#Irksome Conquest | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ms-scarletwings · 1 year ago

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This Single Oversight Will Bring Irken-Kind to Its Knees

I have a little riddle for you.

What does an ant nest, a computer, and the ancient city of Troy have in common?

While you ponder the significance of this question and consider your answer, there’s a few things I want to analyze about the worldbuilding of Invader Zim.

We may have heard it said before, least I have (and agree), that the fate of the IZ universe appears to be a rather bleak picture.

Through our lens of focus, being upon Earth and an oh-so specific nutball waging his battle upon humanity, we often don’t do as much thinking about the larger cosmic war taking place meanwhile. Not between the Meekrob and Tenn, not between the Tallest and every dumb luck threat they are thrown against, but between the Irken Armada and all life in the entire universe, sentient or not.

Their intentions will not be made any more clear, between outright eradication or eventual enslavement of every lifeform they set their sights on. While they have alliances and neutral treaties, those agreements seem few and far between, as well as born from temporary conveniences. The cards have already been dealt, and all available evidence has indicated that every planet they are aware of is doomed from the moment The Massive was operational.

Though littered with inefficiencies and incompetency that could suggest an empire in internal decline, the development of the control brains and other centralized command crutches of the species suggests the Irkens can still keep a well oiled machine running, no matter how many mishaps happen along the way. At least, that machine and their plundered resources will definitely outlast the survival of their enemies, for sure.

To speak of their enemies, there has not been a single competitive race within the show that demonstrates any credible threat to Operation Impending Doom II- only those that can resist the conquest a little bit longer than others, or those who survive by appeasing Irk (or evading its detection). The fall of Vort, which stood as the homeworld of the only aliens with the technological ability to match the armada’s firepower is…. Really bad news. That’s to say the least of comparatively primitive, TINY planets like Earth or Blorch, standing zero chance in the way of what’s eventually coming. This is a war that has continued despite the death of two.. FOUR Almighty Tallests if you follow the movie’s events… and Irkens wholly are still thriving for it across the Galaxy.

So, given all of these facts, and the perception that the Irkens (like any invasive species or colonial force) don’t seem to be a society that will make responsible and/or sustainable use of their ill-gotten territory… it seems like this is how life across the universe ends in Invader Zim one day: Not with a bang, not with the whimper of heat death, but through screams muffled under the bloody boots of a dominant predator- a predator that is, itself, doomed to cannibalize its own once it hits the carrying capacity of all existence.

Bleak, concrete, and horrific as that may sound, there’s still a “however” here to consider!

Yep, that’s me about to point one of my big fat fingers to the sky and protest- Irk just might be,

Not so Undefeatable, after all!

And not only have I figured out exactly what sort of countermeasure you need to destroy these invaders, I have reason to suspect it’s a plan already long ago set into motion.

Let’s break it down,

An Irksome Achilles’ Heel

True, individually, the bug bastards are irritatingly tough to kill through conventional means. True, collectively, they are nigh impossible to outmatch. And more than most anything else, they owe this tenacity to two things: numbers, and R&D. Possessing some of most state of the art pinnacles in transportation, communications, and military equipment, the Armada found a knack for being able to steamroll most lesser planets before it.

The genius of the individual PAK unit grants each and any one Irken a theoretical path to partial immortality itself, by route of consciousness archiving. I strongly believe that kind of cybernetic progress was also one of the stepping stones that led to the creation of the Control Brains. Nonetheless, this very same strength of the Irkens’ has also proven to be the source of their greatest vulnerability.

Paks, Paks… Oh Paks. The entire race’s civilization revolves around such technology the way we do around our own brains, our own hearts, and our communicative network. For all intents and purposes, and as I’ve gone on about ad nauseum in my other spills about the show, a PAK is all and at once

• Synonymous with the holder of their soul, consciousness, being, whatever you want to call their personhood.

• Able to have their data repurposed by future generations, in the result of an Irken’s permanent death.

• A universal necessity shared by the entire population.

• Susceptible to alterations, sometimes by intelligent enough individuals (as demonstrated by the Zimvoid comic arc), but usually by a Control Brain, directly.

In addition to that last quality, there’s another way the code in a PAK can be changed, for better or worse- Via evolution. Though I am talking about digitized neurology, the actual data in a PAK is a lot more comparable to biological DNA or a “self-learning” AI than it is a rigid computer program. By this, I mean that its code is subject to certain changes over time, perhaps both directed and completely random, particularly during the recycling of its information back into the Smeeteries.

And this is actually good design on the control brains’ part, the same way not reproducing Irkens as genetically identical clones was. Genetic and digital diversity are desirable goals to keep in mind if you want a healthy and versatile stock of workers, engineers, soldiers, and everything in between. We’re talking about highly sentient, highly intelligent, and emotional organisms here. A static drone mindset is going to offer them inadequate ability to adapt to their lengthy life experiences or be unique persons. How else would social mobility have purpose in their world? How else could the cream of the crop rise so far above their peers? That positive was deemed worthy of an obvious risk, however: computational errors.

When the Bugs Get Bugs

IZ does not clearly lay out what it means for an Irken to be defective, but it gives us a general idea. Defectiveness is not something diagnosed from a code scan for this missing value or that incorrect variable. It’s not judged by one specific character trait or quality that’s abnormal for an Irken to display. “Defective” is a judgement stamp, wielded by the Control Brains when they gauge the total sum value of a life’s contribution to the species. And it’s not one given to Irkens which are merely incompetent, no. Anyone proven to be unfit for their standing is given generous opportunity for redemption or simply reassigned a more suitable occupation. If it were based on likability, we’d have seen Skoodge sent to Judgementia years ago.

Rather, it’s given to those who are viewed as so twisted that they are proven to be an existential danger to their brethren. Irkens that are so destructive to the essence of the collective that their memory must be purged from the record and their identity erased.

I adore the enthusiasm behind fans who want to view this as an analogy for disability or neurodivergence against a conformist society, but the metaphor I’m seeing is one of extreme antisocial behavior. A defective Irken screams less “adhd/autism” to me than they do serial murderers (of their own) or outright traitors. Pardon the use of a gross phrase, but it’d seem we were talking about an Irken equivalent of what the outdated gens would have dubbed the “criminally insane”. No one on screen has ever shown Skoodge or Tak the sort of concern that would get them sent to the Spike of Judgement, but when Zim was in that hot seat? NO one was doubting what his verdict would be.

^ courtesy of “The Trial’s” transcript

I think about the 40 shmillion mistakes a lot.

It’s such a vague quantity. But it sure sounds like a hell of a big one. And what mistakes… what did the lil squirt even have to compare them to? There’s no standard one person an Irken can be. Every presentation of the flaws in that code to the control brains hasn’t ended up a flaw to him.

I only started writing this because I really couldn’t stop thinking about the 40 shmillion. There’s no chronological room for bad self-modding to add up to that so quickly. DNA replication, nature’s own sloppy and random process of creating new life, can be excused around 120,000 hiccups when duplicating with a 6 billion pair-long protein. But this kind of shuffling is under a futuristic AI’s precise eye. Yes, defects happen, but as bad as him? From birth??? How could you possibly get that many detrimental deviations from the mechanical fucking god-queen(s) of their entire homeworld?

And then it hit me.

You don’t. Not from Irk.

The hot take I’ve been charging for this entire time is thus.

Zim is not defective by any random accident. In fact, I smell the tampering of foreign sabotage.

Not only is this guy the thing his kind fears more than any else, they have every right to be shaking in their stance.

That puzzle i posed at the beginning of this journey, have you seen what I’ve seen yet?

Because the answer I was looking for as to what similarity connects an anthill, a PC, and a city from Greek legend was a most effective tactic for taking them down.

Do you know the best way to deal with a bad ant infestation? Cuz you can lay down all the raid and crushing action you want, but you won’t really be getting anywhere unless you target the pests directly at their queen. To that end, liquid ant baits are marvelous inventions- a sweet substance hiding a small amount of slow acting poison. Poison to be peacefully delivered by the stomach of an ant to the rest of her colony, poisoning her kin, who sicken more members, on and on until the queen is destroyed and the entire nest perishes. An insidious toxin to do all the work while its user never lifts a finger, pretty ingenious.

And when it comes to computers, we also have ways to attack entire networks at source, from quietly and far away. “Trojan” was a category of malware responsible for 64.31% of all cyber attacks on Windows systems in 2022, and they still make up a majority of active malware hits today. The concept is deviously simple. The malicious code is hidden within an innocent looking program, maybe even within a legitimate software that does what it’s supposed to. Once the stowaway is invited into the system, it can get down to it some sneaky, nasty, destructive work on your device. As for what those acts could look like, well, malware exists to do all kinds of things. Mostly something involving trying to get money/information from you or hijacking your computer for whatever its creator wants to use it for. And some of them will just up and wreck your shit, disable your antivirus software to open you up to more infections, disable important operations, wipe your data. Use your imagination.

And as for Troy.. well, where do you think Trojan programs got their name? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So, Irkens have their Armada, bionic drones, and homeworld- in other words, the thriving swarm of army ants, the billions to trillions of computers they so rely on, and their nigh untouchable fortress, always at war.

And some damn crafty bastard(s) in the stars said

“Here is their sugar-bait,”

“Here is their cyber attack,”

“Here is their wooden horse.”

And one particular race is going to be getting the last laugh before long.

Nerds That Are GOATed With the Sauce

That’s right, I thought about this all the way through to finding our prime suspect. And let me tell you, NO ONE in the Galaxy reeked of fish like the Vortians did. Get over here and lemme show you my whiteboard with all the red circles and polaroids on it.

- The Means

In a way of tragic irony, Vort has contributed more than any else to the same Irken conquest that turned on them in the end. A natural talent for cutting edge engineering and technical development actually does not seem to be what Irk already came into the ring with. For how mighty and superior they view themselves, the greatest achievements of their military can actually be owed to Vortian outsourcing. When we would have gotten a look at Tallest Miyuki’s very own “finest minds” during her reign, notice something interesting about these guys below,

Zim there is the ONLY Irken to be found! Yes, transferred there because of the punchline explanation of ‘he breaks everything he touches so maybe he’ll have an affinity for weapons research’ but damn right he actually did! And still does; I don’t want it to go unsaid that Zim has shown MUCH more technological skill and innovation than near any other Irken we’ve seen.

Another fun thing to note about this is that Lard Nar was also part of this lineup, and in the transcript he was in the process of working on the blueprints for The Massive. (which leaves you with the cursed knowledge that Zim, Prisoner 777, and Lard were all familiar coworkers long before the events of the show) And that brings me back to what I’m saying about the real reason the Vort natives were enslaved and imprisoned instead of outright sweeped after conquering. The Armada needs their skills, because Vortian advancement is something their own scientists couldn’t come close to. Left to their own devices, Vort could have easily outmatched them at an earlier point in history. It’s a people that figured out infinite power sources and potentially wormhole technology, while PAKs were something a disfigured human tween with a lot of time on his hands was able to crack. If anyone could outpace and outsmart the defensive measures of the Control Brains, it’s going to be them. And what better, cleaner way to sabotage the enemy than from within.

The very same strings of inserted code that cursed Zim with his delusions, paranoia, lust for destruction, and horrible tactics may also have blessed him with a determination and intellect higher than almost any creature alive. The saboteur gave Irk the most powerful racecar in history, and then fitted it with bicycle brakes. No matter how hard Zim tries to conform to what will give him admiration, no matter how competent he is at keeping himself alive, it’s as if he is instinctually compelled toward whatever actions will cause the MOST damage to his allies in the process. Dib may think he’s the bulwark against the invasion when, ironically, he’s fighting against the one being that’s predetermined to be the arrow that strikes Irken leadership right in their dumb, green heels. (There is also an instance in the comics where Dib figures out that Zim is the ace in the hole for total Irken eradication but that’s another fun story.)

Oh, oh HO HO, and that’s only what he’s capable of doing before the empire’s actual immune system against defects like him wakes up and notices!

Three planetary blackouts, two dead generals, and a whole swath of dead invaders was just the fucking warm up, babey! All that is merely the kind of loud disruption that you need in order to fulfil the real thing this Trojan horse exists for in the first place.

What a celebration of hubris the Spike of Judgement was. Yeah, let’s take our method of filtering the corrupted data from the hive mind, and completely centralize it on a single planet! As well, let’s have the very purging agents also be the same ones to perform the evaluations themselves, I’m sure that it would be unthinkable for any outsider to design a worm that could make it through the brains’ firewalls. Goddamn spectacular. Like inserting an infected USB into your laptop, the Tallest never realized what kind of beast they woke up by plugging that PAK into the Spike’s mainframes. Those brains were meant to handle an expected spectrum of deviation when it came to defective Irkens, never a sleeper virus of this complexity.

From here it probably won’t even matter if Zim survives much longer on Earth, his virus has already spread to the very thing relied upon to keep things like him out of the data pool in the first place. With the Judgementia brains corrupted and no higher authority to overrule them, the firewall is effectively broken, and you know what that means? Bigger cracks for future defectives to start trickling through, both spontaneous and artificial. The ideal scenario is one where a degenerating and glitched population accelerates the incompetency of the empire to the point where it just implodes on itself; nevertheless, even a disease that only slows down Operation Doom could be a game changer, by giving the rest of the little guys more time to band together a coalition strong enough to strike back when the time is right.

- The Motive

The history of these two races’ alliance is something I lament us not having more lore to pull from- how far back it goes, what the character of the Vort was like during that time, what the Irkens had offered in return- a few among dozens of questions it rears. The implication behind how it ended lies in Zim’s creation that slayed Tallest Miyuki. Interestingly, the Empire never received the memo of what exactly went down, or, perhaps, stubbornly denied the account of the other scientists who were there that day. Neither Red/Purple nor the Judgmentia Brains had any idea that Zim’s actions led to the death of a Tallest. So, makes sense that the Vortians became the unintentional scapegoat (no pun intended) for the incident, and the rest is history.

Note: It’s also in the realm of possibility that Vort was actually the one to withdraw from the alliance instead, given that the same blob that devoured Miyuki (purely the fault of their Irken transfer) also went on to cause untold amounts of devastation. Red’s reaction to the real story stuck out to me as more telling, although.

But why am I even talking about this? Zim was decades old before war was declared on them, and either people’s regard to each other seemed strangely… respectful, if anything.

But, was Vort really a monolithic bunch? Irk was already an empire by this point, and diplomacy with those they needed something from did not mean they weren’t otherwise an aggressive force in the universe. For all we know, the alliance itself might have been coerced, or result of depraved leadership among the Vortians. Any citizen with a conscience who could see the writing on the walls would be disgusted by giving so much aid and brown nosing to such a menace, no? I know who would have seen that writing before anyone else. Brainiacs who are smart enough to build something like The Massive and all its bells and whistles would know better than anyone just what it was all capable of in the wrong hands. The collateral damage against your own people might be a sacrifice worth making in the face of the alternative.

