#even Gladiator's writing has been challenged by that a few times

[seyaryminamoto]

Hey, I just wanted to ask if you have abandoned the fic: How they all Reacted. It seemed to have ended with a massive cliffhanger, and you've also teased the next chapters, despite them not being there. Is the Reason-Origin of Pro Bending AU abandoned?

I don't like thinking I've abandoned fics, it's very sad to think of it that way... but the truth is I have been a liiiittle too distant from that timeline and the likelihood that I'll return to it shrinks more and more every day. It's unfortunate, I know... it was a pretty sweet, dorky fic, but I won't make promises I won't keep. I can give you a rundown of what I wanted to do in the remaining chapters I meant to write for it, if that'd help, but it's still nice to know that someone's still interested in that fic timeline. I really don't know if I'd be able to get back into the mindset for it to write the chapters properly, but thanks for asking nonetheless <3

[mi-i-zori]

Run, Boy, Run (Unfinished)

CoD - König

SYNOPSIS : Despite the gruesome news flashing on his television screen, König goes on a walk in the middle of the night. Surely, nothing could go wrong.

WARNINGS : König’s past (bullying), anxiety. This isn’t a good mental health night for the guy, so maybe don’t read if it’s the same for you.

Author’s Note : I wanted to write this for @ghouljams ‘ King Killer Challenge, but got stuck in a writing stump not long after, and I’ve been having a hard time getting out of it. I don’t think I’ll ever finish this, but I guess it’d be sad to simply leave it in a dusty corner of my WIPs. Hope you like it !

I do not allow anyone to re-publish, re-use and/or translate my works, be it here or on any other platform, including AI.

In König’s mind, winter nights possess a charm he has never been able to describe.

When the world slows down, lit up only by artificial lights of which the colours fail to compare to the natural glow of the moon, his heart finds a rhythm even his subconscious tends to forget. The wind seems to freeze every single thing it touches, and it’s as if time itself had decided to slow down, mesmerised by the very idea of resting. König has always struggled to do the same. Instead, he fights constantly against a choir of ghostly laughs, so similar to the cold lingering outside his window. As a whole, it is all somber and strange ; not unlike the ice that keeps devouring the foundations of his being.

It’s familiar, almost. Frighteningly so.

Yet he finds himself unable to find even an ounce of comfort on such a stage of déjà-vu. The spectres’ wails, lost in the invisible abyss hidden behind his own carcass, refuse to cease. The dark circles lining his face keep getting deeper as his eyes fall onto the semi-darkness of his apartment ; the cacophony of his thoughts is so dense it has become impossible to decipher.

He barely has the courage to turn on the lamp standing next to his couch, the light defining his tired profile so bright despite the thick lampshade muffling its glow. A small table holds a box of pills in front his silent judgment, akin to a frightened servant bowing in front of their beloved king.

A bitter taste coats König’s tongue, and he can’t seem to pinpoint its source - the infusion he drank a few moments ago, or the nauseating sight standing in front of him.

His gaze is heavy as he focuses on the sleeping pills. The very idea of ingesting one of them in order to spend a peaceful night is tempting ; he already did it multiples times before, although the nature of the pills he once used to take was much different. He would do anything to tame his nightmares ; but his time in the army changed him. He can no longer stand the feeling of vulnerability gnawing at his insides whenever he wakes up after following his doctor’s orders. The need to keep a hand in every single aspect of his existence only gets stronger each time, ruining the few hours of rest he accumulated while unconscious. What was meant to appease his mind only made things worse, and he can’t afford to succumb to the loss of control looming over his horizon.

The memory of his trembling reflection in the mirror, of the stranger sharing his face looking back at him with eyes painted red with fear, anger and exhaustion, launches a trembling assault down his spine - a series of painful shivers he only suffers from when lost on the battlefield of his thoughts. The little pills are crushed under the iron of his grasp, only finding their salvation at the bottom of the trash can.

A new weight falls upon his chest at the thought, tearing a sign from his lips. He raises a hand to the back of his neck, hoping to find a little bit of clean air among the pollution of his mind and lungs. His memories bounce around the walls of his skull, set free by an endless asthaenia. Akin to a crowd of gladiators thrown in their favourite arena, they lunge towards him, ready to bring him down in order to save their own lives. Usually, he would face them with ice in his eyes and steel in his veins - but not now.

The midnight news ramble once more about a peculiar and terrifying series of accidents haunting the streets of the neighbourhood. But König doesn’t care about the wide fatal wounds found on the victims of what only seems to be a monster, nor about the wild thoughts of Pale Crawlers a bunch of idiots like to spread on the internet. To him, this only sounds like a bunch of gang fights, or robberies that turned badly, hidden behind a crude story for children. So, without even thinking about it twice, he throws a simple leather jacket on his shoulders, in the pockets of which he stores his keys and phone. As if anyone would be suicidal enough to even try to corner someone of his stature.

They did, though, a fearful voice in his head rumbles, multiple times. The memory of his school years is littered with mockeries and hits ; bruises and broken bones ; whispers and side glances. Though reaching his current height also came with a small share of admiration, it didn’t stop the usual bullies - it even encouraged them instead, prompting them to rally more people to their « monster hunt ».

The front door of the building quickly makes way for the usual chill coating the city’s winter nights, pushing the hurtful visions aside. The soldier shivers behind his black surgical mask, mumbling about how he will never get used to his civilian clothes. The small rectangle of polypropylene leaves him feeling naked against a world of which he only wishes to avoid the gaze ; but he still decides to make his way down the barely lit street, silent under the glow of the moon.

If his own mind keeps threatening to break the ice on which he tries to find shelter, perhaps a cold winter night could help him strengthen it.

He doesn’t really have a destination in mind. Instead, he lets his legs carry him slowly while he focuses on his surroundings. If he happens to cross paths with a few cars, the majority of the streets is still empty. His heartbeat echoes in their silence, and he can’t help but notice how different they sound from the usual noise crowding the corridors of a military base. He starts counting the lights paving his way, but quickly decides to stop as the shadows they create play with his tired eyes, each one following an unexpected dance on the sides of his vision. He fights himself to ignore them, and it’s only when his jaw starts aching that he realises how tense he is, his demons immediately laughing at his pitiful state.

You’re such a big guy, they cackle, an erratic choir in the back of his head, yet you’re afraid of a few shadows ?

- Pathetic, he mumbles, and hisses once noticing how easily their voices mix with his.

The war machine he has become is not made for living in such a normal, peaceful environment. If there once was a time when he saw silence as a form of salvation, he now only sees it as the calm before the storm, a veil hiding an inevitable danger. The gruesome news reports spewed by his TV monitor suddenly make an appearance in his mind, as if trying to mock him further. He forces himself to burn them over and over, ignoring the way the shadows seem to erratically creep closer to his own.

Through the barred up display window of a nearby store, a clock strikes two in the morning. König stops for a moment to read it, blinded by the eclectic signals of a neon sign. The light assaults his eyes like a wildfire raging in a forest during summer, and he only looks away once it drags a tear along his cheek. It burns only for a second before dying on the synthetic fabric covering his face - but the frost comes back quickly, and a part of him regrets not thinking about wearing a scarf.

He tends to forget more and more about such things, he realises. As if he didn’t have the strength to care for himself anymore.

He stays here for a moment, blinking the light away in the middle of the sidewalk, before finally resuming his walk.

[theolsentimes]

Mary-Kate Olsen's Singular Style

She came to fame as a twin, but the actress's cultish look is entirely her own. Here, with Lauren Hutton, she pays homage to another fashion inspiration, Grey Gardens. Written by Laura Brown, with photography by Peter Lindbergh (Harper's Bazaar, 2007)

VIEW GALLERY

Mary-Kate Olsen may be the only young actress who breezes into her local Starbucks wearing towering, fashion-fierce Balenciaga boots, who arrives at her latest premiere (in Mary-Kate's case, for the new season of Showtime's Weeds, in which she plays a devout Christian with a pot fetish) sporting an oversize cross, and whose favorite band is Led Zeppelin. She may, in fact, be the only young actress who knows who Led Zeppelin is. MK, as she is known to her friends and family, is also a punctual and professional sort. She arrives for a poolside tea in Los Angeles 10 minutes early, ordering a hot chocolate while explaining her fetish for all things sweet — "I'm a candy girl, like Tootsie Rolls and Swedish Fish" — and objecting when the waiter tries to take the sugar bowl away. She is wearing a nautical striped T-shirt (her mom's, from the '70s), tucked into two black Wolford slips rolled down and turned into a tight, Robert-Palmer-video-style mini, and multicolored sparkly Christian Louboutin stilettos. She's just had her hair colored, returning to a sunnier shade after some experiments with both peroxide ("I woke up one morning and was like, I want white-trash hair today") and the dark side (an auburn-haired near-Goth moment last year). She's carrying a large black fringed leather Prada tote — she doesn't do small bags — and her fingers are covered with rings, most notably two vintage coiled gold snakes stacked on top of each other. ("They remind me of twins, sort of double headed.") Altogether, the effect is less her famed "bag-lady chic" than an edgy, body-conscious, and, yes, sexy silhouette. If she weren't 21, she could be 40. And French.

Few people need reminding that Mary-Kate — with her twin sister, Ashley — literally crawled into celebrity aged nine months (courtesy of Full House) and has not been out of the spotlight ever since. She has been a celebrity for more than two decades. Perhaps that's one reason she seems as if she came out of the womb worldly, the textbook old soul. "Yeah," she says with a small shrug. "I get that a lot." With all of that attention and all of the money (her and Ashley's company, Dualstar, has famously become a "billion-dollar business"), Mary-Kate could easily have ended up the type who wears pink terry cloth and carries a variety of small dogs. "Could you imagine?" she says with the politest version of a snort. "No way." She credits her exceptionally close-knit family (she has five siblings) and, interestingly, early stardom with helping her keep her perspective. "I think it helped that I started in front of the camera, so it didn't come as a shock. If I was a teenager and was thrown into the spotlight, I don't know how I would react, to be honest." Though the tabloids are all too keen to brand her a skinny, nervous deer in the headlights, in person Mary-Kate is easy in her skin, confident and surprisingly tactile, curling up in her seat and touching you on the arm to make a point. She laments the generic style of most actresses and cites only men as style inspirations: "Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp. Men, they just dress the way they want, and they don't think about Who Wore It Best." She doesn't much care for Who Wore It Best, noting she avoids those pages by "wearing vintage so often. I just dress the way I feel instead of looking for what's the new handbag." If Mary-Kate and Ashley have their way, more people will be wearing clothes and carrying bags the way they do. They have just shown the fifth collection of their ready-to-wear line, the Row, and recently launched a contemporary label, Elizabeth and James, named after a sister and a brother. The Row's holiday collection (in stores next month) is a slick mix of skinny leather pants, razor-cut blazers, butter-soft, slouchy tees, and a destined-to-be-cultish pullover fur. Lauren Hutton, who stars in the Row's Spring '08 look book, says, "The clothes are extraordinary. A man I was with just loved them. The pieces are just so genius, soft like a baby's skin. Simple minimalist stuff, but really spectacular." Mary-Kate, designer, faces an interesting challenge. She has to marry Dualstar — which has made its fortune selling tween-tastic DVDs and pastel Mary-Kate and Ashley T-shirts at Wal-Mart — with her increasingly edgy and subversive taste. Dualstar executives, some of whom have worked with her since she was a child, often nag her, mom-style, about pulling her hair back "or wearing a color," she says with a laugh. "I had this event recently, and I was like, They're going to be so happy that I'm wearing ... purple. I actually have to think about those things, though, you know, so I don't get trashed." Get trashed sometimes she does. Hutton says, "Once in a while, she'll wear something and I'll think, Oh, baby doll, take another look. But to have the bravery, to take the chance to do that, is pretty wonderful. She is making her own way, which is hardly ever done in Hollywood." Of Mary-Kate's penchant for gigantic Balenciaga heels, Jenji Kohan, the creator of Weeds, says, laughing, "I'd be like, 'It's Tuesday. Do you really want to be wearing those shoes?' But she pulls it off." Designer Giambattista Valli, a friend, says, "She likes to take risks, but because she has such strong personal style, she always manages to make it work. Even if she had nothing on, she'd have style." And MK chic is spreading. "Sometimes I'll look at people or at a magazine and I'll do a double take because I'm like, Oh, my God, that's my outfit, but that's not me," Mary-Kate says. Playing with her wire-rimmed aviators, she jokes wryly that she should have bought shares in Ray-Ban. (She and Chloë Sevigny pretty much brought back white '80s Wayfarers.) She tends to fall in love with a look, then wear it until she's done. "If I put together a good outfit, I'll wear it for three days and then switch it up with a blazer," she says. "I still love my vintage jeans, my tights, and my pants, though." She didn't start wearing heels, in fact, until a couple of years ago: "I kept watching Ashley walk around in them so gracefully, and I'm such a klutz. But I ended up loving heels, and I don't usually take them off." She wears precisely one pair of flat shoes: Chanel's knee-high patent-leather gladiator sandals. This season, it's Balenciaga's fall collection — all of it — that has Mary-Kate obsessed. She is close to designer Nicolas Ghesquière and says, "He is so talented, but he's the nicest, most down-to-earth guy, and that makes everything he does more brilliant. I bought everything, but I haven't got anything yet," she says like a girl impatiently waiting for Christmas. Will she wear the new pieces with her infamous clodhopper boots? "Uh-huh. Wore them the other day, actually." Mary-Kate always goes with her gut, even if some people (back to those tabloids) don't quite get it. "The tabloids say things about me? What do they say?" she asks archly. "People are going to write what they want, and everyone's going to have their own idea of who I am. But I'm not trying to be friends with the people who are reading them, really." After a rough couple of years filled with near-forensic scrutiny of her weight, she'll have you know that she does eat. "This is not going to sound good," she laughs, "but I like making crispy tofu sticks with peanut sauce. I love my sashimi and my salmon and my vegetables." She observes, "Stress plays a big role in how I look day-to-day. I've always been very active — Pilates, yoga. I grew up horseback riding every day for hours. I love dancing. I usually last longer than anyone on the dance floor." A common image of Mary-Kate has her emerging from a coffee joint with an oversize cup. "I always get creamed for having my Starbucks cup," she says, sighing. "But the only time people get photos of me is when I'm getting coffee, when I can't sneak away from the camera." She also resents the pictorial implication that she and Ashley are dilettantes. "They take photos of us going into our offices, and it's 'Mary-Kate and Ashley shopping again.' But I'm going to work for eight hours, and we're working so hard. ..." She trails off. "It just shows how people want to think of you." Mary-Kate is not above celeb watching herself, however. Newly obsessed with Victoria Beckham, she notes she avidly watched Beckham's Coming to America documentary: "She's running around in a bikini and heels, and I'm like, Oh, my God! I do that, too!" How positively Grey Gardens. "I run around my house naked with heels all the time. It's so funny. All my friends will tell you I love running around in kimonos and jewelry or naked with jewelry." More people will be watching Mary-Kate soon, thanks to her role in the Emmy-nominated Weeds. "I am a very good Christian girl," she says with a wink. "She has her moral beliefs — and she happens to smoke pot." Of her newest cast member, Kohan adds, "Mary-Kate is complicated. She's a big celebrity, a huge media icon, but you have to separate the media images from someone who has the same issues, the same desires, as anyone else." Of course, Mary-Kate's image, in all its incarnations — from high fashion to small screen — is her strongest asset. And she has yet to settle on one. "I feel like I've lived 10 different lives already and I'm only 21," she says, almost as a reminder to herself. "But I also feel like I'm entering a new chapter." One thing on which she is clear, though: She doesn't need to be looked at all the time. What would she do for a day if she were invisible? "I would probably go to a restaurant with my friends, who would be able to see me, of course," she adds pragmatically, "and I would sit outside and enjoy a nice lunch with them. Then I would walk down the street." The old soul takes a sip of her little-girl-sweet hot chocolate. "That's what I would do."

