#based on that post that's been floating around. evil gang.
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i've got some theories on how cora gained his brother's trust when first infiltrating the family
#one piece#donquixote doflamingo#donquixote rosinante#donquixote corazon#image ID in description#based on that post that's been floating around. evil gang.#opart#slydiddledeeart
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Why Acnologia Fails as a Villain
This idea has been floating in my head for a long period of time. It is truly disappointing as he had the potential to be so amazing if there were just some fixes, which I’ll go over later on in this post, but lets get down to the explanation for the title you may be confused about. I see Acnologia, in comparison to other villains in Fairy Tail, as a failure of a villain. There are many types of villains in Fairy Tail, ranging from ones that are genuinely evil to those that had their sight of goodness blocked. In terms of Acnologia, he seems to be a mixture of both, a man who was once a doctor 400 years ago, turned into a Dragon Slayer who began slaying dragons with his new power. If you believe the movies are cannon, he swore to kill every last dragon in order to make up for not saving Sonia, a girl who later became a “Dragon Slayer” herself. Acnologia had the potential to rival Zeref in the field of who would be the best villain of Fairy Tail. His introduction was great, with foreshadowing given to Natsu by the introduction (for us the reader/watcher) of Gildarts. Gildarts of course had fought Acnologia and swore he was unbeatable by even his standards with bandages around his chest and his arm and leg now prosthetics. Then it is revealed who had done this as they encounter him on the island. A giant ferocious dragon who counters what the slayers believe in Dragons. He is brutal in everything he does as shown in every scene he is in, but there was one biggest downfall of his. His connection to the story. You can say that almost everything in Fairy Tail is connected to each other and if it wasn’t for one thing, many other things would not have happened. Acnologia can fit into this narrative as well, his obvious part in the story being that he is the ne that kills Igneel and the reasoning why Anna Heartfilia sends the Dragon Slayers 400 years in the future. My biggest problem with Acnoogia is he has no ties with the theme, which is why Zeref trumps him in terms of a villain. You could argue that Acnologia represents a villain with no ties to family. He has no ties to friends. He barely has a heart himself. However, this is the downfall of Acnologia. It seems that the point of Acnologia is to become a villain you dread the hero will fight up against only based off the brutality of his scenes. He has no connection to the rest of the gang except being the reasoning of missing seven years, Gildarts condition, and ending a reunion between father and son too soon. Every scene he is in is just for shock factor it seems. Maybe if he had a tie in with Zeref other than being a dragon, or maybe if he had a closer tie with Irene, the mother of Dragon Slayers. Even if he had a better final battle, which I know caused a rift in the community. I would like to see what you all think though. I always favored Zeref in comparison to Acnologia but maybe it is because of the beautiful story woven from Zeref’s character.
See you later in the Deep End!
#fairy tail#fairy tail characters#fairy tail anime#fairy tail manga#fairy tail discussion#Character Study#acnologia#dragon#anime dragon#zeref dragneel#fairy tail acnologia#fairy tail zeref#villain#anime villain#manga villain
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Denis Shaw Season: Two More Children's Shows
Next up this series of posts about shows in which actor Denis Shaw appeared, we have another two children's shows.
The Magnificent Six and 1/2: Kon-Tiki Kids
The Magnificent Six and 1/2 was a series of children's shorts made by the Children's Film Foundation. There are two reasons why the CFF's excellent programmes don't appear on here more frequently: one is that they don't seem to have been intended primarily for television and the other is that their copyright is zealously guarded so that pirated copies of their shows can be quite difficult to find on the internet, and I'm po white trash.
I see that the show was based on Our Gang, a series of short comedy films about a group of poor neighbourhood children, made as long ago as 1922 to 1944. Much of the point of Our Gang was to show children behaving naturally, which was very much carried over into the ethos of The Magnificent Six and 1/2, which was about a gang of children and their adventures.
In Kon-Tiki Kids Shaw plays an evil workman working on a canal lock gate, who tells the kids they can't cross the gate while he's working on it. Inspired by the adventure of the Kon-Tiki the kids make a raft to enable them to float across the canal. While they are doing this Shaw and his mate realise that they're going to need a boat to carry out their work on the lock gate, so when the kids arrive with their raft he confiscates it, gets on it in the water and of course it immeidately sinks.
Here Come the Double Deckers: Scooper Strikes Out
The huge success of The Magnificent Six and 1/2 in the cinema led its creators Harry Booth and Roy SImpson to make a similar show for TV, which they did in the shape of Here Come the Double Deckers. It was a transatlantic collaboration and in fact was broadcast in the US before being seen in the UK. It revolves around the adventures of another gang of children whose den was a double-decker London bus in a scrap yard.
Scooper Strikes Out is a rather more fantasy-based adventure than most of them, in which the character Scoopy gets knocked out by the ball while playing baseball and dreams he is in Alice in Wonderland. This magnificently means that the plot of the Alice in Wonderland takes place, with all its characters, in the world of the Double Deckers. Denis Shaw's role in limited to being one of the soldiers, but it is interesting to see him in a more - let's say 'morally neutral' - role than many of the roles in which he specialises in being sinister. It's also an indicator of versatility if the rudest man in London could be in an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland!
These two shows are worth watching in their own right, I think. Incidentally, while Here Come the Double Deckers has been released on region 2 DVD (currently going for about £55) I see that it's also had a French-language release in which it becomes L'Autobus à Impériale!
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Pokemon Idea (Evil Teams)
So, an idea I had for a Pokemon game that I talked about elsewhere before. Someone brought up the idea of, instead of Gyms, you have to go around defeating Evil Teams that have taken over towns throughout the region, freeing the town before you're allowed to progress.
I modified that idea: Normal game, normal gyms, normal Elite Four. Post Game+: You're informed that there is a neighboring region that has been taken over by warring Teams/Gangs and the the League officials of that region have placed a request for aid towards your region. Everyone else is too busy to help, for various and possibly related reasons, but as the new Regional Champion, you qualify to step over there and start taking names.
Team Black: Psychic / Ghost / Dark specialists. One of the smallest teams, based in what looks like an expy of Gen1 Lavender Town, being a bunch of Hex Maniac types and other various occultists and supernatural enthusiasts. Their primary threat is that their leader has some crackpot plan to summon three type appropriate Legendaries (Hoopla, Giratina, Darkrai) to steal their powers to become god. The plan is doomed to fail, but in such a way as to place the region is danger.
Team Yellow: Electric / Bug / Poison specialists. One of the smallest teams, based in what looks like an expy of Cinnabar Island, being a bunch of Scientist and other techie types. Their primary threat is that their leader has some crackpot plan to clone three type appropriate Legendaries (Zeraora, Genesect, Eternamax) and use their powers to become the preeminent super power in the region, almost like unto gods. The plan is doomed to fail, but in such a way as to place the region in danger.
Team White: Steel / Fairy / Dragon specialists. A bunch of Rennaisance Faire cosplayers who would really like to turn the region into a feudal state under their direct control, please and thank you. They are one of the largest teams, having a city and 1-2 outlying towns under their control. They are led by a regal White Queen and have a tenuous alliance with Team Blue.
Team Red: Fighting / Rock / Fire specialists. A bunch of Mad Max cosplayers who would really like to turn the region into a faux-anarchic kratocracy under their loose control, please and thank you. They are one of the largest teams, occupying a city and 1-2 outlying towns. They are led by a mighty Red Boss and have a tenuous alliance with Team Green.
Team Blue: Flying / Ice / Water specialists. Sky pirates floating in sky ships. While they don't directly occupy any towns or cities, as they have little interest in the surface except as a place to exploit, their presence is felt throughout the entire region and there is at least one city that is unofficially considered their territory.
Team Green: Grass / Ground / Normal specialists. Anarcho primitivists living in the woods. While they don't directly occupy any towns or cities, as they have little interest in civilization except as places to be destroyed, their presence is felt throughout the entire region and there is at least one city that is unofficially considered their territory.
...
Champio Trio+1: After, or during, Team Black & Yellow's similar but separate disastrous attempts to harness the power of Legendaries to oust the other Teams from the regions, the other four teams began cooking up ideas to get some Legendary level Pokepower of their own. Separately, Team White and Team Red, with Team Blue's wide ranging resources or Team Green's bio-ecological know-how respectively, begin a program to breed their own super Pokemon. After the smoke clears on their Legendary disasters, Team Black and Team Yellow realizes they're now the ones lagging behind on the Legendary arms race and team-up to take their own crack at it.
Team White and Team Blue create Quazyados, a creature obviously descendant from Gyrados but bred to resemble Rayquaza. It had its Magicarp and Water type bred out and somehow inserted Dragon. It is a haughty creature that rules the skies and demands tribute from all things below it. It starts on the White Queen's team, escapes, ends up on the Blue Captain's team and then escapes into the wild indefinitely.
Team Red and Team Green breed Goldon. Descendant of the Golem line but bred to resemble Groudon, with its previous evolutions bred out and its Fire type bred in. It is a bullying, boorish brute with no manners that destroys anything it doesn't like and beats up anyone that gets in its way. It starts on the Red Boss's team, escapes, ends up on the Green Chief's team and then escapes into the wild indefinitely.
These breeding experiments are not without mistakes, however. These rejects are abandoned by their uncaring masters and left to die in the wild. A kindly Daycare Center took a pair of these creatures in and this pair had a child before they passed on from the world. Mafable, a Fighting/Fairy that somehow combines the humanoid features of Machop with the pink puffball that is Clefable to create something wholly unique, resembling a Sentai Henshin crossed with a Magical Girl. This creature is a friend to all living things- all it wants to do is make peace and help the helpless, but it will fight to protect the weak if it has to.
Abmam is a Poison/Dark type based on the Arbok line created by genetic engineering and occult practices, given both a Dark type and arms. The Black Lady & Yellow President lose control over it almost immediately. It believes itself to be Mafable's archenemy and will often challenge the other legendary Pokemon to battle. If Mafable is in the middle of something, like saving creatures that are in peril or stopping the other Champion Trio from bullying others, Abmam will help out so that the two of them can get to their battle.
Obviously, Mafable does not consider Abmam an enemy and thinks the other legendary as its best friend who is always by its side and driving it to become stronger.
