Thursday DE: if I had a million dollars I'd buy you a house

[needsmoreresearch]

The third play in the set that my guy William comes from is pretty much James III saying "Everyone in Europe is having a Renaissance and I want one too," and his wife saying "That's lovely dear but we can't afford a Renaissance."

So today's DE is: What would your characters splash out a fortune on, if only they had a fortune to splash around? For the fabulously wealthy characters, what's a big expenditure that they feel genuinely satisfied with?

Comments

[inlovewithwords]

Eriond may not have a fortune, but he knows lots of people who do. Also, to be honest, it's sort of against the rules for him to go creating a fortune for himself like that--even Nedra, his brother who is into all things business, didn't do that--and humans have to pick how to distribute it because Free Will and Choice matters. ... but mostly going towards helping people, large scale and small.

Lois is thirteen years old, okay. She'd buy herself an awesome laptop and the best smartphone (and maybe a great data plan), her sister the same tech and put her on the plan, buy something really nice (including probably a phone) for her mom (maybe also a laptop? idk), and also something nice for her dad although that takes more thought. And then she might be like HEY maybe I should keep this money so I don't have to ask my parents to buy me a car later. Depending how much of a 'fortune' we're talking about, it's all probably still, like, at most $100/$200k so far and that's assuming she's gone for SUPER HIGH END stuff. If she has a ton left over, she stares. And is like. Uh. ...who do I give this to to help people? (once she's in the books timeline, probably ditches the car thing for LET'S SET UP A SCHOLARSHIP FUND FOR GIRLS IN JOURNALISM YO. Because Lois.)

Evelyn might be rare books or ingredients right now, but honestly, what she wants at this point in her life, money just cannot buy. Later she'll start by buying the party whatever equipment they need, because Not Dying Is Nice. She also checks with Ysa to see if she needs anything (and buys a present for Liranan) and if Hawke has not thoroughly pissed her off that week she'll ask him too (okay she'll probably ask him anyway but seriously, Hawke). Then she gives the rest to Cullen, Josie, and Lels in equal measure and it is No Longer Her Problem, Just Save The Stupid World Already. (They'll set up a fund for mage refugees anyway, she doesn't need to do that herself.)

R2-D2 probably got the fortune by hacking the Banking Clan or something, so who knows how much of the Republic and/or Separatist stuff and/or Empire is now collapsing completely (and also the fortune is massive). In general, first thing is repair, maintenance, and upgrade on himself and C-3P0. After that? If Padme's alive, give it to her after buying parts for Anakin to work on the ship (because Anakin is still the best mechanic and R2 would like both of them to Not Die while they're doing his insane flying), Ahsoka's ship, and probably Obi-wan's. If he's feeling super generous he might even let Anakin dip into it for shinies THAT ARE TOTALLY PADME'S SHIPS NOT AT ALL HIS JEDI DO NOT OWN PROPERTY >_< If Padme is not around anymore, put a bunch into two separate things for Luke and Leia and dump the rest on Bail for the Rebellion. (And maybe present for Ahsoka if she's around at the time.) Post-Alderaan, of course, also ship parts for Luke because see previous comment, hide more for the kids, and then dump the rest on Leia for the Rebellion.

Anakin does not know what to do with money. Seriously. In fact, to be honest, during the Clone Wars his answer is almost exactly what R2's is, except that he definitely buys ships (NO IT IS TOTALLY PADME'S MONEY SHE IS BUYING SHIPS not at all his he modded them as a favor to the senator really why are you asking did we mention jedi cannot own property shut up go away). He does seem to get paid, so he can buy them nice dinner from time to time. He might keep some of it for that and buying her presents but idek. Most of it goes to her.
Vader also really doesn't know what to do with money, tbh. Maintenance on himself and ships? Whatever. He apparently gets paid or just takes however much stuff/credits Palpatine doesn't care about him having. He does eventually find use for said funding! There is a mildly hilarious side trip into hiring a trigger-happy mad archaeologist and helping her acquire essentially evil-mirror-universe R2 and 3P0 and she does stuff for him, but mostly he just hires people (mostly bounty hunters) to go bring him his wayward Rebellious son.
Dead!Anakin could conceivably have something tucked away (see: Vader). At that point either in-Bar he tells R2 or either in-Bar or in-canon he might be able to tell Luke about it directly (yay, Force ghosts). Also, because she'll let Luke have whatever he needs, his instructions? "Just give it to your sister."

Tavi can answer part of this himself, because he begins with a question: "Which fortune? They have different applications. Do you know how much of a headache budgeting is? I don't have to deal with the details, thank the furies, but I keep a general idea of where our money is going. *rubs forehead* Fine. Shorthand answer is family presents and necessities out of personal budget--mostly people do that for me--books not just for us but for the Academy out of personal, Crown and Senate funding cover different aspects of the day-to-day upkeep of running the Realm, and then the rest of all three of those and any other money I can scrape together go to war effort, clean-up, refugee aid, and rebuilding. You don't want to know what the loans look like."

Honestly, I don't know what he's going to be prouder of: forcing Alera into actually functioning after an apocalypse; building an entire new capital city from the ground up; or a new Academy that admits non-Alerans, non-Citizens without requiring patronage from Citizens, has financial aid for students, and includes not-dumb archaeology, foreign languages and history and culture, better science, and engineering with and without furycrafting.