[fapangel]

Ukrainian Air Defense – In-Depth Overview

google docs

My day-one overview of Ukrainian air defenses was only partially accurate, mainly in the broad-brush sense (i.e. no integrated air defense, no ballistic missile defense, but a persistent SHORAD threat.) However I was grossly negligent in my evaluation of how many maneuver SHORAD and medium-altitude capable SAMs they had – the picture looks much better than I initially reported.

The difficulty of research owes to a paucity of decent English-language sources and the fact that Ukraine has a large stockpile of Soviet-era equipment that is often cited as the “paper” arsenal, but this doesn’t tell us anything about the number of actually operable systems. As Russia’s problems with rotted tires demonstrate, even mere trucks cannot be left alone in a depot and still be fully operational in even a single year; Ukraine’s weapons have been sitting for decades. The ever-excellent Oryx’s writeup on the multi-year effort to restore just Six Tor (SA-15 Gauntlet) systems to active service gives an idea of the challenges Ukraine had to face. (This also highlights the significance of Ukraine’s current captures from the Russian military; at time of writing three captured Tors are in their possession; in a matter of days they have increased their number of these systems by half-again.) These three sources are the only ones I could find on the actual numbers of operational systems fielded by Ukraine before the war began, so I’ll have to rely on these. Especially for the older/longer-ranged SAMs the number/type of vehicles per effective battery is vague; I’m basing this off nominal Soviet/Russian practices but Ukraine isn’t obligated to do likewise. More concrete numbers are (sometimes) available for the mobile SHORAD systems.

Ukraine’s inventory pre-war:

Theater defense systems (long range):

S-300PT and S-300PS (SA-10/SA-10B “Grumble”): Unclear organization. Batteries are nominally twelve TELs (four missiles each) plus a command/computer vehicle, a CLAM SHELL search radar and a FLAP LID fire control radar. Three batteries to the regiment. However, less TELs can be assigned if desired. Additionally, the PT utilizes towed missile launchers (ergo they are only EL’s, erector-launchers,) unlike the PS which has proper self-mobile TELs. These – along with a handful of S-300V1 (SA-12 Giant) systems are organized into “five or six brigades and a similar number of independent regiments” which means fuck-all to me. Nor is the difference in numbers between towed and self-mobile systems made clear. At the most pessimistic assumption of 12 TELs per battery assume 16 total batteries (i.e. pairs of engagement radars) with each able to engage six targets at a time.

9k81 S-300V (SA-12 “Giant”): Highly unclear numbers. One source credits “a few” battalions (each battalion consists of four batteries.) Difficult to find any further information. This system is actually two different systems owing to it using two different missiles, the 9M83 (SA-12A “Gladiator”) is an anti-aircraft and anti-missile weapon, whilst the 9M82 (SA-12B “Giant”) is essentially the same missile with a bigger solid-fuel rocket motor, optimizing it for engaging tactical ballistic missiles at the cost of magazine depth. (Three Gladiators or two Giants per TEL.) The batteries apparently split their twelve nominal TELs evenly between these two missile types. I have no idea if Ukraine is operating both types and/or has full complements per alleged battalion, so I’m going to assume one battalion of four batteries each; making for four more radars that (to the best of my knowledge) should be able to illuminate for the related S-300PT/PS systems. Even with a few more batteries the dated nature of the system (i.e. likely low pK%) and the sophistication of contemporary Russian Iskanders means it’d make little difference; Ukraine is still effectively without serious ability to stop Tactical Ballistic Missile attacks, as they’d have to concentrate multiple batteries to properly protect one area.

S-200 (SA-5 “Gammon”): Reportedly none, as they were installed in fixed sites that were damaged by their earlier removal for storage. However, this does not preclude a hasty/makeshift deployment now that Ukraine is on a war footing. Three batteries nominally available to make operational.

Medium range, med/high altitude systems:

2K12 Kub (SA-6 “Gainful”): Two regiments active. A battery consists of four missile TELs and one radar vehicle with four batteries per regiment. This equals 40 vehicles, with 8 batteries carrying 12 ready missiles each. Every battery can engage one target at a time.

9K37 Buk M-1(2?) (SA-11 “Gadfly”): Three regiments of eight batteries each, with each battery consisting of three vehicles (two TELARs which carry missiles and a fire-control radar and a TEL which carries missiles and a crane to reload the TELARs) for a total of 72 vehicles. Each battery can engage two targets at once. There’s some limited interchangeability between this and the older Kub from which it evolved (likely can guide weapons for each other.)

S-125-2D Pechora (SA-3 “Goa”): Allegedly two regiments with four launchers and two radars (search and fire control) per battery. Ukraine clearly uses the stationary four-rail launchers instead of the towed three-rail variant. Reported domestic upgrades (in addition to using a significantly newer radar) amount to a much more modern system than the original pure SARH weapon; the missile is directed to the kill-box by the ground station and only relies on its own SARH guidance for terminal attack. While not a true track-via-missile system it should perform much more similar to one; i.e. using proper lead-pursuit against high-rate crossing targets etc. Can’t find information on batteries per regiment; will assume 4 as with other Soviet-style air-defense regiments; for a total of eight launchers. Simultaneous engagements are probably only one-per; however “time-sharing” of missile illumination like AEGIS does cannot be ruled out.

Maneuver SHORAD vehicles:

(Note these vehicles are all self-contained shooters; thus units == batteries.)

9k330 Tor-M (SA-15 “Gauntlet”): Six operational vehicles. Now nine, if all three recently captured examples are restored to operation.

9kk33 Osa (SA-8 “Gecko”): Unclear. Source alleges a total of 75ish SA-8s and SA-13 “Gophers” operational, no word on how many of each. Wikipedia reports 125 SA-8ts and 150+ SA-13s; illustrating the difference between total paper figures and operational systems.

9K35 Strela 10b (SA-13 “Gopher”): See above.

K22 Tunguska (SA-19 “Grison”): Seventy-five vehicles. Combined SPAAG (self-propelled anti-aircraft gun) and SAM launcher; max range ~8km or so for the SAMs. From what I can find the SAM’s are command-guided with high velocity (Mach 3) but low range; which makes sense given that they’re co-located with a twin 30mm gun system (they’re employed much the same.) Accurate, but limited in range.

ZSU-23-4 Shilka: 300 in storage, unknown how many are operational. A useful weapon still, but in the current fight likely inferior to the many Stinger MANPADs already in Ukrainian service for the purposes of air defense against helicopters.

State of Ukrainian Air Defense:

What this all means for Ukrainian air defense:

True area denial of Ukrainian airspace is difficult, but a long-range threat over the major battle areas is still possible. With the age of the SA-10 system and Russia’s intimate knowledge of it, defensive jammers on aircraft, standoff jamming support etc. will be markedly more effective than on contemporary weapons, to say nothing of the older system’s lower baseline pK% (probability-of-kill). Especially since a good number (unknown how many) are towed, their ability to relocate to avoid counter-attacks is dismal. However this must be evaluated in light of the Russian air force’s dismal performance so far; almost complete lack of sorties for the first week, and now that they’re finally turning out in some numbers they are already taking losses at unsustainable rates. While their relative dearth of SEAD weapons is known, (with only two ARMs available, likely of only average capabilities) their structural inability to plan large, complicated air ops was hithero unknown to me and also most expert commentators (though they are the ones who damn well should have known.)

A “large, complicated air op” may be the definition of proper SEAD/DEAD missions as it involves coordination of sensors and shooters. While the aircraft itself can engage with an ARM unsupported, targeting is greatly assisted by dedicated standoff ELINT aircraft, which can not only provide a bearing to the target radar, but a much better range estimate, letting the attacking pilots know if their weapons can reach the target. It also pinpoints the target’s location much better for a dedicated attack on the site the old-fashioned way (Vietnam style; low-level cluster-bombing of the battery directly.) In short, Ukraine’s SA-10s can feasibly take pot shots at long range without serious danger of reprisal. (Any decent ARM made since mid-Vietnam war includes a “memory” so it can continue an engagement when the targeted radar shuts off, but the further away the target is when the radar goes cold, the further the missile has to rely on comparatively inaccurate INS guidance. Depending on how quick the defending pilot is on the gun, and how quickly the SAM operator can conclude his engagement and shut off his radars, there’s an excellent chance the incoming ARM won’t hit the broad side of a barn. This is precisely why the latest versions of the venerable HARM also have GPS/INS guidance to more accurately hit the known vicinity of the launcher, using data passed to the shooter before launch from better sensor platforms, and even active millimeter-wave radar that can not only pick out the SAM battery’s vehicles, but identify the silhouette of the radars and target them to decisively put the battery out of action.)

Ukraine’s ability to defend against long-range precision missile attack is low, not not nonexistent. Against the Iskander there’s almost nothing to be done; only the S-300V could attempt to engage those, and between the dated nature of the system and the evasive capabilities of the Iskander, even that is dubious. Against cruise missiles, however, the news is better. The SA-11 systems have some ability to successfully engage cruise missiles. The handful (six, possibly nine) SA-15 batteries can definitely do well at this, as one of its original missions was intended to be point-defense against cruise missile attacks. Surprisingly, even the SA-8 and SA-19 have some capability here as well; despite using command-guided weapons, the high speed/acceleration of the missiles (Mach 2.4 and 3 respectively) make them surprisingly accurate, and their poor utility in crossing engagements is mitigated by them being small, self-contained launchers easy to place right next to high value targets needing protection (i.e. point-defense.) The Russian Kalibr cruise missile presents a unique challenge here as it has a terminal supersonic “sprint,” but both these systems would at least stand some chance, if not great, of engaging various legacy air-launched Russian cruise missiles without this feature.

The challenge for using these systems is one of speed; specifically detection-to-engagement. The US “Avenger” system has a “slew-to-cue” feature, where it can be directed to aim at a bearing by data passed from off-board defense radars; allowing the missiles to aim at where an incoming air threat will be when it crests the horizon (or treeline.) Russian mobile SHORAD systems of yesteryear often had “battery command vehicles” with their own superior search radars and simple datalinks to provide similar unified service for their unit’s launch vehicles. How many such vehicles are still operable and/or available to the Ukrainians I cannot say. These datalink systems are (obviously) incompatible with longer-range radars/sensors such as the ones the surviving S-300 batteries have; (such extensive networking for small mobile SHORAD is a development these Soviet-era systems significantly predate.) More primitive arrangements can still be effective, however, if only co-locationg their most effective point-defense systems with some longer-ranged SA-11s and simply “going live when we hear the Buk crack off.”

Given persistent reports of outgoing SAM fire from Kiev, it should not be taken completely for granted that every single-weapon Russian cruise missile strike is guaranteed to hit.

Ukraine can present a persistent threat to Russian tactical aviation, both CAS and strike aircraft. The SA-11 “Gadfly” is an improved version of the SA-6 “Gainful.” The latter, older system can still be dangerous, as evidenced by the damage it inflicted on the infamous Package-Q strike in the Gulf War. Its limitations were also illustrated by the F-16 driver who famously dodged six Gainful missiles in a row; but while he was fighting for his life he was not accomplishing his mission. (Note the Package-Q strike went to hell when the Iraqi SAM operators realized that the Wild Weasel Phantoms had RTB’d due to bingo fuel, and were free to turn on their radars and start shooting in earnest.) There’s also the experience of Operation Allied Force, where a Serbian SA-6 managed to down an F-16 – over a month after the fighting had begun in earnest. US airpower, which had been perfecting the art of SEAD/DEAD since developing the art in Vietnam, was still unable to conclusively destroy all Serbian SA-6 batteries due to their small size and high mobility. This is the essential lesson – while short/medium range systems like the Buk and Kub cannot deny large swathes of the air to hostile forces, they can lurk in the weeds and pop up to bite the enemy in the ass. That persistent threat either forces the enemy to expend more effort to achieve the same result (providing SEAD, etc.) or if they cannot (like Russia, apparently,) force them to accept the constant attrition of previous airframes. The SAMs will take attrition too; on D+2 incredible footage was caught of a Russian MI-24 catching a Ukrainian Kub whilst in-transit on trailers, for instance. But without high-altitude SEAD tactics, this is Russia’s only option; and going into the weeds with tac-air and CAS guarantees heavy attrition from MANPADs. This, more than any other consideration, is what is restraining Russia from using their air power effectively. If they cannot at least suppress these SAMs while they are actively prosecuting strike missions, they are going to take unsustainable losses during constant operations.

Ukraine has enough mobile SHORAD systems to enable effective use of their maneuver formations even in the face of hostile Russian attack helicopters and jets. This is aided greatly by the excellent saturation of modern MANPADs courtesy of NATO. “Maneuver SHORAD” systems have often consisted simply of a MANPAD missile launcher that’s been motorized - the American Avenger is a classic example. The Avenger is also a classic example of insufficient maneuver SHORAD that only works for people who have a powerful air force to handle the majority of air defense for them, illustrating the limitations there. However, this is both a question of coverage, as well as capability. While Ukraine’s number of operable SHORAD systems may be insufficient for the number of maneuver formations they have on paper, this is made up for by the MANPADs. MANPADs are crappy missiles; they have little energy, limited envelopes and poor guidance by the standards of larger missiles – but since they’re tiny (two-man infantry teams) they can come out of nowhere, and be fielded in numbers, which is how they score kills. You may dodge six MANPADs, but it’s the seventh one – fired from close range with a great angle – that ends up killing you. Likewise, while Ukraine’s SHORAD vehicles may be relatively scarce on the ground, they provide bigger, more capable weapons that pose a much greater danger to any attack helicopter caught in their sights. Their weapons can also reach significantly higher, and are effective against faster aircraft, making them a decent deterrent to strike/multirole fighters like Russia’s SU-30s/SU-34s.

Given proper utilization (which Ukraine seems to be doing), Ukraine is fully capable of keeping the Russian air force, as it’s been revealed to be, from making a scale-tilting contribution to this war.

Post-script edit:

Other Notes:

1. Every Russian SAM system since at least the SA-2 has included a backup optical guidance system to engage targets even under conditions of heavy jamming. On more traditional missile systems, including the SA-2, SA-3, SA-6 and SA-11, this more or less amounted to 1. a useful way to visually identify targets at closer ranges and 2. a fucking bad joke, because all this would allow is vectoring a missile into the general area of an incoming aircraft with a time-set fuze; like a huge anti-aircraft gun... and not one with radio proximity fuzing, either. The Package Q strike was taking ballistic launches of that nature (which did nothing,) which is why things only got hot when the Wild Weasels had to RTB and the Iraqi’s could actually guide their weapons. (The SA-11, at least, will resort to pure command guidance in this situation.)

However, for the Ukrainians, there’s some advantages to these electro-optical aiming systems; namely they allow passive positive ID of aircraft without having to turn on their radars. This allows Ukranian AD batteries to stay well-hidden and camouflaged, engines off (and thus less visible even on thermals) and only turn on to engage when they know hostiles are in the area. (With some MANPAD teams providing cover against marauding attack choppers or CAS jets, of course.) These backup electro-optical systems are especially useful for the SA-8 and SA-19 given how their weapons work; especially the SA-19; these units can hit the target without their search radars on. By the time the enemy gets a radar threat warning, the AD unit is already firing. These should excel at engaging low-flying helicopters, which is the majority of Russian CAS assets.