- The Oppurtunity

So.. that’s all well and good, yeah? A why, and a what, yet this is actually the tricky part of saving the galaxy,

Sneaking your StupidifyIrk.exe file onto the assholes’ homeworld without alerting either them or your own treacherous, weak, collaborator superiors to your actions. Infecting and releasing a random Irken alive would be far too dangerous, far too noticeable to the point where they could just be destroyed outright before given a chance to wreak real havoc.

But what about releasing a dead Irken? 🤔

PAKs are only screened for criminal flaws when errors begin to affect their body’s behaviors in destructive ways. A fully competent scientist, or soldier, or navigator performing a lifetime of loyal service to the empire and then meeting an unfortunate end? Their minds’ shadows can be accepted back into the data pool no questions asked. That’s only business as usual.

That almost makes new smeets something of a reincarnation of their ancestors. Personally, I see it kind of like replaying a video game and re-rolling your stats, even if you’re reusing your character’s name and general play style.

Either way, we come full circle to my theory about Zim’s actual origin. Maybe not “our” Zim, but the previous iteration of data that was shuffled to create his person. Whoever they were, I’m convinced that they were also an exceptional individual. They were probably pretty arrogant, but it was a more earned confidence, and they were a prodigy genius, the likes of which that was drawn to work alongside Vortian allies, as another researcher. Then, an untimely demise befell them. I couldn’t say they fell victim to some unfortunate accident, considering the cockroach durability of their body. No, I find it a lot easier to imagine they met their end in one of the more embarrassing ways for an Irken to die- A PAK stolen, disabled or forcefully detached by an assailant they might have allowed a little closer than they should have. To the homeworld, it’s a small matter. One more PAK recovered by the natives of the friendly planet, brought back home to be repurposed by the smeeteries, right?

Well, that’s what one smartass might have been hoping for.

And they really were a clever cookie, because that scheming seed is fruiting beautifully.

#invader zim #iz #vortian #irkens #invader zim headcanon #iz headcanons #planet Vort #scarlet talks about things #sci fi #long post #absolute ramblings i mean holy crap #longass post

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forevergulag · 29 days ago

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Genuine question, if we're only using the word "imperialism" to refer to the strictly capitalist phenomenon described by Lenin, then what do we call what the Romans or the Egyptians or the Mongols were doing? Were they not also engaged in the conquest of other lands for the sake of exploiting their resources and subjagting their people? How is Caesar Agustus becoming the wealthiest man of his era off of stolen gold any different than Elon Musk becoming the wealthiest man of this era off of stolen lithium. I do understand a lot of the specifics don't match up. Augustus, to use the same example, was a head of state who levied armies he completely controlled for his own personal gain. Capitalist Imperialism like the kind Musk uses is different in that people like Musk have an, on paper, independently functioning state to protect their foreign interests for them. But at the end of the day, the core principle does feel awfully similar. Again, I'm not trying to be some kind of irksome anticommunist here, I am genuinely curious.

imperialism is trhe dominance of finance capital, the highest development of monopoly, the era of the big banks, the export of capital, etc. it is not colonialism or "expansionism". Comrade Lenin explains it much better than i could, just read imperialism the highest stage of capitalism

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cambion-companion · 1 year ago

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What are your headcanons on Raphael x Aasimar Tav?

Oh, that's my bread and bloody butter! Haha I really really love that dynamic, if you can't tell!

It would be such a delicious push and pull of light and dark. The ying and yang, bending around each other yet separated by the laws of nature.

Both Cambions and Aasimar hold within them a part of their heritage, yet are not fully beholden to it. Infernal and Celestial.

I headcanon both Raphael and the Aasimar would fight against the attraction pulling each towards the other. Knowing they should be repulsed, not intrigued. Raphael would hide his true turmoil, brushing it to the back of his ordered world. He hasn't the time for such irksome thoughts, he wants Tav for what they can get for him what he can manipulate out of them. He certainly doesn't care for such a creature. Yet he sends Korilla to keep watch over Tav, when he cannot do so himself...protecting his assets, of course. Nothing more.

Raphael would delight in driving an Aasimar Tav crazy, teasing and prodding and trying to get a rise out of them. Or, better yet, corrupting them.

He just has to be careful the scales of influence don't tip against his favor. But he is all-powerful and impervious to the sway of lesser beings, right?

I think in the end they would be unable to escape the gravitational pull towards each other. I could totally vibe with an Aasimar Tav ending up serving as his right hand after they get him the Crown of Karsus. His avenging angel in the many battles that follow, striking down the infernal who dare oppose him in his conquest.

When Raphael turns to other worlds, after the hells have been conquered (if indeed, they ever are), his Aasimar might put up resistance in expanding and bringing to heel mortal realms full of innocent people.

Maybe then Raphael will discard of his little bird, maybe he will convince them to remain by his side. Or maybe, just maybe, the affection he has ignored for so long has grown like a cancer within him and he cannot bring himself to end his Aasimar's life. Perhaps, he will decide to let them free of his cage.

NO this was not spoilers for Fallen in Flame....not at ALL...

#thanks for the brainstorm :)#raphael #bg3 #headcanons #fanfic #raphael baldur's gate 3 #raphael x oc #raphael x tav #lovely anon #cambion x aasimar

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hiya-im-mary · 2 years ago

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Invader Zim: Irksome Conquest

Chapter 1,Part 2:Lessened Rivalry

“Quick!!! Throw The Sphere!”

“But…I Thought You Wanted These For Safe Keeping!”

“Mary,You HAVE To Trust Me On This!”

“Uhhh…Oka-AH”

She Tripped Before She Could Intentionally Throw The Sphere,As It Bounced Around Many Places,Mary Appeared There As Well! One Moment, In Front Of A Tree,Then On Top Of Someone’s Roof,Hanging Upside Down From A Lamp Post. She Could Feel Herself Getting Dizzy.

Eventually,The Sphere Finally Ended Up Where It Was Intended! On The Windshield Of The Space Ship,Mary Soon Appearing On Said Windshield,In Front Of Zim,To The Irken’s Fright.

“MARY- WHY ARE YOU ON THE WINDSHIELD-“

“Sorry-“

“WHY-“

“I WAS GONNA-“

“WHYYYY-“

“I’LL EXPLAIN,I PROMISE!”

“No, Y!!!”

“…What Do You-“

Mary,Despite Being Pushed Againts The Windshield By The Wind Pushing Back On Her,She Turned Around…The “Y” Of The Logo For A Convenience Store Strangely Spelled As “Shyopp” Was About To Collide With The Alien Ship!

Mary Quickly Did Her Best To Scamper Onto The Top Of The Ship,And When She Did,She Only Heard The Sound Of Crashing,As Some Debris Flew Over Her Head. Zim Crashed Through The “Shyopp”

She Couldn’t Really See Anything…That Was Because Her Face Was Covered By Bag Of Chips…Barf Flavoured Chips? The Town Had Very Strange Was Of Marketing Things.

“DON’T THINK YOU’LL…Ugh-“

Dib Crawled Onto The Ship,Mary Helping Him Up

“It’s Over Zim! You Better- GAH-“

Dib Almost Came Into Contact With A Tree Branch

“Zim Would Suggest Watching Your Unnaturally Big Head. If I Didn’t Want You To Get Hurt. But I Do,So-”

Zim Tried To Intentionally Get Dib To Hit The Branches Above Him,Laughing Loudly As Dib Kept Getting Hit By Branches. Mary Tried To Push Him Down,Stopping The Branches From Hitting Him

“Are You…Okay?” Mary Questioned Out Of Concern,The Wind Still Blowing Against Them Both. Dib Had A Few Sticks In His Hair.

“That Doesn’t Matter! We Just Gotta Get Zim Out Of That Thing And Take It Back!“

“But Why? You Know Zim Doesn’t Do REALLY Bad Things Anymore!”

Mary Was Right On That. At Most He Probably Robbed A Convenience Store For Stuff Only Gir Would Eat. Dib Stayed Silent For A Bit. Yeah,Zim Was Chaotic,And Did…Some Damage To The Town…Okay,Well Maybe More Than That. But At LEAST Taking Over The World Wasn’t On His Mind. Not That Much Anyway. Ever Since Mary Somehow Became Friends With Zim,Dib Had Interacted With The Alien A Bit More,And Not Getting Into A Fight. He Was A Bit More Toned Down Then Before. He Wasn’t Pulling Out People’s Eyes To Control Them,Or Placing Unnatural Creatures In People’s Chest Cavities To Burst Out Of Later On…

Was Zim Even Aware Of This? No Matter.

“I Just- Can You Try…Convincing Him To Stop The Ship?”

Dib Asked,Trying His Best Not To Slip Off The Ship. Mary Tilted Her Head,But Soon After Nodded. She Crawled Down Onto The Windshield,Just Enough To Be Visible To Zim,But Not Block Him

“Zim…Can You Please- Stop This???”

She Sounded Awkward,Trying Not To Fall Down. This WAS Fun,But It Was Dangerous !

“You Don’t Do Taking Over The World Stuff Anymore,Remember?”

Zim Looked On At Mary Trying To Hold On.

“That Much. Besides! If That Is The Case,The Dib Wouldn’t Mind Me Getting My Ship Back!”

“You Could’ve Asked Though!”

“Could I?”

Mary Looked At Dib. He Looked Away Awkwardly. He Also Happened To Be Attempting To Open A Door On Top Of The Ship,Trying To Get Himself Inside It

“Okay,You Might Be Right About That! Hehe…”

“But Maybe You Can Stop Now? You Passed Your Home Already!”

“Zim Is Simply Having A “Joy Ride” As Humans Call Them-AGH-“

Zim Was Cut Off By Dib. He Managed To Get Into The Ship,And Was Now Messing Around With The Buttons Inside.”

“DIB!!! GET OUT OF MY SHIP THIS INSTAN-“

“HOW DO YOU STOP THIS THING?!”

“WHY WOULD I TELL YOU?!”

“BECAUSE WE’RE GONNA HIT A WALL,YOU-“

“WHAT-“

They All Looked On To See A Wall. Right On The Road?! It Was Labeled “Useless Road Block For Useless Reasons” And They Would Hit That Road Block If The Ship Didn’t Stop

“OH,SHMEEP SMORP,FINE!”

Zim Rushed To Press A Few Buttons To Stop The Ship…And It Actually Stopped! It Was Dangerously Close To The Wall…But It Stopped!

“WEEEHEHEHE!!! FUN!!!” Gir Yelled. He Probably Was The Only Person Who Found This Enjoyable The Whole Way Through. Maybe Mini Moose Did? It’s Hard To Tell With Them

“…Remind Me Not To Let You Drive Irken Ships With Us Inside Again.”

“…Zim Makes No Promises.”

< Previous

#Invader Zim #Irksome Conquest #Invader Zim Irksome Conquest #IZ Irksome Conquest #Writing #Chapter 1 Part 2

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verseandrhyme · 4 years ago

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first rule is...

@vermilique | +1 gauntlet

“Oh man, boss wasn’t kidding when he said babyfaced. How old are ya, anyways?”

Mitama’s expression is unmoved as the attendee scribbles something down. Irksome as the comment is, she does not want to call her participation into question by snapping at those who run the less than shinning establishment. She bites her tongue, shrugs, and that answer is enough for someone who appears not to care.

War is a horrid sport of barbarians, meant only to achieve through conquest and murder. There was no glory to be found in war, no honor, and Mitama could not stand it. Fighting on the other hand was...a shockingly amusing pastime.

Mitama flexes her hand absently and turns to look over her shoulder again and...ah yes, there it is, that familiar head of red hair hovering an awkward distance away. Mitama snorts and shakes her head before turning to the attendee as he straightens. “Alright, you’re all set. Just head in and your name will be called when it’s your fight. Try not to die.”

Mitama is tempted to simply shrug again but the man is gone, and so instead she turns to look at Caeldori, hovering in the worried state she has consigned her life to.

“...are you planning on following me properly or not? I would much rather have you as company than a secondary shadow, Caeldori.”

#ic #vermilique #caeldori support #thread: first rule is #((Don't!!! TALK!!! ABOUT!!! FIGHT CLUB!!!!))#((looks directly at Caeli))

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gascon-en-exil · 5 years ago

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Oh, I’ve thought of something I can do as regards final(ish) evaluations of FE16. Last spring I made a personal tier list of the series’s lords, and I’m now familiar enough with the four lords of Three Houses to add them. Using the same categories as that earlier post:

S Tier - interesting, narratively engaging, and (usually) fun to use

Dimitri (probably above Micaiah, definitely above Eliwood) - It is so strange to me to see Dimitri end so high up overall, because going into the game there was a lot riding against him. Marth and his various imitators have never interested me much, and Dimitri’s post-timeskip design is so distastefully haggard that I guessed that he’d be distinguished from that lot in ways I didn’t care for either. But like Eliwood before him Dimitri makes the earnest all-loving hero work, splicing it with a lot of background trauma and even more moral greyness that gets to look and feel off-putting for a good half or more of his Part 2. Placing the onus for Dimitri’s change of heart on Byleth’s personality-deprived shoulders is a big letdown, more so when you realize just how much the writing of Azure Moon has to contort itself to make it happen, but at the end of the story he’s well on his way to recovery regardless with the potential for some happy years ahead of him that do not necessarily involve Byleth in any major personal capacity...which is more than you can say for Edelgard. He doesn’t want to conquer the continent but gets the whole thing dropped in his lap anyway, and we can hope he acquits himself better than the likes of Ephraim or Ike when placed in similar situations. And speaking of Ike, I like him less now that Dimitri exists as a same-sex-inclined male lord far more to my personal taste. He may have the marriage endings that Ike pointedly lacks, but not even the game can write around the bond he shares with Dedue without (sometimes temporarily) killing one of them off. Also, lance lord - not as sparkly as light magic, but he’s got some of that too if you’re determined enough.

A Tier - fun unit and may have interesting character potential, but I’m less invested in exploring them

Claude (between Hector and Lucina, approximately) - Delightfully broken as a unit, and even though I could do without the persistent fans that insist he’s got to be bi while ignoring that Dimitri already very much is that’s not so different from the issues I have with the fanboys of Sigurd and Hector and their spiritual successors. It occurs to me that, for all that his naked manipulation of the game’s self-insert is completely unlike anything we’ve ever seen before in a series protagonist, Claude effectively blends a bunch of traits from past characters and still comes out feeling fresh (and maybe just a little evil). He’s got Lyn’s biracial backstory, Quan’s ambitions of conquest with good PR, Lewyn’s wind association and carefree façade, Ike’s simplistic takes on how to fix racism, and the collective no homo-ing ability of the entire cast of Awakening. I like how he’s the quiet political threat waiting in the wings once Edelgard and the Agarthans have been dealt with in Azure Moon and Silver Snow, but it’s a threat the game never belabors since one supervillain house leader is more than enough. That he exists as such while also being the lord with the most effective in-game press and a clear, morally-driven goal in mind is nothing short of remarkable.

