#THEIR FIRST ADVENTURE he genocides a race in front of her and she sees that and goes ''dude. get some therapy'' | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

crystalstar8 · 3 years

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Knights of the Night (ch 8)

Chapter 8aseball

Ch 1, ch 2, ch 3, ch 4, ch 5, ch 6, ch 7, ch 8

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29139240/chapters/71536491

pairing: Jungkook x oc

genre: vampire au, college au, twilight, romance

word count: 2,668

warnings: blood (obviously), kidnapping, child kidnapping, needles, France

notes: vampires, vampire au, college, college au, so many twilight references, blood, needles, kidnapping, children, homelessness, dance, ballet, flashbacks, romance, slow burn, probably no smut, idk yet tho, France, French things, attempted genocide, inaccurate French history, bisexual main character, @strawberriewithchocolate-blog @mozy-j @daechwitad-2 @zobadak

summary: Catalina starts college in a small town all the way across the country. She doesn’t know anyone and isn’t exactly looking for friends. She just wants to focus on dance. But when she meets fellow dance major, Jimin, and adventurous, fellow freshman, Jungkook, Catalina ends up discovering a whole new side to the small college town; one that is dangerous but oh so enticing…

Catalina was no longer running, but she had yet to catch her breath. The room she was in was cement, and Jungkook lay in front of her. She tried to reach out to him, but as soon as she tried to move, her veins erupted into fiery pain. Her whole body seized, but just as fast as it came, the pain left, letting Catalina collapse to her knees. She crawled over to Jungkook and rolled him over onto his back. The wound on his head was scary.

“Kookie,” she whispered, trying to shake him awake. “Kookie, we have to get out of here. They’ll come back any second.”

Jungkook spoke without opening his eyes. He said, “When you become one of them, will you eat me too?”

The pain came back at full force, but didn’t last long as Catalina woke up in a cold sweat.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So, you’re telling me that they’re actual real-life vampires,” Jimin said from the backseat of Jungkook’s car.

“That’s right,” said Catalina.

“That explains all that rotting food in the fridge,” said Jungkook. Catalina huffed as he cracked up.

“Yeah, never mind the fridge full of blood bags,” said Catalina.

“So, they’re real vampires,” said Jimin. “They could kill us if they wanted to, and we’re still hanging out with them?”

“I mean, anyone could kill anyone if they wanted to,” said Jungkook. He took a turn down a dirt road into the forest.

“They could do it so easily though!” said Jimin.

“They won’t,” said Catalina. “I really think they won’t hurt us.”

“Well, we’re playing baseball with them whether you like it or not,” said Jungkook. “God, I haven’t played baseball since I was seven years old, on that stupid little leagues team. Oh my god, I’m so excited.”

Catalina looked over at him with an eyebrow raised. He was practically vibrating in his seat. It was his idea in the first place. As soon as Catalina told him about her discovery, he asked when they’d get to play baseball with the vampires, vis a vis Twilight. To “reenact the greatest scene in cinematic history”. Catalina was just looking forward to spending more time with the four of them. She found them fascinating and there were so many questions she wanted to ask.

She snapped out of those thoughts as Jungkook took a side road. They ended up parking at the edge of a field. The sky was grey and thunder was rumbling. It was perfect weather for baseball. Jungkook seemed to think so too, since he was staring at the sky with a big smile on his face as he got out of the car.

There were two other cars parked in the field, a black BMW and a pink Jeep Wrangler with two yellow smiley faces on the roof. Jin and Jimmy K got out of the BMW as soon as Jungkook parked. Taehyung, Hoseok and Namjoon were already standing in the field, Taehyung practicing his swing. Yoongi was sitting next to the Jeep in a lawn chair, sipping wine from a glass. Catalina got of the car. She’s never played baseball before, so this should be interesting. Taehyung waved at them and ran over.

“You made it!” he said. “I’ve never played baseball before, but I did some research the last few days.”

“Meaning, he just watched some videos of ancient baseball games,” said Hoseok.

“There’s always a guy with the bat, and he has to hit the ball. And there’s the person who throws the ball,” Taehyung explained.

“I think everyone here knows how to play baseball, Tae Tae,” said Jimin.

“Jiminie! I’ve missed you!” Taehyung swept Jimin up in a hug. Catalina laughed but wished Taehyung hadn’t been interrupted. She really didn’t know how to play.

“I think I should just watch for a while,” she said. “I’ve never really played before.”

Jin sidled up to Jungkook and Catalina and whispered, “You said these guys were vampires?”

They nodded. Jin eyed the vampires on the field, then nodded, “Yeah that checks out. Normal people don’t look that good. Except for me, obviously.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Yoongi pulling open another lawn chair. She happily took the opportunity to skip over to him and sit down. The rest of the boys got set up on the field. Catalina wondered who the Jeep belonged to.

Being near Yoongi was different. He didn’t say or do anything, keeping his eyes on the field and sipping from his glass, but Catalina felt a dull aura of danger around him. She didn’t necessarily think he’d hurt her, but being around him wasn’t the same as being around the other vampires. There was definitely something different about him.

“Would you like a glass of wine?” Yoongi asked, startling Catalina out of her thoughts.

“No thank you,” she said. They both turned their attention to the field as the game began.

Jungkook was batting first, Hoseok taking his place in the center of the makeshift diamond as the pitcher. Namjoon crouched behind Jungkook as the umpire. Jungkook struck out the first time, but hit perfectly the second. He dropped the bat and took off running. Taehyung took off after him and caught him in an instant, tackling him to the ground. Instead of arguing that Taehyung’s supernatural speed was unfair, Jungkook laughed heartily as he pulled himself off the ground. This absolutely didn’t seem like something Catalina would like, but it was fun to watch.

The clouds began to darken and a slow rain began. Catalina pulled her hood up.

Taehyung was up to bat next, Jimin pitching. Taehyung flipped the bat, tapping the end and catching the handle. That was hot seeing it in the movie, but it was even hotter seeing Taehyung do it. She wondered if Namjoon could flip the bat like that.

“He won’t be able to flip it like that,” said Yoongi. Catalina’s heart skipped a beat. She stared at him as her mind raced.

“Can you…can you read minds?” she whispered. Yoongi chuckled and shook his head.

“No. But I’ve been around long enough to read people,” said Yoongi. “You were eyeing him in his too-tight t-shirt.”

“How old-“

The field erupted into laughter. The rain had picked up and the field was staring to get muddy. It seemed that Taehyung had tackled Jungkook again and they were rolling around in the mud, Jimin and Jin were laughing hysterically beside them. Their white t-shirts were practically transparent, clinging to their chests. Jungkook was more toned than Catalina expected…

Namjoon was up to bat next.

“Flip the bat!” Catalina shouted to him. “Flip the bat like Tae did!”

Namjoon tried to flip the bat, but ended up hitting himself in the face and dropping it.

“Told you,” said Yoongi.

“Whatever. It was worth a shot,” said Catalina.

The game went on and the rain got heavier. Luckily, Jungkook had the foresight to tell everyone to wear white t-shirts for the baseball game, because soon, everyone’s shirts were soaked and transparent. The ground was muddy and as Namjoon ran to home base, he slid across the ground, the mud splashing up around him dramatically. Jimmy K took the bat next. He was wearing shorts with his wet t-shirt, showing off his sturdy, oiled thighs.

“You’re drooling,” Yoongi said.

“Shut up,” said Catalina, unable to tear her eyes away from the game. She wiped her chin and sure enough, there was drool in the corner of her mouth. She couldn’t help it though. Everyone on that field was incredibly hot and they were all soaked. Their shirts left nothing to the imagination.

Catalina shifted in her seat. She wondered if Jungkook had checked the weather ahead of time and planned this. She made a note to ask him later. And if he did plan this, she’d have to thank him. She wondered if he knew what he looked like right now, with the wet shirt clinging to his abs and chest and hard nipples…

She only had to wonder for a moment though, because a few seconds later, Jungkook was lifting the bottom of his shirt to wipe the mud from his face, his eyes darting over to her. That son of a bitch knows exactly what he’s doing, Catalina thought.

Catalina was startled out of that train of thought as Yoongi stood abruptly, his chair falling backward. Catalina startled and looked at him with wide eyes.

“What? What is it?” Catalina asked.

“Shut up,” he said. His eyes narrowed as they darted around the tree line.

From the woods, three people strolled into the field. The boys stopped playing baseball and watched the three strangers approach. Yoongi joined them, Catalina close behind.

“I haven’t seen you four around, are you new to this town?” the man in the middle asked. He was big; tall and broad with a good natured smile on his face.

“No, we’ve lived here a long time. Are you new?” asked Namjoon.

“A bit,” the man said. “I didn’t realize there were more of us living around here. I figured we already met everyone.”

“Do you mind if we join your game?” the woman beside him asked. She was tall and blonde, a sinister red smile on her face. The third woman’s eyes flickered between the five humans.

“You even brought snacks,” she said. This woman had a thick Indian accent and dark skin. Her gaze was so piercing, Catalina felt as if the woman could tell what she was thinking just by looking at her. All three of them had blood red eyes.

“We were actually just leaving,” Namjoon said as he positioned himself in front of Catalina.

“No need to get defensive!” the man said, holding out his hands. His smile was still relaxed and charming. “We won’t take what isn’t ours.”

“Joon-ah,” Hoseok whispered. He was shuffling behind Namjoon, tugging on his sleeve. He looked pale and terrified.

“We can leave if you want us to, we just thought we’d introduce ourselves,” the man said. “We always love making new friends.”

Namjoon glanced at Hoseok, then looked back at the man with narrowed eyes. He didn’t say anything.

“My name is Makai,” the man said. He gestured to the blonde woman and said, “This is Amanda,” and then to the other woman, “And this is Mohati.”

“My name is Namjoon, and this is Yoongi, Taehyung, and Hoseok,” said Namjoon.

“You’re not going to introduce your human friends?” Mohati asked, sauntering over to Jungkook. Taehyung growled and stepped in front of him. Jungkook’s eyes were like saucers.

“I apologize for interrupting your game,” said Makai. “I can see you don’t need any more players, so we’ll be on our way. But here, take my card. Come visit us some time. We’re always on the lookout for fresh faces.”

He handed a business card to Namjoon then waved to the two women to follow him away. They left the way they came, into the woods until Catalina could no longer see them.

Namjoon looked at the card and said, “I think you guys should go home. Yoongi and I will follow you home. Taehyung, Hoseok, trail them to see where they’re heading.”

Hoseok shook his head furiously and said with a shaking voice, “No, no, nonononono we don’t have to do that. They’re probably not going anywhere, we can just go home and forget about it.”

Catalina looked at him with concern.

“Do you know those guys?” Yoongi asked.

“What?” Hoseok laughed the fakest, most nervous laugh Catalina’s ever heard. “No! Why would I know them? Let’s just take the humans home and forget about it!”

“Now, wait just a second!” Jungkook said, pushing past Taehyung and putting his hands on his hips. “Don’t we get a say in this?”

“No,” all four vampires said simultaneously.

“But there’s a mystery afoot!” Jungkook said. “They were sus!”

“Not a mystery for you,” said Namjoon. “We’re taking you home.”

“Yeah, I think I’m okay with just going home,” said Jimin, putting a hand on Jungkook’s shoulder. “This seems like too much for us.”

That was how Catalina found herself back in the passenger seat of Jungkook’s car with Jimin and Namjoon in the back seat. The BMW followed closely behind, the Jeep behind the BMW.

“Who do you think those people were?” asked Jungkook. His hair was drying, curling slightly at the ends. Catalina resisted the urge to run her hands through it.

“No idea,” said Namjoon. “I’ve never seen them before. There’s not many vampires this far south, so maybe they’re travelers? Or maybe they’re just new to town…”

“This is south?” said Catalina.

“Most vampire communities are farther north, like Canada and Northern Europe. Less sunlight.”

“What about Russia?” asked Jungkook.

“Russia is just as bad as France,” Namjoon spat the word “France” like the country had personally insulted his mother. “No one lives there. Anyway, they probably won’t hurt you since they saw you with us, but you guys should still be careful,” said Namjoon.

“Sure, whatever you say, mom,” said Catalina with a cackle. Namjoon didn’t look amused. “I’m kidding. I definitely don’t want to be their meal.”

They drove in silence for a while.

“Whose car is the Jeep?” asked Catalina. “Is it yours?”

Namjoon smiled and said, “No, it’s Hoseok’s. Taehyung bought it for him for his birthday last year, but Hoseok picked it out.”

“Are you guys all crazy rich? Like, the stereotypical vampires coming from royalty or whatever?” Jungkook asked. Catalina remembered what Hoseok told her at game night.

Namjoon laughed. “Yoongi actually did come from royalty, but not the rest of us. We’re just old enough to accumulate wealth.”

“Ah, to be old enough to accumulate wealth,” Catalina said with a dramatic sigh, fluttering her lashes at him, which pulled a laugh out the whole car.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Caleb waited for what felt like forever for something to change. He felt tired and cold all the time. The men came by every day to drop off some food and water, and then the needle went in for a while. Caleb hated that the most because it meant he’d get even more tired and cold. He didn’t even care about the needle prick anymore. The door was always closed, but Caleb remembered when he first came there, some of the doors were open. He wondered if he became too tired to move much, if they’d keep his door open. He would at least like to see what was happening outside of the little cement room.

One day, the door opened and some men set up another bed and blood bag stand on the other side of the room. Then the blonde woman came in. She was holding a lady in her arms, whom she laid down on the other bed. The lady was asleep. Caleb kept quiet as the blonde woman attached a needle to the lady’s arm, then left, closing the door behind her.

Caleb got off of his own bed and approached the sleeping lady. It was a bit difficult to move, he kind of felt like he was moving through molasses, something he heard his mom say once but never understood until now. The lady was pretty, she had dark skin and big curly hair. Caleb wanted to wake her up and warn her about what was going to happen to her, but when he shook her shoulder, she just twitched and stayed asleep. The men must’ve given her the sleepy water. They gave Caleb the sleepy water one day when he tried to pull the needle out and run away. He knew not to do that again, because the headache he had after he woke up was the worst pain he’d ever felt.

Even though the sleeping lady wouldn’t wake up, Caleb was glad to have a new roommate. And he was glad she was an adult. Maybe she could help him escape and get back to his parents.

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the-wlw-cafe · 4 years

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Supercorptober 2020 - Day 3: Dancing

Read it on ao3 here!

“May I have this dance?” For several moments, Lena was sure she must have misheard. The voice clearly belonged to a woman, a woman asking her to dance, in front of the entire assembled bourgeoisie of National City. A madwoman, clearly – such things were unheard of, and if the involved parties wanted to be able to show their face again among the nobility, they were to be kept that way.

Lena gets whisked away by a dashing stranger who asks too many questions. But it takes two to tango, and Lena is determined to show this stranger that she knows the steps just as well as her.

The masks truly afforded nothing but the barest pretence of anonymity. Lena could easily make out her brother, donning the mask of a snarling golden dragon in his incomparable ego, surrounding himself with the easily impressed and delighting in their awe and gawking as he presented them with tales of his daring conquest of Krypton, and all the treasure and wondrous inventions found in the ransacked cities. Even more apparent was Morgan Edge, whom she identified in a matter of minutes by the way he couldn’t wrench his eyes away from her cleavage for three consecutive seconds. Still, the invited to the annual masquerade ball conducted themselves with the self-assured gracelessness of men and women absolutely convinced none of their behaviour could ever be traced back to them.

Lex, their gracious host for the evening, had often told her she would learn to enjoy these balls soon enough, but while it was entertaining to watch the National City nobility make fools of themselves as wine flowed in biblical quantities, Lena quickly found herself bored of trading empty platitudes and trying to dodge the wandering hands of rich old men emboldened by alcohol or her brother’s sycophants tripping over themselves to praise his warmongering and genocidal exploits beyond the border in hopes of ingratiating themselves with the Luthors. With the years she’d developed a strategy in avoiding such situations, and it consisted mostly of always making herself seem as inapproachable as humanly possible, adding an aggressive snap to her steps as if she was continuously running late for something, venom to her words and disdain to her voice. It was not a mask she enjoyed wearing, but one necessary nonetheless.

Unfortunately Edge was not so easy to deter. She could see him stalking towards her, palms open in what he must have believed was an appeasing gesture. She began scanning the room for a quick route of egress, but found every way blocked by chattering groups of drunks, when suddenly -

“May I have this dance?”

For several moments, Lena was sure she must have misheard. The voice clearly belonged to a woman, a woman asking her to dance, in front of the entire assembled bourgeoisie of National City. A madwoman, clearly – such things were unheard of, and if the involved parties wanted to be able to show their face again among the nobility, they were to be kept that way. Still, she had to admire the woman’s bravery. It’s not like she hadn’t dreamt about it when she was younger and more naive, in the contrary, she’d spent many nights wishing herself away from a family, imagining a dashing girl to whisk her away into an adventure. But those idle dreams were for children, and Lena had long since accepted that the closest thing to love she could attain were quick fumblings in backrooms and dark hallways. It was a reality of life – a reality that the stranger apparently couldn’t yet accept.

Though she doubted he’d heard a word of what she said, the madwoman’s arrival had given Edge pause, but out of the corner of her eye she could see him pick up the pace towards her again, and in this moment, Lena was ready for any excuse to be out of his reach.

“Absolutely, I insist”, she answered, and let herself be lead to the dance floor. The music was barely audible over the laughter and conversations, most couples long since having abandoned dancing for a walk in the gardens, and the almost inevitably following roll in the hay. The woman started softly swaying them to the rhythm of the music, not especially gracefully, but Lena had seen far worse from her peers.

Now that the immediate danger of Edge accosting her had been staved off, Lena allowed herself her first look at her saviour. She immediately knew she’d never seen her before – masked or not, she was sure she would never forget a personality such as hers. Fittingly for someone as foolishly courageous, she had chosen the mask of a lion, long blond hair framing it perfectly like a mane. Even more perplexing (and, if Lena was honest with herself, alluring) was the fact that she had forgone a dress in favour of a simple, yet elegant frock coat with red and golden accents. Lena bit back a smile as she felt the lioness preen under Lena’s slow appraisal.

“My, my, aren’t you quite the scandal?”, she purred.

“I thought embracing scandal under the guise of anonymity was the whole point of a masquerade ball.”

Lena couldn’t hold back an airy laugh. “That much is true. Though I do greatly prefer your interpretation of scandal over the interpretations of the rest of the guests. So far, you haven’t even tried to touch my arse.”

The calm and collected veneer of her partner was immediately ruined as she reflexively dragged her hand a few inches higher from the perfectly tame spot on her back where it had been resting, leading Lena through the dance with nothing but the gentlest of pressure.

“I would never!” the lioness sputtered, honest affront at the mere notion tinting every syllable.

Lena cocked her head to the side, lost in thought.

“You truly wouldn’t”, she murmured, more to herself than to the blonde. Watching over her shoulder, she could see Lex, staring at her from across the room with barely concealed rage. Lena knew he could recognize her just as well as she could recognize him, and she hoped he could also sense her smirk under her black raven mask as she pulled her partner closer and quickened their steps, her lioness matching her tempo after just a moment of stumbling. After all the times her family had made sure she knew what a disgrace she was to the Luthor name, it was high time she, as the blonde had so precisely put it, embraced a little scandal.

The lioness spun them around once, and too late Lena noticed her partner surreptitiously following the direction of her gaze to where Lex was still watching them, the wine glass in his hand now shaking with fury.

“It seems that Lord Luthor has taken quite an interest in you”, she stated.

Lena could feel herself tense at these words, suspicion worming its way through the sense of safety she’d felt with the stranger.

“How did you know it was him?”

“Who else would move with such self-importance and display his wealth so publicly than our gracious host? And”, she added, a smug smile evident in her voice, “if it wasn’t him, why would you have reacted so strongly?”

Lena could kick herself for giving herself away so easily. She didn’t give the stranger the satisfaction of an answer, partly out of pride, and partly to choose her next words carefully as to not repeat her mistake.

“All of which makes me wonder”, the blonde concluded, “who you are to have vexed him so?”

She punctuated her statement by dropping Lena into a dip that had her heart stutter and breath hitch, held up only by one single, strong, secure hand between her shoulder blades. She swallowed, as her throat had suddenly gone very dry.

“Only moments ago it was you who was lecturing me on the advantages of anonymity”, she replied, clasping the other woman’s upper arm to regain some sense of stability. As her fingers brushed the fabric of her frock coat, she came upon something strange: She noticed a seam at the shoulder coming apart. No true noblewoman would wear clothes old or shoddily crafted enough to rip during a social gathering. Now that she was paying attention to it, there were more and more irregularities that caught her eye. The coat was slightly ill-fitting, the buttons straining just the tiniest bit against the lioness’ broad chest, and the rim of her mask was chipped just below the jaw.

