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alethiometry · 4 years ago

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thinkin about an alternate take on odyssey’s cult of kosmos storyline that may culminate in a blatant ripoff of valhalla but bear with me here lmao

instead of deimos continually antagonizing you the entire game as you try desperately to convince them that the cult is simply using them, deimos is actively trying to recruit you to fight alongside them. you are both demigods descended from sparta’s greatest hero, two sides of the same coin, etc. etc. as you go around killing cultists you get those cutscenes where each cultist gets to have one final say (just like all the other ac games) and while many joined and profited from the war for selfish reasons, there are enough of those who had lofty ideals that maybe you start to see that the two warring nations are both truly broken beyond repair. people are suffering because of the war, and for every callous profiteer that joined the cult to make a quick buck there’s also someone who joined just to survive, or because if you can’t beat em, join em -- at the least, they could then maybe stand a chance at protecting the people they love, even if it means others will have to pay that price. that’s just the way the world works, right?

and so after the battle of amphipolis and after killing the rest of the cult, you return to the cave of gaia in delphi and find not only deimos but also the ghost of kosmos down there, in front of the pyramid. deimos is still nursing his wounds from where kleon shot him, and the ghost finally unveils herself. both get their villain-y monologues about how it’s all for the greater good, everyone who died along the way was sacrificing themselves for a better world and the world will remember what they did -- but that will only happen if you join them. if you’re there to make sure they mattered. and the pyramid with its weird little artifacts still draws you in like it did that first night you infiltrated their meeting, and you and deimos and the ghost all touch it and you all get teleported via videogame magic or isu technology or whatever the fuck who cares it’s just a stupid scifi game let me live to...

atlantis?

it’s the exact same look and feel as the dlc: humans and gods living in (apparent) harmony, people are happy, families are together, there’s laughter and music and plenty of food and leisure. the buildings are gorgeous, there’s like fountains and gardens and aquariums and other cool shit, and if not for the weird isu tech all over the place you’d almost think it was elysium. but it’s not elysium, because you’re not dead. deimos isn’t dead. and you’ve never felt more at peace. the ghost tells you that this is all perfectly achievable, if only you join them in helping construct this world from the ashes of the old. deimos tells you that they’ve seen this in their dreams; the world was truly like this once, and it could be again.

there’s no war to be fought here; no pain or suffering or loss. deimos sheathes their sword and tells you that they cannot just go back to being family in the real world, not after everything that has happened and all the suffering you both have experienced -- out in the real world, you were both doomed to be nothing more than shattered bones and streaks of gore at the foot of sparta’s sacred mountain. you don’t matter out there, and you never did, and they know you are tired of trying to prove that you do, because they’re tired too. but in here, in this world, you could be together. you could be the siblings you never got the chance to be. this is what they were fighting for all along. they gave their name, and their life, and their innocence and their pain -- all to achieve this. and with your help they can finally stop calling themself deimos and reclaim their old name. or the two of you could find new names. you could be gods. you could slaughter the old gods, the ones whose prophecies doomed you both to die at the foot of mount taygetos (deimos still doesn’t know the cult orchestrated that lmao listen the brainwashing runs deep). you could be anyone you want here.

all of this feels so real. you feel like you could stay here forever.

deimos extends their hand. you reach out to take it. to join them.

and something tumbles out of your pouch.

it’s a little wooden eagle, a child’s toy, battered and all scratched up with most of its defining features worn away. you know it well. you know every contour of it because a little girl gave it to you when you left the island where you and she once lived, to go make a name for yourself in a war that never seemed to end, until suddenly it did. you know this toy eagle because you folded that little girl’s cold, dead, still-bloody fingers around it one terrible night in athens. you were told, later, that the eagle burned with her on the pyre your friends constructed for her. and so the only reason this eagle is here now, the only reason you can run your hands along its outstretched wings and trace the whorls of the woodgrain with your fingertips and feel the slight weight of it in your palm is because none of this is real.

what is real is this: the cult existed, and phoibe died. leonidas died. perikles died. brasidas died. and you cannot live in a world where the very act of dying for the world they didn’t know they were helping to shape is the one thing that becomes the defining feature of their legacies. where their lives become nothing more than some kind of grotesque buttressing to prop up the very people who got them all killed.

there’s some kind of bossfight against deimos, who, despite their appeals to you to join them as a battlefield companion and true siblings after too many years lost between you, still doesn’t hesitate to turn against you as they always have the moment things do not go their way. because that’s the way it is between the two of you: they push, and you push back.

and the more you fight, the more atlantis crumbles. the others don’t seem to notice; they simply sit there and laugh and sip wine and dance and sing as stone after stone falls from the vast turrets and crushes first their companions, then them, into blood and bone and gristle. there’s a gate up on the highest tower of the city, and you know instinctively that without it you’ll be stuck here in this strange dream-limbo, fighting your sibling for eternity as both worlds, dream and real, carry on with or without you. and as you make your way to it (maybe there’s some sweet parkour opportunities here with like falling debris and such) deimos gives chase and as you draw closer to the gate you start to see that it’s not empty at all, but full of people crowing in to take a peek at all the commotion.

there’s sokrates and hippokrates and aristophanes. alkibiades looking uncharacteristically worried, and [insert any npc lieutentants you’ve recruited like roxana or odessa]. xenia is there, and so is anthousa. kyra and/or thaletas, too (depending on the outcome of the mykonos questline). and a gang of plucky little kids, all cheering you on: khloe, the girl with the clay friends; arsenios, the tour-guide-turned-con-artist; ardos and his caretaker. (and i guess nikolaos and stentor if they’re still alive lmao) (maybe pythagoras is allowed too but he’s on thin fucking ice)

and, of course, myrrine. standing at the forefront, shoulder to shoulder with barnabas and herodotos. all three of them -- alongside everyone else you’ve ever allied with, fought beside, or helped out -- everyone who loves you, everyone you’ve ever loved -- they’re beckoning you home. back to the real world, where they matter. where you matter.

where you have always mattered.

you’re so close to taking your mother’s hand, you can feel the warmth of her fingertips -- and then you hear a scream below you.

it’s deimos, and they’re falling. maybe they tripped in their haste to catch you. maybe some of the falling rubble knocked them off-balance. it doesn’t matter. the only thing that matters is that your sibling is falling to their doom. again. and there’s nothing you can do about it.

except this time there definitely is.

so you leap from the ledge with all the strength you have, the roaring in your ears drowning out myrrine’s shouts. you’ve fallen from greater heights, after all, and lived to tell the tale. this is nothing. and this time you’ll catch your sibling, because this is your dream, too. and in your dream, you can do whatever the fuck you want.

you catch deimos, the both of you still falling, the ground rushing up to meet you -- and you both wake in the cave of gaia with a jolt. each of you still have a hand on the pyramid, and you make eye contact. they give you the slightest of nods, as if to say i’m okay. i’m awake.

the ghost is still asleep, head bowed, eyes flitting to and fro behind closed eyelids, both hands still on the pyramid.

you destroy the pyramid with your grandfather’s spear. this wakes the ghost. she’s furious, and tells you that you’ve made a terrible mistake. the cult of kosmos may be extinguished, but the ideals she worked toward are not. (basically this kind of mirrors the whole spiel about the philosopher-king or whatever tf the ghost said at the end of the actual in-game storyline that foreshadowed the order of ancients and eventually the templars)

deimos looks to you and mutters that it’s your choice what to do next. the ghost tries to appeal to them but they’ve run out of fucks to give. they leave.

[kill the ghost] what it says on the label. you get a nice little ac-esque assassination cutscene and it’s actually got some emotional weight to the decision/scene, unlike the game.

[walk away] leave the ghost in the cave. the pyramid is gone, the cult is dead, your sibling is free. the ghost will live the rest of her life looking over her shoulder, knowing that the grandchildren of leonidas have seen her for what she is. knowing that whatever she does next, they’ll be watching closely.

when you leave the cave, you see deimos, pacing as they overlook the view of phokis from mount parnassos. it’s high noon and the sun glints brilliantly off their gilded armor. they glance at the temple of apollo and remark how strange it is to be standing here together, so close to the place where both your fates were sealed with just a few words from a puppet pythia a lifetime ago.

you ask what they’re going to do, now that the cult is gone.

the peace of nicias isn’t going to hold, they tell you. the war will start again soon enough, and when that happens both athens and sparta will be looking for champions to fight for their side.

dialogue choices:

[i’ll see you on the battlefield] you and your sibling part ways. subsequent conquest battles have a chance of spawning a bossfight against deimos who is fighting for the other side -- neither of you can perma-kill the other so you can encounter/fight them over and over again. at the end of the conquest battle, no matter who wins, you can see them walking up and down the battlefield and you can have some silly little sibling banter, which changes depending on who wins/loses the battle

[join me, fight with me] deimos joins your crew just like in the game. unlike the game, you can interact with them at any time while they’re walking up and down your ship and have sibling banter because i just want some decent fucking sibling banter in this game

no matter which option you pick, the first time you return to sparta after finishing this storyline you’ll have the option of entering your old family home and triggering the family dinner cutscene with all the surviving members of your family because goddammit even after all this wishful revisionism i still love that silly little family dinner

anyway in conclusion this is what i want out of odyssey, thanks for coming to my TED talk, don’t forget to smash that like&subscribe the way the eagle bearer definitely smashed brasidas’ fine spartan ass offscreen bc ubisoft were too smoothbrained to give us the romance we deserved

#tuserautumn #userbryn #assassin's creed #ac odyssey #cool story charlotte #can u tell i listened to 'leaving valhalla' one too many times on loop tonight and have been cryin in the club @ that doorway scene #idk fam i just want a remaster/retweaking of odyssey #where all the art direction and the characters and music and general story beats are the same #but with a more coherent narrative that doesn't disintegrate the moment you start prodding at the plot holes #yes i'm fully aware that deimos dies in novel/wiki canon NO i do NOT care. FUCK that. in this version deimos lives #anyway ub*s*ft hmu there's way more odyssey-reboot ideas where this came from and they're all WAY hornier + involve pegging spartan general #better yet just let me buy the fucking franchise already cmon #i've got IDEAS #i mean they're not GOOD ideas but like.#must ideas be good??? is it not enough simply fulfill all the desires in my selfish little gremlin heart????????

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cto10121 · 3 years ago

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Our Violent Ends (2021)—Review Part 3 + Conclusion

In which I finally get the Shanghainese politics straight, Kathleen becomes Celia out of nowhere, the Capulets Capulet too late, Roma and Juliette finally R&J nicely, Marshall/Benedikt are still not fully shippable, and Gong has the ovaries for a spectacular, apropos…perhaps not entirely earned ending. Spoilers, of course

“We listened to the modern age and never thought to control what you do,” Lord Cai said then, finally choosing to speak. His words were a low rumble that gave everything in the room a telltale tremor. “I see that it was our mistake.” (452)

A mistake their (frankly dumber) Shakespearean counterparts at least never made. I know why Gong decided against the whole sheltered!Juliet context of the original—namely because Strong Female Protagonists(tm) aka Macho Girl Jerks are now requisite in YA regardless if they are truly needed—but you lose a lot of what made the tragedy of the original work if Juliet is allowed to do whatever tf she wants and the parents get a case of Disappearing YA Parents syndrome. You also lose a good chance to criticize the male chauvinism and machismo that fuels and that is the basis for the violence.

