#(mine died after four years of faithful service)

[sl-walker]

[keanureevesisbae]

Caught in a Blizzard - Part 3

Summary: Luna and Chris can finally fly back to the States, only to discover that the world gotten to know of their little adventures. 

Pairing: Chris Evans x Luna Hwang (Asian OFC)

Warnings: Mentions of sex, nothing serious. 

Wordcount: 4.2k

A/N: if you want to be on the taglist, just let me know! Also, I love to read your guys’ thoughts and feedback xx

Masterlist // Part 2 // 

After having tons of sex with Chris Evans on the first day of being stuck in a hotel room, I have come to the conclusion that he is a beast in bed, but an absolute sweetheart in aftercare. We still can���t leave our hotel room (his hotel room, excuse me), but we have plenty of stuff to do around here. After the long shower we took and indeed had sex again, he had room service bring up some fresh pairs of underwear for me to wear.

As a joke I said that we could walk around naked instead, not bother wearing clothes, but I didn’t realize that he would take that seriously. The only time he forces me to wear a shirt, is when we’re cooking, because he doesn’t want me to get hurt.

We’re in bed together, my sweaty naked body pressed against his, my center still throbbing in slight pain. The way this man uses me, is something no one has ever done before. I can’t help but think back about how he bend me over the bar, pushed me against the wall. But after that, he completely changes.

He presses soft kisses on my skin, massages my shoulders and whispers sweet nothings in my ear. I think I will dream about this for years and no man can ever do these things to me that Chris did. Poor guy who is going to have sex with me after Chris Evans, because this man raised the bar.

‘You are so beautiful,’ Chris whispers and I can hear the smile on his face. ‘Has anyone ever told you that?’

‘They did,’ I admit, ‘but no one seemed to mean it like you do.’

‘That’s what I thought, sweetheart,’ he chuckles.

I place my hand on his chest, as I turn on my stomach. I look at his beautiful face. Of course I’m thinking about our eventual next steps. What will happen once we get out of this hotel room? What will happen when we are back in the States? Will he want to continue this? Because I know I want to, but I get that he doesn’t want to continue this. I mean, he is almost forty, I’m just a young woman, who will turn twenty four soon. Maybe it shouldn’t become more, but should it stay like this. Just some lovely sexual encounters when we had nowhere to go.

‘You are so handsome, Chris,’ I whisper. ‘And so kind.’ I want to place my leg over his, but I softly wince.

‘You okay?’ he asks and he looks so genuinely worried, something that makes my heart swell.

‘I’m just sore,’ I chuckle.

‘I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to mean to hurt you.’

‘You didn’t hurt me, Chris.’ I chuckle and give him a kiss on his bearded cheek. ‘I’m just impressed that you can keep up.’

‘Just because I’m going to be forty soon, doesn’t mean I’m dead or in desperate use of viagra, Luna.’

I can’t help but laugh. ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ I whisper. ‘I’m going to take a bath.’

‘You want a bath?’ Chris sits up and adds: ‘I can arrange that right now.’ He tells me to stay put as he walks bare naked to the bathroom that is attached to this bedroom. I smile as I think about the things he did to me. I don’t want this to ever end. This blizzard can go on for life, because I want to have this.

Forever.

I hear the water running and he walks back into the room with a smile. He crawls back on the bed and gives me a kiss, followed by tons more. ‘You ready for a bath, beautiful?’ He lifts me up without a hitch and carries me to the bathroom. He slowly lets me sink into the warm water and he gets in behind me.

He massages my shoulders, as he kisses my temple. ‘Tell me something nice, sweetheart.’

I can’t help but chuckle. ‘Like what?’

‘Doesn’t matter. Tell me what you think when you are on stage.’

‘I don’t think a lot,’ I say. ‘It’s almost like a second nature, you know. I hear the beats in my in-ears and I just go and— Chris, how can I have a serious conversation with you, when you’re massaging my breasts?’

‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ he chuckles. ‘I don’t know what you are doing to me, but you are insatiable.’

I turn around in the water, as it gushes over the edge, but neither of us seem to care. I give him a long kiss and sigh deeply, as I look into his beautiful eyes. ‘Chris, when we get home, what are we going to do?’

‘Well, I have to go to LA for filming, but I know for a fact that I want to continue doing this.’ He smiles and kisses me. ‘Because I haven’t felt like this in years.’

‘Is it because I’m a younger model?’

He rolls his eyes as he scoffs. ‘It’s because you are who you are. You are smart, you are an amazing performer and all in all, you are exactly my type.’

‘Good thing that you are mine as well.’

✘ ✘ ✘

Two days later, it’s safe for the planes to fly again, so we can finally go back to the USA. Chris is going to LA, while I have to stay in New York City. Despite that, he decided to travel with me, changing flights on JFK.

The following two days were filled with conversations about his anxiety, my lack of trust in people. We had sex, took long showers and baths, we cooked together, watched movies and had more sex. Besides the fact that Chris Evans is an absolute animal with a stamina that guys all over the world are jealous of (I mean, I had to adopt a complete new walk, because of how sore I am), he is also the greatest guy to be around with. He is funny, he is intelligent and I’ve gotten to know him on a deeper level.

The way he told me about the things that go through his mind when he deals with an anxiety attack, it was so vulnerable. Besides that, thanks to him, I’ve gotten to know myself on a deeper level. I know who I am now. Okay, I have a better idea now of who I am.

During our flight, I took multiple naps against his large and strong frame and I really dread the moment where we have to say our goodbyes. I hate saying goodbye. I’m not even good with goodbyes. Every time I had to say goodbye to my foster family, I remember crying, because I had met these new people and I wanted to prove that I was a good foster kid. But I was forced to another family and you never knew how long that was going to last.

Saying goodbye to my band members, was a whole new level weird. They were mad, but on the other hand they seemed to care about me. About us as a group, despite everything I did.

Chris holds onto my hand when we get off the plane, his fingers intertwined through mine. Since we don’t want to be recognized, we’re both wearing a bucket hat, that is completely covering our eyes.

We stop walking and I realize that this is it. I have to say goodbye to him now. I sigh deeply. ‘You have to hurry,’ I say to him. ‘You don’t want to miss your flight.’

Chris simply nods, before he wraps his arms rightly around my upper body. ‘When I’m done in LA, we’ll see each other again,’ he assures me. ‘Besides, I have your number and was going to stalk you anyways, if you don’t mind.’

I smile. ‘I wouldn’t mind at all, mister Evans.’

He presses a long kiss on my lips, adjusting my hat after he lets me go. ‘Get home safely, Luna.’

‘Yeah, you too.’

He waves when he walks off and he looks like such a dork doing so. I have to say that without a doubt, these were the best days of my life. Touring around the world with my girls was amazing. Releasing my first album was fantastic.

But getting to know Chris Evans like I’ve gotten to know him in these days, was next level.

I hail a cab and tell the driver my address. I lean back, watching as snow falls out of the sky, but it’s not nearly as bad as it was in London.

I get out when I’m at my apartment building and I can’t help but to whistle as I walk towards the elevator, getting in and pressing on the button with the sixteen on it. My mood can’t be killed now, I think to myself, as I walk to my apartment door. Chris has my number, he’ll annoy me with texts and we’ll definitely meet again. How many times have I fantasized about this? There was one celebrity in the entire world that I wanted to meet, that I wanted to get to know more and now I know him.

I open the door of my apartment and I attach my phone to its charger. It died when I left the hotel with Chris, but I’d rather spend my time with him. Besides, his charger didn’t fit my phone. I walk around my place for awhile, pouring in some water for me and when I walk back to my phone, I see I have messages in the Brave Elegance chat.

Why would they text me? We haven’t used that chat in months since the break up. Did something happen? Or worse, did someone die?

Pixie: Uh, Luna, you need to tell us something. Are you okay?

Faith: What happened?

Rosie: Is Luna okay?

Daliah: OMG IS IT TRUE?

Rosie: Hello, maybe one of you can tell us what happened?

Pixie: Shit, she is not receiving the messages.

Faith: Please answer the fucking question, guys. It’s not that hard. What happened? What is true?

Daliah: TMZ released pictures of Luna and Chris Evans in a hotel room after the Graham Norton show. They are pretty graphic.

Pixie: Daliah, you are an adult now, you can just say that she is naked, just like Chris.

Rosie: Oh my God, Luna!

Faith: We can’t leave you alone for two seconds can we?

My heart stops beating for a few seconds. I quickly google my own name, together with Chris’ and I audibly gasp. It’s true. The pictures of us… No, this can’t happen! I don’t want this to happen.

What sick bastard would make pictures of this? Oh my God, I’m so naked. This can’t be true.

Not only is this terrible for my own career, but for Chris’ as well.

Luna: Shit…

Pixie: You want us to come over?

Luna: You guys made it pretty clear the last time we saw each other that you didn’t want to see me anymore…

Faith: We are aware that we did say that, but we know you, Luna. We want to be there for you.

Rosie: No matter how we disbanded, we will always be Brave Elegance. Besides, I think we need to talk about not only this, but about the entire disbandment as well.

Daliah: I don’t care if you don’t want to see us, because I’m in a cab already.

Rosie: I’ll be bringing the needed snacks!

Pixie: See you in a bit, Luna!

✘ ✘ ✘

I wouldn’t call the pictures pornographic, but I’m pretty naked. I feel so violated, being pictured like this during some intimate times. I know exactly what Chris Evans is doing in those pictures to me. It is even shown how he lifts me up in his arms, to carry me to the bathroom.

I do have to thank the universe that the paparazzi only took pictures of the first time we had sex. I can’t imagine them seeing the positions and the things we did later on. I mean, Kama Sutra seemed pretty prude compared to what we did.

I’m dragged out of my thoughts when I see all of the members in front of my apartment door. Sweet little Daliah in her bright pink coat, tough Pixie with her hair cut short, tall Rosie who dyed her hair blonde again, because she thinks it fits her better (that’s true) and Faith who looks like she doesn’t care, but I know her. I know she cares.

‘Hi,’ I say.

‘Luna,’ Daliah says, being the first to engulf me in her arms. I never thought I would ever see them again, let alone hug them. I place my chin on her shoulder, as I pull her body closer to mine. ‘We are here for you, Moonshine.’

I can’t help but smile when I hear my nickname again. It has been so long.

‘I’m such an idiot,’ I say, as I let go of the youngest of the five of us.

‘You are not,’ Rosie says, cupping my cheek. ‘We do need to talk about this and thank goodness I brought snacks. I have chips and chocolate, but I also brought pretzels. I know you don’t like them, but the rest of us do, so just don’t eat it.’

The rest of them walks in and Faith looks at me for a second. ‘Whether you like it or not,’ she says, ‘we’re always a team.’

I don’t know about that actually. It’s all my fault really that we broke up and I guess this is Karma hitting back at me, in a very cumbersome way.

We sit around the table, snacks and drinks in the middle and I think about the moment Brave Elegance was formed. We were young, we were naive and very nervous. But somehow it worked, it clicked, despite being five totally different girls from totally different backgrounds. The only thing that we had in common, was being Korean American teenage girls.

‘So,’ Pixie says, ‘correct me if I’m wrong, but you went to London for an interview, afterwards met Chris Evans again, but drunk, went with him to his hotel room where you had sex with him and TMZ managed to take picture of the occasion.’

‘That sums it up, yeah,’ I mumble.

‘Was that the only time you had sex with him?’ Rosie asks and my cocked eyebrow must be the answer to her seemingly rhetorical question. ‘Right.’

‘Have you called Chris already?’ Daliah asks.

I shake my head. ‘He only has my number, so I can’t reach out to him and I don’t think that this is the moment to slide into his DM’s.’

They seem to agree. ‘Do you like him?’ Faith asks.

You girls have no fucking idea. ‘I do,’ I whisper. ‘It was nice to talk to someone. To not be alone.’ I close my eyes and think about what Chris says. There will be other band members, but I think he is wrong. There will not be others like them.

Despite the disbandment, despite all the underlying issues we had, we are a team, like Faith said and we always will be one. They are here to support me and that says something about how much we care about each other right?

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘What for, Luna?’ Faith asks. She was the oldest of the group and basically our mom. Making sure that we had our passports with us, that we had slept well, that we’ve eaten. We had long talks on the balcony of our dorm room during our X-Factor days. She may not understood my situation, my history with the foster care system and my inability to make friends, but she did listen and did care.

‘For not being a team player.’

For a second I can forget about the pictures, because I can’t talk about that and about my bond with Chris Evans, when there are so many unspoken sorrows and apologies between us.

Rosie shakes her head. ‘No, you don’t have to be. It was unfair of us to blame it all on you. We should’ve spoken to you and took the time to understand you. Not simply start pointing fingers at you, while we were all to blame.’

While we were all to blame? I don’t understand. ‘What?’

Pixie sighs and folds her hands on the table. ‘We were wrong all along, Luna,’ she says. ‘When we broke the news to you that you weren’t a team player, we just looked at what we experienced. We never once looked at the situation from your perspective. Because we, the ultimate mean girls, had forced you out, we met up. First to gossip about you, bad mouthing you, but eventually Faith had the brilliant idea to go to group therapy.’

Faith shrugs. ‘It felt wrong, to bad mouth about you. It couldn’t be just you. And after a few sessions, we realized that what happened to you growing up… It became a normal for you. We understood your need to prove yourself, that you were good enough and even better.’

‘But when I did that,’ I say, ‘I pushed you guys down so hard.’

Daliah nods. ‘We know, but we also understand. Besides, it was obvious during our X-Factor that you were the best. I never really understood why they put you in a group.’

Rosie shakes her head. ‘That was unbelievable. You had the stamina and the stage presence and the talent to become a soloist. You have it all, Luna.’

‘You can sing, you can dance, you write and you can rap. All that on top of being the most beautiful woman on this earth,’ Pixie adds.

‘So… You guys are not mad at me?’

Faith holds my hand on the table. ‘No, of course not. We were wrong too. We were not acting mature and for that I’m sorry.’

‘Me too,’ the other girls say in unison.

‘We should’ve taken the time to realize how much you did for us,’ Pixie says with a smile. ‘We watched those compilations where it was shown how much you do for us, in a different way. You took care of us like a true friend.’

‘I mean, you wrote that diss track when that thing Justin and I had got leaked. You ruined his career, Luna,’ Rosie chuckles.

‘Though we might not be a group anymore,’ Daliah says, ‘we will always care about you and we might not perform anymore, we will always be Brave Elegance.’

I let out a shaky sigh. Is this truly happening? Do I have my friends back? ‘I’m truly sorry,’ I say. ‘I should’ve done something with my desperate need to prove myself.’

Faith shakes her head. ‘No, not really. We should’ve done something. As a team.’

‘We’re all good again?’ I ask, just in case.

Daliah nods. ‘Of course we are, silly. We are Brave Elegance and we will always be.’

‘You have no idea how much that means to me,’ I whisper. ‘Thank you for having my back.’

Faith pats my hand. ‘Okay, this a beautiful moment, obviously, but we have business to do.’

‘Right,’ Pixie says. ‘We have to wait for Chris to call you, since he is probably on a plane and you don’t have his number. So, I think that we should call your new manager, explain to her what happened and she can contact Chris’ agent or manager or whoever.’

‘I don’t want to call my manager,’ I mumble.

Faith chuckles. ‘Of course you don’t. I have an idea. I call your manager, so she can think about a nice statement, possibly together with his manager. While I do that, Pixie, Rosie and Daliah will get the snacks ready, we’ll catch up, try to forget this situation, until Chris Evans calls.’

‘Aren’t we going to talk about how sex is with Chris Evans?’ Pixie asks. ‘Because sure as hell I want to know about that.’

‘Get the snacks ready,’ Daliah says. ‘Talking about sex is always easier with sex.’

I watch my former band members spread out over my apartment. Faith is calling with Gia, while the rest is indeed getting the snacks ready.

I scroll through my phone, desperately searching for the responses to the multiple articles that have been written. I know it’s going to hurt my feelings, but I’m self destructive like that. I need to read it.

But it’s all what I expected it to be. I’m the whore, Chris deserves better and I’m ruining his career. Someone even mentioned that it’s probably because I didn’t have a nice and stable upbringing and that I have severe daddy issues.

‘Okay, don’t read that,’ Rosie says, placing my phone on the table. ‘That’s not good for you.’

When Faith is back with us, she quickly tells us that Gia is working something out, trying to get ahold of Chris’ agent right away.

Like nothing happened, we start talking like the good times. I can’t seem to talk about Chris yet, so the rest of the girls talk about their lives. I find out that Faith is going to be starring in a movie soon, playing the older sister of the main character, but she can’t tell too much about it yet. I can see her as an actress.

Rosie is back in college, studying criminology. Pixie is dating a wonderful girl, while she is working as a talent agent for a different record company. Daliah and Michael are still together and she is actually trying to start a family.

I bet she will be a fantastic mom.

’So how about you and Chris?” Faith asks. ‘Was it just sex or…?

I shake my head. ‘It wasn’t just sex,’ I whisper. ‘It was a nice extra, of course, but I felt so loved. He cared about me, wanted to know how I was feeling. I just fear that that will be out of the window, after this.’

My phone starts to ring, causing me to yelp. It’s a number that I don’t know. I’m afraid, scared. What if it’s someone who wants to harass me? It wouldn’t be the first time.

‘Pick up,’ Daliah urges.

I take a deep breath, before I pick up the phone and answer the phone with a shaky ‘Hello?’ after I bring the phone to my ear.

‘Hi, sweetheart.’

My heart nearly drops to my feet. Hearing his warm voice, it’s just enough for my emotions to be pushed over the edge. The entire time I held my head high. I got the girls over, I barely cried about it.

However hearing him…

A sniffle leaves my lips and I bury my face in my hand.

‘Oh, no, no, no,’ Chris says. ‘Please, Luna, don’t cry.’

‘That’s fucking easy for you to say,’ I snap. ‘I’m the whore here, you’re the poor actor who I seduced and dragged with me.’

‘Easy,’ Daliah says, though she doesn’t know what he says. .

Chris doesn’t say anything and that makes me feel even more guilty. ‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper. ‘You can’t help it either. I’m really sorry. You are just trying to be nice.’

‘I understand,’ he tells me.

‘Where are you?’ I ask him, as I hear a lot of people in the background.

‘Just landed at LAX,’ he says. ‘My agent called me. He told me about the pictures and that your manager had called him, about making a statement. I just needed to hear your voice and needed to know whether or not you are alright.’

‘As you can tell, I’m doing fucking fantastic.’

‘You can be honest with me,’ he simply says, after a long and deep sigh.

I shake my head. ‘I don’t know what to do anymore.’

He stays silent for a moment and I’m afraid of his reaction. He is going to say that this is my own fault. That I’m to blame. ‘You know,’ he says, ‘I’m coming to New York. I can’t stand the thought of you going through this by yourself, when we should go through this together.’

Excuse me? ‘Chris, no,’ I say, ‘you can’t be serious. You can’t come to New York.’

‘I’m dead serious,’ he says.

Faith takes the phone from me, puts it on speaker and says: ‘Hi Chris, this is Faith.’

‘Oh.’He seems confused. ‘Faith as in Brave Elegance Faith?’

‘The one and only. I’m here with the rest of the girls and I know that Luna really wants you here. I think that that would make it a whole lot easier for us to talk about this.’

‘Well, I’m already looking around to see if I can book the earliest flight back to New York.’

I take the phone from Faith’s hands and say: ‘But Chris, what about your movie? You told me that it was important.’

‘I don’t care about that. You are more important right now.’

For a few seconds I don’t know what to say. I’m more important right now? I look to the girls, who nearly turn into a puddle. ‘I can’t ask this from you.’

‘Good thing you didn’t then. See you in a bit, sweetheart.’

Taglist: @diegos-butt​ // @henrythickcavill​

[96thdayofrage]

It’s a privilege earned over 68 years, as the oldest and longest-serving juvenile lifer in the country. He’s been imprisoned since 1953, when he was just 15 years old.

“I guess you accumulate a lot of stuff in 68 years,” said Bradley Bridge, a lawyer with the Defender Association of Philadelphia who’s represented Ligon since 2006. Having taken on the mission of getting Ligon home — first legally, then logistically — he had to scramble to fit the materials into his car, commandeering a reporter’s trunk for the overflow.

Ligon, now 82, received his life term for taking part in a spree of robbery and assaults in which two people died. Ligon admits participating in the crime with a group of drunk teens, but denies killing anyone.

After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that automatic life terms for kids are cruel and unusual, he was one of more than 500 Pennsylvania prisoners all resentenced to terms contingent on lifetime parole.

But Ligon, resentenced to 35 years to life in 2017, rejected the very idea of parole after nearly seven decades in prison.

“I like to be free,” he said. “With parole, you got to see the parole people every so often. You can’t leave the city without permission from parole. That’s part of freedom for me.”

Other prisoners tried to coax him out into the free world. John Pace, a former juvenile lifer and now a re-entry coordinator for the Youth Sentencing & Reentry Project (YSRP), recalled a fruitless visit to the prison with a group of other ex-lifers. “If you want to fight, fight it when you get out,” he counseled Ligon at the time.

But Ligon refused to apply for parole, let alone take any required programs.

So Bridge fought three more years to get him released with time served — and won a victory that has given hope to hundreds of other juvenile lifers still on parole.

In federal court, he argued that Ligon’s mandatory maximum sentence of life was unconstitutional.

“The constitution requires that the entire sentence, both the minimum and maximum terms imposed on a juvenile, be individualized — and a one size fits all cannot pass constitutional muster,” he wrote. The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office agreed. And, on Nov. 13, 2020, Anita B. Brody, Senior U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, ordered Ligon resentenced or released within 90 days.

“That was no sad day for me,” Ligon said. He only wished his mother, his father, and his brother could have been there to see it.

The 90-day clock expired Thursday. So, for the first time, Ligon left behind prison walls and visited the public defenders’ Center City office, where files on his case take up an entire room. He seemed unfazed as he placed his face close to a high-tech temperature scanner, then cruised by elevator up to the eighth floor.

Peering out the window, he saw a city transformed.

“I’m looking at all the tall buildings,” he said. “This is all new to me. This never existed.”

He found it unsettling that Eastern State Penitentiary, where he was once imprisoned, is now a museum and Halloween attraction. “That don’t suit my tastes,” he said. He had declined to be included in an exhibit. He feared it would imply “that I’m such a dangerous man, which I’m not.”

He grew up in a different world: a farm in Alabama, where he abandoned school in the third or fourth grade — he said he couldn’t stand being in big groups — much as he would reject educational offerings in prison.

“I’m just a stubborn type of person,” Ligon said. “I was born that way.”

His parents enrolled him in school in Philadelphia when he was 13, but he couldn’t keep up. He was still illiterate when he was arrested at age 15. He believes he was scapegoated as the new kid, the outsider.

A loner, he grew to pride himself on his janitorial skills. In Graterford prison, he learned to read and write. He trained as a boxer there, developing a military-style workout regimen he continues to this day, despite his arthritis.

He never applied for commutation, though he could have had a strong chance at clemency in the 1970s, when hundreds of Pennsylvania lifers were released. Instead, he put his faith in Bridge and waited for the day he’d be released. To prepare himself for modern society, he watched world news on a small TV in his cell.

“I like my chances,” he said Thursday. “I really like my chances in terms of surviving.”

His road to release, though, was riddled with obstacles. After the U.S. Supreme Court banned mandatory life terms for minors in 2012, Pennsylvania refused to apply the ruling retroactively. Another ruling in 2016 ordered the state and others to do so.

Then, mitigation specialists had to prepare for his resentencing, tracking down school transcripts and prison records spanning more than half a century. “Every infraction, every transfer, that was the way to put his [biography] together,” said Billi Charron, who was tasked with compiling his history and a home plan.

Ligon’s aversion to parole kept him locked up for years after that, until the November ruling set the 90-day deadline for his release.

That left Ligon’s supporters scrambling to line up everything he’d need to come home.

Charron, Pace and Eleanor Myers, a senior advisor at YSRP, volunteered to assist — a process that ultimately included support from 10 city agencies, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, and various nonprofit organizations. Philadelphia’s Reentry Coalition directed Myers to Philadelphia Corporation for Aging, which found Ligon a place in domiciliary care, a foster-care-like accommodation with a family in Philadelphia.

“Then we had to figure out how to pay for it,” said Myers. The Philadelphia Office of Homeless Services agreed to cover the first year, while a benefits specialist is helping to get Social Security lined up after that. A modest crowdfunding campaign helped cover incidentals.

“We have this extraordinary community that has rallied to make this happen,” Myers said.

Pace, meanwhile, picked out sweaters and socks he thought Ligon would like. He found a phone with no data plan, figuring Ligon won’t need it. He drove around the neighborhood where Ligon will be staying, checking out the parks and other attractions so he can show Ligon around. And, he solicited advice from other long-serving former lifers. “Just take it slow with Joe,” they advised.

When Pace, 52, first came home nearly four years ago, he felt physically ill from the overstimulation — a sort of emotional equivalent of the bends. “Let’s say mine was on a two, his is going to be on a 10,” Pace said. “He’s been locked up so long, everything changed.”

At the back of his mind, for now, is whether the legal victory in Ligon’s case could be his own pathway off of lifetime parole.

The ruling does not set binding precedent. Nonetheless, Bridge said he’s already been contacted by numerous juvenile lifers hoping to challenge their lifetime parole terms as well. So far, he said, he’s filed similar petitions for three juvenile lifers.

To Bridge, Ligon’s case is a powerful example of punishment taken to senseless extremes.

“We waste people’s lives by over-incarcerating and we waste money by over-incarcerating. His case graphically demonstrates the absurdity of wasting each,” Bridge said Thursday, before dropping Ligon off at his new home. “Hopefully his release, and the release of the juvenile lifers in general, will cause a reevaluation of the way we incarcerate people.”

[fullymechanized-consoomer]

The claim that General Pinochet begat an economic powerhouse was one of those utterances whose truth rested entirely on its repetition.

Chile could boast some economic success. But that was the work of Salvador Allende – who saved his nation, miraculously, a decade after his death.

In 1973, the year General Pinochet brutally seized the government, Chile’s unemployment rate was 4.3%. In 1983, after ten years of free-market modernization, unemployment reached 22%. Real wages declined by 40% under military rule.

In 1970, 20% of Chile’s population lived in poverty. By 1990, the year ‘President’ Pinochet left office, the number of destitute had doubled to 40%. Quite a miracle.