“It seems we both have something to gain from it”, Lena teased, wrapping the loose thread around her finger and ripping it off with one abrupt motion, making sure her partner knew she knew.

“It seems we both have something to hide”, the woman acquiesced. Lena snorted.

“I’m a woman who enjoys dancing with other women, what don’t I have to hide?”

“You enjoy dancing with me?”

That much was obvious. It was no use beating around the bush, and while she wasn’t certain whether the racing of her pulse was owed more to the company she found herself in or the fact that her partner seemed entirely to perceptive for comfort, or, as was most likely the case, a mixture of the two, she liked it. She liked their little cat and mouse game, she wanted to see how far it could go, where it could lead them.

“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have given you the time of the day”, she whispered, making sure to brush her hand over the slight swell of the lioness’ biceps and delighting in the way she audibly swallowed and missed a step in their dance.

“I’m honoured”, her partner murmured, unmistakable arousal adding a deep timbre to her voice.

“As you should be”, Lena smirked, wrapping a leg around her waist and trusting that the lioness’ strong arms would keep her balanced. In their next breakneck spin she caught another quick glance at Lex, but this time he wasn’t alone. He was bent over to none other than Edge, who was very obviously pointing at them while ranting about something. As soon as they noticed her watching them they got up, moving quickly toward her. Shit. She needed to get out of here, fast. She leaned in close to her partner.

“Would you like me to show you the gardens?”

It was an obvious code phrase. Being shown the gardens might have been the express goal in attending the ball for a lot of the attendees, but Lena was willing to bet none of them were botanical enthusiasts. She had no intention of following through with her bold promise, while she enjoyed the chase, she didn’t like the thought of baring herself to this total stranger with a knack for asking too many questions, in every sense of the word. She didn’t fear the lioness wouldn’t take no for an answer, despite her obvious interest. But to her surprise, her partner took a step back, a few hand widths of distance between their chests that previously had almost been touching.

“I...I don’t think that would be a good idea”, she said, adamantly refusing to meet her gaze.

Objectively, Lena knew that her refusal didn’t really matter, not when the offer she made wasn’t even genuine, but the obvious rejection still felt like someone had doused her with a bucket of icy water.

“Thank you for the dance”, the lioness added, her voice strangely hoarse, bowed stiffly and turned to leave.

“Wait!”

Lena hadn’t meant to exclaim so loudly, several people turning their heads towards her made her insides churn with embarrassment. She took the lioness by the hand and pulling her close, making a show of caressing her cheek for the onlookers before leaning in once more and whispering in her ear: “Our gracious host after me.” She swallowed her pride like a bitter pill and added: “Please.”

The lioness stood there for a second, frozen, before a steady hand found the small of Lena’s back.

“Lead the way.”

She took the lioness by the hand and together they dodged and weaved through the masses, most of them readily making space after the scene they’d made. It was dark outside, here and there the muffled noises of amorous couples were audible through the song of the cicadas. She tugged her onwards, into the bushes that framed the pebble paths where they ducked down into the shadows, waiting. They saw Lex emerge, stalking along the paths like a featherless vulture, but Lena was sure he would not venture too deep into the gardens. Sure, there was no telling what retribution awaited Lena tomorrow, for potentially bringing dishonour on the entire Luthor family for her public dalliance with this stranger that defied all notions of etiquette and morality, but in this moment, huddled together with her lioness, painfully aware of the fact that she had not yet let go of her hand, she found that she only regret she had was not being able to see her brother’s face.

“Well”, she giggled (giggled! She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done that), once she was sure Lex was gone, “Look at you, a perfect stranger whisking me away to an adventure. I must say, I’ve never had this much excitement at one of these odious balls.”

Her lioness was quiet for a while, and anxiety began to rear its ugly head in Lena’s mind as she began fretting over whether she’d been too familiar. Then, the other woman heaved a sigh so great Lena could see her deflate.

“Lena…”

It didn’t come as a shock to her, not really. She knew the lioness was perceptive and intelligent, on some level she’d suspected she knew of her identity. The thought of a stranger knowing her name while she knew nothing, nothing at all about her in return still made her queasy with unease.

“You know my name.” It wasn’t a question.

“You know I don’t belong here.”

“So I suppose we are at an impassé?”

The lioness was silent for a few more seconds, then she spoke again:

“Lena, my intentions with you haven’t been...honest. My sister will have my head for telling you this, but, the truth is that I infiltrated the ball with one goal in mind: I wanted to confront your brother, and…”

Her fingers slipped out of Lena’s, and instead she took hold of her shoulders, as if she was imploring her, begging for something – mercy, forgiveness, anything that had never been Lena’s to give.

“Lena, I wanted to kill him.”

So she was a madwoman after all.

“Have you lost your mind?” she hissed, still mindful of whoever might be out there overhearing this conversation they’d both be executed for. Lena doubted Lex would shed a tear, after tonight, he might in fact be glad for the excuse.

The reaction of the lioness was instantaneous, recoiling as if Lena’s skin had burned her, hands that had been clawing at her gown dropping limply at her sides.

“In front of National City’s entire upper class? You’d be dragged off to jail before you’d even cleaned the blade of his blood! Don’t think you’d be seeing any mercy from them, they all profiteer off of his warmongering! You’d be lucky if you’d even get as much as a mock trial, instead of being murdered before you’d get the chance to see the light of day again -”

“I don’t care!”

Stunned silence was her answer. She’d shouted the words with such conviction, with such disregard to her own fate. Even in her darkest moments there’d always been a voice inside Lena that had forced her to carry on, if not for her own sake or for the dwindling hope of better days, then just out of pure spite.

“I don’t care”, the lioness said again, all the fire having left her voice, looking so incredibly small now. “He took everything from me. I don’t care what it takes, I need to make sure he can’t hurt anyone else. When I asked you to dance tonight, it was for the sole purpose of getting closer to him, closer to my goal, but when you accepted...I forgot everything else for just a few minutes.”

Muffled sniffles were audible under the blonde’s mask now, and Lena felt the sudden urge to reach out to her, to comfort her.

“And a part of me resents you for it because this, us, is something I desperately want but I know I can never truly have. As long as he is still alive I know I can never be at peace.”

“It sounds like we have a common enemy then”, Lena said, with as secure a voice as she could muster.

“Lena, you can’t possibly -”

“Mean that? The Luthors have tormented me since my father forced them to take me in. But that hardly matters. Don’t you see this is bigger than just Lex? Every single person you’ve seen donning a mask today have a vested interest in continuing his conquest, even if he isn’t their figurehead anymore. You could – we could change everything, together, if you don’t throw away your shot with one rash decision tonight.”

“You’d be hunted. Your life would never return back to normal.”

“Good. I hope so. This entire time I’ve waited for some opportunity, for someone to take my hand and lead me, when in reality all I needed to do was take the plunge.”

Another silence stretched on, and Lena’s competitive side couldn’t help but feel a little pride at the fact that this time it was her who had stunned the other woman. Then, quietly at first, she started to laugh, until her entire frame was shaking.

“My sister is definitely going to kill me”, she managed between sobs of laughter. Then, in one fluid movement, she pulled the mask from her face, a cascade of blonde hair framing a face more beautiful than any other Lena had seen, blue eyes glimmering with tears of both sorrow and laughter holding her stare.

“My name is Kara Zor-El, and I am the last daughter of Krypton.”

#supercorptober 2020 #supercorp #kara danvers #lena luthor #supercorp fanfic #3 for 3 this dyke can't be stopped #[insert crude joke about not liking balls here]#please reblog if you like uwu

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omegangrins · 4 years

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A Treatise On the Doctor

I don't know how to start this. Because I think of Peter Capaldi's words when he said that the only thing required to be a Doctor Who fan, is kindness.

I like 13 and think Chibnall is doing his best job writing the show.

So I struggle to write this because I am engaging against that very unkindness in the Doctor Who fandom, and trying very hard not to be angry back. "Allways try to be nice but never fail to be kind." But I've begun to wonder more and more if those who speak so loudly against the show really know what the show itself is about.

Enough of talking about other people though, cause frankly they're only important as set-up for this conversation. And again, I'm working kind.

So here's what you're gonna learn from this lifelong fan (and the best Tl;dr you're gonna get):

1. The Doctor sucks. From the very beginning. People complain about character traits now that have been around as long as the show.

2. Due to the Doctor's suckage, they tend to do more harm than good. (And because of this, most of the Doctor's "friends" along the way have been, well, let's leave it at the air quotes for now cause it's a damn big list of "BOOOO!!!".)

3. All of the showrunners and writers and actors and editors and everyone else has allways knows this and has played it this way.

4. And last but not least, since this is a time travel show. If you wanna know what and why stuff is happening now, look it up. Everything that happened before is allways in play.

5. None of this is bad, and in fact, it makes the show morally grayer. It's about kindness at all costs. Even your own.

A. First things first, the hard thing. The Doctor is not grrrreat. I mean, sure they try, but they fail a lot more often. In Extremis, a majority of those fatality index counts come from people the Doctor failed to save. That's why it's worded so specifically as "cause of death". All the death's caused by the Doctor's very interaction with time and lack of saving those around them. And part of it's not their fault, but more often than not, the Doctor says I can save you, and can't, won't, or chooses not to.

And that would be alright, but it took them over 1000 years to realize they should start letting their companions lead lives outside of theirs so THEY DON'T DIE. A bit too long as someone who claims to be better.

Not to mention how many times the Doctor is dismissive of their companions and the people around them only to use them for their help and just bug off again. If they truly cared and wanted to help, they would stay and listen in between adventures. Their lifespan is near infinite anyway. What's a few extra Earth hours with some friends you made along the way. You know, maybe fix some of the psychological and emotional damage created by encountering things behind a human's original scope of reasoning. But nope, we gotta go adventure more, byyyyeee!!

So when people talk about these qualities in 13 in a negative aspect I have to laugh because I'm not sure if they understand the joke. Cause we're talking about an alien that grew up around a species calling themselves Time Lords. I try not to blame them too much for it. 1 had to learn how to be hospitable to humans and it's been a bit of a slow learning curve ever since.

B. After the Doctor survived the horrors of the Time War and happened upon a human companion they felt worth connecting to, what did they do? They took Rose to watch her planet burn in front of her eyes. Great, first date, amirite?

And that's a little bit of companion damage. Do you know that the Doctor is responsible for the almost complete genocide of the Silurian race across multiple occasions. I am legitimately surprised there are any left after all of the ones the Doctor has killed. Like before, they cause destruction either purposefully or accidentally or simply by force of being there.

Remember before how I said that the Doctor just flies away. Yeah, they leave a lot of problems behind when they do (something that I can see Chibnall is planting the seeds of). If you had a time and space machine and practically unlimited capabilities and you choose to just leave after a situation and not check up on them from time to or see if there are any other underlying crises to be solved. But oh no, "gotta follow that rule of time and keep going even though I stopped in the first place because of how interested I was.". This is why 9 has a great arc about this. He thought he killed all the Daleks. They came back. He thought he'd gotten rid of the Slitheen. They came back. He thought he saved Satellite 5 from aliens. But opsies, they came back. And look! They're Daleks. Which he "finally" got rid of.

The Doctor just bounces around all carefree and without an ounce of care for themselves, their companions or consequences unless there's consequences for themselves or their companions. Then they get indignant.

Is that really kind of the person you want flying around fixing things in time and space? Who knows. But at least they are trying. Most of the time the T.A.R.D.I.S. lands somewhere and the authority figures are the most pretentious bull-headed pigs you can find. To me, I laugh cause it seems like both sides end up getting a taste of their own medicine. Usually with the bull charging to death in a sad glory while the Doctor wiles on metaphorically about not being as good as them.

But again, as a "superior" alien with "advanced" technology and "culture" you'd think they'd just know better already. But that's all part of the character. The Doctor may be in flux, but true change is difficult. The real hero of every story is the other people BESIDES the Doctor.

Cause the title is Doctor *Who* . The Who being half of the title, despite having less letters. It's the constant question of "What and why and who is that crazy person that's trying to help?" Why do you think they keep flying back to Earth? (Besides set construction reasons.) They've grown as attached to us as we have to them. And at this point, a lot of their saving us is guilt and embarrassment at having a hand in our timeline.

This is also the same reason the Doctor dumps companions in a fluff. Baggage. Every time a companion gets too heavy to carry the memories of... off they fly.

Except for 13. She's stayed. To this end, we can see how the Doctor changes. Not on our smaller, human timelines, but on the timeline of a god with way too much power.

D. With that in mind, we go Classic. It's the Who you need to consult if you wish to make any critique on what's happening now. Because how can you know how a part operates inside of a whole without seeing the whole part?

Cause I don't know if you've watched it but it can be rough, and I don't mean in the sense of production value (which admittedly they do a fairly decent job of using what money they had. A problem the BBC plagues to Doctor Who to this day.). The 3rd Doctor shits on every one they call friends constantly and then turns around expecting help. 4 did the same. Then 5 masked that contempt with a plucky face and a cheeky word. But it was still there, bubbling out of 6 and 7 as the inability to suffer fools gladly and using their own righteousness to enact change in their companions. A trait that kept going til an entire war and regeneration was used solving the question of "Doctor Who?" Only for them to try and forget twice more by putting on their pretty grinning faces and running away from it.

And I'm only talking from a companion perspective. Each of the Doctors has enacted their own form of genocide on countless species. Sure, it's to "save humans" but at the end of the day you'd have to ask yourself if we're really worth that blood. And this is all in the Doctor's history. As much as they claim better, they're hands are still gushing red.

The Doctor left Jo because she fell in love. They drove Adric to put their life on the line in order to feel adequate. The entirety of the Silurian race has been wiped out fivefold under their watch, with one time by their hand itself. Same for several other singular and unique species you won't be able to find elsewhere in the universe. 7 used time travel to enact a personality change in Ace while simultaneously using her as a pawn in an interdimensional war. The Time War itself. Sure it got erased but the Doctor still did those things ("War" Doctor or whatever nonsense titles they feel necessary to delude themselves). The entirety of Amy's childhood was destroyed by their presence, and Rory got erased. Twice! Sarah Kingdom. We know the list. Hell, the Doctor whisked Barbara and Ian away because they wanted to teach the snobby humans some lessons.

They may have a time machine, but we have the bill of their actions. This is where 13 excels. Because they're trying to be better than themselves. They've learnt the lessons of all those years traveling and the failures they wish they could reverse but don't as a way of keeping a scoreboard of pain. It's not perfect by any means, but look at 12 needing cue cards to understand and react to human grief under duress. They've come a helluva long way. After 50 years, I'm inclined to believe better. After all, it's what the Doctor would want.

E. You know how people like the ASOIAF series because it offers up morally complex characters existing in a morally complex world where black and white are harder to define than grey? Have you ever thought of Doctor Who as the same? Strip past the fairytale and adventure and "wibbly wobbly timey wimeyness and it's just people reacting to situations. We're just harder on the Doctor because they're hard on us. You could go round and round on who's the bigger killer, but at the end of the day Time Lords and humans fight and feel about the same things. It's allways been a joke to pretend otherwise.

That's why I love the Timeless Child. Not for making the Doctor anymore special but for saying that even despite having all of their specialness ripped away and repurposed to create a lie of a society then having the memory wiped of said event, the Doctor broke out of their mold, stole a TARDIS and told the Time Lords to fuck off. That's not a Captain America/Superman hero. That's Batman in space with a society of Lex Luthor's. Gotham and Gallifrey. The Doctor saw what they were a part of and broke free, without even knowing the more horrifying truth. Cause it's the thing I see many fans missing because they're so preocuppied with the Doctor being special. The thing that made the Doctor different was their ability to know the difference and walk away to find better. Now, the Doctor has a reason to go back and find out why they never stopped running.

The Time Lords might be the greatest monsters in the universe. It is in the name. "Lords". Those who would lord over us and impose their will with a banthium fist.

And this is a children's show.

C the thing is, the people who made and make this show all collectively rail against one thing: Hate. Kindness is the way of Doctor's. Even if they're sawing off your leg, it's to do the kindness of saving your life. This is because the people who make this (United Kingdomers) have seen centuries of war and conflict and oppression enacted by their own country in the name of progress. And they want to see it no more. Look no further than any of the Doctor's adventures with UNIT. Allways advocating for peace and being ignored for the comfortable war-cry. It's why it's hard to blame the Doctor when we do very similar and often worse (though we don't have time travel.... yet). The creators of this show know better, see better, and wrote better, to know that the powers that be nipped would nip their creations and sanitize them. So they wrote their messages so strong that you can feel them from the future. They're powerfull enough that even across eras they have all collectively moved me to write this.

That's another point I have to laugh at people saying Doctor Who has never been in your face about progressive politics. The Green Death. Survival. Trial of a Timelord (Yes, all of it. Sit down and power through.) The Happiness Patrol is one of my all time favorite episodes for going there in this regard. People may poo poo but history has its' eyes on you. Doctor Who loves taking potshots at the issues of the day. As long as you don't make the aliens black of course. Make them all the colors of the rainbow but never make them black. That'd be too on the nose (That's something they used to say back in the day! Crazy how far we've come).

So bravoa to Chibnall for continuing the legacy of Doctor Who. From where I'm standing, he's not doing anything different than any other showrunner before him. Cause if you want to argue canon, you at least have to know what created it. This show owes what it is to those Classic eras. And if you think Chibnall is shitting on those years and your childhood.... well, then why did you read this whole thing?

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hamliet · 5 years

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Disney Princesses as Strong Women: Pocahontas’s Power to Choose Her Path

That one Disney Princess movie without a happy ending.

As per my requisite disclaimer, there is absolutely room for (a lot of) legitimate criticism of Pocahontas, especially around its portrayal of culture, history, and race, and this is not going to invalidate any valid criticism of the film or of Pocahontas, but rather offer a different perspective on her film and specifically on Pocahontas as a Disney character in the Disney film, not as a real person.

Out of all the Disney films, though, I do want to add an extra disclaimer for Pocahontas. It has a lot of cringe-worthy and outright inaccurate and offensive racial portrayals. The song “Savages” in addition to having extremely racist terms used in it, equates Native Americans with the colonists, and while the message of the song would make sense in the Romeo and Juliet situation the film portrays it as, it does not work in the context of a real historical issue where there was a clear aggressively racist, genocidal, and plain morally wrong side (the colonists), especially when the oppression of Native Americans is still very much a thing. However, I want to focus this meta on Pocahontas’s fictional character within the film, because I think there’s a lot to like in terms of who she is. That being said, divorcing from context is hard, so there’s a tension there. If anything I say is insensitive, please let me know.

So Pocahontas opens with the colonizers setting sail from England with the song “Virginia Company,” which includes the lyrics:

For the New World is like heaven And we'll all be rich and free Or so we have been told By the Virginia Company So we have been told by the Virginia Company

The emphasis on “so we have been told” sets up one of the themes Pocahontas’s character exemplifies: the idea of choosing your path versus following lies and promises given by people who are probably motivated by their own selfish desires (Governor Radcliffe). The riches the song describes are, of course, not there, but the colonists follow the hope of it and wind up missing the forest for the trees. Essentially, Pocahontas encourages critical thinking and moving one’s concerns from just one’s own life to one’s place in the world.

The beginning also sets up John Smith as a foil to Pocahontas. From the very beginning, he’s fundamentally concerned about himself, constantly talking about his wants and adventures. In the song, “Mine,” which emphasizes the greed of the colonists, Smith, who has no interest in gold, chimes in “hundreds of dangers await/And I don’t plan to miss one!” He’s only thinking about his own desire for the next thrill, telling the other colonists that he’s “been to dozens of new worlds” and doubts this one will be unique, and comments that he expects the Native Americans to be basically the same as other people: “If they’re anything like the [people] I’ve fought before...” His perspective is entirely centered on himself: he views adventures and new lands and other people also as things for himself, instead of seeing himself as part of a whole world.

Pocahontas is a bit different, but she also struggles to learn responsibility throughout the film. It’s noted to Powhatan in his introduction (when he asks where his daughter is) that she “takes after her mother” and “goes wherever the wind takes her.” Cut to Pocahontas and Nakoma (a good friend, this movie miiiiight pass the Bechdel test? It’s kinda borderline), and Pocahontas jumps off a cliff. However, Meeko jumps after her and is terrified, symbolically warning that even though her freedom is not the selfishness of John Smith, her choices still affect others both positively and negatively at times as well, as we’ll see them affecting her father, Kocoum, Nakoma, and more.

Powhatan tells her "you are the daughter of the chief. It is time for you to take your place among the people," and gives her the necklace that belonged to her mother. Pocahontas is often compared to her mother: the first two scenes I mentioned, and Grandmother Willow also tells Pocahontas her mother once asked her the same question about what path to take in life. There is perhaps the suggestion that people are expecting Pocahontas to take her mother’s path, but as Grandmother Willow encourages, she has her own choices to make.

