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jcmorrigan · 3 years

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I saw the tag- I am gonna ask you about the crossover universe- (omg I’m literally gushing about this)

OH, IT IS TIME!

So you can find a lot of this on the “What is the WHAM ARMY?” page on my blog – I’ll try to remember to link it; I’m drafting this in a word processor first so I don’t use it. Essentially, this is the universe I’ve created for my fanfic “Taking Back the Crown,” which is about…basically my favorite villains all moving into the same house and trying to take over the multiverse. And then it got lore. And more lore. Because I cannot write anything normal. The fic is nearing its 150th chapter and I’m nowhere NEAR exhausted of all the ideas I want to put in it – it’s just my big playground for hyperfixation fun. Anyway, here’s a rundown of the major points of it!

THE CAST

The main characters are the eight villains who are the founders of the WHAM ARMY. The faction name is an acronym of their first initials. They’re my ultrafaves, the villains I always get fluttery heart for, and probably the biggest collection of losers you can imagine. I’ll put them in order of the acronym and give you some background on how each entered the team.

Wuya (Xiaolin Showdown) – So the connecting factor between these people is that Mozenrath (his name is a few slots down) is their team leader and the one who decided to build a team in the first place. Wuya was recruited when Mozenrath found her puzzle box in an ancient vault. This is set post-series for XS (and Chronicles is not at all canon), so what had happened is in the big Showdown right after Raimundo was named team leader officially in the finale, the Xiaolin Monks won ALL the Shen Gong Wu to their side and stuffed Wuya in the box. So Mozenrath found her and let her out so they could be pals. A magic potion let her regain human form fairly early on, and her power isn’t even nerfed either the way Chase Young would’ve done.

Huntsman (American Dragon: Jake Long) – ADJL is also post-series in this timeline. Mozenrath has the power to resurrect people from the dead at will because he’s memorized an ancient and incredibly complex ritual that he can execute mentally (note that this means you can remove this ability from him by tampering with his memories). The Huntsman was resurrected so as to show Mozenrath around the old Huntsclan vault (which is where they found Wuya’s puzzle box). No other Huntsclan member survived the purge except Rose (and 88 and 89, but they don’t count and aren’t in this story), so the Huntsman is starting from square one.

Ayam Aghoul (Aladdin: The Animated Series): Basically just got sick of losing. He’d teamed up with a few other rando Aladdin rogues to try and pick a fight with Maleficent, and she sent him packing. So he ended up finding one of the few residents of the Seven Deserts who was powerful enough to match him AND had a similar grudge against Maleficent.

Mozenrath (Aladdin: The Animated Series): The man of the hour and the creator of the entire team. He starts the fic by crashing Maleficent’s KH Disney Villain alliance and trying to add himself to it, but…ends up being such a disrespectful nuisance that Hades just drags him straight down to the Underworld. That moment inspired him to get his OWN band of friends and start making a name for himself.

Archibald Snatcher (The Boxtrolls): Met Mozenrath in the Underworld after his death in film canon. Annoyed Hades one too many times by claiming that he wasn’t actually supposed to die, seeing as he isn’t allergic to dairy (he is), so Hades threw him in the same cell as Mozenrath and…

Roman Torchwick (RWBY): I started writing this fic in 2016, immediately post-V3, so it’s canon-divergent after the last episode of V3 (but I got all the later-game characters to show up eventually). Which means Roman is ALSO dead at the start of this fic. He ALSO comes storming up to Hades insisting he’s not even supposed to be dead. At the same time as Snatcher is already pestering him. Which is how Mozenrath, Snatcher, and Roman end up in the same jail cell in Tartarus and get the idea that maybe they should break back into the world of the living and try to build something BETTER than what any of the three had beforehand.

Mad Madam Mim (The Sword in the Stone): Mozenrath, immediately after breaking out of the Underworld, attempted to take over Arthur’s kingdom by just walking in and throwing magic around. It backfired horribly when Merlin showed up. But then Mim showed up to counter Merlin and realized that maybe she had a potential friend here who was as blackhearted as she.

Yzma (The Emperor’s New Groove): Post-TENG, no KNG or TENS (but I reference things from TENS every now and again). Merlin turned Mozenrath into a rat, so Mim brought him to Yzma’s Secret Lab to change him back. There, they found Yzma as a cat, and she so desperately wanted out of her living situation that she added herself to the team. She was also restored to human form shortly thereafter.

There is a potential ninth member of the core in the form of Vexen (Kingdom Hearts). KH is canon-divergent after DDD and basically ignores almost every game that comes out after Fragmentary Passage. Vexen, as Even, was trying to integrate into life as a hero in Radiant Garden, except everyone annoyed him way too much, so he decided to go be with people that would give right back any insults he dished out. And then realized he was much happier being on the evil team and doing mad science with no ethics. However, he will not be promoted to the upper ranks because 1. it would spoil the acronym and 2. he is unanimously agreed-upon to be the biggest wet blanket of the group and nobody wants him at the founder parties.

(Imagine my disbelief when the actual canon arc for Vexen was THE REVERSE ONE IN WHICH HE JUST DECIDES TO GO LIVE AT RADIANT GARDEN AND NOT BE ANNOYED BY ANYTHING and that’s why JC doesn’t like Kingdom Hearts III)

Anyway, this crew is a bunch of silly friends who enjoy partying, singing, dancing, drag, indulging in vices, causing mayhem, taking over cities, arranging for mass murder, piecing together smear campaigns…but they’re all pretty much ride or die for each other. And that goes double for the ships of the set: Mozenrath/Huntsman, Mim/Aghoul, Wuya/Yzma, and my favorite ship to end all favorites, Roman/Snatcher (RedHatBlackHat is the ship name).

From there, you have a B-Squad of, like, seventy other people based on my faves. Nonnie, I know you saw this because of Vincent Edgeworth, Victor Blake, and Albert Krueger, and they are three of COUNTLESS examples. It’s a found crime family that keeps getting bigger as I get more fave villains and there’s hardly a rhyme or a reason. Currently, they live in a floating fortress designed when they stole Terra Cyclonia (Storm Hawks) and hefted it out into the aether between worlds with crystal technology.

They have a rival hero faction in the form of the Cinnamons: a gathering of people who they’ve wronged who turned out to make pretty good friends themselves. While the WHAM ARMY are the villain-protag team that you feel slightly bad loving the escapades of, the Cinnamons are the rainbows, fluff, sunshine, (secret crippling depression and anxiety), and pep-talkers of the multiverse. They’re the deuteragonist team as opposed to the “villains” of the story. They also have eight “leaders,” but they were picked up a little less quickly than the WHAM ARMY founders, instead coming together over the span of a much longer quest. These people are:

Sora (Kingdom Hearts): Heart of the team and the person who pulled them all together, because Sora loves everyone. He, Riku, and Kairi witnessed the WHAM ARMY wreaking destruction on both Radiant Garden and Disney Castle, and Sora decided no one gets to treat his homes-away-from-home like that and get away with it! Between Mozenrath and the still-looming threats of Maleficent and Xehanort, he’s now collecting pals from all worlds to fight against evil and do as much good as they can do! (While having sleepovers.)

Ruby Rose (RWBY): Before she, Nora, Ren, and Jaune could get into Mistral, Sora interrupted them on their path and directed them right back around to Vale with the news that Roman Torchwick was back in action. After an incident involving the Destiny Trio and Team RNJR having to team up and actually kill the massive Grimm unleashed in the V3 endgame, they all headed out to Radiant Garden together to continue their mission.

Papyrus (Undertale): Sora found him while exploring worlds and they clicked immediately as pals. Then the WHAM ARMY, who was living in Mt. Ebott at the time, sparked an anti-monster racist sentiment through the town, and Papyrus was advised to leave the world for his own safety, so he went traveling with Sora.

Stork (Storm Hawks): Maleficent, who is also an active player in this game, made a power play by destroying the Condor with the entire Storm Hawks team onboard while they were on the Far Side of Atmos (post-series). Stork, believing himself to be the only survivor, attempted to take his own life – only for Sora to show up just in time and offer him something better: hope that his friends survived, and new friends to tag along with until they could prove either way.

Jasmine (Aladdin): The Cinnamons came looking to Agrabah for more information on Mozenrath. When Jasmine heard he was causing chaos, she decided to get personally involved.

Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender): Post-ATLA, no LoK. Sora made a trip to the Fire Nation to see if he could head off the WHAM ARMY’s latest scheme, and ran into the Gaang along the way. After helping Katara, Aang, and Zuko protect the Fire Nation from a very near miss, Sora invited them to come travel with him. Only Katara accepted at first, the other two wanting to clean things up on their homeworld.

Kazuichi Soda (DanganRonpa): Post-SDR2, no DR3. Xehanort requested Izuru Kamukura be used as a vessel, and Kazuichi went in Izuru/Hajime’s place so his buddy didn’t have to. But the first chance he got, Kazuichi turned and ran from the Castle That Never Was…where Sora had just crash-landed. Kazuichi patched up Sora’s ship, and immediately became part of his crew. (Worth noting: in this AU, the Remnants of Despair were never brainwashed and were completely aware of what they were doing. Kazuichi is basically a redemption story, trying to be a better person to make up for the hell he caused. Also, while on the Despair side, he’d hacked off his leg to sew Junko’s in its place, disabling himself – that leg goes through an arc regarding what prosthesis is in its place.)

Rapunzel (Tangled): After the Vardaros arc of S2 of Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure. Rapunzel was targeted by the WHAM ARMY because she was essentially a living MacGuffin for one of their spells. Sora showed up, and Rapunzel decided to go along with him for safety AND fun, leaving Cassandra to continue the pilgrimage to the Dark Kingdom. (Wrote this before KHIII was out. And before the Evil Cass twist.)

And just like the WHAM ARMY, these folks have a huge B-squad that lives in the Radiant Garden castle and helps them deal with the various tragedies they have to clean up after. Riku, Kairi, and Jaune Arc in particular get a decent amount of stage time.

As you can see, Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty/Kingdom Hearts) and her forces are another big set of chess pieces on the board! After she sent Mozenrath to gay baby jail and it didn’t stick, she’s been trying to continue plans for domination as usual but ALSO wipe the WHAM ARMY off the face of the multiverse. She, Jafar (Aladdin), Ursula (The Little Mermaid), and Hades (Hercules) all came straight here from KH. But I’m working to model that team’s inner circle on the team in “Quite a Glittering Assemblage,” the sister fic by gavillain (it’s basically this premise but Maleficent gets a team to start instead, but similarities end there, his is a whole different, fresh, and fun flavor). I’ve just gotten all these characters intro’d instory, but the other biggies are Loki (Marvel – I based him in the Cinematic Universe but he’s kind of just an amalgamation of Lokis), Dr. Doom (Marvel), Captain Hook (Once Upon a Time), Russell Edgington (True Blood), and Fish Mooney (Gotham). Currently, they operate out of the Forbidden Mountain in the Enchanted Dominion.

There’s also a very new addition as of the 140’s chapters: the Heathens. This is a squad of villains with moral lines in the sand (and some antiheroes or corrupted heroes). Basically, these aren’t your killers for fun. These are the people who steal candy from the gas station and think they’re slick, but the point is they’re enjoying themselves so just let it happen. The four founders of this one are Harley Quinn (DC – based on The Batman but an amalgamation of Harleys that leans sympathetic), Yang Xiao Long (RWBY), Giovanni Potage (Epithet Erased), and Velvet Crowe (Tales of Berseria). Currently, they operate out of the old mansion in Twilight Town.

The Xehanorts are here, and that team is largely who you think it is – though I stripped away Vexen, Demyx, Marluxia, Larxene, and Luxord in order to replace them ALL with Xaldin. More crossover shenanigans to come on this front. This team isn’t very active – they’re waiting for the Keyblade War – but they’re operating out of the World That Never Was.

There’s also another side villain faction: the Morbians, led by Mirage (Aladdin: The Animated Series). These are the demons of fear, the stuff that lurks in your nightmares, and…the villains I really like but who I don’t quite think fit in with the WHAM ARMY or any other more prominent group. But to give you an idea of what the flavor of this team is, she’s recruited not one but TWO Boogeymen – Pitch Black (Rise of the Guardians) and Oogie Boogie (The Nightmare Before Christmas).

There will be more villain factions to come, and I kind of want to splinter the Cinnamons to multiple bases as well. Obviously it’s easier to split villains up because they’re fun to write at war with each other – when I have hero teams come up against each other, usually they end up becoming best buddies instead of fighting, and that’s how I like it, but that’s why there’s just ONE BIG HERO TEAM as opposed to the many villain squads rattling around.

THE SETTING

So as you have probably gleaned, the multiverse setup is largely based on Kingdom Hearts, which is one of my favorite things (in the KH1 through Fragmentary Passage era anyway). There are many worlds that can be visited either by Gummi Ship or Corridor of Darkness. Basically any evil-aligned sorcerer can use Corridors in this ‘verse – they’ve opened their souls to Darkness and have magic, so they can do so.

The implication is that every world represents a separate “story” or part of one. As in if it’s a work of fiction HERE, it’s a world THERE. Some characters are actually savvy enough to know they’re fictional (e.g. Megavolt from Darkwing Duck, Xayide from The Neverending Story). Most of them aren’t built to handle the news, though, and just shrug it off if told. (No, really, the cosmic order prevents them from taking that news seriously if they’re not from something that regularly leans on the fourth wall anyway.)

But sometimes, things get AU’d in without their full worlds. I was inspired by how Final Fantasy is treated in canon KH, and once I started bringing in more FF stuff by the same method, I felt motivated to do that with MORE fandoms if I felt the characters could be divorced from their settings and histories easily. I’ve done it for most Disney Channel non-animated properties as well as Satellite City (ain’t that the worst combo you’ve ever looked at). I’m planning to do it for Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn because I’m coming up on a location I want to delve into the civilization of but don’t have many canon characters for, so guess what, you get the FE cast now.

Major worlds or relevant locations in play are the Cyclonian warship, Radiant Garden, Twilight Town, and occasionally the Enchanted Dominion, but we move from plotline to plotline with journeys to many, many, MANY worlds of things I want to play with the settings and casts of. Also, the Cyclonian warship is about to get replaced with another WHAM ARMY base; we’ll get there.

THE STORY

For the first major “book” of TBTC, the WHAM ARMY has found a spell that they think will let them conquer the entire multiverse by giving them control over Kingdom Hearts itself. All they have do to is collect a bunch of MacGuffins that correspond to twelve elements: fire, water, earth, air, light, darkness, life, death, time, space, entropy, and aether. In order to do this, they visit the worlds of KH, RWBY, Avatar, Storm Hawks, Okami, Undertale, Wakfu, The Legend of Zelda, The Neverending Story, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, and many many more. The Cinnamons catch wind of what they’re doing and start assembling. Meanwhile Maleficent is on the hunt for the Book of Prophecies and starts hiring villains on her team as well. After many madcap adventures and some devastating tragedies near endgame, the Cinnamons accidentally put the Book of Prophecies in Maleficent’s hands at the same time that Maleficent finally captures Mozenrath and gets him under heel. The WHAM ARMY and Cinnamons both launch attacks on Maleficent’s forces, and each walks away with what they came for. This is also the part where we slowburn up to the four major WHAM ARMY ships and many Cinnamon ships. In the end, the WHAM ARMY actually gets all the ingredients for their spell, but what they don’t know is it will actually cause the DESTRUCTION of the worlds. So an outside force intervenes (Discord from MLPFIM, who later joins the WHAM ARMY because he wants friends who actually appreciate him as a villain and won’t make him change) to stop them, and the next thing they know, they’re starting from square one.

We’re now in the second “book” of this story. The Cinnamons are gathering up all lost friends – the rest of Team RWBY, the Gaang, the Storm Hawks (who did in fact survive the explosion), the lost KH characters. The WHAM ARMY, on the other hand, is gathering up more villains to bolster their forces for a new evil plan: to conquer the worlds one by one, starting with Atlantis (Disney’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire) and using portals to link to other territories of interest. While the WHAM ARMY is essentially working through a to-do list of what they need before they can launch such a massive invasion, the Cinnamons are finding strength in numbers because the writing’s on the wall that between Mozenrath, Maleficent, Mirage, and Xehanort, things are going to get worse before they get better, and as evil builds, good will need to rise to protect the innocent. As for Maleficent, she’s no longer able to chase the Book of Prophecies, and so, because she’s got Hades, Loki, and Salem (RWBY) there and they’re all like “Even though we’re pretty godlike, we are not that happy with how the gods we knew have run things,” Maleficent’s new goal is to slaughter the gods of all pantheons (minus those in her care) and replace them with her allies.

Anyway, as I had said in the post you saw, Anon – I basically take everything fictional I love and shove it into this AU for daydreams because it lets me imagine my faves having CROSSOVER INTERACTIONS and doing cool epic stuff on a multi-world scale. (But as much as I’ve talked up the epic aspect, a lot of it is just…like…people fucking around and hosting karaoke nights.) Anyway, I hope this gave you a good sense of the madness, and I hope it serves as a reminder to everyone that they can and should just. Make a daydream and/or fanfic universe that’s indulgent as hell. Just do it.

#wham army #tbtc #long post #i considered a read more #but i hate the tiny text on my blog #i need a new blog theme

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the-blind-assassin-12 · 4 years

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C’est La Guerre

Word Count: 840 Warnings: some language. Character: Logan Delos A/N: “C’est La Guerre” is French and roughly translates to “That’s war.”

(ARTIST APPRECIATION SUBMISSION)

Howdy folks! Ready to appreciate some amazing art?! I was so thrilled when I got this submission from @something-tofightfor who wanted to surprise @valkblue , because I absolutely ADORED this piece when it was first posted, and to be entirely honest, it was one of the pieces of art that I knew that I wanted to write about for this event. It just brought so much fun and lightheartedness to Logan, which I just love. He’s so much fun when he’s allowed to be, and this extremely talented artist showed that side of him so perfectly here.

(also shout out to @pheedraws for inadvertently tipping the dominoes that made this happen.)

So, from Rachael (and I) to you, you talented beast: THANK YOU FOR GIFTING US WITH THIS MASTERPIECE. YOU ARE TALENTED. YOU ARE APPRECIATED. YOU ARE A TRUE GEM. Keep shinin’, darlin’.

(Ugh. I just want to start trouble with him, don’t you?!)

“I just… don’t get it, Logan.”

Juliet slapped her neck, swatting at a fly that had landed there. One side of her face was scrunched, little creases forming around her eye where her cheek had pushed up into it. She groaned, having missed the fly only managing to smack her sweat slicked and sunburned skin. The sleeves of her blouse were rolled as high as they could go in an attempt to stay cool under the desert sun but it did little to help, the thick homespun cotton of her ankle length prairie skirt sealing in the heat. It had to be this park, didn’t it? And it had to be in the summer. Juliet liked Westworld enough the first few times that she had experienced it as a guest, but unlike Logan, there were others that she enjoyed more. No one likes this place as much as he does.

She stepped out of the way of the makeup artist that had just finished spritzing some kind of setting spray over the prosthetic slash wound on Logan’s face, moving closer to her brother but still out of the way of the production crew. Why do I have to stay in costume when none of them are? Why can’t I just change for my part? A young man in a tank top and shorts bustled past her, shouting to someone across the makeshift set. The park’s closed while we do this, and they- she shot a glance to her left, where a small cluster of Hosts in Confederate Army attire sat quietly awaiting instruction- won’t remember any of this anyway. She sighed and used both hands to lift her curls off of her neck, turning back to face Logan again. How is he not melting?

