Designing the Windfalls

COLORS

The eldest daughter's palette blends steel blue, bright white, and soft accents of pink and red. Steel blue reflects her calculated, corporate exterior—cool, composed, untouchable. White speaks to her need to be seen as good: pure, principled, morally unimpeachable. The pink and red? That’s the part of her still hoping to be liked—soft, feminine, relatable. The approachable side of power.

NAME

You might know Pandora from Greek mythology—the woman who opened the box that unleashed all the world’s evils. Fitting, given the sinful monsters her family keeps.

But more notably-Pandora in Greek also translated to something between "all gifted" and "all-giving"—a duality that suits the emotion of pride. There’s one kind of pride that presents as noble, selfless, morally upright. And another that flaunts its brilliance, power, and entitlement. Pandora carries both.

COLORS

Blood red. Marble white. Electric blue. Industrial black.

As the second eldest, he mirrors Pandora—while thematically inverting her palette. His red screams dominance and visibility; his blue is a mere flicker of coldness. White hair, white teeth—not signs of purity, but of pay-to-win perfection. And at the core, black. A mark of his indifference to a clean reputation. Unlike his sister, he doesn’t need to be good. Just undeniable.

NAME

In JavaScript, a Promise is used to handle asynchronous operations—things that don’t complete right away. You run the code, send it out, and wait. It might resolve. It might not.

Promise doesn’t ask for trust—he assumes it. He speaks in inevitables. He was named with full intention: the function that can’t be ignored, the outcome everyone hinges on, and the risk you take when you build around something you hope will deliver.

His last name is Windfall. And he says he’ll deliver. So I'm just holding him to it.

COLORS

Black and white. Green and gold. For cash money, clearly.

The black and white is a common thread among the four siblings. Her palette echoes Promise in moral irreverence—expensive platinum against villianess black. But while his accents are red and blue—the primary colors of American audacity, hers are green and gold—the quiet colors of currency and capital. Her tones don’t shout—they sit still and accumulate value.

NAME

Pecunia means money in Latin. Not commerce, not hustle—just cold hard cash. Quiet. Passive. Absolute. A name that doesn't chase power. It holds it.

As the third child, Pecunia embodies the emotional logic of Sloth. What some might call laziness is simply, to her, calculated stillness. She doesn’t grind, she places bets. She doesn’t run companies—she buys, flips, and exits before the drama. Her power is leverage, not labor. She doesn't need to build when she can own.

COLORS

Red, white, blue, and black. Just like Promise and Pandora, but a completely different permutation.

Volo's black is all natural. It's in his hair, in his eyes, and his outfit as tradition, not declaration. He's not dark to make a statement, it's simply part of his nature.

He doesn't wear white as moral armor, nor as cosmetic vanity. For him, it's just clean. Because life requires simplicity and precision. Neither good nor evil, just balance.

Volo's accent colors speak inversely to Promise's. While his older brother's red is a flashy, external statement evocative of cherry red sports cars, Volo's red is a deep, glowing aura from within, revealing his hidden will and desire.

While Promise's blue is a flicker of internal lightning, Volo's blue is in his mask. It's a sterile, clinical exterior. A tool of distance and control.

NAME

Volo means "I want" in Latin. Notably desire in the first person, present, singular form. He's present in the moment, and aware of his feelings. He's not here to be a symbol, a resource, a gift, or a sacrifice. He lives for himself.

(He's adopted.)

COLORS

Olive and lime green. Which feels jarringly out of place in the Windfalls' palette—until you consider the undertones of the US dollar bill.

More importantly, that awkward lime green is signature to his Voidpet, Cringe—a conscious tangle that loops in on itself like a bad memory. Cringe is messy. Shameful. Embarrassed just to exist. While the others rock the glamour of outcomes, Luden carries the burden of becoming. The awkward, sweaty, trying-too-hard middle part of success that everyone pretends didn’t happen.

NAME

"Ludens" means "to play" in Latin. It is also the root of word "ludicrous," which means "laughable" or "absurd".

While Luden identifies as laughably pathetic, he is beloved. He arrives in the wake of disaster—after the Windfall apartment is demolished, and the siblings seek refuge beside the dumpster-shelter he'd claimed as his home. His presence—half miracle, half liability—inspires them to build a new life instead of seeking adult assistance.

Luden brings levity. He brings failure. He brings the awkward, inconvenient truth that being human means being embarrassing. But Luden also offers them joy and childhood, which turns out to be exactly what they need to start building their empire.

And why Latin again? Because Latin is a language of unique privilege. Not anyone's mother tongue—but the language of prep schools, intellectualism, and legacy. More specifically, it's the language of Layer One, the Garden of Consciousness—and its culture affects all of its people, even the abandoned and cursed.