#have warped his form along with the desire for vengeance

[fairy-lights-and-blobs]

And just as the Court of Owls are celebrating their victory, Danny unleashes his full might on them. A properly placed Wail within an enclosed, echoing, underground room and the Owls are turned into barely more than red mist, and their complex starts crumbling.

Untethered, and with his vengeance complete, Danny takes up the Owl mask as his new identity, and takes a page out of little Ellie's book, roaming the world in search of new targets upon which to deliver his vengeful wrath.

Danny thinks he's heard mention of Lex Luthor and clones raised as super weapons...maybe he ought to be acquainted with some good old Eldritch Horrors. Really make sure he'll never look at Kon ever again.

Now that the Kryptonian, are safe from one billionaire, might as well take out the other.

Danny floats into the man's office while he's meeting with The Light.

Ra's al Ghul is interested in this Son of Lazarus that he's seeing in Lex's office. Although...Vandal Savage has certainly gone quiet...(the meteorite that made him immortal was ectoranium that was activated and warped by the solar radiation and the heat upon entry into the atmosphere. Whatever ghostly part of him keeps him immortal recognizes an Ancient on a rampage and he'd rather Not Be Perceived, thank you very much)

And what about Ellie? Her Template has been stolen by a Vlad ripoff, the Fentons are gone, either dead or hiding, and now she's hearing mentions of someone who might be Danny, but looking horrifying and corpse-like, wearing an Owl mask, and terrorizing the Villains of the world.

The one where Bruce is the asshole (again)

So! We have a typical story where the JLA finds out about the Situation in Amity.

Whichever way they find out doesn't matter, but either way they end up sending Batman to do a threat analysis and review of whether this requires their attention.

And while there, he runs into a Kid who obviously needs to be saved from his Abusive Home. Look at him, he's far too thin, his grades are horrible, he has many unexcused absences, and he has bruises hidden under his clothes.

Even after figuring out that Danny is Phantom the local Hero, he thinks Danny needs to be saved from his Parents.

I mean, it's plain to see! They Hates Ghosts with a Passion, negelct their son very often, shoot at him nearly every day, and are probably the ones who killed him in the first place!

So, with no input from Danny himself, Bruce calls CPS on the Fentons and uses his Wealth to expedite the process and avoid the actual Investigation. (I mean, why would you even need one? It's so obviously a bad home!)

The Fenton's are arrested, and Bruce reveals that Danny is Phantom to convince the Courts that they are horrible people for shooting at their own son, and that they should be locked up (ignoring the horrified looks on their faces, probably cause they were living with a Ghost for so long, thats probably why).

He immediately offers to adopt Danny, even when Danny vehemently refuses his offer. He knows that Danny will come around to it, he's doing this for his own good. He still thinks his Parents were good people, and not thr Villains they really were.

Meanwhile Danny's life has been completely uprooted thanks to the self-righteous machinations of an Adoption Crazed Fruitloop! And not even the usual one!

Sure his parents were often busy with their work, but they Always set aside time to hang out with their kids and make sure they were okay. They never abused him, the neglect was only for like a month or two when the portal before they got their act together and apologized for it, and (most importantly) THEY DIDN'T KNOW he was a Halfa when they shot at him! They only found out when the ASSHOLE revealed his Identity in Court!

And Danny is Extra enraged by that part. The Adoption Crazed Fruitloop had revealed his secret identity for the ENTIRE WORLD TO HEAR!

He would never be able to live a normal life anymore, even if he managed to get away from the Moron who caused all this!

Bruce Wayne was a Villain in his eyes.

He ripped him from his home and from his family (basically kidnapped), revealed his identity to the world so he was forced to stay with him for fear of the GIW, and spun the whole story so that it looked like he was the Good Guy in this!?

It was official. Danny Hates Bruce Wayne, possibly more than anyone else in the World.

And that's a High Bar.

[pigeonrocks]

Wip Wednesday fic snippet ^^ who's gonna do the horrors of kabal some justice. ANYWAYS !!!!!!

--

“damn, with how many people are around you'd think I was a celebrity..”

“be quiet.”

Kabal shrugged, not caring enough to listen to what the rest of them were discussing, trying more to investigate what was on his ankles and wrists- perhaps he was in an Edenian dungeon, the air smelled like he was in Edenia- traces of magiks strong and contorting as a current-

he glanced back over to Kano- the reason his life is now all wrong, threw him to the red dragon like lamb to slaughter- he's thinking too hard and he's far too close to a telepath for his own comfort- again, he glances around, his gaze stilling on Stryker, the man made his heart ache and bleed, it is another thing the red dragon had taken from him, his ability to breathe without agony, or to feel air on his skin, to feel anything along his body without the sensation he was burning another time, to take away everything he could've ever possibly done, break him in ways immendable- he cannot love, not be held, not feel anything on his skin, not warmth or cold- his ability to feel numbed, in its wake a never ending rage, hate, a fire the Red Dragon were unable to steal from him, brought back from the brink of death and convinced by the same chaos mage to restore his clan and sought out a deserved revenge- if Kabal desired anything, it was to break down Mavado and make him hurt as he had done to him.

Kabal really wasn't sure what happened, exactly- he watched exactly wordlessly how Reptile held Stryker's hand- a quiet comfort to the horrors of himself, it left a hollow emptiness in his chest, he's disgraceful, maybe- Kenshi flinches and tenses when his thoughts got intense as they always did- the branches of pain beginning to arise in his chest, releasing a withheld breath in the form of a sigh, he hated the situation he got himself in- hated more on how powerless he was rendered.

“You're breaking.” the low gravelly chime of his spirit snarled, “you are still weak from Mavado's assault.”

Kabal hung his head low, acknowledging the creature's contempt for his state.

“where- is he?” Kabal growled- with the same hate he's harbored heavy in his heart for the man.

“Dead.” it made his blood boil “But he's escaped netherrealm.” The spirit tilted it's head, Kabal could still reap vengeance.

“Where.” Kabal yanked his arms, trying to free himself from his restraints.

“I do not know.” the spirit retorted “Settle a truce-”

“It's against my values, what of my anarchy? the trust the dragons have in me and our cause of complete societal collapse?” Kabal stared at how his wrists were bound above his head, eyeing the metal with intent study.

“What of your gas and plasma that the mask releases? they should melt this if they can melt flesh..” The spirit approached him, the green glow and faint flickering fire it trailed, engulfing its skeletal form, nudging one of the chains with its lower horn- just as curious as he was.

“Maybe-” Kabal took in a deep breath, letting the respirator release a horrific purpling cloud that hid his wrists.

the weight around his wrists felt lighter, pulling his hands quickly from it, the respirator letting out a hiss as he released held breath, rubbing at the warped marbled skin, the numbness shooting a tingling sense in his fingertips.

“My escape is rather limited..” Kabal looked closely at the chains, they stung his skin- he presumes from the chill, he had no saw blade to cut himself free with- holding his breath another time, watching plasma eat away at the metal in strange awe- not reacting to how the exposed skin near it bled from its contact, rising to stand on wobbled knees- Kabal was impossible to keep trapped, never caught- never kept.

“What now, Rhino?” Kabal looked over, adjusting his clothes and mask, checking over the hose and oxygens state- The spirit trotted to where the door had been shut, Locked- perhaps.

“With enough force the metal will weaken- then the building may be against you, without a saw blade or hooksword, what is it you have left, Karlos?”

Kabal stilled, the use of his name was foreign, and hearing it hissed out from his spirit was almost surreal- words clumping together in his throat.

“I have my speed.” Kabal glared at the skeletal rhino “I have my plasma, my gas, and my strength, with my own speed- there is little to oppose me until my swords and blades are returned to me.” he took a few steps back, the spirit watching him intently, nodding- the fire and green light that once illuminated the chamber left him now in the dark, the reddish light of his respirator and machinery lighting it up faintly.

Kabal threw about as much force and put in as much velocity as he could manage in his cell against the door with a almost deafening noise- it wasn't enough- the door was awkwardly opened, the metal dented and bent- his lungs did not burn, there weren't aches or pains in his body or joints.

again, he reared back- repeating the same dash towards the door, it weakly giving in to his abuse of it, clattering into the hallway- stepping over the obstacle.

He glanced around the hall, moving casually further down it, his weapons were a top priority, He'd just have to find where exactly they were being kept- the likely scenario was that the entire vicinity had heard him barge down the door to his cell- at least the thrill would be enjoyable, perhaps that's the only bonus for him here.

[gofancyninjaworld]

OPM Webcomic Chapter 141 Review

Intro

Normally I like to take a couple of days and a few rereads to see how I feel about a chapter before reviewing it, but with ONE’s unpredictable schedule, I’d best do this now.  It’s longish.

The first thing to say is that this chapter really messed me up.

The cavalry has a stone in its shoe

The first thing that fucked me up was realising what the sound effect in the first two panels of the chapter was: the sound of the doctor’s increasingly agonised breathing.  What a horrible thing to have to hear, made worse by the three Machine Gods showing up and reporting that their latest kill would have a 0% chance of survival after 5 minutes.

If you thought then that this chapter would be about a by-the-skin-of-the-teeth save, you’re sadly mistaken.  Genos was awesome.  He spared no power (nor powers for that matter) in fighting the three dragon-level machines simultaneously, aiming to kill them as quickly as he could and get that time.

ONE’s grasp on choreography has improved immensely and he’s used it fantastically here.  He’s always been versatile, but this time, Genos was plasticity itself, wielding heat, freezing, magnetism, anti-gravity, electricity and much more.  In turn, they didn’t commit the mistake of trying to attack one at a time, analysing his moves as they went and attacking in unpredictable formation.

it might not be psychic power, but being able to move and warp anything magnetic is a damn useful substitute

Machine Gods may vary in form, but they do share a basic interest, which is in understanding heroes, and a basic personality, which is a snarky wit that’s quick to mock. Machine God Tech lobs a back-handed compliment to Genos, saying that if he’d mastered these variable abilities, he’d have been able to aim for the top of the hero world.  For their confidence, Tech and Ray end up dead in pretty short order, smashed to pieces, leaving an outraged Machine God Body howling about how it simply couldn’t be that a mere ex-human cyborg could outdo them, these magnificent AIs.  He takes up the components of the other two to strengthen himself further, but  he’s dead soon, smashed to bits by an appropriately named Final Smash.

Genos hurries to the doctor, but there’s no let up.  Seven more high-powered robots appear. Thankfully so does Saitama, still in his underwear. He takes on the five approaching from the front, leaving the last two to Genos.  Saitama casually walking through the assault, not even bothering to shape a punch has to be one of the scene-stealers of the chapter and one of the very few light moments in it.

And then it’s over.  Saitama picks the doctor up to try ferrying him to hospital, but the doctor refuses, preferring to tell Genos where to find a secret, final upgrade, to use it to run away from Them (looks like the doctor knows exactly who killed him) and to beg forgiveness.

what a way for a beautiful relationship to end

Genos doesn’t say anything. Nor does he hurry after Saitama, but after the latter has left, he bows deeply in gratitude and says that there’s nothing to forgive, for the old man did nothing wrong in his eyes.

The action recommences at dawn.  For the avoidance of all hope, we see that Saitama has buried the doctor in the forest with a chunck of the lab wall as a headstone and the shovel still stuck in the earth by the grave.  Genos comes out of the repair pod with a new body and the two of them take their leave.  Genos intends to take out Metal Knight immediately, before whatever the plan for a ‘general offensive’ is executed.  Saitama agrees to accompany him.  But as they walk along, there’s a light over the nearest city.  It seems ‘The Plan’ Machine God Tech talked about has begun.

Indeed, on the ground, there’s carnage as a formation of robots marches through, burning every building they pass and shooting down anything that moves.  Various heroes look on in numb horror as the army advances. 

That’s where this monster of a chapter ends.

never ones to half-ass things

Meta

Unsurprising Surprise

The Organization strikes at last.  Our longest-running villains finally show their hand. They’ve measured, they’ve planned, they’ve done their homework, made that list and checked it twice.  Fitting in with Metal Knight’s warning about a shadowy power waiting its time (in the manga, not the webcomic), they’ve struck right when the heroes are at their weakest.  We don’t know the extent  of it. Is City W the only place being scrubbed off the map, or is this part of a much more widespread trend?

Well, now we really do know that when Genos spoke of not only acting for himself when he introduced himself to Saitama, he was just telling the truth.  He might be looking for vengeance, but his scope was always much bigger than just himself.  It’s a shame things have had to deteriorate to this extent for us to see it.

If not now, when?

So this is it! This is as good as it gets for him then. If he is to survive, Genos will have to take a page from Drive Knight’s example and quickly master everything his new body has to offer.  We’ve (well I’ve) complained before that he’s merely competent at using what the doctor gives him, throwing parts and bodies away without giving himself a chance to truly get the best out of them.  No choice now.  And it looks like there’s a world to save -- no time to luxuriate in practice. Or grief.

Forgive me

A few years ago when I was still new to Reddit, one of my first posts was to ask if Dr Kuseno was a good man. Against his manifest good deeds in supporting Genos as he did, it didn’t sit well with me that he’d performed a Reverse Pinocchio on an ordinary boy, turning him into a living weapon.  Not hard to imagine that it wasn’t received too well by the sub, lol.  In time, as we got to see more of Kuseno, my position on him softened, but what the hell, doctor?  never went completely away.

With Kuseno’s dying words being apology, we see that he knew he’d done wrong by Genos.  He knew that roping him into his quest for justice came as much from his own selfishness and rage as it did from a desire to set the world to rights.  I’ve repeatedly said that the cyborg body Genos has has nothing to do with health. It was all about gaining the power to fight and forgoing a chance to have a life in the process.

And so Kuseno died, in agony, weeping and begging for a forgiveness that he never heard come.  He was buried like a dog in what had been his backyard. By a stranger.

Fuck.

That’s cold.

Now I’m not faulting Genos for not forgiving the old man to his hearing. But there’s a hardness to him that he’ll want watching lest it grow more.

this is why the Machine Gods always fail despite their detailed calculations.  They just do not understand the depth of the human heart, nor its importance.

But I’ll add one more thing.  Dr Kuseno did not just raise a warrior.  In the end, he raised a damn fine hero too.  In the end, I really hope that some great good might yet come out of this.

Saitama and compassion

I’m glad that Saitama is here.  I’m even more glad that he’s not been acting to try stealing the show, instead supporting Genos when the latter needs it. It’s not ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ But it is compassionate. 

What’s next?

Why fighting of course.  Lots of it. I hope that somehow, the fog of war ends up nevertheless clarifying the relationship between the Neo Heroes, The Organization, Metal Knight and possibly Drive Knight.  I’m ready for this arc to build to its crisis and resolve one way or the other.

Bits and pieces

Number 23 on the list?  If Kuseno weren’t keeping such a low profile, I’d be insulted on his behalf.

I surmised last chapter that Kuseno must have an extensive basement as the superstructure of his place looked positively humble.  West basement?  With multiple hangars?  That’s not a basement, that’s an underground castle.  I hope Genos has locked up after himself.  If he succeeds in putting sword to his enemies, he’ll want what’s in there.

Finally, with the way living and dying works in this world, I wonder if the old man might yet have survived if he’d not decided it was too late for him.  I guess we’ll never know. At least I hope not.  I hope he’s beyond the clutches of those who’d raise him to an undeath for their own purposes.

[zabrak-show]

In the novel Clone Wars: Stories of the Light and Dark Obi-Wan's chapter retells the episode "The Lawless". While overall I found the book, while certainly not bad, missing a certain something and although some chapters really add to the corresponding episodes such as Rex' retelling of the Umbara arc, many are just very close retellings of the episodes. Now Kenobi's chapter was a mixed bag to me because some of it is really just an exact recount of the events of the episode, however, I found some additions made in regards to Maul interesting.

To no one's surprise there's a bit about Obi-Wan's almost hatred: "Hate was not the Jedi way. But for this man, Obi-Wan had grown weary of keeping it at bay."

Then we get confirmation that Maul is either just very perceptive, simply has Kenobi all figured out or is actually able to mindprobe even such thoroughly trained - albeit here clearly distraught - Jedi as Obi-Wan: "Maul seemed to sense his thoughts."

And of course we have Obi-Wan's reaction to Satine's death - which tbh made me all the more convinced that even though Obi-Wan might have crushed on her as a padawan, he is more fond of than in love sith her at this point -: "When Maul killed Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan was stricken with sorrow. Sorrow gripped him again. But there was something else, as well. Something dangerous. Something that scorched. Satine wasn't Maul's enemy. She was just a tool Maul had used to get something he wanted, the throne of Mandalore. And a tool to hurt Obi-Wan. Using a person that way was the worst form of cruelty. Satine had been a person, and her death wasn't just a loss for Obi-Wan. It was a loss for so many more. She'd been a child on this world. Like other children, she'd taken her first step, uttered her first word, laughed and chased flitters in the tall grass of the Mandalorian plains. She'd learned to read, made friends, suffered hurts, recovered and laughed again. And she'd become a leader. She should have lived to see her world thrive, to see her people find peace, to prosper, to make music and art. She should have grown old and been able to look back on all she'd achieved.

"But in a split second, Maul had ended all that. He'd extinguished a light in the universe and replaced it with shadow. Such an act was truly the definition of the dark side. And Obi-Wan burned with rage.

"With the rage came a vision: Eyes smoldering with hatred. Screams in the red glare of a lightsaber.

"Obi-Wan would cleave Maul in two. He would do much worse. There would be nothing left of him. Or the Dathomirian. Or the commandos, those Mandalorian traitors. He would kill them Almec. He would kill anyone who'd had a hand in overthrowing Satine, anyone who'd contributed to her death.

"And he would kill anyone who tried to stop him. Anyone who stood in his way, by word or by deed.

"Anyone.

"Maul laughed. "And now we see the true Obi-Wan Kenobi. The one he hides behind a mask of wit and charm. The one who yearns to be set free."

"And if Obi-Wan gave in to his desires, he'd be giving Maul exactly what he wanted."

So overall this just aligns with the episode. Although I do think Maul's additional taunt in this is so in character for him (and it'd be hilarious if it weren't for the entirety of the situation that Maul describes Obi-Wan as witty and charming). Although it's interesting just how close Obi-Wan came to falling. And ofc this passage really just hammers home the point that Maul wanted for Obi-Wan to fall to the dark side rather than wanting to kill him.

Anyways. The passage I've been dying to point out as an avid Obimaul shipper is the following:

"You can kill me, but you will never destroy me," Obi-Wan said, trying to keep his anger under control. "It takes strength to resist the dark side. Only the weak embrace it."

"It is more powerful than you know."

"And those who oppose it are more powerful than you'll ever be."

There was still a chance to turn this right. He could not overpower Maul, but maybe he could reach him. Maybe he could match Maul's fury, not with equal fury but with understanding. With sympathy. Maul had not always been this way. He'd had his future stolen from him. He'd been warped by the Force-wielders of Dathomir. He'd been groomed to become a creature of anger and vengeance who stood before Obi-Wan.

"I know where you're from," said Obi-Wan. "I've been to your village. I know the decision to join the dark side wasn't yours. I know the Nightsisters made it for you."

Obi-Wan cringed. The words had not come out as he'd intended. He'd wanted to extend a kindness that Maul perhaps never experienced. But he let his own anger and his own fear infect his words with venom."

And then the scene moves along as seen in the episode.

But phew. I feel like there is so much to unpack here. Obi-Wan trying to reach out for Maul is soooo good. I love that meeting anger with understanding and kindness is the Obimaul trope and this is pretty much that. It's interesting that Obi-Wan aknowledges that he couldn't strike the right tone.

Honestly all of this makes me yearn for the AU where he does reach Maul and maybe I'll even write it myself. Just Maul giving in and opening himself up to said kindness (although the staging might have to be different for that e.g. Maul visiting Obi-Wan in prison as an additional scene before he kills Satine).

This also made me reconsider the Siege of Mandalore. We all know, that Maul at that point of the story is not out to kill Kenobi. And honestly, considering that Maul is hyperaware of Kenobi's emotions in these scene and could possibly also have felt Obi-Wan's "kill 'em sith kindness" impulse, isn't it even more likely, that Maul wanted Kenobi to join him in robbing Sheev of his priced pupil Anakin but also killing Palpatine? I always thought Maul wanted to reveal Sidious to Kenobi and he only adapts his plan because it isn't Obi-Wan that arrives. But with this scene in mind, couldn't it possibly be, that Maul remembered that Obi-Wan once tried to reach out for him and wanted to extend the same gesture with the goal of overthrowing Palpatine? Whilst there is this short moment in "The Son of Dathomir" comic in which Maul and Dooku unite in fighting Kenobi, I feel like after Talzin was also killed by Palpatine Maul was kind of aimless - because in the comic he (unfortunately) has essentially moved from seeing himself as Sidious' tool to being Mother Talzin's tool (he even states the latter directly) - and nothing matters to him as much as overthrowing Sidious in that final arc, because he knows if not now then never. He has foreseen what Sidious and Vader will become and knows this is his last shot to truly hurt Palpatine in any way. And lastly Maul is certainly not that delusional that he'd think he can kill Kenobi and Skywalker alone (which is an interpretation I've seen and honestly just feels wrong at that point)

Essentially I am convinced that Maul wanted to form a sort of alliance with Obi-Wan to overthrow Sidious (The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that). Maul knows that Obi-Wan knows him better than anyone and I think at the very least he hoped he could convince Obi-Wan of the truth. Additionally Obi-Wan is the only being left in his life Maul has a connection to, who hasn't been killed by Sidious.

All I am saying is that I join the ranks of other anons and blogs as a huge Obimaul enabler.

Wow!! This was so informative and awesome. I don't have that book so I appreciate the run down A LOT! And will probably save this as reference point tbh.

I don't really have anything to add other than thank you for sharing with me, and that I think you absolutely should write an AU where Obi-Wan is able to reach Maul. How that would play out and what happens when they do is a delicious thought.

[theradioghost]

I don't know if you're still doing podcast recs, but if you are, I really like dramas, horror, sci-fi, honestly anything that gives you the feels (especially if it has lgbtq+ rep). I am not much of a comedy person though unfortunately. The only podcast I finished was tma and I really loved it.

The recommendations are always on tap here, whenever my askbox is open! You might wanna check out:

Archive 81, for a found-footage horror about mysterious archives of tapes full of encounters with otherworldly horror, dark rituals, cults, and a long-suffering archivist with the same name as the show creator who plays him, which despite all that could not possibly be more different from TMA and yet easily matches it as one of the best horror stories I have ever enjoyed. The sound design on this show is basically unparalleled – where TMA has fairly minimalist sound design, A81 goes all out. Quite a few lgbtqa+ folk also.

I Am In Eskew, for a surreal, Lynchian horror about the city of Eskew, where it’s always raining and the streets are never the same twice, as narrated by a man who is trapped there and the woman hired to find him. Take the most viscerally disturbing episodes of TMA as a baseline for how intense this show is, then imagine the Spiral built a city and invited all the other fears over for a party. Also right up there as one of my favorite horror things ever, and recently ended, so you can listen to the whole thing right now.

Within The Wires, for a found-footage scifi dystopia, telling stories from an alternate-history world. Three of the four seasons focus on lgbtqa+ leads, and the first season, a set of instructional meditation tapes provided to a prisoner in a shadowy government institution, is still some of my absolute favorite creative use of medium and framing device ever.

Kane and Feels, for a surreal noir-flavored urban fantasy/horror hybrid, about a magically-inclined academic (and sarcastic little bastard man) named Lucifer Kane and his demon-punching partner with a heart of gold, Brutus Feels. They share a flat in London, they bicker like an old married couple, and they fight supernatural evil. This show WILL confuse the hell out of you and you will enjoy every second of it.

Alice Isn’t Dead, for a weird Americana horror story about a long-distance truck driver, criss-crossing the US in search of her missing wife. Along the way she discovers that both of them have been drawn into a dangerous secret war that seethes in the empty and abandoned expanses of America, and that inhuman hunters have begun to follow her. Also finished! And as the title kind of gives away, the lesbians do not die!

Janus Descending, for a sci-fi horror miniseries about two scientists sent to survey the remains of a dead alien civilization on a distant planet, only to learn all too well why the original inhabitants have disappeared. You hear one character’s story in chronological order and the other in reverse, with their perspectives alternating, which is done in an incredibly clever way so that even technically knowing what will happen it still holds you in suspense right to the end. Also, it made me cry, a lot.

SAYER, for a sci-fi horror with a touch of dark comedy, and probably the single best use of the “evil AI” trope I have ever seen. Tells the story of employees of tech corporation Aerolith Dynamics living on Earth’s artificial second moon, Typhon, in the form of messages from their AI overseer SAYER. The first season is great, the second season is okay, and the third and fourth seasons are fucking amazing.

Tides, for a really interesting sci-fi about a lone biologist trapped on an alien world shaped by deadly tidal forces. It’s different from just about any other sci-fi I know, focusing more on the main character’s interactions with and observations of this strange new world, where she’s very aware that she is the alien invader. (Also I don’t think any of the characters are straight.)

Station to Station, for a thrilling sci-fi mystery where a group of scientists and spies on a research ship (the ocean kind) discover that the time-warping anomaly they’re studying might be causing people to vanish from existence. Corporate espionage and high-stakes heartbreak abound. (And once again I’m not sure anyone is straight.)

