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dangermousie · 4 years ago

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Continuing with my reread

And got to the point where they visit the Rufeng Sect.

But before I get to the chapters-specific stuff, I wanted to talk about something that discussion between @moransumbrella and @momoliee (about SQT and RJ) made me think about.

And it’s that in 2ha, one of the big narrative points is that it is understandable to want to survive/get revenge/protect yourself or others but no goal however understandable or noble in the abstract can justify systematically hurting innocents and when you cross that line and keep crossing it, you become a monster. Maybe a tragic one or understandable one, but there is none of that “oh you poor thing, go on” attitude.

Is there any doubt that Shimei is fully justified in wanting to save his people from the horrors they are subjected to in the cultivation world? No, not at all. But leaving aside the irony of his plan wrecking both the one person we’ve seen who never ever went along with that behavior (CWN) and the person who IS part of those people and a special one at that (Moran), those two also being some of the few people who treated him so well, nobody in their right mind would think he’s justified to literally destroy a Universe he is in and then start working on the Universe of the main story. He is a monster pure and simple and nothing can justify what he does. Or, on a smaller scale take someone like Rong Jiu (mainly 0.5), Song QT, Nangong Xu or even that family in Butterfly Town. They all have reasons for doing the horrible things they do - desperation to get out of awful life (RJ, SQT), rightly wanting vengeance for having his place stolen (NX), or even understandable desire to get ahead as a family (Butterfly Town folks.) Shimei’s sister - same - she does the monstrous things she does because she loves her brother. Meatbun gets that very few people genuinely see themselves as villains - even as mad, as gone, as compelled, as broken TXJ was, he still clung to his “I was justified to torture CWN 0.5 because he killed Shimei″ like a life raft. Even a person who was not in any way in possession of free will in his actions or even his thoughts, still felt he needed to operate on a “just world” theory.

BUT the thing is, it makes their actions justified in their own heads but Meatbun never makes the mistake of letting us forget that even monsters with valid reasons are monsters. There is no justification in the world that can make what Shimei did OK, there is no justification in the world that can make anything any of the bad actors do to innocents OK. It relates to huge things (Hua Binan literally destroying the Universe) and little ones (Rong Jiu in the Underworld betraying Moran and CWN.) Sympathy and justice are two separate concepts.

But the other thing I love is nothing is static either. Meatbun doesn’t shie from calling a monster a monster but redemption is possible no matter what. We see this with Moran (until the twist, of course, that no redemption is necessary (sort of - about this more word vomit below) because he’s an even bigger victim than CWN), we see it with Shimei 2.0 - I will never warm up to Shimei for emotional reasons but there is zero question that he is working hard on his redemption at the end and is earning it. But the thing is - you have to possess moral consciousness to want to redeem yourself. That is what makes you salvageable. Moran possesses it, Shimei 2.0 possesses it (and I love the concept that no matter how high your sins, you CAN be redeemed. But that redemption doesn’t necessarily involve personal happiness or your victims forgiving you, it is basically hard work only for internal reward of the possibility of peace.) A lot of other monsters, large and small, do not.

OK, the thing about whether Moran needs redemption that I just mentioned. The quick and easy answer is “of course not.” He was probably the biggest victim of them all and none of the monstrous things he did were his fault or within his control. But I love that the answer is actually more complicated because it rings emotionally true. Moran finding out the truth near the end is wonderful and will allow him not to perpetually drown in guilt, but just as TXJ sliver doesn’t really fade into the rest of his souls, I don’t think the guilt will go away fully, not for a while. Because, aside from the concept of utter lack of volition combined with utter lack of knowledge that you actually lacked volition and deludedly thought this was all your ideas, being a whole other different trauma, the fact remains that Moran remembers feeling rage/hatred/bitter satisfaction in murder and rape and torture and burning the world. He remembers all the awful things he’s done to his most loved ones. And he clearly gloms onto “the flower brings out all your darkest/worst/most insane desires and makes them conscious thoughts” aspect of the curse - he tells CWN that the flower made real things he sometimes thought of and so it only worked because it was him and not someone better like CWN - and some of it is trying to comfort CWN and make him feel less guilty that Moran took on the flower so CWN’s won’t be forced to to - but some of it is his genuine belief. And that is what is so insidious about that curse - it twists normal stray thoughts and healthy interests into murder and insanity (compare TXJ’s obsession with CWN because Moran had such strong positive feelings about CWN before the spell, to his utter lack interest in e.g., Nangong Liu who he let run off when he took Rufeng because as long as the man didn’t fight him, he couldn’t care less what he did, because flower couldn’t turn indifference into something negative.) So I do think in addition to knowing on intellectual level about not being responsible not being equal to getting it on emotional level, Moran clearly feels responsibility because it was his emotions only out of whack and insanely perverted that the flower based its compulsions on. Moran became such a monster precisely because he has such strong loves and such strong emotions in general - strong love and desire to protect became strong hate and endless appetite for torture. The flower changes the nature of emotion and thoughts, not the level of intensity. If Shimei actually found someone who was genuinely utterly indifferent to most things (not CWN who feels so intensely; he conceals himself so much precisely because he feels SO much, cares SO much, he’d have been as much of a monster as Moran if he was the flower recepient), I am not sure he’d have been as successful. If the most someone is capable of is mild “eh,” it’s hard to turn it into a drive for world-destruction. So in a way, Taxian Jun was such a monster and so successful because Moran was so good and had such drive. Anyway, as most of my thoughts, this has gone into a random direction but the thing is, whether Moran is guilty of what TXJ did, the answer is not but not for Moran, and that’s one of the reasons I love him.

To get back to the chapters I am at, I hate Nangong Liu, one of the most despicable characters out there. Even TXJ, as messed up as he was, still hated not people who fought him fair and square or other honest villains, but people who’d kiss up only to stab you in the back, doing anything to get ahead and that is what head of Rufeng is. (There is a sentence to that extent when Moran 2.0 meets Nangong Liu - that who he hated most as TXJ was not Xue Meng or MHX but people like Nangong Liu. That loathing, like his obsession with CWN, is one of the few things consistent across any version of Moran and shows how much his “gratitude for good, straightforward is good” is embedded in him that even the flower couldn’t shove it out of him.) CWN’s comment that the reason Rufeng Sect is so rich because they charge God knows how much as opposed to Siseng Peak which charges very little and sometimes nothing, sums up the difference between the Upper and Lower cultivation realms. Rufeng is the wealthiest and most powerful and most respected but morally they are far beneath Siseng (there is a reason CWN is very gentle when he tells this to Xue ZY - CWN has about the truest and most moral heart in the series; there is a reason he stayed at Siseng, an “inferior” sect, even though everyone would love to have him. It’s because Xue ZY is righteous and he sees the wealth of Rufeng and wishes he could use it to give villages protection instead of decorating like Rufeng, because he’s that type of person.)

One of the biggest injustices to me is that Nangong Liu survives the book but Meatbun’s world is often like that. Being good does not mean a good ending, being bad does not mean proper punishment. The main OTP will make it through despite hell she puts them through, but for secondaries even those bets are off.

OK, this is getting War and Peace level long so I am going to stop.

#cnovel #2ha

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yandere-wishes · 5 years ago

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Innocence //Yandere Leona x reader x Chaka

Thank you so much to @yandere-romanticaa for the prompt. I tried to make this perfect... and I failed 😭😭 Remember that all interactions between Chaka and reader are platonic!

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Visits from the young prince always filled you with a melancholic sentiment. The child, Chaka, was practically the embodiment of innocence. He was sweet, lively, bold and above all caring. Noting at all like his apathetic, sadistic uncle. The two may have shared a lineage but they were as opposed as could be. For the most part, this was a good thing, the purity Chaka radiated was what kept you sain. It was what prevented you from sneaking off into the Savanclaw kitchen, grabbing the sharpest knife you could find and sliting your throat with the utensil. Bathing yourself in your own blood, then throwing yourself in front of a starved Ruggie, to be devoured. He was just so oblivious to the pain and suffering that circled you, oblivious to the morbid thoughts that danced in your head every waking second.

Chaka had always loved his uncle. His uncle Leona was strong, handsome and would always listen to his tales of adventure. He never thought he'd ever love anyone as much as he did Leona. Of course, that was all until he met you. The young Prince isn't really sure what you are to his uncle, he's old enough to comprehend the concept of marriage and courting....yet that's not what seems to be the cause with the two of you. For lack of a better word he calls you auntie but the title doesn't stick well, it melts every time he throws it around, sinking and morphing into a metamorphic puddle with toxic properties. You're kind and loving practically motherly towards him but never as strict and dotting as his own mother is. You permit him freedom, the liberty to be whoever he dreams, the only other person who's ever given him that notion of independence has been his uncle Leona.

Ever since meeting you, Chaka has been more frequent in his visits, constantly begging uncle Leona to let him come over. Leona isn't too keen out of sharing, he loathes his family including his young naive nephew. But he leaps at the opportunity to force you into a corner. To watch as your determination crumble, your resistance shatter for the sake of his "naive" little nephew. You play along hanging off of Leona's arm the way you think a caring loving girlfriend would. You crunch down and hug Chaka tightly as he practically leaps out of the carriage/ limousine (I-I don't know) racing into your embrace relishing the feeling of your soft touch. You take his tiny hand in yours leading him to the Savanclaw dorms. Leona's arm wrapped around your wais tugging you aggressively to his side, claw-like nails digging into your tender flesh leaving tiny angry red dots that would surely sprout out blood once he removed his nails. Chaka just continues to smile and cheerful chirp about the "new land" his friends and him had discovered the other day.

"Auntie (Y/N)! Uncle Leona! Ranla, Timothy, Payton and I found this giant lake in the forest behind our house! There were soooo many colorful bugs there! You should have seen them! Timothy dared me to eat one of the fat blue ones!--"

You only partly listened, too focused on the prideful smirk that kept growing on Leona's face. He's enjoying the power he has over you, the power you practically handed over to him.

As Chaka's stay extends, reality begins to settle in, shattering your already broken heart. Chaka and Leona aren't that different. Oh sure, Chaka still isn't fully aware of what his uncle has done to you, can't fully understand why to flinch so violently when Leona touches you. And sadly there is no way to get him to understand. You can't explain that Leona has broken both your legs before so you'd stay in bed with him longer. how he's sunk his "teeth" so far into your tongue when you tried to tell director Crowly that Leona has been stalking you. And lord forbid the young prince ever hear about the time his "dear old uncle" cut you so deeply that the blood wouldn't stop, how he'd let both Ruggie and Jack have they're fun with you as you bleed out. But even without the knowledge of those horrors or any "malicious" intent of his own. Chaka still harbored the same sick and twisted obsession as Leona did. Maybe the young child didn't want to hurt you but he was almost as ruthless as his uncle, all anger and mania.

If you let the image of the warm caring aunt slip for even a fraction of a second. He'd yell, scream, cry demanding that you tell him why you didn't love him anymore, you wanted to abandon him! What had he done wrong? He thought you loved him unconditionally! WHY WOULD YOU STOP LOVING HIM! He throws tantrums, pushes you away but never hurts you. No, the only person with the privilege of watching you scream your lungs raw is Leona. The second he hears Chaka's voice waver ever so slightly, see the tiniest tear leak form his big amber eyes, Leona is dragging you by the hair to his room locking the door and ordering Ruggie to entertain Chaka while he "re-teaches (y/n) her manners".

But if you play your part right, keep up the image of a perfect dollhouse, then the two Kingscholars are so loving towards you. Joking around, hugging you. Leona's kisses get sweeter bordering on nearly caring. And Chaka's hugs aren't as tight and possessive as they are when he's screaming and crying. You let them pick your outfits, let them play with your hair, let them do whatever will keep them both pleased and quite. As long as you smile and hug them and give them your most generous kisses then they are happy. But don't start giving one more attention than the other, expecting a fraction of mercy. Oh, no darling it doesn't work like that. Leona will enjoy the favoritism, cause that just means you've finally realized how much you love him! But the victory is short-lived when Chaka runs up to him, hugging his midsection and bellowing about how "auntie (Y/N) hates me! She won't pay any attention to me!" Leona will make you kneel in front of both of them apologizing profoundly for neglecting the future king, begging Chaka to forgive you, that you'll never dismiss him again!

If it's Leona you start to ignore that a different more vicious story. The second prince is driven into a jealous rage very easily, Chaka already has the love of everyone back home how dare he steal the love and attention of his darling as well! Leona will threaten you with Chaka's safety promising to hurt the young prince if you don't continue to ignore him. He'll punish you leave so so many bruises, bitemarks, hickeys and any other mark that shows the world who you truly belong to! He doesn't want to make his nephew upset but he simultaneously doesn't want to lose another thing he holds dear to the little hairball. He'll let Chaka play with you, drag you out on adventures but he also has to be there, you need to stay closer to him!

In the end, it's a grim fate that awaits you. The sadistic second prince will use his young "innocent" nephew to further control his darling. Not that the future prince notices as long as he can stay close to his favorite "auntie" and "uncle" then he's content!

You where wrong a harmless innocent Kingscholar does not exist in this twisted world.

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kasprzaks · 4 years ago

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EVERYDAY EVIL IN EDDIE’S BAD BREAK

At the core of Eddie’s Bad Break is Eddie’s intense closeness with everyday evil. Though the nature of It revolves around the supernatural and the horror of it through this eldritch horror landing in derry in the 1700s and waking up every twenty-seven years thereafter to wreak havoc, this Eddie centric chapter delves much deeper into its titular character’s psyche and what he truly fears outside of a killer clown through lending itself more to the exploration of the mundane of Derry, Maine, and how the everyday can be more frightening and actually usually is, than a fantasy monster. A killer clown is a great thing for a reader to fear for a little while, though for it to truly ring true for someone climbing into and wrapping themselves up in this story, there must be more. Sometimes people and what is already there gives more to fear.

POINT OF VIEW

Pulled in from the moment Eddie enters Mr Keene’s office and not given a break as readers until he leaves, for what is a moment of horror for Eddie becomes horror for the reader. Immediately put into his head to feel his world view come crashing down first hand through the implementation of his thought process into prose and implying what he cares for by what he focuses on, and, at times, through glimpses into the exact thoughts he’s having at that moment; the horror in Eddie’s Bad break is not only to do with the subject matter that Mr Keene is discussing (though it is a great deal), but through the intensity in which we see it through Eddie’s eyes.

Realistically, not much happens in part two of Eddie’s Bad Break, and though what happens is of great importance in the story, it isn’t a scene that should go on for very long. Eddie speaks only in short bursts and shy mumbles as Mr Keene baits out Sonia’s big secret that Eddie is not really ill at all and implies that this has been a ploy to control him, and Mr Keene barely speaks long enough for part two to be as long as it is. Eddie’s discomfort physically as well as emotionally, however, has a magnifying glass hovering over it that we’re left to squirm under with him, and the lengthening of what should have been a short scene by focusing on his internal and jumping back and forth between memories allows the moment to become as long as Eddie lives it. Prolonged, feeling every moment of hurt and discomfort. As readers, we live it with him.

