#operation: emperor's abyss complete!

[alterrune]

(Remember what I said about this needing 7 screenshots? Yep. This is an absolute doozy.)

CHAPTER 3, FINAL ACT: THE ABYSS ENDS

(We're currently chasing down the Iron Horse in an armored vehicle.)

THIS is what Terence's plan is?! He's fucking crazy!

So, Kyle...what's the plan?

I...I don't know. I actually have NO idea what to do here. But I may have an idea.

(I pull out a silver case with "The Nuclear Option" engraved onto it. Within it is a gilded, gold-plated Bazooka, which I load a rocket into immediately.)

We go in guns blazing.

Sounds like a plan to me.

I second that notion.

I third it.

Fourth.

Then we have a plan. We'll make the rest up as we go along.

READY...

(I fire a rocket into the side of the of the Iron Horse, blowing a hole into the wall, which makes an entryway.)

GO!

(We quickly blaze through the train, shooting every single Toppat Radical we see along the way. We also destroy all the weapons, fuel tanks, and generators as we go along, destroying each truck car in the process. However, the Iron Horse's engine room isn't destroyed, instead it simply loses all energy and brakes to a halt at the Foundry.)

Huh...y'know, I could use this for a mobile Chaos Creation Center base. The engine room car seems intact, I could probably get this thing up and running again.

Then go for it. But first, it's time for him.

(We immediately bust open the door, and---)

(BANG!)

KYLE!!!

(Kyle gets his head blown off by a sniper rifle shot!)

(BANG!)

ALTER!!!

(Alter, too?!)

Now you know how it feels to lose everything.

(Suave hits a button on his armor, and a few guided missiles are sent to the Airship. They manage to blow up part of the hull, but thankfully, none of them damaged the engines or the landing gear, thankfully allowing it to make a safe, albiet shaky, emergency landing.)

And I do mean EVERYTHING.

(I...I've never felt more angry then I have right now. Electric energy begins to crackle around me, as Henry and Ellie take a step back.)

Do you understand what you've just done? You not only took away the man who created this entire world, but you also took away my cousin. My own family.

No. Not just Alter. The CSB as a whole is like family to me.

Alter may be my cousin, but I consider him like the brother I never had.

And Kyle created this beautiful world. You just killed the storyteller himself.

You have no idea what hell you've just unleashed upon yourself.

I AM GOING TO SEND YOU SIX FEET UNDER THE FUCKING GROUND YOU STAND ON!!!

(I bring out Leadhead, stab it into the ground, and a lightning strike hits Alter, reviving him and powering him up.)

Well now, looks like I'm back. Thank you, Violet.

LET'S GET THIS FUCKER!

WITH PLEASURE!

(Terence shoots every weapon he has at us, but neither of us even flinch. I rapidly slice at him with my sword and Alter punches him repeatedly, and bit by bit, his armor goes away. Eventually, and after a long battle, Terence is forcefully ejected from his armor.)

Time to die, asshole.

Wait, stop! We can talk about this, right?

Nope. You're done for.

(cough, cough!)

(Wait, that cough. I know who it belongs to. We all turn around, and what do you know.)

KYLE?!

D-Don't...don't worry...about me...get...T-Terence...first...

(Kyle is somehow still alive. Henry and Ellie give us a signal that they'll stay here and look after Kyle. Me and Alter give them a nod, before looking each other and realizing exactly what to do.)

Let's go for a little fly, Terence.

(We quickly burst through the foundry's roof and over to the Airship. Reginald sees us, immediately knows what our plan is, and turns on the engines, causing the propellors to spin. Immediately after, both me and Alter dangle him over the very same propellor he was killed with the first time.)

Again?! I'm feckin' here AGAIN?! I thought you blokes wanted to be merciful to your enemies?!

We do that if they can be redeemed. However, you have no chance of being redeemed, Terence Suave.

Recruting you into the Toppat Clan was a mistake.

Letting you get all that power was a mistake.

Having you ever in our lives was a mistake.

And letting you into my story was a mistake.

(Kyle is being hauled over Henry and Ellie's shoulders. He's not looking the greatest at all, but at least he's able to be here.)

But regardless, there's one thing you should know before we kill you.

These mistakes are yours alone.

YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!!!

(Alter and I pull our hands back and throw Terence into the propellor with all our might. A blood-curdling scream is rung out as Terence dies yet again, this time taking his spirit with him. At long last, he's finally dead, this time for good. The electric aura fades as I drop to the ground, back to normal.)

You...you did it. Suave is finally dead.

'Bout time that bastard Brit got what was comin' to him. Though the Airship definitely took a hit, though.

RHM, we know. Tell Laurence to flag us down and have Kyle be taken to the medbay immediately.

Copy.

(RHM's visor drops down, and with a beep, he contacts GEOGRAM.)

Aight, you should be teleported away shortly.

By the way, we would like to personally thank you for killing Suave.

Thank you all for doing what we couldn't. Maybe you all aren't so bad with my son, after all.

Thank you, Carol.

(We all teleport away, a job well done.)

🎇OPERATION EMPEROR'S GATE & CHAPTER 3 COMPLETE!!!🎆

ACHIEVEMENTS UNLOCKED!

End Of Suave (Emperor's Abyss Set)

RANK: Unstoppable (Stock Achievement Set)

BEGINNING EPILOUGE #1

So much pain...

(I'm currently in the GEOGRAM medbay. Dr. V said I was lucky to have survived. Suave shot me with a .50 cal sniper rifle. For those unaware, that's a pretty powerful bullet. Luckily, it seems his aim was off after shooting Alter, so he shot me in the stomach instead. It actually punctured my stomach and left a hole in my gut, but thankfully that was the only thing it did to my gut. It nicked my spine a bit on the way out, but it didn't hit the nerve, just the bone. It wasn't fatal, but damn did it hurt.)

(Suddenly, the CSB come in with "Get Well Soon" gifts.)

Hi, Kyle. How badly did you get damaged?

Well, Dr. V said the bullet hit my stomach and punctured it both as it entered and as it left, and the bullet hit a few of of the lumbar bones in my spine, knocking them clean off. I have to be fed through a tube until my stomach is patched up, and I have to lie down as with as straight a posture I can do until Dr. V can attach some new lumbar bones to my spine.

At least you're alive. And we did it. Terence is gone for good.

What about Jericho?

Jerry? Oh, he heard the news and immediatly realized he didn't want to stop working as what he was.

After telling Earl that he wouldn't pull a Tom Sawyer on his responsibilites anymore, and with Earl realizing he CLEARLY meant it, he's been released on promise that he'll work for GEOGRAM and actually do it this time, and he's actually done said work!

It's safe to say that Jericho and Earl Grey have finally made up again.

That's good to hear.

Oh yeah, this is for you.

(The CSB place a music box next to me, which features depictions of all the people in the AtO story, including ones from the PMD event and the Alternarune event, surrounding me, who is the "ballerina" of the music box [though my little figure is me at a DJ booth]. As soon as I open it, it begins playing a familar tune.)

Is...is t-that...?

Yep. It's "Into The Light" by Off the Hook.

We figured you'd like it.

(I begin crying tears of genuine joy.)

I'd ask for a group hug, but I can't get up from this bed.

Don't worry, Kyle. We'll just do it from here.

(The four surround me and gently hug me, making sure to avoid my wounded areas. After letting me go, they begin to walk off, but Violet suddenly stops.)

Oh, right. Almost forgot.

(Vi plugs a minifridge into an unused outlet, which is filled with both mango and apple juice bottles, and sets up a pill dossier with my sleeping aid pills neatly laid out on my bedside table.)

You still need your sleeping pills.

Thank you, Violet.

You're welcome, Kyle. Get well soon, okay? We love you, you lovable bastard.

(Violet then runs off with the others.)

I love you too, you guys.

BEGINNING EPILOGUE #2

What do you mean, "Terence is dead"?!

Just what I said, Phantom 1. He's gone.

Kelso, there has to be a way to connect with his spirit.

Arase. His spirit is the thing that's gone. Nothing can bring him back or even contact him. He's gone for good. On the bright side, at least that means our little "mistake" has finally been fixed.

Well shit. I'm going up next.

NO. I've had enough of waiting around for you people. I'm going next and you can't stop me.

And what make you think you can---HRRRRGH?!

(Suddenly, two giant snakes coil around Arase and Phantom 1, tightly constricting them.)

Ah, the famous boa constrictor. Nasty things, really. They can be tamed to constrict their prey, and then eat them whole.

ALRIGHT, YOU'VE MADE YOUR POINT!

CALL THEM OFF, KELSO!

(Kelso snaps her fingers.)

Both of you. Release them.

(The boa constrictors uncoil themselves from Arase and Phantom 1.)

See, while the CSB was out doing things elsewhere, I wasn't just training the Vipers. I was also training snakes. Constrictors, rattlesnakes, real vipers...all kinds of snakes, really. Training them to help me beat them.

Especially that Violet Wolfsbane girl. She's a botanist that clearly loves nature.

She put her full trust in me, and I betrayed that trust.

I wonder what would happen if the very nature she loves so much decided to betray her, too?

END OF EPILOGUE(S)

[clocktowerechos]

Factions of the Grand Alliance

"Our enemies are numerous, powerful, insidious, and dangerous beyond reckoning. Tis good we have friends just as formidable. I cannot fathom having to stand alone in such a galaxy." ~ Imperial Diplomat toasts his allies during a feast on Craftworld Ulthwe

The Brightest Night AU is a lot more clear with who it counts on the good end of the moral spectrum and who it doesn't. This doesn't mean people are perfect, but they're at least mostly good by nature and try to be better. The Grand Alliance is what stands of the "civilized" races of the galaxy, an united bulwark against the abyss that threatens to consume them all.

The Interstellar Imperium

The Imperium of Man as we would know it and the successor state to the Greater Human Dominion from before the Dark Age of Technology. Ruled by the God-Emperor Aurelian, they are far less totalitarian and xenophobic than in canon, their faith is far less fanatical and count abhumans and even some xenos as Imperial citizens. As demonstrated by his marriage to Isha. Instead of the glorification of a holy human form in a physical sense, they value the concept of Humanity as people who can work together towards a greater goal. They can be seen as a galaxy spanning Interex and have adopted their method of dealing with Chaos with mixed results. People are generally more aware and can protect themselves better, but those who do fall often fall faster and further than they otherwise would have. As the Horus Heresy never happened, the idea that betrayal can happen at any time from within while still present, it not all-encompassing. However, plenty of planets and forces have been corrupted, just never all at once in an empire-splitting civil war. Faith remains a pervasive aspect of life in the Imperium, especially Emperor still being alive who is able to put some top down power to reign in the worst parts of the Imperium at times.

The Mechanicum

The largest of Survivor States that rose after the fall of the Greater Human Dominion, they are the most heavily intigrated of them. As the Imperium in this AU operates more akin to a federal system instead of an autocracy, the Mechanicum retains enough independence to the point of never having been forced to integrate and become the Adeptus Mechanicus. Still steeped in their techno-mysticism, technological advancement is glacial at best and often just as restrictive in canon. While technology is still stagnant and they hold the lion's share, some technology remains available in M41 such as jet bikes and volkite weaponry (albeit expensive and rare). AI remains completely outlawed in Mechanicum space and they're constantly pushing against the Tau's utilization of it. Their worst tendencies have mellowed out, going from callously apathetic to just iron-plated dicks. Given the Imperium can rely on other Suvivor States, the Tau, and even the Kyn Leagues for some tech, the political influence they wield is strong but not overpowering.

Confederation of Eldar Craftworlds

Less arrogant and self-assured of their own supremacy than in canon. Especially after Eldrad Ulthran brokered a pact between the Craftworlds and the young Imperium to aid one another in the War of the Beast and then an impossible raid on Nurgle's Garden to free Isha. It was this Hail Mary sucess that formed the foundation of the Grand Alliance and the eventual marriage of Isha and Aurelian. In exchange for their aid, the Eldar repaired and upgraded the Astronomicon and shared anti-Chaos technology and measures to the Imperium. With the rescue of Isha, hope has been restored to the Eldar. While they are a long way off from being a "dying race", their population at least grows even at a tectonic pace. Although their corrupted kin, the Shadishari, or "Chaos Eldar", still vastly outnumber them. She is the most potent anti-Chaos weapon the Alliance have, able to use her divine power to cleanse corrupted worlds with her presence but even with the constant movement of the Celestial Court, she can only be in so many places at once.

The "Imperial" Aquilla (the Alliance Aquilla in this timeline) and its twin heads in this AU actually represent the Imperium and the Craftworlds, not the Imperium and the Mechanicum.

The Exodite Enclaves

Also known as "Medari", they continue their low-tech existence on Eldar Maiden Worlds. There is usually a singular, technologically advanced settlement on their worlds, meant as a space port for their Craftworld cousins and the Imperium, but even then the technology is heavily regulated. Exodites are far more prickly and selective when it comes to dealing with outsiders and are granted special rights upon their worlds that not even the Craftworld Eldar can ignore. They exhibit more Wood Elf-tendencies as well, favoring the use of Ghostwood over Wraithbone which they cultivate in Ghostwood Glades. While often relying on treaties of defense with the Craftworlds, they are capable of rousing "forest spirits" in the form of Ghostwood Dyrads, Ents, and Treekin. Not to mention the various dangerous fauna they keep, most famous being the dinosaurs their knights ride into battle.

The Tau Empire

The largest of the allied Xenos races, they were independent for several millennia, resisting the advances of both Humans and Eldar until they finally joined in M39 after a series of devastating catastrophes and a brief civil war that saw the Farsight Enclaves break away. Their caste system and loyalty to the Ethreals is the result of cultural traditions and social engineering; it's possible for a Tau to go against an Ethereal but those who do probably aren't welcomed in the Empire to begin with or often feel deep shame for doing so. They're genuinely well-meaning with their entrance into the alliance being the biggest boons in millennia, but they're coming to grips with the reality and the vastness of the galaxy as well as its dangers. They weren't stupid enough to trust the Dark Eldar with cultural exchanges, but the Drukhari still took their due with successive raids during their "Bloody Teared Years" leading to a huge amount of animosity that is uncharacteristic for an otherwise famously, levelheaded people. Their AI technology is still highly advanced and they do butt heads with the Mechanicum over it. They are technically immune from its anti-AI strictures but a close, covert eye is kept out of fear they might trigger another Men of Iron-like revolt. Most of the time though, the Tau don't really quite believe the scale and scope of the universe they're in, still somewhat sheltered by their relative youth.

The Leagues of Votann

Technically abhumans, they are officially classified as "Xenos Amicis" (aka Friendly or Allied Xenos) in Imperial and Alliance records for what amounts as galactic tax evasion as being counted as an abhuman Survivor State would involve a great deal more integration than what most Leagues are comfortable with. Not to mention the additional burdens Survivor States are expected to provide for one another. However, they're still happy to work with the other members of the Alliance, giving tech, resources, and expertise in exchange for goods and oaths of defense. The true nature of their Votann AI is a closed secret known only to the Emperor with not even the Mechanicum fully let in on it. Some have their speculation, but it is a "don't ask questions to answers you don't want" situation for everyone involved.

[swtorpadawan]

20. alone, finally (micro story prompt)?

Author’s Notes: Warnings for sexual content. This story takes place sometime in the future - sort of a flash-forward. Taken from the “Send me a number and I’ll write a micro story using the word or phrase” Tumblr prompt, ‘alone finally’. Thank you, @raven-of-domain-kwaad ! Sorry I couldn’t keep it “micro”. )

I’ve finally done it. Kira Carsen thought to herself.

The red-headed not-quite-a-Jedi-anymore was lying face-down on her beach towel, basking in the sun’s rays. She could hear the waves of the ocean crashing peacefully nearby, a pleasant reminder of her tropical environment. Her sun-goggles offered protection for her eyes her deep blues tinted green from the lenses when she bothered to open them. Her bikini had been discarded onto the beach towel next to hers, so confident was she that she was one of just two sentient beings on this planet at the moment, and it freed her from any concerns about avoiding any tan marks against her fair skin.

I’ve finally learned the trick of how to relax by doing absolutely nothing. Her lips smirked, pleased with herself.

Of course, she’d had some… encouragement to get to this point. A certain fatigue had set in, and her body was a bit worn out. After all, yesterday had been a very busy day for her. And then she’d been busy again last night. And then once again this morning before she’d started sunbathing. Twice, in fact.    

Kira had found this world in the Unknown Regions years ago, back when she’d been running with an anti-Zakuulan resistance movement. She’d been surveying planets for potential base locations from where she and her comrades could strike at the Eternal Empire. She’d ultimately rejected this world as a candidate, as there was absolutely no infrastructure to speak of. It was also too remote; the rebels had wanted to operate in hiding, but still with the capability of striking at Zakuul’s supply lines through accessible hyperspace lanes.

But she’d never forgotten this planet. Or its magnificent beaches, and lack of any hostile fauna. It was beautiful. A paradise. Its like Rishi, but without the pirates, the Revanites and the bird people, she observed.

And now, years later, her long-held secret had paid off.

I’ve found a planet where nothing will try to kill us. She pursed her lips in contemplation. Where we can finally be alone together. At last.

She’d have to pick a name for this planet, Kira considered. And a name for this island. And a name for this beach. If she really were the discoverer of this world, then doing all that should be her responsibility.

Just not today. She had more important things to do at the moment.

Kira honestly intended to get up at some point from her sunbathing and to do something exciting. Maybe she’d bust out their hoverbikes from the cargo bay so they could use them as jet skis. Or maybe she’d follow through on her plan to turn those spare bulkhead panels from the ship into surfboards. She’d never actually been surfing, but it certainly looked exciting on the holos she’d seen. Or heck – maybe the two of them could just spar on the beach with their lightsabers. That could be fun, especially if they waited for the moonlight in the evening. That certainly fit Kira’s idea of a romantic night.

These are all good plans. She thought proudly to herself, as her head lay contentedly down on her crossed arms.

She felt him approach her through the Force because of course she did. After these last two days, she doubted either of them would ever lose track of the other again, carbonite prisons be damned.

“You’re going to get sunburned.” He gently chided her.

Groggily, she let out a sigh then lifted her head from her arms to look up at Corellan Halcyon.

The man who had once been called the Hero of Tython, the Battlemaster of the Jedi Order and the Outlander was looking down at her with a bemused expression. Water dripped down from his wet hair and body as he glistened in the sun; he’d been swimming in the ocean for nearly two hours, almost as long as Kira had been laying out in the sun. She watched fascinated as a particular drop of water rolled down the muscles of his broad chest and abdomen down towards his swimming trunks, causing Kira to lick her lips.  

As much as she enjoyed checking him out when his body was glistening like this, she inevitably felt her eyes drawn down to the fourth finger of his left hand.

The band around the finger was ornate, etched with tiny engravings invoking Tython and Odessen, along with the word ‘Eternal’. The metal itself was fairly non-descript; a careful examination by a metallurgist would have revealed that it was actually composed of an alloy of natural materials from several worlds, none of those metals being regarded as particularly precious among the various jewelers of the galaxy.

That wasn’t important to Kira. What mattered to her was what the ring represented.

It meant that Corellan Halcyon was hers, and hers alone.

She absent-mindedly fiddled with the diamond ring wrapped around her own finger with her thumb as she smirked up at him.

“Well, you did quite an impressive job rubbing me down with sunscreen earlier.” She mused, her head tilting towards his towel where the bottle of Alderaanian nectar-scented lotion lay beside her bikini and their lightsabers. Playfully, Kira wiggled her oiled butt up at him. “I feel safe enough from the sun, tough guy.”

Corellan Halcyon’s eyebrows bopped up as it was his turn to admire Kira’s body. He let out a slow exhale as he crouched down beside her… only to find himself ambushed as Kira’s hand reached out and grabbed him by the neck, pulling him towards her for a long, passionate kiss.      

There was no crisis to worry about. The Eternal Alliance back on Odessen would keep the galaxy safe without their famed ‘Alliance Commander’ for a few more days at least. At Kira’s insistence, Teeseven was the only one who knew how to reach them, and it would probably take the Emperor himself returning from the abyss to compel the droid to contact them.

Corellan’s body grew rigid at the contact for only a fraction of a second before he melted into the kiss, wrapping an arm around her. She felt a brief tinge of guilt for startling him like that; she’d chosen this planet not just because it was beautiful, not just because they could be alone, but because Corellan – who had seen enough fighting over the course of his adulthood for twenty lifetimes – had once told her that he had never been to a world where he hadn’t used lethal force to defend himself or others. She knew how much that had worn on him and wanted him to feel like he had seen at least one planet where he hadn’t been forced to kill anything or anyone.

A planet where he could just be… him.

But as she felt his body and his soul start to respond to her touch and his strong arms tightened around her, she knew she’d made the right choice. Here, on this beautiful, unnamed world in the unknown regions, the only thing ambushing him would be her.  

Wasn’t stuff like this what honeymoons were all about? Kira smirked as the kiss finally broke. She playfully pushed him onto his own towel.  

“Here.” She grinned, turning herself onto her back and tucking her arms beneath her head to leave herself completely open. Corellan was practically gawking at her now, eyes widened, unable to look away and looking like he was quite out of breath. She was charmed by his reaction: The two had made love hundreds of times, but he still looked at her like it was his first time seeing her this way.

“I think you might have missed a few spots when you oiled me up this morning.” Kira teased, noting that she’d still been wearing her bikini at the time. “You can make that up to me now, I think.”

Dutifully, attentively, eagerly even, Corellan reached for the bottle, applying ample amounts of the lotion to his hands.

“Yes, my lady.” He answered gallantly, returning her grin.

Kira let out a sigh and closed her eyes as he set to work, lavishing attention on her with the same dedication with which he did everything else in life.

Corellan Halcyon didn’t do anything by half-measures she’d learned long ago. Even relaxed, at ease and happy, this was who he was.

This was the man she had married two days ago.

She felt her legs parting as his skilled and oiled fingers teased her, then gasped as he leaned in and placed a soft kiss just below her naval. Then another gasp escaped her lips as he kissed just a bit lower, still…

Kira sat up suddenly, reaching out and grabbing at his shoulder and gripping him a bit harder than she’d intended. He paused in his ministrations of her body, looking up at her questioningly.

