#its just really disturbing. the being hunted thing. very visceral

[blazeball]

ouuuuuuhhhh i wanna play rain world so bad but it made me have a really bad nightmare last night so i'm not playing it past midnight. oughhhh but i wanna olay it so bad

[mangobilorian]

Desert | (mature) iv

Pairing: The Mandalorian x Reader

Words: 6615

read chapters one, two, three 

check out my AO3 here 

You’re sweating. Which shouldn’t be concerning, but space is cold. The Razor Crest becomes especially cold, the metal walls cool to the touch. You move a bit, and find that you’re trapped under a heavy arm. Mando. With a grunt, you try to wiggle out of his grasp, but he only pulls you tighter to his chest. 

“Where are you going?” His voice is… so attractive like this. Deep, raspy, unfiltered.  

“You’re heavy,” you say, still trying to free yourself. “Why aren’t you flying? Did we land?” Mando groans. 

“Yeah. We’re on Tatooine already.” Oh. That’s why you’re sweating. Of course, the extremely hot bounty hunter contributed most of the heat, but it’s usually not this warm in the Crest. 

“How long-” Mando cuts you off by loosening his hold, only to roll over and brace himself on top of you. He supports the majority of his own weight, but your chests still touch.  

Mando leans over and presses a kiss to your lips and you reciprocate with fervor. You feel a hand caress your sides, drawing slow circles across your waist. 

“You up for another round?” The idea is arousing, but… no. 

“I’m too sore,” you pout even though he can’t see. Already, the ache between your legs is noticeable and annoying enough that you don’t want to worsen it. When Mando said that Tatooine wasn’t far, it was an understatement. The trip took about three and a half days. Most of which was spent underneath (and sometimes on top) of Mando, learning about how your bodies worked together and figuring out what you liked. It also meant that while your experience increased tenfold, you were now extremely sore and needed a little break. 

Mando sighs disappointedly and kisses you again. It’s comforting to have his body pressed against yours, just kissing slowly and languidly like you’re two people in the galaxy who like each other.

Sadly, all good things must come to an end. Mando pushes off from you, and gets off the bed. You hear the clang of clothes and metal. You close your eyes again, content to stay on the verge of sleep. With Mando gone, the oppressive heat from before lessens, and you let the relief wash over you. The lulling pull of sleep sings at you, and you’re tempted to accept. 

Except the lights in the Razor Crest turn on, and your sleep is shattered. Mando steps into view, his underclothes and helmet on, but nothing else. He stares at you, and you realize that you’re still naked. You fumble to cover yourself—a useless endeavor—when he turns around to give you some privacy. 

“I’m heading out soon. Want to come?” What? Mando never asks you to tag along with him, always claiming that it’s too dangerous. And it is dangerous. Tatooine is in Hutt space, and for him to invite you along is suspicious. However, the idea of seeing another planet is alluring. You realize that Tatooine would be the second planet you’ve ever been on, another step into finding out about your brother. And while the odds are slim that you’ll get any clue at all, you have a good feeling about the whole trip. 

“I asked because you had cabin fever. Now come on,” he gestures in mock irritation, not waiting for a reply. You smile and reach for some clothes. 

*****

Tatooine is a brutal place. Sand gets everywhere—in your hair, your clothes, even in your eyes. You have to pull the top of your shirt over your lips to stop sand from entering your mouth and nose too. For the first time, you envy the Mandalorian. His helmet protects him from the slap of sand that rides the winds. However, wearing all that armor in the heat evens it out. He’s probably baking underneath.  

Mos Eisley is both exactly the same and completely different from your home city. The familiar feeling of crime and villainy permeates the air, and there’s a buzzing tension in your bones. Call it nerves or excitement or maybe fear, but you feel different. Like something big is about to happen or the status quo will snap and the galaxy will be upturned. The first time you had this feeling, you received news of your brother’s death. The second time, the Empire collapsed.

Upon arriving at the spaceport, rows of bloody Stormtrooper helmets impaled on sticks greet you. The visceral sight reminds you, for a brief second, that violence and bloodshed are very real in the galaxy, and they’re very real on Tatooine. If you pay attention, you notice the small collars around young women, the scarred faces of old men. Slaves, you realize. Tatooine still had slaves— all Hutt planets did. Of all the planets Mando had to drag you to, did it really have to be this?

You enter a cantina, and Mando ushers you into a booth. He talks to the bartender for a little bit, probably gathering some information. The place reminds you of your parents’ bar, much dirtier and cheaper but the concept stands. If you squint, you can see hands ready on blasters, women whispering in men’s ears. Mando looks like he belongs, his very stance screaming confidence and threat. Everyone parts for him, fear evident in their eyes, and you realize that this is the first time you’ve seen him working. Granted, your first interaction involved spilling information about Ras Drun, but the Mando then is different from the Mando now. At least you think so. 

The band plays some jaunty tune, one you haven’t heard since you were young. People chatter about, already drunk despite it being midday. The air smells musty and feels slightly sticky. But right in the midst of it all, you can feel the stringy tension of anticipation. 

Mando slides in next to you with a drink in hand. He pushes it over, and you glance at it. It’s some orange drink— bubbly and cold. Hesitantly, you bring the glass to your lips. You try not to cringe, but… it tastes awful. Bitter and salty at the same time. It tasted like something pissed in your mouth. At least it’s cold. 

“How much did this even cost?” You sputter, pushing the drink away. Mando chuckles. “Please tell me it wasn’t more than three credits?” Paying any money at all for the drink seems like a bad idea. 

“Imperial credits don’t work here. Besides, it’s cold. Enjoy it.” He grabs the glass and sets it directly in front of you. You give him the biggest pout you can muster and take another sip, wincing the whole time. If you ignore the taste, you can enjoy the cooling, refreshing effect. Except the taste can not be ignored, so you were stuck with a piss drink. Despite the atrocious taste, part of you relishes in the fact that Mando bought the drink for you. 

“Thank you,” you say, wishing you had shown some gratitude before you insulted his gift. The bounty hunter simply snorts, the sound distorted and tinny, looking away to observe the busy cantina. “What about you? Are you gonna get something?” 

“Helmet,” he says, and points at his head. Oh. Right… 

Your face grows even hotter, and a traitorous bead of sweat slides down your spine. You laugh off your mistake, and Mando places an arm around your shoulder, helmet tilted away from you. The weight and added heat of his body would be enough for you to complain, but you don’t. You… kind of like it. It feels comfortable to be like this— pressed against the bounty hunter’s side, protected by the most dangerous man in the cantina. He looks so intimidating and strong that it hurts your chest. You decide to pity his enemies; you can’t imagine having to face him on a hunt. 

Without any words, you survive another sip of the disgusting drink and press further into Mando. He jolts for a brief second and tightens his grip around you. A flicker of confidence surges through you, and you place a hand on his armor-plated thigh. He tenses under your touch, a small sound of surprise filtering through his helmet. 

Emboldened, you drag your hand upwards— to the space above the armor plate where thick fabric is the only thing between you and the bounty hunter. Just as you touch him, Mando shoots out and grabs your hand. 

“What are you doing?” You turn your head away from Mando and towards the wall. His fingers still grip your wrist, but he lets go when you don’t respond. Once your hand returns to its initial position, you squeeze gently. 

The strong muscle is still tense, and you don’t think anything you do will make him relax. Slowly, you curve your hands inwards, toward the apex of his thighs. You see Mando raise a hand, preparing to stop you, but he doesn’t.

It’s exciting, you think, as you edge closer to the fabric covering Mando’s cock. The idea of touching him, stroking him in a place as public and dirty as a Tatooine cantina should be embarrassing and disturbing. But it’s not. The idea excites you very much, and it probably excites Mando too if his lack of complaint is anything to go by. You wonder what he would do if you slip underneath the table. Would he stop you then? Or would he tangle his gloved fingers in your hair and watch as you graze a tongue over his head and suck his length into your mouth? 

For now, you settle with gentle touches. Mando doesn’t move, even when you squeeze a little bit. His cock hardens under your touch, and he drops his arm around your shoulders to nestle around your waist, gloved fingers tracing circles and random shapes. 

This feels right, you realize. As dirty as it is—really, you would never entertain the idea of giving Mando a handjob in a crowded cantina— you enjoy the ordeal, the teasing. You apply harder pressure on his cock, not enough to hurt but enough to show that you were eager. It’s a Mando thing, you decide. He’s the reason you’re acting so different from the girl he found a month ago. 

You sneak a look at the bounty hunter, fingers already reaching for his zipper. Your hand touches metal, and you’re ready to pull down. But something catches your eye, and you look past Mando. There, sitting in a booth on the opposite side of the cantina, is a man. He’s handsome in a dark, rugged way, probably a local. And he’s staring at you with open recognition, and you shiver despite the heat. 

You take your hand away, deciding to look elsewhere and rub your arms for some warmth. Mando jostles around and looks to where you were staring at moments ago. You expect to see the man sitting there and hope his gaze is somewhere else. But he’s gone. As if he was a figment of your imagination. 

“What’s wrong?” Mando asks, squeezing your waist. “Everything all right?” You nod, eyes transfixed on the now-empty booth. The drive to pleasure Mando is completely gone now as well as your budding arousal, and you hope he isn’t too put off by being teased. Thankfully, Mando takes your silence and doesn’t push. 

Something in your gut tells you to move. Tells you that the anticipation in the air is so close to reaching a conclusion. You take one last sip of the drink and shimmy away from Mando. 

“Going to the ‘fresher,” you say, as normally as you can. Mando nods and gestures at the refresher’s direction. He starts to step out of the booth, but you stop him. With careful movements, you manage to squeeze between Mando and the table. After one last look at his helmet, you head to the ‘fresher. 

It’s down some dark hallway, illuminated by one flickering light source embedded into the wall. You want to run away and go back to Mando, but you need to figure something out. You need answers. 

“I can’t believe you’re here.”

You whip around and see the man from earlier. He’s older than you by a few years probably, but he would still be considered young. Yet he looks like someone who suffered through war and other tragedies. You should be scared, you think. You’re a girl by herself and he’s an older man yet… 

“Who are you?” He shakes his head, lips set in a grim line. 

“A friend of a friend. I… I never would’ve expected to see you here.” You frown. Who is this man? Scared or not, you’re creeped out by the fact that he knows you. 

“What do you mean?” He sighs, and walks forward. You realize that he’s been walking ahead the whole time, and your back almost touches the back wall. He looks dazed, staring in your direction but not exactly at you. “Please. I don’t know who you are.” 

Over his shoulder, you see Mando’s looming silhouette. He storms over and grabs the man by the back of his shirt, a blaster pressed to his head. 

“Who are you?” Mando growls. The sheer aggression makes you back further into the wall. You have to remind yourself that Mando is not here to hurt you. He’s here for-

“Wait! Mando, don’t-” But the bounty hunter doesn’t listen, and he slams the man into the wall. Before Mando can do anymore harm, the man gasps, forced out of his earlier daze. 

“I knew your brother!” He says, and everything stills. The air crackles like static, and the string of anticipation snaps with fervor. At your paralyzed state, Mando releases the man who sags against the wall. “He is- was a good friend of mine. I know who you are because he showed me holos of you. I never thought I’d see you. H-he always talked about you. He loved you very much. He was my best friend,” the man blabbers. The words wash over you. He knew your brother. He knew your brother.

“Were you there? When he died?” The man stops talking and looks at you with a certain kind of heavy sadness. 

“Yes,” he whispers. “I was there when the Empire shot down your brother. He sacrificed many things for the Rebel Alliance.” Your brother… was a rebel? The Empire killed him? No, that’s not possible. He was just a simple pilot who traveled for fun or carried cargo sometimes. He wasn’t a rebel. 

But he was, a traitorous voice whispers. And this man knew him.  

*****

When the man, Crix Kilis, brought you and Mando to his house, you didn’t expect it to be a farm. A moisture farm actually. The idea boggled you for a bit—you’ve never thought about planets where people had to harvest water from the air. The farm itself is quite small, with architecture you’ve never seen before. 

