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#and what better way then to twist his own great works and destroy the species he was working so hard to save at the end of the universe.
quietwingsinthesky · 18 days
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the last unicorn post from earlier has me thinking about the master. that yana is still in there, you know? is still someone he was, if even for a brief flash across the life of a time lord. there’s no way to unlive that life. there are ways to twist it later, sure, to make utopia into hell on earth. but the life was lived. in much the same way that the doctor can remember, can feel, the love he held onto as john smith even as that life is ripped out of his hands. the doctor choose denial and then grief and then to shutter it all away. and so john smith died, and so professor yana died, and the doctor and the master live on. the doctor has done this before, and he lives in orbit around humanity, trying to keep the best parts of them and hold them deep enough to take root (which he can pretend he gets to choose, as a time lord. as a human, it all floods in and can’t be dug back out.) but what about the master, right?
to borrow a turn of phrase: i think there are two time lords left in the universe, and they both learned how to regret.
#regret here meaning less feeling the emotion of actual regret obviously because time lords do not actually funxtion on unicorn rules. they#already get sad just fine on their own. no humanity needed for that.#but i dont know. i just dont think he brushed it off so easily. i think he did a hell of a job convincing himself he did.#and what better way then to twist his own great works and destroy the species he was working so hard to save at the end of the universe.#but what about the knowledge that he *could* be that person. that somewhere in him exists a version that wanted to save people.#a version that is painfully too much like the doctor. even. now is that part worse or better than the human part?#but if past regenerations are ghosts i think yana deserves a haunt.#anyway maybe ignore this one im rambling about nothing here#theres just. i dont know. what if you were the last of your kind and in surviving you made yourself Not Like Them in a way you’ll never#escape.#i mean doctor who is just so concerned with all these plots about hybrids and children of the tardis and clones and What Makes A Time Lord.#but they’re so obsessed with it in just. a very Lore way. is what it feels like. we get brushes of more like with jenny and how she’s#physically a time lord and the doctor denies her that inheritance. a shared suffering…#but me myself im just fascinated with the doctor and the master as the time lords who survived. but they survived Wrong#its. its. children of gallifrey that don’t belong to her anymore. you know?#i dont care if river’s got time lord dna!!! or the metacrisis is physically human!!! i dont care!!! talk to me about what it means beyond#their blood and bones!!! what’s it like to have your sense of self stripped from you like that!!!#what’s it like when so much of you is the shed skin of time lords past. but one of you was human. one of you was painfully *humiliatingly*#human!!!#enough about how much dna you need to count as a time lord. i want to know how much they can mutate until they can’t be recognized as one.#does that make sense?
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talesofsonicasura · 1 year
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Heartstone Healer
Another Trollhunters AU but with another big twist.
No one knew exactly how it happened but one day a once dead Heartstone had been found fully revived. A phenomenon that steadily began to grow as more regain their beautiful light and soul warming auras. Trolls call this strange occurrence 'The Great Miracle' for many lost homes had become lively once.
A lot of individuals began to look into what cause these Heartstone revivals, each with their own reason. Yet nobody have gotten a single step closer to the truth. Whether it been the work of an unknown individual or lost magic, an answer still hadn't been found.
Until one day Blinkous "Blinky" Galadrigal came across something odd in his library. A small fast figure that zoom about until eventually it hid itself inside a chest. Blinky thought it was a scared whelp at first, softly beckoning the supposed child out from their hiding spot.
What came out hadn't been a troll whelp nor anything the six eyed troll seen before. A peculiar stone creature who unknown to all, might be responsible for the Great Miracle. Or something even greater.
If you are wondering, yep, the strange creature is Jim. Figured why not mess around with a different form for him than just a troll, changeling or half troll/changeling. Species choice for me is a golem specifically the Knack style.
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The design fits perfectly for this as Jim definitely looks like a troll yet his peculiar nature overshadows it. Even more so since he can change his size by creating relics, the parts of his body, to become a small kaiju. Jim's smallest or "child form" is around 2'1 but his maximum size is 42 ft! Bigger he is, the more he bears a resemblance to his canon half troll form with a little Beast Jim mixed in. Albeit there are some differences like a tail.
He's quite powerful however the golem has a major weakness. The golden chest orb contains Jim's soul. It taking damage can be fatal but he will die if the item is destroyed. An issue that shall become clear as things continue.
Now there are some major changes when it comes to this AU and Trollhunters canon. Gunmar nor his forces are stuck in the Darklands. They were forced to be an enigmatic tribe who soon take shelter in the US' Badlands where a restored Heartstone is at. Role of Trollhunter is more like a peacekeeping job since there are way more communities than just Arcadia Trollmarket.
Changelings also have their own market and are a more reclusive tribe due to prejudice. They pretend to be lost twins, unknown family members or orphans as a way to gain resources, survive and on rare occasions live amongst humans. Arcadia Trollmarket is neutral territory where no one is allowed to cause a scene unless they handle their issues in a competition. Don't abide by the rules is asking to be ostracized by every community.
Now Jim's behavior tends to reflect his size with small form being a curious little kid and largest as a playful young man. Like any child, you can expect him to get into all kinds of trouble especially when it comes to sneaking out. This is how Jim meets the cast while giving Blinky an aneurysm.
Barbara and Strickler are dating but the avocado hasn't told her about his Changeling nature(probably never will). Little Jim has other plans as guess who strolls up to them on a park date. Toby is the next person who already has Gnome Chompski but been keeping the guy a secret from everyone except Nana.
Claire already has NotEnrique too since he's one of the Changelings looking for a better life. Jim also pays a visit to the Badlands, may have scared Bular shitless and Gunmar might(definitely) wants adopt/kidnap the little guy. Angor Rot pops up too as children tend to find stuff they shouldn't than just stranger interaction. Innocent little kid gives troll assassin his soul back.
Not even Draal, Kanijar and Vendel are escaping a visit. The Old Goat is more curious than the others at what Jim is but already has a feeling he's behind the Great Miracle. Draal decides to be the big brother role model cause he senses the golem is gonna be a force to be reckoned with if trained right. Kanijar is the second person to have an aneurysm as he knows Jim must be a whelp and an unsupervised child scares him shitless.
The Arcane Order also want to spirit him away although Nari is more motherly in her reason. Jim been bringing magic back with each Heartstone revived and they believe he might be able to restore Primordial Heartstones with enough power. A young Titan and maybe even a new god to be.
Blinky is the obvious book dad who wants to teach his new ward everything about troll culture as a whole. Finding out Jim's origins is just a nice bonus. AAARRRGGHH is the chill dad that's most likely to have a certain golem on his back like a koala. He finds the little guy as nice company and likes to play games or just relax with Jim.
Morgana and Merlin are the only characters not trying to adopt Jim. The shadow sorceress isn't imprisoned in the Arcadia Heartstone but instead had most of her magic sealed away. She is steadily getting it back through her assassin, who been doing some dirty work. However Jim threw a wrench in that by giving Angor his soul back.
Merlin wants to stop her for good but the battle also cost him. Douxie been helping him recover until Jim's existence becomes known throughout the wizard community. Merlin believes his power can be what they need to stop Morgana once and for all. Although Douxie doesn't know if his master has no qualm whether Jim dies to perform the task.
In short, practically everyone wants the peculiar golem with most being adoption papers. A fluffy yet chaotic AU chaotic where Jim is as much of a chaos bringer like his canon self but on another level. Plus it be hilarious if this version met his canon counterpart.
Congrats Jimbo, you gotten a younger brother whose an alternate version of yourself! Have fun especially if its during the New Jersey exodus. I might also experiment more on the Heartstone revival concept. That's it for now! Until next time folks, I'll see you back in Arcadia!
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secretshinigami · 3 years
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All Noble Things
Author: @kiranatrix For: @resilicns Pairings/Characters: Near and Gevanni Rating/Warnings: Gen, no warnings Prompt: Near reflecting on his relationship with Wammy’s and L’s reputation Author’s notes: In How to Read, it says that Gevanni’s hobby is building ships in a bottle. So I imagined a scene where Near is observing Gevanni, now in the role of Watari, building a special ship. The time period is flexible but I imagined it after the C-Kira case and before the case with Minoru. This is a loose interpretation of your prompt but I hope you enjoy it!
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, Gevanni.” Near didn’t look up as he carefully laid out another domino on the floor, perfectly spaced from its neighbor and approximately two centimeters from chaos. Pinched fingers pulled back carefully and twisted around a strand of white hair. “Two things, really.”
Gevanni looked up from his workbench as the long but comfortable silence between them was broken. Since Roger had died and he’d taken on the role of Watari, he was usually the question-asker. Would you like lunch now? Have you heard back about this or that piece of evidence? Did you have another nightmare last night? 
He’d gotten used to it, to Near. To being the bedrock that an island could rest upon. “Two questions?”
No, he was more of a species imported to Near’s world and being gradually altered by the isolation, evolving to fill his niche. But he had no complaints–it was a quiet, stable life and Near paid him well. He didn’t mind the solitude. “You’re exceeding your daily allotment. I’ll have to demand a raise if this keeps up.”
“I believe I gave you a raise just three months ago. If these demands keep up, I’ll have to find another Watari.” Near deadpanned it but his eyes flicked up briefly, and Rester knew he was joking. Another domino clinked against the terrazzo floors, this one with hand-carved scrimshaw detailing a breaching whale.
Gevanni snorted and turned back to the ship in a bottle he was working on. “Good luck finding someone else to source those pajamas with the specific blend of Pima cotton you prefer. I’ve kept that a secret. Iron-clad job security.” He grinned as he carefully reached a long wire into the bottle to pat down blue and white putty mimicking ocean waves. “So, what’s question number one?”
“Can you tie back my hair? It keeps getting in the way.” Near flicked a long strand over his shoulder but it fell again, dangling dangerously close to his creation. “Mind the–”
“Dominos? Yeah, I’m practically a ninja at this point.” Gevanni pushed his loupe glasses to the top of his head before carefully making his way over spiraling lines of set-up dominos to Near at the center. He knelt and pulled a hair-tie from his pocket, holding it between his teeth as he gathered up all the silvery strands. “Holf spill,” he murmured around the band. Near was stone-still as he made a quick and slightly messy ponytail, leaving some loose hair around the face for twirling. “Better?”
“Much. Thank you.” Near very briefly made eye contact as Gevanni went back to his workbench before looking back to his pile of dominos. He sorted through them for another scrimshaw piece. Gevanni had made a special set for him on his last birthday but he always saved them for the end. 
“Mmhm.” Gevanni slid back into his chair and picked up the little ship, a model of a 19th-century whaler. “So what was the second question?” 
“I was curious what you were working on.” Near let a domino tumble across his knuckles, back and forth, back and forth. “You’ve never spent that much time on just one ship before.” He caught the domino with his thumb and placed it next in line. 
“Oh, so you noticed?” Gevanni held up the little whaler on his palm, clearly proud of the highly detailed craftsmanship. All the masts were down and tied with an array of strings that could be pulled up once it was in the bottle to raise them. “I guess this one’s special since it doesn’t really exist. Thought I’d challenge myself. It’s…well, it’s how I imagine the Pequod to look, the whaling ship in–“
“Moby Dick?” Near stared at the miniature vessel, head slightly cocked as he smoothed a loose strand of hair. “The ship Captain Ahab used to chase his white whale.”
Gevanni smiled. “That’s right. It’s one of my favorite books. Have you read it?” 
“Years ago. I remember not liking it very much. The whale killed him in the end.” Near placed the last couple of dominos and let out a long sigh. The moments before flicking the first piece were the ones he both cherished and dreaded. The satisfaction of creation could be drawn out like a  monotone note, but when it was finished, the spectacular destruction was often over too soon. So, he hesitated and stood up instead, padding to Gevanni’s workbench to watch more creation. 
“I bet you’d like the book more these days. Single-minded obsession to defeat a power past human control? Throwing all caution and sense of self-preservation to the wind? The thrill of the chase?” Gevanni arched a brow. “Can’t tell me that doesn’t sound familiar.”
Near frowned slightly and hunched in on himself. “I suppose you mean L. Or do you characterize me as so foolish?”
“You’re L now.” Gevanni disliked that he had to remind Near of that even now, years after the first L had died. “But yes, it reminds me of what Matsuda told us about your predecessor’s obsession with Kira. I never met the first L, but maybe I can understand him, in a way.” He quoted Melville, "All my means are sane, my motive and my object mad.’ You’re L but you’re not him, and I’m glad for it.”
Near wasn’t sure if he was glad for it or not. So many times over the years he’d compared himself to that avatar and wondered if he could measure up. Drily, “I guess that makes me Ishmael." 
"You survived, didn’t you? Lived to tell the tale and learn what he couldn’t." 
Gevanni turned back to the little ship, carefully threading another string through the rear-most mast. He worked quietly for a while, cognizant of Near’s focused attention and feeling sorry for bringing up the Kira case. It wasn’t often that Near took such an interest in his own projects, or perhaps the man was merely thinking about what he’d said. “Sit down, if you want to. I’m about to get to the exciting part.”
Near pulled a chair closer and slinked into it, one leg pulled tight to his chest and the other dangling off the end. “Which is the exciting part? Stuffing it into the bottle?”
“That’s part of it. The thrilling part for me is raising the masts and sails inside the bottle.” Gevanni pointed to the flat masts and the multiple lines of string leading from them. “If anything goes wrong or a string gets tangled…or some bit of glue doesn’t hold, well–”
“You’re screwed.” Near smiled faintly and rested his chin on his knee. “Hours of planning for one moment of glory. Or disaster.” It also sounded familiar, so familiar.
“Exactly.” Gevanni chuckled and looked over at Near, pleased to see that small, rare smile. That in itself was the product of so much patience, of hours spent in understanding and the slow building of confidence and trust. “Once I get the ship in, would you like to raise the sails?”
Near’s eyes widened and he rocked slightly in the chair. That was Gevanni’s moment of glory and he deserved it after so much time and hard work. The inlaid wood, the meticulous paint, the delicately carved and articulated ship’s wheel capped in brass. The hand-sewn sails and gold script that read Pequod on the ship’s side. Each detail was evidence that someone else had built this and he would only be stealing the best part, swooping in for the end of the trick.
“You built it so you should do it.” It didn’t help that he was worried about making a mistake and ruining it at the last moment. How would it even fit? Despite the masts lying flat, it seemed impossible that the ship would make it inside the bottle. “I don’t know how.”
Gevanni sensed Near’s hesitation and uncertainty, recognizing the subtle tics of anxiety. “I can show you. You’re great at stuff like this.” He motioned to the vast lines and towers of dominos filling the room. “Plus, I trust you.” 
When Near didn’t answer, he turned back to the ship, placing a small line of glue at the bottom and oh-so-carefully maneuvering it into the narrow mouth of the glass bottle and onto the ‘waves’ of translucent blue putty. It was a very tight fit and when it stuck down in the right position, he let out a sigh of relief.
“Not bad, huh?” The strings dangled from the bottle’s mouth as he held it up to show Near. “Offer still stands.”
Near wanted to do it, to try. Honestly, he wanted to ask Gevanni to show him how to build one of his own, how to trump the rigid enclosure and build something impossible inside. To raise it up not by magic but by human ingenuity and patience. A creation not to destroy but to keep.
“Alright.” His fingers moved from his hair to tentatively touch the white strings hanging from the bottle’s mouth. “All of them?”
“Just these.” Gevanni pointed out several lines connected to the three masts. “Don’t yank, just pull slowly until you feel resistance and I’ll tape them up.”
“If it works.”
Gevanni laughed quietly. “It’ll work. Stop stalling.”
Near mumbled, “I’m not stalling,” but stalled a moment more before gently tugging the strings. He made a soft noise in the back of his throat when all three masts raised in unison, perfectly aligned and straight. He smiled as Gevanni secured the strings, then slid off the chair to gaze at the bottle from the side. This floating world, this impossible thing that’s bottled the sea. “I can see why you like these so much.” 
“It passes the time.” Gevanni felt warm inside since it was rare that they connected like this, despite all the time spent in each other’s company. He glued the strings to the ship with a long wire and then cut them, leaving no trace of how it had really been made. Setting it on the bench to dry, he said, “Would you like to have it? I have about a dozen. I mean, if you want it.”
“As a warning against white whales?” Near smirked and climbed back into the chair. He fingered the hem of his specially-ordered Pima cotton pajamas, the exact blend he preferred. “Or for the memory of Ahab?”
“Neither? Or…maybe both.” Gevanni knew that so much had changed for Near when Kira died. Monster or not, that moment of destruction had ultimately felt unsatisfying. He knew Near struggled with assuming the name and reputation of L, a legacy that had become so confused in the mind of a world that would never know two L’s had died and a third now had to make peace with that. It was easier to bottle ships than emotions.
Mildly, “Or maybe just because it’s something we built together.” It was odd, but somehow it would mean a lot to him for Near to have it. “How about it?” 
Near found a loose string at the hem of his pants and yanked it, snapping the thread. He got up and crouched beside the winding, spiraling rows of dominos and pressed a slender finger against the first one. That catalyst set off the reaction, the staccato clack clack clack! that echoed in the high-ceilinged room. It was over in seconds and silence crept in again. 
“I’d like that.”
-End-
[The title comes from a quote in Moby Dick: "A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy. All noble things are touched with that.” It reminded me of  Gevanni’s rather solitary hobby as well as the occupation of solving cases as L.]
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rinrinp42 · 3 years
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The Red Planet
For the first day of @jangobiweek, Enemies to Lovers (though it more ended up pre-relationship). It did end up longer than I expected, also there’s violence
Jango wanted to rub his temples, but he trusted Priest about as far as a Hutt could throw.  At least outside of being on contract together. He had only tracked the di’kut down because he was a good soldier.  Same with Reau.  Ward was better but also could just fade into the background to the point that it’d be hard to pinpoint what jobs he’d been on.
But then, the four of them being on this planet was Priest’s fault so honestly, it might not have been worth it.   The damn di’kut demanded they go to Ord Radama before heading to Kamino and then the solar storm hit and scrambled the nav.  And now they had crashed on this planet.
This… weird, maybe abandoned planet?  There were old building overtaken by plants and a few other old crashed ships.  Jango wasn’t even sure they were in the same system anymore.
“Hello there!” a voice cut through the cold air.
All four Mandalorians whirled to face the voice.
It was a Jetii, fresh from their kriffing temple.  His red hair was that growing out from a buzz that indicated he was recently a Padawan.
“Jetii,” Priest growled.
“I am Obi-Wan Kenobi. It would seem we all were caught in that solar storm,” the Jetti grinned at them.
Jango glowered beneath his buy’ce before taking a fortifying breath.  He was starting the process to get his revenge.
“So, it would seem,” Jango spoke.
The Jetii was silent for a moment.
“Well then, I will let you be,” he spoke then and then turned away.
Reau made a sound of disgust that Jango felt in his soul. Jetii arrogance.
They found a ship that might just have a part that could be jury-rigged to get them off the planet, but it had taken them hours.  And there was something about this abandoned planet that was making Jango’s skin crawl under his kute.  He and Priest had gone in the old ship to search the parts while Reau and Ward stayed outside to keep an eye out.
Just because they hadn’t seen anyone since the Jetii left didn’t mean that there was no one else there. Especially as they kept hearing things moving just out of sight.  Even if it was weird that they couldn’t pick up anyone on the scanners.
“I don’t think this’ll work,” Priest finally sighed, “the parts you said we’d need to connect it are missing.  Maybe if one of the other ships had something similar but…”
He was right, damnit. That was the problem with having an experimental ship, the parts were sometimes so specific that he had limited options to repair it or he needed more parts than otherwise to make it work.
“There’s the buildings we haven’t gotten to,” Jango pointed out, “we should probably look there for extra parts.  I think I say a port when we were crashing.”