B Tier - either overwhelmingly average, or with both strong positive and strong negative aspects that balance each other out

Edelgard (above Corrin, if I’m being charitable) - Ugh. I was tempted to put her lower, but to her credit she is more compelling than Marth and the like. Too bad that half of why she’s so compelling is the inconsistency of her character; the way in which Edelgard is crippled by the game’s writing (a contractual requirement for female lords) is that it asks her to be both an imperialistic, dictatorial villain and a personally and politically sympathetic antiheroine. If only she’d been allowed to be a pure villain character she would have been fantastic, and I might have even ranked her above Claude. Her traumatic past feeds into her motivations such that it allows her to think that she’s doing the right thing even though she’s not (important for any well-written three-dimensional villain), and the revelation in Verdant Wind that her crusade was based almost entirely on false information adds to the dramatic irony and the inherent tragedy of her character. It is my personal belief that Crimson Flower is best approached by following Hubert’s example and going full Evil Overlord with it, and then it becomes so much easier to handle an ending where Edelgard has been set up by the very people who destroyed her family and childhood to throw Fódlan into chaos and replace the continent’s oldest institution and all its former governments with an alleged meritocracy where all her friends - most of them nobility - get to rule everything and she probably won’t live to see it all collapse. But no, on every route you’ve also got to deal with her bizarrely-expressed attraction to Byleth, and this just drags her overall presentation down even as it’s trying (very awkwardly) to humanize her. It’s little wonder that Edelgard is so polarizing, and I can’t say I’m a fan.

D Tier - OP unit, terrible character

Byleth (above Robin) - Like Edelgard, Byleth suffers because the developers couldn’t stick to one script on what to do with them. They’re less of a self-insert than previous Avatars on account of significantly limited customization options, and yet (in theory) more of one because the player can now choose dialogue options at points in the script, usually to no meaningful effect. They’re a mute amnesiac thrust into the role of teacher at a military academy, which lends itself to all sorts of wacky school shenanigans in fandom and allows the player to superimpose a personality onto a mostly blank slate - at least until Byleth is revealed to be the mortal vessel of a goddess and the child twice over/grandchild/sibling/parent of one of the game’s major players who they incidentally also have the option to sleep with. I’m not sure who Byleth is meant to appeal to, really; fans of Avatars will dislike their preset characteristics both as a self-insert and as a unit, while fans who dislike Avatars (like myself) will hate how the writing forces them to be important to the plot and to other characters’ arcs even outside the whole dragon/goddess angle. I would place Byleth over Robin, however, for two reasons. One is that their plot significance is telegraphed from the very first cutscene and not held off until the game’s final chapters, and that on three of the four routes they are clearly secondary to that route’s house leader in overall importance. The second is that their lack of a proper voice unlike all the other characters makes it less irksome than it otherwise would be for me to have to use f!Byleth to bang most of the male cast. In a game that almost completely flubbed its self-insert M/M options and left all the good stuff to Dimitri’s harem and a few miscellaneous guys, I’ll take what I can get.

#Fire Emblem #FE16 #Fire Emblem Three Houses #Spoilers

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saintedfury · 5 years ago

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Tormenting Trip | IC Drabble

The stars couldn’t outshine the lights of the city or fight the haze that hung above downtown. Despite this, Furia stared deep into the night sky cradled, warm and weightless, in the water. She could hear the muffled pulse of music somewhere around her, but the party had started to grate her nerves. When a new sound met her ears, though she perked up and looked around her.

At the edge of the pool, he smiled when she turned her attention to him. They’d danced together, or maybe they hadn’t. There was something familiar about him, the soft smile that made his eyes gleam, the way his longish wavy blond hair framed his face.

“It’s cold out here,” he said with a little hiss as his shoulders rolled together.

“But it’s warm in here. Heated,” she told him.

His smile widened with a laugh. “Aren’t you a little overdressed for swimming?”

She moved her arms more dramatically to veer her floating body toward him. His assessment was not totally off the mark. Furia hadn’t done anything more than slip off her shoes before she slipped into the water. It made sense in the moment, at least. She’d be able to keep warmer, at least that had been the train of thought she followed. And so far it proved accurate enough. “I’m not swimming, cariño. Just floating.”

He crouched at the edge of the pool taking another drag on his cigarette as he did. “You do look comfy.”

Furia reached up and plucked the cigarette out of his dangling hand. “You could join me.” She brought it to her lips and took a shallow pull at first. She had been reorienting her body to things she’d pushed aside more than a decade ago, so she took a tiny step forward.

“Yeah, but I don’t think I could pull that off.”

“What?” she asked with a laugh.

“Looking gorgeous and relaxed. Pretty sure I’d go straight to drown rat with chattering teeth.”

Her grin widened. “I guess that would mean I’d have to help warm you back up.”

“That’s tempting.” One knee met the concrete at the edge of the pool. She kept one hand above the water and watched him light another cigarette for himself. “Or I could just offer to let you commandeer the shower in my suite a few floors down.”

“Aren’t you forward?”

“I prefer chivalrous.”

“So it’s a purely gentlemanly offer?”

He looked playfully offended. “I’m a perfect gentleman.”

“And what if I’m not looking for a gentlemen?” Furia studied him--broad shoulders, trim hips, and full lips that looked so soft, but it was the dark eyes with a hint of mystery playing behind them that called out to the parts of her who she’d given the most sway recently.

He smiled boyishly, but didn’t miss a beat. “Then I’ll have to be less polite.”

Deciding she liked him, she broke her balance and with one last drag she flicked the cigarette in the direction of the railing. Once her body was out of the heated water though, the chill set in fast. There was still drifts of snow lining the streets, though there wasn’t any on the balcony. The wind up here, cut through her sodden slacks and the suit jacket she’d nicked that afternoon from a well-dressed conquest.

Furia growled at the stark change of sensation as she waded through the water and up the steps. He offered her a hand, which she took. It was strangely enticing. The idea of him helping her along the steps as she dripped water with every movement, while he remained mostly dry.

“Thank you,” she replied.

“Anytime.”

She looked at him again, searching his eyes, noticing the crinkles in the corner that gave away his smile. Her hand tightened around his when she settled on her course. Not even throwing out a passing thought for her shoes, she went straight for the door. He didn’t resist, but kept up with her as she made a dripping beeline through the throng pulsing in the penthouse suite, heading for the elevator. Her finger pressed the call button, then she turned, pulling his hand toward her until he’d completely closed the distance.

He didn’t shy away from her, letting the pool water clinging to her seep into his own clothing as her fingers drew along the edge of his jaw. Neither of them moved in haste at the moment, but they inched toward one another like weak magnets until that first point of contact drew them tightly to one another. Her lips on his set off a chain reaction: his hands slid around her waist, her arm draped over his shoulder, he pulled her tighter against him, and Furia kept kissing him.

The feint chime of the elevator’s arrival couldn’t even pull them apart; instead, they moved as one organism until her shoulders hit the back wall of the elevator. Separating for a breath, his grip loosened to punch a button for his floor. In the next moment, his index finger curled under her chin as their lips met again. His fingers danced over her cold-numbed skin, easing down her neck, then slipping over her shoulder beneath the suit jacket that hung loose on her frame.

When his fingers brushed up against the thin strap of her bra, two fingers hooked beneath it and helped it over her shoulder. With nails skimming her flesh, his hand moved downward, following the ebb and swell of her breast.

Her hiss broke the kiss when he scratched over her pert nipple. He grinned at her with mischief, pressing a peck on her parted mouth. She couldn’t help the moan when his mouth moved to her neck. He burned small imprints of his lips on her skin. Anticipation burned through her veins as he inched lower.

“Fuck!” she screamed when the blazing fire of his mouth closed over her icy hard nipple. “That is intense.” Her hands dove into his hair, holding him to her with desperation until he’d suckled away the chill in her skin.

“Just wait until I get your clit in my mouth.”

She moaned, her leg rubbing against the side of his as he shifted her jacket aside and latched onto the other through the lace of her bra. Her incoherent voice echoed around them in the small elevator car, intersprsed with his content hums. When the chime rang once more, he straightened and tugged at her lapel to make sure her jacket hung on her shoulders with as much modesty as could be managed in her flushed state.

This time it was he that grabbed her hand and pulled her into the hall. He didn’t dally, but walked with purpose. He had the door open before she could even decide if she’d try to interfere and draw it out. Pushing the door open, his free hand circled her waist and he pulled her into the room with him. The door hadn’t even clicked closed before her hands pushed his black blazer over his shoulders. He didn’t fight it, just let it fall.

When Furia’s hands went to his cheeks, he complied with her unspoken direction. He reached out and locked the door, throwing the privacy bolt as well. Their kisses still teased, deepening here and there, despite the need she felt igniting in her core. His arms pulled her close, one hand landing on her rear and squeezing tight as he pulled their hips against one another.

She moved to his neck, her fingers leading the way as they plucked open the buttons on his shirt. “We should get you out of those wet clothes,” he said, kissing her hair.

“What’s stopping you?” she asked peeking up at him after nipping at his chest. She threw his shirt open and straightened again.

He dove for her lips, then lifted her off her feet. Furia’s legs wrapped around his hips. Dangling from his neck, she rutted against him suggestively. She knew exactly where she wanted this to go. She wanted to use the rush in her blood to its fullest and he seemed a willing participant bent on an aligned goal.

She peeled her jacket off. And unclasped her bra with one hand. When he set her on the bed, he pulled away just enough to get her slacks undone. There was no conversation about her lack of underwear when he pulled them off--honestly, she couldn’t recall quite when she’d lost them. Someone she’d slept with probably just had a fetish, or so she assumed.

Furia held his gaze as she inched across the wide expanse of the king sized bed, with a stray thought about this being a lot of real estate for one person sleeping alone. He shucked his jeans and everything else before crawling after her. She stopped, leaned back on her elbows, and let her knees fall open.

A smirk curled over his mouth as his eyes raked over her, every inch. His first kiss landed on the knob of her inner ankle. He worked his way up each of her legs, taking his time. A little lick at the back of her knee left her giggling and pulling her leg away from his mouth. He dove at her other leg, biting her thigh and making her keen.

“I want you to touch me.”

“I am,” he countered. His smile was irksome and endearing.

“Tease,” she told him. Though she wanted it to seem like an insult, it was actually a compliment. She loved being well and truly worked up.

When he did reach the apex of her thighs, in his own sweet time, he made good on the threat he’d mentioned in the elevator. His mouth scorched her clit when without pretense he sucked it into his mouth. Her body curled upward, her hands fisting in his hair as her thighs clamped around his head. He didn’t release her. His tongue teased her oversensitive cold flesh without a trace of mercy until she finally eased back into it.

Of course, there was more to warm. Every lick through her folds lit a trail of fire that left her writhing on his bed until she came as he played her body like a maestro.

Lazy kisses crept over her hips, along the curve of her ribs. He bowed his head at each of her breasts in turn, teasing her nipples fervently before his body finally covered hers. His kisses started at her neck; Furia turned toward him, coaxing his lips to hers. The shaft of his cock shifted against her clit, earning a low growl from her. She draped her leg over his hip and moved with him, teasing him as he did the same to her while they kissed like teenagers who had the house all to themselves.

She appreciated the pace, the lack of frenzy in the way he languidly enjoyed every inch of her. He nipped her shoulder when he grabbed her ass and pulled her hips hard against his.

“You feel so good.”

She hummed and guided his mouth back to hers. When his hips shifted starkly, she pulled away enough to say one word. “Condom.”

He looked confused for a moment, like someone had just splashed him with a bucket of ice water. “Yeah, of course.”

She mourned the distance the movement brought. While she was perfectly content to chase anything and everything that would make her feel good and keep her mind away from a single topic, her self-destruction hadn’t yet reached the entirely recklessly stupid stage. High though she might be, she still knew exactly what she was doing even if she didn’t know who.

The bedside table had a little amentities basket, which included a half dozen condoms along with a sewing kit, tiny bottles of lotion, and other little emergency necessities one might find themselves desperate for at any random moment. When he knelt near her again, she sat up and licked her hand, slicking it down his cock. His hands froze as his eyes closed and a low moan crept into his throat.

He shifted slightly as she pumped him again. One more time and his eyes popped open again. He moved fitting the condom on, after having to flip it over after her distraction. She pulled her hand out of the way, laying it on his neck until he finished his task, the completion of which was announced with him lunging for her lips again. His momentum might have carried them backwards onto the bed, except for her hand pressing at his shoulder.

The kiss didn’t break, as he again followed her lead, and shifted onto his back. Furia knew what she wanted, what her body needed in that moment far better than anyone else might. She straddled his hips and rocked against him as they kissed. Teasing herself, probably a bit more than him now, she pressed herself along the length of him. In her own time, her hand snaked between them and guided his cock into herself.

Breaking the kiss, she sat back, towering over him as she seated him deep inside her. His hands teased at her thighs and knees as she ground her hips against his. Eventually she leaned forward once more, moving with more friction. He joined her in minute increments. The pace gradually rose with their racing heartbeats. Furia’s focus became wholly singular, at which point her partner was little more than a means to an end--her orgasm.

When she got close, her nails dug into his chest which she used for leverage in her chase. His grunting and moaning barely penetrated her focus. But the swell of his cock inside her, that she noticed, needed, and used for her own benefit. Even as his hips stuttered, hers didn’t still. Furia set her fingers on her clit seeking more friction now that he’d reached his end.

When he fell asleep beside her, Furia slipped out of the bed and took him up on the offer he’d made her in the pool. After a steamy shower, she exited the bathroom toweling her hair gently. That feeling of familiarity prickled at the back of her mind again and she found herself studying his face once more with less lust and a little more reason.

When she saw it, or more accurately, when she connected that sensation with an actual face from the past her jaw tightened. “Should’ve seen it earlier,” she told herself with a shake of her head, trying to force away the flash of Troy’s face that popped to mind. When she slid open the closet door silently, another surprise brought a disapproving grumble into her throat.

She decided not to judge. Maybe whoever these clothes belonged to had a relationship with him like she’d shared with some of her lovers; she specifically forced herself to think of it in those generic terms. She didn’t want to tempt memories of any of the men in her life to shift to the forefront. She grabbed a black skirt and a simple white blouse, then grabbed one of his jackets from the other side. She emptied the pockets of her wet coat into the new one, emptying the last hit of E from one of the bags she had been carrying.

She’d started for the door barefoot, then returned. His girlfriend’s shoes were far too small, so she grabbed a pair of boots from his side. They were far too big, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Grabbing a bottle from the bar in the other room, she let herself out and strode for the elevator.

#Tormenting Trip #IC Drabble #Badger Scribbles #((Yet another first draft thingie))#((Forgive the obvious horrid nature of this))#((Just trying to get them out of my head))

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bookofjin · 6 years ago

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Annals of Gaozu of Song, Jin’s Yixi 8

[From SS002]

[Yixi 8, 30 January 412 – 16 February 413]

The General who Conquers the West and Inspector of Jing province, Daogui, suffering from illness sought to return home.

