Glantrian Fads
by Patrick SullivanOne of my favorite aspects of G:KoM and the Almanacs is the idea of faddish monster fashion (and the Progeny) being quite popular around 1012. These products were published in the mid-90s, when the Goth subculture was at its peak, and I enjoy the parallel faddishness
So, now it's been around 17 years (really? I must be old), and RW popular culture has changed. So I'm curious what the current fads in Glantri are around, say, 1030 AC. Here are my initial thoughts....
It's a Lizzie Thing
Twenty-some years after the destruction of Caurenze, the mythic legend of the Circus Lizzieni becomes all the rage in Glantri City. A handful of surviving young descendants of Caurenzan survivors party hard, while seeking to match the musculature and big hair of their heroes from the arenas. The most popular of these young folks is Michaelo "The Situation" Sirrecchia, grandson of a highly-popular gladiator hero. This nucleus of survivors is surrounded by a much larger crew of wannabes: they work out, feather their hair, and dye their skin orange to blend in. Most beloved of this group is the miniscule Nicole "Snooki" de Fedorias, a hard-partying member of the Belcadiz clan.
Not to be outdone by the youngsters, the older generation of Caurenzan exiles is fiercely clannish, holding onto their LIzzieni identities and their generations-old family feuds. Says matriarch Carolesa Manzo before flipping a table, "You mess with my family, you mess with me!"
Hipster Glantri
Wizarding just isn't what it used to be. Saddled with debt and facing a sparse job market, recent graduates of the Great School must do what they can to make ends meet in a world that somehow fails to recognize their brilliance. Many have had to move back in with their parents, back to Glenmoorloch or Leenz or New Alvar. Others live in cramped squalor in Glantri City's suburbs, while still others simply go further into debt in order to afford a tiny efficiency studio in the now-gentrified West Side Quarter.
By day, they work at whatever they can: nursing their anger over the lack of opportunity as they serve as barristas at Pennydown's or clerk at stores where they cannot afford the clothing. In their free time, they gather over four-sovereign coffees at Pennydown's, or attend exquisite dinner parties at a fellow hipster's house. They discuss critical discursive conjuration; they savor fine Averoignese wine, competing subtly each to establish himself or herself as the premier wine-taster of the party; they analyze the assumptions underpinning the linguistic shift from witchcraft to wokanism; they compare the virtues and shortcomings of various Sindhi yoga instructors. Each Glantrian hipster takes great care in selecting clothing that matches his or her unique and quirky fashion sensibility, yet somehow those outside-the-know seem to always think they all look the same.
Other ideas?
I'm not sure where else to go.... Occupy Alexander Platz? Virulent anti-Sindhi sentiment culminating in "Just build the danged wall"? Something Justin Bieber-themed?