“Know what, tough guy? It’s your honeymoon. You’re over-dressed.” She smirked as she glanced down at his shorts. “Lose those.”  

As Corellan smiled and moved to comply with her command, Kira laid back and watched contentedly.  

Relaxing by doing absolutely nothing is overrated. she thought to herself.

Kira never did get around to learning to surf that day.

She couldn’t complain.

Author’s Notes : I’ll do the wedding story at some point. Honestly, though, it’s a huge thing.

[syrossa]

REVOLUTION | vkook

[Jungkook x cyborg!Taehyung]

— wordcount: 3.8k

— genre: sci-fi/ action/ oneshot/ angst

— summary: Jungkook is on the side of the Resistance, but his heart belongs to the wicked Emperor's right hand. In a world of war, he'll have to choose between saving his people or the cyborg he's fallen so tragically in love with.

— notes: previously posted on army amino as "trust me not"

Space year 3043.

After seizing the throne of Nypso 773T , its android emperor has decided to exterminate all individuals human - the last bearers of free will still standing. To execute his commands, the order of the New Inquisition has been launched. Its wicked ways continue to terrorize the planet, and many humans have gone rogue to avoid death in Nypso's compression pits. Jeon Jungkook - the latest recruit of the Resistance, has been extracted from an Inquisition's camp after a month of captivity. During his stay there, an unexpected fascination with the order's leader has emerged. Now they're torn between duty and attraction, survival and the dire need of love in the robotic arms of Nypso 773T.

Pulling on his hood, Jungkook walked into the subway station where the mass of the automated proletariat was finally retreating to its charging points. The route of line 248 resonated in a pre-recorded audio in several transgalactic languages; the outdated robots and refugees here couldn't afford infixed translation. The next train was in seven minutes. Working machines were being produced without a sense of smell, so the coolants and liquids of the entire quadrant could drain freely, channelled through the platform. Supreme androids and cyborgs could almost tell the difference between fume-saturated air and waste matter. Humans, however, were bound to sense it.

Jungkook travelled with the scraps of a filtering mask over his nose and mouth.

A heavy overcoat protected him from curious eyes. Down its lackluster length, a multitude of pockets were sewn with the purpose of convenience, but the inner one by his right hip weighed with the wired device of a hologram transmitter. The message encrypted on it was intended for the eyes of the Resistance only, and its safe transportation had been entrusted to him. Was it the shortage of confidants or Jungkook's short, yet exceptional devotion to the cause that had brought him here, he couldn't tell. One thing was certain — danger stalked him somewhere in this crowd and it moved with a bullet's speed, disguised in coy metal. All solitude amongst machines was extirpated.

He wasn't alone.

But the field of his vision allowed him to suspect and nothing more. Between the industrial smog and the firearm fume, the human eye was unable to discern too much. Few instruction panels hung low over the heads of the departees, providing the dimmest of illumination in venom-tinted yellow where the light of all other signs failed to stretch out to. Propaganda scrolled through interconnected displays in the skyscraping height.

As the train arrived in virid smoke, drunkenly quivering atop the rusted rails, the mob prepared for departure, loud and on the verge of an electric collapse. In the midst of it Jungkook joined the aggressive momentum and it hauled him to the doors. The informants from Quadrant-3 had warned him about identification scanners — each entrance had been installed two of those, in addition to a memory-extracting mechanism, so that all workers could be wiped clean of cache; Nypso liked its slaves productive.

Blazingly red, the scanning rays licked the identification numbers off all mechanic forearms. Each number consisted of uniquely stringed digits and Nypsoian letters, irreplicable and theft-proof, unless, of course, forcefully extracted. Yet such force was hardly ever applied reversibly.

So when Jungkook lifted his sleeve, baring the tattooed numerals on vulnerable display, he knew he had engraved himself with the ink and blood of another.

Collateral damage, they'd call it — the dismantled, maimed anthropomorphic remains of those who had been sacrificed for the camouflage of the Resistance. Through the scanners and the all-seeing surveillance apparatus Jungkook slithered like a ghost, a phantom of matter but never of face. He seated himself in the vacancy of a secluded section at the back of the train, and watched as the vehicle resurfaced overground.

The halved star of Nypso 337T had begun to roll out of sight. Space wind evaded the thin synthetic atmospheric layers, bringing forth what the code specifics referred to as frostnip. Nights here began with euphoria, beauty amid the blistered flesh of the universe, but escalated just as abruptly. Thousands of beings fell victims to the unforgiving cold. The corpses would be disposed of in the vast abyss of the Omicron Galaxy and left to the mercy of the antigravity and destructive cyclones. Sometimes parts of them would fall back on Nypso with the acid torrents.

The cadaverous rains.

Upon crossing the interquadrant border, the train entered a zone of electric anomaly, causing all working robots to cease operating. Jungkook rose from his uncomfortable seat immediately. He was quick on his feet; he headed to the emergency exit in the back. Moving across a high-up, scaffold-like railway with speed disproportionate to its poor technicity, the vehicle was to reach a rail intersection in a matter of minutes — the only window he'd be provided for a secure escape. The man clutched the transmitter through the fabric of the overcoat. A flicker of utter fright glistened in his eyes, the one a madman's irises would produce before he jumps off to death.

A madman, yes, but not alone in his madness.

Because when he threw himself forth in the open air, he knew he would land in the hands of his allies, the members of the Resistance. With a thump and several Nypsoian curses, Jungkook was caught by an aircraft of the forces from Quadrant-4. The second he regained balance, the pressure in his lungs and brain dispersed to free space for relief. General Kim dismissed the crew to greet him.

He grinned. "Lucky to see you here today. We barely managed to get the plane off the ground with the low temperatures."

"Thank you, sir. Captain Jung wasn't lying 'bout your piloting."

"Don't thank me. Min over there conducted the maneuvers today, the lucky bastard." And Jungkook glanced at the back of the pilot's disheveled head, hair chopped and jet black. "Do you have it?"

Derivative of the devices from before the last technological purge, the hologram transmitter was an antique of its own, coded in a long-lost language. It was technically unhackable. The greatest legacy of its predecessors, though, was the function of restricted access, touch-activated to be precise. When the device came into contact with General Kim's palm, trillions of holographic particles erected the glowing, mapped structure of a hollow sphere.

"The core powerhouse!" Jungkook gasped.

"A precise, high-resolution map of the planet's life source. After all these years of gathering data and risking the wellbeing of our entire kind, it's finally complete. We have the key to taking the emperor down, kid." The corner of the General's mouth quirked up. "We have it."

As if prompted by the glimpse of hope, the graspable salvation of mankind, intermittent flashes of red spread like rashes on the titanium insides of the plane while alarms were triggered in the cockpit. Jungkook tripped as the aircraft went into a sudden dive.

The co-pilot cried out, "Enemy crafts, sir. Attempters FM-14, annihilation mode engaged."

"Min, can you make it to the headquarters?" Kim shouted, tying himself to a seat by the plane wall.

Jungkook was still upright, shifting his weight as if hoverboarding. His eyes followed the attackers as the unmanned Attempters deployed their missiles. With a target on its silver hull, the plane of the Resistance forces looped and spiralled between the Quadrant-4 blockscape similarly to a turbulent projectile. But before even managing to be vocal about the pilot's nonpareil skills, he glimpsed the violent gush of blood from Min's shoulder.

Jungkook yelled, "Captain, you're fucking bleeding!"

"I am?," Min shrugged, reducing the throttle from the plane's inversion, motions still as steady as a surgeon's. "About time I showed these can-openers I can beat them single-handedly."

"The Resistance has evaded all attacks again, commander. I must say the human persistence is exhausting me already."

Left arm spasming from damage, Taehyung replied tremulously, "I dispatched two of our best Attempters their way. They must've anticipated an onrush."

Next to the mechanical grandness, the soul-breaking presence of the emperor, Taehyung appeared like a solitary speck of steel; a cyborg utterly defenseless against his superior. He was second to his leader; the right hand of the radically unique conqueror of Nypso 337T and scion of the mighty Omicron race — undoers of time and space. To support his position and survival, he had been recruited as commander of the New Inquisition.

Over the metal of his palms, there was overmuch human blood. The emperor, however, was still unsatisfied with its amount.

"Their defense cannot withstand our supremacy much longer. Can you perhaps figure out why, commander? Why is humankind bound to die out?"

Some deeply buried piece of Taehyung shattered, knowing that the battle he'd deliberately spared the humans was nothing but a hurdle in the long run of their eradication. All his efforts to decelerate the inevitable — governed not by the remains of his anthropoid body but by those of his human mind — were, ultimately, futile. He'd reset the coordinates of the Attempters, encrypted the outdated frequencies of the Resistance, screened the infiltration of their informant, but at what cost? He hadn't given them advantage but mere false hope.

"Because of its will, of course. The free will of humans will lead them to their ultimate end. But first, it will lead them to me." The android's speech was toneless through the holographic projection, yet his virtual presence diminished all strength of the commander's. "Our high-rank infiltrator in the Resistance has information that an assault on the powerhouse is being plotted. I want all units in position tomorrow. The rebellion must be eliminated instantly."

"Through a strengthened line of defense?"

"A lethal one. There must be no survivors. Obey your system, commander, and your emperor."

"Yes, Your Imperial Majesty."

Bowing to the conquerer of worlds might have felt elevating once; it may have propelled pride, safety and life, yet it only sparked misery in the metal now. Once the hologram had dispersed, Taehyung collapsed in a stroke of electric current. The fine components of his bionic system had experienced pressure unfit for his outdated build, which happened often when machines failed a designated mission. The scheme with the Attempters would cost him pain unlike any other. Pain of both flesh and robotics.

It took him twelve full minutes to regain consciousness. When he finally did, the back of his brain was burnt to charcoal black, as if he could only recall the excruciation of being electrocuted and nothing before it. He was a high-ranking Nypsoian soldier, a breed of hominid warrior blood and light steel tempered in the titanium core of the star of Adastreia, and he remembered his own pain only. Little by little, bits of data deteriorated within him and memories faded away like flashes of a time long-gone.

He was slowly being erased.

Everything he'd done to protect the man he loved on the other side of law backfired right at him. Instead of saving humanity, he slowly ceased to be human.

He needed to hear his voice more than ever.

Even if he couldn't quite retrieve the sound of it.

The jittery projection of Jungkook's face illuminated the entirety of the bunker, and his eyes bore into Taehyung's, expectant, laden with horror. Each of their rare conversations would begin with shared silence. Life was a variable — both had to be prepared for it to assume its last value at any given moment. The signal was horridly damaged as both sides had dialed from their underground hideaways, one right beneath the emperor's throne room, and the other from the fortified catacombs of Quadrant-4.

"I'm sorry I couldn't call earlier, I--"

Jungkook forced a lopsided smile, enough to hurt but not to discourage. "It's okay. You called."

"Are you alright? The Attempters went close and by the time I seized remote control, they'd fired at one of yours. The pilot."

"Min. He's fine. I guess he'd seen worse than your machine guns," The man chuckled softly. "Man, he even fired back, one hand on the panel, and the other holding a BL-544 out the perforated windshield."

Then Jungkook burst into laughter, lighthearted and paranormally unfit in the midst of the misery of all else. His eyes translated into blueish pixels, so Taehyung could barely visualize the mottle of dark-brown and grey they were in the light, or the dual glint of gravely seriousness and daredevilry inside them. At times like this, it was the eyes that made him feel entirely human. His eyes.

Elated for a brief second, Taehyung said, "I wish I could see you. I think my memory is being messed up with, and I'm starting to forget you."

"That's why we call, right? So we don't forget who the real enemy is."

Who was the real enemy?

"They're planning an attack on the core. The arsenal should be distributed by tomorrow at noon, but it'll be no surprise if you already knew that," said Jungkook, voice suddenly thicker. "What's been ordered to the defense forces?"

"A direct confrontation, fast and brutal. He wants all units charged and ready to dispatch anyone at sight. I'll try to talk him out of the melee but I don't know how much I can do about it."

"You've done more than enough already. Just...stay safe. Whole, preferably."

"Okay, I told you, what happened in Apus was an accident. It was a one-time thing. One. Time!"

Jungkook chortled, having Taehyung join him shortly after, both high on the feeling of detachment from everything and everyone. It was the two of them in this conversation, in this little world of theirs, free from barriers and pain and tyranny.

"You too," Taehyung said. "Stay safe."

"Will do. I'll see you at the end of the world, right?"

"See you then. Hey, Jungkook, I just wanted to tell yo--"

But the signal was cut off and the picture turned grainy with empty pixels all of a sudden. The muffled aggression of bangs and kicks brought down the door of Taehyung's secluded bunker and a horde of his own inquisitors rushed in, driven by electricity, bloodthirst and imperial will. The cyborg was taken hold of.

His heavy body writhed in the intruders' grip, but to no avail. In the distance he overheard his former inferiors repeat the protocol of his detainment. Only one kind of seizure required the full unrelenting force of the Inquisition androids.

The one coming directly from the emperor.

As the Resistance soldiers advanced farther into the outer Core, the grip on their assault rifles weakened, wet from the heat accumulated, bewildered by the void of the empty powerhouse. The pulsating, current-pumping heart of Nypso operated under a dome of steam and titanium systems. In its veins surged the lifeblood of an entire civilization, the supreme vigor of the Nypsoian predatory machine and the technology behind its expansive aggression.

Today its heartbeat would flatline once and for all.

Jungkook carried a Proxima L-90 — a relevantly ugly, simple ray weapon meant to inflict moderate damage — with the back of it braced against his underarm, holding the shadows at gunpoint. His face burned under a filtering mask, yet the odds of being violently poisoned were too great to succumb to convenience. Fire in his ribs and steel in his brain, he moved forward.

The promised confrontation of the emperor's forces never happened. General Kim signalled for all units to stand down.

"The motion sensors show movement in our perimeter. 100 meters ahead, 50 sources," he whispered. "Charge your weapons."

But in Jungkook that sparked suspicion so bothersome it twisted his insides, made him want to vomit. Fifty defenders appointed at the most significant structure on the planet — something didn't seem — didn't feel — right. Yet his trust in Taehyung lay unquestioned. He'd spoken to him about a frontal attack and a frontal attack was to be. Nothing but those words could force him forward.

Nothing but the belief that today could change the universe forever.

A swarm of androids emerged from the depths of the powerhouse, wearing imperial armour. They imitated human forms, carried themselves in a human manner, but didn't hesitate in their stride, unlike the Resistance whose fear pierced it through. These were machines without faces, painted in the colors of war and destruction, forged with no soul and no purpose but murder; the inquisitors. And when they charged onwards, every being of flesh shivered in frail mortality. The androids opened immediate fire.

However, the fifty of them were not alone. More crawled out of the corners, the corridors, and every spot dark became a black portal spitting inquisitors. In seconds the Resistance forces were severely outnumbered.

Back against General Kim's, Jungkook tore apart enemies with ray projectiles with insufficient speed. Like demons from neon and metal, like nightmares flooding the innocent mind, the androids burst forth and immobilized the formation of the rebellion. Soon enough, the man was fighting machines with electrocuting blades and bare hands.

"I'm almost out of ammo. We need to get to the main generator and place the bomb," the General shouted as he shot an inquisitor's head through, thus releasing Jungkook from his grip.

"We gotta make our way through."

"I'll help with that!" With one arm immobilized and the other on the trigger of a close-range blaster, Min approached the two. His stubbornness had earned him a spot in the field forces today, but his injury must've weighed him down.

The captain, though, was a survivor.

"Run!" Min cried. "I'll blast whatever follows you."

Jungkook and the General sprinted forward that instant, too overwhelmed with gunfire and smoke and adrenaline to take in the sight of the captain relentlessly throwing himself into the crossfire. As they cleaved the imperial horde, as they fired and slashed their way through — fruits of the flesh in the unhomogenous battle broth — he held back their pursuers for as long as he could. The shrill vox of Min's blaster quietened while they ran, and so did the remainder of the fight, distant but heavy on the brain.

At some point, Jungkook found himself utterly lost in the hypnosis of metal and screams.

Kim snapped him out when they reached a dead end at a corridor intersection. The map led to a hatch in the floor, then to an underground space where the generator was located. When Jungkook pulled the horizontal door open, the General jumped onto the grated platform it revealed. Nightmarish shivers creeped under the former's skin as if on the brim of something horrible and irreversible. Something of monumental grandness, yet something hellbound had been released with their appearance in the Core. Unaware of its specifics, Jungkook descended shortly after, shaken by the feeling of death pricking on his bare nape.

"We have to be quick," General Kim whispered. "The bomb will create an electromagnetic pulse that will disarm all electric systems on the planet. It must be as close to the core as we can get it, so be prepared to do whatever it takes for this to work. Promise me that, Jungkook."

The man wanted to stutter, to assure his comrade that the Resistance is once again in luck and prevailing. But empty promises had no place in his head anymore. Rather, they belonged in the ashes of the man he used to be once; of the world he once used to live in. His answer came pure of all boyish naiveness.

"I promise, sir."

"Good. This way."

Monochrome light, combat boots against the platform. They travelled in silence and dark anticipation. The generator came in sight several meters after, oblivious in its lifeless shell of titanium and wire. The two men entered the holy premises of the inner Core like only heartsick worshippers would — with their heads craving redemption above all.

The bomb was wrapped in cloth — a hastily packaged weapon of mass destruction. The General stripped it bare. His face twitched in untimely satisfaction as he carried it to the top of the generator, whose size extended kilometers under the ground, highest point peaking through a cavity in the grates.

But as the General was activating the mechanism, a splashed, abstract pattern of his blood printed itself onto Jungkook, who remained paralyzed steps away. The laser projectile went right through Kim, exiting his torso clean of guilt and hesitation.

The younger pointed his gun at the distance, at the wide, half-human frame of the attacker, tears in his eyes as he came in the luminescent light.

"Jungkook, put the gun down, please--"

Buy everything within him screamed. "Stand back! I'm warning you! Stand back or I'll fucking shoot you."

Jungkook glanced at the sprawled body of General, eyes then set on Taehyung again. He went feral, wild with betrayal and shock that his mortal stomach could feast on for days. They held each other at gunpoint, lovers in the grip of a war unfought.

"Sir, stay with me. Just hold on."

"Jungkook, listen to me. Put your gun down. Now!"

"No, you listen to me! What have you done?! We've been fighting for this for so long and now that we have a chance to change everything, you turn against your own. We are on the same side, you fool! Help me save him!"

"I'm afraid I can't," Taehyung replied, voice stern like never before. "I can't help you anymore. I've done so much for humans and I've never been one, never will be. I am who I am and I've picked a side already. I picked the one I belong to."

"I thought we belonged together."

The bomb lay semi activated next to Kim. All that stood between it and Jungkook was his unwavering machine of a lover, the leader of the Inquisition with only half flesh, half heart. And neither of the two were willing to surrender now.

Not when the love of each was at stake.

"We can't both leave this room, Jungkook. One of us will have to shoot. It's either me or you on the count of three."

"I would've died and killed for you!"

"One."

"I wanted a future with you, Taehyung!"

"Two."

"I loved you!"

"Three. I still do."

And Jungkook collapsed, trapped between the corpses of his friend and lover, finger on the trigger that had failed to protect the former and ended the latter. Tears welled in his black eyes as he enabled the electromagnetic explosive.

The faith of the universe rested in his unsteady hands. His whole world, however, had fallen cold in his feet.

In the very last seconds of Nypso, he wished to have never set foot on the goddamned planet of death and destruction.

[jimtheviking]

So now that it's been a while since the ST ended, I'm gonna talk about why, of all three movies, the only one that worked for me was TLJ, and why The Mandalorian, Rogue One, Rebels, and Clone Wars are the best bit of New EU out there.

Okay so, first off, the basic thesis of this is that, when Star Wars works, has always been a story about one thing, and one thing only: Hope. And when it hasn't worked, it's been about how Cool and Badass and Edgy and Dark things can be in the Galaxy Far, Far Away.

So, let's start with the beginning, shall we?

The Force Awakens is a bad remake of A New Hope. And I don't say that just because JJ Abrams can't write or direct for shit (he can't, btw, but I'll get into that later.) I say that because, well, it's true. It's almost a shot-for-shot remake of ANH, except that unlike ANH, there is no sense of hope in the entire movie. Rey, Finn, and Poe are thrown into a Terrible Situation and they never once have any display of fear or doubt. They're confident and plucky and ready to win the day. At every point, even their lowest, they're plucky and scrappy and fighty and are never allowed to feel anything. And that means they can't hope for better things, they can't fight for a better world, because to their characters the better world is already there. It's the world they're in, because they can get what they want through Pluck and Scrappiness and Fighting Spirit, and never have to worry that it won't be enough.

Don't get me wrong, TFA is, of the two JJ films, better by a mile. Mostly because it has a coherent plotline. But it's still not good. Even when Han is killed, there is no chance to mourn him. There is no "I just can't believe he's gone" moment. There's a duel and a celebration. Leia feels his death and that could have been interesting to explore, but nothing gets done with Rey or Finn. Rey attaches to Han as a father figure, but it was Finn whose character was hamstrung most by Han's death. Finn should have been mentored in the ways of Roguish War Heroing by Han, just as Luke would mentor Rey in Jedi-ing, and Leia mentored Poe in Leader-ing. That is how the new Trio was shaping up to relate to the Original Trio, and should have gone that way. But no, JJ had to kill Han off for absolutely no purpose.

And there was no purpose to Han's death. I will get to that in a minute.

When Obi-Wan died, he died knowing he was buying the Trio time and that his sacrifice would help the Rebellion destroy the Death Star and ultimately prevent future Alderaans from ever happening again (and it did!) Obi-Wan dies in A New Hope because he knows that, like Leia said, he was her only hope. The only hope for the Rebellion. For the Galaxy. And, right after Scarif, he was the only hope she had. But now? On the Death Star? Surrounded by Storm Troopers, facing down his old padawan, his brother, his best friend? Now there is A New Hope (see what they did there?) and it's in Luke and Han and Leia and he doesn't die in vain. He sacrifices himself and that lets hope live on.

