- Invitation Status
- Look for groups
- Looking for partners
- Posting Speed
- One post per week
- Writing Levels
- Adept
- Advanced
- Prestige
- Douche
- Adaptable
- Preferred Character Gender
- Male
- Female
- Nonbinary
- Transgender
- Primarily Nonbinary
- No Preferences
- Genres
- Modern Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Low Fantasy, Historical, Horror
In a dilapidated motel room at the end of the world, an antiquated television hummed to life. Its picture was choppy and made worse by the stilted delivery of the solitary figure who adorned the screen. He wore a navy blue suit jacket and a black tie, the corners of his mouth besieged by involuntary twitches as he spoke. The dim glow of the monitor sent vermin of various sizes scuttling under wrecked and rotting remnants of wooden furniture.
"San Luca has entered a miniature renaissance, as the city once ranked among California's most dangerous now boasts its very own team of seemingly superpowered guardians. These heroes, self-identified as "The Shitlords", have proved far more valuable than their flippant moniker suggests. Rates of violent crime are down drastically in the year since they were first spotted getting involved in police business and citizens are treating them like characters straight from the pages of a comic book. Similar to a Hollywood blockbuster rendition of an origin story, the sky appears to be the limit for these young heroes. However, there remains a question on many minds that simply isn't on anyone's lips: if The Shitlords are our Teen Titans, our X-Men, our Justice League, then how long before we encounter our Brotherhood of Evil, our Hellfire Club, our... Injustice League? I wouldn't be worth my salt as an investigative journalist if I didn't speculate that we stand on the verge of an era of supervillainy. For all concerned and interested parties on this fair planet, this is Mitchell Lubbock signing off for tonight."
"I swear to god, Lee, you're tripping balls if you really think Squander's taller than Siphon," she called out, finally reverting the picture to its regular size.
"Siphon's on a ledge in that shot. If you just pulled up the one from the Valentine's Day drug bust, you'd see them all on level ground," a voice from the other room rang out moments before her older sibling emerged with a rolled up newspaper in hand, unfurling it and pointing to another group photo of the Shitlords, this one from much earlier in their career.
Dani gave it a polite glance in true little sister fashion, but knew deep in her soul that Lee was wrong and that no amount of so-called evidence they dug up was going to convince her otherwise. The Shitlords had been a little quiet of late, so the pair of them had to update the site with some kind of content and they weren't afraid of sometimes dipping into Buzzfeed levels of trash journalism. A "Definitive Height Ranking of The Shitlords (And What that Means for Compatibility Within the Group)" was steaming garbage, but hell was it fun to write. Lee was working on some gorgeous cover art for the quarterly fanzine so it fell to her to pump out an update. She had wanted to do another quiz, but everyone else was in agreement that it was tacky to post two quizzes back to back.
"Don't make me text the others," Lee warned, vanishing back into their adjoining bedroom. Again, Dani knew it was an empty and meaningless gesture and hit submit on the post with a satisfied grin.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the truth was much more complicated than the rumors. In fact, the truth was about to change the lives of some of their biggest fans, and alter the nature of the hero game forever.
"San Luca has entered a miniature renaissance, as the city once ranked among California's most dangerous now boasts its very own team of seemingly superpowered guardians. These heroes, self-identified as "The Shitlords", have proved far more valuable than their flippant moniker suggests. Rates of violent crime are down drastically in the year since they were first spotted getting involved in police business and citizens are treating them like characters straight from the pages of a comic book. Similar to a Hollywood blockbuster rendition of an origin story, the sky appears to be the limit for these young heroes. However, there remains a question on many minds that simply isn't on anyone's lips: if The Shitlords are our Teen Titans, our X-Men, our Justice League, then how long before we encounter our Brotherhood of Evil, our Hellfire Club, our... Injustice League? I wouldn't be worth my salt as an investigative journalist if I didn't speculate that we stand on the verge of an era of supervillainy. For all concerned and interested parties on this fair planet, this is Mitchell Lubbock signing off for tonight."
__________
Dani Espinosa sat cross-legged on her bed and squinted at a grainy photo she'd enlarged on her laptop without any consideration for its fidelity. She wasn't sure what she expected to find this time, as she'd spent hours staring at it over the course of several months, but it was going to kill her if she wasn't right about this.
"I swear to god, Lee, you're tripping balls if you really think Squander's taller than Siphon," she called out, finally reverting the picture to its regular size.
"Siphon's on a ledge in that shot. If you just pulled up the one from the Valentine's Day drug bust, you'd see them all on level ground," a voice from the other room rang out moments before her older sibling emerged with a rolled up newspaper in hand, unfurling it and pointing to another group photo of the Shitlords, this one from much earlier in their career.
Dani gave it a polite glance in true little sister fashion, but knew deep in her soul that Lee was wrong and that no amount of so-called evidence they dug up was going to convince her otherwise. The Shitlords had been a little quiet of late, so the pair of them had to update the site with some kind of content and they weren't afraid of sometimes dipping into Buzzfeed levels of trash journalism. A "Definitive Height Ranking of The Shitlords (And What that Means for Compatibility Within the Group)" was steaming garbage, but hell was it fun to write. Lee was working on some gorgeous cover art for the quarterly fanzine so it fell to her to pump out an update. She had wanted to do another quiz, but everyone else was in agreement that it was tacky to post two quizzes back to back.
"Don't make me text the others," Lee warned, vanishing back into their adjoining bedroom. Again, Dani knew it was an empty and meaningless gesture and hit submit on the post with a satisfied grin.
__________
The suburb of Travers, just outside of San Luca, was a hotbed of activity for those who considered themselves fans of the nation's first "superheroes". The Shitlords had so far been quiet in the month of September, leading to some speculation that they might have started a new year of school, perhaps as college students. This rumor allowed young fans to dream of running into their idols on local campuses. It allowed older cynics to dismiss them as a passing fad who had wisely decided to rejoin society before they were too far gone.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the truth was much more complicated than the rumors. In fact, the truth was about to change the lives of some of their biggest fans, and alter the nature of the hero game forever.