Juliette choked out a laugh. “Do you think any of this would have turned out better if you had kept me trapped in the house? Do you think I would have never learned defiance if you had kept me in Shanghai all these years, educated only by Chinese scholars and their ancient teachings?” […] “I would have ended up the same. We are all held up on the city’s strings, and perhaps you should first ask why we have a blood feud before asking why I defied it!” (452)

Aaaaaaaand Juliette’s being educated in the States in the context of a critique on Western imperialism of a Chinese city still continues to bother me. I mean, Juliette can make it, sure. Perhaps she’s in a better position to make it, what with her knowing two cultures. But this Juliette carping on the white guys coming in and trying to buy the city while acting like the typical American brat just undermines the critique to me. Juliette herself never is self-aware about the advantages or the disadvantages of her own multiculturalism.

“Ask her. Ask Juliette what she did to Tyler.”

Utter silence descended on the room…Suddenly his refusal to bring her in on Scarlet planning made sense. Shutting her out of the Nationalist meetings made sense. How long had her father known? How long had he known she was a traitor and kept her here anyway, let her pretend that everything was normal? (455)

Beats me, too. How did they pass off Juliette’s murder of Tyler? Either I must have missed the conversation or Gong just decided to gloss over the cover up.

“Why must we remain enemies with the Montagovs when nobody remembers why?”

And yet wasn’t that the root of all hatred? Wasn’t that what made it so vicious?

There was never a reason. Never a good one. Never a fair one. (457).

Gong gets that right, at least.

The footsteps faded entirely. Only then did Juliette crumple into a ball, squeezing herself as small as she could upon the carpet, and let herself cry, let herself rage and scream into her hands. For the city, for the dead, for the blood that ran in rivers on the streets. For this cursed family, for her cousins.

For Roma. (457-458)

Per Roma, salve Roma, ciao Roma…*puts on sunglasses* Arrivederci Roma?

Let her drop an explosive to her bedroom floor, and it would send down a direct blast, strike all the people in the living room. Juliette felt a rush of loathing take root in her. She condemned the city for its hate. She condemned her parents, her gangs…But she was equally terrible. (460).

The first step is always acceptance. Seriously, though, WTF? She’d be condemning herself to death as well! And without Roma! Why must Juliette be the one to continuously lose braincells in these damn YA adaptations?

“I ruined us all for a love not true,” Rosalind whispered. “At the very least, I can still save you.” (472)

And now out of nowhere Rosalind regrets her liaison with Dimitri, the one who spread the monster virus (?). When did this even happen?

Juliette had wanted to be selfish, had wanted to run. But this was their love—violent and bloody. This city was their love. They couldn’t deny their upbringing as the heirs of Shanghai, as two pieces of a throne. What was left of their love if they rejected that? How could they live with themselves, look at each other, knowing they had been presented a choice and gone against who they were at their core? (484).

Dude. No. Run! Definitely run! This Shanghai makes RésJ!Verona look like a kindergarten sandbox fight! You two are sophisticated hot wealthy multilingual scions, and half of you already knows about life elsewhere! Come up with some contrivance in which you have to stay in the city, sure, but don’t give me this “Gosh darn it, I love this hellhole” crap. The original R&J may have decided to separate, but then Shakespeare!Verona was nowhere near as crappy. And when push came to shove re: Paris, Juliet accepted the necessity of fleeing with Romeo.

With her other hand, Juliette flipped open the lighter. She met Roma’s eyes, asked him in silence one last time if they were truly to do this. He showed no fear. He was gazing at her as one would gaze out into the sea, like she was this vast, momentous wonder that he was glad simply to bear witness upon. (486).

Don’t mind me, just basking in this novel’s (1) braincell about Roma’s love for Juliette. Ahhh, so good.

Behind them, with gasoline drenched into every square inch of the pavement, the explosion rang so loud and hot that all of Shanghai rocked with the blow. (487).

GONG FUCKING DID IT, Y’All. SHE WENT THERE. WHAT OVARIES OF STEEL. 100,000 POINTS TO FUCKING GRYFFINDOR.

That said. In a way, isn’t it a little unearned? This R&J has been growling fuck-you enemies for half the book and dewy-eyed let’s-pinkie-swear-and-get-“married” for the last quarter. If R&J had spent more time struggling to be together and less time on misunderstandings that get resolved quickly anyway, it may have been worth it. Also, if Gong had not decided to gumbo-soup the novel with, what, 2 other star-crossed couples, wishy-washy politics, and magic realist BS.

There will be hatred. There will be war. The country will fight itself to pieces. It will starve its people, ravage its land, poison its breath. Shanghai will fall and break and cry. But alongside everything, there has to be love—eternal, undying, enduring. Burn through vengeance and terror and warfare. Burn through everything that fuels the human heart and sears it red, burn through everything that covers the outside with hard muscle and tough sinew. Cut down deep and grab what beats beneath, and it is love that will survive after everything else has perished. (494).

Well-worded (except for the “and cry” bit. “Weep” would have been a more dignified word choice) and almost apropos if she hadn’t killed of her R&J. Love did not survive in that sense.

But with that, our tale ends! Arrivederci Roma…and Juliette.

BONUS: Gong included a little story on Marshall/Benedikt for the B&N edition. I decided to go ahead and review that too.

“I saw Roma leave only earlier,” Marshall said. “Right out into the rain without a care in the world.”

“Roma is a lost cause when it comes to making sensible decisions,” Benedikt countered. (504).

Oh, no, you don’t, Benedikt “Screw my reasonable pacifist Shakespearean counterpart, I go pew pew too” Montagov! Roma does have some one-braincell moments, mostly when he thinks Juliette killed Marshall and when she pretended to be dead, but oddly enough, they actually feel OOC for him…which actually would make him in-character with Shakespeare!Romeo? Ugh, it’s weird.

“If anyone asks”—Marshall’s eyes flickered to meet his—“I did it. I beat them up.”

“What? It’s fine—”

“No, it’s not. You are a Montagov. Keep your unruffled reputation. Let me be the fighting fists, let me be the one that does your dirty work.” (521)

Aaaaaaaaand once again the Benvolio analogue is the one portrayed as secretly trigger-happy violent while the Mercutio analogue gets all the sweet, easygoing charm. Kill this with fire.

Conclusion

Review also available here, if cleaned up.

Like most sequels, this is pretty much a copy of the first book. You get an initially enemies-to-lovers R&J with UST who have to work together against a bigger threat and then they stay overnight at a brothel (they don’t do anything this time, though), political factions and alliances shift and change and fuck the city up, and magic realist monsters pop up to wreak havoc. The only difference is that this time the minor characters are less two-dimensional ciphers, Marshall/Benedikt is developed better (but still mega forced), and I can finally tell the difference between Rosalind and Kathleen/Celia a tiny bit more than the first book. R&J’s dynamic is also better portrayed once they get out of their YA UST rut. I finally understand in this book that the Scarlets are meant to be aligned with the Nationalists and the White Flowers with the Communists.

That said, as a retelling it can’t help but feel unsatisfying. Juliette has typical YA Strong Female Protagonist Syndrome out the wazoo and while Roma finally gets his Shakespearean backbone in the sequel, he is still more auxiliary than equal partner to Juliette. The Shanghaiese politics continue to be wishy-washy and riddling, and the magic realist monster thing? Should never have happened. As Gong’s hypothetical editor, I would have put that first on the list to go. Another would have been a choice between the gang warfare angle or Nationalist/Communist/Western imperialist power struggle angle as the feud. But both is way too much.

As it is, Gong’s novel becomes a gumbo soup of too many ideas, too many plots, period. Two star-crossed lovers would have been quite enough, with Marshall/Benedikt forming the B plot, but there really should only have been one. Marshall/Benedikt are different enough from their Shakespearean counterparts to make a romance plausible, thank goodness, but their riddling, hazy characterization makes it really hard to be invested in. R&J suffer from contradictory characterization and start-and-stop development as well, with a couple of nicely written insightful lines.

Above all, though, this series is mired by the truly relentless and unearned thematic link between love and violence Gong establishes early on. R&J’s love really has nothing to do with the feud, but here Gong blends the lines like a sexually frustrated Catholic Tomist. One of my pet peeves is linking (consensual, requited) eros and violence, and I am not impressed. At least Hungarian RetJ had Rómeó and Júlia in their happy little world that did not really touch on the feud. At least WSS’s Tony and Maria were distant from that mess, with only ex-gangster Tony getting roped in. Here R&J are very much active participants in the very thing that makes them impossible to get together. Hence the vacillating they-are-my-enemy-no-they are-my-love wangst. For almost 500 pages. -.- No. Just no.

(Also. The whole everyone-knows-about-R&J thing is really done better in the French musical. Here it just sucks out all the tension and secrecy and mystery out of the relationship, as well as leaving major plot holes. How the hell can the Cais and Montagovs not know about R&J already what with Juliette failing to kill Roma and killing Tyler instead? It’s a Presgurvic-only thing, I guess.)

In sum, I suppose this is what you get when you try to fit an R&J-shaped story in a YA enemies-to-lovers peg. A mess, but an entertaining one. I’ll just stick to my Shakespearean nyases.

#our violent ends #romeo and juliet #cristina reads #chloe gong #these violent delights #cristina reviews #this author clearly wanted to write a book on 1920s shanghai but had to make it an r&j retelling in order for it to be picked up #i feel you gong. my nerdy unwarranted criticisms are indeed nerdy and unwarranted #but still

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tisthenightofthewitch · 5 years ago

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Ghost frontman Tobias Forge on the band’s 5th album, songwriting and what’s to come

In less than a decade, enigmatic rock band Ghost has earned a Grammy, released four albums, two EPs, a live album and its latest double-single, Seven Inches of Satanic Panic, but it has built and continuously expanded upon a deep backstory about the band members themselves — the “Nameless Ghouls.”

Each album cycle welcomes a brand new ringleader/singer, each portrayed by frontman Tobias Forge, who is the founder and sole songwriter of the band. The mythos of Ghost is now massively popular among many of its diehard fans.

Now that the Swedish group has wrapped the final North American leg of its highly extensive Ultimate Tour Named Death tour, they’re gearing up to put out their fifth album — a “heavy” one that Forge promises will be “seminal” in Ghost’s timeline.

So does that mean fans should expect to see a new frontman in the near future? Very likely, but not for a little while. For now, Forge, 38, still portrays Cardinal Copia, a charismatic and theatrical character who adds a tinge of humour to Ghost’s explosive two-hour set.

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The Cardinal claimed the throne after the “death” of Forge’s Papa Emeritus III character in 2018. He was the first to break the tradition of Pope singers in the Ghost timeline, and it seems his run will soon come to an end. Or will it? We don’t actually know.

What we do know is that next March, the “Final Gig Named Death” is set to take place in Mexico City. It will wrap the heavy promotional cycle for the band’s latest album, Prequelle (2018) — which kicked off in 2018 with the Pale Tour Named Death.

Prequelle launched the Swedes into mainstream success with its first single, Rats, which spent seven weeks on top of the rock charts. The album also included the unexpected disco-inspired smash-hit, Dance Macabre

Ahead of the band’s show in Hamilton, Ont., on Oct. 17, Forge/Cardinal Copia spoke with Global News about Ghost’s newest singles, their live spectacle, progress on the upcoming fifth album, and why he doesn’t like to record with heavy metal producers.

Global News: You’ve outdone yourself on the Ultimate Tour Named Death with not only the beautiful stage setup, but the extensive setlist and detailed choreography. It’s very humorous too, yet you still want more. Is it even possible for you to top the current show?

Tobias Forge: I’m certain, yeah. [Laughs] But it’s hard to say that without sounding like I’m soiling the one that we’re currently doing. [Laughs] I am fairly certain that a lot of the things that I have in mind right now, I will be orchestrating about a year from now. It will definitely be a vast and advanced version of what we’re already doing. You have to remember that the even though the show we’re doing right now is our most accomplished one so far, it started with us playing in theatres, and now we’re playing arenas… so the stage setup is still in its Frankenstein phase, meaning that we’re still working with the smaller production we had from first year of this tour. Right now, it’s like we’re repairing an old house, whereas next time we can start something fresh.

