#i think growing up i connected more to animal characters than to humans

[chickpea0]

Hey there!

I saw your post about looking for a fursona species and I thought I’d give you some ideas! No pressure to choose any of these, I’m just a big animal enthusiast and I picked most of these at random. I tried to choose animals that are not too common to see in fursonas and animals that aren’t just mammals just in case you’re looking for something different/want variety! Anyways here’s a little list for you and I hope it helps!

Pangolin

Sun Bear

African Wild Dog

Binturong

Saola

Patagonian Mara

Coati

Fossa

Pink River Dolphin

Pink Fairy Armidillo

Dumbo octopus

Echidna

I have more suggestions if you want them, but I didn’t want to make the list too long. If none of these are what you are looking for, I’ll definitely share some more ideas if you want!

Eek! I'm an animal enthusiast too! And actually a lot of these animals are ones I've considered before!! I love love pangolins and sun bears and binturongs (and that they smell like popcorn) and in fact the only animal you listed that I haven't considered is the Saola!!! I had to google them but I recognise them. Very cool colouring. Thank you very much :>

[janearts]

ASDLKFJADKJ I love how you two immediately jumped to 'ok but like... is he #4 material?' (For those wondering, "What The Hell Is A #4?", the answer is linked here for reference.)

(The way to a woman's heart is through her favourite animal, obviously.)

Halsin is very much Roisia's type physically—aka large and in charge—and he has character traits that she would be attracted to: he's kind and compassionate, strong-willed and decisive, gentle and slow to anger, and in possession of a wry sense of humour and a keen intellect. So, yes, in that regard, Halsin definitely stands next to Wyll on the "suitable suitor to bring home" list. Top tier. Well done.

Additional rambling thoughts below the cut.

The trouble with Roisia when it comes to matters of the heart is that she unwittingly looks at a person, thinks she knows their true desires, can play out their combined future in her head, and judge them as compatible or incompatible without questioning her basic assumptions about that person. So, for example, Roisia would in many ways find Halsin an ideal romantic partner. And then, she would get into her own head. Like so:

Halsin is an archdruid. An elf accustomed to leading a notoriously outdoorsy lifestyle in a grove. Roisia is going to someday inherit an entire funerary business and wants to stay in Baldur's Gate, known for being not-at-all grove-like. Surely Mr. Outdoorsman will feel cooped up and miserable in a city if he thought the Grove was too comfortable for his tastes. Incompatible!

Halsin is all about the Natural Order of Things. Balance. Guess who disrupts said natural order when she takes dead things and reanimates them? Roisia. Roisia does. So they're at opposite ends of an ideological spectrum. Incompatible!

He's an elf; she's a human. They are on two different timelines as regards their lifespan. Unless Roisia can guarantee her own extended lifespan in a way that preserves the flesh on her bones in addition to her bones, she wants to grow with her #4 and not outpace her #4. Incompatible!

Again, these are assumptions that Roisia would make about Halsin, and I think she would ultimately write him off as a potential #4 more out of fear of some future rejection down the line than of Halsin necessarily explicitly confirming any of these assumptions to be true OR as relationship dealbreakers if they were. I want to shout out to @gracelessrogue for their tags:

It would not occur to Roisia that she could bond with a druid and a healer over life and death. If she would only think to challenge her own baseline assumptions about what she thinks she knows about the people she's travelling with, I think she would see the ways in which she could nurture long-term romantic connections with one or multiple of our possible companions.

Because, as it is, I think the larger issue is that Roisia would write off not just Halsin, but all the current known companions as not being a good fit for her #4. I don't think she would look at any of them and say: 'This person would stay with me in the city of Baldur's Gate and be totally, completely comfortable and content in a house with bodies in the basement, my skeleton father roaming the halls, and a graveyard right out back.'

Granted, it's still only Act 1/EA, but that's just a real bummer.

[the-rat-eatery]

Angel Dust’s arc in Episode 4 is so incredibly important to him as a character. It can not be overstated how much I love the direction the team is going with him. He's this person, right, this fundamentally good person, just like most people are, who was born into a bad situation and didn’t really have much of a chance in life, and, therefore, in the afterlife. He is a tragic person, made more tragic by the fact that no one fucking knows the depth of the tragedy. You can see that he’s a good person with how he asks Val not to hurt Charlie in the dressing room, despite knowing that Charlie is far more powerful than Valentino and that he was in the real danger here. You see that he’s a good person with how he gets Charlie to leave afterwards, he is rude and terrible to her, but you can look at his body language (something that we can meaningfully analyze due to this being an animated show and knowing that all the decisions made with the body language and expression are made expressly on purpose), you see how gentle he actually is with her. And he’s a good person that had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time– and that led him down a road of pain, and hurt, and addiction. He isn’t wrong in the episode– he does know how to take care of himself. He has all these years, hasn't he? And he's still up and functioning, still a person who cares about other people in the end. And so ‘Loser Baby’ is so incredibly important: to survive, Angel built up this persona of someone who survives. He is resilient, he bounces back from humiliation and mistreatment (there is this moment at Husk’s bar where you can see Angel just– steel himself against Husk’s nagging and continues on with his shit as if he is completely fine), he is an actor, he is perfect and unreachable– but in ‘Loser Baby’ he not only finds actual, real companionship with someone who wants him as a person and not as a body, he also acknowledges his own humanity (“I’m a loser baby”)-- he is at rock bottom, you can’t get much lower than where he is. He’s a fucking loser, by any objective measure. He allows himself to be an actual person instead of a person-a for the first time in who knows how long– and that gives him strength, brings him a friend to fall back on. He’s finally got a safety net in the hotel, and now an emotional safety net in Husk and maybe even Charlie, so he can start to maybe get better. 

The strength of this show isn’t going to be in ships or violence or drama. It is going to lie in messed up people getting better, making connections, growing. I think that this is a very delicate balance to be struck, one that should be maintained as the baseline that the show always returns to. I really hope that it doesn’t lose sight of its strength.

[teecupangel]

What about a kitsune Desmond, a white fox appears shortly after Altaïr's birth white as snow with one black leg and golden eyes it follows Altaïr for his entire life seemingly never aging and smarter than any animal should be. Years after Altaïr's death Des feels a pull and shows up at the birth of Ezio and gains a second tail, the same trend continues with the Frye twins, the Kenways and the other two post Altaïr protagonists whose names escape me right now which if my math is correct leaves him able to get his ninth tail as he steals his infant self from the farm

I'd imagine he'd get more powers from each tail he grows maybe foxfire with his second (fire that burns as bright as the sun) and gaining a human form around 4 or 5

I’m going to be honest with you, nonny, I know a bit about kitsunes, specifically fox spirits, because one of my favorite characters during my childhood is Daji (specifically Dakki from the og Houshin Engi anime) and I never stopped loving her in all her malicious tyrannical glory.

While fox spirits/kitsunes can be benevolent or malicious, a lot of fox spirits are shown to be trickster.

… and seducers.

Like, being able to shapeshift into beautiful women and men who ‘bewitches’ or seduces humans are signs of how old a fox spirit is XD

But I kinda like the idea that Desmond remains as a fox the entire time, never changing in size or weight.

His tails can easily be ‘disguised’ into one tail by making sure they all move as one so it just looks like he has one big bushy tail (which is strange but not ‘mythical’ strange).

Now, we want Desmond to have 9 tails so the list of people would be:

his initial tail

Altaïr’s

Ezio’s

Edward’s

Ratonhnhaké:ton’s

Arno’s

Evie’s

Jacob’s

The ninth tail would be his own infant self.

My suggestion for his powers are, depending on how many tails he has, he unlocks:

Immortality and eternal youth (default)

Foxfire (kitsunebi) – the number he can summons grows with the number of tails he has

Dream sharing with his current connection (Ezio, Ratonhnhaké:ton, etc) – he always appears as Desmond Miles in their dreams

Shapeshifts to Desmond Miles

Shapeshifts to any human he is familiar with (having genetic connections with them makes it faster to shift to their form)

Shapeshifts to anything that is not human

Possession (having a genetic connection with Desmond Miles makes it easier to possess that person)

Ability to cast illusions that are almost impossible to distinguish from reality

Omniscience due to a direct connection with the Calculations

(These are all powers that are more or less seen in kitsune stories. If you think there’s too many shapeshifting powers, kitsunes are also known for being able to turn invisible, can fly, bend time and space or make people crazy)

Oh and making Desmond a white kitsune is *chef’s kiss*. In folklore, a white kitsune has reaches the top of its powers and is called celestial/heavenly which is a good foreshadowing on how powerful Desmond could become.

If I may suggest, whenever Desmond uses his foxfire, his tails is engulfed in white flames like this (but white and gold and without the ���seal’:

[beyond-justice-009]

is there anything about light yagami specifically that makes you connect with him, or is it a general interest in death note?

I’d say both honestly! I adore his character in more ways than one, and I think a lot of people misinterpret him due to the anime’s portrayal of him- which is fair enough, until you read the manga and find he’s not some psychopathic monster.

He’s full of expressions that the anime deprives him of (the same goes for Near, he was a lot more playful in the magazine version!) and you can really tell that he’s constantly trying to look normal, if we completely ignore Kira entirely- he’s been like this his whole life. He wants to be the perfect son, the perfect student, and one day, the perfect police officer.

So when he ends up killing someone with the death note, he can’t live with himself- how could he have made such a horrible mistake? His hands were soiled - that is, unless he made a world where it wasn’t a mistake anymore. He could still be right, still be good.

I also feel it’s worth bringing up this post that’s stuck with me for ages-

This. This is why I love him, why he resonates with me so much.

People forget he’s not just human, but he’s a kid. He’s a kid who had his childish worldview cemented in his head by external factors beyond his control, and he was never allowed to grow out of them- if he did, he wouldn’t be righteous anymore.

And that’s also WHY he feels like he’s the one who has to do all of this. His hands are already soiled, he’s already been tainted by evil. The least he can do is try to prevent others from having to make the same mistake, the same choice- which means getting rid of the people that you’d have to make that choice against. Which is also why he didn’t give up the death note- Ryuk would find someone else, someone less selfless, and he’d be responsible for whatever damage that new person would do because he turned it down. It doesn’t matter if he’d forget the death note, because he’d still have that itching feeling buried in his head, that something isn’t right.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love L, too (though certainly not as much as I love Light) and I love the Wammy’s Orphanage and the general implications of raising a child investigator- but there’s one thing - and ONLY one thing - that separates L and Light.

L has the support of the police, the justification of the law, and Light does not.

If it were L who’d decided to start doing this, everyone would be excusing it like “oh well it’s his job, he just decided to be more efficient about it” or covering it up entirely. The government hates when you do their job better than them.

Anyway I’m definitely getting ahead of myself here- I think I’ve explained myself pretty well. Thank you for the ask! This was refreshing.

[whxre-bxby]

Miles, Mansk, Lyle - meeting and pregnancy headcanons

Requested by anonymous

(omg all 3 of them in one shot) ... (the gif)

Sup bitches, here we go again with our 3 big boy hotties. I have 7 assignments due tomorrow and my nose is bleeding, but let’s do this. 

ALSO TYSM FOR 300 FOLLOWERS! I posted my first Quaritch smut on the 18th of January and I had like 20 followers. IT HASN’T EVEN BEEN A MONTH AND I AM AT 300?! WHAT? You’re all angels, thank you so much. I love providing you guys with filth and imagines ad I plan on continuing to do so in the future <3

Warnings: Fluff, pregnancy (if that’s a warning), hinting to smut (nothing explicit) maybe some bad language

Characters are all recom and Na’vi! Y/n is recom-Na’vi too. 

Word count: 4752

Miles:

Before both of you woke up in your new bodies, you worked closely with Miles as a human. You were a pilot and a part of his squad. Nothing romantic happened before, other than teasing and flirtatious comments. But back then, you thought it was just who he was. 

When you woke up, he was there by the side of your table, helping you sit upright and keep balance while the people ran a few reflex tests on your new body. 

The teasing escalated to a type of sexual tension between both of you, to the point where neither of you could be in the same room without feeling excited and attracted to the other. 

One day, Miles decided to deal with the feelings because he was sure you felt the same. He visited your room and boldly asked you out as if it were a completely normal day-to-day thing. You on the other hand were freaking out and almost jumped into his arms.

What I didn’t know was that he had spent the last hour or two trying to figure out a good way to ask you out and make it seem effortless. The man was nervous to blow his shot with you because he realised that he became really attached to you. The realisation hit him when you and the team went on a mission and were attacked by a few predatory animals. One jumped at you and you hurt your arm.

Miles saw what happened and absolutely lost it. He was ready to kill anything that got close to you and managed to fight off the pack of creatures alone. The recom-team was too shocked by his sudden outburst to interfere. 

From then on, he demands you walk right next to him. 

After that incident, he knew it was getting obvious and out of hand, so as I said, he asked you out. 

It wasn’t like a “Hey, I was wondering if you would like to have dinner with me sometime.”

He knocked on the door, hands resting on his belt, pretending not to be fazed by seeing you in pyjamas. He didn’t even greet me. 

“I’ll cut straight to the chase Y/N. I know you want me, cupcake, so let’s do something about it.” he said, walking towards me so that he backed me up away from the door and thereby entered my room. 

We can all imagine what happened after that. Anyway, so after a few mind-blowingly good hookup sessions, I was the first to confess that I had feelings for him. That I wanted to have more with Quaritch than just sex. He was shocked and it made me think he didn’t agree with that, but he was overjoyed with what I had said and the love confessions led to more sex. This time though, to prove our love for each other, we connected our tsaheylu’s and bonded for the first time.

Quaritch and I were then officially dating and I became pregnant after that night. 

I didn’t know whether that’s what he wanted, but biologically, that is the product of mating. So he should probably already know. 

Anyway, I told Miles I was pregnant and the man immediately got soft. Like I mean his eyes sparkled, his ears perked up and then drooped to the sides and his tail stilled. 

I could have sworn I saw a few tears form in his eyes. Miles would stand up and embrace you, holding you close to him while telling you how happy he was and how much he loved you. Of course, he would then hold your tummy, even if there was no visible bump yet. It amazed him that his child was growing in there. 

From then on, he would become even more protective of you. No more dangerous missions or physically exhausting exercises. 

He would bring you things, even if they were something tiny you missed. He would make your comfort and needs his number one priority. 

If you craved some food, he would fetch it. Miles even started to cook for you, wearing an apron and cooking meals in pans and pots. He looked like a real male wife and it made you love him so much more. 

Once the bump started growing he would caress and hold it every night. Carefully he would lean his ear against it until one day he could finally hear the baby’s heartbeat. 

He wouldn’t leave you alone and when he would, he would supply you with everything you could possibly need beforehand. Luckily, it never got annoying.

Being close to labour, Miles would only let particular people close to you. His recom team was fine. Sometimes he would make sure one of them looks out for you while he would go deal with work. 

You knew the team from work anyway so having either Z-Dog or Lyle, etc. look after you and spend time with you wasn’t new. 

They just had to make sure no people or random workers from the General would be around you. They stressed him out which made him think they would do the same with you. 

When you went into labour, Z-Dog was with you. She ran from your room to the meeting Miles was in. Once he heard, he got up and sprinted to your room without a second thought. He got the medical team together and didn’t leave your side as they rolled you into your prepared labour room. 

A few hours of pain, pushing and contractions went by and Miles was stressed out. But most of all he was worried. 

He didn’t want anything more at that moment than for you and the baby to be okay. It had haunted him that your life could be in danger during birth. The life of your baby too. 

He would comfort you and hold you, doing breathing exercises and all to help you deal with the pain. 

Once you started to give birth he was cradling your head, holding your upper body while you dug your fingertips into the skin of his arm, screaming. 

He hated seeing you in this pained state and needed to hold you close to make sure you were still with him. He had his eyes screwed shut and waited for any sign that this whole thing was over. 

The second he heard the cries of your baby he froze. Miles felt your body relax into his and he opened his eyes, making sure you were present and stable before turning to see one of the nurses holding the baby. It too was alive and breathing and the man just broke down. 

He was so thankful to have you by his side and he couldn’t believe the pain you had just fought through. 

The baby was handed to you and he leaned down, cradling both of you. 

He was crying at the realisation that he had a family now and he could have sworn that he was the happiest man alive. 

Mansk:

Mansk was working alongside you since you were both people but back then, you never acknowledged each other. You didn’t remember his face or know his name and vice versa. While both of you were loyal soldiers to Miles, you worked in different areas. 

When you woke up in your Na’vi body, he wasn’t there. He was already taken care of and dealing with Lyle. 

Z-Dog and the Colonel had helped you up. Once everyone was stable and awake, Quaritch ordered a gathering at dinner. 

Zdinarsk shared a room with you and you were given your usual cammies and some tops that basically looked just like sports bras. She found an old shirt which covered more and refused to let me have it. When we were in underwear and changing we spent at least 10 minutes in front of the mirror together, just pointing out to each other what has changed and what was weird.

Then we left for the dining hall and most of the team was already there. When we walked in Miles greeted us with an “Evenin’ ladies.” and a smirk. 

“You don’t have any clothes Y/N?” Lyle teased and I flipped him off, sitting down next to a chuckling Z-Dog. 

“You call that a shirt, Lyle?” I respond, gesturing to his tight, thin tank top. He scoffs, smiling before we direct our attention back to the Colonel. 

Mansk was sitting next to Lyle. When you walked in it was almost like Cupid’s arrow had struck him straight in the chest. He knew most of the team but he can’t recall ever seeing you. He recognised Z-Dog but he knew you weren’t Walker. As I walked past him, his gaze followed me and examined me from head to toe. 

Mansk was someone who would accidentally develop feelings. He was never a relationship type of person but when it happened, he didn’t know how to deal with it. 

Over the course of the next few weeks, he tried ignoring the feelings that were developing for you. 

But when the Colonel assigned you both as partners, he knew he was screwed. At that time, I had noticed Mansk too. He caught my eye because he would almost always wear his shades but when he didn’t I thought he looked quite cute. Then eventually came the time when I started to even like the sunglasses on him until I realised that maybe I just liked him. 

As partners, he would help with things. At first, we didn’t exchange too many words but then we warmed up to each other. If I was stuck with something like reloading a weapon I’d never seen before, he would help me. 

We had to practice training exercises with our partners at one point. That included learning how to handle the new equipment and weapons. 

There was one that you would need to strap to your arm and waist. I never used it like that, so when Mansk brought it over to me I just stared at it cluelessly. He chuckled softly. I loved it when he did that. 

Mansk knew how to handle all of these things. 

“Here, let me help you.” he said, placing it on my outstretched arm. His hands closed the straps around my arm and then he moved behind me, taking the straps that were meant to go around my waist between his fingertips. I pretended to examine the new weapon while really I was paying full attention to him. I felt his breath behind me and I waited for him to close the straps. 

He did it gently, making sure it wasn’t too tight. When his fingertips brushed up against the bare skin of my waist (because we had to wear training attire which was a little revealing), goosebumps rose on my skin. I hoped he wouldn’t notice. 

Then he returned and stood next to me again, letting his hand linger on my waist while he stretched his other one out to adjust mine into place. 

“Keep your arm stretched, then it’ll work.” he said, leaning closer to me. His face was really close to mine as he looked to see where I was pointing the weapon. 