The answer, after all, as Grandmother Willow says, is to “listen.” Empathy and learning are paths to being able to make wise decisions, after all. This will be emphasized later when she begs her father to “try talking to [the colonists]” instead of resorting to war. Towards the climax of the film, Smith comments that the colonists won’t want to listen to reason because "everything about this land has them spooked." A creepy figure then appears, howling as if to emphasize his words--but it turns out to be Percy, Radcliffe’s dog, symbolizing that what’s really spooking the colonists is themselves.

When Smith and Pocahontas meet, he almost shoots her, and then falls in love with her, which is the story calling him out on the violence he previously bragged about.

When she runs, he tries to stop her from leaving by forcing her to stay via grabbing her canoe.

But Pocahontas is not having that. He tries to speak to her in English and they realize they can’t understand each other, so he offers her his hand--symbolic of listening. Notably after this the language issue goes away which again, don’t think too hard about it it’s a children’s story, but symbolically it seems to represent the idea that once they’re listening to each other, they can understand each other.

When Smith goes all White Savior on Pocahontas, claiming that “we'll show your people how to use this land properly... build houses” and Pocahontas points out their houses are just fine, he patronizing counters “you think that your houses are fine only because you don't know any better." And she leaves. Pocahontas is not here for your racist patronization instead of listening to her. They then launch into “Colors of the Wind,” with its fitting lyrics about how they all have a place in the world, but it’s essentially not all about them and encourages respect for “every rock and tree and creature.” You desires matter, but so do other people’s.

When she says she has to go because she can hear the drums signifying that her people are in trouble, the exact same scene as their first meeting plays out, except this time he lets her leave instead of trying to stop her. He lets her make her own choices.

When Pocahontas starts spending more and more time with John Smith, Kocoum warns Nakoma “tell her not to run of... she listens to you.” In response Nakoma snorts and says, “Sure she does,” because well, Pocahontas doesn’t, and she doesn’t tell her best friend what’s going on until it’s too late. This leads to tragedy when Nakoma tries to help her by sending Kocoum to help her because she worries for her friend’s safety, and Kocoum is killed. As he dies, he tears Pocahontas’s necklace from her neck, symbolically threatening to tear her connection with her mother’s free path.

And yet John Smith is unquestionably the one more at fault for bringing about the tragedy. Radcliffe tells an impressionable Thomas that “a man's not a man unless he learns how to shoot.” Oh hey white America hasn’t changed at all.

Smith then gives him advice, teaching him how to shoot from his presumably many experiences shooting...

...but Thomas then uses the gun to save Smith but kill Kocoum.

Smith then takes the blame for Thomas, sacrificing himself for a kid who’s really naive and was only trying to follow in the footsteps of Smith, his idol. And Pocahontas then throws herself onto Smith, protecting him at the risk of her own life as well. As she runs to save him, she sings “I don’t t know what I can do/Still i know I've got to try" jumping over a gap between two rocks because symbolism.

This shows Pocahontas growing, taking responsibility for what is about to happen to Smith. They stop the war, but Smith is shot because he again realizes that he should take responsibility because he’s the one who came here in the first place (and the... smokescreen... reason the colonists were marching on them) and jumps in front of Powhatan to save him.

He asks Pocahontas to return with him. Her father gives her his blessing to do so. But she turns him down, though she loves him, because she says, “my place is with my people.” But instead of having her path written for her, she has made her own choice, and she made it by listening. It was time she take her place among her people, but she needed to define that place herself, and listen to the world around her to arrive there, instead of simply acquiescing.

And so he leaves and cue a tragic ending, but for the children. But Pocahontas’s character has a lot of power and emphasis on growing up and what that entails: learning, listening, guidance, making mistakes and growing from them. I really like her character a lot, and it’s certainly one of the more thematically... realistic as opposed to optimistic Disney films.

Up next, one of my favorites: Esmeralda! Yes I know she isn’t technically a princess but to quote the Genie from Aladdin, she’s a prince[ss] to me, so I’m writing about her :P For previous entries in this series, see here:

Snow White’s Self-Esteem

Cinderella’s Courage and Compassion

Aurora’s Autonomy

Ariel’s Adventurous Spirit

Belle’s Bravery (and Boundaries)

Jasmine’s Justice

#disney meta #disney princesses #pocahontas #john smith #racism tw

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archetype-online-blog · 5 years

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Archetype’s Great Choose Your Own Villain Adventure

You’ve finally done it — you have written an amazing hero.

She has all of your own best traits: kindness, bravery, stubbornness, cute glasses. You don’t know if you want to be her or marry her. Readers will see themselves in her and dress to match her style. Critics will fear her. And best of all, she is wholly, undeniably, ready carrying the weight of your complex plot.

But now you need to craft your antagonist. And this fellow really needs to measure up.

Don’t worry, though—in this post, we’ll break down some of the many tools you can turn to when creating someone to foil your protagonist’s plans.

Just how bad is bad?

A. An Evil Villain? This villain has no morals, or if she does, she buried them deep down a long time ago. She’ll sacrifice her family, friends, and everyone’s free will for eternal beauty, unlimited power, or world domination. Think the Evil Queen from Snow White or Sauron from Lord of the Rings.

B. A Disgruntled Opponent? This villain's had a lifelong streak of bad luck. His parents were killed by someone eerily similar to the hero, global warming flooded his lair last week, and the hero spilled coffee on his pants while saving a cat from a tree this morning. Really, all he wants is a nap—if he has to chain up a few good guys for some peace and quiet, it’s no more than he deserves. Think Luke Castellan from the Percy Jackson series.

C. A Good Person with Questionable Goals? Rational people presented with the same situation won’t always agree, because at the end of the day all people, even equally good people, have different values and morals. If your hero wants to flip the switch and save five people on the train track but your antagonist doesn’t think the one man on the other side should die, you’re probably going for this dynamic. This is Captain America: Civil War through and through.

Just how serious are they?

A. Funny and exaggerated? A villain like this is there to put a wrench in your hero’s plans (and probably provide lots of comic relief), but not seriously threaten anyone with bodily harm. They may think they’re irredeemable and say they couldn’t care less about another person, but they’re either confused or wildly incompetent. Think about it: nobody believes Dr. Doofenshmirtz is going to do anything more than mildly inconvenience them.

B. Menacing and exaggerated? Your villain shoots lasers out of their eyes. Their knuckles are embedded with knives. One whiff of their breath causes paralysis. One word from their mouth has civilians leaping off cliffs. They wear only black, and their evil lair says “Evil Lair” on the front door. They also probably have a lot of henchpeople. Basically, everything about them screams Bad Guy, to the point where it’s definitely not realistic. A good example is Gru from Despicable Me.

C. Spookily realistic to the point of goosebumps? The world is a scary place, and sometimes it’s important to represent that in your work. Antagonists can be made all the worse by the fact that they’re just regular people doing reprehensible, unforgivable things. Think Frollo in Hunchback of Notre Dame or Mother Gothel in Tangled—attempted sexual assault and child abuse are no joke.

Was your antagonist …

A. Brought into being because of the actions of your hero? Some villains might have been a cashier down at the 7-Eleven if it wasn’t for that chance encounter with your hero all those years ago. Now, though, they’ve sworn to get revenge for their slighted pride—stupid heroes and their ego, right? Buddy Pine, AKA Syndrome from The Incredibles, is a great example of this.

B. Morally transformed by a dramatic life event? Sometimes good people do bad things when they’re under a lot of stress, especially if they’ve been traumatized. Have they been forced to make an impossible choice with consequences that haunt them? Tortured because they were good? Watched their family die? Depending on who you ask, the Punisher falls into this category.

C. Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons? Sure, your antagonist stole the diamonds and fired a warning shot at the reception outside the gala, but the real baddie is holding her wife hostage at home. Your hero would have done the same thing—right? Think the origin story of the Hook-Handed Man from A Series of Unfortunate Events, or Killmonger from Black Panther.

On a related note, does your antagonist …

A. Have a history with your hero? In many cases, the protagonist and the antagonist go way back. Maybe they were once friends (this has tons of potential—do they know each other’s weaknesses? Have certain pet peeves they’ve sworn never to exploit?), or maybe they’ve just fought about this issue many times before. Have they dated? Were their parents friends? Think Catra from Netflix’s She-Ra reboot.

B. Fear your hero’s reputation? This antagonist knows your hero is coming, and as much as he tries to deny it, he knows he’s not ready. Maybe there’s a prophecy. Maybe the hero just has a really good PR team. Either way, the villain is going to try to shoot first—and if he misses, he probably won’t get another chance. Voldemort.

C. Have no interest in your hero whatsoever — the hero wants to stop them, but they don’t think the hero is a threat. There’s always a chance, though, that your villain doesn’t even think your hero is worth the time of day. Maybe they’ve heard of him, maybe they haven’t—what does it matter when they’re not going to be stopped either way? This villain feels toward your hero what Irene Adler feels toward Sherlock Holmes—totally unbothered, and maybe occasionally amused.

Other fun questions to ask:

Do they have a sidekick? Why does that sidekick serve them?

Do they have an accent? Is it real or for effect?

Do they have powers? Do they wish they did?

Do they have a color scheme?

Does something dramatic happen every time they come into the room (lightning strikes, mirrors crack, a woman screams, etc.)

If left in the room with a wailing baby, how would they handle it?

If left in the room with a barking dog, would they handle that differently?

What are they afraid of?

Things to be cautious of:

Excusing appalling behavior via redemption.

Some things are just inexcusable—or at least, they should be, if we don’t want to contribute to the negative energy out there in the world. So ask yourself … has your antagonist beaten their wife? Sexually abused someone? Harmed children? Acted extremely racist? Gleefully supported fascism? Brutally killed their own father in cold blood?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, think really carefully before planning a redemption arc.

If you want your villain to turn to the good side by the end, they can still do villainous things. They can lie, they can betray those who are close to them, they can plot world domination, they can even kill. But there are lines you probably can’t let them cross if you don’t want them to be hated by your other characters for all eternity. Let’s put it this way—Aladdin, whose worst crime is stealing bread, is redeemable. Loki, who was supposedly being mind-controlled during the first Avengers film, is questionable. Hannibal Lecter, who eats people, is a lost cause.

A really, really phenomenal example of a villain doing sometimes-okay things and yet not being excused for his misdeeds is Count Olaf from A Series of Unfortunate Events—both the books and the Netflix series. There are genuine, emotional reasons he’s a terrible person, and he even does halfway decent things every once in a while. And yet, he’s not forgiven by the characters or the narrative, and he’s treated as the villain he is until the bitter end. Actually, A Series of Unfortunate Events is great at this all around:

Charles: You have to understand, he had a very terrible childhood. Klaus: I understand. I’m having a very terrible childhood right now.

A less great example is Severus Snape from Harry Potter. When it’s revealed that he loved Lily and occasionally didn’t have it out for Harry by the very end of Deathly Hallows, it’s like the narrative wants us to forget about his bullying, bigotry, attempted genocide, child abuse, pet-murdering, deception, and every other foul thing he gets up to for thousands of pages.

Queer coding. There’s this thing Disney does that you might be familiar with. Let’s pick a few examples and see if you can pinpoint it.

Simba vs. Scar

Hercules vs. Hades

John Smith vs. Governor Ratcliffe

Ariel vs. Ursula

That’s right—male villains tend to be more effeminate and delicate than their tough heroic counterparts, and female villains are hell-bent on corrupting sweet, innocent princesses. Even if the characters themselves aren’t meant to be read as gay—even if they don’t appear gay at all, aside from the coded traits—there’s a history of this being used to reinforce negative stereotypes.

That’s not to say that you can’t have gay villains—make everyone LGBT+, if you want. Goodness knows there are enough straight characters out there to last several lifetimes. But if only the villains are gay, and all the heroes are straight, you’re getting into the dangerous territory of suggesting that the traits that villains have are traits that only gay people have, and vice versa.

The same thing applies to race—if all your antagonists are black or Asian or Jewish or Romani and all your heroes are white, what does that say about how your readers should view good and evil? And if all your villains are disabled or mentally ill and your heroes are able-bodied, might you end up spreading the wrong message?

Writing diverse stories is amazing and so, so worth it! But it’s definitely going to take extra sensitivity and care—so make sure you’re fully committed, or you risk doing more harm than good in the end.

Questions? Concerns? Send us your thoughts at [email protected] or leave us a comment!

#archetypeonline #genre fiction #blog post #antagonists #short stories #young writers #science fiction #fantasy #bad guys #character development

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konigsfaerie · 5 years

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A year ago you lost The Doctor. A year ago you thought The Doctor was dead. A year ago he kissed you. But now a year has went by and he has a new, older face. Does he still have the same feelings he did a year ago?

You peek out from behind a burgundy curtain, viewing the crowd of at least 500 people. You take a deep breath and straighten out your white gown, your hand easing down your thigh. The last song of the night. It was a perfectly elegant affair of course, in celebration of an engagement. Did people really do this for a simple engagement? You knew these people were important -- politicians -- but shouldn’t this kind of thing be reserved for the wedding? They must have dropped tens of thousands of dollars on this.

You drew a sharp breath in, walking out to the crowd. As you step in front of the microphone, you exhale. People are clapping, excited to hear your voice again. All you ever do is perform nowadays. There would be nothing else to do.

There are jobs in space, but you don’t think you could stomach going on any other spaceship but the tardis. Office jobs, HR. If you talked to U.N.I.T. you’d have any job you wanted. Maybe even captain a ship of your own. But you, like The Doctor, weren’t one to call in favors.

Your voice had never failed you before, and The Doctor was the one that encouraged you to perform for the first time. You had always been scared, shy. Crowds freaked you out, but now you flourished in them.

As the music started, it flowed through you. The people who hired you didn’t want to hear any of your original songs, so you created your own playlist. Your own band that traveled with you looked to you, and gave a small smile of encouragement.

“Blue hydrangea, cold cash divine

Cashmere, cologne and white sunshine”

You looked out to the crowd once again. This was your favorite part. Their reactions to your voice. They stopped almost mid-sentence, putting their martinis down to watch you.

“Red racing cars, sunset and vine

The kids were young and pretty

Where have you been?

Where did you go?”

A gust of wind blew in, your gown flowing. You gripped the microphone, thinking about everything this song reminded you of.

“Those summer nights seem long ago

And so is the girl you used to call

The queen of New York City”

Your memory flashed back to the year 2059, New York City. Prohibition was a normalcy once again, and as you, The Doctor, and the biggest name in New York drank tequila out of the bottle, you watched The Doctor tip his head back to laugh at a joke he made. Detailing one of their adventures, of course.

“But if you send for me, you know I'll come

And if you call for me, you know I'll run

I'll run to you, I'll run to you

I'll run, run, run

I'll come to you, I'll come to you

I'll come, come, come

Oh-oh oh, oh-oh oh”

But it all got so bad so fast. The Daleks had come for you. The Doctor was already a target, but when you turned half of their race half human, they told you it was genocide. The Daleks were split right down the middle, and it was your fault. Two warrior races going to war with each other. The Doctor praised you for it of course, like he did when you did anything brave and stupid. But there was a price on both of your heads, and it didn’t help you were traveling with the archenemy of The Daleks.

“The power of youth is on my mind Sunsets, small town, I'm out of time”

Your voice rang out to the crowd, but your mind was elsewhere. One moment you were all tanned, browner than usual because you had spent a week in the Andaza mountains with The Doctor. You were in your happy place once again. With The Doctor. You could be in the mountains, on an alien planet with sugar for sand, back in your hometown or sitting in the tardis, it didn’t matter. Your happy place was him. He was home. Suddenly you went from leaning on the tardis console to being forced out of The Doctor’s spaceship.

“Will you still love me when I shine

From words but not from beauty”

You had asked where you were, but The Doctor was lost for words. “This can’t be real,” he muttered, a look of pure shock on his face. A look you had never seen before.

“My father's love was always strong

My mother's glamour lives on and on

Yet still inside, I felt alone

For reasons unknown to me”

You asked him repeatedly where we were because there was only one other time you were this scared. When you had both landed on Gallifrey when you both thought it was completely lost. That no one could ever come back.

“Are we on Gallifrey, Doctor?”

“But if you send for me, you know I'll come

And if you call for me, you know I'll run”

“No. Just the opposite. Skaro.”

His voice was shaking. The Doctor’s voice never shook. He looked at you with something in his eyes you had never seen before that day. “I might never get a chance -”

“Exterminate The Doctor and his companion!” Daleks voices sounded from all around, shouting orders.

The Doctor grabbed your waist, pulling him close to you. You couldn’t react before his lips met yours. It was rushed, but his lips didn’t slam against yours. It was soft. Passionate. But it was also a goodbye.

“Run! Run to the tardis, now!” he yelled, letting go of you. Your eyes widened as laser beams were shooting everywhere your eyes could see. You turned your back, running as fast as you could into those big blue doors. Why didn’t you grab his hand like you usually did?

“I'll run to you, I'll run to you

I'll run, run, run

I'll come to you, I'll come to you

I'll come, come, come

Oh-oh oh, oh-oh oh”

As you looked back, attempting to run to The Doctor to help him into the tardis, a beam shot through his stomach. You screamed in horror, about to run after him as he hit the floor when the tardis doors slammed shut and started dematerializing.

“And if you call I'll run, run, run

If you change your mind, I'll come, come, come

Oh-oh oh, ah-ah ah”

For a year now you hadn’t seen your Doctor. For a year you had been separated, and for a year you hadn’t stepped into the tardis. Every night you had slept there, you talked to her. Thanked her for getting you where you needed to go. For protecting both you and The Doctor when you needed it the most. But she wasn’t there that day. And you feared The Doctor was dead. You knew you had a part to play in that.

“Blue hydrangea, cold cash divine

Cashmere, cologne and hot sunshine”

A tear escaped your eye.

“Red racing cars, sunset and vine

And we were young and pretty”

As the crowd wildly clapped, blurting out compliments, you wiped your tear. “Thank you,” you said softly into the microphone.

You looked out into the crowd, watching each person your eyes landed on. You admittedly loved to do this. Even just going to the park, sitting on a bench, and summing each person up. You could usually tell what kind of job they had, if they were married, and if they enjoyed the kind of life they led. But then again, maybe you just liked to imagine.

Each one of these people were born into rich and successful families. But in this day and age that meant you had to give back. Nothing like when you were born. At least the tardis had the kindness to land you in a time where everyone wasn’t so greedy.

You gave a small smile and exited the stage to find a man with grey hair holding flowers. A bouquet of sunflowers and roses. Your favorite. How did he know that?

“Y/N.” His eyes flowed over your figure, then back up to your eyes. “You did amazing.”

“Uhm, do I know you?” You shifted onto one heel, your fingers moving around. It’s what they always did when you were nervous. Even though this felt like an ambush, there was something so familiar about him.

“Y-Yes.” By the look of him, you’d think I punched him in his soul. “I’m…

“Doctor,” you let out a gasp of shock and stepped back.

“I found you. Finally.”

You took the flowers from him, setting them down on the chair next to you and wrapping him in a tight hug. You couldn’t help the tears that escaped from your eyes. “A year, Doctor.” You finally let go of him. “How did you get back? I have the tardis.”

“Cheap and nasty time travel.” He gave you a small chuckle and showed you what was on his wrist. “Anything to get back to you.”

Four months later

By some miracle, The Doctor found you again. You had been traveling with him in the tardis for four months, and each adventure was more risky than the next. Just the way you two had liked it. You had been craving danger. No longer could you sit in your apartment and refresh Twitter for the thousandth time. You packed up all of your things within 20 minutes and headed into the tardis.

Four months goes by quickly even though you had savored each moment. You thought that the kiss had something attached to it, but you didn’t know anymore. Was it really just a goodbye? A spur of the moment thing? A mistake?

He had said nothing to you about it. No romantic notions had been said. There was only misadventures and new friends. Two of them being Vastra and Jenny. He had introduced them to you a few weeks ago while investigating a possible alien invasion. It was quiet, covered up. He told you that this would take you longer than usual. You had told him that you didn’t mind, Victorian London looked good on you.

You looked in the mirror, making sure your corset was tight enough. Madame Vastra appeared in front of the mirror and you smiled. She had a tendency to sneak up on you. “Hi, Vastra.” You grabbed the tube of lipstick, spreading it over your lips. It was only a shade lighter than your deep brown skin tone.

“You look simply a picture.” She smiled back into the mirror. “But I didn’t just come in here to compliment you. We need to talk.”

“Of course.” You turned around, leaning both hands on the vanity. “Is everything okay?”

She sat down on your bed, uncovering her veil. As you joined her, she began. “Am I right to assume you are in love with The Doctor?”

The question hit you like a ton of bricks. You tried to speak, but no words came out.

“That is all of the answer I need. You aren’t the first, you know,” she explained, tracing the circles on the bed spread then looking back up to you. “I say this only out of kindness, Y/N. But he is not in love with you, nor will he ever be. He is a 2,500 year-old Time Lord. For you, a year passes. For him, a minute. You age and he simply changes faces. He’s.. a tempting man. Brilliant. Attractive. Clever. But you are just a human. A human who has the privilege of traveling with him in his tardis. A human who ages at a rapid rate compared to a Time Lord. Do you understand?”