Similar to the production jump that Iron Maiden took from the World Piece Tour to the World Slavery Tour in the ’80s then? [Earlier on, Forge reminisced on touring with the band, which he called one of his “old heroes.”]

TF: That would be a very good analogy for it actually. [Laughs] I compare it a lot to what bands like Iron Maiden and Metallica have done and continue to do. They’ve always done it right, and so will we. Next time we can start from scratch with a production that is purpose-built for our album and tour, whereas this is more of a mixture between the stuff that we did on the last album cycle, too. It’s just extended, right? We’ll build the set from the ground-up.

Did you always know that Ghost would become such a theatrical band?

TF: I definitely always had a picture of there being a stage show, but 10 years ago, I had no idea it was going to be as [vivid] as it is now.

Are we going to be introduced to Ghost’s new frontman at what you’re calling the “Final Gig Named Death” next March? Will we meet Papa Emeritus IV? Or is it possible that Cardinal Copia might live on?

TF: Well, it’s the last show of this touring cycle, so something will definitely happen. I just can’t tell you anything about it. [Laughs] But this tour has been really incredible, it’s just time for us to do something new. As much as I love being here in Canada, I think we picked a great time (and place) to end this tour. I genuinely love being on the road. I love playing the show, and ultimately, I’m feeling very good about the band this year — who are so extremely fluid.

Overall, everything is working out really well for us, but now it’s like ‘OK, so the restaurant is just running now?’ [Laughs] You start thinking about the next one. It’s just not enough. You go, “I feel like I’ve pretty much done my thing here…” Except of course for coming in and making the infamous carbonara every night; going through the old ancient recipe, you know? [Laughs] My mind is always thinking forward though, and I’m already thinking about the next time we’re coming back here.

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You actually paid homage to one of Canada’s greatest songwriters recently, Leonard Cohen. What prompted your decision to cover something as iconic as Avalanche for your latest album, Prequelle?

TF: I think it was the one song that right off the bat just felt most Ghost-like. It would feel weird to cover Take This Waltz or something like that. It just doesn’t fit our script. It isn’t actually my favourite Leonard Cohen song. Intuitively, I’d probably choose one of his prettier songs, but Avalanche felt very Ghost-like.

What about the future of Ghost? With such a busy schedule have you even had time to think about a plan of attack for the fifth album?

TF: Oh, I think about that a lot. Currently, we’re in the planning stages of it all, which means that I’m hamstering all my material as we figure out scheduling and who’s actually going to be producing it. I’m working very hard on it right now, and as much as I often contest ideas by thinking about what I should and shouldn’t do, I know it’s easier to define that just by looking at your previous experiences.

So for example, our last four records. Having said all of that, overall, I have a fairly good idea of where I’m going with this one. I want to create a record that lives up to my lifelong dream of being able to kick-off a touring cycle in arenas, so by that logic, this album needs to be by a band that starts touring cycles in arenas. You know? You just can’t f**k around with that. You really need to be on your absolute top game.

Is Seven Inches of Satanic Panic a taste of what’s to come for this album?

TF: It’s not a taste of the new record, no. Those songs are like a side note of Ghost — still fitting in the universe, I think — but they’re definitely not close to what I have in mind. [Laughs] The new record will be more in line with the previous four, in the sense that it will feel like part of the whole story. Whereas that of the singles and cover EPs, which are a little bit more tongue-in-cheek. [Laughs] There’s a dichotomy between a lot of the things that we do though, like for example, the records and the live show.The records are like the script, or Bible, they’re not meant to feel humouristic. Whereas in our live show, we present the ideas in a humorous way. Not in a sense where we are mocking our bible or story, but in the same way that a church might go through rituals with children. Where people are giggling a little because they think it’s silly. “A-ha.” Everybody knows it’s a little stupid, but for some reason, it feels purposeful, because your kid is being baptized or whatever. [Laughs] So that’s that’s what I’m shooting for. I don’t want the records to be too fun or silly, I want them to convey a message and have a clear meaning.

Your lyrics contain such unique concepts and qualities too. Do you write Ghost’s albums all by yourself? After all, this band is your project.

TF: Usually. But what I’ve learned and cultivated a liking to do in the last few years, is collaborating with outsiders. I’ve always been accused of — especially in my own bands — not being able to work well in a team. People have said I’m just overall bad at teamwork, and that was the fact for a long time. But when I made Meliora, I did so together with a producer named Klas Åhlund — who is both a producer and a songwriter. And that’s when it dawned on me that I can work really well with people, but I need to choose who I work with. It’s like … I like kissing people, but I just want to choose who I kiss. [Laughs]I’ve been in bands where there’s always someone, or some people, who just f**king crowbar themselves into the process, and that does not work for me at all. That’s unfortunately when I become like a dictator. Whereas if I choose to work with someone, I’m actually quite flexible. Like working with any professional songwriter, you need to establish a little bit of a vibe together. [Laughs] We need to be aiming for a very similar thing. That person needs to have some sort of … hard-on for rock music, or for what we do in Ghost, otherwise, it might be hard if it’s someone who works against that.

Do you find that collaborating helps with the songwriting, then?

TF: Oh yes. You can make incredible progress in your songwriting that way, because all of a sudden you have this person who’s not at all locked into the traps of being in your band; someone who is not the bass player that suddenly wants a bass solo or the drummer who wants to make the album very drummy. If I find those collaborators, it’s like a catalyst for me to write more, write better and ultimately, step up because I want to impress that other person.

In one or two days, I’ll come up with a skeleton of a song and go, “This is my idea, this is the chorus, but I don’t really have a pre-chorus yet. What do you hear? What do you think?” And then once I hear someone else tinkering with it … I become a little bit like a husband who agreed to a wife-swap. In this case, the song would be my partner, and when I see someone else [kissing] her, I’m like, “No! Let me do this.” Then you go and you do it properly, because it wakes you up. [Laughs] It’s really all about just having to impress someone else. If I don’t make the changes right then and there, then the idea is just gonna drift away. It’s a perfect way for me to write, because it really brings me to life.

You produced Opus Eponymous by yourself, and since then you’ve worked with a completely different producer for each of Ghost’s albums, including Dave Grohl. Do you just not want to do the same thing twice, or are you ultimately trying to find the perfect collaborator?

TF: I believe that there are exceptions to all rules of course, and I believe that a good team truly is a good team. But I also believe that it’s very healthy to make sure that you don’t get stuck in your comfort zone, because it can become too comfortable. I’ve had that in the past with at least a couple of my previous producers, where we’re almost too good of friends; we’ve actually hung out so much, that we’re buddies now. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but it doesn’t always allow for further growth, which is exactly what I want to do. In this case, I have to make our fifth record. I want it to be a seminal record for us. That’s why the process right now is to find that perfectly balanced producer that is gonna make sure that we’re making a rock record — it needs to be a heavy record — but it needs to be someone who understands the factor of, “This needs to be relevant, now.”

Ghost is unique for a metal band in the sense that you don’t often work with metal producers. Is there a reason for that?

TF: I’m sure people in the heavy metal sphere might have noticed that too. … And there’s a reason for that: metal producers are very purpose-driven. They do a fantastic job and they know exactly what they’re going for. They’re experts in doing exactly that. And I have nothing against it, but that’s not what I’m trying to do. So I need to be fully aware and completely awake in trying to find the right producer for Ghost in that moment.

Klas was perfect for me. His whole professional life, he has been writing pop music and playing in Teddybears and writing records for Robyn and Ellie Goulding. You have all these different artists and this huge variety, but he started off playing prog music. He was a guitar virtuoso playing Yngwie Malmsteen/Ritchie Blackmore-type stuff. So when I came and talked with him about making a rock record, he was just like, “Yes, I’ve wanted to do that for such a long time.” It was perfect for both of us, because we were able to talk about all the common denominators. We could reference things from Euro Disco all the way to Slayer just to explain a simple idea. Whereas if you end up with the typical metal producer, they might say, “Slayer, of course. But everything else you mentioned is just ‘ordinary music.'”

I’m not saying that every heavy metal producer is like that, I just feel like metal today, as opposed to 1975, is such a defined genre, that people our age and younger have lived their entire lives knowing exactly what heavy metal is. But people who were around when they made Back in Black didn’t really know what that was. There’s so many rules now. It’s too refined. The whole culture breathes a little bit of a puritan-like conservatism. In order to make new records, I think sometimes you need to try not to think too much about all of these rules.

GLOBALNEWS.CA

#The Band Ghost #Ghost Band #Tobias Forge #Tobias Interview #Cardinal Copia

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musicallisto · 5 years ago

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Hi! I'd like to request ships for the PJO, Marvel and Playchoices fandoms (my fav books are ES, TC&TF and ILITW) if you don't mind! I'm a straight female (she/her) who's intelligent, hard-working, ambitious, sassy, sarcastic, determined, helpful, caring, logical and analytical, but also arrogant, bossy, stubborn, overly competitive, fussy over my friend's health (both mental and physical) and very averse to big changes. My dream is to become a lawyer because I want to use my skills to (1/2)

Help others. My hobbies include reading books, watching films and over-analyzing both. I suck at anything remotely physical but I'm rather good at all things school-related. For the song thing I'm going to choose Avicii's "Without You" because it's been stuck in my head all week xD. Anyways, thanks so much for doing this and sorry if I made any mistakes, English is not my first language 💙💙💙

I Ship You With...

Percy Jackson

there’s surely a lot of energy going on in this relationship, but even before you two were together, your friends used to say that even Mount Olympus could collapse with the strength of your passion (passion meaning ‘stubborn as HELL tendencies’, but I didn’t tell you that)

it’s honestly kind of tiring at times to be the protective, caring, and even fussy girlfriend of a demi-god who’s been the chosen one of probably 12 prophecies (and counting) and has a knack for fighting ancient monsters of legend and immortal creatures

you have to practically beg Percy for him to lay down a little so you can take of his injuries and take a nap with you, mainly because you’re so concerned about his physical and mental strain, but also for the selfish pleasure of having him only to you

“Oh come on, I’m gonna be fine, it’s really no big deal” “Perseus Jackson you have been fighting mythological monsters for two weeks straight I am COMMANDING YOU to take a nap with me”

him being the cheeky hero that he is - “well, if this is what my general commands” with a sly smile, but you can read the absolute exhaustion beneath his sea-green eyes

he never really had much interested in anything acamedic or school-related, what with his dyslexia and ADHD making it harder for him to concentrate for long periods of time on given subjects (and, you know, the occasional saving-the-world thing taking up a little of his time), but once he discovers how passionate you are about school stuff he’s tempted to make an effort and support you

when you have a big test coming up and you have to study, Percy typically sits (spins, actually) on a chair in your bedroom while you’re at your desk and randomly exclaims pop quizzes about the subject to make sure that you know everything

“what was the name of the gladiator who led a slave uprising against the Roman Republic?” “Spartacus” “correct. The gods talk about him sometimes. Jason heard he’s a fun dude.” “Percy, you’re not helping me” “I am helping you! how many students in your class have heard from Jupiter himself that Spartacus was a fun dude? you’re really gonna make a difference thanks to me.”

he just asks for a kiss in return; consider it payment for helping you pass your ancient history exam with flying colors he’s an all-around amazingly supportive boyfriend, though

Tony Stark

did you just say you’re overly competitive? oh mygod

if there is one thing that Tony Stark hates more than losing, it’s losing to you. when you get that smug little smile of yours and start prancing around the Avengers Tower like you’re queen of the world because you beat him in whatever stupid thing you were both doing and it’s !!!! ARGH infuriating he hates it. no, really, he does. totally does not like it at all. it’s only for the pleasure of CRUSHING YOU to pieces that he constantly challenges you to anything and everything.

chess nights at the Avengers Tower have never been wilder and tenser. (except for Bruce, who just enjoys the whole debacle, giggling in the background, because he can see you’re both so bad and he could have won this whole thing three rounds ago. unless you’re looking to prolong the fun?)

both of you taunting the other to give up now and save themselves the humiliation of the slaughter you’re preparing. metaphorical or physical slaughter, no one really knows, especially because it never comes. the only way these dreaded, hellish chess games end is either in blood after Natasha throws the board in utter despair, or with you both having fallen asleep in the middle of moving your knight

there is a tenderness, however, in the way you care about each other, but you don’t show it that much, as if this sudden vulnerability came into conflict with the other sides of your personality. but it is undeniable. you care about each other, deeply. it’s enough to see how whomever woke up first from the infamous chess half-night wraps the other in a blanket and gently eyes them as the sun rises slowly

how you nag him to take a break when he’s been overworking himself, fighting all the threats and taking upon his shoulders the responsibility of saving the whole universe (and more)

and how he holds you steady, close to his heart, in the dead of the night when New York City almost falls silent and there’s nothing but your appeased breathing and the faint echo of a moonlit breeze

Lucas Thomas (It Lives In The Woods)

nerd meets prep in three, two, one...

