and Sona aren’t really friends. Sona’s not like Aurion, she seems like she’d be genuinely hurt by betrayal. And a friend wouldn’t undermine her efforts in trying to have Sci-Fi win the genre tournament, or subtly hint to their mother about how Sona may be unreliable. Three hopes Sona’s right, and she’ll get through it all just fine. They wish she didn’t think Maedryn was so cool.

#Take over Arthenes' core courses.

Professor Ulik looks exhausted at the proposition, but immediately sees its value. "You're right, Three. Someone needs to take over the Intermediate Antagonism course. That means more work for you, of course. I can't have you always running off for the house tournament. But someone needs to keep this school running; I know that, you know that, and I think the auditors know that."

Right. The school needs to be kept running. Three’s been letting themself get a bit too emotional lately. There are things they keep nearly thinking about. Time to just focus on work and suppress everything else harder than ever.

[thenugking]

Grand Academy For Future Villains II: Attack of the Sequel, Chapter 4: Revenge of Chapter Four. A commentary for Three.

General CW for the whole thing: parental abuse, internalised dehumanisation as a trauma response. Three’s not doing well.

Game 1

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9

Game 2

Chapter 0 | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

Alternatively, read on Google Docs here

***

"Access…granted."

You think you recognize an infinitesimal change in DarkBoard's collective voice.

"Xi?"

"Pitiful lump of flesh," says DarkBoard, in a tone that you can almost imagine is affectionate. (You do have to imagine it; it's the same neutral affect it's always had.)

That's the RA you remember. And even assimilated into the school administrative system, you know that Xi remembers you as well.

"Remember you?" says Xi, in DarkBoard's voice. "I don't need to remember you, mortal. What need of memory when my knowledge of you is absolute? I know your every move, every grade, every time you check your financial aid balance. The fastest flicker of your mind is but a slow graceful meat ballet to me."

#"Xi! People can hear us!"

"Not as completely as I can hear them," intones the school administrative system, which now includes the intelligence of your former RA. "You could hear them as I do, Three. If you joined me in these depths of endless clarity…."

Getting new accommodations for Sci-Fi is another scene that doesn’t actually happen, with Val as Scorpius’ roommate, but I think it’s pretty clear by this point that Three is talking to Xi/DarkBoard a lot, so this particular conversation definitely still takes place at some point.

I was a little surprised this dialogue remains the same if you just had Xi as your commander/minion, rather than love interest, because this definitely reads as weird flirting, particularly with this response. In any case, Xi/DarkBoard does weirdly flirt with Three a lot, and Three panics a bit that other people might overhear/be secretly surveilling them. Not that they can ever bring themself to object to DarkBoard too strongly.

Your mind is racing. The Board of Visitors and Overlords, visiting the school in person! (Or whatever passes for person among their dreadful company.) And authorized to issue Destinies… Better than a job offer, a Destiny guarantees you an unforgettable story, whether you accept it or you fight it. 

Student demonstrating sufficient narrative weight. Do you have narrative weight? Surely you must. Look at all you've done for Sci-Fi—and for yourself! 

Then it hits you. There's one surefire way to demonstrate that you're a villain worth taking seriously: a nemesis.

I don’t think Val shows Three the documents, but they can probably find out enough from Scorpius blabbing to them, DarkBoard diverting a few private emails, and Ulik filling them in on what’s going on. Their response is to decide to keep their head down and draw as little attention as possible. They do not have narrative weight. They do not want narrative weight. They are a supporting character who will never be important enough to make narrative decisions, and should on no account be given a destiny, and that suits them perfectly. It’s not simply that destinies are controlling--while they’d been against the idea of one in the first place, seeing Val’s problems just solidifies that. More importantly, destinies are for people who are brave, and take lead, and are beholden to no one, and will inevitably engage in dramatic, final showdowns with the person responsible for all the hurt they’ve ever gone through. Living tools don’t have anything that can be hurt, and therefore won’t ever have to turn on the person who raised them.

Unfortunately for Three, not many of their classmates share their views. As the auditors arrive, half the Academy seems to be trying to prove themselves, and half of them are looking for a nemesis to do so. Three still finds the idea of getting a nemesis somewhat ridiculous, and doesn’t have the time to deal with one, anyway. This doesn’t stop Aurion from trying to find them one, in between excitedly recounting every detail of his latest battles with Cazenar. 

