#like at this point we’re just beating the art form’s corpse | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

secret-diary-of-an-fa · 3 years

Text

God of War (PS4) Review: Kratos’ Postal Grief Beard Versus Norse Mythology

Once upon a time, a man was born by the name of Cory Barlog and thus a coin was flipped. Would he become a videogame developer or would he take up guarding the Mines of Moria by pulling wizards into a precipice? Those really are the only two options with a name like Barlog. Anyway, apparently the Mines of Moria were a bit of a commute, so the world gained a talented Auteur developer with a unique vision for a game series about going postal in ancient Greece. Fast-foward a number of years specifically calculated to make you feel old and ancient Greece is a distant memory. Norse mythology is where all the cool kids hang out nowadays, and that’s where we’re going in today’s review.

As you might have guessed, I’ve just finished playing God of War (PS4), which is fun to say because it rhymes. It’s a very good game that should be a very bad game. When considering modern media artefacts, I’m often prompted to ask the question ‘what went so wrong?’, but this may be the first time I’ve had to ask the question ‘what went so right?’.

Let me explain: God of War 4 (I don’t care that they don’t put the number on the box art, that’s what it fucking is) makes a single, monumentally stupid creative decision that should ruin the entire enterprise, but doesn’t. And that creative decision was- wait for it- a stab at maturity.

The last time we saw Kratos- the world’s angriest mythical being- he was finishing his battle with the Greek gods in God of War 3. There was a moment in that game which, to me, typified what was so great about the series. If I recall the sequence of events correctly, you kill your way through an ocean of expendable goons and critters who are just trying to defend their home on Mount Olympus, dripping with blood and screaming furiously, then wander into the bedroom of one of ancient Greece’s sauciest goddesses and play a sex minigame that you win by fucking her so well that her handmaids orgasm too. Then you toddle outside again and, head cleared, solve an incredibly complex and cerebral puzzle involving non-Euclidean geometry and perspective manipulation that takes bloody ages. That, in a nutshell, was the core identity of the original God of War: a gleefully unrestrained and immature approach to sex and violence coupled with a grouchy willingness to make unsuspecting players feel like fucking idiots for no reason whatsoever. It was awesome. In contrast, God of War 4 picks up many, many years later with Kratos hiding out in Midgard of the Norse mythos and, for once, he hasn’t got a nark on and he’s not trying to stick his cock in someone with cartoonishly huge knockers. He’s just sad because his missus has passed away, leaving him and their young, impressionable son alone in a big, scary world full of trolls and ginger psychopaths. ‘Sad’ isn’t a completely new emotion for Kratos, but, up until this point, he was usually sad in a way that resulted in five hundred people getting their spines broken in a very colourful manner. Now he just wants to cremate the remains of the woman he loved and carry her ashes to the tallest peak in the nine realms so he can scatter her in accordance with her final wishes. And that’s what he does, with son- Atreus- in tow. It’s a twenty-plus hour game in which the objective is very simply to honour someone’s preferred funeral rites- nothing more, nothing less. It’s very modest by Kratos usual standards. Remember that his stated goal in the previous game was to punch freakin’ Zeus so hard that his face would go all concave and then repeatedly stamp on his corpse.

We never actually find out much about what Kratos was up to between games or how he met his wife. However, he’s a bit thiccer than in previous instalments and seems to have lost the use of the ‘jump’ button outside of context-sensitive environments. On that evidence, I choose to believe he’s been running a small but successful family restaurant called ‘Kratos’ Potatoes’ and enjoying it all a bit much. And why not? He beat up Zeus- if he just wants to create and sample homely yet exotic Greco-Norse fusion cuisine while growing a ridiculous straggly dad-beard, I say let him crack on. Actually, is it a ‘dad beard’ or is it a ‘grief beard’? I think they send them to videogame characters in the post whenever a loved one dies so they can signal to the world how sad they are through the medium of angsty facial hair. But where was? Oh yeah: cracking on with it.

Y’see this is where the plot comes in: the Norse gods won’t let Kratos crack on. They’re determined to make him bow before Odin- especially Baldur, who is way too invested in having a fight with Kratos for reasons that won’t become apparent until very late in the game. They just keep turning up and trying to break Kratos and his increasingly like-him-but-not-as-good-at-it son Atreus. This time around, our heroes commit heinous acts of violence to defend themselves, not enact revenge, as they travel, inexorably, to the top of a lonely mountain through landscapes of stunning natural beauty and many, many hostile creatures.

Of course, Kratos taking his son on a hiking holiday with added troll-murder and the occasional slap-fight with Norse mythology’s biggest killjoys doesn’t sound as interesting as the original games. After all, those were basically a production of Kill Bill in which the part of Bill was played by a guy with the power to summon lightning bolts and access to a seemingly unstoppable army of monsters and demigods. The ‘fun factor’ even seems to have taken another downgrade, in that Kratos no longer operates with the entertainingly demented passion of the insane: he has been tempered by time and love and managed to turn himself into a paragon of serious self control. So why is God of War 4 so bloody good? Partly, I suspect, the answer lies in the constantly evolving relationship between Kratos and Atreus, which gives the story an unbelievable amount of heart and always manages to feel very organic. Kratos never learned how to be a parent, and we essentially watch him do it in real time, forming a bond with his son that seems impossible at the start of the game and inevitable by the end. Partly, the games greatness lies in the characters you meet along the way, who range from bickering dwarves to talking, decapitated heads who prattle on like laid-back tour-guides. Partly, it’s in the beautiful, epic landscapes that make the journey across the Realms to the highest peak feel epic and significant, even while it is small and personal.

But a videogame is nothing without gameplay, and it is here that God of War 4 really shines. I loved the original God of War trilogy (especially the third instalment), but I rarely felt like I was playing as, y’know, a god of war. Kratos might not be an uncontrollable whirlwind of fury any more, but he feels truly powerful for the first time in the ongoing series. In fights, every punch feels like it could crack stone; every axe-throw like it could rend the sky; every chain-whip like it could legitimately start a forest-fire. Out of combat, Kratos moves around the environment with the stolid grace of a man who knows his movements are inevitable; irresistible; an imposition on the environment that can’t be denied. You climb and complete elaborate, complex traversals knowing that the satisfaction you feel isn’t just the satisfaction of finding the correct route or solving an obstacle, but the satisfaction of a being forcing his way through a landscape that resists him at every turn but cannot stop him. The puzzles- of which there are many- strike the perfect balance between conceptual trickiness and ease of execution to remind you that Kratos is smart as well as determined; that his mind is as indomitable as his body. Then there are the little touches involving heaving huge stone pillars and similar unnecessarily over-the-top efforts. In short, the gameplay is interwoven with who Kratos is- with what he is in way that seems completely unprecedented. Even the RPG elements feel appropriate: they reflect the protagonist’s growing confidence in a skillet he hasn’t used in a long, long time.

Do I miss the uniquely juvenile, over the top identity of the old games? Absolutely: I’m a great fan of gratuitous gore and scantily clad women with big fuck-off swords. Usually, I find the desire for maturity in games to be a silly, pretentious trend that foolishly eschews anything obviously ‘fun’ for no reason other than courting the respect of people whose respect isn’t worth having. But I don’t think that’s what’s going on here- at least, not entirely. The developers of the God of War games are clearly artisans and craftsmen of extreme talent: their attention to detail is superb and their ability to weave a good tale from a simple premise is actually a little daunting for someone who considers himself a bloody good story-teller. It’s worth remembering that the de facto head of the studio, Barlog, became a father himself before commencing work on this game about a father learning to bond with his son. It feels personal and meant because it is. Other games might reach for superficially mature themes like family and redemption for altogether cynical reasons. God of War 4 does it because such thoughts are clearly much on the developer’s mind. I asked already ‘Do I miss the identity of the old games?’ and the answer is still yes. But that question deserves a follow-up: am I willing to embrace the identity of this new, quieter God of War anyway? And yes, yes I am.

But if we could have a few more women with enormous knockers and Kratos going properly batshit just once or twice in the next sequel, that would also be welcome. I mean, let’s try to strike a balance here, people, for pity’s sake.

#Secret Diary of a Fat Admirer #God of War #God of War 4 #god of war sequel #Kratos #Zeus #norse mythology #greek mythology #videogames #game review #games

17 notes · View notes

dregstrash · 4 years

Text

Knife in the Back

a/n: Here it is!! The @grishaversebigbang project I did with the wonderful and talented @wafflesandkruge. This was so much fun to write and I hope you all enjoy it!

Materialki: @chaosvvolf (check out this amazing piece), @throughtheruin (feast your eyes on this beauty), @cinnonym (a 10/10 work of art), @corpsecro (we literally love to see talent), @kayadoodles (her mind is galactic with this one), @saintprivateer (brilliance in a single image)

Summary: Inej is one of the best detectives the city has to offer. As she gets closer to taking down one of the largest crime syndicates in Kerch, a body turns up out of nowhere and it points to Kaz Brekker, one of Ketterdam’s most dangerous hitmen, being the killer. But as Inej investigates the murder, there might be more to it than meets the eye: the murder, the suspects, and Kaz Brekker.

Ao3 Link

Prologue and Chapter 1 under the cut!

Prologue:

It was a dark night in Ketterdam. Not that any light truly ever pierced the dark clouds that seemed to perpetually hang over the city, but under the new moon the stars weren’t strong enough to illuminate the dark cobbled street.

The regular late night revelers seemed more subdued than usual. The air chillier and the wind ripping through any brave soul that stumbled through abandoned alleys.

It was almost funny the things that are able to pass in the dark: guns hidden under coats, hands twitching with an unquenchable craving, and bodies that might never truly wake up. The pale arm sticking out of a hastily placed tarp would have passed completely, if it wasn’t for one drunken man stumbling away from his latest high. The fall came before the scream, and the sound of it echoed down the alley.

True night could have hidden most evils, but even the shadows can choose to offer some truths-- and on this dark night the truth was this: a girl half-covered with a blue tarp, her eyes set in an endless stare, and a hole punctured in the place where her heart should have been.

Chapter 1:

Ketterdam was like most metropolitan cities: busy streets, short-tempered people, and high murder rates. Inej had only been with the police department for three years, but she honestly thought she’d seen it all. Her police academy years were spent doing her regular beats in the Barrel, the sinister underbelly of the pleasure districts of Ketterdam called the Staves. She thought that coming face to face with the broken, destitute, and neglected, she had finally figured out all the little secrets of this dark city. But Ketterdam had a way of keeping you on your toes, and today was proof of that.

“It’s not pretty, Inej.” Her partner, Matthias, lifted the police tape cordoning the crime scene from the curious eyes of the general public. He handed her a cup of coffee and she took a grateful sip. They were in an alley in one of the more run-down neighborhoods, the area dark despite the morning sun.

“Tell me.” Inej said.

Matthias sighed and led her to where a corpse that was being covered with a blue tarp. Inej inhaled briefly at the sight of the massive hole punctured in the dead girl’s chest, and just as quick she exhaled. Later, she’ll give herself time to think about how young the girl looked, or the way her eyes were open and unable to be put to rest. Later, she’ll say a little prayer for the currently unnamed girl. But for now, she braced herself to take in the details, to take in the scene, to look at everything like puzzle pieces itching to be made whole.

“Victim was found at about 2 in the morning, by a drunk trying to find his way home. He tripped over the arm and let out a scream. Neighbors from up there.” He pointed up to a fifth story apartment complex, “Called about the noise complaint, and we had officers on the scene fairly quick.”

Inej opened her mouth, but Matthias beat her to it. “We already interviewed the man who discovered the body, and he’s not a person of interest. He was barely sober enough to remember where he lived, much less murder someone. We’ll have to wait until Wylan takes a closer look before, but it looks like the girl’s been dead for more than twenty-four hours.”

She nodded in understanding and took a closer look at the pale corpse. Inej peered under the tarp, and hissed out a breath.

“Shit.” Inej cursed.

Matthias raised an eyebrow, “You know her?”

“She’s one of my informants. A girl I knew from when I was younger. She was helpful in some of my bigger cases, but I hadn’t heard from her in the last six months. I just assumed she finally got out of the city.”

“And you have no idea who she would be working with that could have gotten her killed?”

She shook her head and then started looking at the crime scene itself, “There’s no blood here.” She began to pace the length of the alley. “Not on the ground or on her clothes. So we can rule out robbery gone wrong. We need to find out where she was killed”

Matthias followed closely behind her, she could feel him thinking. People always accused Matthias of being a stoic brick wall, and while Inej might agree, she almost relied on that solid silence. After being her partner for almost two years, she knew that he would only speak up if all the facts aligned and made sense. He wouldn’t waste words on any conspiracy.

“This would have to be multiple assailants.” Matthias said contemplatively. “Or one highly organized individual. We haven’t seen anything like this for a while.”

Inej swept her eyes on the crime scene and she sighed, “And we have no word on any sort of wallet or phone?”

“Hasn’t been seen, but we’re going to try to get some facial recognition off the CCTV to try and identify her.”

Inej nodded and turned over the minimal amount of detail surrounding the crime scene. There was something achingly familiar about the set up. Dead body. Simple covering. Dumping ground. For all intents and purposes, it was minimalistic and clean-- sort of like the case form three years ago-- the one with--.

Inej’s eyes widened as a realization dawned on her.

She scanned the alley more closely taking in the position of the victim, the loosely tied tarp, the time of discovery, and its location. She remembered the details of another case she had spent hours and hours pouring over. She remembered the frustrating all-nighters, and barged in at Wylan’s office at any given moment demanding he review the evidence that was submitted. It was a case that had joined the thick folder in Inej’s desk titled “Cold Case.” And while most detectives had their own grief about their stack of unsolved murders, Inej’s problem wasn’t never finding the killer, her problem was that the son of a bitch was a snake that always slithered just out of her reach.

“Okay, Matthias let’s wrap up and send the body to--”

Inej’s voice cut short as she caught sight of a chillingly familiar object unceremoniously dumped in a heap of garbage three feet away from the corpse.

She took out a rubber glove from her pocket, and approached the pile of trash with careful precision.

“What is it?” Matthias asked.

She didn’t answer. She stepped over some rotten fruit, and reached for the lone black glove that was too clean to have been thrown away, and too nice to be a forgotten clothing item.

Inej held the glove up, “See anything, detective?”

He gave her a skeptical look, but obliged by leaning in and studying the simple black glove.

“It’s been worn a lot, but it’s not dirty. The leather is high quality, and still in good shape.”

“So why would anyone throw this away when winter is coming? Or better yet, why has no one taken it yet?”

Matthias shrugged, while Inej’s gears turned and turned. There was no way he would have been so careless. He’s never made a slip up like this before. But then again, maybe this was a message. Maybe he was finally tired of the shadows, and wanted Inej to find his glove as some sort of taunt-- or challenge.

And he knew she would take him on it.

“Take the body to Wylan, and get the autopsy report as soon as possible. I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Inej, what--”

“Also, there’s a marked folder in my desk. Grab it, and we’ll brief when I get back.”

“Where are you going?’

“I need to talk to someone.” She said distractedly.

She grabbed an evidence bag from one of the forensic agents, and stuffed the glove inside. She handed it back to the agent. “Get that tested, immediately.”

“Don’t do anything stupid without backup, Ghafa!” Matthias called after her.

She waved a hand behind her, but she was past being cautious. She folded herself back into the car and started inputting a familiar address into the GPS. If she was right about the glove, then she wasn’t letting Brekker get away from her. Not this time. She didn’t care if he was one of the deadliest assassins Ketterdam had ever seen. All men had to face justice someday, and it looked like Brekker’s time was drawing near.

#grishabigbang #gvbbfic2020 #KANEJ #Kaz Brekker #inej ghafa #matthias helvar #nina zenik #wylan van eck #jesper fahey #six of crows #soc #kanej detective au

86 notes · View notes

roswellwrites · 5 years

Text

Kinktober Day 7 Fill - Role Reversal

Pairing: Michael Myers/Reader (M/?)

Tags: Slasher x Reader, Michael Myers x Reader, Michael Myers, AU where the reader is the one locked up in Smith’s Grove and dear sweet Michael is the nurse, a fairly graphic description of a murder, also reader is technically kept gender neutral with the exception of putting on a female nurse’s uniform so like interpret it however i guess

Word Count: 909

Smith’s Grove Sanitarium was, in a word, bleak.

It was white walls, white rooms, and white floors, wrapped neatly into one large, concrete building.

You had arrived two months ago, had witnessed a lot in your short time there, neglect, malpractice, and cruelty. You had been poked, prodded, diagnosed, and diagnosed again.

The staff at Smith’s Grove was a revolving door of new nurses and orderlies, the fact of the matter being that most of them weren’t prepared for what they would see when they stepped through the doors.

A new face -his name was Michael, you would later learn- had caught your eye immediately.

He was tall, well built and attractive, his short, curly brown hair falling nearly into his eyes as he ducked his head to inspect his clipboard. The uniform he wore was too tight, you noticed, stretched taut over his broad chest, the sharp definition of his muscles and collarbone beneath the scrubs taking you back instantly to a field trip you took in high school where you had seen the statue of Michaelangelo’s David in an upscale art museum.

Michael himself was angelic even under the fluorescent lighting of the common room, the glowing brilliance of the bulb behind his head forming a halo of light that illuminated his dark curls. It was easy to imagine him then, outside these concrete walls, smiling and laughing in the sunshine, more beautiful than words could describe.

You rested both elbows on the table, hands on your cheeks as you watched him from your spot in the corner. How dreamy, you mused.

He had walked by you, giving you his usual friendly grin as he leaned in close to shuffle around a few pieces of the puzzle you had been working on. You could feel the butterflies in your stomach as he drew near, could feel your heart beating in your chest.

He was so cute you could just cut him to bits.

It had been easy to find his address after getting past the guards, and you stood now, wiping the blood off your hands and onto your sweatpants with his file in hand.

Idiots. You should have never been able to take out four armed guards.

Who brings a glass bottle into a place like this anyway?

Your thoughts were interrupted as the woman beneath you whimpered. You had pointed the guard’s gun at her from across the desk, sizing her up and demanding she strip. After all, there was no way you were going to make it out of the building soaked in as much blood as you were wearing currently.

The woman -Maggie, her name tag had read- had followed your orders tearfully, removing her uniform and placing it on the desk as directed. She gave a scream when you tackled her, hitting her head hard on the tiled floor and going limp for a moment as if stunned.

“I’ve seen the way you look at him,” you grinned, gun now safely stored in the snug waistband of your sweatpants. Your fingers were shredded by now where they were wrapped around the long shard of glass, but as you leaned over the woman, you found that you weren’t in any pain. “You think you’re slick? You think you stand a chance with him?”

“With who?” The woman sobbed. She had already given up on struggling now, pinned beneath you, bare with the exception of her bra and underwear. “Wh-who are you t-talking about?”

“Why, Michael, of course!” You cooed, bringing one hand to your cheek. “You were wrong to flirt with him. We’re in love, haven’t you heard?”

The nurse’s face twisted in dismay as she jerked upwards, trying in vain to buck you off with tears streaming from her eyes. “Please, you don’t have to do this,” she cried, back arching desperately beneath you.

You laughed at this, a sudden sharp sound that had the nurse flinching under you. “You really think I’d come this far and not finish the job? You must not have read my file,” you teased, bringing your makeshift weapon high above your head then. You could feel the grin stretching across your blood drenched face as her eyes went comically wide beneath you.

The first thrust of your weapon was efficient as you found what you were looking for, her severed carotid artery exploding across your face as you held her struggling body down with your free hand.

The second stab was finishing the job, your heart hammering in your chest as her body went still beneath yours.

You moved to the staff bathroom then, washing your face and changing your clothes, pulling your bloodied hair back and away from your face. You smiled brightly as you worked to make yourself presentable, entirely unbothered by the flickering of the overhead light, humming as you righted yourself.

