#daniel is perhaps joining in a distant future

[notfeelingthyaster]

self publicizing my own fanfic because i fear loumandstat not popular, but i shall persevere

https://archiveofourown.org/works/58295890

[worldsendroleplay]

Monday, September 7th, 2020

Greetings, dear reader.

Things have been chaotic this week. No one seems to agree on what happened in their pasts, such as Morgana very clearly remembering joining a group of bandits. How could that happen, however, when Morgause supposedly kidnapped her when she was ten? I, for one, am dying to know. Some have accepted these changes as being the world's doing but others prefer to have full-on debates. One such argument transpired between Narcissa Malfoy and Teddy Lupin, who remember entirely different things. Can't we all agree to disagree? There is no way to figure out what is the true history and I promise that you are not going to figure it out by telling others they are remembering it wrong when you, too, are probably remembering wrong as well. 

Moving onto our arrivals this week, let us extend a warm welcome to those dropping in (and hopefully, staying). Some were greeted with open arms and being told what to expect, such as Dr. Daniel Jackson, Blaze Ashford, Simon Tam, and Mariah Hunter. Eiriana received an especially warm welcome, having been greeted by none other than Uther Pendragon. He showed exceptionally unusual grace towards the Druid child and would not allow himself to leave her alone. He offered her a place to stay in his own apartment! Some did not have the same luck as Charlotte 'Lottie' Roth who was faced with a rough... Breakup? I am as confused as she is. Perhaps the loved one she encountered, Louis Weasley, can give us a more detailed explanation as to what happened. In the case of brothers Adrian and Ben Hargreeves, they arrived together and therefore did not get the same explanation as the rest. I know all is well, though; they are in the same boat as the rest, since no one really knows what is going on even if some citizens have been here for nearly two years now. 

What do you get when you put two angelic superpowers inside the same opera house? Granted that one is the Devil himself and the other is his estranged son, theatergoers should be glad that their preferred scene for entertainment remains intact. In a rage from Jack Kline's demonstration of high power, Lucifer may have trashed a few chairs. And have broken off a chunk of a balcony. In Lucifer's defense, Jack was as adamant as only a teenager can be that their whole 'relation by blood' meant nothing. Whoever says parenting is easy is a big, fat liar (once more, Gwaine and Izzy can confirm).

Snakes are one of the most commonly feared creatures worldwide but it seems that even their slithering cannot keep a friendship from blooming between Astrid Caldwell and Nita Daaé. The two took a trip to the laboratory where Nita works and saw the tiny beasts destined to one day watch over her home. I cannot blame Astrid for growing close to Nita, nor can I blame Nita for reciprocating. Ferdinand, the only named one of the scaled bunch, was cute enough to pull them together. Perhaps Nita’s murderous history will scare Astrid away instead. Or spiders.

And now onto our weekly murder recap! Alastor has struck again, though this week he chose a bigger target. By that, I mean Alastor picked the least physically imposing man around... who happens to be the most powerful sorcerer to walk the earth. What began as a friendly chat quickly turned into a power showdown between the demon and the warlock Merlin. Difficult as it is to kill someone who is the human embodiment of magic itself, our Alastor found a way: stabbing the warlock in the stomach and leaving him for dead. For everyone reading this, look out because Alastor has proved himself to be a force to be reckoned with! I quiver in my distant seat.

However, Alastor is not the only killer in the cities, proven this week by Janis Arden, the Jedi who played judge, jury, and executioner. She faced Anakin Skywalker, the man who would march on the Jedi Temple and be responsible for the death of millions in his future. He gave her the option to take her revenge, and (as many others would do, too) she took it, using her lightsaber to stab him a few times and then slice off his head. However, to strike down an unarmed man... I am starting to wonder if he is the only one fated to go down a dark path. It is too bad that even I cannot see the future. Whatever happens next is up to Janis. 

That is all for my report this week.

Go on, dear reader, and do not forget to share this with your friends!

Your Editor thanks you.

[betterglobebettergreatness]

Great Leaders Pay Attention

You're a leader. And now, you want to move from good to great! What's it going to take?

You've read, even studied the inner workings of emotional intelligence. You're bringing it to light more and more in your daily routine. Now what's all this about Focus?

What does Emotional Intelligence have to do with Focus? And why should you care?

Because you can't reach your potential as a leader without it! Period!

The guru of emotional intelligence has written succinctly on both. There is a practical, meaningful link that will impact your leadership - whatever your style, wherever you are geographically and regardless of the type of organization you lead.

How has he answered the question about the connection between EQ (emotional intelligence) and Focus?

According to Goldman, emotional intelligence requires self-awareness-awareness of our own minds and emotions-as well as empathy, both of which can be cultivated by honing our skills of attention.

"When I set out to write this book, I knew I was going to explore the explosion of new important research about attention," says Goldman. "But what I didn't realize was that it was going to lead me back to emotional intelligence."

Paying attention is critical. Goldman talks about focus on inner, other and outer.

Daniel Goldman: The fundamental thing to understand about inner focus is that we can be aware of our own awareness. There is such a thing as meta-awareness, meta-cognition, meta-emotion-the perspective we can take that allows us to monitor our inner world rather than just be swept away by it. That, in turn, gives us a point of leverage for handling that inner world better-without it, we're lost.

For example, in Emotional Intelligence I looked at distressing emotions, which are generated by the brain's amygdala and emotional threat. In order to manage the amygdala hijack, you have to be aware that it's happening. Meta-awareness becomes the fulcrum from which you can handle emotions, handle your inner world, handle the thoughts which generate upsetting emotions or which help you, in a positive way, manage them for the better.

Great leaders pay attention - to people, strategy, arising situations. AND THEIR INNER WORLD. And they do so with focus.

So what about other focus?

Does that mean they don't attach to the technological tools that often distract the rest of us? A resounding NO! is the answer. Great leaders are more strategic about their use of tools and time.

Goldman says that we are all "under siege" so concentrating on Focus is particularly timely now.

And leaders lead other people - often in challenging situations.

He says:... "being able to focus on the other person rather than the text you just received has become the new fundamental requirement for having a relationship with that person. And I think this is another reason to develop a meta-awareness about where our attention has gone. I think we need to make more effort and cultivate more strength to detach [our attention] from that thing that is so tempting over there, and bring it back to the person in front of us."

Finally, the third kind of focus - is systems focus. Again Goldman says, "This is more elusive. We have dedicated [brain] circuitry for self-management, self-awareness. We have dedicated circuitry for empathy. The brain doesn't have the equivalent of that dedicated circuitry for sensing, for instance, the ways in which humans systems of construction, energy, transportation, industry, and commerce are inexorably deteriorating global systems that support life. It's too macro or too micro for sensory systems in the first place."

We literally don't perceive global warming directly in the way we see a person's wince or wink, and register that immediately. We don't have an alarm system for that like the way we hear a growl-a growl alerts the amygdala and springs the stress hormones into action. But when it comes to global warming, actually, the brain shrugs. It's something we have to learn about and learn to care about and learn to detect indirectly, so it's a bigger stretch. We care about the present far more than the distant future, which is invisible-we don't notice it.

The neuroscience behind this?

For example, meditation is, from a cognitive science point of view, the retraining of attention-a bulking up of the neural circuitry that allows you to detach from where your mind has wandered, bring it back to the point of focus, and keep it there. That is the basic repetition of the mind in any kind of meditation. And that's also what builds up the willpower to resist the pull of electronics and stay with the human world.

And meditation comes in many flavors. As a leader, you can choose anything from breathing exercises to martial arts, yoga to mindfulness practice, Ongoing to observing a candle flame and everything in between.

Again, Goldman - "From a neuroscience point of view, I think the standard way this has been approached is exactly the wrong way to get people to care and act about global warming. Mainly they either threaten us with destruction or guilt trip us. That activates centers in the brain for negativity, for distressing emotions. And when we feel distressing emotions, the brain wants us to turn them off-either tune them out or do one little thing [to make us feel better]. And I think that's one of the main reasons why the environmental movement has had such a poor record of getting the general public to do much about the environmental crisis."

There is a more clever way of getting people involved: Rather than looking at footprints, which is all the bad that we're doing, look at hand prints, which is the sum total of all the good things we do to lower our footprint.

This is the brainchild of Gregory Norris, who is at the Harvard School of Public Health. The hand print approach means that you get points for every time you ride your bike to work or walk instead of ride, when you recycle, when you print on both sides of the paper, when you don't print at all. All of those things that help can be counted, and the idea is to grow your hand print rather than your footprint. That is a goal we can work toward in small baby steps that are manageable and that we can feel good about. And that motivates the parts of the brain which keep us working toward our goals.

So great leaders need to MOTIVATE their peeps and do it in a way that leads their teams to care about, think about and work on systems ( the invisible future) in the ways they care about the more immediate emotional and situational events arising now.

And while there is growing concern about young people's ability to focus, Goldman is encouraging. He covers in the book, that focus is to a certain extent under our control-that it's a skill we can build.

Goldman:... "we do have to work at building it. And for that reason I really advocate an intention-strengthening exercise as a kind of mental fitness that we practice daily, just as you might jog."

Goldman, the former New York Times science journalist turned best-selling author, is perhaps still best known for his 1995 book Emotional Intelligence, which was followed by Social Intelligence more than a decade later. Like those earlier works, Focus synthesizes findings from years of research across the social, behavioral, and cognitive sciences-in this case, on the roots and importance of our attention skills.

So as a leader on the road to greatness, begin practicing focus - the art and science of paying attention. Like all practice, it requires a strong intention, and the self-compassion to overcome the inevitable hurdles that arise. Yet, paying attention pays off - big time. So what's it going to be? Choose a practice and get an accountability partner on your side. Hire a coach, join a Mastermind Group, but do something because its clear, great leaders pay attention!

[jedimasteramell]

haunted (greyscale heart)

Flystep // Marshal Harbinger AU // Very Not SFW

For @smuteczekbiczo and @technologicalnoiz because Im in way too deep with Jed/Danny. Uhh Idk, it was an excuse for angst and smut, 2.5K words.

---------

The embers hissed at the waters contact. White-grey smoke overtaking the cloying black as the flames sputtered for their last raging grasp at life, turned to thick, ashy sludge, the firefighters finally subduing the charred remains of what used to be an apartment building. So many lives upturned, so many possessions lost and lives of the unfortunates just the same, both now nothing but smoke rising into the Los Diablos sky. Yet as the rest of the team escorted a broken and defeated Pyre away from his wreckage, Marshal Harbinger’s mind was years away, back to the memories of a younger man and softer person, staring at the ashes of another ruined building.

Funny how fires were as renewing as they were destructive.

The incessant click of cameras and drone of voices indicated the arrival of reporters on the scene. The Public Privacy Law may have prevented photos of the victorious heroes and humiliated villain, but they still lapped up the images of destruction, eager to twist the loss of lives to garner whichever opinion they wanted. Jackals and ungratefuls the lot of them.  

“Marshal Harbinger, Marshal!” The voice is from one or all of them, a swell at the LDPD lines trying to break through for the newest scoop. With difficulty he tore his gaze from the slurry of smoke and charred slag to the unruly group of journalists and TV correspondents. Camera flashes blocked the faces of the crowd, not that he cared to recognize them beyond being human. His face fixed itself into less of a scowl to something more appropriate for television. After all these years, they still loved their golden flyer, conveniently forgetting that angels had always been more Harbingers than Heralds. 

He held up two fingers to silence the crowd, and almost like mind control, the clamoring stilled. “The situation has been contained, the culprit in custody.”

Despite his move to turn away, that opened up the floodgates for questions.

“Is it true Pyre is behind the recent arsons?”

 “How do you rate the work of your new team?”

“Are the Ranger’s working on preventing this from happening again?”

Harbinger started. “That’ll be all-”

“A lot of lives were lost today, would you have handled it any better back when you were Herald?” 

The question gives him pause, a jerk to his navel from the ring of his old name. Harbinger scanned the crowd, hard gaze landing on a man with warm brown hair, green eyes, and a cocky smile that was awful and familiar all at once at once; recognition like a punch to the gut. Jed. He mouthed the name he hadn’t dared say aloud on years. It couldn't possibly be an yet-  

He blinked and the ghost disappeared, leaving an eager but confused reporter in its place, recorder outstretched waiting for the answer. The man looked nothing like the longed-for haunt of his imagination. This was why he never looked at a crowd to long, he’d always see him there even after all this time. He could almost see Jed shake his head and narrow his eyes that way he did when his better moods caught Herald off guard, turning and tossing up his hand in goodbye. Funny thing about fires… The smoke must be getting to him. 

“Marshal…? Sir?” They still hung on the silence, waiting for an answer. “Would you have acted any different?”

Stern and stony as the blacked concrete behind him, Harbinger fixed the assembled with a long, impenetrable gaze. “No.” 

****

The stench of smoke followed him home, clinging to his uniform, his hair, his heart, greasy and dark; a slow and progressing cancer through his veins and the worn pieces of memories, rank and debilitating. 

Even after he stripped himself of his suit, leaving the midnight navy mesh a shedded second skin on the floor, the scent clung to him, trailing him to the shower, cold tile underfoot. When was the last time he floated? The thought crossed his mind, impassive and without true concern. Flying was in his blood, the fight to be free an inescapable part of his nature now, yet for the longest time he’d been grounded. Years now, since the first fire that still smoked from the cracks in the man he’d been. 

Daniel surveyed the person who wore his face the mirror. Harbinger had a harshness to him, lines angled like the charcoal faces in his old sketchbooks. Anger, disappointment, loss... heartbreak, scored and scarred him older than he was. He used to be scared of who he was becoming, but perhaps Harbinger had simply been in him the whole time.

A darker side, another facet, what you turn into to survive…

He has to tear his eyes away before the reflection shows the hard blue slipping into furious green. His heart twinged with an old pain, an understanding too little too late. 

Everything they had long since up in smoke. 

His hands left ashey prints on the pristine sink, he still smelled the fire on him, still ached from the scars, earned and given. Fingertips trailed to the brand of teeth on his thigh, sending a shiver down his spine. Daniel dug his nails against the scars, the pain a relieving rush to the against the deadened experience of his new normal. He felt himself twitch, and he swore under his breath, voice raw and unfamiliar from inhaling the smoke. He didn’t dare face the scowling shame in the mirror. Fuck, he needed a shower. 

Scalding water and scented soap stripped away the grime and the stench of the smoke that clung to his skin and his hair. He pressed his hands to gleaming walls, spray running rivulets down his neck and chest. It wasn't much for his mind to wander. A toothy grin, the way he'd laughed at the crown of suds, fiery eyes pulled back from those distant futures they stared to. A kiss, then another, teeth at his throat, a knee shifted between his thighs, the gasp at the cold tile at his back- 

Daniel's eyes shot open, the kiss of cold real having backed himself up against the shower wall. The flush on his skin had little to do with the hot spray and entirely with his growing hard on.

Allowing himself the gift of a few heavy-handed palms, he focused on the uncomfortable coolness of the tile to keep from slipping back in the memory, and in the shower itself. He dragged at his hardness, biting his lip to stifle the sounds despite not having anyone else in the apartment. An intrusive thought broke through, husky and amused. *Heh, floating really made this a whole lot safer.*

He cursed his memory, even as he jumped in his hand. Now he was just wasting water, giving in to the inevitable. A moan stirred from his lips, wet with steam and flushed from biting them, his hand moved in practices pulls, rough, harder than he needed to be, just to get it done and get on with his night- *Not here.* A little voice interrupted, trickling in from shadowed corners of the ceiling and the dark recesses of his mind. *You know the beds a better bet.*

“Shut it.” Harbinger growled at the ghost, though he stilled his hand regardless at the suggestion, a blunt nail across his slit that made him hiss and bite into his lower lip. He should ignore the suggestion, finish himself before the hot water ran out, not give into the cloying memories that clung to him no matter how hard he scrubbed. 

The bed it was.

While the mattress had changed, the size had not, yet the bed felt bigger sleeping in it alone. Dan laid back, tried to relax against the pillows, shut his eyes and think about anyone, anything, but Jed. His damn hair stuck uncomfortably to the back of his neck a distraction that persisted through the several uneventful minutes of heavy-handed pumps and his body’s refusal to climax. With a frustrated huff, he stared up at the ceiling. 

Empty. He was empty. Hollow, used up, unfulfilled. At least the physical need he could satisfy tonight.  

In the din his fingers fumbled for the bed stand drawer, finding the small bottle and then his toy, one used more oft than the other. He wrapped his mouth around the now-tasteless silicone needing both hands to unscrew the cap on the lube. His tongue traced the familiar nubs on the head of his toy, the semi-soft purple cock lacking all the fun textures and tastes that he'd come to enjoy with a real dick. But it didn't have to be human, it just had to get him off, and he groaned around it all the same as the first of his lube-slicked fingers teased into himself. 

He sighed around the toy, closing his eyes to enjoy the sensation. One finger wasn't nearly enough, and Dan was forced to shift to his side, spreading his legs further for the second to join. He tried and failed not to recall how this felt with a partner, the anticipation, the want for them to tease deep enough to stroke his spot and relieve him of everything but the moment they were sharing. He thought of freckles and scars, of jokes about tying him down to not float away. A third finger flexed him wide in time to his hand once more on his erection. 'Just fill me.' He whined in his mind, though no one could hear, and the embarrassment of his need flushed his cheeks as much as his cock. He removed his fingers with a further keen, loathing the return of the emptiness even as he relished what was to come, spit dripping from his lips around his toy. This'd be easier on his knees. 

It was a slow shift, reaching underneath himself to work the toy. He ground the sheets between his teeth, face framed in fallen hair, another layer to hide the subtle shame. His hand slipped, slick from the lube, forcing the tip against his prostate and just for a moment he could remember the calloused hands in perfect imprint, warm breath and that huff that always hid the laugh tingling the hair on the back of his neck.

*I like you like this Dan.*

It’s only after he groaned that Daniel realized he had mimed the words himself, not stirred them from memory. He flushed with a kind of shame. Was this where he’d fallen to? The man he’d become, empty, waiting, wanting? The toy pressed against his prostate again and chased away that line of thought. He went back to biting his sheets, reacclimating himself to the fullness, moaning unrestrained when he finally felt it slide fully into place. 

*That’s it, that’s good, fuck you're still gorgeous.* The voice in his mind crooned, urging him on. 

He wrapped his free hand back around his erection striking up an unsteady rhythm working the toy in counter to his motions. Daniel had to shift again for better access, to keep himself from sliding. His shoulders strained and hurt from the angle he made them work, groaning into the mattress as he fought for a much needed release. It wasn’t enough, and he had to work himself faster, knowing all too well he’d hurt tomorrow, but he didn’t care, in that moment the hand on his cock wasn't his own, the piece stretching him wasn’t a toy, and he was still young enough to float thanks to the heady excitement that pooled below his stomach, back when all these sensations were new. 

His breathing came in heavier gasps, muffled by the mattress as he spat out the sheets. He tilted his head, looking along his long-since scarred chest to his leaking cock and the hand pumping it. Daniel flicked a nail against his head and he then bucked his hips into his fist, surrendering himself fully to his memories. Hot hands, hotter mouths, the taste of sweat and skin and orgasm, freckles, scars, new positions, new hopes, new love. 

“I’m gunna-” He rasped, proclamation interrupted by a fresh moan. He wouldn’t last, he never did like this, burying his flushed features back in the sheets.

*Don’t hide your face, sunshine. I want to see you.*

“Jed.” He whined, loudly, and that was enough, coming across his hand and onto his sheets in the final release of a body wound far too tense. He bit his lip, holding his breath to savor every final shiver, the warm rush of post orgasm, and had he focused more he might have sworn he imagined a soft laughter slipping away as his body unwound.

As Daniel lay there spent for several long minutes, listening to the settling of his heart and evening of his breath, sweat cooling and his skin clammy, he finally realized he no longer heard the voice from his memories, the whispers of sweet nothing had faded into the silent corners in the shadowed bedroom. He grunted removing the toy, thighs trembling at the sudden emptiness and limp cock responding with a half-hearted twitch. Tired fingers fumbled for the towel to wipe himself down and with an effort he heaved his tired body through the greys of his room in search of fresh laundry.

Maybe tomorrow it’d be easier, back to the hum-drum of playing Marshal for Los Diablos, back to staring at the featureless faces that would leave or vanish or warp until they were as jaded as his was. Maybe tomorrow he’d stop being haunted by a long list of regrets and metaphorical basket full of too-little-to-late’s. 

Harbinger crawled back into his bed, shoving aside the soiled sheet, and staring up into darkness. For a moment he yearned for the rough voice, the ghostly kisses, and could almost remember what it was like to feel his heart floating when those lovely, lost, eyes settled on him and not the what-ifs over his shoulder. 

But like ash in the wind, the memory blew away, sending Daniel into a deep and blessedly dreamless sleep. 

------

A shade of a man walked through an endless forest. The black trunks around him immovable as soldiers standing at attention, heads turned towards the near-starless sky. He didn’t glance up at the inky twilight, held no lamp for light, footsteps making no sounds against the soft debris of leaves and needles that carpeted the wood.

He didn’t need a map, spoke no words, legs taking him on a familiar trail visible to no one, weaving deeper and deeper into a clearing in the center of the muted, elegiac weald. The grasses rippled with an unheard wind and the empty cage at the far edge had long since given way to nature’s reclaim.It was only here that he finally looked up, the two paired stars overhead the only bit of light casting the world into greyscale instead of pitch. His smoke-made expression was inscrutable, the line that would have served for his mouth unmoving. 

At last something seemed to confirm with him, some unknown message from the stars and the figure shook his head. He turned and paused at the edge of the clearing, for a heartbeat, or maybe an eternity, but with no sign or sound to keep him, he stepped out of the pale glow, and was swallowed up once more by the darkness.

[furiious]

          “ what separates the wolf from the sheep is not a matter of good or evil.               we all have teeth  —  but only some of us are willing to use them. ”

* ╰ danielle rose russell ; 17 ; she/her —— wow,  alecto carrow  sure has changed. i guess  she  is feeling isolated from the other  ravenclaw  members. guess you can’t really blame her. i still remember her being so  sharp & poised  now she just seems  cautious & proud  guess being a  pureblood  isn’t helping matters much either. i’m hopeful though. they’ll be just fine. ( zoe ; cst ; 21 ; she/her ) 

WARNINGS:  discussions of war, feelings of parental neglect, alcohol mention, weapon mention, manipulation   ADDITIONAL MATERIALS:   alecto’s playlist, stats page, & pinterest board    ADDITIONAL NOTES:  in a shocking move this intro was ALSO frankensteined from a series of old intros, apologies in advance for any nonsense

the carrow family had amycus, so it wasn’t a total let down when alecto ilse carrow was born and was born a girl. but if everyone was being honest, there wasn’t any real thrill there for her either. they loved her in a rote way and cared for her in a rote way and their distance and cool removal from her life spoke more than anything they ever did for her.

they would tell strangers, of course we love our daughter, she’s beautiful, she’s clever, what a gift to the carrow name. but alecto herself couldn’t recall ever hearing them tell her they loved her, not to her face. such was life. 

the carrows, historically, were not the most refined when it came to the most sacred. they were a good and righteous family, sure, sometimes zealots but seldom forgotten. they were still one of the best families. they had wealth and connections enough, bloodlines going as far back as any of the other twenty-eight’s; but they were not half so perfect. 

their history was a colorful one, not polished to a bland and shining silver. 

alecto didn’t like people not expecting greatness from her so she made changing that expectation her mission at, let’s be real, too young an age.

they thought carrows weren’t the ones to beat. fine. wasn’t she one to beat all on her own? wasn’t she enough to change the tides of her family’s reputation?

her parents, they were amused; let her try, for soon she’d realize that she was a girl, and would always, always fall short of expectations. 

she decided this at eight years old; so to start, this mission of hers meant letting her parents make her beautiful, set her hair with sparkling combs and dress her in delicate dresses. she presented a flawless front to anyone looking at her expecting another carrow wildcard. she’d always been very, very smart; she knew what game they were all playing & just how to play it.

( didn’t they all know how easy it was? to become like them? )

around the same time as she came to this decision for the path she’d tackle the rest of her life, her aunt dulcinea died and crushed alecto’s heart. aunt dulcinea & uncle anatole were distant carrow relatives and in alecto’s weaker, punishable, childish moments  —  she’d wished they’d been her parents. she wished it stupidly, in place of wishing for her own parents to love her.

she received dulcinea’s wand (  12 ¼", griffin feather and aspen, quite flexible and carved with a loving hand ) after her death, and though she wasn’t of an age yet to use magic, her uncle practiced dueling with her using sticks found in the gardens on the carrow estate. even before she could legally utter a single spell, alecto was a skilled duelist. she tucked this into her back pocket like a secret; would let out shining peals of false laughter if ever anyone asked about those dueling lessons. her, dueling? no, no, no. she was itty, bitty, and ladylike, faint at the very idea of fighting. her uncle anatole had simply been indulging her silly games of make - believe.

she made friends greedily as a child, ostensibly so she could have those connections, that network, that was so vital in the lives of adults in her society. but she also just fed on human connection. she loathed how much liked people to like her and resented that she needed people at all.

probably tried to imitate that distance her parents had with her with every new friend or acquaintance. she loved talking and hated talking all at once, but she did pride herself on being able to fill hours of conversation with no substance at all.

of course, all the feigned distance in the world couldn’t keep her from finding actual friends, and she would honestly kill for those she cares for.  

generally indiscriminate about the people she did make casual friends or acquaintances of; she let herself think this was because she a.) didn’t actually care about blood status and b.) needed to present neutral anyway, but it was probably because she just liked not being alone.

if she found someone she fit with, it was done. blood status was immaterial to that.

she could be very cruel to those around her  —  not necessarily on purpose, but also not not on purpose. there was a threshold, where acquaintances shifted into someone alecto would trust with her life. at that threshold she tended to turn mean, to turn people away, and it was a horrible habit and one she wouldn’t break.

alecto couldn’t be paid to give two shits about blood status. but just because she can care for or befriend a muggleborn with no internal struggle doesn’t mean she'd ever actively do anything to help them out. she didn’t have much exposure to people of other blood statuses as a child & that’s when she set her heart on winning at life in pureblood circles. 

so while her stomach curls at the lack of intelligence she sees as inherit in blood purist ideologies she doesn’t actually  ...  fight the fact that pureblood circles are run on purist ideologies. plus, for as much as she hates being tied to her parents, she’s loyal to the carrow name. if they’re not jumping ship and joining the equality train, then she won’t either. 

she’d rather break her heart and throw herself into a cause liable to kill her than become her own person separate from the life she’s wasted years building.