His breath fanned over my shoulder and I let my eyes flutter closed, subconsciously exhaling the breath I seemed to hold in while he was behind me. When I opened my eyes I saw from the corner of my eye that he was no longer looking at where I am aiming but at me. 

He definitely saw my eyes close. 

Mansk felt the tension from the beginning and he was happy he was the one training with you. He noticed the goosebumps, the shivers and the heavy breaths. 

But he still wouldn’t dare make a move on you. You were too precious to him. He didn’t want to fuck up all the progress he has made with you. 

I turn my head and look him deep in the eyes. He stares back at me, his eyes slowly flicking from one of mine to the other. 

I couldn’t take it anymore. I knew he wasn’t the type of person to initiate things, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. Mansk preferred to follow orders. 

“Kiss me…please.” I whisper, looking from his eyes to his lips and then back to his eyes to catch his reaction. 

The man’s heart skips a beat and you notice the way his listening ears perk up a little more at your words. His eyes go a little wider and seem to almost even brighten. 

Without hesitating, he pushes your arm down, grabs your jaw and pulls your face to his. He leans down a little to you and tightens the loose hand that kept resting on your waist. 

When you pull away he can’t stop himself from mumbling “You’re so pretty.” 

It drives you crazy and you go to lock the door. 

Within a few days after that, your relationship has been made official. Mansk and you are dating and have mated the way Na’vi would. Even though neither of you had any experience in this body, the connection made with the tsaheylu’s felt right. 

When he heard you were pregnant, he was delighted. Mansk lifted you from the ground, hugging you and spinning you both around. 

He became much more present and happy in general, to the point where the team would notice it too. 

He took care of you, bringing you things. 

When you would go on missions he would never leave your side and one day, you had a craving for food bars. He ordered the few soldiers that were with us to stop and started opening his backpack, presenting you with almost every flavour and even drinks. 

Mansk was prepared for everything. 

He would do tasks for you and he liked carrying you around, even when it wasn’t necessary. Sometimes, he would have both of you stand in front of the mirror and he would lift your baby bump for you. 

He loved to watch the way your face and entire body relaxed into him. It made him feel needed.

When you went into labour he was worried. His ears were constantly strained back and he would be moving out of the way constantly so that doctors could get to you. Seeing you in so much pain had him feeling very uneasy but when you asked him to hang around and hold your hand, he seemed relieved. You hadn’t forgotten him and you wanted him to be with you.

He was protecting the bed and you most of the time, making sure only the medics could see you. His hand would occasionally cup your face, just to keep you reminded of his presence and his want to keep you comfortable. 

Mansk fit really well into the role of being a partner and once he became a dad, he mastered that as well. While helping you take care of your child, he would never fail to ensure that you were doing well. Even after giving birth, he refused to not take care of you. Seeing you battle the pain like that amazed him and he felt bad that you were the only one experiencing it. So he would happily spend the next months after labour, making sure you could fall back into your previous good and active condition. 

Lyle Wainfleet:

You and Lyle had some history. As human soldiers, you got along well. You were both working the same job and always having little competitions about who could do something better to impress the Colonel. 

There came a time when you were stressed because while being a soldier, you helped out in the lab with Grace’s reports. You were in the now empty break room of Quaritch’s team and were having a crisis about work. Someone had accidentally mislabelled everything and now the whole experiment was a mess. 

Lyle had walked in on your study session and sat down right next to you. Of course, him being him, he couldn’t let you work in peace and quiet. 

He started teasing you, shuffling around your papers and taking your pen whenever you looked away. 

At first, you ignored it but Lyle didn’t give up, it seemed to just motivate him. He started to tease and provoke you even more, occasionally adding in a flirtatious remark.

For example “The papers should be burning with how hot you look right now.”, or

“Put the pen down, baby. I know a place more useful for your pretty lil’ hands.” 

Lyle is resting his chin on his hand, not taking his eyes off of you. He needs any reaction. Whether it’s you turning red or just telling him off, he needs something, otherwise, he won’t stop. 

After being ignored again, he starts to get handsy. Lyle is telling himself he’s doing this just to annoy you, but he also happens to like your company and does find you incredibly hot. 

He starts nudging your legs with his knee or touching your fingers etc. Little does he know the frustration inside you has been building up over the past hour and with his presence, you lose it. 

When his hand reaches out to your face and throw your pen down and snap. You scream at him, telling him off and cursing in every way possible. 

Lyle almost immediately retracts his hand back to safety and even flinches when you raise your voice. 

When you finish calling him about every insult you could think of, you see him just grinning at you and it makes you even more frustrated. 

“Wow. That was so hot.” he says, the grin staying plastered on his face. My mouth falls open in disbelief. I couldn’t take it anymore. 

I let my face drop into my open palms and let out a whine followed by a deep sigh. 

“Do you know what you need right now”? He asks and I know he is about to hand me some dirty idea as an answer. 

I was right. “You need some expert stress relief.” he chuckles, motioning to him. 

I look up at him, having given up on fighting his annoyance. 

“Stress relief?” I ask, clearly not impressed. 

“Yeah. I can make you feel good, baby.” he says, moving closer, still teasing. He expected you to flip him off or tell him how gross he was so he could continue with his shit. But while he watched you, he noticed your eyes grow a little wider. You didn’t look like you were about to yell at him again. 

He stayed quiet, trying to analyse your face. You looked almost interested in his offer. Lyle was speechless. He wasn’t expecting this but fuck, he was more than happy to give it to you. 

“Are you joking?” you ask, wanting to make sure he isn’t messing with you. 

He thinks about his answer, not wanting you to feel discouraged. “Not if you don’t want me to be.” 

I keep staring at him and he notices how flushed my face looks. That’s all the persuasion he needs before Lyle stands up. 

“Let me take care of you, baby.” he says, towering over you and cupping your cheek. When you nod, he pulls you up on your feet and leads the way to his room, which is closer than yours. On the way, you tease him about him calling himself an ‘expert’ to which he tells you to shut up and let him convince you. 

Let’s just say, he does indeed convince you. 

After that night, you two have a friends-with-benefits arrangement going. 

After the battle on Pandora, both of you majestically die. You watch Lyle get crushed by one of the big heavy creatures, which distracts you enough with shock and grief to not pay attention to a bow flying to you. 

When you wake up in recom, Lyle is next to your bed. He’s keeping a safe distance and rubbing his head while the Colonel is examining his fangs. 

“Welcome back, Buttercup.” he says, smirking. He helps me with the wake-up procedure so that I don’t get scared and understand everything. 

Lyle and I seemed to kick off right where we ended. It was almost as if nothing had happened, except for one thing, other than us being blue. He was more caring. Before, he would tease and occasionally make jokes that ended up being a little hurtful, but he never noticed. 

Now, he wasn’t doing that anymore. We would still joke, but he made sure to leave me out of it. 

After a very physically exhausting training session the Colonel had you all do, you were finally dismissed and you headed for the showers. 

Just as you were about to walk out of the shower, you bumped into Lyle who had apparently been waiting for you. 

He wanted to go in next and when he saw you leave he smirked. 

“Hey, so how we feelin’ ‘bout our little arrangement?” he asked, presenting his typical cocky character. Seeing your moist skin on your arms and neck and your damp hair had his mind going places. You were wearing your sleeping shirt and shorts but he still looked at you as if you weren’t. 

I had wondered about that too. 

“I don’t know.” I shrug. “You still wanna do it?” I ask him all innocent. I know what it does to him. It makes the man weak in the knees. 

“Do I want to?” he asks, sarcastically. “Babygirl, I think I’m gonna need you after seein’ you like this.” he smirks, taking a small strand of wet hair and tucking it behind your ear. 

Lyle had never done anything like that. Yeah, we’ve hooked up. The usual thing was him slapping my ass as he walks by or perhaps even resting his hand on my waist. But that was it. This here, that shit made me blush. It made my stomach erupt in excitement and not just for what was to come after he showered. 

I smiled, walking away to my room. “Come in whenever you’re ready.” I say over my shoulder. 

About half an hour later, I heard a knock on my door. When I open it I see Lyle outside, as expected. Only this time, his skin is damp too. And he isn’t wearing a shirt. Of course, why wear one if you’re about to take it off anyway?

He smirks and mentally pats himself on the back for choosing to not put it on when he sees how you struggle to take your eyes off his torso. 

“All yours, baby.” he said, slowly backing you up into your room and closing the door behind him. 

“I’m all yours and you’re all mine.” he said in a softer voice, placing his things down on your small table and slowly making his way to where you were standing. 

It seemed to hit him only then. You standing in front of him, still clothed but looking as beautiful as ever. The fact that both of you were Na’vi didn’t bother you. It was still Y/N and Lyle.

The way your big eyes looked up at him. It was almost loving and he sensed adoration more than arousal. 

A wave of happiness flowed through Lyle. Maybe you liked him more than just a fuck-friend too. 

Lyle was nervous as shit while taking his shower. He washed everywhere and kept looking in the mirror, wondering whether he even had a shot. You seemed keen on wanting to continue the arrangement but he started to feel more emotionally connected to you, not just physically. 

He stood in front of you now, gazing into your big curious eyes and losing himself in them. The silence was comfortable and he started to wonder how he could go about doing day-to-day activities without noticing or admiring you as a person. 

“Lyle…” you whispered out. But it wasn’t the needy voice he would have expected to hear. It was your real one. You were fully aware of this situation and not distracted by excitement. It made his heart skip a beat again. 

Lyle slowly leaned down to you, not even thinking about his actions. 

When your lips pressed against his, all questions were answered. You have never kissed properly before. Only during sex. This kiss meant more. 

When pulling away, you couldn’t stop yourself from mumbling. “I think I love you, Lyle” 

He froze and repeated your words in his head over and over again, staring at you in disbelief. God, did he love you even more now. 

You couldn’t get enough of him and connected your lips to his again. This time, he held you close to him. You wrapped your tails around each other and embraced the other as if they were all that mattered. In that moment, they were all that mattered. 

After pulling away again, Lyle said “Let me make love to you, Y/N. Let me show you how much you mean to me.” 

And once again, he proved to you that he stuck by his words. Instead of just fucking, you did make love. You mated, using your tsaheylu’s and everything. 

A week after your night, you discovered you were pregnant. Neither of you thought about the consequences of your actions so it shouldn’t have been a surprise but it was. The pregnancy was unplanned but when you told Lyle, he looked like he had been waiting for that news for months. 

He was the happiest person on the planet in that moment. You both sat down together to talk about your relationship and how you would deal with a child if you decided to keep it. Well, if they even did abortions on Avatars. 

You decided to have a child and Lyle had left to tell all his friends on his team. He was very bad at containing his excitement. 

During the pregnancy, Lyle was already like a mother. He brought you anything, like literally anything. 

You forgot your hair tie on the other side of the lab? He would go fetch it, even if you had many more around. 

Any food cravings you had, you got them served. Lyle couldn’t cook. He was shit at it and something always burned but he had your heart because he tried really hard. 

He would leave you little love letters and notes on the nightstand or in your bag if he wouldn’t be seeing you for a while. But when he gets back, he makes up for the lost time with lots of snuggles. 

Lyle treats you like a princess, no kidding. 

When your baby bump grew, the man couldn’t stop himself from drawing a face on it. 

During labour, he was out of it. Seeing you in so much pain had him freaked out. He was worried sick. Like, he genuinely felt sick. What if you wouldn’t be okay after this? What if the baby wasn’t okay? So much was going through his head and he felt so useless because all he could do was stand and watch while the love of his life seemed to be fighting for her life. 

While giving birth, he was holding your hands, demonstrating how to breathe in and out deeply to calm yourself down. He did everything he could and once the baby was born, he could have collapsed into the hospital bed next to you. He didn’t of course, he needed to be with you and the baby. 

It still amazed him that you had brought new life to the planet and had created a family with him. 

He’ll be the most amazing partner and dad you could wish for. Always helping you out and is ready to risk it all for those he loves.

[wyrmswears]

Hiii!

I know the au ain’t about Jay, but does he have an animal form? How did Edd & Eddna found him or he does not exist?

I do apologize for the amount of questions not being libber related😞

Pd. I also love wolf children i imagine Libby just recreating the feral Yuki scene right?

Hellooooo!! Had to think about this for a bit; I really didn't give Jay too much mind when making this AU lol. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed getting to flesh out this AU further using your questions so thank you so much for asking! :D I made the AU for Libber and Ice but it's always fun to expand on other characters and how the changes the AU makes affects them.

This post turned out longer than I expected (oops. I love infodumping about my AUs, sorry lol) so the answers in their entirety are under the cut! Spoilers for Prime Empire and Dragons Rising (though nothing particularly about s2) are mentioned though.

The short answers are: Jay is still adopted, Libber left him at the Walkers' doorstep before dying. And yes, Jay has a wolf form like Libber does, but he can't access it until after the Merge.

The long answers:

The second question is easy - the comic on my other post initially had a third page that would've answered this but I found it difficult to get to flow well so I scrapped it. When the Walkers arrive home after coming across Libber, they find Jay on their doorstep. The idea is that she had left him at a safe place as a final act before succumbing to whatever killed her. (Much like in Wolf Children, I don't have a particular cause of death thought out.) Ed and Edna don't make the connection between the child on their doorstep and the wolf on the highway of course, because why would they?

As for whether Jay has an animal form... On one hand I find it very amusing when characters of non-human heritage turn out to be just normal humans, and Cliff Gordon is still completely human in this AU, but I also think it'd be boring to ignore his heritage completely for the sake of the bit. After mulling it over I've come up with this:

Jay grows up showing quirks that align with him being half raijū, but nothing that can't be explained by him being the elemental master of lightning or just a peculiar (and probably neurodivergent) child; these are things like a fascination of thunderstorms, abnormal resistance towards electrical shocks, hyperactivity, a tendency to chew on things...

He has no idea that his biological mother wasn't human until after the events of Prime Empire when Wu, now aware that Jay knows he's adopted as he used it to reason with Unagami, requests to speak to Jay privately. He explains that, if Jay has an animal form then he shouldn't feel like he has to hide it from the team as he is sure that they'd accept him, much like Libber's teammates accepted her. This is sweet and all, but Jay is very confused what he means about having an animal form. And thus begins the explanation of who or what exactly Libber was.

After learning that he isn't completely human, Jay isn't really upset - hell, Zane and Lloyd have both dealt with the same thing and it turned out fine - but he only talks about it with Nya. This is part of my general characterisation of Jay where I feel like he doesn't keep too many deliberate secrets, but does only mention certain things about himself on a need-to-know basis meaning that, while he doesn't care if the team knows he's adopted, only Nya, Zane, and Pixal know that he is (Zane and Pixal for being present at the end of Prime Empire). Nya 'needs to know' because she is his yang thank you very much. Nya helps him to research about raijū and they find out that they can come in a variety of forms. Jay thinks he'd look like a noble and mighty creature, maybe a lion or an eagle. Nya thinks he'd be a chihuahua.

Nonetheless, that seems to be the extent of it; Jay doesn't figure out if he has an animal form or how to use it, and all that's changed is that Nya has become a lot more aware of her yin's oddities. That is, until Dragons Rising.

I think after the Merge, Jay has no issues with accessing his animal form: much like his mother, he's a wolf-like canid. If you told him, he'd probably never believe that he had spent the first 20-or-so years of his life with no clue to his heritage and no abilities related to it when his natural state of self after getting amnesia is to flux between forms. Maybe it developed as one of the strange effects of the Merge, or maybe its a new ability as a result of his environment, much akin to Cole's rock golem. Nonetheless, it serves as a message to Nya that this isn't the same Jay she knew before the Merge. He flaunts his heritage to the team that he never told and has changed, both physically and as a person, without her there to see.

As for the P.S, I'm not entirely sure what scene you are talking about - there's quite a few where I imagine Yuki could be described as feral lol - but Libber is overall quite alike to Yuki in my mind, particularly when she is younger and less concerned with hiding her wolf side.

[etradio]

I wish Tsuyu had a bigger role in the Uraraka VS Toga fight- kinda like how Iida had a role in Shouto VS Touya.

With Iida, not only is he one of Shouto’s closer friends- but he also contrasts and parallels Shouto and Touya’s relationship.

Tenya looks up to his brother, and Tensei is motivated to do better because of that- they have a very wholesome brother-relationship.

While with the Todorokis… Touya has literally tried to killed Shouto and even indirectly Natsuo. Shouto has literally done absolutely nothing wrong to Touya- he was a baby when most of Touya’s trauma was happening, and he wasn’t allowed near him growing up. But Shouto still loves him unconditionally.

Even though the relationship between the Iida brothers is so different from the Todorokis- Tenya can still understand how Shouto feels. Tenya couldn’t save Tensei- so that was why he had to do everything he could so Shouto could save Touya (and the rest of his family + the civilians)

Tsuyu’s backstory is explained in an extra manga chapter that was then animated in one of the OVAs. We get insight into her family and one of her friends- though we don’t really know the reason WHY she became a hero. We still don’t in way.

What we do know is that Tsuyu believed a hero is someone who follows the rules. She tells Toga this, and says that Uraraka doesn’t care about the rules- she just wants to help, so she asks Toga to listen to her.

In my opinion, Tsuyu isn’t really a developed character. I’d say Ashido and Jirou have more development than her. Tsuyu’s reasoning in what a hero is- contradicts what the audience is shown.

“Heroes should follow the rules”

But what about the unjust rules?

Lady Nagant and Hawks are basically child soldiers. When Nagant asked if what they’re doing is the right thing- the HPSC president responded by pULLING OUT A GUN- when Nagant killed him, that could’ve been argued to be self-defense. Instead, she’s thrown in jail for people she was groomed to kill, and the murder of the HPSC president was covered up.

Hero society is shown to be corrupt- so I think we should’ve been shown more insight on how a character like Tsuyu handles the reality that laws aren’t always right. I want to see how she would’ve been forced to reevaluate her way of thinking. How the world that society said it was- was a lot more complicated than she thought.

People should follow the rules- but when the rules are harming people who just want to live their normal lives- we need to make adjustments to the rules so more people don’t have to suffer trying to become something they are not.

Tenya was also shown to be a very rule-abiding person at the beginning of the series. Even so, we see what his breaking point is- so what’s Tsuyu’s breaking point? How does she connect to the Uraraka & Toga arc?

From how I interpreted the arc, Toga was someone who needed to be understood as a human being. The reporter, Curious, wanted to understand her- but she only wanted to understand her as a news headline, as a martyr for the Liberation Army.

Uraraka says in the fight, that she can’t ignore all the hurt Toga caused, she can’t accept every part of Toga, she can’t love her in the way that Toga wants her to- but she wants to understand who Himiko Toga is, why she smiles and why she cries.

Uraraka saw the ‘ugliness’ in Toga’s heart, and she acknowledged that- but she also saw the beauty and pain in her heart as well.

How does Tsuyu fit into this????

It’s mentioned that Tsuyu struggled in middle school to make friends, as people couldn’t read her expression since she has a poker face. Perhaps she understands the whole ‘wanting to be understood’ thing?

It could also be a case of quirk discrimination. As we’ve been shown, mutation quirks are looked down upon.

The thing with Tenya is that role was a small part, and yet a big part of the arc he was in. He told Shouto that he is able to be the hero he wants to be now thanks in part to him- and that Shouto can be the hero he wants to be as well; he didn’t say much, and yet that says so much more.