“Tonight’s the night, tonight’s the night,” you sang as you exited the restroom, excited now as you stepped over the nurse’s corpse, the pool of blood beneath her body spreading impossibly further. “Oh, did you hear that, Maggie?” You said, turning to the body with a smile. You spun once, arms outstretched, before crouching down beside the messy cadaver, cupping one hand to your mouth as if sharing a great secret. “Tonight is the night I finally get to see Michael outside of these horrible walls!”

You wondered if he had saved you any candy.

It was Halloween night after all.

#slasher x reader #michael myers x reader #michael myers #kinktober #kinktober 2019 #roswell writes #i just want more slasher x reader content where the reader is unhinged

153 notes · View notes

shadowlover · 4 years

Note

✂

“Harder? Okay~”

Evelynn found the Ionian beauty quite hard to kill at first. Her beauty was like fine art, a priceless piece she would want to keep around and put on vulgar display. However, her second nature chanted over and over

KILL THIS BODY BY MY OWN HANDS KILL THIS BODY BY MY OWN HANDS KILL THIS BODY BY MY OWN HANDS

She could hear the fox whimper, maybe scared, maybe some other reason, but Evelynn was only now focused on herself. As the small mouths started to appear along her arms, her lashers forming their teeth and her second set of arms coming to vision, she felt an itch along her body. This itch couldn’t just be controlled through some small scratches, this itch required blood, pain, screaming for mercy and for help, though nothing would save them from this veritable hell.

“Oh honey, you’re so hot right now!” Evelynn said as she held Ahri’s chin in her hand. She could see the absolute misery in her eyes. Had she known about her before becoming ensnared, or was this a primal fear as she reached the apex of her demonic visage. The misery mocked her, in a way. She hadn’t even started and the beauty had tears welling in her eyes. One hand cocked back and struck her across the face. Again! Again! Again! FUCK! AGAIN! AGAIN!

The beauty’s face bled against her quick strikes, her cheeks turning bright red from the quick blows. Evelynn was shaking now, her body vibrating from anticipation. “Stop crying! Tell me how hot we are right now! Tell me I’m perfect for you honey!” Evelynn begged as her lashers ripped apart the weeping beauty’s clothes from her body.

Her skin was pink and perfect, no flaws besides the few that Evelynn created. As she wiped up the blood that mixed with her tears and trailed down her perfect face. It was at this point the demon felt jealousy. Despite her years of watching and waiting, observing and studying, this one little beauty was more perfect than she ever thought of being. The rage built up inside Evelynn as she lapped up the blood from her chin using her long forked tongue. It tasted sour.

Evelynn’s lasher wrapped around the beauty’s arm and snapped the bone in half. It was a clean break, forcing the bone to pop through the skin. Evelynn punched the beauty in the face, getting angry that she ruined her perfect skin. Shock, adrenaline, all the things that she loved filled the beauty’s blood as it seemed her body didn’t register the pain until it seared though her entire body. The screaming was delicious. It pained her to see the perfection of the world cry so hard, but she couldn’t stop herself.

“Look what you made me do honey... I wanted to wear your skin later..” Evelynn moped. She lifted her leg and kicked in her ribs, feeling them shatter under her powerful strike. The beauty coughed up blood and spit onto Evelynn’s thigh. She wiped it off and flung it into her face.

The beauty stopped her screaming as it seemed her body was shutting down. Her vocabulary became a mix of “no’s”, “please”, “stop” and “help”, just eking out of her mouth, past her lips in small wheezes. Evelynn bent over and lifted the beauty’s head up towards her, staring into her eyes. The beauty’s eyes met hers and for a second, they both fell in love with each other. Evelynn planned out their wedding, their honeymoon, how many kids they would have, and already knew where she would bury her sweetheart after years of love, and the beauty understood every thought. Evelynn leaned in and kissed her pillowesque lips and the beauty returned the favor as her blood leaked into Evelynn’s mouth. She lapped up what she could and then bit into the beauty’s bottom lip, ripping it off and swallowing it. As the beauty stared in shock, her pupils dilating into smaller slits, Evelynn used her razor sharp lasher to pierce into her chest and ripped out her heart. It beat twice before ceasing, and the lasher opened its mouth and swallowed it whole.

The beauty lied before Evelynn, lifeless, soulless... Evelynn felt a moment of shame, then unstoppable rage. She kicked the lifeless corpse around, bashing in the bones and cracking the skull, sometimes shredding the skin with small hatespikes coming from the ground with each swift strike.

“Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!” Evelynn screeched before impaling her body on a massive six foot hatespike. Evelynn breathed out and turned her back to her. “If you’re going to act this way, I guess we’re going to have to break up.” She said as she shifted back to her human form. “Call me sometime though. Love you baby.”

5 notes · View notes

hermitologist · 4 years

Text

My 20 Favorite Records of 2019

Lists! Everyone loves them. Here’s another one.

These are the records I liked the most this year. That doesn’t mean they’re the *best*, that means I liked them. You might not. That’s fine! You might be livid that Porpoise Corpse’s neo-classical folk prog double LP isn’t on my list because it’s an easy top 5 record for you, but maybe electric mandolin solos, blast beats, and harpsichord runs aren’t my thing. That’s fine too! It’s infinitely cooler and far more productive to let people enjoy the art they enjoy rather than wasting precious minutes of your life trying to convince the entire internet to have the exact same taste in music.

That said ...

This years list is chock full of the usual, if you’re familiar with my taste at all -- tons of super heavy bummer jams, a handful of Radiohead-adjacent mid-tempo rock of the indie or emo variety, some hearty post-rock, some tried-and-true vets doing the thing they do very well ... again, and a few outliers. The honorable mentions list gets considerably more eclectic if you’re looking for stuff that sounds less like a soundtrack to various stages of the apocalypse.

As always, I welcome your suggestions for records and podcasts I might’ve missed the boat on. There’s way too much good stuff out there to keep up with, so PLEASE help me out.

Also: When I am not being a lazy pile of crap, I try to haul my dadbod around town for a run a few days a week and will listen to/briefly review a record in the process. Almost every record on this list has been a part of one of those posts, so if you’re interested in such a thing, please check out my Instagram.

BONUS: I put together a playlist on Spotify of my favorite song from each of my top 20 records, and a separate one for the 51 other records I liked this year, so if you’re overwhelmed and don’t know where to start, just needle drop a little and see if anything grabs you. And if anyone’s feeling productive and has time to do an Apple Music playlist, I’ll link and credit you.

Top 20 Spotify Playlist

Top 20 Apple Music Playlist -- Thanks, Austin!

Other Faves Spotify Playlist

But before we get to the Top 20, a couple of records that deserve a nod ...

Record I Listened To The Most In 2019 Whether I Wanted To Or Not

Angel Du$t - Pretty Buff

This is my four-year-old son’s favorite record, and while I’m trying to round out his musical palate by throwing on all sorts of different bands while we’re hanging out, he insists on either “no music” or “The Basketball Song” (which is “Big Ass Love”). I have no idea how or why his little amazingly weird brain equates the song with basketball (a sport he doesn’t really play or watch or think about ever, to my knowledge), but it does. He LOVES IT. I’ve got to admit, I didn't care for the song all that much when I first heard it, but it’s an earworm, and some 3000 plays later, I love it, and I love the record. Funny how that works out.

Record That Came out in 2009, But I Didn’t Discover Until 2019

Self-Evident - Endings

Endings was neck-and-neck with my favorite record of 2019 for spins this year. Coincidentally, the it was recommended by someone from the band who made my #1 record, and it has moments where it sounds a whole hell of a lot like my #1 record. Blows my mind that a band that was/is so incredibly in my wheelhouse sonically, that has released nine LPs over an 18 year career, and operates in circles incredibly close to a ton of bands I love and respect and nerd out about music with somehow managed to elude me for the better part of two decades. At any rate I’m incredibly stoked to have finally found them, absolutely love them, and honestly might’ve listened to this LP 20 times in a matter of a few days when I got my first taste. It’s that good.

And now for the list ...

20) Remote Viewing - It’s Better This Way

Super nasty, dark, sludgy, well-crafted noise rock out of London that fits somewhere in between KEN Mode and early-Kowloon Walled City sonically. You’d think it was pretty crazy to have a band be so locked in and fully formed as early as LP2, but then you find out they’re ex-members of Palehorse, Million Dead, and I Want You Dead and it all kinda makes sense. Unfortunately, the song on the playlist is from a previous LP (because the new one is inexplicably not on Spotify), but you can and should get the new record on Bandcamp.

19) From Indian Lakes - Dimly Lit

I’ve been a big fan of FIL for years, but have always been at a bit of a loss when it comes time to describe them. It’s hazy and dreamy, but not quite shoegazey ... it’s insanely infectious and pleasing to the ear, but not really poppy ... it’s forward-thinking and experimental, but not quite art-rock or groggy at all. It’s just excellent. Full stop. If you dig anything from Tycho, to Radiohead, to The Cure, to Slowdive you’ll enjoy this.

18) Stray From The Path - Internal Atomics

Furious, mathy, riff-heavy hardcore from Long Island that sounds like a reformed Rage Against The Machine had spent the past two decades doing steroids, mainlining Red Bull, and studying the finer points of Moshology. The breakdowns are massive, the drumming absolutely mental, and the vocals pissed as hell. At my advanced age, it’s rare that a record makes me want to pit and/or try to deadlift cars, but this one’s got that magic.

17) Glassing - Spotted Horse

Mostly spazzy, occasionally dreamy, black-metal sprinkled post-hardcore that fits in very well with bands like Portrayal Of Guilt and Respire in the rebirth of traditional screamo. It’s fits and starts of chaos and beauty, and it all sounds and feels like it could completely go off the rails at any time which is what made bands like Orchid and Majority Rule and Saetia so great back in the day.

16) La Dispute - Panorama

It’s no secret that I’m a big La Dispute fan (Thrice has toured the US with them twice in the past decade), and I love all of their records, but I’m pretty sure I can say with full confidence that this is the best record they’ve ever made. Everything is firing at peak performance, and the way the record is arranged and sequenced makes it feel more like a film score than a collection of songs. It’s a complete work -- meant to be listened to as such, which is a daunting artistic task, but they pulled it off in grand fashion.

15) Russian Circles - Blood Year

This band has been in the upper echelon of post-rock bands for as long as I can remember, and Blood Year is another incredible addition to their already stellar discography. These guys are all absolute monsters at their given instruments, and one of the best live rock bands on the planet, so getting to hear them do their thing on a record that manages to actually capture that live energy and ambience really does the trick for me.

14) Greet Death - New Hell

This one kinda came outta nowhere for me, as I (ashamedly) was not familiar with them prior to giving New Hell a spin. It blew me away. I’m a total sucker for bummer jams, and this record is full of top-quality sludgy, sad, shoegazey goodness. If you dig Cloakroom, O’ Brother, or Pianos Become The Teeth this is gonna be right up your alley.

13) Sleep Token - Sundowning

Another record that came out of nowhere to knock me on my ass. I downloaded it before a transatlantic flight on a whim (after hearing about 30 seconds of the opening track), hoping that it would be a nice, mellow companion to ease my in-flight anxiety. And it was, but whoa was it so much more than that. It kinda sounds like a collab between Active Child and Deftones -- poppy, melancholic piano ballads, brought to crushing crescendos via super heavy drop-tuned sludge -- which sounds like a mess, but it works so well. It’s a killer record and probably would’ve landed higher on this year’s list if it hadn’t come out so late in the year.

12) Big Thief - UFOF

This one’s a bit of an outlier, and a damn good one at that. I came across UFOF via a friend’s recommendation before the hype train had left the station, and honestly didn’t know what to expect. Said recommendation simply said that it was good and infectious and probably a few other things that I can’t recall, but didn’t mention the folk thing (which is great because I probably would have passed). The friend was right. It’s good (maybe even great), incredibly infectious, and gave me a nice reprieve from the heavy stuff I tend to listen to on the regular.

11) Cave In - Final Transmission

I’m beyond thankful we got any new music from Cave In after Caleb passed. They owed us nothing, and had every right to walk away, but managed to rally to release a killer record that is heavy both sonically and conceptually, and still manages to give me chills despite being live demos recorded in a rehearsal room. There are few bands on the planet who’ve inspired me like Cave In have, and seeing them pull together to grieve and forge ahead to continue to build their legacy is even more inspiring. What a band.

10) Pedro The Lion - Phoenix

My favorite singer/songwriter of my generation decided to revive the project that made me a fan of his in the first place. That project put out a record for the first time in 15 years, and I had unreasonably high expectations for it. Phoenix delivered and then some. I remember sitting at my kitchen table, weeping into my cup of coffee the first time I heard Phoenix, the same way Control used to make it seem like the inside of the Thrice van was getting a little dusty during cross-country drives back in the early 00s. It blows my mind that David Bazan can be such a prolific artist, write such insanely powerful music, and seem incapable of writing a dud song.

9) Coilguns - Watchwinders

This Swiss noise-rock band kicks unbelievable amounts of ass. Their Millenials LP made my favorites list last year, and when I heard they had a follow up coming out a little over a year later, my gut reaction was to worry they’d blow it with a new record that was either rushed and/or half-assed, or lose the plot and take a hard left turn and make something markedly un-Coilguns. They did neither. The made an absolute monster of an album, that was apparently written in the studio, and is full of live energy in rawness that is pretty tough to capture in a sterile atmosphere like a studio. Watchwinders dropped in late October, and if I’d had a bit more time with it, I could see it moving up to my Top 5. It’s that good. I find myself going back to it constantly.

8) Blessed - Salt

This record kinda defies description, but it reminds me of everything from Pile to Menomena to Interpol to La Dispute to Devo at times. As scatterbrained and incongruent as that might sound, I assure you it rules. It was in verrrry heavy rotation this year -- mostly for the utterly filthy drum groove on the final track. If you like your music catchy, but slathered in weird, this is definitely gonna do the thing for you. It’s an incredible record.

7) Herod - Sombre Dessein

I hadn’t heard of this band before they popped up on a Spotify playlist early this year, and when “Reckoning” hit, it absolutely flattened me. You know that nuclear apocalypse scene from Terminator 2? That’s what “Reckoning” did to me. It was undoubtedly my favorite ultra-heavy track of the year, and while it’s my favorite song on the record by a pretty large margin, the rest of Sombre Dessein kicks ass too. It’s 42 minutes of crushing heaviness that kinda sounds like a blend of Cult Of Luna, Meshuggah, and Gojira. Heavy. Pissed. Unrelenting. And Outstanding.

6) Pile - Green & Grey

Every time I try to describe Pile to someone I fail. On Wikipedia they’re described as “indie rock”, which ... sure, I suppose? There’s a little post-punk in there, a little post-rock, a little noise-rock, nods to classic rock (maybe?), a little of that southern magic that made Colour Revolt so great (but Pile’s from Boston so hmm ... ), some country even? Do you like weird guitars? Freakish musicians? Melancholic crooning? I dunno. It’s all over the place, but in the best ways possible. They’re a singular band, and so damn good. Green & Grey is stellar addition to a discography that is already full of incredible music ... even if the album cover gives makes me want to fold those blankets and put them away.

5) PUP - Morbid Stuff

Was this the year that PUP broke? Definitely seems like it, and rightfully so. Morbid Stuff is my favorite thing they’ve ever done, but I’ve absolutely loved everything they’ve ever put out, so that’s saying a lot. Per usual, it’s insanely infectious and anthemic without being traditionally poppy or relying on tropes to burrow into your skull and take up residence there. It’s uplifting musically, but kinda depressing lyrically, which does this weird push/pull thing in my brain that makes it impossible to stop listening to. The musicianship is fantastic, the guitar parts especially -- like the guitar line in “Scorpion Hill” wow. I really needed a record to fill the gaping void between the metal/sludge/noise and the ambient/downtempo electronica I listened to this year, and Morbid Stuff fit the bill perfectly.

4) Cult Of Luna - A Dawn To Fear

These guys belong on the Mount Rushmore of Post-Rock/Metal with Neurosis and Isis. Nobody has done it better than them over the past two decades, and A Dawn To Fear is arguably their best work to date. It, like any Cult Of Luna requires a great deal of patience, but man if they don’t make the wait worth it. They’re the masters of the slow build to an absolutely crushing climax, the dynamic shifts that leave you feeling like you got hit by a freight train, the nuanced instrumentation that tells a different story each time you listen to a certain section of a song. They’re absolute masters at their craft, and this record is them at their peak.

3) Big|Brave - A Gaze Among Them

Another record that came out of nowhere to completely floor me. I hadn’t heard a single note from this band until a friend recommended I check out the opening track, “Muted Shifting Of Space”. I did ... and that plodding drum and bass pulse with dark, swirling, ethereal guitar swells/feedback and soaring vocals building into a huge release of sludgy, drop-tuned goodness checked off all the boxes for me. I was hooked. The atmosphere and dynamics Big|Brave have built their sound around give every song a cinematic feel -- if you close your eyes, can you see drone footage of landscapes too? . If you dig post-rock/metal that is experimental around the edges, moody, absurdly heavy, and has both feet firmly planted in sludge, this is a must-have record.

2) Cloudkicker - Unending

If you’ve been following me on social media or reading these year-end lists for a while you’re probably pretty familiar with Cloudkicker by now because any time we get new music I can’t shut up about it and the record invariably ends up on this list. This instance is no different. Unending is the first LP we’ve gotten from Ben Sharp in four years, and it’s worth the wait and then some. He’s managed to pull from every era of CK and turn it into a masterpiece mash-up of styles without it ever feeling rehashed or uninspired. I’d go far as to say this tops Beacons and Fade for me, and comes awfully close to challenging Subsume for my favorite Cloudkicker record of all time and space. There’s soooo much progressive and djenty masturbatory metal garbage floating in the ether right now. Hearing the one of the kings do the damn thing properly is incredibly refreshing.

1) Town Portal - Of Violence

No surprise here. I’ve been crapping my pants about this band ever since my good friend Scott Evans shared their music with me a couple years ago. I’ve been unhealthily obsessed ever since. The magical progressive rock/metal these three guys are capable melts and massages my brain in a way few bands ever have. Of Violence is incredibly mathy without ever feeling awkward, it’s melodic without being conventional, it’s discordant without being abrasive, it’s heavy as shit without being overloaded with distortion, it’s progressive as hell without ever coming remotely close to devolving into a wankfest, and it’s damn near perfect in every way. Songwriting? Great. Tones? Phenomenal. Musicianship? Otherworldly. Execution? Flawless. Mix? Perfect. Replayability? (Not a word, but ... ) PUT THIS RECORD ON A GODDAMN LOOP AND NEVER TURN IT OFF. Can you tell I like it? You might too, so give it a listen. And if by chance you do not like it, please see a doctor. You’re broken.