No need to explain why he hadn’t aimed for the port in the first place.  Priest had also seen the plant life that had creeped violently through the buildings.  The tundra like area they ended up in was better in the lack of hidden dangers for the ground.
When they exited it was to Reau scanning the horizon.  She was carefully moved her gaze from ship to ship as if she would miss something miniscule if she went to fast.
“Reau?” Jango prompted, his own hand coming up to flick on his scanners.
“Ward’s gone,” she spoke quietly, “we were circling to keep an eye on everything and he didn’t meet back up with me.  At first I thought he had seen something and slipped off to investigate but he hasn’t shown back up.”
That… that was unsettling. Ward wasn’t someone Jango was particularly close to but he knew the other man well enough that he wouldn’t expect Ward to not check in.  And Slave I was unusual enough that there was no chance of Ward finding the right piece to get off.  Especially given that Jango had a secondary part that needed to be plugged in to leave given he didn’t actually trust any of them.
“Which side was he on?” he asked, mind already racing.
Reau nodded towards the buildings, “that side.”
Well, guess they were checking out the port then.
They were about halfway there when the Jetii showed up again.  This time he was disheveled, thrown off by something.  He paused when he spotted them, eyes raking over them.
He swore violently when he saw Ward was missing.  The type of swearing that even without knowing the Jetii Jango could tell was out of place coming from him.
“How long has your friend been gone?  Did you see him get taken?”
“What’s it to you-” Jango could hear the sneer in Priest’s voice and rolled his eyes.
Was Jango the only one that didn’t let his hatred of Jetiise cloud his mind?  Obviously, he had run into something.
“Reau, tell him,” he ordered.
She stiffened and threw a glare through her buy’ce at him but answered.
The Jetii ran a hand threw his hair.
“Listen, this planet,” he spoke, eyes scanning the area around them restlessly, “it’s filled with some sort of, I don’t know, twisted organisms?  They don’t act like normal for their species and they…”
His eyes met Jango’s through the visor.
“We weren’t the only ones to crash here due to that storm.  They consumed the others.  Turned them to be like them.  At least those that they didn’t eat.”
Jango felt a chill go down his spine.  He didn’t know why he trusted the Jetii, but he did.  It was insane, but…
“We can’t leave,” he said, “our ship broke when we were landing.”
The Jetii nodded, “mine as well.  Maybe we can cannibalize my ship for your’s?  Work together to get off of this planet?  We can part ways after that.”
Jango hesitated.  He didn’t want to work with the Jetii, even if he believed what he said.  Yet the Jetiise had new ships than what they had been seeing.
“Fine.  Lead the way.”
“So, why’s a Jetii all the way out in the Esstran System?” Reau asked, “isn’t it a bit close to the Sith Worlds for your lot?”
Of course she couldn’t help but to poke at the Jetii.  Jango really shouldn’t have expected better of her.
“It was the Sith Worlds that I came out here for,” the Jetii said, “I was trying to find information on a Sith.”
Great.  A Jetii scholar.  Probably didn’t do battle often then.
“The last mission I went on with my Master we were attacked by a Sith as we were protecting the Naboo Queen.  Given that the Sith have been gone for centuries, it raised questions.”
Priest paused at that, and Jango almost joined him.
“You mean there are dar’jetiise in the Galaxy again?” Priest demanded.
Jango wanted to know as well, a sliver of unease digging into his mind, replaying every meeting he had had with his employer.
He might despise the Jetiise for the hand they had in the destruction of the Haat Mando’ade, but the dar’jetiise had used Mando’ade, had made their culture into a puppet to be directed by them, had pushed them into much that, in retrospect, had weakened them.  Historically allies meant, in truth, used and abused by the dar’jetiise.
And Jango had a feeling he had walked into yet another trap set by them blinded as he was with a lust for vengeance.  And, a voice not unlike Jaster’s whispered in the back of his mind, look what it has already led you to do.  Who you choose to work with.
The Jet- Kenobi turned back, mouth opening to reply.
It was cut off as something tackled Priest down, clawing at his beskar’gam.
It had once been human, that much Jango could tell.  But now? Now it was emancipated beyond anything he had seen, skin tight to its bones except where he could see vines writhing underneath.
Reau screamed in rage, bringing her blasters to arm and started to shoot.
Kenobi grabbed both Jango and Reau and yanked them back.
“They travel in packs; we need to move.”
Reau kept shooting as Kenobi tried to pull them along, eyes darting around, tense.  Sure enough, others joined the being in tearing Priest open like he was a lobster.
Jango pulled his arm out of Kenobi’s grip and tossed Reau over his shoulder, carrying her as she kept shooting.
“Get us to your ship Kenobi!” Jango ordered.
Honestly, kriff this entire planet.  If he could he would destroy it just to make sure no one else had to deal with this.
Kenobi gave one sharp nod and moved forward.  It took a while for Reau to stop firing and then she just snarled at him to put her down and was silent.
The Jedi Starfighter Kenobi had was a Delta-6 Sprite, luckily.  Jango had retrofitted parts of one for Slave I before.
They quickly stripped the parts they needed out.
“Can you use your Jetii powers to carry that?” Jango asked, mind racing for how to get them back to Slave I.
“Yes, but I won’t be much use in a fight if I do so.”
“That’s fine.  You stay in the middle.  I’ll take point, Reau’ll bring up the rear.  We need to get back to my ship quickly and get off.  I don’t like our chances with those things the longer we linger.”
They both nodded.
They encountered two more packs on their way back.  One they were able to avoid, seeing them a while off and diverting around some of the crashed ships.  They were tense the whole time, Kenobi keeping the parts as close to himself as possible, and they moved slowly.  But the pack wandered off, searching for meat elsewhere.
They weren’t able to avoid the second pack though.  That one spotted them between clumps of ships.  It also had a transformed Ward.  But it seemed as though Ward had taken down much of the pack before they got him, as it was only numbering 3.
Jango was able to shoot down one of them, a Zeltron in the tattered remains of black robes before they got close enough that he had to bark at Reau to join him in taking them on.
The things moved fast enough that they couldn’t get either down before they were too close for blaster fire.  Not with allies there as well and Ward still in beskar’gam, though missing one [pauldron]
Jango was able to push Ward back some with his flamethrower, the flames pulling an inhuman screech from Ward.  He kept trying to put himself between Ward and Kenobi, hoping to hold off long enough for Reau to finish off the other one and help him take down the now-inhuman Ward.
Reau, on the other hand, pulled out a kad to keep the other one back.  That one, a blond humanoid, didn’t seem bothered by the various cuts Reau landed on them.
Reau was able to end it though, when she impaled the thing and it pushed her down.  It sank down on top of her, her kad going through it more and more.  It tore at her as she struggled to keep it away.  Its hands catching on and ripping her kute before she pulled one of her blasters out.  She pressed it to the thing’s head and pulled.  It toppled over, still.
At the same time, Kenobi twisted around Jango and with a hum, his blue jetii’kad cut through Ward at the neck.
Kenobi immediately deactivated his jetii’kad as Ward fell over as well.
Jango wasn’t sure how he felt about a jetii’kad killing another Mando’ad, but.
But Kenobi had just saved his life.
“We need to move,” was the only thing he could think to say.
It was lucky.  They were close to Slave I.
They hurried there. Jango and Kenobi worked quickly and efficiently to install the parts, patching what they could.
Jango handed Kenobi the piece he had taken from the cockpit and told him to start up the ship as he grabbed Reau.
He found her outside, stripping her beskar’gam off.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“My kute was ripped,” she said, “that thing bled on me.  I won’t risk exposing the rest of the galaxy to whatever is on this planet.”
She hesitated then, looking at him.  It was a look filled with too much that he didn’t want to acknowledge.
“You would have been a great Mand’alor,” she told him, “make sure my family knows I fought bravely. Give them back my beskar’gam.”
Her lips quirked then, “maybe apologize that I couldn’t send back my blasters and kad.  I want to take as many of these [fuckers] out as I can once you two are gone.”
“’lek.”
It was all he could offer her.
He closed the hatch then.
“It’s just you and me,” he told Kenobi as he joined the Jetii in the cockpit, “Reau is staying. She thinks she’s infected.”
“Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la,” Kenobi murmured.
Jango closed his eyes and the ship took off.
It was going to take a while to figure out where to go once they were free of this planet and Jango had some decisions to make about what to tell this Jetii.
Because he was going to tell him.  He refused to be a pawn to the dar’jetii and Kenobi…
Obi-Wan Kenobi cared.
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Humans are Space Orcs, “An Invitation.”
So this story totally went right off left field from what I was expecting. I honestly surprised myself like I am sure I will surprise some of you. Don’t worry I feel the same way. I am thinking about making this the end of this arc, though I know some of you were hoping for it to go in a different direction. I still think the ending is super surprising and very interesting, so I hope you like it anyway. 
He stood by the shuttle ramp back straight hands clasped behind his back. His knuckles were bandaged to the point where he could barely bend his fingers, but the dull throbbing in his hands was easy to ignore.
A cold wind whipped past him tugging at the stiff fabric of his uniform and threatening to rip the cap right off his head. Since leaving the hybrid facility, he had changed clothes, gotten some rest, received medical attention, and cut his hair into a very short buzz-cut. The hair was still blue, but he could hide that under a cap if he needed too, and the earrings had been easy to remove. Sunny had likely had less fun than him considering she needed about a gallon of nail polish remover to clean herself off.
All around him, the ground was swarming with military and GA personnel. The facility was massive, and no one was entirely sure how extensive the operation went on. He glanced over his shoulder, and into the shuttle where Glados Hal Cortana and Vicky were curled up around each other and fast asleep.
They had refused to leave him since the incident which was only mildly inconvenient, and he didn’t really have time to do anything other than let them have their way.
Engines rumbled off in the distance, and he turned his head to watch as the next shuttle descended from the sky not a few hundred feet away from him. A sharp wind whipped up around him, and he had to hold his bap in place as the shuttle settled against the landing strip.
The doors hissed open and two figures stepped out in accompaniment of at least a dozen other assistants and clerks.
He walked in that direction, meeting the GA chairwoman and the Admiral with a salute.
“You’ve been busy, commander.” The admiral pointed out, turning his head towards the swarming building before looking back “I don’t suppose it would do any good to remind you that it’s usually the job of lower ranking individuals to do undercover work, and that you are generally in a purely command capacity?”
He didn’t allow his expression to change remaining just as serious as the admiral, “Ma’am, Find I prefer to lead from the front, however in the case of this particular mission it was only logical for e to take lead. I am friends with a Drev aboard the ship to a point where we could reasonably fool almost everyone on a short term basis.” he motioned towards the building, “It worked a little better than expected since I was simply attempting to gather information.”
“I see… and what exactly did you find.”
He motioned the two to walk with him noting how uncomfortable the chairwoman looked now that she was exposed to the near freezing air around them. He led them into the building, “My crew has been working for the past day or so to try and figure out just exactly what was going on here. From what I immediately gathered while inside the facility myself, and from what some of the hybrids told me-”
“Wait, you have spoken to the hybrids?”
“Forgive me, I misspoke. I have spoken with one of the hybrids.”
“How are any of them capable of speaking. Considering the facility can’t have been more than a year or two old.”
The door hissed shut behind them, “Genetic tampering, or so she says. Anyway upon entering the facility Sunny and I discovered that they were, in fact, doing what we assumed, and that is offering the hybridization of different species to couples who cannot have their own naturally. If you go through those doors there you will find the nursery where y crew is attempting to take care of the remaining hybrids, though it remains to be seen what can be done with them once this is all over.” He continued on down the hall, “We discussed the genetic sequencing process, and some other details, but when we were brought down onto the floor, I had an opportunity to explore some of the more restricted areas of the facility, and when I did,  found the  reason for their success where the prodigum had failed.”
He walked down the stairs.
“Adaptids. Apparently, somewhere, and somehow one of these scientists determined the action of the hybrid splicing gene, though they were not able to recreate it naturally. In order to mix two species  it is imperative that you have adaptid DNA to preform the action, otherwise the integration of the different genetic material is not seamless. From what we have  gathered, they were harvesting Adaptid genetic material as part of their growing process.”
Stepping out onto the floor he motioned around with a wide sweep of his hand. The chairwoman and the admiral stopped dead in their tracks staring in wide-eyed bewilderment at the lines of test tubes being watched over by scientists on his crew. The room was dark, but you could still see the strange redish glow emanating from the partially grown fetuses suspended inside the tubes .
“These hybrids must be fed constantly with adaptid DNA in order tow work, not only that but the hybridization process requires command computer input in order to give the correct amount of genetic material when ordered. As I am told, a fifty/fifty split hybrid is not viable, so the creature must lean towards one or the other.”
The admiral was shaking her head as the rundi chairwoman turned in circles, “Whan is even the point of all this, surely the money they were making couldn't be equal to all the research and time that was put into this.”
He nodded, “Yes that is also rue, however, I think they were only responding to a niche market while they did their real work on the side.”
“And what is that?”
“The creation of super soldiers, or at least superior genetic creations designed to have special abilities or durability.”
The group went silent staring at him like he was insane as he spoke, “And you are sure about this?” The admiral said in incredulity.
“Yes I am positive, their greatest creation is the reason that we are here right now. She has taken control of the facility, and seems interested in facilitating the relocation of the hybrids to better homes and locations, but after that she says that the knowledge must be destroyed at all costs.”
“You do understand what this might do for edical science?”
“I do, but I also understand that we have not proven ourselves capable of possessing hat knowledge without corrupting it. Furthermore, I am not keen on getting in the way of Eris. I have a feeling that she is a force I am not interested in reckoning with.”
“Who is-”
Just then the hybrid starborn floated from the nearby room. At some point during the investigation she had taken a leaf from Conn’s book and acquired a gravity belt. In this way she made an ethereal otherworldly figure as she floated onto the floor. Her long dark hair billowed an undulated about her head, while the hundreds of flowing white ribbons swirled at her back.
The admiral stepped back and the commander averted his gaze.
“Good evening Chairwoman, Admiral Kelly.”
The two of them stepped back again. The admiral held a hand to her head looking around as if trying to find the source of the voice.
“Do not be alarmed, unfortunately my physical body is mute, so I will be forced to communicate in this manner.”
“What are you?”
“I am the first successful human starborn hybrid, and the oldest hybrid of this facility though my genetics were tampered with to make me age at an accelerated rate.”
“And you speak for the hybrids?”
“I do.”
“And what is it that you want.” 
The admiral looked very, very nervous. She seemed to understand the power of this person? Creature? She was a human alien hybrid that could read minds. No secrets were unavailable to her.. All the secrets in this room were hers if she really wanted them, all she had to do was ask a question and wait for the answer to pop unbidden into the minds of her speaking companions.
She was the most powerful thing in this room, and everyone knew it.
“I want one thing above all else, and that is for the hybrids to be taken care of. The ones that are already in the nursery should find good loving homes, the ones being grown in these tubes should be treated likewise, those of us who do not possess sentience should be released into an environment that suits, or at least kept somewhere that they might remain happy for the time being. Those of us who do possess sentience, but are not conventionally adoptable might request a place to live out our lives freely with the same rights as the rest of you, and then when this is all over, I wish that this entire facility and every ounce of hybrid knowledge inside it be destroyed.”
“Destroyed.” The two protested, “But You don’t understand, the application to medical science is to great to simply destroy it.”
Eris’s mouth twisted downwards into a frown, and the commander shivered under her scathing black gaze, “You are not ready for that knowledge, since you have been proven to be incapable of treating it correctly. If you do not destroy the knowledge, I vow to destroy you….. Is that understood.”
“Are you threatening us?”
“You are threatening yourselves. I simply want to live my life in peace and tranquility, but if my hand is forced, than I will be in my rights to act accordingly. You have no idea what kind of pain and misery this knowledge has caused us and you will never find out ever again if I have anything to do with it. I do not care how any medical applications that you might find for it. Your medicine is far along enough, that you can find other ways of meeting your ends rather than using he DNA of some poor creatures to chase power and immortality.”
They were just about to continue protesting when the sound of footsteps interrupted.
The three of them turned to watch as a grim faced scientist made his way up the isle.
“I am sorry to interrupt, but we have some news you aren’t going to like.”
The commander sighed, “What now?”
Eris tilted her head, “Very interesting.”
“Ell sir, we were combing through the databases tying to determine where the original hybrid DNA was sourced from. And as far as we can tell some of the originals were taken simply from random individuals off the streets.”
“Like we expected.”
“Yes sir, but… it seems that they too a shortcut when it came to gathering the human DNA….”
The admiral tapped her foot on the floor, “Well go on, spit it out.
The man grimaced and turned towards the commander, “Sir, the original human DNA… well.”
Eris was staring at him.
Everyone was staring at him
“They sequenced it form…. From the adaptid.”
It didn’t click at first because he was originally struck by just how long Vicky had been imprisoned here if she was the original sequence. Almost one and a half years…. It was terrible to think about, also terrible to consider Eris had never had any sort of childhood.
The room was silent.
Everyone was staring at him.
He didn’t entirely understand, “I’m sorry, and how does this affect-” He paused the realization coming slowly.
He turned in place to look at Eris who stared back at him with her wide black eyes, and her flowing dark hair. His sister had hair like that…
“Mother Fuck.” He muttered 
Was he just imagining things, or did he sense a bit of a resemblance in her face, the lines of the nose, or the height of the cheekbones.
He turned away from the group staring at the ceiling, “Mother fuck.” He repeated 
“Commander, are you alright.”
A hand dropped to rest on his shoulder.
He was feeling just a little dizzy.
“Commander do you need to sit down?”
He tried to shake himself taking a deep breath as he raised his head and waved them off, “No, no I’m alright.”
He turned around to look at Eris who was staring at him with a rather bemused expression, “how very interesting.” She said 
He took a deep breath and straightened up, “Well if this is the case, than I take responsibility for what happens to the original hybrids, and I demand that any and all information gained using my DNA be destroyed immediately, I don’t care what kind of applications it may or may not have, my ruling on the issue is final.”
His hands had gone cold under the bandages as blood began pulsing through the rest of his body.
He was more than angry at the Tesraki. He almost wished he had killed them, snapped their necks with his bare hands like he should have done originally, and now because of all of this, he wasn’t entirely sure what to do. He was lost and confused and, didn’t know if he should feel responsibility for them.
It was his DNA, but he had no choice in the matter.
It was quiet for a very long few minutes until  the chairwoman and the admiral stepped away to give him some time to think. He was grateful for that at least though he couldn't imagining it being of so much help.
“You are very confused.”
He turned to look at the Dark haired starborn her head tilted just slightly to the right, “You do not have to feel responsible for us.”
“I don’t have to, but I do.”
“It is in your nature.” She mused hair billowing about her head.
He looked down at the floor and sighed before looking up again straightening his back, “I…. I wish there was more I could do for you, but-”
She smiled and held up a hand, “I can hardly blame you. You were an unwilling DNA donor, and have opted to adopt the entire universe, which must be a strenuous and taxing burden sometimes.”
He opened his mouth then closed it, “if i was a better man, I would still try.”
“I will be fine, Commander. I think with some freedom, I will do just well for myself.” 
They stood there awkwardly in silence for a while. He shuffled his feet trying to figure out what to say. “You look a lot like my sister when she was younger.” He wasn’t entirely sure why he said that but Eris smiled, so he supposed it had been the right thing.
“May I visit you, commander, on occasion?”
“Yes , of course, I would…. Be honored by your company.” 
She smiled outwardly, but inwardly he could hear her laugh. IT was a nice sound, he hoped she could find it in her to do it a little more. She turned to float away.
He held out a hand, “Eris I-”
She turned to look at him, a smile still playing over her face, “I know, call you Adam.” 