Idk…maybe the role Tsuyu could’ve had is something like ‘She is someone who was discriminated against for her quirk, and people failed to understand her or see her as a human being- but she had a loving family and friends to support her’

-so then the conversation could’ve been more like Tsuyu trying to empathize with Toga and let her know that Uraraka was there to support Tsuyu, so now she’s here to help her as well.

Or it could even have mentioned Tsuyu’s friend from middle school- who also struggled to make friends as well. They were both people who others couldn’t understand them (because of their unexpressive faces) and because of that they connected to each other.

I think it was even mentioned that Himiko is the ‘oldest’ child of her family, so…what about her siblings? How does she feel about them? Could Tsuyu and Toga being older siblings parallel somehow???

The more I talk about this- the more I wonder if Tsuyu should’ve saved Toga or have an equal role to Uraraka. There could be a lot of similarities when I really think about it…

I think the ‘rule’ thing could’ve worked, but I think Tsuyu should’ve had her own arc and perspective shown for it to have more impact.

Maybe this is just a me- thing, but I think Tsuyu should’ve been fleshed out more if she is the character supporting one of the Savior trio.

[momentov1vere]

Assigning PJO/ HoO characters to Knights Radiant orders (+ my reasoning)

I put too much thought into this not to share it somewhere so here’s a sort-of character analysis that is much longer than it needs to be (bc I was bored and stuck in a car for 10 hours) :)

Not sure how much of a crossover there is between the PJO and Stormlight Archive fandoms but this was mostly for fun (and I want to see what happens lol)

Here we go!

——————————————————————————

🔱 Percy Jackson : Stoneward

The powers don’t rly fit (Cohesion- manipulating objects at a molecular level- & Tension- changing the stiffness of something) but none of the Radiants have water powers so 🤷‍♀️

Loyalty is pretty much the #1 belief of the Stonewards (“Though sometimes gregarious, they are never flighty. If a Stoneward is your friend, they will be there for you”) and Percy’s fatal flaw is literally loyalty so that’s that

Percy is said to be one of the best fighters seen like anywhere in a long time and Stonewards are the order that is viewed as the best soldiers of the Radiants

They like a challenge and will often take on more than they can handle (like Percy choosing to take on the Great Prophecy)

Stonewards are also good at being able to find a solution to a difficult situation with only few resources and Percy often comes up with things on the fly/ improvises

I struggled SO MUCH picking one for Percy oh my god he had similarities to like half of them (I almost made him a Bondsmith or a Windrunner but they didn’t seem right)

🦉 Annabeth Chase : Elsecaller

Powers : Transformation (changing an object into something else- aka ‘Soulcasting’) and Transportation (looking/moving between realms); Annabeth likes creating new things (architecture) so there’s a bit of a connection to the Transformation power even tho she doesn’t really have powers

Elsecallers are always trying to reach their full potential, like how Annabeth is always be seen trying to learn new things and become the best version of herself

They are regarded as the ‘wisest’ Radiant order (just like Annabeth/ the Athena cabin are viewed as the ‘wisest’ demigods)

Annabeth always has her goals in mind but also always trying to lead and encourage others (like Damasen) which is common amongst Elsecallers

🐐 Grover Underwood : Edgedancer

Powers: Abrasion (altering the friction between surfaces) & Progression (quickly growing organic objects faster than normal- including plants, skin, body tissue, etc.)

He’s able to make plants grow faster using his magic reed pipe so that would translate into Progression

Abrasion would kind of fit for him too, bc of the goat legs (he’s able to navigate more difficult terrain than humans)

Edgedancers care about the ordinary/ overlooked people of the world and spend most of their time making sure those people are protected. Grover cares deeply about nature/ animals and always tries to protect them bc humans often deem nature unimportant (nature = ordinary people in this scenario)

☠️ Nico di Angelo : Dustbringer

Powers: Division (control over destruction/ decay) and Abrasion

I don’t know if Nico has anything that really fits the Abrasion power- except for maybe the fact that his shadow travel helps him get places quickly- but Division is definitely similar to his power over death/ earthy materials

Dustbringers typically don’t get along with others (including people in their own order) because of personality differences and stereotypes about their powers like how Nico is often ostracized at first bc he scares people

☀️ Will Solace : Edgedancer

Powers: Abrasion & Progression

Will is a healer so Progression would be a good power for him to have; while he doesn’t have any powers similar to Abrasion I think it would be useful for him to have to get to injured people faster

Will cares about everyone and will do his best to heal anyone because he doesn’t want anyone to suffer, and he doesn’t just focus on the powerful demigods- he makes sure to lend his power anywhere it’s needed

Fighting is not the the Edgedancers’ main concern, preferring to protect/help the injured (especially people who aren’t necessarily warriors) and Will also is more like a wartime medic than a fighter (though he- and the Edgedancers- can fight if necessary)

They want to see and understand both sides of something, even their enemies, rather than seeing everything in black and white. Will struggled with this in TSATS but eventually realized that places like the Underworld aren’t necessarily just about death/decay, but are also about life

🌩️ Jason Grace : Windrunner

Well first of all the man flies and that’s basically what the Windrunners do lol

Their powers: Adhesion (temporarily sticking two objects together) and Gravitation (changing the direction/ strength of something’s gravitational pull)

He cares a lot about protecting innocents/ the defenseless and keeping his friends safe which is a main idea of the Windrunners

Windrunners are very militaristic in general and Jason was raised by the wolves and the Romans to be that way as well

Tempest would be his windspren & prefer a horse form cus they can do that (I think)

⚡️ Thalia Grace : Windrunner

I know she hates flying but I don’t think it’s really a requirement of the Windrunners to ‘fly’; they mostly just change the direction/amount of gravity that’s pulling on them so she could find creative ways to use Gravitation (walking on walls/ceilings which then appear to be the floor to her, etc)

The Hunters of Artemis are pretty militaristic as well (they have a specific leader & ways of doing things, similar to the Romans)

Thalia cares about innocent people/creatures and is very protective over the people she cares about (Annabeth, the Hunters, etc)

Windrunners tend to attract “big-sibling types” and Thalia is definitely a big sibling type lol

🏹 Frank Zhang : Stoneward

Powers don’t rly fit him either but personality-wise I think it’s right

Frank is really loyal to his friends (sometimes to the point of attacking/fighting people more powerful than him to save them) and will always be there for them both in battle and for personal issues

He’s pretty good at improvising and his shapeshifting allows him to come up with creative solutions (turning into an iguana to get out of the Chinese handcuffs lol)

He’s also pretty quick to come up with creative solutions without many resources (using his firewood to free Thanatos when there was no other heat source, etc.)

💎 Hazel Levesque : Lightweaver

Powers : Illumination (illusions) and Transformation

Hazel learned how to manipulate the mist from Hecate, essentially giving her illusion powers, & she can change the shape of earthly materials (can’t change the material but it’s close enough to Transformation); this is one case where I almost made her a Stoneward but Lightweaver just fit better for everything else I think

Lightweavers are the ‘artistic’ order and attract people who love art/ creativity (Hazel is an artist)

They tend to not follow rules the way other orders do, instead choosing to reach their goals by their own means (ex. Hazel choosing to go her own way and make her own choices rather than taking one of the paths Hecate gave her in HoH)

🔥 Leo Valdez : Dustbringer

Same as Nico; both of them being Dustbringers would be an example of contrasting/ clashing personalities within the order

Fire is definitely a destructive ability similar to Division (they can burn things) and without a level of control (which Dustbringers need to learn before they can advance their powers) things could get bad (and have- rip Esperanza Valdez)

Leo hasn’t really been ostracized for his personality like Dustbringers could be but his powers originally made people scared (they didn’t know he had them at the time but his cabinmates did say a that having that power was dangerous and they hoped no one would ever have it again so he took that a little personally)

🗡️ Reyna Ramirez-Arellano : Bondsmith

She’d be bonded to the Stormfather (1 of 3 beings who can gift Bondsmith abilities), allowing her to generate Stormlight and infuse other Radiants with it; this is incredibly draining and similar to Reyna’s ability to share her strength

Bondsmiths’ main focus is unity/ bringing people together and Reyna definitely spends a lot of time attempting to unite the Roman and Greek camp (after all, she did spend an entire book helping Nico and Coach Hedge get the Athena Parthenos back to CHB as a peace offering)

Bondsmith powers aren’t typically used for fighting but rather for assisting other Radiants and keep them fighting; Reyna is skilled with weapons but doesn’t use her powers to fight, only to help others keep up their strength/ motivation

🕊️ Piper McLean : Lightweaver

Piper had some personal things that she had to work out (lying to her friends in TLH, etc) before she fully embraced her power, & Lightweavers have to come to terms with truths about themselves before they can progress as people & as Radiants

There aren’t really any Radiant orders that work with manipulation magic so it’s hard to bring the Charmspeak in but the illusion magic Lightweavers have does allow them to change their appearance, so I’d imagine her using it to make herself super beautiful for espionage purposes or smth (maybe using it to transform into someone’s loved one?)

Transformation would allowed her to turn something into something else (etc. mud to food) which kind of relates to her cornucopia & how it makes food out of nothing

——————————————————————————

Hooray we made it to the end!! Sorry that this was so long, I had a looong time to think about this and wanted to get all my thoughts down

I mostly used coppermind.net and the descriptions of the Radiant orders on Sanderson’s website so some of this info may be a little inaccurate but this was just for fun lol

[ghouldtime]

same anon from the cryptid König ask. Person who started the 6’10 thing was his own voice actor (who is already a not so pleasant guy).

anyway. you want cryptid könig ideas? Oh bitch (affectionate) I have plenty.

1) most prolific Austrian folklore dude is of course Krampus, who is a specific character in his own right and holds connections to old pagan folk tradition. Mostly the deal here is about punishing people for being bad. Usually Krampus and the other adjacent folklore creatures of the same ilk (namely the Straggele) are depicted with big horns, shaggy hair and weird eyes. big weird goat dudes. this König would probably be a pretty old spirit. Would be fun if he was the reader’s ‘white whale’ of sorts, trying to get evidence of his existence, while he’s watching on with heart eyes.

2) of course, if we want to go more classic campy paranormal, there’s always classic weird fucked up ghost thing. sort of shadow monster creature style that has solidified into a dude who is definitely a regular guy don’t worry about the mist. The type of paranormal entity who’s creation is more complicated than a regular standard death. maybe his ghost-hunting afterlife is so he can figure out what the hell happened to him. maybe he just thinks it’s funny. don’t worry about the mist.

3) weird shit time. You’ve seen the könig with tentacles under his hood fanart trend I assume, and boy don’t I love a nice dose of eldritch with my monster men. weird shapeshifter sort of vibes. Dude in the woods who has maybe two many arms (it helps with his miniature carving, actually). He’s got most of the being human parts down well and can go to the grocery store. but sometimes he needs a second when sweet human offers to help patch a hole in one of his jumpers (because he might start growing feathers from joy). His eyes are a little too bright sometimes and his shadow a little too long but he’s just a regular guy!

rambling over. im a massive sucker for monsterous men.

Oh really??? Explains it. I mean the 6'10" will always have me laugh it is rlly ridiculous (especially when you see his character model near others)

I, embarrassingly, don't know how I forgot about Krampus. I have like a stuffed animal of him, I was JUST playing Wizard101 winter in summer event where he was there. I have greeting cards with him on it. I'm absolutely going to write that one for SURE in some way shape or form so thanks for the idea 👀

I'm also doing the second for sure. I was trying to figure out what kind of paranormal being he would be and I was thinking some type of shade or shadow creature. A being that lurks in the dark and can just be a glowing pair of eyes or something you see out of the corner of your eye before disappearing??? Sign me the hell UP

I love love love all of these ideas so so so much and I NEED to write them all eventually. They've been added into the queue of future things to do 👀 I can already picture it now

Whoever you are anon, I love your big beautiful brain and THANK YOU for the ideas. 💚💚💚💚 You're always welcome to submit any ideas you have for any monster men of the COD characters and I swear I'll write them

[with-my-calamitous-love]

i think my favourite type of character is the brother type character. and i don’t mean just any sibling or siblings duos.

edward elric is one of my favourite anime protagonists of all time. fullmetal alchemist, both versions, are masterpieces in their own right, but edward elric is just an incredible character. he was a boy forced to grow up overnight, bearing the guilt of breaking a taboo and the burden of knowing the truth. he is a selfless person, but this is especially in regards to alphonse. only edward knows how much he loves his brother, and the guilt he carries for trapping him in a suit of armour. he thinks that it should have been him, that he’s his older brother and he should have protected him more. getting his limbs back is apart of edward’s journey, but restoring alphonse comes first. i love fullmetal alchemist because it tells the tale of powerful, unconditional love. its the love edward and alphonse have for each other, how they want to restore one another more than anything. alphonse reminds edward of his humanity, of his morals, he’s one of the only thing that keeps edward selfless and compassionate throughout all that he’s gone through.

another example i love is the todoroki family in my hero academia. i feel a sense of connection to shoto since i also come from a family of four, and have a more or less complicated parental relationship. so i speak from experience when i say that oftentimes, siblings are the people that understand trauma the most. they experience with you, albeit from different lenses, but they offer a circle of refuge that you can bask in for years. the todoroki’s are a damaged family, torn apart by years of abuse, trauma, and isolation. i know shoto’s still a baby at heart, because every youngest child is- he still turns to fuyumi’s hugs and natsuo’s jokes. and when he looks at toya he feels anger that dissolves into hurt. he sees the result of his family failing his brother. and he’s not sure if its too late for him.

an open love letter to anyone who needs familial love. for my lovely filipinos, call me ate ♥️

[the-monkey-ruler]

Just a random ask, what are some weird JTTW adaptations you’ve seen or heard about?

I can’t even begin to call them all but… if you bear with me, I shall try.

Here are a few games that I always found funny additions!

Starting off strong we have Journey to the West: Undersea Adventure (2021)! I have never seen it but LOOK AT IT.... THEY FISH

Six-eared Monkey (2021) where Six Ears goes back in time, accidentally adopts Wukong not knowing he is his future enemy and gives his life to save Child-Wukong despite knowing who he grows up to be.

Wukong's Christmas Adventure (2019) is like... saving Ruphdolh or something and Wukong is going through a mid-life crisis and also kinda depressed but CHRISTMAS. Also the Erlang and Nezha models in this movies are TERRIFYING... and also they have Wukong rap so take a look.

Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons (2013) is weird but like in a GREAT way like... I love the monster designs they give Wukong, Bajie, and Wujing, it is such a different vibe then any other movie I have seen and Honestly LOVE It for that. Really sells just how HUMAN Sanzang is dealing with POWERFUL YAO that could kill him in a second.

Bling (2016) is strong that it didn't hAVE to be Xiyouji coded characters like the Monkey, Pig, and Frog are robot storage performers, wannabe heroes and they follow their creator who is trying to propose to his girlfriend but there really is not journey or ANY need to have the robot being Wukong, Bajie, and Wujing.

Spark: A Space Tail (2016) is also BARELY a Xiyouji film but like it does have a monkey with a staff and turns out he is the son of a king and a queen of monkey planet. Really more like Lion King with the evil uncle trying to take over but with space monkeys.... and also Bajie is there.

Mo mo King (2011) is something I'm not completely sure what's it about but just that it is like a whole monkey island that Wukong-like protag works at... and also Bajie is there.

Devil's Chip (2002) again NO idea what it is really about but there is space and time travel and for some ungodly reason no wukong from what I have seen but Sanzang and Bajie company the space/time travler

Flying Monkid (1996) I have no idea why this was ever MADE like there is barely a connection to Wukong and every other demon is new or some kind of version that is barely recognizable, not to mention the animation is barely any better than Pixal art.

Flying Superboard (1990) I always just found this one strange from the animation to the art style to the design choices. Like making Wukong some kind of skateboard, nunchuck, mouse-looking creature and giving Bajie a machine gun is.... something. I have no idea what they did to Wujing, made him like a bat, goblin thing.

Midnight Goku (1989) is like a sci-fi detective story where the protag has like computer eyes that can see through people and a bo-staff and honestly, I haven't seen but just the STRETCH they use to make this Wukong-related is so insane like would have never thought of it.

Little Wukong (1987) honestly not SURE what this story is even about but like... it is nearly lost media, this is so obscure and out of the way I have a feeling it was probs a children's education show or something but idk.

The Legend of Red Boy (1989) is something that looks like candy land spat out and while I have not seen it I am so sure that it is filled with nonsensical elements I cannot begin to describe.

King Kong's Adventures in the Heavenly Palace (1959) is... more of a crossover than anything else. Just imagine a movie where instead of Wukong destroys heaven... it is Kind Kong. Legit THE king Kong from the OTHER MOVIES YES.

Pink Journey to the West (2015) is honestly not that strong I would say besides that it is just Journey to the West but they are all girls... haven't seen it but who knows maybe it is good!

Tom and Jerry Chase with Tom as Erlang Sheng and Jerry as Wukong

Fortnite Wukong... that is it

Overwatch with Xiyouji skins just think it is adorable honestly. Love the Winston as Wukong

Plants versus Zombie: Journey to the West addition

Rabbits: Party of Legends

And while this isn't EVERY weird (there is a lot) one these are that I thought were at least interesting enough. Like a lot of Xiyouji movies have strange plotpoint but honestly, they are more boring and confusing than anything memorable. At least these were the ones I always thought were fun!

[carcinogenical]

I wanted to do a deep dive into crime and punishment and honestly you're carrying the fandom from what I've seen. If you know anything about when the modern fanbase started or where else to look for answers, that'd be greatly appreciated. I also wanted to know what drew you to Crime and Punishment specifically?

First of all thank u for looking at all the works I’ve done :’3 I’m glad you enjoy them !

hmmmm I’m really not sure why so many people are into it in specifically a fandom-like nature (by many I mean more than I would guess …) I’m guessing maybe the Ted talk animation is responsible in the west because I know quite a few friends who picked up the book because they were convinced to read it by that …. Me included …. Maybe it just resonates with a lot of mentally ill young people on top of it being a significant cultural work lol ? Maybe it is in many school curriculums. Or maybe BSD is responsible ….those are my guesses

I was drawn to cnp so strongly because at the time I first read it I was very isolated and mentally ill so it made me feel understood and in a book that had dark social themes , philosophical and moral questions and this and that I didn’t expect it to be so empathetic and also have a sense of humor . I think I’ve been into it for so long because there’s so much to research and chew on ? I feel like it’s a book that I just can’t move on from. But I also find as I grow , my relationship with the book and its characters also grow. And at first I was scared that my initial impression and vision would change, but now I embrace it and find it interesting.

But beyond that , making human connections through friends with the same interest as me really encouraged me to make art and were some of the highlights of my life at that time. They made it worth living ….. and isn’t that what cnp is about ? I still treasure those friendships to this day even if we take different non cnp related paths ☀️☀️☀️it goes without saying!

[survivalove]

Thinking about why I like Kataang so much

so a lot of my posts/asks lately have been about things I dislike so I decided to balance it out by talking about something I actually do like! ofc I immediately thought of kataang and started thing about why i like them so much compared to other couples in media I watched growing up.

first thing is, I don’t actually like romance in visual media. I much prefer it in books but having to actually watch it gives me the ick idk why. also when i first watched atla I was like 5, so the romance really had no appeal to me and I was super focused on katara and the other girls on the show because they were girls! i would completely block out the boys and all the ship scenes for years after that because my attitude to romance never really changed.

right up until I was about 11/12 and became aware of romance from hearing people my age start to talk about crushes, boyfriends/girlfriends, kissing etc. suddenly I had entered this phase in real life where romance was suddenly relevant among my peers and this made me start paying attention when it played out in the shows I was watching like Hannah Montana, Wizards of Waverly Place, etc. this also included ATLA as my dad and I would rewatch it together on DVD throughout the year.

as I watched with my katara blinders, like I always do, for the first time I started to notice the boys in the show, particularly aang, (yes I finally started focusing on the main character after 6 years 😭) and certain interactions katara had with him that I never noticed before.