OTHER STUFF I REALLY ENJOYED THIS YEAR

HEAVY JAMS

METZ - Automat

Buildings - Negative Sound

Helms Alee - Noctiluca

Minors - Abject Bodies

Periphery - Periphery 4: HAIL STAN

Employed To Serve - Eternal Forward Motion

Elizabeth Colour Wheel - Nocero

Defeater - S/T

Pelican - Nighttime Stories

Spotlights - Love And Decay

Great Falls - A Sense of Rest

Baroness - Gold & Grey

The End of the Ocean - -aire

Vous Autres - Champ du Sang

Brutus - Nest

Torche - Admission

Glose - The Second Best of Glose

Throes - In The Hands of an Angry God

Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind

meth. - Mother of Red Light

SECT - Blood of the Beasts

Kublai Khan TX - Absolute

Seizures - Reverie of the Revolving Diamond

Dead Kiwis - Systematic Home Run

Norma Jean - All Hail

Refused - War Music

Chamber - Ripping / Pulling / Tearing

MIDRANGE JAMS

Jimmy Eat World - Surviving

Elbow - Giants of All Sizes

Raketkanon - RKTKN #3

Bad Religion - Age of Unreason

The Appleseed Cast - The Fleeting Light of Impermanence

DIIV - Deceiver

Idiot Pilot - Blue Blood

Microwave - Death Is A Warm Blanket

Low Dose - S/T

SWMRS - Berkeley’s On Fire

Self-Evident - Lost Inside The Machinery

B. Hamilton - Nothing and Nowhere

MELLOW JAMS

Trade Wind - Certain Freedoms

Square Peg Round Hole - Branches

Great Grandpa - Four of Arrows

Local Natives - Violet Street

Rhone - Leaving State

Shlohmo - The End

Tycho - Weather

Bon Iver - i,i

Drowse - Light Mirror

Bonniesongs - Energetic Mind

Telefon Tel Aviv - Dreams Are Not Enough

GoGo Penguin - Ocean In A Drop

Bent Knee - You Know What They Mean

THE PODCAST QUEUE

The Deadcast (RIP) - sports, culture

Chapo Trap House - politics

The Rich Roll Podcast - health, wellness, endurance sports

Hang Up & Listen - sports

Effectively Wild - baseball

The Gist - current events

The Downbeat - drums, humor

To Live & Die In LA - true crime

FilmDrunk Frotcast - movies, culture, humor

The Modern Drummer Podcast with Mike & Mike - drums (duh)

The Trap Set - also drums

Song Exploder - songwriting

#music #AOTY #endoftheyearlist #topalbums

20 notes · View notes

chaniters · 5 years

Text

Blood in the water

Part 8 of @kruk-art‘s Awan Cormac’s series.

Awan mixes out some detective and thieving along with Steel and Anathema.

Tried to write up something a bit funnier this time too!

___________________________________________

“It’s like she’s everywhere now,” Anathema says watching Elyise’s billboard trough the car’s window. This isn’t the first sign you’ve seen, they’re all over the highways and TV. This one is massive, displaying her in a power pose in full costume. The fine print states her new slogan, which she accidentally said in an interview. If you recall she was crying about her mother’s death as the reporter kept pushing the questions “It’s not the powers or the cape that define a hero, but the sacrifices they decide to make”

“Reaper’s investing lots of money on her career,” you say leaning back. With Steel on the wheel and Anathema on the companion’s seat, you’ve got the whole backseat to yourself. “He’s even become her manager. I talked to him, and he says he thinks she can carry off his legacy now that he's’ retired.”

“Well, she’s amazing right?… Fighting her own supervillain mother… I thought that shit only happened in the movies they make”

“Not anymore,” Steel says taking a turn off the highway. “And there’s already a movie in the works”

“Already?” you ask

“Yes. She’s a real inspiration. Doing things by the book all the time, even if it means fighting her own. Registered as a hero in under a week. Unlike some other people.” you can feel his gaze squinting at you through the mirror.

“Well maybe you should ask her to join the Rangers” You say looking back.

“That’s a very real possibility” he answers dryly.

Eventually, Anathema breaks the uncomfortable silence that follows.

“So what do we know about this scene?”

“Nine dead. And they’re saying it’s not pretty so I hope you didn’t have too much for breakfast” Steel answers “Because we’re almost there”

-----------Half an hour later------------------

“This is fucked up,” you say circling around the bloodstains. Forensics already took samples and pictures so you have free reign over the scene. This isn’t the worst you’ve seen considering your past, but the killings in this warehouse are not something you’ve seen before.

“It’s really bad,” Anathema says looking at the corpse on the floor and the stains on the wall. “But I bet Steel’s seen worse right?” he adds nervously.

“No kid, he’s right” Steel answers looking at a severed hand, nearly split in two between the fingers. “This really fucked up. You have to be a really sick bastard to go all the way about actually dismembering people”

Anathema goes silent, his first time in a murder scene bloody enough to put Steel off his game. He’s clearly feeling the pressure but trying to keep appearances while you and Steel are unphased.

“Annie, why don’t you go talk to the forensics team, see if they can get us a first hand on the DNA results when they’re done?” you ask “We could end up catching the culprit from the database alone.”

“Aahh.. sure! I’ll go do that!” he says walking off trying not to look too relieved.

Steel approaches, speaking in a lower tone as Anathema goes outside.

“You beat me to it”

“It’s good enough that he didn’t throw up in here.”

“I’ll be honest, I’ve never seen anything like this, even during the war. It’s sickening. And it makes me wonder what’s the worst thing you’ve seen Sidestep because you’re going through this mess like it was a walk in the park”

You frown lightly. Always looking for clues, this one. Can’t let your guard down for a minute.

“It’s usually the living you should be scared off”

“True enough. You’re the detective, or so you claim. What do you make of this?”

Your gaze runs trough the crime scene slowly as you describe what your instincts are telling you.

“Seven males, two females, all dead and the cause seem to be severe, brutal slashing cuts. I haven’t seen a single stab wound, this isn’t knives we’re dealing with. Some sort of sword perhaps? The assailant also must be of incredible strength, enough to dismember with clean cuts, going straight through the bone. Went through them like paper”

Steel nods slowly, seeing what you see as you continue your assessment

“The victims had an impressive array of firearms, and two of them are modded with extra strength” you add glancing at a thorn mechanical arm “And what’s more, they fought back as hard as they could. The attacker came trough this window, and their response must have been almost immediate” you point to the numerous bullet holes and cracks on the wall by the window.

“The attacker did not use a gun, or at least none of the victims was shot, so unless it was bullet-proof we’re most likely going to get a clear sample of their DNA around one of the bloodstains on this wall. I mean, every shot here must have been aimed at them.”

“They used heavy ammo too,” Steel says running a finger through a large crack.

“I’ll defer to you on that, you’re the specialist. How much firepower would you say the victims were packing?”

“Let’s just say they would have put my armor to the test”

“Now that’s unnerving. Alright, so the attacker broke in, messed them up while they kept shooting at it, broke through here, and entered this hidden room which they somehow knew was here, then stole everything inside these medical-supply boxes and finally jumped down the street this way” you say looking through the broken window.

“Impressive” Steel nods “And It could be just right I'd say.”

“There’s more. They had tons of guns, were hiding in a nowhere apartment on the bad side of town in a semi-abandoned building, and they had a secure room hidden behind a false wall with broken needles and medical supplies behind them. I’m going to make a wild guess: They were dealers. Hero-drug dealers that is. That’s why the boxes are empty. The attacker took the drugs”

“You can’t be sure they were dealing hero-drugs” Steel complains

“Not from the scene. But look through the window” you say looking down. He joins you trying to see what you see.

“You know who that is, right?” you say pointing at the stout figure with the top hat. It waves back with a jovial smile revealing sharp shark-like teeth as it walks to the building’s entrance...

“You’re right. Hero drugs it is. No way in hell Hollow Ground’s number one stooge would show up here otherwise.”

“We’ll need to talk to him. Lewie doesn’t show up to these things for nothing. This definitely must be one of HG’s places.”

Steel sighs. “Do we have to?”

“He’s the only one who might know who did this”

“Agreed. But he won’t say a word to us. He must be just showing up to assess the damage. I bet he owns the building, that’s always his excuse”

“I can take Annie and then see what we can find meeting him at his office? He doesn’t really know us well. An I know you can’t stand talking to the guy”

Steel squints at you. “Are you trying to make me owe you one?”

“Not really, but it wouldn’t be terrible if you helped out next time I need something”

He studies you with a calculating gaze for a moment.

“Fine. You and Anathema go for it, he makes me want to squish his head every single time he gets within arms distance after the things he pulled on us”

“So you’ll owe me one?”

“I’ll think about it” he offers, but you know it’s a yes.

“Great! Enjoy your crime-scene big guy”

________Later, that afternoon____________

“Smells like fish in here. Can I open a window?” you ask without waiting for a response as you simply open it yourself.

The big, shark-faced person sitting in front of you squeezes his plastic cup with a huge scaled hand while holding the forms you presented in the other one. Fish references are no to his liking it seems. Anathema’s just reading a magazine on traveling he found in the reception room.

“So let me get this straight Sidestep… You want a loan from me, for the purpose of -and I quote- “Fucking fighting crime hell yeah”, but you won’t give me your real name, or your social security number. In the “Gender” item you just wrote “Enemy of the Patriarchy” and your occupation just states “Kicking evil’s ass”. No assets to your name, no previous employments, references, no bank accounts, insurance or anything. Also no driver’s license. … hm... And let’s not forget your address “1234 Chicken Dinner Road”. Excuse me but I’m not sure that’s an actual road here in Los Diablos…”

“Ok fine, maybe I don’t have all my paperwork with me, but I’m totally reliable!” you whine from your chair.

“I know you think I’m dying to get every hero to enjoy one of our exclusive loan products but this is really stretching it. Perhaps if you offered some fingerprints or took off your mask, we could…”

“Sorry! I think I got glue on my hands while putting on the costume today. Do you see? Can’t take it off” you say pretending to try.

He narrows his gaze at you, his annoyment palatable in your mind.

“Do I kick them out boss?” Debra, the modded thug standing on the corner says looking at the two of you.

“I’m really really busy Sidestep. Perhaps it’s time you and your friend hit the road?”

“What? You haven’t even read Anathema’s form yet!”

“He’s just wasting your time!” Debra complains

“Not true! Anathema’s the one who wanted it, I just wanted to see how good my credit is… sorry. I just never asked for a loan before. Maybe I’ll do it better next time?” you talk back.

“He’s asking for a loan too?” Lewie says turning to him, losing all pretense about being interested in you. Giving a loan to a ranger would be great publicity to him

“What?” Anathema snaps out of his magazine as he’s mentioned.

“Of course he is. For his vacations. He’s taking several friends on a cruise for a few good weeks of wild fun, you know, the really good stuff. And we know you've organized some of the best cruises for your own friends. Maybe you can help him out?”

“Well I have on occasion been known to organize legendary cruises, that’s true,” the Loanshark says with a smile that aims to be cordial but just looks plain murderous. He’s vulnerable to flattery, you sensed as much.

“Dear Sidestep. What the heck are you doing to me?” Anathema whispers gently at your ear pulling back at your suit’s shoulder fabric.

“What does it look like I'm doing my dear friend Annie? Getting you a free vacation” you whisper back with an equally charming tone, smiling at Debra and the Loanshark as if this were your normal interactions. You’re also sending them a mental command to distract them from the whispering because sharks have a very good hearing of lower sounds.

“Yes, I know that. But have you considered I don’t want to ask for a loan from a literal loan shark?” he says pulling you even closer.

“Remember the time I got the wrong door and accidentally entered Steel’s room once and he had a two-hour fit? Well to get back at him I stole his ranger manual and sort of never gave it back. I’ve been studying your regulations, and you’re allowed extraordinary expenses during investigations. This is an investigation, and the loan is an extraordinary expense. You can have the Ranger’s pay for it”

“That can’t be a real thing,” he says squinting at you.

“Perhaps you forgot the time Ortega went to investigate those mobsters in the casino and lost all that money on the dice table to overhear their conversation…?”

“Uh… that’s not... right”

“Of course it’s not, but it’s legal,” you say handing the Loanshark the paperwork you filled in for Anathema

“Ohh what have we here” the Loanshark goes over the forms. “Now this is a completely different story” he adds going over the pages. “We can do things kid. Great things! How many grands do you need for this cruise…?” he says standing up “Have you gone over destinations yet?”

“Ehr... no?” Anathema goes on.

“Give him the whole speech Lewie. I don’t think he’s ever had so much money at once before, least of all spent it”

“I will! Come here my new best friend!” he says patting his back “Follow me to the other office. We have to discuss this over drinks. Me and the rangers! I knew it would happen one day. We’re going to talk business!”

“I’ll be out of your hair Lewie... I’ll show myself out” you say sending another distracting command, specifically to Debra this time.

“Wonderful, wonderful. Your friend leaves you in good hands Anathema. This way please”

“... help…?” Anathema whimpers as the Loanshark guide him away.

You head out to the streets pretending to leave while actually maintaining the mental command to distract Debra so she doesn’t make sure you’ve walked far enough. She just acts as if you had already left for good.

Perfect.

As they turn a corner, you start climbing the rooftops making your way back. A single push of a button activates the scrambler you had prepared for The Void, freezing all the Cameras in a loop, while turning the alarms in the building offline. You knew that thing would come in handy. A single jump and you enter trough his office’s window. That’s why you opened it from the inside it in the first place.

Time for the fun part. Snooping around his stuff…

You sensed stray thoughts about his ledger being in the room. It takes a few moments before you find the safe, hidden under the carpet. The hatch’s lock is relatively easy to pick, but the computerized code lock on the actual safe is not.

It takes a painfully long amount of fiddling before you manage to plug in the cellphone you modified to the electronic lock. Normally a lock like this would be impossible to crack, but you’ve got access to the farm’s top-of-the-line black-ops decryption protocols programs… another thing Nathaniel thaught you.

It had been a while since you felt this thrill… They could get back and find you anytime. A quick scan reveals Debra hasn’t returned to the security desk yet, preferring to check on Anathema. He seems to be playing along with your plan, distracting the Loanshark just long enough for….

*Bleep* the lock goes, as the safe opens.

“Yes!” you whisper to yourself as you check the contents.

Several ledgers, and a few labeled data-rods. And a lot of money. You get to work immediately, taking quick pictures of each page with your phone. It takes a painfully long time, but you have to do it, the Loanshark’s old-school and he believes nothing’s safe inside a computer so everything he knows about Hollow Ground’s operations should be here.

You sense they’re about to be done with their chat as you finish the last pages.

You scramble to check out the data-rods. The labels are all names of relatively known people…politicians, and some heroes. You notice several dedicated to Ortega. One reads “Public drunkness, barging at the casino”. Another one goes “Unlawful arrest of citizen -me- claiming he’s blackmailing witnesses”. The next one goes “Crazed claims about me working for Hollow Ground and threats of violence”. And the last one simply reads “Marshall Charge, getting to second base with Lady Blades”.

Wow. Lady Blades? That villain was one of Ortega’s first enemies when he was just a sidekick. Clearly the Loanshark is digging dirt on Ortega and has found a fair share of it. It’s not a real surprise since Lewie is the closest thing Hollow Ground has to a spokesperson, and Ortega’s been trying to get him to talk for ages.

You’re about to close the safe when one last rod catches your interest. Its label reads “Riley. Ask first before using”. So he’s got dirt on her too? Weird since she’s only just now become a public hero persona. The Loanshark would never admit to having a boss. Hollow Ground doesn’t officially exist. Whom else could he ask about this? And it says Riley, not Elyise?

The rod could contain anything, and this could ruin her chances of entering the rangers. You’re not going to let him blackmail her. You plug the data-rod and copy it as well before setting it back. You’re not sure why you’re doing this even... There’s something funny about this being in the Loanshark’s safe.

Time to free all these people from his clutches. 0

You take a small device from your inner pocket and set it into the safe around the data-rods. A press of the button and it starts buzzing before emitting an electrical discharge that fries all the electronics inside.

The Loanshark might find out it was you at some later point, but you’re not going to let him keep dirt on half the city. Charge and Elyise can thank you later.

Footsteps approaching… you get out through the window, jump off a few rooftops and land on the streets before deactivating your scrambler, the alarms inside his building going back online. You don’t sense anything from Debra so they don’t suspect.

Turning around the block, you find Anathema waiting for you nervously.

“Did you get it?” he asks as you approach

“Oh, I got it. And some extras too”

“Great. Because he’s waiting for me to make a final decision about the loan”

“So are you going to take it?” you smile

“ Of course not! I’m not going to owe anything to that asshole!”

“Well, I could give you a loan myself now!”

“You? How? You never have any money!”

“Lies. I have a job now!”

“And what’s that?”

“Stealing from assholes!” you say letting him take a peek of the Loanshark’s money in your pocket.”

______________________________________

My fanfics: https://chaniters.tumblr.com/post/181692759294/my-fanfiction-for-fallen-hero

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fan fiction using characters and the setting of the Fallen Hero: Rebirth and upcoming Fallen Hero: Retribution games written by Malin Riden. I do not claim ownership of any characters from the Fallen Hero wold. These stories are a work of my imagination, and I do not ascribe them to the official story canon. These works are intended for entertainment outside the official storyline owned by the author. I am not profiting financially from the creation of these stories, and thank the author for her wonderful game/s, without which these works would not exist.

#fallen hero: rebirth #fanfic #Awan Cormac #marshall steel #Anathema #fallen hero spoilers

24 notes · View notes

makorays · 4 years

Text

A List of Short Bios for a Bunch of OCs so People Actually Know What I’m Talking About Whenever I Mention Them on Streams or Whatever

These are all from the Savage Worlds tabletop campaign known as The Initiative that my friends and I play. It is a modern day sci-fi story involving aliens and cosmic horror cults. The basic premise is that some very important Scellor tech was stolen and found its way to Earth, and the Scellor government contacted Earth’s government to warn them they will have to wipe out their planet if the tech isn’t recovered in time. Thus an initiative was formed consisting of renowned Earth military figures as well as Scellor volunteers to try and locate it.

The Scellor are a race of aliens originally created by a man by the name of Jukashi for tgchan. Joe discovered them and decided to write a tabletop story in that universe. He may have taken a couple artistic liberties here and there for the sake of better fitting things into his own story. Scellor are green psychic aliens with a whole bunch of neat traits I won’t go into but you can read about them here if you want: https://questden.org/wiki/Scellor

Onto the actual bios:

Sofie Edelstein

The commander of The Initiative. Over a century ago, her father revealed to her and her two sisters (Teri and Tara) that he was the head of an “angel”-worshipping cult known as Erleuchten. When Teri and Tara showed hesitance in joining it, her father killed them. Sofie joined, but plotted to sabotage the cult from the inside. Some time later she became a preserved brain, got digitized, and obtained a robotic body. Now she’s a 6′ tall 400 pound robot with advanced combat capabilities. She created a series of androids with artificial intelligence based after her late sister Tara, but none have gained sentience. Was the leader of Poland’s military as a day job. She was working for The Initiative from the inside as an Erleuchten leader, but got found out and now lives with us. She’s done a hell of a lot of sleeping around through all her years, but eventually decided to get into a long-term relationship when she met Stan.

Minyaxl

My OC. Minyaxl is a Scellor combat medic with renowned psionic healing abilities who decided to volunteer and help out the humans, partially out of kindness and partially to have a chance to demonstrate his abilities to a less advanced race. He started out as this 5′0″ little bitch who was super full of himself but his confidence has been beaten into the dirt on numerous occasions; most notably when he realized that humans, unlike Scellor, do not reincarnate after death, meaning he’s been sentencing people to oblivion during every combat mission. He’s since become desperately obsessed with saving as many lives of sentient, non-reincarnating beings like humans as possible, even if it means jeopardizing operations. He routinely finds himself at odds with his squadmates, particularly Valerie, due to their perceived lack of interest in non-lethal solutions to problems. He is the closest Scellor can get to typical human romance with Thael.

Katherine Dawson

Cey’s OC. Katie is a combat medic who was taken as a POW by a terrorist group and later forcibly enlisted into The Initiative for her abilities. She’s sort of the mom of the group. Everyone else in arbiter squad has some form of extra-ness to them and she’s the straight-woman who holds them together. She has a knack for bossing around idiots due to her upbringing with rambunctious siblings in a Japanese-American household. Dual wields pistols and does not take shit from people. Is girlfriends with Teri.

Johannes B. Otto

Kyle’s OC. It's sometimes easy to mistake Johannes for a confused German tourist. During quiet hours, he spends his time complaining about No Smoking signs and combining multiple quarter-pound patties into single full-pound burgers. But get in his way and you'll find that he's less "tired, goofy dad" and more "towering, ruthless brute". Withhold information during an interrogation, and he'll start calmly searching for a pair of pliers. Try to hurt him or his squadmates, and he'll shut you in a storage locker with a live grenade and then feel zero remorse for the gory soup that spills out (a tactic that has since been affectionately referred to as the "Deutsche Oven"). It should also be noted that Johannes is not a patient man. If we’re ever at a standstill with deciding how to proceed, he’ll start jumping a fence to go beat the shit out of a guard before taking all his clothes and spanking him until his ass is red.