The Strange Case of Starship Iris, for Being Gay And Doing Crime IN SPACE! Or, decades after a war with an alien species leaves humanity decimated and under the control of totalitarian leaders, the lone survivor of a research mission joins up with a ragtag crew of rebels and smugglers to figure out why the very government she worked for tried to kill her, and to stop them from inciting a second war. 100% lgbtqa+ found family in space heist action and it’s glorious in every way.

Unwell, for the horror-ish Midwestern gothic story of a young woman who returns to her hometown to help her estranged mother after an injury, and discovers that there is something just a little bit wrong, not just with her mother, but with her mother’s house, and with the whole town. Subtle and creepy. The protagonist is a biracial lesbian, one of the other major characters is nonbinary, the cast in general is super diverse.

The Blood Crow Stories, for an lgbtqa+ focused horror anthology! The four seasons so far have been the stories of an ancient evil stalking the passengers of a WWI-era utopian cruise ship, a dark Western mystery about a group of allies trying to stop the mysterious killer known only as the Savior, a 911 operator in a cyberpunk dystopia who starts getting terrifying phone calls from demons, and strange and deadly goings-on at a film studio in the golden age of Hollywood. Everyone is Very Gay and anyone can die, especially in season 1.

The Tower, for a melancholy experimental miniseries about a young woman who decides she’s going to climb the mysterious Tower, from which no one has ever returned. Quite short and very, very good.

Palimpsest, for a creepy, heartbreakingly sad and yet incredibly beautiful anthology series. Season one is the story of a woman who suspects her new home is haunted, season two is a turn-of-the-century urban fantasy about a girl who falls in love with the imprisoned fae princess she’s been hired to care for, and season three is about a WWII codebreaker who begins seeing ghosts on the streets of London during the Blitz.

Mabel, for a part-horror, part-love story, the kind of faerie tale where you feel obliged to spell it with an E because these are the kind of faeries that are utterly inhuman, and beautiful, and dangerous. Anna, the new caretaker for an elderly woman, leaves messages for her client’s mysteriously absent granddaughter Mabel. An old house in Ireland has a life and desires of its own, few of them friendly. Two women fall in love and set out for vengeance against the King Under The Hill. Creepy, strange, and gorgeously poetic.

Ars Paradoxica, for a sci-fi time travel Cold War espionage thriller. Physicist Dr. Sally Grissom accidentally invents time travel, landing herself – and her invention – in the middle of a classified government experiment during WWII. As the course of history utterly changes around them, she and what friends she can find in this new time must struggle with the ethics of what they’ve done, and the choices they’ll have to make. An aroace protagonist, Black secret agents, time-traveling Latina assassins, Jewish lesbian mathematicians, two men of color whose love changes the course of time itself, this show says a big fuck you to the idea that there’s anything hard about having a diverse cast in a period piece and it will break your heart, multiple times. Also finished!

The Far Meridian, for a genre-bending, poetic, at-times-heartwarming-at-times-heartbreaking story about an agoraphobic woman named Peri who decides to begin a search for her long-missing brother Ace after the lighthouse in which she lives begins mysteriously transporting to different places every day. I can never forget an early review that described this show as “the audio equivalent of a Van Gogh painting.” Suffice to say it is beautiful, and fantastically written and put together.

What’s the Frequency?, for a Surrealist noir horror mystery set in mid-20th-century LA. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I can really explain what goes on in this show, but it features a detective named Walter “Troubles” Mix and his partner Whitney searching for a missing writer. Meanwhile, the only thing that seems to be playing on the radio is that writer’s show Love, Honor, and Decay, which also seems to be driving people to murder. Fantastically weird, deliciously creepy.

Directive, for a short sci-fi miniseries about a man hired to spend a very, very long trip through space alone, which doesn’t seem all that sad until suddenly it hits you with Every Feel You’ve Ever Had, seriously I don’t want to spoil it so I won’t say anything more but listen to this and then never feel the same way about Tuesdays again.

Wolf 359, for honestly one of the best podcasts out there, containing all of the drama and feels, seriously this show ended over two years ago and I still cry literal tears thinking about it sometimes. It has definite comedic leanings, especially in the first season which reads a bit more like a wacky office comedy set in space, but it takes a sharp turn towards high stakes, action, and feelings and that roller coaster never stops. Take four clashing personalities alone on a constantly-malfunctioning space station eight light years from earth, add some mysterious transmissions from the depths of space, toss in some seriously Jonah-Magnus-level manipulative evil bosses, and get ready to cry.

or, may I suggest Midnight Radio? It’s a lesbian-romance-slash-ghost-story completed miniseries about a late-night 1950s radio host in a small town who begins receiving mysterious letters from one of her listeners, and I have been assured by many people and occasionally their all-caps tweets that it provides ample Feelings! (also I wrote it.)

[outroshooky]

whatever in heaven | knj

⇢ genre: series; part three (mafia!au) (angst, fluff, smut)

⇢ pairing: kim namjoon x reader

⇢ word count: 5.8k

⇢ warnings: smut (soft d/s dynamics. grinding, oral [m receiving], brief use of the word daddy, marking, gentler dirty talk [praise]) angst (implied usage and mention of knives, nightmare), some fluff. this fic is a bit of a mind-fuck; there are darker themes here, so please read with caution.

⇢ a/n: i’m so excited for you guys to read the next installment of verses & vibes! a huge, huge thank you to my beta readers @sunkoos​ (go check out nas’s work!) and @hobiswitch​; an even bigger thank you to @guksheart​ for not only beta reading this fic but posting this for me because of laptop difficulties!

...which leads me into, unfortunately, some bad news. my laptop crashed permanently over the weekend and i may have lost all of my files. i’m working to get them back, but this also means i have to buy a new laptop. thus, verses and vibes (and my writing in general) may go on hiatus until i can figure out a way to keep writing and posting new content. more updates forthcoming— for now, enjoy whatever in heaven!

“i know not if i could have borne

 to see thy beauties fade;

 the night that follow’d such a morn

 had worn a deeper shade:

 thy day without a cloud hath pass’d,

 and thou wert lovely to the last,

 extinguish’d, not decay’d;

 as stars that shoot along the sky

 shine brightest as they fall from high.”

⤷ and thou art dead, as young and fair; lord byron (george gordon)

It is always the same in the beginning.

He is kneeling on a concrete floor that goes on as far as he can see, cold and callous against the skin that peeks from the stringy rips in his pajama pants. A single light flickers above his head, murky cream, faded with age. His arms are bound behind his back with braided rope, biting vengeance into his tender wrists. His exhalations wisp pale smoke, rushing from his lips to touch the folded legs of a woman sitting just out of the ring of wired lamplight.

The supports of the chair are metal; he momentarily ponders how her skin isn’t dotted with gooseflesh through the thin fabric of her dress, but her cherry-red heels catch the light in a way that has his breath hitching. Something in him presses to reach out to her but he can’t, straining against his bonds like a feral cat caged. He snarls, a gritting sound in the silence of the warehouse, and she hums something seductive in return.

It is a dark heat that kindles in the pit of Namjoon’s stomach when he realizes he is staring at temptation herself, clothed in cherry pumps and scarlet lipstick. She is the antithesis of everything he should have and yet, yet—

He craves her more and more with every second that goes past. He doesn’t need to see her face to know that she is hauntingly beautiful, a devil crafted from memory, sent from hell to tempt him in all the ways she knew how. The blooming lust in his veins climbs with viney fingers straight to his brain, his head spinning, flying high; he barely knows what to believe. Somehow, she’s pulling on the strings of his thoughts, a marionette and his master dancing on the brink. One wrong string and the puppet collapses in a heap of cloth and kindling.

He groans, the sound of frustration and need echoing on and on in the dim room. She laughs velvet rich, sickeningly sweet. He wishes he could rend the binds from his arms, crawl to her, worship her the way she deserves; he shuffles forward an inch, two—

A plain black combat knife skitters to a stop in front of him, twirling once before coming to rest, just grazing his left kneecap. Resting potential against the crook of his leg, and he sucks in a breath when he feels the chilled edge level against the puckered scar on his knee.

She doesn’t speak, but Namjoon knows exactly what she means to say.

Thoughts clamor at the base of his skull, hissing seduction like a writhing mass of coiled snakes snapping for attention. They strike at one another, seeking dominion, and he’s nearly consumed by the din. A choice, cut out for him by the hands of fate, burned in the ashes of every decision he’s ever made. It boils down to this, to him and her and everything in between.

At one pellucid flicker of insanity, his hands are freed.

The ropes fall frayed to the floor and he straightens, rubbing at the burn in his forearms, rolling his neck to loosen the strain. His eyes flicker to her mass in the darkness, the shape of her just touched by the faintest tendrils of light. She is just out of reach, but so close, so far when her head tilts, a hint of fascination. He is mortal, she is eternal— a man reduced at the end of the day, stripped of money and power and the demons that lick at his heels. Greed is his master, but she is his, coveted in the secrecy of this cushioned nightmare.

He knows though, in the deepest reaches of his twisted soul, that only one of them will leave the warehouse alive.

In this horrible, shattered husk of reality, only one of them is destined to live.

And somehow, the choice has fallen to him.

Pick up the knife. Pick it up, feel it in your hands, smooth and weighted, perfectly balanced. Everything you’ve ever wanted is in the palm of your hands. Make the right choice. Do it for me, baby. For me.

Namjoon is pitted against his own self-preservation, warped desires clamoring for attention, needy yet sick. Needy, he is so fucking needy, but for what? Anticipation itches the back of his neck; he can barely think when the handle melds into the curve of his palm with such a sinful fit. The metal glints promise of things yet to come, but when he tilts the blade towards himself, he sees only the industrial struts that crosshatch the ceiling, the dust that hovers thick in the clogged, choking air. Emptiness and fulfillment, hand in hand, only a breath away.

You know what the answer is, Kim Namjoon. Do it. Do it for me.

Does he know? He must know, deep in the recesses of his bones. Deep inside the fucked-up mind of his, playing tricks on him; a trickster, what trickster? The last of his sanity is threatening to drip, melting like liquid wax onto the cool, callous cement. It’s bubbling in his hands, pouring through the gaps between his fingers, but when he shakes his head, a mad dog, it solidifies molten silver, black titanium.

Do it for me.

Do it for her.

He must.

Namjoon’s eyes flicker to her calf, following the silk of her skin to the hem of her saccharine dress; it flutters scarlet just out of reach. He’s on his knees now; there’s something pulling at him, some indeterminable force dragging him through the floor. The blade slips; the knife twists in his hands as he falls forward, and—

The air rushes out of Namjoon’s lungs as he writhes himself awake, mouth agape in an silent scream. He’s wheezing with the first rush of oxygen into his lungs, his lips swollen with gnashing of teeth as he twists away from the warmth settled next to him in the sea of rippling sheets, curling in on himself.

“Namjoon, are you alright?”

The broken man lifts his head, taking in the naked form upright in bed beside him, hair awry, concern bleeding every word.

It’s you.

He’s safe.

Indeed, Namjoon has had many dreams, but none quite like this one.

It is as if the very breath was sucked from Namjoon’s lungs when he first wrested himself awake in a cold sweat. Control is something he craves, something he owns save the late night hours when it is ripped from his hands by the sick desires of his own brain, playing tricks on him. He exercises his grip on every minutiae of his life, but when his eyes flutter shut and his conscience takes hold, it wraps a silken tie around his thoughts and begs him to pay attention.

You’re calling his name in a voice burdened by drowsiness. He knows you were awoken because of him but he can’t seem to think, to do anything else but sit here in this bed, in these rippling creamy sheets, and feel his lungs fill, empty. Fill, empty.

“Namjoon, love, breathe with me, okay?”

Breathing. Breathing is all he has been reduced to, a creature of the night with oxygen in his lungs and demons in his head.

You take his hand in your own, feels the slim digits trembling against your skin. You rub gentle circles into his knuckles and it somehow grounds him in the midst of the chaos, the overwhelming flood conjured from his worst nightmares. He watches as you carefully trace every crooked angle of his fingers with your own.

It is this simple motion that produces new thoughts, a mental clamor not of his own demise but for his own safety, the protection that he seeks. You are so much more than the sum of your parts: you are safety in the midst of a den of ruby-eyed cobras simply begging for a chance to strike. He’s never thought of anybody the way he thinks of you; there is no one else who comes close to you, and that’s saying a lot when it comes to his line of work.

“Namjoon, you’re safe, okay? You’re safe with me. We’re in our bedroom. You’re still the head of the most feared crime ring in the country. Nothing has changed. Yoongi is just outside the door; I’m right here. Nothing has changed, baby. You’re safe.”

Your words are warm against his skin, dotted with the press of lips to his temple, his cheek. You’re burning up against him, sweat beading at the roots of his hair, the silver strands falling low into his eyes. Somehow, the heat only serves to make him cooler, and he’s nestling into your arms before his mind catches up to his body. He’s safe. Somehow, in the roaring din of his mind, he is safe. His demons won’t follow him here, locked outside the door, palms scrabbling at the windows. The windows. Namjoon’s eyes flick to the glass and find the shades drawn, blocking out the ambient light that hovers thick on the other side. Bulletproof, he insisted, and for good reason. But Yoongi would have called if there was a problem, and he’s got Seokjin at the front gate, and it begins to seep in, sweet relief, that he truly is safe.

He is cradled to you like a child, a position compromising for a man of his stature, but he knows you won’t judge. Your hand trails from his thigh to his hip, his ribs to his shoulders, and your fingers nest in his hair, gently scratching his scalp. Lord knows he won’t be able to close his eyes until daylight breaks over the dark oak floor of your shared bedroom, but he hums and noses at your neck. You smell like sage and lavender with a touch of his own cologne, a memory of last night, and he inhales deeply, tries to savor the muskiness.

“You’re okay baby, I promise.” A kiss to his temple, another grounding touch. “I’m not going anywhere. I love you; you’re safe right here with me. Just let me love you, okay baby?”

Love. Love, a concept Namjoon knew better by verbal parry than by any real, tangible memory. It was wielded by a father he barely knew, an absent mother who preferred the company of socialites to the company of her own son. It was really a wonder he found it in him to love at all, really; he’d assumed he’d leave such an emotion to those who built a life out of a 9-5 day and mediocre sex. He’d been proven wrong, however, when you came along— you, once a high-profile escort in the dirty underworld he’d built for himself, proved yourself a worthy companion when you stayed beyond his guttural moans and dirty secrets. It was in fact, a moment like this when he realized he quite enjoyed your company, and there was something more to it than just a good fuck, an easy pussy.

You were the closest thing to real love he’d ever experienced, a home to come back to that wasn’t a prowling security team and a clean gun barrel. He’d exposed the grittiest parts of himself to you, the most private secrets and still you came back for more. You were just as fucked up as he was, really, and that was his favorite thing about you. You’d killed for him and he knew you’d kill again, and that was, very plainly, the matter of things.

Plus, that mouth made him see the stars more times than he’d willingly brag about at the poker table.

He presses a kiss to your shoulder, exposed through the lip of your shirt (his shirt, actually). It’s a careful kiss, chaste for him. Your fingers rub comfort into the base of his skull and he swears he could purr, an alley cat sleek and pleasured.

“You doing okay, Joonie?” Your eyes tell him everything he needs to know and he nods, unsure if he trusts himself to speak. Fear still gnaws at his bones, muted terror of a red-heeled succubus and a silver blade that gleams in the lamplight. Somehow though, you know, scraping the blunt of your fingernails against his roots. “You don’t have to talk to me about it if you don’t want to. I’m here regardless of that, you know me.”

Namjoon noses the column of your neck in reply, folding his sizeable frame until it molds against yours. Some things he’d never let the boys know about, but some things, he thinks, they knew about already. He is hard and cold and calculated yet soft and warm and comforting, a living contradiction unto himself; you’d never believe it if you hadn’t seen it yourself. A complexity of men who prefers to live by the simplest of rules, but you’d learned long ago not to try to understand something that was fucked-up from the start. Some things in this world were just fucked up, and that was the way they were meant to be.

Neither of you know how long you sit there, adrift in messy sheets, dry eyes gritty with the lateness of the hour. Your hand weaves through Namjoon’s hair as the vines around his heart flex, their thorny stems unraveling. He stopped shaking minutes before, but if you know anything about him, the internal tremors never cease, not outside of the safety of this bedroom, impossible with the life he lives.

He stirs a little, murmurs your name against your neck, his lips brushing bare skin and the small freckle that dots just above your collarbone. There’s something so intimate, so human about it, screaming vulnerability that hangs open and aching in the silence. His hands slide smooth across the breadth of your back, your waist, palms settling atop your thighs as he draws back slowly, slowly.

There’s a question in his eyes, one you meet with your own.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He hesitates.

“Namjoon…”

He swallows, tilts his head, steals a kiss. “I’m sorry.” Then another.

With the third you’re pulling away, chest steady, finger to his lips. “Namjoon, you’re not thinking clearly. We can’t do this right now—”

“Says who?” He is breathless with the thought. “I wanna make you feel good, baby. You deserve that.”

The sweetest words wrap themselves around the breadth of your bones, melting between the gaps. He’s always been so good with his tongue.

“Namjoon, I wanna make you feel good too, but not when you’re like this.” You shake your head. “Not when you’re waking up screaming about death and knives and all sorts of horrible things.”

His hands brush your curves. “If this bed is an ocean, I wanna drown in you.”

“Joonie…”

It’s so easy to work at you, the sharper edges that he can dissect piece by piece. He knows exactly how far to push, what little to say to reel you in hook, line, and sinker. “Just go with it baby, alright? Just trust me.”

It’s easy to fall into Namjoon, collapsing every time as he folds around you. His head tilts to the side as he leans in, his nose brushing your own. He tastes like mint toothpaste and something uniquely him, an element you can never place but when he’s exposing the most vulnerable parts of himself to you like this. His mouth moves easy against yours, just tender lips, warm kisses. His hand smoothes up your spine to cradle your neck, thumb brushing at the nape, the soft hairs that tickle the back of his hand. “Just relax baby, relax.”

Once more. “Joonie, are you sure you’re okay with this?”

He nods. “I want this.”

He’s never been one for kissing but tonight he craves it, the simplicity of two mouths and hands that fit themselves perfectly against the curves and the edges. Musk curls under your nose as your eyelids flutter shut, dusting the apples of your cheeks a pinkish hue. Your hands meet his chest, burning with heat through the oversized Grateful Dead shirt he wears to bed with you, and they slide to his shoulders when he slips an arm underneath you to tug you closer.

You settle atop the apexes of his thighs, legs folding around him as he gazes up at you. The utmost adoration he has for you, written in the stars and in two hearts that beat as one, rattling against their cages with a need for closer, closer, closer. Fear melts underneath practiced fingertips and patience; he’ll be damned if he doesn’t return the favor. His eyes, usually tawny and mellow, burn blacker than charcoal but sweeter than syrup, running with emotion. It’s evident in every brush of his hands against your bare skin when his fingertips edge under the hem of your shorts, the gleam in his eye that warns of everything that is about to come. One hand supports your back as the other squeezes your thigh, and you can’t help but smirk down at him with the easy smile that tugs at his own kiss-bitten lips.

You aren’t smirking, however, when he leans in and nips a bite at your neck, teasing with his teeth, making you whimper and whine atop him. His tongue pokes between his lips, assuaging the pain, and your own mouth falls open as your fingers clench at his shoulders, nails sliding a lazy path along his spine. He licks once at the bite, then once more until he’s satisfied with the petaled violet that blossoms across the breadth of your throat. He nibbles a matching purple rose on the other side; you can feel the smile on his lips when your mouth shamelessly tips open and you stutter out his name.

“Hm, what is it?” When he draws back, you moan a singular complaint. “What do you want, love? I’ll give you anything you want.”

“W-Wanna make you feel good,” you pant, eyes fluttering. “Wanna make you feel so good.”

“I wanna make you feel good too, baby. Let’s just focus on the now, yeah?” Namjoon’s hand squeezes your thigh but you’re already pressing your body flush to his, kneeling over him. You cup his face and he strokes your wrist lightly, the most tentative of touches, thanking god that somehow, in the midst of the lion’s den, you’d found him. He had you and he knew he could trust you, trust the smell of your shampoo and the heat of your skin. “Focus on me.”

You lean down to kiss him, brushing his cheekbones, tangling your hands in his hair, but apparently, Namjoon had other plans. His lips graze your own, trailing the edge of your jaw to pepper the lightest kisses at your ear and move lower, lower. When his mouth lavishes the column of your neck with the utmost pleasure, you can’t help but feel your core ache, the purest whines permeating the thick air as you beg. He’s definitely hard now, weight against the inside of your thigh, and the temptation— no, the need to grind down on him sparked the fuzziest pleasures in your mind, the most sinful ideas.

“Please Joonie, please feels so good, please, w-wanna—”

When Namjoon mouths wet at the shell of your ear you writhe, losing control with each second that slips between your fingers like sand. His lips burn fire against your already heated skin, sizzling and crackling like a live wire under his touch. You hiss and he growls deep in the back of his throat, continues his ministrations.

“I forgot how much you liked that,” he breathes shakily.

“You’re so fucking hot,” you gasp, releasing your iron grasp on his roots. Luckily he’s unfazed; damn lucky you to be with someone who actually enjoyed their fair share of kinkiness. “So fucking hot and you’re so thick, I can feel it—”

When you grind down on him, pressing yourself onto the growing bulge in his slacks and swiveling your hips with practiced ease, he groans feverishly. With every brush of the head of his cock, he’s harder than before, memory weighty in the palm of his hand. He chokes on the breath in his lungs, his nails blunt on your back, and he moans once in content. Feels so fucking good.

“God, baby, you’re gonna ruin me like this,” Namjoon chuckles.

“Maybe that’s the intention,” you trill.

“Fuck.” The word lies heavy in the air, heavy on his bated breath.

You smirk, sinful seduction in his ear. “And what if I did this?”

As his eyebrows furrow, you ease yourself onto his thighs, so strong and sinewy. Your fingertips slip down his shoulders, trace every muscle that strains under his loose sleep shirt. Beneath the fabric is the coiled power of a lethal creature, a tiger poised to devour his prey. And he is utterly wrapped around your finger, letting his head tip back against the headboard with a  sigh. He’s lost in your touches, an angel fallen from heaven, no idea which way is up or down.

You rub circles into his hip bones; he twists under you. Practically begging with his gasps, knowing what awaits him. Your fingers toy with the hem of his boxers and he’s hissing between his teeth. “Baby…”

You hum a response, press a kiss to the shell of his ear.

“Please…”

“Oh Namjoon,” you coo. “You’re a mess, baby.”

He is. Hair sticking to his forehead, sweat gleaming at his temple; he’s a model for destruction, the dirtiest of kinds. Hips arching underneath you, and there’s a wet spot that stains the fabric. He smiles somehow, teeth flashing in the low light. “All for you.”

You withdraw, spit into your palm. “Then you get all of me.”

Your hand slips beneath the waistband of his boxers, finds his cock, thick and hard. At the first stroke, lazy and full, he can’t stop the raspy grunt that leaves his throat. “Shit, baby. Feels so good.” When you lower your head to mouth at him over his sweats he practically writhes, begging, needy. So unlike him, but a welcome change to see him falling apart, falling apart over you. The fabric is soaked with saliva and dotted with a pearl of cum, a carnal work of art.

You rub slowly down his length, thumbing the swollen head leaking his seed. It’s messy and wet and he’s moaning and it’s all worth it, worth it to see him wrecked like this. His balls are heavy in your palm; when your eyes flutter up to meet his, wide and expectant, Namjoon hisses. That sound enough jolts burning heat between your thighs, twisting devilishly in your stomach. “B-Babygirl?”

There’s question in the word, question that makes you pause. You moan against his clothed cock; he chokes on his words.

“Can I make you feel good too?”

A sloppy kiss pressed to his member. “Later, okay? I wanna focus on you right now, Joonie.”

His hand strokes through your hair, flyaway, disheveled. “You’re so good to me. So fucking good—” He chokes on the downstroke, fingers tightening out of reflex. “Want you so bad.”

You press. “How bad? Bad enough to want my mouth?”

“Shit, your mouth,” he whines. “Want your mouth, want you—”

“Joonie,” you murmur.

His heartbeat resounds like gunfire in the ringing silence.

“Lift.”

He lifts his hips as you tug, pulling his sweats down to his thighs, the fabric ridged underneath your perch. His cock falls free, standing slightly crooked against his still-clothed abdomen, rippling with tension. It twitches under the heat of your gaze, steadily seeping liquid bliss, and your mouth waters at the thought. It’s been so long since you took him like this; when it’ll happen again, who’s to say.

You pepper kisses along his thighs just to hear him whimper, feel the predator writhe in his own constraints. His hands burn their own trails along the curves of your body, spreading heat in their wake as you cave to your own desire, slipping a hand between your thighs when you take him in your mouth with practiced ease. He’s firm under your fingertips, lithe and sleek and powerful in all the right ways, but he falls apart when it comes to you, crumbles like rock under the breath of the tidal wave. He grunts sin from between gritted teeth but whines complaint when you pull back to tease, to draw things out. He’s gentle in his touches but firm in his demands, even through the cottony billows of his neediness.

“I-I’m close,” Namjoon stutters, skin crimson from lavished attention. There’s saliva smeared down your chin and tears twinkle liquid starlight on your lashes, but you’ve never felt more electrified, burning up at the seams for him. From the heated confines of your throat you withdraw his cock with a firm touch at the base, his fingers running through your mussed locks.

“Where do you want to cum, baby?”

