Practice Ain't Perfect

### Synopsis

Joseph hires an assistant. Kamila accepts a new task. Vittoria is confronted with some uncomfortable memories.

### Next

Theatre of Blood

**"Practice Ain't Perfect"** is the first episode of the first season of Spectre and the first episode of the series altogether.

## Starring

* Joseph Rose-Price
* Kamila Mansouri
* Vittoria Giovanni
* Amara Howell
* Antonio Giordano
* Karl Ziegler
* Sasha Nikolaev
* Ian Dunsirn
* Alastaire Dunsirn
* Melvin Practess
* Benny Espinoza (voice only)

## Summary

### Teaser

The episode begins on October 27th 2022 as Kamila and Vittoria drive through the night and Joseph waits in his office, alone with William's diary as a narration is read to the song '*Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales*' by Car Seat Headrest.

### Act I

Kamila and Vittoria arrive at the 24/7 diner in Rampart Village to meet with Amara Howell. She relays a request from Rodriguez that the coterie investigate Sasha Nikolaev and find out if he is going to embrace Dorian Tallow as he attends his mother's funeral on prison furlough. Rodriguez has specifically requested that Kamila take up the lead on this mission, though his reason for this is not made clear. Amara finished off by letting Kamila know where Sasha was likely to be as well as disclosing her phone number in case correspondence was ever needed in the future.

### Act II

Elsewhere at Vita Notturna, Joseph sits alone in his office reading an entry from William's diary. Putting the book away, he tells Tony to invite their guest inside and Karl Ziegler enters, setting his briefcase down beside the chair and introducing himself. Initially in the interview Joseph asked several questions typical of an employer reviewing an applicant such as "Why did you apply for this job?" and "What are your best and worst qualities?". Karl answered truthfully although Joseph's beast was beginning to become suspicious that he was applying for a job for less virtuous reasons. In a moment of weakness Joseph excused himself from the room along with Tony, needing a quick drink to get over the whispers of his other self. At the conclusion of the interview Joseph decided to hire Karl as his personal assistant. Leaving the room briefly to allow Tony and Joseph to talk, Karl answered the door to a man claiming to be a lawyer from the Birchwood Group (the company who owns the building Vita Notturna operates from, and that Joseph has a large stake in). He gave Karl a letter for Joseph to urgently sign that pertained to the building's survey. When Joseph signed it, Karl immediately took it to the specified location for delivery.

### Act III

When Kamila and Vittoria return to Vita Notturna, they catch Joseph up on what Amara said and decide that it'll be better to check in with Sasha sooner rather than later. As Tony is going to show Karl around the building when he returns, Kamila offers to drive the group over in her Volkswagen Beetle. Parking a little ways away from the Babushka's convenience story (the location Sasha is rumoured to frequent), it begins to rain as the coterie walk down the crowded street . They briefly reflect on their own inhumanity as they pass by so many humans who are unaware of their own gift. As they get in out of the rain Vittoria and Joseph disperse into the store and just browse the products while Kamila, who is supposed to be taking the lead, goes up to the counter and rings the bell. A short conversation with the Babushka later, Sasha arrives from the back of the store and talks with Kamila over the counter. She throws out a couple of vague accusations and implications at Sasha to which he bluntly tells her to be more specific with what she's saying to him. Despite this she continues very passively accusing him of knowing Dorian Tallow's mother and possibly about something happening to her. With Sasha still denying any knowledge of what she's talking about Joseph cuts in and very directly accuses him of being involved with Tallow, frustrating him and causing him to threaten Joseph vaguely: daring him to say "one more word". Feeling he got his point across and there being no further need to pursue things, he left along with Kamila and Vittoria.

While returning to the car Vittoria's wounds begin to ache almost as though they were fresh, and she tastes blood in her mouth. Feeling a presence off to her side she turns to look and is shocked in the recognition of Ian Dunsirn, the man who murdered her. Recognising he was seen, Ian slips back into the crowd as Kamila and Joseph try to help Vivi to her feet after she fell to her knees, incapacitated by the pain. All of a sudden Joseph is stopped by the firm grip of a hand on his shoulder. Turning around to see who it could be, he recognises the man as Alastaire Dunsirn: the patriarch of the wealthy Dunsirn family and a very influential figure in the kindred community of Los Angeles, particularly in Hollywood where Joseph lives. Alastaire clearly recognised Joseph as he remarked "oh, it's you" when Joseph turned around. He began tearing into the coterie, insulting them each for some of their biggest insecurities. He called Joseph both vain and half-witted and implied that Spiros was such a fool that he was outwitted by Harland MacArthur, a shame which caused Spiros to kill himself out of embarrassment. To Kamila he said that she was abandoned by both her sire and her clan, and that she is pretending to be something she isn't by holding her humanity close -- humans have abandoned her too but she just doesn't realise it yet. And finally he told Vittoria that her father was a weak and pitiable man whom no one ever respected and that he celebrated Vivi's death and embrace as the final nail the coffin of Marco's weak reign. With the group stunned into silence, almost entirely unable to say anything in response to his barrage of insults, he walks away, laughing in a mocking tone.

### Act IV

When they make it back to the car Joseph receives a text message from Tony saying that the lawyer from the Birchwood Group is back again and urgently needs to speak with him. Kamila drives the group back to Vita Notturna. When they arrive, Joseph heads up to his office immediately as Kamila takes Vivi downstairs to recuperate after the incident with Ian. Waiting in the office is Melvin Practess, along with Tony keeping him company while waiting for Joseph to return. Practess claims that Karl misunderstood some of what he was saying outside and that he is actually not an employee of the Birchwood Group but an independent lawyer who had just happened to be delivering some mail for one of his friends who does work for the group, and that accidentally a document had gotten mixed into the papers that Joseph signed which turned over 35% of the Vita Notturna business to Practess as a shareholder. Tony left the office briefly to go fetch Karl to see if he could clarify anything that Practess is saying and when they both return and Karl is brought up to speed, Karl immediately claims to have forged Joseph's signature on the document without his knowledge. Despite this not being true, this claim technically nullifies the contract that was signed while implicating Karl in a criminal fraud charge. Practess, clearly irritated by this claim voiding his stake in Vita Notturna, demands that Karl be fired immediately or else Practess will feel obliged to report to the authorities the fact that Vita Notturna allows its employees to commit criminal fraud without punishment. Karl is fully prepared to sacrifice his job over this and Joseph is forced to accede to the demands. Gathering his things Karl opens his umbrella and walks out into the rain, leaving Vita Notturna. Before he's completely out of sight, however, he calls out to Joseph to ask if he remembered to bring an umbrella to work today. When Joseph answers no, Karl tosses his own umbrella to Joseph and walks off into the pouring rain without it as *'Spectre'* by Radiohead fades in and the session ends.

## Trivia

* This session takes place in-universe on Thursday, October 27th 2022.
* The session's title comes from Melvin Practess' name, as his surname Practess is homophonous with the word Practice.

## Memorable Quotes

"*Oh, Mr. Rose-Price! Did you remember to bring an umbrella today?*"
―Karl Ziegler[src]

"*Your father is a weak and pitiable man. Not one person besides his equally useless father and the brother too stupid to even be gifted with the embrace has ever respected him. When he brought you back into this world that does not want you, I celebrated the final nail in the coffin of the period of weakness you all suffered our clan with.*"
―Alastaire Dunsirn, to Vittoria Giovanni[src]