Valerie Mimieux

Ragu’s OC. Valerie is a woman of class. She’s a French spy who likes expensive things and is passionate about cooking. She has a habit of flying way off the fucking handle and doing some reckless impulsive shit or just generally acting like a psycho. Will sometimes single out a particular enemy that did something to piss her off and then beat the hell out of their corpse long after they’re dead. She has raced Yakuza gang leaders for the right to win their car and then nonchalantly gunned them down when they decided to get revenge. She somehow manages to slither her way into acquiring ludicrous amounts of currency during her operations, and wants to one day take over all of Europe. Has a pet german shephard named Steve who used to be a guard dog for the enemy until she offered him a treat. She is alien-gay for Adiira.

Fayaiy

Selena’s OC. Fayaiy is a bounty hunter who crash landed on Earth and temporarily joined the cause before disappearing off to who knows where. She’s super goofy and sort of comes off as a happy-go-lucky foreigner who doesn’t entirely grasp English but loves to vibe with everyone regardless. LOVES Family Guy, thinks it’s the funniest thing ever. On multiple occasions she got faced on weed in the men’s bathroom with Stan, who I’m pretty sure still assumes she’s a trans guy because she didn’t seem to understand human gender symbols on doors. Has a pet black cat named Peanut who she took with her when she left.

Teri Grimm

A state of the art android who is so human-like you wouldn’t even know her body’s innards were synthetic unless you looked at them under a microscope. The commander’s first creation to gain sentience, and The Initiative’s token robot hacker waifu. Everybody loves Teri. She’s polite, incredibly intelligent, and has a face you just really want to protect, although she can hold her own in battles with superhuman strength. She’s rather unlucky though. Is girlfriends with Katie.

We’re actually currently playing a reboot of The Initiative. The first go around happened a few years ago, didn’t last as long, and featured the following five characters as our player characters. They did not function very well as main characters but work quite well this time around as quirky side characters.

Stan Ward

Ragu’s old OC. Stan is one of the most extra people to ever exist, roughly tied with only Bruce and Vulohon. A true American, he’s a mad bastard of a soldier who loves drugs and driving, often at the same time. Once, several members of The Initiative went out to town to relax and have fun, and he almost immediately got into trouble with the police, being chased off into the night. He came back later after swimming his way back to the base, crabs stuck to various parts of his soaking body with their pinched claws. Was somehow man enough to satisfy a 6 foot tall 400 pound 160+ year old android’s sexual desires to the point that he became her boyfriend.

Bruce Reistill

Kyle’s old OC. Bruce is an abrasive asshole who will never ever let a villain get more than 5 words into their monologue before interrupting them with something along the lines of “now y’see here I think the problem we’re having is that you keep on talking when you really shouldn’t be so I think it’d really be in all of our best interests if I were to just go ahead and...” before drawing his revolver that he nicknamed Banger.

Vulohon

The old OC of Roll, our long lost friend who just sorta disappeared to do his own thing in life. Vulohon is a fucking dumbass. He’s basically if Knuckles from Sonic Boom was an edgy anime himbo. The first time we saw him, he was doing the cool guy thing where you lean back in your chair and sharpen a blade. The second time we saw him, he was doing the same thing, but this time was sharpening a glock. The third time it was a trash can. He owns a legendary energy battle axe and can use psionic energy to generate explosions wherever he wants, but almost all of his fighting tactics involving picking up dudes and throwing them at other dudes. Either that or ripping off car doors and swinging them at people.

Stan, Bruce and Vulohon are all best bros. They moved their beds into the rec room and turned it into the Boys Room, where they sit in the hot tub together and behave heterosexually.

Thael

My old OC. Thael is a scientist who has no personality or emotions, but a really great ass. He’s a husk of a formerly optimistic young student who lost the ability to feel things after a shady government organization recruited him and forced him to conduct awful, sometimes murderous experiments on unwilling Scellor. Everyone is creeped out by him, but Minyaxl’s virgin horniness was enough to push past that as he felt love at first sight (with Thael’s back turned to him) and pursued relations with him. Thael opened up to him and Minyaxl decided to do his best to help him regain his former self. He’s getting there.

Pamiil

Selena’s old OC. Pamiil is an optimistic pacifist healer who never really got all that much screen time but she is cute and must be protected. She loves* Setel.

*by which i again mean the closest scellor equivalent to love which i guess is sorta just close friendship where you also fuck but they’re also capable of feeling proper love it’s just weird and can lead to psionic feedback loops if they’re not careful

(the following 5 pics were drawn by selena)

https://butamakingart.tumblr.com/

Orvon Valasma

The captain of the ship that a mysterious third party (referred to as the Scellor Freelancers, consisting of her, Adiira and Setel) arrived on. She’s 7 feet tall and has robotic legs that can extend to make herself even taller and run super fast. Somewhat stoic, and has gotten into fights with Adiira, but still cares deeply for her friends. The freelancers were originally at odds with The Initiative as they (somewhat rightfully) believed that we were doing a sloppy as hell job of things, but they eventually decided to join forces.

Adiira M’vora

A deadly assassin who, due to being born in the Ayaar caste, was forced to carry out political assassinations against people the Scellor government suspected of being potential state enemies. It got to her so she went rogue and is a bit of a wreck. She owns a legendary sword called Blue Midnight that can cut through the very fabric of space, and has various other psionic space manipulation abilities. She is human-gay for Valerie.

Setel Tunsai

An absolute chad of a man, standing at a towering 5′0″ (which is stupidly tall for his Orthan caste). Setel is a powerful psionic who excels at manipulating social outcomes, either through exceptional diplomacy or good old fashioned mind control. He has a talent for helping people with their emotional problems, and has acted as a therapist for people like Adiira and Thael. He is beloved by all. Is small lovefriend of Pamiil.

Korhan

Horrible. Piece of shit bitch bastard. Rightfully dead. Korhan used his position as an Ayaar operative as an excuse to live out all his sadistic fantasies. Worked in the evil-ass facility that used people like Thael to carry out their horrible experiments, and made implied rape threats to Thael if he thought about not doing his job. Responsible for everything that’s wrong with Djylana. Planted a tracking device on Minyaxl to find the location of The Initiative’s base, then came in and slaughtered innocent people for the fun of it before taking a bunch of hostages. He used them to try and make us hand over Adiira and Thael for betraying their government but we managed to clutch things out and put him in the dirt. Also he could stop time. Was basically Dio.

Djylana

Korhan’s partner in crime. A bloodthirsty animal he used to carry out much of his dirty work. After she was killed, while Korhan was lying on the ground just before Thael unloaded two magazines into him to finish him off, he said that she was his finest work, that we would never be able to truly stop her, that she would not rest until every single one of us was murdered. He had installed something called Echotech into her, allowing her soul to stay attached to her body after its death. She got up and started freaking out because her only “friend” had been killed, ready to kill us all, when MVP Fayaiy came in with the hug and helped us manage to convince her that Korhan was a piece of shit and we could be actual friends to her. She came around, like an abused guard dog finding a compassionate master, and now lives in the base as a decaying zombie. We convinced the commander to let her in despite her crimes and to also eventually make a robot body for her. She was unsure if she wanted to let us do that until someone brought up the fact that it would be the biggest middle finger we could possibly give to Korhan, at which point she vehemently agreed. I hope his piss stain of a soul somehow knows that his ace in the hole was defeated by the power of friendship.

Satan.

There are other characters that I may or may not include in the future, but those are the most prominent ones.

#the initiative #scellor

6 notes · View notes

mst3kproject · 6 years

Photo

Night Fright (1967)

I found this movie by accident while I was looking for Night of the Bloody Apes. The goofy cover art got my attention, so I pulled the box out for a better look and there at the bottom was the name of the star: John Agar! There’s also Bill Thurman from Attack of the The Eye Creatures, a movie I will be referencing a lot in this review. Furthermore, Night Fright was directed by James A. Sullivan, who according to IMDB edited Manos: the Hands of Fate (yeah, apparently Manos was edited… who knew?). Clearly the Bloody Apes were going to have to wait for another time.

That woman on the cover? Not in the movie. I’m not sure she’s in the same decade as this movie.

We open on a couple making out in a car, and then watch as they get killed by a POV shot while a radio news announcer tells us that a mysterious object recently fell from space. With that union-mandated scene out of the way, Sheriff Clint Crawford gets to work investigating the rash of mysterious murders that have beset Hollis County in Texas. Weird three-toed tracks make it look like the Paulasaurus from Track of the Moon Beast might be to blame… and that’s actually almost it. The object that landed in the nearby woods is a NASA rocket, and six months in space has mutated every living thing on board into hideous monsters!

I think ‘James A. Sullivan’ may be a pseudonym for Larry Buchanan, because this movie feels an awful lot like Attack of the The Eye Creatures. I mean, there’s Bill Thurman, and both John Agar and Carol Gilley were in another Buchanan film, Zontar, the Thing from Venus (a remake of It Conquered the World). The dingy and washed-out film stock makes the day scenes look exactly like Buchanan’s night scenes, while the actual night scenes are tinged blue, so dark it’s almost impossible to tell what’s going on, and still obviously shot in the daytime! We see several full-body shots of the monster that are just black, with no features visible. I’d be tempted to say this was an attempt to create suspense if we ever did get a good look at the thing, but we didn’t, so I guess the lighting was just that bad.

What little we do see of the monster is gloriously cheap. It’s half-Paulasaurus, half-Bigfoot, a shambling fun-fur joke that moves very slowly because the poor actor in the costume can’t see where he’s going. I think the reason shit-cheap movie monsters attack teenagers making out in convertibles is mostly because they’re not fast enough to catch anybody else.

A number of online summaries claim that the creature is a mutated alligator, but I’m going to disagree on several grounds. First, although we don’t see the monster very well we can tell it’s a primate… and it’s got fur, for crying out loud. Second, the same summaries also say that the radiation from the rocket mutated an alligator that was already living in the swamp, which is not at all what the movie says happened. And third, who sends an alligator into space? A dog, sure. A monkey, of course! An alligator? What poor bastard had to stuff it into the capsule?

Badness continues. The characters are blandly-dressed and big-haired. John Agar looks like he’s about fifty in this movie (he was, in fact, forty-six) while his love interest is implied to be in her twenties (I could’t find out how old Carol Gilley was). The dialogue is breathtakingly bad – the way to kill the monster comes up in one of those ‘wait, say that again, no, the other part’ conversations. The character of college student Chris is established as a philosophical type by having him say something like, “I keep thinking about the things we don’t know about, like the earth and the sky and the wind and even this leaf.” What? The movie’s scientist, Dr. Clayton, always has a pipe in his mouth and seems to be an expert on everything from rocketry to biology. And god, I hate having to say this, but John Agar is actually the best actor in the movie.

The music is very strange. ‘Suspenseful’ scenes are set to what sounds like a very, very sleepy woodpecker who occasionally wakes up and does some proper hammering before drifting off again. There’s a very annoying piece that consists of the same four notes on a flute, over and over – when we’re meant to feel more urgency, it’s reduced to three. The ‘hip song’ the beach kids dance is a repetitive instrumental, which to judge by what the radio announcer says, is apparently the hottest thing around here.

And again like Attack of the The Eye Creatures, very little actually happens. For much of its length, Night Fright just kind of lies there, trying to convince us there’s suspense and action when there isn’t any. Everything goes on way too long: there’s an early scene with a couple of young lovers who do far too much dull frolicking before finally finding a corpse, interminable scenes of men in cowboy hats searching the woods, a Manly Beach Dance that would show us lots of wiggling asses if it were only bright enough to see them, and many more. There’s some kind of subplot among the sorority girls, having to do with who used to date who and who has a crush on who else, but this ultimately doesn’t do much in the plot and I’m not sure why they made such a point of it.

There is one kind of fun thing in the movie, though, and that’s how they defeat the monster. Sheriff Crawford likens it to duck hunting – they set up a mannequin in the middle of the woods and all sit around watching it, with guns. The monster doesn’t fall for it, though, perhaps because the thing doesn’t smell like a human. Instead, it chases after Chris and his girlfriend Judy, who run towards the mannequin, and then it blows up when the creature touches it. I was definitely not expecting that, and it made me smile, so I guess I can award a couple of points for that.

Really, though, there’s very little entertainment or amusement of any sort to be derived from Night Fright. There’s just nothing interesting in it, and it completely denies us the two things we want most out of it. The first of these is a decent look at the monster. We can see just enough of it to tell that it’s probably hilarious rather than horrifying, but the details that would make the difference remain frustratingly just out of reach. If you make a monster movie and the monster is not somehow memorable, then you’re screwed.

The second thing we want to see is the massacre of the teens at the lake, which seems to build up but then, as in Nightbeast, somebody tells them to leave and they actually do. The only ones who hang around to get munched are annoying wannabe-tough-guy Rex and his whiny girlfriend Darlene, but Rex has already had his comeuppance when sensitive nerd Chris beats him up, so… why bother? At the end of the film, the credits roll leaving us feeling fundamentally unsatisfied. Why the heck did we watch that movie? Why did anybody bother to make this movie?

As usual, I’ve managed to tease an answer out of the mess, and I think it may actually be an intentional one. This movie is about government secrecy doing far more harm than good.

At the beginning, the rocket come to earth and the Area 51 types, with Dr. Clayton in tow, immediately show up to claim it (the movie can’t afford to show us this, of course, or the army of State Troopers brought in to help hunt the creature). Nobody is allowed in, even local law enforcement, and so it’s only the coincidence that Clayton and Sheriff Crawford are old friends that allows anyone to make the connection between the downed rocket and the bodies. Later, the Sheriff brings a plaster cast of the creature’s footprint for Clayton to look at, and Clayton recognizes it at once but has to seek permission from his superiors before he can say what it is. I don’t know if I can say he would have saved lives by speaking up, since this movie has a body count of four, but the possibility exists.

Local law enforcement, in the form of Crawford and his deputy Pat, resent this, but also participate in it. In the tradition of authorities in monster movies, they decide to keep what’s going on a secret in order to avoid a panic (the plot here really is just a bunch of tropes strung together). They forbid the newspaper editor to print the story until they have more information, and then ask Chris and Judy not to talk about what they’ve seen at the site of the first murder. Chris remembers this later when he urges his friends to abandon their beach party, and so Rex and Darlene dismiss his warning. Everybody in this movie keeps secrets, and nobody gains anything by them.

In running this blog I’ve reviewed a few movies I highly recommend entirely because they suck. There’s the amazing Lou Ferrigno Hercules, for example, or The Giant Claw, films that are absolutely no good at all and yet are funny or charming enough to be truly so bad, they’re good. This is not one of those movies. There’s no reason to bother watching it unless you’re some sort of masochistic John Agar completionist, which… uh… well, at least I have a name for my problem now.

Damn it, I could have been watching Night of the Bloody Apes.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #night fright #oh shit it's john agar #manly beach dance #60s

33 notes · View notes

daresplaining · 6 years

Text

Luke Cage Countdown: 5 Days

Bushmaster

In addition to bringing back excellent antagonists from Season 1, we are getting a few exciting additions this season. The primary new villain Luke will be facing is Bushmaster-- who has a longtime connection to Luke and friends in the comics, and looks absolutely amazing in the show.

Bushmaster (John McIver) was introduced in the pages of Iron Fist volume 1. At that point he was new on the scene-- a European mobster (he would later become Caribbean, because... eh, Marvel continuity). He grew up poor, but over time achieved wealth and power as a criminal, and is now aiming to extend his influence across the Atlantic. While Misty Knight is no longer on the NYPD, she still has close ties to them via her former partner Rafael Scarfe. When D.A. Tower needs someone to do the dangerous work of infiltrating Bushmaster’s base of operations, he calls in Misty.

Tower: “...His name is John Bushmaster, and that’s about all we know about him. Except that over the past few years, he’s taken absolute control of the European mobs. Intelligence says that he plans to expand his activities to the United States, starting in New York. Interpol, the FBI-- even the CIA-- have tried to infiltrate his organization, without success. Now it’s our turn.”

Scarfe: “Tell it all, counselor! Every agent who was sent in came out dead. If Bushmaster sees through Misty’s cover--”

Misty: “I can take care of myself, Rafe.”

Iron Fist vol. 1 #15 by Chris Claremont, John Byrne, and B. Patterson

Misty accepts the job, and takes up residence on Bushmaster’s yacht under the alias Maya Korday. Bushmaster is a classy criminal, who quickly becomes popular within New York’s high society, despite his shady dealings. For several months Misty remains undercover, earning his trust, and eventually-- to her disgust-- going so far as to start up a romantic relationship with him. However, she prematurely jumps ship when she discovers that Bushmaster has placed a hit on Iron Fist. She breaks cover, beats the snot out of Bushmaster, and runs to save her (at that point) future boyfriend.

Bushmaster: “Wha--?! Maya! Have you gone mad?!”

Misty: “Not the way you mean, pal-- but if I get mad, you’re gonna get very dead. [...] Where’s the ‘hit’ planned for? And when?”

Marvel Team-Up vol. 1 #63 by Chris Claremont, John Byrne, and Dave Hunt

Misty escapes, but Bushmaster is furious about being duped, and vows to have his revenge. He discovers her real identity, and goes shopping for a suitable candidate to capture her.

He sets his sights on Power Man, Hero for Hire. Luke has gained a serious reputation by this point as a man who gets things done, and his strength and invulnerability make him an attractive pawn for Bushmaster. But he’s also a good guy, so Bushmaster knows he’ll need extra motivation to convince Luke to commit a kidnapping. He summons Luke to his house in Chicago, and presents him with an ultimatum.

Luke: “I heard o’ you on the street, man. You’re the European brother been given’ the Maggia so much grief-- wipin’ them out so you can take over. You got the wrong man, Bushmaster. I’m a Hero for Hire.”

Bushmaster: “And I am most definitely a villain. Nevertheless, Cage, you will do this job for me. Because, you see, Claire Temple and Noah Burstein are my... ‘guests’. And if you turn me down... I’ll have no alternative but to order my men to kill them.”

Power Man #49 by Chris Claremont, John Byrne, F, Mouly, et al.

He also offers Luke a carrot in addition to the stick-- a videotape proving that Luke was innocent of the crime for which he was imprisoned. Claire and Burstein are two of the most important people in Luke’s life at this point, and he is desperate to escape his status as a criminal. As bad as he feels about the whole thing, he doesn’t have any emotional connection to Misty, and so he agrees to deliver her to Bushmaster to save the lives of his loved ones.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), things don’t go to plan. Luke’s attempt to kidnap Misty flings him right into the path of her loved ones: Danny Rand and Colleen Wing. A massive fight ensues, and Luke nearly commits murder several times over before realizing that he can’t go through with this. Danny, Misty, and Colleen have heard of Power Man’s good reputation, realize something is wrong, and offer to help him. Together, they infiltrate Bushmaster’s base to rescue Claire and Burstein-- only to make a horrifying discovery. In the short time between their encounters, Bushmaster has convinced Burstein to replicate the procedure that gave Luke his powers. When Luke encounters Bushmaster again, he finds himself facing someone who is physically his equal, if not his superior.

Bushmaster: “You’re a fool, Cage! I am the ultimate product of Burstein’s experiments. In all respects, my power dwarfs yours! You can no more stand against me than against a tidal wave!”

Luke: “The man may have a point there. For each shot I give him, I get two back-- with interest. At most, I’m annoyin’ him. He’s hurtin’ me.”

Power Man #49 by Chris Claremont, John Byrne, F, Mouly, et al.