Logan shifted his shoulders and tilted his head to the side, a teasing and mischievous grin playing on his face. He hadn’t spared a single layer, sporting a long sleeve button down under a blue-gray vest with silver fastenings and topped off with a period appropriate officer’s coat that hung halfway down his thigh. Even though she was less than pleased with the entire project, especially Logan’s insistence that she take part in it, she felt herself smile inwardly at the accessories that she knew he had chosen for himself- the brooch, the belt. He always goes all in, I’ll give him that.

“What about this don’t you understand, Jules?”

He sat up a little straighter, widening his legs so that the stamped lettering on the crate he sat atop could be read. DANGER NITRO. Except there was a large red X emblazoned over the second word, replacing it with the word NOT. He looked down at the crate, then back up at her, his long hair flopping over the artificial dirt smudges the makeup team had seen fit to smear across his forehead. A production assistant appeared at Logan’s side and handed him a sterling silver goblet and a glass bottle of Coca-Cola before touching their earpiece and hurrying off in the direction of the cameras. All of it?

“I mean,” She began, gesturing at the props he held, the wooden box he was perched on, and the swarm of “Confederados” that was being led over to act as extras behind Logan. “How does any of this make sense? Coke wasn’t even a company until at least thirty years after the Civil War, for one, and...I don’t know, since when does Delos Destinations cross promote like this? Isn’t it...beneath us?”

“All’s fair in marketing,” he answered with a shrug, raising the bottle so that another assistant could come by and pop the aluminum cap off. He made sure to scoop it up from the ground before jogging back behind the cameras so that no wayward Host found it in a decade and spiraled into an existential crisis. “And those shitbrains at Pepsi decided to team up with fucking Hilton over us, even after I pitched the whole tie in with their dumbass new Nitro product line, so,” he took a sip of the ice-cold beverage and grinned through an exaggerated ah. “C’est la guerre!”

Juliet rolled her eyes but gave in to the humor of the situation with a small exhale through her nose in the form of a laugh. At least he’s happy. I’m gonna kill him for making me do this, but- she smacked at another fly, aim true this time. Someone showed up at her elbow to escort her out of the shot until it was her turn to hop in, someone else shouting for quiet on the commercial set. She watched Logan put on his game face, the serious little folds in his brow that she knew were there were hidden by his mussed hair, but under the concentration she saw that little spark in his dark eyes, the one he got when he was closing in on a big deal or delivering the final blow to the competition with a brilliant ad campaign. But at least he’s happy.

I laughed my butt off writing this, almost as much as I did when the original artwork was posted. I hope you had as much fun reading as I had writing. Thank you a million times to all you fabulous artists! If you are an artist in the Ben Barnes fandom, or if you want to surprise an artist with a quick drabble/ poem/ whatever comes out, send me a message or link me to the piece of artwork that you would like me to write about. Let’s show these talented folks how much we appreciate them and the things that they create!

#ben barnes fanart appreciation #ben barnes fanart #ben barnes fandom #valkblue #something-tofightfor #logan delos fanart #logan delos #westworld fanart #logan delos deserved better and valkblue said okay have a coke

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aquariusrunes · 5 years

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The Superfriends AU (part 2.5)

It had been a long day.

That was Nino’s only thought as he laid along one of the benches in the boys locker room. His arms dangling off the side as he stared at the ceiling tiles.

The day started out with him waking up to a text from his best friend informing him that he would not be in school for the next week and a half. Apparently Adrien’s old man had been in deep talks with some sort of fashion god from America, and now Adrien was going to be one of her star models in her next collection.

The deal closed last night and the Agreste crew was on a jet at five in the morning to get to Steel City USA as quickly as possible. Gabriel had apparently decided it was fine to not even tell his son about it. Adrien’s text had explained that he learned he would be going to America roughly twenty minutes before they left for the airfield.

Nino, of course, told Adrien to have a good time, keep him updated, and that he would email Adrien every assignment and all the notes he missed. And because he was a good friend like that, Adrien promised him lots of photos and a cool souvenir.

But Nino hadn’t been prepared for class without Adrien.

Going to class in general he rarely felt prepared for anymore. It was a full on warzone the minute the seats were filled. With Marinette and her crew taking up the back of the far side of the classroom and Lila and her girls sitting towards the front on Nino’s side. Adiren and he still have their original seats though, as did Chloé. But today, Nino was the only one in the front row.

No one really commented on Chloé’s absence, the girl’s appearances were getting fewer and farther between as the year went on. He suspected she might be working on a transfer of some kind, seeing as how she and Lila didn’t get on well and the blonde would rather die before joining Marinette’s side. Of course everyone asked were Adrien was, and Nino happily informed any who asked.

But then he made a mistake.

Nino had mentioned how Adrian was going to be doing this new collection with Damian Wayne. And as expected, Lila went off.

Apparently, Lila and Damian were childhood best friends. Her parents had known Bruce forever and the two couldn’t wait to set up their children on playdates whenever they could. In fact, Lila was practically an honorary Wayne. Bruce called her his future daughter-in-law because she and Damian were practically engaged. Though Lila wasn’t sure if she had romantic feelings for the notoriously stoic boy, he was very much in love with her. Damian had been chasing after her for years, apparently.

Nino was so done.

He then mentioned the campaign was for one Edna Mode. Now, Nino knew very little about fashion, he would admit this to anyone who asked. He would never pretend to know about fashion. But he did know that Edna Mode was the biggest name their was. Not only did she design the highest end clothing, she also designed superhero costumes! And she was well known as some kind of god to all in the fashion world.

Cue Lila mentioning how she, of course, new Edna. They’d met during Milan Fashion Week several years ago. Apparently Edna drew immediate inspiration from the Italian girl. Lila had been Edna’s personal muse ever since. Edna would fly her to fashion shows all over the world. Lila would be Edna’s star model, the face of Mode, if her mother hadn’t thought Lila too young when they first met. Also, Edna liked to send her cloths, you know, Mode exclusives that literally coast more than all of Paris!

Apparently, Edna was like a grandmother to the girl.

The worst part of Nino’s day so far had to be the fact that, while Marinette’s crew tried to immediately disprove Lila’s statements, Marinette herself wasn’t in class. Nino still wasn’t sure where the girl was. He hadn’t seen her all day, and he was honestly a little worried. He texted her a few times but his messages didn’t go through. His mind was racing with possibilities of what Lila could have done.

And now, he was sitting in the boys locker room. Alya, Rose, Mylène, Juleka and Sabrina were out in the cafeteria, hanging on every word of Lila’s story. It was about how she saved Ace, Bruce Wayne’s personal therapy dog, from oncoming traffic in Gotham City two summers ago. Nino had needed a break. And the boys locker room was perfect, seeing as all the boys Nino knew, and thus would interact with him, didn’t believe a word that came out of Lila’s mouth.

“You look rough bud.” Nino’s head lifted slightly, seeing Kim leaning against the set of lockers to his right.

“Feel rough dude.”

Kim laughed before sitting down next to his friend. “Needed a little break from the rat queen and her pack?” He asked.

“Yeah…” Nino closed his eyes. “Please do not call my girlfriend a rat.”

“Sorry.”

The two sat in silence for a few moments. Kim was the first person, after Marinette, to find out that Nino was working undercover for the girl. He’d even changed Nino’s contact name in his phone to The MoleTM. And the two had rekindled their childhood friendship rather quickly. Kim was the person Nino had known second longest out of everyone in Bustier’s class, the first being Marinette.

Kim also took the liberty of informing the rest of Mari’s crew where Nino’s true loyalty lied. It was nice having his old friends back, especially because he missed hanging out with the boys. Still sucked that they had to keep up an act anywhere Lila could possibly be though.

“DC texted me last night.” Kim said. “Asked me to spread the word. She’s gonna be out of town for a little while.”

Nino slowly sat up, removing his hat as it began to fall and placing it in his lap. “Out of town?” He asked. “Where’d she go?”

“America.”

“Dang.”

“Yeah,” Kim scratched the back of his head. “She said that she had totally spaced about letting anyone know. Apparently she’s got a Great Aunt who lives overseas and she’s gonna go spend some time with her. She’s also gonna get to see one of her cousins. She sounded really pumped.”

“Why didn’t she just text everyone?” Nino asked.

“Mari said that when she hit my contact, she thought she was texting in the groupchat. She only realized after she sent it, so she quickly asked me to spread the news. Apparently she was texting from the plane before they took off. She left real late last night.” He shrugged. “Anyway, she doesn’t have international coverage, so it’s gonna be radio silence for the next ten or so days.”

“Ten days?” Nino questioned.

“Hey, she got permission from her parents, and all the work she’ll miss from teachers.” Kim twisted to be facing Nino directly. “More importantly, I overheard that sunshine’s gone too.”

Nino nodded slowly, unsure of where this was now heading.

“Adrien, despite taking a stance as Switzerland, is one of Lila’s biggest buffers. Still not sure what the kid’s got on her, but whatever it is, it keeps her a least a little in check. And with DC gone, who knows what she’ll do.”

Nino nodded, suddenly aware of just how serious this could get. Of course if Lila said anything Mari’s crew would come to her defense, but rumors involving Marinette always seemed more potent and to have a harsher affect when the girl wasn’t around to directly defend herself. This would be a very dangerous week.

“I’m on guard.” Nino said sternly. “Everything I hear, no matter who it’s from, is going straight to you guys.”

Kim gave a sad half smile. “Remember when school didn’t feel like some sort of secret war?” He asked. “When all we had to worry about was if Chloé would accidently akumatize someone and if whatever they were serving in the caf was edible that day.”

Nino responded with his own half hearted smile. “Ah the good ol days, may they return to us at some point.”

Kim stood, patting Nino’s shoulder. “Keep us posted my dude, you’re our only life line in these trying times.” He watched his friend walk out of the locker room. He’d give it a few more minutes before he left and returned to that most cursed lunch table.

This week was going to be hell. And something absolutely awful would happen before it was up, he could feel it in his gut. And despite what most people thought of him upon first glance, his gut was never wrong.

He pondered briefly about what would have happened had he listened to it when the Liar first showed up. Oh how different things could have been.

…

His knee bounced rapidly, foot tapping against the carpeted floor of the Wayne Enterprise Jet. His fingers rhythmically pounding against the small table set between his seat and the two across from him. His green eyes glaring back at him in the reflection of the window. It wasn’t that he hated flying, or that it really even bothered him, he just enjoyed it more when he was the one in control of the plane.

He had asked, of course, but his father had said no. Even though he knew how, and his father was perfectly aware of how good of a pilot Damian was.

Yes, he didn’t like this pilot. The flight to Smallville had been fine, he supposed, they only hit a minor patch of turbulence that he was sure they would have avoided if he had been piloting, but it was fine. They had gone to Smallville to pick up Jon who was helping his grandmother with some big event happening at the Kent Farm. All the supers were there though, so when Bruce had called and asked Clark if Jon could tag along this week, his father agreed. He was already out of school anyway.

Now they were flying to Steel City so he could be forced to model with some famous Parisian and his lovely cousin and some other girl who’s name he’d already forgotten. Damian never really modeled before, but Edna seemed confident in him. It was also an excuse to see his cousin. He hadn’t seen her in person for a long time.

The knot in his stomach tightened and the rhythm of his fingers increased.

Finally his ears popped, just as a hand softly rested over his own. His fingers flattened out against the table as Damian slowly glanced to his side. Sitting next to him was a sixteen year old boy who was rarely pegged for his age.

Colin Wilkes looked almost nothing like his ten-year-old self that Damian had met six years ago. The venom coursing through him had long since began to alter the boy’s body, making him function as a better host. He was very muscular, with a physique that rivaled that of a professional football player. He had also gotten taller, coming just an inch or so above Damian’s new height. Colin’s face was the one thing that never seemed to change, still round and doughy with stubborn baby fat persistently clinging to his cheeks. His tan skin coated in freckles, the number of which would very depending on the season. His scraggly bright orange hair still hung in his eyes, the bright hazel irises were currently searching Damian for something, some sort of chink in his armor.

Colin’s eyes were very good at finding chinks in his armor. That is, after all, how they got into this whole mess.

“Everything okay Damian?” His voice was soft, it didn’t sound like it belonged in his body, but Damian knew just how low and threatening it could become.

“Course.” Damian tried to break eye contact but found himself failing. Colin’s own eyes squinted as he pushed his bangs out of his face. He knew Damian was lying, he was good at that, he just hoped the boy wouldn’t push it.

With a sigh the red head removed his hand. “Okay,” He breathed, standing from his seat next to the darker skinned teen. “We can talk about it later.” Damian’s eyes remained trained on him as he raised his hands above his head and stretched before saying “I’m going to run to the restroom.”

Damian watched as Colin walked back to the jet’s small bathroom. Once the door was closed, he turned back around, immediately locking with a set of wide crystal blue eyes. “You alright Damian?”

Why was everyone asking him that today?

“‘m fine, Jon.” He looked away from the half Kryptonian, back out the window. After many years of knowing the boy he’d discovered that Jon’s lie detector only worked when he was making eye contact with his target.

“Colin sure didn’t seem to think so.” The boy murmured. “Are you upset that I tagged along?” He asked, eyes downcast.

“Jon I invited you,” Damian scoffed out. “Why would I be upset that you are here when it was my idea?” He crossed his arms instead of going back to tapping his fingers.

“I don’t know, maybe you wanted to be alone with Colin…”

Damian and Jon had a very unique relationship. While Colin had been the first friend Damian ever made, Jon was his second, and more importantly he was the son of Superman. Damian and Jon shared a legacy, a duty to their neighboring cities. They were both very much like their fathers, and very much stuck in the mens’ shadows. Ever since they met though, Damian found that they only ever help to pull one another out of those dark casts.

Clark and Bruce were friends, of course, but not like Damian and Jon were. Jon, like Marinette, felt very much like the other side of Damian’s internal coin. They balanced one another so nicely. He was also one of the few people Damian actually cared for, let alone trusted. Jon was the third person he ever came out to, the first being Tim and the second being Marinette.

Jon was also the one who encouraged Damian to pursue his feelings for Colin. That had been almost three years ago. Now the two boys were rapidly approaching their three year anniversary, and Jon was still their biggest supporter.

The knot in Damian’s stomach tightened again.

“I just,” He sighed leaning his head back. “You’ll be meeting my cousin.” Damian began, pausing to check and see if the boy was listening. Jon’s eyes were wide and attentive, as they typically were when Damian spoke. “She’s, very, how do I put this?”

“Is she mean?”

“No.”

“Hard to get along with?”

“Hardly,” he laughed. “I’d say she’s the easiest person in our family to get along with. Easier than Grayson, and that’s really saying something.” Damian undid his arms. “She’s just got this sixth sense, she can read people. It’s eerie sometimes.”

“What do you mean?” Jon’s head tilted slightly. No matter how old they got, the half Kryptonian always had this look, it was that of a lost puppy. Tim often mentioned that it was the reason Damian decided to be Jon’s friend, because he reminded him of his animals. Jon had also filled out the older they got, taking on the more traditional physique of the super family. His face was chiseled and square, like his father’s with a softer nose resembling his mother’s. He adopted the traditional Kent glasses and was even currently wearing a red flannel, but the one thing that helped him stand out from the rest of the family was how he gelled his hair up into spikes Damian found the hair choice a tad ridiculous but often opted not to comment on it.

“The last time I saw Marinette in person she happened to meet one of Grayson’s girlfriends. Her name was Kattie something, I don’t really remember. But I do remember how much Grayson liked her, even thought he loved her.” Damian recalled the day in his mind. “She met her for ten seconds, tops. Shook her hand, they introduced themselves, Grayson and Kattie left.” Damian’s eyes moved downwards, focusing on the table between him and his friend. “After they were gone, Marinette turned to me and told me that Kattie was cruel and would break his heart before the month was up.”

“And?”

“Two weeks later Grayson woke up and she was gone, along with all the money in his wallet and his credit cards. All of the watches Bruce had bought him over the years were gone too. She also took his car.” Damian shrugged. “Course, it didn’t take us long to track the bitch down, but still. Grayson was heart broken.”

Jon nodded slowly. “You’re afraid Marinette isn’t going to like Colin.” It wasn’t a question. Another reason why Damian thought their friendship was so strong, Jon had learned how to read him.

“It’s not that I think she won’t like him, I mean it’s Colin.” Damian’s hands pulled at the bottom of his jacket. “But, I don’t know, she’s predicted at least four breakups in my family and she didn’t even meet those people! It was just based off my brothers describing them. Hell, she even predicted Stephanie and Tim’s break up.”

“What has she said when you’ve talked to her about Colin in the past?” Jon asked leaning heavily on the table.

“I, well, I have talked to her about him before but, briefly. It’s not like I’ve gone into long exaggerating details about him. I’m not exactly a gusher, Jon.”

“Well I know that.” Jon’s head tilted again. “She knows you have a boyfriend though, right?”

“Yes.”

“And that it’s Colin?”

“Yes.”

“What else?” Jon sat back in his seat, Damian could see Lois Lane in his eyes.

“She knows how we met, that he’s a meta, and that he’s a redhead.” Damian tried thinking back to whenever he had mentioned the boy. “She knows that he doesn’t have any family ties, that I like him, and that we do vigilante stuff together.” Damian’s eyes raised to see an unimpressed look on Jon’s face.

“You got to get better at expressing yourself Dami.” He said flatly.

“Something I’ve been telling him for years.” They both looked up as Colin retook his seat, quickly taking Damian’s right hand in his left. “What are we talking about?”

“Noth-”

“Damian’s worried that his cousin isn’t going to like you.” Jon said, voice mostly flat but slightly amused.

“Kent, are you aware of what my family does to snitches?” Damian asked, eyes narrowing as he felt Colin squeeze his hand.

Both of the other boys laughed. “I only ever snitch to Colin though! And that’s Colin! Usually it’s fine! And only the important stuff, I know when not to repeat you to him.” Jon’s laugh grew, catching the attention of Bruce who was sitting on the opposite side of the jet.

“I appreciate it Jon. Your information is always good.” Collin mused. “And Dames, you don’t need to worry. If your cousin doesn’t like me, then she doesn’t like me, not a big deal.” He shrugged. “But, since it is obviously important to you, I will be on my best behavior.” Colin leaned over and kissed his boyfriend’s cheek. “Everything will be fine, you’ll see.”

“Famous last words.” Damian grumbled out, face quickly returning to the window. While his friends laughed and began a new conversation Damian’s grip on his boyfriend’s hand tightened. The knot in his stomach felt like it was going to explode.

_______________________________________________________________________

(part 1) (part 2) (part 2.5) - Here (part 3)

If you have any questions about the story / AU feel free to ask! And if you want to be tagged, let me know! I have no set posting schedule I just upload whenever I get something done, I doubt updates will come this fast in the future, but it helps when I see everyone’s interest in it! Makes me really excited to write and keeps my mind flowing with ideas! Also, I know not everyone is a fan of Damian and Colin as a ship, and if that is not your thing that’s totally fine, but please do not be rude or send hate about it just because it isn’t your personal preference.

Also this is part 2.5 because it still involves the key players for this au getting to where the story is actually taking place and I wanted to wait for Part 3 to be when they all start actually interacting with one another.

@graduatedmelon @northernbluetongue @violatiger8 @bamagirl513 @vixen-uchiha @beaversuenightly @tumbling-down-hills-and-stuff @todaylillypads @laurakinneylance @vgirl-10123

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familyagrestefanblog · 4 years

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Identity theory to the Black Cat knight in “Feast”- Part 1

There is one detail in “Feast” that has me almost upset because of my own short coming. Not because it’s badly written, out of nowhere or anything, quite the opposite, its brilliant! It’s the detail of the former cat miraculous holder, the knight

You know why this has me almost upset? I had this as serious theory since one evening I rewatched “Darkblade” and researched the historical background given there, since miraculous takes real life history and changes it to fit into their universe. The people and events are more or less accurate (as we know from episodes like “the pharaoh”). But I never completed the research nor did I made my theory into a post.