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socialmxsfit · 3 years
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KAMENASHI KAZUYA + NONBINARY + HE/THEY ⸻ COMBAT BOOTS SPRAY PAINTED IN FLUORESCENT COLORS, BLOOD SEEPING FROM A WOUND THAT NEVER HEALED PROPERLY, WITHERED FLOWERS ROTTING AWAY IN EMPTY WINE BOTTLES — the previous are indications of an individual wearing a BLACK KITSUNE MASK PAINTED IN NEON COLORS roaming in the city. though sightings of HARUKI SAITO, the THIRTY-ONE year old looking HYBRID, have been scarcely reported in the underground. rumors of their PLAYFUL + STREET SMART demeanor aren’t to be undermined, since admonitions would warn against their RECKLESS + SARCASTIC nature. as our records indicate, they are a part of the GOURMET faction within the ghoul societies. there is no doubt their reputation precedes them as THE TRICKSTER
Character Chart Character’s full name: Haruki Saito Birthdate: November 23rd Species: bitten ghoul Occupation: “errand boy” for the Gourmet Affiliation: The Gourmet
Physical appearance Age: thirty-one Height: 5’11 (182cm) Distinguishing marks: two smaller tattoos: a waning moon on the ring finger of his left hand and a little throwing knife on his right hand, between his thumb and pointing finger Usual fashion of dress: practical and comfortable, in all black, combat boots, torn jeans & oversized hoodies, with an occasional chain and stain of fluorescent paint here and there, messy hair kept in place with the help of colorful beanies Jewelry or accessories: colorful sunglasses, beanies, a few chains and fingerless gloves Ghoul mask: a black kitsune mask handpainted by him in fluorescent colors Kagune: a single ukaku, resembling the wing of a raven
Personality Good personality traits: playful, street smart, persuasive, adaptable, witty Bad personality traits: sarcastic, reckless, unpredictable, destructive, apathetic
Habits Hobbies: destroying public property, bar hopping Spending habits: excessive Smokes: an awful lot Drinks: frequently
Traits Optimist or pessimist?: nihilist Introvert or extrovert?: ambivert Daredevil or cautious?: daredevil Logical or emotional?: logical Disorderly and messy or methodical and neat?: methodical but messy Prefers working or relaxing?: relaxing Confident or unsure of himself/herself?: overconfident
Biography
Haruki always stood out among his family like a sore thumb; he was an unplanned child, by far the youngest among the four children of his family, which put a distance between him and his siblings from the beginning. Their parents, a struggling lower class couple, put too much focus on their jobs and too little of it to the family, leaving the kids to fend for themselves, hence why Haru effectively raised himself... and no one would say that he did a really great job.
He’s always been a slightly twisted child, driven by almost morbid curiosity; while other kids played with toys, he pulled apart his surroundings to bits and pieces, trying to understand how the world worked. He drew his first blood by the time he was eleven, with a butterfly knife he stole from his older brother’s room, and felt no remorse after, no matter how much he was shunned about it. He kept the knife after; it’s with him to this day.
He was definitely a problem child; he longed for a different life, and no matter the cost he wanted to build it for himself. It started with small lies and petty crimes, but soon enough he was wiggling his way into the upper classes and their lavish parties, wooing the wives bored with their current lives. That’s how he met Nadiya, the owner of one of the city’s most prominent restaurants; he worked as a bartender at one of her fancy parties, then another time at her private get-together... And the rest is history.
It definitely wasn’t a healthy relationship; she had him wrapped around her fingers, coaxing him with promises about a life that he longed for, silencing his doubts with expensive gifts and charming words that he easily fell for. This naivety cost him a lot later, when she decided that she needed her plaything bound to her in some way and turned him on his 20th birthday.
That was a rude awakening for him; he never wanted a life like this, and for the longest time he felt really disgusted with what he became. She never made an attempt to help him overcome these issues; as soon as she deemed him ready to manage on his own, she moved on to someone else, and then someone else again.
In some twisted way he’s still attached to her; he used to love her and these feelings never disappeared, only got tainted with blind rage and hatred, and the burning need to draw her blood, let it wash over his ice-cold hands... One day he’ll rip her heart out with his bare hands. Gods be damned if he wouldn’t.
Although he never really fit in with The Gourmet, being way too loud and obnoxious compared to them, he made himself a name among them; he prides himself on being quick and efficient with handling various matters, so while he can’t really be categorized into either of the ranks, they still keep him around for some reason. He sometimes wonders if he’d be better off somewhere else, but never really does anything to move on, go find something better.
He grew into a comfortable routine, having gotten free reign over his life; yet he always pushes the boundaries, wrecking havoc along the way. He hasn’t decided yet if it’s a masterfully crafted plan or just wrecking havoc for the fun of it. Not that he cares; what shall happen, will happen sooner or later anyway, so why fight it? Not that it matters, anyway.
Headcanons
He’s definitely someone that one would call ‘jack of all trades, master of none’; he could fix a car, cook a decent dinner (by human standards at least), do your interior design... but he’s also fairly efficient when it comes to cleaning up evidence and hunting down people, so if you’re looking for a fairly cheap helper to do your dirty jobs, he’s your man.
Initially he tried to, but lately he’s given up on trying to fit in with the regular humans of Nadiris; most of them believe anyway that he’s just really eccentric and obnoxious, not straight up unhinged as he claims to be.
And yes, he does own 137 throwing knives.
template: lifetime by thalsrph (x)
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tfw-no-tennis · 3 years
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ani....morphs.....
ok so picking up after the david trilogy, which hit hard as FUCK, we have book 23, which basically was a semi truck that ran over my corpse, jesus christ, they really followed up the david trilogy w/all that....
23 was so so good and also painful. its the culmination of a lot of tobias’s characterization in the series thus far and also we finally get the reveal we’ve been waiting for about elfangor....ooooh man 
and there was a lot of painful stuff in this book but the worst imo was tobias wondering if it were possible that somebody wanted him and would take care of him, only to have it all come crashing down in the worst way when it turned out aria was visser three in morph, ouch. 
that was so brutal augh. and when he figured it out and just crash landed and kept thinking about how he wanted to die and how he was stupid to think he could have a home...bro get these kids some THERAPY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 
so yeah that book was absolutely brutal but also so good...and it further fleshed out the animorphs working as a near-flawless team, w/the whole setup of tobias meeting w/the lawyer being so airtight and well-planned 
also more free hork bajir!! its cool that there's stuff happening w/them offscreen, I like that 
I literally had to take a break from reading the books bc the david triology + 23 was like so much, and also bc the olympics were on and all my time got dedicated to watching those, but then I opened 24, not sure what to expect, and BAM it was the helmacrons lmaoooo
I don't even remember the helmacrons but ig a lot of people hate them? lmao so that whole reputation preceded the book and I was like oh wow time for a change in tone
which wasn't wrong but also I liked that book?? I was never bored, even tho the whole thing was patently ridiculous and also had very little bearing on the overarching story
but I think it would be a standout if it were a TV episode w/a good budget - the visuals were amazing even in text, and I can imagine all the cool shrinking/growing/cellular stuff would be WICKED cool visually (ideally 2d animation but an ant man-esque live action adaptation wouldn't be terrible if they had the budget for it)
whatever let me dream. so yeah I didn't hate the helmacron book even tho the helmacrons themselves were...sure something. lmao I think they come back? that should be interesting
next book is the arctic one, we have yet another alien of the week style adventure - I liked this one too, it felt like more plot-y stuff happened since they destroyed the base, and marco’s POV is always fun 
I do find it funny/interesting how sometimes when the animorphs do something - like in this book, destroying that base in the arctic - it doesn't really seem to impact the yeerks much/it doesn't get brought up much after that. and then other things like them destroying the ground-based kandrona get mentioned a lot (that example is understandable tho bc that WAS a big deal). its just hilarious to me how blowing up entire building complexes has become so routine that it isn’t even worth mentioning at this point
Also I adore when they meet other random people/kids and are chill w/them, like w/that kid they met in the rain forest earlier on w/the time travel 
the descriptions of the brutally cold weather were great. I hate the cold so I was like oof this is a nightmare lmao
also ig that was the first ghostwritten book and I did kinda notice it was slightly different than usual? maybe? I could be imagining it tho 
okay but book 26 tho...BOOK 26. bruh 
that was SO good and I really didn’t know what to expect - but when we finally revisited Jake’s dream w/crayak I knew it was gonna be good (but I didn’t expect it to be a chess game war epic..!)
basically I loved it. SUCH a good Jake book - I really appreciate his character now as opposed to when I was 10 and often overlooked him (sorry jake).
similarly, when I was a kid and read these I sympathized a lot w/the chee and felt bad for them towards the end of the series when they had to get more involved in the war (genuinely don’t remember what they even do but ik I felt bad) 
but now I've basically 180′d and I'm like damn those chee sure are hypocrites huh. 
like they could solve So many of the animorphs problems but their stringent adherence to nonviolence leads to them actively getting in the animorphs way sometimes? and obviously pacifism is a complicated topic, but in this case it also intersect w/the whole ‘child soldier’ thing, and as beings who are insanely old and wise, the chee probably shouldn't just leave all the dirty work to a bunch of literal middle schoolers
aaaaanyways. there’s so much I love about this book. the iskoort! they were sure something. and the ‘plot twist’ that they are actually 2 beings, the Isk and the Yoort - and the Yoort are essentially Yeerks - that slapped. the symbiosis of it all! 
I loved the part where they all realize what this means, that this is why Crayak wants the iskoort destoryed - because someday the yeerks might come across them and realize parasitism is not the only way. I love it! 
alas I don’t recall the iskoort returning in the story (but also my memory is terrible so who knows?) but still that would be cool
basically I feel like this is the book where Jake Truly comes into his own as a leader, in every sense. he outmaneuvers Crayak, and even the ellimist, who’s yanking them around in his own way
the scene where jake shoves the howler off the cliff and jumps off and morphs and acquires the howler...that was fantastic and tense. 
also the murder is definitely becoming more overt. I mean, it has been for a while, but it isn’t really pointed out as much anymore. oof
more on the chee - as Jake points out in this book, and other characters point out in other books - the chee could have saved the pemalites, but instead just stood by while their creators were slaughtered. on the other hand, jake says, what do the chee do AFTER they’ve killed the howlers - where to point them next? when is the end of their violence? 
buuuuut also standing by while atrocities occur is pretty damning, as is frequently mentioned in this series - from the very beginning, when marco initially doesn’t want to get involved in the war at all, and the other animorphs basically tell him that turning his back on the war and acting like he doesn’t even know it’s happening would be immoral and cowardly (which imo this reaction helps to push marco in the direction he ends up going, but I digress) - this topic comes up again in 19 when cassie quits the team and rachel is upset bc she sees it as cassie elevating her own feelings above the greater good (as in, as long as cassie feels good about how she acts, it doesn’t matter how much preventable evil the yeerks are committing while she turns away). etc etc. but that’s essentially what’s happening w/the chee - even tho they help w/intel, the lack of any sort of Action on their part means that they’re essentially allowing awful things to happen when they could prevent them. this is rambly but basically...animorphs deals so much in grey areas, and the chee are noticeably black and white in their actions, despite falling, in a meta sense, in an extremely grey area. its such good, thought provoking writing!
anywayssss I keep talking about the chee lmao what else was there. oh YEAH jake and cassie kissed for the first time awww that was super cute 
and ofc immediately marco teases them as asks jake if he’s gonna kiss him next, and all I can say is...marco is a bicon 
also I love the background worldbuilding w/the iskoort, how they have all these groups and guilds and stuff - its not dwelled on much, which actually works really well to give the world/species a sense of lived-in realness 
okay oh man and the reveal at the end that the howlers were just like...children who thought the whole thing was a game...AUGHH man that’s sooo fucked 
like, when jake morphs the howler and has rachel ready to knock him down in grizzly morph if he gets out of control due to the howler’s murderous instincts, and he morphs to find that the howler is...playful, like a dolphin morph. SUCH a good fucked up sense of dawning horror there 
and the fact that as far as I can tell the chee KNEW this, but wanted revenge anyways, so they let the animorphs assume that the howlers were Evil On Purpose
also I love smaller moments, like jake seeing that ax is ashamed for briefly running away during one battle w/the howlers, and then entrusts him w/an important task bc he knows that ax will see that as redemption - and when everyone thought jake was dead and were so happy when he wasn't (they all love each other so much im gonna cry about these child soldiers augh)
basically that book was so good
man one thing I absolutely love is that the longer the series goes on the more obvious it is that andalites, despite inventing morphing technology, barely use it themselves 
like, most of the andalite characters we see barely morph. its kind of a last resort to them, as they’re already plenty dangerous in their regular forms 
meanwhile for the animorphs, that’s all they have to fight with. that’s their only weapons against the yeerks, and its so fun to see them use the power in so many varied ways, and so creatively, while the andalites have barely scratched the surface of their own technology
its also interesting to contrast against the yeerks who start out w/absolutely no technology, and the andalites share some but not all of their technology w/them...its too bad that morphing technology was just starting out cause that would’ve been interesting
like imo a lot of the conflict w/the yeerks could’ve been avoided if they could just nothlit into better forms - of course, there’d still be plenty of yeerks who want to go start wars or w/e, just like pretty much any species in the series, but a lot of yeerks would probably be like ‘yeah I'm good’ and just chill out as nothlits
also people online love to talk about how humans are alienfuckers and would definitely have sex w/sentient aliens and whatnot, and while I'm not saying that's untrue, its just funny bc in animorphs the truest alienfuckers are definitely the andalites
as of the hork-bajir chronicles, we now have a second instance of an andalite morphing another species to be in an inter-species alien romance (and eventually have kids) 
speaking of, I don’t think I’ve talked abt the hork bajir chronicles yet??? even tho I read it a while ago lmao 
HBC was great...I honestly haven’t really run into an animorphs book I’ve actually disliked at this point, I’m sure it’ll come w/all the ghostwriting and whatnot, but I’ve liked at least some aspects of every book
anyways HBC was great, and it’s funny bc I remember that I read this book as a kid, and yet rereading it now I didn’t remember a single bit of it lmaooo
I really liked the framing device of the free hork bajir telling this story to tobias. I also liked how we know from the beginning that this story wont have a happy ending - we know all the hork bajir end up enslaved by the yeerks, but it’s still somehow hopeful at the end? I think this is largely due to the framing device tbh. 
also I love toby, and I love that the First free hork bajir named their kid after tobias ;_; 
and oooh mannn I LOVED the different POVs from this book. all the characters were so interesting! aldrea was fascinating - I really like the increasingly negative view of the andalites that the readers are getting, all while maintaining the sense that they aren’t like, actively evil, just that they have their issues - like aldrea’s arrogance, and the general andalite arrogance which lead to the loss of the hork bajir. also, who knew andalites had their own brand of sexism? Ls
I did like getting a female andalite tho, that was cool. and dak was really cool, he was such a good, compassionate character who was able to maintain his morals in an interesting way throughout the story
and VISSER THREE...or should I say esplin 9466, because he’s not visser 3 yet...getting his ‘origin story’ was excellent - I really like how we’re learning about visser 3 backwards - we start off the series w/him as the main villain, and he’s campy and menacing, and then we see him in the andalite chronicles as a power-hungry sub-visser trying to climb the ranks and eventually getting alloran as a host, and then back even further here, w/the start of his focus on the andalites and the beginning of his ambition. its been very cool and interesting to see
plus, the beginning of the yeerks as we know them! seerow! alloran! it’s a party and nobody is having a good time, except for some of the yeerks. 
I like how it’s pretty obvious that the andalites are well-meaning with their interactions w/the yeerks, but go about it the wrong way - they give them enough technology that the yeerks realize there’s a whole world out there to experience, and then they blockade the yeerks on their planet and tell them they can’t leave. nnnnot the best approach imo
again, as I said above, I’m interested in how things could’ve gone if the andalites had given the yeerks morphing technology early on - could a lot of the conflict have been avoided, or would it have been worse? the yeerks seem pretty evil in this book, immediately jumping to enslave anyone they can. otoh we hear from esplin that not all yeerks like having host bodies, and find it overwhelming, preferring to swim around in the yeerk pool as a slug - I assume as host bodies became more available this type of thinking was probably stamped out in yeerk society or w/e, but there are a lot of interesting what-ifs in the situation 
I loved the scene where esplin first experiences having a host, and immediately knows he can’t go back. there are a bunch of great sensory descriptions, and it’s a nice scene to pinpoint as a foundational moment for the visser three in the current story, who spent a lot of time and energy getting what he sees as the best possible host body, an andalite
I find it interesting how much visser three clearly respects the andalites, even while constantly deriding them. and you can see the origins of that here as he immediately focuses in on the andalites, working to become an expert on them in order to make himself useful enough to move thru the ranks
another thing I like is how esplin seems a lot more crafty and ambitious than the visser three from modern times - I would guess that reaching his goal (andalite host body) and being given all that power was detrimental, playing on his weaknesses instead of his strengths. basically, I don’t think it’s ooc or anything, I can see how HBC-esplin became animorphs-esplin, especially w/TAC in between
as for seerow...poor dude. you really do have to feel for him, because you get the sense he really did just want to be kind to the yeerks, but it was borne from a place of pity, and he (and the other andalites) consistently held too much power over the yeerks for the species relations to ever be truly equal and functional 
AUGH I have so many thoughts about alien space politics. omg. I need to talk about the actual story lmao
so yeah I also feel for aldrea, she had a rough time, watching her entire family die and being thrown into a hopeless war
and then the andalite council or w/e not listening to her bc she's a girl AND seerow’s daughter...oof
also, I really really liked the running theme of the andalites - specifically aldrea - looking down on the hork bajir as ‘simple’ and constantly underestimating them, especially dak
and I like how this is portrayed as a bad attitude for aldrea to have, and she still remains and interesting and sympathetic character even while having obvious flaws. it’s about being 3-dimensional baby!
and oh man I love that dak realizes that aldrea looks down on him, and his entire species, but he can see that that’s how the andalites are, and it all connects back to the beginning of the story w/the yeerks, bc the andalites looked down on the yeerks and treated them with pity and kept them pinned under their proverbial thumb ‘for their own good’ and look how that turned out 
but dak is wise and kind enough to not hate aldrea for this, even acknowledging when she’s using him, but not pushing her away because he recognizes good in her too - and she ends up changing, partially because of his faith in her
and I feel like it can all be compared to that scenario of like - a hypothetical creature that lives in a 2D world suddenly being thrust into a 3D world, and comprehending what its seeing, and understanding that there’s so much more out there outside of the flat lines of its world - and then its dropped back into 2D-land with the knowledge of all the stuff its missing out on, and no way to get back to it or explain it to anybody else
I loooove that ‘trope’ or w/e you wanna call it, and it’s done beautifully here w/the yeerks - whos the say they wouldn't have been fine in their pool swimming around; as esplin said, a lot of the yeerks were terrified of having a host, it was only from the andalites’ perspective that their lives were sad and pitiful, and the andalites showed them what the world could be like, and then said ‘no, you can’t travel the stars like we do, you have to stay here on your planet and do what we say.’
and then again, w/the hork bajir - dak talks about how, even though he drinks up the knowledge that aldrea gives him, in the end it might have been better to just have lived peacefully, not knowing what was in the sky or the Deep - as aldrea says: “It was too late for Dak: he knew that the stars were not flowers.” 
plus the hork bajir having to go from a completely peaceful species who don’t even understand the concept of violence, to a bunch of soldiers fighting a war...oof 
basically everyone in this story uses the hork bajir. the yeerks use them as hosts, the andalites use their planet as a convenient place to dump seerow and then take their sweet time coming to help, and the arn created them as means to stabilize the planet, but block them off from their society and refuse to help when the yeerks come
like, the arn modifying themselves to be un-infestable by the yeerks and then being enslaved for physical labor instead? oof guys. if they had teamed up w/the hork bajir resistance things might have gone better, but probably not 
more on aldrea - throughout the story I was always thinking ‘how am I supposed to see her? as a good person, or as a bad person?’ 
as a POV character, especially a ‘good guy’ andalite, you just start off automatically thinking of her as a good person, but as the story goes on, she starts getting lost in revenge and begins using dak and the hork bajir, and you’re left wondering if this is a story about her slide into darkness, and then towards the end of the story her character development culminates in her making the decision to stay w/the hork bajir, and the be with dak, and that’s about when I went ‘ohhh right this is animorphs so every character is pretty much gonna be grey’
I feel like that moral grey-ness was on full display w/aldrea, and I really enjoyed that. I love so much when characters who are good do bad things, for good or bad reasons, especially in media like animorphs that’s aimed at kids. it’s so compelling. 
oof, and the ending when aldrea convinces dak to mobilize the hork bajir and teach them violence...and dak asks her if she’s ever killed another andalite, and she’s horrified, and says of course she hasn’t, and he says that that’s what she’s asking him, and all the hork bajir, to do - to kill their own people, even if they are being controlled by the yeerks. biiiig oof. I love that dak can keep up w/aldrea and her andalite supremacy attitude - it seems that the non-andalite characters who get along best w/the andalites are the ones who wont take their bs 
what else happened....oh my god how could I forget about alloran, and his quantum virus. oooof. I like how we find out about alloran in parallel to visser three, in the same backwards way - in animorphs he’s the tragic host of visser three, in TAC he’s the disgraced but still semi-respected war-prince who becomes the first ever andalite controller, and here he’s the guy who decides to commit some war crimes because, hey, we haven’t tried that yet 
but yeah that was fucked up, I love it. I’ve said it before I think but I like that alloran isn’t some perfect martyr tragically taken by the yeerks - it’s a lot more compelling that he’s a very flawed person who was taken as a controller partially due to his own bloodthirstiness. 
but yeah, the part where aldrea morphs alloran and ‘sneaks’ into that room was great. aldrea’s dedication to disposing of the virus is a great indicator of her character development - it really feels like the straw that broke the camels back w/re: to the andalites not being what she thought they were, w/their tardiness coming to help the hork bajir planet and the way her father was treated being the precursors to this realization. it all culminates nicely in aldrea saying ‘fuck this actually’ and nothlit-ing into a hork bajir.
and it’s really tragic but realistic that even though aldrea and dak end up seeing eye to eye at the end and getting together, the virus ends up being released anyways (and fails in its objective to stop the yeerks from using the hork bajir - the whole thing was p much a lose-lose situation oof), and aldrea and dak still die fighting a hopeless war 
but then we have the free hork bajir on earth, including toby, who, like tobias, has andalite ancestry, but no DNA to show for it - I like that they have that connection as well as tobias being her namesake
so yeah I enjoyed that one and its many-layered themes
WOW this got long uuuuuhhh ok I think i’ll leave this one off here. at the time I’m actually finishing the writing and editing, I’m on book 35 lol so I have some backlogging to do. never fear, I have a lot to say....