He squirms. “Fuck. Wherever you’ll take m-me—” He shudders, ribs heaving. Your fallen angel, shattering under your touch. “Oh shit, I’m gonna cum for you, babygirl.”

“Cum for me, angel. Cum for me...” you murmur, gaze level with his own as you wrap your lips around his member.

“Gonna cum for you, fuck—”

“Daddy.”

The cavernous heat of your mouth is a slick warmth, so wet and warm and utterly divine. He loses himself in it, lets himself go, pushing towards that edge of no return, riding the crest of the wave as it rolls faster, harder, heavier. “‘M gonna fucking cum. Oh god, fuck, shit, babygirl, I’m cumming, I’m—”

A drawn out groan fills the air, raspy and thick and throaty as he thrusts into your mouth once, twice, spills over. He’s bitter on your tongue, acrid but you take it, swallow it all. It’s worth it to see the pleasure overtake him, to see him let go of every capacity and capability to fall drowning, dizzy. Whatever in heaven, above or below, he’s tumbling headlong into it, collapsing into himself like a burning star falling from the cosmos.

He’s the first to break the silence that falls, withdrawing himself and tucking his softening cock back in his sweats with a remarkable amount of composition for a man who’d just seen the very sparks of the universe behind closed eyelids. He chuckles breathless, bated. “Fucking hell, angel.”

You try to speak but merely croak at first, throat grating dry. He hushes you soothingly, easing you back on the pillows now soaked with sweat. “Let me get you some water, yeah? Just stay here for now.”

You whine a complaint— shouldn’t you be taking care of him?— but he’s insistent and already on his feet, legs shaky as he heads towards the bathroom. There’s a pang in your chest watching him go, the reality of the situation settling in, and vulnerability flowers in your heart.

The tap squeaks; the faucet runs. Room temperature water, not too hot but not too cold to soothe the burn in your esophagus. He knows you better than anyone, knows how to take care of you when you fail to take care of yourself, life spent always on the run. You’re the one holding him when his nightmares consume him, the steel that he draws from his belt to wield before him, the ultimate weapon. Yin and yang, black and white, blooming nebula and neutron star. The water turns off, a grating complaint.

It’s been too long; you’ve delayed too much. Play to his fantasy; he has no idea what’s coming.

“If the water’s not enough, I can send Yoongi for some tea— oh.”

Oh.

You are no longer prostrate, the limp rag doll exhausted from her play. No, you are stretched out on the bed, ass up on your hands and knees, silver glinting between your teeth as a pair of handcuffs dangles in the air. You are looking at him with fire smouldering deep in your eyes, blazing a burning glare straight through him.

The predator has become the prey.

“Daddy,” you purr, right on cue. “Come here.”

It’s automatic, the way Namjoon moves towards you, glass forgotten on the nearby dresser. He’s completely transfixed, fascinated by the possibilities, and when he reaches the end of the bed, you stop him with one outstretched foot, bare with the lateness of the hour. “Turn around.”

He’s so submissive, so compliant simply by the force of his own surprise. It’s hard to keep going, hard to push through the adrenaline thrumming through your blood, the underlying current that threatens to sweep you away, too. But you mustn’t listen, mustn’t feel.

“Hands behind your back, Joonie, baby.”

He’s perfect, perfectly whole in the way he follows each command that falls from your lips like silk spun thread. He surrenders himself so willingly to you, it stings raw.

You rise to your feet, level with the back of him. Your fingers make quick work of the cuffs and with a firm click, the deed is done.

With a tender motion that surprises even you considering the brevity of the situation, you wrap your arms around your torso, bury your face in his skin, inhale his scent. Amber and citrus. Musk and spice. Whole contradictions that somehow manage to summarize him perfectly. You whisper against his spine like it’s a secret. “I’m so sorry.”

“What, baby?”

You can feel his heartbeat against your cheek, thudding rapid with excitement, wonder at what lies ahead of him. Guilt roars its ugly head and you beat it back with double the force.

You stiffen, step away from him. Four years you’d waited to formulate these words, to hear them drop from your lips, plummeting on high. Four years and now the moment is here, and you swallow past the lump in your sore throat.

“Kim Namjoon, you are under arrest for charges of extortion, murder, murder-for-hire, drug possession, and arms trafficking. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you…”

“...Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?”

You’re sitting in the open door of a police cruiser, more specifically a SWAT cruiser, an aluminum blanket wrapped around your bare shoulders. The air is warm, but you can’t stop shivering.

Seokjin paces fifteen feet away from you, ever more handsome in his suit and tie. Hoseok is finishing his interview of the conclusion, anticlimactic for the better. Yoongi’s legs dangle from the open doors of one of the ambulances called when your colleagues expected the worst. Thankfully, no casualties had occurred but a sprained ankle, a fight between one of your fellow law enforcement officers and that guy that manned the back gate. Everyone can go home, rest easy.

After Seokjin’s interview is yours, and you realize by the time Hoseok is asking the last question that you don’t remember a single word of what you’ve said. Elite agents taking down the biggest crime boss in the country are not supposed to feel so empathetic, so broken. Guilty. Regretful.

Four years, the longest and most dramatic chase of your career. Justice fell, a swift hammer; you’d saved the day once again, added another face to the chalkboard in your sterile office a thousand miles away. You’d won. Hadn’t you?

There’s a faraway look in your eyes that Hoseok somehow understands, a glimmer of something more than success. He straddles the age gap between the members of the team, incorporating Jeongguk’s youthfulness with his elders’ experience, the glue of it all handed the most important task. He calls your name. “You’ve been out of it the entire time I’ve been interviewing you. What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing.”

But there’s no bite to the words, no whet of passion. They fall flat below the crackle of radios, the mist that reflects red and blue through the evergreen trees scraping the stars winking high above.

Hoseok puts his pen and clipboard aside. “Hey,” he says. The kindness in his tone pierces daggers through your heart. You somehow would’ve been more comfortable if he had yelled at you. “You did the right thing. He hurt a lot of people. Killed many more, and did so without remorse.”

That’s what you think, you want to scream. Because to you, he is some foreign criminal, far removed from any last dregs of humanity. He is a monster and a crook and a fiend, twisted into something unrecognizable, but you didn’t see what I saw. Did you see the warmth in his eyes when he rolled over and buried himself in my arms all those mornings in bed? Did you see the way he saved those dogs about to be euthanized in a shelter, because those pups reminded him of how he used to feel, staring death in the eyes every day? Did you see the way he loved me?

Hoseok pats your shoulder. “I’ll put in a month and a half of vacation time for you when we get home. Lord knows you’ve earned it. And we can rest tonight, rest for the first time in a while. We’ve got a nice hotel an hour away from here, top floor. We’re not done flushing out the rest of his boys, but that can wait for now. We can handle that on our own; they’re scattered all over the continent anyways. It’ll take time.” He picks up his supplies, turns to move on to Yoongi. The look in the elder man’s eyes, the special ops agent thinks, is exactly the same as your own. What had you two seen in that hellhole?

You tuck the blanket tighter around yourself and nod once. It’s the most you can do.

Hoseok smiles, but it’s not quite the beaming, sunshine-filled glow he usually carries about himself. “You did good work and I’m proud of you. Get some sleep, agent.”

Sleep does not come for a long, long time.

When it does, it eats away behind your eyelids, filling your mind with visions of a man adrift in an ocean of bedsheets, rocking on the waves of an endless concrete floor that goes for miles and miles, whispering promises of things to come that never would be.

Kim Namjoon is sentenced to life in prison for six counts of murder, fifteen counts of extortion, three counts of murder-for-hire, six counts of drug trafficking, three counts of arms trafficking, and two counts of drug possession.

He never makes it to see his twenty-sixth birthday.

[t-n-c]

Ho-kay, some Viren feelings/salt under the read more, since I’m sure you guys are getting tired of hearing me bitch about this 😂😂 

I really do feel that the only way to for Viren have a good redemption arc (if they have a redemption arc planned for him) would be if he started out still following Aaravos and still had his magic. 

I feel like, through Aaravos, he would get an outside look at some of the worst traits of himself (his ambition, stubbornness, manipulation, etc) and start to realize that good intent (assuming Aaravos does have good intent) doesn’t justify the wrongs committed along the way. We could see him becoming increasingly uncomfortable with Aaravos’ plans and slowly realize just how awful Aaravos actually is--and how awful he has been as well. I don’t think we’d get that in any other situation.

Aaravos betrays him? We’ve seen what happens when he feels betrayed by someone he’s followed/put faith in (his confrontation with Harrow). When he feels he’s been wronged, he reacts with rage and a desire for vengeance. If his redemption were to start like this, it would feel less ‘I’ve started to see how awful I’ve been and I’m going to try to fix it’ and more ‘I was discarded so now I’ll get revenge on the one who hurt me’--it just feels petty and insincere.

Lose his magic? Depending on where they’re going with dark magic, it could go one of two ways. They could either A) portray it as him being free of dark magic and back to the ‘good’ state we saw in past seasons--which would basically feel like a get out of jail free card for all the wrongs he’s done throughout the series. Oh he can’t be blamed because it was all ~dark magic~; it would also effectively kill any nuance the show still had regarding the Xadian-human conflict and Aaravos’ character--since dark magic would be confirmed as ‘bad’ then it would feel like they were justifying the Xadians kicking all humans out of Xadia. Aaravos would be established as pure evil for giving humans a dangerous, mind-warpping power (someone who gives a struggling people what’s essentially poison and claim he’s on their side isn’t ‘complicated’ he’s just bad no matter what eha/sz says). Or B) if he loses his magic and dark magic isn’t portrayed as the source of his bad choices, then it would feel like the only reason he’s trying to redeem himself is because he doesn’t have a choice; it would feel like, if he still had his magic, he wouldn’t have bothered trying to do better at all--his ‘redemption�� would feel half-hearted and--again--insincere. 

And tbh, considering all the traumatic, violent, painful, body-horror stuff he’s been subjected to in the last 3 seasons, it would feel kind of gross to me to have him start a redemption arc by taking away one of the few things that he has left (his magic) or have him be discarded by someone he never stood a chance against in the first place (Aaravos). While I do think he deserves to be punished for the things he’s done, I feel like it would mean more if his punishment came in the form of consequences for his choices (having to deal with the pain he’s caused Soren, having to watch Claudia go down a dark path, etc) rather than some outside karma.

tldr: I feel like if they’re going to redeem Viren it has to be through his choices and not his circumstances, you dig? Have him realize for himself that he was wrong and try to make amends; have him realize for himself that he has worth outside of his magic and his usefulness. Any other way just feels like they’re forcing redemption on him.

[m-602]

Within the Flames

((Look... I’mma apologize. I promised a story like... almost a month ago. A little less a little more. Then I got distracted... Then I got lazy... And it just kinda... went downhill from there.))

((This changed a lot between when I first started this to now. The nature of M’s “insane state” turned into its own effing character - I loved it. There’s also the fact the M’s default appearance changed (a lot happened in Discord >.>). @astel4 decided to make a drawing of it!))

((I’m not sure what I’m going to write after this, but... I’ll figure it out. I’ll probably wait until Thanksgiving Break in a few weeks before I do, though.))

((Warning. Death, Gore, Violence, and extremely verbose writing await you. I... kind of went overboard with all the descriptive words and such. ^-^;))

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Death claims everything that lives, be it at the apex of one’s journey or before it even begins. Nothing truly lasts forever. At some point or another, everything must end…

…

So what about when it doesn’t end. When something finite becomes infinite at its most pivotal moment. Where even though it reached its finale, an ongoing encore drags the faded tale further beyond. 

At this point, the story simply… is. It no longer serves meaning beyond what the protagonist decides. They trudge on through the universe - what is normally a one-shot story becomes a novel where the second chapter never ends. The pain, the joy, the woes, the celebrations, the sorrows - they pile on and on, never weighing them down, and yet draining them all the same.

Some can handle this ever increasing strain on their being. They become protectors, mediators, and teammates. The best of your friends and family despite their status. They grow wiser and wiser with every new step they take, eventually coming to terms with their fate.

And yet, their lives are not lacking in pain and strife. The ever increasing pile that their afterlives grant them affects them still, even if they manage it well. It’s sometimes obvious in subtle behaviors or reactions. But sometimes… it becomes so much that they burst in unimaginable ways.

In the case of one, their rage leaves nothing but fire.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ???, M

Them.

He thought they were gone. That they had perished along with everything they destroyed. They hurt so many, and for what reason? Paranoia. Half the towns and cities that they had ruined didn’t even pose a threat to them… It’s almost like they wanted to wipe them all out for no reason.

They were still here in this dead world. In this world that they killed. That they destroyed with little concern or conscience. How they could possibly believe they deserve to have this world for themselves baffles and beguiles him. Was it truly possible that they wanted the whole world to themselves? Was living alongside others outside of their own nation really such an impossibility?!

He still remembers all the destruction they wrought. He occasionally hears the screams of his loved ones and family, both in the waking world and the realm of slumber. Even his own powers bring reminder of the loss he’s felt.

His barriers… a representation of his futile desire to protect everyone, and the only power he could call his. The magic that would’ve developed naturally, now warped and strengthened by Death itself. His flames… a representation of the ruin he’s bore witness to. A representation of the spark of life that should’ve been extinguished - persistently, it has only blazed forth an endless path with a renewed, infinite robust. His chains… a representation of the pain he keeps within. The binding emotions that he has weaponized… His very scythe… a memento of his own demise...

These thoughts are only fuel for the raging blaze. His temper only seems to grow more and more uncontrollable as he continues forward. Towards the very people he’d have no problem torturing. The only people he would liberally shatter and tear. The only people he would grant the ultimate end, leaving nothing but their ashes.

* They’ll pay… They’ll all pay! None of them will escape!

Everything that’s happened to him. Everything he’s lost. Every problem that he’s had to deal with. Every one of his greatest sorrows. His own death!

It was all their fault.

And from the seeds of sorrow they’ve woven blooms their fiery penance. The flames of judgement that will turn upon them the pain they’ve inflicted.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AoC HQ, Commander Able

For the first time in all these years, they had detected something other than one of their own. Something that shouldn’t be here. This world was theirs alone, they made sure of that decades ago! If there was someone else here, they needed to be swiftly executed!

After weeks of careful study, deliberation, and reconnaissance, they’ve finally determined their unwanted loiterers… A literally dead town. No joke! It was crawling with remnants of lives they had thought extinguished. What a revelation… And a truly embittering one considering that this world was theirs.

Not even the dead from other towns can have it. They won’t have such impure presences walk around their world - their property. This wasn’t a planet for them to share! They worked diligently to ensure this world was theirs and theirs alone. They won’t let it be all for naught.

As the Agents of Creation, and the ones designated as the world’s only residents, they wouldn’t let such trespassing go unpunished.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Outside the AoC HQ, M?

There they were. After all these years, the ones who were responsible for everything - the destruction of his home, the destruction of his world, the deaths of his friends, the deaths of his family, his own death - there they were, safe and sound in their little base.

“Agents of Creation”? HA! They think life itself granted them the “okay” to tear this world and its people apart. To keep it all to themselves?! It’s a notion so ridiculous and audacious that it makes him laugh.

And laugh.

And laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh...

…

The skies darken. Dark blue flames begin to encroach upon the base. The lights within even flicker under the overwhelming power. You could practically see the world distort and waver. The sound of chains could be heard somewhere off base.

A mighty cloak to symbolize the coming disaster… A nobler crown to symbolize HIS reign… 

[FOR ONCE… WE ARE IN AGREEMENT… LET US TEAR THEM APART… THIS WORLD IS OURS TO RULE…]

The laughter was absolutely deafening.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Entrance, THEM

They thought the power was faltering. That some kind of fuse was busted, or a connection line needed repair. If it weren’t for the… creepy, sinister laughter, that thought would have prevailed.

There was something… powerful outside. Its laughter seemed to echo from everywhere and anywhere. No matter what they did, the laughter invaded their senses, their minds, driving them to fear.

A surveillance camera caught a glimpse of dark blue flames encroaching upon the building before it just… gave out. They attempted to make contact with perimeter lookouts, only to be met with radio silence. Everyone flooded the entrance to the base, shaking weapons at the ready. Officers, generals, leaders, and other VIPs congregated in the center of the base. Being in the most well protected and guarded area of the complex would absolutely mean they were safe… right? Right?!

Thunder boomed from outside the building, a lightning bolt striking nearby. The wind seemed to scream at every soldier near the entrance, snapping at them with a primordial anger. The laughter seemed to grow… louder?

“Open the doors! We’ll ambush that thing!”

At the order, the massive metallic doors started to open slowly. Everyone trained their weapons on the entrance, unsure of what they’ll see when they open.

The last thing they expected was darkness to overtake the room. The last thing they expected was the sound of chains joining the echoing laugh. The last thing they expected was a dark blue fire to flood the room.

The last thing they expected was a terrifying shadow to literally tear someone into multiple small pieces, commenting only with a maniacal cackle…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AoC HQ, Ikearu

* Don’t get used to this… [HENCE WHY I’M GOING TO SAVOR EVERY MOMENT…]

There were few things the two personalities could agree on. They toil endlessly within the psyche, one trying to suppress the other and exert control. One simply wished for a peaceful existence, the other wished to drag others with them and govern their afterlives under an iron fist. Such conflicted causes could surely find naught to compromise upon. And yet, one thing they could…

Was the total annihilation of those who wronged this world. For differing reasons, that is certain, and yet here they were in total agreement.

One wished vengeance on these cretins that took away the world and forced him to wander for eternity; the other simply feels insulted at the insolence they express in his world. And that personality was now tearing the abominations in human form to shreds…

The first victim - who foolishly decided to inch himself towards the metal doors - was just a mere demonstration. Shredding him from the fingers down, letting the body parts coat the floor. His bloodied claws twitched imperceptive. He still had quite a lot of fun to be had with the rest of these fodder.

Though their piteous weaponry fired, not a single bullet made contact with the maniacal shadow. If they weren’t torn to bits by his claws, they were burned, electrocuted, crushed by chains. A dark flame would erupt from their cadavers, extinguishing any remnants of a spirit they had. Not even the chance to so much as arise as Fiends shall be sanctioned to them. A pitiful, empty existence as that is one even they aren’t worthy of.

Alarms would’ve blared if the facility wasn’t drowned in shadow. Good. The quiet suits him. Makes it easier for him to mess with his prey. It allows him to prey on their fears, their anxieties, before ending it all in the most painful of ways. To let them watch as their fellows are dragged off, incinerated, mutilated in front of them by a seemingly invisible opponent.

The base fell into total lock-down in an attempt to keep him - THE KING - in one place… An amusing gesture to think he could be stopped. Any doors in his way: busted open in a fiery blaze. A wall of lasers: short-circuited by a jolt of dark blue electricity. No matter the obstruction, he blasted through, leaving behind a crimson trail. As annoying as they may have been, they only made this more enjoyable to him. Sometimes, he would use the obstructions to mess with his prey further, making them believe themselves safe before reality comes to crush their dreams in the event of their demise.

The sound of rustling chains, thundering explosions, and psychopathic cackling echoed throughout the building, accompanied only by the screams of indolent soldiers. If they weren’t responsible for the death of a world - if they didn’t suffer from a lack of altruism - perhaps one could feel sympathy for them… Unlikely.

[A SHAME THEY MUST FADE INTO NOTHING - I’D HAVE NO PROBLEM RULING OVER THEIR SPIRITS AND SUBJECTING THEM TO TORTURE UNYEILDING…]

* Yet we’ve both agreed that they don’t even deserve that. To exist for even another second.

[I’VE NOT FORGOTTEN. I’M NO FOOL. IT WOULD BE INACCURATE TO SAY THAT I WOULDN’T BE TEMPTED TO DESTROY THEM ANYWAY.]

After perhaps an hour of constant carnage and massacre, he finds himself before a set of ornate, sealed doors. This is very clearly the most secure part of the base, and not a guard in sight. That’s to be expected - every other soldier in this place was dead. The building already began to crumble in a mighty conflagration. Even now, the flames rise behind him, ready to eat away at the cowards within.

He flashes a widening, sinister smile, his face looking like the creepiest jack o’ lantern to ever exist beneath his hood.

[AND NOW… THE FINALE…]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Central Control, Able

He couldn’t see what was going on outside, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t put two and two together. He could hear the screams, the fire, from they’re safe zone - they were quite difficult to ignore. He knew the main defense was nothing but cinders, now.

He and the remaining guard now eyed the only entrance to the room they were in, shaking with absolute subtlety. Everything they worked for was crashing down around them. Their allies outside now lay dead, murdered by the psycho outside. If they were going down, they wanted to go down with a fight… They already had a plan to kill this thing.

The temperature in the room steadily began to rise. It rose and rose and rose until it was nearly smoldering in the room. Everyone in the room started breaking out into a sweat as they were essentially being cooked alive… Very, very slowly cooked alive.

A footstep. Another. Very slow, meticulous footsteps could be heard from beyond the doors. The maniacal laughter was heard everywhere, but felt the loudest here. The thing that was tearing their base apart was right outside, biding its time…

…

In an instant, the doors blew open. Something was in the room, dashing straight for Able.

Only to be caught in some kind of colorless sphere.

Able could now get a good look at the beast.

It was… terrifying, to say the least. It was… almost completely shadow, with some kind of blue outline or aura defining its shape. Floating directly above its head was a crown, shaped like fire, that could probably fit perfectly on its head. It wore a dark blue cloak, adorned with various black designs similar to chains, with the hood sitting upon its head perfectly shadowing its face - you could only see slitted blue eyes and a jagged, sinister grin, as if its very mouth was made of extremely sharp teeth! The ends of it cloak separated and curled similar to flames, creating a unique, jagged design. The collar around its neck opened in to the front half of its body, bearing a similar jagged design.

The… thing just smiled at him. A menacing grin that chilled him to the bone, despite the searing flames outside. It stopped laughing at least…

He decided to talk to it. It was going to be obliterated anyways. Why not gloat a little?

“Well… aren’t you a nasty abomination? You sure caused us quite a bit of strife today. However, as much as you’ve destroyed, we can rebuild. After all, we are the designated rulers of this world - it would be a shame if we fell so easily. Besides, we can’t have something as atrocious as you running around causing trouble.”

A humming sound filled the room. The device would take but a few moments to charge, but soon enough, this thing would be nothing but dust.

“Any last words before you meet oblivion?”

The thing just… chuckled at him. It was a deep, dark chuckle that seemed to reverberate around the room.

“THAT IS MY LINE, YOU WORM. THIS WORLD IS MINE, AND MINE ALONE. YOUR LIFE IS BUT AN EMPTY EXISTENCE THAT NEED BE EXTINGUISHED.”

The thing’s voice echoed throughout the room, its words evoking fear into Abel’s heart. It… wasn’t even scared. Why wasn’t it scared?! It continued.

“YOU BELIEVE THIS WORLD YOUR OWN? HA! TO THINK YOU’D BE WORTHY OF A WORLD YOU’VE ROTTED SO IS PITIABLE INDEED… I’M THE RIGHTFUL OWNER OF THIS WORLD. YOU’VE DONE NAUGHT BUT RUIN IT FOR THE SAKE OF RUIN. I SHALL RULE THOSE YOU’VE DESTROYED WITH AN IRON FIST, UNTIL ALL OF LIFE HAS KNOWN PENANCE UNDER MY REIGN.”

“YOU SHALL BE THE FIRST TO BE PUNISHED FOR SUCH INSOLENCE.”

In one moment it was there… and the next, nothing. The maniacal laughter returned, stronger than ever. A guard on the right burned to a crisp. A guard on the left was dragged away by a haunting chain. Another torn apart. Another completely gutted… until that sinister face now stood right in front of Abel in a suddenly darkened room. The weapon from before simply… stopped.

“FAREWELL, WORM. YOU’RE VERY EXISTENCE IRRITATES ME.”

It grabbed him by the neck, holding him up against the screen behind him. He felt his consciousness, his vision, his hearing, his memories, his personality, and everything he knew fade slowly into darkness. The temperature in the room rose drastically, until dark blue flame coated the floor, the walls, and even the ceiling. The last thing Abel would know…

…was searing, blue fire.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Nowhere Important, The Lich King

Death claims everything that lives. Nothing lasts forever…

For one person, it was a new beginning. The extension to his story he never asked for. With literally all the time in the world, he bore a similarly heavy weight. And now at his peak, that weight has been made manifest, though an echo had always been present… That same echo now granted his killers a contrasting demise.

For them, their journeys have reached a permanent end. No memory, no body, no will, no spirit that would anchor them to the mortal coil or grant them peace in the beyond. A true death, where they only know oblivion - a nothingness that transcends abysmal. And even then… no longer do they have a consciousness for oblivion to be known to.

The lich rises from the burning wreckage, admiring his work. With the deed done, he makes himself scarce… before launching a powerful fireball at the wreckage. With a massive ‘boom’, the wreckage ignites in a colossal, dark blue flame, easily reaching the height and size of a skyscraper. It burned and burned, never waning in strength - such a flame would never fade so long as this world remained intact.

Before returning to the dark recesses of his counterpart’s psyche, he flashes a menacing smile on his face, leaving his other half with a message.

[ONE DAY… THIS WILL BE PERMANENT… ONE DAY… A DEAL LIKE THIS WILL BE YOUR DOWNFALL… AND ON THAT DAY, I SHALL RISE A TRUE KING, AND MAKE THIS WORLD AND ALL OTHERS MY OWN… THIS FIRE… LET IT BE A REMINDER OF THE PUNISHMENT THAT AWAITS THE FOOLS WHO DEFY ME.]