Well anyway. I guess it’s never to late to present my theory to who this former cat was.

This is Part 1, here I will cover: Who is the black knight? And the entire basis for the theory

Part 2 is about: The flag comparison is “Darkblade” and “Feast”

And part 3: Are the Cat Miraculous holder knight and Darkblade the same people?

Alright guys buckel up, it’s history time and these are gonna get LONG

Part 1 - Who is the Black knight?

I was and am pretty sure this Black cat knight we are being presented here is Edward of Woodstock.

Prince of Wales, born 1330 and known through history as the “Black Prince”. Why he’s called that is not known for sure. One theory is that he’s called the “Black” prince because of the color of his battle amour (which would fit the miraculous painting above) and badge but frankly no one can say with any certainty at all that he ever wore black amour.

Theory two is much more likely in my opinion. Edward was the first born son of Eduard lll, one of the most significant rulers of England in medieval times. And my GOD, Prince Edward was a game changer in the beginning of the hundred years war between Britain and France for the right to wear the French crown. He was one heck of a great (read: BRUTAL) medieval military leader, archiving his very first grand victory for England against the French at the incredibly young age of 16 (an age fitting to the trend in Miraculous giving powers to minors). This victory brought the 16 years old Edward a lifetime of glory as a formidable knight and army leader. Meaning: in my opinion he is most likely called the “Black Prince” because of his brutal and deadly campaigns through France.

Concidering that Miraculous is a French show also taking place in France, I think it’s completely fine depicting him with the Cats miraculous, the power to destroy everything and kill anyone with a single touch. From a French point of view, yeah that’s fine (he wasn’t nicknamed “le terrible Prince/ Homme Noir” (The terrible/gruesome black prince/man) by 1400s France for no reason I may say) I’m completely down with that and think myself that he would be a very fitting Cat who used his miraculous’ power more to its brutal limits (Not every Cat in the past was a pacifist like our present Chat Noir, Adrien, mostly is).

Cuz in general, through his status as Prince, army leader and knight of the order of the garter, an order of charity founded by his father, Edwards life mostly prioritized fighting and waging war. Dude was down with some serious slaughter. Still one has to say that even though he basically was raised and encouraged to become a killing beast, one can’t say he was outright a monster or something.

To keep this shorter, he genuinely showed respect and mercy to fallen and captured royalty. One example for this was after the victorious battle of Crécy (were he was 16) he walked across the battle field and found the fallen king John of Bohemia. King John was blind but always fought alongside his army (very successful if my may add) and when Edward found his corpse he honored him by adopting John’s motto “Ich diene” (“I serve”) and used and honored it for the rest of his life on his badge. Every prince of Wales after him used it too, keeping this legacy alive.

My reason for believing its Edward of Woodstock who the miraculous crew chose as this former Cat miraculous holder in the painting come down to four mayor factors.

1. One of the most famous objects Edward owned that is still available to the public today is this piece of jewelry

Would you look at that it’s his ring. I’m gonna spare you with the details to it because the only thing really of importance is the fact that HE HAD A RING.

But you know what else? Take a guess where this ring is located today

Jup, in the capital city of France, our very own miraculous Paris. In the freaking Louvre.Giving us not only a perfect reallife history, material match with the Cat ring but also a connection back to France, Paris, where the show takes place.

2. Through “Startrain”/the train we have a straight connection to England the show can and definitely will use in the future. At the end of “Startrain” we got this:

Meaning England/London is not only acknowledged in a side sentence in the Miraculous universe, the Miraculous crew already remodelled the city in CGI and believe me, CGI is hard work. They wouldn’t just put all this work into recreating London (yes even for a small shot like this they would have to recreate much more) if they didn’t had bigger plans coming. And that means, England/London is gonna be a future Location, this makes finding out the origins of a former English miraculous holder quite a possibility. It was also said by Thomas Astruc that in the movie to season 5 we will find out more about former holders, so even if the Show doesn’t include many of the actual historical identities, there is still the promising movie which can go more in detail with them. Especially if the movie picks the miraculous history as one of its main themes which imo is actually very likely.

3. The fact that, well, we are still watching a Tv show here. Imagine you were the creator of a Show like Miraculous were characters get magical jewellery to turn into superheroes and now your task is it to choose historical figures you can include into your show as former holders. You most likely wouldn’t use unknown people. That’s the point where you drop at least two or three recognisable names on significance to make the history of your show more interesting. Here you choose the myths, the legends, the people who went down in history as heroes of their countries. Or at very least you choose the figures with interesting names.

Edward of Woodstock may not be a myth or a legend but he sure counts as a national hero of English history and also a well known figure in France and in French history (giving him once again significance in a French show) and lets be real here, “The black Prince” is just too much of an awesome title of a historical person to pass by for story writing purposes like the ones we are looking for right now. Plus with (well) known names your audience already has a connection to go on with and you don’t have to start from scratch.

4. And this is my favourite reason! Lets talk about: The Black Princes connection with Jeanne de Arc. Oh yes guys, I’m going there. I went nuts on the research and I found a very interesting detail.

As most probably know by now, Thomas Astruc himself declared Jeanne de Arc as a former Ladybug. Jeanne de Arc is a French national heroin and martyr so him honoring her as a Ladybug is of no surprise and makes sense.

While Edward of Woodstock and Jeanne de Arc never lived in the same time (she was born in 1412 while he died in 1376) these two historical figures have a downright fascinating connection.

Their game changing roles in the hundred years war between England and France.

As I said before, Edward basically run into France with his army and won battle after battle. If you were to ask me which people influenced and started the beginning of the hundred years war, Edwards name would definitely fall as one of the first even if he was “only” a prince. Through the immense damage and loss France suffered through him, France was quite… down even after the black prince died (of course France like England had ups as well as downs but the whole war was so complex I’ll not explain it here and keep things really simple, I don’t wanna misinform).

In the time around 1412 where the 18 year old (once again just like Edward very young) peasant girl just a normal girl with a normal life Jeanne de arc lived, France was pretty much hold at gun point and at loss of their hope. History says that she, through unknown (miraculous) ways, was able to convince the french King Charles VII to let her join the battle and support him. The battles with her included were widely successful which paved the way for France’s future victory. In 1430 she was captured and was burned at the stake after being declared guilty of several charges. And to quote Nationalgeographic.com here (because I literally couldn’t put this any better)

“Once her ashes had been scattered in the Seine River, Jeanne’s detractors hoped her name would be erased from history, but her name has burned more brightly in the hearts and minds of the French ever since then. The humble farm girl turned the tide for the French in the closing years of the Hundred Years’ War.”

So while the black prince Edward of Woodstock (the cat) brought great destruction and a war to France around 1346 for a hundred years, for his homeland England and father, the king

Jeanne de Arc (the Ladybug) was the one who gave her defeated homeland France back their hope and strength to end and win the war in 1453

Confirming Names and Miraculous for former Holders + Change of title for the Black Prince

Alright last point of the basics.

But now you may ask yourself why the show refers to him as “Black Knight” and not the “Black Prince” if he really were Edward of Woodstock. To this I would say that there two huge factors that come into play here.

1. The show up to this point doesn’t want to out right say actual names or identities, expect for a few. There are a few more paintings and sculptures Alya goes through while pointing out the former miraculous holder in this episode and frankly, the fact that Alya never mentions names (beside Hercules) stuck out kinda odd to me considering that they are in a museum and she should be able to figure out some names from some of them, bringing a bit more of historical knowledge and facts into the show. But Alya and the show focus solely on the hero identities.This I think is happening because giving us the appearance, the typ of Miraculous AND a definite Identity/name would be too much to just throw at the audience without a proper pay off in near future.

I mean imagine if all these Miraculous holders from “Feast” the Grimoire, the little hero montage in the beginning of Origins part 1 or in this shot from “Le Befana”

had been given an official name, identity and the Miraculous type right of the bat. Don’t get me wrong it would have been NEAT no doubt, but BOAH…dude…too much information, TOO MUCH INFORMATION. What am I supposed to DO with these information’s now while the show is still in the “introductory” state and we will be dealing with the former Miraculous holder on a much later point?? Frankly, nothing. So yeah, its good that the show is being vaguer about the former holders while introducing them. That’s the right way to go.

Interestingly enough though, like I mentioned above, Hercules for example is confirmed to us not only by name, but also that he was the LION miraculous holder. He is the very first holder of the past of whom we have EVERYTHING confirmed. But I don’t think hes the only past holder we have gotten the canon name from already. I’m also 100% convinced that Akhenaton (in the English dub Tutankhamun for some reason???Oh no nononononono xD) and Nefertiti from “the Pharaoh” are former Ladybug and Cat miraculous holders too. This is a theory worthy or it’s own post with quite some points to explain so I’ll not digress here. Just know that they fit into the pattern I theorize with the past and current Cat and Ladybug miraculous holders.

Without too much digressing (I know its to late for that but shhhhhhhhhh) if we do take Akhenaton as Cat, Nefertiti as Ladybug and Hercules as Lion then we actually can pin point a difference down why these three holders were already introduced with names and others (like Knight Noir) aren’t.

Hercules for one is a legend and a myth, a figure you definitely connect more with stories than actual history. And while, yes, we acknowledge Nefertiti and Akhenaton/Tutankhamun as historical figures, they are so, SO so far away in the past that once again we don’t really see them as people who have once lived. Theyre more… concepts of people of the past with names. The fact that they are often used and portrayed in pop culture, Tv shows, movies, books ect in various inaccurate portrayals even furthers the “dehumanization”.

While historical figures like Edward of Woodstock or the Three Musketeer Ladybug above for example are not too far away from us today. We can still identify with them, their lifestyle and their environment in some sorts and as I stated above, in why I think Edward is the former Cat, the influence and meaning these people have to their national history is still great, which brings me to the second factor

2. I’m not sure if Miraculous would even be allowed to call the Black Knight the “Black Prince/Prince Noir (in French)” because as best depicted in the point of his connection with Jeanne de Arc, in a french show taking place in France he would and probably SHOULD not be portrayed in a 100% positive light. Considering what he has done to the French in real life, what his canon actions were in past in the ml universe (more to this in Part 3) I think anything but at least problematic anti-hero with good heart deep down would be historically and canonly… inappropriate. And this is where the problem lies.

Because yes, this is a french show taking place in France made by a french creator but they still cant just take an important ENGLISH historical figure pair him with an important FRENCH hero, let them both (like in real life) influence the same gigantic real life war between two real life nations and then just say: “Your legit english national hero is the bad guy and our legit french national heroin is good.” That’s just nothing they can pull.

With Jeanne de Arc yes, because she is and will undoubtedly be portrait in a good and heroic light (reflecting her real-life actions and influence on the hundred years war) but calling Edward of Woodstock out with his name, in circumstances like these while portraying him as the bad guy of the two (which he was, don’t get me wrong) is just.. it’s in bad taste and would probably offend quite some english people. And that is not something they can risk.

So what I think what they are doing here is that they changed his title from “Black Prince” to “Black Knight” because even though history remembers him as Prince, calling him a Knight is frankly anything but wrong. As I mentioned right in the beginning where I introduced Edward to you, he was one of the original Knights of the order of the garter, an order of charity founded by his father, the king. And man, he was one HELL of a Knight. So yeah, if you cant depict Edward of Woodstock as Prince then you are really not wrong off honouring his Knighthood (which the show does, like DAMN). This way, even though he isn’t called Black Prince he’s still recognisable to the people and historians who know him without much cheating considering his title or outright pointing at him and calling him a butthole (still, kudos to the show for basically doing it in “Darkblade” xD)

Puh Alright, the basics are out of th way.

Next is Part 2:The flag comparison is “Darkblade” and “Feast”

and Part 3: Are the Cat Miraculous holder knight and Darkblade the same people?

#Miraculous #Miraculous Ladybug #ml theory #past miraculous holders #former Chat Noir #ml feast #ml season 3 #ml season 1 #ml Darkblade #Cat miraculous holder in feast #Cat Noir #Chat Noir #guardians of the miraculous #ml spoilers

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earthnashes · 5 years

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Nintendo/Super Mario headcanons

HAHAAAAAAAAAAAAA so I’ve been having a lot of fun with the Nintendo/Mario content, so I did what I always do to things I like: DO THE BIG THINK! Or overthink whichever works for you. <:

Anyway yeah, here’s some small headcanons I gots so far:

-------------------------

-Throughout the many years of adventures, half-baked schemes, and kidnapping the princess, Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Bowser somehow end up becoming bestest friends sorry I don’t make the rules. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

-As I’m sure a lot of us figured, the Yoshi from Yoshi’s Island and the Yoshi we know now are not the same individual, but are instead two entirely separate yoshi. Mario, despite being so young at the time, actually does remember the older Yoshi (as well as the tribe of them that worked hard to get him home) and he always visits the island every year to spend time with the tribe. ;-;

-”Koopa” is the name of the genus they belong to, but Bowser and his family’s species are called “Monster Koopa” (or Kaiju-Koopa, whichever you prefer). I’d imagine dragons don’t actually exist in the Mario world so they might be the ones considered dragons to the inhabitants. They’re characterized by the pointy spikes on their shells, horns, large stature, and the ability to breath fire.

-The Koopalings are all adopted Bowser found the orphaned siblings breaking into his castle in an attempt to steal food and just stuff in general. Instead of being angry, he offered them a full five-course meal and a place to stay for the incoming winter months. Those months eventually extended into them permanently allowed to stay, and while they still just call him “Bowser” the Koopalings see the king as their father figure. In the same breath Bowser has come to view the Koopalings as his own children, though he doesn’t dote on them like he does Bowser Jr. because they’re close to their teens (while Jr is close to 5 now).

-Speaking of Bowser Jr.! Of all the human characters in the Mario crew, Princess Peach was the first to see him. More on that later!

- When Bowser’s parents were in charge, the “Koopa Kingdom” didn’t exist. It was just a huge mass of land inhabited by tribes, united by nothing more than being “Koopa”. But once they disappeared, Bowser refused to fall align with their pillaging, abusive ways and decided a tribe united had far better chances of prospering than tribes against one another. So he set out on a long and tiresome campaign to earn neighboring tribes trust, ranging from ending civil conflict between different tribes, trading goods and foods, sharing land, protection, so on. Eventually though, all of his hard work finally came to fruition, and most of the tribes of Koopa had become allied and united. Now the only question was, who would govern them? The answer was easy for the Koopas, and when asked about how to handle leadership, the majority declared Bowser their king, with the compromise that he’d have an ambassador from each tribe to act as his council. He agreed, thus the Koopa Kingdom was officially formed.

-Bowsette of course helped her brother with this campaign to unite their people, but once she saw its success and proudly saw her brother become the beloved King of the Koopas, she decided now was the time to set off on a campaign of her own: finding their parents. Or at the very least, find out what happened to them. She doesn’t remember anything about them aside from what she’s told, having been way too young to have any lasting memories of them. But she’s burning with questions, mainly what happened to them and why they never came back, and so she strives to find the answers for herself and for her brother (who she knows won’t say, but it bothers him more than he’d like). So far, all she’s found were dead-ends and cookie crumbs, but she hasn’t given up.

-One of the biggest things I’m asked when I do The BIg Think is who I ship with who, so to settle that itch:

Bowsette has a huge crush on Daisy. Daisy doesn’t know it though

Peach has one hell of a crush for Pauline. Mario’s the one who introduced them! <:

Luigi might sorta-kinda be crushin’ on big boy Bowser. Imagine Mario’s surprise at that one

Mario himself isn’t interested in romance. He’s happy as is uwu

Wario and Waluigi aren’t related but they’re the living embodiment of “You’re my world bro” “bro...” .

--------------------------

And uhhhhhh that’s alls I got that isn’t gonna be super long-winded, which I’ll do later. Perhaps accompanied with doodles. <:

#RETCONNED

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itsbenedict · 5 years

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Kingdoms and Koopas: Ep. 6

K&K is a Fate Accelerated campaign set in the Mario universe, which I’m running for three players:

Bee @thebeeskneesocks, playing Kandace Koopa

Jovian @jovian12, playing Cozmo Naut

Malky @sleepdepravity, playing Dr. Chevy Chain

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Previously on Kingdoms and Koopas, the party survived a harrowing underground experience, arrested a bigshot crime lord probably, acquired a magical item, and were in the vicinity of Kandace while she did horrifying things.

This time... we’re leaving the Koopa Kingdom for a fun vacation! Woooo!

So, Kandace wants them there Music Keys, still- and her favorite test subject I mean minion I mean friend, Cozmo, is all too happy to go on a fun adventure to help her get them. Unfortunately, Dr. Chevy Chain would be all too happy to never interact with these chucklefucks again, so she needs an alternate reason to follow Kandace and Cozmo. That reason is... her boss at the hospital has ordered her to make a house call in the Magic Kingdom, which happens to be where the other two are headed!

Unfortunately, the road to the Magic Kingdom has problems on it. One of the problems is bandits. Y’know, Bandits. They’re like Shy Guys, but their masks are more like faces and they steal your crap? Bandits. They’re here to be a random encounter.

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Cozmo and Chevy begin fighting them off, but Kandace has an idea to end the fight quicker than that. Y’know her curse that she has? Her magical talking shadow, Carbonado, who makes her life difficult? Well, she’s prepared to bargain this time around- in hopes that maybe he can actually help.

Carbonado’s terms- in exchange for using the darkness to get very big and scary and scare the bandits off- are that Kandace must behave. This is a bit of a tall order, and she bargains him down to... using manners while in the Magic Kingdom. Which are still, likely, terms she’s going to violate, but hey.

Further down the road, they encounter... someone... they’ve... met before? It’s... a Shy Guy wearing a trenchcoat and a big bushy mustache, who would like to sell them some merchandise. It’s Deals Guy!

Immediate attempts to rip off Shady Guy’s mustache again (isn’t he supposed to be in jail?) are met with failure, as this happens to be... the Real Deals Guy. He actually has decent stuff to sell! Or... would. He’s kind of out of inventory right now, and is actually looking to buy. We try out the new Rich system I threw together (an extra stat you roll, Rich, which depending on the outcome tells you whether you can afford the thing, and whether you need to decrease your Rich to do so). Rolls ain’t great, but Kandace does buy a Super Leaf, once it becomes clear that the random crap off the floor he’s selling does include some useful items.

As they proceed, and as they’re getting closer to the magic kingdom, they meet a wandering wizard- and he has Prophecies for them! One about hearts, one about dreams, and one about paths. He can give them two true prophecies, and another false one- and they have to pick which ones will be true and which will be false. Which... shouldn’t be how prophecies work, but they agree, pick that “paths” should be false, and Merlon gets all SHA-ZIBBY, SHA-ZOOBY on ‘em. The prophecies are as follows:

'Thou shalt never be betrayed by those thou trusteth with all thy heart and all thy mind.'

‘The bow is a truer guide to the arrow's path than the arrow.'

'A dream is a nightmare waiting to happen.'

The second, on the subject of paths, is conveniently the false one- which they can get the true version of just by inverting it. Still... cryptic as hell, though.

Finally, though, they arrive in the Magic Kingdom.

Chapter 3: From the Stars

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Unfortunately- besides Chevy, who has an address she’s meant to head to- they have no idea where to go. The Music Key’s magical signature is just “up”- somewhere in the sky- and they need to find a way to get there. (And, Chevy needs to find a way to figure out how to reach the address in question, since the Mario world doesn’t have GPS.)

So they check an information booth, manned by a Star Kid named Astrid. She gets out a telescope and checks out the spot in the sky they mention- which, as it appears, is a strange ribbon of rainbow light... hm. I wonder...