( this is what she tells herself. it is a lie, her biggest one: so she needn’t think on all the million escape plans and defections in her head. )

alecto just had to strap her knives and wand to her thigh with pretty little garters, the better to flash the steel beneath silk skirts and lace robes. she learned to enjoy the refined burn of shots worth more galleons than some could ever see. she learned to love glittering adornments, and tossing her hair, and beguiling with a single flash of her pearly-white fangs. she was good. except when she was bad. and loathe though she was to admit it, she could still find enough ancient carrow in her to be very, very bad  ...  when she so chose. 

badness could very easily be written off as youth, except by those who shared alecto’s youth with her. to them, well, it was her destructive tendencies coming out to play. it was her forgetting which line in the sand she was supposed to pretend to care about. it was her growing tired of the never ending act she’d started years and years ago. it was her doing very reckless things, perhaps unknowingly  ---  or perhaps awaiting the mess she’d leave in her wake.

she’d have to fix the mess, of course, and in that fixing would lie the cool reminder that while she looks like any of the rest of them, she will always be a carrow. and carrows are too sharp, too much, and so alecto is, too.

( the secret was she was too much alecto to be anything, really )

she doesn’t even? like pureblood society that much?? she resents the idea that she’ll have to marry some man eventually, who she likely won’t care about and who likely won’t appreciate her for all that she is. but if she wants to be more than a wife or mother she knows she’d have to show her hand  ---  reveal that she has a mind for strategy & knows a thousand wicked things, sign herself away to the war for a side she doesn’t believe in. neither option is a good one.

alecto didn’t want to fight; but she knew if she has to give in, she could get away with bartering her mind to instead concoct a hundred awful plans of attack. she’d never have to lift her own wand  ...  but she’d have to bear the reality of the things done under her advice. that might even be worse than letting herself be an unimportant soldier.

in a perfect world she could lay down in neutral ground and not move a muscle for either side. but what would that make of her family loyalty? the last thing she wants is more disappointment from her parents. more proof that she’s never been what they wanted.

this was, of course, no perfect world. alecto was not the sort of girl who lived in happy endings. so while she didn’t want to join the war, had no desire to loan her mind to the death eaters  ---  she knew she would. she would have to. she was a carrow, and so of course she’d join the fight.

the plain and simple fact of the matter was that there was no possible path for her that didn’t beat her heart into bloody submission. so that life, that planned future, was better than nothing at all. right?

no one needed to know she hated this; softness was worse than wildness, in alecto’s eyes. her wildness couldn’t be helped, but she’d die before anyone saw her weak. let them see a ruthless game-player with a heart carved from crystalline ice. let them see a girl, damnably neutral while she still could be, cards always held close to the chest. 

masks like that were simple. alecto knew masks, could pluck one from her shelves and put it on in her sleep. it was easier, after all, to not think; some part of alecto has always known this, long learned how to turn off her racing thoughts, her conscience, her heart, in order to do what needed to be done. she hates it. but she does it. 

sooner or later alecto will give in  ---  in a way that can never be undone. or, perhaps, she will come to hate feeling her family’s belated pride resting on her head like poisoned laurels. 

she prays for the former and hopes for the latter, with her wicked, traitorous heart.

[salaciouscrumpet]

Whumptober Day 22

Whumptober Day 22 Prompt: “Hallucination”

As is becoming my norm I had a few different ideas to take this prompt in, but I ended up deciding that one of those ideas is big enough to be put in one of my future books, so I’m holding on to that one. Instead I decided to use this prompt to share a little backstory.

Introducing yet another new character who, for reasons that will immediately become obvious, won’t be featuring too heavily in the actual series.

CW: suicide (not a main character), suicidal ideation, complicated feelings about suicide, non-graphic references to childhood sexual abuse, victim blaming, homophobia, implied alcohol abuse, foul language

I don’t think it’s a particularly dark ficlet, even for Whumptober, but given the triggering nature of these issues I thought it important to caution for them.

Characters: Luke, Danny 

Once upon a time the rocky outcropping on the north end of the island had been Luke’s refuge. It was far enough away from the house that his parents couldn’t be bothered to come find him there unless he was in real trouble, and his younger sister Alice didn’t like the cold breeze that always seemed to come in off the lake. Milena was too young to wander off on her own, so she was easy enough to escape. The only person who looked for Luke there was Danny, and that was okay, Luke idolized Danny. 

Luke had idolized Danny. 

“You’re dead,” Luke said, facing out towards the water as his brother joined him along the rocks. The lake was especially choppy, dark waves topped with whitecaps. The water would be cold if he were to wade into it, and the air would be even colder when he got out. 

“Yup,” Danny agreed, sounding ridiculously complacent about it. He also sounded … young. 

After a moment of silence Luke turned and faced his brother, sucking in a startled breath when he saw him. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting – something gruesome, maybe, given that Daniel Kandarian Jr. had been dead for twenty years – but it wasn’t the young-looking person beside him. Danny had been three years older than Luke, and in his mind Luke always thought of his brother as being perpetually older than him, even as his memories of what his brother had looked like remained untouched by the years. Danny had died at sixteen, however, and while that had seemed so much older to thirteen-year-old Luke, thirty-four-year-old Luke recognized him as the child he’d been. And yet, still, Danny somehow seemed older than Luke. 

“This isn’t real,” Luke said, turning away again. He was glad Danny didn’t look the way he should look after being buried for two decades, but at the same time it cut something deep inside to see him there, that face so familiar and yet so painfully young. Sixteen had been too young to die; even twenty years later, Luke wanted to scream at the unfairness of it. 

“Nope,” Danny agreed, still cheerful. He’d always been a little shit; he’d just seemed cooler to the younger brother who had idolized him. He gestured vaguely out towards the water, and for a brief moment Luke thought he saw … something … out beyond the horizon. Glimpses of a hospital room, machines with too many wires and flashing lights, and a set of anxious faces bowed over the bed. Then it was gone, and there was nothing but the waves and the skyline, dark and forbidding. 

“Something’s wrong with me.” Luke frowned out at the water, trying to remember. There had been a patrol, he recalled that much. He’d been with Kate and Gin and … one of the new recruits, a young man whose name eluded him at the moment. Carter? Kerry? Carson? Something like that. They had stumbled across a nest of fledgling demons and then … Nothing. It was all blank. His body ached, though, all through his joints and muscles, and there was a sharper pain in his side. He felt cold and sore and unbelievably tired. He glanced at Danny out of the corner of his eye and saw his brother watching him intently. “Am I dead? Dying?” 

Danny shrugged. “Beats the hell outta me, dude. This is your dream.” 

“Right.” Luke sighed. “Great.” 

He turned away from the water, unsettled by the vague glimpses of an outside world that he kept getting beyond the waves. In the opposite direction there was nothing but trees, although he knew that if he were to walk further in he would soon come to his parents’ house near the middle of the island. He hadn’t been ‘home’ in over a decade, not since his father had disavowed him. He imagined not much had changed; his parents had never been big on changing. He’d learned that at a young age, and both he and Danny had paid the price for it in their own ways. 

“I never really forgave you, you know,” Luke said softly. He shifted restlessly, one foot to the other, and the fact that he could hear the wind through the trees but not the sounds of his booted feet scraping against rock reminded him that he was dreaming, or maybe hallucinating. It seemed his brain could only fabricate so much of the world around him; anything more, and the details just weren’t there. 

“Yeah, I know,” Danny replied, his own voice just as soft. He didn’t sound apologetic, exactly, but that might have just been because he, too, was a fabrication of Luke’s mind, and Luke didn’t have many memories of his older brother sounding genuinely sorry about anything. 

“For a long time I thought maybe they’d done it. I know Dad had the coroner’s report changed so that your death was ruled an accident, but I thought … maybe it wasn’t you. That it hadn’t been you who’d done it to yourself.” 

Danny let out a startled laugh. “That’s fucked up, dude. You’d rather think Mom and Dad killed me, than I killed myself?” 

Luke nodded once, jerkily. It was fucked up, but as a devastated thirteen-year-old he couldn’t understand why his older brother would have done something so selfish. How Danny, who he adored and worshiped, could just leave him like that. It wasn’t that it had been easier to believe their parents had killed him – or had had him killed – it was just that it was impossible to imagine Danny had done it to himself. It was only years later, as an adult, that Luke could look back on the situation and realize that although he hadn’t seen it at the time, his brother had been profoundly sad and troubled as a teenager. What had made it particularly confusing for Luke at the time was that in the days leading up to his suicide, Danny had suddenly started seeming happy and hopeful. Up until the moment that Danny was found hanging from a belt in his bedroom, Luke had thought he was finally, finally getting his big brother back after months of Danny being distant and cold. Adult-Luke recognized that brief period of hopefulness and happiness as a sign that his brother had made the decision to kill himself; child-Luke had had no idea. 

“They didn’t kill me,” Danny said. His tone was still unbelievably soft and gentle. “You know that, right, bud? I killed myself.” 

“Yeah,” Luke acknowledged. He did know, now. 

He wanted to ask why. Why had his older brother ended his own life? But the reality was, this wasn’t really his older brother standing here, and any answer this version of Danny could have given him would have to come from Luke’s own mind. And while Luke wanted to pretend that he didn’t know, the truth of the matter was that he suspected a number of things had played a factor in his brother’s decision to end his own life, and he would never truly know which reason was the real reason. Maybe they all were. 

Was it because their parents had put too much pressure on him, the same as they had done to Luke – to all of their children, really, except for Sam, who had been born six years after Danny’s death. Sam had been born and was instantly the golden child who could do no wrong, and even after Luke’s disavowal from the Order he had remained mercifully untouched by their parents’ abuse. Danny had been the Heir, the Kandarian who would go on to join the Knighthood and continue bringing glory and honour to the family name. He would marry well, and he and his wife would produce strong Incarnate children who would also carry on their legacy. 

Only Luke suspected that his older brother had been gay and trying to hide it, knowing full well that it wasn’t accepted within the more conservative members of the Order – including their parents. That knowledge had prompted Luke to hide his own interest in boys later on – that, and a persistent fear that Sleswick had made him be that way – and focus instead on his equal interest in girls. He had been able to hide that he was bisexual, but he didn’t think Danny had been able to successfully hide his homosexuality. Luke remembered the camp their parents had sent his brother to as a teenager, the camp he’d hated that had seemed nothing at all like the summer camp Luke had gone to with Ben and Adam. He would never be able to prove it, but he suspected that ‘camp’ had actually been a gay ‘conversion therapy’ camp, and that their parents had known about Danny and had tried to change him. 

Danny had come home from camp and a week later he’d been found hanging in his bedroom. He’d strangled himself with his belt, had tied himself up from the rafters. He hadn’t died right away, but had lingered on in the hospital for three days before his parents had agreed to let the doctors pull the plug and harvest his organs. Luke had never been able to step foot inside Danny’s bedroom again. 

At the time Luke had been so hurt and angry and confused. He had wanted to believe their parents had had something to do with it – and perhaps, in a way, they had, at least by contributing to the psychological factors that had led to Danny’s suicide. Luke had been working up the nerve to tell his older brother about Martin Sleswick, secure in the knowledge that even though everyone else might have thought Luke was just making it all up, Danny would have believed him. Danny would have known how to make the abuse stop. Danny wouldn’t have blamed Luke for it, said that he asked for it, said that he knew Luke had wanted it and had enjoyed himself. (All the things Sleswick had told Luke, when Luke had asked – begged – for him to stop and to leave him alone. It was Luke’s fault for leading him on. Luke’s mouth might have been saying no, but it had been obvious his body had wanted it. Look at the mess you’ve made of yourself, of me. We don’t want anyone to find out about this, do we? To know what a disgusting slut you are?) 

“He was an asshole, you know that, right?” Danny’s voice caught Luke by surprise, and he sucked in a sharp breath, looking at his brother in shock. “None of what he did to you was your fault.” 

“How did you …? How …?” 

“This is a dream, dummy, remember?” Danny grinned at him, but there was kindness and sympathy in his eyes. Luke realized, in that moment, that he and Danny had the same eyes. Was that a trick of memory, that he was simply seeing himself in his older brother, or had they always looked so similar to one another? “I know what you know, dude.” 

“Then you know I don’t really believe that,” Luke replied, stung. 

Danny let out an indignant snort. “I just said it, didn’t I? So that must mean at least a little part of you believes what I said.” 

Luke supposed that made a kind of sense, even if most of the rest of him still privately believed what Sleswick had told him decades ago had been true. He knew, intellectually, that Martin Sleswick had been grooming him almost from the moment he had arrived on the scene, and that his parents’ abuse and frequent absences made him a perfect target for a predator like him. Luke had been isolated and lonely and scared, and he’d been raised to shoulder more than his fair share of the responsibility – so why not the burden of initiating a sexual relationship with a man thirty years his senior? If he could be responsible for killing monsters and protecting humanity, then why not also be responsible for seducing an older man (even though at nine, when the abuse had begun, he’d had only the most fleeting notion of what sex even was, and no idea at all about the concept of seduction – or sexual grooming. He’d just been grateful that this kind, friendly man who everyone else respected and admired was paying attention to boring little him). 

If there was a part of him that knew not to blame himself for Sleswick’s abuse, then that part surely came in the form of Charlie and Kate. He’d gone through a period in his teens when he’d slept with every girl and woman that expressed interest in him in an effort to prove to himself that he wasn’t gay and that what he’d done with Sleswick hadn’t damaged him. Then, when he’d gone to university in Toronto – far away from his parents, his family’s fucking legacy, and a small town where everyone knew everyone – he’d gone all-out to demonstrate to himself that he could enjoy sex in spite of everything, in all its forms. Exposed to anonymous hookup culture for the first time and far away from anyone who could judge him, Luke had spent almost his entire four years of university drinking and sleeping his way through life. If someone so much as batted their eyes at him or offered to buy him a drink he’d go home with them – hell, some nights he’d just disappeared into the nearest washroom or out into the back alley, only to pop out again later in search of his next fix. Partying and sleeping around hadn’t made him feel much better about himself, his sexuality or his past, but it was the first real time he had ever rebelled against his parents and his upbringing, and while he’d thought he was sticking it to his mother and father what he was really doing was trying to destroy himself. Then he’d run into a mouthy redheaded bartender who didn’t care what his last name and who didn’t put up with any of his shit, but who liked him for who he was, not what he could do for her or to her or for the connections he had. (The fact that Kate was half-demon only served to entice him further, and in the beginning being with her had been a way of thumbing his nose at his parents.) And Kate didn’t really give a crap if he got his business degree or went on to become a famous politician, but she did care that he was throwing his life away, and so with her support he had just … stopped. Stopped fucking around, stopped partying, stopped drinking, stopped trying to self-destruct. He had graduated – by the skin of his teeth, but it still counted – and, stupid degree he’d never wanted in hand, followed Kate around Toronto like the lost puppy he’d been. She’d quit her job bartending because he’d made the decision to stop drinking and she didn’t want to risk his sobriety, they’d both found work, they’d found a place together, and for the first time in twenty years Luke was his own person. 

Then the Scions of Unforgiven had found him, the Knights of Oberon had kicked him out, and he’d joined the Alliance. And the hot Asian guy who’d always just been Kate’s best friend saved his arm for him and things had … sort of fallen into place. Kate had been the first step towards reclaiming himself, but Charlie – who’d grown up with an abundance of love and support, and who seemed determined to spread that wholesomeness around – had been the one to really spur Luke’s recovery and self-acceptance on. Kate had always had only a very marginal interest at best in sex, but Charlie had been raised in a very sex- and body-positive manner, and it had been eye-opening to see his approach to life and love. There was no slut-shaming in Charlie’s world, no kink-shaming, no doubts about his sexuality or whether or not it was right or wrong. Kate had taught Luke that sex didn’t have to be the big deal he thought it was; Charlie had made him appreciate that it was like any other pleasurable thing, something that could be enjoyed in a healthy manner, rather than an all or nothing deal. Kate had been like the first drops of rain after a lengthy drought; Charlie was like sunshine after a long and dreary winter. Both very vital and necessary to Luke’s growth, but in very different ways. 

“They’ve been good for you,” Danny commented, spurring Luke out of his thoughts. Well, maybe not exactly out of his thoughts, since Danny was just a figment of his imagination too, but still. 

“Yeah,” Luke agreed, turning back out to the water. The sun seemed to be coming up on the horizon – which made no sense, because his craggy refuge had been at the north end of the island, not the east – and he could see that faint … something … that was off in the distance more clearly. There was a beeping sound that didn’t belong out on the rocky shoreline of a small island, and the gentle murmur of familiar voices. 

He glanced back at Danny, who was standing by the water, his hands shoved in his pockets. The longer he looked at his brother the younger he seemed, and it brought to mind just how young Danny had been when he’d died. Sixteen. He’d had his whole life before him and yet he’d chosen to end it. Luke had gone there himself, more than a few times; he’d come really, really close, and even without necessarily meaning to there had been moments while out on patrol or in the midst of a skirmish where he’d thought about how easy it would be to just not fight. It wouldn’t even really be suicide, then, if he’d just let the monsters kill him. He could stop, and his family could rest easy in the knowledge that he’d gone out like a Knight of Oberon, falling in battle to an enemy. 

And then he’d snapped out of it, and fought harder, because he remembered what it had felt like to lose Danny, and he wasn’t doing that to anyone else – not even himself. 

“You don’t think it’s weird?” he asked, after a moment. “Me and Charlie and Kate?” 

“No, man.” Danny shrugged, grinning broadly. It made him look even younger, and Luke realized that had more to do with the fact that he primarily remembered Danny smiling like that when he had been younger. Danny, in the last few years of his life, hadn’t had much cause to smile. “I’m inside your head. You don’t think it’s weird, so I don’t think it’s weird.” 

“Huh. Makes sense, I guess.” Most people who found out he was in a polyamorous triad with Charlie and Kate wanted to know the details of how it worked. Don’t you get jealous? How do you make it work? Do they take turns? Most other people just wanted to make sure he knew they were doing it wrong, that it was supposed to be one man and one woman – or, grudgingly, two men together, but absolutely not three people, that was just wrong. There had only been a few people in his life – almost all of them other members of the Alliance – who simply took his relationship with Kate and Charlie as normal and none of their business. There had been some growing pains in the early stages of their relationship, just as there would have been with any relationship, but for the three of them it just worked. 

Danny snorted again, laughing quietly to himself. He faced the water, peering intently at the sun breaking across the waves. The skies were clearing and the water was growing calmer, even though that stretch of the lake was never calm. 

“You should go back,” Danny said, speaking out to the water. “They’re waiting for you to wake up.” 

“Yeah, I know.” Luke shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Somewhere in the distance he could hear a woman’s voice, and thought it sounded like Ardyn, low and calm and reassuring. He looked at his brother again. “I kinda wanna stay here with you, though. I miss you, Danny.” 

“Yeah, I know,” Danny echoed him. “But Luke, dude … You know I’m not real. They are. And they’re waiting for you.” 

Luke opened his mouth to reply, to say something about how it had been twenty years and he still thought about his brother every day, but when he turned to face Danny his brother was gone. The air was still and the sun was out in full force, glistening over the waters he’d known since he was a little child, the lake he’d grown up on. His body ached and his heart was sore, but the incredible exhaustion that had seeped into him seemed to be dissipating. The noises around him were shifting, changing from waves lapping up against the rocks and wind blowing through the leaves to the beeping of medical equipment and the whispering of voices around him. 

Luke gazed out at the water one last time, then opened his eyes.

[foxofthedesert]

One Green Apple, a RedQueen story

Prologue (Ao3 Link)

The writing of a new, monumental page in history begins with one green apple that changes not only one world but two. What might be an absurd notion to the rational thinker will be proven as unequivocally true with a single bite of what appears to be an ordinary piece of fruit. In time, that seemingly innocuous act will be universally viewed as the impetus for momentous events spanning two disparate realms, events that will resonate into the future far beyond the capacity for any contemporary prognosticator to grasp.

To arrive at the pivotal fulcrum upon which this story rests, we must begin with a recounting of the fortuitous meeting between the axial figures of our narrative. One is a humble heroine, whose ferocious and loyal heart possesses a unique ability to see the good in others, which gets her into as much trouble with miscreants as it endears her to those she gently coaxes out of the darkness and back into the light. The other is an ignoble figure of ill repute, perhaps the most infamous villain of her generation whose dastardly feats have made an indelible imprint upon the collective memory of a nation. Inspired by a devotion that surpasses any arbitrary boundaries of tradition and which challenges the limits of human experience, these two remarkable women will prove erroneous the condescension of their numerous detractors. Together, they will labor together to build a kingdom which will serve as the linchpin of an alliance that spans from the fabled realm of Misthaven to the enchanted foreign fields of Oz.

The extraordinary tale of the Queens of Misthaven begins with a highly anticipated report from a reliable source in Queen Regina's intelligence network: Snow White has been spotted. Details indicate the outlaw princess has been sheltering in a village to the north in order to recuperate from minor injuries incurred during a recent run in with a roving knot of brigands.

Unfortunately by the time Regina's spy entered the village, the notorious outlaw was mobile again and preparing to escape her jurisdiction via the mountain range nearby. There a narrow, hazardous pass terminates less than half a mile short of the border. On the other side, freedom awaits Snow within the ordinarily unfriendly confines of the realm ruled by King George.

No doubt that snide bastard will make an exception for Snow just to spite me, Regina thinks, seething at the possibility of her hated enemy escaping into the welcoming arms of another, albeit less important, nemesis. With no time to waste to prevent this catastrophe, she hastily organizes a platoon of her finest soldiers in a field to the southeast of the Dark Palace.

The sky overhead is a brilliant blue, white puffy clouds in various whimsical shapes dancing through the atmosphere. There is a slight chill in the air that indicates the onset of autumn. Soon enough, winter will blanket the land with freezing temperatures and a fine, perpetual layer of white.

The news has come just in time. I hate chasing fugitives in the snow. She almost smiles at the thought. Snow in the snow has always held a strangely fond connotation for her outside of the amusing pun.

When Snow was a child, Regina would often venture outside with the young princess to watch her build snowmen and make snow angels or toss snowballs at the few friends she kept from the noble class that occupied the castle with the royal family. After Regina's wedding, Leopold essentially foisted his daughter upon her, which only reinforced the widespread view of their marriage – that it was little more than a convenient arrangement for his sporadic pleasure and general relief, both of which came at Regina's expense. Most of the time she hated her husband for his lack of parental responsibility. Bad enough that she had to let him touch her in places only Daniel ever had. Forcing her to become primary caretaker to a spoiled, daft, annoying princess was adding insult to injury. Occasionally, though, when Snow had no one to play with, Regina would join her stepdaughter in the frozen fun. Those rare outings were some of the few good memories she has of raising Snow. But because they also give her a minuscule reason to reconsider her vendetta, she does not often reminisce upon them. Best to forget there was ever a time she might have loved Snow lest she lose even an ounce of her conviction to kill the insipid brat.

"The traitor Snow White has been located," she tells her assembled troops from her regale perch atop Rocinante.

The company stands in formation before her, proud and grave with their weapons at the ready. These men are not only her most skilled but are also her most loyal. To the last, they are grim-faced and battle-tested soldiers of steely determination, none of whom retain any love for the deposed House of White. All of them lost friends or family to Leopold's secret excesses or had justice denied them by the blatant whitewashing of crimes committed by his many loyal sycophants. Snow, to them, is no rightful heir but a living reminder of their grief and rage. For that reason alone, she trusts all of them to pursue their quarry without mercy.

"She will be taking the pass between our realm and that of King George in order to escape justice," she goes on as the men listen intently. "While George has no love for the White family, he has even less for me. Thus, he will surely offer her sanctuary as a means to goad me. It goes without saying, then, that the outlaw must not under any circumstances be allowed to cross the border on the other side of the mountain. Your orders are to apprehend her alive, not necessarily unharmed, and then bring her to me."

"What of her rumored compatriot? That freakish girl that murdered half of Perrault. What do we do with her?" says Captain Renford, a grizzled survivor of many bloody conflicts.

Disregarding the exaggeration and contempt with which he spat out his inquiry, Regina gives him a dark smile. Ah, yes. The werewolf, she muses to herself. What, indeed, shall I do with that most fascinating morsel? She has long desired to catch a glimpse of Snow's mythical sidekick. According to hearsay among the peasantry, the girl is largely to be credited with Snow's continued survival. While all good rumors are rooted in at least a minimal amount of truth, this one has been verified more than once.