8th Year, 4th Month [27 April – 26 May], changed [his] conferral to Inspector of Yu province. Used the General of the Rear and Inspector of Yu province, Liu Yi, to replace him. Yi and His Excellency had together lifted up the great righteousness, and raised up again the house of Jin. Since they spoke in Jing city [or “Capital city”?] and Guangling, his merits to the patrimony was sufficient to thereby be held aloft [?].

Even though he carried the weight in the affair to push forward His Excellency, yet his heart did not submit. Yi already had outstanding talent and great aspirations, and substantially pitied and made allowances for himself, of those court gentlemen who habitually had anticipations, many reverted to him. He and the Supervisor of the Masters of Writing, Xie Hun, and the Intendant of Danyang, Xi Sengshi, were equally deeply connected with each other.

When he went west to headquarter at Jiangling in the old office of Yu province many were ceded to thereby accompany himself, and he requested Sengshi to be Colonel of the Southern Man. [Gaozu?] already knew Yi was unable to stay a subordinate, and in then end would have a different angle, and planned against him. Yi arrived in the west, and claimed to be sincerely ill. He petitioned and sought for junior cousin, the Inspector of Yan province, Fan, to be considered as his deputy. Pretended to allow it.

9th Month [21 October – 19 November], Fan entered court. His Excellency instructed to gather Fan and Xie Hun, in prison both were bestowed death. He himself petitioned to punish Yi, and again acted with Yellow Battle-axe and led the various armies on the western conquest.

Used the former General of the Headquarter Army, Sima Xiuzhi, as General who Pacifies the West and Inspector of Jing province. The Inspector of Yan province, Daolian, headquartered at Dantu. The Inspector of Yu province, Zhuge Changmin, oversaw the Grand Commandant's kept behind office affairs concurrently as Marshal to the Grand Commandant. The Intendant of Danyang, Liu Muzhi [as] General who Establishes Power to pair as material strength [?].

On renwu [4 November], he issued from the Imperial City. He dispatched the Army Advisor, Wang Zhen'e and the Dragon Galloping General Kuai En for a preceding assault on Jiangling.

10th Month [20 November – 18 December], Zhen'e overcame Jiangling. Yi and his partisans were all sentenced to execution.

11th Month, jimao [31 December], His Excellency arrived at Jiangling. He sent down a letter which said:

As for discarding the ruined and helping the people, [one] must look for the simple and lenient, leave behind the nets and restore the guide-ropes, even the irksome are easy to manage [?]. Jiang and Jing are withered and decayed, law and government are much lacking. In recent years' incidents and mishaps, soothing and consoling are not yet pervasive.

Consequently causing the hundred families are exhausted and wanting, years and months grow considerably, the wealthy are harmed and the servants in difficulty, worried about unfortunate lives. The remaining of the withered and decayed, yet does not diminsh the past, carving and peeling, summoning and seeking, does not follow the way of government.

The directors of management and overseeing sometimes have not good capacity, and are not yet able to profusely [?] personally frugal, cautiously seeking to plentifully provide, amassing habits to live regularly [?], and ever more did not know change.

Recently because of military service, [I] came through the two provinces, treading the territory to get close to the people, more and more seeing their distress. [I] thought and desired to raise their critical state, and relieve their hardship.

All the rents, taxes and mustering for service thoroughly ought to use the seen households as correct. The provinces, commanderies and counties' villages, fields, ponds, and passes variously not set aside for army and state, those that profiting people guard and steward [?], now as one cut and eliminate them. The provinces, commanderies and counties' magistrates all to rely on the Masters of Writing to settle and arrange the real households set up.

The tribunal to transfer on guimao [24 January] the catalpa timber, on gengzi [22 March] skin and fur, [they] can thoroughly suspend and rationalise the separate quantities being sent out [?]. Baling equally to break off measuring supplies [?] and rely on the old troops turning around. Forgive five year old punishments and below, altogether what is arranged and recorded for the remaining mouths of the thieves' families, likewise thoroughly forgive and release.

Used ten commanderies of Jing province as Xiang province. His Excellency then advanced to supervise. Used the Grand Warden of Xiyang, Zhu Lingshi as Inspector of Yi province, to lead the multitudes and invade Shu.

#ss002

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phantom-le6 · 4 years ago

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Episode Reviews - Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 5 (2 of 6)

Later than planned due to the Snooker World Championship final, here’s my second round of reviews for season 5 of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Episode 6: The Game

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Commander Riker visits Risa and is introduced to a video game by Etana Jol, a Ktarian woman with whom he has become sexually involved during his vacation on the pleasure planet. Riker, upon his return to the Enterprise, distributes replicated copies of the game to the crew of the starship.

Cadet Wesley Crusher, on vacation from Starfleet Academy, is visiting the Enterprise and notices everyone playing the game (and trying to convince him to play as well). Doctor Beverly Crusher, Wesley's mother, secretly switches off Lt. Commander Data and sabotages his circuits, because he would be immune to the game's addictive properties. The game addicts people who play it by stimulating the pleasure centres of their brains when they successfully complete each level.

Wesley reports to Captain Picard his suspicions that the game is dangerous. However, Picard is already addicted. Eventually, Wesley and his new girlfriend, Ensign Robin Lefler, are the only people on the ship who have yet to become addicted to the game. Wesley and Robin discover that Data's injuries were in fact sabotage, and begin working on a plan to stop the spread of the game. Wesley meets Robin in engineering, where he learns that she has come under the influence of the game, presumably having been captured by the crew and forced to play. Riker and Worf pursue Wesley, as he is the last non-addicted person on the ship. Wesley evades them for a time, but they eventually trap him in an access tunnel and take him to the bridge, where he is restrained and forced to play the game.

Data, having been examined and repaired by Wesley before he was forced to submit to the game, frees the rest of the crew from their mind-controlled state by flashing pulses of light in their faces from a handheld lamp known as a palm beacon. The crew is then able to discern the purpose of the game: It rendered them extremely susceptible to the power of suggestion, compelling them to aid the games' creators, the Ktarians, in an attempt to take control of the Enterprise and eventually the Federation. Picard captures the Ktarian vessel, captained by Etana Jol, responsible for distributing the games and has it towed to the nearest spacedock. Wesley and Lefler bid each other a reluctant farewell as he returns to Starfleet Academy.

Review:

Following Wesley’s departure from the show’s main ensemble of characters in season 4, Wil Wheaton reprised the role for three episodes and a single cinematic cameo, and this episode is the first of those reprisal moments. Now on the plus side, we get to see Wesley get a girlfriend in the form of young Ensign Robin Lefler, played by guest actress Ashley Judd, and he proves fairly adept as the lead protagonist in the episode. However, he’s unfortunately landed as the lead protagonist in an episode that’s a total bloody howler in terms of its plot. First of all, the concept of an addictive video game? Red Dwarf beat Star Trek to this with Better Than Life in the novel adaptation of their series, and did a far better job on the concept. Also, I’ve gone off anything using anything even remotely linked to hypnosis in a negative light where fiction is concerned, and the design of the game’s ‘discs’ being a spiral pattern is a clear visual nod to visual-based hypnotic inductions if I ever saw one.

However, the real problem is that this is Trek trying to hammer out a ‘video games are addictive’ message, and frankly it’s right up there with anytime someone rails against violence and anything else in video games as something to piss me off. Why? Because the world was full of things that people could get addicted to or that were violent well before computer games existed. Drugs, including alcohol and nicotine, are addictive. Gambling is addictive. Sex is addictive, but guess what? Not everyone is walking around with a constant need to down a ton of pills with half a liquor store and a pack of cigarettes, buy a hundred lottery tickets and then boink everyone on their street. Likewise, the violence in video games is nothing compared to all the other violence in human history. Two World Wars, the Crusades, dozens of other wars and skirmishes the world over and goodness knows how many murders, honour duels and the like all before we got anywhere near a home computer game of even the most basic variety.

The reality is that addiction to anything is a serious issue, and frankly the anti-drugs episode back in season 1 of this series did better addressing it than this episode does. It’s a near-total train-wreck, ironically saved by the one character many people often found most irksome in the show’s early years. For me, it’s only worth 4 out of 10. Oh, and Will? There are some women you need to say no to, so maybe adding that word to your vocabulary next time you’re on Risa.

Episode 7: Unification (Part 1)

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Starfleet Admiral Brackett informs Captain Picard that Ambassador Spock is missing and an intelligence scan has placed him on Romulus, raising fears that he may have defected. Picard orders the Enterprise to Vulcan to speak to Spock's ailing father, Sarek, with whom Picard shares a close bond. Sarek mentions Pardek, a Romulan Senator with whom Spock had been maintaining a dialogue for several decades. Lt. Commander Data discovers a visual record of Pardek from a trade conference and confirms that he is the other figure seen on the intelligence scan of Spock on Romulus. The Enterprise crew find the remains of a decommissioned Vulcan ship, the T'Pau, in the debris of a Ferengi ship which crashed in the Hanolin asteroid belt.

Picard calls in a favour from Klingon Chancellor Gowron, speaking to one of his aides and convincing him to lend them a Klingon ship that could take them to Romulus while cloaked. Picard and Data board the ship, with Picard ordering Riker to investigate the T'Pau and try to find a link to the Romulans. En route, the Klingons inform Picard that they intercepted a message of interest to him: Sarek has died.

On Romulus, Picard and Data (disguised as Romulans) locate the spot where the picture of Pardek and Spock was taken, which Data determines is a legal office. They wait until Pardek arrives, but when they approach him, they find themselves met by soldiers and taken to a cavern. Pardek arrives, explaining that Romulan security knew they were on-planet and they've been brought underground for their safety. Picard states that he is looking for Ambassador Spock, who emerges from a nearby tunnel.

Review:

Although Star Trek’s creator Gene Roddenberry died a few days the previous episode aired, it is the Unification 2-parter episode that bears a memorial tribute to him at the beginning of each of his segments, and rightly so. This two-part arc was meant not only as part of a cross-promotion between the Next Generation and Star Trek VI, but also as a way to mark the 25th anniversary of the original series first airing. Frankly, there’s little I can think of that would be more apt in that regard than to have Spock guest-star in a special instalment of TNG, though admittedly part 1 sees very little Spock. However, to my mind, this is actually a good thing.

As cool as it is having an original series character guest-star on TNG is, the show has worked hard to be its own thing and not be simply a direct continuation or a poor rip-off of the original show. Because of that, delaying Spock’s entry helps TNG retain its own identity; a rush to have Spock on screen could have undermined any sense of TNG as its own show. Moreover, some characters have a certain ‘larger than life’ reputation among fan-bases, and good writers will understand this and build them up as an idea, a symbol of themselves in the minds of an audience before the character really appears. A key example of this approach in other media is how writer Brad Meltzer tackles the introduction of DC Comics’ ‘big three’ into the events of the mini-series/graphic novel Identity Crisis.

Overall, part 1 of Unification is very good at building us up to moment of meeting Spock, as well as putting us on Romulus for the first time in Trek history and just generally telling a good story, one which also echoed real-life issues like the re-unification of Germany after the collapse of the Berlin Wall. In fact, I would say all that robs this episode of top marks is that the remaining Enterprise crew doesn’t have the greatest of B-plots to deal with once Picard and Data head for Romulus. Granted, it pays off in part 2, but somehow I feel it could have been better, though for the life of me I can’t think of how. End score for this one is 9 out of 10.

Episode 8: Unification (Part 2)

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Spock demands that Picard leave Romulus. Picard informs him of the Federation's concern over his "cowboy diplomacy" and tells him that Sarek has died. Spock takes the news of his father's death stoically. He explains to Picard that during the peace negotiations with the Klingons decades earlier, he felt responsible for putting Captain Kirk and his crew at risk, and so is now working alone on a "personal mission of peace" to re-unify the Vulcan and Romulan people. He is working with an underground movement to achieve that aim. Pardek has asked Spock to come to Romulus to meet with the new Proconsul of the Romulan Senate, a young idealist who has promised reforms. Picard expresses concern that the willingness of the Romulans may be part of a larger ploy; Spock agrees but points out that if a larger plot is at work, it is best they play out their roles within it to uncover it.

Picard, Data, and Spock are soon captured by Commander Sela, who is planning a Romulan conquest of Vulcan. The stolen Vulcan ship and two others are carrying a Romulan invasion force, under the guise of escorting a peace envoy. Spock refuses to deceive his people by announcing the false news, even after Sela threatens to kill him, and she locks the three in her office and leaves to order the ships on their way. By the time she returns, Data has hacked into the Romulan computer system and created a holographic simulation that distracts her long enough for the three captives to incapacitate her and her officers.

Meanwhile, the Enterprise arrives at Galorndon Core following their investigation into one of the missing Vulcan ships. They detect the three Vulcan ships and moves to intercept them as they cross the Neutral Zone. A medical distress signal comes in, but as Riker orders the ship toward its source, they receive a broadcast from Romulus in which Spock reveals the true nature of the Vulcan ships, and Riker orders Dr Crusher to check the source of the medical distress call, suspecting it to be a Romulan ruse. A Romulan Warbird uncloaks, destroys the ships, and recloaks, killing the troops instead of allowing them to be captured.

On Romulus, Data and Picard bid farewell to Spock. The Ambassador is intent upon his goal, realizing that it cannot be achieved through diplomacy or politics. Picard offers Spock a chance to touch what Sarek shared with him, and the two mind-meld.

Review:

Discounting the various alien bar scenes that factor into the Enterprise’s B-plot (for goodness sake, TNG, you’re not supposed to be Star Wars and that is certainly not Mos Eisley Cantina), the second part of Unification is about as good as the first part. According to Memory Alpha, the writers felt like this episode was a bit too talky and wanted more action in retrospect, but with respect I disagree. Trek is made for being talky at times, and anything involving Leonard Nimoy and Patrick Stewart working together as Spock and Picard more or less demands it. Had it been Riker and Kirk, then I could understand the action impulse. Moreover, as I just noted a moment ago, this is Star Trek and not Star Wars. Trek is about issue and character exploration, about delving into matters of substance, not shallow action scenes and plots with little to no issue exploration or substance. If action isn’t going to serve something deeper on Trek, then it’s best left to one side.

The A-Plot works to a nice conclusion, and it’s cool to see Commander Sela back, even if you still have the issue that she looks like a Romulan clone of Tasha Yar and not her daughter. It’s the character’s last appearance, which in some ways is a shame considering the later Romulan stories in this show and in Deep Space Nine. The Enterprise also gets at least a decent, albeit slightly anti-climactic, conclusion to its b-plot. Nothing more to really say; just going to hand down a score of 9 out of 10 and warp over to the next episode in this run.

Episode 9: A Matter of Time

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

En route to Penthara IV to assist its population in combating the effects of reduced temperatures created by a dust cloud from a recent asteroid impact, the Enterprise encounters a nearby temporal distortion, and finds a small pod containing a single human occupant. Beaming aboard the Enterpise, the human introduces himself as Professor Berlinghoff Rasmussen, a historian from the 26th century who has time-travelled to witness the Enterprise complete this "historic" mission at Penthara IV. He requests that the crew complete questionnaires for him, but reveals little about himself as he does not wish to alter history. Rasmussen's investigations are somewhat annoying to the crew but they entertain him.