When Han died, it was, thematically, the exact opposite of Obi-Wan's death. Because Han wasn't expecting to die. Han's whole walking to meet Ben thing was him expressing hope - hope that his son would return to him, that there was good left in him - and then he was killed. Hope gets you killed in this movie, and it doesn't help anyone do anything. It doesn't save uncounted billions. It doesn't stop an evil Empire from terrorising the Galaxy. It doesn't inspire other people. It just gets you a lightsaber to the belly and kicked into an abyss. Han's death served no purpose except to show that Ben was evil. As if massacring untold hundreds of civilians to find the location of Luke wasn't indication enough. We knew Ben was evil. It was the entire point of the character. Killing Han was just to reinforce that hope is foolish.

Luke, as well, was terribly served in TFA. Luke Skywalker, who triumphed over evil despite hovering so close to the edge of it time and again, who does the right thing all the time, who every chance he gets tries to help and save people? That Luke Skywalker? He just fucked off to who knows where. Gone. Entirely. No explanation. Luke, who constantly failed in his Jedi training, but never gave up hope that he could become a Jedi, like his father before him. Luke, who knew he wasn't ready to confront Vader on Bespin but hoped he could get there soon enough to save his friends. Luke, who knew that there was no way he would be leaving Jabba's palace without a fight but still had hope that the Hutt could be negotiated with. He just...gives up. No explanation or reason given. Just...goes.

And that is the most wildly, painfully out of character moment in the entire ST for me. Because Luke was always Hope in the OT, and in the Filoni shows, and having him become Hopeless and leave? An absolute affront to the character.

But I digress.

I won't get into what TLJ did right (almost everything re: Luke, Rey, Leia, and Poe, and that throne room fight especially) and wrong (the handling of Finn, Space Monaco) but suffice it to say that TLJ at least understood that Hope was what made Star Wars good. Because Luke's sacrifice at the end of it was done just like Obi-Wan's. Luke did what he did, knowing he would die, but also knowing that it would buy time for Leia to escape. So long as Rey could get to her in time. He had Hope in Rey, and he had Hope in his own actions, and that Hope was rewarded. Luke dies, and dies a hero, dies giving Hope to the Resistance, dies a meaningful death for a hero to die.

And then we get to TRoS.

Oh god TRoS.

So, you know how I said JJ can't write or direct for shit? Here's a great example. Because we had Rey, a Jedi now like Luke had been, and ready to discover what being a Jedi means to her, and how she fits in the wider, larger Galaxy as a nobody, as a regular person who somehow became Greater than she started. As someone who isn't from a line of Force Users or other Super Special People becoming a hero and finding her place. Rey, who began her story on a desert planet, hoping desperately to be a part of some bigger dynasty, not having any confidence in herself being Rey from Nowhere, finds out she IS Rey from Nowhere, Daughter of Nobody, but becomes a Jedi, a Protector of the Galaxy, an important person in her own right, the Saviour of the Resistance. And then we find out she's the granddaughter of one of the most powerful Force users ever. And she makes herself a part of the Super Special Force User Dynasty. Completely destroying any character growth from the previous movie, because it's no longer Rey succeeding on her own, it's Rey being a Dynastic Heir.

Rey begins on a desert planet, digging things out of the sand, and ends on a desert planet, burying things in the sand. Rey begins not knowing who she really is and desperately wanting to, and ends up finding out, rejecting it, and claiming some other random legacy. Rey is no longer Rey from Jakku, she's Rey Palpatine and she wants to be Rey Skywalker so she just...claims it. There was a chance for Rey to be a beacon of Hope for other people who aren't from Force user lineages. But no, she's the child of a clone of the Emperor and decides she's a Skywalker because of an unexplained phenomenon that linked her to Ben. So without the Super Special Lineage, what hope does anyone have of changing the world for the better? None.

And, back to character deaths, Leia and Ben dying were two of the most hopeless scenes in all Star Wars. Entirely without hope. Utterly.

Why?

Well, let's start with Leia. Apparently, in the novelizations, she'd been forcing herself to stay alive to run the Resistance because no-one else could (despite like, a massive increase in operations staff, and, you know, Poe having been Leia's protogée in her Leadership Crash Course) and had been hearing Luke tell her it's okay to just let go and become one with the Force (what??) And so when she does decide to do that, it's when she transfers her life-force to Ben, to redeem him (maybe? At that point Ben hadn't had his weird Harrison Ford dressed up in Han Solo's costume hallucination, and it's not really clear why she's doing this in the film) and thus have him the Galaxy. Okay, that could work, but then Ben dies. And then dies again. Twice. (Though, really, only once, because apparently he got caught on a rock and broke his ribs and twisted his ankle when he fell in the pit, but you only learn that in the novelization. But I digress.)

So Leia's sacrifice to redeem her son is ultimately futile, because Rey managed to kill Palps on her own anyway, with the help of all the Jedi in the Force, and Ben was mostly dead. Then Rey dies from the exertion of it all, and that would be a shitty enough ending, bleak and hopeless - the only way good triumphs is by destroying itself - but then Ben comes back! And saves Rey using the healing powers Obi-Wan Kenobi used on Luke in A New Hope and Rey used earlier in the movie! Leia's sacrifice was meaningful! It redeemed Ben, who saved someone's life!

And then he dies.

Which makes Leia's death pointless again. Because she used the last of her life force to make her son Good, and then he just...dies.

And Ben's death is Hopeless in and of itself too. I'm not a Reylo fan - that dynamic just does not do it for me, generally, though there are some few well-written execptions - but how do you begin to say "The Power of Love can triumph over everything, even death!" and then kill off the person who did that? Like...that just says that Love and Sacrifice for others is pointless. That Hope is pointless. Because with Ben dying, Leia's sacrifice means nothing, and his own death means nothing because Dying Saving Someone You Love is just Suicide with Extra Steps if there's no Hope of Survival to it. The tragedy happens when a character dies hoping they can still make it back to the person they love. Ben, on the other hand, just...dies. The movie tells us that he's not worth surviving this, but Rey is. And so what, exactly, was the point of either Leia's sacrifice or Hope for her son?

Now let's get to the Filoni shows.

Clone Wars was a tragedy. Clone Wars, from the very beginning, was going to end badly for everyone involved. And it did. But even up to the end, they held out Hope that it wouldn't. And even after it happened, the survivors still Hoped that they could bring a return to Good. Obi-Wan sees literally everyone he loves die in front of him. Whether it's Satine or his fellow Jedi or Anakin, they all die. And yet he continues to Hope that the Light Side will prevail. Ahsoka loses everything and leaves the Order, but she still has Hope that she can make the Galaxy a better place. Rex loses his entire family, but Hopes that there are others out there who, like him, were able to avoid Order 66.

Rebels shows us that Ahsoka and Rex's Hope wasn't misplaced. That there was still a chance for them to do Good and for the Galaxy to resist the Empire. For Rex to find other Clones. For Ahsoka to find a purpose again. The crew of the Ghost hoped that what they would do would bring about a positive change. Kanan sacrificed himself knowing that Ezra, Hera, and Sabine would be able to help the Rebellion. Like Obi-Wan, he knew that he was not the only Hope - that Ezra and Ahsoka and Obi-Wan would continue on the path of the Jedi, even if the latter wouldn't join the Rebels, and that Hera's leadership ability and Sabine's connection to Clan Wren would help the Rebellion in coming battles. He died hoping that there was a greater good being served with his sacrifice, and it wasn't that he wanted to die - him looking back to Hera was all the proof that was needed - but that the survival of Hope was important.

Rogue One is pretty self-explanatory. Rebellions are built on hope. What did they send us? Hope. Always, every time, when it comes to it, Hope for the better is what people sacrifice themselves for. They don't do it because they don't feel like their lives are worth it. They do it because if they didn't, then Hope would die instead. And Hope is what makes life possible.

The Mandalorian keeps up this trend, too. Din was doing his thing, collecting bounties and not caring about anyone or anything but The Way until he meets the Child. And at that point, he feels something, a greater purpose, and when he's given his task by the Armourer, he accepts it. At first, he wants to complete a Quest, but as time goes on, he bonds with the Child and, once he realizes that, everything from that point forward is Din Djarin, the Mandalorian, a faceless and ruthless hunter, hoping that he can make this child's life better in some measurable way. When Din finds a settlement that's in trouble, he could just get what he comes for, but he knows that the people are suffering and you can't ignore that he has the Hope that the Galaxy will, one day, be a better place, and he can make it a bit better by doing what he does. So he does it. And keeps doing it. Because the people are hoping for salvation and, even if he's not what they want, he can at least fake it well enough that they don't realize it.

So yeah.

Hope is what good Star Wars media is about. It's what it's always been about. And when it's ignored, we get TFA and TRoS.

[overanalyzingelswordiswhatido]

Job Classes I made for the two timelines I created for The Depths of Time like an impulsive dummy

Since @sunneflower said they were interested.

I decided to include the Elsword job paths these were inspired by. This is mostly spoiler free!! Mostly because I kept everything purposefully vague since, while I did solidify the premises for these two timelines, I don't have a lot of the actual STORY fleshed out other than the beginning and tidbits here and there.

Anyway, on to the job paths (gonna do a cut because this post is actually really long)

Destruction Timeline – a timeline where the El Search Party was defeated and only a handful of them remain (though I haven't included what happens to who all that much), fighting a losing guerilla war purely to ensure their survival, unable to help the people they swore to protect.

Elsword (based on Immortal): Execution Knight/Blade Reaper/Hel’s Emissary

Elsword decided some people didn’t deserve a second chance and that he would dirty his own hands to ensure they never caused trouble for the world again, honing his sword skills until he could wield two smaller blades with deadly accuracy.

Aisha (based on Aether Sage): Storm Magician/Hurricane Eye/Vengeance Seeker

Aisha channeled her power into creating storms of unmatched magnitude to easily take care of the hoards the El Search Party found themselves facing off against but after escaping capture with Ara, she started to push her friends away, becoming cold and distant.

Rena (Based on Anemos): Assault Ranger/Cyclone Striker/Maelstrom

Rena found her abilities in combat to not be enough to protect her friends and asked the wind spirits to help her be faster and stronger so she could become the tip of the spear so to speak, plowing through even the strongest enemies with power to spare.

Raven (Based on Rage Hearts): Scale Taker/Dragon Fist/Wyrm Soul

When Raven came across a dragon, he decided to attempt harnessing that power to protect his friends and created highly durable armor from a dragon’s scales and refining his sword to be as sharp as dragon claws. He redesigned his Nasod arm to be able to harness flames equivalent to a dragon’s breath.

Eve (Based on Code: Ultimate & Code: Esencia): Code: Revival/Code: Assimilation/Code: Ragnorak

Eve focused on the revival of her people but she realized that humans and Nasods could never peacefully coexist. Rather than despair, she came up with a rather unorthodox solution to the problem and pursued it with single-minded determination and vigor.

Elesis (Based on Bloody Queen): Judgement Knight/Purgatory Blade/Vindicator

If Elsword is the executioner then Elesis is the judge and jury. Determined to right the wrongs of the world, she makes sure those who hurt others cannot escape punishment, never doubting the righteousness of her actions, with an unpredictable but precise fighting style.

Chung (Based on Centurion & Comet Crusader): Shield Guardian/Phalanx Cannon/Victory Herald

With the hordes facing Hamel and then his friends, Chung focused on strengthening his defense as far as he could push it. He created a phalanx-like set of shields he commands at will, as well as providing friends/allies with support with his long-range attacks and plethora of buff abilities.

Add (Based on Dominator): Splinter Tracer/Void Watcher/Fenrir’s Master (as in the wolf from Norse mythology)

Early on in his research into time travel, Add discovered the existence of alternate timelines and created portals that allowed him to send drones into those other timelines to monitor them. With the El Search Party, he’s a wild card who’s only known loyalty is to himself yet he has made himself an invaluable ally despite their inability to trust him.

Ara (Based on Shakti): Little Wisp/Holy Revenant/Spirit Harbinger

Ara partnered with Eun to better defend her friends and find her brother but when she woke up in Lu and Ciel’s fortress having escaped capture, Eun was gone. Left on her own in a way she never thought she would be, she desperately tries to hold out hope that everything will be okay.

Lu (Based on Innocent (Ishtar)): Final Ruler/Eternal Shadow/Genesis (Rapture)

Lu set to regaining her power and through an unexpected twist of events succeeded much sooner than she had anticipated and is now the sole ruler of the demon realm.

Ciel (Based on Catastrophe (Abysser)): Final Ruler/Eternal Shadow/Genesis (Entropy)

Ciel takes being Lu’s shadow literally and becomes her left hand, performing tasks most would stay far away from to ensure their success and survival.

Ain (Based on Richter & Herrscher): Lofty: Warrior/Donner (means thunder) Essence/Blitzkrieg

Ain doesn't manage to catch himself in time and falls to the Dark El. He becomes a demonic deity similar to the demon god Scar was trying to summon in Lanox.

Rose (Based on Minerva & Prime Operator): Novice Hacker/Signal Echo/Cyber Wraith

Rose arrives to Elrios and finds herself in conflict with Nasods. She manages to capture some models mostly intact and reverse engineers ways to get into their program and shut them down without causing any damage to their physical structure. That way she can repurpose them.

Laby (Based on Eternity Winner & Nisha Labyrinth): Shadow Child/Twilight Mist/Midnight Specter

In an effort to protect herself from the world, Laby learns how to fight. Because people scare her, she often finds herself in the shadows, cast off to the side, and she becomes comfortable there. She learns to use people's tendency to overlook her to her advantage.

-

Nasod Timeline – a timeline where Nasod technology is a common fascination among the people of Elrios, almost like mythology in the modern world, and many have at least dabbled their toes in Nasod technology, and some are able to utilize it (though not to the same extent as in the past).

Elsword (Based on Knight Emperor): Wandering Knight/Honorable Sellsword/Gladiolus

While Elsword did advertise his services as a swordsman so he could get out and see more of the world he loves so much, he still insists on doing the right thing, upholding the values of a knight just like his sister would.

Aisha (Based on Aether Sage & Metamorphy): Saber Magician/Elemental Duelist/Arcane Fencer

When it was still just her, Elsword, and Rena, Aisha witnessed a duel where one party wielded a rapier and, despite thinking of swords as barbaric beforehand, she became fascinated by the precise and quick movements that were so similar to how she directed her magic.

Rena (Based on Twilight): Ambush Ranger/Spectral Hunter/Supreme Predator

With the El Search Party having been ambushed too many times during their journeys for Rena’s liking, she decides to beat their enemies at their own game. She perfects her abilities and becomes better than any enemy ever could be.

Raven (Based on Furious Blade): Arsenal Taker/Weapon Master/Gilgamesh

Raven refused to lose any of his new friends and in their battles, he found his sword skills to not be enough. Not wanting to use his Nasod arm, he began carrying multiple weapons on his person and soon it grew until he was carrying an arsenal all his own that he was more than proficient with.

Eve (Based on Code: Sariel & Code: Esencia): Code: Constellation/Code: Pulsar/Code: Andromeda

Eve woke up in a lab instead of her capsule but she escaped and found herself in the wilderness, completely alone, as the only Nasod remaining in Elrios. She wandered, without much of a destination. On her journey, she was inspired by the powerful beauty of the stars in the sky and set her mind to finding a way to mimic that in her abilities using condensed El energy.

Elesis (Based on Empire Sword & Flame Lord): Wing Knight/Flame Empress/Nike (as in the goddess of victory)

While perfecting her sword and fire skills, Elesis came across designs for wings made from Nasod technology and wondered if she could turn the wings into blades that could be directed. The only problem being, while she was decent at following directions, she was unlikely to ever understand the calculations she was plugging into the apparatus, let alone actually make her own additions to it but luckily when she met up with the El Search Party they found someone more than willing to help her add blades to her set of wings.

Chung (Based on Centurion & Fatal Phantom): War Guardian/Iron Battalion/Unlimited Armory

Not wanting to get trapped should he find himself in a situation where he couldn’t use his cannon, Chung set to mastering any weapon that was similar enough that he could learn it in the short amount of time he had. With some help, he developed a piece of Nasod technology that would allow him to summon to his aid any weapon he wanted as long as it was connected to his device and he set to creating his own artillery that he could summon to any location.

Add (Based on Doom Bringer): Empty Tracer/Nasod Mimic/White Star

Not much is known about Add beyond his inability to speak and that he can create particle projections that mimic the abilities of any Nasod he has come into contact with.

Ara (Based on Apsara & Shakti): Little Lance/Ouroboros/Amphisbaena

Ara decided one spear was not enough and, with Eun’s help, developed a unique fighting style using two spears and created her own secret arts: Phoenix Secret Arts and Serpent Secret Arts. She honed her new fighting style until she was faster and deadlier than ever before.

Lu (Based on Catastrophe (Timoria) & Diangelion (Iblis)): Shepherd’s Crook/Steeled Ka/Osiris (Lotus)

Lu wanted to work as a team with Ciel, but it was difficult coming up with something that worked the way she wanted it to with their clashing fighting styles where she preferred to get in their enemies’ faces and he preferred fighting from a distance. She stubbornly continued to work with Ciel until the two of them became unstoppable.

Ciel (Based on Innocent (Chevalier)): Shepherd’s Crook/Steeled Ka/Osiris (Duat)

Determined to protect Lu, Ciel decided it was best to attack from range, picking off the targets she missed in her sweeps but Lu wanted to work more as an equal force than leader and support. So, Ciel worked with her to adjust their fighting styles to be more in line with the team dynamic she wanted.

Ain (Based on Bluhen & Herrscher): Lofty: Reflection/Doppelganger/Ersatz (means replacement)

Ain was never drawn out of the rift by Elsword’s presence so a copy of him was created to fulfill his purpose. Ain is alone, searching for the El, when he comes across Eve and the two of them team up to achieve their individual goals.

Rose: Metal Heart/Optimus/Prime Operator

I decided this route worked REALLY well with the overall vibe I was going for for this timeline, so I decided to slap it in instead of making a whole new Rose route (making everyone else was hard enough).

Laby (Based on Radiant Soul & Eternity Winner): Wonder Child/Sparkle Champion/Heracles

Laby wants to help people and see all the world has to offer her but she also wants to protect everything she's come to hold dear. Not wanting to lose another friend, Laby asks Gaia to teach her to fight and teams up with Nisha to do that.

[dent-de-leon]

what do you honestly think about keith's character development on the show?

This sounds like you’re expecting something a little different, so let me preface this with: I love him and I think he has some of the most interesting and well executed arcs in the show. Now, I think of Keith’s character development in terms of different criteria that makes the most sense to me. They are as follows:

His backstory

His ties to the Galra

His uniquely intimate relationship with Shiro

The relationships he works so hard to forge with the rest of the team

His leadership arc

If we’re going to discuss character development, it makes sense to begin at the beginning. And man, I’ve always loved Keith, but throughout season 1, he was stagnant. He gets the least development out of anyone on the team. It was even confirmed by the showrunners themselves that he has the least lines out of all of Team Voltron this season, including Allura and Coran. We’re talking about someone who spoke the least, gave the least insight to his backstory, and was for all intents and purposes a blank slate. The appeal to season 1 Keith is that he’s an intriguing character shrouded in mystery.

But really, we know nothing about him. When season 2 rolled around, people started complaining that he got too much spotlight. But he was the one who sorely needed any and all development at that time. Finally, we had something to go by–he’s galra, he’s struggling with his identity, he had a father that he lost, he’s afraid of losing Shiro more than anything, he wants so badly to be good–season 2 gives him his chance to shine.

And throughout the series, we are continually rewarded with more and more glimpses into Keith’s past and potential future–how he thinks of Shiro reaching out to him before they fall into the abyss, the innovative use of time-space mechanics to allow Keith to relive his history and properly reflect on it rather than having Krolia just tell him, the heartbreaking use of Shiro’s dreams to illustrate how much he and Keith truly mean to one another. All these elements of Keith’s backstory are incredibly compelling, and on that front, I think he honestly recieves some of the most history and background out of anyone.

Now, let’s talk about his Galran blood. Keith goes through many phases over the course of coming to accept himself for who he is. Initially, he views his heritage as something innately shameful and malevolent–haunted by nightmares, he tries to hide it. The princess in particular has a grudge against him for things completely out of his control, and he passively accepts her judgement. He never once challenges her, and instead lets her come to terms with the situation at her own pace and rebuild that bridge when she’s ready.

He’s incredibly considerate of her feelings and insists she need not apologize.  Keith’s own sense of self worth has been dismal for most of season 2 though. It’s Shiro who witnesses his trial and Shiro who immediately shows his unwavering love and support right after. Many fans were upset that we didn’t see more characters really reacting to Keith beyond Hunk also learning to change his views, but the show runners clarified that the dichotomy between Allura’s resentment and Shiro’s total acceptance despite both being victims of the Galra was the focal point of this arc:

So we know how Allura and Shiro reacted to Keith’s galra reveal. What about the other paladins?

Lauren: “I think the rest knew Keith well enough to know it’s not a big issue. And they don’t know much about galra–do you grow purple fur at some point? But Allura has that history, so…”Joaquim: “And with Shiro, we have that history. But he loves Keith, so he sees the good in him.” (source).

They’re the ones who have been directly affected by the Galra, and so it’s their opinions on Keith that are ultimately the most telling. But throughout this time, Keith’s worth is continually weighed by both himself and some of his teammates. It’s very much a time of upheavel for him, of continual developments and change–and this only carries over into later seasons. When we return to Keith’s BOM arc, it’s after he’s been put under immense stress and has been forced into a position he feels he cannot handle. His earlier time with the BOM was about finding out his history. This time, he’s trying to figure out his place in the present when he feels he has none. Being Voltron’s leader just doesn’t feel right, especially with Shiro back at his side.

Especially when Shiro is also challenging his calls at every turn. The episode title here is Code of Honor, and it really reflects what was racing through Keith’s mind at the time. Honor means everything to Keith, and he’s not willing to compromise his own sense of morals–even for the sake of the team. He can’t stand sitting still and wasting time, putting on acts–when Lotor is out there somewhere, and still very much at large. When the BOM are on the verge of discovering a new strain of quintessence, when there’s just so much more good he feels he could be doing with the order.