Many of her sorties against Snow have been thwarted by the great beast that has assumed a role as the exiled princess's protector. As might be obvious, this continual interference makes the werewolf a thorn in her side, as is anyone else brave or stupid enough to ally with the bane of her existence. For the crime of aiding and abetting alone she should order the girl's immediate execution. Yet for reasons beyond comprehension, she is inclined to spare so unique a quarry if only to satisfy a highly piqued curiosity.

During her reign, Regina has encountered a handful of the ancient magical species. None of them proved worthy of her time or continued interest, as they were either wholly given over to their animalistic compulsions and lacking even a modicum of self-control or intelligence or both. Thus they were of no use to her. But from what she has gathered via tales spread far and wide of Snow's friend, her peerless beauty, prowess in battle, unshakable loyalty, and impressive mastery over her condition make her not only special but of immense potential value. Few, if any, are as capable of appropriately appreciating the attributes Snow's wolf brings to the table quite like Regina can. There is also the not-so-insignificant consideration that such a weapon under her sway, either via persuasion or forceful subjugation, would be an advantage she would be a moron to dismiss.

And yet her somewhat irrational if not unreasonable compulsion to acquire Snow's werewolf can never come at the cost of her revenge. No matter what must be sacrificed, she is not about to allow this welcome stroke of good fortune to go to waste.

"Try to do the same," she answers the commander after a brief pause to consider her options. "Apprehend the wolf if possible but kill her if you must. Capturing Snow White is to be your primary concern. All other interests are irrelevant."

Renford bows his head submissively, ever the obedient soldier. "As you command, Your Majesty."

Regina's lips turn up at seeing her orders are well received. "Very well, then. Let us be off." She lifts her hands to the sky, summoning vast amounts of energy to teleport herself, her prized steed, and her troops to the base of the mountain pass.

Upon arrival, none of the men stumble – they are well accustomed by now to magical transportation. Perfectly composed, their eyes are swiftly upon her, awaiting further orders without a hint of trepidation.

Up here at elevation the pleasant weather at the Dark Palace seems a distant memory. Snow falls in spurts of large crystalline flakes and the temperature is low enough that it sticks to the rocky ground. The sky is overcast with huge billowing gray clouds, indicating the precipitation is unlikely to do anything but increase in volume and intensity. Likely within hours, the whole pass will be blanketed ankle deep with snow. Lovely. Much as she wishes for clear skies and warm weather, though, her enthusiasm for the pending victory is unaffected.

"You will be taking a company of men up the pass, Captain," she begins relaying her more detailed instructions. "I will linger behind so that I can deposit a squad at the far end to block our prey from slipping the net. Lieutenant Allen!" At her terse bark, said officer steps out and crisply salutes. "Your squad will be tasked with closing off this entrance. Let no one enter or exit on pain of death. Do you understand your orders?"

"Yes, your Majesty," the Lieutenant replies, and then salutes before departing to deploy his men at the mouth of the pass.

"Lieutenant Rodrigo," she calls, summoning the third officer attending this mission. He, as Lieutenant Allen had, steps out with a crisp salute.

Rodrigo is a personal favorite who hails from her home country, to the southwest of her family's ancestral domain. She appointed him to her personal guard upon seizing the crown. As he was born a peasant, it was not becoming to immediately place him into the officer corps, so she arranged for him to be under the command of an officer with similarly humble beginnings who had risen through the ranks via toil, dedication, and skill. Since then Rodrigo has flourished, serving faithfully and accruing various noteworthy commendations along the way. Complete confidence in the Lieutenant is not difficult for her to summon when he has yet to fail her.

Pride for her countryman swells in her breast. She allows it to show as she instructs him, "Gather your squad around me, please, Lieutenant."

"Form ranks around the Queen!" Rodrigo commands, swirling his ornate cavalry sabre in the air. After his men are encircling Rocinante, the Lieutenant joins them, coming to stand at her left.

Regina turns her eyes to the commanding officer before departing for the far end of the pass. "Captain Renford," she says, "you may begin your ascent. Should you encounter resistance, do not wait for me to begin the assault. I shall join you shortly."

"Yes, your Majesty," Renford bows, then glances back up at her. "Shall I leave two men behind to make the ascent with you upon your return?"

Regina shakes her head, a bit impatient, but appreciative of the thoughtful nature of his query. The captain is an excellent soldier with an unwavering dutifulness and an attention to detail that will be sorely missed should he perish on this mission. Not that such a potential negative consequence can deter her when obsession with capturing Snow supersedes every other consideration. In the end, he is a pawn on her chess board, nothing more and nothing less.

"That is not necessary, Captain," she says dismissively. "I will not linger far enough behind for trouble to find me, and although I will be low on reserve energy after situating Lieutenant Rodrigo's squad, I will not be completely depleted. I can defend myself if I must. Mind you, I am also accomplished with a sword, as you have learned personally."

When she first promoted Renford, he was full of himself – an arrogant, misogynistic prick that needed to be reigned in before those unfavorable attributes outweighed the favorable ones. She challenged him to a non-lethal duel, privately of course to avoid shaming him in front of his men, which he accepted. Her skill with a blade has never been a closely guarded secret. Many uppity men who dismissed her because of her gender have crossed swords with her and not lived to tell the tale. Renford, like most of her officer corps, thought himself above all of the enemies she had dispatched and thus required a harsh lesson. He touched her only once in their best of five contest. After that, he was far more humble and obedient.

When Renford bows his head in obeisance, Regina gives him an encouraging smile. As she had told him after their duel, bygones are bygones. He had conducted himself well to put her to the test as he did and unlike many who trod his path before did not let his defeat at the hands of a woman much smaller and ostensibly weaker than him break him. Instead, it motivated him to be better and opened his eyes to the value of women in combat roles. A month later, Renford started taking women who wished to be warriors into his company. Three of his first recruits are with him today, themselves grizzled veterans of many bloody engagements.

"I will be fine, Gerald," she says to him, knowing he only spoke up out of concern for her well being. "Do not allow my safety to be a distraction. Capturing Snow is one thing. Her companion, however, will present a vastly more difficult challenge that will require all of your concentration."

He nods in acquiescence then calls out for his men to fall in line. Looking to her one last time, Regina waves her hand in permission for him to orders the advance. He does so promptly. As she watches his company begin a confident march up the pass, a deep sense of satisfaction warms her bones. She has all but assured her impending triumph.

Brimming with assurance that encroaches upon hubris, she conjures up an image of the opposite end of the pass in her mind and then immediately summons her magic once again to transport Rodrigo's squad there. Located just on the side of the border belonging to her kingdom, the outlet spreads out from the base of the mountain like a yawning jaw. Rimmed with craggy tooth outcroppings, it empties into dense foliage that quickly gives way to unending forest, making it a perfect location in which to stage an ambush.

Before returning to follow Renford's company up the pass from the rear, Regina relays the same instructions to Rodrigo as she had to Allen: hold his position on pain of death. He accepts the charge with a crisp salute and then orders his men into position. With all of the pieces carefully arranged, she at last returns to where she'd departed Captain Renford.

Back at the entrance to the pass, she spurs Rocinante forward into a leisurely trot. Her magic is significantly drained from her efforts to place her troops but that is of little concern. With both ends of the pass blocked and a company of thirty men on the route itself, Snow and her furry friend are hemmed in and all but finished. She deems it highly unlikely that she will be forced to risk her health summoning large spells when she doubts any magic whatsoever will be required to accomplish her objective. How are two young women going to defeat so many soldiers trained to deadly precision along with the most infamous sorceress to ever live? Even if one of them is a fearsome werewolf, the thought is laughably absurd.

As she ascends the path, Regina lags a ways behind her soldiers while they slog up the treacherous path to intercept their quarry. Being alone gives her a chance to revel in her pending triumph. The thrill of finally having Snow at her mercy has her approaching a state of preemptive euphoria.

So sure is she of victory that she begins to envision the plethora of creative ways in which she can dispose of her archenemy. Firstly she contemplates beheading Snow, but swiftly decides that is simply too quick a method of execution. No, Snow must suffer endless agony before she is allowed the mercy of death. With that option eliminated, she considers gifting Snow some quality time in the rack, after which the brutalized prisoner would be drawn and quartered. But the thought of involving horses, so majestic an animal, in Snow's death seems distasteful – although considering the way Snow had entered her life, an equestrian related demise would be somewhat perversely appropriate. In the end, she settles on a grim series of tortures involving publicly flogging Snow over a period of weeks followed by nightly visits from the Head Inquisitor, a man Regina had hired for his special creativity with punishments. Only once Snow is hovering at death's door, begging to be put down like the animal she is, will the torment end, and then just so whatever quivering lump of flesh remains can be unceremoniously roasted at the stake.

By the time Regina catches up to Captain Renford's company, she is practically salivating from the delicious fantasies involving Snow's prodigious suffering. To her utter dismay, however, she does not arrive to the joyous sight of a subdued Snow White, nor is she welcomed by the corpse the dead compatriot who was unlucky enough to have accompanied the outlaw princess upon the lonely and perilous mountain pass. Instead she is met with the distressing reality of her troops being thoroughly trounced.

Seeing as the soldiers she deployed are the most skilled fighters in her entire realm, she is quite perplexed by the development. That shock promptly turns into awe upon noticing dead soldiers strewn in grotesque positions – many lacking significant portions of their anatomy – at the humongous paws of the most magnificent beast she has ever laid eyes upon.

Enraptured, she watches the massive wolf with midnight fur and huge glowing yellow eyes rend into pieces what remains of her men one by one. The fugitives have chosen to make their stand at a section of the pass wide enough for three broad shouldered men to navigate side-by-side. On one side, a sheer wall of rock the most talented climber could not scale, and on the other a drop so long a cat could not survive. The tactic virtually eliminates the numerical advantage of the attackers and makes it that much easier for an enormous werewolf to dispatch her enemies with extreme prejudice.

To get at the two, Renford's troops are forced to kick or hurtle their slain comrades over the narrow pass, sending corpses tumbling down the mountainside. Meanwhile Snow hovers behind the wolf by a step or two, safely guarded from harm by her four-legged protector as she cuts down her fair share of opponents one arrow at a time with deadly precision. While Snow's talent with the bow is impressive, it is glaringly evident that the lion's share of the damage has been done by the gorgeous wolf whose ebony fur now glistens with the blood of the soldiers she has slain.

To Regina it feels like the slaughter takes hours. And there is nothing she can do about it. Her magic is unavailable except in emergency and there is no room for her to enter the fray. So she sits upon Rocinante and watches, half horrified and half captivated.

After the wolf has dispatched the last of her enemies, Captain Renford himself, she stands there motionless with baleful yellow eyes fixated unflinchingly upon Regina. The complete lack of fear in the creature is emphasized by a level of contempt that sends a lance of cold through her suddenly frigid body. She starts to summon her magic but stops before it arcs at her fingertips upon spotting something strange. Hidden within the depths of those wild eyes, underneath all of the rancor, she there is allure directed toward her that, while impossible to explain, nonetheless beckons her to momentarily disregard her sole purpose for being here. Snow is so tantalizingly close at hand, and yet Regina becomes too distracted to care. An instant surge of interest in Snow's beast that is both tantalizing and disgusting has for the moment overridden her primary objective.

Every subsequent attempt to suppress whatever mystical cords are being drawn between her and the wolf ends in failure as her instinct to slaughter every living thing before her wrestles with this disconcerting fascination. Regina languishes in indecision, paralyzed and hardly able to breathe. It is almost as if she has succumbed to the inescapable tendrils of some previously undiscovered exotic enchantment. The thought would surely seem ridiculous except for the pleasant warmth suffusing her chest, the prickling of an excitement-induced sweat beading at her temple, and the rapid beating of her heart within her breast.

For a long spell, nothing on the mountain moves aside from the spits of snow raining down from the sky. The air is astonishingly still. All of the soldiers Regina has sent up the mountain pass are dead, and without full use of her power, she recognizes her own vulnerability all too well. She loathes the feeling almost as much as she does the stark reality of the mission having so spectacularly failed.

During the years she suffered indignity after indignity trapped in a loveless marriage she didn't want, she had become close acquaintances with vulnerability. Fear was her constant mode of being back then. How could it not be when she was constantly forced to relinquish control over her life and her body to a man who held no regard for her outside of her usefulness to his infuriatingly ignorant daughter and to his pathetically tiny dick. Only magic had made her strong enough to take back possession of her own life by avenging herself upon her chauvinistic oppressor.

Unfortunately her magic is mostly useless now, having spent the bulk of it transporting her troops only for them to be slain down to the last man. With woefully inadequate reserves at her disposal, she is suddenly reduced to that helpless young woman who just lost the love of her life along with all hope of a happy future. Despair sets in at the periphery of her consciousness, pressing against the ever-present rage that has defined her for so long.

She levels a murderous glare at Snow. Were she faced with the exiled princess alone, there is no doubt in her mind that her superior swordsmanship would prevail in a contest to the death. But Snow is not alone. To her increasing alarm, a beast of epic grandeur is poised forebodingly between them, forbidding her from achieving her ultimate victory.

And then something truly bizarre happens. Deep within her chest, she feels a tug on her attention coming from the direction of the majestic wolf. When her eyes meet those glowing yellow furnaces of emotion once more, she watches intently as they shift from open hatred, to muted surprise, and then finally to a beguiled tint that indicates the wolf is as subconsciously invested in Regina as she is in her.

The most astounding part is that the development is not at all unpleasant. For whatever reason, she feels drawn to this beast, and can only wonder as to why. Never before has she experienced so strong an urge to interact with another being, especially one whom she has just encountered for the first time.

Unbidden, Rocinante takes a step forward, completely unafraid as if spurred by his mistress's magnetic reaction to the creature before him. To Regina's surprise, the wolf meets that step with a nonthreatening one of its own.

In typical fashion, Snow chooses that moment to open her accursed trap, breaking the magical connection. "Well, well. Not what you anticipated would happen, was it Regina?" The gloating is delivered with haughty disdain indicating excessive pleasure that her paltry party of two has annihilated a company thirty strong.

"Not quite," Regina retorts, eyes still locked upon the black wolf as it settles down on its haunches to hover protectively at Snow's side. "You had an advantage that I did not. Now that I have been so rudely enlightened, believe me when I say I won't make the same mistake twice."

Regina audibly gasps as the werewolf begins to transform. She stares on, unashamedly transfixed by the process of an entire skeleton rearranging and stretching out as bones are reshaped from the compact ones of an awesomely powerful wolf into the familiar lengths belonging to a human being. However, the human who has so recently appeared from the furry form of her counterpart is far from ordinary. On the contrary, she is a statuesque specimen of womanhood that steals away Regina's ability to form either coherent sentences or cogent thoughts.

Lush dark hair tumbles in curls down the planes of a shapely back and surprisingly delicate shoulders to frame a striking face which flushes brightly at being intently gawked at. The young woman before her is so unearthly beautiful that Regina surmises her to features to have been carved by the hands of the gods themselves. To her horror, she realizes her once passive interest is morphing at a dizzying rate into an acutely active one. This strange, mystical girl has so enraptured her that she can only dimly recognize the altogether alien sensation of being bewitched – an irony considering she is an expert practitioner of the dark arts.

"Oh, please do send some more fodder for my wolf to dispatch," Snow's alluringly mysterious protector then replies, her voice as sweet as warm honey to Regina's ears – her insides as well, it seems, judging by the way her chest suffuses with heat and her belly stirs pleasantly. Still partially under the effects of the transformation, the girl's eyes glow a latent, ethereal yellow. Her enticingly full lips turn up in a self-satisfied smirk. As if being pulled by the same invisible thread Regina had felt earlier, the werewolf moves closer and closer as she speaks, "She so enjoys playing with the toys you send her. This lot was the funnest yet, but still not quite up to snuff as you can see."

Unable to help herself, Regina barks out a full, throaty laugh. She is absolutely delighted by the emboldened gall of a peasant who has brazenly aligned herself with the Evil Queen's mortal enemy.

"Oh, my dear, if you think that's the best I've got, you're sorely mistaken," Regina shoots back.

While she possesses the power to obliterate the painfully young and naive woman before her, she lacks the energy to summon it without completely draining herself. And that is not to mention the fact that the girl had slaughtered a contingent of her best men with what was evidently little effort on her part. Impressed as she is by Snow's werewolf companion, she is yet unwilling to show any form of weakness. Thus the half-lie.

Eyeing the girl with barely restrained lust, she smiles wickedly. "That said, I am so very pleased you enjoyed my gifts. Perhaps in the near future I'll have to work up something extra special just for you."

Flashing Regina an almost playful grin, the dark haired beauty chuckles in amusement even as a blush colors her face, which then spreads southward through the swath of pale flesh covering her neck to the portion of her upper chest left exposed by otherwise modest garments. Her brilliant green eyes dilate, the clear hint of arousal in them thrilling Regina to no end. It also does not escape her notice that Snow is watching the exchange in open consternation, which only serves to fuel Regina's escalating excitement.

"I'll be eagerly awaiting whatever you come up with, Your Majesty," the werewolf replies, having drifted to stand only a handful of paces away – close enough that Regina is at last able to fully appreciate her unnatural beauty.

Frankly, it is outright disgusting how gorgeous the girl is. Regina does not often encounter women whose attractiveness can even marginally rival her own, but in the person of this otherworldly werewolf, she is sure she has finally met someone who surpasses her. If it were not for the fact that she is so curiously enamored, she would be positively green with envy.

Eyeing the subject of her fascination with unveiled eyes, Regina hums with anticipation. "Is that a challenge? My, my aren't you brave. Or stupid."

"Neither. I'm just a girl doing what she's gotta do." The mysterious young woman beams a smile that reveals perfect rows of large pearly white teeth.

Regina's heart begins to race with so tempting a prize almost within reach. She can barely refrain from using up her limited reserves of energy in order to snatch the girl up and transport them both to her castle, to hell with Snow and her revenge. Not wanting to give in to such a frivolous and dangerous impulse, she settles instead for drawing out more information.

"What's your name then, girl?"

"Red, Your Majesty," the werewolf boldly declares. "My name is Red." The name falling from those alluring lips feels almost tangible, like sweetly scented rose petals brushing against Regina's sensitive flesh. She shudders involuntarily, and though the reaction is subtle enough to be hidden from Snow, Red does not miss it. Taking another step forward, her smoldering green eyes dilate even more, causing them to appear almost wholly black. Regina cannot hold back a gasp of surprise at the blatant, almost aggressive nature of Red's pursuit of whatever inexplicable attraction is building between them.

It is at that point Snow once again decides to intervene. Stepping between Red and Regina, she halts Red's progress and at the same time partially blocks Regina's view of the too-pretty werewolf. As short as Snow is, Red's face remains visible despite Snow's interference, and because of that Regina is able to observe a strange mixture of emotions play across those too-pretty features aimed directly at her companion. First is appreciation of Snow's protective nature, after which comes affection for the defense of her virtue. It the last that most interests Regina, though, as it is an uneasy aggravation that settles into Red's expression. Apparently she is rather upset at their charged interplay being interrupted.

Regina latches onto that unexpected sentiment with both hands, realizing it means that the beguiling shapeshifter has been enjoying their repartee as much as she has. As it was with every other aspect of her life, though, Snow simply had to ruin it.

"That's quite enough," the insufferable nitwit then interjects. "I'll thank you to leave her out of this. This is between you and me, Regina, so let's keep it that way."

Regina scoffs at the implied and utterly unintimidating threat. Rolling her eyes, she snarls back, "Even if I were to ignore the rather impressive fact that she effortlessly destroyed so many of my men, you are my enemy, Snow. Therefore, those who commiserate with you are my enemies also, a fact of which I'm sure Red here is well aware. And we all know what I do to my enemies."

Regina is secretly delighted to see the girl shiver noticeably upon hearing her name spoken. Another flush works its way up her cheeks as well, coloring them the same lovely shade as her moniker. Enthralled as she is by the reaction, Regina is tempted to continue her exchange with Red in spite of Snow only to be thwarted by Snow nocking a bolt into her bow. The bandit aims it straight at Regina's heart.

"In that case let's just end this tired game of ours right now," Snow grits out and then looses the string of her bow, firing the bolt with deadly accuracy.

Out of pure instinct, Regina reacts with swift movements, catching the offending bolt with a careful application of magic. To her aggravation, she does not recover in time to prevent the two outlaws from slipping away down the pass, Snow all but dragging Red, who is peering back despondently at Regina over her shoulder, away by the hand. Left alone and with her magic at dangerously low levels, she quickly analyzes the situation.

On one hand, she can be reckless and follow after her quarry or on the other she can simply abandon pursuit of them altogether. She has just enough energy left to teleport back home to regroup, conceding that this particular opportunity has all but slipped away. She already knows that the handful of men guarding the exit of the pass will be unable to stand against Red and Snow's combined skill, even with her limited help.

The rational choice would be to return home and wait for another opportunity to present itself, but she is simply not feeling rational at the moment, and for more than one reason. That she wants Snow to be apprehended is a given, but beyond that she is also loathe to let Red slip so easily from her grasp. The look on Red's face as Snow dragged away has imprinted upon her brain – that ragged desperation to have just one more minute of interaction, to be allowed to get just one step closer. Something about Red has disrupted Regina's carefully constructed goals so that she finds herself feeling that same desperation. Desire to secure the werewolf by whatever means necessary before returning to the Dark Palace usurps any further rationalization.

Unsure as to precisely why she feels so compelled, Regina dismounts and then commands Rocinante to return to the entrance of the pass where a squadron of her troops are waiting. Risking herself is one thing, but her only true friend in the world should not have to pay for her current bout of foolishness. As always Rocinante obeys, and once he is loping steadily down the pass, she sets her shoulders, withdraws her sword from its scabbard, and sets out after the two fugitives.

Whilst traversing the narrow path it the snow begins to fall in earnest. Without her magic to provide artificial heat, the bitter chill starts to soak down through the layers of her clothes, past her skin, and on into her bones. For at least five minutes, she stumbles onward, staying close to the rough cliff face on her right to keep her bearings and her balance.

So thick is the snowfall and so discombobulated is she in the cold that she does not see or hear an enormous boulder working free somewhere above her head. Upon releasing from its outcropping, it hurtles toward her, poised to crush her fragile human frame like an ant, and would have done just that had it not been for a blur of red plowing unexpectedly into her body. The impact launches her away from the incoming slab of solid stone, sending her sprawling onto her side, dislodging her sword, which slides over the lip of the pass and clanks down the unforgiving slope.

Regina does not have to wonder at what has happened, her brain having instantly made the connection. Snow's werewolf has chosen to double back, and in so doing, saved her life.

After standing up and brushing the dirt off her damp clothes, Regina glares daggers at her now-cloaked savior. She summons a fireball that flickers in and out of existence – she is now drawing on magical fumes, as it were.

"Sorry," Red says in lieu of explanation, holding her hands up to show she means no harm. "I wasn't trying to hurt you. For some reason I just felt like I needed to come back. When I heard the boulder coming down and saw it was about to crush you, I didn't have time to shout a warning."

"What perplexes me is why you would help me at all," Regina says, and then risks extinguishing the fireball. Her cynical nature refuses to fully relax. Crossing her arms, she narrows her eyes and studies her unlikely savior, searching for any indication the girl might be playing games after all and was merely toying with her prey before deciding to pounce for the slaughter. It is an insensible thought borne out of years of paranoia. If Red wanted her dead, she would have watched that oversized rock turn her into a flesh pancake.

The werewolf shrugs sheepishly, ducking her head and batting her lashes as if chagrined. "I can't really explain it," she offers demurely. "Something kept tugging at my chest, a feeling like I've never had before. It was pleading with me to turn back, and I couldn't deny it. I don't fight my instincts as they have served me well over the years. After I saw Snow safely over the border, I decided to listen to them." She gestures lamely, biting her lip in an apologetic manner before saying, "I had to kill some more of your warriors. Sorry. I left some of them alive, though, including the commander. He's unconscious but alive."

"That surprises me," Regina replies with no small amount of confusion, though she is relieved to hear Rodrigo lives. Still, she wonders how someone who has risked life and limb for Snow White could ignore so fortuitous an opportunity to observe the demise of Snow's greatest enemy. Red's act of mercy makes no sense to a woman unfamiliar with that particularly odious word. "Not that you killed more of my men," she clarifies, "or spared some for that matter, but that you risked your own life to save mine. I would have thought you'd be gladly rid of me seeing as I want your friend dead."

At that, Red quirks her head to the side, a secretive smile playing at the edges of full lips that simply beg to be kissed. "But do you really?" Regina frowns, both at the question and herself, unable to fathom where the thought of kissing Red came from. "Think about it," Red then goes on to make her point, "you could have blasted Snow off the face of the earth earlier, but you didn't. I know how powerful you are. I can smell it on you. No one stopped you from killing her but yourself."

However much Regina desires to object to Red's assessment, there is a kernel of truth there that she is unable to deny, no matter how much she wants to. The ability to find Snow via magic mirror has been part of her repertoire for years, and as Red had so aptly declared, she possesses the power to snuff her enemy out of existence with little effort. Why hadn't she then? Regina finds it difficult to put her finger on any one reason, and that unnerves her more than she cares to admit.