The 3KM minimum range of the SA-11 means that such ambushes are less feasible; however (in theory) it should allow the unit to fire a missile using passive radio command guidance and guide it towards a hostile, then turn on the radar when the missile is already close. How well this works depends on how sophisticated the command-guidance is; (it may not be able to conduct lead pursuits against crossing targets,) but there is at least the potential. An expert in Soviet AD systems I am not; if you can find one, please tell.

2. An oft-forgotten aspect of Soviet SHORAD systemsthat the Russians, being absolutely insane, has a secondary ability to conduct surface to surface attacks; just in case Glorious Rodina managed to shoot down all of NATO’s planes, they could expend their remaining missiles on ground targets. This capability is obviously limited, and it’s usefulness to a nation slinging Javelins around, obviously low. There is, however, one significant possible application in this war – shore-to-sea missile attacks.

Ukraine’s domestic anti-ship cruise missile, the Neptune, reportedly had its first delivery made in late 2021 – how many are operational, however, is anyone’s guess. Should that number be insufficient to stave off the expected naval landings near Odessa, SA-11s could theoretically be added to the attack. Against a sea target, with minimal ground clutter, the semi-active guidance system should work decently, and even the backup command-guidance option may suffice. If nothing else it will add mass to the attack; helping saturate the LST’s point-defense to get the Neptune’s through.

It should be noted that the SA-3 system nominally had that capability, and given the Ukrainian upgrades to a better radar and a combined command-guidance/SARH terminal attack, there is potential for similar employment. Unlike the SA-11 they take time to transport and set up, but given that the Russian LST’s must land on the beach themselves (instead of dispatching fast hovercraft moving at twice to three times their speed from over the horizon, as most nations do,) there may yet be the opportunity to attempt that employment. Alternatively the Russians may prove predictable and come right to the batteries themselves, esp. if they were set up near Odessa.

It is absolutely insane to me that this is relevant.

[violethowler]

False Perception: An Analysis of Lance’s Character Arc

When I first started watching Voltron: Legendary Defender in the Fall of 2016, the fact that it was made by some of the same people who worked on Avatar: The Last Airbender was one of the main things that appealed to me. All I knew about the franchise consisted of a throwaway line from Ready Player One and a one-off gag in Deadpool. While I quickly came to love the show for what it was, that familiar blend of drama, action, and comedy that I loved from Avatar played a big part in drawing me into the story. 

But while there are some clear similarities and references, it definitely feels like some people have gotten so caught up in the Avatar comparisons that only a few ever acknowledge Voltron as its own thing anymore. Because so much of the criticism I see with Voltron can be distilled to “it didn’t do [blank] the exact same way that Avatar did.” 

Yes, a large portion of the production staff worked on Avatar and Legend of Korra. That’s going to have some influence on character design and writing. But still, those influences are just that. Influences. They did not just copy the same plotlines, themes, and characters from Avatar and put them in space. Even without taking into account that it’s a reboot of a decades-old franchise, Voltron: Legendary Defender is still its own show. 

It is not the same story as Avatar. It does not tackle the same themes. And any themes it does have in common are not handled in the exact same way that Avatar handled them. Most importantly, the characters of Voltron do not follow the same character arcs as the Avatar characters fans compare them to, nor should they be expected to. 

Yes, this is about the “Lance is Space!Sokka” comparisons I’ve been seeing on tumblr for the last four years. I won’t deny that there aren’t similarities between them, but I’m sick and tired of seeing people use the VLD writers not copying and pasting Sokka’s arc into Voltron as an example of “bad writing.” 

I get it. Both of them are wisecracking teenage boys who serve as the resident goofball of their team yet will also buckle down and get serious when the situation calls for it. And both of them start out with sexist attitudes that they grow out of over time. 

But just because Lance and Sokka are written in similar traits does not mean that Lance’s arc was ever intended to be a beat for beat retread of Sokka’s, and it’s time the fandom as a whole acknowledged this. 

I could go on for ages about how many different criticisms of Voltron I’ve seen that ultimately boil down to “it’s not an exact recreation of Avatar.” But for today, I’m going to focus on breaking down the specific trajectory and themes of Lance’s character arc across the entire series.  

The first episode establishes that Lance considers himself rivals with Keith, who Iverson specifically said was the best pilot in their class. When Allura explains the traits associated with the lions, he interrupts to suggest that the Blue Lion “takes the most handsome-slash-best pilot of the bunch?” Then in S1E10 Collection and Extraction, he suggests challenging Zarkon to a fight after learning the Galra Emperor’s weaknesses depicts, saying “winner gets the universe.” This is accompanied by an image of Lance standing triumphantly on top of Zarkon’s dead body in front of a flag with Lance’s face and the word “winner” on it. The image includes Allura looking adoringly up at Lance while the rest of the Paladins all give him thumbs up. 

Right from the start, Season 1 does a fantastic job setting up Lance’s ego. He’s constantly trying to hype himself up as The Best. The CoolTM one. When Keith criticizes his offscreen kicking of broken ship parts after the team has practiced forming Voltron at the beginning of S1E03 Return of the Gladiator, Lance responds “I did something cool and you can’t handle it.” When Keith points out that Lance’s kick ruined Voltron’s balance and caused the robot to fall over, Lance deflects the blame to Hunk. When he tries to kick Myzax’s orb, he tells Keith to “stop living in the past'' when the Red Paladin reminds him of the earlier fall. His kick misses the orb entirely and results in Voltron getting bashed in the face.

The failed kick during the fight with Myzax serves to set up a pattern that continues over the first two seasons: Lance attempts to make himself look good by performing something he does not have successful experience with, only for his self-aggrandising to screw things up for the team. In S2E04 Greening the Cube, he pushes Hunk out of the way and starts randomly pushing buttons in the middle of the Paladins doing maintenance on the exterior of the Castle of Lions, causing critical problems that Pidge has to quickly fix. 

S2E10 Escape from Beta Traz and onward give audiences a peek behind the mask to show that Lance’s bragging and glory seeking is driven by deep-seated feelings of inadequacy. He wants so badly to be SpecialTM and make himself stand out as someone unique and important because he doesn’t believe he’s enough on his own. When the Blue Lion shuts him out in S3E02 Red Paladin he quickly concludes that he must not be meant to be a Paladin at all. When he confesses to the mice in S6E02 Razor’s Edge that he’s in love with Allura he says he can’t compete with Lotor because he’s “just a boy from Cuba” and that he doesn’t have anything to offer in a relationship.

The personas that Lance tries so hard to present himself as - the peerless Special One who single-handedly saves the day and the suave ladies man - are common tropes associated with the protagonists of many science fiction stories. Particularly those with teen and young adult protagonists. Considering that S4E03 Black Site shows Lance as a video game fan and the Paladins were all attending a school for space exploration, it makes sense that he would consciously or not emulate the protagonists of his favorite stories in order to gain acceptance. 

But his attempts to seize the limelight end up having the opposite effect. After moments like his attempts to fix the castle in S2E04, the team is understandably skeptical whenever Lance tries to offer a solution to a problem. They’re doubtful when he refers to himself as a sharpshooter in S2E10 Escape from Beta Traz because while the mice and Allura know that Lance has been practicing with his bayard alone - which we see in S5E03 Postmortem - the rest of the team has just seen Lance’s glory chasing. So they’re surprised when he’s able to keep track of their position relative to the lions while being chased by Zethrid in S8E05 The Grudge. 

Prior to WEP’s meddling in the final season, Lance’s arc was set up for him to learn the lesson that he does not have to be a genius or a prodigy in order to be valued as a person. That he doesn’t have to be the Super Special Awesome ProtagonistTM in order to be a hero. The reason his arc was so heavily affected by the executive meddling of Season 8 was because his romantic relationships were heavily intertwined with the themes of that arc, and since the edits were heavily focused around Allura and Lotor, Lance’s love life suffered as a consequence. 

Over the course of Seasons 1-7, Lance is shown constantly hitting on every beautiful woman he meets. But his romantic pursuits are ultimately shallow. This is best demonstrated in S2E02 The Depths when he recoils after Plaxum kisses him while wearing a bloated jellyfish and ragged cloak, but does a 180 and starts drooling in awe when she takes those off to reveal that her true appearance is much closer to 21st Century American human beauty standards. Even after pouring out his feelings for Allura to the mice in S6E02 Razor’s Edge, he displays no reluctance or inner conflict when he organizes the travel arrangements for the clear purpose of getting to spend time alone with Romelle.

This serves to demonstrate that while he says he loves Allura, his actions show he’s more in love with the fantasy of her and what she represents than he is with her as a person. His flirting with every conventionally attractive female character and his desire to find “the future Mrs. Blue Lion” as he puts it in S2E02 The Depths ties back to his desire for acceptance by emulating your standard sci-fi protagonists because when you look at all the ladies he’s expressed interest in, they all have one thing in common. Each of them fits into common archetypes for female characters in male-centric sci-fi stories.

Nyma is the dark and mysterious femme fatale. 

Plaxum is the leader of the rebellion on her planet. 

Allura is the alien princess with magical powers. 

Romelle is the (assumed) naive newcomer to the war. 

Since Lance is emulating traditional character archetypes, it makes sense that he would apply that same emulation to his love life as well, since most of the sci-fi stories which use the tropes Lance’s trying to live up to involve the hero getting the Special Girl. So it makes sense for his character arc to have his endgame love interest be someone other than any of the extra-terrestrial ladies he’s pursued over the course of the series. It has to be someone from Earth, since his desire to return to his home planet was a recurring point throughout the series. 

And looking at the series as a whole leaves only one candidate: 

[Image description: Pidge sitting in the Green Lion playing video games during S7E02 The Road Home] 

S8E01 Launch Date establishes that Pidge is weirded out by the idea of Lance and Allura going on a date together, but gives up a video game she really wanted in order to barter for an outfit for Allura to make sure the data goes well. During the actual date, Beezer - the robot who had been accompanying Pidge at the beginning of the episode - follows Lance and Allura to the site of their evening walk and takes a photo of them. And though she tries to deny it, in S7E01 A Little Adventure Pidge indirectly admits that she does think Lance is cute. 

When Pidge says she thinks the Yalmore is cute in S7E01, her eyes are big in a way that she usually only gets around advanced technology. Her expression when she hastily adds “in a creepy, hideous sort of way, like you Lance,” quickly is frantic and conveys the feeling of awkwardness implying that she hadn’t meant to say it out loud. This brings to mind her words during the mind meld exercise in S1E02 Some Assembly Required when she objects to the Paladins rooting around in her head. Pidge doesn’t like letting other people know what she's thinking and feeling. In that context, her dismissive response to Lance’s navigation skill in S8E05 The Grudge, saying “let’s not get ahead of ourselves” has the same “I’m impressed but can’t bring myself to admit it” energy as Rayla saying that Calumn’s realistically-detailed drawing of the Banther Lodge game room is “okay” in the fourth episode of The Dragon Prince. 

Meanwhile in Avatar, Sokka’s arc is focused on dealing with having to grow up fast as a result of his father going off to war and being left to fill the role of the patriarch and protector of his tribe as the oldest boy in the Southern Water Tribe. His insecurities and self-doubts come from a place of wanting to feel like he’s doing a good job at fulfilling the responsibilities that had been forced upon him because of the war. 

Lance’s character arc, by contrast, is focused on learning to let go of ego and maturing into someone who recognizes that being able to work as part of a team is more important than individual glory or acclaim. The war with the Fire Nation was a foundational part of Sokka’s life in a way that the fight against the Galra Empire never was for Lance, who doesn’t truly begin to understand what he’s gotten into until S1E05 Fall of the Castle of Lions when he realizes that he may not see his home or his family again for a very long time. As a result, it takes awhile for him to really take the war seriously. 

Lance and Sokka do have some traits in common, and it’s valid to point out those similarities. But people need to remember that just because they’re similar doesn’t mean that they’re exactly the same in terms of their character arcs and roles in the overall story of their respective series. The comparisons between Avatar and Voltron were fun at the beginning. I found a few of the posts comparing characters from the two franchises amusing and fun. But since then a lot of fans have felt like they’ve taken those comparisons literally to the point where they expected Voltron to be a rerun of Avatar with a fresh coat of paint. 

The Voltron staff may have borrowed or referenced elements from their prior work on Avatar and Korra, but that does not mean that every future project that someone from Avatar makes has to copy the things fans liked about it.

[higuchimon]

[fanfic] Plans To Avenge

Camula swept into Haou's throne room, tilting her head in greeting.  Tearstains still marred her features but she'd made an effort to be presentable.  She wanted to ensure that Haou took her seriously.  Her rage had only grown over the few days that passed since she'd discovered Ruthven's demise.  Only now it had hardened into a spike of ice centered on her heart.

"Lady Camula,"  Haou greeted her, bending his own head slightly.  "A pleasure to see you again.  Have the years been kind?" 

She knew as well as he did that this was nothing more than empty courtesy.  She knew he wasn't the soft little boy that she'd first met in Celestia's realm all those years earlier.  She wasn't the idealistic teen she'd been then, either.  But this was as close to friendship as she thought herself capable of with a human - if Haou, the incarnate Darkness of Destruction, could even be said to be human.  He did bear the form of one for now, of course.  But that was musings for another day.

"They were, for a while,"  she admitted, taking the seat he gestured her to.  A quick glance around showed her that the years had indeed been kind to him - or he had ripped what he wanted from others.  She knew which was more likely, since he'd come into his power and his true nature.  The room wasn't very large, but the floor and walls were marble, softened only by rugs and tapestries of costly weave and materials, all in shades of dark reds and blacks, his favored colors.  She'd come by past dark, so there wasn't any sunlight in here.  Silver spheres of light hunt from the ceiling and set on the walls to illuminate the area.  One guard stood by each of the three doors. 

Perhaps in deference to their long years of having known one another, Haou wasn't visibly armed beyond his deck.  She respected that, and had done the same, as best she could.  Frequently a vampire could be considered a weapon all on their own.

One eyebrow quirked up on Haou.  "Yes, I had heard of your wedding to Ruthven.  I wish that I'd been able to attend.  But I was otherwise occupied."

So she'd heard - being a gladiator for Brron.  She'd not quite believed all the tales she'd heard during the years between their first meeting and now.  But if they were true, then he was exactly what and who she needed.

"But no longer.  When I returned home a few days ago, I discovered -"  Camula's voice broke off, a lump of tears lodging itself in her throat.  Her fingers dug into the arms of her chair and she pressed her lips together, fighting to get the words out.  "Ruthven - Ruthven is dead."  Her heart spasmed, knives of pain stabbing into her each time she had to think about what she'd found.  "I found him in our home.  None of the servants saw anything or anyone.  There were no traces of magic."

Haou leaned forward, his sharp eyes softening just the tiniest bit.  She doubted that anyone else would have seen that from him.  "Were there any other signs?"

She shook her head.  "It was as if he simply dropped dead.  But he couldn't have.  He had his duel disk on him.  Someone dueled him and he died."  Her fingers tightened harder, digging into the chair.  "I've never heard of such a thing.  Not a wound on him.  As if simply fell over dead."

Haou considered quietly, before he nodded towards her.  "You want my help to find who did this." 

