#but anything based off or set within the setting of my rewrite? go wild. you have my full permission and i am elated! ♡ | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 4 years ago

Text

Make-up Assignment

Warnings: noncon sexual acts and rape, coercion, breeding/forced pregnancy.

This is dark!Ransom Drysdale and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Based on this drabble request: Ransom Drysdale + “No, not there, in my lap.” + breeding/forced pregnancy + Maybe dark professor ransom with a naive student? Like naive naive, too trusting as request by Anonymous

Your nerves were running wild. The way your heart dropped at the sight of your grade still resonated within you. You couldn’t fail this course and if you did, you had to wait over a year to retake it and that could mean an extra term entirely.

You couldn’t help but fidget as you watched Professor Drysdale read your paper over again. You wanted to know why he gave you such a low mark, a better explanation than the slanted writing on the last page. You needed another chance.

“It’s a well written paper but your thesis just wasn’t strong enough. It’s not what we discussed,” he set it down on his desk, “it’s about symbolism and yet you spend so much time on the literal descriptions.”

You twiddled your fingers and frowned. You couldn’t say you didn’t struggle with the essay but all that effort, the sleepless nights, and the hours spent bent over a library table had done nothing to help. Were you really that hopeless?

“Can I-- Can I make it up?” you asked, “please, I could rewrite it or do an extra paper--”

“I don’t do that,” he shook his head, “it’s not fair, is it? You had as much time and resources as every other student--”

Your eyes blurred with tears as you folded your hands against your lips. You bit down and sniffed back the wave of dread. It wasn’t impossible to pull yourself back up on your other assignments but it wouldn’t be easy.

“Hey, come on,” he leaned forward, “don’t cry.”

“I’m not-- I’m sorry, I’m just overwhelmed,” you dropped your hands, “I really did try and I just… I don’t know what I did wrong.”

“Well,” he flipped the front page again and perused your introduction, “we learn from our mistakes, don’t we? Let’s go over it and it might put things in perspective.”

“Alright, I… okay,” you murmured and wiped your sweaty palms on your skirt.

“You can’t see all the way over there, come on,” he waved you around the desk and slid his chair back just a little.

You stood, slightly confused, and rounded the desk. You stopped by his shoulder and bent as his fingers tapped on the paper. He chuckled and pulled his hand back. He rubbed his thigh as he looked up at you.

“No, not there, in my lap,” he patted his leg.”

“What--I--”

“We have a lot to go over. You stand like that all night and you’ll hurt your neck,” he touched your wrist, “it’s fine.”

You scrunched your lips and stared into his eyes. It was… weird, surely it was wrong, but you needed to do better. You sidled in front of him as he pushed further back and sat carefully. He brought his arms around you and lifted your paper. His breath grazed your neck and slipped down the collar of your dress.

“Your structure is good, style too, but you need to make an argument you can support with more than… conjecture,” he began and his deep voice crawled over you, “there are several instances I can think of that would support the theme of regret but you didn’t really present them and when you did, the explanation just wasn’t there…”

You listened, or tried to as you felt heavy against him. You felt as if you were hurting him as you sat on him but he barely seemed bothered by the awkward position. When he shifted, you tried to lift yourself.

“Sorry, am I too--”

He dropped your paper and pulled you back down. Your ass met the bulge in his pants. Your head snapped up and you gripped the desk.

“Professor Drysdale,” you uttered.

“Shhh,” he slid his hands under your skirt, “you want another chance, don’t you?”

“Please,” you tried to stand and he held you down. He wiggled under you and groaned.

“Don’t act so innocent,” he rasped, “you sit in every man’s lap like this?”

His fingers pressed to the crotch of your tights and you took a sharp breath. You shivered as his other hand tanked your skirt out from under you. His fingers poked at your tights until the sheer fabric tore and he rubbed your panties as his breath hitched.

“Do you want the grade?” he asked, “or I can knock a few more percent off for inappropriate conduct.”

“Professor--”

“It’ll be quick, a fair trade,” his other hand snaked under you and he pushed down his zipped as he scratched against the nylon.

He brought his knees between your legs and spread them as he lifted you slightly. Frozen, you let him and it was only as he tore the whole in your tights bigger that you realized what was happening.

You stared at the circled number in red on the paper and gulped. He slid your panties aside and urged you down onto him. His tip met your entrance with resistance but he forced his way in and filled you completely. You whined and grabbed his hands as he gripped your hips.

“Wha--”

“That’s it,” he began to move you, “you don’t have to do anything, baby.”

You quivered and squeezed his hands harder. He leaned back and stretched his legs out as yours splayed out over his knees. He rocked into you from below and trailed his hand up the front of your skirt. He shoved his fingers through the whole and toyed with your clit as he sped up.

His fiery breaths surrounded you as the sensation of his fucking filled your core. Stunned and senseless, you could only let him use you. Even if you thought of stopping him, you didn’t have the strength. You were terrified. It was too late anyway.

“Oh, baby, I’m gonna cum,” he groaned, “mmm, you're so tight.”

“Please,” you begged as he wrapped an arm around your middle and bucked his hips wildly, “pull out, please, I’m not--”

He spasmed and muffled his moans as he came. You tried to push off of him but he held you down and kept moving, using you until he was done. He stilled and took deep breaths as he descended from the high but kept his cock buried in you.

“Why--”

“You’re so sweet,” he purred as he nuzzled your head, “you’ll make such a good little mommy.”

---

Please leave some feedback and reblog if you enjoyed!

#ransom drysdale #dark!ransom drysdale #dark ransom drysdale #ransom drysdale x reader #fic #drabble #knives out #request #dark drabble #drabbles

624 notes · View notes

xyliane · 4 years ago

Text

wild blue yonder

summary: killua had plenty of better ideas for how to spend his eighteenth birthday. a cake a mile high, a day on the town with alluka, maybe even some peace and quiet for once. instead, he’s doing what all zoldycks do: assassination, murder, the works, all at the ass end of the ocean, all because it will tilt the scales of trade just enough in their favor to make a move. he doesn’t have to worry about a blood curse, no matter what his sister says.

notes: think of this less like a fic and more a...preview? I’ve written about 10,000 words of this off and on over the last year or so, and I would love to write more, but [gestures at the world] [pokes at the smoldering remnants of my dissertation]. yeah. so, as special thanks to @trashsketch and @thehuntyhunties, here’s a first draft of the first bit of cursed prince (which, knowing me, will get a wholesale rewrite of the first section at least cuz lol worldbuilding). T (blood and killua’s mouth), pre-killugon; ft: mito, the zoldycks, ikalgo, and did I mention the blood. 4900 words. (title is not the final title, but swiped hastily from the third track of “the horror and the wild”)

notes pt 2: @trashsketch DREW THIS FOR THIS AU aaaaaaa

---

Alluka’s eyes turn black over dinner three weeks before Killua’s eighteenth birthday, and he has to shove half a bread roll into his mouth to avoid making any noise. If he’s lucky, no one else will notice. If Alluka’s lucky, Nanika won’t say anything, will stare at Killua for a few minutes before slipping back into the recesses of his sister’s mind. If they’re both lucky, they can return to their meals and continue ignoring whatever Mom and Illumi are discussing about the southern trade routes, in tones just barely not argumentative. If Killua’s lucky, he won’t have to kill anyone in the next month.

Of course, the Zoldyck family has never owed its success to luck. They have skill, and intelligence, and a massive fortune. They have a town full of merchants and spies at the base of Kukuroo Mountain, centuries of debts of money and life tying the people to the family. They have, Silva Zoldyck is fond of noting, family. And family is paramount.

Even more than that, though, they have Nanika. They have information, dropped right into their minds. All it costs is a bit of death, the risk of death or curse or worse if they don’t do what she suggests. Just that, and Killua’s little sister.

The family thinks it’s worth the price, so they have to deal with it for now. Killua’s his father’s successor to their mountains of gold and death. He’ll change it. He’s promised Alluka.

“Mom, look,” Milluki says. Killua swallows a curse.

A smile stretches across Kikyo Zoldyck’s face, as full of empty pleasure as the black visor stretched over her eyes. “Well. This is convenient.” She turns to Illumi. “Shall we see what to do about our mercantile issues in the South Sea?”

Illumi frowns. “If you must,” he says, and looks expectantly at Killua. “Kil? Take care of it.”

“Alluka’s not an it. And it’s not my turn.”

Mom sighs melodramatically. “Kil,” she says.

“Mom,” he says in the exact same tone.

Father, who’s spent most of dinner silent, snorts a chuckle. When Killua turns to him, he gets a firm nod, bright glimmer in his pale blue eyes. “Go on, Kil,” he says, voice rumbling. “Ask after the block in trade. Best do it now, before the thing in your sibling chooses otherwise.”

Killua nods once, and turns to his sister. She is still staring at him—Nanika is still staring, black eyes blank and a strange little smile on her face.

“Nanika,” he says, voice steady.

Her smile widens. Killua, she says, her voice an echo between his ears. No one else hears. I love Killua.

I love you too, he thinks back, and hopes that she can hear. “Nanika, how do we open up trade in the South Seas to benefit the Kingdom of Padokea?”

“And the Zoldycks,” Milluki says, a sneer in his voice.

“We are Padokea,” Mom says, and sneers right back.

Nevertheless, Killua grits his teeth and adds, “And the Zoldyck family.”

Maybe this time will be different. Maybe she’ll give them a corporation, or an abandoned island full of pirates. Pirates would be fun. Or maybe nothing will happen, and Killua will be able to turn eighteen without being halfway across the world burying a sword into someone’s back. He can take Alluka to town, sneak her out the back while the butlers aren’t looking. It’ll only be for a day, and he’ll be with her.

Nanika opens Alluka’s mouth.

Dammit, is all Killua manages to think, before the vision slams into him.

red

is all he gets at first, and he thinks that maybe this time, he won’t be the center of this vision. Maybe Milluki will get one and have to get off the mountain for the first time all year. Maybe even Illumi will stop hovering, conspicuously leaving profiles of eligible bachelorettes for Mom to coo over and Killua to ignore. But the table turns red and Killua sees

red ocean

red hair green (brown) eyes

red lips

red stains on pale skin

red flower in black (white) hair

red scars on dark stars

red waters overflowing

red death under red sails

red blood

red

red red

red red red red red reD RED

The vision releases him, and Killua barely manages to catch himself before he pitches face-first into the soup. Even after the fact, his senses are swimming in blood, enough that he can practically taste it. One of these days, he’s going to learn how to live with it. The rest of his family does.

“Kil, where are you going?” Illumi asks.

So much for his birthday plans. “Where do you think,” he says.

“Kil,” Mom says again, and he rolls his eyes.

“The ass end of the ocean, I think,” Killua says, and ignores his mother’s affronted gasp as he starts in on the rest of his dinner. It tastes chalky under the blood. “I’ve got a month to kill the queen of Whale Island.”

“Isn’t that the place with the magic storms and the cursed pirates?” Milluki says.

“You can’t use magic to control storms, idiot,” Kalluto mutters, just loud enough for Killua to hear.

“The cost?” Illumi asks.

Killua shrugs. “Blood curse. Nothing new.”

Nanika always exchanges her information for curses. Illumi and Kalluto have messed up before and come back with numb limbs or empty eyes, consequences for having failed within the time limit. But those curses are simpler things. Killua gets the blood curse, every single time.

He loves his sister, and he’s grown to love Nanika, in her own way. But he doesn’t need the extra pressure.