But, even then, Keith is forced to confront his own beliefs and feels torn between personal loyalties and duty. Time and again, Kolivan tries to drill it into him that the BOM are not Voltron, that they must make sacrifices, that Keith must be willing to put the mission and self-preservation first. He would never leave someone behind, and that’s a danger to Kolivan’s entire operation. Keith is someone very passionate who acts on his heart, and Kolivan tries again and again to impress on him the importance of distancing himself from those emotional attachments– “You cannt allow your feelings to cloud your judgement.” “I wouldn’t–” “You have in the past.”

There’s more to the BOM than just Knowledge or death–the premise of his indoctrination and initial time with the BOM. It’s also a matter of acknowledging the risks, of realizing when something is a lost cause. “In Voltron, we would have gone back to save Regris.” “This isn’t Voltron.” “The mission is more important than the individual.” “You didn’t consider something might’ve happened to you. That would make me down two men instead of one.” “No, Shiro and Lotor are up there!” “Then you’ll die with them.”

Victory or Death, Knowledge or Death, stay with Voltron at all costs, leave in search of answers, the predicament of leadership and whether or not the mission is worth the individual–it’s a lot. I can’t think of many other characters who go through such a long and arduous journey of balancing different life creeds and weighing the moral ramifications of each, nevermind anyone that goes as in depth with it as Keith. His entire relationship with the Galra is a learning process that continually challenges his once stagnant world views, forcing him to confront the potential flaws in his own moral code and come to terms with what really matters most.

And you know what? The Keith we have now is presented as someone who remains steadfast in their morals, who always strives to do good and protect what matters most. He opens others’ eyes to the possibility of what a world with Galra like him could do, to a better future. He inspires them–“He’s our leader, plus he’s half Galra, so I think he’s like, the future.” “With Lotor gone, it was clear there was a power vacuum in the Galra Empire. Zethrid and Ezor wanted to exploit that for their own gain…but I knew I had to find my own path. And it led me to you.”

This is so far removed from the boy who was terrified of his own blood, who lived in waking nightmare that he was a monster. He’s self-assured and accepted in a way he never was before. Keith represents a potential new era of peace and prosperity for the Galra Empire, one where there were always be a place for people like him. This is an especially crucial change for the people within the Empire as well as the rest of the universe seeking out any sort of Intergalactic Alliance, because we know how the Empire looked down on those with mixed heritage.

How Lotor had to fight for every ounce of respect. There’s even hints at it like the mere mention of the term “Blood-Emperor,” which Lotor comments is antiquated but still seems to be highly valued by members of the Empire, “No one has used the term ‘Blood-Emperor’ since before we were a star-faring race.” Keith and those that are inspired by his code of honor–like Acxa–could very well be the ones that hold the key to a future where half-Galra are no longer regarded as lesser for their blood.

I’m gonna skip over Shiro for the moment, since his bond with Keith is one of the main overarching themes of the story that pervades and informs nearly every other aspect of Keith’s character development. So, let’s talk about the rest of the team–from the start, Keith is not a “team player.” He is, however, agressively Team Voltron, and more than willing to fight others if they ever threaten to leave the team. He sees abandoning the Lions as abandoning one’s duty, and his strict–originally much more black and white–code of honor prevents him from doing so.

He also seemingly easily weighs the decision for Pidge, and makes it clear that she’s expected to make sacrifices for some abstract “greater good.” “You’re putting the lives of two people in front of everyone in the entire galaxy!” “Keith, that’s not how a team works. People have to want to be part of it. They can’t be forced.” Again, we see that Keith starts off at someplace very different from where he ends up. Throughout the series, he’ll soon become the person risking the mission for the sake of the individual–and he’ll become disenchanted enough that he won’t see Voltron as the an infallible means to every end.

Allura even tells him, “But our mission is bigger than any one individual,” when he refuses to move on from Shiro. And later, when he tries to take a different path, she says, “Marmora can go on without you. They have for thousands of years. Voltron cannot.” What we’re seeing here is a ripple effect. At the beginning, Keith fundamentally misunderstood what it really means to be a team. Pidge’s character arc taught him that. And as with everything he learns, he internalizes it, and carries it with him for the rest of the series. He grows and develops into this very multi-faceted, dynamic character, with an idealogy and sense of ethics very much shaped by his interrelationships and experiences.

He latched onto Voltron like a crutch at first. The Blue Lion was all that kept him afloat during his self imposed exile into the desert. The Lion was there for him when he had no one else. And later, Team Voltron becomes the family he’s always wanted. His position on Voltron also presents him with the unique opportunity to feel truly fulfiled in the same way that becoming a pilot at the Garrison did. After getting kicked out, he felt “lost.” Discovering that strange energy and the carvings of the Blue Lion gave him a sense of purpose–Voltron gave him a purpose. And he desperately wants to believe in it. For once, instead of being looked down on or dismissed as a discipline a case, he can be the good person he’s always wanted to be. A hero even.

But his disillusionment with Voltron is very much necessary for his continued growth and development. Keith is never one to obey orders, and his willingness to question anything that doesn’t feel right and retaliate against it is very much one of his persistent, defining characteristics. It’s not so much instinct as intution, and Keith has always been good at reading others’ intentions. Not to mention the whole quintessence sensitivity thing. Either way, it eventually becomes apparent to Keith that he can’t stay with the team any longer, and he must first go on his own quest for the sake of what he believes is right. What’s right for the team–Shiro as the Black Paladin–as well as what’s right for the universe. He also desperately needs to do some deep introspection before he’s ready to fully accept the mantle of leadership that’s been demanded of him.

And the writers give us that–they give Keith time. Time to grow, time to heal. The Quantum Abyss is a blessing in disguise, a balm for a troubled soul. Keith is someplace safe, quiet, and has the company of his mother for the first time in years. She is able to allay all his fears of abandonment that have plagued him for so long, and the two are able to learn a lot from one another. Essentially, Keith gets to live out the picture of a happy childhood he never had. He gets to make up for lost time with his mom, and even raise a dog. Regaining some of that lost youth actually has a profound effect on his ability to mature and move on.

He can finally start to heal and move forward, breaking away from his past with the promise of a brighter future. When Shiro is brainwashed and lashes out at Keith, dredging up some truly awful things that would have once caused Keith immense pain, we see that’s he’s self assured in himself enough to not back down. He knows he’s loved, he knows his parents wanted him–he knows Shiro would never abandon him. And he’s able to admit his love for others in turn. Telling Shiro “I love you,” was huge. As was reaching a point where he was able to admit he loves Krolia. Words have power, and there’s a reason Shiro doesn’t react to the brother line but Keith’s admission of love stops him dead. Seasons ago, years ago, Keith would never be able to admit this.

Joaquim: “The one exception Keith allowed in his life in terms of expressing himself was probably with Shiro, because he felt the closest to him. And that situation was an extreme series of events. I think he was pleading with him. I think he was letting him know exactly where he stood, and why this shouldn’t be happening. And why he knew that there was still good in there…If you look at Keith going back to the original episode, where he comes out of the shack, and greets Shiro, that’s a very different Keith than the way he acted with all the rest of the Paladins. So I think with Shiro, in particular, his guard is down a bit and he’s able to express himself.”

Lauren: “But don’t expect him to go telling anyone else he loves them.”

Joaquim: “That’s right. He’s not handing out hugs and love hearts to everybody.” (source)

For a long time, Keith remained at a careful distance from the rest of the team. For reference, let’s look at his relationship with Hunk. At the end of season 1, Hunk is completely thrown that Keith would leave Allura behind. And what does he say? “What if it was one of us? What if it was me? You wouldn’t leave me, would you? Would you?” Keith has nothing to say in his defense, and Hunk is so clearly hurt by that. So, where does this distance stem from? Why is it Keith is so anxious about straying too close to others?

Well, we already know–it’s do to early childhood trauma and abandonment issues. Things we’re clearly shown, and that Keith outright later states in his vlog. “I don’t know why I’m that way…maybe, I’m naturally untrusting because my mom left me? And so, instead of accepting people into my life, I push them away before they reject me. I guess I have some walls up…”

We also know he feels further alienated by his Galran heritage, “It’s just, being Galra is a big deal. Maybe that’s why…I was never good at connecting with people.” And really, for the longest time, Shiro was pretty much the only support he had. And that meant everything. “Shiro is the one person who never gave up on me. I won’t give up on him.” So, the fact that Keith learns to take that leap of faith and reach out to others, just seeing him go from where he and Hunk were at in season 1 to a place where he was able to say, “I never told you this, but out of all the Paladins, you’re the one I’m most impressed by”–that’s huge.

He reaches a place where he’s able to comfort Hunk on such a deeply personal level at the time when he needed it most, and these aren’t just important team building skills, they’re the markings of great leadership. He’s taking care of his team. He learns to not only open up to others, but build enough of a bridge where his team trusts him completely. Where they’re able to open up and reach back out to him in turn. Lance learns to put aside his childish one-sided rivalry, and we even see moments where he goes to Keith for help and opens up about his insecurities. Keith comforts Allura after the alternate reality trip and reassures her when she’s vulnerable. This stuff doesn’t come easy to Keith, but he takes the time to learn and reach out because of how much he cares for his team.

I know there are many people who feel Keith’s arc as the Black Paladin was more so an homage to the original and had no place here, that it was ill fitting or Shiro was more suited to the position–personally, I was really hoping for a return of Black Paladin Shiro myself. But Keith has undeniably made great strides since day one, and he’s not the inexperienced, untamed fire he once was. For reference here, I remember many fans prior to season 2 citing Keith’s stunt on the hoverbike as one of the many reasons why he was a poor leader. “If Shiro wasn’t unconscious for this, he’d never let Keith have the job!” Stuff like that. And it was so incredibly rewarding to me to see that Shiro taught him that, that they were always sort of cut from the same cloth, that they had learned so much from each other.

Now, here’s just some quick excerpts from my other meta on why Keith was so opposed to flying the Black Lion at first–because, as per usual, Shiro’s presence in his life informs a lot of his behavior and feelings:

Looking back at all this in hindsight [given Shiro’s chronic illness] it’s incredibly telling, because it indicates that, when Keith was pushing back againt Shiro training him to be his successor, he knew what was really going on. Keith knows it’s not just the Galra that Shiro’s worrying about, that he sees himself as living off borrowed time. Keith’s rejection of the Black Lion is him rejecting the notion that losing Shiro is inevitable. He’s been terrified of this for years now, and it’s a possiblity he refuses to come to terms with.

He makes promises like, he’ll save Shiro “as many times as it takes,” even knowing there are some things he can’t strike down with his blade. And he’s always believed Shiro would still make it.

Keith adamantly refuses to pilot Black at first because of how much he cares for Shiro. And later, it’s out of respect for Shiro’s will that he reluctantly agrees to lead. And when he leaves the team? Again, he says it’s in part for Shiro’s sake–“It was always meant to be yours.” When Shiro vanishes, we feel that loss entirely through Keith, the one deep in mourning and unable to move on. He mourns Shiro with a grief that’s intimately personal on a level none of the others–save Allura–understand. He lashes out in grief-ladden outbursts and pushes the team away at every turn, instead seeking out the comfort of the Black Lion, clinging onto whatever remnants of Shiro he can. It’s unbelievable that, even when so overwhelmed by heartbreak, his soul still innately seeks out Shiro’s. To reiterate:

Keith can subconsciously sense Shiro’s presence. Throughout Shiro’s time in the Astral Plane–that time when his soul was interwoven with the Black Lion–Keith never acknowledges the Black Lion as her own seperate entity. He only refers to her as either Shiro himself or an extension of him: “Shiro’s the Black Lion.” “I know this is what you wanted for me, Shiro. But I’m not you. I can’t lead them like you.” “Please, no.” “This one’s for you, Shiro.”

Eventually, Shiro passes on the Black Lion to Keith, because he’s the person Shiro trusts most. And Keith is able to properly accept his new role, because for once, he feels secure and self-assured. Shiro is at his side and Keith has his blessing to pilot. Shiro is right there and isn’t going anywhere, he’s back, he’s safe, and he’s able to recover and heal. In the meantime, Keith has matured into quite a leader in the Quantum Abyss, and he’s become a man whose team will readily follow. They all look up to him in a way they never have before. Even Lance. And Shiro isn’t left behind either–becoming the Captain of the Atlas allows him to continue being the team leader he was always meant to be, as well as offering the opportunity for co-leadership sheith that has been foreshadowed for nearly the entire series.

Lastly, in terms of relationships, I think it’s no secret that I’ve mentioned quite a bit the noticeable parallels between Adam’s past relationship with Shiro and Keith in the present. Adam’s “but I won’t go through this again,” compared to Keith’s “You can’t do this to me again,” Adam walking out on Shiro and then immediately cutting to Keith determined to wait by his side, ect.

A Little Adventure also ends on the note that Shiro has come to see him in a new light–something evident since the Quantum Abyss. Again, here’s just some things from past meta real quick–because, if we’re talking about character development here, I know a lot of people have said–where could they go from here? I’ve heard people insist that the relationship was too stagnant, that it was boring or uninteresting because they never changed. But it’s obvious there is a clear shift in the relationship on both ends. So, for consideration, just some things I’ve noticed:

When Shiro’s soul is adrift, displaced from his body, he dreams of Keith. Given the emphasis on mystical bonds in this series, I think it’s no coincidence that Keith was also the one calling out to Shiro all this time. And when Keith begs Shiro not to leave him again, to return to him, by some miracle…Shiro is brought back from the brink of death. His soul, which had been all but lost, was tethered to Keith’s. That love anchored him back to this plane: “Shiro, please. Fight! You can’t do this to me again…” “I was dreaming…Keith, you saved me.” “We saved each other.”

There’s a reason why all his worst nightmares are Shiro leaving him behind–Shiro’s the one person who never gave up on him. I think it’s pretty realistic that Keith would feel so intensely for him, even at such a young age. I think Keith was always sort of carrying a torch for Shiro, I think that’s just who he is. And I think that, after years and tons of growth and change and character development, having all these memories be Shiro’s dreams, have the narrative compare Keith to his ex and then hear Shiro say, “You saved me”–it’s a pretty brilliant way of showing how Shiro’s come to have feelings for the man Keith became in turn.

See also:

But here’s the thing, Shiro isn’t weak in [his fight with Sendak], the matchup with Sendak is pretty even right up until the end there. He just needed a little help. And you know what? That’s a huge part of Shiro’s overarching character arc–how he has to learn it’s okay to lean on others and he doesn’t have to exist as a solemn statue behind stone walls.

If you look back at the flashbacks in A Little Adventure, he tells Adam, “You don’t have to protect me.” All his life, he’s wanted to prove he wasn’t weak. But at some point, he started to misconstrue that as, I have to be strong enough to never rely on anyone else, I can’t ever be vulnerable. The lesson he eventually learns that I think goes over a lot of fans’ heads here is that there’s nothing wrong with being protected.

And Keith’s way of saving Shiro is in so much more than daring rescues. It’s how he’s always been the one to believe in Shiro. It’s how he’s the one who always tells Shiro to keep fighting. It’s how he always insisted Shiro was the best leader among them. It’s how he begs Shiro to keep going no matter what, that it’s okay, don’t worry, “you’re gonna make it.”

In short, Keith became Shiro’s support in the same way that Shiro’s always been there for him. They anchor one another. And lastly, this note on how Keith and Shiro’s relationship has grown into a place where it seems meant to last:

Lauren: “And that’s something that, where Adam might be able to walk away from a relationship, because he doesn’t feel that respect, that relationship is something that Keith would hold on to his whole life, and probably never be able to walk away from.” (source)

So, suffice to say–Keith goes through a lot of character development, and honestly, so much of it is really solid with a wonderful foundation to build off and grow.

[40kmemes]

Red Scorpions

The Red Scorpions Chapter of Space Marines is known to be composed of conservative Imperial purists who are famed for their complete and utter devotion to Imperial doctrine, past the point where pragmatism or even reason would seem to require otherwise. The Chapter is most renowned among other Astartes for its absolute adherence to every line of the Codex Astartes, which is unheard of in any other Chapter -- including the Ultramarines. Its recorded history extends across five Terran millennia, but there are numerous indications that it may extend further than that.

Due to their history of conflict with the Forces of Chaos, the Red Scorpions refuse to deal with any xenos species or any humans that they consider as tainted by mutation of any kind, even Imperially-sanctioned Abhumans like Ogryns or Ratlings. They will obviously not serve with Beastmen, but they also utterly refuse to serve with the few remaining Squats. Equally unique in nature is the frequency with which the Red Scorpions' Apothecaries are present in the Chapter's Tactical Squads as squad leaders in place of a Sergeant.

An uncompromising and steadfast Chapter, the Red Scorpions have, in their five thousand standard years of recorded history, always been ready to stand in the defense of the Imperium, fight those who endanger it and punish those who betray it. Unusually for a Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes, the Red Scorpions are fanatically loyal to the Emperor in whose divinity they believe without question. They see their quest for mental, spiritual, and physical purity as a divine mandate. The Red Scorpions are also strict adherents to the Codex Astartes which they view as holy scripture. They are stalwart traditionalists among the Space Marines, staunch protectors of the Imperium's order and authority, and have ever been quick to answer the call of Imperial governors and Cardinals beset by treachery and heresy from within. Their endless hatred for the alien and the mutant has also become famed across the stars, as is their devotion to purity and scorn of deviation from the baseline human form.

Despite the Red Scorpions' long and unimpeachable record of service, there are still those within the Adeptus who distrust them on the simple grounds that their origins as a Chapter remain a complete mystery, as does the identity of the Founding to which they belong or the primogenitor Chapter from which their gene-seed has been taken. A gene-seed which, other than being notable for its extreme lack of any form of deterioration or corruption, bears no specific hallmarks that would allow it to be secured (even inconclusively) to one of the original Space Marine Legions. This secrecy has led to some of the Imperium's hierarchy questioning the loyalty of a Chapter that keeps its history secret. Despite this, the Chapter is willing to assist the Imperium of Man wherever it can, carrying out thousands of aid missions.

It is unclear if the mysteries concerning the Red Scorpions Chapter's origins are due to a deliberate decision within the Adeptus Administratum or if the records might have been lost due to a simple clerical error. As neither the Chapter nor any known Imperial sources make record of its Founding, the former seems far more likely than the latter. Ongoing attempts have been made to at least identify the origin of the Chapter's gene-seed -- in spite of formal complaints levelled by the Chapter's leadership -- but even these have met with universal failure. Ultimately, the story of the Chapter's creation is far less important than the glorious history that it has established by consistently protecting the Imperium against countless threats.

Indeed, some of the Chapter's most notable core beliefs are founded precisely on the purity and consistency of its gene-seed, and it will go to any lengths to preserve that purity and harvest the Chapter's due from its fallen brothers to ensure the Red Scorpions' future. To the Red Scorpions, gene-seed corruption would fundamentally weaken them or any other Chapter of the Space Marines, and thereby weaken the fabric of the Imperium itself -- something they simply will not allow. The Red Scorpions' fanatical belief in their own genetic purity, and the lengths they will go in order to preserve it, has had the consequence of giving the Chapter a strongly isolationist streak when it comes to its interactions with other parts of the Imperium on anything but a practical military level, and as such it maintains no domains and is beholden to none but its own sense of duty. As a Chapter the Red Scorpions are extremely xenophobic, and for no cause or even dire need will they ever consider serving alongside or allying with aliens. At the same time, they remain highly intolerant of any genetic deviation from the pure human form. They despise Abhumans, mutants or augmented humans of any kind, and have often refused to fight as brothers-in-arms with any such "abomination". The only exception they allow to this disdain are those few individuals they deem to have been the work of the Emperor's own divine hand (other Adeptus Astartes and Navigators, for example), and even then there are limits to what they will readily tolerate in terms of human diversity.

A Crusading Chapter, the Red Scorpions fleet is almost continuously on the move, traveling between war zones and making its forces available to those who would petition for its aid, if the Chapter deems them worthy of it. The Red Scorpions have fought in every corner of the Imperium over the course of their history and participated in many great conflicts. They are justly renowned for their role in the Conflict of Helican, the Siege of Helios and the battles against the hated Bloodtide. They have fought alone as often as they have fought alongside the ranks of the Imperium's other warriors, and although thought lost several times, they have always returned again from the abyss to draw their blades once more in the Emperor's service. One important example of this was the entire Chapter's undertaking of a Crusade into the perilous Ordon Rift region deep within the interstellar wilderness of the south-western expanses of the Segmentum Tempestus in the 39th Millennium. Filled with spatial rapids, gravitic storms and other lethal phenomena, the exact circumstances of the Red Scorpions' extended voyage into this hazardous area remain unknown, and for more than three hundred standard years the Chapter was out of contact with the Imperium and thought lost.

The timely nature of their reappearance was also viewed as a gift from the Emperor, as they played a crucial role in overcoming a Night Lords attack on Oriflame during the Battle of the Grey Sisters. What occurred during their time within the rift remains unknown, but the Red Scorpions had established their primary base of operations upon a battle station named Vigil around the Feral World of Zaebus Minoris deep within the perilous regions of the Ordon Rift surrounded by spatial rapids, gravitic storms and other lethal phenomena. Save for the Chapter itself and a handful of high-ranking members of the Administratum, the Red Scorpions have kept the exact location of the Zaebus System and the safe routes through the treacherous passages required to reach it a deadly secret, thus ensuring their Chapter's security and the safety of their gene-stock. Using Vigil and Zaebus Minoris as their fortress-monastery and base of operations, respectively, the Chapter has continued to range across the southern and western reaches of the Imperium in search of the enemies of Mankind.

[thekidultlife]

Eons | Immortal! Wonwoo

Words: 3176

Genre: Fluff, angst

(A/N: oh god i finally finished this. It was actually written way back when the blog was still beginning lol there’s actually a bigger story here but well, here you go!)

In the mechanisms of the universe, there are those at the center, bathed in flashing lights and unmeasurable power; there are those underneath, accompanied by the grit, grime and the cruelty of life and there are those at the sidelines, either worshipping those at the limelight or advocating for those at the bottom of the abyss whom are crushed by ignorance and indifference.

But the Observer cannot be classified in any of those categories. He was at the center but at the same time, not there. He blended in with the untouchables yet stuck out like a sore thumb. He wished to be at the sidelines yet he cannot be biased.

He operates in a different mechanism of the universe. The mechanisms of the gods, the immortals.

