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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year ago

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On September 22, I'm (virtually) presenting at the DIG Festival in Modena, Italy. On September 27, I'll be at Chevalier's Books in Los Angeles with Brian Merchant for a joint launch for my new book The Internet Con and his new book, Blood in the Machine.

It's been 21 years since Bill Willingham launched Fables, his 110-issue, wide-ranging, delightful and brilliantly crafted author-owned comic series that imagines that the folkloric figures of the world's fairytales are real people, who live in a secret society whose internal struggles and intersections with the mundane world are the source of endless drama.

Fables is a DC Comics title; DC is division of the massive entertainment conglomerate Warners, which is, in turn, part of the Warner/Discovery empire, a rapacious corporate behemoth whose screenwriters have been on strike for 137 days (and counting). DC is part of a comics duopoly; its rival, Marvel, is a division of the Disney/Fox juggernaut, whose writers are also on strike.

The DC that Willingham bargained with at the turn of the century isn't the DC that he bargains with now. Back then, DC was still subject to a modicum of discipline from competition; its corporate owner's shareholders had not yet acquired today's appetite for meteoric returns on investment of the sort that can only be achieved through wage-theft and price-gouging.

In the years since, DC – like so many other corporations – participated in an orgy of mergers as its sector devoured itself. The collapse of comics into a duopoly owned by studios from an oligopoly had profound implications for the entire sector, from comic shops to comic cons. Monopoly breeds monopoly, and the capture of the entire comics distribution system by a single company – Diamond – was attended by the capture of the entire digital comics market by a single company, Amazon, who enshittified its Comixology division, driving creators and publishers into Kindle Direct Publishing, a gig-work platform that replicates the company's notoriously exploitative labor practices for creative workers. Today, Comixology is a ghost-town, its former employees axed in a mass layoff earlier this year:

https://gizmodo.com/amazon-layoffs-comixology-1850007216

When giant corporations effect these mergers, they do so with a kind of procedural kabuki, insisting that they are dotting every i and crossing every t, creating a new legal entity whose fictional backstory is a perfect, airtight bubble, a canon with not a single continuity bug. This performance of seriousness is belied by the behind-the-scenes chaos that these corporate shifts entail – think of the way that the banks that bought and sold our mortgages in the run-up to the 2008 crisis eventually lost the deeds to our houses, and then just pretended they were legally entitled to collect money from us every month – and steal our houses if we refused to pay:

https://www.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-58325420110720

Or think of the debt collection industry, which maintains a pretense of careful record-keeping as the basis for hounding and threatening people, but which is, in reality, a barely coherent trade in spreadsheets whose claims to our money are matters of faith:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/12/do-not-pay/#fair-debt-collection-practices-act

For usury, the chaos is a feature, not a bug. Their corporate strategists take the position that any ambiguity should be automatically resolved in their favor, with the burden of proof on accused debtors, not the debt collectors. The scumbags who lost your deed and stole your house say that it's up to you to prove that you own it. And since you've just been rendered homeless, you don't even have a house to secure a loan you might use to pay a lawyer to go to court.

It's not solely that the usurers want to cheat you – it's that they can make more money if they don't pay for meticulous record-keeping, and if that means that they sometimes cheat us, that's our problem, not theirs.

While this is very obvious in the usury sector, it's also true of other kinds of massive mergers that create unfathomnably vast conglomerates. The "curse of bigness" is real, but who gets cursed is a matter of power, and big companies have a lot more power.

The chaos, in other words, is a feature and not a bug. It provides cover for contract-violating conduct, up to and including wage-theft. Remember when Disney/Marvel stole money from beloved science fiction giant Alan Dean Foster, whose original Star Wars novelization was hugely influential on George Lucas, who changed the movie to match Foster's ideas?

Disney claimed that when it acquired Lucasfilm, it only acquired its assets, but not its liabilities. That meant that while it continued to hold Foster's license to publish his novel, they were not bound by an obligation to pay Foster for this license, since that liability was retained by the (now defunct) original company:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/30/disney-still-must-pay/#pay-the-writer

For Disney, this wage-theft (and many others like it, affecting writers with less fame and clout than Foster) was greatly assisted by the chaos of scale. The chimera of Lucas/Disney had no definitive responsible party who could be dragged into a discussion. The endless corporate shuffling that is normal in giant companies meant that anyone who might credibly called to account for the theft could be transfered or laid off overnight, with no obvious successor. The actual paperwork itself was hard for anyone to lay hands on, since the relevant records had been physically transported and re-stored subsequent to the merger. And, of course, the company itself was so big and powerful that it was hard for Foster and his agent to raise a credible threat.

I've experienced versions of this myself: every book contract I've ever signed stipulated that my ebooks could not be published with DRM. But one of my publishers – a boutique press that published my collection Overclocked – collapsed along with most of its competitors, the same week my book was published (its distributor, Publishers Group West, went bankrupt after its parent company, Advanced Marketing Services, imploded in a shower of fraud and criminality).

The publisher was merged with several others, and then several more, and then several more – until it ended up a division of the Big Five publisher Hachette, who repeatedly, "accidentally" pushed my book into retail channels with DRM. I don't think Hachette deliberately set out to screw me over, but the fact that Hachette is (by far) the most doctrinaire proponent of DRM meant that when the chaos of its agglomerated state resulted in my being cheated, it was a happy accident.

(The Hachette story has a happy ending; I took the book back from them and sold it to Blackstone Publishing, who brought out a new expanded edition to accompany a DRM-free audiobook and ebook):

https://www.blackstonepublishing.com/overclocked-bvej.html

Willingham, too, has been affected by the curse of bigness. The DC he bargained with at the outset of Fables made a raft of binding promises to him: he would have approval over artists and covers and formats for new collections, and he would own the "IP" for the series, meaning the copyrights vested in the scripts, storylines, characters (he might also have retained rights to some trademarks).

But as DC grew, it made mistakes. Willingham's hard-fought, unique deal with the publisher was atypical. A giant publisher realizes its efficiencies through standardized processes. Willingham's books didn't fit into that standard process, and so, repeatedly, the publisher broke its promises to him.

At first, Willingham's contacts at the publisher were contrite when he caught them at this. In his press-release on the matter, Willingham calls them "honest men and women of integrity [who] interpreted the details of that agreement fairly and above-board":

https://billwillingham.substack.com/p/willingham-sends-fables-into-the

But as the company grew larger, these counterparties were replaced by corporate cogs who were ever-more-distant from his original, creator-friendly deal. What's more, DC's treatment of its other creators grew shabbier at each turn (a dear friend who has written for DC for decades is still getting the same page-rate as they got in the early 2000s), so Willingham's deal grew more exceptional as time went by. That meant that when Willingham got the "default" treatment, it was progressively farther from what his contract entitled him to.

The company repeatedly – and conveniently – forgot that Willingham had the final say over the destiny of his books. They illegally sublicensed a game adapted from his books, and then, when he objected, tried to make renegotiating his deal a condition of being properly compensated for this theft. Even after he won that fight, the company tried to cheat him and then cover it up by binding him to a nondisclosure agreement.

This was the culmination of a string of wage-thefts in which the company misreported his royalties and had to be dragged into paying him his due. When the company "practically dared" Willingham to sue ("knowing it would be a long and debilitating process") he snapped.

Rather than fight Warner, Willingham has embarked on what JWZ calls an act of "absolute table-flip badassery" – he has announced that Fables will hereafter be in the public domain, available for anyone to adapt commercially, in works that compete with whatever DC might be offering.

Now, this is huge, and it's also shrewd. It's the kind of thing that will bring lots of attention on Warner's fraudulent dealings with its creative workforce, at a moment where the company is losing a public relations battle to the workers picketing in front of its gates. It constitutes a poison pill that is eminently satisfying to contemplate. It's delicious.

But it's also muddy. Willingham has since clarified that his public domain dedication means that the public can't reproduce the existing comics. That's not surprising; while Willingham doesn't say so, it's vanishingly unlikely that he owns the copyrights to the artwork created by other artists (Willingham is also a talented illustrator, but collaborated with a who's-who of comics greats for Fables). He may or may not have control over trademarks, from the Fables wordmark to any trademark interests in the character designs. He certainly doesn't have control over the trademarked logos for Warner and DC that adorn the books.

When Willingham says he is releasing the "IP" to his comic, he is using the phrase in its commercial sense, not its legal sense. When business people speak of "owning IP," they mean that they believe they have the legal right to control the conduct of their competitors, critics and customers:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

The problem is that this doesn't correspond to the legal concept of IP, because IP isn't actually a legal concept. While there are plenty of "IP lawyers" and even "IP law firms," there is no "IP law." There are many laws that are lumped together under "IP," including the big three (trademark, copyright and patent), but also a bestiary of obscure cousins and subspecies – trade dress, trade secrecy, service marks, noncompetes, nondisclosues, anticirumvention rights, sui generis "neighboring rights" and so on.

The job of an "IP lawyer" is to pluck individual doctrines from this incoherent scrapheap of laws and regulations and weave them together into a spider's web of tripwires that customers and critics and competitors can't avoid, and which confer upon the lawyer's client the right to sue for anything that displeases them.

When Willingham says he's releasing Fables into the public domain, it's not clear what he's releasing – and what is his to release. In the colloquial, business sense of "IP," saying you're "releasing the IP" means something like, "Feel free to create adaptations from this." But these adaptations probably can't draw too closely on the artwork, or the logos. You can probably make novelizations of the comics. Maybe you can make new comics that use the same scripts but different art. You can probably make sequels to, or spinoffs of, the existing comics, provided you come up with your own character designs.

But it's murky. Very murky. Remember, this all started because Willingham didn't have the resources or patience to tangle with the rabid attack-lawyers Warners keeps kenneled on its Burbank lot. Warners can (and may) release those same lawyers on you, even if you are likely to prevail in court, betting that you – like Willingham – won't have the resources to defend yourself.

The strange reality of "IP" rights is that they can be secured without any affirmative step on your part. Copyrights are conjured into existence the instant that a new creative work is fixed in a tangible medium and endure until the creator's has been dead for 70 years. Common-law trademarks gradually come into definition like an image appearing on photo-paper in a chemical soup, growing in definition every time they are used, even if the mark's creator never files a form with the USPTO.

These IP tripwires proliferate in the shadows, wherever doodles are sketched on napkins, wherever kindergartners apply finger-paint to construction-paper. But for all that they are continuously springing into existence, and enduring for a century or more, they are absurdly hard to give away.

This was the key insight behind the Creative Commons project: that while the internet was full of people saying "no copyright" (or just assuming the things they posted were free for others to use), the law was a universe away from their commonsense assumptions. Creative Commons licenses were painstakingly crafted by an army of international IP lawyers who set out to turn the normal IP task on its head – to create a legal document that assured critics, customers and competitors that the licensor had no means to control their conduct.

20 years on, these licenses are pretty robust. The flaws in earlier versions have been discovered and repaired in subsequent revisions. They have been adapted to multiple countries' legal systems, allowing CC users to mix-and-match works from many territories – animating Polish sprites to tell a story by a Canadian, set to music from the UK.

Willingham could clarify his "public domain" dedication by applying a Creative Commons license to Fables, but which license? That's a thorny question. What Willingham really wants here is a sampling license – a license that allows licensees to take some of the elements of his work, combine them with other parts, and make something new.

But no CC license fits that description. Every CC license applies to whole works. If you want to license the bass-line from your song but not the melody, you have to release the bass-line separately and put a CC license on that. You can't just put a CC license on the song with an asterisked footnote that reads "just the bass, though."

CC had a sampling license: the "Sampling Plus 1.0" license. It was a mess. Licensees couldn't figure out what parts of works they were allowed to use, and licensors couldn't figure out how to coney that. It's been "retired."

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling+/1.0/

So maybe Willingham should create his own bespoke license for Fables. That may be what he has to do, in fact. But boy is that a fraught business. Remember the army of top-notch lawyers who created the CC licenses? They missed a crucial bug in the first three versions of the license, and billions of works have been licensed under those earlier versions. This has enabled a mob of crooked copyleft trolls (like Pixsy) to prey on the unwary, raking in a fortune:

https://doctorow.medium.com/a-bug-in-early-creative-commons-licenses-has-enabled-a-new-breed-of-superpredator-5f6360713299

Making a bug-free license is hard. A failure on Willingham's part to correctly enumerate or convey the limitations of such a license – to list which parts of Fables DC might sue you for using – could result in downstream users having their hard work censored out of existence by legal threats. Indeed, that's the best case scenario – defects in a license could result in downstream users, their collaborators, investors, and distributors being sued for millions of dollars, costing them everything they have, up to and including their homes.

Which isn't to say that this is dead on arrival – far from it! Just that there is work to be done. I can't speak for Creative Commons (it's been more than 20 years since I was their EU Director), but I'm positive that there are copyfighting lawyers out there who'd love to work on a project like this.

I think Willingham is onto something here. After all, Fables is built on the public domain. As Willingham writes in his release: "The current laws are a mishmash of unethical backroom deals to keep trademarks and copyrights in the hands of large corporations, who can largely afford to buy the outcomes they want."

Willingham describes how his participation in the entertainment industry has made him more skeptical of IP, not less. He proposes capping copyright at 20 years, with a single, 10-year extension for works that are sold onto third parties. This would be pretty good industrial policy – almost no works are commercially viable after just 14 years:

https://rufuspollock.com/papers/optimal_copyright.pdf

But there are massive structural barriers to realizing such a policy, the biggest being that the US had tied its own hands by insisting that long copyright terms be required in the trade deals it imposed on other countries, thereby binding itself to these farcically long copyright terms.

But there is another policy lever American creators can and should yank on to partially resolve this: Termination. The 1976 Copyright Act established the right for any creator to "terminate" the "transfer" of any copyrighted work after 30 years, by filing papers with the Copyright Office. This process is unduly onerous, and the Authors Alliance (where I'm a volunteer advisor) has created a tool to simplify it:

https://www.authorsalliance.org/resources/rights-reversion-portal/

Termination is deliberately obscure, but it's incredibly powerful. The copyright scholar Rebecca Giblin has studied this extensively, helping to produce the most complete report on how termination has been used by creators of all types:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/04/avoidance-is-evasion/#reverted

Writers, musicians and other artists have used termination to unilaterally cancel the crummy deals they had crammed down their throats 30 years ago and either re-sell their works on better terms or make them available directly to the public. Every George Clinton song, every Sweet Valley High novel, and the early works of Steven King have all be terminated and returned to their creators.

Copyright termination should and could be improved. Giblin and I wrote a whole-ass book about this and related subjects, Chokepoint Capitalism, which not only details the scams that writers like Willingham are subject to, but also devotes fully half its length to presenting detailed, technical, shovel-ready proposals for making life better for creators:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

Willingham is doing something important here. Larger and larger entertainment firms offer shabbier and shabbier treatment to creative workers, as striking members of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA can attest. Over the past year, I've seen a sharp increase in the presence of absolutely unconscionable clauses in the contracts I'm offered by publishers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/27/reps-and-warranties/#i-agree

I'm six months into negotiating a contract for a 300 word piece I wrote for a magazine I started contributing to in 1992. At issue is that they insist that I assign film rights and patent rights from my work as a condition of publication. Needless to say, there are no patentable inventions nor film ideas in this article, but they refuse to vary the contract, to the obvious chagrin of the editor who commissioned me.