You could tell her intentions were pure as you looked up to Jenny standing behind her.

“You don’t think I know that, Vastra?” you asked, dumbfounded. “I know he is not in love with me. But he loves me. I’m the best friend he has. I’d sacrifice my life for him a million times over and he knows it. So does the tardis. That’s why she didn’t..” You shake your head. “It doesn’t matter. I know where I stand. I know I’m just a human. Him just being there, just giving me his attention is enough. But thank you for reminding me.” You grab your clutch purse and exit the room, walking out the large Victorian doors.

You knew everything she said was true, and you knew she wasn’t trying to be rude or unkind. But the words cut through you like a scorching hot knife. As far as the eye could see, multiple stagecoaches were going by, ladies were gossiping with each other or had a man on their arm. You couldn’t stand the sight of it, so you ran to the tardis.

You pulled out the tardis doors, running past the console, down the hallway and to your room. You flung off your dress, untied your corset and got out of the horrid shoes you had bought at the clothing emporium in town. You shrugged on the black crop top, overall shorts, and tied the black Adidas you had in your larger-than-life closet. A large sigh exited your mouth as you walked down two long hallways to get to the tardis library. A room The Doctor had only showed you four months ago. He had told you that Time Lords usually were only allowed in because of the things that had a residence there. But he trusted you.

You stepped onto the ladder, placing your hand on the wooden book shelf and pushing yourself down at least five feet to the fiction section of the library. All of The Doctor’s favorite books. You picked out a fantasy book that held magic, queens and romance. Then you carefully stepped down the ladder and sat on top of the huge wooden table.

200 pages in, you heard The Doctor’s voice.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yup. Reading.”

The Doctor walked over to you, softly taking the book away from you, getting your bookmark and closing the book. He sat it down on the table.

“Can I show you something?”

“Fine.”

He helped you off the table, walking you to the console room. “Look out of the tardis doors. But be careful. We’re in open space.”

You must have been so wrapped up in your book that you didn’t notice the tardis moving.

You saw something you had never seen before. Every night before bed, you look out space. Or you crawl up the highest building you can and watch the stars. But this was different. It was unexplainable. A million different chasms painted with yellow, blue and red.

“What’s that?” You pointed to five clusters of rocks slowly coming together.

“A planet. It’s just forming. And it will be beautiful. I’ll take you there soon.”

The sight before you was almost too breathtaking to realize how close The Doctor was to you. You could feel his breath, his hand softly touching your hip. He tightened his grip, turning you around.

“I kissed you. Before we lost each other.”

You tried to divert your eyes, but he was so close to you. “You talked to Vastra.”

“No. But I heard you and her talking.”

Your eyes widened, and as you turned away he grabbed your arms, making you face him. “I don’t just love you, Y/N. I’m in love with you. Vastra was wrong. A year without you isn’t a minute to me. It’s a lifetime. But when I kissed you… it was different.”

“H-How?”

“I wasn’t an old man.” Now it’s his eyes that fall.

“Are you really that foolish? To think that it would make a difference? Have you ever considered the fact that I don’t care how old you look? That maybe all I want is to be with you no matter the circumstances?”

He looked at you for a moment in wonder. “No.”

“Kiss me, Doctor. Please.”

In a matter of milliseconds, his lips were on yours, his hands pushing against your waist. It wasn’t rushed this time, but it was just as passionate. He was the only man you’ve ever kissed, but you imagine that it wouldn’t feel this way with just anyone. It felt like sparks through your body, like little butterfly kisses against your skin.

You didn’t want him to let go. And thankfully he never truly did.

#12 #12xreader #fanfic #sfw #dw fic #dw fanfic #dw #12th doctor #peter capaldi #self insert #12xyou #the doctorxreader #the doctor/reader #12/reader #tardis #my fic

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ladyloveandjustice · 7 years

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Summer 2017 Anime Overview: Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul and The Reflection

My classic anime overview posts are making a comeback! I watched 7 different anime in the Summer 2017, so we’ve got a lot to talk about- so much so that I’ll do a couple anime each post rather than just doing one giant post.

I fully believe in saving the best for last, so we’ll rank and review these anime in order from worst to best. Which means we’ll be starting with the anime I found the weakest out of what I watched this season. Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul and The Reflection. Are both of them bad anime? Or are they just not quite as a good as the other fare? Let’s dive in and find out!

Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul

Yep, this was easily the worst anime I watched this season. Not animation-wise, the art was very nice (though not quite as good as its prequel). But story-wise? WOW. It’s been a while since I’ve seen an anime- or a story period- end that badly.

And unlike a lot of people, I didn’t really come into this anime expecting much. Rage of Bahamut: Genesis, the first season, was a beautifully animated but incredibly shallow adventure romp with a messy ending that managed to be both cliche and nonsensical in how it fridged the main female character. It was fun for the most part, but also eyerollingly trope-y and sloppy storytelling wise, with fairly 2D characters. I came into this season expecting much the same. And for the first half-ish of the anime that was what I got. It certainly wasn’t well written, it was sexist, it was cliched, but it worked okay for what it was, which was a silly swords and sorcery story where you could just turn your brain off and enjoy the eye candy.

There wasn’t much to the characters, but they were pleasant and likable enough. Nina, the lead of the story, was just kinda dragged along by the plot and didn’t have much going on (her main conflict is that when she gets turned on by a dude she turns into a dragon yes i’m serious), but her gung-ho attitude made her fun to watch. There was also an wacky all-lady prison break midway through the show that was kinda awesome.

(I should note though, one of the characters is a very fantastical take on Jeanne D’Arc. And she’s portrayed as someone who sucks at fighting if she doesn’t have the gods on her side because women are weak or whatever I guess! She finds some fulfillment only when a god pulls a Virgin Mary on her and forcibly impregnates her with an angel son. After this, her whole character revolves around her son. I had a lot of problems with that for obvious reasons).

But then. OH BUT THEN. I thought the first season’s denouement and end was messy, but I HADN’T SEEN NOTHIN’. Not only was this ending horrendous, it managed to damage all the characters involved (except for the zombie girl, Rita, who is too cool to be ruined by anything) and even basically damage the first season. If I cared enough to go back and watch that season, this ending would make it a sour experience, basically, just from how thoroughly the plot and characters from that season were mangled by this follow-up. Nothing redeemable was left in its wake.

Basically the whole story was overtaken by one of the most poorly conceived love interests I’ve ever seen. Nina’s beloved, Charioce, was a super sexy dude who had a few tiny flaws, like how he’d, y’know, massacred an entire race and also slaughtered, enslaved and tortured yet ANOTHER race (even putting them in gladiator style death matches for entertainment) and unjustly imprisoned a literal saint of a woman and told her he was only keeping her alive so he could murder her small child in front of her.

But you see guys, he danced with Nina a couple times and is super hot and his mom’s dead which is sad so it’s okay that he did a little genocide, tried to kill all Nina’s friends (one of whom was ten) and threw her in jail. I’m serious. That was the shows logic. Turns out the reason for all this was it was some plan to unseal the dragon a character had been sacrificed to seal for the next hundred years in Genesis. (So he effectively rendered her death totally meaningless). He unsealed it just so he could kill it for good . The only explanation we get for his double dose of genocide was that ONE of the races has a superweapon he needed to kill a dragon. Yep, no explanation given as to why he needed to do kill all those beings or enslave them or put them in death matches or personally torment a woman who did nothing to him, but the show sure treated it like it explained everything and meant we were totally supposed to forgive AND feel sorry for this sexy, sexy tyrant.

(In the end, the genocide and slavery ends up being a footnote: everyone loves Charioce because he killed a dragon, the demons are being payed low wages instead of being enslaved so everything’s fine now, no justice for those who were slaughtered, no consequences for the oppressors, no reparations made, no word on whether the death camps and many other atrocities even stopped happening, nothing.)

Nina being in love with him damaged her irreparably as a character too, even though she was perfectly okay before that- it was just so infuriating that she could set aside all the people he killed and the fact he’d tormented her friends because he was a smexy dancer. I get what they were going for-a kind of starcrossed Disney ~love isn’t rational~ type thing. And “love isn’t rational” is just the laziest writing copout ever, I’m so sick of it.

You can sell a romance where one party has done horrible things and the other one loves them anyway if you have the writing skill. But in order to sell that romance as understandable, you need to make the audience like that character too. The character needs to be actually endearing and interesting in some way.That way when so-and-so is tormented about how she loves him despite the things he’s done, the audience is tormented for the same reason. But there was no reason for Nina to be hopelessly in love with Charioce. Dude had the personality of a wet paper towel- I don’t think he emoted once the entire anime, even when he was on the verge of death. He didn’t offer her any invaluable support or guidance to Nina either. Yet she at one point said she’d choose the ENTIRE WORLD over him if it came down to it. A guy she danced with like twice!

The worst thing about the Nina/Charioce romance is how a bunch of characters were literally sacrificed for it. One of the main characters of the show got himself killed shielding Charioce from those he had wronged, despite the fact Charioce had done absolutely nothing to warrant such devotion and said character didn’t even have a meaningful relationship with him. It was a comically anticlimatic death too, it was out of nowhere, the other characters barely emoted about it with even his supposed best friend basically shrugging it off.

The other person sacrificed solely to add drama to Nina and Charioce’s lurve was Nina’s ten year old friend, who was unceremoniously shanked from behind after being a major character for most of the season. It was so cruel and pointless, I felt sure a magic resurrection was coming for the kid, but nope- he was killed off solely to cause some drama between the good guys and Charioce because the genocide apparently wasn’t enough to make our heroes mad at him. Nina does finally get mad at him, but only for ten minutes, then she and almost everyone else instantly forgave him upon learning he didn’t TECHNICALLY directly kill this one kid.

Even though he HAD been trying to kill the kid ALL SEASON and the bounty he put on this kids head was still pretty much the direct cause of his death. But nah,he didn’t like, specifically tell the killer “hey go murder this small child” , he just heavily implied anyone who did it would get a reward from him, so it’s all fine. Even the kid’s grieving mother and father figure eventually forgave Charioce about this for no apparent reason.

Speaking of pointlessness, the cherry on top of the shit sundae was that the dragon all these characters were sacrificed to kill? The one whose death was supposedly the payoff worth all this genocide and melodrama? It was revealed in the last minute of the story that Charioce DIDN’T EVEN MANAGE TO KILL IT. Rendering the entire mess of a narrative COMPLETELY MOOT.

Seriously, if you want to see how overfocusing on badly written heterosexual romances can destroy an entire narrative, this series is a prime example. If you want to see an example or writers thinking a male character can be forgiven for any atrocity and win the female lead’s heart as long as he’s stoic and sexy and manly about it, this series will show you. This show demonstrates the worst pitfalls of romance narratives- writers seem to think as long as it’s an attractive man and woman getting together, they don’t have to bother with characterization or logic to sell their connection.

it’s a real shame- poor Nina could have been a compelling lead. There was stuff there that could have been developed into something cool had the writers cared at all- she could turn into a dragon, it was mentioned she was looked down on for not being fully dragon, she came from a rural village and was fairly innocent and didn’t know much about the world, her father died tragically- but rather than explore any of that, it was decided because she was a woman, her entire arc should be about her swooning and crying over Bishie McKillsaLot, never mind anything else.

Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul could have been a shallow but entertaining show like its predecessor. In the end though, the only thing entertaining about it by the end was how hard it crashed and burned.

The Reflection

The Reflection isn’t quite as bad as it’s reputation in the anime community right now suggests. Which is not to say it’s a good show. It’s not good. But it’s definitely far from the worst anime I’ve see and has a few interesting aspects.

This show is a collaboration between an anime studio and Stan Lee, (who I guess really likes being involved in anime- he’s done this before with Heroman) and it follows a group of superheroes. The basic premise is that three years ago, a strange light and smoke hit people around the world. Some were killed, some gained superpowers. Those who gained powers were called ‘The Reflected”. The world hates and fears them, in true Marvel style. Now a villain named Wraith is kidnapping people for mysterious reasons.

The Reflection is a messy show, which is apparent just from the animation. The colors are very flat and the lines are very thick, which seems to be an attempt to capture the classic comic book feel. But the thing is, old comics chose to have a bright color palette, or at least a highly contrasting one, for good reason. if you do that kind of style with a dark color palette, it ends up looking very muddy. Unfortunately, that’s what The Reflection chose to do. This was especially egregious in the last episode, where having the darkly colored characters against a dark sky made it very hard to tell what was happening. On top of that, the animation was very limited in general.

There’s also a lot a standard superhero stories here that are not given a fresh spin- we have the angsty product of a lab experiment, the shallow, show-offhero who learns superheroing is SRS BUSINESS after his loved ones are killed due to his negligence and most disappointingly, a main villain whose only motivation is that he wants to plunge the world into a vague, generic sort of darkness.

Some stuff is just straight up not explained, which made the finale confusing- we see a flashback that is supposed to make us forgive a character for his actions, but it’s so incoherent and quick it reveals nothing. Nor is the villain really explored in a way that makes sense (save for an extremely on the nose message about “darkness”, which was repeated so often in the episode I got sick of hearing it), his actions are unclear and the whole thing is just generally clunky. It seems like they chose not to explain a lot of stuff (and end on a cliffhanger) in hopes of getting a sequel, but you can leave mysteries and openings for a possible season 2 without being opaque and hard to follow. In fact, a final episode like The Reflection’s is way more likely to turn fans off than leave them wanting more.

However, The Reflection does have a few interesting ideas and good moments. One of the main heroes, Lisa, has a wheelchair that transforms into a giant robot, which is rad as hell and should be included in every superhero narrative from now on. Her personality is also endearing- she’s a determined, fiery, geeky girl who loves comics. Her whole storyline where her father is all protective of her due to her disability and she tells him doesn’t consider her condition tragic and proves she’s actually the one who can protect him is fairly heavy handed , but it’s a very positive narrative, and I’m especially glad to see it in an anime after being burned HARD by the ableism in Yuki Yuna is a Hero. She’s sadly sidelined after her introductory episode (it’s especially strange that her comic book fandom never comes up again), but still remains a good character.

There’s also a character who was blind, except he can see the silhouettes of people who have superpowers and thus pick out when when people are superpowered that way- that’s another good concept and I liked that his wife was the physically strong and imposing one of their partnership, though she didn’t get as much characterization as I’d like (in fact, she pretty much had none outside her relationship with her husband). The episodes revolving around Lisa and this pair were definitely the strongest of the series.

The lead of the story, Eleanor, also had a lot of potential. She had the heart of a hero, but she was desperate for validation and because of that desperation she ended up having an identity crisis where she developed an alternate personality. If her psychology had been explored more, that could have been a really interesting concept- but it wasn’t really explored at all beyond generic “this personality is the darkness within me” so it ended up being more on-the-nose and boring than anything. Still, I appreciated Eleanor’s scrappiness and in the hands of a more competent show, she could have been really great.

The other characters were duds though, unfortunately- the villains were generic and kinda just there. The hero X-On drove a lot of the plot, yet we learned pretty much nothing about him and he had no personality other than being kind of a dick. The magical girl squad was a fun touch and I loved seeing them kick ass and save the day, but they didn’t have distinct personalities from each other or much thematic significance to the story.

Basically, there’s nothing offensive or repellent about The Reflection. I have to give it points for trying something different stylistically from the usual anime fare. It’s a show that could have been good if it had been executed a little better and given more room to breathe. However, it wasn’t, so it ended up being a very clunky, forgettable anime.

#anime overview #summer 2017 anime #shingeki no bahamut: virgin soul for ts #the reflection #rage of bahamut: virgin soul for ts #rage of bahamut

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queernuck · 7 years

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Public Masturbation: National Anthems and Patriotic Displays as Related to Desiring-Machines

In the same week, at two different moments, in two different arenas, the National Anthem has been a part of specifically masturbatory moments in which the anthem was figured as a structure of sacredness, in specific response to the way that NFL players have protested during it. The former was in Buffalo, when a 90-year-old veteran stood for the National Anthem. The latter came in Indianapolis, before the Colts played the 49ers, the team that Colin Kaepernick played for when protesting in the first place. The two share a similar character in that they specifically serve as objects to stir certain characteristic desiring-machines within neoliberal ideology, to both extend neoliberal subjectivity and to disguise the fascist character of the actions at hand.

The former, a 90-year-old veteran choosing to stand during the anthem at a Buffalo Sabres game, the season opener no less, relied on that choice being specifically the object of a certain degree of attention, relying upon her age and her disabilities in order to make a violent statement in itself. Marian Morreale joined the Coast Guard in 1943, her enlistment delayed by a father unwilling to sign for her early enlistment papers owing to his own injuries when fighting in France during World War I. She is talked about as an enormous patriot, and discusses her disagreement with the way in which NFL players have protested. Despite using and disagreeing with an intentionally sanitized version of what Donald Trump said about NFL players, she said that she still disagrees with the protest, thinking the anthem to be beyond protest, beyond reproach. Previously, she had been asked by the Sabres to stand at the 2016 home opener, after standing for the Anthem had become a specifically pertinent discursive issue. Kaepernick was protesting police brutality, but the focus going to the anthem, to the veterans supposedly disrespected by the action, was alluded to by her son’s discussion of raising the issue to the Sabres, who he said had been impressively forward in “honoring” veterans. While she was unable to stand for the anthem in 2016, and had to work for three months to be ready to do it in 2017, she still was able to. She had her left leg amputated in 2016 due to poor circulation, and had even more trouble standing than she had previously, but still stood. And through all of this, she presented a certain sort of signifying power, one codified through white supremacist violence.

That she is old, that she is disabled, that she is a woman, that she is at a hockey game, and most of all that she is white all plays into how she is approached. The act of distancing her protest from police brutality, instead making it about signifying her patriotism, and moreover the patriotism of being a veteran as recognized by arbitrating structures of imperialism, indicates her as part of an act of ideological figuration where she is in fact far more than herself, her body signifying numerous subjectivities as part of imperialist violence. Her whiteness, her womanhood, have a combinatory property that specifically contrasts against the blackness of NFL players, their masculinity and moreover the imposed-masculinity of antiblack and colonial structures of gendering bodies through the arbitration of race. The contrasting of hockey and football is by no means new, especially given the way in which the NHL is stunningly white in comparison to the NFL. And that she is elderly, that she can be named within a history that harkens back to the supposed antifascist character of American intervention in World War II (an intervention that had in fact been slowed by and later shaped by American anticommunist and indeed, fascist, ideology) contrasts with the way in which the youth of the NFL is linked to being flighty, unserious, unable to meaningfully understand a violent, imperialist nation. That the way in which she can be used to reflect other veterans, veterans who have suffered injuries in combat, is not accidental on the part of the processes of signification at hand: while she would have been an enormously important symbol before having an amputation, that she can be described as standing on one leg specifically goes even further in the attempt to undercut protests during the anthem.

Previously, American imperialism relied upon the safe return of its soldiers in order to justify its actions: the ways in which the Vietnam War marked a certain shift in American attitudes toward combat as well as a shift in American ideology around the use of force in the form of bombings, in air campaigns more generally, is part of the means by which the figure of the injured soldier was removed from the American process of ideation. Indeed, for quite some time in the 80s and 90s, it was emphasized that the Army was for a process of bettering the body, the self, such that it became far more focused upon paying for college than paying the wages of imperialism. Occupations that resulted in few American deaths, only possible through overwhelming force on the part of the American military, culminating in the non-war of the Gulf War, a bombing campaign with a touch of adventurism for a few Soldiers and Marines, the occasional moment of combat part of assembling a show for the American people. The war was a series of non-events, part of a series that defined the American military during the 90s. But the collapsing of the Absolute Event on 9/11 into Afghanistan, Iraq, bloody occupations that were still far more violent for those occupied, effective acts of sanitizing policies that mimicked and echoed genocidal ideology in excusing their victims, one found a new body of the soldier that was broken on the wheel of the chariot, that had to be articulated yet again. And so, one finds the creation of charities for veterans focused upon the physical body, upon the body-as-mind, upon the body-as-soul in order to account for the massively present experience of PTSD within soldiers fighting irregular forces, faced with attacks of the sort that the Gulf War never could have prepared them for, a war with no lines and no meaningful enemy. That American body armor, armored vehicles, equipment, medical methodologies improved over the time from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan, that the uneven character of combat results in ambushes, mortar attacks on bases that mix infantry with support in a way that defies the ideology of “front lines” within American war, the prevalence of car bombs and IEDs, all leads to a need to recapture the obvious violence that is seen when soldiers return. Thus, these injuries are rearticulated within a vocabulary that often overlaps quite literally with various fetishes, but is characteristically that of the process of fetishization. This is part of reclaiming veterans as bodies so they are unable to speak for themselves, unable to discuss disability or the violence of empire, instead empty casualties, undefined bodies that are only given organs so they may be removed.