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a comprehensive guide to zhan tiri’s lore or, it’s not that confusing or contradictory, i promise
first things first: if you are somebody who pays attention to creator interviews and you are interested in canonical zhan tiri lore, i want you to gather up everything you’ve ever heard chris say about zhan tiri and erase it from of your brain. i know he’s made statements regarding his interpretation of her backstory but this post was made by death of the author gang and we are interested ONLY in what is stated and shown in the text itself. meaning belongs to the viewers, and creator interpretation is irrelevant.
ready? let’s go!
who or what is zhan tiri?
zhan tiri’s first appearance in coronan history occurred thousands of years ago; in plus est en vous, rapunzel specifies two thousand, but every other mention of zhan tiri as a historical figure is “eons” or “millennia,” and the most objective source we have—the plus est flashback—is marked “thousands of years ago.”
there is no direct evidence to suggest that she existed prior to this, but i think there is enough circumstantial support for this theory to conclude that she did: namely, the existence of idols and other religious iconography associated with her name. my reasoning here is as follows:
the plus est en vous flashback shows demanitus banishing zhan tiri to the lost realm. this makes it—give or take a few years—the last point in time when zhan tiri would have been free and thus able to make any lasting cultural impact.
it follows that any relevant historical artifacts we see must predate the plus est flashback, as they represent a time when zhan tiri had a significant enough cultural impact to fuel their creation.
moreover, though sugracha and tromus are the only disciples of zhan tiri who directly appear in the series, it is implied that there are many more:
Lord Demanitus was in a constant battle with Zhan Tiri and his brethren. Over the years, Demanitus captured many of the evil spirits and held them prisoner in that chamber. (S1, Painter’s Block)
much of the coronan folklore concerning the demanitus-zhan tiri relationship is... wrong, but due to sugracha’s verifiable imprisonment in the demanitus chamber, i feel it reasonable to conclude that this tidbit is correct in that there are, or at least were, other disciples held inside the demanitus chamber. and, as with the historical artifacts associated with zhan tiri, it is logical to conclude that whatever cult produced these disciples predated the plus est flashback.
so, we’ve established the historical artifacts and iconography associated with zhan tiri came before the plus est flashback, but what exactly does that entail, and what does it tell us about zhan tiri’s true nature?
icons of zhan tiri: an overview
#1: janus point
janus point is a henge, and based on the iconography—the ram’s head symbol is plastered all over the jardinière and the henge pillars—it appears to be a site dedicated specifically to zhan tiri. the same symbol also appears on the seal in which sugracha’s spirit was trapped inside the demanitus chamber and is unique in that the muzzle appears to corkscrew.
the appearance of the henge evokes a quasi-religious flavor, and in who’s afraid of the big bad wolf, rapunzel refers to the site as a “mystical ground.” at the very least, this is a ritual site that was heavily associated with zhan tiri, and it would not be much of a stretch to conclude she was outright worshipped here.
#2: the spire idol
this artifact appears in both the keeper of the spire and race to the spire. it’s a small stone idol kept in the spire’s... gatehouse, for lack of a better term, and it depicts the basic ram-headed hulking demon zhan tiri. nothing is said about it in either episode.
#3: the tree of zhan tiri
there is zhan tiri iconography all over this tree.
the stone ram’s head over the entrance...
...the bas-relief in the first chamber...
...more ram’s heads over all the interior archways and the scroll shelves...
...and a return of the corkscrew-snouted ram’s head from janus point on the altar for this glorious oversized flytrap.
#4: the shell house
tromus’s shrine gives us yet another variation on the ram’s head symbol as well as another full-body idol and also, though i didn’t get a screenshot of it because it’s hard to see with the way tumblr resizes images, a little ram’s head symbol on the clasp of his robes.
so where did this imagery come from?
with the exception of the spire idol, there is evidence to suggest that zhan tiri herself had direct influence over the design of all this iconography.
janus point seems to have held some importance to zhan tiri herself; when she appears to varian in cassandra’s revenge, she surrounds herself with pieces of it and superimposes her own head on top of the tree.
further, the corkscrew-snouted ram’s head reoccurs at the great tree, which is unique among the sites associated with her in that we know zhan tiri actually resided there for what sounds like a significant amount of time; according to the legend adira shares, the great tree was zhan tiri’s “stronghold.”
this means that it’s plausible that either (a) zhan tiri herself shaped the symbols on display in the tree, or (b) they were modeled after her by her contemporaries. the interesting thing about this, there are four distinct variations on the ram’s head symbol inside the tree: 1) long, thick snout with elongated horns; 2) angular, no snout, short horns, 3) corkscrew-snouted, and 4) humanlike skull with ram horns.
and likewise, the iconography inside the shell house was created by someone we know to have been a contemporary of zhan tiri’s; tromus was one of the students of demanitus who turned against him to join zhan tiri instead, and it is logical to assume that he did, in fact, see zhan tiri in the flesh at some point—and his ram’s head design is yet again different.
this begs the question: if all five of these designs were modeled on zhan tiri herself, why is there such variety in the basic shape? i believe this is a strong point in favor of considering zhan tiri a shapeshifter who chose and stuck with a single general form for long periods of time but casually and frequently modified the smaller details. and in fact, we do see her do this in season three, with the most notable occurrence being. this:
so, we have concluded that:
zhan tiri’s historical iconography predates the plus est flashback, and
accurately represented her physical appearance from that time
from this, the only reasonable conclusion is that zhan tiri is a shapeshifter, who spent a considerable amount of time in the giant, ram-headed demon form depicted in all of her pre-demanitus iconography.
but she’s human in the plus est flashback!
in the series, human characters are designed with a wide diversity of shapes and sizes, but their color palettes stay within the range of realism, with natural skin tones and eye/hair colors. zhan tiri is... not like that.
she may be human-shaped, but her color palette sits drastically outside the norms the series has established for human characters; her skin is dead white, her hair is a dull lilac color, her eyes are bright purple with a circle of gold around the pupils. none of these are natural human colors.
there is precedent in the series for marked changes in appearance and coloration as a result of meddling with magical forces: when cassandra claims the moonstone, it turns her hair and eyes bright blue and gives her an unhealthy-looking pallor. rapunzel’s hair, likewise, turns gold due to the sundrop’s influence. thus, taking this in isolation, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility to conclude that zhan tiri, too, has had her appearance altered by whatever magical nonsense she’s been mucking around with.
however, if we look at this design in the context of the conclusions we’ve already drawn about her historical iconography and what that tells us about her true nature, i think a much simpler and more plausible explanation is that zhan tiri, being a shapeshifter, donned this humanlike form in order to get closer to demanitus. there could be any number of reasons for doing so—considering demanitus’s fixation on seeking the drops for the right reasons, i would imagine creating some distance from the malevolent monster form in order to gain his trust would have played a role in this decision.
five final points in favor of shapeshifting
#1: zhan tiri in the lost realm
we see in plus est en vous that the lost realm causes absurd magical mutations in people who are trapped there. varian theorizes that these mutations could become irreversible if they stay in the lost realm for long enough, but given that they are all freed shortly thereafter and the changes revert, there is no concrete evidence for or against this theory.
still, this raises an interesting question: if the lost realm mutates anyone who enters it, and if these changes become irreversible after long periods of time what would happen if a shapeshifter was trapped there for thousands of years?
when zhan tiri escapes from the lost realm, she isn’t all that different in appearance from when she entered it. she’s much smaller. her hairstyle has changed a bit. she lost the bag at some point. but that’s... really it. it’s a much less drastic alteration than we see happening with the coronans, who are shown transforming into objects and animals, with their bodies distorted, or with pieces of themselves becoming detached and floating away. and these changes also serve her manipulation of cass by making her appear small, weak, and harmless, so it isn’t out of the realm of possibility for zhan tiri to have chosen this form for herself.
i think it is reasonable to assume that zhan tiri, being a shapeshifter herself, was able to, if not outright resist whatever magic in the lost realm causes these mutations, at least “fix” them as they happened. her brief appearance in painter’s block supports the idea that she retained the ability to shapeshift while inside the lost realm, since she appears there as the ram-headed demon.
#2: her shapeshifting disciples
both tromus and sugracha are able to appear human, and sugracha states that she can take “many forms” in painter’s block. though it’s never explained where they got this power, it is reasonable to conclude that they received it from zhan tiri—she is their master, and the implication very much seems to be that it was she who gave them their creepy green spirit form of immortality.
and, if zhan tiri is handing out powers of shapeshifting to her minions, it follows that she must be capable of shapeshifting herself, too.
#3: gremlin zhan tiri’s demonic shadow
this shows up in cassandra’s revenge and plus est en vous and seems to straightforwardly suggest that zhan tiri’s true nature is closer to the ram-headed demon, with the humanlike form being more of a disguise.
#4: we see her shapeshift in plus est en vous.
she briefly loses her grip on the humanlike nature of the gremlin form when rapunzel blasts her with the sundrop, as i noted above. and later—once she has the drops in hand and the gremlin form has no further use to her—she sheds it altogether to return to yet another variation on the ram-headed demon, albeit one that looks more... monkey than ram:
#5: and finally, zhan tiri herself says so
in race to the spire:
I believe Cassandra promised us a proper introduction, but she failed to deliver, didn’t she? Frankly, I’m surprised you hadn’t guessed who I am—seeing as how we’ve already met, in a way. You see, over the centuries, I’ve taken the form of whatever suits my needs: a warlock, a demon... even a blizzard.
she also portrays herself as the ram-headed demon in the vision she gives to cassandra in once a handmaiden:
now... zhan tiri is a liar, and if these were statements given in isolation of any supporting evidence, i would be skeptical. however, when all the evidence in the text points toward zhan tiri being a shapeshifting entity as the most logical explanation for everything we see of her throughout the series, i’m inclined to take her corroborating statements as a factual confirmation.
in conclusion: zhan tiri is, and has always been, a shapeshifter. if she has a “true” form, the evidence points toward it being the large, ram-headed, tentacled demon, while the humanlike shape(s) we see in season three are forms she assumed to ingratiate herself to demanitus and, later, cassandra.
what’s the timeline with her and lord demanitus?
time in this series is fuzzy. this applies not only to zhan tiri and demanitus, but to every historical event discussed by the characters and the timespans covered by each season, where the only time markers are the lantern festivals that celebrate rapunzel’s nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first birthdays and a few throwaway lines about the passage of months. thus, there is no way to say with absolute certainly when any specific event in zhan tiri’s backstory occurred chronologically. we have to do our best to arrange the events we know about in an order that is logical.
this is complicated by the fact that we know demanitus fudged some of the details to make himself look better to rapunzel and eugene: he obscured the fact that he and zhan tiri were working partners for an unknown length of time. this verifiable lie of omission casts a patina of doubt over everything else he says regarding their shared past, but it also accounts for discrepancies between what we see and what we’re told.
as always in unreliable narrator situations, what we see has far more weight than what we’re told. with this in mind, there are three tiers of trustworthiness in the information we are given about zhan tiri’s past: most trustworthy are the flashbacks and things we see with our own eyes; in the middle are the accounts of zhan tiri’s contemporaries—demanitus and the disciples; and at the bottom are the folk legends recounted by xavier and adira.
so what do we see?
#1: zhan tiri and demanitus searched for the drops together
just how this arrangement came to be is unclear, but i think we can glean some interesting information from the plus est flashback.
DEMANITUS: Zhan Tiri! This is your last warning! Give up this foolish quest for power.
ZHAN TIRI: This quest for the sundrop and moonstone was both of ours.
DEMANITUS: It was, until you made it about something darker. You made it all about gaining power for yourself! You turned your back on what was right!
ZHAN TIRI: And you turned your back on me. As long as I live, I will never stop until I have that power!
DEMANITUS: I know.
[He activates the portal to the Lost Realm.]
ZHAN TIRI: This is far from over! I will have that power, and when I do, I will destroy your beloved Corona! I promise you!
[The portal closes.]
DEMANITUS: I had no choice, Vigor. I had to send her to the Lost Realm.
this suggests a couple things.
first, the working relationship between demanitus and zhan tiri broke down because her selfish desire for power clashed with his idealism. demanitus didn’t want the power of the combined sundrop and moonstone for himself; he wanted to reunite them in the service of a cause he believed to be right. zhan tiri, by contrast, was interested solely in acquiring that power for herself—but given how demanitus reacted when he learned this, it seems obvious that he didn’t know that about zhan tiri until later in their relationship.
in other words, there was some level of deceit on her part involved with their partnership from the very beginning. she hid her true motives from him; she may also have hidden her true nature from him. i think there is support both for and against the latter point: in the present day, demanitus describes zhan tiri as “a warlock”—a word zhan tiri uses as an example of her duplicitous shapeshifting—but he also describes her as being “from another realm”—suggesting he knew her to be something otherworldly or inhuman.
i tend to fall on the side of demanitus knowing her basic nature while they were contemporaries, but believing she shared his more noble motivations at first, but i think a strong argument could be made in favor of him believing her to be human from the start and only discovering her true nature later.
second, demanitus appears to have cared for zhan tiri far more than she cared for him. in the flashback, she’s angry at his betrayal, but her focus is on her desire for the power of the sundrop and moonstone. by contrast, demanitus gives her plenty of warning and chances to turn away from her dark path, pleads with her to “give up” her selfish motivations, and expresses clear regret after her refusal forces him to banish her to the lost realm.
this, again, supports the interpretation that zhan tiri manipulated or used demanitus to further her own goals, just as she would later do with cassandra, rather than this being a true partnership that broke down as a result of differing goals. she doesn’t care about him any more than she cared about cass.