Why won't they grant a variance? Why, they are so large – the magazine is part of a global conglomerate – that it would be impractical for them to track exceptions to this completely fucking batshit clause. In other words: we can't strike this batshit clause because we decided that from now on, all out contracts will have batshit clauses.

The performance of administrative competence – and the tactical deployment of administrative chaos – among giant entertainment companies is grotesque, but every now and again, it backfires.

That's what's happening at Marvel right now. The estates of Marvel founder Stan Lee and its seminal creator Steve Ditko are suing Marvel to terminate the transfer of both creators' characters to Marvel. If they succeed, Marvel will lose most of its most profitable characters, including Iron Man:

https://www.reuters.com/legal/marvel-artists-estate-ask-pre-trial-wins-superhero-copyright-fight-2023-05-22/

They're following in the trail of the Jack Kirby estate, whom Marvel paid millions to rather than taking their chances with the Supreme Court.

Marvel was always an administrative mess, repeatedly going bankrupt. Its deals with its creators were indifferently papered over, and then Marvel lost a lot of the paperwork. I'd bet anything that many of the key documents Disney (Marvel's owner) needs to prevail over Lee and Ditko are either unlocatable or destroyed – or never existed in the first place.

A more muscular termination right – say, one that kicks in after 20 years, and is automatic – would turn circuses like Marvel-Lee/Ditko into real class struggles. Rather than having the heirs of creators reaping the benefit of termination, we could make termination into a system for getting creators themselves paid.

In the meantime, there's Willingham's "absolute table-flip badassery."

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/15/fairy-use-tales/#sampling-license

Image: Tom Mrazek (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:An_Open_Field_%2827220830251%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

Penguin Random House (modified) https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/707161/fables-20th-anniversary-box-set-by-bill-willingham/

Fair use https://www.eff.org/issues/intellectual-property

#pluralistic #fables #comics #graphic novels #dc #warner #monopoly #publishing #chokepoint capitalism #poison pills #ip #bill willingham #public domain #copyright #copyfight #creative commons #licenses #copyleft trolls

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mintyisms · 4 months ago

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Call Me Kevin Starters

taken from various youtube videos

"Would I take candy from a child? No, but only because I don't like candy."

"I can either trade them or rob them. Probably both."

"We're neighbors. We're going to have to learn to respect each other."

"My fear of the dark outweighs my fear of prickly things."

"This is the second scariest stage play I've ever seen, the first being Shrek: The Musical."

"I just thought I'd start running to see if you followed me or not."

"So this is what it feels like to be at the top. Funny enough, it feels just like being at the bottom."

"We're not really here to do a cool fireworks show. We're here to commit acts of terrorism."

"I think I just committed insurance fraud."

"I can't promise I'll come back for you."

"I'm definitely burning this place down."

"I can't read maps. I can barely read in general."

"It's nice to meet you. I like your fashion sense."

"I'm not an arsonist. I'm a property developer."

"So many buildings on fire, and I didn't even start them this time."

"Looks like something out of High School Musical, not that I would know."

"I hate when large corporations suffer copyright infringement. It pisses me off!"

"Who's screaming? Is it me? It might be me."

"I'm just going to try pressing all the buttons and see if that works."

"The secret to victory is falling over at the starting line."

"That's going right into the old repressed memories folder."

"Being clothes-less and hairless pays off."

"I don't like wet food and soup is the wettest of foods."

"I need to bash your head in, if you don't mind."

"They don't have a bathroom tv? What peasants!"

"Don't tell on me or otherwise I WILL steal your television."

"Why are you not laughing? Humor is all I bring to the table."

"Don't worry, my favorite dumpster is nearby."

"When the government comes for me, I'll just launch a coup."

"He's called 'The Werewolf'. Why would I trust him for financial advice?"

"The wall growled at me and I got scared."

"I think something traumatic is about to happen to me."

#roleplay meme #rp meme #sentence meme #sentence starters #roleplay starters #rp starters #sentence starter #[ quote ]#[ meme ]

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workersolidarity · 1 year ago

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Three, four years ago I could have told you, and did tell people, that inflation would start steadily going up, and I said even then that it would likely be stubborn, meaning it wasn't going to be an easy fix.

I knew this back then because it was obvious, even years ago, that the BRICS countries, along with many African and South Asian countries and elsewhere were looking for ways to get around using the US Dollar for trade.

They were making moves to expand trade relations outside US dollar transactions and were for many years planning and building the infrastructure for a future Multipolar world.

And that process began rapidly picking up pace three or four years ago.

I began to say then, what I'm still saying now, as that process goes on and trade outside the US Dollar system grows exponentially year-on-year, that's going to begin to have an effect on inflation.

Why? Well, Imperialism really. Because the US for decades has depended on the steady demand for US Dollars to hold down inflation, allowing the US to use debt spending to finance wars, military bases and imperialistic ventures like Syria.

Remember, it was the US in its massively dominant position after WWII that built the Bretton Woods System that made the US Dollar the world reserve currency pegged to gold, and it was the US that unilaterally abandoned Bretton Woods 1 and took the dollar off Gold, allowing for the US to finance wars through debt spending, and created the Petro-Dollar with Saudi Arabia in the 1970's.

This debt spending is essentially the surplus value from the Global South and other poorer countries that must buy US Dollars to fund infrastructure projects, energy consumption, food and medicine imports, etc since it's the world reserve currency and if you wish to use the US Financial System at all, such as the World Bank, or SWIFT messaging system, well you have to use US Dollars.

Basically, it's the sucking of the wealth out of poorer countries to finance their own economic oppression.

But as these countries catch on and with new rising global powers like Russia, China and Iran building the infrastructure for an alternative system, the US Dollar is being abandoned faster than ever.

In 2000, more than 70% of Foreign Exchange Reserves were held in US Dollars. By 2020, that figure had dropped considerably to 59%. And the rate at which it's dropping is only increasing.

Knowing this, I said back in 2019 and 2020 that inflation was likely to become a problem. And if it did become a problem, then we knew exactly what the Fed would do as a result: dramatically increase benchmark Interest rates.

This didn't take any particularly specialized or secretive sources to figure out. It's been obvious for years to anyone seriously interested in economics and geopolitics.

And what happens when interest rates go up? The value of the bonds bought under lower interest rates suddenly go way down, while debts become more expensive. It's like gravity in economics.

So with all that being said, why then did all these banks (Signature Bank, First Republic Bank, and Silicon Valley Bank) continue buying troubled assets and Treasury bonds if they're so smart and educated and knew all this?

I mean, these guys are supposed to be the best of the best corporate bankers, right? On the cutting edge of investment banking, right? That's what everyone said even just months before Silicon Valley Bank failed. (CNBC host and moron of the year Jim Cramer literally praised Silicon Valley Bank less than a month before its failure)

So one of two things must be true here and neither one is good for YOU the average worker.

Either these bankers are idiots; complete morons who have little to no understanding of basic economics, geopolitics, and monetary policy, something that should be of concern to all of us.

I mean, I'm just a dude working for a small retailer in New Orleans and even I knew this inflation and higher interest rates were coming.

So why exactly are these people paid such exorbitant salaries? If I can understand the basics of their job better than they can, why am I a retailer, and he, a millionaire banker???

So that's one possibility, one I'm virtually certain is actually true, that our ruling Elite isn't particularly smart or well educated in reality, anymore than ordinary people I meet everyday, and any one of us could easily do their jobs just as well or better than they do given the opportunities afforded to them.

But even if in this case, that's not what happened. That these weren't idiots. Well then the alternative is something that should also be deeply disturbing to you: that these bankers knew they would be facing this situation, that they were well aware of the coming inflationary pressures and equally aware what the Feds response would be, interest rate hikes.

And instead of using the last couple of years to shed possibly dangerous assets and shore up the money the banks kept on hand, they continued to do what was personally making them so much profit, at the expense of tax payers, because they were absolutely certain that the government these bankers spend so much money on campaigns for, would swoop in regardless of the recklessness of their behavior, and bail them out no matter what.

These are not the signs of a healthy political, economic or banking system.

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prettyflyshyguy · 10 months ago

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Anyway here's wonderwall. I'm trying to start the new year off strong. Already feel sad its been a week and I've barely accomplished this. But that's the kind of negative talk that's so 2023. I'm throwing it in the bin. We focusing on personal achievements only.

I've been writing tonight! It's been fun! I'm still trying to get into the groove and struggling with the age old issue of whenever I hit a 'blank' I just stop working on the project, opting to wait for the stroke of inspiration to hit. This isn't helpful, and means I don't work through the issue. So 2023. Fuck that noise.

I'm still building my confidence back after having it a bit crushed last year, so no ETA on the final chapter of the main C Virus Fic, but you'll probably see some other mini projects pop up. Less stressful, helps me practice for the big stuff.

Anyway the song "Talking in your Sleep" has had me at gunpoint for 2 hours and I'm really happy with this interaction so here's a taster under the cut.

Chris and Leon attend a meeting with a Big Pharma client post-incident cleanup and they can't handle the heat of corporate talk.

Something had felt off about the job from the minute he set boots on the ground outside the factory. Chris had assured him that it’d be smooth, he’d done it a hundred times before, there shouldn’t be any issues. It was a C-Virus outbreak for sure, but not the normal kind. Valhanian was working on vaccines and preventative medication, blockers for the immune system that could quickly and effectively obliterate the virus or prevent it from even gaining a hold on the system. The most common form was the standard strains that had a very similar effect on humans as the T-Virus did, which they were lead to believe was the main focus of the factory - manufacturing and R&D for the ‘zombie’ strains.

What they found waiting for them was most certainly not the standard C-Virus infected humans.

Chris had brushed it off at the time, claiming that with how volatile the virus was, he wasn’t surprised that something had gone wrong and there were chrysalid variants in the facility.

Nothing’s without risk, something must have gone wrong, it’s not like we haven’t handled this sort of thing before.

Leon knew that there was no way in hell that a company with that much money in the game of vaccines would fuck around and find out - risking everything in the process. But it wasn’t worth arguing with Chris, he insisted that it wasn’t his job to worry about the science team’s side of things and that ‘Rebecca will figure it out.’

Chris was ever the optimist on his good days. Leon had seen too much to trust any corporation that invested in the field of medicine. You don’t get fission without fusion, and anyone who claimed that advancements in bio-organic warfare had no links to advancements in medicine, was a fool or a liar. Most likely both.

Of course something went wrong on the job, sure he’d had a little ‘mutation’ incident, but Rebecca’s drugs worked a treat, they just took a while to fully kick in.

“I don’t know what this is or what you’re trying to do, we don’t employ BOWs, whatever you’re trying to claim is unfounded.”

No no no you dumbass, don’t give it to them Chris!

“Mr. Redfield I’m just being thorough. You’re no stranger to the industry, and I’m sure you understand we are very conscious and concerned about protecting our trade secrets. Incidents like this are of a high concern to us as the entire reason we brought the BSAA in to assist us was to stop a B.O.W incident.”

Chris glanced briefly at the BSAA staff seated around him, and Leon. Fear and panic in his eyes, crying for help silently. He knew who was in the photograph and could only lie about it for so long before the game was given away.

Leon cleared his throat, drawing the attention of the sharks.

“Ms Harker I can assure you that Chris is just as shocked as you are, and that the BSAA operates at the highest level of-”

“Thank you for your assurance, Mr Kennedy, but I believe you are not a member of the BSAA is that correct?” her full attention snapped to Leon, her eyes looked predatory.

“Yes, I’m temporarily assigned to assist them in operations regarding the C-Virus as I have first hand experience with it that has proven invaluable in us combatting further outbreaks.”

“I don’t doubt that Mr. Kennedy. I’m aware of your reputation and high standing. Our country has a lot to thank you for.”

He shivered. There was no kindness in her tone.

“I just wish to express my concerns, as the security footage doesn’t lie.”

Leon digged his fingers into his thigh, scrunching the fabric of the chinos, his hands hidden under the table.

“Trust is critical to any operation as I’m sure everyone in this room is well aware. How can we trust the BSAA after seeing this? How can you trust yourselves?”

Chris began to speak, being swiftly interrupted by Harker’s shrill tone.

“Have you considered that there may be individuals laying dormantly infected, unbeknownst to the world?

Leon bit down on his tongue.

“Perhaps there’s an infected individual sitting in this room with us right now.”

The colour drained from Chris’s face.

“Perhaps it's someone not within the BSAA.”

Leon felt the eyes of every member of the meeting shift to look at him.

#c virus au #thank u resident evil for always being comforting to return to #mwah #its like putting on your old but still comfy jacket and feeling content

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danganronpasurvivoraskblog · 6 months ago

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(Me) ahhhh shit it’s yomi bitchsmile-

Okay, all of you listen up. These people are gonna be our esteemed guests for a little while. You're to treat them with the utmost respect and dignity. Get some medics over here to take care of the blue-haired girl and the blonde-haired twink.

And trust me when I tell you that if you don't, I'LL be the least of your worries.

*The soldiers all look nervous under their masks, but they salute and make way for Junko and the others.

Honestly, I'm pretty surprised. I heard what happened to you a while back when you got locked up in Kanai Ward, and I'm amazed that there are still people who were willing to go with you even after all that.

Yeah, most of those bastards turned on my pretty quick as soon as they got the chance. Screw 'em...

*He turns to the rest of Organization Zetsubou after telling some of the medical team to take Tsumugi and Mikihiko for treatment.

I'm Yomi Hellsmile. I'm the director and leader of this town. I'll say it again, welcome to New Kanai Ward.

Yomi Hellsmile...If I remember correctly, there was a Future Foundation file I read on you a few years back. You were a major name in the WDO Kanai Ward incident that happened shortly after the end of the Final Killing Game.

The director of the Amaterasu Corporation Peacekeepers, who rose to power by working with Amaterasu's senior researcher, Dr. Huesca, to sell trade secrets and use the proceeds to pay other factions into supporting him. It gave you power over Kanai Ward, allowing you to cruelly torture and even murder those who did not follow your rules. Am I wrong?

Mm...Yeah...That was a long time ago. But you're honored guests. You don't have to worry about any of that stuff. I'm not about to boss around my old friends cohorts.

How do you know each other?

Well, Junko here was a...major benefactor to me during the early Tragedy years. Helped me keep my old city up and running even after everywhere else went to shit. We didn't have the closest relationship, but...we got along.

Trust me when I tell you that no one's gonna find you guys down here. We scratch each other's backs, and we all profit from it.

And what's your agenda, Mr Hellsmile? What do you get out of helping us?

...A favor. When you guys get back on your feet, I expect you to do a little something for me, m'kay?

Sure thing. Yomi doesn't want this place being found just as much as we don't wanna be found, so he's gonna work with us for the time being. Try to get along, ok?

*The other members of Zetsubou are ushered in by the Peacekeepers, and Junko hangs back with Yomi.

I know this might sound disingenuous, but it's good to be working for you. Thanks for agreeing to my requests so soon.

Well, if anyone can give me what I want, it's you. So in the meantime, I'll do whatever I can.