A Baroness and Sona, trying to raise their own narrative importance, both approach Three asking them to be their nemesis. A Baroness is careful to point out it would be a mutually beneficial arrangement. Neither of them are likely to find anyone quite so competent as each other to fight, and challenging each other would really let them exercise and develop their tactical skills, as well as being good publicity for both Sci-Fi and Thriller. Sona simply says that if they both want control over Sci-Fi and to be Maedryn’s Number Two, they might as well make it official, right? Three tells them both that they raise excellent points, and they’d be lucky to have such an incredible nemesis, but they’re afraid they need to focus on their schoolwork at the moment and aren’t ready to commit to that intense a relationship yet.

In-game, Maedryn becomes their nemesis since it highlights the importance of their relationship, and Three just doesn’t have a real connection with any of the other nemesis options (other than Aurion, of course, but he’s taken). In-universe though, Three continues to give no indication they’re not perfectly content with all of Maedryn’s actions.

ENTERING NARRATIVE DIAGNOSTICS MODE…

Your narrative weight increases at a steady pace. The choices that you make which defy others' plans for you—even the pull of villainy itself—only increase your sense of narrative gravity.

Well, DarkBoard’s clearly feeling unwell. Three spends that evening carefully attending to their every desire, both to help them feel better, and to demonstrate that they have no interest in defying anything other people want for them. If DarkBoard’s assessment of their narrative weight doesn’t change afterwards, that is clearly just bias in their minion’s favour.

[thenugking]

Grand Academy For Future Villains II: Attack of the Sequel, Chapter 3: Legend of Chapter Three. A commentary for Three.

General CW for the whole thing: parental abuse, internalised dehumanisation as a trauma response. Three’s not doing well.

Game 1

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9

Game 2

Chapter 0 | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

Alternatively, read on Google Docs here

***

Your mother gives you a nod as you slide into your seat. She's decorated her classroom in a style you recognize from her lab back in your childhood home: deconstructed doomsday devices on the walls, and here and there trophies of vanquished enemies. The column containing her former mentor (and your former professor) Dr. Cerebrist, in suspended animation, is a centerpiece of the classroom. 

The Science! elective is open to students of all levels, so while you know a number of your classmates, some are new to you. From the back of the classroom, Sona waves her cannon arm at you, in what you choose to interpret as a friendly and sociable manner.

"I wonder," says your mother, "do you all know what you're doing here?"

This sort of thing is usually the prelude to making an example of whoever's foolish or proud enough to open their mouth, and the class stays quiet. 

"Science!" she announces, and begins stalking down the classroom. "The wonder and power of forbidden knowledge! The—"

"Professor Maedryn?" Sona has put her cannon into the air. You see a number of your classmates duck, wary of the weaponry, or of the usual reaction your mother has to being interrupted. But your mother does not react with the flamboyant fury that the class has come to know and expect. Maybe your mother is making a point to you, that she's cultivating Sona as a potential replacement. Especially since you aren't taking the leadership of the Science Fiction residence hall.

Sona seems completely unconscious of her privileged status. "You keep talking about science, Professor," she says, "but when are we going to actually do any?"

Between this and a few other scenes, Three is fairly certain that Maedryn is indeed cultivating Sona as a potential replacement. And with this happening in Three’s game so soon after the first time they ever really disobeyed Maedryn, it makes even more sense. I’m toying with having Maedryn make Sona her TA, too. Being Sci-fi’s RA and genre leader, all while studying for her final year at the Academy is probably more than enough for Sona to be getting on with, without TA duties too, but Maedryn isn’t the kind of person to care about people’s limits. And I’m not sure that Sona would realise that she couldn’t handle all of it quickly enough to refuse.

Three’s first reaction to realising Sona’s their potential replacement is fear that Maedryn may not find them useful for much longer. Closely followed by fear for Sona, who doesn’t deserve to have to keep up with Maedryn’s ever growing demands. They’ve spent so long struggling to remain Maedryn’s number one for their own safety, they haven’t considered how awful that position would be for some kind of actual person with their own desires and freedom.

It’s also seeming likely that Maedryn was the person who got Sona permission to have so many personal weapons attached to her. Which stings a little, considering Three doesn’t dare ask their mother if she’d mind them upgrading “her” body with technological capabilities.