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spectraspecs-writes · 3 years
Text
Leviathan - Chapter 106 (Rena)
Link to the masterpost. Chapter 105. Chapter 107.
A/N - Since there's been some confusion about it in the past, thought I'd make it clear here. Carth's narration is in orange text, if the orange doesn't show up please let me know but with tumblr's new post editor it should work. Bastila's narration is pink - my original idea was yellow but not only would that be illegible it's not an option. Same deal, if it doesn't show up let me know. Plus, I don't know if anyone watches the videos when I add them to chapters, but this one, you gotta watch this one.
@averruncusho @ceruleanrainblues @chubbsmomma @strangepostmiracle thank you for reading, you get a tag. @skelelexiunderlord thank you for support, you get a tag.
——–
When the elevator opens, I get… a horrible feeling. Like someone’s walking on my grave. And no one mourns me. Everything feels cold. Like that dream on Dantooine. I think Bastila shivers a bit but I don’t think Carth feels it. But how could I know, he’s blocked himself off from me. As we fight our way through to hangar control the feeling just gets worse and worse. Seeing the Hawk makes me feel a little better, but not for long.
I don’t want to be here. This is the only way to get to the hangar, but I don’t want to be here at all. I’m not ready. I don’t want to be here. I can’t calm down. It’s dark. And cold. I don’t want to be here.
The blast door opens. We didn’t move fast enough. It’s him. It’s Malak.
Carth starts to step forward with his blasters but I reach out my hand to stop him. My dream will not happen. I won’t let it. Malak laughs, and it sends a chill through me. And also a strong feeling of hatred. But it’s not a general hatred, like I would have if it was like “knowing the things you’ve done and what you stand for, I hate you.” This is a personal hatred. “I hope you weren't thinking of leaving so soon, Bastila,” Malak says. His voice is channeled through an apparatus on his chin. He has no jaw. “I've spent far too much energy hunting down you and your companions to let you get away from me now. Besides,” he says, looking at me, “I had to see for myself if it was true. Even now I can hardly believe my eyes… tell me, why did the Jedi spare you? Is it vengeance you seek at this reunion?”
I try not to be nervous, but I can’t help it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, “I’ve never met you, this isn’t a reunion.”
He laughs again. Over and over again. What in the goddamn hell is so funny? “What?” he laughs, “You mean you don't know? All this time, and you still haven't figured it out? I wonder how long you would have stayed blind to the truth? Surely some of what you once were must have surfaced by now.” “Once were”? I’m a scout, I’ve always been a scout. What the hell is going on? “Even the combined power of the Jedi Council couldn't keep your true identity buried forever, could it?”
youtube
… no. What? No. No that can’t be right. That’s not me. That can’t be me, I can’t be… Revan. No, I’m not. I wasn’t. That can’t be right. But it was my face! No. No that can’t be right. It’s not right. No. I look back at Carth. He can’t look at me. But this isn’t right! I’m not Revan! I can’t be. I remember being a scout!
Is that why all this felt so familiar? The Sith on the bridge - I knew them? Maybe? Is that why Jedi training went so fast? Muscle memory? I already learned how to use the Force and fight with a lightsaber. And why Master Zhar said I was a special case. Why the Star Map on Kashyyyk knew me. But…
… it isn’t right! No!
“You cannot hide from what you once were, Revan!” Malak says. Shut the hell up! “Recognize that you were once the Dark Lord - and know that I have taken your place!”
“No,” I say, “No, this isn’t right. Revan is dead.”
“You do not yet remember, Revan?” Stop calling me that! “The Jedi set a trap. They lured us into battle against a small Republic fleet. During the attack a team of Jedi knights boarded your ship. The Jedi strike team captured you and the Council used the Force to reprogram your mind; they wiped away your identity and turned you against your own followers!”
No. No it’s not true. It can’t be true. No. No. “No. No, it’s not true.”
“You must have seen flashes of your old life in your dreams, Revan; memories bubbling up to the surface? Surely you must remember the battle in which you were captured?” On Taris… but she said it was just a dream. A memory. Her memory. My memory… “How you survived the final battle is a mystery to me,” Malak says, “Perhaps you should ask Bastila; after all, she was part of the Jedi strike team that captured you!”
Yes. She was. She was there. I look at her. I hate her. “Bastila?”
“It’s true,” she says. I hate her. “I was part of the team sent to capture Revan… to capture you.” I hate her! “When Malak fired on the ship you were badly injured. We thought you were dead.” They should have left me. But if they left me, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t know Carth, or Jolee, or Canderous, or Mission, or T3, or anybody. But is that worth leaving a mass murderer alive? Is the fact that I’ve lived a better life away from the Dark Side worth all the lives Revan took? Am I worth it? “Your mind was destroyed, but I used the Force to preserve the flicker of life in your body. I brought you to the Jedi Council. They were the ones who healed your damaged mind.”
No. No. “But I have memories. I don’t remember Revan, but I remember a whole life. Planets I explored, species I discovered, stories to tell. I’m a scout!”
“The Jedi Council didn't restore your wounded mind, Revan!” Malak says, “They merely programmed it with a new identity - one loyal to the Republic! They tried to make you their slave!”
So… Bastila… I thought she was my friend! Or at least someone I could count on, someone I could trust! “You’ve been lying to me this whole time!”
“I wanted to tell you but the Council forbid it!”
“So once again you put an idea before a person!” I shout at her. I can’t help it - I hate her! “How could you justify that? How could you? How in your twisted mind could an idea be more important than a living breathing person?”
“They were afraid you might return to the dark side if you discovered your real identity!” she says, “You could have hurt more living breathing people!”
“But now you know the truth, Revan!”
I turn to Malak, and scream at him, “Shut the FUCK up! I’m not talking to you!”
He laughs. What part of “shut the fuck up” did he not understand? “And there is the Revan I remember! No longer holding back your rage!”
“What part of ‘shut up’ did you not understand?” I say. Even without a jaw, I can see his smug grin, but he leans back and crosses his arms. I turn my attention back to Bastila. “Why didn’t you just let me die?”
“For the same reason you are always concerned for the lives of others,” Bastila says, “The Jedi hold all life sacred, even that of a Sith Lord. I could not just let you die. Not if it was possible to save you.”
Malak laughs again. “Hiding the truth behind noble words,” he says, “The Jedi needed the memories buried deep in your wounded mind, Revan; there was no other way to bring them out. They had to keep you alive!”
I’m not listening to him. “And the new identity - why?”
“We couldn’t simply restore your true identity…”
“Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”
“Revan was too dangerous - we couldn’t.” Sounds like “wouldn’t” to me. “But locked inside your mind was information the Republic needed: the secrets of the Star Forge. The Council created an identity for you: a scout transferred under my command. Your subconscious memories were supposed to lead me to the Star Forge; there was no other way to get the information.”
“They made you their puppet, Revan,” Malak says, “and Bastila was the handler pulling your strings!”
“Why you? Why are you here? Why did they choose you? You were my friend - why would you do this to me?”
“I used my Force powers to keep you alive on that bridge - it created our bond,” she says. That goddamned bond! “I convinced the Council that I could use that bond to draw out your memories and lead us to the Star Forge.”
“Tell the truth, Bastila,” Malak says, “you wanted to taste the Dark Side for yourself! You knew the only way the Council would permit you to explore the Sith's power was through Revan's lost memories!”
“No!” she says, “I wanted to help you, Revan.”
I scoff. “But you wouldn't mind helping yourself along the way, I bet.” After all, she thought this was an audition for masterdom - she’s looked for power before.
“Revan, I thought this mission would redeem you; that it would atone for your past crimes. How else could you be saved?”
No. No. “You used me! You and the whole Council! I trusted you! And you used me and lied to me the whole time!”
“Rena, Malak nearly killed you, but the Jedi Council gave you another chance to live! They gave you a chance to redeem yourself by defeating the Sith!”
“A rash and futile hope,” Malak says, “The Dark Side is too strong, my power is too great! Even my old master is no longer a match for me!” He turns to me. What was before anxiety and fear is now firmly rage and anger. At Bastila, at the Council, at Malak, at me. “A small part of me has always regretted betraying you from afar,” Malak says, “I always knew there were some who would think I acted out of fear, that I did not want to face you. But now fate has given me a second chance to prove myself. Once I defeat you in combat no one will question my claim to the Sith throne; my triumph will be complete!” He reaches out a hand, and Bastila and Carth are both immobilized. “The Jedi Council were foolish to let you live. I won't make the same mistake. We shall finish this alone in the ancient Sith tradition: master versus apprentice, as it was meant to be!”
I am. Absolutely. Done. Today has gone on long enough. I have had it. “You wanna know something?” I say, “This is, categorically, the worst day of my life.”
---
Damn it, Rena! If she hadn’t stopped me before, maybe I could have shot Malak and we wouldn’t be in this situation! And now she’s fighting Malak alone. She doesn’t stand a chance against him.
But why should I care? She’s a Sith Lord! She’s been a Sith Lord the whole time! Oh, she can claim she doesn’t remember all she wants, but how can I know she’s telling the truth? How can I trust her? She deserves everything she gets!
But… it’s Rena. My friend. I saved her life on Taris, she’s saved my life more than once, she’s always been there for me. She found Dustil. Turned him away from the Sith. I love her. She feels right. And I promised to protect her. And then…
No. I promised to protect Rena. This is Revan. Revan, who led us during the Mandalorian Wars, rallied Jedi to our side. Revan, who won the war for the Republic. Revan, who betrayed us all.
I can’t forgive Revan. But I can’t forgive Malak, either. Malak gave the order to attack Telos. And I- I don’t know if Revan had anything to do with it, but Malak definitely did. He deserves to die. And the war has been a lot worse since Revan was killed. Wiped. Whatever. And if that has anything to do with the two of them, Malak is clearly the worse of the two. He deserves to die. And I want to take revenge on Revan myself. For lying to me. For using me.
Was any of it real? Was she ever on the side of the Republic, the whole time? Did she even love me like she said? Or was it all a lie? Hell, for all I know, she wanted us to be here. Maybe she sent a transmission to Saul when I wasn’t looking. Maybe she really did join the Sith on Korriban.
But I saw into her head. That first night on Korriban, whatever she did, I saw into her head. It was strange, the whole experience, but it was like I saw her whole life. She told me - well, sort of told me - that she could never fall if I was there. That she wouldn’t. She couldn’t hurt me. She couldn’t do that to me. And that’s how she told me she loved me. I don’t think she meant to. It just sort of came out. And it showed me that I loved her. Something I didn’t want to think about, I guess. Especially not then - I was so focused on Dustil. And Morgana. She died five years ago and I was never able to get her off my mind. Before Rena. And when she showed me inside her head… it all made sense.
But what if all that was a lie? How can I believe anything she’s ever - Rena, look out! In a fraction of a second, she dodges Malak’s lightsaber. And I feel her in my head, like I did before - “Thanks, I got it.” It doesn’t feel like her, not like it felt before, on Korriban. On Korriban, it felt… I don’t know how to describe it. It was like… coming home after a long time. It was a warm full feeling. A good feeling. But this, now, feels completely different. She feels almost… cold. Dark. Rushed.
Maybe that’s just because she’s fighting, she’s focused. But I saw how she yelled at Bastila. And Malak. She’s not the same at all, is she? She’s not the same Rena. And she never will be again, will she? The woman I… the woman I thought I knew - she’s gone. It’s just Revan now.
---
This was not the way I hoped she would find out. I wanted her to find out in a safe place, surrounded by friends, no more battles to be fought. Perhaps after we’d found the last Star Map or before we went to the Star Forge. Of course I knew she would have to find out eventually. I knew that a fight with Malak was inevitable, and that he would reveal her true identity. I just did not want that to be the first time she heard it. I wanted her to hear it from me. I wanted to be able to answer all of her questions in a calm, safe environment, a place where she could express all of her feelings safely, and understand why the Council did this.
Being captured by the Leviathan was the last thing I expected. Everything was going relatively smoothly. I was concerned about Korriban, but Jolee told me she acted exemplary, a fine model of Jedi teachings. As much as usual, anyway. As I’ve told her before, her methods are unorthodox, and she has a tendency to act emotionally, but she is dedicated to the wellbeing of others. I’ve regularly seen her put the lives of others before her own, as have the others. I never knew Revan personally - when she and Malak left for the Mandalorian Wars, I sided with the Council - but from what I’ve gathered, “selfless” was not a word others would use to describe her. Revan and Rena have many things in common, but I don’t believe they are the same at heart. Rena certainly has her faults and her shortcomings as a Jedi, but I could never see her falling to the Dark Side.
I’m ashamed to admit I wasn’t always so certain. Her feelings for Carth were concerning at first. As I said, I never knew Revan, but she had a reputation for hedonism, and Rena seemed quite the same at first. And not only that - her dueling on Taris concerned me, as well. She seemed very aggressive. But I came to learn I was mistaken in that assessment. She used dueling more to blow off steam than as an outlet for aggression.
Her identity was a mystery to me at first. I knew that the Council put her under my command, but beyond that they seem to have taken quite a few liberties in explaining her knowledge. She has a number of specifics when it comes to being a scout or ecology. And I don’t know where her crusade against Czerka came from. Perhaps these details came from Revan’s memory, and the Council just changed the explanation. Perhaps the identity was someone else, someone who died in the war, or someone from the archive memory. I had only met her briefly before the attack on the Endar Spire, and I doubt it was an encounter she’d remember. She was up late, fixing a droid. If I hadn’t known her voice I wouldn’t have recognized her. Most of what I knew about her came from a datapad, at first.
It took a long time before I stopped calling her Revan. I of course never said it out loud, but there were many times when I thought to myself, “Why is Revan doing that?” or “That is not something I expected from Revan,” or “Revan is getting on my nerves.” It wasn’t until Dantooine, during her month of retraining, that I began to think of her as Rena and not Revan. I never knew Revan, but Rena is my friend. And I don’t have many of those. It’s a complicated friendship, certainly, and we have our fair share of disagreements. But part of friendship is how you deal with those disagreements.
Although, I wonder if that friendship is over now. Not because of how her true identity was revealed, although that certainly doesn’t help. I know she disagrees with me, but the Jedi are more than simply an idea. The Jedi are the only thing holding the Dark Side at bay. Without the Jedi, the galaxy would descend into darkness, beyond hope, possible beyond salvation. Certainly that is more important than any individual. If saving Revan will defeat Malak, I have no regrets. If Carth suffering Admiral Karath’s torture would have aided the Republic, then I would consider that an acceptable loss. I wouldn't enjoy it, of course, but if it was necessary I would find a way to live with the consequences. And I gather Revan would have felt the same. But Rena doesn’t. Perhaps they are more dissimilar than I thought.
Rena reaches out to kick Malak, but before she makes contact, Malak whisks her into a Force whirlwind and runs. A coward, as he has always been.
---
Asshole! I could see it in his eyes, I was making progress, I was making a dent, and he runs!
I could just let him go. This is not going to be the last time we meet. It can’t be. The Star Forge is still out there. And Malak would like nothing more than to get rid of me now. I’m a problem, and the only way to stop me from being a problem is to kill me. I have no intention of dying today, if only because I need to give the Jedi Council hell. I don’t want to think about that now, though, if I think about that now I’m going to have a fucking panic attack. So that’s that. I’m going to wait for Carth and Bastila to unfreeze, and then we get to the Hawk and go. Easy.
But it could never be that simple, could it? Malak would not leave any avenue for me to just go. And even if he did, that wouldn’t be the end of the fight. Maybe there’s a tracker on the Hawk. Maybe he’ll follow us to Manaan. I have no idea how this will end, but it won’t end well.
I don’t want to be here. I don’t know what this feeling is in the pit of my stomach, but I hate it. Oh. Wait. That’s what it is. Nope, I don’t want to think about that now. I need a hug. But Carth is still frozen, assuming he could even trust me again. Nope, not thinking about that. I touch Carth’s hand, at least, looking for a little comfort. And he lets me read him. He hates it. God, that’s a horrible feeling. Nope, don’t want to think about that. Focus on the Sith Lord.
I think I saw Malak go through the door in front of me, rather than left or right. But it’s locked. Why? Why is he making this difficult? Let’s try finding another way into that corridor. Door on the right. There’s another door on my left that should lead to where Malak is, but it’s locked, too. Jesus, dude, really? Okay, keep moving forward. Another door. Left turn. One more door that should lead to Malak, but it is also locked. Why, dude? Why? All this effort to prove you’re not a coward, but you’re acting pretty cowardly. I keep moving forward to the next door. Through that and after another turn there’s one more door that should lead to Malak. If this one is locked, too, I swear to fucking God…
It opens. There he is. Bastard.
---
I can feel Malak’s stasis hold slowly wearing off. It starts small at first. I can move my foot, just a little. Then it fades even more, and I can curl my fingers. Then it fades completely, and I can let my muscles relax for a moment. But only a brief moment. Rena is still fighting Malak. I can sense it. But his is not the only anger I feel. Carth is clearly not having the best day, to put it mildly. And as much as he’s trying to focus solely on Malak and getting to the Ebon Hawk, his thoughts are obviously clouded by Rena. Anger at her, and me, at the Jedi Council, but also confusion. And mistrust. Perhaps even some depression. Clearly there is sadness there. But how deep it goes is unclear.