The ride to his farm was uneventful. Mando had glared at Crix when he suggested going to his place and even dragged you aside for a moment. 

“You really trust this guy?” 

“He knew my brother. Our meeting wasn’t a coincidence.” He grumbled something that you couldn’t hear, but you weren’t really paying attention. Most of your mind was set on the fact that you finally had a clue to your brother’s life. Granted, you weren’t searching very hard. You thought you’d know how to fly and be out of Mandos’s care before you would start searching. And on your first stop, you met Crix. Maybe it’s a coincidence, maybe the galaxy is being weird. 

Crix offered for you a ride on his speeder bike, but Mando refused and rented one for the both of you instead. The rebel shrugged and carried on. The trip was spent in silence, Mando driving the speeder right behind Crix. The rational part of your brain told you to be more cautious. But your brain was a little too frazzled to be thinking rationally. 

“Here, sit down. You want some tea?” You nod, and Crix rifles through a cabinet. Mando sits next to you, legs spread wide, one arm over your shoulder. He doesn’t look at you, electing to observe the small house instead. As he watches Crix, you watch him. Mando’s been tense since Crix arrived in your life. Of course, he’s a bounty hunter; it’s part of the job to be suspicious. But he keeps touching you, on your shoulders, back, waist. You don’t mind. It feels good to have his attention on you. A small part of you considers that he’s being protective. After all, this is the first time you’ve been off the Crest in weeks, and you suddenly meet your brother’s rebel friend? But no, you’re not important enough to him for him to protect. Right?  

Crix sets the tea on the table, and you take a sip. You expected something hot, so when the cold liquid touches your lips, you almost choke. 

“What did you do?” Mando growls, and Crix backs up. The hand on you tightens, and you wave the question away. 

“It’s fine. I thought the tea would be hot, not cold.” His helmet turns to you then to the drink. 

“She’s right. Why have hot drinks on a desert planet?” Mando relents and slowly relaxes his hold, but the tension doesn’t fade all the way. You hear a hiss from outside, and Crix looks up in mild alarm. He gestures for you to relax; it’s just a piece of farming equipment that got loose. He exits the house with a bag of tools in hand. 

You and Mando sit quietly, and you sometimes take sips of the cold tea. It’s refreshing and a welcome upgrade from the nasty orange drink in the cantina. Sighing, you lean your head to rest on Mando’s shoulder. Your cheek grazes his pauldron, but the majority of your face nestles into the crook of his neck. He jolts at the contact then reigns you closer. The position is slightly uncomfortable since your head is pressed into his neck. He’s in full armor and wearing heavy fabric and his body heat alone makes you sweat. But he warms you up in another way—in a cheesy, jittery, totally ridiculous way. 

“Do you feel… safe here?” You burrow deeper into his embrace. 

“Yeah. I had this feeling earlier that something big was gonna happen. And it did.” It’s comforting to have your instincts be right. You don’t know what you’d do if you never got answers for your strange feeling. 

“Doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.” You hum in response and trace a gentle circle into the armorless part of Mando’s thigh. If Crix hadn’t been watching, how far would you have gone with Mando in the cantina? Surely, you wouldn’t have actually given him a handjob or blowjob right? The hornier, dirtier part of you disagrees. And Mando, for all his conservative clothes, would enjoy your boldness. Did enjoy your boldness. 

“I have to go soon.” You break away from his hold to peer into his visor. “I came here for a bounty.” Right. You forgot you’re on Tatooine because it was Mando’s choice and not because of fate. 

“So you want me to go back to the Crest?” He sighs, and you can feel the movement through the armor. 

“If you want to, then yes. If you feel safe here, then you can stay too.” You try to reply but he cuts you off. “Look, I don’t like the guy. But if he knows your brother, then you deserve to talk to him.” He turns away from you, but you reach a hand out to stop him.

“Thank you,” you say. “I think I’ll stay then. When will you be back?” He shrugs. 

“Once I get the bounty. Tell the guy that I can pay him for his services.” 

“That won’t be necessary,” Crix says from the doorway. There’s a strange look on his face, and you realize the position you’re in. You clear your throat and separate a bit, but Mando doesn’t bother to move.

“She’s my best friend’s sister,” he addresses Mando. “And you are here as a guest,” he nods at you. “I’ll be back in a few,” he says heading out the way he came.

“When are you leaving?” 

“Now.” Oh. All right.. You both stand up, and you take a moment to register just how big he is. In the dark, you can map out every muscle, every scar, every imperfection through touch alone. But with the searing Tatooine suns, you wonder if you even know him. If you’ll ever know him. That won’t stop your feelings though, however foolish they might be. 

You expect him to walk out right away, but he pauses and lays a hand on your shoulder. You want him to hug you. You want him to hold you tight and whisper sweet words in your ear. 

But he doesn’t hug you or whisper anything. He simply rubs your shoulder. It should be comforting. Instead, it’s a reminder of how close you can be to him, but he’ll always put himself farther away. 

“Stay safe,” you say, wishing one last time for him to hug you. He gives you a single nod, releases your shoulder, and heads out. You watch his back disappear through the door and hear the gentle roar of a speeder. A minute later, Crix enters with his tools. 

“Hungry?” 

“Yeah,” you say, eyes still trained on the door. 

*****

Tatooine has beautiful sunsets. The suns cast a certain glow the neon signs on your home planet could never hope to achieve. Crix sits next to you, hands propping him upright. With an almost empty glass of cold tea in hand (your third cup since arriving), you let yourself relax. You didn’t think that being off the Crest would make a difference, but you definitely feel better. The atmosphere of relaxation does wonders for physical and mental health, after all. 

“Tell me about my brother,” you say, breaking the silence. Crix releases a wistful sigh, still staring ahead.

“He was amazing. A pretty darn good pilot too. He was so good that Luke Skywalker complimented him once.” He glances at you, but your lack of response at the name makes him frown. “You don’t know Luke Skywalker?” You shake your head. Why would you? Your planet wasn’t too affected by the Empire, so there was no difference when it fell. What’s one rebel to you? 

“Skywalker is the pilot who brought down the first Death Star. He’s actually the best pilot in the rebellion, maybe the galaxy,” he chuckles. “There were also rumors that he was a Jedi.” He whispers the last word, still waiting for some sort of reaction. You give him none.

“Seriously? You don’t know anything?” You shrug.

“This is the first time I’ve ever been off planet. What is a… Jedi?” Crix moves a bit, and settles into a more comfortable position. 

“Before the Empire, the Jedi were the peacekeepers of the Republic. The Empire purged all Jedi when it came to power. It’s rumoured that Skywalker is a Jedi because he’s so amazing. The things he does, the things I’ve seen him do… are nothing short of miracles. Even if he’s not a Jedi, it’s poetic. A Jedi restoring the Republic and ending the Empire’s oppression. Now that’s a good campaign,” he smiles softly. Right. Like any of those words meant anything to you. You barely register what he said. 

“What do Jedi do exactly?” You ask for the sake of it. In actuality, you want to get away from the off-topic situation and back to your brother, but Crix seems too appalled at your lack of knowledge. 

“They can move stuff with their mind, plant suggestions in people’s heads, and use lightsabers.” It sounds like a whole bunch of magic. “At least, that’s what it said in the secret volumes at the Great Library of Alderaan,” he trails off, glancing away from you.   

“You’re from Alderaan?” You’d heard the news years ago. The whole tavern had watched the news show Alderaan’s destruction. All channels coming from Alderaan ended, no evidence left behind except for space debris. An entire planet wiped from existence.

“Yeah,” he smiles bitterly. “That’s where I met your brother actually. Seven years ago.” You straighten. “He really was a simple cargo pilot. I was a lousy rebel pilot in disguise. We became friends, and he grew more interested in the Alliance. A month after meeting him, he pledged allegiance to the cause in the backroom of a bar.” 

“My brother died seven years ago. You said the Empire killed him.” None of this makes sense. He must have a rebel for longer than that. You remember the news reaching your family. You remember the little slip of paper saying that your brother died. 

“No he didn’t.” You also remember that there was never a body. The small hope of him being alive always lingered. If there was no body, there was no proof. You always imagined finding him, happy and whole, living on some nice, temperate planet. Maybe that could still happen. But if Crix is here and your brothers isn’t then- 

“So he’s alive?” Crix turns and takes your hand in his. The gentle squeeze tells everything.

“I’m sorry. He died defending Beta Group. He- do you want to know the story?” You nod. Your chest hurt like battery fuel on fire. Your tiny hope crushed before it could grow any further. “We were in the Beta Group under Commander Lajaie. The ships were in the Mako-Ta Space Docks. I remember it like yesterday,” he chuckles without humor. “The ships failed when we tried to enter hyperspace, and Vader arrived with the Death Squadron.” He glances at you, but you look away, staring into the bleeding suns. “The Commander told us to go to the escape pods, but Vader went to attack those first. Your brother, against orders, led enough of Vader’s fighters away from the escape pods. He saved many lives, sacrificing himself in the process.”  

“When?” 

“Three years ago after the Battle of Yavin.” 

Everything stops. The slight wind, the hot sand, everything. You thought he was dead for seven years. You lived with the grief of losing your best friend, your confidant. You cried for so many nights, aching for him back. You had centered so much of your kriffing identity around your brother that- 

“He didn’t want to endanger you.” You jerk your head to Crix. “If the Empire knew he was a rebel, they might go after his family too. It’s happened before. Better to pretend that he’s dead than risk your life. I faked my death too.” You don’t understand. The Empire never affected your life very much. Why would your brother even join the rebellion? Why? His life, your life, your parents’ lives: the Empire never mattered as long as you had each other. As if he can see the questions on your face, Crix speaks up. 

“He believed in the cause. In the Republic. In democracy.” 

“Fuck democracy,” you seethe. He says your name, but you yank your hand away from his. “Your damn democracy is the reason my brother died! Fuck the rebellion, fuck Skywalker, and fuck you. You probably didn’t even care-”

“You don’t know me,” he says calmly. But you don’t listen. You don’t want to listen. “He was my best friend. He was there when I realized the Death Star vaporized my planet,” he continues and you stay quiet, heart still fuming. “I was there when he talked about his family, about you. He loved you. And I loved him,” he says. You freeze and he looks at you with such raw, vulnerable eyes. 

“Were you…”

“Yes. We were lovers,” he whispers. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” You try to search for something to say, anything to say. But the words die on your tongue and you reach for his hand. So much grief to process in so little time. 

“I was a scholar on Alderaan,” Crix says after minutes of silence. “The Empire destroyed most texts about Jedi but not all. They gave me hope to join the Alliance. I never thought I’d be a pilot. I wanted to help in other ways, but they needed more pilots, even bad ones. I considered dropping out. But your brother convinced me to stay in the same way I convinced him to join.” 

“Why Tatooine?” 

“I had a feeling. Besides, Luke and his father, Anakin, were from here. If this planet can produce two heroes, why not settle here? Of course, slavery and Hutts aren’t very good, but… I had a feeling. Maybe the Force knew I’d meet you,” he shrugs. After a few beats of silence, he stands up and brushes the sand off his pants, hand still in yours. “Let’s get some food then sleep.” 

“Thank you,” you squeeze his hand, “for everything.”

*****

After eating some classic bantha steak for dinner and drinking it down with blue milk (an odd but tasty treat), you settle down on the couch with Crix in front of you on another chair. 

You tell Crix about life back home. About your parents working hard to provide for you. How they loved you and cared for you, and you were too blind to see it because all their attention was spent on their business, their employees. Because if you learned anything from staying with Mando, it’s that some people show their affection silently or roughly, but it never detracts from the intent. 

You ask Crix if he would like to come to your home planet and meet your parents. He says he’d love to. 

Crix tells you all about the adventures he had with your brother. How a simple Alderanian scholar like him became a rebel pilot— the story involved espionage, betrayal, and gambling—or how their first mission together failed. Or even how your brother first reacted to being kissed.

“It was like the concept of a guy kissing another guy was foreign to him,” Crix says. 

“We were very sheltered growing up despite owning a… prostitution bar.” He shakes his head in disbelief. 