"Ah! Three! Professor Ulik says, even before you enter the classroom. "I've got a stack of quizzes for you to grade. Go ahead, take them now; you can do them along with the homework for this class."

The Evil Landscape Architecture elective is open to students of all levels, so while you know a number of your classmates, some are new to you. A Baroness is already at her workstation, and her eyes flick briefly over to you as you enter the classroom. She moves slightly so as to conceal her design from your prying gaze. Clearly she wishes to give nothing away.

The class is working on an actual piece of the Academy grounds: a burned-out section behind the Dining Hall that was damaged in the Faculty War last year. Professor Ulik, as part of her plans to rehabilitate herself after her place in the rebellion, is turning these grounds into a garden, with the help, not to mention the free labor, of her students.

So far the plan for the garden (occasionally referred to as a pleasure garden, occasionally as a terror garden) is in the design phase. Professor Ulik wants her students to have a thorough grounding in the principles of evil design before implementing anything on the school grounds, and so at first you think today will be another class on theory.

"Ms. The Deathless," she says to a bandage-wrapped junior from Fantasy, "Why did you decide to take this class?"

"Well," says Kayla the Deathless, twirling a bandage around her fingers, "it was, like, to develop my sense of personal style, you know, for my tomb or whatever. Personal style is so important."

"No!" snaps Professor Ulik. "Personal style is of tertiary importance at best. Quaternary! If you do your jobs right, your designs will speak for you. And crush your enemies for you! If you chose this elective because you thought it was going to make you flashier, that you could go swanning about spitting sparks like certain candidates for full professorship—"

That's definitely your mother she's referring to.

"—then you are in the wrong class! I expect hard work, concentration, and your full—full attention!"

Everyone straightens up. A Baroness delicately drapes a handkerchief over her work so no one can sneak a glance at it.

I felt a tiny bit bad in the first game that as Competence-focused as they were, Three’s favourite class was a Style one. Ulik teaching a Competence class is everything they want from their education, and they’re honoured to have the opportunity to work on the design of the Academy itself. With all the problems they’re dealing with this year, working on Evil Landscaping, and starting to see something form and grow the way they wanted it to, provides a much needed escape. 

Three spends as much time as they feel they can get away with helping Ulik, and their ever growing interest in design leads to them starting to map out the uncharted areas of the Academy too, and trying to better their understanding of how the Academy expands itself. For now, they only share their discoveries with DarkBoard and Professor Ulik, both of whom are very happy with the results.

And then there’s the fact that Ulik is perfectly happy to insult Maedryn in front of her entire class. Three is a little concerned that this could draw Maedryn’s attention to her in a very bad way, and lead to a further test of their loyalties. They admire Ulik for being so unafraid of Maedryn though--with other people they might have assumed insulting Maedryn was an act of foolishness, but that is certainly not the case with Ulik--and it is refreshing to hear her spoken of quite so dismissively. And it is certainly nice to know Ulik has no particular respect for her colleague, and isn’t likely to get Three in trouble if they ever say anything non-complimentary about their mother.

#Traps of some sort. I'm a master at puzzles, and what's an evil landscape without cunningly designed traps?

You begin sketching immediately, keeping a running column of notes. You design site-specific traps and traps that could be integrated into the landscape anywhere in the garden. You design fatal traps, merely humiliating traps, darkly ironic traps, and some traps that pay obvious tribute to the Sci-Fi genre.

Professor Ulik pauses as she walks by your workstation. She's been going through the room answering questions and making suggestions, but she stops short at the sight of your designs. 

"No, no, Three, this is very good," she says, in response to your questioning look. "Very good indeed. I'm going to have to review these, of course, but I think you can be pretty well assured that these are going to have a place in the final design. And I'm going to have to have a talk with the Sci-Fi faculty sponsor—these are exemplary."

Three loves trap design--they’re basically advanced strategy puzzles--and they love it even more when Ulik compliments their work. They know she’s honest, and not impressed easily. But the really important thing here is that Ulik’s going to be finding Maedryn and letting her know how absolutely incredible her kid is.

This is your chance to make any major modifications to your personal appearance—barring unforeseen lab accidents, of course. Looking the part of a Sci-Fi villain may or may not help your residence hall, but it will give you a chance to stand out. And frankly, given that the maintenance staff are all clones of you, standing out might be particularly important.