As for getting up there- well, there’s ways. All kinds of ways! Except, there was recently a large destructive bomb-related accident down at the local Cannon District (where they keep all the Cannons That Shoot You Into Space), and there’s only two cannons left standing. Bullet Bud and Robert Omb attempt to convince the party (minus Chevy, who’s gone off to do her job elsewhere in the city after obtaining a map) that their cannon is the safe one and that the other guy’s cannon is a rickety mess that’ll explode in their faces.

(The paths prophecy, by the way, applied to this situation, though in keeping with Merlon’s “Useless Prophecies” aspect, nobody realized that the “arrow” is the Bullet Bill, and the “bow” is the explosive that fires the bullet- or the Bob-omb.)

No, they solve this dilemma by arbitrarily picking the right cannon- which Cozmo tests first. Unfortunately, they fail to notice a problem in time to stop it (but succeed in noticing it happening at all.) Robert Omb snuck around the side of Bud’s cannon and blew up as it fired, knocking Cozmo off-course. He goes flying up into the sky, and... well, he’ll probably be fine. Let’s assume he’s fine.

Kandace, noticing the sabotage, attempts to... mete out justice? Which is to say... draw a teleportation circle, and attempt to shove Robert Omb into it, to get rid of the cheating bastard. She barely fails the Forceful contest, but Bullet Bud helps her out with sending his rival off to... well, Ted the Storm God’s cloud, is the only place Kandace knows how to make her random-teleport spell come out, right now. Gonna be one confused Bob-omb, suddenly in the middle of Kam Ekademy.

Meanwhile... Chevy has a job to do. She’s arrived at the address, to make the house call she was specifically needed for. See, there was some kind of magical accident that cost everyone in a given radius of the patient to be unable to control their hands, which made things difficult for normal doctors. But Chevy doesn’t even have any hands, and so was considered perfect for the job.

Arriving at Rainbow Cruise Tours, she encounters a crew of concerned Bob-ombs who explain the situation. Their captain, apparently, stumbled in one day with a big piece of magical crystal sticking out of his chest, and fell into a coma on the bed. The crew didn’t have hands, but they also didn’t have surgical training- and most of the surgeons in the Magic Kingdom are Wizzerds, known for pretty much just having hands.

The job itself turns out to be pretty easy, and Chevy successfully removes the foreign object and resuscitates the patient- an odd, stout, yellow man with a heavy accent, a curly purple wig, and an inability to shut up. The Great Flavio invites Chevy on a sky cruise as a reward for her efforts, which she- having nothing better to do, now- agrees to. Like a fool.

Partway through the lovely flight on the sky boat in question, there is a THUMP as something impacts the side of the ship. And then manages to grab hold of the dangling anchor, rather than slide off the ship and fall to its death. This something, as it happens, is Cozmo Naut, who for reasons unknown was recently fired out of a cannon into the sky. Weird. Chevy confirms he isn’t going to fall, and then entirely declines to try and help pull him up.

Kandace, after probably doing a crime by magically banishing someone by force to another Kingdom, climbs into Bud’s cannon and fires herself up there, getting enough altitude that she can reach the Rainbow Cruise and rescue Cozmo using her broom (which would’ve been too difficult to ride all the way up there by herself.)

The cruise, though, appears to be making a stop somewhere else before heading up to... the rainbow ribbon in the sky that you’ve probably already figured out what it is. That they’ve actually figured out what it is, actually, so I’ll just tell you: it’s Rainbow Road, the famous kart-racing track.

But the pit stop is at... oh, just the Royal Castle of the Magic Kingdom. For guests to meet the princess, and stuff. No big.

As they arrive- and Cozmo and Kandace line up to meet the princess, while Chevy hangs back because when can Chevy ever be bothered- they encounter a... familiar face? Sort of? Except for how X-Nauts wear face-concealing goggles and stuff? It’s an X-Naut Cozmo used to know from back during the whole moon thing- Oneiro Naut. They catch up a little bit- apparently, Oneiro is doing some guard duty for the princess’s meet-and-greet, and in their spare time is researching dreams.

Researching dreams...? Dreams, dreams... there definitely wasn’t a prophecy about that...

Anyway, Cozmo and Kandace eventually reach the front of the line, and are face-to-face with Princess Opal herself!

(art by Bee)

Now, here’s a little bit of Kandace backstory that I don’t think I’ve mentioned in these recaps yet: when Kandace was younger, she was experimenting with teleportation spells, and... accidentally teleported herself into this very castle. It was a little surprising, but Opal took it in stride, and told the young magikoopa that she knew she’d be an amazingly powerful witch some day, before helping her get back home.

It was a pretty formative moment for young Kandace- and now, here she is, once again meeting her hero.

Who... absolutely doesn’t recognize her. Which is... fairly crushing, for a moment. But... hang on. This Opal is weirdly... sedate? Very calm, regal, princess-like. Which isn’t at all how she remembers her.

Suddenly, there’s a spark of realization, and Opal tells Kandace- and her friend- to head through a door just behind the throne area. Confused, they agree... and are dropped through a trapdoor and fall and fall and fall through some kind of magical sparkly hole. They land in... what looks like some kind of extremely messy magical workshop. And in that workshop is... the real Princess Opal.

She explains that the Opal doing the meet-and-greet up in the throne room is a decoy, there to handle all the princess-type duties she finds super-boring. What she doesn’t find boring is Kandace, who she does in fact remember. And she... has Kandace look at some weird magic instruments, and pokes her with a glowy detector rod thingy, and has her hold an orb which she then tosses into a machine which explodes, and generally sort of geeks out about Kandace’s nonspecific magic specialness. She’s very excited.

It’s kind of difficult for Kandace to follow a lot of Opal’s projects, which are very advanced and very hard to determine the actual purpose of. It seems there’s a lot of stuff here that’s unfinished, or that was never really meant to do anything besides look cool in the first place. Opal’s running all over the place, unable to stick to a topic for very long- because whose attention span wouldn’t be taxed by the many wonders of magic, right?

Anyway, Cozmo and Kandace tell her about their quest- to find a magical music-related orb of incredible power. Opal tells them that she’s pretty sure the big tournament is going to have something like that as a prize.

Tournament?

Yeah, the kart-racing tournament. On Rainbow Road. That one. Do they want to enter? YES they want to enter.

So Opal- who’s big into kart racing, along with apparently everything else- offers them pick of her old experimental karts, to borrow for the race! (She herself has been, uh, banned from participating, because she kept breaking vehicle regulations and causing magical accidents during races. Apparently the issue was bad enough that they actually banned their own princess, so... well, it’s probably totally safe.)

Cozmo picks out something with flame decals and lots of firepower- just a big ol’ beefy boy of a car, with a high top speed at the expense of handling. (He tests it out by crashing it directly into the wall of Opal’s workshop- pretty good at crashing!) Kandace, rather than pick out an old kart, works with Opal to soup up her broom, giving it a magical bike mode that increases its top speed at the expense of flight capabilities.

Meanwhile, Chevy is approached by a Buzzy Beetle who represents the Rainbow Road course management. Apparently, there are so many outlandish injuries that happen on Rainbow Road that most of their doctors have quit in horror, so they’re really looking for last-minute replacements. And so it is that Chevy takes on a part-time job, and is escorted to Rainbow Road by a Lakitu crew.

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The two racers, meanwhile, are escorted to the track personally, on karts towed behind Opal’s magical royal chariot. It’s a very stylish entrance, only slightly dampened by a Monty Mole mechanic at the track demanding that Opal leave immediately, in a panicked and horrified tone of voice. He can’t do this again! He can’t! (It’s fine, though- Opal’s just going to be spectating, honest!)

So we would leave off there, but... a couple strange things happen. One thing is that... Oneiro Naut is somehow amongst the crowds of spectators, despite having been at the castle a minute ago and not having been aboard the chariot when they left. So that’s weird.

And another thing is that... Kandace can still track the Music Key’s energy signature. And where it appears to be is... still up. Still straight up, in the sky just above Rainbow Road.

...It’s probably fine! See you next time!

Last time | Archive | Next time

#kingdoms and koopas #mario

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noordzee · 6 years

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I’ve been diligently finishing my Inktobers, but didn’t have much time for scanning until now!

Mikkel is an aasimar barbarian. I was scribbling ideas on how to work angelic features in and drew this tired guy with feather hair and was like yeah ok sure, I skipped the Exhausted and Chicken prompts anyway, let’s do this

The Midweek Gang consists of Mali, an evil beach dwarf who drove everyone off a beach and claimed it as her own, and Kkiya, a seagull aarakocra who won’t leave. Mali, unable to banish her, decided to treat her as a minion as if it was her idea. Kkiya is 100% In It For The Lols and just wants to see where all this is going.

Hilja is a duergar warlock who skulks around in caves off the outskirts of town and tries to tempt young fools into entering pacts like hers. That is definitely how Mendl from last year got her powers.

The Weekend Crew are Miu, an aasimar druid, and Ryaow, a tabaxi bard. Miu specializes in talking to whales and Ryaow wants to see the world, so the owl and the pussycat have set off for adventure! Miu hides her wings under layers of loose clothes, and Ryaow is modeled after an Iriomote cat.

Hervé is a half-orc paladin. He guards a temple, and has much more fearsome horns with his helmet on...

Arcanzola is half-sea-elf, the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy high-powered merchant. She grew up with few responsibilities or expectations, running around town scrapping with local kids and swimming in the city canals. However, her father never managed to produce any further children, legitimate or otherwise, and on his death bed he named Arcanzola head of the family. She’s been quick to learn what she needs to do to fulfill her role. 50% of that is Fighting Off Jealous Relatives, which she’s pretty handy at, luckily.

Fengyun, a mountain dwarf druid, was originally rolled as evil, but I was so bored of rolling evil dwarfs that I rerolled and now he’s good, so there. Fengyun specializes in insects and is honestly kind of a hippie.

Zeuxippe is a neutral evil centaur bard who’s part of a dionysian cult. I looked up Maenads for inspiration and the first one I saw was wearing a snake as a headband and, uh, yeah, of course I was gonna give her that.

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For Inktober this year I’m rolling randomized Dungeons and Dragons characters! Please don’t use my characters for your own campaigns, but do feel free to roll from the list I put together here!

#Inktober #Inktober2018 #Dungeons and Dragons #Dungeons and Dragons and Inktober #artists on tumblr #illustration #ink #hapo help how do i pronounce zeuxippe

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djinn-and-djuice · 6 years

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(Travis said that Fjord used to be a sailor, and he has the sailor background, and. Well. There was the whole thing with his falchion. I am a huge maritime history/sailing nerd, so this felt like an extremely personal callout, and here we are. This is all wild speculation, and likely to be disproved, and god damn it was fun to write. Much love and credit to @cobaltpilot for being my cheering section! also on ao3)

[no spoilers, but draws on details from campaign 2 episode 3, “The Midnight Chase”]

the call of the running tide

~*~

This is how it starts.

Two men walk into a bar. One of them is more well-dressed than the other, but neither of them are by any means ‘fancy.’ Fancy folk come from the capital, and they don’t waste their time in a dockside sailor’s dive. From his perch in the corner, Fjord watches them scan the crowd with half an eye.

His interest is piqued when Fjord sees one of them point to him and ask his companion something, he already knows what’s being said. Port Damali isn’t so big that one can be ignorant of their reputation.

The rundown is likely very brief. His name is Fjord, he’s a half-orc who likes a bit of whiskey and a bit of dice. He’s spent five years before the mast, but he could be a bosun or a navigator if he got the chance. Maybe even a captain, if that kind of money weren’t so damn hard to come by. He’s a steady hand and a reliable one too, he’ll work for whoever pays fairly, and that’s all that anyone knows about him. To be fair, that’s all they need to know, and this isn’t a town where people ask a whole lot of unnecessary questions.

“I hear you’re a good sailor,” the man says by way of introduction. “May I sit?”

His momma didn’t raise him to be rude, so he nods. “I’m Shane Corrigan, first mate on the Sylph,” he goes on, setting down across from Fjord. “We’re making a voyage to Marquet in a fortnight, and we’re looking for crew.”

The rest of his spiel is boilerplate, all stuff Fjord’s heard a dozen times before. They’re shipping goods; timber and furs and stuff that Fjord can’t imagine has much appeal in the desert, but somehow sells anyway. The pay is good, better than he was expecting, likely because the trip’ll be so damn long.

In the end, that’s not why he holds his hand out to Shane and says “you got yourself a deal.” He can feel the sea calling in his veins, and the thought of four month’s voyage is a good one.

~~~

Fjord’s love of the sea is a long one, begun when he was a child. The tide called to him, and as soon as he was old enough to sail his own skiff he would spend countless hours cruising around. He learned how to read the stars and the wind, how to set course and canvas and one’s feet in a gale.

So when the Sylph sets out from Port Damali on a bright morning, Fjord hangs a little longer in the shrouds to look out at the dark water and breathe.

The crew quickly settles into rhythm and the first two weeks pass by without much interest. There are a couple greenhorns on the crew, and they take a little while to find their feet, and Fjord spends much of his free time helping them.

Halfway to Marquet, Captain Moore switches up the watch rotations and Fjord is tasked with going belowdecks and making sure everything is fine with the cargo. It’s a necessary job, if tedious, mostly involving killing any rats that made it aboard and making sure nothing’s been disturbed. No one’s reported anything so far, so when he notices a bear pelt that’s been dragged out of one of the crates and set high up, it gives him more than a little pause. He doesn’t make a sound, climbs up quickly and quietly as anything, and pulls the knife out of his boot.

Curled up on the pelt asleep is a young woman with dark skin and fire-red hair. Well. A stowaway isn’t what he was expecting, but it’s not the worst thing he could have found. He shoves the knife back in its sheath and shakes her awake.

“I don’t recognize you from the crew roster,” he quips.

Bright gold eyes flicker open, and focus on him. In an instant she is up and pressed against the hull, eyes darting around. There’s nowhere to run on a ship, and she seems keenly aware of that.

“What’s your name?”

“Sallah,” she replies, still tense.

“My name’s Fjord. I’m not gonna hurt you, Sallah,” he says, “but you understand we’re not too keen on stowaways here.”

“Please don’t turn me in,” she begs. “I can’t go back to Wildemount, I have to get out of there.”

Before he can even ask why, she’s launching into a hurried, frightened explanation that he honestly has a hard time following. It’s a long, somewhat rambling tale of misunderstandings and scapegoating and the gist of it, as far as Fjord understands, is that Sallah was in the wrong place at the wrong time, in a town of people who were all too willing to shove blame on an outsider.

Anywhere else Fjord would consider it a sob story used to con someone out of a favor or some coin. But he can see the fear in her eyes, and he knows that people don’t become stowaways on a lark. And hells, he knows as well as anyone that he’s got a soft spot as wide as the Wuyun Gorge. So he holds out a placating hand, even as the other is rubbing at his temple.

“Alright, alright, you can stay. The rest of the crew might not be so understanding, and if you get caught I don’t know you. But I won’t turn you in.”

“Thank you Fjord, thank you so much. You won’t even know I’m here.”

~~~

The next few days, Sallah is as good as her word. If he hadn’t seen her himself, Fjord wouldn’t have believed there were any extra souls on board at all. The pelt she had been napping on got stowed away, and he hasn’t seen it out of its crate since they met. Still, he takes some of the hardtack from his meal and saves it, bringing it down to the hold when he does a patrol.

“Sallah?” He calls quietly. “It’s Fjord. I brought you some food.”

A tiny mouse skitters up on top of a box in front of Fjord, and in an instant, shifts into Sallah. He’s so taken aback that he completely forgets about what he was doing in favor of staring blankly at her. He’s heard of shapeshifters, obviously, mages that can change their appearance at will, but there is a wide gulf between the experience of hearing about it and seeing it firsthand.

“That’s how I’ve been staying hidden,” she smiles, hopping off the box to stand in front of him.

“That’s damn impressive,” he replies, handing the chunks of tough biscuit over. “How do you do that?”

“I learned when I was little,” she explains. “My people are very inclined to magic, natural magic especially.” With a flourish of her fingers, a small flame dances in her hand.

“My family didn’t have a whole lot of formal traditions, but I was taught how to focus energy and make it do what I want. I taught myself pretty much everything else.” She shrugs, extinguishes the flame, and digs into the hardtack.

“Can you teach me?” He doesn’t know what drives him to ask. Magic has never been a prominent part of his life-never more than bits of bone scrimshawed with runes and shells hung to ask the Wildmother’s favor for a safe voyage-but he has always been fascinated by the idea of it. To see someone command such power with so much ease is compelling.

“I don’t know how much I’ll be able to teach you in a week and a half, but I’ll try.”

He goes about his patrol while she finishes eating. When he comes back, she’s sitting with her chin on her hand in thought.

“Can I ask a favor?” She asks after a long moment.

“Sure,” he shrugs.

“Would you help me get up top? I’ll make myself small, into a mouse or something, something you can carry. I’ve been belowdecks this whole voyage and some fresh air would be nice.”

“’Course I can,” he says, standing up and holding his hand out. A blink, and she turns into a tiny grey mouse and skitters up his arm.

The sun is almost set when they come up top, and Fjord takes a moment to enjoy the scene. The setting sun paints the deck orange and red, and with the ocean lit up as well it’s one of the most beautiful things Fjord has ever seen. The two moons are barely visible on the eastern horizon, slivers of bone in a lavender sky.

There is a sudden flash of light, and the whole crew looks up to see a bright flash of light at the end of each mast and spar, burning blue-white flames that are gone as soon as they come.

Fjord had seen them once before, on a voyage to Tal’Dorei, one of his first long-distance journeys. One of the older hands called it “The Wildmother’s Beacon”, but he’s heard it referred to by any number of names since then. It’s all anyone can talk about as the crew gets the ship ready for the night shift, so no one notices the companion tucked under the collar of his coat.

~~~

“It’s not hard, you just have to learn to listen.”

Sallah coaches him for an hour or so every day when Fjord comes down to the hold, and this has been a common theme. Listening to the natural world around him, the ebb and flow of the tide, the push of the breeze, he needs to listen to everything. And he tries, he really does, but by the time they make port in Marquet, Fjord feels like he’s made no progress whatsoever.

“I just feel like I oughta be better than this.”

“It’s only been a week,” Sallah rolls her eyes. “And we barely have an hour a day to work. I’ve been practicing magic since I was little more than a babe.”

“Sometimes books help,” she goes on, more gently, “If you can get to the Dwendalian Empire, I’ve heard that Zadash has some great libraries, and if you can’t find something there then you’ll definitely find it in Rexxentrum. There are a lot of different paths to magic, and if one doesn’t work you shouldn’t be afraid to try another.”

~~~

The Bay of Gifts is chaotic and colorful and decadent, and as much as Fjord wants to enjoy it he won’t be able to until he’s sure that Sallah has made it off the boat without incident. He drinks a couple rounds in the tavern with some other members of the crew before taking a meandering walk down the lamplit streets.

He hears rapid footsteps coming up behind him, and turns to see Sallah running up to him.

“Fjord!” She calls. “I’m glad I found you, I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye.”

“I’m glad too. Any idea what you’re going to do?”

She shrugs, smiling. “None whatsoever. But I’ll figure something out. I’ve always had a knack with growing things, maybe that’s where I’ll start.”

“You’ll do just fine.”

“That’s very kind of you, my friend.” She hugs him, and Fjord can feel the slight shake in her shoulders as he hugs her back.

“Thank you,” she whispers.