Father claps a hand on Killua’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Kil. We will celebrate your birthday when you get home from the ass end of the ocean.”

Mom makes a scandalized noise and Killua smiles, pride radiating out from where Father’s hand rests against his shoulder. It makes him stand taller, almost as tall as Illumi. Never as tall as Silva Zoldyck. No one is that tall.

Behind him, Alluka stirs listlessly, blue eyes foggy. Once Father’s grip lifts from him, Killua reaches over to grab her hand, squeezing in whatever comfort he can. She tries to smile back. No one else notices. “Be careful, Brother,” she mutters. “Blood stains.”

————————————

It takes the better part of three weeks to get to Whale Island. Killua could have taken a cabin in one of the spice merchant’s galleon and been there in half a month. But that would be easy. Zoldycks do their job well, and well doesn’t mean easy. The first ship out of Dentora was only a week, but from there it was a schooner to a sailboat to three days on a blasted fishing dinghy for the last few islands. The sailors had laughed at him when he’d said where he was going. At least the food’s been good, because he’s going to turn eighteen out here in the gods-forgotten nowhere. He’d hate to come home and tell Alluka there had been nothing good out here.

For all that they’re in the middle of nowhere, the Whale Island port is almost impressive. If a place could be valued solely on the number of colors, Whale Island would be the richest port on earth. The ships alone are every shade imaginable, the height of summer trade filling each dock to overflowing. Purple sails from Kakin, greens and yellows from Lukso, the ostentatiously huge gilded galleons out of Yorknew. Even austere blacks and whites from Padokea, sticking out of the rainbow forest like snow-blistered icebergs. It makes him feel like home, almost. He’ll catch one of them off the island as soon as he’s done. Father will make sure they’re fairly compensated for leaving ahead of schedule. And sprinkled throughout are the collection of Whale Island’s mercantile armada, with no set color or design other than a bright circle of orange-gold, open at one end.

The port itself bustles with life, as diverse as the ships in harbor. It lacks the size or height of trade centers on the mainland, or even other islands like Balsa’s landmass-spanning city. But it makes up for it in smells, and shapes, and the honest smiles on merchants’ faces even as they fleece their customers for every extra cent. Out here, there’s no option but the port. They smile at Killua all the same.

Killua’s assassinations usually take a little more finesse—a Zoldyck is a threat, and he’s dyed his hair more than once to vanish into a crowd. But here, Killua’s pale skin and travel-stained dark clothing doesn’t even stick out, so long as he keeps his white hair tucked under a thin hood. No one even looks twice at the sword on his hip or the knives weighing down his boots, not with how everyone else seems to be armed. It’s almost relaxing. He can drift into the forest, kill the queen, and drift back out again, catching a ship out of port before anyone is the wiser.

Maybe this is a pirate nest, and no one thought to tell Killua…?

“Hey, traveler! You come in recently?”

Killua turns and is blasted in the face with the smell of fried fish. Behind a grill covered in pans and fish, a short round man with reddish skin and beady eyes waggles his thick eyebrows, a shock of black beneath a bald head. As he does, his arms dart back and forth between tasks, juggling fire and vegetables and pots as though he has extra arms. It’s kind of hilarious, and Killua doesn’t restrain a laugh.

The man grins back, obviously pleased. “Yeah, not exactly the easiest, getting all the way out here,” he says. “Sit down, look over the grill, tell me what you want.”

“That’s okay, I don’t—” Killua starts to protest, when another man reaches around the cook and drops an assortment of things off the grill and onto a plate. Well, a young man, not much older than Killua, with thick black hair woven back into a single braid trailing halfway down his back. Freckled brown skin is clearly visible beneath an open green vest woven through with gold thread. It would look almost princely, if it weren’t covered in oil and fish guts, and worn almost to the point of being transparent.

The young man hands the plate to Killua with a conspiratorial light in his bright brown eyes. “You should eat,” he says, and his voice is tinged with Whale Island’s rich accent—thick vowels, rolling syllables. It’s musical, in a way Killua wouldn’t have expected.

He doesn’t realize he’s staring until the man pushes the plate more insistently at him. Killua shakes his head. He doesn’t want to stay any longer than he has to. He can’t get too close. “I’m not—”

“It’s on the house.”

“It is not!” the chef says, and thwaps the young man across the back of his head with a stack of napkins. “I have a business to run, and the shipping season don’t last all year.”

“Sorry, Ikalgo,” the young man says, an apologetic grin on his face. It doesn’t stop the chef’s rant, loud enough that it attracts the attention of the bread maker next door, who begins to cackle in amusement. The young man does his best to weather the shouting, only occasionally interjecting that he’s been working here for only a few days, that he’ll pay the difference, he promises. But when he catches Killua’s eye, he winks, as though this is all some great game and no one else has caught on yet.

Killua feels his cheeks heat up. Rather than worry about that, he shoves a skewer of fish into his mouth, and then he forgets about the rest because blessed gods that’s good. There’s spice in here he’s never even smelled before, mixed with something sweet that makes it even hotter than it should be.

The chef’s winding down by the time Killua’s finished, his assistant as apologetic as ever. They both notice Killua’s empty plate at the same time. The chef even seems impressed. “This ain’t your first time on the Islands, eh?”

Killua shrugs rather than answer. No wonder Mom is so invested in taking control of this route, if the spices pack this much of a punch. The investors in Padokea are probably salivating at the possibility of owning even a fraction of the trade. “The food’s really good,” he says instead, and the chef lights up.

“Ikalgo’s got the best seafood on Whale Island,” the young man says. “How long are you here for? Palm’s got great pastries, and she’s right next door.”

If the pastries are even close to as good as the fish, Killua might be convinced to stay here forever. But he can’t. This is why Illumi always tells him to never talk to anyone, not more than he needs to. It’s too easy to fall into conversation, to get attached. When his only job is to destroy the lodestone of a city, or a kingdom, or an island, he can’t afford any distractions. Not even cute boys offering him pastries with big brown eyes.

The assistant seems to sense Killua’s hesitation, and his grin dims a little. But before either of them can say anything else, the chef yanks on his thick black braid and snaps, “You still have another three hours here!”

“But Ikalgo—”

“After last time, you owe me!”

“Even Palm didn’t ask,” the young man whines.

“Palm didn’t lose her entire storefront to a flashflood.”

Killua can’t stick around. He grabs his bag, heavy with travel supplies, and turns to face the edges of the market. The trail leads up and away into the jungle. Theoretically, the queen’s mansion should be somewhere up there. But where…

Well, maybe it can’t hurt to ask one more question.

“Do you know who might know where the queen of Whale Island lives?” he asks, not expecting commoners to know the answer.

But the chef and his assistant shrug. “Ask anyone,” the young man says. “Anyone knows.”

“Anyone from the Island knows,” Ikalgo clarifies. “Her house is up at the end of the path, bout forty-five minutes into the jungle. Can’t miss it.”

Killua blinks. “Can anyone…go?”

The young man shrugs again. “Sure. If you wait a bit, I can—”

“What part of three hours do you not understand?”

“But he—”

“I’ll be fine,” Killua says, and nods politely. The chef and his assistant wave goodbye, and go back to bickering. Out of the corner of his eye, Killua can see the chef getting back to food prep, even as the young man grabs plates and napkins for other customers. He should feel bad that this is all going to ruin. Not immediately, sure. But without a ruler, most places fall apart. And if it falls apart, even for a little while, it’s long enough for Padokeans to set up shop, to reclaim the trade routes and caches of power that they want.

Maybe Whale Island will do okay in the end. Or maybe not. It’s not Killua’s problem.

Too bad, though. The food was good.

The queen’s house is indeed right up the road. Killua makes it within sight of the low walls outside the complex before ducking into the trees, not willing to risk a frontal assault on his own. As friendly as the Islanders seem to be, especially the assistant, the amount of armed fighters and sailors could be a problem. Once Killua finds a good rock, too heavy for a normal person to lift, he swaps his traveling clothes for proper Zoldyck gear: black trousers, an armored black jacket, silver-grey gloves. His sword is sheathed against his hip, and his boot knives are supplemented by another blade at the small of his back. He stashes all of his earrings but one, a sapphire stud Alluka had given him for his sixteenth birthday. She’d said it was for luck. But Zoldycks don’t have luck.

Killua keeps it anyways. Maybe he’ll be lucky this time.

Killua wants to finish this quick and quiet, on the small chance that the young man from the fish grill gets off work and comes up the path. By the time the chaos sets, he should be on the ship and halfway out to sea. Even the fastest ships won’t be able to catch him.

He climbs up the back wall, peering into what looks like a vegetable garden behind a modest two-story building. Killua recognizes about half of the herbs—most of them are useful as poisons, and a few are normally grown in the middle of a forest. None of them have any business being behind a queen’s home. Then again, the building would barely qualify as a merchant’s house in many kingdoms, well-constructed as it is. It’s the color of the sky and thatched neatly, signs of old storms and hard winter winds in the occasional cracked paint. The back door is a solid dark wood, and the window on the second floor is open to the sky. There’s no sign of any caretakers or guards, not even footsteps. The only sound is a quiet hum of a woman’s voice, wafting gently down from the open window.

It can’t be this easy. But part of Killua doesn’t mind. At least this time, the only person he’ll have to kill is the one he has to. No lying, no backstabbing.

And he can go home without risking a blood curse, and celebrate his birthday in peace.

He still takes his time sneaking across the garden, boots falling silently as he steps through the shadows of the house. Taking a chance that nothing in this building is locked, he carefully presses open a window on the ground floor and drops into what looks like a large kitchen. A massive slab of wood serves as a table down the center of the room, with a collection of beautifully carved chairs arranged around it. The smell of herbs permeates the whole room, sinking into the wood and floors.

There’s still no one in sight.

There’s still only the woman’s humming filling the air with gentle wordless noise.

It’s too easy. It has to be.

Killua draws his sword as he creeps up the stairs, following the sound of the woman’s voice. He’ll know the queen when he sees her—Nanika’s visions have a habit of sticking, permanently, or at least until the job is done. Like how he knows the humming is the queen, even though he’s never heard her voice before today. How when he peers around the corner, he knows that the queen is the woman humming over a pile of papers. Her bright orange hair is swept back from her forehead, a simple braid circling her head where a ring made of silver and onyx rests on Silva Zoldyck’s.

The humming stops. “You can stop creeping around my house and tell me why you’re here,” the queen says without looking up from her work. “If you want to petition for the Padokean spice merchants to stay another week, you’ll need to take it up with the portmaster.”

Killua doesn’t say anything. His grip on his hilt tightens for a moment, before relaxing.

The queen flips over the page and starts on the next. “Also, no, I am not interested in selling port space, either. Tell your king he can rent like everyone else.”

Killua takes a final step into the doorway, and lunges, his sword lightning fast.

But the queen whirls, nearly as fast as Killua, and catches his strike on a short wavy blade of her own. Her snarl sparks with furious challenge. “And if you’re here to kill me,” she says, “you’d better try harder than that.”

Killua bounces back, narrowly avoiding the sweep of her knife. The queen is unarmored, but holds the blade at her side, other arm lifted in well-practiced defense. Rather than wait for Killua to strike again, she darts forward, bare fist blurring in a fury as she tries to strike Killua’s solar plexus. But Killua is faster, and he catches her strike on his forearm, brushing it aside. She snarls even as she stumbles back, leaving herself open for Killua to strike again. This time, when she catches his blade on her knife, she almost doesn’t make it, only barely managing to slide out from beneath Killua’s strike. But her bare foot lashes out, catching him on the knee, and he feels the joint crumple.