And with that, the dark ego retreated to the deepest corners of the mind, saying not another word. The cloak vanished, and the crown upon his head went back to its usual size and position above his head. He sighed.

“I’m well aware, Ikearu… I’ve been aware ever since I’ve fought to keep you from getting out… So long as I exist…”

…

“I won’t let the undeserving suffer within your flames.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

((Feel free to send me ideas if you want me to write a story. I rather enjoy A Hat in Time stories, and I may dabble in a Hollow Knight story. Just maybe...))

((I do hope you enjoyed. Please, if you’re going to leave criticisms, make sure it’s constructive and not just bland hate. I want to be able to improve on my writing.))

((Have a great day! And thank you for reading!))

[qethnehzul]

Miraak + Dragon Cult HC II

Feat. Art + Info for all the priests and their relationships with Miraak. In hierarchy order...

Konahrik

“Warlord” Male || 62 || 6′10″ / 2.08 m || 215 lbs / 97.5 kg Konahrik was one of the oldest and longest-ruling masked dragon priests, and a sort of king of kings amongst the priests. He organized most activities and meetings and ensured communication and peace between the other priests. All answered to him.

Miraak had a great respect for Konahrik before he turned on his dragon overlords. Konahrik recognized potential in Miraak, before even his status as dragonborn had been revealed. Konahrik was more than happy to foster Miraak’s talent, to such a degree that some other priests felt that he was playing favorites a bit too much. He had much more of a hand in ensuring Miraak progressed up the ranks of priestdom then he would let others know, interested in seeing Miraak rise to a place of power.

The discovery of Miraak’s betrayal to the Cult was a harsh blow to Konahrik. His involvement in allowing Miraak and the other Acolyte Priests to achieve their positions and progress so deeply in their scheming cost him the trust of the remaining priests. 

Miraak

“Allegiance Guide” Male || 40 || 6′10″ / 2.08 m || 224 lbs / 101.6 kg Originally found as a orphan, Miraak’s talent in magic and desire to please caught the attention of Konahrik and other priests in his youth. He was taken in as a simple servant until he accidentally absorbed the soul of a dragon slain in a territorial battle. His life would have been forfeit if Alduin himself hadn’t taken interest in such a unusual trait. Miraak was from then on met with reverence and fear wherever he went, and with the help of his own talents and the interest of others, rapidly climbed the ranks.

Ahzidal

“Embittered Destroyer” Male || 51 || 7′03″ / 2.21 m || 200 lbs / 90.7 kg Ahzidal always had a knack for magic, and at a early age he left his home, including his wife and child, to set out to study the elven way of magic. Upon his return, he found his home of Saarthal in ruins, destroyed by the Snow Elves. He sought out Ysgramor and his army, hoping to help exact revenge on the elves for the death of his loved ones. With his help and enchantments, Ysgramor’s Five Hundred easily destroyed the snow elves. His revenge complete, Ahzidal turned his attentions to the cult as a method of distraction, focusing on learning more. His talents and fame helped him rise in the ranks with easy, and in only a few years he had a mask of his own.

Miraak initially studied under Ahzidal’s tutelage before Miraak had risen fully in the ranks, but even when  the two had become equals in the cult Miraak still studied under Ahzidal. Ahzidal recognized Miraak’s own talents and knack for magic, and was eager to teach him what he knew. The two shared a desire for knowledge and furthering their skills, and found each other good company. 

As such, when Miraak found the first Black Book, he willingly shared it with Ahzidal. The two of them conspired in secret together, turning to the knowledge hidden within over their dragon overlords. They decided together who else would be allowed in on their secrets, and even up to the end they trusted each other the most.

Ahzidal is one of the few Miraak regrets being unable to save or contact after he was taken to Apocrypha. Even through Hermaeus Mora’s corruption, Ahizdal was still one of his closest friends.

Morokei

“Glorious” Male || 46 || 6′04″ / 1.93 m || 122 lbs / 55.3 kg Morokei escaped his impoverished roots using his magical talents. He spent some time studying under various mages, before being picked up by the cult thanks to his skills. He swiftly became the leading mage until Miraak and Ahzidal’s ascensions.

Miraak and Morokei were rivals, and not particularly friendly ones. Both were prideful in their magical talents and were quick to try to out do each other or one up each other, sometimes leading to serious fights or to the detriment of their work. Morokei spent some time studying under Ahzidal as well, but his tension with Miraak and Ahzidal’s less-than-hidden favor of Miraak pushed him away. The two got along exactly as much as they needed to, and otherwise were frequently at each other’s throats. Konahrik and Ahzidal’s obvious favoritism of Miraak as a frequent complaint of Morokei’s.

After Miraak’s betrayal, Morokei wasn’t in the least sad or surprised to see his rival go. He felt like he was finally able to obtain the position in the cult that he had always deserved, and was only sad that he hadn’t been there to see Miraak’s defeat.  

Rahgot

“Anger” Male || 45 || 6′11″ / 2.11 m || 247 lbs / 112.0 kg  Rahgot was a particularly ill-tempered warrior that earned his renown on the battlefield, and was one of the few priests who’s talents lay more in physical combat than in magic. He earned his position at the respect of many who served under him, though he was known for being violent and quick to lash out.

Miraak and Rahgot did not get along, but with Rahgot that wasn’t exactly unusual. The two could push aside their differences to discuss things and get tasks done, but generally avoided each other’s company otherwise. Rahgot had little trust in Miraak on the basis of being dragonborn, always suspecting the worst of him. If it weren’t for the other priests, the two would have undoubtedly gotten into fights every time they met.

Needless to say, when news of Miraak’s betrayal reached him, he wasn’t surprised. Rahgot insisted bringing it up to the other priests from then on out, even up to their final meeting in the death throws of the dragon cult.

Otar, the Mad

- Male || 72 || 7′05″ / 2.26 m || 182 lbs / 82.6 kg Once a well beloved king and warrior, Otar ruled over Ragnvald and the surrounding region for many years. Otar became a priest in his youth, and was the oldest masked priest both by literal age and in service length. As he aged though, his mind grew warped, and he became cruel and delusional.

Miraak had great respect for Otar’s past achievements and knowledge. Though he started to descend into insanity after Miraak met him, he was still lucid long enough for Miraak to see his battle genius and reason for renown. As he lost his mind though, Miraak began to lose respect for him, before he (like many of the other priests) began to largely ignore him altogether at meetings.

Otar initially was rather approving of Miraak, but as time went on he grew more paranoid, partially fueled by Rahgot’s paranoia. Few paid him any mind though.

Hevnoraak

“Brutality” Male || 35 || 6′05″ / 1.96 m || 162 lbs / 73.5 kg Hevnoraak did not hesitate to kill and manipulate his way up the hierarchy, and did so with glee. He became well known for his severely sadistic nature and the ability to wield powerful mind-controlling magic, which he used to both further his position and for his own enjoyment.

Hevnoraak got along well with Miraak, even if the feelings weren’t mutual. He liked to remind Miraak of his own cruel streaks and nature, and found particular glee in bringing the dragonborn discomfort and unease. Hevnoraak went out of his way to make sure to cause as much emotional and mental pain to Miraak as he could without actually angering the man- something he turned into a art form. That said, Miraak could not help but find comfort sometimes in the other man’s dark humor and ideas, and it was through Hevnoraak’s magic that Miraak began to delve into a way of doing the same with his thu’um. 

Miraak’s betrayal was more of a sting to Hevnoraak than he’d ever openly admit. Despite their rather unhealthy relationship, Hevnoraak sincerely viewed Miraak as a companion, and to discover his betrayal hurt him deeply.

Nahkriin

“Vengeance” Male || 38 || 6′06″ / 1.98 m || 235 lbs / 106.6 kg Nahkriin was raised in the dragon cult, having lost his family when he was young. He found himself bitter towards other humans, and as he aged he secluded himself with dragons more and more. While he became a masked priest, he was one of the least involved in meetings and with things that did not directly involve the dragons. 

Nahkriin met Miraak far more than most of the other priests thanks to Alduin’s personal interest in Miraak. Initially, the two did not get along, but perhaps due to Miraak’s inherent more draconic nature Nahkriin was much more comfortable around him than the other more human priests. They were never particularly close friends, but Nahkriin was at least ambient to Miraak and was usually happy to help him when asked.

Miraak’s betrayal to the cult just solidified Nahkriin’s hatred for humans, and destroyed his hope that someone like a dragonborn could be any better. To see that Miraak was alive to destroy Alduin in the present day only fueled his long-lasting fury towards him.

Vokun

“Shadow” Male || 34 || 6′08″ / 2.03 m || 251 lbs / 113.9 kg Vokun preferred to exact everything from the shadows, as his name reflected. He rarely spoke and preferred to give orders via letter, and when he did speak it was always soft. He lost his eye in a fight with another priest that nearly took his life.

Miraak and Vokun were fairly ambivalent towards each other. They could plan and speak to each other comfortably, but had very little in common outside of their work. Vokun held a high respect for Miraak though, and unlike some of the other priests he was less bothered about Konahrik’s blatant favoritism. 

While disappointed, Vokun was not fully devastated by Miraak’s betrayal. He had no huge desire to move up the hierarchy in the power vacuum created by the loss of 2 of the higher up priests.

Zahkriisos

“Blood Sword” Female || 34 || 6′02″ / 1.88 m || 142 lbs / 64.4 kg Zahkriisos was a renowned warrior, known for her skills with the sword. She joined the ranks of the dragon cult after a several year-long rampage across the countryside with a band of men looking to help clear their land of snow elves. 

Zahkriisos had great respect for Miraak before she even joined the cult. After she was given her own mask, she sometimes taught Miraak how to better fight with a sword and in combat that didn’t just involve magic. She very quickly became infatuated with him, and though Miraak wasn’t particularly interested, he did not reject her advances either. She rather accidentally came in on Miraak and Ahzidal’s involvement with the Black Books, but had no desire in betraying either of them and joined in on their secret and plans.

After discovering Miraak’s relationship with Krosis, Zahkriisos pushed her advances on Miraak in hopes she’d either drive Krosis away or force Miraak to make some choice. This ended Krosis and Miraak’s relationship, which Zahkriisos was spitefully pleased about.

While she survived the initial siege on Miraak’s temple, Zahkriisos fell in the following months. While under Hermaeus Mora’s control, she still felt bitter that Miraak had left her. She is one of the few Miraak would truly like to forget in his past.

Volsung

“Horror” Female || 29 || 6′00″ / 1.83 m || 120 lbs / 54.4 kg Volsung made it by on her unblinking ability to do whatever was necessary to progress and survive. She rose high into the ranks of priesthood at a young age, and mockery was met with a slow and painful death in a case of ice.

Volsung admired Miraak and his magical skills. She frequently helped him out because she respected him, but was quick to remind him that she would kill him if necessary. Miraak was more than happy to help her improve her magic and cultivate her talents, but understood Volsung’s desire to keep herself emotionally distant from others. Volsung pushed herself in hopes of someday surpassing Miraak and Ahzidal, which amused Miraak more than anything.

Volsung was disappointed at the loss of both Miraak and Ahzidal, her former mentors. While she studied under Morokei as well, she was most fond of Miraak. 

Dukaan

“Dishonor” Male || 43 || 6′05″ / 1.96 m || 193 lbs / 87.5 kg  Once a higher ranking masked priest, Dukaan was renamed and cast down to the lowest rank in retribution for failing one of the dragon patrons of his previous domain. He has cataracts his right eye.

Initially, Miraak did not interact with Dukaan much. Though the two knew each other at meetings, their relationship was relatively neutral. Once Dukaan lost his ranking though, Miraak was able to progress, and for awhile Dukaan was bitter at Miraak for taking his previous rank. As time progressed though, Dukaan became privy to the secrets of the Black Books while skulking around, and instead of using it to undo Miraak, he requested in. His shame and humiliation at the hands of Konahrik and the other priests had stamped out his love for the cult, and he was more than happy to assist the other three in their goals.

Dukaan was the first to fall to Hermaeus Mora’s control, and he was the first to fall when they were discovered. While he was more than helpful in their goals, Miraak did not feel pity in his loss.

Krosis

“Sorrow” Male || 26 || 6′04″ / 1.93 m || 152 lbs / 68.9 kg Krosis became a masked priest at a very young age. He was always deeply devoted to the cult, and to reach the top of their ranks was his life goal. His original mask name was not Krosis.

Miraak and Krosis got along well from their first meeting, and interested in seeing his progression Miraak ensured to visit the fledgling priest in his early months of being named. What Miraak initially intended to simply be mentorship grew into something deeper, and Miraak and Krosis frequently found themselves visiting each other. To Krosis’s dismay, Miraak did not seem to be able to put a word to their relationship, and as Zahkriisos and Miraak grew closer and Zahkriisos made her own advancements more obvious, Krosis grew disheartened. He finally broke off contact with Miraak as his behavior grew more erratic.

Though he was mourning already, the news of Miraak’s betrayal and disappearance broke his heart. His spiral of depression after became the cause of his name change.

Miraak does not want to remember him. It hurts him too much to. 

[zchaotic]

Finished my US Mono Fairy Type Run. Now it is time to review.

I just beaten Giovanni and ended RR.

Replaying the Ultra Games have given me a pretty good perspective on Gen 7′s Alola games.

The Ultra games are as their names implied, better versions of SM in every aspect to me. Keep reading if you are interested.

The Pro’s. The Story changes.

Lillie’s arc may have not been given as much focus as SM. But it dawned on me what her story really was. It wasn’t about an abused child standing up to her abuser. It was about a timid girl being inspired by those around her to become brave enough to protect those close to her and to become strong enough to do it. That is what her Z Powered Form represents, her getting over those doubts and anxieties, becoming her own while she takes on the world.

That is why she wanted to save her mother in SM. To try and save that woman from herself. I personally believe that Lillie’s arc, while losing some of that focus from SM, had a better trade off in USUM due to how it ends, instead of Lillie going to Kanto to help Lusamine recover and essentially going back to her.

Through out both games, Lillie kept admiring trainers for the things they do and breaks out of that shell. Once we get to the end of the Necrozma plot, Lillie settled things with Lusamine and only went to Aether Paradise with that woman to see Nebby recover. Once that happens, the two parted ways and if you go to Mahalo Trial after beating Gladion, we see Lillie do the last thing needed before becoming a trainer, giving the same emotional goodbye to Nebby.

Once you beat the league and start RR. We see Lillie at the start of her carrier as a pokemon trainer. Kicking a grunts butt and fighting along side you. She becomes for feisty even against freaking Ghetsis and for those picky about Lillie’s confession at Exeggutor Island, that girl has what is pretty much the same confession towards you at the end of RR.

In addition, Lillie’s story ends with her living with Kukui, at a more healthier environment and her wanting to become you Battle Tree Partner.

Gladion’s motives are more fleshed out in USUM, with him stealing Type:Null and running to A. Get away from Lusamine and Aether Paradise due to the toxic controlling environment... much like in SM. And B. So he can become strong enough to protect those close to him once the moment is needed. To keep his family from falling apart more than it already had.

The change between SM and USUM doesn’t hurt his arc and dare I say USUM is a bit more realistic in this regard.

I also liked how his story ends in USUM compared to SM. In SM, he was forced in an adult position in the place he was abused in and wanted nothing more to do with. Because a certain adult close to him couldn’t take the job herself.

In USUM however, because Lusamine didn’t get sick, he got more freedom for the next step of his arc. To get more of that strength, he went to Kanto this time... had a pretty cute goodbye to his reforming mother and spend a whole month training. He comes back in a month with a full team of six and is the toughest of the title defense matches in USUM. He is needed to trigger the games true ending.

Finally, the seemingly biggest change in USUM’s story.... Lusamine.

I liked the changes to her character. In SM we had no reason to care about her, she was an unrepentant cunt and the hints that she wasn’t always that horrible came from the mouths of other characters. We got a good villain, but the bigger picture of her was written very badly.

In USUM. We still have Lusamine go nuts due to trauma from Mohn’s disappearance and as a result of her not wanting to let things go, became more controlling of her kids and obsessed over the Ultra Wormhole and the things beyond to try and get Mohn back.

This resulted in her allowing and doing messed up stuff in her desire for vengeance. Including allowing the creation of Type:Null and being willing to have Nebby go through all sorts of horrible stuff. Gladion was the first to find out about this, took Null and left. Which resulted in Lusamine being more grief stricken and while not mentioned in USUM, resulted in her becoming more controlling over Lillie.

Eventually, Lillie couldn’t stand Nebby’s suffering, stole it and ran.

Leaving Lusamine alone and with nothing left... in SM this resulted in her becoming focused solely on the wormhole and the only beast that she has clues on. Nihilego. But in USUM, something changed in the ripple that prevented her from getting to the levels seen in SM. The Ultra Recon Squad showed up and went to the Aether Foundation for help on their problems, they told this woman about the beasts and about something for her to focus her objections on... Necrozma.

In USUM, we see Lusamine as someone who develops a messiah complex. If she can go beat Necrozma, she would live up to her position as a protector of pokemon and people along with having the resources needed to find Mohn. She still has Mohn as an objective in mind, but she is still pretty crazy due to how she was conducting reckless things with Ultra Wormholes. (The point of the scene in Aether Paradise in USUM.) Froze her pokemon. (Not wanting to lose those close to her.) and was bitter/ nasty to her kids when it was time to confront her.

Lillie is scared of Nebby getting killed with little she can do about it and Gladion is more scared due to how if Lusamine crosses that wormhole, the family will likely lose another parent. But this woman is so stuck up in her ambitions that she refused to listen to her kids and do it anyways.

This is pretty real in broken families where the adult acts like it is their way or the highway and those not them are to shut up.

In USUM, Lusamine is still a horrible person... but it actually gives her some onscreen humanity. While she is less scary of a villain compared to SM, she is better as an actual character in USUM. A woman who has gone off the deep end in her ambitions to get a loved one back and keep the family together, but is so blind in how she done it that her kids ended up suffering.

This was always what Gamefreak intended to make with her Character. But they messed up badly in SM and instead created a caricature of an abusive parent. This one was so chilling in that regard that the fanbase are often only seeing that aspect of her character and believing that is the intention of her character. An abusive parent to get toppled over.

This is why the fanbase are not a fan of USUM’s Lusamine, who is made more human and have more going for her that people are confused in figuring out whether or not she is evil and even more, this version of Lusamine shattered the fanbases head canons on what kind of person this woman was. People don’t want to admit they are wrong and instead lash out.

Especially towards the end of USUM where Lusamine got curb stomped by Necrozma and had a heart to heart talk with Lillie while you were busy. Lillie told is at Vast Poni Canyon what she wanted to tell Lusamine about.

"The president... My mother is— She's selfish. She decides all by herself what she thinks needs to be done to make other people happy, not even caring what it is they may want... But people ought to help one another out! That is what I have learned here in Alola! And that is what I'm going to teach her, too.”

This combined with Necrozma knocking Lusamine off her high horse, gave this woman a self reflection and realization on what she was doing and started her turn around for the better.

Apologizing to Lillie by admitting the girl was right to take Nebby and run. (Admitting that Gladion was right to do the same with Null.) Making it up to Nebby by tending to it with Lillie. Then letting the girl go off back to Kukui’s

Making it up to Gladion by seeing him off when he went to Kanto...

Letting her kids go, is the first major step to Lusamine making it up to her kids.

Then in between the Champion ending and RR, she has an identity crisis from the realization of how awful she was. This gets resolved after RR when she vowed to love her kids from a distance, without interfering with their lives anymore. All the while, trying to understand her kids better.

After RR, you find that same employee who talked about the frozen pokemon and we got implications that Lusamine is having those ready to be thawed.

Then once Gladion comes back, we got a scene where Lusamine meets an amnesic Mohn. Knowing that the man would be hurt for the rest of his life if he knows the things his wife has done for him, along with the new life he has... Lusamine treats it like an ordinary conversation and lets him go off to his life. Letting... Mohn...go.

This is pretty good character development despite how the juicy bits of her turn around happen after the main story is over and how you have to really look to get it.

I appreciate the closure and resolution of this family in USUM since SM ended this story very messily when it should have continued.

While I give a lot of praise to this portion of the story, other character like Hau are more fleshed out. Mina’s trial gave a bit more world building to the Captains. The Ultra Warp Ride in itself is good lore on the UB’s, for we see their world and learn more about them. We also know more about Z Power and where it all comes from.

Alola’s lore was expanded upon in this game.

We also get to see Guzma go through a redemption arc in RR and all the good that came out of it. Colress got to contribute more in the main story as the guy who helps with Necrozma.

Don’t even get me started on Rainbow Rocket. That is where we see Lillie’s grow into a trainer, fight past villains, see more from Colress and Guzma, along with adding into the concept of alternate realities. It was a better post game than SM in every aspect.

Con. What was added into the story and how it affected the changes.

However, there is a few things story wise that I would say are striking flaws.

Before anything, this is still mostly the same story as SM and it doesn’t change drastically until the end of your second visit to Aether Paradise. Like most third games, it is going to take a while before you get to the biggest changes. If you didn’t like what was in the base games... you are not going to like what is in this game.

The new characters added to the plot, the URS... their deeds are mostly background and they don’t do much besides build up on Necrozma. Sometimes appearing in places that they are not needed.

The things they do add does make sense in changing the story from SM. (It is established they only used their Solgaleo and Lunala for travel. If they used them for Necrozma, they would have their way to get help eaten and as explained, it causes Necrozma even more pain. They let Lusamine use Nebby because they need a safer way to send trainers over to confront Necrozma.... but then Lusamine went Leeroy on them.)

But they themselves... could have been done better. In addition, Necrozma served more as a looming threat that motivated the actions of the regions villain teams and their goals. Rather than a looming threat that could have been used much better to give the urgency and doom. He showed that the URS and those scared of him were NOT wrong to be scared of him, but that is all at the climax. Poor build up, but amazing pay off.

Even more, Lillie and the narrative focus on her lessened when you go fight Necrozma. Exeggutor Island was removed, though I get the reasons. Lusamine being less of a bitch and Lillie’s scene at the end of RR made it redundant. This along with Lillie calling her mother out off screen made some moments with her weaker compared to SM. (It isn’t any worse than how Lillie and Lusamine resolved things in SM though. Where Lusamine recovered somewhat and Lillie was eager to not only forgive her... when it wasn’t earned, but go to Kanto to help her recover.)  Even though I believe the things that happened with Lillie after Necrozma more than made up for it.

Some would come to conclusions and say this cost Lillie her character development... the thing that made SM’s story good. But personally, it didn’t really hurt her development, it just lost focus and we got our pay off to the build up in the post game.

However, if you liked Looker, Anabel and Nanu... those three got the shaft completely due to their post game story being cut out for Rainbow Rocket.

Pro. The Gameplay.

USUM added a lot into the game compared to the bare bone SM game.

With Mantine Surf, the Photo Club, Ultra Warp Ride, quality of life changes, (move tutors.) more pokemon and the SOS system being more controllable. You will be picking up Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon over Sun and Moon in a heart beat, just for these things.

The battles are more challenging compared to SM, the Totem Pokemon were better realized as actual bosses and Ultra Necrozma is the highlight of your main campaign.

Not to mention Rainbow Rocket and all the joys I got out of playing that. This is the game to play if you want to do challenge runs... like a Mono type run or others. It feels satisfying to beat the game and see the closure to our characters stories. Not to mention all the side quests and visuals that make Alola feel more alive as a region and not die over when you finish the game.

Con. What stuck from SM in a gameplay perspective.

Unfortunately, USUM didn’t fix all the issues from SM. Multi Battles are laggy, Festival Plaza stinks and with how many cut scenes are in this game still, it is going to be a while before you can actually play the game.

In addition, Alola is a linear in its pathway and what you fight still. If you just played SM... you are going to get bored really quick. In addition, the focus on Gen 1 is going to get old here as well.

Final Verdict.

Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are the last games in the handheld era and Gamefreak did a fantastic job in making this game a hurrah.

With most of what made SM good going over into these games, getting polished out and turned into a funner game, I strongly recommend getting it while holding yourself over for Sword and Shield.

It has fantastic battles, an amazing sense of closure to the characters from Sun and Moon you came to know and love. (Lillie is my favorite of this generation and I hope to see her again with more development as a trainer.)

It hits a lot of good beats for me and I am still rather shocked that people give so much bile to what these games have to offer. The changes to the Story were not bad in the slightest, it isn’t perfect but we have a lot of good trade offs to what we did lose from SM. (Example. Lillie’s two big moments are either moved over to RR or provide a better resolution to her story arc.)

The games give a good challenge for anyone who are fans to the series and it makes Alola stand out as a region.

I honestly hope Sword and Shield is able to continue where these games leave off. Maybe give us a story that is built by exploring Galar and still giving us a challenge with a wide variety of pokemon.