The moment passes, and she steps back. “I’ll stay here for a while, but if this doesn’t work out I’ll go to Ank’Harel. Don’t be a stranger,” she says, and walks off into the warm night.

~~~

The voyage back begins much like the trip there. Clear skies and fair winds, and given how much lighter the ship is that means they make very good time.

On the fifth day, the lookout spots a storm building behind them, and it quickly becomes apparent that they’re not going to be able to outrun it. Captain Moore hollers for all hands to take in sail and two dozen of them are in the shrouds, climbing as quickly as they dare, scuttling across beams and hauling canvas hand over hand.

Back on the deck, the only thing left to do is heave to, tie down, and hope. The sky blackens, lightning forks, and Fjord mutters words of comfort to the young hands as they move belowdecks.

“This ain’t my first storm,” he says, with more confidence in his voice than he really feels. “Keep your head and you’ll be fine.”

The rain beats down on the deck, trickling through the battens and down into the bilge. The flashes of lightning get brighter and brighter, the crashes of thunder grow deafening. The ship lists from starboard to port and then hard to starboard again, and the only warning they get that something has gone terribly wrong is the hull creaking loudly before the sound of splintering wood comes from above on the deck.

Fjord goes up top just in time to watch the main-mast, struck by lightning, come crashing down across the deck in a mess of wood and metal. Captain Moore was at the helm when the storm began, but Fjord has no idea if he’s still there. Or still alive.

The ship begins to tilt under the unbalanced weight, and there’s precious little time before she’s on her beam ends and capsizes. Fjord yells for the rest of the crew and they leap into action, moving everything they can to the other side of the ship to buy themselves a bit of time to get rid of the broken mast.

It’s no use, though, because before they can finish the deck is pitched at such a steep angle no one can stand anymore, and Fjord is in the water. Lashed by the rain and the wind, he struggles to stay above the surface. One piece of the mast is still floating, and he swims over to cling to it. It’s all he can do to hold on as massive waves pitch and roll him.

Finally, the storm moves on, revealing the night sky. Fjord looks around, but he can’t see the rest of the crew anywhere, and the gods only know where he’s been blown. He recognizes the stars, and which way he’s probably heading, but that’s all meaningless if he can’t figure out where he is.

It would still be meaningless even if he knew where he was, since he has no way to get home.

Exhausted, he closes his eyes. The waves lap around him, and now that the winds have calmed it’s the only thing he can hear. Remembering Sallah’s words he listens, hoping that if these are his last moments, he at least hears something. But nothing comes. The last ounce of strength in his arms slowly fades, and he loses grip on the mast, sinking beneath the waves.

“Is that it? Are you giving up?”

It’s little more than a whisper, sourceless in the dark. Fjord almost thinks he imagines it, until it keeps going.

“All those storms you’ve weathered and you just give up? You’re stronger than that. Open your eyes.”

Somehow, he finds the will to creak his eyes open. He sees a glow in the water, a faint shimmer of phosphoresence that draws his attention. He’s seen glow like that before, in much warmer waters. He pulls the strength from somewhere within him and twists around towards it.

“There it is. You could bring the tides themselves to heel with that will.”

There’s no way to tell which way is up, but he swims toward the light. His limbs carve long, slow strokes through the black brine, and his lungs begin to burn.

“If only you had the power to match it.”

His face breaks the surface of the water and he gasps.

“I can help you with that.”

“Fuckin’ prove it.” Fjord replies because hell, what has he got to lose?

He hears a distant, whispery laugh, and darkness takes him.

~~~

He dreams about a forge. The steady, ringing beat of a hammer against hot metal. He dreams of black sails and smoke. He dreams of blue-white fire and the beasts that sleep beneath the waves. He dreams of a blade.

He wakes up.

That’s the first surprising thing. The second, and rather more surprising thing, is that he wakes up on a beach. His clothes are tattered but still keep most of the chill away, so once he picks the kelp off he slowly gets to his feet and walks inland. The people he finds in the nearest village are surprised to see him walking out of the sea, but they take it with good enough grace.

Turns out he’s washed up on the southern end of the Menagerie Coast, and when he tells the folk in town his story they find him someone willing to help him get passage north.

The first leg of his journey back to Port Damali is in the back of a hay cart, and his thoughts are consumed by the odd voice he heard the night the Sylph went down. There’s something in the back of his head, it feels like an itch on the inside of his skull and the more he focuses on it the clearer it gets. His hands move on their own, and before he really knows what he’s doing a spectral hand appears in front of him.

“Oh shit.”

~~~

The trip northward is long and slow, but this new revelation gives Fjord something to focus on. He thinks about that itch in the back of his head, of the way his hands shifted and the feeling of pulling invisible rigging. For three days’ travel he sits in silence and meditates, and on the fourth day he finally feels like he’s done something right. He sees a shimmer across his arms and with a thought his skin turns from green to royal purple. He focuses again, and it turns paper white. He can’t contain the giddy grin on his face as he shifts colors, and it only grows wider as he learns how to tug in a different way and the taper of his fingers change, his nails grow and shrink and his arms gain and lose muscle.

That night, he has another dream. Of a rocky, wind whipped beach sheltered by bleak cliffs. He recognizes it from stories; the Shearing Channel, a stretch of water so treacherous that no ship can sail through it. Distantly, like a rising wind, he hears the voice again, for the first time since the wreck.

“Come find me. We have much to discuss.”

~~~

By the time he arrives in Port Damali, he has a small amount of gold that he earned doing odd jobs along the trip. He thanks his traveling companions for their aid and parts ways, heading to the nearest general store to buy a few road provisions and a bedroll. He doesn’t seek out further passage northward, he just walks out of the city and follows the stars.

When he makes his way through the woods, he can tell that he’s close to the channel from the smell of salt and the whistling of the wind. The cliffs on the edge of the channel are tall, but not solid, more akin to shorn-off hills now that he’s seeing them from this side. He picks his way between them, and makes his way down to the waterline.

On a clear day, you can see Tal’Dorei across the channel, the white rise of the Alabaster Sierras on the edge of the horizon like a dragon’s spine. Days like that are few and far between; today the sky is leaden, and fog hangs low and oppressive over the rough water.

This. This is the place. He knows that what he’s been called to is here, as sure as he was born. He wades into the surf.

The water is frigid, tossed as it is by the constant winds. But that tug, that inexorable, tidal pull, is drawing him deeper and deeper beneath the waves. He feels his lungs begin to ache but still he dives down, looking for something, anything.

To his right there is a flash of blue light, like the fey light he saw coming off the spars of the Sylph. He looks over and sees the hilt of a sword, stuck between stones. A faint blue glow wafts off of it, and he reaches out.

Once, when he was young, he made the mistake of wrapping a line around his wrist, so when a brisk wind caught his sail it pulled his arm out of its socket. He never made the mistake again, just like he never forgot the feeling of his shoulder being shoved back into place. A hard pop, and then everything was where it needed to be.

The feeling of pulling the sword out of the crevice is exactly like that, only without knowing that anything had ever been out of joint to begin with. The grip fits in Fjord’s hand like it was carved exactly for him.

He swims back to the shore and examines the blade. It’s a falchion, long and broad and positively wicked looking. The hand guard is crusted with barnacles, but the blade itself is completely clear of rust. And even though the seawater has finished running off of Fjord, there’s still rivulets running off the blade and pouring onto the stones.

“Hello there,” he says.

“Hello yourself,” the blade replies.

This is how it starts. Fjord stands on the rocky shores of the Shearing Channel, dripping seawater and holding a barnacle-encrusted sword in his hands. The waves pound the beach in time with his heart, rising past his knees and it should be pulling him back under but it’s not. He holds the blade up to his ear, and he listens.

#critical role #fjord #this is my prose tag #this is my critical role tag

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cecilspeaks · 7 years

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115 - Council Member Flynn, Part 2

Paint a picture. It’ll last longer. Welcome to Night Vale.

Councilwoman Tamika Flynn announced this week that she got a new dog. It’s her 17th birthday in just ac ouple of weeks, so her Dad DeAngelo Flynn said she could adopt a puppy. They went to the Night Vale Animal Shelter and Discount Tire Shop. Tamika thought about this sweetheart pitbull named Rosie, but worried about the need to walk and exercise such an active dog regularly. Same with the Blue Heeler mix named Hydrant. The shelter manager suggested a German Shepard named Vincent, but DeAngelo said no daughter of his would have a German Shepherd. He added that even the German Shepherds with all of their hateful teeth and ignorant rage could not save us from the robot uprising. Tamika said she wanted a smaller dog anyway, and she settled on a Pomeranian, whom she has named Lucky. She brought Lucky to City Hall. Standing atop the front steps of the building Tamika, wearing a long black coat adorned with chevrons, a Sheriff’s badge, infantry cords and little flanks of uncooked beef, held Lucky proudly above her head, the way a person who just got a new car might hold it above their head.

Lucky is a light brown dust bunny with hollow yellow eyes and a shrieking little laugh of a bark. Ah, a real cutie! Happy early birthday, Councilwoman Flynn!

An update on the recent spate of robberies and the related deaths of Tristan and Camilla Cortez. The Secret Police have no new leeds toward suspects, but since the 8 PM curfew has gone into effect, there have been no robberies or major crimes of any kind. They have arrested six people in the last two days for being out after 8 PM. But those people were all angels, who were unaware of the curfew and were just walking around trying to ask people for ten bucks. Now that acknowledging of angels is legal in Night Vale, the angels have been making a fortune, by just asking people for cash they don’t actually need, because they’re billionaires. But people are so happy to be able to acknowledge them that it’s worth the few bucks the angels are asking for.

And now sports. The Night Vale Scorpions wheelchair basketball team lost the state pre-season tournament last weekend 81-72 to the Pine Cliff Lizard Monitors. Pine Cliff forward Helen King led all scores with 30, and Night Vale point guard Janice Palmer set a state record in assists, with 22. 22 assists in a game, that’s empirically the most helpful game a Night Vale player has ever had. Y’all, Janice is my niece.

It’s a shame to lose, but it is only the pre-season. There is still a chance to win the division. Unfortunately, I heard from Janice’s dad Steve that Janice is not handling the loss very well. Steve said Janice works really hard to get assists, because she wants to be a leader to help other people score the points, and even though she set a state record in assists, they still lost. Steve said Janice is working even harder on her passing skills and on running the high pick and roll, which is a basketball term that Steve explained to me, and I knew I wouldn’t understand it, so I wrote down what Steve said verbatim. Let’s see. Here’s what he said a “high pick and roll” was. Quote: “So the defender’s guarding, right? Like this! And then an offensive player comes over here like whoosh! And then the ball handler goes like zam! And then they go all and then, whoom!” Well. Best of luck in the regular season, Janice.

Michelle Nguyen, owner of Dark Owl Records, said that her store was robbed several weeks ago, during the height of the robbery spree. She remembers a person coming in wearing a mask, holding a gun, and smelling like fertilizer. They asked for gas, and Michelle gave the thief a velvet sack full of Item nr 4 bank-run gravel, which is her preferred currency these days. The robber then grabbed a stack of LP’s from the new release section and left. Michelle said she didn’t report the robbery because she didn’t really feel like it was a robbery. “It’s not like anyone listens to music anymore,” she said. “Music is dead! If they had stolen the sound of traffic and sirens and low-flying aircraft, I would have felt truly violated. But who’s gonna miss Keith Urban on vinyl?” Michelle added that everything is music and music is nothing. And then she closed the store for the day to go shout poems at passing trains with her friend Maureen.

Tamika Flynn and her new dog, Lucky, have been making appearances across town at local businesses assuring the owners that the town is safe. In addition to her dark coat with its many pins and stripes and medals and cow flesh, Tamika has begun wearing leather riding boots, a tricorn and spike studded knuckle rings. She’s really taken to the politics of her job, bringing along a camera crew to record these positive interactions with her constituents. It should be noted that there have never been elections for City Council in our town’s history. Even Tamika joined the Council through coercion, not campaigning. Perhaps this isn’t just a photo op, perhaps she really does care about the wellbeing of each of her citizens. She might be my new favorite Council member.

Frances Donaldson, owner of the Antiques Mall, said she was so happy to see Councilwoman Flynn in her store. Tamika shook her hand and told her everything would be OK, that she would not let anyone rob Frances of her antiques. “I mean these antiques are cursed as all getout. Anyone tries to touch one of these things, they’ll be living in a psychological terror-scape,” Donaldson said, “but it was nice of the young lady to say so.” Frances then sat by the window and thoughtfully watched the distant plane plass against the sky.

Liesel Schmidt, who owns the auto-body shop near Summerset and Gray, said Tamika stopped by her shop and told her all about how Tamika’s father worked at an automobile factory for decades, until he was laid off five years ago. He’s since run his own dent repair service. Liesel said Tamika really wanted to impress on her the importance of independently run businesses. “I like Tamika,” Schmidt said, “and her little dog too! He ate some of my socket wrench heads, which made him walk slow – ah, that made me laugh. He’s a good dog!”

Well, I’m certainly happy to see Tamika winning over the people of Night Vale. She’s done a lot for this town. But I know the curfew and travel stoppage has been a real strain. It’s good to see her out there, keeping our spirits up.

It’s time once again for Citizen Spotlight. Today’s Citizen Spotlight is on Megan Wallaby. Despite only being born four years ago, Megan just celebrated her 17th birthday this past spring, and will graduate Night Vale High School with honors next May. Megan enjoys athletics and biology classes, and hopes some day to run her own clinic. She wants to go to a university and major in physical therapy next fall, but she’s not sure where that will be just yet. Megan was also on my niece Janice’s basketball team and was the team’s leading scorer. But after the preseason tournament, she has decided to quit basketball to join Tamika Flynn’s Secret Citizens’ Secret Crime Patrol force. Megan never had an inclination toward law enforcement, but she’s not she can afford college. Even if she gets a scholarship, she says there are still books, dorms, food, beer, pet tarantulas, and clothes to buy. Her parents Tuck and Hershel can’t pay for any of that, so she is taking on part time work patrolling the streets after curfew. The team will miss you, Megan, but our streets are safer with you out there. This has been Citizen Spotlight.

A new report from the Mayor’s office shows a significant drop in crime the past two weeks, since Tamika Flynn took over the Secret Police. Councilwoman gave credit to Deputy Sheriff Sam, the entire police force including the Secret Police, Double Secret Police, Obvious Police and Dog Police, and even the Citizen Patrol Force for their extra efforts. Also Tamika said the bloodred buildings everyone helped paint look gorgeous and intimidating.

But it’s not all good news. The Mayor’s report shows a significant increase in traffic accidents, as the police are stretched so thin. Also, since most of the city’s resources are focused on stopping armed robberies of businesses, there have been unrepaired water main breakages, damaged street signs, and understaffed municipal offices. With few available funds and zero economic activity after 8 PM, city-run departments like the Hall of Public Records, the Public Library, and the abandoned mine shaft outside of town, sit empty most days.

The Mayor’s office expressed concern in the deterioration of these buildings for lack of huge, not to mention the inconvenience their closures pose. “Councilwoman Flynn is a tough and decided leader, but how far must we push ourselves away from comfort in order to preserve safety?” Mayor Cardinal said. “Our infrastructure is at risk of erosion if we continue to ignore everything, except law and order. Our emotional health is at risk if we close ourselves off.”

And here the Mayor paused to take a bite of a whole fresh butternut squash. Or, as the Europeans call it, a “yam balloon”. She continued with her mouth full: “I ask Councilwoman Flynn to call back the rest of the City Council from wherever they are so we can hold an emergency meeting to explore better solutions toward reducing crime.”

Listeners, I agree with the Mayor. While I love that there have been no robberies or deaths or arsons in the past several weeks, I would also like to point out that a culprit has yet to surface. The police, under the control of Tamika Flynn, do not even have a suspect. Whoever has done this has certainly been stifled by the strict city ordinances, but how long must we continue hiding in our homes every evening? If the person who has committed these crimes is still in this city, they will certainly start robbing, and maybe even killing once again. Tamika refused the Mayor’s request, saying that the other City Council members do not do well under stress, and that they’ve never been of any help in situations like this. Tamika continued.. Oh! Oh, listeners, I – I’m sorry to break into my own story but I am getting reports that Deputy Sheriff Sam and their Secret Police are in a standoff in the Tepid Sands housing development at the intersection of Skillman Boulevard and Dubois Avenue. Shots have been fired, uh I’m going to find out and report further what is happening. But first, let me take you to the weather.

["TMI" by Josey joseyofficial.com]

The good news is that all of the police officers in this afternoon’s fracas are uninjured. The bad news is that two young women were severely wounded by a librarian. A librarian, in their own home! The girls, Lisa Robertson, 18, and her younger sister Marcia, 15, were at home quietly reading their new copies of Patricia Lockwood’s 2017 spectacularly crafted memoir “Priest Daddy”, when they heard a window shatter. A librarian had smelled the humorous and deft poetics of Lockwood’s impeccable writing and broke in to devour the readers of this sharp and emotional story of religion, family, and toxic masculinity. When the librarian found the two sisters, it attacked. It was not the Robertson sisters’ first fight against a librarian. They, along with Councilwoman Tamika Flynn, survived the summer reading program at the Night Vale Public Library three years ago. They nearly did not survive today’s attack.

It was thanks to Sheriff Sam’s quick response that police were able to stop the librarian from further damage. Unfortunately, the librarian, whose name was Dan McDowell, escaped police custody and is still on the loose.

Tamika Flynn, on behalf of the City Council, still away on vacation until this whole thing blows over, expressed sadness for her injured friends and fellow bibliophiles Lisa and Marcia. The Mayor doubled down on her earlier statements and blamed this tragic attack on a city-wide failure to pay for upkeep of municipal buildings. “There was no one there to lock the librarians’ cages, to feed them regularly,” the Mayor said. “As a city, it is our responsibility to protect life, yes, but also protect a life worth living.” Councilwoman Flynn thanked the Mayor for her comments, but then promptly called for a closing of the port authority. No ships in or out of town. Night Vale has no body of water to speak of, but the occasional freighter or cruise ship does arrive.

Flynn also moved curfew to 6 PM and said no one is allowed within 100 feet of the library, or any bookstore, for that matter. “These days my father only talks about the robot uprising,” Flynn said. “For a long time, I thought he was just being weird. There’s no robot uprising! I have seen advanced robotics, and those things can barely walk. Even my phone struggles to load a basic Google image search for “vaping sloths”. But what if there were robots we do not know about? Metaphorical robots. What if the things we cannot see, cannot predict? Why not be prepared to protect ourselves against –any- enemy?” She added her regret that people would not have access to books anymore, but added that maybe, the city should get everyone a nook. “Is nook still a thing?” Flynn added. “Whatever. Mayor Cardinal, let’s have the city buy everyone an e-reader.” Flynn concluded her speech with: “I know curfew is early, but curfew doesn’t apply to law enforcement. You’re all welcome to join my new Vigilante Citizen Squad. Help us beat the hell out of crime after dark!” Lucky laughed, or barked, it was unclear which, and they both left, Tamika’s spurs rattinglina dn long cape swithing.

The Mayor has appealed to the public for support, stating that once we have a full coroner’s report on the bodies of Tristan and Camilla Cortez, we can engage iun a true investigation, rather than martial law. But given Tamika’s success in eradication the robberies, most people still trust her ability to stop librarians. I mean, battling those things is her specialty. There’s no one better. I’m not really afraid of robbers who target businesses, I mean, who’s gonna hold up a radio station? Or a science lab, where my husband works? But if librarians start believing they can wander anywhere, attack anyone reading any old book by one of America’s foremost poets or word smiths, then they could attack me, or Carlos. Or Steve, or Abby, or Janice. I-I know it seems like I’m scared, but I’m not. Like you, I’m just – wary. Wary of lurking disaster. Plus there’s so much to keep me entertained at home after curfew. It’s not like the 1990’s when the only technology we had was putting on politically satirical puppet shows using rocks with cartoon faces drawn on them. It’s actually enjoyable to turn in early each night. I’ve got an Xbox, a VR helmet, some vegetation that is tootally legal, and Susan Wilman’s HBO Go password, which Steve gripped for me. It’s great!