She has always plotted for Snow to suffer before killing her, so that is certainly a motive behind her convoluted tactics. And yet that does not explain why she continually allowed Snow to slip through her fingers. She is many things – vindictive, reckless, and perhaps blind in some areas – but she is not stupid. Not only was she raised by a woman who touted the importance of knowledge and intellect, she had also been trained in the magical arts by a man who amused himself for centuries outwitting people in his nefarious deals. By Cora's unyielding hand she was forced to understand that her mind was every bit as vital as her beauty in determining how successful she could be in a world ruled by men. Rumple, on the other hand, made sure she understood the leverage that power afforded over those whose logic had been trumped by impulse or necessity.

Once Snow was banished from her privileged life, the naive and unprepared princess was fit for being easily outmaneuvered, a lamb practically served up for the slaughter. And yet Regina had failed to capitalize on that inexperience and general lack of survival skills in her prey. Hubris, she now realizes, had convinced her Snow would fail to adapt and would therefore be easily caught. Even when that did not happen, she had continued to squander every chance she had to apprehend the girl she'd sworn to kill on Daniel's grave, a sacred oath if ever there was one.

There is something to what Red has said, but seeing as she is freezing and aggravated at her setback today, Regina is not in the mood to further analyze her own motivations for revenge.

"Careful now," she warns with a sharp sneer, feeling put on the spot and lashing out accordingly. "You're treading on thin ice."

Rather than recoil, Red steps closer with an unreadable expression on her face. "Am I?" Glancing down, she deliberately stomps her boot against unforgiving stone and then gives Regina a wide, gorgeous smile that reaches all the way into twinkling eyes. "Seems like solid ground to me."

"That can be amended," Regina counters, giving a smile of her own that is more edgy, though it lacks any real bite.

Red's entire countenance shimmers with playful delight. "Again, you could have killed me earlier, but you didn't."

"Ah, but if it is a woman's prerogative to change her mind, how much more so for a Queen?" Regina returns, feeling a bit of her discomfort fade. Some intangible aura Red exudes is able to disarm her and make her feel at ease when she should be irate at the cheek being displaying. Instead, she is seized by a thrill that races up her spine as Red takes another deliberate step forward.

"Are you going to?" Red then asks, lips still turned up. "Change your mind, that is."

"I may," Regina replies, settling into their repartee as smoothly as she had earlier. "Step closer and find out if you dare."

Instead of testing her, Red stills, smile remaining firmly in place, though her eyes are now crinkling merrily at the corners. She extends her hand toward Regina and then says, "I know I mentioned my name earlier, but I should probably properly introduce myself. Most folks call me Red Riding Hood for obvious reasons," she shrugs her shoulders and gestures at her eponymous cloak, "but my friends know me as Red Lucas."

Not caring about propriety on so secluded a mountain so far away from the suffocating rituals and rules of court, Regina takes the proffered appendage, leather-bound hand clasping another leather-bound hand.

"How quaint and unoriginal, Red," she replies, surliness evaporating at the feel of Red's impressive grip. She is surprised by the softness of her own voice, by how unladen from scathing sarcasm or anger or needless meanness it is, and especially by how very much she had enjoyed the way the girl's name rolled off her tongue. "I am Queen Regina, of course," she then states, straightening as regally as she can considering the circumstances. "Enigmatic though your reasoning may be, your instincts have served me well this evening. I owe you my life. Thank you."

Red's smile widens almost impossibly at her heroics being recognized, stretching into something toothy and as brilliant as the sun on a clear summer afternoon. From the first time Regina laid eyes on the werewolf, she'd thought her impossibly beautiful; but when Red smiles from her heart as she is at that moment, the celestial bodies of night and day that paint the heavens in awesome grandeur are diminished by comparison.

"You're very welcome, Your Majesty," Red returns, hand still firmly grasping Regina's. The muscles in her forearms ripple beneath ivory skin, and the sight fills Regina with a second onset of warmth that temporarily banishes the cold. After releasing her hand, Red gestures toward the path behind her. "You were following us alone, on foot, and clearly exhausted. I could have taken you without breaking a sweat. Not the smartest play from a woman I've come to respect for her intelligence if not for her tenacity."

Although Regina bristles, it is not in offense. In such close proximity to Red, able now to see the flecks of gold in those mesmerizing green eyes and note the flush coloring the girl's pale cheeks and neck both from the cold and from something else entirely, she feels uncharacteristically charitable. She waves a hand dismissively.

"Yes, well, I saw an opportunity and took it," she says, corners of her lips quirking up, eyes dancing. "Not my best decision, I'll admit, but it's the closest to Snow I've been in months. The thought of letting her get away may have influenced my reckless behavior." The admission, while only partially true, is admittedly difficult to make. All the same Red's arched brow and satisfied smirk – indicating her own engagement in the exchange – make it easier to swallow. "And besides," she then offers a secondary justification that is as irrelevant as the first, "I couldn't very well let the loss of my men go unanswered, now, could I? They represented a significant investment of time and resources to the kingdom. I felt obliged to pursue from a purely economical standpoint."

"Pretending for a moment I buy that," Red counters, eyes dancing in amusement again, "what I really want to know is what are you going to do now? I mean, here I am, the monster that decimated your soldiers. I am at your mercy, wholly human, and I know you have enough fuel left in your tank to do whatever you wish with me."

Regina studies Red carefully, struck by inspiration. Having already been wondering what kind of exquisite frame might be hidden beneath the rough fabrics of Red's peasant garb, she sweeps appraising eyes up and down the body that is currently covered by far too many layers of clothing. Judging by the toned forearms she's already been afforded a glimpse of, her imagination starts to run amok.

With wholly inappropriate intensity, she aches to discover just how defined the girl's muscles are, imagining that she might closely resemble the flawless goddesses whose statues inhabit the ancient temples found in the countries to the south. Almost desperately Regina longs to roam lazy fingers down what is sure to be a taut tummy, and then skim the palms of her hands up silky smooth yet powerfully carved thighs that propel what are certain to be impossibly long legs judging by Red's height.

If only you knew the sort of things I wish to do to you. Regina's skin itches with want, and even though Snow is tantalizingly within her reach, she is far too enamored to even care. In this paradoxical girl, simple of appearance yet deceptively complex, she has a new obsession to occupy her. Determined at present to indulge it, all thoughts of Snow recede to the fringes of her mind.

Suddenly besieged by an irresistible urge to claim the werewolf as her own, Regina decides she wants this girl on her side. Just the same, she is also aware her normal tactics will be insufficient. Offers of riches and power will hold no interest for a woman who is clearly willing to cast her life away for a criminal with zero prospects of accruing any substantial wealth. The possibility of hurtling colorful threats seems equally futile, as Red seems to have little to no fear of her whatsoever. There is also the rather unfortunate fact that magically enslaving a werewolf is a fool's errand many a magician has attempted, only to for the enchantment to break at the most inopportune moment and their victim turn upon them with savage instincts provoked to a frenzied high. All of this means she is left with only one recourse: to rely solely upon her womanly charms.

Difficult as it may be, she will have to rein in her mile-wide impulsive streak and calm the roiling molten seas of her volcanic temper. Like a feral animal first encountering human civilization, Red will require a measured patience and a gentle touch, neither of which Regina is known to possess aside from her dealings with innocent children and her precious horses. To her, no one has proven worth the effort til now.

However it is possible, Red has seen through the formerly impenetrable facade that conceals the woman carefully entombed beneath the shell of the Evil Queen. What's more, Red has witnessed the Queen in all her terrible splendor and neither balked nor batted a lovely eyelash upon catching a manic interest that sends most fleeing in fear or cowering in pitiful submission. If anything, the Queen seems to excite Red more than the werewolf would probably ever admit to her insufferably pure friend.

Red, it appears, is far more interesting and unusual than Regina had first believed. Few are capable of taking the good with the bad without favoring one over the other depending upon moral inclination. It doesn't seem to matter to Red that Regina presents her evil side to the world while keeping what scant goodness lingers securely buried. It's been made perfectly clear during this brief interaction that Snow remaining alive is, to Red, proof that the woman she used to be is still present inside her. And that appears to be more than enough reason for Red to have committed such a startling act of proactive trust, not only by saving her life but by entrusting her with her own.

Honestly, it's a little intimidating – and terrifying – to be the recipient of such trust when the last person who'd done so destroyed her entire life. But no matter the association, Red is not Snow. That much Regina knows without a doubt. Snow could never look at Regina the way Red is right now, not with her in full Evil Queen regalia and coldblooded murder still inhabiting her charred heart. With Snow, it was always pity, guilt, or disgust whereas Red's steady gaze is marked by an attraction underscored by a deep, almost fathomless level of understanding. Only someone who is herself a monster can appreciate another monster without the stigma of morality sullying an intense, rapidly forming, and rare connection such as theirs.

So if she is required to entice Red with more of the witty banter and molten glances they have been sharing, sweetened by glimpses of a goodness she'd perhaps mistakenly thought forever in her past, she was willing to do so. Miraculously, Red believes her to be worth a lavish attention she had not recognized until now that she craves. It is the least she could do to return the favor. And with any luck, Red will soon enough succumb to the undeniable chemistry between them, the prospect of which sends a shiver coursing through Regina's limbs.

As far as she is concerned, this is an all or nothing proposition. Scant as her experience interacting with Red is, she has already concluded that a simple companionship will not suffice for either of them. Empty sex is something she already has at a ready supply, and judging by how loyal to a fault Red is, that option is not available for her at all. There is, she realizes, a real possibility of something meaningful forming between them.

A day earlier, she would have laughed until she was hoarse at the idea that she would ever willingly risk her heart again over a love affair. And yet she cannot bridle her suddenly runaway desires. She wants Red, wants all of her, wants the magnificent creature writhing beneath her fervent ministrations, bared to her not only in body but in mind, heart, and soul as well. Regina wants Red to be her woman and her wolf, not Snow's, and admitting that to herself is as terrifying as it is exhilarating.

"What happens next depends solely upon you," she offers enigmatically, her decision made. A subtle leer is present in her perusal of Red that causes the girl to yet again blush prettily.

Red worries artfully shaped lips for a moment before responding. "How so?"

Feeling audacious, Regina steps toward Red and is pleased to see that she does not flinch back even slightly. Rather, she remains bravely in place, head held high and eyes burning with anticipation.

As Regina maneuvers herself into Red's personal space, she hums out in approval at the response. She has grown tired of lovers who cow to her every whim, who lack the spine to stand up to her and take what they want when she is in the rare mood to give a little. She is hungry for someone whose strength of character is as immutable and whose will as intractable as her own, someone who can feed her mind and spirit as well as her body by challenging her without posing a threat to her sovereignty because they are trustworthy. In Red she believes she has glimpsed a potential partner who would do all of those things for her, a partner who is capable of standing by her side rather than folding up under the tremendous pressures of her life only to then be inevitably crushed beneath her heel.

"Since you saved my life," she answers, making sure to allow for invitation in her tone, "I am inclined to ignore your status as co-conspirator to and your abetting of an infamous outlaw in order to offer you a modest reward. It is one I personally believe you would be a fool to decline." Upon noticing that Red's interest is highly piqued, Regina grins. "In return for your agreement to dine with me on any night of your choosing within a fortnight, I will suspend my pursuit of Snow...for the time being."

Red's eyebrows shoot up at that. It appears she is as shocked to receive such an offer as Regina is that she made it. And yet to her endless astonishment she meant every word.

"Are you serious?"

"Of course I am," Regina retorts with a scoff. "I wouldn't be standing here in the freezing snow trading banter with you otherwise."

For a moment, Red grows visibly suspicious, which is to be expected. Coming from the Evil Queen, the offer must sound far too good to be true, perhaps even seeming like a trap meant to lure Snow into surrendering by capturing her best friend.

"Why would you do that?" Red then queries, her large eyes slightly narrowing. "And for how long would this ceasefire last?"

Regina tuts, though somehow manages to remain calm whereas she would normally be irritated beyond measure to have her motives questioned. Red, it appears, has some kind of mollifying effect on her, and she isn't quite sure she likes it.

"Why? Because I am the Queen. I do what I want," is her abrupt answer to the first question, as if that should be enough. She is not yet ready to show her full hand, but in order to answer Red's query more fully, she adds: "As for the latter...again, that depends entirely upon you and your ability to entertain me, my dear. My hope is that should we both be satisfied with this arrangement, we can...negotiate an extension. I cannot currently fathom why, but I appear to be open to persuasion where you are concerned. If I were you, I wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, as it were."

Understanding dawns in Red's becoming eyes. "You mean to seduce me, don't you?" The blunt assessment catches Regina off guard and she reels back a step, unused to such boldness. "I've heard of your dalliances," Red then explains upon witnessing Regina's reaction, "and I know that you like to take lovers on a whim. I also know how you toss them out like yesterday's trash after you've finished with them. While I have to admit interest in the offer, I won't allow you to use me in such a degrading way. Besides the fact that I love Snow and will never betray her, I do actually have standards. I may be a peasant by birth, Your Majesty, but I'm nobody's whore. Not even yours."

Again Regina is taken aback, this time in that Red has so readily declared an interest in pursuing a sexual relationship so long as it is not a means to entrap Snow. She hadn't expected the girl to be forthcoming, but finds herself pleasantly surprised.

"I could have your tongue for speaking to me with such impudence," she retorts, sneering just a tad to put Red in her place. She is the Evil Queen, after all, and must keep up appearances. Sadly, her posturing doesn't seem to have any effect on Red, who merely arches a flawless eyebrow. "But I will give you a pass just this once because neither of those scenarios reflect my intentions. However," she amends, "to address your understandable concerns, I will concede that I have taken my fair share of lovers and disposed of them, as you so crudely put it, like so much trash.

"I am a harsh woman, and selfish to a fault. I make no apologies for who I am. I use people for my own ends on a regular basis, and I don't see that changing any time soon. But in the interest of transparency, I will confess that I have never been so taken before as I am with you. I certainly would never have risked my own life upon a treacherously narrow mountain pass in the driving snow and biting cold just to get a second glimpse of any of my past lovers. So while your apprehension is sensible, commendable even, in this case it is not warranted. My offer is genuine."

The admission frightens Regina almost as much as it stuns Red. She hadn't meant to be so forward; it just sort of came out of her mouth all of its own volition. She would feel mortified and disgusted at herself had Red not reacted in such a receptive way.

Standing there in the snow, her bright red hood decorated by a light pile of snow flakes, Red gapes in awe as if she has just heard the most wonderful and terrifying thing. "You really feel that way?" Regina nods, swallowing heavily. "Why me?"

"I don't rightly know," Regina confesses, and notes that her heart beats faster when Red nibbles again at her lower lip. "Against all reason you seem to have bewitched me." Feeling instinctively that it is a make or break moment, she decides to play her cards, to lay it all out on the line and bare herself in a way she hadn't since Daniel passed. It is the most frightened she has been in years, but strangely also the most alive. "I cannot deny the accuracy of your assessment that I wish to bed you. I am intensely attracted to you, and I am sure that is obvious to you considering...what you are." She holds Red's gaze, making sure the werewolf understands, truly understands what she is trying to say. "All the same, to minimize this as a simple desire for carnal fulfillment would be grossly misrepresenting how I feel. There is some invisible force drawing me to you, and although I would normally be inclined to fight it, I do not wish to. Not now. I am suddenly and inexplicably tired of fighting."

Tilting her head slightly, she gazes at Red, willing the girl to understand how perplexed she is about all of this while also projecting a reassurance that will pierce through any lingering doubts Red may have. "Against all better sense, I want to know you," she says, intent in inflection, "and for you in turn to know me. In order for that to happen, we must spend time with each other. Therefore I am willing to make a concession to secure that time, even if it is one that pains me beyond description."

Red makes no reply, just stares on in amazement at Regina's speech, and it makes the normally self-assured Queen unusually nervous. She is both unused to being so exposed and unaccustomed to her advances not being immediately accepted.

Flushing slightly, she squares her shoulders and gives Red a glare that lacks any real conviction. "If breaking bread with me is not an amenable solution, perhaps I have misjudged..."

"N-no!" Red then protests with wide eyes, interrupting Regina. "It's not that. I just..." She takes a giant breath and lets it out slowly. Shaking her head, she laughs ruefully. "When I was a kid, my Granny scrounged up enough spare coin to take me to the fair that was passing through the kingdom. I can remember how impressed I was with the jousting competition, and how much I wanted to taste all the wonderful food there we couldn't afford. But then, I saw a line of armored soldiers passing our way, and in the midst of them, the most glorious vision of splendor to ever grace the earth. It was you. I was just twelve years old, but I will never forget what it was like to fall in love for the first time, and I did...the moment I saw you."

Again Regina reels, remembering the particular fair Red is referring to but having no recollection of catching sight of an adolescent werewolf girl. She suddenly wishes she had, if only to know what Red looked like at so tender an age.

Wistful and glassy eyed, Red tilts her head and smiles as she continues with her reminiscing. "After we got back home, I spent my nights fantasizing about coming of age and doing something about my impossible crush. I knew the king was old, that he was likely to have passed by that time, and I was set on my path. I decided that I was going to become a famous knight so that I could enter the jousting tournament and win your hand. It was a foolish fantasy in retrospect, but those childhood dreams got me through some really bad times in the years that followed."

"Dreams often are foolish, especially those of our youth," Regina offers. She has personal experience, after all. Still somewhat out of sorts from the confession, her heart is palpitates ferociously against her breast. "But as you can see, sometimes they are harbingers of things to come. You may not be a famous knight, and might not have won my hand, but you have captured my interest all the same. The question is: is that enough incentive for you to accept my offer?"

At that, Red's entire visage turns playful, and she gives Regina teasing smile. "I guess you'll find out in two weeks." And with that, she transforms back into the form of a gorgeous black wolf, and after a playful yip, throws her head back and howls in earnest. Regina laughs, happy to hear the boisterous trumpeting and delighting in the way it lifts her spirits, makes her feel optimistic about life outside of the mission that has consumed her for so long.

As she watches Red sprint away, her anticipation for the following weeks grows exponentially. What she could not possibly have predicted, however, is that whenever she hears the sound of Red howling into the night over the subsequent years, she will remember this moment with vivid clarity. She will marvel at how on an isolated, desolate, frigid mountain pass, she felt hope stir within her breast for the first time in nearly a decade. It is a hope that – although made to endure many tribulations and forced to face many trials – will never, ever fade.

[ravens-lil-nest]

June 16, 1775

When I signed on to be apart of the Continental army, I honestly did not know what to expect. With my first battle done and loss, I look to either side of me and the best and worst of mankind. I have met many brave and courageous young men like myself, fighting for something that we all believe in: Freedom. I personally do not care for the pitiful politics that started this war, but the promise to shape this land into something better than our forefathers could is what pushes me to fight. We all have our owns reasons I suppose though, and most I can respect. However, as I have seen the bright future, I also see the darkness that creeps in. I fight a just cause but there are those that only fight for the promise of money, land, and slaves. Disgusting pigs that think themselves more human than others simply for their pale complexion.

When tensions run high, such as today, they are the first to bare teeth and spit venom like-

Daniel’s writing came to a stop when he heard voices from outside his tent. He quickly smothered the candle he had lit, dosing his surroundings in darkness. Laying down on his bed roll like the other two soldiers in his tent, he pretended to be asleep. Past Smith’s snoring, he heard feet shuffling past his tent and for a moment he thought it was Colonel Prescott checking the grounds to ensure his forces were following orders. With the lose today, the needed to rest well before moving out early the next morning. He went so far threaten that anyone who was up with the moon was to be discharged and sent home. Daniel honestly didn’t know if the colonel was serious or not but he didn’t need push his luck for not following such a simple order.

He really did try to go to sleep for a moment, but when the feet only continued past his tent instead of turning around, Daniel’s curiosity got the better of him. He could hear a distant voice urging whoever was with it it to keep moving and his imagination ran off with the idea that the Redcoats had snuck in their camp to capture one of his fellow soldier perhaps as revenge for the heavy casualties they had suffered. He was on his feet in a instant, pulling on his boots before stepping over Smith and Adam’s sleeping bodies to escape their shared tent. Their campsite was covered in shadow, the only light provided by the moonlight that filtered through the forest’s trees. To his right was the rest of camp, while he left opened up to the rest of the forest that only seemed to get darker and darker. In between the trees he saw a couple of dark shapes moving deeper in and Daniel bent back into his tent, grabbing a flintlock before following after them.

He made sure to keep his footsteps light, avoiding sticks and leaves from crunching undertow to ensure his cover. He probably should have woken Smith and Adam, or even get Colonel Prescott himself the the worry of losing those Redcoats all together was a risk he was not willing to take. However, he quickly caught up, the voices much clearer now as they spat words he couldn’t quite make out yet. He paused for a moment realizing the words were punctuated by a hard southern drawl that squashed Daniel’s initial suspicions...but they still could be loyalists so he pressed on. A second though, he halted all together when a sharp snapping sound echoed toward him, accompanied by a heavy thud a groan. 

Some mocking words followed, “Stupid nigger isn’t even defendin’ himself,” spuring Daniel back into action.

“Smart enough to know when a beating is deserved,” Another voice said, once more followed by a meaty thud.

He weaved through a couple more trees before coming across a small clearing between them were the scene that made his stomach clench unfolded. There was four men altogether, three surrounding a fourth. His skin was dark, despite the moon light shining down on them all and Daniel immediately recognized him to be one of Lee’s slaves however something told him that the other three definitely weren’t any of Lee’s men. Sure, they were white and southern just like him but they were poor men who still felt the right to beat others simply because they were born the right color.

Two of them were holding the slave back, keeping him on his knees by wrenching his arms behind him. Daniel barely recognized them, he didn’t really know any of his fellow soldiers names thanks to having only arrived in Boston a mere day before the battle. However, they looked to be brothers, sharing the same boorish face the sneered down at the slave with misplaced rage and anger. Daniel could only guess that the third man mirror their emotions, his back turned to him obscuring his face completely. All he could really make out was that he had reddish hair and when he spoke he had a more Scottish twang to his words.

“You’re the reason we lost today, nigger, good for nothing not even diggin’ and buildin’! Can’t even shoot a musket right,” The red-head spat, as the slave hung exhausted in the other men’s arms, head bowed.

The man scoffed, pulling up the slave’s head by the short curled hair causing him to grimace when his face came into view, “Look at me when I’m talkin’ ta ya, slave.”

Even in the low light, Daniel could see the darker man’s defined features, especially his eyes. They were dark, set in a heavy glare at the man who was trying to make himself bigger than him even though Daniel was pretty certain that he could snap each of them like a twig if he wanted to. He was larger the life it seemed like and he found himself staring for a moment before his eyes focused in on the blood trailing from his mouth.

“You’re not ma masta’” the man said lowly, a spark of defiance lighting in his eyes for just a moment before the reality of what he had done set in.

The red-head’s shoulders tense, holding back the shaking anger that Daniel literally could see boiling inside of him. The other two men mirrored his emotions, tightening their hold on the slave, practically baring their teeth at him. The red-head pulled on his hair again, bringing his fist back in preparation of a new wave of beating. 

“Guess your ‘Masta’ didn’t teach ya manners then. I’ll do him the favor,” He spoke cruely before his swung forward.

Daniel caught it however, holding the red-head’s arm back just before it made contact with the slave’s face. If he was being quite honest with himself, he had no idea how he got there from hiding spot behind the tree, both startling himself and the other four men whose eyes were all on him. It felt like time stood still for a moment as they all took in the scene they found themselves in and Daniel met the beaten man’s eyes, dark and unreadable, quite the opposite of his own. Suddenly time was thrown into motion again when the red-head yanked his arm from Daniels grip his burning glare now set on him. At least his and the two lackeys were focused on him for the time being.

“What ya think your doin?” the red-head asked, turning to face him more.

“Gentleman,” Daniel found himself saying, mocking the sense of cordial conversation; anything to keep that attention on himself and away from the already beaten man, “Perhaps you’ve heard the saying, a strong man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others to the ground.”

As he spoke, Daniel finally got a good look at what he was facing and really the odds weren’t looking in his favor. The redhead was much older the he was, early thirties it seemed, faintly resembling the other two men that held the slave down still. Possibly their father. It wasn’t unheard of how fathers and sons already were fighting side by side in this war; after all both Daniel and his own father enlisted together. He also recognized the man to be one of the few that had been gripping about money and land at dinner after Prescott had given his troops his hope speech earlier that night. He even “joked” about joining the loyalists side because at least they guaranteed a pay. Daniel felt something boiling in his veins and took all his energy not the sneer but keep the fake smile he had on.

“What did ya say yo me, boy?” The man stressed the diminishing term, daring Daniel to continue.

He stepped forward, getting into his space, towering over him and it wasn’t because Daniel was forced to the ground like the slave in front of him. Daniel was short, especially for a man and someone like him with any sense of preservation would have stepped away. However, it didn’t deter him and a small smirk formed of Daniel’s lips as he kept his stance tall. 

“Perhaps, I should put it more simply..if you really must take out your petty frustrations and beat someone to the ground at least pick someone your own size,” He said mockingly causing the three men to burst out in wolfish laughter. The redhead shook his head, shrugging Daniel off to turn his attention back to the beaten man between them all.

“And whose that suppose to be? You?” One of the lackeys said between his fits of laughter as the redhead went about what he was doing before they were rudely interrupted

However, any sounds of mocking joy was quickly stifled when a sharp wail echoed into the forest when Daniel grabbed the redhead’s arm again, twisting it behind his back. He tried claw at Daniel but for once his height came in handy as he forced the man to arch his back in an attempt to not cause more pain. He was about to say something witty but a new set of hands pulled him away from the redhead, followed by punch to the stomach that knocked the air out of him. Daniel was shoved to the ground, joining the beaten man as the other three towered over them both now. He met the darker man’s gaze for a moment, still as unreadable as before. Daniel smiled right before a sharp pain bloomed at his temple; his world was consumed in blackness.