There wasn't any way that she could have disagreed with this, even if she'd wanted to.  She nodded.  "In return, what do you wish of me?"

He leaned back now, head tilted upward, eyes closed as he considered for a few endless moments.  Then he said, "Eventually I am going to require your help.  You have heard of this little 'rebellion' that some of the survivors of my attacks have begun to form?"

She had.  It hadn't meant much of anything to her.  Humans were humans and how they ordered their lives and realms wasn't of much interest to those of the vampire persuasion.  It would all settle itself out sooner or later.

"I have been researching them - learning what they're like.  To see if any of them are worth standing in my army."  He chuckled a little at some thought she didn't know.  "There is one in particular that interests me, but that's not who I speak of now.  The one I am thinking of - perhaps you've heard of him?  Marufuji Ryou - the Hell Kaiser."

Camula's eyes narrowed for a breath. "Yes, I've heard of him."  She'd almost fed on his little brother a year or two earlier.  He'd driven her off, and she'd itched for the chance to avenge the slight ever since. 

"He is proud.  Very proud."  Haou spoke the words as if they were mildly offensive to him.  "I think he doesn't fear death.  So should the need and the opportunity ever arise, I have a fate planned for him that is worse than death, by his standards." 

Camula knew something of how Haou thought.  He wouldn't have brought this up if he hadn't wanted a particular talent of hers - hers or any vampire.  "You want me to turn him."

"In time.  He's not important enough yet for me to send you after him.  I have quite a few other matters to deal with before I wish to deal with him."  Haou drummed his fingers lightly.  "But I will have all of my servants search for anyone who may have murdered your beloved and when that person is found, you will be allowed to exact whatever vengeance you desire upon them."

Camula's heart didn't quiver, quite, but she smiled a fraction of a smile.  She hadn't felt relaxed or at ease or anything but endless rage since the moment she'd discovered Ruthven's body.  Not even giving him the proper rites had eased her fury.  This didn't either.  But it came at least a little close to it.

"Thank you, Haou-sama,"  she declared, bending her head once again, the deeper gesture that one who had pledged their loyalty to a higher power made. 

"I will have quarters set aside for you here, but you may come and go as you please,"  Haou told her.  "And I would like to introduce you to the Fallen Angels.  They are my closest allies."

Camula nodded slightly.  So she'd heard - that Fallen Angel Lucifer himself had sired Juudai, and he had been stolen as a baby from their care.  Tensions had been tight for years between Celestia's realm and that of the Fallen Angels due to that, but very little had come of it.  Celestia's armies, mages, and allies made certain of that.  Until Haou came into his power and everything had gone downhill from there.

At least for Celestia.

Dismissed, she departed to be escorted to her new quarters.  They were deep within the castle, far from any hint of sunlight.  Such a thing would not have harmed her, but the light did burn at her eyes, and she'd never been fond of it.  Haou clearly knew that very well, and she remained grateful for that.  She settled down in a chair and stared down at the ring on her left hand.

She would not take it off, no matter what.  She'd pledged her heart and soul to Ruthven and she would never regard another in the same fashion.  Slowly she closed her hand.

I will find the one who killed you.  And I will have my revenge.

Haou tried not to laugh.  He wasn't very good at it, but he managed to keep most of his mirth under control.  He'd honestly not expected his efforts to work out so well.  But they had, and the first steps to his future plans were taken.

Lucifer chuckled softly as he entered the room.  "I could feel your mirth as soon as I entered. What's amused you so, my son?"

Haou leaned back, grinning as widely as his lips could manage.  "Camula came to pledge herself to me.  She wants my help in finding whoever it is that murdered her husband Ruthven."

One finely crafted eyebrow flickered upward.  "Is that so?"

"I told her that I would help but I would want her assistance for whenever I should actually capture Marufuji Ryou."  Haou didn't really expect that to happen for quite a while, if ever.  He would have to either set out to do it himself - far more trouble than it was worth right now - or Marufuji would make some kind of drastic error to fall into Haou's hands.  A bit more likely but from what he knew of the other, it wasn't completely impossible. 

Lucifer chuckled at that.  "Fascinating.  I look forward to meeting her."  He settled into his chair, taking out his deck and regarding it for a few moments.  Haou smirked slowly.

"A duel later?"  He suggested.  Both of them did need to keep in shape - and Camula would never know who had truly done the deed.

The End

Notes: Juudai didn’t know that he’d eventually capture Johan and that would lead to Ryou coming to find him, which led to Ryou being revealed, captured, tortured, and turned. But he had plans for just about all of his enemies.

Also, I can’t ever decide between Camula and Haou as my favorite villain, so I wrote something for both of them!

[sokkathebluewolf]

I am chickened out from gladiator because it is this long and it keeps getting longer is it worth my time to read it ??

... Uh, well. I can’t help but wonder if you’re aware this blog is run by the actual author of the story in question? I don’t know if you expect me to give you a non-biased answer when I’ve considered the story was worth 8 years of my life xD as far as I’m concerned, it absolutely has been worth it, but I can’t speak for the whole wide world when it comes to that. If you want the opinions of readers, there’s probably other blogs run by people who have read the story and who might have critical opinions about it... that may be what you were looking for. If, however, you were deliberately hoping to get my opinion on my own story... well, yes, for me it’s clearly worth it xD Otherwise, I would’ve quit ages ago.

The story is indeed very long and it keeps getting longer, and it will keep getting longer because we’re not done yet and won’t be for a while :’D if you’re the type of reader who can’t stand it when they catch up to stories and have to wait for updates, well, feel free to give it a shot when I’m done writing it, I guess? It’ll be a while until then, but it’s up to you. If you don’t like reading really long stories, then it’s probably better for you if you don’t force yourself to read this one, I know not everyone is ready to dedicate that much time to reading something, especially if they have lots of things to do. Hence, if the length daunts you, that’s alright, it daunts me too and I’m responsible for it xD it’s fine if that deters you from reading it.

But as the way you phrased your question almost sounded like you’re challenging me to give you some sort of sales pitch to catch your attention, let’s see if I can pull it off:

Gladiator is a massive ATLA AU, not only in terms of story length but also scope: it’s a complete rewrite of the entirety of ATLA in a more mature setting, starting chapter 1 with the characters 5 years older than they were in canon. Aang’s adventures in saving the world did not take place here because of a simple enough reason: Katara didn’t accompany Sokka on his boat on the fateful day when they were meant to find Aang, which means the story as we’ve known it simply doesn’t take place. I’ve taken liberties here and there, added some changes from canon when I needed to do so, in order to ensure the story works, but the gist of the story is to set a stage where the Fire Nation marched onwards, practically unopposed, and conquered the Earth Kingdom with the power of Sozin’s Comet (just in case it needs to be clarified, without certain technological developments, Ozai’s wild plan to incinerate the whole world wouldn’t happen, and if Team Avatar isn’t assembled before the Comet shows up, said technological developments simply wouldn’t exist... :’D). I’ve had to figure out how many details would change, how much of the original story would or wouldn’t happen without Team Avatar’s involvement, I think most my choices have been solid, but it’ll be up to you to decide if you think they are or not if you read the story.

The worldbuilding of Gladiator, then, is preeeetty huge and complicated because of that starting point. There’s a lot of elements that are completely new (such as the Gladiator League and all its derivates), some OCs, some lore expansion, so you can definitely say it’s an ambitious project. In a sense, I’ve reset canon to zero, and at the same time I haven’t, which makes things complicated but, for me, really fun to develop. If you’re interested in seeing more of the Avatarverse explored, characters repurposed, with new dynamics and relationships, Gladiator may just be what you’ve been looking for :D

In my experience, the main reason why most people stumble into this fic (other than by sorting FF.net’s ATLA stories by review count and drawing blanks upon glimpsing a Sokkla story on the first page xD) is because they’ve been drawn into Sokkla, or they’re looking for stories centered around Azula or Sokka. Gladiator, evidently, features all three such elements because, obviously, those two are the protagonists and their relationship is the beating heart of the whole tale. I’ve been asked in the past who’s the real protagonist and I honestly still have no idea xD but anyways, if you’re interested in reading a story with a toooooon of Azula character development, even if it takes place across a long, long time, this story may just do the trick. I’ve done the best I could to keep her character as true to what I believed a young adult Azula might become, within the circumstances of this story. She has grown a LOT in 200 chapters, goes without saying (if she hadn’t, I’d be one heck of a failure of an author x’D), so if you’re interested in seeing a slow but effective growth arc for Azula, you’ll certainly find that in Gladiator. Same is true for Sokka, but I think most people who come to this fic for Sokka are interested in seeing him being a badass, which we have plenty of as well xD still, it’s also a long and slow process for Sokka to grow into a powerful warrior, neither him nor Azula start out in the story with all the answers, and they both bump into many hurdles as they navigate their complicated lives.

There’s a lot of humor in Gladiator, perhaps more than expected with a story that has that sort of dark premise, but it’s, on great measure, because Sokka and Azula are inevitably given to banter xD if you want to read a lot of banter between those two, well, you may not be bored in 200 chapters because, while the nature of their exchanges does vary as they both develop, their conversations are usually pretty spirited and they love trying to outsmart each other all the time.

If you are already a Sokkla shipper and the main reason you’re here is because you want more Sokkla goodness in your life... I’ll just say Gladiator has become a bit of a dream come true for me as a Sokkla shipper as well, because it’s the perfect space for me to work with virtually every idea I’ve ever had for these two. Yes, there’s drama and conflict here and there, if you’re not too given to angst there’s a few parts of the story that won’t sit so well with you, though if you love angst you’ll probably enjoy them plenty... yet what I’m most proud of, with this story, is having developed their relationship not only as best I could, but I’ve also attempted to defy typical storytelling structures for romance stories, where the lead couple can’t seem to have a stable relationship because “that would be boring”. Screw that, man: these two have been in a serious relationship together in-story by now for well over half the published chapters, and I’ve had the time of my life writing their dynamics as a couple while the plot continues to develop around them. This, however, is not everyone’s cup of tea, so if you aren’t all that given to seeing such traditional romance storytelling structures dismissed because I wanted to write my favorite ship dealing with all their external struggles while finding strength in the bond they share, Gladiator may not hold your attention long enough for you to devote yourself to reading it beyond chapter 100-ish. On the other hand, if this subversion of romance structure is what you’ve been looking for all your life, or if it’s what you always wanted and never knew you wanted it, or if you’re simply curious as to whether it works or not, Gladiator may suit your interests fairly well. Again, Sokkla is the absolute center of this story, both together and independently, so if you want to see a rewrite of ATLA with them at the core of just... everything? xD that’s absolutely what you’ll find here.

That being said, there’s things I guess you should mind about Gladiator: I have some relatively controversial takes about certain things, including interpretations of fan-favorite characters that some people have been known to take offense over. I, personally, believe my interpretations of those characters don’t deviate that much from canon or that, when they do, the setting itself explains why the deviation works as it does, but due to the fact that I work with a protagonist who was in a villainous role back in ATLA, her relationships with some characters can be more complicated than a lot of people seem to believe they should be. Hence, if you’re not particularly adverse to reading content that brings up big questions about the motivations of certain characters, or how they’d react if the story from ATLA hadn’t happened exactly as it did, you’ll have enough fun in Gladiator. If, however, you don’t particularly care to see anything that shows beloved characters in a not-so-flattering light, this story may not be for you (though, if you’re willing to humor me and allow my story to question your perception of those characters, feel free to try the story as well). 

There’s also a variety of dark themes and situations in Gladiator, something that any reader should be warned about in this day and age: I am 100% against violence for the sake of violence, to name one such subject, and I generally try to portray it with as much nuance as possible, but even if I feature my own characters criticizing their violent world and wanting to put an end to the strife caused by the Fire Nation, some of the violence in Gladiator may be a little too much for the readers who prefer the tone of the original ATLA. Hence, if that’s how it is for you, it’s another reason to approach the story with caution. I won’t pretend I’ve handled every theme and subject perfectly, but I’ve never wanted the darker moments to feel gratuitous in any way, so if you’re open to reading a darker take on the Avatarverse, this may work for you after all.

Alas! If you want to see Azula growing out of the toxic Fire Nation indoctrination, if you want to see Sokka gaining confidence and strength as a man and warrior, if you want to see a fleshed-out but still very much villainous Ozai, if you want to see Toph fulfilling her dreams of joining an all-out fighting league where she can beat people up for a living, if you want to see a myriad of secondary ATLA characters (like Song, or Shoji!) given new lives and even genuine protagonism, if you want to see Zuko discovering he’s allowed to just... be happy? xD Gladiator may prove interesting enough for you.

Furthermore, if you want to see Azula being true friends with Mai and Ty Lee, discovering a dragon, developing new firebending styles, confronting her misplaced beliefs about herself, rebelling subtly (and lately, not so subtly) against her father, growing into a great leader who could change the Fire Nation’s nefarious direction...  aaand if you want to see Sokka fighting creatively (sometimes with TWO swords!), navigating the dangerous waters of interacting with Fire Lord Ozai, staying true to his beliefs while also learning that the world is not as black-and-white as he was raised to think it was, understanding himself better and making the most of his potential as a quick learner, writing embarrassing haiku and being an unapologetic rebel who goes toe-to-toe with Heads of State just because he can... yep. Probably read it? xD

Lastly... if you want to see Sokka and Azula grow through their mistakes, learning to understand each other, fighting side by side, training together, dancing to no music, learning the underrated pleasure of proper communication in a relationship, sassing each other left and right, flirting in ridiculous ways, taunting each other in many regards, laughing at each other’s terrible jokes, protecting each other fiercely, challenging each other to a spicy ramen eating contest, discovering indirect bending, being highly inappropriate at times and places where they shouldn’t be, making long, dangerous yet fun journeys together, sneaking around to meet up when they’re not supposed to, standing by each other in their darkest moments, watching over the other when they’re sick/injured, being ready to sacrifice virtually anything for each other, and even defying and defeating even death to save each other...? Well, I don’t know if there’s any other stories where you might find all of this, but I can guarantee you’ll find it in Gladiator :)

If none of this is convincing enough... that’s a shame, but I understand. If it convinced you to give it a shot, however... I guess I’ll just hope you enjoy it enough to stick around! :) thanks for taking my story into consideration regardless of whatever you decide. Have a nice day!

[iwillbeinmynest]

Primus

Pairing: Bucky x OFC  (Listen, I know OFC’s aren't popular but if it make’s you feel better just replace her name with yours, or better yet, pretend you have a new name, kay??)

AU: Gladiator

Prompt: *top center photo* “Last Warrior” from T over at @tilltheendwilliwrite for her writing challenge!! Congrats on the followers and thank you so much for hosting this!!

Author’s Notes: I wrote this in one day...yeah, you read that right, ONE DAY. I haven’t been this inspired in a long time okay and ancient rome AU’s have a very very special place in my heart so needless to say I had a fire under my butt to actually finish this fast before I lost whatever motivation was within me. Also, I am obsessed with Roman Empire era fiction, okay. I got way into this and now I can’t get the vibe outta my head. Please excuse me as I go find my sandals and a maxi dress.

Word Count: 4.8K (don’t be mad, I needed to keep it a one shot)

Notes/Warnings: Kissing (It gets a kinda steamy but I tried to not be inappropriate), blood and gore (like, lots), mentions of abuse and trauma, mentions of slavery (ancient rome, y'all. I do not support it.) major character death, angst, grief, sadness, fear. - This is a tragedy, okay? I made it sad. 