“Damn it, Rena!” he swears at her, “She’s going to get herself killed, fighting Malak alone.”
“You still care about her, then,” I say. I did not expect his feelings for her to go away so quickly, but I did expect them to be mixed.
“Care, hell, I don’t think we’ll be able to find the last Star Map without her,” he says. No, that’s not quite right. But no matter. We have more important things to worry about. “I saw her go right, but the door closed and I have no idea where she went from there.” I saw that, too. “Can you sense where they are?”
“I can try.” I reach out with the Force. She’s close. And despite Carth’s concern, for lack of a better word, she would seem to be doing very well on her own. She’s certainly thinking about her identity, but she’s doing her best to focus on Malak. This fight isn’t going to end today. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but this fight is not going to end today.
A choice needs to be made. One of us isn’t going to make it out of here. And Carth’s right, the others need Rena to find the last Star Map. Revan found it on Manaan once before, and even if she doesn’t know it, Rena has the memory. A sacrifice needs to be made. My sacrifice. “We need to hurry,” I say, and we run through the center door. I only hope we’re not too late.
---
Malak moves fast. Almost too fast. I let myself react on instinct rather than using any particular form or thinking about my responses. I just let my mind go blank. Muscle memory. Memory. Memory. Nope, don’t want to think about that. Focus on this.
I’m not going to win this fight.
Malak reaches out a hand and suddenly I can’t move. God. No. No this can’t happen. Carth, if anything happens, I just want you to know I love --
“This isn’t over, Malak!” Bastila? They’re unfrozen. I’m not going to die today. But something’s not…
“Your friends do not give up easily, Revan,” Malak says, “You always could inspire loyalty. But even the three of you together cannot stand against my power!”
“For the Jedi!” Bastila shouts, and she throws her lightsaber at him. Malak starts to move towards her. I still can’t move, not yet. Focus, Rena, focus! Undo it! Do something! “I’ll hold Malak off!” she says, “You two get out of here! Find the Star Forge!”
“No, Bastila, he’s too strong!” Carth says, but she doesn’t change. “No!” She reaches out a hand and closes the door behind Malak, sealing them in. And suddenly I can move again, I don’t know how, but I can move. I’ve got to help her, I’ve got to get in there! I head for the lock, there’s got to be something I can do! Come on. Come on! “The door’s sealed, we can’t get past!” Carth says, trying to stop me, “Come on, we have to get to the Ebon Hawk!”
“No, we can’t, I have to help her!” I have to help her!
“Bastila doesn’t stand a chance against Malak, but we can’t help her. Not here.”
“I can’t let another person die!” I shout. I can’t. How many deaths did Revan cause? How many did Revan kill? I can’t do that again, I won’t have her death on my ledger, too!
“We have to get off this ship and find the Star Forge,” he insists, “That’s the key to beating Malak!”
“No, the key to defeating him is right behind this fucking door - are you going to help me or not?”
“No, I’m not!” he says, “Look, Bastila sacrificed herself so we could get away, and I won’t let that sacrifice be in vain. If you won’t come with me, then I'll shoot you and carry you out, but I’d rather not do that. Don’t force my hand.”
I can’t leave her. But I can’t leave him. I can’t -- I don’t know! I - wait, what the fuck, put me down! “I’m not waiting for you to figure it out.” This is completely degrading.
Thankfully he puts me down when we get to the ship. “Get the hyperdrive up and running, they will have deactivated it on Saul’s orders. Let me know once it’s ready,” he says, “I don’t want to be here a minute longer than we have to be.” I nod and run for the hyperdrive engine. T3 whirs along behind me.
It’s something to focus on, at least. This wasn’t a single “flick a switch” deactivation, this was by the book. Power couplings disconnected, safety caps on the ends, this is going to take a bit. I pull my communicator out of my pocket and buzz Carth. “This is going to take a couple minutes, don’t do any fancy flying.” He acknowledges me but that’s it. I don’t have time to think about that right now. He gets us out of the hangar and the battle begins. Shield grid’s in good shape. Caps off the couplings, this may sting a bit. I don’t know as much about engines as I do about droids, but the caps seem to be the same, just scaled up. If a droid’s going to be powered down for a while or could get wet - like torrential downpour wet - you’re supposed to disconnect the power couplings and put rubber caps on the end, for safety. So no one gets electrocuted or so the power flow doesn’t get corrupted, because that’s a bear to fix. And if this were a droid, I’d want to start at the bottom coupling and work my way up. The process here should be the same, too - turn the power off or reroute it, pull the caps off, reconnect, reroute it back. So I start on the lowest of the four. Reroute, caps, reconne - Carth, I said no fancy flying! Stop with the loop de loops! Reconnect, reroute. Second. Try not to lose my lunch. As if I’ve eaten much today. Third. God, Mission, hit them before they hit us! Fourth. Come on, come on… Done! “Carth, punch it!”
Hyperspace. Finally. The worst is over.
Or… maybe it’s just getting started.
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androgynousblackbox · 4 years
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Willing participant (NSFW, Gore, Among Us)
Impostor had killed many humans before, but never one quite like that one. One that wanted him to feel his teeth sink into them and that was adding an interesting flavor to his meal. Warning: body horror, gore.
He knew exactly what kind of risk there could potentially be by boarding the ship. Stories about alien shapeshifter that enjoyed causing chaos wherever they could have been spread around so much that everyone warned him about it before he signed up his name and then some more afterwards. None of them knew that was exactly why he signed in the first place. And why should they? He didn’t want to ge tinto their private matter and they certainly shouldn’t into his. Being inmortal and a lot more years that he looked was a struggle. One had to keep thinking up new ways to keep themselves entertained, to make the infinite road existence one worth walking over. He had tried everything he could think of, but on the way to get his life terminated by a carnivorous plant on some lonely planet that no reasonable person would enter voluntarely, he discovered something interesting. The excitement of death or extreme pain was a better rush than anything he had tried before. As he saw the plant was enjoying itself with some poor beast that found it’s way to his side of the planet, he felt... some kind of way he couldn’t completely explain, but it was very intense and he knew, right there and then, addictive. He did let himself be eaten. Over and over again, his body was turned to shread and his blood painted the floor. In more than one ocassion his head was severed and he could see his own spine dangling under him for a mere seconds before he was out. The process of regenerating even from a simple drop was the same as always, like waking up from a nap, but the death was a furious awakening that made all his year of life seem like a walking simulator with no good story to justify itself. But eventually someone else came and gunshot down the flower to get some substance from it that apparently was very expensive on the universal black market. He only found out about it after coming back and seeing his unknowing lover destroyed, the marks of some boots coming and going. He mourned for the poor flower that was only fending for itself, but soon it was time to keep going. Maybe it was for the best in the end. The universe was a vast, vast place and he had so many options to chose from. Why limit himself to one? When he boarded up the ship, where it was almost completely sure someone was not who they said they were, he was almost trembling with emotion. Someone there wanted to kill and they had no idea someone there wanted to die on a passionate storm of guts and blood, of undying passion for violence and total helplessness. Oh, it was going to be so great! He didn’t discovered the first body, someone else did, and that was a dissapointment for him. He didn’t even got to see how the alien did it! Did they got perforated by some thick, long organ the rest of the crew didn’t had? Were their mind violated by some slippery tentacles thrusting through their helmets? Did they lost their legs? Their arms? Their head? Was it quick? Was it painfully, frustratingly, achingly, carefully slow? Knowing they had already disposed of their body on the incinerator before calling to a meeting felt like a slap on the face. How dared they treat a potential work of art with such disrespect? Luckily or not, he was on the opposite side of the ship when it happened and he had various witnesses corroborating it for him, so he wasn’t even a suspect. No one was that first time around and that only made it more annoying. If at least there was someone he could follow them and see what they were up to, but apparently everyone was doing what they should and there was no notice of anything strange. Two more bodies later, he could barely contain himself. It wasn’t fair! He was there with all his members ready to be separated from his torso and his mouth wishing to chock on his own blood, and what did that silly alien do? Go after others that wouldn’t appreciate it! It was enfuriating.
But as he was stomping his way through a corridor, he could feel something was different. The lights have gone out and he was on his way to go turn them up when he knew, he knew somehow that he wasn’t alone there. He could have turned, but on the darkness it would have meant nothing unless he got them very close and not even that, because unless they did anything they would only look any other crewmate. And yet, something in his gut seemed to twist, his heart started to pound quickly and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. It was him. He would never be able to explain how he figured out, but he was sure of it. “Oh, shoot, the light went off again!” sighed, so desperate for him to come closer, to do what they both knew exactly could happen there, quickly, please. “But the way it’s so long! I almost don’t even want to go there. Hey, buddy, it would be a shame if that impostor came around right now, right? Mmm, oh, damn, I think I let a cable fall to the ground. I hope nothing happens while I go to pick it up, ha ha!”
He bend over and shook his ass in front of the piercing eyes he could feel on him to pick nothing. Just do something already! Before he lose control. There was a sound. A step, a completely ordinary one. Then the next thing he knew something was piercing through his behind until coming out his mouth, destroying all organs on his wake and he moaned through a tentacle that wiggled in front of his nose. His legs couldn’t hold him any longer, but it was okay because he was holding him instead and couldn’t help but to hug him with the last thread of his strenght as he felt his consciouness slipping away.
He revived before anyone could discover his body and the next meeting was because they found out another one. No one there seemed surprised to see him walking through the door, but as soon he made sure he was on a space the other weren’t going since there wasn’t any task on his side, he turned to see the crewmate on a white suit following behind. “Oh, you couldn’t stay away either, did you?” said, resting against a wall. “Honey, the first one was so quick, I barely had time to feel anything. How about this time you take it easy, mmm? No one will bother us here if that is what you are afraid us.”
-- Impostor stared at him in absolute silence. He thought maybe it was a ghost, a holograms or some kind of alucination coming to the meeting room, but then everyone else acted like normal try to find him out for the other body and he had no other option but to follow along, blaming someone else that wasn’t lying but got so nervous that sounded like lying anyway so they expelled from the ship. Now they were barely a handful onboard and this guy… He had no idea what this guy was doing. Did he thought he was there for some kind of gross human activity?
Impostor knew about those acts and the disgust that inspired him were only comparable to the absolute confusion as to why human keep doing it. It was all so sticky and gross and literally nothing else but rubbing parts togehter, sometimes piercing into holes on the body, like a poor imitation of what his species could do but that was somehow pleasurable for their anatomies. The thought of doing any of that almost made him vomit the last head he ate, but more than that, he was enraged for the suggestion from this single man just on a principle matter. Did he thought this was his little cruise of adventures or something? At least the others had the decency of trying to do their task and keep everything working, but this one wouldn’t even attempt to play the part and instead was saying nonsense while adding more insult to injury by not having the courtesy of staying dead. Annoyed as he was, he walked towards the other and he could hear him contain his breath. Was a game everything for him? Didn’t he understood what just happened? What could easily happen to him again so easily? As he got closer, he started to reveal his true mouth: a long, deep line opening on the center of his abdomen as he slowly revealed his teeth.
He was waiting for the terror, for the screams or begging that had plagued each one of his executions, as predictable as all humans were. But instead of any of that, he could see the face of crewmate turning red inside his helmet and squishing his legs togther as he put his hand over his chest, but not on any matter that looked defensive or scared. “You are hungry, aren’t you, babe?” said with a gaspy voice and pressed a button under his helmet to start opening up the suit, revealing a almost transparent shirt. “Why don’t you have a bite, handsome? If you just wait between each plate, I can give you an entire buffet. So much better than go picking out those other who don’t even care about you like I do, don’t you think? Come on, you know you want to.” It was… strange chomping down on him. It wasn’t just that he didn’t fight at all not even when he was still clearly alive, but as long he still had a breath he kept saying those strange phrases that he knew what they meant, he knew what they were but still couldn’t understand, all the while emiting sounds so similar to those humans made during their gross reproductive activities that he wondered if was doing something wrong. At some point the crewmate, bleeding from the mouth, weak and about to pass out, extended a hand to him to leave a red print of hi slip over his helmet. He didn’t realized he did it until later, but he didn’t ate the head and when to see again his expression, discovered a pleasant and peaceful smile like none other of his prey ever had before. Like no one ever had in front of him in fact. He swallowed the internal organs and waited taking a couple of steps behind. If it was true what that human said, if his own mind didn’t played games with him after being alone for so long in the universe, then he had an entire buffet waiting for him and on top of that he wouldn’t even need to wait any boring meeting for it. A buffet completely willing to surrender to him, to keep serving him his favourite plates if he as so much asked for them. Impostor touched upon the bloody kiss left on his face as a littl of drool was coming out his real mouth.
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gavillain · 3 years
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Thoughts on the Loki tv show then?
Short version: I'm liking it! I fully expected to hate the show given that I hated almost everything they did with Loki in the MCU after Dark World. However, they're doing a pretty good job. I think overall, it's a mixed bag for me, but a mixed bag is so much better than I was expecting that I'm very happy with it. Episode 3 really was a big step up after the first two eps and I hope future episodes continue.
Now if you want the long version, I've been writing up my thoughts after each episode to share on a private forum, so I'll copy and paste under the cut. Also spoilers galore past this point:
Ep.1 "Glorious Purpose" Loki himself is the big important thing so I'm gonna talk about him first, and I was both happy and disappointed with his characterization here. Let me explain. Tom Hiddleston obviously plays everything perfectly, and he did a great job on every moment. But the writing on Loki's character is pretty inconsistent. There were a LOT of moments that genuinely felt like they were right out of the golden era of MCU Loki that captured his speech patterns perfectly, his mannerisms, his world view, his humor. Those moments were legitimately there, and they were there more often than I was expecting. Ragnarok had Loki written wrong down to the dialogue and his manner of speaking, and so it was actually very refreshing to see him written generally well, particularly in his conversations with Agent Mobius. However there were multiple moments where he was blatantly written out of character to pander to jokes or to dip into that Ragnarok jokey joke tone. I audibly groaned at the "Am I robot" bit, which was SUCH low brow human and so not in line with the fact that Loki literally knows exactly what he is and had a "species reveal" that was very important to his character. I also would have liked him to be a little more violent. This man came out of a portal, saw SHIELD agents threatening him and immediately went into kill mode in Avengers. Yet this guy stands around and lets himself be taken and forced into situations a lot. But overall, I was happy with his general characterization because I expected the bad stuff to be much worse and it wasn't and the good stuff was more plentiful than I expected. I wasn't fond of the "I don't enjoy hurting people" bit because it's weepy and wrong, but it also was an expected development and I do appreciate that they're at least delving deep into his character on an intellectual level and playing off that "Always so perceptive about everyone but yourself" line of Frigga's. There's potential to do something interesting with him here, so I'm intrigued if not convinced. The Time Keepers concept I hate, but I think I hate it because Loki ALSO hates it and we're a bit too alike in a few regards even here XD I just kind of wish it was less bureaucratic and "we're a joke about corporate offices" and was something more mystical and other worldly. I feel like if it was more science fantasy and ethereal feeling, I would probably be a lot more down for it. But I guess you gotta save money somehow. Agent Mobius is likable, and I like how he can go toe to toe with Loki and how he's kind of morally neutral. I called that Loki was the dangerous time variant disrupting the timeline before it was revealed, but I have to wonder why in the final scene they kept his face hidden. That would have been a great opportunity to show Hiddles hamming up the evil bloodlust, and I am HUNGRY for that. But they kept that Loki hidden in shadows for a reason, and I have two theories regarding why: 1. It actually ISN'T Loki and Agent Mobius is wrong and our villain is someone else. 2. Our villain is LADY Loki and they're saving the reveal that villain Loki is a woman for a later episode. We'll see if I'm right. I HOPE it's number 2 if they kept him in shadow for a reason. So yeah. Not exactly what I wanted but we're on the right track at least for now. I hope this track leads somewhere interesting.
Ep.2 "The Variant" So, first things first, this episode had "I Need a Hero" during a fight scene and TOTALLY botched it. It was way too early to play that card, the action didn't sync with the battle, and it was between a few nameless TVA agents and the evil Loki with the evil Loki still masked in shadow and not really doing much. It just lacked the OOMPH that I felt was necessary for it to be satisfying. This should have been done better. Loki characterization update: less good and less bad than episode one at the same time. There was no "Am I a robot?" cringe, but there was a lot less of the really good Loki dialogue that caught my attention in episode 1. His seemed to have kinda settled back to the mediocrity of Ragnarok Loki with occasional moments of intrigue such as his whole bit about a wolf's ears and teeth. Loki's obviously planning to overthrow the time keepers and to become the new master of time, and he even says as much to his alternate counterpart this episode. I have a sick feeling they're going to have him grow to like the TVA and to save the time stream, but I really want him to follow through with his plans because I think that's much more interesting than the alternative. Will they do it? Time will tell. I also like how much he utterly does not give a shit about Mobius's condolences about Ragnarok happening. That was a good touch. Speaking of Mobius, I still don't care for him or the TVA. They're all just very boring to me, and I don't like Loki being caged to follow their bidding. It's restraining a hurricane of excitement by forcing it to play within this very structured framework instead of burning through freely. With Loki escaping into the timestream to chase after the other Loki, hopefully that will change for the better next episode. Mobius himself gets his character expanded a bit, but his expansion is literally that he is just a cog who doesn't question his purpose and does what he does because it's what he's told to do. And that's just not compelling to me. Sidebar: Ravona, Kang the Conqueror's lover, is the head of the TVA. A fun tidbit but where's Kang? I like the way the episode explored how time variants can't happen during massive catastrophes and apocalypses because everyone dies and everything gets destroyed, so they're safe places for time variants to hide and interact with history. I enjoyed Loki and Mobius going back and messing with Pompeii right before Vesuvius erupts to test that theory. That was fun (though I wish Loki would have, instead of just acting silly and making a scene, would have done his "Kneel before me" bit on the Pompeiians or something more villainous). And I liked the whole aesthetic of them exploring a massive hurricane in Alabama in 2050 and the whole aesthetic going on there. It gave the episode an epic quality. The evil Loki was revealed in this episode, and the twist is that she's Lady Loki. Yeah, I called it. She hasn't done much herself yet and we haven't seen her do much except posses the bodies of various others and then break the timeline with multiple sprawling timeline variants, both of which is very cool. I'm excited for her, though my biggest complaint is that she has blonde hair. No. Lady Loki has BLACK hair. Why didn't they stick her in a black wig or have the actress dye her hair??? AMORA is the blonde Asgardian villainess. Lady Loki has the same hair color as Loki. And... look, I know it's a dumb detail to get hung up on, but the black hair matters to me because Loki has black hair and his beautiful female form does too and I always liked that for personal reasons. Also, she doesn't want to be called "Loki" apparently which is weird but okay, so what DOES she want to be called? I swear if they name her Amora or Sigyn, I'm gonna throw something.
But yeah, the next episode I think promises to be a change of pace, and we can see if Loki can truly spread his wings free of the TVA. I hope he does.
