MEENA RAJA (SIMONE ASHLEY) HAS FOUND.
Connection: Town Clerk
Suggested Name: UTP
Age Range: UTP
Species: UTP
Suggested FCs: Any POC FC, but some suggestions are: Diego Boneta, Lucien Laviscount, Chace Crawford, Michael Trevino, Laura Harrier, Ryan Destiny, Gabrielle Union, Nathalie Kelley, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Adria Arjona etc.
Connection Description:
Your character took over the position of Town Clerk back in July of 2022 as part of Meena Raja-Moore’s Mayoral Campaign. Their job has been to maintain records, general bylaws, zoning bylaws, petitions, publications, budgets, town meeting minutes, financial statements among another of other responsibilities. They work closely not only with the Mayor but with the Council, often sitting in Council Meetings to transcribe what occurred for the town records.
They are Meena’s right hand and she would be lost without them. But, with the number of countless complaints the Town Hall has been receiving over the past year with the recent attacks and murders, they had often felt overlook or undermined by the Residents of Lunar Cove and by other individuals who work in the building.
That was until your character became the first person in town to have made any leads on the Catalyst/continuous attacks the Cove keeps on facing. You may have a desk job and often be given grunt work, but through all of the documents that come in and off of your desk, you stumbled across evidence that Theodore Moore, the late Clan Leader, before Meena took over his position, was never actually dead to begin with. Your character brought the information up the chain of command and they were able to rescue the previous clan leader.
Only after the 2023 Ren Faire, you learned that Catalyst wanted Theo to be found. Your crowning achievement was a trap and ,in turn, you witnessed Theo turn on the town attacking your friends and loved ones.
It is up to you where you go from here. You could be hellbent on proving yourself again, want to make things right or would prefer to sink back into the shadows and go unnoticed after your discovery took a turn for the worst. But, only time will tell what other leads you may find and truth you may be able to reveal...
Please be sure to contact the player before applying:
Becca is available for DMs on @cantfightmoonlight!!
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fc suggestions for the ceo of stoneage?
I just gasped — please bring the CEO of Stoneage Industries!!! Some suggestions face-wise I can see working would be: Gabriel Luna, Keanu Reeves, Angela Bassett, Shelley Conn, Irina Shayk, Michelle Yeoh, Liev Schreiber, Patrick Wilson, Lily Gladstone, Hiroshi Abe, Alfonso Herrera, Antonio Banderas, Gemma Arterton, Gabrielle Union, Tommy Flanagan, Arjun Rampal, Sandra Oh, Kerry Washington, Paul Rudd, Okamoto Tao, John Cho, Sonoya Mizuno, Thandiwe Newton, Mark Consuelos, Angelica Ross, Famke Janssen, Hyun Bin, Nurgül Yeşilçay, James Roday Rodriguez, Rebecca Ferguson, Danny Pino, Morena Baccarin, Yamashita Tomohisa, Diego Luna, Donald Sutherland, Colman Domingo, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jesse Williams, Cate Blanchett, Ian McShane, Giancarlo Esposito, Ana de la Reguera, Shu Qi, or Benicio Del Toro! I hope this helps, beloved!
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...adding greek gods. (first thoughts, open to changing/developing)
ares / josh hutcherson fc.
zeus / edgar ramirez fc.
hades / santiago cabrera fc.
dionysus / taylor zakhar perez fc.
poseidon / paul mescal fc.
apollo / michael b jordan fc.
adding misc.
caleb young / josh o'connor fc.
abigail young / ana taylor joy fc.
patrick knight / joe keery fc.
stanley butler / jamie bell and alexander skarsgard fc.
updated.
percy anderson / andrew garfield + new younger: herman tommeraas.
jenson gibson / daniel sharman + new older: jeffrey dean morgan.
gideon monroe / corey mylchreest + new older: jon bernthal.
julius monroe / ben barnes + new older: dermot mulroney.
conrad teagan / mason gooding + new older: ricky whittle.
maxine teagan / rachel hilson + new older: gabrielle union.
francis teagan / isaiah mustafa + new younger: keith powers.
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It makes me sad knowing what this sweet bean went through towards the end at Arsenal, but… damn, I’m glad if it had to happen to lead to this.