[tragicquartet]

Halloween Special Drabble: Wrath

(([Content/Trigger Warning: this drabble contains several graphic scenes of blood and gore, impalement, bleeding out, broken limbs, negative thoughts, and allusion to child abuse. Reader discretion strongly advised.] Hello everyone, happy Halloween! Gosh, I love this time of year, don't you? The decorations, the candy, the holiday cheer...and what better way to celebrate the day then with a story, huh? How about a ghost story? A ghost story about a certain malevolent spirit of Wrath and Vengeance. Gather around the campfire, friends, because today I tell a new story to you all, although it will take us all the way back to the day that this spirit died, and even farther back than that, and we will go where I don't think I've led you all to before, at least not in full... Deep, deep into Mallew's mind: you'll be right there to experience his nighterrors with him, doesn't that sound exciting?! You'll be right there to see all the blood and gore, experience all his pain and sorrow with him, sounds lovely, yes? On this fine Halloween, I tell the tale of Mallew, for the first time ever, refusing to indulge his urges at their peak, and invite you to join for all the consequences and surreal horror that results, diving deep into his mind to join him as comes face to face with his greatest enemy of all... Himself. Happy Halloween!)) 

Losing it. He could feel himself losing it. His grip on reality. His patience, his perseverance slipping through his fingers like water. 'Keep it together,' he thought. A feeling crawling up his spine like pinpricks, turning into small blips of pain, turning into deep, sharp shocks of agony that couldn't be ignored. Keep it together. "No, no stop..." He was trying to talk himself out of it, talk himself out of the thoughts that were rising in him, golden locket heart shuddering, scraping against itself as he fought the feeling back. "I don't have to, I don't have to." He'd have to. He would definitely have to. This kind of feeling didn't just crop up and get ignored: given half a reason to do so, he'd tear into the closest living thing... And it was only getting worse. "Stop, STOP." It was like commanding the earth to stop turning on its axis, asking the sea to stop crashing against the shore, asking the sky to drop to earth: it wasn't possible, and he could feel it rising, ever higher and higher... Rising like a tide, warm and pulsing, made of blood, intoxicating and undeniable, pooling at his feet. Clawing through him like fire through wood. Suffocating, smothering him, snuffing him out like a water over a flame. "S-St-Stop!" Helpless, pulled along by the flow of his own thoughts, his own twisted, corrupted, and unyielding mind, Mallew could feel himself being pulled beneath the waves of his own conscience, falling to his knees, grabbing his head as he tried to fight it, his urges drowning him, choking out what little remained of resistance, temperance in him, calling to him, beckoning him to indulge in violence, the feeling slowly swarming throughout him, closing in all around him, suffocating him as it built and built up to a screaming, horrifying crescendo- "STOP!"  ... There was nothing. Nothing at all at first, Mallew slowly peeling his hands off of the side of his head, opening his eyes... Long, tall corridors. Old wood, rotted and cold. Empty blackness outside of the windows, framed by motionless, dust-covered drapes. Cold. Cold... And all tinted green. "..." He knew this place: this was the setting of many of his night terrors, the nightmares that never left him, even after he waked, him never having the luxury of forgetting his dreams. Had he knocked himself out? Passed out after trying to suppress his urges? Or was this something else? Knowing from years of night terrors not to stand still in this place, he moved. His feet stumbled heavily on the rickety floor: he was always helpless in his dreams. Without flight. His body made of weak, solid living flesh. His lungs hungry for air, no matter how stale, toxic, or thin it may be. His fire gone. His powers gone. His fear exponentially amplified. This was the prison of his own mind, where, when body slept, unable to carry out the murder his mind craved, his urges would turn their desire for violence inward, aiming for Mallew himself as he slept, and tonight... They would strike a particularly low blow. "Ugh!" Mallew leaned against a wall, gasping for air as he stepped down the hall, already in pain, lungs aching, head swimming as he tried to keep moving. He couldn't tell what was after him, but that was hardly the point: all he knew was that he couldn't let it get him. Struggling forward, he tried one of the doors along the corridor, it shuddering at his touch, but remaining shut. Another, and it actively shocked his hand, touching it. Another, and the doorknob melted in his hand, burning his skin with molten metal. "Augh!" He grabbed his wrist, grunting and gritting his teeth as he waited for the pain to dissipate, and although the molten metal did eventually drip off his hand, pooling on the ground with a derisive hiss, the burn stayed snaked across his skin... The wound had cleaved through his flesh, leaving the bone exposed, while all the skin around it ached with a horrible, ceaseless sizzle. He tried not to touch it, not to think about it, the door in front of him now hanging open, neither the doorknob nor the mechanism holding it shut it there anymore, Mallew taking this oppurtinity to step through the threshold, duck out of the hall and away to what he hoped would be safety... He couldn't let himself be caught. Stepping into the darkness beyond the door, he felt the ground drop: it was a downward slope in pitch blackness, Mallew's footing unsure, his hands reaching around for a wall, a railing, some point of reference upon which to grasp, to find his place. Eventually, the echoes of his heavy breathing, his grunts and yelps of pain as his hand continued to ache began to narrow, amplify, a wall finally brushing against the tips of his outstretched fingers as he moved towards the first semblance of what appeared to be light that he had seen in what felt like hours. He followed the source carefully, hands pricked, scraped, and pressed up against sharp stone walls as he stepped closer and closer towards the light... A dim, foggy, magenta glow. Stepping forward, his footfalls guided by both the steep terrain and the need to move towards the light, feeling again that he had been followed, he hoped the light would bring him safety. Eventually he reached the end of the long, dark chasm, his eyes momentarily blinded as the room opened before him. When his vision finally adjusted, he found himself upon a ledge, sloped and jagged, reaching high above a bed of sharp, blood-slicked stalagmites, far below. "N-No..." Not needing this horrid reminder of his fate, Mallew immediately turned on his heels, stepping away, attempting to flee and was- "Urk!" -grabbed by someone's hand, his throat clenched by sharp, burning hot claws, his legs lifted effortlessly from the ground, left kicking, finding no purchase onto his attacker who, through the momentary panic and pain, Mallew recognized all too well... Himself. Smiling wickedly, heavily-fanged skull visible through its flesh as it dangled him, helpless and choking, from its grasp. Mallew had never been attacked by himself in his dreams before, and, in that moment of self-recognition, he uttered a single confused syllable, unable to breathe with it clamping down so hard on his throat: "Wh-" "You deserve this, you know." The voice was his, but lacked any semblance of his usual tone: it was loud, echoing, truly monstrous and thunderous, having lost all cadence and semblance of  humanity. What was this? "Wh-Wha-" "This is for what you did to me, TRAITOR." The monster licked its lips, its long black tongue trailing along its suddenly bloodstained teeth as Mallew felt it shift its grasp, dangle him farther out over the pit of spikes below, Mallew screaming, begging in his mind for this not to happen. His night terrors took him to many dark places, but never here, never to relive this, never to experience a moment that not even his unreliable, distorted memory could tear away from him. The way he died. He clutched, clawing at the arm of his mirror image, trying desperately to get it to stop, to which it only smiled wider, human face completely gone as it boomed, gleefully, skeletal visage mocking Mallew as it roared: "I'll see you Hell!" It let go. Mallew tried to scream, but only a hoarse, choked cry escaped him. And then, without even a moment to brace himself... He hit them. They drove through his flesh like it was nothing. The pain was insurmountable. His terror beyond realized. He cried and screamed, but all that emerged was a spray of blood, sound lost in the gurgle of fluid as he fought desperately, hopelessly to pull himself off of the stalagmites, cutting his hands on the sharp rock again and again, to no avail, making his grip more and more useless as his hands were slicked more and more with blood. There was nothing but pain, nothing but terror, a blind, screaming terror as his body choked, lungs convulsing for air that they couldn't even hold anymore, one of them ruptured, the other bruised and quickly filling with blood, his once great strength now having no foothold, no grip, no ability to save him from this fate. And now, not even death could release him, because, after all... He was already dead. Asleep, in his own mind, the weight of years of suffering alone in his mansion warping and twisting to form a murderous, fiery monster, it all starting from this very place, this very moment, his gruesome death, which he had now relived in full... But this time there would be no miraculous rebirth, no resurrection of his spirit into a powerful apparition of Love and Vengeance, later warped into a thing of Wrath and Vengeance, no. This was his Hell, and he, dreaming, could not force himself to awaken. He could only sit there, body broken, bleeding out, in more pain, terror, and agony than his dreams had ever given him before. It felt like months until he moved again, until he was finally able to, after ages of painful scraping and slippery, blood-caked hands, he pulled himself slowly off of the spikes, maneuvering himself down onto the ground, him lying there shaking, bleeding, sobbing horribly, pitifully as blood continued to drip out of his maw, Mallew sure that, at some point, he would surely bleed himself dry... When would all of this end? He sat there, frightened and alone, for quite some time and then, forcing himself to his feet, he finally lifted his head... And found himself somewhere new, or, should he say, somewhere very, very old. The floors were a fine polished hardwood, the walls a pristine white, gilded with golden trim, smelling of pinewood and the faint, distant scent of something sweet being baked as the day neared its end. He knew this place anywhere. Home. His childhood home. How did he get here? He struggled along the wall, leaning against it for support, dragging one of his legs, now hopelessly damaged, unable to bend nor support his weight, behind him, until he found a familiar door. He pushed beyond it, entering a darkened room, the world outside the window nothing but a pitch black void, the room itself as neat as it ever had been... A shelf of books on one wall, a display of dolls on the other (many of which were alpacas), a walk-in closet on the side, door ajar, and a tv in the corner, several Sailor Moon DVDs littering the floor around it, arranged neatly by season. All familiar sights. He wasted no time in stumbling over to the oversized bed in the center of the room, gingerly sliding up onto it, laying on his back as he continued to bleed, letting out a pitiful, defeated moan of pain as he laid there, despondent. Of all the places for his night terrors to send him, why the cave...and why here, afterwards? He closed his eyes, sobbing hopelessly, feeling utterly helpless as he sat there, trying to remain lucid, avoid the wave of sadness that was rising in him being in this place again, reliving the home he had once called his... Before the apartment. Before the cave. Before his betrayal. Before he warped into the thing he had become. It had been a prison in its own right, and even now he feared that some nightmarish version of his father may be lurking the halls here, but to be reminded that, at one point, his life hadn't been ceaseless anger and suffering... It made him feel truly helpless inside. 'Pathetic.' The word hung in his head like a slur. 'PATHETIC.' "You." The sudden voice roused Mallew from his sobs, from his quickly downward spiraling thoughts. He turned towards it, finding a figure standing beside the bed, a look of concern on its face. It was him. Him as a child, barely five years old, he'd wager, holding an alpaca plush in its grasp, bushy mullberry purple hair hanging over its eyes... Which were empty, black eyesockets, no irises to be found within. "You shouldn't be here," the child said, Mallew feeling its gaze upon him as he tried to turn his head a bit, address the child properly as he laid there, bleeding out. "I-I'm sorry: I just needed to lie down for a second. S-Sorry about the mess, I'll go-" "No, not that," the child clarified, narrowing it's empty, cavernous eyes as it continued, "you shouldn't be here at all. It's never sent you here before." "It?" Mallew asked, coughing up a large glob of blood, hot and painful, from his throat, shuddering as he cleared his throat and continued: "what do you mean, it?" The child was silent, only pressing a finger to its lips, whispering, ominously, "we don't give things like it a name, names only give things like this power. You know that." "...what does it want from me?" "You must have angered it, done something it didn't want you to. It's trying to teach you something." "...how do I get it to stop?" "I don't know if you can from here," the child said, quietly, running its fingers through the faux fur of its doll, "it does what it wants, where it wants, how it wants. I don't think it has a mind..." The child looked down at the ground, despair audible in its tone: "...but it does have a will." "...what does it want?" The child looked Mallew dead in the eye, striding up next to him, placing a small hand on his bloodied shoulder, frowning: "You can't beat it by force." "What does it want, though-" "You can't punch it, you can't light it on fire-" "How do I beat i-" "It wants you to forget everything else but what it wants-" "Is it me, i-is it you?! I don't understan-" "It wants you to remember why it's here." Mallew went silent as the child did, his eyes eventually glancing past it, seeing a figure hiding in the doorframe. A short, skinny little kid, no older than five either, his little hands pressed against the doorframe as he half-hid behind it, but Mallew saw enough... He saw its spiky blonde hair, and deep, intelligent amber eyes. Mallew sat up in bed suddenly, making his younger mirror image flinch as he  yelled, as loud as he could in his current state: "What's he doing here?!" The child Mallew only frowned, explaining, sternly: "He's just as much a part of who you are now as anyone else. He has his place here. You can't make that go away." "..." Mallew growled, shifting his weight on the now blood-soaked bed, getting to his feet. "How do I wake up?!" "You'll only wake up when it's done with you." Mallew grumbled to himself as he stood, stumbling towards the door with his useless leg dragging behind him. The child Arthur recoiled as he stepped closer and closer, falling back onto its butt as Mallew stumbled through the door, the child staring up at him with fear on its face... Mallew turned to his child doppelganger back in the room, pointing at the Arthur with an angry finger, warning his younger self, as if it could somehow retroactively change fate: "DON'T hang out with this one, he's dangerous." And with that, he pushed past the door and down the hall, taking one moment as he passed the cowering child Arthur, shaking as it peered up at him, to hiss: "Traitor." ~~~ Mallew walked for what felt like years. He went to many places, each as unsettling as the last: The rest of his childhood home, empty and cold, haunted by familiar scents and sights, but no one there. A forest filled with rotten, sharp trees and heavy, acidic air that made his lungs burn. A hospital, empty save one room: a well-lit and welcoming morgue, filled with body bag after body bag, each containing himself. Another room, ceiling as high as the sky, him surrounded by a forest of skyscraper-sized bones, all cracked, shattered, and familiar. His mansion, weathered by hundreds of years of abandonment, left to rot, his underlings and cats long gone, the place no longer his. The apartment, floating like debris in a black void, nothing left but a couch, a note scribbled in awful handwriting that he couldn't even read, and a single blue rose in a dried-out vase. He was losing his patience, and his mind. His nighterrors usually lasted a good long time, but this was something new. He felt like he had been here for years now, and he was slowly losing what little remained of his hope for escape. Was he even going to wake up at all, at this point? Would his twisted mind finally consume him? Eventually, he made his way to a familiar place: his basement, and, in particular, to the chamber where his coffin lay. He stumbled across the cold stone floor: he had spent many long years lying in wait here. In his heyday, this was where he liked to sleep, surrounded by row after row of carefully curated bones, bodies, and possessions of his victims, his coffin in the center of it all. But now there was nothing here but the coffin itself: it stood, ominously, the walls around it long since deteriorated, drapes, wallpaper, and carpet all warped, broken, and unkempt. He could feel it: this was the place. There was nowhere else to wander to: this was where IT wanted him. His old resting place, the place where the remains of countless souls had been gathered like the most precious hoard in the world... And it greeted him with a warm, WARM welcome. The lid to the coffin barely cracked open, a thick slick of black fluid flowing from it, Mallew feeling the pure oppressive, corruptive heat emanating from the rancid gunk, even from here. He had gotten sick on his own ectoplasm before, had even his own powerful essence drained by it upon touch. It would rise in his throat whenever he'd become particularly monstrous, then burn him after he returned to normal like bile, like even his insides wanted him dead, resented him for returning to a more human-like state... So when it burst from the coffin, flooding into the room and flowing against his feet, burning him, he wasn't surprised, by he was surprised by just how hot it was. It was like touching lava, a burning heat so beyond searing that it numbed all other sensation that just roiling, awful heat, like metal cutting to the bone. Feeling that pain, though, he stood his ground: he knew there was nowhere else to go, nowhere else to run, and that, if he wanted to escape this, get away from this thing, he had to face it... And so, he waited. The flood of ectoplasm eventually ebbed, the coffin lid beginning to sliding slowly open...then thrust loudly, aggressively ajar, the lid going flying across the room, Mallew covering his head with his weak, injured and punctured arms. The lid didn't hit him, but the presence of the thing that had emerged from the coffin did, and, slowly opening his eyes, lowering his arms and lifting his head to face it, Mallew felt only one thing... Absolute, primal FEAR. The thing was huge. It towered far overhead, approaching him on all fours just to fit in the space as it tore itself, ripping and snarling, from the coffin. Mallew stared up at it, but in the dark, with little to no light to go by and its gigantic form blocking what little there was, there was only so much he could discern. He could see its massive claws, landing on either side of him like pillars. He could feel its boiling hot breath on him, making his injuries ache and his body feel even weaker, lungs gasping for usable air as it seemed to consume it all, use all available oxygen for its own heat. He could hear it breathing, a low, angry cycle of inhales and exhales, like it was barely containing its urge to tear him apart. It had no eyes, not even eyesockets, just hungry, massive, skeletal jaws, with row after row of teeth that reached back down its throat as far as the eye could see, all the way back to the back of its maw, where Mallew could make out only the faintest hint of light... A burning, churning pinprick of white, painful light, that, upon looking at it, finally made him fall to his knees, its heat being felt even here, a heat and a pain so intense that it made Mallew scream from his mouth, his mind, and his soul. The thing, the power at the core of this creature could only be described with one word, and Mallew didn't dare say it, despite him knowing it to be true... Hellfire. And it was all for him. He was shaking, body in immense, burning agony as he heard the thing's breathing move in closer to him, close in around him as massive jaws opened wide, razor-sharp fangs, like so many stalagmites, and boiling Hellfire, hotter than anything he could ever hope to summon, called out to him, beckoning him like prey to an anglerfish's lure... He had no choice if he wanted to wake up. This was his doing, and this beast was his burden to bear. It may not be sentient. It may not make sense. It may not have a name, but Mallew knew that there was no escaping it. It had the will to make him suffer, and it would get what it desired, for it only had one thing it wanted Mallew to know... That no matter how much he changed, no matter how much he fought, ignored, and tried to outsmart it, it would always win. Mallew would give in, sooner or later, and blood would on his hands again. It was a part of him, as much a part of him as his childhood, that night in the cave, and Arthur, too, and, if he wanted to do well by it, he would remember its name... Wrath. Finally satisfied that Mallew had submitted to it, its jaws snapped shut, carving through Mallew's flesh like it was nothing, Mallew feeling every agonizing, searing, painful shred of his form falling apart, the beast making one last conviction clear... If he ever did manage to get rid of it, he himself would not be far behind. ~~~ Mallew awoke on the floor of his mansion, near gone. His irises burned barely above an ember, his false human skin all but disappeared, his form skeletal, his anchor aching horribly as he laid there, the room lit only by moonlight trickling in through the windows. Mallew laid there, cracked skull lying against the hardwood floor, staring out at the forest beyond, the trees silhouetted against the darkened sky, branches waving in the nighttime breeze, and, as he laid there, he noticed that something was missing... His urges: they were SILENT. They had been subdued by that whole nightmarish experience, about as well as his usual methods did. How...curious. "Ha...ha ha...ha haha ha haaaa..." He laughed, but it was no laugh of triumph, only relief. He was awake, still alive...but only barely. His urges had been pushed back, but nearly at the cost of his own self, and even then it seemed he had only survived because his urges, whom he would not name, had willed him to do so. It had tortured him for what had felt like centuries...but he had emerged, and, as far as he could tell, rolling over onto his back, looking his clawed hands, black suit, and skeletal form over, he hadn't, in fact, given into his urges in the interim. He laughed, sitting there on the floor of the grand entry room of his mansion, his voice a raspy, pained echo...but he was alive. He had told his urges no, and, frightened though he was, badly injured in both mind and body he may be, spared from destruction, perhaps, only by his urges' mercy towards him, he was alive... And he hadn't taken a life, this time. He giggled to himself as he stood, floating towards his bedroom with an odd sort of despairing hope, accepting rebellion, and blissful agony in his badly battered and exhausted mind. His urges had attempted to flare his rage back up inside of him, had shown him again the darkest parts of his past first-hand, had shown him eerie portends and strange scenery, all in the hopes of scaring him into submission, into not fighting back... But, if anything, Mallew had hope, now. He had quashed his urges, even if it had earned him great pain and suffering. He had pushed them back, even if he had barely emerged alive. He had told them no, and, regardless of his urges' inevitable return, today was a victory. He laid down upon his bed, skull resting down against his pillow heavily, the spirit knowing it would take some time for him to heal but, his urges quiet for now, he had no doubt that he could rest for a while, peacefully. He laid there, his cats quickly making their way into the room, hopping up onto the sheets, curling up against of him as he sat there, nuzzled and purred at and gently licked, Mallew giving into their concern and affection as they tended to him in their own little way, pressing up against his skull and skeletal body as if nothing had changed. He looked as close to that original spirit of Love and Vengeance he had been years ago as he had ever been, though he wasn't sure what that meant, just yet. 

He let out a deep, exhausted sigh, golden locket heart, cracked, aged, dented, and warped, just as he was, beating along, and, lying there, exhausted but free, and contrary to what his urges may want him to think, he came to a singular, all-consuming conclusion... He would be alright.

[braincoins]

Unnamed Urban Fantasy World-Building Bible

Okay, so at this point I’ve got most of the world built and relevant history gone through. As such, HERE COMES AN INFO DUMP. Some of this was in the previous post, but there honestly wasn’t a lot there. This should hopefully whet your appetite for what’s to come. 

Keep in mind that this is sort of “first draft” world-building. Things may be tweaked, thrown out, or altered later. (Also, the Blades section under “Lost Swords” formatted all weird, but it’s still legible, so I don’t feel like fixing it)

------------------- Cast of Characters -------------------

Keith Ward – orphaned son of Steven and Carol Smith (nee Krolia Kogane). Grew up in an orphanage with no knowledge of his parents. Immediately after high school, enrolled with the CPD and entered police academy, where he met Takashi “Shiro” Shirogane. Graduated and is a full-time CPD officer; his partner on the force is Iverson. Is still very close with Shiro and looks up to him like a big brother. Human with unknown elf heritage.

Katherine “Pidge” Holt – daughter of Samuel and Colleen Holt (nee Gunderson), younger sister of Matthew. MIT freshman who finds out her father and brother have both gone missing: Sam from his job as a CISA compliance officer at Galaxy IT Services and Matt after having taken a leave of absence from his job as a Computer Forensics Examiner at the CPD to go try to hunt up Sam. They’ve been missing for six months, and Pidge drops out of college to come back home to find them. Human Normie.

Darius “Hunk” Garrett – child of Dwayne and Ellen Garrett (nee Jorden), younger brother of Jasmin, older brother of Aliyah. The Garretts are Masks. Hunk is an alchemist who has a mobile lab based in a food truck. He also serves food, as would be expected. He learned both alchemy and cooking from his father, and he’s very close to his family. He also studies physics (as he believes it helps with his alchemy (and it does)) and is a very handy mechanic, keeping his old food truck up and going when it probably should’ve given up whatever ghost it had years ago (he bought it from a junkyard and fixed it up himself). His older sister is a bank teller but had no interest in alchemy; his younger sister is learning alchemy but wants to be a veterinarian. Human Mask.

Lance McClain – child of Scott and Juanita McClain (nee Garcia). Middle child in a pack of 8 children; Juanita’s widowed mother also lives with them. His two oldest siblings have moved out and one has started his own family (the other’s in college). The McClains are Masks, and Lance grew up with Hunk, as they’re the same age. They’ve been best buddies since grade school. Lance is a musician, and a very talented one, and he’s learned many powerful spellsongs. Spellsinging is considered a form of alchemy, using soundwaves, vibrations, pitch, tone, and rhythm to affect one’s environment instead of the more usual chemical, medicinal, or culinary forms (that Hunk knows). Lance chafes at the Masks’ rules but obeys them. However, he’s started noticing that he’s spellsinging when he doesn’t intend to be. Human Mask.

Takashi “Shiro” Shirogane – child of Kenichi and Yumiko Shirogane (nee Shimizu), older brother of Ryou. Shiro always wanted to be a police officer, to protect and serve. He felt it as a calling. Out of high school, he went to community college to study criminal justice, then enrolled in CPD’s police academy, where he met Keith. He graduated top of his class and became a CPD police officer. His partner is Harris. While at the CPD, he met and befriended Matt Holt. He wonders about Matt’s sudden leave of absence, but assumes his buddy is dealing with family stuff (as he said before he left) and is busy. Human Normie.

Allura ve Alfor, Princess of Altea – daughter of King Alfor and Queen Aetheria of Altea. Allura was trained in diplomacy, leadership, magic, and combat by her parents and her father’s advisor, Coran. She doesn’t know alchemy, but she knows her father’s code that he wrote his notes in. She is an excellent shifter, able to alter her appearance at will, though it takes energy to keep any form that is different from her normal one (how much energy depends upon how different the form is). Fortunately, she has an incredible reservoir of magical energy along with her own life force. Forbidden from joining the battle against the Dark Lord & Lady, she survived and agreed to be sealed away rather than forego her vengeance entirely. She is focused on avenging the death of her father and her people. At the last second, her four pet mice jumped onto her and became frozen in the crystal as well. One of the last true elves alive.

Coran vu Hieron – Royal Advisor to King Alfor before his death. Coran was a loyal advisor and friend and would gladly have gone into battle with Alfor had he not been tasked with protecting Allura. To that end, he also agreed to be sealed away, to stay with and watch over the princess. What he lacks in magic and shifting abilities he makes up for in seemingly endless knowledge. After he acclimates to 2018, he takes the somewhat more human name of Coran Hieronymus Wimbleton Smythe (he may have gone a bit overboard). One of the last true elves alive.

Honerva ve Cree/Haggar – Royal Advisor to King Alfor before she succumbed to darkness. One of the best alchemists of her day, aside from the King himself (who was strong in magic as well as alchemy). While he focused on training the human alchemist Myrddin, she believed that alchemy might not be wholly good. Using the motto of “all light casts a shadow,” she began searching for that shadow, hoping to set boundaries on such power so that it would not be misused. Instead, she went too far over that boundary and wound up corrupted by the Dark Lord Zarkon of the Daibazaal realm. His true form cannot be comprehended by normal mortals, and so she summoned him to this world by letting him take the body of Alfor’s best friend: Aetheria.