(notice how I didn’t clarify who’s the nerd and who’s the prep)

I mean, if Lucas isn’t a nerd already, he turns into a big one whenever he’s with you. how could he not? you exude radiance and positivity and passion whenever you explain in great detail whatever you book you finished last week and you’re still obsessed with. how you pick up on the character development and how clever the symbolism is and just... ugh Lucas please baby read it you’ll see it’s just so good. with a laugh, he says he’ll try to fit it in his schedule. it sounds like the lame excuse you’d give someone when you’re not interested at all, but actually the first thing he does on his way back home from school is stop at the public library and borrow the book

he finishes it in one night, as you can tell by the foot-long bags under his eyes the next morning at school (longer than usual, anyways), but also by the content, even smug little smile that he wears on his face.

“so, what did you think about it??” you ask, hopeful, when you notice that he doesn’t seem completely apalled by the experience

cue montage of you two enthusiastically discussing every aspect of the book and the writing and the worldbuilding over lunch, in between classes, and even when you’re supposed to be studying

when you actually do study though, it’s always very intense because Lucas takes his homework and academic success very seriously. maybe even too seriously? you’re the one who makes sure that he catches a break every two hours to grab some water or take a breath of fresh air

he doesn’t need it, though, he retaliates, and you would find it agonizingly cute and endearing if you weren’t so mad that the boy will NOT listen to you. “you are my breath of fresh air”, he murmurs with a boop on your nose, before getting back to work

that absolute, lovestruck, handsome and brilliant fool

#ships #matchups #percy jackson #pjo #marvel #mcu #tony stark #playchoices #it lives in the woods #lucas thomas #mywriting

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urfavmurtad · 7 years ago

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What are some things about Judaism and Christianity that you learned that surprised you? What about polytheistic religions like native american animism, Buddhism, Shinto and Jainism? Zoroastrians? Baha’i? Yazidi?

Anon this is… such an in-depth question! Idek where to begin here. Of all those religions, I have learned the most about Judaism since I stopped being religious. What I knew about Judaism prior to maybe 5 years ago was mostly just what Islam says about Judaism. Meaning, you know, from Adam to Moses, then it skips ahead to David/Solomon/Saul, then there are some brief mentions of Jonah and Ezekiel and that’s really it.

So I didn’t know a lot, and I wasn’t very interested in what I did know tbh. The only reason why I started reading the Bible is bc I wanted to compare it to the Quranic versions of the stories and see how much Mohammed fucked them up. And that was fun but I didn’t bother to look much further into Judaism past that. The Books of Kings and Chronicles, for example, I took one look at them, decided they were boring, and didn’t read them until only a couple of years ago. That’s when I first got into the whole Biblical history thing. I tried reading a book about how the Bible was put together and realized I didn’t know enough about the Bible itself to even begin.

I forced myself to read those four books and then some of the prophet books (side note: all of the female prophets were left out of Islam, I didn’t even know they existed. Damn it Mohammed!!!). And I’m glad I did, because it changed my whole view of the Jewish Bible. It’s a history book!! Like… that’s literally what it’s supposed to be, a (legendary) history of Israel/Judah, and every bad thing that happens to them is ascribed to YHWH getting pissed off at them, but then like my friend and her trash boyfriend he always forgives them and takes them back even tho they just go on to disappoint him again. The Bible is the world’s oldest and greatest self-drag!!!

Once I actually knew the general chronology of the Biblical kings and shit I could actually make my way through this book without getting confused (mostly). Highly recommend this one for beginners btw, there is a PDF online and it’s not overly long.

And damn… I know there’s some debate about certain elements of it like the exact nature of the “documentary hypothesis” but even just focusing on the stuff that people agree upon, I didn’t know any of it before reading this, beyond there being no evidence for the Exodus/the huge kingdom of Solomon etc. I also knew that early Judaism was a system where multiple gods existed but YHWH was just their patron god, but I didn’t fully understand the process in how he got conflated with El and became the god.

More relevant to this topic, though, I didn’t understand the history behind the Bible itself. Deuteronomy being written separately/earlier than the rest and the Bible claiming that it was “found” in the Temple after like 900 years in Josiah’s time… like I had never even heard of Josiah prior to a few years ago and here I am realizing that this bitch perpetrated fraud that would make Linda Taylor proud. Tf. AND, the whole thing with Judah being way, way less developed than Israel, and Israel was actually a multi-ethnic and prosperous society, but then after the Assyrians handed Israel its ass the Judeans were suddenly the top bitch in school and wrote the whole Bible to make their former northern neighbors out to be assholes?? Wow Team Israel tbh.

Then when you get to the time of the Babylonian Exile tho you have to feel a bit bad for the people of Jerusalem, like the Babylonians were uncommonly dickish even for their time and the ppl of the city were clearly traumatized tbh… a lot of the stories in the Bible, especially those believed to have been added only after the exile, make a hell of a lot more sense when you realize the huge changes occurring in Jewish society at the time. The transition from “there are lots of gods but YHWH is our god” to “YHWH is the god” is completely understandable when you realize that people were searching for some explanation as to why they had all been uprooted and thrown out of their homes, and the obvious explanation is that, yet again, they had pissed YHWH the fuck off by worshiping other gods.

I feel like both Christianity and Islam (but especially Islam) try to separate many of Judaism’s better-known stories from the context of ancient Israel/Judah itself, presenting them as more universal stories that apply to everyone, but tbh the whole over-arching story doesn’t work unless you look at it as a history written by and for Jews who were rebuilding their religion and society in a volatile period. I’m reading this rn and it’s relevant to that topic.

It’s truly a damn shame that pretty much like 0% of Muslims have been exposed to any of this tbh? I feel like almost all scholars of Biblical history come from non-Muslim countries. I have more feelings on this subject but let me answer the rest of your question. First of all, Christianity. I read the New Testament in full a couple of years ago as well. It was obviously way easier to read because the Gospels are all different versions of the same story and the rest is just supplementary material, basically. I think the text itself is pleasant and Jesus was a chill dude. I like him. And the whole… sequence of events made much more sense after I’d read the Book of Isaiah and realized that the authors of the Gospels were viewing Jesus in light of those prophecies. Revelation is a fascinating shrooms trip. The Acts of the Apostles were fun to read, but all the letters were just like w/e. More historically interesting (if they’re real) than interesting in terms of content. Though I do think some of the content in them is very nice, idk if people know this but Muslims think Paul was responsible for perverting the (non-existent) “real” Gospel of Jesus and paint him very poorly. But I dunno, the letters seemed fine to me.

Tbh I was surprised to see how different Islam’s version of Christianity/Christian stories is compared to the “real thing”. I don’t even mean his disastrous misconceptions of Christian theology but just like… with the stories Mohammed pulled from the Jewish Bible (and the Talmud–which I also enjoyed flipping through btw, it’s like a bunch of old guys yelling at each other in written form), he gets details wrong but the overall stories are basically the same. But with the Christian stories, barely anything in the Quran is from the Bible. I think I’ve said this before but like 90% of the stuff pulled from Christianity in Islam is about baby Jesus, not adult Jesus, and even that stuff isn’t from the Bible. It’s understandable when you realize that he was listening to these stories, not reading them, and just picked the ones he liked best… which happened to be later texts. That brings me to a subject that is near and dear to my heart:

Apocryphal texts bih. I love this shit, with full sincerity and zero irony. The weirder it gets, the better. I started out just reading the ones that made it into the Quran, like the Life of Adam and Eve, the Infancy Gospels that I’ve mentioned before, and the Testament of Solomon. Then some Gnostic stuff, which I only read because it has the same substitute-crucifixion thing going on as Islam, but WHEW chile the DRUGS these ppl were on while writing this shit…! The Sethians and the Nag Hammadi library produced such treasures of crazy-ass literature. It makes me sad how so much of this stuff is just totally forgotten now that Christianity is mostly just Catholic/Protestant+Orthodox. There were so many sects and people had so many divergent ideas, some more drug-assisted than others probably!! And Middle Eastern Christianity was very diverse even in the 7th century. Some of the stories they produced had such rich lore. My fave right now is this Syriac collection:

I came across this one while looking for the origins of the al-Khidr story in the Quran. There were all sorts of opinions about who he was, bc Mohammed never really gave any details on his life, but Ibn Ishaq recorded an opinion that al-Khidr was the one who buried Adam and Allah granted him long life in return. So I looked for the source of that story and it was the story of Melchizedek in this book. Then I read the whole thing and man this would make for some weird psychedelic series or sth. It’s online, look it over and you’ll see how trippy it is.

Um… anon this is getting rly long tbh so let me sum up my knowledge of Shinto, Native American animism, and Jainism: not much!! Buddhism I have only an intro-level knowledge of, I know the basics but I don’t know more than that. The beliefs of Yazidis I don’t fully understand, but the little I know is pretty cool. From what I understand it’s a blend of pre-Islamic Kurdish religion + early Islamic influence + some other influences thrown in. It’s sad how they’re branded as devil-worshipers or w/e when the story of Melek Taus is actually really interesting and has a good moral and is way, way better than the story of Iblis. I also enjoy Yazidi architecture and that unique ribbed cone top of theirs. I hope they’re able to live on as a community after, uh, recent events.

I actually was taught about Bahai people growing up but I was told it was some heretical offshoot of Islam comparable to Ahmadiyya people. I didn’t realize it was considered its own religion until fairly recently tbh. I did read the Kitab al-Aqdas (which is blessedly short, this makes Bahai a great religion automatically!!) once. It’s definitely super inspired by the Quran in terms of style and to me clearly seems to be an attempt to make a Kinder And Also More Iranian Islam. I think it’s pretty neat. In fact I think a lot of attempts to magically make Islam “nicer” would just end up making it more like Bahai tbh. And it has a really fascinating history, with the Bab basically being a new John the Baptist and Bahaullah being the one he foretold. He even accidentally ended up in Israel lmao. I also really love Bahai architecture in terms of how diverse it is, with the only unifying feature being visual interest, and I would love to see the temple in India irl one day. India always has the best architecture anyway.

I saved Zoroastrians for last bc I have to be honest here. I tried to look into it, because it’s ancient and had an influence on Judaism etc and that makes it important. Fam I got about 3% of the way through the Avesta before giving up. I was still in the hymns part and just like… every other word was something I didn’t understand. I will go back and try again one day but for now the answer is “lol idk”.