Pinochet did not destroy Chile’s economy all alone. It took nine years of hard work by the most brilliant minds in world academia, a gaggle of Milton Friedman’s trainees, the Chicago Boys. Under the spell of their theories, the General abolished the minimum wage, outlawed trade union bargaining rights, privatized the pension system, abolished all taxes on wealth and on business profits, slashed public employment, privatized 212 state industries and 66 banks and ran a fiscal surplus.

Freed of the dead hand of bureaucracy, taxes and union rules, the country took a giant leap forward – into bankruptcy and depression. After nine years of economics Chicago style, Chile’s industry keeled over and died. In 1982 and 1983, GDP dropped 19%. The free- market experiment was kaput, the test tubes shattered. Blood and glass littered the laboratory floor. Yet, with remarkable chutzpah, the mad scientists of Chicago declared success. In the US, President Ronald Reagan’s State Department issued a report concluding, ‘Chile is a casebook study in sound economic management.’ Milton Friedman himself coined the phrase, ‘The Miracle of Chile.’ Friedman’s sidekick, economist Art Laffer, preened that Pinochet’s Chile was, ‘a showcase of what supply-side economics can do.’

It certainly was. More exactly, Chile was a showcase of de-regulation gone berserk.

The Chicago Boys persuaded the junta that removing restrictions on the nation’s banks would free them to attract foreign capital to fund industrial expansion.

Pinochet sold off the state banks – at a 40% discount from book value – and they quickly fell into the hands of two conglomerate empires controlled by speculators Javier Vial and Manuel Cruzat. From their captive banks, Vial and Cruzat siphoned cash to buy up manufacturers – then leveraged these assets with loans from foreign investors panting to get their piece of the state giveaways.

The bank’s reserves filled with hollow securities from connected enterprises. Pinochet let the good times roll for the speculators. He was persuaded that Governments should not hinder the logic of the market.

By 1982, the pyramid finance game was up. The Vial and Cruzat ‘Grupos’ defaulted. Industry shut down, private pensions were worthless, the currency swooned. Riots and strikes by a population too hungry and desperate to fear bullets forced Pinochet to reverse course. He booted his beloved Chicago experimentalists. Reluctantly, the General restored the minimum wage and unions’ collective bargaining rights. Pinochet, who had previously decimated government ranks, authorized a program to create 500,000 jobs. In other words, Chile was pulled from depression by dull old Keynesian remedies, all Franklin Roosevelt, zero Reagan/Thatcher. New Deal tactics rescued Chile from the Panic of 1983, but the nation’s long-term recovery and growth since then is the result of – cover the children’s ears – a large dose of socialism.

To save the nation’s pension system, Pinochet nationalized banks and industry on a scale unimagined by Communist Allende. The General expropriated at will, offering little or no compensation. While most of these businesses were eventually re-privatized, the state retained ownership of one industry: copper.

For nearly a century, copper has meant Chile and Chile copper. University of Montana metals expert Dr. Janet Finn notes, ‘Its absurd to describe a nation as a miracle of free enterprise when the engine of the economy remains in government hands.’ Copper has provided 30% to 70% of the nation’s export earnings. This is the hard currency which has built today’s Chile, the proceeds from the mines seized from Anaconda and Kennecott in 1973 – Allende’s posthumous gift to his nation.

Agribusiness is the second locomotive of Chile’s economic growth. This also is a legacy of the Allende years. According to Professor Arturo Vasquez of Georgetown University, Washington DC, Allende’s land reform, the break-up of feudal estates (which Pinochet could not fully reverse), created a new class of productive tiller-owners, along with corporate and cooperative operators, who now bring in a stream of export earnings to rival copper. ‘In order to have an economic miracle,’ says Dr. Vasquez, ‘maybe you need an interested government first to commit agrarian reform.’

But the myth of the free-market Miracle persists because it serves a quasi-religious function. Within the faith of the Reaganauts and Thatcherites, Chile provides the necessary genesis fable, the ersatz Eden from which laissez-faire dogma sprang successful and shining.

In 1998, the international finance Gang of Four – the World Bank, the IMF, the Inter-American Development Bank and the International Bank for Settlements – offered a $41.5 billion line of credit to Brazil. But before the agencies handed the drowning nation a life preserver, they demanded Brazil commit to swallow the economic medicine that nearly killed Chile. You know the list: fire-sale privatizations, flexible labor markets (i.e. union demolition) and deficit reduction through savage cuts in government services and social security.

In Sao Paulo, the public was assured these cruel measures would ultimately benefit the average Brazilian. What looked like financial colonialism was sold as the cure-all tested in Chile with miraculous results.

But that miracle was in fact a hoax, a fraud, a fairy tale in which everyone did not live happily ever after.

[romana73]

REYLO VS YONA OF THE DAWN

Post written by ME. The animated gifs present in this post AREN’T MINE and DON’T HAVE ANY WAY TO ME! Akatsuki no Yona ("Yona of the Dawn") is a 2009 historical/adventure/sentimental Manga, written and designed by Mizuho Kusanagi, of which Studio Pierrot produced Anime adaptation, formed by a total of 24 episodes and an OAV. In reality, story told in Yona and that told in Star Wars Episode VII and VIII, are totally different, however there are parallels between two stories make it possible to realize DIFFERENT stories from same narrative themes ... Orphaned of a mother, Yona is princess and heir to Kingdom of Kouka’s throne, daughter of King Il, head of Clan of Heaven and single ruler, recognized like King by other clans leaders: Wind, Earth, Water and Fire. In reality, King Il is considered weak and cowardly, because of his hatred of weapons and his policy of no violence. Unlike her father, Yona is lively, restless and adventurous. Since childhood she has shared her time with Son Hak, now head of the Wind clan and her faithful bodyguard, nicknamed "Lightning beast" for his superhuman strength and speed and devastating power of his blows, and his cousin Soo-won, cheerful, kind and carefree son of Ju-Hon, brother of King Il and undefeated general of army to protect Kouka’s kingdom. Everyone believed Ju-Hon should have become King, but when his father chose Il as sovereign, Ju-Hon left castle, promising to continue to defend the Kingdom and his brother from afar. Five days before her sixteenth birthday, Yona receives Soo-won’s visit to castle, returned to participate in her celebrations. Yona is determined to confess her love to Soo-won, unaware Hak has loved her in silence for years. Yona faces two painful obstacles: Soo-won claims to consider her like a younger sister and he said he can’t see her as a woman while, without explaining reason to her, King Il declares he will NEVER give Yona allowed to marry Soo-won. He will never have to become King, which would happen if he married Yona. Meanwhile, Hak notices climate has changed in castle, but his premonition is too vague and Hak fails to focus on it. One evening Yona is chased by someone who sneaks into castle, but she’s rescued by Soo-won and intruder seems to disappear. On birthday, Soo-won gives Yona a beautiful and precious hair clip. Unable to sleep that same night, Yona goes to her father's rooms to inform him that she will never forget Soo-won but as soon as she opens door she sees a chilling scene: Soo-won puts a sword in King Il's heart, killing him in front in her eyes. Noticing her presence, Soo-won is surprised and disappointed Yona was still awake and explains to girl that he had killed King Il for revenge. For some time, in fact, Soo-won had discovered his father hadn’t died from an accident like everyone else, including Yona, knew, but he had been killed with sword, by King Il immediately after he ascended the throne. Soo-won also claims that after killing King II, to honor his father's wishes, he would become King. Yona doesn’t believe a word, but she hasn’t time to assimilate news, ‘cause Kye - Sook, intruder who had threatened her night before and Soo-won's aide, seeing Yona was witness to King Il assassination, advised Soo-won to kill her. Yona runs away, but Soo-won's guards manage to capture her. Fortunately, Hak arrives to save Yona. Thanks to Min-Soo, faithful servant, Hak and Yona manage to escape from castle. Soo-won unleashes soldiers on their tracks, with order to capture them, while he is crowned new King of Kouka, declaring he will crush anyone who will oppose him. Yona and Hak hide in Capital Fuuga, Hak's hometown. Here Yona takes decision to fight for her life and prevent Hak from dying. Having heard of girl's decision, Son Mundok, adoptive father of Hak and former General of Wind’s clan, in King Il’s service, sent Hak and Yona in search of Ik-Soo, a monk capable of listening and reporting God’s voice, in past adviser to King, then chased from castle. Learning of Yona's will to fight, Ik-Soo advises her and Hak to look for four dragons from which kingdom and its tribes were born. Four boys who were infused with blood and powers of Dragons who reigned in sky, destined to protect the Red Dragon with every means, as soon as this was reincarnated ... YONA: Soo-won kills King Il, Yona's father, breaking Yona's heart, who loves him and wants to marry him. Until that moment, boy is considered sweet, cheerful, kind, educates by everyone

REYLO :

In "Star Wars. Episode VII. The Force Awakens ", Kylo Ren kills his father Han Solo in front of Rey, who is afraid of him and would just like to escape him. From the beginning, Kylo Ren is considered evil, lost in Dark Side. In "Star Wars. Episode VIII. The Last Jedi ”, Kylo Ren kills Snoke, his master, then takes his place on throne, as Supreme Leader

YONA:

Hak arrives just as Soo-won's soldiers are about to kill Yona. Shocked, she looks at him in amazement and fascination. Soon after, Yona and Hak are stopped by Soo-won himself who also reveals to Hak that he killed King II. Hak rages and attacks Soo-won. Duel is blocked by a Soo-won’s soldier who threatens Yona. Fortunately, an anonymous arrow distracts enemies, allowing Yona and Hak to escape

REYLO: In "Star Wars. Episode VII. The Force Awakens ”, Kylo Ren unleashes his troops in search of BB-8, a droid in Rey’s company. Rey and Finn are forced to flee from First Order’s stormtroopers, until they reach Resistance. Meanwhile, touching Anakin's old lightsaber, Rey has a vision, in which Kylo Ren rescues her from an attacker and then follows her. Finally, while they are fleeing Star Killer Base, Rey and Finn are blocked by Kylo Ren, who throws Rey against a tree, causing her to faint. Finn fights with Kylo to protect Rey

YONA: Disobeying her late father’s wishes, Yona tells Hak that she wants to learn how to use sword to defend herself and protect him. Hak proposes to Yona arrows and bow instead of sword and he explains she lacks a fundamental thing: killer instinct. Unlike Hak, Yona is unable to kill. Once, Hak challenges Yona to hit him and she fails. Only when Hak tells Yona to imagine he is Soo-won, Yona is assailed by fire and determination and manages to lightly hurt Hak

REYLO:

In "Star Wars. Episode VIII. The Last Jedi ”, after a moment of loss, Rey shoots Kylo Ren during their first Force connection. Later, Kylo Ren's words prompted Rey to throw herself into cave attracted her, but she feared

YONA:

During a clash with Fire Clan’s army, Hak and Yona fall off a cliff and are believed dead. In fact, they are saved by Ik-Soo, a powerful King’s ex-monk, driven out of castle, who lives isolated in depths of forest. Ik-Soo tells Yona when DARK falls on earth, Dragons blood will bring life and Red Dragon will return with the dawn. For everyone, Yona is LIGHT

REYLO: In “Star Wars Episode VIII. The Last Jedi”, speaking with Rey and Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader Snoke says "DARKNESS grows and LIGHT with it". Rey symbolizes Light, Kylo Ren is Darkness

YONA: At journey’s start, Yona and Hak seek out Ik-Soo, a powerful King ex-monk, and then they set off to find four boys in whose veins blood and power of four Dragons

REYLO: In "Star Wars. Episode VII. The Force Awakens" movie, Rey and Finn travel to reach Resistance, to deliver BB-8 to it. Later, Rey sets off to join Luke on planet where he was hidden

YONA: At night, Yona trains often alone to shoot a bow and then, with the sword. One night, Hak decides to train her, fighting with her, in forest

REYLO: In "Star Wars. Episode VII. The Force Awakens”, Rey and Kylo Ren duel in the forest. In "Star Wars. Episode VIII. The Last Jedi", Rey trains alone in morning with her lightsaber

YONA: Hak's nickname is "Lightning Beast of Kouka" and he is often called beast. Hak is very hurt by Soo- won’s betrayal, so much so he closes on himself and doesn't utter a word when talking about him

REYLO: Kylo Ren's nickname is Jedi’s Killer. Rey calls him "masked creature" and, when she’s furious, "monster". In "Star Wars. Episode VII. The Force Awakens", it is said it was Kylo Ren who betrayed Luke. In "Star Wars. Episode VIII. The Last Jedi", Kylo reveals to Rey it was Luke who first betrayed him, trying to kill him in his sleep

YONA: Towards the end, Soo-won and Yona meet again. Soo - won hides Yona under his cloak to protect her from his soldiers. Yona sees a sword at Soo's side - won and grabs the handle, feeling assaulted by desire to kill him, but Soo - won blocks her, explaining he understands her, but he can't die ‘cause he still has something to do. Struck by his words, Yona refrains from killing him. Later, Yona confesses to Ik-Soo she still has feelings for Soo-won

REYLO: In "Star Wars. Episode VII. The Force Awakens ", hunted by Kylo Ren, Rey tries to defend herself by shooting at him. Tired of avoiding bullets, Kylo Ren blocks Rey’s arm with the Force. In "Star Wars. Episode VIII. The Last Jedi ”, after having fainted because of their clashing with Force, Rey awakens first and she doesn’t kill Kylo, fleeing and leaving him unconscious on the floor

[medialists]

Mamma Mia

Atomic Blonde 

Filth 

Regression 

Colonia 

El círculo 

Beauty and the Beast 

Trance 

Victor Frankenstein 

Atonement 

Starter for 10 

Becoming Jane 

The Conspirator

The Last King of Scotland 

X-Men.

Glass 

The Last Station 

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 

Big Fish 

La desaparición de Eleanor Rigby 

Submergence 

Thor 

The Avengers 

Intensamente 

Las ventajas de ser invisible 

IT. 

Inception 

Harry Potter.

At eternity's gate 

Catch me if you can 

Her 

Pulp Fiction 

Xavier Dolan 

Memorias de una Geisha 

Ready player one 

Battle angel 

Taxi Driver 

El doble 

Shutter island 

Cube 

My week with Marilyn 

Noé 

Ballet shoes 

El diablo viste a la moda 

Cazafantasmas 

Les miserables 

Lady Bird 

The Truman Show 

Irene, yo y mi otro yo 

Call me by your name 

The Favorite 

La la land 

La chica del tren 

Jolene 

Winter's war 

Tomb Raider 

Ex machina 

El código Da Vinci 

Ángeles y demonios 

Mean Girls 

Mulan 

Coraline 

Mujer Bonita 

E.T. 

Crimson Peak. 

Extraordinario. 

Las de Marvel que faltan 

The Room 

A quiet place 

Blade Runner 

Animales Nocturnos 

Animales Fantásticos  

La Propuesta 

A star is born 

Begin again 

Anon. 

From Russia with Love

Goldfinger

Thunderball

You Only Live Twice

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Diamonds Are Forever

The Man with the Golden Gun

For Your Eyes Only

Octopussy

Never Say Never Again

A View to a Kill

The Living Daylights

GoldenEye

Tomorrow Never Dies

The World is not Enough

Die Other Day

Casino Royale

Quantum of Solace

Dawn of the Dead

Blade II

RED

The Dark Knight Rises

Kick-Ass 2

Die Hard

Scarface

From Dusk till Dawn

Face/Off

No Escape

Impostor

Death Race 2

Jobs

Les Quatre Cents Coups

The Wolf of Wall Street

The Murder of Princess Diana

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Fight Club

My Sister's Keeper

Ida

Loreak

Sowon

Gran Torino

All About Eve

The Nun's Story

The Sunset Limited

A Clockwork Orange

Kingsman.

Batman: Under the Red Hood

Lords of Dogtown

Unbroken

Ip Man

Million Dollar Baby

Concussion

The Great Gatsby

Lilting

Birdman

The Theory of Everything

War and Peace

Collateral Beauty

The Children's Hours

Moulin Rouge!

Dolls

The Bridges of Madison County

As Good as It Gets

Me Before You

Before Sunrise

Before Midnight

Carol

The Reader

Like Crazy

New York, I Love You

Anna Karenina

Pride & Prejudice

Bridget Jones's Diary

How to Marry a Millionaire

Bus Stop

The Prince and the Showgirl

Ladies of the Chorus

Roman Holiday

Prendimi l'Anima

The Young Victoria

Sabrina

Ed Wood

My Life Without Me

A Woman of Paris

Metropolis

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Fantasia 2000

Punisher: War Zone

Robin and Marian

The Unforgiven

Green Mansions

Live and Let Die

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

To the Bone

T2 Trainspotting

La Grande Bellezza

Men, Women & Children

Lost in Translation

Ghost World

Before Sunset

Evil Dead

Army of Darkness

After Earth

Hulk

Get Smart

Raiders of the Lost Ark

The Dark Crystal

Labyrinth

300

Mononoke Hime

Edge of Tomorrow

Death Race 2050

L'Écume des Jours

Paris When It Sizzles

The Seven Year Itch

Down with Love

Monkey Business

Dead Alive

Monty Python's Life of Brian

Vertigo

They All Laughed

Love Among Thieves

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Let's Make Love

Funny Face

On the Town

The Sky's the Limit

A Damsel in Distress

Shall We Dance

There's No Business Like Show Business

It's Always Fair Weather

My Fair Lady

Don't Bother to Knock

Monte Carlo Baby

Las Dos Caras de la Verdad

Ciudad en Tinieblas

El Bebé de Rose Mary

The Chuck Net Atrapado Sin Salida

El Experimento

Holy Motors

Mindscape

Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me

Antichrist

Bottom of the Worlds

High Rise

Southland Tales

Magnolia

Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy

Inherent Vice

The Lobster

The Number 23

They Look Like People

Upstream Color

Twelve Monkeys

Minority Report

Los Cromocrímenes

Predestination

About time

Blue Velvet

Pi: Faith in Chaos

The Box

Identity

The Life of David Gale

The Gift

Lovesong

Miss Sloane

The Meyerowitz Stories

The Big Sick

Efectos Secundarios

The Notebook

The Odd Life of Timothy Green

The Little Mermaid

Manchester By the Sea

Silence

Moonlight

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Snowpiercer

Star Trek Beyond

Moonrise Kingdom

No Country for Old Men

The Exorcist

The Darjeeling Limited

House of Sand and Fog

Napoleon Dynamite

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Armores Perros

La Dictadura Perfecta

Frida

El Crimen del Padre Amado

El Estudiante

Cilantro y Perejil

Perfume de Violetas

Arráncame la Vida

Como Agua para Chocolate

Solo Con tu Pareja

El Callejón de los Milagros

Rojo Amanecer

La Ley de Herodes

Un Monstruo de Mil Cabezas

Las Horas Contigo

Maquinaria Paramericana

Ella es Ramona

El Jeremias

Sopladora de Hojas

Los Insólitos Peces Gatos

Guten Tag, Ramon

El Infierno

Mientras el Lobo No Está

Sexo, Pudor y Lágrimas

Miss Bala

Cronos

Después de Lucía

Qué Culpa Tiene el Niño

Nosotros los Nobles

La Jaula de Oro

Y tu Mamá También

Canoa

Amar te Duele

Toki Wo Kakeru Shoujo

Transformers

Harry Potter

Old Yeller

Legally Blonde

Miller's Crossing

Faustrecht der Freiheit

It's Called Murder, Baby

Heathers

The Love Witch

Southside With You

Pink Flamingos

Hr's Just Not That Into You

Windstruck

What's Your Number?

There's Something About Mary

When Harry Met Sally

Forgettin Sarah Marshall

Say Anything

Pretty Woman

Not Another Teen Movie

Kate & Leopold

Sleepless in Seattle

Pretty in Pink

Serendipity

Four Weddings And A Funeral

50 First Dates

Bridget Jones' Diary

Something's Gotta Give

Pánico Antes del Amanecer

Cumpleaños Mortal

Viernes 13

La Quema

The Slumber Party Massacre

Campamento Sangriento

Curtains

Siete Mujeres Atrapadas

The House On Sorority Row

Detrás de la Máscara

April Fool's Day

Lovecraft

Bubba Ho-Tep

Thor Ragnarok

Lo Que Hacemos en las Sombras

Zombies Party

La Noche de los Muertos Vivientes

El Regreso de los Muertos Vivientes

Army of Darkness

Pasion Infernal

Terroríficamente muertos

El Baile de los Vampiros

Braindead

Creepshow

El Jovencito Frankeinstein

Gremlins

Un Hombre Lobo Americano en Londres

The Edge Of Seventeen

Murder of Cats

The Book of Love

Atomic Falafel

Buddies

Tiempos felices

Illegal

Nise: El Corazón de la Locura

Kill Command

The Blind Side

The Fundamentals of Caring

The Danish Girl

Miss You Already

Fantastic Beasts the Crimes of Grindelwald

Side Effects

Requiem for a Dream

Constantine

The Island

The Box

The Tall Man

Oblivion

Gods of Egypt

Twilight Zone

Dusk Dawn

Jeepers Creepers

The Descent

30 Days of Night

The Midnight Meat Train

VHS

Minority Report

Terminator

Avatar

Midnight Sun

The Book of Henry

Lady Bird

Truth or Dare

Adrift

Stronger

Every Day

A Nightmire on Elm Street

REC

Monsters

American Mary

Found

The Witches

Let Me In

Let the Right One In

Oculus

Insidious 4: The Last Key

Trainspotting

Night of the Living Dead

Life of Brian

Drive

Snatch

Blade Runner

Scarface

Lord of the Rings

Ben - Hur

Cantinflas

Tin tan

Pedro Infante

Gone With the Wind

Indiana Jones

Salon Kitty

The Wild Bunch

Harold and Maude

The Warriors

The Long Goodbye

Deep End

Coonskin

The Bestia in Calore

La Cage aux Folles

Badlands

The Brood

1941

Eraserhead

Labyrinth

Legend

The Sound of Music

Repo! The Genetic Opera

Enemy Mine

Cannibal Holocaust

The Evil Dead

Lola Montes

King Kong

Rock and Roll High School

Blood In Blood Out

Easy Rider

Heavy Metal

Pink Floyd The Wall

Wicker Park

Lars and the Real Girl

The Cable Guy

Sophie's Choice

Brokeback Mountain

A Wrinkle in Time

Scream

Presagio

Señales

Titanes del pacífico

Clint Eastwood

Dirty Harry

Chappie

The Greatest Showman

Safe Heaven

Across the Universe

Thirteen

Perfect Sense

A Life Less Ordinary

Shallow Grave

No Reservations

The Holiday

Ali G in da House

The Reader

The Dressmaker

Brigsby Bear

Cast Away

Romeo + Juliet

What's Eating Gilberte Grape?

Body of Lies

Little Nemo Adventures in Slumberland

Apt Pupil

Stand by Me

Shawshank Redemption

Excalibur

Hearts Beat Loud

Velvet Buzzsaw

Nightcrawler

Chungking Express

Twin Peaks

Throne of Blood

Harakiri

2046

Tokyo Story

F for Fake

Allegrophobia

Lost in Translation

Hereditary

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

Rear Window

West Side Story

Manhattan

David Lynch Cooking Quinoa

Ikiru

Midnight Cowboy

Bonnie and Clyde

The Straight Story

Annie Hall

The Great Dictator

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

M

Y tu Mamá También

Paddington

Paddington 2

Birdman

Autumn Sonata

To Kill a Mockingbird

Barry Lyndon

It's a Wonderful Life

The Wrestler

The Florida Project

Rashomon

It's Such a Beautiful Day

Paths of Glory

Kung Fury

Boogie Nights

Gone with the Wind

The Prestige

Shaun of the Dead

The World's End

In the Mood for Love

Handmaiden

Intolerance

El Bola

Celda 211

El Olivo

Las 13 Rosas

Blue Valentine

Closer

Like Crazy

(500) Days of Summer

Le Mépris

Match Point

Ruby Sparks

Once

Revolutionary Road

Happy Together

Sleepy Hollow

Vampyr

Black Sunday

The Hunger

The Haunting

Rebecca

Crimson Peak

The Crow

Pan's Labyrinth

Bram Stoker's Dracula

Drácula

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

A Cure for Wellness

Horror of Dracula

The Bride

La Novia

Flavors of Youth

Dead Poet's Society

Mary and Max

Dear Zachary: a Letter to a Son about His Father

Big Fish & Begonia

20th Century Women

The Villainess

Touch of Evil

Christine

Zero Dark Thirty

The Stranger

Hannibal

El Autor

Short Term 12

Grave of the Fireflies

Cinema Paradiso

My Girl

A Ghost Story

Hasta el viento tiene miedo

El libro de piedra

Veneno para hadas

Pearl Harbor

Infierno azul

Guerra de Novias

El Bar Coyote

Needful Things

Sense & Sensibility

El Diario de Carlota

Batman vs Superman

Black Panther

Dredd

Scream

Valentine

Camino hacia el terror

Sé lo que hicieron el verano pasado

Joy Ride

Jeepers Creepers

La reunión del diablo

Viernes 13

Another Earth

A Quiet Place

Mississippi en llamas

The breakfast club

The revenant

birdman

sing street *

frida

roma

catch me if you can

dead poets society

the age of adaline

changeling

brooklyn

good will hunting

artificial intelligence

paranoia

to the bone

the danish girl

90 minutes in heaven

while you were sleeping

james and the giant peach

Crimson peak

pretty woman

summer days with coo

the breadwinner

summer wars

the gift

cargo

julie & julia

spirit

8 mile

raw

okja

schindler's list

blue valentine

the hateful eight

the untouchables

old boy

ghost in the shell

sophie's choice

ip man 2

frances ha

the tree of life

amanda knox

hail, caesar!

Janis: little girl blue

my beautiful broken brain

noah

the badadook

origin: spirits of the past

project almanac

the thing

bird box

death note

death note ii

1922

death note: light up the new world

pandora

american gangster

the nightmare

pasión por las letras

le dîner de cons

la grande vadrouille

la traversée de paris

le fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain

El secreto de Adeline

La boda de mi mejor amigo

Loco por ella

Quédate a mi lado

The mexican

A él no le gustas tanto

El regalo

Lo imposible

Con derecho a roce

Mi segunda vez

Canta!

El examen

El número 23

The game

Clown house

Km3!

Macario

Once upon a time in Mexico

Wes Creaven's New Nightmare

Don't look now

Eyes without a face

Como si fuera la primera vez

El diario de Biridget Jones

500 días con ella

Juno

El descanso

Virgen a los 40

Eterno resplandor de una mente sin recuerdos

Realmente amor

Ligeramente embarazada

¿Cómo sobrevivir a un ex?

