#the grand dramatic speech would be totally ruined

[kainissoable]

A thought. Because new Pillar Guardians are chosen at birth and we know that in Nosgoth souls are physically real and tied to the workings of the Pillar and Reaver, would that mean that in the LoK universe a soul enters the body at birth? Maybe at first breath like some real world faiths believe?

That would tie in nicely with Kain's speech in Soul Reaver 2, "As Ariel dies, I am being born to take her place" and how as a result he was corrupted at the moment of his first cry.

[zeta-in-de-walls]

Okay, in the wake of the L’Manburg war, allow me to get meta for a bit. 

Now obviously the war, and the SMP server in general, are just for content. The stakes are all fictional - nebulous things like freedom on a minecraft server, sentimental value placed on music discs and all that nonsense.

Bearing that in mind, I want to discuss how it played out.

 Who were the best players? It’s clear who were the most powerful and dangerous as enemies - Dream, George, Sapnap and Punz. (I’m leaving aside Eret for the moment btw)  They all had full netherite armour, planted TNT traps and planned betrayals and ambushes to win the war. They had the upperhand throughout. Meanwhile the other side felt weak and ill-prepared and did very little damage to any of their opponents. 

But you know, being more powerful doesn’t actually make for much content on its own. What makes good content? A good narrative filled with drama, tension and excitement. In those terms, we’re looking at Tommy and Wilbur carrying the server with this war.

 The second they said independence and made some grand speeches, there were stakes. Instead of the server being a somewhat peaceful building simulator, it was in a state of conflict. Alliances were created, flags were made, Hamilton and Revolutionary war references were heard, matching skins and all that were being created. Putting great significance into stuff like a patch of tilled soil, suggesting carrying sticks instead of weapons and wearing no armour but fighting with words - that’s the sort of stuff that made this whole scenario work. Without it, this dispute wouldn’t have been able to call itself a war. They even make ridiculous stuff sound convincing - just the idea of calling L’Manberg its own separate server that happens to be inside another server with the running costs still being paid by Dream. It’s crazy but it works. 

And my goodness, did they have their work cut out for them. 

You see, I feel like Dream and co. weren’t really playing along. They heard ‘war!’ and thought - let’s win. Let’s absolutely crush the enemy! No mercy. 

Now playing the villain can be cool, sure. And it kinda worked here. But only just. Some of their actions definitely irked me. 

See, there are kind of unspoken agreements in stuff like letting people prepare, not attacking too early, that sort of thing. You tell everyone that the war’s gonna take place at 7pm and sure enough it does. And there’s Dream’s server rules: No stealing and no griefing. These rules do get bent in the middle of an ongoing battle - eg battles often involve a lot of placing and breaking blocks and when you’re low on stuff, trying to run to a nearby chest to grab some last minute supplies is going to happen (and later after the battle’s done you’ll probably get yelled at a little before making up) - but generally they are upheld. Especially when others are offstream and you aren’t in the middle of something. 

‘Ah but it was war - rules can be broken!’ one might argue. Yeah, no, this is entertainment. You don’t start early because you’re going to ruin the stream and make the content worse - and the whole point of the war is to make good content. Like, when WIlbur’s stream died - they asked for a pause so WIlbur could sort out technical difficulties before continuing. 

Yeah so Dream and Sapnap basically broke all the rules in order to win. Fundy and Tommy put up insulting signs in different languages. Funny content. Dream and Sapnap burned Tubbo’s house to the ground. Err... okay that’s a bit excessive but we can make it work. No mercy, ha. 

So Tommy asked Tubbo to prep for the war. Tubbo agreed and got to work to try and balance the already uneven odds. At this point, the war’s in a day and all of Dream’s side has full netherite and none of L’Manburg do save Eret. Time is short but that just makes it all the more exciting. 

So Tubbo uses villagers and trading, stealing a frugal amount to get himself started before really getting into it and grinding for diamond armour and makes nine stacks of emeralds - enough to place some high level enchants and even the odds a little and make the fight interesting.

While Tubbo’s offline, Sapnap comes in and steals them, getting books to enchant his own set of netherite armour using Tubbo’s set up. Well then. There goes any hope of a fair fight. And they are trying, you know. They realise the armour discrepancy so they’ve been trying to get potions but even that’s a struggle - when Dream finished his apology stream he logged on to the SMP without warning and managed to kill Tubbo before he could get away while his inventory had been full of potions. (Tommy and Tubbo had been visiting Dream’s base to put a sign in it - an offer of Mellohi for peace. Nothing comes of this sign or any of the other Tommy put in other people’s houses - more potential good content there like demanding Sapnap stay neutral in return for a supply blaze powder (a ref to the drug war that preceded this conflict)). It’s not that Dream killing Tubbo is the issue - it’s more how he logged on basically without warning so Tubbo had little chance to get away as he was mostly unarmoured and ungeared. 

Still, the next day Tubbo is trying to grind back up, to even up things a little. He’s only managed to get 2 end crystals and he has a few sets of plain diamond armour and a few books. So he grinds like crazy in the limited time, trading all his iron, chopping trees, carrots, bamboo, sugar, everything he has into emeralds. But he needs levels. He tries to go to the spawner which the other side has been freely using to grind up exp and they kill him when he goes near. One time, Dream kills him while he has several books on him so he has to trade back emeralds to get them again. And now he doesn’t have a good way to get experience so he can’t even the odds. Punz and Sapnap even combatlog inside the spawner so if he goes near they’d come online and kill him. And yeah, they’re stream sniping. They’ve all streamed very little, hiding all their preparations while taking advantage of the fact that the other side have all been streaming everything they’ve been doing. 

‘Imagine streamsniping.’ Tommy and co. said that at one point during today’s conflict. It’s cheap - it’s not fun, it’s taking advantage - one that’s not even necessary as you’re already all OP. Dream’s side aren’t the underdog, they don’t need every single advantage to win this. Instead it’s more like rubbing salt into the wound. 

And yeah, despite all the griefing that Dream side have done, not once does anyone grief anything of theirs - like the chat was totally asking for them to burn down Punz’s house. No, they just place signs and talk. 

Okay, so Tommy announced the war would be at 7pm. He logs on at 6.45 to say hello and hype all his viewers up, get his music playing and give a rundown of the situation and what’s occurred since he’s last streamed. No sooner has he logged on then Tubbo gets ambushed early! They attacked prematurely! 

...

It’s like there was one rule - war begins at 7pm. And instead Dream, George and Sapnap all attacked Tubbo at his base at 6.45. Tommy is ages away and can’t do anything and Fundy’s in trouble too and Tubbo just barely manages to save the gear he has managed to prep. They’re even more on the backfoot. All their strats are known anyway as they’ve been watching streams so they know all about the potions and endcrystals while Tommy’s side are in the dark about Dream’s side’s preparations. For instance, offstream they filled Tommy’s base and L’Manburg with Tnt which they set off to devastating effect. 

The ‘war’ is as one-sided as you’d expect. Tommy and co. are trying to attack even though they lack arrows and food and are hopelessly outmatched but they put up a pretence of trying anyway. At no point is a single one of Dream’s side even moderately threatened (except perhaps when they ambushed Tubbo early as he tried using harming potions) and everyone knows it. 

Still, Tommy and Wilbur push on - they talk, they rally etc. Finally, Eret betrays them and they’re all killed in an ambush. And they’re shocked by this twist, they react, they call Eret their downfall. (Dream’s side didn’t need to resort to such tactics to win given their obvious advantage.) and Eret being a traitor is fantastic for content anyway so it is a great part of the narrative that they all react to perfectly. Eret seems to have a good instinct for making good content as well as this sort of twist is a good addition. It works because its drama - they trusted him and they never expected him to betray them to the other side after all they’d built together. 

In the end, Tommy finishes it on a high with a dramatic bow duel followed by offering the discs in exchange for freedom. And fittingly, despite have being entirely outplayed in terms of power and tactics, they win the thing they cared about - which was the independence that they started the war for. The content - not anything material. Dream’s side was far stronger and better prepared and they weren’t given so much as a chance to catch up for a pvp conflict. But L’Manberg - they got that. 

-

Okay, so this has been long and I’ll probably rewrite something similar soon - but I wanted to highlight how in meta terms, the war was being played unfairly and its obvious that Dream’s side had different priorities - win under any means necessary rather than continue to make great content for the SMP. They’re treating it like a manhunt or something when its absolutely not and shouldn’t be. They’re lucky that Wilbur and Tommy were so good at making it work as they do all the heavy-lifting for the SMP which ensures its got a healthy lifespan. 

[iamnmbr3]

Sorry if you're tired of hearing about this but I completely agree with your TMA ending thoughts. I genuinely thought the whole thing would culminate in a huge conflict between Jon and the others that ended in tragic and sad main character death, with Jon ultimately succeeding in his plan, only to find out at the very end that the whole thing was a lie. One last pointless machination of an unthinking, fear-hungry entity, eternally desperate for more. (1/2)

The idea that everything could magically be fixed by a grand gesture to send the entities away seemed so ridiculous to me that I thought it HAD to be a blatant lie and Annabelle would pop up to gloat about them destroying each other/ruining the world even more because they'd really believed they could so easily solve all their problems by giving them to someone else. Instead they played the plan totally straight after introducing it far, FAR too late in the series for it to mean anything. (2/2)

No need to apologize at all! Go for it. These are interesting thoughts. 

I think there’s something to be said for not having too many twists in close succession. Going “SIKE it was the Butler this whole time” and then one second later “SIKE no it wasn’t!” can undermine the emotional impact of the first twist and make the second one feel dumb. Of course this isn’t a hard and fast rule. it depends on how you execute it. I guess it’s not really the number of twists but how you execute them. Like in S2 we had a really good series of twists in close succession. It turned out that the person in the tunnels was Jurgen Leitner BUT he didn’t kill Gertrude and wasn’t the person we and Jon expected. And that worked. Each twist deepened the story.

Here though we had Jon give that epic speech about how he’s finally taking a stand against the web. And has that epic line about how he’s tricked the web and it and all the other fears will die trapped in a barren hell. It’s metal af. But then it completely gets undone a second later in a really lame way. If Martin came in and fought or betrayed Jon to his death that would be fine. But instead Martin comes in and after 5 seconds Jon inexplicably seem to entirely forget what his plan was and doesn’t care about stopping the fears from spreading anymore. Also he’s not at all upset that Martin apparently plotted with the others to betray him and went behind his back. (Hugely not a big fan of how the narrative frames Martin going behind Jon’s back or yelling at Jon as fine, but if Jon does the same thing it’s framed as wrong and he spends a huge amount of s5 constantly begging Martin for forgiveness for things. One of my many issues with the way jonmartin was written in late s5. But I digress.) 

Because Jon’s sudden change of heart doesn’t feel earned, it doesn’t really have any emotional impact or feel like a good twist. And it also undermines that actually emotionally impactful moment from a few minutes earlier when he finally made a choice for himself and tried to destroy the Web. And because Jon suddenly seems to forget his whole character goal and is ok with Martin stopping him, his failure to stop the Web isn’t framed as tragic or horrifying. Event though it should be. Because the narrative doesn’t feel aware of the implications of what is happening.

And yeah. Rip to you and everyone else who thought surely that couldn’t be the Web’s actual plan. I don’t get why if they wanted to stop the apocalypse they didn’t just kill Jonah. Or why if they needed Jon to go along with this plan to open the gap wider they tried to convince him in the way they did. Shouldn’t Annabelle have established herself as a friend he could trust earlier? Rather than trying to gain his trust by...kidnapping Martin and turning into a giant spider (his worst fear)? If the Web actually was just trying to get access to other worlds why didn’t it just get a bunch of Avatars to use their powers to open the gap BEFORE it started the apocalypse. And if Annabelle was tricking them why didn’t any character acknowledge this? Wouldn’t they be upset if they realized the Web wasn’t actually trying to help but rather just wanted to feed on more people? 

When characters don’t acknowledge or respond to their environment it makes the story feel very hollow and empty. TMA is a fictional podcast. It’s not real. The only thing that makes it feel scary or sad or dramatic is the characters in the story reacting as though it is real. In 160 remember how anguished Jon sounds? Remember when he says “Look at the sky Martin. It’s looking back.” and you can hear the hysteria and horror and awful glee and self disgust and despair all mingling in his tone? That makes that moment powerful. If he’d just been flat and disinterested or none of the characters had reacted to what happened it wouldn’t have been nearly as a good an episode. Because ultimately a lot of good storytelling isn’t what happens but how it’s presented. 

[pricefieldchaos]

Matthew x Lucie: “The curves of your lips rewrite history”

I wrote and posted this on AO3, as my Fairondale heart ached because of the lack of content, and this is how it turned out. By the way, I'll leave my AO3 profile here, if you want to check out my other OS and stay tuned for new ones! thelastwriter. Enjoy and maybe let me know what you think, I appreciate it a lot!

It was a beautiful spring Sunday and Lucie Herondale was in the London Institute’s backyard, sitting on the grass and enjoying the warm sunlight while writing a new chapter for her latest story. The air smelled like fresh flowers and the birds were singing and flying from one tree to another. Lucie was feeling super relaxed and incredibly inspired, it was the perfect day to add some new action to her novel. The warm breeze caressed her soft uncovered skin on her arms and shoulders, where the brown waves of her loose hair slightly tickled her.