ANYWAY… yeah… I’ve enjoyed reading about religion way more now that I’m not religious, both in terms of Islam and other religions, I can appreciate the process or w/e now that I’m not constantly trying to make it fit into Islam or panicking every time I spot something that makes me question my faith. I know a lot of atheists either fall away from religion altogether or just look at it like it’s something dumb, but even if it’s fake, that doesn’t make it worthless imo. The history itself is always worth studying.

#judaism #christianity #islam #zoroastrianism #ask #anon #atheism

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irarelypostanything · 8 years ago

Text

The Harvard Homewrecker (Full Text)

Sometimes, two people stay together simply because they don’t remember what it feels like to be alone.

Sometimes, two people stay together for a more meaningful reason.

Other times, one of them meets Tony.

Part I

The day he attended his first meeting, Tedmund decided to run for office. I can’t remember what club this was, so I’m just going to say it was Key Club.

He was already a second year in high school. He worried that his youth was slipping away, and it was time he involved himself in school activities. The president greeted him at the door and said they were electing new officers.

“The president is probably going to be me again,” said the president, and he wasn’t lying. He was a pretty competent president. “The other positions are pretty competitive, but no one is running for secretary.”

“Oh,” said Tedmund. All of the names in this story are from a random generator, in case anyone was wondering.

“You should run.”

“This...this is literally my first day.”

“Okay.” The president shrugged. “I mean, if you don’t have the balls for it...”

10 minutes later

“My name is Tedmund,” he announced from the podium, “and I am proud to be running for secretary.” Only a few people recognized him from class, but everyone applauded on account of his carefree speaking.

“I have been observing this club,” he said, pausing to look at the president’s logo, “which is Key Club, and it can definitely be improved.” He saw a few people frown, but now everyone was listening intently. “I will bring,” he glanced at the president, who mouthed the words community service, “I will bring more community service projects. And I’m going to take notes really well. And it’s going to be great.” Everyone cheered.

He won, of course. No one was running against him.

The VP was named Candy, and the two really hit it off. They didn’t mind staying late after school to make posters together, or to email coordinators together. For Tedmund, Candy was a great friend with whom he could get through the tedium of officer duties. For Candy, Tedmund was something more.

Their AP Psych teacher noticed the chemistry and paired them up during the Relationships unit, as well as the Human Development unit. Their chemistry teacher noticed it as well, but didn’t give AF.

Several months went by like this, but this was Tedmund. He knew so many girls who were in love with him that he dismissed flirting as normal behavior.

She called him eventually, late in the night, when the only light came from his TV screen and the only sounds were the gunshots from Halo.

“Tedmund,” she said, “I have something to tell you.”

“Yeah?” He couldn’t hit pause; it was multiplayer.

“Yes, I...I forgot.”

“Okay.”

She didn’t say much to him again for an agonizing month, when she could no longer resist the urge to call him again.

“Hi Tedmund,” she said, “how are you?”

“Good,” he said. “I just had dinner.”

“How was it?”

He spent the next ten minutes describing to her, in detail, what he had eaten and how delicious it was.

“Tedmund,” she said, “I love you.”

“So do I,” said Tedmund. The news was even better than his dinner.

They became a couple. They spent as much time as they could together. Everyone who knew them thought of them together, and the blissful weeks passed effortlessly as they filled their time in love and with the ridiculous number of AP classes Washington High people took.

And then, out of nowhere, she saw Tony at a track meet. He didn’t notice her, but she noticed him. He finished first, and she noticed that he didn’t sweat. He glistened.

He wasn’t just hot. He seemed to radiate hotness.

******

Part II

One of the events in this story never actually happened, but I’m not going to say which.

There were many dorms at UC Davis, but it was universally known that Miller was the best. This is undisputed. Miller had the fastest wi-fi connection, a kitchen on every floor, and a $10,000 grand piano that made the one at Thompson look like a garage sale giveaway. ATM was the best part of Segundo, but Segundo was known for having Miller. Tercero couldn’t compete, even with upgrades, and Cuarto looked like a glorified three-and-a-half star motel next to Miller.

Of course, these two were at Miller after 2012, so I don’t know much about the other people who were there.

His name was Rick, your typical run-of-the-mill attractive intelligent charismatic Regents Scholar video game champion in his first year of college. Jessica was all of these things, minus the video games.

Like most of the people in Miller, Rick and Jessica lived together and took a class together. The class had 23 people, and only one guy. Guess who the guy was?

If you don’t know how UHP worked, here’s a 25-second tutorial: Everyone signed up for small classes; some were easy, and some were not-so-easy. The ones who took the easy classes were happy (I guess), and the ones who took the not-so-easy classes complained about it on the ISHP Facebook page. By the laws of karma, the people who took the easy ones their first quarter just so happened to choose the not-so-easy ones in their second quarter.

The two clicked really well, especially since both of them joined a college club together. I’m just going to call it CKI because I’ve dropped so many meaningless abbreviations that I kind of stopped caring.

Is there really any more to it than that? If there is, I don’t know the details. They were up until sunrise together, just the two of them...talking. One night, she asked if they could play Hot Seat.

He calmly said yes, but fireworks were going off in his head.

She was up first. “If we knew each other a year ago,” he said, trying to be as subtle and indirect as possible, “do you think we would have dated?”

She nodded.

Shortly after, they started dating.

And that wraps it up. They were a perfect couple.

That’s it. End of story.

Oh wait…

Jessica found herself alone in San Francisco one weekend, because that’s what people in Davis do when they’re bored. They spend an hour driving to a city that everyone hates driving in. But her car was still in the shop this time, and Jessica took the shuttle.

Jessica sprinted for the bus, and the driver saw her, but it was Muni. Obviously, he didn’t stop.

“No...” she said. It was Muni, so the next bus wasn’t going to come for an hour. By the time she made it to Berkeley her shuttle would be gone, and she’d have to spend the night there.

“What’s wrong?” asked Tony. He had just flown in from the East Coast, and he had just finished visiting his peasant friends from high school. How he became rich is explained in parts III and IV.

“I missed my bus,” she said.

“Would you like a ride?” he asked. She looked at him closely. He was in a designer jacket, wore designer pants, and next to him was a red 488 GTB Ferrari.

“In that?” she asked, making eye contact with his beautiful car.

“No, I was just taking that to my lift.” He pointed to a building nearby, a gorgeous piece of massive glass with a helicopter to top it off.

“Do you own that helicopter?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said, and smiled. “Why else would I have paid to put a helipad on my building?”

*****

In a relationship, whoever is more in love will always be at a disadvantage.

Unless you’re not competing, or you don’t try to measure it, or...I don’t know...you’re in a relationship with pizza.

I just wrote that first sentence to get your attention.

Part III

This story begins with a guy making someone a sandwich.

Jake was an athletic, heavily involved high school student whom everyone was cool with, except Mr. B. He also put a lot of effort into his sandwiches. This sandwich was an hour-long project: The bread was lightly toasted, there was just the right amount of peanut butter and jelly, and the way he presented it was like something you would see on the Food Network.

I had to learn piano to get a high school girlfriend. Stanley had to master multivariable Calculus. David had to win a track medal, star in a summer performance, become the #7 Tetris player in North America and maintain a non-weighted 4.0. For Jake, the deal-maker was a sandwich.

Jake and Crystal joined dragon boat around the same time. For anyone wondering, dragon boat is a form of competitive water racing that dates back to ancient times, when warring Chinese factions jostled for control of the seven kingdoms. After many generations, a general known as the Mother of Dragons made a surprise attack from the sea and finally ended the war.

The sandwich came shortly after.

We all took a trip to Long Beach—a beautiful, ridiculously over-the-top party town where people drank, danced, and paddled like there was no tomorrow. We were in high school, so the only thing we participated in was the paddling.

After our first round of races, I ate dinner with the team, crawled into my hotel room, and knocked TF out. When I woke up, Jake and Crystal were out.

“I’m not good enough for you,” Jake had said the previous night, as they sat at the nearby beach and pretended to look at the water. They had been dating for over half a page now.

“Why do you say that?” she asked, in a voice that was always calm and mellow because that’s what Crystal’s voice is like.

“You’re smart, and you’re beautiful, and if you weren’t with me then you could find someone else.”

They talked until the light came back. In the afternoon, when one of us finally asked, they were still together. Maybe it was conversations like those that made their relationship stronger.

We all stayed in the team and paddled a lot.

JUST KIDDING. Most people didn’t stay in the team. Those of us who did, paddled a lot.

We talked between laps.

“I can’t get pho with you guys,” said Tony one day.

“Traitor,” I said.

“Well, I’m applying for the Gates Millennium Scholarship. I don’t think I have a chance...the probability of winning that is lower than the probability of getting into Harvard.”

“You know what would be awesome? If you got into Harvard AND got the Gates Millennium Scholarship.”

With that, Tony burst out laughing.

20,000 strokes later:

“I think I’m going to go to Davis now,” I said.

“Just like that?” asked Stanley. “You’ve changed your mind this easily?”

“The froyo was really good.”

A few months and many, many strokes later:

“I think I’m going to stay in the city,” said Jake.

“I’m not,” said Crystal.

…..

….

It’s been years.

A few weeks ago, living alone at my apartment in an unheard-of town, I got really bored and wrote this. Not bored like...not enough time. It’s a different kind of boredom.

As I wrote, Jake was at his own apartment. He never left the city. On his desk, he looked at a picture of Crystal, had a brief flashback, and then tucked it away in a drawer. On full display was a picture of his current girlfriend.

Crystal wistfully looked out her window. Her current boyfriend was sleeping next to her, and southern California was shining out in the distance.

Unable to sleep, she tiptoed out of bed, made her way to the kitchen, and spent an hour preparing herself a fancy PBJ sandwich. The sandwich made her happy again, and she gingerly went back to bed.

She quickly fell asleep.

*****

For our high school graduation, the valedictorian reminded us that everyone would eventually be dead. He talked a lot about human hatred, and disease, and nuclear war. The rest of the speech was optimistic, but all anyone remembered were those first few sentences.

Then our high school salutatorian spoke. “I’m going to talk about love,” he said, “and cures for diseases, and...the opposite of everything else Jon spoke about. By the way, my name is Jon. Both of us are named Jon.” The second Jon’s speech was met with rounds of applause that continually increased in both volume and duration.

After his salutatorian speech, Jon (again, the second one) was required to present the CSF trophy to the member with the highest GPA. Tony won it. I can’t remember the explanation.

There were graduations everywhere that day. I don’t even remember all the things that happened. Aaron presented a senior video, and Katherine won one of the highest honors, and then Emma and Alonzo and Colin won numerous scholarships. And somewhere, just a few miles out of San Francisco, Zach almost met his future wife.

Part IV

“Do you feel like time is moving really quickly?” I asked Tony one day, a little after our college graduation.

“What do you mean?” asked Tony. “Time has always been moving at a constant speed.”

“That’s not what I mean.” “Oh, that’s right. According to Einstein-”

“What I mean is that life events are happening really quickly. My coworker just bought a house. Someone brought up marriage the other day when talking about her boyfriend.”

“Well, we are at that age.”

“Are we, though?”

Rena, David and I went right into the workforce. Most of the people I knew from Davis either stayed for grad school, or applied to various medical school programs. In my first month of work, they asked me to help hire the next round of people. That they asked me to play any part in this was beyond crazy.

“So after my senior design project helped cure Type 2 Diabetes,” said Zach, “I decided to direct my talents into another side-project. It was like Google, for porn.”