*dramatic pause*

and the way I consumed media would never be the same.

jk, but really tho.

fast forward to now, and I’ve recently started watching anime after consuming a bunch of western media my whole life from cartoons and disney shows to contemporary literature and Y/A movies/TV shows. and one thing that stands out to me with kataang compared to most of the romance i see in shonen animes (one of atla’s biggest inspiration as a TV show) is the way katara and aang develop in a way that is realistic, yet too good to be true.

let me elaborate:

starting from the very first episode, katara and aang have that classic meet-cute interaction. the music is playing, their eyes are widening, aang’s acting like he’s never seen a girl before and katara is impressed by literally every single thing he does. this is pretty much how every ship is set up, anime or otherwise, and kanna basically spells out their imminent connection when she sends katara and sokka off and sokka even explicitly says the word boyfriend seconds before that. obviously, these two characters are gonna get together at some point and it’s just a matter of when.

this is where it gets more than that:

the more katara and aang spend time together, the more they start to get on each other’s nerves.

I’m sure everyone’s had a crush at some point, where you see someone for the first time and go “oh they’re so cute” and you feel the butterflies blah blah. you either fantasize about them for a while and move on, or you pursue the crush and start to actively make moves to get to know them better.

and as you get to know them, you notice some things about them that kinda piss you off. the way they pick their nose, the way they bounce their knee, the way they chew. it’s always something. it can even affect friendships because that’s life. we are humans, not concepts. no one is perfect, there is nobody on this planet that you will 100% agree with or like about them. it just doesn’t work like that. and for some relationships, there is that one irritating thing about them that breaks the camel’s back and it doesn’t work out. you learn what annoys you and move on to the next relationship. or you have the lucky ones who actually stay together and the relationship continues to blossom as you get to know each other better.

similarly, kataang in the beginning are completely enamored with the other. until they’re not. throughout season 1, we see katara becoming more and more disillusioned with aang going from “aang’s so brave. he’s the avatar!” to realizing he’s just a boy with insecurities and flaws just like her. some of which get on her nerves BAD. similarly, aang goes from trying to impress katara and going along with every single plan she has, to disagreeing with her and even getting annoyed by her as the seasons go on.

despite this, it doesn’t stop that thing they have for each other from growing and flourishing. that is the magic part. watching two characters fall in love as they continue to annoy and irritate each other more and more. the more katara and aang butt heads throughout the seasons, the more and more unambiguous their romantic interactions become.

aang bluntly telling katara she’s not funny like he didn’t just ask her to dance with him in a candlelit cave in front of dozens of people a few days ago? katara constantly getting annoyed at aang’s antics to turn around and ask him for his opinion on the way she looks or kiss him on the cheek? right.

this is what makes them stand out from other fictional couples I’ve seen, where the girl and guy’s opinion on the other never changes significantly from that first interaction they have. one person, usually the girl because of course, worships the ground our main character walks on, meanwhile he seems to barely notice her apart from that first scene where she looked pretty and his jaw dropped or something. and even if they do interact a lot, their dynamic hardly evolves from that initial setup. they never get upset with each other or at the least, visibly annoyed. their dynamic is static, stagnant, mostly affected by major events in the plot rather than personal characteristics and minor misgivings the characters may have.

there’s no juice. it’s stale. and for me, very unrealistic.

I was watching this video about writing couples in media and one comment stood out to me in particular:

What you said about charm is so true. Entertaining chemistry to watch ≠ chemistry that pairs people together. A lot of sitcoms try to pair opposites romantically or as best friends, because opposites are good for comedy and conflict, but I find myself not understanding why they’re so into each other.

instantly i was reminded of the way people call kataang vanilla/boring, in favor of pairings that are far less similar. and while katara and aang do fight a lot, fundamentally they are very similar which is why they are so believable and realistic. I love watching them slowly become disillusioned with the idealized version of each other they had in the first episode to seeing all the ways they manage to piss each other off, and still being drawn by that initial mutual attraction.

katara learns the hard way that aang isn’t the infallible savior from her grandma’s stories, but she never stops believing in him. aang comes to discover katara’s flaws and conflicting opinions, but he still encourages her belief in hope, affirms her as a waterbender/healer and yes still calls her beautiful every chance he gets.

and what I love about this, is, it gives them reasons to fall in love that go beyond the superficial reasons that drew them towards each other in the first place.

they don’t fall in love with each other in spite of those little minor flaws, but because of them.

katara doesn’t love aang because he’s the avatar. she loves him because he is the goofy fun boy that allowed her to be a kid while taking up this heavy responsibility. aang doesn’t love katara because she’s beautiful. he falls in love witnessing those moments of her being determined, speak up for herself and others, and even going to great lengths to inspire hope in everyone she meets.

[rjmhereunderprotest]

The Kerrigan Dilema: The Challenges of Writing from a Monster’s Perspective

I’ve always been a lover of the monster side of any story. Not just the sympathetic ones mind you, but all kinds of monsters. I know it’s cliché to say you identified with the monster in a horror movie, but for me it’s been very true for a long time. It started when I gave voices in my head to the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park and has continued to the present day where I’ve probably given Godzilla more personality in my headcanon than Toho wants him to have.

There is just something about the monster that appeals to me, regardless of how sapient they are. It’s not the same as thinking the villain is the best character. I don’t always sympathize with villains, but I do sympathize with monsters more often than not. Preferably the more reptilian-like the more likely I’ll find a reason to side with them. I think it has to do with my empathy for creatures that cannot voice their own side or simply view matters differently. I look at the “Creature from the Black Lagoon” and I see a link to our past who has harmed no one outside his territory and only desires love and respect. I look at dinosaurs in the finale to Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, watch them struggle and suffocate, and am overcome with relief when they are allowed to escape. I see the dragon in any given fantasy story and I ask why it has to be slayed for merely abiding by its nature?

Perhaps it’s my sympathy for animals, maybe it’s connected to things more personal to me that I’ll probably get into later. Whatever the reason, the concept of the monster character is intriguing to me, captivating even. And I’m honestly disappointed how little it is often given the perspective it deserves. The monster generally remains the obstacle to be defeated or destroyed in any story, it is rarely the hero of the work. When the monster is allowed to be the hero it is sometimes compromised by it simply being so humanized that it might as well be a human. There are very few true monster centric narratives in this vein. Nature POV Narratives where an inhuman creature or animal is allowed to be themselves.

For the life of me though, I cannot understand why video games have rarely taken the opportunity up themselves. I have longed for a chance to play a true dragon video game in the modern era for a long time. I’ll even settle for a Dragon Rider game, but the few I’ve played have been underwhelming. I’m starting to get trickles of kaiju games where I can play as the kaiju, “Dawn of the Monsters” being a superb example. One of the best monster games where I am very clearly a vicious killing machine is “ManEater”, the game where you get to play a killer shark ala Jaws. Games like Evolve died on the vine while a few isometric horror games are trying to fill its void. But they’re all multiplayer and I’ve always leaned more towards single player games.

The point is, the list of truly great games that allow you to be the monster is rather low. Not many people have honestly tried to replicate the “Rampage” formula sadly. And every dinosaur game that doesn’t stick you in the shoes of a human that hunts them is basically just a simulator where you’re less monster chowing on people and more realistic animal. And while those games certainly have a place, allowing people to experience animals as what they truly are, I still feel bereft of my boyhood dinosaur fantasy that allows me to be the velociraptor from Jurassic Park. Something that was only allowed in the SEGA Genesis Jurassic Park game and never really again.

I’ve never understood why people haven’t tried to present the typical video game story in reverse. Allowing you to be the fire-breathing monster who battles the fabled hero. Games in general are usually supposed to evoke some kind of progressive power fantasy. Growing as a dragon or dinosaur in ability and power would fill that niche. “ManEater” did it perfectly well, as did “Dawn of the Monsters” itself. It’s probably because of our innate human nature to fear the monster honestly, to want it to be conquered. And sympathizing with it or placing ourselves in its claws so to speak is antithetical to that. It’s just easier to attach ourselves to and humanize… well, a human protagonist. Or at least humanoid one.

There is, however, one genre of games that enables this a bit more. The realm of Strategy Games, which usually have campaigns that feature fairly non-human factions depending on their setting. Some are evil, some are good, some are a mix, but generally all of them allow you to inhabit a less human role and more alien mind set. And if there is one franchise that has zeroed in on doing just that, it is “Starcraft”, most specifically with its vicious alien race faction, the Zerg. Xenomorph Homages on the outside, but far more strange and bizarre in a wider context. The Zerg are generally the primary antagonists of the first Starcraft game and it’s expansion, Brood War. As a result of their terrifying conceptual design and unique mode of gameplay, the Zerg have become iconic in their own right as a dominant monstrous faction.

While their self-proclaimed leader, the Overmind, and its Cerebrates held sway as the face of the Zerg for the first game, they were both soon overshadowed by the REAL star of the campaign, Sarah Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades. Sarah was a Terran Ghost Operative, but after being betrayed by her leader, Arcturus Mengsk and captured by the Zerg, she was mutated into a monstrous psionic being. Half human, half zerg, Sarah became a vicious, conniving and brutal servant of the Overmind. That was until it died at the hands of the heroes at the end of the first game. When she returned in the Brood War expansion, there was a brief moment where it seemed like Sarah had been freed from the Overmind’s influence and had turned over a new leaf. She was now helping our heroes to resist the brutal imperial dictatorship of an expeditionary force from the United Earth Directorate. And while her methods were still brutal, she still appeared to be back on the good guy side.

She wasn’t, she was decieving all her allies. Luring them into a sense of false security before utterly compromising them and decimating their forces. The UED were driven from the system, but many Protoss and Terran inhabitants of the Korpulu Sector were massacred. Including Fenix, the beloved fan-favorite Dragoon Hero and friend to Sarah’s one time love interest, James Raynor. In response, Raynor promised to kill her someday, while Sarah mocked Fenix’s death before letting him and her other enemies slink off to lick their wounds. Kerrigan left her enemies weakened but alive, the message sent. The Zerg were hers and she’d be waiting in the dark of space for them to test her dominance once again.

That was how Brood War ended, with Sarah Kerrigan, the Queen of Blades, victorious. A monstrous villain ending that left fans reeling. The Zerg cemented as the dominant force of the Starcraft universe, even if they didn’t kill everyone off at the end of the story. It’s fairly easy of course to write a monster centric campaign like the Zerg from the position of the villain though. Brood War is a good example of writing a villain winning and showing the perspective of a monster faction with relatively simplistic depictions.

Why is Kerrigan doing this? Why are any of the Zerg doing this? Simple, they’re just evil. They’re voracious, murderous, little better than rabid animals who spread and kill and rip apart their enemies because they can. And they’re all controlled by basically a mutated psionic commando who has gone mad with power. It’s simple, but it works as a story and people can easily accept it. Kerrigan is a monster, the Zerg are evil. There is no way to really say otherwise.

And Blizzard never challenged that clear obvious reading. Mostly because for several years, Starcraft remained pretty much on the backburner of Blizzard’s many projects. Warcraft became their primary franchise, mainly through the MMO they launched, World of Warcraft. Meanwhile, Starcraft floundered in forgotten obscurity, a low priority, even as fans clamored for a sequel.

Eventually, it arrived. Although not all at once. Due to the game ballooning in size and scope, Blizzard opted to essentially split one game into three. The result was that each “Starcraft 2” Campaign was turned into a separate expansion. “Wings of Liberty” would hit first, reuniting fans with Jim Raynor, as he led a rebellion against Arcturus Mengsk and his Terran Dominion, while trying to deal with a resurgent Zerg Invasion led by Kerrigan herself. Jim’s presumption as to why she was back, “She’s come to finish the job.”

For most of “Wings of Liberty”, that assumption appears correct. As Kerrigan is still a cackling, genocidal maniac who seems to have even adopted a fatalistic doomsday mindset. Apparently she suspects the return of a long forgotten evil that even she fears her Zerg cannot stop. Heavy foreshadowing no doubt. Made more clear by the return of Zeratul, the Dark Templar Protoss hero from the original game. He too has terrible visions of this evil and he warns Jim that the only person who can stop it… is Kerrigan.

Fans consider “Wings of Liberty” a fairly good game in general, but there is one hang up for many. That being Raynor’s Vengeful Declaration he will kill the Queen of Blades for all she’s done being seeimingly forgotten. In its place is a new mission, one he’s given by Mengsk’s son and prodded further by Zeratul’s prophecies. He’s going to save Sarah, not kill her. Fans were perturbed, feeling rather annoyed that Jim would so easily go back on his vow of revenge given what had happened to Fenix. Although the general consensus appeared to be that fans really didn’t like the prospect of letting Sarah off easy for everything she had done by saving her from her infection.

One can argue about the trope of putting down former love interests because they’ve gone evil or been horribly mutated or whatever have you. It’s been a major point of contension and subject of debate about how often it seems in fiction that the hero has to kill their female love interest. A prime example is the first film version of the Dark Pheonix Saga, where Wolverine has to kill Jean. Kerrigan’s situation is somewhat similar, only Jim is being offered an out so he doesn’t have to kill her.

While this topic hits on a lot of subjects that are important to discuss, (abuse, victimization, blaming victims for the harm done to them, etc.) they are probably best saved for a different essay. Right now, it’s just important to understand this mindset going in. People were very skeptical about the idea of giving Kerrigan an easy out redemption and it sorta soured them on the campaign, despite it being overall enjoyable.

For my part, I felt, given that Sarah’s infection had clearly altered her personality and mind, it was worth trying to cure her over outright killing her. And even if Raynor had once promised to end her, it had been several years since that initial declaration. Tempers had likely cooled and it was clear Jim was in a vulnerable regretful state of mind at the start of the campaign.

While the addition of Zeratul declaring that they need Kerrigan to defeat a worse threat feels a bit like its being shoved into the story to justify enabling this change of mindset for Raynor further, it still fulfills its function. As far back as Brood War, there were indications there was more at work than just Kerrigan’s ambitions and that it would probably require more than any one faction’s forces to defeat it. So in my opinion, it just made sense as set up to the eventual final confrontation with this great coming darkness that had been long gestating within the story.

Regardless, I was willing to give the next chapter of the story, “Heart of the Swarm”, a chance to tell the story it was aiming for. At the time I enjoyed it as it was a whole different playstyle to adjust to and an intriguing story that drew me further into the characters and lore of the Starcraft Universe. However, even I had to acknowledge some of the problems encountered while playing it narrative wise.

Upon watching a good deal of the campaign on YouTube in an attempt to revisit it some, I was struck a lot by those problems again. Those issues stemming from the challenges of depicting a race of monsters like the Zerg and, instead of making them outright villains, attempting to give them more depth and nuance while still retaining what they are. And frankly, it was clear it was a hard assignment for Blizzard to pull off.

So here I am to confront the challenges head-on in hopes of better learning from both Blizzard’s mistakes and successes in writing the Zerg with this new direction in mind, Kerrigan especially. “Heart of the Swarm” probably best represents why it’s so hard to make a monster in a video game, or really in any medium, a hero. As well as probably a good explanation as to why, despite those challenges, I think it’s an admirable narrative perspective to attempt regardless. One I wish more game developers and story-tellers in general tried to attempt more often.

So let’s discuss Sarah Kerrigan and her Zerg, where we will try and figure out if her swarm of monsterous alien bugs can ever truly be considered heroic. Or if monsters are better left off just being villains.

Vengeance Shall be Mine

I think it’s important to set up Sarah’s mindset for this chapter of the story, because it presents both the promise and crux of the issue overall. Sarah is very dead set on revenge from the word go in “Heart of the Swarm.” Revenge against Arcturus Mengsk, the one guy in all of Starcraft no one will EVER defend because he is just objectively evil and the worst.

Let’s keep this in mind going forward, Mengsk is the reason everything went wrong for a lot of people. He set up Psi-Emmiters around New Gettysburg on Tarsonis to destroy the Confederacy homeworld, using Sarah to do it. The results of which killed millions of innocent Terrans. He then left Sarah to die, because she had voiced criticism of the plan and Mengsk needed to tie up any loose ends. As a direct result, Raynor split from Mengsk and started a resistance group, Raynor’s Raiders, Mengsk formed the Terran Dominion to fill the power vaccum, and Kerrigan was mutated into the Queen of Blades who would then go on to kill millions more lives and destroy many more worlds.

At the end of “Wings of Liberty”, Jim Raynor has seemingly cured Kerrigan of her Zerg infection and killed his former friend, Tycus Findley, to protect her. Tycus was actually a sleeper agent for Mengsk, forced to carry out Sarah’s assassination, lest a killswitch implanted into the power armor he was trapped inside be triggered.Tycus didn’t seem to want to betray Raynor in the end, but he had no real choice and Raynor, ultimately, didn’t either.

When we catch up with Sarah and Jim, they are with Mengsk’s son, Valerian Mengsk, who is assisting the Raiders in evaluating Sarah’s condition. By this point, Sarah is fed up with being here and wants to leave because she has bigger fish to fry. Mainly Mengsk and taking everything into account it makes sense why. Arcturus is responsible for a ton of suffering and one can’t really argue that he doesn’t deserves the payback coming to him.

For Sarah though it is a very singular focus and Raynor is the one who seems to be willing to just run off with her outright. Telling her to forget Mengsk. The reasoning seems to be the same for why she’s here doing these tests. There is concern she might slip off the wagon and become the Queen of Blades again. Her desire for revenge might actually facilitate this return as it seems almost animalistic in its simplistic viewpoint.

When she talks about killing Mengsk, both now and later in the story, it feels less and less like a desire for justice and more out of pure personal rage. A vendetta that is no doubt understandable, even sympathetic given what she suffered, but still selfish. Mengsk betrayed her and as a result turned her into something horrible. She lost years of her life, became a hated monster and, seemingly at the forefront in her mind, denied her a future with Jim.

That seems to be the driving force for Sarah, the anger she feels at being separated from Jim. In all honesty, while the romantic moments between the two in the prior game before her transformation were sparse, it was clear there was a genuine shared attraction. Jim clearly seeing her as a person and not just a weapon, like everyone else had apparently treated her, no doubt endeared him to her. The fact that Jim risked everything to bring her back has only solidified that it seems.

Without that wider context in mind though, Sarah’s motivation feels rather lacking and simplistic. In the prior game, Raynor as a human had more complex emotions surrounding his choices and actions. There were a lot of factors pushing him to make the final decision to save Sarah. Not just his feelings for her, or Zeratul’s vision, but also the fact he was trying to lead a rebellion and more importantly find a greater sense of purpose instead of drowning himself in beer after beer. Raynor needed to find hope again and that story is universal. Saving Sarah and thus stopping her mad rampage without killing her, like she’s the Dark Phoenix, is his redemption for failing her.