Matthew Fairchild was laying right beside her, his gaze fixed on the clear sky. It was not unusual to see him hanging around the Institute, since the Fairchilds and the Herondales were great friends and Matthew was often there to train with his parabatai, James Herondale, and to spend some time with him and his sister, Lucie. Earlier that morning, he had spotted her getting ready to go outside and had immediately asked if he could join; Lucie had been surprised by him wanting to spend some time alone with her, she had always thought the reason why he enjoyed being with her was because her brother was there, too. She had been happy to see that, maybe, she had been wrong all this time.

Matthew turned around to look at the young girl on his right: she was wearing a lovely light blue dress, and a ribbon of the same colour adorned her hair. She had taken off her white lace gloves – she found it way easier to write without them on – and Matthew was watching her delicate hands move swiftly along the paper. He was glad she was so focused on her papers, because that way she wouldn’t notice the smitten look that was all over his face. His heart had jumped into his chest when she had agreed to let him go with her, he had been dying to get the chance to be alone with her for so long.

“What scene are you writing now?” he asked. Lucie was slightly startled by that sudden question – she had been so focused on her work that she had almost forgotten that he was there with her. She turned to look at him, his blonde locks were sprawled on the grass and his dark green eyes were now looking directly into her blue ones. The buttons of his white shirt were half-done under his golden vest, and his blue necktie was loose. His warm smile made her cheeks flush, and for a moment there she almost forgot about his question.

“Oh, right” she sighed. “So, princess Lucinda just figured out her feelings for prince Martin, but she won’t go tell him already because, despite his latest declaration of love, she is still afraid of getting her heart broken.”

“I think it is quite foolish” he answered. “Why is she afraid, if you said that he returns her feelings?”

“Sometimes, reciprocating the other’s feelings is not enough” she explained, letting out a sigh. “Countless things can come between a potential love story and make it so that it never sees the light.”

“How dramatic” he laughed.

“It is true, Math!” she scolded him, throwing an elbow at him playfully. “Also” she continued “she is afraid of giving in to perilous… temptations. The young man in question is quite the charmer.”

He smirked. “I thought that, by now, you too had learnt that the only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.”

“You will never grow weary of quoting your beloved Oscar Wilde, will you?” Lucie giggled. “And by the way, it would be very improper of her! It could ruin her reputation.”

“I am sure I will not, my dear” he grinned. “As for your story, I still think it is foolish of her not to act on her feelings. Most importantly, it is your story – you are the one who gets to decide whether something is improper or not. And, as far as I am concerned, reputation is an overrated concept, and people should spend way less time worrying over it.” He winked at her.

Lucie let out another sigh. “Well, I guess that is not the only reason I am reluctant to let her go to him. If she does, I will need to write a memorable scene – I am talking about a grand gesture and the finest romantic speeches, and then it will be inevitable for them… to kiss.”

Matthew widened his eyes, agreeing. “They most certainly need to do it!”

“Yeah… that kind of is the real problem” said Lucie, shyly.

“Why would it be?” he asked.

“I… okay, I will tell you. The thing is, my kissing scenes are dreadful! I cannot write them properly, I cannot even get them right by reading them in other books. And, of course, I cannot take my personal experience as an example.” She looked down, too embarrassed to look at her childhood friend in the eyes while discussing such matters with him, especially since they were alone out there, unchaperoned and all that.

“Are you telling me the beautiful, sweet Lu has not been kissed yet?” Matthew said, lifting himself up from the ground so that he could sit in front of her. He knew he had started playing with fire by asking that uneasy question, but he also knew he wouldn’t care if he got burnt.

Lucie’s cheeks turned completely red, but she answered, still not looking at him in the eyes, “I-I did not get the chance – no fine young man has courted me, yet.”

“That is a pity” Matthew said, “and such a waste” he added. "But perhaps I could still help you with that kissing scene?” He moved closer to her, so that their knees were almost touching. At this point, he was so nervous he had started sweating and slightly trembling. What if he had pushed too far? What if she thought that he was being inappropriate, and that would ruin their friendship? These thoughts were interrupted by her asking him another question.

“And, tell me, how would you do that?” Lucie asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I could kiss you” he said, blatantly. “That is, of course, if you will allow me.” By daring to suggest that, he had definitely reached the point of no return.

If possible, Lucie blushed even more, and Matthew noticed, and a slight smirk appeared on his face.

“You are an indecent scoundrel” Lucie laughed. “Suggesting we engage ourselves in such a scandalous activity here, out in the open, where any member of my family could catch us any minute.” Her playful tone made him breathe a sigh of relief, she didn’t seem offended or anything – instead she had started teasing him in turn.

“You are not turning down the offer, though” Matthew grinned, then his expression turned serious. He couldn’t let her think this was just a game to him. “But I understand if you will. You must want your first kiss to be perfect.”

“I actually do.” Lucie remained silent for a couple seconds; then she spoke again. “Do you think that you can live up to my expectations?” she teased him again.

“There is only one way we can know” it was his only answer. Lucie gently tossed her papers and pen on the grass beside her, then looked at Matthew, meeting his gaze. She felt her skin burn from the anticipation. Was she really going to finally have her first kiss?

Matthew’s heart started beating so fast he almost thought it was going to burst anytime. He looked into Lucie’s beautiful blue eyes, who were staring at him, both questioning and excited.  Neither of them said another word, as Matthew moved his face closer to hers, until they were just a few inches apart, and then he lightly brushed his lips against hers. “You may want to close your eyes” he whispered. She giggled, and then did so, and he finally locked lips with her, firmly, and placed an arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him. She quietly gasped as she run her fingers through his soft hair.

Matthew began to wonder if he was dreaming – he was kissing her, at last. He couldn’t remember the first time he had thought about how much he wanted to do that, it was too long ago. But this was no dream: Lucie’s lips felt so real and soft and warm against his, her delicate scent and sweet taste were intoxicating him, it was better than anything Matthew had ever tasted in his whole life. He started moving his mouth on hers, getting the shivers every time that she let out a soft moan against his lips. Lucie took him by surprise when she bit his lower lip, but she could definitely tell that he had liked it a lot, because he deepened the kiss and then gently pushed her onto her back and leaned down, never letting go of her.

He moved his lips to her neck and then lower onto the neckline of her dress, but quickly returned to her mouth before he could no longer be able to stop. He prayed the Angel to forgive him for the thoughts that had taken over his mind. He wondered what she was thinking.

Lucie was completely lost in Matthew’s touch, kisses, sighs. She would have never imagined her first kiss to be this… incredible. That probably was the right word to describe what she was feeling, at least partly – she actually was, for the first time, unable to put something into words.

They went on kissing for another handful of minutes, giggling every now and then and enjoying the taste of each other's lips, and the feeling of their intertwined fingers and light caresses. Eventually, he broke the kiss, breathless, and helped her sit up again. He gently stroked her cheek with his hand. He was unsure whether his lack of breath was due to the kiss or to her unmeasurable beauty. Probably both, he thought. “Woah…” he mumbled, smiling.

Lucie adjusted her hair, retying her ribbon while she regained her breath. “So, how did you like it?” she bluntly asked.

Matthew laughed, and just said, “The curves of your lips rewrite history, my Lu” quoting Oscar Wilde again and receiving an eye roll from Lucie as an answer. “Did you like it?” he asked in turn.

“It was wonderful!” she exclaimed. “Now I totally know how to write a kissing scene! Thank you, Math” she said cheerfully. That most likely was not the only reason why she was so happy about what had just happened, but in that moment she was too eager to write every single detail down in her notebook to think about it. She placed a kiss on Matthew’s cheek, then quickly retrieved her pen and papers from the ground and went back into her own world, frantically writing down notes in order not to forget anything.

This time, Matthew was the one to blush.

[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (141/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

[3 December, 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

Less than an hour ago, King Rehval III Trismegistus stood on the verge of total victory. The almighty King of the Saiyans had become invincible, immortal, and the rest of the galaxy had been forced to submit to his irresistible power.

And none of that mattered at all!

The secret to Rehval's power lay in his alchemical bond with the planet Nagaoka. His energy was merged with the vast geological power of the planet. Normally a fleet of warships or a single angry Saiyan could make short work of a planetary body, but only because it lacked the conscious will to defend itself. Thanks to Rehval, Nagaoka could protect itself, and Rehval himself was more powerful than any Saiyan who ever lived... or so he had thought.

Luffa was the only being in the universe who had dared to challenge his new power. He had expected her to try something. She was the Legendary Super Saiyan, after all. Rehval had heard the tall tales of the old heroes. He never dreamed that one of them might be a woman, or that such a woman would defy him so completely. But he quickly learned that Luffa was destined to be his enemy, and that she would rather die than accept his rule.

And so his goal became to surpass and defeat Luffa. Once, he had been content to play the elegant statesman, using political wiles to unite his people and realize his will for the Saiyan people. But Luffa insisted on dragging their species backward. She spoke of honor and compassion like they meant anything in a cynical universe that only respected results. The only way to truly defeat her was by force, and so he had merged himself with Nagaoka, and demonstrated his absolute superiority. Proud and stubborn, Luffa chose to invade Nagaoka anyway. When her allies abandoned her, she came alone. None of this was much of a surprise to Rehval. He expected some final, desperate last stand from her. But instead, she used his own power against him. She parted the clouds over Nagaoka, and used the light of its moon to transform herself into a giant ape.

With that single stroke, Rehval found himself on the defensive once again. Luffa's power had already been extraordinary, but now, in her Golden Oozaru form, it was unthinkable. The snarling beast cut down his followers like they were a swarm of insects in a firestorm. Even Nagaoka's crust had taken heavy damage, despite Rehval's efforts to protect it.

As for Rehval himself... his exact nature was somewhat difficult for a layman to interpret. His followers recognized him by his power, though they had no idea what to make of him. His Jindan elixir increased their power, but it did so by mingling their ki with his own, just as he mingled his power with that of the planet. There was a Saiyan man named Rehval, but he had evolved into something more, and his Saiyan body had begun to feel like more of a part of his greater self. His abilities allowed him to control not only the mass of Nagaoka, but the earth on numerous other planets as well. He had become a celestial being, whose intellect happened to be centralized around a Saiyan body.

But Luffa's transformation into the golden ape had exposed the flaw in his evolution. Normally, a Saiyan Ape could be neutralized by destroying the full moon that sustained the transformation. In an extreme situation, one could destroy the plant the Ape was standing upon, and they would suffocate in airless space. Or if all else failed, one could withdraw to another planet and begin anew. Only this time, Rehval could do none of these things. He was Nagaoka and its moon, as well as the Saiyan body that controlled them both. He could no sooner run from this place than an ordinary man could run from his own heart. Luffa was using his own power against him, and she didn't seem to care what happened to her in the process.

It was all collapsing. Rehval's cult had fallen. If any of his followers still lived, they had fled in terror to other parts of the planet. Luffa didn't bother to chase them, since there was really nowhere for them to hide. She had destroyed all of the spaceships days ago. Rehval's faithful might have looked to him for guidance, but the man they had sworn to obey was now a corpse in their empty fortress on the opposite side of the planet. Before, Rehval had been coordinating the battle from the safety of his chambers, but when he found himself overwhelmed by Luffa's power, he grew desperate, and used an overdose of his elixirs to complete his unification with the planet. This killed his Saiyan body, but it enabled him to wield Nagaoka's energy more completely. He now was Nagaoka, for all intents and purposes. With this drastic step, he was able to forge a new body for himself, one made of solid gold taken from the planet's interior.

The gold-Rehval was much more powerful than a walking, talking gold statue would actually be. Earlier, he had made a grand speech about how he was empowered by the nobility and purity of gold's essence, rather than the metal itself. But Luffa had still been able to beat his new body like it was made out of a soft and ductile material. He struggled in vain to restrain her while his remaining followers died in a feeble attempt to cut off her tail. She simply shrugged them all off like they were nothing!

Lying on the ruined surface of what had been their battlefield, Rehval could only watch as Luffa mowed down his cultists with a blast of ki from her enormous mouth. She scooped a pair of warriors into her paw, and crushed them without a second thought. With each Saiyan she killed, their Jindan power was dispersed and reabsorbed into the planet. This was by design, as Rehval wanted a way to recover the power of his followers when they failed him in battle. Part of his strategy in the war against the Federation was to send his warriors to die, thereby increasing his own personal strength while eliminating unworthy followers from his flock.

But he had never imagined losing so many of them all at once, and on his home territory. The planet was assimilating their energy more rapidly than he could cope with, and the experience was painful to him.

Then, Luffa pointed her brutish fingers and fired a ki blast at the ground. She had been attacking the planet's surface all night, but this time it had a much more dramatic effect, and Rehval suddenly experienced a far more terrible agony. If he had still been a Saiyan, it might have like losing an arm or a leg in an explosion. But instead of a limb, he estimated that she had destroyed a huge section of the continent they had been standing on. Where it had once been, there was now only magma and ash. And among the chaos, a giant golden ape hung in the sky, beating her chest and howling with gruesome satisfaction.