Masterlist

                                                                      Moodboard by @itsanerdlife​

She walked through the sleeping city under the stars concealed by her dark cloak. She’d pulled the hood up to cover her hair and face from any passers by, which at this time of night were very few and those who did pass her, were too drunk to pay any mind. Her sandals hardly made a sound on the compacted sandy streets. She stayed close to the edge so that she would be out of what little light tonight’s moon provided.

She turned a sharp corner and hurried down a narrow alleyway. As she emerged onto the  next street, she was greeted in silence by a man who she only knew as The Falcon. He was dark of skin and he wore his tragedies in his eyes.

The Falcon handed her the reins to a dark colored horse, it was too dark to tell it’s true color, but Cassia assumed it was black. The steed swayed beside her, shifting its weight.

“Ride swiftly. Your time is short and you must be back before the sky begins to turn. I will not wait for you.” He reminded her.

She nodded and he helped her mount the beast. She turned the horse towards the city gates and took a deep breath but before she could kick the horse The Falcon grabbed her leg below the knee. Cassia gasped quietly but she didn’t pull away.

“The Captain will meet you at the ludus gates.” The Falcon handed her a cloth that was wrapped around something thin and hard. “Give this to him and tell him his debts will soon be settled.”

He let go of her after she took it and then slapped the steed beneath her, sending it straight into a gallop.

Cassia held tight and rode through the final streets before speeding through the west gate- unattended thanks to The Captain’s orders. The way to the ludus, Cassia had long ago put to memory. She’d many times accompanied both her father and The Captain to the ludus to watch from the balcony as Lentullus’ gladiators trained.

Her father, Praetor Marcus Cassius Faustus, often visited the surrounding ludus’ to obtain the best gladiators for his games. He’d put on many games during his time as Praetor and the people loved him- or, at least, the rich and the noble did. The rest of the city tolerated him as they had no choice.

The Captain, or Steve as Cassia had come to know him, was one of her father’s closest confidants, having served under him in his final years as a general in the Legion. Steve was near the same age as Cassia and they’d become close friends. Cassia’s father even suggested that The Captain marry her but her heart belonged to another and Steve knew it.

Now, the ludus was in sight. Her journey was very brief thanks to the swiftness of the horse she’d been loaned. She could see the flames of the guards who stood at the top of the walls and she watched as the flames disappeared the nearer she became.

She pulled back on the reins and the horse huffed and heaved hot breath from its nose as it was finally given a respite.

A young servant approached her and took the horse to get water after she dismounted. He didn’t meet her eyes and Cassia’s heart broke at the sight of the leather collar around his neck.

Steve appeared with a torch in hand, his blonde hair looked golden in the light of the flame. “Cassia,” He greeted her with a kiss to the cheek. “Come, we haven’t much time.”

She grabbed his arm giving him pause. She handed him the cloth, “The Facon says your debts are soon to be settled and to give you this.”

“What are its contents?” He asked, puzzled.

“It was not my place to look.” And she meant it. What ever was between The Falcon and The Captain was none of her business nor her concern. She only had one task on her mind tonight.

Steve pocketed the cloth and placed a hand at her back, urging her closer to the ludus. But instead of entering the front doors to the house, she was now sent down a steep hill and towards the metal gates at the bottom. The two guards, that stood on either side, looked straight forward and into the black of night.

Cassia’s pace stuttered but Steve pushed her on.

“Nevermind them,” He reassured her. “They know their duties.”

She nodded and followed him through the gates. After a short walk and a right turn, Cassia let out a soft gasp. She recognized this ground. She was standing at the edge of the training yard. She’d seen Lentullus’ gladiators train here with wooden swords and blunted spears. She’d watched as they were whipped for their failures and praised for victories. She looked up and saw the balcony where she usually stood. How strange to be looking at it from this angle. Was this how he saw her?

“Cassia!” Steve whispered her name, shocking her from her moment of perspective. “This way.”

She hurried to catch up with him. Cassia followed him through the passageways of the slave quarters and up to yet another metal barred gate and beyond that were more bars and cells. It was like a place for wild animals and while many romans believed this is what they deserved, Cassia knew better.

From the darkness beyond the cell door where she stood, there was a shuffling of feet and a muttering of harsh words.

Her heart jumped when she was finally within hearing distance and she recognized his voice. She turned to smile at Steve but he was staring, with brows furrowed in concern, at the cloth she had handed him from The Falcon. Even with the cloth now unwrapped and it draping over his fingers, she still could not see what was in it.

“I only get so much time for sleep,” A distant voice grumbled. “Pray, what has you dragging me from my slumber this night, Crassus?”

Bucky shuffled his feet, stirring up the sand as he was pushed forward by the guard behind him. His gaze jerked forward from the shove and he froze.

Tears welled in Cassia’s eyes and she grabbed the bars that separated her from him.

 His stupor only lasted a moment before he rushed to the gate as well. His hands went to her hair and he all but whimpered at the sight of her. “Cassia?”

The Captain nodded to the guard who pulled the keys from his belt and unlocked the gate.

“Remain here.” The Captain ordered. “I will bring him back shortly.”

The guard nodded and turned his back but remained in his place.

The moment the gate was wide enough, Bucky was through it. He grabbed her and lifted Cassia off the ground in a long overdue embrace.

“Life has returned to my body. Have I been blessed that I get to hold you again?” He set her down and held her face in his hands. His thumbs wiped the tears from her cheeks. 

Buck remembered the day he first laid eyes upon her. She stood beside Steve on the balcony of the ludus. Lentullus was lavishing her father with praise and complements while Cassia’s eyes focused on his fellow gladiators. He’ll never forget the look on her face. It wasn’t disgust not pity nor lust, as so many other patrons of his Dominos would look, but rather he saw grief and compassion in her eyes.

 Bucky had known Steve all his life, they even served in the legion at the same time but Bucky disobeyed a direct order to kill a young family of Gauls and his punishment was immediate death or to fight in the next games.

 Bucky chose the games, as most do, and won his match. Lentullus was enamored with the way Bucky fought and bought him then and there from his chair in the pulvinar of the arena.

 It was only months later that Steve arrived with Cassia trailing behind him. She followed Steve to meet Bucky that same day. Bucky asked her why a woman as beautiful as she looked so sad to watch what most other consider to be exciting.

 She responded ‘No one should be enslaved- whether they are bound by debt, the collar or blood- no man should have to be forced to do something they don’t want to.’ It was then that he knew she was different. He knew she had endured a the tragedy of slavery he just didn’t know at what end.

 Bucky would later learn of the hardships her father had put her through- forcing her to keep slaves, encouraging her to please other men he wanted to impress- he learned that she refused this order every time it was given, causing her father to strike at her for her disobedience- or attending the games, which she couldn’t stand.

 In their next handful of secret meetings, Bucky fell in love with her. Their romance was forbidden and secret. It had to be, her father would never allow her to marry a gladiator as they were only a short rise above slaves. But Cassia still came to him and he would thank the gods every time he was able to hold her.

 And now, he thanked them again.

 He studied her for a moment before looking at Steve, “Thank you.” Cassia’s voice stole his attention before The Captain could respond.

“I had to see you.” She tried to stall her tears but they escaped even still. “I had to be in your embrace before…” She couldn’t say it.

Bucky’s eyes softened. “And I you, only I did not think it would be possible.” He pulled her into another hug and then felt a foreign hand at his shoulder.

Steve was looking around. “Let us move to a place more secluded. I fear a slave may spot us here.”

Bucky nodded but never lost touch of Cassia. They followed Steve out past the training yard and into the small hall that leads to the final gate. With none but Steve’s torch to light them,  long shadows were cast onto the sandstone walls.

Bucky took Cassia into his arms again, her tears now stopped and content on her face. “How did you get her here?” He looked to Steve for answers.

“Samuel, arranged a horse.” Steve answered.

“And what did that cost you, this time?” Bucky kept his eyes on Steve but his hand rubbed a gentle circle across Cassia’s back.

Steve swallowed but remained steady. “I’ve yet to make my payment but It will come soon enough.”

Cassia felt Bucky tense and she leaned back to look at them both. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Steve took in a breath, “I’ll go pay the guards and leave you to solitude a moment but you don’t have long.” And Steve hurried off, leaving them in the dark.

“Bucky-” Cassia began to question but he cut her off with a hungry kiss.

He leaned into her until she was flush against the wall. She weaved her hands into his long, dirty, hair and tugged gently, making him grunt into her mouth and bite softly on her bottom lip. His hands roamed over her dark blue, linen, tunic. The  purple and gold sash at her middle hung low on her hips, hugging her bottom, and Bucky traced the fabric with an open palm.

Cassia pushed him back and gasped for a breath that she wished she didn’t need.

Bucky paused his attack on her neck when he thought he heard someone coming.

Cassia used the respite to her advantage. She took Bucky’s face in her hands and kissed him slow and gently. She tried to forge every sensation to memory. The feel of his beard on her cheeks, the warmth of his lips and the taste of his mouth. She was afraid of loosing him. 

Bucky pulled away from her and it wasn’t until she felt him wipe the tears from her face that she realized that she was crying again.

“I pray that I am not the cause of such sorrow.” He said with a familiar grief.

She shook her head. “Apologies. I didn’t mean to ruin our last-” A sob broke her sentence.

Bucky held her head in his hand and shushed her. “I’ll be alright.” He tried to soothe.

She shook her head again. “You fight in the Primus tomorrow. Against Theokoles! A champion in all his fights!”

Bucky tried to smile. “Does my beloved hold doubts of my skill and strength?”

She grabbed his face. “Never. But-” She reconsidered her statement and then said, “Bucky, I have seen him fight ten men and leave with nothing but a scratch. You fight him alone!” Her eyes danced as she searched his face for any sign that he understood the severity of tomorrow’s games.

“Cassia,” He caressed her cheek but it did nothing to ease her worry. “If I win tomorrow, I will win my freedom. And with the winnings I earn, we can leave this city and start again somewhere new.”

She only looked at him and offered a small smile. He kissed her again and she struggled to remain in the moment. Her mind wandered with images of tomorrow’s games and all of the horrendous ways he could die. She did consider him winning but she knew he had never faced an opponent such as The Mighty Theokoles. His size nearly doubled Bucky who was well fit in his own right.

Bucky fought double swords while Theokoles took all victories with double spears. Theokoles was her father’s favorite champion. Whenever he fought, the crowd swelled within the arena, bringing in much coin to his purse. Tomorrow’s games would be no different. Senator Claudius Tiberius Sextus would be attending and if the games fair well, her father would be able to speak with him about elevating his position from praetor to governor. With the senator’s backing her father could very quickly rise to a higher power.

 Bucky nipped at her ear, making her gasp and hold him tighter. She let out her breath with a low moan and Bucky began to work faster. He kissed down her neck to her shoulder. 

 Cassia’s hands had also begun to roam. Being a slave, Bucky wore nothing but a little bit of cloth to cover his hips. Her fingers traced his bare and chiseled stomach, then they ran around his torso to feel the strength in his back.

Just before Cassia and Bucky could take things any further, Steve came running up quick.

“You must come back!” Steve whispered loudly as he pulled Bucky from Cassia’s arms.

Bucky looked back desperate and Cassia ran to catch his hand and follow.

“What happened?” Cassia whispered, praying to whatever god would hear her that she may have more time with him.

“Doctore has called for him. He must answer from his room, lest you be discovered.” Steve said quickly as he hurried them back to the gate.

Before Steve could push Bucky through the iron cell door, Bucky ripped from his grasp and took Cassia in his arms again, kissing her with solidity and fervor.

He pulled back with a happy smile. “I will free us both tomorrow, you will see.”

Cassia yanked the blue beaded necklace from her neck, breaking the latch, and pressed it into his chest. His hand covered hers. “Take this, that I may be with you in the arena.”

He kissed her again, “You always are, my love.”

Steve pulled Bucky hard and shoved him through. “Go!”

The guard hurried Bucky back into the darkness of the ludus corridors and he was gone from Cassia’s sight.

Her heart sank to no longer be in his arms but she didn’t have time to grieve because suddenly Steve wrapped an arm around her waist and she was hurled the other direction. Steve then took her hand and tossed his torch into a nearby barrel of water, putting it out. He ran them back through the halls and the training yard and back to the final gate.

The two guards who’d kept watch hadn’t moved nor did they now. Steve helped Cassia back on her horse and then mounted his own.

“Hurry,” He said. “We mustn’t be discovered.” and he kicked his horse, slapping Cassia’s as he passed. They both rode back to the city as fast as their horses would go. As they neared the city walls Steve broke to the left, leaving Cassia to ride the rest of her way, alone.

*  *  *  *

 The roar of the crowd was nearly deafening as Cassia sat in the pulvinar. The servants behind her slowly waved fans at her back. She hated that this was the life she led. Having servants and being expected to command them. No one should be commanded or forced to do anything they didn’t want to and people shouldn’t be owned. She’d grown up with servants and she’d seen the cruelties they’d endured. It made her sick. She never struck at her servants, save once when her father demanded it and she promptly apologized once in the privacy of her room- she was only fifteen then.

Cassia sat beside The Captain as they both awaited the primus, the final fight of the games. It was why everyone had come. The executions and following fights entertained the crowd, to be sure, but they came for Theokoles and Winter’s Soldier.

Bucky had acquired his Gladiatorial Title after a brutal and bloody defeat in the snowy arena in the northern outskirts of Rome. Bucky had beheaded his opponent and the blood spatter looked like a legion eagle, thus being named Winter’s Soldier.

She hated that name.

The gladiators in the arena below her clashed as their armor and shields collided. A man with a red feather atop his helmet thrust his sword upward in the final strike. The crowd erupted in cheers as they basked in the gore. Cassia turned her head.

“My lovely daughter never could stomach the games.” Her father said to Senator Claudius.

Claudius looked over his shoulder and chuckled at Cassia before turning back to Marcus. “The delicacy of women.” He teased.

Cassia clenched her jaw then stood. “I should like to get some air before the primus, please excuse me, father.”

“I’ll escort you.” Steve offered.

“How very kind of you, Captain.” Marcus smirked. “I’m hoping to have him as a son-in-law soon.” He said to Claudius.

Claudius nodded and smiled. “It would be a wise arrangement.”

Cassia hurried out of the pulvinus and Steve followed. She only made it as far as the second corner before she almost collapsed. Steve caught her arm and she grabbed him. “I can’t do this Steve. I can’t sit there as my father uses the life of the man I love to elevate himself so that he can enslave more people!”

Steve sighed and helped Cassia to stand upright. “Not to mention the humor at your expense.”

She snapped her head at him, “I’d have him shout my worthlessness to the gods if it meant Bucky didn’t have to fight!”

Steve shushed her and stepped closer.  “Calm yourself!” He whispered at her. “Keep shouting and he’ll hear you.”

She shook her head. “Tell me the truth, does Bucky stand a chance?”

Steve paused. “I- I don’t know.”

It wasn’t the answer she wanted but it was the answer she expected. Her lip quivered but she clenched her jaw, took a deep breath and straightened. She nodded her head once. “Right.”

The horns blared in the arena to announce the beginning of the primus and both Steve and Cassia jumped and turned back to the path to the pulvinar. The arena shook with the stomps and cheers of the crowd.

Cassia tensed and started to run back to her seat but Steve grabbed her arm. “I have to confess to you!” He shouted so he could be heard but he pulled her close to keep their conversation private. “I can not let your father rise to be governor. He will not leave this arena today bro will the Senator. It is how I will settle my debts with The Falcon and save Rome from yet another tyrant.”