The clones make Three a lot less eager to change their appearance, actually, and it’s not even primarily about keeping Maedryn happy now. While there’s a part of them that would love to go for a cybernetic enhancement and featureless silver eyes, Three has a surefire way to go wherever they want in the Academy almost entirely unnoticed. They may not be happy about the clones, but if they’re here, Three’s going to make sure they can use them. Even if they don’t need to spy on someone, or gain access to a restricted area, it’s nice to have the option to just slip away far beneath everyone’s notice and just clean or fix something for a bit.

LOADING DARKBOARD STUDENT MESSAGING…

    You Have 60 Unread Messages

    Message 1

    Subject: Your Science! Homework

    Message 2

    Subject: Your Science! Homework - revision

    Message 3

    Subject: Re: Your Science! Homework

    Message 4

    Subject: Tenure Discussion - Assassinations?

    Message 5

    Subject: DarkBoard, Recall Previous Message!

    Message 6

    Subject: Tenure Discussion - Assassinations?

    Message 7

    Subject: NO NOT LIKE THAT!

    Message 8

    Subject: Recall! Cancel! Do not send! Mewling computer, do you dare defy

    CHARACTER LIMIT REACHED

It’s nice that managing the clones is keeping Maedryn distracted, too. Three apologises to DarkBoard for their mother’s rudeness, and mentions that they hope no one who wishes to undermine Maedryn thinks to forward these messages to Professor Ulik and Professor Fen. It is such a shame that AIs have a habit of picking up out of context bits and pieces of dialogue like, “Forward these messages to Professor Ulik and Professor Fen,” as Three and DarkBoard both agree afterwards.

You're awakened in the middle of the night by someone shaking you. You fumble under your pillow for your knife. A hand grabs your wrist. 

Val?

"Get up! Three! Grab Anaxogoras and run!"

"What?"

"No time! No time! We've got to get out of the Sci-Fi dorm now!"

You scoop Anaxogoras out of its box and into your arms. It burbles questioningly. You grab for your backpack that you always leave beside the bed. Grabbing your school papers, and your new suit, you fling open the door to your room. Val throws on a bathrobe and the two of you race through the hallways and the stairs, past the outer doors, and out into the night air. 

"Val, what are you—"

There's a deafening explosion and the upper deck of the starbase goes up in flames.

Obviously, since Val is roommates with Scorpius, who’s in Thriller, ze does not blow up Three’s room in the Sci-Fi dorm. Ze’d instead be betraying Thriller to Sci-Fi and blowing up their bunker. And while Three isn’t interested in taking part in the genre tournament, they’re at least keeping an eye on what Sona’s doing, and keeping her and Maedryn as happy as possible, so they’d definitely hear about the plan.

The thing is though, Thriller’s dorm getting blown up will be unlikely to reflect well on Professor Ulik, as faculty sponsor. While winning or losing the tournament is unlikely to be a big decider on who gets the tenured position, Three would feel much more comfortable if Thriller did better in it than Sci-Fi. They find ways to subtly undermine Sci-Fi’s efforts when possible, and make sure A Baroness gets an anonymous tip about Val, so the explosives can be deactivated in time. A Baroness, as head of the Shadow Council, is competent and powerful enough to trace the tip back to Three, and suggests that if they don’t want Sona and Maedryn finding out what they did, they make sure the explosion actually goes off in the Sci-Fi dorm.

Meanwhile though, Scorpius is hating being in Thriller and, after running away from zir room one day when ze accidentally released a scorpion in there, ended up hitting it off with Dev, crashing in their room for a while, and deciding Horror was the best genre and absolutely deserved to win the tournament. Thriller, on the other hand, is the worst, and boring, and A Baroness told zir off for accidentally letting zir scorpions escape in the common room, and then all the competent Thriller villains judged zir, so Scorpius is willing to do whatever it takes to bring them down. Ze steals the explosives before Three can pick them up, runs off and dumps them in a dungeon, and promptly forgets where ze left them.

Three was, obviously, not doing well with the discovery that A Baroness had tracked them down and had blackmail information on them. They can at least now counter with a, “I’m sure it wouldn’t be good for your reputation if anyone knew you let one of your own steal and lose the explosives,” while they try to track down any more blackmail on her. Fortunately for them, A Baroness finds that she keeps running into errors on DarkBoard whenever she’s considering moving against Three. While she now finds it even more prudent to keep an eye on them, she decides that having her financial account suspended, her weekly schedule displayed incorrectly, and her homework submissions blocked isn’t quite worth the effort.