#2: zhan tiri’s behavior in season three
season three firmly establishes zhan tiri as a skilled manipulator who does not care about anyone or anything besides herself and her pursuit of her own power. i won’t get into the weeds with this—if you want to read a breakdown of (some) of zhan tiri’s manipulation of cass in season three, i wrote a post about once a handmaiden here—because for our purposes, we just need to understand that the basic character of zhan tiri as we see her in the present should inform our interpretation of her behavior in the past.
in other words, i think it is safe to assume that zhan tiri applied similar techniques and principles of manipulation to demanitus as we see her do to cassandra in the present; to wit, she would have sought to make him emotionally dependent on her by exploiting whatever vulnerabilities she could find and presenting herself to him as a trustworthy friend and kindred spirit.
#3: she is not close to her disciples
once she is freed, zhan tiri never so much as mentions tromus or sugracha again. moreover, it is unclear how much personal information they actually know about her: in painter’s block, sugracha refers to zhan tiri as “he,” which could indicate one of several things:
zhan tiri is female, but her disciples don’t know her well enough for assumptions they made about her gender based on the appearance of the ram-headed demon form to have been corrected, or
zhan tiri doesn’t subscribe to human conceptualizations of gender, and both “she” and “he” are acceptable pronouns because the gendered connotations of both are equally irrelevant.
i, personally, prefer the second explanation, but the first is tenuously supported by how little zhan tiri cares for her disciples.
what do her contemporaries say?
lord demanitus’s telling of his conflict with zhan tiri is as follows:
Millennia ago, a mysterious event in the heavens divided an ancient power in two. The sundrop and moonstone fell to the earth. Three of my pupils and I researched the legend of the sundrop and moonstone, two elements that longed to reunite. We searched, but alas could not find them.
Unfortunately, we were not the only ones looking. My pupils betrayed me, and summoned my old nemesis, Zhan Tiri: a warlock from another realm, bent on destruction. It took all of my powers to banish the evil from our world.
I knew the research I had written about the sundrop and moonstone was valuable. Dangerous, in evil hands. So I tore the scroll and hid the pieces...
this exposition also shows us the identities of the three pupils who turned against demanitus and joined zhan tiri instead: sugracha, tromus, and gothel.
their identities are all confirmed outside of this sequence: sugracha and tromus appear as loyal servants of zhan tiri, and in a tale of two sisters, rapunzel and cassandra discover gothel’s research on the sundrop flower, including a piece that is an obvious attempt to recreate the demanitus scroll, indicating that gothel was indeed his student at one time:
though it appears that gothel abandoned zhan tiri as well once she found the sundrop flower, as she hoarded its power for herself rather than seeking to use it to free her former master from the lost realm.
now... because demanitus leaves out the part of this story that would involve admitting he worked with zhan tiri before she became his “nemesis,” we can’t say with any certainty when this business with his traitorous pupils freeing her happened—or, indeed, if it actually happened that way at all. it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that the three disciples could have been pupils of both demanitus and zhan tiri, who stuck with zhan tiri after demanitus betrayed her and banished her to the lost realm.��
my personal belief is that demanitus gathered his pupils to help him continue the search for the sundrop and moonstone after the flashback in plus est, only for them to be lured away by zhan tiri (perhaps via communication in dreams or visions, as cassandra’s revenge establishes that she’s capable of entering people’s dreams whilst trapped in the lost realm) and free her by reactivating the portal—thus shifting demanitus’s focus from “find the sundrop and moonstone” to “put the demon back in her prison and clean up this mess.”
however, this is all very up for personal interpretation, because demanitus’s version of events is verifiably deceptive and thus cannot be taken as hard fact.
and what do the folk legends say?
#1: the blizzard
Eons ago, an evil warlock, Zhan Tiri, had a deep hatred for Corona, and cast a spell which caused a blizzard to sweep across the land. The storm destroyed everything in its path. All would have been lost, had it not been for the ancient engineer and inventor, Lord Demanitus.
Using both magic and science, Demanitus built a massive subterranean machine deep in the Coronan mountains. This mighty device had the ability to change the direction of the wind, and it pushed the flurries out to the sea. The day was saved. Zhan Tiri had indeed been defeated. But some say the curse of the storm lives on, and is simply waiting to strike again...
we know that the basic event described here really happened, because the demanitus device does exist in the location indicated by the legend and works just as described. the details may have been glossed over or elaborated on over the centuries, but we know it is accurate in the essentials.
until recently, i put the events described in this legend immediately before the plus est flashback, to account for the snow on the ground during the flashback, but over the course of writing this post i have actually changed my own mind, and i now think that zhan tiri’s blizzard occurred when the disciples freed her from the lost realm for the first time. why? well, the imagery used to illustrate xavier’s telling of the blizzard legend is directly echoed by the imagery used to illustrate zhan tiri’s release in demanitus’s account in lost and found:
queen for a day.
and lost and found.
the color palettes here are identical, and in both, zhan tiri is depicted as the ram-headed demon, in almost the same pose, rising out of the mountains—which fits with both the location of the demanitus device and the possibility that she created (or became) the blizzard immediately after being released from the portal in the coronan mountains. moreover, her hatred of corona is based on her hatred of demanitus and her vengeful desire to destroy everything he loves, which would logically be stronger after he successfully imprisoned her once.
#2: the great tree
Millennia ago, this tree was once a sentient being, a force for good. But it was corrupted by the evil sorcerer [Zhan Tiri] to destroy any who approached it. It was Zhan Tiri’s stronghold. Inside it, he was invincible. But Lord Demanitus put a stop to the tree’s magic using an enchanted spear.
as with xavier’s blizzard legend, the fact of the spear’s existence and the behavior of the great tree itself once the spear is removed proves the basic accuracy of this legend.
the difficulty hear lies with pinpointing when all this occurred. unlike the blizzard, there are no contextual clues to suggest where this conflict at the great tree may lie in the general timeline, so any conclusions we draw must be based on speculation. the only thing we know for sure is that zhan tiri’s residence in the great tree ended during demanitus’s lifetime, which puts a hard stop in it at about two thousand years ago.
my theory is that zhan tiri corrupted and resided in the great tree long before demanitus’s time. adira calls it her stronghold, and as discussed in the first section, the great tree has the greatest variety and frequency of zhan tiri iconography of any location in the series. one of the symbols inside the great tree is even found thousands of miles away at janus point—the corkscrew-snouted ram’s head—which draws a possible line of influence from the tree to janus point. taken together, all of this suggests a long period of time during which the great tree was zhan tiri’s tree.
and as for when it entered into the conflict between demanitus and zhan tiri, i believe there are two possibilities:
demanitus knew of zhan tiri’s use of the great tree as a fortress, and she allowed him inside while they were collaborating in their search for the drops. she likely hid the violent nature of its defenses from him for a while; then she either let her guard down and allowed him to glimpse more of the truth, or the tree as attacked and he inadvertently witnessed a brutal massacre. either way, this is what clued him in to her ulterior motives, and he crafted the spear to destroy the tree’s magic—and it is this betrayal that zhan tiri references in the plus est flashback when she says “you turned your back on me.”
zhan tiri had been using the great tree as a home for many years without the aggressive kill-anyone-who-enters security measures, allowing it to function as a library or house of research. this may have been how she and demanitus encountered each other in the first place, and would go a long way to explaining why demanitus trusted her initially. it wasn’t until demanitus turned against her and imprisoned her in the lost realm, and her subsequent release by his pupils, that she became enraged and turned the great tree into an indiscriminate killing machine and demanitus forged his magical spear to stop her.
i think both options are equally plausible, and since there isn’t any direct evidence one way or another, this is another case for personal interpretation and preference to really come into play.
so, to sum up...
at some point around two thousand years ago, lord demanitus encountered zhan tiri, and she persuaded him to trust her and work with her to find the mythical sundrop and moonstone. she was most likely just using him the whole time, while he grew to care for her but became so uncomfortable with her violent methods and selfish motivations that he felt he had no choice to imprison her in the lost realm.
his pupils—whom he either once shared with zhan tiri, or gathered after the breakdown of his relationship with zhan tiri—turned against him, and either took her side in the conflict, or successfully freed her from the lost realm. i think the latter explanation(s) fit better with the information we are given.
the blizzard discussed in queen for a day most likely happened after the plus est flashback and her subsequent release by the disciples.
the conflict at the great tree most likely occurred either right before or at some point after the plus est flashback and her subsequent release, but it is plausible to assume that by this point she had been residing in the great tree for a considerable amount of time prior to working with demanitus.
demanitus defeated zhan tiri and her disciples, imprisoned her in the lost realm, imprisoned most if not all of her disciples in the demanitus chamber, destroyed the portal to the lost realm so she couldn’t easily be brought back, and transferred his soul into the immortal body of a monkey so he could spend the next two thousand years as a... watchman of sorts, over the drops, probably with the hope that he could step in to prevent zhan tiri’s release if necessary.
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Current Fic Ideas & Emoji Voting Key
Quick disclaimer that I’m a romance writer in all aspects of the term, so most of my fics will contain mature content. Engage at your own risk, you know the rules, you’re responsible for curating your own experience of the internet, blah blah blah. This post serves as a current mock up of fic ideas I’m either actively working on or considering working on next. You can drop me an ask about any of them, or just vote via the emoji combo I’ve assigned them.
Voting lets me know you’re excited about an idea and makes it more likely I’ll actually work on it. You can vote anytime, there’re no deadlines or winner announcements, just me gauging your interest by what I see in my ask box most often.
You can also ask me about the original stuff I’m working on currently. The current WIPs are Medusa centric and the emoji for them is: 🐍
- Lupin: 🤑🤠💍 These are all oneshot ideas, between 5-15K each. If you want to vote for a specific idea, send me the emojis and the number of the idea.
Lupin, Jigen, and Goemon always play rock-paper-scissors after a big heist to decide who’ll give the group a striptease, and who will get showered with money. Based on a piece of fanart that is basically this sequence of events in a 4koma (except in their version Jigen loses and in mine, it’s Goemon). (written, just needs editing)
Zenigata cuffs Lupin four times, and Lupin steals his heart. Very NSFW conclusion. Zenigata is the most caring lover you’ll ever find. Lupin is as thirsty as usual and twice as intense. (written, just needs editing)
Jigen protects Lupin from poison darts during a treasure hunt in an Aztec temple, and Lupin nurses him back to help--forcibly, since Jigen is a horrible patient. Born from my desire to spoil Jigen and talk about what ridiculous domestic husbands these two are. (WIP)
Born from the idea that Goemon and Zenigata probably couldn’t be an item, my brain decided to come up with how I could write for them. Goemon’s teaching an ikebana class as part of his training, and Zenigata shows up as a student on forced recreational leave for his health from the ICPO. Zenigata wins the samurai’s heart through flowers. But what happens when Lupin and Jigen find out? (Only good sexy things, I promise. These beans are in a healthy polycule--be gay, do crimes)
Trans!Lupin and Trans!Jigen premise: Jigen cares for Lupin after the master thief has top surgery, since Jigen has Been There and Done That. Caring, sweet, and a little sexy. Lupin is a much better patient than Jigen.