Sarah’s goals are highly insular in contrast, she’s already fitting a more monster motivation angle even now. How do I survive? Kill the thing threatening me. What matters to me? This person I care about. Kerrigan’s thoughts revolve around her hatred for Mengsk and her desire to be with Jim. That’s at the very least how she starts out and frankly she doesn’t really move the needle too much. There is very little struggle in Kerrigan’s mind concerning what needs to be done. Mengsk must die and she must be with Jim. Her desire to get out of her containment, out of the lab, is motivated more out of the hope of being with Jim and killing Mengsk than it is with anything else.

Sure, she wants to teach Valerian a lesson about thinking he can use her to control the Zerg and does so effectively. But she very clearly takes a little pleasure in sicking her Zerglings on the sublevel of the lab and destroying his robots. She doesn’t kill anyone of course, but she still makes her point. “You can’t control the Zerg and you can’t control ME.” So Valerian might as well stop trying, let her out and let her pursue what she wants rather than remain an obstacle. She can leave anytime she wants, as she deftly demonstrates. She’s being polite by not doing so.

Monster goals follow this sort of logic, a personal primal motivation and a refusal to be confined by artificial means. These are the motivating factors for many monsters, whether hero or villain. They’re animalistic drives, far simpler in their context, more direct thinking than complex. We can see it in many a creature feature.

Godzilla isn’t stupid, he just has a very particular goal in mind and will smash through any obstacle in his way to do it. Whether it is a building or an army. Same as Kong, the shark from Jaws, the Xenomorph, the Predator or any variety of movie monsters you can name. Kerrigan’s closest cinematic equivalent is probably Jason Voorhees, a slasher villain who is basically a monstrous entity with no real greater goal than revenge for what happened to his mother and himself. There are key differences, rational thinking, the ability to talk, the overall goal in both scope and motivation, but the parallels are there.

So even saved, Sarah still seems to be thinking like her old self or at least like a Zerg. Find the enemy, kill the enemy, protect only what interests you, refuse confinement. She might have justifiable reasons to feel that way, but it can be fairly alienating if your lead character comes across as fairly selfish and single-minded.

The concerns of her slipping back into her old persona aren’t unfounded either. When Arcturus Mengsk’s forces attack the facility Kerrigan is in, it becomes clear that the Dominion Marines have been instructed with pretty much killing everyone in there if it means taking down Kerrigan. This sorta justifies Sarah’s position, that Mengsk won’t let her live and he needs be taken down. Given the lengths he went to kill her, it’s naïve to assume he’d just give up honestly.

Implanting Tycus within Raynor’s Raiders simply to kill Kerrigan was rather insane. He had the potential to destroy the Rebels from the inside, but there was never any indication that Mengsk used this to his advantage in “Wings of Liberty.” Tycus was just there to be in the right place at the right time to kill Sarah and Arcturus was willing to let Raynor disrupt his empire to maintain Tycus’ cover the whole time. Mengsk will even potentially kill his own son if it means destroying Kerrigan. This is emphasized by the fact the Dominion Fleet keeps shooting the Hyperion, despite Valerian being aboard, because Kerrigan is also aboard. Even Valerian knows this, saying his father will “sacrifice any piece on the board to take the queen.”

At the same time however, Sarah has her own one-track mindset. When she first gets aboard the Hyperion she has been separated from Jim during the escape from the facility. Instantly upon seeing him, she psychically attacks Valerian. She blames him for leaving Jim behind, it’s only that very Dominion Fleet firing on them that even gets her to stop. She makes it very clear despite pleas to the contrary, there is no US as far as Sarah is concerned. The Raiders aren’t her allies, Jim is and she won’t leave without him.

This all denotes that Sarah is acting very much still like her old persona. While she may not remember what she did as the Queen of Blades, she isn’t really that far off from being her again. Her motivations may have changed, but she’s not truly back to her old self. The trauma and length of time as the Queen has clearly altered that.

With the Hyperion unable to stay, Kerrigan leaves for a nearby planet’s surface, hoping to wait for Jim there. Instead she finds a Dominion Outpost and a massive orbital gun. She needs it gone or else Raynor will be blown out of the sky. She can’t do it alone, so she connects to the nearby Zerg colony and its Swarm Queen. These are new units for the game, created by Kerrigan herself to replace the Cerebrates of the Overmind. They now oversee the larger Swarm for her as lieutenants.

This Swarm Queen, Naktul, dutifully obeys Sarah’s commands and assists her in destroying the Dominion Forces on the planet as well as taking out the gun. While successful, Sarah realizes that she’s slipping back into her Queen of Blades persona. She’s even starting to talk like them, separating herself from the other Terrans. With this knowledge, Kerrigan retreats to her dropship and tries to sort things out. It’s very clear that without Raynor’s support structure, she is very quickly slipping back into darkness inside her. A fact that she freely admits to. She keeps trying to contact Jim, but he’s not answering her. She’s alone, save for a single Zergling that snuck aboard creeping up to her. It doesn’t seem to be all that threatening to her, even as she points a gun at it.

Then she gets the news that Raynor has seemingly been captured and executed. Mengsk then comes on next, celebrating Jim’s death as Sarah breaks down in the dropship, unable to cope with the fact that Jim has died and she couldn’t save him. All while Mengsk gloats at the prospect of his absolute victoty and unopposed rule.

"Proud Dominion citizens, at long last our nightmare is over. The lawless terrorist James Raynor is dead. With his death comes a new era of peace. The protoss have retreated from our Dominion, and the zerg threat has been removed. Their Swarm is shattered and leaderless. Soon we will eradicate every last zerg on Char. In short, we have won.”

And all this time, the zergling stays at Sarah’s side, offering her the only support she has left to lean on it seems, her Swarm. With Raynor dead and the Protoss backing off to deal with their own problems, Sarah is all that remains to potentially challenge Mengsk and defeat him. Despite whatever reservations she had, the one person who believed, supported and trusted her is gone. With no one else, of course she returns to the Zerg and the only people that she has left. She embraces the monster within and the power it holds.

It’s obvious the scene is meant to make us side with and agree with Kerrigan’s decision to simply go full Zerg. After all, we like Jim and the prospect of him being dead at Mengsk’s hands is not going to sit well with us. We’d likely want revenge just as much as Sarah does and frankly, whatever reservations one might have about Kerrigan right now, the scene IS effective. Partially because of the high quality cinematics, the voice acting, and the direction. But generally I think it has to come back to Mengsk. His gloating, his self-assurance that he has won, that he’s the hero of humanity while Sarah mourns the loss of the one person she ever truly loved. Who wouldn’t agree with her in this moment that retaking the mantle of Queen of Blades is her best and only option?

This is the monster mindset, the subversion of the typical storyline. No longer is the human knight the savior of humanity, but a villain that needs to be destroyed. Because it has taken something from the monster, something that it felt it deserved or earned. Something that belonged to it alone. In his efforts to be the conquering hero, Mengsk has incured the wrath of a force greater than himself, more primal and ancient. This is what the Zerg represent, the scorned and wronged dragon who will burn the castle to the ground as punishment for the kingdom’s arrogance.

When we played as Raynor, we inhabited very human concepts of conflict. “Wings of Liberty” had us fighting for ideals like freedom, justice, hope among others. Kerrigan and her Swarm are now fighting in this moment for survival and retribution, distinctly more primal concepts. You can’t really spin these in good ways, there’s always a negative association with something so innately thematically insular. We might agree with Sarah, but her actions aren’t really for the greater good, they’re for herself. And that inherently makes her struggle and us connecting with her an uphill battle. Because, as we’ve established by now, she’s no longer really human anymore. Maybe in appearence she is, but not in mindset.

Summon the Swarm

At this point the game opens up to give you more choice in which missions you do, but unlike the previous game you will be locked onto that set pack of missions on which ever planet you decide to pick. Whether you go to Char or Kaldir, you’ll remain there until every mission there is completed. It’s again showing more a direct single minded nature with the Zerg and Kerrigan, they’ll keep fighting until they’ve claimed all territory as their own and every threat eliminated, or they die. So even the mission structure of the game is based around a more monster-oriented mindset.

Whichever planet you pick, you end up finding a vacant Zerg Leviathan, essentially a biological spaceship, that Sarah quickly seizes control of. It’s here we meet Izsha, a strange Zerg creature that acts as Kerrigan’s advisor and eventually Abathur, an even stranger Zerg creature who is basically an alien mad scientist obsessed with constantly evolving the Zerg.

Like “Wings of Liberty” these are the first two NPC characters you can interact with in your hub aboard the Leviathan between missions. However, while some may occupy similar positions to previous characters, Izsha is basically Sarah’s Matt Horner and Abathur is essentially Swann, that is where the similarities end.

And this holds true for all of Kerrigan’s lieutenants within her Swarm, which this section will discuss in detail. Although it might not be terribly long because of one specific problem they all have.

They are all incredibly flat static characters. And this isn’t a flaw, it’s by design.

Izsha is probably the greatest offender. She has no real personality, she’s basically an emotionless bug creature with no real opinions or thoughts of her own. She essentially exists as another extension of Sarah, functionally keeping her updated on incoming threats and providing her intel before and during missions. She is functionally just a palette swap replacement of the Adjutant that’s been talking to you for a while. Sometimes Izsha will ask questions, she might make a seemingly snide or rye comment here and there, but ultimately it reads like she just doesn’t understand the wider context of Kerrigan’s thoughts and statements.

She’s a lot like Data from Star Trek: TNG in this regard, but Izsha doesn’t want to be more human nor does she really want to understand how to be human. In fact, she doesn’t really have any desires, as she’s a creation of Kerrigan’s meant to hold all her relevant thoughts and plans. Like the Cerebrates of past Starcraft games, but with no real control over the Swarm. She simply wishes to know how best she can serve her queen. She is devotely loyal, to a fault and never once seems to doubt this.

The closest she gets is after the end of a particular mission where Sarah won’t speak with anyone and she shows concern for that. As soon as that’s over though, Izsha never brings it up again and Sarah never really confides in Izsha in any case. All she’s there to do is sift through additional plans and stray thoughts that might be relevant to the Swarm’s survival. Metatextually, this serves the purpose of giving Kerrigan someone to talk to aboard the Leviathan before more show up later.

However, she’s not a friend or even a confidant, she’s basically a sounding board for Sarah to mouth off to. Even that has its limits. Whenever Izsha’s questions hit too close to home for Sarah, particularly where it may raise some doubts, fears or problems with Kerrigan’s motivations and goals, that is when she silences her creepy advisor. Sarah snaps at Izsha to drop the subject and Izsha does so without another word. Her deference to Kerrigan’s commands and refusal to ever challenge her on anything make Izsha functionally a beta to Kerrigan’s alpha. She is in no position to make demands, her council is only needed up to a point and barely at all. She is purely a subordinate lackey, not a friend or comrade.

Abathur is at least a bit more interesting, as his character doesn’t speak nearly as monotone and has far more personality to it even if he’s ultimately just as flat as Izsha narratively. Abathur exists purely to evolve the swarm, toiling away in the Leviathan’s Evolution Pit crafting new upgrades for your various units. His nightmarish visage, gruff but direct voice and matter of fact sentence structure basically makes him seem like a less friendly, more sinister version of Mordin Solus from the Mass Effect games. They’re both mad scientists to a degree, so the comparison is apt.

However, Abathur has even fewer moral scruples and hang ups than Mordin ever did. He is not above killing living test subjects he deems failures. He will rip off limbs, he we tear through skin, break bones, lacerate organs, pull out brains, and ultimately eviscerate his experiments to achieve his ends. Those ends always being make the Swarm Stronger, more adaptable, more evolved. And if a few experiments die or are tossed aside, oh well. Just how it goes.

Kerrigan finds his rather brutal form of enforced natural selection rather displeasing, mainly because she thinks Abathur is familiar to her. Not long after meeting and conversing with him, Sarah learns the truth. Abathur isn’t a new creation of the Zerg like Izsha or her Swarm Queens. He was the one who put her in the crysallis that turned her into the Queen of Blades in the first place.

While he clearly didn’t have many options, given that the Overmind likely made him do it regardless of anything else, Abathur is unapologetic. In fact he’s proud of his work and a bit disappointed that Sarah undid it all. Not mad, just confused as to why she didn’t appreciate what he did for her. Naturally, Kerrigan is not happy with this knowledge and only restrains herself from killing Abathur outright because she understands she needs him. Mengsk is still the person who got her captured and while he’s probably more directly responsible, Abathur again had no real choice in the matter. For his part though, Abathur just doesn’t understand Sarah’s anger.

To be honest, he doesn’t understand many human emotions, seeing them as distractions to his work. It’s really all he lives for, his one prime function as set forth by the Overmind. However, while a lot of his experiments are done for the Swarm, he’s fundamentally useless without someone to oversee and guide his work. When the Overmind died, Abathur wandered feral through the tunnels of Char, until he was given purpose again through Kerrigan’s hivemind connection.

As far as Abathur is concerned, you’re not a Zerg unless someone is controlling you, you’re just another animal otherwise. This suggests that the Zerg as a species requires a leader, a controller, to be whole and functional. Even if it is ultimately to fulfill Kerrigan’s revenge, that’s purpose enough. A Zerg without purpose is just an animal and not a sapient cognitive being. To backslide along the evolutionary path is unacceptable to Abathur. So he follows Sarah, not because he has no choice, but because she offers purpose ultimately. If Sarah were to die and someone else gave him sufficient purpose, he would follow them instead.

For Abathur, the Swarm and the Evolution of it is everything, but it only works if someone else is making the decisions and calling the shots on how to direct his focus and work. That’s what gives it purpose. Which is his primary mechanic and position within the game. Abathur is the one who directs the Evolution Missions, various little side quests that unlock throughout the game that enable you to unlock more abilities for your Zerg units in battle. However, you can only pick one of two options each mission, for balancing purposes within the campaign mostly, but in-universe its because the strains will cancel each other out otherwise. As a result, you probably spend the more time with Abathur over the course of the game than anyone else and get to know the Zerg most through him.

Abathur’s obsession with evolution and his position within the Swarm gives a greater insight into how the Zerg function as a species. Essentially, besides his belief that the hivemind gives them purpose, he functionally doesn’t understand anything beyond evolutionary terms and the constant struggle for survival.

To him, the cruelty and brutal lifestyle of the Zerg is natural and simply a net positive. So long as the Swarm evolves, it endures and improves repeatedly. He doesn’t believe in perfection, because that would require stagnation. Perfection in his mind is unobtainable, always out of reach. It is a goal to strive towards, but never truly attain. There is no end state to the Zerg in this sense. No final form, no pinnacle apex adaptation, simply a constant push to survive whatever the universe might throw at you. He thus treats every experiment as vital to that continued plan of survival.

As for the other races in their way, simply bio-matter and he finds them loathsomely inefficient, Terrans especially. He even remarks on how Sarah has been “infected” with more Terran bio-matter upon her return. It’s not so much racism, as he sees human functionality woefully inadequate towards his standards of survival. Conflict with the other factions is seemingly inevitable in his mind as well, in order to keep chasing the efficiency and unobtainable perfection. While he’ll never reach it, stagnation is unaffordable, making the Swarm stronger requires it to be tested constantly. To him, the Zerg as a society is one long ongoing experiment. It’s nothing personal when the Zerg attack and assimilate a Terran colony, it’s just science.

In these terms, Abathur probably presents the first real substantial motivation for the Zerg. To evolve and seek conflict in order to do so. Their choice of conflict, however, depends on who is in charge and is entirely dependent on their whims. As long as Kerrigan holds sway over them all through her hivemind connection, they will obey. Abathur will follow her so long as she maintains the conflict neccessary for his experiments to continue. Purpose is dervied for the Zerg by a single master who controls them. Their motivations are tied to them. If Kerrigan wants revenge on Mengsk, Abathur will help her do so. For without Kerrigan he has no purpose, no drive, no means to carry on what he is.

Clearly Abathur and Sarah have different priorities. In Sarah’s case, she does terrible things because she believes she has to in order to get to her end goal. The ends justify the means. Abathur doesn’t really care about the ends, there is no end. The means aren’t important either. All that matters is evolving and improving. Morality isn’t important to Abathur, let alone the Zerg at large, it barely figures into their thought process. It might with Sarah, but not them. And without her, they have no will or drive of their own beyond basic instinct. This is important to remember for later.

For now, the thing to take away from this is that as monsters, the Zerg’s understanding of themselves runs purely on basic innate understanding of controlling their own evolution to best survive, thrive and continue to do so. If it requires other species to be consumed to achieve that, then they will. This is just how nature is. The Zerg in this sense are nature and so long as the Zerg survive, it matters little who doesn’t. Again, just like Kerrigan’s need for revenge, the basic motivations of the Zerg as innately self-serving it seems.

Speaking of Self-Serving, that brings us to the next member of Kerrigan’s crew, Zagara. A Swarm Queen that has decided she can lead the Swarm better than Kerrigan and has taken over her old roost on Char. She’s now fighting a desperate and losing battle against General Warfield who the player helped conquer Char to begin with in “Wings of Liberty.”

After a direct confrontation that sees Kerrigan out hatch Baneling eggs and nearly literally roll over her forces with them, Zagara submits. There’s no sense in dying here, Zagara seemingly knows she can’t beat Kerrigan at this point and promises to serve her as a loyal lieutenant. Kerrigan accepts, but she decides that Zagara needs to be more than just the average Swarm Queen. She needs to evolve, to understand, to be taught.

Zagara probably has the most personality of any of Kerrigan’s followers. Not depth of character, she’s hardly any better than Abathur there, but she certainly has a better grasp on emotions than he does. Abathur doesn’t really get angry, there’s a moment where he seems jealous over another faction of Zerg for how they “stole” his evolutionary designs, but it passes fairly soon. Zagara has more emotional range, even if it fluctuates between various shades of scheming, derisive commentary and bloodlusting battlerage.

Zagara also actually has the closest thing to an arc character wise, but only because Kerrigan imposes it on her as she needs what is clearly going to be one of her chief battlefield lieutenants to actually think. She determines she can’t treat them like pawns, not entirely. They need to be independent enough to be able to do things without her direct involvement.

When she first comes aboard the Leviathan, Zagara does not seem to understand much in terms of overall strategy. She functions on very basic Zerg instinct, if slightly more advanced. Build up a lot of soldiers, make your numbers big enough to absorb any hits, rush the enemy and overwhelm them through sheer numerical advantage. Quantity over quality, essentially she’s stuck using Zerg Rush as her only real trick. Emphasized in how she’s tried to defeat Warfield by constantly attacking him head-on over and over, and failing every time. But insistent that THIS time it will work.

That won’t do for Kerrigan. Zagara, as she claims, needs vision. Besides sending her to Abathur to increase her intelligence capacity, enabling her to better strategize and understand various tactical concepts, Kerrigan speaks to Zagara one on one, to try and see how she’s improving. Not that she doesn’t just understand the concepts, but can learn from them. In this sense, Kerrigan tries to lead by example, more than just show of force or strength of will. She is directly trying to pass on knowledge to Zagara to make her better.

Strangely enough, despite fitting the motif of a Starscream character in near everyway, Zagara is grateful for this opportunity. She irks at going under the knife so often, but she sees the benefits. She then reasons at one point that she’s strong enough to actually challenge Kerrigan. However, she declines, she does intend to lead the Swarm, but not until she has learned everything from Kerrigan that is worth learning. Specifically, vision and what it means.