“Sheltered alright. He became a rebel and you’re dating a Mandalorian bounty hunter.”

“We’re not dating.” Crix gives you a sure, yeah sure look. You yawn in response. 

You know you should sleep, but the buzzing excitement of questions stops you. Mando said you deserved to talk to Crix, so you will. Besides, conversation with Crix flows easier than a tap of beer. In the same way your brother was your best friend, Crix could be too. If they loved and trusted each other enough to consider marriage after the Empire collapses— a revelation that stings and bites and makes you cry— then you can love and trust Crix too. 

Of course, the Empire and Rebel Alliance’s role in your brother’s death still haunts the back of your mind. If he had never joined, he wouldn’t have died. At least, that’s what you tell yourself. The galaxy is too large and too dangerous to ever guarantee someone’s life. In this galaxy, a Queen of Alderaan and her planet were vaporized, and a Tatooine farm boy destroyed the Empire. Crix told you that ‘it was the will of the Force’ but you don’t really believe it.

How could you believe that an order of wizard monks that were purged to almost extinction?  But if your brother believed in Luke Skywalker— something that Crix made sure to tell you often—then maybe you could too. Except-

A large part of you feels betrayed. Sure, faking his death was for your safety. It still doesn’t erase the years of mourning and grief. It doesn’t erase how you poured so much of yourself into the idea of tracing his steps and living his journey. Finding clues about your brother was supposed to be your big adventure, your ‘coming of age’ tale. Yet… 

He should’ve told you. You would’ve joined him too. You would become a rebel if it meant being with your best friend despite being a young teenager. You’d be by his and Crix’s side, helping to save the galaxy. Maybe he knew that you would follow. You were young and impressionable and idolized him too much. 

“It’s getting late. You can sleep in the bedroom; I’ll be out here.” 

“This is your place, Crix. Not mine.”

“And you’re my lover’s sister. He would smite me,” you both laugh. It’s comfortable and soothing. You can imagine living here, on Tatooine, and helping Crix farm water. Crix would definitely welcome you. Your brother would like it too. The two people he cared for, taking care of each other. 

But you know your place is with Mando. At least for now. When you think of home, it was always the tavern. The Crest isn’t comfortable. It isn’t a home. Yet, being around Mando feels right. Like it’s meant to be. Of course, the cheesy romantic side of you swoons and does all the talking. The rational part scoffs. A life with a bounty hunter doesn’t seem like the life you want or could enjoy. Besides, you have your answers. You’ve accomplished your goals. There’s nothing left to learn from Mando.  

“Let’s just share the bed, yeah?”

“Your Mando won’t mind?” You shrug. 

“It’s not like we’re together, you know. And you’re basically my new brother now.” Crix smiles, a wide, happy, smile. You return the favor. 

When you wake up, hours later, Crix has already left. Groaning, you stretch your arms and back. A real bed did wonders for your physical state. Of course, Crix’s warmth was nothing like Mando’s. Sleeping next to Crix was like cuddling alongside your brother. Familial. Platonic. Mando, on the other hand, made you think sinful, unutterable things. 

A glass of milk waits for you when you emerge from the room. You glance around at the empty living room, and conclude that Crix must be outside. You decide to lounge on the couch with the cold milk and take little sips. There isn’t anything for you to do; when you tried to help yesterday, Crix shooed you away with fervor. Your skills also don’t apply to farming; you’re better off with managing finances.  

You settle for stretching on the floor, taking the time to hold the positions. It’s hot as usual, and you already build up a sweat. You stretched regularly at home, more out of boredom than a desire to stay healthy. There’s room to exercise on the Crest; you see Mando doing it when he has the chance, but it’s still a little awkward for you to stretch around the ship. The Crest isn’t yours, and you don’t know how long Mando will allow you to stay. The thought of your temporary status makes you feel… a little inadequate, so you push that to the back of your mind.

After an hour or so, Crix invites you outside. He asks if you’ll join him on a little trip to Tosche Station since he’s missing some parts he needs for repairs. You agree, excited for a mini adventure, and strap into the speeder bike. Hopefully Mando won’t get worried if he arrives at an empty house. Some part of you wants Mando to miss you and get worried, as selfish as the thought is.  

Anchorhead is quite boring. Aside from leering males and brute criminals, nothing exciting happens. Of course, you and Crix were mistaken for husband and wife—something the both of you laugh at— so you pretend to be in-laws instead which isn’t that far from the truth. After Crix buys all his parts and some extra supplies, you head back to his homestead. 

The rest of the hot day is spent talking about your brother. How he was a great pilot and an even greater friend. How he had to be an absolutely amazing person to catch the attention of a Jedi. Crix seems to hold an idol complex for the near-extinct wizard religion, so your brother talking to Luke was momentous for him. He offers to tell you stories about the Jedi Order, but you’re not really interested. It’s probably your poor, uneducated, Outer Rim self speaking, but the Jedi of the Republic are so fantastical that it’s hard to believe they’re real. Besides, why would you listen to tales about them when you can learn more about your brother? 

The day passes quicker than you realize, and the gentle chill of the night arrives. Like the previous night, you and Crix sit outside to watch the suns set. It’s calming, and you find yourself getting used to the routine. You can see a future, a life here with Crix. A simple life, far from the dangers of space and accompanied by your brother’s lover. 

“He likes you,” Crix says, nudging you out of your thoughts. At your confused face, he continues. “The Mandalorian.” You scoff.

“As if. I don’t even know his name or face.” Crix shakes his head. 

“It wasn’t like that before. My mom told me that Mandos could take off their helmets and say their names anytime they wanted. I think yours is just super strict,” Crix shrugs. Huh. You’ve always wondered about the Mandalorian culture and how strong warriors are hardly seen anymore. Maybe they’re like the Jedi: from a time before the Empire, forever hiding in the shadows, content to lay low and survive. 

“Maybe,” you say and turn to face the lowering suns. From the corner of your eye, you see a dark figure speeding closer. Crix notices too and squints at the approaching speeder bike. The person parks right in front of you and hops off. Mando. 

He drags a gagged and blindfolded person off the bike and onto the sand below. The human male struggles for a bit, but Mando presses a button on the vambrace, and the man shudders before falling unconscious. It’s a disturbing sight, and you shiver. You can’t imagine the feeling of getting electrocuted to sleep. 

“Well, he’s a bounty hunter for sure,” Crix mutters. You jump to your feet and approach Mando. He looks tired. The tension in his shoulders, the stiff stance of his legs, and the heavier breathing point to growing signs of fatigue. A pang of guilt stabs your heart.

 While you were lounging around, drinking milk, and watching the sunset, Mando was working his ass off for a bounty. For just a few credits to fuel his ship and feed himself while providing for you. You haven’t even done anything useful except cleaning and providing a warm body. 

Maybe that’s all he needs you for.

As excited as you are to see him, you also feel a little dread. Crix nods at Mando, and they enter the house along with the bounty. As Mando passes the threshold, he holds a hand out towards you. The little action makes you smile, and you scurry over to take his hand. Together, you go inside the house. Despite the air being hot as usual, you relish in the warmth of Mando’s gloved hand, in the heat his metal armor retains. 

You’ll talk to him later about ways you can help out and ease the burden of his job. Possibly figure out what your relationship really is. If it even needs a label. You need clarity eventually, some even ground at least. 

For now, you settle next to Mando on the couch as Crix prepares some food. Mando will have to eat in a separate room and clean his armor and blasters there too. And you’ll be waiting for him when he’s done.  

read chapter five

[mst3kproject]

Beast from Haunted Cave

I’ve actually received a couple of requests for movies to review, and I am looking into them.  I just have a few others I want to get through first… like this one.

Beast from Haunted Cave begins with a familiar tune – over the credits we hear the same jumpy ‘suspense’ music that opened both Night of the Blood Beast and Attack of the Giant Leeches.  It seems to have been a favourite of Gene Corman (Roger’s brother), who produced all three movies.  The writer, furthermore, was Charles B. Griffith, who did the same job for half a dozen MST3K movies, including It Conquered the World, Gunslinger, and Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II.  Finally, Beast from Haunted Cave has the strange distinction of being the only movie I’ve ever seen that thanks ‘the people of South Dakota’.

A master criminal and his drunk, stupid henchmen (one of whom is a drunk, stupid henchwoman) have decided to rob a mining operation.  In the process they annoy some kind of giant bug monster that was living in the mine, and it stalks them and their guide through the wintery mountains until they reach a cabin where they hole up to wait out a blizzard. Between the monster lurking outside and the fact that the gang are all getting fed up being stuck indoors and starting to hate each other (a familiar scenario in 2020), it’s a good bet that no more than two of them are getting out alive.  Probably the henchwoman and the guide, since they were kissing earlier.

Beast from Haunted Cave is a typically cheap Corman production.  The familiar music persists through the entire film, and gives the same impression it did in Blood Beast – the soundtrack people were given a set of pre-existing pieces and did what they could with them.  A terrible winter storm is represented by howling wind noises, but it never actually snows.  The monster is dreadful.  The webs draped over everything demonstrate that it’s a spider, but all we actually see is a featureless head and a couple of flailing arms that resemble nothing so much as one of those inflatable tube men at a used car lot.  When all we’re seeing is one leg reaching out to grab people it’s not awful, but as soon as we get a good look at the whole creature it’s clear that this is some kind of repurposed Hallowe’en decoration.  The gold bricks the thieves came to steal are just… well, bricks painted gold.  The paint isn’t even shiny.

Outside of that, however, the movie isn’t really that bad.  Everybody on the crew seems to have known what they were doing, and did their best to work within their meagre budget.  The photography is surprisingly competent.  The lighting rarely qualifies as atmospheric but there’s always enough of it – even in scenes set at night or in a dark cave, I never found myself squinting and wondering what’s going on.  The snowy landscapes are shot on location and look suitably hostile (although they could often only do one take, since after that the snow wouldn’t look pristine anymore).  You can see the actors’ breath, which gives a visceral sense of the cold.  The writing is mostly just serviceable but every so often there’s a little gem tucked within it.

The two places where this shows best are in the character of Marty and in the relationship between the mastermind, Alex, and the henchwoman, Gypsy.  Marty is a drunken buffoon but there’s more to him than that.  Early in the film he invites a cocktail waitress from the ski lodge, Natalie, to make out in a cave with him.  They disturb the monster, and Marty escapes but leaves Natalie behind.  For the rest of the film, even as he continues to be a drunken buffoon, it’s clearly eating him up that he abandoned this woman.  There’s an ambiguous moment when he finds Natalie’s still-living body webbed to a tree in the middle of the woods – perhaps it really happened, or maybe he’s having a nightmare.

Gypsy has clearly been working for Alex for some time, as secretary, girlfriend, and as a way of distracting the targets of his robberies. She’s an alcoholic sad sack who looks ten years older than her stated age of twenty-six, and clearly regrets her self-destructive life.  She cannot leave, however, because Alex is controlling and violent, and because she wouldn’t know what she wants or who she is without him.  When he beats her up for kissing Gil the guide, she later says Alex had a perfect right to slap me.  At the same time, the film hints of happier times between the two in a running gag, never explained, where Alex and Gypsy call each other ‘Charles’.  This seems to have once been an endearment, but is now a passive-aggressive insult.

One character whom I wish had done more is Gil’s housekeeper, Small Dove.  She rarely speaks, but she carries an axe and spends a lot of time judgmentally watching the stupid white people.  She could have been this movie’s Eulabelle, but she ends up getting eaten by the monster without ever doing anything badass.  Shame.

Let us now return to a familiar question: who is the main character in this movie?

I guess Gil is the ‘hero’.  He’s the hunky male lead, who gets the girl at the end. He never does much to further the plot, though, except for urging Gypsy to leave Alex and figure out how to lead her own life. Although she seems romantically interested in him, Gil may not return the sentiment – it’s hard to say.  He doesn’t kill the monster, Marty actually does that by setting it on fire with a flare gun.  Gil is just sort of there, a cardboard cut-out in the ‘handsome guy’ box all movies must have.