Eddie’s character is one that lingers, he does it on near enough everything, and whose thoughts and feelings overpower anything physically happening in a scene. He has a full and vivid inner world. The entirety of the section in Eddie’s Bad Break that takes place in Mr Keene’s office solidifies this concept. Instead of addressing the difficult situation he is in directly (and difficult is an understatement), Eddie continually buries himself in his brain and lives in his internal reactions, and that fact is integrated into the prose in such a way that we really feel like we’re living in his head despite the third person gap we have to cross to get there.

The specific things chosen to focus on in this part through Eddie’s eyes remain mostly trivial things, such as the ice cream sundae (pictured above), though through the lens of Eddie becomes a thing that brings about great horror and amplifies the genuine terror that he feels under Mr Keene’s adult authority as well as the already troubling subject matter at hand. While another narrator may not even mention it, Eddie zeros in on the cherry in an over the top amplified way to turn something so simple into something much more than it is. The comparison of the cherry being a blood clot at a crime scene is not an even slightly traditional line of thinking, but the guilt Eddie has grown up with and the adult authority we see him suffering under from Mr Keene that we even see at the beginning of this chapter (Eddie seeing a NO SHOPLIFTERS sign and immediately feeling as if he’d done wrong despite never doing anything along that line in his life) projects itself onto his world view. Throughout Eddie’s chapters, words are chosen carefully by him, more so than other characters. While he is a character that has a constantly running inner monologue which may make it seem as though he’s looped back around from the initial worry to every other trivial thing that means little to him, the words are still chosen with purpose, as are the sections where he intensely describes into something more than it is. The blood clot is only really the beginning.

THE TERROR OF MR KEENE AND ‘ADULTING’

Though Mr Keene firmly believes he is trying to help Eddie, his character becomes a central antagonist in this chapter. His treatment of Eddie under the guise of ‘just helping’ sets up the concept of adult authority and how it can be used as a force for evil, simply through the authority age gives, and contributes greatly to the horror Eddie is subjected to. Childhood is already something that leaves the person’s (i.e. Eddie in this case) perception and reliability as something obscure and questionable. Eddie takes most of what Mr Keene is saying to mean he is crazy, and Mr Keene does little of the sort under his power as an adult to offer out a kind hand to reassure Eddie. Again, this is a massive abuse of his adult authority. A realisation comes in this part of the chapter that informs what follows and changes Eddie. The Eddie that stepped foot into the pharmacy is not the same Eddie that walks out, a questioning more doubtful and suspicious one does.

Throughout the chapter we see little inklings of meanness coming from Mr Keene. Though since we are reading this through Eddie’s eyes, some parts may be read and retold a little skewed (the point of view is very much what makes this chapter after all), the general consensus and writing of this scene sets us up for an unsettling interaction. Mr Keene inviting Eddie into his office on his own and offering him an ice cream sundae if complies is an image that already seems familiar, one that reads as ugly and sinister, and purposely written that way by King, making the uncomfortable way of Mr Keene’s interaction with Eddie actually seem a lot more in place (and almost a relief until he starts talking).

As Mr Keene continues unnecessarily (torturing) teasing Eddie, his realisation begins, and while he leaves the office not yet completely settled on any concrete conclusion, it informs the rest of the chapter and the events that follow. After facing It later on, Eddie has the strength and information to realise that what is much scarier than the unimaginable (now that he had seen it with his own two eyes in form of a leper and a dancing clown that was eating the town’s youth) was right in front of him his entire life. It is what he’s suffered under his entire life starting at the hands of his mother and continuing to near enough every adult after that: adult authority. The most frightful and correct conclusion he can come to is how the adults in his life continually disappoint and actively harm him emotionally. From Sonia’s consistent abuse to the lesser but still harmful force in which Mr Keene keeps Eddie in the office no matter the discomfort he is clearly in to give him the information he has decided to impart without Eddie’s consent (and again and again does Eddie tell Mr Keene he wants to leave which of course is refused), it is all down to the authority that age gives that Eddie does not have and leaves him in this vulnerable position.

Still, this concept is planted only in the form of a small passing thought planted in his head here while talking to Mr Keene. It does, however, give him strength he needs later on. The unnerving and calm revelation of ‘grownups are the real monsters’ is quietly revolutionary. As he recognises this, he can move forward.

BOWERS GANG AND SUBVERSION OF ADULT AUTHORITY

Part three of Eddie’s Bad Break is easily the most horrific or at the very least the most graphic of the parts. While up until now, the horror has remained as this elusive and non-physical force, a very physical truth comes and lands hard when Eddie is battered by the Bowers gang outside of Costello Avenue Market on his way home from the pharmacy in a vile and bloody ordeal. The entirety of this section is violent, it’s uncomfortable, and we don’t even need Eddie’s particular world view lens to see that. The actions themselves of the gang are enough to create this horror that’s very real no matter how unfortunate and unpleasant it is.

While older than Eddie, the Bowers gang still do not fall into the category that benefits from adult authority as they are still minors. Their power over Eddie comes entirely from brute force and physicalities whereas the adult power in Eddie’s life is shown to be emotionally based, and although the power they possess is usually overshadowed by adult authority whether it be through a day in day out school routine with constant adult supervision or just the everyday of adults being present, the summer this chapter takes place in allows the Bowers gang a thrive under the unconventional: a total lack of adults.

The absence of this usual power that gives some hierarchy or sense of order to children’s lives and protects them from the reign of the Bowers gang vanishes. They catch Eddie at an unfortunate time when there are no adults in sight, no one there to protect him (this follows on greatly from Eddie’s recent revelation of adults being ‘the real monsters’ – their inability to protect him here when they should backs this up). He is hit, pushed to the ground, and has gravel shoved into his mouth and rubbed over his face. It is only when Mr Gedreau comes out and orders the gang to stop do readers feel that the adult absentee summer spell may wash away for this fleeting moment to spare Eddie from more harm and that adult authority may actually do some good. The expectation is for the gang to flee, from both readers and the established Mr Gedreau, but the gleam in Henry Bowers’ eye suggests something more than just a total cruelty is being done and is mentioned multiple times. Bowers denies the adult’s orders when previously known to flee once an adult shows face. He lunges at Mr Gedreau, threatens him, and this is when Mr Gedreau senses this difference in Bowers, what we see as the beginnings in a change of his character as he is starting to become influenced by It. Mr Gedreau himself flees the scene and leaves Eddie helpless.

The difference between this moment of the Bowers gang successfully inflicting a kind of torment and them not is nothing to do with the adults around. While their presence may have stopped them before, it certainly doesn’t in this moment, even when an adult takes a hard stand trying to defend Eddie. Here, the supernatural is what allows them to subvert this adult authority and push on through with their cruelties. While Eddie gets away during this distraction and runs for the hills, he is caught again moments later when he trips over a neighbourhood kid on a bike and in a moment of pure evil does Henry Bowers break Eddie’s arm to the absolute horror of the rest of the gang (par Hockstetter who is delighted by it) with no remorse. He goes farther than too far.

Though this is a through and through traumatic moment, one that buries itself deep in Eddie’s memories so that he can retell it years later, this moment frees Eddie in a way, just as the quiet revelation of the abuse of adult power does when Mr Keene spoke to him. Eddie laughs. This is the first real pain he’s felt, and he survives despite what he’s been told his entire life. Henry’s supernatural spell of pure evil is shook by the reaction and though he perseveres, trying to hurt Eddie more, Eddie’s sheer disrespect for Bowers in this moment when he talks back and calls him crazy, just like his father, breaks the spell altogether and allows caution to enter back into him. Police sirens ring and the gang flee the scene, Eddie lays there unable to move for the pain he is in and imagines he sees a turtle floating up above. He’s whisked away in an ambulance and here we feel this miraculous sense of peace with Eddie, even when he opens his eyes and imagines he sees Pennywise the dancing clown in the drivers seat peering back at him.

SUPERNATURAL + THE DEFEAT OF SONIA KASPBRAK: MOTHERING TO DEATH

Each part in this chapter ends with a mention of It, or at the very least an allusion to the supernatural after spending time and suffering with Eddie’s everyday evils. After talking to Mr Keene, Eddie briefly considers throwing his aspirator to the sewers for It to have; after being beaten senseless by the Bowers gang, he sees Pennywise driving the ambulance; later Eddie seeing the eyes of his mother in the lepers in Neibolt; in the hospital he, again, sees Pennywise dancing in the waiting room and kissing his mother on the cheek. There is a constant with this new power of the supernatural tangled in amongst the mundane and contrary to the rest of the book, does not come across near as villainous as it does outside of this chapter. There is a sense that is is more akin to Oh, There’s That Clown Again. Oddly enough, the horror that is terrorising Derry’s youth seems to be a sort of breath of relief after spending time at the pharmacy being faced with the truth that your life is a lie and laying in agony on the ground with a mouth full of gravel. It’s almost this thing of escapism where readers are tricked into being glad to be back in the trauma of such a horror.

Pennywise is without a doubt a villain, through and through, but the supernatural force behind It isn’t. It is powered by whoever harnesses it and how they go about using it, as it goes with Stephen King supernatural: no inherent good or bad, only what is done. Its influence on Henry Bowers is entirely different to what happens when something akin to a moment of the shine happens with Eddie: a moment of clairvoyance where Eddie dreams It acting through his mother and sending the rest of the losers away when they come to visit him, telling them Eddie doesn’t want to see them anymore. He wakes up and finds it to be true. Despite his mother being the pinnacle of adult authority in his life, controlling him his whole life and holding him close through his various ‘illnesses’ and perceived innate weakness, the revelation Eddie had at the beginning of Eddie’s Bad Break that continued to inform his reception to every other event, he calls it the final straw. As the Bowers gang forwent the influence of adult authority when Mr Gedreau tried to make them scatter and leave Eddie be, Eddie uses this force greater than himself to disobey Sonia in a way he never had before for the greater good (i.e. to fight It with his friends later on).

...

In the grips of this unnamed thing, with this force behind him to drive him to fulfil his and the loser’s path to fight, Eddie becomes unrecognisable… frightening, really (at least to Sonia) and eerily calm the whole way through his own manipulation in agreeing to take his aspirator despite knowing the truth to appease his mother’s control on the terms that he can continue to see his friends as it is a vital necessity.

CONCLUSION

Pennywise awakening and starting the cycle again and coming after the losers is not even close to the start of Eddie’s horror. He has been subjected to evil his entire life and this chapter dedicates itself to that fact. Starting with Mr Keene interfering (even if it is in Eddie’s assumed best interest) and keeping him hostage, forcibly giving him this information by the power that being an adult and children having to obey your orders because of what that status affords him, he is cruel with the power and Eddie thinks it himself; the Bowers gang attacking Eddie and breaking his arm in broad daylight and no one helping him; Sonia’s manipulation and refusal to allow him to see his friends again, more intent on keeping them away from Eddie than pressing charges against Henry Bowers, the one who put him in hospital. These are the things in his life that he sees and receives some variation of every day and they are more terrifying than the vision he has of the killer clown driving away in an ambulance in the same chapter. The cruelty and abuse of power adults have, his relentless and abusive mother, the violent bully… they are so much more terrifying than the supernatural force that wants him dead because this is his every day and has been since he was born just because he was unlucky enough to be born as himself.

The overarching theme of adult power and the oft abuse of it in this chapter and throughout Eddie’s (as well as most other children in the book) life as a whole is challenged and is written so well for it in Eddie’s Bad Break. The untraditional external power of the supernatural tied hand in hand with the awareness and information is what brings power to inform and change the way life is experienced, especially when it is experienced as cruelly as it is to Eddie. He comes out changed, bettered, more aware and ready to take on what he has to. Eddie Kaspbrak takes the horror and melds it into what he needs to defeat it.

#* they'll eat me alive #hello.#i dont want to talk about the fact i did this

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adulttrio-imagines · 5 years ago

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“All I wanted was a happy ending” illumi *^*

The funeral was a bland affair.

Even the day itself passed with disturbing uneventfulness. Rather than overcast skies with pouring rain clouds, or piercingly beautiful summer blue, the sun shone blearily through pillars of cloud that lazily drifted in puffs as you stood under the sweltering August heat dressed to the nines in black, surrounded by the constant buzz of cicadas unaffected by the solemnity of a family drowning in grief; the world continued to spin endlessly as if the universe itself couldn’t have cared less about the shifting pieces behind this revelation.

Unexpected considering two of the greatest assassins in the world were now six feet under.

It was a stray bullet through the eye. Not even a nen bullet; a mere normal bullet brought down the giants in the assassination world. It was laughingly ridiculous.

You glance up through your veil to take a peek at Illumi, whose blank face remained as impressively stony as ever; his voice unwavering through the plain eulogy he read, each word spoken as simply as if he were reading from a dictionary and not recounting his parent’s life story, eyes hauntingly empty as he greeted and firmly shook hands with faceless associates, his impassive expression not faltering even once as the butlers lowered his parents into the family grave, hands intertwined.

The unspoken message was clear; the Zoldycks were fine, and will continue to thrive, with or without its named heir.

Neither Killua or Alluka came, the two empty chairs sitting on Milluki’s left silently spoke of their absence, a gaping wound in the family. They didn’t even send a letter for condolences.

Overhead, a crow circles around the scene, giving brief reprise from the unforgiving glare of the sun, it’s cawing mocking.

A familiar throb pounds against the back of your head as the rising taste of something bitter claws its way up your throat, you chew on your bottom lip, struggling to put a finger on this sensation, the feeling strangling you just like how the heat had wrung it’s hands around your skinny neck and squeezed every last bit of willpower out of you until it’s almost dizzying; Illumi shifts on your right, shoulders brushing, and you blink, the feeling subsiding like waves on the seas, disappearing back into the faceless void.

The crow screeches once more, and a choice needle to its neck sends it careening down somewhere in the gardens.

The other Zoldyck children wore masks of indifference of varying degrees; Milluki facade broke when the first shovels of dirt covered the coffin, his loud wailing drowning the humming cicadas until Illumi backhanded him with so much force that an audible crack could be heard when his head slammed into the marble headstone. Youngest child Kalluto stood and observed everything through huge eyes, steely faced other than the wetness of his kimono sleeves which hid broken wrists from when he was caught crying earlier.

You were careful to keep your expression a perfect mix of grief and blankness; (it’s not difficult, you hate hate hate them) kept your head down as Illumi greeted associates, a soft controlled smile and a short bow to the many attendees who repeated their fake condolences as you trailed exactly two steps behind your husband. It was all just a game; smile right, stand straight, keep your mouth shut, don’t feel, unspoken rules of which you had memorized until they burned into the back of your retinas and haunted your dreams.

When all was said and done, the funeral was boring; stupidly perfect, but boring. The flowers picked were perfect (chrysanthemums, lilies, and roses, all snowy white, their mother’s favorite and handpicked from the greenhouse), the eulogy given was appropriately personal and professional at the same time, the deceased were laid for their final rest at a respectable time of half-past noon, even the guest were shooed out after a quick lunch, with the polished mahogany doors slammed shut behind them, once again shielding the rest of the world from the horrors in the mansion.

It was perfect and dull, just like everything Illumi ever did.

In the quiet of your own room, you finally shed off the stuffy dress and uncomfortable leather shoes, neatly arranging them in your closet as Illumi removes his own suit and dumps your clothes into the laundry hamper. His moves are fluid, his motions far too languid for a man who lost both his parents less than a day ago, certainly not for a man who’s supposedly wrecked with grief.