Zarkon twisted Aetheria’s body to suit his own needs, making it more powerful and less recognizably humanoid. He took her blade and warped it as well, making it his own dark weapon. And he took Honerva as his bride and high priestess.

Honerva began experimenting on humans and elves, using her knowledge of alchemy and her access to the dark energies of the cosmos to see what could be done to make them more powerful and more useful to Zarkon. She also began summoning the minions of Zarkon to this realm in preparation to conquer it. Alfor and Myrddin went to confront and stop her, with the army of Altea behind them. The battle was fierce. Myrddin, Alfor, and his generals (Blaytz, Trigel, and Gyrgan) fought against Honerva and Zarkon directly. The generals fell one by one as Myrddin shifted from trying to kill their opponents to simply containing them. As Alfor was killed, Myrddin managed to seal Honerva and Zarkon into a magical vault in another realm.

In Myrddin’s records, Honerva is only ever referred to as Haggar or the Dark Lady, just as Zarkon is only ever the Dark Lord. He had known (and loved) Honerva (though she had never returned his affections) before she succumbed to darkness. He could not reconcile the woman he had known with the creature he had fought, and so he gave her a different name.

Haggar desires only to serve her Lord and husband and to increase his power as well as her own. True elf corrupted by ancient dark magic; essentially a Dark Elf.

------------------- People, Places & Things ------------------- 

Alchemy – the combination of science and magic pioneered by the elves. Alchemy in its strongest form could potentially manipulate reality itself (essentially by fudging the rules or finding loopholes), but most modern alchemy focuses on the interconnections between all living things and the world upon which we live. Alchemy is most commonly thought of as chemical in nature: brewing potions, making salves & ointments, etc. There are myriad medicinal applications. Alchemy can also be used in combat, for self-defense, and in any sort of creation/manipulation endeavor. Cooking, baking, painting, writing, singing, playing an instrument, even assembling a piece of furniture or an engine. A strong understanding of physics can help open up the possibilities of alchemy.

Altea – Kingdom of the elves, destroyed 1,445 years ago. Its last crowned monarch was King Alfor. All alchemy originated in Altea. The kingdom was destroyed in 573 CE by the forces of the Dark Lord Zarkon and his Dark Lady, Honerva/Haggar.

The Church – as in the organization of Christian faith, most especially the Catholic Church. While it is true that the Church saw magic as antithetical to the power of the One True God, it was the destruction of Altea that truly convinced the Church that magic led to darkness. They characterized Zarkon and his armies as the Devil and his demons, and those who continued to do magic or alchemy as being like Haggar. At best, an alchemist would unwittingly bring evil into the world; at worst, they were an active helper in the schemes of the Devil. 

As monotheistic faiths - but most especially Christianity - grew, magic became vilified. Even suspected practitioners were exiled or killed. Most of the people who were hanged, burned at the stake, etc. for witchcraft were actually perfectly innocent, normal people. A few were Masks, either because of their use of alchemy or because they were taking the fall for true magical beings, as their oath requires. A vanishingly-rare amount were actual magical beings, and, of these, most were Shifters, not Witches.

Elves – What happens when True Fay interbreed with True Shifters. The elves helped the humans create alchemy, believing that science and magic could enhance each other and lead to a greater understanding of the cosmos. They also wanted to give magic-less humans a way to help themselves. Elves were long-lived, but not so much so as Fay; a typical Elf lifespan would be about five centuries. In 2018, the only Alteans/True Elves left alive are Princess Allura (Alfor’s daughter) and Royal Advisor Coran.

Fay – Sprites, pixies, gnomes, goblins, fair folk, wee folk, etc. The Fairies of legends and myths. Fay are typically mischievous and very scrupulous about their rules. They often delight in deceiving others with these rules, but clever people can find a loophole to turn the outcome to their advantage. Ever since the Rise of the Church, Fay have made themselves scarce in the world. Ironically, despite the Catholic stronghold in Ireland, the Fay are most easily found there, where the native people have seen no problem in worshipping the Christian God and still respecting the rules of the aes sídhe.

Technically the Fay live in their own realm, Faerie, separate from the human world (which makes it all the easier for them to hide away). This realm is not unlike Daibazaal from which Zarkon hails, in that it is a separate realm of reality with its own rules and natural laws. Faerie is a much nicer place than Daibazaal though. Fay are extremely long-lived, with normal lifespans in the millennias.

Galra – Technically the word “Galra” is Altean for “monster.” In 2018, it most commonly refers to the Galra Cult: the cultists who worship Haggar and Zarkon. They are the descendants of elves and humans who followed the Dark Lord and Lady before their defeat (but somehow survived the battle). Most cultists are human, but many have elf blood (even if extremely diluted) in their veins. They know only what’s written down, so they have no idea that Haggar has any name other than that; they are unaware that “Galra” is not really what they should be called (similar to how Neo-Nazis are unaware of the origins of “Nazi” as an insult). But they are fanatically devout. However, some people do leave the Galra; they’re typically hunted down and killed. 

Krolia was a member of the cult before she left, changed her name to the more inconspicuous Carol, and married Keith’s father. She was pregnant when the Galra found her and she barely escaped with her life; her husband wasn’t so lucky. She stayed hidden and on the run; when she gave birth to Keith, she took him to a Safe Place zone and left, hoping to spare her son from the bloodthirsty cult. Eventually she found others who had left the Galra; they’ve taken her in. She’s tried to keep track of what happened to her son over the years but is still too afraid to contact him. Just in case.

The Journals – King Alfor had five journals of alchemy, all written in a personal code of Alfor’s own devising. The first is a simple notebook, recording the alchemical knowledge already extant in the world. Volumes 2-5 are Alfor’s, Myrddin’s, and Honerva’s notes and experiments with alchemy, along with anything they could find about what others had concocted. They came up with new ways of constructing experiments, discovered more truths about the world, and became powerful. They established new concoctions and rituals, new potions and spells. The fifth volume specifically details the rules of alchemy as they were known to the three of them and sets out a method for safely and effectively using alchemy to create “on the fly” as it were, rather than just memorizing tried-and-true methods. The Masks have volumes 1 and 3 of Alfor’s journals; the Galra Cult has volumes 2 and 4. Volume 5’s whereabouts are currently unknown to the world at large, and that is because it was hidden in a place that only Allura knows.

The Lost Swords – A legend told in Mask families about five swords hidden from the world by Merlin, who feared their awesome powers would be used for evil. The Lost Swords will only appear when humanity stands upon the brink of destruction.

In reality, these are the five enchanted blades Myrddin made from the swords of Aetheria (Blade of the Black Lion), Alfor (Blade of the Red Lion), Blaytz (Blade of the Blue Lion), Trigel (Blade of the Green Lion), and Gyrgan (Blade of the Yellow Lion).

Blade of the     Black Lion –     originally the sword of Queen Aetheria, corrupted by Zarkon’s dark     energies. It was cleansed of its taint through the focused enchantments of     the other Blades, thus it was technically the last “created.” It is the     most powerful blade and carries a minor, basic sentience. It seems to…     remember its past and struggle with it. Its wielder’s desires can easily     tip the blade back into darkness.     Myrddin tied it to the energies of the sky, of storms, and of the cosmos.     It can call and channel lightning; temporarily blind people; lift its     wielder into the air and enable them to fly short distances; push people     back (or even knock them down) with powerful storm gusts; and allows its     wielder to use magic. Like all the blades, it also protects its wielder     from its own element. It also has the unique ability to temporarily     “borrow” powers from the other blades, so long as that blade’s wielder     focuses on doing so. (For example, for the Black Blade to borrow the Red     Blade’s power, Red’s wielder must stand still and focus their will on     channeling their power to Black. This often leaves them vulnerable.)     When the Red Blade’s power is     focused to the Black Blade, it can send short bursts of super-heated air     towards the target.     When the Green Blade’s power is     focused to the Black Blade, the storm winds can narrow and snap like     whips, able to draw blood from many rapid, powerful (but small) attacks.     When the Blue Blade’s power is     focused to the Black Blade, it creates torrential rain and full on     thunderstorms in a localized area.     When the Yellow Blade’s power     is focused to the Black Blade, the blade becomes unbreakable and its     wielder is granted an impenetrable shield wall (in front of the sword     itself)     When all other Blades’ powers     are focused to the Black Blade, it elongates (though doesn’t become     heavier), strengthens, sharpens, and burns with a magical flame. The Black     Blade can cut through reality itself if its wielder wishes.     Regardless of the Black Blade’s alignment, it will never, ever, ever harm Allura.     Wielded by Shiro

Blade of the Red     Lion –     originally the sword of King Alfor, who sacrificed himself to buy Myrddin     the time he needed to seal Haggar and Zarkon away. Tied to the energies of     fire, of passion, of purity. It can call and channel flames and protect     its wielder from the negative effects of heat and fire, including all     forms of radiation. The blade is always burning hot to the touch to all     except its wielder.     Wielded by Keith

Blade of the     Green Lion –     originally the sword of General Trigel. Tied to the energies of growing     life, of vitality, of logic. It can call and channel strong and/or thorny     vines. The blade is envenomed with a virulent toxin that will lead to     paralysis and, eventually, death; only its wielder is immune to it, as     they are to all poisons. They cannot be harmed by any animal or plant     found in this realm.     Wielded by Pidge

Blade of the     Blue Lion –     originally the sword of General Blaytz. Tied to the energies of water,     ice, and emotion. It can call and channel water and protect its wielder     from severe cold, as well as allowing them to breathe underwater so long     as the blade is drawn and in their hand. The blade is freezing cold to     anyone save the wielder.     Wielded by Lance

Blade of the     Yellow Lion –     originally the sword of General Gyrgan. Tied to the energies of the earth,     of stone, of unity. It can call and channel rock and stone, very useful     for forming walls and shields. It protects its wielder from suffocation or     paralysis, though its blade will petrify anyone (other than its wielder)     who touches it.     Wielded by Hunk

Masks – humans who are aware of magical beings and actively help hide them from those who would destroy them. Technically, Masks are as non-magical as any other human, but they still have access to alchemy. They take their charge of not revealing the existence of magic to normies (other humans) very seriously. Masks were as likely – if not more so – to be killed in witch trials and purges than true magical beings were, though the vast number of those killed in these witch hunts were innocent normies. Masks take an oath to protect the magical elements of the world with their life, but such a sacrifice has not been needed in many centuries. Technically they have typical human lifespans, but alchemy is often as good as and sometimes better than medicine, so it’s not uncommon for Masks to outlive normal humans by a decade or so.

Myrddin – known to most of humanity as “Merlin,” he was the greatest human practitioner of alchemy ever seen. Alfor apprenticed him when Myrddin was still a boy, and the two became fast friends. Myrddin was also smitten with Honerva, but she never returned his affections, and he never spoke of them to her. Still, he counted her as a friend, and she was friendly with him in their interactions.

Together with Alfor and Honerva, Myrddin helped create the bulk of extant alchemy in the world today. He also chronicled his life and the fall of Altea. He went mad after sealing away the Vault, the Blades (Lost Swords), and Allura & Coran. He became known as Myrddin Wyllt (Myrddin the Wild), a madman – some said a prophet – who wandered the land until his death.

Normies – humans who are unaware of magical beings or the existence of magic or alchemy as anything other than historical beliefs of superstitious peasants or the elements of fiction. It is rare that a normie is made aware of the existence of magic, but it happens occasionally. Usually a normie is then tasked with protecting what they have found; if they do not agree to become a Mask, they are typically killed or branded as crazy.

Shifters – those capable of changing their shape. True Shifters can look like anyone and can even take animal forms (thus giving rise to legends such as kitsune and werewolves). They can stay in whatever form they want for as long as they want and still retain their identity and minds (though Shifter hybrids – Elves and Witches – usually don’t have this ability). Shifters do not have animal-like senses unless they are in animal form, and even then they have the same advantages and disadvantages as those animals would have. Of all the magical beings, the Shifters are the ones who most carefully hide their nature from the world, as many of the legends of their kind paint them to be ravening beasts. Given ideal conditions, Shifters can live well into the 300 range, but nowadays it tends to be closer to 210 – 220. (Fast food hasn’t helped.)

The Seals – Magical locked doorways created by Myrddin. The first was a complete accident: Myrddin was trying to find a way to contain Haggar and Zarkon’s power when he saw King Alfor run through by Zarkon’s sword. The shock and horror (plus his already pumping adrenaline) enabled him to create the Vault and lock them away in some other realm. He had no idea how he’d done it.

He used alchemy to enchant, create, and link the five Lion Blades/Lost Swords, and then sealed them away in the same realm (though keeping them inaccessible to the Vault). The seals on the Swords were tied to the seal on the Vault so that when Haggar and Zarkon were released back into the world, the Swords would be, too. However, having no idea how else to create the seals, he re-focused on the trauma of that moment when Alfor was cut down. He replayed the horrible creatures he’d seen, the true power of what lurked in the darkness of the Daibazaal realm, all the friends he had lost. Rather than letting himself heal from his mental and emotional wounds, he continued to gouge them open, one seal at a time (for each Blade).

He used this same technique to enclose Allura and Coran in life-sustaining crystals and then to lock them with the same seal. The crystals will return to the world when the Blades do, but they can only be truly unlocked when in the presence of any one of the Blades. Then both crystals will be unlocked. This was a complicated sealing, and it took the last of Myrddin’s sanity to complete.

Undead – These are creatures created by magic (usually Fay or Witches) rather than being inherently magical beings. Usually they’re what modern Western culture would call “zombies” (in the sense of being unintelligent rotting shamblers; they typically aren’t cannibalistic unless created to be so). Ghosts can occur if someone dies from a Witch’s hex or a Fay’s curse.

Vampires – NO.

The Vault – The prison Haggar and Zarkon were sealed into. That prison was then cast into an alternate dimension (neither Daibazaal nor Faerie). This was the first seal and it was not tied to the others (though the Lost Swords’ seals were tied to the Vault’s). The Galra Cult eventually found a way to dissolve the seal, breaking open the Vault and returning Haggar and Zarkon to the world, about a year before the start of the story.

Witches – True Witches started out as human/Shifter hybrids (just as Elves came from Fay/Shifter unions). They look human except for golden eyes (still human eyes, just golden in color). They have limited ability to shift, and most take utilitarian forms such as a bird of some sort for travel, a fox or wolf for hunting, and a mouse, rat, or snake for spying. Staying in that form for too long will threaten their identities as they become more and more animal-like. Most Witches focus their increased energy reserves (from the Shifter blood) on doing magic. Modern Witches often do alchemy as a useful supplement, but historically it was considered a dilution of magic and no proper Witch would be caught dead doing that sort of thing. Witch magic tends to be very nature-based, and though most try to put more good than bad out into the world, a Witch crossed can be a VERY dangerous thing. A True Witch dying before 100 is almost unheard of; some have made it to 200 but that’s pretty rare. 150’s about a good average.

[furederiko]

"I won't let you... suffer the pain alone!" Kyuranger's 28th episode, conveys the tale of broken bond, and lost friendship...

- Let's get this right off the bat: POOR Balance!!! T_T... He wasn't around when Naga first succumbed into the darkness, so imagine his utter shock upon witnessing how his partner-in-crime (we'll get to this later) has become an evil, ruthless, brutal, and plain messed up person. Dark-Naga is completely different from his regular self, and this is the first time we get to see Balance gets deeply depressed. Even more so than that stolen-Birthday story... - Sure, the episode starts in a carefree and casual way. We see Balance utilizing the #43 Camelopardalis Kyu Globe to become a 'mechanical giraffe' and scout the area, while Dark-Naga is having fun with his newly found emotions through a practice fight with the Indavers (again, the actor is definitely having a blast). I also personally enjoy seeing Akyanba and Kukulga get along with one another, mirroring the bond between Ikagen and Madako nicely. But everything turns sour just 4 minutes in, and the cheerful mood has completely dissolves into a somber and melancholic tome. - Balance clearly arrives on scene with a belief that he could easily persuade Naga to the good side. That's how they've always been, right? But nope. If this is another show, the whole 'turning into evil' trope would be done and over with in just two episodes. This is Kyuranger we're talking about, and that's NOT how the show works. After declaring that the BN Thieves has now been disbanded, Dark-Naga doesn't pull any punches on his (former?) friends. He shoots Balance on the spot, intentionally injures his left thigh, and then tortures him with sheer glee. Balance refuses to react, resulting in an abusive scene that... well, rather disturbing to watch. I wonder how TV Asahi even allows this on a morning show? - It's a neatly choreograph, but devastatingly desperate fight scene. Once again, Dark-Naga is soooo close on killing the other Kyurangers with his 'Dark Galaxy' attack. This time around, a mysterious woman steps in to save the day. And it's a... female Naga! Hold on, I mean, a Naga-esque female individual from the Ophiucus system. She introduces herself as Echidna (obviously portrayed by Taiki Yamazaki, voiced by Ayumi Tsunematsu), and reveals more details about the same-faced inhabitants of her system. Trivia: In Greek mythology (nope, not the ant-eater one, nor... Sonic the Hedghehog's rival) Echidna is a half-woman half-snake 'She-Viper'. She's the mother of many mythical monsters such as Orthrus (that gave birth to Sphinx and Nemean Lion), Cerberus, Hydra, and possibly Chimaera. There's a 'mother angle' in her story. So can we assume this is just pure coincidence? Or is she actually Naga's mother? Hmmm... - Echidna's appearance is... well, a bit awkward to watch. Not because of the female voice coming out of Naga's lips, but mainly because it looks a bit out of sync. This is a common occurence in Tokusatsu, but I wonder why they don't just alter his actual voice with a sound editor? Also, design-wise, I think the production team made a minor miscalculation. IMO, they should've enclothed a 'female Naga' with a high-neck dress that fully covers the neck area. At least, give him a choker or something. The actor is what many generally calls 'pretty boy', so he CAN look and showcase Echidna's feminity just right. Yet it's also clear his adam's apple is still immediately noticeable in this dress style, and that would likely attract questions from audience. Especially observant nitpickers like yours truly LOL. With that said, her inclusion is still a much appreciated decision. It gives a good excuse to keep Naga's actor among the non-suit ones, without the need to hire a new artist. And similar to Dark-Naga's messed-up sassy gestures (that is always a delight to see), he's able to make us believe that Echidna's an entirely different character. - Echidna's exposition, leads to a deeper backstory for both Balance and Naga. And that's good. We FINALLY get to see how Balance met Naga for the first time! True to his trickster reputation, not only Balance ran into Naga when he was stealing a treasure from his planet, he also made use of Naga's pure desire for emotions to get away. On a whim! Yep, turns out things didn't actually start out in 'real' good terms for them. Back then, Balance was merely using Naga, turning him into a partner for his own selfish benefit. Not unlike Akyanba, huh? Nevertheless, it's a fated meeting that managed to change him for the better. Balance now actually cares for him and others in general! That's why Dark-Naga's berserking frenzy isn't just hurting Balance physically, but also scars him emotionally (if not all of us in general, of course). Balance is going to do anything to bring his BFF back, even if it forces him to engage in an intense heartbreaking duel with him. We've seen it teased in the preview, right? - I was initially pretty disappointed when Akyanba revealed that the key to bring Dark-Naga back to his senses, is to hurt him so badly. I admit, it IS a common thing for a Tokusatsu antagonist to foolishly state their Achilles heel. Even Kyuranger have done it before with a lesser MotW. I guess, I kind of expected more from this cunning villainess. Turns out, more is certainly what I'm getting. Televi's scans have already spoiled about this 'solution' before, along with the Gold-Silver fight, and Echidna's arrival. But what a pleasant surprise when those report (probably... intentionally?) left out the powerful twists that come as part of the actual package. - Contrary to popular assumption, Echidna isn't here to help Naga. She is sent to... eliminate him. Apparently, obtaining emotions is considered a massive threat in the law of Ophiucus system. OUCH!!! Echidna also blames Balance for 'swaying' him out of his planet. This is what I meant earlier by 'turning him as partner-in-crime'. Second, the Gold-Silver fight? Intense, but heartbreaking. I expected a Mexican Standoff-esque battle, but nope... Libra Gold doesn't want his BFF to suffer alone. So when he launches that rain of arrows using the #35 Sagittarius Kyu Globe, he's taking the fall WITH HIM. Aaaaawwww, the chills!!! But the episode saves the biggest twist of all. Hurting Naga badly to save him? LIES. That was nothing but lies. It's all Akyanba's trick to pit the Kyurangers against each other. She's merely toying with her enemy, trying to make them hurt one another. So disappointment is gone, because Akyanba IS a dangerous antagonist INDEED. - Worse thing is... according to her, Dark-Naga is beyond help. There's NO way he can be cleansed from darkness once he gains back his emotions. That means...? Aaaaaw!!!! T_T. I can already hear those devastated outcries reverberating throughout the Naga fanbase. Not to mention, Naga have always wanted emotions to make Balance happy! Putting the burden and guild on the Golden robot even more. If I didn't know any better, it seems the only ways to save Naga now are: defeat Akyanba to remove her curse/spells that unlocked Naga's emotions, and seal back the emotions he's been longing to have all these time. Those are NOT easy feats! Things aren't looking good in the present time. Fun fact: Can't believe it took me this long to realize one thing. Naga Ray's name is clearly a pun for either the Japanese word 'Nagare' which means 'to flow/washed away', explaining why he's easily persuaded; and also 'Nagareboshi' which means 'Shooting Star'. And we know how a meteor is called a shooting star, right? When it FALLS down on Earth. Suffice to say, Naga's fall to darkness has been written on his name. This character was already doomed from the get-go. And that rain of arrows is another really good metaphor to this too... - What's happening in the past doesn't fare better! 'Time Travel' team exits the time hole (healing Commander's Xiao's back in the process), and goes directly to witness Tsurugi's final fight against Don Armage. And it plays out exactly like Tsurugi's story, confirming several things: One, Tsurugi has been telling an honest truth all these time. As in, he's not dreaming or seeing illusions or alternate reality like some fans have theorized. Two, Kuervo sacrifices himself to protect Tsurugi from Don Armage's blow. So yeah, I think he's genuinely really dead, as we can only see Orion (who now has a face, more on this later) carrying Tsurugi to safety afterwards. Three, Don Armage is defeated... for REAL. Phoenix Soldier strikes him down (here's hoping we get to see that cool flaming winged attack again soon), blowing up his planet along the way. So HOW is Don Armage still alive till the present time? That side of truth is still shrouded in mystery. As if that's not enough, all of a sudden the ORION is under mysterious heavy attacks! Forcing Raptor to quickly warp off towards Earth. With Don Armage gone, WHO is attacking them then? - Before you dismiss that this time travel side is removed or unrelated, do remember one thing. Kyuranger had always run several plots in parallel, but they generally still share the same theme (examples: Stinger's route of vengeance crosses path with Champ, and the brotherhood parallel between Scorpio and Kotarou). Considering the current theme is about heroes/good person turning to the dark side, could it be foreshadowing the true identity of the new Don Armage? If we observe how Naga is Balance's best friend, we can see there's a parallel running in the past: Orion or Kuervo are Tsurugi's closest comrades too! Who do you want to bet as the real Don Armage, then? - Anyway, we're back in the present time. Akyanba walks away with a severely wounded Dark-Naga, leaving the fight to the giant Indavers. Since Ursa Minor SkyBlue has to tend for Balance, Leo Red uses Gemini Kyu Globe to duplicate Lupus Blue and Chamaelleon Green, so they can form a three-colored RGB Kyuren-Oh. What a NEAT trick! Even SkyBlue is surprised to see that this is possible. I don't think we actually need a mecha battle, but at least it's unpredictable. - Despite Echidna's firm statement that the only option to the Ophiucus Metal situation is to eliminate Naga, obviously 'Save Naga' team isn't going to give up just like that. Balance personally refuses to obey, and will do anything to rescue Naga. Even if he has to face Echidna for that. But that's when something unexpected comes up. Well, duh? This IS Kyuranger, so obviously it's one thing after another. Our present team senses an odd surge of time-paradox, and notices a distress beacon from the ORION. Has the spaceship really returned? - This is where the two time-crossed storylines come together in a shivering and shocking way. Because what Lucky and friends see, is NOT the ORION they've known all these time. It's a broken and aged ruins of the spaceship! Dang it, the goosebumps. Don't forget, there's a price for trying to break the rule of nature. A small alteration in the past will affect the flow of time and reality in its future... and this must be one! Does this mean, the real one is destroyed in the past?! Oh good heave, I hope not! But the scene that slowly shifted back in time... only confirms that concern. ORION has indeed crashed down on Earth, and its passengers are on the ground, wounded and unconscious. And standing in front of them, is none other than... Sir Orion!!! Fun fact: Orion is played by actor Kai Shishido, who is the son of legendary actor Joe Shishido. He's not new to Tokusatsu, having played DASH Captain Shigeru Hijikata in the 2005's "Ultraman Max". Looks like Shishido was added to the cast later on, because I don't think he was the actor we saw in Eris's story. That one was younger, smaller in figure, and has much lighter skin! Something that obviously a nitpicker like me would've noticed... LOL. It's a tad disappointing, because having felt familiar with his face, I've been really curious about that mysterious 'temporary' actor. Guess I won't be getting my answer anytime soon. But at the same time, I'm not complaining about Shishido. He DOES has a powerful presence worthy of an important character. Beside, if my theory of Orion being Lucky's biological father pans out, his surname would make for a perfect pun! The kanji means another, but 'Shishi' is 'Lion' in Japanese, right?