Her eyes widened and tears pricked her eyes at the vastness of what the rest of the primus will bring. But she knew her father was a mad tyrant, for him to be in power any higher would be devastating. So, she nodded her head. She understood what needed to be done.

“Where will you go?” She asked.

“Arrangements have been made. There are a few senators who will back me.”

Suddenly, she had a thought. “What did The Falcon give you?” Her expression left no room for lies or dismissal.

He pulled a small dagger from his waist for just a moment before concealing it again but she saw the markings of yet another corrupt senator, Senator Julius. Thats when she figured it out, Julius was to be framed for her father’s murder.

She nodded. Whatever plan The Falcon had drawn was well thought out. Three evil men would be taken down. Cassia wanted to feel sorry for her father’s fate but there was little chance that he would ever be anything but wicked.

They were both brought back to the moment when they heard Marcus begin to announce the final fight.

Steve took her hand and they ran back to the pulvinar.

“My fellow citizens!” Her father shouted with arms wide. “It is my great honour and privilege to host these games for you today! But The honour of announcing the primus,” The crowd erupted briefly, “The honour goes to the magnificent Senator Claudius Tiberius Sextus!”

Claudius stood up proud and raised his arms as Marcus sat back down.

“Good people! I present to you from the house Lentullus Sepius Romulos, Winter’s Soldier!”

The crowd cheered and some booed. Some threw flowers and others rotten food.

Bucky emerged from the left of the arena. His waist was covered in cloth and belts. His legs were covered up to the mid thigh in leather and gauze. His right arm was bare but his left was covered in chainmail and metal plates. He walked out of the iron gate with both swords already drawn. He ignored the cheers of the crowd and whatever was thrown his way and he looked up and locked eyes with Cassia.

Her breath caught in her throat and she squeezed Steve’s hand.

“And your reigning champion!” Claudius continued and the arena began to stomp. “Theokoles!!”

The crowd screamed and cheered and the massive man burst from his side of the arena with arms raised high and he screamed with pride.

Theokoles pointed one of his two spears at Bucky and then spun them both around.

Bucky stood firm where he could see Cassia and he didn’t even look to his opponent.

“This is a fight to the death!” Claudius shouted over the roar. “The winner of this Primus will receive a Rudis! And with that, his freedom!!”

Cassia walked to the edge of the Pulvinar and gripped the harsh stone.

Claudius dropped an arm and yelled, “Begin!”

Steve was at Cassia’s side in an instant, eager to see the fight.

Theokoles charged Bucky with a roar and Bucky swung his swords in one full rotation and prepared for impact. 

The fight felt like it took ages and yet it seemed to be nearly over in minutes. Bucky landed fair hits to Theokoles but the beast of a gladiator paid his wounds no mind.

Bucky took blow after blow as Theokoles showed no mercy. Theokoles cut Bucky’s side, back and right shoulder. Bucky was bleeding and fading.

“Steve,” Cassia’s breathing was short as she feared the worst. “Steve stop this.”

“There’s nothing I can do,” He said as he watched in horror.

“Kill him, now.” She said as she glanced to her father.

 Steve considered it but, “I-” She could see he was afraid.

Marcus looked over to his daughter. “My, Cassia, I never have seen you so invested.”

She turned to him, her final hope. “Father, please, if you have any love for me, I beg you to stop this game.”

Marcus looked stunned and offended, “Stop the games? Why would I do that? Look at this crowd!” He gestured an arm out and Bucky screamed as Theokoles landed another blow. “They love this!”

Cassia’s heart sank in despair. Bucky swung his arm around in an attempt to cut his opponent but Theokoles hit him in the jaw with the back of his spear. Bucky stumbled back and looked up to Cassia. Blood ran from a cut on his head, over his eye and down his face. He was covered in blood and sand and as he looked to Cassia, his eyes told her he knew he couldn’t win.

“Father, please!” She cried.

It was then that it dawned on Marcus. “Cassia, do you-” he chuckled, “Do you have feelings for Winter’s Soldier?”

Theokoles grabbed Bucky by the hair and laughed. Bucky whirled around as best he could and sliced through the back of Theokoles’ knee, severing the tendons. Theokoles screamed out and dropped to the ground. Bucky regained his footing and the crowd was stunned.

To stir the people in his favor, Bucky raised his arms and screamed so loud, he felt his vocal chords ripping.

The crowd joined him in praise.

“Looks like your beloved might  survive after all,” Marcus taunted his daughter. “But I wouldn’t count on it.”

Bucky turned to the pulvinar and raised his armored arm to Cassia.

Movement behind him caught her eye but before she could even breathe, Theokoles hurled a spear at Bucky.

Bucky’s eyes went wide. He looked over at his shoulder, his arm dropped as he watched the blood drip down his chest.

The spear had impaled his left shoulder just below his armor. The bloody spear head stuck out through the top of his chest. He struggled to breathe. It must have hit his lung.

Cassia screamed out his name.

Steve turned to Marcus. “Stop the games,” he demanded.

Marcus waved him off. “Don’t be ridiculous, Captain. Friends or not, that man,” he pointed to Bucky, “Is a criminal and chose to be a gladiator to pay his dues.”

“That man is a hero and you know it to be true. You condemn him to death for sport and to elevate yourself, you selfish-”

“Hold your tongue, Captain.” Marcus warned.

Bucky stumbled forward, eyes finding Cassia’s again. His mouth moved but she couldn’t make out what he was saying.

Theokoles stood on his only usable leg and grabbed his final spear. He changed his grip and prepared to strike but before he could, Bucky dropped to his knees and threw away his swords.

 He held up a finger to the pulvinar, a sign of surrender in hopes his life could be spared buy the call of the editor.

“Marcus!” Cassia called at her father. “Call life!”

Marcus grinned. “I do not make the call.” He turned to Claudius, “Senator, how should we proceed?”

Senator Claudius stood and watched the crowd. Most of them threw out a thumbs down, urging him to call for Bucky’s death. They favored Theokoles and Cassia knew it.

“I won’t be from him in death.” Cassia said to Steve. “Help me.”

The sands of the arena were only ten feet below. Cassia climbed over the waist high stone and Steve helped lower her to the sands.

“Cassia!” Marcus cried out and stood from his chair. “Have you gone mad?!”

The Senator, who ignored the commotion around him, smiled to the crowd and stuck out his hand- thumb down.

The crown began to chant and cheer, “Death! Death! Death! Death!”

Cassia lifted her robes and ran to Bucky as fast as she could, but it wasn’t fast enough. She watched as Theokoles drew back his final spear and hurled it at Bucky’s back. The spear went straight through his chest and came out the other side dripping in blood.

Cassia screamed, “NO!” and ran faster.

Bucky lurched forward and caught himself with his hands. Trying desperately to take a full breath. He could hear her voice but she seemed so far away.

Cassia stooped over as she ran and grabbed one of Bucky’s swords. Tears blurred her vision but accuracy was not important. She shouted and with all her might she slashed at Theokoles, who was turned away in victory.

The blade sliced open his side and some of his organs slipped out. He cried out in agony and fell to the sand. She climbed on top of his crumpled body and slung the sword again, lodging it in the place where his neck met his shoulder. She flinched when blood splattered all over her.

Theokoles did not get up.

Cassia didn’t know if she’d killed him or not but she didn’t care. She ran to bucky and fell to her knees in front of him. “Medicus!” She screamed, “Please, someone fetch the medicus!”

She drew Bucky’s head up and blood dripped from his mouth. It hung loose from his jaw and his eyes drooped.

“Bucky,” She sobbed, “Bucky, please, don’t leave me!”

His hand reached up weakly and touched her bloodied cheek, smearing it into her skin. “You’re hurt.” He whispered gruffly.

She shook her head. “The blood is not mine. Bucky, please get up. We must go.”

A scream from the crowd and Cassia’s head turned to the pulvinar. Her father lay halfway over the balcony, Steve above him, stabbing him in the chest two, three, four times before turning on the Senator.

 He must have found his courage to pay his debts.

Like a bolt of lightning, men on horses swarmed the arena sands firing arrows into the crowd. Everyone screamed and ran from their seats.

But the chaos meant nothing to her.

She rubbed her thumb across his cheek. “Bucky, get up.” She cried. “Get up!”

Bucky’s hand fell and a flash of blue caught Cassia’s eye. Her necklace slipped out from under the armor on Bucky’s left arm- he’d wrapped it around his wrist.

Bucky looked up to her. “You are...always with me, my love. And I...with you.” His voice was fading as was the color from his face.

She lifted his head, where he could no longer, and kissed him. She pulled back with his blood on her lips and in her mouth. “I love you, Bucky. I love you with all that I am.”

“I love you...Cassia,” he tried to breathe but instead wheezed and coughed blood, “My life...my...only…”

Bucky fell to the ground, eyes open and gripping Cassia’s hand firmly. She cried out in agony and wept over him. Her hands palmed at his hair, brushing it from his face as she kissed him again and again, begging him to return to her.

The arena was burning. The screams of the crowd had long faded and now only a few men on horses remained.

A hand grabbed her arm and tugged. “Cassia, we must go!”

She turned in her grief to see Steve’s eyes pleading with her. “Please, we must go, now!”

“I won’t leave him!” She cried.

“You must!” Steve wrapped his arm around her waist and heaved. Cassia was lifted from the bloody sand and thrown onto a horse. Steve mounted behind her and took off.

She screamed and begged him to go back but he ignored her, wiping the tears from his own eyes at the sight of his closest friend dead upon the sands.

The Falcon rode up beside them and called out, “Follow me! This way has burned down. The only exit is north!” Steve followed behind The Falcon and Cassia wailed as they passed Bucky one final time.

Bucky’s body lay still in death. The sand around him was stained red. His opponent dead several meters away. The wind blew the fire all around as the arena continued to burn.

Cassia’s necklace remained wrapped around his wrist.

*  *  *  *  * 

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[zargsnake]

Knightkiller: Anakin and Obi-Wan’s First Adventure

Chapter 4: Chahlee Tiango

Word Count: 1217 Links: Chapter 1, Table of Contents

 *   *   *

Obi-Wan thinks, This place IS just exactly his wretched neck of the woods, isn't it? Poor Anakin. Once we're out of here, I'm going to keep him well in the Galactic Core, where people are mannered and rules are obeyed.

“Jedi!”

Obi-Wan stands and turns elegantly to the man barking at him. It's the Mandalorian himself. Typical for the unenlightened of their kind, he hides his face behind his silly helmet. It was painted red, though the paint is only clinging to the edges.

“Greetings, citizen. I come in peace.”

This man killed someone Anakin admired.

Obi-Wan expected and dreaded Anakin's former life to affect the two of them somehow. The Council feared it. He sensed it in the Force. Qui Gon never denied it. But Obi-Wan hadn't quite expected to literally rumble with a villainous slave-killer. Certainly not less than four months after taking this burden on.

The Mandalorian laughs evilly. “And you'll leave in pieces!”

“You know my name. Dare I ask for yours?”

“Chahlee Tiango. I'm a Yooro Soldier, YS-135. The deadliest in my class!”

“A Yooro Soldier?” replies Obi-Wan. Cyborg Mandalorians. Ah, this man is not only a ghost from Anakin's past, but from mine as well. “I was the Jedi who ended the Yooro program.”

“I KNOW! You didn't think you'd ever face the consequences from that, didja? But now a Yooro is gonna end YOU!”

“We'll see about that, Tiango.”

“You're completely in over your head, aren't you? In your pretty little world, you've never even heard of death matches. You've never even set foot in the Outer Rim.”

“Not true. I spent quite some time in a very tiny, very nasty corner of your Outer Rim. The homebase of Jabba the Hutt himself. Tatooine.”

Obi-Wan is taking a bit of a shot in the dark, based on Anakin's comment and a vague memory of what the Naboo said about Tatooine before they landed there -- something about the planet being controlled by Hutteese gangsters. He hopes this Jabba really is a big deal.

The Jedi knight continues, “I personally studied death matches there. You won a tournament a few years back, correct?”

“Oh, you were there for that?” He laughs. “Impressive, wasn't it! Some of those slaves were a real challenge. Not as much as you will be, I'm sure! But I've never been so eager to fight someone as I am to fight the man who personally destroyed the traditions of my people. And I have no doubt you'll be most entertaining.”

“I do not play with life and death like toys. But the galaxy will not miss you, Chahlee Tiango.”

Tiango laughs but Obi-Wan's bland face does not move more than to raise an eyebrow.  

“Where is the other Jedi?” Obi-Wan asks.

Tiango points behind him. Obi-Wan sees that the arena is ringed in these gladiator rooms, with sparking red grates between them. Master Juna must be locked in another gladiator room further around the arena.

The shade and quality of the red electrobars is quite similar to the red barriers which kept Obi-Wan apart from Qui-Gon when the Sith fatally wounded him. They also match the evil lightsaber that did it. When Obi-Wan realizes that, he feels a strange sense of relief. So that is why he has been feeling so terribly afraid. A color.

“Would you pass a message to her, from me?”

Tiango laughs, rather awkwardly at this point, and boisterously answers, “Sure!”

“Tell her Obi-Wan Kenobi is here, with my Padawan Anakin Skywalker... Hold on, let me write this down.”

He looks around the little room and peels off a piece of old white wallpaper.

“Does anyone have a pen?”

The warriors ask around, and soon one of them passes a pen through the red grate.

“Thank you.”

He writes on the wallpaper: “To Master Tila Juna, from Obi-Wan Kenobi and Padawan Anakin Skywalker. They'll no doubt make us fight. Ideas? I'm right out.”

He passes the pen and paper through the grate and watches as Tiango passes it through his grate, and the next person reads it and passes it through their grate, and the next person reads it, looks back at Obi-Wan, laughs, and continues passing it on. Obi-Wan loses sight of it as it continues around the curve of the arena. He doubts it will make it to Master Juna, but these people and their twisted standards of honor are unpredictable.

Tila Juna is one of the oldest and wisest Jedi. She and Yaddle are universally beloved; they are like grandmothers to all the Jedi on Coruscant. Obi-Wan remembers once, when he was a teenager, Master Juna caught him sneaking out after bedtime. She pretended she hadn't seen anything, and let him go with a knowing twinkle in her eye. She never told on him to Qui-Gon, so Obi-Wan had to tell on himself.

All murder is wrong; those three lives he just took are not cheaper than Master Juna's. But to kill her would be worse, and he knows it. It would be like killing family.

Obi-Wan sits cross-legged and shuts his eyes. He reaches out his feelings to get a grip on the mood in this space station. All around is excitement, terror, thrills, like spikes of electricity jumping off a metal sheet. He senses Anakin's participation in the communal feverishness; he is far too young and untrained to be calm at a time like this. He senses the other Padawan's presence as well. She is calmer, practiced in the art of meditation, but her calm is a brittle mask.

And he senses Juna -- a far greater knight than he is. Her presence is a sink in the energy all around them. True, deep peace. Obi-Wan knows she detects him, too; he self-consciously worries that his own inner peace must look so shallow.

But Master Juna has been here for days, and she hasn't been able to puzzle her way out. And the others, the children, are even more helpless. Obi-Wan is the best fighter here by far; he is one of the best fighters in the galaxy, if not THE best. It's up to him to save them all. And it's up to him to shut this whole tournament down, too. He is the hand of the law!

The ringleader behind the operation is this “Knightkiller.” She was able to kidnap Anakin from right behind Obi-Wan’s back. How? Anakin is a very careful boy. Where did she learn to use the Force? Could she be the other Sith -- the master, or apprentice, of Qui-Gon's killer?