You should've invited me to this Zetsubou shit sooner...! I can't WAIT for the curtain call...! Kehahahaha...!

#danganronpa survivor #danganronpa #danganronpa 1 #dr1 #danganrebirth voices #master detective archives: rain code #junko enoshima #yomi hellsmile #celestia ludenberg #akira tsuchiya #narumi osone #ask #the day the world stood still arc

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popculturebuffet · 1 year ago

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House of Claremont: Mutant Month: Marvel Graphic Novel #5: X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills (Comission Review for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy muties and welcome back to Mutant Month, my celebration of those mighty mutants of marvel. After a bit of a rough start with the X-Men's first animated appearance, i'm proudly taking a look at one of the X-Men stories ever,God Loves Man Kills.

This review also relaunches a feature on this blog that will likely exist as long as this blog does. It was supposed to be a full retrospective of Chris Claremont's 186 issue, 16 year run on Uncanny X-Men, also throwing in his 12 annual issues, various mini series, and other x-ongoing New Mutants. It was an ambitious idea brought about by me having collected almost EVERY issue of Claremont's run and various associated minis on comixology, with only a few stray issues and a few trades left to complete it. Thanks to that i'd seen what a deft, well crafted masterpiece this run is: while it has it's flaws, down periods, and various things that haven't aged well, it's a glorious nearly two decades long epic with lush character arcs, brilliant ideas, and tons of twists and status quo changes to keep things from getting too stale. While the run begins and ends at Xavier's School in between we have Thunderbird's tragic death, Jean becoming a living god before it consumes her and her apparent death, Scott leaving as a result and only returning on and off before leaving for good, one of their sworn enemies who'd done something truly unforgiable to a friend of theirs joining the team in desperation (More on that next week), Storm's slow change in personality and temproary (though still YEARS LONG ) power loss, the arrival of Rachel Summers from an alternate future, Rachel's departure coinciding with half the team being brutally decimated in the morlock massacre and Storm forced to rebuild the team from almost scratch, said new roster dying to save the world and being reborn in secret, and the ENTIRE TEAM scattered to the winds, leaving the book to focus on the individual members as wolverine slowly pulls them back together and Forge forges a new team to replace them, and finally the team merging with x-factor to create two new teams of x-men. And that was just what I could squeeze in reasonably A lot of great stories both noted forever and forgotten to the sands of time by all but those who read them in the 80s or read them all now are squeezed int his epic.

And that very reasoning.. is why I ultimatley coudln't do it. I tried streamlining the run and summarizing.. but at the end of the day i'm a man who likes to really analyze stuff. And make goofy jokes, but while I could do the latter as good as always it became clear the run was just too massive to quickly summarize it all and do it full justice, and doing it piece by piece in order would possibly take a decade. It's the double edged sword of relying on commissions and patreon reviews: it allows me extra money each month and comes in handy quite a bit, and allows me to meet nice respectful people who love my work enough to do it... but it also means I sometimes have to delay things I personally planned to do on my own time. And given my venture bros retrospective has already been a victim to this quite a bit, I decided an even LONGER project. There's also a simple fact: While I love this era of x-men and it's easily one of the best if not the best, no question... there are tons of OTHER great x-men and mutant stories out there and other retrospectives to do from peter David's masterful noir run of x-factor (and not to shabby government and corporate runs), to Leah Williams own great sadly short lived take recently, to the various epics currently spinning out of the krakoa era and into the fall of x from Hickman, to Gilleon to Ewing to Duggan to williams, and even OTHER x-books from the 80s and early 90's with Claremont's phenomenal new mutants, interesting excalibur, and Louise Simonsons deft work on X-Factor and later also New Mutants. There's just too much X for one lifetime of review work to spend most of it on one run.

So this is my compromise: instead of a long retrospective looking at it in order, i'll be taking ocasional looks at stories I like, and maybe the one or two I don't, here. Both on my own, with one of my faviorite parts of the run planned for next year if I can squeeze it in

And on comission's like this. If ther'es a stretch of this massive run or another x run you want me to cover i'm down for it.

And I was paticuarlly down for this one for two reasons: the first is God Loves, Man Kills is not only one of my faviorite x-men stories.. but probably the best of Chris Claremont's run. And given he had PLENTY of good work before and after this, the run of issues I just teased above was also happening around this time, that is saying a lot.

The other is the person who comissioned it: Kevin is both the first person to comisson work for this blog and the one who does it the most and has become a good friend. But while he's many things: great with duck triva, obessed with a lesbain owl, the #1 molibby shipper, and a great guy to work with... he's not really an x-men fan. Spider-Man yes, it's how I was able to spend a glorious half a year reviewing spiderman and likely will again in the future, both with a video game review planned later this year and tons of other stuff for the future. But when it comes to the strangest heroes of all he usually just shurgs and this month was something he wasn't really involved in at first. Which is fine, I don't do this blog just for one person and he dosen't have to like everything I do.

So it meant a LOT to me when he asked if I could cover God Loves Man Kills. He was curious after I mentioned this theme month coming up and looked into some famous x-men stories, thought this one was interesting as it's both rightly hugely aclaimed and still has echoes to the state of the world today. And since he watches and reads what he commissions it also got him to read some classic x-men and hopefully more eventually. He also has another one coming at the end of the month and much like this one it's a story I was bound to cover eventually. But you'll find out about that one later. For now join me under the cut to dig into one of the greatest x-men stories of all, a tale of frightingly realistic prejudice, tyranically faith, and perseverance in the face of overwhelming hate and a doubt if your dream will ever come true.

Purity: God Loves Man Kills comes to us from the Marvel Graphic Novel series, another thing i've been wanting to talk about. Marvel Graphic Novel was the brainchild of Marvel's Editor at the Chief at the time Jim Shooter. I'm not a huge fan of Shooter as while he WAS EiC during one of marvel's biggest boom periods, he was also a giant prick who was not great at the actual writing part most of the time but insisted on giving himself books, was a homophobic shithead who refused to let gay characters into his book (it's why Claremont had to imply as hard as he could Mystique and Destiny were a couple), and being behind famous writing debacles like Hank Pym's mental breakdown, the hobglin's true identity and of course the previously reviewed avengers 200. Aka

I'll be covering the followup to that next week, thank god. But for all the guys faults and serious lastingly damaging fuckups.. he still had his moments. For instance with X-Men itself he had Chris break up Kitty Pryde (14) and Colossus (19) which was both better for both characters in the longrun but the fallout of said breakup ended up being some of Chris' best work.

This is one of those moments: With Buisness picking up at the tale end of the 60's, Jim decided to capitalize on the "Album" format from European comics. So we go the marvel graphic novels, super sized stories following marvel's best characters, though usually not involving the main book's creative team for time purposes. We still got powerhouse names like David Michlinine, Chris Claremont, Frank Miller, JM Demattis, Larry Hama, Mary Jo Duffy, Ann Nocenti, Gerry Conway, Roger Stern, Doug Monech, Mark Gruenwald, Alan Davis, Jim Starlin, Bob McLeod, Walt Simonson, Jackson Guice, Mark Silvestri, John Byrne, Bill Sienkiewicz, Mark Evanier, Sergio Aragones, John Bucschema, Denny O'Neil, Bruce Jones, Mike Mingola, Paul Gulacey, and Ross Andru. And i'm sure I missed some. The books were a lot of things. They were a way for creators to work on characters they normally hadn't, to serve as an additional piece to big runs, or to launch less superhero oriented stuff and creator own books. Yes marvel actually did creator owned books at one point, something I never would've known without my good twitter friend Belle (Not caling it X, probably the only time something named x wasn't for me in any way shape or form), and was part of the reason for this line. It's also thanks to her getting me curious in this line again that I found out about oddities like an adaptation of willow by Power Man and Iron Fist's real mom Mary Jo Duffy, a full roger rabbit adaptation.. or a full SEQUEL to Roger Rabbit that I'm DEFINTELY looking at one of these days. It was mostly a marvel vehicle though.

Despite their isolated nature, most of these books are fully cannon to the main marvel universe and many of them had a lasting impact: New Mutants introduced the team to the marvel universe and took Donald Pierce out of the hellfire club, Spider-Man: Parallel Lives dealt with the revelation that Mary Jane had known peter was Spidey all along and showed her past with that new perspective in mind, Dardevil Love and War continued the vanessa fisk subplot from dardevil, the inhumans once shot introduced Black Bolt and Medusa's Son Ahurua, Dazzler: The Movie outed Allison Blaire as a mutant to the world, and the classic Doctor Strange and Doctor Doom: triumph and torment finally ended the longstanding subplot about Doom saving his mother's soul from mephisto.

So that makes it a surprise that this story wasn't strictly considered canon till 21 years after the fact. Part of this is the standalone nature: while the book DOES have some important steps in Magneto and Kitty Pryde's character arcs, it's pretty much the ONLY comic chris wrote he didn't somehow later factor into his x-men run. That's not hyperbole either: X-Men and New Mutants regularly impacted each other, with Xavier's departure leading to Magneto becoming their teacher, Selene being introduced fighting the New mutants before becoming a thorn in the big kids side, and Betsy Braddock, the future Psylocke, ending up at the mansion and eventually on the roster thanks to a new mutants annual.

Beyond that , Chris loved bringing in characters from other books he worked on: Jean Grey roomed with Coleen Wing and Misty Knight from his book iron fist, Jessica Drew Spider-Woman guest starred in an x-men issue then later in one of her comics found Banshee's daughter Siryn. And not stopping there many characters chris created for other books became mainstays of uncanny x-men: Mystique started out as Ms Marvel (Carol Danvers) arch enemy, Arcade was a one off villian in an issue of Marvel Team Up and Wolverine's arch enemy sabertooth started out as an iron fist villian. Most notably, and something we'll talk about next week, after the disaster that was avengers 200, Chris was so pissed off he took carol and added her to x-men for some time via avengers annual #10.. and in the process also introduced Rogue. Chris used everything he had so the fact this story just.. happened with so much fanfare and two big character moments and never came up is odd.

The other problem is that Chris kept a very tight order of events and had a lot happening... and as a result WHEN this happened is nigh impossible to figure out. It's down to the roster; The roster in this book is Cyclops, Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Kitty Pryde. Cyke is the first issue as after Jean's death in the dark phoenix saga he was in and out of the team for a while: he left right after to find out if he even WANTED to go back, but this being the life of an x-man ended up stranded on Magneto's spooky elder god island he found and made into a headquarters, because I mean.. what else are you going to do with a spooky elder god island. After a fight with Mags in which he realized how far he nearly went and fled to parts unknown, the X-Men took the base for their own while the mansion was in the shop before Cyclops peaced out again to spend time with his dad who just got back, from outer space. To make matter's somehow even more complicated, the x-men were then kidnapped to space by the brood. Cyke would leave the issue after this adventure to go spend time with his dad and meet his long lost grandparents before he had to go back to space again and be a sexy mustache space pirate as earth had become too alien to him peter quill style.

And that issue is the other problem: the issue before that, after Xavier got his alien clone body.. he bumped Kitty Pryde, the x-men's cool teen who met the team during Dark Phoenix Saga and joined right after, down to the New Mutants. This is a problem as the only real window for this story to happen... is when she was busy convincing Xavier to repromote her.... and during that Window Logan implicitly left for his homeland of Canada before heading to japan to pick a fight with his girlfriend's abusive fiancé and even more abusive dad, who he of course murdered in a samurai duel.

So it' SEEMS impossible for this story to fit. And that's because it is. trust me I tried my best.. but going to x-men 168, aka

Logan leaves for the candian rockies.. and has Kurt drive him to the airport... taking Kitty and her bestie and colosuss sister who was aged up when she was kidnapped by a demon man on Magneto's Spooky Elder God Island, with them.. while Kitty was still campaning to join the x-men. Not only that Xavier's space girlfriend Illandra and the new mutants themselves are absent from the story, just to make ti clear

So yeah this story is canon , but fits nowhere really in canon.. and in an interview in the extneded cut (which I turned to to try and find out if it added anything to explain why it dosen't fit, which no it didn't it's just got some added wraparounds in the present day at the time continuity), that was by design. Chris wanted to make this story one that could be read by anyone, one and done. If you wanted to read more x-men great. if not , you still got your money's worth and got everything these characters were about.

The story itself came from the times: It was the time of Ronald Regan and a new wave of conservatives trying to bring back "the good old days" and morals and all the usual smokescreens "for when things were a lot WHITER and STRAIGHTER and we didn't have to reckon with our actions. " This call for moral panic nicely dovetailed into the rise of Evangelical Preachers, using tv as a means of indoctrination and trying to paint anyone against them as not in god's will and anything they didn't like as "not TRULY of god". Naturally given Chris wrote a book about a disenfranchised, if fictoinal group that happened to have a christian (Nightcrawler) and jewish (Kitty Pryde) person in their ranks and an arch enemy who lived thorugh the holocaust, the story was perfect.

To chris this kind of purity of purpose coupled with narrowmindeness was dangerous as hell, and made for a good story speaking out against it.. one that continues to resonate on as narrow minded assholes who GENUINELY think their doing the right thing by hurting and suppressing people and who they are haven't exactly gone away, simply changed shape. Heck while this still is mostly a one off story, the themes of someone trying to legislate opression and make it sound resonable were already in the main book with days of future past (which shows a nightmare world where this DOES happen.. and also gets hyjacked by giant robots), and would continue to be a key theme of the x-men to this very day.

So now the stage is set, we can finally begin a battle.. not one of the usual claws, optic blasts and thunder bolts.. but of survivial. Of ideas. Of one group trying to do the right thing in the midst of a direct call for them to be trotted out and murdered. To be wiped away in the name of some "higher purpose". It's a battle of faith. Let's see how it plays out shall we?

Not the First, Far from the Last:

The opening to God Loves Man Kills.. is one of the most chilling scenes i've read in a comic. And it's chilling simply because it could happen anywhere: Two black children are running for their lives.. but sadly don't make it, as their soon cornered by the purifiers, three people in black tactical gear. And why are they hunting these innocent children? Why have they already killed their parents?

It's an utterly haunting sequence. The fact the children are black isn't a remote coincidence, but to simply hammer home that this kind of shit happens. To draw parallels to the same sort of shit racist have done: killing innocent people.. then displaying the bodies as some sick trophy to show exactly WHY they just slaughtered innocents: they were not what these butchers considered a person and to them, they deserved to die. Thankfully before the Purifiers can get their intended show of stringing up the bodies, each with a sign saying "Mutie" on them, someone else comes along to take this horror show down so these children's bodies can at least have SOME dignity in death instead of being used as as sick prop

I love the small touches i'm only noticing now as I review this: the true PAIN on Erik's face after seeing this, him gently going over the body. It also speaks to his history: he's seen countless children die around him in his childhood in a concentration camp.. and saw his own daughter Anya die tragically simply because Mags himself was a mutant. It says a lot about who he is and that behind the vengeance, behind the vow of "Never again" he swears right after.. is a man whose simply seen too many of his peopled die... and will not let this happen again. And god help those who did this.