The destructive energy she was unleashing was beyond anything he could have anticipated. Her last attack had been enough to destroy ten planets. His Jindan power had enabled him to blunt the effect and keep most of Nagaoka in tact, but this only delayed the inevitable.

Laying upon a floe of half-molten rock, Rehval's golden body was twisted and dented beyond recognition. He had the power to reshape himself, but he was having trouble using it. Above him, lightning flashed angrily in the cloudless sky. Above that was Nagaoka's moon. Its soft glow seemed to mock him for his hubris. He had thought himself so clever for mastering its power, and now it had been turned against him.

Slowly, painfully, the gold-Rehval rose to its full height, and drew more metal from the planet's mantle to increase its size. Without taking the time to repair its appearance, Rehval turned its misshapen head toward Luffa.

"You've lost, Rehval!" Luffa bellowed. "The only way you can fight me is to pool all your power into that tacky body of yours, but you can't protect the planet and attack me at the same time! I don't even have to hit you, not when I can just blow away some more real estate!"

"No!" Rehval cried. "It's not too late! I can still stop you before you can destroy it all!"

"Ooh, so it's a race, is it?" Luffa laughed. "Fine! Then let's end it here and now!" And with that, she alighted on a section of rock that had cooled enough for her to stand upon. Rehval's golden avatar followed her. This time, he began to wonder if his bold words had any truth to them. Luffa had hurt him so badly already, and she showed no signs of slowing down. He was determined to keep fighting, but he couldn't deny the despair that had crept into his thoughts.

He shifted his tactics this time. Knowing that he couldn't match Luffa in a direct confrontation, Rehval used the nature of his new body to contort himself into positions and stances that would be impossible for a humanoid to match. As he did this, he tried to exploit Luffa's weaknesses. She was favoring her left shoulder, after he had stabbed it earlier, but the real target had to be her tail. If he could only cut it off, she would revert to her normal form, and he could destroy her with ease.

But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't keep up. Luffa had wounded the planet more seriously than he had realized, and his power was dropping rapidly. Worse, her combat senses were as sharp as ever. It was easy to see the ape form and assume she had become a mindless brute, but she saw through his attacks almost before he could execute them. There seemed to be no answer to her power.

And then, suddenly, she faltered. There was a brief lull in their battle, as Rehval was so astonished that he almost failed to take advantage of the opening.

"Of course. Of course!" he shouted as he fired a ki blast at her chest. Suprise gave way to comprehension, and then joy.

"You can't maintain it!" Rehval cried. "All that power, but you can't maintain the form! I should have known!"

He tried to stomp on Luffa as she dropped to one knee, but she had the wherewithal to roll away from him. The pain in her simian expression told the entire story. In spite of his own pain, he couldn't help but enjoy this moment of triumph.

"But then," he said, "I did know. I never expected you to use my own moon against me, because I couldn't believe that you would ever become this powerful. And I was right! The toll it's taking on your body... your fragile, mortal body!"

"You... you haven't won yet, Rehval," Luffa said after a groan. She fired a defiant ki blast from her mouth, which vaporized a third of his golden body, but this wasn't enough to stop him. Rehval smelled blood, and he was determined to go in for the kill.

"So that was what this was," Rehval gloated. He needed time to rebuild his avatar before he could press his advantage, and taunting Luffa would keep her distracted. "Your heroic last stand? You gambled everything on a power-up that would tip the scales in your favor, but you miscalculated. Once again, time is on my side, Luffa! I don't have to overpower you, not when I can just wait for you to fall on your own!"

He shaped his body into a long, spindly parody of a Saiyan, and formed his hands into thin, golden blades, which he charged with geomantic power. Luffa was still able to dodge his wild swipes, but she was finally giving ground, and Rehval was enjoying every moment of it. And yet, in spite of the situation, Luffa still had a smile on her bestial face.

"You put up a good fight for a woman," Rehval chuckled, "but you'll never be more than meat and bone, trapped within the limitations of the flesh you were born with. I've prevailed because I transcended my limitations! My brother's name, my father's throne, my master's alchemy, Nagaoka's power! What do you have, Luffa? What do you have, besides a bunch of old stories, and a power too primitive for you to control?"

As he asked this question, he looped his wiry frame around one of Luffa's punches, and wrapped himself around her like a tangle of barbed wire. Luffa struggled mightily, but this time she couldn't shake him off. Luffa howled with rage as she rolled around on the ground. She even began to rip at her own fur as she struggled to pull Rehval's golden form away from herself. In response, he stretched his mass even thinner, and clung even tighter to every purchase he could find on the ape's body. In this shape, he lacked the strength to restrain her movements, but he no longer needed to.

"I see the advantage of this now," he cried. "Get so close to your enemy that their defenses become your own! The shoe's on the other foot now, Luffa! And now that you can't dodge, I'm free to do this!"

He concentrated, and with a tremendous effort, Rehval blocked out the pain and forced the planet around him to give him the power he needed. It came in the form of lightning, electric bolts mixed with raw ki energy from the planet. Rehval's golden body acted like a conductor and the bolts lanced from the ground, across the skies, and into him... and then into Luffa.

Her gutteral shrieks were like the sweetest music to him now. His only regret was that he couldn't make the attack continuous. It took time to charge another strike. During these short pauses, Luffa's massive fingers ripped even more desperately at his golden strands, and he knew she was nearly defeated.

"I can sense it, woman!" Rehval jeered. "You're losing control! Your poor little body can't handle it anymore, can you? You should have stayed home all these years! Kept your nose out of my business! The future of the Saiyan race was mine to decide! You! Never! Should! Have! Gotten! Involved!"

As he raved, Luffa charged her own ki to fight back against his offensive, but he was too thrilled with his success to let that stop him. Let her power up, he thought to himself. It would only hasten her own demise.

"You thought you would get something out of this?" he shouted between her screams. "A measure of revenge before you died! You petty little idiot! There are other Saiyans out there! The ones you killed today can be replaced! Even the damage you've done to this planet can be repaired! It might take me a century to fix it all, but when I'm finished, it'll be as if it never happened! I'll rule the universe a little later than I planned, but I'll still prevail! And you'll still be just as dead!"

He suddenly realized that this was how it was supposed to be from the beginning. He had taught his followers that their suffering was a crucible designed to purge impurities and eliminate weaknesses. Nagaoka... his very self, was just another crucible. He had to suffer, to face Luffa in this way, for how else could he overcome his nemesis and rise above the final obstacles? It would be here, on this day, that the universe would be purified for all time. And in that epiphany, the pain he felt, the raucous screaming of his enemy, the rush of destructive power through his golden coils, it all seemed so sublime to him.

And then, finally, Luffa collapsed. Her breathing was rough and unsteady. Her Golden Oozaru energy was building out of control. Rehval could feel her pulse racing, and he knew that her savage heart would fail at any moment. This had to be the end. There were no more moves for her to make.

"It's over, Luffa! I've won," he said. "All I have to do now is wait for your body to give out from the strain. Until then, you can't hurt me at this range, not unless you want to hurt yourself in the process!"

Luffa gasped a few times before responding. When she finally spoke, he expected to hear some admission of defeat, or perhaps even a begrudging apology. He got neither.

"That was my plan all along, you jackass," she said.

And then she began to laugh again. Rehval was about to demand to know what she found so funny, and then he suddenly sensed a huge power welling up inside Luffa. He tried to pull away from her, only to discover that she had created an energy field around her body that kept him trapped against her fur.

"Did you really think I came to this mudball all alone without a plan?" she shouted. "You think I didn't expect my body to give out under the full moon? You fool! I was counting on it! Honestly, I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner!"

It finally dawned on Rehval what she meant by this. When she first arrived on Nagaoka, he had blithely assumed that she had come to die in battle. Now he realized just how right he had been.

Except she never had any intention of dying alone.

She was going to take him with her. The planet, the moon, his golden avatar... all of it.

"There's no way out, Rehval!" she screamed, her power intensifying until he could no longer sense it properly. "No ships to fly you to safety this time! No magic portals to whisk you away to a safe haven! You're trapped here, with me, on this worthless planet, and when I go, you'll die with it!"

Suddenly she was standing upright once again. Rehval wondered if he had ever managed to hurt her before, or if she had simply been luring him in this entire time.

"Luffa, no!" Rehval pleaded. "You can't! The Saiyans! Your son!"

"They were dead the moment they joined you," she said with a roar. "You thought this stupid planet would make you a god, but it's nothing more than a millstone around your neck!"

She was right, and now it suddenly occurred to Rehval that he was entirely at her mercy.

"But the Saiyan race!" Rehval wailed. "Luffa, you have to spare me! If we all die here, then the future of the Saiyan species is doomed! I'm the only one who can ensure our prosperity! You have to let me live! I beg you!"

"You beg me?" Luffa asked. "You really do have no pride at all. If you're the only hope for the Saiyan race, then we're better off extinct!"

And in those last moments, Rehval realized there was nothing more he could say, nothing more he could do. His golden body was helpless. The source of his power was fractured and doomed, and he was at the mercy of a monster who wanted nothing more than to end his life. All his knowledge, his power, his rhetoric, would avail him nothing. It was this realization, more than the prospect of death itself, that horrified him.

Then, he heard a terrible, ear-splitting roar, as Luffa released the power within her in a tremendous explosion. Through his connection with the planet, he could feel Nagaoka being ripped apart, and the pain it caused him was greater than anything he could have possibly experienced in a mortal body. He expected everything to go black, but instead, it went white. A brilliant, agonizing white.

*******

And then, strangely enough, Rehval found himself lying on the floor of his fortress. The planet--or what was left of it, was directly beneath him. He could still feel the pain of its death throes. He was still linked to Nagaoka. It hurt so much that he could barely bring himself to move.

Somehow, he found the will to crawl. The last thing he expected was to be shunted back into his original Saiyan body. He had assumed that his abandonment of it was permanent, but it was an experimental treatment, and he never imagined that Nagaoka would be so badly damaged, or what the effects of this might be. This was all uncharted territory now. As he struggled to crawl out of his chamber, he paused to put a finger to his throat, and found no pulse. A stench in his nostrils and an unsettling moisture in his pants suggested that his bowels had evacuated. The discomfort of these revelations paled in comparison to the torture that assailed his senses. He was still one with the planet, and he would experience its destruction firsthand.

But there was still a chance. Apparently Luffa's final attack wasn't as quick and decisive as he had assumed it would be. She had exploded on the nightside of Nagaoka, and he could feel that half of the planet now lay in utter ruins. The dayside would soon follow, but not right away. Nagaoka would linger a bit longer before oblivion, which bought him a little time before the end. Luffa had destroyed his shipyard on the day she arrived here. But there was still one last means of escape. He had never intended to use it, but he had kept it safe throughout Luffa's invasion. He had planned to use it to send for assistance, so that his followers could come and go as they had done before. Now, he dragged himself through the empty corridors, seeking to use it to carry him to safety. He wasn't sure what would happen to his corpse once Nagaoka finally disintegrated, but he knew enough alchemical recipes to find a way to recover, even from this.

He wished that he could summon one of his followers to help him, but that was surely impossible. They were all dead on the other side of the planet. Luffa's explosion would have killed them all instantly.

At last, he reached the section of the wall that housed a secret launch bay. He touched a stone that contained a device that would react to his fingerprint. When nothing happened, he tried it again. And again. It was getting harder to think. He had to figure out how to get the wall to open up before it was too late. As he considered the problem, he finally looked over to the section of the wall that was supposed to have moved, and noticed that it was simply no longer there. It looked like someone had smashed their way through it.

And that someone had taken his secret escape craft. All that remained was an empty bay. Above, the canopy was still open from when the ship had launched. The sky had turned blood red. This was probably a side effect of the planet-wide cataclysm, though Rehval had no idea what the specific cause of it could be. He found it curious that his dead body could still see anything at all.

He struggled to think of who could have taken his escape craft. None of the cultists knew about it. The ones who had installed it for him had all been killed months ago to protect his secret. Treekul might have discovered it somehow, except she never could have smashed through the wall that way.

He thought... he thought that maybe.... he could smell the scent of his daughter. Whether this was his keen Saiyan nose or wishful thinking was impossible to tell. He liked to think that it had been Seltiss who managed to escape. But there was no way to be certain. The future was utterly beyond his control now. The Saiyans were doomed. Theirs was a ship without a rudder.

Then he smelled the aroma of burning flesh, and he realized that it was his own. It smelled so familiar, like when he had murdered his own brother and burned the body to cover up the crime. He had taken his brother's name and identity on that day. It had seemed so clever of him at the time. Now, with death nipping at his heels, he began to regret it. He had never worried much about legacy, because he assumed that his plans would all come to fruition, and the universe would remember him for his achievements and his unforgettable impact on history.

But if this was to be his end, then he would likely be forgotten. And even if he was to be remembered, it would be by his brother's name. It stung his ego, and he was surprised by how much it hurt. He suddenly found himself wishing that someone--anyone-- could know his true name, the one his mother had chosen for him... the name of... of...