- Sonic Vampire Novelist Coffee Shop AU: 📚☕💐
Shadow is an immortal vampire who has seen the world change for the worse too many times. These days it feels like he only lives for his coffee dates with Rouge, another immortal who loves each new era they encounter, warts and all. He has to admit that the book series she got him into speaks to him, at least. If someone in this era can understand him without meeting him, it can’t all be bad. But he hardly expected the goofy blue barista at the new coffee place to understand him the way those books do.
This is a novel length romcom romp with some big feelings about what it means to watch as things change, grow, and die. Expect lots of Big gothic feelings from this one, emotionally charged kissing, and overly-adoring sex. But also expect shenanigans from everyone in the coffee shop, which include Rouge, Amy, Tails, Knuckles, Cream, and more.
- Sonic Blazamy: 💖🌸💎
Amy Rose has been in love with Sonic for a while.
Or has she?
When the Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Shadow, and Silver are trapped as the fuel sources for Doctor Eggman’s newest evil scheme, Amy teams up with Blaze, Rouge, and Cream to save them. With Sonic out of the picture and Amy fulfilling his role, was she ever really in love with him? Or did she just want to be like him?
This is a novel length epic romance with lots of competent women and lots of romantic Blazamy content. Expect flowery hopes and dreams, badass self-actualization, and glancing hand touches that give way to cuddly and sweet sex.
- Persona 5: 🗡🍛☕
After bringing down the Metaverse twice, Ryuji didn’t think graduating high school and figuring out what to do with his life would be so hard. Akira’s back in town, and the gang’s more-or-less all in Tokyo, but everyone else seems to have a plan while Ryuji just floats. How’s he supposed to change the world when he’s not a phantom thief anymore?
This is a novel length fic that addresses how powerless one can feel being just one person in the face of all the corrupted systems and bigotry the world has to offer. It’s about holding on to what you believe in, working through the doubt, and fighting your way to a better tomorrow with the power you do have. The whole gang is queer, featured relationships being Mako x Ann, Ryuji x Akira, Futaba & Yusuke as platonic life partners. Akira is polyamorous and omnisexual, Futaba’s asexual and aromantic while Yusuke is demisexual and very romantic, Makoto’s a lesbian, Ann and Ryuji are bi, and Haru’s pansexual, demisexual, and aromantic. They’re one giant band of queer Phantom Thieves, and even if they’re not really doing the Metaverse thing anymore, they’re still gonna save the world!
Also, I’m gonna make Makoto not a cop. That super didn’t age well. Zenkichi and his boss can work on making them better/abolishing them for other better organizations.
- Hades Game: ❤️🔥💀
Oneshot. I just really need to elaborate on the threesome you can have with them in-game, okay? Healthy and canon poly relationships are so few and far between, so often I have to do a ton of groundwork to explain why it’s working in the fic, but NOT WITH THESE KIDS!
Get ready for Meg helping Zag and Than be better at expressing their feelings, lots of kissing, and probably pegging.
- Castlevania Animation Trevor/Sypha/Alucard: 🧛🏰🛌
Castlevania gave Alucard a threesome last season, and I just really need S4 to give me him being taken care of by his partners. They’re probably not going to give it to me, so I’ll need to do it myself. This is just an everybody loves Alucard oneshot, with the gang’s signature banter (to an extent), Sypha being sexy, and Trever being remarkably sincere. This fic is gonna feel like that Ann Hathaway picture with Trevor kissing Alucard and Sypha holding the end of Trevor’s whip while she leans her head on Alucard’s shoulder adoringly.
- Devil May Cry Nico/Lady/Trish: 💋✨😈
Nico’s gay, okay? Like really, really gay. And Lady’s bi and not into men who make her pay bills, but very into women who make amazing guns for her and demonesses with hearts who fight by her side. Trish is ace, but loves people and is pretty attached to Lady at this point. Plus it’s cute when Lady blushes and says nice things like they’re insults. I don’t have super solid ideas for them yet, and I envision these more like a polycule where Lady’s with Nico and with Trish but they’re not with each other more than seeing it as a threesome, but who knows what might happen. This is probably 1-2 oneshots depending on ideas, but might turn into a series of oneshots if people are interested (or I can’t control myself and inspiration strikes).
- Post FMA:B Blind Roy & No Alchemy Ed: 👀👑🙏
This is actually an old novel-length fic I wrote ages ago and didn’t post that didn’t turn out well because I was new to writing sex when I first wrote it. The plot is good, and is all about Roy learning to work with his blindness to reclaim his ambition of being Fuhrer and changing the system to something that actually cares for its people. He and Ed reconnect, fall into bed, and both set about working through their respective traumas about being “useless” having lost their sight/alchemy. They go to Xing as an ambassadorial party to offer Amestris’s collaboration on Al and May’s Alkahestry experiments--and uncover a plot that might threaten both kingdoms.
- Age of Calamity continuity Mipha x Revali: 🦚🐟💘
The first time Revali noticed Mipha, it was in the heat of battle. She stole his mark, taking them down with a flurry of quick blows from her spear. Violence rained from her like water--and then she healed him on her way to her next battle. No questions, no conditions, just pure kindness. The usual need to measure himself against those around him was quiet in her wake. And Revali couldn’t understand it. But how to get to know more about her? A fish and bird may fall in love, but where would they live?
This fic could be a oneshot or novel length depending on how far down the hole I fall. I need it to cover time, but it could be done in linked vignettes or with actually covering events in detail. I may elect to do a oneshot just to get it done and out of my system faster. So much fic to write, so little time.
Expect trans!Revali, polyamorous Zoras, scary competent Mipha, songbird Revali, love confessions that are made up entirely of berating Link for not loving Mipha the way she wants him to, and breaking these characters a little outside of their assigned roles in BotW and Age of Calamity. Background Link x Zelda, and Urbosa x Zelda’s Mom.
- Epic desert romance about Urbosa and Zelda’s mom: 🏜🏝⚡
I just think Urbosa should kiss women and Zelda’s mom should get more development and maybe a name or something. Also, lightning imagery/metaphors/play.
It also went way over my head that Riju wasn’t Urbosa’s daughter the first time I played BotW, so now I want to write about the Gerudo queen who refused to produce an heir. The Gerudo are fascinating and have a very interesting cutlure, but I think it could be examined from a nonbinary perspective that rejected pregnancy and wanting to find a husband. Not in like a hateful way, but in a way that examines if that’s really right for everyone. There’s that shop in town that sells Voe armor, after all. Maybe finding a husband and having children isn’t something you have to do if you don’t want to. And Urbosa really doesn’t want to.
#sonic the hedgehog#Lupin III#persona 5#Devil May Cry#Hades Game#Castlevania#fma#Breath of the Wild#age of calamity
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Hi. I finally have a reliable way of watching classic who, so I'm trying out to work out a good approach. A long while ago, I put together a list of stories suggested by different people about good "definitive" stories for each Doctor. But I've been following you for a while now and you seem to have a pretty good understanding of Classic Who. So I thought I'd ask, whether you had any suggestions?
Hi sorry I’m just getting to you now! Awesome you’re getting into Classic Who, it reminds me that I need to get back into it… I’m not really an expert on Classic Who and I lost my Classic Who to watch because my old laptop died. This’ll teach me, honestly, to put notes on a cloud based note taking program rather than just the one living on the computer.
Here’s the list and some of my favorites. It’s not complete, so fairwarning! Also Classic Who goes by stories ranging from 4 episodes each to a whopping 12 episode.
First Doctor
An Unearthly Child (The first story where two teachers spy at a student’s home out of concern and in return the First Doctor kidnaps them and then strands them on prehistoric Earth where the Doctor tries to kill a caveman with a rock).
The Daleks - Second story where the Doctor lands them on Skaro, meets the Daleks for the first time. Skaro was a war ravaged, post-nuclear winter world where two kinds of races lived the Kaled and Thals.
The Edge of Destruction - The TARDIS almost kills the crew, the crew acts weird and Barbara Wright gives the Doctor one hell of a talking to, and the Doctor starts to shape up.
Marco Polo - I haven’t seen this!
Keys of Marinus - I haven’t seen this either
The Aztecs - Fabulous Barbara Wright where she shows how amazing she is. She’s allowed to be both right, wrong, and righteous. But also.. it’s Aztecs as portrayed by a 1960s show. Also, the Doctor accidentally gets engaged. Not the last time!
The Sensorites - The Time Team meats a psychic alien race.
The Planet of Giants - (sorry I haven’t seen this)
The Dalek Invasion of Earth - An awesome, post-apocalyptic London in the far future where the Daleks enslave Earth. Barbara is awesome and Susan makes her goodbye, and the Doctor leaves Susan with only ONE shoe.
The Rescue - Vicki, the new companion arrives. Something about the confrontation here between One and the threat reminds me of Thirteen.
The Romans - A really fun episode. A really fun and shippy episode for Barbara and Ian. Also… really traumatic! Also the Doctor may or may not have inspired the burning of Rome.
The Web Planet - I have to be honest I couldn’t finish this episode.
The Crusade
The Space Museum - Haven’t watched yet.
The Chase - A silly episode where the gang gets chased through time and space by a bunch of Daleks. Barbara and Ian leaves, and Steven the astronaut stumbles into the TARDIS
The Time Meddler - The first time another Time Lord (not yet called a Time Lord) is on the show. The Doctor and The Meddling Monk have fun chess shenanigans.
Galaxy 4
Mission to the Unknown - Prequel to the epic The Dalek’s Masterplan. Recently graduate students recreated this. The only episode on Doctor Who without the Doctor or the TARDIS.
youtube
The Mythmakers - Through audiobook in Audible. Vicki stays behind, and the Doctor, uh, might have help start the sacking of Troy.
The Dalek Masterplan - Real epic where we see how sly Daleks can be, with a huge array of characters. Again, I experienced this as an audiobook so I don’t know what this looks.
The Massacre at St Bartholomew’s Eve, The Ark, The Celestial Toymaker (yes the one namechecked recently). I haven’t seen these episodes yet!
The Gunfighters - A really fun episode where the Doctor, Steven, and Dodo ( a new Companion) in the Old West.
The War Machines - The Doctor comes back to 60s London where a sentient computer tries to takeover the world through hypnosis. Dodo leaves and two new companions, Ben and Polly arrive.
Unfortunately that’s the only First Doctor episodes I’ve watched
Second Doctor
The Tomb of the Cybermen - Supposedly the iconic episode. And where the Second Doctor has a really fantastic inspirational talk about keeping the people we love in our hearts. Unfortunately, probelmatic about race, and the first of the many times a black person dies in a Cyberman episode. It’s unfortunate because they already have so few black characters on the show but they almost always die when a Cyberman is around.
The Enemy of the World - The Second Doctor looks like a Dictator and there are shenanigans. Also there is an awesome woman character.
The Dominators - Fun episode with adorable robots.
The War Games - The EPIC ten episode last story for the Second Doctor. And the first time we all meet the other Time Lords and realize quickly they’re assholes of the highest order. And every subsequent appearance will only reinforce that.