Mensajero del futuro

El imperio del fuego

El libro de Emo

Oblivion: el tiempo del olvido

La última esperanza

Escape de NY

El expresó del miedo

Soy leyenda

El último camino

Cuando el destino nos alcance

Sunset boulevard

North by northwest

The artist

The good the bad and the ugly

Highlander

Hair

The Maltese falcon

The road

Independence day

Armageddon

28 dias después

Hijos de los hombres

La guerra de los mundos

Stake land

Take shelter

Snowpiercer

2012

Supersalidos

American Pie

Rumores y mentiras

Todo en un día

Chicas malas

El club de los cinco

El exorcista

El descenso

The babadook

La matanza de Texas

La cosa

Martyrs

Rec 2

El conjuro 2

Pulse

Evil dead

Voice from the stone

Clinical

Dig two graves

Kidnap

Black butterfly

Grey Lady

Dans la maison

Memories of a murder

Incendies

The prestige

Gone baby gone

El secreto de sus ojos

Mystic River

[brain-leakage-blog]

Running Castlevania with Old School D&D, Part 5

This is part of a continuing series. For part one, click here. For part two, click here. For part three, click here. And for part four, click here.

While the previous posts in this series have mainly been concerned with showing how to adapt Lamentations of the Flame Princess' various character classes to Castlevania-appropriate archetypes, this post will handle the setting of Transylvania itself. And while I dipped into Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse and Symphony of the Night to build a D&D style adventuring party with, neither game really offers much in the way of setting material outside the castle.

For that, I'm going to go back a little farther into the franchise's history, to the much-maligned proto-Metroidvania, Castlevania II: Simon's Quest.    

Please, hold all torches and pitchforks until the end.

Just a brief side note: If I really were to run a Castlevania-themed campaign for a group of PC's, I'd probably lean heavily on Simon's Quest to do it with. While the 8-bit NES wasn't quite up to the developers' ambitions, the game has some good bones to build off of. 

I would probably have the players roll up original characters, with at least one being the next heir to the Belmont line. I'd have the game take place a few years after one of the "major" Dracula battles outlined in the main series, and have the Belmont player character's relative be suffering from the same curse Simon did: The wounds taken in his battle against Dracula are not healing. He is slowly dying. As his condition worsens, he has visions of becoming a creature of the night. A fortune-teller reveals the truth. If he dies before the next full moon, he will become a vessel for Dracula to be re-born, stronger than ever. The only way to lift the curse is to bring Dracula's spirit back into its previous body. But Dracula's minions have scattered his remains, to ensure that his curse will run its course. 

Honestly, the only major difference in the set-up would be that the "cursed" Belmont wouldn't be accompanying the PCs. I'd hole him up in the basement of a church, surrounded by garlic and crosses, with monks praying over him day and night. It would then be up to the group of relatively green and inexperienced adventurers to run a desperate race against the clock, with only minimal guidance from their mentor. 

(I'd also make sure that the enemy kidnapped the cursed Belmont as the night of the full moon approached, giving the PC's one more thing to worry about. But that's just me...)

Anyway, there are a few resources I'd recommend using here. First and foremost is A Guide to Transylvania, which I mentioned back in my Alucard post. The PDF is available on DriveThruRPG for about eight bucks. The crunch inside is AD&D 2e specific, but everything else is system agnostic. This book details everything from Transylvanian history, to peasant superstitions, to secret societies. No other supplement will help you fill in the details of the Transylvanian countryside as well as this one.

The second (more expensive) resource is the current D&D 5e Curse of Strahd campaign book, which is an update and expansion of the original Ravenloft module. Why this one instead of the (many) older ones? First, it's widely available in hardcopy. And while I'm not completely in love with what I've seen of 5e's rules, you just can't deny that Wizards of the Coast puts out a high quality product these days. This thing will survive some wear and tear at the table. Second (and more importantly), it maps out and expands the land of Barovia far beyond what the older editions did. 

The third (completely free) resource is the Transylvania map that appeared in the old NES Game Atlas. A high-quality scan is available here at castlevaniadungeon.net.  

The simplest, easiest way to take care of mapping the Transylvania countryside is just to use the foldout map that comes with Curse of Strahd and swap out the names. For example, swap out the starting village of Jova from Simon's Quest with the Village of Barovia from Curse of Strahd. Swap out Yomi—the nearly-abandoned town just outside Castlevania—with the destroyed village of Berez.

While this won't be 100% faithful to the geography on the Castlevania map, enough of the landmarks in Simon's Quest have a rough Barovian equivalent to make it work. Below are some suggestions, with corresponding map and page references.

Castlevania Location / Barovia Location / Curse of Strahd Foldout Map Location / Curse of Strahd Page Reference

Town of Jova (Area 1) / Village of Barovia / Location E / Page 40 - 48

Town of Aljiba (Area 16) / Village of Valliki / Location N / Page 95 - 124

Yuba Lake (Area 14) / Lake Zarovich / Location L / Page 38

Town of Veros (Area 6) / Village of Krezk / Location S / Page 143 - 156

Town of Yomi (Area 48) / Ruins of Berez / Location U / Page 161 - 166

Laruba Mansion (Area 36) / Wachterhaus / N/A (Located in Vallaki) / Page 110 - 115

Brahm Mansion (Area 21) / Argynvostholt / Location Q / Page 129 - 142

That should be enough to get the idea. That said, I'd probably also swap out some of the obviously non-European names with some real-world Transylvanian ones. Targoviste for Aljiba, for example.

One pro to this approach is that it requires relatively little prep time, especially for an inexperienced DM. Curse of Strahd has plenty of fleshed-out NPCs, side-quests, and description boxes for just about every building and room, if you decide to use them. You can use the encounters, too. Stat conversions from 5e to LotFP are simple: Just use the closest equivalent monster from the free Basic Fantasy Roleplaying Game, and add two to the creature's Armor Class. Don't sweat the other details. 

Me? I probably wouldn't go that far. I'd probably just use the maps, crib or ad-lib all of the descriptions from the Transylvania Guide, and wing it with the NPCs and encounters. Similarities aside, Castlevania and Ravenloft are two different properties, with two entirely different feels to them. Relying too heavily on the published material just means you're playing Curse of Strahd. Which is okay. But it isn't Castlevania.

Which, of course, leaves open the question of Castlevania itself. 

The Castle Ravenloft layout in Curse of Strahd is unchanged from the original I:6 Ravenloft module. It makes a perfectly serviceable stand-in for Dracula's Castle, provided you're taking your inspiration from the first couple of games. But if you want something closer to the sprawling, changing, living embodiment of Chaos featured in Symphony of the Night and most of the later games, you'd be better off creating your own funhouse-style Mega-dungeon. As with anything, which you choose will depend heavily on your group, their preferences, and their play style. 

Before I close this installment out—and since I'm already mining Castlevania II for ideas—I'm going to give some sample stats for that game's two Boss monsters. For Carmilla, I used the Basic Fantasy Roleplaying Game version of the Vampire, with almost no modifications. For Death, I re-skinned the BFRPG Lich, added a bunch of Hit Dice, and swapped out his spell casting for a handful of specific, spell-like abilities.

If neither one seems challenging enough, both are easy enough to scale up in power. After all, when it comes to "end game" content, you're bound to have a pretty high level party. Watching them effortlessly steamroll the final bosses would be sort of anticlimactic. If that's a concern, my personal preference is to creatively choose the location for the encounter.

Instead of meeting Carmilla in her vampire lair right away, why not have the PC's encounter her at a masquerade ball, using the powers of her enchanted mask to appear as one of the living? Force them to use roleplaying and guile to maneuver her to a place they can fight her without harming innocents. What about having the PC's run into Death on the grounds of an old battlefield or cemetery? He could raise dozens of allies among the dead, forcing even the most powerful group of PCs into a pitched battle for survival.  

Granted, if you're planning to use Castlevania II as your template, you could always just let the PC's walk right by them with no consequence...

(Note: the Lamentations of the Flame Princess rules assume ascending armor class and a base, unarmored AC of 12. If using these creatures with a system that has a base AC of 10, simply subtract 2.)  

CARMILLA

Alignment: Chaotic

Armor Class: 21

Hit Dice: 9 (attack bonus +8)

No. of Attacks: 1 weapon or special

Damage: 1d8, or by weapon, or special

Movement: 40' or 60' (fly)

No. Appearing: 1 (Unique)

Save as: Lvl 9 Fighter

Morale: 11

Treasure Type: Special

XP: 1,225

Beautiful, vain, and cruel, the aristocratic vampire Carmilla is one of Dracula's most ambitious servants. Famous for her inventive and sadistic tortures, she is best known for bathing in the blood of young women. She possesses Carmilla's Mask, a powerful, cursed artifact.

Like all vampires, Carmilla casts no shadow and no reflection. She cannot cross running water, and may not enter another's home unless invited. She cannot tolerate the strong odor of garlic, and will recoil from a mirror or from a cross presented with conviction (for more information on these weaknesses, see the Vampire, p. 124 of the Basic Fantasy Roleplaying Game). 

Carmilla is immune to Sleep, Charm, and Hold spells. If unarmed, she will treat her hands like claws, raking her target for 1d8 damage. When armed, her vampiric strength gives her an additional +3 to damage when using melee weapons. Her bite (though seldom used in combat) inflicts 1d3 damage, and drains one level of energy from her target for each round she continues to feed. Feeding places her in a vulnerable position, and she suffers a -5 to her Armor Class.

Victims reduced to 0 hit points by Carmilla's feeding die, and they will rise as vampires during the next sunset. These new vampires are permanently under Carmilla's control, and always act as if under a Charm spell.  

Carmilla can command common nocturnal creatures. Once per day, she can summon 10d10 rats, 5d4 giant rats, 10d10 bats, 3d6 giant bats, or 3d6 wolves. The creatures must be nearby to be summoned. Once called, they arrive in 2d6 rounds and obey her commands for 1 hour.  If she chooses, Carmilla can also assume the form of a giant bat or a giant wolf at will.

In addition to the above abilities, Carmilla also shares the common vampire's Charm gaze, which her victims can save vs Spell to resist. Unlike her more common brethren, Carmilla's charm is exceptionally powerful, imposing a -3 penalty rather than the standard -2. 

Carmilla cannot be harmed by non-magical weapons. Exposing her to direct sunlight for more than 1 round destroys her, and submerging her in running water causes her to lose 1/3 of her Hit Points per round for three rounds, with death occurring on the third round. Any other method of reducing her HP to 0 merely incapacitates her, causing her to fall into an apparently death-like state. But if her body is not exposed to sunlight, submerged in running water, or burned, she will begin to regenerate 1d8 hours later, at a rate of 1 hp per turn.

Carmilla's Mask (Artifact)

This artifact is a smooth, silver mask, closely resembling the kind commonly worn during masquerade balls. When the mask is placed onto a human or a dhampir, dozens of hollow, silver spikes appear in the inside, causing it to latch onto the victim's face, and inflicting 1d3 damage. Each round the victim is prevented from removing the mask, it drains 1 energy level, feeding as a vampire, until the victim is reduced to 0 Hit Points. Once dead, the victims do not rise as vampires.

If the mask is freshly fed, bloody tears will pool in the corner of its eyes, and for the next 1d12 hours it will convey several abilities on any vampire that wears it. While wearing the mask, the vampire casts both a shadow and a reflection. Garlic, holy symbols, and holy water have no effect. The vampire may enter any home with no invitation, cross running water, and even walk in the sunlight—although this last will still be uncomfortable. 

Additionally, victims of the vampire's Charm gaze suffer a further -2 penalty to their saving throw.  

DEATH

Alignment: Chaotic

Armor Class: 26

Hit Dice: 15 (attack bonus +10)

No. of Attacks: 1 touch, weapon.

Damage: 1d8 touch+drain, by weapon.

Movement: 30' or 60' (fly)

No. Appearing: 1 (Unique)

Save as: Lvl 15 Magic User or Cleric (use lower)

Morale: 11

Treasure Type: Special

XP: 3,150

Death is Dracula's top lieutenant. Fiercely loyal to his master, Death will fight to protect him at all costs. Death's actual nature is unknown, although he is believed to be an evil manifestation of pure Chaos. His physical form resembles that of the classical "Grim Reaper," a skeletal body wrapped in a tattered cloak. He carries Death's Scythe, an artifact-level magical weapon.

Upon first encountering Death, all intelligent, living creatures must save vs Spell or flee in terror for 2d6 rounds. Even on subsequent encounters, Death's gaze is terrifying. All creatures that meet it must make a save vs. Spell or be paralyzed with fright for 2d4 rounds. Dhampirs, due to their half-undead nature, get a +2 bonus to this check.

Death prefers to attack with his scythe when possible. If forced to make a physical attack, his touch causes 1d8 points of damage and drains 1d4 points of Constitution, while simultaneously healing him for the equivalent amount.

The Constitution loss is permanent. It can only be healed by the casting of a Restoration spell, at a rate of 1 point per casting. If a character's Constitution score falls to 0, he or she immediately dies, and rises the following round as a lesser wight. This creature is identical to the wight described on p. 126 of the Basic Fantasy Roleplaying Game, except its attack causes 1d4 points of damage and 1 point of Constitution loss. All characters killed and transformed into wights are considered permanently dead, and cannot be Raised. They may still be Reincarnated. 

Death is able to cast Speak With Dead, Animate Dead, and Raise Dead at will. And while he rarely feels the need to disguise himself, he is able to do so with the aid of Polymorph Self. Additionally, Death is always treated as having an active True Seeing spell cast on his person. For purposes of spell duration and saving throws, Death's caster level is 20. 

Death is immune to all non-magical weapons. Like all skeletons, Death only takes half damage from bladed weapons, and only one point from arrows, bolts, or sling stones (plus any applicable magical bonus). Additionally, he is immune to Sleep, Charm, and Hold spells. Death cannot be turned by the cleric's Turn Undead spell.

Death cannot be permanently killed. When reduced to 0 Hit Points, Death's physical form is destroyed, and his spirit re-joins the primordial Chaos outside the world. After 1d10 months, Death will Reincarnate on the physical plane, although in a weakened form equivalent to a wraith (see Basic Fantasy Roleplaying Game, p. 127). He must then drain the equivalent life force of 2x his normal Hit Dice (a combined 30 levels) in order to regain his full strength and powers.    

Death's Scythe (+3 Great Weapon)

Like Death himself, Death's Scythe is believed to be an evil manifestation of Chaos. In combat, Death's Scythe delivers 1d10 damage, with an additional +3 magical damage bonus. On any natural attack roll of 18 or better, the target must save vs Magical Device or die instantly. Any mortal being who attempts to touch the handle of Death's Scythe must make the same saving throw, but at a -4 penalty.

3 times per day, Death's Scythe can create 1d3 Phantom Sickles. These are smaller, ghostly sickles that spin out towards their intended victim. The sickles last for 1d4 rounds, continuously attacking, and causing 1d6+1 damage per successful hit.

Creatures killed with Death's Scythe may not be Raised, but they may still be Reincarnated.

[makerof150papermasks]

Hamlet Mariofied Act 3 Scene 2

Bolded names refer to the Mario characters playing the roles. The character role names remain the same in the context of the play and its dialogue.

Mario = Hamlet

Birdo = First Player

Diddy Kong, Dixie Kong = Other Players

Kamek = Polonius

Wario = Rosencrantz

Waluigi = Guildenstern

Luigi = Horatio

Bowser = Claudius

Peach = Gertrude

Wendy = Ophelia

Amazing Flyin’ Hammer Bro, Buster Beetle, Whimp = Lords Attendant

Terrapin, Hammer Bro, Fire Bro, Ice Bro, Boomerang Bro, Sledge Bro, Armored Koopa (Koopatrol), Terra Cotta = Guards

Mouser, Fryguy = Trumpeters

Clawgrip, Tryclyde = Drummers

Gooper Blooper, King Bob-omb, Eyerok, Boss Wiggler = Hautboys

Wart = Player King

Rosalina = Player Queen

Mallow = Lucianus Player

Morton, Roy, Ludwig, Booster = Mutes

Act III, Scene 2

Elsinore. Hall in the Castle.

Enter Mario and three of the Players [Birdo, Diddy Kong, and Dixie Kong]. Tune to Overworld Theme from Super Mario Bros 2

Mario. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounc'd it to you,

trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our

players do, I had as live the town crier spoke my lines. Nor do

 not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all

gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say)

whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a

temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the

soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to

 tatters, to very rags, to split the cars of the groundlings, who

(for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb

shows and noise. I would have such a fellow whipp'd for o'erdoing

Termagant. It out-herods Herod. Pray you avoid it.

Birdo. I warrant your honour.

 Mario. Be not too tame neither; but let your own discretion be your

tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with

this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of

nature: for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing,

whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as

 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show Virtue her own feature,

scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his

form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though

it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious

grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance

 o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I

have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly (not to

speak it profanely), that, neither having the accent of

Christians, nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so

strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of Nature's

 journeymen had made men, and not made them well, they imitated

humanity so abominably.

Birdo. I hope we have reform'd that indifferently with us, sir.

Mario. O, reform it altogether! And let those that play your clowns

speak no more than is set down for them. For there be of them

 that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren

spectators to laugh too, though in the mean time some necessary

question of the play be then to be considered. That's villanous

and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go

make you ready.

 [Exeunt Players.]

Enter Kamek, Wario, and Waluigi. Music of Muda Kingdom from Super Mario Land.

How now, my lord? Will the King hear this piece of work?

Kamek. And the Queen too, and that presently.

Mario. Bid the players make haste, [Exit Kamek.] Will you two

 help to hasten them?

Wario. [with Waluigi] We will, my lord.

Exeunt they two.

Mario. What, ho, Horatio!

Enter Luigi.

Luigi. Here, sweet lord, at your service.

Mario. Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man

As e'er my conversation cop'd withal.

Luigi. O, my dear lord!

Mario. Nay, do not think I flatter;

 For what advancement may I hope from thee,

That no revenue hast but thy good spirits

To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd?

No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,

And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee

 Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?

Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice

And could of men distinguish, her election

Hath seal'd thee for herself. For thou hast been

As one, in suff'ring all, that suffers nothing;

 A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards

Hast ta'en with equal thanks; and blest are those

Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled

That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger

To sound what stop she please. Give me that man

 That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him

In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,

As I do thee. Something too much of this I

There is a play to-night before the King.

One scene of it comes near the circumstance,

 Which I have told thee, of my father's death.

I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,

Even with the very comment of thy soul

Observe my uncle. If his occulted guilt

Do not itself unkennel in one speech,

 It is a damned ghost that we have seen,

And my imaginations are as foul

As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note;

For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,

And after we will both our judgments join

 In censure of his seeming.

Luigi. Well, my lord.

If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,

And scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

Sound a flourish. Enter Trumpets and Kettledrums. Danish

 march. [nter Bowser, Peach, Wendy, Wario, Waluigi,

and other Lords attendant, with the Guard carrying torches. Commence character select screen from Super Mario Bros 2

Mario. They are coming to the play. I must be idle.

Get you a place.

Bowser. How fares our cousin Hamlet?

 Mario. Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish. I eat the air,

promise-cramm'd. You cannot feed capons so.

Bowser. I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet. These words are not

mine.

Mario. No, nor mine now. [To Kamek] My lord, you play'd once

 i' th' university, you say?

Kamek. That did I, my lord, and was accounted a good actor.

Mario. What did you enact?

Kamek. I did enact Julius Caesar; I was kill'd i' th' Capitol; Brutus

kill'd me.

 Mario. It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there. Be

the players ready.

Wario. Ay, my lord. They stay upon your patience.

Peach. Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.

Mario. No, good mother. Here's metal more attractive.

Kamek. [to the King] O, ho! do you mark that?

Mario. Lady, shall I lie in your lap?

[Sits down at Wendy’s feet.]

Wendy. No, my lord.

Mario. I mean, my head upon your lap?

 Wendy. Ay, my lord.

Mario. Do you think I meant country matters?

Wendy. I think nothing, my lord.

Mario. That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.

Wendy. What is, my lord?

 Mario. Nothing.

Wendy. You are merry, my lord.

Mario. Who, I?

Wendy. Ay, my lord.

Mario. O God, your only jig-maker! What should a man do but be merry?

 For look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died

within 's two hours.

Wendy. Nay 'tis twice two months, my lord.

Mario. So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I'll have a

suit of sables. O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten

  yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life

half a year. But, by'r Lady, he must build churches then; or else

shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose

epitaph is 'For O, for O, the hobby-horse is forgot!'

[Hautboys play. The dumb show enters.]

 Enter Wart and Rosalina very lovingly; Rosalina embracing

him and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation

unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her

neck. He lays him down upon a bank of flowers. She, seeing

him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his

 crown, kisses it, pours poison in the sleeper's ears, and

leaves him. Rosalina returns, finds Wart dead, and makes

passionate action. Mallow with some three or four Mutes,

comes in again, seem to condole with her. The dead body is

carried away. Mallow wooes the Queen with gifts; she

 seems harsh and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts

his love.

Exeunt.

Wendy. What means this, my lord?

Mario. Marry, this is miching malhecho; it means mischief.

 Wendy. Belike this show imports the argument of the play.

Enter Prologue. Cue Delfino Airstrip.

Mario. We shall know by this fellow. The players cannot keep counsel;

they'll tell all.

Wendy. Will he tell us what this show meant?

 Mario. Ay, or any show that you'll show him. Be not you asham'd to

show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.

Wendy. You are naught, you are naught! I'll mark the play.

Pro. For us, and for our tragedy,

Here stooping to your clemency,

 We beg your hearing patiently. [Exit.]

Mario. Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?

Wendy. 'Tis brief, my lord.

Mario. As woman's love.

Enter Wart and Rosalina

Wart. Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round

Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground,

And thirty dozen moons with borrowed sheen

About the world have times twelve thirties been,

Since love our hearts, and Hymen did our hands,

 Unite comutual in most sacred bands.

Rosalina. So many journeys may the sun and moon

Make us again count o'er ere love be done!

But woe is me! you are so sick of late,

So far from cheer and from your former state.

 That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,

Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must;

For women's fear and love holds quantity,

In neither aught, or in extremity.

Now what my love is, proof hath made you know;

  And as my love is siz'd, my fear is so.

Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;

Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.

Wart. Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;

My operant powers their functions leave to do.

 And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,

Honour'd, belov'd, and haply one as kind

For husband shalt thou-

Rosalina. O, confound the rest!

Such love must needs be treason in my breast.

 When second husband let me be accurst!

None wed the second but who killed the first.

Mario. [aside] Wormwood, wormwood!

Peach. The instances that second marriage move

Are base respects of thrift, but none of love.

 A second time I kill my husband dead

When second husband kisses me in bed.

Wart. I do believe you think what now you speak;

But what we do determine oft we break.

Purpose is but the slave to memory,

 Of violent birth, but poor validity;

Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree,

But fall unshaken when they mellow be.

Most necessary 'tis that we forget

To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt.

 What to ourselves in passion we propose,

The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.

The violence of either grief or joy

Their own enactures with themselves destroy.

Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;

 Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.

This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange

That even our loves should with our fortunes change;

For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,

Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.

 The great man down, you mark his favourite flies,

The poor advanc'd makes friends of enemies;

And hitherto doth love on fortune tend,

For who not needs shall never lack a friend,

And who in want a hollow friend doth try,

 Directly seasons him his enemy.

But, orderly to end where I begun,

Our wills and fates do so contrary run

That our devices still are overthrown;

Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.

 So think thou wilt no second husband wed;

But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.

Rosalina. Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light,

Sport and repose lock from me day and night,

To desperation turn my trust and hope,

 An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope,

Each opposite that blanks the face of joy

Meet what I would have well, and it destroy,

Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,

If, once a widow, ever I be wife!

 Mario. If she should break it now!

Wart. 'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile.

My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile

The tedious day with sleep.

Rosalina. Sleep rock thy brain,

 [He sleeps.]

Rosalina. And never come mischance between us twain!

Exit.

Mario. Madam, how like you this play?

Peach. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

 Mario. O, but she'll keep her word.

Bowser. Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in't?

Mario. No, no! They do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i' th'

world.

Bowser. What do you call the play?

 Mario. 'The Mousetrap.' Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the

image of a murther done in Vienna. Gonzago is the duke's name;

his wife, Baptista. You shall see anon. 'Tis a knavish piece of

work; but what o' that? Your Majesty, and we that have free

souls, it touches us not. Let the gall'd jade winch; our withers

 are unwrung. Enter Mallow.

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the King.

Wendy. You are as good as a chorus, my lord.

Hamlet. I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see

the puppets dallying.

 Wendy. You are keen, my lord, you are keen.

Mario. It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.

Wendy. Still better, and worse.

Mario. So you must take your husbands.- Begin, murtherer. Pox, leave

thy damnable faces, and begin! Come, the croaking raven doth

 bellow for revenge.

Mallow. Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing; Confederate season, else no creature seeing; Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected, With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected, Thy natural magic and dire property On wholesome life usurp immediately.

Pours the poison in his ears. Play The Sword Descends and The Stars Scatter from Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars

Mario. He poisons him i' th' garden for's estate. His name's Gonzago.

The story is extant, and written in very choice Italian. You

 shall see anon how the murtherer gets the love of Gonzago's wife.

Peach. The King rises.

Mario. What, frighted with false fire?

Peach. How fares my lord?

Kamek. Give o'er the play.

 Bowser. Give me some light! Away!

All. Lights, lights, lights!

Exeunt all but Mario and Luigi. Cue underground music from Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island.

Mario. Why, let the strucken deer go weep,

The hart ungalled play;

 For some must watch, while some must sleep:

Thus runs the world away.

Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers- if the rest of my

fortunes turn Turk with me-with two Provincial roses on my raz'd

shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?

 Luigi. Half a share.

Mario. A whole one I!

For thou dost know, O Damon dear,

This realm dismantled was

Of Jove himself; and now reigns here

 A very, very- pajock.

Luigi. You might have rhym'd.

Mario. O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand

pound! Didst perceive?

Luigi. Very well, my lord.

 Mario. Upon the talk of the poisoning?

Luigi. I did very well note him.

Mario. Aha! Come, some music! Come, the recorders!

For if the King like not the comedy,

Why then, belike he likes it not, perdy.

 Come, some music!

Enter Wario and Waluigi.

Waluigi. Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.

Mario. Sir, a whole history.

Waluigi. The King, sir-

 Mario. Ay, sir, what of him?