“That second thing is the most brilliant idea I’ve ever heard,” I said. “I have never visited a porn site, but I can only imagine the potential. Now, on an unrelated note...how do you feel about loyalty?”

“I don’t believe in it, period. You do your job, and if you don’t do a good one then you step aside. The lack of loyalty cuts both ways - if a job doesn’t satisfy you, you quit.”

“That’s the realest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say,” I said. “The other responses people gave me were so full of shit. I’m going to recommend that they hire you immediately.”

A few months passed. If it sounds like I’m rushing, it’s because that’s what it really felt like. Tony joined a start-up, and the boss was such a dick that Tony started his own company and bought out his boss’. All of this was just to fire him. That’s how much of a dick he was.

Zach’s talents were quickly recognized by everyone except his manager. He also bought a house. He was also accepted into grad school. Then, out of nowhere, his girlfriend called him.

“Remember that time we had unprotected sex?” she asked.

“Which time?”

“I don’t know, but I’m pregnant.”

“Shit.”

And just like that, a year passed.

I still had the same coffee mug, and I still drank the same flavor of beer at the same bar, and I still lived exactly where I was before. Also, I still didn’t get pointers at all. Seg faults were my life.

“How was your wedding?” I asked Zach once, out of the blue. Last I checked, he had proposed.

“What wedding?” he asked.

“Um...how’s the baby?” I asked, as if that were a logical transition from my last question.

“I told you,” he said. “She lost it.”

“Is that why you didn’t marry her?” I asked.

“I mean, that’s not the reason we’re not together anymore. A lot of things have happened.”

“You don’t say.”

Zach quit later, but not...immediately after. I don’t know how to make time go slower. I don’t even know at this point how much time had passed.

He wrote me a letter. All it said was You can stay there if you want, Evan, but I don’t recommend it. You’re in the kind of city that people leave.

I don’t know what happens to everyone in the story after that, because now we’re all caught up with the present.

