#like even at the end of an Evil Plot if the master is dangling off a cliff he'll still reach his hand out

[burnedself]

painful realization that Doctor's 'Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?' also applies to the Master

[testudoaubrei-blog]

Well, it’s not quite a master’s thesis, but this is (the first of) a series of posts on why Catra and Adora are the best love story in the history of kids TV animation and maybe the greatest love story in the history of TV. This may in some ways be faint praise - romance on TV is generally not very good compared with books or movies. Often it’s just some will they/won’t they sexual tension that is defused by getting characters together and re-heightened by breaking them up. TV is full of nearly shark jumping pointless dramas like Sam and Diane (Cheers, holy fuck am I dating myself, though that was technically before my time), Ross and Rachel (Friends, which was no Cheers) etc, but also some less annoying couples like Ben and Leslie (Parks and Rec) or Amy and Jake (Bk99) who are mostly just kind of cute and fun. Other shows, like the X-Files, teased viewers for years with unresolved sexual tension. In kids shows most romances are, appropriate for their target viewers, mild, sweet relationships based more on self-conscious flirting and blushing than on complex and conflicted feelings or deep passions - which is pretty realistic when the characters are young teens or even mid-teens. Some of these relationships are really well done - Finn and Flame Princess, Dipper and Pacifica (yeah I ship them), the early stages of Katara and Aang (before the showrunners imbued this childhood crush with cosmic significance), Steven and Connie, etc. Catra and Adora, though, are different. Their love story is not a side plot or a sub plot, it’s the heart of the show. It isn’t a childhood crush, it’s a very messy and passionate relationship between two young adults. She-Ra is an emotionally complex lesbian romance just as much as it is a thrilling action/adventure show. Everything about their relationship is baked into the show’s plot, its themes, hell even its musical score. The dramatic tension between Catra and Adora is not the result of stretching out a flirtation for ratings, but a coherent dramatic arc that runs through the entire show. As Noelle said, he made Catradora so central that execs couldn’t take it out without ruining the show. And the show is better for it. In this series of posts I’m going to try to show why, as well as showing why She-Ra is such a fantastic love story.

First off, let’s talk about how Catra and Adora’s character arcs are foils for each other, and how they come together and apart through the series. This is actually a post that I’ve been working on for a while but I keep summarizing the show rather than cutting to the chase, so I’m not going to recite many plot points so much as sketch out what’s going on with the dramatic structure at the time. But also, let’s talk about what each character’s arc is saying, and how they are commenting on each other. Spoiler alert: Catra’s arc is a subversion and critique of stories of empowerment through ruthless self-assertion and revenge, while Adora’s arc is a subversion and critique of chosen one narratives and stories of self-denial and self-transcendence.

When the show starts, Adora and Catra are shown as rivals and friends - their first scene starts the recurring motif of them reaching out for each other as one of them dangles above an abyss, as well as establishing their flirtatious banter and easy camaraderie. We quickly learn that these two young women plan to conquer the world together. These scenes and later flashbacks show Catra and Adora as deeply enmeshed in each others lives, to the point where neither of them (but especially Catra) have clear identities outside of one another. There is so much genuine love on both sides before Adora leaves, but also resentment, envy and fear, especially on Catra’s side, as well as a protectiveness on Adora’s side that deprives Catra of her autonomy. They are both being abused by Shadow Weaver - Catra physically  and emotionally, Adora emotionally. It wouldn’t be too much to say that Shadow Weaver holds Catra hostage to control Adora (this is why critiques that Adora abandoned Catra to be abused are actually kind of messed up, since they accept Shadow Weaver’s premise that Adora is responsible for what Shadow Weaver does to Catra). In addition, Catra and Adora actually see the world incredibly differently. Adora already sees the world in terms of right, wrong and her destiny to right wrongs - this is why it’s important for her  to accept the Horde’s obvious lies - she couldn’t keep living if she didn’t. Catra, on the other hand, sees the world solely in terms of survival and personal loyalty - everything for her is about preserving herself and the person she cares about - Adora.

Then, when Adora finds the sword, she leaves because it’s the right thing to do. Catra doesn’t even have a concept of ‘the right thing to do’ being something she should care about, or perhaps, something she can care about as an irredeemably evil, awful fuck-up. So at Thaymor neither one understands where the other is coming from, and Catra and Adora begin to part. This is the first turning point in their relationship. Adora chooses duty over what she desires, Catra chooses to protect herself (such as she sees it) and nurse her sense of betrayal and abandonment.

Their relationship until Promise is a kind of weird Frenemy thing that is fascinating to watch and sold me on the show. Neither one wants to fully admit to themselves that the other is now their enemy, neither one has given up on changing the other’s mind. Each is furious at the other, and desperate to see her again at the same time. There’s a lot of heartache and just as much sexual tension, especially at Princess Prom. Both of them come alive when they fight each other (more about that in a later post). But they’re already growing apart - Adora embracing her destiny as She-Ra, Catra rising in the ranks for the Horde. Adora now has the purpose she always wanted, plus other friends and a sense of being chosen to do something great, while Catra now has power - the means to protect herself from people like Shadow Weaver as well as the vindication she had always been denied, and even the opportunity to beat Shadow Weaver at her own game.

The next turning point is Promise. Holy fuck, this episode. It’s an episode that is even more heartbreaking after you’ve watched the show because you know just how much worse things are going to get, and yet, it’s a necessary part of both of their character arcs. Even through season 1 Catra and Adora had remained very much enmeshed in each others lives in an increasingly fucked up way as they grew apart but refused to turn away from each other. Even though they aren’t -exactly- a romantic couple (Adora doesn’t recognize and acknowledge her feelings until the last episode of Season 5), Season 1 of She-Ra is one of the worst breakups I have seen on TV. As I said in a couple of previous posts, this is the kind of shit that the Mountain Goats write songs about. Everything that was poisoning their love for each other even before episode 1 bubbles to the surface and combines with them fighting on opposite sides of the war to make a truly fucked up situation. In the end, it’s Catra that makes the choice to turn away from Adora. This isn’t a -good- decision. It’s spiteful, and destructive, and based on an outright deluded understanding of their relationship (inspired by Light Hope’s manipulations and her own issues), but it’s in some ways a necessary decision. Catra has been so wrapped up in Adora for so long that she isn’t going to be able to figure out who -she- is without cutting Adora out of her life. And the same is true of Adora.

But each of them do this in about the worst way possible. Catra embraces destruction, ambition, manipulation and outright cruelty, turning the tactics of her abusers against them and against everyone around her. She first triumphs over Shadow Weaver and manipulates Entrapta into trying to corrupt Etheria itself. Meanwhile Adora ‘lets go’ and commits herself to the self-denying mantle of She-Ra. Over the next several seasons, their respective paths will nearly lead both Catra and Adora to their deaths (in the Season 4 finale).

For the next season (counting season 2 and 3 as one) Catra and Adora are still closely linked, but as enemies. Still, there’s more than enough flirtation between them (that ‘Hey Catra’ in the first episode of Season 2 is something else), and especially on Adora’s side we see her hold back with Catra, and often take responsibility for the harm Catra inflicts, just like she had when they were kids. Yet they still drift apart - after facing off every other episode in Season 1, they spend less and less time on screen together through season 2 and 3. Catra continues her ascent to power and descent into villainy while Adora becomes more of a stressed out mess as she takes the fate of the world and the wellbeing of everyone she cares about on her admittedly broad shoulders. Catra’s one moment of vulnerability is rewarded by Shadow Weaver’s betrayal and her exile, then Catra triumphs in ruthless badass fashion through sheer desperation and aggression. In the Crimson Wastes, we see Catra at her most independent, and she almost seems happy. But once Adora shows up and Catra hears about Shadow Weaver, she’s sucked back into the worst of her resentments, and she makes very clear that being happy is less important to her than making sure Adora is miserable.

This changes everything. Catra completely breaks with reality and tries to kill Adora, herself and the world rather than lose to Adora and Shadow Weaver (I do think it’s important to remember that she does that after Shadow Weaver nearly kills her). Catra betrays everyone around her when she exiles Entrapta, threatens Scopria and lies to Hordak. Then she flips the switch. When Adora tries to fix things, Catra fights to her own death to make sure that the world disintegrates with her. For her part, Adora fights first to understand what is wrong with the world and then to fix it. Finally she tells Catra that destroying the world is her choice and she has to live with it, decks her, and then sees her off with a death glare once the portal is closed. With this, Adora writes Catra off even if, as she says later, she never never hated her. By doing that, Adora casts off the guilt that had dogged her and takes responsibility for her own life rather than someone else’s - this is actually a huge step for her, and one that will become more important in Season 4.

Season 4 is in many ways the nadir of their relationship. They only see each other once during the entire season, in Fluterrina, when Adora tries to blast Catra, much to the latter’s shock. There’s a sense in that scene that Catra is trying to have the same flirtatious enmity she used to have with Adora, and Adora is having none of it. Catra almost seems hurt by this, which is an early hint at how isolated Catra is beginning to feel. Catra spends the rest of the season at her highest and lowest. On the one hand she spends most of 12 episodes winning by every standard she has ever claimed to care about, besting Hordak himself in single combat and making herself co-ruler of the Horde and coming within a day’s march of ending the Rebellion. In many ways it is the ultimate empowerment fantasy - the abused young woman has defeated her abusers, showed up everyone who doubted her and forced everyone to respect her. But I think it’s striking that the show starts with her and Adora dreaming of conquering the world together and in Season 4 Catra nearly succeeds in conquering it alone, almost like she was trying to live out her old shared fantasy while proving she didn’t need her former best friend. 

At the same time, Catra is clearly miserable. She’s always been unhappy, but in Season 4 we see her completely isolated and lying to herself and everyone who will listen in a desperate attempt to justify her actions. Turning the tactics of Hordak and Shadow Weaver against them to gain power and then against Scorpia and Entrapta to maintain it haven’t vindicated Catra, they’ve made her more and more alone as Entrapta is exiled and Scorpia drifts away. Meanwhile Catra reaches out to Double Trouble, and her interactions with them reek of a kind of desperate desire to have someone in her life (the feeling of their interaction is of an unhealthy casual relationship where one partner becomes emotionally invested and the other takes advantage of that while denying the other the closeness they desire). As people leave her, one after the other, it becomes clearer and clearer that Catra doesn’t want power at all - she wants connection, friendship, love, and power is a very poor replacement. As I said in my long Catra rant, Season 4 is both her ‘Walter White as a Catgirl’ season and the beginning of her redemption. Everything comes to head when Sparkles destroys everything Catra has tried to achieve, Double Trouble delivers those harsh truths and Horde Prime shows up and makes it all irrelevant, just highlighting how futile all her struggles and sacrifices and crimes have been.

Meanwhile Adora spends Season 4 becoming her own her and her own woman. After telling off Catra, she grows more and more disillusioned with Light Hope and critical of Glimmer (though the latter has more than a shade of her old habit of taking responsibility for others - Adora’s development is not linear). She’s gained the courage and confidence to strike out her own path, not just follow a destiny. At the season’s end she once again breaks with her best friend to do what is right, and discards the destiny that she was being prepared for. But in this case she isn’t chasing one packaged destiny for another, instead she’s making her own choice and literally shattering the thing that she thought gave her life purpose. It’s badass, and heartbreaking, and along with decking Catra and jumping after Catra into the abyss (see below) it’s the perfect Adora moment.

In many ways Season 5 starts with Catra and Adora farther apart than they have ever been. They aren’t even enemies anymore, they’re completely out of each other’s lives. And both Catra and Adora are lost at the beginning of Season 5 - Catra is useless and alone on Prime’s ship, completely defeated despite ostensibly being on the winning side, and she goes through the motions of her normal plotting without any particular conviction and none of her normal flair. Meanwhile Adora is even more miserable and self-destructive than usual, throwing herself at Horde Bots and working herself until she drops of exhaustion. In a very real way they both stay lost until they have a chance to help the other. Catra takes responsibility for what she’s done and what she can do, saves Glimmer (at least partly for Adora’s sake), apologizes to Adora, and sacrifices herself. Adora only seems to come alive when she decides to turn around, face Prime, and save the cat. And when she does, Catra and Adora’s arcs, which had separated so completely in season 4, come crashing back together to end the series.

Adora during Save the Cat is such a contrast with the uncertain, hesitant and self-destructive wreck we’ve seen so far in Season 5. This is possibly her craziest plan in 3 years of mostly cazy plans, but she never wavers or questions herself. Even when Chipped Catra appears and we see Adora’s heart break while we watch, Adora doesn’t back down or relent. She keeps at it even as the tears stream down her face. She fights better trying to save Catra without She-Ra’s powers than she fought at the Battle of Bright Moon with them. Catra’s just about as desperate - we see her cry and plead, and now is probably as good a time to any to point out how amazing a job both VAs did throughout the show, but especially in this episode, and how good a job the board artists did. 

Seeing each other for the first time in a year, and only the second time since Catra blew everything up, Catra and Adora are probably the rawest and least restrained we’ve ever seen them. There’s barely any banter, no bravado, and no pretense that they are anything other than two women who desperately need each other (Prime doesn’t help with ‘You broke my heart’.) Then Catra is flung to her death, Adora jumps after her, breaks both her legs in the fall (we see her crawl to Catra, as though she couldn’t walk) and becomes the real She-Ra. It’s such a triumphant and deeply queer moment seeing a woman transformed into a warrior goddess to protect the woman she loves, and it’s the reason that, as dark as it is, Save the Cat is my Comfort Food episode.

Let’s not sleep on Taking Control, though. This episode is like a microcosm of what this show does best, especially the A plot with Catra and Adora. Catra’s reversion to lashing out at everyone and her refusal to be open to Adora shows just how much of a struggle this whole ‘being good and trying to connect to people’ thing is. Catra’s outburst gives Adora a chance to stand up for herself and refuse to be Catra’s punching bag, while also not trying to control her. Adora’s ultimatum gives Catra a chance to reach out to Adora (quite literally), and allow herself to be vulnerable. In this episode, we see just how far Catra and Adora have come since the messed up stew of their relationship in Season 1. Adora lets Catra be responsible for her own actions; Catra lets herself be vulnerable to Adora and takes responsibility for her actions. They’re both better people and better friends and better partners than they were, and the show has shown this in a strikingly nuanced and realistic way. 

The important thing to note in the next few episodes of Season 5 isn’t just how much closer Catra and Adora get to each other and how much they flirt (So much. So much, y’all) but just how -happy- they are. We see both of them transformed in the other’s presence. Basically, since they’ve parted, both Catra and Adora have been defined in no small part by how miserable they often are. They have both had their triumphs and their lighter moments, but there’s been a sense of melancholy dogging both Catra and Adora since episode 1. And now that they’re together again, that lifts, somewhat. Catra’s verbal barbs have lost their venom, and she can openly show how much she cares for Adora and even Bow and Glimmer. She’s still herself - snarky, cynical, somewhat devious - but she’s not engaged in a self-destructive zero-sum struggle with everyone around her. Meanwhile Adora has spent 4 seasons being a neurotic and sometimes nearly joyless mess who takes responsibility for everything and often doesn’t let herself enjoy anything other than the odd BFS group hug (exceptions include trying to uh...impress Huntara and reveling with the butterfly ladies of Elberron in Flutterina).  Around Catra, though, she’s a cocky, swaggering jock who gives as good as she gets. It’s a side of Adora we’ve only seen hints of before, and one that’s so much more confident and joyful even as the world is ending around her. Apart, Catra had tried to protect and vindicate herself with power and conquest, while Adora had tried to forget herself in duty and sacrifice. Together, they can be themselves again. This dynamic is crucial to the show’s portrayal of Catra and Adora’s romance because it doesn’t just show how much they love each other, but how they’re -good- for each other now that they’ve grown as people, and that they are so much better than they were when they were apart.

Until Shadow Weaver shows up. Their old abuser reintroduces tensions but even then things are different than they were. Now Catra isn’t just resentful of how Shadow Weaver prefers Adora - she’s  protective of Adora, which is clearest in Failsafe when she calls Shadow Weaver out for being willing to sacrifice Adora. And while Adora takes the Failsafe, it isn’t to follow her destiny or because she has a death wish - it’s because she loves her friends, and she is the only one who has any hope of doing this and living (though Catra’s suggestion that Shadow Weaver take it is a good one). And finally, when Catra leaves Adora, it isn’t because she hates Adora, nor, despite what she says, is it because she really thinks that Adora chose Shadow Weaver. At least, not exactly. It’s because Catra loves Adora, and can admit that to herself, and can’t stay around and watch the woman she loves sacrifice herself rather than choosing Catra. Before Catra leaves, she asks Adora ‘What do you want?” It’s a question that echoes Shadow Weaver’s speech in Episode 1: ‘isn’t this what you always wanted since you could want anything?’ As much as Adora has grown as a person, and defined herself and stood up for what she thinks is right, she still has never answered that question - it’s never been ‘what do I want’ but ‘what do I have to do?’ and that’s how Adora answers Catra’s question. This is Adora’s last gasp as a self-transcending hero, letting go of what she wants (not that she ever dared articulate what that was) in order to do what must be done. And it nearly kills her and dooms the universe, because Adora can’t be the hero that she needs to be by being anyone less than herself.