Ep.3 "Lamentis" This was the best episode yet! And for MULTIPLE reasons. This episode sees Loki and Lady Loki Sylvie stranded together in time. It was away from the TVA and it's boring qualities, which was great, and it put two very interesting characters in a situation where they had to rely on each other. This is more of what I was HOPING we'd get from the show. It's a lot more engaging and fun. The TVA always feel like they have their boot on our necks, and having that boot gone, it's amazing how much easier it is to breathe. And I honestly think that was intentional too with regards to how Sylvie outright calls them tyrannical fascist time police. The whole thing with Loki and Sylvie being stranded on the planet Lamentis during its apocalypse is super cool too. First of all, Lamentis is BEAUTIFULLY designed. I can tell they relied on desert locales to save on the budget, but the purple sky, the colorful train, and the neon alien city are all really pleasing to look at. And with the sky literally falling around them, it looks even cooler and the stakes feel cosmic and intense because they ARE. A very good setting that felt refreshing after the very mundane TVA headquarters and Earth scenes. Loki continues to be a sort of mixed bag with weird moments of humor that feel like they were written by someone else for another character, but those moments were a lot more sparse this time around too. Tom is still unmatched in the role, and I love the way he got to be serious, smug, manipulative, and sincere in this episode. I've kinda accepted and settled into anti-hero Loki for this series, and I'm honestly pretty okay with it here. See, I think my issues with Loki being "good" is that it comes with making amends with Thor or working for the TVA. Seeing him pursuing his own agenda on his own terms and collaborating with a kindred spirit who he seems to genuinely like is a lot easier to stomach because it feels a lot more true to the freedom that is so potent about his villainy. I loved him talking about Frigga and how she taught him her magic. That was a genuinely powerful moment. Also even though his dagger metaphor for love got kinda undercut by a joke, I think it was quite good writing and really cut to the point of what makes Loki tic. Also this episode marks a VERY important moment: Loki was canonized on screen as being bisexual in the MCU. He is the FIRST queer main character in the MCU and the first queer main protagonist of a Disney show. And I like the way they did it too! The way Sylvie asked about if he had any dalliances with princesses and then adds "or princes" and Loki says "a bit of both." It was simple and direct and unambiguous, and I love it because Loki has always BEEN queer in the MCU and the writing for him has been very queercoded. Even if that little moment is all it amounts to, it really matters and means a lot to me that they did it and I'm so happy for it. I hope they give him a boyfriend though. Like PLEEEEASE Marvel. Sylvie I'm more okay with this time around. She IS established as Sylvie and not really identifying as Loki anymore, so I can separate her from my preconception of Lady Loki and not mind the BLONDE so much. Sylvie is the name of the second Enchantress in the comics, an Enchantress that Loki himself created. I'm interested to see where they go with her backstory and who she is and what her deal is because they've been implying that she differs from the main Loki quite a lot to the point where she barely even remembers who Frigga was. I also like that Loki's response to the bisexual question implies that Sylvie is bi too. Get that MLM/WLW solidarity. I hope they don't ship them, but I hope they DO stay friends and allies because I'm loving their friendship chemistry. Also, a minor thing in the grand scheme of this episode, but Loki SINGS in this one! And I love it! Tom's always had a very pretty voice that he's gotten to show off in other roles so I'm glad he got to show off his singing in this role too. The Norse folk song he sings was both jovial and somber all at once, and I
loved it. We deserved this Minor nitpick: please give Loki his Asgardian clothes back or something. Because this TVA suit is fucking ugly and I hate it. Sylvie looks so good next to him, and he deserves to be just as stylish. This was a GREAT turning point. PLEEEEEASE keep it up. F&WS failed to. But I genuinely believe that Loki can do it.
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bobbyshaddoe80 · 3 years
Text
Liberated Audio Reviews
Blake's 7 - The Liberator Chronicles Vol. 2
RELEASED AUGUST 2012
Recorded on: 18 October and 25 November 2011, and 15 March 2012
Recorded at: Moat Studios
Review By Robert L. Torres
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The Magnificent Four by Simon Guerrier
'A mission to steal data from the planet Mogul goes badly wrong when Cally and Avon are outflanked and outgunned. And then they are teleported to safety – to an alien spaceship stolen from The System, which is crewed by Gilden Trent and his small team of rebels.
For Avon it’s the opportunity to start over again without Blake.
But can Trent be trusted?'
Chronological Placement:
Set during Series B between the episodes Countdown and Voice From the Past.
Magnificent. Defined in the dictionary as 'impressive, deserving of admiration, especially due to an unusual quality involving size'.
The word is often used when describing something vast in size and scope, but magnificence can also be attributed to the quality of something that involves a small group. A prime example would be the title characters of the classic Western The Magnificent Seven. Even the accomplishments made by the John Wick character could be described as magnificent despite them being done by one man.
Magnificent is an apt word to describe the impressive storytelling quality that Guerrier has pulled off with this Cally focused story.
Cally, as played by the exquisite Jan Chappell, was always one of my favorites from the original cast. She was someone that wasn't a hardened cynic like Avon (who provides much needed support for Cally in this story), nor was she cowardly like Vila. She was someone that genuinely believed in doing the right thing and saw fighting against the oppressive tyranny of the Federation to be a very serious responsibility.
I was also always fascinated by her stance as someone that, for all intents and purposes, was the alien of the group (due to her coming from a race of telepaths). I have my own thoughts and theories about the Auronar, but that can wait for another day. Despite having powers of the mind, I always felt that Cally was very much the heart of the team.
I love that this story has Cally and Avon meeting up with a group like Blake's, on a ship like the Liberator, only to learn that they are little more than highly skilled pirates.
I love that the events of the Series B episode 'Redemption' are brought up and how the crew of the Libertine are a result of the aftermath of the events from that story.
I love how the story showcases in the crew of the Libertine a distorted reflection (and perhaps a retroactive premonition) of what would happen to the crew of the Liberator should they lose their way by abandoning their morals and scruples and just give in to blind self interest... Which for the most part is exactly what started to happen during Series C and ultimately came to fruition in Series D.
A minor nitpick, but I always thought the planet Cally came from was called Auron and her people were called the Auronar. And yet in this story and others, they refer to her as being an Auron. Is it a case where one singular person is an Auron but the collective term for the species as a whole is Auronar? It is a minor thing, I know, but still something that stuck out.
Something else that is a bit of a minor flaw is that at one point in the story the voiceover narration switches from Cally to Avon. There is a specific reason why this happens in the narrative, but it still comes about rather unexpectedly.
Given the stories in these chronicles are events being recounted AFTER the fact, there is the inevitable problem of how to create tension and intrigue with life threatening peril for the characters when most fans know the show backwards and are fully aware of what the inevitable fates for many of the characters are.
Luckily for Guerrier and many other writers, they do create moments that make you wonder how such and such will be able to survive whatever life threatening peril is thrown at them, and manage to cleverly pay off how they survive without falling into 'Oh Come The Fuck On' Territory.
8 out of 10 Plasma Bolts
Anyway, this story is very well done and is the first of many plots that involve coming across potential allies for the Resistance movement, only to learn the would be allies are often a lot worse than their enemies in the Federation. Definitely give it a listen.
False Positive by Eddie Robson
'Dr. Lian has a mysterious new patient – a man who was found shot in the leg near Engel City, a man who is delirious and talking about the most extraordinary acts of rebellion.
She prescribes drugs and the use of the alleviator – a device that will dig deep into his memories – to unlock the truth about Carlin Guzan.
But the truth that she exposes is far more shocking than she bargained for...'
Chronological Placement:
Set during Series B after LC Vol. 10's Retribution, between the episodes Horizon and Pressure Point.
This story is definitely a step up in quality from volume 1's 'Counterfeit' and is an excellent Blake-centric story. The framing device for the recollection of the events is actually quite clever as it ties in with the adventure itself in a very naturalistic manner.
The dialogue scenes between Blake and Dr. Liam are excellent. Kudos to Beth Chalmers for giving the character of Dr. Liam the right balance of professional intrigue and personal curiosity as she learns more and more about her 'patient'. But this story belongs to the late Gareth Thomas through and through and it is great to hear him be afforded better material than during his first go round back in 'Counterfeit'.
I always rather liked Blake from the start, and a large part of that is down to the performance of the late Gareth Thomas. The character of Roj Blake was a passionate idealist fighting for a noble cause, someone who could be diplomatic but understood the need for action rather than simple civil disobedience. As someone that broke free from an oppressive government, he immediately gains our sympathies... even if his passions occasionally bordered on overzealous fanaticism. This is largely due to what the Federation did to him personally by trying to rewrite his mind, killing his family and even destroying his public image by falsifying accusations of paedophilia.
Since the Federation enact the same tactics on countless others without any hesitation, morals or scruples, it is no wonder why Blake is so overwhelmingly passionate about wiping out the corruptive and cancerous tumor that is the Federation. Not only to avenge family, but to ensure that people are given the freedom to choose for themselves and not simply be coerced into following the rules through propaganda, torture, drugs or mind control.
Speaking of drugs and mind control, that goes to the heart of the plot: Blake going undercover at a Federation research facility that is conducting a clinical drug trial for the development of a new pacifying sedative, which the Federation hopes to employ in order to ensure total compliance and obedience to Federation doctrine.
Ironically enough, that is exactly what would come to pass towards the tail end of Series D... But we already know that, don't we?
7 out of 10 Plasma Bolts
All things considered, it is a pretty good story. This story, like a few others in the Liberator Chronicles range, could work as a two-hander stage play with a couple of tweaks. It also could easily have worked on TV or even as a full cast audio. Give it a listen.
Wolf by Nigel Fairs
“I heard his death cry. I felt it. And there was a word. ‘Wolf’. You, Servalan. You were the “Wolf”. You killed him. I want to know why.”
'Some time ago, Blake and his crew were helped by a revered Auron scientist named Gustav Nyrron. He stayed aboard the Liberator for a time and then disappeared.
Cally wants to know what happened to Nyrron, and only Servalan knows the answers.'
Chronological Placement:
Set during Series B between the episodes Pressure Point and Trial.
This is a very intriguing Servalan focused story, featuring Cally and a return appearance by Gustav Nyrron from Volume 1's 'Solitary'.
They say that a protagonist is only as good as the antagonist created to provide drama/conflict. This is especially true when the character of Supreme Commander Servalan (along with the equally excellent Space Commander Travis) was introduced as the Liberator crew's primary antagonist in the Series A episode 'Seek-Locate-Destroy'.
A large part of why the Servalan character has left such a lasting impression on the minds of fans had to do with the casting of the late Jacqueline Pearce, and the way she played the role. Her grace, charm, beauty and seductive allure went hand in hand with a ruthless ambitious edge along with a keen strategic mind.
In many ways, Servalan, as played by Jacqueline Pearce, reminded me of Alexis Colby as played by Joan Collins. Although Servalan was a bit more reserved than Alexis.
As such, it makes perfect sense that the Liberator Chronicles would provide ample opportunities to explore the villains as well as the heroes. This story does well to explore Servalan's character along with her thoughts, beliefs and how she carries herself as she recounts events. The recollection is pretty interesting cuz it comes about in multiple ways.
We learn a little bit about Servalan's childhood in reference to a game she used to play with others. Its interesting how this story, along with the upcoming 'Kerr', 'President' and 'Three', provides more insight into the character than the show ever did. The aforementioned upcoming stories do provide some great insight into why Servalan is the way she is... But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
I love the scenes between Servalan and Cally, as I do not recall the two of them having much screentime during the series proper... If ever. But I could be wrong.
This story has some great twists and turns as it deals with exploring how Servalan used Nyrron as her personal plaything in her efforts to lure the Liberator into her clutches.
Although Nyrron will be featured again in the story 'Brother' off of Volume 11 (which I will talk about eventually), I think this is the story that features him the best. We learn the most about him as a character, and much kudos to Anthony Howell for bringing much pathos and nuance to the Auron scientist.
The story also lends itself quite well to philosophical debates regarding how each side views the other. Naturally, Blake's crew view Servalan and the Federation as an evil and oppressive tyranny, while Servalan and those within the Administration view Blake and his ilk as little more than terrorists wanting to bring down the only force for law and order in the galaxy.
It is that clash of ideals and personal morals that will be explored to great effect in future volumes as well as in the full cast audios.
9 out of 10 Plasma Bolts
Final score for Liberator Chronicles Vol. 2 in its entirety is 8 out of 10 Plasma Bolts. It is a profound step up in quality compared to Volume 1, and it demonstrates that things can only go up from here in terms of character exploration and engaging plots.
Special credit to Craig Brawley of the Big Finish Listeners Facebook Group for his tireless efforts in mapping out the chronology of the audios and determining his they fit in with the established TV continuity.
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brokenxfragments · 3 years
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Zikom, the Indebted
Icon Use: FFXIV model
Theme Song(s)
The Wicked Side of Me - Cold Driven
Never Good Enough - Citizen Soldier
Basic Information
Age: 3000+ (immortal)
Gender: Male
Height: 8′4
Weight: 436 Ibs
Species: Ivaci Draco (dragon)
Orientation/Sexuality: Panromantic/Pansexual
Relationship: Single (ship verse dependent)
Occupation: Freelancer, Fighter
Brief Personality: Brash — Reckless — Leisurely
Brief Bio: While sociably awkward when it comes to conversations, Zikom is one for action, particularly one for fighting. He’s gruff around the edges & might not always be pleasant when he’s blunt about his opinion when he’s getting annoyed, yet if one were to earn his respect, they’d have a willing companion to help them out. When he isn’t hunting or fighting, one could often find him sleeping.
Full Biography
    Zikom is perhaps the only surviving member of his species, a peculiar dragon species known as ivaci, which prided themselves to be a direct bloodline from the very first dragon, the Elder God of the Skies. He were hatched as the runt of the clutch of eggs, making him an easy target among his clutchmates to bully & easy to snatch food from him when their Egg Maker dropped food hunted for her hatchlings - it was simply the way of the ivaci dragons, to prove one’s strength & to survive by one’s own merit, as the First Dragon decreed. And thus would Zikom, whom had no name at the time, would eventually be attacked by his bigger clutchmates, ripped & broken before being shoved off the cliff that the Nest resided on, all for the sake of more food for the rest. 
     And while he struggled at the bottom, stubbornly clinging to life as he was painfully making his way away from the Nest, this was the time that his savior came to him - the mad god known as Aridem. This being took the hatchling & would nurse him, earning trust from the dragon that had no future except death if things had been left the way they were. Slowly he grew to understand ‘language’, for his kind never known more than gestures & tones of growls, coming to understand his new master that would promise him that not only would he grow to his full potential, he would be immensely more powerful than all his clutchmates combined - & more. He could destroy his would-be destroyers, if he promised to serve Aridem afterwards, fully committed to his great plans. And the dragon, given the name he would be known & feared as, would agree, for he knew nothing but what he was taught.
     Aridem taught him well enough on how to speak, how to walk on two legs when he had given the ivaci the ability to transform from his scaly form to that more of a ‘humanoid’, but most importantly, the god taught him how to be loyal. And Zikom was proud to be the fangs & claws for the man he’ll always refer to as “Master Aridem”. While the transformation was not fully able to hide him in plain view, for some of his draconic nature would show via horns, tail, eyes & fangs, as well as his own size when he reached his full potential, it was enough to suit Aridem’s needs.
     When he had reached his full size, he fulfilled his revenge on the clutchmates that shoved him off the Nest cliff, as well as the Egg Maker & the Provider. After that, he fully committed himself to the cause for Aridem; he served the mad god well, attacking when ordered & bringing great ruin to civilizations. He was made immortal via a ritual of Aridem’s own making, in which was to remove the ivaci’s heart & kept safe so that when he died, he would wake again back where they planned & schemed. He was told that this was ultimately to reset their home, this universe that he had never known until he was plucked up from the brink of death, for it was broken & ruined by not only the very Elder God that spawned his race but as well as the rest of His kind. 
     He thought that Aridem was right.
     Ultimately, Zikom’s place in the mad god’s plan was simple - he was to contend with the Elder God of the Sky’s own chosen children, the First Daughters. Because of his own direct bloodline to the same Elder God, he stood the better chance of wounding & perhaps even killing the First Daughters himself. And if nothing else, he would be able to distract them fully when the time came to attack their very home realms.
     The war was long & twisting, the strongest creature of Eldria doing his master’s bidding without hesitation even when he wasn’t always treated with the same respect as those that worked for Aridem - for the god’s son, Malshano, didn’t much care for him. Perhaps the only one to show any amount of kindness, aside from Aridem, was the fourth member of the Harbingers’ generals, Dystrial, who seemed to have ideas of his own though knew not to share them. Sometimes what he told the ivaci would confuse him, often trying to puzzle out the meaning of certain things like ‘freedom of choice’. 
     When at last the final battle came, the ivaci struck the First Daughter of Seraphine when Aridem called for him to do his bidding. He had truly been a fiercesome sight to behold, regardless of the fact that while he were a monstrous size for his kind, despite having been the runt, the Daughter was far larger. He attacked & fought with the one called Salri, who seemed to look at him with pity more than anything. That, perhaps, had stuck with him the most about the one his master called their enemy. And when his master fell into the growing abyss in thanks to the one called Rosalia, another enemy of Zikom’s, the First Daughter must have taken enough pity on him to save him along with the other survivors she sent away from their devoured universe. He would never understand why she did, since he had been the one to lay those life-stealing wounds on the great dragon.
     There was nothing else that Zikom had. He was prepared to die fully with the rest of the universe that had been so broken. Now that he was faced with the prospect of this thing called ‘freedom’... he didn’t know what to do with it.
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seekersoflore · 4 years
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Flight Rising Timeline (In-Depth)
Super recently (like, earlier today), I drew a rough timeline of my own accounts of Sornieth’s history. (You can find it here!) That timeline is.... super roughshod and messy. I kind of wanted to detail or list out in better depth some of the things on that timeline. Or just, y’know. Write it out in general! Some inspiration also came from @hungrytundras so thank you to him for that - y’all should check out his lore. It’s super hella, and super in depth.
My events of Sornieth’s history also differ a bit from canon. There’s a lot of overlap, but a lot of things changed, too. And as always, this is all just my personal headcanons for my lore, and it’s in the sake of fun! Feel free to use it, or share it, or talk about it - or don’t! It’s up to you! Also... this might end up entirely defunct as I continue to create and expand. But it’s here for now, so- ...
It’s gonna get long, so we’re under a read-more for the actual content! Whoosh!
Age of Origins
Encompasses the canonical First Age, from the creation of Sornieth, up until the creation of the Pillar of the World.
From the depths of endless Void, magic writhes to life, and creates on a barren child planet the first dragon gods of history: Earth, Fire, Water, Wind.
It is from these Grand Wyrms that other deities arise. There are many more than the eleven we know now, but between all of them, there are Eight grand deities.
These deities war with one another endlessly. Their terrible magical wars result in the near destruction of the new world they were born in. This unending chaos attracts a very old entity - the very Void from which Sornieth took form from. As we call it now, it is the Shade, and intends to reclaim the space stolen from it and misused.
The deities wage war not with one another, but with the Shade, until it has been beaten back from Sornieth’s skies. The toll is heavy; only the Eight eldest deities remain.
In their grief and loss, the eight form a pact to come together, to prevent the Shade from returning and incurring more cruelty and loss. The Pillar of the World is formed on the Earthshaker’s spine, and the eight fall into a (presumed) eternal rest.
Age of Reclamation
Encompasses the canonical Second and Third Ages, from the rise of the unknown tribes, to the creation of the first of dragonkind.
With the Eight wyrms settled in sleep, the war-torn world of Sornieth begins to reform, heal, settle, and grow. With it, a new people arise - humanoid tribes whose faces have been long lost to history and calamity. These tribes grow in culture and reverence to magic, and much like the dragon gods before them, they turn to war against one another.
The global wars of these tribes end with the Magi during what was known as the Firebringer Uprising - where an oracle of the people foretold the coming history that would unite the tribes. From here, technology, the arts, and civilization as we know it begins to boom.
Eventually, it also physically booms, when during the opening phase of a great new reactor... it goes into meltdown and a catastrophic nuclear explosion that results in an extinction event across the planet. A new dragon deity grows within his nuclear egg.
The same blast leaves arcane radiation across the planet. From this radiation, extreme levels of life and decay begin to grow, until two more deities form from the ashes of an extinct people. They come to be known as the Gladekeeper and Plaguebringer, and for the rest of their days are at eternal war.