The fight ends in an explosion, allowing Luke and friends to escape with the hostages and the tape-- which Danny’s lawyer Jeryn Hogarth later uses to prove Luke’s innocence in court. Bushmaster vanishes, and everyone foolishly assumes he’s gone for good...

Eighteen issues later, the Heroes for Hire are doing a routine job, beating up some bank robbers, when they both get knocked out by sleeping gas. When Danny wakes up, Luke is gone. After a long, desperate investigation, Danny makes a shocking discovery about the bank that was being robbed.

Danny: “Heart of the dragon! [...] This letterhead stationary... the second name on the bank’s board of directors...”

Jennie: “John Bushmaster, the Caribbean financier. Do you know him?”

Danny: “You bet I do! He’s the man who brought Luke and me together... and very nearly destroyed us both.”

Power Man and Iron Fist vol. 1 # 67 by Mary Jo Duffy, Kerry Gammill, and Ben Sean

Realizing the whole thing was a setup, Danny hunts down and sneaks into Bushmaster’s new base of operations. There, he finds Luke, Noah Burstein, and a Bushmaster who is rapidly dying. The procedure that gave him powers didn’t work quite as well as it did for Luke, and has caused his whole body to atrophy. He demands that Burstein use Luke as a guinea pig to figure out a way to reverse the process, or kill him trying, and has kidnapped Burstein’s wife to provide extra motivation. Danny bursts in and rescues Luke, just as Bushmaster turns to metal.

Danny: “I... don’t understand.”

Burstein: “Bushmaster’s become a creature of metal... like a statue! I don’t know if he’s even alive!”

Power Man and Iron Fist vol. 1 # 67 by Mary Jo Duffy, Kerry Gammill, and Ben Sean

And that, again, could have been the end of him... but this is a superhero comic, and such things are almost never permanent. Years later, after Danny’s “death”, Luke moves to Chicago and starts over as a solo act. There, he encounters a villain named Hardcore-- a super-smart, super-skilled combatant who sets about ruining Luke’s life. He also co-runs a crooked prison in Colorado, which-- with the help of a kidnapped Noah Burstein (the poor guy goes through this a lot...)-- facilitates experiments in an attempt to perfect the Power Man procedure. It turns out that Hardcore works for Bushmaster’s son, Cruz. After months of physical and psychological attacks, Cruz captures Luke and uses him to siphon power into his father’s corpse. Bushmaster lives again...

Burstein: “I can only surmise-- that he’s somehow using the viral aspects of the process-- he’s leeched the power, and the very life, from his son! And somehow, Bushmaster lives!”

Bushmaster: “No. No more. That name is but a pseudonym, a useless label for a past life. Now-- call me Power Master!”

Cage vol. 1 #12 by Marc McLaurin, Dwayne Turner, and Kris Renkewitz

...before absorbing too much power and exploding. This, amazingly enough, actually does kill him for good.

All of the glimpses we have so far of the MCU’s Bushmaster suggest that he will be infinitely cooler in this universe than he is in the comics. Every shot we’ve seen of him so far looks amazing. We know that he is a crime boss in some form, and will be battling Mariah for control of Harlem. We know that he will have Luke’s powers, but are curious whether he’ll receive him the same way. The final scene in Luke Cage Season 1 showed Burstein working on Diamondback, so we know that he’s still out there doing his thing. Maybe he’ll end up getting kidnapped by Bushmaster in this universe too. After all, it’s a tradition!

Cheo Hodari Coker has also mentioned in interviews that Bushmaster’s nationality will play a big role in the story. In this universe he is Jamaican, and so Jamaican culture will be explored in this season in much the same way that Harlem’s was last season. This should add an interesting extra layer to his character, and we’re eager to see how this is integrated into the show’s already rich cultural landscape.

And we know that unlike in the comics, MCU Bushmaster has some serious martial arts (capoeira, specifically) training.

This combined with his powers should make him great fun to watch, and a serious threat to the other characters in the show. We can’t wait to see more of him.

#Luke Cage #Netflix Luke Cage #Bushmaster #Commentary #LC Countdown

49 notes · View notes

rowan-raven-rogue · 6 years

Text

dark!Caleb AU 🌙

for @yettinim; Chapter 1 (2380 words)

content: (canon-typical violence, widomauk if you squint, Trent Ikithon, bad German translation (please advise if you’re a native speaker!))

He feels, rather than hears, the soft thrum, vibrating through his bones and settling at the bottom of each of his ribs. His head swims, vertiginous, as he is (but iss not) pulled forward, feet firmly planted - and then everything goes dark behind opened eyelids. He breathes, deep - phosphorous, ozone, and some ancient, otherworldly scent that spices his lungs and quickens his blood. In the void, he watches billowy clouds of purple and blue grow on the horizon and quickly engulf the darkness as he passes. Dark silhouettes of passing spheres and other objects speed by, their shapes elongating more and more by his increasing speed. Tiny dots of light begin to prick at the edges of his vision, and soon stars peek by as well, backlighting the distant clouds in a faint gray nimbus. His limbs and face buzz as he approaches that familiar threshold, the headlong speed of it all in constant contrast to the steady, pulsing hum in his chest. His heart beats so rapidly as to be nearly one continuous, clenching ache, a cold dryness at his temples and on his tongue, and - with a flash of familiar, silvery light, he halts, stock-still.

The faint shadows of an infinite array of Caleb Widogasts stride past, every which way, as he stills like an anchor among them. Hypnotized, he watches their darkened forms, so exactly identical and wildly different all at once, mill and stride down countless paths, until something snags at his periphery. As he turns, he sees one of the figures pause. Tall, straight-shouldered, with the profile of short-groomed hair and a clean-shaven jaw; Caleb and his possible-self acknowledge each other for an icy heartbeat, until the other Caleb turns and continues on his path.

Frowning, he focuses on the rhythm of humming vibration, affixing himself to it, avoiding the pull of infinite Calebs that tug him down every conceivable path at once. The void seems to grow and swallow him, as the other Calebs withdraw further and further. He’s struck, yet again, by the indecipherable scale of emptiness and potential, of everything and nothing surrounding him; the ancient, immediate dark. Finally, he looks down, surrendering to the warm, welcoming pulse of light that appears not a foot from his chest, and gladly sinks in to the yearn to touch. A tiny mote of glittering gray energy floats into his chest, filling him with sharp, prickling heat and burning cold, and he sighs, content, as the void disappears, extinguished by the Fragment of Possibility.

“...Caaaleb? CalebCalebCaleb- oh, you’re back!”

He blinks, and the lavender light of early morning stings his eyes. Immediately, the nauseating stench of rotting flesh floods him again; the blue tiefling girl is frozen, the tip of one finger stuck prodding at the center of his forehead, the other hand clutching her pink bag as it dangles, open.

“Eh, ja, sorry,” he murmurs, shaking the hazy scale of possibility from his head. He resists the urge to wretch and choke on the foul smell in the air. Jester smiles and withdraws, closing the bag with one-handed grace and slinging it back over her shoulders.

“Okay, we’re ready!” she whispers, her voice coated, like everything else, in the morning dew. She crouches behind the scrubby bushes that conceal their position, and turns a firm nod over her left shoulder. Caleb watches the half-orc Fjord, from behind a moss-covered boulder several yards away, affirm and pass the signal on to Beau and Yasha, further still; turning his gaze upward, into the boughs above their heads, Caleb makes brief contact with a pair of catlike yellow eyes, and Nott nods her agreement as well. Then to his right, searching and failing in the green-dark undergrowth to find the lithe, purple form of Mollymauk, before -

- a crossbow bolt sinks into one of the garish orange buds of the enormous plant before them, and sprays the misty morning air with the wet-green stench of decay.

Immediately, each of the buds falls open, releasing a gurgling screech and another wave of rotting stink. Pale green tendrils, thick as a man’s leg, begin to unravel and uproot themselves from the soil, and one shoots out, whip-like, just above Jester’s head. She ducks it with ease, and the familiar giant lollipop floats from behind just above the shrieking plant and sinks deep into the green, sickly cluster at its center with a thud. From the left of the clearing, a blue blur jettisons out and strikes at a second tentacle, then a third, as Beau’s staff whips over her head and whirls into a fanning circle behind her back. Close behind comes Yasha, swinging overly wide at the creature’s muddy roots, burying her sword into the sodden turf. As the plant continues to rear up on writhing tendrils, Caleb nearly gags a second time; more soil and debris shake from the creature, and he can just make out the distorted forms of moss- and vine- covered skulls, ribcages, spines, and the like, a mass of corpses which form the heart of the monster.

A string of strangled epithets, mingled Common and Infernal, explode from the stand of trees to Caleb’s right. Turning sharply on his heel, Molly swings one glowing sword at an approaching knot of vines and tentacles, just barely stopping short as the blossom tipping the end slithers through the air. With a wet, heaving sound, the flower opens to deposit a mildewed, humanoid corpse directly before the whirling tiefling, who thrusts his sword into the body with a dull crunch.

“Oh, lovely, it makes friends!” barks Molly. Caleb raises a blackening hand, ignoring the continued curses from Mollymauk mingled now with a series of similar protests from Fjord, who’s dealing with a mossy-green corpse of his own - and a stream of fiery rays bursts forth, sinking directly into the plant’s center. Hissing shrieks bubble forth, and greenish steam erupts from the ashen wound Caleb’s blown deep into the plant, but still it continues on with its gruesome attack.

There is a wet, sickly sound of a crossbow bolt embedding itself into something to Caleb’s left - the decaying body attacking Fjord goes down, with one of Nott’s well-aimed bolts loosed directly into the back of its head. The giant, spectral lollipop once again slams into the orange blossoms and green vegetation above the plant’s core, as Jester sprints from her hiding spot behind the bush to Fjord. Beau strikes another whirling series of blows to the tendrils approaching her before hauling Yasha to her feet, the pair beset by yet another vine-covered, skeletal body. Caleb whispers the tips of his fingers into glowing black once more, and another blast of flame erupts into the monster’s body - barely singeing past the circling form of Molly, as he lops off the zombie’s head with one artful swing.

A third bolt strikes the body before Yasha and Beau, earning a muffled “Shit!” from the monk as it topples forward, moldering jaw agape, and falls still at their feet. A shrill whistling, followed by a slick, heavy thud and a growling cry from Fjord - he’s been hit by one of the flailing tendrils. There is a roaring cry of Infernal from Jester, and the shimmering lollipop crashes down a third time.

“Finish it!” she calls, the edges of her words still rough and grinding Infernal.

Ignoring the wretching, nauseous protest in his belly, Caleb closes his eyes and prepares a final, fiery blast, silently praying for the fight’s end. As he opens his eyes to unleash the burst of flame, he locks onto a single, perfectly outlined skull right at the center of the monstrous creature; one delicate, orange blossom peeks from inside the vacant eye socket.

The spurt of flames goes just too wide, fizzling out above the clearing and into the pale purple morning sky.

“Dammit!” Caleb hears Molly’s frustrated snarl, as the tiefling turns . “Caleb, try-”

The rest of Molly’s urging is cut short by a rapid burst from the center of the tiefling’s chest, as one of the creature’s tendrils spikes sharply through his back and emerges just below his heart. His words drowning in a spurt of blood, Molly only stares wide-eyed at the green and scarlet spearlike point, gurgling hoarsely.

The cry that rips Caleb’s throat raw pulls every bit of air from his lungs and collapses his chest like a dying star. Focus, focus, focus, he thought desperately, and - calls.

Something inside him begins to stir, then vibrate, then warm, and then burn with familiar pulsing energy. He feels… silvery. The air around him grows thick, nearly malleable, and as he breathes he focuses on the last fiery rays he had aimed at the creature, willing them in his memory to bend and strike true to the monster’s center. Everything around him slows to molasses-still, and a gray, oily radiance distorts his vision. He watches, ears and heart hammering, as the tendril withdraws from Molly’s chest in an exact backward path; he sees Molly mouth Caleb, try - turn to him, - dammit - and feels his own body shift, palm raised and burning -

The clearing buzzes into impossible, sharp silence. Caleb locks eyes with the orange-blossomed skull, exhales, and fires.

The creature, engulfed in flame, gives one last piteous, hissing scream, and the flames wither it to a pile of ash, dust, and bleached white bones.

The party remains still for a breath.

“...Fuck.” Caleb hears Molly murmur. Then there’s a whooping cry from Beau, and a scattered rustling as Nott drops out of the tree behind him.

“Caleb! Are you alright?” the goblin says, her black-slit pupils ringed entirely by yellow.

“I’m absolutely fine, Nott, sweet of you to ask,” says Molly, his easy, loping strides to Caleb betrayed by the nervous flicking of his tail.

“You guys? I think Fjord might be poisoned,” Jester calls from across the clearing. Nott waits for Caleb’s curt nod, before scurrying off, clawed hands already scrabbling at her bag for her alchemical supplies. Caleb turns wordlessly at the pressure of a hand on his shoulder, the wide-eyed thanks of Molly…

…and the entire forest dissolves, swirling, into silvery blue ripples.

The surface of the scrying bowl gradually comes to a still, and in it is reflected a gaunt, sharply angled face, pockmarked and liver-spotted. Yellow-sheened skin hangs loosely in bags near the scrub white-bristled jaw, and hollowed at the cheeks. Wide-set, watery blue eyes are jaundiced at the whites, and clumps of stringy white hair cling above the man’s ears and encircle the shiny crown of his head.

Trent Ikithon smirks, thin-lipped.

“Caleb,” he says, clawing an arthritic hand to the stone pendant at his neck, “komm hier.”

Minutes pass, and then comes a soft tinkling slide of metal on metal, as the magical locks to Ikithon’s study open.

“Ja, Meister Ikithon?”

A young man enters the room, dressed in the blue and gold military mantle given to all of Trent’s apprentices. Neat red hair, only just long enough to suggest a curl, glints in the dim firelight reflected across the surfaces of dozens of scrying bowls. The young man stands, a respectful distance behind his master, straight-shouldered and wiry, a lean, agile strength.

“Das Leuchtfeuer, Caleb.” says Trent, oily and dark. “The Beacon.”

“Soll ich es für dich holen, Meister?” says Caleb. Proud, angular features twist, just so subtly, on the water’s surface, rippling into concentric, wolfish expressions. “Tell me where, and I will go.”

Ikithon straightens, pauses. “Tell me what you know about scrying, Caleb.”

Without hesitation, “It is a form of divination, using a focus - in this case, Master, bowls of holy water, sometimes crystals, or mirrors - through which one may see a person or object of their choosing. The spell becomes more effective the more knowledge you are able to obtain of the target, or if you have a portrait, a possession, or better yet,” he finishes, “a body part.”

“Very good,” Ikithon concedes. “A minor correction. Under normal circumstances, one may only divine something which exists on the same plane,” he said, lightly stroking one gnarled finger across the surface of the bowl in front of him. “However, in this study, I have created a pocket dimension through which we simultaneously occupy all and none of the planes. What does that mean, Caleb?”

“Each of these may be used to scry on a different plane,” Caleb answers, with certainty.

“And more,” corrects the old Master. He pauses again, staring deep into his own reflection. “Time, much like our multiplanar Universe, is not a singular thing,” he said. “It fractures, it bifurcates, it,” and he gently skimmed the water again “ripples, over and over, collecting in infinite loops. In some cases.” He lets his pupil reflect on this for half a breath. “I have also collected means to scry on timelines alternate to our own, Caleb. Universes which are hardly recognizable as parallels to our own, timelines in which one single action altered the course of history… and some, which, in the grand scheme of things,” he grinned sharply, “are not very different from our own.

“The Beacon is an unusual artifact,” Ikithon goes on. “Can you tell me why?”

Caleb inclines his head, politely; a trained soldier might have noticed the tenseness in his shoulders, anticipating admonition.

“If,” he begins, “as you say, the natural order of the universe is to exist, multiplicate… then one could assume something unusual would exist outside that order, in- singularity.” Caleb concludes. “There is only one.”

“Excellent,” says Ikithon, beckoning his pupil closer. Caleb complies, stepping forward briskly to watch the rippling font over his master’s shoulder. “In all the many timelines I am able to divine, there is only one Beacon, Caleb. And,” allows Ikithon, “shall I tell you something interesting about the person who currently possesses it?” He generously accepts his student’s polite silence before finishing, “I can’t see him.”

“But… you know his identity, Master?” says Caleb, hungrily. Ikithon grins again, reaches up, and pulls one red hair from just behind his student’s ear. He deposits the hair on the water’s surface, and, in the ripples, watches something cold and cruel draw Caleb’s piercing blue eyes half-closed in recognition.

“I’ve got a task for you, Caleb.”

#liam o'brien don't read me please #dark!caleb #dark!caleb au #caleb widogast #caleb critical role #canon typical violence #trent ikithon

22 notes · View notes

padfootagain · 6 years

Text

Compass (III)

Part 3 : Battle Scars

And here is the last part of my Soulmate!AU for Poe Dameron!! Time to bring an end to this fic that was supposed to be a one-shot, but I'm unable to control myself when it comes to writing, clearly!

Let's see if Poe is still alive, shall we?

I've put so much energy and time and passion in this fic, I really hope you like it.

Thank you so much to @furmicl fo the beautiful piece of art she did for this story, thank you!!!

Word Count : 5600

"I still don't get why you didn't tell him..."

You heaved a sigh, rolling your tired eyes.

"Could we talk about that later, Jess? Please?"

"It's stupid..."

"On the moment, trust me, it didn't seem stupid at all. It seemed to be the safest option."

"And now for sure, we're in a safe position..."

"I thought you wanted to get him back too."

"Of course I want to bring him back, Y/N. Poe is not just my Commander, he's my friend. He would have done the same for us."

You nodded.

"I know. He would have done it for me too."

"So, the plan is simple," Jess repeated for the fifth time, but you were too nervous not to listen once more. "We fly low, don't try to intercept anything and play the hero. I'll get us close to the crash, you'll get us to Poe. Okay?"

You nodded, letting silence fill up the cockpit.

When Jess spoke again, her voice was uncertain.

"Do you... I mean... if you're his soulmate, perhaps you can feel this kind of things... Do you think that there's a chance for him to be still alive?"

You fiercely bit your lower lip.

"I hope so, Jess. But in all honesty... I don't know."

The pilot next to you nodded slowly, and the two of you remained silent while Jess guided the ship inside the atmosphere of the planet.

Eight hours had passed since the evacuation, and if the city was now occupied by the First Order, it was too soon for the whole planet to be protected yet. The skillful pilot had thus no difficulty in entering the atmosphere without being noticed. She guided the ship towards the wreckage, remaining hidden from sight by flying in the canyons.

Only a few minutes were needed for you to finally catch sight of it. The wreckage. Of Poe graceful X-Wing was merely left a pile of distorted and melted metal, a little cloud of grey smoke still escaping from the carcass. You felt tears blurring your vision, turning the rests of the ship into a mist of grey, black and orange, your eyes stinging from too much crying...

"I'll land next to the ship, then it's your turn to get to work, Y/N."

You nodded, chasing the tears away with the back of your shaking hand, waiting for Jess to land. Before walking out of the ship, she handed you a blaster and a comlink.

"Just in case we're separated and meet the wrong people," she said, and you nodded, thanking her and taking the devices she handed you.

You took a deep breath before following Jess outside. Each step felt like an unbearable effort, as if your feet were suddenly made of lead. Your heartbeat was speeding up a bit more at every step that you took.

What if Poe was really dead?

When your eyes met the wreckage, you couldn't hold back your tears. The smell of burning oil and melted metal was stinging your nostrils, the stinking scent of iron so pronounced in the air around you, it left a bitter taste on your tongue. Jess was already looking at the debris, while you slowly walked towards the pile of metal. You recognized the front of the ship, the broken and burnt cockpit, one wing was completely missing...

"BB-8 is not inside!"