In Kerrigan’s terms, as she explains to Zagara, vision means seeing beyond the most obvious. Looking at a different angle, taking in the whole picture and beyond it. She does this with Warfield, by thinking around his various strategies, rather than just trying to outmuscle him through numbers or power alone. Zagara watches as Kerrigan takes apart her enemies, piece by piece, instead of going directly for the killing blow. And the Swarm Queen sees the value in this form of patience easily, as Sarah accomplishes what she failed to do.

Throughout the game, Zagara and Kerrigan’s conversations continue much in this way. Zagara will put forth a very blunt direct attitude as to how the Zerg deal with things. She presumes superiority and power are inherent to their species, that nothing can crush them. While Kerrigan continues to warn her of how confidence can lead to arrogance and that learning from your enemies is as important as defeating them. I think of them as master and student in this regard, Kerrigan teaching Zagara how to be like the Queen of Blades, but free of the same traps. Zagara is taught to see beyond the limited view of the Swarm’s biological instinct and think for herself instead. Not so much in a selfish way, but in a grander idea than pure survival.

As she grows more intelligent though, Zagara gains a sense of curiosity, a desire to understand. She continues to ask questions to Kerrigan, about the various races they encounter, the places they visit and why things are the way they are. Zagara doesn’t understand all of it and everything is filtered through her Zerg mindset, but her desire to know is self-evident. More than just lusting for the blood of her enemies, although that never really goes away, Zagara does start to form a sense of empathy this way, more than Abathur ever could.

For example, she comes to view the Terrans with pity more than just enemies or fuel to evolve the swarm. They have no hivemind, no direction, no purpose given to them. They’re lost in her mind, confused and bereft of function. That they’re all so alone in the end, without the comfort of other likeminded individuals within the Swarm. She wishes to help them in the end… by killing them and assimilating them into the Swarm. Yes, it’s very alien morality logic, but she is a monster. Her values are inherently different from ours, the fact she can form any sense of empathy is a remarkable change for her.

Zagara’s loyalty to Kerrigan develops into true admiration in time, but she can never fully understand her queen though. While Kerrigan is Zerg, she’s still very much human with human concerns. Some of the things Sarah does Zagara cannot truly grasp because they are so alien to her. When Kerrigan briefly teams up with some old Terran friends, which we will talk about later, Zagara thinks it has to be because she’s tricking them. This is a long term goal, a plan of some sort, like the Queen of Blades of old. It’s not though and Kerrigan remarks that Zagara will not understand why she is doing this. No matter how hard she tries.

But Zagara wants to understand, she wants to know. She doesn’t want to become more human, but she does want to understand them and comprehend vision. If only as a means of surviving and thriving at first, but eventually to become truly worthy of being the leader of the Swarm. In this sense, Zagara comes the closest to truly transcending from pure monster to actual monster hero within the confines of ”Heart of the Swarm’s” story.

She is still beholden to Kerrigan’s whims, her morality is fairly warped and alien, she works on survival instinct and filters everything through those instincts, but she wants more. She is not nearly so self-serving in the end as she could be and her efforts start to lead her to a more aspirational desire. It’s not anything truely heroic or idealistic yet, but Zagara wants to grow and move beyond what the Zerg are as vicious bloodthirsty monsters. She’ll never be human, she doesn’t want to be, but her sincere curiosity and growing sense of empathy is far closer to a heroic template than any of the other Lieutenants in the swarm we’ve discussed thus far.

This brings us to Dehaka, a different kind of Zerg with a different personal creed. For the most part, a lot of the Zerg we’ve talked about have determined their worth in becoming more powerful in one way or another. Abathur believes in power through evolution, Zagara revolves around power through strength and later the mind, Kerrigan sees power as a means to an end more than anything. Dehaka doesn’t care about power. He only cares about change.

As discussed, Abathur looks at Evolution’s power as striving towards an ideal. While he can never reach perfection, he’ll keep moving towards it all the same. He finds purpose in trying to obtain a goal, targeting evolution and making it work to his specific calibrations. Dehaka prefers to not focus too much on the power acquired, he just prefers to change. He prefers to alter himself as a means of survival, but never as a means of gaining power. Collecting “Essence” as he says is how he improves himself and stays alive. But he never seeks direct power or control, as he views it as a trap.

This attitude comes from his origins, Dehaka is not a normal Zerg, he’s a Primal Zerg. Born on Zerus, the planet where the Zerg truly originated, Dehaka had a very different upbringing. The Primal Zerg have no hivemind, they run on pack mentality. The strongest rules and weaker bend the knee and serve. Dehaka has a pack because he is strong, but he’s unlike other Primal Pack leaders who are self-assured in their status to the point of arrogance. A Primal Pack Leader generally beats their chest, tries to kill other pack leaders who are strong themselves, seize their territory and become more powerful. They either die in the attempt or succeed.

Dehaka does not do that, he sees the accumulation of power as simply a means of getting a target on your back. He’s nowhere near the same level as other pack leaders on Zerus, he doesn’t care. He’d rather NOT become someone else’s dinner. He prefers to flow. He’ll collect essence, he’ll evolve, he’ll change, he’ll grow stronger, but he will not challenge. He will join with those he feels are strongest and lend himself to their efforts. This is how he survives, through pragmatic evolution, not via a directive towards more power as Abathur feels.

As a result, conflict is to be avoided in Dehaka’s mind. A lust for power for it’s own sake only makes you easier to destroy in the end because someone will just see it as something they want to take from you. He doesn’t even try to obtain the psionic connection most normal Zerg have, preferring to rely on his own inherent evolved abilities rather than truly join the Swarm in every aspect. Something Kerrigan allows because she herself sees the inherent advantage of using a Zerg that doesn’t have something most Zerg have that has been used against them.

The Hivemind is a great strength for the Zerg, enabling them to move and act as one unit with the same directive and goal. Dehaka not having one should be seen as a weakness, but as we find later in the game it is a trump card that Kerrigan has in her arsenal. It’s something that forces a change within the Zerg, to accept something outside their direct control, an independent ally and operator. One that will act in their interest but not be a slave to it.

Dehaka himself follows Kerrigan, not out of instinct or a desire for purpose or even because he submits to her. He follows her because where she goes new essence can be found. Dehaka describes his “loyalty” to Kerrigan fairly simply. He is not a rock or a wind, he will not stand against nor fight against Kerrigan. He will flow with her, like a river. Despite being a primitive dinosaur, in both looks and mindset, Dehaka is actually fairly intelligent in this respect. Not a slave to Zerg instincts but upholding them all the same.

He’s the one lieutenant that can disagree with Kerrigan because she holds no psionic power over his mind. He is the leader of a separate pack, not a tied to Kerrigan’s mission in anyway. He is here for his own purposes but will assist Kerrigan in a mutual partnership. Sarah recognizes and accepts this, although she constantly wonders if Dehaka will abandon her for someone stronger. Dehaka admits he would, but he doesn’t think anyone is stronger than her. He’s certainly not impressed with Terran technology, believing evolution will enable him a way around such things. For him, change is constant and neccessary. To stand still is to die. Dehaka is therefore always moving, going where the essence takes him, but never becoming obsessed with the power it grants.

In this sense, Dehaka is more of a true force of nature than even the Zerg are. He is not beholden to any illusions of power that his abilities give him. The essence grants him power, but he knows that it can also make him a target should he abuse it. He prefer the balancing act rather than forcing the change and sees no real goal beyond survival. Adapting to the change, moving with it, rather than making it what you desire, is preferable. And without a psi-connection, he remains free of Kerrigan’s true hold unlike the rest of her subordinates.

Does this make Dehaka more heroic because of his free-will? Does his willingness to help Kerrigan of his own volition make him more selfless? Yes and no. Dehaka has free will and will do what he feels is neccessary to survive. He will assist others in their plans to forward his own aims. In this sense he has more aspirational values and is not beholden entirely to self-interest. If he was, he’d be no better than the power drunk pack leaders he avoids becoming.

However, he’s still very much a monster. He’s not arrogant and he lacks any true malice, he’s even fairly intelligent. But his goals are ultimately self-serving even when he’s serving others. While he has an interesting take on Zerg philosophy, he is still very much driven by primal instinct. Being, well, a primal zerg this probably should not be surprising. He is essentially a big killer dinosaur after all, you probably shouldn’t expect any greater level of nuance beyond his pack mentality and desire to improve himself through the collection of essence. He is the Zerg in their natural state, but he’s still very much Zerg.

Perhaps then we need someone more like Kerrigan, who actually has a semi-understanding of heroic values built in. It takes a while to find him, but we do come across one lieutenant that shares more in common with Kerrigan than anyone else. An old friend, or in Kerrigan’s case, an old enemy.

Alexei Stukov, once a commander within the UED Expeditionary Force, betrayed by an infested Terran operative who called himself Duran. The truth of Duran is a discussion for later, but for now, Stukov’s death was not all it appeared to be. He was resurrected and turned into an infested Terran, now more Zerg than human. Kerrigan even notes the similarities in their backstory. And while Stukov is himself calling on Sarah’s aid now to get revenge on the people who did this to him, his reasoning is not entirely self-serving as he knows the greater stakes at hand. While he has lost his humanity, he is not completely bereft of what once made him human. And that is probably his best asset in regards to his status as a potential heroic monster.

When Stukov was human, his position within the UED was one of tempered professionalism and reasonable authority. He might have been antagonistic towards a lot of the characters we loved in the Korpulu sector, but he seemed to talk the most sense. When that one mission forced us to kill him, everyone already knew it felt like a mistake. But we had no real choice but to go along with it. Seeing him again is a bit of obvious fan service, but it’s a chance for him to be on the right side for once, and in this case he very much is.

Stukov hates what has been done to him, but he still intends to use his new power against those who tortured and turned him into the monster he is now. He reaches out to Kerrigan to help him achieve these ends, knowing he can’t do it on his own. Like Sarah he has recognized the need to form allies out of those who are probably less than savory and embrace what he ultimately is by aligning with the Zerg outright. However, he doesn’t try to take control of the Swarm, nor does he seem to have an delusions of grandeur concerning this partnership.

Stukov is still clearly out for revenge, but he also recognizes the greater evil at play within the facility he is asking Kerrigan’s help with destroying. For it is producing a threat that endangers more than just him or even the Zerg. Taking it down is about avenging the wrongs done to him, but it’s also about making sure it cannot continue further. In this sense Stukov is not running on total animal instinct. He is thinking in terms of the greater whole beyond his own personal gain. And this is true especially concerning his interactions with Kerrigan.

Iszha, Dehaka, Zagara and Abathur can’t really offer proper council to their queen. They can present other perspectives, even ask prying questions, but Kerrigan doesn’t really allow them to question her. Stukov may not question Sarah’s motives much either, probably because he doesn’t really have much of a greater moral high ground, but he does routinely warn her of potential risks with her plans. As a result, his conversations are a lot less one-sided in this regard. They’re almost equals, or they at least respect one another enough that Kerrigan will defer to his advice as often as Stukov will give it.

Despite his mutation into a Zerg, Stukov has retained his humanity better than Kerrigan ever did. He’s of course not much better concerning his methods, as he primarily turns humans into Infested Terrans to bolster his forces. However, he mostly chooses who he infects and for the most part its people who are themselves doing worse things. This doesn’t really make him a hero, but Stukov is under no delusions about what and who he is, unlike the old Queen of Blades was. You can tell he regrets a lot of the decisions he made that led to this path, he even mourns the death of his friend Gerard DuGalle. Despite the fact Kerrigan killed him, he doesn’t seem to hold any ill-will towards her. In general, Stukov seems to have accepted that he is a monster now and is mainly concerned in trying to make the most of it.

The question ultimately is, how much of Stukov’s motivation is purely out of a desire for revenge or truly altruistic? It’s hard to say, even Stukov doesn’t seem to know. However his apparent concern for Kerrigan’s life and state of mind goes a bit beyond self-interest and it certainly has nothing to do with her control of the swarm. While Stukov needs Kerrigan to get his revenge, his lack of animosity towards her suggests he’s not really being forced to make this choice. Yes, he doesn’t have many options, but he never tries to assert his dominance and doesn’t really try to make any deal towards his advantage alone. Unlike the other Lieutenants, Stukov has no truly selfish ambition beyond getting back at the people who wronged him. He also understands that there is more going on here than what immediately benefits himself.

The final piece to understanding Stukov in “Heart of the Swarm” is how his mission chain ends. With things concluded more or less, his revenge achieved and the place that mutated him in ruins, Stukov makes the assumption that he has now outlived his usefulness. Knowing Kerrigan is used to cleaning up loose ends at this point, he fully expects her to turn on him. It’s clear he suspected this would happen from the moment he reached out to her and he still asked for her help. His lack of self-preservation is uncharacteristic of the Zerg, who are about survival above all else. He knows that the threat he’s facing is too great and that his life matters little in the grand scheme of stopping it. Maybe he’s that desperate for revenge, but it honestly seems like he’s accepted this outcome if it means ending a dangerous foe who threatens all life.

Sarah, however, has changed greatly over her journey at this point. She is nothing like the old Queen of Blades now and accepts Stukov into her swarm with open arms. Although she will let him leave if he so desires. With no real other prospects and no greater purpose, Stukov chooses to stay, not as a minion or exactly a friend, but clearly the closest thing Kerrigan has to an equal aboard her Leviathan. And as Kerrigan’s designs shift away from her personal vendetta and towards a more all encompassing threat to the races of the galaxy at large, she offers Stukov a part in thos designs. Noting that the odds are likely against them and they will probably die, Kerrigan states it’s better to fight for something than lay down and die. Which Stukov readily agrees with.

Taking all of this into account, Stukov is the closest to a heroic monster among Kerrigan’s lieutenants. While his morals may not be an absolute, he does have values beyond pure instinct or survival and is willing to lay down his life for them. He is willing to forgive former enemies, with little advantage to himself. He is, for all intents and purposes, the most human of Sarah’s companions. Perhaps the closest to actually being a friend of hers among the swarm, at least at this point. And it is ultimately through him that Kerrigan finally finds a greater purpose beyond her selfish desire for revenge that could potentially make her a hero as well. He is not perfect, his methods are still monstrous and it’s hard to judge how truly noble he is in the pursuit of his goals, but he fits the hero category better than most of the other lieutenants, if only by default.

However, this brings up the issue of how heroic a monster can truly be. Stukov is the exception among the lieutenants because, like Sarah, he used to be human, and none of the other Zerg Leaders ever were. Does this mean a monster can only be a hero if they have some already existing human values? Does that undercut their monstrous nature if their sense of morality is more in line with humanity’s and not something more alien? Because those questions are ultimately a part of the wider issue here. The more human a monster is, the more in line with our sense of right and wrong they are. It’s the difference between survival instinct and intentional altruism. How much of what the Zerg do is because they wish to act on it or because either their instinct or someone else, like Sarah, is controlling them?

“Heart of the Swarm” is fairly invested in asking this question over and over again, seeking an answer. Is Kerrigan more monster than human? Is her position and function as the leader of the Zerg enable her to be anything other than a force of destruction? Can she be seen a redeemed, heroic figureor is she doomed to forever be the monster as a result of her nature? Given what she does over the course of the campaign, that question is very hard to answer definitively. Which is why we need to discuss what Kerrigan does as she returns to her old title and ask if she has truly changed.

New Reasons to be Afraid

As stated before, once players have cleared the initial prologue stages, the game opens up and allows you to pick which missions you go on. But you’re locked on a single mission set once you pick it. This choice is perhaps done to retain narrative flow, it also makes more sense for the Zerg. Why would they leave a planet if they have not yet secured it? However, both worlds you can travel to initially inevitably force you to confront the problems of trying to make Kerrigan a hero. Namely, she’s killing people who do not really deserve it. And that is emphasized with the two primary antagonist characters for the initial missions, General Warfield and Lassara.

Most players seem to go to Kaldir first, as it allows them to unlock the Hydralisk early. However, it honestly makes more sense that Kerrigan would go to Char first, as the news about the impending extermination of all Zerg there, as well as its familiarity and importance to the Swarm, would draw Kerrigan towards it. This also seems to be the canon of the actual story, for whatever that is worth. So we’re starting with Warfield first in our discussion.

Warfield is technically not presented entirely sympathetically during these missions. He’s still loyal to the Dominion and ultimately Mengsk. He’s very open in his intentions and desire to essentially wipe out the Zerg entirely on Char and he is fairly open in his disdain for Kerrigan. He’s more of a traditional opponent, so technically we shouldn’t be too concerned with killing him.

Or we would be, if we did not know him. After all, we fought alongside Warfield in “Wings of Liberty” and while he wasn’t exactly a friend, we earned his respect and admiration. His personality was also endearing, as while he was working for the Dominion, he showed true courage, resilence and cared about his men. He didn’t fight from the safety of a ship in orbit, nor did he place himself above his lesser ranked soldiers. He fought with them and for them. He had come out of retirement in fact to help fight back the Swarm when the Queen of Blades returned. He even forced the medics to cut off his damaged arm and replace it with a cybernetic prosthetic, just so he could return to active duty and fight beside his men again. He might work for a bad government, but he’s clearly not like Mengsk. And because of his actions, Raynor was able to save to Sarah in the first. In a way, Kerrigan owes her life, her freedom from the toxic personality of the Queen of Blades, to Warfield.

And now she’s come to kill him. Regardless of any of his other traits, Warfield is still a Dominion General, he’s still loyal to Mengsk and Kerrigan doesn’t really care beyond that. He’s in the way of her revenge, he intends to destroy her Swarm. That means he’s a threat and the animalistic nature of the Zerg means that there can be no negotiation or diplomacy here. Kill or be killed, that’s all that matters.

All the same, for people who played “Wings of Liberty” their actions in “Heart of the Swarm” effectively undo a lot of the work from the previous campaign. You saved these Dominion Soldiers before, they helped you. Now you’re killing them all. This was easy to stomach when the point of the Zerg was them being evil, not so easy when you’re supposed to be the good guy in this campaign. If not the good guy than at least sympathetic.

If Kerrigan has any thoughts on Warfield and his soldiers that isn’t directly seeing them as a threat to her Swarm and an obstacle to her revenge, she does not share them. Partially because her minions do not care about those nuances ultimately, mostly because she has to play the role it seems. The Zerg will not respect her or follow her if she shows weakness or empathy. So she hides whatever thoughts she might have that may betray those compassionate human aspects.

For most of the missions on Char, Kerrigan systematically dismantles the Dominion operation. Taking out Warfield’s many containment and offensive capabilities. Warfield rants and raves about the inevitable destruction of the Swarm. Kerrigan simply shrugs the threats off, mingling better tactics with the Swarm’s numerical advantage to achieve victory. Before long, Warfield is lying wounded, a steel beam through his chest, as surviving Dominion soldiers try to flee to shuttles off world.

Even now, all Warfield cares about is getting them out. So when Sarah arrives, he tries to plead with her to let them go, citing that they’re no threat to her. Kerrigan doesn’t seem to respond, enraging Warfield as it seems she’s going to let her Zerg kill his men. Warfield at this point calls her a traitor, to both humanity and the memory of Jim Raynor. The use of his name is enough for Sarah to just outright finish Warfield off. But after the rage passes… Kerrigan calls of the Swarm and lets the Dominion survivors go. She decides to show compassion, more than the old Queen of Blades ever did. She doesn’t gloat over Warfield, she doesn’t cackle, she doesn’t even seem proud of her victory here.