#short story #fiction #prose

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kahnac · 8 years ago

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Hello, Good Evening, and welcome to another "Kahnac's Top Countdown" list. This time we'll go into a certain category i'm pretty much a big fan of. Though first, i'd like to give a big shoutout to japanesegodzilla1954 who was once again kind enough to assemble the list up above. And especially for being so creative while doing so. I really appreciate it, and i'm glad he did it. And now, back to the subject of the countdown. "What subject" you might ask? Well, the answer is quite simple, actually: Villains. Now, as i'm sure it's no surprise to anyone who watches me: i absolutely love villains. Like many people who do the same, i find the villains to be alot more fun than the heroes (not that i would diss them in any way). But there's actually quite alot to villains that make them so appealing, and enjoyable to watch. And trust me: i have a large list of villains who i enjoy. But i think one of the most amusing, and enjoyable brand of villain is the kaiju villain. Though there haven't truly been many kaiju who would qualify as villains because of their animalistic nature, with a few exceptions. But if there is one place where there could be legitimately evil kaiju: it is in the Godzilla Universe. For over 60 years, toho has delivered a slew of kaiju who are not simply a bunch of rampaging beasts who need someone to stop them from simply destroying cities because they're angry. These monsters are beings who are actually quite intelligent, and even quite despicable. They aren't animals who are bent on survival: they are beings who have agenda's of their own which range from conquering the entire world, to simply killing everything in sight because it's funny, or because they were made to. And though some of them have served as pawns to some lesser alien species, that hasn't stopped them from being completely vile, and destructive. Because on their own: these kaiju would cause trouble just so they can. They do their best to give their worst. And i'm here to honor some of them today. So sit back, relax, and have fun as we take a look at my Top 10 Godzilla villains. 10. Megaguirus: Starting off our list is none other than the fearsome queen of them Meganula herselfNow here's one very nasty example of what a crazy mom is. As a product of the ancient past brought to the present thanks to the Dimension Tide, Megaguirus was basically the ultimate means of returning the Meganula race as the dominant rulers of Earth. Though of course she had to go through some changes first. Said change involved creating a swarm, sending it to hunt down Godzilla, drain his energy, return back with it, then transfer it into her along with their own lifeforce energy. Thus changing her into the gigantic, speed-induced, queen of the Dragonflies. Which she really does live up to the name of, doesn't she? But anyway, any can see that her "children" are quite devoted to her in such regards. But she doesn't seem to give a single crap about that. Probably because she knows she can probably just grow a new colony at some point. What a horrible mother to have, that's for sure. But either way, she has also shown to be somewhat sadistic in her methods. Like dropping buildings on top of a grounded Godzilla with a sickly smile on her face, for example. And she also seems to be quite possessive when it comes to power. In both the movie, and the comics, almost immediately she stuck her stinger into two kaiju so that she could get some of their energy. But in ROE, she goes further, and tries to feed Godzilla to her swarm. Guess she also shares some qualities with Queen Chrysalis from MLP, doesn't she? Guess she isn't as heartless as she seems. But she definitely has a strong rivalry with Rodan's species, since both have been rival species since they were born. A shame we didn't get to see this outside of the Original Rodan movie with the Meganulon, and the several fanfic universe which expands upon the concept, like Neo, and Endgame. But either way, Megaguirus is a fast, furious, and all around vicious queen you'll wish to keep both eyes on at all times. If you can. 9. Mechagodzilla 1: Now, we get to delve a bit into the concept which usually comes about in every form of media: the evil doppleganger. And none seem to have pulled this off as dangerously as Mechagodzilla 1. While this super robot has been a mechanized pawn to a race of space apes trying to take over the world: M Bison-"OF COURSE!!!" But that didn't make Mechagodzilla any less brutal, or destructive when he first appeared. Hell, he even disguised as Godzilla himself to basically frame him as antagonistic again before he would kill him. He then proceeded to beat the crap out of poor Anguirus, and even break his jaw wide open. I get so creeped out from even thinking about it still. Anyway, what makes him truly threatening is just how powerful he is. On his own, and against singular kaiju, he has singlehandedly beaten everyone he's come across, including the great King Caesar, who is considered an equal to Godzilla in terms of strength, and power. So if he can take down someone that strong, you know he's dangerous. But he "surprisingly" doesn't do well when he gets double teamed. Especially when one of his oponnents gets the ability to control magnetism, which Goji used to rip off his mechanized head. Too bad Mecha G learned from the past experience, and was teamed up with Titanosaurus to prove that two can play the team up game. Sadly for him, it still didn't turn out well. But that still hasn't deterred people from liking him so much, and for him to become IDW's equivalent of the Sentinels from the X-Men. Because this mecha-double only proves that you can't keep a good robot down, and if you do, he'll just come back better, and stronger than ever. 8. Megalon: Now here, we have a perfect example of what a dangerous moron is. Now, in his debut, Megalon was depicted as the God of Seatopia, their greatest weapon, and their best hope at getting revenge upon humanity for what they perceived to be intended attacks on their city. And Megalon was more than willing to fill in the position. Unfortunately, there's just one small problem: HE'S A COMPLETE IDIOT, AND A SUPERIOR MORON! While we see he has a great pangent for destruction, he needs somebody to tell him where to point his destructive habits at. Otherwise he will literally start hopping around like a grasshopper, blowing up everything in sight. And honestly, this is pretty hilarious when you think about it. Because from what i saw of him, he has the mindset of a man-child. Kinda like Fat Buu, or even better yet: TFS Nappa. Which is obviously where tarbano got inspiration for his own interpretation from. Though he also mixed it in with some Deadpool, too. But that's not the point. What is is that he's also a pretty tough fighter, too. He can put up a good decent fight with other kaiju. Though when it comes to Godzilla, and Jet Jaguar, he obviously needs help. But considering how lethal his arsenal is, and how carried away he can get with what he does, it's honestly no wonder people see him as a complete demolisher. 7. Monster X: As sinister as he looks, Monster X is a veritable example of a final boss enemy. Even though he appears for a short while, he leaves a pretty good impression. Especially with how well he handles Godzilla up until the showdown with Keizer Ghidorah. From what i saw, Monster X appears to be a very focused, driven, and all around ruthless fighter who will use any means to win his battle. Guess that's why i imagine him as the Godzilla equivalent of Slade from Teen Titans. Especially with how sinister his armor is. In fact, it makes him look less like a kaiju, and more like one of those villains you'd see in Power Rangers, or a Sentai series. And to top it off: he has the power to transform into a second form called Keizer Ghidorah. Something which gives me a small Maleficent vibe when that happens. And i know many people like the idea of the two being separate entities sharing the same body ala Jekyll/Hyde. But personally, i like thinking that Keizer is just another form that X takes when he decides it's time to get serious. Basically like Frieza, or villains with another form. Either way, not much else is needed to be said other than how badass Monster X is. Even if his time was less than hoped for. 6. Orga: Attack of the clones part two, so to speak. Except this clone is a monstrous hybrid between Godzilla, and an ancient, alien lifeform with intelligence unlike anything humanity has seen before. Originally, he was an alien species known as a Millenian, who crash landed on earth, and got stranded for millions of years. Time passes, he gets waken up, and he immediately goes out to find a genetic template to give him a physical form. And it just so happens he picks Godzilla. Though apparently, Orga is not completely stupid, as after his first fight with him ends in a draw, he realizes he needs to learn everything he can about the Saurian. To do so, he basically begins hacking into Japans Databases, and starts stealing every shred of information he can gather. All also as part of a plan to make the earth a suitable home for himself, and possibly any more of his kind still out there. Or probably so he can create more of his kind to inhabit the earth. Either way, he still needs Godzilla's G-Cells to make it happen. And after a rematch which ends with Orga winning, he succeeds in regaining his true form. But he clearly didn't account for the radioactive properties of the G-Cells, and he ended up as a misshapen abomination as a result. But even in this state, he doesn't seem too far gone. I know alot of people consider him a mindless brute who basically goes feral after he mutates, but from where i stand, it looked like he was attempting to adjust to his new body. And it looked like he was doing a good job at it too, as he gave Godzilla as much trouble as he did in his ship. Which makes me believe that he still has his intelligence in tact, but he doesn't really use it when he's fighting. And considering many people also believe his species to be superb at genetic engineering, which i agree with, i'd also like to consider him the Shockwave of Godzilla if we were able to have more of him. After all, both of them basically turn into brutes if they get angry. Though Orga's biggest weakness seems to be his obsessive desire to get what he wants. To the extent that he'll through caution out the window, and charge into the frayhead first. Or at least when he gets desperate. After all, how else would he have done something which would give him a massive "stomach ache", if you know what i mean. But inspite of his little flaw, Orga is still a fearsome, and intelligent villain who knows that information is powerful, and that brute even brute strength can be even more so. 5. Gigan: And now we get to the lean, mean, sometimes green mother from outer space. And he's baaaad. Now Gigan here is a very special case because he's done what noone else has done before: he actually cut into Godzilla deep enough to make him bleed. And i mean "bleed". Gigan is the living definition of what a ruthless, vicious, and bloodthirsty mercenary/assassin is lie in the world of kaiju. He was designed by an alien race of gigantic cockroaches to basically kill anything threatening, and i imagine it's sometimes for a profit. The first time he came to earth, he was teamed up with King Ghidorah. And the two were so ferocious, they nearly brought down both Godzilla, AND Anguirus. Hell, Gigan even managed to beat up Godzilla for a good while without Ghidorah's help. But of course he got Godzilla angry. And we all know what happens when he gets angry. Either way, his second appearance had him join up with Megalon, who he seemed to be best buddies with when they double teamed Jet Jaguar. I can see why people like pegging them as brothers. Of course, not even their friendship was enough to beat Godzilla, and his robo-pal. Though it is funny how he seems to be kind of a coward when things go badly for him. And he'll actually ditch his "friends" so that he can save himself. But then, considering he got his arm broken once, i can't really fault him for that. Though what is funny is that he lost this little habit of his when he came back for Final Wars. Basically, he got upgraded to a "biker with machetes for arms", which is both a funny, and honestly creative description of him. But either way, this is the Gigan that begins to get more serious for his depictions. In fact, both this Gigan, and the original, were mixed together to make Gigan something both formidable, and amazing. True, he still ran away when things got ugly, but he scored more hits than misses. And besides, he's had to contend with some serious fighters: counting Godzilla, JJ, and even Spacegodzilla himself. Even though FW made him more robotic than he should've been, what with him getting his head blasted off then replaced, it was handled much better in Rulers of Earth: he starts off as Showa, but then gets upgraded to FW scythe, until he finally gets his chainsaws. At which point he helps to beat an alien invasion, fight Jet in an epic rematch, and then basically go up in a massive blaze of glory with the chance of his return in a possible continuation. Few can get as hardcore as Gigan is, just like few could ever really make the cut for his own tenacity. Because he is a monster. He is badass. He is: GIGAAAAAN!!! 4. Destoroyah: Oh, boy. Now we're getting to the biggun's of the Godzilla franchise. And very few can be as despicable as the Destoroyah himself. So what makes this guy so cool, but also vile? Quite a bit, actually: first of all, he is one of the more personal enemies because of how his origin ties into Godzilla's in the most unpleasant way: he was a collective of microscopic precambrian crustaceans laying dormant in Tokyo Bay for centuries, but got mutated by the Oxygen Destroyer when it was used to kill Gojira. Over 40 years alter, when Micro Oxygen is released, the creatures mutated again, and began fusing together until eventually they formed into Destoroyah himself. And he is a right nasty piece of work. He kills lots of people in all of his forms, and even kills Godzilla Jr for beating him in his second/third form. But that's not exactly the worst of it, because he did it in front of his father. Right in front of him as he was helpless to do anything. He probably sensed that it was Jr's father who was also there, and so he wanted to make both of them suffer because he could: Jr for basically beating him, and Senior for Sh*ts and giggles. Though all he does is incure Godzilla's wrath, because nobody f*cks with his family, and lives to tell about it. But the interesting thing is that Destoroyah is a friggin tank. He can take hits from Godzilla when he's in his strongest form, and he can beat the crap out of him in normal stage like he did in Rulers of Earth. And naturally, it takes several kaiju to tangle with him, and hopefully win. Especially since he's strong enough to toss kaiju several meters away, and he can take almost anything thrown at him short of Sub-Zero ice attacks. Though what makes him all the worse is the fact that when he fights someone, he doesn't just beat them into submission, or anything. He goes out of his way to make them hurt on the inside, as much as outside. And he is absolutely brutal in his methods, too, whether he tries cutting kaiju with his horn, beating them like a punching bag, or in Anguirus' case, try, and break every bone in their body.And all of this stems from the source of his mutation. It usually stands to reason that the thing that mutates something often influences them in ways they never knew before. And for Destoroyah, he was not only enfused with the power of the Oxygen Destroyer, but also what it was created to do as well: bring death, and destruction to every living thing. That....is an almost sad thing to think about, actually. Since the day he was changed, Destoroyah was made to be nothing mor than a harbinger of death, and to bring destruction, and misery to everything. And from what i've seen, he knows no other way to live. All he knows is death, and destruction. Therefore, all other concepts are probably alien to him. Which leaves him as the kind of villain who isn't interested in profit, or conquest, who can't be bought, bargained, or reasoned with: he's the kind who wants to watch the world burn. And if it weren't for Godzilla, and a few others, he may very well have succeeded. Even when he served under the Devonians for a while. For he is a force of destruction few would ever wish to cross, and would ever wish to face alone. Also because, like AVGN once said: HE LOOKS LIKE THE GDDAMN DEVIL!!! 3: Grand/King Ghidorah: Now comes the esteemed archenemy of Godzilla, and the often considered big bad of Toho as a whole. But first, let me be clear on something: I don't, by any means, like King Ghidorah as he was depicted in the Showa series. And the only reason for this is because of how, after his debut, he became nothing more than a simple pawn to a bunch of alien fools who couldn't hold a candle to him as villains. Maybe secondary villains, or even minions, but not main villains. Because of this, i feel like King Ghidorah's potential as a villain suffered greatly, as he didn't do anything on his own, and was only a mind controlled servant to who i consider lesser beings. But with that being said, i do still love his concept, and how he is depicted when he first appeared. When he first appeared, he was built up significantly, and his reveal was drawn out considerably well. Even when he spent a good deal in his meteor transport, you could feel the tension rising as he seemed to gather more power from the surrounding area, and add it to his own. Even adding a small mention of his supposed control over gravity itself, which we sadly don't really see outside of the one scene where he makes a gravity tornado that draws in rocks, and tree's, and other stuff. Also, his arrival was heralded by the essence of an alien species who came from Planet Venus itself: which once had the ability to sustain life like Earth. That is until HE arrived, and reduced the entire world to a lifeless husk: killing every living thing on the planets surface, making it so life could never prosper, and grow again. And this happened many centuries ago, leading to the obvious idea of King Ghidorah having existed for billions of years, or more. Either way, when he gathers enough os his energy, and then finally makes his appearance, it is absolutely spectacular: he emerges from his meteor crater like it were an egg, except for him emerging as an immense ball of fire. And like a Phoenix, or rather reverse of a Phoenix, when his flames rise into the sly, he forms into his golden, 3 headed state as if he were being born for the first time. Once he emerges, he gets right to work destroying the earth. It's only thanks to the combined strength of Mothra, Rodan, and Godzilla to drive him away. Showing that he's so strong that only a large number of kaiju can successfully fight him in battle. Otherwise, he would completely demolish his enemies with no real problem. And in each of his appearances, he has always fought more than one kaiju, and is the only way he has been beaten (except maybe in Godzilla vs Gigan). The only thing which could put him down for good was an entire army of kaiju ganging up on him as he attempted to destroy them all. But it's kinda obvious what happened. Either way, this was unsurprisingly not the last we'd see of him. Cause believe it or not, there came a Ghidorah who was far worse in comparison to this one. One who left more of an impact upon the universe he existed in (which i am convinced is still in the heisi series of Godzilla). I speak of none other than the Grand King Ghidorah himself. Now, how does one begin to describe Grand King Ghidorah? Well, for one thing at least, let's imagine that Showa Ghidorah survived hi ordeal, went back into space, decided that he finally need to get off his lazy ass and train, spend around 30 years doing said training, and then come back so much stronger than ever before. Though i'm sure this didn't actually happen, it's still fun to dream. But i will definitely say that this is a vast improvement over Showa Ghidorah. Though, as i said, it could be argued that this is Showa Ghidorah, but i digress. Because what he does is far more despicable than anything we've seen his kind do before: while he does begin destroying the planet slowly, and probably getting a kick out of doing it, he also begins kidnapping children, and then trapping them inside of an energy doem using his own power. While it seems obviously clear that king Ghidorah was doing this just to eat, i think my friend UltraGWRzilla has a better theory which gives more context to this, and make him all the more frightening: Grand King Ghidorah also feeds on fear, and misery. Though he obviously can eat like any regular being, there is the idea that he kidnapped human children so that he could bring despair to the human parents, as they worry about, and fear for their kids. And Ghidorah not only feeds on that misery, but also the fear of the humans he has taken as his prisoners. Only a truly malevolent, and sadistic being could do something as horrible as that. Which makes him all the more intimidating than his predecessor's. Also, as a nod to the showa films, he actually has the power of mind control for himself. As a way to show that he is nobodies servant, and he can easily enslave anyone close to him if he so chooses. Like he did to one of the Elias so that he could turn them against, and kill, each other because of how amusing it probably was to him. As is quite evident throughout his film appearance, Grand King Ghidorah is a sadist who enjoys killing others, and hurting them in the most excruciating way he could possibly find. Just like he did to Mothra Leo, who was probably at Godzilla's level of power by the time Ghidorah showed up. After Ghidorah beats him up, though, it makes him desperate enough to actually go back in time to when Ghidorah killed the dinosaurs, a point in which he was considerably weaker, and kill him then. It succeeds, and Grand Ghidorah fades from existence. Though surprisingly enough, his tail stayed in tact, and it let him regenerate from that small piece. Guess it shows that he also has similarities to Cell, as well. Funny enough, like Cell, he lost to our hero once the latter gained a new special form, and completely destroyed him with it. But it was quite an epic finish to such an epic kaiju. Still, as far as i'm concerned, i don't think even an army of kaiju could stand against him as simply as Showa Ghidorah. Not that we can ever see for ourselves since Toho still won't let IDW use him yet. But i'm still hopeful that someday they will be cooperative on the matter. It really is a shame we don't get to see more of him outside the fandom, Yet one thing we can all agree on is that Grand/ King Ghidorah is fearsome, sadistic, vicious, and powerful force of destruction who has long since earned his title as "The King of Terror". 