The Observer only had one purpose—to record history in the most objective and purest form—from the beginning of human history to the ends of modern civilization.

“I am cursed.”

The Observer stated with natural nonchalance to your curious and hungry eyes.

He had first met you in a night just like any other night. On his hands held used oracle bones, burnt from the ritual a few moments ago to reveal the future of the new emperor—your older brother.

“We are all cursed to live in this world,” you replied with a hint of disbelief in your voice and continued, “what’s the difference?”

“I’m cursed to live in this world forever. That’s the difference,” The Observer answered indignantly, crushing the bones with his fist.

You simply laughed at his revelation.  

“You are neither a god nor a deity, you are simply a diviner.”

The Observer gazed at you with his sharp eyes and stared at the remaining embers on the pit. “I wish I was.”

“Do you have a name, diviner?” you asked as you looked towards the city of Yin—over the thatched roofs of peasant houses and rice paddies—which will soon become the last capital city of the Shang dynasty.

“No, I do not…Your Highness.”

He had met you for the second time as a traveler along a merchant route to Europe.

“We are all grateful for your help. If you were not there, the bandits would have killed us surely,” you bowed to him as he tried to remain unaffected by your reappearance.

“It’s nothing. I try to help as much as I can,” the Observer replied curtly as he mounted a few items on the mule.

“I hope these tea leaves are enough for the trouble,” you said with a smile as one of your attendants brought a few sacks inside his caravan. “Are you a scholar, sir?”

“Yes…I’m traveling to the West,” he reluctantly replied. The truth is, he was escaping the chaos brought on by the civil war in China. The Shang dynasty which he served as a diviner will be crushed and the Observer will later write in his records a new dynasty mandated by heaven—the Zhou.

“That is where we are also heading for! Shall we travel together then?” you asked excitedly—like an eager child, the Observer writes in his notes.

He tossed the idea over and over in his head and hesitantly agreed. Traveling together might not be that bad.

“I almost forgot, I’m Y/N! You are?”

He blinked several times as he stared at you. After all these years, you never forgot to ask that question.

“I…don’t have a…name,” the Observer replied, slightly embarrassed of his social awkwardness.

“Shall I give you a name then?” You answered so suddenly that he had to digest the question for a few moments.

“What? Why would—“

“Wonwoo.”

“Wha—“

“You have been around that’s why you helped us—Wonwoo.”

The Observer was taken aback and fell into silence. It was too fast yet he liked the name. He was christened with an identity, a name. He was no longer just the Observer who had one purpose for all eternity; he was Wonwoo, the one who was around and helped you. And Wonwoo felt his heart fill with immense gladness that warm tears fell down to his cheeks.

Wonwoo had meet you for the third time as he passed by Caesar’s lagoons, you who was bathed in cerulean water and rose petals; in translucent cloth and bold nakedness.

“A man of the East? Interesting.”

Your familiar voice called his unadulterated attention—your eyes meeting once more after a hundred years.  His lips curved into a sly smile, beginning to wonder if there was an intangible string connecting you to him.

“A high priestess? Interesting,” Wonwoo grinned, eyeing you in your stark nakedness. “You shouldn’t let anyone see you.”

Raising an eyebrow at him, you waded across the water towards his direction with a smirk—tempting him to chance another glance.

“Why don’t you cover me up?” you asked in a low voice yet Wonwoo merely chuckled.

“You do know that I will be burned alive if I saw you naked.”

“Isn’t that a funny joke, Chief Royal Adviser?”

“Indeed it is.”

You crossed paths for the fourth time in Constantinople, during the last remaining years of the Great Roman Empire—when the Visigoths successfully conquered an empire many nations had sought to defeat. The fifth time was during the beheading of Christian martyrs, both your eyes met as you placed your head on the yoke for execution. Sixth was when he felt the impulse to look at a Gothic church’s stained glass windows and met you who was a nun. The seventh time was when Wonwoo finally returned the East—settling in a peninsula which will be later called Korea in the future.

“Do you have any of Kung Fu Zhu?” you asked the only person inside the huge library of important records and scrolls—an Alexandria of the East—and his towering height was somewhat all too intimidating to you.

“…oh it’s you,” he simply muttered, not willing to be disturbed from his reading. You were confused of course,  it was the first time you had met him yet he had met you several times already over the course of the centuries.

“Pardon, have we met before?” You asked, perplexed by the weird behavior of the Chief Archivist.

Following him to his desk at the back of the library, you continually gave him looks of bewilderment until he sighed in resignation.

“You wouldn’t believe me anyway if I said yes,” Wonwoo replied, unrolling a blank scroll and preparing to write a few records. “Would you, Your Highness?”

“Challenge me,” you told him indignantly, crossing your arms over your chest. Yet he simply laughed at you.

“I’ve met you many times before and… today was the seventh time.”

Wonwoo stared at you straight into your eyes and you knew there was something different about him. The sudden change in the atmosphere of the room made your blood run cold and you instinctively took a step back.

“How…? I only met you today…” you asked, frightened of knowing something that could swallow you whole.

Wonwoo snickered as he wrote a character with perfect handwriting—not even gracing you with a single glance.

“I’m immortal.”

His answer rang to your ears as if you tried to resist believing his words. Yet you couldn’t; couldn’t laugh, couldn’t mock. Your eyes strained at him in moments that felt like forever and he stared right back, watching you like a hawk.

If you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes back at you. Wonwoo thought, quoting a philosopher born centuries way ahead of the current time.

You are afraid of the abyss yet he is the abyss. An endless pit of knowledge who is not governed by anything but his purpose.

With a panic stricken face, you hesitantly took a step backward and eventually began running—away from the archives; away from Wonwoo; away from the truth that could eat you alive.

Wonwoo, used to all the centuries of human reactions, continued writing as if nothing happened.

The next day however, you were back.

“I still need that Kung Fu Zhu scroll,” you demanded huffily as he dipped his brush in the ink well, completely unperturbed.

“Are you not afraid of me?” Wonwoo asked, still occupied with documenting the rise of the current Goryeo emperor.

“I…was. Now, I’m not.”

He sighed at your persistence and dipped his brush once more before replying, “Fifth bookshelf from my desk, third row.”

“Excellent. Thank you,” you simply stated and continued leaning against his desk, without much of a budge.

Wonwoo finally looked up to you with your inquisitive eyes meeting his.

“What?” he asked, clearly disturbed from his work. “Why are you not leaving?”

You smiled gradually as you sat yourself on one of the armchairs in front of him. Your plan seemed to have worked quite well.

“Honestly, I couldn’t sleep last night because I kept thinking about what you said,” you stated, a matter-of-factly.

“If you also want a list of medical herbs for sleeplessness, it’s in shelf ten, row seven,” Wonwoo sighed for the nth time at your not-so subtle subtleties.

“I don’t need sleep medicine!” Groaning in annoyance, you slammed your palm against the armrest. “I want to know more!”

“Do you really?”

He gave you a judging stare and your expression faltered in a second—a single question dissolving all of your well-formed convictions. Your speechlessness filled the archives in an eerie silence and scoffing lightly, Wonwoo raised a brow at you mockingly.

“Just as I thought,” he remarked and reclined on his chair, still looking at you with a jaded look.

You balled your fists and pursed your lips as if gathering your wits and replied with much more strength, “No! It isn’t.”

“Really? You obviously hesitated.”

Having enough of his sarcastic rebuttals, you stood up and slammed your hands on his table. You spent the whole night thinking if he was telling the truth or not—if he is an immortal, is he a god? A deity? A ghost? How did he become immortal? How much does he know about me?

“I am scared! But I want to know! My instincts are telling me I have to!”

Wonwoo analyzed your expression once more and your eyes met—passionate intense gazes on cold razor sharp glares. He wasn’t ready to tell you that there are things in this world that humans must not know about because they couldn’t understand how the world works no matter how hard they try.

But deep inside, he was afraid—afraid that you will leave again when you two had finally met. For Wonwoo, you are an existence that comes in like a typhoon and slips away like water on his hands. He was trying to figure out why fate was trying to bring you two together knowing how both your existences are incongruent. Yet if you continue to come and go just as you wish, Wonwoo thought it was better to not meet you at all. It’s just too unbearable to see you live and die again and again.

Your eyes, however, forbade him from doing so—you were so tempting like honey and ambrosia. Your lips, rose-colored and plump, enticing him for a taste. Your voice like a siren’s, luring him to his eminent demise. If his death would be the result of this affair that goes on and on to the vestiges of time, then he wouldn’t have any qualms.

“…this afternoon…” Wonwoo muttered under his breath.

“Huh…?”

“Come back this afternoon,” he once again told you—exhausted with how you and fate were playing with him like a ragdoll.

And so you came back—triumphantly and enthusiastically—high with the ecstasy of discovering the unknown; ready to devour overwhelming information. You approached his resigned and relaxed figure who was perched on a wooden stool, obviously reading.

“What are you reading?” you asked curiously as you tried to peer on the page he was reading.

“Something you don’t have to be bothered with,” he replied coldly and slammed the book to a close, eyeing you with a jaded expression.

You sulked and sat on another stool opposite of him. Wonwoo simply stared at you with a blank face.

“So?” you started, expecting him to start talking.

“’So’ what?”

“So are you going to tell me or are we just going to stare at each other all afternoon?”

Wonwoo, who usually had a poker face on, contorted his lips into a foolish chuckle and shook his head concededly. It had been so long since he last laughed at something or someone—probably for a century or two. You saw his nose crinkle adorably, goofily that you doubted if it was the same taciturn and cold archivist you had met just a few days ago.

“…your smile is pretty…” you muttered unconsciously; your thoughts escaping your lips without warning.

Wonwoo literally froze on the spot upon hearing your words and immediately prayed to the higher beings that you wouldn’t say these things again because it embarrasses the hell out of him.

He cleared out his throat, looking at anything but you.

“It’s too formal if we do it this way. Let’s have a walk, shall we?” Wonwoo suggested as he stood up and started walking towards the courtyards, without waiting for you.

Under the camellia trees, afternoon sunlight streamed on your skin as both of you breathed in the fresh spring air.

“Are you really an…” your voice trailed off with reluctance.

“Immortal?” he added, hands hidden under his sleeves, and continued. “Yes, I am.”

“You don’t die then?”

“Don’t waste your time over stupid questions, Your Highness.”

You visibly pouted but he continued.

“Where are your attendants, by the way? You shouldn’t be alone.”

“I escaped. Anyway, I’m the one who should be asking!”

Wonwoo sighed in exasperation. You were actually a handful to take care of and he was beginning to question why he decided to entertain your curiosity. Yet it was extremely difficult for him to resist your persuasiveness.

“Yesterday, you said…” you began as you bit your lip in nervousness. “You said that we met before…how?”

“I met you in your past lives, six times,” Wonwoo replied without any hesitation. “The first time, you were the sister of a king; the second time, you were a merchant, the third…”

He continued to tell you about what you were before. He told you how you lived and died six times—how he had seen you as a baby, how he had seen you die, how he had seen you love someone, how your heart was broken, how you started a family—and he stood there looking as if he was watching a tragic play unfold six times with only one main character; you.

“You’re cursed…” you murmured with a low voice, hoarse from the crying you did as he told you about his unending fate.

“When you have lived for a few millennia, you get used to it.”

“Can’t you just live a normal life? Like loving someone or having a family or…or, you know!” you yelled exasperatedly, annoyed by the fact that he wasn’t doing anything to break his curse. He simply accepted it.

“If you can escape your engagement tomorrow, then I can also escape my obligation,” Wonwoo replied monotonously. “You have to understand, Your Highness that there are things in this world that are inevitable.”

You glanced furtively at his prominent jawline and you were discretely amazed at his sculpted features. In these moments, you are reminded of your own curse.

“I know. I know the inevitability of my fate. Isn’t it a pity?”

“Truly a pity.”

The eight time was a blur; as well as the ninth and the tenth. Korea was changing too fast—the large mass land finally dividing at the thirty-eighth parallel after chaotic revolutions and wars which preceded it. Families were lost, separated, united over and over again as Wonwoo travelled as much as the borders changed. Yet he still lives on.

Then he saw you again. But in a movie screen.

You were playing as a journalist who wanted to cover the private life of a prince who you eventually fell in love with. The kisses and the embraces you did and received in the movie felt all too real for Wonwoo that he left the cinema in a hurry.

He was getting too involved in the world. He was getting bored. He wanted to meet you and talk to you again with all your strangely eager self accompanying him in days which he felt neurotic. But you weren’t there for several decades and the years went by from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Normally you would simply seek him out but you did not and he felt too lonely.

When the 90s came, Wonwoo had been introduced to a new genre of music called hip hop and though it wasn’t as sophisticated as the orchestras he watched back in Prague, it was strangely enticing. Without anything much to do in his quiet bookstore in downtown Myeongdong, he started listening to it. At first he just listened in his Walkman disc player but then he began writing some lines in his head until it grew into a whole mixtape which he simply stored in an old wooden box.

It was a cold winter when you finally arrived during the early 2000s—where he didn’t hear the bell chime so Wonwoo continued on rapping the verses he created to test it out.

“Cool. You did that?”

When your familiar honeyed voice came to his ears, he immediately raised his head and finally met your eyes for the first time in several millennia. That was why he simply nodded to you in wild astonishment that you giggled at his adorable expression.

“It’s great. Please continue it,”

And so he did.

He wrote a lot of it for several years until he felt lonely again. Ah, he was getting tired.

Where were you in this vast, vast world?

It finally dawned to him that society was changing once again. He saw the rise of idols and how they have been popular among the population. It gave him an idea how to reach out to you without having to scour the whole planet earth.

And after years of training, years of actually involving himself with people despite how awkward he was, he was on stage. He was in an idol group called Seventeen where his fellow members felt like family to him now and he was thankful that he made this decision. Rapping out lines he wrote for you to listen to them and how he will be waiting for you patiently even after a million years, he set foot on stage with gathered confidence that he will see you again because that is how fate worked.

But from afar, he saw in the distant crowd holding a Carat bong. Your arms were waving frantically, your voice the loudest he could hear and he was mesmerized yet again.

“I found you.”

-Admin Hyeri

[alterrune]

CHAPTER 3, ACT 8: THE ABYSS DEEPENS

Alright, everyone, here's the plan: You all stay back while I break some shit.

(We all look at Alter, expecting him to say more.)

Is...is that it? Alter, our plans are usually more complex than that.

Yeah. Reason being to have plans for any possible contingency.

You guys do realize this is the perfect opportunity to finally get all this rage I've been bottling up for a while, right? And like I've said in the past, I know how to turn pure rage into furious drive. Look, if it makes you guys feel better, you guys can tail behind me and take out anyone who tries to jump me.

That...actually sounds rather good. Henry, Ellie, you with him?

Sure, we can work with this.

Beats just sitting around and doing nothing.

(We all walk out of the car. Alter walks into the building, whistles so he gets everyone's attention, and immediately breaks a potted plant.)

Oops. Hey, if you want me...

(Alter turns into his beast form with a puff of red smoke.)

...THEN COME GET ME, MOTHERFUCKERS.

(Alter then tears through the entire building, destroying it with his beast form abilites [such as his flame breath] as he goes along. Violet quickly ducks behind a desk and contacts Will and Sage.)

Will, Sage, give me a status report. How goes locating that super weapon?

Funny you mention that. We just got a location just before you contacted us, Violet!

It's at the center of the building. Tell your destructive cousin to take the scenic route there so he can inflict as much damage to the base as possible.

Copy that. Thank you, you two. Over and out.

(The 5 of us hop on Alter's back as he tears through the building. We reach the center, grab the superweapon, and Alter crashes through the wall to get back to our transportation. With a puff of red smoke, Alter turns back to his regular form.)

So, how'd we do on damages, you two?

We caused $149,000,000 worth of damages.

We just fell short of our goal.

(Alter quickly clicks a button on a detonator, which detonates multiple plastic explosive charges that cause several explosions, severely damaging the facility. The explosives were planted on several high-value items, obliterating them in the explosions.)

How about now?

$300,000,000 worth of damages. We actually got DOUBLE what we needed.

Holy shit, Alter. You really are related to Violet, that's the kind of ingenuity she'd use.

Thanks, you two. Head back to base. Oh, and by the way, you two have officially been promoted. With this promotion, you are now exempt from garbage duty.

YES!!! No more hauling trash bags!

Thank you for this, Violet.

Heh. I thought you'd like that. Now, head back to base. And treat yourself to some ice cream from the cafeteria when you get back. My treat.

Ma'am, yes, ma'am!

We'll head back to base immediately.

(Will and Sage then run off. Those two were very nice.)

Hey, y'know, this would make an amazing spot for a new Chaos Creation Center base...

Well, Terence ain't using it anymore, Vi.

Go for it.

You got it. We'll have the new Chaos Creation Center base up and running by tommorow.

Glad to hear it. Hey, Kyle, you sent the note, right?

Yep. Digitally this time, through E-mail. He's gonna love this one...

CHAPTER 3, ACT 8 COMPLETE

Achievement Unlocked: A New Outpost

Achivement added to "Operation: Emperor's Abyss" set.

DISPLAYING EPILOGUE

(Terence is currently in a hotel room in Britain, relaxing in a bubble bath. His phone, which he placed outside the tub, displays a message that clearly says, "New message from 'Colorstreak Battalion'." He jolts up from the bathtub, hits his head on the ceiling, tries stepping out onto the bathroom floor, and promplty slips and falls on his back. He tries to get up, but then slips and falls again, this time on his face.)

DAMN YOU, COLORSTREAK BATTALIOOOOON!!!

(Jerry quickly rushes to the bathroom.)

Sir, are you decent?

Yes, I have a towel on my lower half. Help me get out of this without hurting myself more than I already bloody have, please.

(Jerry quickly helps Terence out of the bathroom, now bruised on both sides from falling on both his face and his back. Jerry leaves the room and re-enters after Terence gets dressed.)

From the yell, I assume you got a message from the CSB again?

Yes. Digitally this time. Let's see what those bloomin' bastards wrote so I know why they made me slip and take two tumbles onto the hard linoleum flooring, both on different feckin' sides...

-🔺💜🔵💕✍🏼-

Why hello, you sick bastard. We just found out that you were the one who called in the Wall raid to the Tavern and got my Dad killed and made me colorblind. I just wanted to tell you that your days are numbered. You are a dead man walking. I will kill you and send you back to hell with my own bare hands. I have been waiting for this moment for nearly TWO DECADES. By the way, your base got trashed by me going absolutely HAM on it. You deserve it, you absolute WASTE of human life.

And to add insult to injury, that base is now property of the Chaos Creation Center, my own group. It's in the process of being refurbished now. All your weapons and other items you had stashed in there are now property of the Chaos Creation Center. Minus your super-weapon, of course, that is now GEOGRAM property.

Congratulations, Terence. You poked the beast enough for it to wake up and begin tearing you a new asshole. You're fucked, my good man. Have a nice death.

With all the hatred we can muster,

Kyle Gibbons ✍🏼

Alterrune 🔺

Violet Wolfsbane 💜

Henry Stickmin 🔵

Ellie Rose 💕

-🔺💜🔵💕✍🏼-

(Terence looks at the message, but there's no contact info to be found. Which, of course there isn't. I made a burner email that I promptly torched after sending the message. I think ten steps ahead, what can I say?)

Goddamnit. I can't even use a SOOTHING BUBBLE BATH to relax without these wankers ruining my day.

Shall we get going, sir?

Yes, we should probably check out of the hotel before they come in to investigate the noise and realize who we are. Pack your things, Jerry, we're leaving this place effective immediately. Let's get going.

(The two quickly pack their things, escape the hotel using disguises, and slip away without anyone being the wiser.)

END OF EPILOGUE

[minisception]

The Fifth Covenant

Some (too much) homebrew fluff for my Black Legion warband.

This is Part One Part Two Part Three

*** THE FIFTH COVENANT ***

Heretical Religious Sect, associated with the Black Legion Worships Abaddon the Despoiler as a god Symbols: a gold five pointed star, the letters V and C super-imposed over one another

The roiling ethereal turmoil of the Eye of Terror is host to as many heretical cults, creeds, and secret societies as there are chaos worshipers living within it. Rather than revealing a single unifying truth underlying the universe, as the evangelists of the 17th Legion might like to pretend, it seems direct exposure to the Chaos Powers only encourages ever branching sectarianism. But while new chaos cults spring up every day, one insidious cult in particular has recently taken root within the chaos marine legions - or perhaps has finally grown strong enough to risk stepping out from the shadows - and the galaxy shall soon come to speak its name with terror: the Fifth Covenant.

Most of what is known about the Fifth Covenant is the result of the 'Valatia Incident', an insurrection stoked in the Valatia system by chaos warbands dedicated to the Fifth Covenant, including the Crimson Eyes, Infinite Maw, Poisoned Kiss, and Warp Lions. This action brought the cult to the attention of Inquisitorial agents, in particular Inquisitor Raphael Josephus, who subsequently discovered evidence of the Fifth Covenant's existence within a handful of other warbands, mostly within the Black Legion, dating back at least as far as Abaddon's 4th Black Crusade. Much of this lore is suspect, however, as Inquisitor Josephus was later declared excommunicate traitoris by his former mentor, Inquisitor Thraxius, who discovered evidence that Josephus himself was a leader within the Fifth Covenant.

The existence of the Fifth Covenant is, in itself, perhaps less than noteworthy - the Black Legion, unlike most other chaos legions, enforces no creed apart from vengeance against the Imperium and devotion to the Despoiler, and as such has been a breeding ground for any number of strange and esoteric chaos cults. The Fifth Covenant's beliefs, however, are heretical even within a legion of heretics. Their primary belief is that the Arch-Heretic Horus was possessed - not just by a daemon, but by the nascent spirit of an unborn god waiting to be born into the Warp, a fifth and final chaos god who would upon its birth dominate and subjugate the other four beneath its power, and rule both the warp and the mortal universe from its immortal and perfect host.

All the new god needed was a sacrifice mighty enough to herald its birth into reality. So great is this god's power, claims the cult's teachings, that only the death of the God Emperor himself would suffice. Of course, Horus failed, and died, and the Emperor lived, if his current existence can be called that. But according to the Fifth Covenant, so too did the unborn god, having transferred its essence to a new host, Abaddon the Despoiler. The Fifth Covenant preaches that Abaddon is destined to complete the work Horus started by slaying the Emperor and giving birth to a new god for a glorious new age.