What had she called him? It was so long ago, and he hadn't used the name in so long. He was having trouble remembering...

And as his reanimated body burned, and his fortress collapsed around him, the corpse that once called himself King Rehval III Trismegistus finally succumbed to true death. His last thought was the realization that Luffa had been mistaken about him in one regard.

In the end, it seemed that he did have a small amount of Saiyan pride, after all.

*******

[4 December, 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

Nagaoka was not destroyed all at once. Luffa's explosion atomized a huge chunk of one hemisphere, and blasted apart the surrounding mass. The rest of the planet was destabilized, and smaller, secondary explosions erupted throughout. Within hours, the entire planet had broken up into something resembling asteroids.

On one of these chunks of rock, Luffa could sense that her attack had succeeded. There were no Saiyan ki signatures. Rehval's power was completely gone. His followers were all dead. It was important for her to be sure, since she had somehow survived, and she had no idea how.

Once she was certain that she was the only one left, Luffa considered what had happened. Her intention had been to summon up all of her power and release it all at once in a giant explosion. She had fully intended to die along with everything else. Her Golden Ape form had been unstable, after all. It seemed like blowing herself up was the only part of her plan that was guaranteed.

Instead, she found herself alive, surrounded by a force field of her own ki energy. Somehow, she had survived the explosion, and made this little bubble for herself. There was a chunk of earth for her to lie upon, and enough air trapped inside for her to breathe. It was like a terrarium floating in space. She couldn't remember doing this. Had she blacked out and done this while unconscious? Was this some sort of survival instinct at work? All she knew was that she tried to blow herself up, and then woke up to find the planet destroyed.

She had no idea what had happened to the Nagaoka's moon, except that it was no longer visible. Perhaps it had been destroyed as well, or it was obscured behind a cloud of debris, or Luffa had simply tumbled through space to a position where she was pointed away from it. All she knew was that she was no longer a giant ape.

She was no longer in her Super Saiyan form either. This was no great mystery, as she was too exhausted to move, let alone maintain any transformations. Wearily, she took stock of her situation, and concluded that she was about to die the same way she was born: Alone, in outer space, and completely naked. Luffa had heard of Saiyans using elastic clothes that could survive the size changes of the Oozaru transformation, but she hadn't been wearing anything like that when she came to Nagaoka. She didn't expect it to matter much in the end.

"Well... that's it, then," she murmured to herself as she looked out at the stars. There was very little air inside her force bubble, and the stale odor suggested that she had used up much of it already. The temperature was beginning to drop sharply as well. She had planned to destroy herself, the planet, and her enemies instantaneously, but somehow fate always seemed to drag these things out. It was never like the stories about the old heroes. They always did such drastic and amazing things and it always went so quickly. She supposed the storytellers edited out some of the slower details to make the story go faster.

She hoped that the story of Luffa would gloss over this part, the part where she froze to death on an asteroid without any clothes on. But the more she thought about it, hers wasn't a story that deserved to be told. Hers was a legend of successive failures. A failure as a mother, as a wife, as a leader, and as a warrior. She would shed no tears for the Saiyan race, but it still pained her to think that things had gotten bad enough for her to decide that the best answer was to destroy her own people. The last Super Saiyan, Chanisp, had saved his fellow Saiyans. Luffa had always admired him for that. Now, she wondered why the bastard had even bothered.

It wasn't all bad, she supposed. She had fought plenty of battles, though none ever seemed to be quite the challenge she craved. She had made friends and she had left an impression on countless aliens, though she wasn't sure how much that was really worth in the end. She had found love... but that was over now, and it seemed wrong somehow to take any solace in the memory of it. Instead, she prayed that Zatte would understand all of this some day.

The air in the bubble became stuffier and colder, and Luffa was having trouble keeping her eyes open. She didn't particularly want to die, but she also felt that it was long overdue. There didn't seem to be anything left to live for, after all. No more battles to fight, no more thoughts to think. No more power in her body. She just wanted to lie back and sleep. She wasn't sure how much longer she could keep the air inside her bubble, but she supposed it wouldn't make much difference if she suffocated or froze to death.

And then, just as she closed her eyes and surrendered to her fate, she felt something strange. Her eyes fluttered open, and there was a bright light flickering all around her.

*******

[Date and Location Unknown.]

In the next instant, she was warm, and the air was fresh. She was still hurt, but not so weak that she couldn't look down and see that she was clothed again, even if it was only a tube top and a pair of simple breeches. She was somewhere else. In the next few breaths, she found the strength to rise to her feet, and that was when she noticed it.

It was a giant animal, even bigger than her own Oozaru form. The creature was shaped like a great serpent, but with four legs, and antlers sticking out of its head. It floated above her, glowing in the night sky like an obnoxious sign at a casino she had visited once. She opened her mouth to ask a question, but found that her throat was too dry to speak, and in the few seconds it took for her to swallow and clear her throat, the creature spoke aloud instead.

"Your wish has been granted," it proclaimed with a voice like rolling thunder.

Luffa was about to ask what wish, when the creature spoke again.

"Farewell..." it said, and before Luffa could demand an explanation, it glowed even more intensely, becoming a hot filament of light. A group of crystal balls rose up into the air to meet the creature as it vanished, and then these orbs shot off in different directions like shooting stars. Once the strange animal was gone, the dark sky suddenly gave way to daylight, and Luffa finally took note of her surroundings. She was standing in some kind of city. Before her was a structure that looked like some sort of elaborate mobile art display, featuring large gears of bronze that rotated as though suspended in midair.

Was this the afterlife?

Then she heard footsteps. Someone was approaching her from behind. Luffa turned, and found a man in a long black coat. There was something familiar about his face, but his lavender hair and intense expression kept her too distracted to think about it.

"You're surprised, I'm sure," he said.

Normally, the man might have been right. Luffa would have been surprised, but she was too exhausted and confused for the shock to register. She was still trying to understand how she hadn't died in the explosion.

"I'll have to explain it all to you later," the man said. "But first, let's see how much power you have."

He then reached over his shoulder, and drew a sword that he wore on his back. The sound of the metal scraping against the scabbard rang in Luffa's ears. She tried to clear her throat, to ask him who he was and how she had gotten here.

Without another word, the man charged toward Luffa, his sword raised to strike.

NEXT: Xenoversal.

[yfere]

Shipping Calculus! Live Updates from C2E59

Wow, so coming off of a lean week, we get a lot of uh, punch, to the shipping totals. Wow. Wowie. Masterpost here. 

This week debuts our new Cockblocking Points program, which fills—or rather prevents from being filled—a hole in the shipping calculations up till now.

+20 to Fjord/Caduceus as Caduceus proves once again what a fantastic Charisma Partner he makes with Fjord as they work together in perfect sync to bring the giants to their side. Featuring 1) Fjord draping his arm around Caduceus (!!!) and 2) Caduceus initiating Fjord’s favorite “I work for Fjord” roleplay (!!!!!!!!!). Besides that, muchos complimentos on both sides, even if Caduceus’ pleasure with Fjord taking his side and saying “You’re usually the voice of caution” conveniently ignores how Fjord’s reckless actions rarely ever line up with what his cautious mouth says. Fjord making goopy eyes when Caduceus admits of his altruistic plans that he can “be on the soft end of things” and making something perilously close to a romantic declaration when he says, “I trust your heart, Caduceus. It’s in a good place.” And lest it be forgotten, Caduceus fucking saving Fjord’s life from Mosquito Man. Keep that cleric close, Fjord! Romance him if that’s what it takes!

+15 to Caduceus/Every Single NPC. As per usual, Caduceus’ classic fairy tale princess sweetness  and Common Courtesy earns the implicit trust of everyone within a ten mile radius—all the giants like him, and only him, absolutely no one else.

+4 to Beau/Sensing Bullshit as she is the only person who picks up on and seems concerned about how Caduceus seems to think this mountain clearing quest is related to his personal quest for……no discernible reason. Are we concerned about the vagueness? No? All right then. Something is off about that dude, even if he’s not secretly plotting to murder the M9 in the mountain caves.  

-2 to Yeza/Nott as Nott entertains about five billion separate fears over the eventual demise of her marriage and beats herself up over having locked the poor man (who just got out of prison btw) in a hotel room and ditched him. Point loss ameliorated as Caleb musters All The Powers of Friendship to lift her spirits with a firm hand, telling her sure, she might be a bit of an adventure addict, but he is as sure as he can be that Yeza truly loves her now and always, that he, Caleb, is glad that she’s here, and that thinking in the macro she can do whatever she likes with no guilt because she is Good, and they are all doing Good together (a moving speech also earning +6 to Caleb/Hopebringer) 

+0 to Jester/Caleb. Pluses: Caleb giving Jester a risque locket, claiming it’s magical and “gives you access to balloon porn” just to make her smile. Caleb’s absolute faith in Jester’s swoleness in thinking she can absolutely just crack a chest open like a nutcracker who needs finesse? Jester thinking of Caleb first when she thinks of who needs healing #ItPaysToBeADamselInDistress. Unfortunately, all these points are flushed down the drain when Caleb coldly exiles Jester from the Tiny Hut when she gets the runs. She couldn’t have stayed inside, but you could have been nicer about it—she’s already suffering! 

+0 to Jester/Yasha On the one hand, it was very cute of Yasha to try to share her favorite food with Jester while risking the ire of the giants, very cute of Jester to try to bond with Yasha over this excellent tasting land food. But all point gains were forcibly expelled once Jester got the runs. The universe punishes those who tread too close to the Yasha ship.

+2 to Nott/Jester The word around the lab is that secretly Jester just wants to be a Knight In Shining Armor, which is why one of the most effective ways to gain points with her is to a) buy her shiny armor and b) allow her to protect you as a true KISA would. Today featuring: 1) Jester channeling her inner Aladdin with a “Do you trust me?” and Romantic Proffering of a Hand to Nott before whisking her away to the top of a tower, and 2) Jester hoisting Nott up by the waist so Nott can more efficiently murder their enemies.

+3 to Caleb/Cat Shaped Creatures as he debuts another sexy cat paw spell to dramatically tear down a gate for his grand Cat Person entrance to the battlefield. Was sadly prevented from showing off the full murdering capabilities of the cat paw, however. Points taken away for covering Frumpkin in mud For Stealth, which pisses Frumpkin off.

+1 to Jester/Soorna as Jester awkwardly tries to flirt Soorna into friendliness,petting her and complimenting her bald head which looks “really nice and stuff”

+20 to Fjord/Detective Work as Fjord’s investigation yields 1) exactly the kind of humiliating material they need to absolutely destroy the foreman, and 2) A fuck ton of healing potions! Including a greater! Very sexy cool of him, as Jester very perceptively notes. Unfortunately hasn’t started investigating for a riftmaking device—yet

+1 to Fjord/Caleb as once more their tag-teaming over Detective Work yields amazing (and this time, saucy!) results. Fjord supporting Caleb’s hopeful plan to bring the giants along with them and leave them to die in the mountain if things take a turn for the worse. Their minds—they think alike.

-3 to The Mighty Nein/Boxes as neither Nott, Yasha, nor Jester (on her first try) were able to open the box with the Humiliation Material—it takes some creative artistry from Jester to manage it.

+20 to Beau/Jester as Beau proves that true love is there for you in sickness and in health, being the only one of the Mighty Nein to sit with Jester through her spider-meat induced illness, holding her hair out of her face, dealing gently and uncomplainingly with frankly an incredible amount of grossness which automatically makes Beau a shipping hero and a hero in all future beaujester sickfic. The pair of them getting equally psyched up about the pornographic Humiliation Material, with Beau requesting a dramatic reading of the letter from Jester (Caleb sucks at voices anyway). Beau also continuing to embody the shipping spirit of Molly by invoking the Slap/Punch of Love to return her love interest back to consciousness. Not even an Attempted Cockblocking from Nott insisting Beau is an enemy manages to put a damper on the moment. A+ UnStraight Out of Fanfic Material.

+23 to Fjord/Jester as, although Fjord rolls his eyes and tells Jester to leave the moorbounders for once, earning a death threat from our dear cleric, he cleverly forestalls massive point loss by bringing up the “L” word. Cute, mischievous, also kind of horrible on the flirting front (as evidenced by annoyed head shake from our dear cleric) because you need to jive with Jester’s love of animals if you want any chance at a long-term relationship. However, the moorbounder conversation earns all the points, with Fjord and Jester having a lovely disagreement over which of them should get the healing potion because they love each other so much (fuck the rest of the M9, potential love interests Caleb and Beau included). Fjord trying and failing to pretend that he cares about animals, misidentifying the type of creature Yarnball is two times and asking adorably dumb questions about her in an attempt to Bond With The Jester. He’s right though—he is being disarming. Minor point loss for the awkwardness nearly giving me the spins, and +2 to Caleb/Cockblocking for his pornographic jewelry gift thoroughly ruining Fjord’s moment with Jester. +10 to Mosquito Man/Cockblocking for preventing Jester from Knight in Shining Armor-ing Fjord with a lollipop to Mosquito Man skull, and making her pass out instead. Fainting Maiden is the wrong archetype!