I don’t know how long we ca keep this up,but for now, I just want to feel safe. Stay tuned next for.. wait, hold on. Oh.. I just received a fax that the coroner’s report has been completed, Night Vale and.. huh. Oh wow! Ooh, you’re not going to like this! You know what, let’s save it.

it’s almost dark, Night Vale, curfew is almost upon us. This will pass as all things will pass. We’re in good hands in Tamika’s hands. If there’s anyone who knows how to protect us from librarians, she does.

Stay tuned next for the sound of two men cuddled up in bed watching the new season of Insecure.

And good night, Night Vale, Good night.

Today’s proverb: Pull this lever. Don’t worry, you will never know the result.

#welcome to night vale #wtnv transcripts #episode 115 #council member flynn part 2 #sorry it's so late

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shawwillsuffice · 6 years

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Every album and song referenced in every book by Hanif Abdurraqib

I decided to put together this list after finishing Hanif’s latest full-length book, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us: Essays. For those not familiar with Hanif, he’s a poet and essayist who really loves to talk about music. He writes a lot about hip hop, punk, and emo, but I also once texted him out of the blue to ask his opinion of the largely forgotten 90′s boy band O-Town and he had a number of clearly well-thought-out observations ready to go immediately. He writes about music in ways that are simultaneously about other very big things in his life and the society and communities that shaped it. It’s something I deeply appreciate, as a person for whom narrative storytelling is often the only way for me to express the things I’m thinking and feeling, for which simpler words just won’t cut it. His books are about fear, or heartbreak, or gentrification, or religion, or death and mourning, or hope, but they’re also pretty much all about music.

With that in mind, I decided to make it my 2018 New Year’s Resolution to listen to every album and song referenced in his books, and since I had to make this list anyway, I figure I’ll share it in case anyone else wants to do the same, or just wants an exhaustive list of Hanif’s music references for some other reason.

For clarity’s sake, this list includes songs and albums, but not instances where musical artists are named without reference to any of their actual material. I’ve omitted names of individual songs in cases where the albums they appear on are referenced in the same poem or essay. I’ve also tried to include indirect references that rely on context cues without identifying actual titles or song lyrics, though I’m sure I’ve missed some.

Of course, if any of this sounds at all interesting, I’d recommend buying the books themselves. The chapbooks are quite hard to find, unfortunately. Vintage Sadness famously sold out in pre-sale, even after the publisher more than doubled the print run due to overwhelming demand, and if there are any copies of Three Crosses or To Ex-Girlfriends to be had anywhere besides my bookshelf, I sure as hell can’t find them. However, both of the full-length books, The Crown Ain’t Worth Much and They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us are still very much available.

Three Crosses (2012)

- The Notorious B.I.G., Life After Death (”And it’s full. Been full. Stays full. Full since that ‘97 summer / When Biggie blared out of everything with windows. Everything that could breathe.”) - Johnny Cash, “Oh Bury Me Not” - Taylor Swift, “Last Kiss” - Michael Jackson, “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)” - Stevie Wonder, “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” (”Michelle Obama loves punk rock music. / Rolls her eyes backstage when Barack picks yet another Stevie Wonder standard to stroll out to during campaign stops.”) - The Clash, “I’m So Bored with the U.S.A.” - The Pogues, Red Roses for Me - Nirvana, In Utero

To Ex-Girlfriends (2014, I think?)

- The Who, “My Generation” - Johnny Cash, “John Henry’s Hammer” - Johnny Cash, “Cocaine Blues” (”In Folsom, they banged on metal tables / when you talked about that .44 you kept under your pillow”) - Jay-Z, Big Pimpin’ - The Notorious B.I.G., “Mo Money Mo Problems” - Diana Ross, “I’m Coming Out” - Johnny Cash, “I Never Picked Cotton” - Jay-Z and Kanye West, “No Church in the Wild” - Against Me!, “Thrash Unreal” - Van Morrison, “Sweet Thing” - Hall & Oates, “Sara Smile” - Hall & Oates, “Rich Girl”

The Crown Ain’t Worth Much (2016)

- Jay-Z, “Where I’m From” - Journey, “Don’t Stop Believin’” - Marvin Gaye, “What’s Going On” (”& he starts in on some marvin & the words ‘brother, brother, brother / there’s far too many of you dying’ crawl from his lips) - Fall Out Boy, “Saturday” - Jay-Z, “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” (”& Jay-Z called himself Hova / twelve times in one song”) - The Notorious B.I.G., “Mo Money Mo Problems” - Taking Back Sunday, Tell All Your Friends - Nick Drake, “Pink Moon” - The Notorious B.I.G., “N****s Bleed” - Something Corporate, “Konstantine” - Fall Out Boy, “Sugar We’re Goin’ Down” (”We wrote ‘IGNORE YOUR GOD COMPLEX’ in every bathroom stall on campus one of those years even though we knew the right lyrics”) - Kendrick Lamar, good kid, m.A.A.d. city - Whitney Houston, “How Will I Know” - Third Eye Blind, “Semi-Charmed Life” - The Temptations, “I Wish It Would Rain” - Nina Simone, “Mississippi Goddamn” - Nina Simone, “Sinnerman” - Nirvana, “Lithium”

Vintage Sadness (2017)

- Blood Orange ft. Carly Rae Jepsen, “Better Than Me” - Kanye West, “Only One” - Jay-Z and Kanye West, “No Church in the Wild” - Duran Duran, “Girls On Film” - Carly Rae Jepsen, “E*Mo*Tion” - Ginuwine, “Pony” - The Four Seasons, “December, 1963 (Oh What a Night)” - Jay-Z and Kanye West, “Illest Motherfucker Alive” - Aaliyah, “Rock the Boat” - Soul Decision, “Faded” - Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” - Guns N’ Roses, “Welcome to the Jungle” - Kelis, “Milkshake” - Jay-Z, “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” - Bone Thugs N Harmony, “Crossroads” - Next, “Too Close” - Olivia Newton John, “Let’s Get Physical” - Cutting Crew, “(I Just) Died in Your Arms Tonight” - Soul II Soul, “However Do You Want Me” - Jay-Z and Kanye West, “N****s in Paris”

They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us (2017)

- The U.S. National Anthem - Bruce Springsteen, “Born in the U.S.A.” - Lil Uzi Vert, “XO TOUR Llif3″ - Fetty Wap, “Trap Queen” - Chance the Rapper, Coloring Book - The Social Experiment, “Sunday Candy” - Chance the Rapper, Acid Rap - Drake, Views - Bruce Springsteen, The River - Carly Rae Jepsen, E*Mo*Tion - Carly Rae Jepsen, “Call Me Maybe” - Semisonic, “Closing Time” - Marcy Playground, “Sex and Candy” - Prince, “Baby, I’m a Star” - Bob Dylan, “All Along the Watchtower” - Foo Fighters, “Best of You” - Prince, “Purple Rain” - ScHoolboy Q, Oxymoron - The Notorious B.I.G., “N****s Bleed” - The Weeknd, Kiss Land - The Weeknd, House of Balloons - The Weeknd, Thursday - The Weeknd, Echoes of Silence - Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On - NOFX, “Don’t Call Me White” - Brand New, “Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades” - The Wonder Years, Suburbia I’ve Given You All And Now I’m Nothing - The Wonder Years, The Greatest Generation - The Wonder Years, No Closer to Heaven - Constellations, Alpha - Twenty One Pilots, Regional At Best - Rihanna, “Work” - Cute Is What We Aim For, The Same Old Blood Rush with a New Touch - Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Blank Generation - My Chemical Romance, The Black Parade - My Chemical Romance, May Death Never Stop You - My Chemical Romance, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - Defiance, Ohio, Share What Ya Got - Defiance, Ohio, The Great Depression - Fall Out Boy, Folie a Deux - Fall Out Boy, “Saturday” - Fall Out Boy, Infinity on High - Fall Out Boy, From Under the Cork Tree - Bobby Womack, “If You Think You’re Lonely Now” - Fall Out Boy, “Dead On Arrival” - Three 6 Mafia, “Star Fly” - Willie Hutch, “Tell Me Why Has Our Love Turned Cold” - Michael Jackson, Thriller - Ice Cube, AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted - Kendrick Lamar, To Pimp a Butterfly - The Impressions, “People Get Ready” - “The Gospel Train” - “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” - Sam Cooke, “A Change Is Gonna Come” - “Wade in the Water” - Foxx, “Wipe Me Down” - Webbie, Savage Life 2 - Lil Boosie, Incarcerated - Boosie Badazz, Touch Down 2 Cause Hell - Fleetwood Mac, Fleetwood Mac - Fleetwood Mac, Rumours - Atmosphere, When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold - The Notorious B.I.G., Life After Death - Diana Ross, “I’m Coming Out” - Big Pun, “Still Not a Player” - Bertolt Brecht and Elisabeth Hauptmann, The Threepenny Opera - Nina Simone, Nina Simone In Concert - Nina Simone, “Baltimore” - Nina Simone, “Sinnerman” - Lupe Fiasco, Food and Liquor - Migos, Culture - Migos, Juug Season - Migos, “Versace” - “When the Saints Go Marching In” - Johnny Cash, “Folsom Prison Blues” - Johnny Cash, At Folsom Prison - Johnny Cash, “Hurt” - N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton - Ice Cube, “No Vaseline” - 3rd Bass, “Pop Goes the Weasel” - Bone Thugs N Harmony, “Thug Love” - Bubba Sparxxx, Deliverance - Asher Roth, RetroHash - Asher Roth, “I Love College” (”Saw him in 2015 at some festival and a drunk white woman kept yelling at him to play the college song.”) - Macklemore, The Heist - Kendrick Lamar, good kid, m.A.A.d. city - Macklemore, This Unruly Mess I’ve Made - Future, Honest - Future, Dirty Sprite 2 - Future and Drake, What a Time to Be Alive - Future, Evol - Future, Beast Mode - Future, 56 Nights - Future, Purple Reign - Future, Future - Future, HNDRXX

#Hanif Abdurraqib #Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib #the crown ain't worth much #vintage sadness #They can't kill us until they kill us

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grimdarkandhandsome · 7 years

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SHAWN

I was so embarrassed of my laser rifle that first day. I kept switching between clipping it to my belt and slinging it over my shoulder, trying to find a place for it that had minimal impact on my silhouette. Why oh why didn't I just buy the magnetized holster?

'Everybody inside, children,' said Mentor Antonia as the dropship's big door swung open. 'Quick like bunnies! The Circle army is mustering as we speak.'

We filed into the dropship, yawning. Quixota was in front of me, heavy-footed in rocket boots.

'We're not children,' said Quixota. 'Even Eric has stopped growing by now.'

Mentor Antonia depolarized her faceplate so Quixota could see how unimpressed she was.

'If you're not children, then stop playing around and win some battles.' She leapt nimbly into the dropship. 'Takeoff in sixty secs.'

We squeezed in. I remembered my old mentor Lady Dohi, back on Tau Ceti II. She actually called us children too, but she said it in a nice way, I guess. Here in War Training, self-improvement had evolved into hawk-eyed competition. I sat down and strapped in, rifle nose-down between my knees. I was between Quixota and the cyborg, Eric. I didn't know either of them well at all. The ship was cramped with all the armored students, and as we settled in we kept scraping and scratching the already-scuffed paint on the plastic seats. Everything was painted a really depressingly bright green. I pulled my helmet down over my eyes so I didn't have to look at anybody. The CQC girls were chatting irritably about missing winter on their home planet. Our squad was almost all girls, as was typical for our generation. With a muffled roar we rose clumsily into the air, and I watched the jump-jets flicker outside the rear porthole as we flew away.

We were halfway thru our flight when our wristwatches glowed green, illuminating the undersides of everyone's chins and noses. We were entering the free combat zone. The CQC girls whooped and chanted.

'Ho! Ho! Ho! HO!'

The girl across from me looked my way and rolled her eyes.

'Dionysians,' she remarked, as if this were normal or even a word.

I intended to ask what she meant, but somehow just gave an awkward gesture of irritation and confusion.

She elaborated anyway: 'The opposite of Apollonians.'

She was a Light, or maybe Analyst class, tall with neat black hair. She wore a warp suit that made her look like a praying mantis librarian.

'I'm Lysa,' she said.

'I'm Shawn,' I said miserably. 'Nice to meet you.'

'Hey!' announced someone towards the front with a fusion spear. 'You guys! We are gonna blast those Circle dicks in half!'

Her companions cheered. I grimaced.

'The pleasure is all mine,' said Lysa, eyes sparkling. 'I see you've brought a laser rifle.'

I couldn't tell if this girl was making fun of me or not. 'It has really good hip-fire accuracy,' I mumbled.

'Do me a favor, okay? Hang on to this.'

She handed me a silver sphere about the size of an eyeball. It had a little triangle etched into it.

'Uh, um, okay,' I said, and dropped it into my satchel with all my other gear.

'Have you ever been in a ground war before?' she said.

'No.' I was painfully aware that despite being nine orbits old, I looked more like seven.

'Neither have I,' said Lysa. 'But I've played a divine buttload of simulations.'

* * *

Forward Base Rho was too new to have a real name. It had only been captured yesterday, and might well be lost again soon if the enemy mecha column came this way. It consisted of a circular wall, three towers with bomb launchers, two barracks (for seniors and juniors), a bathroom, a bunker, and two picnic tables. A couple battlefield cars were parked outside, caked in red dust.

We landed and piled out, blinking in the sun. We had alighted on a vast shallow slope under a brilliant blue sky. Out here in the wastes, the earth was a dry, windblown red, hard like asphalt. Patches of blue-green grass waved like seaweed. The land was very flat, distinguished by craters, ridges, and rocky hills. Downhill, at the limit of my vision, I saw a blue river winding among green fields. It was hot out, but the breeze was cool.

The local commander unlatched the gate and waved us inside. ('Oi! Munchkins!') He was an older man from the Mecha Corps, with a robotic arm and a familial demeanor. He looked kindof like a broad-shouldered Confucius. He led us to the battlements, for the debriefing.

'Hello and welcome, soldiers. I'm Rozome, and, yes, I named Base Rho after myself. The campaign's going pretty good down here, but it all hinges on whether we can deal with the enemy armor in the west.'

He pointed towards the plains downhill, where a large plume of dust hung in the distance.

'Base rules are "Don't cause trouble" and that's it. I'm in charge of this here base, but your Mentor is in charge of you.'

Mentor Antonia bounced her eyebrows.

'You guys are in luck,' continued Rozome, tucking his beard into his jacket. 'The enemy doesnt care about this spot at all. You can totally goof off. Before you arrived it was just me and the journalist defending this place.'

From one of the gun-towers a skinny young man gave us a half-interested wave.

We all gave each other a look. All of us were here for action and career development. Bunking in the desert with no combat and a dozen meatheads? That was just a bad summer camp. I sighed.

'Anyway, pretty straightforward. Go ahead and settle in. I'll shout if we're attacked tonight, but 99% odds it's going to be quiet.'

Mentor Antonia herded us back down to ground level. 'Mission tomorrow at 0900. Recon. No delays.'

We shuffled into the junior barracks.

* * *

After dinner, the CQC kids crowded onto four bunks for a tedious and noisy game of Never Have I Ever. I was just tossing my satchel onto the top bunk in the far corner when a flash of crimson lightning exploded in my face.

'What the shit?!' I probably said, falling onto my butt.

In the previously-empty top bunk sat Lysa, grinning.

'Hi!'

'What did you ... do?!' I said, picking myself up again.

'I'm testing the teleport homer I gave you.' She tossed my satchel back down to me. 'I'll take top bunk, okay? We can be friends, it'll be fun.'

'Um. Alright.'

I put my bag on the lower pillow instead. I mean, at least I could get out the door faster if we were attacked.

'So,' said Lysa, peeling off her warp suit. 'What's your plan for tomorrow?'

'Well,' I said, 'I don't think we'll do any real fighting, but I'll probably just give cover and supporting fire if we do.' I started to take off my armor. 'And you?'

She pulled an immense Earth Sucks tshirt over her head. 'Watch and learn!'

* * *

In the morning after breakfast we aggregated by the gate and, after some headcounting, squeezed into the cars. They were big combat models, like particularly bouncy trucks. Four people in armor could fit in the back, with a smaller passenger seat next to the driver. Lysa sat up there, next to Mentor Antonia in the front car. I was in the second car, in the back.

To noone's surprise, the mission itself was completely uneventful. It wasn't horrible, actually, because the cars were open-topped in the back. I'd forgotten how pretty terrestrial planets could be. We patrolled a wide perimeter around Base Rho, then split up and went exploring. There were some very nice striped arches in the rock, and actually a few artificial statues. I wondered whether would we have time to try our hands at carving something like that. It was a nice meditation.

We got back in the mid-afternoon. It was viciously hot and a layer of boredom was accumulating on our shoulders. Most of the others procured warm beer and retreated to the barracks, so Lysa took advantage of the quiet to teach me chess. Apparently they gave classes on it on her planet (Aurora I). She seemed a little heat-wilted until I killed both her chancellors with one elephant. Then she perked up and became much more competitive. Soon she had two bishops and her queen pointing at my defenseless king, and I had to tip him over. We sat in the shade of the well and she read while I dozed.

* * *

Wednesday was just as boring as Tuesday, altho Lysa brightened it a little by texting me mocking nicknames for our squadmates. (For example, we named the short girl with the flamethrower Blowhard.) We drove as far as Base Beta on the edge of the sector, but didn't see so much as a bullet hole.

Thursday the other girls got fed up and confronted Mentor Antonia. The bravest of them (Blowhard, in fact) knocked on the senior barracks, while her friends hooted and cheered her on. Our Mentor opened the door immediately.

'Yes?' She was in simple unarmored fatigues, but she somehow wore them with an air of austere competence.

'Yo, we, um ... we would like to submit a command request, sir.'

She merely raised an eyebrow.

'Can we, uh, can we engage some of the enemy, sir?'

Mentor Antonia smiled and looked them over.

'Okay.'

'Yo, you're serious??'

'Yes. Everyone in the cars in twenty.'

There was much whooping. Even I whooped, quietly. Lysa just grinned.

* * *

The sky was a fiery orange by the time we rolled out. The sky was immense on this planet. The CQCs were really happy, punching shoulders and shooting lasers into the ground. Actually, I couldn't blame them.

We rumbled downhill at a very bumpy pace. We were borrowing one of the bomb launchers from the base towers, which Blowhard was crewing beside me.

'Our target,' said Mentor Antonia over the radio, 'is Base Lima, which is currently under Circle control. We're going to do a driveby first, once around. We are going to fall back out of range if they answer with equivalent resistance. If they do not present enough resistance my car - and my car only - will storm the base. Car Two will support or fall back at Quixota’s discretion, while remaining mobile. Over.'

I pumped my fist surreptitiously. I was in the front car! I was in the van, like furious Achilles. I power-cycled my rifle and double-checked the battery.

We killed the headlights when we were ten minutes away. There was a lot of shhing in the back seats. I inventoried: rifle, four batteries, fully loaded cylinder pistol, an ion grenade and a concussion grenade. Time for my first day on the job.

Base Lima was supposedly in the center of a big, weathered crater downhill of us. I craned my neck but the crater's edge obscured everything below the base's comms antenna, gleaming in the sun. The enemy had fixed a Circle flag to it. It shuddered in the steady wind, and I thrilled.