Said man collapses into the bed in a huff, a perfect copy of his mother theatrics, hair fanning out around him like pools of inky darkness as he throws an arm over his eyes, casually tossing his loosened tie to the side. You crawl into bed to join him, careful to avoid pressing down on his long locks as you press a kiss on his cheek.

“I wish Killua was here.” He murmurs, too soft to hear. You hum, wrapping your fingers around his, ignoring the creeping familiar feeling from earlier slowly etch it’s way into your temples.

“I do too.”

A lie, but then again, you thought, absentmindedly wiping the blood off your face, he loves his lies.

“It would have been nice for him to call.” He turns away, voice muffled by the crook of his arm, and a searing pain pierces you in the chest.

“It would.” You squish the biting pain at your temples down with full force, a plastered smile across your face, and kiss him again at the corners of his lips, not flinching when he roughly slaps you away, the taste of copper flooding your mouth.

The feeling flares up again, a ringing sound shrilly sounding off in your head, and the metallic tang on your tongue becomes all too much for you to bear, and you just want to make it all stop- but Illumi uncovers his face and turns to face you with his large empty eyes, and you’re drowning in calm blue water, the feeling immediately subsiding.

He stares behind you, at the stacks of paperwork messily arranged on the study table in the corner of the room. Generations worth of finances and contacts that needed tending to stacked high into the ceiling, blanketing every surface area of the desk, something that would keep him buried for the months to come.

“Killua is heir. Killua would know what to do.” It’s a whispered confession, a statement of defeat in face of the months of hardship that were to follow, where he’ll be thrust into a role of leadership and forced to uphold the delicate balance that kept the family business running for generations.

He sinks his face into open palms, ring fingers pressing into his temples, a long sigh escaping his mouth. You slide over to him, gently draping one of the many blankets you shared over his shoulders, wrapping your arms around him as you rest your chin on them.

“I really wish he did come. Even for just a moment. I wish he was here right now, he would fix it.” His shoulders shook with every syllable he forced out, and you shake your head, blood dripping down and staining your hands.

“Would he really?” You asks, choking back both the ache and the bitterness in your voice. Killua left you. Left you with this chaos, left you with this mess, left you with this empty house filled to the brim with broken promises and empty slaps, hollow screams which shadowed the halls, shrieking ghosts of nightmares come to life as wailing children tried clawing their way through its walls, as its forgotten offsprings were thrusted with heaving burdens and left to withstand whatever monsters came their way.

Illumi nods. You fight back the tears blurring your vision. Of course he would deny, you sweet, silly Illumi, never able to accept the truth; who wouldn’t even acknowledge his apparent lack of familial love if Kikyo carved the words into his face with her own two hands.

“Yes. He would.” Of course he could. Killua was the sun, warm and bright, everything that Illumi wasn’t. It was easy to love Killua; beautiful, perfect Killua, with his cheeky smiles and laughter than sounded like summer manifested in physical form, who fought tooth and nail to save his sister from her sheltered cage, who possessed shinning talents that outclassed generations of assassins before him. Killua was everything that the empty abyss Illumi existed as was clearly not. Of course Killua was loved and could love, a concept that escaped Illumi’s very limited understanding, he was the center of the confined world the Zoldycks existed in, with his remaining siblings scrambling to fight for whatever scraps they were spared. To them it was made plenty clear, Killua was everything, and if he didn’t exist, nothing existed.

The silence that falls is heavy as you both sit there, unmoving, unfeeling for what seems like ages before Illumi finally cracks, the unsaid words in the air finally spilling out.

“Do you think they were ever happy?” With me?

The gnawing pain that flares is unbearable, and your hands are curled into fists so tight that they shake. You now knew what the name of that aching feeling coursing through your body was. It was anger.

It was anger you felt. Anger that he robbed you of your previous life, anger at the normalcy he stole from you, anger that every act he did scarred you in unnamed ways and left you crying yourself to sleep until there was nothing left to sob over, anger at the pain he etched into your very being, anger that he thrusts you into his world and forced you to play his stupid games by his ridiculous rules, where you couldn’t even recognize your own feelings of rage and injustice swirling like whirlpools in you, even when the force of his backhanded slap that would leave you with a swollen cheek for days stroke you as punishment for your attempts to soothe him.

But your rage went further, and you had to grind your teeth into bloodied lips to stop yourself from screaming. You were angry at the butlers for their game of family politics, angry at the nameless associates who drove the family to uphold their ridiculous traditions, angry at Killua for leaving everything so easily, angry at Silva and Kikyo for raising a family so broken nothing could ever fix it, for years of abuse that their children were now repeating unto others, for dying and leaving the family in shambles, as if being dead would absolve them from the years of torture and anguish they’ve heaped upon the family.

And you were angry at yourself, for staying here, taking in every kick, slap and hit for these past fifteen years, every second of which you could have spent trying to escape.

But, you sighed, feeling years worth of rage sliding off you like oil, fifteen years is a long time to hold on to this much anger and so, you bit out another lie.

“I’m sure they were.”

There was no such thing as an honest relationship. Every couple has their secrets, perfidious stories strung up and paraded as truths, details kept hidden from the surface, lies that they heaped upon each other all in the name of preserving peace.

It just so happens your darling needed more lies to sustain this relationship.

Illumi returns your smile, accepting your deceitful words. You feel his shoulders relax, lean into his neck, sighing when he rests his head on yours. You recognize the deep anger he feels. And just like everything else, he kept it lock and hidden, thrown into the deepest crevices of his worn heart. Your lovely, unfeeling husband, who refuses to expose himself to life’s most basic emotions, who would tear himself apart to piece back the broken fragments of what was left of his family, strung desperately together by sheer willpower and toxic love, edges slicing into flesh as the pieces threatened to unravel at the slightest of movements.

“I’m sorry I hit you.” He smells like nothing sometimes, you like it best like that, it’s like the man pressed against you isn’t even there.

I’m sorry I scared you, im sorry that I stole you from your home, I’m sorry that I hurt you, I’m sorry I come back twisted and deformed, im sorry that’s the only things I know, I’m sorry that I cannot love, I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry

“It’s alright.” It’s not, but you’ll forgive him. You always forgave him in the end. Why else would you still be here?

You stare at your love’s face, the wrinkles that crease the top of his head, the undercurrent streaks of gray that hid beneath his hair, the faint shadows of scars that lined his face. You gently pull the hand covering his face away, and the blank abyss with darkened shadows lining them stare right back at you; your beautiful, empty void.

It doesn’t matter if he’s the only one left, it doesn’t matter if the butlers all leave after this, it doesn’t matter if Milluki and Kalluto move out for good, and you’re both left in this hideous house alone, because you’re here, and come hellfire, you’ll stay by his side, your wedding band not unlike a chain, shackling you to the family; in sickness and in health you suppose.

“We’re both getting old.” You hold his hands in yours, the cold seeping into every corner of your being.

“Is that a bad thing?” His asks through half-lidded eyes, lashes fluttering. You kiss the bony knuckles of his hands.

“No. It isn’t.”

Silence creeps upon the both of you again. But that’s alright. You’ll make it alright.

“That’s good to hear.” He finally says.

And you don’t know if it’s the tone of his voice, or the contented smile he has on his face, or maybe the exhaustion from the funeral, either way, the words tumble out before you can control yourself.

“All I wanted was a happy ending.”

For you, for him, for everyone in this cursed family whose morbid traditions have fractured it into pieces and scattered its crushed remains into the blasting inferno.

His hands brush the curve of your cheeks, fingers pressing against your lips, shushing your words, “Fairy tales don’t exist.”

But just for a moment, as you both watch the canopy of lights slowly blend into shades of pink and blue, the heat from his fingers warming yours, it did.

#hunter x hunter #illumi #angst #stockhom syndrome #hurt/comfort #headcanon prompts #my writings #something to keep us all occupied under quarantine #stay safe everyone!#asks #anon

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kfc-official · 4 years ago

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an essay i wrote only for myself and my obsession with eddie kaspbrak and what i think is one of the best chapters ever, eddie’s bad break. (3k words under the cut)

EVERYDAY EVIL IN EDDIE’S BAD BREAK

POINT OF VIEW

THE TERROR OF MR KEENE AND ‘ADULTING’

BOWERS GANG AND SUBVERSION OF ADULT AUTHORITY

SUPERNATURAL + THE DEFEAT OF SONIA KASPBRAK: MOTHERING TO DEATH

...

CONCLUSION

#eddie kaspbrak #stephen king #stephen king it #it #eddie's bad break #essay #mine #im posting this here too uwu

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stella-monstrum · 4 years ago

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Rob Zombie; "Why it's time to step outside the confinements of his own box."

For close to four decades,

Rob Zombie has brought nonstop psychedelic grooves and a rockstar presence while gracing his own music and the silver screen with gut-churning, drug-tripping visuals. He not only commands quite the presence in films (whether his own successes or others’), but also makes appearances within many other horror soundtracks. There’s no denying that Zombie is a bloodied savant who has stayed incredibly consistent.

[ᴿᵒᵇ ᶻᵒᵐᵇᶦᵉ. ⁽ˢᵒᵘʳᶜᵉ: ᴳᵒᵒᵍˡᵉ ᴵᵐᵃᵍᵉˢ⁾]

(Written by Stella, edited by Jacob J.)

(Side note; tumblr’s photo formatting is a pain)

Let’s take a dive into his music before getting into his film library. From 1985-1997, White Zombie released six albums (between studio and compilations). La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Volume One didn’t break into the Billboard 200 chart until a year after its 1992 release. Shortly thereafter, it became the hot and groovy bong success of the band, going on to sell two million copies. Astro Creep 2000, their final and fourth studio release, was their first and only album to chart within the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 in 1995. Up to this day in 2020, “White Zombie” has been featured in 47 TV, film, and video game soundtracks, from Beavis & Butthead to Pen15 to Bride Of Chucky (which includes a personal favorite moment of mine), amongst many others.

After the disbandment and separation, Zombie continued on his solo journey. He has gone on to release six studio albums, with a seventh on the way in March 2021, titled The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy. A multitude of hits—eight to be exact—sat within the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 records.

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Zombie’s extensive film career is a “Super Beast” on its own.

He has been very vocal about gaining inspiration from 1920s-1980s horror culture. In many interviews, he’s cited Stan Lee, Bella Lugosi, Alice Cooper, and Steven Speilberg as being responsible for molding the brain that we know today.

Some of his influences include:

George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978)

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

The Shining (1980)

Zombie’s upbringing in the carnival industry alongside his family is another key influence.

[[I’ll only be focusing on Zombie’s live-action films here.]]

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In 2000, Rob made his directorial and (very memorable) screen debut with House Of 1000 Corpses.

It took three years to be released because of quarrels with major production companies regarding the film’s majorly aggressive themes of torture, blood, violence, sex—not to mention his arrogance with MGM, fighting to get rights back from Universal. Eventually, Lionsgate bit the bullet, albeit with the major stipulation of having Rob edit it down much further so House could pass with a “tame” R rating.

[[House of 1000 Corpses: Rainn Wilson as taxidermy merman (Source: Tumblr—and if you’re brave, you can view the scene here.)]]

══════════════════

In 2005 and 2019, the franchise’s next two installments—Devil’s Rejects and 3 From Hell—were released. The franchise is heavily influenced by the shocking, sickening, and unforgettable ’70s classic Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It follows a family of psychotic, sadistic, and bloodthirsty (if I’m being honest) necrophiliacs. They kidnap, kill, torture and brutalize anyone who gets in their way. At the end of Devil’s Rejects, they somehow manage to survive a police shootout, escape prison, and waltz on into Mexico (as seen in the franchise finale 3 from Hell).

Look, it’s all complicated.

Main Characters from the franchise:

Captain Spaulding—Sid Haig

Baby Firefly—Sheri Moon Zombie

Otis B. Driftwood—Bill Moseley

Momma Firefly—Karen Black (recast as Leslie Easterbrook after Karen’s passing)

(Other notable appearances throughout: Chris Hardwick, Rainn Wilson, Danny Trejo, Dee Wallace, Ken Foree, and Diamond Dallas Page.)

⁽“ʰᵒᵘˢᵉˢ ᵗʳⁱˡᵒᵍʸ”, ᵈᵛᵈ ˢᵉᵗ﹔ ˢᵒᵘʳᶜᵉ﹔ ᵗᵃʳᵍᵉᵗ.ᶜᵒᵐ⁾

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The notorious/controversial Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978) remakes from 2007 and 2009.

(ᵃ ᵛⁱᵉʷ ᵒᶠ ᵗʰᵉ ᵇᵒˣ ᵃʳᵗ ᶠᵒʳ ᵗʰᵉ ʰᵃˡˡᵒʷᵉᵉⁿ ʳᵉᵐᵃᵏᵉˢ ⁽ˢᵒᵘʳᶜᵉ﹕ ᵃᵐᵃᶻᵒⁿ⁾)

Look, this is a remake that you either adore or hate with a burning passion. If you’re a horror fanatic, you know what’s up with the original.

I personally adore Zombie’s take. The fact alone that he gave us an entire background story as to why Michael became the psychotic slasher that we’ve come to know and love. Plus, with an increased suspense and gore factor? Worked incredibly well and did justice (in my opinion).

The film made me feel bad for Michael, with moments of child Myers in therapy, particularly his love for making masks to pass the time while he was locked up and the touching family moments between him and his mother Deborah (Sheri Moon).

ᵈᵉᵇᵒʳᵃʰ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵐⁱᶜʰᵃᵉˡ ᵐᵉʸᵉʳˢ ⁱⁿ ʲᵃⁱˡ ᵗʰᵉʳᵃᵖʸ. ⁽ˢᶜʳᵉᵉⁿᶜᵃᵖ, ʰᵃˡˡᵒʷᵉᵉⁿ. ˢᵒᵘʳᶜᵉ﹕ ᵍᵒᵒᵍˡᵉ⁾

[Michael’s cell in the 2007 Halloween remake. (Source: Google)]

Add in the supporting cast of Michael McDowell (Loomis), Brad Douriff (Sheriff Leigh), Scout Taylor-Compton (Laurie Strode), etc., and I honestly think that it came together very well as a remake.

The films rated relatively low, but they did gross higher than the budgets that they originally had to film on. Again, I’m not going to give much attention to the higher-ups of critical perception—it all comes down to personal taste.

══════════════════

“Lords of Salem” (2013)

[[Promotional art for Lords of Salem. (Souce: Google Images)]]

A film that’s centered within Salem, Massachusetts,

this film—you guessed it—tackles witches, occultism, possession, Satan, and all the usual topics. Heidi (Sherri Moon) is a radio DJ who gets sent a mysterious record that’s labeled as being from “The Lords.” From then on out, shit gets a little dicey and admittedly, very disjointed. You can’t fault the cast here, and I loved the visuals that they were going for. However, with set schedule conflicts and multiple rewrites, which led to essentially running out of time to film? As a whole, what looked great on paper just couldn’t be done justice.