But it’s losing Catra that inspires Adora to tell off Shadow Weaver for good (not that she’d ever really warmed to her after season 1). And it’s love for Adora that inspires Catra to stand up to Shadow Weaver and demand that she do the right thing. In both cases, Catra and Adora aren’t just standing up to their abuser, but holding her to account for the harm she’s caused, and it’s the love that they have for each other that inspires them to do this. In Catra’s case in particular her refusal to let Shadow Weaver weasel out of finding Adora is a much greater triumph over Shadow Weaver than beating her up and breaking her mask in Season 1 - it’s proof not so much to Shadow Weaver but to Catra herself that Catra really is better than this and that she deserves better than this. It’s not turning her abuser’s tactics against her, but truly holding her to a moral standard and demanding that she do the right thing.

And then there’s Catra and Adora together at the heart. Catra has already come back for Adora and stayed to the end, choosing to die with her even if she can’t share a life together (not out of some death wish, but because Adora needs her). And Adora, who’s been avoiding answering the question for three fucking years, finally let’s herself want Catra when Catra finally confesses her love (breaking the last of her self-protective shields) and asks Adora to stay -for her-. And by admitting what she wants, Adora can truly be at peace with herself and be the hero she needs to be, lesbianism saves the universe, The End.

So anyway, that’s how Catra and Adora’s stories are woven together and how they compliment and comment on each other. Narrativiely, Adora and Catra start together, come apart, find something of themselves, and truly find themselves and each other when they are reunited. Thematically, they are critiquing seemingly opposing narrative tropes - empowerment narratives and narratives of self sacrifice. But by showing the flaws in both types of story and showing how neither self-seeking empowerment nor self-negating self sacrifice can actually make us happy, She-Ra asks and answers more profound questions than most prestige dramas for adults do. I’ll get into how the show sells the idea that the power of love can bring us happiness (and save the world) in a future post. But next up, I’m going to celebrate just how much Catra and Adora’s relationship revels in ambiguity, complexity and contradiction and so tells a grown up love story in a kid’s show.

[gumnut-logic]

Thunderfam Appreciation Post

I’m giving this a new post to prevent scroll city, but the original and several reblogs can be found by clicking the above link. Also, it’s an excuse to post a piccy of Virg cos any excuse, really :D

Many thanks to @willow-salix for writing this question list :D

Before I start, I just want to say that I value every member of this fandom. I’m often hopeless at communicating in group settings so I don’t speak to many peeps, but that is my failing, not anyone else’s. You are an amazing group and you have supported me and each other just brilliantly over the last nearly three years that I have been hanging with you guys. Thank you ever so much for all your wonderful support and encouragement. I’ve had so much fun and created so much stuff…you guys are amazing. Thunderfam rock!

Please note that my memory is pathetic and I will fail to mention everyone. Please do not take any offence if you aren’t listed below. That does not mean I don’t value you, I do, it just means I have swiss cheese between my ears.

-o-o-o-

Your favourite writer of your favourite boy.

@i-am-chidorixblossom  You are a whumper and comforter after my soul. You speak the Virg :D @vegetacide I adore your turn of phrase and your description is to die for.

The person who's stories you will always read.

I try to read most fics that come across my dash, but there are a few that have me jumping up and down. @i-am-chidorixblossom , @vegetacide , @tsarinatorment , @scribbles97 , @the-lady-razorsharp , @janetm74 Of course, I regularly fail at this as some of you write a huge amount of fic and I am often playing catch up, but fic!

Who wrote the first fic you read in this fandom.

I landed on FF.net back in May 2018. I immediately ran into @the-lady-razorsharp who I knew from another fandom ten years prior and she was absolutely wonderful, drawing me in and introducing me around. I gobbled up several of her fics in the process.

Person you can talk to for the longest without a break.

I am hard to get started, persistence is required, but once started, it is usually hard to shut me up. @scribbles97 @vegetacide and @tsarinatorment have all discovered that. Dangle a Virg, a plotline and stand back.

Person you can't be trusted to be left alone with.

Um, @vegetacide and I have plotted out the entirety of Warm Rain together…poor Virg. Add @the-lady-razorsharp into the equation and Virgil ends up with a beard, dressed in leather and riding a Harley – that was a hilarious evening.  Between @tsarinatorment and @janetm74 Virgil gets grey hairs and has to go rescue Scott – because Scott inevitably ends up in the story :D  @scribbles97 gets the blame for Gentle Rain – expand your horizons she said ::headdesk:: But then there was the time I left one random line about Eos visiting Virgil in the shower and went to bed. I woke up to hilarity and chaos as Thunderfam took the idea and ran with it! Love you guys :D

Person whose fic made you cry the most.

I know there were at least two fics that made me cry, but for the life of me I can’t identify them. I did cry writing my own fic – Flannel – and don’t tend to reread it for that reason. Purupuss traumatised me with A Quiet Day to the point I had to put it down and walk away for a bit ::wails::

Person whose fic made you laugh the most.

I have no idea. I know there are fic out there and I know I’ve read it, but without a complete list of everything I’ve read, I don’t have a clue.

Person whose fic made you think the most.

Aaaargh, I don’t have a master list so can’t remember everything. Staring at my paltry favourites list on FF.net (which was mostly gathered three years ago and never maintained), Purupuss’ ‘Brothers in Arms’ and her whole Quiet series has me wanting to write a Scott-Virgil telepathic fic (and she has given me permission to run with the idea, I just haven’t actioned it yet). Counterpoint by Swallow and Amazon is amazing and likely contributed to Sotto Voce.

Person you have laughed with the most.

I’m really not liking this ultimate one person idea. I’ve laughed with a lot of people in this fandom. I’ve candy cannoned a bunch of you as well :P There has been mad plot cackling, evil conspiring, fic written to stir pots and delight on purpose. Hell, I’ve even written fic that was purposefully a giant virtual hug because I’m so far away that even if half the world wasn’t in isolation, I couldn’t hug most of you. Sure, I talk with some of you more than others, and there is laughter in those chats…oh, god, so much cackling, poor, poor Tracy boys. But then there are also so many smiles both vocalised and not. Thunderfam is one of my happy places. Bring on the belly laughs :D

Your comfort fic that you'll go back and read again on a bad day.

I will often resort to my own fic when I’m really down simply because it helps me get to sleep :D and it is kinda tailored to me ::grins::  (and my memory is that bad I often forget what I wrote anyway – yes, it is that bad) But there are also a few on my FF.net favourites list. Mostly hurt/comfort in a Virg flavour. Cheesycheese, nhsweetcherry, A Small Rescue by Nalina, Breathe Easy and Under the Weather by @loopstagirl – several of hers, in fact – the Virg ones :D Pretty much anything that has Virg fainting and being looked after apparently :D Chiddi and Veggie fic, of course.

Favourite piece of fan art.

I have never been so honoured by artists before. This fandom has some amazing skills and I have been gifted some beautiful works. You guys are amazing (I keep saying it like a broken record, but you are).

Again, I’m stuck on having to list one and I can’t. I think Fanart Appreciation Month in January pretty much summed up my opinion.

Who have you known the longest in the fandom.

@the-lady-razorsharp followed by @vegetacide both wonderful peeps. I can’t miss out on @weirdburketeer either for her amazing support almost from day one.

Favourite OC.

I have to say that I really enjoy reading about Ray from @i-am-chidorixblossom ‘s fics :D He is so gentle and kind and just ::sigh:: Virg likes him lots :D Selene by @willow-salix is, of course, a major presence in the fandom and amazingly written. @hedwigstalons ‘ Claire is lovely.

Person who supports your work the most.

The Thunderfam? There have been some wonderful people who support all the time. @hedwigstalons  @cg29 @janetm74 @weirdburketeer in particular have been amazing support liking and commenting on just about everything I write. I honestly don’t know how they do it. Plus several peeps over on FF.net and Ao3 who support me over there.

And then there are the poor souls who put up with me in chat and listen to my wibblies and whining and character checks and field random chunks of writing that get thrown their way. @scribbles97 @vegetacide @the-lady-razorsharp  @tsarinatorment @i-am-chidorixblossom @onereyofstarlight @godsliltippy  @willow-salix @janetm74 all have had random passages thrown at them at all times of the day and night by a crazy me begging for feedback. Does this work? Is this in character? Am I insane? What the hell is Scott doing? Is this John??? I give up, tell me what to do? Virgil is driving me insane! So, um, yeah

Person who's progress you are the most proud of.

I love those peeps who appear in fandom who start off poking around commenting and generally being lovely and then all of a sudden get out their own pens and start writing and they are frickin’ amazing! Both @janetm74 and @hedwigstalons come to mind in this department. Like holy cow – ‘here is my first fic and I’m not sure’ ::reads it:: Omigod! Where did you come from? That was amazing. Sit down here now, keep doing that writing thing, bloody hell! I think being brave enough to pick up a pen and join in is a major thing :D

Person who's story you think is underrated and should be read by more people.

If I find fic I like, I reblog it and shout about it. What I like is definitely skewed in a Virgil direction and this dictates often what I’m going to read first. I can’t reblog what I haven’t read. So, this equation will always be skewed by ‘reasons I haven’t read a fic’ which mostly involves either Virgil or the fact I’m juggling RL. So, my answer to this is if I think a fic needs to be shouted about, I shout about it.

Something you think people would say about you.

She’s nutty.

Silliest 'thing' you do with someone.

I’ve been known to write fic on the fly directly into chat windows to try and distract peeps going through shitty times.

Favourite pairing you now Stan because of someone's fic.

Virgil/Kayo because of @vegetacide for reasons I have blamed her for multiple times. @the-lady-razorsharp and @weirdburketeer were accessories to the fact.

Favourite headcanon from someone's fic.

Um, Virgil and coffee? I got that from somewhere and it has infiltrated my fic…a lot.

Ultimately, though, I feel most people I interact with contribute to my fic and how I’m feeling. This has been a wonderful experience. I try to return the support as much as I can, but sometimes it is a juggle between writing more, my stupid fluctuating mood, the demands of RL and my own creative drive. I hope I’ve helped a few peeps, because you guys have certainly helped me ::major group hug::

And yes, I hug a lot, because to be honest, I have no other descriptor to communicate how I feel, so you get buckets of hugs :D

Tagging the Thunderfam. Feel free to grab these questions and run with them. You’re all part of the gang whether you write, read, art, gif, screenshot, chat, babble, stare at Virgil all day...I know I do a lot of staring.

Nutty

(Thunderfam rocks!)

[dmsden]

Campaign Basics - Filling Up Our Sandbox

Hello, Gentle Readers. In this month’s Campaign Basics, we’re going to look at what we’ve got so far and where we go from here in fleshing out our campaign arc. We’re also going to look at some tricks for allowing player agency while making sure they won’t miss any of the important plot points we want to use to tie into our Angel of Chaos storyline.

So far, we have our setting (the Beyond the Borderlands campaign I created in the Worldbuilding articles in this blog), our homebase town of Oathford, a major adversary (Adziel, the Angel of Chaos), and some themes and adventure seeds. But even before we sit down and have a Session Zero, I want to put together some more ideas for adventures to tempt the PCs.

You see, I love the idea of a Sandbox campaign, where the players just have a huge world to explore, but, since we have a story to tell, we want to make sure that the PCs are rewarded for their choices, but also that they don’t miss the underlying story. To ensure this, I’ve recently been a fan of what I call the “Sandbox with Benefits” approach to adventure creation.

Basically, I create plot elements I want the PCs to encounter. Once I know what the PCs are off to do, I figure out a way to incorporate those story elements into whatever they’re doing. In my current campaign, I knew I wanted the PCs to encounter a rogue Psion named Tarkantus very early, as he was the first layer of things. He would reference the White Lady, a figure who would have a lot of meaning for the campaign later on. But I didn’t want to railroad the PCs into Tarkantus’ lair. Instead, I dangled several plots at them - a caravan-guarding job, a missing farmhand, and a chance to collect rare roots for a local alchemist.

I had a basic link to Tarkantus for each of these plots. If they’d taken the caravan job, they would’ve been attacked by bandits in Tarkantus’ employ, and following their trail would’ve led them to him. If they looked into the missing farmhand, he had been kidnapped by Tarkantus’ minions, and looking for him would’ve led to the encounter. If they had sought out the roots, they would’ve found themselves in competition with Takantus’ minions, who were also trying to collect the rare resource. You get the idea. Each adventure hook would’ve ultimately led to the possibility of a confrontation with Tarkantus, but the PCs had no way of knowing that.

In the third article, we had an adventure involving a harpy named Jetharia who, upon dying, would’ve said something like, “The Angel will avenge me”, thus letting the players know that there was something up. In going back and reading the older articles, I realize that my intention had been to give them a hook to Shieldwell Keep through a plot against the Castellan’s life in the first adventure. I also wanted to create a bit of a mini-boss, since I like to look ahead to later adventures. Sure, it could be the Evil Cleric in Caves of Chaos, but he’s only Challenge Rating 2. Since I think of levels 1-4 as the first tier of adventuring, I want an adversary around challenge rating 4. I also want the PCs to get their first taste of “Oh, hey, there’s something very odd going on here.” To this end, I begin to put together a new NPC to be the mini-boss at the end of level 4 - Mehethrass, a Couatl.

Given that couatls are generally lawful good, most PCs probably haven’t fought one. They’re also pretty formidable foes, given that they are immune to damage from non-magical weapons. Mehethrass is going to be confusing but also really give the PCs a run for their money. He won’t be alone, since he’s not a legendary critter and therefore not really up for soloing a party of adventurers, but he’ll be memorable. He also won’t likely fight to the death, making it possible for him to fail his Master and show up later on as a lieutenant to a more powerful foe.

In order to begin to foreshadow this early in the campaign, and to tie back the idea of a plot against the Castellan, in Jetharia’s lair, I would likely put a letter from Mehethrass talking about the plot in somewhat veiled terms, perhaps referencing “our friend in the Keep”, “the impediment from the Keep shouldn’t be around much longer”, and advising her to send a report to “the Master of the Caves”. This ties a bunch of plot threads together and gives the PCs some solid leads. If they’re a good party, they will likely go to the Keep to try and aid the Castellan, but his guards are unlikely to let this unknown party too close to their lord. They might find themselves exploring the Caves of Chaos in order to find this “Master” and try and reveal more about his plans.

Now, maybe the PCs won’t take you up on the harpy plot when you dangle it in front of them. Maybe they’ll head to Quasqueton first, or the Caves of Chaos. In this case, you simply adapt similar elements to the new location. Maybe in Quasqueton, the PCs encounter some goblins. Among their effects are a letter from Mehethrass telling the goblins to determine if there’s anything there that can aid their Angel and advising them to report to Master of the Caves whatever they find. Or maybe they go to the Caves first, in which case they might find a letter from Mehethrass in the evil priest’s effects. The point is to let the PCs know by the end of the first adventure that there’s an Angel, a plot against the Castellan, an enemy in the Keep, and someone named Mehethrass who seems to be coordinating local forces of Chaos.

Next time, we’re going to take a look at some allies and rewards that the PCs might get in the first few levels to help them against the forces they face. Until then, may the dice fall ever in your favor.

[michelles-garden-of-evil]

Episode 45 Review: Bob Costello’s First Episode

{ YouTube: 1 | 2 | 3 }

{ Full Synopses/Recaps: Debby Graham | Bryan Gruszka }

At long last, welcome back to my review series for Strange Paradise, a show increasingly living up to its name. In 1969 PT, the audience for this episode--primarily young people and housewives smitten with Colin Fox--is watching Jacques threaten Alison’s life if Vangie tells anyone about the events on Maljardin after leaving. Meanwhile in our timeline, the story takes a different, more bizarre direction, featuring an allegedly evil rabbit, a bloodied locket that once belonged to Erica Desmond, and an emergency séance that ends in a poisoning.

Now that former Dark Shadows staff member Robert Costello has taken the helm as producer, there will be many changes to the show, including a change in writers. Co-creator and former headwriter Ian Martin is gone now, and in his place we have George Salverson and Ron Chudley. Salverson was a prolific writer for Canadian radio and television, writing (among many other works) a 1949 radio adaptation of Dracula that’s very good and at least four scripts for the 1967 historical comedy TV series Hatch’s Mill[1], which also starred Cosette Lee and Sylvia Feigel and featured Kurt Schiegl as Big Kurt. Chudley was an up-and-coming writer who, like fellow SP writers Ian Martin and Harding Lemay, became better-known for his later work. He is still alive as far as I can tell and works as a novelist and playwright. The resume on his personal website lists a wide variety of works, including a series of mystery novels, one published play (After Abraham), and many scripts for different media, including “over one hundred [TV] scripts, for CBC and independents.” Salverson and Chudley will only write the next five episodes, but one of these (Episode 47) will be among the best of Maljardin.