The teachings of the Fifth Covenant are determined by their inner circle, a cult-within-a-cult known as the Black Shrine. Little is known of the Black Shrine or how their secret teachings might differ from the message they preach publicly, since all members of the Black Shrine who have been captured by Imperial agents burst into deadly Wychfire before they could be interrogated, their bodies and souls alike consumed without trace and often taking their captors with them in the blaze. The Black Shrine in turn serves an order known as the Shrine Knights, a dozen powerful chaos warlords and sorcerers believed by Inquisitor Josephus to be the true leaders of the Fifth Covenant overall.

The Fifth Covenant is, as yet, a small cult, but it has a growing following, mostly within Black Legion warbands. Though there are a few chaos marine forces outside of the Black Legion who have taken up the cult, such warbands typically take the Black Oath soon after. So far the Fifth Covenant has remained beneath Abaddon's notice, or else he has chosen to ignore them, perhaps because while their teachings have the potential to strain relations with potential allies in the Warp, in practice the cult encourages a near fanatical worship of the Despoiler himself, and with it a sort of crazed devotion. Fifth Covenant warbands are among the most dedicated warriors of the Black Legion, laying their lives on the line for their god's chosen host with almost gleeful abandon, making them deadly and unrelenting soldiers on the battlefield.

On the other hand, this fanaticism has proven to be a weakness at times, distracting Fifth Covenant warbands from more strategically important objectives as they go out of their way to desecrate the shrines and temples of the Emperor, or take time to hold dramatic services where they ritualistically sacrifice images or servants of the Emperor, playing out what they believe will be Abaddon's inevitable victory. Additionally, the sect's worship of Abaddon can be a source of strife with warbands and legions dedicated to one or all of the four powers, leading on occasion to unnecessary conflict both within the Black Legion and between the Black Legion and other chaos legions.

The Fifth Covenant encourages various methods of daemon binding, in particular daemonic possession, but also including the manufacture of daemon engines, the forging of daemonic weapons and armour, the collection of true names of daemons, and the sealing of daemonic pacts, allowing daemonic allies or servants to be physically manifested in the material plain. They are known for infiltrating Imperial worlds to spread chaos cults which worship the Despoiler as a wrathful but fundamentally benevolent destroyer god, one who will throw down the Imperium and break the chains of its enslaved peoples. The Fifth Covenant also often sends missionary operatives to serve upcoming chaos warlords, hoping to spread their creed in the process. And when not engaging in their own campaigns, or missions passed down from the Despoiler, Fifth Covenant warbands will generally travel the eye pursuing esoteric daemon lore and offering unsolicited aid to other chaos warbands in exchange for promises of support for the Despoiler in future Black Crusades - and the chance to possibly spread their heretical creed in the process.

Though the cult is, overall, unaligned, many warriors within the Fifth Covenant, and even entire Fifth Covenant warbands, show signs of patronage of the four chaos gods. However, while such warriors and warbands display sigils and markings of these patrons, they are often defaced or damaged in some way. Additionally, while aligned individuals within the Fifth Covenant will sometimes act as missionaries to other warbands of the same alignment, aligned Fifth Covenant warbands generally avoid other warbands pledged to the same power. Additionally, while they make heavy use of daemons, these daemons are almost always heavily bound. The only exceptions seem to be daemons that have fallen out of favour with their patron powers. Fifth Covenant warbands have been observed fighting alongside he rebel blood thirster Scarbrand, the exiled slaaneshi herald the Masque, and most notably and troubling of all, the fallen daemon prince Be'lakor.

With the heavy use of daemons, as well as missionaries acting to spread their faith to other warbands, the Fifth Covenant operates in a similar manner to some of the more evangelical sects within the Word Bearer legion. This led Inquisitor Josephus to speculate that the Shrine itself began with one or more Word Bearer dark apostles, disillusioned with their primarch's perceived inactivity, who abandoned their legion to join the Black. This seems to be supported by observed tensions between the Word Bearers and the Black Legion, though thus far Abaddon has refused to acknowledge the sect, and Abaddon's lieutenants  have managed to keep the ire of the Word Bearers limited to just those war bands who actively profess the creed, rather than causing a significant rift that would prevent the Word Bearers and Black Legion from working together in larger campaigns. In at least one case, a Black Legion warband was destroyed by a combined force of Word Bearers, with a greater force of nearby Black Legion refusing to come to their aid. Others within the Inquisition have argued that conflict between the Fifth Covenant and the Word Bearers was inevitable due to doctrinal differences, and may not indicate any deeper connection.

For their part the Fifth Covenant has made this easier by attempting to avoid contact with the Word Bearers, as well as other chaos factions outside of the Black Legion who are known for possessing obscure daemonology. The do not seem even to send missionary groups or offer random aid to such warbands, even those that would not seem likely to conflict with them too severely on theological grounds. Why they would go out of their way to avoid other chaos marine factions in possession of daemonic lore when they pursue such lore and actively court potential allies in all other circumstances is unknown.

Active Fifth Covenant warbands & alignments:

The Crimson Eyes, undivided Black Legion warband The Infinite Maw, Khorne/Nurgle Black Legion warband The Firehearts, independent Tzeentch Warband The Abyssal Gaze, unaligned Black Legion warband The Despoiler's Children, Slaanesh Black Legion warband The Black Promise, Black Legion warband of unknown alignment The Liquid Night, warband of unknown affiliation and alignment The Bleak Angels, warband of unknown affiliation and alignment

Multiple unidentified warbands of various affiliations and alignments

Destroyed Fifth Covenant warbands

The Thousand Blades, Black Legion warband of unknown alignment* The Warp Lions, independent Khorne warband** The Poisoned Kiss, Nurgle/Slaanesh Black Legion warband**

* Destroyed by the Word Bearers shortly before Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade, possibly a deliberate sacrifice to secure the support of a number of Word Bearers warbands during the Fall of Cadia.

** Destroyed by Imperial forces during the Valatia incident. Remnants of these warbands were absorbed by the Crimson Eyes.

[nedsecondline]

Vaclav Havel, The Power of the Powerless

Vaclav Havel:

The smaller a dictatorship and the less stratified by modernization the society under it, the more directly the will of the dictator can be exercised. In other words, the dictator can employ more or less naked discipline, avoiding the complex processes of relating to the world and of self-justification which ideology involves. But the more complex the mechanisms of power become, the larger and more stratified the society they embrace, and the longer they have operated historically, the more individuals must be connected to them from outside, and the greater the importance attached to the ideological excuse. It acts as a kind of bridge between the regime and the people, across which the regime approaches the people and the people approach the regime. This explains why ideology plays such an important role in the post-totalitarian system: that complex machinery of units, hierarchies, transmission belts, and indirect instruments of manipulation which ensure in countless ways the integrity of the regime, leaving nothing to chance, would be quite simply unthinkable without ideology acting as its all-embracing excuse and as the excuse for each of its parts.

[…]

Between the aims of the post-totalitarian system and the aims of life there is a yawning abyss: while life, in its essence, moves toward plurality, diversity, independent self-constitution, and self organization, in short, toward the fulfillment of its own freedom, the post-totalitarian system demands conformity, uniformity, and discipline. While life ever strives to create new and improbable structures, the post-totalitarian system contrives to force life into its most probable states. The aims of the system reveal its most essential characteristic to be introversion, a movement toward being ever more completely and unreservedly itself, which means that the radius of its influence is continually widening as well. This system serves people only to the extent necessary to ensure that people will serve it. Anything beyond this, that is to say, anything which leads people to overstep their predetermined roles is regarded by the system as an attack upon itself.

And in this respect it is correct: every instance of such transgression is a genuine denial of the system. It can be said, therefore, that the inner aim of the post-totalitarian system is not mere preservation of power in the hands of a ruling clique, as appears to be the case at first sight. Rather, the social phenomenon of self-preservation is subordinated to something higher, to a kind of blind automatism which drives the system. No matter what position individuals hold in the hierarchy of power, they are not considered by the system to be worth anything in themselves, but only as things intended to fuel and serve this automatism. For this reason, an individual’s desire for power is admissible only in so far as its direction coincides with the direction of the automatism of the system.

Ideology, in creating a bridge of excuses between the system and the individual, spans the abyss between the aims of the system and the aims of life. It pretends that the requirements of the system derive from the requirements of life. It is a world of appearances trying to pass for reality.

The post-totalitarian system touches people at every step, but it does so with its ideological gloves on. This is why life in the system is so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies: government by bureaucracy is called popular government; the working class is enslaved in the name of the working class; the complete degradation of the individual is presented as his ultimate liberation; depriving people of information is called making it available; the use of power to manipulate is called the public control of power, and the arbitrary abuse of power is called observing the legal code; the repression of culture is called its development; the expansion of imperial influence is presented as support for the oppressed; the lack of free expression becomes the highest form of freedom; farcical elections become the highest form of democracy; banning independent thought becomes the most scientific of world views; military occupation becomes fraternal assistance. Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to persecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing.

Individuals need not believe all these mystifications, but they must behave as though they did, or they must at least tolerate them in silence, or get along well with those who work with them. For this reason, however, they must live within a lie. They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them to have accepted their life with it and in it. For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system.

[…]

Because of this dictatorship of the ritual, however, power becomes clearly anonymous. Individuals are almost dissolved in the ritual. They allow themselves to be swept along by it and frequently it seems as though ritual alone carries people from obscurity into the light of power. Is it not characteristic of the post-totalitarian system that, on all levels of the power hierarchy, individuals are increasingly being pushed aside by faceless people, puppets, those uniformed flunkeys of the rituals and routines of power?

The automatic operation of a power structure thus dehumanized and made anonymous is a feature of the fundamental automatism of this system. It would seem that it is precisely the diktats of this automatism which select people lacking individual will for the power structure, that it is precisely the diktat of the empty phrase which summons to power people who use empty phrases as the best guarantee that the automatism of the post-totalitarian system will continue.

Western Sovietologists often exaggerate the role of individuals in the post-totalitarian system and overlook the fact that the ruling figures, despite the immense power they possess through the centralized structure of power, are often no more than blind executors of the system’s own internal laws — laws they themselves never can, and never do, reflect upon. In any case, experience has taught us again and again that this automatism is far more powerful than the will of any individual; and should someone possess a more independent will, he must conceal it behind a ritually anonymous mask in order to have an opportunity to enter the power hierarchy at all. And when the individual finally gains a place there and tries to make his will felt within it, that automatism, with its enormous inertia, will triumph sooner or later, and either the individual will be ejected by the power structure like a foreign organism, or he will be compelled to resign his individuality gradually, once again blending with the automatism and becoming its servant, almost indistinguishable from those who preceded him and those who will follow. (Let us recall, for instance, the development of Husák or Gomulka.) The necessity of continually hiding behind and relating to ritual means that even the more enlightened members of the power structure are often obsessed with ideology. They are never able to plunge straight to the bottom of naked reality, and they always confuse it, in the final analysis, with ideological pseudoreality. (In my opinion, one of the reasons the Dubček leadership lost control of the situation in 1968 was precisely because, in extreme situations and in final questions, its members were never capable of extricating themselves completely from the world of appearances.)

It can be said, therefore, that ideology, as that instrument of internal communication which assures the power structure of inner cohesion is, in the post-totalitarian system, some thing that transcends the physical aspects of power, something that dominates it to a considerable degree and, therefore, tends to assure its continuity as well. It is one of the pillars of the system’s external stability. This pillar, however, is built on a very unstable foundation. It is built on lies. It works only as long as people are willing to live within the lie.

[…]

Why was Solzhenitsyn driven out of his own country? Certainly not because he represented a unit of real power, that is, not because any of the regime’s representatives felt he might unseat them and take their place in government. Solzhenitsyn’s expulsion was something else: a desperate attempt to plug up the dreadful wellspring of truth, a truth which might cause incalculable transformations in social consciousness, which in turn might one day produce political debacles unpredictable in their consequences. And so the post-totalitarian system behaved in a characteristic way: it defended the integrity of the world of appearances in order to defend itself. For the crust presented by the life of lies is made of strange stuff. As long as it seals off hermetically the entire society, it appears to be made of stone. But the moment someone breaks through in one place, when one person cries out, “The emperor is naked!” — when a single person breaks the rules of the game, thus exposing it as a game — everything suddenly appears in another light and the whole crust seems then to be made of a tissue on the point of tearing and disintegrating uncontrollably.

[…]

The profound crisis of human identity brought on by living within a lie, a crisis which in turn makes such a life possible, certainly possesses a moral dimension as well; it appears, among other things, as a deep moral crisis in society. A person who has been seduced by the consumer value system, whose identity is dissolved in an amalgam of the accouterments of mass civilization, and who has no roots in the order of being, no sense of responsibility for anything higher than his own personal survival, is a demoralized person. The system depends on this demoralization, deepens it, is in fact a projection of it into society.

Living within the truth, as humanity’s revolt against an enforced position, is, on the contrary, an attempt to regain control over one’s own sense of responsibility. In other words, it is clearly a moral act, not only because one must pay so dearly for it, but principally because it is not self-serving: the risk may bring rewards in the form of a general amelioration in the situation, or it may not. In this regard, as I stated previously, it is an all-or-nothing gamble, and it is difficult to imagine a reasonable person embarking on such a course merely because he reckons that sacrifice today will bring rewards tomorrow, be it only in the form of general gratitude. (By the way, the representatives of power invariably come to terms with those who live within the truth by persistently ascribing utilitarian motivations to them — a lust for power or fame or wealth — and thus they try, at least, to implicate them in their own world, the world of general demoralization.)

If living within the truth in the post-totalitarian system becomes the chief breeding ground for independent, alternative political ideas, then all considerations about the nature and future prospects of these ideas must necessarily reflect this moral dimension as a political phenomenon. (And if the revolutionary Marxist belief about morality as a product of the “superstructure” inhibits any of our friends from realizing the full significance of this dimension and, in one way or another, from including it in their view of the world, it is to their own detriment: an anxious fidelity to the postulates of that world view prevents them from properly understanding the mechanisms of their own political influence, thus paradoxically making them precisely what they, as Marxists, so often suspect others of being — victims of “false consciousness.”) The very special political significance of morality in the post-totalitarian system is a phenomenon that is at the very least unusual in modern political history, a phenomenon that might well have — as I shall soon attempt to show — far-reaching consequences.

[…]

The post-totalitarian system is mounting a total assault on humans and humans stand against it alone, abandoned and isolated. It is therefore entirely natural that all the “dissident” movements are explicitly defensive movements: they exist to defend human beings and the genuine aims of life against the aims of the system.

[…]

In terms of traditional politics, this program of defense is understandable, even though it may appear minimal, provisional, and ultimately negative. It offers no new conception, model, or ideology, and therefore it is not politics in the proper sense of the word, since politics always assumes a positive program and can scarcely limit itself to defending someone against something.

Such a view, I think, reveals the limitations of the traditionally political way of looking at things. The post-totalitarian system, after all, is not the manifestation of a particular political line followed by a particular government. It is something radically different: it is a complex, profound, and long-term violation of society, or rather the self violation of society. To oppose it merely by establishing a different political line and then striving for a change in government would not only be unrealistic, it would be utterly inadequate, for it would never come near to touching the root of the matter. For some time now, the problem has no longer resided in a political line or program: it is a problem of life itself.

Thus, defending the aims of life, defending humanity, is not only a more realistic approach, since it can begin right now and is potentially more popular because it concerns people’s everyday lives; at the same time (and perhaps precisely because of this) it is also an incomparably more consistent approach because it aims at the very essence of things.

There are times when we must sink to the bottom of our misery to understand truth, just as we must descend to the bottom of a well to see the stars in broad daylight. It seems to me that today, this “provisional,” “minimal,” and “negative” program — the “simple” defense of people — is in a particular sense (and not merely in the circumstances in which we live) an optimal and most positive program because it forces politics to return to its only proper starting point, proper that is, if all the old mistakes are to be avoided: individual people. In the democratic societies, where the violence done to human beings is not nearly so obvious and cruel, this fundamental revolution in politics has yet to happen, and some things will probably have to get worse there before the urgent need for that revolution is reflected in politics. In our world, precisely because of the misery in which we find ourselves, it would seem that politics has already undergone that transformation: the central concern of political thought is no longer abstract visions of a self-redeeming, “positive” model (and of course the opportunistic political practices that are the reverse of the same coin), but rather the people who have so far merely been enslaved by those models and their practices.

Every society, of course, requires some degree of organization. Yet if that organization is to serve people, and not the other way around, then people will have to be liberated and space created so that they may organize themselves in meaningful ways. The depravity of the opposite approach, in which people are first organized in one way or another (by someone who always knows best “what the people need”) so they may then allegedly be liberated, is something we have known on our own skins only too well.

To sum up: most people who are too bound to the traditional political way of thinking see the weaknesses of the “dissident” movements in their purely defensive character. In contrast, I see that as their greatest strength. I believe that this is precisely where these movements supersede the kind of politics from whose point of view their program can seem so inadequate.

[…]

In a classical dictatorship, to a far greater extent than in the post-totalitarian system, the will of the ruler is carried out directly, in an unregulated fashion. A dictatorship has no reason to hide its foundations, nor to conceal the real workings of power, and therefore it need not encumber itself to any great extent with a legal code. The post-totalitarian system, on the other hand, is utterly obsessed with the need to bind everything in a single order: life in such a state is thoroughly permeated by a dense network of regulations, proclamations, directives, norms, orders, and rules. (It is not called a bureaucratic system without good reason.) A large proportion of those norms function as direct instruments of the complex manipulation of life that is intrinsic to the post-totalitarian system. Individuals are reduced to little more than tiny cogs in an enormous mechanism and their significance is limited to their function in this mechanism. Their job, housing accommodation, movements, social and cultural expressions, everything, in short, must be cosseted together as firmly as possible, predetermined, regulated, and controlled. Every aberration from the prescribed course of life is treated as error, license, and anarchy. From the cook in the restaurant who, without hard-to-get permission from the bureaucratic apparatus, cannot cook something special for his customers, to the singer who cannot perform his new song at a concert without bureaucratic approval, everyone, in all aspects of their life, is caught in this regulatory tangle of red tape, the inevitable product of the post-totalitarian system. With ever-increasing consistency, it binds all the expressions and aims of life to the spirit of its own aims: the vested interests of its own smooth, automatic operation.

In a narrower sense the legal code serves the post-totalitarian system in this direct way as well, that is, it too forms a part of the world of regulations and prohibitions. At the same time, however, it performs the same service in another indirect way, one that brings it remarkably closer — depending on which level of the law is involved — to ideology and in some cases makes it a direct component of that ideology.

1 Like ideology, the legal code functions as an excuse. It wraps the base exercise of power in the noble apparel of the letter of the law; it creates the pleasing illusion that justice is done, society protected, and the exercise of power objectively regulated. All this is done to conceal the real essence of post-totalitarian legal practice: the total manipulation of society. If an outside observer who knew nothing at all about life in Czechoslovakia were to study only its laws, he would be utterly incapable of understanding what we were complaining about. The hidden political manipulation of the courts and of public prosecutors, the limitations placed on lawyers’ ability to defend their clients, the closed nature, de facto, of trials, the arbitrary actions of the security forces, their position of authority over the judiciary, the absurdly broad application of several deliberately vague sections of that code, and of course the state’s utter disregard for the positive sections of that code (the rights of citizens): all of this would remain hidden from our outside observer. The only thing he would take away would be the impression that our legal code is not much worse than the legal code of other civilized countries, and not much different either, except perhaps for certain curiosities, such as the entrenchment in the constitution of a single political party’s eternal rule and the state’s love for a neighboring superpower.

But that is not all: if our observer had the opportunity to study the formal side of the policing and judicial procedures and practices, how they look “on paper,” he would discover that for the most part the common rules of criminal procedure are observed: charges are laid within the prescribed period following arrest, and it is the same with detention orders. Indictments are properly delivered, the accused has a lawyer, and so on. In other words, everyone has an excuse: they have all observed the law. In reality, however, they have cruelly and pointlessly ruined a young person’s life, perhaps for no other reason than because he made samizdat copies of a novel written by a banned writer, or because the police deliberately falsified their testimony (as everyone knows, from the judge on down to the defendant). Yet all of this somehow remains in the background. The falsified testimony is not necessarily obvious from the trial documents and the section of the Criminal Code dealing with incitement does not formally exclude the application of that charge to the copying of a banned novel. In other words, the legal code — at least in several areas — is no more than a facade, an aspect of the world of appearances. Then why is it there at all? For exactly the same reason as ideology is there: it provides a bridge of excuses between the system and individuals, making it easier for them to enter the power structure and serve the arbitrary demands of power. The excuse lets individuals fool themselves into thinking they are merely upholding the law and protecting society from criminals. (Without this excuse, how much more difficult it would be to recruit new generations of judges, prosecutors, and interrogators!) As an aspect of the world of appearances, however, the legal code deceives not only the conscience of prosecutors, it deceives the public, it deceives foreign observers, and it even deceives history itself.

2 Like ideology, the legal code is an essential instrument of ritual communication outside the power structure. It is the legal code that gives the exercise of power a form, a framework, a set of rules. It is the legal code that enables all components of the system to communicate, to put themselves in a good light, to establish their own legitimacy. It provides their whole game with its rules and engineers with their technology. Can the exercise of post-totalitarian power be imagined at all without this universal ritual making it all possible, serving as a common language to bind the relevant sectors of the power structure together? The more important the position occupied by the repressive apparatus in the power structure, the more important that it function according to some kind of formal code. How, otherwise, could people be so easily and inconspicuously locked up for copying banned books if there were no judges, prosecutors, interrogators, defense lawyers, court stenographers, and thick files, and if all this were not held together by some firm order? And above all, without that innocent-looking Section 1oo on incitement? This could all be done, of course, without a legal code and its accessories, but only in some ephemeral dictatorship run by a Ugandan bandit, not in a system that embraces such a huge portion of civilized humankind and represents an integral, stable, and respected part of the modern world. That would not only be unthinkable, it would quite simply be technically impossible. Without the legal code functioning as a ritually cohesive force, the post-totalitarian system could not exist.