She scoffs. “You’re not the first person to try to assassinate me,” she says. “Tell me who sent you, and I’ll send you home.”

Killua responds by punching her in the stomach with his hilted fist.

To the queen’s credit, she keeps her knife up, enough that she manages to slash him across his forearm. The wavy blade cuts deep and sharp right through his jacket, leaving behind a wide erratic slice. Killua ignores the pain and raises his blade.

She glares up at him furiously, bright brown eyes wide and not scared at all. They look familiar. In fact, they look like—

They look like the young man from the market.

The chef, his assistant, everyone else, is going to lose their queen.

Don’t get attached, Illumi commands in the back of his head, and Killua shakes the hesitation out of his limbs just in time to block the queen’s jab right at his heart. He catches her wrist with his bare hand, wrenching it out of place until she can’t hold on anymore. The wavy knife goes clattering away across the floorboards, out of sight and out of reach.

She kicks him in the side again, shit, and Killua throws her to the ground. The back of her head thuds against the wood floor, and she crumples with a pained noise, trying and failing to get back up again.

If Killua moves now, he’ll kill her.

This time, he won’t miss.

The queen starts to move, and Killua brings the blade down in a single brutal strike.

Blood always smells the same—metallic and warm, life draining out in flows of red. Killua hadn’t realized he’d closed his eyes when he struck, but he feels the splash of blood across his face, sinking through the open slice on his sleeve and through the skin of his gloves. Messy. Father would be disappointed. It’s better if it’s quick, and clean, and no one fights back, and no one is gasping shakily on the floor—

He opens his eyes.

The queen lies at his feet, still alive. She has a hazy, almost drunken grin on her face, and her arm is still raised from where it connected with Killua’s sword, blood flowing freely from its stump. Her dismembered hand lies just out of reach. And she’s laughing.

“You should have killed me,” she says. A gust of wind blows up from the ocean, curling around her, almost as wild as her eyes. Outside, a massive storm darkens the sky, clouds near-black and crackling with energy. The air tastes of lightning, and thunder, and danger, and sudden fear jolts down Killua’s spine.

What had Milluki said? Cursed storms and magic pirates?

Killua’s eyes widen. “What—”

“I said,” the queen says, and her voice reverberates in the stormwall. “You should have killed me when you had the chance.”

She lifts her hand and spits a word, and a wind like a hand bellows up the stairs and throws Killua out the window.

He lands heavily in the garden, nostrils filling with herbs, bouncing once and hitting the building’s wall. At least the ground’s soft. But he dropped his sword somewhere between the second story and the dirt, and he does not have time to look for it before the storm hits. It whirls around the sky, a cyclone of pitch-black clouds centered right over the house. If Killua didn’t know any better, he’d say that it was only on the house, dropping almost to the ground as though trapping him in the eye of a storm.

He clamors over the wall, bad knee jolting with pain and a little voice screaming at him to run, just in time for a wall of rain to come crashing down between him and the jungle.

Stepping out of the rain, as though made from stormclouds and landslides, is the young man from the seafood shop. But instead of a stack of plates, he holds a brutally sharp sabre, blade short and thick and slightly curved up from its guard.

He takes in Killua, waterlogged and covered in blood, and his bright brown eyes go wide. “You’re—” he starts, and then his expression narrows with fury. “It would have been easier if you’d tried to kill me in town.”

“Why would I do that?” Killua says. “I’m only here for the queen, not an assistant fish fry.”

The young man grins with all of his teeth, any amusement from earlier washed away by unrestrained anger. “I’m Gon Freecss,” he says. “You tried to kill my mom.”

He’s the prince. In about the stupidest response Killua could have, he tries to rub some of the queen’s blood out of his eyes. But it doesn’t budge. If anything, the rain is making it worse, seeping into his face and clothes in a bright red tattoo, making his skin crawl.

Blood curse, Nanika had promised. It was always a blood curse.

Shit shit shit gods fucking shit. For all Killua knew, the blood was going to kill him from the inside out.

“I don’t care about who’s next in line,” he says, and takes half a step towards the storm wall. He had to get out, had to get home, or else—

“You should care,” the prince of Whale Island says. “Because if you’d killed me first, the storm wouldn’t have come for you.”

Killua barely has time to draw his knives before Freecss is on him.

Maybe it’s the panic worming its way out of Killua’s stomach, or the sharp pain in his knee, or the blood curse scratching at his face. Maybe it’s the resolute fury in Freecss’s eyes. Either way, the prince moves nearly as fast as Killua, hacking at the assassin with brutal short slashes. Killua manages to block all of them, barely, boots slipping in the torrential mud. The prince is good enough to make Killua work if he was in good condition, and between the rain and the blood and the knee, they’re all but equally matched.

Killua finally blocks a blow and shoves Freecss back, the prince leaving himself open. Killua presses his advantage in height and speed by kneeing the other man in the chest. Freecss coughs out a pained curse, and he tumbles back, mud covering his skin and his long braid. Killua follows, slashing out half-blind with his knives, and he feels his blades connect as the prince bounces away. Another splash of blood, this time on a bare hand. This time, Killua feels it sink in, painting his pale skin the color of rust.

Freecss has a slash on his cheek and shoulder, Killua’s wild strike having gotten him on bare skin. The weight of the blade also caught the prince’s braid, which droops tangled and waterlogged across his brown face, half-covering his eyes. Freecss curses again, something foul, and simply slices his sword through his hair. The rest of his braid lands in the mud with a heavy thump.

The prince wipes a streak of blood off his face, not seeming to care that the wound continues to flow freely. “I’m going to kill you,” he says, voice low as thunder.

Killua has fought soldiers and mercenaries and assassins, from the weakest to the most skilled. He’s been tired, fought for hours in the snow and sleet, wherever Father has asked. He’s fought with half the bones in his hand broken, with his legs immobilized by ice. But then, he’d been ready. He’d known what to expect. He hadn’t been fighting a storm at the same time he was fighting a prince. Freecss presses ceaselessly, forcing Killua back until his foot hits the wall around the queen’s home. The prince’s home. He can’t go any further back.

The prince’s eyes glint in the storm, and he slashes the sabre across Killua’s front.

And Killua’s leg slips out from under him.

The mud carries him stumbling out of range of the prince’s slash, but also costs him one of his knives. Killua staggers to his feet, trying in vain to rub the blood off his face. All he gets is mud, and rain, and more blood. A callous on his hand must have ripped in the fight.

Oh. And his jacket is cut open across his front. Distantly, he can feel blood dribbling down his chest, starting at the shoulder and cutting towards his side. That should hurt more than it does. Even his leg doesn’t hurt so much anymore, a dull throb beneath the rain.

He’s tired.

Freecss snarls—just like his aunt, a small part of Killua notices—and slices the sabre straight down through the air.

Static gathers in the air, bright and sharp, and Killua realizes he’s going to die.

“Sorry, Alluka,” he says. The words are lost under the wind and rain.

Then Killua is struck by lightning.

And everything is white.

87 notes · View notes

piermanwalter · 4 years ago

Text

Army Swap AU: Luke and Leia

In a galaxy where the Confederacy of Independent Systems went super into biotech instead of mass industrialisation, and the Jedi’s secret deal with the Kaminoans fell through so they had to create a different army, the Republic soldiers are droids and the Separatist soldiers are clones.

Following the Droid Wars, instead of a masterful transfer into absolute power, Palpatine was barely able to scrape together enough support from the Galactic Core to become Emperor. Palpatine embarked on an epic information control campaign, purging data archives all across the galaxy, rewriting maps and hyperdrive computers to erase knowledge of specific planets from existence, and more importantly setting up a series of hypershield satellites blocking off every recorded hyperlane into the Outer Rim, essentially isolating that region from the rest of the galaxy.

It’s not that the hypershield actively blocks anything. It just makes everything passing through it via hyperspace travel very slowly. Most beings would die of old age and holotransmissions would be irrelevant before making it to the other side. Terrible things happen when ships try to drop out of hyperspace while caught in the shield. A taboo on mentioning certain planets was enforced to such a degree that species originating from those planet were eradicated from the Galactic Core. These planets never existed. The Confederacy of Independent Systems invented these names to make their territory seem larger. There is nothing beyond the Mid Rim.

It was under this environment of ironclad facades and overcompensation where Luke Crashburn was raised. His father was an organic Republic soldier who served under Admiral Tarkin. His father died in combat and it was due to Tarkin’s influence that Luke was accepted into the prestigious Sector 1 Imperial Academy. But no matter how hard he studies or how well he fights in the sims, his final grades never improved more than mediocre. As graduation looms nearer, Luke finds himself sidelined into the worst specialisations imaginable.

Research and Development? Supply Line Management? That’s impossible. His flying score was better than anyone else’s in his class, and some of them were sent off to become pilots. Luke knows something is wrong. It seems like everyone is hiding something from him.

If he can’t impress anyone with his grades, he’ll try to get in via connections. Recklessly throwing himself into officer meetings with the vague justification of “Savcus Crashburn was my father. Admiral Tarkin likes me. Please give me a job aboard your ship. Sir!”, Luke finds himself in a world of political intrigue he wasn’t trained to handle. Does everyone actually appreciate his skills or are they using him for clout? Why would someone like himself have clout? What’s going on?

Due to the absolute chaos of the Outer Rim and their tenuous control over the Mid Rim, the Empire lacked the resources to build an entire Death Star, choosing to forgo most of the superstructure. The first Death Star is much smaller than the initial blueprint and the shape of a compass rose, containing only the superlaser, officer and technician housing, and enough starship docks to provide a support escort. It has much less intimidation compared to the original, but its more efficient design allowed it to go on a killing spree targeting the planets most dangerous to the newly formed Empire.

Kamino? Gone. Geonosis? Gone. As more and more planets were destroyed, Separatist worlds began sending huge chunks of their population on reckless colonisation missions. By the time Pure Neimoidia was destroyed, it had less than a hundred million occupants and the Neimoidians of that world had transitioned into obligate spacefarers much like their Duros relatives. The Rebellion tried to use these atrocities to turn people against the Empire, but anti-alien sentiments were at an all time high and most humans didn’t mind if planets got destroyed as long as not too many of their own kind were caught in the way. The information control campaign was so effective that few people ever knew the destroyed planets existed.

Due to a clerical error resulting from insane levels of mutual xenophobia, multi-layered mind games and conflicting information from captured Supertacs, and the Empire’s own pervasive censorship backfiring, Skako Minor, the planet populated by Poletecs used mostly for weapon testing, was accidentally blown up instead of Skako Major, the actual planet where 500 billion Skakoans live.

Using the spectacular failure of destroying the wrong planet as political leverage, Bail Organa was able to gain some support from people who lost trust in the Empire’s ability to protect them. Not exactly the message of unity and respect he wanted to send, but in the meantime let’s go with it. Alderaan, the new hub for Rebellion activity, became the greatest threat to the Empire and was the only planet uninvolved with the Droid Wars to be destroyed. After many humans died, people of the galaxy finally began to reject the Empire en masse.

Meanwhile, in the lawless Outer Rim, the Death Star superstructure without the laser was manufactured by Separatist expeditionaries based off Poggle the Lesser’s blueprint. The Hive Orb was never able to achieve any level of military functionality, but large numbers of people could sustainably live in it.