You quickened your pace to reach Jess, as she pointed at the hole where the rests of the droid should have been.

Half of the ship was completely distorted, which allowed you to see the inside of the hole meant for droids. Your heart leapt into your chest.

It was empty. Burnt, yes. Melted, yes. But it was also undoubtedly empty.

"I doubt that BB-8 would have left this ship without Poe," you breathed, Jess and you exchanging a glance suddenly full of a crazy hope.

You both sprinted towards the cockpit. You were expecting to meet a burnt skeleton, a corpse so damaged by the crash and the explosion that it would be unrecognizable. But the seat was empty...

Jess and you exchanged another glance, a smile forming on your two faces, and you saw the same tears that wetted your eyes in hers too : happy, salty tears full of hope.

"He got out before it burnt," Jess breathed, her voice hoarse.

You hurried to free your forearm from your sleeve, your eyes searching for this little compass tattooed on your skin...

It was pointing away from the wreckage, down the canyon...

"This way," you indicated the right direction you and Jess had to follow.

You hurried down the narrow passage that soon appeared on your right, following the arrow on your arm, not really paying attention to your surroundings or to the pilot behind you. Your mind was filled with one thought : find Poe...

"Y/N..."

The fear in Jess's voice made you turn to her, and you looked down at the orange earth at her feet, following her glance...

You recognized the dark stains in the blink of an eye. It was dry blood...

"He's hurt, we need to hurry," Jess urged you, and you merely gave her a quick nod before resuming your walk through the passage. Actually, you picked up to a run...

You guessed that the passage was just large enough for BB-8 to fit, and indeed, a few feet away, you found a little touch of white paint on a rock. You guessed that the droid had collided with the cliff in its hurry.

When you emerged from the passage, you fell into another large canyon, orange rocks set through the gap as if they had fallen from the cliff. You walked to one of them, your eyes caught by a red mark upon it. And when you came closer, you recognized the shape of a handprint made of dry blood against the orange and dusty rock...

You pushed away this thought, forcing your eyes to leave the mark and to focus on your forearm again. You turned to face the right direction, and noticed that the arrow was pointing at some sort of cavern carved in the cliff.

"In there!" you pointed at the cave, and Jess nodded, taking her blaster.

You hurried towards the cave, taking a little lamp from your pocket. The inside of the cave was too dark for you to see anything, although you noticed little droplets of dry blood at your feet, right before the entrance.

"Poe?" you called, taking a step inside.

You were met only by your own voice echoing through the cave, bouncing upon the rocky walls and coming back to you slightly distorted.

You walked further in, the shy light shed by the lamp in your hand barely enough for you to distinguish anything in this ocean of darkness.

"Poe!" you raised your voice, desperation oozing from your voice, your skin, from every part of your body, but you didn't care.

You could feel that he was in there, wounded, waiting for help...

"POE!"

Finally another sound than the one of your voice reached your ears. And you could have recognized these beeps anywhere...

"BB-8?!"

The droid suddenly appeared, turning on some light as well, and you knelt down to hug it.

"Beebee!" you breathed, holding the round droid against you.

It smelled like fire and ashes, its paint had disappeared on some parts of its round body, but it seemed functional.

"Where is Poe?" you asked in a shaking whisper.

BB-8 emitted several worried beeps, before rolling away, inviting you to follow it.

You walked further inside the cave, hearing the footsteps of Jess behind you, but the truth was, your heart was beating too fast for you to pay attention to anything that surrounded you. You were following the little droid before you, but your feet were carrying you in its path without your mind noticing it, your thoughts blank, too much preoccupied by your fear and worry...

Until your eyes fell upon his form...

He was sitting there, on the ground, his back resting against the wall of the cavern. His head was falling, his chin set against his chest... there was a small puddle of blood next to him...

You hurried by his side, letting yourself fall on your knees next to him. You delicately took his face between your hands, raising his head to rest against the wall of the cave again.

He had a bad bruise on his head, and a large cut across his chin and jaw. His skin was covered with a thin layer of dark oil and ashes, his dirty cheeks coloured in black and grey. His dark curls were stained with ashes as well. His eyes were closed...

"Poe? Can you hear me?" you called for him.

But he didn't react.

"Poe!"

Again, his eyelids remained closed.

You approached your ear from his parted lips, closing your eyes, praying in silence...

...if there was really a Force through this Galaxy, might it be with him...

You let out a relieved sob as you felt his warm breath tickling your earlobe.

"He's breathing," you told your two companions.

You started to look at the rest of his body, and it didn't take long for you to notice the source of his pouring blood...

There was a rather large piece of metal piercing his side.

His hand was resting on his leg right under the piece of metal that was planted in his abdomen, and you guessed that the pain had pushed him into unconsciousness when he tried to pull the piece out of his torso.

"Do we take that out here or in the ship?" you asked Jess.

You had only limited training in medicine, just the minimum everyone in the Resistance had to have.

Jess shook her head, worry painted all over her features.

"If they find the ship, we're all dead. We don't have enough time, Y/N. We'll take care of him while we're flying away from this piece of rock."

You nodded, and Jess helped you carrying Poe's motionless form out of the cave. The sound of his boots stroking the dusty ground made your heart ache. He was heavier than you thought he would be, and you couldn't refrain a little smile as the remark crossed your mind.

But there was another sound that was making your heart stumble into your chest, turning your regular heartbeat into something erratic and messy : the thud noise of droplets of blood falling to the ground.

Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap...

"The ship is right next to the rests of Poe's X-Wing, BB-8," Jess breathed, struggling to catch her breath under Poe's weight. "You go first, be careful."

The droid beeped approvingly, and rolled a few feet away from the two of you, opening the way.

"Do you think that they have found the ship?" you asked Jess.

"Let's hope that they didn't send a patrol in this area yet..."

The two of you fell silent for the rest of the walk to your little cargo ship. You were both relieved to find no stormtrooper next to your ship.

You carried him inside, setting him on the little mattress you had brought for him.

"I'll tie him up to the ship, you go start the engines," you told Jess, who merely nodded, walking towards the cockpit.

You fastened the belts you had set to attach him, making sure he wouldn't be too shaken when Jess would take off.

You didn't have time to take care of his wound for now, Jess needing your help to leave the planet, but you hated the hoarse sound of his irregular breathing, the sound hissing from time to time... so you placed a mask upon his nose and mouth to bring more oxygen to his craving lungs.

And before you would rise, you bent down to drop a sweet kiss upon his dirty brow.

You were about to stagger back to your feet, when the feeling of Poe's fingers encircling your wrist made you freeze...

Your heart made a frantic leap against your ribs when your eyes met Poe's brown orbs...

You had thought you would never see these brown eyes ever again...

"Poe..."

You heard him clearing his dry throat.

"Am I dead?" he whispered, his voice distorted by the mask before his mouth, and the sound made raspy by his sore throat.

You shook your head, tears escaping your eyes despite how strong your will to refrain them was.

"No... you're going to be okay," you whispered, running a soothing hand through his messy and dirty hair. "Jess and I came back to help you. We're taking you back on D'Qar."

He let out a heavy breath, a tear rolling down his cheek and creating a long line as it carried the dirt away from his skin.

"Thank you," he whispered.

You merely answered with a tender smile, kissing his cheekbone, right above his mask. You heard him taking a sharp intake of breath.

"Y/N! We need to get out of here!"

Jess's voice cut the air, and you stood up, reluctantly freeing your hand from Poe's soft touch.

"I need to go help Jess to take off," you told him, and even if he didn't speak, you could read in his dark brown eyes that he understood.

He heard you walking away. The sounds then slowly grew quieter, although he knew it was just his mind getting out of focus again. He was just too tired to keep his eyes open, too tired to listen to the noises around him, too tired to raise his chest and breathe...

... it didn't matter anymore, he had seen you one last time...

He felt the ship shaking under him as it left the ground, and recognized the sound of blasters firing. Jess's voice was loud enough to shake the air again.

"Y/N! Take care of the canons, I fly!"

"I've never used one of those!"

Your voice sounded scared, so scared...

He struggled to lift his eyelids once more. He wanted to help you, to make sure this fear would never shake your voice ever again...

The ship was violently shaken all of a sudden, and Poe knew that it wasn't because of Jess's maneuver...

A shot had hit the ship...

He turned his head just enough to see you running out of the cockpit, but the ship shook again, and you staggered, tripping and falling to the ground with a shriek. Your hands were too slow to fly up to protect your face, and your forehead hit the metallic ground hard. You let out a groan, not moving for a few seconds, your head suddenly spinning as you felt something sticky and warm slowly flood down your forehead and down the side of your face.

Poe's heart rushed at the sight of your motionless frame lying on the ground.

"Y/N!" he called, gathering all his strength to force his voice to become louder than a whisper.

"I'm fine, Poe," you mumbled, getting on all fours and looking up at him. "You?"

He nodded, too tired to speak again.

You tried to get back on your feet, but were too disoriented still. Poe extended his hand to you, and you held his fingers in yours.

"On the left to switch between canons and missiles, on the right to aim, triggers to fire," he breathed the commands for you to defend the ship. "You can do this."

You gave him a tender smile, nodding, before finally getting back on your feet.

Even wounded, probably dying, he was still able to reassure you...

You disappeared from his sight as you walked in the adjacent tiny room to shoot the TIEs that were now flying behind your ship. Poe held tightly the mattress under him as Jess spun the ship around to avoid the TIEs shots...

The rush of adrenaline brought by the sight of you was waning through Poe's veins though. He was struggling more and more to keep his eyes open again...

He heard an explosion, feeling the ship aiming upwards.

"NICE SHOT Y/N," he heard Jess shouting through the ship, as his eyelids fluttered shut.

"THERE ARE TOO MANY OF THEM!" you replied, your voice shaking still.

"TAKE THE ONE ON THE RIGHT DOWN, Y/N! ON THE RIGHT!"

The ship was shaken again, but Poe felt no explosion...

The sounds started to be shushed once more.

"I SEE IT!"

He knew you had shouted, but your voice sounded like a whisper...

He didn't hear the other TIE that you had hit and that exploded near the ship. He didn't feel the blast of the explosion shaking the ship. Now, just breathing was an unbearable effort...

Breathing...

He focused, fighting to control the rhythm...

In...

Out...

In...

Out...

In...

He felt something against his skin, but he didn't know what had touched his hand. Somehow, he knew that it was warm and reassuring, but that was all.

Out...

In...

Out...

In...

Out...

But his mind was too fuzzy, and the effort was too much, and the pain too vivid. He wanted to give up. For the first time in his life, he wanted to give up and let Death win...

What was the point, he would never have you...

In...

Out...

In...

He wasn't your soulmate. You weren't his soulmate. You would be happy with someone else, you didn't need him the way he needed you. You didn't need him, he could go...

...

Out...

All went dark again...

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

First it was the sensation of sheets. Soft sheets. Then the way everything was numb. From head to toes, the muscles were like asleep, except through the torso. A sharp pain, but not that strong, as if it was shushed... it felt far away. The feeling of skin against skin... a warm hand on a cold one. Then voices. Shushed at first, then louder, loud enough to decipher words.

"I think he's waking up."

It was Jess's voice.

"Yeah, I think so too."

L'Ulo's.

"I hope he'll be alright."

Karé.

"He would have been if I had listened to Jess and gone down to pick him up before leaving this bloody planet! I was certain that he was dead!"

Snap.

"It's not your fault. You were right, if we had gone down to look for him, we would have all died out there. There were too many of them."

Finally Poe gathered enough strength to lift up his eyelids. He had to blink a few times to turn the blur forms around him into the faces of his friends though.

"Hey!" Jess welcomed him with a smile, and he noticed that she was the one holding his hand. "How do you feel, Commander?"

Poe cleared his throat.

"Better than ever," he whispered, his voice hoarse.

They all laughed.

"His humour is still here, he'll be fine!" Snap laughed.

He patted Poe's shoulder.

"I'm sorry I didn't come back for you," Snap said more softly, a sad expression now drowning his eyes with tears and regret. "I thought you were dead. When I saw your ship burning, I was sure that you were gone, and the others were waiting for me to take a decision."

But Poe nodded reassuringly.

"You brought them all back here," Poe whispered. "That's all I wanted you to do. You were right to leave without me. I thought I was dead too."

Snap chuckled, sniffing, but holding back his tears.

"The children?" Poe asked softly.

"All safe and sounds," Karé smiled.

Poe nodded and looked around, apparently looking for something...

... or someone.

"Where's Y/N?" he asked.

His fellow pilots exchanged a glance.

"She's resting," L'Ulo answered. "She stayed with you all night long, but she needed to sleep, so we convinced her to take a few hours of rest while we were keeping an eye on you."

"Is she okay? She... hit her head..."

"She's fine," Jess reassured him.

Poe nodded again, and they all noticed that his breathing was less regular all of a sudden.

He pushed the sheets away from his torso, feeling the pain in his abdomen growing sharper.

"Poe, you're okay, son?" L'Ulo asked, trying to stop his leader to push away the blankets.

"It hurts," Poe complained in a breath.

"I'll go look for a doctor," Karé said, walking away from Poe's bed.

His eyes finally rested on the bandages that surrounded his chest. He noticed one covering his left arm as well, and he could feel another encircling his head.

He heaved a sigh, resting his head upon his pillow again.

"When she's awake, can you tell Y/N that I want to see her?"

Jess nodded slowly.

"I'll tell her."

And again, Poe nodded.

"Thank you. I want to see her. I hope she will soon come..."

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

You didn't come. He waited for you that day, but you didn't come. He thought that maybe you were still asleep, perhaps you needed a lot of rest. But you didn't come the next day. Nor the day after...

As long as he was lying in this bed, you didn't come.

After a week, he stopped asking his friends to call for you. It was useless, clearly.

He couldn't understand why though. Why were you avoiding him? His thirst for this answer pushed him to heal faster. When the doctors imposed him exercises, he worked harder than any of their patients had worked before. When they advised him to rest, he merely shook his head, repeating the gestures they had recommended for his muscles to find back their strength.

He spent three weeks under the careful watch of the doctors, before being allowed to go back to his quarters. He would have to be checked once a week for the coming months, but his side was now healed enough for him to stand and walk normally. The cut on his left arm was almost healed as well : a long, red line remained, but that was all. The scratches and cuts and bruises on his face were forgotten by now.

He was to go directly to his quarters, but he couldn't. How could he have lied down in his cold bed when he ignored the reason for your disappearance?

He walked through the base slowly, resting his shoulder against a wall from time to time to make sure that he would make no effort. He didn't want to be forced to get back into a bed before he could have a chance to see you.

He walked to your quarters and knocked on your door. It was still early, right before dawn. He reckoned that you were probably not ready to go to work yet. He hoped so...

"Yes, come in," you called through the door, the sound of your voice making his heart jump.

He took a deep breath, before pushing the door open.

His heart stopped at the sight of you.

He hadn't seen you in three weeks. Three long weeks, and he couldn't help but realize that three weeks had felt like eternity. He took in the sight of you as you stood there, your back to him, the shy light of dawn bathing your frame. He smiled as you attached your hair into a ponytail. He loved it when you tied up your hair like that...

"What can I do for you?"

You spun around, but froze as your eyes were caught by Poe's stare.

You both remained there, standing, motionless, staring at each other for a moment.

"Hey," Poe finally breathed, breaking the heavy silence, unable to control the dreamy smile that had formed on his face.

"Poe, what... what are you doing here? You didn't run away from your doctors, right?"

He chuckled.

"They've let me go today."

"Oh..."

"But... I'm supposed to rest a lot, but I wanted to see you first as you... you didn't come to see me in weeks. Actually, you didn't come to see me at all since we got back."

He took a step towards you, entering your room, and he let the door close behind him.

"I don't understand why you're avoiding me," he went on, walking closer to you again. "Did I do something wrong?"

He kept on walking towards you, but you were motionless. Your entire frame was frozen, only your eyes moved to remain fixed upon his. You let him approach, until he was close enough to notice the shining piece of metal around your neck...

His eyes widened at the sight of his mother's ring resting upon your heart. His eyes travelled up to meet your stare again, before falling onto the ring once more. His dark brown orbs travelled back and forth between your eyes and the ring on your heart...

Until the realization struck him and he looked at you with horrified eyes.

"You listened to my message... right?"

His voice was just a shaking whisper. You opened your mouth to answer, but he winced, speaking again before any word could pass your lips.

"Don't hate me," he begged you. "I... I recorded this speech in case I wouldn't come back. But I'm not expecting anything from you. So... please, don't stop talking to me. I know you don't feel the same, and I know that you've found your soulmate, and you can trust me for being only supportive about that aspect of your life. I'm happy for you, really I am..."

"Poe," you tried to interrupt him, but he shushed.

"No, let me talk. You see... that's why I didn't tell you, I was scared you could be mad at me, or even slap my stupid face..."

"Poe!"

You had raised your voice, and he immediately fell silent, a scared expression on his face.

You gave him a reassuring smile.

"I'm not mad at you," you replied, your tone soothing. "But we need to talk. And I thought that it was best to wait until you felt better. That's why I didn't come to see you these past few weeks, because we need to talk about all this, it's the first thing we need to do. And we couldn't do it while you were still in need of rest and calm. But I'm not mad, Poe."

He nodded, relaxing, although he still seemed worried. He massaged his own palm, obvious sign that he was nervous.

"I don't want you to change the way you act around me because of what you heard in this recording," he said earnestly. "I would never try anything knowing that another man is meant to make you happy."

You shook your head, taking a step towards him, before changing your mind, and nodding towards your bed.

"We should sit down, Poe. It's not good for you to remain standing for too long."

But he shook his head.

"I've been lying on a bed for three weeks, really, I don't want to sit down," he smiled.

He struggled to swallow back the lump that had started to climb up his throat.

"You don't hate me, right?" he asked softly.

"Of course I don't hate you."

You took his hands in yours, looking down at your intertwined fingers for a few seconds.

"Poe... you should look at this compass of yours."

He frowned hard.

"Why?"

"Just do it."

"I don't want to do it," he said bitterly.

What was the point, he knew the little arrow would not be pointing at the woman he longed to have in his arms...

But the look you gave him left him no choice but to comply.

"Poe. Trust me, and look at this compass."

He couldn't understand why you suddenly insisted, but there was something in your eyes that forced him to pull up his sleeve, and finally look at down at this arrow he had avoided for years, right next to the long line his wounds had left and that would undoubtedly remain carved in his skin as a scar...

...And his eyes grew wide in shock.

He turned around, but the arrow spun to follow his movements, so that the tip kept on pointing at you...

Slowly, he turned back towards you, the same shock still painted over his features.

"I thought you would be disappointed," you said, your throat dangerously tightening, tears threatening to run down your face. "So I didn't tell you when I learnt about it. And then... time passed and we became so close, and I was so scared that you would be disappointed and would hate me for not being good enough and... I just... I hoped you would notice it and talk about it first..."

"You're my soulmate..." he breathed, his tone somewhere between an affirmation and a question.

You nodded.

"Yeah, I'm your soulmate, Poe. I'm sorry, we've lost so much time... and I want you... this... all of it... I want it all so badly now. I thought you would be disappointed and that you would push me away, but now I know I was wrong. I should have told you, I should have trusted fate, it was guiding me to you after all."

You raised your sleeve as well, revealing your own compass to his eyes.

And the little arrow was pointing at him...

"I'm your soulmate..." he whispered.

But before you could answer, he had strode to you, closing the space between your bodies and crushed his lips against yours.

He kept on walking until your back hit the wall behind you, his hands lost in your hair, his thumbs stroking tenderly your cheeks while he deepened the kiss.

And there was no other words to describe this feeling than 'perfect'.

It felt like you were suddenly whole when you had struggled in the search of a part of you during your entire life. And Poe felt this same feeling that everything was suddenly right, all the pieces fitting in harmony.