Waluigi. Is in his retirement, marvellous distemper'd.

Mario. With drink, sir?

Waluigi. No, my lord; rather with choler.

Mario. Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to

 the doctor; for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps

plunge him into far more choler.

Waluigi. Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame, and start

not so wildly from my affair.

Mario. I am tame, sir; pronounce.

 Waluigi. The Queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit

hath sent me to you.

Mario. You are welcome.

Waluigi. Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed.

If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do

 your mother's commandment; if not, your pardon and my return

shall be the end of my business.

Mario. Sir, I cannot.

Waluigi. What, my lord?

Mario. Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseas'd. But, sir, such

 answer as I can make, you shall command; or rather, as you say,

my mother. Therefore no more, but to the matter! My mother, you

say-

Wario. Then thus she says: your behaviour hath struck her into

amazement and admiration.

 Mario. O wonderful son, that can so stonish a mother! But is there no

sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration? Impart.

Wario. She desires to speak with you in her closet ere you go to bed.

Hamlet. We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any

further trade with us?

 Wario. My lord, you once did love me.

Mario. And do still, by these pickers and stealers!

Wario. Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do surely

bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to

your friend.

 Mario. Sir, I lack advancement.

Wario. How can that be, when you have the voice of the King himself

for your succession in Denmark?

Mario. Ay, sir, but 'while the grass grows'- the proverb is something

musty.

 [Enter Diddy Kong and Dixie Kong with recorders. ]

O, the recorders! Let me see one. To withdraw with you- why do

you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me

into a toil?

Guildenstern. O my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

 Mario. I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?

Waluigi. My lord, I cannot.

Mario. I pray you.

Waluigi. Believe me, I cannot.

Mario. I do beseech you.

 Waluigi. I know, no touch of it, my lord.

Mario. It is as easy as lying. Govern these ventages with your

fingers and thumbs, give it breath with your mouth, and it will

discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.

Waluigi. But these cannot I command to any utt'rance of harmony. I

 have not the skill.

Mario. Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You

would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would

pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my

lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music,

 excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it

speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be play'd on than a

pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me,

you cannot play upon me.

[Enter Kamek.]

God bless you, sir!

Kamek. My lord, the Queen would speak with you, and presently.

Mario. Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?

Kamek. By th' mass, and 'tis like a camel indeed.

Mario. Methinks it is like a weasel.

 Kamek. It is back'd like a weasel.

Mario. Or like a whale.

Kamek. Very like a whale.

Mario. Then will I come to my mother by-and-by.- They fool me to the

top of my bent.- I will come by-and-by.

 Kamek. I will say so. Exit.

Mario. 'By-and-by' is easily said.- Leave me, friends.

Exeunt all but Mario. Tune from Corona Mountain reverberates.

'Tis now the very witching time of night,

When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out

 Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood

And do such bitter business as the day

Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother!

O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever

The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom.

 Let me be cruel, not unnatural;

I will speak daggers to her, but use none.

My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites-

How in my words somever she be shent,

To give them seals never, my soul, consent! Exit.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 9.18

AD 96 – Nerva is proclaimed Roman emperor after Domitian is assassinated. 324 – Constantine the Great decisively defeats Licinius in the Battle of Chrysopolis, establishing Constantine's sole control over the Roman Empire. 1048 – Battle of Kapetron between a combined Byzantine-Georgian army and a Seljuq army. 1066 – Norwegian king Harald Hardrada lands with Tostig Godwinson at the mouth of the Humber River and begins his invasion of England. 1180 – Philip Augustus becomes king of France at the age of fifteen. 1454 – Thirteen Years' War: In the Battle of Chojnice, the Polish army is defeated by the Teutonic knights. 1544 – The expedition of Juan Bautista Pastene makes landfall in San Pedro Bay, southern Chile, claiming the territory for Spain. 1618 – The twelfth baktun in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar begins. 1714 – George I arrives in Great Britain after becoming king on August 1. 1739 – The Treaty of Belgrade is signed, whereby Austria cedes lands south of the Sava and Danube rivers to the Ottoman Empire. 1759 – French and Indian War: The Articles of Capitulation of Quebec are signed. 1793 – The first cornerstone of the United States Capitol is laid by George Washington. 1809 – The Royal Opera House in London opens. 1810 – First Government Junta in Chile. Though supposed to rule only during the Peninsular War in Spain, it is in fact the first step towards independence from Spain, and is commemorated as such. 1812 – The 1812 Fire of Moscow dies down after destroying more than three-quarters of the city. Napoleon returns from the Petrovsky Palace to the Moscow Kremlin, spared from the fire. 1837 – Tiffany & Co. (first named Tiffany & Young) is founded by Charles Lewis Tiffany and Teddy Young in New York City. The store is called a "stationery and fancy goods emporium". 1838 – The Anti-Corn Law League is established by Richard Cobden. 1850 – The U.S. Congress passes the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. 1851 – First publication of The New-York Daily Times, which later becomes The New York Times. 1862 – The Confederate States celebrate for the first and only time a Thanksgiving Day. 1864 – American Civil War: John Bell Hood begins the Franklin–Nashville Campaign in an unsuccessful attempt to draw William Tecumseh Sherman back out of Georgia. 1870 – Old Faithful Geyser is observed and named by Henry D. Washburn. 1872 – King Oscar II accedes to the throne of Sweden–Norway. 1873 – The bank Jay Cooke & Company declares bankruptcy, contributing to the Panic of 1873. 1879 – The Blackpool Illuminations are switched on for the first time. 1882 – The Pacific Stock Exchange opens. 1895 – The Atlanta Exposition Speech on race relations is delivered by Booker T. Washington. 1898 – The Fashoda Incident, a territorial dispute between Britain and France, triggers a war scare. 1906 – The 1906 Hong Kong typhoon kills an estimated 10,000 people. 1914 – The Irish Home Rule Act becomes law, but is delayed until after World War I. 1919 – Fritz Pollard becomes the first African American to play professional football for a major team, the Akron Pros. 1922 – The Kingdom of Hungary is admitted to the League of Nations. 1927 – The Columbia Broadcasting System goes on the air. 1928 – Juan de la Cierva makes the first autogyro crossing of the English Channel. 1931 – Imperial Japan instigates the Mukden Incident as a pretext to invade and occupy Manchuria. 1934 – The Soviet Union is admitted to the League of Nations. 1939 – World War II: The Polish government of Ignacy Mościcki flees to Romania. 1939 – World War II: The radio show Germany Calling begins transmitting Nazi propaganda. 1940 – World War II: The British liner SS City of Benares is sunk by German submarine U-48; those killed include 77 child refugees. 1943 – World War II: Adolf Hitler orders the deportation of Danish Jews. 1944 – World War II: The British submarine HMS Tradewind torpedoes Jun'yō Maru, killing 5,600, mostly slave labourers and POWs. 1944 – World War II: The Battle of Arracourt begins. 1945 – General Douglas MacArthur moves his general headquarters from Manila to Tokyo. 1947 – The National Security Act reorganizes the United States government's military and intelligence services. 1948 – Operation Polo is terminated after the Indian Army accepts the surrender of the army of Hyderabad. 1948 – Margaret Chase Smith of Maine becomes the first woman elected to the United States Senate without completing another senator's term. 1954 – Finnish president J. K. Paasikivi becomes the first Western Head of State to be awarded the highest honor of the Soviet Union, the Order of Lenin. 1960 – Fidel Castro arrives in New York City as the head of the Cuban delegation to the United Nations. 1961 – U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld dies in an air crash while attempting to negotiate peace in the Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 1962 – Burundi, Jamaica, Rwanda and Trinidad and Tobago are admitted to the United Nations. 1973 – The Bahamas, East Germany and West Germany are admitted to the United Nations. 1974 – Hurricane Fifi strikes Honduras with 110 mph winds, killing 5,000 people. 1977 – Voyager I takes the first distant photograph of the Earth and the Moon together. 1980 – Soyuz 38 carries two cosmonauts (including one Cuban) to the Salyut 6 space station. 1981 – The Assemblée Nationale votes to abolish capital punishment in France. 1982 – The Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon comes to an end. 1984 – Joe Kittinger completes the first solo balloon crossing of the Atlantic. 1988 – The 8888 Uprising in Myanmar comes to an end. 1990 – Liechtenstein becomes a member of the United Nations. 1992 – An explosion rocks Giant Mine at the height of a labor dispute, killing nine replacement workers in Yellowknife, Canada. 1997 – United States media magnate Ted Turner donates US$1 billion to the United Nations. 1997 – The Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention is adopted. 2001 – First mailing of anthrax letters from Trenton, New Jersey in the 2001 anthrax attacks. 2007 – Buddhist monks join anti-government protesters in Myanmar, starting what some call the Saffron Revolution. 2011 – The 2011 Sikkim earthquake is felt across northeastern India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and southern Tibet. 2012 – Greater Manchester Police officers PC Nicola Hughes and PC Fiona Bone are murdered in a gun and grenade ambush attack in Greater Manchester, England. 2014 – Scotland votes against independence from the United Kingdom, by 55% to 45%. 2015 – Two security personnel, 17 worshippers in a mosque, and 13 militants are killed during a Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan attack on a Pakistan Air Force base on the outskirts of Peshawar. 2016 – The 2016 Uri attack in Jammu and Kashmir, India by terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed results in the deaths of nineteen Indian Army soldiers and all four attackers.

[thesiamay]

PUBLISHED ARTICLE #2

https://push.abs-cbn.com/2020/6/18/fresh-scoops/get-to-know-kokoy-de-santos-and-why-he-might-just-29295

Exclusively interviewed Kokoy de Santos and used the stories he told me as prompter to come up with a feature that showcases why he is worthy to be the next big star.

Get to know Kokoy de Santos—and why he might just be your next celebrity crush!

by Thesia May M. Molines

Rising actor Kokoy de Santos sparked the interest of the masses with his looks and bubbly personality. He was even dubbed as the Noah Centineo of the Philippines. As charming as he is, this hottie proved that he is more than meets the eye.

Kokoy de Santos first made noise on social media when snippets from his upcoming BL series, Oh, Mando! started circulating online early this year. Since then, people wanted to learn more about him.

StarStudio.ph was given the opportunity to interview the young actor to get to know him even more.

Here are reasons why Kokoy de Santos is worth adding to your list of celebrity crushes:

He’s a family guy

Ronald De Santos Jr., fondly known as Kokoy, is a 21-year-old Caviteno. He spent his childhood in General Trias, Cavite. However, having roots in Catanauan, Quezon. His family goes there from time to time.

He recalled one of the fondest memories he had when they visited their province. The actor said, “Naalala ko dati sa Catanauan, may mga kaibigan kasi ako doon. Hindi alam ng nanay ko na sumama ako sa kanila. Nakarating kami [sa] kung saang lupalop sa bukid pero ‘kala talaga ng nanay ko, umabot na ako ng bukid as in liblib na talaga.”

“Tapos ang nakakatawa pa doon, hindi ko kilala mga sinamahan ko, kasing edaran ko. Akala ko alam nila, so pag-uwi ko di pala nila alam. Nagpapanic na sila,” he added.

Although it is evident on his social media accounts, his close relationship with his family is worth mentioning. Whenever he makes decisions, he has to hear his mother’s opinion first. He disclosed, “Lahat kami kahit ‘yung kapatid ko na isa, kahit may anak na. Hindi kami makakapag-decide ng sarili namin hangga’t hindi namin naririnig ‘yung thought ng magulang namin. Kung hindi approved, kahit pa buong-buo na ‘yung desisyon namin, (hindi approved).”

Apart from his closeness with his parents and four other siblings, Kokoy adores his grandparents as well. He spilled some details about his bonding moments with them. “Madalas ko kinukulayan ang buhok nito kasi syempre tumatanda na, nagkakaroon na ng mga uban.”

 Kokoy would also tease his grandmother whenever she refuses to retouch her gray hair.  “La, hindi po pwedeng ganon. Kailangan, bagets tayo.”

A dreamer fueled by perseverance

Ever since he was a child, Kokoy de Santos already had a passion for acting. He said, “Bata palang ako interesado na ako diyan. Meron pa noong bata raw ako, pinipilit ko daw ipasok ulo ko sa loob ng TV. Gusto ko talaga pumasok.”

To boost his confidence, Kokoy started joining pageants. He recalled how he was discovered when he joined the Little Earth Angel. “Ako representative namin dito sa Cavite. So laban-laban Calabarzon, eh nanalo ako. Kumbaga, naka-tsamba. So next, buong Pilipinas na. Ayun nanalo ako, tapos may lumalapit sakin after ng coronation. Nag-scout siya for TV commercials. Awa ng Diyos, unang VTR ko, natanggap naman ako.”

Now that he is starting to make a name for himself, Kokoy aspires to be the best version of himself. He constantly ponders what other things he can offer to his fans. “Taon-taon may mga lumalabas na bagong artista. Kumbaga, ano ‘yung bagong mao-offer mo? Ano yung mao-offer mo sa madla na wala sa iba?”

Dedicated to his craft

Just like any other aspiring star, Kokoy had his fair share of rejections. He said, “Kasali ‘yun eh. Hindi pwedeng hindi ka mare-reject.”

Armed with passion and dedication for his craft, Kokoy accepted these rejections with open arms, knowing there is something out there that is truly meant for him.

“Accept lang. Kumbaga, accept mo lang na hindi para sa’yo ‘yan. Kung para sa’yo talaga yan ibibigay sa’yo. Eh ako naman syempre masunurin ako nakikinig naman ako, kahit naman alam mo minsan andoon na eh. Malapit na eh. Makukuha ko na eh.  Eh wala eh, hindi talaga para sa ’kin.”

Kokoy de Santos also shared that whenever he accepts a role, he doesn’t just focus on the character he is about to portray. He makes it a point to acquaint himself with the material—one of which is his role in F#*@bois as Miko.

“Bago ko tanggapin yung role, tinanong ako kung kaya ko ba. Unang pumasok sa isip ko, well, andoon ‘yung takot at kaba, pero oo agad ako kasi napakadaming bagay, para alam mo ‘yun, para umu-oo. Materyal, ‘yung ganda ng script, ‘yung direktor pa, so talagang hindi ako nag-alinlangan.”’

His new ‘game’

Now, his hard work finally paid off. Kokoy de Santos is now making a name for himself, as he stars in the hit BL series, Gameboys.  Giving life to the role of Gavreel Alarcon, an online gamer who has feelings for his opponent Cairo Lazaro (played by Elijah Canlas), this series (produced by the IdeaFirst Company) follows Gavreel and Cairo's story, and how their lives changed after an online game.  Little did they know—it would be the start of a nakakakilig journey for the both of them. 

After finishing a couple of talked-about episodes, the series has gained support from netizens. Gameboys fans stan them on Twitter and other social media platforms, and they can't stop gushing over CaiReel's chemistry.

His faith in the Lord

Apart from his eagerness to succeed in life, what keeps him going is his ever-supportive family and his faith in God.

He disclosed, “Number 1 ‘yung family ko, kasi alam ko naniniwala sila sa kung anong meron ako. May mga times na nado-down pero and’yan sila para i-support ako.”

Kokoy also mentioned that his faith to the Man above also gives him solace during times he’s filled with doubts. “Si God siguro kumbaga sa lahat ng bagay, Inaalay ko sa kanya nagpe-pray ako. ‘Binigay mo ba sa akin to?’ kasi mamaya diba? Sinasabi ko, ‘tatanggapin ko lang ‘to ha?’”

Did you know that he can cook?

That’s right, girls! Another thing to fawn over about Kokoy aside from his quirky personality is his talent for cooking.

Kokoy is a graduate of Chef Logro's Institute of Culinary & Kitchen Services based in Cavite. 

He is fond of cooking even when he was a kid. He shared, “Bata pa lang, mahilig na ako mag-eksperimento ng kung ano-ano eh, suportado ako ng nanay ko at ate.”

However, his acting career had to take a back seat temporarily so he can focus on his studies. “Noong time na kumuha ako ng kulinarya, medyo huminto muna ako sa showbiz. Focus muna ako doon kasi, ano, two years lang naman eh. Hindi muna ako halos tumatanggap ng project. Kasi sabi ko, tatapusin ko muna.”

He will wow you with his dancing skills

You’ve probably seen his TikTok videos circulating online, aside from posting his bonding moments with his niece, Kokoy also loves to showcase his talent in dancing. According to him, he’s been into dancing ever since he was a child.

“Bata palang hilig ko na talaga ang pagsasayaw. Siguro mga 3 or 4? Alam mo ‘yun, kahit wala pa talaga akong alam. Basta nag-eenjoy ako basta sumasayaw ako,” the young actor shared.

Kokoy de Santos during quarantine

Kokoy de Santos is also worried about the effects of the virus that is currently threatening the entire globe.

As a celebrity who uses his voice in his platform to raise awareness, Kokoy shared the tips they practice inside their household to avoid the spread of the virus. The actor said, “Mine-make sure namin na magbabalik ‘yung [quarantine pass], ikakabit ‘yun at ‘yung nakatoka na ‘yun. Maligo agad, para safe kami.”

He also encouraged them to always be armed with necessities used to combat the virus. “Mag-face mask at alcohol kasi hindi tayo pwede maging kampante. Sa nangyayari ngayon hindi naman bumaba 'yung kaso eh, gano'n pa din, kaya nakakatakot.”

While he is well aware of the gravity of the situation, Kokoy is making the most of his time to bond with his family. Now that everyone temporarily slowed down their fast-paced life, Kokoy realized the value of time with his family. Kokoy explained, “Mare-realize mo ‘yung halaga ng oras kasi dati syempre lagi kang nasa work, ngayon talagang nakakapag-bonding kayo.”

Being the loving son that he is, Kokoy tries to help out with the chores. He shared,

“Minsan naghuhugas ako, nagwawalis, nagdidilig, actually lahat nga lalo pa ngayon na wala naman ginagawa, wala naman trabaho, so ‘yun nasa bahay ka lang. Tulong-tulong lang diba? Kami-kami lang din naman nandito.”

[busybeesbuzzing]

I was going through my old documents on my drive and this was a background I really got into for a character of mine from a Thedas DnD game with my friend about my character’s parents. Her dad ended up passing away from a heart attack which never really left my character because how do you fight against something like that and her mom had died actually a few years prior, killed by someone out in the woods. Regin always suspected it was someone from his past that had caught up with them. Jesuit is still about though, mostly doing surface work after everything went sour. Idk what happened to Valmar. Never finished the story though :\

The first lesson you learn in Orzammar is not to stick your throat out unless you want a knife pressed to it. Thus Regin's beginning is a bit unorthodox. A squirming mass pulled from the gutter on a whim. That's the second lesson you learn in Orzammar. Compassion is a whim, not practice - afforded about the same consideration as the decision of which corner to curl up and die in. Regin grows up with a knife in his hand, a gnawing in his gut, and sky-clear eyes that have no right to reflect so starkly the hardships of the world. (In another life, he grows up with a hammer in his hand and a pool of antiemetic in his stomach and dies with a knife in his back when his too-blue eyes reflect back the interest of a woman above his station.) (In another life, his hand clutches different blades and his stomach churns from surface dairy and a girl with salt in her hair says his eyes remind her of a clear sky after the rains have moved on.) (In another life, his hand clutches nothing, his stomach never expands, and it does not matter the color of his eyes as never open at all.) The Carta thug who recruits Regin calls his eyes "pretty" and curls his lip around a gold-capped snarl. He suggests Regin fix his gaze before he does so for him. (A man doesn't need the woes of the world staring him down as he drowns balls-deep in cheap ale.) Regin learns to fix his eyes into something sharp and cutting. In the subterranean world of browns and reds, a fragment of sky lodged in some guy's skull is otherworldly and startling.

Jesuit thinks it's thrilling. When he catches a glimpse as Regin redirects the ambusher's blade, he's reminded of the first sliver of sky that he sees peeking through the cave entrance each time he returns to the surface. He convinces Beraht to move Regin to escort duty in the length of the main smuggler tunnel. Regin for his part thinks Jesuit is too loud and too carefree. Privately, he wonders if it is the way of all surface dwarves to be so expansive and open in their gestures and expressions, to take up so much space. They sleep together for the first time in the room Jesuit rents over the bar. Regin pulls the stitches he got when Jesuit's "open and expansive" clashed with Regin's "compact and economical" and sliced him from thigh to hip bone. Jesuit laughs as he does an amateur fix and says he supposes they'll have to wait until Regin's leg is healed up. Regin takes him again on the edge of the cot. (The sun and sky cannot help loving each other.) Regin isn't just an escort for Jesuit's payloads. It's on another job when he catches a lyrium supplier trying to pass off sub-par stock that he learns he's got an a bit of an affinity for the stuff. (His mom did too, as did her mother, as did her mother's father, and so on and so forth. The dwarves keep detailed records of their lineage, and among a family specialized in enchanting, people are bred for such ability.) Among the Carta, it’s several extra sovereigns at the end of the month and a casteless that’s not entirely worthless. Barely anyone bats an eye when the boss decides to place Regin as head over a crux of trading routes. Jesuit congratulates him with a bottle of vintage Antivan. They finish it in one night and spend the rest of the evening drunkenly serenading each other. It's walking through the main streets of Orzammar that Regin meets Valmar, a kid with his hand halfway out of Regin's coat pocket. Regin locks onto the kid's wrist like an iron manacle and looks at the kid with his clear blue eyes. People forget that for all those eyes reflect, they have seen equally as much. Jesuit laughs and says Regin is going soft and then calls him a fool and then says he's a "stone-be-damned fucking moron" after Regin covers for Valmar time and again. The kid's got some sense for Carta work and may even has a bit of respect for Regin, but he can't seem to keep out of trouble. And then one evening, Valmar's on his doorstep with a rod clutched in his hand and a Paragon and Beraht braying for his blood and that's that. ********************* Meloris grows up on the edge of a village among poultices and an abundance of elfroot. She is trained by her mother (who was trained by her mother who was trained by her mother who was trained by hers) in the ways of plants and bandages and open palms and open hearts. Her practical living situation begs practical habits and so she grows up with a steady temper and steady hands. She also grows up with a steady voice that does not shake when Templars question her about the apostates seen passing through the area. She grows up with steady knees that do not tremble when glowing eyes emerge from the woods and demand her services for fallen comrades. She grows up with a steady devotion to her oath to do no harm even when held at knife point by trembling hands in ill-fitted vambraces. She grows up with a steady love that opens her threshold to even the poorest of local passerbys. She grows up with a steady faith in what she has seen, what she has learned, and what she can accomplish with her own two hands and so does not falter in the face of a heavily bleeding dwarf collapsed in the mud on a stormy evening. Later, when several dwarves in muddy dusters and bloody vambraces show up at her door, her gaze is straightforward and her politeness unwavering. They leave vaguely discomforted by the soft voice and muddy footprints they trailed over her floors. The dwarf does not awaken for four days. When he does, it is with eyes as empty as the sky scraped clean by a storm. Meloris changes his bandages with movements that do not disturb the fresh laid grief. She speaks in her same soft words and does not blink when he refuses the lentil soup. She cares for him for three weeks as the injuries heal and she is attentive and unobtrusive. ************** Regin does not recognize Meloris's presence until four weeks after he has been pulled from the mud. He watches her with a listless gaze as she skillfully closes the gaping wound on his side. She reminds him of the Stone found in the deepest parts of Orzammar. There, the magma roils just below the surface and fissures shift and crack from the pressure.

He does not flood her home with his sorrowful gaze for long. She does not complain, does not kick him out or ask anything of him, but Regin figures her bleeding heart fills the place already enough. He finds lodging at the nearby village and takes up work as a laborer. He does not see Meloris again for three months. Then, the felling of a tree catches a man in the shoulder and he is in her home again with the man senseless on the table and she unchanged. But he has.... (And that’s where I left off. Not sure where I was going with that sentence but maybe I’ll pick it up again.)