Third Doctor
Spearhead from Space - The Third Doctor’s first adventure, and the first colored Doctor Who! We meet Doctor Liz Shaw and the rest of the UNIT team. The Brig is also reintroduced! (Um he was in an episode I hadn’t seen from Second Doctor era).
Dr Who and the Silurians - Really good episode and the ending, omg.
Ambassadors of Death - Also good but a bit bloated I think
Inferno - THE BEST. AND I MEAN THE BEST. The first official alternate universe episode and the Third Doctor struggles to save Earth. Also, unfortunately Dr. Liz Shaw’s last episode :(.
Season 2, Third Doctor
Terror of the Autons - The Master’s first appearance! And a weirdly floating Time Lord. Jo Grant appears!
The Mind of Evil - The Master tries to disrupt a peace conference with mind control, Jo Grant is awesome, and we find out the Master’s main fear is the Doctor laughing at him and proving he is more superior than the Master.
The Claws of Axos - Aliens come to Earth and try to scam Earth, the Master is behind it… and is in trouble too.
I hope that’s enough for the moment?
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ES Spectre Interlock Chapter 31-40
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ITH IT AU
Let’s kick off September properly with a good old horror Halloween based AU. I don’t have to very many of these, the only LEGIT one I think I have is Jeepers Creepers and Mad Father comes pretty close. And I guess Night in the Woods could count (it takes place around Halloween, kinda) and I guess *shudder* Lovely Bones...
ANYWAY! If you didn’t know, I got to see the midnight premier of the new movie IT by Stephen King. I was very pleased because I remember watching the old IT movie with Tim Curry and not being scared in the slightest. But this? Good lord, they upped the creepy. Just about all of us in the theater at some point were just going ‘nope nope nopenopenopenope!’ (Along with yelling at the kids to NOT go into the creepy place with the evil killer clown) So this is basically part 1 of this post since the new movie is split in two so let’s get started.
So we got our barrio fam and the barrio babs hanging around, but this barrio in particular isn’t as happy and heartwarming as the musical. The little town where they live is just...ominous in general, and people go missing, like A LOT. Tons of gruesome incidents had taken place there in the past, it’s like the town is cursed.
So to start off, I’m thinking Nina is gonna be our focus character here. Because she was directly affected by IT when it killed her brother, Lincoln. Her older brother had gone out during a rainstorm, and apparently fell into the sewer, along with tons of blood nearby. A year later, and they haven’t found any sign of him. Kevin and Camila have accepted by this point that their son is dead, but Nina refuses to give up since they found no body. So we got our main cast of barrio babs, Nina, Usnavi, Benny, Vanessa, Pete, and Carla. Oh also I forgot to mention that all the kids are between the ages of 11 and 14; Carla is the oldest at 14 and Pete is the youngest at 11. And Sonny? Well, he doesn’t exist yet; he’s not born yet in this AU, don’t worry, I have a reason (also I guess this technically makes this another Young!Sonny AU). So all the barrio babs have been seeing really weird shit lately and getting the shit scared out of them in the process, since what they’ve been seeing has to do with their fears. For example, Nina sees the ghost of Lincoln, telling her to come with him so ‘she’ll float too. We all float down here~’, Usnavi sees a man who is just about rotting from sickness and disease since his parents died of sickness, Vanessa has blood shoot out of her sink, and so on. I haven’t figured out what everyone would see yet. But with everything they see, they ALSO always see the clown. Nina and Carla do some research and they realize that every 15 years some giant incident happens in their town involving children dying. One time a factory exploded when a bunch of kids were having their annual Easter Egg Hunt; one time a camp full of children suddenly went missing without a trace. The kids realize that Abuela has been around for about two of these incidents so they go to her for help. Abuela doesn’t say much cause she doesn’t want these kids to get themselves killed because the fifteen years have passed and now IT is starting to kill children again, having started with Lincoln (Nina still denies that he’s dead). Abuela only tells them that this town is cursed, and that they should spend their summer together playing, and soon it will all pass. So after some planning, they trace the incidents back to this old creepy house and they go inside where they are met with creepy image after creepy image. After narrowly escaping and injuring the clown they all get into a fight since Nina wants to go back to the house so they can kill it and everyone else is fucking terrified and don’t want to die. So after a month, they go about their summer, trying to ignore the growing number of missing children, but they can’t. And shit REALLY hits the fan when Nina goes to Vanessa’s house only to find her mom dead and blood in Vanessa’s room. The monster took Vanessa. Nina rounds up the gang and they go to the house and go down a well in the basement, leading to a big underground thing in the sewers. They also realize that they have to stick together, as IT only preys on children when they’re alone, since that’s what makes their fear so prominent. They have a few close calls and they eventually find the monster’s lair as well as Vanessa, but she’s floating in the air and not moving. There’s also a giant pile of stuff that’s surrounded by the bodies of floating children that IT has killed over the years. The gang get Vanessa down, but her eyes are blank and she’s unresponsive. They manage to snap her out of it but the clown is here and they have a big showdown. They all beat it with the best of their ability, all of them facing their fears as they do until the monster is defeated. It scuttles away before they can finish it, but they’re pretty certain that it’s over and they won. Also, while down there, Nina finds the tattered remains of Lincoln’s raincoat, the last thing he was wearing before disappearing and finally cries over the loss of her brother. After that, summer goes on and things seem to be going good. Usnavi’s aunt has even given birth to a baby boy, (there’s Sonny for ya!) But the kids all vow that if the monster isn’t dead, that they’ll come back and finish it for good. That means in fifteen years, they’ll see each other again in that town if kids start dying again. This also gives Usnavi a new vigor to care for and protect his new baby cousin. He’s going to do whatever he can to get himself, his aunt, and Sonny out of Derry, because he is NOT going to let that monster touch Sonny.
Yes. That is foreshadowing. Which you will get payoff to whenever the sequel to the movie comes out!
#in the heights aus#it 2017#pennywise#ith babs#happy early halloween#cause who cares if it's still september right?#more will come#in a year or two whenever the sequel plans to come out#in the meantime you should go see the new movie#it's very enjoyable#just watch it with other people#it really helps if you aren't good with horror movies
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Catch up on previous weeks here
Week 9 – Shit Just Got Real
Before we start talking about this week’s class I want to talk about something that happened a few days after last week’s class. I witnessed a violent and bloody assault. If you want details ask me in person, but I mention it here because the lessons I’ve learned in the Santa Monica Community Police Academy changed the way I reacted to what happened and I hope helped the officers who were dealing with it. I wasn’t the closest witness so I wasn’t the first one they spoke to, but I could hear the other witness being interviewed. He was telling the officers what he saw, but it was a lot of ‘he looked like he was going to…’ and ‘and then he yelled such and such…’ statements. Important information, sure, but not the priority at that moment. I interrupted and said “the suspect left on train car number so-and-so.” One of the officers was immediately on his radio while he and another officer jumped into their patrol car and took off. I don’t know what eventually happened, but I hope that they were able to nab the attacker before he got off the train and disappeared. So thank you SMPD for teaching me how to ‘speak cop.’ ;)
[1st day as cop] captain: “why did you call for back up” me: “there was a fly in my car” swat team leader: “what exactly do you think we do”
— k e e t 🐤🥔 (@KeetPotato) September 30, 2016
(I have been waiting to post this since I started the Community Academy)
As you may have guessed from the tweet above, we started this week’s class with some SWAT team members who were happy to answer our questions and let us play with their cool gear.
SWAT officers have regular duty and patrol with SWAT training on top of it. If they’re needed it doesn’t matter if they’re ‘bright eyed and bushy tailed,’ at the end of a long shift, or asleep in bed, they go.
SWAT officers have to be prepared for anything. A chase, a gunfight, waiting out a suspect, anything.
SWAT members carry so much gear on them for the above reason. As a situation develops it often changes.
The bullet proof vests are about 20 pounds. There is a ceramic insert in the front to stop rifle rounds.
I needed a nap after listening to them describe their training routine, it’s intense.
My notes on this part of class are really bad, I’m sorry.
We were outside, gathered around the equipment while we listened to members of the SWAT team. There was plenty of room, I could have gone anywhere, but I sat right in front of the big gun. Like staring down the barrel of it. (No really, I had to move to the side to take the above photo.) With the kind of glee that can only be experienced by the extremely young or the profoundly stupid I thought about every gun safety meeting I’ve been to and gun safety memo I’ve distributed in my career and giggled. In my defense, if you’re ever going to disregard basic gun safety doing it around a couple of guys from the SWAT team during a show-and-tell is probably the safest you’re ever gonna get. (Anyone who knows the difference between impossible and improbable know what a load of bologna the last sentence was.) Anyway, I’m an idiot is the point, but I amuse myself.
Even as we talked about guns (both were snipers) and other cool stuff, somehow the answers always came back around to diffusing a situation safely or minimizing the loss of life. It was really nice to see/hear that.
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Terrifying...
These SWAT officers have another whole level of dedication above and beyond the dedication you have to have just being a cop in the first place. I’m sure everyone on the SWAT team has their own personal reasons for wanting to be there but every one of them has to want it BAD.
I volunteer to be on the SWAT team on an ‘as needed’ basis. Call me when you need me, okay guys?
Now that we have some time to kill, anyone get ripped off by their drug dealer and wanna report them?
— Lawrence Police (@LawrenceKS_PD) January 22, 2017
Sadly, I wouldn’t be surprised if that worked.
The second part of class was devoted to Vice & Narcotics. Technically they are two different things but they are often closely intertwined so one presentation covered both of them.
Narcotics is the most rewarding job in the department because so much crime is driven by drugs. (According to them.)
Narcotics is the root of all evil. (Also according to them.)
Because vice/narco has to operate with a lot of autonomy and confidentiality everything is on a ‘need to know’ basis and they report directly to the Chief of Police.
Crimes of moral turpitude (I didn’t know this phrase was used outside of old movies!) include gambling, prostitution, alcohol crimes, illegal tobacco sales, and illegal marijuana sales.
Criminals don’t respect police jurisdictions so vice/narco can work anywhere from Bakersfield to San Diego, all the way to the AZ border.
ABC = Alcohol & Beverage Control. Grant to monitor all 374 alcohol permits in Santa Monica. (Targets over serving and underage drinking.)
SMAART training = Santa Monica Alcohol Awareness Retail Training. Training offered to bartenders, etc.
“Trap door operation” is when an officer poses as the doorperson at a bar/club to look for fake IDs. FLAG = Feel, look, ask, give back.
“Minor decoy operation” is when a minor is used to attempt to buy alcohol. The minor must look their real age and use their real ID.
“Shoulder tap operation” is when the minor stands outside and asks patrons to buy alcohol for them.
The new CA IDs for anyone under 21 are vertical not horizontal. (How long until someone gets busted making vertical fake IDs? I mean criminals at this level generally aren’t the smartest group, you know someone is going to assume this is an ‘across the board’ change and run with it.) ;)
When city permits issued to businesses are involved they generally can search where they want without a warrant.
A “conditional use permit” means you can’t turn a restaurant into a club after hours. (An attempt to keep the noise level down among other things.)
Typically they will try to educate business owners before resorting to enforcement. (Fake IDs, over serving etc.)
Underage drinkers don’t have the life experience to know what they’re doing. (Duh.)
“The presence of condoms is a good sign that some type of sexual activity is going on.” (This was spoken in the context of prostitution operating under all of our noses, massage parlors etc. so it’s not as ridiculous a sentence as it first seems. But it still amused me enough to write it in my notes.)