That attempts to raise patriotism as a sort of heroism, as a heroic value, have relied so often on a process of conspicuously disfiguring veterans, of creating a previously whole body that is then lost as if this change, this becoming-process was in isolation, is a specific sort of process where the topography of the body is altered in a fundamental process of change such that it reinforces conceptualization of the body as lesser if not “whole” in the way that such terms are typically reckoned. A body cannot be a whole unto itself, but rather must be judged against a standard, the same sorts of standards found in restricting surgeries based on sex so that the same medical resources are freely given under the guise of “cosmetic” surgery but derided as unnatural when given to alleviate dysphoria, in creating a hyperrealism of the body such that the “natural” only exists as another goal to be attained through concerted, specific training and even the aforementioned surgical alteration. It fundamentally concentrates on a sort of fetishized process of mutilation, fetishizes the structure by which this mutilation is rendered and uses that to drive a certain libidinal outpouring on the part of capitalist violence. All of this, in order to counter a protest of fists and knees.

That these protests are met with derision is hardly surprising, but the extent to which they are derided is another process entirely. Vice President Mike Pence, in attending and then leaving the Week 5 matchup between the Colts and the 49ers, was specifically conducting a sort of action wherein he could offer up his own son as a sort of sacrifice, invoke his son as an active-duty soldier and through the process of leaving, ensure that the overcoding upon protesting during the anthem that had been done by neoliberal appropriations of the protest was codified even further. Kaepernick’s fundamental protest lied in the opposition between the supposed-beliefs implied by the Anthem, and the actual lived experience of those facing police brutality, specifically police brutality of an antiblack character but also more generally the violence of police as colonial occupiers. However, that American signification of patriotism, of the nation, specifically relies upon seeing the unity of police, of soldiers, of reactionaries under the flag as part of a certain ideological affinity beyond the practical, fascist necessities of such allegiances is in turn necessary in order to make sense of the opposition to these protests. At once, one denies that there is anything to protest while claiming that the protest cannot be lodged in this way, that there is an inherently ill-founded nature to both the protest and the means thereof.

Mike Pence is not remarkably naïve, and thus could have likely predicted that an NFL game in 2017 would see at least some of the players kneeling, given how common the gesture has become within the league. Attending a football game anyway and standing during the anthem could have stood on its own as a sort of message. But by resignifying the opposition to these protests previously voiced by Trump, by putting a far more acceptable action in correspondence with the one at hand, Trump redirects the flows of discourse surrounding these protests such that the oppositions become more clearly defined, and moreover defined in a manner that is specifically accepting to the sort of conduct one would find in generals, in soldiers, and indeed in veterans. The notion of a soldier as “active duty” and thus a representation of the military they are a member of, the means by which this is extended to tours of occupation far from any meaningful combat, the way in which drone operators and IT specialists are considered to be a meaningful participant in war in the same way that any other soldier is, requires a process of resignification that is completed in the actions of Vice President Pence. Thus, by appearing specifically in order to create his own absence, he engages in a sort of stimulation of flows of patriotism, a masturbatory beginning to the outpouring of fascist ideology. If the Vice President stands and all the players follow, there is a moment in which the process of overcoding through authority as a sort of power has a climactic moment, an ejaculation of overcoding processes that justify the ideological maneuverings of defending police brutality, of justifying the horrors of imperial control. If players protest, and he leaves, he is able instead to further arouse the fascist libido, to further fuel it and to start even more flows of libidinal power. In effect, Pence was able to take one alternative or another as part of a single act where satisfaction was assured: in short, a masturbatory action.

The sexuality of vocabularies around these structures of desire, a self-centering and self-celebrating ideological process, is necessary and powerful specifically because of how it signifies the actions at hand in a manner that makes clear their relationship to the generation of desire: just as Deleuze and Guattari are unafraid to at least name the sexual origins and structures of desire in psychoanalytic concepts, further naming the sexualization realized in their expression is necessary. Rather than merely generating power, the masturbatory affectation signifies a certain kind of internalization, a self-reference, an exhibitionism that is realized through certain operations of the body and moreover in relation to other structures of desire and the expression thereof that are best realized in a vocabulary of the sexual.

#buffalo sabres #Indianapolis Colts #San Francisco 49ers #nfl #nhl

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xavierfiles-blog · 7 years

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Entry 088 - Bishop

Name: Lucas Bishop

Code Names: Bishop

First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #282 (Nov ‘91)

Powers: Energy absorption and redirection

Teams Affiliation: XSE, X-Men, X-Force

About

When I was young I had a weird idea that I was just fixated on. I wanted the next Metal Gear Solid game to give Solid Snake a teen sidekick who could be his best friend and also do all the cool spy stuff. In retrospect, I can see why this was a worse idea than tricking your audience into playing an anticipated squeal staring a totally secret new bishōnen character instead of a gruff, Nick Fury looking dude they expected. The idea stuck with me because kids don’t always want to be their heroes, they want to hang out with them. They want to be Robin, not Batman. It’s a strange but understandable tic in fandom but it is why things like self-insert fan fiction is so big. More than anything else, Lucas Bishop was a fanboy who got to live the dream of being best friends with his heroes, and you know what? It kinda worked.

Portrayed by Omar Sy

Lucas Bishop was born of Australian Aboriginal parents in the late 21st century. Years ago a red-haired girl known as the mutant messiah had restored the X-Gene after the events of M-Day but lost control of her powers and accidentally killed over one million baseline humans. The world’s response was to round up all mutants, brand them with an “M”, and place them in relocation camps. These were the camps Bishop and his sister Shard grew up in. These were the camps where they watched their parents die. Raised by their grandmother, Lucas and Shard were raised on the stories of X-Men, mutant freedom fighters of the past. It was these stories that would drive him for the rest of his life.

Larry Stroman, Mark Farmer, and Matt Milla

Mutant freedom fighters known as “The Summers Rebellion” broke down the walls of the camps and freed those inside. In the chaos, Bishop was separated from his family and raised by a thief known as The Witness. He claimed to have been an X-Man in his past and told Bishop of the betrayer that destroyed the rest of the X-Men and the Son of Askani who protected the red-haired girl. Bishop found his way back to his sister and they were both recruited by a new mutant police squad known as the XSE, Xavier’s Security Enforcers. They trained hard and became the youngest officers in the program’s history. Bishop was consumed by his dedication to the job and chased the time traveling mutant Trevor Fitzroy back decades to the late 20th century where he finally came face to face with his heroes, the X-Men.

Whilce Portacio, Art Thibert, and Joe Rosas

The X-Men were displeased by Bishop’s militaristic attitude and willingness to kill but Bishop was simply in shock. These were the X-Men, his X-Men, and he would fall in line to learn from them. Bishop struggled to understand the customs of the time but desperately wanted to learn. He and Storm grew close and he quickly became a strong field commander. He was constantly on the lookout for a way to prevent his future and often battled with Gambit, who he believed to be the traitor to cause the fall of the X-Men.

Jim Lee, Art Thibert, and Joe Rosas

Bishop was among the X-Men to travel into the past and try to stop Legion from killing Magneto. Legion went to kill Magneto but his father, Charles Xavier, took the blow in his stead. This caused the world to rip into an apocalyptic splinter timeline and Bishop was the only one to remember the world as it was. He sought out the X-Men of that world and convinced them to make the world right again. Through great struggle and sacrifice, the X-Men of the Age of Apocalypse sent Bishop back to the moment Charles was killed. Bishop absorbed Legion’s blow and redirect it back at him, killing the young mutant and fixing the time stream.

Bishop returned to the X-Men, always on the lookout for the traitor. That traitor was revealed to be Charles Xavier himself as Onslaught. Bishop was key in his defeat but felt aimless when Xavier was gone. He traveled to Shi’ar space with the other X-Men but was separated from the team and paled around with Deathbird saving alternate realities. He was captured as one of The Twelve and returned to the X-Men after that event finished, looking for a new purpose in the past.

Kevin Lau

Bishop joined Storm’s X-Treme X-Men on the hunt for the Destiny Diaries and was essential in getting the squad legitimized as mutant law enforcement officers known as the XSE. He began working as a detective in a Manhattan neighborhood called Mutant Town on the Middle East Side. He investigated a mutant gang war and got to the bottom of a new, dangerous street drug called “Toad Juice” alongside his partner Izzy Ortega. It felt good to be a cop again but it all came crashing down when the Scarlet Witch depowered all but 198 of the world’s mutants.

Phil Jimenez

Bishop remembered the stories from his childhood, this is how it started. Soon the red-haired girl would be born and that could only lead to the camps. He kept this knowledge to himself, how could he tell his friends that their only hope would lead to the enslavement of the mutant race? Bishop was at the mansion when he heard of the first mutant born after M-Day, and he knew it was time to act. He chased down Cable, he remembered the stories of the Son of Askani fathering the girl and knew that is where she would be. He succeeded in incapacitating Cable and drawing his gun on the newborn, but he is attacked by a mutant hunting monster known as Predator X who bit off his right arm. He saw Cable and the child begin to teleport into the future and fired wildly at them. This was his last best chance before they escaped to the time stream and he intended to take it. The shots missed their target but one caught Charles Xavier. Bishop had spent his entire life idolizing the X-Men but now he had killed their leader and became their enemy.

Chris Bachalo, Tim Townsend, and Brian Reber

He made his way to Forge’s workshop in Dallas, stole a cool new robot arm, and began blanketing the future on the search for Cable. After an unsuccessful ambush in 2043, Bishop realized that he had to fight this war smarter. Cable could be anywhere on the planet at any time in the future and Bishop had to restrict that. He became a destroyer of worlds, killing billions to make continents inhospitable over hundreds of years. He didn’t care about the lives he destroyed. If he could prevent his future from happening, if he could kill the baby Hope, all of this would go away, right? These weren’t real people he was killing, they were just some mistake of a reality. That’s what he told himself at least. As Bishop tried and failed to destroy her, Hope grew into a young woman and she defeated Bishop with her father’s help. They were not content to leave this shallow husk of a man somewhere he could find them again. They destroyed his time travel device and sent him to the shallow husk of the Earth of 6700 AD, he was forced to live and die on the world he had razed.

Denys Cowan, Sandu Florea, and Pete Pantazis

His entire life, Lucas Bishop was a fighter, and this was no different. He wandered the wasteland until he was found by the Brothers of the Order. They were a group dedicated to protecting humanity from their dark shadows known as Revenants, beings the Shi’ar called Mummundrai. Bishop became a hunter in their order, seeking penance for what he had done to hope. The Revenant Queen known as the Great White Owl learned of Bishop and enacted a plan to travel back to the 21st century and establish world domination. She succeeded in coming to the modern era with Bishop but was eventually defeated by the X-Men. Bishop experienced deep sorrow for what he had done in the future and his one-time friend Storm decided she would help him make amends.

Adrian Alphona and Christiana Strain

Hope Summer’s was not so quick to forgive the man who had tried to kill her since the day she was born. The villain Stryfe orchestrated a situation to place Hope in a locked room with a bound Bishop and a sharp Psimitar as some elaborate revenge plot against Cable. Bishop begged for forgiveness but he understood that he deserved to die. Hope chose not to kill him in cold blood and the two reluctantly worked together to stop Stryfe. Since that day, Bishop dedicated his time to understanding the present to see if he could prevent any horrible futures. When Psylocke sent out a psychic distress call, Bishop was one of the X-Men who received it, and he worked with her to prevent the Shadow King from taking over the world.

Must Read

I am just going to tell you that my favorite Bishop based property is incredibly self-serving. It is Bish & Jubez by my Battle of the Atom co-host Adam Reck. It is a delightful adventure about a tough soldier and a spunky teen looking for a piece of junk food. It is so worth your time so check it out. The first volume is complete (you can read the whole thing here) and the second titled Bish & Jubez: The Age of Stryfe is just about to wrap up.

Ranking

I think Bishop can be a fun character if a little stiff. His villainous turn was fantastic and understandable; however, it did serious damage to the long-term health of the character. His redemption in Uncanny X-Force wasn’t convincing and current writers seem content with acting as if he didn’t commit global genocide. Another character that was ranked based on uneven writing was Warlock, and I frankly like that little robot dude better. Under him is Domino, another character I like, but don’t love. I do think Bishop is more flexible in stories than Dom so he can slide in as the new number 44 in the Xavier Files.

Magneto was requested by Max Dweck on Patreon among others. Thank you for the request. If you have a request for how about you send it below? If you want to cut to the front of the two-year long line, we have a Patreon you can support Xavier Files for just $1 to get a line cutting reward.

Make sure you check out my brand new podcast BATTLE OF THE ATOM. It’s where Bish & Jubez creator Adam Reck and I talk about every single X-Men story that ever existed and rank them from best to worst. Episode 6 is up and talk about that time George RR Martin and Stephen King wrote an X-Men book together. Make sure you subscribe on any of the following platforms (or others, I’m not picky) Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Stitcher | RSS.

Click here if you want to see the full ranked list, with links to every entry in the Xavier Files so far.

If you liked what you read be sure to follow Xavier Files on twitter, Tumblr, Facebook!

Next week we got ourselves some Bishop! See you then!

#Bishop #cable #Days of Future Past #Hope #X-Men #xmen

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crystalstar8 · 3 years

Text

Knights of the Night (ch 10)

Chapter 10

Ch 1, ch 2, ch 3, ch 4, ch 5, ch 6, ch 7, ch 8, ch 9, ch 10

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29139240/chapters/71536491

pairing: Jungkook x oc

genre: vampire au, college au, twilight, romance

word count: 2,494

warnings: blood (obviously), kidnapping, child kidnapping, needles, France

Jungkook and Catalina decided to keep the pictures to themselves for a while. It seemed like the den in the basement was part of a bigger organization than they thought, so they knew they’d have to be careful. Over the next few days, they debated whether to tell the police or to tell their friends. In the end, they decided to tell Namjoon. He was mad at them at first, but then told them to stay out of it. That he and Yoongi were already investigating and that it was way too dangerous for humans.

As a way to distract them, or maybe just to give everyone a vacation, Namjoon booked a few nights for everyone at the ski lodge during the first week of snow. It was mid-week, so hopefully the lodge wouldn’t be busy.

Catalina was excited. She had spent the day before the trip packing and daydreaming about what the lodge would be like. She’s never been a cold weather person, but Jungkook promised to teach her how to ski, and while skiing didn’t really do anything for her, Catalina was at the point where any time spent with Jungkook was a good time. He never brought up the kiss since it happened, but Catalina was unable to think about anything else. It was constantly on her mind, the way his body felt against hers, his hand in her hair, his soft lips… it was truly something she’s been losing sleep over.

So when Catalina found out they’d all be staying in three connecting rooms, slumber party style, Catalina didn’t really know what to do with herself.

The morning of the trip finally arrived and Catalina was ready. Her duffel bag was packed and she kept glancing at her phone, waiting for the text saying her ride was here. Last night, Hoseok had texted her that they rented a party bus to take them up the mountain.

Finally, her phone buzzed, Hoseok’s name showing up on the screen.

Hobi: we’re outside :D

Catalina grabbed her bag and ran downstairs. The party bus was parked in front of her apartment building and the doors opened as she approached. Inside the bus, the four vampires sat on the bench seats on one side while Jin sat across from them.

“Cat! Just throw your bag back there and have a seat!” said Hoseok. Catalina spotted the pile of bags in the back of the bus. She set hers down and took a seat by Jin. The doors of the bus closed and the bus started moving.

“We just have a few more stops and then we’re on our way up the mountain!” Hoseok shouted. He was practically bouncing in his seat.

“I’ve never been to a lodge before,” said Catalina. “I heard they have a hot tub up there.”

“Oh yeah, they have a bunch of hot tubs, and a spa,” said Hoseok. “Are you gonna learn how to ski?”

“I mean, Jungkook will probably make sure of it, but I don’t think that’s what I’ll be doing most of the time,” said Catalina.

“I’m pretty good at skiing, if I do say so myself,” Jin said as the bus came to another stop. Jungkook hopped on and tossed his bag, skis and snowboard onto the pile in the back of the bus.

“Is Jin talking about how good he is at skiing?” asked Jungkook, collapsing into the spot next to Catalina.

“I was just about to tell them that I won a medal once-“ Jin started.

“But his old bones don’t let do the things he used to in his youth,” said Jungkook. “So we might need to help him with the bigger slopes.”

Jin launched himself past Catalina, attacking a giggling Jungkook.

They stopped two more times, to pick up Jimin and Jimmy K, then they made their way up the mountain. Once the lodge came into view, Catalina understood why it was so popular. It was beautiful, all wood and logs and rocky landscaping. Snow dusted pine trees filled in every gap in and around the property. Ski lift wires ran back and forth behind the lodge, leading up even higher into the morning fog.

“Oh wow! This place is fancy!” said Catalina. She was kneeling on the seat, looking out the window at the approaching property. The bus parked at the main entrance and everyone grabbed their bags and got off, heading into the building. Namjoon checked them all in and then led the way to their rooms.

It turned out to be a huge, three room suite, so luxurious that Catalina once again wondered how wealthy these vampires were. The suite was rustic, all raw wood and furs, antlers above the hearth. There were two king sized beds in each room, plenty of space for everyone. Catalina wondered who she would share a bed with. She hoped it wasn’t Jungkook. Not that she didn’t want to be close to him, but she was afraid it would be too awkward and she wouldn’t end up getting any sleep. As it was, she already noticed herself avoiding him and staring at him from afar. She needed to snap out of it and act like an adult.

Her behavior wasn’t as subtle as she thought though, because once everyone was settled, Jimin pulled her out into the hallway and asked, “What’s going on with you and Jungkook?”

Catalina started at him with wide eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Come on, don’t play dumb,” he said. “You guys are usually all over each other, joking and laughing at everything. What happened? Did you guys fight?”

Catalina sighed and pulled Jimin further down the hall.

“We kissed,” she said. Jimin’s eyes almost fell out of his head.

“What?!”

“Shhhhh!”

“When?” he asked.

“A while ago, we snuck into a vampire den and almost got caught, but to avoid suspicion, we acted like we were just making out in one of the rooms,” said Catalina. “It worked, they didn’t suspect us, they just kicked us out, but I’ve been thinking about it ever since.”

“Have you talked about it with him?” asked Jimin. “I mean, do you like him?”

“I…yeah, I think I actually do,” Catalina said, her face burning up. “And no, we haven’t talked about it.”

“You don’t think he was just leading you on, do you?” asked Jimin. “I can be mean to him if you want me to.”

“No,” Catalina laughed. “He wouldn’t do that. I don’t think he knows I like him and I don’t think he feels the same way about me.”

“I can find out for you,” said Jimin.

Catalina chuckled and said, “It’s okay, really. I just need to get over this awkwardness and figure out how to be normal around him again.”

“Whatever you say, but I just want you to know that I can be an amazing wingman,” said Jimin.

“Thank you,” said Catalina. “I’ll let you know.”

A few hours later found Catalina at the top of a hill, struggling to get her feet into her rented skis. Jungkook skid over to her with a huge smile on his face.

“Are you excited?” he asked.

“I guess” said Catalina. “I’m more nervous than anything.”

It was true. Before she started putting on her skis, she had looked down the slope and it looked incredibly intimidating.

“Don’t worry, I’ll come get you if you crash,” he said.

Catalina didn’t want to crash. But she finished putting on her skis and, with Jungkook’s help, got to her feet. Jimin was at the edge of the slope.

“I’ll see you guys at the bottom!” he said before taking off.

“Okay, so you gotta keep your knees bent,” said Jungkook. “Just keep them bent and use them to bounce. Gravity’s gonna do most of the work. Use these to steer and control your speed. You can kind of turn sideways to stop yourself. This one isn’t too steep so you should be okay.”

“This isn’t steep?!” Catalina asked, shuffling to the edge.

“Just go ahead when you’re ready,” he said.

“Wait, I’m not going first!” she said.

“Yes you are,” Jungkook laughed. “If you fall or hit something, I gotta be able to follow you down to help.”

Catalina eyed the slope once more, took a deep breath, then pushed herself off. At first, she had to use the poles to get moving, but then, as Jungkook had said, gravity mostly took over. This isn’t too bad, Catalina thought. Actually, this is a lot of fun. But then her speed started to pick up. A lot. Her heart picked up as well. The first bump she hit barely got her off the ground, but it was enough to make her panic when she hit the ground again. She started to swerve towards the trees. She dodged the first tree as best as she could, but shoulder checked it hard. This knocked her off balance, but luckily, the next obstacle was a snowbank. It didn’t hurt, but she fully landed in the bank, sliding off the side to lay on the ground.

She pulled her goggles off and let out a groan. It didn’t take long before she heard another set of skis slide to a halt beside her.

“Are you okay?” Jungkook asked as he knelt beside her. “Are you hurt?”