My FAVORITE sequence within the film (SPOILERS):

youtube

I can forgive the disjointedness solely because of how mind-boggling and brilliant the film’s history and proper visuals were. Also, we got to see Dee Wallace, Judy Geeson, and Patricia Quinn as creepy and badass witches who moonlight as Heidi’s landlords. Also Meg Foster who leads their coven? Can we talk about what a femme-fueled power cast that is?!

[[Left to right: Patricia Quinn as Megan, Dee Wallace as Sonny, and Judy Geeson as Lacy Doyle. (Screencap, Lords of Salem. Source: Google) ]]

[[Meg Foster as coven leader Margaret Morgan. (Screencap, Lords of Salem. Source; google)]]

Like I said prior, the film gets a little wild. If you’re...well, buzzed prior to watching, it may make a little more sense.

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“31” (2016)

[[Film poster for 31 (Source: Google)]]

[Synopsis from IMDB; “Five carnival workers are kidnapped and held hostage in an abandoned, hellish compound where they are forced to participate in a violent game, the goal of which is to survive twelve hours against a gang of sadistic clowns.”]

Here, we clearly see that Zombie is invoking his childhood growing up within carnivals. In a 2013 interview with LA Weekly, Zombie divulged more about it:

“When we were kids, my parents would [work at the carnivals], and me and my brother would get dragged along to these things all the time and have to work.”

He went further on to say;

“Yeah, and it's not the nicest world. As a kid, you get exposed to the crazier underworld of the carnival. Me and my brother, when we were very little, we'd be inside the haunted house playing all day. So, already, what people are paying money to be scared [of], we're just playing in because it's fun. We saw the inner workings behind the machines.”

youtube

(”31″ trailer, source; Youtube)

Once again in this film, Zombie brings a powerhouse cast:

Jeff Daniel Phillips as Roscoe Pepper

Meg Foster as Venus Virgo

Malcom McDowell as Father Murder

Judy Geeson as Sister Dragon

Richard Brake as Doom Head

You can view the entire cast at IMDB here.

Set in 1976, Zombie stays true to his nods. Again, depending on taste, this is a huge hit or a wild miss with mindless homicidal violence, campiness, and climbs across the monkey bar of standards that we’re used to seeing from him.

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So at this point, you’re probably wondering why I think that it’s time for Rob Zombie to step out of the confinements of his own box...

══════════════════

It’s no secret that Zombie sticks to only a small group of tropes:

Slashers, families or groups of homicidals that lack remorse, the occult, etc. There’s no shame in sticking to what you know. Hell, Zombie has seemingly cracked the code over the past two decades that he’s been in the film industry that so many directors still don’t seem to get.

IMO, despite whatever you personally feel about the films mentioned above- I feel like we’re living a freaky groundhog day repeat within Zombie’s filmography.

══════════════════

Now, if it ain’t broke, why fix it? Look, I’m not saying that Zombie has to change anything. However, I would love to see him tackle some other nuances that we’ve already seen from him in small doses.

- Children: We haven’t seen Zombie exactly take on what horror films depict kids as. Sure, he made a breakout and impeccable choice with young Michael Myers (Daeg Faerch) back in 2007. I personally would adore to see a reimagined (NOT remade) Children of the Corn on acid, one we all know Zombie can tackle and turn every existing view on its head.

- Witchcraft, The Occult, Satan, Voodoo: Zombie genuinely had a phenomenal concept (on paper) for 2012’s Lords of Salem. It was unfortunate that they ran out of resources and ran into unfortunate circumstances on set while filming.

The film wasn’t a total tank, though, given how inspiring and insane all the visuals were throughout the 1 hr, 41min film. I am absolutely positive that, given a full-force opportunity, Rob could rectify the mess that was out of his control. We completely saw that he provided visuals that left quite the impression, and he could take those taboo subjects by the goat horns.

- Animals (not the human form): It’s no secret that Rob and his wife Sherri are ethical vegetarians. It would be so tongue and cheek to see them take on such topics as animals getting their revenge, or even vegetarians torturing carnivores. This twist on the formula would make for an interesting viewing.

══════════════════

2.) In regard to time periods,

Zombie stays within—and pays homage to—the 1970s and 1980s quite a bit. Obviously, those are the eras that Zombie personally loves the most when it comes to filmmaking. However, it would be very interesting to see him take on current day settings.

Zombie has such a unique viewpoint. Given changing climates in politics, human decline/growth, the economy, etc., he would do work that could easily put Ryan Murphy to shame.

══════════════════

3.) He could also do with some different casting every now and then.

Let me preface this by saying that I adore every repeat casting choice that Zombie has made for his films.

Of course chemistry is a huge thing, and sticking to his friends is a very smart choice. However, he also has the potential to make new stars, boosting the power of those that may be under the radar. He can support those new stars with cameos from classic actors that we haven’t seen in awhile. I can’t begin to even fictionally cast those who fit the bill, but I do believe that with the “Zombie Touch,” he can bring so much more fresh air to the usual casting.

══════════════════

There’s no doubting what Rob Zombie is clearly very good at. Despite mixed reviews from the horror world and critics, it’s time that his fans open their eyes to new possibilities. Of course, there are die-hards, but digging your feet in further doesn’t allow the growth of horror and its ever evolving themes.

[[ʳᵒᵇ ᶻᵒᵐᵇⁱᵉ, ˢᵒᵘʳᶜᵉ﹔ ᵍᵒᵒᵍˡᵉ ⁱᵐᵃᵍᵉˢ]]

This theory has been on my mind for a very long time—since 3 from Hell came out. I’m sure, in his usual fashion, we won’t be seeing any new films from Rob anytime soon (what with his new album set to release in March 2021, not to mention the toll that the pandemic has had on Hollywood.)

Still, it never hurts to challenge the set standards and ways.

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duhragonball · 5 years ago

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[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (117/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation. This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

Previous chapters conveniently available here.

[13 March, 233 Before Age. Hexill VI.]

The Hexillians had turned down multiple invitations to join the Federation. Lying just beyond the Federation border, their solar system was a valued trading partner. There was a strong pro-Federation movement in the planet's political arena, but it was hamstrung by conflicting opinions over the details. Even the most isolationist voices in the Hexillian government could not deny that their world was growing closer and closer to the Federation each day, and had prospered for it.

But the fact remained that Hexill VI was not a Federation member, and so when the Saiyan invader appeared on their world, and began to attack it, they had no mutual defense pact to invoke, nor any reason to expect aid. Instead, they relied upon their own military, and while much of their arsenal had been acquired from the Federation, they were unprepared for the power that the Saiyan possessed.

"Know that you serve an abomination!" she would say whenever she would attack one of their cities. "Know that Trismegistus is the true answer, the reagent that will change the universe! Rejoice, for I bring you a gift! He has sent his prophet into your wilderness, that you may turn away from the abomination, and be cleansed!"

Then the Hexillians would launch a counterattack, and she would always withdraw. The civilian leaders took this as a hopeful sign. If they could just corner the Saiyan "prophet", then they could surely defeat her. Those who opposed Federation membership used this talking point to argue that they didn't need an alliance for protection. Those who supported Federation membership claimed that victory would be much swifter with a starfleet backing them up. In either case, they painted a very rosy picture for their constituents. Lives had been lost and infrastructure had been destroyed, but the invasion would be repelled, and soon they could rebuild. That was what the politicians said.

The military leaders had a less optimistic appraisal. They believed the Saiyan woman was merely playing for time, and that she had the power to overwhelm their defenses if she chose to do so. Their weapons were supposed to be strong enough to repel a typical Saiyan intruder, but there was nothing normal about her. Sensor data indicated that she was much faster than she seemed to be letting on. Her battlefield sermons bore little resemblance to the usual low-brow banter used by most Saiyan pirates. And her burgundy costume made it difficult to tell that she was a Saiyan at all. If the woman had a tail, it was hidden beneath the chlamys gown handing from her shoulders. Her black hair was dyed with streaks of crimson, and bound with an elaborate series of red bands.

"The fated day approaches!" she cried as she attacked a hydroponics complex less than a hundred miles from a defense base. "Your bellies will go empty, that you might fill your spirits with the truth!"

Much of the complex was staffed by robotic workers, but the Hexillian technicians who maintained them were forced to flee. Most Saiyans were content to fire blasts of ki energy at their targets, but this one was different. She would light fires wherever she could, then destroy various installations that tied in with whatever "topic" she happened to be raving about. In this case, she burned the crops, blasted large food processing units to pieces, and then targeted the Hexillian workers who had remained behind to see that the others evacuated safely.

"Ah, so you volunteer for the culling!" she said as she plucked a Hexillian shift manager from the ground. "Your blood will write the history of the future!"

"Lemme go!" the man pleaded. "I gotta family!" Specifically, he had a wife and two sons, with an egg that was due to hatch any day now. He didn't honestly expect the Saiyan to care, but as he struggled in her grip, he didn't know what else to say, and in his panic, his loved ones were the first thing to come to mind.

"Excellent!" she replied. "Blood is always more valuable when taken from one who would be mourned!" With that, she flew to a spot on the facility that she had cleared of wreckage, and dumped him into a small group of other captives. Surrounding them was a circular pattern drawn in the ground, adorned with mystic inscriptions she had learned from worlds no Hexillian had ever known.

"The thrice-blessed is merciful," the Saiyan announced as she drew a short spear from behind her back. "The price of his transformative power is great, but he will ask only a small toll from your world. Know that your lives will be taken so that your people will be permitted to witness his glorious triumph!"

In her hand, the weapon extended, growing into a long lance which she then leveled at her captives like a rifle. The blade at the tip began to glow with a blue light, her eyes closed, and she spoke in tongues as she hovered over them, preparing to slaughter them all.

"Nice boots."

The prophetess had sensed a powerful ki nearby, but in the moment between sensing the power and opening her eyes to search for it, the source of the ki had already closed the distance between them.

"Who dares--?" she asked, but then she saw the interloper's black shirt and yellow pants, and she recognized her immediately. "Ah, the abomination herself. My master said you would come, though he did not expect you quite so early. I should have known that you would defy his holy timetable."

"Not big on the color," Luffa said. "Lot of people think red's a good look for Saiyans, since we get bloodied up so much, but they never think about how it'll look when it dries. Besides, there's other colors of blood out there. Green, purple. You name it."

The prophet pointed her spear at Luffa, who was floating directly above the captive Hexillians. "You speak in riddles, heretic!" she said. "Be warned that your idle chatter will avail you nothing here, for I have seen the truth, and the truth has enslaved me completely."

"What riddles?" Luffa said. "I said I like your boots. Not sure I could wear that style, though. I'm not big on heels myself. They make me look taller, but I feel kind of awkward when I wear them. But on other people, I think they look pretty cool. You look like you could stab someone with one of those. Are they comfortable? They don't look it, but you seem pretty used to wearing them."

"We are both heralds, you and I," the prophet said. "You, the abomination Luffa, and I, his humble servant, the prophetess Aonorry. Fate has ordained this meeting, to mark the advent of his temple upon this world--!"

"I'm not wild about the cut," Luffa said as she stared at Aonorry's legs and rubbed her chin. "Thigh-highs? I guess the material is flexible enough, but I'm more into below-the-knee. Just my preference though. Oh, wait, I just noticed they match your gloves. Okay, well that adds up then. Now I'm trying to picture shorter boots with shorter gloves."

"Enough!" Aonorry screamed. "This is my moment! The culmination of my sacred training, of my life! I will not stand at the gates of death and be mocked in this way!"

Suddenly a blast of energy fired from the point of the lance, bathing Luffa in its destructive radiance. Below, the Hexillians cried out in horror at the apparent destruction of their rescuer. When the light faded from Aonorry's attack, there was no trace of Luffa.

"I'll not be fooled by your trickery!" Aonorry said. She quickly spun around, scanning the immediate area with all of her senses to locate her enemy. "I lack the power to defeat you so easily. But you betray yourself by hiding from me. If your power were true, you would have nothing to fear from me, and no cause to... run?"

It was the sound that gave it away. Aonorry could sense flashes of ki all around her, but none of them lasted long enough for her to get a fix on Luffa's location. Then she realized that she was hearing buzzes in the air, the sound of her enemy zipping past her so quickly that her eyes couldn't follow the movements. Aonorry had expected power, for this was the core feature of Luffa's reputation. What she hadn't anticipated was the depth of skill that Luffa now displayed. Her ki control was so great that she was using it for only brief instants, flinging herself back and forth at amazing speeds, just to keep Aonorry off-balance.

And then, just when she realized that this was meant to throw her off-balance, she felt Luffa's fingers wrapping around her ankle, and in the next moment she found herself slamming into the ground. In spite of the pain, in spite of the blood Aonorry felt tricking from her nose and mouth, she tried to get up and recover. Before she could even roll over, she felt a tremendous weight pressing against her back. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Luffa standing over her, using one foot to pin Aonorry to the ground. At some point, Luffa had transformed into her Super Saiyan form. Aonorry couldn't see it, pinned to the ground face-down as she was, but she could certainly feel the increased power.

"On second thought," Luffa said, "your boots kind of suck. If they were black, or knee length, or if they came in flats, any one of those, then yeah, I could overlook the other two, but no. Three strikes."

As she spoke, Luffa raised Aonorry's lance in her hand, and began to twirl it around like a baton. "You came here alone, as far as I can tell," she said. The intel I received shows you're the only Saiyan involved in every battle, and I can't sense any others coming out of hiding to save you. But you must have picked this planet because you know I'd have to show up and deal with you personally. The Federation starfleet can't come out this far unless the Hexillian government asks, but I can come and go as I please. So you knew I'd be coming alone, and you knew you couldn't stop me by yourself. So this is a trap, and you're just the bait, right?"

She applied more pressure to Aonorry's back, and Aonorry's shriek surprised even herself. She hadn't expected anything quite like this. It was supposed to be majestic. The abomination was supposed to recoil in terror as Aonorry revealed the true nature of her lord. Instead, she lay face down a puddle of dirt mixed with her own blood.

"Or is it a diversion?" Luffa asked. "You lured me all the way out here to keep me away from something else? Normally, I'd read your mind to find out for myself, but I know you Jindan-users have psychic booby traps inside your heads."

She pointed the tip of Aonorry's weapon at the base of Aonorry's skull. "You sure got quiet all of a sudden," Luffa said. "You said you were a prophet, right? Had plenty to say a minute ago. Well, go on and preach. I'm listening."

"He... he's not coming," Aonorry said. "He said he would save me if I faced you alone. But you've already beaten me, and he... he isn't here."

"Who?" Luffa asked.

"T-Trismegistus," Aonorry said, choking back tears. "He anointed me as one of the Orichalcum Order. He told me that I would overcome any adversity and prepare this planet for his arrival. But you're killing me and he isn't here!"

"Well, I haven't actually started killing you yet," Luffa said. "Let's give him a few more minutes. Maybe he overslept."

"He... he used me," Aonorry gasped. "I did everything he said, and now he's abandoned me to die here! After all those things he said to me in his bedroom. Was that all it was to him?"

"Men, right?" Luffa asked, thought not as mockingly as before. "I guess this guy isn't as 'thrice-blessed' as you thought, huh?"

"That bastard," Aonorry shouted. "I literally worshiped him, cut off my own tail for him, and he won't even lift a finger for me! How could I have been so stupid?"