Has she really killed any knights? Is she behind the disappearances of missing Jedi like Master Kayji, Master Meguum, Eldra Kaitis?

Why would a Sith bother with these low-lives and their stupid death game?

“Hey! Jedi! You got your message back!”

Tiango throws the note at Obi-Wan's head and Obi-Wan catches it without looking. He sees that under his note, Juna has written in shaky handwriting: “Knightkiller = Glagret.”

Glagret! The Jedi who went missing 400 years ago -- the reason they came here in the first place -- SHE has become Knightkiller! Juna must have recognized her.

Obi-Wan is horrified. How could she? A Jedi!

Chapter 5: Fenn Gallowk

[vintagegeekculture]

What are some actually GOOD Sword and Sandal movies?

One of the bigger genres in Italy who’s popularity came and went in waves from the silent era to the present, Sword and Sandal (or Peplum) films are Italian movies about gladiators, musclemen, Ancient Greece and Rome, and who’s main characters include Hercules, Spartacus, Ursus, Maciste (a homegrown, semi-Marxist Hercules who fights the rich and decadent who is purely a creation of Italian cinema).

The genre started in 1912, with Cabiria, an ultra-early Italian feature that predated D.W. Griffith, featuring a muscular African slave named Maciste, and due to his muscles and screen presence, Bartolomeo Pagano may have been the first true movie star, making dozens of sequels. The popularity of these movies went into hibernation in Italy until 1959, when it got a huge resurgence when Steve Reeves starred as Hercules, and consequently became the highest paid star in Europe. Hercules (1959) caused literally hundreds of movies to be made, assembly line, in a burst of about 5 years. The genre burned itself out through repetition in only a half decade, only to be replaced by the Italian horror/slasher film and the Spaghetti Western. It was down for good, only to have something of a resurgence of popularity in Italy in the wake of the popularity of John Milius’s Conan the Barbarian in the early 1980s.

Sword and Sandal seems to be a genre where any given film picked at random could be a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode. For the most part, Sword and Sandal movies are mostly known for being the training ground of people who showed their skills in other genres, like how Mario Bava became a horror director, or how Sergio Leone, a second unit director on a few, was best known later for Spaghetti Westerns. And there is certainly some truth to the idea that, if you have seen one, you’ve seen them all. But there are certainly some good examples of the genre that are worth seeing.

Goliath and the Dragon (1960)

Don’t be fooled, this is a Hercules movie, but they renamed it because of some begobbled distribution rights issue.

If you were a Greek mythology kid (and most nerdy kids went through a phase they were into sharks, dinosaurs, Greek mythology, AV/Radio, writing in Dwarf runes under your desk after reading Tolkien for the first time, and lego) you might remember reading about Hercules’s semi-tragic end, poisoned and killed by his own wife and a centaur. It was the most fascinating story, where Hercules’s great strength and courage was defeated by jealous and anxious little people who tore him down. Americans don’t have much of a taste for tragedy, so it’s very seldom been adapted for American audiences.

Goliath and the Dragon is that story. It literally starts with Hercules finishing his hardest heroic Labor, and retiring. However, his younger brother is jealous of him, and a conspiracy of schemers work to get rid of Hercules by manipulating envy. Along the way, Hercules feels abandoned by the gods and he turns against them in anguish after a lifetime of service. It has a dragon, and quests into the underworld, yes, but it is primarily not an adventure film, which is what makes it interesting.

It also stars Mark Forest, who might be the only one of the bodybuilders to play Hercules to have a legit screen presence. He later left movies to become an opera singer and voice coach. 

Eric the Conqueror (1961)

This is one by Italian horror titan Mario Bava, and because it’s kind of a well known film, it actually has a half-decent transfer, including availability in the original language instead of a shoddy 70s dub - this is utterly, absolutely unheard of in this genre, where the copies of these movies on streaming (even on Amazon Prime!) are sometimes literally off VHS and have “snow lines” and other phenomenally half-assed signs of VHS transfer, like the original FBI WARNING stickers.

The film is about two Viking brothers, one of who is raised by Christians as a knight, the other of whom grows up the son of a pagan Viking warlord. It’s a film about the contrast between Christian and Pagan, and the one thing about it people remember is that it stars a pair of Playboy Playmate twins. Stylish and action-oriented with lots of red blood, it’s like a cool version of Disney’s “The Island at the Top of the World.”

Hercules in the Haunted World (1961)

Hercules vs. Christopher Lee –need I say more? Christopher Lee is a vampire who took over a kingdom and hypnotized Hercules’s true love, shrouding the land in eerie darkness…and so Hercules has to descend into the underworld. This is a case where the screenshots really tell the story, they get across the eerie, surreal Gothic ambiance of the film. It doesn’t actually feature Castle Greyskull, but it would perfectly fit in with the décor.

As far as I know, Hercules never actually encountered vampires in Greek folklore, but in Italian cinema, they seem to feel that the supreme challenge for the Son of Zeus is the undead (see also, Kobrak in Goliath and the Sins of Babylon).

I feel guilty having two Mario Bava movies on here. But of the two, this one feels the more…Mario Bava, in lighting, design, and ambiance, which is really the reason to see it. Essentially, it’s Hercules Goes to Hell, and it’s treated as more of a truly eerie horror movie, with weird lighting. The presence of Christopher Lee makes it feel like a bodybuilder accidentally wandered onto the set of a Hammer Horror film, with crumbling castles and she-vampires in negligees.

Maciste in Hell (1925)

Speaking of the essential plot of a muscleman going to hell, you wouldn’t think a movie of that kind would be whimsical, charming, imaginative, and creative, but it is. Satan tries to tempt Maciste, a pure in heart muscleman who represents the pure, incorruptible goodness and strength of the working class. Maciste movies, distinct from Hercules films, always had a strong Marxist undertone, with villains who were super-rich and decadent, all the while Maciste resisted their temptations and hung out with the lower classes and sponsored a revolution. The movie is full in intertitles like “the Dragon – Hell’s Aeroplane!” And the quest by female devils to turn Maciste into a demon himself with a kiss. Essentially, it’s a movie where if you’re pure in heart and have biceps of steel, there’s no problem you can’t bench press, grip, or grapple, even Satan. 

According to his memoirs, this was the movie that made Fellini want to become a director.

Hercules and the Princess of Troy (1965)

Made at the absolute dying gasp of the genre, this one is essentially the “Enter the Dragon” of Sword and Sandal movies, in that it was a Hollywood/Italian co-production, much like how “Enter the Dragon” was the first Hollywood/Hong Kong co-production. It wasn’t a movie at all, but a pilot episode for a television show that never went to series…to everyone’s shame, because if it had been made, it would have been a crowd pleaser, if the pilot was anything to go by. I all but guarantee it would be a syndication favorite that would have turned everyone in it into a star, the kind that would be on Nick at Nite forever, or the earliest incarnation of F/X, where it was just a scrappy rerun network with a pre-Survivor Jeff Probst (I still remember the F/X house all the VJ like hosts lived in).

This one has Hercules (played by Tarzan Gordon Scott) as a sea captain and leader of a Greek ship named the Olympia, who is accompanied by two sidekicks, Ulysses (a young, clever Ulysses as Herc’s sidekick was also a trait of Paul Levine’s Hercules and Hercules Unchained), and Diogenes, Hercules’s smart friend, a medical doctor and proto-scientist who comes off as the project’s most interesting character, a Dr. McCoy like curmudgeon who adventures to stay away from his awful wife, who creates a chemical that burns on water and who uses the Socratic Method to solve a murder mystery. If this had gone to series, I can see him overshadowing the theoretical leading man in a similar way to Jonathan Harris as Dr. Smith overshadowing the Robinsons. 

The pilot was great fun. It had mythological creatures like invulnerable horses and a terrifyingly unique sea monster, that was some of the earliest work by the now legendary Carlo Rambaldi (creator of E.T. and the Alien) that is light years ahead of the shag carpet dragons musclemen pretend to wrestle in movies like this. Not to mention a mystery, and Hercules facing intrigue that, as a trustworthy and direct man of action, he is incapable of dealing with (a trait of nearly every single interesting Hercules movie).

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, KYLIE! You’ve been accepted for the role of RICHARD III. Admin Cas: You put it best, Kylie—Ronan is a Machiavel through and through, but he’s also far more than that. He’s known suffering, more intimately than most, yet rather than allow it to shape him, wear him down, he sharpened it into a weapon. Yet again, you captured everything critical to Ronan’s character, from his scorn and ambition to his insatiability, his pride, his precision. Your writing itself is just enchanting to read, and we’re so thrilled that you’ve returned to us. We cannot wait to have you grace our dashes with your deliciously scheming and delightfully avid Ronan once more! Please review the CHECKLIST and send your account in within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | Kylie

Age | 26

Preferred Pronouns | She / Her

Activity Level | 5-6. I like to be on at least once every day, and manage some type of content.

Timezone | MST

How did you find the rp?  | i missed it :)

Current/Past RP Accounts | ronanivarsson.tumblr.com

IN CHARACTER

Character | Richard III, Ronan Ivarsson

What drew you to this character? |

ableism tw

there is something that will always be intriguing about the machinations of a machiavel, that will always be attractive, always be intriguing, which is what first drew me to ronan. however, i think it’s difficult, and dangerous, to label him as simply a manipulator, a prince in search of power and a throne–to me, he’s far deeper, far more layered than that. from the moment he was born, life put ronan ivarsson in a position to know nothing apart from weakness–he was born a pawn for his parents to play against one another, only for his father to stroll past the room where the board sat, to overturn the table and cast the pieces to the floor. he would remain forever trapped in the ivarsson villa, unwanted and loathed, never strong enough to fight for himself, to run from the horrible cesspool that made him, that twisted the hearts of the people that lived there–he should have been no better than the monster that frankenstein abandoned, the wife that wailed and gnashed, locked in the attic of the victorian manor house, a creature doomed to shadows for the whole of his life.

but ronan refused that life–and that’s the endlessly fascinating thing about him. he is a machiavel that should have never come into being, that tore the pages from the book and cut out only the passages that were useful to him. god reached down to him and showed him the path, the divine right of kings, and ronan, with his halting steps, with the black and poisonous blood that runs through his veins, walks it with precision, with the intent to wrestle the crown from the hand of the divine himself.

ronan took his emptiness and weaponized it, refused the shadows and instead forged them by his own hands into a kind of armor–look upon that which you would scorn, he says as he strides through verona a kind of caesar, a kind of richard, a lurching colossus, and kneel. i love that about him, but the thing that really got me in the end, is that he cannot successfully hide the weaknesses which still plague him–he ignored machiavelli’s greatest advice, that to be feared would better serve the prince than to be loved. he fell in love, with a beautiful mystery of a man. he still feels his pulse race when the cameras all come to train on his face, when he has every citizen of verona eating like lambs out of the palm of his hand. he looks at the only surviving gallo twin, and he feels something gentle curl around the corners of his mouth like perfumed smoke. he is cold, but he is not yet corpse.

it remains to be seen if that will be his downfall, in a place that so easily tears the heart from the chest cavity, if it takes a man or a monster to wear the crown, when the battles are finished.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? |

KINGS IT MAKES GODS, AND MEANER CREATURES KINGS

So far the path to the Montagues has been messy and bloody for Ronan, has left a trail of bodies behind him. Since he is now nothing more than a soldier, where such behavior, such wanton ambition won’t be tolerated, I want to see how he adapts his methods. Will he continue to kill whoever stands in his way, because such is the divine right every king should possess? Or will he learn to temper himself, to hide such business in the shadows? In the same vein, I would love to explore how much he’s capable of tolerating such a thing being asked of him–how long will it be before he bites the hand that feeds him? Until his patience for following orders starts to wear thin, and the divinity that guides him becomes impatient, insatiable?

A WORD THAT COWARDS USE

Love is an indulgence that Ronan knows he should cast aside, and yet he finds himself locked in a kind of constant craving. It’s the one thing in his life he’s never been able to buy for himself, never been able to take from the hands of someone else–so how does a man who so easily casts aside life’s gentler aspects, learn such an art? Is it part of his need for validation, for recognition from the public that would so easily cast him aside and speak vitriol towards him if he were anyone else? Or is it something deeper, something that would actually salve some of the wounds he’s carried his entire life? So far, he’s only known it as mistake, a wound that despite being stitched closed continues to hemorrhage blood–but then he looks at a man like Santino Gallo, and sees the potential for something that almost feels gentle. If such a thing were to make itself available to him, would he open himself up to it? Or would he make the decision once and for all to remove the cursed organ that beats in his chest?

EVERY TALE CONDEMNS ME FOR VILLAIN

Ronan holds no particular loyalty to the Montagues–he could have easily bent the knee to Cosimo Capulet, had the man approached him first. The Montagues are simply a means to an end, and I could see him being willing to sell them out if the right prize were offered to him. I want to see him be treacherous, silver tongued, the consummate politician, and flirt with the temptation of easy success. Would his pride keep him from taking such a way to a promotion, to an accolade? Would he really be willing to betray those few who he deems worthy enough for his time or glance? I could also see it working in the reverse–that perhaps he could use his talents to win recruits or information for the Montagues.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | Of course! It’s probably what he deserves!

IN DEPTH

Please choose between the interview or the para sample (or both, if you like!)

ONE.

It begins with a question, posed by a handsome mouth, sealed with fingertips that come to gently lift the hem of ronan’s shirt, to curl themselves around the curve of ronan’s hipbone.

“Tell me your favorite place, in all of Verona, and take me there right now.”

He grins, like a knife slowly being pulled from its soft leather sheath–all glint and sharp edge. He wraps his fingers around the young man’s neck, digs his nails into the short hairs there, until he gets a hiss that could either indicate pleasure, or pain, for his efforts. He coos, clicks his tongue and placates his plaything with the tender caress of lips against well muscled shoulder, neck. The young man makes another noise, something guttural and unprompted from the back of his throat, and ronan laughs.

It’s almost too easy–like digging his fingers into the scruff of a wild cat, expecting teeth and claws, only to have it purr in response. He contemplates disposing of him then and there with a clean cut across the throat that bares for him–but to leave empty handed, simply because there was no challenge in it, no cunning required, would surely be wasteful, return him to a state of excruciating boredom and restlessness.

So he hums in mock thoughtfulness, sinks his teeth into skin and licks over his mark, before he speaks. “As beautiful as you would look, pressed up against the brick of the arena, all of the blood and bravado of a gladiator roaring through you, I hardly see the need to travel so far away. Perhaps the library, would be a better location for such things as you desire?”

There it is, he thinks to himself, as the muscle pressed up against him comes to fall still for no more than a fraction of a second. All of the confirmation he needs, so unwittingly given. He hopes the rest of the Montague stock aren’t so impossibly dimwitted, or easily swayed by the promise of a more carnal method of persuasion. Where would the fun in that be?

He takes squared off chin in hand and kisses the soldato one last time, before the blood spills onto Ronan’s chest and subsequently the ground underneath his feet. He becomes the first of them to kneel.

TWO.

Lucien rolls off of the top of him, and Ronan immediately feels the muscles in his hands twitch, send the command to his shoulders to reach out, keep the seemingly endless expanse of pale skin from ever travelling where he cannot touch. Unfortunately for the memory of meat and tendon that has never properly obeyed his command anyway, ronan shuts the notion down in favor of watching–it’s all he feels he can do, when it comes to the man who now leans against the railing of the yacht. Watch, in the hopes that an answer of some sort may reveal itself–or perhaps even the question, that Ronan knows he should ask and yet cannot find the language to form. Strange, to be so willingly robbed of his best weapon.