When we crested the ridge, I saw why we hadn't run into any enemies this whole time. We went over it with one of those little jumps that feels like going into space for just a second, and we skidded a little on the red gravel. We descended into a broad basin of red sand, in the center of which was ...

'Is that ... a golf course?!' I said, squinting in the sun.

'I think it's like a big ass little forest, man,' postulated Blowhard beside me.

We drove cautiously towards the anomalous patch of green below us. It was at least five minutes away, but it still looked pretty large in area, maybe the size of a small stadium. It had trees, and very bright grass, and a sparkling river. The base's towers gleamed in the middle of the woods. It all looked really great to us in our dusty combat gear.

'An oasis!' I heard Lysa shout over the radio.

'Boss, yo, can we go swimming?' said Blowhard.

'No, soldier,' said our Mentor.

'Aww, c'mon sir, why not?'

'Because there is resistance.'

And then ten camouflaged figures, just a stone’s throw away, stood up and opened fire.

* * *

'The winner is the artist with the more elegant performance.'

This was my best teacher's motto. Ms Dohi, the Vertical War veteran. She was as tall as my shoulder, and her black hair was half as long as her. Definitely one of those competitive Vega women. And it was easy to see the results. In her office hung her doctorate in Campbellian film, and on her chest hung her Iron Heart.

'The opening of violence, the introduction of projectile exchange, this is the most primal possible way to begin a narrative. The eyes are widened, the heart is engaged, the knees bend as the audience enters the story.'

I did all her assigned reading. Her Narrative Infantry Ops class was my favorite. It really made me see combat from a new angle.

'...In this framework, then, to engage the foe with the classical honor, with urgency, is to accelerate the close of the ritual. To stand ground in Bushidic valor is to combat not just the foe, but combat itself. A more honest, Coverful attitude to violence is the embracing of covert actions. The soul of taking cover is iterative, a repeating dialectic of attack and retreat. Coverful warfighting is mutual, constructive, and compassionate. Hiding from the foe, engaging in mutual search, killing from behind, these are relationships of respect for the foe's mind, celebration of the foe's agency.'

Accordingly, when the Circle ambush started shooting holes in the sides of the car, I took five quick breaths and jumped out onto the sand. When I stopped rolling, the cars were roaring away uphill, but at least the dust of their wakes obscured me. Coverful warfighting is about pushing the envelope. Changing the gamestate.

Lying low on my stomach, I unhooked my concussion grenade and got ready to toss it at my enemies' feet. I only needed to stay unnoticed until it detonated, then I would have the advantage.

Unfortunately, in the next instant my concentration was interrupted by a giant

- BOOM -

as something unnecessarily high-powered punched a hole in my chest. Everything went numb and I started to fade. The last thing I saw was a Circle girl with big goggles pumping her fist as my own grenade went off in my hand.

* * *

T R Y T W O.

I woke up in a small bed with thick sheets. I was back in Forward Base Rho. Lysa was there, wearing a dress and writing in a black notebook.

She smiled. 'Finally, you're awake!'

#sunlight #barsoom #mars #scifi #short story #fanfiction #fps #john campbell

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piracytheorist · 7 years

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Killian Jones as Chaotic

Note 1: this post doesn’t aim in trashing Killian’s character, but I will mention his evil deeds in as impartial a way as possible. It’s merely an effort for character analysis and study. Note 2: I’m planning to write a second part with the focus on Rumpelstiltskin, and a final third part which will point out the parallels and anti-parallels between both characters. It’s just that this one turned out to be huge so I decided to post it as is.

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Character alignment started with character creation in role-playing games, but it has spread everywhere and with a certain stretch, it can apply to every single fictional character. The stretch is that rarely will you find characters that are of only one alignment, so in here I will talk about how Killian fits most criteria for one alignment, but also has important features of other alignments.

In a few words, just to make things clear, Law is when characters respect authorities and duty, while Chaos is when characters cherish their freedom and follow their conscience. Notice that none necessarily means Good or Evil, because as you can see, there are Lawfuls and Chaotics of all kinds. But I will talk about those in detail below.

Let’s talk about chaos. From easydamus:

Chaotic Good, "Rebel"

Chaotic good characters act as their conscience directs them with little regard for what others expect of them. They make their own way, but they’re kind and benevolent. They believe in goodness and right but have little use for laws and regulations. They hate it when people try to intimidate others and tell them what to do. They follow their own moral compass, which, although good, may not agree with that of society.

Chaotic Neutral, "Free Spirit"

Chaotic neutral characters follow their whims. They are individualists first and last. They value their own liberty but don't strive to protect others' freedom. They avoid authority, resent restrictions, and challenge traditions. Chaotic neutral characters do not intentionally disrupt organizations as part of a campaign of anarchy. To do so, they would have to be motivated either by good (and a desire to liberate others) or evil (and a desire to make those different from themselves suffer). Chaotic neutral characters may be unpredictable, but their behavior is not totally random. They are not as likely to jump off a bridge as to cross it.

Chaotic Evil, "Destroyer”

Chaotic evil characters do whatever their greed, hatred, and lust for destruction drive them to do. They are hot-tempered, vicious, arbitrarily violent, and unpredictable. If they are simply out for whatever they can get, they are ruthless and brutal. If they are committed to the spread of evil and chaos, they are even worse. Thankfully, their plans are haphazard, and any groups they join or form are poorly organized. Typically, chaotic evil people can be made to work together only by force, and their leader lasts only as long as he can thwart attempts to topple or assassinate him.

Key words/phrases: “make their own way”, “value their liberty”, “unpredictable”. All good by now? Good. Let’s go to Killian.

As a kid, Killian adored and idolized his father. Perhaps he didn’t know any better. But in one way or another, the father figure is a form of authority, and he had that shattered at a very young age.

We know for sure that he grew up close to his brother, but in the horrible situation Brennan, Killian’s first authoritative figure, put them in. So he grows up to become impulsive, passionate, and defiant. He tries to attack Captain Silver when the latter bullies him, he doesn’t want to join the Navy, he drowns his sorrows in booze, but wishes he could be the brother he thinks Liam deserves.

When it comes to Liam, he wants to meet someone’s expectations, a trait of Lawful characters. A-ha.

They enlist in the Navy.

Please welcome Killian Jones, aspiring Lawful Good version.

In true nature, Killian is Chaotic; he values his freedom and doesn’t trust authority easily. Bad trait for a soldier, but he was trying for his brother’s sake/approval. So when Peter “there are no kings in Neverland” Pan plants a seed of doubt in Killian’s mind, that their benevolent king is not as benevolent as he may have thought, that sets Killian off immediately. Before Liam died for good, they were talking about “reporting [their king?] to the Admiralty”. When Liam dies, Killian goes full rogue, confiscates the ship and turns pirate. Taking matters into his own hands, not trusting into the law to solve things.

His reasons are Good; opposing a king who had sent them off to get poison. But in his speech, he says “We’ll sail under the crimson flag and we’ll give our enemies no quarter. We’ll take what we please.” His means are definitely Chaotic, since they’re opposing a king, but not exactly Good.

The code of Chaotic characters goes like this, according to easydamus:

Killian becomes Captain, something his crew seems to agree on, all to avenge his brother’s death. So his alignment as of now is mostly Chaotic Neutral, with sprinkles of Chaotic Good and Evil here and there.

And here is the first gap. Next time we see him is when he meets Rumpelstiltskin, and a lot seems to have changed till then. We don’t know what, but what we know is that he definitely turned himself into a bad guy.

He is Evil at that point. Selfish, cunning, nasty, bully. We all know. The thing is, he has a long way to go until he goes full vengeful Captain Hook and Ultra Evil Dark Hook. So I’m gonna place him somewhere between Neutral and Evil for that point. If anything, he doesn’t yet fit the “Destroyer” role. He had the potential for it but he probably didn’t care much pre-Milah’s death.

I would like to comment here on his first meeting with Milah. He may be cruel and violent, but sometimes even he has manners. When he notices that Milah is being harassed, he steps in and punches the guy out. Then he offers Milah a drink, kisses her hand, and eventually accepts her rejection when she mentions her husband. Make of that what you will.

Even pirates have a code, so when Rumpelstiltskin challenges him to a duel Killian knows he’s going to lose, he accepts anyway.

Milah dies and he dedicates himself to revenge.

Please welcome Killian Jones, Chaotic Evil version.

He’s literally going up alone against someone way more powerful than him and not giving a damn about that. He only helps Pan out of necessity, a means to reach his goal. He harms innocents who didn’t provoke him (Ursula) even ones he could invest emotionally in (Baelfire) or his own family (Liam II). Somewhere deep is the want to help others but he’s too far in. He lies and betrays and doesn’t give a damn about authority, and even takes other people’s freedom as well (Aurora). In other words, Chaotic as all hell.

The only tidbit I find is that in Season 2 he allowed himself to be another villain’s lackey. Cora, Regina, Greg and Tamara, in all cases he agreed to help them and do as he was told without being threatened. That is what I think is his 180 turn for the ones he loves; he turns Lawful, but he does so voluntarily. Again, Killian’s goal is still Chaotic; he doesn’t want to bring the bad guy to justice (Lawful) he just wants to avenge Milah’s death for her and himself.

Even so, he mostly acts alone (Chaotic - freedom) and changes sides all the time. He leaves Cora to join the Princesses, he hurries off to kill Rumpelstiltskin before Cora tells him it’s dangerous, he attacks Belle alone, he goes to New York alone, etc. The villains are there to get his help, not the other way around, and he doesn’t expect to be helped.

When faced with certain death, he offers his knowledge to the good guys only to betray them again and change his mind and come back. At the end of Season 2 he offers his help to find Henry and decidedly hits pause on his quest for revenge.

He’s got way to go, however, until he’s reached Neutral territory. In Neverland he made some progress, but he let it all go after everyone returned to the Enchanted Forest. Again, stealing, killing, betraying innocents (Ariel), though now without a cause. And then the second curse is cast.

*Knock knock*

Please welcome Killian Jones, Chaotic Neutral version.

Again, not truly Neutral, since his goal is Good; to bring Emma back and help save the others. Partially, however, he also wanted to be part of Emma’s life. And not fully Chaotic, he’s not against being told what to do anymore and is upset with keeping the secret of his cursed lips. But he still acts alone (trying to send Henry to New York without telling anyone), doesn’t disclose the truth about the missing year and Ariel, and doesn’t really ask for help with his cursed lips. All that are just part of his character and perfectly following the patterns of his previous behaviours.

Slowly he starts adopting Good traits: helping the needy - Storybrooke, honoring those who promote goodness - Charmings and co., not betraying others even when his life was in danger - cursed lips storyline.

Something that really interests me in his scene with Emma outside of Granny’s in the finale is this interaction: Emma thanks him for bringing her back, and he replies with “It was the right thing to do.” It’s fantastic because it can be read as Lawful (it was his duty to do so) but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t want to do it (Chaotic - he just damn well wanted to do it so he did it).

Off to Season 4, his Evil tendencies are tingling, and he blackmails Gold into helping them. Gold helps them significantly. Then Killian blackmails Gold a second time, extracting the deal - Bad Form. He also lies/keeps it all a secret from Emma, and then his freedom is taken away.

Personal freedom is of the essence for a Chaotic character. For a Chaotic Good character, personal freedom for others is essential too. Here Hook has lost the former and then has to take the fairies’ freedom too, and since he’s becoming Good, that upsets him even more. His continued defiance to Gold during those episodes could stem from this important trait of his character; even if his agency was taken away, he doesn’t stop trying to find ways to show himself that he does have a little left. It doesn’t hurt that it pisses Gold off, but the most important thing for Hook was to have that reassurance (see below for the Hades stuff).

One way I personally like to describe Chaotic characters in my mind is “overreacting and impulsive”.

In this case, Ursula is innocent - the worst thing she’s done is condone to kidnapping a child Hook didn’t even know, and she’s also a past victim of his - but to him, that doesn’t matter. And Ursula is pretty Chaotic herself - wanting to get away from her father, not caring whether he is a god or not - so it’s just Hook being overreacting and impulsive here. Good thing Ursula could defend herself.

However, the Chaotic Good trait “You shall honor those who promote freedom and goodness” comes into play when Emma gets angry with her parents for the Lily fiasco. He supports them and tries to help her forgive them, based on the fact that now they’re good and that they tried to fix their mistake. Which had nothing to do with them being her parents (authority) or actual royalty.

Then comes Cowardly Deckhand Hook.

This version of Hook doesn’t simply respect authority - he cowers to it. However, when his true self seems to come forward thanks to Emma, he actually stands up to Evil Snow’s guards and even threatens the same Queen herself.

Camelot and 5a, oh boy.

Again, acting on his own and impulsively - trying to free Zelena (and to take her heart, no less) and opposing Regina. And Good traits again - caring for Emma’s agency (to the extreme and almost at Robin’s expense) and goodness. Not caring about the apparently important tradition of a ball and focusing at the task at hand - however, now that I think of that, I think the first time we see him bow and actually mean it was to Emma right before he started dancing with her in said ball. Lawful for those he loves, hmm.

He looks sarcastic at David’s knighting and I find that interesting, however we never see his reaction to Arthur (royalty) until much later. He steps first into the breaking in in the dungeons and punches a couple of guards unconscious, helping the release of Merida and Lancelot. He gets angry with Merlin for telling them to break into the castle again without knowing all the dangers. Eventually he joins the second break-in, escapes from his bondage and attacks Arthur himself. He is angry with Regina forcing Emma to talk, and then the juicy and painful part comes.

Emma ignores his dying wish and turns him into the Dark One against his will.

As said before, a Chaotic character values their personal freedom above almost everything else. For a character like Killian, who grew up in servitude and had no say in his own life until he escaped it, it is safe to believe that he can be even more shaken by having his agency taken away. Sadly for him, it’s not only one instance then. Emma lies to him about Excalibur, and when he pushes her to reveal she has it, he takes a step back disgusted and asks if she’d used it on him. He’s still holding onto some Good/Neutral traits - not wanting to kill Emma in order to cast the Dark Curse, but the last straw is when Emma summons him against his will, and then he’s gone.

Please welcome Killian Jones, Ultra Chaotic Evil version.

After that point, he’s at his total worst. He lies, he betrays Emma, he kills Merlin with glee and casts the Dark Curse. Destroyer in every sense of the word.

After forgetting all of those stuff, he seems to automatically change back to his pre-Camelot persona. You could argue that pushing Emma away while they were in Storybrooke could be his transition to Lawful for her. That he wanted to be with her (Chaotic) but he had the duty to stay away for both of their sakes (Lawful). However, he brings the others with him (working with others - Lawful) in order to break into her house (breaking the law - Chaotic), but that’s only this once, because next thing we know, he’s trying to summon Emma alone, he jumps off a building to get her attention, and frees Zelena in an effort to get free and the answers he wants.

I also want to point out something on the murders he talks about. Barnaby mocked him for his disability, and Edgar was drinking from his wine. Pretty minor reasons to kill them, but those murders had nothing to do with Killian advancing himself and promoting order, so Chaotic.

He remembers he’s the Dark One and Chaotic Evil rises again.

And in the end, I want to note that his death was Lawful; he wanted to be remembered as someone good, he specifically says so.

And then the Underworld. Oh boy. If him being injured, bloody and almost unable to stand yet still opposing a very god himself doesn’t scream Chaotic, I don’t know what does. From his very first lines to Hades, he threatens to kill him (or do whatever’s worse to him), he sassies him and refuses to do what he asks. He doesn’t care about Hades’ position or power. Of course, all of that does have to do with Hades being the one who caused him pain and all, but it fits his character and it makes sense for him to threaten a freaking god instead of simply wanting to escape the torture.

He does that while he’s a complete prisoner of Hades and has absolutely zero control or ability to stop him from hurting him. I think that once again his ceaseless defiance in every scene between them stemmed from Hook’s need to feel like he does have a little agency left. If he can’t stop Hades from hurting him, he can at least insult and boast at him. Same way he did with Captain Silver and Rumpelstiltskin.

He adds one more point to his hate for Rumpelstiltskin after finding out about his scheme because he feels like everything he did was so that Rumpelstiltskin could gain power, and that stings a lot for a Chaotic character; for someone to use their actions to advance themselves in strength and power.

And then he meets Liam again, Liam the ever Lawful. Remember how Killian wanted to be an upright Lawful officer because of his brother’s influence? Here you can see the same - with Liam agreeing to it, Killian prefers to allow the powers that be judge his fate than fight for a better outcome himself. Until he finds out that Liam wasn’t as Lawful Good as Killian thought he was - he had willingly allowed some innocent sailors to die (gaining power by killing, Lawful Evil) and he had lied to Killian about it (Chaotic). Killian’s image for his brother/father figure, one of the few authorities he’d allowed himself to respect, shatters, but not his love for him.

So next thing we know, he agrees to Emma’s plan to take matters into his own hands and go back with them. He proposes he kill Zelena (Evil), whom he still finds dangerous and suspicious. We don’t know who suggests he change the name on the tombstones, but he does cooperate with David on it and helps Cora escape at Regina’s request - breaking the law in pursuit of what he and the others think of as good. The fact that those seem to upset Hades a bit doesn’t hurt either.

He seems to be the only one who doesn’t trust Hades at any given moment. When he approaches them with a fair and seemingly clear deal, Hook warns Emma to not trust him. When the heart thing doesn’t work, he immediately accuses him. When Hades tells them to go alone after the ambrosia, he subtly voices his suspicions. His suspicions turn out to be legit in the end, but I think that most of it stemmed from his Chaotic nature and his complete unwillingness to trust in any authority.

In Season 6, Belle asks for a refuge and he lets her stay on the ship, without caring about the fact that she’s actually leaving her husband. It’s kind of a sensitive matter here, but from Hook’s perspective, I think he believed he was doing something good even if that meant he was going against traditions. Of course, this could be interpreted differently, I just think it fits the pattern.

Emma asks him to dispose of the shears, and he lies about doing that, while trying to solve things on his own (Chaotic), however, in the end he admits to his wrong.

Conclusion and personal thoughts

Look, I love Hook very much. But I’m not one to excuse his actions and glorify him by ignoring his past, and even his present. He still has violent tendencies, and the show didn’t bother to spend one second to show that he felt bad for accidentally killing Jekyll. What I’m trying to say is, even if his endgame is Good (protecting Emma and her family), he’s still somewhere between Neutral and Good. Besides, I don’t think he’ll ever actually stop wanting to kill Rumpelstiltskin, I just think he’s at peace with the idea that killing him isn’t worth it. But somewhere deep there is the want, and the Code of a Chaotic Good or Neutral character is “You shall not murder”, with no specifics. So if murder is at someone’s mind, they have Evil tendencies even if they’re actively trying and wanting to act Good. And of course there’s the matter of his past. I’m not trying to vilify him, but for the sake of this meta, I have to be honest.

Finally, Killian’s character alignment could be summed up to this; mostly Chaotic, he values his freedom and is triggered by the loss of it, he acts Lawful for those he loves, or in memory of them, but when they’re in danger his knee-jerk reaction is to act alone. Good goals, Good/Neutral actions, occasional Evil tendencies.

#Killian Jones #Killian Jones meta #feel free to disagree

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arachcobra · 5 years

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Naruto Episode 7, 8 and 9 Review

Enter the cowprint ninja and his boomerang blade of doom.

Review of Naruto Episode 7, 8 and 9: The Assassin of the Mist! The Oath of Pain! And Kakashi: Sharingan Warrior

ArachCobra

So we start out with our intrepid crew being rowed to the Land of Waves through the fog. We get some exposition about Gato, who's a very small colossal asshole and how he has broken the land. The Tazuna emotionally blackmails three teenagers and a grow man into risking their lives for him, despite the fact that they're only here because he lied in the first place. You're so sympathetic, Tazuna.