Overall: Oh wow, one surprise after another huh? Thank goodness we got a lighter episode last week, otherwise I don't think my heart is ready for such intensity to come every week. This episode left me with a bitter taste, which was both sad but good. Realizing that Naga can't actually be saved, felt like swallowing a bitter pill that refuses to go down the throat. It made me feel... hopeless. But such uneasiness could only land if audience deeply cares about him and Balance as characters, which is a really good thing. So call me hypocrite, but I'm glad the Dark-Naga arc isn't resolved too quickly. Otherwise I'd be quite disappointed. Thumbs up to the writers this time for a strong focus episode for Balance. Much needed praises also goes to the sound department, because once again, GREAT use of fitting BGM to amplify the scenes. The melancholic ones during Naga and Balance's heartbreaking moments worked gorgeously by adding shade and tint of sadness. I might have some minor nitpicks about this episode that affects my score, but overall, a truly excellent episode... Next week: Orion, oh ORION... PS: We're back to "Kyutama Dancing" as the ending theme, but this time Tsurugi has been added to the equation. Also, alongside teaser for the first Bluray Box set, the official trailer for V-Cinema "Episode of Stinger" has been aired. It's available online if you're curious about it.

Episode 28 Score: 8,3 out of 10

Visit THIS LINK to view a continuously updated listing of the Kyutama / Kyu Globes. Last Updated: September 5th, 2017 - Version 2.13. (WARNING: It might contain spoilers for future episodes)

All images are screencaptured from the series, provided by the FanSubber Over-Time. "Uchu Sentai Kyuranger" is produced by TOEI, and airs every Sunday on TV-Asahi. Credits and copyrights belong to their respective owners.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

The Vindication of Venom Part 12: Appendix and Conclusion

Part 11

There were numerous side points I wished to make in the main parts of this essay series. However since they would have derailed my central arguments or else didn’t really address the central questions I proposed I cut them. But I didn’t want to simply throw them away or present them altogether out of context for this series. 

As such I’ve included them below alongside my conclusion to this series.

Power Trip

An important aspect to consider in Brock’s portrayal in ASM #300 is his callousness and general attitude towards violence.

When it comes to violent acts (or even just the prospect of them) Brock reacts with humorous, delight or at times nonchalance.

I’m not suggesting Brock was always like this as evidence of him always being a twisted person. Rather I think he developed these approaches towards violence from a few potential places.

The easiest explanation for it would be that his actions and attitudes are all part and parcel of his continued delusional state. He’s so out of touch with reality he no longer can perceive the horror or immorality of his violent acts.

 Potentially his attitude is an outgrowth of his long-term furious workout regime where he visualized himself performing violent acts on Spider-Man over and over again as he obsessively exercised.

Visualization can have a powerful effect upon one’s actions and mind, especially when done repeatedly and with such fervour as in Brock’s case. Remember he was also looking at pictures of the person he hated to motivate him.

However I’d suggest the more likely (or most prominent) explanation is that upon bonding with the symbiote Brock went on a massive  power. As an extension of this his own delusions and his desire for revenge would’ve been further fuelled through the acquisition of raw, tangible physical power. Such an experience also wouldn’t have helped if Brock were already somewhat narcissistic (see his proclamations of his journalistic skills and respect).

After all, many of Spider-Man’s villains have had their egos explode once they acquired super powers. Doctor Octopus is a prime example if one were to re-read Amazing Spider-Man #3.

Whilst Doc Ock might be excused on the grounds that his origin was created in the 1960s, in 2000 story ‘Revenge of the Green Goblin’Norman Osborn’s origin was recounted and telling the readers that he felt himself above mortal men by virtue of his newfound super strength.

In fact Spider-Man himself goes on, if not a power trip, then at least a radical inflation of his ego upon gaining his own powers. He talks about how much better the powers now make him and how above the mockery of his peers or petty concerns for other he is. This is even featured on the cover of his first appearance.

To an extent one might argue that such a power trip is natural for most human beings. Indeed having superior physical power is a dream and desire engrained into the collective consciousness of all mankind. It is a very big reason why we have mythic figures such as Heracles, Sampson and even our modern day superheroes. And those with power (physical or otherwise) often times feel it entitles them to assert their wills and dominate others simply because they have the means to do so. Might makes right.

 Power trips can prove particularly poignant for individuals who’ve lived with a sense of helplessness/powerlessness in some way in their lives (especially if their new power is physical in nature). Such people who obtain power will almost inevitably see their egos inflated and this could include a presumption in (and further entrenching of) their own righteousness. Part of that could involve a tweaking of the facts (or their perception of them) to suit themselves.

 In the wake of the Sin Eater scandal, Brock had lost his career. He’d lost the degree of ‘power’ he could assert as a journalist. He was forced to seek out work from writing drivel he found repugnant and demeaning. He lived in a run down area. And to him all this happened because some asshole butted into something that wasn’t his business. And that person was nothing less than some anonymous, inhuman ‘hero’ with powers beyond mere mortals like Brock (meaning he had little hope of exacting retribution). Eventually he was in such despair he was seriously considering ending his own life. Under these circumstances I think it’s safe to say he felt incredibly powerless.

 So when the symbiote came along and abruptly handed him immense power, power in fact similar yet greater than the person he blamed for his woes, inevitably there was going to be an adverse affect upon his mind, his actions and his very perception of himself and his life.

 The raw physical power the symbiote lent him gave him free reign to his violent inhibitions. Brock likely he felt that the usual constraints of society no longer applied to him, hence not only his violent actions as an outlet for his rage but his casualness, joy and twisted humour in relation to those acts. When it comes to Spider-Man he was also handed another form of power, knowledge of his secret identity and the power to render Spidey’s greatest defence utterly useless, both of which (as far as he knew) were profoundly unique to him. The idea that the very act of gaining this immense power affected his mind is hinted at in ASM #300.

 After being handed the means to free himself from his wretched existence and make his fantasies reality Brock became akin to a kid in a car on their way to Disney land. Excited and delighted at the prospect of getting to make their dreams come true. This is rather nicely reflected in the second Venom story, specifically the climax in ASM #317.

On the other hand his humour could’ve been a by-product of his experience as a writer where he might have needed to be witty or funny at times. Or maybe he just had a particular dark sense of humour.

However I think it makes much more sense that his attitude towards violence is more poignantly tied to what I discussed above. In his mind the rules of regular society and ‘lesser people’ (i.e. weaker non-super powered people) no longer apply to him. His power (and his ‘suffering’) puts him above all that, so it doesn’t matter if some people get hurt along the road to his personal gratification; he is justified.

Furthermore you could also argue that his constant visualization of Spider-Man’s violent death likely desensitized him to the idea of violence to some extent.

 Echo Chamber

In Web of Spider-Man #1 we learn that the processes of symbiosis cuts both ways meaning the symbiote could itself be influenced by it’s host.

For what it is worth this is somewhat corroborated in Spider-Girl #100.

Though Spider-Girl exists in a different universe from the mainstream 616 version of Spider-Man it had an identical history to the 616 Marvel Universe up until about the stories published in 1998. The series was also shaped mostly by veteran Spider-Man writer/editor Tom DeFalco, who is recognized as an authority on Spider-Man if there ever was one. DeFalco actually penned ‘Spider-Man: the Ultimate Guide’ back in 2001, at the time the most definitive Spider-Man information book ever.

Spider-Girl #100 was itself not only worked on by DeFalco but also Ron Frenz who along with DeFalco actually introduced and explained the symbiote’s origins back in the 1980s.

 However yet more corroborative evidence is provided in Brian Michael Bendis’ run of Guardians of the Galaxy as well as Robbie Thompson’s run on Venom: Space Knight, both of which assert that the symbiote was ‘corrupted’ through exposure to it’s hosts, something common to it’s species.

This can go some way to explaining the symbiote’s hatred Spider-Man despite it also caring about him and attempting to save him in Web #1. It was influenced by Brock’s own hatred of the wall-crawler.

 However since ‘symbiosis is a two-way street’ and we see clearly Brock talking to the symbiote in ASM #300 it is possible Brock could’ve ‘felt’ the symbiote’s hatred for Spider-Man. This then could have validated Brock’s own hatred for Spidey and caused him to double down on his warped interpretation of events.

 If you accept that Brock and the symbiote could to some extent influence one another, this could then be said to have created a kind of echo chamber, or rather an ‘amplifier chamber’.

 That is to say Brock’s hatred for Spider-Man causes the symbiote to hate him more. Then the symbiote reflects those increased feelings of hatred back onto Brock. This would then magnify Brock’s hatred for Spidey and he’d reflect that back onto the symbiote, and the cycle would begin again. The end result would be both individuals have their hatred amplified and their rationales for said hatred continually validated. These notions were also implied in the above image. 

 Role of Religion

Eddie Brock’s religious beliefs cannot be dismissed when analysing the character.

 To begin with he was a man in despair when he encountered the symbiote. He was considering suicide and though he couldn’t go through with it, he was still in a state of helplessness. The symbiote’s arrival must have seemed to be a kind of miracle to him. He even talks about their meeting using religious language.

  He was a man of faith in his darkest hour praying for help in a holy place when and then from above him the answer to his prayers appears. He gets a constant, affectionate companion who shares his deepest darkest desire and gives him all the means he could ever need to fulfil it.

 For a desperate religious person how could Brock not see this as a sign from God that his feelings and vengeance is righteous?

 Of course in reality his use of this newfound power is utterly contrary to the faith he holds as so important. Conceptually not only does this hammer home the hypocrisy of the character but also highlights his insanity, coding him as a ‘religious lunatic’ type of character.

 In a sense Brock is representative of numerous individuals throughout history who act upon religious beliefs and use them as justification for their actions despite ignoring other core tenants of said religion. The Ku Klux Klan, the Westboro Baptist Church, the Spanish Inquisition, the Knights Templar, Al-Qaeda and ISIS are just some of the many examples of groups  of individuals like this throughout history.

 As mentioned in Part 8, the most illustrative example of Brock adhering to this archetype is his inability to kill himself  due to his religion despite his willingness to take the lives of others. However there are other examples to be found in ASM #300.

The time period of the issue’s publication is important to these notions too. Remember this is the late 1980s.

In America during the late 1970s/early 1980s there had been something of a resurgence in traditionalist religion and with it of course a certain degree of religious zeal to accompany it. More poignantly you saw the mainstreaming of tele-evangalism, moral panics about the stuff that the kids were into and things along those lines.

This accompanied of course a certain peaked interest in the occult. These elements being part of the early-mid 1980s pop culture is what led to products such as Ghostbusters and the X-Men graphic novel God Loves Man Kills to be produced.

Though the embers of that had died down when ASM #300 was published in 1988 it was still there, as evidenced by the X-Men crossover Inferno in 1989 centred around the idea of a demonic invasion of New York city.

 In this context the religious aspects of Brock’s character and how they are conveyed act as shorthand to the readers that Brock is ‘a religious lunatic’. As times changed perhaps that shorthand became less prevalent to consequent readers. However it is still patently obvious.

 Dark Reflections

I stand by my statements from Part 3 that Michelinie’s primary conception of Venom did not involve him being a ‘dark reflection’ of Spider-Man. However by accident or design the character’s debut does grant him some traits that render him along these lines.

To begin with he obviously possesses Spider-Man’s powers, uses them for evil and does so whilst wearing a villainous version of Spider-Man’s costume that also has a darker colour palette. The basic ‘dark reflection’ villain starter kit.

Beyond this though Venom’s physicality and fighting style is different to Spidey’s. Peter is a muscular man with a lean build who uses his powers in combination with his intelligence (leading with the latter) to win battles. Brock by contrast has a bulky body build and relies upon overwhelming his opponents with his superior physical power to win battles, though he isn’t honestly stupid.

 However where Venom is truly a dark reflection of Spider-Man is in contrasting their respective origins and motivations.

  Brock is a foolish, immoral and possibly selfish actions in letting a dangerous individual roam free ruined his career. But he accepts no responsibility for what he has done, instead flimsily blaming a third party. 

This led him to consider giving up on life until he gained power that he then used violently for the selfish goal of murderous revenge. It is a mission he at times carries out with a dark twisted sense of humour and feels is in it’s own sense heroic.

 In direct contrast Peter Parker used his newfound power selfishly too, but for financial gain as opposed to anything truly violent or hurtful. He even resolved to use his financial gains to help a third party, his aunt and Uncle. Like Brock his ego and selfishness led him to make a mistake that allowed a dangerous individual to go free. And like Brock he paid for that act, but the cost was far larger than simply losing his career. 

When the dust settled he accepted responsibility for his mistake and blamed himself  for what happened and went on to do the same for other events in his life. This included many things that he wasn’t honestly responsible for. He then used his powers to altruistically defend life as much as he could, simply because he felt it was the right thing to do. And he never gave up on his own life no matter how heavy the burden became, often employing witty good natured humour to help him deal with things. 

 Or to really boil it right down, Spider-Man is a hero who embraces the responsibilities of his life and uses his powers to safeguard life, whereas Venom/Eddie Brock is a monster who doesn’t truly take responsibility for anything and uses his powers to endanger life.

  I don’t know if that was truly David Michelinie’s intent in creating Venom. If it was then his interest and focus for the character was evidently elsewhere.

  Nevertheless in this sense comic book Eddie Brock is not only a dark reflection of Spider-Man, but a damn good one too.

  Creative Value

Eddie Brock in so far as his motivations are concerned amounts to a disturbed individual with an obsessive hatred for Spider-Man over an imagined slight.

 From a creative perspective this is actually a pretty great conception for a Spider-Man villain than most people give credit for.

I’m sure many people reading this essay series will simply hand wave a lot of what I’ve outlined in prior instalments as:

He’s crazy so he can do anything. Lame!

However that is grossly oversimplifying what I’m saying.

A vital part of Spider-Man’s conception is that he is (relatively speaking) the everyman superhero who juggles his secret identity with the realistic ups and downs of life. Peter Parker’s secret identity not only serves to allow him to have those common life experiences, but also protect himself and those close to him from danger at the hands of his enemies

 Of course these enemies mostly consisted of Spidey’s established rogue’s gallery of super villains. Readers could presume the numerous nameless common crooks Spidey had nabbed might seek vengeance upon him if they knew his secret identity

  However Eddie Brock represented another side to Peter’s foes. He was the unseen enemy. One of the dangerous and disturbed individuals who wish to do serious harm to Spider-Man and his loved ones for irrational reasons. 

 This is not only very much in line with Spider-Man’s core concept as it is entirely realistic, but it is also pretty frightening. Perhaps it is even frightening precisely because   it is entirely realistic.

Most of us do not have actual enemies in our lives who want to do us serious harm. But Eddie Brock represents how sometimes in life you can earn the ire of someone dangerous for no logical reason. Maybe something you did had an unpredictable tangential effect that negatively impacted someone. Maybe you just bumped into the wrong person. Or maybe you just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 In these ways the existence of Brock as a villain reinforces Spider-Man’s need for a secret identity. He just reinforces that need from a different, uncommonly tapped angle than one might expect.

 Original Origin

As I touched upon back in Part 1 David Michelinie’s original origin for Venom was very different from what we wound up with. Let’s revisit what he said in his own words. 

Initially she [Venom] was a woman...The whole idea is that whenever I write a character I try to utilize the unique aspects of that character. And one thing Peter Parker had that no one else had was his spider sense...Someone flings at him from behind its a reaction he doesn’t even think about it, he ducks. And this has saved his life so many times I started thinking ‘Well, what if there was a villain who didn’t trigger that spider sense? How would he react? How would he cope with that?’

And they had already established in Secret Wars that the black costume didn’t affect Peter’s spider sense. So I started working out a character who would join with the symbiote costume and actually be a villain...

...My original origin story had been a woman who was pregnant and...her husband was trying to flag a cab as she was going into labour, and a cabbie was driving along looking into the sky at the Living Monolith, tying it into that graphic novel, [Michelinie wrote the Graphic Novel in question] where Spider-Man was fighting the Living Monolith...and he hits the husband and kills the husband...the shock of this sends to woman into premature labour and she loses her child, all because the cab driver was watching Spider-Man. So she became unhinged and when she got out she had this fanatical hatred of Spider-Man, blaming him for the loss of her husband and their unborn child. And that drew the symbiote to her and she became one with the symbiote and was going after Spider-Man...

Michelinie’s plans changed though when he was apparently told readers wouldn’t accept a woman fighting Spider-Man.

Many people use this original story as ammunition against Venom’s origin from ASM #300. Their points generally focus upon how the alleged problems with Venom stems from Michelinie having to come up with something different for his character at the eleventh hour.

However that really doesn’t quite add up when you really think about it.

Surely if Michelinie et al were conceiving their new male Venom at the last minute it’d make sense to just play out the same intended story but simply switch the roles and genders. That is to say that in the revised origin it was Eddie Brock who witnessed his (possibly pregnant) wife run over by a taxi driver who was too distracted by Spider-Man. Consequently he would then blame the wall-crawler for his loss?

But what we got in ASM #300, whilst retaining a few broad concepts from the intended origin (a stranger to Spidey blames him for ruining their life, bonds with the symbiote to kill him, etc.), is essentially a page 1 rewrite of the Venom character.

Brock’s origin and desire from revenge come from a radically different place from his female prototype. In fact they are actually much more complicated.

 I do not mean more complex, I mean that the A>B>C chain of events forming his origin has more elements to it and less direct than Michelinie’s original version of Venom.

Compare and contrast

a) During a graphic novel your supposed to remember, a cab driver is distracted by Spider-Man swinging by>runs over pregnant woman’s husband>the shock of seeing this causes pregnant woman to lose baby>woman blames Spider-Man>woman becomes unhinged>woman bonds with symbiote and becomes Venom

To

b) Someone confesses to Eddie Brock that he’s a serial killer from this older Spider-Man story you’re supposed to remember>Brock publishes the story>Spider-Man catches real killer>Brock is fired>Brock is unable to get work other than sleazy tabloids>Brock blames Spider-Man>Brock contemplates suicide but is super religious so he goes to a church>symbiote finds and bonds with him and they become Venom

One is a lot simpler and more direct than the other right?

In other words it is unlikely that Michelinie just threw something together at the eleventh hour.

More than this though, many of the ideas underlying Venom’s motivations are still present in the original female (let’s call her Edwina) conception of the character.

·       Both Eddie and Edwina’s origins tie into a previous storyline. The Death of Jean DeWolff and Revenge of the Living Monolith respectively.

·       Both endure misfortune that Spider-Man is tangentially involved with but cannot reasonably be blamed for.

·       Despite this both latch onto Spider-Man for ruining their lives.

·       Both stories involve a third party more directly at fault for their misfortunes. For Edwina it’d be more logical to blame the cab driver and for Brock it’d be more logical to blame Emil Gregg or even Stan Carter.

 Note what Michelinie also said in his rundown of Edwina’s backstory (emphasis mine).

So she became unhinged and when she got out she had this fanatical hatred of Spider-Man, blaming him for the loss of her husband and their unborn child. And that drew the symbiote to her and she became one with the symbiote and was going after Spider-Man… 

 ‘Unhinged’ and ‘fanatical hatred’ a descriptors entirely applicable to Eddie Brock as well as Edwina. As I went to great pains to illustrate in prior instalments, Eddie Brock is a man not in his right mind. He is not someone who is operating along sane, rational or logical lines of reasoning, at least not the kinds most people live their lives by. Understanding this is the key to grasping Brock’s intentions as a villain and his motives for despising Spider-Man.  

 Michelinie’s recounting of Edwina’s backstory also arguably supports another facet of Venom’s origin: the idea of him being an everyday person and a stranger to Spider-Man. Like Brock Edwina was someone Peter Parker didn’t know. She was a civilian affected tangentially by his actions as Spider-Man and who then blamed him for an imagined slight. This touches on both the fear factor of Venom being someone who could exist in reality, the philosophy of Spider-Man as an everyman and arguably the idea of Venom as a stalker character.

 Uncanny Origins #7

As I mentioned in the main body of the essay series, Uncanny Origins #7 is a retelling of Brock’s origin and other events in his life.

 It is however more than likely non-canonical due to the various contradictions to older stories it presents. Nevertheless it does illustrate (perhaps more clearly than Amazing Spider-Man #300) a lot of what I’ve discussed about Brock from Part 7 onwards.

 In the retelling you see 

Brock’s ambition

His narcissism

His being called out for shoddy journalism (and thus by extension his lying about his skills in ASM #300)

The erosion of his self-esteem

His growing obsessive hatred of Spider-Man

How this was informed by Spider-Man’s costume

The religious context he views his transformation in

And of course Brock’s warped perception of reality and delusions. This is even called out by Venom himself when the story retells his transformation into an anti-hero

Note however that the retelling goes beyond the events of ASM #300

Some Circumstantial Evidence

There is some further food for thought to be considered regarding the ‘unsatisfying mystery’ of Venom’s identity.

 First of all, lets bear in mind David Michelinie’s prior work. This is the man who co-created enduring characters such as Scott Lang, Taskmaster, Justin Hammer, James Rhodes and many others. This is the man who scripted/co-plotted what is regarded as the definitive Iron Man run. This is a writer who had at least around ten years worth of experience writing comics by the time he penned ASM #300.

 With this in mind I find it extremely difficult to believe that a writer with this much experience would honestly make such a rudimentary misstep as to have a mystery story, then reveal the culprit as someone whom no one could have guessed because he was a complete stranger to the audience.

Even novice writers know enough about mystery stories via pop cultural osmosis to reveal the culprit’s identity as someone the readers already know, or at least could’ve become aware of in the course of the story.

It is therefore very suspect that such a massive and obvious mistake would be undertaken by a writer who’d been around the block a few times by 1988. In the past I’ve criticised the way Dan Slott handles his mysteries but even the flaws in his mystery storytelling never comes from revealing someone to be a complete unknown. His big reveals are genuinely reveals, with the culprit being someone the readers would be familiar with, even if they might not have been able   to deduce them as the culprit in the first place

Then you have the fact that Michelinie spoke about the origin of Venom with critically acclaimed writer extraordinaire, Peter David.

 Apparently a writer of David’s calibre felt no pressing need to point out the seemingly obvious oversight that Michelinie was resolving a mystery by revealing the culprit as an utter stranger to the audience. Less than a year before ASM #300 David himself had to resolve the controversial Hobgoblin mystery and as unsatisfying as this was to many people, he certainly didn’t just say it was someone no one had ever met.

 Furthermore David has been on record as stating he really likes Venom and felt he had a good start as a character. Which is an odd thing for such a skilled and acclaimed writer to say about a mystery character’s identity being completely impossible for anyone to solve.

That is unless as I stated in Part 5, the Venom storyline was never intended as a legitimate mystery story in the first place.

This is also backed up when one considers that Venom’s presence in ASM #300 was apparently because then editor Jim Salicrup wished to debut a new villain.

Regardless, Salicrup seemingly didn’t feel the need to point out that the reveal of Venom’s identity was obviously unsatisfying as a resolution to a mystery storyline. One would imagine that as an editor shrewd enough to have made Kraven’s Last Hunt runt through all the Spider-Man titles and innocuously referenced recent issues in ASM #298, he’d catch such a glaring problem. And in catching it would demand the character’s identity be someone the readers were familiar with.

 But he didn’t. Which makes quite a bit of sense if the point was not that he was the centre of a mystery so much as he was simply a new character.

 Finally, whilst this doesn’t quite prove my points definitively I did in fact go so far as to personally ask David Michelinie directly about the issue of Venom’s identity.

ME: Mr Michelinie, I am currently writing a series of articles analyzing Venom’s earliest appearances and wondered if you could be so kind as to answer a query I had about Amazing Spider-Man #300.Essentially I would like to know why did you choose to make Venom/Eddie Brock a previously unknown character?

DAVID MICHELINIE: It was a new character, a clean slate, one with a fresh background, origin, personality and motivations. Why would I want to limit what I could do with it by making it a previously known character?

I strongly feel the above further cements that Venom’s status as a new character was the real mission statement behind him, as opposed to being the subject of a mystery story.

 Spectacular Misconceptions

In Part 3 I discussed how the readers mistook some of the core ideas behind Venom and saw something different in their place. This then led to them misunderstanding and misinterpreting the character.

However this phenomenon is not exclusive to the comics.

On the (exemplary) Spectacular Spider-Man Animated Series Eddie Brock was a supporting character, with his arc throughout the first season gradually building to his transformation into Venom.One particularly talked about scene for his character was in episode 11, ‘Group Therapy’.

In the episode Eddie Brock takes Mary Jane Watson out on a date to get back at Peter Parker for several perceived slights.Their date consists of a less than safe motorcycle ride wherein Brock rants about Peter in an angry and unhinged manner, including mentioning the death of their parents.

Many viewers of the show felt the scene was out of nowhere and inconsistent with the character as had been established. This point was made particularly in light of earlier episodes such as episode 3 ‘Natural Selection’, in which Brock (a normal young man) risked his own life to try and fight the Lizard.

However the intention by the makers of the show was to convey that Brock was in fact somewhat unhinged and had a death wish. His risking his life against the Lizard wasn’t meant to be taken as an act of heroism but as an example of very dangerous recklessness, feeding back into his unsafe driving later on.All of which was meant to underscore how this show’s version of the character was somewhat in love with death due to the loss of his parents.