[orbemnews]

John J. Sweeney, Crusading Labor Leader, Is Dead at 86 John J. Sweeney, a New York union researcher who climbed to the pinnacle of the American labor movement in the 1990s, leading the A.F.L-C.I.O. for 14 years through an era of fading union membership but rising political influence, died on Monday at his home in Bethesda, Md. He was 86. Carolyn Bobb, an A.F.L.-C.I.O. spokeswoman, confirmed the death. She did not specify the cause. As president, from 1995 to 2009, of the nation’s largest labor federation — 56 unions with 10 million members near the end of his tenure — Mr. Sweeney flexed labor’s political muscle with thousands of volunteers and helped elect Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008. Over the years, he also helped elect Democrats to seats in Congress, to governorships and to state legislatures across the country. His tougher task, a quest to reinvigorate and diversify the faltering labor movement itself, had the weight of history pushing against him. For decades in the 20th century, labor had not welcomed women, African-Americans, Latinos or Asian-Americans, often engaging in blatantly discriminatory tactics to preserve the dominance of white men in the workplace. Substantial but uneven gains had been achieved since the civil rights era of the 1960s, when unions began removing “whites only” clauses from their constitutions and bylaws. But Mr. Sweeney, still facing lopsided demographics, plotted a sea change. He crusaded to bring women and minorities into the fold, often in leadership posts; made alliances with civil rights groups, students, college professors and the clergy; and championed low-wage workers, shifting away from the A.F.L-C.I.O’s traditional emphasis on protecting the best-paid union jobs. In Mr. Sweeney’s campaign for the federation presidency, his running mate, for the newly created post of executive vice president, was Linda Chavez-Thompson, a Texas sharecropper’s daughter. She was the first minority group member ever elected to organized labor’s top executive ranks. The 1995 balloting itself was unique: It was the first contested election in the history of the federation, which had been created in 1955 by a merger of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations after a long estrangement. A signature Sweeney initiative encouraged the recruitment of thousands of immigrants to his unions. Many members had long been hostile to undocumented workers, accusing them of stealing union jobs and dragging down wage scales. Mr. Sweeney rebuked such talk as discriminatory and called for justice that included better treatment for underpaid immigrants and a path to citizenship for those in the United States illegally. Critics contended that Mr. Sweeney’s policies were locked in a liberal past, deploying mid-20th century civil rights and blue-collar union strategies to organize 21st century workers with internet skills. Mr. Sweeney rejected that claim, just as he had rebuffed corporations that moved jobs overseas and denounced the hostilities that many young white-collar workers voiced toward old-line unions. In a labor movement that had been declining since 1979, when union membership peaked at 21 million, Mr. Sweeney prodded his constituent unions to greatly increase spending on organizing. He often said that his first priority was to reverse the long slide and substantially expand labor’s rank-and-file. But by 2009, when he stepped down, his vision of a dramatic unionization surge comparable to those of the late-Depression 1930s and the postwar ’40s had failed to materialize. In fact, overall union membership in America had fallen on his watch to about 12 percent from 15 percent of the workforce, a trend that has since continued, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. “Based on the optimism that supporters of the labor movement felt in 1995 when he was elected, I think it’s hard not to be disappointed with the results,” Richard W. Hurd, a professor of labor relations at Cornell University, told The New York Times in 2009. “How much of that you can trace back to John Sweeney is a whole other question.” In a departing interview with The Times in his Washington office — looking across Lafayette Park to the White House, where he had conferred with President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s and with Mr. Obama more recently — Mr. Sweeney spoke optimistically in the face of the Great Recession, which had been underway for more than a year and had already forced thousands of layoffs, further winnowing union ranks. “I think the recession is going to drive people to the conclusion that they can’t resolve their problems by themselves, and they have to look to organizing,” he said. And, noting that his father had been a unionized New York City bus driver, he drew a lesson from childhood. “Because of the union, my father got things like vacation days or a raise in wages,” he said. “But my mother, who worked as a domestic, had nobody. It taught me from a young age the difference between workers who are organized and workers who were by themselves.” John Joseph Sweeney was born in the Bronx on May 5, 1934, to James and Agnes Sweeney, Irish-Catholic immigrants whose struggles in America had shaped John’s social perceptions from an early age. The boy had accompanied his father to many union meetings, where he learned of class and workplace inequalities and of union efforts to improve wages and working conditions. He attended St. Barnabas Elementary School and graduated from Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx in 1952. Coming of age, he resolved to find a future in organized labor. He worked as a gravedigger and building porter (and joined his first union) to pay his way through Iona College, a Catholic school in New Rochelle, N.Y., where he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics in 1956. He worked briefly as a clerk for IBM but took a sharp pay cut to become a researcher for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union in Manhattan. He met Thomas R. Donahue, a union rep for the Building Service Employees International Union, Local 32B, who persuaded him in 1960 to join his union as a contract director. Mr. Sweeney would face Mr. Donahue in a run for labor’s top job 35 years later. In 1962, Mr. Sweeney married Maureen Power, a schoolteacher. She survives him, along with their children, John Jr. and Patricia Sweeney; two sisters, Cathy Hammill and Peggy King; and a granddaughter. The building employees union was one of the most progressive of its day, representing 40,000 porters, doormen and maintenance workers in 5,000 commercial and residential buildings in New York City. Its contracts guaranteed pay raises, medical coverage, college scholarships for members’ children and requirements that employers hire and promote workers without regard to race, creed or color. Mr. Sweeney rose through the ranks, and in 1976 was elected president of Local 32B of the renamed Service Employees International Union. Soon his 45,000 members struck thousands of buildings for 17 days and won major wage and benefit increases. He later merged Local 32B with Local 32J, representing janitors, and in 1979 struck again for contract improvements. In 1980, he was elected president of the 625,000-member national S.E.I.U. and, moving his base to Washington, began merging with unions of public employees and workers in office jobs, health care and food services. He pushed for stronger federal laws for health and safety, and spent heavily to organize new members. By 1995, he represented 1.1 million union members and was a national power in the labor movement. Labor was at a crossroads. Years of rank-and-file frustration with Lane Kirkland, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. since 1979, boiled over in a revolt of union presidents in 1995. Mr. Kirkland, whose internationalist vision of labor had made him a hero to Poland’s Solidarity movement but had left him unmoved, even hostile, to proposed reforms for unions at home, was forced to resign. The 1995 election pitted Mr. Sweeney against Mr. Donahue, his old friend from Local 32B, who had risen to secretary-treasurer of the federation and was Mr. Kirkland’s heir apparent. But Mr. Donahue’s ties to Mr. Kirkland forced him to defend the status quo, and Mr. Sweeney’s progressive calls for growth and change won the presidency with 57 percent of the delegates, representing 7.2 million members. He was re-elected to four more terms of two to four years each, the last time in 2005, when he broke a pledge not to remain in office beyond age 70. He retired in 2009, at 75, and was succeeded by Richard L. Trumka, his longtime secretary-treasurer and a former president of the United Mine Workers. In a statement posted on the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s website on Monday, Mr. Trumka said of Mr. Sweeney: “He was guided into unionism by his Catholic faith, and not a single day passed by when he didn’t put the needs of working people first. John viewed his leadership as a spiritual calling, a divine act of solidarity in a world plagued by distance and division.” Mr. Sweeney wrote a memoir, “Looking Back, Moving Forward: My Life in the American Labor Movement” (2017), and was the co-author of two books: “America Needs a Raise: Fighting for Economic Security and Social Justice” (1996, with David Kusnet) and “Solutions for the New Workforce: Policies for a New Social Contract” (1989, with Karen Nussbaum). In 2010, President Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. “He revitalized the American labor movement,” Mr. Obama said at a White House ceremony, “emphasizing union organizing and social justice, and was a powerful advocate for America’s workers.” Alex Traub contributed reporting. Source link Orbem News #Crusading #Dead #John #Labor #leader #Sweeney

[toshootforthestars]

via Brian Beutler, posted Oct 2020:

In his opinion (on King v Burwell, 2014), Chief Justice John Roberts concluded with a veiled plea to right-wing activists to stop treating the judiciary as a workaround for their political failures. “Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them,” he wrote. “If at all possible, we must interpret the Act in a way that is consistent with the former, and avoids the latter.”

That would have been the end of the story but for some extraordinary luck and the help of FBI Director James Comey.

When Republicans won the presidency and concurrent congressional majorities in 2016, despite losing the popular vote, it breathed new life into their legislative and judicial schemes to abolish the ACA. They first heeded Roberts’s advice and sought to repeal the ACA by statute, but failed to muster the votes they needed to pass new legislation. Somewhere along the way, Obamacare had become popular. Bruised, Republicans turned to their other driving policy fixation—regressive tax cuts—but did so in a way that fueled yet a third legal challenge to the ACA.

In the years since the Trump tax cuts passed, this pending lawsuit has loomed in the background like a theatrical prop, its significance misunderstood as a mere symbol of frustrated Republican ambitions. The challenge presupposes that, in voting for the tax-cut bill, Republicans in Congress secretly also voted to eliminate the ACA’s constitutional underpinnings, making it ripe for the Court to nullify. One of the provisions of the Trump tax cuts zeroed out the tax penalty Democrats established to enforce the ACA’s individual mandate. In 2012, Roberts had agreed that the mandate only works as a tax. Without a tax penalty, they now argue, the mandate becomes a plain command. That makes the provision unconstitutional, according to this suit, and therefore the Court should eliminate the entire health care law.

The argument’s obvious opportunism, and Roberts’ enduring distinction as the Court’s pivotal vote, led most political elites to dismiss the legal threat—after all, even with the retirement of Anthony Kennedy and the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh there remained five votes to uphold the ACA.

But nothing is written. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September, just weeks before the November 10 oral arguments in this long-shot ACA case.

Against Ginsburg’s dying wishes, Senate Republicans quickly made clear they intend to fill the vacancy before the election. President Trump followed suit by nominating one of the most openly anti-ACA judges in the country, Amy Coney Barrett, to take over Ginsburg’s seat.

[emphasis mine]

He openly mused that by confirming her as quickly as possible, she would be in place not just to strike down the ACA, but possibly to install him for a second term in office against the will of the public.

In anticipation of a coming defeat, Republicans at all levels of government have taken extraordinary steps to encumber emerging Democratic majorities. This has included efforts to reduce Democratic electoral margins by challenging ballots and making it harder to vote. At the federal level, Trump’s administration has cut the Census count short, so that he can certify a congressional reapportionment that omits millions of Americans.

The GOP has also deprived the public of relief from the Trump-coronavirus recession, which will saddle the incoming government with an economic emergency.

But Barrett is the crown jewel, the missing piece that Republicans believe will allow them to dominate national policy making without requiring them to adopt an agenda that can actually win popular majorities.

Barrett embodies the Republican dream of imposing conservatism on the masses without ever having to take difficult votes or admit to the right’s true beliefs.

She also represents what Republicans have been seeking in the courts since 2010: the power to destroy Obamacare without first receiving permission from the public, then pretending it wasn’t their doing. Thus the absurd spectacle of Senate Republicans distributing talking points to downplay the threat Barrett poses to health care, on the grounds that their own lawsuit is “ridiculous” and unlikely to succeed.

Republicans now head into the election appealing to voters with three deceptions: That they support the pre-existing conditions protections they’ve asked the Supreme Court to annul (in a lawsuit they apparently agree is frivolous); that their zeal to replace Ginsburg in the midst of an election they’re poised to lose has nothing to do with health care; and that any attempt by the Democratic Party to undo the GOP’s multifaceted theft of the courts would constitute an unacceptable breach of the norms they’ve spent five years gleefully sundering.

As the leader of the Democratic Party, Joe Biden awoke late to the nature of this opposition, and remains of two minds about it. He has adopted strategically wise negotiating positions on the kinds of reforms that would bring American citizens greater political equality, and force Republicans to compete for votes, rather than suppress them. At the same time, he remains committed, at least in public, to the view that Republicans can be persuaded to be loyal opponents. “What I learned a long time ago is that it’s always appropriate to question another man or woman’s judgment,” he said at a recent town hall event. “It’s never appropriate to question their motive.” Before Donald Trump’s presidency, this kind of boilerplate was bipartisan, the sort of thing even the most strident members of both parties repeated robotically to convey a largeness of spirit. But what if it’s wrong?

The Republican Party’s core rottenness—its dishonesty, corruption, pettiness, racism—is the defining political fact of our time.

Whatever we say about it, confronting all of us in the weeks and months ahead is the more important question of what we do about it. What do the rest of us—most importantly elected Democrats, but also journalists, political elites, and regular citizens—need to change about public life to account for the fact that one of the two major parties has embraced bad faith as an organizing principle?

As I sat down to write, I found myself daunted by the challenge of choosing a single episode to exemplify this scourge of right-wing nihilism.

Was it the time Republicans fanned conspiracy theories and otherwise exploited the 2012 deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, for political gain, only to completely abandon any pretense of caring once they won an election, then shrug off the preventable deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans on their own watch? Is it a greater irony that the very conservatives who now ask seniors to sacrifice their lives for the greater good of perpetual Trumpian rule once embraced the death-panels smear, or that they refer to themselves as “pro-life”? What about the fact that the GOP ran an entire campaign against the supposedly disqualifying, even felonious, email practices of a Democratic presidential candidate only to turn around and conduct foreign affairs over WhatsApp and dole out state secrets like candy? Is that worse than the fact that Republicans hit the fainting couches when a sitting attorney general and former president exchanged pleasantries on a tarmac, then cheered on Trump as he enlists all of the security services in his re-election campaign, and complained to reporters that Trump’s attorney general is screwing him over by not baselessly charging Democrats with crimes?

As a writer this problem presents itself as an embarrassment of riches, but as an American it’s really just an embarrassment.

Some amount of lying, and even more hypocrisy, is inevitable in politics. The Democratic Party isn’t immune. But it would be a mistake to confuse the acts of bad faith that have saturated Republican conduct for garden-variety hypocrisy or lying.

These contradictions don’t point to a lack of self-awareness or passing acts of shame-faced expediency. Republicans and professional conservatives revel in double standards because by embracing double standards they claim power over their opponents.

The Republicans have become a party that celebrates rulebreaking, because they have come to see rulebreaking as a show of strength. Their moral compass, inverted by their single-minded pursuit of self-interest, now points south.

[imjustthemechanic]

The Stone Knight

Part 1/? - Two Statues Part 2/? - A Curious Interview Part 3/? - John Doe Part 4/? - Escape Attempt Part 5/? - Making the News Part 6/? - Fallout

Attempts to figure out what the fuck is going on continue to fail.

Sir Stephen's words hung significantly in the air for a few moments, then DI Carter turned to him with a frown on her face.  “Sorcery?  That was an act of terrorism, that's what it was!”

“I have seen such things before,” Sir Stephen insisted.  “It's a very dangerous form of magic, because you must persuade the devil to perform a task before you give it a reward.”

“Oh, shut up,” Carter told him.

Sir Stephen was apparently undeterred.  “Normally a demon performs no service until blood has been spilled for it,” he explained.  “To bring down a building and kill all those inside requires it to take on faith that there will be people inside, and the blood will be enough to pay for the deed. And if the devil is disappointed in the result...”

“Shut up!” Carter repeated.  “Are you listening to yourself?  Do you have any idea how many people just died?  There must have been a hundred or more, who came there to be cured, and now they're dying in the rubble and you're blaming magic?”

“The most terrible of all magics,” Sir Stephen said gravely.  “I know there are dead, and I know I was meant to be one of them.”  He looked up at Dr. Wilson in the pilot's seat.  “I did not yet come to that part of the tale, but when we tried to return to the priory, we found it had collapsed just the same way, with the blood of the sisters staining the snow.”

“You guys.”  Dr. Wilson turned in his seat.  “More important question: it looks like they didn't refuel the chopper after their last trip. We've got about twenty minutes in the air – where do we want to go?”

He'd turned to the southwest, following the line of the Great Glen as they left the hospital area.  The cloud of dust from the collapsed hospital was lit brightly behind them by the setting sun.

“Away from here,” said Natasha.  That was all that mattered.  If somebody were trying to kill one of them – or all of them – they had to go somewhere that person didn't know they were.

“Burnett Road,” said Carter.  “I need to talk to my colleagues and figure out if the bombing were connected to the disappearance of Mr. Pierce.”

“Invermoriston,” said Sir Stephen, “and I shall prove to you that it was.”

“There's nothing in Invermoriston but an Irish nutter with a deformed seal!” DI Carter protested.

“The woman who spoke to Wilson on his 'mobile' was there to tell of the beast, was she not?” Sir Stephen asked.  “If we can find her, I think she will tell you she did no such thing.  A kobold is a shapeshift.  I think you will learn it was Zola you spoke to, and the Red Death whose sorcery brought the building down once they were sure I was within it.”

Nat thought about that.  “All right,” she said.  “Invermoriston.”

“You must be joking,” Carter protested.

Nat tried to explain her reasoning.  “You're assuming he's making all this up, but what if he's not?  What if it's a twisted version of things that really happened?”  Maybe this was the spy thinking again, but Natasha didn't want to leave the possibility un-investigated.  “Maybe the reporter confirmed that Sir Stephen was in the hospital not because she wants to interview him, but because somebody paid her to – and then once they knew he was there, they bombed the place?”  That almost made sense, except that what had happened at the hospital hadn't felt like a bomb, any more than it had felt like an earthquake.

“I think you're reaching,” said Carter.

“Actually, it's not a bad idea,” Dr. Wilson said.  “They'll have a spot for us to land.  We'll be in somebody's way if we land in the city, because they'll be disatching police and rescue from everywhere they can, but that little square we saw on the news has space to put a helicopter.  It'll be easy to find, too – it's three quarters of the way down the Loch, where the River Moriston gets wider.  I'm out of practice navigating by night, but I can find that.”

Carter sighed.  “Okay, Invermoriston.  I'll have to call my colleagues when we arrive.”

“As long as it's unanimous,” Dr. Wilson said, and grabbed the radio. “Um, hello?  INV air traffic control?  My name is Dr. Sam Wilson. I just escaped the Raigmore Hospital collapse in the air ambulance, with a patient, a cop, and a guest on board.  We want to fly up the Loch to Invermoriston... and it's been about six years since I last flew a helicopter.”

Somebody at the airport gave Wilson some guidelines for the flight, and they continued to work their way down the Great Glen.  Days were long in the Highlands in August, but it was still twilight and rapidly getting darker.  Lights were coming on in the towns and tourist hotels on either side of the long, narrow Loch, and cars could be seen on the roads coming and going.  The waters of the lake themselves were very dark, reflecting the last light of the sunset and a bright half moon.

“Did you ever hear about a monster here back in the day?” Nat asked Sir Stephen, out of idle curiosity.  She was pretty sure she'd read somewhere that there were medieval legends to that effect, but had no idea if they went back as far as 1066.

“The first time I ventured this far north was in pursuit of the Red Death,” said Sir Stephen.  “Nobody warned me of such.”

“The BBC went through the whole Loch in 2003 with sonar, and they didn't find a thing,” said Carter.  “You'd think that would have been the end of it.  My guess is the guy caught that seal somewhere else and moved it to the lake himself so he could 'discover' it.”

“Are you so skeptical about everything you encounter?” asked Sir Stephen.

“Like I told Dr. Rushman, I don't beleive in things, I follow leads,” Carter insisted.  “When I see where they take me, that's reality  It's not about belief.”

“Truth is truth, whether you believe in it or not,” said Sir Stephen.

He'd thought he was arguing with her, but Carter treated it as an agreement.  “Exactly,” she said.  “If I start off believing things, I'll be looking for eviddence that confirms my belief, rather than for the truth!  Finding the truth is my job.”

“Mine, too,” Natasha said thoughtfully.  Archaeology and detective work were actually very similar.  Both involved looking for evidence of past events and trying to reconstruct what had actually happened. The only difference was the time elapsed – Nat's cases were very much colder than Carter's.  It was a curious thing to realize after she'd been doing this as a cover for several years now, especially when she contrasted it with her previous line of work, which had often been about obscuring or even destroying the truth and the traces it left.

She wondered what a psychologist would think of that.  Was Natasha somehow trying to redeem the years she'd spent hiding the truth by helping to reveal it instead?  Or was she still just a child who wanted to be Indiana Jones?

“I can see the mouth of the Moriston,” said Dr. Wilson.  “Air Traffic called them to tell them we were coming, and it looks like they've lit up the car park for us.  Hopefully somebody moved the Loch Ness Monster.”

He turned on the helicopter's landing lights, and managed to make a nice soft landing in the car park next to the Glenmoriston Millennium Hall.  Dozens of people were there waiting for them, including a news van and an ambulance, but all Dr. Wilson did was turn off the engines and slump agains the pilot's seat with a massive sigh of relief. “Never thought I'd have to do that again,” he said.  “Maybe I should take some lessons, get my license back.  Can't hurt.”

Natasha opened the door, and the first person she saw was the woman from the ten o'clock news, the one who'd reported on the monster capture.  She was taller than Nat but shorter than DI Carter, with bottle-blonde hair in a pixie cut and multiple earrings.  The helicopter landing had apparently caught her in her off time, since she was now wearing a sweater and jeans instead of a tidy pants suit, but her cameraman was right behind her.

“Good evening,” she said, coming up to meet Nat.  “I'm Yvonne Kirkland from Channel Four Scotland.  May I have a word about the events at Raigmore?  I understand you were a witness.”

“I'd rather not, thanks,” said Natasha, trying to be polite.

DI Carter climbed down next, and the two of them reached to help Sir Stephen – but he gently refused, preferring to demonstrate that he was able to stand and walk on his own.  “I am quite healed,” he assured them.  “Or nearly so.”  In the glaring lights set up in the car park nothing looked natural, but the wound on his face did look like it was knitting quickly.  Nat wondered if there would be a scar, or if it would entirely disappear.

“Would either of you mind telling our viewers what you saw when the hospital collapsed?” the reporter asked them.

“Yes, we would mind,” said DI Carter.  “We mind very much.”

“I...” Sir Stephen began.

“He would definitely mind,” Carter added, putting a hand in the middle of Sir Stephen's chest to keep him from approaching the other woman.  Nat could almost see what Carter was thinking – she must be imagining Sir Stephen telling the entire country that A Wizard Did It, and almost dying of embarrassment from the thought alone.

Dr. Wilson was now climbing out, and Kirkland decided to give it one more try.  “Excuse me, Sir,” she said.  “I'm Yvonne Kirland from...”

“I know who you are,” snarled Dr. Wilson.  “We spoke on the phone.” He took Sir Stephen's arm and guided him over to the waiting ambulance.  “Come on, Sir Steve, let's get you looked at.”

“Maybe get him something to wear,” Natasha agreed.  Sir Stephen was still dressed only in a paper hospital gown, and it was sagging open at the rear.  He had a very nice backside, but that didn't mean the whole world needed to see it.

“Wait,” said Sir Stephen.  He reached for DI Carter.  “I told you to ask the lady from the ten o'clock news whether she poke to Dr. Wilson.”

DI Carter hesitated, then turned to face the reporter.  “Inverness Police Department,” she said, showing her badge.  “Did you ring Dr. Wilson's mobile about an hour ago?”

“No,” said Kirkland, visibly puzzled by the question and still a little startled by Wilson's rude dismissal of her.

“You didn't ask for an interview with the man from the river?” DI Carter insisted.

“The riv... oh, from the Pierce disappearance?” asked Kirkland.  “No, I'm not even on that story.”

“Would you swear to it in court?” Carter wanted to know.

“Absolutely,” Kirkland said.  “On a stack of Bibles.”

“As I told you, Carter,” Sir Stephen said with a satisfied nod.  “It was sorcery.”

“Sorcery?” asked Kirkland.  “What do you...”

“He has a head injury,” Carter cut her off.  “We're taking him to the ambulance now.”  She grabbed the arm Dr. Wilson wasn't already holding, and the two of them dragged Sir Stephen over towards the waiting ambulance.

“It's been a long day,” Nat told the reporter, and followed them.

Nobody told the waiting paramedics about Sir Stephen's bullet and axe wounds, or the fact that he'd nearly drowned not twenty-four hours ago.  There was no spoken agreement not to, but Nat, Dr. Wilson, and DI Carter all seemed to be waiting to see if they'd be able to find them for themselves.  They didn't, or at least if they did, they didn't appear to think they were serious.  Instead, they behaved as if they thought Sit Stephen had been almost ready for discharge at the time of the disaster, and accordingly pronounced him ready to go.

“You're as healthy as a horse,” one of them said, clapping Sir Stephen on the shoulder.

“Thoroughbred,” murmured one of his female co-workers with a snicker.

The manager of the Glenmoriston Arms Hotel, just up the hill, had heard about the disaster at Raigmore and offered them rooms free of charge. None of them were planning to spend the night, but they accepted anyway for the simple reason that none of them had a car anymore. Nat, Carter, and Wilson had all been parked at the hospital, and their vehicles were now presumably buried in the rubble.  The hotel would provide them a place to wait for somebody to pick them up.

From a seat in the little hotel's comfortable common room, Dr. Wilson called his mother to assure her he was all right, then a number of other people for the same reason.  DI Carter called her family and then texted her colleagues to find out what they'd learned while she was busy fleeing for her life.  Natasha called Sue at Dundee and told her she might need a couple more days off.

Sir Stephen was dressed now, in clothes that had apparently once belonged to the manager's son – jeans and an annoyingly appropriate Superman t-shirt.  He had asked for a meal, and was now making his way through a plate of shepherd's pie with peas.

“I swear that guy's had about six dinners today and he's still hungry,” DI Carter observed, setting her phone aside to sip her tea.

“Well, the rate he heals suggests he has a hell of a metabolism,” said Dr. Wilson.  “He did warn us he eats a lot.”

“What do you think this all means?” Natasha asked the others.  “We've heard what he thinks is happening, so could it have been Zola who called, or somebody who works for him?  I mean, somebody's obviously trying to kill this guy, and Zola already expressed interest...”

“No,” DI Carter interrupted, “somebody's trying to kill people. I'm not gonna start believing in magic just because of that, any more than I'm gonna start believing in the Loch Ness Monster because somebody has a seal in the back of his lorry.”  Her phone beeped and she looked at the screen, then her face lit up.  “Oh, good!”

“What is it?” asked Dr. Wilson, leaning to see.

“Somebody's found the guy who made the statues,” said Carter.

[humblewordsmith]

World of Warcraft: The Story So Far

An expansion on something I wrote last year in a fit of procrastination, dealing with the story up until now of World of Warcraft, written in broad strokes:

The Burning Crusade A large group of draenei escapes from Outland by breaking a wing off of the flying fortress called Tempest Keep, with the assistance of a race of crystalline, Light-using creatures called the Naaru. The wing, renamed the Exodar, crash-lands on a mostly-uninhabited island off the north coast of Kalimdor. Over the course of cleaning up after themselves, the draenei meet the night elves and a handful of shipwrecked Alliance troops. At the same time, they have to defend themselves against an attack from a division of Kael'thas Sunstrider's blood elves, who are led by an eredar. Having done so, the draenei join the Alliance.

Meanwhile, in Silvermoon City, a new generation of blood elves are doing their best to rebuild after the Scourge invasion that killed 90% of their race. With the Sunwell extinguished, the survivors are satisfying their cravings for mana with fel crystals, which has tinted blood elves' eyes green, rather than high elves' blue. More importantly, the elves' ruler Kael'thas managed to capture a Naaru, and has set that Naaru up in Silvermoon as an unwitting magical battery. The elves empowered by this Naaru's stolen Light are called the Blood Knights, a new order of quasi-paladins.

The elves quickly discover several Alliance spies over the course of defending Silvermoon from the leftover forces of the Scourge. That, and assistance from their Forsaken neighbors to the south, convinces them to approach the Horde about potential membership. The blood elves join as a means to an end. Kael'thas has taken many of their troops with him to Outland, and the remainder would like nothing more than to join him there.

The Alliance and Horde are subsequently forced to cooperate to defend Azeroth from the Legion, which has reactivated the Dark Portal and is using it as a potential invasion route. When we go through to the other side, we discover what's been going on in Outland, the planet formerly known as Draenor, over the last twenty years.

The members of Alliance's old Draenor Expedition have founded settlements throughout Outland. Khadgar turns up in the draenei city of Shattrath, learning and studying alongside a Naaru named A'dal; Turalyon and Alleria have disappeared, but left behind their son Arator; and Danath and Falstad both lead their own forces. (None of the people memorialized in the Valley of Heroes in Stormwind are actually dead.)

Shattrath City itself is the focus of a bizarre power struggle. A group of draenei named the Aldor have sworn to defend the city, while a second group, the Scryers, is comprised of renegade blood elves. Their leader had a prophetic vision that their future, if they were to have one, lay with A'dal, so they betrayed Illidan and changed sides. Day to day life in Shattrath is defined by the conflict between the Aldor and Scryers, jockeying for the favor of the Naaru. The Naaru and their immediate defenders are known as the Sha'tar, who came to Outland specifically to fight against the Legion's intrusion.