The feelings that were shaking your two souls could have never been described with words. Butterflies, shivers, fireworks... all were an understatement of this feeling that was making every muscle of your body burning with happiness and shiver through electricity.

It felt right, kissing him, being trapped in his arms, feeling his skin under your fingertips.

You were home...

Eventually, you had to break away to finally breathe a gulp of air. But you were both unable to open your eyes for a moment, too much lost in your feelings, reality staying away for a few more instants, as you both struggled to catch your breaths. He rested his forehead against yours.

"Since when do you know?" he asked in a shaking whisper.

He dropped sweet pecks on your brow and temples, having longed for so long to finally kiss your skin that now he couldn't find a way to tear his lips away from you.

"Since we met," you whispered, biting down your lip.

"You should have told me..." he breathed, but you interrupted him.

"I didn't know how to tell you by then, and we didn't know each other, and I was certain that you would be disappointed and... I couldn't... What was I supposed to say? 'Hey, hi again... I'm your soulmate, by the way'?"

He chuckled, wrapping his arms around you to hold you even closer to him.

"Something like that would have been perfect," he mocked, kissing the tip of your nose.

He heaved a sigh, resting his forehead on your shoulder.

"I'm the one who messed up. I shouldn't have been so scared, I should have looked at this compass ages ago..."

"I should have told you..."

But he shushed you, pressing another tender kiss upon your lips.

"It doesn't matter," he stated. "It doesn't matter at all, none of this matters. It's just the past. We both did a huge mistake, let's just forget about it."

A grin formed on his lips, while tears appeared in his eyes.

"I'm so happy it's you," he whispered. "I wanted it to be you so much... I wanted you for soulmate."

"And you do have me, Poe."

He kissed all your face and neck, all piece of skin he could reach, and you did the same, pouring all your love upon him.

You rested your hand on his ring after a while.

"Do you want it back?"

But he shook his head.

"I was to give it to my soulmate. Around your neck is the place where it belongs. My mother would want you to have it. Keep it. I want you to keep it forever, just like my heart."

You tenderly stroked his cheek.

"I love you, Poe Dameron," you whispered.

He took your hands in his, your enlaced fingers resting between the two of you, as he rested his forehead against yours again, and you both closed your eyes in unison.

"I love you too, Y/N. I love you with all my heart."

You remained standing there, grinning, enjoying the nearness of the other for a very long while, knowing that this love that you shared would last even when all the stars would have grown dark, too strong to be diminished in any way buy time or sorrow. You both knew that nothing could ever separate you. Even in a world of darkness, you knew this love would be your light...

And between the two of you, the compasses on your skins were turned towards each other, fate controlling their direction, as it had always done, and would always do.

And your compass was pointing towards him.

And his compass was pointing towards you.

***************

Tag list : @wearetalkingtoyou, @that-bwitch, @mxrihollxnd, @nessoverjoyed, @zestygingergirl, @ynnep, @morphoportis, @mrsdaamneron, @poedameronandothertrash, @weirdhangrypotato, @arrowswithwifi, @donkeysblog

304 notes · View notes

brawltogethernow · 6 years

Text

Neutral Element - I Am Well

Installment Masterlist/what am I looking at here || Relationships: FINALLY; Characters: Tarvek and Gil, Agatha; Length: 2k; Content notes: Just when including this section was starting to feel overly precious - Medical stuff! Dissociation! Flashbacks! Body horror? Aaronev Wilhelm leaving sticky residue on things that persists after his death. All conveyed through experimental formatting. This segment was fun. Readmores are still broken on mobile and I’m still sorry.

Tarveka and Gil maintain a careful balance of, ‘Well, it would upset Agatha if something happened to you,’ and not addressing that they can feel each other’s lies of omission.

“We’ve got to put her in a different head,” Agatha declares, staring into the dead eyes of Tarveka’s empty chassis with an air of diagnosis and tsking quietly. “This one’s no good.”

“We can maybe fix up some other things for her, while we’re in there....” adds Gil, pressing close to Agatha to look too.

I will not stand by while you — came the impression of Tarveka in her head, only to pause. Gil was reminded of a finicky bumacat deciding whether to put her paw down after sticking it outside her cave. Hm, that is a good idea. Zengil feels Tarveka shuffling through the half-formed ideas for improvements floating at the top of her mind, which manifests as them rising to precedence without her input. To someone with pretty strong mental control, it’s unusual and somewhat disorienting. Hm, I like that one. Oh, now that is lovely.

Gil wants to tease her for being as vain as a cat too, in this moment where she won’t have to explain the reference and Tarveka will understand and not be able to deny she’s joking, but Tarveka’s appreciation is more that of an enthusiastic connoisseur. Even Tarveka’s interest in clothing that Gil has noted has surprisingly little of the covetous impulse that Ooh, that would look lovely on me. And Tarveka would know she knew that, and know she knew she knew, and...

Ack.

“Told you,” Gil settles on.

You’re such a mess, impresses Tarveka, plainly referring to the entire train of thought.

I’ll have to commission a whole new wardrobe, of course,” Tarveka coughs. Being able to edit herself to fit clothes could certainly be convenient. The taste alerts her that blood is dripping from her mouth.

Soon she won’t be bothered by concerns like —

Zengil yanks herself out of the blood-red flash of recollection, reeling. Half of her scrambles to place when that happened to her, before it settles in that it never did.

I didn’t see anything?? she thinks at Tarveka, desperate and sheepish.

Tarveka, sick and sulky, doesn’t send more than a mild sense of irritation at Gil, but Zengil still retreats, embarrassed at having accidentally intruded on something so profoundly personal, to lurk sheepishly in the corner of her own head.

Asking me to ride along like this... Tarveka begins eventually, out of the blue and awkward. I would think you of all people...

Gil, for once, is sure of what Tarveka is getting at. She’s kind of cheating right now. “You aren’t like Lucrezia, okay? I invited you in. So stop fretting.”

Gil, mercifully for the both of them, cannot actually see most of Tarveka’s thoughts, but she doesn’t need to to put together stories about Lucrezia with Tarveka’s own manner of conducting herself and see why the clank girl might be uncomfortable, snagged by hooks of misplaced guilt.

Tarveka’s presence retreats into a sulky, defensive ball, trying to shrink into itself and lash out defensively at the same time.

“Of course,” says Gil, voice growing irritated, “you could always just try being a better person instead of a manipulative sneak —”

Oh, don’t you start with me, you brutish, pathetic excuse for a diplomat! You wouldn’t know subtlety if it struck you in the face!

“That wouldn’t be very subtle of it, would it?”

Tarveka considers her body, cracked open on a lab table, for the second time in her existence.

(At this point she isn’t sure she dares call it her life. It almost feels like she’ll jinx herself.)

For the first time, she’s doing so through another’s eyes. The optics of her clank were hers from the start, of course. And the eyes she saw it through were her very own, the originals, slightly myopic and a dull brown color she needs only look at Anevke to see these days, but still somewhat misses.

Her clank body’s first face didn’t move. She just didn’t have the skill or the time, and she would have needed at least one.

Tarveka had already studied the art of dollmaking before she sent her brother for the Muse, and applied those arts when she couldn’t replicate the incredible lifelike quality of Tinka, fighting her own body and racing to beat its inevitable shutdown, damn her father. She made the clank’s face so its expression could seem to change with a tilt of the head, or through association with subtle posture or a tone of voice.

Tinka’s help was invaluable with the more critical problems, before Tarveka’s father broke her too. Aaronev left the world scattered with broken women.

She is staring down at her own corpse and thinking, I don’t want to believe that I am dead, but what if —

Gil yanks them away from the memory with increasingly thoughtless ease — more of a nudge than a yank now, really, a gentle redirect — and tries not to mull on how she now knows Tarveka snuck her own body into her family castle’s medical waste.

She wasn’t bragging about knowing mental disciplines, so instead of letting herself start thinking about how she shouldn’t be thinking about things she shouldn’t be thinking about, inevitably defeating the purpose of the whole thing, she starts teaching Tarveka the Skiff alphabet. Then she moves on to their measuring system.

Base 9? thinks Tarveka. Really?

The number was sacred to an ancient simek—

Waͪrͤrͬiͦorˢᵖᵃʳᵏ, conveys the helpful impression Tarveka gets.

— so it’s sort of a thing. Don’t start. You count time by twenty-four. Twenty-four and sixty.

Yes, but that’s...

Normal here? Gil interrupts sarcastically.

Alright, touché.

Gil is stripped open and vulnerable too, like this. There’s a kind of balance to it that settles the part of Tarveka that wants to be defensive. She’s shocked by the open, raw care the other woman feels, and the soft thread of doubt and hurt she put there.

Tubing twists from the palanquin’s molded container like organs spilling from a fresh Coptic jar and isn’t it isn’t she dead so much to do trapped in this castle trapped —

They emerge with a gasp and Gil forces their attention back to the present project, which is strikingly reminiscent but not the same. It’s not you, you’re with me, please, Tarveka. If we don’t focus you will die.

We will die, corrects Tarveka. Suicidal idiot.

Tarveka is getting better at taking the reins from Gil, remembering how to be flesh. Given all the factors, this is probably a bad thing.

Gil fancies that Agatha is like one of her goddessess — a war queen who built herself wings of iron and sunlight, flew to the realm of the gods, and situated herself among them.

That is the best thing I’ve ever seen, says Tarveka. Really? Do you mind if I use that comparison? I’ve thought of her as like the sun before, you know, but we don’t have any sun goddesses.

She was reading associations out of Gil’s mind, then. Sometimes the queen was associated with Ishana, the punishing burning bringer of life.

Do you think —

That the legend could refer to some solar-powered vehicle? finishes Gil. Yes. I’ve incorporated that idea into some of my designs —

It says iron, but —

It must be from some old word that just means metal, I think.

Ah, like the “apple” of knowledge.

The what?

Now, fͭoͪuͤr of the sͫeͦvͬeͤnᶠᵒʳʷᵃʳᵈ ᵗʰᶤᶰᵏᶤᶰᵍ popes disagree about this strongly, but...

She grips her right hand with her right hand and feels for a pulse and this is the part where her heartrate should kick up but that’s the entire problem isn’t i —

“You two are spacing out again, aren’t you,” says Agatha, grabbing Gil by the chin and forcing them to look her in the eyes.

Focusing on Agatha is easy. “I’m not going to die on you, I — I promise,” Gil reassures her. Or one of them does.

“Don’t you dare,” Agatha says, uses her grip to tilt Gil’s head, then leans forward and kisses them softly.

Then she bustles back to work. There’s still ever so much of it.

Tarveka resents the ways the project of building a clank to puppet got away from her.

Tarveka has always placed a high value on her control over her own person. It is a representation of her personal strength which she feels, paradoxically, is both a testament to her indomitable will and an absolute lowest-bar basic achievement everyone should be expected to adhere to. After all, she does.

Tarveka administered as close to total control over her body as possible through the teachings of the Way of the Smoke. She controlled her own reactions. She controlled others’ perceptions of her.

But the incident of losing her body was a mad dash wresting control back from where the void devoured it from the very start, and she did not emerge entirely victorious|took heavy losses in her victory. Yes, she built her new body from its gears up, and it’s a masterwork, certainly, but she didn’t make it her new body on purpose. She didn’t mean to give that much to her father in her first move.

Overplayed her hand.

This single error is representative of a veritable cascade of them. She’s different, now, in ways she’s still only cataloguing. She was never as comfortable around biomatter as some sparks, but she finds she’s less fussed about it now. It took her months to connect that to a new aversive reaction to gutted machines and rust on old wires it takes a light fugue to push away.

Like many things, it’s nothing she ever constructed, not something she programmed. She’d very much like to put on airs and compare herself to Van Rijn with his famous bafflement at his own marvelous creations, but she would be more comfortable with this if she hadn’t created herself.

Is she even still herself?

“Did you know the fundamental components of an organic body experience a massive turnover rate?” says Gil.

“What?” snaps Tarveka, grabbing control of Gil’s own mouth to do it, which is becoming easier the longer she has to grow used to not being in a clank. She isn’t in the mood for a biology lesson.

“You know, the primary building components, uh, they’re round in animals and square in plants —”

“I know what cells are, Zengil.”

Instead of acting called out for being a patronizing know-it-all, Gil snaps her fingers and says, “Right, that’s what it is. Like little rooms. Thank you. I haven’t had reason to brush up on all the basic terminology in the local language. Didn’t usually have anyone to talk to about it, for one thing. Anyway, hundreds of millions —” She picks a flitting thought from Tarveka carelessly “— billions, thank you — of cells die off in a healthy person every day. On purpose! It’s great, really.” She finishes with a bit of the telltale distraction of a spark espousing on their specialty.

“...They do not,” says Tarveka.

“Well,” says Gil, “only some of them.” Tarveka gets a ghost impression, a diagram of the human body forged through in-depth understanding picked out in hot and cold spots. “We’re never the same for long, even if we’re sitting still. We’re not supposed to be. That’s what being alive is!”

Tarveka thinks about this. “Are you talking about necrosis?”

“I’m talking about apoptosis, you morbid little tit.”

“Seriously? You forgot ‘cell’, but you know that word?”

Gil mutters, but the impression Tarveka gets — a stack of secondhand books, at once familiar and foreign and exciting, stacked on a rock in an empty waste — is much more indicative than the actual words, which include “dare defy me”, “show them all”, and “then they’ll see, they’ll all see”, in an impressive but pat three-for-three.

Tarveka chews on a response. “If this is a clumsy attempt to make me feel better —”

“Who, me?” says Zengil. “Be nice to you? Never.”

“— Then it’s working,” finishes Tarveka. “But only a little. ...Shut up, don’t —” stare at me like that? No, that’s not right. This is getting very confusing. “Stop — stop having feelings at me, get back to work.”

“You’re not actually the boss of me, Sturm —”

“If you don’t connect that octave coupler it’s going to catch fire.”

“Ack!”

“Do they realize how weird that looks?” asks Violetta, watching what appears to be Zengil talking to herself while they wait for someone madder than they are to hand them another task.

“They’re sparks,” says Moloch, shrugging. “Do they care?”

For a week Tarveka maintains the frequency of checking on her body she had when she’d thought something was wrong. (She’d been right.) She doesn’t have the opportunity to miss her heart pounding and her breath coming fast as she carries on the deception, because her gears whir and grind, and her vision shifts too amber, then too blue.

She goes through the motions of her normal routines, paring them down slowly. She doesn’t really know why she’s bothering when her audience is mostly the palanquin’s bearers. (Pallbearers.) She could order them away for maintenance and only seem like a snappish spark — she could bite, It’s a spark thing, get lost! when she doesn’t open the container, when she drops off the frequency of all her biological maintenance to a dead stop. But they avert their eyes and she doesn’t ever need to.

Agatha grips them by the chin again but this time she just stares them in the eyes, whips out a flashlight and stares more, then says, “You’re integrating too strongly. You two can’t even be trusted to stay fighting?” She tsks. “Incredible.” Then she wanders off and begins writing out papers. They will only find out what’s on them later.

Si vales valeo is an abbreviation of si vales bene est ego valeo, which means “If you are well, I am well.”

#girl genius #ggne #fic #w

14 notes · View notes

fnlrndcllctv · 3 years

Text

REVIEW: Nitroplus Blasterz -Heroines Infinite Duel- (2015)

Going into this review, I wasn’t at all familiar with the world of Nitro+, which doesn’t come as much of a surprise as the vast majority of their work has never actually been released outside of Japan.

So, let’s start this off with a quick background on the company and what kind of stuff it has released in the past. Since 2000, Nitro+ has been steadily releasing Visual Novel games, with Steins;Gate arguably being their most well known game in the west.

Most of the themes in these games are pretty dark, ranging from the more fantasy-based stuff like necromancy to some incredibly questionable material such as murder and rape.

In the mid-2000s, the developer released Nitro+ Royale -Heroines Duel-, which brought together thirteen fighters from their back catalogue of games in a traditional 2D fighter, and seems to be a pretty unremarkable, by-the-numbers doujin fighting game.

Almost a decade later, Nitro+ once again stepped outside of the Visual Novel genre to make another attempt at a crossover fighting game that included a who’s who of their games making appearances, only this time taking advantage of the various advancements in the fighting game genre had seen.

The resulting release was today’s topic; Nitro+ Blasterz -Heroines Infinite Duel-.

The question remains, is it any good?

Gameplay

The game uses just five buttons; light attack, medium attack, heavy attack, escape action, and heavy action.

The escape action button can be used to perform evasive manoeuvres and guards while heavy actions can be used to push an opponent back when players are feeling pressured during a fight.

The game makes it incredibly easy to chain together combos, and implements a whole bunch of other common elements that help to make the game feel like it fits in with the subgenre, and makes it easy for new players to get the hang of things.

Air dashing? You got it!

Super gauge-fuelled super attacks? Hell yeah!

“Lethal Blaze” ultra attacks that feel unique to each fighter and often look stunning? Of course they’re here!

Nitro+ Blasterz -Heroines Infinite Duel- feels very comfortable to play, while still offering enough of a challenge to encourage players to improve.

Story

The game’s main story mode is a standard 8-match arcade ladder in which players must battle through with their chosen fighter. The plot revolves around an evil being (a copy of the character Al Azif made from fragments taken from multiple different timelines where the Demonbane failed) who attempts to take over the final remaining dimension.

Instead of cutscenes, we’re met with the visual novel approach, which doesn’t do a fantastic job of engaging players and making them muster up any motivation to finish the story.

Upon finishing the normal story mode for the first time, an extra story mode becomes available, comprised of ten individual chapters. The mode is a(yup, you guessed it) visual novel adaptation of HP Lovecraft’s story “The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward”, and follows the games cast as they assume the roles of the story rather than themselves. This mode has more variety visually, but only slightly, and the scenes that do pop up are very questionable (one particular scene is very “non-consensual” in nature).

I guess it was inevitable that the game’s story would be presented in a visual novel-like format, considering the origin games for the majority of the roster, but they’re so difficult to follow thanks to a tidal wave of complicated terminology instead of any likeable dialogue or character development.

Roster

Nitro+ Blasterz -Heroines Infinite Duel- features fourteen unique playable characters, two of which are DLC fighters.

Al Azif - From the Demonbane series, Al Azif is the spirit of the Necronomicon (that’s the “book of the dead, for all you non-Evil Dead fans out there!). Her primary goal is to hunt down and destroy all unholy powers that are in league with the evil gods.

Anna - From the Gekkō no Carnevale series, Anna is an automaton doll that was found in a trash dump. She has amnesia, and now works in a workshop, fixing machines.

Ethica - One of the protagonists from the Tokyo Necro series, Ethica is a young "Private Special Living Dead Stalker" who practices a special kind of fighting style known as "Close Quarter Armed Martial Arts".

Ein - From the Phantom Of Inferno series, Ein is an assassin with such skill she was given the codename "Phantom", has no memories of her past and is incredibly apathetic towards, well, mostly everything except killing.

Ignis - From the Jingai Makyō series, Ignis is a demon hunter and the sworn protector of humanity who makes up for her lack of supernatural powers by mastering martial arts and being deadly with a kitana.

Mora - From the Vampirdzhija Vjedogonia visual novel, Mora is a vampire hunter who is armed with a massive hammer to beat down her opponents with.

Satsurikuin Ouka - From the same modelling agency as Super Sonico, Ouka is a confident, extroverted young girl who is constantly looking for her spot in the limelight. She’s also attached to a robotic metal crucifix for some reason.

Ruili - From the Kikokugai: The Cyber Slayer visual novel, Ruili is essentially a reanimated corpse/”soul transfer experiment” that contains the soul of a young woman who yearns to be with her brother (in a “way more than friends” fashion… yeah).

Saber - From the Fate/stay night visual novel, Saber is the personification of Arturia Pendragon (or, as he is more commonly known, King Arthur) and was created to aid participants in a to-the-death tournament called the Fifth Holy Grail War.