A majority of the Hive Orb’s occupants are surviving Separatist-affiliated species and battle clones. Most of the rest are Droid War refugees, who see their uncontested ownership of Separatist-made Hive Orb as reparation for all they suffered through. There is also a significant population of gangsters and myriad fugitives. A few surviving Jedi also live on the Hive Orb, albeit under false identities.

Constant fighting between factions only stops when a serious structural flaw or outside threat is discovered, after which everyone calls a ceasefire to fix it, and then start attacking each other again. The most hotly contested area is the bridge, which controls where the Hive Orb goes. You can go to sleep in the Hive Orb and wake up in hyperspace because the bridge was taken over by another faction within the last few hours and they wanted to go to the other side of the galaxy. It is universally agreed upon that the Hive Orb must never be flown into Imperial Space. Pirates and crime syndicates make regular attempts to take over but the Hive Orb occupants crush them with more zeal than they crush each other.

Rumors of a moon-sized giant space station that appears and disappears at random are starting to leak through the hypershield, but for the most part are dismissed by the Empire because the concept is objectively ridiculous.

It was under this environment of wild unpredictability interspersed with unconditional trust where Leia was raised. After failing to arrest Palpatine, only surviving due to Count Dooku suddenly turning on his Master and getting killed in his place, Mace Windu returned to the Jedi Temple to find everyone dead. Leia was the sole survivor. Mace bluntly stated he didn’t read enough of her Temple datafile to remember her last name. They spent a few years running away from the Empire but eventually settled in the Hive Orb because the whole thing runs away from the Empire by itself.

Although Mace decided to be an unaffiliated executor of justice aboard the Hive Orb, Leia threw her lots with The Spires, refugees of the Christophsis Invasion. Mace suddenly stopped teaching her in the ways of the Jedi, claiming it was too dangerous to be recognised. Leia joined The Spires mainly to protect the innocent, but also to have an excuse to travel the Hive Orb in hopes of finding another Jedi willing to teach her.

#army swap au #star wars #Luke Skywalker #leia organa #this is actually fanfiction

12 notes · View notes

donnnoir · 5 years ago

Text

Abduct this dick; assholes

Dallas, Texas July 16, 2019

Well since I am known to be a bit of a killjoy; I reckon I should just go ahead and piss in everybody’s punch bowl right off the bat. If I was a prudent man I would wait to secure a large contingent of followers before unpacking certain ugly Truths. Excepting that a given percentile would drop because I essentially assaulted one of their tenants of faith. I however have never been known to be either a sensible nor prudent man. As the song says, “if the Truth hurts bear it”. Thus with that in mind let’s dance.

The phenomena known as Alien Abduction is for the most part (like 99.5 %) false. Now before everyone decides to block me, allow me to say that the individuals who are suffering and experiencing abduction are indeed being abducted. They are being experimented on by their abductors. The real question and therefore crux of the matter is, who is abducting these people? What is happening to them? For what purposes? Why are they experiencing these abductions as being perpetrated by aliens, principally the Greys? Why would not aliens be abducting humans?

From discussions long ago on the topic of Alien Abduction. I was generally informed that, “come on really”! Think about it, a more progressed race of intelligent beings can cross the entirety of the cosmos to come anal probe hill-billy Jeb to see what he has been eating? Really? Look long ago I saw all kinds of “spheres” and craft very similar to what we now call drones used by ETs to collect data or observe us. If they want information on ANYONE, including Hill-Billy Jeb. They could let Jeb inhale a micro sphere capable of scanning his entire body. Transmit the data to a command module or craft were a non-living version of Jeb could be assembled down to each atom in real time in a lab. This “version” could then be manipulated as necessary to whatever determining factors were being considered. This sphere could give continuous live real time data so the subject could be observed in real life context. Without any undo suffering or harm. Once sufficient data has been collected the sphere can simply exit Jeb’s body via the closest orifice. Hell the sphere wouldn’t even need to enter Jeb. I just put that in to illustrate the possibility to any who subscribe to such being necessary to collect data. Oh and I mean no offense to my Hill-Billy friends or kin.

Please always remember these persons the abductees are genuinely experiencing real and very disturbing memories of actually being kidnapped and tortured. Let us not add to their pain by trying to minimize their suffering so that what they are experiencing fits some little box in our minds. If anything the realities of what is happening should enrage everyone to the point of demanding that those responsible are held to the highest level of accountability and justice is done to them. Plain and simply put - beginning with Our Government the Alien Phenomena inclusive of Abductions has been usurped to serve the agendas of what can best currently be called The Shadow Government. Which is deeper and darker than what is presently being referred to as the Deep State (Government). During the ‘60’s NASA developed Holographic Technologies. These were initially employed along with hallucinatory drugs as part of a variety of cover stories for the victims of the infamous MK Ultra (mind control) experiments of the time. I suggest you YouTube Cathy O’Brien. She openly discusses the matter, or read “Trance-formation of America”, or her other books on the topic. The victims then suffered additional torture and trauma as these scenarios / cover stories were put in place among the victim’s memories. As the MK Ultra program was expanded to larger and larger portions of the population it became common practice to embed and use the Alien Abduction scenario in all test subjects. Matter of fact following the initial reports and the common use of hypnotic regression to recover these memories. In later sessions with these same individuals. They generally recalled seeing several of the notorious Men in Black also in the room during their torture (presumed science experimentation by the Greys). I suspect that the more recent reports no longer recall such. As programmers of this type are quick to adjust their activities to exclude any tell tale signs of “the man behind the current” as it were. The explosion of this supposed Phenomena follows closely the expansion of the continuing programs replacing MK Ultra within and throughout our society. Ultimately the interests of Our Shadow Government align with those of the Ruling Black Hand of other Shadow Governments around the world. As such we exported this “Phenomena” to the world.

Sadly not all abductions can be explained by my thesis. Mostly due to the fact not all ETs are benevolent, some even view us as a food source. Some are misidentified, when their old world label is much more appropriate that being “demons”. Don’t worry everyone is going to get reacquainted with these entities from dark lower harmonic realms and their hive mind sets. Much sooner than most of you may like. Believe me we are not ready for what is coming.

So what the fuck does it mean? The totality of the situation is beyond me! What I can tell you constitutes a small portion of what is happening and to a lesser degree what is planned for all of us, but most particularly the unfortunate abductees. First and foremost this project/operation was to cover up the sadistic practices of these occultic/satanic believers and their vile appetites. Nonetheless the presumed operational objectives were genetic sampling and experimentation of the victims. You see in Antediluvian times one of the great sins of the sons and daughters of Eve was altering their own genome or adulterating it with that of the Nephilim. By the time Noah came around the practice had become so wide spread that quite literally just Noah and his family had sufficient original genes from Adam and Eve to qualify as being appropriate to continue the human race. Important footnote here; as according to Antediluvian Law and Tradition, Noah would have brought his household with him on the Ark. Which is inclusive of more than just those consanguineously associated to him. Consequently these Occultist that make up the Shadow Government wanted to track down all the fragments of these abomination variants scattered in the genes of the population. They are currently active in trying to create Nephilim via cloning as an attempt to produce super soldiers for the Military Industrial Complex. With some degree of success I might add. If creating an abomination can be called a success at any level. While farming test subjects they also wished to test how flexible our genome really is. Years ago there was discussion as to the programable nature of our DNA. Comparing it to the Operating Systems of computers and how it could be used to transfer information along with how to make an executable file to update the base program. As part of this, experiments were devised and various “packets of code” were placed in the test subjects. At some future date the individual with be further victimized by being subjected to a stimuli (more than likely some form of non-ionizing radiation of a particular frequency and modulation) meant to cause the code to express its self in the subject. With unimaginable speed the person’s genome will rewrite its self and express this physically in and on the test subject. I suspect that depending on the amounts initially expressed and its penetration in our society many groups may have this delayed so as to see how it passes from one generation to another, allowing observation of any mutations and continuity. They wish to hopefully create whole new species of humans. Granted the attrition rate will be immense, but hey “you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet”. At least that is what they would have you believe. There are other tie-ins, considerations and vectors from other platforms that are worth thinking about as part of this. Speculation into the topic could fill pages, and no doubt does in various operation manuals elsewhere. But I need to be as succinct as possible and maintain focus for any reader who happens upon my writings. Good Luck to Us All; G-dspeed and may He have mercy on Us all; cause it is going to be a wild ride...

#alien abduction #extra terra 👽#conspiracytheorist #greys #ET #history #religion #shadow government #cloning #science #DNA #nephilim #ocultist #satanist #mk ultra #mind control #nasa #antediluvian #the dark one

7 notes · View notes

kylo-ren-writes · 6 years ago

Text

Anger

Original

Pairing: Kylo Ren x Reader

Summary: just an angry Kylo using you to calm himself down.

Warnings: fluff.

Tag List: @beautifulbows924 @celestiaelisia @bluudhavens @majestic-sith-queen @just-another-starwars-fangirl

A/N: So, this is basically almost like a “rewrite” of one of the first few fics I wrote when I began to write fan fics. It has the same name as the title and I’ll link the first one above for you guys to read it you haven’t! I just wanted to write it to see if my writing has changed at all, and that fic has the highest notes out of all my fics, so I thought it would be fun to do. Let me know if you think I’ve improved or changed at all since then? (Gif not mine!)

Kylo paced around his private quarters, walking tracks into the floor as he tried to will himself to not destroy every piece of furniture within close proximity to him. It wouldn’t be the first time.

The source of Kylo’s rage, not that it required a logical, explainable, or real reason, was the irritating, orange-haired, sorry excuse of a general (in his opinion), General Hux.

Why Master Snoke kept Hux around, Kylo did not know (nor did he actually care or question his all knowing and wise master), but he just knew that if he had it his way, Hux would be sliced in two, right now, in the command center, in front of every officer that worked there for them to see.

It wouldn’t be the greatest offence to the brightly gingered man, but Kylo was never one for cutting deep—only all the way through and to the point. And he had anger issues that fueled his childish (to Hux, not to him) tantrums. Killing Hux would certainly be out of an anger induced tantrum rather than a cunning power play that would cut the general deeper than Kylo’s lightsaber, if he had the ability to comprehend it after death anyway.

So, Kylo was here, pacing with tightly clenched fists in his dark, dimly lit bedroom, growling into the other wise empty space like some type of wild animal. He was an animal, a prodded and poked caged animal.

Arguments and confrontations with the too smug General always left Kylo in a ‘mood.’ Especially when he managed to outwit Kylo, which Kylo was very good at, by the way. He seemed to possess a natural ability of dry sass when it came to retorting to anything the general had to say. But this time the man had struck a deep nerve.

Kylo couldn’t take his mind off of it either. The man’s words kept on ringing aloud inside his head, fueling and offering kindling to the fire when he found it getting smaller. But he needed to get his mind off of it.

It was late on the StarKiller base, and Kylo needed to get some sleep, even if it was hardly any and nightmare infused. His training and devotion to the darkside came first after all, and he wasn’t going to allow a scrawny, pasty general to indirectly get in the way of it.

And yet...

Kylo growled out in frustration, swinging around to face his large bed, glaring at it like it was the one that had pissed him off.

He couldn’t sleep, not like this, not while his fists were still tightly clenched and his anger caused adrenaline kept him from lashing out on the unfeeling objects in his room. It annoyed him even more that they couldn’t feel pain.

Kylo stared at the dark comforter that neatly lied over his bed—thanks to a droid—about to resume his pacing until he burned himself out, when the image of you flashed through his muddled mind.