He’s ours and he’s perfect 💜💙
Paywall article text under the cut 🤝
Upstairs at Aston Villa’s Bodymoor Heath training ground, overlooking the newly refurbished gymnasium, sits Unai Emery’s office.
His room is divided into three, with a door-sized hole between each. It is where Villa’s footballing decision-makers for the head coach, Monchi and Damian Vidagany, work.
“Obsessive” is a frequently used description from those who have worked with Emery. It is his overarching coaching trait and a blessing or a curse, depending on the club he works at.
It is four years to the day since Emery was sacked at Arsenal. It hurt him deeply given it was a decision he did not see coming. Such was his insular, all-consuming manner, he felt blindsided and unaware of the growing scepticism in his project. He believed there remained total belief in him having integrated young players, such as Gabriel Martinelli, Bukayo Saka and Eddie Nketiah into the first team, which, in his mind, displayed the early buds of a new, youthful Arsenal.
UNAI-EMERY-BUKAYO-SAKA-
Emery gave Saka his Arsenal debut (Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
Since his sacking, however, the 52-year-old has spoken to close friends, accepting he was too focused on just the football aspect within a club where politics are rife and diplomacy is key.
Increasingly at Arsenal, he was regarded as too introspective and not tending to the broader picture. The difference at Villa is that they indulge his footballing obsessions, building a network of his own choosing around him, all of whom he trusts implicitly and, as explained by Vidagany, a close friend and the director of football, takes care of most off-the-field matters.
He shares a trusting relationship with owners Wes Edens and Nassef Sawiris, demonstrated in their holding company, V Sports, announcing a partnership with Real Union earlier this week. In June, Emery and his brother, Igor, acquired a controlling stake in the Spanish club, for whom their father and grandfather both played and who now sit in the regional third tier.
Arsenal are a huge club interweaving several large departments. Politics is naturally at stake and, as his predecessor Arsene Wenger was deft in doing, needs an all-encompassing remit that involves managing areas outside of just football. Yet Emery is fanatic about improving his side from a tactical perspective. He pays little attention outside of his close circle and footballing bubble which, invariably, means the structure around him needs to be managed from elsewhere.
As he does at Villa working from 7am to 7pm, he would be at Arsenal’s London Colney training ground until late, brimming with ideas and designing training sessions that were often long. They could irk players, especially on the days before games when Emery was known to spend two to three hours on the grass, practising shape work.
The network Emery inherited at Arsenal was unstable and the boardroom in a state of flux. For a coach replacing a figurehead such as Wenger, whose fingerprints were all over the club, stability from above was paramount.
It was quickly found wanting. Then chief executive Ivan Gazidis immediately left for AC Milan, while recently appointed head of recruitment Sven Mislintat and head of football relations Raul Sanllehi did not last long. Other figures involved in the inner mechanisms, including head of scouting Francis Cagigao and contract broker Huss Fahmy, departed.
Emery wanted to be solely the head coach. This was his strength and why he held three Europa League winners medals — he would add another at his next job Villarreal — and seven trophies in two years at Paris Saint-Germain. Emery did not want to be directly involved in transfer negotiations, only interested in the outcome of deals, nor did he want governance over the day-to-day running of the club.
One of the first calls Emery made before joining Villa was to Vidagany, who initially came in as his personal assistant, so he could manage those aspects off the field. Augmented by the arrival of the president of football operations, Monchi, in the summer, he and Vidagany take care of transfer negotiations, act as sounding boards for players’ and agents’ queries and connect the different departments together. It is widely accepted Emery did not have those figures of personal connection at Arsenal, with Villa intending from the outset to build the club around him.
Vidagany, left, is a key figure in Emery’s staff at Villa (David Rogers/Getty Images)
Within an executive structure that was unsettled, the schism between Arsenal’s departments continued to grow.
“If Mikel (Arteta) had come in straight after Arsene and tried to apply these kinds of hard and fast rules, it would never have worked,” one source told The Athletic in April 2021.
Crucially, it meant the backing for Emery was never firm. The general sense of Emery was that he was so consumed by football that he occasionally failed to see the bigger picture or relate to others.
Even though he was not overly personable, he still retained a warmth. Almost everyone at Arsenal still speaks highly of Emery, even if his sacking hurt him. They are pleased to see his progress since his sacking in November 2019 and his remarkable first year at Villa.