Mostly Kerrigan just seems rather resigned to the reality that she’s just Zerg now, that she’s a monster. It seems she only let the Dominion soldiers go, perhaps, as a way to prove to herself she is still a little human. Revenge, however, still matters more. But she won’t kill everyone off out of cruelty, she can stop herself, she can decide when enough is enough. She might be a monster, but she does not have to be a villain as well. It’s a moment that shows Kerrigan isn’t the same as she was when she was previously infested.

But while Warfield might be easier to justify as an enemy, especially given that he still works for the Dominion, and Kerrigan’s bit of mercy softens the blow somewhat, this isn’t the case for Lassara. A Protoss scientist, not even a warrior, that Kerrigan essentially dooms to a terrible fate alongside all of her people on Kaldir. More so than even Warfield, what happens to Lassara is far less easy to justify, which even Kerrigan admits. As a result, it is a lot less easy to still see Sarah’s actions as heroic while taking the entirety of Kaldir into account.

When Kerrigan arrives on Kaldir, it to try to get another Swarm Queen that controls a great deal of Zerg to submit to her. However, she’s already dead and the Protoss are on Kaldir in force. As soon as they see Kerrigan though, they are very quick to decide its time to pack up and leave. They’re not trying to fight Kerrigan for most of the campaign on the planet, they’re just trying to get away.

Kerrigan knows that this is just so they can warn the Golden Armada, the main bulk of the Protoss military force. If they learn of her return at this stage of things, the Zerg Swarm broken and Kerrigan herself still not strong enough, the Protoss will destroy her. With revenge on her mind, Sarah can’t afford to fight another war against the Protoss to defeat her real enemy, Mengsk. So she makes the call that the Protoss on Kaldir must be exterminated to the last before they can warn of the Golden Armada.

This where Lassara comes in, she’s captured at the end of the first mission on Kaldir and forcibly held on the Leviathan where she reveals that these Protoss are not primarily warriors. They are simply colonists, searching for a place to live. Something Kerrigan forced upon them on when she helped the Overmind essentially conquer their homeworld of Aiur. She tells Kerrigan very bluntly that her people are colonists, scientists, civilians… and she’s killing them. Sarah doesn’t sound very sorry where she offers her rather weak response to this charge. That the Protoss have slaughtered countless Zerg themselves. This is just about survival, nothing personal.

Except, the Zerg are largely mindless without a leader, as even the various Zerg among Sarah’s circle of advisors have admitted. Overall, many Zerg are but feral animals, who will attack and kill whatever catches their attention. Killing them is not really the same as killing free-thinking sapient beings, especially when the Zerg have been traditionally the aggressor in every conflict. This isn’t a war between typical competing ideologies or cultures. The Zerg go to a planet and murder everything in sight and all the Protoss do is trying to contain and stop them when they do. Sarah’s accusation of the Protoss’ kill count to her own is not comparable in the slightest. It’s essentially a poor attempt at whataboutism by both-siding the issue. When you’re one of the chief reasons the Protoss are in the bad place they are, that takes away any semblance of moral high ground.

Kerrigan acts like she has no choice, even as Lassara tells her she could just leave. Flee Kaldir long before the Golden Armada even arrives. Perhaps even letting them leave would convince the Protoss that she is not interested in fighting them or has changed. She could try talking to the Protoss Colonists, telling them she is not a threat and simply desires revenge against someone else entirely unrelated to them. She does none of this, doesn’t even think of diplomacy, not even a token attempt at dialogue. She sees a threat, the Protoss, and attacks, like a scared animal. Except she can actually reason, she is capable of doing so, but falls back on basic pure survival instincts.

This is a by product of the game losing features. Lassara was supposed to be another advisor, a conscience among the many other Zerg who all obediently defer to her power. Lassara in this could be the only member of the Leviathan who could actually challenge Kerrigan’s actions. Perhaps even make her take different paths during certain missions. However, this was taken out, along with a lot of other ideas for the game, to streamline it. Otherwise, it would not have come out on time.

Sometimes you do need to do this with any creative endeavor as not all ideas pan out the way want. But losing Lassara as a legitimate advisor, and not a hostage, completely ruins the best chance for Kerrigan to be truly challenged directly on her Leviathan. To really have someone to discern the line between Zerg and human, between the monster and the hero. Without Lassara acting as the angel on Sarah’s shoulder there is no voice that criticizes her more extreme actions.

It’s a loss to the story and as a result makes it harder to understand Sarah’s ultimate motivations, making her seem more cruel and heartless than the game wants her to appear. If Kerrigan was supposed to be a straight up villain, this wouldn’t matter, just like the last game. But remember, Heart of the Swarm is depicting Kerrigan as a hero still, even if she is flawed. We’re meant to want her to succeed, but on Kaldir she’s behaving more like the old Queen of Blades than at any other point in the story.

On Char she let the Dominion soldiers go, the Protoss Colonists don’t get that luxury. The fate of Lassara is worse. Kerrigan infects her with a parasite, allows one of the only Protoss ships that escaped to detect her. They beam her back onto their ship… and moments later Lassara dies as the parasite Kerrigan infected her with bursts out of her. It then proceeds to grow into a Swarm Queen that massacres the last of the Protoss survivors of Kaldir.

Sarah remarks how she thinks Lassara was very brave and admirable. But its very moot, she still killed her in a way that was incredibly unecessary. It is remarkable cruel and aids in the completion of a massacre that Sarah did not seemingly need to commit. At this point, her excuses ring hollow and it is incredibly hard to justify any of these actions.

In one way, it sort of makes more sense for Kerrigan to start on Kaldir in this way. By allowing her to make up for this senseless act of mass murder by actually allowing the Dominion soldiers a chance to survive. It denotes a degree of character growth and change. But even still, that hardly makes up for the fact she still does this horribly cruel thing to a group of people who have done nothing to her to deserve this. Mengsk is the enemy we want to see Sarah get revenge on, not a bunch of Protoss who have probably suffered enough because of her.

Is there honestly anyway Sarah at this point can be redeemed now? The excuse before was her mind was corrupted by the Zerg. That’s gone now, every action she takes is of her own mind, will and personal decision making. She doesn’t get to use the evil personality card to get out of this one. It would seem at this point, the idea that a monster could still be a hero is completely off the table.

Is there still hope for Sarah Kerrigan to be redeemed? Maybe, but it requires change.

Evolve. Transform. Transcend.

Before long, Kerrigan will be visited by Zeratul. While he is no ally, he is not her enemy, a distinction he sorta forces on her when he reveals that he has found the birthplace of the Zerg. The planet Zerus, located far outside the Korpulu sector, is their true homeworld, although they are now unrecognizable to the Zerg that remain there. These are the Primals we discussed before and its clear moment one of landing they are happy to see their spaceward bug brethren return. They respond in an animalistic fashion, treating Kerrigan’s Zerg like a threat to their territory and packs.

The reaction is not unprecedented, as we find out when we accomplish our first mission on the planet and awaken an Ancient Primal known as Zurvan. The creature is intelligent and informs Kerrigan that what she knows as Zerg were taken from Zerus a long time ago by a being known as Amon. He altered the Zerg, changed them into what they are and corrupted them with something of his own design, the Hivemind. No Primal has this, they remain individuals. They are all still as hungry for power and evolution as any Zerg, however. And through this, Zurvan has something he can give Kerrigan.

Leading her to the first spawning pool, Kerrigan is able to undergo and tremendous change, reverting back to her classic Queen of Blades form, but different. She’s more powerful now and, more importantly, no longer corrupted by Amon���s designs. While Sarah was never controlled by him, she did feel his influence and dark presence guiding her actions. Amon was dead before she was turned, allowing her a degree of freedom when the Overmind died no doubt. Now however she is completely free of Amon’s taint, as her transformation within the Primal Spawning Pool has essentially purified her Zerg strain. Everything she lost as a result of Raynor expunging the Zerg Persona has been regained, but now has more in common with the Primal Zerg. The Hivemind remains of course, but now it is her own it seems, along with all her new powers.

Of course, in testing these powers by defeating the other ancient pack leaders and taking their essence for herself, Zurvan turns on her. Declaring that one of them must consume the other and become something greater, the way of all Zerg. Kerrigan of course wins, her power doubling even more as a result and a contingent of Primals under Dehakka now follow her.

Zerus is more than just a means of Kerrigan unlocking more powers on her personal skill tree though, or permanently altering her sprite and rendering for the rest of the game. It also shows a different faction and side to the Zerg. That in a way, they are victims. The Zerg were never meant to harm anyone but perhaps each other. For most of their existence on Zerus, all they did was kill and consume each other, evolving constantly as they did. Then Amon arrived and in a clear bit of colonization, forcibly assimilated the species in his grand design. He corrupted them and turned them into a menace that would go on to harm the wider galaxy. Perpetuating a chain of abusive forced assimilation that tracks all the way to Sarah Kerrigan herself.

We might be quick to suggest Sarah is doing the same as Amon to a degree now. She has come to this planet and enforced her will on it. However, one could also make the claim this is the Zerg finally getting in touch with their true nature, what they used to be and were. Sarah does not forcibly pluck and change the Primal Zerg, if anything she plays by their rules as soon as she lands. They’re brutal rules, dependent on survival of the fittest but they are THEIR rules. The Primals might not be the most complex faction of Zerg out there, but their culture is wholly separate from the Zerg and their drive to conquer. Primals have a desire to evolve more than anything, conquering is secondary and not as big a drive for them. They desire change first and foremost.

While Sarah is willing to go along with this, purely for her revenge, it is apparent the message she keeps learning as she participates in Zerus’ trials. She has a choice, evolve or die, to remain stagnant is death. This doesn’t only hold true for her body but also her mentality. A strict focus on her revenge and nothing else will simply make her like the old Queen of Blades, which she herself is forced to acknowledge was weaker as a result of this. That version of her did not really think for herself, as she was being influenced by a corruption tainting her mind. Now if she wishes to truly change, she must stop thinking in terms of revenge only.

However, this evolution facilitates, essentially, undoing Raynor’s work. This isn’t new in Starcraft. Many campaigns can seemingly undo the progress of your prior work. Resulting in the previous set of missions to feel hollow and pointless. Like you didn’t accomplish anything. Seeing Sarah freed of her Zerg bits suddenly deciding to regrow them hits a bit hard. You sacrificed a lot in “Wings of Liberty” to save her and now she’s gone right on back to the Zerg. Sure, she’s not corrupted anymore, she’s more powerful and obviously they were always going to bring back her classic Zergified look because it’s goddamn iconic and we can’t lose that, but it still hurts.

At the very least, Sarah has changed in some aspect. She has learned what the Zerg used to be and in a sense can be again if they embrace a more individualistic culture. The Hivemind will remain, but Kerrigan holds sway now and is free from all the corrupting influence of the entity that colonized them. They won’t ever stop being the swarm, its too engrained in them now, but they are less compelled by the whims of a terrible, powerful god that desires them only as a weapon. Now, like Sarah, they can potentially choose their own path. But Mengsk still must die first before anything beyond that can be accomplished.

At least now, Sarah has a sense of the bigger picture, the greater role the Zerg must play in things. It is not complete though, she only knows that the Zerg were not always what they are now. That there is a path forward for them and that the Swarm itself must evolve if it is to survive. That means it cannot be slave to conquest or obsession. It must change or die, like the primals believe so fervently. The question, what to change into? An answer is soon provided.

Born of the Void

Mengsk at this point contacts Kerrigan, revealing what we all likely suspected. Raynor is alive, being used as a final contingency plan against Sarah’s revenge. If she tries to move on Korhal, he’ll kill him. While the swarm is returning to her and she is growing stronger herself, Sarah cannot hope to invade Korhal just yet knowing that Jim will die as a result. The old Queen of Blades wouldn’t have cared, but Sarah no longer possesses her cold unfeeling malice. It’s a weakness Mengsk thinks he can exploit. That and the fact Sarah has altered herself back to her infested form which Arcturus knows Jim would hate to see as much as Sarah suspects he would.

Simultaneously relieved to know Jim is alive, but also paralyzed by the fact he is beyond her reach, Kerrigan has to rethink her strategy for Korhal. Freeing Jim is one thing, but compromising its strength also takes precedent. This is where Stukov comes in, revealing the location of a secret Dominion Lab that is breeding Hybrid Zerg/Protoss creatures. Mengsk controlling Hybrid can’t be allowed to stand, so its best to destroy these.

However, over the course of systematically wiping out the lab, Sarah learns there is far more to this fight than just her desire for revenge. By the time she is through with the station and its leader, Dr. Narud, she learns the horrible truth… Amon is alive and it is possible her reversion to human assisted in giving him new life. Amon presents a catastrophic threat to the Zerg and galaxy at large. She can’t let him go unchallenged.

The existence of Amon gives Kerrigan a goal beyond her own petty grievances, even if its about personal survival more lives are at stake beyond just the Zerg. The knowledge that, unless she uses her power against him, Amon will likely retake the Swarm and use it to its original, terrible purpose is unacceptable. She’s seen what the Zerg used to be, what they could be, she’s been purified of the corruption that clouded her mind and has seen the change taking hold of the Zerg as a result of her lessons.

After she is incapacitated following her defeat of Narud, Zagara has the opportunity to take the Swarm, but doesn’t. She heals her instead, insisting she has more to learn. If Zagara can understand the value of knowledge before personal gain, the rest of the Zerg have a chance as well. This isn’t to say the Zerg are suddenly heroic, their primary goal reminds survival, but their capacity to change is self-evident and has taken precedence over the conquest side of their nature. Maybe not completely, but enough that is can foster loyalty in a species that prides itself on its brutality.

Later on, Kerrigan also acknowledges that fighting Amon may be fruitless, even suicidal. That’s there’s simply no way the Zerg, even with Sarah as powerful as she is now, can probably stop him. Her reason for choosing to do so anyway is because the only other alternative is to lay down and die. She has abandoned any semblance of survival over all at this point or even revenge. Amon is a threat to more than just her and seeing the bigger picture at last has finally gotten through to her. However, Mengsk still must die, not just for what he’s done but because he is a part of Amon’s plan. He cannot be allowed to live.

However, to take out Mengsk, Jim Raynor must be freed and that means a reunion that Kerrigan is not looking forward to. She contacts the Hyperion to help her find Raynor and after a bit of a misadventure she accomplishes this task, tracking Jim to a prison ship that is constantly on the move save for when it needs supplies. This is when Sarah moves and begin taking the ship apart from the inside out. It’s here where Mengsk shows his truly evil side, as he decides to destory the ship, along with his many loyal soldiers, calling them heroes as he sacrifices their lives for himself. Very Zerg-like behavior from a so-called protector of humanity.

Kerrigan of course stops the self-destruct and finds Jim. He is not happy to see her in her current form. He recalls Fenix and the many lives of others she’s ended, how he sacrificed everything to bring her back, and now she’s essentially spat in his face. For what it is worth, Sarah doesn’t really offer much in the way of excuses, only that she accepts that he is beyond angry with her. She even gives him a gun and lets him point it at her head. If he wants to kill the Queen of Blades like he promised so long ago, he should do it now.

Jim does not though, he merely fires off into the wall and walks away. Kerrigan has saved the man she loved, but at the same time lost him. Jim simply can’t accept that there was any good reason to throw away her humanity again and this time be completely willing to do so. It just doesn’t fly with him, there’s always another way. For Sarah, there never was. He was always the one who thought things could be better, that they could try to find a different solution. Kerrigan generally accepted that they couldn’t always choose the good option. It was why she went along with the plan that would see an entire planet consumed and herself captured by the Zerg.

As a result, Jim leaves Sarah, unwilling to speak to her further, while Kerrigan looks out at the cold vacuum of space, accepting that she has quite possibly lost the man she loved forever. Revenge has it prices and this was the biggest one of them all. Perhaps in a small way, it would’ve been better for Jim to be dead. At least for Sarah anyway. That would mean she’d never have think about how he’d feel about her choices. Now, she can’t pretend for even a second that he’d feel differently. He just flat out told her his thoughts, he feels betrayed. And Kerrigan honestly can’t blame him for feeling like that. Because she kinda did.

If these is one aspect of Sarah Kerrigan that can be granted to her as a heroic sentiment, it’s her willingness to accept a loss, a failure and the rejection of her choices by others. Many villains would rant or find excuses or blame it on someone else or something else. Sarah accepts that all her choices did this, that she’s the one to blame and she’s the one who has to live with herself for the rest of her life knowing she broke the heart of the only man she ever loved. A reality that very well could mean he will never be able to be with her ever again.

But at least he’s alive’s and that is better than when he was dead. So she’ll swallow her pride, accept her failure, be grateful the hard part is over, and move on to finishing what she started. The end of Arcturus Mengsk.

Trapped like a Rat in a Cage

So the final campaign commences as the Zerg Swarm blots out the skies of Korhal. Kerrigan is ready to finish what she started and get her revenge. However, her human allies have made only one request. Kerrigan tells them of her forthcoming assault in the hopes that Valerian will be able to prevent further chaos in the aftermath. To do that, he wants her to land her forces outside the city instead of on top of it.

This will lead to fewer civilian causalities, but it will make fighting into the city that much harder. Kerrigan accepts though, possibly noting how Valerian isn’t seeking to use the chaos to his advantage like his father once did. He’s instead asking for restraint from Kerrigan, who has no reason to give it to him, so he can help save lives and give innocents time to evacuate. She accepts this, amazingly. Sarah is showing the ability to empathize and reason, to not place all those on Korhal as part of her revenge.

All the same, the planet is still well defended and lives will be lost no matter what Kerrigan does to restrain herself. Mengsk doesn’t care even a remote bit, as he calls on every able bodied citizen to return to Korhal to defend it. Or more accurately, himself, as he knows Sarah is really only after him. He has no choice, it’s either fight Kerrigan to the death here or surrender. Mengsk is many things, but he does not cower in the face of his end. Mostly because he has plenty of other people to die for him, but generally because he refuses to admit he can be defeated.

Kerrigan’s tactics for the assault are much different, as despite numbers being on her side, she seeks to preserve her units and swarms’ numbers for as long as possible. She could just use brute force tactics, but that means getting thousands of zerg and innocent people killed. So she opts for more surgical landfall. Where she sends massive bio-launchers to the surface and uses them to take out the planet’s orbital defenses so the rest of the swarm can get through. In the process, she opens the way for her other lieutenants to storm into and secure the landing zone.

Kerrigan’s opening mission is to protect the lives of her forces, even as she sacrifices many to get planetside. There is a limit to how many Bio-Launchers she can send down, implying that she can’t expend more resources than necessary. The whole of the swarm is hers, but she’s opted for a strategy that is about preserving lives. She could just send everyone right in the capital from on high and obliterate it, but this enables far more Zerg to survive what would be a needless slaughter while also not catching innocents in the crossfire.

Meanwhile Mengsk’s true colors continue to shine through. He drops experimental nuclear warheads on his own troops to stop rampaging Ultralisks in an evolution mission and continues to push his experiments on Zerg in the middle of the siege. Despite knowing how dangerous this is given what happened to his last batch of guinea pigs. Mengsk clearly doesn’t care for the lives under his command, which he really should since he doesn’t have infinite numbers like Kerrigan does.