Yes, I know it's a joke. Doesn't make it funnier or any less dickish.

So then they arrive and start going through the forest, with Naruto scowling at Sasuke all the way, thinking about how cool he is and how he'll prove himself better. At this point, he's moments away from pulling his dick out and yelling: “LET'S MEASURE THEM!”

So then to prove how badass he is, Naruto runs ahead and stars attacking random shrubbery, just to prove how on guard he is.

You see, Naruto isn't very smart.

Then he almost murders a rabbit. He's so apologetic that he starts rubbing the rabbit all over himself. It's weird.

Then Kakashi realizes that the rabbit is white and must have been saved from winter to be used for substitution. Which raises some questions. Like, does ninjas have to prepare materials for substitution? If yes, does that mean Kakashi has a stack of logs somewhere? And if no, why would anyone bring a rabbit when there's probably a thousand less suspicious objects in a forest?

Then Zabuza throws his sword at them like a Frisbee. I have no idea how he manages, but it looks stupid. It slices into a tree and he just materializes on top of it so he can look all dramatic.

Now, before I continue, I actually do like Zabuza. I like his second outfit better than the cow-print and I do think his intro is silly. But as a villain, I like him. Unfortunately, Zabuza is a severe victim of being off-model these episodes. At one point, his torso is stretched, in another his pants have been pulled up to his nipples and in one shot, it looks like he broke his neck just so he could glare at our protagonists from under his armpit.

Anyway, Naruto takes one look at this guy who's build like four brick outhouses stacked together and made from pure muscle, wielding a sword that's bigger than he is and just goes: “Yeah, I can take him.”

You see, Naruto is a bit of an idiot.

Kakashi has to point out that no, he can't take Zabuza on and reveals his right eye. We are informed that its a sharingan. It apparently allows you to see very well. So the fighting begin and fog envelops the area.

Now, we're informed that Zabuza is the master of the silent kill technique. So of course, he start yapping about all the ways you can kill a man. The tension of it all gets to Sasuke, who's having a surprising moment of vulnerability. That ends with him wanting to kill himself. Yeah, maybe that's a tad bit too vulnerable. Anyway, it's okay, Kakashi comforts him.

Then Zabuza gets ready to kill them all.

But then Kakashi appears and kills Zabuza.

But it was just a water clone and Zabuza appears and kills Kakashi.

But it was just a water clone and Kakashi appears and stops Zabuza.

But it was just a water clone and Zabuza appears and kicks Kakashi in the stomach.

Then things get a little weird. I think what happens is that Kakashi, while being kicked in the lake, drops some caltrops. Zabuza then stops in front of them and spends some time talking about how Kakashi thought he could delay him with the caltrops, thus being delayed by the caltrops by talking about how the caltrops aren't delaying him. Then he backflips into the lake and catches Kakashi, who's spend all this time floating like a rubber duck, in a bubble.

Then he summons another water clone to attack the crew, which it does with gusto. Naruto tries to flee, but then sees his own bandaged hand and remember he swore to never give in, never surrender. And therefore, he has to fight the musclebound blademaster goliath that is Zabuza.

Point actually goes to Sasuke here. He also realizes they have to fight. But his reason is much smarter. That without Kakashi, Zabuza will just hunt them down and then kill them.

Sakura yells warning and occasionally she and Tazuna groans like they decided to spend their off-screen time vigorously banging each other.

Anyway, Naruto charges Zabuza and then gets the shit kicked out of him. But he got his headband back, so it's all cool.

Then he and Sasuke performs this actually pretty clever strategy. Naruto jumps him with some clones of his own, transforms into a giant shuriken, passes it to Sasuke, who throws both it and his own big shuriken(Not sure when he got one of those, but whatever), forcing Zabuza to catch one and jump over the other, only for Naruto to transform back and throw a kunai, so Zabuza has to let go of the prison and let Kakashi go free to avoid getting an impromptu lobotomy.

As I said, this is actually a very clever strategy that, for the most part, utilizes the skills we've seen and gives a believable way that the characters can outmatch Zabuza, without negating everything we know about Zabuza.

But here's the problem.

This entire combo relies on Naruto and Sasuke being so in sync that they can concoct and perform such a strategy without communicating.

Bull.

Fucking.

Shit.

Those two have shown nothing but scorn for each other so far. The most teamwork we've seen was in the bells test. There's no way they've fought enough together to be able to pull that off. And don't tell me their rivalry allows them this insight. They've barely interacted with each other. Maybe if they had fought with each other for years, I could buy it, but here, no way.

Anyway, Kakashi gets free and him and Zabuza attack each other simultaneously by spending half a minute chanting and then summoning water dragons to bite each other.

I'm unsure how that technique would be useful in battle, but okay.

Then they clash in melee. You'd expect this to be a tense battle where Kakashi would have to use all his acrobatic skills to avoid Zabuza's superior reach and power.

Instead, Kakashi blocks Zabuza's blade with his own dinky kunai and then they stand there pressing against each other while grunting. It's kinda lame to be honest.

Kakashi then wages a campaign of psychological terror against Zabuza and overwhelms him, smashing him through the forest with a water spout. It's actually pretty cool. But just as he's about to finish the swordsman off, he gets needled in the throat. The swordsman, that is.

A masked ninja shows up and says he's been hunting Zabuza for going rogue.

And then Naruto gets super pissed that someone that young could be that much more powerful and skilled than him, yelling about why are they there and that they don't know anything. Rarely is Naruto this much on point.

And then Kakashi faints.

All in all, an enjoyable battle with some issues. Sakura feels completely superfluous, but I suppose somebody did have to guard Tazuna, just in case.

Givenea

Let’s just start at the beginning of episode 7, shall we. The gang is in a boat on the final stretch of the journey to the Land of Waves, and Tazuna finally comes clean about everything, from his reason for lying about the assignment to just how much danger they will be in. This is where Kakashi actually sounds like the leader of the inexperienced team he has, as he contemplates if they can handle it.

BUT FORGET ABOUT THAT, before anything can come of this, can even be properly discussed, Tazuna guilts them into continuing by saying his family will be sad if he dies. Then he turns to the camera, holds up two fingers, sends us the most shit-eating grin and proclaims “I win” in an almost singsong voice.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS ASSHOLE???!!!

Anyway… once ashore, they run into the terrifying rogue-ninja Zabuza Momoji, who traps Kakashi in a bubble, forcing Naruto and Sasuke to enact a daring and complicated plan to save him, while Sakura… does her job and protects their client???

Okay, I’m just gonna put this here… SAKURA NEEDS TO BE UTILIZED MORE! SHE NEEDS SOMETHING TO DO!

Anyway, Naruto’s plan involves him attacking Zabuza, then making a bunch of clones and attacking again, to disguise that he has turned into a giant shuriken, which one of his clone tosses to Sasuke, who pairs it with his own giant shuriken (PS. He has one of those) and tosses both at Zabuza who catches one and jumps over the other. But uh-oh, the second shuriken was Naruto, who now transform back and throws a kunai at Zabuza’s face, forcing him to let go of the bubbled Kakashi, who breaks free.

Naruto then explain that the purpose of the plan was always to free Kakashi and that he only had to toss the Naruto-shuriken at Sasuke for him to be completely in on everything.

Sakura then declares Naruto and Sasuke the perfect team.

And… I don’t buy it… Nope… Not even for a second… Na-ah…

Naruto and Sasuke has up to this point never communicated really. Naruto has whined that Sasuke is too cool for him to keep up with and thrown a few insults. Sasuke has ignored Naruto, aside from a few times where he has mocked him.

So, I don’t believe, not even the tiniest little bit, that they are capable of this level of understanding and teamwork.

This scene comes too early for that. If this was the season finale and we had seen them train and grow and learn together for some 20 episodes, seen them develop a begrudging respect, as they fought together and got used to each other’s different strategies and fighting styles, then sure.

Here… It’s just stupid, go back to square one and try again.

Fluttersniper13

There was the boatman who said he couldn't take them all the way, but he clearly almost did and then the forest of boredom, and then Zabuza show up with his boomerang blade of doom. And his amazing silent kill technique of never shutting the fuck up and taking way too fucking long to do anything. Sakura is useless, Naruto is useless, Sasuke is useless. Tazuna just stand their gormless and Kakashi look like he wants to be anywhere but here. Then dragons out of nowhere, tsunami and needle to the throat. Naruto says some stupid shit and Kakashi decides to take a nap. The end.

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13125294/6/Naruto-Rewrite-1-Road-to-Ninja

#naruto #naruto rewrite #review

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junker-town · 7 years

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2021 NBA player rankings, Nos. 70-61: Jahlil Okafor still has one believer

Bet you didn’t expect to see Jahlil Okafor on a list of the 101 best players in 2021, but one of us still has hope.

When reading this ongoing projection of the 101 best NBA players in 2021, it’s important to remember that this is not a consensus list. Instead, 10 of us picked one after the other, fantasy draft style. That way, we could defend our picks while the rest of the crew argued for or against them.

That’s an important prelude to the surprising choice one of us made at No. 70. Let’s get to it.

70. Jahlil Okafor

CHRIS GREENBERG: We’re all understandably excited about the future of the 76ers. Jahlil Okafor is not the future of the 76ers. But that does not mean he has no future.

Okafor is only 21 years old right now. Sure, he hasn’t delivered on all — or any — of that silky post game promise he used in a lone season at Duke to earn all sorts of hardware and the No. 3 spot in the 2015 draft. His two seasons in Philly have been a disaster. But Philly has also been totally fine with being an outright dumpster fire for his entire time in town.

Maybe he’s not the next Tim Duncan. But what about the next Al Jefferson? That’s pretty useful. Like Jefferson, Okafor will benefit from a change of scenery, either by way of a trade soon or free agency. Needless to say, this pick will look much smarter after the Spurs pick him up on the cheap and Pop maximizes his offensive talents.

Everyone else’s reactions

KYLE NEUBECK, LIBERTY BALLERS: This is absolutely insane.

There is no evidence he can live up to the defensive responsibilities of a modern center, he's not a good enough rebounder to compensate for that issue, and his offensive strengths are increasingly useless with the way teams play. Maybe going vegan magically changes all those things, but I just don't see it right now.

TOM ZILLER: Chris, is this a cry for help?

CHRIS GREENBERG. Not help, necessarily. Just attention.

KRISTIAN WINFIELD: Chris, I’m ordering you lunch for tomorrow. You must have been hungry making this pick.

CHRIS GREENBERG: Lunch would be great.

MIKE PRADA: Feels odd to say this about a 21-year-old, but the game has passed Okafor by. You just can’t get away with that many deficiencies for your big man.

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69. Frank Ntilikina

KRISTIAN WINFIELD: You lost your mind if you thought I wasn’t going to take at least one Knick.

In all seriousness, though, Frank Ntilikina isn’t flashy. He’s not going to break ankles or wow crowds nightly. But he’s going to do two things: Play defense and play smart basketball. And if the Knicks are winning basketball games in four years, stability at the point guard position will play a major part in it.

Everyone else’s reactions

MIKE PRADA: Ntilikina will be 22 in four years. How many good 22-year-old point guards are playing today? Spoiler alert: not many.

TIM CATO: I’m concerned Ntilikina won’t even be starting in four years.

WHITNEY MEDWORTH: The Knicks spelled his name wrong on his first practice jersey. Save all of these potentially great players from the Knicks please.

CHRIS GREENBERG: So ... you’re saying he is a potentially great player?!?!

KRISTIAN WINFIELD: I STAND BY THIS PICK DAMMIT.

JOE FLYNN, POSTING AND TOASTING: In a league of freaks and unicorns, it's hard to place a 6'6’’ point guard with a 7-foot reach. If Ntilikina can stick at point guard, this ranking could end up extremely low given the way he already defends.

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68. Jusuf Nurkic

WHITNEY MEDWORTH: Nurkic will thrive in Portland alongside Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum. He’s the perfect big man to fit with that team. They’ll bring out the best in Nurkic and he’ll be averaging a double-double at 26. He’ll also have the 2018 NBA’s Most Improved Player Award on his shelf at home.

Everyone else’s reactions

TOM ZILLER: If you need the perfect situation to be a passable NBA player, I hold little faith for your long-term future.

WHITNEY MEDWORTH: Situations and environment matter!

MATT ELLENTUCK: This is pretty high for a guy most thought was trash except for like the last three months of the season. Recency bias, or is Whitney on to something here?

MIKE PRADA: Gonna need to see a little more than a couple good months considering the way he sulked out of Denver.

DAVE DECKARD, BLAZERS EDGE: Teammates, health, and conditioning will determine whether he becomes a potent weapon or a passing curiosity.

TIM CATO: The only thing that could prevent Nurkic from being a top-100 player in four years is if he gives up basketball to pursue the family business as a Bosnian policeman like his dad.

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67. Jrue Holiday

TIM CATO: I mean, this all comes down to health. But Holiday’s at least a top-70 player right now, and there’s no reason why a 31-year-old Holiday won’t be around the same unless he just simply can’t stay healthy. Which is a real possibility, given his track record so far!

Everyone else’s reactions

OLEH KOSEL, THE BIRD WRITES: With NBA mileage not being an encumbrance, Holiday is primed for success despite being on the wrong side of 30. If he develops a confident, deadly three-point shot, a ranking of 67 is going to be far too low.

Yes, I enjoy living out on this little ledge.

KRISTIAN WINFIELD: In four years, Jrue will still be a physical defender at the point guard, a solid shooter and a game-managing point guard. If he can stay healthy, he should still be a top-70 player.

MIKE PRADA: I love Holiday’s game, but I’m scared he looked so off once DeMarcus Cousins arrived. Then again, an adjustment period is to be expected and who knows how much longer Cousins is in New Orleans anyway.

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66. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope

KOFIE YEBOAH: The Pistons fan in me misses KCP. I don’t know what team he’ll be on in four years, but he could thrive depending on his new destination. He’ll be in his prime, so that’s a plus.

Everyone else’s reactions

MATT ELLENTUCK: Can KCP do anything else besides shoot? Can he even shoot well enough to just be a guy who can shoot? I don’t think he’s settled the many questions he came in with four years ago.

TOM ZILLER: He can defend, and the shooting is a question mark. I think he’ll settle in as a plus two guard somewhere. I just don’t know if that’s worthy of a top-75 player.

MIKE PRADA: I want him to be good and all the parts suggest he should be good, but will the full package ever come together?

KRISTIAN WINFIELD: I think it depends on where KCP is playing in four years. I agree with Ziller, but I’d like to think he’ll develop offensively by 2021.

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65. R.J. Barrett

MIKE PRADA: My Limited Upside podcast cohort Ben Epstein has spent the last few days raving about this guy, so consider this a show of faith in Ben’s ability to evaluate talent. Ricky seems to like him too, which is good enough for me.

More interesting question: will R.J. be the best Canadian player in the world in four years, or will it be that other guy in Minnesota? (Foreshadowing!).

Everyone else’s reactions

KRISTIAN WINFIELD: Let the high school picks begin.

RICKY O’DONNELL: Easily could have been the first high school player taken. Barrett might end being what everyone thought Wiggins would be.

WHITNEY MEDWORTH: I like this pick and wish I would’ve made it myself. Every Canadian I know is bonkers over this kid. He led Team Canada to a shocking win over Team USA in the U19 division in July with 38 points, 13 rebounds, and five assists. Great pick.

TIM CATO: It’ll be neither when the Anthony Bennett comeback happens.

TOM ZILLER: Prada’s talking about Andrew Nicholson, right?

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64. Clint Capela

MATT ELLENTUCK: Clint Capela was extremely productive in Year 3 with the Rockets as a clean-up man with a rapidly developing defensive game. He’s just 22 years old now, and his job will become that much easier with Chris Paul coming into town alongside James Harden. I have a feeling this potential “Big 3” will stay together for some time.

Everyone else’s reactions

TOM ZILLER: This is a pretty good pick, though I’m not sure he’s irreplaceable for the Rockets if that makes sense.

RICKY O’DONNELL: It feels like the league is trending toward players with ball skills at all five positions. Capela is good at what he does, but he’s still fairly limited offensively.

KRISTIAN WINFIELD: Capela might be a backup’s backup somewhere in four years.

MIKE PRADA: Terrific pick and I think there will still be a space for him in the league. I dunno what Kristian is talking about here.

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63. Jamal Murray

RICKY O’DONNELL: Murray can really shoot the ball and I think he has some sneaky potential to handle point guard duties on offense, too. He might never be a good defender, but No. 63 feels right for a player with his skill level.

Everyone else’s reactions

TOM ZILLER: It’s so disappointing that he didn’t put up numbers last season, because he’s the type of fun player everyone could have gotten behind for an insurgent Rookie of the Year campaign.

KRISTIAN WINFIELD: This is a good pick. I like Jamal Murray and he’s an interesting piece to a young mosh pit of talent in Denver. He should be the starter in four years, if not way sooner.

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62. John Collins

ZITO MADU: Last year, Rick Pitino described John Collins as a “terrific basketball player, the best post player in our league by far, if not the country.” He put on a offensive highlight show in summer league, but it’s not just that he can dunk. He’s generally active, which leads to initial and second chance points for him and his teammates.

Everyone else’s reactions

JEFF SIEGEL, PEACHTREE HOOPS: The Hawks are very excited about how Collins can develop as an ultra-athletic power forward in an era that demands such athleticism from that position. But with zero minutes of NBA action to his name, it's impossible to tell if he'll be in the top 25 four years from now or off the list altogether.

MATT ELLENTUCK: Collins could be a solid clean-up guy in the league later down the line, but a top-65 player in four years? Nah.

TOM ZILLER: I totally forgot who drafted Collins, and I’m honestly not interested enough to look it up. That’s how much I hate this pick.

MIKE PRADA: You just put him here because of that one Summer League dunk, didn’t you?

WHITNEY MEDWORTH: To be fair, it was a pretty great dunk.

JOHN COLLINS WE ARE NOT WORTHY!!! http://pic.twitter.com/3urJblnWfo

— Atlanta Hawks (@ATLHawks) July 12, 2017

KRISTIAN WINFIELD: POSTER MACHINE.

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61. Aaron Gordon

TOM ZILLER: Someday, Aaron Gordon’s coaches will figure out how to use Aaron Gordon. Here’s hoping it comes before 2021.

Everyone else’s reactions

CORY HUTSON, ORLANDO PINSTRIPED POST: Sixty-one feels like an appropriate median outcome, but Gordon could very well land far ahead or far short of that rank.

RICKY O’DONNELL: I still believe. Playing Aaron Gordon at the three last season was a crime against humanity. Get this man in a Draymond role!

KRISTIAN WINFIELD: Aaron Gordon will be better than Blake Griffin in four years. Blake Griffin has not been picked yet. Y’all are tripping.

MIKE PRADA: It’s the year 2020. Magic coach Randy Wittman announces his intention to play Gordon at small forward, with Jonathan Isaac at power forward and Nikola Vucevic at center. Gordon shoots 30 percent from three and looks lost until Orlando salary-dumps Vucevic at the deadline. Gordon then shifts to the 4, intrigues next to Isaac at the 5, and we get excited again.

Then, the Magic sign Jahlil Okafor in free agency. Wittman announces his intention to play Gordon at small forward, with Jonathan Isaac at power forward. Gordon shoots 30 percent from three ...

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INTRO | FULL LIST | TOP 100 OF 2017 | HOW WE DID IN 2013 | SNUBS | 101-91 | 90-81 | 80-71 | 70-61 | 60-51 | 50-41 | 40-31 | 30-21 | 20-11 | 10-1 | THE CASES FOR NO. 1

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