Catalina waved a hand. “I’m fine. My shoulder will probably bruise but it’s okay.”

Jungkook helped her sit up and Catalina automatically scooted away a bit. He dropped his hands. A painfully awkward silence followed, before Jungkook spoke up.

“Is it about the kiss?” he asked.

“What?”

“You’ve been kind of avoiding me ever since,” he said. “I mean, not completely ignoring me, but it’s been really awkward. And I wanted to say that I’m sorry if the kiss made you uncomfortable. I never wanted-“

“Jungkook, it’s okay,” Catalina said with a laugh. Her mind raced to come up with something to say. She didn’t want to tell him that ever since the kiss, her heartrate speeds up every time she looks at him and she spends every waking moment wondering when he’ll kiss her again, or even mention it. So instead, she said, “Really, it’s okay. We can just forget it happened and go back to how we were. We don’t have to make a big deal about it.”

Catalina watched with dread as his face fell. He couldn’t have been feeling the same way, could he? Did she just ruin things? Before she could think of a way to take back what she said, Jungkook stood up and held out a hand.

“Let’s get you back up there,” he said.

After dinner, which only the humans attended, everyone gathered in the rooms. Jungkook hadn’t attended dinner and he wasn’t in the rooms, which worried Catalina. She was already in her nightclothes, a short satin nightgown with a matching robe. She brought this on the trip with her hoping she could get somewhere with Jungkook, but messing everything up and making him avoid her was not in the plans. She needed to fix this.

Jimin was laying in bed with a facemask on, Taehyung by his side. Their heads were together, watching Tiktoks on Jimin’s phone.

“Do you guys know where Jungkook is?” asked Catalina.

“He’s in the hot tub,” said Jimin. “He doesn’t want to see you though.”

Catalina gaped at him. “Did he say that?”

“No, but whatever you said earlier really hurt him, so, as his friend, I’m telling you he doesn’t want to see you,” Jimin said, not looking up from his phone. Catalina’s heart sank. Hurting Jungkook was the last thing she wanted to do. So, she ran from the room and began her hunt for the hot tub.

It was an in-ground tub, partially hidden within the landscaping. The only reason Catalina spotted it was because of the steam rising from behind the snow-covered boulders. Catalina pushed open the glass sliding door and stepped outside onto the patio.

He was sitting in the hot tub alone, his head tilted back and his eyes closed. He didn’t hear her coming, so when Catalina said, “Hey”, he startled.

“Hey,” he said back.

“Can we talk?” Catalina asked. He shrugged and looked away.

“I guess.”

Catalina sighed and sat on the edge of the tub, sticking her feet into the warm water.

“I’m sorry for what I said earlier,” she said. “I was lying.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean, I don’t want things to go back to the way they were,” said Catalina. She took a deep breath. “I was lying when I said the kiss wasn’t a big deal. It was. I couldn’t stop thinking about it ever since it happened and spent the entire time since then, even now, hoping it would happen again. And I guess I said the things I said because I didn’t think you’d feel the same way, so I wanted to just smooth things out with you-“

“Cat, I’m the one who kissed you,” said Jungkook.

“But it was for the mission,” said Catalina.

“But I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t want to,” said Jungkook. A pause, then he cracked a tiny smile. “I bought you hash browns. Did that mean nothing to you?”

Catalina laughed and tugged her robe tighter around herself.

“Get over here,” said Jungkook. Catalina took her robe off and slid into the water, not caring for the fate of her nightgown anymore. She waded over to him and he held out a hand, pulling her close. She had to place her knees on either side of his thighs as his arms wound around her waist.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked. “For real this time?”

Catalina didn’t think she could speak, so she nodded. He pulled her flush against him and kissed her hard. She was incredibly aware of how bare his chest was; she could feel every inch of it through her paper-thin nightgown. Catalina threaded her fingers into his hair as they kissed. She gave it a tug and he let out a tiny gasp into her mouth. His hands gripped her waist tighter as he tilted his head for better access. At some point, they broke apart for air, Catalina chasing his lips for one last taste.

“Mm…so glad I didn’t listen to Jimin,” Catalina mumbled against his lips. He chuckled.

“What?”

“He was mad at me for making you upset and told me not to talk to you,” said Catalina.

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t listen to him too,” Jungkook said with a grin.

“I’m sorry,” said Catalina, running her fingers through his hair. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

He held her tighter and said, “I know. It’s okay. It turned out fantastic, so I have no complaints.”

Catalina giggled and let her head fall against his shoulder.

“Yeah… no complaints at all,” she said, dropping a kiss to his neck.

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sunflowersensei-blog · 7 years

Photo

Here’s part 2 of this week’s monsterpost on Vampires and Slimes. Above is a family portrait of House Vericose.

Back row, from left to right: Claude, Julius, and Aleister

Middle row, left to right: Vivian and Orchid

Front row, left to right: Lillim and Lily

This time around, I’m going to cover Vampire Houses, Politics, a little bit of History, and some extra bits and pieces of trivia. Let’s get to it!

About Vampire Houses:

-As was stated last post, the Vericose are the most politically powerful and influential Vampire House in Jegra, though they are also one of the smallest, consisting of one family of seven Vampires. Because of their small size and young nature, many Houses of varying influence seek to marry into House Vericose and either increase its size, spread its influence around several Houses, or absorb the small House into themselves. Julius, being quite the shrewd politician, knows of these schemes and uses his leverage to gain resources, land, and cattle in exchange for political favors or for his children’s hands in political marriages.

-There are hundreds of Houses of varying size, influence, and wealth. Besides the Vericose, the most important Houses are House Gram, the oldest House and the one with most cattle, land, and access to waygates; House Shatra, a moderately young House whose secret rituals, strict codes of conduct, and high price for marriage provide the most powerful and magically skilled Vampires in the World; House Fritta, another old House whose elaborate trade and information networks ensure they are the wealthiest, in terms of money, and the most well-informed House; and House Boreaux, a family of skilled hunters whose collection of cattle, while not the largest, contains members of aristocracy and royalty from the Kingdom of Light, whose blood is considered priceless and the greatest in all the Worlds, for the blood of Light royalty has both exquisite taste and the power to protect the drinker from the Kingdom’s Heliosphere, which robs any monster of their power and slowly kills them.

-House Vericose holds authority over these Great Houses for the simple fact that they are the closest to the Kingdom of Night’s Royal Family, have the ear of the King, and their members hold the titles of Duke and Duchess of Jegra, effectively making Julius the governor of Jegra and giving him the last word on any decisions made in the Highlands. As one can image, this fact infuriates the other Houses, though they rage in impotence. Assassinating Julius would be treason against the crown and his wife, Vivian, was a member of House Shatra and considered a beloved hero among Vampires. This also means Vivian’s children share her Shatra genealogy, an extremely valuable bloodline, rarely seen outside the secretive family. Thus, their children are sought after for marriage, a fact Julius knows well and uses to his advantage.

About Vampire politics:

-Each House generally tends to take care of itself, though many Houses choose to side with one of four factions, each headed and controlled by one the the four Great Houses: Gram, Shatra, Fritta, or Boreaux. House Vericose is considered an independent House, though they have deep ties with House Gram.

-Members of each political faction tend to take after the head family of that faction, working for the Great House to gain favors, money, or cattle. Members of the Gram faction tend to work as land surveyors and adventurers, scouting land that had once been the territory of other monster races, but has since become free after the genocide of the Second Crusade. Members of the Fritta faction work as merchants, mercenaries, spies, or muscle for caravans and are paid in gems, conveniently the currency of both the World of Dark and the World of Light, with which they buy land, cattle, weapons, or other resources. Members of the Boreaux faction work as hunters, scouts, and assassins, capturing targets of particular value for ransom or to be made into cattle. Some Boreaux hunters even make money as assassins and fighters in the World of Light, if their employer doesn't know (or doesn't care) about their Vampire background. The Shatra faction is special. Members of this faction must undergo intense training and study in magic, religion, history, and art, and pass rigorous examinations by Shatra sages in order to be considered for entry into the family. Failures or drop-outs can still get by, making art, writing literature and poetry, and can become bards in service of the Great Houses, or become independent mages.

-Members of different factions generally don’t get along well with each other, though it never really comes to blows. Different factions merely offer different life choices and methods to move up in Vampire society and some families prefer to live “traditionally”, building their castles on free land, hunting for their own cattle, and making trades or working as independent agents to make money. Some even prefer to live in the World of Light, taking the form of a normal Human, not having a home or cattle, and just living off the blood of their victims, disappearing into the shadows like a ghost at the slightest sign of trouble.

-There is a growing number of Vampires who are dissatisfied with the “tyranny” of the upstart Vericose, working with sympathizers of each faction in order to plot against and subvert the control that Julius has on the Jegra Highlands. Nothing has come of it yet, but rumors say Julius is not long for this World and not even the King can protect him.

About the Vericose Family:

-Julius was born into House Gram as a middle child in one of the tertiary families, far away from political influence and destined to inherit nothing. Growing up, he wasn't particularly attractive, strong, fast, or magically inclined. However, he had his wits and soon learned to manipulate others into getting what he wanted. During the First Crusade, he enlisted in the Army of Darkness as a scout and surveyed many battles, from little skirmishes between Human Crusaders and small monster forces, to legendary, decisive battles between beings that wielded the power of gods. In his career, he saw Rahovart the Undying slay 50 men with a single swing of his halberd; he witnessed the Rout of Ceren Canyon, where three Celestial Paladins slaughtered thousands of monsters with their dark-slaying Fused Light swords; and he trembled at the majesty of the first King of Night when a Primordial Darkness was drawn across the Plains of Ugain, snuffing out the lives of over a hundred-thousand men in an instant. Julius also saw the hero of Jegra, Vivian Shatra, fighting desperately to secure a retreat from the advancing Celestial forces. He saw her grit, determination, and he was enamored by the mysterious power she wielded. He did not forget her.

-Eventually, the First Crusade had drawn to a close, the invaders retreated to the waygates, and those who served were heroes among their peers, including Julius, whose direct line of communication to the generals of the Army about the state of current battles led to life-saving retreats, reinforcements, and victory where it counted. Though not as highly decorated as the others, his connection to the generals and higher-ups of the fledgling Kingdom of Night gave him ample opportunity to get close to the King. Using his influence, he began carving out a name for himself in the acquisition of newly-freed land for House Gram, earning himself a large fortune, which he hoarded, waiting for the perfect time to spend it. In time, the first King of Night fell in battle. Without a challenge to the throne, his son became the second King. Julius consoled and advised the young King, growing closer still to the crown and the Royal family, become like an uncle of sorts. With his influence, he began buying large portions of land, procuring resources to build a hamlet for his newly purchased Boreaux cattle, materials for a grand castle to rival the Great Houses, and looking for a woman of high pedigree to bear his children so he could see his dream become reality: to build a Vampire House greater than all others.

-His wish was very close to coming true when he caught the attention of Charlotte la Varr, an Elder Vampire and Princess of All Monsters, who agreed to be his wife. Before they could consummate the marriage, however, Charlotte was murdered during the bloody coup of Vincent la Varr, middle child of the Royal Family, who rose to power by killing every other member of his family and challenging his father to a duel. Vincent defeated his father in combat, taking the crown and becoming the new King of Night and last living Elder Vampire. Enraged at his dream being snatched from him at the last minute, Julius confronted Vincent, demanding reparations for his loss at the hands of the King. Surprisingly, Vincent agreed, feeling deep guilt at the death of his sister, and made a deal with House Shatra to make an exception to their strict rules of marriage and offer an eligible bachelorette to Julius as an apology.

-House Shatra reluctantly agreed to the King’s demand, but they had two conditions: one, the bachelorette had to agree to be married, the family would not force the woman to break the sacred laws of their House, and two, whoever agreed to be married to Julius would be disowned from House Shatra, losing their claim to any inheritance, property, or privileges that they would otherwise have. Even with these stipulations, many eligible Shatra women were quick to offer their hands in marriage to Julius, knowing of his vast fortune, great castle, exquisite selection of cattle, and mounting political influence. Julius courted many, but one caught his eye: the hero, Vivian Shatra. Julius knew of her power, her beauty, and her accomplishments during the Crusade. They were married soon after their first meeting and had quite a few children since then.

-Vivian was born into House Shatra, the second daughter of the primary family, giving her a vast amount of wealth, privilege, and magical power. Growing up as a Shatra is, nonetheless, hard, a child of the primary family moreso. A strict diet of a small amount of high-quality blood is upheld, along with daily religious rituals, meditations, fasting, rigorous study in almost every subject, both arcane and mundane, magic training under the eye of the sages, and many other required practices. Children of the Shatra primary family also undergo “stress training”, where they are subjected to beatings, stabbings, mutilations, torture, and mental anguish at the hands of the sages. Being Vampires, they can regenerate from this violence, but the stress of being hungry for blood in addition to this training causes their innate powers to develop at an accelerated rate.

-Vivian spent much her her time starving for blood. Vampires who go without human blood for large periods of time become very pale, almost porcelain in skin tone, and grow colder in temperature in relation to their maximum magical power. This is how the sages can measure the growth of their pupils. If one can freeze a glass of water by touching it, they can be considered to have a sufficiently large mana pool. Vivian, on the other hand, could freeze the walls, floors, and even the air of any room she walked through. Living her life in constant cold crystallized the very Concept of “Cold” within her Soul. She was considered a prodigy and an example for other Shatra children to strive for.

-She grew into a fine young woman, having taken her stress training and academic study in stride, even becoming an extremely skilled sorcerer and wise scholar. Unable to continue her training within the confines of Castle Shatra, the House permitted her to join the newly formed Army of Darkness to combat the Crusaders, seeing her as a valuable asset. During her career, she fought in many battles, turning the tides each time, but suffering wounds, loss, and seeing the horrors of war.

-Her time in battle further stressed her mind and body, honing her Soul and pushing her beyond her already impressive limits. This evolution in her spirit came to a head when her platoon was caught off-guard by a Crusader ambush, including two Celestials. The battle raged and Vivian eventually ran out of mana. Desperate to let her wounded comrades retreat in safety, she stood alone against the holy warriors. She pleaded herself for more power, dipped deep within herself, sinking even further down until she touched something beyond her Soul. A connection to something greater was there, only hinted at in the religious texts she had studied. Ignoring her fight and the world around her, time seemed to slow down as she grasped at this “beyond” with her Soul.

-She could feel her connection the Universe growing, feel the pulsing of the Primordial Dark beneath her feet, feel the painful radiance of Primordial Light somewhere beyond the veil of space, and she could feel a sensation of presence and non-presence at once. A singular existence which permeated all things. Her fragile mind, body, and Soul could not contain this sensation. As she grew closer to this presence, she reached out to it, trying to grab on to something, anything, but her grasp slipped. She could not contain what she did not understand. Trying again, she managed to grab hold of one small fragment of the greater whole, a fragment which she had in her all along. A fragment which she immediately recognized as part of herself. She hadn't grabbed something from beyond as much as she realized part of herself existed as part of the Universe as well. She realized she and the Universe were One, though she could only hold onto one tiny fragment of the Greater Whole. The tiny fragment she Realized was the Concept of “Cold”.

-When she came to, time had only progressed a second, but the Celestials were at her throat. Luckily, they didn't seem to be important enough to have Fused Light swords, leaving her monster powers intact. She decided to see if what she experienced was true. Raising a hand to one Celestial, she froze her solid in an instant, without expending mana. Surprised, the other Celestial used her impressive speed to circle around Vivian, going for a flanking backstab. However, Vivian could feel her presence. Focusing on it, she mentally commanded the Celestial to be frozen, and she was. Her comrades had retreated, and Vivian became a hero overnight. “The Slayer of Celestials”, “Bringer of Ice”, they called her. When the Crusade was done, she went back to her home at Castle Shatra, looking to explore her new powers, but she learned that she was expected to become a sage and raise the next generation of Shatra children.

-Soon, Vivian heard of an interesting development. One of the wealthiest Vampires in Jegra, Julius Gram, was looking for a wife. House Shatra announced their agreement with the King, as well as their conditions, to all eligible Shatra women. Vivian jumped at the chance to leave her restrictive House, join a new one, and raise a family the way she wanted to. Soon, she and Julius were married, founding their new House, taking the name “Vericose”, and begun having children.

-After the birth of their last children, extremely rare twins Lily and Lillim, Vivian began feeling weakened. Having left House Shatra and their strict rules, she had begun feeding on as much blood as she cared for, but her skin remained porcelain white. In addition, her pregnancy had taken a great toll on her strength when it wasn't supposed to, and her wounds weren't healing right. Soon, she began feeling great pains throughout her body. Having many Vampire sages examine her, none could determine what was the matter. Some said she was cursed, other said she had been wounded by Celestial’s holy magic. Regardless, none could determine a cause and, thus, a treatment.

-Absolutely desperate, she heard of the return of the Princess some years ago from some faraway land called “Zonder”, and heard of the wonders that lay there. Vivian contacted the Princess, urging her to help her find a cure for her illness. Helen used a waygate to travel to Zonder, returning with some strange, box-headed aliens. Bringing the aliens to the newly build Castle Vericose, the aliens examined her and told her she had “Regeneration Sickness”, which would kill her if they didn't perform “surgery” immediately. Not knowing what this entailed, she agreed and the Blockheads went to work, removing large portions of excess bones, organs, cartilage, and tumors from her body. The Blockheads monitored her condition, performing more surgeries when her wounds didn't heal correctly, and continue to treat her to this day. Not wanting to attract suspicion, Vivian and Julius had Princess Helen promise to never tell anyone about Vivian’s sickness or about the existence of the Blockheads in Jegra. Helen agreed and left the Blockheads in the care of the Vericose.

-Aleister Vericose is the oldest child of Julius and Vivian Vericose. Growing up, his mother was doting and very loving, if cold to the touch, and his father was strict. Wanting his heir to be strong and successful, Julius hired the best tutors for every subject under the moon and the most prolific Vampire instructors in combat. Aleister took his studies well, learning the blade, and favoring religion and philosophy. When he turned 16 and became a man, his father enlisted him in the Army of Darkness, which was currently fighting the Second Crusade. Aleister was a great soldier, using his Vampire powers well, but he was terrible with other monsters, staying silent, working alone, and not making many friends. With his good looks, fighting prowess, and wealthy upbringing, he received many gifts from young ladies during each Ceremony of Favors, though he generally didn't have much to say about it. Aleister’s studies and training gave him a vast insight into strategy and tactics, preferring to use his mind over his blade on the battlefield. This got him the nickname “Scholar of the Battlefield”, which was originally meant to be an insult, but, ironically, caught the attention of the generals of the Army. Aleister was asked if he would like to study to become a general, to which he agreed. After the Second Crusade ended, Aleister’s studies were concluded and he received the title of general from the King of Night.

-Aleister lives in the Castle of Night, at Court, with his sister Orchid, whom he acts as a silent protector. Rarely do the two siblings interact, though, because of Aleister’s shyness and solitary attitude, and Orchid’s insistence to “hang out with girls her age”. Many young women (and some men) have fallen for Aleister, being handsome, and being an important general, but his shyness constantly puts off potential suitors, leaving him single. Aleister’s greatest rival is Lemus, the Duke of Ghennum, who he sees as giving a bad name to monsterkind, shaming the honor of his title with his scheming to overthrow the King, and his seduction of many young Duchesses, including Orchid.

-Orchid Vericose is the second child of Julius and Vivian. You know her story. If you don’t, you should have really read the post before this one.

-Claude Vericose is the third child of Julius and Vivian. Being the young age of 12 years old, he is not yet a man. Like his brother, he is tutored in many subjects, though instead of learning the blade, Claude has professed to prefer studying sorcery and using magic to fight, to which his mother was very thrilled.

-In his spare time, Claude voraciously reads texts and manuals from the World of Light, learning “science” and the art of flux-powered machinery. Sharing this passion with the Princess, he regularly writes her letters, asking about different books she’s read, what machine parts and devices she tinkers with and so on. Helen even sends him her old books and pieces of machines she’s given up on.

-From his hobby and his letters from the Princess, Claude has learned much of the World of Light, its Kingdom’s culture and technology, and its heroes. In particular is Alles de Lemurios, the Scholar of Light, the Supreme Sorcerer, and the master of Cosmic Magic. Claude loves the stories of Alles’ travels throughout the Spaceways of the Void, his trials, and his struggle. Knowing that Helen is friends with Alles, and that his hero visits the Castle of Night often, fills Claude with excitement, jealousy, and determination. His dream is to meet Alles, become his apprentice in Cosmic Magic, and explore the Void. Claude has even styled his hair like his hero, hoping to flatter him when they finally meet.

-Lilly and Lillim are the last children of Julius and Vivian. Being twins makes their existence extremely rare among Vampires, with the last pair of twins being born over 100 years ago. This gives the twins an extra ability that normal Vampires lack: telepathy. Right now, the two can only speak short sentences to each other, though they have spoken to their mother with their thoughts as well. When they grow up, this power is to be explored, but for now they prefer to just play and learn to feed with their new fangs.