From now until Episode 149, all episodes will open with new, Dark Shadows-style narrations delivered by cast members. The first, read by Angela Roland (Vangie), is rather vague and--surprisingly--doesn’t recap Holly’s poisoning:

Death lives in this great house on Maljardin, striking as swiftly as a bolt of lightning. Legend says it is caused by the evil of this man [Jacques Eloi des Mondes], three hundred years dead:

But others believe it is something more, like the Reverend Matthew Dawson.

The reason why she mentions Matt of all characters is because he appears first in this episode, lamenting the fact that Alison hasn’t yet verified whether or not his twenty-year-old stalkee Holly survived the poisoning attempt at the end of last episode. “Murder is a three-hundred-year-old tradition here on Maljardin,” he comments, speaking to the portrait which he refuses to believe is animate. “Do traditions ever die?”

“Murder, Reverend Dawson?” Vangie asks, which triggers a discussion of who could have poisoned the wine that Holly drank. Was the culprit her mother who poured it (and whom Vangie and Raxl have identified as a dangerous witch)? Was it Raxl, who filled the decanter? And could Holly have drank the cyanide that Jean Paul took from the lab in Episode 23, which has been missing since? We soon get an answer to the third question, courtesy of Holly’s mother Elizabeth:

Well, that was quick.

“They tried to murder my daughter,” she accuses. “What will they do to the rest of us?”

“They?” Matt asks, confused. “Who?”

“I filled the glass, Raxl filled the decanter, and where was Jean Paul?” She asks about the master of Maljardin with a tone of accusation, evidently suspecting him of playing some role in the attempted murder. This is the first time on this show that one of Colin Fox’s contractually obligated absences has been worked into the plot in a way that makes sense, and I think it’s brilliant. His absence from the second séance provides her with a realistic and believable reason to accuse him of having something to do with the poisoning.

As for what Jean Paul was doing during the events of last episode...

Less realistic or believable, IMO.

He appears to have spent the night rabbit-sitting in his bedroom the whole time while trying unsuccessfully to interrogate it. “What are you?” he asks the Rabbit of Evil, who ignores him because it knows which of them is really in control of the island now. “A creature that cannot exist on this island and yet does exist! My...Erica...”

Raxl cuts him off when she enters the room, bringing tea as a pretext. “The master is not safe with a devil spirit in the room,” she tells him, no doubt wanting the fluffy devil spirit back so she can sacrifice it.

Jean Paul must see through Raxl’s flimsy pretext, given how dramatically he refuses the refreshments she brought. “Leave me, Raxl,” he hisses, mugging for the camera. “I do not want your tea!” Even after she offers to taste it first, he refuses.

Raxl leaves to visit the Great Hall, where she arrives just in time to overhear Elizabeth accusing her of poisoning Holly. After pissing off Elizabeth by giving her the stink-eye, Raxl sends Vangie upstairs to report to Jean Paul with the locket.

Raxl giving Elizabeth the stink-eye.

Elizabeth tries using the look as evidence that Raxl is working against them. Vangie doesn’t buy it.

While ranting to Quito in the crypt, Raxl recaps what she knows about Erica, the locket, and the Rabbit of Evil. She speaks of herself in the third person: “Raxl cannot tell them because they are fools!” This is a new thing, which Ian Martin’s Raxl never did. It’s also the second time this happens in the episode; the first instance occurs in the tea scene. where she asks, “Does the master wish Raxl to taste the tea before he drinks?” I don’t like it. I think referring to herself in the third person makes Raxl sound less intelligent than she’s proven herself to be.

Meanwhile, in Jean Paul’s room, Vangie dangles the sparkling locket like a pendulum before Jean Paul’s eyes:

Vangie: "Jean Paul Desmond…look at the locket…focus on the locket…focus as I swing it back and forth like a pendulum…you are now getting very relaxed…now, Jean Paul Desmond…now you will stop being mean and grumpy as you have been since the capsule malfunctioned…you will go back to being polite and charming like before and stop breaking everybody’s hearts…you will confess your love to Dr. Alison Carr…you will also stop looking constipated…Jean Paul Desmond…Jean Paul Desmond…"

I wish. No, she isn’t actually using it to hypnotize Jean Paul, just showing it to him so that he can inspect it. He verifies that it belonged to her and claims that he “put [it] on Erica’s throat with [his] own hands. I saw it sealed into the capsule with her, with these same eyes that see it now.”

The line above is a retcon. In Episode 4, Erica was not wearing any visible locket when the men from the Cryonics Society insert her body into the cryocapsule. Jean Paul entered the crypt to see her after they had already sealed her in.

“Now, take it, Jean Paul,” Vangie orders. “Feel it. It is real!” She says this as though Jean Paul had just denied it being Erica’s, which is the opposite of his reaction. “I can touch it no more! Take it back!”

She hands it to him and he takes it. Even though he says it’s real and so does she, he still wants confirmation. “Touch it, Vangie!” he begs. “You must! How am I to save my mind? How else am I to know if it is true and real, what I am seeing?”

“Do you doubt your mind, Jean Paul?” Vangie asks, although it’s obvious that’s the only explanation for his command.

“This is the mystery,” he says. “This is the terrible fact I must find out, without this.” It’s not clear what specifically he means by this in either of those sentences. “Vangie, how can you make a contact?”

Not wanting to subject herself to a third dangerous séance on the island, Vangie tells him, “I’m sorry, Jean Paul. The séance is impossible. The angry spirit that came into this house with the locket and the black rabbit is still here, waiting. It can seize any one of us as it seized Holly. I will not do it!”

But Jean Paul insists that she must, or else “how will [he] be able to save [his] mind?”

“How much are you asking?” Vangie demands. “What are you doing to me? What are you doing to all of us?”

Speechless, Jean Paul doesn’t respond. After Vangie leaves the room, he clutches the locket to his chest. “How am I to save myself and my Erica?” he ponders, his eyes wide with terror.

Down in the Great Hall, Vangie vents to Matt and Elizabeth about how she doesn’t want to put them in danger by holding another séance, throwing the box that was on top of the séance table in anger. Elizabeth, remembering that Jean Paul had once seemed “such a reasonable man,” speculates that one of them may be able to reason with him.

Meanwhile, Jean Paul begins to speculate that someone has opened the capsule and continues his attempted interrogation of the very bored-looking rabbit:

Jean Paul: “Who are you? What are you? If I gave you the poisonous leaves here on Maljardin where nothing lives, would you die, or have you lived and dined on this vile island on poison?” Rabbit of Evil: “...”

Jean Paul: *obviously reading Teleprompter* "Or are you innocent? And if you are, then you would die blameless. Or is Raxl right? Was it evil that brought me the locket or good?"

Jean Paul: *unable to suppress a smile at the ridiculous monologue about the cute animal* "And which are you: good or evil?" Rabbit of Evil: *twitches nose cutely*

This scene is the crowning moment of cute on Maljardin, between Colin Fox’s unsuccessfully suppressed smile and the adorable rabbit twitching its nose at him. Eventually giving up on questioning the animal, he sets it back down in the picnic basket and returns to the matter of the locket.

“Yes!” he declares. “I can find these answers if the capsule is opened. And if there’s nothing there or the locket is there,”--he reads the Teleprompter some more--”then this is false!”

After a brief filler scene between Raxl and Quito--in which she, thankfully, is back to referring to herself in the first person--Matt visits Jean Paul in his room. Attempting to reason with him, the Reverend begs Jean Paul to confess if he is responsible for the things that have happened to Holly, between her being pushed down the stairs, the slashed portrait, and last episode’s poisoning. Jean Paul accuses him of plotting with the others on the island to gaslight him, then describes his new, bizarre theory about Dan removing the locket from the cryocapsule when it allegedly failed and dipping it in blood as part of their plot. But how did Dan get the blood? The only possibility, he believes, is that there was blood on Erica. This provides him with yet another reason to open the capsule: to see where and how Erica was bleeding, which he now claims he remembers happening.

Meanwhile, Raxl and Quito meet in their bedroom to discuss the necessity of finding the conjure doll and the silver pin. And the fact that they’re meeting in their room means...

There he is, again: our mascot!

They leave to search in the Temple of the Serpent shortly after, and we get this well-lit shot of the passageway between the crypt and the temple.

Matt returns to the Great Hall and recaps his conversation with Jean Paul to Vangie, who comes to the conclusion that the situation on Maljardin is hopeless because Jean Paul doesn’t know the truth. At the same time, Raxl prays to the Serpent in the temple to tell her if the “woman-child” Holly should die, to which the answer is “yes.” She then orders Quito to “search” (for the doll and pin) and he screams!

Quito screaming, with the moment’s location in the video of Part 3. Even though it’s not technically a line, I’m going to count this as a line flub because Quito is supposed to be mute.

Later in the Great Hall, Jacques speaks to Jean Paul through the portrait, telling him not to open the capsule. “You will learn nothing,” he argues. “You will finish off Erica for nothing. Don’t you think so? All you can learn is whether that machine works. Is Erica’s body perfectly preserved, or is Erica now something else?”

Obvious foreshadowing is obvious.

Ignoring him, Jean Paul retreats to the crypt, where he grips the capsule and cries, believing he must open it but fearing for Erica’s safety. Raxl finds him there and begs him to open it and let her die naturally, not just so he gets his answers, but also “so that she may have eternal peace with the god that you denied.”

“Are you, too, suggesting that I am mad?” Jean Paul asks.

“Open the capsule, do not open the capsule. If madness is to come, it may come right away," is her cryptic reply.

Jean Paul crying on the capsule from the episode’s final scene.

While not as good as the other Salverson and Chudley episodes to come, Episode 45 shows promise in its focus on Jean Paul’s descent into insanity. Once he realizes that the locket was Erica’s, he constructs a ridiculous conspiracy theory involving his enemy Dan removing it while tampering with the capsule and somehow getting blood on it. He feels tempted to open the capsule despite the danger to her frozen body, and now must choose between risking her permanent death by opening (what Raxl wants) and keeping it shut despite his mounting fears that the uncertainty will drive him mad, so that Jacques can resurrect Erica. The script has its issues and there are some amusing bloopers, but the first episode produced by Robert Costello is engaging and suspenseful, leaving the viewer with questions about what will happen and be revealed in Week 10.

Coming up next: The Bad Subtitle Special for Week 9, followed by two theories about Jean Paul’s new fears regarding Erica and the locket.

{<-- Previous: Episode 44   ||   Next: Episode 46 -->}

Notes

[1] Hatch’s Mill makes for an interesting footnote in SP history. In addition to sharing one writer and three actors in major roles, Peg McNamara (aka Peg Dixon, the first Ada Thaxton) and Patricia Collins (the first Huaco des Mondes) played minor roles in one episode. A scathing 1968 review by critic Douglas Marshall provides the most detailed description of Hatch’s Mill available for free online.

[depizan]

This must be a pretty common “problem” for SWTOR fic writers, but at some point fic canon and game canon start arguing with each other. The things that you just accepted when you first played through suddenly don’t quite fit with how the characters developed. Choices, characters, story points that are just fine in game - maybe even appreciated there! - just don’t quite work for fic. It’s not “fix fic” necessarily, just...oh...that won’t work any more, now what?

And it doesn’t necessarily reflect at all how I feel about plot points or characters who just won’t appear because it no longer works. (I mean, yes, there are characters or plot points I dump because canon made a stupid ass decision, but that’s not the only reason things get changed.) Like, the Agent gets a perfectly interesting (if terrifying) crew and I...enjoy is not quite the right word...appreciate...the storyline? Find it compelling? But Imperial Intelligence is not stupid and Kyrian is a treasonous disaster, so there was never a chance of much of the Agent story (or most of the companions, given how late they show up) making it to ficverse.

And there are things that are somewhere between “doesn’t work” and “stupid ass decision.” I don’t hate the Bounty Hunter story. I suspect it got horribly rushed and would’ve been quite good if the writers had had proper time to work on it, but it is one of the stories I’ve played multiple times in game. However, much of it just super doesn’t work for Savler for a whole pile of reasons.

I like Gault as a character and enjoy him in game. Realistically, however, Savler wouldn’t have taken his deal. She’s just a little bit too Lawful Neutral (Lawful Evil?) about her job. And, possibly more importantly, there’s no way she could trust him. He doesn’t even claim to be trustworthy. She’s just not the sort of person who’s okay working with someone she doesn’t trust. (I’m not going to say that she couldn’t under very specific circumstances work with someone she didn’t trust briefly, but invite them on her crew? Oh hell no.)

But I like Gault and don’t really want to canonize him being given to his assorted enemies to dice for who gets his liver. Savler might think he deserves it, or at least that if he didn’t want to end up in that situation, he should’ve made different life choices, but, well, I’m not sure anyone deserves to be divided up among their enemies or fed in sections to something with horrifying numbers of teeth. So it’s best if he’s just Sir Not Appearing In This Fic and was someone else’s Great Hunt target. Someone a bit less Lawful Neutral/Evil about the whole thing.

On the flip side of that, Savler objects to the Chapter One finale about as much as I do, if not for all of the same reasons. There has to be a way to get the Jedi target alone. It’s safer (on a whole pile of levels) and doesn’t involve ludicrous numbers of innocent bystander casualties. (Savler may be a bit Lawful Neutral/Evil about some aspects of her job, but even she objects to innocent bystander casualties. Also, she’s a bounty hunter not an assassin, damn it.)

Besides, that whole thing always felt off to me. It just doesn’t feel Mandalorian to hire someone to get your revenge. Honestly, what it feels like is a trap. To the point that I’m not sure I could simply fix it by having Savler get Master Whazisface alone somewhere. (Even if she did that, she’d deliver him alive to the Mandalorians, so the rest of the Bounty Hunter story is going to get derailed in weird ways no matter what. Which doesn’t exactly bother me because too much of it is about becoming Mandalorian, which... is not on Savler’s To Do list. For a number of reasons.)

(Though I do wonder if there’s some way to steal Blizz...)

And then there are things I’ve already deemed ficverse canon that I’m having to figure out how to rewrite because what’s in the game Just Doesn’t Work. Risha becoming part of Jezari’s crew is probably the biggest issue there. The game basically just has her dangle the prospect of loads of money in front of the Smuggler and the Smuggler thinks it sounds good. *sigh* It’s kind of a Gault situation, except with a different needed ending. Because the in-game dialogue would end with Risha and her weird cargo left on a Coruscant landing platform (possibly with Corso) because that’s all a big “yeah, no” from Jezari.

Risha is either going to have to hire her (with actual on-hand money!) or trade her services for passage. Jezari does many things, but working for theoretical legendary treasure just isn’t one of them. Particularly not with someone who was apparently working with the guy who stole her ship.

Oh well, I’m rewriting Risha’s backstory anyway. Which means that the treasure hunt gets rewritten. What’s rewriting her intro on top of that? (Hell, I’m rewriting Bowdaar’s intro already, anyway.)

Somehow everything ended up very AU. Even if something vaguely recognizable as the Smuggler storyline (if you squint just right) may stick later stories together. (Which is kind of funny, considering that of the three relevant game storylines, the Smuggler is probably the one I like the least. It just has the most promise for actually fitting fic canon and being entertainingly rewritten while still being vaguely recognizable. Though I’m also contemplating going AU on the whole return to open warfare thing, since I find the Cold War state to be the most interesting, as it’s the most inherently tense. Oddly, I’m not sure that would actually have much effect on the bones of the Smuggler storyline...)

Meh. Canon is more of a suggestion, anyway. Sometimes, it’s just more enjoyable to take a left turn (or several) at Albuquerque.

[mst3kproject]

Iron Warrior

 Why yes, there is a fourth Ator movie!  Technically, this is the third Ator movie.  Whereas Ator, the Fighting Eagle, The Blade Master (aka Cave Dwellers) and Quest for the Mighty Sword were all made by Aristide Massaccesi (aka Joe D’Amato), Iron Warrior was made by Alfonso Brescia (aka Al Bradley).  Massaccessi supposedly hated it because it wasn’t true to his vision for Ator or something.  Myself, I was kind of intrigued.  What would a different take on Ator be like?

Well, I don’t know how he managed, but Alfonso Brescia pulled it off.  He made an Ator movie that makes even less sense than the other Ator movies.

The evil sorceress Phaedra used to rule this land, but then some fellow witches (I’m gonna call them Bellerians) banished her into darkness and installed a puppet king. Eighteen years later, however, Phaedra’s sentence is up and she has returned, with a legion of skull-faced minions and an indestructible cyborg named Drogar.  They kill the king and kidnap his heir, Princess Gianna.  The Bellerians therefore call upon Ator to rescue her, which he does, and then the Bellerian Leader tells them they must go on a quest to retrieve the only thing that can defeat Phaedra and free Drogar, who is also Ator’s brother, from her clutches – the Golden Chest of the Ages!  With that in hand, they head back to be crowned King and Queen of wherever this is, only to learn too late that Phaedra replaced the real Golden Chest with a fake!