+1 to Caleb/Fjord/Jester as Jester nags Caleb into telling her whether the balloon porn necklace is magical, and Fjord gets increasingly cute at her in his attempts to get her to settle down and leave poor Caleb in peace to translate. The thought was lovely but unnecessary—Caleb can tune all you motherfuckers out whenever he so desires.

+5 to Beau/Listening because despite claiming not to be listening in on your conversation, she can definitely repeat back word for word everything that was said. Not sure that this is what Dairon had in mind, but…

+19 to Caleb/Caduceus “What about that Caduceus though??” Caleb asks with the same “Wowie wowwow” tone he used while charmed by a succubus a few days previously. This man, absolutely starstruck by Caduceus’ ability to be such a sweetheart he can win over complete enemies to their side (bonus if he did it with dick jokes, Attempted Cockblocking from Nott and Beau notwithstanding), all while Caleb was busy thinking of the most efficient way to murder em all. Staring at Caduceus, stunned over his everything, agreeing to his plan because That’s What Caduceus Wants To Do. Caleb doing That Thing He Does where he aggressively bosses someone into being the Leader, because Caleb is not the Leader, he just Commands everyone to listen to the Real Leader—this week snatching the title away from Fjord who has hoarded the privilege previously, and bestowing it on Caduceus, all “we will all look to you,” at him. Saying “you can’t argue with results” which is as good as a love confession from Mr. McPractical, Need-Goals-Met. Caleb finding an excellent excuse to get handsy by picking the firbolg to grab onto while scouting through Frumpkin. Not to mention, Caleb and Caduceus finding a surprisingly compatible decision-making balance between Caleb’s Cutthroat “We Can Always Murder Our Allies If We Need To” pragmatism and Caduceus’ Sweet But Not Overly Invested “Everyone Can Win Here” diplomacy. These two definitely like each other’s opinions and decisions a hell of a lot….

+40 to Soorna/Revenge as despite being a druid she manages a HDYWTDT on her demonic foe Without! Casting! A! Single! Spell! It’s… hot.

+10 to Sam Riegel/His watch as it attempts to save him from a heart attack. Honestly.......same.

[shimikonde]

Romeo and Juliet and the Prisoner of Azkaban: Return of the King pt. 1/5 (4th light novel, pg 76-85)

Finally finished with the first part of the translation :) I hope everyone has as much fun reading it as I did. I’ll try to get the next part up in around a week but i’m also v busy this weekend so we’ll see lmao

Be sure to thank @imitationpersonne for proofreading!!

“We will now begin Class 1-B’s spectacular Grand Fantasy, ‘Romeo and Juliet and the Prisoner of Azkaban: Return of the King.’”

The announcement and the reverberating buzz from the crowd quieted at once, as if the noise had been sucked from the assembly hall. The lights quickly dimmed, cloaking the stage in darkness as the curtain rose without a sound. After a dramatic pause, filling the venue with anticipatory silence, there was a clicking sound, and the stage filled with light.

Thus began Class B’s opening act.

“Ahh, what a refreshing morning! Can words describe the beauty of the slumbering sun finally waking to shine down over mine Gondor?”

Monoma, dressed in a prince’s costume, stood upon a set modeled after a castle terrace, looking dazzling as he cast his gaze from one side of the hall to the other. Shoda Nirengeki and Awase, who had been on standby behind the backdrop door, entered the stage.

“Romeo, my prince, you’ll catch your death if you go out onto the terrace in those thin clothes.”

“If something happens to you, it’s us, your retainers, who will hear it from the king.”

Nirengeki and Awase’s outfits were simple, befitting of retainers: medieval-looking shirts and trousers.

Monoma turned over his shoulder slightly at the two of them. “Frodo. Sam. Hahaha, if my king father scolds you, then I, his prince son, shall cover for you. So stop with the stiff speech! Our friendship goes deeper than our social status, doesn’t it? Why, just last night you were my accomplices when I snuck out of the castle for a night of drunken merriment in town!”

“Prince Romeo! Should the king find out about that, our necks won’t be enough to calm his wrath!”

“You practically forced us to guide you, insisting you wanted to get to know the lifestyles of the common people!”

“Even so, we’re accomplices. Whatever happens, we three share the same fate. Rather than friends, perhaps we are better stated partners in crime? Hahahaha!”

Here and there in the audience, people began to smile in response to Monoma’s resounding laughter.

Watching from the left wing, Honenuki Juzo, the stage director, breathed a sigh of relief. “Nice. Keep it up…”

The stage director was the person responsible not just for setting the stage, but for all things related to the play. Behind the scenes, he had to perfectly grasp the situation on the stage and use it to send the actors their cues, so it was a position that demanded both a broad perspective and level headedness. The script and direction of “Romeo and Juliet and the Prisoner of Azkaban: Return of the King” was primarily written and directed by Monoma. In theater, a performance couldn’t come to life without both the people standing on the stage and the people supporting them behind the scenes.

Backdrops and props for different sets were tucked away in the wings along with the costumes. The actors waiting for their cues and the scene shifters alike peeked out from their spots on the wings, covertly watching over the stage.

From beside Honenuki, his assistant, Kaibara Sen, said, “But, you know. Even though I know that the prince is supposed to be a friendly guy, even though Monoma’s acting is totally on point, knowing his personality I can’t help seeing him as an evil prince.”

“Same,” agreed the stagehand, Tsuburaba Kosei.

“Isn’t it fine? He’s magnificent all the same!”

Having been watching excitedly,Tetsutetsu spoke at his normal volume, and everyone simultaneously warned him, “Tetsutetsu, whisper…!”

“Ah, sorry!” Tetsutetsu replied, flustered and just as loud, then quickly covered his mouth with his hand. Before the play began, they’d all had a talk with him about speaking in whisper while in the wings.

“You wanna put on a mask until it’s your turn to go on?”

Tetsutetsu’s role was that of Count Paris, Romeo’s fated archenemy, and it was still some time before he would be introduced. Honenuki had given the suggestion thinking that perhaps wearing a mask might help Tetsutetsu be more aware of his mouth, and thus his volume, but Tetsutetsu shook his head.

Concentrating as hard as he could, he whispered, “That’s not necessary… I can do anything if I put my mind to it…”

“We’re counting on you.”

Not far from Honenuki was the hair and makeup person, Komori Kinoko, dressed in frilly clothes and looking as if she might step onto the stage herself. She laughed innocently. “But Monoma looks great! He really turns into a fun guy when you put him in the spotlight!”

“……”

Staring intently at Komori from the darkness, Kuroiro Shihai seemed as if he wanted to say something to her, but instead muttered softly to himself, “The eternal void of darkness is my stage…” He returned to his job taking care of the props, picking up an old-looking piece of paper that they would use later.

If ever there was a person who could be said to thrive on attention, it would be Monoma. That’s why, whenever Class A stole the spotlight, he always found some way to get back at them. Of course, it was also true that, because of his great love for Class B, he couldn’t accept them being overshadowed by Class A.

People who revelled in the spotlight always postured themselves immaculately, heads held high. They were grandiose, naturally calculating their words, their actions, their timbre, so that they could get the reactions they wanted from people. It was natural that Monoma looked great on stage.

On stage, Monoma said, “Then, I’ll be off to greet my father good morning.”

Exiting, he came into the wing, where Honenuki told him, “You’re doing great.”

“Well, yeah.” Monoma smiled, and then turned back to the stage. In no time, he’d need to go back on.

Nirengeki and Awase were speaking about Romeo on stage.

“Honestly, that prince! He knows he’s about to be announced as the official heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Gondor, and still he acts like this.”

“That amiability makes him well-liked by his subjects, but as a ruler of a country it comes across as immature…”

“That said, our king is still in good health. For the time being, we must ensure that Prince Romeo grows into a man befitting of the throne…”

In the wings, Monoma watched the pair’s acting with the eyes of a director and nodded, satisfied.

“Mhmm, Nirengeki’s polished his worrywart performance to perfection. Awase looks fed up, too. They’re totally in the zone today, huh?”

It occurred to Honenuki that they were both letting their real feelings for the overly-aggressive Monoma shine through, but he decided to keep it to himself. According to the scenario, Monoma-as-Romeo would just be finding out about the king’s disappearance and letting out a shocked outburst. Kuroiro handed him the paper he’d been holding.

“Hehihi, the king’s letter.”

“Thanks.”

Confirming that Monoma had taken the paper out of the corner of his eyes, Honenuki watched the timing of Nirengeki and Awase’s performance carefully and gave him the signal to go.

At Honenuki’s cue, Monoma screamed, “Father?! Father…?!” He waited for a moment before dashing onto the stage in a flurry.

“It’s a disaster… Father has… The king has disappeared…!”

Then, as Fukidashi Manga, in charge of audio, let out a startling BAM sound from stage right, the three actors froze in place.

The person in charge of audio was responsible for atmospheric sound effects, as well as playing and stopping the background music at the right places. Honenuki signaled his timing to him using a wireless radio. “Perfect,” Honenuki told him, and Fukidashi responded calmly, “Well, it’d have been faster if I’d have just said it instead.” His quirk was Comic. He could materialize any onomatopoeia he made. However, if he materialized all of the sound effects, the stage would be soon become buried in onomatopoeias.

With a soft, wry laugh at his words, Honenuki gave Fukidashi his timing. “…Narration.”

“Okaay,” Fukidashi said as he played Monoma’s narration, which had been recorded prior.

“The sudden disappearance of Gondor’s king… It was a bolt out of the blue.”

“Kamakiri.”

“Rodger.”

Standing beside Fukidashi and listening to Honenuki’s cues through the radio, the lights man, Kamakiri Togaru, dimmed the lights on the stage. Monoma’s narration played alongside the unsettling background music in the darkness.

“Learning of their king’s absence, the citizens were overcome with unease, and the capital…”

“Everyone, forty more seconds.”

During the blackout, Monoma and the rest on stage had to quickly exit via the left wing and switch into their travelling costumes.

“This one’s for Monoma!”

“Got it!”

With Komori directing, everyone free swarmed around the three and helped them change. In the meantime, Tsuburaba led the set change, setting up for the new scene which would take place in a forest. Still yet to debut on stage, Yui Kodai, Shiozaki Ibara, and Tsunotori helped with setting placement, using their respective quirks: Size, Vines, and Horn Cannon. Stopwatch in hand, Honenuki continued to give them the time, watching everyone’s progress intently. Without teamwork, the play could not go on.

“Ten more seconds… eight, seven, six, five, four, three…  Clear.”

The lights came back on, and the stage had transformed into a forest. Having successfully pulled off the scene change like they’d practiced, everyone exchanged a silent thumbs-up, extolling each other’s hard work. Having received Honenuki’s cue, Monoma staggered onto stage.

“Having lost its king, Gondor was falling into ruin… Despairing the destruction of his beautiful country should things be allowed to continue as they were, Prince Romeo set out on a journey to find his king father.”

As the recorded narration came to an end, Monoma collapsed in the center of the stage with a moan.

“Ahh! Where on earth has father gone to…? The father I know would never throw away his people, throw away me, throw away his country…! Am I to believe he’s been possessed by some kind of demon? If that’s the case, then I have no choice but to defeat that demon and bring back my father… bring back this country’s king!

“Ahh, what a tragedy. No, comedy is more apt! To think me, who has hardly set foot outside of his own country, who did nothing but try to escape from sword and Force lessons, would be on a quest to exterminate a demon….! If I had known something like this would happen, I would have had our country’s best Force user, Master Obi-wan, to oversee my training…. Ahh, rather than cursing my fate, I’d prefer to punch my past self!”

Monoma’s performance drew all eyes to him, and as he grew more heated, it rapidly enraptured the audience.

The story was that Romeo, going on a journey to find the king, meets his true love, Juliet, grows as a person, battles his arch nemesis, Count Paris, and learns the shocking truth, ultimately leaving him a splendid king by the end. A lot of the proper nouns in the story sounded suspiciously familiar, but it was all just an unbelievable coincidence… Or, that was what they were going with if anyone asked, Monoma insisted. It was a hodgepodge that took all the best parts of the heroic journey, slice of life, romance, and revenge genres and put them into a single story.

Neither Kendo Itsuka nor her attendant, Yanagi Reiko, could be there on account of the beauty pageant, but when they’d watched during the dress rehearsal, they’d both been surprisingly moved. To be able to move people who knew Monoma’s personality that deeply, it went without saying that the audience, who didn’t, would be more than just touched. They might even get a standing ovation. Everyone had been working hard towards that goal.

“In that case, might you prefer a return to Gondor?”

“Frodo! Sam! But why?”

Frodo and Sam had just appeared on the stage, having followed Romeo.

“Master Obi-wan is also searching for the king. When we happened to meet, he requested we convey a message to the prince.”

“He said to be careful of Count Paris. Who is this Count Paris, my prince?”

“…Count Paris… Once, I was introduced to a man by that name at a ball, but… Why would Obi-wan tell me to be careful of him…?”

Monoma-as-Romeo mulled it over, unsatisfied, as Nirengeki-as-Frodo reached into his pocket. “Also,” he said, softly pulling out a golden ring and offering it to Monoma.