We then meet our main antagonist, Reverened William Stryker. Like the above.. this intro is brilliant. Stryker, head of his evangelcial "Stryker Crusade" is reading the bible in his office, before preparing to review some files and having some dinner sent up to eat while he looks over them. Said files are also a really neat way to show off the current roster of x-men and what they can do, with some really great art added. Stryker already has plans for them, but first he has to be at the studio: he has a show to put on.

We cut to Stevie Hunter's dance studio. For those less familiar with her Stevie was a major supporting character during Claremont's run. When Kitty joined the school, Charles, wanting to make sure she had a well rounded life outside of academics and surviving the experince, enrolled her in dances classes hosted by Stevie, a former professional dancer whose career was cut short by injury. He'd later do the same for the new mutants, and it's a nice character thing: it shows as gruff and standofish as Charles can be.. he wants what's best for his charges and wants them to have some normalcy in a life where that will be hard to come by.

Starting here , and with Kitty, isn't a coincidence: as Chris said in the aforementioned interview, the younger characters provided a vital viewpoint: the future and what exactly to do with it when it looked so bleak.

It's also a great way to start as once again Claremont makes sure things are well and grounded as Kitty.. is beating the shit out of some asshole named Danny.. to the point she's sent him out the door. He only gets a hit in once Peter, aka Colossus, mother russia's finest and kitty's crush, shows up distracting her. Kitty's held back by her bestie and borderline love intrest Illanya. Seriously why haven't they been a thing. Questions for later. For now Stevie comes out wanting to know what the hell is going on, her exact words. Kitty admits to starting the violence portion of the evening.. but only because Danny was talking about all the GOOD the stryker crusade is doing and how swell it is they want to commit mutant genocide. Peter suggests they end it there.. which is code for "You've said enough little bigot, just try me". It's also notable that peter is so angry: one of his defining traits is how he's a gentle, kind young man and abhors violence. He fights because he has to and because it's the right thing to do, not because he wants. So to get him angry takes a lot. Danny backs off.. but whispers once peter's around it's on because he has the self preservation of a goat. We also coincidentally never see him again. Maybe Logan gave him a talking to and he wisely left town after voiding his bowels. Who knows.

Stevie isn't pleased with Kitty and we get that moment I was hinting at the one part of the comic that dosen't entirely work for me

Now I GET what chris was going for and Kitty's point: that just because it's word's.. dosen't mean someone saying intolerent bullshit, ESPECAILLY since in this case the dipshit was advocating genocide, is something to just ignore or brush off. And it's MEANT to be a spur of the moment thing a teenager would say, hence it not ruining the scene.. but Chris STILL really shoudlnt' of had a privilaged white teenager say the n word to a grown black woman whose probably been through a LOT of this shit and has gotten used to having to ignore it. Even for the time the n-word should not have been used especialy in refrence to a fictional minority. The rest of the scene works.. but this REALLY dosen't and sticks out like a sore thumb in a work that otherwise holds up.

Kitty and Peter return home just in time for something on TV, greeted by

and Nightcrawler, everyone's faviorite sexy demonic looking christian. I LOVE Logan and Kitty's talk here too

I love everything about this. How casual logan is, how fatherly he comes off to her, and Kitty showing that Stevie's fears of her using her training unfairly were unfounded: Kitty was holding back and wouldn't use it on a civlian no matter how much he deserved to be ground into the pavement.

Turns out the show their all watching is the same one Stryker was preparing for: A debate with Xavier over mutant kind. And Xavier looses pretty badly as best summed up by this panel

It perfectly sums up hate groups like Stryker's best weapon: couching horrifying, nightmarish notions.. and making them sound ALMOST resonable. it's something I saw a few years back when JK Rowling tried to defend her transphobia; her "apology' letter TRIED to sound resonable.. but underneath you could see all the transphobia couched in her arguments and all the hate clearly there. It's just to some, sadly.. the argument is more pursasive and that's where the danger is: not in us who can see it.. but that some of us may not or may be indorcianted otherwise.

Kitty is understandably even more pissed after all of this and decides to break some stuff, so we get a few pages in the danger room. It's a fun sequence. I"m mostly glossing over it as story wise it dosen't really have a lot of function, but it's a nice way to slip in some more typical superhero action without undermining the story: the context of the heroes needing to work out how aggravated and scared they are with a good distraction makes it work, it's only a few pages so it dosen't take up much of the comic, and it has a fun solution: the heroes are all given individual assignments.. but only accomplish them when they help each other out, a clever exercise. IT's one of the reasons I love the danger room: it's a neat way to show our heroes training, something most superhero comics don't have time for and a fun way to interject action sequences into issues that may otherwise not have them.

Back at the Studio Stryker's preparing for his first attack on the x-men... and conviently Xavier brought Cyclops, team leader and certified badass, and Storm, also team leader and certified badass about to get even more badass during this time period with her awsome mohawk and change in character, with them. Xavier's already on edge as he noticed Stryker has Psy Screens.. which means he KNOWS Xavier's a mutant.. but sadly can't warn the rest of th eteam as they get ambusehd and Scott and Ororo are seemingly gunned down. It's part of what makes Stryker such an effective antagonist: while he does indeed have an evil over the top super villian plan... most of his methods are mundane. Simply using guns , subterfuge and careful cordinated strikes. Basic military tactics and espionge. He has fancy sci fi stuff to block xavier's mind reading and what not, but he uses pretty mundane stuff. It underlines that this is at the end of the day just a normal guy who happens to have a POWERFUl cultish following.. and that despite the powers, despite the training the x-men are as vunerable as anyone to a military strike.

We cut back to the mansion where Nightcrawler gets a night caller telling him the professor, jean and scott died in a car crash. The next scene is effective; Kitty mourns, and is baffled that something mundane as a car crash could take out her surrogate big sister, a genius tactician and her mentor.. and also Scott and Xavier. Turns out though Illanya isn't just there to comfort kitty.. and ask kitty about her crush on her brother Peter.. but to point out a weird survelnce divise. Kitty's response is clever as hell and speaks to how despite her age she's every bit an x-man: she disables the thing, then plans to wait to ambush whoever set it up.

At the scene of the accident Logan confirms Kitty's suspcions: the scenes for the bodies found at the wreck are all wrong and the wreck itself has all the halmarks of a staged accident.. a nice way to use Logan's CIA past as he admits to have done a few of these himself. He was also smart enough to have Kurt do survielnce.. and find the purifiers watching them ready to attack. It's a nice little show of Wolverine as leader: it dosen't come up a TON in this run early on, but under Ororo he's second in line to lead the x-men , wether he thinks he can or not.

The x-men turn the tables and ambush the purifiers for a change, in this case some goon Wolverine easily yanks out of a car and Anne, Stryker's right hand who tries ramming Nightcrawler with her car.. which fails horribly since you know, he's a teleporter and she should know this and colosus totals the thing with Nightcrawler saving her life with one heck of a line

Unfortuantley for our heroes not only does said attempted marytr escaped.. but she had some goons with her in powered armor who easily down colossus. Before they can get the rest of the x-men though.. they get some unexpected help.

It's one hell of a scene. Before this set of our heroes can react though, we cut back to kitty and yana. The goons arrive and Illyana is understandably scared: at this point, outside of the time in a demon realm, she's mostly a normal teenager and hasn't yet trained in her powers. So when Kitty goes to investigate and the purifiers find her, it's utterly terrifying to see.. and worse to see Anne shoot an unarmed girl. Her point blank shot somehow.. stuns Yana?

Thankfully not depriving us of one of the best new mutants... just kidding their all the best. It's hard to choose.

Kitty hides in the trunk, but turns out the Purifiers have sensors and spray some knockout gas in there.

Back with the X-men logan is using his usual charm and tact to interogate one of their suspects

Left one's charm, right one's tact, middle one's grace. Magneto suggets an alternative.. and procedes to somehow use magnetics to make the guy tell them what he knows

I love Magneto's line afterwrods too

It's a brutal line and sums up magneto in one line. Truly perfect.

While nightcrawler worries sinking to their foes level makes them no better we cut to

As you can imagine this scene confused the hell otu of Kev. It works thematically for me: Stryker is trying to brainwash xavier and is thus framing his students, his family, as murderous monsters. It's part of a brilliant and horrifying psychic ploy: their torturing Scott and Ororo, the only reason their still alive, right next to him so he feels their pain, but have doped Charles up so much he dosen't realize their not hurting him, letting his own inner guilt rationalize why they'd hurt him. Scott is especially a good pick for this: as I mentioned since Jean's death he's been questioning his place in the world and, after all the training Xavier's given him, if he can even LIVE a life outside the x-men. He's as much Xavier's son as his real son who he dosen't know about yet and thus his betrayal would sting the hardest while for Oroo he took her out of an innocent existence away from strife as a goddess to the harshness of the real world. His own fears of what he's done to his children, how he's weaponized them and the two he's lost.. .are the greatest weapon of all.

We then find out Stryker's back story.. and it is... utterly horrifying. Stryker was a decorated army guy who was driving home with his pregnant wife. She gave birth to their son and well...

That shot of the knife.. is haunting. It's something I never really focused on in previous reads.. and i'm not sure i'll be able to forget now. Stryker was so convinced his baby was an abomination, so unwilling to accept his child for what they were instea dof what he thought they were.. he murdered an innocent baby then SNAPPED his wife's neck for no good reason. All because in his eyes they were just a monster and the one who created. It breaks down Stryker and shows what he REALLY is inside: while he tries to frame this a sa crusade, that the birth of his child was God showing Stryker his new purpose in life, hence his founding of the crusade. But at the end of the day: he's a bigot. He saw his child was diffrent and stabbed him to death and instead of dealing with kiling his wife and child, instead of acccepting he acted on his worst instincts and did something truly horrible.. he convinced himself that no, GOD told him to do this. God told him this was the right path. and he should kill more, hurt more, do more. It's the real, pure danger of crusades like this: the absolute conviction that the horrible things your doing are right. People who just side with bigotry for their own self intrest are bad.. but it's the people who TRULY belivie what their saying who are the most dangeorus. To use JK Rowling the reason she's so dangeorus to trans people is that she GENUINELY thinks she's helping women. That she THINKS she's resonable and can convince other people.. and that like stryker she has the money and resources and influence to do real harm. It's easy to stop a hypcorite, just show them as they are to their followers if their not brainwashed enough. it's harder to stop someone who GENUINELY belivies the hate they speak and cannot be talked down or beaten with logic. The only way to beat them is with public opinon and that's a harder task than it should be.

We get a truly chiling ending to the scene as Stryker coldly orders Anne to execuite kitty and Storm, a surrgoate big sister to the girl can only wail in horror.

Lucky for kitty, she managed to phase the escond the gas hit, but some still got her.. so she escapes her execution.. but is still being hunted by Anne. And whiel she TRIES to get help.. she instead finds a gang who fully plan to assault her. Her only salvation is that Anne shows up and the gang is too busy with her and Anne's too busy killing them all for being in the way for either to notice her escaping. Kitty BARELY calls the school for help in time and even then all she can do is hide in a subway.. and watch as a police officer takes a bullet for her, the purifiers glad to let him die and blame it on her. Thankfully like her fellow x-men, Uncle Erik is here to save the day...

The x-men quickly clean up the rest of the Purifiers and Kitty's shocked to see Magneto on their side. He quickly proves his nobility though, saving the officer and giving the x-men a magic car door ride to go get the guy help

While he's showing them the world, shining shimmering splendor, he explains whose after them to the officer.

We then cut back to xavier whose finally been convinced to kill Scott and Ororo.. and stryker's plan becomes frightingly clear.. now he's capable of killing his two faviorite children.. what would he do to any other mutant?

Meanwhile Kitty and Kurt confront the guy who indocrinated Xavier, Doctor ramsey. I guess doug has a racist uncle? Anyway Nighcrawler gets some poetic justice, using his frighting facade to scare the crap otu of the racist. What I love about this is while the art makes kurt look terrifying.. we know him well enough, even just in this tsory to know he's bluffing. We saw earlier he was horrified with Magneto and Wolverine fully willing to toruture a guy. But this guy dosen't know that. And he's still wiling to mildly choke the guy, not at all sympathetic after all he's done. Kurtmay be one of the most noble souls ever put to comics.. but this scene is a nice reminder: he kicks ass for the lord.

At Stryker's headquarters, his goons and anne plan to take Scott and Roro to be cremated and Illayana to be examined.. but by now you know the bit: magneot is awesome, yanks the elevator out. His constant saves COULD get tiresome.. but they work as a show of power and the gap that still exists between him and the x-men: sure we get to see them all be awesome.. but these moments remind us WHY he can take on the whole team by himself, WHY he was such a threat.. and why him joining them is such a big deal. He could probably handle all this himself.. but despite being on opposite sides, despite having opposite approaches... he respects them. Okay sure he shoved them into a nanny robot prison a while back, but after they nearly sank him in lava he got respect.

He then proves the point by reviving scott and ororo. Turns out subcocnoiusly Xavier rebelled and thus only put them in a deathlike coma. Scott.. is naturally a bit nettled to see his arch enemy in front of him after he just nearly died, which leads to one hell of a speech from Mags.

Something that's really easy to forget, especaily after that.. is that Magneto started out.. as a pretty awful character. He was a bully, a dictator who wanted to conquer humanity because he could, cowed his subordinates into submission and kept Scarlet Witch in the brotherhood purely out of obliggation to him for saving her and pietro from an angry mob. And early on while Claremont had him as a BETTER villian, more intimidating and a larger threat, especially since two of the x-men were now weak to his powers, he was still a bit of an ass who decided the best way to get his revenge was to strap the x-men to chairs where they couldn't move and have a nanny robot feed them which gave me nightmares as a kid

It's only in his next apperance did Magneto shift from "Dr. Doom Clone" to "one of my faviorite characters in all of fiction. With I Magneto we not only found out his backstory as a survivor of asuchwitz but his next attempt to conquer the world, boosting his powers and giving the world an ultimatium: surrender or perish. And it's this version that's been the basis for the character ever since: a broken man defined by tragedy whose determined to conquer a world that hates and fears him so the tragedies of his past NEVER happen again. Never again.

It's this conversation that especially highlights that: Magneto asks WHY fight for people who hate and fear you, when he can change the world by force. It's a question superheroes in general struggle with and many mock superhero media for: how much should they do. Should they take the choice away from a humanity that's often misused their choices? And the answer is... no. While you can see WHY Max wants to do this, why he wants so badly to force a better world on everyone, to force a better future because he sees humanity as simply INCAPABLE of anything but hate and self destruction.. it's not the way. Humanity.. is fucked a lot of the time. True. But there's good in us and simply asking someone to fix all of the problems we, especially our goverments, should be working hard to fix isn't fair.

And as Cylclops points out it's just.. not sustanible. Even with Magneto's dream of the x-men joining him and following in his footsteps... what happens if someone decides to overthrow them? or take this world from them? And more importantly.. is it REALLY worth giving up all freedom and self control for a better tomorrow? It's why superheroes fight.. and it's why the X-MEN fight. The world their in is fucked up with tons of racists, multiple genocides and currently a giant hive of bigoted jackasses trying to wipe every last mutant out. But what makes the x-men so special.. is they fight on anyways. Against everything humanity does, against all their bigotry.. they fight for a better tomorrow. Even in the Krakoa era where they basically bribed their way to a homeland.. many of them still dont' abandon humanity, try to work with them and try and help. They may deserve a home after everything humanity's done.. but they don't deserve to be abandoned because of bad actors and hateful dipshits. It's why the x-men fight for a world that hates and fears them: because even if the dream's never been fully achived.. it's a dream worth fighting for. A better world. A dream that's always worth fighting for.