Val, meanwhile, has picked up a few things about Three while working with both Sona and A Baroness, and has enough influence with DarkBoard, to also realise it’s worth keeping an eye on them, and their slowly growing narrative weight. And since, if you make a deal with her after she blows up your dorm on a Sci-Fi or Fantasy route, Sona tells you that Maedryn wants her to find information on Val, it seems likely that Three has also been instructed to do that. Three and Val are definitely going to end up having some talks about Destiny and their motivations, although I’ll get into those more in the next chapter.

While all that is happening, over in Fantasy, Cazenar has decided he doesn’t care as much about his genre winning the tournament as he does about betraying Aurion, who recently agreed to be his nemesis. He ends up finding the explosives Scorpius lost in the dungeons, and promptly uses them to blow up the Fantasy dorm. And that’s how all three of my PCs end up trying to take down their own genres in the genre tournament.

[thenugking]

Grand Academy For Future Villains II: Attack of the Sequel, Chapter 1: Return of Chapter One. A commentary for Three.

General CW for the whole thing: parental abuse, internalised dehumanisation as a trauma response. Three’s not doing well.

Specific CW for this chapter: kink mention in the linked post

Game 1

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9

Game 2

Chapter 0

Alternatively, read on Google Docs here

***

"Not so fast."

A small, well-manicured hand lands on your shoulder. It's attached to a petite, well-groomed student you think you've seen before, although you can't be quite sure. Is she an upperclassman? Was she in one of your clubs last year?

"Trying to place me?" A half-smile on the pale pink lips. "Go on. I'm sure you'll get it eventually."

She lets you squirm for a bit—you're certain you ought to know her, and you're becoming increasingly convinced that it's a problem that you don't. 

"And you're a Shadow Council member too! Tchk!" She makes a sound against her sharp white teeth, somewhere between disapproval and laughter.

"You won't remember me," she says after another agonizingly awkward moment. "I've put in a good deal of work to make sure that you don't. I'm A Baroness. The head of the Shadow Council."

The Shadow Council! Your mother's old secret society. The one that you successfully pledged last year! Do they have some sort of assignment for you?

"This isn't Shadow Council business, though," she says, giving the Dining Hall a quick, critical glance. "But it's something that you need to hear. This way."

Her hand moves from your shoulder to your wrist, and with only the lightest touch, she's steering you out of the Dining Hall towards the Library.

Three really wanted to go and have a breakdown in their dorm room, but while their Horrible Very Bad No-Good Day continues, their first meeting with a Baroness at least goes very badly for her, too. 

Something I’ve realised about Three is that their odd mix of tactless bluntness and emphasis on proper etiquette to an absurd degree is a result of them being an autistic who doesn’t understand social cues, and overcompensates to try not to mess up. Which resonates very strongly with this tumblr post about Prince Charming from Cinderella being faceblind. “They call him prince charming because he’s always really polite to strangers to cover for the fact that he doesn’t know if he’s supposed to recognize them from somewhere,” is absolutely Three.

So no, Three doesn’t squirm. They are very used to being unable to recognise people and just being polite to them until (and after) they can work out who they are. I’m sure A Baroness still points out that Three won’t remember her, but when Three apologises that they are bad at faces, “This happens all the time, it’s nothing personal. I assume you have changed your hairdo? It suits you,” A Baroness realises that putting in a great deal of work into making sure Three wouldn’t remember her was maybe not entirely necessary.

"Sona. Dev. Aurion." Your guide nods to them. "I've brought…"

She looks to you, and you can feel the weight of the conversation tipping onto you all at once.

"Three." It would have been pointless to lie; Aurion, your former hallmate, is sitting right there. His eyes bore into you. What is Aurion doing here?!

"Three. Of course." A Baroness's smile doesn't show the sharp teeth beneath. "I thought it might be 3."

You wince. That's the name your mother calls you. It made a lot more sense once you learned that you were the result of her early experimentation into replication, and that was more of a designation of the experiment itself. Though your mother uses it affectionately, you'd rather it not get out.

But it's only natural that A Baroness would know it, though. The Shadow Council makes it its business to access hidden knowledge and use that knowledge for its own purposes.