West of Shattrath, in Nagrand, Horde players find the home of the Mag'har, the last orcs who are untainted by Mannoroth's blood. Among them, we meet Geyah, Thrall's long-lost grandmother, and a young, depressed orc named Garrosh Hellscream. Horde players and Thrall convince Garrosh that he's capable of living up to his late father Grom's legacy, and thus screw everything up for everyone for years to come.

The biggest problems we encounter in Outland (along with the Legion, the local ogres, occasional skirmishes with the time-traveling Infinite Dragonflight, and in-fighting between tribes of alien ethereals) come from Illidan, Kael'thas, and Lady Vashj, who are working to conquer Outland. Vashj is our first problem, as her naga are enslaving the locals and attempting to steal control of Outland's entire water supply. We first run into her forces in Zangarmarsh, while we're working on behalf of Cenarion druids who are trying to figure out what's going on. Eventually, we break into Vashj's lair underneath the Coifang Reservoir in Zangarmarsh and take her out.

Kael'thas is a bigger problem. He's fully gone over to the Legion (although the Exodar draenei have known this for quite a while, due to captured intelligence in their starting zone), and his forces are working alongside demons throughout Netherstorm to mine it for mana. Kael'thas himself is pursuing the Cipher of Damnation, the spell that Gul'dan used to blow up Draenor in the first place. We keep him from getting it, with the help of the ex-warlock Oronok Torn-Heart and his sons, then break into Tempest Keep and defeat Kael'thas. Despite appearances, we don't quite manage to kill him.

During all of this, Illidan has been more of a constant background presence than a threat. His armies include fel orcs, turned red and driven insane by exposure to the blood of the pit lord Magtheridon; a force of elves who call themselves the Illidari, which includes numerous apprentice demon hunters; and the Ashtongue, a tribe of Broken draenei under Akama's command. From the outside, Illidan's armies are a major threat, working to conquer or destroy all other forces on Outland; later work will establish/retcon that Illidan is monomaniacally focused on attacking the Legion homeworld of Argus. He's let his subordinates get away with a lot and has gone back on several of his agreements.

Specifically, the Ashtongue and their leader, Akama, teamed up with Illidan in order to reclaim and rebuild what used to be the city of Karabor, one of the holiest sites on Draenor, and which is now known as the Black Temple. When Illidan refuses to return the Temple to the Ashtongue, Akama allies with us and Maiev, who Akama's been keeping locked up nearby. With the help of a distraction by the Sha'tar, Akama helps us infiltrate the Temple via its drainage system and we work our way up to its roof.

Just before we bust into Illidan's brooding post, he sends the best of his squad of Illidari to the demon world of Mardum, where they reclaim a relic called the Sargerite Keystone. By the time they make it back, Illidan has fallen, courtesy of us and Maiev. She imprisons the surviving Illidari in stasis in the Vault of the Wardens.

Subsequently, a maimed Kael'thas, his surviving force of Sunfury blood elves, and a bunch of demons overrun Silvermoon City, kidnap M'uru (again), and take control of the Isle of Quel'danas, the former site of the Sunwell. Kael'thas's plan is to use the remnants of the Sunwell to summon one of the Legion's primary leaders, Kil'jaeden, directly to Azeroth.

The Aldor and Scryers form a joint task force, the Shattered Sun Offensive, and set out to retake the Isle. With our help, they gradually reclaim much of the lost territory. We corner Kael'thas in the Magister's Terrace north of the Sunwell, and this time, we make sure he's dead.

The bulk of Kael'thas's remaining forces are holed up inside the Sunwell Plateau, where the Legion is calling in the big guns to keep the Sunwell chamber undisturbed. We go in and plow through elite blood elf troops, a cadre of demons, a mind-controlled Kalecgos, and M'uru itself; it's "died," entering the dark side of a Naaru's life cycle, and is reborn as the hostile "void god" Entropius. In the end, however, we arrive just in time to see Kil'jaeden begin to make his way into Azeroth. With Kalecgos's help, as well as the self-sacrifice of Anveena Teague (she's from a manga; don't ask), we beat Kil'jaeden back through the portal and shut it behind him.

Velen shows up afterward and uses Entropius's corpse to reignite the Sunwell, which saves the blood elves from having to find some other source for their mana jones. The blood elves' cadre of paladins are inspired by Velen and the revived Sunwell, giving up their stolen powers in favor of getting them the old-fashioned way, through faith and service. Apparently this was M'uru's plan all along; it knew it was dying, and let itself be taken in order to play the long game.

Before Wrath of the Lich King Due to events in the official comic book, Varian Wrynn reappears and takes up his old job as the King of Stormwind. (Canonically, Varian killed Onyxia.)

In a different official comic book, Darion Mograine joins the Argent Dawn, intent upon finding out what really happened to his father Alexandros. He and a few volunteers break into Naxxramas looking for answers, and end up in a fight with the Four Horsemen. Everyone is killed except Darion, who escapes with the corrupted Ashbringer. When he brings it to his brother Renault, Darion learns that Renault, bitter over what he saw as years of their father's favoring Darion, had murdered Alexandros. Alexandros's vengeful spirit emerges from the sword and decapitates Renault.

Darion subsequently sacrifices himself to defend Light's Hope Chapel from an army of the Scourge. Kel'thuzad makes him into a new Horseman to replace his father.

Wrath of the Lich King The Lich King wakes up and attacks the rest of the world with a fresh plague, which turns those who catch it into ghouls. The Alliance and Horde object to this and send troops to Northrend to stop him.

Particularly notable groups in the Northrend assault include a battalion of Warsong Clan orcs led by Saurfang, with an increasingly bloodthirsty Garrosh Hellscream as Saurfang's lieutenant; the Alliance's 7th Legion, under the command of Bolvar Fordragon; the Argent Crusade, which initially sneaks in undercover via the Alliance's settlements; the Scarlet Onslaught, which makes landfall on the northern and southern coasts and proceeds to hassle the Forsaken; and the Hand of Vengeance, a faction of Forsaken so bent on revenge against Arthas that they're willing to kill anyone else they encounter just so they won't get in the way later.

Around the same time, Arthas makes a new breed of death knights from the corpses of particularly strong-willed, fallen soldiers of the Argent Dawn. Their first mission is to polish off what's left of the Scarlet Crusade; the death knights do a lot of damage, but the Crusade's higher-ups manage to escape to Northrend, renaming themselves the Scarlet Onslaught. Next up, the death knights besiege Light's Hope Chapel, empowered by the Lich King and led by the undead husk of Darion Mograine, who's still equipped with his father's sword, the corrupted Ashbringer.

Tirion Fordring shows up, purifies the Ashbringer, and drives Arthas off. This also breaks the hold Arthas had on Darion and the new death knights, many of whom opt to serve the Alliance or Horde, with Tirion vouching for their loyalty. Tirion vows to bring the Lich King to justice, and founds the Argent Crusade there on the spot, assembled from what's left of the Argent Dawn and the Brotherhood of the Light. Likewise, Darion gathers the remaining death knights under the banner of the Knights of the Ebon Blade.

When we get there, Northrend turns out to be a hellhole. Both factions' forces have been infiltrated by the Cult of the Damned and/or the San'layn, a group of high/blood elf vampires; the Scourge's floating necropolis Naxxramas has been recalled to the Dragonblight in central Northrend, where it threatens the dragons' sacred burial grounds; the Grizzly Hills are infested with feral worgen courtesy of the sorcerer Arugal; the coastlines of Northrend are defended by incredibly cruel not-Vikings called the vrykul, who worship the Lich King as a god; the local ice trolls, the Drakkari, have been driven almost to extinction by the Scourge's invasion of their territory, and the most dangerous among them have thrown their lot in with the Lich King; there's a twilight dragon named Sartharion who's set up shop underneath the dragons' sacred Wyrmrest Temple in the Dragonblight, and who appears to be doing unpleasant things to the dragons' eggs; the Scarlet Onslaught is out to "purify" everyone except themselves; there's a quiet, unresolved war going on underground, between the last uncorrupted remnants of the nerubian race and their undead brethren, who serve Arthas; and last but nowhere near least, Malygos, the leader of the blue dragonflight and the Aspect of Magic, has decided the mortal races need to stop using magic entirely, and has declared all-out war on the mage population.

The first major battle in the Northrend campaign is fought in the Dragonblight, at Icecrown Citadel's Wrath Gate. Bolvar Fordragon, alongside his own troops, Saurfang the Younger, and a division of Horde soldiers, besieges the Citadel and challenges Arthas directly, who emerges to confront them. Both sides are suddenly ambushed by the Royal Apothecary Society, who carpet-bomb the area with a powerful new variant of the Forsaken's Plague, which drives Arthas away and kills everyone else. The Plague is only stopped when Alexstrasza intervenes directly, sterilizing and purifying the area with her dragon's fire.

The Society then makes a big power grab and takes over the Undercity, led by Grand Apothecary Putress and the dreadlord Varimathras, finally pulling the trigger on his inevitable betrayal. Both the Horde and Alliance invade the Undercity on separate sides, killing off the Society's mutineers. When both sides reach the Royal Quarter, Varian makes it clear that as far as he's concerned, Bolvar's death means the Alliance's period of tolerating the Horde has come to an end. He's only prevented from attacking Thrall and Sylvanas there and then by Jaina teleporting him and the Alliance forces out. The "cold war" between the Alliance and Horde has just gone hot again, and the two factions repeatedly clash as both invade Icecrown.

We subsequently kill Malygos with the help of Alexstrasza, the Aspect of Life; Kalecgos is subsequently appointed the head of the blue dragonflight. Sartharion and Arugal are likewise dealt with. We clean out Naxxramas, though Kel'thuzad's phylactery is still MIA, and the Ebon Blade hires us to deal with what's left of the Scarlet Onslaught. It turns out that the Onslaught is, as is traditional, being manipulated by demons; this time it's Arthas's old rival Mal'Ganis, who escapes when confronted.

In a rare bit of good news, Alliance players encounter a tribe of local dwarves called the Frostborn, living in a village in the Storm Peaks. Their leader turns out to be an amnesiac Muradin Bronzebeard, who remembers his true identity when he meets Brann.

As we explore the mountains of the Storm Peaks in Northrend, they and much of the rest of Northrend turn out to have been built as part of a single Titan complex, the sealed city of Ulduar, which was constructed as a prison for the Old God of Madness, Yogg-Saron. It's been able to extend its reach beyond that prison for millennia, has subtly influenced much of Azeroth's history, and has tricked the Titans' surviving Keepers into neglecting their duties. Most notably, Yogg seems to be responsible for something called the "Curse of Flesh," which transformed its prison's stone golems and mechanical workers into the first dwarves, gnomes, and vrykul, and which may have further warped some of the local vrykul's offspring into the first humans.

Eventually, with the help of Brann Bronzebeard and the Kirin Tor, we bust through the prison's defenses, slap some sense back into the prison's ancient Keepers, dispatch some Twilight's Hammer cultists that are trying to sneak in and free Yogg, and defeat Yogg itself, although it may be impossible to actually kill it. Most importantly, we stop the prison's final failsafe, a "re-origination" device that would destroy Azeroth before recreating it, by fighting its activator, Algalon the Observer, to a standstill. He gives us the means to broadcast a return signal off-world from Dalaran, preventing the Titans from destroying Azeroth.

In an attempt to refocus the Alliance and Horde on the Scourge, Tirion and the Argent Crusade set up a tournament in northern Icecrown, offering prizes and renown on the field of honorable combat while pitting challengers against the Lich King's forces. Tirion's plan is to train up a small, elite strike force via the tournament in order to attack Icecrown Citadel with as few troops as possible, to avoid giving Arthas more corpses to raise. This doesn't really work, and the tournament ends up leaving the faction divide as strained as ever. The Lich King himself shows up to challenge us for the final round of the tournament, and drops us into an underground cavern where we face off against and kill his buddy Anub'arak. (Again.)

While the troops trained through the tournament don't end up amounting to much (they're unceremoniously killed off about ten minutes after we breach the Citadel), we're able to break through the Lich King's defenses and besiege Icecrown Citadel itself. In this, we're assisted and led by Tirion and Darion, who have unified their forces into a single group that calls itself the Ashen Verdict.

In the upper reaches of the Citadel, in the Halls of Reflection, we confront many of the souls that Frostmourne has taken over the years. The only one that isn't hostile is Uther the Lightbringer, who tells us something important: without someone at its head, the Scourge will go berserk. We can't just kill Arthas; someone has to take his place or things will get even worse. Before Uther can expound further, Arthas interrupts the conversation and forces us to retreat.

When we and the Verdict bust through the Citadel's front door, we also discover that the Lich King has reanimated the late Bolvar Fordragon. Bolvar is still glowing red-hot from Alexstrazsa's fire breath and has managed to resist Arthas's attempts at conversion until now. We can hear him screaming all the way from the bottom of the Citadel.

We fight our way towards him, dealing with the leaders of the Scourge, an incursion force sent by the opposite faction, the death knight version of Saurfang the Younger, the frost wyrm Sindragosa, and the Blood Queen of the San'layn, before finally coming face to face with Arthas himself. Our battle with him is hard-fought and utterly pointless; when he reaches 10% health, he kills us all. He's been putting up with us for so long because he wanted to raise us as his newer, better champions, then send us after Tirion as an ironic twist of the knife.

As he's raising us, however, he's interrupted by Tirion, who shatters Frostmourne with the Ashbringer. This releases all the souls that Frostmourne has taken over the years, including that of Arthas's father Terenas. He resurrects us and we beat Arthas to death. Bolvar sacrifices himself to keep the Scourge in check; he puts on the Lich King's helm and sits on the Frozen Throne, telling us to tell the world that he's dead.

In the aftermath, a lot of the leftover elements of the Scourge end up working for Sylvanas Windrunner, including the valkyr, which are capable of resurrecting the dead and turning freshly-slain humans into Forsaken. Right about now, Sylvanas's tactics start looking a lot like Arthas's used to.

before Cataclysm The Alliance and Horde both return from Northrend badly bloodied, with heavy casualties on both sides. The official estimate given for the Alliance, in one of the novels, is around 50,000 dead.

Just the same, both sides undertake new operations: the Alliance assists the gnomes as they make additional headway into the irradiated tunnels of Gnomeregan, and the Horde kicks in to help the Darkspear trolls retake their homeland in the Echo Isles. This leads into their new starting zones in the next expansion.

Cataclysm We last saw Deathwing in The Day of the Dragon, when he retreated into Deepholm to recuperate. While he was there, the Twilight's Hammer cult worked to forge Deathwing an impenetrable suit of elementium scales.

Finally, the Old Gods' constant whispering drives him into a frenzy and Deathwing explodes out of Deepholm, causing the event known as the Cataclysm. This reshapes coastlines, wrecks landmarks, and drives elementals insane all over the world. Most notably, it sinks the island of Kezan, home of the goblins' Bilgewater Cartel; seemingly destroys the island of Zandalar, home of the previously-friendly Zandalari trolls, with their Emperor disappearing in the upheaval; and causes the corrupt elemental lords and the Twilight's Hammer cult to take a fresh swing at destroying Azeroth. This includes Ragnaros, who turns a massive chunk of Hyjal into a volcanic hellscape. Deathwing steals the bodies of Nefarian and Onyxia, rezzing Nef so Nef can reconstruct Onyxia as an undead taxidermy project; Stormwind's entire park district is turned into a crater (this isn't fixed until years later); and due to rampaging elementals, a big part of Orgrimmar burns down.

Thrall steps down as warchief of the Horde to take up a job as the World-Shaman, leader of the Earthen Ring, and to court and marry a Mag'har orc named Aggra. Despite the advice of literally everyone around him, Thrall appoints Garrosh Hellscream as the new warchief. Immediately after the Cataclysm, Garrosh rebuilds Orgrimmar into a nest of black iron spikes, then starts something like seven separate land wars in a bid to claim new resources and land for the Horde.

Cairne Bloodhoof challenges Garrosh for the warchief spot, but their duel to the death is interrupted when they discover that Magatha Grimtotem has poisoned Garrosh's axe. Cairne dies, the Grimtotem are put firmly on everyone's shit list, Magatha is exiled, and Cairne's son Baine succeeds him as the leader of the tauren.

One of Garrosh's new offensives pits Sylvanas and the Forsaken against the isolationist nation of Gilneas, which was already having trouble dealing with a plague of lycanthropy. Long story short: as per the Curse of the Worgen comic, the druidic wolf form was created and promptly forbidden during the War of the Ancients, and its feral, nearly-mindless practitioners were sealed up inside a tree in the Emerald Dream. Come the modern day, that tree's Azeroth equivalent is in Gilneas and it's leaking. King Greymane's personal alchemist creates a potion that restores the infected Gilneans to sanity, if not humanity, and they form the backbone of the fight against the Forsaken.

Sylvanas is here to conquer the place on orders from Garrosh, in order to get the Horde an ocean port in the Eastern Kingdoms. Eventually, she gets annoyed enough with the resistance to simply blight the city with the Plague, leaving most of the peninsula as an unusable ruin. The surviving Gilneans, most of whom are worgen at this point (notable exceptions include Lorna Crowley and Tess Greymane), escape across the ocean with help from the night elves and join the Alliance.

Many Gilneans will return with Alliance support to form the Gilnean Liberation Front, harrassing the Forsaken's lines in Silverpine Forest. Their efforts to reclaim their nation end in an effective stalemate, which costs the lives of both Prince Liam Greymane and Sylvanas herself. She is subsequently resurrected by the sacrifice of several of her valkyr, but her short time spent dead convinces her that she has to do whatever is necessary to keep herself from dying again.

Shortly after Thrall steps down, he's captured by (what purports to be) an Alliance naval fleet. The battle is witnessed by a ship full of the newly-homeless goblins of the Bilgewater Cartel, who escaped their island before it sank but ended up getting enslaved by their leader. The Alliance's captains try to sink the goblins' ship to eliminate all witnesses, but the goblins survive and free Thrall. He destroys what's left of the Alliance's fleet, then sponsors the Bilgewater goblins as the newest entrants into the Horde.

Elsewhere, the Alliance takes heavy losses from Garrosh's offensive, including the outright losses of Southshore and Silverwind Refuge. Magni Bronzebeard tries to figure out what's happened by using ancient rituals, but instead ends up as a petrified diamond statue in a cavern beneath Ironforge. After his "death," Muradin, Magni's renegade daughter Moira Thaurissan, and Falstad Wildhammer form the Council of Three Hammers to rule Ironforge, unifying the dwarf clans for the first time in centuries.

With new allies on both factions' sides, we begin the work of cleaning up after Deathwing. In Hyjal, we disrupt the Twilight's Hammer cult as it attempts to burn down the countryside; in Deepholm, we work with the Earthen Ring to reassemble and repair the broken World Pillar, which Deathwing smashed on his way out the door. Nefarian has holed up in Blackrock Mountain again, while Cho'gall is running his cult from the Twilight Highlands, near the ruins of the city of Grim Batol; we take them out, as well as what's left of Deathwing's consort Sinestra.

In southern Tanaris, we investigate an ancient gate that was smashed open in the Shattering, and discover the hidden land of Uldum. It's inhabited by a race of cat-people called the tol'vir, who live and work among yet more Titan ruins. This includes another "re-origination" device like the one we barely kept from being fired in Ulduar, but this time Brann Bronzebeard is able to shut it down with a lot less trouble.

The tol'vir were created as animate statues and were also subject to Yogg-Saron's "curse of flesh." The corrupted Elemental Lord of Air, Al'Akir, has enticed a number of tol'vir to his side by lifting the curse, and attempts to destroy the tol'vir who refuse. We help to organize the tol'vir against Al'Akir's armies, saving the tol'vir's civilization, before confronting A'Akir himself on the elemental plane of Skywall. His post is left temporarily vacant.

A new threat arises shortly thereafter from the surviving Zandalari, who attempt to unify the disparate tribes of trolls into a single empire with themselves at its head. Most of the hostile troll tribes--the Gurubashi, Drakkari, Amani, etc.--take them up on their offer, but Vol'jin refuses on behalf of the Darkspear. He proceeds to enlist whoever he can find in attempts to oppose the Zandalari. On Vol'jin's behalf, we reenter Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman and take out the forces gathering there, preventing the Zandalari from creating a beachhead for empire in the Eastern Kingdoms.

Shortly thereafter, Ragnaros attacks Mount Hyjal in earnest, aided by a renegade order of druids headed up by Fandraal Staghelm. They're opposed in Hyjal by a druidic force that calls itself the Molten Front Offensive, working to keep Ragnaros's forces sealed up inside the Firelands. With Malfurion, Hamuul, and Cenarius, we enter the Firelands, kill Staghelm, and put a final end to Ragnaros himself.

Finally, the surviving dragon Aspects, with Thrall standing in for the Aspect of Earth, come up with a plan to deal with Deathwing. They're going to need the Dragon Soul to so much as scratch him, but it was destroyed a long time ago. We need to go back in time and "borrow" it from near the time of its creation, during the War of the Ancients.

When Nozdormu tries to send us back, however, we're instead sent to a possible future, the End Time of Azeroth, where Deathwing has gotten everything he wanted. Azeroth is a smoking cinder, the only survivors are a handful of dragonkin and angry ghosts, and Deathwing's corpse is impaled on the peak of Wyrmrest Temple.

We pick our way through the ashes and find the entity responsible for bringing us here: Murozond, a version of Nozdormu who's been driven insane by a vision of his own eventual death, and the progenitor of the infinite dragonflight. He attacks, ranting that this future is a mercy compared to what's to come, and dies at our hands. This was the vision he saw that drove him mad; the infinite dragonflight's efforts up until now have been an attempt to make sure the End Time comes to pass, and now it never will.

Nozdormu sends us back to the Well of Eternity during the War of the Ancients, where we fight alongside the young Illidan, Tyrande, and Malfurion. We quietly make off with the Dragon Soul, pausing to help Illidan win against Mannoroth, and rendezvous with Chromie to get sent back to our time.

We meet up with Thrall in the Dragonblight, near Wyrmrest Temple, and play bodyguard for him. We're intercepted by multiple squads of Twilight's Hammer assassins, but we win through and get Thrall where he needs to be. The Dragon Soul is in place with the Aspects, and now, all they need to do is to figure out how to use it.

Rogues are quietly approached at this point by agents of Ravenholdt, who are working in conjunction with a black dragon who calls himself Wrathion, the Black Prince. Wrathion is the last black dragon on Azeroth (that he knows of) who's untouched by Deathwing's corruption (cf. a quest in the Badlands, where we and a red dragon conspire to keep an uncorrupted egg safe from Deathwing), and he's decided his father's got to go. Rogues are tasked with eliminating various agents of the black dragonflight, in the ruins of Gilneas and the caverns under Karazhan, in exchange for a pair of daggers that Wrathion gradually upgrades.

At this point, the Twilight's Hammer hits Wyrmrest with everything it has left, which mostly consists of the Old Gods' minions; we arrive just in time to keep the Temple's guards from being totally overrun. The assault culminates in Deathwing unleashing the twilight dragonflight--viciously warped versions of red dragons--and its most powerful member, Ultraxion, which is basically a dragon-shaped suicide bomb. Secure behind our lines, the Aspects use the Eye of Eternity to empower the Dragon Soul with their essences.

Thrall blasts Deathwing with the Soul, which wounds him and forces him into a headlong retreat, and we give chase by airship. We parachute onto Deathwing's back and pry off more of his elementium armor plates; underneath it, Deathwing is little more than a seething mass of corruption. Without his armor, Deathwing is vulnerable to a second strike from Thrall, and lands in the Maelstrom itself. We, Thrall, and the Aspects finish him off, and Nozdormu goes so far as to ensure our victory here is a multiversal constant. There is no alternate timeline where Deathwing won and destroyed Azeroth. This fight always happened, we always won it, and no amount of time manipulation can undo this result.

This fight costs the Aspects dearly, however. They're all still dragons, with all the capabilities that implies, but they no longer have the specific Titan-granted powers that made them the Aspects. The Age of Mortals has begun.

before Mists of Pandaria In the events of the "Theramore's Fall" scenario and the novel Tides of War, Theramore is destroyed by a full-scale Horde assault, culminating in the detonation of a "mana bomb" that levels most of the city. The Alliance loses many of its highest-ranking military officers (if you're wondering why there's a new guy sitting in Stormwind where Marcus Jonathan used to be, that's why), and Jaina herself only lives because of the self-sacrifice of Rhonin, head of the Kirin Tor.

Jaina goes mad with grief and is about to level Orgrimmar with a tidal wave, but Thrall holds her back while Kalecgos talks her down. She turns herself in to the Kirin Tor, intending to have them punish her for almost losing control; instead, on the basis that she didn’t lose control, they offer her Rhonin's former position.

Mists of Pandaria For millennia, the continent of Pandaria was hidden by banks of magical mists, placed there for protection by the great Emperor Shouhao. The outside world thought it was a legend if they knew about it at all, including the small population of pandaren who lived on the Wandering Isle, a forest and village situated on the back of a constantly moving turtle.

The mist was one more thing wrecked by the Shattering. Pandaria stays undiscovered until the day when the Horde and Alliance fight a massive naval skirmish nearby. One airship, full of Alliance troops and Horde prisoners, crashes into the side of the Wandering Isle. Some of the local pandaren decide to follow one faction or the other back to the mainland, forming new societies there; the Tuishi join the Alliance under the leadership of Aysa Cloudsinger, and the Huojin, led by Jin Firepaw, join the Horde.

A flagship, this one carrying Prince Anduin Wrynn, ends up wrecked on the coast of Pandaria itself. Varian sends Alliance troops in the Skyfire to rescue him. When Garrosh learns about it, he dispatches his own forces to "paint the continent red."

Garrosh, incidentally, has recruited several formerly-outcast clans such as the Blackrock to bolster the Horde's forces, and has been getting progressively more belligerent and warlike as his reign as Warchief has continued.

When we arrive on Pandaria, we find the other faction's survivors from the original skirmish have erected fortifications in the Jade Forest, and act to deal with them. As it turns out, this was a bad move; Pandaria itself is infested with monsters called the Sha, a corruptive force that feeds off of negative emotions, with the most powerful Sha embodying feelings such as Despair, Anger, Depression, Fear, and Hatred. The entirety of pandaren culture is a 10,000-year-old defense mechanism to avoid releasing the Sha back into the world.

When the Alliance and Horde show up in full war mode, their emotions over the conflict blow many of the Shas' prisons wide open, who run rampant across most of the continent. The good news is that when we fight the Sha, they die. The Emperor was only able to seal the worst of the Sha away, but we're very good at killing by now and can destroy them outright.