Magneto makes a point though: While this debate is engaging... they have bigger issues to worry about. Anne warns Stryker.. but his ego once again flairs up. "They're a handful of children annie and i'm a servant of the world. What can they do to stop me?" As I said before fraudsters, grifters, conmen.. their dangerous sure.. but it's the people who TRULY belivie their doing the right thing while advocating to destroy an entire people that are the most dangerous.

Stryker begins his sermon advocating for genoicde, with many other evangelicals apparently getting antsy according to a handy newsmans exposition. Granted it's likely less because they disagree with him calling for genocide, they just want him to say the loud part quiet again.

It's during this sermon Stryker's plan activates. And if you've seen x-2, which largely adapts this storyline but changes Stryker from preacher to soldier, you've likely figured it out: use Xavier to commit full on genocide of the mutant race. It's stronger CLOSER to him, so Nightcrawler's able to help a boy close to it.. but it's very clear if they don't do something SOON their going to die and the rest of mutantkind after. Wolverine poitns out the issue: they CAN attack but it'll make them look bad. And just to prove rule of three can suck his dick, Magneto once again saves the day, swooping in to confront stryker.. and thus providing a diversion. And to make his point for once Magneto .. dosen't attack. He breaks the roof to get in and make a minty fresh entrance, but he repairs it as poitned out by a sentator. Stryker,, high on his own hype, has Charlie strike him down. We get a really nice moment as Magneto has a revelation about his foe: all this time charles.. was holding back. And he's now seen just how dangerous his old enemy would be if he wasn't. Some protestors try to mob magneto, but some police break it up before they can win a collective darwin award for beating up a guy who in his previous appearance LEVELED AN ENTIRE CITY and a nuclear sub.

While the X-Men try to figure out how the hell to get to Charles before he kills them all, Annie goes to the reverned.. only for her ears to be bleeding like the other mutatns. She too is one... and instead of saving her like she begs for...

It's the final sign that there is no good left in Stryker, that even those loyal to him, even someone who tried their best.. must die simply because he says so. Not god. HIM. He killed a woman who did nothing but serve him faithlly and was wholeheartedly on his side.. and who he casts aside instead of even TRYING to save. After all if he would slaughter his own child.. why would Anne be saved? What makes this death all the more chilling.. is that after all Anne's done, her horrifying hate crime at the start, her attempted murder of kitty, and god knows what else we didn't see on panel... there's no catharsis. no joy in her death. There's no peace to be had. Just the senseless waste of her life doing nightmarisht hings in Striker's name, and the horrifying sight of her snapped neck. A life wasted in the name of a man who claims to speak for god.. but as our title tells us God Loves. Man kills.

We then pivot to one of the most awesome things Cyclops has ever done. So with so many people on the cusp of death, Wolverine feels they have no choice: they have to play it his way.. which means he teleports in and puts an end to the man who gave him a better life: to prevent charles from becoming everything he hates, Logan has to become everything he's tried to grow past. Thankfully.. Cyclops had a way around that.

And just to underline it right after, when Wolverine points out how close it is... Cyke explains his logic: He knew.. and also knew if his timing was even the SLIGHTEST bit off Charles might sense one of them too early. As for why let Wolverine attack it was simple: Charles is usually a non combatant. He doesn't have the countless hours of training nor the field experince and thus Scott correctly figured a two pronged attack would catch him off guard. If one side failed the other would succeed.. and Scott was FULLY aware that if Wolverine had to do it, his mentor would be dead. So to recap Scott pulled off a massive amount of precision ricocheting, with a backup plan that could kill his surrogate dad, all betting that he could both hit it and with the knowledge that if this failed everyone would be dead... and pulled it off without a hitch and with the utmost confidence. Just.. remember this the next time you hear someone call cyclops boring. Unless it's the movie version.. or the 90s animated series.. or wolverine and the x-men.. okay maybe just the comics and evolution.

So the day's saved right? Well normally yes. The villains foiled, Stryker outright killed someone on live tv. But in another awesome moment.. Scott notes.. it's not over. Ther'es one last thing to do.

It's the hard truth: in most other superhero stories, The X-Men already won.. but here if they back down now Stryker's message continues and he just picks it up, possibly even tries genocide again. Even if he gets arrested for Anne's murder i'ts not going to stop his message or him from preaching it. And I love how every x-man falls behind scott with not the slightest hint of hestation. Their walking right into an angry mob, no intention to use their powers, simply because walking away would let a bad man triumph and hurt other mutants. Because walking away is the easy thing.. but it's not the right thing and it damn well isn't what an x-man does.

So our heroes walk in.. and make their stand.

It's one last moment in a trilogy of awesome for Scott: tearing the fuck out of Strykers rehtoric and getting down to the core of most prejudice; Stryker thinks their less than human, that they don't deserve to exist.. and like any human .. they do. Their here. Their real. And he can't accept it. He'd rather destroy them. And when Stryker tries to fall back on the fact Nightcrawler simply looks diffrent.. someone steps up.

Now this moment's great on it's own, Kitty defying his trying to unperson kurt and standing bravely, pointing out what makes Kurt so awesome: he had every reason to turn in on himself after all the shit life's thrown at him: a mother who abandoned him, a step brother he was forced to kill in self defense, an angry mob nearly staking him before Charles saved his life... yet instead.. he's a jovial jokester. He loves, he lives, and he's a gentle soul. He's one who fears turning into his enmies, one who tries to take the righteous path. And like Stryker.. he believes in god. Nightcrawler is every bit as relgious.. the simple diffrence.. is that he dosent use his faith as a thin justification to slaughter everything he hates. To cast out what's diffrent. He uses it as faith should be used: to help others, to enrich his life, and to be kind.

What makes this moment for me beyond that though... is it pays off a long character arc for Kitty. When Kitty first met kurt.. it wasn't exactly a great relationship. She ran in fear the first time she saw him and even after finding out , no this is a good guy, she was still nervous around him for some time, gravitating more to the more human passing Roro and Peter. And yet over time.. the two became friends. They bonded.. and she felt ashamed, realizing Kurt.. is just a bit marshmellow. A kind soul who only wanted to be her friend. And this is the payoff for that: her going from a scared kid jumping to her assumptions about a man hwo just looks kinda spooky.. to being BEST FRIENDS with the guy and willing to take a bullet for him. Thankfully.. that blam we heard.. wasn't stryker's gun

The ending of this story.. speaks to it's tone. While our heroes still beat stryker morally and with words, they still won the battle.. what ultimatley strikes him down.. is a regular police officer. A cop simply not wanting a child to die. A normal person doing the right thing. And a ray of hope that maybe just maybe our heroes words got through to some people.

Said ray... dosen't last long as Magneto makes a valid point back at the mansion... and for once.. Charles listens.

It's a moment of weakness.. Charles accepting that maybe his dream isn't enough.. and it' smost fitting that the one to snap him out of it.. is the first person he brought that dream to. His son. And he makes the point I did earlier: this fight can't be won by brute force. This can't be won by FORCING people to accept them.. it has to be won through hard work. It may get worse (And it will), the tims may be tough.. but it's a dream worth fighting for. A better world not paved in blood... but in hope and hard work for a better tommorow. Is it idealistic? Perhaps. Unrealistic? entirely. But it's a noble ream: of a world of accpetince, kindness and love.. and one Scott and the others aren't willing to throw away. And as long as they aren't, charles realizes he can't either.

Naturally Max's response is to call them all fools.. but it's his last few words that really leave an impact

It's a nice touch that Kitty, who magneto nearly killed last time they fought not realizing she was a child and whose near death drove him to realize how far he'd fallen, is the one to speak up. And it's telling for where Magneto's arc is going under claremont.. that he relents a little. He can't fight for a cause he dosen't belivie in.. but he WISHES he could. He's gone from hating the x-men.. to badly wanting to be one of them.. but knowing his heart just isn't in it. From just seconds ago calling them all fools.. to deep down hoping they win. Showing that even if he still thinks eventually they will fall and it'll be his turn.. that maybe just maybe.. he won't have to. That maybe there's a future where he can fight for a better tommorow instead of forcing it.

So we end with Xavier tearfully thanking his students, and Ororo congradulating Scott for what he ddid. he tells her it's what he woudl've done for any of them and at the end o fthe day... it's love that drives this. Love for each other.. and hope for a world ran by love and not hate. But we're not there yet. But maybe... maybe someday.

So if it wasn't obvious.. God Loves Man Kills is a masterpiece. And having to go over it painstakingly for this review.. I stand by waht I said. This is the best x-men story ever. A story that sums up everything the x-men stand for in a neat package, pits them up agains ta unique an dhorrifingly real threat, and says a LOT. All in 60 bneautifully drawn pages. I ddin't mention him much in this review but Brent Anderson's art in this comic is next level stuff. Gorgeous, evocative, and hitting all the right notes. IT's some of the best art in comics and fits well with one of the best stories in comics. If you haven't read this one, do so immediatly. Even if you don't normally read x-men... this is a heck of a good way to start. Thanks for reading.

Next Time: We see the start for one of the x-men's greatest as she... steals an avengers powers and punches iron man in the face. So a bit of a mixed bag all things considered.

#x-men #magneto #chris claremont #god loves man kills #scott summers #cyclops #wolverine #storm #nightcrawler #colossus #kitty pryde #kate pryde #kurt wagner #logan howlett #ororo munroe #william stryker #erik lehnsherr #charles xavier

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disco-elysium-via-polls · 8 months ago

Text

🎵 The Insulindian Miracle

2. "He's a beautiful man. Beautiful and *just*."

JOYCE MESSIER - "Just? Hmm... in what way?"

"In a funky socialist way. He looks out for the people."

"In a nice, crunchy, white working class way of course."

"Yeah, he's not actually just, is he? He's useless."

+1 Communism

JOYCE MESSIER - "Of course. *Some* of them, at least. The ones who work for him -- how else would he have stayed in power all these years... no wait, actually..."

"Corruption! That's how he's done it. Fantastic, würm-like corruption reaching into the bowels of the Earth." She looks at the ground and nods.

KIM KITSURAGI - "The position of my *unusual* colleague does not reflect official policy. I hope you understand -- the RCM does not pick sides."

JOYCE MESSIER - "Of course -- and I don't expect you to share anything he told you with me. I am not a *corrupt würm* myself." She turns to you: "However, if you felt like *discussing* something..."

"...how could I stop you? Are we not human? Are we not *curious* to hear another person's take? It's only natural. We would only be..." she smiles, "gossiping."

VOLITION [Formidable: Success] - Don't fall for it, it's a ploy to get you talking. The honey-mouthed syllables, the smiling, the conspiratorial jokes, all of it!

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - Intellectually speaking... it would be quite *interesting* to hear what she has to say about these things...

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] - Tell her, she'll *like* you for it.

HORRIFIC NECKTIE - Yes! Your disgusting tie agrees completely. Let's *gossip*.

Sorry, Volition, you're outvoted.

"That money you gave me -- would that make things... *weird*? If I shared information, I mean?"

"Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun."

"I helped him turn up the heat on the borscht."

"I'd rather talk about something else for now, if you don't mind." (Conclude.)

JOYCE MESSIER - "Weird? Oh no. One of the positive things to come from the Revolution is the *unhindered* exchange of information, you see, even when it comes to *trade secrets*..."

"Which isn't to suggest our talks constitute *corporate espionage*. Even *if* they did -- it would be fine. But they don't, since you logged the money as a donation and this is *clearly* just gossip between friends."

LOGIC [Medium: Success] - The lieutenant might have -- but I don't remember you logging anything as anything, Harry.

2. "Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun."

JOYCE MESSIER - "Oh!" Her eyes become large and round. "That's so *helpful* of him..."

KIM KITSURAGI - The lieutenant looks at you and you can swear his jaw muscle is trembling.

-1 Reputation

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - He's able to contain the anger and surprise.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Easy: Success] - When I said *be wacky* I didn't mean *wildly, grossly irresponsible and damaging to the RCM*.

KIM KITSURAGI - "Unconventional police officers sometimes *lose* their guns. They then go around and tell people about this -- to gauge their reactions. It's all part of *detecting*."

JOYCE MESSIER - "Incredible," she shakes her head. "Simply incredible -- and how is it going? Has this *detecting* produced a gun?"

"No."

"Mr. Evrart says it's *almost* ready to be found soon."

"Mr. Evrart is helping me find my gun."

JOYCE MESSIER - "Ah yes. As you said." She looks confused for a moment.

KIM KITSURAGI - "Please don't get him in a loop. If he gets in a loop it will last *forever*. Ask him to say something else please."

LOGIC [Medium: Success] - That's wrong! You don't get into loops!

JOYCE MESSIER - "Of course. Thank you for the advice -- I'm glad you were here to assist." She turns to you: "Your *other* dealings with Evrart are still of considerable interest to me..."

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Easy: Success] - The lieutenant will be more lenient toward sharing those, hopefully.

3. "I helped him turn up the heat on the borscht."

JOYCE MESSIER - "Did you now?" She's intrigued, if a little confused. "What sort of borscht is he making?"

"Unimportant."

"The cook makes it to keep the strikers drunk. Helps them strike."

JOYCE MESSIER - "The strike brew," she nods. "That's a classic. And by *turn up the heat* I presume you mean *put more alcohol in it*?"

"Yes."

JOYCE MESSIER - "Why, if I may ask? Why make them *more* drunk? Aren't they corked enough already?"

KIM KITSURAGI - "Yes, detective -- what *were* you hoping to accomplish with this strange thing?"

"An act born of sympathy for the working man. I set fire to the fumes of struggle."

"I worship Al Gul in many ways."

"It's uninteresting, I thought it would make the broth taste better."

+1 Communism

JOYCE MESSIER - "Very curious." She blinks both eyes. "A very curious thing to do."

+5 XP

KIM KITSURAGI - "Truly, but that's how he operates. He just does things, ma'am. And then talks about them -- even if it's inappropriate."

EMPATHY [Easy: Success] - A strange equanimity has overtaken the lieutenant. He's just going with the flow now. Easier that way.

JOYCE MESSIER - "What else?"

We don't have anything else on Evrart to tell Joyce just yet.

4. "I'd rather talk about something else for now, if you don't mind." (Conclude.)

JOYCE MESSIER - "Of course, detective," she simmers down. "Should something come up, later down the road -- don't be afraid to drop by for a chat."

"Until then -- is there anything *I* can help *you* with?"

I exited Joyce's dialogue to make a quick save, but talking to her after midnight opened a new topic of conversation.

JOYCE MESSIER - "You're back. Good." She takes a sip from her silvery thermal cup. "What can I help you with -- at this late hour?"

"It's night. Don't you ever sleep?"

"Answer me a question."

JOYCE MESSIER - "Matter of fact, I don't." She takes another sip.

"Why is that?"

(Better not to poke further) "That's good. This way you can answer me some questions."