According to the end credits, ‘script continuity’ was the job of somebody named Mirella Gamacchio.  I can only assume she was drunk as shit the entire time, because this movie is nothing but a series of “wait… what just happened?” moments.

There’s a bit where Phaedra decides to kill Ator before he can rescue Gianna.  She can’t just Thanos-snap him out of existence because the Bellerians have taken that power away from her, so she takes the form of a beautiful woman, lets him rescue her from random thugs, sleeps with him, locks him in a cabin, and burns the cabin down.  That seems like an over-complicated plan, somehow.  Also, Ator escapes by hiding under a wet bear rug.

To kill the king, Drogar telekinetically makes all the decorative weapons mounted on a wall fly into him and run him through.  Then Phaedra replaces the dead king and the kidnapped princess with imposters who look nothing like them and nobody at court seems to notice.  Later, Ator fights Drogar in the same weapons-adorned room and I kept waiting for the psychic stabbing thing to happen again, but it doesn’t.  Instead, Ator and Drogar throw spears at each other and keep catching them.  Finally Drogar throws two spears at once, and Ator catches one while Gianna pops up out of absolutely nowhere to catch the other, despite never having the slightest hint she was able to do something like that!

Later later, Gianna gets kidnapped by the skull-faced minions and thrown into a dungeon where her father is hanging in a doorway, with the spears still through him but apparently still alive.  He begs her for help, and then she suddenly reappears in Ator’s arms wearing a green dress instead of the red one she’s had on so far. This is one of several occasions on which I was absolutely sure that the ‘Gianna’ we were seeing was going to turn out to be Phaedra in disguise, and in this instance I was especially certain about it because green is Phaedra’s colour.  I was wrong. Even at the climax, when I was absolutely convinced the whole thing had to be a trick, the woman who looks like Gianna was always the real Gianna.  I think.

After Phaedra gets the chest, Ator and Gianna are halfway through their coronation ceremony when suddenly Ator’s in the middle of nowhere surrounded by Sand Nazis, and Gianna’s dangling off a cliff with Phaedra sitting there mocking her.  How did that happen?  Phaedra tells her that life is an illusion, which for a moment left me wondering if anything in this movie really happened?  Perhaps the whole bit when Gianna was in the green dress was just some kind of dream?  I have no idea.  Anyway, Ator beats up the Sand Nazis and then goes and shoves a torch down Phaedra’s throat, which turns out to be her weakness for some reason.  Where did that come from?  I dunno.  Then he has just concluded that Gianna must have fallen and died when he hears her calling him, and goes to untie her from where she’s sitting on a rock.  They embrace and Gianna smiles in an evil kind of way, but as far as I can tell it’s still the real Gianna because we next see Phaedra captured by the Bellerians again!  They sentence her to something else and then giggle in delight because Ator and Gianna have fallen in love.

I don’t know why Ator was worried about Gianna falling to her death anyway, because there are several points in this movie in which one or both of the couple plummet into a bottomless abyss only to wake up completely unharmed.  This is slightly plausible when they leap off a cliff into the water, but what about when they fall from a rope bridge into a deep canyon and wake up lying on rocks in a cave?  Are they indestructible?

Drogar is supposedly indestructible, which means the moment when Ator is forced to run him through is one I expected to be another trick. After all, the same thing happened earlier and Drogar just collapsed into a pile of clothes like Obi-Wan Kenobi. No, this time he’s actually dead, and Ator takes his helmet off and finds another Miles O’Keefe underneath. I think we’re supposed to assume that Phaedra discarded Drogar because she no longer needed him?  I’m sure it’s supposed to be a tragic moment when Ator has to kill his brother, but Ator didn’t seem particularly reluctant to do so.  I also think the helmet removal is supposed to remind us of Luke Skywalker’s little vision quest moment in Empire Strikes Back when he found his own face under Darth Vader’s mask, but I cannot suggest a reason why other than ‘the writer thought that was neat’.

What is even with the Ator-has-a-brother thing?  Wasn’t Ator raised by stick merchants in Solachek along with a sister he eventually married?  Fuck it, I’m gonna assume Ator is like Maciste, and his backstory resets with every movie.  The way the movie works out, the ‘brothers’ thing is never important anyway.  It’s treated as if it’s going to be – we know the revelation is coming from the opening scene and we’re teased with it a few times along the way, but when it actually arrives it has no effect on the plot whatsoever!

So yes, Iron Warrior tries to make you feel many things, but the only one you actually feel at the end of the movie is intense confusion.  The characters never have any personality so you can’t get invested in them or their relationships.  Elisabeth Kaza as Phaedra is having a fabulous time hamming up the evil, but everybody else has their Very Serious Movie faces on and mostly just looks bored. The special effects are basic at best, and the music sounds like an early 2000’s PC game loading.

Costumes and hair are bizarre.  Ator has traded his mile-high meringue hairdo for a tight braid that makes him look weirdly like Alicia Vikander on the Tomb Raider poster. Gianna has a hairdo that looks like a centurion’s helmet and wanders around the wilderness in a filmy red dress with her nipples visible right through it.  The leader of the Bellerians dresses like a budget Queen Amidala. Like previous Ator films (or Deathstalker and the Warriors from Hell), there is no sense of any attempt to build a consistent world.  They just threw together a bunch of stuff that looked cool.

The movie was shot on the Maltese island of Gozo, and makes the place look like it’s made entirely of barren rocks.  There are lots of neat formations and forbidding cliffs, and it’s all very spectacular.  Unfortunately, it’s also very obvious that we’re seeing the same neat rock formations and forbidding cliffs over and over again.

As far as analyzing the movie… I don’t think I can do that. There’s not really enough substance there to analyze.  The closest Iron Warrior comes to doing anything meaningful is when it tries to use a furry toy ball as a symbol of the bond between brothers.  When we meet Ator and Drogar as children, they’re chucking this tribble at each other through some ruins, and it reappears a couple of times in attempts at foreshadowing.  The problem is that there is no bond between Ator and Drogar, and the fact that they’re brothers is, as I said, ultimately unimportant.

The impression I get from this movie is that it was written by somebody who had no idea how to tell a story.  The writers, Steven Luotto and Alfonso Brescia, have clearly seen movies (they’ve definitely seen the original Star Wars trilogy) and know that they have things like attractive stars, special effects, stunning revelations, and dream sequences, but they don’t know how to put those together into a plot, or what purposes they should serve within one.  The result is completely incoherent.  To my own astonishment I totally understand why Massaccesi hates this movie.  Ator, the Fighting Eagle and The Blade Master might have been made up on the fly, but they still made more sense than this!

[atamascolily]

Lily reads Star Wars: Red Harvest, part six

In which EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE (and no, I do not exaggerate). Eat your heart out--oh, wait, sorry, eat someone else’s heart out. My bad.

(If you’re just joining me, check out the “Red Harvest” tag on my blog for previous posts)

We left off with Darth Scabrous waiting for Zo in the library. There's the obligatory villain monologue with some much-needed backstory.

“This library,” he said, “is the oldest part of the academy, older even than the tower itself. It was constructed over a thousand years ago by a Sith Lord named Darth Drear. He founded the academy, back when the planet itself was young. The ancient writings tell about how he used his first students as laborers. For hundreds of years, the Masters at the academy believed that a good many of those students died down in these very chambers, using the Force to move hundreds of tons of snow and ice and dig out these corridors and chambers to house Drear’s vast collection of … specimens. It was thought that Drear worked the students until they died from exhaustion.”

Blah blah blah Sith holocron blah blah blah eternal life. The usual stuff.

“Before he died, Darth Drear wrote of the final stage of the process—the step that he himself was never able to achieve. He dispatched his sentries to a nearby planet to abduct a Jedi and bring him to the secret temple underneath the library. After ingesting the elixir, in the final hours before his body gave in completely, under exactly the right circumstances and conditions, Drear planned to use a ceremonial Sith sword to cut open the Jedi’s chest while he was still alive, and eat his heart. Only then, with that final infusion of midi-cholorians still warm from the Jedi’s blood, would the decay process be held back—granting the Sith Lord his ultimate immortality.”

I TOLD YOU THEY WENT THERE.

The plant!zombies show up again - turns out they weren't really dead! They carry Zo down to the Secret Sith Basement at Scabrous's command, where the sacrifice is to take place. But don’t worry, not!Qui-gon is in hot pursuit! The tree librarian grabs not!Qui-Gon and dangles him in the air. I am LIVING for this. “No need for your weapon here,” the voice said. “Not in this place of learning. We are both learned beings, are we not? Enlightened and informed by the written word. No need for the encumbrances of physical violence.” It uttered another bulky, dusty chuckle. “Look upon me, if you like. Seek my face.”

There's a bunch of book avalanches. not!Qui-Gon  goes into the tree!Librarian's head at his own urging and sees his memories

It was the librarian’s name, Trace realized, his patronymic, and somehow he knew that on his home planet it meant “lover of knowledge,” a perfect choice for—

HOW DID HE END UP ON A SITH PLANET AS THE SITH LIBRARIAN IF HE WASN'T ACTUALLY EVIL?? Sadly, we don't get answers.

Also, more relevant to the plot, not!Qui-Gon sees the secret Sith basement being built and gets caught up on all the backstory that Scabrous already revealed. Then everything catches on fire and not!Qui-Gon uses the Force to retrieve his lightsaber and create an air bubble to ward off the flames.

He looked at the lightsaber, laboring to evacuate every other thought from his mind. At the Jedi Temple, they had taught that it was never a matter of manipulating the object, but of eliminating the space that separated you from it. Yet at this moment, the object in question had never felt so far away....

The timing of what happened next was critical. Deactivating the bubble, he opened his hand, and the lightsaber flew into it. Its handle was almost too hot to hold, but the solidity of it had never felt better in his life.

I like this attention to detail in my Star Wars.

Not!Qui-gon gets pulled down to the basement via plant zombies for the final showdown as the library burns around him.Good-bye, Tree Librarian -- you may have been evil at the end, or perhaps this whole time, but you were fucking rad.

The mechanic is still alive and in hiding. He gets lured out by Kindra's pleading, only to reveal it was a trap by the zombies and she's a prisoner. The zombies rip her to pieces but the mechanic gets away. I’m so mad because even though I knew it was a trap, and I knew she was going to die, I hoped she got a more badass ending. Sigh.

Meanwhile, the bounty hunter and the newly liberated HK droid discover the zombies are hiding INSIDE the Tauntauns, a la Aliens and it's gross, and now we have zombie tauntauns, too. Turns out the HK droid hates the Sith too! But the bounty hunter got sprayed with tauntaun spit so now he's infected. Good thing droids can't get this... right?

Scabrous tries to kill Zo but not!Qui-gon makes a dramatic entrance and stops him. Not!Qui-gon gets murdered while Zo watches in horror and... I guess he really has more in common with Qui-Gon than I initially thought!

Scabrous transforms into his final form, but the orchid wakes up just in time, and Zo tells it to grow while she starts going to town on the Scabrous and slaughters him with his own sword. It doesn't take, so she switches to her brother's lightsaber, which does better, since it actually cauterizes.

She climbs out of the pit after Scabrous is dead, only to find the rest of the zombie horde waiting for her. The bounty hunter and droid rescue her, but they're attacked by the academy's perimeter cannons, so everthing gets worse fast. The droid jumps out and turns to the lasers on the tower, destroying everything - including the orchid if it's still alive? I'm a little fuzzy on the details here. Fortunately, the mechanic is flying the plane and he's okay.

Zo goes into the trophy room, only to find that the bounty hunter is now a zombie, but he locks himself in a cage before he turns and tells Zo to send him out the airlock, which she does--along with the entire grisly contents of the room, and a last zombie stowaway. FINAL GIRL VICTORY.

Zo returns to Jedi Greenhouse Planet, traumatized but alive. Turns out the guy who we thought was dead in the bounty hunter attack at the beginning of the book is actually alive, so that's good. There's a new orchid waiting for her:

You were with my seed-brother, the orchid said, arching toward her. Is that true?

Yes, I was, she told it, and thought about the voice of the first orchid, the one that she still heard in her mind. I still am, in a way. He saved my life.

Really?

Bennis smiled again, the indulgent smile of a proud parent, and gave the orchid a small pat.

D'awwww. Wait, so the original orchid isn’t really dead? She can still hear him even though it’s gone and they’re separated? Did I miss something in the tumult of the finale?? Or is Zo being metaphorical here?

Also, I’m so curious how the Jedi just... got another orchid so quickly. In our world, orchids can be clonally propagated in HUGE batches, so the AgriCorps could potentially be churning these things out at a massive rate. This raises WAY more world-building questions that this book is NOT going to answer, and it frustrates me, but I doubt the author knows much about actual orchids, so... *shrugs*

But cuteness aside, Zo decides she'd rather study on the Jedi Temple at Coruscant (the mechanic will take her) because she has too much PTSD. Also, this means that if anybody else tries to kidnap the new orchid, they won’t get Zo! I don’t know why the Jedi are even raising these orchids, given that they’re in demand on the Sith black market. Didn’t Zo explain they were the critical ingredient for an awful zombie plague?? DID NOBODY LEARN FROM THIS EXPERIENCE??

This is supposed to be a happy/hopeful ending, and it kinda is, but Zo apparently doesn’t know / the author forgot that the Jedi Temple was destroyed when Corsucant got sacked eight years earlier (as Trace tells us in his introductory scene)... which means she's walking into ANOTHER haunted temple nightmare and doesn't realize it yet. We'll call it.. Red Harvest II: Coruscant Nights, or maybe just Blue Harvest. How about that??

Frode would be waiting for her with the ship, ready to take her back to Coruscant, and whatever might be waiting for her there. The mechanic would be good traveling company, she sensed—there was a low-key air about him that bespoke dozens of untold stories, events that had made up his life and taken him to the unlikely destination of Odacer-Faustin. She felt herself already beginning to trust him.

Wow, I was not expecting this dude to survive, but okay. Also, he got tagged in the beginning as kinda greedy (scuttling the engines of the other bounty hunters to sell) and kinda lazy/stupid/opportunistic/desperate (for ending up as the mechanic for Sith Hogwarts in the first place). But okay, whatever, I guess.

And the moral:

The future was scary, but you couldn’t avoid it, anymore than you could outrun the past.

OR  A MASSIVE ZOMBIE HORDE, AM I RIGHT??

Wow, that was a trip.

I feel like this was better than I had any right to expect from the premise, but still felt like a B-grade horror movie. I like the tantalizing hints of what world-building we do get, and I think this novel is excellent fodder for future horror/Halloween fics. Otherwise, I’d skip this unless you are a “must read everything in Legends” purist, enjoy Sith shit, enjoy watching Sith die in horrific ways, and/or a diehard plant nerd like me.

RANDOM TRIVIA: Wookiepeedia says the first draft had a character named  "Middish Sunblade, modeled after Holden Caulfield, but Sunblade was removed from the rewrite because he was whiny and nobody could stand him," which is just too true and too funny for words. Also, an actually-in-character Holden Caulfield expy would last approximately 30 seconds at Sith Hogwarts before being stabbed... I’m just saying.

[mwolf0epsilon]

Out of curiosity, what are your favorite companions out of all of the Fallout games, and why?

Fallout

The Original Dogmeat (After looking into it, it feels like this ornery dog had a lot more personality than the available human companions, enough so that he made a comeback in FO2.)

Fallout 2

Goris (A sentient and intelligent albino deathclaw scholar that wears a robe to hide his appearence from trigger happy assholes. What's not to like? Goris is an interesting character and I hope there will be another deathclaw companion in a future game!)

K-9 the Cyberdog (Cyberdogs are cool. Talking Cyberdogs with good moral compasses? Even better! Super pissed the NCR ended up destroying him to gather Intel on the Enclave. That's something I'd expect from the BoS instead, and it's left a bitter taste in my mouth. Rest in peace you poor pup.)

Fallout 3

Butch Deloria (He was an asshole and a bully during his and the Lone Wanderer's childhood, but you can't deny he isn't loyal to a fault. He's still a bit of an asshole with an unobtainable greaser teen dream, but honestly he's not that bad considering he was neglected as a child thanks to his mother's alcoholism. If you scratch his back he'll definitly scratch yours, even if he pretends he's not a goody-two-shoes like you. Plus he can give you a haircut, who wouldn't want a personal barber out in the Wastes?)

Charon (His situation is an uncomfortable moral conundrum since he's basically a brainwashed slave by anything but name. Oxhorn put it best in his video on Charon's situation, and I agree that the only good thing you can do for him is buying his contract and doing good out in the Capital Wasteland with him as your companion, as a form of atonement for any past shady/cruel actions his former employers have had him perform.)