Gypsy has a much better claim on the protagonist role.  The script takes much more interest in her situation than in anybody else’s, and we are encouraged to sympathize with her feeling lost and trapped.  She survives at the end to run off with Gil, though we’re not given any indication of what they’ll do now or whether the budding relationship between them will last.  Like so many other movies of its era, Beast from Haunted Cave has no denouement.  We simply fade to black from the monster on fire (another thing they could only do once, since they actually burned the prop).

Gil is the one who describes the cave as ‘haunted’, but this never has anything to do with the story.  There is not even a hint of a ghost or even a ghost story connected with the cave.  I assume the word is in the title mostly because Beast from Cave sounds like a dinosaurs-and-cavemen movie made by the cavemen, and having put it there, Griffith felt he had to justify it with a line of dialogue.

The character who had the most potential to go through an arc is actually the antagonist, Alex.  He’s been pulling heists like this for years, and is proud of his success.  He has no reason to think this job will be any different, and yet as the movie progresses, Alex has to watch his plans fall apart all around him.  One of his henchmen is going mad from terror and guilt.  The other, Byron (who you can tell apart from Marty because Byron is The One In The Stupid Hat), is developing a crush on Small Dove and thinking about getting out of crime and settling down.  Gypsy is kissing Gil right in front of him, and Alex worries what she might have told him about the real purpose of the ski trip.  Then there’s the storm, which means the plane that was supposed to take them to Canada can’t get to them, and the lurking monster.  At the end of the film, Alex is still trying to regain control of the situation, even as the monster closes in on him.

Criminals on the run getting menaced by a monster seems to be a surprisingly common plot for a movie.  Voodoo Woman and Killer Fish were both variants on the theme.  I’m guessing this serves two purposes within the plot: the first is that it means we’re not too sad when the main characters die, since they were already bad people.  The second is what I think Beast from Haunted Cave was going for – it means that the characters cannot ask for help with their situation.  The group know, from hearing it on the radio, that they’re being hunted by the authorities.  If they were to call for help, whoever came to the rescue would find the gold bars in their bags, and they’d go straight to prison.

This idea is mostly implied.  Nobody ever actually suggests calling for help, or even trying to contact the people who were gonna be flying their getaway plane.  It also seems that they had no contingency plan for bad weather, which makes the whole operation look very poorly-planned.

One thing I did find myself thinking about is that the radio news mentions the police looking into the theft, but we never actually see the cops investigating.  This applies to the other movies I mentioned above, as well… in Voodoo Woman we’re in an area that doesn’t seem to have much by way of police, but in Killer Fish, too, law enforcement is entirely absent. This is a good choice on the part of the writers and directors, because it allows us to focus on the monster plot. If they were to include detectives, that would unnecessarily complicate things and require a resolution of its own.

Then again, if they had two resolutions, they might have had to include some ‘wind-down’ time.  I don’t like it when movies end abruptly after the monster dies, because it tends to leave dangling subplots.  Gil and Gypsy are still in the middle of nowhere, and must now shelter in the cave until the storm ends.  Are they going to be okay?  Last time we saw Small Dove she was weakened from blood loss but not yet quite dead.  Can they save her?  Will Gil and Gypsy stay together, or will he encourage her to go find herself? So there’s another lesson for aspiring film-makers: don’t end your movie until the story’s actually over.

[leslea]

Ready Player Two: The Mysognist’s Love Song

This is a review. Spoilers & typos to follow:

I enjoyed Ready Player One (RP1). It was quirky and fun. The dystopian setting was disturbing, especially as the kid who served as the story’s protagonist didn’t actually do much to make the world a better place, once he became its newest prince. We’re told from the git-go that the world is spiraling downhill, and what does Wade/Parzival do at the end? The bare minimum. He lets the debtors go. He shares his riches with his friends. Well, he was literally just a teenager, and most assuredly a feral one, at that, so you could excuse his lack of vision. Certainly there would be a Ready Player Two (RP2) that would redeem our child champion?

Haha, no.

RP2 is the story of what happens to a neglected impoverished child when he lucks into immense privilege, but lacks the heart, charm, or charisma to be anything other than a hermit and an incel. Where Harry Potter could arguably be said to have started from a similar circumstance, yet grew into an actual savior role in his fight against Voldemort & the Death Eaters, Wade Watts’ character in RP2 is unabashedly a less-loveable version of Donald Trump in a world where he is, in all practicality, king. 

As RP2 begins, Wade owns everything. Not just the Oasis, but a futuristic tech that allows one to record their own visceral experience of being alive. This tech, called ONI, goes even more viral than the Oasis, and makes Wade rich beyond the human mind’s ability to calculate. He has power--so much power, he can control anything. He is literally the richest man in the world, and most assuredly its most envied/hated. Nothing is out of reach for him--and though his friends from RP1′s ‘Gunting days are portrayed focusing on developing real relationships (marriages, babies, etc.), working on improving their environments, and delivering aid to their communities, our dear Wade simply pines for the one thing that eludes him: Samantha, aka Artemis, his fierce and determined love interest from RP1.

He brags about the one week he spent in seclusion with Samantha in a bedroom. He talks way too often of his other sexual exploits via ONI, allowing him to experience sex from the POV of other men, women, transpeople, and non-binary folks. He has done the deed every which way but loose, and author Ernest Cline is as eager to share those details with the reader as he is the spout off acronyms and descriptions of fictional technology. Whereas the latter will have you yawning in boredom, the former will simply turn your stomach. Raise your hands if you were hoping for more cybersex in RP2. Anyone? Anyone? Right. 

Before I delve too deeply in how important it is for even blockbuster authors like Cline to CONSENT TO QUALITY EDITORIAL INPUT, I need to outline some important problems with this story beyond “What’s wrong with Wade, items 1-999.”

Samantha is justly described to have turned her back on Wade over some important issues. She is a woman of integrity, and for years Wade stalks her virtually, even though in all reality he grows a smaller and smaller figure from her past. Think about any woman you know who moves on and gets things done in life: they do not sit around pining for a dickhead ex who they slept with once, years prior. They just don’t. Samantha, however, despite all her success, integrity, and morals...just can’t help but fall back in love with Wade.

All powerful Wade. Involuntarily celibate (in the “Earl,” as Cline calls “in real life,” [IRL]), plugged into the internet from his spinal column or brain stem or whatever, 12 hours per day Wade. Childish destroyer of dissenting user accounts Wade. Stalker Wade.

Although Samantha refuses to make eye contact with him for years, the moment he needs her help...poof. She’s back on his jock like static cling, if I may borrow Cline’s penchant for quoting nostalgia in lieu of creating new content.

While Samantha’s inexplicable change of heart is problematic enough, it is only foreshadowing for a bigger problem with the story. Wade, as owner of the Oasis and all that digital shit, ends up on a quest to restore the Siren’s Soul. This is the “egg hunt” of RP2. Instead of eggs, this time he’s hunting shards, which is fitting, really, because Cline left me feeling sharted on by earlier than midway through the text. 

Where were we? The shards. Right.

The singular essence of Kira Underwood, constantly referred to as “Og’s wife,” has been divided into seven shards and hidden around the Oasis--that is, until the end of the story when Cline mercifully hid the last two together. I might have wept if the story had gone on one chapter longer than necessary. When the shards are collected and merged, they will...? What? Oh, they will coalesce into the actual soul of the departed woman. They will bring her back, digitally.

Now, not only is it creepy on many levels that Wade--let’s call him Parzincel--is repeatedly referred to as Kira’s owner, but his idol before him, James Halliday, is characterized has having created this ONI technology for the main purpose of bringing Kira back, so that a digital version of himself could finally possess her. While “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife,” is certainly a handy commandment, “thou shalt treat women as FUCKING PEOPLE WITH THEIR OWN INHERENT RIGHTS” would perhaps be a better placard to engrave and set on the desk of Halliday--to then be passed down to Wade. It never seems to dawn on Parzincel that he has no right to possess Kira, or any other ONI user. 

The in-game avatar of Halliday eventually explains that Kira’s “siren” avatar was able to explain to him that possessing her, manipulating her, etc. was wrong--but ONLY after Halliday hooks himself up the ONI and lives some of Kira’s experiences. Cline plays Halliday off in both books as an Aspergian genius, someone very high functioning on the Autism Spectrum, but as the mother of a young man with autism, I am beyond disgusted at the idea that you would have to hook one living being up to another human being’s synapses for them to have ANY understanding that the other person is a free, competent human being with agency of her own. Kira is repeatedly characterized as an artistic genius with a great heart. She, like Samantha, is demonstrated to be loving and kind. Generous. And yet both Kira and Samantha are primarily belongings for men to possess, control, pursue, and lose. Oh, if only they did lose them...because of course, they don’t. In Parzincel’s dream future, the best thing he can do is create a double of himself, so that he can experience the inexplicable love of Samantha in the “Earl” as well as in an ONI paradise. 

Kira, as the “first stable AI,” is never once shown having any sort of existential crisis. She simply loves being a pretty plaything for Wade and Jim and Og, digitally--and naturally she is “still in love with Og.” Okay, whatever. By this point in the story, Og and Kira are nothing more than paper dolls set up to somehow replace Wade’s missing mother/father figures. You can almost see the author sitting spraddle leg on the floor of his study, pushing dolls around. “You are the mommy now, and you are the daddy...and Wade is the baby! Now kiss!”

In a world as technologically advanced as that of RP2, there would be nuances to digital characters, right? If only there were nuances in the humans who created them, I suppose.

Cline’s Parzincel has a weird weird weird way of looking at women. So does Halliday. Even the benevolent Og only barely registers as showing any interest in Kira’s consent, and then, only when he is, himself, close to death. It’s like Cline knew the only decent human being in this story was Ogden Morrow--and possibly Kira. We don’t really get to spend enough time with the Kira character to know. 

But why would we? We are just readers, and she is, after all, Og’s wife.

I won’t get started on the Lo-Five or what he did to Aech. I’ll let Tim take over for that bit.

[zaph1337]

Monster Hunter Rating 37: Red Khezu, the Charging Wyvern

TRIGGER WARNING: BLOOD

I don’t normally talk about the monster’s qualities in the introduction, but I have to here to make sure that no one’s gonna get hurt because of this. This is a monster that’s veiny and blood red, and combined with Khezu’s design, it’s pretty disturbing. The weapons, however, are probably worse, as they have a cracked, fleshy aesthetic that looks like it could start bleeding at any moment, and I’ll put the trigger warning a second time once we get to talking about them in case it slips someone’s mind. Might seem overkill, but with a situation like this, you can’t be too careful, which is also why I’m gonna put this review under a “Read More” so anyone who doesn’t want to see it doesn’t get an eyeful while trying to scroll past it. Now, let’s talk about Red Khezu proper, shall we?

(How it appears in Monster Hunter Freedom 1)

(How it appears in Monster Hunter 4)

Appearance: See what I mean? This thing’s made to look like it had its skin ripped off, which is not a look you want to have unless your intention is to scar someone or their children for life. The MHF1 render conveys the skinned appearance better than the MH4 one, in my opinion, because it’s a deep red, like the kind you’d see in gore in PlayStation era games. The MH4 render reminds me more of a particularly red worm or lamprey...well, until you get to the body. Then it looks like someone plucked a chicken and painted it red. It probably looks more visceral in-game.

I think I prefer the standard Khezu design, to be honest. The pale complexion combined with everything else gives me Silent Hill vibes, and even though I haven’t played any of the games, I’ve watched videos on them, and I appreciate all they’ve done for the horror genre. Red Khezu, on the other hand, doesn’t give me that same impression, and I don’t know of any horror series’ I’m interested in where such a vibrant red on a fleshy-looking monster is part of the aesthetic. Still, it does its job well. 7/10.

Behavior/Lore: So, here’s something interesting: Red Khezu aren’t a subspecies. They’re what Khezu are supposed to be like; the Khezu everyone views as being “normal” are actually albinos who likely only got more populous than the red ones because they spend most of their time in caves, where anything that would want them dead likely wouldn’t be relying on visual cues to hunt anyways. That said, both types of Khezu leave caves to eat non-cave dwelling monsters and, surprisingly, mushrooms, which Red Khezu have been seen feeding on in the Swamp region. Unfortunately for them, being so fatty means that once they leave their cave, they put themselves at risk, ‘cause a lot of monsters want to eat them, including the Rath pair.