The entire role of ritual, facades, and excuses appears most eloquently, of course, not in the proscriptive section of the legal code, which sets out what a citizen may not do and what the grounds for prosecution are, but in the section declaring what he may do and what his or her rights are. Here there is truly nothing but “words, words, words.” Yet even that part of the code is of immense importance to the system, for it is here that the system establishes its legitimacy as a whole, before its own citizens, before schoolchildren, before the international public, and before history. The system cannot afford to disregard this because it cannot permit itself to cast doubt upon the fundamental postulates of its ideology, which are so essential to its very existence. (We have already seen how the power structure is enslaved by its own ideology and its ideological prestige.) To do this would be to deny everything it tries to present itself as and, thus, one of the main pillars on which the system rests would be undermined: the integrity of the world of appearances.

If the exercise of power circulates through the whole power structure as blood flows through veins, then the legal code can be understood as something that reinforces the walls of those veins. Without it, the blood of power could not circulate in an organized way and the body of society would hemorrhage at random. Order would collapse.

A persistent and never-ending appeal to the laws — not just to the laws concerning human rights, but to all laws — does not mean at all that those who do so have succumbed to the illusion that in our system the law is anything other than what it is. They are well aware of the role it plays. But precisely because they know how desperately the system depends on it — on the “noble” version of the law, that is — they also know how enormously significant such appeals are. Because the system cannot do without the law, because it is hopelessly tied down by the necessity of pretending the laws are observed, it is compelled to react in some way to such appeals. Demanding that the laws be upheld is thus an act of living within the truth that threatens the whole mendacious structure at its point of maximum mendacity. Over and over again, such appeals make the purely ritualistic nature of the law clear to society and to those who inhabit its power structures. They draw attention to its real material substance and thus, indirectly, compel all those who take refuge behind the law to affirm and make credible this agency of excuses, this means of communication, this reinforcement of the social arteries outside of which their will could not be made to circulate through society. They are compelled to do so for the sake of their own consciences, for the impression they make on outsiders, to maintain themselves in power (as part of the system’s own mechanism of self-preservation and its principles of cohesion), or simply out of fear that they will be reproached for being clumsy in handling the ritual. They have no other choice: because they cannot discard the rules of their own game, they can only attend more carefully to those rules. Not to react to challenges means to undermine their own excuse and lose control of their mutual communications system. To assume that the laws are a mere facade, that they have no validity, and that therefore it is pointless to appeal to them would mean to go on reinforcing those aspects of the law that create the facade and the ritual. It would mean confirming the law as an aspect of the world of appearances and enabling those who exploit it to rest easy with the cheapest (and therefore the most mendacious) form of their excuse.

I have frequently witnessed policemen, prosecutors, or judges — if they were dealing with an experienced Chartist or a courageous lawyer, and if they were exposed to public attention (as individuals with a name, no longer protected by the anonymity of the apparatus) — suddenly and anxiously begin to take particular care that no cracks appear in the ritual. This does not alter the fact that a despotic power is hiding behind that ritual, but the very existence of the officials’ anxiety necessarily regulates, limits, and slows down the operation of that despotism.

This, of course, is not enough. But an essential part of the “dissident” attitude is that it comes out of the reality of the human here and now. It places more importance on often repeated and consistent concrete action-even though it may be inadequate and though it may ease only insignificantly the suffering of a single insignificant citizen — than it does in some abstract fundamental solution in an uncertain future. In any case, is not this in fact just another form of “small-scale work” in the Masarykian sense, with which the “dissident” attitude seemed at first to be in such sharp contradiction?

This section would be incomplete without stressing certain internal limitations to the policy of taking them at their own word. The point is this: even in the most ideal of cases, the law is only one of several imperfect and more or less external ways of defending what is better in life against what is worse. By itself, the law can never create anything better. Its purpose is to render a service and its meaning does not lie in the law itself. Establishing respect for the law does not automatically ensure a better life for that, after all, is a job for people and not for laws and institutions. It is possible to imagine a society with good laws that are fully respected but in which it is impossible to live. Conversely, one can imagine life being quite bearable even where the laws are imperfect and imperfectly applied. The most important thing is always the quality of that life and whether or not the laws enhance life or repress it, not merely whether they are upheld or not. (Often strict observance of the law could have a disastrous impact on human dignity.) The key to a humane, dignified, rich, and happy life does not lie either in the constitution or in the Criminal Code. These merely establish what may or may not be done and, thus, they can make life easier or more difficult. They limit or permit, they punish, tolerate, or defend, but they can never give life substance or meaning. The struggle for what is called “legality” must constantly keep this legality in perspective against the background of life as it really is. Without keeping one’s eyes open to the real dimensions of life’s beauty and misery, and without a moral relationship to life, this struggle will sooner or later come to grief on the rocks of some self-justifying system of scholastics. Without really wanting to, one would thus become more and more like the observer who comes to conclusions about our system only on the basis of trial documents and is satisfied if all the appropriate regulations have been observed.

[…]

The specific nature of post-totalitarian conditions — with their absence of a normal political life and the fact that any far-reaching political change is utterly unforeseeable — has one positive aspect: it compels us to examine our situation in terms of its deeper coherences and to consider our future in the context of global, long-range prospects of the world of which we are a part. The fact that the most intrinsic and fundamental confrontation between human beings and the system takes place at a level incomparably more profound than that of traditional politics would seem, at the same time, to determine as well the direction such considerations will take.

Our attention, therefore, inevitably turns to the most essential matter: the crisis of contemporary technological society as a whole, the crisis that Heidegger describes as the ineptitude of humanity face to face with the planetary power of technology. Technology — that child of modern science, which in turn is a child of modern metaphysics — is out of humanity’s control, has ceased to serve us, has enslaved us and compelled us to participate in the preparation of our own destruction. And humanity can find no way out: we have no idea and no faith, and even less do we have a political conception to help us bring things back under human control. We look on helplessly as that coldly functioning machine we have created inevitably engulfs us, tearing us away from our natural affiliations (for instance, from our habitat in the widest sense of that word, including our habitat in the biosphere) just as it removes us from the experience of Being and casts us into the world of “existences.” This situation has already been described from many different angles and many individuals and social groups have sought, often painfully, to find ways out of it (for instance, through oriental thought or by forming communes). The only social, or rather political, attempt to do something about it that contains the necessary element of universality (responsibility to and for the whole) is the desperate and, given the turmoil the world is in, fading voice of the ecological movement, and even there the attempt is limited to a particular notion of how to use technology to oppose the dictatorship of technology.

“Only a God can save us now,” Heidegger says, and he emphasizes the necessity of “a different way of thinking,” that is, of a departure from what philosophy has been for centuries, and a radical change in the way in which humanity understands itself, the world, and its position in it. He knows no way out and all he can recommend is “preparing expectations.”

Various thinkers and movements feel that this as yet unknown way out might be most generally characterized as a broad “existential revolution:” I share this view, and I also share the opinion that a solution cannot be sought in some technological sleight of hand, that is, in some external proposal for change, or in a revolution that is merely philosophical, merely social, merely technological, or even merely political. These are all areas where the consequences of an existential revolution can and must be felt; but their most intrinsic locus can only be human existence in the profoundest sense of the word. It is only from that basis that it can become a generally ethical — and, of course, ultimately a political — reconstitution of society.

What we call the consumer and industrial (or postindustrial) society, and Ortega y Gasset once understood as “the revolt of the masses,” as well as the intellectual, moral, political, and social misery in the world today: all of this is perhaps merely an aspect of the deep crisis in which humanity, dragged helplessly along by the automatism of global technological civilization, finds itself.

The post-totalitarian system is only one aspect — a particularly drastic aspect and thus all the more revealing of its real origins — of this general inability of modern humanity to be the master of its own situation. The automatism of the post-totalitarian system is merely an extreme version of the global automatism of technological civilization. The human failure that it mirrors is only one variant of the general failure of modern humanity.

This planetary challenge to the position of human beings in the world is, of course, also taking place in the Western world, the only difference being the social and political forms it takes. Heidegger refers expressly to a crisis of democracy. There is no real evidence that Western democracy, that is, democracy of the traditional parliamentary type, can offer solutions that are any more profound. It may even be said that the more room there is in the Western democracies (compared to our world) for the genuine aims of life, the better the crisis is hidden from people and the more deeply do they become immersed in it.

It would appear that the traditional parliamentary democracies can offer no fundamental opposition to the automatism of technological civilization and the industrial-consumer society, for they, too, are being dragged helplessly along by it. People are manipulated in ways that are infinitely more subtle and refined than the brutal methods used in the post-totalitarian societies. But this static complex of rigid, conceptually sloppy, and politically pragmatic mass political parties run by professional apparatuses and releasing the citizen from all forms of concrete and personal responsibility; and those complex focuses of capital accumulation engaged in secret manipulations and expansion; the omnipresent dictatorship of consumption, production, advertising, commerce, consumer culture, and all that flood of information: all of it, so often analyzed and described, can only with great difficulty be imagined as the source of humanity’s rediscovery of itself. In his June 1978 Harvard lecture, Solzhenitsyn describes the illusory nature of freedoms not based on personal responsibility and the chronic inability of the traditional democracies, as a result, to oppose violence and totalitarianism. In a democracy, human beings may enjoy many personal freedoms and securities that are unknown to us, but in the end they do them no good, for they too are ultimately victims of the same automatism, and are incapable of defending their concerns about their own identity or preventing their superficialization or transcending concerns about their own personal survival to become proud and responsible members of the polis, making a genuine contribution to the creation of its destiny.

Because all our prospects for a significant change for the better are very long range indeed, we are obliged to take note of this deep crisis of traditional democracy. Certainly, if conditions were to be created for democracy in some countries in the Soviet bloc (although this is becoming increasingly improbable), it might be an appropriate transitional solution that would help to restore the devastated sense of civic awareness, to renew democratic discussion, to allow for the crystallization of an elementary political plurality, an essential expression of the aims of life. But to cling to the notion of traditional parliamentary democracy as one’s political ideal and to succumb to the illusion that only this tried and true form is capable of guaranteeing human beings enduring dignity and an independent role in society would, in my opinion, be at the very least shortsighted.

I see a renewed focus of politics on real people as something far more profound than merely returning to the everyday mechanisms of Western (or, if you like, bourgeois) democracy. In 1968, I felt that our problem could be solved by forming an opposition party that would compete publicly for power with the Communist Party. I have long since come to realize, however, that it is just not that simple and that no opposition party in and of itself, just as no new electoral laws in and of themselves, could make society proof against some new form of violence. No “dry” organizational measures in themselves can provide that guarantee, and we would be hard-pressed to find in them that God who alone can save us.

[…]

And now I may properly be asked the question: What then is to be done?

My skepticism toward alternative political models and the ability of systemic reforms or changes to redeem us does not, of course, mean that I am skeptical of political thought altogether. Nor does my emphasis on the importance of focusing concern on real human beings disqualify me from considering the possible structural consequences flowing from it. On the contrary, if A was said, then B should be said as well. Nevertheless, I will offer only a few very general remarks.

Above all, any existential revolution should provide hope of a moral reconstitution of society, which means a radical renewal of the relationship of human beings to what I have called the “human order,” which no political order can replace. A new experience of being, a renewed rootedness in the universe, a newly grasped sense of higher responsibility, a newfound inner relationship to other people and to the human community — these factors clearly indicate the direction in which we must go.

And the political consequences? Most probably they could be reflected in the constitution of structures that will derive from this new spirit, from human factors rather than from a particular formalization of political relationships and guarantees. In other words, the issue is the rehabilitation of values like trust, openness, responsibility, solidarity, love. I believe in structures that are not aimed at the technical aspect of the execution of power, but at the significance of that execution in structures held together more by a commonly shared feeling of the importance of certain communities than by commonly shared expansionist ambitions directed outward. There can and must be structures that are open, dynamic, and small; beyond a certain point, human ties like personal trust and personal responsibility cannot work. There must be structures that in principle place no limits on the genesis of different structures. Any accumulation of power whatsoever (one of the characteristics of automatism) should be profoundly alien to it. They would be structures not in the sense of organizations or institutions, but like a community. Their authority certainly cannot be based on long-empty traditions, like the tradition of mass political parties, but rather on how, in concrete terms, they enter into a given situation. Rather than a strategic agglomeration of formalized organizations, it is better to have organizations springing up ad hoc, infused with enthusiasm for a particular purpose and disappearing when that purpose has been achieved. The leaders’ authority ought to derive from their personalities and be personally tested in their particular surroundings, and not from their position in any nomenklatura. They should enjoy great personal confidence and even great lawmaking powers based on that confidence. This would appear to be the only way out of the classic impotence of traditional democratic organizations, which frequently seem founded more on mistrust than mutual confidence, and more on collective irresponsibility than on responsibility. It is only with the full existential backing of every member of the community that a permanent bulwark against creeping totalitarianism can be established. These structures should naturally arise from below as a consequence of authentic social self-organization; they should derive vital energy from a living dialogue with the genuine needs from which they arise, and when these needs are gone, the structures should also disappear. The principles of their internal organization should be very diverse, with a minimum of external regulation. The decisive criterion of this self-constitution should be the structure’s actual significance, and not just a mere abstract norm.

Both political and economic life ought to be founded on the varied and versatile cooperation of such dynamically appearing and disappearing organizations. As far as the economic life of society goes, I believe in the principle of self-management, which is probably the only way of achieving what all the theorists of socialism have dreamed about, that is, the genuine (i.e., informal) participation of workers in economic decision making, leading to a feeling of genuine responsibility for their collective work. The principles of control and discipline ought to be abandoned in favor of self-control and self-discipline.

As is perhaps clear from even so general an outline, the systemic consequences of an existential revolution of this type go significantly beyond the framework of classical parliamentary democracy. Having introduced the term “post-totalitarian” for the purposes of this discussion, perhaps I should refer to the notion I have just outlined-purely for the moment-as the prospects for a “post-democratic” system.

Undoubtedly this notion could be developed further, but I think it would be a foolish undertaking, to say the least, because slowly but surely the whole idea would become alienated, separated from itself. After all, the essence of such a “post-democracy” is also that it can only develop via facts, as a process deriving directly from life, from a new atmosphere and a new spirit (political thought, of course, would play a role here, though not as a director, merely as a guide). It would be presumptuous, however, to try to foresee the structural expressions of this new spirit without that spirit actually being present and without knowing its concrete physiognomy.

[…]

I would probably have omitted the entire preceding section as a more suitable subject for private meditation were it not for a certain recurring sensation. It may seem rather presumptuous, and therefore I will present it as a question: Does not this vision of “post-democratic” structures in some ways remind one of the “dissident” groups or some of the independent citizens’ initiatives as we already know them from our own surroundings? Do not these small communities, bound together by thousands of shared tribulations, give rise to some of those special humanly meaningful political relationships and ties that we have been talking about? Are not these communities (and they are communities more than organizations) — motivated mainly by a common belief in the profound significance of what they are doing since they have no chance of direct, external success joined together by precisely the kind of atmosphere in which the formalized and ritualized ties common in the official structures are supplanted by a living sense of solidarity and fraternity? Do not these “post-democratic” relationships of immediate personal trust and the informal rights of individuals based on them come out of the background of all those commonly shared difficulties? Do not these groups emerge, live, and disappear under pressure from concrete and authentic needs, unburdened by the ballast of hollow traditions? Is not their attempt to create an articulate form of living within the truth and to renew the feeling of higher responsibility in an apathetic society really a sign of some kind of rudimentary moral reconstitution?

In other words, are not these informed, nonbureaucratic, dynamic, and open communities that comprise the “parallel polis” a kind of rudimentary prefiguration, a symbolic model of those more meaningful “post-democratic” political structures that might become the foundation of a better society?

via Bruce Sterling via Kasparov63

Filed under: posts, uncategorized Tagged: authoritarianism, democracy, dictatorship, eastasia, eurasia, freedom, oceania, politics, resistance, society, totalitarianism

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List of Disney Movies and Released Dates

List of Disney Movies and Released Dates

Hi, here is the complete list of Disney movies. These movies where released under the Walt Disney Pictures. Scroll down to view them (There are really tons of them). Enjoy!

 Disney Future Releases

2018

Mary Poppins Returns                                                                            December 25

Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-It Ralph 2                                     November 21

Mulan                                                                                                          November 2

Untitled Disney live-action fairy tale film                                           August 3

The Incredibles 2                                                                                      June 15

Dolphins                                                                                                     April 20

Magic Camp                                                                                               April 6

A Wrinkle in Time                                                                                    March 9

2017

Coco                                                                                                             November 22

Cars 3                                                                                                          June 16

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales                           May 26

List of Disney Movies 2017

Born in China                                              April 21

Beauty and the Beast                                 March 17

List of Disney Movies 2016

Dangal

Moana

Doctor Strange

Queen of Katwe

The Light Between Oceans

Pete’s Dragon

The BFG

Finding Dory

Alice Through the Looking Glass

Captain America: Civil War

The Jungle Book

Zootopia

The Finest Hours

List of Disney Movies 2015

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

The Good Dinosaur

Bridge of Spies

Ant-Man

ABCD2

Inside Out

Tomorrowland

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Monkey Kingdom

Cinderella (PG)

McFarland

Tinker Bell and the Legend of the Never Beast

Strange Magic

List of Disney Movies 2014

Into the Woods

Big Hero 6

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Khoobsurat

The Hundred-Foot Journey (Touchstone/DreamWorks)

Guardians of the Galaxy (Marvel)

Planes: Fire and Rescue

Maleficent

Million Dollar Arm

Bears

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Muppets Most Wanted

Need for Speed

The Pirate Fairy

List of Disney Movies 2013

Saving Mr. Banks

Frozen

Delivery Man

Thor: The Dark World

The Wind Rises

The Fifth Estate

Planes

The Lone Ranger

Monsters University

Iron Man 3

Wings of Life

Oz the Great and Powerful

List of Disney Movies 2012

Lincoln

Wreck-It Ralph

Frankenweenie

Barfi!

Secret of the Wings

The Odd Life of Timothy Green

People Like Us

Mad Buddies

Brave

Marvel’s The Avengers

Chimpanzee

Arjun: The Warrior Prince

John Carter

The Secret World of Arrietty

List of Disney Movies 2011

War Horse

The Muppets

Real Steel

Fright Night

The Help

Winnie the Pooh

Cars 2

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Prom

Zokkomon

African Cats: Kingdom of Courage

Mars Needs Moms

I Am Number Four

Gnomeo & Juliet

Once Upon a Warrior

List of Disney Movies 2010

Tron: Legacy

The Tempest

Tangled

Secretariat

You Again

Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue

The Switch

Tales from Earthsea

Step Up 3D

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Toy Story 3

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Oceans

The Last Song

Waking Sleeping Beauty

Alice in Wonderland

When in Rome

List of Disney Movies 2009

Old Dogs

Disney’s A Christmas Carol

Kniga Masterov

Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure

Surrogates

Walt & El Grupo

X-Games 3D: The Movie

Ponyo

G-Force

The Proposal

Up

The Boys: The Sherman Brothers’ Story

Trail of the Panda

Earth

Hannah Montana the Movie

Race to Witch Mountain

Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience

Confessions of a Shopaholic

List of Disney Movies 2008

Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert

Step Up 2 the Streets

College Road Trip

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

WALL•E

Swing Vote

Tinker Bell

Miracle at St. Anna

Beverly Hills Chihuahua

Morning Light

High School Musical 3: Senior Year

Roadside Romeo

Bolt

Bedtime Stories

List of Disney Movies 2007

Primeval

Bridge to Terabithia

Wild Hogs

Meet the Robinsons

The Invisible

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

Ratatouille

The Secret of the Magic Gourd

Underdog

The Game Plan

Dan in Real Life

Enchanted

National Treasure: Book of Secrets

List of Disney Movies 2006

Glory Road

Annapolis

Roving Mars

Eight Below

The Shaggy Dog

Stay Alive

The Wild

Stick It

Goal! The Dream Begins

Cars

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

Step Up

Invincible

The Guardian

The Prestige

The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause

Déjà Vu

Apocalypto

List of Disney Movies 2005

Aliens of the Deep

Pooh’s Heffalump Movie

The Pacifier

Ice Princess

A Lot Like Love

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Howl’s Moving Castle

Herbie: Fully Loaded

Dark Water

Sky High

Valiant

Flightplan

The Greatest Game Ever Played

Shopgirl

Chicken Little

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Casanova

List of Disney Movies 2004

Teacher’s Pet

Miracle

Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen

Hidalgo

The Ladykillers

Home on the Range

The Alamo

Sacred Planet

Raising Helen

Around the World in 80 Days

America’s Heart & Soul

King Arthur

The Village

The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement

3000

The Last Shot

Ladder 49

The Incredibles

National Treasure

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

List of Disney Movies 2003

The Recruit

Shanghai Knights

The Jungle Book 2

Bringing Down the House

Piglet’s Big Movie

Ghosts of the Abyss

Holes

The Lizzie McGuire Movie

Finding Nemo

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

Freaky Friday

Open Range

Hope Springs

Cold Creek Manor

Under the Tuscan Sun

Veronica Guerin

Brother Bear

The Haunted Mansion

Calendar Girls

The Young Black Stallion

List of Disney Movies 2002

Snow Dogs

The Count of Monte Cristo

Return to Never Land

Sorority Boys

The Rookie

Big Trouble

Frank McKlusky, C.I.

ESPN’s Ultimate X

Bad Company

Lilo & Stitch

Reign of Fire

The Country Bears

Signs

Spirited Away

Moonlight Mile

Sweet Home Alabama

Tuck Everlasting

Santa Clause 2

Treasure Planet

The Hot Chick

25th Hour

List of Disney Movies 2001

Double Take

Recess: School’s Out

Just Visiting

Pearl Harbor

Atlantis: The Lost Empire

crazy/beautiful

The Princess Diaries

Bubble Boy

New Port South

Max Keeble’s Big Move

Corky Romano

High Heels and Low Lifes

Monsters, Inc.