The nuclear egg hatches, and intimately curious about the world, the Arcanist explores the Magi’s constructions, history, and remaining culture. He holes himself up in the Observatory he finds until he causes the next planetary catastrophe.
As fauna and flora, life and decay, spread across the entirety of Sornieth during the Sister Gods’ eternal combat, a few vestiges of the Magi poke their head out of their refuges. They themselves have been changed significantly from the arcane radiation, and from this point in history, are a new people known as the Beastclan. They reclaim the abandoned cities, and tear them down to begin anew. The history of the Magi is frowned upon, and so they lay forgotten to history and hardship.
During this time, a few folk who still revere the old ways of magic build monuments to the Sister Gods who they live in fear and awe of, as well as to the Pillar of the World, the wellspring of all magic, and to the Magi long gone. One such place lays deep within the jungle home of the Gladekeeper’s origins - the Hall of the Ancients.
Eventually, the Arcanist finds something unusual within his telescope. An unnatural chill begins to settle over Sornieth, and the Arcane Wyrm is curious enough to travel to the top of the Pillar of the World in an attempt to explore and document. His curious folly leads to the revitalization and revenge of the Shade, coming down with enough force to destroy the weakened barrier - and the Pillar - almost entirely. Once again, the beastclan are nearly destroyed, though not nearly as completely as the time before. They will rebuild.
Left in the hull of the crater left from impact, the Eight are spat back into existence, and awaken to a world reclaimed by magic, flora, and fauna. The Shade twists through the air, free to infect the land as it meanders. Much power was lost in the expulsion of the barrier... but enough is left to cause entropy untold, if left unchecked.
The Eight decide to go their own ways. If they could not stop the Shade together, perhaps they could apart. And, of course, they are dragons. They have territory to reclaim. New challengers to beat back into their lanes...
Age of Ancients
A lost age. This age encompasses history modern dragons are only beginning to learn... that of the first dragons - the ancient breeds who were engineered for the purpose of reclaiming lost territory, and eradicating the remnants of the Shade, up until the creation of the eleven Flights, and relatively-modern Flight Rising.
Ancient Dragon breeds are created; Sornieth’s first relatively mortal dragons. They are apexes of their element, designed for war, and for capture, containment, and eradication of the Shade. They are not designed to intermingle with any other breed or element but their own.
For a long time, these dragons fight wars waged by deities to beat back and reclaim territory to call their own. These territories eventually expand and settle into what we know as the Eleven Flights.
After land is staked, and war-forged clans begin to settle and grow, the next order of business is to hunt down and eradicate the Shade. The original thought was much how the many deities of primordial times had once beaten back the shade before - as a unified force of elemental might. Taskforces were created, made up of eleven dragons, one of each elemental breed. These teams were very secular, and it was perhaps because of this that they did not last.
The second attempt was the first intermingling of clans and breeds, in the formation of more loosely open Shade Hunting Guilds. They were intended to share information and allow through less restrictions, better mobility and longevity in their success. One such guild was known as the Pillar’s Claw - based in Earth under the watchful eye of both Earthshaker and Icewarden.
Some deities however, did not take the failure of the taskforces to mean to loosen their grip. Instead, they tightened it significantly, and deigned to handle the Shade Problem themselves. This led to formations of the Gaoler Orders, and especially the Seekers.
The Gaoler Order spreads massively, and as it works to contain the Shade, also works to contain anything not deemed ‘justified’ or worthy in the Icewarden’s name. This leads to a conflict in the border of fire and ice that is as brutal and cruel as it is quick - the extinction of the Fire Ancients in the Banescale Conflict. The elemental territory of fire is devastated.
It is not long after the destruction of the Banescales that, for still many unknown reasons, the Ancient dragons begin to disappear from Sornieth as if they never existed, and the hunt for the Shade crawls to a halt, before also vanishing.
Age of Flights
What most consider the ‘modern age’ of Flight Rising. It encompasses the Rise of Beastclans, current site lore, up to the Bounty of the Elements. Going forward is where the majority of my personal lore comes in, be warned!
In the wake of the first dragon’s disappearance, the Beastclan make a second resurgence in culture and territory of their own. They take advantage of the settled state of the world, and settle permanent roots. These roots will be partially uprooted once again, very shortly.
A new breed of dragon emerges. Many, actually - with the fight against the Shade seemingly over, and in light of the terrible conflict of Gaoler and Banescale, there appears to be no need for the Ancient dragons anymore. Heads turn once more to the establishment of territory - and these new dragons, who are built not for fighting and hunting, but for building lives and communities, spread and thrive. This becomes the establishment of the Eleven Flights.
Beastclan are quickly overrun in their own homes, and it becomes a bigger point of contention than ever. Eventually, this leads to the rise of the Harpy Queen Talona, and the Beastclan emerge as a notable force, united to rise and stand toe to toe against - or with - dragonkind.
During the Rise of the Beastclans, dragons across Sornieth begin to interbreed and spread, founding more permanent homesteads, cities, and places of trade where elements intermingle and species are not homogeneous. One of these great hubs is formed in Shadow, in the visage of a coastal trade town called Emporiki.
Around the same time, one of many to come courier services are created. One of the older ones and amongst the first to offer service on a very wide continental basis, is the Wind-based Praesidium Postal Service.
As generations pass and the boundaries between elements muddies further within dragonkind, adventurers and explorers who are curious about the world before them begin to crop up. One such group rediscovers the Hall of the Ancients deep within the Rainforest Jungle, nestled on a plateau overlooking a massive glade centered by a giant hollowed tree. A clan forms here, originally created to study the temple, known as the Duskhallow Shire.
While Shade hunters no longer exist, until history and unfortunate local corruptions bring up forgotten information leading to the formations of new Guilds, bounty hunters and mercenaries surely do exist. The Venatore are one of them - a group of mercenaries who eventually unite under one gold-earning banner.
The expansion of territories and disputes with the Beastclan also leads to upticks of crime and cruelty amongst dragonkind, and the oracles of the Water Flight were not immune. An age of piracy brewed, and new rivalries and wars could be found over the open seas. One ship very late to this arrival is one very confused to its purpose - to be justice, or pirates? The flag this crew flies under is that of the Winged Doubloon.
Dragonkind will continue to expand and lairs grow and thrive for generations. Small disputes and civil wars come and go, politics expand, an Exaltation System is implemented in reverence and assistance to the Eleven, and crime rates rise and fall. New breeds are discovered, hidden in shadowy boughs, and birthed through accidental mutagens. This growth will continue until a new surge in magic appears, creating a new cycle of history repeating itself, as Sornieth heaves forward in a new chapter of history and excitement...
Age of Bounty
The Current Age of Flight Rising, in my lore. This encompasses the Bounty of the Elements up until the present day. I thought that with as much lore and huge updates like the Ancient breeds that we’ve gotten since that day, it was deserving of a new turn, and an age of it’s own.
As the Flights enter an era of unprecedented magical presence and growth, stories begin cropping up of unbelievable happenings: miracles, disturbing tales, historical discoveries, and horror stories.
New eyes are discovered upon Sornieth’s hatchlings, thought to be an aftereffect of constantly evolving and growing magic.
Discoveries of ley lines and new magic appears. These ley lines, long dormant, bring about quite a few problems of their own when dragons try to harness or manipulate them.
In miraculous events, an ancient breed of dragon is rediscovered within the Southern Ice Fields - the once powerful orders known as the Gaolers, reduced to hidden clans and secretive missions. Once they are outed, they begin to crop up around the world as the relic breed is reintroduced to society with open wings.
Stories about dragons going missing on archaeological digs begin to crop up. Fascinatingly, the opposite also occurs when on a job, the Venatore mercenaries dig up a living gaoler deep within stone, where he was presumably petrified within a many years’ spell. This Gaoler, known as Dante, claims to be a shade hunter from a guild nobody has heard of. He quickly commandeers leadership of the Venatore - disbanding them, before reforming and rebuilding them from the ground up, into a rebirth of one of the Shadehunting Guilds of ancient times - the Pillar’s Claw.
The most disturbing knews of this bounty of magic occurs. For unexplained reasons, two deities disappear from the face of Sornieth. The Tidelord’s prophecies cease, and his flight continues to mourn as they desperately search. The Windsinger too, vanishes, and with him the Twisting Crescendo. The air stagnant around Sornieth causes a surprising amount of environmental damage, and leaves the air nearly unusable. It is only by happenstance that the deity of Wind is rediscovered at all - and now the Crescendo blows the wrong way, leaving even more destruction as clans adapt.
One clan who was forced to adapt was the old established Praesidium Postal Service. Never built on the most solid ground, the renewal of the wind god’s hurricane tore the entirety of the structure and surrounding architecture from its foundations entirely - and now the clan is entirely airborne like many other ancient clans, suspended in the air and orbiting slowly around the Flight’s territory.
Things grow heated in Fire Flight, both physically and politically. While civil unrest fully blooms in the Magmablood Rebellion, a surge of lava and magma forms new islands... and also unearths the last surviving Banescales of all Sornieth. They take to the skies in song and fire and flight, and quickly spread across the globe. 
In the Rainsong Jungle, in the midst of brewing civil war, the Hall of the Ancients begins to unseal itself. The magic keeping the temple unexplorable and closed off is beginning to weaken - two of the halls have opened thus far, and within them, surviving members of an ancient taskforce trapped two Ages prior; a Gaoler of Ice, and a Banescale of Fire. It is unknown why they, and possibly others, were trapped in such a godly spell of stasis, but now the entirety of Duskhallow is on edge.
Within the last months, something unknown appears to have happened to an old gang of dragons. Only one member of the original Blackspine Marauders’ crew is left in their territory, and the group now is infinitesimally small, but the fate of the other Marauders remains shrouded in mystery.
Present Day
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esonetwork · 3 years
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Timestamp #214: The Vampires of Venice
New Post has been published on https://esonetwork.com/timestamp-214-the-vampires-of-venice/
Timestamp #214: The Vampires of Venice
Doctor Who: The Vampires of Venice (1 episode, s05e06, 2010)
There’s something fishy in the waters of Venice.
Meanwhile in the TARDIS, Part II
The Doctor gets Amy back into the TARDIS where she continues trying to seduce him. While he tries to work the console, proclaiming to be a mix between Gandalf and Yoda, Amy points out just how much a a typical guy he is.
The Doctor tells her that he just can’t see it anymore. He’s lost the wonder. Everything is just… stuff. He wants Amy to help open his eyes to the wonders again.
Amy takes this as a clue that she’s not the first companion. When she asks how many of them were girls, the Doctor dances around the question, so Amy brings up the visual records with a little trick. The TARDIS obliges, showing her only the women who have traveled with the Doctor.
The Doctor decides to go find Rory, who is at his bachelor party.
The Vampires of Venice
In Venice, 1580, Guido presents his teenage daughter Isabella to Rosanna Calvierri and her son, Francesco. Isabella is seeking entrance to Rosanna’s school, and when it is granted, Rosanna takes the young woman promptly.
As Guido leaves the room, Isabella is inspected before Francesco reveals himself as a vampire.
Four centuries in the future, Rory is enjoying his bachelor party until the Doctor pops out of a cake instead of the expected stripper. The Doctor reveals that Amy tried to kiss him, but it’s okay because she is a great kisser.
It sounded better in his head, you know.
Some time later, the Doctor is working on the TARDIS console as he offers relationship advice to the young couple. He also offers to take them to any location so they can get away together. He decides on Venice, a bit perturbed that Rory understands the “bigger on the inside” concept.
He goes on for a spell about the founding and history of Venice, including a note to avoid Casanova, before running into a guard who asks for traveling credentials in an attempt to stop the plague. The travelers use the psychic paper to bypass the checkpoint – Rory is apparently the Doctor’s eunuch – before running into Guido and learning about Isabella’s plight.
In the school’s courtyard, Francesco tries to convince his mother that they have more than enough converts, but she’s not convinced at all. He later trawls the streets looking for another victim. The subsequent screams draw Amy and Rory. After spotting the vampire fangs, Amy gives chase.
The Doctor breaks into the school and encounters a group of female vampires, impressed by their lack of reflections. They ask who he is and he shows them a library card, so they vamp out to chase him away. He runs into Amy and Rory. Amy and the Doctor are excited about the vampires, but Rory is appalled.
Amy and the Doctor strategize with Guido on how to get into the school undercover. The Doctor and Rory argue that Amy shouldn’t be the one to go in, but she spins an elaborate cover story. Rory does not like the idea of the Doctor posing as her fiancé, so Amy and Rory pose as siblings to gain Rosanna’s favor. One flash of the psychic paper later and Amy’s matriculated.
She soon finds Isabella and learns about being strapped to a chair for a procedure that she cannot remember. All she knows is that the sunlight now burns her skin. As Amy looks for a way in for her traveling companions, Guido (in Rory’s stag party shirt) takes the Doctor and an apprehensive Rory to meet her.
They talk about Amy’s relationship with the Doctor while the Time Lord shows off his huge UV light. Rory challenges the Doctor about his attitude that makes people take risks to impress him. They also discover a corpse that it completely drained of all fluids before being ambushed.
Amy gets captured and taken to Rosanna where she is confronted about the psychic paper. Amy is strapped down and bitten by Rosanna. The headmistress explains that they drink the girls dry and replace their blood with that of their own kind. Amy kicks Rosanna, exposing a perception filter and the vampire’s true nature.
Yep, they’re aliens.
Isabella rescues Amy and the travelers escape into the sunlight. The Doctor tries to go back for Isabella but is attacked by an electric shock. As the morning continues on, Isabella is forced into the canal behind the school where she is eaten alive by the males of the species who are hiding beneath the water’s surface.
Rosanna returns to her throne room to find the Doctor waiting for her. He has deduced she is from Saturnyne. She’s using a perception filter to appear human and they share a common identity as alien refugees. Rosanna’s planet was consumed by the cracks in time, and while fleeing the Silence, they ended up on Earth. Rosanna asks for the Doctor’s help in rebuilding her species, but he only wants to know what happened to Isabella. Rosanna disavows Isabella, remarking only that all traitors must be killed. As the Time Lord is escorted out, he shouts that he will stop her. If only because she didn’t know Isabella’s name.
With a malfunctioning perception filter, Rosanna assembles her girls in the courtyard and prepares to wage war. Meanwhile, the Doctor reunites with Guido and his traveling companions and hashes out Rosanna’s plan. He deduces that she plans to sink Venice and give rise to a new Saturnyne.
The “vampires” pick that moment to assault Guido’s home, forcing the heroes to flee. Guido commandeers the UV light and locks himself inside, luring the girls to his gunpowder stash which he uses to destroy the invaders at the expense of his own life.
As Rosanna begins her plan, the Doctor forces Amy to return to the TARDIS. Rory thanks the Doctor and pursues her as the Time Lord returns to the school and tries to stop Rosanna’s machine. He finds it deadlock sealed, but even the news that her daughters are dead doesn’t dissuade the headmistress.
Rory and Amy find a detour in Francesco. Rory fights him while Amy uses her compact mirror to disintegrate the alien in a burst of sunlight. Amy kisses Rory in celebration before they both rush off to help the Doctor.
The Time Lord is miffed about Rory’s change of heart, but he soon leaves them in charge of dismantling the throne as he ascends the bell tower after Rosanna. He ascends to the spire and stops the weather machine before finding Rosanna on the canal’s edge.
The matriarch’s perception filter has failed, locking her in her human form. She prepares to dive to her death, and as the Doctor rushes to stop her, she tells him that he’ll have to live with the death of her species on his conscience. She then jumps into the water and is consumed.
The Doctor, Amy, and Rory return to the TARDIS. Seeing Amy’s excitement and her apprehension about the wedding, Rory offers to break off their engagement. Amy replies that he should travel with them, and the Doctor agrees.
As they are about to leave, silence falls around the Doctor, an omen of the darkness still surrounding them.
This is a tough story to consider. On the one hand, the story is quite average with a small connection to the ongoing thread about the Doctor being the last of his kind. This story would have played well in the Tennant era which leaned heavily on the Doctor pledging to prevent another such genocide. It also plays well here, both as a counterbalance to Matt Smith’s portrayal of a younger, hip, almost laissez-faire Doctor and as a fulfillment of his promise to never be cowardly or cruel, and to never give up or give in.
On the other hand, we have some great (and tough to handle) character development with this twisted triangle. As much as I despise the attempted seduction of the Doctor by Amy, it opens the door to some dramatic friction. Amy’s attracted to the Doctor, but the Doctor isn’t interested in her. Rory loves Amy and she seems to love him, but she’s not quite ready to settle down. The Doctor’s interests reside with unraveling the mysteries surrounding these two while helping them to find each other.
But the biggest source of friction is how poorly Amy treats Rory. She seems irritated that the Doctor brought him in, but seems excited to be with Rory on a wedding-gift vacation. It all comes back to the Doctor, however, because they are there purely because of time travel and Amy immediately gravitates back to the adventure instead of guiding and mentoring her future husband.
Let’s be frank: Rory needs reassurance about their relationship and Amy is either ignorant or reluctant to provide it. She’s not holding up her end of the Pond-Williams team and effectively leaving Rory alone in the storm roiling around them.
I wish that she would treat Rory better because I really love the chemistry between Karen Gillan and Matt Smith, but that amazing connectivity is blunted by Amy’s disregard for Rory, who seems to be a really sharp and grounded character.
I loved a lot of the mythology touches throughout the episode, from the First Doctor library card to the Doctor’s continued fear of heights. A closer look at the library card reveals that it was issued to “Dr. J. Smith”, continuing the John Smith alias into the Hartnell era, and was registered to 76 Totter’s Lane in Shoreditch, London. The story also swerved into meta territory with the jokes about Casanova, which touches on both David Tennant and guest star Helen McCrory.
We also cannot forget that the Doctor has plenty of experience with vampires and blood-drinkers, including State of Decay, The Curse of Fenric, and Smith and Jones.
I bounced back and forth for a while on the score for this one, but finally settled on my modus operandi of rounding up.
Rating: 4/5 – “Would you care for a jelly baby?”
UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Amy’s Choice
The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.
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analyzingadventure · 4 years
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PSI THOUGHTS 2: THE ELECTRIC BOOGALOO
Aka time to share some thoughts on the profile blurbs and participate in some wild speculation
(Quickly though I just wanted to say that the new outfits are fine but there is something weird to me about them... It’s like this weird mix of taking the original designs, trying to modernize them while also keeping them looking the same and it like... It feels like they tried to Adventure-fy the old designs it somehow made the kids look like background extras of their own show?? IDK maybe it’s just nostalgic bias or something lmao. But yeah the kids look fine, I wish they had left Mimi’s hat pink and... Man they really did Koushirou a dirty, eh. He really looks awful in that outfit holy shit)
When it comes to the kids I actually don’t have much to say about them- they kinda sound like parodies/abridged versions of themselves from Adventure, like the way they call Mimi a “princess”, which kind of sounds like someone saw her childlike innocence from Adventure and figured all there is to Mimi is that she’s a whiny little brat (/”princess”). I am jumping to conclusions here but rn I feel like tri. had a better understanding of the characters than Psi, but then again Psi doesn’t have to stay through to Adv.’s characterization.
The only things I found worth mentioning were that Hikari indeed seems to have a sixth sense so she seems to still be the DigiJesus (or, well, techinically they made it sound like Hikari has a tendency to astral project but whatever lmao). But in a twist, based on Takeru’s profile he too may have that sixth sense! 8O And ngl I am very excited to see where they’re going with that
EDIT: I misread a good portion of the blurb, ignore the next these paragraphs lmao (leaving it here for people to laugh at tho)
Also; They mention Takeru lives apart from “his brother” due to “circumstances”... Now either these profiles are vague and cheeky because the writers don’t want to spoil to any kids that Takeru and Yamato are brothers whose parents divorced, OR... A) They are brothers but their parents aren’t divorced (yet) or B) They’re not brothers at all (they don’t have the same last names after all) and Takeru has another brother he lives away from for some reason.