2. Spacegodzilla: Remember when i said that noone in Godzilla pulls off the evil doppleganger concept better than Mechagodzilla? I lied. As far as i'm concerned, there is an evil version of Godzilla who more than lives up being considered his evil half brother. And that is Spacegodzilla, the heavily modified, cosmic clone of Godzilla who is easily one of the most popular kaiju villains ever made. And there is quite alot to enjoy about him, too. He's vile, cruel, malevolent, he enjoys hurting others, manipulating them, and also conquering other worlds for his own gain. Which is something that makes him stand out among many of the evil kaiju. Where others like King Ghidorah, and Destoroyah do nothing but destroy everything around them is considered part of their nature, as they were basically born to be destroyers. Kinda like it was their purpose, and they were made specifically to do so. It's likely instinct to them. Except for Spacegodzilla, who doesn't simply destroy planets like them because it's in his nature, or because someone makes him, oh no. He conquers, and enslaves other worlds for no one other than himself. He holds the ambition of a tyrannical conqueror. He wants to control, and rule everything that exists. But he also tries, and makes sure that any threat to his future reign is killed, or destroyed first. Hence why he traveled to earth as soon as possible to kill Godzilla: as far as Spacegodzilla was concerned, Godzilla was the only real threat to his dominion of earth. And he is certainly one who is willing to go to ANY lengths to make sure it happens. In fact, aside from Destoroyah, Spacegodzilla did something that might be more despicable in comparison: after arriving on Godzilla's Island after honing in on him with his own "species tracking ability", the first thing he does upon arrival is attack little godzilla. He actually attacks a virtually helpless infant so that he can draw Godzilla out. And what happens when Godzilla DOES show up? He gets his ass kicked rather quickly thanks to Spacegodzilla's immense power, and he's forced to watch as his son is locked up in a crystal cage which even he can't break. Which means that he has no choice but to fight Spacegodzilla. And Spacegodzilla is certainly no slouch when it comes to getting ready for a fight. After his Island fight, he sets a course for Fukuoka, then turns it into crystal power station which, using the tower, would keep his strength, and energy, at maximum at all times. After that, he patiently waited for his "father's" arrival. Seriously: he didn't even destroy anything himself. Either on the way to Fukuoka, or once he arrived. At least, except for whatever damage his crystals caused. He just stood there, and waited. it's obviously because he was conserving his energy for the fight, as he knew he would need to be at maximum to win. And he certainly gave Godzilla, and Moguera, a good pounding once they arrived. Funny enough, even after they destroyed the tower, and shattered his shoulder crystals, they barely managed to defeat him because he is a durable bastard who can take as much damage as he receives. Of course, Godzilla did kill him, but there was a sense that he would someday come back. Even if it wasn't in the films. (Which he did). What i also like about him is how he acts more like one of those solo act villains who cannot stand to have any sort of competition for control of HIS world. Or the interference of his plans. Just ask the Jap-Mafia who tried mind controlling Godzilla for a profit. But that's not to say that he doesn't join forces with other evil kaiju, though. In IDW's series, he joined up with Monster X, Hedorah, and Gigan to conquer the planet together. It went about as well as you'd expect. What's funny enough is that even he seemed to realize that he was better off alone. So he went back to being "single". And just like with the Vortaak, who he was also aligned with for a short while, he gave the figurative middle finger to an alien species called the Cryog, who were also trying to take earth. He didn't even hesitate when Gigan was sent to stop him, since he has no other loyalties, and quite frankly, not even Gigan could stop him. The only other foe aside from Godzilla who nearly bested him were the Trilopods. And mainly because they ambushed him on the way to earth, and took him by surprise, thus allowing them to assimilate, and replicate him. And they certainly must've sensed that he was a big threat, because all of their attention was focused on him during the fight in LA. And it was only when he, and Godzilla combined their strength did they finally win. Even though it took everything Goji had, and knocked him unconscious. Of course, true to his nature, Spacegodzilla tried to off him as he lay unconscious. But he immediately sensed the hive coming, and decided to give a "this isn't over" roar before leaving. Like i said: he has no loyalties, and if he see's any opportunity, he'll stab anyone in the back so that he can win. He's very treacherous, and not someone to take lightly. In fact, there was another instance in history where he nearly brought about the end of the world, and almost succeeded in claiming it as his own: the crystal incursion. Long story short: after getting sucked into a black hole, he sends a swarm of crystal meteors to earth, which then infuse with the elemental properties and become power surge crystals, causing global catastrophes along the way. They enhance/enslave any kaiju that use them, increase in power over time, and are used to free Spacegodzilla from his prison. Now, if anything, we can see a full demonstration which only proves Spacegodzilla can do in a short while what it probably takes King Ghidorah many hours to do. Because in my opinion, Spacegodzilla probably does this as a means of drawing a planet's lifeforce into him, and thus destroying worlds in a similar sense to Galactus. Either that, or he would have crystal-formed the entire world so that he could make the seat of his new empire, which would be made similarly to what he would've done to earth. And he basically used many kaiju to gather the necessary power crystals to make this possible. People like KaijuSamurai take it a step further by having him obtain a secondary form, stronger than the first. I mean, he was already an almighty psychic before, like Mewtwo. But he was close to omnipotent in his ultimate form. Now imagine if he acquired every last PS Crystal in that state. He would basically become a god, and none could be able to stand against him. So basically, he's like the Dr Doom of Godzilla. Though he also has a similarity to the Joker in at least one aspect: his origin. While it was hinted at in his film, we never truly get what his actual backstory is other than the fact he is somehow related to Godzilla. As a matter of fact, he's had quite a number of backstories which are each unique in their own way: whether it was Biollante's spores floating through space until flying into a blackhole, then fusing with a crystal organism. Mothra carrying Godzilla's cells with her as she went into space resulting in the same thing happening, a crystal entity abducting Jr, and the absorbing his DNA to become Spacegodzilla, an evil Godzilla from an alternate universe who fell into a blackhole and fused with a crystal anomaly, a clone bred in a laboratory by King Ghidorah, or Gigan, to be their weapon only for him to turn on them, or Mothra, Battra, Biollante, and Godzilla's DNA fusing with an alien crystal, falling into a backhole once again, and then form Spacegodzilla. Many different accounts, all of them different, except for one detail: Godzilla. And i bet if you asked Spacegodzilla about his origin, he'd either just keep changing it, or he'd say "if you're going to have an origin story, you're better off making it multiple choice". His beginnings are a complete mystery, but everything he has done up to this point only further defines who he is, and proves him to be another example of how villains with silly names can often be the most sinister, and evil. Intelligent, sadistic, pure evil, and with a lust for power unlike any kaiju before, Spacegodzilla is a kaiju who definitely knows what it means to be a Crystal Tyrant. And my number one favorite Godzilla villain is: 1.Bagan: Now, i'm sure many people will probably consider this some kind of cop out, considering how Bagan has never been in a Godzilla movie officially, but hear me out, please. What makes me love Bagan most of all isn't him being an overly popular scrapped kaiju who was planned for at least 3 different movies, and only got featured in a video game: it's what everyone else does with him that makes him enjoyable. Bagan is a kaiju who may be conceptual at this moment, but what toho had planned for him has been beneficial enough to give others something to work with. The basic story for him is simple: he was once the ancient guardian of China, which he guarded over a thousand years ago. But something happened which had him vanish from the world for centuries. Eventually, he returned to the world, and sensing the changes made, decided to wipe out humanity. That was the original concept for him. But now a days, he has a much darker, and edgier story shared by everyone. But i have my own version to go by. He was indeed a guardian of earth, and has existed since the earth itself was formed. He was the most powerful being that ever existed, and was by all accounts a god. It could even be believed that he nearly slaughtered King Ghidorah himself when he invaded, while the divine moth's sealed away his sibling, DesGhidorah. After that, he continued to serve as protector for the planet, and soon enough the new species of human, and animal which began emerging. Humanity soon built civilizations which had both science, and magic, as the foundation of their lifestyle. Even using it to revive extinct species, like dinosaurs, as a way to see how well their abilities worked. And for a good long while, things were quite peaceful. But then something horrible happened which spelled dark days for the earth, and humanity. Bagan, for some reason, had lost his desire to protect all life, and soon wished to bring an end to all life. Noone knows exactly why he ended up like this. Maybe as he watched over humanity he began to grow weary of his task, and turned against it, or as he watched humanity progress he used his godly powers to look into the future, and saw the horrible things humanity would do, or he feared that someday his power would no longer be enough to keep his home safe, and he struck a deal with a dark force for more power so that he could better protect his charges, and became corrupt in the process. Or perhaps even that as humanity progressed in their achievements, he grew jealous of their accomplishments because they no longer seemed to care for, or respect the guardians anymore, and as they began to grow, learn, and even see themselves as Gods, Bagan decided that he needed to take action. Allowing his anger, jealousy, and newfound hatred festering inside of him to eventually corrupt his heart, and make him become a force of evil who believed that humanity, and in turn all living things, were now too dangerous for their own good, and needed to be protected as only he could: by killing every last one of them, and restoring them to their true form as immortal souls, united in a single, strong source that would keep them safe for all eternity: himself. Either way, he wasted no time in laying waste to ancient humanity: decimating their once proud, and advanced cities, vaporizing every last animal he could find, and ultimately destroying the inherent magic which was once inherent within the planet as he consumed to it give himself more power. He eventually face his fellow guardians, possibly offering them the chance to join him, but they refused. Unfortunately, because of how powerful he is, they can't fully stand up to him, and he destroys all but Mothra, and Battra, reducing them to the last of the divine moth's. A chance is also that he may have killed many of the kaiju we know exist in the Godzilla 2014 universe. Perhaps even killing all but one Goji2014 as well. Either way, the divine moth's are given no choice but to cast a great deal of diminished magic to create an imperfect seal to keep Bagan imprisoned for many thousands of years. Though they may not realize that because the seal wasn't complete, he may escape earlier than anticipated. Either way, the humans try and aid the divine moth's one last time by using the last of their resources to create new guardians who are meant to fight Bagan should he ever return. And the earth uses the last of it's magic to restore the damaged earth to it's original state. So as you can see: Bagan is a force of unimaginable power who caused another great extinction in several universes. The idea of him being a guardian who's power basically makes him a god is an often favorited means of development. Though what makes it much better is when he is depicted as a Luciferian figure who rebelled against his fellow guardians, and fell from grace as he was cast into the earth as he was beaten. And of course, when he eventually does get free, he once again brings chaos to the world. And usually people depict him as a final boss villain who Godzilla requires his Super form to defeat. Which does seem fitting because of the fact he best serves as the "Ultimate Evil". And rarely does he get anymore evil than when he is used. For in his bid to destroy everything, he will often go to may lengths to do so, like absorbing the DNA of Godzilla, and King Ghidorah to increase his power, or even assemble an organization of evil kaiju to carry his will, and find the means of restoring his full power. In short, he is a puppet master who will often pull the strings of others in many ways. Whether he infuses his dark essence into Godzilla Senior so that he can kill the divine moths, or he can manipulate humans into forming organizations, or secret societies to carry out his will. But either way, he never takes no for an answer. If someone is unwilling to cooperate with him, he will often force them to do what he wants, whether by psychically screaming into kaiju's minds, or just beating them into submission. Though if he wishes, he will often work on his own to do whatever. Because like any god, he really doesn't need anyone's assistance. Even if it's King Ghidorah who offers said alliance. And Bagan seemingly has no limits to what he can do, too. He either just does what any kaiju can do (super strength, beam weapons, etc.), or he uses powers that very few can do themselves: like being able to transcend through reality, time, and space by going to any universe, or time period he wants. And if he wills it, his own presence can often shape the world around him into something which reflects his black soul: an icy, cold, frozen wasteland with black ice like obsidian, and a cold which reaches all the way down to the human soul. A trait which is reminiscent of the biblical 9th circle of hell, which is the furthest away from heaven, and God's light, and as such is a realm of darkness that isn't warm, or bright. Just cold, and dark. With this in mind, it doesn't surprise me when he has the power to also change his shape into anything he wants, or anyone. Which is also very reminiscent of the very first concept of Bagan from the "Return of Godzilla" film script. Speaking of which, there is another power he wields which is also very unique. When he has noone else around, and he doesn't want to dirty his own hands, Bagan will summon from his own darkness three entities known as Enjin, Mizu, and Doragon Reijuu. These beings are the aspects of Bagan's own soul, and they resemble what Bagan once was before he became a dark god. They each represent earth, air, and water, and also have no wills of their own save for whatever Bagan has them do. They're basically puppets that he can control from anywhere, but are still dedicated to their missions. Though i will say that this gave me some interesting thoughts, too: what if Bagan not only has the ability to consume energy, but also the souls of others, either human, or kaiju? Because as an entity who is so in-tuned with mystical energy, and is a god of incredible power, it stands to reason he also has the power to steal souls, and add them to his power. This would allow him to turn them into will-less slaves who only have one purpose: to serve Bagan for all eternity. Such a thing would only give Bagan more of a satanic feel, and give him the necessary qualities to further cement him as a dark force who seems pretty close to a satanic, lovecraftian horror. Either way, his power is incredible, and it often takes the combined power of every kaiju on earth, as well as Super Godzilla, to bring down this almighty destroyer of worlds. But it is left to wonder if an evil such as his can ever be destroyed so long as evil exists in the universe? We may never know. But soon enough, the inhabitants of the world of Equestria, along with Godzilla, and his universe displaced friends, and foes will eventually. We can only hope that once that time comes, they will be ready. For Bagan is an evil unlike anything seen before save for his former fellow Guardians. With a history paved in blood, hatred, darkness, and oblivion, Bagan will always continue to prove his metal as the ultimate God of Extinction, and the true Lord of Darkness. As the great Makuta Teridax, who is my inspiration for Bagan as well, once said: "So, it has begun, my brother. But soon, it will also EEENNNDD." And that was the list of my top 10 Godzilla villains. Did you agree with my list? Have any thoughts about these guys? Any other kaiju you considered for a spot? If so, then feel free to share in the comments below. And as always, i will see you all in the next installment of...whatever. Goodbye!

Just in case: Some of this artwork is owned by @spankzilla85

Godzilla/these kaiju in general are owned by Toho

#Godzilla #villains #toho

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