STARXGLOVE: ROMEO & JULIET GL

 So I have a Romeo & Juliet magical person mafia GL/yuri retelling: #StarXGlove (read Star-Cross-Glove)

Welcome to fair Veroncia; but steer clear of the glass tower on the West riverbank and of the old estate on the East bank...

Even though peace was achieved over a decade and a half ago with a rendezvous on the bridge over the dry riverbed, fair Veroncia is becoming a pow(d)er keg. The eccentric one-eyed aerialist who lives under that same bridge like a homeless swings to and fro from the middle of the structure like a pendulum, often upside down. Who is he, and why is he our narrator?

(if you wonder, he's the Hanged Man from the West Bank Tower, who defected from decadence - The Hanged Man stabbed his left eye out -the "moon" of his microcosm- in exchange for the gift of insight by drinking from the waterfall curtain in the High Priestess's sanctum in her bunker underground beneath the Glass Tower (a reference to Odin and the Spring of Mimir!)

The pendulum swings east towards the old gothic estate with the pointed windows and dark furniture and black and white checkered floor tiles.

This is the home of those who rule the East Bank, half of Veroncia, with a heavy hand; of Lord Arsenic and Lady Strychnine, whose daughter Foxglove turned eighteen half a year ago. Foxy is betrothed to Polonium, an important ally of the clan and their unusually young advisor, but completely uninterested in the engagement.

Other members of note incluye Chlorine the female executioner, Fugu the male ninja, and especially Mercury, the whimsical non-binary messenger and Foxglove's best friend and confidante... (Polonium comes over from an outpost after Mercury is killed in action, partly to meet his fiancée, partly to fill Mercury's vacancy)

They all wear black and white, the males wear suits, the females wear what you expect a dowager to wear, and Fugu wears ninja getup. Those who take codenames from the periodic table wear their atomic numbers on their neckties.

The pendulum swings west towards the modern glass tower with the brightly coloured furniture and matching curtains and oversized plasma screens.

This is the home of those who rule the West Bank, half of Veroncia, with a velvet glove; the Empress and the Emperor and their only daughter the Star, whose eighteenth birthday is forthcoming and about to be celebrated in the Glass Tower with a grand masquerade.

Other members of note include the Hierophant the oldish advisor, the High Priestess the mysterious soothsayer or oracle, the Sun and Moon the Empress's twin maids, the Chariot the hot-blooded male executioner, and especially the Fool, the whimsical female jester and the Star's best friend and confidante.

They all wear bright colours and punk/psychedelic fashions, think the Capitol in THG.

Foxglove's favourite story is actually a subplot within a novella-length fairytale: "Fourth Story: Prince and Princess" within H.C. Andersen's The Snow Queen. She enjoys the idea of intellectual equals and kindred spirits finding one another and dreams of finding THE ONE in her life herself, no matter their gender (Even though she has to read the tale from a bookmarked fairytale compilation in secret, only with Mercury for an audience, since her parents want her to focus only on her training as she is next in line).

Star's favourite story is exactly the same as Foxy's for exactly the same reasons. She is also in love with the idea of intellectual equals and kindred spirits finding one another and dreams of finding THE ONE in her life herself, no matter their gender (her parents, however, are more permissive than Foxy's, but she's read the story more often to Fool than to them!).

(If you wonder, my own favourite fairytale in canon is "Fourth Story: Prince and Princess" within H.C. Andersen's The Snow Queen; because I myself enjoy the idea of intellectual equals and kindred spirits finding one another!)

It all begins when Mercury and Fugu take Foxglove across the bridge on their heist assignment infiltrating Star's birthday party in the Glass Tower. Merc is dressed as the Mad Hatter (but with atomic number on the price tag of the hat), Foxy as a Kitsune (vixen spirit), and Fugu wears his ninja garb; two of them trading their usual dark ensembles for something brighter.

At the party, Foxglove falls for a girl dressed as a nymph, and both drink and dance together... Too bad that in the end the nymph is revealed to be Star, and a pow(d)er keg that had remained inert since their infancy is about to explode due to their young love... But didn't the aerialist of the bridge, who called himself the Hanged Man, say that their love holds the key to peace as well?

And the three Cardinal Virtues?

