{"id":2377,"date":"2014-01-21T16:29:09","date_gmt":"2014-01-21T22:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/?p=2377"},"modified":"2014-01-21T16:30:21","modified_gmt":"2014-01-21T22:30:21","slug":"better-angels-guts-and-brains-of-the-villainous-nine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/2014\/01\/better-angels-guts-and-brains-of-the-villainous-nine\/","title":{"rendered":"Better Angels: Guts and Brains of the Villainous Nine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by Greg Stolze and illustrated by Kurt Komoda, \u00a9 2014<\/em><\/p>\n

Brian \u201cBrains\u201d Ornichowski took up the cape and mask because he felt he had no choice.\u00a0 The love of his life, Griselda Jackson, had become a vigilante because, clearly, no one else gave a damn about their hometown of Detroit, where he was an inner city schoolteacher and she was a municipal accountant railing against waste and corruption.<\/p>\n

Griselda was approached by\u00a0General Null<\/a>, offering to give her all the power she needed to put a real scare into the mayflies of political patronage.\u00a0 He was quite upfront about the risks and costs, however.\u00a0 She would, literally, be dealing with the devil.\u00a0 He was poring through museums and private collections to find demonic amulets, and he had one that would make her unbelievably tough.\u00a0 She signed up and brought along this shy schoolteacher who\u2019d asked her out to coffee after she interrupted a schoolboard meeting to shout \u201cSit\u2019cher ass down and shut\u2019cher mouth up!\u201d to a citizen who was rather disrespectfully arguing against teaching Darwin\u2019s theory in school.<\/p>\n

What no one knew was that the demons instilled in Griselda and Brian were, themselves, passionate lovers.\u00a0 Brian finds this perfectly delightful.\u00a0 Griselda, who never really reciprocated his adoration, is far less comfortable with the \u2018foursome\u2019 possibilities.\u00a0 But compared to burning down an orphanage to keep her monster happy, negotiating for cuddle time with a man who respects and loves her seems pretty benign.<\/p>\n

If only she hadn\u2019t met a man who really<\/i> turns her on…<\/p>\n

\"Better-Angels---Guts-and-Brains\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Brains<\/h2>\n

Outside the costume, Brian is a slender gentleman in his forties, biracial and tidy, but with a certain well-used shabbiness to his polo shirts and khakis.\u00a0 He has a small goatee and mustache.<\/p>\n

As \u2018Brains,\u2019 he wears a neon-green bodysuit under a white lab coat.\u00a0 When he activates his \u2018Flame-Wreathed\u2019 Aspect, it looks like his head bursts open and fire shoots out of his exposed brain.\u00a0 (The rest of his body doesn\u2019t have naked flames, but is surrounded by writhing heat-haze.)<\/p>\n

CUNNING<\/strong> 4, PATIENT<\/strong> 3
\nGreed<\/em> 2, Generosity<\/em> 2
\nEspionage<\/em> 3, Knowledge<\/em> 3<\/p>\n

SLY<\/strong> 1, OPEN<\/strong> 1
\nCruelty<\/em> 0, Courage<\/em> 2
\nCowardice<\/em> 2, Endurance<\/em> 1<\/p>\n

DEVIOUS<\/strong> 3, INSIGHTFUL<\/strong> 1
\nCorruption<\/em> 1, Nurture<\/em> 2
\nDeceit<\/em> 2, Honesty<\/em> 1<\/p>\n

POWERS<\/strong>: Alchemy, Arrogance<\/p>\n

ASPECTS<\/strong>: Ghost Form, Flame-Wreathed<\/p>\n

PRIMARY SINFUL STRATEGY<\/strong>: Cunning<\/p>\n

Guts<\/h2>\n

Griselda is a curvy, short black woman with miniature dreadlocks, killer cheekbones, and intense brown eyes that look like they could power a small suburban condominium.\u00a0 She usually wears bright pantsuits, but when running around doing crimes as Guts, she favors a voluminous set of black coveralls.\u00a0 This is because the form her Armor power takes is roll after roll of flabby, pendulous\u00a0 fat.\u00a0 When she activates either (or both) Aspects, her skin turns a bright, leathery green and her face deforms into a toadlike monstrosity.<\/p>\n

CUNNING<\/strong> 2, PATIENT<\/strong> 1
\nGreed<\/em> 1, Generosity<\/em> 1
\nEspionage<\/em> 2, Knowledge<\/em> 2<\/p>\n

SLY<\/strong> 3, OPEN<\/strong> 3
\nCruelty<\/em> 3, Courage<\/em> 2
\nCowardice<\/em> 2, Endurance<\/em> 3<\/p>\n

DEVIOUS<\/strong> 2, INSIGHTFUL<\/strong> 1
\nCorruption<\/em> 3, Nurture<\/em> 1
\nDeceit<\/em> 4, Honesty<\/em> 1<\/p>\n

POWERS<\/strong>: Armor, That Hideous Strength<\/p>\n

ASPECTS<\/strong>: Carapace, Horned (in her case, a gaping frog-maw of fangs)<\/p>\n

PRIMARY SINFUL STRATEGY<\/strong>: Sly<\/p>\n

\"Better<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Greg Stolze and illustrated by Kurt Komoda, \u00a9 2014 Brian \u201cBrains\u201d Ornichowski took up the cape and mask because he<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[144],"tags":[142,11,220,289],"class_list":["post-2377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-better-angels","tag-characters","tag-greg-stolze","tag-kurt-komoda","tag-villainous-nine"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Better-Angels-Guts-and-Brains-front.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1wrNI-Cl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2377"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2381,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2377\/revisions\/2381"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcdream.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}