"Hey, it's not too late to turn things around," Luffa said. "Tell me what you know, and I'll see to it that he'll regret the day he ever met you."

Aonorry hesitated at this offer. "What will become of me?" she asked. "You won't simply let me go."

"Hell no," Luffa said. "You killed a lot of people here, and you'll have to answer for that. Legally, I'm not even supposed to be here, so helping you escape would just make a bad situation worse. But, if you help us put these Jindan clowns out of business... well, maybe we can work something out."

She pressed the tip of the spear against Aonorry's neck, but gently enough that it didn't break the skin. "Or you can die here and now," Luffa added. "Your call, but for what it's worth, I know what it's like to be betrayed. If I were you, I'd want to do anything I could to make the bastard pay."

Aonorry balled her fists and pounded them into the dirt. "You... you actually care, don't you?" she said. "You came here to save these people. He told me you were the devil, evil incarnate... and here you are, actually sympathizing with me."

"I get that a lot," Luffa said. "People tell me I'm not so scary once they get to know me. Like it's so hard to give a crap."

"All right, then. I'll tell you all that I know. Just give me your word that you'll destroy hi--... Destroy h--... hhurk!"

Luffa was about to ask her what was wrong, when suddenly Aonorry vomited blood onto the ground. She began to convulse wildly, and Luffa stepped away from her.

Aonorry rose to a kneeling position, then grabbed at her throat, as if trying to strangle herself. Her eyes, once proud and righteous, now looked to Luffa with a silent plea for help. The blood--or whatever it actually was--continued to stream from her mouth.

Unsure how to deal with Aonorry, Luffa aimed her hand in the opposite direction and fired a ki blast, which cleared a path through the flames that surrounded them. "All of you!" she called to the Hexillians. "Get out of here now! Your soldiers are heading this way. Find them and get them to take you as far away as you can. Go!"

Though confused, they did as she said, leaving Luffa alone to witness whatever was happening to Aonorry. By now, Luffa was convinced that the red fluid flowing from the other Saiyan's mouth wasn't mere blood. The sheer volume of it defied Saiyan anatomy. Within minutes, the former "prophetess" was kneeling in a shallow pool nearly ten feet in diameter. Luffa's first instinct was to kill her now and put an end to this, but she doubted that killing Aonorry would actually solve anything. Still, with no other obvious course of action, she pointed her finger at Aonorry's head, and charged her ki just in case.

Then the ground began to shake, and Luffa knew that the problem was bigger than Aonorry. The "blood"-soaked soil began to expand and grow all around Aonorry, and Luffa could sense a presence within it. In seconds, a large hill had formed before Luffa's eyes. Soon after that, it grew into a mesa, and then it began to reshape itself, like wet clay being sculpted by giant, invisible hands. At last, the two-hundred-foot-tall formation stood revealed as a humanoid figure. Gleaming purple eyes opened on its head, and it stared down at Luffa as it continued to refine its shape. Gradually, the face of the creature sharpened and resolved, until at last she could see the features of someone she recognized.

"Rehval..." Luffa muttered.

"Welcome, Luffa," said the rock-creature who wore Rehval's likeness. "I understand you've been looking for me. Was there something you wanted to say?"

*******

"Vengeance Cannon," Luffa replied, and she fired a thin beam of red light through the forehead of the creature.

However, the Rehval-thing suffered no ill effects from this, aside from the four-inch-wide hole she had bored through it.

"As passionate as ever, I see. You truly are a magnificent woman. It's a shame we couldn't come to terms--"

Luffa fired a much wider blast of energy, this time blasting the rock-creatures entire head and neck into pebbles. It stumbled forward, and just as she flew to avoid it, the creature managed to stop itself from falling over. Instead, it stepped back, straightened its posture, then slowly regrew its head.

"I trust that you're beginning to understand why I arranged to speak to you this way," he said after his mouth had been restored. "I would have preferred a face-to-face meeting, but you're much too volatile, and I'm too important to jeopardize my safety that way."

"You're late, aren't you?" Luffa scoffed. "Your lapdog Aonorry had given up on you. She was all set to betray you to me, and then suddenly you showed yourself. It's enough to make a girl think you were afraid."

"Don't flatter yourself, Luffa," Rehval said. "The fact is that I was counting on young Aonorry to have a crisis of faith. As part of my flock, she devoted herself to me completely, allowing me to learn her every strength and weakness. Hers was a brittle sort of belief. I knew that if I disappointed her, even slightly, that she would turn against me in anger. So I had her drink a potion that would use her disillusionment as a catalyst. Once activated, she would infuse it into the soil, and bring about the form you see before you."

He reached for his shoulder, and gently picked up the prone form of Aonorry, who had been laying motionless upon him.

"So that's it," Luffa said. "You've decided that being a self-righteous king wasn't good enough, so now you've become some sort of sorcerer with his own cult. Trismegistus, that's what they all call you now."

"The thrice-blessed one," he explained. "It was the title of a great alchemist from many thousands of years ago. So great, in fact, that he was eventually defied by his people. I chose to usurp his title, since I consider myself to be just as blessed as he was. First: King of the Saiyans. Second: Master of the Jindan Cult. Third: Savior of the Galaxy."

"Now it all makes sense," Luffa said. "You went into hiding after our last encounter, then you packed up your kingdom and left before I could find you. You knew you'd lose support among your idiot subjects, so you whipped up this scam of yours and promised to make Saiyans stronger in exchange for their loyalty. I had heard 'Trismegistus' sent his cult to invade 'Rehval's' kingdom, but I guess that was all just a ruse to cover your tracks."

"You don't sound very impressed with that," Rehval said.

Luffa turned her head and spat on the ground. "You really do have no pride at all do you? A true Saiyan wouldn't resort to potions and magic to make themselves stronger! It wasn't enough for you to pollute your own body with that sort of filth. Now you've tricked others into making the same mistake!"

"Tricked them?" Rehval asked with a laugh. "They all came to me. Many of them despised my rule, but they sought me out anyway, all because they craved greater power. " He held up Aonorry in his palm. "This one, for example. She was like you, once. She hated the monarchy that my grandfather started. She wanted nothing to do with King Rehval. Ah, but once she heard about the miracle of Jindan, and how its creator, Trismegistus, led an attack on King Rehval's stronghold, she became fascinated. She did everything she could to find it. I didn't make the trail easy to find, Luffa. It was a test of determination. But my beloved Aonorry passed."

"And what does she think now?" Luffa asked. "Now that she knows she's bound herself to the same king she opposed?"

"Let's find out," Rehval suggested. Without warning, he dropped his prophet, allowing her to fall hundreds of feet to the ground.

"Bastard!" Luffa snarled as she flew up to catch her. As she did, Rehval pointed his enormous earthen hand down at them and fired a beam of energy.

"You're so predictable, Luffa," he said. "For all your talk of warrior pride, you can be so soft that it's pitiful. Was it really worth dying just now so that you could save an enemy?"

When the light from his attack faded, he saw no trace of the Saiyan women. Then he noticed something on his mountainous shoulder, and he looked over to find Luffa standing there, holding Aonorry's unconscious form in her arms. Before he could react, Luffa opened her mouth and a stream of golden ki energy blasted him in the face.

"Predict this!" she shouted when she was finished. Then she stamped her foot down onto Rehval's rocky shoulder. The force was so great that a crack formed, and slowly expanded. As Luffa jumped away, Rehval's right arm began to break loose from his body, and then it fell off completely.

*******

Luffa flew until she reached a lake, then hovered just inches above it. Satisfied that Rehval wasn't chasing her, she dunked Aonorry's head into the water.

"Wake up, idiot!" Luffa shouted. "Your precious master finally showed up. Any ideas on what his plan is?"

"Whuh-what?" Aonorry sputtered as the cold water brought her around. "Trismegistus is here?"

"Yeah, well most people know him as 'King Rehval', though I've heard that's not his real name either," Luffa said. She tossed Aonorry onto the lakeshore and waited for her to get her bearings. "He's been playing you for a fool this whole time. You and everyone else in the Jindan cult."

"He really did come for me," Aonorry said, now holding her hands over her cheeks. "And... after I was ready to betray him. Oh... oh my..."

"He was counting on you to betray him," Luffa said. "The bastard's been toying with you, and he lied to you the whole time! Loyalty means nothing to him!"

Luffa had more unkind words to say about King Rehval, but before she could speak them, the ground began to shake beneath them, and then another column of earth and rock began to rise up and shape itself into a humanoid form.

"Luffa, Luffa, Luffa," Rehval's voice boomed. "When will you ever learn?"

Luffa left Aonorry where she was and charged her ki before leaping headlong into Rehval's stone belly. She made a crater on the surface, and knocked him off balance. Without pausing, she flew around him, peppering his body with golden energy blasts as she went. To an outside observer, it might have looked like a man being pestered by some glowing yellow hummingbird.

She blasted his face again, and when he tried to reshape it from the remaining rock, she kept blasting it. At the same time, she focused on his legs, damaging them enough that he had trouble staying upright.

"You can't defeat him!" Aonorry cried out. The unfettered joy in her voice made Luffa sick, but she pressed on in spite of it. He's become one with the very earth itself! You would have to destroy the entire planet, and you still wouldn't win!"

"She's right, you know," Rehval boasted. "I'm not actually here, as I said before. You need the atmosphere to breathe, but I don't. And as long as the planet is in tact--"

Luffa finally put enough cracks in his body that it crumbled into pieces. A short distance away, she could already hear another rock-body assembling itself.

"He rises!" Aonorry wailed. "His glory rises, now and forever!"

"As I was saying," Rehval said as his third body sprouted its new mouth. "As long as the planet is in tact, I can fight you like this indefinitely."

"Gosh, I'd better surrender then," Luffa grumbled. "Is that what you want me to say?"

"Actually, no," Rehval said. He clenched his fists, and suddenly a ball of violet light appeared in front of his rocky chest. Before Luffa could dodge, he unleashed its power in her direction, and she had to catch the front of the energy wave in her hands.

"Our confrontation on Pflaume was an experiment, Luffa," Rehval explained while she struggled to hold back the blast. "I thought that if I stranded you on an ice giant, you would be neutralized completely. No air to breathe, no surface to stand upon, no ships to rescue you. That last one was the flaw in my plan. I was sure your wife would abandon you, but not so."

Luffa was pushed back by the energy beam until she felt her boots press into the ground. This gave her something to brace against for support, but it also reminded her that she had very little margin for error. She set her jaw and screwed her eyes shut as she summoned up more power to halt the beam's advance.

"I had to evacuate Planet Saiya," Rehval went on. "I knew that if you escaped Pflaume, the planet would never survive your counterattack. Fortunately, I had a redoubt prepared on a planet in a secret location, just in case of emergency. And while I was there, it occurred to me how dependent I am on planets and atmospheres. So are you, but you can just fly from place to place in your ship, like a mercenary. Very romantic, but a king needs a kingdom, and a kingdom needs earth to stand upon."

Luffa finally mustered the strength to deflect the attack, and with a mighty yell, she flung it up into the sky, where it exploded harmlessly in the upper atmosphere. But this left her wide open to a punch from the rock creature that spoke with Rehval's voice. The impact cratered the ground, and the Rehval-monster ground his fist into the center, like a child killing a beetle.

"A foundation, Luffa," he continued. "Without a solid rock to build upon, the builder is helpless. That was when I realized the error in my thinking. On Pflaume, I left you to fall into sinking sand, when what I needed to be doing was securing myself upon a solid rock. That realization led me to realize how much we owe the ground beneath us, and how powerful it truly is. I knew that if I made that power my own, I could defeat anyone, even the Legendary Super Saiyan."

Nearby, Aonorry was chanting some a prayer in support of Trismegistus. The earthen creature smiled as it sensed a victory, and then a tremendous explosion went off at his fist. The giant figure toppled backwards, and when Rehval looked at his arm, it was simply... gone.

Luffa emerged from the smoke of the blast, already preparing her next move. "Rehval," she said. "You talk too much."

What followed was a rapid-fire barrage. Dozens of golden blobs of energy launched out of Luffa's fingertips, and embedded themselves onto Rehval's avatar. He expected them to explode on contact, but instead, she swung her left hand upward, and he found himself being dragged upwards. The ki she had affixed to his body was pulling him into the air.

"I don't know how you pulled this off, Rehval," Luffa said, "but I'm curious to see what your limits are with this monster body you've got. "Can you attack me with two of them at once? Because so far I've only seen you make a new body after the old one gets wrecked."

"Your... nnf! Your overconfidence is your weakness," Rehval said as he struggled against the force pulling him towards the sky.

"Look who's talking," Luffa replied. "You sprang this trap and gloated about it the whole time you were fighting, and where's it gotten you? You probably never even considered that I was studying your power the entire time, did you?"

He managed to spin around and point his remaining arm at Luffa, but she squeezed her hand into a fist, and the energy blobs on that arm suddenly exploded, blasting it into dust.

"What now?" she asked. "You've got to make a new body now, since you can't do much with that one."

"You underestimate me... Luffa!" Rehval said. His body began to shift and reshape itself, until it finally sprouted a new pair of arms. But unlike before, this caused the main body to become smaller than it had been before.

Luffa responded by squeezing her fist again, and blasting off his legs. The remainder of his body began to fall, but she caught it by enveloping the bulk of his form in a sheath of golden light.

"I think I'm getting the idea," Luffa said. "You can't absorb more mass unless you're in direct contact with the planet. And cutting off an arm or a leg doesn't help you, because those pieces aren't 'alive' on their own, so much as they're controlled by the main body. Or maybe just the head. "

"Well done, Luffa," Rehval said. "You're as magnificent as ever, and just as dangerous. I can still use you in my plans, but I can't afford to trust you, not after you spurned my offer before."

"Trust? Trust?!" Luffa shouted. "You honorless jackal! You don't even know the meaning of the word! Using that idiot Aonorry as your pawn! Sending this... this proxy to fight me in your place! When I find you--the real you-- I'll--"

Her threat was suddenly cut off by Aonorry herself, who had managed to sneak up on Luffa while she was busy restraining Rehval in midair. The point of her short spear nearly connected with Luffa's neck, but she sensed her approach just in the nick of time, and caught her in a choke hold.

"Your 'master' is more desperate than I thought," Luffa snarled. Without hesitation, she broke Aonorry's neck to prevent any further distractions. But in the moment it took her to do this, Rehval built up his power again, and this time turned it in on himself. Before Luffa could react, before Aonorry's corpse could even fall to the surface, his rock-body exploded in midair, and only moments later, a new rock-Rehval was rising up from the ground.

"You killed my prophetess," Rehval said, sounding only mildly annoyed. "I'll miss her."

"This game is getting tiresome, Rehval," Luffa said. "I've already figured out how to defeat you, so unless this next body can do something new, there's really no point in going on."

"You may be powerful, Luffa," Rehval said, "but you still think like a low-level mercenary. Do you think one battlefield means anything to me? I'm not even here. I could destroy this entire planet right now, and lose nothing. But I won't do that, because I have loftier goals in mind. I mean to change the universe, and that won't be achieved through mere destruction. Hexill VI has a place in my kingdom, like all worlds."

Luffa dove down and attacked one of Rehval's legs. As he swung his arms to catch her, she dodged and attacked those as well. But since he was touching the ground, he was able to repair this damage easily.