For a second, his breathing wasn’t ragged and his broad body wasn’t stiff. You were almost like a light to guide him through his darkness, to throw water onto the burning fire. But just like water, your image wasn’t enough to snuff out the flames.

He needed more.

Kylo turned his exposed head towards the blastdoor to his room. It was late and you would most definitely be sleeping, but maybe... maybe he could just... see you. Just look at you and feel your overwhelming calm energy while it calmed him.

The thought was tempting, so very tempting. He wouldn’t even have to disturb you, he could easily manipulate the force to his will to allow him entry into your room without waking you up. He could stand at the foot of your bed, gazing down at your sleeping figure tucked away safely underneath your warm covers that shielded you from the coldness of the base.

Yes, he could do that. Only look and not touch.

With his decision easily made, Kylo turned the rest of his body towards the blastdoor, and without bringing his helmet along, he stepped out into the brightly lit, but empty, hallway outside of his room, and quickly head off in the direction he knew your room to be in.

He felt naked without his helmet to protect, not only his identity, but his emotions as well. If anyone came along, they would surely be in for a surprise. And not just for the rare opportunity to view his usually hidden face.

It didn’t take Kylo long at all to reach your quarters. His anger made his already quick, long strides quicker and longer, and he had been to your room before. Many times. He knew exactly where it was.

Just being able to feel your presence from outside of the door was calming Kylo down. He stood there for a minute, just allowing you to faintly consume him. He had no idea how you had this much of an effect on him, but he didn’t mind.

Kylo soon snapped out of it and used the force to quickly, but quietly, open the blastdoor to your room. Inside it was dark, especially so since he was stepping out of a bright hallway. But he allowed his eyes to adjust after he stepped inside, taking the time to find you on top of your bed, covered underneath the blankets like he had imagined.

Stepping on over to you, Kylo couldn’t help himself. Your presence was pulling him in, making him almost forget about his anger and why he was even here in the first place.

You seemed to sleep so soundly, and Kylo didn’t doubt that you did. You looked peaceful and soft from what he could sense and make out barely from your face.

He was only here to look, not to touch. To allow the calm to calm his raging storm and go back to his room to get that needed sleep. So why was Kylo suddenly removing his gloves?

Kylo removed them slowly, taking the time to peel them off of his large, calloused hands as he watched you.

It was nearly creepy, him standing above you as you slept, watching you while he slowly removed fabric from his body. No, it was creepy. But he didn’t care.

When the leather gloves were off, Kylo carefully set them down onto your nightstand without his gaze faltering. He wanted more. He wanted to be closer to you, to be beside you, touching you. Kylo had always been an impulsive creature, his tantrums were proof enough.

After another minute of watching you sleep, Kylo’s gaze finally left you as he began to remove the outer layers of his robes, starting on the parts covering his torso before he removed his boots, and stripped his pants off. He kept his underwear on, leaving the rest of him bare. He had to be the brightest thing in the room with his almost sickly, pale skin. But that didn’t deter him.

Kylo was almost hesitant to press a knee down onto your mattress. What if he disturbed you or you awoke and you didn’t want him here? He wasn’t even angry anymore, the thought of Hux was long gone by now. He could easily redress and leave without you ever knowing. But why would he do that?

Pressing that knee down into your mattress, the softness dipping underneath of his weight, he watched for any sign of you stirring out of your peaceful sleep.

When not even a muscle twitched, Kylo inched more of his large body onto your bed, suddenly wanting nothing more than to completely encompass his body around yours. And being that creature of impulse, he began doing just that.

Kylo lifted the blankets up, slipping himself underneath of them, feeling the welcoming body heat you had created there, and feeling even more soothed by it.

You still didn’t move or twitch or stir, not even when Kylo’s muscled arms were wrapped tightly around you, or when his strong legs were intertwined with yours. Not until his face was near yours and nuzzling against it, that large nose poking into your cheek.

Your subconscious wasn’t panicked as it immediately knew who was beside you, or rather pressed against you. You welcomed him, snuggling into his warm chest as one of your arms wound around his waist.

Gone was Kylo’s anger and in its place, content. He felt calm and content around you. You had that power over him, a power he didn’t mind. A power he loved and welcomed and sought out. And you loved it too. You loved being the one that could bring him out of a fit and calm him down. You loved receiving his affection and attention, his softness he only bore to you and only you. You loved it all.

Kylo rested his chin on your head after nuzzling his nose into your soft hair. The sleep he had been seeking was quickly coming to him and he was more than willing to give into it if it meant sleeping beside you.

You had been half asleep, roused back into it with the warmth and comfort from Kylo’s body. Your arm hung loosely around him as you breathed softly into his chest, lulling him to sleep too.

Before Kylo could completely succumb to sleep, he nuzzled his nose into your hair and pressed a kiss to your head. Then he too fell asleep, comfortable and relaxed with you in his embrace.

#kylo ren #kylo ren x reader #kylo ren fanfic #kylo ren imagines #kylo ren fanfiction #kylo ren x you #kylo x reader #kylo ren imagine #kylo fanfiction #kylo fic #kylo x you #kylo #kylo fluff #kylo ren fluff #kylo ren star wars #star wars kylo ren #star wars imagine #star wars fan fiction

406 notes · View notes

blueares · 3 years ago

Text

Ruination Rewrite (Freljord)

Freljord Part I

You and the other Sentinels arrive in a frigid tundra. Even within the walls of the Sentinel outpost, you can feel the temperature drop immediately.

“S-S-So this is the Freljord…”

“Should have packed warmer clothing.”

Lucian: “There’s a chill in the air, and for once it’s not because of wraiths.”

Senna: “Everyone, focus. We need to gather our bearings. Damn… Looks like this outpost is abandoned, too.”

Vayne: “Are all Sentinel outposts so vacant?”

Senna steps out into open, gazing out at her surroundings. You and the others follow her, only to realize that you’re standing on the side of a mountain.

Gwen: “Oh my, we are quite high up!”

*Shout to hear your echo*

“Uh, so how do we get down from here?”

Lucian response 1: “You got a death wish, Rookie? That’s how avalanches start! Or, so I’ve heard, anyway.”

Lucian response 2: “Hmm… Look. There’s a set of stairs over there. They’re half-buried in snow, but I’d wager that’s our only way down.”

As you and the other Sentinels begin your treacherous descent, pushing your way through the snow, you notice something at the base of the mountain. There looks to be village in the valley below you, though that’s not the only thing you notice.

“Guys, look! The Black Mist!”

“It looks like the Mist is creeping in on that town down there!”

Vayne: “Huh. So I take it that’s where we’ll find this Ruined King of yours?”

Senna: “Most likely, or at least whatever he’s after.”

Lucian: “Double-time it, Sentinels! We have to… Wait, do you hear that?”

You and the other Sentinels fall silent. Sure enough, you can hear something on the mountain path directly below you. It sounds like a wild beast shouting, but to your surprise, the source of the noise looks to be a single man with twin axes in hand. The wraiths that look to be ascending the mountain are quickly driven back down by his wild swings, the sheer force sending them plummeting back to the Mist below.

???: “Come at me, foul draugr! Aren’t there any of you might enough to slay me!?”

Gwen: “Oh my! Who is that dreadfully angry man down there?”

Lucian: “Well I’ll be… Never thought I’d see him again.”

Senna: “Friend of yours?”

Lucian: “Sort of… It’s a long story, I’ll explain on the way down. For now, let’s just focus on getting off this mountain.”

Freljord Part II

You and the other Sentinels continue your descent, all while listening to the strange man below you bellow at the onslaught of wraiths. Despite now being surrounded by the undead, the stranger continues to push past them with his axes.

“Guys, are we sure going TOWARD the crazy axe-man is a good idea?”

“He’s not really hurting them, but the wraiths can’t do much against him, either.”

Lucian: “Still as ornery as I remember. Maybe even more now.”

Vayne: “You still haven’t told us how you know him yet. Who… WHAT is he?”

Lucian: “Alright, long story short: his name’s Olaf, and he’s a berserker. We fought together once during a Harrowing in Bilgewater. He’s… Not a bad guy, though I’ll be the first to admit he’s a little off his rocker.”

“Again, are we sure going toward him is a good idea?”

“Maybe we could convince him to fight with us again?”

Senna response 1: “Not much choice, Rookie. We’ll need to go past him to reach the town.”

Senna response 2: “Well, if Lucian can vouch for him, maybe it’s worth a shot.”

Soon, you all reach the bottom of the mountain, only to find that Olaf is charging ahead through the Mist without you. Though his axes lack the power to slay the wraiths around him, every blow strikes hard enough to sever spectral limbs and bodies.

Gwen: “He’s heading to the town!”

Vayne: “And it looks like he’s carving a path for us. How generous.”

With Olaf leading the charge, the Sentinels follow close behind, making short work of the wraiths he leaves behind before they can regenerate their wounds. Eventually, you lose sight of Olaf as the Mist grows thicker in the town, and you spot no trace of anyone else in the village, either.

“Where’d that berserker go?”

“Any sign of the Ruined King?”

“Where is everyone?”

Lucian response 1: “No idea, but I’m sure he can look after himself. Right now, we need to figure out if that Ruined Creep is here yet, and what he’s after.”

Lucian response 2: “No, but keep your eyes peeled. That creep could be anywhere.”

Lucian response 3: “Whole town probably turned and ran when the Mist came. That’s the hopeful interpretation, anyway…”

Gwen: “Look, the Mist is creeping in on that old house over there!”

Vayne: “Guess we know where we’re going. Let’s move!”

Freljord Part III

You and the other Sentinels storm the house, fighting your way through the undead that bar your path. The place seems abandoned, but more wraiths are soon clawing at the doors and windows, seeking entrance.

Senna: “Everyone fan out! Vayne, Gwen, you two focus on keeping the wraiths out bay! The rest of us will scour the house.”

“What exactly are we looking for?”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Senna response 1: “Something that looks like it might’ve belonged to a queen.”

Senna response 2: “We’re looking for something that houses a piece of Isolde’s soul. If that’s what Viego’s after, that’s probably what’s in here.”

You, Senna and Lucian set into the abandoned house while Vayne and Gwen fend off the wraiths behind you. You search for several minutes, though your eyes soon come to rest on an expensive-looking comb resting on a table upstairs.

Lucian: “See anything, Rookie?”

“Nothing of note, just some old comb!”

“Would a fancy comb belong to royalty?”

As you approach the comb, you feel something oddly familiar about it, like it’s calling out to you. As Senna joins you, the comb begins to glow with a faint blue light, as does the light in her chest.

Senna: “This is it! Let’s grab it before-”

Suddenly, the entire house trembles. There’s a loud crash downstairs, followed by shouting.

“What was that!?”

“Is everyone alright!?”

A cry of pure rage shakes the house, sounding more animal than human.

???: “RRRRRAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!”

Senna: “Rookie! Grab the comb while we-”

Just then, a man with a massive sword bursts charges up the stairs, tearing apart the house in the process. He casually knocks and Senna aside before grabbing the comb and bursting through the wall. For a moment, you simply lay on the floor, feeling as though you’d been stampeded by a herd of wild oxen.

Lucian: “Senna! Are you OK?”

Senna: “Ngh… I’m fine! What about the comb?”

“I’m still alive too, by the way.”

“That guy just took it and ran off!”

Gwen: “Oh dear… Is everyone in the Freljord so dreadfully angry?”