Prostitution cases often end up being human trafficking cases. Investigations are very sensitive and can take months.
Vice & Narco gets information in a variety of ways. (From other officers, from their own observations, citizen tips, criminals getting revenge on each other etc.)
The We Tip hotline allows you to report a tip anonymously.
Santa Monica has a criminal investigations tip line, a gang activity tip line, a narcotics tip line, etc. They are all listed on this page. Only one of them uses the word ‘anonymous’ but I’m guessing they probably all are because that’s how tip lines generally work.)
Informants can be ‘working off’ cases, getting paid, or (my favorite) doing it for revenge.
“Drug dealers are never on time.” (LOL)
Money the police seize from criminals doesn’t automatically go to them, it’s the city council that decides how it is spent.
Officers are trained in counter surveillance.
Officers change their appearance regularly. (Does this mean they get to expense new clothes all the time? What about visits to a hair salon?) (You can see where my priorities are!)
Columbia produces about 90% of cocaine in the U.S.
Black tar heroin smells like vinegar.
You don’t solve cases behind a desk –> “boots to the ground.”
The presentation included a photo from Miami Vice. There’s nothing specific to be learned from that, it’s just awesome.
I think I took more notes on this part of class than any other, but you probably don’t believe me based on the bullet points above. I’m not comfortable putting a lot of my notes online because they either read like a guide on how to fly under the police radar, (no pun intended) or an advertisement for how much you can make committing some of these crimes. (No really, at one point the presentation sounded a little like a Mary Kay rep trying to sign you up. “You can make this much on [drug name]. Even if [police activity] happens you still can make [amount].”) I really doubt anyone is reading this post while contemplating trading in a law abiding existence for a life of crime, but you never know.
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Why are drug names so silly anyway? I mean, from a marketing perspective do you really want people’s first reaction to your product to be giggling? I’m probably way overthinking this.
In my early 20s I had a doctor prescribe what was basically Meth. I had to go to a special pharmacy to get it and there were all kinds of rules about picking it up etc. Later I found out that the formula I was on caused so many overdoses and deaths that they stopped manufacturing it. But for a while there I had an abundance of energy and could eat anything I wanted without gaining weight!
I missed photographing the slide about prescription pills because I was too busy laughing at how many of them I had in my purse.
There were many awesome quotes from class this week, but my favorite has to be this exchange: Question from the class: “What if someone offers you drugs?” Narcotics officer: “Well… obviously we wouldn’t use them.” Maybe you had to be there, but it was just the funniest thing to me. The pause, the word choice, the underlying meaning, it’s all hysterical. (I’m an idiot.)
{Me as Cop} *Kneels over body* We’re looking for someone briefly introduced even though they don’t seem relevant to the overall plot line.
— MehGyver (@AndrewNadeau0) April 20, 2017
This week I asked my ‘entertainment media’ question twice. The first time there was no answer other than a consensus that TV & movies don’t get it right. The second time I asked the answer was The Wire, a response I’ve heard a lot. I really need to watch it!
Police Palm Trees!
Have I mentioned that I’m an idiot?
Week 9 - @SantaMonicaPD Community Academy Catch up on previous weeks here Week 9 - Shit Just Got Real Before we start talking about this week's class I want to talk about something that happened a few days after last week's class.
#Cell Phone Photography#Drugs#Law Enforcement#Photography#Police#Santa Monica#Santa Monica Community Police Academy
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Part 4 of my rtte Dagur version Fanfic : How a dragon Will travel pt 1 and 2
Part 4 Heathers return
Hiccups and Dagurs Relationship develops. And Dagur has a surprise for the riders.
Some weeks had passed. Hiccup has decided he wanted to go exploring the unknown parts of the archipelago the dragon eye has showed him and he brought his wish before the council of Berk.
And with Stoiks blessing the gang left Berk. They found an island where they build an outpost the “dragon edge”.
Meanwhile, at the ship graveyard…
“Okay, that s the last one.” Savage said as the last of the equipment was pulled up from the sunken Reaper. A lot of cages and traps were stacked on the deck.
Dagur overlooked the catch.
“Well, if we sell this as scrap metal, we may get some gold to buy more suitable equipment. Or we could sell the cages and traps to dragon hunters, it would bring more wealth, but if Hiccup would find out…”
“I know, Chief. You promised him to left the side of being evil. Well, maybe it will be better not always getting our ships destroyed and sunk by the dragon riders.” Savage said.
Dagur growled as he remembered how Hiccup and his gang had so often ruined his plans. But when Hiccups smiling face got into his mind, he took a few deep breaths and calmed down again. He can do this. For Hiccup. For his little brother. Thor, why did he adore this boy so much?
“Yeah, all the repairs and new ships always costs a fortune!-Had the men returned the treasure to the places where we found them?” he returned his attention back to Savage.
“Aye. As you told. We had done as the boy say.”
“Good. Then lets set sail.”
On one of the trading posts Dagur was able to sell all the old metal for a good amount of gold.
When the Berserker and his crew were in a tavern to have some drinks, Savage got some usable news.
“Chief, I heard from the keeper of the Tavern, that some Outcasts wanted to sell two ships. Wouldn’t this be a good occasion to enlarge our fleet a bit?”
“Well, its no fault to take a look at it.” Dagur nodded.
“Good. I talk to the go-between, he will made contact with the sellers and then let us know where we could meet them.”
When Hiccup got back to Berk to get some supplies, some unknown Dragon rider attacked Buckets and Mulchs Boat and nearly destroyed it. Hiccup and the gang observed the boat and found a mysterious silver Metal sting, similar to a Nadders. After research with the dragon eye and a phantom drawing from Buckets describings, they found out, that the dragon who wrecked the ship was a Razorwhip, a new species of dragon. Because he like sea slugs, the riders started to search the islands where this slugs could be found.
After a fruitless search, the spotted a campfire on a small island. Hiccup and the others parted and began to look for the mysterious rider and his Razorwhip. But one by one, Hiccups Friends were overpowered and tricked by the stranger, but Hiccup and Toothless were able after a wild chase to shoot them down.
The stranger turned out to be Heather, the girl who stranded on Berk four years ago. She was the rider of the razorwhip who she saved and trained like she learned from Hiccup and the others in the past.
She told them that her Village was attacked and destroyed and that her parents lost their lifes one year after they first met on Berk. Since then Heather was all alone till she found Windshear, her Razorwhip. Hiccup invited her to the dragon edge and told her she could stay as long as she wants.
But in the first night Hiccup discovers how Heather left the base in secret. He followed her and found her meeting with Trader Johan on his ship near a small island.
When Heather left again Hiccup forced Johann to talk what Heather was up to. So the trader told her about the home and people she lost and who the one is on which she wants to take revenge.
“Dagur…I cant belive you did such a cruel thing!” Hiccup thought, as he followed Heathers trail. He must find the Berserker before her and get more answers. All what Trader Johann could tell was that Dagur attacked once Heathers home island and destroyed her village. And in this process her parents died. That was the reason she attacked ships and stole their fright. To help the survived people who had lost everything.
Dagur at the moment was out in the sea, trying to come to terms with the Outcast who wanted to sell the ships. Savage handled one of the Outcasts two bags of Gold.
“Hey! That’s not the price we agreed on !”
“Well-and these ships are not as you described! So take now the Gold I offered you or –“
Suddenly two silver stings hit the deck near Dagurs boots.
“What the hell-“ Dagur growled and looked upwards. Then he saw the circling dragon. The trader, an outcast from another tribe, shrunk and grabbed the bags with the gold.
“Ugh-okay, okay! You get this two there and we will send you three other, better ones! Is that okay?” he stammered.
“Well, that would a proper suggestion. I will send you a note where our rendez-vous-point will be.” Dagur agreed.
“G-good. –Men, let´s get out of here, before we get impaled by this Razorwhip!”
Hasty the traders returned to their boat and set sail.
“It was a pleasure to make trades with you!” Dagur called after the fleeing men. Then he looked at Savage and shrugged.
“What shall we do about this dragon?” his Second asked.
“Its Heather again! Hey! Stop your attacks and come down here! I have something to-“
Dagurs last words were interrupted by Savages warning scream: ”Chief! Watch out!”
Everyone jumped for cover when a fiery blast hit the deck.
“Okay. If you not want to hear…” Dagur growled. ”Prepare the chains! I don’t want her to ruin my new ships!”
Dagur looked at Heather with narrowed eyes.
“Okay, wait till he is in range…Now!” Dagur commands. A single chain with a grappling hook flew upwards and wrapped around Windshears tail!
“NO!” Heather thought in shock. Another chain flew up and wrapped around Windshears body. The dragon turned and tried to fly away, while Heather tried to loosen the chains.
“Good! Now reel the dragon in! But careful, we don’t want to hurt it!” Dagur ordered.
The berserkers tug on the chains.
“Stop fighting it, Heather! –Arg, this girl is deaf to my words!” the berserker chief growled. Two more chains came flying from the other ships, one misses, but the second wrapped around the girls upper body. With a scream she was slammed against Windshears neck, now unmovable trapped.
“Good! She is immobile! Now we can reel her and her dragon down.” Dagur nodded satisfied. “I will show you destroying my ships!”
Hiccups eyes went wide when he spotted the captured Heather and the dragon who were slowly tugged down to the ships.
“Heather!”
“Heather, for Thors sake, don’t fight it, you will only hurt yourself! As I said: ”I-only-want-to-talk!” Dagur shouted.
With a growl, Hiccup turned to Dagurs ship and floated beside it, till he spotted the Berserker chief.
“Dagur! What the hel are you doing!” he shouted angry.
“Oh, hello Hiccup! I don’t want to harm her! But she attacked us out of the blue! It’s the second time she went after one of my ships! She already destroyed and robbed two of them I newly bought! And now she want to do it with these too! I called for her to get down for a talk- but instead she always attacked us with her dragon!” Dagur answered. “I am only defending my ships!”
“Okay, Dagur! Release her! I know her and I will talk with her!” Hiccup said.
“You know her?”
“Yes, she was washed on the shores of Berk four years ago! –I tell you the story another time! -
But there must something have happened, because why else is she so upset and attacking your ships! Is there something you haven’t told me?”
“Well, it could be that I raided her village-but this was before I got imprisoned!”
Hiccup shot him a skeptical look.
“Relase her! Now!” he ordered.
“But you must go up and loosen the grappling hooks!” Dagur instructed him.
“Okay!”
Hiccup steered Toothless upright. First he tried to shoot the chain that held Heather bound to Windshear. But the plasma blast showed no effect. The chains were dragonfire-proof.
“Okay, this doesn’t work.”
“Heather! Don’t worry! I will free you!” the Hooligan called.
With the help of Toothless Hiccup was able to loose the hooks, the chains slid from the dragon and fell back into the sea.
“Okay, now pull them back aboard!” Dagur commanded. “And get us out of here! There will be another chance to talk with her. Let Hiccup reason with her, maybe he can bring her to her senses again.”
Heather watched the leaving ships with rising anger.
“No! He is getting away!” she roared.
“Heather! Stop it! ” Hiccup said with a stern voice.
“What?”
“Leave Dagur alone!”
Heathers eyes widened. She couldn’t belive what she have heard!
“Are you insane?! I must destroy him! For that I risk everything!” she shouted enraged.
“Even Windshears life?”
The Razorwhip whined.
Heather lowered her head and sighed.
“No, girl. I would never let you hurt again.” she said.