For some reason, Red Khezu are much more aggressive than the albino variety, and they even have increased muscle mass, which allows them to not only visit cold regions (which white Khezu can already do), but even stay in them during the winter months (which white Khezu can’t do). I don’t know why albino Khezu aren’t like this, ‘cause I can’t see how albinism would affect your muscle growth and temperament, but I don’t make the monsters, I just critique them.

I’m really glad that this is more interesting than “Khezu+.” The fact that Red Khezu aren’t a true subspecies is a neat idea, and considering that the Ecology page on the common Khezu doesn’t mention any omnivorous tendencies, it’s likely that Red Khezu even have a different diet than their pale cousins, which is something that I don’t think the previous G monsters had. While making them more aggressive than albino Khezu is to be expected at this point, it doesn’t take away from anything, so I’m not going to gripe about it. When you combine all of this with the qualities they likely share with albino Khezu, you get an interesting counterpart for what was already an interesting monster. 8/10.

Abilities: If you thought that keeping warm was the main benefit of having more muscle mass than a common Khezu, I have to question your educational history; Red Khezu are physically stronger than the albino variety, and their electrical organs are superior as well. Not only are their electric attacks stronger, they can also use electricity to incapacitate prey in ways common Khezu can’t. Also, their skin seems to be very elastic, as Red Khezu can stretch their necks out much farther than their pale brethren can. I think more needs to be stretchier than just the skin, but whatever. As a final note, for some reason they’re immune to fire, but this apparently comes at the cost of being weak to water.

Red Khezu do what I wish more subspecies’ do, which is take the basic abilities of their weaker forms and mix them up, not just make them more powerful. The new ways they can manipulate electricity and the extended reach of their more elastic necks likely make battles with them stand out more than the ones you have with some other G monsters. 7/10.

Equipment: Like I said at the beginning, TRIGGER WARNING FOR BLOOD. These weapons look just plain nasty, which, while potentially being part of their appeal to some people, will likely make others very queasy or worse. I’ll start with the least disgusting one, the Hunting Horn called the Blood Horn:

“Red Hunting Horn made from wrapped Red Khezu hide. Its color is very unsettling...” The color is unsettling? Not the fact that it literally has a mouth? Okay, in all fairness, the color of the wraps makes it more gruesome than the Khezu Horn, which just looks like it’s covered in bandages; these look like bandages that were soaked in something, and they were probably white before they were applied. Make of that little observation what you will. Now, here’s where things start getting nasty--this Long Sword from MHO:

...I can’t say I know what that implement is, but I do know that the Red Khezu skin is wrapped around it in a very unsettling way; until I saw the little bit of metal that was exposed at the sword’s base, I thought that those spikes were independently attached to the flesh instead of being the teeth of a full blade. And speaking of unsettling, the sheathe looks like it’s bleeding. That comparison to cracked flesh I drew earlier makes more sense now, don’t it? I’ve got one more weapon to show you guys, and it’s probably the nastiest one of the bunch: the Red Khezu Sword and Shield from MHO. If you’re already uncomfortable after looking at the above weapons, you might wanna scroll past this:

The reasons I find this the most gruesome of the weapons I’ve shown are A: the “sword” is a surgeon’s saw, which adds to the whole “twisted hospital” vibe that Silent Hill likes to use, and B: the shield literally has the Red Khezu’s “face” stretched over it, and the mouth is...what are those black things holding the mouth shut? They’re not sewing lines, ‘cause they’re way too big. Wait, the way the two on the left are angled, it looks like they’re 3D and not flat--are those things made of metal, like the shield? ‘Cause there are a few implications for that, and they’re all unpleasant. Moving on to the armor, the only renders the wiki had are the men’s sets from MHO. Here’s the Blademaster set:

This isn’t as vibrant of a red as Red Khezu normally are, but it does look like raw meat or exposed flesh, so that’s...cool? The fact that there’s nothing obscuring or darkening the face like in other games with Khezu armor makes it look kind of silly, though; it’s like a fleshy raincoat, which is equally parts disgusting and hard to take seriously. As for the Gunner set, it’s very different from the Khezu R Armor I showed off in the Khezu review:

To be fair, this does look a lot like the normal Khezu Gunner armor, so expecting it to look like the R Gunner armor is silly. There are a couple of neat things here--the arm guard has a spine embedded in it, and the right arm has a glove with claws (or at least long nails)--but for the most part this doesn’t stand out too much to me. It does look like someone cooked the meat for a few minutes, though, so it’s probably not violating any health codes.

Honestly, I prefer the standard Khezu equipment to this, but that’s mostly because there’s much more of it than Red Khezu equipment. Plus, outside of the ones from MHO, the weapons the devs recolored for Red Khezu don’t really look that unnerving. The red’s a bit too vibrant, so it doesn’t really fit the filthy hospital aesthetic that made Khezu weapons so eerie, and the armor looks gross, sure, but that’s all it has. Still, the MHO weapons are their own kind of disturbing, but the fact that the majority of Red Khezu weapons are in a game that most people don’t even consider a real MH game is depressing. 6/10.

Final Thoughts and Tally: After sifting through so many monsters that did so little, it’s nice to get something that stands out like this. Don’t get me wrong, I still prefer normal Khezu over red ones, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like Red Khezu at all; I just think that the albino ones have more going for them. 7/10.

[kinglazrus]

The Haunting of Danny Fenton

Chapter Four: Fear the Reaper

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Valerie makes it through dinner, somehow. It’s just her, Maddie, and Jack seated around the Fenton’s modest table in their cozy kitchen. Tucker left some time while Valerie was upstairs. Danny stays in his room the whole time, sleeping, or so his parents say. She helps clean up, because that’s the polite thing to do, and Maddie points out the frozen meals she’s prepared for the week ahead.

Danny needs hearty foods, she tells Valerie, but nothing too dense. If he doesn't have the appetite for it, make sure he eats at least one full meal. Otherwise, he subsists off smoothies chock full of vitamins and protein. Valerie feels more like a babysitter than a bodyguard as Maddie gives her a rundown of life at Fenton Works and Danny's daily routine.

Much to Valerie's relief, they leave the boring discussion behind soon enough and move on to what really matters—the Shade.

“We'll set up the fence tonight and leave it there for the week." Maddie passes Valerie one of two black boxes. "It's not very complex, so if Danny wants to move it, you can."

"Why would he move it?" Valerie hefts the box in her arms, surprised by its weight. It's not very large, fitting neatly under her arm, but still substantial enough that she needs two hands to properly secure it.

Jack, emerging from the basement door with two long extension cords on his arms, answers for Maddie. "It gets pretty boring being stuck in the same spot night after night, don't you think?"

Valerie, who sleeps at night and therefore prefers being in the same room the entire time—because waking up somewhere else would be incredibly disorienting—does not know how to respond to Jack's statement beyond a quiet, "Huh?"

Ignoring her noise of confusion, or simply not hearing it, Jack walks to the bottom of the stairs and calls Danny's name.

"Shouldn't we let him sleep?" Valerie asks. If it were her, and she had a choice in the matter, she would much rather be unconscious when the Shade shows itself.

Maddie glances over her shoulder toward the front door.

Outside, the setting sun paints the clouds in pink and orange hues, cool purple shadows cutting through the streaks of colour. It's a beautiful sight, the sky behind the clouds a gradient of darkening blue, turning gold in the distance. It's the kind of sunset Valerie admires from her hoverboard, flying high over the city. Dusk has always been her favourite time of day, and she takes in the rich, colourful sight with a content smile.

Maddie watches the sky with dread in her eyes. "Danny won't be sleeping now. It will start soon."

Danny's bedroom door groans as it opens. The sound, low and despondent, reminds Valerie of the oppressive aura she endured earlier. Logically, she knows the door's whine is born from poorly oiled hinges, but she can't shake the notion that the house itself is moaning in anguish, grieving for Danny and his haunting.

Danny lingers beyond the doorway, in the shadows of his room, the hall's dim light barely touching his toes. With one hand, he grips the doorframe, his thumb stroking the stop in a gesture Valerie would almost call comforting, a sort of soothing caress. His lips move, barely, but he speaks too quietly to hear.

Valerie watches this and thinks it's the weirdest damn thing she's ever seen.

Danny's hand falls to his side. "My room's fine tonight. I need my computer." He retreats further into his room.

"You heard him," Jack say, smiling over his shoulder.

Jack goes up the stairs first, Maddie right after him, with Valerie trailing behind. When they reach Danny's room, Valerie raises her eyebrows at the setup. His desk is in the middle of the room, a foot of space on every side, while all other furniture is shoved back against the wall. Danny's already sitting down, legs crossed on his chair, a tumbler dotted with condensation sitting beside his keyboard and a bowl of trail mix resting in his lap.

Weirder still, the light is off, and his curtains are drawn, leaving the soft glow of his computer screen to be the only light source. Neither Maddie nor Jack seem to mind this, making no moves toward the light switch on the wall.

"Got everything you need?" Maddie sidles around Danny's desk and sets the box she's holding, identical to the one in Valerie's arms, down on the floor.

"Snack, smoothie, extra water bottle in the drawer. Textbook's are beside my chair. Pillow and blankets under the desk," Danny says.

Squinting, Valerie sees the aforementioned pile of bedding stuffed in front of his chair.

"Bathroom?" Jack asks as he dumps the extension cords on Danny's bed. He starts unravelling them with practiced ease, watching his son for an answer.

"Already went."

"Are you... are you staying there all night?" Valerie asks. The thought of being stuck in that chair all night has her pursing her lips. It reminds her far too much of high school, languishing for hours in cramped desks with hard, plastic chairs. She always hated high school.

Danny gives her a sidelong glance. The longer he stares, the more Valerie fidgets, and she does not fidget, ever. But Danny's eyes, which appeared dull and hollow before, seem to glow now. Not with vitality, but with an eerie, soulless light that disturbs Valerie so much she can't avert her eyes. She's shaking, and sweating, and it takes her far too long to identify this feeling: fear. Danny cuts the least impressive figure Valerie has ever seen in her life, but right now, she's afraid. Afraid that when he she turns her back, he will still be there. Still watching.

"Valerie, dear, you can set that down over here." Maddie's voice, casual, unknowing, compels Valerie to look away. Maddie crouches by the short side of Danny's desk—Valerie didn't notice her move—and taps the floor beside it.

Valerie jolts into action, eager for a distraction, and drops beside Maddie, holding out the black box. Maddie takes it, placing it on the carpet. For a few seconds, she fusses with it, prodding it, pushing it this way and that, until it sits exactly where she wants it.

"You might want to scoot back a little. The other post is already in position."

Valerie puts a good few inches between her and the 'post.' Apparently satisfied with Valerie's position, Maddie reaches out and bops the top of the box. Valerie recoils when the post bursts open. The sides unfurl, falling flat, and the top caves in, exposing a mass of wires and antennas. Something whirs. A spool at the bottom of the device starts spinning, and a slender cable of dotted lights shoots out. It curves around the back of the desk, stretching out of Valerie's line of sight.

Movement to her right gains her attention, and she sees a second cable of lights unwinding around Danny's chair. The new cable hits the post just as the spool stops spinning, locking into a plug at the end of the first cable. Three sharp beeps ring out.

"Looks good!" Maddie claps her hands. "Jack, can you plug it in?"

"Already on it." Jack plugs one end of his extension cord into the post in front of Maddie and Valerie, takes the other end, and rushes out of the room. The extension cord whips after him, snaking off of Danny's bed and out the door.

Valerie eyes the device dubiously. Maddie called it a fence, but it doesn't look very fence-like to her. Looking at it, it's hard to imagine it stopping anything, much less a Shade. But Valerie knows better than to underestimate the Fentons, and she might as well use this opportunity to learn from her ghost hunting heroes.

"What does this do?" she asks.

"Do you know what GZF is?" Maddie asks.