Fawkes (A super mutant who may or may not have been a man named Shelton Delacroix, Fawkes is unfortunate in the sense that he was alienated by his fellow vault-tec security officers for having a conscience, and then alienated by his super mutant kin for being uniquely intelligent and kind. To add to these tragedies, Shelton was apparently married so Fawkes has a wife he can't recall who is either dead or a mindless super mutant herself.)

Dogmeat the Second (A loyal heterochromatic cattle dog who would fight to the death if just to avenge his fallen master. Dogmeat is a scruffy scavenger and definitly man's best friend. You have to wonder if he might be a descendant of the Original Dogmeat with just how strong his personality comes off. Some dogs in the wasteland are definitely smarter than others.)

Fallout: New Vegas

Arcade Ganoon (A gay mess of a doctor with social anxiety and a lot of personal demons related to his origins. Arcade is an intelligent and interesting character in the sense that he has a deep-seated desire to help everyone, but knows the consequences of one's ideals outgrowing the needs of others. He's grateful to the Enclave Remnants's loyalty to him and his mother, after his father passed away, and he definitly considers them his family. That in itself is an issue because the Enclave's sins will follow and haunt him for the rest of his life, even if he was just born into that life and not one of the people commiting atrocities.)

Craig Boone (His story is the typical wasteland hardened ex-soldier. He committed atrocities that left him mentally scarred and suffering from PTSD, lost his wife who was the only good thing in his life, his need to avenge her has left him dangling between cold-blooded killer and decent human being, and on top of that he's a bit of a cynical asshole. Still a pretty cool companion to have around, and honestly it feels nice to have him around doing some good for the Mojave wasteland instead of stewing in his depression and self-hatred. His sniping skills could help a lot of people with the Courier's encouragement.)

Lily Bowen (She's a super mutant elite spy soldier. She's also a sweet old granny with schizophrenia and a murderous imaginary friend. Lily is another tragic character who's story pulls at your heartstrings, and the three choices regarding her meds are another moral conundrum. Again I'd recommend Oxhorn's video on her story, since I wholly agree with his assessment on what choice is actually the best for her.)

Rex the Cyberdog (His background before he joined the Kings is shrouded in mystery, with the Legion's faded mark painted on his armour platting. Rex is a loyal pup with a hate for rats, hats and people who wear hats. His greatest ire is probably reserved for rats with hats. His recruitment story arc is also pretty interesting and it definitely affects his personality and endings. If you have Old World Blues and construct Roxie the Cyberdog he even becomes a father of a litter of "Boston terrifiers"!)

ED-E (Honestly it's my love for robots that make this little damaged travel companion so appealing. His mission is interesting, and the cashe of Enclave Intel he holds can be benefitial, but most of his endings point to ED-E continuing his journey eventually so there's a sadness with letting this little guy go if you get attached.)

Fallout 4

Preston Garvey (All Preston has ever wanted to do was help make the Commonwealth a better place for people to live in. He's a selfless man who joined a militia at age 17 to do some good, and it honestly breaks my heart that the Minutemen collapsed as hard as it did. Preston had to watch as the ideals of the Minutemen were crushed underfoot by a bunch of selfish assholes, along with an entire settlement of innocent people. He did everything in his power to keep the only four survivors safe and alive, and he's clearly traumatized, depressed and suicidally throwing himself at danger because he'd rather die fighting the good fight than caring for his own safety. He puts everyone else above himself and it infuriates me that people are so hellbent in painting him off as a bland character or a pest. Oxhorn puts it best in his profile of Preston.)

X8-88 (The Institute's top of the line Courser, the closest the Commonwealth will ever get to the Terminator, and livable despite his cynical remarks and persistence that he's incapable of emotions or attachment. It saddens me that X6 is only obtainable if you follow the Institute. It also pains me that if you do manage to befriend him and destroy the Institute, you're destroying this loyal synth's only home. You're basically stripping away everything he knows and believes in, inherently doing what the Institute has done to the Sole Survivor: Taking their life away from them. It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth...)

Nick Valentine (Moral conundrums are painful. Ethical conundrums are just as bad. Nick didn't deserve anything that happened to him, and it's obvious he struggles with his identity and purpose but chooses to follow in the Original Nick's footsteps to do some good, rather than hide away and mope. He's a good person overall, even if he's a bit of a smartass sometimes. He's the perfect robodad for anyone in need of a fatherly figure in the Commonwealth.)

John Hancock (This man has a lot of emotional baggage and has made a LOT of bad choices, but if there's anyone you can trust to be loyal and helpful out in the wastes, it's definitly Hancock! His crude humour and liberal use of drugs and knives to deal with his problems can be a bit off-putting, but Hancock will defend you no matter what. Heck, he would even defend Danse from the BoS and the guy's a racist dickbag to him from the very moment they meet. That says a lot about his character.)

Codsworth (He waited for the Sole Survivor to return. For 200 fucking years. Please be kind to him, he's probably one of the nicest companions and also one of the most lovable too! He is the friend you'd wish you had if you ever found yourself in the same situation as the Sole Survivor. Cherish Codsworth, he's all you have left, and he'll protect you to the best of his ability.)

Dogmeat the Third (A brilliant genius dog that is very likely a synth. Dogmeat, like Codsworth, is a lovable guy and should definitely be cherished. I'd recommend getting the "Everyone's Best Friend" Mod so that you can have him travel with you and another companion. It's almost like FO2!)

Deacon (He's intelligent. He's sneaky. He's a pathological liar with good intentions. Deacon is mysterious and charming, and definitly a little fucked in the head. I'd like to meet his plastic surgeon if they can make him flawlessly look like a woman and a ghoul, no questions asked. Oxhorn has a pretty interesting video that explores Deacon's character and intentions, if you're interested!)

Paladin Danse (I'll admit I wasn't all that impressed with Danse when I got my first impression of him. He's rude, he's impatient, he's condescending, and worst of all he is an asshole to anyone just a bit different from him. Still, the plot-twist left space for this racist Buzz Lightyear knockoff to go through some personal growth. The years of militaristic indoctrination will probably take a while to be resolved, but Danse IS redeemable if given time. He's not inherently evil, just in dire need of a tolerance lesson.)

[selfcontrolbuilders]

Self-Control Story - Chapter 2: Betrayal

Hargon left Ice and Malroth together for them to catch up on each other while he went to the chapel Atlas, Pazuzu and Belial once used. He closed the door with a loud slam that echoed through the empty castle’s hallways and knelt in front of the statue of his god.

-My Lord, please, tell me what have I done wrong-he said-I have taught them the teachings, I have made the lines between creation and destruction clear and I treated them well… Then, why? Why did they turn their back on me and followed the builder? I don’t understand.

His previous life flashed before his eyes, reminiscing everything he’d lived before that one fight against the Scions. Atlas, Pazuzu and Belial’s smiles whenever he invited them to eat with him, the draining chore of resurrecting each ally that had fallen and been brought back to his castle, the attack on Moonbrooke, the curse he cast on the Princess, his long strolls through Alefgard when he was beginning to climb the steps to leadership, the happy times with his first followers, his childhood memories and dreams…

-Don’t blame yourself, it’s their fault, we all choose what we do and don’t-a voice echoed through his head.

-It’s not that, father, I just don’t understand what does that builder have that I don’t…

-You shouldn’t worry about that, it’s just going to busy your head and distract you from your actual responsibilities.

-I already know that, Profa-he started yelling before he realized something.

They were just fragments of memories from his past life. He laughed at himself, he really was going off his rocker, wasn’t he? Losing himself like this would only lead to the same ending, he mustn’t do it, if not for him, for the ones that still believe, like them.

The days passed, with each passing one the bond between the builder and the god only tightening more again. Hargon felt at exclusion. In the past, it would be him the one next to Malroth speaking lively, had he succeeded on summoning him before the three Descendants of Erdrick came. He missed it, those times where the Master and him were close. The remnants of that relationship were limited to memories the high priest had of the two speaking.

Today was an awfully lonely day. Malroth and Ice were walking around the garden in the lowest floor. He was drumming his fingers on the throne, bored of waiting for Malroth to finish what he started. He still remembers talking to him and hearing anecdotes such as Zoma’s early days, when he still was a young child. He missed the long walks they took speaking of the world and its great history. He had always wanted to expand his doings to the Light World when he was finished with Torland. Ascending and finishing Zoma and Baramos’ job.

He smiled. He sure had had a lot of imagination, hadn’t he? Such foolish dreams, out of his reach… Wow, he was getting nostalgic now. And… It was a new kind of nostalgia. It wasn’t the anger or regret… It felt good. For once, looking back felt good. He brought his right hand to the left side of his chest. He felt so warm… So… Heck, he didn’t even have words to describe this feeling. He could feel tears sliding down his face as his crooked smile became even bigger. Was this… letting go? No. He wasn’t finished yet. The grudge was still gripping his soul tightly. Then… Why did he feel like this? This didn’t make sense, at all. This was unknown land to the priest, who got up and started pacing back and forth in search of an answer.

Oblivious to that inner turmoil were the two friends hanging out at the garden. Ice looked at it and smiled.

-You know, even if Hargon is the big baddie of this story there’s still some good inside him-he said to Malroth from a slightly high wall, moving his dangling legs continuously-I mean, look at the beauty he has created. Even those who are evil do know how to make beautiful things… That reminds me, Rendarak looked like heaven. Once this is over I promise I’ll bring you there for you to see it with your own eyes, and we’ll make flower crowns, and friendship bracelets, and we’ll make a castle there, a good one, and we’ll live in that heavenly place!

Malroth watched amused how his friend fantasized of a happy ending despite the current predicament. The smile plastered on his face was enough to brighten the whole place. His light mood was something Malroth liked, but it was also the cause of his sorrow and pain. Creating a bright future without looking at the present… It was something he loved to do.

-Malroth, do you think we can evade this whole “End of the World” thing? I’m sure if you ask Hargon nicely in the right moment…

-We could try, but I don’t know how he’ll take it, the Master said looking at the garden’s exit.

The pair walked through the halls until they reached the lower throne room. To their surprise, Hargon was pacing around the room like he was doing some kind of exercise.

-Hargon, sir, there’s something Malroth and I wish to talk to you about-Ice said calling for the priest.

Snapping out of his daze and stopping his train of thought, the priest motioned them to speak while sitting on his throne again. This brought many memories about his past to…

-Um… You see, Malroth, if it doesn’t bother you, could we… Stop this plot to destroy the world? I’m actually very comfortble here, where the Scions of Erdrick do not disturb.

Hargon chuckled. What an interesting situation.

-So he hasn’t told you, has he?-he mused looking at Ice.

-Told me what?

-Hm, hm, hm… Well, the fact he’s a Scion of Erdrick himself, of course-he said truly amused.

Malroth looked from Hargon to Ice and from Ice to Hargon. His expression was one of confusion, what was Hargon talking about?

-He’s… right, as much as I hate to admit it. I am a Scion of the legendary Erdrick, but I quite hate the story of my family. They are nothing more than murderers in my eyes. I know monsters have feelings and should enjoy what nature gives us, even if they are willing to destroy everything. So… I don’t think I’m going to slaughter anyone any time soon. If you still want proof I can get rid of the Sword my ancestors wielded and the one the Prince of Midenhall used. I don’t really care much for them in the battlefield. I have only kept them because they are craftsmanship, creations of dedicated builders willing to give their life so the world may be at peace.

-Truth to be told, I think you deserve to hear my opinion about you-Hargon said-In my eyes, you are far more heroic than those who throw themselves into the battlefield, fighting to make your dreams come true and all of that. Many people have already left that fight when they are your age, but you… You insist on keeping that fight, battling more in that one than in others. That is what a true hero should be.

Having thrown his view into the topic, Hargon suddenly became conscious of what he’d let out. Was he… feeling nostalgic because he still wanted to fight for his childish dreams? Whatever it was, the whole fighting for dreams thing sunk really deep into the other two’s minds. It was the first time anyone ever said something like that about heroes… At least in Ice’s point of view.

-So… Can we stop the End of the World?-Malroth asked.

-Do as you wish, Master. I no longer care what you think on the matter. I was the one to give you wings, but I am no one to make you fly in the same direction I do-he said getting up-I shall leave you two now, for I have a matter I must tend in another place.

Hargon left the throne room and started walking through the hallways. He did care about the Master’s opinion on things, but seeing his constant refusal for his destiny now that the builder was here… It was the right moment to part and not return. The Master had turned his back on him, and so did his followers, what was left for him in ruling in a castle with nobody to rule over? It was the time for a change in his life.

-Perhaps… The reason they left me is because I am still not strong enough-he thought aloud-Perhaps… The Master sees me as a weakling in comparison to that accursed builder and has decided to change his ways thanks to his new counselor. Well, if he’s not willing to end this world and the real one, I shall try it. I have nothing to lose now if I try.

He didn’t have an idea about how he’d do it, but he knew he wouldn’t figure it out without trying. He had a theory about what had happened to Malroth and this illusion, which seemed to have developed a consciousness of its own. This world was lasting far more than he had expected and calculated while Malroth was a dormant spirit waiting for the builder. This may be due to his own mind playing an important part on its appearance, since he didn’t have control over what he poured or not into it. Childhood dreams, old friends, enemies, ideals, ideal endings… He’d seen all of them while he watched how the Master and the builder did their journey.

Take Moonbrooke as an example. Atlas had succeeded in taking over the kingdom and making most of them believe in his doctrines. Also, where were the three heroes, the three scions of Erdrick? Another theory put over the one he had: They turned into the Heroes of Hargon. Or, if that wasn’t the case, they could have died or anything like that. That was why nobody ever spoke about them. And, the Princess could have been from centuries ago, for what he knows. There was a legendary builder, the had been building before in this illusion, sure, that gave quite a lot of margin of time. In fact, that builder had been what modern humans would call a Beta Tester for the project. The Princess must have been forgotten because she never saved the world, and, in consequence, she didn’t try to rebuild the kingdom. What about the other two Princes? They’d never listened or seen Cannock and Midenhall, but they must have suffered the same fate, forgotten. In fact, there is a probability Midenhall and Cannock fell and became part of the territory of the Children of Hargon if you take that side as the whole monster collective under those doctrines. They could even possibly be Furrowfield and Khrumbul-dun, or even the Isle of Awakening in that matter. Or they were perhaps further away than those islands. Perhaps the heroes turned into his most trusted allies… It would make sense, in a way, since there were two men and a woman forming the Trinity currently.

He had a theory about Malroth. He was like a child, with no memories, so open to be influenced… Of course, that was just one part. How could he care so much about his allies and have no hesitation crushing his foes? How come he felt betrayed and didn’t even ask for an explanation about his imprisonment? Perhaps he’d been more influenced by Hargon’s own ideals than they’d both ever think. Hargon was vengeful by nature, caring about his allies, easy to piss off whenever the theme of building was brought to the conversation… Of course, he was also a bit sadistic and merciless when it came to taking down an enemy, that’s why Moonbrooke in the real world had been reduced to flames and poison.

Another funny thing about his illusion was the strange swap between Rendarak’s climate and Moonbrooke’s climate. Rendarak in the real world was a snowy hell of wandering gigantes and Moonbrooke was a beautiful grassy plain full of forests. In the illusion Rendarak looked like the fabled Paradise humans talk about and Moonbrooke has been reduced to a lot of mountains, snowy plains, ash and bloody dirt.

Whatever caused this massive merging of thoughts, feelings and memories in an illusion whose original purpose was to confuse the Scions of Erdrick was left unknown, being this kind of thing new even to him after being taught a whole lot of things such as advanced Math, monster languages, history, martial arts, magic…

His pace stopped when he fell into realization. If his memories had been merged together in an alternate reality, then the World Tree should be around here somewhere too. If he wasn’t mistaken, he had drawn a map of islands where there was one in which a massive tree towered over everything else. All he had to do was go South from Moonbrooke’s island. But for that he had to get out of Malhalla first. Ruura wouldn’t work here… There was no way he’d ask Malroth to get him out, and the monsters were now on the creation’s side. There was just one option left, but it was risky. As the son of a half-dragon he was a quarter-dragon. There was a possibility he may be able to control his transformation between his Draconian form and his monster form. He knew sometimes, when he was very, very angry at his subjects he felt his throat go hot and  he sometimes spat fire on them, which meant that when he was very mad he could turn himself into a dragon “at will”.

Ice was teaching Malroth those games you do clapping hands with a friend in the throne room. Due to Malroth having four arms it was more difficult than usual. Whenever Ice told him to move his right arm somewhere Malroth either did it well or mistook it with the other right arm. Ice partially understood it was because he still wasn’t completely used to have two pairs of arms instead of one, but he sometimes felt exasperated.

-It’s been a while since Hargon left… Do you think he got sucked into one of those gravitational orbs and died?

-Isn’t he already dead?-Malroth said tilting his head-I mean, the Scions of Erdrick killed him after all.

Ice shrugged it off and kept playing. Unknowingly, he was letting Hargon escape to begin a recently cooked plan B.