“Heather. It may sounds insane, but Dagur is trying to fix the mistakes he had done. That’s why he released you after I ordered him to do! He said he wants to talk with you-but you always attacked him and never listened.”
Heathers eyes went wide.
“I don’t belive you! Have you teamed up with this monster?”
“He-is –not – a-monster. Not anymore. He tries to change. And I am giving him a second chance!”
Heather growls frustrated and pulled Windshear around.
“Lets head back to the edge. And when your Anger has cooled of, we should go both and have a talk with Dagur.”
Toothless glides alongside Windshear, as they flied back to the outpost. No words have been spoken, since they were on their way back, till Hiccup broke the silence.
“Heather, Trader Johan told me, what happened to your village. I´m sorry for that. Was it really Dagur?”
Heathers eyes hardened.
“Yes. He attacked my village and killed the ones who raised me.” she spat. “For that he must pay!”
“Raised you?”
“I was parted from my real family when I was little and they saved me.”
“Oh, I see. Do you remember your real family?”
“Not much. I only remember my fathers hands. They were rough, but very gentle. And I remember playing with his shield. And the only thing that I carried with me when I was found was this horn.”
Heather held up a white horn with a golden tip.
“A nice token.” Hiccup smiled.
“Yeah. I can use it for drinking and when I remove the golden cap I can use it to call Windshear. I don’t know if it supposed to mean something, but whenever I look at it, I think of him and I wish I knew who he was.” Heather said and placed the horn carefully into her bag again.
“I still can´t belive that Dagur tries to change.” she said then.
“He saved my live two times since he broke out of Outcast prison. And he always calls me brother. He started with it when we had a training session at dragon island, where he was all alone to hunt dragons. And I made a big mistake there then. I did not tell him the truth about that we are not killing Dragons anymore. Oh, he was so angry and I saw the disappointment in his face, when I rejected him and to made it more worse, I threatened him openly to use our dragons on him and his tribe, if he dares to attack Berk! It was like a war declaration! But we talked it out and I said I was sorry. “
“You simply talked it out?”
“Heather, Dagur had a lot of time to think things over. Three long years….and he was tortured by Alwin, had you seen all the scars? No, he has paid enough for his past sins! He wants to be a better chief and I am giving him a chance.”
“And you wanted me to talk with Dagur too? Sorry, Hiccup, but a talk could not take the fact out of this world, that he destroyed my village and killed people!” Heather growled.
Later, at the clubhouse on the edge.
“Sorry, for locking your dragons in, I just diddnt trust you guys would let me go after Dagur.” Heather explained.
Hiccup told Astrid to take Heather with her and keep her busy for awhile.
“She should forget her dark thoughts and see the bright sides of life.”
“Good Idea, Hiccup.” the shieldmaiden nodded. “Heather, come! Lets do some girls stuff!”
First the two went to a quiet place to practice axe throwing. During their small competition Heather asked if there is something between her and Hiccup.
“No! We are just Friends. Nothing more! Just-Friends.” Astrid says.
“I see. But the looks you share and the way you are together…”
“Its nothing, really.”
“Okay, enough of that. What else do you do for fun around here?” Heather asked. Astrid smiled. Dagur and Heathers dark thoughts are far away at the moment.
“Come on!” the shieldmaiden called her friend and stormed off.
While the two girls continued to have fun with their dragons, Hiccup studied a map, while Toothless sniffed curious at Heathers black leather bag, who hung from the wall near the entrance of the clubhouse where she have left it. Then he digs his snout into the satchel and start rummaging through it.
“Toothless, no! What are you doing? Leave it!” Hiccup said sternly and pulled the bag from his snout. “This is not the best way to earn her trust.”
A solid thunk caught his attention. He looked down and spotted the horn who had fell out of the satchel. The Hooligan picked it up when something engraved on it caught his attention.
“This…is my dad´s chief seal!”
Hiccup remembered Heather saying that her father gave her this horn. Could it be that….
“Toothless, lets head to Berk!”
Heathers old camping ground was the destination where the two girls with their dragons finally landed.
“Why are we here?”
“We are looking for something.”
“For what? It would be helpful if you tell me.”
Then Astrid spotted a slight movement. She swings her axe forward and rips someone from a bush smashing a person to the hard ground.
“Trader Johann?” she asks in surprise looking down at the trembling man.
“Mistress Astrid!” Johann said and hold up his arms protectively in front of his face. “Its nice to see you again, but would you mind lowering your axe so my frightened soul could return back in my body?”
Astrid huffed and removed her foot from the chest of the trader.
“Johann!” Heather rushed to him and helped the trader to his feet.
“Mistress Heather! Thank Thor you are not dead! When the Terror with the message I send you returned, I was worried and when I arrived here and saw your camp abandoned, I feared the worst!” Johann said.
“Can someone tell me whats going on?” Astrid asked.
“Well, I have the exact location where a certain Berserker is at the moment.” the Trader begun.
“And I am the warrior who will takes care of him!” Heather finishes, giving another showing how skilled she was with her double-bladed axe.
“Dagur has purchased some new ships and they will meet here, in the sea of despair. They have powerful catapults and dragon-proof chains and winches. And I don’t need to tell you what power he will get with this new Armada..” Johann says and opens a map.
“Yeah, but I don’t think, Dagur…” Astrid began, but before she can finished her sentence, Heather thanked Johann for the map, took it and stormed off to her dragon.
In the meantime Hiccup arrived at Berk and went straight to the great Hall, where his father held Berks gripe day and listens to the small and big problems of his tribemates.
“Father, I need to talk to you. Its urgent!” Hiccup said and lifted the horn. Stoiks eyes went wide. He recognized the gift.
“Hiccup when a chief gets a child, its common that it gets gifts from befriended or allied tribes. Remember the tiny axe I let Gobber made when you were still a baby?”
“Uh, yeah.” the Hooligan heir nodded. “Its still in my toy chest.”
“We have to go now!” Heather shouts in the clubhouse before the gathered Riders and her dragons.” Dagur wont be out in the open for long!”
The girl clenched her fists angrily.
“Heather…Hiccup wouldn’t allow that! I know, you want revenge for your destroyed village and killed family, but he would not tolerate to go into battle against the Berserker!” Astrid said.
“Guys, I wished Hiccup and Toothless were here, trust me. But they are not and we couldn’t wait any longer! Who knows what he will do with his new armada if we not stop him now and destroyed the fleet! For what other purpose do you think did he buy the ships?!”
“It is not sure, that Dagur is planning to attack other villages. He promised Hiccup—“ Fishlegs began, but Heather cut him off.
“Promised to be not deranged anymore? Never! He is not to trust! So if we attack all at once, we can crush him and his armada!”
The riders shared skeptical looks. If they attack Dagur without reason, Hiccup will never forgive them.
He gave the Berserker a chance.
“You heard Johann. This is our last chance to get him! Tell them, Astrid!”
“Look, Heather, a revenge is the wrong way…” Astrid starts.
“So you too? just forget it, all of you. I guess all that stuff about trust and having my back was just talk. So I am on my own again!” Heather hisses, whipping around and running towards Windshear. Astrid watches her mounting her dragon and securing her axe strapped at her back.
“Where did you get this horn?” Stoik asked.
“Its Heathers. The girl who stranded here a few years back.”
“Yes…Heather…”
“She said her father gave it to her. But it has your seal on it. Dad….could it be…that Heather is my sister?” Hiccup asked silently.
Stoik looked at the horn, then at his son and sighed.
in the meantime on Dragons edge.
“It seems that it s only you and me, Windshear. As usual.” Heather huffed. “Okay, lets.—“
“Hey.” Astrid calls and Heather stopped her dragon from departing. She and the other riders are standing with weapons in one hand around her. “If we gonna do this this had to be a capture mission, not a kill mission, agreed? We bring Dagur here and hold a trial about what he has done! But Hiccup will have the last word about this!”
“Agreed. But how will Hiccup find us?” Heather asked.
As an answer Astrid pinned the map with the marking at the gate of the dragon stable.
“You know, where Dagurs ships are, right?” she asked.
Heather nodded.
And whats your plan?”
“Hit him when he at least expects it.”
“Then lets go!”
The riders mounted their dragons.
Dagur sighs as he stared out towards the fog.
“When will the three new ships arriving?”
“It must be at any time, sir.” Savage said. “ I hope they are keeping their word we have already gave them the payment.”
“They will. If not-I know where their base is…” Dagur growled and stabbed one of his daggers into the mast.
When Hiccup arrives back on Dragons edge, he found the place abandoned. Then Toothless sniffed at a map pinned at the gate of the dragon pen and warbled.
“What have you found, bud?” Hiccup asked and walked to his dragon. He ripped Astrids Dagger from the door and stared at the markings of the map. Then realization hit him.
“Oh no. Heather, please don’t make anything stupid!” he gasped. “Toothless! I am sorry, but we have to make another fast flight!”
“There he is!” Heather shouts and pointed down at the ships. The biggest one had the Skrill banner on its sail.
“Okay. As I told you. We are using the element of surprise. You distract the Berserkers, while I and Astrid are going for Dagur.” Heather explained.
“Right.” Snotlout nodded.
“Wha-Dragons incoming!” the man on the watch suddenly called.
“Is my brother Hiccup with them?” Dagur asked.
“I see only three.” Savage answered. Suddenly two fire blasts hit the ship.
“Hey! What in Hels name-why they are attacking us!? Whats got into them?” the second in command cried. “ We held the peace!”
“Something is strange here…prepare the grappling hooks and the bolas! Lets get one of these boys down and hope we will get some answers about this!” the Berserker answered.
Dagur couldn’t understand why three of Hiccups gang are attacking his fleet out of the blue! And Hiccup was nowhere seen!
Meanwhile Heather and Astrid scale the wood of Dagurs flag ship while Stormfly and Windshear cling to the side of the rump. The two girls pulled themselves up towards the edge of the ship and began to knock out the crewmen who spotted them. They worked quick and silently, Dagur did not notice that he had two silent intruders on board.
When Fishlegs came too near to the ships railing, Dagur was able to catch Meatlug with a chain around one of her hind legs.
“Got you! And now I want some answers!” the berserker growled as he pulled his catch closer to the ship. But suddenly Dagur was thrown forward by two hard kicks.
“What the hel-Hey!”
Before he could react his hands were bound on his back and he was roughly turned around.
“You two?” he gasped when he spotted the two girls looking down at him. “Whats the meaning of all this? Why do you attack my ships? Did Hiccup order this?”
“Quiet!” Heather snarled and showed a gag into Dagurs mouth. Now the Nadder and the Razorwhip entered the ship too. No one registered the low deep growl that rumbled under the planks of the deck.
“Now you will pay for what you have done to my village!-Windshear, finish him!” Heather snarled.
“What? No! We had decided that no one should be killed! You can´t do this! Hiccup will never forgive you if you hurt him!” Astrid shouted.
“Sorry, Astrid, but I changed my mind. “Windshear!”
The Razorwhip pointed out his spikes, ready to strike!
An evil smirk appeared on Heathers face. No, that’s not her, the shieldmaiden thought with horror. She is now acting like a….a berserker! She had lied to her that Astrid and the others helped Heather to fulfill her revenge! What have I done, the shieldmaiden gasped.
Suddenly a guttural roar echoed over the deck and in the next moment a green big Gronkle came out of an open hatch on the deck, bounded over the planks and butted the Razorwhip away! With bared teeth and a low growl he posed himself over Dagur who was able to cut his binds and spat out the gag, Heather stuffed in his mouth.
“What in Thors name…” Astrid gasped. Fishlegs who still sat on his chained Meatlug could only stare in awe.