Well, that’s it for this installment! Sorry for the length, but I needed to cover some more stuff before the next monster race we get to. Up next is Slimes, then Liches, then Elder Vampires! We’re almost done with the World of Dark (at least the main monster races that make up the Kingdom). Once were done with these and some generalized world-building, we’re moving over to the World of Light. I’m pretty hyped.

Anyway, hope you enjoy!

#vampire #world of dark #zonder #Monster

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putris-et-mulier · 7 years

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Deadpool & Rogue are going to be the next "it" couple

Since the beginning of Uncanny Avengers people speculated that Deadpool and Rogue were going to fall in love and so far they've just become good friends but now is a pretty good opportunity to turn that into a romantic relationship.

I've never made it is secret that I love Rogue and that when she isn't with Gambit my heart is broken. Unless it's bad writing I'm okay with seeing them get together with other people because they have an open relationship and if anyone could do polyamory, they could.

So Uncanny Avengers begins and I'm very suspicious of Rogue being on a team with Deadpool because they didn't seem like a good combination. They can certainly relate, they have a lot of common trauma and similar issues but Deadpool relies on humor to deal with it and Rogue doesn't laugh much, she shoves all her pain down and uses it to fuel her determination while fighting on the front lines and she's always fighting on the front lines.

Another thing I wondered about was Rogue being the team leader. Rogue isn't exactly a leader. Storm is a natural leader, she can handle the burden of being a huge population's only hope, she can command an audience of militants, and there's just something about her that demands respect and loyalty.

Rogue just really likes getting in and getting the job done, politics is not her thing.

And she works really well when someone like Storm is calling the shots

Awesome.

and Rogue hates the Avengers. She likes individuals that are and have been members but she was one of the very first mutants to ever fight them and she has lived through every one of their attempts to aid the genocide of mutants

but Deadpool is super excited!

Rogue and Deadpool have never really met but they have run into each other in passing so Rogue does what everyone does and judges Deadpool on his reputation. Meanwhile, she secretly has been poisoned with the Terrigen Mist so her body is slowly becoming deformed while she slowly dies from a terminal disease

That's something Deadpool has lots of experience with so you know from the get go that they are going to at least commiserate

Like I said, Rogue works well as a tank or free agent but she has hard time leading. On their very first mission everyone but Deadpool ignored her orders and went off to do their own thing.

Deadpool seems to be one of the few people who understood and cared that Rogue being leader or even on the Avengers at all came with a lot of subsequent dangers because of racism

Deadpool also isn't a natural leader, like Rogue he works best when you just tell him where to go and let him do his thing. But he's loyal and even though it seems impossible he is more upset about casual racism toward her than she is.

Cable shows up with bad news from the future as he is want to do and he is a leader, a leader both Rogue and Deadpool have worked with. He's also someone that Deadpool loves and respects immensely. Rogue isn't opposed to Cable taking over but before she entrusts him with her teammates lives she wants to know what his objectives are and surprisingly Deadpool agrees with her

It's no surprise that the team is a mess. Captain America stuck a bunch of people of different races together, some pulled from segregated communities, to sell diversity to the media but as always he doesn't exactly understand racism and the team fractures. Cable, Rogue, and Deadpool stick together and actually work behind Captain America's back (which is huge for Deadpool) to find a cure for this poison that was exterminating mutants and stop the Red Skull who had taken the deceased Charles Xavier's brain and was using it to take over the world.

Rogue and Deadpool are actually really good teammates, Deadpool even does things to remind Rogue of home and her family (the X-Men)

(that's a signature X-Men finishing move Colossus and Wolverine use when they are tag teaming)

they even make their own signature move

and they are badass

Rogue puts her faith in Deadpool that he will have her back but still remained wary because he was still Deadpool and she still has all of her baggage and trust issues but suddenly the whole world changes.

Everyone is human, can't remember ever being superheroes, and the world runs like a 50s sitcom. Everyone but Rogue is happy. She's never lived in a world where at least one person wasn't constantly trying to abuse or kill her so even though she doesn't know what's going on she's suspicious of peace

No one knows Rogue's real name so if someone isn't calling her Rogue they usually just call her a few names that sound like it fits and for some reason Rogue has always been fine with that but in this instance it's supposed to be weird

All the X-Men and the kids at their schools have extensive training in blocking psychic/telekinetic/mind control etc. so they can keep their privacy in all of the mutant compounds despite the fact that the biggest gossips are always psychic. Also so shit like this doesn't happen. Rogue arguably has the most training in this for someone who has no psychic powers and through her safeguards she makes herself remember everything and now she has to go find everyone else that is supposed to be on her/their team.

Luckily one of them, Johnny Storm, lives next door so she reminds him that he can control fire by lighting him on fire. Also, he thought his name was Chet

Rogue doesn't give a fuck

Everyone is rounded up pretty quickly and Rogue wakes people up her own way

(Ms. Marvel isn't on her team but she was bicycling by so Rogue snagged her)

No one knows where Deadpool is so Cable, and this is hilarious, has been on so many adventures with him he knows he just has to present an opportunity and Deadpool will appear so he calls 911 and Deadpool immediately shows up in a fire truck

but he doesn't look like himself

Every time Deadpool gets changed into his ideal body he looks like a 70s porn*

So Wade Wilson lives in this pseudo-universe as a "handsome" able-bodied man who is everyone's hero, a firefighter. It's kind of extremely sad and Rogue takes special care with him, much to Johnny's chagrin

I think it's notable that Rogue just has to tell him something is going on and he immediately remembers who he is. Besides he and Rogue, it seems hard for everyone to accept that this picturesque life isn't real. The both of them grew up experiencing the worst of humanity (we don't really know about Rogue's childhood but she was raised into early adulthood by her mother's, so it still couldn't have been super easy considering they were all mutants and also a queer family in the 70s) they are both also very isolated in their own way, a peaceful happy world is so beyond their comprehension so it's artifice would be easy to deconstruct.

You don't see how Cable comes to but I'm pretty sure he immediately was like "not this shit again"

The current mutant genocide is getting worse and Captain America tries to use how much Deadpool admires and loves him to be his informant but Deadpool remained loyal to Rogue and Cable

Captain America wants them to trust the government to save their race to which they said "LOL" and he and Cable fight but Rogue gets fed up

Deadpool tries to explain to Captain America that he had no choice but to side with the X-Men because his daughter is a mutant and is going to die

Deadpool takes the dressing down but Rogue defense him

They are both fired but they still stick together to discuss what they should do and Rogue suggest… Well, she suggests that they go rogue

Rogue isn't a great leader but she's really great at heading side missions or defecting to get the job done with the more hands-on approach. This is up Deadpool's alley so they take off for adventure.

And one protecting the other has become my fetish

We just recently got the conclusion of Rogue, Deadpool, and Cable's team up objective. The Red Skull is using Charles Xavier's brain to infiltrate everyone's brain

and eventually he finds a way to break into to Rogue's mind while she sleeps

and they made a clubhouse with stuff they took from the Avengers

So finally the Red Skull has to be confronted for the final battle and it relies on Rogue and Deadpool. No one has the ability to infiltrate Deadpool's mind because his psyche is so shattered so he's immune and Rogue has training to protect her mind and is one of the few people who can actually take him down so they get to it and call in any support they can get

Cute highlights:

When the tide turns in the battle Rogue is overtaken by the powers of Charles Xavier's brain and the Red Skull has complete control over her, so he uses her as his personal weapon

God, I love her

Thankfully Deadpool is used to things failing so he had a plan. Rogue kills Deadpool as much as she can, the Red Skull gets overconfident and let's guard down, then Deadpool sticks an old helmet of Magneto's on Rogue's head. Seems like that should have been the first thing they should have done but Deadpool getting himself kill over and over got her close enough and in a position where she could take the Red Skull down while he was unaware

But Deadpool had intended to be the one to kill the Red Skull once Rogue incapacitated him but she had hurt him too much

Deadpool is worried that Rogue is going to take it upon herself to kill the red skull as much as she doesn't want any more blood on her hands but the guy has Charles Xavier's brain inside of him so she goes home and the X-Men play operation

That's it! That's their whole story so far. So, should they get together?

I'm biased but don't they make the best brOTP? I love their friendship so so much and it's great to see it slowly develop instead of the writers just miraculously having them get along because it's easier for the story.

Do I think they should date?

Hell yes I do.

It is nice to have genuine friendships in comic books, especially between people of different genders, but this is just too good. Because their friendship was such a slow build the sexual tension feels really organic and that's almost impossible to get in a medium like this. They haven't been friends forever and just because it was convenient they didn't suddenly hook up to further the plot. They are significant characters with significant back stories and the relationship doesn't contradict either of those things. They haven't been almost getting together and getting torn apart like you would have to sit through if story of the relationship was just about their romance.

I'm fine if they remain friends but (unpopular opinion) it would be an amazing relationship with a lot of potential between them; a lot of good and a lot of bad potential which makes the best stories. Unfortunately I don't think they will ever get this opportunity for a "slow build" in other books so how long it will remain interesting would depend on the writer.

And the time schedule.

And whether you guys would buy those issues or not.

Let me know what you think. If you totally hate them together that's cool, I want to hear your perspective. What would you like to happen between them?

#Christy creare #Deadpool #Rogue #Info #Relationship #X-Men

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mysteryshelf · 7 years

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BLOG TOUR - Genocide

Welcome to

THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF Seeking Summer Reads Week!

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Genocide

by Pat Krapf

on Tour June 1-30, 2017

Synopsis:

Sean Ireland, the first gay presidential candidate in US history, is guaranteed the election—until he’s found dead at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.

Stunned by her friend’s murder, private investigator Darcy McClain is determined to hunt down Sean’s killer. In shock, she returns home to find someone has broken into her home, assaulted her sister, and stolen Bullet, her giant schnauzer.

After Sean’s death, more grisly murders follow, leading the police to suspect a serial killer, but Darcy isn’t convinced. In the course of her investigation, she’s astounded to discover evidence of a high-level government conspiracy to exterminate gays and lesbians. Is Sean’s murder tied to this conspiracy? Could someone in the government have killed him? Darcy vows to track down her friend’s murderer, save Bullet, and discover the truth.

Krapf weaves a captivating tale that will leave readers wanting more of Darcy McClain’s shrewd investigative adventures as she and her bold canine sidekick, Bullet, navigate the clever plot twists in her thrillers.

Book Details:

Genre: Technothriller Published by: Thunder Glass Press Publication Date: June 2017 Number of Pages: 502 ISBN: 978-1-941300-05-3 Series: A Darcy McClain and Bullet Thriller, #3 (These are Stand Alone titles) Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

Read an excerpt:

Chapter 1

Darcy rose at dawn, descended the stairs two at a time, and yanked open the front door, eager to read the headlines of her morning Chronicle. She scooped the newspaper off the walk and chuckled as she saw the faces of her two friends plastered across the front page. Never had she been so absorbed in a presidential election.

Before she headed back indoors, she paused to survey the quiet cul-de-sac with its houses stacked close together, their gray outlines awash in the jaundiced glow of the streetlights. No one stirred in the neighborhood. Too early. Even the local cat who loved to sleep on the front porch was nowhere in sight.

A light breeze kicked up. Dead leaves cartwheeled over mowed lawns, and the cold spray from the neighbor’s automatic sprinklers misted her from head to toe. She dodged a second dousing and ducked into the house, collecting Charlene’s skateboard as she entered the foyer.

Freshly brewed coffee drew her to the kitchen. She poured a cup and slid onto the window seat in the breakfast nook to devour every word of the three-page article. Most of the content she already knew, but she never tired of reading about Governor Sean Ireland and Senator Magdalena “Mags” Cortés. Even though Darcy thought she knew her friends, the past few months had brought one shocking piece of information after another. In all the years Darcy had known Sean—dating back to their college days at Stanford Law School—not once had he ever alluded to running for the presidency. When he became governor of California, he claimed he was more than satisfied with his current role and had no intention of running for any other office. Yet a year ago, he declared his candidacy, and in a bold (and some said premature) move, announced his vice presidential candidate, Senator Mags Cortés. Mags and the Latino community had a long-standing love affair, and pundits predicted she would sweep seventy percent of their vote.

While it came as a surprise Sean aspired to be president, it was no revelation Mags was his vice presidential pick. Separately, the two possessed the talent and power to accomplish anything they set their minds to. Together, The Formidable Two, as they had been dubbed by the press, packed an unbeatable punch. Before the election campaign had even started, their opponents admitted their own victory would not come easily, if at all.

Only one factor bothered the American public: the personal relationship between Sean and Mags. Not everyone was keen on the idea of a presidential candidate and his VP running mate potentially marrying. “Conflict of interest,” the opposition protested publicly and frequently, for most assumed the lifelong friends and reported sweethearts would marry one day. Neither refuted the rumors, so they persisted for years—until last month’s press conference, when both had dropped mind-blowing bombshells.

In a secret ceremony, Mags had married billionaire Gaspar Cruz. At the time of her “bolt from the blue,” as the press called it, she and hubby had been married more than six months. But Mags’s revelation paled in comparison with Sean’s shocker: a public proclamation of his sexuality. The majority of his constituents thought the decision to come out was political suicide, but they were wrong. Instead, he clinched the majority of the gay and lesbian vote and won over those who trended liberal, and because of his exemplary track record as senator and then governor, most conservatives chose to overlook his orientation in favor of his ability to bring about real change in government—a talent already proven at the state level.

The mudroom door opened and shut, cutting into Darcy’s thoughts. Charlene strolled into the kitchen with Bullet. The giant schnauzer frogged out on the tiled floor while her sister washed a handful of herbs picked fresh from their garden. Charlene looked relaxed in floral yoga pants, a pink sweatshirt, and pink flip-flops. She wore her long brown hair swept into a ponytail, and a pink headband kept the loose strands away from her oval face. Today her fingernails and toenails sparkled with pink polish.

Darcy inspected her own fingernails, next her toes. Maybe she should take a cue from Charlene and invest in a manicure and pedicure. Or a trip to the salon for highlights. She glanced at her sister. No, one high-maintenance person in the family was enough.

Charlene lowered her sunglasses and leveled her hazel eyes at Darcy. “You aren’t reading about that campaign again, are you?”

Darcy folded the newspaper. “I am.”

Charlene opened the refrigerator door and began setting items on the countertop in preparation for the brunch she promised to fix while on spring break from Stanford. “I’ve never seen you so absorbed in an election. Sean should hire you as his campaign manager. Do you think he stands a chance? Being gay, that is.”

Often her sister took the opposing view simply to create conflict or to get a rise out of Darcy, but today she refused to bite. “Why not? We’ve had a black president and a Catholic president, so why not a gay president with a Hispanic VP? What I care about is his ability and whether he has the intestinal fortitude and bipartisan support to do the job he pledged to do.”

“He’s certainly made a great governor.”

“Yes, he has. By the way, thanks for fixing brunch . . . on your first day of vacation.”

“Better to do it today or I’ll be off doing a gazillion other things and will forget completely.” She placed her hands on her hips. “Tell me, when do you plan to move into the digital age? As in ditch the newspaper and read it online?”

“Never. I love the smell of newsprint in the morning.”

Metal clanged.

Bullet cocked his head.

Charlene frowned. “Mail? At this hour?”

Light spilled across the entry. An envelope sailed through the mail slot and landed on the tile. In a barking frenzy, Bullet scooted off the floor and limped into the foyer.

Darcy sprang out of her seat and snatched up the letter before Bullet could pounce on it. Baffled by the early delivery, she flung open the front door. “Stay.” Bullet sat. Darcy jogged to the curb and glanced down Mandalay Lane, expecting to see a courier or a departing vehicle of some kind, but the neighborhood of mostly elderly people still slept.

She examined the envelope. Plain white and nothing written on the outside. No courier service had delivered it. She ripped the seal with her fingernail and removed a card along with a check. The note read, “Meet me. 9:00 a.m. Palace of Fine Arts.” No date?

She flipped the check over and whistled low and long. Why would Sean write her a check for 250 grand? A retainer, no less—for the word was scrawled in the memo section. And why hadn’t he rung the bell and stopped in for coffee, or at least for an explanation?

On her way back into the house, she petted Bullet on the head and said, “Good boy,” releasing him from his stay.

The hall clock chimed as she locked the front door. She had better get moving if she planned to be home in time for brunch. And, she was dying to hear why Sean had written her a retainer for a quarter of a million dollars.

“Time to go.” Darcy placed the check and note in the writing desk in the kitchen.

“You haven’t been for your run?”

“Too busy reading the paper. Need anything from the store? Nothing big, of course.”

“Nope,” said Charlene. “I have everything planned, including dessert. Oh, and I gave Bullet his meds for his cut paw.”

“Thanks.” Darcy wiggled into a nylon Windbreaker, grabbed her water bottle off the butcher block, and kissed Bullet between the eyes. He followed her into the mudroom and waited expectantly at the side door that opened onto the driveway. She hated leaving him behind, but the vet had said no running until the cut on his pad healed. She latched the screen door and tested the handle. Lately, Bullet had gotten into the habit of letting himself out of the house. As she walked down the drive, his whines tugged at her heart.

Darcy warmed up with a slow jog as she left Mandalay for Lombard—the most crooked street in the city—and raced up the steep stairs, her knees pumping high, clearing each step with ease.

Leaving Lombard, she sprinted onto Hyde, and ran at a lung-bursting speed toward the fog-shrouded streets of Fisherman’s Wharf. On the harbor, she shot down the waterfront and quickly approached the docks, the slips veiled in white. Although she couldn’t see many of the yachts or sailboats that bobbed in the water, she heard the lap of the surf against their sides and the rasp of metal against wood as they tugged at their moorings.

She peeled away from one pier after another, until the Ferry Building came into view. She reached it and slowed a bit, mindful of the crowds of city workers pouring from the boat terminal, everyone in a hurry to reach their jobs in the downtown districts. She conducted a U-turn, and flew back up the Embarcadero, cutting her normal route short so she wouldn’t miss Sean.

At Pier 23 Charlene crept into Darcy’s mind. Her sister’s friendship with Vicky Lord, a young woman Darcy distrusted, continued to worry her. She had hoped that once Vicky and Charlene no longer roomed together at Stanford, the two would go their separate ways. But no. Vicky had rented a house near campus and had asked Charlene to move in rent-free. In every aspect, Vicky spelled trouble. Dan Gruet, Darcy’s former partner at the FBI, called the tattooed and pierced kid Wild Child.

Darcy’s thoughts skipped from Charlene to Sean’s double shocker. What had prompted him to come out now? “Honesty,” he had said. And what had triggered this sudden decision to run for the highest office in the land? Even more of a mystery, why did he want to hire her and for what, especially at a quarter of a million dollars? She couldn’t think of what service she could be to him.

Her favorite pier came into view. She sidestepped a man power washing the sidewalks and maneuvered around a refrigerator truck parked at the rear of a chowder house. From Pier 39 rose the sharp barks of sea lions. She circled the jetty, sucking in the salty air and pausing briefly to bid a silent good morning to the noisy mammals she had grown so fond of. Life was good. The tension in her neck eased as she again bore down on Fisherman’s Wharf.

Easy, methodical strides propelled her past the shops and restaurants waking to another day. She steered clear of milling tourists, navigated around a group of cyclists, and avoided a collision with a rollerblader preoccupied with texting. Two hours earlier, her normal run time, she would have owned the wharf. Few people appeared before dawn.

Maintaining a steady pace, she sailed along Jefferson until the pavement gave way to the Bay Trail. Flying by the shoreline at a pulse-pounding speed, she navigated around a pedestrian and gained momentum as she set her sights on Fort Mason, gearing up for the trail detour she had been taking ever since the city started their repairs on the retaining wall. She would be glad when they finished. The bypass route led her up a narrow, steep concrete staircase and then connected to an equally narrow walkway before disgorging its occupants onto Upper Fort Mason. Darcy managed the detour without crashing headlong into anyone, or vice versa, and breathed a sigh of relief as she left the park for Marina Boulevard.

Rejuvenated, Darcy increased her tempo as she neared the intersection of Scott and Marina, her feet striking the pavement in a rhythmic thump, thump, thump, the sound suddenly overridden by the louder, heavier slaps of sneakers on pavement. Another runner. She glanced over her shoulder.

Someone barreled into her. She hit the sidewalk. Pain shot through her lower back as her butt landed on concrete. Dazed, she stared at the black man towering over her. Without a word of apology or any attempt to help her, he dashed into the busy boulevard. Horns honked and someone cursed the man.

“Jackass,” Darcy muttered. She scrambled to her feet, retrieved her water bottle, and brushed dirt from her shorts, eager to be on her way. She didn’t want to miss Sean, assuming the note meant today. This was her normal running route, and he knew it since they often ran together, so on any given day she was likely to bump into him anyway.