It’s a sharp contrast between the usual set up in these sorts of stories. The monsters besieging the humans are more directed in their targets. They swarm but do not sacrifice needlessly. Kerrigan cares about the lives of her forces more than the Terrans seem to, or at least their leader. The Zerg rage a less catastrophic war that emphasizes calculation and tactics. While Mengsk throws lives away in a last stand that is more about preserving himself than anyone else. There’s no illusion of glory here, Mengsk isn’t doing to save the Dominion, he’s doing it for himself alone.

But despite this, the game doesn’t exactly let Kerrigan off easily, not even here. Regardless of her discretion, she still is ultimately leading this war out of a desire for revenge. Raynor is alive, sure, but Mengsk is still the reason she became what she is and that is still the clear reason behind this assault. As Mengsk will point out himself as he confronts Kerrigan through a message. He calls her out for her motivations, how many thousands are dead now because of her vengeance quest. Kerrigan doesn’t have much of an answer for his claims, simply pointing out that he made this all possible. Mengsk is adamant, that for all the terrible things he’s done, he did them to protect humanity from monsters like her.

I guess he’s ignoring that he’s part of the reason monsters like Kerrigan exist.

To be honest though, he still has a point and Kerrigan is not denying anything he’s saying about what is motivating her and what she is. Sarah’s goals aren’t much more noble than Mengsk, but he has the excuse that he’s earnestly deluded himself into the role of savior. Kerrigan doesn’t have such luxury it seems, she’s accepted she’s the monster and is done apologizing or rationalizing it. She is holding back her nature, yes, but it doesn’t really absolve her of the wrong she has done to get here, nor the deaths she’s causing even now. Mengsk might have brought this on himself, but Sarah is still the instrument leading this march on his palace.

Perhaps that is the point though, the acceptance on Kerrigan’s part that she is, in all respects, the monster of this story. She’s not the hero, she’s not the good guy, she’s not the shining knight here to slay the mad king. She’s just the angry wronged creature of the land that just so happens to be pointed towards the right target for once. And woe to those in her way. Does that make her better or worse? Mengsk is still making excuses for himself, even if he truly believes them, they are still excuses for terrible crimes. Kerrigan has no such delusions, no such absolution on her part. She knows what she’s here for, she knows she won’t be called a hero after this, and she’s fine with that.

Does knowing you’re the monster of the story make you more heroic if you are still doing monstrous things? Even if it is against someone who is probably just as bad if not worse than you? Where’s the line? Who gets to write the final line of the story and determine which roles belong to who? While Heart of the Swarm seems to ask this question at this point, the debate is quickly done away with, as Mengsk activates his secret weapon, a psi-disruptor that intends to break the swarm’s hivemind and turn it against them, killing any Zerg caught in its range.

But Kerrigan planned for this. The Zerg is no longer so singular in its makeup, the swarm no longer so stringent along genetic lines. Dehaka is the much needed diversity the Zerg have lacked. The Primal Zerg have no such psi-connection, and thus are immune from the disruptor. Through a series of lighting commando raids and full frontal assaults on the orbital platform where the disruptor resides, Kerrigan and Dehaka bring ruin to Mengsk’s final defense against the invasion.

In this instant, Kerrigan embraces the outsiders of her swarm, the ones that aren’t truly a part of it, to assist her in this critical hour. The old Kerrigan would’ve used Dehaka and tossed him aside when he was no longer needed, but Dehaka remains loyal and so does Sarah to her Primal lieutenant. Kerrigan has done what so few monsters can do, embrace something it cannot truly control to help it. The Primal Zerg only follow Kerrigan because of her strength and power, they are not connected to her in any other way. Pawns that cannot be controlled should be a liability to the Queen of Blades. But not so here.

And this won’t be the last time Kerrigan accepts outside assistance, as her final push to Mengsk begins.

You Turned us ALL into Monsters

As Kerrigan prepares for her final assault on Mengsk, her lieutenants all have their own takes on thing. Izsha is only considerate of what matters to the Swarm, Dehaka is content with collecting essence, Zagara has fully embraced Kerrigan’s vision, Stukov is prepared to continue the fight against Amon after Mengsk is dead and Abathur has decreed that Kerrigan’s achievements are the greatest among the Swarm. When Sarah points out, acknowledging once more, that all of this is about her revenge, Abathur’s reply is succinct and consistent with his philosophy. The Swarm’s purpose changes with its leader, as long as it is fulfilling that purpose, that is what matters.

Kerrigan herself gives the greatest thought to what happens after this, even if she dies. She’s shattered Mengsk’s power structure. He won’t recover from this, even if he breaks the Swarm and her. What the Terrans do after his death or the death of this new Queen of Blades will best determine their future. And while that might not matter to the Swarm itself, Sarah clearly gives more thought to it. And, as Abathur has pointed out, if it matters to Kerrigan, it matters to the Swarm at large. As pointed out when the time for the battle comes and Valerian once more requests Kerrigan avoid civilian sectors. Doing so would put her assault at risk, as Mengsk would clearly see her pattern and exploit it. But she accepts the conditions, even though Valerian has no power to enforce them.

This is significant in terms that Kerrigan is fully anticipating she very well might die here and doing so would doom the Swarm later in its fight against Amon. Making this last battle all the harder is not conducive to either her revenge or her set path against the real villain of this story. But it is the right thing to do, the heroic thing to do and she decides to head down that path. Kerrigan has accepted she is a monster by this point, but she can choose what kind of monster she wants to be.

Mengsk’s last stand at the steps of his palace throws everything at the player. Every special weapon variant, every veteran unit, everything in the Terran Arsenal that Mengsk has left. And as powerful as Kerrigan is, the defenses arrayed against her are intimidating. But not long into the battle, someone else enters the fray. Jim Raynor, flying in with the Hyperion to destroy and take over a Dominion to Kerrigan’s flank. He’s come to help finish this with Sarah.

It was hinted at that Jim had seen that, despite her change, despite what she had done in the name of revenge, Sarah was not the same Queen of Blades he swore to kill so long ago. That Kerrigan is dead and while his Sarah is not truly back, perhaps she never could be, a part of her remains. Jim has also sworn to take Arcturus Mengsk down, and on the eve of the tyrant’s end, he won’t miss out on taking part in ending his regime. Raynor’s Raiders formed to take down the oppression of Mengsk and his government, it makes sense they would be here now even if their allies in this assault are Zerg.

Many players might question how quickly Jim comes around on this, but it’s very clear he was conflicted about helping Kerrigan until she made it clear she was not going to be indiscriminate in her ire. This is just about Mengsk, and while that’s not perfect, for Raynor it has always been about Arcturus in the end. He’s the one who caused Kerrigan’s death and rebirth into the Swarm. He’s as much to blame as anyone for what happened. I wouldn’t expect Raynor to sit out on taking down Arcturus at last. That would be far more out of character.

It also of course introduces a wrinkle into the final fight. While it’s nice to have Raynor here, Kerrigan can’t let anything happen to him. So she also needs to protect his base while pushing her assault. It drains some of Mengsk’s resources clearly to have to divert to attack Raynor, but it also distracts Kerrigan. So it makes the mission just a bit harder as a result. However, this again speaks to the duality of Kerrigan’s nature itself. She is risking her life and her revenge to save Raynor and his fellow Raiders. It’s mostly out of a selfish desire, but it is against her monstrous instincts ultimately as her need to protect Jim is clearly an emotional one rather than an instinctual one.

Jim isn’t the only one helping out of course, the whole Swarm is here. Simply destroying the defenses to the Imperial Sector will enable Kerrigan’s lieutenants to send their forces in and back up her assaults on the many Dominion bases that line the streets up to the palace proper. It shows the sense of unity and camaraderie built up among this new Swarm. Still tied to Kerrigan’s will, but still independent enough that their choice to be here is largely their own. As Abathur has pointed out, Kerrigan gives the Swarm purpose and they are ultimately willing to follow to the bitter end, achieving victory for her and themselves.

Strangely enough, because of Kerrigan’s actions and Raynor’s presence here, the Swarm itself has ultimately changed in its goals. Even if they won’t acknowledge it, the Zerg are essentially liberators for once. They are ending the reign of a mad tyrant, freeing his subjects from his oppression, all with the backing of a proper freedom fighting force in the form of the Raiders. With each street cleared of Dominion Forces, Korhal grows closer to abolishing the true monster in all of this. While Mengsk continues to rant, rave, demand Raynor’s head, and insist that he is the savior of humanity as his empire crumbles around him.

Combining her assaults between Raynor’s and her own forces that she helps break through into the city, Kerrigan can easily annihilate much of what’s left of the Dominion in her path. Occasionally taking moments out of the assault to defend Jim’s own forces and the Hyperion itself. Before long, the path of the palace is clear and only the final elite forces of Korhal stand in her way.

It’s interesting to note, that because of his actions here and Kerrigan protecting him, Jim has become an unofficial part of her Swarm. Wholly independent of course, but no less aligned with its interests. Raynor’s Raiders can be see pusing up with the Zerg, united in the same cause of taking Mengsk down. As times goes on and Jim builds up his units, we’ll see the full might of the Raiders alongside that of the Zerg. Kerrigan remains the focal point of the battle, but Raynor is clearly as important to this assault in the form of his support. Finally, at last, they are together in purpose… if only for now.

As you approach the final gate to the palace, decimating its defenses, Mengsk sends everything he had at Kerrigan in the form of drop pods to the surface. But between the mass of Zerg and Raynor’s own freedom fighters pushing up from behind, they are not much of a match for the Swarm. Once the gates fall, Kerrigan strides into the Palace itself, taking the fight to Mengsk directly as the Swarm holds outside. She cuts through what’s left of his bodyguard and then finally corners him in his office.

This is where Mengsk plays his final trump card, the Xelnaga Relic he had taken from Char and reassembled here. Knowing Kerrigan herself would come for him and that this artifact was his best bet at defeating her. It completely debilitates Kerrigan, forcing her to the ground in pain upon its activation. After coming so far, it almost seems like Sarah will die here at Mengsk’s hands.

If not for Raynor coming in to punch out Arcturus and take his hand off the activation button, of course. Because Raynor IS the hero of this story, that much isn't in doubt.

With the Xelnaga Artifact neutralized for now, Kerrigan is allowed to attack Mengsk with her full fury and she does not hold back. At last, with nothing left to use against her, Arcturus admits the truth, that HE turned Kerrigan into this monster. But Sarah disagrees, stating “You turned us ALL into Monsters,” before finally killing him.

It’s an acknowledgement of a terrible truth. That all the terrible things Arcturus had done had forced everyone involved here, Raynor included, to do terrible things, compromise valuable principles, just to take him down. Kerrigan has accepted what she is at this point, Mengsk dies refusing to believe he’s a monster himself.

But despite being a monster, acknowledging she is one, Kerrigan’s bloodlust is sated. She is not consumed by her hatred and finally ends her campaign against the Dominion. The Swarm will leave Korhal now, in its entirety. No occupation, no more spreading the creep, no consumption and mass slaughter of Terrans. Sarah’s goals are ended here and she will not continue butchering people when it is no longer necessary.

However, this ultimately means one final sacrifice, Jim. Kerrigan had said there can be no her and Raynor while Mengsk lived. But the truth is, they can’t be together even then. The Zerg need a leader to keep them in check and to fight Amon. More importantly, even if her actions ended a tyrant, she is still the monster that Terrans fear, and rightfully so. None of this has undone that. So she says goodbye to the only man she’s ever loved, leaving Raynor to pick up the pieces of the revolution he started and she helped complete. Where she goes now, Jim cannot follow, yet again.

Sarah gives up a life with the man she loves in this moment, understanding she is needed elsewhere and that it wouldn’t help anyone if she stuck around on Korhal. So she does the selfless thing in this moment, perhaps the most selfless she’s done in the entire game. Something no monster would be capable of. Letting go of something she so desperately wants, even more than revenge.

The question is though… is that enough to redeem her?

I Am The Swarm

At the end of the campaign, Sarah has renounced everything, her humanity, her identity, even the man she loves. All in the name of fighting a greater evil, for a purpose even higher than her own revenge. She no longer considers herself truly human. But she is no longer the villain either. She is still a monster, but is she a heroic one? It’s hard to say and I don’t even think Sarah herself would try to claim she is a hero. Not even at the end of the Starcraft II storyline where she admits that nothing will really make her hands clean. Her atonement is ultimately Amon’s destruction, to make all the lives she ruined count for something in the end.

As a narrative, the idea of turning Sarah Kerrigan from the Queen Bitch of the Universe into its savior is rocky. Even when the story acknowledges its pitfalls, it never does much to correct to them. Kerrigan still does horrible things in her pursuit of revenge and does little in her attempt to absolve or justify her actions. Perhaps that isn’t the point though as in the end, Kerrigan doesn’t seek absolution or a justification for her actions. She merely accepts her role as the monsters, but chooses how to act it out.

There were likely ways to better fix the issues that arise as a result of the story choices made in Heart of the Swarm. Giving Kerrigan other options besides killing the Protoss for example, or enabling players to make choices at certain points in the campaign to steer her arc in their direction. Another option, more missions in certain sections of the story that would show a more heroic side to Kerrigan or at least the Zerg. Perhaps even just better arcs for her lieutenants would be enough, letting her call her out on her bullshit or for her to better defend her decisions.

However, any of those choices could’ve easily made the Zerg less than what they were and what fans expect of them. The more you change a monster into a hero, the less they are what people love about monsters. An obstacle, a force of nature, a nightmare to conquer, confront or acknowledge, any number of allegories or metaphors is lost the moment a monster becomes more of a hero.

A clear example of this Godzilla, who started out as allegory for Japan’s darkest fears and national trauma, but just as quickly turned into a kid friendly superhero defender of Japan. Many have derided this change, many others have tried to defend it, but quite a few of them miss the point of that change. Godzilla was not entirely popular outside his singular appearence as a metaphor for the atomic bomb. In order to survive, he had to change. And he changed excessively over the years, from villain, to hero, back to villain, to anti-hero, then villain and hero at the same time. Godzilla survived into the modern day and cultural relevance by never remaining stagnant. He represents whatever the filmmaker in the moments wants him to. From atomic destruction, to Kaiju Superhero Wrestler. Then from Rage Incarnate, to angry but protective father. From a satirical stand-in for Ecological Disaster to a Defender of the Natural World before back to being a metaphor for the trauma of war. Godzilla has survived by evolving, just like the Zerg.

I monsters are meant to represent our fears, and our fears change over time, so must they. The Zerg are the ultimate expression of this. They evolve to fit the needs of whoever is in charge of them. To remain stagnant is extinction. So they change, they become what is needed to survive. As does Kerrigan ultimately. She starts as a loyal friend and love interest to a hero, before being corrupted into the weapon of a malevolent creature by betrayal. She then becomes the greatest monster in history, before her humanity is returned to her by said hero. But then, she takes up the mantle of the monster once more, but this time of her own accord for her own goals and not the corrupted mission of another. At the end of it she is neither fully monster nor fully hero, but somewhere between.

The challenge of writing any monster it seems is finding that balance, between how they evolve with each subsequent return to them. Kerrigan is never absolved of her actions, but she is never full condemned by them either. A monster can be both a source of fear and a form of liberation. Kerrigan proves this. The question is ultimately how you walk the line between hero and monster. If we can learn from what Heart of the Swarm attempted to accomplish here, perhaps all our monsters can evolve themselves.

And they need too. Not just because monsters exist to tell us how to defeat evil, but also how to empathize with what creates them, what fashions them, what drives them. A monster can be many things. A source of one’s nightmares as well as an expression of one’s inner self. The truth of Kerrigan’s final words to Mengsk can be felt in this. In someways, we are all monsters. How we write ours into being on the page is an expression of how we deal with the monster in life.

It’s something I’ve struggled with myself. How do I look at the darker aspects or myself, the things I’m not happy with. How do I reconcile this with who I want to be? Am I doomed? Am I able to overcome my limitations? Am I a good person in the end? There isn’t an easy answer and I suppose that’s why I like “Heart of the Swarm”, because it admits self-actualization is not easy. That sometimes there’s no way to fully absolve one self. And that the best you can do is own up to your failings and try to choose the best path open to you.

If you take nothing else away from this essay, let it be this. Kerrigan recognized the monster inside and ultimately embraced it, but in the end, she was not consumed by its power. She owned what she was. Accepting the monster made her a better person. Maybe not a hero, not fully, but ultimately it was the change she needed. We all have a choice in the end, how selfless and selfish we wish to be. It’s up to you to walk the line between both your way. And perhaps understanding what the monster wants, like Kerrigan, can help you find your path through it.

[scribe-of-hael]

Thundercracker HCs

TC headcanon that follow nothing in particular of Canon and is as very bias to my own au where I build him up to be kinda different because him and Sky are very underdeveloped and utilized. LETS GO

•TC is more well kept, and organized , he is able to throw down but at the end of the day he cares about himself to keep his up keep

•He is the youngest of the trine and it kinda shows with how more optimistic and far more light hearted he is than his brothers

•TC had always has had a fascination with , what? You guessed it! Writing !

•Writing is TC'a passion, it was one of the focal points he was hooked on when agreeing to join the Decpticons was because of Megatron's writing for when it first started. He was touched to his very spark with Megatron's words. He learned very quickly how words and working could affect one another.

•he researches endlessly of writing, works, and genres. He prefers stories with happy ending but he is also about drama and some dark themes.

•He is also a photographer, he loves to take picture of his brothers, the scenery or even important moments. It has gotten him into trouble for stopping in the middle to capture the moment.

•His writings are important to him, it doenst matter if he feels or even if he's hurt he will take some time out of his day to write. Because he reads do much, if its niche knowledge or even history you want to know you come to TC.

•Try to keep him on topic he will jump aorund and get a bit carried away with rambling /pos

•TC had always questioned the Decepticons almost as soon as he joined , it only grew with time and the more worried he got, worried he got for his brothers Especially Starscream and Megatron's growing abuse towards him.

•He is definitely a kind spark, who wants to see the beauty in it all, which some bots call him soft amd weak for

•he more sensitive and emotional ,this can be both good and bad. He panics and is filled with paranoia. He tends to overthink and complicate things.

•just because he is kind. Do not mistake it for being weak. He is just as fierce as Star or Sky and honestly probably could be more unpredictable about what he will do. He can be just as scheming , clever and resourceful. He is a Decepticons for a reason.

•he is prone to outbursts of emotion, if it is anger its connected to his abilities. His sonic booms can become more powerful when emotional driven. Nothing like shattering brain modules when he decides to have the pulse of five sonic booms in half a millisecond.

•His frame is way more durable than the other two because of the constant subjection to his own sonic blasts. Its reinforced but also allows its self to vibrate to allow the sound to travel.

•Oh and he writes Erotica and is kinda a freak/pos

•He is Demi though, having taken little to no partners because he could never properly feel a connection depsite having a desire for a partner. While he wants someone he wants to truly have a deep and lasting connection

•he is nothing but in love with being in love which makes him prone to being vulnerable and easily taken advantage of in hopes of finding someone fo love, which Star and Sky (mostly) intervene to stop their brothers spark ache.

•TC also loves animals, that includes his dog Buster whomst he'd give his life for

•He adore human culture so DAMN much this bot is also obsessed with vintage items humans have made.

•He wear glasses despite not needing them because he thinks they make him look cooler/smarter

•TC's main thing is he writes stories and incorporates real people into characters. There are many stories you will find character eqiailants to bots he's encounter or events he has lived. You'll come to find writing isn't just his passion, but his cope for the war and even after it.