Senna: “We’ve got to go after him! On your feet, Rookie!”

Freljord Part IV

Once the aching in your body subsides, you race out of the house along with the other Sentinels. You look around for the large, screaming swordsman, only to see him tearing through more houses in an almost mindless rampage.

“There he is! Let’s go after him!”

“So what’s the plan? We have a plan, right?”

Senna response 1: “You heard Rookie! Don’t let him get away!”

Senna response 2: “The plan is to catch him and take back the comb! Let’s go, Sentinels!”

You chase the swordsman through the abandoned town, constantly find yourselves assailed by wraiths all-the-while. Though your allies manage to fend them off, you see the swordsman getting further away as he flees into a nearby valley.

Lucian: “Damn it, we’re losing him! We’ve gotta-”

Suddenly, another cry of fury sounds out from up ahead. You see a familiar figure burst through the Black Mist, lunging at the swordsman with his twin axes. The two berserkers engage one-another in a clash of steel that rings out through the entire valley.

Gwen: “Oh my, the angry men are fighting!”

Vayne: “I’d say they’re more like beasts than men, but this could be the opportunity we’re looking for.”

“Are we sure getting between them is a good idea?”

“Maybe we should sit back and watch this play out. If only we had some snacks…”

Lucian: “Suck it up, Rookie! Olaf’s tough, but his axes aren’t gonna do much good against that guy. Let’s lend him a hand!”

You all charge into fray, fighting your way through the wraiths that would impede your progress. You watch as Olaf and the swordsman engage in a clash so fierce that even the undead are hesitant to draw close, though it quickly becomes apparent that the swordsman has the upper hand. Every blow Olaf lands is quickly healed, though you can’t tell if this is the power of the Mist or something else at work…

Eventually, the swordsman lands a decisive blow, raking his blade across Olaf’s right eye. Olaf stumbles, then finds himself being thrown into the side of the mountain. Blood pours from his mouth as he laughs, staring up at the swordsman with his remaining good eye.

Olaf: “Good… You’re every bit as strong as the stories say! Now finish me, Barbarian King!”

The swordsman screams as he prepares at deliver a fate blow to Olaf, but before he can, you and the other Sentinels soon catch up to him.

Senna: “Open fire!”

The man called the Barbarian King is assaulted by Relic light and Hallowed Mist, stumbling just before he can deal a fatal blow to Olaf. He turns to you, eyes burning with inhuman fury.

???: “RRRRRAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!”

The Barbarian King’s cries out with such fury that the very air trembles around you. Suddenly, the mountain itself begins to shake as well. A torrent of snow built up from the top of the mountain comes crashing down toward the village.

“Look out!”

“Avalanche!”

Senna: “Damn it! Everyone, take cover!”

Unfortunately, there is no time to follow through on Senna’s orders. The snow soon falls upon you heaps, blanketing the entire world in white.

Freljord Part V

You open your eyes slowly to find that you are, surprisingly, completely unharmed. The snow has fallen all around you, but you and your Sentinel allies are surrounded by a protective veil of Hallowed Mist.

“Gwen?”

“Nice job, Scissors!”

Gwen: “Ah, that was rather close for comfort, wouldn’t you all say?”

Vayne: “Nice trick. Would have been nice if you did something like this earlier.”

Gwen: “My apologies, but this sort of thing takes a good deal of effort me. I also cannot… Hold it… Very long!”

You see the Hallowed Mist is already receding, leaving you surrounded by a mountain of snow.

Lucian: “Well, we’re trapped, but at least we’re all still in one piece. Any sign of that Barbarian King?”

Senna: “No, though I don’t think an avalanche was enough to stop someone like that. He’s probably gone-”

Suddenly, a figure bursts through the snow, crying out in fury at you and the other Sentinels.

Olaf: “You fools! I was so close! Why did you intervene!?”

“Uh, you’re welcome?”

“Hey, we just saved you!”

Olaf response 1: “I am not thanking you! You’ve ruined my chances at a glorious death!”

Olaf response 2: “Saved? SAVED!? You’ve doomed me to an inglorious death!”

Senna: “Lucian, what’s he talking about?”

Lucian: “Easy there, Olaf. Remember me? We fought together in Bilgewater, remember.”

Olaf: “Hmph! Olaf has fought alongside many warriors! If we were allies in the past, we are enemies today! Thanks to you, the one who could finally slay me in battle is gone!”

Gwen: “Oh dear… I’m not certain I understand, but it seems that we’ve offended him somehow. Maybe we should try saying something to cheer him up?”

“Hey, Mr. Olaf, was it? No need to feel so down. I’m sure there are plenty of other Barbarian Kings out there.”

“Hey, no need to feel so down. I’m sure you’ll meet that Barbarian King again someday, and next time you’ll death have a proper fight to the death.

Olaf: “Hmph! Unlikely. That man was the Barbarian King of the Avarosa, Tryndamere! I’ve long wanted to meet him in battle, but he and his queen are trying to bring the Freljord together through peace! This was my one chance to face him, and now it is gone! No doubt he’ll return to his clan now, and who knows when next he will take to the battlefield?”

Senna: “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Right now, he’s under the spell of Viego, the Ruined King. Until we find and stop him, Tryndamere’s going to stay like that, completely under Viego’s control.”

Olaf: “You don’t say? The Barbarian King, bowing to another king… This Viego must be truly powerful to make the mighty Tryndamere submit!”

Lucian: “You don’t know the half of it. We’re trying to stop the nutjob from Ruining the entire world, but so far… It ain’t goin’ well.”

“Hey, I’ve got an idea! Olaf, you want to face a worthy foe, right?”

“Hey, Olaf. You want a glorious death, right?”

Olaf: “Exactly! I seek a worthy foe capable of ending my life in battle, so that stories of my death will be passed down through the ages!”

“Well, why not come with us then? We’re fighting Viego, and that probably means we’ll run into Tryndamere again. That’s TWO powerful kings, which means double the odds of finding your worthy foe.”

“You know, a worthy death doesn’t mean much if there’s no one around to witness it, right? Why not fight alongside us, so that we can be the ones to pass down your story?”

Vayne: “You can’t be serious, kid. You want a guy like HIM to join?”

Olaf: “Hmm… Olaf likes the way you think, young one! Yes, I will join you in your battle, so that I may find a worthy foe in your mission to fight this Ruined King!”

Gwen: “Oh my, the angry man is going to join us? How exciting!”

Lucian: “Heh… Well, I’ve seen how you fight, Olaf, and I’d definitely rather have you with us than against us.”

Senna: “So we’re recruiting berserkers now? Well, if Lucian trusts you, then I guess it couldn’t hurt.”

Vayne: “Tch… Fine, but you all know his axes aren’t going to do much against the undead.”

Gwen: “Oh, don’t you worry, Miss Vayne! I can remedy that!”

You use the Wayfinder to return to headquarters with your allies in tow. After taking the Sentinel oath, Olaf is escorting further into the ruins to be fitted for his Sentinel attire.

Lucian: “First Demacia, now Freljord. That’s twice now we’ve failed to stop that bastard from getting what he wants.”

“Look on the bright side: at least we’ve got another new Sentinel.”

“Hey, cheer up! We’re all alive and our numbers have grown, right?”

Lucian: “Rookie, I can’t tell if you’re optimistic or just naïve.”

Vayne: “The way I see it, there’s not much difference between the two. I just hope your berserker friend makes all of that worthwhile, Lucian.”

As if on cue, Gwen emerges with a skip in her step.

“Everyone, may I announce to you our newest member: Sentinel Olaf!”

Olaf: “Hmm. These axes thirst for battle… They long to slay draugr!”

“Your axes talk to you?”

“Are you sure that’s not just you?”

Olaf: “Any warrior worth their beard knows what their weapon desires! When do we go to battle?”

Senna: “As soon as we figure out where we’re going. Rookie, keep that Wayfinder ready. We’re taking a quick break, and then getting right back out there.”

#Ruination Rewrite

0 notes

biofunmy · 5 years ago

Text

MoMA Reboots With ‘Modernism Plus’

When the Museum of Modern Art reopens on Oct. 21 after a $450-million, 47,000-square-foot expansion, it will finally, if still cautiously, reveal itself to be a living, breathing 21st-century institution, rather than the monument to an obsolete history — white, male, and nationalist — that it has become over the years since its founding in 1929.

After decades of stonewalling multiculturalism, MoMA is now acknowledging it, even investing in it, most notably in a permanent collection rehang that features art — much of it recently acquired — from Africa, Asia, South America, and African America, and a significant amount of work by women. In short, what’s primarily different about the reopened MoMA is the integrated presence of “difference” itself — a presence that takes the museum back to its experimental early days, when American self-taught art and non-Western art were on the bill.

Did we need a supersized (one-third larger), nearly blocklong multiplex MoMA — with a Diller, Scofidio + Renfro /Gensler extension tacked onto the 2004 building designed by Yoshio Taniguchi — to accommodate this presence? No. As we learn from every art fair every year, more art is not more. What’s needed is agile planning and alert seeing, and these are evident in the museum’s modestly scaled opening attractions, which include focused surveys of two African-American artists (Betye Saar and William Pope.L), installations by artists from India (Sheela Gowda and Dayanita Singh), a sampler of Latin American work, and a permanent collection gallery devoted to contemporary art from China.

But in every museum with an active acquisition program, the permanent collection galleries are key. They’re the heart, brain and soul of the place; its history and memory. Special, short-term shows bring people through the door. But they end, move on. If you want to know what a museum is really about, what it’s feeling and thinking, keep your eye on the art it owns and gives its walls and floors to, long-term.

Judged by this metric alone, the expanded MoMA is making obvious efforts to reshape its image without going entirely off-brand — to tell the tale of what might be called Modernism Plus, with globalism and African-American art added.

The museum has long been famous for inventing an ironclad view of Modern art as a succession of marquee “isms” (Cubism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, etc.), and arranging its holdings to illustrate that. The very rough outline is still in place on the three floors of collection galleries: art from the 19th century through 1940 on five, from 1940 to 1970 on four, and from 1970 to the present on two. But the main route is now peppered with unexpected inclusions and interrupted by theme-based detours and byways.

Also, walls between disciplines, once firm, are down. The permanent gallery rehang, coordinated by five chief curators from departments across the museum, has been, and will be, a collaborative project. The prevailing style is mix-and-match, with sculpture, painting, design, architecture, photography and film bunking in together (something that will freak out orthodox modernists). But, rest assured, each discipline gets some space of its own.

The jumble can be confusing, as, at first, are certain features of the general floor plan. Previously, visitor traffic entering the main lobby from West 53rd Street flowed to the right, toward the Sculpture Garden and up to the galleries. Now you have a directional choice. You can still go that way, or opt to go left toward the new Geffen wing, where you will find, among other things, street-level galleries to which admission is free (as it has been, since 2013, to the Sculpture Garden).

One of these holds a selection of design items chosen by Paola Antonelli, senior curator in the department of Architecture and Design. Another, the double-height Projects 110 Gallery, has a set of penumbral oil-on-barkcloth narrative paintings by the young Kenyan-born painter Michael Armitage, in a New York solo debut. Organized by Thelma Golden, director of the Studio Museum in Harlem, this show is the first in a series to be presented here by the Studio Museum while its new David Adjaye-designed home is under construction.