JOYCE MESSIER - "I have a medical condition of my own -- nothing unusual, though. I'm *old* you see."

"Old, huh? I think I have that too."

"No you're not. You look young."

(Better not to poke further) "That's good. This way you can answer me some questions."

JOYCE MESSIER - "Don't worry. It's curable -- with *questions*. Ask me some, it'll help pass this night."

7. "I've got some more questions about *reality*."

JOYCE MESSIER - "More lessons in basic reality?" She's positively surprised. "My favourite part of the day! Go ahead, ask me anything."

8. [Volition - Medium 10] Ask for Kim to step away while you discuss the pale.

+1 Kim trusts you.

VOLITION [Medium: Success] - Good idea. Just ask him. He won't make a scene.

"Kim, can I talk to the ma'am alone for a second?"

KIM KITSURAGI - "Fine." He steps away with his notes.

VOLITION - See? What can he do. You're a grown man.

"Now -- what is the pale?"

JOYCE MESSIER - "Are you sure you're sure? Your colleague seemed adamant..."

"Yes -- what is the pale?"

JOYCE MESSIER - "Okay." She concedes. "The pale is the most dominant geological feature of the world, detective -- the separative tissue between the isolas. It is the interisolary mass."

"Wait, and what is an isola?"

"Okay... what is the pale *like*?"

JOYCE MESSIER - "*Isola* is a Messinian word for a continent of matter, enveloped on all sides by the pale. Also: isolation, or land mass. We used to believe there was only one. In the last four centuries we have discovered seven..."

"Mundi, Seol, Samara, Iilmaraa, Graad, Katla, and this -- Insulinde."

"And Insulinde is...?"

JOYCE MESSIER - "An oceanic isola. It comprises mostly of water. Mundi is the largest, Katla the coldest, Insulinde the bluest. What can I say..." She stops. "Each is perishing and dear."

"Okay... what is the pale *like*?"

JOYCE MESSIER - "Achromatic, odourless, featureless. The pale is the enemy of matter and life. It is not *like* any other -- or *any* thing in the world. It is the transition state of being into nothingness."

LOGIC [Medium: Success] - The negation of being.

"The negation of..."

JOYCE MESSIER - "That's right -- the negation of being." She tightens her hood around her neck, it's cold outside.

"Is it... here?" (Look around.)

"What are its physical qualities?"

"If we're surrounded by pale, how do you get from isola to isola?"

"How much pale is there compared to the world?"

"Let's return to reality, please." (Conclude.)

JOYCE MESSIER - "No, detective, we're safe." She points to the sea. "It begins there, 6,000 kilometres to the north, and even more to the south, east, and west. You are in the middle of the isola."

INLAND EMPIRE [Easy: Success] - As your gaze instinctively turns north, a small black pit opens up in your stomach.

"Six thousand kilometres from the end of the world?"

"And... (point north) ...there?"

JOYCE MESSIER - "Yes -- that is enough. Many cities are built *much* closer."

"And… (point north) …there?"

JOYCE MESSIER - "An uproar of matter, darling, *rising* into the pale. Rolling. Evaporating even, a great vision. The area of transition between the world and the pale is called *porch collapse*."

"Imagine a grey coronal mist, cold vapour, marked by spores of an opportunistic microorganism -- a mould that's adapted to grow at the edge of the unrest. It's…"

She closes her eyes and breathes out heavily: "... the most *disco* thing you will ever see."

2. "What are its physical qualities?"

JOYCE MESSIER - "It's difficult to describe -- or even measure -- something whose fundamental property is the suspension of properties: physical, epistemological, linguistic..."

"The further into pale you travel, the steeper the degree of suspension. Right down to the mathematical -- *numbers* stop working. No one has yet passed the number barrier. It may be impossible."

3. "If we're surrounded by pale, how do you get from isola to isola?"

JOYCE MESSIER - "Oh, it is..." Her lungs deflate, her words sound like a sigh, "...*so* difficult for us."

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Easy: Success] - A squall of birds, hardware operating in the harbour. Firm, self-evident.

JOYCE MESSIER - "It is possible to force dimensions on the pale -- in modern times we can even compress its latitude, bouncing radio waves from one end to the other. Shortening the path."

"But it is still hard for humans to navigate the pale without getting lost. Or having our minds damaged."

3. "The pale can damage the mind?"

JOYCE MESSIER - "Extensively."

"How?"

JOYCE MESSIER - "Some say the damage stems from extreme sensory deprivation. Others argue that pale somehow *consists* of past information, that's degrading. That it's rarefied past, not rarefied matter."

"They call it *the blend-over of the self*. The pale does not only suspend the laws of physics, but also the laws of psychology, maybe History, even... The human mind becomes over-radiated by past."

"What does this over-radiation feel like?"

JOYCE MESSIER - "It feels terrible. Absolutely terrible. International standards strictly limit civilian travellers to six days of pale exposure per year..."

LOGIC [Easy: Success] - It's more for her -- way more.

"*You're* not a civilian passenger?"

Let it go.

JOYCE MESSIER - "No, Lieutenant Du Bois. I'm 'Entroponetic Business Class.' I'm cleared -- and trained -- for 22 days of pale transit annually."

EMPATHY [Easy: Success] - Perhaps that explains her strange pining after the Revolution? Some degraded early memories...

LOGIC [Easy: Success] - Someone *else* you've met may have been *exposed* as well. The strange grey-haired woman in her lorry.

"Do *lorry drivers* pass the pale?"

"Are *you* over-radiated?"

"*You're* not a civilian passenger?"

JOYCE MESSIER - "Yes. Carried in the hulls of airships," she nods. "It's a horrific job. Automation will abolish it, soon."

+5 XP

REACTION SPEED [Easy: Success] - You should ask the Paledriver about this. See what she says.

INLAND EMPIRE [Easy: Success] - That poor woman must have stories to tell like you wouldn't imagine...

2. "*You're* not a civilian passenger?"

JOYCE MESSIER - She's looking out toward the sea, what at, it's hard to say.

INLAND EMPIRE [Easy: Success] - She's over-radiated. And then some.

5. "What is *entroponetic*?"

JOYCE MESSIER - "*Entroponetics*," she corrects, "is the scientific study of the pale. Or a recent iteration of it, by way of Graad. The study of the pale reaches back 6,000 years -- the Perikarnassians called it the Western Plain."

"Did they... cross it? The Western Plain?"

JOYCE MESSIER - "There *are* signs of pretermodern crossings. Successful navigation of the pale relies not just on technical know-how, but intensive psychological preparation. Some of these tactics have been known for thousands of years."

"What has entroponetics changed then?"

JOYCE MESSIER - "Nothing. We remain powerless before the pale. The only real advance in pale transit is the speed with which an aerostatic craft can pierce it. Less exposure leads to less... *effects* later."

"Aerostatic craft?"

JOYCE MESSIER - "Hybrid airships, detective. Conventional rotors or jet engines no longer add velocity after the point of reference for motion is suspended -- once you've crossed from near pale to far pale..."

"In essence, we throw them in and they come out the other end -- if we throw them precisely."

"If we do not?"

JOYCE MESSIER - "Then they don't."

VISUAL CALCULUS [Easy: Success] - Gone -- like a skipping stone beneath the surface.

6. "How much pale is there compared to the world?"

JOYCE MESSIER - "The pale outweighs reality two to one -- there is more pale than there is matter. And the ratio is slipping."

"Slipping how? To our detriment or…"

JOYCE MESSIER - "What do you think, detective?" She looks you in the eye.

"It's shrinking. There is more and more of the world."

"It's growing. There is more and more of the pale."

JOYCE MESSIER - "Precisely. One of the few measurable effects of the pale is that it is expanding at an unknown rate."

"An intuitive conclusion of that development is that one day the pale will cover everything -- but this sort of talk is mostly left to extremists."

"It's not extreme at all. It's going to happen."

"Cover *everything*? That can't be. Where would we go..."

Stay silent.

JOYCE MESSIER - "Most people -- and indeed most private and government sector organizations; entire civilizations and religions even -- find handy ways to ignore, or downplay that knowledge."

"I suggest you do the same."

INLAND EMPIRE [Easy: Success] - *Off we go...* you see the hanged man's mouth open.

"Off we go into the wild pale yonder."

JOYCE MESSIER - "One and all," she closes her eyes. "They say pale is death, but for the Universe."

INLAND EMPIRE - Why should we just leave and leave -- and the world get left behind?

7. "Let's return to reality, please." (Conclude.)

JOYCE MESSIER - "Yes, sweet reality," she stomps her foot. "But before we do, tell me detective..."

"Is this the first time you're hearing this? Do you really not remember anything?"

"Nothing. Just alcohol fumes and blackout."

"I sometimes sense vague shadows of a past, and it's not good."

"I'm getting a sense of who I am, but no, I didn't know this."

JOYCE MESSIER - "Then tell me -- what do you *think* of the pale?"

#disco elysium #kim kitsuragi #joyce messier #harrier du bois

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i-fondued · 2 years ago

Text

Ghost | Yule at the Abbey | A SiS Prequel

Yule at the Abbey | A Sinners in Secret Prequel Story Pairing: Cardinal Copia x Reader/Sister of Sin x [LIGHT] Papa “Terzo” Emeritus III

Rating: Mature [No Sex but we get close LOL] Warnings: Mention of death? IDK this one is pretty fluffy

A/N: Here is a belated Holiday gift to all my fellow Ghesties, thank you for all the support you've shown me in the last few months. I'm so grateful for the love and support, I have so many things planned for the new year including opening up commissions once Sinners is done.

I hope you all enjoy this story, I may end up making a sequel if people are happy with this because I did end up cutting a lot out...

The Eve of Yule

The sounds of my fellow junior siblings excited giggling was what woke me up. The three other sisters were standing at our window looking outside, faces pressed to the glass.

"What's going on?" I asked, rubbing the sleep from my eyes as I sat up.

"Sister, look! It snowed overnight, that must be good luck right?" One of them smiled brightly as I padded over to them from my bed.

The Abbey was blanketed in a thick layer of snow, fluffy swirls in the air as the wind blew across the grounds. I could already see the grounds keeping siblings and some ghouls shoveling paths from the various buildings and Primo's greenhouse. I smiled softly for a moment at the picturesque landscape and it was all just in time for the yule holiday.

I heard the chime of the first bell, signaling the one hour mark till our lessons began and I stretched out lazily. Walking back to my bed and dresser I pulled out my daily uniform, thick stockings, and junior habit.

"Let's get ready, Cardinal Copia won't appreciate us being late to class even if there's three feet of snow out there. Although, he does seem to have a soft spot for you, Sister." One sibling giggled, my cheeks flushed slightly as I tugged my nightgown over my head and pulled on my thick wool winter habit.

"Ha ha. Very funny." I said dryly, rolling my eyes despite the small smile on my face. "The Cardinal is a good man, he just likes that I have a talent for languages is all.”

“At least you’ve caught someone’s eye. Papa won’t even look at me!” One sister lamented, pretending to dramatically faint onto her bed. The other two sisters giggling and diving into a heated conversation about Papa Emeritus III and his particular prowess. I tuned them out, happy to get ready for my day.

I’d been at the Abbey now for almost a year now, settling into a new way of life relatively quickly. I’d followed a tug in my heart I’d had for years, pulling the string as I followed the siren song and found myself at the Abbey. My family hadn’t been happy, in fact they borderline disowned me over it, I still sent letters back and forth with my parents and my grandmother. They didn’t always respond but it was mostly pleasant when they did. I’d left behind my clothes, my phone, my laptop; all of my modern possessions for the call I’d followed. It was a simple life here at the Abbey, one that felt more purposeful and more aligned with who I felt deep down I was.

Instead of spending my days in an office, grinding myself into a more corporate appropriate version of myself with nothing to show for it, I worked in the library putting away books between my lessons. I’d struck up a friendship with Papa Emeritus I, Primo as he’d asked me to call him. He and I would trade books for flowers and company, I’d help him in the garden and he’d help me with my basic ritual herbs work. I felt at home in my life for the first time in a long time, both satisfied and almost happy about what I was doing. However there was still a part of me that longed for more, that particular tug between my collarbones sharp when I was around a particular pair of senior clergymen.

“Sister, are you ready yet? I want to grab breakfast before we’re too late!”

I was pulled from my thoughts, shaking my head and smiling at the Sister who had waited for me to come back to earth.

“Y-yes! Sorry, clearly I’m still half asleep.” I laughed as she and I grabbed our cloaks and scarves as we hurried from our dorm rooms to the main abbey building.

The main building was where not only all the main offices were but the library, the dining hall, kitchens, classrooms, and the church itself was located. It was also where the senior siblings and clergy members had their own rooms; they kept us junior siblings in our own space so as to not overwhelm us as we adjusted to life at the Abbey. Though, many of my sisters joked that we junior sisters were kept in our own dorm building to keep the wandering eyes of the clergymen from snatching us up in the name of the carinal sins; not that many of us would complain truth be told.

My Sisters and I chatted and laughed as we made our way quickly in the snow, almost slipping on a hidden patch of ice at one point. When we were finally inside again, I dusted my cloak off and hung it in the entryway where all the other siblings kept their cloaks in the winter time on days like today. Quickly we made our way to the crowded informal dining hall, bustling with siblings and ghouls trying to eat and get warm on the chilly December day.

The hall itself was set up much like a cafeteria at any school or business, however there were far more options for anyone with any dietary preference. Today, with it being the day before Yule celebrations, the entire space was decked out in evergreen branches and tinsel and baubles of deep red and gold. Swags of red and gold fabric hung from the tutor style rafters, with soft glinting yellow lights bringing a glow to the space.

“They really blew any Christmas traditions I had out of the water…” One sibling behind me in line said, eyes looking around the space.

Another warning chime went off as I was waiting to snag french toast and I groaned, knowing I wouldn’t have enough time to have a real breakfast before classes. Instead I grabbed an english muffin with peanut butter and tea in a to-go mug. I was about to run off before stopping and snagging a second to-go mug with a small blush. I rushed towards the door, stopping only to let my roommates know I was heading right to class, I hurried off as they teased me about being the class pet.

…

I was always the first one to lessons when my day started with Latin.

Would I ever admit why I was the first one there, sitting with rapt attention, in the front row? No. But today, I was very happy to be the first one there.

Cardinal Copia was sitting at his desk, birreta perched slightly askew, as he hunched over his notes for the class. I bit my lip, trying to prevent a goofy smile as I looked at his face of absolute concentration as he scribbled something. I knocked on the doorframe so as to not startle him, he looked up at me with a quirk of his lips.

“Good Morning, Cardinal.” I said, a cheery smile on my face as I walked up to his desk. “I brought you some tea, thought it might be nice on a cold morning like this.

“Thank you, Sorella. I do really appreciate it. The Abbey, she is drafty in winter.” He chuckled, an appreciative look in his eye as he took the cup from my outstretched hands. I fought the urge to blurt out ‘I could keep you warm at night if you’d let me’ and instead went with a more appropriate approach at conversation.

“I’m sure the wind and snow must not have helped either,” I watched him as leaned back in his chair, gesturing to the empty one across from his desk as was part of our morning ritual before class, I sat down before continuing. “It must be good luck for this much snow before Yule.”