For whatever reason the idea and intentions of the character as presented didn’t quite reach many members of the audience and the same is true of the comic book Venom too.

Professional Opinion

The character of Venom is near and dear to me and it is because of that affection that I was inspired to write this essay series and make it as comprehensive as possible.

To that end when it came time to tackling the sticky subject of Brock’s motivations I wanted to be able to speak with a certain degree of authority.

Consequently I actually printed off the relevant pages of Eddie Brock’s earliest appearances from Web of Spider-Man and Amazing Spider-Man #298-300, wrote up some background context presented them to someone who’s studied, taught and worked in the field of psychology, even writing a psychology curriculum. They also have a keen interest in literary analysis but relatively little knowledge of comic books and Spider-Man in general. This is because as a 58-year-old resident of the United Kingdom their potential exposure to the wall-crawler was limited at best.

 We then had a few lengthy conversations about Brock’s mental state and motivations and they helped me to pin down many of the points I’ve made in the course of this essay series.

It was this psychologist who outright diagnosed Brock as someone experiencing Delusional Disorder as part of a serious psychosis.

They also corroborated that were we to take Brock and Spider-Man as analogues to real life people that Venom’s origin and motivations were entirely believable, even ignoring the influence of the symbiote.

 Conclusion

Venom/Eddie Brock as presented in Amazing Spider-Man #300 is categorically NOT  the poorly written or poorly conceived mess of a character that people have painted him as since 1988.

 Rather the character’s perception has suffered due to two key intertwined factors.

 Unwarranted presumptions of the character then exacerbated by somewhat poor communication of the concepts underpinning him.

 However when one truly examines the character it becomes obvious that there is little wrong with him inherent nature or intentions as a character.

 Venom as originally conceived is in fact a pretty clever and psychologically layered character who posed a very potent threat for Spider-Man and had a unique place, even iconic, place in Spidey’s already superlative rogue’s gallery as he touched on themes and concepts close to the heart of the character.

Part 11

[asktheadeptus]

Eldar - Religion and Relations

The Eldar Gods

The Pantheon of Eldar Gods is considered to have been destroyed by the creation of Slaanesh. While the Eldar still revere all the gods of the pantheon and preserve their stories within the mythic cycles, they do not call on them for aid or hope for their intervention any longer.

Kaela Mensha Khaine, God of War

Kaela Mensha Khaine is one of the only two surviving Gods of the Eldar before the recent awakening of Ynnead. In the old Aeldari pantheon, he was second only to Asuryan himself in power, and was often shown as the enemy of Vaul. He is also the most violent and reckless of the gods. Asuryan was so appalled by his murder of Eldanesh, a mortal Eldar, that he cursed Khaine and made his hands drip eternally with the blood of Eldanesh so that everyone would remember what he had done. The Eldar say that when Slaanesh awoke, he/she (Slaanesh can appear as either gender at will) consumed each of the other Eldar gods in the Warp in turn. While his counterparts were all devoured, Khaine took up his great sword and did battle with Slaanesh instead. Khaine was not strong enough to destroy Slaanesh, but he was too powerful to be defeated. Instead his psychic signature in the Warp was broken, and scattered into pieces. These pieces were driven from the Warp where they had done battle and came to rest in the heart of the Infinity Circuit of each Craftworld. These pieces of the god became the Avatars of Kaela Mensha Khaine. In times of war the Eldar can awaken him to lead them into battle, though the price is the sacrifice of an Exarch's life, for the Avatar needs to possess a physical body to enter the material universe. The Avatars of Khaine are towering monsters with skin of iron and molten cores, hands permanently dripping with blood as Khaine's did.

Cegorach (The Laughing God), God of the Harlequins

The only other surviving god of the Eldar Pantheon, Cegorach, also known as the Laughing God, the Great Harlequin, the Great Fool and the First Fool, was a consummate trickster and artist of the Eldar Gods. While most of the Eldar Gods were destroyed by Slaanesh during the Fall of the Eldar, according to legend this deity survived because his mocking nature distanced him from the collective psychic corruption and decadence of the ancient Eldar empire that birthed the Chaos God Slaanesh. Other legends tell that when all the other Gods were destroyed, Cegorach fled before Slaanesh until Khaine rose to do battle with her. It is said that during the fight between Slaanesh and Khaine the Laughing God hid behind Khaine for protection, and in the aftermath of the struggle Cegorach fled into the Webway where Slaanesh could not find him. He still resides there, and is the only being in the universe who knows exactly where every door in the Webway leads. As the master and patron god of the mysterious Harlequins, Cegorach is the only Eldar God that still remains in his original form. The Harlequins are protected from Slaanesh in a different way from their Craftworld brethren. While Craftworld Eldar wear Spirit Stones which absorb their souls when they die to prevent them from being devoured by Slaanesh in the Warp, the Eldar Harlequins are directly protected by their faith in their God's power, becoming one with his Warp emanation upon their death. The only exception to this are the Harlequin Solitaires whose souls must be won from Slaanesh after their deaths by the Laughing God.

Asuryan, King of the Eldar Gods

Sometimes known as the Phoenix King, Asuryan was the king of the pantheon of Eldar Gods. While the mythic cycles seem to indicate that he held sway over all the others, he was nevertheless consumed by Slaanesh in the Warp. He is often depicted in relation to fire and light, his chief symbols.

Isha, Goddess of the Harvest

The Great Mother of the Eldar race, Isha is a fertility goddess in many respects. She was imprisoned by Khaine for a period of time, until Vaul paid her ransom. She is often depicted crying, and her symbol is a teared eye, symbolic of her sorrow in being separated from her mortal children. Her tears are said to have solidified to form the Spirit Stones which keep the Eldar safe from Slaanesh after their death. It is rumored that the Chaos God Nurgle coveted the Eldar fertility goddess, and rescued her from consumption by Slaanesh only to imprison her in his decaying mansion that lies within his foul realm in the Warp. Nurgle "cares" for Isha by feeding her the various diseases he concocts, only for her to whisper the cures for each one to mortals when his back is turned.

Vaul, God of the Forges

The artificer of the Eldar Gods, Vaul is one of the central gods of the Eldar Pantheon, and an enemy to Khaine. In order to purchase the freedom of Kurnous and Isha, Khaine demanded one hundred blades from the Smith God. Vaul was unable to finish the last blade in time, and so hid a mortal blade amid the others of immortal craftsmanship. This fooled Khaine long enough to get Isha and Kurnous to freedom, but when he realized he had been tricked, he cried out for vengeance. Vaul finished the final blade, Anaris the Dawnlight, and took it to do battle with Khaine. Though it was the greatest of swords, Khaine was the better warrior and crippled Vaul. The smith is often shown chained to his anvil, the punishment that Khaine set upon him.

Ynnead, God of the Dead

Ynnead is a dream, the embodiment of a possibility that has yet to be fully realized. Some Eldar Seers long believed that when the last Eldar dies during the Rhana Dandra (the Final Battle with Chaos), Ynnead will be born from the Warp with the strength of all the Eldar souls stored in the Infinity Circuits of the Craftworlds and the World Spirits of the Exodites. Ynnead will then have the power to destroy Slaanesh forever in a final battle, thus correcting the mistakes which led to the Fall of the Eldar and allowing the race to be reincarnated into a universe free of the taint of Chaos.

Or at least that is what the Eldar believed would happen for almost ten thousand standard years. Then, in 999.M41, during the Battle of Port Demesnus on the moon of Coheria, the High Farseer Eldrad Ulthran partially completed a ritual intended to awaken Ynnead using the power of the souls found in the Infinity Circuits of every Craftworld in the galaxy. While the intervention of the Imperial Deathwatch interrupted the ritual before it could be completed, the God of the Dead was partially awakened, and sought out a champion to complete his rise in the form of Yvraine, the Daughter of Shades. Yvraine founded a new Eldar faction dedicated to the Whispering God's resurrection known as the Ynnari. The Ynnari, with members drawn from the Craftworld Eldar, the Harlequins, and the Dark Eldar of Commorragh, seek the restoration of the ancient Aeldari race by collecting the artefacts known as the Croneswords from across the galaxy. Their combined ritualistic use at a single focused point in realspace will allow Ynnead to fully manifest his power in the Warp, where he will combat Slaanesh, hopefully destroying the Prince of Chaos and freeing the Eldar from the soul-devouring curse of She Who Thirsts forever. Only then will the Eldar race, restored to the unity of the ancient Aeldari, seek to rebuild a new and better interstellar empire.

Other Eldar Gods

Kurnous, God of the Hunt - Kurnous was the Father of the Eldar race and the companion and consort of Isha. He is often shown in conjunction with hounds, hawks, and other trappings of the hunt. Along with Isha, the goddess of the harvest, he too was imprisoned by Khaine.

Gea - Gea was a female Eldar God that existed within the pantheon of the Eldar race. She is notable for being the consort of the twin deities Khaine the Bloody Handed God and Asuryan the Phoenix King.

Hoec - Revered amongst the near-invisible assassins known as Eldar Pathfinders, the mysterious wandering Eldar divinity known as Hoec is said to be one with the Webway, and has walked the paths between planets since the stars themselves were young.

Lileath (also known as Lilcarth), the Maiden - Lileath was the Goddess of Dreams.

Morai-Heg, the Crone, Goddess of Fate and Souls - The Crone-Goddess Morai-Heg is the consort of Khaine and the third in a trinity of female Eldar Goddesses who appears as an ancient and withered creature who holds the fate of mortals inside a skin rune pouch. In Eldar myth she sought to partake of the wisdom contained in her divine blood. She manipulated Khaela Mensha Khaine to cut off her hand so that she might drink deep of her own vitae. With this deed Morai-Heg gained the knowledge that she sought, and in return, Khaine gained the aspect of the banshee. The original homeworlds of the Eldar that were lost to the Eye of Terror after the Fall became known as Crone Worlds, a reference to the Crone Goddess. The inhabitants of Craftworld Iybraesil are noted for being followers of Morai-Heg.

Cobra-God - The Cobra-God is an animistic creature of destruction who does not care who is caught in his wake; he is venerated by the Exodites.

Scorpion-God - The Scorpion-God is an animistic spirit of defence, brother of Cobra; he is also a spirit deity venerated by the Exodites.

Serpent-God - The Serpent-God is an animistic creature of secrets who knows all there is to know in the universe; he is the third major spirit deity venerated by the Exodites.

Relations With Other Races

As with most of the primary factions in the 41st Millennium, the Eldar have no particular love for any of the other major intelligent races in the universe. Though they abhor the Forces of Chaos more than any other since they have lost more than most civilisations to the predations of the Ruinous Powers, they do not particularly desire to share their knowledge or co-exist with their fellow space-faring species. They have been known to trade and have relations with the other Elder Races.

Mankind

Relations between Mankind and the Eldar were not always sour, but perhaps the current state of warfare between the Eldar and the species they derogatorily refer to as the mon-keigh (literally "mammals" in the Eldar Lexicon, though with a derogatory meaning closer to "monkeys" in Low Gothic) could be blamed on the events preceding the Horus Heresy -- most notably, the meeting between Fulgrim, Primarch of the Emperor's Children Legion of Space Marines and the Eldar Farseer Eldrad Ulthran upon the Eldar Maiden World of Tarsus during the Great Crusade. Both leaders had come in peace to discuss the Imperial Compliance of the planet and Fulgrim's willingness to ignore Imperial doctrine on the matter and leave the Eldar's Maiden Worlds unconquered by the Imperium, but the main issue that Eldrad was attempting to pursue was that the Imperial Warmaster Horus had turned to Chaos, and sought to betray the Emperor of Mankind. However, Eldrad was unaware that Fulgrim had already been tainted by contact with the Slaaneshi daemonblade that he had recovered from the world of Laeran, and the supposedly peaceful meeting soon turned into a bloody battle when Ulthran sensed that the Emperor's Children had already been corrupted by She Who Thirsts. Being that Fulgrim was unaware of the existence of a Chaotic taint on himself and his Astartes, or even what Chaos was at the time of their meeting with the aliens, the Ulthwe Eldar's actions were seen as a betrayal and great insult to the offer of friendship and peace that Fulgrim had offered them with the Imperium of Man. Hence, Mankind and the Eldar have been at nearly open war since the days of the Horus Heresy.

Though they have had no love for the Imperium of Man, which they view as a brutish, repressive and extraordinarily arrogant government (though in truth no more arrogant than the Eldar themselves were before the Fall) the Eldar typically leave human settlements alone and have fought side-by-side with the Imperial Space Marines and troops of the Imperial Guard on multiple occasions, though they have been known to attack unprovoked for reasons of their own and have used other races as shields against certain threats such as the Orks. In campaigns like the Gothic War and the 13th Black Crusade, both races have been seen working together against their common foe of Chaos. In truth, though neither species will ever truly understand the other, and there are a great many differences between them, they both need the other to survive the terrible threats that face both races and they are both far more alike in their mutual arrogance and disdain for other species than either would be comfortable admitting.

Orks

As the most primitive intelligent starfaring race in the galaxy, the Eldar look down upon the Orks and all of their actions. Essentially a green wrecking ball hurling through space, the Orks destroy and loot every world in their path. This has put them at odds with the Eldar many times. However, due to their limited intelligence, the Orks have often made excellent pawns in Eldar schemes designed to save Eldar lives from another, even more potent threat from the Imperium or the Tyranids.

Chaos

As the first race most predominantly affected by Chaos, the Eldar have devoted all of their resources to battling the forces of Chaos whenever possible. This has made them temporary allies of the Imperium on occasion though such partnerships rarely last beyond the span of a few battles.

Tyranids

The Tyranids are a seemingly unstoppable force in the universe, the origins of which are still unknown. The Eldar have dedicated much of their time and sacrificed many in the fight to stem the spread of the Tyranid Hive Fleets. Though only three major Tyranid incursions have actually occurred, the universe is forever under threat from further Hive Fleet invasions. Billions on all sides were sacrificed in the fight to stem the Tyranid flow, but the Eldar are not above sacrificing entire human worlds in favor of diverting the swarm away from their own Craftworlds.

Perhaps the most notable conflict between the Eldar and the Tyranids was the bloody battle between the Craftworld Iyanden and Hive Fleet Kraken, which reduced the massive Eldar cityship to mere remnants of its glory, and which was saved only through the timely intervention of the Pirate Prince Yriel and his Eldritch Raiders.

Necrons

The Eldar have much experience with these dark, evil beings since they were originally created by the Old Ones to aid them in their ancient war with the Necrons. The Eldar have been searching for ways to rid the universe of the foul Necrons for thousands of years. The Necrons are a threat to all life in the universe, putting the Eldar in alliance with the Imperium once more against this foe. As usual, such alliances are fleeting and do not last beyond major battles against the Necrons.

Tau Empire

So far, there have been no reports of any major contact between the Eldar Craftworlds and the Tau Empire. However it can be assumed that one of three things would happen should the Eldar and the Tau have more contact: The Tau see the Eldar as a threat to their Empire and the Greater Good, the Eldar Craftworlds come to view Tau expansionism as a threat to their way of life, or the Tau offer the Eldar a place in their Empire, which the Craftworlds would view with outright scorn. As the Eldar ultimately want to re-establish their own interstellar empire, they have no desire to bow to the effectively newborn interstellar civilisation of the Tau. As such, the Tau's hopes for the Eldar would be ill-founded. Finally, the Eldar and the Tau may come into conflict because the Eldar don't believe in the Tau's overriding philosophy of the Greater Good. The Eldar were sailing the stars long before Mankind, never mind the Tau, and have actually physically interacted with their own Gods in the past. The Tau Empire's philosophical belief of the Greater Good would seemingly have little appeal to the far older, more cynical Eldar, most of whom would likely consider Tau ideology to be grossly naive.

Source: http://warhammer40k.wikia.com

[riddles-of-the-unknown]

* Notes: The Library and The Dutchess of Knowledge

Extensive section on the founders of Sigil.

o   Nothing referring to Ravisrim

o   Nor The Unknown

o   That Which Waits is the Source of Knowledge.

§  The Knowing. . . Is it this?

§  This is even more in line with my thoughts. . .

Souls and the breaking of barriers

o   Souls are not often used to fuel most magic

o   When used they are consumed

o   No longer returned to the everlasting cycle

o   Astral Sea

o   Used as a last result

o   Known to break any barrier and rip tears through time and space.

Ren yelled about the plane.

o   The Lost histories of Andah.

o   Mention of the 3 Magi that sacrificed themselves to make a barrier made out of souls around the plane.

o   The Hua were running from something.

o   Sought refuge on Andah because it was a lesser known plane.

o   Seemed it was going to fall prior to the soul barrier

o   History of the Hua

o   Kin to humans.

o   Slight offshoot

o   Technological ingenuity and superiority

o   Travelers

o   Frequently traded with other planes to add to their technological collective.

o   (messy and poorly spelled)

Talking weaponry (Bran)

o   Sentient weapons

o   List of known sentient weapons.

§  Gorecarver

§  Other various names

§  The Outlander’s blade

Reference number.

It is a blade that was lost to time in an outside plane, frequently spoke of waiting for its bearer to arrive.  Not meant to someone native to whatever plane it was on.

Frequently used by warriors who would sing songs to inspire allies in combat.

Never figured out where it went.

Demons

o   Sticking together in small groups.

We head to the adventurer’s guild.

o   Jeremiah

o   Tankard with other adventurers

o   Tiny sword strapped to his back.

o   Chrys has little leather armor.

Calendar book.

Revenant.

o   Writing something.

The portal is super guarded right now.

Demons

o   Started showing up shortly after we left.

o   Lady of Pain issued an order and now they are allowed.

Not to hassle them.

Not allowed to join the adventurer’s guild

Allowed into the plane to help establish order.

Once saw someone do that and they became an immediate red stain.

Bones are to inflate like a balloon.

Lafi is very curious about Dad jokes.

o   A really

o   Have to be a dad to make a dad joke.

Clucking and everyone laughs.

Flattering that Ren thinks she’s turning into a werewolf.

Can bite and claw at things.

Cloaked figure

o   If you’re looking for the Dutchess, you can find her in the Library.

o   A beard made out of tentacles.

o   Robes made out of tentacles.

Trades one for one.

o   Nothing is free.

o   Omnipotent.

o   If you want infinite sorts of knowledge you get infinite sorts of Knowledge.

Duchess of Knowledge

o   Portal in the back of the library.

o   Get what you give.

What I want

o   Knowledge on my path to becoming what I am. (Dark One.)

o   Perhaps give a part of what I am.

o   Knowledge on What is Not.

§  Riddle of What is Not (?)

o   Knowledge on That Which Waits.

o   Knowledge on How to Stop the Destruction of Andah.

§  Knowledge on the destruction of Andah.

Giant temple with the walls made out of glass.

o   Walls and walls of books?  Things trapped beneath this glass?

o   Preserved instead of red.

o   Big orb that is green and glowing.

o   End of the hallway big double doors.

o   Deep green.

Lafi thinks she got the cops called on us.

Sitting at the opposite side of the room is this massive woman made of glass.

Moving.

Room made out of paper and pages.

Light catches against it.

Hand reaches into the globe to retrieve a paper.

Apparently waiting for us.

Answers she can give.

Made the way anything is made.

I offer knowledge on making a book. 

o   How to figure out what I am.

§  Continue upon your path.  That is how we all discover who and what we truly are.  Your path is simply clouded I think.

o   Like many things you were birthed.  But you experienced two births I think.

o   One of body, one of mind.

§  Note: …. I. I don’t feel like this is like any other thing.  Not who I am, what I am.  

Ren has a question.  Wants to know about

Such a thing is not possible without great sacrifice.

o   A body must be retrieved from the components that a body if formed of.

o   The earth the water the fire and the spirit.

o   Many of these elements reside in one place and one place alone.  Have to be brought together.

o   The Feywild.

o   Only there that a body can be remade.

Due to the fact that this is knowledge that she is not privileged to show the entirety of, will offer it for free.

Revisrim was one of those who founded this great city

Came from the deepest of the deep sea.  (Astral sea?)

Gave knowledge to all those who would ask questions and gave them safe haven.

o   All that she is allowed to speak of.

Lafi asks about the voice which had no body.

The Duchess needs the voice without a body to be identified more specifically.

Many things that wish to consume planes.

Asked to give the story of a delicious meal.

That Which Waits is one of those entities that she spoke that seeks to consume planes to destroy that which has been given life.  To have a return to the great Nothingness.

o   That is all she knows.

Beyond the pale(?) of this realm.  Sits along the Outer Reaches and waits.  Hence the title.

Lafi asks ‘say that I got the cops called on me.’

o   Would they come here?

o   Would they follow her in, or be waiting for her outside?

o   “You have made things extremely complicated.  But it will be taken care of because you are the chosen from An’dah.  That which has been closed will not be a hassle to you. Do not do it again, whatever you did. Promise?”

o   I have seen just about everything, and that’s new.  Can I do that at the next dinner party we all have?

Once long ago she (the Duchess of Knowledge) usurped the title of Knowledge from a scholar who presented that which he wished to hide.

o   All of the rulers are simply fragments of those who began the city.

o   She was quite naughty when she broke away.

o   Also painted the Lady of Pain’s temple pink at one point.

o   The Rulers aren’t allowed to hurt each other.  Thankful of it.

The Master of Planes has been looking for us.

Ah Saint, hello.

o   Where does Saint come from?

o   An old friend of the Rulers.

Saint is a deity from another plane.

o   We have a god dog~

Patron Saint of Friendship and Companionship.

o   On his home plane.

He got lost in his travels.

Ren asks if he’s going to go home.

o   It seems he might want to stay with us.

I ask about What Is Not.

o   Would have to hell a tale of all that is, and all that Will be.

o   Claims all that Will Be is quite different from What is Not.

The symbol of Ravisrim

o   His sigil.

o   His identifier

o   Apparently stands for the scholarly pursuit to banish the Unknown.

o   To Know all that will be and all that has been.

o   Her acolytes have lost the original meaning.

Lafi asks if Ravisrim was the one The Duchess of Knowledge usurped.

o   It was.

o   Is Revisrim That Which is Not?

§  No.

o   Note: This isn’t surprising.  The Unknown is not a man, The Unknown is What is Not.  I had figured that Revisrim had taken the symbol, and perhaps attempted to use it for his own ends. . .  Or perhaps followed What is Not and brought the symbol with him in its reverence.

I ask what happened to Ravisrim.

o   To earn this knowledge, I have to tell what has happened to me.

o   I speak vaguely of when I became … awoken to what I am.

Perhaps it is your purpose to find that which is Unknown.

o   To finish what Ravisrim began.

o   What happened to him, what did he begin?

Ravisrim began to search for the Unknown.

It is said that he found it.

o   That is all that the Duchess of Knowledge knows about what happened to Ravisrim Tysenlar.

o   R a v i s r i m T y s e n l a r  -  (x)saiav’l(a)irn(n) Mystr(i)(f)

Purpose to find that which is Unknown.

Doesn’t know why the symbol stands for banishment of the Unknown, when it completely contradicts the seeking of Knowledge.

o   The Unknown is necessary for the seeking of Knowledge; how else will one seek? Question?  Become?  How else will sentience exist at all?  It cannot.

o   The Duchess of Knowledge does not know why.

I ask if she knows why the nature of the symbol changed, and that those who follow her see it in the regard of banishing that which is not.

Some things change over time.

o   Very few things remain the same as the worlds turn.

o   “That which may be your truth now may no longer be mere minutes from now.”

o   The nature of what is not, and what is.

o   She claims one side cannot exist without the other.

§  Note: I don’t know if this is so.  However, they work well together.  

They are capable of changing the way things are, if they desire.

Take care of them now Saint.

Head outside, can hear the city life.

Golden Path leading to a sky blue temple.

Come up to a familiar temple.

o   Silent blue

o   Elaborate set of chimes.

o   Familiar sound of chimes, tone hit up against the bell.

o   “Ah greetings.”

Called to tell you and ask questions of you.

o   Portal to plane now opening.  Slow and gradual.

o   Portals are opening sporadically, and people coming through.

o   Those that are coming through the portal are being taken and cared for by the guards.

o   Well versed in taking care of newcomers.

As portal opens

o   Time on Andah will warp

o   Significantly slower as they spin across to connect.

o   Occasionally they see glimpses.

Demons have been roaming our streets once more.

Not good nor bad as long as they abide the rules.

Little they will do.

A creature known as Baylon struck a deal with The Lady of Pain.

The thing that eventually connects their plane with the greater Astral Sea.

Another group of demons

o   Invasion

o   Waiting on Baylon’s word.

o   Long last the war will come to an end

o   They’ll get their vengeance

o   The Hua will be destroyed.

o   Demon rounds the corner takes a leak.

o   Greenish looking, barbs

Really small, hunched over fleshy looking creatures.

General bar.

Demi-humans.

o   ‘Commander’

o   ‘Getting ready.’

o   ‘Lorat’ a nod

o   ‘waiting for Baylon.’

Giant pig people behind the bar.

Lafi and Ren sit at a table.

o   The Hua will finally be destroyed once and for all.  This War will finally end

o   Baylon’s commanders will take

o   Lorat managed to buy someone’s loyalty.

o   Baresh seems to be looking into magical things to find new ways of spellcraft working with a mage who is well known for experiments.

o   Salim trying to buy up weapons and armor, frustrated because people are not working with them.