Upstairs navigation is easier, familiar. As before, the permanent collection galleries begin, chronologically, in the Taniguchi building and move from there straight west into the Geffen, with black metal door frames marking the points of transition. And on the fifth floor you’re eased into a plunge into modernism with a grouping of Brancusi sculptures set just outside the galleries themselves.

The Brancusi installation is classic MoMA: white walls, lots of air, few words. The idea is that this art doesn’t need commentary; it speaks for itself, and anything added, beyond light and space, is superfluous. You can argue with this approach — I do; I like lots of take-it-or-leave-it contextual information — but it has always been the MoMA way. Inside the galleries, the old-school hands-off mode continues, though with some tweaks. Each gallery has (at least) a short thematic title, so visitors can get a sense of what connects the works of art in the room — an idea, a medium, a place, a time — and a brief explanation of the theme.

The first gallery, now labeled “19th Century Innovators,” is pretty much a painting hit parade — Cezanne’s “Still Life with Apples” (1895-98), Rousseau’s “The Sleeping Gypsy” (1897) and, straight ahead, van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” (1889) — with a few painterly prints (Mary Cassatt, Pierre Bonnard) thrown in. But to this familiar two-dimensional European world MoMA has introduced an American wild card: half a dozen nugget-like ceramic bowls and jugs by George Ohr (1857-1918), the self-proclaimed “Mad Potter of Biloxi.”

Ohr was turning out hundreds of these gnarly, pinched earthenware vessels in the American South at the same time Van Gogh was painting “Starry Night” in an asylum in the south of France. And in the year Ohr died, in Mississippi, even locally all but unknown, Brancusi finished his first version of“Endless Column,” on view just beyond the gallery door. In the pre-expansion MoMA, these three artists were unlikely to have met. Here they’re caught up in formal and psychological conversation.

Farther on, after you’ve passed through a mesmerizing gallery of early photographic images — including Anna Atkins’s lacy 1850s botanical studies and a 1905 film of the New York City subway, looking every bit as funky then as now — you find another meeting of artistic minds, this one a genuine startler.

The gallery itself is a virtual Picasso shrine, with his 1907 “Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon” at the center, and related pictures ranged around it. But there’s a major out-of-time entry here too: a 1967 painting, acquired in 2016, by the African-American artist Faith Ringgold depicting an explosive interracial shootout. Titled “American People Series #20: Die,” it speaks to “Demoiselles” both in physical size and in visual violence. And just by being there it points up the problematic politics of a work like Picasso’s — with its fractured female bodies and colonialist appropriations — that is at the core of the collection. MoMA traditionalists will call the pairing sacrilegious; I call it a stroke of curatorial genius.

There are other such moments, less emphatic, on all three floors. One comes with the sight of Alma Woodsey Thomas’s incandescent 1973 “Fiery Sunset” plugged into an otherwise all-Matisse room. And there are several in a group installation evoking the matchless élan of the New York City painter Florine Stettheimer.

No curatorial credits are posted anywhere. But I hope that whoever chose to include a 1981 piece by the East Village artist Arch Connelly (1950-1993), will accept my personal thanks. The Connelly contribution, a mirror-shaped canvas encrusted with hundreds of fake pearls and titled “Self-Portrait,” suits the Stettheimian “extravagance-is-me ” ethos to a T.

On the long historical walkabout of some 60 collection galleries spread over three floors, there’s pretty much something for everyone. You get a big hit of Jackson Pollock, a Frida Kahlo fix, megadoses of Pop and Surrealism; Soup Cans, “Water Lilies,” and Cindy Shermans to burn — all the things that many people come to MoMA, selfie sticks in hand, to see.

But you also get specialty shows, the equivalent of mini-seminars, on books made by artists in Revolution-era Russia (most are by women), on architecture as sculpture, and on the epic potential of Latin American Mail Art. And there’s one exhibition, smallish in floor space but large in material, focused on the poet Frank O’Hara, who was a MoMA curator. To some visitors these will seem esoteric and pass-byable, but they’re a testament to the museum’s archival depths and its scholarly chops. And, once you put a toe in, they’re fun.

Finally, we get charismatic images by names that should be on every art-lover’s A-list but aren’t — yet: Geta Bratescu, Graciela Carnevale, Sari Dienes, Rosalyn Drexler, Valie Export, Beatriz González, Maren Hassinger, Atsuko Tanaka, along with Benny Andrews, Ibrahim El-Salahi, and May Stevens, all three part of the exceptionally strong installation of Vietnam War-era art, “War Within, War Without,” that brings the 4th floor rehang to a close.

Work by many of these artists has entered the collection in just the past few years. (When you’re traveling the galleries, pay attention to the acquisition dates on the labels; they can tell you a lot about the politics of purchase.) Much of it could find no place in MoMA’s canonically gated modernist story. The current version of Modernism Plus is by no means an in-depth rewrite, but it has the makings of one, depending on how it’s developed.

And, in one of the most promising features of the reopened museum, the mechanics for development are there. Post-expansion plans call for regular rotation and refreshment of the collection. Every six months, a third of the galleries on floors five, four and two will be reinstalled. By the end of 18 months, everything, the promise is, will, have been rethought. Destination favorites — “Starry Night,” “Desmoiselles” — will no doubt stay on view, but what’s around them will change, which will change them too.

Such flexibility offers tremendous potential for new thinking, particularly at a museum whose curatorial staff has, in the past few years, begun to diversify (though not its board of trustees). Flexibility also, it’s worth saying, allows the option of backpedaling should the opening “new” model prove to be little too new for a healthy box-office.

My guess is that in some hopefully ever-improving version, this 21st century MoMA will work, if only for self-preservative reasons. Multicultural is now marketable. To ignore it is to forfeit profit, not to mention critical credibility. And the new MoMA is obviously tailored to a new and younger audience, one that has no investment, nostalgic or otherwise, in the old pre-Taniguchi model, which now lives on mostly in the memories of a fading population (which itself had no direct experience of the original, progressive 1930s museum).

On the evidence of what I see in the reopened museum, a bunch of very smart curators are putting their heads together to work from inside to begin to turn a big white ship in another direction. We’re not talking Revolution. With this museum we probably never will. But in the reboot there are stimulating ideas and unexpected, history-altering talents around every corner. As long as both keep showing up at MoMA, so will I.

Museum of Modern Art

The museum reopens to the public Oct. 21 (member previews begin Oct. 12); moma.org.

Sahred From Source link Real Estate

from WordPress http://bit.ly/2ov441y via IFTTT

#IFTTT #WordPress

0 notes

englishmansdcc · 8 years ago

Text

JAMES EATOCK: The Mark Searby Interview

Leonard Sultana: “Do you want to know what becoming a fan will get you? I have been asked a couple of times, over the last few weeks, what can be the end goal for a fan – what roads an intense embrace of a section of pop culture can lead you down, and whether you can make a career out of such fandom, or even circle back round and make an quantitative impact on the original property.

James Eatock is a testament to the evolution of a passion – James has transformed that deep love over the years into not only a career but also towards a position where he has become a major resource and influencer on the subject itself: HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE! Another fan with a deep love for the show is AEISD Contributor Mark Searby who, thanks to the release of James’ COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE ANIMATED ADVENTURES, was lucky enough to talk with James about his fandom and his subsequent work on HE-MAN, from the very beginning…”

MARK SEARBY: When did your love of HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE start? And how did you come to writing such a mammoth book for Dark Horse?

image: ghostbusters.wiki

JAMES EATOCK: Oh man! I’ve been working on the brand, on and off, officially since 2001, I guess? When I first got the internet, which was about late ’95, at the time I didn’t have any kind of love for HE-MAN and SHE-RA because I was seventeen, eighteen and I was “Oh, that was in my childhood.” I still had videos and figures but they weren’t exactly brought out and celebrated!

I searched [on the internet] for MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE and there was one website and it was one guy talking about when he used to play with the figures. By the end of the year, what would eventually become He-Man.org was set up. It was a tiny little website that people would contribute their memories to.

At the beginning of 1996, I decided to start my own HE-MAN website about the cartoon and it very quickly became that I was ‘the Cartoon Guy’. I was the one who still had like seventy episodes recorded off children’s television and a bunch of video releases! Then, this New York farmboy called Zadoc Angell turned up online and he says, “I’d really like to create a website with you,” and he really pushed me and eventually, I was like, “Oh, alright then!”

So August 1997, we started this HE-MAN & SHE-RA episodes website: every week, we reviewed an episode. It was a lot of fun. Working with Zadoc on the website, I grew to love writing. Zadoc would encourage me to write and he was at Harvard… I love this, he was in the same literary class as Natalie Portman, believe it or not! Zadoc would encourage me to and I got gooder and gooder at writing – I got well good at writing! [laughs].

The pair of us had the website up and running for about five years and during that time, people got in touch. One of the first to do so was Robert Lamb, who had worked on HE-MAN; he also worked on WIDGET THE WORLD WATCHER and WILD WEST C.O.W.BOYS OF MOO MESA. He had searched his name online and found us praising his work on an episode, and Robert sent this really lovely email to Zadoc and I. We replied to say “Oh, thank you so much! Your episodes were really great!” He said, “Sit tight, I’ll send you both a package.” This package arrives and it has the HE-MAN Show Bible and storyboards and story sheets and behind the scenes stuff… We were dying! This was incredible stuff! We had never seen a storyboard… to us, the Series Bible was the be-all and end-all. To this day, the HE-MAN Series Bible that is online is the one Rob gave us twenty years ago.

As the website progressed, another person from the show messaged us, and then another and another and another… the pair of us had become this reputable source of knowledge. In 2001, I go over to America to meet Zadoc and, in a weird twist of reality, we find that we didn’t really get on that well in the real world. So, we both come away being burnt out from the website and we knew it was no fun when the website became a chore, so we both walked away from it. We eventually merged it with the He-Man.org site and they took all our reviews.

About a month after we decide to kill the website, Mattel gets in touch with us and they say, “Hey, we are working on this new HE-MAN cartoon toyline. Do you want to write a huge back-story, like a Filmation guide for the writers of the new show?” So, we said “Okay!” Zadoc took Season Two and I took Season One and we wrote this encyclopedia for Mattel. Then the show goes out and we don’t get a credit. So, after that, we come away from that totally burnt out. Zadoc and I pretty much go our separate ways at this point. It’s a shame but he went on to be a big agent in Hollywood and I went into DVD production.

About a year later, a UK company called Contender got the rights to release HE-MAN on DVD. This was the first time HE-MAN was on DVD – I meet with the guy [from Contender], we chat, and he asks “What ideas do you have for these DVD’s?” I said, jokingly, “We could do DVD commentaries!”, and he was like “Oh, that’s a great idea.” I said, “I have this friend from Birmingham, Dave Newman, he’s quite the talker so we should get him down and we��ll both do a really good commentary for you.” We get hired, we go into a recording studio and record a few commentaries for Volume 1 and then, a few months later do volume 2, 3, 4, 5… By Volume 5, the series wasn’t selling well on DVD unfortunately so the rest of the release series got cancelled.

MS: It’s funny you mention that because I was buying those DVD’s and then was mystified why they stopped. I searched for months for the next DVD but never found Volume 6.

JE: It got to Volume 5…? I want to say, it was the one with the women on the cover. That volume came out but it was really weird during that time: the studio where we were doing the recording was like a DVD production house and I was walking round the building, thinking, “Wow! This place is really nice.” A few months later, the producer of the DVD’s gets in contact and says “They are looking for a DVD QC-er.” I asked what that was and he said, “You basically watch DVD’s all day and report on errors.” I ended up working there for two years straight and for four years afterwards as a freelancer. At one point during that time I was getting paid to listen to my own DVD commentaries and I was getting paid to watch HE-MAN. I watched, I think, thirty episodes and I was thinking “This is brilliant. I’m getting paid to watch He-Man!”