Valerie's heard of it, tried to read a few articles about it, but overall knows very little. "Vaguely."

"It stands for Ghost Zone Frequency. Think of the electromagnetic spectrum, spanning everything from radio waves, to the visible and invisible spectrum, to gamma rays. The Ghost Zone, which exists on a different plane from us, has its own equivalent spectrum we call GZF. It has its own spectrum because, so far, it can't be properly sensed by human instruments or human eyes," Maddie explains.

"But we can see ectoplasm. And we can see ghosts," Valerie points out.

"You see what you want to see," Danny says.

Valerie nearly flinches, and she hates herself for it. She hates Danny for it. It's not fair that he can drag such a visceral reaction from her just by talking. Even less fair is the fact that she doesn't understand why he sets her on edge so much. At least he isn't looking at her now, instead concentrating on his computer screen.

"What does that mean?" Valerie asks.

"It's pretty straight forward. Your brain can't see it, so it fills in the blanks with what it thinks should be there." Danny's eyes flit away from the screen for a moment, glancing over her before going back. "You ever read anything Lovecraft?"

"Maybe in high school."

"Well, he does this thing when he writes—he describes something as indescribable. And our measly little human brains try to understand what that indescribable thing is, but it can't, because it's indescribable to us. Ghost stuff is like that. But, unlike Lovecraft's monsters, ghosts aren't monsters from another dimension; they're the flipside of our reality. Because of that, our brains are able to perceive ghosts without seeing or hearing them. And since they know something is there, they fill in the blanks. Otherwise, we'd all be twitching balls of anxiety that constantly feel like we're missing something glaringly obvious."

Danny twists, draping his arm over the back of his chair, and regards Valerie with a fervent stare. "Got it?"

Valerie refuses to look away this time. "Sort of."

"Good enough for me." As Danny turns back to the computer, he twitches. A glower takes over his face. He rolls his shoulder, as if brushing off an unwanted touch. Ever so subtly, he lifts the hand opposite from Maddie and Valerie, cupping it over his ear.

"Danny?" Valerie reaches toward him.

"Shut up. I'm fine. Shut up!" He hurls his last words at the empty space to his right, bearing his teeth.

Valerie marvels at the open air. She can’t see a trace of the Shade, not even a faint shadow. But Danny’s eyes glide across the room, unmistakably tracking something as it moves around them. The hairs on her arm raise as Danny’s gaze roves over her. If she didn’t know any better, she would have blamed it on a chill in the air.

"Remember, sweetie. Don't respond to it." Maddie's voice is calm and even, as though she's said this line a hundred times before. She probably has.

Danny nods, a sharp, jerky movement, and hunches over. Valerie notices his jaw clenching and his toes curling. Despite how pained he appears, his eyes grow brighter still. Maybe Danny is a lot stronger than he looks. How very Fenton of him, to cast Valerie's expectations aside like that.

Jack's voice, a faint boom, drifts through the open door. "Plugging in!"

The cable lights flare to life. Narrow green beacons curve upward, converging over Danny's head He visibly relaxes, some of the tension bleeding out of him.

Valerie stretches her hand out, watching Maddie for any sign she should stop. When she gets none, she holds her hand over the beacons. The lights remain uninterrupted even though she blocks three of them with her palm.

"How does this stop a Shade?" she asks.

Maddie's eyes widen. "Oh, that's right! I never finished answering your question. Through our research, Jack and I discovered Shades exist in a thirty point range on the GZF spectrum. This is a rudimentary blockade design for small quarters. The cables are identical, one beacon for each of the thirty points in the Shade range. They're aimed straight up, but the identical points are attracted to each other, making them curve like so.

"The completed arcs generate an energy signature that stretches out four feet from the point of convergence, although it gets weaker around the edges. All thirty arcs together create a dense space that makes it hard for Shades to move within this area."

Valerie's brain buzzes as Maddie keeps talking. This is rudimentary? There's nothing rudimentary about it.

"But it needs such a narrow field that we can't make the shield any wider. And it isn't perfect. A strong enough Shade could break through it, but thankfully the one haunting Danny doesn't appear to be one of them," Maddie finishes.

Valerie's mouth drops open, but she can't think of a response, instead staring dumbly at the fence.

"Mom, I think you broke her," Danny says, grinning smugly.

"Oh, not again."

Valerie's mouth snaps shut with a clack. She shoots Danny a withering glare, then turns to Maddie. "I'm fine. It's just a lot to process. Guns are more my expertise."

"Danny could teach you a few things while you're here. He likes to pretend he doesn't care about science, but we all know he does." Maddie winks.

"Space science! It's different from ghost science," Danny declares.

Maddie hides her mouth with her hand and whispers loudly, "He loves both."

Danny grumbles under his breath. "I'll show you loving science."

Valerie rolls her eyes and shares a smile with Maddie, both of them laughing quietly at Danny's expense. He stubbornly ignores them, typing away on his computer, but there's a smile on his pale lips.

Valerie prefers Danny like this, smiling and joking. It reminds her that they were supposed to be classmates. If his accident never happened, if he never got his disease, if he wasn't homeschooled, they might have been friends. She doesn't remember meeting him way back during freshman orientation, but now she wishes she did. Their first interaction might have gone better that way. But it's too late for that now.

She wonders which one is the real Danny. The sardonic punster with a bitter glare. The eerie wraith that chills Valerie to her core. Or the happy boy before her now whose grin lights up his face, momentarily gracing him with the warm glow of life his illness and haunting has stolen from him. Maybe they're all him. Humans aren't so simple that she can reduce a person to a few key words and say that's all they are. Taking everything you see at face value is a habit Valerie abhors.

But that only means she can't trust any face Danny puts on, no matter how genuine it appears. He can be all of them and none them. In the end, she doesn't care. She's just here to do her job.

[safrona-shadowsun]

{Rp between Safrona and @aranyaphoenix that eventually carried into game. Thank you for helping me get more acclimated to rping in game again! Under a cut for length. With mention of @mrblaque!}

A short, penned letter in return was sent to the Arcanist detailed a time to meet in Sunspire Port, always injecting some needed organization within the bit of chaos of her days. The Courier was also a punctual creature, yet she arrived without her typical red cloak - today was not exactly a day for the typical business it would signal. Safrona was dressed only in the Ebonsilk gown that the lady Arcanist had given her on the first day of their meeting a summer ago, and today she was approaching few else. The expected company of the Ethereal also waited, the setting sun edging the starry light of his form with its color. Her gaze was cast out to the sea, idling on the scene that gave the Port its aspect of beauty.

Aranya could only smile, seeing the familiar gown she had given to the lovely Courier, and how the smoldering design matched the flame-washed appearance of Saraj's wrappings. It was like they had been donned in fire, just for the occasion of meeting with her. "It is good to see you both," greeted the arcanist. "Please, tell me what matters have been at hand."

A cant of the head was given by the lady importer,  while the Ethereal flourished into the usual gentlemanly bow,  show off that he was. "Too many matters at hand,  but I'm glad for the moment to tear away from them to meet with you. " Safrona ambled along slowly down the pier,  inviting Aranya to stroll with her.  She seemed to want the conversation to be more private,  away from passing ears.  "But one of those matters I've felt... drawn to speak with you on." A small smile curved her lips as her absinthe eyes glanced the Arcanist's way.  "If Blaque trusts you,  I figure that is a good sign I can too."

"Likewise," replied Aranya with sincere warmth. "And your aid arranging with Saraj for the temporary dome for Sunspire was most helpful. I would be only to happy to return such a favor."

There was a silence from the Courier, unsure of how to begin to ask her questions, to ask the favors she would ask. Her natural hesitance did not go unnoticed, and the sincerity of the Arcanist came again. “How can I help, Safrona?”

She was unable to meet the sorceress’ eyes in that moment. “I hoped for a... favor. That you might keep something hidden for me. Or...safe, is more the word. Keeping it in Dalaran any longer might put me at risk of certain implications I am trying to avoid.”

Aranya’s whiskery black eyebrows furrow. “I can certainly do my best. What manner of “something” is it that could implicate you, may I ask?”

Safrona let out a soft exhale in attempt to release her nervousness, her absinthe gaze holding on Aranya a moment as she explained in a careful murmur. “It’s of a demonic nature. Sunspire Port was what I thought of as far as...security. With you and Blaque...”

Stepping forward and nodding, Aranya was quiet, all ears to hear whatever more needed to be said. But staring on the Arcanist drew in the Courier’s gaze, attaching to something beneath the flesh, idling sight penetrating. “There is...more I feel. A draw to you specifically. I am unsure how well you are connected to the Purveyor but...there is a familiarity that surpasses even what I feel in him in you...”

Ver’sarn blinked, silent and straight faced, as the Courier continued with her careful insight. “...you have touched something....tainted, haven’t you? I feel it, like a dark stirring..”

It was Aranya’s turn for her eyes to be chased away as she admitted: “I have touched--and tasted--many a tainted thing these past several years...it’s not easily understood by some. “What stirs...funny you should say that.” Safrona was met by a wry smile.

“This seems...or feels more recent.” The warlock continued a little more confidently at the admittance. “Either a newly touched demonic source, or something...resurfacing?” The curious edge was on her voice, still surprised in what she herself was saying. The lady Arcanist hardly seemed to be one embroiled in corruption. But she heard it, the dark static of something kept quiet for too long. “There are voices that I am tuned to in the Dark, and it knows your name.”

A nod from the Arcanist further solidified her insights. “There is one. One I tasted, one I crippled in ways that can never be undone. His face found me in my dreams, recently, making threats...or portents. I struggle to discern which.”

“...manipulative, yes? Even in death their hold is reaching. It is their nature to corrupt.” The Courier remarked with some bitterness. “I struggle in my own way as well, but it is more the nature of what I do. As the Legion has fell on Azeroth again, the demons have become more prey than I mean them to be. But every soul I tap into, that I rip from them is...not always the victory that some would celebrate.” She gave her attention back to Aranya as she looked out to sea, the storm that seemed to ever be building in the distance.

“Mmm, they were common prey for me as well, once upon a time. I hunted them in the days we tapped mana, for sustenance. But what no one could have known was what part of my true nature that fostered in me.”

A quiet attentiveness continued in the Courier, the verdant gaze of the Arcanist returning to her with intensity. “I liked it, Safrona. I found a visceral pleasure in the hunt, the triumph, the taste of tapping the essence of my prey before they fade away. That’s never gone away. It’s an addiction deeper than blood, my predator nature. But it’s been years since I gained full self-control and few know or really understand it...”

The importer’s brow furrowed both with some confusion. “...how did you stay...yourself, in it all? Did they’re hatred not haunt you? Their destruction? Until you could not remember who you are?”

Aranya shook her head, “I felt nothing for them after I drained them. Like an animal, or a beast. And that’s what I struggled with, being my own master of myself, trying to not let the urges of my blood be what controlled me. And yet, that urge for the hunt stirs more strongly than ever again....He saw it in me as he faded beneath my hand. He knows.”

A momentary silence again, as each woman considered the words already passed, the words to next give. Aranya broke it with her wry smile. “The Tomb changed the whole game, didn’t it? A font of power for them all, even the weakest ones.”

There was a gradual nod from the Courier as she agreed. “It changes much. And in the years I have survived, I’ve fought a long habit of needing to...change as well. Or go back to the beginning of what I know, I suppose you can say.”

A nod now from the Arcanist, kindly in tone. “Perhaps we can help each other...”

“I am hoping so...” Safrona began on an anxious breath as she rolled a finger up across her temple. More cracks in the Courier’s composure tonight than she would be privy to before the typical acquaintance. “But you need to know more of me in order for that to happen.”

A directing nod to the Ethereal, and Saraj breached reality to access Void Storage, pulling an articulated chest of dark orgin from its hollow expanse. As it hit the wooden dock with a heaviness, the disturbed reality healed.

“My initial forray into the Dark Arts was paved on a road of ignorance, Miss Aranya. A decade ago I was...different. Naive. Too trusting. Desperate. Vengeful. And I trusted my fate to the wrong mentoring hands. A decade ago, I earned boons of power by offering up the innocent to the Dark. The purer the soul, the better the sacrifice, the better the boon of power by which to earn. And with our own measured currency invested in the soul, it was not long before I began offering up pieces of my own to better cement my path to power.”