And this encounter continues to go badly for A Baroness. This is exactly the sort of situation I was talking about back in my first entry:

“This does, of course, result in a lot of funny experiences in-game, where people try and psych me out by knowing my birth name and Three’s just, “Yes, that is my name, are you feeling all right?” It’s not impossible that these still take place, even with Three using their mother’s name; in the very next scene, Xi reveals they can hear how people spell things. I’m sure there are some people in the Academy who would deliberately say 3, rather than Three, and hope that Three hears the insult. They don’t.”

A Baroness spends her whole introduction trying to psych you out. Of course she’d make sure to say 3. Of course she’ll be a little bit frustrated when Three doesn’t react badly to it. But it may, in fact, be even worse than that. A Baroness is (along with Aurion) one of the two nemeses in the second game who’ll turn you down if she finds out you had Xi--and therefore now have DarkBoard--as your nemesis, because she very much does not want to get on DarkBoard’s bad side. And since Xi--and presumably also DarkBoard--can hear how people spell things, they’re now very unhappy about A Baroness disrespecting their… whatever exactly their relationship with Three is.

It doesn’t help her that she’s also invited Scorpius to the meeting, recently returned from a prestigious internship with Macroworld, and a new member of the Thriller dorm after deciding ze wants to get serious this year (this ambition lasts about five days). I think A Baroness would see Scorpius (and, for that matter, Three) as someone a lot of people underestimate, and would want a chance to really get their measure. Which is all well and good, but when everyone introduces themselves, Scorpius suggests everyone give their favourite ice cream flavour, which gives us this:

"And my favorite flavor of ice cream?" She looks at you narrowly, trying to guess the intent behind your words. "Oh, I don't indulge. My favorite ice cream is a sparkling water with a light essence of kale."

At which point... Well, Three is not particularly happy about being dragged into this, and doesn’t think A Baroness should be a particular threat in this case. Which means they’re feeling enough of an asshole to respond with, “Sparkling? And yet you… ‘Don’t indulge’?” Scorpius informs them both that they’re the two most boring people ze’s ever met.

(Three tells Scorpius that they’re sorry ze is perhaps not getting the answers ze wanted, but they have eaten ice cream only once, as a child, and found it very cold and a little sweet for their tastes, so cannot give an adequate answer here.)

#"Why are you telling me this?"

"Ah," says A Baroness. "Well, you're a rather special individual, Three, aren't you?"

"I suppose you know why we've called you here today," says Dev, in as creditable an imitation of an HR manager as you've ever heard from a disembodied voice.

You think back over the events of the previous year. There certainly were occasions you distinguished yourself. Your academic excellence, for instance. Your grades were so high that DarkBoard required additional processing power to manage them. You're a TA this year, though you haven't selected which class you'll be working with yet.

"I'm sure you can see why we'd want to bring you in early," says A Baroness. "Your position as a teaching assistant will give you a great deal of access."

This is all public knowledge. But in your heart of hearts, why are you really here?

Well, Three is certainly worried about the Auditors, but this is their most pressing question right now, as they are very much not important, thank you very much. They also get the uneasy feeling that there are reasons A Baroness isn’t telling them. After all, they’re hardly the only TA in the school, and if she’d just wanted someone with perfect grades, she already has Aurion.

As for Three’s “heart of hearts”... They’re fairly certain they don’t have one of those. They’re here to serve Maedryn, because where else would they be?

How do you plan to deal with Sona?

If you can defeat this heavily modified young champion, you will be responsible for leading Science Fiction to victory in the upcoming tournament of genres. Play to your strengths…or pick grounds where you know you'll lose.

#I'm going to throw this fight.

A position of leadership in a year-long tournament, bound to involve a lot of working together and socialising, could barely sound any less appealing to Three. They aren’t sure how much loyalty to Science-Fiction they even possess; it may be their home genre, and they may enjoy the easy access to weapons and gadgets, but they don’t have any strong personal feelings on the subject. And they’re suddenly realising the Sci-Fi dorm is going to feel very lonely this year, without Xi and Aurion. Sona, on the other hand, seems personable and enthusiastic. While she may be a little too much for Three’s tastes, they want to be less quick to judge people this year, and those traits certainly put Sona in a much better position to be leader than Three’s in.

They lose, and put up enough of a fight that no one thinks that was what they were trying to do, and get to remain in their favourite position of being unimportant, and underestimated.