At Penthara IV, the Enterprise uses its phasers to drill into the planet to release carbon dioxide, creating a greenhouse effect to warm the planet, but this creates a side effect of increasing seismic activity and causing volcanoes to erupt, threatening to worsen the impact winter they were trying to end to ice age proportions. Chief Engineer La Forge and Lt. Commander Data offer a solution of ionizing the upper atmosphere, but the manoeuvre must be done precisely or they could risk burning off the entire atmosphere and killing all 20 million on the surface. With the severity of the decision, Captain Picard attempts to gain Rasmussen's help, claiming this is a scenario where any possible temporal equivalent of the Prime Directive can be overridden, but Rasmussen refuses to offer advice, noting by his era, the fate of all those on Penthara IV has already been decided. Picard decides to allow La Forge and Data to go through with the plan, which is successful and returns the planet to its normal climate.

Rasmussen prepares to leave with his research done, but is met by a security team at his pod. Picard informs him several items have gone missing and requests to see the inside of his pod. Rasmussen reminds him again of the possible temporal prime directive, and asks if only Data goes in to look for their missing equipment, as Data can be ordered not to reveal anything about the future to the crew. Picard agrees. Inside, Data finds the missing items but discovers Rasmussen has him at phaser-point. Rasmussen explains he is really a disgruntled inventor from the 22nd century New Jersey that stole this pod from a 26th-century traveller, and intended to return to his time and profit by selling the Enterprise equipment as his inventions, and now that he has Data, he plans to take him back as well. However, Rasmussen finds his phaser does not work, as once he opened the pod, the ship's sensors were able to disable it. Data forces an anxious Rasmussen outside along with the stolen equipment, and Rasmussen tries to apologize and asks to be allowed to depart. Picard instead has Rasmussen placed under arrest, and the pod automatically disappears, leaving him stranded in the 24th century.

Review:

Before I get into the review itself, a bit of house-keeping I had to bring up. Prior to this episode, Trek had been steadfastly anti-time travel for much of its history due to it being one of Gene Roddenberry’s ‘rules’ that Trek avoided this sometimes-overused sci-fi trope. As a result, Trek did not have a temporal version of the Prime Directive, which is why when Picard discusses this at one point with Rasmussen, he wonders if the supposed historian is following a temporal equivalent. As such, all references to the temporal prime directive being cited in this episode on any form of wiki sight are wrong and premature; you can’t reference a temporal prime directive that has yet to exist because there’s previously been no reason to even have one.

Now, all that said, I think this episode was ok, but a bit all over the place. Is it about suggesting that deliberately creating a greenhouse effect could be a possible solution to impact winters? Is it about using that as an excuse to explore the nature of causality and the potential ramifications of time travel? Frankly, for me time-travel is all too often a confusing thing because it invites paradox and gives you a headache in doing so. For this reason alone, the multiverse concept of time-travel used more recently in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is better. Also, all that talk about avoiding contamination of the time-line and then you let a guy from your past remain in your present, knowing that by Trek standards that could alter history? Pretty sloppy, but as I’ve noted, Trek was still new at time-travel at this stage. Overall, I give this episode about 7 out of 10; some of the acting, especially from Patrick Stewart, helps compensate for some of the confusion factor.

Episode 10: New Ground

Plot (as given by me):

While Lt. Commander La Forge is getting excited about a test of soliton wave technology, which could enable ships to travel at warp speeds without a warp drive or engines, Lt. Worf learns his human mother and Alexander have come to visit him via the transport ship Milan. When they beam aboard, however, Alexander claims he won’t be returning. It turns out Worf’s human parents feel that they are too old to act as parents anymore, and they have seen Alexander show troubling behaviours that they feel only the guidance of his father can help him through.

Worf attempts to incorporate being a parent into his life on board the Enterprise, but faces numerous challenges. In addition to trying to tackle the minutia of enrolling Alexander at school and registering him with sickbay, Worf also struggles to deal with Alexander’s problem behaviours, which include lying and stealing. When the behaviours continue despite Worf teaching Alexander about honour and making him promise not to lie anymore, he decides to send Alexander to a Klingon school instead.

Matters are complicated when the Enterprise is damaged during the soliton wave test, and the wave itself begins to exponentially gain in speed and power as it heads for a colony on Lemma II. The decision is made to chase the wave, travel through it and then dissipate it using photon torpedoes. However, the ship’s shields are not at full strength, and travelling through the wave leaves certain sections exposed to possible ion radiation when the wave is dissipated. One section is bio-lab 4, which Alexander runs away to following another argument with his father; the trip through the wave causes a major fire in the lab and traps Alexander under debris.

When the bridge crew learns of Alexander’s plight, Worf and Commander Riker race to Alexander’s aid, narrowly saving him and some endangered animals that were being transported in the bio-lab before the soliton wave had to be dissipated. While Alexander recovers in sick bay, Worf offers Alexander a choice; to face the rigours of Klingon school, or face the potentially greater challenge of remaining on board the Enterprise. Alexander chooses the latter option.

Review:

This is an episode that, much like the soliton wave from its B-plot, starts out weak and builds to strength at the climax. At first, it’s almost cringe-worthy watching Worf try to play single parent and assume what he thinks a parent should be, not for a moment factoring in how Alexander has been raised up to now or how being sent to Earth after his mother’s death affected him. You can see Worf’s discomfort with the whole situation is making him try to more or less duck the situation, which I can understand to a degree. After all, no one likes being chucked in at the proverbial deep end of any scenario, and as an autistic person I absolutely hate it when that happens, so I can empathise with the whole set-up.

However, Worf is not autistic, and he’s been around a crew that includes families for his entire stint on the Enterprise, so you’d think he’d adapt a bit quicker. As it is, the A-plot is saved when the conflict puts Alexander in a position where the B-plot can endanger him, and for that final act of the episode, you get a great bit of dramatic television. There’s nothing that can get you on the edge of your seat more than a child being in danger and their parent having to race to the rescue. The fear and the worry of that situation charges everything with urgency and commands audience attention, which is a key reason why I think when Marvel put the Fantastic Four on the big screen for themselves, they have to include Reed and Sue’s son Franklin and put him in peril; otherwise, the F4 can’t distinguish themselves as they did in the comics.

For me, it’s very much that final act that really makes this episode worth a watch, but only just. Overall, I give this episode 6 out of 10.

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tsaomengde · 7 years ago

Text

What Is Owed (9)

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5) (Part 6) (Part 7) (Part 8)

Normally I will put a “Keep reading...” in here to reduce the space on your dash, but right now that functionality is breaking my formatting. I apologize to those not interested in my scribblings.

It has been perhaps a day since her last drink, and Alia cannot sleep.

She lies on the grass in the dell, staring up at the gently stirring branches of the rowan trees, silvery in the moonlight. She has her hands clasped over her belly, because when she does not clasp them, they shake, ever so slightly, and it maddens her.

Alia tries to lie to herself. This is nerves, obviously. Andral’s chosen course of action is dangerous in the extreme, even foolhardy, and she is along for the ride because of her oath to Stryga. She has been looking forward to dying quietly in a gutter somewhere, not by throwing herself between an arrogant princeling and a deathbolt.

“Are you awake, Milady Steelblooded?”

She sits up and sees, across from the guttering remnants of the fire Flencher carefully constructed earlier this evening, Shariach. The old Master of Protocol is sitting with his back to a tree, hands folded in his lap, legs crossed beneath him.

“Are you suffering from an attack of the anxieties as well?” she asks, deciding to go with the comforting lie about her misgivings keeping her awake.

Shariach gives her an impressive frown. “About what should I be anxious?”

“Andral’s plan,” Alia replies, ignoring the look of opprobrium he gives her at her continued failure to use ‘His Highness.’ “He insists on going forward with the arranged marriage. He refuses to travel in disguise or under a pseudonym. And he will not take ship again for fear of others being killed as they were on the Astes. It is foolhardy, and perhaps suicidal.”

Shariach shakes his head. His wrinkled face is twisted in a bitter smile, an expression she has not yet seen him produce. “His Highness is not a fool, and certainly he has no death-wish. It is simply that he is the most prideful, most stubborn man I have ever known. It has always been thus with him.”

“Pride and stubbornness are not endearing qualities. Eana says you are all here for love of him. What has he done to earn this love, Shariach? I admire his courage, but I do not love him for it.”

Shariach gives her a long, appraising look. She returns it without blinking.

And, to her complete surprise, he begins to sing.

He has a good, deep voice, though he sings quietly, so as not to wake anyone. The language of the song is not one she recognizes, though the song itself is in a minor key and conjures images of the heartbreak of times past in her mind. She listens, unexpectedly rapt, as he continues the melody.

Eventually, he stops, closes his eyes, and seems to meditate for some small span. Then he speaks.

“I do not know if you were there in your capacity, but my friend Flencher the Sternhearted was. The Klendal rebellion, fifteen years past. Know you the cause of that uprising?”

“No.”

“Klendal province was once its own country, named Anola. Seventy-four years ago it was conquered by His Majesty King Morrara, he who renamed the mountain. It is uncouth of me to say this, but His Majesty was partial to the renaming of things, so it is of little surprise that Anola should be renamed Klendal, after His Majesty’s youngest son. The language of that place was, by decree, banned from the mouths of its people, who were to speak Fillorel in public and in private.”

Alia nods. “Was that song in the language of Anola?”

“Guldren,” Shariach replies, naming the tongue. “As for the song, its provenance is unknown, but it gained some measure of fame in the years after the conquest, and enjoyed a revival during the time of the recent rebellion. It is called ‘Aeia faan Gal Anola fin Renstrun,’ or ‘Lament of Renstrun Lord of Anola.’ Renstrun was the last democratically elected Pretor of that country ere its absorption into the Randran Empire.”

“Who taught it to you?”

“My father. I was born Shariach ren Boran ran Aeia, Boran being my province within Aeia. I lost my names, apart from Shariach, when we were conquered and were obligated to adopt the nomenclature of Randra, with its love of Warnames and nobility. I had four years at that time.”

Alia leans forward to better see Shariach in the dim light. “I cannot imagine such a song was popular with the Randran occupiers.”

“To sing it was to court the Randran crucifix,” Shariach replies. “It is a thing which fell out of favor ere even you were born, I think. The limbs of the offender were broken, and –”

“I know the crucifix,” Alia cuts him off. “Let us not lose ourselves. You are from Anola, yet it is your function to extol the monarchs of Randra, and to instruct others in such obeisance.”

“The Anolani faced persecution of the most rancorous sort. My father wished me to be free of such a life. When I had five years, I was already lettered, and showed much promise of intelligence. He sent me to a school in Randra, spending much coin to do so, where children were raised to royal service. The children of conquered nations and vassal states were not accepted here, but some of his coin went to the acquisition of documents and witnesses claiming my heritage to be a Randran one. He formally disowned me before the gates of that place so I might not be tempted to return to Aeia, and embraced me, and wept as he turned away. I am told he died several years later, but I do not know the manner of his passing. His ashes were scattered in the river Fallo, and I have nothing of his by which to remember him.”

Alia swallows with some difficulty. “I am sorry.”

Shariach waves the apology away. “You did not do this thing.”

“I served Randra. I was not at the Klendal rebellion, but I conquered, and I put down uprisings, and I performed less savory tasks for Stryga when called.”

“But this thing you did not do, and so your atonement is needless.” Shariach runs a hand along the line of his jaw in thought. “At this school, I received high marks, and was given to the Palace to be a Master of Protocol. This was ere even His August Majesty King Leoran, but I served well and faithfully and was held in high esteem.

“When His Highness Andral gained his sixth year, I was assigned his tutelage in protocol, mathematics, and the sciences. Ours was not a harmonious relationship. Like many children, His Highness had a love of riding, and the sword, and other acts of physical prowess, and felt his time with me and my books and instruction was time spent better with Flencher or the riding-masters.

“Still, I grew fond of him. He was clever and quick-witted, and though his disobedience infuriated me I found it difficult to keep my ire kindled. I would ask him, an hour late for his lessons, where he had been, and he would claim to have been in the library, or studying with his calligraphy master, or some other pursuit he thought suitably academic to defray my wrath and spare him my cane. But always he would smile as he said these things, an insouciant smile, to say without words that he wished me to know of his prevarication. And despite myself, I found this smile endearing.

“In his eighth year, he took ill and grew terribly febrile. I stayed at his bedside, for while I have no leechcraft and left his treatment to the healers and the mages, I had great concern for his well-being. Late in the night, fatigue upon me, desiring both to comfort him and comfort for myself, I began thoughtlessly to sing the Lament.”

Alia traps her hands beneath her thighs in a frustrated attempt to still their trembling. “Were you discovered?”

Shaking his head, Shariach replies, “No. But, some days later, His Highness, in a moment of distraction, began to hum its tune. And he was overheard by His August Majesty King Stryga.”

“Stryga, who personally led the retributive force to smash the Klendal rebellion.” Alia grimaces. “I take it he knew the Lament.”

“He did, and upon hearing it from his son, he was wroth. He demanded where His Highness had heard such a thing. I was there, bearing witness to this, and fully expected His Highness to sense the opportunity to be rid of his irksome tutor.

“But His Highness merely said, ‘I do not know.’ And he continued to say this, even when His August Majesty offered him a lovely white colt, for which His Highness had been desirous since learning to ride.” Shariach smiles. “Later, when I ventured to inquire if he truly did not recall from whence he had heard this thing, His Highness said, ‘I do not know.’ But he gave me his liar’s smile.”

Alia nods. “So. You owe him your life.”

“I doubt His August Majesty King Stryga would have had me crucified for the Lament, but I would surely have been dismissed and reduced to commoner status.” Shariach casts his gaze toward the makeshift tent where Andral is getting much-needed sleep. “I do not doubt any one of us could share a like tale with you, Milady Steelblooded. When you give His Highness loyalty, he repays it in kind, without fail. To love a person is to know their flaws and yet to give loyalty in spite of them.”

Alia stands, knowing that the conversation is at an end and wanting to walk, if she cannot sleep. “Well. I thank you for your kind explanation, Shariach.” She pauses, not sure what else to say, and begins to leave. Then she turns back and adds, somewhat impulsively, “I will keep his secret.”

“Even if you do not understand the reason of it?”

“Even so.”

Shariach inclines his head in a gesture of gratitude and respect, and closes his eyes.

Alia wanders the hills for the rest of the night. Her hands will not stop trembling.

#what is owed #fantasy #writing #my writing

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texanpeanut · 7 years ago

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Why Am I Here?

