Other Kith

I hope if you celebrate US Independence Day, you had a good holiday, and if not, I hope you had a good day anyway!

Shari (Cordy) has glasses, tends to wear dresses, and her eyes sometimes glow green. Each Wraithborne soul has a specific color associated with them or their power.  She tends to wear gold, though.  A lot like her vampire self from my Dresden Files crossover, she owns a lot of the city, pretty much, though not everyone realizes.  It's a lot of hard work, a lot of contacts, a lot of rep.  She's actually one of those people who has spreadsheets once she started playing the game in earnest, because there was no point just playing if she wasn't going to play well.  She felt weird briefly about being dead and basically possessing her dead body, realized that she wasn't decaying and could still buy nice clothes (nicer, even, given that she didn't have to use real-world money for it) and threw herself into the Kith wars, muscling out some of the other big corps in the most cutthroat way she can.  They haven't talked about it, but she agrees with Xander that she's not sure she wants to go back, because she feels the same--they're both somebody here, they're not losers, and they'd have to face the fact that life is not what they hoped if they went back.

Despite liking Akuma, Val actually ends up hanging out a lot with Lusus Naturae, Wraithborne, and  Mechanoids as fellow outsiders. He feels a little helpless with the Mechanoids because they are, more than anyone, losing some control of their humanity. They’re in existential despair as they don’t even have bodies with flesh anymore. He’s organized sports to emphasize that they still experience the simulated sensation of touch, and art/film things to try to prove to them that they’re not losing their artistic, creative touch. He has been looking into biotech a little, having a few talks with Sheni characters, to see if they can’t cyborg in the other direction. It might be a little disgusting and they might not like it, but it’s a possible solution.

Oz is a Lusus Naturae werewolf. He was dating Willow, but she couldn’t do long-distance, so they broke up. He knew that she always had a crush on Xander and that she’d been able to act as his hero by saving him from the clutches of the horrible teacher and feels bad about being mad at him, but can’t help it.  Well, until they finally, uh, "talked" (see last post).

Angel was in grad school and dating Buffy when she was in college. He broke up with her and went into therapy for anger issues, because he didn’t want to hurt her. It took her a while to get over it. He plays, specifically a Mechanoid, and he doesn’t really worry about losing his humanity, unlike most Mechanoids. He likes to help from a distance. He’s part of Shari’s Kith, Ninazu Logistics, and is on ‘helping Slayers’ duty whenever they ask Shari for help, sometimes with others. He generally has a robot butler look going on. Val will keep him updated on Alacine’s current state, which he’s happy with, although he’s started asking a lot less since Alacine (Buffy) and Metis (Willow) started dating.

It took Xander a while to come to terms with it, though. The age gap was much lower but the whole concept of the thing wigged him out so he was a little actively hostile about it all. He’s seen the change in Angel, though, the fact that he’s a better guy who cared enough to break up with the person he was in love with and try to change. Buffy got the idea he was in love with her and jealous. If he had been at all before Miss French, though, he 100% was not after. Again, she didn’t get the full context of the situation. It also took Xander a while to figure out why, so he couldn’t argue much either.