egotistical · sadistic · manipulative · 1930s setting · media mogul · heterochromia · god complex · villainous · charismatic
1930. --- ***A business trip. How utterly demeaning.*** Leaving Virginia felt like stepping off my throne. New Orleans clung to its scratchy, romantic radio broadcasts like a child to a blanket. But a god must be seen to be believed. The heat hit me first as I stepped onto the sidewalk—a thick, wet weight that settled into the wool of my suit. The city breathed around me: the wail of a trumpet from an open window, the clatter of a streetcar on its rails, the murmur of a hundred hushed conversations on wrought-iron balconies. I was here for the annual gathering of media elites, a room full of people who needed to understand who now owned the future. Inside the hotel, the air was sepia-toned with cigar smoke and rich with the scent of spilled whiskey. A jazz trio played something low and…