As Darcy stood across from Lyon Street, waiting for the signal light to change, an orange sun cut through the lifting fog. Ahead loomed the Palace of Fine Arts, its ornate dome glowing copper red under the morning rays. She dropped to a walk, surprised to see the entire area cordoned off with barricades and a phalanx of San Francisco’s finest blocking all avenues into the monument.

Two officers broke from the crowd and said in unison, “Presidio is closed, ma’am.”

“What happened?” she asked, not expecting an answer.

“Come back another time,” the traffic cop said, his hand resting possessively on his holster.

Darcy turned to retrace her steps, hoping to approach the rotunda from a different route. In the distance, sirens shattered the peace. Their shrill whines grew louder as wave after wave of emergency vehicles and squad cars flooded the Presidio, choking off every artery. The invasion continued until the peaceful community swarmed with law enforcement. Front doors opened, and residents gathered on their porches or the sidewalks to gawk at the commotion.

She zipped her Windbreaker to conceal her shoulder rig and snuck between the vehicle-flanked streets to where a crowd had assembled at a police barrier. “What happened?”

“Cops won’t say,” said one of the cyclists milling around the barricade. “All I know is, the streets are crawling with cops.”

“We should’ve stayed at the Golden Gate,” complained another cyclist, her head bent as she examined the toe clips attached to her bicycle pedals.

A jogger stopped in front of the growing crowd of onlookers. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“Not sure,” Darcy answered.

“Must be serious,” he said, panting. “Police are going door-to-door asking if anyone saw anything, and I heard they’ve sealed off all roads within a one-mile radius. Whatever happened must be big.”

An ambulance nosed past them, tailed by a white SUV with San Francisco Medical Examiner on the side. The vehicles parked at the curb just as two vans careened onto the grounds. The letters stenciled on the compartment doors read kxtv.

A young policeman posted at the barricade shouted, “Tell them to get lost!”

A fellow officer who looked like he’d been on the force since the Kennedy administration gave the younger policeman a tired look. “At least keep them at bay.”

Someone called out a hello to Tony Barazza, the chief medical examiner and a friend of Darcy’s. Not wanting to be seen by Barazza at this particular moment, she blended into the crowd and watched him elbow his way through the throng along with Martinez, an investigator from the coroner’s office.

“Geary ordered the area sealed off,” an officer passed the word. “The entire palace area. Understood?”

“Got it,” another officer answered.

Darcy moved to the sidelines, searching for a weak point in the stronghold of blue, but all she saw were reinforcements and medics arriving by the minute. The chaos escalated. She slunk to the rear of the crowd, and crossed the pavement to Palace Drive. The street wrapped the back side of the palace grounds. No one confronted her, so she walked on and had almost reached the other side of the monument when she spotted two uniformed officers patrolling Lyon and Bay and another two loitering on the last stretch of lawn between her and the palace. To avoid suspicion, she met them midway.

“Officers, hi. Maybe you can help me.”

“The grounds are closed,” said the taller of the two. “You have to leave. Now.”

“Sorry, I didn’t know.” She headed back up Palace Drive, mind busy working out her next move. She glanced behind her. The officers were gone, so she walked briskly toward Bay, not at all surprised to see the policeman chatting with fellow officers at a police barricade on Lyon. She slipped among the parked cars and spied on them.

A man wearing a khaki jacket and pants appeared on the sidewalk. He took keys from his pocket and crossed the street to a row of cars. One of the officers at the Lyon roadblock homed in on him.

“Hey, you. Yes, you!” the policeman hollered. “Who gave you permission to enter the area?”

“I didn’t realize I needed permission, Officer . . .?”

“Osborn. Let’s see some identification.”

“Sure.” The man handed over his driver’s license.

Osborn studied the stranger’s face against the photograph on the license. “Jesús Santiago?”

“Yes, sir. Can I go now?”

“Are you in a hurry?” Osborn handed back the license.

“Frankly, yes sir, I am. My client needs ten blowups—enlargements—and they’re due tomorrow.” Santiago unlocked a dilapidated Volkswagen van and leaned into the driver’s side.

“When did you arrive at the palace?”

“Dawn. And I’m not here to tour the palace, but the Presidio.” Santiago sneezed twice. “Allergies.”

“What have you been doing all this time?”

“Shooting birds. With a camera, of course. I’m a professional photographer. My client owns Tweety Bird Feeds, a seed company outside Oakland.”

Osborn grunted. “Open your backpack.”

Stiff from crouching, Darcy shifted her weight from one leg to the other, giving her a better vantage point.

Santiago released the nylon buckle, shrugged off the rucksack, and rested it gently on the ground.

“Unpack it.”

Santiago complied. “Cameras. Lenses. Water.”

“The palace grounds are closed to all traffic, including pedestrians. The officers posted at the Marina barricade will point you to the detour route.”

Santiago shook his head. “Great. Another delay.”

“Good day, sir, and thank you for your cooperation.” Osborn radioed a fellow officer. “Kenton, Osborn. A white Volkswagen van is headed your way. Direct him to the detour. After he leaves, radio me.”

Seconds after Santiago’s van dipped from view, Osborn’s two-way radio squawked. “He’s gone? Good. Thanks, Kenton.” Osborn walked across the lawn and disappeared from view.

Rocking forward, Darcy prepared to stand, but she felt a slight tug followed by a tearing sound. Something had snagged her jacket. She bent down to free her Windbreaker and noticed the license plates on the sports car parked beside her: eql ryts. Sean’s car. He must be somewhere in the Presidio. She placed a hand on the hood to raise herself. The metal was cool to the touch. The car had been here a while.

She swept the area and immediately spotted Detective Walter Ortiz, a cop she knew well from a previous case. He and several other officers lingered at the fringe of the parking lot. The party broke up, and Officer Fillmore, a rookie from the Central Station, began his patrol of the area. She had an idea. Not original, but few were. She pulled out her PI license and advanced on Fillmore, calling out as she approached, “Have you seen Detective Ortiz?”

As she hoped, her assertiveness threw Fillmore, who had been on the force for a month. “Oh, hi, Detective McClain. He’s in the rotunda. Why?”

“He’s expecting me.”

“Really?” Fillmore hesitated. “I’ll show—”

“Thanks, I know the way.”

“Wait.”

Darcy pretended not to hear. She crossed the greenbelt at a fast walk. Out of sight of Fillmore, she veered onto a walkway, dived into the shrubs bordering the lagoon, and ducked under the yellow crime scene tape, one end of which was anchored to a tree trunk, the other tied around a colonnade.

She stole to the nearest wall and kept low for cover. A team of three stationed at the archway milled about. One carried a logbook, his job to sign in and out anyone who entered or exited the monument.

A gentle breeze stirred the scent of freshly mown grass, and muffled voices filtered from the rotunda, the words inaudible. She leaned sideways for a better view, her shoulder against the pillar for leverage. Detective Geary, a bald man pushing fifty, threw out his chest and sucked in his gut as he joined five of his officers and two plainclothes cops huddled at the palace entrance. Barazza and Martinez lingered nearby, talking in low voices. Barazza noticed Geary and headed toward the officer. A short conversation ensued. Geary spewed expletives, slapped Barazza on the back, and rejoined his men for another gab session.

Suddenly, the group exploded in loud argument, and two uniformed officers broke from the tight-knit assembly. The men seemed agitated, pacing and puffing nervously on cigarettes, apparently contemplating something important. Then the loop tightened and the heated debate continued. Curiosity ate at Darcy.

As time passed, gathering clouds blocked the sun, and shadows dulled the silhouettes inside the monument, making it difficult to discern one figure from another, especially from her angle and when most wore blue.

“Hey, get those lights in here.” Geary bellowed his directive.

Officers scurried into the theater. They unpacked tripods equipped with high-wattage spotlights and arranged them in a semicircle. Bright floodlights doused the honey-colored walls in blinding white.

“Okay, everyone out.” Geary’s gruff voice resonated through the dome.

People scattered. Darcy’s pulse quickened. On the ground sprawled a man, his back to her, one arm tucked under his body and his head partially hidden. He wore brown Dockers, loafers, and a white shirt. She craned her neck to catch a closer look, but the angle wouldn’t allow for a clear view. A policewoman stepped forward and covered the body with a blanket. Darcy eased off the concrete ledge to the ground and paused, thinking through the best approach to access the rotunda.

A hand closed on her shoulder. “Seen enough?”

She spun. “Osborn. Hi.”

Osborn leaned sideways, his gaze toward the rotunda. “Hey, Hilton. Come here.”

A short, dark-haired man in his mid-thirties strutted in their direction. Hilton, too, was new to the force, not a rookie but a transfer from LA. He saw Darcy and shook his head. “McClain, how in the hell did you get past the command post? Shit, Geary’s going to blow his top. Sir!” Hilton shouted to his boss. “I need you for a minute.”

“I’m coming,” said Geary. Darcy had tangled with him on many investigations, the outcome never good. He put an unlit cigar between his lips and scratched his silver-and-brown mustache with his thumb. The minute he laid eyes on her, his slow gait increased to a fast shuffle. “You working this job, McClain? No, so scat.” To Hilton, Geary shouted, “Goddamn it. Who’s sleeping on the job? I want names. Do you hear me, Hilton? Names.”

“Yes, sir.”

Geary turned back to Darcy. “Well, what are you doing here, McClain?”

“Out for a jog.”

Geary snickered. “Right.”

“Detective. Sir,” an officer called to Geary.

“Yeah, Beckwith? What is it?”

“Press wants to interview you. They want to know if you can ID the guy.”

“Tell the assholes I’m trying to conduct a murder investigation plus deal with other crap.” He cocked his thumb at Darcy. “Now back to work and find the damn murder weapon.”

“Yes, sir. Sir, what is the murder weapon?” asked Beckwith.

“The hell if I know. Just keep searching.”

A tall, distinguished-looking black man in a tan suit sauntered over to Geary. Darcy liked Detective Ortiz, a man with a conscience, for God knows Geary had none.

“Darcy, hi.” A smile brightened Ortiz’s stern face, and his hand shot out.

She shook it. “Good to see you again.”

Geary muttered something, followed by, “Okay, you two, cut the sweet stuff. We’re here on business.”

Ortiz glanced at his cell phone. “MacDonald says he found something interesting.”

“Oh?” Geary’s dour expression brightened. “Let’s talk over there. Where it’s private.”

After a few moments, Ortiz motioned to Darcy to come over.

Geary cursed. “No reason to involve her whatsoever. None.” Darcy didn’t hear Ortiz’s reply, only Geary’s loud bark. “Okay, okay. So let her identify the victim. Then she leaves.”

Ortiz made eye contact. His sad expression carried a warning: “This won’t be easy.” And his demeanor said she knew the victim. He walked her to where the body lay. A cool breeze rustled the bushes, tousling Darcy’s damp hair. A shiver skidded along her spine, and sweat beaded on her upper lip. It seemed like an eternity until he pulled back the blanket.

“I’m so sorry.” Ortiz touched her shoulder.

Numb, Darcy knelt, one hand on the ground to steady herself, her knees weak and her brain denying what her eyes clearly saw. “How did he die?”

“Don’t answer.” Geary stepped in front of Darcy. “Now stand, McClain.”

“It does no harm to give her a minute.” Ortiz grabbed Geary’s arm and led him away from the body. Begrudgingly, Geary went along.

Darcy stared at her friend, lying lifeless on the cold ground. Disbelief and sadness tore at her heart, and tears stung her eyes. Through blurred vision, she whispered her goodbye. “I’ll miss you, Sean.”

***

Author Bio:

Patricia “Pat” Krapf is a full-time writer and author of the acclaimed Darcy McClain and Bullet Thriller Series.

She and her husband live in Texas with their giant schnauzer Bullet, who at a hundred pounds has found his way into the plot of his master’s books.

Pat was an active member of the Dallas-Ft. Worth Writers’ Workshop for ten years and is now a member of several professional writing organizations, including Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. She frequents Bouchercon and the DFW Writers Conference. Her second book, Gadgets, won the Betty L. Henrichs Award for Best Publishable Mystery.

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alizrak · 7 years

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Rise of the Runelords - Burnt Offerings, Chapter 1 chronicle [SPOILERS]

I don't have to warn you, there are spoiler for Rise of the Runelords ahead. This is the very first time I ever ran anything official from Pathfinder so I'm really excited for how things turn out for my players.

The current party consist on the following.

Yulious and Yvan - (Sorcerer Celestial Bloodline and Ranger "Switch hitter") Aasimar twin brothers that lived in the outskirts of Magnimar. Orphaned just as they entered their "teens", they had to fend for themselves and refused to be taken in by others. After going through the loss of their parent they each became followers of Gozreh and Nethys, reflecting on their roles in life as Ranger and Sorcerer. They were asked to bring statues of their respective deities to be added to the Cathedral. To avoid unwanted attention, both brothers wear cloaks to conceal their "silver blonde totally aasimar" hair.

Aisha - Double Cursed Oracle Undine (Neried) - Born on Katapesh, was captured by Gnoll slavers and rescued by Andoran operatives trying to disrupt slave trade. She was offered the chance to get into a ship to any point she wanted, and said "As far away from here as possible". She ends up in Maginmar and assists the Swallowtail Festival with interest on the mutli-religious Catedral in Sandpoint. She passes as a human.

Valora - Elf "My mom said I have a condition" (Drow) Cavalier Order of the Dragon - For reasons we will not expand in this campaign, Valora has been raised by Hannah and kept under the watchful eye of Shalelu since before Sandpoint's foundation. Valora has been raised to believe she is an elf with a rare birth defect that makes her sensitive to light. While they never directly interacted with each other, Valora grew to know Naulia as a foil to herself. She craves to find real friends, specially those that last... as most humans in Sandpoint seem to quickly outgrow her and change.

Gunther - Gnome Gunslinger - A mischievous gnome from Whistledown that has come to Sandpoint to bring tons of fireworks for the Swallowtail Festival. He is terrified of the Bleaching and has worked with explosives for quite a while now. He's not a pyromaniac, though. He simply loves to find new uses of the black powder that makes pretty colors.

Jhony (Couldn't make it to the first session) - Half-Orc Rogue - Johny would have loved to be a pirate and have a life of adventure and treasure in Riddleport... sadly, the harsh conditions at sea are not his cup of tea. He's a larger than life Half-orc that doesn't consider himself one. After a horribly bet gone wrong, Johny was forced to flee the city and lay low for a while... he decided to go a nice little town not too far away from Magnimar to try his luck and enjoy the famed local cuisine.

So it begins...

Yulious, Yvan, Gunther and Aisha arrive to Sandpoint first thing in the morning through the Tanner's bridge. Valora sometimes helps as a bouncer at the Pixie's Kitten (they are her neighbors after all) specially now that the town has attracted a lot of tourists there ought to be some troublemakers and she wants to make sure the girls are safe. Yvan and Yulious debate if they should visit the brothel (do they have enough money?) but then remember that maybe, just maybe, it would be best to deliver the sacred statues of their gods to the Cathedral first. Gunther is directed to leave his cart of fireworks at the southern side of the plaza in front of the Cathedral. Aisha is wandering through the streets, turning heads... with a Charisma of 18, she's as useless as she is beautiful. VERY. She's the walking definition of a damsel in distress.

Yulious and Yvan meet Father Zantus to deliver their statues and he was relieved they managed to make it in time. Valora ends her shift and goes to hear the opening speeches with the others. Using the prep sheets from Trik motivates the characters to try and try and try again to win some of the prizes... at the end it nets them one cloak of resistance for Gunther and Yvan, as well as a bunch of Masterwork Arrows. During these contests... Yvan and Yulious notice Valora and Aisha standing by, watching as the others take their turn at the contests, and Yvan rashly approaches to ask their names.

"Hey strange girls, what are your names?"

"Strange!? What's that supposed to mean?" Valora gets triggered. Tells him it's none of his business and finds it incredibly creepy a hooded unknown guy randomly asking for their names.

Yulious apologizes for his brother's lack of tact and presents themselves. Valora gives her name but then grabs Aisha by the arm and says they have to go. Valora leaves and brings Aisha along to find Sherif Hemlock to tell him there are a couple of suspicious hooded fellows that she feels are trouble. Hemlock promises to keep an eye on the guys. Aisha and Valora present each other and decide to stick along... Valora is worried Aisha looks extremely feeble and innocent to she will try to keep her out of trouble with all the people around.

Even though Yulious broke his nose during one of the races, the rest of the Festival goes on smoothly. The party converges again during lunch, attracted by Ameiko's Salmon Curry. Valora saves Hannah a bowl and Hannah realizes Yulious broken nose. Valora reluctantly allows her mom to fix his nose... Hannah notices both of them are Aasimar. She is a little surprised at first as for this campaign, she was one of the midwifes attending Nualia when she miscarried. It's been 5 years since she saw any other divine blooded people. The brothers thank her for the help. Yulious wants to check for maps of the region as he's interested on what kind of treasure or hidden secrets can the Hinterlands offer to his brother and him... Sadly, the Way North is closed for the festivities.

They move to the consecration of the Cathedral. They wait for Father Zantus to start their speech- and hell breaks loose.

They don't even wait for me to call for perception rolls, they are rolling away trying to see what killed the dog. You don't kill a doggie in this table and live to tell the tale. They spot the goblins easily. The encounter takes a while... as most of them are rolling low. Yulious casts magic missile and Aisha uses Inflict Light Wounds... the goblin withers away because she's upset he killed the puppy. Everyone stares at her.

They finally end up dispatching the first 3 goblins, and Valora wants to go for her mount (a Cave Salamander... yeah) that is at The Gobling Squashed stables and to check on her mom. At that point, Gunther's fireworks explode and they are forced to deal with the Goblin Warchanter's group. Yvan and Valora roll natural twenties + confirmations like there is no tomorrow... and the goblins lay dead in a single round. I allow Valora to run to get her mount and check on her mom on the way back while the others are healing and try unsuccesfully to help the slashed doggie. Valora gets to see Daviren having a field day killing goblins. Aisha cries over the dog's body and Gunther swears he will make sure they regret this. As soon as she gets back, they hear Die, Dog! DIE!

Valora, Aisha and Gunther get on the mount, while Yvan and Yulious rush to the gate. There is another dog hurt? With a surprise round, Gunther crits the Goblin commando with max damage x4. The Goblin's head explodes before he even heard them coming. Valora charges with her reach weapon, crits, and makes a goblin kebab. Aisha drops herself from the mount over the dying dog and heals him. Yvan takes his greatsword and crit charges too. In the blink of an eye, everything is done. Aldern immediately praises Aisha as his and his dog saviour.

The rest of the goblins rush to flee and the party wants to give chase. Hemlock arrives and tells them to make sure the streets are safe instead, they are still trying to figure out exactly what happened. That door shouldn't be open.

Valora - "Wait, where are the guards of this door?"

Me - "...mmh?"

Aisha - "surely, there were guards here... right? Even closed, it wouldn't be left unguarded. ((OOC: Other wise it would be quite stupid on their part))"

Me - "... I guess?"

Yvan - "...Soooo?"

Me - "Some of the guards left their post to check on the festival?"

Yulious - "They must be hold accountable for their incompetence!"

The party was still a little unconvinced. They keep wanting to go out to follow the Goblins. They have a Ranger and also Valora's Cave Salamander has scent, after all. Hemlock tells them is going to be night soon... but they don't care because most of them have lowlight vision or darkvision. Hemlock insists there are more dangerous things out there when darkness falls and Valora remembers the tales of the Sandpoint Devil that her "Aunt Shalelu" tells her to keep her from wandering too far away from the town. She ends up disuading the others. Ameiko arrives to inquire with Hemlock what the hell was all that, and offers the others free lodging. They gladly accept and Yvan even tries to flirt with her... horribly. Valora glares at him and motions an "I'm watching you" warning sign. Aldern gifts the dog to Aisha and promises to repay everyone for saving his life after things calm down.

Take away:

I underestimated my group's will to follow through total goblin genocide because the goblins killed a dog. Even if they were somewhat wounded they where completely on board of tracking the goblins back to their lair and reenact John Wick. This is a very proactive group... They are used to follow through any leads right away... so I'm sure they will try to track them back in the morning but I'll have them find a straggler group of Goblins instead... and after the crypt scene I'll make it rain. I fear that if they start asking around (specially when Shalelu explains the tribes), they will push forward to Nettlewood or Mosswood for guerrilla tactics against them.

I'll have Daviren offering the party the bounty on Goblins ears the very next morning.

Other than that, the session extended way longer than I had anticipated because of all the roleplay they did during the festival contests. I was taken by surprise when they asked me who was guarding the north gate and I didn't remember anything related to that particular plot point other that Lonjiku left it open (which they obviously don't know yet). Any ideas I can use?

Submitted March 27, 2017 at 03:46PM via reddit http://ift.tt/2nFPzoI

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