"Think about it, Luffa," he continued. "If I can send my avatar here, across hundreds of light years, then I can do the same on any number of planets. Without warning, a graven image of me rises up from the ground, powerful enough to defeat almost anything, powerful enough to impose my will, or destroy the planet entirely. And by the time you arrive in your ship to stop me, I'm already gone."

Luffa formed a razor-thin disc of ki and launched it at the neck of Rehval. It only carved a small section away, but when she followed up with a Gallick Gun, this was enough to blast the head off of the body. She then snared it in an energy sheath and pulled it up into the sky. Below, the headless body didn't move. Luffa fired another ki blast to destroy it, but never stopped her flight.

"You think you can sever my connection to the planet with distance, is that it?" Rehval asked. "Well, so what if you can? I only chose Hexill VI to make a point, Luffa. I wanted you to see exactly what I can do. What I've become."

"Tell me where you're hiding, Rehval," Luffa said. "I'll only ask you once."

"And why should I tell you that?" Rehval asked.

"Because I'm going to kill you either way," she said. "Painfully, if I can. You're going to die, but if you tell me where to find you, I can get it over with. Save you some sleepless nights."

"That's very kind of you," Rehval said. "But no. Come and find me, if you can. I'll be waiting. And if you can't find me, don't worry. You'll be hearing from me sooner than you think."

Luffa suddenly raised her arms, and with a loud grunt, she swung the net of energy around the head, flinging it up into space. She watched it shrink into the distance, then flew back down to the ground to make certain Rehval had not rebuilt his avatar. She only found the broken remains of the last body that she had decapitated. She incinerated it with a ki blast. Satisfied that her business here was concluded, she flew back to inform the planet's leaders about what had happened.

*******

An hour later, Luffa was sitting in the cockpit of the light cruiser she had borrowed from the Federation Starfleet to get here. She had orbited the planet a few times, just in case there was any chance of Rehval somehow returning, but at last she decided it was safe to depart. She would have to contact the Federation and alert them of the situation, but first she removed her boot and examined the injury on her left foot. Dr. Topsas had treated the wound days ago, but it would take some time to heal properly, and she was doing it no favors by constantly heading out into battle. Somewhat painfully, she applied an ointment he had given her. It was supposed to help promote healing and prevent infection, but at times she thought it hurt worse than the attack that had made the wound in the first place.

She was weary, not so much from her wounds or physical exhaustion, but from the lack of a decisive victory. Up to now, this had been a war of attrition, and Luffa's hope was that if she steadily chipped away at the lackeys, it would force the leaders out of hiding. But if Rehval could strike remotely, with no risk to his own person, then... what?

Luffa leaned back the pilot's chair as far as it would go and began rubbing her temples. There was a solution to this puzzle--there always was-- but she was too frustrated to find it. For now, the best she could do was to report in with her allies, set the ship to autopilot, and take a nap during the flight home. With any luck, the next cultist attack would be on the opposite side of the Federation, giving her more time to rest--

Then she saw the red light blinking on the comm system, and she realized that someone was trying to contact her. Some small part of her wanted to ignore the light, to pretend she hadn't seen it, but she cursed that part of herself and opened the channel just to spite her own weakness.

There was no audio or video, just a text message that had been encrypted with a code used by the Saiyan Free Company, led by Princess Seltiss. The girl had formed the company to fill the power vacuum left behind when her father had disappeared, and she had allied herself with the Federation because she saw Trismegistus and his cult as a threat to Saiyan-kind. As Luffa entered her password to decrypt the code, she wondered how the princess would react to the news that Rehval and Trismegistus were the same man.

Those thoughts vanished as Luffa read the message: "ALL AVAILABLE FORCES TO FEDENDER SYSTEM. URGENT. SURPRISE ATTACK. ENEMY STRENGTH UNKNOWN. UNIDENTIFIED ALIEN COMBATANTS LED BY A LARGE CREATURE MADE OF ROCK. EOM."

The terse statement was like a punch to Luffa's gut. She had just rescued the Fedender System before rushing off to help Hexill, and Fedender was already under attack again? And Rehval... he had told Luffa that she would hear from him sooner than she expected.

"Well, that's a first, you miserable bastard," Luffa seethed as she set course for Fedender. "You actually told the truth for once."

NEXT: Doublethink

#dragon ball #fanfiction #lssjluffafic #super saiyan #luffa #aonorry #trismegistus #rehval #hexill vi

3 notes · View notes

zenosanalytic · 6 years ago

Text

4/20/19 HSE 8

Ok back at it

MEAT 15

Cool Fight; Not terribly surprising.

MEAT 16

Dirk’s as much Rose’s father as Rose is his Mother. I guess maybe it’s more convenient, psychologically, to choose a causative direction and stick with it, rather than accept the Mobial nature of their genesis, but for some reason it bugs me this keeps getting overlooked.

Dirk’s over here talking about how right he is all the time and I dont think he was ever right about anything even once in canon(aside from certain aspects of his talk with Dave, and choosing not to kill Hal) XD The only “plan” of his to work was the one re: entering the Session, and 1)he outsourced it to Hal and 2)it only worked because he managed to improvise his way through every aspect of it failing to go the way he thought it would, and even that probably had more to do with their entry being part of HiC’s plan to use them, so she wasn’t trying to wipe them.

Another Thing: I dont think the Ascent Differential is Aspect so much as Personality.

Another Another Thing: That Rose, when discussing her life-long fear of knowledge as a corrupting and ruining outside force(this being a person who always felt her mother wasn’t her mother, in some sense, and responded to that fear by rejecting emotional intimacy with said mother), doesnt see the connection between that life-long fear and her fear that Ascending will be bad, damaging, and corrupting, is Notable. Perspective continues to be important, and lack of self-awareness continues to hamstring ppl in this narrative.

MEAT 17

I feel like this new narrative belligerence on Dirk’s part isn’t going to work out too well for him with a person as aware and recalcitrant to narrative meddling as John. It’s going to be John and WV all over again. This is also a wonderful example of how personal flaw and specificity isn’t solved by Godhood in HS, and can really trip you up; basically all of this, including the “impotence” applies to Dirk, too, when others disagree with the direction he’s trying to push them in, and this whole rant may be meant, ironically, as an example of dramatic irony: basically, that Dirk’s rant about total control and knowledge reveals the limits of his knowledge and will be followed by examples of how limited his control is, which he can’t be aware of, but which the “impotent” audience will.

MEAT 18

...And, almost immediately, John’s objecting to the narration and doing things before Dirk “writes” him doing them(the sigh).

MEAT 19

“So yeah, I’m gonna allow it” Notice how he asserts power over situations he does not, in fact, have power over.

Which is kind of an interesting dynamic to bring up in the context of authorship? I mean: in the realm of nonfictional works an author can’t “make” things happen, only alter for their audience what DID happen. In some respect this is being written as equivalent to that dynamic; the simple admission in M17 that Dirk is misrepresenting events also admits those events happened another way than he’d prefer, meaning it’s also an admission of his lack of power over actual events. And, of course, all the other things I’ve been talking about, and the fact that everyone’s “character” is rooted in natures established in the original work. But in a fictional work an author’s creative power is absolute, and this is a fictional work; though I suppose a derivative or transformational one, which accounts for the shortfall. Another interesting aspect of this is that the “Author” is presented as a Narrator; Narrators merely describe what happened, they don’t create it. I was going somewhere more concrete with this but it popped out of my head >:T >:T

Ok so other aspects of this: I agree that Jane’s been established as a pretty ambitious person, but she was also always a pretty moral person and the way she’s going about this so far doesn’t seem to be in keeping with that part of herself. And also: she literally wants to create shortages, and thus the suffering shortages will cause, for... what? Nostalgia? Because she think she can run Capitalism better than the adults from before all this?? Because Hierarchy is Neat??? Seems like a whole handful of really petty, selfish, and juvenile reasons to me. Also one guaranteed to cause social conflict; I doubt a civ that’s never known material want is going to react too well to sudden starvation and financially-manufactured forced-labor(which, lbr, is what most work in our world is).

Obvsl, as a snake and member of the storied gens Atheris, I agree with Roxy&Calli that patriarchal human concepts of gender are not the end-all-be-all of identity, but what really jumps out to me here is Roxy’s description of the nature of their love for, and previous sexual interest in, Dirk which I find really True. Like: the sentiment of wanting to see children of a person because you really like that person and think they should continue, or of thinking having the kids you might have with another person would be pretty interesting. Also that loneliness is a hell of a drug 8T

I’m trying to figure out why this conversation would be circumstantially simultaneous with The Furthest Ring being “destroyed”, but I got Nothing :T :T :T

MEAT 20

So yeah, Jade’s merging with her Alt!Selves, not too surprising since it was heavily foreshadowed in Endgame.

Given that Sessions are located IN the Furthest Ring, and Sessions MAKE new multiverses, I find it being made out of “negative potential. The absence of a future” pretty ironic :p I wonder if the tentacle hair bit is a nod towards the Horror-Terrors, and theories about them being Players? Rose and Dirk’s view of Ascension would seem to suggest HTs might be SUCCESSFUL players who eventually abandoned their universes out of fear of the damage they’d do misusing their godhood(as it doesnt solve your personal problems), rather than the old HC of them being failed Players.

MEAT 21

My theory about “The Economy” being code for sex doesn’t stop feeling ever more confirmed by this narrative :|

Dirk’s anger at the idea of anyone not thinking he’s right about everything is Palpable on this page. Also I’d just like to note that This:

Is being said by a person currently in the middle of metaphysically manipulating a friends towards her worst impulses(and also potentially some amounts of self-hatred, give her thoughts re: femininity) for the sake of establishing a dictatorship through which she, as his agency-dimmed puppet, will enforce his personal politico-philosophical preferences regardless of what anyone else thinks and he’s saying it about people who just said This:

which is to say: a bunch of political pluralists who are NOT seeking to impose their morality on anyone but rather to establish a system where EVERYONE can SHARE their moral understanding of policy issues and come to a consensus decision on them, within the context of a political society DEFINED by the equality of all as political actors. There’s just so much that’s wrong, weak, and easily dismissable about Dirk’s argument here. Not to mention his obvs, undisguised, physical disgust for trolls >:T

And he’s doing all this Purely because, given his fixation on “Winning”, he wants to Win. Like: he’s not actually even pursuing what he considered good policy; he is, literally, doing this all for Pure Ego, which he has the gall(and lack of self-awareness) to accuse others of acting from. And this self-deluding buffoon is a person who believes himself “Ascended” and therefore possessed of a “higher” and “clearer” perspective on matters above their “petty” concerns about, oh non-humans being allowed to live as they like, or practice any political agency at all, and all ppls being spared unnecessary and pointless suffering due to entirely manufactured shortages. So much (real, actual)Irony, of so many types, in all of this, all at once.

An aside: I am really liking the political-mindedness of these Epilogues so far; really playing to my Interests uwu

The bit about Hybrid babs and shipnames is funny, and it doesn’t read like a shot at the fandom to me at all; it’s more a joke at Dave’s expense given the obvs distress Kanaya’s in and his inability to stop making the situation more awkward(itself prob the result of Bro’s neglect/abuse)

Oh hey look: it’s Dirk the “Omniscient” being distracted, caught unawares and off-guard by the actions of others, unable to handle the role&work he’s chosen for himself(ie “out of his depth”), unable to split his attention between even just two conscious ppl at once, and not knowing what others are thinking. Given this and his handling of Jade’s thoughts in the last section, I kinda feel like it’s less he can actually sense the thoughts of others, and more that he gets some kind of inkling or hunch, or maybe that’s it’s purely just him guessing(that’d fit real well with his comments on Roxy being “inscrutable” to him), or even just having an awareness of the plot he is narrating(and thinks he’s writing). Of course it could also be some kind of Heart thing; not really even access to their thoughts at all, but a sort of awareness of their Agency? Like: Heart is The Self and The Self is expressed through Agency, so he has, in some way, developed an awareness of “Self-Action”, which is to say, Agency? Kinda like how Dave “feels” Time and Jade “feels” Space and Rose “feels” Relevance. Which, just as an asnide, would be something super-basic powers-dev wise, since Dave started having a sense of Time way back in the early Acts, long before godhood. Though I can see how Dirk developing an awareness of OTHERS intentions(and feelings, potentially, given Heart’s other associations) would seem like a big step for him, given how self-absorbed he is.

Ok that’s it for this one I think. I know I’m not being terribly kind to Dirk in all this but, tbf, he’s being kind of a huge snide Dick in basically every respect, and I also don’t have a lot of Chill in me when it comes to 1)arrogant people or 2)manipulators (:T

#Homestuck #HS Epilogue #Homestuck Spoilers #zA Opinions #analytic posts

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thetygre · 6 years ago

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30 Day Monster Challenge - Day #20: Favorite Song/Musical Monster

1. The Phantom of the Paradise

Phantom of the Opera has spawned plenty of spin-offs and parodies, but none are weirder and cooler than The Phantom of the Paradise. Born in that stage-musical wasteland between the sinking of Hello Dolly and the rise of Lloyd Webber, Phantom of the Paradise was a bizarre rock-opera that was a mixture between the Phantom of the Opera, Faust, and The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Our Phantom this time around is named Winslow; he didn’t start off deformed, but got that way through prison experiments and a record press accident. Winslow just looks and sounds awesome; his teeth are made of iron, and he talks through a voicebox that sounds like a ghost screaming through a CB radio. The entire movie has a bird theme to its characters, so Winslow’s helmet winds up looking like a hawk. In fact, a lot of people probably only know about this musical through the comparison between Winslow and Griffith from Berserk. It doesn’t help that their stories are kind of similar; locked in prison, mutilated, deal with the forces of evil. It’s probably just a coincidence, but I’m not gonna’ lie and say it wouldn’t be a cool reference if it wasn’t. Still, people should give this movie a chance on its own merits, just because of what campy fun it is.

2. Lilith Immaculate

Cradle of Filth is a symphonic black metal band with a distinct gothic horror bent to their albums. They’ve done several concept albums, including one based around Gille de Rais and another on Elizabeth Bathory, but Darkly Darkly Venus Aversa was an original story. At the center of the album’s story is the monstrous goddess Lilith, trapped by the Knights Templar during the crusades and now possessing a girl sent to a nunnery. It’s all so incredibly gothic; sins of the past, sexual frustration, religious oppression, graveyards, doomed love.

I might not be the best judge of character, but Lilith here hits the nail with the hammer as far as gothic monsters go, reminding me a little of The Great God Pan or Gormenghast. Part of Lilith’s appeal is that, for all intents and purposes, she wins; the album ends with her former lover realizing that he has unleashed something he could never control, and now the world is doomed. Lilith heralds the dawning of a darker age, the antithesis of everything Victorian values holds dear. You can’t help but cheer for her as she readies to make war on the world.

3. Stanton Cree

Ghoultown is a gothabilly band, which means that it’s like rockabilly but with some Southern rock and it’s about ghosts and vampires and werewolves. Needless to say, they’re pretty great. Their best known song is probably Drink with the Living Dead, which tells the story of a cowboy forced into a drinking match with an undead gunslinger. The ghoul, Stanton Cree, shot a man for his beer and can’t rest until someone beats him in either drinks him under the table or beats him in a duel.