When Daniel came to, he was sprawled on his back and his entire body ached. One of his eyes refused to open but from what he could see out of his right, the moon had moved far to the west. It was probably early morning...the sun would be coming up soon. While tilting his head some, pain exploded behind his eyes, pulling a groan from his throat. He pushed past it though, fumbling about to sit up straight. A pair of warm hands suddenly were on his back to help. Blinking a few times, Daniel recognized that it was the slave from earlier, beaten and discarded in the forest just like him. It made something in his heart twist and pull.  

“I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to stop them,” Daniel apologized quite honestly and the other man looked surprised for a moment.

However the flicker of emotion vanished as he turned his attention to tend to Daniel, completely forgetting his own injuries. This made him frown and he gently pushed him away, causing his wrist to hurt but he ignored it. 

“I’m fine, take care of yourself,” He said, quickly realizing it came across as an order and he made sure to correct himself, “I mean, I appreciate it but you’re probably worse than me. I have a suturing kit back at camp if you need it.” Daniel could tell that they both had at least one head injury that needed to be sewn close if not more. The other man hesitated but followed through with what Daniel said, starting to use his shirt to wipe away the blood on his face. Satisfied for now, Daniel eased back into a lying position to release the tension in his back. Staring up at the night sky, he started counting the stars, something to keep his mind working on as he pinpointed what parts of him were bruised and beaten...so essentially everywhere. However, he was distracted by the feeling of eyes staring at him. 

“You can talk freely if you want,” He said, putting the possibility out there. Silence followed for while and all Daniel could hear was the distant rustling of animals deeper in the forest and his own painful breathing. At some point he closed his eyes, just focusing on his deep breaths while he could feel his rips practically creak with each inhale and exhale. He definitely had a broken rib...hopefully he could see the surgeon before they packed up at dawn to see about wrapping him up.

“You didn’t have to do that,” a low voice said beside him, causing his eyes to snap open. 

“Didn’t do much really...” he pointed out.

“More than most,” a pause followed before the other man continued, “Why?”

Now that was a question that had a very simply answer to and it was all thanks to Daniel’s ridiculous sense of justice. However, instead of going on a rant about life and liberties and all sorts of other nonsense, Daniel pushed himself to sit up once more. The darker man’s hands were suddenly on him again, trying to push him back down to rest but Daniel shrugged him off. Wincing only ever second, he sat up to face him. He took notice of something, and gestured to both of their hands. In the low light, there was a light sheen across each other their palms.  

“The way I see it, you and I bleed the same red blood, just like every other man fighting for something in this world. We’re equals,” Daniel said slowly, “Can’t speak for everyone out here, especially those bastards that drug you out here in the first place, but I defend for my own and that’s every man, woman, and child that’s been beaten, ridiculed, or deride for just living.”

“But Imma slave,” the other man muttered, “Not a man.”

“And the bastards that made you believe that will choke on their own words someday,” Daniel said quiet seriously as though he had any right to judge and condemn.

That got a glimmer of smile out of the other man, a puff of laughter even, “Let me guess, you’ll be the one ta do it?”

He couldn’t help but laugh as well, even as his ribs screamed in pain, “That’s right. I’ll record their ignorant words and then shoved it down their throats to send them straight to hell.”

They both shook their heads in amusement of each other, falling into a comfortable silence. The ache was returning throughout Daniel body, and all he wanted was to lay down but he knew that they both needed to get back to camp. Sure it was one thing for him to have gone missing in the middle of the night, but despite his hopefully words he knew Charles Lee would not be happy to find one of his slave’s missing. Mentally preparing himself to try and stand up, that low voice pulled him from his thoughts once more. 

“I think ya saved my life tonight, spread their beating out between the two of us,” the other an said quiet contemplatively, “How can I repay you?”

“Just help me to my feet and we’ll call it even.”

He looked like his was about to protest but Daniel held out his hand, the same one that had blood on it earlier. Most of it was dried and wiped off but a red hue still graced his palm, much like his face and neck. The other man didn’t even grimace as he clapped his own dried hand to take Daniel’s. With equal effort, they helped each other to stand, softly groaning thanks to whatever new pains made themselves known in their beaten bodies. Daniel tried to step forward to head back to camp but his right leg practically crumbled but thankfully he was caught by large hands and arms.

“Actually, help me back to camp and then we’re even,” He said with a pained smile, already trying to wrap an arm around the other man’s shoulders. 

It was a bit awkward, given their height difference but they made do and soon enough they were making their way back to camp. When they arrived only a few other men were up and about, already preparing to leave. Two caught sight of the beaten pair and their eyes widened before the rushed to help them both to the surgeons. They were sewn up and wrapped in bandages all while Daniel was making a poutty face about being touched which caused his companion to have to bite back a laugh. 

The surgeon stepped outside of his tent for a moment and Daniel recognized Colonel Prescott voice. It also was sounding like he was speaking to the men that found them, demanding to know what happened. Charles Lee voice joined the noise outside and Daniel saw the man beside him visibly recoil. He turned to face, gently prodding his side to get his attention. 

“I think we worked on the wall together,” Daniel said, referring to the night before last where they also didn’t sleep any, “East side facing the harbor, don’t think I caught your name then. I’m Daniel Davenport.”

He didn’t really expect the man to answer; he had been silent ever since they got back to camp. However, for a moment his dark eyes soften. “Thomas...I’m Thomas Lee.”

He immediately went silent again when his master and the Colonel entered the tent, followed by the surgeon. He went back to work, messing with Daniel’s stitches on his temple once more while he relayed the nights events to the enraged Colonel. Sometimes it was a good thing that Daniel talked too much because it gave hardly any time for Charles to interject himself, something he knew Thomas was grateful for.

June 17th 1775

Misters Alan, Bennett, and Richard O’Sullivan are due to return to New York City to be tried for the attempted murders of Private Daniel Davenport and Thomas Lee. Proceedings shall be seen under a military court martial. If convicted and found guilty, they are to be sentenced to public hanging.

Signed by: Colonel William Prescott.

Order recorded by: Daniel Davenport.

[inhumansforever]

Inhumans: Judgement Day Review

spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers

The inhumans face off against the Progenitors in this grand finale, from the creative team of Al Ewing, Kevin Libranda, José Villarubia and Mike Del Mundo; cover by Daniel Acúna.  Recap and review following the jump.  

Let’s set the stage… The inhumans’ powers and culture are derived from the mysterious, mutagenic substance known as Terrigen.  Millennia ago, the space-faring Kree had come to earth and conducted experiments on a group go prehistoric humans, altering their DNA so that they could be changed by way of exposure to the gaseous rendering of Terrigen Crystals.  The subjects of these experiments would go on to found Attilan and call themselves Inhumans.  

Central to their customs was that each Inhuman would undergo Terrigenesis, transformation by way of the Terrigen Mist, at the time of their adolescence.  This continued on for thousands of years as the Inhumans remained isolated and sequestered from the human world.  

Only the kings and queens who ruled Attilan knew the secret truth that there were many other Inhumans living amongst the humans.  Numerous Inhumans had left Attilan over the years, integrating into human society and quietly passing along the genetic potential for Terrigenesis.  

When the world was threatened by Thanos and the cascade of encroaching alternate realities, King Black Bolt opted to take a drastic course of action.  All of the Terrigen was made into a bomb that, once detonated, created a set of Terrigen Clouds… clouds that would flow over the earth and would trigger transformations among a legion of new Inhumans all about the globe.  

It was a decision Black Bolt had made without his wife’s consort or consent.  Since childhood, Medusa had been much more than Black Bolt’s friend and later wife… she was his confidant, his voice.  Yet he took her for granted, keeping her in the dark over his ongoing affairs with The Illuminati and the dire threats they were seeking to address.  It took its tole on their relationship and his disappearance following the Infinity Event proved to be the final straw.  Medusa was made the new queen of a new Attilan and by royal decree she annulled their marriage.      

Catastrophe was ultimately averted, but a new peril soon came to pass when it proved that the Terrigen Clouds were deadly poisonous to The inhumans’ cousin race, The Mutants.  So to prevent the genocide of all Mutants, Medusa was forced to destroy the Terrigen Cloud, ridding the world of the last of the Terrigen… saving the Mutants but, in so doing, dooming the future of Inhumanity.    

In the wake of her actions, Medusa chose to abdicate the throne and dissolve the Inhuman Monarchy; selecting Iso as New Attilan’s leader until democratic elections could be held.  Medusa’s final order as queen was that the treacherous Maximus being exiled… not just from New Attilan but from Earth itself.  Maximus was to be sent to an ancient prison located on the far side of the galaxy.   Yet Maximus’ cleverness was once again his salvation.  Through trickery and guile, Maximus orchestrated matters so that it was his brother, Black Bolt, who was sent to the space prison whilst Maximus remained behind disguised as his as his brother.  

Noh-Varr, a Kree adventurer from another universe sought out The inhumans, informing them that all was not lost.  The Kree Empire that he hailed form was far more advanced, more knowledgeable over their own origins as well as that of the Inhumans.  He possessed an understanding over Terrigen that could be used to attain a new supply… a new future for Inhuman-kind.       A pilgrimage was set out on as Medusa led a team into the cosmos to obtain this new salvation.  She was accompanied by Noh-Var, her sister, Crystal, the empath Swain, the geokinetic Flint, and Medusa’s longtime friend and protector, Gorgon.  Black Bolt joined this mission as well, but it wasn’t long before his true identity was revealed and the team discovered that had unwittingly brought along Maximus the Mad on this most crucial of missions.  

A new development occurred that forced them to shelve the matters of dealing with Maximus and rescuing Black Bolt.  Medusa divulged that has recently discovered that she was dying.  Her strength had been waining ever since she destroyed the Terrigen Cloud, then her hair began to fall out and she could put the matter off no long.  Death was near.  

Noh-Var’s efforts to identify the etiology of Medusa’s illness proved to be just as quixotic, bizarre and difficult to understand as his explanation of what exactly Terrigen is.  Science, magic and poetry are not disparate entries in Noh-Varr’s philosophy, rather they are puzzle pieces that fit together to create a grander gestalt transcending the confines of conventional thinking.  The Terrigen was not sentient per se; yet also not completely without a sense of self agency.  It was Medusa’s hand that destroyed the Terrigen and now that Terrigen that remained within her was bringing about this terminal illness as a kind of ’poetic revenge’ ,,,a death by metaphor.  

Stubbornly, Medusa refused to die quietly and was intent on going out on her feet.  She led the team to Hala, the former home planet of The Kree, as well to NovaHalla, the new refuge for The Universal Inhumans.  Throughout their adventures they gathered the clues ultimately that ultimately led them to powerful race of space demigods known as the Progenitors.   Just as the Kree had utilized Terrigen to alter the evolution of The Inhumans, so too did the Progenitors done the same for the Kree, changing them from a primitive and savage race to a highly advanced and space faring peoples; although not with Terrigen but rather with the purified Primagen from which Terrigen is merely a diluted derivative.

Although an unwanted stowaway, Maximus proved to be very helpful throughout this endeavor.   Maximus was aware of this mysterious Primagen.  It is what his parents considered the ‘Prima Materia,’ the key to understanding and obtaining the true destinyy of their people.  As well as the reason why both Maximus and his brother were exposed to an ultra-purified strain of Terrigen when they were both still in the womb.  

The team ultimately made their way to The World Farm, the strange home of the Progenitors.  It was an unwelcoming world, a manufactured solar system where robotic-like beings cultivated mutated amalgams of science and nature as a means of furthering the advancement and of their own quasi-evolution.   Here the Primagen was shown to be The Progenitor’s life-blood, a complex compound of organic material infused with billions of microprocessors facilitating its mutagenic properties.   

The Royals arrival on the World Farm was viewed by The Progenitors as little more than an infestation of pests… inferiors beings who needed to be eliminated so to ensure the clockwork functioning of the farm.  The Royals had to battle off these beings in a desperate effort to obtain a cache of the Primagen and escape with their lives.  

They were no match for these awesome beings, yet managed to discover a weakness in them.  The Progenitors synthetic minds worked on a level of pure logic and rationality.  As such these beings had no concept of emotion, sentimentality and affect.  Swain and Maximus combined their powers to flood their attacker with intense emotional sensations, befuddling its circuits and left it vulnerable to being destroyed.  They Royals ultimately succeeded in fleeing the planet, but it came only through the noble sacrifice of Gorgon who remained behind to fight off the attackers whist his colleagues escaped.  

In the midst of trying to discover a means of returning home, Medusa granted Maximus permission to touch the Primagen.  Doing so acted to supercharge his mental powers, allowing him to experience his past, present and distant future all in the same moment.  As such he was able to gain access to his experiences some five thousand years in the future.  To this end, he came to realize the ultimate folly of The Royals’ actions.  

Thieving the Primagen, holding their own against The Progenitors merely acted to pique these beings’ curiosity… to view The Inhumans as possessing the potential for raw material that could be harvested, assimilated and utilized to further their own advancement.  The Royals had not only doomed themselves, but all of earth as well.  The Progenitors would return and the result would be the destruction of the planet and all life thereon.  

A desperate plan was devised once the Royals returned home.  The Progenitors were coming and they could not be allowed to set foot on earthly soil.  To this end, the battle station of New Arctillan was built on the oxygen rich Grey Area of the moon, located on the satellites’ dark side.   There the Inhumans would mount their defense against the Progenitors, doing all they might to prevent these nigh-powerful being from reaching earth.  

The task before them seemed all but insurmountable, yet Maximus had a plan.  The Progenitors had demonstrated an Achilles heel once before in their vulnerability to human emotion… perhaps once more this might be utilized to obtain victory.  

To this end, Maximus had assembled a crack team: Swain, who can wield and manipulate affect; Panacea, Swain love and anchor to keep her balanced; Frank McGee the detective whose analytic mind might compensate for the illogicality of emotion, Noh-Varr, the Master tactician; Crystal, whose abilities to harness and control the elements could loan itself well to the same flowing nature of emotion; and Reader, whose reality warping abilities will prove key to entering into a realm where the Inhumans and Progenitors might be on equal footing: The Astral Plain.  

Maximus’ mind bending strategy makes little sense to the others, especially Reader who insists that this is simply not how his powers work.  He can make real what he reads, but he has the actually understand such words… it needs to be a real world that his mind can truly comprehend.  

Maximus counters... summoning his inner-Jacques Lacan, he explains that words are inexact stand-ins, mere approximations of thoughts and feelings… notions that at their heart defy the limitation of speech or writing.   Maximus creature the nonsensical word, ‘floob’ presenting it as a shorthand for the neitherworld of thought and emotion.   He’d written this term on a Braille tile, insisting that reading this tile will succeed in allowing Reader to transporting them all to this conceptual plain.  

Reader remains unconvinced.  He’s not sure it could work and, more importantly, he has grown weak from using his powers to teleport to the moon.  He is going to need rest and recuperate his strength if he is to transport the entirety of the team to this  Ill-defined realm of Floob.  

Yet such time doesn’t exist.  The Progenitors have arrived, laying siege to New Arctillan.  Overlord Class and Exterminator Class Progenitors attack and it will only be a matter of moments before all of Arctillan and it’s inhabitants are eliminated.  

Maximus and Reader have to act quickly… there is only enough time and energy to transport one Inhuman to Floob and Maximus makes his decision in an instant, instructing Reader to send Medusa.  Before she can object, Medusa finds herself relocated to a mysterious and ethereal plain somewhere between thought and feeling (breathtakingly depicted by Del Mundo’s magnificent illustration).  

In the desert like atmosphere of this strange realm Medusa views the decrepit statue of her former husband, Black Bolt, looking down upon her, as well as the ruined stature of her one time lover, Gorgon, at her feet.  

Medusa is confused that Maximus had chosen her as the sole combatant sent into Floob... surely she is the least optimal candidate.  All that has transpired has been her fault.   She destroyed the Terrigen, she has suffered its revenge; it was her folly that brought earth into the crosshairs of The Progenitors, she who sacrificed Gorgon to facilitate their cowardly escape.  All of this guilt and self condemnation has hardened her, making her feel her heart has been rendered little more than a dead stone.  

Exposure to the Primagen had supercharged the abilities of her colleagues, but for her it had no effect.  She sees her gift, her very Inhumanity, as dead and gone and hence the Primagen can and has offered her nothing.  

Medusa has little time to wallow in her self doubt.  This realm is not without predators and a blackened serpentine energy ensnares her like a python, curling about her legs and pulling her toward a certain demise.  

She struggles against this force and as she dose her mind drifts to the man whom she had once so depended on, who in the past would always come to her aide when facing such dire circumstances.   As she does, the statue of Black Bolt begins to stir, fissures cracking over its surface.  

Medusa’s desperation grows and acts as a kind of beacon, a doorway that invites in a new presence.  

The figure of Black Bolt bursts forth from the innards if the statue... leaping to action and coming to his love’s aide.   Fighting another’s demons can be much easier than facing one’s own and Black Bolt is able to make short work of the parasite of doubt and remorse that had so threatened Medusa.  

The predator defeated, Medusa and Black Bolt are unsure what to do and find themselves trekking through the etherial desert landscape for what feels like a veritable eternity.  Soon they come across another decrepit statute, this one of Crusher Creel, The Absorbing Man.  A one time foe of the Mighty Thor, Creel was Black Bolt’s cellmate and eventual ally whist he was incarcerated in that terrible space prison.  Creel helped Black Bolt, sacrificing himself to save Black Bolt’s life and bring about an end to the oppressive and despotic Jailer.  

Just as Medusa feels remorse and regret over Gorgon’s death, so too does Black Bolt feel similarly over Creel’s death.  They had both been leaders of their people, bared the overwhelming responsibilities of the welfare of others.  And both are bereft over the terrible decision of having to sacrifice their friends.  

Here Black Bolt realizes that he can speak in this strange realm, that his sonic powers have no effect and he and Medusa can communicate through words.  As they continue to trek onward, they talk about all that has transpired and how the two had grown apart.  Black Bolt pushes down his jealousy that his former wife had found comfort in the arms of their friend, Gorgon; though he also must come to terms that she sought out this comfort because he had for too long denied it to her.  Medusa had turned to Gorgon not because she had carnal needs but rather emotional needs… the need for comfort and security, the need to be treated as an equal and a partner.  Whatever envy or anger Black Bolt feels over the matter is pushed aside because he knows that she is right.  He hadn’t treated her as an equal, he treated her as a child who needed to be shielded and keep int he dark of terrible truths.   Might she forgive him?  Does she still love him?

Medusa isn’t ready to say, but does admit to missing him; missing the partnership they had, how they completed each other and how Attilan prevailed when the two worked in concert.  But they haven’t the time or luxury to dwell on the past, they must move forward into an uncertain future… a future that may very well entail a rekindling of what they once had.  

The two are attacked before they can discuss the matter further… The Progenitors have finally navigated their way into this strange realm, intent on eliminating this new a threat.  A maw opens up in the desert floor with the Overlord Progenitor within it, reaching up with to grasp Medusa with an intense gravity wave pulling her down.  

Black Bolt desperately holds onto Medusa’s arm, keep her from falling into this terrible pit.  Medusa struggles to keep her grasp, but she is still overwhelmed by her guilt and regret.  Suddenly she realizes that in her other hand she holds the Primagen Crystal, the crystal that failed to work for her.  In that moment, Black Bolt fades away, drawn back to his own demons of the trauma bestowed onto him by the sadistic Jailer.  

Medusa is left alone still grasping onto the seemingly useless shard of Primagen.  This powerful substance had not worked for Medusa… did not work because she would not let it.  She doesn’t feel she deserved it.  She brought ruin onto her people, banished her husband to a terrible fate, engaged on an odyssey that brought the Progenitors to Earth, sent Gorgon to his death.   In the moment of sadness and regret, Medusa finally lets in all of the feelings and emotion that she has tried so desperately to keep at bay.  She didn’t see herself strong enough to cope with these emotions and cut herself off from them, thinking that stoic repression was her only course of action.  In this moment, however, when all appears as lost, she lets those feelings in.  The emotion washes over her… she allows herself to be human as well as Inhuman, vulnerable as well as strong… and doing so facilitates the activation of the Primagen.  

Her body is infused with the mutagenic properties, enhancing and augmenting every fiber of her being…  Her illness abates in an instant and her hair grows back in red, flowing torrent.  

Suddenly, Medusa finds herself back on Ariclan.  Her hair has returned, longer than before so that it sweeps over the others like a flood of locks and curls.  It felt like she had been gone for centuries, but in reality the whole affair had transpired in a mere instant.  

In its wake, the marauding Progenitors had been reduced to destroyed empty shells.  The onslaught of pure affect and emotional catharsis that Medusa had experience in astral realm overwhelmed the circuits of pure logic possessed by The Progenitors.  It was too much for them, it did not compute, and resulted in their destruction.  

The world had been saved, the terrible future that Maximus had foreseen had been avoided.  Whether or not the stolen Primagen might indeed be utilized to create new Terrigen remains to be seen, but there is great optimism that The Inhumans have won themselves a new lease on a future.  

But what of the Progenitors?

Back on the World Farm, The Analytic Class Progenitors monitor the feedback coming from their fellow units who had traveled to earth.  The data suggests that a power was encountered that is antithetical to The Progenitor’s base philosophy.  It is a power that cannot be defeated, it is too dangerous a threat, and the Analysts make the prudent decision that the best course of action is to avoid Earth at all cost.  

A voice bellows out from off page, demanding that the threat cannot be avoided; for it is already here.  And the final page shows a Primagen-empowered Gorgon, still alive and ready to destroy these enemies once and for all.  And it is here that the tale, and the story of The Royals comes to to its final conclusion.    

Wow.  This was intense!  

I had been expecting an all-out fight with the full forces of all The Inhumans doing battle against a legion of Progenitors.  And I was surprised to find that instead we got an emotional journey where Medusa and Black Bolt battled their inner demons and doubts so to unlock the only thing that could possible defeat these godlike beings.  And though I was a touch disappointed not to see many of my favorite Inhumans in action, this narrative decision makes a great deal of sense.  Medusa and her journey has been at the heart of the series from the beginning and it’s a  suitable decision that she should be the focus of its conclusion.  …and it certainly helps that the other-worldly battlefield of this ordeal is so beautifully depicted by Mike Del Mundo’s peerless skill.  

Emotion, poetry and magic are matters that defy rationality.  Such matters can be understood, but only in a peripheral, idiosyncratic sense.  No one poem effects two people in the same exact way.  It’s a fundamentally human quality and a matter destructively foreign and unknowable to nigh-logical beings such as The Progenitors.  

Such a thing might seem a bit corny on its surface, but is also the central crux of outré fantasy fiction.  One must leap outside of the realm of logic into the loosely defined confines of madness and magic.  

It’s a bold and risky move for Mr. Ewing to choose to have ‘feelings’ be the ultimate weapon that defeats these Progenitors… and some might find it unsatisfactory.  Yet it is in absolute accord with the themes that have coursed throughout The Royals form the first issue.  The Inhuman are not Mutants, fictional outgrowths of the theory of evolution.  Nor are they characters of super science, engineered by far-out ideas over the outer limits of technology.   They are something in-between.  Science, mixed with evolution, mixed with magic, mixed with poetry… something just outside of the mind’s ability to comprehend.  They are ‘floob,’ a nonsensical word meant as a stand-in for a concept that simply cannot be accurate explained via the limitations of words.  

As a psychologist, and fan of the works of authors such as Frank Herbert, Michael Morecock and Ursula le Guin, this sort of stuff is right up my alley and I kind of love it.  Although I also appreciate that that this might not be the case for other readers… that some might find Ewing’s venturing into the land of the unexplainable uncanny to be something of a cop-out, denying them the standard issue knock-down, drag-out battle that these finales more often entail.   Still, The Royals has very much not been your standard issue super hero comic book, and an  wild unconventional conclusion actually fits quite well and makes a great deal of sense.  

So where does the story go from here?  We still have at least three more issues of Ahmed and Ward’s fantastic Black Bolt series… and the solicitations for issue 12th issue suggests that we will get further resolution on what the future holds for Medusa, Black Bolt and their relationship.  Perhaps this will also touch on what the future holds for The Inhuman as a whole.  Will they relocated to the moon city of Arctillan, or will they remain on New Attilan on Earth?  Will Iso remain the leader, or will the people reelect Medusa and Black Bolt as once more their queen and king?   Time will tell.  The important thing that this is not the end.  There is a new future in store for The Inhumans, a future not steeped in the past, but rather one whose trajectory is moving forward.      

Kevin Libranda, José Villarubia both bring their A-game for the sections they illustrate, depicting the less fantastical scenes with verve and electricity, and wonderfully lively facial expressions (especially Maximus who seems to be enjoying the prospect of total annihilation just as much the prospect of salvation).   Mike Del Mundo, meanwhile, absolutely excels in creating the weird netherworld where the action takes place.  I do miss Javier Rodriguez’s terrific work, but none can beat Del Mundo when it comes the impossible landscapes of a realm between science, magic and poetry.  It’s just a marvel to behold.  

As a franchise, the Inhuman failed to capture that sense of popularity and mainstream acceptance enjoyed by other groups like the X-Men or The Avengers.  And this one-shot aptly demonstrates exactly why that has been the case.  The Inhumans are weird.  Their stories are the essence of strange, they don’t always make sense and require readers to make leaps into the unknown that not everyone is capable of or comfortable with.  The effort to make The Inhumans more mainstream, more popular has already been abandoned and this offered Ewing and company free license to go all in, embracing the weird with both hands and offering up a finale that is… well, that is quintessentially inhuman.  