I think a lot. Probably too much by some standards, which is one of the reasons I wanted to join the Peace Corps. Once upon a time I believed if I made it to this position I would be forced to think less and do more. However, over the past six months I’ve experienced the opposite. Without mind-numbing mental distractions like Instagram and Facebook readily available while I’m in my rural site, and with the heat-forced downtime that occurs between noon and five p.m., I find myself thinking all the time. Not just in a hazy, half-aware state, but actively considering a handful of topics over and over again trying to find some satisfying conclusion that may or may not exist. So I’m not sure if the amount I think has changed since coming here, but perhaps the way I do has. Maybe now it’s more focused, more linear, less wiggly and sporadic. Maybe it’s more dense and easier to hold in my hand, like pudding versus water. Maybe it hasn’t changed at all and I’m just making it all up.

One topic currently seems to have a more substantial presence in my mind than the others, though. Sometimes it burns like a roaring campfire and I’m completely captivated and sometimes it nags silently like a mango string caught in my teeth that I run my tongue over again and again without actually making an effort to remove. When I sit on the floor of my hut at 6:30 am drinking Nescafe, when I fill my water bucket at the forage in the silent woods, when I escape the afternoon sun by doing crosswords in bed, when I sit with my family in the evening as we wait for dinner to finish cooking, I always come back to the same thought - why the fuck am I here?

For anyone reading this who doesn’t know, Senegal is a small West African country that happens to be the furthest western point on the African continent. I honestly don’t know that much about Senegalese history because all the empire formations and and dissolvements make my head spin, but I do know that it is certainly a very rich and diverse history, which has led to a very rich and diverse culture today. Although French is the national language, apparently 36 different languages are spoken in Senegal today, and each language corresponds to a different ethnic group with it’s own stories and traditions and beliefs. In my own region of Kedougou, I can travel between Bassari, Pular, and Jaxanke villages in just a few hours, and then if I travel up to any of the northern regions I find myself surrounded by Wolof or Pulaar du Nord or Serer.

So, take a trip in a time machine back to maybe the 7th century and you’ll find all these groups of people living their lives, forming empires and kingdoms, disbanding, migrating, adopting Islam, you know, whatever, the usual, until the advent of globalization at the end of the 15th century. At that point, Europeans began competing for trade and conquest in Senegal (like they did in almost all other non-white countries, as y’all know. I have a few other colorful ways to describe this but since I have family reading and I already dropped a fuck once (twice now, sorry) I’ll keep it tame.)* until 1677 when France won by gaining control of Goree Island, which is known for being a purchasing base in the Atlantic Slave Trade.

Travel forward in the time machine to 1961 and Senegal becomes independent from France. After centuries upon centuries of existing as a region under various kingdoms, then 300 years under French rule, Senegal becomes a country with a border, a tax system, a school system, elected officials, all that stuff. Now travel forward in the time machine to today, 2018, 57 years later.

SO MUCH BACKDROP. Was all that even necessary for what I’m about to talk about? We’ll see, I guess.

Living here, I see a lot of European and North American presence. Asian presence too, actually - a lot of the roads being built are Chinese construction projects, and the Renaissance Monument in Dakar was given as a gift from North Korea. There are other development organizations like UNESCO and World Vision, some religious missionaries, some adventurous tourists traveling on their own, some old French women sunbathing on the beaches of Mbour, and of course the obnoxious buses crammed full of European tourists coming to see a waterfall and stop by the surrounding towns to take photos of ~village life~ as if strolling through a zoo.

As a white person here I’m perceived differently based on which of these groups of white people Senegalese people have interacted with more. When I travel anywhere outside my village I hear the children sing-song chant “toubako okkan cadeau!” which means “westerner, share a gift with me!”. Sometimes the adults engage me too when I go to a boutique or wait for a car at the garage. They like to ask me if I’ll take their baby with me back to America, if I’ll give them my earbuds, my cell phone, or my dress, or if I’ll marry their old crusty-ass uncle I don’t even know. When I travel up to Thies I don’t get chanted at quite as much and am almost ignored, which is nice. The few times I’ve been to Mbour I’m almost ignored except for the occasional beach-walking knick-knack seller begging me to be their first customer of the day.

Even though they are just children, I get so incredibly annoyed sometimes by the chanting. I usually ignore it and go about my day but sometimes I just want to scream “my name is not Toubako, it’s Binta, and I don’t have a fucking gift, leave me alone and let me walk or bike or buy a piece of bread or whatever the fucking I’m doing at the moment.” The adults can be just as irksome, too. I don’t usually get into it and play these comments off as jokes but they make me so uncomfortable. I want to tell them “stop asking me for things. Every time you see me you only ask me for things. I came here to teach, to work, to plant at least like one fucking tree, not to take your baby or marry your god-damn uncle.”

I think I’m up to four fucks now, sorry. God, that’s five.

But I don’t respond because in some ways I feel like I deserve it. Even though I wasn’t here between 1677 and 1961 selling humans from Goree Island, even though I’m not one of these oggling, bus-going, camera-toting tourists, because I’m white I’m still part of that story. And in some ways isn’t “international development” another form of colonialism, of imperialism? Western groups coming in with resources and knowledge trying to fix what they perceive as problems? If the people of Senegal continuously rely on foreign aid organizations to supply resources and technical expertise, how sustainable is that for development in the long run?

So this is where my thoughts lead me every day. What’s my role as a volunteer here? How can I act as a white person without perpetuating colonialism? How can I work and learn here while being the least imposing as possible? In Peace Corps we’re told the role of a volunteer is to be a mentor, a teacher, a co-facilitator, a co-planner, etc. There’s a huge focus on “people-centered” work. Don’t do anything your village doesn’t want. Don’t force your own projects because when you leave no one will continue it. I think I feel comfortable with this part. So far I’ve really been trying to feel out my village for what they want, what they need, and what they’re willing to work toward. If no one wants to make a compost pile or build a tree nursery, I’m not going to force it. I try to see myself as a supplier of information, not an iron-fisted environmental ruler.

But even if I am trying to work with my village, even if I am truly trying to be this mentor/teacher/facilitator figure, and not a tyrant or giver of gifts like some other development organizations can be, why is that my responsibility as an American? All my technical training in Thies was done by Senegalese people. Wouldn’t this whole program be way more effective if Senegalese people trained other Senegalese people? People who live here and truly understand their land and their culture? People who don’t have to spend a year just trying to learn a language and fit in? People who aren’t going to go home to America or Canada or Japan after 2 years?

Well then I think maybe it’s not just about the work. The work is so fun, it’s a blast, it’s been my favorite part in village. Helping someone build a tree nursery, doing a small training, getting my hands dirty planting seeds or amending a garden bed - it’s fantastic and I say that without a single drop of sarcasm. But there’s three goals in Peace Corps - the first is about the work, the second is about sharing American culture with the host country, and the third is sharing host country culture with Americans. And I think many volunteers have a fourth, personal goal of learning about themselves or some kind of self improvement. That’s my other favorite part so far. The opportunity to challenge myself, to learn, to think in a focused way and not just bounce all over the place. But did I have to come all the way to Senegal to do that? Are there experiences I could have had in America that would have been this formative? If I’m here just to learn, is that another form of exploitation? Am I just using my village’s daily life and culture as a means to only better myself? Maybe I should really focus my efforts on this whole cultural exchange part?

I don’t know! I don’t know anything!

I’m not sure what my goal is in writing this post, but there was something inside me nagging me to put it down in type and send it into cyberspace. I do really appreciate my service in Senegal so far. I don’t want to leave, I don’t want to go home. But I think this topic is something I will continue to come back to again and again over the next year and a half. Maybe other volunteers will see this and relate or offer some insight? Maybe some history nerds will call me out on all the mistakes I made in the earlier paragraphs? Maybe people will tell me to shut up and get back to the cool tree stuff or post more pictures of my dog?

Like I said, I don’t know.

If you got this far, thanks for reading. That’s all for now.

-Maggie

*Way earlier in this post I put a little asterisk, if you remember. I have a book recommendation. If you’re interested in globalization, colonialism, and/or potatoes I highly recommend 1493 by Charles C Mann. It’s the story about how the face of the Earth completely changed with the first Europeans coming over to North America. It tells a very, very interesting story and I encourage anyone interested in learning even a little bit to read it.

#peacecorps #senegal #peacecorpssenegal #peacecorpsafrica #africa #colonialism #globalization #howiseepc

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vischys · 4 years ago

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The both of you are irksome halfwits!

The Son of Sparda condemned inwardly as he found himself suddenly thrust unwittingly into an undignified role of an unwilling conquest and a third whe.el of a battle, questioning for the umpteenth time skyward what he did in this life or mayhap even a previous life to deserve such a farcical indignity.

Yet despite his scornful remarks toward the rose-themed witch, Vergil was aware of the potential threat that the seemingly dramatic quean possessed. It was no mere audacity that motivated her display of narcissism and grand speech. After all if she was well-informed of his lineage, then she too must have perceived the extent of his prowess, to which she demonstrated no trace of fear at. Which led him to this conclusion:

She must possess the necessary amount of power she believed capable to rival a Sparda, let alone claim one as her own.

The remaining question then was, Is it a mere specious vanity or truly an indisputable fact?

There was only one way to ascertain which. For much to his knowledge, there was indeed a convent of witches of such caliber wherein mentioned in one of his father's memoir. This Joanne Rosa, for all her lurid obsession toward the color pink, could be one of their acolytes or affiliation.

"Yoᥙ ᥣost thᥱ rιght to ᥴomρᥣᥲιᥒ thᥱ momᥱᥒt ყoᥙ mᥲdᥱ ყoᥙr ᥕᥲყ ιᥒto thᥱ boᥙᥒtყ ᥣιst, dᥱmoᥒ!" Joanne exclaimed with an exaggerated twirl of staff and unnecessary display of hair flicking, yet demonstrated a level of advanced magical level by hurling multiple rose-patterned orbs of energy to Van Ink without appearing remotely strained. "Bᥱsιdᥱs, ᥲᥣᥣ ιs fᥲιr ιᥒ boᥙᥒtყ hoᥙᥒtιᥒg ᥲᥒd ᥣovᥱ~" She bat her eyelashes suggestively at the cambion at the last word.

A dire foolishness on her part.

The witch's expression made an unappealing transition between provocative come-hither look and genuine shock when Vergil joined in the battle and send a Judgement Cut toward her. The rapid slashes of demonic energy managed to intercept an orb aimed at Van Ink, yet it missed the witch who managed to teleport away in the last few seconds to avoid it.

The Yamato was unsheathed in all of her deadly and sleek glory, her sharp edge pointed at the flabbergasted witch who reappeared upon the top of a nearby debris.

“I have warned you, venal pythoness,” the Slayer decried trenchantly. “Now, prepare to answer for the ramification of your transgression.”

vischys:

The cambion looked skyward in utter aggravation and askance, for he was certain that some sort of power up there must have taken out their frustration upon him and was currently having the time of their divine existence at his expense.

Keep Reading

Ink doesn’t know what’s worst, this lady yelling too much at her for no reason or how much perfume she wears. It’s making her eyes winced and making her gag. Full of chemical and fake flowers. It smells like what old ladies put on. It’s that bad.

Though she learned something about the guy from her. She’s fighting someone is related to some guy named Dark Knight Sparda who beat the Devil King one-on-one and sealed him? That sounds pretty awesome now she is thinking about it. No! It is awesome! “Oh, okay! So he’s famous. That sounds kinda cool.” Ink commented which irrates the witch by how Ink is being too casual about the topic of Sparda. Like she is not frighten by the revealed historic fact, more like accepting it and move on.

Keep reading

#now i'm motivated! 『reply』#demon blood youths #van ink the dragon #lmao vergie has been making the most flabbergasted expression in his life in this thread #i second about needing a vacation #the man also needs friends #eyes ink and shdwkyz

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avatarsymbolism · 8 years ago

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I Shouldn’t Have to Fight Against ATLA Fandom Imperialist Apologia in 2017, and Yet...

Hey dudes and dudettes!

So, I know a lot of you…most of you…are super excited about the LOK comic “Turf Wars, Part 1�� that just came out. And that’s great.

But of course, fandom and society being as it is, it appears that there’s been a lot of controversy about this comic and the themes found within. Not just about shipping, but about some of the ideas presented in the comic as well.

One particular panel that’s been the center of a lot of this controversy though is this little panel which features Kya telling Korra and Asami how the Fire Nation used to be relatively tolerant of homosexual relationships until everything changed when Firelord Sozin made that illegal:

Some of the complaints that I have seen about this panel (by people on all sides of this debate) include the following:

How can you talk about the Fire Nation being homophobic without also mentioning their many other crimes like the Air Nomad Genocide?

The Fire Nation being homophobic doesn’t make sense because this revelation came out of nowhere.

It doesn’t make sense for the Fire Nation to be homophobic because they were at the forefront of progress and wanted to spread their higher standard of living to the rest of the world.

It doesn’t make sense for the Fire Nation to be homophobic because they were the most egalitarian of the Four Nations.

It doesn’t make sense for the Fire Nation to have been homophobic because they were already imperialist and racist.

Now, it’s really not my place to talk about queer representation in media but, as someone who has spent a lot of time reading and learning about history, it really, really grinds my gears when I see people spewing this kind of garbage, especially when it reeks of an ignorance of history and a lack of historical understanding.

Let’s go over this point by point though.

Claim 1: How can you talk about the Fire Nation being homophobic without also mentioning their many other crimes like the Air Nomad Genocide?

Kya was specifically talking about same-sex relationships, and not stuff like Sozin’s imperialist endeavors, and the Air Nomad Genocide. While we we also learn that the Air Nomads were very open, chances are Kya wouldn’t mention the Genocide unless those two were somehow related.

Furthermore, Kya says that Sozin criminalized same-sex relationships when he first took power, which happened sometime during the 12 years that Roku spent traveling the world and training, and not when he started to go through with his imperialist plan. This means that same-sex relationships became illegal when Sozin was between 16 and 28 years of age.

With that said, it’s a basic rule of essay writing that you should always stay on topic. As such, Kya was keeping to the topic at hand: how same-sex relationships were historically viewed in each of the Four Nations, which is why she didn’t bring up the other atrocities that Sozin committed.

Claim 2: The Fire Nation being homophobic doesn’t make sense because this revelation came out of nowhere.

Ok, aside from the fact that maybe, just maybe, this issue didn’t need to come up in LOK or ATLA prior to the introduction of this comic (although it could have, but that’s a discussion for another day), this claim really intrigues me because this isn’t the first time that something happened “out of nowhere.”

For example,, the first time we’ve seen terms like ‘ashmaker,’ and ‘dirt girl’ thrown around as slurs was in “The Promise.”

Prior to that, the only time we’ve heard an Avatar character using anything close to a racial slur was when the Warden called earthbenders savages in “Imprisoned,” and when Sokka called the Fire Nation savages for burning down a forest. But even then that’s stretching it.

And yet, no one said a word when Smellerbee and her fellow Freedom Fighters suddenly started to call Fire Nation people ashmakers, even though it would have made canonical sense for someone like Jet to have used that slur prior to her.