The underlying theme behind Emery’s second crack in England — from a figure of ridicule to being viewed as one of Europe’s elite coaches again — is learning the lessons from Arsenal. He knew a support network that worked in his best interests was essential in building Villa in his image.
Villa staff do not underestimate Vidagany’s importance. There is a feeling that, if Emery had Vidagany at Arsenal, Emery would still be the manager in north London. Similarly at Paris Saint-Germain, Vidagany might have helped manage internal politics and manage broader departments.
When Emery was appointed head coach in October 2022, Villa brought in six staff members to form his backroom team, all known to Emery or who previously worked with him. More Spanish-speaking figures have joined since. Previous sporting director Johan Lange moved away from the day-to-day running of the club to assist the owners in their multi-club model plans before leaving for Tottenham Hotspur, along with former head of recruitment Rob Mackenzie in October.
Both decided to pursue new endeavours after Villa’s existing model was altered to suit Emery. This included the hiring of Alfredo Benito — a former team-mate of Emery’s at Toledo — in a global technical role and another scout in Pablo Rodriguez, who was a former team-mate at Racing Ferrol. Vidagany’s official title changed from personal assistant to director of football in the summer.
Monchi, a close aide from their time at Sevilla, drives the recruitment process under Emery’s demands. Emery, Vidagany and Monchi have formed a “power triangle” in charge of the critical decisions.
Emery views Pep Guardiola’s structure at Manchester City as the most conducive to empowering managerial success. Those close to Emery believe he is on the same level as Guardiola when assessing the best coaches in the world and point out that City’s manager, similarly to Villa’s head coach, has good friends in the boardroom, such as managing director Ferran Soriano and director of football Txiki Begiristain.
“What we need to do here is to let Unai take the sporting decisions, let Monchi choose the players with Unai and all of us provide a strong structure — like a fortress — to give them time to develop the project,” Vidagany told The Athletic in October. “Because in the end, the difference between success and failure is time.”
Sources close to Villa’s players say Emery does not tend to have conversations with members of the team unless they are in matchday squads. Some who have spent prolonged periods out with injury, such as defender Kortney Hause, have only briefly spoken to Emery.
The Spaniard has, however, shown an adept balance in choosing times to learn about his players. During Villa’s pre-season tour of the U.S. this summer, Emery spoke at length with younger players, asking about their ambitions and backgrounds, right down to what their parents do.
Pre-season was exhausting. Lots of travel with lots of games afforded little opportunity for downtime and pushed players to physical exertion, far more than what is accustomed. Yet, among Villa’s players and staff, there is total buy-in, which was not always the case at Arsenal, where certain staples of his management — including lengthy video analysis sessions — were met with consternation.
“With (Steven) Gerrard, training was just training,” says a source close to a Villa player, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “But Emery is so detailed, as he was at Arsenal. He coached them and continues to coach them in every facet of football every single day.”
Emery is demanding of his players (James Gilbert/Getty Images for Premier League)
“The mentality, the desire to win — just everything about him has been absolutely brilliant,” said captain John McGinn following Villa’s 2-1 victory away to Tottenham Hotspur. “He is obsessed about winning today, absolutely obsessed. That mindset and mentality is put into our heads. When we go behind, before we would have crumbled, but today we had our chests out.”
Villa players see purpose in his lengthy video sessions because the benefits are tangible on a matchday. At Arsenal, though, a different view was shared. “When he was doing a tactical presentation, there was a lot of chat,” said one observer.
Emery is highly regarded and accomplished among coaching circles. One young manager at an upwardly mobile side in England’s higher leagues described Emery to The Athletic as “interesting and excellent” in his approach, expressing his joy at watching Villa from a tactical perspective.
“If anyone is trying to get hold of me and I’m not answering, I’m in the meeting room,” said McGinn. “He does a lot of hard work. He wants to win, he’s won throughout his career and there’s no reason why he can’t do that here. He’s drilling that into us. There are a lot of details, a lot of thinking and a lot of concentration required from us. He’s making people concentrate that I didn’t think were capable… I’m not naming any names.”
Emery’s reputation has recovered in England and, four years to the day since his departure from Arsenal, his stock has never been higher. A coach who learned the right lessons but refused to change his principles.
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