Aranya nodded gravely, but it was not with a judging eye, coercing instead for the Courier to continue.

“In the days of my Gathering, my coven, this was...simply the expectant. We did not question who we served, the names we gave ourselves to. In those days, the name Tichondrius was one meant for all else to fear and us to divulge long-dead secrets from.” Safrona’s eyes settled on the chest lain before them. “By the time I could gather my will to break from the ‘pack’, the gravity of what what was done was...there. My soul tethered to names sworn in the Great Dark, to demonic overlords. I have managed to outrun my fate for years in one way or another, but the Path ends the same either way I walk it.”

“Dark bargains were made then, I take it?”

A stiff nod now from the Courier. “I had long settled with my fate. That I belong to the Dark, when I take my last breath and cannot steal another more.”

Aranya almost seemed bemused now, trying to lighten the moment. “Doesn’t sound like a very pleasant afterlife, eternally in thrall.”

Safrona’s smile tightened. “In thrall? More perhaps hollowed out by others to serve as a vessel. There are many ways that the entities of the Dark can stake a claim on a soul, and none are too pleasant.”

The words stole the mirth from the Arcanist. “And what of your soul...?”

Safrona lighted a finger at her own breast, simply feeling the heart that beat beneath it, the thrum of the soul it echoed through. For a moment, her eyes misted over with the knowing she could lose all of what she had tried to make her own, even if she lost all right to it long ago. “What is left of who I am is...chained to the Dark, food for the Dreadlord I swore it too. Even in death he continues to mock me, eternally bound to the Dark as I am, knowing I belong. I have no future. No afterlife. And I had thought I had long settled with the price I am to pay...”

Her voice took a soft, yearning turn, staring out to the ocean where so much began and ended. “And yet...in the three years I have began to learn to live again? I...have come to want more. To be more, to live...more. I may have become greedy, but I want to claim a better death when the day comes, at the very least. Is this too much to want, my friend?”

There was no answer, but the gentle wrap of arms around her. At first there was hesitation within the embrace. Even within Aranya’s inner struggles, she was not a demon, and the touch lighted on a submerged yearning for something to break up the monotony of Fel-taint the Warlock had fed on alone. But with an instilled control, and the heavy reliance of warding runes inscribed to her skin, she inhaled only the comfort that was offered from a friend. 

“I think I know how this can be done,” Aranya murmured as she released the importer. “And perhaps it will bring some light for me as well.”

“...yes...” Lacy fingers gestured to the chest. “This is why I bring the chest to Sunspire Port. To you. To Blaque. Your Order. I think you can help me.”

“What is in the chest?”

“What is left of the Lord of the Nathrezim. What I could manage. His dormant eye.”

The wheels visibly turned in the Arcanist’s head as she gazed to the ‘prize’, even as Safrona further explained. “I need to severe my connection to him. To the Legion. I want to.”

The thoughtful gaze lightened with a spark in her eyes, Aranya’s lips slowly pulled to a smile. “If Blaque will allow it...I believe I know just such a condition that brings this about.”

The Courier injected her intensity to the matter. “Aranya...My freedom’s cost is death, either way. And I understand it can be my own, if it must be.”

The grave silence returned as the sorceress nodded, and Safrona dared to perk a smile. “Luckily we have soulstones, yes?”

“Or something very near to it.” The Arcanist paused to collect her wheel of thoughts, then elaborated again. “Tezzakel. That was the name of the first demon I crippled beyond repair. Because I drained him of his power and killed him in the wastes of Outland, a world saturated by the Nether. Talk to Blaque, there is a way you can face your death, and if it is done in the heart of the Netherstorm, you may yet have your freedom, one way or another.”

Safrona muttered the name beneath her breath to commit it to memory, as such names held power. But as Aranya mentioned Netherstorm, there was a glint of recognition in her eyes as they blinked back up to the Arcanist.

“...fitting, I think. I died there once. Fell from the clutches of the Nether when I tried to denounce what bound me, deny the sacrifice of my love.” She was momentarily lost in resurfacing memory, of which Aranya brought her back from with the encouraging comfort of a touch to the arm. “Thank you for your insights. I will...confer with Blaque. But enough of the glum talk. I think I promised a certain sorceress wine.”

[beardcore-blog]

the day the horses drink from the trough

PRESS PLAY

lizzo SOULMATE

**********

one of the great myths in the NEO american empire of the misled is "the forever man".

this myth is literally crammed down the throats of the tiniest children in much the same way that people shove cornmeal down the throats of ducks and geese and cows to make them taste sweeter while killing them softly, lol.

the princess syndrome is so out of control now that any sense of an actual republic is long gone. but "the forever man" myth hasn’t changed.

young children are still taught that they must become parents, and i think we all know that parenting is one of the most BASIC TOOLS that the usurers can use to create loan debt. parenting is a very thankless job as well, so you get debt slavery and sht hours and there’s that baby that you can’t get rid of… or maybe you like your kid. lucky kid!!! but even though you like that kid, you will NOT be there in every moment and they will be neglected and abandoned to fate. so pray that your little one becomes a real princess or a true knight.

i’m not sure what the male dynamic is because little boys are so weaponized to create hostility that they always go for the swords and the guns to wreak havoc. nice work, parents!!!! way to create fake gender separation. pat yourself on the back for that one.

but we all got stuck with the breakage and wreckage of the "love that never dies" obligation to seek and find. i was oppressed by it as a child. it actually seemed like the coolest thing about the western dogma from religion — faith and love and unionizing.

of course, my strange and "briefly but permanently" mangled childhood proves how easy it is to destroy a child in really a mere matter of seconds. way to go, mom!!!

so naturally i have been weirdly taken with aldous huxley’s beautiful utopian dream that does not actually take place in his bitter and sad criticism of "the jews" (not to be confused with the jewish people in the same way that radical islamists are not a reflection of true path of the muslim journey — i note this because anti-semitism at that time in europe post wwi was at an all time high with printing criticism and outrage. anti-semitism was like a genre in a modern day bookstore it was so popular and had so many writings. picture that cowboy western section and the science fiction section and then the anti-semetic section.), fascist/idealistic germans and the north american noble savage.

all of that was a bitter pill for me. i literally was physically ill through sections of the book. it was a visceral experience that went beyond reading. it was an education.

but on the sidelines of the book was this curtain that had been pulled back on monumental ideas. it was like we were on the willy wonka factory tour and we’re in that massive cathedral of candy with an eternally churning chocolate fountain that sucks up agustus gloop and swooshes him away. and right at the moment every single person on the tour starts to formulate the actual "dangers" involved in this strange sugary fantasyscape.

but i was ready for the camera to ditch the sugarland phenomenon. i wanted to see where augustus gloop had gone and just how deep did this playland of machinery and artificial replication go. i was ready for a different kind of tour of the factory. talk about a psychotic dystopia…

plus, in huxley’s world, the glimpses that we get are very grown up and cool. they are not the childlike entrapping of a story for kids. it’s older, it’s stabilized. people of all people get along as one through class separatism. and a history of fulfillment through separation. we are told that each caste is trained to be content with their occupation in life and some are even dumbed down with alcohol in the birthing jars.

and this was an inceptive vision of the dawning corporate heirarchy/caste system of order/need. we are starting to experience its arrival. but in the novel, these were birth classes. everyone was born into their position.

further, these "corporatized classes" were arranged with the "controllers" and/or philosopher kings at the top and the class system below it with the alphas at the top of the class system. the alphas were all male and they were NOT clones. the betas are the female member of the caste which the alphas belong to in the novel and are NOT clones. but all the other caste systems were bred and manufactured to maintain different aspects of the system’s needs. they were all clones.

throughout the novel huxley continuously promotes the virtues of the THREE FOUNDATIONS for a great society:

identity, community, stability

and huxley presented ideas that blatantly/openly stated how evil it was to separate kids from self discovery and liberty and that by not allowing them to explore each others bodies and touch one another we were creating a repressed/suppressed curiosity that would grow like a monster inside the child — a childish expression that is encouraged through taboo.

and that’s pretty bold philosophy.

further, and logically, he presented a society that wasn’t afraid of children never having parents but rather, cherished the idea of each one growing up protected and looked over by people who loved their job of caring for little ones and they didn’t abuse them or prohibit the kids from discovery themselves.

and each one was genetically crafted and modified to fit perfectly into their role within the greater whole. this was the utopia. the novel, however, skitters all over the place like a drunken car crash. the passengers are not reflective of the society. instead they are are a TRINITY list of the "unusual suspects", the "anti-society types" through no real fault of their own, the anomalies, those who didn’t fit in — as explored through the sexual relationships of one woman. she bangs all of them.

which is weird because you never hear anyone talk about that. so my version™ would put her into the HERO BOX™ of the what used to be called a PROTAGONIST — see how lost we are?!??! a hero and a protagonist are not the same thing. and a soldier and a hero are not the same thing. unless you literally change the meaning of the word. a hero is someone who accomplishes a series of strange feats/tasks or labors. a soldier is someone who is willing to kill in exchange for commodities/livelihood.

take it up with the dictionary. i’m not making this up.

PRESS PLAY FOR MORE GOOD FUN from GALANTIS

anyway, the "star" of this series™ is not a hero because there is no such thing as heroes in BRAVE NEW WORLD. the mantra of IDENTITY, COMMUNITY, STABILITY is so deep that the society requires no heroes, no vigilantes, no protectorates, no nuclear arms.

and it would be the same story but it would be seen through her world and the experiences she was having simultaneously during the novel. like the film about jesus’ younger brother Agape who was away at college when jesus was a killed™ and the netflix film series™ would dive away from the very tiny blip of interest huxley’s novel provides.

not that it isn’t a great novel, it’s just that huxley was an intellectual surgeon and his storytelling feels very sterile, but the magnificent visions of the future that he is able to relay through description and attention to detail is brilliant even if it’s not the best writing.

and it is this world that is the skeleton of his novel. and the skeleton needs to be studied.

he’s given us the foundations and he’s created his own maps and he’s acutely aware of the beauty of the new mexican landscape and topography.

so instantly we know he’s got a crush on the noble savage whereas, personally, i’m more interested in hanging out with a beta and seeing what her best expectations are like in this fantastical land™. and the story was kind of about a beta in a very backward kind of way. and it was also about two types of failed alphas and then a hippie jesus guy from the "reservations".

but the novel does some time skipping and the tour doesn’t really take us much further than that disturbing garden that the the tour creeps up on.

aldous kind of magically skips from age four to the adults, so that’s a bit too fast on the timeline for me — where’s the COMMUNITY?!?!?! he picks up on this concept later in his book ISLAND — but i still kind of agree with him that really little kids should be allowed to discover each other physically and without the judgement parents impose and overimpose so fast. we are mistaken in sexualizing this curiosity. we make it rapey. we use our adult minds to be like "OH!!! RAPE, my baby’s a rapist", or "oh no, that little baby boy played with another little boy".

aldous suggested that this form of exploration was essential to humans understanding and experiencing themselves EARLY ON without the sexual element being present or worse, present and mature. further, that this exploration would lead toward a differnt developmental attitude which would in turn allow a society to bypass future rape and sexual misconduct breaches.

but his ideas were too radical for people in his time. they still are. considering what a powerful novel it is, when it was written and the brilliant ideas that are tossed around like a juggler who is bouncing balls and torches and chain saws of the walls of a racquetball court while teaching you squash at the same time, it doesn’t get much play.

he was, after all, such a BRIT who had been notoriously kicked out of his social life circle in england for writing hilarious tell-all novels about the people closest to him. so they’d given him the outcast card and he’d fled (as fast as a mostly blind man with a lesbian wife can flee) to new mexico in the post wwi era, near the future site of the u.s. secret city/laboratory, los alamos. and from there, hollywood by 1932, i think.