But even more irksome is this panel with King Kuei from “North and South” which starts a whole little subplot about how King Kuei has some antiquated ideas about what is and isn’t civilization:

So apparently it’s “out of nowhere” for the Fire Nation to be homophobic, but King Kuei being an imperialist and Earth Kingdom/Fire Nationfolk suddenly throwing around racial slurs isn’t?

How does that work?

Claim 3: It doesn’t make sense for the Fire Nation to be homophobic because they were at the forefront of progress and wanted to spread their higher standard of living to the rest of the world.

Ok, first of all, Sozin, like many of his real life imperialist counterparts saw his nation as being superior to all those around him. Second of all, just like many of his real life imperialist counterparts, Sozin sought to share his nation’s prosperity with the rest of the world…through war and conquest.

That’s not “spreading your standard of living,” that’s being a warmongering imperialist and destroying the world around you in the name of “progress.”

Second, how are these two ideas incompatible?

You can can be the ruler of an imperialist nation but at the same time be any number of things. Mao, with his: Great Leap Forward” had homosexuals arrested. The West too has had a long history of having negative views of homosexuality and femininity alongside its imperialist history.

And while the Fire Nation draws a lot of its influence from Japan–which historically had a tolerant view of homosexual relationships until the nation began to Westernize–we shouldn’t forget that 1) there is no real 1 to 1 comparison when it comes to real world influences of the Avatar world, and 2) the writers are allowed creative freedom.

Claim 4: It doesn’t make sense for the Fire Nation to homophobic because they were the most egalitarian of the Four Nations.

This claim can probably pertain to two things:

There have canonically been female Firelords prior to Azula and Izumi

We’ve seen women among the Fire Nation’s ranks

And to that I say, so what?

For all its goddesses and views on homosexuality, the Greeks and Romans were still very misogynist. Sure, they were open about sexuality, but check out this snippet about Julius Caesar:

And to emphasize the bad name Caesar had won alike for unnatural and natural vice, I may here record that the Elder Curio referred to him in a speech as: “Every woman’s man and every man’s woman.”

And, while I should also note that views of homosexuality during this time were more about who took the penetrative or domineering role as opposed to the actual act itself, there was still a taboo regarding who took what role, with those taking the more passive role being seen as woman-like and weaker than those in the more dominant position.

On a similar note, when the Japanese and Chinese did allow for open, same-sex relationships, women were still thought to be inferior to men.

Furthermore, you can still have a female Firelord while also having misogynist and/or homophobic views. Just look at Queen Victoria or Queen Elizabeth.

And even beyond that, queens like Margaret of Anjou had to fight against patriarchal institutions that wanted nothing more than to tear them down. And sure, you also had your occasional Eleanor of Aquitaine who’d manage to hold their own, but a lot of the time it was a constant uphill struggle for women throughout history.

It wasn’t egalitarianism with these historical queens, but finding a way to make the system work in their favor.

And as far as the existence of women in the Fire Nation military is concerned, this appears to a recent development since all the women we see in the Fire Nation military are relatively young. In fact, the closest thing to have to older Fire Nation women fighting or commanding armies are Lo and Li who were Azula’s firebending instructors.

This has some real world historical backing too since we’ve see countries on both sides of WWII employ women as the war dragged on.

But again, this doesn’t mean that homophobia and misogyny are impossible. If anything, the slow inclusion of women within the Fire Nation ranks demonstrates that some progress can eventually be made in regards to the rights of women and people in the LGBT community.

Claim 5: It doesn’t make sense for the Fire Nation to have been homophobic because they were already imperialist and racist.

Sozin was already a racist, genocidal imperialism. Him also being a homophobe isn’t that much of a reach.

Also, “it doesn’t make sense for [person] to be [one type of bigot] because they were already [another type of bigot]?” Really? This is an argument?

You can be more than one type of bigot. History has proved this time and time again. How is this a valid argument?

Anyway, that concludes my rant. Thanks for reading.

#sozin #fire nation #atla #lok #both #influences #commentary #turf wars spoilers #commentary: influences #commentary: general from both

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hiya-im-mary · 2 years ago

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Invader Zim:Irksome Conquest

Chapter 1,Part 1:Wild Irken Chase

Entering [Name Town].. It Was An Odd Place,To Say The Least. It Was Like The Strange Uncle You Only See At Family Gatherings Of Towns. It Can Be Strangely Dark…And Not As In Lacking Of Light! Several Areas Have Their Logos Mispelled,People Can Be Oddly Rude,Or Ignorant…Some People Might Not Even Be Human…

Enter The Membrane Family. A World Renowned Scientist…We Do Not Need To Introduce Him. He Invented The Amazing Creation That Was Super Toast! Does He REALLY Need An Introduction? Either Way,Him And His Kids Live In This Strange Town.

Dib:A Child With Strange “Theories” About Super Natural Creatures Existing. No One Seems To Believe Him,However. Most People Can’t Or Won’t Open An Eye To It. This Frustrates Him Greatly. And No,He Does Not Have A Big Head. Who Told You That-

Gaz:Very Intimidating For A Little Girl. Loves Video Games,And Bloaty’s Pizza Hog. No One Would Want To Make Her Mad In Any Sence. Knows About One Specific Theory Dib Has Is Real,But Doesn’t Bother To Help

Mary:Last And Adopted Child. A Very Sweet And Polite Kid;A Very Strange Difference Compared To Anyone Else In The Town,But That Might Just Be Because She Didn’t Originate There! Knows About Dib’s Theories,And Is Supporting! Though,She’s Made Friends With A Very Important “Specimen” Dib Hunts…Much To The Dismay Of Dib.

“Come On…Where Is It?!” Dib Said,Stressed. The Home’s Garage Has All Of Dib’s “Proof” Of The Supernatural Inside. And Something Happened To Be Missing. This Was Very Worrying For Him.

“Could You Really Have Lost It. No One Even Goes In Here Anyway…” Gaz Responded,As She Played A Game On One Of Her Handheld Consles.She Was Annoyed With Her Brother’s Crisis. What Does It Take To Have Peace Around Here Anyway?

“Wait,What Did You Lose Exactly? I Can Help If You Want!”

Mary Peaked Around The Garage Enterance,Curious. Her Recently Step Brother Seemed More Stressed That Usual.It Was Worrying!

“It…It Was One Of The Most Dangerous Irken Spaceships I Kept From Zim Yet! Keeping It Here Was A Job I Did To Keep This Planet Safe! I Tried To Hide It As Much As I Could And-“

He Kept Throwing Other Things Back In A Desperate Attempt To Find Said Ship. Mary Caught One Of Those Things. A Weird Sphere Shaped Device. She Looked At It,Confused But Intrigued. But The Device Sparking Up Was Enough To Tell Her To Put It Down. Dib Was Still Rambling About How The Ship Was Missing And How It Would Be Detrimental For Possibly The Whole Planet.

“I’ll Help You Anyway!”

“You Haven’t Even Been In Here Before-“

“…As Much As Dib!”

“Do You Even Know What The Ship Looks Like?”

“…”

“…Dib What What Does The Ship Look Like?”

Mary Questioned,Trying To Answer Gaz

“…Well,It Had-“

“LIKE THIS!!!”

Called Out Another Person,From The Front Of The Garage. The Siblings Turned Around To See A Green,Bug Like Alien Piloting The Ship. We All Know Him. Zim! Next To Him Was A Small Robot. That Was Gir.The Small Robot Waved At The Kids. Mary Was The Only One To Wave Back.

“ZIM!!! HOW DID YOU-“

“From What I Know,Humans Are Suprisingly Bad At Locking Their Walls! But Still Hide Strange Pink Fluff In Them.”

“YOU WERE IN THE WALLS?!”

“…That’s Wall Insulation”

“…Your Strange Human Terms Attempt Mock Me. AND THEY FAIL!!!” The Alien Yelled. Before Pressing A Button

“Now If You’ll Excuse Me,Zim Has Earth Conquering To Do.”

The Ship Sprouted Tube Like Arms And Sped Off Across The Street,Zim Laughing Maniacally Throughout The Process.

“Gah!!! You’re Not Getting Away!” Dib Yelled,If Zim Could Hear Him. He Turned To The Other Kids With Him.

“…Are You Gonna Help Or-“

“She Will-“

“I Will!!!”

“Then There’s No Time To Waste!!!”

“You Wasted More By Asking Us To Help”

“And You Wasted More By Saying That. NOW LET’S GO!!!”

Two Of The Three Kids Ran After Zim. Gaz Staying Behind,As She Walked Back Inside. This Was Annoying,But Normal To Her

Now,Let’s Introduce Our Chase-Ee’s.

Zim:A “Ruthless” Alien. Specifically An Irken . He Was Supposedly Sent By His Tallest. But The Tallest Didn’t Really “Send” Him For It. They Just Wanted To Get Rid Of Him. Zim Doesn’t Know This,However. And He Will Stop At Nothing To Please Them By Invading And Taking Over Earth! Yet Still Befriended A Human

Gir:A Defective Robot,Compared To Others Of His Kind. Would Prefer To Role Around In Pizza Then Take Over The World. He Has The Mind Of A Child On Too Much Sugar. This Annoys Zim Most Of The Time.

Mini Moose:Wait What? Mini Moose Was Also In The Ship. Just Floating There. He’s Mini,He’s A Moose,He Says “Nya!”… Not Sure What Else Can Be Said…Oh He’s Also A Weapon Of Destruction

“We’re Not Gonna Catch Up That This Rate!” Dib Uttered,Panting Over All The Running.

But…He Noticed Something On Mary. She Was Still Holding That Sparking Spherical Item He Tossed Earlier. He Knew What That Was! A Teleportation Sphere-O Matic 9000!

And Just Like That,Dib Got An Idea

Next >

#Invader Zim #Irksome Conquest #Invader Zim Irksome Conquest #IZ Irksome Conquest #Writing #Self Insert #I Had To Split Chapter 1 Into Two Parts #I’ll Post Part Two Soon

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nicksstoryvault · 7 years ago

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Steve politely thanks the doorman to the high-rise apartment building as he makes his way inside, carrying bags of groceries in his hands. Heat enveloped him as his body basks in the warmer temperature indoors, yet he can't repress a small shudder as the residual cold left from outside begins to wear off. He lightly shrugs off the collected flurries that remained on his shoulder. The dark blue ski-jacket he wore could only insulate him so much. Despite the super-soldier serum in his blood keeping his body-temperature to a high level, even he had his limits. New York winters were as dreadful as spending an afternoon listening to Tony spout about quantum-mechanics. He was thankful to have gotten Bucky's little guys over to Natasha's safehouse over in the Bronx before it got colder. The thought of the Russian filled Steve with glowing warm feeling that both alarmed and excited him. Seeing her as a blonde now had done more than just take him by surprise, he felt an infectious desire to try and make himself look even more presentable despite how scruffy and muzzled he looked. He was thankful that she at least seemed to like the small beard he was growing and insisted he keep it. The former Captain America releases a sigh, dismissing the rush of heat in his cheeks as his body adapting to the warmer temperature and not because he was flushing. He didn't flush…Not anymore anyway. He had chosen not to stick around long enough to find out as he promptly left the pups in Nat's care for the night while he went shopping for essentials Bucky might need. As Steve makes his way into the elevator, he sets the bags of eggnog on the floor then pushes for the 9th floor. Once the doors close, he removes his Dodger's cap and wipes off the residual flurries then smooths his growing hair back. A wistful sigh brushes past his lips as he looks over his appearance in the polished reflection on the wall. If it weren't for the blue ski-jacket, jeans and baseball cap, he wouldn't feel let alone look like himself. Precautions, he knew. Tensions still lingered due to the Civil War a year ago, and even if he and his friends were pardoned, he preferred to remain under the radar. Its how he lived for the past 20 months. Normalcy was a slow factor for him and the others. He was thankful that Bucky at least had found a new beginning and made himself a family, one he was grateful to be included in. He wasn't sure he'd have anything or anyone right now if it weren't for Bucky…and Natasha. Once the elevator doors open, Steve shifts away from his troubled thoughts and makes his way down the immaculate hallway towards the room around the corner. His approach was stalled as his hearing detected something familiar and dreadful coming from Bucky's apartment. The scent of mounting rage.

The dominant ferocity of the wolf spirit Bucky possessed have him feral cunning of poise and tolerance He avoided to engage the invader of his domain, her presence stoked murderous instinct to lunge for an effective attack of brutal --relentless force; he couldn't risk exposing the rearing beast inside. His baby pups were in the crosshairs of this malefic harvester who desired to snatch them away and butcher them into furry ensembles of clothing for the runaway. Anyone who murdered preciously adorable babies deserved to burn in Hell. Samone St. Claire resonated with unobstructed wickedness, an unsated hunger that felt nightmarish to reckon with. At the moment of standing in the doorway leading into the hall, Bucky remained unshakeable on his socked feet, his steel-aquamarine eyes slitted razor sharp under dark chestnut tresses as his pudgy, stubbled cheeks grew taut against the betrayal of aggression. His message was clear, as a seething growl vibrated up his throat---no one messed with his kids. His full lips pulled viciously into a sneer as he listened to the faint whimpers of his babies calling for him. The urge to morph back into a wolf couldn't be evaded. He dreaded to even fathom the scope of lives she already claimed for her fashion project. "Get it through your head, lady," he snarled, his deep timbre edged with a shred of resistance."My pups are never gonna be priced in that damn checkbook of yours..." His nose scrunched up, as he glared heatedly down at her purse."Get the hell out of my place, away from my pups, before M' gonna drag you out..."

The front door to the apartment was thrown open suddenly, pulling Bucky back from the edge of his composure before he could descend into rage. Steve entered with a poised stance, having left the bags outside, and immediately stands between Bucky and a mysterious woman he had never seen before. "Its all right, Bucky," he says with an assuring tone, despite the gleam of caution in his blue eyes hinting he was prepared for a confrontation if it came. Bucky himself appeared like a cornered animal that was seconds away from lashing out, his stare shifting from Steve to the woman behind him. "The lady was just leaving," Steve says more pointedly, this time directing his gaze to the well-dressed blonde woman standing near the couch. He'd never seen her before, but if he were to guess, she was Bucky's fashionably-sadistic boss that he talked about. She reeked of wealth and arrogance, yet oddly enough she didn't appear to even remotely fazed by his presence or Bucky's increasing display of hostility. "Ma'am, can I show you out? My friend has had a long day and needs to rest." Steve says, hoping the woman wouldn't be too stubborn and give him trouble.

Scowling in mocked disgust, Samone lifted a finger at Bucky's direction, aiming a merciless promise of her wrath at his chest. Her grayish-cerulean irises gleamed with a serpentine flare of green, as her polished lips arced into an insipid sneer."Mark my words, James Barnes those pitiful runts--piglets you risk to defend will taste death...I will have them, for there are many ways to glut a heart out." She gazed beyond Bucky's coiling shoulders, towards the darkness of his bedroom, and smirked malevolently, before turning back to the doorway with fluid, viperous grace. "You just need to know where to drive the blade..."