Out Cold

The Royal Tenenbaums

List of Disney Movies 2000

Fantasia

Play It to the Bone

Gun Shy

The Tigger Movie

Mission to Mars

Whispers

High Fidelity

Keeping the Faith

Dinosaur

Shanghai Noon

Gone in 60 Seconds

Disney’s The Kid

Coyote Ugly

The Crew

Duets

Remember the Titans

Playing Mona Lisa (no label)

Unbreakable

102 Dalmatians

The Emperor’s New Groove

Brother, Where Art Thou?

List of Disney Movies 1999

A Civil Action

Rushmore

My Favorite Martian

The Other Sister

Doug’s 1st Movie

10 Things I Hate About You

Endurance

Instinct

Tarzan

Summer of Sam

Inspector Gadget

The Sixth Sense

The 13th Warrior

Breakfast of Champions

Mumford

Mystery Alaska

The Hand Behind the Mouse: The Ub Iwerks Story

The Straight Story

The Insider

Toy Story 2

Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo

Cradle Will Rock

Bicentennial Man

List of Disney Movies 1998

Kundun

Deep Rising

Krippendorf’s Tribe

An Alan Smithee Film: Burn, Hollywood, Burn

Meet the Deedles

He Got Game

The Horse Whisperer

Six Days, Seven Nights

Mulan

Armageddon

Jane Austen’s Mafia!

The Parent Trap

Firelight

Simon Birch

Holy Man

Beloved

The Waterboy

I’ll Be Home for Christmas

Enemy of the State

A Bug’s Life

Mighty Joe Young

List of Disney Movies 1997

Evita

Metro

Prefontaine

Shadow Conspiracy

That Darn Cat [remake]

Jungle 2 Jungle

The Sixth Man

Grosse Pointe Blank

Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion

Gone Fishin’

Con Air

Hercules

George of the Jungle

Nothing to Lose

Air Bud

I. Jane

A Thousand Acres

Washington Square

RocketMan

Playing God

Flubber

An American Werewolf in Paris

Magoo

List of Disney Movies 1996

Holland’s Opus

White Squall

Wrong

Muppet Treasure Island

Before and After

Up Close and Personal

Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco

Two Much

Little Indian, Big City

James and the Giant Peach

Celtic Pride

Last Dance

Boys

Spy Hard

Eddie

The Rock

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Phenomenon

Kazaam

Jack

1966 First Kid

1966 The Rich Man’s Wife

D3: The Mighty Ducks

The Associate

Ransom

The War at Home

101 Dalmatians [live action]

The Preacher’s Wife

List of Disney Movies 1995

Houseguest

Bad Company

Miami Rhapsody

The Jerky Boys

Heavyweights

Man of the House

Roommates

Tall Tale

Funny Bones

Jefferson in Paris

A Goofy Movie

While You Were Sleeping

A Pyromaniac’s Love Story

Crimson Tide

Mad Love

Pocahontas

Judge Dredd

Operation Dumbo Drop

Dangerous Minds

A Kid in King Arthur’s Court

The Tie that Binds

Unstrung Heroes

The Big Green

Dead Presidents

Feast of July

The Scarlet Letter

Frank and Ollie

Powder

Toy Story

Father of the Bride, Part II

Nixon

Tom and Huck

List of Disney Movies 1994

Cabin Boy

The Air Up There

Iron Will

My Father the Hero

Blank Check

Angie

The Ref

D2: The Mighty Ducks

Holy Matrimony

White Fang 2: Myth of the White Wolf

The Inkwell

When a Man Loves a Woman

Renaissance Man

The Lion King

I Love Trouble

Angels in the Outfield

In the Army Now

Color of Night

It’s Pat

Camp Nowhere

A Simple Twist of Fate

Quiz Show

Terminal Velocity

Ed Wood

Robert A. Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters

Squanto: A Warrior’s Tale

The Santa Clause

A Low Down Dirty Shame

Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book

List of Disney Movies 1993

Alive

Aspen Extreme

The Cemetery Club

Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey

Swing Kids

A Far Off Place

Born Yesterday

Adventures of Huck Finn

Indian Summer

Bound by Honor

Super Mario Bros.

Guilty as Sin

Life with Mikey

What’s Love Got to Do with It

Son-In-Law

Hocus Pocus

Another Stakeout

My Boyfriend’s Back

Father Hood

The Joy Luck Club

Money for Nothing

The Program

Cool Runnings

The Nightmare Before Christmas

The Three Musketeers

Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit

Tombstone

List of Disney Movies 1992

The Hand That Rocks the Cradle

Medicine Man

Blame It On The Bellboy

Noises Off

Straight Talk

Newsies

Passed Away

Encino Man

Sister Act

Honey, I Blew Up the Kid

A Stranger Among Us

3 Ninjas

The Gun in Betty Lou’s Handbag

Crossing the Bridge

Sarafina!

Captain Ron

The Mighty Ducks

Consenting Adults

Aladdin

The Distinguished Gentleman

The Muppet Christmas Carol

List of Disney Movies 1991

White Fang

Run

Scenes from a Mall

Shipwrecked

The Marrying Man

Oscar

One Good Cop

What About Bob?

Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken

The Rocketeer

The Doctor

I. Warshawski

True Identity

Paradise

Deceived

Ernest Scared Stupid

Billy Bathgate

Beauty and the Beast

Father of the Bride

List of Disney Movies 1990

Stella

Where the Heart Is

Pretty Woman

Ernest Goes to Jail

Spaced Invaders

Fire Birds

Dick Tracy

Betsy’s Wedding

Arachnophobia

Ducktales: the Movie, Treasure of the Lost Lamp

Taking Care of Business

Destiny

The Rescuers Down Under

Three Men and a Little Lady

Green Card

List of Disney Movies 1989

Three Fugitives

New York Stories

Disorganized Crime

Dead Poets Society

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids

Turner & Hooch

Cheetah

An Innocent Man

Gross Anatomy

The Little Mermaid

Blaze

List of Disney Movies 1988

Shoot to Kill

O.A.

Return to Snowy River

Big Business

Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Cocktail

The Rescue

Heartbreak Hotel

The Good Mother

Ernest Saves Christmas

Oliver & Company

Beaches

List of Disney Movies 1987

Outrageous Fortune

Tin Men

Ernest Goes to Camp

Benji the Hunted

Adventures in Babysitting

Stakeout

Can’t Buy Me Love

Hello Again

Three Men and a Baby

Good Morning, Vietnam

List of Disney Movies 1986

Down and Out in Beverly Hills

1886 Off Beat

Ruthless People

The Great Mouse Detective

Flight of the Navigator

Tough Guys

The Color of Money

List of Disney Movies 1985

Baby…Secret of the Lost Legend

Return to Oz

The Black Cauldron

My Science Project

The Journey of Natty Gann

One Magic Christmas

List of Disney Movies 1984

Splash

Tiger Town

Country

List of Disney Movies 1983

Trenchcoat

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Never Cry Wolf

List of Disney Movies 1982

Night Crossing

Tron

Tex

List of Disney Movies 1981

The Devil and Max Devlin

Amy

The Fox and the Hound

Condorman

The Watcher in the Woods

List of Disney Movies 1980

Midnight Madness

The Last Flight of Noah’s Ark

Herbie Goes Bananas

List of Disney Movies 1979

The North Avenue Irregulars

The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again

Unidentified Flying Oddball

The Black Hole

List of Disney Movies 1978

Candleshoe

Return from Witch Mountain

The Cat from Outer Space

Hot Lead and Cold Feet

List of Disney Movies 1977

Freaky Friday

The Littlest Horse Thieves

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

The Rescuers

Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo

Pete’s Dragon

List of Disney Movies 1976

Ride a Wild Pony

No Deposit, No Return

Gus

Treasure of Matecumbe

The Shaggy D.A.

List of Disney Movies 1975

The Strongest Man in the World

Escape to Witch Mountain

The Apple Dumpling Gang

One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing

The Best of Walt Disney’s True-Life Adventures

List of Disney Movies 1974

Herbie Rides Again

The Bears and I

The Castaway Cowboy

The Island at the Top of the World

List of Disney Movies 1973

The World’s Greatest Athlete

Charley and the Angel

One Little Indian

Robin Hood

Superdad

List of Disney Movies 1972

The Biscuit Eater

Napoleon and Samantha

Now You See Him, Now You Don’t

Run, Cougar, Run

Snowball Express

List of Disney Movies 1971

The Wild Country

The Barefoot Executive

Scandalous John

The $1,000,000 Duck

Bedknobs and Broomsticks

List of Disney Movies 1970

King of the Grizzlies

The Boatniks

The Aristocats

List of Disney Movies 1969

The Love Bug

Smith!

Rascal

The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes

List of Disney Movies 1968

Blackbeard’s Ghost

The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band

Never a Dull Moment

The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit

List of Disney Movies 1967

Monkeys, Go Home!

The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin

The Happiest Millionaire

The Gnome-Mobile

The Jungle Book

Charlie, The Lonesome Cougar

List of Disney Movies 1966

The Ugly Dachshund

Robin Crusoe U.S.N.

The Fighting Prince of Donegal

Follow Me, Boys!

List of Disney Movies 1965

Those Calloways

The Monkey’s Uncle

That Darn Cat!

List of Disney Movies 1964

The Misadventures of Merlin Jones

A Tiger Walks

The Moon-Spinners

Mary Poppins

Emil and the Detectives

List of Disney Movies 1963

Son of Flubber

Miracle of the White Stallions

Savage Sam

Summer Magic

The Incredible Journey

The Sword in the Stone

The Three Lives of Thomasina

List of Disney Movies 1962

Moon Pilot

Bon Voyage

Big Red

Almost Angels

The Legend of Lobo

In Search of the Castaways

List of Disney Movies 1961

One Hundred and One Dalmatians

The Absent-Minded Professor

The Parent Trap

Nikki, Wild Dog of the North

Greyfriars Bobby

Babes in Toyland

List of Disney Movies 1960

Toby Tyler, or Ten Weeks with a Circus

Kidnapped

Pollyanna

The Sign of Zorro

Jungle Cat

Ten Who Dared

Swiss Family Robinson

List of Disney Movies 1959

Sleeping Beauty

The Shaggy Dog

Darby O’Gill and the Little People

Third Man on the Mountain

List of Disney Movies 1958

The Light in the Forest

White Wilderness

Tonka

List of Disney Movies 1957

Johnny Tremain

Perri

Old Yeller

List of Disney Movies 1956

The Great Locomotive Chase

Davy Crockett and the River Pirates

Secrets of Life

Westward Ho the Wagons!

List of Disney Movies 1955

Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier

Lady and the Tramp

The African Lion

The Littlest Outlaw

List of Disney Movies 1954

Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue

The Vanishing Prairie

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

List of Disney Movies 1953

Peter Pan

The Sword and the Rose

The Living Desert

List of Disney Movies 1952

The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men

List of Disney Movies 1951

Alice in Wonderland

List of Disney Movies 1950

Cinderella

Treasure Island

List of Disney Movies 1949

So Dear to My Heart

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

List of Disney Movies 1948

Melody Time

List of Disney Movies 1947

Fun and Fancy Free

List of Disney Movies 1946

Make Mine Music

Song of the South

List of Disney Movies 1945

The Three Caballeros

List of Disney Movies 1943

Saludos Amigos

Victory Through Air Power

List of Disney Movies 1942

Bambi

List of Disney Movies 1941

The Reluctant Dragon

Dumbo

List of Disney Movies 1940

Pinocchio

Fantasia

List of Disney Movies 1937

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Photo Credit: milkthefranchise.com

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[alterrune]

Operations Emperors Abyss

Mission 1: Syntax Error

Details: Terence and the Toppat Radical’s have an underground server facility setup in the UK. These server’s contain some details on Terence’s new weaponry and technology. We believe he is looking to robotic warfare with drones and machines, and we want to put an end to these operations. Break into the facility and pull the plug on his servers.

Complications:

Titan Security System: The facility has been outfitted with special security, keycard readers, security panels, and cameras can’t be destroyed or hacked, be careful.

Small Arms Only: We've had issues smuggling weapons to the mission site. You're going to need to bring small, easily concealable weapons. Only pistols and SMGs will be available.

Extra Cameras: Terence doesn’t want to take any chances, so he’s set up a serious amount of cameras in the facility. Because of the Titan Security System, the cams can’t be destroyed nor hacked.

CHAPTER 3, ACT 5: THE ABYSS BEGINS

(All 5 of us are in a sewer line going directly underneath the compound. The plan is to set a few bomb charges and flood their operation with sewer water. The bomb charges are ones that I made, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, yet packed with enough explosive power to blow a hole through any wall. However, we're all less than happy with the current situation.)

Kyle, what exactly were you on when you thought of this plan?

A LOT of sleep medication, Alter. I've had some really bad bouts of insomnia from this, remember?

Yeah, but even though you were pretty much sleep-talking, you made a valid point. "If they're deep underground, let's go deeper underground". That was what you said, and honestly, it was pretty genius of you.

Alright, pretty sure that's the last of the charges. Are we all ready?

Sweetheart, just detonate the damn things already. WE'RE IN A SEWER!

Yeah, let's go.

(Henry detonates the charges, which causes sewer water to rocket through the floors of the facility up to it's ceilings. Not only are all personel completely knocked out by the blasts, but all the security systems got completely drenched and short-circuted, knocking it out completely.)

WHOO!!! That was AWESOME!

Let's get outta here before someone else shows up, Kyle. Adam, beam us out!

(We're beamed out, and just like that, mission complete!)

CHAPTER 3, ACT 5 COMPLETE

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: "SEWAGE BLAST"

DISPLAYING EPILOGUE...

(Terrence returns to the compound, only to find the floor to be completely blown out, revealing a sewer pipe below.)

Hey, boss!

(Terrence whips out his gun, but stops himself from firing it when he realizes it's merely one of his underlings.)

What the hell are ya doing down there, ya bloody idiot?!

(Terrence has a heavy British accent. He was raised in the UK, after all, and only moved to the Toppats when he heard they needed a new leader. To him, that was the best time of his life, but to everyone else, it was the worst time in the Toppat's entire existence.)

The CSB got us, sir. Mind helping me up?

(Terrence is about to shoot him, but he decides not to. His rage is at the CSB, not his head scientist. He extends a hand out, helping the poor man out.)

Let me guess, those blokes left a message?

Yes, sir. Here.

(Terrence unfolds the note and reads it.)

Terrence! Long time no see, fuckface! You know, we didn't miss you in the slightest. The Toppat Clan is doing WAAAAY better than when you were in charge, y'know? We all called your tyranical rule the "Age of Suave", because it was so bad it felt like AGES before the Toppat Clan did something about it. And like all tyranical rulers, you were defeated. And if you can be defeated once, it sure as hell can happen again.

Hope you burn in hell, you piece of shit.

Unsincerely,

Kyle Gibbons✍🏼

Alterrune🔺

Violet Wolfsbane💜

Henry Stickmin 🔵

Ellie Rose 💕

(Terrence takes the note, pins it to a corkboard, and throws a throwing knife at the corkboard, landing dead-center on the note.)

Dr. Grey, run a scan. There's someone we need to kidnap for a ransom. "Édouard Labarthe" is his name. And if ya get anymore calls from that bloomin' idiot brother of yours...

Oh, trust me. Earl and I have been out of contact for a while now. As far as he knows...

..."Jerry Grey" has been dead for a long, long time.

END OF EPILOGUE

[alterrune]

Emperors Abyss

Mission 2 of 6: Golden Handshake

Details: The Toppat Radical’s had just torn up a city just so they could eliminate one of the Toppat Clan’s High Ranking Leaders, Édouard Labarthe. The city has been reduced to nothing but a warzone, and GEOGRAM Personnel is attempting to keep Édouard safe. We need the full support of the Toppat Clan for this mission. Édouard is in an armored vehicle and we are attempting to extract him by the beach via air transport. We will need 2 members of the Colorstreak Battalion in Aircraft, another 2 in Ground Vehicles, and 1 with the VIP Édouard in his personal vehicle.

Complications:

Enemies Unmarked: The Toppat Radical’s has used jammers to block out satellite links. Because of this, all allies and enemies are marked as unknown and difficult to identify to due toe time of day being night, let alone the massive storm taking place. You must manually identify Toppat Clan Members (Friendly), GEOGRAM Personnel (Friendly), and Toppat Radicals (Enemy). This goes over to ground personnel, aircrafts, vehicles, and boats.

Defend VIP: Édouard is valuable for the operation against The Toppat Radicals, he must be protected at all costs. If he dies, the mission is a failure.

Enforcers: Terence has equipped his people with protective armor and weaponry, they’re not screwing around just trying to kill Édouard, be careful and do not let your guard down.

CHAPTER 3, ACT 6: THE ABYSS DEEPENS

(Alter and Vi are in the air, Henry and Ellie are on the ground, and I'm in the VIP car defending Édouward. We marked all members of GEOGRAM and the Toppat Clan as "Friendly" before we left. However, this man is very---)

Hey! Do not ignore me! Why are you just staying silent, huh? Explain zat, mon ami!

(---yeah, that. Annoying. Annoying the ever-loving piss out of me. He's constantly trying to belittle me. And I'm about one insult before I---)

Are you deaf, you stupid fool?! I asked you to explain yourself!!!

(---y'know what? FUCK. THIS. SHIT. I immediately slam the breaks on the vehicle and turn to him with my gun aimed dead-center at his forehead.)

Unless you want to meet your maker right here and now, I suggest you shut your fucking piehole before I shut it myself.

Meep.

That's what I thought. Now, do us all a favor and SHUT UP ALREADY.

(I immediately turn the vehicle back on, but it seems as though Terence's lackeys have caught up to us. However, it seems Alter and Vi have a way to get us out of this.)

Kyle! There's a tanker up ahead of the Radical's fleet!

Shoot at it and they should scatter.

(Me, Henry and Ellie all shoot at the tankers...which EXPLODE, taking out the Radicals' vehicles. Luckily, the armored vehicles withstand the explosion and continue moving.)

Oh man, I thought it was a WATER truck...

Was that a refrence to Captain America: Civil War, Vi?

Hey, you're not the only one who can pull pop-culture references outta their ass!

Okay, we should be reaching the extraction point now! How about we have a little fun in the sun before we go?

Don't have to tell me twice, Henry! Let's go!

(Whoo boy, that took a bit, but we did it! And I got to give that snooty, hoity-toity, holier-than-thou fuckface a reality check, too, so I feel like this was worth my time. Mission accomplished, bitches.)

CHAPTER 3, ACT 6 COMPLETE!

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: "Beach Party"

DISPLAYING EPILOGUE...

What do you mean, "Édouward escaped"?!

Just what I said, sir.

You bloke. I oughta choke you out and fuckin' replace you with someone who can do better.

Jerry. Why am I not suprised you're with him...?

(As if by magic, Earl Grey appears, who wasn't expecting to see his brother working with Terence, but isn't terribly suprised by it.)

Earl, get out of my sight. I am not your brother anymore.

Oh, trust me, feeling's fucking mutual. After you betrayed GEOGRAM the way you did, I have a hard time considering we were EVER related.

What the hell are you---

(Earl holds up his hand as if to say "Silence, I'm still talking.")

But, I digress. I'm here to deliver this to Terence. A note, courtesy of the Colorstreak Battalion. The five of them have asked you all to go fuck yourselves. Goodbye, Jerry, you disgrace of a brother.

(Earl leaves as Terence unfolds the note.)

Hey, Terence! We're currently enjoying a day at the beach, sipping some beverages and enjoying some food here, celebrating YOUR latest loss at our hands. If you really think you can win this, then buckle up, motherfucker. Because this ride's about to get real bumpy.

Hope to see you in hell,

Kyle Gibbons ✍🏼

Alterrune 🔺

Violet Wolfsbane 💜

Henry Stickmin 🔵

Ellie Rose 💕

(Terence crumples up the note in anger, then tosses it in his jacket pocket.)

GODDAMNIT! Alright, c'mere, Jerry. You're gonna initate the next part of our plan.

But, sir, we don't exactly know what's ahead of us and---

DID I STUTTER, YA DAFT FUCKER?! GET OFF YA FUCKIN' DUFFS, GET ON YA FUCKIN' KNACKERS, AND GET TA FUCKIN' WORK!

YES SIR!!!

(Jerry hasn't seen Terence snap like that before. Whatever is going on is leaving Terence in a worse mood than usual...but just what could it be?)

I SAID---!

YES SIR, I HEARD YOU THE FIRST TIME!

(Finding out what it is, however, will clearly have to wait until Terence is in a better mood.)

END OF EPILOGUE

[alterrune]

Alright everyone, let’s get to business. The fight against The Trinity of Fate begins. Here are the targets

Targets: Some targets won’t be available. Eliminate enough leaders to draw them out. Leaders that are crossed out aren’t available.

William Arase - The Warlord

Operation Traitors Coffin

Arase and his team had completely gone off the grid, so we can’t attack him and his group just yet.

Phantom 1 - The Assassin

Operation Hangmans Hymn

Phantom 1 and his group are ghosts, we can’t find them anywhere as their operations are very secretive.

Terence Suave - The Tyrant

Operation Emperors Abyss

Suave and the Toppat Radicals have gone off the map, seems like he’s pretty busy.

Sarah Kelso - The Deceiver

Operation Voracious Serpent

Kelso alongside her father Arase have disappeared as well. We can’t get any solid leads on her.

Justin and Nicholas - The Brothers

Operation Hounds Slumber

Both of them have gone silent ever since Laurence let them into The Trinity of Fate, so we can’t track them right now.

Albert - The Astrologer

Operation Twilight Gate

While Albert and Laurence has been fairly close as business partners, Albert and False Reality were extremely difficult to track, so we can’t find this AI right now.

Laurence Burnway - The Chairman

Operating Prowling Spider

Thanks to Aarons meeting with Laurence, we’ve been able to get some solid leads on him and Zulu Security Corp.

Welp, I guess we don't really have a choice right now, do we?

Don't worry, Kyle. We'll get to your brothers soon enough.

Yeah. Also, glad to see you're doing a lot better, Ellie.

Hey, if it wasn't for you guys, I'd probably not even be here by now!

Glad to see you're okay, sweetheart. I love you so m---

Okay, you two. Break it up. Don't make me and Alter break out the anti-PDA stuff again.

Yeah, we don't wanna have to douse you guys with that heavy-duty water sprayer again. Besides, we've got "Operation: Prowling Spider" to begin!

Point taken. Smooching will have to wait.