Of course recommend; Five out of five Lockjaws!

[aion-rsa]

Upcoming Must-See Movies in 2021

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It’s 2021. Finally. If you’re reading this, it means you’ve hopefully gotten through the wreckage of last year unscathed and are ready for a brighter future. And if you’re also a movie lover, this certainly includes a trip (or 20) back to the cinemas.

Sure, theaters were technically open in some places last fall, but the moviegoing season has largely remained dormant since March 2020. Yet given good news about vaccines starting to become available, and an absolutely stacked 2021 movie release calendar, we have reasons to be cautiously optimistic.

Indeed, 2021 promises many of the most anticipated films from last year, plus new surprises. From the superhero variety like Black Widow to the art house with Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, 2021 could be a much needed respite. So below is just a sampling of what to expect from the year to come…

The Little Things

January 29

One of the year’s earliest high profile releases is also the first of WB’s film slate on HBO Max. The Little Things is a serial killer thriller in the old school mold. It also boasts a brutally talented cast that includes Denzel Washington and Rami Malek as the detectives, and Jared Leto as the killer. As the latest movie from John Lee Hancock (The Founder, The Alamo), this looks like the type of star-led seediness that used to dominate the multiplex.

Maclolm and Marie

February 5

Assassination Nation writer-director Sam Levinson returns for a decidedly stripped down and intimate character study about two people on the threshold of their lives changing–and perhaps splitting apart. With Zendaya and John David Washington in roles unlike anything we’ve seen the pair in before, they play a couple returning home after the premiere of Malcolm’s (Washington) first movie. He’s on the cusp of life-changing success as a director, but when confronted by Marie about past secrets and hard truths… the night takes a turn.

Judas and the Black Messiah

February 12

It’s kind of hard to wrap one’s head around the annual “Oscar race” in a year when little trophies don’t seem so damn important, but Warner Bros. feels strongly enough about this movie that it’s getting it into theaters and on HBO Max right in the thick of the pandemic-delayed awards season. And judging by the marketing, it’s bringing heat with it.

Shaka King directs and co-writes the story of Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), who became the chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party in the late 1960s and was murdered in cold blood by police in 1969. LaKeith Stanfield plays William O’Neal, a petty criminal who agreed to help the FBI take Hampton down. This promises to be incendiary, relevant material — and it’s almost here.

Minari

February 12

Lee Isaac Chung directs Steven Yeun–now fully shaking off his years as Glenn on The Walking Dead–in this semi-autobiographical film about a South Korean family struggling to settle down in rural America in the 1980s. Premiering nearly a year ago at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won both the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize and the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award, Minari had a quick one-week virtual release in December, with a number of critics placing it on their Top 10 lists for 2020.

Its story of immigration and assimilation currently has a perfect 100 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics lauding its heart, grace, and sensitivity. A few of ours also considered it among 2020’s best.

Nomadland

February 19

Utilizing both actors and real people, director Chloé Zhao (The Rider, Marvel’s upcoming Eternals) chronicles the lives of America’s “forgotten people” as they travel the West searching for work, companionship and community. A brilliant Frances McDormand stars as Fern, a woman in her mid-60s who lost her husband, her house, and her entire previous existence when her town literally vanished following the closure of its sole factory.

Zhao’s film quietly flows from despair to optimism and back to despair again, the hardscrabble lives of its itinerant cast (many of them actual nomads) foregrounded against often stunning–if lonely–vistas of the vast, empty American countryside.

I Care a Lot

February 19

A solid cast, led by Rosamund Pike, Peter Dinklage, Chris Messina, and Dianne Wiest, star in this satirical crime drama from director J. Blakeson (The Disappearance of Alice Creed). Pike plays Marla, a con artist whose scam is getting herself named legal guardian of her elderly marks and then draining their assets while sticking them in nursing homes. She’s ruthless and efficient at it, until she meets a woman (Wiest) whose ties to a crime boss (Dinklage) may prove too much of a challenge for the wily Marla. It was one of our favorites out of Toronto last year.

The Father

February 26

Anthony Hopkins gives a mesmerizing, and deeply tragic, performance as Anthony, an elderly British man whose descent into dementia is reflected by the film itself, which plays with time, setting, and continuity until both Anthony and the viewer can no longer tell what is real and what is not. Olivia Colman is equally moving as his daughter, who wants to get on with her own life even as she watches her father’s disintegrate in front of her.

We saw The Father last year at the AFI Fest and it ended up being a favorite of 2020; Hopkins is unforgettable in this bracing, heartbreaking work, which is stunningly adapted by first-time director Florian Zeller from his own award-winning play.

Chaos Walking

March 5

This constantly postponed sci-fi project has become one of those “we’ll believe it when we see it” films until it actually comes out. Shot nearly three and a half years ago by director Doug Liman, Chaos Walking has undergone extensive reshoots and was at one point reportedly deemed unreleasable.

Based on the book The Knife of Letting Go, it places Tom Holland (Spider-Man: Far From Home) and Daisy Ridley (The Rise of Skywalker) on a distant planet where Ridley, the only woman, can hear the thoughts of all the men due to a mysterious force called the Noise.

Raya and the Last Dragon

March 5

Longtime Walt Disney Animation Studios head of story, Paul Briggs (Frozen), will make his directorial debut on this original Disney animated fantasy, which draws upon Eastern traditions to tell the tale of a young warrior who goes searching for the world’s last dragon in the mysterious land of Kumandra. Cassie Steele will voice Raya while Awkwafina (The Farewell) will portray Sisu the dragon.

Disney Animation has been nearly invincible in recent years with other hits like Moana and Zootopia, so watch for this one to be another major hit for the Mouse.

Coming 2 America

March 5

The notion of whether nostalgia-based properties are still viable has cropped up repeatedly in the last few years. However, streaming, which is where Coming 2 America finds itself headed post-COVID, makes golden oldies much safer. This sequel—based on a 32-year-old comedy that was one of Eddie Murphy’s most financially successful hits—sees Murphy back as Prince Akeem, of course, along with Arsenio Hall returning as his loyal friend Semmi.

The plot revolves around Akeem’s discovery, just as he is about to be crowned king, that he has a long-lost son living in the States (we’re not sure how that happened, but let’s just go with it). That, of course, necessitates another visit to our shores—that is, if Akeem and Semmi presumably don’t get stopped at the border. The film reunites Murphy with Dolemite is My Name director Craig Brewer, so perhaps they can make some cutting-edge social comedy out of this?

The King’s Man

March 12

This might be a weird thing to say: but has World War I ever seemed so stylish? It is with Matthew Vaughn at the helm.

An origin story of sorts for the organization that gave us Colin Firth and the umbrella, The King’s Man is a father and son yarn where Ralph Fiennes’ Duke of Oxford is reluctant about his son Conrad (Harris Dickinson) joining the war effort. But they’ll both be up to it as the Duke launches an intelligence gathering agency independent from any government. It also includes Gemma Arterton, Matthew Goode, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson as charter members.

Oh, and did we mention they fight Rasputin?

Godzilla vs. Kong

March 26

Here we are, at last at the big punch up between Godzilla and King Kong. They both wear a crown, but in the film that Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures have been building toward since 2014, only one can walk away with the title of the king of all the monsters.

Admittedly, not everyone loved the last American Godzilla movie, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, but we sure did. Still, Godzilla vs. Kong should be a different animal with Adam Wingard (You’re Next, The Guest) taking over directorial duties. It also has a stacked cast with some familiar faces (Kyle Chandler, Millie Bobby Brown, and Ziyi Zhang) and plenty of new ones (Alexander Skarsgård, Eiza González, Danai Gurira, Lance Reddick, and more).

It’ll probably be better than the original, right? And hey with its HBO Max rollout, questions of a poor box office run sure are conveniently mooted!

No Time to Die

April 2

Nothing lasts forever, and the Daniel Craig era of James Bond is coming to an end… hopefully in 2021. In fact, delays notwithstanding, it’s a bit of a surprise Craig is getting an official swan song with this movie after the star said he’d rather “slash his wrists” before doing another one. Well, we’re glad he didn’t, just as we’re hopeful for his final installment in the tuxedo.

Director Cary Joji Fukunaga is a newcomer to the franchise, but that might be a good thing after how tired Spectre felt, and Fukunaga has done sterling work in the past on True Detective and Maniac. He also looks to bring the curtain down on the whole Craig oeuvre by picking up on the last movie’s lingering threads, such as 007 driving off into the sunset with Léa Seydoux’s Madeleine Swann, while introducing new ones that include Rami Malek as Bond villain Safin and Ana de Armas as new Bond girl Paloma. Yay for the Knives Out reunion!

Mortal Kombat

April 16

Not to be deterred by the relative failure of Sony’s Monster Hunter in theaters at the tail end of 2020, Warner Bros. is giving this venerable video game franchise another shot at live-action cinematic glory after two previous tries in the 1990s. Director Simon McQuoid makes his feature debut while the script comes from Dave Callaham (Wonder Woman 1984, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) and the cast includes a number of actors you’ve seen in other films but can’t quite place.

The plot? Who knows! But we’re guessing it will feature gods, demons, and warriors battling for control of the 18 realms in various fighting tournaments. What else do you want?

A Quiet Place Part II

April 23

The sequel to one of 2018’s biggest surprises, A Quiet Place Part II comes with major expectations. And few may hold it to a higher standard than writer-director John Krasinski. Despite (spoiler) the death of his character in the first film, Krasinski returns behind the camera for the sequel after saying he wouldn’t. The story he came up with apparently was too good to pass up.

The film again stars Emily Blunt as the often silenced mother of a vulnerable family, which includes son Marcus (Noah Jupe) and deaf daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds). However, now that they know how to kill the eagle-eared alien monsters who’ve taken over their planet, the cast has grown to include Cillian Murphy and Djimon Hounsou. While the film has been delayed due to the coronavirus outbreak, trust us that it’ll be worth the wait. Is it finally time for… resistance?

Last Night in Soho

April 23

Fresh off the success of 2017’s Baby Driver (his biggest commercial hit to date), iconoclastic British director Edgar Wright returns with what is described as a psychological and possibly time-bending horror thriller set in London. Whether this features Wright’s trademark self-aware humor remains to be seen, but since the film is said to be inspired by dread-inducing genre classics like Repulsion and Don’t Look Now, he might be going for a different effect this time.

The cast, of course, is outstanding: upstarts Anya Taylor-Joy (Queen’s Gambit) and Thomasin McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit) will face off with Matt Smith (Doctor Who), and British legends Diana Rigg and Terence Stamp. And the truth is we’re never going to miss one of Wright’s movies. Taylor-Joy talked to us here about finding her 1960s lounge singer voice for the film.

Black Widow

May 7

Some would charitably say it arrives a decade late, but Black Widow is finally getting her own movie. This is fairly remarkable considering she became street pizza in Avengers: Endgame, but this movie fits snugly between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War. It also promises to be the most pared down Marvel Studios movie since 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and that’s a good thing.

In the film, Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff is on the run after burning her bridges with the U.S. government and UN. This brings her back to the spy games she thought she’d escaped from her youth, and back in the orbit of her “sister” Yelena (Florence Pugh). Old wounds are ripped open, old Soviet foes, including David Harbour as the Red Guardian and Rachel Weisz as Nat and Yelena’s girlhood instructor, are revealed, and many a fight sequence with minimal CGI will be executed.

How’s that for a real start to Phase 4? Of course that’s still assuming this comes out before The Eternals after it was delayed, again, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Spiral

May 21

Chris Rock has co-written the story for a new take on the Saw franchise. Never thought we’d write those words! The fact that it also stars Rock, as well as Samuel L. Jackson, is likewise head-turning. It looks like they’re going for legitimate horror with Darren Lynn Bousman attached to direct after helming three of the Saw sequels, and its grisly pre-COVID trailer from last year.

Hopefully this will be better than most of the franchise that came before, and given the heavily David Fincher-influenced tone of the first trailer, we’re willing to cross our fingers and play this game.

Free Guy

May 21

What would you do if you discovered that you were just a background character in an open world video game—and that the game was soon about to go offline? That’s the premise of this existential sci-fi comedy from director Shawn Levy, best known for the Night at the Museum series and as an executive producer and director on Stranger Things. Ryan Reynolds stars as Guy, a bank teller who discovers that his life is not what he thought it was, and in fact isn’t even real—or is it? We’ve seen a preview of footage, so we’d suggest you think Truman Show, if Truman was trapped in Grand Theft Auto.

F9

May 28

Just when you thought this never-say-die franchise had shown us everything it could possibly dream up, it ups the stakes one more time: the ninth entry in the Fast and Furious saga (excluding 2019’s Hobbs and Shaw) will reportedly take Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his cohorts into space as they battle Dom’s long-lost brother Jakob (John Cena, making a long-overdue debut in this series). Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Jordana Brewster, Helen Mirren, and Charlize Theron all also return, as does director Justin Lin, who took a two-film break from his signature series. Expect to see the required physics-defying stunts, logic-defying action and even more talk about “family” than usual.

Cruella

May 28

Since Disney has already made an animated 101 Dalmatians in 1961 and a live-action remake in 1996, it is apparently time to tell the story again Maleficent-style. Hence we now focus on the viewpoint of iconic villainess Cruella de Vil, played this time by Emma Stone. She’s joined in the movie by Emma Thompson, Paul Walter Hauser, and Mark Strong, with direction handled by Craig Gillespie (sort of a step down from 2017’s I, Tonya, if you ask us).

The story has been updated to the 1970s, but Cruella–now a fashion designer–still covets the fur of dogs for her creations. This is a Mouse House joint, so don’t expect it to get too dark, and don’t be completely surprised if it ends up as a premium on Disney+ in lieu of its already delayed theatrical release.

Infinite

May 28

This sci-fi yarn from director Antoine Fuqua (The Equalizer) stars Mark Wahlberg as a man experiencing what he thinks are hallucinations, but which turn out to be memories from past lives. He soon learns that there is a secret society of people just like him, except that they have total recall of their past identities and have acted to change the course of history throughout the centuries.

Based on the novel The Reincarnationist Papers by D. Eric Maikranz, this was originally a post-Marvel vehicle for Chris Evans. He dropped out, and the combination of Fuqua and Wahlberg hints at something more action-oriented than the rather cerebral premise suggests. The film also stars Sophie Cookson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Dylan O’Brien.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

June 4

James Wan is already directing a new horror film this year so he’s stepping away from the directorial duties on the third film based on the paranormal investigations of Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga). That task has fallen to Michael Chaves (The Curse of La Llorona), so expect plenty of the same Wan Universe touches: heavy atmosphere, superb use of sound, and shocking, eerie visuals.

Details are scarce, but the plot—like the other two Conjuring films—is taken from the true-life case of a man who went on trial for murder and said as his defense that he was possessed by a demon when he committed his crimes. That’s all we know for now, except that, intriguingly, Mitchell Hoog and Megan Ashley Brown have been cast as younger versions of the Warrens.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife

June 11

With the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot criticized (fairly) for its lack of imagination and castigated (unfairly as hell) for its all-female ghost-hunting crew, director Jason Reitman–finally cashing in on the family name by returning to the brand his dad Ivan directed to glory in 1984–has crafted a direct sequel to the original films.

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Books

Ghostbusters: Afterlife – Who is Ivo Shandor?

By Gavin Jasper

Movies

The Greatest Movie Sequels Never Made

By Jack Beresford

Set 30 years later, Afterlife follows a family who move to a small town only to discover that they have a long-secret connection to the OG Ghostbusters. Carrie Coon (The Leftovers), Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things) and Paul Rudd (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania) star alongside charter cast members Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, Annie Potts, and, yes, Bill Murray.

In the Heights

June 18

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s first Broadway hit musical gets the big screen treatment (by way of HBO Max) from director Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians). Set in Washington Heights over the course of a three-day heat wave, the plot and ensemble cast carry echoes of both Rent and Do the Right Thing. While a success on the stage—if not quite the cultural phenomenon that Miranda’s next show, Hamilton—it remains to be seen whether In the Heights can strike a chord with streaming audiences.

Luca

June 18

Continuing its current run of all-new, non-sequel original films started in 2020 with Onward and Soul, Pixar will unveil Luca this summer. Directed by Enrico Casarosa–making his feature debut after 18 years with the animation powerhouse–the film tells the story of a friendship between a human being and a sea monster (disguised as another human child) on the Italian Riviera. That’s about all we have on it for now, except that the cast includes Drake Bell and John Ratzenberger.

Pixar’s recent track record has included masterpieces like Inside Out, solid sequels like Toy Story 4, and shakier propositions like The Incredibles 2, but we don’t have any indication yet of what to expect from Luca.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage

June 25

Can anyone honestly say that 2018’s Venom was a “good” movie? A batshit insane movie, yes, and perhaps even an entertaining one in its own nutty way, but good or not, it made nearly a billion bucks at the box office so here we are.

Tom Hardy will return to peel more scenery down with his teeth as both Eddie Brock and his fanged, towering alien symbiote while Woody Harrelson will fulfill his destiny and play Cletus Kasady, aka Carnage, the perfected hybrid of psychopathic serial killer and red pile of vicious alien goo. Let the carnage begin!

Top Gun: Maverick

July 2

It’s been 34 years since Tom Cruise first soared through the skies as hotshot pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, and he’ll take to the air once more in a sequel that also features Val Kilmer, Jennifer Connelly, Miles Teller, Jon Hamm, and more. The flying and action sequences from director Joseph Kosinski (who worked with Cruise on Oblivion) will undoubtedly be first-rate, but the studio (Paramount) has to be nervous after seeing one nostalgia-based franchise after another (Blade Runner, Charlie’s Angels, Terminator, The Shining) crash and burn recently.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

July 10

With Shang-Chi, Marvel Studios hopes to do for Asian culture what the company did with the groundbreaking Black Panther nearly three years ago: create another superhero epic with a non-white lead and a mythology steeped in a non-Western culture. Simu Liu stars in the title role as the “master of kung fu,” who must do battle with the nefarious Ten Rings organization and its leader, the Mandarin (the “real” one, not the imposter from Iron Man 3, played here by the legendary Tony Leung). Director Destin Daniel Cretton (Just Mercy) will open up a whole new corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with this story and character, whose origins stretch back to 1973.

The Forever Purge

July 9

One day nearly eight years ago, you went to see a low-budget dystopian sci-fi/horror flick called The Purge, and the next thing you know, it’s 2021 and you’re getting ready to see the fifth and allegedly final entry in the series (which has also spawned a TV show). Written by creator James DeMonaco and directed by Everardo Gout, the film will once again focus on the title event, an annual 12-hour national bacchanal in which all crime, even murder, is legal. How this ends the story, and where and when it falls into the context of the rest of the films, remains a secret for now. Filming was completed back in February 2020, with the film’s release delayed from last summer by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Space Jam: A New Legacy

July 16

There are two types of folks when it comes to the original Space Jam of 1996: those who were between the ages of three and 11 when it came out, and everyone else. In one camp it is an unsightly relic of ‘90s cross-promotional cheese; in the other, it’s a sports movie classic. Luckily for kids today, NBA star LeBron James was 11 for most of ’96, and he’s bringing back the hoops and the Looney Tunes in Space Jam: A New Legacy.

The film will be among the many Warner Bros. pics premieres on HBO Max and in theaters this year, and it will see King James share above-the-title credits with Bugs Bunny. All is as it should be.

Uncharted

July 16

An Uncharted movie has been a long time coming. How long you might ask? Well, when the idea of an Uncharted movie first started getting bandied around Hollywood, the earliest game in the series just launched to rave reviews in the PlayStation 3’s first year. We’re now on PlayStation 5(!), and Mark Wahlberg has gone from angling to play young hero Nathan Drake to starring his wisecracking sidekick, Victor “Sully” Sullivan.

Still, we’re here with an Uncharted movie finally in the can. Directed by Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland, Venom), the video game movie stars everyone’s favorite web-head, Tom Holland, as Drake, a pseudo-modern day Indiana Jones. Whether it lives up to that older franchise’s storied legacy remains to be seen (especially given its gaming roots), but one thing’s for sure, Holland will get to show off more gymnast skill thanks to Uncharted’s famous parkour iconography.

The Tomorrow War

July 23

An original IP attempting to be a summer blockbuster? As we live and breathe. The Tomorrow War marks director Chris McKay’s first foray into live-action after helming The Lego Batman Movie. The film stars Chris Pratt as a soldier from the past who’s been “drafted by scientists” to the present in order to fight off an alien invasion overwhelming our future’s military. One might ask why said scientists didn’t use their fancy-schmancy time traveling shenanigans to warn about the impending aliens, but here we are.

Jungle Cruise

July 30

Disney dips into its theme park rides again as a source for a movie, hoping that the Pirates of the Caribbean lightning will strike once more. This time it’s the famous Adventureland riverboat ride, which is free enough of a real narrative that one has to wonder why some five screenwriters (at least) worked on the movie’s script.

Jaume Collet-Serra (The Shallows) directs stars Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt down this particular river, as they battle wild animals and a competing expedition in their search for a tree with miraculous healing powers. The comic chemistry between Johnson and Blunt is key here, especially if they really can mimic Bogie and Hepburn in the similarly plotted The African Queen. If they can sell that, Disney might just have a new water-based franchise to replace their sinking Pirates ship.

The Green Knight

July 30

David Lowery, the singular director behind A Ghost Story and The Old Man & the Gun, helmed a fantasy adaptation of the Arthurian legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. And his take on the material was apparently strong enough to entice A24 to produce it. Not much else is yet known about the film other than its cast, which includes Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, Ralph Ineson, and Kate Dickie–and that it’s another casualty of COVID, with its 2020 release date being delayed last year. So this is one we’re definitely going to keep an eye on.

The Suicide Squad

August 6

Arguably the most high-profile of the WB films being transitioned to HBO Max, The Suicide Squad is James Gunn’s soft-reboot of the previous one-film franchise. It’s kind of funny WB went in that direction when the first movie generated more than $740 million, but when the reviews and word of mouth were that toxic… well, you get the guy who did Guardians of the Galaxy to fix things.

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TV

Peacemaker: Suicide Squad Spinoff With John Cena Coming to HBO Max

By Mike Cecchini

Movies

The Suicide Squad Trailer Promises James Gunn’s “1970s War Movie”

By David Crow

Elements from the original movie are still here, most notably Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn and Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller, but the film promises to be weirder, meaner, and also sillier. The first points are proven by its expected R-rating, and the latter is underscored by its giant talking Great White Shark. Okay, we’ll bite.

Deep Water

August 13

Seedy erotic thrillers and neo noirs bathed in shadows and sex are largely considered a thing of the past—specifically 1980s and ‘90s Hollywood cinema. Maybe that’s why Deep Water hooked Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction, Indecent Proposal) to direct. The throwback is based on a 1957 novel by the legendary Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr. Ripley), and it pits a disenchanted married couple against each other, with the bored pair playing mind games that leave friends and acquaintances dead. That the couple in question is played by Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas, who’ve since become a real life item, will probably get plenty of attention close to release.

Respect

August 13

Respect is the long-awaited biopic of the legendary Aretha Franklin, with the Queen of Soul herself involved in its development for years until her death in August 2018. Authorized biopics always make one wonder how accurate the film will be, but then again, Aretha had nothing to be ashamed of. Hers was a life well-lived, her voice almost beyond human comprehension, and the only thing now is to see whether star Jennifer Hudson (Franklin’s personal choice) and director Liesl Tommy (making her feature debut) can do the Queen justice.

Candyman

August 27

In some ways it’s surprising that it’s taken this long—28 years, notwithstanding a couple of sequels—to seriously revisit the original Candyman. Director Bernard Rose’s original adaptation of the Clive Baker story, “The Forbidden,” is still relevant and effective today. Back then, the film touched on urban legends, poverty, and segregation: themes that are still ripe for exploration through a genre touchstone today.

After her breathtaking feature directorial debut, Little Woods, Nia DaCosta helmed this bloody reboot while working from a screenplay co-written by Jordan Peele (Get Out). That’s a powerful combination, even before news came down DaCosta was helming Captain Marvel 2. And with an actor on-the-cusp of mega-stardom, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, picking up Tony Todd’s gnarly hook, this is one to watch out for.

The Beatles: Get Back

August 27

Peter Jackson seems to enjoy making films about what inspired him in his youth: The Lord of the Rings, King Kong, his grandfather’s World War I service informing They Shall Not Grow Old. So perhaps it was inevitable he’d make a film about the greatest youth icon of his generation, the Beatles. In truth, The Beatles: Get Back is a challenge to a previous documentary named Let It Be, and the general pop culture image it painted.

That 1970 doc by Michael Lindsay-Hogg zeroed in on the band’s final released album, Let It Be (although it was recorded before Abbey Road). Now, using previously unseen footage, Jackson seeks to challenge the narrative that the album was created entirely from a place of animosity among the bandmates, or that the Beatles had long lost their camaraderie by the end of road. Embracing the original title of the album, “Get Back,” Jackson wants to get back to where he thinks the band’s image once belonged.

Death on the Nile

September 17

Murder on the Orient Express (2017) became a surprise hit for director and star Kenneth Branagh. Who knew that audiences would still be interested in an 83-year-old mystery novel about an eccentric Belgian detective with one hell of a mustache? Luckily, Agatha Christie featured Poirot in some 32 other novels, of which Death on the Nile is one of the most famous, so here we are.