I love ‘Weird West’ songs, and Ghoultown is the epitome of that. Stanton Cree has gone insane from eternal life and is determined to find somebody to beat him, but he won’t go easy on his opponent. It’s the kind of story that belongs in Deadlands or some other cowboy horror setting. It lacks the morality tale aspect of Ghost Riders, but that’s a deliberate decision to emphasize just how bizarre the story is. It’s a perfect mood piece for a dark night out on the Wastes.

4. The Erlking

Schubert’s Erlking is an old-fashioned fairy, the dangerous and wild kind that need to be feared. As a father rides through the forest at night, his son sees the Elf King trying to seduce him to come away with him. It’s always nice to be reminded that fairies and elves aren’t nice, that they can be as dangerous as any monster or demon. But it needs to be done with a certain degree of subtlety, at least for a while, a delicate touch before the other shoe drops.

The Erlking is of course also a metaphor for death, and the father believe his son is only hallucinating as he dies in his father’s arms. It reminds me of the old medieval stories about how Fairyland was sometimes just a trap made by Hell, or how fairies would appear in afterlife narratives for children. Whether death, fairy, hallucination, or all three, the Erlking is still a chilling figure.

5. The Phantom of the Opera

I don’t claim to be in the Phandom, I only have a surface knowledge of it, but I feel like the Phantom is still an important monster/horror icon, even before becoming a musical star. The Phantom’s story, even from the beginning, has been about toxic people and learning to grow up. Born deformed, the Phantom embittered himself against the world, becoming a genius at music, engineering, and just about everything else, but a child socially. The lesson he learns is about putting another person’s wants and needs before your own, and that’s still a vital lesson that is incredibly painful to learn. Naturally, I don’t care about that; I just enjoy making fun of Love Never Dies and deciding which Phantom is the best based on grodiness of deformity. Obviously, that’s up to objective taste, but it’s Ramin Karimloo. Karimloo has the most extreme deformities, and is prone to fits of ACTING, so Karimloo takes top spot for musical Phantom. The best non-Musical Phantom is, of course, Lon Chaney, followed by Charles Dance, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise. Again I’m… I totally don’t care about this musical. I swear.

6. Mefistofele

I would argue that Boito’s Mephistopheles is the definitive version of the character, even more than Goethe’s. If nothing else, Boito’s Mefistofele defined the look of Mephistopheles, casting him in his famous red cavalier’s outfit. Mephistopheles here is also much more analogous to the Devil than his own separate entity here, since the opera begins with Mephistopheles challenging God to a bet over Faust’s soul. While Mefistofele might not be where the devil started enjoying his work, it’s definitely a far cry from Marlowe’s Mephistopheles urging Faust not to give up Heaven.

Still, despite the loss of complexity, Boito’s Mephistopheles is more personable, more charming, even a bit more human. There are situations he can’t control, and his relationship with Heaven is more casual. In the end, when Faust repents, you get the feeling that Boito’s Mephistopheles was enjoying the ride, and is almost as upset about not being able to have fun anymore as he is about losing his bet with God.

7. The Water God

Anything by Dethklok kind of feels like cheating, since they were explicitly made to be a parody band of death metal. At the same time, though, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that the entire underwater setting where sea monsters have race wars with mermaids isn’t the dopest shit. And then one of these sea monsters finds a deep sea oracle and they turn into some dark ocean god and it’s all so freaking cool. It is unnecessarily cool for a joke band meant to shill for an Adult Swim show. But the entire epic of the water god here is genuinely more compelling to me than a decent chunk of the fantasy characters I have read about. Maybe I need to read better fantasy stories, or maybe everyone else just needs to get with the program and starting writing Metal epics about killer tritons.

8. Ghost Riders in the Sky

Now this is the original Weird West song. Demon bulls, undead cowboys, nightmare horses; this song has got it all. And of course, this all goes without saying about how the song is also the unofficial theme song for Ghost Rider, one of my favorite superheroes. The song has that same ‘weird tale’ feel that Drink with the Living Dead has, which is probably because it’s based on an actual Texas folk tale. The image of a special Hell for cowboys is interesting, but I’m more fascinated by the prospect that Satan has livestock. Are all the Devil’s farm animals Metal like his steer? What about his chickens? Does Satan live on a giant dude ranch? Now I want some kind of Western/dark fantasy story where the Devil is a cattle baron all dressed in black and red.

9. Red

All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 was… God, I’m really putting this on the same list as Mefistofele good lord, but All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 was, well All Dogs go to Heaven 2. I mean it wasn’t the worst direct-to-video cartoon sequel of anything ever, it kind of just drifts there around the middle, but like many DTV cartoon sequels it has, unfortunately, a really great villain with a really great villain song. Designated antagonist Red is a demonic cat who’s after the angel Gabriel’s horn. His design is actually pretty good, and I appreciate the implication that if all dogs are heavenly, then all cats are therefore demonic minions. This is of course a known truth to anybody who has ever had to clean a litterbox, but it’s always nice to be reassured.

However, that alone would not let Red make the list; it takes more than being the redeeming feature of a DTV cartoon sequel to get here. What clenches it is Red’s pedigree; Red is voiced by Broadway musical veteran George Hearn, who has been in everything from Camelot to Wicked, but is most famous for being Sweeney Todd during the musical’s performance in 1970, and stayed with the production through its national tour and its Emmy-winning TV performance. In short, this man was the definitive Sweeney Todd, at least until Johnny Depp. All Dogs 2 even acknowledges it by having an entire sequence set in a demonic barber shop and theater. And I’m just a sucker for that kind of reference, so the evil red cat edges his way in.

10. The Beast of Pirate’s Bay

There are plenty of Voltaire songs I could have picked, but it figures I would pick the one about a sea monster. A variety of leviathans are conjured up to describe the Beast, without any actual answers given. It figures that like any good tall tale, the Beast changes from teller to teller. The truth is, though, that I find this to be one of Voltaire’s more sympathetic songs, and I can’t help but identify with the ending. Once upon a time there was a little me who loved sea life more than anything else too. The song takes a lower spot because of the actual nature of the monster, but the feeling still shines through.

#30 Day Monster Challenge 2 #30 Day Monster Challenge #Phantom of the Paradise #Cradle of Filth #opera #musical #Phantom of the Opera #long post

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littlelostbluejay · 6 years ago

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| This information belongs to me for it’s part of the world that I have created for these creatures in my story |

The 4 types of mystical beasts in my world.

I am going to shed some light on the main creatures in my canon. They come in three categories: Lycans. Werewolves. Shifters.

Direwolf ‘Lycans’ *

Lycans are basically wolf people who have the ability to morph into either a human, feral, or humanoid wolf. They are known to possess the perfect balance of human and wolf properties that make up their entire being - with that said, they are able to communicate in both wolf forms while possessing the intelligence and sense of reasoning of a human. If a human happens to befriend such a beast, they should avoid using the phrase, “good boy/girl’, in jest or taunt, for Lycans views such words as downplaying their intelligence as if they’re dogs. They have much pride in who they are as a people, and will not tolerate humans who belittle their culture, intellect, or presence. However, their wolf half is based on their instinctual urges and impulses like that of an ordinary wolf, a wild beast molded within the hands of mother nature.

Their wolf essence enables them to be connected to the earth, moon, wolf, & raven. These four connections flowing within their blood are part of their spirit and way of life, for it acts like an ID that reveals their inheritance as clean and pure, undefiled from anything mixed in the gene pool. They have the ability to communicate with wolves and other animals, which is a blessing bestowed upon them from mother earth as long as they give something to her in return - take care of the environment and the creatures whom live in it. This is witnessed in my Dire Wolf species because they are known for nurturing the earth for centuries, but it’s quite possible for other (sub-species) Lycans to gain these gifts as well. They have a certain spirituality circulating around their existence that is rare in today’s modern age of man whom is the main dominator currently ruining the earth.

Unlike shifters and some modern lycans, the animal that they are connected with, the dire wolf, is fully integrated into their psyche where they are at ‘one’ with the mind, body, and spirit of the individual, instead of acting like a separate entity or a second conscious. This wolf within themselves represents the instinctual impulses of a wolf, but they also work as a subconscious where all the things that the consciousness of the person is presently unaware of, that being feelings, thoughts, fears, ect, also they act like a 6th sense. This being is referred to as their ‘wolf spirit’ - not a literal spirit but its what makes them a Lycan.

Lycan Direwolves are an ancient breed of wolf only mentioned in folklore, and are considered legends in the werewolf community that laid out the foundations of survival for their future brethren. I should mention there are regular lycans too, which are like the common wolf. Here’s a link to a post I made for more info about my species.

Werewolves (Modern Lycans) *

Creatures where a human was either, in a rare case, somehow infected by a sick Lycan with a contagious disease only vulnerable to humans, or born as one through genes passed down from a werewolf parent or ancestor; nonetheless, they are all descendants of Lycans in someway through synthetic genetic editing. They sometimes have an imbalance in their brain that causes the wolf within to be uncontrollably animalistic where they tend to lack reasoning in their wereform. And unlike a pure blood Lycan, some can experience pain when they transform. They also can’t morph into a feral wolf. This modern breed initiated the stereotype that enforced the idea that all wolves are blood thirsty beasts with the only agenda to kill everything in their path; it’s commonly seen in the entertainment industry and media in our world, many of which produces horror films involving ravenous werewolves, and it doesn’t help that humans already believe that regular wolves are dangerous to their livestock, hence gave wolves the title as the ‘big bad wolf’. But I should say that not all werewolves share the same mentality, they are quite diverse with a multitude of sub-species in how they interact and behave around people.

In their wereform, werewolves can either recognize their loved ones, friends, or not; they act more beastly, more like a wolf or dog as an easier term, but some are born with the ability to maintain their human mind in such a state. Some can even morph on a full moon or anytime they want. And when it comes to their body shape in wereform, they either have a physique that's all in proportion, or one where the limbs may be a bit longer than another; a more beastly form that often mimics a deficiency in their human sensibilities. There is a deep contrast between common Werewolves and Lycan Dire Wolves, but the overall concept is that Lycans are an ancient, pure blooded race that existed way back in prehistoric times when the extinct dire wolf once lived along side them, nonetheless, should a Lycan breed with a human, their offspring will have all the genetic makeup of their Lycan parent, which give onlookers the impression that they are pure. Werewolves are not always strictly pure blood, their genes have been mixed with other creatures (other than humans), which results in a number of variations of werewolves in my world. But what makes a werewolf obvious is their lack of the four spiritual connections that only a Lycan possess.

In regards to their 'wolf spirit’, the way it acts differs for each individual. In some circumstances, such as for the ones who experience that unnatural imbalance in their brain, their inner wolf holds the capability to force itself to the forefront of their mental to take control of the mind of the individual where they’d act on their animalistic instincts, but this doesn’t suggest that the beast within always hold hostile intentions, either way, this is a case where the wolf spirit is a separate entity with it’s own identity, but it still possesses the feelings of the individual that is suppressed deep in their hearts. As for the ones where there is a perfect balance, the wolf spirit is the same as lycans. This also goes the same for other were-beasts with their own ‘animal spirit’.

Shifters & Mythical Beasts *

Shifters differ greatly from were-beasts. There are a few factors that separate this race from the other, and one of them obviously involves in how they shift into their animal form. Foremost, shifters only have one form they can transform into, that being their ‘animal’ or ‘feral’ form; they don’t possess an ‘anthromorphic’ or ‘bipedal’ form where they can walk on two legs like were-beasts do. Nevertheless, they are either capable of articulating human speech, using a mental connection to communicate with other beings, or sometimes are incapable of communicating at all in the human language – the race varies within their own circle. Another thing is the animal that is a part of them is a separate entity all together; the animal within has their own mind with their own feelings, and in a way they act like a second conscious that represents the instincts of that particular animal (whereas for were-beasts their animal acts like a subconscious).

Mythical beasts are beings spoken in mythology.

//I’mma write more info at a later time

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theleondude · 3 years ago

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The Turbulent Production of TAWOTA

Crazy how TAWOTA went from a funny little cartoon about a bunch of characters on the autism spectrum to a surreal existential horror where poor Leon is trapped in an unstable reality that is not his own, forced to cater to the whims of his capricious creator and his apathetic watchers. Though, with benefit of hindsight, perhaps it was always going to turn out the way it did just from the first episode alone:

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Since I announced the series on a Valentine's Day, it only seems rather fitting that I share the tale of its behind-the-scenes mayhem and the context behind how the first season ended on a colossal mind-fuck.

Fun fact: This isn't even the first iteration of TAWOTA. It's a reboot of a series I made in 2013 with barely any resources to use. So let’s start this tale of errors and unfortunate events with when I conceived the sodding idea around the same time The Amazing World of Gumball first aired on Cartoon Network. And yes, along with SpongeBob, TAWOG is a partial inspiration for TAWOTA. During my time in secondary school, I drew up many doodles of what the characters of TAWOTA would be like and what zany adventures they’d get up to. Of course, as I got older, so too changed the characters. Obviously, their appearances remained the same (more or less) and some elements of their roles and personalities remained intact but what was seen in the original TAWOTA series was certainly different from the early concepts I’ve drawn up. For instance, the original Imaginee was a kleptomaniac instead of a killer and therefore more harmless in his villainous exploits. Hence why Leon said to TDLDN “and you consider making a homicidal version of Imaginee a correction?”.

Speaking of the original TAWOTA series, due to a lack of a laptop (and a lack of wifi) when I started out, I had to take pictures of the drawings using the stop-motion feature on my 3DS camera and then record the 3DS on my tablet. And when I somehow managed to cobble together an episode, I then uploaded it onto YouTube whenever I visited the local library. It wasn’t until about the…seventh episode? I can’t remember and I’ve made a decent effort not to remember but there was this episode where Brian becomes the Grim Reaper and I used Pencil2D, Paint, and Wondershare Filmora to make that episode because, at that point in time, I finally received a laptop. Though, it was only around the time I finished the original iteration of TAWOTA that I got Wi-Fi.

You see, I went into the original version of TAWOTA thinking it would be a hit, even though I got jack-shit for resources. Some may call it optimism but, in hindsight, a better description for my belief in that iteration’s success would be delusions of grandeur (which I still have on a regular basis BTW). So when it didn’t become a success, I deleted my original (though technically second since I was locked out of my first) YouTube channel, hid away under a new channel and tried to move on from TAWOTA. But, because I was still a teen (I started the original TAWOTA in 2013 and ended it in 2017), my attempts at starting something new were sidetracked by school and the realization I can use Source FilmMaker to act out my masturbatory mind-control/possession fantasies.

Oh, yeah, I should mention at this point in time I was doing A-Levels, which are optional BTW. But I figured it would get me closer to having a career in the animation industry (especially since I already passed all my GCSEs) and I flipped a coin to decide whether I should continue doing A-Levels or just drop out. And you know what? Despite me completing the full two years of A-Levels, they meant FUCK ALL in the grand scheme of things! Which is ironic because the coin came up on the side that said I should continue A-Levels and one would assume my time doing A-Levels would have meant something. Well, unless a few lessons in humility and not half-arsing anything counts. Anyway, not only did I not pass my A-Levels (though one of them was close to a C) but there was this girl in my IT class that was very attractive and, while sociable, was usually quiet. While I have talked to her and made her laugh a few times, I never made a move on her due to a crippling fear of forming romantic attachments and because I knew nothing about her.