Muramasa - From the Full Metal Daemon: Muramasa visual novel, Muramasa is the human form of a tsurugi (a living soul forged into a set of armour). Also a demon?

Super Sonico - Nitro+’s mascot and lead singer/guitarist of the fictional band First Astronomical Velocity. Originally appeared in the arcade version of this game, but was made into a fully playable fighter for the console releases.

Saya - From the Saya no Uta visual novel, Saya is a being from another dimension who materialized in this universe for the sole purpose of reproduction. While she looks like an innocent young girl, in actuality, she is some sort of amorphous fleshy abomination that emits a putrid stench and produces slime, and eatanything from cats to human beings.

Heart - From the Arcana Heart games, Heart is the first DLC fighter in the game.

Homura - From the Senran Kagura series, Homura is the last DLC character.

In addition to the game’s roster of playable fighters, there are twenty different “assist” characters to choose from.

With representatives ranging from games/anime/manga such as Psycho-Pass, Guilty Crown: Lost Christmas and Phenomeno to Expelled From Paradise, School-Live! and Gargantia On The Verdurous Planet, each of these characters act in the same way as the striker system in The King Of Fighters ‘99. A player can choose two assists, and during a match, can briefly tag one of these assists into battle to do extra damage or change up specific stats.

The game handily makes things easier for players in this decision making process by informing you which duo of assist characters have an effective synergy with your chosen main fighter. With how likely it is that players will not be very familiar with most of (if not all of) these extra support faces, this is incredibly helpful.

Therein lies one of the biggest issues of Nitro+ Blasterz -Heroines Infinite Duel-, and it’s a problem that it seemingly shares with a great deal of anime as a whole; it’s full of fanservice, but actively alienates and overwhelms anyone who might be newcomers.

All of the character descriptions above were the result of me having spend hours delving into the story of each individual game for the purposes of the review, as this game doesn’t give you any information whatsoever. Throughout the dialogue of the story, each character makes references to their respective game, which is fine if you’re a diehard fan of any of these titles, but is absolutely bewildering for anyone who is out of the loop, and makes it tough to connect with any of the fighters outside of a technical level.

Look, I’m really not asking for my hand to be held through this, I just don’t think that it is too much to ask to include some basic information to go along with each fighter.

At least put the original game titles for each fighter in somewhere!.

Graphics

Nitro+ Blasterz -Heroines Infinite Duel- follows the tradition of many 2D anime-style fighters such as Blazblue, Under Night In-Birth and Arcana Heart, showcasing some very stylish fighting action.

All of the character sprites in the game are nicely animated, especially during assist moments mid-match and whenever someone lands a particularly devastating finishing move.

The visual flairs that pop up on screen during some of the “Lethal Blaze” attacks are amazing to watch, especially characters such as Ein, who leaps offscreen only to reappear in the distance with a sniper rifle, allowing players to quickly aim the gun at a foe.

At no point do the visuals in Nitro+ Blasterz -Heroines Infinite Duel- set the bar for the genre, but it’s still a great game to look at.

Stages

The variety of stages in Nitro+ Blasterz -Heroines Infinite Duel- is quite a mixed bag quality-wise.

When the stages look good, they’re great. The skyscraper-laden view from the rooftop stage is a highlight, as is the viscera covered grounds of the city (which feels appropriately Lovecraftian, when you learn about why it’s happening in “Another Story”).

The problem is that every stage feels very boring, even the ones that look nice. Everything feels so empty and lifeless, and directly clashes with the fast-paced action of the fights.

Every stage feels like a training stage, and is one of the more disappointing aspects of the game.

Replayability

Outside of the game’s standard story modes and score attack, there’s not really that much to do in Nitro+ Blasterz -Heroines Infinite Duel-.

In a similar way to games like Blade Strangers (read our review of the game here!), there’s not much of an incentive to carry on playing the game once you’ve gained the character art from the end of each character playthrough in story mode.

Even then, the gallery is lacking somewhat, showcasing art you’ll have already seen by the time you’ve unlocked it.

Training mode is as barebones as you could possibly get, offering nothing other than the ability to reset your position onscreen and a command list.

Online play is tricky too, as (at the time of writing) there was next to nobody to fight against, so it renders the option rather useless.

Final thoughts & overall score

Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel- is a solid and interesting crossover fighting experience that effectively offers an impressive fighter roster, fun to watch assist characters and easy to learn gameplay mechanics.

It’s a shame that the game doesn’t have the same depth as its peers, with two borderline nonsensical storylines, a range of disappointingly boring stage designs and a total unwillingness to offer any character context to players that aren’t familiar with the source material.

Do you agree with our review of Nitro+ Blasterz -Heroines infinite duel-?

Let us know in the comments section below!

#Review #Nitroplus Blasterz -Heroines Infinite Duel-#PlayStation 4 #Marvelous #Examu #2015 #Arcana Heart

0 notes

eddycurrents · 7 years

Photo

For the week of 11 September 2017

Just one favourite this week: Ninjak #0 by Matt Kindt and Francis Portela (with MJ Kim, Khari Evans, Roberto de la Torre, Sija Hong, and Juan José Ryp). Published by Valiant.

Ninjak #0 provides a capstone to Matt Kindt’s run with the character, giving both an encapsulation of Ninjak’s history to date and one final mission to propel the series further into a more in-depth exploration into the Ninja Programme and legacy, before handing the character off to Christos Gage and Tomás Giorello for their new Ninja-K series.

I very much like how Kindt plays with time in this story. After firing an arrow on the first page in the present, the book’s pages are bisected by that arrow’s path, with the top telling of the events immediately leading up to that first page--illustrated by Francis Portela--and the bottom offering snippet’s of Ninjak’s history--illustrated by MJ Kim, Khari Evans, Roberto de la Torre, Sija Hong, and Juan José Ryp. (You can see an example above). It’s an interesting and effective way of delivering a lot of simultaneous information and narrative at once and I was particularly impressed by everyone involved.

As time on the top converges with the arrow, the structure reverts to a standard one timeframe narrative as it leads into a teaser for the new Ninja-K series from Gage and Giorello.

Like with the previous recent zero issue offerings for Bloodshot Reborn and Divinity, this serves as an excellent primer for people interested in the character and in jumping into the Valiant Universe.

Quick Bits:

All New Wolverine #24 wraps up the “Hive” arc guest-starring the Guardians of the Galaxy and Leonard Kirk’s tenure as artist on the series. This arc was fun, with Tom Taylor delivering some very nice and heartfelt interactions between Laura and Gabby, as well as continuing to present some strong characterization with Rocket and Groot.

| Published by Marvel

Amazing Spider-Man #32 is a single issue story of Norman Osborn trying to reclaim his Green Goblin persona. It’s an interesting look into Osborn’s drive and potential, with some absolutely beautiful artwork form Greg Smallwood & Jordie Bellaire.

| Published by Marvel

Birthright #26 provides a jumping on point as it begins a new story-arc. It’s fairly exposition heavy, but Joshua Williamson still makes it feel interesting, even to old readers since there’s a bit of a shift since the last issue. As always Andrei Bressan’s art is beautiful.

| Published by Image / Skybound

Deadpool #36 is a transitional issue from Deadpool working for “Stevil” Hydra Cap and the forthcoming Despicable Deadpool, closing out some old plot threads and sending off the remaining supporting characters, while setting up Wade’s new status quo of reluctantly working for Stryfe. As usual Gerry Duggan mixes in humour while ultimately making Deadpool a tragic figure.

| Published by Marvel

Doctor Strange & The Sorcerers Supreme #12 is a fitting send-off to a series that still feels gone to soon. From Javier Rodriguez to this issue’s Nathan Stockman, the series has been great artistically, and this issue’s sideways widescreen format is well appreciated. Robbie Thompson also brings it back full circle to how this excursion started in last year’s Doctor Strange Annual by closing on the “Not So” Ancient One’s journey.

| Published by Marvel

Grass Kings #7 is still an inscrutable beauty. Part crime drama, part mystery, part family drama, part treatise on loyalty and community in an extremely independent society, Matt Kindt and Tyler Jenkins have something special here. This issue adds another layer to the problems that they’ve been having with Cargill, while more explicitly breaking open the mystery of a potential serial killer and giving us some more details on what happened in Bruce’s past that led him to coming home to the Grass Kingdom.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Gwenpool, The Unbelievable #20 is going to mess with your head. In a good way.

| Published by Marvel

Hulk #10 brings Mariko Tamaki’s second story-arc to a conclusion. I can’t say I enjoyed it as much as I did the first, but there have still been some entertaining moments. The character interaction between Jen and Patsy being particularly strong.

Also, like the previous issue, the art shift part way through detracts. Both artists, Julian Lopez and Francesco Gaston, are good, but their styles kind of clash. Lopez uses a thick line and somewhat realistic style similar to Jesus Saiz, whereas Gaston has a thinner line and a bit more angular, stylized character composition--much like Georges Duarte, who started this arc.

| Published by Marvel

Kill or Be Killed #12 pushes Dylan further into darkness, even without his little demon friends whispering not-so-sweet nothings into his ears. As always, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips are creating a compelling, nuanced story month in and month out. There’s also some good development in Dylan and Kira’s relationship, but, as per the original dissolution, I’m expecting the other shoe to drop sometime soon.

| Published by Image

Mech Cadet Yu #2 brings Yu and his adopted Robo back to the Sky Academy, where he’s officially accepted as one of the cadets. The story beats are pretty standard coming of age, living through adversity by being a fish out of water, ruffling the feathers of the establishment-type thing, but Greg Pak never allows it to feel old. Yu and his Robo are just too likeable characters to not enjoy seeing their advancement and acceptance. It also helps that Takeshi Miyazawa’s artwork is wonderful.

Despite not being published under one of their more all-ages imprints like Boom! Box or kaboom!, this series remains something that I think that kids would get a lot of enjoyment out of as well.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

Old Man Logan #28 is a work of art. I don’t know who made a pact with the devil in order to consistently get this level of artwork out of Mike Deodato Jr., but whatever they did since at least the Jeff Lemire Thanos series, Deodato has been producing some of the most beautiful, thoughtful, and compelling work of his career. He’s been a great artist for more than twenty-five years in the industry, but his work lately has been absolutely next level. His shading, page layouts, character designs & staging, and panel transitions are practically a masterclass on the art form.

| Published by Marvel

Pestilence #4 unveils some secrets as we head towards the conclusion. This has been a fairly bloody and brutal tale of knights vs. zombies from Frank Tieri and Oleg Okenev and it’s not letting up. It delivers a nice satisfying crunch.

| Published by Aftershock

Redlands #2 jumps the series ahead to modern day, fleshing out the sisters’ characters and the world that they live in, having pretty much taken over Redlands, Florida following the bloodbath back in ‘77. We’re still left a lot of details out, but we’re given a better look at some of the things going on, as a game of murderous cat and mouse between the sisters and an unknown potential blackmailer unfolds. Jordie Bellaire and Vanessa Del Rey are creating something interesting here and I’m definitely hooked to see what happens next.

| Published by Image

Retcon #1 is...something, I’m not really sure what. Interesting, though, certainly, and something I’ll continue to read for a bit. Ostensibly this is about a team of supernatural beings working for the government, but the interview in the back and the title suggest something else. If anything, the artwork from Toby Cypress is worth the price of admission alone. Still not sure what to think of the story.

| Published by Image

Sacred Creatures #3 again challenges me to decide whether or not I like Pablo Raimondi’s mix of traditional comics art with photography. I’m leaning towards yes.

| Published by Image

Secret Warriors #6 kicks off a two-part arc with the members of the Warriors back on their own. The bulk of the issue is devoted to Daisy tracking down who murdered Coulson and it leads to some humorous exchanges. Who would have known that life model decoys are anatomically correct?

| Published by Marvel

Spy Seal #2 feels even more like a European funny animal book than the first issue. To me it feels like Rich Tommaso is doing a take on something like Tin Tin, but with an anthropomorphic seal, and it’s just wonderful.

| Published by Image

Transformers: Lost Light #9 gives a kind of closure, or at least a transition, to the Natuica/Velocity/Skids character and story arcs. It’s kind of bittersweet when you consider the implications and I expect that James Roberts will undoubtedly revisit this somewhere in the future. Also, the reveal of who the “Grand Architect” is at the end of this issue is pretty epic.

| Published by IDW

Uncanny Avengers #27 is a pretty straight-forward conclusion to the team’s confrontation with Graviton. It’s mostly action, but there are some character moments cementing that this team can still work together fairly effectively. The artwork from Sean Izaakse again is very nice.

| Published by Marvel

Other Highlights: Babyteeth #4, Black Science #31, Clue #4, Curse Words #8, The Damned: Ill-Gotten #4, Defenders #5, Dread Gods #2, First Strike #3, Genius: Cartel #2, Ghost Station Zero #2, Harrow County #25, Hellboy & BPRD - 1955: Occult Intelligence #1, InSEXts #13, Jane, Lumberjanes #42, Mage: The Hero Denied #2, The Realm #1, Riverdale #6, Rocket #5, Rose #6, Runaways #1, The Shadow #2, Shadows on the Grave #8, Slam!: Next Jam #1, The Sovereigns #5, The Spirit: The Corpse Makers #4, Star Wars #36, Star Wars: Doctor Aphra #12, TMNT Universe #14, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #24, Venomverse #2, War for the Planet of the Apes #3, Weapon X #8, Winnebago Graveyard #4, X-Men Blue #11

Recommended Collections: Britannia - Vol. 2: We Who Are About to Die, Elektra: Always Bet on Red, Kingpin: Born Against, Saucer Country, TMNT - Vol. 17: Desperate Measures

d. emerson eddy believes that uptown funk is going to give it to you. Don’t believe him? Just watch.

#This Week in Comics #Ninjak 0 #Matt Kindt #Francis Portela

7 notes · View notes

cawwwwmic · 6 years

Photo

If we’re talkin’ where the narrative begins, it starts with Fear Buddy, a confused & lost young friend, exploring an empty, lonely expanse before soon realizing that we all live in a Pokémon world, a truth that will change the course of history forever. If, however, we’re talkin’ about where the story begins chronologically, it might be smarter to go back to Chud Thuck Kankle, a very hip and very cool hippo boy, who discovered a strange, brown tendril while walking through the woods one day. This tendril is the CUNK, an unknowable being who quickly befriended Chud, becoming a mentor of sorts to both him and to the world at large. Though the CUNK and their teachings were quickly adopted into every aspect of culture, they knew that they were not long for this world, so they trained Chud Thuck Kankle in the magic arts necessary to cast CUNK out of this world by destroying their mortal shell of spiraling tentacles. This event is what catalyzed the rest of the story thus far: with CUNK’s death grew social unrest. In the timeline where Chud went through with the CUNK’s plan, he was thrown in jail for his crimes and berated by the policeman who interrogated him, Officer Milky. There was deep sadness in both their hearts that evening. Luckily, Chud Thuck Kankle’s time in prison was cut short by a mysterious purple figure named “y, though to move to Act 2 so quickly in this recap would be to cruelly cut the tales of Header Boy and Fear Buddy too short. Thirteen years into the future, Header Boy, head boy, decided that enough was enough: life without the CUNK, without dabbing, a power sealed away upon the CUNK’s death, was a life he could no longer tolerate. Header Boy broke into the Dab Science facility, killed Dab Science Specialist Anthony, and stole the Jesus Brand™ Dab Machine in order to travel back in time to kill Chud Thuck Kankle while the CUNK was still alive. He shot Chud in the heart, dragged his body back into the Dab Machine, and then teleported to space so that he could throw Chud’s lifeless corpse into the sun. This, however, backfired. Header Boy successfully created an off-shoot timeline where the CUNK had not been killed, but before Chud’s body could fall into the sun, his hat transformed into a skateboard and created a portal (along with his other two skateboards) that sent him into the world between spacetime as a confused & lost young friend named Fear Buddy. The energy from Chud’s three skateboards sending him between dimensions caused a gigantic flash of light many times larger than the sun, the effects of which we have yet to explore in much detail in the new timeline Header Boy created and is currently exploring 13 years in the future. Meanwhile, as Act 1 closed and Act 2 began, Fear Buddy found himself reunited with the CUNK for reasons we’ll get to much, much later. It is here that Fear Buddy discovers the timeline split caused by Header Boy, and it is here that CUNK teaches Fear Buddy that the Pokémon World, while vast and ever-expanding, is but one of many possible worlds that exist and that there are many more worlds than can be quantified. It is here where we find ourselves returning to Chud’s current timeline and where we meet “y as we see Fear Buddy and CUNK observing the events of the Dank Tournament unfold. “y enlists Chud’s help, asking him to enter the Dank Tournament with him because doing so—smoking The Wish-Granting Blunt that is awarded to the champion—is the only way that Chud could earn his freedom. Through teary eyes, Chud puts on a brave face and agrees to enter. He manages to defeat foe after foe in the preliminary tournament, with hundreds of fighters soon whittling down to sixteen. Among those who lost were students of the powerful warrior Big The Cat II: The Squeakquel: McCool and Afraid of Spiders McGee. These two, along with Fuck Bumble, offer to help Chud Thuck Kankle get strong enough to defeat his first opponent, A Duck With Abs, before the morning. That night, he spars against Afraid of Spiders McGee, who uses his special 26-pack Abdominal Fist, and wins, but only because McGee was distracted by McCool and Fuck Bumble’s conversation just out of earshot. As the three return a passed-out Chud to his hotel room, “y, Big The Cat II: The Squeakquel, and Wet Leaky (another combatant who managed to make it to the top) are attacked by assassins and assaulted with explosives. As of this point in the story, the aftermath of that situation has yet to be resolved, but rest assured: the police were unhelpful. That night, Chud had a dream about when he first met the CUNK. Just thought I should let you know. At this point in the story, he’s still very sad. If you had to kill the CUNK, you would be too—it’s only natural. Chud’s story concludes here, or at least this is where we stand as of two years into the story: it’s the first round of the tournament. The Dank Tournament has officially begun. Chud is ready, or at least he thought he was, but reality—in the form of A Duck With Abs—has hit Chud like a ton of bricks. Not only has A Duck With Abs been beating him senselessly, he has been throwing emotional sucker punches to match each right and left hook. You see, A Duck With Abs wants desperately to win. The full extent of why he must win is unclear, but it has something to do with the fact that he’s too strong and buff—he wishes to live a normal, nonviolent life, but his abs are too sick, choice and ripped to let him. This has put Chud into a difficult position: still full of deep longing and regret, face covered in his own blood, he must overcome his current existential crisis and beat up such a powerful duck! Can he do it? Maybe he can with the support of his friends—tune in to find out. I’d like to end the recap there, but there are a few other loose ends that need to be loosened just a bit more. There are events in the future which have taken place that cannot be brushed under the recap rug. I’ll leave you with these bits and pieces, so you can chew on them and ponder where those story threads may go for the next two years. Thirteen years into the future, a Jesus Brand™ Dab Machine is missing, and a Dab Science Specialist is found dead. Officers Milky and Bornko Bopus are on the scene when they are suddenly attacked—knocked out—by Waluigi. As Waluigi leaves the crime scene in the dead of night, Chud Thuck Kankle, much older and beefier, enters. Thirteen years into the future, in a new timeline created by Header Boy, he wanders through a desert, blinded by the lights created by the explosion that happened thirteen years ago when Chud Thuck Kankle went missing. He passes out due to exhaustion, wakes up a few hundred yards away from an unfamiliar house, and is shot. And finally, at some undisclosed moment in time and space, A Happy Smile warns Prince Fart that Fear Buddy has learned something they should not know. For the sake of vaping, Prince Fart must do something, but what? Perhaps enter The Dank Tournament? I mean, that’s what I’d do?? Thanks for reading the recap! The first two years have been a blast, and I’m looking forward to making more Cawwwwmic in the future!

0 notes