Of course Justice, Strength, and Temperance existed and had a floor in the Glass Tower all to themselves, mentored by the Hierophant - over a decade and a half ago. Three sterling girls, the eldest in her thirties, the middle one in her twenties, and the youngest but seventeen or eighteen; all three wearing Saint Seiya-esque protective suits with the zodiac sign associated with their card emblazoned upon their chest (it was also their respective Sun sign).

Unfortunately, they were casualties of the last war over a decade and a half ago; in a confrontation for the ages, while defending the Tower and keeping the bridge across to it, when Miss Chlorine killed Justice (34), Miss Strychnine (then single) killed Strength (26), and the leader, Lord Arsenic himself, took the life of innocent young Temperance (18).

Ever since then, the Hierophant has been in mourning and secretly thirsting for revenge and looking for the opportunity to scheme to start another war in retaliation... No matter if the rest of the Glass Tower looks up to the Cardinal Virtues as war sheroes.

The mooks (foot soldiers):

Both sides accept male and female mooks from 17 years upwards.

The mooks at the Nightshade Estate wear all-black uniforms and helmets, and look like chess pawns; the higher-ups call them "Pawns" (aside from the chemical/poison motif, the East Bank Clan also has a chess motif; but only the black pieces). There are eight ranks. Pawn ranks are divided into elite pawns and ranker pawns.

Elite Pawns can be King Pawns, who answer directly to Lord Arsenic, or Queen Pawns, who answer directly to Lady Strychnine. They serve as a sort of pretorian guards.

Rankers are divided into Bishop Pawns, who answer to Mercury (and later to Polonium after Chariot kills Mercury), Knight Pawns, who answer to Fugu (and before that to Fugu's predecessor Thallium, a brisk young lad prodigy killed by the Cardinal Virtues in self-defense, regarded as the war hero of Nightshade Estate - and Polonium's role model), and Rook Pawns, who answer to Chlorine. These Ranker Pawns in turn can be King Rook Pawns or Queen Rook Pawns, and the same for the other officer designations.

The mooks in the Glass Tower are divided into four squads, all with ten ranks and each with a different colour scheme uniform and a card suit symbol:

Swords: spades, shades of blue (recon)

Cups: hearts, reds and pinks

Wands: clubs, shades of green (Tower guards)

Pentacles: diamonds, yellows and orange (elite/pretorian guards)

At the start of the story, Ten of Swords (youngish male) has been taken prisoner by two Pawns and is brought hand-tied to the Nightshade Estate study before Lord Arsenic; who calls for Miss Chlorine (by ringing a bell) and she takes him to her dungeons in the Estate cellar. I have the mental image of the scene; the bright cyan uniform standing out in the dark ominous study, the prisoner with an auburn ponytail wears a 10 and a sky blue spade on his uniform (pretty much like a Power Ranger taken captive by the bad guys), the Wallenstein-looking leader in a suit behind his desk with number 33 on his necktie ringing the bell, and enter a tall strong girl in a black power suit with nearly white hair and green eyes and number 17 on her necktie, and she grabs the prisoner by the hand-ties and ushers him out of the study while saying: "We're gonna have a great spree together..."

Definitely an improvement from the squabbling mook servants in the opening scene of Shakespeare's original, eh?

Spoilers about the end: In the end, not only Star and Foxglove are dead; for the Emperor led the Swords and Pentacles on a charge against the enemy to defend the tower and was gruesomely killed by Lord Arsenic and some of his King Pawns; at which the Empress cried so much that her makeup was running - the Sun remarked that and the Empress replied: "No matter, for the better, it's just become WAR PAINT..." and she led the survivors of the charge and set a trap that offed Lady Strychnine and several Queen Pawns in retaliation - so both leaders did not only lose their child, but also their marital partner, at the end of the day. So we find both Empress and Arsenic on the bridge with tears in their eyes - she says I'm sorry, he says Forgive me... and in the end both of them pull one another into a tight embrace and dry up one another's tears as the Hanged Man surfaces from under the bridge to compliment them - in an epilogue he explains they started a relationship and commuted between the Nightshade Estate and the Glass Tower and merged their respective cohorts as they signed peace, aware of the high price that both had had to pay.