“We were also entrusted with this: this legendary ring, which has been handed down the royal family for generations…”

“Apparently it protects the royal family, no matter who… I guess it’s like a good luck charm.”

In response to Awase-as-Sam’s line, Monoma shook his head as if bewildered. “I’ve never… heard of such a ring.”

“It seems that the ring is only passed down when a new prince takes the throne.”

“But, what a beautiful ring… It’s bewitching, as if it might steal your heart away.” Taking the ring from Nirengeki, Monoma faced the audience and held it up above his head. The ring would become a very important item in the future.

Part 2

[allhalllows]

the stage is empty and the audience is abuzz. what is the 411? what has everybody been up to? what is the hot gossip? tell me everything. some of them can’t wait for the contest to end, whereas others wish for just one more night, if only so they can see how the whole thing would blow up even further. in all the hubbub, the crowd seems to miss one minor detail: where has ursula gone?

the murmurs don’t even fully quiet down when the lights dim and the music kicks up.

light purple spotlights shimmer as they spin about onstage. a dark void worthy of darkrai opens up in the center and the lights stop, seeming to be swallowed by the night shade-hex combo that makes a black hole in the center. with a flash of orange dazzling gleam, motes of confuse ray spin out of the hole as shadow sneak hands shoot out from the oozing mass that also releases infestation bugs that skitter into the aisles. each hand seems to use thunderbolt on the way up, like the electric bars of a cage--

and then ursula herself appears, rising out of the hole thanks to gengar’s psychic, completely dry in spite of being underwater because of the very same move. she bows as the audience applauds, and begins her speech.

❝ladies and gentlemen, i’m proud to announce that the all hallows’ faire is now over!❞ a profound sigh of relief swept through the crowd, which ursula ignored. ❝well, not really. i still have to announce the winners and everything. everybody, come on out!❞ 

one by one the contestants file onto the stage, in the order that they performed, to the audience’s tumultuous applause. as each one takes their place, ursula hands them each a black key with a glowing orange pumpkin tip: each key is topped by a jack-o-lantern with a wicked grin.

❝i am so happy you all could join with me here for the contest. your performances were truly exceptional, and uh--❞ she looks at her hand--❝i couldn’t have done any of this without you. please accept these custom all hallows’ souvenir keys as proof of all the, uh, good memories you shared of this contest--you all are welcome back next year.❞ if there even would be a next year, she thought as she handed them out.

❝anyway, let’s see what our first, second, third and honorable mention places will be taking home today!❞ she clapped her fingers and at once the prizes appeared on two screens flanking the stage. the one right above the stage remained empty, but it would not be for long.

❝in addition to being able to access our wonderful castle here, second place will get to choose from some of our properties, and lucky first place gets to access it all--and more!❞ she clasps her hands together and smiles, all her previous nerves gone; thinking about her family’s wealth never fails to cheer her up. as she describes each property, it flashes on the top screen. 

❝there’s our castelia city penthouse, complete with two bedrooms, a piano, and a balcony with a view of the entire city. there’s our villa in the geosenge countryside, with its own private forest. and finally, there’s our beach house in undella bay, with its own private section of the abyssal ruins for you to explore! so, first place, you’ll have free access to all these wonderful locations, plus a few more that i would really love to show you. and second place, just let me know where you want to go at any point after the performance is over--don’t worry, the time you take to decide isn’t going to cut into the time that you have to live in it!❞

❝now, who’s going to win these fabulous prizes?❞

❝Let’s find out!❞

holographic keyholes light up above each contestant’s head as the lighting dims to a dramatic halloween-y green and the drumroll starts. 

❝the first round scores!❞

black holographic dots whizz into each of the souvenir keyholes, filling each one in proportion to the scores that the contestants received. the evil jack-o-lantern grins light up even brighter as the scores are received, as though they are drawing sustenance from the energy. at the same time, orange numbers appear above the keyholes to match the actual scores.

❝the second round scores!❞

this time the dots are orange. the point numbers scroll as they increase like slots on a slot machine, ticking steadily upward as the new results come in.

❝and now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for, the thing that tips the scales…the votes!❞

the final round of dots, this time yellow, begins to peter in. the numbers continue to increase, but at a slower pace to reflect the smaller volume of points earned from votes than from the first two rounds.

the highest number shines bright above one contestant’s head. the number above their keyhole flashes as the rest of the keyholes fade away. a brief fanfare plays as ursula’s gengar invisibly uses dazzling gleam to surround them with a brilliant golden light…

Annalise is the winner!

on the top screen, there is now a list to reveal precisely who scored what:

Annalise Abernathy - 114 + 103 + 9 votes (45 points) = 262 points!

May Sakurai - 105 + 95 + 9 votes (45) = 245 points!

Yuugetsu Sumire Wheeler - 100 + 117 + 5 votes (25) = 242 points!

Fabien Lafayette - 105 + 91 + 6 votes (30) = 226 points!

Hikari Azai - 83 + 80 + 12 votes (60) = 223 points!

Agatha Christine - 89 + 83 + 2 votes (10) = 182 points!

Grimsley De Alencar - 87 + 72 + 4 votes (20) = 179 points!

❝a warm and wonderful congratulations to all of our fabulous finalists, especially our top four contestants and our honorable mention. and especially to you, annalise--you worked suuuuuper hard for this reward, so you earned it! here, you pick.❞ she shows annalise two options: the all hallows’ faire key, or the all hallows’ faire ribbon--both of which would open doors to two very different opportunities, one in showcases and one in contests. what a relief, ursula thinks, that annalise so happened to win: maybe now sky might get off her back a little! 

once annalise makes her choice, ursula turns around to address the crowd again.

❝now for a word from the honorable mention himself--fabien lafayette, who i am proud to call a servant of my household!❞

grandly she hands the microphone to fabien, who speaks--but it’s not at all what they rehearsed together. instead, it’s something far more incriminating than even her parents could have imagined…

❝…didn’t expect that reaction, but that’s okay,❞ she says. it’s all she can do not to break down onstage as well. ❝hey, crew, could we, uh…❞

she doesn’t even have to ask. the line gets drawn through fabien’s name, and in his place hiroko’s (misspelled) name is bolded. she is the new honorable mention, not THAT BITCH who just ran offstage!

❝anyway…yeah. that’s it. that’s the contest,❞ she says, folding her hands over her microphone. ❝well, i, uh, hope you all had fun, because i sure did. have a happy halloween and, um…see you next year!❞

the void from whence she came opens up, and she literally sinks through the floor in embarrassment.

her contest is a disaster, sky is about to catch her cheating and now her most trusted servant just messed up her grand finale. 

why do all these bad things have to happen to her?

@dracaelum-faerie @kxkuko @ranseiuniter @stageonmay @sparklingemeraldidol @devonheir@gottamuseemall @3000yearmonarch @eevee-sohma @estrellawn @astralinity@lunarisvesperaregina @firewarriorshamus @grimastor @imbicilite@grimomens @facadxs@griseousperformer @lukissed @sayurismiles@lostguidings @nimbasah @ofreborngods@aeshmedai @coldbornthief @stygianmoondust @hikaup @eiriini @moonpulled @elitentomology @sangmer @wxrldxfpokemxn @hclianthi and with that twist ending, the contest has now FINISHED! right on the winter solstice, too, which is cool. all i have to add is the following administrative things:

the order of the placements by URL is as follows.

first place goes to @dracaelum-faerie!

second place goes to @stageonmay!

third place goes to @lunarisvesperaregina!

@imbicilite, who used to be honorable mention, dropped out.

honorable mention goes to @ranseiuniter!

@kxkuko 

@grimastor 

if you want to leave comments, you can fill out this feedback form. it is totally optional, but would be greatly appreciated!

if you would like me to continue your all hallows’ trick-or-treat, please let me know, otherwise the thread will be dropped. everyone in the contest who has commented on this post has received a starter (except for @estrellawn GIRL I AM SO SORRY IF YOU WANT ME TO DO ONE FOR YOU I 100000% WILL) and will receive a prize.

if you would like to continue an all hallows’ thread with me, feel free to do so. in addition, if there are threads with other people that you want to continue, you are free to do so as long as you want.

it’s been an absolute pleasure having you all on board with this competition--it just wouldn’t be the same without your creativity, your passion and your dedication to rp and contest work. i hope everyone has a wonderful, happy holiday and i can’t wait to see you back at my next event!

riot squad, you know what to do.

BEGIN THE AFTER-PARTY 😈😈😈😈😈

[pomegranate-salad]

Seeds of thought : Wicdiv #32 & #33

Work work work work work. I’ve never worked so much in my life. The college student easy life is a lie, kids. So I’m doing a 2-in-1 type of thing on the last two issues. I didn’t have much material on issue 32 alone anyway and I think these two issues make more sense as a two-parter finale, so I guess it works well. Thoughts and opinions under the cut, spoilers of course. And fuck Woden.

 THE LAST LAUGH

 “Well this looks ridiculous”

This was my - and I assume an unneglectable number of people’s – first reaction to the last page of issue #33 in which we see the severed heads of Lucifer, Inanna and Tara displayed on an altar. This scene was probably effective on some, but for me it immediately called back to Disney’s Haunted Mansion and Futurama, and I was effectively done for : there was no way I could take this visual seriously.

There’s no two ways around it : this scene is silly. First we have what should be one of the biggest reveal of the entire series casually thrown at us by a character who’s not even looking at the audience, Then the camera cuts to this grotesque display of living heads, and the scene is complete with a classic Luci one-liner that seems aware of how out-of-place this entire sequence is. Really, all that’s missing is the laugh track.

You could say anticlimactic ; but really should it be called that when it’s the creators themselves who intentionally destroy the dramatic potential of their own scene ? If you’re not convinced this was intentional, try a little thought experiment and imagine rewriting this scene to amplify its dramatic intensity. By doing so, my conclusion is that this ending had every chance of being a huge finisher like the ones we saw in Fandemonium and Rising Action, but every writing and artistic decision was deliberately made to be as wrong as possible, to ruin every emotional weight this scene could have had.

 This is not an anomaly : in these last two issues, the creators seem to have engaged in the systematic destruction of every dramatic beat by way of grotesque and ridicule. It’s an undercurrent that ran through the entire second part of Imperial Phase, but only reached its full potential toward the end.

It started on the very first page of issue #32, trivializing Amaterasu’s death when the issue before that still gave it all the gravity fitting to the first death of a Wicdiv arc. Then Dio’s last moments of bravery reveal themselves to be a total waste, on top of ruining One More Time forever. Even Woden’s bad guy monologue is sort of too shitty to really muster the kind of epic hatred you’d want to direct at this character. Then we have Sakhmet’s death, caused not by her lover or her sort-of-nemesis Baal, but by a thirteen year old on her first kill. And that’s not even touching on the awful reminder of her fate we get at the end of issue #33. Then there’s of course the beep machine, and issue #32’s hilarious finish, which I think call for no commentary. Issue #33 is divided in two big reveals, the first one forcing on the us the awful visual of David Blake’s head on Woden’s suit and one of the most fist-curling yet somehow pathetic bad guy monologues in history, and the second one being that ridiculous finish scene. The two are even separated by an intimate scene between Cass and Laura that literally gets cut because there’s a stranger tied up two feet from them.

 So if these issues somewhat feel like they’re played all wrong, we know where it comes from. They feel like a multipart climax that got flipped on its head, so not a punch would land or beat would work. That’s not to say there aren’t some really impressive character moments in there ; but for each of them, there’s an inversely proportionally bad joke or ironic twist sweeping right in to undercut the whole thing.

And that’s something worth examining, not as a mistake but as a creative direction. Humour used to be a respite in Wicdiv, a welcome break from all the bleakness and emotional scorching of the characters. Each of them had their own wit, from Luci’s cool girl referencing to Baphomet’s failed swagger, to even Cass’ dry deliveries. But now, humour is just another weapon to hurt us. It prevents us from caring about our characters, from connecting with their emotions, from taking the story seriously. As I was reading through what I knew were Dio’s last moments, all I could focus on was Woden’s villain’s speech and the fact that he was right, and that Dio’s death was probably going to be a complete waste, because that’s how Wicdiv works now. Just compare the weight of Amaterasu’s and Dio’s respective death scenes : they’re not even separated by a full issue, yet the light that’s shone on them is completely different. No matter how much dignity went into crafting Dio’s last scene, it doesn’t matter when it’s put back to back with the textual affirmation of its uselessness, the fact that we don’t even get to give him a proper goodbye, and even after that, Laura’s awful line about his life support. In 2017, I don’t think I need to explain anyone the power of humour in trivializing the most terrible situations and undercutting people’s empathy for each other. This is what Wicdiv has been doing to us these past two issues, against our will. Stopping us from caring. Keeping us at bay even when we’re trying to connect and get involved in the story and characters.