The Alliance pursues Anduin across Pandaria. When they catch up, it's as he's playing peacemaker and diplomat between the Alliance and the locals. Alongside the tauren paladin Sunwalker Dezco, Anduin helps to convince the August Celestials, four animal spirits that guide and protect the pandaren, to open the sealed gates to the sacred Vale of Eternal Blossoms. There, both the Horde and Alliance take up residence in local shrines.

While we're exploring, we also run into Wrathion. He maintains a network of spies throughout Pandaria, and recruits us for various missions of his own. In exchange for various artifacts and the occasional odd job, he's able to provide us with certain upgrades, such as a powerful meta-gem called the Crown of Heaven. Wrathion keeps his true motivations under his belt, but as a rule, he seems to be supportive of the faction of whoever he's talking to, and encourages us via quests to prove our faction's greater strength.

One of the stranger side effects of our arrival on Pandaria takes place in the Dread Wastes, on Pandaria's west coast. Pandaria's history has been punctuated by battles with an insectoid race called the mantid, which try to overrun the rest of the continent every hundred years. They're typically beaten back by the pandaren, who have established multiple fortifications for this specific purpose. The mantid regard this conflict as an aggressive form of natural selection.

The Sha's appearance has forced the swarm to start early, as the mantid's Empress has fallen under the corruptive sway of the Sha of Fear. We investigate and become acquainted with the Klaaxi, the elders of the mantid race, who managed to avoid being corrupted due to being in stasis at the time. We work to overthrow the Empress with their aid, and as a sort of reward, the Klaaxi let us in on one of their secrets: they worship the Old Gods and await their return. They advise us to do the same.

Another problem develops on the northern shore of Kun-Lai Summit, where a mixed council of trolls have made landfall. While the Gurubashi, Drakkari, and Amani try to establish a beachhead by overrunning a pandaren village, the Zandalari exhume a series of ancient crypts in the mountains nearby.

Millennia ago, Pandaria was ruled by animate statues called the mogu, which were led by the Lightning Emperor, Lei Shen. Lei Shen unified Pandaria under his command, enslaving the other sentient races, but was eventually killed by the tol'vir when he tried to invade Uldum.

The mogu were allies of the Zandalari back in the day, and the Zandalari still know how to reanimate the mogu. Before we can stop them, they resurrect Lei Shen himself. The plan is that, in accordance to an ancient compact, the Zandalari will help the mogu reconquer Pandaria in exchange for carving off a piece of the continent as their new homeland.

As a side note, we find an ancient mogu crypt called Mogushan Terrace in Kun-Lai Summit. It's inhabited by a who's-who of mogu spirits and ancient guardians, which are in place to defend what turns out to be a Titan complex, complete with a deactivated guardian called Elegon and a device that manufactures new mogu right there on the spot, much like what we found in the Halls of Stone back on Northrend. The mogu began as a race of Titan servants, just like the dwarves and gnomes did, but if they ever had a Keeper, he's nowhere to be seen.

Our next challenges take place in the Heart of Fear in the Dread Wastes, the Sha-corrupted mantid hive where the former Empress now rules, and the pandaren's Terrace of Endless Spring, a shrine that's now the home of the freed Sha of Fear. We kill both the Empress and the Sha in turn, returning control of the mantid to the Klaaxi and purifying the shrine.

Shortly afterward, the Alliance and Horde arrive on the shores of Pandaria in force, building settlements on the southern coastline. Anduin meets his father there and keeps playing diplomat, but Garrosh has learned about an ancient mogu super-weapon called the Divine Bell. Blood elf archeologists dig the Bell up for Garrosh, but the Alliance makes off with it before he can use it; the Horde promptly breaks into Darnassus to steal it back. Garrosh tries to use the Bell to create a new breed of super-orcs without success before Anduin destroys it, which nearly kills Anduin.

The theft of the Divine Bell has other consequences. Jaina Proudmoore, now head of the Kirin Tor, has been trying to get her head together since the destruction of Theramore. Just as she's returning to her previous peace efforts, she discovers that the Sunreavers, a faction of blood elves within the Kirin Tor, went against her orders and helped the Horde steal the Divine Bell. (We later find out, out of game, that the leader of the Sunreavers had to make a call between pissing Jaina off and pissing Garrosh off, and he chose Jaina.) Jaina promptly goes on a rampage alongside Vereesa Windrunner, Rhonin's widow, and they kick the blood elves and Horde out of Dalaran entirely.

Jaina and Vereesa reestablish the Kirin Tor as an explicitly Alliance-aligned force, while Lor'themar Theron and the Sunreavers regroup to oppose her. Both organizations take the lead as their respective factions move to invade the Isle of Thunder, where the Zandalari and mogu are gathered under Lei Shen's command. We break into Lei Shen's ancient fortress, the Throne of Thunder, to find that Lei Shen's not taking us particularly seriously; he dumps us into his castle's sewer system and we're forced to fight all the way back up to him.

We defeat Lei Shen, wiping out the last of the Zandalari's unified troll forces along the way. Both major factions end up with something else in the end; the blood elves learn the secret to creating the mogu's anima golems, which become a fixture of their war efforts from here on out, while Jaina uses her staff to absorb power from the fallen Lei Shen.

Wrathion also asks us to perform a task for us while we're in the Throne of Thunder: bring him Lei Shen's heart. Wrathion eats it in front of us, which prevents Lei Shen from ever being resurrected again, and it puts him into a fugue state. Wrathion says aloud that "we must rebuild the final Titan," but remembers nothing afterward.

Finally, there's one last secret in the Throne: a hidden prison. The mogu were created to assist Ra-den, one of the Titans' Keepers, but they rebelled against him, stole his powers, and chained him up down here for millennia. He's understandably angry when we let him out, and initially intends to go on a rampage across the planet, but we hold him back long enough for him to come to his senses.

Meanwhile, Garrosh's run as warchief has made him plenty of enemies. The pursuit of the Divine Bell killed a lot of the blood elves' archeologists, Vol'jin has never really cared for him, and Garrosh  killed Baine's father Cairne. When Garrosh tries to have Vol'jin quietly assassinated, it spurs the beginning of what becomes the Darkspear Revolution. Vol'jin's Horde and its supporters in the Alliance attack and harrass the camps and supply lines in the Barrens, attempting to isolate Garrosh's forces in Orgrimmar.

Garrosh decides to pursue a new tactic, and has some goblins dig up the sacred Vale of Eternal Blossoms in Pandaria. They quickly discover the source of the whole "Sha" problem: the heart of the dead Old God Y'shaarj, held in an ancient Titan vault. Garrosh claims the heart as his own, and in so doing, releases a wave of Sha power that blows up a big part of the Vale, kills many of its protectors, and corrupts the magical water that fuels Pandaria's agriculture. This is the last straw for the pandaren; they're only kept from exiling the Horde from Pandaria by some fast talking from Dezco.

After we deal with the various monsters that now inhabit the Vale, including the Sha of Pride, we besiege Orgrimmar. This means carving up Garrosh's retinue of Dragonmaw orcs, im-7-ported Kor'kron, a handful of ride-or-die loyalists like General Nazgrim, the Klaaxi (who regard Garrosh's possession of the heart or Y’shaarj as proof that he's on their team), and the Blackfuse Company, a high-tech group of goblin mercenaries.

Garrosh himself is holed up in a chamber underneath the city, waiting for all comers to try to take him down. He initially defends himself with goblin technology and orc reinforcements, but as the fight wears on, he repeatedly siphons power from Y'shaarj's heart, employing it to summon Sha and turn his angry outbursts into reality. This culminates in a fight where we literally battle Garrosh inside a vision of his ideal future: the burned-out wreckage of Stormwind Harbor, besieged by a True Horde navy, with all of Garrosh's enemies impaled atop its walls.

When we defeat him, it also renders Y'shaarj's heart inert; Garrosh drained all the power it had left to fight us. Thrall is about to kill Garrosh when Varian steps in to parry the blow, saying that Garrosh deserves to face a trial for his crimes. Garrosh is placed in the custody of the Shado-Pan, Pandaria's martial order of monks. Despite Jaina's urging, Varian leaves the Horde alone at this point, refusing to launch a decapitation strike while the Horde is weak; their cooperation for the sake of the rebellion, he says, has earned them that much goodwill.

When he hears about it, this infuriates Wrathion. His whole plan, as it turns out, was trying to force one side or another to win the war and unify Azeroth under a single banner, because that's what it will take to protect Azeroth when the Burning Legion returns. He pitches a fit and retreats behind the scenes.

before Warlords of Draenor While we were besieging Orgrimmar, we also happened to find a place called the Timeless Isle off the coast of Pandaria, where time itself seems to stand still. A new organization called the Timewalkers, mortals who're trying to take up where the bronze dragonflight left off, has set up shop there alongside a bronze dragon named Kairos. We collect a particular kind of stone for Kairos from the Isle as part of a weekly quest, and Kairos uses those stones to empower a relic called the Vision of Time, which gives us glimpses of the near-future.

Garrosh's trial takes place in the novel War Crimes. A completely unrepentant Garrosh is about to be convicted of all charges when Kairos attacks the trial, sending in a mixed force of Dragonmaw orcs, hired mercenaries, and dark alternate-universe versions of Thrall, Vol'jin, Baine, and Anduin. The attack doesn't go well for Kairos's side, but he's able to escape with Garrosh and Warlord Zaela.

Warlords of Draenor One day, the Dark Portal changes color and a bunch of brown, technologically-advanced orcs, calling themselves the Iron Horde, come storming into the Blasted Lands. They destroy Nethergarde Keep, but are repulsed before they can cause too much additional damage. A detachment led by Warlord Zaela gets as far as the ruins of the Blackrock Spire before it's pinned down and wiped out.

Khadgar reappears on Azeroth to help us deal with the Iron Horde. He leads a small force of Thrall, Vindicator Maraad (the draenei paladin from the [i]Burning Crusade[/i] intro movie; Garona Halforcen's uncle), us, and a few dozen redshirt adventurers back through the Dark Portal.

This leads us back and sideways in time, to a version of Draenor as it was 30 years ago, before Gul'dan blew up the place and turned it into Outland. It's not a perfect 100% matchup with the events of our own timeline--some characters who had died are inexplicably alive (Ner'zhul's wife Rulkan), and some were never born (Garrosh himself)--but the broad strokes are there.

The Iron Horde consists of the unified and industrialized Blackrock, Shadowmoon, Bleeding Hollow, Thunderlord, Burning Blade, and Shattered Hand clans, backed up by what's left of the Blackfuse Company from our timeline and enslaved Draenor locals. They're led by the old orcish Warlords: Blackhand, Grom Hellscream, Korgath Bladefist, Orgrim Doomhammer, Killrogg Deadeye, and Ner'zhul.

We emerge from the Dark Portal into Tanaan Jungle, the verdant wilderness that would eventually become Hellfire Peninsula, and end up face-to-face with a massive army of Iron Horde soldiers. As our redshirt crew fights a desperate holding action against them, we search for a way in which we can close the Dark Portal for good.

Unfortunately, the first step towards doing so is to free the three Shadow Council warlocks who were being used as the Portal's power source: Teron'gor, Cho'gall, and Gul'dan. They make a break for it as we escape into the jungle with Khadgar, Thrall, and Maraad, one step ahead of the Iron Horde.

We subsequently find and free two important characters from the Iron Horde's slave camps. One is Yrel, a young draenei who takes up a weapon for the first time to help free herself; the other is Ga'nar, Durotan's brother, who's being forced to muck out the Iron Horde's latrines. Ga'nar will sacrifice himself later on, as Horde players fight to save the Frostwolf clan from the Iron Horde; Yrel goes on to rapidly climb the ranks of the Vindicators, and is eventually appointed as an Exarch of the alternate draenei.

In the end, we manage to destroy the Dark Portal on this side by turning the Iron Horde's own weapons against it, then steal a couple of battleships from the harbor to make our escape. The Alliance makes a trip to the alternate Shadowmoon Valley, where draenei civilization is at its height, and meets the alternate Velen; the Horde hole up in Frostfire Ridge, home of the stubbornly independent Frostwolf Clan, and save it from being crushed beneath the Iron Horde's heel.

We establish a garrison with a skeleton crew (a process which is supposed to take several months in-game), then set about the business of dealing with the Iron Horde. Our local allies include the Frostwolves, the Laughing Skull clan, the local draenei, and the maimed, outcast arakkoa.

Some of the biggest threats we face come from Draenor itself. The planet is overrun with lethal wildlife, mind-control spores, poisonous flora, the hostile plant-men known as botani, and savage cat-people called saberon. The Spires of Arak, a mountain range to the south of Shattrath City, hosts a violent power struggle between the winged arakkoa and their outcasts, with the winged arakkoa's leader Viryx attacking the outcasts' settlements from their flying citadel of Skyreach. Gul'dan probably did the universe a favor by blowing this place up.

Now that we're here, however, the Iron Horde turns out to be something of a paper tiger. We make substantial gains against them, though it costs us and our allies dearly. Orgrim Doomhammer turns on Blackhand as they besiege Shattrath City; Blackhand kills Doomhammer and Vindicator Maraad, but is fought to a standstill by Yrel and Durotan. Khadgar subsequently blows up Blackhand's flagship with him on it, which doesn't kill Blackhand, but which does halt the Iron Horde's offensive in Talador.

We finally catch up to Garrosh in Nagrand, who's crippled from his defeat underneath Orgrimmar, but he's still become a high-ranking leader in the alternate Warsong clan. Thrall shows up to steal the kill, challenges Garrosh to a duel to the death, and takes him out with a bolt of lightning.

We also dispatch Ner'zhul in the ancient Shadowmoon Burial Grounds, as he's continuing the process of weaponizing his clan's ancestral spirits; Kargath Bladefist and the alternate Cho'gall are killed as we invade the city of Highmaul, dismantling the ogres' Gorian Empire, which eliminates one of the Iron Horde's most powerful allies; and Blackhand dies as we bring down the Blackrock Foundry, which tears the heart out of the Iron Horde's war production.

An additional complication arises in Talador, in the ancient draenei city of Auchindoun, which is a repository for the spirits of their dead. The first thing Teron'gor did upon being freed was to call in the Legion to help him besiege the place, and the draenei have pulled most of their forces back to deal with that. We're able to drive the Iron Horde back into the jungles of Tanaan, but the Shadow Council--Gul'dan's organization of assorted warlocks--retains hold of Shattrath's lower city.

Worse news, the Auchenai who guard the interior of Auchindoun have been heavily infiltrated by the Sargerai, renegade draenei who have turned against Velen and entered the Legion's service. We enter just as they show their hand, which gives Teron'gor a chance to enter the city and siphon power from the fallen draenei's spirits. We give him everything he wants by throwing him off a ledge into the depths of Auchindoun, seemingly killing him via spiritual overdose.

Meanwhile, Khadgar has been investigating Garrosh's time skip, as well as chasing the conspicuously absent alternate Gul'dan. With Chromie's help, we find out Kairos's plan: he used the Vision of Time to find a specific alternate universe, then brought himself and Garrosh into it at an earlier point on its timeline. Garrosh was able to stop Grom and the other orcs from drinking Mannoroth's blood, then talked his way into a position as a war leader and prophet. With his gifts of technology from modern Azeroth, Garrosh worked to unify the orc clans into a single, overwhelming force. He's been working on this for a few years.

Kairos wanted to use Garrosh's uncorrupted, modernized and unified Horde as a vanguard against the Burning Legion, pulling in yet more troops for it from other alternate timelines: an infinite Iron Horde to oppose the infinite Legion. Garrosh wasn't interested in being Kairos's pawn, however, and stabbed Kairos to death with a shard of the Vision of Time.

Khadgar continues to pursue the alternate Gul'dan, employing us to bring him relics and supplies with which to overcome Gul'dan's wards against detection. Gul'dan reacts by dispatching the alternate-universe version of Garona Halforcen to kill Khadgar; she initially fails, and is chased off by Khadgar's bodyguard, the Warden Cordana Felsong. Garona's second attempt is more successful, but he's saved by our intervention. We capture Garona, but interrogation proves pointless due to Gul'dan's control over her.

At Khadgar's request, we steal an artifact called the Orb of Dominion from the Shadow Council, which he uses to break Gul'dan's conditioning on the alternate Garona. Khadgar entrusts the Orb to Cordana for disposal.

With Garona's help, we finally track down Gul'dan, just as he's offering a fresh dose of demon blood to what's left of the Iron Horde. The lone holdout against this plan is Grom Hellscream, who ends up as a captive; the rest of the Iron Horde takes Gul'dan's offer. Tanaan Jungle rapidly turns into a fel-corrupted hellscape, surrounded by encampments of demons, corrupted orcs, and traitorous draenei. We build a shipyard in our garrison to make a naval invasion possible, then establish beachheads nearby and go on the offensive.

The Iron Horde's final stand takes place at Hellfire Citadel, where we have to go through the newly corrupted orcs, the last of the goblin mercenaries that Garrosh brought with him, a division of the Sargerei, and a heavily mutated Teron'gor, who's gotten fat and sassy off of Auchindoun's souls and now calls himself Gorefiend. We find Grom along the way, who's being tortured by demons in the citadel's upper floors, and free him.

One of Khadgar's incidental requests for us, while we're burning down Hellfire Citadel, is to find a series of spellbooks called Tomes of Chaos, which Gul'dan's using to train up the next generation of warlocks. When we collect the set, we're sent to Cordana Felsong for help disposing of them, only to find out that Cordana has changed teams. The Orb of Dominion played upon the doubts she already had about Khadgar and convinced her to join Gul'dan. We fight her briefly, destroying the Tomes of Chaos in the process, before she escapes through a portal.

When we finally reach Gul'dan, he throws a resurrected Mannoroth at us, then ducks out and finishes what he started: bringing Archimonde himself to Draenor. With backup from Grom, Yrel, and Khadgar, we engage and kill Archimonde on even terms in the Twisting Nether, because we've gotten [i]that much[/i] more powerful, but before he drops, Archimonde tosses Gul'dan through a portal. The Iron Horde is gone; this version of Draenor is free; Archimonde may be dead for good, since there's only one Twisting Nether; and we inexplicably do not throw Grom Hellscream down several flights of stairs.

before Legion The alternate Gul'dan ends up on present-day Azeroth with Kil'jaeden's voice in his head. With his directions, Gul'dan dodges Khadgar and Maiev Shadowsong long enough to reach the Tomb of Sargeras on the Broken Isles. Gul'dan almost screws over Kil'jaeden and the Legion to take the power of the Tomb for himself, but decides he'd rather not face Azeroth's adventurers without the Legion at his back. Gul'dan then enables the Burning Legion's third invasion of Azeroth by tearing open the Tomb, while Khadgar and Maiev escape to tell the rest of the world what's just happened.

While he's in the Broken Isles, Gul'dan and the Legion besiege the ancient city of Suramar. He offers its ruler, Empress Elisande, a deal: let their defenses down and let him have access to the Nightwell, or eventually get crushed underneath the Legion's heel. Elisande and company decide to throw in with Gul'dan and drive any dissenters into exile, which opens Suramar's walls for the first time in millennia. The exiles, deprived of the energies of the Nightwell, slowly become mindless Withered, wandering the countryside looking for mana to feed upon.

Gul'dan also has the corrupted Cordana Felsong let him into the Vault of the Wardens. Maiev lets out the imprisoned Illidari in order to repulse Gul'dan's forces, but it's not enough to keep him and Cordana from stealing the corpse of Illidan Stormrage.

The Alliance and Horde dispatch all the forces they can muster to the Broken Isles. We discover on arrival that the Legion isn't scraping by with its usual handful of local traitors and summoned demons; it's actually here in force, reinforced by giant fel-powered ships, and has established a beachhead on the Broken Shore.

We were beaten here by a division of the Argent Crusade, led by Tirion Fordring; most are dead or permanently mind-controlled, and Tirion himself is mortally wounded before our eyes. When we confront Gul'dan, he responds by summoning a who's-who of former raid bosses and a virtually infinite army of demons. The Alliance takes him head-on, with the Horde watching its flank from a nearby cliff.

The Horde's position is quickly overrun by demons. Vol'jin is mortally wounded, and his last order is to Sylvanas, telling her to sound a general retreat. From the ground, it appears as if the Horde simply and quietly withdraws from the battlefield, which enrages Genn Greymane; this isn't helped when, seconds later, Varian Wrynn sacrifices himself to give the remaining Alliance forces a chance to escape.

(Rogues will later discover that the Alliance’s intelligence service SI:7 is heavily infiltrated by the Legion, thus explaining the lack of diplomatic solutions here.)

Upon our return to our respective capitals, the Alliance and Horde have lost much of their remaining military in the failed attack. Anduin is appointed the King of Stormwind, and a dying Vol'jin selects Sylvanas to replace him as the Horde's Warchief. At Varian and Vol'jin's funerals, the Illidari introduce themselves to our faction leaders and expose a frankly ridiculous number of Legion infiltrators in the surrounding area. With their help, we act to repel a series of Legion invasions throughout Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms, thus power-leveling our alts.

Khadgar attempts to negotiate with Jaina to allow the Horde back into Dalaran, and Jaina loses the ensuing vote in the Council of Six. She angrily steps down and leaves, while Khadgar quietly takes her former position.

Magni Bronzebeard suddenly wakes up, now animate but still carved from living diamond. We, Khadgar, and Brann follow him to Ulduar, where he tells us what he's learned. Magni is now the Speaker for Azeroth itself, and a non-trivial amount of everything that's happened so far is because Azeroth itself is a sleeping, baby Titan. If the Legion can corrupt or destroy it, that's going to be the end; it's going to win.

We and Khadgar go to Karazhan to find an old book about five ancient artifacts called the Pillars of Creation, which can be used to close the Tomb of Sargeras again and drive off the Legion. All five are found somewhere in the Broken Isles.

Legion Khadgar and the rest of the Council of Six teleport Dalaran to the skies south of the Broken Isles so we can use it as a staging ground for our expedition.

As we arrive, we're approached by representatives of our various classes. We are placed in charge of our classes’ various order halls, because we're astonishingly powerful veterans of multiple campaigns, and sent in search of various artifact weapons that we can use against the Legion.

Noteworthy artifacts here include the Ashbringer, which retribution paladins receive upon rescuing a dying Tirion from the dreadlord Balnazzar; the Scythe of Elune, taken from the Dark Riders in Duskwood and used to empower balance druids; Garona Halforcen's daggers, the Kingslayers, which she gladly gives to a deserving assassination rogue; the Blades of the Fallen Prince, which frost death knights forge from the remaining shards of Frostmourne; and the Blade of the Black Empire, a dagger that whispers in the ears of shadow priests, who are suddenly using a lot more explicitly Old Godly power than they used to be.

Thus equipped, we investigate the various Broken Isles in search of the Pillars of Creation, which Khadgar lets us stow safely in the Hall of the Guardian in Dalaran.

The Tidestone of Golgonneth Azsuna is covered in night elven ruins, and the Legion has claimed significant territory along its coastlines. We initially enter the zone as reinforcements for the Illidari, but as we investigate further, the island is heavily contested. The southern coast is home to a band of pirates, as well as hostile makura and gilbins; Queen Azshara has sent a battalion of naga in an attempt to conquer the island; the Vault of the Wardens is on an island to the southeast, and is still heavily besieged by powerful demons, which are barely kept at bay by the Wardens; and Azsuna is home to Senegos, one of the surviving elders of the blue dragonflight, who's trying to keep what could be the last generation of blue dragons safe from a bizarre, mana-feeding group of elves that's preying on them.

Most importantly, the central ruins are inhabited by the ghostly Court of Farondis, a group of Highborne night elves who were condemned to undeath by Queen Azshara millennia ago, when their eponymous leader made the mistake of disagreeing with her. They've kept one of the Pillars of Creation, the Tidestone of Golgonneth, safe all this time, locked inside the ruins of their magical academy and "guarded" by ghostly teachers who still think class is in session. When we play along with the ghosts to get the Tidestone, we're jumped by naga who steal it from us, and are freed from capitivity by Farondis. We pursue the naga to another island, the Eye of Azshara, and interrupt them before they can use the Tidestone to summon an elemental called the Wrath of Azshara.

The Tears of Elune The practice of druidism began on Azeroth in the forests of Val'sharah, which is also the birthplace of Illidan and Malfurion Stormrage. Malfurion greets us on arrival, where we discover that Ysera, the former Aspect of Nature, has been bound into magical sleep by an unknown force. We investigate, and discover that many of the druids' encampments throughout Val'sharah have been destroyed or besieged by the Legion. This is all at the direction of the satyr Xavius, who's also stolen the Tears of Elune--one of the Pillars of Creation--from the temple where they were being kept.

We rescue who we can, and the remaining druids are able to awaken Ysera. Unfortunately for all involved, Xavius abducts Malfurion, then uses the Tears to corrupt Ysera, forcing the druids and Tyrande Whisperwind to kill her. Elune takes pity on the fallen Ysera and turns her into a constellation. Xavius goes into hiding thereafter, but we face his Shade in the nearby Darkheart Thicket, slaying it, reclaiming the Tears, and rescuing Malfurion.

Xavius holes up in the Emerald Nightmare via the corrupted world tree, Shaladrassil. Alongside Malfurion, we give chase, and are forced to fight several former guardians of nature who Xavius or the Nightmare have managed to taint. Eventually, we face off against Xavius and kill him, turning him back into a night elf and ending the Emerald Nightmare for good.

Also, before we even got to Val'sharah, Gul'dan performed a ritual in Black Rook Hold that separated Illidan's soul from his corpse, and had Helya stow Illidan's soul in Helheim. A side effect of the ritual was reawakening the spirits of the dead night elves that used to inhabit the fortress back during the War of the Ancients, most of whom do not recognize that time has passed, and who are striking out into the countryside to harrass the nearby village of Bradensbrook. We go ahead and clean that up while we're at it; as it turns out, the spirits aren't entirely to blame, as they're being manipulated by Legion infiltrators.

The Hammer of Khaz'goroth In Highmountain, the ancient home of the tauren, we meet Mayla Highmountain, the brand-new chieftain of the assembled tribes. Due to her inexperience and the imminent threat of the Legion, the old tribal alliegiances have crumbled. We go out on Mayla's behalf to play peacemaker, assisting each tribe in turn with its local problems and convincing them to once again commit to Mayla's council.

Along the way, we discover one of the most closely-guarded secrets of Highmountain: Mayla's advisor Ebonhorn is secretly a black dragon, who was purified of Deathwing's taint by one of Mayla's ancestors. The Highmountain tauren have been allowed to believe that Ebonhorn's family line advises the chieftain, when in fact it's been the same guy for centuries.