what a great story he lived as well, not just tripping out on acid as he died, but also his first wife hunting beautiful women for the two of them to share, and the screenplays, the vast library of single print editions by other famous poets and playwrights and novelists sent to him for his approval. and then his second wife, the beautiful violinist who escape that terrible canyon fire that obliterated all those never-to-be-written-again books, all those manuscripts, all those precious writings that vanished beneath the terrible heat. and she, taking only her Stradivarius, walking out knowing everything would burn. letting go. giving it up to the fire.

forever people.

we wish.

but there is no forever man. there is no living jesus. all things die.

and true love is more like paying attnention. like that nun says in "lady bird". true love isn’t sexual. true love may not even know itself. true love might just be paying attention and feeling joy? the joy of paying attention.

and i know how much we all long to feel joy when paying attention. and in an age of POST-DISTRACTION awakenings, isn’t it time you told your daughters that marriage is an OPTION. that having kids is an OPTION. that giving up your life to fulfill some fake darwinian NONSENSE is an OPTION.

but so is living your own life and having no one else that you’ve created. and so is fighting for new models of PROCREATION that don’t involve failing parents, parents that never wanted kids and people who can’t afford kids.

parents are most often the worst thing about kids. so don’t be afraid to tell your kids that you failed and how. maybe they even remember it and have blamed themselves.

and if all you can give your son is a gun or a truck or a logic game, you’re definitely part of the problem. it’s vastly unfair to use gender foolishness to masculinize a child. it distorts the idea of masculinity like a mental disorder in the same manner that physical sexual abuse destroys young children. they are both attacks against the child’s being.

we do our best to protect kids against the predators of the body, but we do very little protect our children from the predators of the mind and the consumer usurers who are taking the kids earlier and earlier.

who knows, maybe one day the movie of the book will be made. we live in a perfect time for it to just skip straight away from the book and into the BRAVE NEW WORLD right after the visitors on the tour see where the little kids are intermingling without any kind of ADULT IMPOSED intrusions.

the great thing about the BRAVE NEW WORLD was that the rapey issue had been addressed and fully considered. the society was developed around the understandings of sexual co-mingling without parentalizing adults.

since most of humanity ALLEGEDLY has a very low intellectual focus & MOST people don’t actively seek to better and improve their intelligence — this is not my fact, it’s how "they" talk about the 99%ers — it is easy to distract the general populace with "material gain" greed games and after life myths and unfulfillable promises like the forever man.

even now, fully ready to fall asleep again after being "awake" for so fking long, even now i still want the person i thought of to be my forever man.

i want him so bad. but he was never that man in real life. he was never the fake version of him that was presented. and that’s what kills me the most. i supported the lies without knowing it. i felt misled and bushwacked. not victimized, just super aware that i had participated in the set-up and had no grounds for complaint. i spent my liberty and freedom of time and it was gone. and he felt stronger and freer (which is good and i’m glad of that).

but in the process we burned through each other and the lies and the falsehoods and the deceptions and the weaknesses all became exposed and destroyed in the fire. he was never the forever man in the first place. and that’s the rub. the forever man isn’t a person. there is no forever man.

in that moment the forever man became a concept for me, a trap that so many others fall into as well. and then we fall out of it. a lot of people return to it, but that’s usually because they can’t see the permanent break.

so now, suddenly, there was this permanent break and it was known to both of us.

granted, at first i found this confusing. naively, i had always assumed the permanent break was already there. didn’t everyone know this intuitively? i hadn’t realize that this wasn’t a universal understanding. but, i only say this because i learned it from people who are born alone. they say it over and over again.

i was born a twin and i don’t think that the "born alone" perspective is "all there is" as much as it is "all that most people have access to, therefore"…

but i learned about the "permanent break" from people born alone. twins are generally super optimistic. and i’m guessing on this because i can imagine a family that takes joy in their twins and understands that they might be a little different. my parents made a permanent break with me. an unrecoverable intentional break.

and then, through a long process of hop-scotch education through the west coast public and private christian schools in north and south california, voila! aware of humans and how they formulate their kindnesses and their goodnesses.

so when i heard about the permanent break thing AT THIS STAGE IN THE GAME, i was a bit taken about. it was one of those horrible realizations where your mind goes all bird’s eye view and geomapping and speeds through all manner of timelines and conjugations and starts the "murder board" with the new thread.

you can visually see the wasted time as chunks of LIFE. tetris LIFE chunks filled with remembrances just "disappearing" the value of memories instantly. a radical cross-platform devaluation of emotional assets. worse than zero. worse than no memories at all.

and that’s when you realize that a rug has been pulled out from under you and your grand designs. it’s the dreadfulness of false manifestations, the celebrants of what you thought was genuine were really bound up in a bottomless sadness and a burning flame with their own downward spiral dance.

it’s that startling and irreversible moment when you realize that your eyes and your heart and the assurances of another had been used quite shamelessly to proliferate a bizarre and untrue fantasy.

and worse, it was TRULY the revelation that i had wanted but not with a ghost!!! not with a dancing apparition! not the hollow man!!! oh fk, not the hollow man!!

and so now i’m doomed to still want the forever man that i had created with my expectations and then with my desires and then was slowly filleted by…

or maybe it was more like the sides of my neck were slashed open to make gills. because i do feel lucky. the charade could have taken longer and bigger chunks of my life. and i had a great time in the delusion and i liked working for a relationship.

sometimes the process of aging is a vinting metaphor and sometimes it’s a venting metaphor. sometimes it’s all about the air and the breath.

either way, it wasn’t my first relationship and it gave me an opportunity to see whether or not relationshipping was even in accordance with my nature and liberty. could i be happy without unionizing?

and the answer is yes. or, at least, it’s a great position to be in.

there is a freedom to participate in life that comes from being a part of it without being forced to protect offspring and develop those kinds of natural enmities against your "greatest predator", men. that’s a lovely start to things. almost as fun as the fake "virigin" girl claiming it’s god’s baby. or worse, everyone forgetting that "god’s baby" meant bastard offspring.

PRESS PLAY for some louder harder better from galantis

whatever, it doesn’t matter, i feel lucky to have had a forever man and to be able to write a more complicated story of "royal romance" than the childish ones we tell other people’s children and even our own children.

the corporatized children’s engineering factories are already in their late pre-testing phases.

BUT, a bit of forewarning to those who would be wise when it matters, i was punished for my childish expectations. i lost everything i gave. and i lost the time it took to give it. there was no reward. no dividends. no happy ever after. it was just business in the end.

and the whole time i had believed my eyes and my ears and listened and had tried to hold up the "we". but it was hard. there was permanent breakage from the start, not the end. he was full of grief and loss. he was too needy. but i thought he was consciously aware of all these things.

so when we were dating, i thought he knew about the permanent break. he was so far away from everybody. he was deep in the valley of the permanent break trying to find his way to sea-level. like a crushed flashcard on the side of the road in death valley.

in that there was the permanent break. we were choosing to try to have a relationship despite the permanent break that existed between people. he had come to me and plied me with the tale of his sister’s suicide. he pulled me into his sorrow spiral because i had told him several months before she killed herself that he should come out to her. she was a lesbian and felt entirely alone in the world and i begged him to reach out to her and share with her that he was gay.

but he didn’t. he had this way of never doing anything i suggested and then blaming me later about "advice" that he would get when he had come back to ask for "advice" after not doing what i had suggested after being asked. it was all a bit dislocating for me

and i give him credit for being clear and levelheaded about it in the end, but he couldn’t undo the damage that i was doing to myself for being such a fking fool.

no version of "sorry, i used you" or "let’s be friends" would ever replace the amount of time he took from my life while the veneer of his "forever man" status diminished in front of me until finally it occurred to me to ask him on the phone one day, long after we’d broken up if his current boyfriend was okay with these calls. i asked because it had also dawned on me that he’d specifically asked me to give him a call and do check-ins every couple of weeks, "are you allowed to talk to me? is your man okay with that?"

and he admitted that they had agreed that he wouldn’t call me. at which point i was like, "oh, i see, so this is like cheating. great, gotta go, man. i just wish you’d be honest. and free. you know that’s what i always wanted for you. i told you that over and over."

and we’ve never connected since. such a drag. and this is the danger of relationships.

you can lose years of your life, but even more important, you can lose WINDOWS of your life.

the years are just time, but the windows are specific ages where wonderful and amazing things can happen that cannot happen during other windows of your life.

besides, relationships TAX you. they TRULY add surcharges and time-penalties to your existence. there will no end of speed bumps and dependency is anti-liberty at its core, so the struggle to be free cannot be achieved unless all parties of the relationship are unionized. and that’s business contracting, which is an artifice. grammatically speaking, relationships are duty bound and come with obligatory submissions of personal liberty.

who’d sign up for that?

as if that isn’t enough, relationships will steal your experiences and replace them SHARED memories. and on the surface this sounds great. but that depends on the how the shared memories end up affecting the relationship.

shared memories are indeed precious and the best ones are the ones that you cherish. but after a separation, the best memories are the ones that work as triggers for your sorrow or anger or grief or devastation. the best memories become the worst.

i knew a woman in grad school who had come out as a lesbian. her name was ceebs. and she was a quirky writer with an irish background and we we’re both from san diego where her dad had been police chief or something along those lines. and she’d grown up repressing a lot of stuff. i’d done the same thing until i decided that living a lie was so ordinary and that NO ONE in the whole history of western writing had ever said, "just be a liar. lie to everybody. tell them what they want to hear. then lie about that later."

she used to often say that the thing you really liked about a person and were drawn to about them would become the thing you ended up resenting them for and perhaps even disliking about them.

so it sucks if you hear a bunch of lies up front and then they unravel around you to become the thing you end up resenting. that’s a tough one. and the irony is that lying never ends. it just keeps reinventing itself.

on the other hand, in total fairness, ALL western literature has been littered with the ruins of people’s lies and the horrible effect that lying had on so many people’s lives. and not inadvertently, heaven becomes this place where the lies are all put back together in front of you.

contemporary christianity became so zealous it started to formulate this notion (an entirely post-television & televangelistic fantasy) about how you’d stand in judgement and your entire life would be played back to you. and you thought andy warhol’s film "SLEEP" was long and boring:

"John Giorno has said Warhol asked him to star in Sleep over Memorial Day Weekend in 1963, when the two retreated to the countryside and Warhol spent the night watching Giorno sleep. “I looked over and there was Andy in the bed next to me, his head propped up on his arm, wide-eyed from speed, looking at me,” Giorno later relayed. "

born a twin, i think my big one wish would be that i DO get to this illusory JUDGEMENT ZONE where god and his posse replay my life to see if i was good enough to get in the the party called heaven.

but, typical me, i could give a sht about the party called heaven. i want access to my unknown life. i want to watch my birth and everything after like a fking drone camera that i can move around and zoom in or rewind. i want to see what happened to me when i was left unattended. i want to see the things i already have been told happened and then re-lied to about it.

i have the cobwebs of all these weird myths that humans create in order to justify PARENTHOOD.

we don’t need parents. science and the bible have proven that parents are unnecessary and obsolete.

unfortunately pedophiles and religious structures/foundations/corporations and "neo colonist governments" will want to self-protect against this accord.

they want you debt-enslaved with college loans, home loans, bundled family plan phones and car loans.

but that won’t pay for the loans after the entire shipping and distributing INTERCONTINENTAL economy lays off all the drivers and starts running AUTOKAR in a color-coded lane that only AUTOKAR (pilotless vehicle) can use.

that’s a lot of truckers nationwide all hopped on speed and suddenly without jobs?? is this part of the MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN strategy? shall we name that condition/state right now?

maybe we could call it THE AUTOKAR METH SHADOW.

so keep your eyes open. maybe it will never, ever, ever, ever happen.

or, give that "new utopia glimpse" a try. read huxley’s book BRAVE NEW WORLD. it’s a deeply fascinating look into miranda’s query: "O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in’t! (5.1.215-218) — the tempest

happy birthday. i hope you’re free and happy.

Posted by torbakhopper on 2007-04-03 17:03:24

Tagged: , like horses waiting for the gates to open , tulip , macro , flower , torbakhopper , scott , richard , photographer

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