I mean I do think it’s most likely the writers are being cheeky and trying to not spoil things for the kids, but the fact they didn’t mention Yamato being Takeru’s brother at all is super interesting to me.
ONTO THE DIGIMON, again, not much to say about the most of them. They did confirm the Adult form of every Digimon so my hopes of branching evolution trees has been smothered a bit but not killed yet, not entirely- it is still possible they could get new Perfect level forms and/or multiple Perfect forms. Or Ultimate (depending on how Psi will treat levels, like for all we know they could ditch the level system again like Frontier and Xros Wars did)
BUT THERE’S THREE THINGS WORTH NOTING IN THOSE PROFILES! The Great War, no mention of Angemon, and Tailmon.
Some people immidiately started speculating about a multiverse/AU theory from the mention of the War and how Agumon knew Taichi but considdering the other things mentioned in the profiles I doubt this is the same Agumon from Adventure... Unless it was specifically Agumon and Agumon alone while all the other Digimon were from this universe specifically. But still, I don’t think there’s any multiverse stuff going on here, Agumon just pulled a Hikarigaoka-esque stunt at some point but nobody remembers it, probably
The mention of the “old Internet” (and the war that happened there) makes me wonder if they’re going to pull an X-Antibody-esque kinda storyline with Yggdrasil or something where instead of a Digital World being destroyed, it’s the Network? Who knows, there’s only so much you can speculate based on a handful of words
Patamon totally evolves into Angemon, I think they’re just being cheeky about it and Angemon is like a “legendary warrior” and some shit like that, it’s totally gonna be like that and I’m sure he’ll die just like he did in the past
BUT WHAT’S REALLY INTERESTING FOR ME IS TAILMON
TAILMON WON’T JOIN THE KIDS/HIKARI, SHE’S JUST BEING MYSTERIOUS AND SHIT, LIKE REI IN APPMON
Now that’s a trope old as kids’ shows, but it’s still interesting due to its implications.
Tailmon could be a lone wolf because she’s on a secret mission. She could be a lone wolf because she has some issues. She could be a lone wolf because she’s teamed up with the enemy and is either playing Taichi and co into a trap, or she’s having second thoughts and is kinda two-timing the Chosen and the enemy
There’s many options, and it’s very interesting to see what they’re going to do
And if Tailmon is working for the enemy... Who is it?
There isn’t much left to discuss here actually... The enemies we see in the new trailer kind of remind me of the Virusmon in Appmon, but they look a bit... off? IDK maybe it’s just this weird whiplash of the old Digimon looking weird to the new enemies with more modern designs. That said I wouldn’t be surprised (and I would be a bit happy actually) if those new enemies from the trailer were not Digimon, but they probably are, and I’m sure we’ll find out what species they are
Now one last thing I found interesting about the trailer (which is definitely giving me that Hunters/Appmon feeling rn) is that we definitely see the kids entering the Internet in it (the Internet having that very DigiQuarts/AR Field look to it).
The thing is, we had it already confirmed way back that there is a Digital World, it’s the green foresty thing on the poster. So it’s going to be interesting to see how they’ll handle the Digital World- it already sounded a lot like to me that the kids could travel with ease from the Human World to (what has now been confirmed to be) the Internet, so how that’ll extend to the DW is interesting. Is it going to be like like how the Deep Web worked in Appmon where once you go deep enough you’ll find the DW?
So will we see a lot of the DW or will the show take mostly place on the Internet with very limited visits to the DW?
(Unrelated but hilariously that was kind of what I always expected Appmon would do, like they’d go deep into the Net Ocean and find themselves in the Digital World (with Digimon specifically) and I was sad nothing like that ever happened so it’s gonna be surreal and hilarious if that’s exactly what Psi does)
And.... I think that’s it? I can’t think of any other things to briefly discuss, I ran out of disjointed thoughts
I’m expecting Psi to be either pretty decent or an absolute, flaming trainwreck and if it’s the latter it’s gonna be hilarious to watch and my popcorn is ready for it
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Quentin's NRC friends - Other OCs
Hey, I got more OCs to share. These are Quentin's friends at NRC, and I'm posting this before the backstory because I post my babies now, or I'll keep delaying it until that post is done, and it's taking longer to write than I expect.
Stupid Writer's lack of motivation and Tumblr deciding to keep reloading the page and making me start over. 
Found Picrew link for Credit where it is due!: https://picrew.me/image_maker/43383
So, here's some more OCs I have. Sorry if it doesn't work on mobile!
Edit: Parts of Adahy and Dorji's profile will be changed to make it better because of some parts of Adahy's profile that I think are stereotyping and I judged Vil Schoenheit's competely wrong before the Pomefiore chapter came out. 
Adahy Haida
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Full Name: Adahy Inuit-Haida
Nickname(s): Ada (by his friends at NRC), Adie (by Bucky)
Twisted from: Kenai (Mostly Early Movie) [From Brother Bear]
Gender: Male 
Species: Beastman (Part Bear)
Age: 17 
Birthday: November 29th
Star Sign: Sagittarius 
Height: 6'0"4 or 184 cm
Eye Color: Black 
Hair Color: Dark Brown
Homeland: Northern Land of the Great Spirits
Family: Mother, Father, Two Older Brothers (Status Unknown), Adoptive Father [Anuka Haida], Adoptive younger brother [Bucky Haida] 
Dorm: Savanaclaw
School Year: Second Year
Class: 2-B, Student no. 23
Occupation: Student/Part Time Worker
Club: Volleyball Club
Best Subject: Spiritual Forces/Spirit Studies 
Dominant Hand: Right 
Favorite Food: Most Seafoods, especially Salmon and Trout.
Least Favorite Food: Certain Fruits and Meats
Likes: Doing whatever he wants
Dislikes: Other people in his way of doing things
Hobby: Exploring Areas
Sexuality: Straight 
Unique Magic: 'Brother of the Spirits' - Adahy can temporarily communicate with the Great Spirits, or any Spirit in his area and receive guidance, intervention or even a change (physical or mental) for about as long as the Spirit in question wishes, if any Spirit wish to speak with him at all. He can also communicate with any and all animals during this time, and also takes the form of a bear during this time, whether or not he is using it for the animals or Spirits, and loses the ability to communicate to human-like creatures. This typically lasts half a hour to a full day, but it depends on the Spirit he is dealing with.
Talent: Ridiculously Accuracte Sense of Smell
Personality: Adahy generally is a prankster, and beats to the sound of his own drum, despite really caring about others and their view of him. He is known for his pranks in Savanaclaw and other dorms and generally getting into trouble with people, which he often gets into major trouble with with fellow dorm members,  as Leona and Ruggie seem amused by his antics. Adahy is genuinely is a good guy if you get past his prankster and childish nature, he's a really good guy to talk to and be around because of his understanding with people and the world in general. He also is pretty laid-back and knows lots of secret places around campus to relax, but you have to get past his stubborn nature and sometimes crudes comments.
Background: Born and raised in the Northern Land of the Great Spirits, he grew up in a small tribal area inside of a Native American reservation in the land of Pyroxene. He learned the ways of his ancestors and was firmly taught about the Great Spirits as a child, making him semi-religious even to the current times. He lived a mostly good life, nothing to big happening until his coming of age ceremony, when he received his totem- the Eagle of Knowledge. And, figuring he knew basically everything in the reservation inside and out, decided to leave it without the permission of his leaders due to Adahy's stubborness. Which later ended up backfiring after he finally found a place to settle down with a new family, the broken Haidas which he managed to fix while he was staying there. The two families did manage to come to an agreement about letting Adahy stay outside the reservation, and keep in touch with his tribe. A while later, the father of family, Anuka insisted that Adahy go to Night Raven College to become learn about spirits and his spiritual powers because Adahy had such great talent in that department, despite not having much money to do so. The Haidas somehow managed to get him in to NRC, which Adahy feels bad for. But Adahy somehow managed to land a job at Sam's shop as a part timer and taking jobs around campus because he feels he needs to work hard at NRC as payment for his family's sacrifice despite all the homework he gets. He eventually met Ruggie, another person was in his class he often had jobs with and decided to form an agreement to work together because they often worked in similar spots. So, he can often be found around Sam or Ruggie. He also met Quentin while working around campus, and after a few interesting conversations with her started to hang out with her and her friend group, which at the time was just her, Agat and Dorji. 
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Das Mana-Alvah
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Full Name: Das Mana-Alvah 
Nickname(s): the Creep/Traitor/Cult Member assigned to me (by Quentin), Lamprey (by Floyd) 
Twisted from: The Rat (very loosely) [From Lady and the Tramp] 
Gender: Male
Species: Human
Age: 16
Birthday: July 15th
Star Sign: Cancer 
Height: 5'7 or 152.4 cm
Eye Color: Dark Green 
Hair Color: Light Brown with Dyed Black Tips
Homeland: Land of Pyroxene 
Family: Mother, Father, Older Sister and Brother, Younger Brother
Dorm: Octavinelle
School Year: First Year 
Class: 1-E, Student no. 19
Occupation: Student
Club: N/A
Best Subject: Magical Analysis
Dominant Hand: Right 
Favorite Food: Food Sent by His Family
Least Favorite Food: Rare Meats
Likes: His Phone and the Things He Can Do On It
Dislikes: Mostro Lounge, Working as Azul's lackey 
Hobby: Spying on People
Sexuality: Straight
Unique Magic: 'I Ail You' - Das can give a person a disease only he can cure and can fully control every part of. Which has been used for interrogation purposes, or for simply getting his friends to stop doing something. It's simple but very deadly since Das knows how to use it. 
Talent: Looking Better than He Actually Is
Personality: Das is childish compared to almost every else in the school, so people often associate him with Kalim due to his trustinh, stupid and naive behavior that feels almost disgenious at Night Raven College. But no. He's just naive due to not being in the outside world until now. He's also really not that smart, and it's not that hard to tell just by his grades. But, he seems to be a good person despite not seeming like it and for what he does.
Background: Born and raised in a small faculty in the Cult of Mana, Das grew up learning very little and being taught to take what you have and don't ask for more. He grew up in an extremely religious household with family and friends he loved dearly and, thus grew up to be extremely passionate about his cult. But, he was not that important or even stood out from the crowd. Well, until he was assigned to track Quentin at Night Raven College for the sake of the cult. Which somehow worked despite Das having little magical talent. And for a while, he spied on Quentin by stalking her and stealing her things until he was almost caught by the teachers. To which he decided to make a deal with Azul, giving away his free time (because Azul thought his Unique Magic was worthless) in exchange for a book that would track Quentin's every move. Which, was later destroyed when Leona turned Azul's contracts to sand and forced him to make another contract with Azul. But this time, with Azul being warned by Quentin that Das cannot be left unsupervised with risking a chance of being found out had Overblotted by a dangerous cult, put Das under an even worse contract in exchange for an app on his phone that generally told him what Quentin was doing. Which, he genuinely hates Azul for now. But, he finds some solstice in Quentin's friend group that he kinda forces his way into when the group hangs out together.
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Agat Circe
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Full Name: Agat Circe 
Nickname(s): Agie (by his friends at NRC) Circe/Medea (by his village and family)
Twisted from: the Enchantress [From Beauty and the Beast] 
Gender: Male
Species: Demi-human (Part Fae)
Age: 18 
Birthday: September 29th
Star Sign: Libra
Height: 5'3 or 162 cm
Eye Color: Light Green
Hair Color: Golden Blonde
Homeland: Mystic Village 
Family: Grandmother, Grandfather.
Dorm: Diasomnia
School Year: Third Year
Class: 3-C, Student no. 10
Occupation: Student/Enchanter 
Club: Science Club
Best Subject: Magical Combat
Dominant Hand: Right 
Favorite Food: Fruits
Least Favorite Food: Soup
Likes: Being alone, studying magical books
Dislikes: Crowded places, tests
Hobby: Wandering around old places
Sexuality: Bisexual
Unique Magic: 'Fairy Tale Magic' - Agat can make a spell or curse tailored to a specific person no matter the rules of magic. But, it has to be symbolic in some shape or form to work and he is the only one that can cast and dispel it. 
Talent: Spell Casting and Lifting
Personality: Agat is not a social person. He tends to be found by himself in unpopular places, but he is a smart and good person despite the air he gives off. Agat is also a person who doesn't care for things all that much, but he actually is really good at understanding people and things. He acts more anti-social than he actually is, as he can sometimes be found spoiling his friends, as he considers his friends very precious to him. People are genuinely surprised to see a powerful enchanter acting like a regular teenager in front of his friends since he often doesn't do much in class, much to the teacher's dismay. Agat is very wise for someone his age, and often has good wisdom if you ask him. 
Background: Agat was born of a fae and a human, who he doesn't know. He grew up in the Mystic Village, with his grandparents who were the town's wise sorcerers, so he grew up with lots of knowledge of magic and a good amount of resources to help him grow. Only, he wasn't a very well-liked child in the village because of his gifts, as most thought of him as scary or not someone they should interact with. So, he learned that magic isn't really all that great because people tend to be afraid of it. So, he learned to hide his powers from the village to to gain favor with them, which worked after a few months. Agat's grandparents sent him to Night Raven College, despite Agat wanting to stay in his hometown and he was sorted into Diasomnia, which further reinforced the lessons he learned about magic while in his hometown. Until he met Quentin, and later became friends with her who also started to teach him about Magic and people. And, because of the lessons she teaches, weither Quentin knows it or not, Agat decided to stick with her and her group of friends because he genuinely finds them to be interesting and great people to be around.
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Masawa Naran
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Full Name: Masawa Naran 
Nickname(s): Mas (by his friends at NRC), Master Masawa (by his servants at home)
Twisted from: Kuzco (Mostly Early Film) [From the Emperor's New Groove] 
Gender: Male
Species: Human
Age: 17
Birthday: December 21st
Star Sign: Sagittarius 
Height: 5'9"7 or 164 cm
Eye Color: Light Blue 
Hair Color: Natural Black
Homeland: The Kingdom of Sun 
Family: Mother, Father, (Deceased) Older Brother, Younger Sister
Dorm: Scarabia
School Year: Second Year 
Class: 2-D, Student no. 5
Occupation: Student/Grand Prince
Club: Comedy Club
Best Subject: Transformation Potions
Dominant Hand: Right 
Favorite Food: Flavorful Foods 
Least Favorite Food: Foods with Little to No Flavor
Likes: Money, Dancing
Dislikes: Most People Besides His Friends
Hobby: Dancing 
Sexuality: Demisexual
Unique Magic: 'Which One, Which One?' - Masawa can temporarily change into an random animal that can speak human language for about ten minutes to a hour with no powers or anything special besides being able to speak a human language. He mostly transforms into a Llama. 
Talent: Animal Transformation adaptation 
Personality: Masawa is a dick. He is not a great person to be around for a long period of time. He's selfish and often it's his way or the highway. He also has a problem with money, in that he kinda likes money a little too much. Not obsession levels, not definitely enough to make Jamil wary of leaving the treasure stash open for too long. He also doesn't seem to care about other's opinions that much, which is why he often is yelled at by the teachers and students for many things, and why Jamil gets a lot of complaints about him. But, deep down he's insecure as hell. So he puts up a facade of being a huge dick to hide his insecurities, well, until he met Quentin who, because of her experience, saw right through him and told him what he needed to hear. So, because of the mutual understanding the two have, he became a part of the group as he felt they had accepted him for who he was.
Background: Masawa came from the royal household of the Kingdom of Sun, and was raised by his older brother to be a member of royality, which little Masawa thought was actually to be the prince. Which, he originally was excited for because he thought that's what he was born for. So, when his brother became king and he was demoted to Grand Prince, his dreams were dashed. And that's when his insecurities and doubts about who he was and what his purpose in life was popped up and started to eat at him. And so, he became a bitter and selfish person, which his family did try to help change but was unsuccessful until he was enrolled in Night Raven College, and met Quentin. 
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Dorij Medusa 
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Full Name: Dorji Medusa 
Nickname(s): Mister Medusa (by his clients), Monsieur Prêteur sur gages (by Rook) 
Twisted from: Madame Medusa [From the Rescuers] 
Gender: Male 
Species: Human
Age: 18
Birthday: June 22nd 
Star Sign: Cancer 
Height: 5'9 or 180 cm
Eye Color: Dark Green
Hair Color: Auburn Red 
Homeland: Land of Pyroxene
Family: Mother, Father, Older Sister (Status Unknown)
Dorm: Pomefiore
School Year: Third Year 
Class: 3-D, Student no. 16
Occupation: Student/Pawnbroker/Informat/Prostitute
Club: Magical Arts Club
Best Subject: Art
Dominant Hand: Left 
Favorite Food: Sweet Foods, Coffee
Least Favorite Food: Sour Foods
Likes: Getting Money and Information
Dislikes: Nosey and Toxic people
Hobby: Collecting Items
Sexuality: Pansexual
Unique Magic: 'Duke of Treasure' - Dorji can identify any item, weither it is a treasure or not, and see its properties but most importantly how much money it's worth. 
Talent: Working Well with Dogs and Crocodiles
Personality: Dorji was not a nice person. He made others at Night Raven College seem nice in comparison to him. He was the bar of how much of a dick a person can be according to everyone at NRC, even the teachers, and that says something coming from Vargas and Crewel. He was incredibly rude, stubborn, selfish, temperamental, and manipulative that was toxic to be around for long periods of time, which he still has habits of to this day and what most know him for in general. But after meeting Quentin after long nights with clients and fully understanding Quentin's reasons for helping him out, he soften up enough for everyone to notice something was up with him. So, he keeps up an act of being not a great person and a drama queen at times, but he's much better than he used be according to most people you ask. They say he actually shows how smart he is and will play nice when he has to. But, in truth Dorij actually is a huge mess of problems rolled up into a human being. It is suprising how many issues he has with others and himself that you would wonder if how he's alive sometimes.
Background: Dorji was born into a family of pretty selfish and ridiculously wealthy family, most of which had an unhealthy obsession with money and didn't really care for basic human interaction. So, Dorji grew up thinking money was the only way to live at all, and if you had no money, you were basically worthless. Which later became a problem when he was abandoned by his family at a young age and was forced to live on the streets, which taught him lots of lessons a child really shouldn't learn about life until they are at least a teen. And, because of living on the street, Dorji is great at information gathering and survival. He also managed to get a basic education despite being on the streets and survived long enough to get a job ( which in and of itself was kinda a miracle) and make his way up in life until he got his own shop and became a information broker, which he has a decent amount of money from. Dorji much later decided to go to Night Raven College despite not having much qualifications, and somehow managed to get in and realized on the first day he basically was in trouble because he wasn't as qualified as other students there. So, for a while, Dorji studied his butt off trying to catch up with his classmates and ended up surpassing them because of how determined he was to catch up, which caught the attention of the teachers and most honor students because he had something most honor students didn't- a ridiculous amount of willpower. Which often got him into trouble with other honor students because of their competitive spirit and namely one in particular, Vil Schoenheit. Since Dorji was a great student but also didn't respect much of Pomefiore's traditions, the two often headbutted over the dumbest of things because of the two's stubbornness. It honestly was a minefield for Pomefiore whenever the two end up in the same room, because of how much drama the two would cause. It took a while, and after a lot of teacher intervention, but the two did came to an agreement to not fight too much in front of the dorm. They still hate each other's guts, and are vocal about it, they just don't fight too much anymore. Dorji met Quentin by accident during their first years, trying to find a quiet place to stay for the night and ended up in Ramshackle dorm where Quentin took him in and did so without questioning it the more times he came to her dorm. He did eventually demand why she would he so nice to him, and she said that she was taught not to judge others by what they do, and for her experience with having sex, it wasn't her problem. And, since then, Dorji has developed something of a crush for her, despite him knowing Quentin is married.
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