“Ah, I do not know about luck on Yule. I seem to have my fair share of bad luck at this time of year.” He sighed, sipping from the mug in his hands.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Cardinal. The holidays have always been my favorite time of year, if I’m being honest, Sir.” I smiled, my mind drifting to when I was young at Christmas time. “I’ve always loved winter, even when I was little. The festive and joyous feeling in the air is just infectious to me.”

“I envy your optimism, Sorella.” Cardinal Copia chucked with a sort of sad, wry smile. “Maybe someday I can share that infectious feeling with you.”

“W-what?” I blurted, cheeks flushing at the implications of his words. Copia also sputtered, cheeks redding as he realized his wording.

“Me scusi, Sister. I meant with all of the siblings. You are not the only one who is excited by the holidays.” He backtracked, eyes unable to meet my flaming face. “Sometimes I forget a word here and there. My English is not always so good.”

“I-it's alright, Cardinal! It’s very impressive you know as many languages as you do.” I said as I tried to calm my pounding heart and flushed cheeks. “I’m sorry you don’t care for the holidays, are you at least coming to the Yule Mass and festivities tonight?”

“Si, si. I will be there, Papa Emeritus the third will need my help with some of the ritual. It will be a late night for all of us,” Cardinal Copia smiled warmly, sipping his tea at the same time as me. “Are you looking forward to it, Sorella? It is your first yule mass, yes?”

“It is and yes I’m very excited.” I laughed, crossing my legs under me as we relaxed into easy conversation as always. “I grew up catholic so we’d gone to Midnight Mass a few times, I’d never paid any attention to what was going on because the church had always been so spectacularly decorated. It was very distracting to a seven year old you know.”

“Wait till you see the space tonight, it will leave you in awe. Ie lo prometto, I promise.” He smiled wryly at me. “I know most of the siblings are more excited about Secondo’s after mass party, though I normally retire for the evening before that.”

"You won't celebrate with us, Cardinal?" I couldn't help my face falling slightly at the idea of Copia tucked away in his rooms without anyone with him.

"Ah, probably not Sorella." He chuckled, standing to transfer his notes onto the blackboard "I think I am getting too old to keep up with the siblings at a Secondo party."

"Well I'll be thinking of you…" I said before my cheeks flushed.

"You will be thinking of me, eh?" He teased, turning back to smirk at me, wagging the white chalk in his hand at me.

"Cardinal I…" I started to say something back to try and save my dignity but I could hear the sounds of my fellow junior siblings coming to join us for class and I made the decision to not stick my foot in my mouth any more than I already had.

…

Our Latin class passed quickly as always, though most of my fellow juniors might not have agreed with me.

"Ah, our time has come to an end. Please all of you remember yourselves tonight, Si? The Midnight Mass tonight will be a good way to test your comprehension skills." Copia called out over the sound of the other packing up their things.

I hung back slightly, tempted to have another little conversation, but when I saw another sibling asking for him to go over the translations again I knew I wouldn't have time before I'd be due at the library. I gave him a small wave as he caught my eye, his mismatched eyes filled with an emotion I couldn't put a name to. I snagged his mug, now empty, and dropped them off at the kitchens before heading over to the library.

The halls were abuzz with activity, everyone excited and restless for tonight festivities. Several ghouls were helping other siblings with finalizing decor and hiding various symbols of good luck in the evergreen trees that decorated the main halls. I had a smile I couldn't seem to get rid of as I slipped inside the ancient wood doors of the library.

"Good afternoon, Sister." I greeted the senior sister who directed the library before grabbing the cart full of books to be put back.

"Ah, afternoon Sister! It should be a quiet time today, between the Yule activities and the snow we were blessed with, it doesn't seem like many people are all that interested in books today." She laughed, I gave a little shrug.

"I don't mind a quiet shift before lunch, besides it's going to be a late night tonight."

"Very true Sister, let me know once you finish putting these away and we can get you set up to work on some small translations. You have a real skill that is rare with dead languages.'

"Yes of course, Sister. Thank you." I smiled brightly before heading to put away the old and practically crumbling leather bound books.

My work was slow but enjoyable as I scooted around the quiet library, tucking books back into their proper homes. I lost track of the time, humming to myself and not paying attention. I was up on a ladder when I felt the familiar tug, tucked deep inside my sternum. I shuddered at the feeling, like someone was dragging a single finger nail right down my spine. On my tiptoes I reached to slip a book back in its spot and the ladder wobbled slightly. I gave a little screech as I tried to hold tight to the wood, completely off balance. My foot slipped and I closed my eyes, waiting to hit the ground. Instead I felt arms coming to steady me at the waist.

"You must be more careful, Sorella. We would not want anything to come to our newest translator, si?"

I opened my eyes and blushed bright red, Papa Emeritus the third himself had caught me. He was smirking mischievously at me, his gloved hands warm even through my wool habit.

"Y-yes your Eminence. Of course, I'm sorry for not being more careful." I stuttered, fumbling my words as he helped me back to the ground.

"Ah, it is okay Sister. It was an accident, yes? No harm." He chuckled. "Now, please allow me to help you."

"O-oh no, Papa it's okay. I couldn't ask you to hel-" I started, already flustered and now working to the point of almost panic.

"Nonsense, per favor Sorella." He laughed, taking the large book from my arms and stepping up the ladder to slip it back into its place. "I would never forgive myself if something happened to you."

I could feel the coil of that familiar tug deep in my chest, the familiar warmth as Papa and I worked together to quickly empty the cart. Not that I had much left when he joined me, but having some company was nice. He asked me about my budding translation work, impressed at how quickly I'd picked up Latin. I had asked him about the ghost project and when he'd be going on tour in the new year. We chatted happily, occasionally to the point of distracting each other. When the final book was tucked away he turned to me with a triumphant look on his face.

"There, Sorella. Perfecto!" He boomed, I couldn't help but giggle. "I will see you tonight, yes? Midnight Mass?"

"Yes of course Papa," I smiled, growing flushed as he stepped close to me. "I-I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"Good, good. Who knows what surprises await us tonight eh?"

…

Midnight Mass

Cardinal Copia hadn't been kidding when he said that the Satanic Clergy’s version of Midnight Mass on Yule would blow anything I’d seen as a child out of the water.

The Abbey’s main lights had been turned off for the evening. Instead all the fireplaces had been stoked to blaze brightly with merry yule logs and a little help from the fire ghouls. Along with the strings of twinkling warm lights in every tree in the halls were lanterns with pillar candles of all sizes lighting the pathways between the main Abbey and various dorms and outbuildings. Inside were more paths and gathered spots of candles, giving everything a devilish glow. There were also small pots of incense burning a warm and cozy combination of cinnamon, orange, and clove. It reminded me of the simmer pots I’d have at home before joining the siblings.

From the main halls of the Abbey, filled with tired but excited siblings, we followed the sound of the light music coming from the church. There was a long hallway that connected to two spaces, decorated with candles and swags of evergreen branches and glittering gold ornaments. Once down the hall, I stepped into the vestibule, giving a small nod and an offering of holly to the statue of Baphomet in the vestibule before excitedly following my roommates to our pew.

When I stepped into the nave my jaw fell open.

The entire church hall was lit by an exorbitant amount of variously sized candles along the aisles on the outsides of the pews. There were swags of evergreen, holly, and tinsel strung between the massive stained glass windows. Poinsettia plants were placed everywhere on the raised dias and altar, bringing a fragrant scent to the already thick incense in the air. There was an enormous yule tree on either side of the statue depicting Lucifer’s fall in the center of the dias, decorated with soft golden lights and red baubles.

The entire space was glowing in an otherworldly haze, between the burning pots of incense and candle glow. It really did take my breath away. I couldn’t focus on anything around me as we all settled in for Mass, hands crossed in prayer as we waited for the processional to begin. We were seated in the middle of the rows of pews, however I was right on the aisle and I couldn’t help but wonder if my sisters did it on purpose, thinking back to how the teased me about the Cardinal. The strike of the organ pulled my eyes from the front of the church to the back as all of us siblings stood and looked back. The massive, ornately carved wooden doors opened up and so began the procession of the Emeritus family.

Leading the processional was Primo, walking with a grucifix staff, he was dressed in his chasuble and miter. His painted face was stoic, serious as he looked up at the altar with reverence. When his eyes drifted to me, his eyes softened and he winked at me. I couldn’t help the smile on my face as he passed me.

Next was Secondo, also dressed in his chasuble and miter, he was carrying the sacred book of Lucifer. His painted face always made me feel like I was in trouble and even in the act of Mass I squirmed when his eyes passed over me, trying to appear smaller than I was to not catch the man’s sharp gaze. Papa Nihil was escorting Sister Imperator, who was dressed in her finest for the holiday. Nihil was followed by the set of twins who were bringing his oxygen with them, both of them having a slightly otherworldly aura to them.

The next person in the processional was Cardinal Copia, I felt my cheeks flush as I took him in as he slowly made his way up towards the altar. He was wearing neither of his cassocks, instead he was wearing a sinfully tight white suit. White tail coat, brocade vest, and impossibly tight pants. He still wore his black leather gloves, in them was clenched the chain of the thurible he was swinging back and forth with practiced ease. The smoke incense trailing back behind him, causing him to look ethereal and otherworldly as he made his way past me. I felt that now familiar tug behind my collarbone, deep in my chest, and I couldn’t help but squirm with my cheeks flushed. Copia’s mismatched eyes locked with mine and he gave me a small shy smile. I bit my bottom lip to hold back the grin that threatened to spill.

I looked back at the doors and was smacked in the face with Papa Emeritus the Third in his full papal glory. It was so rare to see him in anything but his papal suit, seeing him in his papal robes took my breath away. My heart felt like it was going to leap out of my throat and throw itself at his feet. Terzo stood with his arms held out, a small smirk on his face as he took in the awe on the face of all of us new siblings. He was dressed in his miter and chasuble, both embellished in threads of gold and glittering beading. The silk on the inside was a royal purple, slightly shining in the low light as he made his way up the aisle to the altar. His white gloves had been traded for black leather ones with claws on the tips like fingernails, an image of him running them down my bare back flashed in my mind before I could stop it. Like he could hear my thoughts, Terzo’s eyes locked with mine and he smirked wickedly as he winked at me. My heart tugged at him painfully, as if to tell me that I’d be saved from my troubles in life if I was to throw myself at his feet, kissing his hem and begging for forgiveness.

I had to turn away from him as he passed, cheeks burning as I looked up at the altar as Copia tucked the thurible away in the cabinet at the front of the room. He looked deliciously sinful as he bowed his head, offering prayer to the statue of Lucifer, before moving to bow to Terzo as he made his way to the altar.

“Good Yule Evening, my flock.” Terzo welcomed us, arms held out again in a welcoming opening of them. “Let us offer prayer to our Dark Lord on this Yule Mass.”

As the congregation mumbled their prayers, heads bowed, I couldn’t help but let my eyes drift up to the pair of men at the front of the room. Terzo in his element, leading us in prayer, and Copia working to set up the tools needed for the ritual. I felt my heart pounding and threatening to burst from my chest as I secretly watched them together, small smiles and whispered words I desperately wished I could hear. The familiar tug almost felt like it would physically tug me from my seat.

As the opening prayer finished, Terzo continued on with mass. He spoke of the Yule traditions and how they celebrated the seven sacraments of sin, he told us to remember that our ability to sin and follow our hearts was a gift from Lucifer. That we shouldn't waste that gift in the new year as the snow slowly melts away to bring on rebirth. My cheeks flushed as he spoke of following our deepest, secret desires; feeling two pairs of mismatched eyes on me as my cheeks flushed. My mind wandered as he spoke, only coming back to the moment as a familiar voice took over speaking. My eyes brightened as Cardinal Copia came to stand at the pulpit to take over for Terzo.

“Merry Yuletides to you all.” He started, eyes scanning over the crowd as he started on his sermon.

I couldn’t help but let my mind zone out again, watching the way he worked the crowd of us siblings and partitioners.Everyone was locked in on the Cardinal as he spoke, his passion and his emotions as he spoke of Lucifer and the value of sin in our lives. He spoke of the Book of Lucifer and read us a psalm speaking of the idea of the seven sinful commandments and how even little movements in our everyday lives could bring us the opportunity to bring glory to his Eternal Darkness below.

Before I knew it my mind wasn’t on the sermon that was being given, instead it was distracted by how broad Cardinal Copia’s shoulders look in his white suit. I watched how his lips moved as he spoke, how his cheeks flushed as he was sucked into what he was speaking about. My eyes drifted from Copia’s spirited speech to take in Terzo, sitting in his chair on the altar. My heart tugged longingly at them both, and in all honesty I was unsure what that meant.

…

Mass finished surprisingly quickly, though I was only half focused on the actual sermons the whole time. Watching Terzo and Copia as they spoke of sin and bringing of good luck in the new year to come, wishing us joy and laughter, was what I really focused on. My cheeks flushed when I was given the sacrament, Terzo giving me a wink as he placed the wafer on my tongue.

After Mass most of the siblings excitedly made their way to the large hall in the abbey where the large parties were thrown, some of us lingered behind to speak with other siblings and parishioners who’d joined us. I saw Cardinal Copia standing to the side, speaking with Primo quietly, small warm smiles between them. I saw my perfect opportunity and couldn’t help the grin I tried to stifle as I made my way over to them.

“Happy Yuletide Papa Primo, you as well Cardinal.” I said happily, trying to keep my face neutral as my heart threatened to tear itself from my sternum. “Your sermon, Cardinal, was wonderful.”

“Ah, Piccola! Happy Yuletide to you as well.” Primo grinned, pulling me into a warm hug. “I hope I will see you at il mio fratellino party, yes?”

“Of course, Papa Primo.”

“Child, I have told you before, you do not have to call me Papa. Primo is fine.” He laughed, teasingly wiggling his finger at me before turning it on Copia. “I will see you there then, si? You too, Cardinal?”

“Ah…I, well-” Cardinal Copia stuttered, cheeks flushed at being put on the spot. “Si?”

“Good, now if you will excuse me…” And with a satisfied little grin, the eldest Emeritus brother left Copia and I were left to ourselves in the almost empty church hall.

“Happy Yule to you too, Sorella. Thank you.” Copia turned to me, I prayed the low light of the candles made it harder for him to see the blush on my cheeks. “I’m glad it resonated with you.”

“I did, it was very inspirational.” It had been…at least for my absolutely filthy thoughts of what I wanted a worked up Cardinal Copia to do to me.

“Would you like to aco-” Copia started before something was dangled between us.

A gloved hand held a sprig of mistletoe with a cheery red bow holding the bundle together. Copia and I both whipped our heads in the direction of the hand holding mistletoe, my cheeks now positively on fire.

“Papa?” Cardinal Copia’s voice was tight and hard, his eyes had a dark look that made me shiver slightly.

“Si Cardinale?” He asked, face the picture perfect image of innocence as he stood there, now only in his papal suits and paints.

“What are you doing?”

“It seems I have caught the festive yuletide spirit and just happened upon a sprig of mistletoe.”

“And why are you holding it above Sorella and I’s head?”

