The Wizard — v0.2

Current draft

The Wizard is a twelve-year-old Latino boy, big for his age, and the only kid on 7th Street whose equipment matches. He does not watch the fight; he watches a cobalt-blue quadcopter with bone propellers carrying one balloon, flown from a controller on a bone strap, an open case at his feet in the same cobalt foam. Who signs for the boxes, his house number, and his civilian name remain deliberately unresolved rather than invented to look complete.

Twenty feet is close enough to be part of it and far enough that nobody has to make room for him, and from twenty feet back nervousness looks like aloofness. He has been thanked for a good drop exactly once. He flew the rest of that afternoon over the kid who said it and gave no reason.

What changed

• Grew Claira's one-line seed into a twelve-year-old Latino boy, big for his age, per casting sheet row 10.
• Gave him a silhouette that reads with the drone out of frame: head up, thumbs on a controller, an open case at his feet.
• Established the matched cobalt-and-slate wardrobe as the only mark his parents leave.
• Made the aloofness nervousness rather than superiority.
• Made the controller, not the drop, the thing the street can take.
• Put the casting sheet's cross-reference into the Suburb: the Toddler's bubble cloud shorts the controller.
• Left charter §8's open drop question unresolved, and recorded that nothing has been built for him.

Why it changed

A rich kid with a remote explains an aerial mechanic but not why this kid stands twenty feet from everyone he is helping. This revision makes the distance the character: the equipment is the only evidence his parents exist, and a good drop is the only sentence he knows how to start.

Evidence and playtest marginalia

• Nothing has been built for this kid. There is no implementation in sim/, no entry in TUNING.md, and no plate in artbook/public/art/. Every number above — twenty feet, one balloon, one controller — is a proposal, not a finding, which is why provenfinding is null.
• docs/seventh-street-charter-v8.md §8: roster table entry, "Aerial drops anywhere; the kid is the range limit — defenseless, somewhere, holding a trivially fragile remote."
• docs/seventh-street-charter-v8.md §1, §3: the wizard is Claira's from the first pitch, "a rich kid who uses drones." Nothing here may contradict her.
• docs/characters/roster-mix-v1.csv row 10: age 12, Latino, male, size L, "Lonely rich kid," and the weakness — "Their drone remote control shorts out in the bubble cloud or gets easily soaked."
• The bubble cloud is the Toddler's (row 14) and the Wagon Bomb's cover (row 8).
• The casting sheet's Myth analog is Warlocks; charter §8 says Mortar. Neither is chosen here.

Rejected or alternate directions

• A drone with a name or opinions.
• A smug rich kid, above the street and enjoying it.
• Money as the joke.
• A parent, a driver, or a delivery on the field.
• A spare controller in the case.
• The thanked-once beat as friendship or a lesson learned.
• Direct player control of the drone as an overhead camera.
• An engineering rivalry with the Wheelchair Catapult.
• Sentimental narration of his loneliness.
• Wet-cling clothing, body close-ups, and low-angle framing.

Still unresolved

Featured question: does his standing twenty feet back survive a second look as nervousness, and not as disdain?

Secondary unknowns:

• whether the drone is a kid on the roster or a drop he calls, per charter §8;
• whether the drone can be soaked, or only the controller;
• whether a consumer quadcopter belongs on the "slightly worn 1990s cul-de-sac" docs/five-oclock-art-direction-brief.md rule 2 requires;
• what the street calls his cul-de-sac;
• whether the thanked-once beat survives being fielded twice.