By the time we get around to attempting diplomacy with the Bloodtotem tribe, we find out the Legion beat us to it. The Bloodtotem are now the Feltotem, who are being instructed in the finer points of demonology by Legion mages. We also discover that the Pillar we're here to find, the Hammer of Khaz'goroth, is in the hands of the Underking, who rules the drogbar, a species of cave-dwelling humanoids who are the local tauren's traditional enemies. Our first few encounters with the Underking go poorly, as he seems to be unstoppable as long as he's got the Hammer, but we soon find out that his lust for power has turned many of his own people against him. We make an alliance with a splinter group of drogbar, bringing them onto the tribal council of Highmountain in the Bloodtotem's place.

With the drogbar's help, we're able to force the Underking and his allies back into their caverns, in an underground tunnel system called Neltharion's Lair. There, we face and defeat him, reclaiming the Hammer.

The Aegis of Aggramar Stormheim is the home of several tribes of vrykul, who have built a culture amongst the local titan ruins. At the behest of Havi, a friendly older vrykul, we set out to pass a battery of Titan-devised tests to prove we're worthy of the Aegis of Aggramar. We win through, but end up in contention for the Aegis with the vrykul God-King Scovald, whose entire tribe, the Tideskorn, has thrown in with the Legion. The final tests for the Aegis are conducted in the Halls of Valor by Odyn, one of the Titans' Keepers, and pit us against vrkyul elders, val'kyr sorceresses, and Odyn himself. Scovald tries to swipe the Aegis, but we beat him down and claim it for ourselves.

Sylvanas Windrunner has also come to Stormheim on business of her own. Anduin makes his first big kingly mistake by sending Genn Greymane and Captain Amelia Rogers aboard the Skyfire to Stormheim on an "observation" mission; he's either ignorant of or has forgotten that both Genn and Rogers have specific grievances with Sylvanas and the Forsaken. Genn and Rogers start a fight immediately; most of the Forsaken's ships get sunk, but they retaliate and destroy the Skyfire.

Sylvanas's business in Stormheim involves an attempt to press new Val'kyr into service, starting with their goddess Eyir, and an unspecified deal with Helya. Whatever her plan was, Genn Greymane scuttles it by freeing Eyir, though he’s wounded in the process.

A Falling Star Khadgar asks us to investigate a bizarre meteorite impact off the coast of Suramar. When we go out there, we find an odd Light-attuned crystal. Returning it to Khadgar causes it to play a message intended for him, from "High Exarch" Turalyon of the "Army of the Light." It's crucial to the fight against the Legion that we bring this object to Prophet Velen immediately

Khadgar teleports us to the Exodar, which has come under direct attack by a battalion of the Legion. The draenei are losing, and Velen has been forced to go on the defensive, keeping the civilian population safe behind a dome of light. We even the odds for them by destroying the Legion's portal system, cutting off the Legion's reinforcements, and have a quick talk with Velen. The object we found is called Light's Heart, the core of a prime Naaru, which can only be reactivated by the touch of another Naaru in its line of descent. O'ros, the Naaru who lives in the heart of the Exodar, is the last living Naaru who fits the bill. The Legion also knew that, however, and their entire attack on the Exodar was to get at O'ros. We arrive just before Rakeesh, the Legion's field commander, kills him.

With backup from our class halls, we engage Rakeesh, who prepares a self-destruct system that will wipe the Exodar and everything in it off the map. We manage to kill him before it goes off, but not without opposition from Velen himself, who realizes something at the last second. He had a vision of this moment a long time ago, which he'd thought was irrelevant until now; Rakeesh is Velen's son, corrupted, groomed and sent here specifically by Kil'jaeden as an act of revenge against Velen.

We teleport back to Dalaran with Light's Heart, but not before overhearing Velen give a command to his lieutenants. They're to prepare the Exodar for launch. The draenei are going home.

X'era With O'ros dead, Light's Heart theoretically cannot be activated at all, and we stow it in our order halls for safekeeping. Eventually, we decide to try using the Tears of Elune as a makeshift activator. The ensuing backlash knocks us out for the better part of three days, during which time we speak to the Prime Naaru, X'era. She's received a prophecy about a "Child of Light and Shadow": Illidan Stormrage.

She sends us to several locations to witness key scenes from Illidan's life, including his birth, his death, and his first questionable life decision, where he won a battle in the War of the Ancients (with special guest stars Rhonin and Broxigar) by draining the lives from his Moon Guard to empower himself.

X'era thinks that Illidan must be reborn in order to stop the Legion, and has us gather materials to construct a prism that can hold Illidan's soul. Allari the Souleater, one of the Illidari, tells us that Illidan's soul is in Helheim, in the possession of the renegade valkyr Helya, while Illidan's body is with Gul'dan in the Nighthold.

As luck would have it, Odyn has decided to conduct yet another one of his "tests," the Trial of Valor, which sends us into Helheim in pursuit of Helya. We take her out, which has the useful side effect of freeing Odyn from her curse, and retrieve Illidan's soul. At X'era's request, we hand it over to Khadgar for safekeeping.

Insurrection The final Pillar of Creation, the Eye of Aman'thul, is in the possession of the Grand Empress Elisande: ruler of Suramar City, master of time magic, and Gul'dan's unwilling confederate. She used the Eye centuries ago to create the Nightwell, the font of magical energy that has nourished and protected the Nightborne for all this time. Elisande maintains power in Suramar City by leveraging her control of the Nightwell, as all Nightborne require regular doses of its energy to stay sane and healthy, usually delivered through glasses of arcwine. Loyalty to Elisande is rewarded by ample supplies, while civilians are placed on short rations and troublemakers are exiled or imprisoned.

Safe inside Suramar City, Gul'dan is using the Eye to put a portion of Sargeras himself into Illidan Stormrage's corpse, which will allow an Avatar of Sargeras to walk Azeroth once more. Once again, this would mean the end of the world.

We first investigate Suramar at the behest of the former First Arcanist of the city, Thalyssra, who contacts Dalaran looking for assistance. We help her get to safety in Meredil, a set of ruins north of the city. At her direction, we track down her remaining allies, most of whom have been exiled; the exception is Lyneth Lunastre, who helps us construct a magical disguise that lets us infiltrate Suramar City. This forms the nucleus of a revolutionary movement against Elisande, which uses the image of a Dusk Lily as its name and symbol. With intelligence from Thalyssra, we begin to chip away at Elisande's power base, while scavenging mana from Suramar to help Thalyssra survive.

While we're exploring Suramar, we also happen across an object called an arcan'dor, and nearly get it stolen by the local spider-elves. We recover it, aided and annoyed by the arcan'dor's keeper, and return it to Meredil. There, we discover what it is: the seed of a magical tree. If it can be coaxed into growing and bearing fruit, it may serve as an answer to the exiled Nightborne's withdrawal pangs; they're staving off the Withering process by gorging on whatever bits of mana they can find or steal, but that's a stopgap measure at best. We work with Oculeth, the exiled "telemancer" of Suramar, to redirect ley lines throughout the island so the arcan'dor can grow. The project is a success, giving the Nightfallen a new lease on life and freeing the Nightborne from having to rely on the Nightwell.

This proves to be the beginning of the end for Elisande. Thalyssra puts out a call for aid which is answered by the night, high, and blood elves: the Silver Covenant, a division of Blood Knights, and Darnassian sentinels led by Tyrande Whisperwind. We spearhead their forces and punch through Suramar's defenses, all the way up to the gates of Elisande's fortress, the Nighthold. Elisande responds by catching most of the elves' forces in a time lock, leaving them frozen in place.

We're forced to recruit our usual raid group and find another way into the Nighthold. As is now traditional, we end up sneaking in through the basement, where the Nightborne keep all their failed experiments. The Nighthold itself is packed fat with demons, fel-infused elves, and the most insane mages among the Nightborne, which is actively saying something.

Elisande herself is finally forced to confront us. As she explains, she didn't throw in with Gul'dan because she wanted to, but because she felt she had to. She looked into the future and could not find a single timeline in which the Nightborne were able to survive against the Legion.

Her precognition apparently has limits, however, as she also could not find a single timeline in which we fought her and won. When we defeat her, it means all her searches are now in question. Elisande is left as an echo in time, a fragment of herself, and she decides to change teams.

Finally, we confront Gul'dan on the Nightspire, the highest point in the Nighthold, as he's completing his ritual. Even with what's left of Elisande on our side, he's still a force to be reckoned with. We hold him and his summoned demon allies at bay while Khadgar tries to disrupt Gul'dan's ritual. After a pitched battle, Gul'dan loses his grip on the spell, and Illidan's own soul is crammed back into his body. In an ironic mirror of how Gul'dan finished off Varian Wrynn, a resurrected Illidan disintegrates Gul'dan.

We return to Meredil as heroes, then revisit the Nightwell alongside Thalyssra. The Nightwell is dying, sucked almost dry by Gul'dan, and Thalyssra decides on the spot to let it happen. They're no longer dependent upon the Nightwell for sustenance, and it's time for the Nightborne to chart a new path.

The Tomb of Sargeras Back in Dalaran, Khadgar holds a meeting of our various class orders' commanders, to talk up our successes and figure out our next move. That meeting is spied on by Kil'jaeden himself, who reacts by stepping up the Legion's offensive; not only do the various Broken Isles come under heavy direct attack, but the Legion hits the Broken Shore with its full might, doing all it can to keep us away from the Tomb.

Our orders and forces are rebranded as the Armies of Legionfall, and alongside us, Khadgar, Velen, Maiev, and Illidan, they attack the Broken Shore and create a beachhead there. We make incremental progress against the demons that have colonized the place, hitting them from every direction: the shamans summon elemental lords, the death knights call in aerial bombardments from frost wyrms, the paladins try (and repeatedly fail) to consecrate the area where Tirion fell, etc.

Our first order of business takes us to the Cathedral of Eternal Night, a place of worship that goes all the way back to when the Tomb of Sargeras was a temple to Elune. The Legion currently holds it, and according to Khadgar's research into Aegwynn's tenure as the Guardian, the Aegis of Aggramar can be used in the Cathedral as a "failsafe." Placing it atop the Cathedral should reactivate Aegwynn's wards.

The Armies of Legionfall run interference for us so we can slip into the higher levels of the Cathedral, but by the time we reach the top, they're forcibly pushed back out. It's down to us and Illidan against a dreadlord, and if we didn't have the Aegis with us, we'd have lost the fight.

Placing the Aegis causes an echo of Aegwynn to manifest in the Cathedral. She explains to us that the Pillars of Creation can be used in the Tomb of Sargeras, pushing back against the Legion and eventually severing their connection to Azeroth.

That ends up as our plan. We invade the Tomb, though our ground troops get unceremoniously wiped out in the lobby, and fight past a retinue of Legion forces and deceived ghosts. We install the remaining Pillars of Creation at Aegwynn's anchor points, which shuts down Gul'dan's beacon. The Legion is still a threat, but no longer enjoys infinite access to its forces.

Kil'jaeden is waiting for us in the depths of the Tomb, where we have to face the corrupted Maiden of Vigilance, one of Aegwynn's surviving guardians, and what's left of the defeated Avatar of Sargeras. The Avatar nearly destroys the Tomb itself while we're fighting it, but it falls, and Kil'jaeden hastily ducks through a portal rather than deal with us. To everyone's surprise, Velen gives chase; he's done running.

Kil'jaeden has retreated to his flagship in the Twisting Nether, where he's protected by a who's-who of elite Legion troops. We plow through them with Velen and Illidan, and fight Kil'jaeden himself.

During the battle, while we're wrapped in an unnatural field of darkness, Kil'jaeden gives the order to take his ship to the Legion's homeworld of Argus, far from Azeroth. There, he unleashes the last of his power. The way he sees it, even if he loses, we'll end up marooned on the Legion's homeworld with no way home.

As it turns out, he's wrong. Kil'jaeden falls, but before Velen puts Kil'jaeden out of his misery, Illidan opens a portal back to Azeroth with the Sargerite Keystone. Khadgar teleports us through it and to Azsuna as Kil'jaeden's flagship explodes.

When we recover, we find that Illidan's portal is apparently permanent and hundreds of miles wide. Argus is now visible in the skies of Azeroth with the naked eye.

Shadows of Argus Velen's draenei have built a new spaceship called the Vindicaar, which Velen intends to use to travel back through the rift to Argus. We join him, alongside a force of Exodar vindicators, Illidan, the Nightborne Sigryn, and most of the higher-ups in the Silver Hand.

We make landfall on what's left of Argus, where we discover the Legion, even though it's been effectively decapitated, still has significant defenses in place. The Army of the Light arrives at roughly the same time we do and encounters those defenses first, losing its flagship, the Xenedar, in the process.

On the surface of Argus, we meet its last remaining uncorrupted natives, a tribe of Broken called the Krokul, who've lived for milennia under the Legion's nose. With their help, we rescue as many survivors as we can.

This includes the long-absent Turalyon and Alleria Windrunner. They've been fighting the good fight alongside the Army, in the depths of the Twisting Nether where time and space get a little elastic; as far as they're concerned, it's been a thousand years since they've seen anyone from Azeroth.

With Turalyon, we brave the crash site and rescue the rest of Xe'ra. When reunited with Light's Heart, she awakens, back at full strength... and immediately tries to force Illidan to turn into the "Child of Light and Shadow" she's been babbling about. Illidan, to everyone's surprise, fights back and kills her outright, shattering Xe'ra into bits.

Velen incorporates what's left of Xe'ra into a device called the Netherlight Crucible, designed to empower our artifacts; Turalyon is about to kill Illidan, but is talked down on the basis that the mission is what's important right now. (There's also a fair bit of evidence that X'era might have gotten into Turalyon's head, as his eyes are golden when we meet him and turn brown when Xe'ra dies.)

Unsure as to whether or not we'll be able to win without Xe'ra, we continue our assault on Argus regardless. Magni shows up at one point to help us commune with the world-soul of Argus, which is in tremendous pain. Like Azeroth, Argus contains a sort of baby Titan; unlike Azeroth, Argus has spent millennia being warped and abused by fel energies. The Legion's ability to infinitely bring its troops back from death is due to power they've drawn from Argus himself.

One of Magni's visions from Argus gives us a warning: Sargeras has dispatched the fallen Titan Aggramar to deal with us directly. As we bring down the fortified stronghold of Destiny Point in Krokuun, Aggramar catches up to us and immediately attacks. We're only rescued from death by a timely teleport from the Vindicaar.

Velen proposes a plan. In the Mac'Aree region, which holds the ruins of the former capital of eredar civilization, including its old magic academy the Conservatory of the Arcane, he hopes to find the other two pieces of an old artifact called the Crown of the Triumvirate. It's our best hope for being able to survive against Aggramar.

One of those pieces is found in what's left of the Conservatory, which is still populated by malfunctioning vigilants (the souls of dead draenei, now housed in large suits of armor; we saw and fought a few on Draenor) and old ghosts. One of the former, Quoram, has fallen into disrepair over the years, but can still be reactivated, and he snarkily allows us access to the school grounds. After a battery of tests, we're put up against a ghostly reflection of a young Archimonde, and success lets us walk away with the Sigil of Awakening.

We catch up to Velen shortly thereafter as he and several of the Army of the Light are searching for the Crest of Knowledge, the final piece of the Crown. We rendezvous with them and end up in a fight with Talgath, an eredar huntmaster and the guy who found Velen's people on Draenor back in the day.

Talgath's final words, before Velen finishes him off, give us a clue as to where the Crest might be found. The Naaru L'ura fought on Velen's side during the draenei's escape from Argus, but in the intervening milennia, she's fallen into shadow, just as M'uru did. As we explore the western side of Mac'Aree, we discover that much of it hasn't been fel-corrupted, but instead, has fallen into Void. It's driving the wildlife mad and attracting ethereals who wish to exploit it, and it's all coming from L'ura.

We and Alleria set out to explore the ruins of Oronaar, where we find a number of Krokuul, who have survived but have been driven mad. We also run into an ethereal named Locus-Walker, who has a history with Alleria; he is able to use the Void's power without succumbing to it, unlike most of his people. Locus-Walker guides us past and into several confrontations with them, towards the demi-god Nhal'athoth, a void creature that the ethereals are attempting to summon. We weaken it, but Alleria is able to finish it off.

Alleria moves on with Locus-Walker to the Seat of the Triumvirate, where we end up fighting against the ethereals more directly, including their leadership. We win past them and to L'ura, reclaiming the Crest of Knowledge. When it's placed with the other two parts of the Crown, it empowers the Vindicaar, turning it golden and surrounding it with a powerful shield.

Magni provides us with another vision shortly thereafter, sent to him via his link with the world-soul of Argus. Sargeras has managed to subvert, depower, or corrupt many of his fellow titans with the notable exception of Eonar the Life-Maiden, who's on the run. If we're going to succeed here, we need to find Eonar first.

[xtruss]

The Taliban in Afghanistan

After 18 years of war, the United States and the Taliban have a fragile peace deal. Here's how the Islamic fundamentalist group was formed, and the impact it's had on Afghanistan.

Since its ouster in 2001, the Taliban has maintained its insurgency against the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan and the Afghan government. A new U.S.-Taliban deal could pave the way for the group’s return to power.

— By Lindsay Maizland and Zachary Laub | March 11, 2020 | CFR.ORG

Taliban fighters attend a gathering to celebrate the U.S.-Taliban deal in March 2020.

The Taliban is a predominantly Pashtun, Islamic fundamentalist group that ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001, when a U.S.-led invasion toppled the regime for providing refuge to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. The Taliban regrouped across the border in Pakistan and has led an insurgency against the U.S.-backed government in Kabul for more than eighteen years.

Experts say the Taliban is stronger now than at any point in recent memory, controlling dozens of Afghan districts and continuing to launch attacks against both government and civilian targets. An agreement signed by U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s administration and the Taliban in early 2020 could mark a new stage for the militant group as it starts intra-Afghan negotiations on Afghanistan’s future.

How was the Taliban formed?

The Taliban was formed in the early 1990s by Afghan mujahideen, or Islamic guerilla fighters, who had resisted the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (1979–89) with the covert backing of the CIA and its Pakistani counterpart, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI). They were joined by younger Pashtun tribesmen who studied in Pakistani madrassas, or seminaries; taliban is Pashto for “students.” Pashtuns comprise a plurality in Afghanistan and are the predominant ethnic group in much of the country’s south and east. They are also a major ethnic group in Pakistan’s north and west.

The movement attracted popular support in the initial post-Soviet era by promising to impose stability and rule of law after four years of conflict (1992–1996) among rival mujahideen groups. The Taliban entered Kandahar in November 1994 to pacify the crime-ridden southern city, and by September 1996 seized the capital, Kabul, from President Burhanuddin Rabbani, an ethnic Tajik whom it viewed as anti-Pashtun and corrupt. That year, the Taliban declared Afghanistan an Islamic emirate, with Mullah Mohammed Omar, a cleric and veteran of the anti-Soviet resistance, leading as amir al-mu’minin, or “commander of the faithful.” The regime controlled some 90 percent of the country before its 2001 overthrow.

The Taliban imposed a harsh brand of justice as it consolidated territorial control. Taliban jurisprudence was drawn from the Pashtuns’ pre-Islamic tribal code and interpretations of sharia colored by the austere Wahhabi doctrines of the madrassas’ Saudi benefactors. The regime neglected social services and other basic state functions even as its Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice enforced prohibitions on behavior the Taliban deemed un-Islamic. It required women to wear the head-to-toe burqa, or chadri; banned music and television; and jailed men whose beards it deemed too short.

How did the world respond to the Taliban’s rise?

The regime was internationally isolated from its inception. Only Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Pakistan recognized the government. Many analysts say Islamabad supported the Taliban as a force that could unify and stabilize Afghanistan while staving off Indian, Iranian, and Russian influence.

Two UN Security Council resolutions passed in 1998 urged the Taliban to end its abusive treatment of women. The following year the council imposed sanctions on the regime for harboring al-Qaeda. Omar granted al-Qaeda sanctuary on the condition that it not antagonize the United States, but bin Laden reneged on their agreement in 1998 when he orchestrated bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa. The Taliban was further ostracized following its destruction of two giant Buddha statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, in March 2001. A UN General Assembly resolution called on the Taliban to protect the country’s cultural heritage.

After al-Qaeda operatives attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, Omar rejected U.S. demands that he give up bin Laden. U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, and the Taliban was quickly overthrown. Omar and many of his top aides escaped to the frontier territories of Pakistan. From there, the Taliban waged an insurgency against the U.S.-backed Afghan government. The group is now under investigation in the International Criminal Court for alleged abuses of Afghan civilians, including crimes against humanity, carried out since 2003. U.S. and Afghan forces are also being investigated for alleged war crimes.

Who leads the Taliban?

Analysts believe that the Taliban leadership, primarily based outside the country, continues to maintain control over its fighters and officials throughout Afghanistan. In its 2019 report [PDF], the UN Taliban monitoring team said that “the Taliban leadership has managed to maintain the group’s overall unity,” despite Washington’s targeted killing of some senior leaders and the start of negotiations with the United States.

The leadership council is called the Rahbari Shura and is better known as the Quetta Shura, named for the city in Pakistan where Omar and top aides are believed to have taken refuge after the U.S. invasion. The council makes decisions for all “political and military affairs of the Emirate,” according to the UN monitor. It is currently led by Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada. (Omar died in 2013 and was succeeded by Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, who was killed in a 2016 U.S. air strike in Pakistan.) The leader is supported by deputies, currently Mullah Muhammad Yaqoub, Omar’s son, and Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is also acting head of the Haqqani Network, a militant group in Afghanistan’s southeast and Pakistan’s northwest with close ties to the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and Pakistan’s ISI.

The leadership council oversees nine commissions, similar to the ministries in place prior to the Taliban’s overthrow, and three administrative organs through which the Taliban operates a shadow government. The commissions focus on areas including economics, education, health, and outreach. The military commission appoints shadow governors and battlefield commanders for each of Afghanistan’s thirty-four provinces. The political commission, headed by Taliban cofounder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, has been leading negotiations with the United States and is based in Doha, Qatar.

How strong is the Taliban?

The Taliban has withstood counterinsurgency operations from three U.S. administrations in a war that has killed more than 2,400 Americans [PDF] and 1,100 NATO troops. More than 43,000 civilians have died, and an estimated 45,000 Afghan troops and police officers were killed just in the past five years.

Despite the Taliban’s own losses, estimated to be in the tens of thousands, experts say the group is stronger now than at any point in the last eighteen years. With an estimated sixty thousand full-time fighters, it controls many of the country’s 398 districts. In early 2020, the Taliban controlled an estimated 18 percent of districts, while the government controlled 33 percent, according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Long War Journal, a U.S.-based publication that has covered the U.S. fight against al-Qaeda and other militant groups since 2007. The rest of the country was contested by both groups.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) documented 10,392 civilian deaths and injuries [PDF] in 2019. In July of that year, more civilians died than in any other month since UN reporting began in 2009. UNAMA attributed a majority of these casualties to insurgents, including the Taliban, who deliberately targeted civilians or used such indiscriminate tactics as improvised explosive devices; other civilians were caught in the crossfire between insurgents and government forces. Air strikes, a majority by international military forces, also caused civilian casualties.

What is the state of the Taliban’s finances and international support?

The Taliban’s primary sources of revenue are opium poppy cultivation and narcotics, with a UN report [PDF] estimating that it earned $400 million in 2018 from the illegal drug trade. It also levies taxes on commercial activities in its territories, such as farming and mining. It has supplemented its income with illicit mining, the extortion of local businesses, and donations from abroad, despite strict UN sanctions.

Many experts say the Pakistani security establishment continues to provide Taliban militants sanctuary in the country’s western tribal areas to try to counter India’s influence in Afghanistan. Islamabad dismisses these charges. (At the same time, Pakistan has battled its own insurgency group, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, commonly known as the Pakistani Taliban, which is distinct from the Afghan group.)

The Taliban is believed to still have strong ties with al-Qaeda, according to a 2020 UN report. The Taliban provides al-Qaeda with protection in exchange for resources and training. Al-Qaeda has up to six hundred fighters in Afghanistan, mostly in several eastern provinces, according to the UN report. But its central leaders, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, are believed to be hiding in Pakistan. The Taliban has also fought the self-proclaimed Islamic State, which is a rival of al-Qaeda and has an estimated 2,500 members in Afghanistan.

Do Afghans support the Taliban?

For years after its fall from power, the Taliban enjoyed support. The U.S.-based nonprofit organization Asia Foundation found in 2009 [PDF] that half of Afghans—mostly Pashtuns and rural Afghans—had sympathy for armed opposition groups, primarily the Taliban. Afghan support for the Taliban and allied groups stemmed in part from grievances against public institutions.

But in 2019, a response to the same survey found only 13.4 percent of Afghans had sympathy for the Taliban [PDF]. As U.S.-Taliban peace talks gained momentum, a vast majority of Afghans said they supported a peace process and 64 percent believed reconciliation with the Taliban was possible.

What’s next for the Taliban?

In February 2020, the United States and the Taliban signed an agreement [PDF] to set a path to peace after more than eighteen years of war. The agreement includes a significant withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and guarantees that the Taliban will not provide a safe haven for terrorists. It also calls for the start of negotiations on Afghanistan’s future between the Taliban and the Afghan government, which was largely sidelined during U.S.-Taliban talks.

Many issues would need to be resolved during intra-Afghan discussions, including how power will be shared with the Taliban, what will happen to Afghanistan’s democratic institutions and constitution, and how women’s rights will be protected. Questions also remain over whether Taliban fighters will be disarmed and reintegrated [PDF] into society and who will lead the country’s army. The Taliban wants to establish an Islamic government in Afghanistan, ideally as an emirate, which would be led by a religious leader and draw its legitimacy from clerics. Afghanistan is currently an Islamic republic, which is led by a president and draws legitimacy from universal suffrage and accordance with international laws and norms.

Analysts disagree on the Taliban’s motives and what the group seeks from intra-Afghan negotiations. Some experts and Afghans fear that the U.S.-Taliban agreement was just an attempt to remove U.S. forces from Afghanistan and that it could spark a new conflict that would eventually allow the Taliban to regain control. For the Taliban, “peace doesn’t mean an end to the fighting, it means an end to the U.S. occupation,” says Bill Roggio, an editor for Long War Journal. “After the United States is gone, the Taliban will work to settle its scores and reestablish the Islamic emirate.”