“Sto solo cercando di portare un po' di spirito festivo a quelli che ne hanno più bisogno, Cardinale.” I'm just trying to bring some festive spirit to the ones who need it most, Cardinal. Terzo said, smirking while he pretended to inspect his nails through the glove of his free hand.

“Lucifero aiutami…” Copia growled, rubbing his temples.

“W-we don’t have to if you don’t want to Cardinal.” I spoke softly, eyes unable to look right at him as I felt that tug in my chest going absolutely feral at the idea of him kissing me or walking away.

Copia looked right at me then and I had to hold back a whimper at the intense look in his eyes, heat pooling in my belly just from the desire plain in his gaze. He stepped forward, one gloved hand coming up to cup my head softly. His fingertips cupped around my neck as his thumb settled at the corner of my jaw. My pulse was thundering in my ears as he tilted my head to look right at him, my lips parted without thinking as I tried not to pant. Slowly and deliberately he closed the distance between us, my eyes slipping closed as he pressed a soft kiss to my lips. It was gentle and caring, full of unspoken moments between us. I felt that tugging urge in my chest shudder through my whole body, alight with what felt like an electric shock, and I gasped slightly into the kiss. I fought the urge to wrap my arms around him, to never let him step away, and felt the Cardinal stiffen. As quickly as it happened it was over, Copia stepped away with a hunger in his gaze. I was practically breathless, looking at him with almost reverent awe.

“You call that a kiss, Cardinale?” Terzo teased, seemingly unaware of the unspoken movement between Copia and I. “Let me show you how to kiss Sorella under the mistletoe, si?”

Without even warning me, already dazed and unfocused from the lighting dancing in my veins at the kiss I just shared with Copia, Terzo wrapped one arm around the small of my waist. I looked away from Copia and at Terzo as he stepped so close I could feel his body heat rolling off him.

“Papa?” I asked questioningly, looking up at the mistletoe he now held over him and I.

“This is how you kiss someone under the mistletoe, Cardinale.” He chuckled before he dropped the sprig and held the back of my head, absolutely crushing me to his lips.

I gasped, eyes widening slightly before slipping closed, as Terzo coaxed my lips to follow his lead. My hands came to rest on his upper arms as I practically clung to him for balance as his tongue slipped into my mouth, I gasped. Despite the mostly flirty relationship I had with Papa, I’d never thought about kissing him like I had with Copia. But actually kissing him now? My god now I understood why my roommates would go on an on about him.

I felt the same electric feeling I’d felt with Copia moments ago, tingling down to my fingertips and toes. My heart was rattling in its place in the cage of my ribs, desperate to climb into Terzo’s chest and never leave. A heat pooled in my belly at the feeling of Terzo’s hand on my waist gripping me tightly to him, the hand in my hair possessive, and when he let out a low growl I couldn’t help the whimper that slipped from my mouth to his. That was when he stepped away, I felt as if I was unmoored at sea as I opened my eyes and saw the ragged look on Terzo’s face. My cheeks were on fire as he smirked at me as I subconsciously leaned forward to go in for another kiss.

“Ah, one kiss per mistletoe Sorella.” He chuckled before looking at Copia, who’d I’d almost forgotten was there. “That, dear Cardinale, is how you kiss someone under the mistletoe.”

I looked at Copia and almost took a step back from the pair of clergymen. Copia’s eyes were deep and dark, a curiously dangerous look on his face. He was looking at me like a starving man who found the last rabbit in the dead of winter. I felt myself grow wet under his eyes, squirming slightly with a flush to my cheeks.

“L'hai sentito anche tu?” Copia asked Terzo who nodded yes. I wasn’t quite sure what he had said so I looked away, cheeks flushed. Copia sighed heavily as he took my hand, kissing the knuckles and side stepping Terzo and I. “Happy Yule, Sorella. Please excuse me.”

My heart was breaking, the clenching ache causing tears to threaten to well up in my eyes. I longed to go after him, to speak with him about what had just happened here. I took one step towards his retreating form and Terzo caught my hand.

“Not tonight, Sorella. Leave him be, si?” He sighed, a small sad look on his face. “Yule has always been his least favorite holiday.”

“O-of course Papa.” I mumbled as Terzo took my hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm.

“Come, let me escort you to la festa di mio fratello, yes?” He tried to soothe me, but I couldn’t help but wonder what sort of exchange or test had just passed between us all.

…

I’d maybe had a little too much to drink.

Okay, maybe a lot too much to drink. I had been upset after the exchange in the Church hall so when Terzo had offered to bring me a cup of mulled wine, I hadn’t thought twice about it.

After my third cup, I had a movement where I couldn’t help but think maybe this much drinking might not be a great idea. But after the fifth cup that didn’t matter anymore. I’d been dancing with my fellow sisters, giggling and drinking when one of the other Senior Siblings had started talking about a massive yule log pyre outside. When I asked them about it excitedly, they all shared a look before laughing and telling me I’d have to find it myself but that it was outside by the old abbey entrance on the south side of the compound.

“I’ve got to see this,” I laughed, stumbling slightly as I headed toward the front door. “Are you guys coming?”

“It's freezing outside, no way!” One sister laughed, cheeks flushed.

“I feel like we would have seen the ghouls setting this up this morning if its as big as they said it would be…” Another one mumbled, but I waved her off.

“You guys suck, I’m going out there.” I teased, darting past siblings, ghouls, and clergymen all in various groups.

I stepped into the vestibule of the Abbey, trying to locate my cloak in the piles of others. After a few minutes I threw my hands in the air, speaking to nobody in particular.

“I’ll just take a quick walk and look around, it can’t be that cold outside.” I grumbled, pushing open the doors and stepping out into the cold early morning of Yule.

It had stopped snowing at some point during the day but the snow was still fresh, the entire grounds covered in a thick white blanket. The crystals of ice glinted in the light of the candles outside and the moon high in the sky. Outside I could fainly hear the sound of the music and party inside but it was mostly quiet, not even a breeze in the air on this eventful Yule. I wandered the paths, taking in the soft and quiet beauty of the wee hours of the morning. My breath came out in small little clouds of steam as I walked, a small smile on my face.

Slowly but surely I got myself turned around, unsure of exactly where I was on the grounds. I tried to not panic, following the light of the candles, but the cold in the air was slowly slipping its tendrils under my skin. No amount of mulled wine could keep my teeth from chattering and my shoulders from shivering as I made my way back to the main building.

“S-Sorella!?”

I turned my face to the familiar voice and smiled drunkenly, a blush on my cheeks hidden under the flush of the alcohol.

“Ah, hello again C-Cardinal.” I chattered, walking towards him as he rushed to me. “A-are you l-looking for the Yule pyre too?”

“Yule pyre what are you-? Per amore del fottuto Lucifero…” He asked at first before snapping and rubbing his temples. “Every year I tell them to not trick the new siblings and every year they do it anyways.”

“So there is no pyre?” I asked, head fuzzy slightly as he took off his short cape from his cassock, wrapping it firmly around me as he pulled me to his side tightly trying to warm me up

“So, mi dispiace Sorella.” He sighed, walking us back inside. I could hear the party raging now, I started to walk in the direction of merriment but Copia firmly tugged me with him.

“The party is sti-” I whined, stumbling slightly as he helped me up the stairs.

“You need to rest and warm up, Sorella. Not to party.” He grumbled, eyes hard as he slowed slightly.

“But I want more of that mulled wine.”

“I think you are done with the wine, Stelina.” He cracked a small smile, eyes soft for a moment as I looked at him with a blush on my face.

“S-stelina?” I stuttered, a small shy smile on my lips as his gaze flickered between my eyes and my lips. “How did I earn a pet name?”

“You are my star pupil, are you not?” He teased before scooping me up in his arms. I couldn’t help the ungraceful squeal that came out of my mouth before he shushed me. “Come on, we do not want people to get the wrong idea do we?”

“A-and what idea would that be, Cardinal?”

“That I am taking you back to my room for any other reason than to get you warmed up and send you on your way.” He teased, winking at me as we made our way to the senior clergy’s dormitories. I blushed and bit my bottom lip without being able to look him in the eye as he opened his doors and we stepped into the space.

It was dark, only lit by the fireplace in the middle of his sitting room, but I could see shelves filled with books and trinkets. There was a large wooden desk off to the side, cluttered with all matters he’d need for writing sermons and letters. I could see a set of pocket doors left slightly ajar and beyond it in the dim light from the windows was a large ornately carved bed, the covers left open like someone had just sprung from them.

“Sit here, Sorella.” Copia’s soothing voice brought me back to the present and I looked to the pile of blankets in front of the fireplace he’d left for me. “I will grab you some clothes to change into.”

“T-thank you, Cardinal.” I smiled, cheeks flushed as I wrapped the warm blankets around me and soaked in the feeling of the fire on my chilled skin.

“Of course,” He smiled back at me, handing me a stack of clothes. A red track suit and a black t-shirt. “Here. I will leave you to change, would you like some tea?”

“Y-yes please, t-thank you.” I stuttered, partly still cold but also because I was flustered by him and the wine was still sliding around my system. I watched him step into another room, flick the lights on and the sounds of a tea kettle being filled.

I hid under the blanket and took my clothes off quickly, tossing aside the damp pinafore dress and blouse to the side along with my wet bra. I shivered, my blush somehow deepening as I pulled over the shirt and tracksuit jacket. I knew he’d be able to see my nipples under the jacket and I felt warmth pool deep in my belly at the idea of him seeing me like this. Once I pulled on the pants and slid back under the warm blankets, fully enveloped in the scent of him I called out to him.

“I’m dressed, Cardinal.”

“Good timing, tea is almost ready.” He called back and after a few moments more of my eyes staring at the blazing fire in front of me I felt his hand on my shoulder. Looking up he handed me a mug.

I reached out taking the offered cup with a smile and a thanks, blanket shifting off my shoulders. I sipped the spiced smelling tea and hummed happily.

“Chai tea is my favorite, Cardinal. Thank you.”

“You can call me Copia, Sorella.” He said quietly as he sat next to me in front of the fire. He was still wearing his white suit from earlier, sinfully tight and I had to fight to keep my eyes on his face and not wander over his lithe form as he lounged somewhat awkwardly on the floor with me.

“Okay, thank you then Copia.”

We sat in comfortable silence then, just the crackling of the fireplace between us and the warm spiced tea in our hands, before my mind couldn’t take it any longer and I had to ask him a question.

“Car-Copia?”

“Si?”

“Why do you not like Yule?” It was the question that had been burning in my mind for the last twenty four hours and I couldn’t help but blurt it out.

“Sorella…” He started, heavy sighing as he turned to face me.

“Y-you don’t have to tell me! I was just curious…” I blushed, stammering and unable to look at him. I felt his fingers under my chin, tilting my eyes to lock with his. The familiar tug in my chest coming on steadily as my heartbeat.

“It is quite alright, Sorella. It was a long time ago, but I lost mi familia on Yule as a young boy.”

“O-oh I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

“No, no. It is nice to share, I don’t think I have felt the urge to share myself with someone like you in a very long time, Stelina.” His soft wry smile, made my heart hammer in my chest. “I was a young boy, it was a cold icy night in Italia and we were driving home. The car skid on ice, I was the only survivor. Primo had found me, he was traveling to the Monastery back when he was being prepared to ascend, and he took me in. I lived in the orphanage all my life till I felt the calling to join the Siblings, making my way up the ranks till one day I was the head of the clergy.”

“I’m sorry about your family, Copia.” I said, taking his hand in mine. I’d only then noticed he’d taken his gloves off to prepare the tea. I felt his bare hands on mine for the first time, it caused that lighting shock down my fingertips again. “I-I understand why Yule would be painful for you.”

“It is not all bad,” He whispered, I looked up as he leaned into me. I felt like a moth drawn to the flame as my eyes flickered between his face and his lips. “This year I was able to have an excuse thanks to Papa to kiss my star student, si?”

“Copia…” I whimpered, his warm hand skimming from my hip up my side. “Can I confess something to you?”

“What would you like to confess, Stelina?” His face was almost close enough to brush our lips together.

“I think you held back on our mistletoe kiss.”

“Si? Did I?” He chucked, his other hand slipping to cup the back of my head as he slid closer to me. “Should I fix that for you?”

“Y-yes, I think so. It was my first mistletoe kiss after all.” I mumbled, eyes already half closed.

“Ah, well I would not want to leave you with any ideas about my kissing skills being lackluster would I?”

“No I don’t think you wou-”

Copia didn’t even let me finish my thought, kissing me with such a fierce grip on my waist I couldn’t help the whimper that slipped from my lips. I slid forward, straddling his strong thighs, with my back to the fire. Blankets long forgotten in favor of his body heat, I curled my arms around his neck as Copia coaxed my lips apart, slipping his tongue to tease my own.

I whimpered, heat burning deep in my belly, as I bucked my hips against his hardening cock. He hissed into the kiss, hands moving to grip my hips to still me, as I quaked in his lap. He nibbled on my bottom lip, pulling away slightly to catch his breath before catching my pants with his lips. I sighed happily, my fingers playing with the ends of his hair, and I melted into his tender touch.

He pulled away and rested his forehead against mine, our breath minging as we giggled together.

“I’ve wanted to do that for the last six months, Sorella.”

“You know…I’ve wanted to kiss you since I met you at that first class.”

“Really?” He pulled back, face filled with surprise.

“Copia…you called me a very good girl in front of the whole class.” I laughed, cheeks flushing slightly at the memory. “You could have told me to stay for detention and taken me right on your desk and I would have said thank you sir.”

“Careful, Stelina. You are giving me some ideas…” He purred darkly, pressing kisses to my jawline as I trembled in his lap. “Though I should warn you now, my tastes tend to be on the darker side…”

“So are mine.” I whimpered as he bit and lapped at the spot below my earlobe, a gasp slipping from my lips as he wrapped his arms around my waist firmly.

“È come se fossi stato creato per me all'inferno da Lucifero in persona…” Its like you were made for me in hell by Lucifer himself...

“Maybe I was…” I mumbled, chest heaving as he teased my neck. His hand came up to cup my breast and he groaned into my skin as his thumb brushed over the pebbled peak of my nipple.

“You are mine, Sorella. Mine alone.” He hissed, punctuating his words with a pluck of my nipple.

“I’m yours alone, Cardinal.”

He growled at me then, capturing my lips in a vicious and heated kiss, and pushed me over onto the floor. Pinning my hand high above my head, I looked up at him with a heated gaze. His hair was ruffled by me, his lips plumped by the force of our kisses, mismatched eyes dark and stormy as he looked down at me.

“I think I need to punish you for your little adventure in the snow, Si?”

A shiver went down my spine and pooled between my legs as I nodded my head, cheeks flushed.

“Please, Sir.” I begged, Copia groaned then, settling between my legs and grinding his cock on my cunt. Both of us gasped at the feeling.

“You will be the death of me, Sorella.”

“It will be our little secret, Cardinal.”

“Ah, we are to be sinners in secret then?”

“For now.”

“If you wish, Sorella. Then who am I to deny you our most honored and cardinal sin, eh?”

#ghost #the band ghost #cardinal copia x reader #papa emeritus x reader #terzo x reader #sinners in secret au #cardinal copia #papa emeritus iii x reader #papa emeritus lll #my writing

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