 What does this change in the use of humour mean ? Personally, I link it to the change of our purported hopes as an audience. At the beginning of the comic and up until Imperial phase, we were still allowed to believe, like Luci, that a solution could be found, that the 2-year sentence wasn’t real, nor was the great Darkness. That it was going to be okay. But right at the moment when the characters allowed themselves to think that there could indeed be a solution, we, as an audience, started to know better : there was no loophole, no escape, no way to prevent the inevitable, whatever that was. We could no longer hope that things were going to be okay. So what do you hope for when things cannot be okay ? You hope that they’ll be worth it. If you have to die, let it be a worthy death. A beautiful one. If you have to go, go in a blaze of glory. If you have to fail, let it be at the hand of a worthy foe. Let it be worth it.

But it isn’t. And that’s what humour’s there to prove. When our hopes were that things would be okay, the comic responded with tragedy ; now that we simply want them to be worth it, its weapon of choice is ridicule. As such, it’s definitely not a coincidence that the 455AD special preceded Imperial Phase part II, as it sets the tone for the entire arc, up to its back quote : when it’s clear Lucifer won’t be able to outlive his death sentence, all he want is to be allowed to burn. But he won’t be. He will bleed out and his body will be dragged across and city and cut to pieces by an old lady then fed to the river. Such is the fate that awaits our character. Pathetic and grotesque in equal parts, useless unless it serves someone else’s purpose, following rules you do not understand.

If Imperial Phase is the arc in which the gods are allowed to think themselves kings and queens, then the creators are the King’s fools, the ones allowed to tell them their real value because they do it through jokes and flip-overs.

This arc is a constant battle between the story the characters wish they were in and the one they’re actually in. That’s why it would be wrong, for example, to think of the beep machine as a McGuffin : its thematic utility goes beyond a plot device. When just last arc, it was the subject of a joke to relieve the tension between two characters, now it knocks them back to their actual scope. Something so small and silly is the kind of device they deserve. The big, ugly, scary machine ? It does nothing. Did you think you’d be handed a huge plot revelation as the crowning achievement of this arc ? Of course not. Instead, what we get is a sad, banal story of parental abuse from a man who’s not over leaving his youth behind.

Yes, even the David/Jon Blake storyline, arguably the one preserving most of its dramatic intensity over these two issues, cannot help but feel like a sad joke when you consider that David Blake’s motivations are basically the evil queen from Snow White’s. This is what caused all this. This, an old wrinkled lady, and a thirteen year old on a mission from God. Those are our villains, everybody. As for dying a worthy death, our heroes’ options are a pool of blood or a mounted head on an altar.

 None of this is worth it. At this point, it’s even hard remember why “this” sounded so appealing in the first place. And all this goes to contextualize even more Laura’s breakdown speech halfway through issue #33 : she wanted everything they had, and she’d have given anything for it. For power, for glamour, for this. For this joke of a fate that’s not even that funny. That’s what cost her the death of her family, multiple friends, and the rest of her life.

It’s also fitting that Jon finally voices something that has been on my mind for a long time : just how little do you have to think of yourself to think two years of superpowers would be worthier than a fully-lived life ? Through this character who, just like the other gods, is too good for this deal, but unlike them, seems to realize it, it’s yet again the sheer impossibility to make this deal worth it that’s shown to us. Because what becomes clear after this reveal is that if Ananke allowed you to become a god, it’s so she could see that you’d waste away your potential. House always wins, and when you burn the House down, another opens up next door.

 So this is where we are : our hopes of seeing any of it be worth it have been ridiculed, and all that’s left to uncover is precisely which joke our heroes have been the butt of. Cruel ? Maybe. But if fiction so often serves as a way to quench our thirst for grand emotions and epic stories, it’s precisely because outside of it, it feels much more often like one big joke than a sweeping tragedy. After all, Henri Bergson said it best : comedy is much truer to real life than drama.

  WHAT I THOUGHT OF THE ISSUES

 I KNEW IT IT WAS ME I FIGURED IT OUT I KNEW IT WAS DAVID BLAKE I AM THE GODDESS OF FATE BOW TO ME MERE MORTALS !

Alright, I’ll stop.

But while seeing yourself being right is immensely satisfying, it cannot help but damage your read a little ; like I said many times before, I want writers to be smarter than me, to be able to take me by surprise. So if I’ve managed to guess something, that’s great for my ego, but it also makes me a bit sad : that’s just another plotpoint that won’t reach full impact with me because I had so much time interiorizing its potential.

And that’s sort of my problem with these two issues : they revolve around two kinds of plotpoints, some that didn’t surprise me (Dio and Sakhmet’s death, Woden’s identity, the reason for Laura’s attitude) and other that were impossible to guess (the beep machine, Minerva’s “identity”, the talking heads). Meaning that while reading those, I was pretty much letting the plot carry me without being able to pause and care. As I’ve said above, part of it is intentional, but it also means that there aren’t many punches in these issues that landed for me. I’ll definitely count Laura and Sakhmet’s last conversation as well as Cass and Laura’s fight as a success, but the “big” intimate moment of issue #33, the conversation between Cass and Laura, didn’t do much for me, probably because it seems to me that anyone with a functioning brain and ears knew exactly why Laura wasn’t her best self since she had become Persephone. I understand why Cass didn’t see it – as we’re discussed before, she is a factual thinker, meaning she can’t grasp with Laura’s guilt when it is so obviously unfounded – but I still don’t understand the decision to make this a big character moment when literally every sentence Laura had pronounced since the beginning of Imperial Phase revealed what she was going through. There’s nothing more infuriating that being fed information you already think of as canon. If you ask me, this moment is much more important and interesting for what it isn’t, that’s to say a romantic scene, than for what it is. Seeing Laura being rejected by Cass, and therefore breaking the pattern  of dragging people in her self-destroying orbit, is much more defining than her whole speech on guilt.

The problem is that most of the work these issues do is retrospective : if the Jon/David scene on its own has limited impact, the new depth it gives to all the Woden scenes we’ve already been through is vertiginous. Like I said, I did consider what the meaning of David Blake being Woden would be, but that’s another thing to be confronted with the actual fact. When you consider that David is talking to his decapitated, imprisoned son when he’s pouring out his thoughts make issue #14 go from merely quite repulsive to one of the most skin-crawlingly nauseating pieces of media ever written. I can’t imagine what the creators went through crafting this issue while knowing the entire story.

 As for the rest of the reveals, it’s a little hard to weigh on them without devolving into hardcore theorizing. We’re basically at the last stop before the comic has to lay out its hand ; it already managed to delay it through two entire arcs whose very point was to see how long they could get this blind game going. But for me as a reader, it also means I’m at the point in the story that’s the least interesting to me : the one where I have no choice than to follow the train as it’s well on its tracks, without any possibility to pause or jump ahead. I have to wait for the full story to know whether any of these twists paid out or not ; at this stage, I have both too much and too little to really be able to do something with it emotionally or intellectually.

 So as a final verdict because I have to go back to cramming for administrative litigation, I’d say these are two issues I’ll have to revisit once the comic is over, because I suspect they’ll be a lot better with the full story in hand. Most of its impact is on the issues before them and in the groundwork they lay out for the final year. So as a stop point, they may not hold much interest, but I can definitely see them be one of the comic’s most astute cogs once it’s done and over. As a two-parter finale, I like it more than the Imperial Phase (part I) finale : it’s more coherent in its construction and doesn’t try to bite off more than it can chew. It’s mostly plotpoints and twists, meaning it’s my least favourite kind of read, but once I’m able to put that aside to see it instead as a character work thread in a bigger design, it’ll probably hold my interest much more. But as of right now, I can at least commend it for how much it makes me want to reread everything from the beginning. Which I definitely do not have the time for right now. Damn you. Damn you all.

[mayphenix]

The humour killed Thor:Ragnarok for me

I... didn’t dislike the movie, I actually enjoyed it but what has been called the “best part” of the movie and what everyone has been enjoying just killed the entire movie for me. It was too much, all the time. I’m all for light-hearted jokes, the marvel way but it was too much and I didn’t feel like I watched a Thor movie at all, more like a mix of lots characters vaguely attached to Thor thrown together into a comedy movie, or a joke of an epic movie. There were lots of good points, and some bad points.

More under. Spoilers warning.

I’m going to start with how much of a fan of the Thor franchise I am. Thor is my favorite Avenger, Loki is my absolute favorite character of the entire MCU, I adore the universe of Thor, the Thor movies were my favorite and it was mostly because it was so different from everything else from Marvel. We had some gods, seen differently, heroes, space, epicness and I loved it all - the family drama, the deities different from the myths but still interesting, I absolutely love it all. Perhaps I had too many expectations for this movie but I was going to the theater knowing I might be disappointed because over timewhen we saw new stuff for this movie, so many things didn’t seem right with the accumulation of characters, old and news, of stories to explain and introduce in this final movie and most especially, the obvious emphasis on humour the entire movie has been promoted with. I was worried, but I went in the theater positive. Thor franchise, and Loki being my favorite character and everything I expected from this movie might make this review a little biased but... well.

About the good points:

- The special effects. I don’t think I need to give an entire speech on that, everything was absolutely beautiful and breathtaking and phenomenal. The opening battle? Amazing, the sequence with Mjollnir was WOW. So, nothing disappointing with the special effects, if anything, it was even more amazing than usual.

- The battles. All great, good fighting, good characters, the only problem being that when it was final, epic battles...the epicness died because it was stopped with some joke.

- The new characters: I absolutely love Hela, Valkyrie and even Krudge (if that’s his name?) All amazing characters who can fight, various, POC, with ptsd, I love it. They even go through some character development in the movie but it felt a little rushed at times - I would have wished for Valkyrie to at least appear like she considered joining Thor’s team a little more BEFORE doing it because it just felt sudden and because she didn’t know what else to do with the Grand Master’s ultimatum?

- Our beloved old characters: some were well used, some not so well. Loki was the only fully satisfying character who was all mischief and more to his true-self than the dramatic, traumatized character we’ve seen so far without disgarding what had happened to him and the depth of his character. Thor was charming with his sense of humor but it felt to me like he was belittled. He’s a god, he’s a freaking god, he’s a PRINCE. But too often he appeared like the big, friendly dork and it’s annoying. The good thing about Thor is that he really seemed concerned about the universe, Asgard, its people and his motivations wasn’t because of Jane like previous movies, it seemed more... realistic, for a royal god. I’m not an enormous fan of Banner and the Hulk, but he’s sweet, and he still is in this movie but..ultimately I don’t feel like he played a huge part in the movie, like he had any significant importance. It was more “oh we haven’t seen the Hulk in a while let’s add him here”. Yes, he helped espcae and fought Fenris but it wasn’t that epic in my opinion, I expected more of their fight. But other than that? What did he do? Make jokes, make people laugh but that’s it? He asked about Nat but 5mn after meeting Valkyrie he’s all “she’s strong, she’s beautiful” so... wtf? Odin was here, but I feel like his end was too quick - we didn’t have a quick explanation on what really happened, how he felt, he just “all right my sons, a hel of a trouble is coming because I messed up again, be ready” and then he went into fairy dust in the sky. I cried at his death, but mostly because he called Loki his son, and he treated both as equals despite everything that had happened. Heimdall had his importance but because he was the only character who seemed to take things seriously, he felt out of place. The Warrior Three...how could they kill them off like that? We barely saw them, barely recognize them and oops, dead at Hela’s feet. I get it, she’s powerful but they’re some of the strongest warriors of Asgard. They could have had at least a bit of a fight to end in a glrious battle not... that.

- The plot and twists: I didn’t want Hela to be Loki’s daughter because it would have come out of nowhere so I’m glad of what they did, but once again, I would have wished for more explanation tha just “she’s Odin’s first born turned evil”. Like...who is her mother? What happened? No more details on how he banished a first child and erased her memory from all of Asgard? Why is she so freaking powerful if she’s “just” his daughter?? I need more than just what we were given. The final twist with Ragnarok being the only way to defeat her, that LOKI was the one to cause it directly, that Asgard was a people and not a place - I LOVED IT! It was totally unexpected so I loved how it turned out.

- I’d need to rewatch the movie to fully enjoy the depth of this point but I think that there were lots of hidden political critiques and stuff said in this movie, laying behind everything, which ought to be taken in consideration more fully but like I said, I’d need to watch it more to understand it all.

- I’ll finish with MY FAVORITE PART OF THIS MOVIE: LOKI AND THOR (kinda) RECONCILIATION! THey finally talked, they finaly came  to terms with it all and there are already several posts about how perfectly done it was made so just... Thank you for finally bringing them back together as a team and brothers. That’s all I wanted for this movie, with the hope they won’t ruin it all again in Infinity Wars...

The bad points:

- HUMOUR EVERYWHERE. Except maybe a few lacks of details here and there which can be forgiven with the length of the movie and its final cut, the really only one and big problem is the constant presence of humour. I like little jokes, I laughed at several of them. At hte begining it was great and all. Loki’s reactions mostly were hilarious, the button pushed when they escpae and it provokes firework that was good too. But the rest of ti? It insisted too much, it constantly came back, it ruined the moods, it just felt off, it wasn’t even fun. Where do I even start? The sexual jokes were... too much, like I thought it was a family movie? Why do you talk about orgies, and anus, and that thing Valkyrie did with her hips? Where did it come from? Not necessary. The ridiculness of these jokes too -  Thor throwing a ball that rebounced and put him down? Nope. Banner jumping down for an epic landing as the Hulk but landing on his face? *heavy sigh*, the end of Asgard and we have some silly lines ruining the intensity of the moment? At this point of the movie I just couldn’t handle these stupid lines that weren’t even fun anymore. The final epic battle got me sighing ALL THE TIME because there was always some stupid moment put here to make you laugh when it’s not the moment to be funny but the moment to fight and be heroes. It’s a superhero movie, not a comedy. It’s Thor’s final movie, not a joke! It’s freaking Ragnarok, not good-hearted playtime!