Branagh once again directs and stars as Poirot, this time investigating a murder aboard a steamer sailing down Egypt’s famous river. The cast includes Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Letitia Wright, Tom Bateman, Ali Fazal, Annette Bening, Rose Leslie, and Russell Brand. Expect more lavish locales, scandalous revelations, the firing of a pistol or two, and, yes, more shots of that stunning Poirot facial hair.

The Many Saints of Newark

September 24

The idea of a prequel to anything always fills us with trepidation, and re-opening a nearly perfect property like The Sopranos makes the prospect even less appetizing. But Sopranos creator David Chase has apparently wanted to explore the back history of his iconic crime family for some time, and there certainly seems to be a rich tapestry of characters and events that have only been hinted at in the series.

Directed by series veteran Alan Taylor (Thor: The Dark World), The Many Saints of Newark stars Alessandro Nivola as Dickie Moltisanti (Christopher’s father), along with Jon Bernthal, Vera Farmiga, Corey Stoll, Ray Liotta, and others. But the most fascinating casting is that of Michael Gandolfini—James’ son—as the younger version of the character with which his late dad made pop culture history. For that alone, we’ll be there on opening night… even if that just means HBO Max!

Dune

October 1

Could third time be the charm for Frank Herbert’s complex novel of the far future, long acknowledged as one of the greatest—if most difficult to read—milestones in all of science fiction? David Lynch’s 1984 version was, to be charitable, an honorable mess, while the 2000 Sci-Fi Channel miniseries was decent and faithful, but limited in scope. Now director Denis Villeneuve (Blade Runner 2049, Arrival) is pulling out all the stops—even breaking the story into two movies to give the proper space.

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Movies

Dune Trailer Breakdown and Analysis

By Mike Cecchini

Movies

What Alejandro Jodorowsky Thinks of the New Dune Trailer

By Mike Cecchini and 1 other

On the surface, the plot is simple: as galactic powers vie for control of the only planet that produces a substance capable of allowing interstellar flight, a young messiah emerges to lead that planet’s people to freedom. But this tale is dense with multiple layers of politics, metaphysics, mysticism, and hard science.

Villeneuve has assembled a jaw-dropping cast, including Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Zendaya, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, and Javier Bardem, and if he pulls this off, just hand him every sci-fi novel ever written. Particularly, if relations between the director and WB remain strained…

Morbius

October 8

Following the monstrous (pun intended) success of Venom, Sony Pictures is making its second attempt to mine Spider-Man’s universe of villains with the dark tale of Dr. Michael Morbius (Jared Leto), whose efforts to cure himself of a fatal blood disease turn him instead into a blood-drinking anti-hero. Morbius has been lurking around the Marvel Comics canon since 1971, often either sparring or teaming with Spidey, and it remains uncertain whether he’s got the cache to carry a movie on his own. In addition, can Leto wash away the bad taste left behind by his tattooed and grilled Joker in Suicide Squad?

Halloween Kills

October 15

2018’s outstanding reboot of the long-running horror franchise—which saw David Gordon Green (Stronger) direct Jamie Lee Curtis in a reprise of her most famous role—was a tremendous hit. So in classic Halloween fashion, two more sequels were put into production (the second, Halloween Ends, will be out in 2022… hopefully).

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Movies

Halloween: A Legacy Unmasked

By David Crow

Movies

How Jason Blum Changed Horror Movies

By Rosie Fletcher

Curtis is back as Laurie Strode, along with Judy Greer as her daughter, Andi Matichak as her granddaughter, and Nick Castle sharing Michael Myers duties with James Jude Courtney. Kyle Richards and Charles Cyphers, meanwhile, will reprise their roles as Lindsey Wallace and former sheriff Leigh Brackett from the original 1978 Halloween (Anthony Michael Hall will play the adult version of Tommy Doyle). The plot remains a mystery, but we’re pretty sure it will involve yet another confrontation between Laurie and a rampaging Myers.

The Last Duel

October 15

What was once among the most anticipated films of 2020, The Last Duel is the historical epic prestige project marked by reunions: Ridley Scott returns to his passion for period drama and violence; Matt Damon and Ben Affleck work together for the first time in ages as both actors and writers; and the film also unites each with themes that were just as potent in the medieval world as today: One knight (Damon) in King Charles VI’s court accuses another who’s his best friend (Adam Driver) of raping his wife (Jodie Comer). Oh, and Affleck plays the King of France.

With obviously harrowing—and uncomfortable—themes that resonate today, The Last Duel is based on an actual trial by combat from the 14th century, and is a film Affleck and Damon co-wrote with Nicole Holofcener (Can You Ever Forgive Me?). It’s strong material, and could prove to be one of the year’s most riveting or misjudged films. Until then, it has our full attention.

Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins

October 22

While the idea of a Hasbro Movie Universe seems to be kind of idling at the moment, corners of that hypothetical cinematic empire remain active. One such brand is G.I. Joe, which will launch its first spin-off in this origin story of one of the team’s most popular characters. Much of his early background remains mysterious, so there’s room to create a fairly original story while incorporating lore and characters already established in the G.I. Joe mythos.

Neither of the previous G.I. Joe features (The Rise of Cobra and Retaliation) have been much good, so we can probably expect the same level of quality from this one. Director Robert Schwentke (the last two Divergent movies) doesn’t inspire much excitement either. On the other hand, Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) will star in the title role, and having Iko Uwais (The Raid) and Samara Weaving (Ready or Not) on board isn’t too bad either.

Eternals

November 5

Based on a Marvel Comics series by the legendary Jack Kirby, the now long-forthcoming Eternals centers around an ancient race of powerful beings who must protect the Earth against their destructive counterparts (and genetic cousins), the Deviants. Director Chloe Zhao (fresh off the awards season buzzy Nomadland) takes her first swing at epic studio filmmaking, working with a cast that includes Angelina Jolie, Gemma Chan, Kit Harington, Salma Hayek, Richard Madden, Brian Tyree Henry, and more.

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Movies

Upcoming Marvel Movies Release Dates: MCU Phase 4 Schedule, Cast, and Story Details

By Mike Cecchini and 1 other

Movies

The Incredible Hulk’s Diminished Legacy in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

By Gavin Jasper

In many ways, Eternals represents another huge creative risk for Marvel Studios: It’s a big, cosmic ensemble film introducing an ensemble that the vast majority of the public has never heard of. But then, it’s sort of in the same position as Guardians of the Galaxy from way back in 2014, and we all know what happened there.

Elvis

November 5

Obviously we’ve all seen musical biopics before—too many after Walk Hard broke the formula down—but Elvis promises to be something different. A new passion project from Baz Luhrmann, the filmmaker behind Moulin Rouge!, Romeo + Juliet, and The Great Gatsby, Elvis is expected to be a radically stylized account of Elvis Presley’s rise to all shook up fame. With an impressive cast that includes Tom Hanks as manager “Colonel” Tom Parker and Kelvin Harrison Jr. as B.B. King, and with up-and-comer Austin Butler as the King of Rock and Roll himself, it should be a hell of a show.

King Richard

November 19

Will Smith’s King Richard promises to be a different kind of biographical film coming down the pipe. Rather than being told from the vantage of professional tennis playing stars Venus and Serena Williams, King Richard centers on their father and coach, Richard Williams. It’s an interesting choice to focus on the male father instead of the game-changing Black daughters, but we’ll see if there’s a strong creative reason for the approach soon enough. The film is directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green (Monsters and Men, Joe Bell).

Mission: Impossible 7

November 19

Once upon a time, the appeal of the Mission: Impossible movies was to see different directors offer their own take on Tom Cruise running through death-defying stunts. But then Christopher McQuarrie had to come along and make the best one in franchise history (twice). First there was Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and then Mission: Impossible – Fallout. Now McQuarrie and company have set up their own separate quartet of films with recurring original characters like new franchise MVP Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) across four films.

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Movies

Audio Surfaces of Tom Cruise Raging on the Set of Mission: Impossible 7

By Kirsten Howard

Movies

Mission: Impossible 7 – What’s Next for the Franchise?

By David Crow

Thus enters M:I7, the third McQuarrie joint in the series and first half of a pair of incoming sequels filmed together. The first-half of this two-parter sees the whole crew back together, including Cruise’s Ethan Hunt, Ilsa, Benji (Simon Pegg), Luther (Ving Rhames), and CIA Director Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett). They’re also being joined by Hayley Atwell and Pom Klementieff, but really we’re all just eager to see what kind of insane stunts they can do to top the HALO jump in the last one.

West Side Story

December 10

Steven Spielberg has just two remakes on his directorial resume: Always (1989) and War of the Worlds (2005). While the former is mostly forgotten and the latter was an adaptation of a story that has been filmed many times, his upcoming reimagining of West Side Story will undoubtedly be directly compared to Robert Wise’s iconic 1961 screen version of this classic musical.

A few numbers in previous films aside, Spielberg has never directed a full-blown musical before, let alone one associated with such powerhouse songs and dance numbers. His version, with a script by Tony Kushner, is said to stay closer to the original Broadway show than the 1961 film—but with its themes of love struggling to cross divides created by hate and bigotry, don’t be surprised if it’s just as hard-hitting in 2021. Certainly would’ve devastated last year….

Spider-Man 3

December 17

Sony has finally gotten to a “Spider-Man 3” again in their oft-rebooted franchise crown jewel (technically though this film is still untitled). That proved to be a stumbling block the first time it occurred with Tobey Maguire in the red and blues, but the company seems undaunted since Tom Holland’s third outing is expected to bring Maguire back—him and just about everyone else too.

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Movies

Spider-Man 3: Charlie Cox Daredevil Return Would Redeem the Marvel Netflix Universe

By Joseph Baxter

Movies

Spider-Man 3 Adds Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange

By Joseph Baxter

With a multiverse plot ripped straight from the arguably best Spidey movie ever, 2018’s Into the Spider-Verse, Holland’s third outing is bringing back Maguire, Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man, Alfred Molina as Doc Ock, Jamie Foxx as Electro (eh), and probably more. It’s a Spidey crossover extravaganza that’s only missing a Spider-Ham. But just you wait…

The Matrix 4

December 22

Rebooting or continuing The Matrix series has always been a tough proposition. While the original Matrix film is one of the landmark achievements in science fiction and early digital effects filmmaking in the 1990s, its sequels were… less celebrated. In fact, directors Lily and Lana Wachowski were publicly wary about the idea of ever going back to the series. And yet, here we are with Lana (alone) helming a project that’s been a longtime priority for Warner Bros.

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Movies

The Matrix 4: Laurence Fishburne “Wasn’t Invited” to Reprise Morpheus Role

By John Saavedra

Movies

The Matrix 4 Already Happened: Revisiting The Matrix Online

By John Saavedra

The Matrix 4 also brings back Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Jada Pinkett Smith. This is curious since Reeves and Moss’ characters died at the end of the Matrix trilogy—and also because Laurence Fishburne’s Morpheus did not, yet he wasn’t asked back. We cannot say we’re thrilled about the prospect of more adventures in Zion after the disappointment of the first two sequels, but we’d be lying if we didn’t admit we’re still curious to see the story that brought Lana back to this future.

The French Dispatch

TBA

Wes Anderson has a new film coming out. Better still, it is another live-action film. While Anderson’s use of animation is singular, it’s been seven years since The Grand Budapest Hotel, which we maintain is one of the best movies of the last decade. Anderson  is working with Timothée Chalamet and Cristoph Waltz for the first time with this film, as well as several familiar faces including Saoirse Ronan, Willem Dafoe, Tilda Swinton, Léa Seydoux, Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, and, of course, Bill Murray.

The French Dispatch is set deep in the 20th century during the peak of modern journalism, it brings to life a series of fictional stories in a fictional magazine, published in a fictional French city. We suspect though, if Anderson’s last two live-action movies are any indication, it’ll have more than fiction on its mind–especially since it’s inspired by actual New Yorker stories, and the journalists who wrote them! We missed it in 2020, so here’s hoping it really does go to print in 2021!

Other interesting movies that may come out in 2021 but do not yet have release dates: Next Goal Wins, Don’t Worry Darling, Nightmare Alley, Antlers, Blonde, The Northman, Resident Evil, Red Notice, Those Who Wish Me Dead, Army of the Dead.

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The post Upcoming Must-See Movies in 2021 appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2NfKJ0o

[happymetalgirl]

TesseracT - Sonder

Helping the djent movement continue to propel through the beginning of the decade with a greater focus on space-y prog than most of their peers, TesseracT made their first mark with the prototypic, but still musically proficient and emotionally gripping epic, “Concealing Fate” (released as an EP in 2010), which later showed up as part of their debut full-length, One, in 2011.

During singer Daniel Tompkins’ time away from the band immediately afterward, TesseracT recruited the vibrant, talented, and classily showy Ashe O’Hara as a short-lived replacement to release one of the decade’s freshest and most melodically enticing progressive metal albums, Altered State, in 2013. A little lighter on the djent and completely devoid of growls, Altered State and Ashe O’Hara showed how TesseracT could shine by playing to their more atmospheric and melodic strengths while using djenty heaviness in a more dynamic way than they had before. After looking forward to the future of TesseracT with him at the helm, hearing of O’Hara’s departure so soon after his joining was a big disappointment for me.

It can’t be easy returning to a band who just released their best work (and one of the decade’s most notable prog albums) without you, but since his return Daniel Tompkins has adapted nicely to the band’s exclusively cleanly sung approach and he’s done the songs on Altered State justice on the stage (which I happened to have the pleasure of seeing front row during their tour with Gojira). He’s a talented and fitting frontman for TessereacT and I don’t want my unabashed love for O’Hara’s work with the band to ruin my possibility to enjoy what the band are doing once again with Tompkins. While of course following up Altered State was always going to be a gargantuan feat, the band handled the challenge well and showed themselves to be moving forward nicely with Daniel Tompkins at the helm on the at-least-adequate Polaris.

Though it’s their shortest long-play to date at 36 minutes, Sonder marks the first time for the band to have released two consecutive LPs with the same singer; even though this one’s short, it still counts. Taken from the artificial Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, the album’s title, “Sonder”, is defined as the enlightening realization of one’s own insignificance in the lives of others who live lives as emotionally complex as one’s own and who one them as one of many negligible secondary characters of life just as one sees them as such: an obscure melancholic meditation indeed. Bright, atmospheric, melancholic, and enlightening have long been fitting descriptions of TesseracT’s work, especially their more recent, exclusively cleanly sung output. On Sonder, though, Tompkins unexpectedly reintroduces the mix of harsher vocal techniques to TesseracT’s dynamic, just a little bit, but giving many sections a far less meditative, somber mood than what the album’s title suggests to be abundant.

That being said, TesseracT’s reunion with screams and growls has come at the right time. Tompkins has been continually and tenaciously improving his vocal chops over the years (tremendous respect to him for his continued improvement and hard work, by the way), and although he is a talented vocalist, his use of only cleans in TesseracT’s music on Polaris felt like he was trying to synthesize what Ashe O’Hara brought to the band. Again, Tompkins is a fantastic singer, and he performs O’Hara’s parts well on stage, but it didn’t feel like he was being entirely himself on their last album. With this record, he breaks through that, and perhaps it’s a realization of his own characteristic merits as a vocalist that shaped the reflection of this album. After trying to live up to his replacement, Tompkins seems clearly more content being the singer he is on Sonder.

“Luminary” starts the album off on kind of rocky footing, awkwardly jumping to and from basic djenty sections and more atmospheric prog rock sections. The clean vocal melody of the chorus (which comes in just before the instrumentals kick in, in distinctly cheesy alt. metal fashion) isn’t one of the band’s most exciting either. Following it, the second-longest track on the album, “King”, ups the prog and metallic heaviness, introducing some screamed lines and a gradual build that culminates in a somewhat fulfilling bridge section, but even ten minutes into the album, it still feels like the band is just warming up.

Although it’s the shortest track on the album, serving as kind of an ethereal segue, “Orbital” brings in a feeling of euphoria that the previous two songs were missing, and it continues magnificently into “Juno”, whose gorgeous, uplifting, and energetically cathartic instrumentation conjures the type of positive emotional whirlwind that I love hearing from this band. Both end up being the best two songs on the album, and together one of TesseracT’s most beautiful suites.

The two-song suite “Beneath the Skin / Mirror Image” falls in line compositionally with most of what was on Altered State in how it so smoothly blends these gorgeous, spacey swooning sections with more metallic, syncopated rhythms from all the instruments. I love the string-bending riff that plays in the first, optimistic section of the song. The second half of the track takes a more confessional tone, and the super bright but melancholic atmosphere the instrumentals cultivate remind me so much of Anathema’s recent work (Weather Systems and Distant Satellites). Again, this could easily have been added on, at least from a musical standpoint, as one of the suites on Altered State, and not that he should be worried about it, but with his clean vocal performance on this track, Daniel Tompkins has proved himself capable of achieving with TesseracT what Ashe O’Hara was.

The album’s lead single, “Smile” integrates a hazy synthetic beat that persists between the bass line and the more straightforwardly djenty guitar rhythms. But it’s Tompkins’ frightening wordless use of his high range and his familiar growls that really elevate the track. Its transition into the closing track is executed smoothly and serves as a nice coda to the song, but the last song on the album, “The Arrow”, doesn’t really feel like it concludes the album all that well in its short burst of soaring djentiness followed by echo-y ambiance.

Though the middle of the album is packed with quality prog metal with TesseracT’s name written all over it, by the end its unusually short run-time still makes it feel like it’s not totally complete, like it’s something more of an EP than a full-length experience. It has some of TesseracT’s best moments on here, and it’s not all that inconsistent past the first two songs. I can appreciate Sonder as an honest expression of TesseracT where they are now, and I’m glad they didn’t pack it with filler just to stretch it out to a typical prog album’s length. But simultaneously, I feel like the band should still be capable of more than what they showed here, and I can’t shake the feeling of this new album’s shortness being a product of a fear of not being able to include more on-par material. Nevertheless, I’ll appreciate Sonder for what good it has brought to the table, and I hope it continues to propel TesseracT further as they build their artistic chemistry. I know they’ve probably meditated through it and probably even discussed it as a band, but if I could tell them anything, I would just remind them that they don’t need to make Altered State again, and they don’t need to feel sucked toward doing what worked on that album if it’s not working so consistently now. They’re a talented group on both the performance and compositional fronts, and they shouldn’t be afraid to facilitate their creative urges in unfamiliar directions.

[parkjuhnee]

i can’t tell if i’m more or less worried about the future for after Wanna One than i was for IOI, like hopefully the companies are watching how the girls are doing now and learn and do better

ok i’m putting this in a Read More because it’s long but uh please join me in pondering each of the boys’ future lmfao

Daniel and Jisung with the rest of the MMO boys they’ll no doubt get the popularity for their variety, and of course Daniel was #1 so he has die hard stans ,,, but jisung is due for the military soon and that no doubt puts an obstacle for any debut plans…

the BNM boys prepare for a debut that’s probably being produced rn , and from what i hear there are 2 other trainees rumored to also be included in the final lineup,

Nu'est and Hotshot thrive off of more popularity when they reunite (everyone loves a good reunification story so they’ll be able to emphasize that), and

guanlin and seonho are everyone’s children so they have things set for them, and Woochan from SMTM6 will probably be joining them making them a monster group no doubt

but we have to worry about Jihoon, Jinyoung, Seongwoo, and Jaehwan (maybe Jaehwan????),,,

Jihoon and Jinyoung don’t have any stability or group to go back to & their companies have little experience…. i know C9 is debuting Good Day so maybe they’ll know what they’re doing, but idk if they have other trainees that jinyoung can debut with…… and Kwon Hyeop and the other Maroo Ent. guy all left, probably leaving jihoon as their last trainee, Jihoon is even less likely to debut in a group soon… i just wish he hadn’t signed such a long contract or signed one at all.. he’ll be successful with CF’s perhaps like Chaeyeon.. but idk singing seems distant unless he wants to go solo but like… Also isn’t Maroo an acting company ??

Seongwoo has Fantagio who has produced 2 groups before (1 of which had the former IOI members) and they’re recruiting more boy trainees for him rn probably.. hopefully they learned from their experience with Weki Meki and don’t put him in such a large group,,,

and Jaehwan i feel like has always planned to go solo and he can definitely make it as a ballad singer…. and he signed up with CJE&M for after Wanna One so he actually might be the safest rn lmfao

either way, no matter what the boys do in the future, i’ll support them!!!!!! i hope nothing but success for them just as they are now, and if things continue like this, i have no doubts that they’ll achieve big things !!!!!!

[bluetapes]

pre-order here: https://bluetapes.bandcamp.com/album/x-ray-five-the-sparrow-12

Deluxe ultra-clear 12" vinyl screenprinted with ‘moth’ artwork

The post-genre sounds Blue Tapes and X-Ray Records has mined and curated over the past couple of years might not immediately code as metal, but as early as our home-dubbed tape days we were exploring death metal’s potential as vocal-only music with blue ten: EyeSea.

Jute Gyte is unambiguously metal music and I genuinely believe that Adam Kalmbach, the sole musician and producer behind the project, is the most important musician in metal since Death’s Chuck Schuldiner, himself the most important metal musician since Tony Iommi, the man whose fingers created metal.

As a teenager into the Mortal Kombat soundtrack and Nine Inch Nails, Adam learnt metal guitar. Later, he studied composition at university, and had his brain nuked by early and baroque music, serialism and Sibelius, and the universes of potentials opening like wormholes in his head created Jute Gyte.

Jute Gyte applies microtonality and modernist compositional approaches to black metal. This isn’t in itself what makes Jute Gyte’s music great, though it does explode one thing that has slowly narrowed into a conservative musical tradition out into something new, that no one has heard before. New sounds and new feelings.

This is not dry, academic music. It is scientific, exploratory, but as physical as the most brutal splatters of 1991-era death metal, which - despite using gore as a convenient if slightly-knuckleheaded shorthand for the abstract, lurching new riff forms of the genre - had a transdimensional element even then.

Jute Gyte’s orchestra of microtonal guitars sounds as though it is vomiting blackholes. But maybe what initially scans as occult horror in Jute Gyte’s music is just seasickness caused by the unfamiliarity of this new terrain.

“I understand how stuff I've done sounds ugly to people,” Adam concedes, “but it doesn't sound ugly to me. Or, it doesn't sound exclusively ugly. It's just a different kind of language. If you haven't internalised that language, then you're going to hear a lot of things that sound like 'wrong' notes. I hear little musical jokes, I hear happy parts and sad parts, and I hear a lot of parts that don't seem to have any emotive content at all. It's not just uniformly ugly, just as Schoenberg's work is not intended to be uniformly ugly.”

For x-ray five, Adam has crafted two side-long pieces. The first of these, The Sparrow, is a kind of modernist black metal symphony that might share some signifiers with the despair-loaded blizzard hymns familiar to fans of Norwegian BM. But those beautiful flocks of guitars - sometimes they sound like they’re hovering, or scrolling back and forth, rather than ‘riffing’. A dazzling murmuration. And it wasn’t some grimoire that provided the lyrical inspiration for the piece, but Stoner author John Edward Williams’ 1965 poetry collection, The Necessary Lie.

The second piece, Monadanom, is from a suite of ambient microtonal guitar pieces that Adam began developing for us in early 2014. It is oceanic, not in the usual new age-y sense most often applied to ambient music, but in that it is raging with life and detail; unfathomable.

Self-released Jute Gyte albums like Perdurance, Ship of Theseus and Ressentiment are acknowledged as modern classics not only of metal or experimental music, but of any genre.

Adam doesn’t self-promote or use social media, play live or collaborate with other artists, but a fiercely loyal fanbase has already swarmed around him. This is his first full release with a label and I consider it to be one of the most important releases for Blue Tapes and X-Ray Records.

This is a metal record, but for me, it makes total sense that Jute Gyte would be on the same label as Katie Gately and Tashi Dorji, rather than Roadrunner or even Relapse. These humans are his peers - artists who are changing people’s perceptions of the possibilities of modern music at a cellular level.

Adam Kalmbach is influenced by Harry Partch, Xenakis, Penderecki, Gloria Coates, Mahler and Brahms; he regards Jute Gyte as belonging to a continuum of ‘late Romantic’ music.

Jute Gyte will appeal to any fans of Stockhausen, Morbid Angel, Sonic Youth, Gojira, Autechre, Blut Aus Nord, Deathspell Omega, Slayer, Tim Hecker, Daniel Lopatin, Khanate, Ulver, Anaal Nathrakh, Liturgy, Mahavishnu Orchestra, King Crimson or Godflesh.

A FEW WORDS FROM JOHN DORAN, EDITOR OF THE QUIETUS:

"A house sparrow beats its elliptical wings up to fifteen times per second. This may seem paltry compared to the ruby-throated hummingbird which can flap 200 times per second but it simply isn’t. The beats are just slow enough for us to be able to discern the highly focussed power of passer domesticus - the most widespread wild bird in the world. No floating gracefully by on an invisible blur of feathers for the common sparrow just the powerful little upstroke, the powerful little downstroke and all of the other (half and quarter) positions that join them. One sparrow takes wing; then another; then another. Common, ungainly birds? Spiteful little pests? Not a bit of it. If you spent your life watching them perhaps you could frame the astonishing lattice of a meinie of these tiny creatures. Perhaps you could figure the calculus of a tribe of sparrows taking flight. A host that breaks apart on the ground and reassembles on the wing.