I left that job because a company in the U.S. got the rights to HE-MAN and SHE-RA DVD’s and I was offered a job working on those, [doing] more writing and editing content. That was amazing! Two years after that, it was SHE-RA. Then, a year after that, it was the 2002 HE-MAN cartoon. Then that was it.

I went to Sony for a few years, then left there and Classic Media got in touch – it’s all about connections. When I was at Sony, this guy from Classic Media comes in to talk about some shows on DVD and people at Sony were like “Oh, Eatock is the HE-MAN guy, talk to him.” So, they say they are about to launch the HE-MAN YouTube channel and said, “We might be in touch if you want some work.” A year goes by and they finally get in touch.

I go to meetings and tell them what I want to do with the channel. They tell me what they want from the channel: “We want a million subscribers within a year!” I’m sat there, thinking, “It’s HE-MAN, not Justin Bieber!” If it was Justin Bieber’s HE-MAN channel… very different story [laughs]! I started to do the channel and it got a lot of support from the HE-MAN and SHE-RA fans. I was doing that channel pretty much by myself. I was coming up with the ideas, recording the audio and doing all the editing. My friend in Serbia, Dusan, was recreating the music tracks, piecing it all together to create instrumentals. Classic Media weren’t doing anything.

After a while it got to 2015 and I was burnt out by the channel and then Dark Horse got in touch. They were doing THE ART OF HE-MAN book at the time and they asked if I wanted to contribute and I said, “Yeah, sure.” When they sent over the PDF of the Filmation chapter, I was like, “Oh my God!” It wasn’t bad but it was very inaccurate. I went into that Filmation section, which was twenty something pages at that point, and I started from scratch. Dark Horse were, at the time, saying, “This [has ended up becoming] probably one of the best sections of the book!”

Then, the mini-comic book happened and I said to Dark Horse, “I’ve got this unpublished mini-comic, I don’t know if you would be interested in publishing it in the book.” They were like, “Yeah, sure.” So, the mini-comic book came out and based on my willingness to help, Val Staples [comic book and toy artist] said to me, “You should pitch a book about the cartoon.” I created this pitch and sent it to Dark Horse and they were like, “Yeah, let’s do this!” It could have been at least another hundred pages because, once I had done it, I found out even more. Just a month after I finished the book I got another thousand pieces of artwork and would have loved to have used those.

MS: How long did it take you to write HE-MAN AND SHE-RA: A COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE CLASSIC ANIMATED ADVENTURES?

JE: Well, I always wanted to do a guide like this. In 2009, I’m sitting there and decide to do an unofficial guide to the HE-MAN episodes. So I start off and I just wrote for half a year. It was all text. I checked with Mattel and they said, “As long as He-Man is not on the cover!” I sent them the cover, with He-Man shown in silhouette, and they said, “That’s fine!”

I self-publish the book and it sells about four thousand copies in the space of about half a year: even to this day, people still buy the unofficial one. So, that was one of my selling points to Mattel, and they asked, “How long will it take you to write an official book?” I said, “Well, most of it is written, but I do need to rewrite some bits…” I went through my Unofficial Guide, page by page, and I’m making corrections, rewriting a few things, and it became this [the official guide]. They [Dark Horse] were like “Hey, you can include the artwork in this one, y’know!”, so I started to scan [the screencaps] in by each episode and, by this time, I had all this wealth of material and just threw it all in the book. There is so much more that could have been included but most of it is in there.

MS: How did you acquire the artwork?

JE: I started collecting animation art in ’97. When I went to meet Zadoc in America, Zadoc was hanging out with a guy called Lee. Lee had been going into the warehouse where all the Filmation artwork was and was friends with Lou Scheimer. All the artwork that comprised of the HE-MAN shows, and other Filmation shows, were in these boxes in Los Angeles. So Lee had started going there in about ’99 I think. A few cells had been made available to the public – I managed to get one and it cost me a fortune.

Lee comes along and says “Look, if you want a specific cell from a certain episode, then I can get them.” I was like “Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” I’d heard people say that shit like this before. Lee starts showing me his collection and I was like, “Oh my God!” He had a lot of key scenes especially from THE SECRET OF THE SWORD [episode]. As I would find out a few years later, you would go to this warehouse they were all in boxes, all in order. It was four or five boxes per episode.

So you would go through all these cells – hose days are long gone now, that collection has gone from L.A. to San Diego and back to L.A. and, during that time, it has been rinsed. The last time I saw the collection was in a warehouse in San Diego and it was such a mess. You would be going through cells of HE-MAN and there would be cells of M.A.S.K. in there and THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS…!

image: he-man.org

MS: Why was this all taking place in San Diego?

JE: Because the guy who bought it lived in San Diego. I messaged him a month or two ago and said, “Hey, where’s the collection these days?” He’s said “It’s now in Los Angeles again.” A lot of it got damaged in transport. A lot of the SHE-RA stuff got damaged.

So, in 2001 when I went to meet Zadoc, I met Lee. Me and Lee went to the warehouse twice. It’s so funny to look back at it, I spent a fortune on animation cells. Then, as the years went on, I was buying cells for $250 each, but I was getting the choice cells. So I went there in 2001, 2005 and the last time I was in San Diego which was 2013 and by then that was pretty much all I could get.

As I said, by then, it was pretty much a mess – nothing was in order, loads of it was getting damaged. It was left on the floor! Cells were being ripped apart, there were idiots in that warehouse in San Diego that were graffiti-ing the cells. There was one… it was a drawing of the Sorceress sat down on her throne and someone had rubbed out her throne and drawn a toilet seat! The stupid thing is these idiots could have sold that and made $20 or $30.

When I was there in 2013, seeing all that shit, the owner of the warehouse said, “Look, I’m trying to get rid of this stuff. You can buy it off me, any piece of art for $2.” I think I bought like a thousand during that visit! Then, the last two acquisitions, I got another eight thousand.

When I was working at Classic Media, they said, “We have a bunch of stills from the show and they are in a warehouse out in the countryside.” Me and the guys go to this warehouse and they get these boxes out and I said, “These are the boxes that were in San Diego.” Basically, Classic Media had said to the warehouse in San Diego, “We own all this stuff now.” And they said, “Oh sure, we will send it to you.” Turns out it’s only about one percent of the boxes from San Diego. Classic Media think they’ve reclaimed the art and I said “No. You’ve reclaimed about 1% of it.” These people that owned just didn’t know.

I got to a warehouse in 2015, just outside London, and we go through boxes and I found a bunch of new pieces. I sold those at Orbital Comics. I went back to the warehouse in February of this year and they got the same boxes out and a few of the ones that were missing from last time. I said “Right, this is the last time I’m going to be doing this!” So I acquired more and will start selling it over the next few months… long story short, that’s how I acquired the artwork!

#gallery-0-5 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-5 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 50%; } #gallery-0-5 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-5 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

MS: There is a chapter about abandoned episodes. How did you find out about these?

JE: Again: everything is connected. Years ago, I bought the Filmation series guide, it was when the show was called HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, because the Masters Of The Universe were the villains, that was Skeletor’s ‘crew’. I always thought that was great. It was like He-Man AND the baddies, and I loved the idea that the villains were calling themselves the masters of the universe.

So I had this series guide and it had maybe five or six abandoned episodes. I thought that was interesting and made a note about them. Then, when we did the DVD’s, we got a bunch of material from Robby London who, along with Paul Dini, was one of the first people to sit down and type out synopsis for each episode. They were like three line synopsis and we had about seventy pages of abandoned episodes – some didn’t have titles. Rob Lamb, when he sent that first package, had a list of nine SHE-RA episode premises that he came up with and they were all really amazing. There is probably more out there because you could go to any writer of that show… I’ve never heard Larry DiTillio talk about abandoned episodes but I’m sure, if I went to him, he would find some.

MS: One of the last pages in the book is where you write about meeting Lou Scheimer. What was he like when you met him?

JE: He was awesome, he was so humble, he was one of the most humble human beings you could meet. I met him either four or five times. The first time was on the trip when I first met Zadoc and Lee. As I said, Lee was friends with him. Lee had gone to Filmation when they were closing their doors in 1989 – he had gone in their building by literally walking in their back door as they were putting shit in their dumpster. Lee just walks in and suddenly he is sitting in front of Lou, and Lou starts talking to him about the cartoons. Lee asked him, “Well, what’s going on now?”, and Lou said, “Filmation are gone. That’s it!”

Lee and Lou stayed in touch and thanks to that connection, when I went to L.A., we go to visit Lou Scheimer Animation Studios. It was a company that wanted to do stuff but wasn’t in the right place to do stuff. They did something called ROBIN AND THE DREAMWEAVERS, which if you ever see it will say “Ohhhhh, that’s… unique!” [laughs]. We saw a screening of [ROBIN] at Lou Scheimer Productions, watching this preview and they said, “We aren’t sure who we are targeting with this.” Mainly because there were scenes with Care Bear cuteness mixed with hardcore sex! They had people having sex in this apocalyptic America but yet, you have Care Bears and Robin trying to save the day for this Shadoweaver ripoff called Triple X, who is standing atop of a giant penis! They couldn’t sell that, nobody would buy it because it was, like, who do you target?? If it didn’t have the Care Bears, then you could perhaps target the teenagers and if it didn’t have the hardcore sex, you could target the kids. It was such a mixture, it was a mess.

So, we go to meet Lou in 2001 and as we walk in, he is walking out saying, “I’ve got a meeting”, and signs a poster – fleeting glance! We spent about five minutes talking to Erica Scheimer and then we leave. Then, when BIC did the huge HE-MAN DVD launch at San Diego Comic-Con in 2005, they kindly said they would fly me out – they did so two years in a row and I met Lou both those years.

The next time I met him, I was in L.A. working on some REAL GHOSTBUSTERS cartoon DVD’s and I went to Lou’s house – it was the most amazing house I’d ever been in. I think he said something along the lines of, “It was the house SUGAR SUGAR built!”, because he owned the rights to the old Archies record, which did very well and he made a lot of money off it. Subsequently, HE-MAN and SHE-RA made him even more money, so his house was amazing, in the valley of Los Angeles, and you drove up this hill – it was a giant mansion with three levels and the view of the entire valley. Lou was there and so personable and he remembered me from before. We went to lunch, it was such a lovely experience – he was such a normal man.

MS: Let’s wrap this up with a couple of quick-fire questions: what’s your favourite episode of HE-MAN?

JE: Easy. THE PROBLEM WITH POWER.

MS: Who is your favourite character?

JE: That’s a bit more tricky! It’s a toss-up between He-Man and Skeletor, after all – the series revolves around them. But, visually and design wise and the voice, I’m going to choose Trapjaw!

Find out more about James’ book, HE-MAN AND SHE-RA: A COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE CLASSIC ANIMATED ADVENTURES, and pick up your copy, here!

The @Mark_Searby Interview: JAMES EATOCK (@cerealgeek) talks fandom, evolution and HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE! JAMES EATOCK: The Mark Searby Interview Leonard Sultana: "Do you want to know what becoming a fan will get you?

#He-Man & The Masters Of The Universe #interview #James Eatock #Mark Searby

0 notes