Why was the Master not loyal to his fate? Why weren’t they the good friends they used to be? Why was he with a builder even? Had he not learned his lesson already? Destruction and creation are not compatible! They are opposites! Monsters and human cannot get along. He’d learned the lesson when he heard his father’s story, mercilessly killed by a human.

-Why did you do it, Malroth? Why did you ally yourself with humans?! Why does everyone leave my side the most painful way possible?!-he screamed from the top of the castle, all of his pent up feelings surfacing-“Oh, he’ll come, I’m sure of it!” “Just a little more…” “Humans aren’t that bad.” Fool! Have you heard yourself speak?! You are nothing but a mere fool! You don’t even shadow your past self! You! You…!

Wings came out of his back and he started morphing into a dragon. He took off and started flying towards the emptiness of the world. He immediately cast a spell to cross from the Malhalla to the accursed lands below. (Note: If you haven’t noticed, when Hargon takes Malroth as a hostage and starts speaking from the sky a certainly familiar red planet can be seen amidst the dark sky… I wonder if it’s Malhalla canonically…) He flied near the sea, alerting the marine monsters that still were there and had not gone to the promised land. His wings created a wake on the sea. He took out something from his necklace, a red translucent stone and looked through it. The world tree manifested itself before him, growing bigger with each passing second, finally, this was it, he was going to…

-Not so fast, mister I’m-so-cool-with-dragon-wings-I-decide-to-leave-my-god-abandoned! You’re not going to do what I think you’re going to!-a voice shouted when he was almost at the World Tree.

Dang. It had been too good to be true. Malroth and the builder were close behind him. He had to fend them off for now. If he ever tried to fight the master in its full power he’d be dead unless he had a good hand or an ace up his sleeve, and his ace was just a few meters away. He flapped the wings furiously and advanced towards the World Tree as fast as he could. 

Previous

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[lareinesophie]

The Definitive Guide to the ages of the SGE characters (PLOT SPOILERS)

Part 1: Ages of the main characters

So I saw @sabrinaofwoodsbeyond​ and @pumpkinpaperweight​ trying to deduce the ages of the characters from textual clues in the books, and here’s my take + extensive proof.

Sophie and Agatha were both seventeen (17) years old in TLEA (Book 3). 

Sophie’s mother died five years before Sophie was kidnapped to the School for Good and Evil (SfGaE) in SGE (Book 1). 

“Now [Stefan] wanted to marry that beast. Five years after her mother’s death, it wouldn’t be seen as improper or callous. ” -- Book 1, The School for Good and Evil Chapter 2. “The Art of Kidnapping” 

We know from August Sader’s revelation in the Brig towards the end of TLEA that Sophie’s mother was still alive when Sophie was ten (10) years old.

“[...]the scene pivoted to Vanessa standing with young, ten-year-old Sophie at the kitchen window, each of them blond and gorgeous, watching Stefan playing with two young boys in Honora’s front yard.” -- Book 3, The Last Ever After, Chapter 33. “An Unexpected History Lesson”

Hence, Sophie  was fifteen (15) years old in Book 1, when she was kidnapped, and was eleven (11) years old (too young to be taken) during the last kidnapping four years before.

“Four years ago, [Sophie] had seen the same desperation to avoid the curse, but it wasn’t her turn then. The School Master took only those past their twelfth year, those who could no longer disguise as children. -- Book 1, The School for Good and Evil, Chapter 1. “The Princess and the Witch” 

“The first kidnappings happened two hundred years before. Some years it was two boys taken, some years two girls, sometimes one of each. The ages were just as fickle; one could be sixteen, the other fourteen, or both just turned twelve.” -- Book 1, The School for Good and Evil, Chapter 2. “The Art of Kidnapping” 

Now, Sophie could not have been sixteen (or older) in Book 1 because then she would have been twelve during the last kidnapping and thus old enough to be taken by the School Master for that round. 

Neither could have Sophie been fourteen (or younger), because Vanessa, who had been dead for five years, was still alive when Sophie was ten.

Further evidence that Sophie was seventeen in TLEA (Book 3):

“ ‘I only saw your mother once or twice in town when I was really young,” said Agatha. “But I remember she was beautiful, like a gold-haired nymph.’ ‘It’s been seven years, so I can’t even picture her face anymore,” said Sophie. “The more I try to remember it, the more it shape-shifts, like I’m trying to recapture a dream. But she didn’t leave the house much. Didn’t have any friends either except Honora, until . . . well, you know.’ “ -- Book 3, The Last Ever After, Chapter 25. ”The Scorpion and the Frog” 

Also, as of TLEA, more than two years had elapsed since Sophie and Agatha were kidnapped and sorted into their respective Schools, so Sophie would have turned seventeen at any rate if she was fifteen in SGE.

“Two years ago, the School Master had put her in the school where she belonged—the school she was meant to one day rule.

[...]

Two years ago, the Circus Crown dangled above this spot the same way, awaiting the winning student of the first-year talent contest.”

-- Book 3, The Last Ever After, Chapter 26. ”In Darkness Comes a Queen”

“That night more than two years ago, when the School Master took [Agatha] and Sophie from Gavaldon . . . he’d dragged them into the Endless Woods, where a stymph hatched out of a black egg, snatched them in its jaws, and flown them off to their fateful schools.” -- Book 3, The Last Ever After, Chapter 30. ”Apologies and Confessions”

Agatha is exactly the same age as Sophie (actually, a few minutes younger than her, if you want to be precise) as Sader revealed in The Tale of Callis & Vanessa that Vanessa had given birth to both of them at the same time, but had taken only Sophie home & abandoned Agatha.

Tedros turned sixteen (16) years old one day after the end of the events of TLEA, that is two days after the conclusion of the New-Old War, and six months before the events of QfG (Book 4). 

“[...] Tedros puffed. ‘Rescue Sophie, kill the School Master, take back Excalibur, free the other students, and you and I go to Camelot in time for my sixteenth birthday, and coronation as king.’“ -- Book 3, The Last Ever After, Chapter 3. ”The New or the Old”

“‘Coronation’s tomorrow, which means they paint the royal portrait, which stays up for the next thousand years. Sorry if I want to look my best,’ Tedros groused.” -- Book 3, The Last Ever After, Chapter 35. ”Never After Ever”

So on his and Agatha’s scheduled wedding day, Tedros would have been sixteen-and-three quarters (16 3/4) years old... or technically still a minor by the legal standards of today’s Western countries. Agatha (and Sophie) would have been eighteen or very close to eighteen. 

“It had been six months since that day: the day of the coronation.

[…]

The wedding was still two months away.”

-- Book 4, Quests for Glory, Chaper 1. “AGATHA: The Almost Queen”

Rafal is a couple of-hundreds- or some-thousand-year-old (400--9999 y.o.) shapeshifting murderous pedophile who killed his brother and became School Master two hundred years before the start of the events of Book 1, SGE. He assumed the form of a sixteen-year-old (16 y.o.) youth to trick his way into Sophie’s affections. DO NOT SHIP HIM WITH SOPHIE. Or with anybody, really.

“[Rafal] certainly looks young, Sophie thought, peering at the lean, shirtless boy as he gazed out the tower window, bathed in faded sunlight. Sophie studied his hairless white skin and snug black breeches, his thick spiked hair the color of snow, his tight-veined arms, his glacier-blue eyes. . . . He didn’t look a day more than sixteen. And yet somewhere within this beautiful stranger was a soul older than sixteen—much, much older than sixteen.” -- Book 3, The Last Ever After, Chapter 1. ”The Master and the Queen”  

“With each second, [Rafal] grew older and older, thousands of years old, screams of rage tearing from inside of him as his flesh boiled with heat. His clothes burned off of him, smoke spitting through his mummifying skin, until the School Master was unmasked at last, a naked corpse of blackened, hateful flesh.”  -- Book 3, The Last Ever After, Chapter 34. ”The War of All Things” 

“The two School Masters used magic to keep themselves alive for hundreds of years, long enough for the Evil brother to start thinking evil thoughts...so the Evil brother recruited an army to start a war and destroy his brother...” -- The Ever-Never Handbook, History & Lineage > School History > A History of the Storian By Professor Hort of Bloodbrook

[avelera]

Some next day thoughts about Thor 3: Ragnarok:

(cut for spoilers)

- At first I was a little jarred by the ending’s abruptness. But then I thought about it a bit more. Yes, as a movie ending, I still think it’s a bit too abrupt, I would have liked 5-10 more minutes to cover some of the dangling plotlines I’ll discuss further down. But then I realized that with all the Marvel movies out there, they’re likely going to be binge watched. So this format makes sense when you realize that this movie is only going to end there for about 1 year in its lifecycle. For the rest of its existence, viewers are just going to immediately go to or cue up either Black Panther or Infinity War, so it’s actually more like a very long TV or Netflix episode than a standalone movie in the traditional sense.

Nevertheless, some things I would like to have seen more resolution are:

- Bruce - They made a pretty big deal of the fact that if he ever switched back to the Hulk again, Bruce Banner may never come back. Now, most likely it’s not a dark enough movie series for that to be true. But still, the fact it was never brought up again after he transformed nags at me, I would have liked to see some concern from Thor & his crew over whether Banner is ok. Though I suppose some of that could be explained by Valkyrie knowing Hulk better, Thor “preferring” Hulk, and the fact that Hulk has now had enough time out in the world to actually be quite stable. It almost implies that Hulk was an infant, or an overly-caged animal so his unmanageability was purely because he wasn’t getting enough time to grow up or exercise. That being said, you’d think Loki would be a little more freaked out. And dammit, I’m worried for Bruce.

- Loki - Has shown a pathological inability to play well with others, pretty much since he learned he was adopted and from the stories of Thor 3 even before that. He is the ultimate little shit. The fact that he was shown peacefully going along with the good guys for even 5 minutes without stabbing Thor again or just causing mischief or fucking off from there gave me a weird feeling of cognitive dissonance. Like, this status quo has already lasted 5 minutes without someone actively trying to kill them, no way Loki is this patient. Then again, this was somewhat resolved by the post-credit scene of the other big ship appearing, since Loki will sometimes go along with things if a team up is required for survival, at least until he figures out how to join the other side.

Some other thoughts:

- Apparently Asgard has fewer people in it than your average shopping mall? Also none of them have the same superpowers as their royal or valkyrie elites? Apparently it is an anime land where if you don’t have a cool character design you don’t have powers, sorry guys, you’re all cannon fodder with as little ability to defend yourself as the average human and maybe less considering you have advanced magic and science sometimes but most of the time you don’t even have guns.

- Hela looks hella like Loki. I’m beginning to wonder if Thor is the adopted one here. Also wondering if, in a more serious moment, what impact Hela having once been Odin’s favorite child would have on Loki given their similarities? Some reflection by him on that point would be interesting.

- Also, wtf, are they gods, are they random aliens with delusions of grandeur, how do they embody concepts...? Thor’s lighting powers were SICK AS HELL AND I LOVED EVERY SECOND OF THAT FIGHT AND HOLY SHIT HE LOOKS AMAZING WITH THE ONE EYE GODDAMN but I’m just really confused from a lore/cosmology angle of what the fuck Asgardians are in the larger cosmos and as relates to Earth.

Some other good/GREAT things about the movie:

- Seeing that level of diversity was such a fucking relief like I didn’t need to brace myself or roll my eyes whenever anyone who wasn’t the Designated POC was shown as always white and usually male, it was actually wonderfully diverse and awesome wow thank you Taika. 

- (A little mad though that we didn’t get to see the Valkyrie bisexual scene, Disney is still really bad with dealing with LGBTQA+ stuff and this is another reason I fear the consolidation of all IP under The Mouse)

- Anyway, just in general, the directing, holy shit Taika Waititi is a master. 

- Like, the movie was 95% laughs and it’s really hard to transition an audience that was just laughing its asses off to a serious moment but every single serious moment hit like a punch in the gut. Like immediately. Holy shit. Odin’s death, Valkyrie’s flashback, the tiny micro-expressions of Loki and Thor dancing around what they really mean to each other these days, Banner’s identity crisis... my only complaint about any of those is that they didn’t last a little longer, but they were so efficiently done that I can’t really be mad about that. Their brevity matched the pacing of the film, and it’s only my fangirl heart that would have loved some long lingering over all the horrible Feels everyone is going through. Ah well, that’s what fanfic is for.

- That being said, it did feel like there was a couple moments and themes that could have used a little more attention, though the complaint here is minor. There is some serious fridge horror in Banner losing 2 years of his life. What about the people he killed under Hulk’s influence? What about the feeling he’s going to lose himself forever if he ever changes again, and him doing it anyway to help his friends? That was one theme that felt a little under served to me given the seriousness of the implications. 

- Hela was amazing omg. Like, it is hard to introduce a new villain that’s just magically better than everyone at everything and is also a stone cold badass woman. Somehow, somehow they managed it most likely through the immortal talent of Cate Blanchett. She was genuinely terrifying and genuinely felt like a member of their family, unlike some missing family member villains who just feel tacked on. 

- Though I will say I was a little surprised by the reluctant villainy of Karl Urban’s character. I expected him to be a more willing ally of Hela, his story was interesting in how he was basically just an opportunistic but otherwise loyal Asgardian trying to survive and I could have used a few more minutes of focus on him just to sort of pull his story together as more than just someone for Hela to talk to while shit is going down.

- Btw, SPEAKING OF HELA I’ve been saying for AGES that we should be reexamining what Thor being “worthy” is all about because it’s not necessarily the modern concept of good vs. evil. Given that Odin slaughtered his way across 9 realms then turned on the child who helped gain it for him, being “worthy” could literally just mean “able to kill the largest number of people efficiently” according to Odin.

- Uh, do any of our heroes have their powers anymore if they drew them from Asgard which is now a pile of rubble?

- But OMG WE’RE GETTING ASGARD ON EARTH YEEEESSSSSSS. Ok so one of my number one writerly influences, J. Michael Straczynski who also wrote Babylon 5 and Sense8, wrote a Thor comic about Asgard being reestablished on Earth and IT IS HILARIOUS AND WONDERFUL GUYS I am SO EXCITED to see Asgard planted in the middle of the goddamn MIDWEST this is going to be GREAT. Also Dr. Strange must be losing his shit right now HE ASKED THEM TO PLEASE LEAVE NOT BRING THEIR WHOLE PLANET HERE

- Oh, and on a total badwrong side note, I still ship the fuck out of Thor and Loki and I am sorry. I hate incest in general, blech, as a plot device but Loki definitely does not see Thor as a brother also they’re kinda not even human so for some reason that sneaks by my radar. But I’d dearly love to see some Thorki where they’re as snarky and antagonistic and sort of tragically doomed to always be messing with one another as was in Thor 3, and not like... wide-eyed tragic uke Loki or some such (not that that isn’t valid for writers to explore, I just DESPERATELY want some obnoxious-conniving-little-shit Loki and exasperated but actually able to keep the upper hand and occasionally tragically upset and annoyed that Loki just can’t stop being such a conniving little shit for five minutes and sit at the dinner table like a normal person goddamnit why can’t i quit you Thor... just saying). 

Honestly, that movie was just so much fucking fun, I need to see it again.

[mistymoonstorm]

GMS Fanfiction - Mycroft/MC - Dance

Posting twice in one day, because I can!

I enjoy the side stories involving 221B Academy quite a bit, so I decided to take a crack at it myself. And I've been posting mostly short stories, so here's a longer one for you guys.

Dances at 221B Academy did not happen often. Despite the school being mostly run by its student council, teachers did still have a say, and most did not often fancy the rowdy freedom that such large gatherings encouraged among youngsters. Especially in an environment where said youngsters were just reaching the peak of that age of interest among the opposite sex.

Still, there were times when they had to give in. Holidays and other such special occasions, for example.

The narrow window just before Christmas break was one of those times, and the student council got to work almost immediately, excited and looking forward to the festivities.

The academy was soon dressed in festive green and red, ribbons strewn through rafters and classrooms, lending a cheerful, wintry sort of vibe when viewed in tandem with handmade paper snowflakes and other such personal touches.

There was a lighthearted mood throughout the student body even before the plans for the dance itself were finished.

The night of the dance saw a grand ninety percent in attendance, a definite increase since the last time an event like this was set up.

Guinevere Stark looked especially open and friendly tonight, very faint makeup playing along the finer of her already attractive features, flaxen hair done up in simple but flattering curls to reveal a cross dangling from a delicate silver chain across the graceful curve of her throat. There was color in her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes that wasn’t always prominent, and people were noticing.

Especially those in her so-called ‘fanclub,’ even if its existence wasn’t consciously spoken of aloud.

“She’s beautiful,” said John, smiling.

“She’s always beautiful,” corrected George with a sigh. “If only I could just talk to her.”

Sherlock said nothing, but his eyes said everything.

"Wallflowers as usual?”

Sherlock’s expression darkened.

“Oh, hello Mycroft,” John greeted. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“I’m the administrative director,” Mycroft said, amused. “I’m here to mediate.”