It was an interlude of her venomous wake of harnessing a new rebirth power; collecting a hundred infant wolf pups was the first stage of her reckoning over Asgard, now she was preparing for the ritual. Standing with causal poise, Samone sipped a glass of wine, relishing the potent taste as firelight gleamed in her serpentine cerulean eyes, exposing nake malice as she felt the vigorous essence surging in the air. Midnight would the hour of her murderous conquest. Blood would pour and fur stripped into a cloak fitting for a queen. Presently, she was waiting for the defiant mortal who recklessly dared to challenge her blade of vengeance --James Barnes, the father of the little runts she had stolen after subduing him into a dormant stasis. His worthless pups would be the first to feel a butchering ax...She might even make him watch their furry bodies squirm under her viperous shadow. "Soon I will ravage the souls of this pitiful realm, and gut out my younger brother's heart," she hissed sinisterly, her raspy voice, deep with cold malevolence."I will keep the Trickster alive at my heel, my dear Loki proves to be useful..."

There was only the slightest creek of pressure on the floorboards outside of the living room as two stealthy shapes hide behind cover outside of the living room. Blue eyes stare with concealed rage at the wealthy blonde woman who had her back to them, drinking from a glass of wine. She appeared disarmed and casual as if she didn't have a care in the world. The thought was infuriating given the heinous acts the fashionist had committed recently. She exuded a confidence and strength that betrayed her wealthy appearance. It meant she was either foolishly arrogant and overconfident, or she was quite simply: more-than-meets-the-eye. It didn't matter, she was alone and had much to answer for. Two sets of blue eyes meet each other's gaze and the silent message exchanged between them ushers them into action. "Samone," Bucky sneers, entering with his gun-drawn in a flanking position. Behind him, the imposing shape of Steve Rogers looms as a background enforcer should any surprises decide to come in.

“I must say, this intrusion is proving to be quite irksome, James," Samone haughtily laughed against the assailing fury clashing between them, her pale rose lips quickly curved into a devilish smirk, conveying her malignant intent. Her stern expression revealed vague irritant as she gazed unwaveringly into Bucky's arresting steel-blue eyes shadowed by damp brunette tresses, no doubt from the heavy snowfall outside."You think that a wrenched blade can obstruct me..." There was a pause in her spiteful words, as a continuous strain of high-pitched whimpers echoed through the floorboards, stealing Bucky's focus."Darling, you have no idea who I am...Your runts are dead."

A painfilled look appeared across Bucky's face at that, as if a knife had been pierced into his heart. His limbs unconsciously shook while he continued to hold the gun in his hands. Samone's vicious remark had nearly triggered him into a red haze where the only thing that mattered was putting a bullet in her skull. It was a testament to his self-control that he hadn't acted on that impulse. She was lying, he could feel it in his bones, despite a small part of his mind that was plagued by doubt, telling him its what he needed to believe. "Bucky…" Steve says worriedly, having no doubt expected some form of violent reaction to what he just heard. The First Avenger wouldn't have blamed him, he might've acted the same way too if not for his years of discipline. "You're lying," Bucky sneers at Samone, his steel blue orbs glistening with restrained emotion. "You wouldn't have gone through all this trouble for them just to butcher em into a damned coat like all the others. " He says pointedly, finding a mild reassurance by the thought. Either this woman was incredibly obsessive to go to such lengths to steal a litter of pups she could easily find elsewhere, or his children meant something more to whatever sick game she was running. "I don't care who the hell you are lady," his grip around his Beretta becomes tighter while his aim remains unshakable. "You broke into my home, attacked me, and took my kids. Either you tell me where they are or I'm gonna shoot your knees out. And that's just the start of it." He threatened, an edge of malice creeping in while the chasms of his eyes became ever darker.

Detecting the Bucky was on the verge of abandoning restraint, Samone advanced with fluid precision in her encroaching steps, with a vigor and intimation that an ageless warrior possessed. The assonance of the blood song she craved to hear again, was reachable as she shorted the distance between her and Bucky. A sinister aura gleamed menacingly in her icy blue eyes, like flash of a blade as she lowered her hands slowly to her sides, her tone markedly colder with no regard for mercy. Her unbidden blood-thirst was insatiable--the babies she kept locked inside chicken-wire cages were vessels of Asgardian power --her beloved wolf's essence was surging in their infant bodies, waiting to be extracted. Staring a the Beretta clutched in Bucky's metallic hand, she merely shrugged with indifference. "The weapons you arm yourself with, my dear James, have no effect on me---I am the one who brings death here..." To exhibit her threat, she bent her wrists down at black granite spikes emerged from the green tendrils of energy she conquered. "Either you kneel before me, or I will make you watch your little runts bleed as I squeeze the life out of them in my hands."

The tension in the room began to reach a boiling point as Bucky glared at Samone with muted shock. Steve had watched the confrontation unfold with mountain trepidation as he began to realize this wasn't just a malicious and crazy businesswoman they were confronting. She exuded power and dominance as if it were nature to her. The shimmering specks of light in her blue-green eyes were iridescent and brilliant. It was familiar as he'd seen such traits in one other being; an Asgardian Trickster. Dread sunk into the First Avenger's gut once he and Bucky witnessed her show of magic, conjuring sharpened blades that appeared other-worldly as well as fearsome. "Who are you?!" Steve demands with a determined look in his eyes, assuming his own fighting stance despite the fact he no longer had his shield.

Hearing the hitching tremor edged within Steve’s firm baritone, Hela merely shrugged in response, conveying her indecorous amusement, as smoky darkness enshrouded over the spectral ivory of her flawless skin, morphing her alluring visage into a menacing viper infused with venomous intent. She was aware of his relentless fire of repulsive virtue, he reeked of it. “Darling, you should know that I am more than anything you’ve seen in your nightmares...” She curved her pale rose lips deviously, raising an onyx spike to shadow over Steve’s board chest. “I sense you carry a noble spirit, one that many warriors of Asgard I’ve slain bled out, but you are something that I can relish in the pleasure of enslaving, once my reckoning of vengeance ravages your mortal realm.”

The illumination of the faulty bulb hanging above him seemed to bleed into his vision; he couldn't summon the momentum to move; his canine form was spent and fattening with a swelling girth that made it intolerable to carry. The stink of puppy piss was becoming nauseously potent to inhale, a reminder of endless torment. For the last few weeks, Bucky endured the immeasurable of horrific nightmares that a father wouldn't dare to bare in a damnable reality, he was detached from his pups--his babies that had been stolen out of his apartment.

They were starving and weakening to point they lost mobility to crawl within the steel caged boxes across from. The devil women were slowly killing them. With banking ferocity radiating a lethal aura, he wanted to slash her throat open with his incisor fangs, taste her blood as it smeared over his muzzle....The merciless spell cast she placed left him ineffectively dormant as a breeding, fat, Brooklyn sow, forced to comply with the ravenous little mouths that latched onto the bloated expanse of his belly---orphaned pups who had been snatched away after Samone murdered she-wolves in cold blood. He couldn't keep with supply and demand for his milk reserves; his canine form wasn't used to having an oversized litter suckling, but his fatherly nature submitted when he stared at the little furballs, some of them were pudgy, pink snouted newborns--sightless and barely the size of his forepaw. The whelps needed him and being a generous Brooklyn boy at heart, he would never reject their hunger.

"Bucky?" The voice calling out to him seemed distant as if he were below water and all sound was obscured by the pressure bearing down on him. Once cohesion set in, Steve's familiar baritone voice reached his ears from the outside his cage he was locked in. Across the dimly lit chamber, a hulking large frame laid beaten and chained inside a magically reinforced cell. The bars were glimmered with a shining metal that couldn't be found anywhere on Earth, the energy emanating from it made the hair on Steve's skin rise as his hands were shackled to the floor. His serum-enhanced strength felt drained and non-existent.

He couldn't move, and could barely bring himself to speak after the harsh encounter with the mysterious woman who turned out to be more than a fashion-obsessed mogul. "Bucky, you hear me?" Steve tried for the third time, hoping the scratchiness of his voice could be hear across the room.

Responding to Steve's grated, sonorous tone, Bucky quelled back the rampant surge of nausea, lifting his long muzzle off the cement floor, grimacing at the sudden tension possessing his shackled. laden paws as he lay rigidly on his side, exposing the inflating roundness of his enlarged girth as milk swelled with pulsating sloshes. A whimpering groan emitted out of his raw throat, while he steered his luminous glacial blue eyes towards the gated cell, furrowing his brow as he searched for Steve. Heartache was naked in his steel-aquamarine depths when his pointed ears twitched up against the distressed squeaks of his captive pups. They wanted Daddy's warmth. "S--Steve," he slurred in a graveled undertone, his voice crackling from disuse. He was feverish and exhausted from nursing fifteen pups, but he still welcomed the anchoring presence of his best friend."It's good to hear ya....” he whispered breathlessly, using Steve’s stern timbre to anchor him out of vacuous despair. He couldn’t elude the damning reality of being detached from his pups. The extent of that heartache was knifing to relent against. “H--How are my pups, can't see em' from my damn end."

"They're all right. Look like they're asleep," Steve grimaced as he made an effort to raise his voice so Bucky could hear him. His side ached by the bruising force of impact he felt by the formidable woman that attacked and kidnapped not just him and Bucky, but Bucky's children as well. Despite the many unprecedented things he'd experienced in his life-time, the First Avenger felt the universe was determined to surprise him every step through his life with something new. Once he heard the soft whine coming from his friend's cell, he struggled to shift himself towards him, only to be reminded of his predicament as he felt a jolt of electricity come from the shackles binding him. "Y-You all right, Buck? Anything injured or broken? He asked tiredly, grimacing at the beads of sweat trailing down his head the collection already splayed across his back. Why was it so hot down here? Where were they in fact?

or a long space of a moment, Bucky didn't answer, the stoking aggression he stowed back was receding each time he listened to the high-pitched whimpers of his precious babies, they were fading in volume--dying. He bared his fangs in uneasiness, drawing up seething growls as his muzzle ruckled up. Hearing them whine for him was a torturous--heart splitting echo that grew constant in the resonance of utter despair. His hatred for Samone was unquenchable and deathless.

With effort, Bucky tried lifting the heaviness of his bulky form up, only to feel the gravity of his secured chains pinning him down to a level of pitiful submission. He reared his head up, and howled in a high pitch volume."Damnit, Steve, I can't move...The witch dame or whatever the hell she is as got me on the ropes..." he rasped, scathingly, dragging his claws over the floor. "Grah...I gotta break out of these, save em' before she..." He paused, refusing to say the dreaded word dissecting his heart. "We gotta get the little furballs out, save as many of em' as we can..."

Steve tensed up as he listened to the noises of distress suddenly coming from the sleeping little pups in the smaller cage to his off to his right. It sounded as painful as a vice-like grip tightening around the most vital organ in the body. He wasn't sure if their unease stemmed from a fear of their predicament or the absence of warmth and nourishment that came from their alpha. "We will, Bucky." Steve issued out assuredly, easily slipping into his role of Captain and friend. He knew that a distressed and panic-stricken Bucky wasn't one to think cohesively. Not that he'd blame him in this situation. Struggling against his own shackles, Steve looks around his cage for anything that could be used in his escape. Having been trained at Camp Leigh and from the greatest spy in the modern world, Steve knew a thing or two about picking his way out of locks, sadly his experience with handling magically enchanted chains was very limited. "We just need to think. Whatever that woman wants, she kept us alive for it, so we—"

"What I desire, mortal soldier is to devour the pure essence those little runts harbor," Samone replied in her polished spiteful raspy, looming in the darkness with changeable poise and menace of a cobra, venomous in her wake of coldness as she advanced closer to the gated enclosures, her grayish-emerald irises slitted into a luminous gleam a she cast a soulless glower at the squirming litters barred under musky reeking blankets--some of them only days old and staggering with threads of strength to survive another milking session. Her murderous intent was an infective poison that seeped into the pups', as pitches of whimpers increased with alarm, she merely smirked at the display of senility. "These little darlings carry the spirit of my beloved pet...An eternal reckoning will soon arise once every pup is drained...Their fur will make new royal garments to adorn my armor..."

“No!!” Bucky snarled in a thunderous, ear-splitting clamor. Stokes of rage were quaking for an explosive. detonation, as he bared his jutted fangs viciously at Samone, his steel-aquamarine irises shifted coldly into the vapid white of moonlit intensity, the darkness of his wolf spirit was repossessing his measures of thrashing restraint. He pinned his ears back, flatly, expressing his fierce intentness to comply with the rapid convergence of bloodlust, he was fully engaged to deliver a killing bite to her exposed throat. All blood rushed through his latent muscles, as the distressed whimpers of his baby pups fueled his desperate momentum, as Bucky strove to bash his head against the bars, knowing his enhanced strength would dent an opening. No one caged his kids---damn her for placing a fatal threat to their lives. The resurgence of instinct amplified into a dangerous tumult. "The only stuff you're gonna be wearin’ is blood spillin' out of your damn throat..." he growled furiously, in a cadence of impending death.

"Who are you?!" Steve demanded with a steel-edge in his tone. Despite his stalwart poise and saint-like patience, he felt his discipline begin to crumble as he watched this powerful and heinous woman torture not just his best friend, but three innocent little babies who were also defenseless. He showed no signs of fear as the woman's icy blue eyes turned on him. There was an age to their depths that betrayed her youthful beauty. She appeared amused by him but also indifferent to whatever he had to say. He recognized that arrogance too well. "Someone as powerful as you would've turn up on SHIELD or the Avengers' radar a long time ago. And you don't strike as the patient type, kidnapping three innocents from their father." He observed. "You fought like someone who's had decades of experience, which says a lot given it was two super-soldiers you just beat." His jaw clenching, Steve's passive eyes became knowing in their scrutiny. "You're an Asgardian aren't you?"

“Well, well, aren’t you a farsighted boy,” Samone berated with a raspy hiss, watching the First Avenger keep his guard up as she possessively caressed the steel bars of the cages with malefic intent, forcing the pups to tremble in unison against her imposing shadow as she encroached closer to Steve’s cell with predatory grace, trying to cut through his defiance. “You have no idea what horrors I can unleash if you don’t bite your tongue boy,” she warned, heatedly flashing him a lethal glint. “These little babies surge with the vitality of Asgard, a lifeblood to be wielded as instruments of death…They are descents to the great wolves of legend, and will soon help me conceive a true nightmare for devouring mortals…”

"Het," Bucky snarled bitingly in Russian, his bloated canine form resonated with a murderous aura —he thrashed his head against the bars in vicious sways, as his jutted muzzle brushed the corroded steel; his intent was resolved by continuous whimpers of his baby pups, evoking reserves of his feral strength into cold fusion. Each throb was pulsing as he lashed out, drawing his pointed ears against his skull, as his luminous steel-blue eyes morphed hauntingly into a deaden --menacing white. "You stay the hell away from my pups..." he barked out warningly, shifting his livid gaze at the shadowed cages. “Touch em' and you're gonna be sorry..."

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