“Now you look, eh? Our chief has now trained a dragon for riding too!” Savage grinned, who held the chain in position.
“Shattermaster, hold it! Its okay, buddy.” he called and crept out under the dragons belly. Then he petted the massive head and got a low purr from the Gronkle.
Astrids and Heathers eyes got big.
“Is this…YOUR dragon?” the Hofferson asked baffled. “And…he is protecting you…”
“Yeah. Heather had one, you had one-why should I not?” Dagur answered unconcerned and shrugged. “Cause I cant ride Cloudstorm, I have now Shattermaster.”
Suddenly a familiar howling sound caught every ones attention.
“Heather! Astrid! Stop it!”
The next moment Hiccup landed on the deck with Toothless.
“Oh, now my brother is here too. You came in the right moment! Your Riders attacked my ships and Heather and your furious Walkyrie wanted to kill me!” Dagur growled.
“Yeah! Like YOU killed my parents!” Heather spat.
“Heather, I wanted to talk to you about…” Dagur began, but Hiccup interfered.
“First you listen to me! Heather, this horn is a present from my father to yours for your birth. It was Oswald, the agreeable! You are his second born! And he is Dagurs father, too! And that means, Dagur is your brother! It would not be right to kill him! Not even for revenge! And-I will not allow it!”
Hiccups look was stern and he gave Heather back her horn. He was standing firm between her and Dagur, shielding him with his back.
Dagurs Eyes went wide as Hiccup spoke the last sentence.
“Is he protecting me?” he thought.
“I-I cant belive it! They are related?” Astrid gasped.
“So its true! This is the last proof! I finally found you! Heather, you are really my little sister! - But every time we met, you attacked my ship with your dragon before we had a chance to talk! And I am only defending my fleet! -Heather look, I am sorry what happened back then and it´s your right to be mad at me! But I want to fix the things I have done, before it´s too late.-I am the only family you have left! I searched so long for you!” the berserker said. Astrid couldn’t believe what she heard. So Hiccup was right. Dagur tries to compensate some of his errors he made.
“Astrid! Tell the others to stop the attacks! Return to the edge!”
“But Hiccup…”
“Do as I say! I can solve this alone! And we will later have a talk about this! What did you think about to join Heather in her revenge for Dagur! I want that you apologize to him for your meaningless attack!”
“Uh-we did not want to kill someone, but suddenly Heathers mind changes! She really is a berserker, I saw the evil look in her eyes, as she gave Windshear the order to finish him!” Astrid told Hiccup, then she turned to the Berserker chief. “Dagur, I am sorry. We shouldn’t have followed Heathers plan.”
Dagur nodded, he acceped Astrids apologize.
The shieldmaiden mounted Stormfly and took off.
“Hey, whats going on there?” Snotlout called.
“We return the the edge!”
“WHAT? And Hiccup? And Heather? And who in Thors name is that green Gronkle?” he asked.
“Hiccup wanted to solve this alone! I will tell you all on the way back! So follow me!”
In the meantime Savage spotted the three ships sailing towards the Berserker Fleet.
They open fire with the catapults and Stones were flying towards the dragon riders.
“The new ships for my fleet have finally arrived! But they think we are under attack.-Savage!” Dagur shouted.
“Yes, my Chief?”
“Call for all the ships to stop the attacks! The dragon riders are going to retract!”
“At once, my chief!-STOP THE ATTACKS!!” Savage bellowed and waved his arms. The call spread from ship to ship and the crews held the fire.
In the meantime Meatlugs chain was removed.
“You are free. Return with the others.” Savage told Fishlegs.
“Okay.” the rider murmured, a bit unsure. What was Hiccup up to?
Heather stands near Windshear, her face down, lips pressed firmly together. Then she lifted her head and faced her older brother with blazing eyes.
“You attacked my village and killed my family!” she snarled. “Dou you think this could so easily forgiven?! You took everything away from me!”
“Dagur!? So it is really true?” Hiccup asked sternly.
“Yeah. It´s like my sister said. It was the tribe that raised her. A few months, before our fight for Outcast island I got a message from my source, that there was a black-haired girl named Heather living on an island. Maybe my long missing sister? So I went to this island to see this girl. But when I landed on the island and get into the village, Heather was not there. I told the villages of my search, but somehow we got into an argue and the inhabitants drove us away, they think I wanted to steal their girl. I got in rage and ordered my man to burn the village down, when we were aboard our ships again. A storm of burning arrows were send to the village…who burned down the whole houses. But I swear in Thors name, that I did not order to kill the inhabitants! But some of them died when they tried to quench the fires from falling burning wreckage. And –your foster parents where two of them. I know that I can´t bring them back from Walhalla. I can only tell you how sorry I am for this, sister.”
“But you killed them anyway! When I returned, my village was in ruins, my family dead! I will never forgive you this!” Heather snarled, jumped on Windshears back and bolted into the air. She couldn’t belive what she heard! The looks her older brother gave her. In his eyes she saw no malice –only sadness.
“Heather! No! Please forgive me!” Dagur shouted and waved his arms. Sighing he slacked and hung his head.
“Heather told us, after this she lived the last years all alone.” Hiccup said. “No girl should experience such losses. First her real family and then her foster parents.”
“Thor, what have I done? It happened when I was still this deranged teen. I let the village burn down and sailed away, because the villagers don’t wanted that I meet Heather….I was so enraged!”
“It was the wrong way to get in contact with her at that time. Now she is all mad at you. And I don’t think she will forget this so easy. She can be very unforgiving. Like Astrid some times. But I will be still behind you.”
“You still give me a chance? Brother…I thank you.”
The green big Gronkle whined and prodded his rider.
“Don’t worry, bud, I m okay.” Dagur said with a sad smile.
“Um, Dagur…who is this Gronkle?”
“Oh, this is Shattermaster.”
“Shattermaster?”
“Yeah. I have now a dragon too for riding.”
“What? How did you train him?”
“Piece of cake. I found him in a dragon hunter trap. Normally I would have killed him-but I remembered what you told and taught me. And I remember Alwin bragging around how he trained a whispering death –and old Milddew babbled a lot when I asked him how you was able to breake out of Outcast prison. The most important fact is trust, he repeated you. So I tried too. And old Shattermaster was so happy when I freed him and tended his paw that he did not want to leave anymore. You see? He is every time wagging his tail and panting like a dog when he sees me.” Dagur told with a light grin. And he protected me from Heathers dragon to finish me off. –“Yeah, buddy. This is my little brother Hiccup. Say hello to Hiccup and his dragon Toothless.”
“Oh-hi, Shattermaster.” Hiccup smiled when the green Gronkle licked his face and warbled happily. Then he began to “talk” with Toothless.
“So you are able to train dragons too. Its good to see you making progresses.”
“And don’t forget little Cloudstorm.”
“Oh yes! How is he?”
“He is back at Berserk island with my uncle. I don’t wanted him to bring with me where he could get in danger, till he is so small. He is loved by the entire tribe and he loves my uncle too.”
“I don’t thought you have still an uncle.”
“He is doing the chief thing, since I was imprisoned and I told him to continue with it, till I decided I am really ready for being a chief.”
Hiccup looked at the older man and smiled. It was good that he gave him a second chance. And he started to like him in a way he never did before.
“Its getting late…you should return to your friends.” Dagur said, watching the sun set.
“Do you mind if I stay the night with you? Toothless and I had a long flight to Berk and then back to you. He is exhausted.”
“If you want....you will always have a warm place in my bed, brother.”
“Then lets go. It was a long hard day.”
“Aye. That it was. I will join you later, I must first check the damages.”
When Dagur returned a bit later to his cabin, Toothless was already asleep in a corner of the room near Shattermaster. And Hiccup was sitting on the soft fur blankets on the bed. He wore only his pants and had his arms rested on his bent knees.
“I see you and your dragon already made yourself comfortable.” Dagur smiled and started to strip his armor and boots.
“Are they a lot of damages? I am sorry, I don’t know what got into Astrids and the others mind to attack your ships!”
“Its nothing serious, little one. Not what my crew can fix.” Dagur said, crawled onto the bed and scooped the smaller male into his arms. This time, Hiccup snuggled closer to the bigger male and leaned his head on Dagurs shoulder. The Berserker pulled the furs over them.
“I missed your warmth.” Hiccup murmured, already half –asleep. Dagur smiled softly. There it was again. This deep content feeling. Was this the love of a caring brother?
When Dagur awoke the next morning, Hiccup was lying on him his head resting on his chest. “You always searching for the warmest place, eh, little fishbone?” he murmured. When he started to push carefully the long bangs out of Hiccups face, the Hooligan woke up.
“Uh-oh, sorry, Dagur, I don’t want…” he stammered and his cheeks flushed red.
“Hey, no problem. Stay if you are feeling comfortable. How did you sleep?“
“Good and safe.”
“By the way, did your girlfriend warm you in the cold nights?”
Hiccup lifted his head abruptly.
“No! No… we cant yet…”
“But I think you should start to tell what you are feeling for her. Don’t wait too long, little one.-And don’t scold her too much for the attack on my ships. She don’t wanted to let my sister go alone. And for that I am grateful.”
“Dagur…” Hiccup sighed and rolled himself of the larger man and sat up at the beds edge.
In the meantime the dragons were awake too and watched as the older male got up too and sat beside the younger one.
“With you, its so simple…” Hiccup sighed and leaned against the Berserker, when he put an arm around him.
“You can always come to me, when something bothers you. I then will try to help you.”
“Thanks Dag.-Its time for me to return, the others are sure worried where I stayed the whole night.”
“But I will not let you and Toothless leave without breakfast.”
After one hour Hiccup left Dagurs flagship and headed back to the edge.
“Ah, I forgot to ask him where his new outpost is! He talked about that they have build a base. Because the next time, I will visit him with Shattermaster.” the Berserker said when he spotted the Hooligan and the Nightfury vanishing between the clouds.
When Hiccup returned to the edge, Heather was about to leave.
“Hiccup, where have you been the whole night?” Astrid asked.
“On Dagurs ship. Toothless was to exhausted for another flight back.”
“I see.-Look I am sorry, that we helped Heather attacking Dagurs fleet. He really wants to make peace with his sister.”
“Its okay. Dagur told me not to be angry with you and the others about this.”
Heather joined the two.
“Hiccup…I-I am sorry, I shouldn’t have pulled your friends in this. I will leave Dagur now alone.” she apologized to the Hooligan.
“Heather…Dagur really seeks for forgiving. Give him a chance-like I gave him. I have told you what happened after he saved me. He searched so long for you. “
“Maybe I will one time. But I am not trusting him yet! And for the moment I need some time alone to think over it.”
“I see. But if you need help-call us or visit us. You are always welcome.”
“Hiccup…don’t you think that he is fooling us all?”
“No. I was some days with him together and we had a lot of talks…and I saw his eyes. They have changed, Heather. And when Shattermaster trusts him and even Toothless… I believe into him too.”
Heather mounted Windshear.
“Thanks for all, Astrid. Hiccup, hold an eye on my so called “brother” on me, will you?”
The Hooligan nodded softy.
The Razorwhip leaped into the air and the two watched Heather fly off.
“I know you two got pretty close.” Hiccup said. “I am sorry you´re losing a familiar.”
“Well, Hiccup, don’t forget, I still have you.” Astrid said and put an arm around his shoulder.
“Yes… you have me…I have you.... and I have my “brother” Dagur.” Hiccup thought with a soft smile.
to be continued…
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