"The music of Jute Gyte, made by the visionary musician Adam Kalmbach, makes me feel sick. I hope there has been a distant civilisation somewhere along the way who have paid emetic tribute to their most revered cultural producers, as I do mean this as the highest of compliments to the chef. Because while the harsh, fiercely avant garde, black metal of microtonal progressions and complex time signatures he produces does genuinely make me feel quite queasy, I’d like to think any genuine regurgitation suffered by me would be the kind that precedes the ayahuasca vision or the state of satori triggered by a pure dose of MDMA. The churning thunder of albums such as Ship Of Theseus and Perdurance - and now this genuinely awesome 12”, The Sparrow, on X-Ray Records - is equally matched by a nagging aesthetic of pessimism. While this may well by umami to a depressive realist’s palate, as with The Silence Of Animals by John Gray, this music contains the very real possibility of transcendence. (This being the rare transformative state often promised by modern black metal, yet the most conspicuous by its absence.)

"There is a bird sanctuary on the West Lancashire Coastal Plain, near Burscough, called Martin Mere. In the foyer of the visitor centre there is a charity coin spinner, a large money collection device, sometimes also known as a coin vortex donation box. The device is essentially a large, smooth, downward-curving funnel, protected by a semi-spherical clear plastic dome. There is a slot into which you press a coin. Now sometimes, but not often, the coins don’t take and they slide, flat side down straight into the funnel and immediately out of sight into the collection box. Mostly however they circle. This happens slowly at first; a large graceful loop of the shallower edge of the funnel but because of gravity they never make a complete circumference, instead they always travel in a concentric circle, down the funnel, picking up speed as the spiral shrinks inwards. Each pass round the funnel becomes shorter and shorter until it essentially becomes a tube, round which the coin travels horizontally at great speed. It moves so quickly it is hard to tell what is happening.

"Whump, whump, whump, whump. The coin becomes more absence than presence. And then, just for a fraction of a second before disappearing into the dark for good, the coin is no longer touching the funnel wall.

"And at that moment, there is take-off. "

PRAISE FOR JUTE GYTE:

"Lurching, ascending, descending – ever moving in a time that doesn’t seem to resemble time at all. Sometimes the music of Jute Gyte sounds as though it is crawling around inside you, threatening to escape. Whether it is slowing up or speeding down sometimes seems not only subjective, but actually kind of irrelevant. This is genuinely transdimensional music. It obeys the rules of little other sound in our universe. In an era where the ‘psychedelic’ is much fetishized, but oft-misunderstood, Jute Gyte is making music that is beyond cosmic. It looks where space rock has taken us and laughs. Why waste time on sailing a backdraft of flanger up to the moon when you can wrench open reality itself and slide a rotten tentacle through the cracks? This isn’t for people who find black metal cute. And it isn’t for people who find black metal extreme. Microtonal metal might never inspire memeworthy fandom, but right now it sounds like the future. And the past. And the whole ugly present – all knotted together in a vipers nest of ouroboros." - 20 Jazz Funk Greats

"Jute Gyte's Perdurance is a modern classical black metal masterwork" - Noisey

"It's tempting to focus on this album's otherworldly guitar sound and various other unusual technical components, but its emotional charge is its most compelling feature. Many black metal acts address the idea that we're on our own in a blind, hostile cosmos, but rarely does the horror feel so real." - Stereogum

"If you can sit through it, you will be rewarded by relentlessly entertaining cacophony shot through with a warped sense of humour. If you don’t believe me, take my roommate’s word for it: “Could you never play that skronk album again? I really hate it.” So fire up the coals, put some brews on ice, then lock yourself in the basement and twitch to the summer sounds of Jute Gyte." - The Quietus

"Few recent artists have made such inimitable music as Missourian Adam Kalmbach, architect behind the protean madness of Jute Gyte" - Metal Sucks

"Adam Kalmbach has produced vast quantities of what is hands down the most forward-thinking and complex music metal has to offer" - Angry Metal Guy

"Jute Gyte is music for people who don’t necessarily want what they take in to make them feel better, or even good." - Heavy Blog Is Heavy

"Though not a “pretty” or “pleasant” album by any means, Kalmbach’s genuinely alien approach to harmony and composition coupled with a greater emotional weight than much of his previous work makes Ressentiment one of his best albums yet, and one of the best this year." - Toilet ov Hell

"We are hearing a truly original artist completely at ease with his medium" - Heathen Harvest

"Swirling, chaotic, virulent, black and maddening" - Cvlt Nation

"The guitar sounds like it’s being played by an alien" - Nine Circles

"Robin Thicke is a human. Jute Gyte could eat him." - Decoder Magazine

"The music Kalmbach writes is now top notch covering all the bases of brittle, spiteful black metal, creepy atmospherics and a contrasting, unique style that makes his music stand out above much of the like minded one man black metal out there today." - Teeth of the Divine

"Jute Gyte remains one of our most creative and challenging American black metal extracts." - From the Dust Returned

"Jute Gyte’s now signature hyperdissonance meets the ever-shifting polyrhythms of IDM, Gamelan’s chiming bells, and the shifting dread of early electronic music. Perdurance is a strange album whose penchant for the impenetrable verges on Dadaism" - Invisible Oranges

"Ears accustomed to Western 12-tone polyphony can barely process these sounds—they sink into your skull like red-hot stones into ice. It's like you're listening to a tape at the wrong speed, or to music warped by a black hole's gravitational lens on its way here from several galaxies away." - Chicago Reader

"cracked decrepit guitar tones creak against the maelstrom of drone swelling and spilling in harmonious fury, with buried drum machine marching through the void and anguished vocals recounting an ancient war of mass slaughter. electronics and treatments figure more prominently than on other BM projects, sure to piss off purists and blurring the divide between metal and noise: overwhelming buzzing distortion and delay" - KFJC

[asfeedin]

Best space and sci-fi books for 2020

There are plenty of great books out there about space — so many, in fact, that it can feel a little overwhelming to figure out where to start, whether searching for a perfect gift or your next engrossing read. So the editors and writers at Space.com have put together a list of their favorite books about the universe. These are the books that we love — the ones that informed us, entertained us and inspired us. We hope they’ll do the same for you!

We’ve divided the books into five categories, which each have their own dedicated pages. On this page, we feature books we’re reading now and books we’ve recently read, which we will update regularly. Click to see the best of:

We hope there’s something on our lists for every reader of every age. We’re also eager to hear about your favorite space books, so please leave your suggestions in the comments, and let us know why you love them. You can see our ongoing Space Books coverage here.

What we’re reading:

“See You in Orbit?: Our Dream of Spaceflight” (To Orbit Productions, 2019)

By Alan Ladwig

“Identified Flying Objects” (Masters Creative LLC, 2019)

By Michael Masters

Unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have captured the public’s attention over the decades. Rather than aliens, could those piloting UFOs be us — our future progeny that have mastered the landscape of time and space? Perhaps those reports of people coming into contact with strange beings represent our distant human descendants, returning from the future to study us in their own evolutionary past. The idea of us being them has been advanced before, but this new book takes a fresh look at this prospect, offering some thought-provoking proposals. ~Leonard David

Read Space.com’s review here. 

Buy “Identified Flying Objects: A Multidisciplinary Scientific Approach to the UFO Phenomenon” on Amazon.com.

“They Are Already Here: UFO Culture and Why We See Saucers” (Pegasus Books, 2020)

By Sarah Scoles

Do you remember reading a New York Times story in 2017 that claimed to unveil a Pentagon program dedicated to investigating UFOs? Did you hear rumors about why the FBI closed a solar observatory the next year for then-undisclosed reasons? Are you confused about why there seem to be so many documentaries about alien sightings? “They Are Already Here: UFO Culture and Why We See Saucers” by freelance journalist Sarah Scoles, tackles these questions and many more. Read an excerpt from “They Are Already Here,” and read Space.com’s interview with the author here. 

Buy “They Are Already Here” on Amazon.com.

“The Andromeda Evolution” (Harper, 2019)

By Daniel H. Wilson

There’s finally a sequel to Michael Crichton’s 1969 classic about extraterrestrial life trying to take over humanity from, of all places, Arizona. In “The Andromeda Evolution,” author Daniel H. Wilson continues Crichton’s work and brings the terrifying tale into outer space. ~Elizabeth Howell

Read Space.com’s review here. 

Buy “The Andromeda Evolution” on Amazon.com.

“For Small Creatures Such As We” (G.P Putnam’s Sons, 2019)

By Sasha Sagan

In her new book “For Small Creatures Such as We,” Sasha Sagan, daughter of “Cosmos” co-writer Ann Druyan and famed astronomer Carl Sagan, dives into the secular side of spirituality. Upon starting a family of her own, Sagan wanted to have rituals and traditions that would bond them together. But being non-religious, she reevaluated what these traditions could be and this book explores how rituals like holidays can be inspired by the “magic” of nature, space and science rather than religion. ~Chelsea Gohd

Read Space.com’s interview with the author here. 

Buy “For Small Creatures Such as We” on Amazon.com. 

“Dr. Space Junk Vs. the Universe” (MIT Press, 2019)

By Alice Gorman

What happens to satellites when they die, and come to think of it, when do they die? Alice Gorman is an Australian archaeologist who studies objects related to spaceflight, and what we can learn by thinking about space through the lens of archaeology. Her book is an engaging story of the ways being human shapes how we go to space. From Aboriginal songs tucked on the Voyagers’ Golden Records to the importance of the size of a spacecraft, Gorman offers a new perspective on the history — and future — of space. ~ Meghan Bartels

Read a Q&A with Gorman about the new book and the archaeology of space here.

Buy “Dr. Space Junk Vs. the Universe” on Amazon.com.

“Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution” (Penguin Press, 2019)

By Lee Smolin

Although many believe that the quantum-mechanics revolution of the 1920s is settled science, Lee Smolin wants to disrupt that assumption. Smolin, a theoretical physicist based at the Perimeter Institute in Toronto, argues that quantum mechanics is incomplete. The standard quantum model only allows us to know the position or trajectory of a subatomic particle — not both at the same time. Smolin has spent his career looking to “complete” quantum physics in a way that allows us to know both pieces of information. Smolin’s very engaging new book, “Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution,” offers this unique perspective honed through four decades at the forefront of theoretical physics. ~Marcus Banks

Read a Q&A with Smolin about the new book and the state of quantum physics here.

Buy “Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution” on Amazon.com. 

“Apollo’s Legacy” (Smithsonian Books, 2019)

By Roger Launius

How do we understand a transformative event like the Apollo missions to the moon? Many present it as proof of American ingenuity and success, but there’s much more to the story. In “Apollo’s Legacy: Perspectives on the Moon Landings,” space historian Roger Launius probes the impacts Apollo had technologically, scientifically and politically, as well as analyzing what we can draw from it to understand the country’s modern space program. The slim volume is written as a scholarly text, but it’s accessible to anybody with an interest in space history and the circumstances that spawned Apollo. ~Sarah Lewin

Read a Q&A with the author here. 

Buy “Apollo’s Legacy” on Amazon.com.

“Finding Our Place in the Universe” (MIT Press, 2019)

By Hélène Courtois

In “Finding Our Place in the Universe,” French astrophysicist Helene Courtois describes the invigorating quest to discover the Milky Way’s home. In 2014 Courtois was part of a research team that discovered the galactic supercluster which contains the Milky Way, which they named Laniakea. This means “immeasurable heaven” in Hawaiian. 

In this engaging and fast paced book, Courtois describes her own journey in astrophysics and highlights the key contributions of numerous female astrophysicists. The reader is right there with her as Courtois travels to the world’s leading observatories in pursuit of Laniakea, and it’s easy to see why the challenge of discovering our galaxy’s home became so seductive. Readers who want them will learn all the scientific and technical details needed to understand the discovery of Laniakea, but it’s also possible to enjoy this book as a pure tale of adventure. ~Marcus Banks

Read a Q&A with Courtois about her book and the hunt for Laniakea here.

Buy “Finding Our Place in the Universe” on Amazon.com.

“The Girl Who Named Pluto” (Schwartz & Wade, 2019)

By Alice B. McGinty, Illustrated by Elizabeth Haidle

How did an 11-year-old English schoolgirl come to name Pluto? In “The Girl Who Named Pluto: The Story of Venetia Burney,” Alice B. McGinty recounts one child’s history-making turn on a fateful morning in 1930. Although the book is aimed at kids ages 4 to 8, there’s plenty for older children to connect with as well. And the vintage-flavored illustrations by Elizabeth Haidle make the experience a visual delight. 

Venetia had connected her love of mythology with her knowledge of science to christen the new planet after the Roman god of the underworld, refusing to let her age or gender to hold her back. 

McGinley says she hopes Venetia’s tale inspires her readers — girls, in particular. “I hope girls read it and feel empowered to be part of the scientific process,” she said. “I hope boys read it and feel empowered, too, and understand how important girls are to science.” ~Jasmin Malik Chua

Read Space.com’s interview with the author here. 

Buy “The Girl Who Named Pluto” on Amazon.com.

“Delta-v” (Dutton, 2019)

By Daniel Suarez

In “Delta-v,” an unpredictable billionaire recruits an adventurous cave diver to join the first-ever effort to mine an asteroid. The crew’s target is asteroid Ryugu, which in real life Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft has been exploring since June 2018. From the use of actual trajectories in space and scientific accuracy, to the title itself, Delta-v — the engineering term for exactly how much energy is expended performing a maneuver or reaching a target — Suarez pulls true-to-life details into describing the exciting and perilous mission. The reward for successful asteroid mining is incredible, but the cost could be devastating. ~Sarah Lewin

Read a Q&A with the author here.

Buy “Delta-v” on Amazon.com.

Again, check out our full lists here:

Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Tags: 2020, Books, scifi, space

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[swipestream]

New Release Roundup, 16 February 2019: Fantasy and Adventure

This week’s roundup of the newest releases in fantasy and adventure features unlikely dark lords, casteless rebels armies, a collector of magic swords, and an assassin collective waging war against the powerful.

The Dark Lord Bert – Chris Fox

How does a 1-hit-point goblin become the Dark Lord?

By accident. Bert is a tiny goblin with big dreams. He follows adventurers, and loots the copper they leave behind when they take the real loot. One day, Bert hopes, he’ll have enough copper to buy a warg, and finally promote from a 1-HP critter to a Warg Rider.

Kit is a typical gamer hoping to enjoy a good story, but her friends are more interested in rules, loot and experience. Kit’s friends Crotchshot, Brakestuff, and the White Necromancer rampage their way across the land desperately seeking the Dark Lord trope, which gives the wielder the power to reshape the world.

When Bert accidentally steals the trope, Kit is forced to make a choice. Should she help her friends, or help a new Dark Lord rise to power?

The world will never be the same. Get ready for The Dark Lord Bert.

Duel Visions – Misha Burnett and Louise Sorensen  

Is Death a dog or a cat? Would it be worse to be turned into a pig or a fish? After we die do we become characters in a movie, or parts for an old truck?

Weird fictioneers Misha Burnett and Louise Sorensen explore the dark depths of the human psyche across ten spine-tingling tales of terror and macabre.

The haunted visions these dueling tale-tellers have conjured find all the horrors that go bump in the night and make them dance for your delight… before drawing you down into the depths to join them.

We cordially invite you to share in our Duel Visions!

Heart of the Forest – Michael DeAngelo

Kelvin has left his country behind. His mentor, the elf Icarus Callatuil, has prepared him for a journey to Draconis, where old allies will be able to better train him for the hardships he is sure to endure in his life. But when he arrives on those distant shores, he discovers that the elves of Cefen’adiel may need him as much as he needs them.

A darkness arises in the forest in southern Daltain, and Tarenda, queen of the elves, decides that a stranger to the lands such as Kelvin can better serve their purposes as an investigator.

What will Kelvin do when he must trade his training exercises for real dangers?

House of Assassins (Saga of the Forgotten Warrior #2)  – Larry Correia

Ashok Vadal was once a member of the highest caste in all of Lok. As a Protector, he devoted his life to upholding the Law, rooting out those who still practiced the old ways and delivering swift justice with his ancestor blade Angruvadal. None was more merciless than he in stamping out the lingering belief in gods and demons among the casteless. His brutality was legendary and celebrated.

But soon Ashok learned that his life to that point had been a lie. He himself, senior member of the Protector Order, was casteless. He had been nothing more than an unwitting pawn in a political game. His world turned upside down and finding himself on the wrong side of the Law, he began a campaign of rebellion, war, and destruction unlike any Lok had ever seen.

Thera had been first daughter of Vane. A member of the Warrior Order, she had spent her life training for combat. Until a strange sight in the heavens appeared one day. Thera was struck by lighting and from that day forward she heard the Voice. A reluctant prophet with the power to see into the future, she fought alongside Ashok Vadal and his company of men known as the Sons of the Black Sword until a shapeshifting wizard with designs on her powers of precognition spirited her away. He holds her prisoner in the House of Assassins.

Ashok Vadal and the Sons of the Black Sword march to rescue Thera. But there is much more at risk in the continent of Lok. Strange forces are working behind the scenes. Ashok Vadal and the Sons of the Black Sword are caught up in a game they do not fully understand, with powerful forces allied against them.

Ashok no longer knows what to believe. He is beginning to think perhaps the gods really do exist.

If so, he’s warned them to stay out of his way.

They would do well to listen.

Into the Light (Axe Druid #1) – Christopher Johns

A tight-knit group of buddy gamers. A relentless galactic conqueror. One big ol’ axe and a whole bag of magic.

Chris and his friends had been hearing voices begging for help, but aren’t dreams supposed to stay dreams? When they finally answer the call, they’re pulled into a fantastic world with themes similar to modern role-playing games. The world of Brindolla. This is what every gamer has always wanted… right?

There’s one major problem: War. The big baddie of the universe has come to collect another planet for his relentless march. The Brindollan Gods only have the power to hold him back for a short while, which they can only hope will be long enough to give Chris and his buddies a fighting chance. Either this team gets rid of War’s vanguard of minions and generals, giving the Gods a chance to keep him out for good… or War comes for Earth.

The group is ready to dive into combat, magic, and any other obstacles that come their way. No matter what needs to be done, Chris and his buddies will always do it together.

The Killer Collective – Barry Eisler

When a joint FBI–Seattle Police investigation of an international child pornography ring gets too close to certain powerful people, sex-crimes detective Livia Lone becomes the target of a hit that barely goes awry—a hit that had been offered to John Rain, a retired specialist in “natural causes.”

Suspecting the FBI itself was behind the attack, Livia reaches out to former Marine sniper Dox. Together, they assemble an ad hoc group to identify and neutralize the threat. There’s Rain. Rain’s estranged lover, Mossad agent and honeytrap specialist Delilah. And black ops soldiers Ben Treven and Daniel Larison, along with their former commander, SpecOps legend Colonel Scot “Hort” Horton.

Moving from Japan to Seattle to DC to Paris, the group fights a series of interlocking conspiracies, each edging closer and closer to the highest levels of the US government.

With uncertain loyalties, conflicting agendas, and smoldering romantic entanglements, these operators will have a hard time forming a team. But in a match as uneven as this one, a collective of killers might be even better.

Power Forged (Chaos and Retribution #6) – Eric T. Knight

The three young heroes are defeated. The Devourers have the key. All is lost…

Except that something is missing. The key doesn’t work. The Dragon Queen is still trapped.

With help from an unlikely source, Fen, Karliss and Aislin escape. If they can get to the last piece before the Devourers do, they might still stop them. There’s just one problem…

Only Othen, a Shaper unlike any of the others, knows where it is, and he hasn’t been seen in centuries. Pursued relentlessly by demonic creatures summoned from the Abyss, the three heroes set out on a desperate quest to find the final piece and stop the Queen before she devours their world.

Shadows Within the Flame (The Elder Stones Saga #2) – D.K. Holmberg

The Forgers proved to be only part of a greater plan to gain the power of the stones, remnants from powerful beings lost to time. Their power has never been controlled by one person but now someone is close to changing that.

Having survived the last attack, Haern trains, working with the assassin Galen to hone his skills, learning about poisons and how to best use his control over metal. When he becomes the target of another attack, he must discover what the Forgers plan before it’s too late. His father might be the key to Haern’s understanding, but the more he learns about what his father has done, the less Haern wants to follow in his footsteps.

As Lucy struggles to control her new power, she’s asked to help find the depth of the C’than betrayal. It requires her to learn more about her new abilities and exposes her to dangers she had never imagined. She’s not a fighter, but she must find strength within her to ensure the safety of those she cares about.

While staying with Lucy, Daniel hopes she will eventually come to see him the way he sees her. He trains, realizing that despite everything he learned of fighting, he’s still a novice. He needs to improve his skill to protect Lucy, but saving her might require more than his ability with the sword; it will require his mind.

The stones must be protected from those who would use them for their own dark purpose, but another has maneuvered for decades, and it might already be too late to prevent the stones from falling into the wrong hands.

Six Sacred Swords (Weapons and Wielders #1) – Andrew Rowe

It doesn’t take a legendary sword to make a legendary swordsman, but it certainly helps.

Keras Selyrian is already well on the way to cutting his name into the annals of legend. He’s fought false divinities, thieving sorcerers, and corrupt demigods — and left them defeated in his wake. But he’s a long way from home, and Kaldwyn offers a different brand of danger than he’s used to.

He’s already got a sword of unfathomable power, but it’s damaged and leaking world-annihilating mana, so he’s in the market for a new one.

Possibly six. The more the better, really.

The Six Sacred Swords are Kaldwyn’s most famous artifacts, forged as the only means to defeat the god beasts. Each sword must be earned by a worthy champion, and no single person has ever managed to collect them all.

Not yet, at least.

Keras is just getting started.

Shield Knight: Rhodruthain – Jonathan Moeller

For fifteen thousand years, the Guardian Rhodruthain has protected the world from the power of the Well of Storms.

But the quest of the Seven Swords threatens to unlock the destructive power of the Well.

And unless Rhodruthain can defeat the shadows in his own mind, not even the Shield Knight and the Keeper will be able to save him…

New Release Roundup, 16 February 2019: Fantasy and Adventure published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

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Arthur Miller’s INCIDENT AT VICHY Review, at Finborough Theatre until 22 April 2017 Presented by Anita Creed Productions for The Phil Willmott Company Pitch-perfect production ★★★★★ Rather like the Finborough itself, ‘Incident At Vichy’ is small but perfectly formed and never less than ambitious. One of Arthur Miller’s lesser known plays, it centres around the capture and questioning of a group of men during the Second World War. It’s late enough in the war that the free men of France have tasted life under Nazi rule but not so late that the full extent of the atrocities has emerged. Miller drip feeds the gossip throughout the play creating a state of panic: they burn Jews; there are camps that people never return from; they want to eliminate an entire people. It’s inconceivable to these men that such horrors might exist and from our position in the future the play is all the more heart-breaking as we fully understand exactly how far the Nazi regime went in its attempt to wipe out great swathes of people. Dressed in beautifully detailed period costume by Penn O’Gara, the men wait in a stark white set designed by Georgia de Grey. This contrast works beautifully to remind us that although these round-ups did happen, this is also a fable. It’s a perfect group of old and young, rich and poor, artisan and professional. Lawrence Boothman as twitchy little artist Lebeau is garrulous and nervy, always on the edge of hysteria and sets the tone for the piece. To begin with, he’s proud that the police came and measured his nose. Fancy that! One by one the others reveal their stories. There’s passionate communist Bayard played by Brendan O’Rourke (with a similar intensity he gave us in Kafka’s ‘The Trail’ at Jack Studio last year), the patient waiter (Michael Skellern) who knows the Nazis can’t be that bad- they order coffee and croissants and laugh in his café. Gypsy (Andro Crespo) hugs his battered old pot and struggles to understand what is happening to him as even his fellow questionees make disparaging remarks. Boy (Daniel Dowling) hugs his knees and Old Jew (Jeremy Gagan) stares into middle distance. These two characters have the fewest lines but their acting is powerful and moving. First to be questioned is smug businessman Marchand (Will Bryant) and when he sails through the interrogation there’s a whisper of hop among the group. PK Taylor as Monceau is peevish as the actor who just can’t conceive of anyone who loves art being a ‘monster’ and Edward Killingback as gentle Austrian nobleman Von Berg is incredibly affecting. He just wants to live a cultured and quiet life but his world shatters when his beloved Jewish musicians are slaughtered in front of him. As Leduc, the educated leader of the pack who is desperate to fight back, Gethin Alderman brings a quiet authority. It’s chilling as he points out that though they outnumber their captors, just as in the outside world, nobody dare lift a finger. All are complicit. It’s every man for himself but there may be some redemption in the end. The French are joined by a mean-spirited police officer (James Boyd), a chillingly antiseptic Nazi doctor (Timothy Harker) and-perhaps a glimmer of humanity- a cultured major (Henry Wyrley-Birch). Underneath the conflicted exterior, however, lurks a true Nazi heart. He is not to be played. At 90 minutes with no internal, the play is perfectly paced. We learn enough about the characters but are also left with questions. This is a pitch–perfect production under Phil Willmott’s expert direction. Miller wrote this play barely twenty years after the end of the war and it offers the audience a chilling insight into how easily the Nazis preyed on fear and paranoia with their anti-Jewish rhetoric. It remains to be seen how history will judge us. Photos by Scott Rylander Tickets: £18/ £16 Box Office: 0844 847 1652 http://www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk/productions/2017/incident-at-vichy.php Reviewer Sian Rowland Siân’s plays have been shown at various venues around London and her play Gazing At A Distant Star has recently finished a sell-out run at Greenwich Theatre Studio. As well as being a playwright she is an adviser, trainer and writer of award-winning education resources. @Sian_Rowland