“Do you have to be here?” asked Sherlock gloomily.

Mycroft turned his smirk on him. “I have no pressing need to be here, exactly, but I wanted to check on you, Shirley. Mother wouldn’t be pleased were something to happen to my adorable little brother."

Sherlock practically growled at him in reply. “My name is Sherlock!”

He was ignored. “If you’re here to dance with Ms. Stark,” Mycroft began mildly, though his eyes still shone teasingly. “Then I would recommend haste on your part.”

"What do you mean?” asked George, confusion knitting his brows.

“Look there.” Mycroft gestured to the place they’d seen Guinevere before. Across the room stood James flanked by Jack and Sebastian. They seemed to be talking, but James was smiling in that manner that meant he was going to try getting his way, regardless of others. “As you can see, you three are not the only voyeurs tonight.”

“‘Voyeurs,’” repeated John incredulously. He shook his head. “It sounds creepy when you put it that way.”

“It is only the truth.” Mycroft sounded amused again. “Good luck, Shirley.”

With that, he disappeared into the crowd.

“Why is it he only wished you good luck?” John frowned. “He made it sound like the rest of us have no chance.”

Sherlock’s scowl was still firmly in place. “It’s Mycroft. When he says ‘good luck’ he really means the opposite. He’d be more than happy to watch me embarrass myself in front of her.”

“That sounds a little excessive,” said George. “I’m sure he meant just what he said.”

Sherlock scoffed. “He’s the incarnation of evil. Simple as that. He most certainly meant the opposite.”

While John and George were shaking their head at his drama, the room devolved into disarray.

“Someone spiked the punch bowl!” one of the students cried as she and another carried their friend through the gymnasium. Said friend of theirs was swaying precariously and looked alarmingly green in pallor.

Mycroft’s commanding voice - a tone he rarely used - echoed across the space. “Take him to the nurse. Moriarty, I need you and your student council to find out who spiked the bowl.”

James - from what the trio could see of him - looked decidedly unhappy about being torn from his plotting, but did as he was told, a small group tagging behind him. From his expression, the troublemaker in question would be very unlucky indeed once they were caught.

“Who do you think did it?” asked George.

“Jeremy. For sure,” said John. “The man is the embodiment of prankster.”

“It was Hercule.”

They both turned to stare at Sherlock. “What?”

“Hercule did it,” Sherlock repeated, annoyance rising by the minute. “Not Jeremy.”

“I hesitate to ask how you know.” John sighed. “We’d just be here for the rest of the dance listening to you talk.”

“Hey!” George nudged them, pointing. “Look!”

Sherlock and John followed his finger, only to see Guinevere gazing up at Mycroft with a small smile. It didn’t take a genius or a master of deduction to guess that he’d asked her to dance.

“That demon.” Sherlock was seething again, nerves ruffled like an agitated bird. “What did I tell you? The embodiment of evil.”

“That was sneaky of him, I’ll admit,” John agreed unhappily. “He took advantage of all the commotion.”

“I guess this means that’s his round,” said George. The slump in his shoulders stunk of defeat.

---

Guinevere’s night had seemed to be going very well for a while. Her female friends were already laughing and joking amongst themselves as they surveyed the various congregations, and the tables were stockpiled with sprinkled cookies and candy cane brownies and other equally delicious goodies.

Unfortunately, it all went downhill from there.

Though Guinevere always made it a point to steer away from romance - she recognized that it could only be trouble in the face of her journey to success - she was still a budding woman, and despite her lack of a boyfriend, was also very much a romantic.

No one had asked her to dance yet. It was a little disappointing.

So she paused in her fluttering from group to group, hiding for awhile near the sweets and carefully avoiding the sprigs of mistletoe cheekily spread like traps across the party.

She had just begun to return to her friends when the chaos began.

“Someone spiked the punch bowl!”

Guinevere’s attention snapped to three students - one looking very ill - in shock. She hadn’t expected anything like this to happen here. Most of the students were well-behaved, especially considering the fact that they didn’t get to plan these gatherings very often.

She was just about to run and provide help when she was stopped.

“Mycroft,” she said, blinking in surprise. “May I help you?”

Mycroft was wearing a mild smile as he looked down at her. “Hello, Ms. Stark. I can’t help but notice your lack of a partner.”

Guinevere flushed, glancing away. “Yes. I’ve been alone the entire night.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Her eyes returned to him as he held out a hand, palm up. “Would you do me the honor of a dance, Ms. Stark?”

She exhaled a little louder than intended, heart thudding sharply. Mycroft rarely spoke to her unless she initiated the conversations first, and even then he was detached and polite. She knew next to nothing about him save that he was the administrative director of the school as well as the older brother of Sherlock. Against her better judgement, she couldn’t help but be momentarily captivated by the mysterious allure he let off in that moment.

“Of course.” She laid her hand in his, a little nervously. “And call me Guinevere, please.”

Mycroft’s mouth quirked. “As you wish, Guinevere.”

He tugged her gently into his arms as the next slow song began, wrapping an arm around her and lacing his fingers through hers with his free hand. He was good at this, and led with a calm, collected sort of confidence.

“You must’ve read my mind,” she said, and smiled. “I was feeling a little alone for a while there.”

Mycroft’s gaze as he watched her was surprisingly soft. “I may not be as adept as my brother at deductions, but I can still recognize a girl in need of a dance partner.” He paused for a moment to twirl her, smiling when she laughed with enjoyment.

“Well, thank you.” Her tension had faded. Strange that he could do that without even seeming to try. “I appreciate it.”

“Of course.”

As the song ended so did their dance. Guinevere tried to ignore how disappointed that made her feel.

Mycroft made a move as if to leave after bidding her a good evening. On impulse, Guinevere halted him with a hand at his arm, rising to her toes to kiss his cheek when he turned.

For a moment he appeared stunned. It wasn’t a look she was used to seeing on him.

Then he smiled, a near-imperceptible curling of his lips, and took her hand in his, bending to press a kiss to the top of it. Even as her heart jumped into her throat and her head fogged with clouds Guinevere knew instinctively that that had been a real smile. Mycroft smiled in almost every situation, either to put others at ease or to hide his own emotions. Studying as an actress gave her enough to know a fake smile when she saw one.

That one, no matter how faint, was very much real.

End

[divasdamselsandsmudgedmascara]

“Fahrenheit 451″ starring Julie Christie - 1966 (Movie Review)

Does the thought of a day without a book in your hands give you the shivers? Does the idea of never being able to step foot in the quiet, blissful corners of a library or bookstore give you the nightmares and cold sweats? How about a possibility of never even seeing a book again...never again in your lifetime? Not only that but your children and their children will not even be able to comprehend the notion of printed words on a page. 

The book and all of the knowledge, delight, enlightenment, and discovery it possesses will be permanently banished from the collective consciousness of humankind and in its place, nothing but what the state wills for you to watch...eyes frozen...mind paralyzed...on an ever-present, obnoxious screen on your wall.

Oh wait, we're halfway there already.

Step into the warped world of Fahrenheit 451 and a man and a woman whose minds are awoken to the truth of their society and their own inner demand for enlightenment.

Throughout history, humanity has often struggled with the dictatorship of the deluded and their attempts to suppress and even eradicate free will. It's come in the form of new forms of tight-fisted government, their intimidated and delusional followers, evil laws that refuse to acknowledge the fact that human beings should not and cannot be mentally controlled. Banning of free speech and freedom of the press has gone hand in hand with these repressive governments' efforts. But in Ray Bradbury's razor-sharp examination of a society where all text is threat, repression takes on an insidious form where faux-contentment is fed to the masses in the form of mind-numbing "entertainment". The book and all its intellectual and emotional challenges is deleted from these citizens' lives and done so cleanly and forcefully that most don't even realize what they've lost and don't understand the first thing about regaining it. There is a minority who resist however. There is ALWAYS the resistance! 

Enter Guy Montag. He's a simple man. A hard-working man. He's also a firefighter but in his society, he does not save people but destroys their legacies.

Guy Montag burns books. And he's very good at it.

In the very first scene, Guy and his fellow firemen are racing off to a drab apartment block in this future, dumbed-down England. Enter another man in a turtleneck happily munching an apple in his drab apartment in said drab block. He receives a phone call on his rotary phone (nobody is allowed to write books, research papers, essays, or ANYTHING anymore, so they'll never reach the digital age!)

"Listen, get out! Hurry!" a female voice on the other end urgently whispers to turtleneck man mid-chew. Puzzled by the fact that his pleasant afternoon has been interrupted, the dude keeps saying "Hello, Hello?" instead of hustling out the door, clutching a paperback for dear life.

Frustrated, the mysterious female bellows, "For God's sake, get OUT of there!"

Finally getting a clue, turtleneck man hears the sirens of the book-hating bastards, hides his contraband and makes a break for it.

I really liked this scene. It introduces the urgency of the situation SO well, with just a few words spoken and the cinematography doing the rest. The steel-gray sky is juxtaposed against the coldness of the industrial looking apartment blocks, with a desperate, nameless fugitive's coat flapping in the wind as he makes his escape from the men who would destroy what’s precious to him...masterful. And truly a sign of the cinematic treasures to come from this film. I've always felt that the mark of a great movie--not just an okay movie or even a "good" one--is the power of the opening scene. If it can grab you and never let you go until those last few minutes, you'll have a masterpiece! Not just a decent way to spend a few hours.

Montag is doing his job SO well that a promotion is dangled in front of him by his captain (played by the phenomenal Cyril Cusack), a quietly fanatical true believer. This "bright" young man is going places! Onwards and upwards as the British like to say, or er...downwards if we're gonna be real about the whole destruction of human knowledge thing.

That is...until a fateful meeting on public transportation with a disarming young schoolteacher who is much more than she seems.

Enter Clarisse, a luminous Julie Christie.

Now, this movie did something I consider pretty original and effective. Christie was cast in two roles both directly linked to the lead character, both influencing his decisions, and both integral to the details of the plot. She is thoroughly convincing as two women with different motivations, purposes, and feelings. She is Clarisse and she is Montag's wife, Linda. Where Clarisse's mind is opening to the world around her and its realities, Linda's is dull, empty and withered.

Clarisse is instantly drawn to Montag. The scene where they first encounter each other is a study in character development. The moment she introduces herself to him on the crowded (upside-down!) train, you realize that there is something significant at play here. She is not a dullard. Her eyes are bright, her questions are incisive. She, in nearly all important ways that his wife and other citizens are not--is ALIVE. Another interesting juxtaposition is inserted here. As Clarisse gazes curiously at Montag, he himself is looking around the train at several passengers who are, as if in a daze, fidgeting with themselves, one woman drawing on the mist of a window like a bored and sleepy child. It's almost as if they are asleep and attempting to pinch themselves awake. 

Clarisse is wide awake.

In the middle of her chat with the awkward-looking Montag, she drops a few interesting lines that looking at it, seem to indicate with brilliant subtlety the emerging truth of who this young woman is and what she's about. 

"Once I get started, nothing can stop me! My uncle says I'm a veritable well of words."

In a society where printed words itself are considered destabilization and a threat to the maintenance of the state's lies, I find it powerful that this is a comment made in the first conversation this clearly intelligent woman has with a destroyer of words.

"You don't frighten me." she cheerfully says to Montag as the upside-down train barrels its way towards their destination.

Montag and Clarisse then disembark and as they head down the path to their homes, their conversation takes an interesting turn, guided by Clarisse as they stroll in the sunshine.

"Tell me, why do you burn books?" she asks and you get the sense that this is not merely a question but a gentle challenge.

At first it seems that he tries to dodge the true meaning of the question by calling it "good work like any other" but then he shrugs off the meaning of literature as "just so much rubbish".

“They disturb them, make them anti-social.”

The question that I asked while viewing the film was whether Montag in that moment, was a believer in his cause or whether he was merely parroting the propaganda fed to him likely throughout his entire life. One of the details I like about Oskar Werner's performance was the casual indifference, the weary demeanor of Montag's whole being. He does not come across as a man particularly set afire by his ideals. He does his job, repeats the party line when need be, and goes home. No more. No less. 

Does Clarisse sense an ambivalence in Montag's spirit that even he did not recognize?

In any case, Montag tries to convince Clarisse and to a certaint extent himself, about the "nobility" of his work and as they part and he walks down the road to his antiseptic little house with his wife waiting before their ever-present television screen, you see him walk into an existence that is so strictly ordered and formulated by the influence of the state that you can't help but notice that basically, most of the VIBRANCE and REASON for life has been stripped away. What’s left? Go to work, go home, eat, make love, gape at a gigantic TV screen filling your head with propaganda entirely designed to keep you from ever fulfilling anything of importance. When people are neither challenged nor seek out answers to any significant life question, what is the result? When something as precious as literature, text in general, is eliminated from a civilization, what really is there to learn, achieve or contribute to humankind anymore? What’s left is a society left to languish, stagnate, and ultimately fade into utter purposelessness.

That is demonstrated with the odd state-run "theater" his drugged-out wife Linda is excited to be a part of, one of the few opportunities she has for stimulation as she lies around their home, popping state-approved pills and draining what's left of her energy and intelligence.

The state theater rambles on and on in a childish and simplistic way, the nonexistent "plot" being which rooms to place houseguests. The whole thing is like a third-grade math question on a school test but this is what passes for "entertainment" in this aggressively anti-intellectual society.

Linda is thrilled later on in bed, that she has given "all the right answers" and she chirps on about her moment of rare excitement to the bored-out-of-his mind Montag as he browses through a wordless comic strip, filled page to page with garish color cartoons.

The emptiness of this couple's life is brought into full focus, and the perfection of Werner and Christie's performances is that it doesn't even take a great deal of dialogue to do it. The body language is expertly detailed--and with Christie, so pronounced that in her double role as Linda and the schoolteacher, Clarisse, you almost feel as if you are watching two different actresses.

Montag's awakening is soon to come into full bloom with the gentle encouragement of schoolteacher Clarisse, who for reasons that are never specifically stated, has become an ex schoolteacher--rejected by her fellow teachers and the administration, and in a surreal scene, treated with contempt as her things are shoved across the floor to her, wrapped in a sack, as Montag looks on.

Now, that's the definition of a brush-off.

The reasons are like I said, never explicitly stated but you definitely gain a general understanding of just why Clarisse is fired, shut out and treated with this kind of contempt. Although she obviously does not officially go against state rules, there is something about her personality, the alertness and the creativity that is a part of her identity not only as a teacher but as a private citizen of this oppressive, draining state (she says early on that "we have fun in my class") that is found threatening. She is not a drone. She has never relinquished a special spark within her, a spark of individuality, that the government ruthlessly wants to snuff out within the hearts and minds of each and every man, woman and child.

Montag comforts her as she sobs into his shoulder on the elevator, and she suddenly looks at him in wonder, wondering how the gentle and compassionate man in front of her could be in what is such a barbaric business.

"Why? How did it come about? What made it begin? What made you want to do...how could someone like you be doing this sort of work? I know everyone says that, but you? You're NOT like them. When I say something to you, you look at me. Why did you choose this job?"

Montag replies,

"Do you remember what you asked me the other day? Whether I ever read the books I burned? Remember? Last night I read one."

With that twist of Montag’s destiny, both their lives will be intertwined.

Montag himself has changed...radically. He does not want to continue a life lived in darkness and ignorance. He's flipped the switch and the light is pouring in. He begins to stash books in every nook and cranny from the raids he goes on and his bewildered wife Linda stumbles upon his furtive reading in the middle of the night. He is desperate to read as many words as he can on the dusty, forgotten pages. He is like a starving man, feasting on an enormous amount of knowledge. He starts to wake up to just exactly what the state has been feeding other intellectually and emotionally starved people, their replacement of the knowledge books can bring, with shallow desires and empty platitudes.

Linda is confused and upset at the change in her husband. 

She has given the entirety of herself to the demands of dictatorship and the presence of the books make her afraid, not just of the consequences of reading, but I always felt that her character was terrified of the discovery. Scared of opening her mind beyond the limited confines of what has been established for her....like a child who has been used to playing in a sandbox her entire life, and never ventures out to explore the world around her.

“I found these things in the house! I don’t want these things, Montag. They frighten me.”

A pivotal scene, one that never fails to send chills down my spine, is a fire that happens at a middle-aged woman's house, which doubles as a secret library (it is a legitimately kick-ass library).

Amidst her pile of books, a veritable treasure trove that she has hoarded, cherished, and protected for years, the woman sets the pile aflame herself....with her in the middle of the blaze. Montag stares in abject horror as he sees this woman kill herself in the most horrible way possible. 

Montag is a man who has followed orders without question, going about his questionable "duties" as if a man who is sleepwalking. Death is actually this one reader’s choice rather than allowing the state to control her and discover a pivotal secret that she holds.

He reaches another level of rebellion and dives into an ocean of words, head-first.

In the process, he turns into a person who not only questions the stupid and corrupt laws, but his married life, the existence he has built up with a woman who is blissfully ignorant.