Now that I covered the original iteration of TAWOTA, we can finally talk about the iteration we’re all familiar with.

It was in 2018 that my mum and I were thinking of making a business selling our art. And because I know TAWOTA has monetary potential and it was a good idea that had the misfortune of poor execution, I figured I might try again. Or at least that was the plan were it not for an out-of-control masturbation addiction and the fact that I needed a new animation package because, in my humble opinion, Pencil2D was a pile of dog crap! Oh, and my PC was a potato.

That was four years ago, give or take. And while I did receive a new laptop on my 19th birthday, it took me nearly more than a year to find out about Blender 2.8 and that was only through chance. So it was in 2019 (which, coincidentally, was also the same year I joined FiMFiction) that I finally got around to writing up the scripts for the show. The plan was simple. Make some promotional shorts to promote the show then work on the actual episodes for season 1, with the first four of which being reimaginings of the first four episodes of the original TAWOTA. What could possibly go wrong?

Not many people auditioned for the casting call, the guy I had in mind as the voice for Imaginee snubbed me (though that one’s a blessing in disguise since Grant did a way better job than that other guy ever could), the animation process being more exhausting than I thought, Grant taking forever to send me his lines (though that one is also a blessing in disguise since it gave me time to find out how to make a more successful YouTube channel), Brian’s a pain in the arse to animate because of his sodding buck teeth, the original VA for Mona backed out at the last minute, and I made the faux pas of working on other projects alongside TAWOTA, which resulted in me being burnt out like fuck!

I would say it was worth it, and it was to an extent since the episodes were hilarious, but they weren’t getting as many views and likes when compared to videos I crapped out in two days. I kid you not, for the longest time, the video that had the highest viewcount on my channel was one where the Soldier from TF2 shot a Rabbid up Merasmus’ arse!

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And before that was a video where SpongeBob was possessed by Petelguese Romanee Conti (DESU!). So I’m left wondering to myself why should I even bother putting in the effort when I can rake in thousands of views in record time by making short SFM animations involving Shantae.

So, by the time I got to work on Babysitting for Auties, I was like “fuck it, let’s go completely nuts”. As my mum once said to me, being an artist is the only career where it’s perfectly normal to go absolutely mad (I’m paraphrasing slightly but you get the idea). And Halloween was coming up so I had an excuse to spook the living bejesus out of my audience, or rather the few people that actually watched TAWOTA. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t get that many views but you know what? I didn’t care. I enjoyed working on that episode. And because I thought it would be ridiculous to spend more than two years on one sodding season, I decided to end the first season of TAWOTA with the fittingly-titled ‘What The Hell?’:

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Because Mona's VA was unavailable at the time (or, more accurately, didn't respond to my email requesting her lines for this episode), I had to use 15.ai and then killed her off. And then I threw in a bunch of G5 and Shantae stuff in the hope of boosting the viewcount for this one, which it did albeit slower than the actual Shantae SFM shorts I was uploading on my YouTube channel at the time.

And that, kids, is how a funny cartoon about a bunch of guys on the autism spectrum suddenly turned into a cosmic horror story about a guy who was forced into a foreign world by his malevolent creator and made to be his, for lack of better words, performing monkey.

Want more answers? Wait until season 2.

P.S: Another reason for TAWOTA going down the route it did is because of the existence of Chris-chan and the revelation that some autistic people are the laughing stock/punching bags of the Internet. This, along with the other problems I mentioned, resulted in my heart no longer being in it. But despite all these problems, I am looking forward to working on season 2.

#tawota #shantae #production #behind the scenes #mlp g5 #autism #autistic characters #mindfuck #animation #chris chan

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henrybcwer · 7 years ago

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Good Riddance

A/N: I deleted the request on accident but the main jest is that the Bowers gang looks after Henry and gives him things he needs without being obvious about it. I tried doing this in Stephen King’s style but I’m not sure if it worked. Also this fic mixes canon from the movie and novel so keep that in mind.

His home is overtaken by a mosaic of pulsating blue and red lights and a crowd of people that didn’t belong. Henry could see them a mile away and hear them half a mile. In his foggy mind he tells himself to stop, turn around and get the hell out of Derry; there was nothing for him now. Yet his body keeps moving on its own, craving to be anywhere that wasn’t in the dark. The moment he, a patch of vile stenches and discoloration, steps within the police’s line of sight, they tackle him to the ground with enough excessive force to keep a man twice his size subdued.

They surround him in the integration room; five to seven officers all tall meaty men with an axe to grind. He’s quiet, almost could be described as timid, never looking any of the looming figures in the eyes, and he supposes that’s what pisses them off most. The Chief of Police slaps him across the face, startling him to the point of yelping. “Look at me when I’m talking to you, son!” The Chief demands.

It takes the stinging of a second slap for Henry to obey, vacant eyes that mourn the loss of—everything, slow rise to meet black eyes, and for a moment, Henry got a glimpse of what the Losers club had been forced to witness throughout each of their encounters over the summer; the blazing eyes of a cold man.

“We know you killed em. We got the evidence to prove you did it.” Chief Brandon bluffs. “We found the books in your closet that belonged to Reginald Huggins and Victor Criss. Think how their mothers must be feeling. My

Derry High School/ 4th period lunch … mom made extra.” Belch says, holding out a brown sack lunch to Henry. “She forgot she made me lunch last night and made me a second this morning.” That was a lie. Belch always made his lunch the night before, since both he and his mom had early morning shifts with barely enough time to get up and get dress. Last night Blech decided to prepare an extra lunch for Henry after the Bowers boy came to school with beans in a small Tupperware for the fourth time that week. It had been a while since all three of them were able to eat lunch together since Henry was a grade behind them. So much so, that Belch and Vic had forgotten that Henry’s diet consisted 94% out of beans his old man’s girlfriend brought over. A large, obvious part of them knew that Henry must have been sick of the stuff; he would eat only one or two spoonfuls per lunch, and then dumped the rest in the trash. Of course, Henry’s pride would keep him from accepting anything he deemed as a handout, hence the lie.

It wasn’t a subtle lie, lucky for him Henry wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shied. “Your moms goin’ senile.” Henry jokes, taking the bag.

Victor does catch on however, and pawns in his Twix bar. “I already ate one this morning,” he lies.

“Jackpot!” Henry snatches the candy off the table before Victor could invoke a take back, still oblivious to their motives. Twix only happen to be Henry second favorite candy, right after Juicy Fruit gum, so to him it didn’t matter why Victor was parting with it as long as it was going to him.

Add in Patrick’s mandatory milk from the cafeteria line and Henry had enough to constitute as a balance lunch.

The potluck lunch continues into the following week. Soon enough time passes that it becomes the norm, with each of the boys either bringing from home or taking their classmates’ lunch. One day around the middle of the school year, Belch pins down one of the losers, Richie Tozier, to the wall with his arm. He had only planned on taking the kid’s lunch until Richie open his fat mouth to make some poorly thought out joke about Belch’s mom. In an instant Belch draws his fist back and

Police Integration Room/ 2:14 am knocks the wind out of his lungs. Henry hunches over in a coughing fit, clutching his stomach. A sluggish stream of red starts adds new color to his already messed up face. He had taken quite the fall down that well, chipping one of his canines and breaking his nose against the old stone and bricks, after running from his gang and getting into a wrestling match with Mike. The man who punched him in the gut, a detective by the name Lottman, tells him to stop zoning out and fess up.

“We know you did it.” Lottman says. “You know you did it. Those people out there know it’s true too. So just admit it. Admit

Kansas Street/1:34 pm it!” Patrick shouts, pointing an accusing finger down at Henry. “You’re a cheater!”

“No I ain’t!” Henry stands up, tossing his cards on the ground in a similar fashion to what Patrick did seconds ago.

“No deck has five aces.”

“This one does.”

Patrick makes a face, one of indifference and annoyance, the kind of face that says, yeaah sureeeeee. He could deliver Henry irrefutable evidence that clearly states what Henry did was cheating and the boy would deny it venomously.

“Hand over the belt, Hockstetter.” Henry stretches his arm out, vigorously opening and closing his hand, gauging Patrick’s lack of a comeback as a victory for himself. Patrick makes somewhat of a display rolling his eyes, looking down at Henry’s own belt. Calling it worn out would be an understatement. The leather had become brittle, faded, and stained in the light, the holes where the hook went through have stretched with age creating long noodle like holes that did little to keep the belt tight around his waist. Some of the holes merged together and the seams have started the process of coming apart and fraying. It was a wonder Henry wore a belt at all. His was utterly useless.

Removing his belt and folding it, Patrick reaches out to hand it over to Henry, who by this point is absolutely giddy. But he stops midway, tugging back from Henry’s hand, relishing in the sudden twist in Henry’s expression. “Admit you cheated.”

“I didn’t.” Henry grits.

Patrick raises a brow, slowly bringing the belt closer towards himself.

“Fine!” Henry bellows, stomping his foot down. “I admit it. I

Police Integration Room/2:27 am did it.” Henry whispers face cast down.

“You did?” Lottman asks, a mixture of relief and surprise peppering his expression.

“Yes.” Henry says.

“Do you confess to killing your father?”

“Yes.”

“Do you confess to killing Patrick Hockstetter?”

“Yes.”

“Do you confess to killing Reginald Huggins and Victor Criss?”

“Yes.”

Veronica too. The police never asks how and for that he’s grateful, not sure if he could even think of a plausible explanation that would satisfy them. He could never tell them the truth. The horrors he witness. Only those who’ve had a first person encounter with—that thing could understand. No one else could ever have an accurate conception of the intangible power it possesses over the town and its people.

His trial was a long and drawn out. The police had over exaggerated how much ‘damning’ evidence they had on him, no surprise to Henry, and the District Attorney was only able to get him convicted of murdering his father. Not for a lack of effort mind you, the District Attorney pulled all the stops, calling upon witness after witness to testify to Henry’s character. Three of them were the mothers of his friends: Belch, Victor, and Patrick. Their testimonies were painful to listen, striking chord after chord, playing a haunting melody within the hollow emptiness of his being.

He’s remanded to the care of the Augusta State Mental Hospital during the trial and the following nineteen years afterwards. Often restrained physically and chemically, he saw the facility as a sort of purgatory, one that did not lead to heaven but another layer of hell; Juniper Hill.

On his first night at Juniper Hill the staff straps him to a gurney and preps him for shock therapy. They drug him with succinylcholine, a muscle relaxant to keep him from convulsing, but does little to spare him the terrifying feeling of suffocation that comes as a side effect. The initial pain comes in brief pulses but the searing sting lingers throughout the night. By the end Henry’s in a daze of confusion, droopy eyes wander the room with no recollection of how he got there or why. It was a very lonely experience.

Months peel off the calendar and his shock therapy increases to three times a week. For the most part everything’s the same. Same muscle relaxant, same terrifying feeling of suffocation, same searing sting that lingers, and same lonely experience. The only real change is in Henry. He stops fighting the staff when they take him to his treatments so they let him ride in a wheelchair without restraints. It’s a small thing, asinine really, but it gives him a sense—however misguided—that he still had some control over his life, that he was no longer confined and sedated and force to watch others make decisions for him.

His chest is heaving and his pale face is streaked with tears, a common occurrence during his treatments. His eyes are barely open and he makes not a single move to sit up. The staff comes for him, positioning him back in his wheelchair and wheels him to his cot. They tuck him into bed and he instinctively rolls over to his side, staring at his nightlight intently. Winnie the Pooh holds his honey pot close to his chest and glows softly, emitting a comfort in addition to its light. If Henry squints juuuust right, he could morph the yellow bear into something that crudely resembles Belch carrying something…someone.

The Kissing Bridge /5:00 pm “That was fucking crazy, man!” Victor laughs, playfully punching Henry in the shoulder.

“Didn’t think you had it in you.” Patrick admits.

“I did.” Belch boasts being one of the few, if not only, people in constant awe of what Henry could do.

“Suck up.” Patrick adds.

Henry, with arms cross, shrugs his shoulders, leaning into Belch’s chest. Their praise overtakes any pain in his mangled leg and elicits a proud grin from the teen. “It’s nothing. I ain’t no chicken.” Now he had the injuries to prove it. The nearly white skin of his leg begins to blossom with purple and yellow beneath the river of red oozing from a half crescent gash on his upper calf and a stiff, warm numbing pain has settled all the way to his foot.

The boys were playing chicken in the middle of the road with oncoming cars. The goal was simple, run to the other side of the road just when a car comes rushing by. They had picked a one way street, not completely daft, and took turns freighting drivers and themselves alike. Ironically, as their leader Henry had the least and most to prove all at once; therefore he was the most reckless out of the bunch, taking on the more dangerous stunts. His luck—and the game—ended when a car narrowly runs him over, clipping his right leg and causing the teen to tumble down in writhing pain as he screams bloody Mary. His friends recoil in unison, then rush to his aid, quick to pull him out of road.

Simultaneously they try to help him, touching and prodding and pushing up against his leg. Henry shoves them off all him. “GET OFF ME!” he bellows, his eyes were water glazed and the familiar pain of a broken bone throbs loudly in his ear and leg. Five seconds later he gets on to them for not helping him up. They scramble for the best position. Victor on Henry’s left and Patrick on Henry’s right, hoisting him up by the hips with Henry’s arms slung around each of their shoulders. Through team work, Henry’s able to stand, his bad leg dangling an inch off the ground. Together: Henry, Victor, and Patrick, try to maneuver down the narrow slope of the hill but find it a challenge as Henry’s foot unwittingly kept dragging too low and tripping them up. Finally it was decided that Belch would carry Henry bridal style the rest of the way home, a plan Henry vocally veto but was out numbered.

At one point, Patrick asks “When’s the honeymoon?” and Henry told Belch to walk closer towards the boy so Henry could punch him in the jaw. Belch denies the request, leaving Henry to sulk in his arms.

“You think it’s really broken?” Victor asks, looking down at Henry’s ratty excuse of a leg.

“Probably.” Henry says. “Might need a cast.”

“If you get one, I wanna sign it.” Belch says grinning.

“Me too.” Vic nods.

“Me three.” Patrick smiles, getting caught up in the excitement.

“You all can sign it.” Henry reaffirms them. “Big signatures too. Don’t want no ijit thinking I’m a loser with no friends.”

They all talk over each other, a rambling mess of ideas and opinions on what would look make the cast look the coolest.

The sun sets on the rag tag team of bullies, their silhouettes behind them erasing their differences. All of them blissfully unaware of what violent terrors were awaiting them the following summer as they focus on enjoying the moment, having the time of their lives.

#Henry Bowers #Belch Huggins #Vic Criss #Patrick Hockstetter #My writing #not to be THAT person but canonly Henry should have had a donald duck night light his first year at Juniper Hill #but that didn't advance the story so I had to tweak it #Mood of the day: Good Riddance by Green day #ok but i've been listening to this song for half a month now trying to vision this whole fic within that short time slot #i'm sick of it tbh

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