- Because of this forced and too heavy humour, I feel like the middle of the movie in Sakaar or whatever it’s called is way too long for what it’s worth. It was too much humour and in the end the final battle felt rushed. Perhaps it was just because it was constantly cut because of the stupid jokes, but it felt like because there had been so much in the midlde for Sakaar, some fights for the final battle were finished very quickly (I’m mostly thinking of Fenris VS Hulk, Skuge’s comeback, Hulk VS Surtr (if you can call that a battle), Surtr period, Loki period...)

- The Guardians of the Galaxy vibe. Dont get me wrong, I love the colors and I love the GotG. But it was supposed to eb a Thor movie and it didn’t feel like one... I barely heard Thor’s theme, it was only all about this colorful planet and atmosphere but it was so similar to GotG that well, it took away what made Thor franchise unique in its own way: it’s not a superhero from Earth,  he’s a god and prince from a majestic place, it’s epic and royal and deeper than just “the god of thunder swinging a hammer”. THAT’S what I like about Thor, the multidimensions used for his movies, character and universe that made it apart from the rest of the Avengers movies and the GofG. But adding such a GofG vibe twisted the universe of Thor we had so far that was unlike any other.

Questionable points:

I’d need to rewatch the movie a few times, but there were a few things that seemed rushed...and a few things that were probably deeper than a first viewing allows you to conceive with Waititi’s directing and what he tried to express through this movie (too bad people only remember how ‘fun’ it was, uh) and I’d like to think moer about the parallels made between Odin/Hela and Thor/Loki and basically, everything that had some sense and wasn’t taken as a joke.

Conclusion

...It could have been worse. I had my fears, it could have even been an epic end for the Thor franchise. If the constant, out of place, ridiculous humour (that really..didn’t make me laugh that much) hadn’t ruind the epic, emotional moments.

[riyuyami]

Hi, my name is John, I’m 25, and I apparently still break down and cry like a baby over the final episode of ygo cause I’m an emotional dork.

Also, I just finished season five, here’s my pros and cons of it after a rewatch:

Pros:

The original Japanese OP and ED are beautiful in animation and song

Baby and kid Atemu are a bonus and I wish there had been little things with him in the manga, would have been cute to see that

Yugi. Just... my son, he is perfect, I love him, he did so well in this, and kicked total ass. This was a big thing for Yugi, I love him

Gandora, my favorite monster, being animated

Mahado having a lot of scenes

The Puzzleshipping-looking stuff

The Scandelshipping-looking stuff 

Watching Yami Bakura get his ass handed to him was awesome

Some of the fighting was pretty well animated, I’ll give them that

Dan Green’s performance as Atemu and Yugi is fantastic (except Yugi got a little squeaky in a few scenes, but I’ll forgive Dan for that, mainly cause I too get squeaky when I’m dramatic)

Kalim lived a little longer than he did in the manga

Pegasus’ speech, I loved that

We got to see characters from season four again, and everyone seemed to be doing well (why was Raphael in Paris though? Oh well, at least we got to see Mai again)

Ryou and Grandpa dancing during one of Yugi’s victory moves was adorable

Atemu being so proud of Yugi throughout their duel

Cons: (Oh FUCK)

THE FUCKING DEUS EX MACHINA BULLSHIT THEY THREW IN THAT WASN’T NEEDED OR WANTED

Bobasa’s character was completely useless in this whole season except for him being a fucking, literal blimp of a man! I hate what they did to him, he was useless until he had to fly the gang to the Valley of the Kings! In the manga, he was very important and very useful in helping to find the pharaoh’s name and protecting the pharaoh

Kisara and Seth having a useless backstory, I’m sorry, but it was pointless to give a character who was only used for minor plot development a backstory that didn’t do much. Kisara doesn’t have much character to her in the manga, she is literally said to be nothing more than a vessel, but in the anime she... was kind of annoying??? Like, she didn’t do much in the saving department until she died, and even then, the anime ruined it by building her up and making her almost completely useless. Her death was in vain. Kaiba’s Blue Eyes did more than her own ka/ba did. I actually feel sorry for her, I really do.

Mana got really, REALLY annoying before the battle in Kul Elna. I love BMG, and I love Mana in the manga, but in the anime? Why did they make her so weird and ditzy??? 

Hasan... uhh.... why did he turn into a game piece when he was an unexpected NPC?

The game itself became much more weird and complicated than in the manga. I understand changes had to be made, but...

Animation. Just... it was so inconsistent in style... so many different things going on at once. Especially with Kaiba. Kaiba... your animation... this is why your face became a meme...

Some of the dub lines were terrible, even for 4kids. Some of them were great though

The fact that Atemu has to leave, like, a day after getting his memories. He was given a month before then in the manga. That’s fucking heart breaking.

THE DUEL BETWEEN SETH AND ATEMU! The big, epic battle that was mentioned so many damn times in battle city, the one we saw flashbacks of! It was placed in the wrong part of the story line, didn’t do much for the plot outside of kicking Ahkenaden in the ass, and it barely lasted, like, three minutes! The battle was suppose to be a last ditch effort from Team Evil after Zorc got killed, right??? Why put it in before that!? Fuck!

It made me cry again! I haven’t watched the last episodes as a whole in years and rewatching it made me cry!

Evil!Honda was a weird twist. Stop having him being possessed. He got possessed in season zero by Shadi, he got possessed in season three by the Big Five, and now Yami Bakura. The fuck man, leave him alone.

Pro/Con:

Kaiba being in the memories and at the final duel. His commentary is a saving grace, but he didn’t really need to be there.

The Kaiba Corp. Grand Prix was unnecessary, but it gave us some amazing Kaiba dialogue and some really cool duels. Also, it wasn’t an end of the world set of duels, more like ‘who has the bigger ego’ kinda thing for a bit. And then Atemu and Yugi save the day cause someone was being a big piss baby about not being better than Kaiba.

Overall, season five gets a three out of five star rating. It could have been better, but honestly, it could have been A LOT worse.

Now I’m gonna go to bed, night.

[howtohero]

#023 Revealing Your Secret Identity For Maximum Dramatic Effect

There comes a time in every superhero’s career when, despite the thousands of reasons for it being a terrible idea, and despite all the warnings right here in this handy dandy guide, they decide to reveal their secret identity to someone else (reason #225: they’re going to keep asking you autographs and really just drive down the value of your autograph on the secondary market.) Maybe they’ll do it because they’re tired of keeping their secret from a loved one. Maybe they’ll do it because they need someone’s help and they want to gain their trust. Maybe they’ll do it some bad guy thinks some other random dude is them and they don’t want to endanger said random civilian. Maybe they’ll do it because they’re huge drama queens and nothing exciting has happened in a while and they are just bored. Whatever your reason for revealing your secret identity may be, you only really get one shot at revealing your secret to any given person (assuming you’re the kind of person who doesn’t like wiping people’s memories all willy nilly,) so you’re going to want to milk it for all it’s worth. (Reason #34: You just know they’re going to dress up as you at every costume party they’re invited to just to piss you off.)

First you need to consider settings. Are you going to do it on the person’s balcony in the middle of a rainstorm? At a public press conference? While riding on a giant eagle? Standing atop a large building with a megaphone and a large, bright banner and the banner is written in really big bubble letters and the letters are filled in with colors that clash with the outlines of the letters and really the whole thing is just a huge mess because also you didn’t really budget for room when you started outlining the banner (always gotta start with a layer of pencil come on man) and so the letters get like progressively smaller and honestly this is not the right way to go about doing this (this sentence is a mess grammatically. This is what happens when my editor goes away for the summer). When deciding on a setting for your dramatic reveal you need to take into consideration how big of a spectacle you want to make. If you’re doing a controlled reveal to one or at most a few people, a more private setting such as perhaps a dark alley or someone’s bedroom is more ideal. (Reason #168: Now that they know you’re a superhero they’re going to try to find and sneak into your hideout and the laser shooting robot alligators you have as security are for sure going to murder them.)

Next you need to decide who you’re going to be when you make the big reveal. Are you going to be Ms. Stupefication, champion of the Rocky Mountains and surrounding towns and suburbs? Or are you going to be Jan, unassuming lawyer from the Rocky Mountains and surrounding towns and suburbs. This may seem like a distinction without a difference. After all, isn’t the whole point of this to change those two people into one in the mind of whoever you’re doing this for? But, practically, it makes a huge difference. (Reason #47: They’re going to keep asking you to introduce them to more famous superheroes as if you’re not enough for them.) Ms. Stupefication wouldn’t be in Jan’s boyfriend’s tattoo parlor in the normal course of events. That would be a pretty clear sign that something is up. You’re at a major risk of blowing the surprise early in that case. (Reason #219: If they’re a good friend they’re going to get really defensive anytime someone else bashes your superhero identity and that’s going to raise questions.) If you’re going to do it in superhero mode without giving the secret away too early really the only way to do it is during the course of a dramatic rescue. Meaning Jannifer (Janzerella, Janbo, Jango Unchained the D Is So Silent That Now It’s Just Gone,) would have to wait until her boyfriend is in mortal peril before dramatically unmasking herself in front of him. Just while I’m on this track for a second, mask wearing superheroes have way more potential for dramatic reveals if you’re doing it in superhero mode. Just another reason to wear a full-faced balaclava. Jan however can reveal her identity as Ms. Stupefication in a more intimate setting which makes the gesture all the more special if maybe a little less surprising and dramatic. (Reason #344: They’re definitely going to want to tweet about it.)

Next, you need to decide how exactly you’re going to do it. You can do it in song form, and sing about your fantastic double life and your remarkable ability to make things explode by touching them. But again, as we’ve discussed, most superheroes are not capable songwriters. You’d have to outsource that (to me). And you’d probably have to reveal your secret identity to the person you get to write the song. And how are you going to reveal it to them? Also in song??? How many secret identity revealing songs were you planning on getting written? (I can write a bunch. As many as you need). You can do it in the form of grand dramatic speech, that’s a neat method, if you’re good at writing grand dramatic speeches. If you’re not, I’d avoid it. You don’t want to make a lame sounding grand dramatic speech. That’d probably ruin the moment. (Reason #12: What if they’ve also secretly been living a double life. Only they’ve secretly been a supervillain this whole time.) You can casually mention it offhand while eating dinner or something. Though that would probably be a tad anticlimactic. Don’t do that. Unless it’s a really nice dinner. Like Macaroni and cheese. Or fried snaglorps from the Rigel System, if you’re into that kind of thing. Or you can write them a letter and then hand it to them and then awkwardly stand there in front of them as they read the letter. Or you can write them a letter and then mail it to them and not even be there when they find out. Really there are a plethora of ways to go about this. Oh! You can lead them on a wildly convoluted scavenger hunt where each clue leads to another clue that is more intricate and challenging than the last and the final clue is the big reveal that really you’ve been Titanium Pig Man, the twelve-foot-tall pig man that defends Paris, Texas all this time. (Reason #301: They’re definitely going to bring up the fact that they know a superhero every time they play two truths and a lie.)

No matter how you go about presenting the information the important thing is that make plenty of pauses for dramatic effect and perform as many actions as possible in slow motion. If you’re taking your mask off, do it really slowly. If you’re taking your mask out of your school backpack, do that really slowly. If you’re running away from an explosion while unbuttoning your shirt to reveal the superhero costume you have on beneath it, do that in slow motion too. Don’t worry about the explosion, if you’re running in slow motion in the close vicinity of an explosion the explosion also automatically goes off in slow motion. Everyone knows that. It’s just one of those things. (Reason #13: What if they’ve also secretly been living a double life. Only they’ve secretly been Professor Paleontologist this whole time and now he wants to do a team-up.) See if you can get some dramatic music playing while you do it. Maybe a remixed, slowed down version of your theme song. Just don’t accidentally play the totally banger dance club remix version. You need to keep your remixes straight man. Make sure you don’t rush through the reveal. Remember to enunciate. Don’t spit. Make eye contact. But don’t make too much eye contact. Don’t trip and fall. Don’t make weird jokes about driving on parkways and parking in driveways and how you don’t actually do either because you can fly (I’m telling you all the ingredients for a good joke are there). Just be yourself. But a more dramatic version of yourself. Maybe you should actually invest in acting lessons and an acting coach before doing this. Hmm. Something to think about. (Reason #188: They’re gonna keep coming up to you while you’re in costume and that’s going to alert supervillains to their existence as someone close to you. Reason #588: Honestly they might just tell someone else. Reason #294: Every person you tell means the lizard people mob to which you owe money is one step closer to tracking you down.)