Linda wants Montag to return to their life of ignorance. She begs, pleads and threatens in a desperate attempt to force him to destroy the books that he is now clinging to...for understanding... of what he has done, why he is been made to do it, and for what yet he needs to do.

And in the middle of all of this upheaval, Clarisse and the uncle that she lives with, has been discovered as "book readers". She has made the escape her uncle has prepared her to make, away from a society that is determined to consider her a “thought-criminal” (Oops. Wrong authoritarian regime dystopia.)

Montag has joined her in the quiet "resistance”, though! He vows to work from the inside, sabotaging the system he has been serving for so long. 

“I must stay in the city, I have a plan. I will hide a book in every fireman’s house until they denounce him. The system will eat itself.”

Meanwhile, she will flee to the country and join a band of underground bibliophiles called "the book people", a bunch of passionate readers who've BECOME books, memorizing the precious pages one by one. 

(What they’re burning ties in to the old woman’s death.)

He doesn't have a chance though to follow through on his plan, because his wife becomes an informant on his midnight reading habit, fleeing from their home in a fit of exasperation. 

The years of the boob tube's endless manipulations had turned Linda into the consummate follower. What was so interesting and realistic about her character was how it presented the end result of effective governmental indoctrination. There were and are so many citizens of certain nations just like Linda, who have swallowed the lie that their natural human freedoms should be taken away in the name of "protection", when what these corrupt governments have really been seeking is the destruction of their will and suppression of their power.

Montag flees in panic after he does something absolutely irreversible--he has become a fugitive! His face is plastered on every TV around him and he flees from a city determined to use him as both an example and a form of entertainment for the millions of dead eyes plastered to their wall screens.

Francois Truffaut's adaptation of Ray Bradbury's book is subtly and powerfully interpreted. The beginning of the movie is all cold edges, uniforms reminiscent of jack-booted Nazis, and boring sameness.

That coldness and an almost desolate feeling of emptiness is carried over into the way people are relating to each other in this society, such as the barren relationship between Montag and his wife, Linda. The truth of it is that Montag and Linda simply don't have an emotional connection anymore. The intrusion of the state, the ever-present wallscreens, the constant consumption of propaganda has destroyed the soul and the integrity of their marriage. Julie Christie's blankness as Linda and brightness as Clarisse are like night and day. Truffaut's decision to cast Christie in both roles is an inspired touch. It brings a striking contrast to Montag's life. Clarisse is definitely her own woman. And I never viewed her presence as simply a device serving to "wake up" Montag. No. Clarisse as a character, as an intellectual woman with agency in a fiercely anti-intellectual state, was a whole lot more than that. But I believe she is also an interesting representation of duality in Guy Montag's life and I feel that Clarisse represents to him the "what-ifs" of Linda. An alternate version of her in a way.

Clarisse also represents the truth of discovery that is forcing its way into Montag's narrow existence. She is a woman who sticks out in a subtle but at the same time, blatant way.  Standing out is dangerous, standing out is looked upon with distrust and is stamped out whenever possible. She loses her job and has her spirit and creativity literally thrown back in her face. But Christie's Clarisse has this indomitable optimism I've always found pretty damn fascinating about her character, an inner source of satisfaction that comes from the fact that unlike so many other zombies of the state, what she has in the end....is HERSELF. One of the most defining details of Francois Truffaut's classic is the serene and unshaking confidence Clarisse has in who she is and what she believes in. She is in my opinion, every bit of the hero as Montag if only because of her total confidence and belief in the normalcy of the pursuit of knowledge despite everything and everyone ordering citizens like her to shut down and go to sleep.

The thing about Linda, Clarisse and Montag, and what's so intruiging about Truffaut's direction, is that all of these characters have multiple layers beneath the surface. The film explores the fascinating concept that when a person is forbidden knowledge for so long, the void can become their familiar and even comfortable world, or they can choose to step out into unknown, scary, but vastly rewarding territory.

It's a unique take on authoritarianism, and quite frankly, one of the most unsettling ones I think has been depicted in film. These characters are well-crafted and wonderfully brought to life, but in the end, they are, in my humble opinion, mere vessels for a larger message.

That message is that theft of the progression we are entitled to as human beings, can just possibly be on the horizon if we aren't constantly vigilant about whom we place our trust and loyalty in. That trust and loyalty can all too quickly be bent into obedience and that obedience switched into mental enslavement. Fahrenheit 451 is a story of human resistance, and I feel one of the most amazing politically charged scifi films ever made. The performances are excellent and I guarantee you, the ending is a work of searing, powerful beauty.

It's a five star flick!

[danddorks]

Chelastian Campaign #1

So for the past few weeks I’ve been running a horror-inspired D&D 5e campaign. Although it was originally intended to be a full fledged horror game, it’s veered off into the weird and campy, as most of our campaigns tend to do.

This game was actually played near Halloween of 2016 and was going to be a one-shot to train some newbies. We wound up extending it to a full fledged campaign.

So, an introduction to the PC’s:

Sir John “Ducky” Mallard, a 1st level Human Paladin who has sworn the Oath of the Ancients. Son of Duke Mallard, Ducky was sent to the Diamond Hills mercenary guild as a silencing tactic. 

Tohmoh the Damarrion, a 1st level Human Warlock with Cthulu as a patron. Joined the Diamond Hills mercenary guild as a way to gain power while helping others.

Marrow, a 1st level dhampir Bard, as played by @the-pantsing-panda

Rohss, a 1st level Half-Elf Ranger, guardian of the forest.

Aiyiri, a 1st level Khajit Fighter with a two-weapon fighting style, former assassin

There are other players / characters who join in / swap out later, but this was the cast for the first session.

What I hope to do is keep notes that record a) events that were wonderful or that made my players happy; b) plot points; and c) the basic gist of the story.

I don’t keep fully detailed chat logs or anything like that. It’s just the rundown of the story with any GM notes following with the same session tags.

Character Introductions:

Sir Ducky, as he is infamously named, is the second son of Duke Mallard. While his older brother is in line for the title, Ducky had little choice but to become a soldier in order to gain recognition. However, after discovering that his father may very well be involved in some tax fraud, Ducky is sent to join a mercenary guild with high esteem as a way to intimidate him into silence. 

Tohmoh the Damarrion is the great great grandson of an infamous Mad Warlock. He has dedicated his life to Cthulu, but also strives to help those in need, as chaos doesn’t have to be heartless, and those with power should share it. 

Marrow is a dhampir who has been living on his own for far too long, and has begun reverting to his bloodsucking instincts. He is a hunter, of sorts; seeking out the evil vampires to vanquish them and prove that one is master of their own fate.

Rohss is the heir to the Elven family that, after the human’s conquered in the war, retreated to the forests. They know that the forest has a spirit, and have been tasked with keeping it alive. Lately, though, strange creatures have feasted on the blood of those that live in the forest, drawing Rohss to seek the creatures and destroy them.

Aiyiri was once a young girl who admired her brother. His murder at the hands of an Orc brute redefined her life, and shaped her into a ruthless killer. She became an assassin, and, after losing her partner, she now seeks vengeance. And gold. Gold is good too.

---

Our PC’s have, in one way or another, been made aware of a nearby town calling for help in investigating a house where many travelers have disappeared. They are escorted to the house/office of the Mayor of the former Dwarven Fortress now known as Sapphire Lake Town by his secretary, Carla. The Mayor explains the problem: A man named Karloff had come into town nearly twenty years ago and caused some trouble. Although he’s left, his house remains. They had sent up a demolitions team to destroy it, but they never came back. Ever since then, anyone who has wandered into the house has not come out -- not even experienced adventurers!

From basic roleplaying, the party finds out that Karloff had been a generous spirit that had befriended Mayor Barron, assassinated the town Cleric and Wizard, and then had drained the city’s treasury. It is not outside the realm of possibility that he cursed his estate. Mayor Barron has been trying to get some good men to go cleanse the house of it’s evil spirit, but nobody is willing to work for free.

From a few persuasion rolls, the party agrees to go to the House as long as they get to keep what they find there. Mayor Barron agrees to the terms.

They make their way across town. Marrow traps himself in the well in the front yard while investigating it, convinced it’s somehow evil. It’s not. It’s an empty well with some half-assed installed spike strips at the bottom to kill hapless wanderers. Ducky helps him out, failing a perception check that might have changed his opinion about the completely innocent well.

Once inside the house, a suit of armor they had mistaken for a lawn decoration appears, having followed them. Tohmoh snatches off it’s helmet and peers inside, curious. He finds a magical marking to indicate that a soul has been bound to the armor.

While the armor protests this invasion of privacy, Ducky recognizes the family symbol. It belongs to the Strider family, formerly of the Duchy Ravenna -- a cautionary tale for noble children. 100 years prior, the Strider family had two heirs. The eldest, a knight in the service of the King, disappeared following rumors that he had fallen in love. The youngest wound up dying as a teenager, after it was learned the father was involved in taking a little from the taxes he collected.

Ducky believes the armor belongs to the elder of the two, Dirk. 

Dirk does not remember dying, only that he had found the house and entered it. Then... then...

The suit turns cold and slouches. Dirk appears to be gone from it. As the party tries to figure out what that means, it comes back alive, warning them...

“They come.”

Marrow notices that Zombies have begun to crawl from the fireplace in the first room of the hallway. He unwittingly stands in the doorway so no one else can attack. The next round, he backs up and throws his rapier like a javelin, which sends it sliding across the floor to the other side of the room. While Ducky and Tohmoh take over the zombie slaying duties, Rohss dives out the front door. When he sees the house has legs and is getting up, he tries to jump back inside. He winds up dangling from the doorway. Aiyiri runs up to the zombies to begin her slaughter. She also collects Marrow’s rapier, but decides to keep it for herself.

Marrow has the bright idea to anchor a rope so they can climb down from the house. He critically fails his roll and winds up hitting Tohmoh in the back of the head with a grappling hook, causing minor damage. He then ollies out the front door to join Rohss. (note: the player remembers intentionally trying to knock Rohss down or kill him, since Rohss is unknowingly hunting her character. I personally do not remember this.)

Tohmoh gets the idea to set the house on fire, and proceeds to do just that.

The party bail, all nearly stepping on Rohss, and the flaming house marches all the way to the fortress walls before it collapses, revealing it was actually another creature, a mimic, having been forced into the shape of a house. They collect the best selection of twenty years worth of armor, and then walk away without searching for more treasure.

They are taken to the local inn, the Skipping Seahorse, to relax. Marrow and Rohss decide to stop by the pub across the street first.

-End-

[sueboohscorner]

The Vampire Diaries 813 Recap “The Lies Will Catch up to You” #TVD #FreeCaroline

Last week ended with the awesome surprise of Kai’s arrival from hell. This week, we go back a few days to see how that happened. While the Maxwell bell was being rung by Matty Blue, enabling Cade’s crossover into our dimension, Kai caught a glimpse of Mystic Falls through his haze of torture. He leapt and made it through before the gateway closed again. 

Delighted to be alive, Kai eagerly orders a meal fit for a family of four. Impatient for satisfaction, he rips open a packet of jelly on the table and takes a taste…except he can’t taste it. He grabs another customer’s food and takes a bite…nothing. He picks up a knife and stabs himself in the hand…no sensation either. The poor waiter comes along and stares at him in shock…Kai magically impales the waiter on his blade. 

This scene is ingenious. We are reminded in the course of moments why we’re happy to see Kai: Chris Wood’s portrayal is hilarious and terrifying by turns. But we’re also reminded how truly unpredictable and dangerous he is.

Back to the present, Alaric’s ready to take righteous vengeance against Kai for murdering Jo at their wedding, and Damon restrains Alaric in the interest of getting Kai to revive Elena first. Alaric is pissed, and he’s right to be. Damon is overconfident as usual; he will not be able to control this situation.

Speaking of out of control situations, Matt calls Caroline into the police station to help him deal with a bizarre flood of complaints coming in over the last couple of days…against Stefan Salvatore. Caroline immediately realizes they should have seen this coming; the moment Stefan became human, all his past compulsions started to fade. Everyone he’s ever compelled to forget a horror he inflicted on them or carried out right before their eyes…and Caroline will dutifully sit with a great many of them, listening to her fiance’s hit parade of cruelty. She hears their stories, then compels them all over again with a new version of the memory that might be easier to bear. Matt even compliments her creativity, noting that she’s coming up with a lot more variety than her mom used to; there were a lot of “animal attacks” in the town records.

But one of the people whose memory suddenly returned didn’t run to the police to file a report, because he knew Stefan personally and understood what was happening. Armory intern, Dorian, whose backstory included a fire that killed half his family…well, until today, when he woke up and remembered who told him that backstory in the first place. Seven years ago, he came home to a gut-wrenching scene of horror, but Stefan set the house on fire and compelled him to forget everything. Of course, we in the audience instantly understand the significance of the time frame: Seven years ago, Klaus Mikaelson forced Stefan to go on a Ripper road trip with him. 

Once again, this scene is utterly brilliant. By placing the murder of Dorian’s family in the timeline of the series, the show has put us in the same position as Caroline. We have to uncomfortably deal with the notion that we knew about Stefan’s acts of evil, but we were just happy to get him back. As viewers, we sided with the bad guy and forgave him, and sure, okay, we had the excuse of his humanity switch and his desire to protect Elena from Klaus…but we were able to move on and forget his victims. Now, here’s a tragic case of Stefan’s collateral damage, and we hadn’t given him a thought. Lives have been lost and ruined, and we kept rooting for this guy. It keeps getting harder, though, doesn’t it?

Dorian forces Stefan to dig his own grave, then shoots him. It’s dark and hardcore, and Dorian immediately knows he’s no longer the victim or the hero in this story.

Also on a road trip, Damon and Kai are en route to Elena’s coffin. Sure, this will go well. Damon calls Bonnie and tries to play off his questions as hypothetical, as if she doesn’t know him better than that. She instantly figures out Kai is there with him, and while that pisses her off, it also gives her hope: If Kai found his way through from hell, Enzo could too. 

Btw, props to Chris Wood for his physical comedy throughout this scene. This guy is a star.

Damon and Kai talk through the Sirens situation, and Kai gets an idea. Maybe he could follow the “sexy Sirens” playbook to anchor him to this dimension. He needs to kill some bad guys and consume their flesh. Conveniently, there’s a guy sexually harassing his employee nearby, and Damon approves of murdering an ass-smacking SOB. I’m with you, Damon.

Stefan’s lying in his shallow grave, bleeding out slowly, inviting Dorian to take a second shot, and this time, please try to actually hit something vital, because slow deaths are wicked painful. Dorian is freaking out in a million different directions, including the realization that he’s now probably also going to go to hell, and it wasn’t worth it. He walks Stefan back to cell phone range and calls for help. Caroline can’t heal Stefan, of course, but she can compel the paramedics to record this as an accidental shooting among hunting buddies. 

Driven by her desperation to find Enzo, Bonnie lets a psychic magnetism draw her to Cade, who offers to help her hone her gifts. They take hands and she reaches out for Enzo, drawing on Cade’s power to help her. It works! She finds Enzo, but he quickly tells her not to trust Cade, and to leave before Cade is able to use her to locate him. She breaks off the connection and Cade reveals what’s really happened. Cade is fascinated by her, because she’s proven to be so much like him; he thought he was the only being who could psychically create a new dimension without even trying. Just as he created hell, she created a new pocket dimension and sent Enzo there. But of course, Enzo’s soul is on his list, so he can’t just let her keep him.

Recovering from his bullet wound, Stefan again tells Caroline she should be done with him. I’m inclined to agree. I know Caroline has a deep sense of loyalty, and I also think there’s a certain resistance to giving up a goal you’ve sacrificed so greatly to attain; if she lets this relationship go, then all the things she’s done in the name of being with Stefan are suddenly pointless, and she has to regret them all over again. But seriously, girl, you can do better. Cut bait and start the healing process. #FreeCaroline

Also trying desperately to make good on a foolish investment is Damon, who’s quickly realizing he has little hope of controlling Kai. He tries offering the hope of redemption, because hey, that works on him every time…but he’s making the classic mistake of misunderstanding what Kai is. He’s not a vampire whose humanity flips on and off; he’s a sociopath, which means his humanity has always been in the off position. More importantly, Kai is amoral, not unintelligent. He can tell he’s being played by a desperate man. Dangling redemption in front of Kai is like dangling a masters degree in front of a dog.

Shocking absolutely no one, Kai siphons Damon and disappears with the coffin. 

Speaking of siphons, Alaric brings the kids for a visit. They’re hitting a developmental stage he can’t handle on his own–they can’t control their magic.

I loved this episode. Between the pure joy of watching Chris Wood work, the brilliant plot and scripting choices that placed the audience in the position of uncomfortable self-reflection, and the discovery that Enzo is (at least for now) safe from hell, I give this a 10. 

What about you? Comment below with what you liked, what you didn’t like, and any theories about Kai’s next moves!