He suspects Lucien is aware of where Ronan’s eyes come to rest, most of the time, and chooses not to comment. Perhaps he even enjoys it–being caught but not captured in the jaws of the predator, having the power to command him to wait, to stay until he is willing to give. If Ronan were to be honest with himself, in a way that has never been his policy, he would have to admit that he enjoys it as well–being compelled, by force of nothing more than want, wrapped in the candy coating of desire and attraction.

The man turns, and the breeze rustles his dark hair across his forehead. his eyes are hidden behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses, but Ronan can imagine the familiar spark of heat, of mischief, that flickers there like a matchstick flame. “You live like this every day, Councilman?” He drawls, one corner of his mouth drawn up into a smirk.

Ronan grins and leans his head back with a pleased sigh, crooks a finger to indicate that Lucien should come close again, should let Ronan show him just how decadent things can truly get, and shrugs one shoulder casually. “Occasionally there is work involved, but given the right incentive i’d be willing to throw the whole thing away. Perhaps you have an offer you’d like to make towards that end, Doctor?”

He doesn’t open his eyes when the deck chair bends with the weight of another, when lips are pressed against his own. He just slides his hands down each delicate rib bone, digs his fingers into flesh already marked with purple and blue blossoms that Ronan had planted there the night before, and tries to communicate without ever speaking, that this is only the beginning for the two of them. That when he’s finished with the work, he’ll ravish this man on a throne made of gold, decorated with jewels and the head of any who would dare oppose them.

THREE.

His sponsor is a weak-willed man, that reminds Ronan far too much of his own father–or at the very least, the passing glimpses and vitriol laced stories of his father that had fallen carelessly from his mother’s lips, after one too many glasses of wine. He comes upon ronan walking through the hallways of the library, wraps an arm around his shoulders as if to prove he is unafraid of touching a thing so malformed, so clearly repulsive to the eyes of others, and he smiles. “You have done well so far, Ronan.” he says, personably, as such men who would describe themselves as such always are. “Tell me, no big mistakes to report of? I won’t hold them against you too harshly–there is always room to grow, to learn, in a business such as this.”

He resists the urge to speak through gritted teeth that he is in the middle of running for office, and not some schoolboy in need of guidance and direction–instead his eyes catch on the silver band that sits, gleaming as the day it was put there, on his left hand. “I don’t believe in mistakes, signore.” He says, more quietly than he had intended. He bites down hard on his bottom lip, before schooling his expression into something more neutral, that feels less to him like exposing an open wound to the particles of a dust storm. “I make choices, and I live with their consequences–for better, or for worse.”

FOUR.

He stabs the man a month later, sinks his blade into the heart up to the hilt.

Someone Ronan thinks might be the capobastone comes to stand next to him, after the news of the dead Montague being found on the steps of the cathedral begins to circulate, and rests a hand on his shoulder. He resolutely does not think about breaking the bones in each of his fingers, one by one, for such a presumption. “You’ve handled yourself admirably, in the wake of such a personal blow.” He says, with an exhale of breath that causes the skin on Ronan’s neck to crawl. “It is the most difficult thing asked of us, to continue to live after another is gone.”

Ronan bites down hard on his bottom lip, by all appearances to staunch the overwhelming feelings of grief that must clearly threaten to spill forth from him, but in reality to stifle the laugh that threatens to give him away at such a ridiculous statement. He forces a slight tremble in his hands, as he brings them to scrub at the back of his eyes. “He taught me so much in such a short time–made me a better soldato.” A sharp inhale, shake of his head. “It is hard to believe, that I will never get the chance to thank him for such a kindness.”

The man nods his head in understanding, and squeezes, despite the pain that radiates all the way to the tips of Ronan’s fingers. He clenches his teeth. “We have watched you, the work you have done. And while it has at times been sloppy, and reckless, Don Montague believes that in the wake of Richard’s unfortunate demise, you should step up to take his place.”

He can taste it, in the back of his throat then. Blood, mixed with saliva, something distinctly more honeyed. Divinity, in all of its raw form–he half expects to open his mouth and see it spool out before him like ribbon, blinding everyone else in the room, rendering them nothing more than ash for him to step over as he walks towards the crown, the throne, the destiny that has been planned for him since he was nothing more than a young boy. He touches the hand on his shoulder and half expects it to be pulled away and burned. “I would be honored, signore, to serve the Don in such a way.”

FIVE.

“Tell me councilman,” the reporter shouts from the crowd, phone recorder thrust into the air like some sort of trophy or other holy object. “What are your thoughts concerning the war between the Capulets and the Montagues?”

He shakes his head, schools his face into an expression that is solemn, serious–the grim line of an Alexander or a Caesar, his heart bleeding into the streets of the city he has built, for the people who populate it and offer him devotions for their continued success and survival. “I think there will be no winners, in this conflict. And that whoever remains standing, will prove himself to be the more cruel, the more bloodthirsty, the more willing to do unspeakable acts in order to secure his own power–an honor i do not wish on even my worst enemy.”

And why would he? It is an honor he wishes for himself alone.

Extras: N/A

[seyaryminamoto]

Fic-to-Art #39: Gladiator's ELEVENTH Anniversary! (+ BONUS: Fic-to-Art #36...)

And here we are! March 26th arrived and I did not forget about it, but I paid for my ambitious madness with my wrist and forearm. Somehow, I finished my intended pieces on time, but I do not advise that you ever try to make 9 artworks in 3 days. No, sir. Bad life decisions, that's what that was... but this fic, as anyone knows, moves me to do things I never thought possible, starting with writing the fic itself!

It's really crazy every time it hits me that I've been doing this for as long as I have. It's been a complicated, chaotic journey, with its many ups and downs, but ultimately, it has been our journey. For some people, this is just one more fic in the pile: for me, it's been the best adventure of my life so far. Everyone who has ever been touched by Gladiator, who has ever cherished this story, who's looking forward to the big conclusion, who wants to see how the chaotic war is going to end... you're all part of this crazy adventure along with me, and I can only thank you for joining me.

This year, I had no time to make as big a project as I usually go for. Thus, I did a sort of free-for-all edition of Fic-to-Art over at Patreon and challenged myself to draw as many scenes as I could, out of their suggestions. I even sprinkled in a few scenes I impulsively wanted to draw because I loved writing them or because I look forward to writing them... and this is the result!

In order, the scenes are as follow:

Sokka combing Azula's hair, a common occurrence throughout the story.

Azula watching over a convalescing Sokka in the Chase of Jeong Jeong arc.

The outcome of Sokka's final battle in the Superior Gladiator League, namely a moment where Sokka and Azula more or less gave away their relationship's true nature to the public by raising their hands towards each other...

And now, spoiler territory! Some were by my choice, some by Patreon requests:

An important moment shortly after Sokka and Azula reunite.

Azula confronting her father, with a LOT of backup.

Xin Long's long-awaited freedom.

The aftermath of the final battle.

The full-blown confirmation of their relationship to the general Fire Nation populace.

Sokka, Azula and Hotaru's first night together

And the big final one is ACTUALLY Fic-to-Art #36 but hahaha woops I didn't post it here on time because it was super hard to finish since I had a LOT of things going on... but here it is now! :'D it's a glimpse VERY far into the future of this fic's timeline!

Alright, that should be enough talking and explaining. Some things are vague, some things aren't, but ultimately I really hope you guys will be looking forward to the scenes you haven't seen yet, and to Gladiator's eventual outcome.

So now... with all this being said and done, I'm gonna go take a trip down memory lane and watch my Tenth Anniversary video once more! Feel free to do the same thing if you'd like to commemorate the fic, I think it's a good way to experience Gladiator all over again, hahaha.

Thank you if you read all this, and if you read all THAT: 5 million word landmark, here we come! Thanks for hanging out with me across ELEVEN years of Gladiator!

[crystalconjunx]

Love your writing! Do you think you could do some tfp mega/orion pax nsfw? Im such a sucker for them pre-war 😩

Orion sat comfortably at the small desk Megatronus had found for him as he proofread the gladiator's latest speech. 

Today Megatronus was fighting his first offworlder. It wasn't terribly uncommon for offworld mechs to test their mettle in the Pits of Kaon, but Megatronus had only just begun to fight in the upper leagues. He told Orion Pax that he intended to become champion, and Orion had faith that he would succeed. But offworlders in the upper leagues were incredibly dangerous. They had weapons and techniques that even Megatron had yet to encounter.

Normally, Orion insisted on attending such important fights. He couldn't bear to watch Megatronus get hurt. Each of his challengers were deadlier than the next and this offworlder, Killer-watt, would undoubtedly be a nasty fighter— he was a murderer and a snake, known for killing his opponents even in low-level fights. 

But this time, Megatronus had asked him to instead begin helping him with his next speech. He insisted that it would be one of his most important ones yet and that Orion needn't worry about today's fight.

The archivist found it difficult to concentrate with the worry that consumed his processors, but he put his all into reading through Megatron's work.

It was full of wonderful, brilliant, world-changing ideas, just as much as his last ones had been. Orion's spark soared in joy as he sat down the datapad. Megatronus was an excellent writer and a revolutionary idealist, and Orion couldn't believe that he was the one who got to help him with his works.

He was finishing his final notes when the door to their suite pinged and two large mechs walked in.

"By the spires!" He shouted in surprise, "What is th- Megatronus? Are you alright?"

The gladiator was leaning heavily upon the frame of Breakdown, one of his brothers-in-arms as the mech gently deposited him onto the side of his berth, handed him a small package, and left.

"Megatronus! What happened? How badly are you hurt?" Orion asked, fretting over the gladiator's frame as laid down. The archivist could see a large, freshly-patched weld on the warrior's left leg and some savage denting along his right arm.

"I'm fine, Orion, though perhaps not in the best shape I've returned. The offworlder certainly proved a challenge. A challenge that I overcame, of course. Although perhaps at no small cost... I did not mean to alarm you, Orion. Knockout has informed me that it will take a few days for my nanites to repair my internal communicators."

"I am sorry that I wasn't there, Megatronus. I should have been. I-" the archivist said, trying to keep his voice calm and his optics clear.

"Don't worry about that, Orion. I asked you to stay home, remember? Did you get the chance to review my writings yet? It's alright if you didn't. I know you tend to worry."

"Of course," Orion said. "I wrote a few notes on my pad for you to check later. I think it will be a wonderful speech, Mega."

Megatronus smiled fondly up at him, but winced when he tried and failed to move his arm. Orion stepped closer and leaned down to kiss him instead.

"Would that I could hold you, my little archivist. You are a gift to me from Primus himself." He sighed miserably. "What I wouldn't give to have your touch. But know that your presence is more than enough, I promise you. I am glad to have you here with me, my love." He assured Orion fondly, giving him the safe, contented smile that the archivist knew was reserved for him and him alone.

"Well, Megatronus..." He began, "I can, I mean we could... If you were interested, maybe I could be the one to touch you?" He finished.

"Oh?" Megatronus asked, cocking an optic ridge at the unexpected offer. "And how might you do that, Pax?"

"W-well, I..."

"Don't explain it, Orion," he growled suddenly. "Show me."

Orion's fans kicked on at the dark excitement laced underneath the command. Either Orion would show him and go through with his idea, or Megatronus would likely risk re-injuring himself to find out.

The whole point of his idea was to prevent that, so he supposed he had no choice. He moved down the end of the berth and climbed up to straddle Megatron's hips.

"This doesn't hurt, does it?" He asked. He had to make sure.

"No, Orion, I'm fine," he said. "I'll tell you if anything hurts."

They both knew that to be a lie, but Orion took comfort in the fact that his hip and thigh plating appeared to be relatively uninjured. He just wouldn't be able to move around much.

"Open your panel?" Orion asked, already opening his own to reveal his own wet valve.

"Orion? Entertaining yourself without me?" Megatronus growled, engines revving as his interface panel shifted open and his spike pressurized between them.

"You left so early this morning, we didn't get a chance to finish what we were doing." Orion answered under the scrutiny of the warrior's optics, turning his head away as energon rushed to his face. "You just looked so handsome in your war paint, I-"

"A discussion for another time," Megatronus interrupted with another revv so fierce it threatened to knock Orion off of him. "Keep going. Please." He begged.

Orion quickly nodded and inched his hips forward— Primus, Megatronus never begged— steadying himself on Megatronus's uninjured waist before lining his valve up with the large spike and finally lowering himself down.

After they first began interfacing, it was a near painfully tight fit. Megatronus took great pleasure in teasing his calipers open, no matter how long it took.

It had paid off. The fit was still tight, but the stretch had become manageable enough that Megatronus no longer needed to worry about breaking him every time they interfaced. He could be harder, faster, rougher.

Now his calipers only twinged a little as each ring gave way to clutch around Megatronus's spike. In less than two kliks, he was fully seated against him.

"Orion, are you alright?" Megatronus asked through sharp, gritted dentae.

"Y-yes, I'm fine."

"Then move," the silver mech demanded with a small, impatient thrust of his hips. He hissed as obvious pain fired into his circuits.

"D-don't, I'll move." Orion promised. "Just hold still, please?" He asked, punctuating the request with the first roll of his hips.

They both groaned in unison. This was Orion's first time on top of Megatronus, and it was wonderful. He could control where and how the spike inside him moved as he raised and dropped his hips.

But this wasn't for him. Not this time.

This was for Megatronus.

He dropped down, bottoming out again and squeezing his calipers around the huge mech's frame. He began following a steady rythym: a few thrusts quick and hard, another set deep and slow and tight, but Orion found himself chasing his own overload before he knew it.

"Mega, Mega, so close-" Orion panted, scrabbling against the gladiator's paneling as he chanted the warrior's name again and again, riding him as fast and hard and he could manage. He had to make Mega overload first. He had to!

Then Megatronus's least damaged arm had managed to reach for him, a silent permission.

It wasn't the same like this, wasn't gentle touching and kissing and soft words, wasn't nearly as good as when Megatronus would come back from a good fight and frag him into the berth for hours until he cried for mercy.

It wasn't the same, but it was enough.

"Megatronus!" He cried, unable to stop his own overload. His calipers cycled down as charge skittered across their frames.

He felt Megatronus's claws on his thigh again, intending to pull him away. He pushed them off and started riding the mech again, drawing out a choked moan from the warrior as his valve began moving over him once again.

Blessedly, it didn't take much longer for Megatronus to reach his own overload. His vents roared as he shouted out Orion's name and fought to keep still against the calipers that clenched down on his spike as he filled the archivist with his transfluid.

Orion slid off of him, quickly closing his panels to prevent making any more of a mess on their berth as he made to get up.

Orion yelped when Megatronus grabbed him again with his less-damaged but still powerful arm and dropped him onto the berth beside him.

"You are too good to me, Orion," he said before pressing a kiss to the smaller mech's helm. "But just wait until I am recovered, my little archivist. I intend to pay you back tenfold."

[buzzdixonwriter]

Sci-Fi And The Sincerest Form Of Flattery

I know many of you prefer “science fiction” or “science fantasy” or “speculative fiction” or “sf” or even “stf” for short, but I ain’t that guy…

I’m a sci-fi kinda guy.

I prefer sci-fi because to me it evokes the nerdy playfulness the genre should embrace at some level (and, no we’re not gonna debate geek vs nerd as a descriptor; “geeky” implies biting heads off chickens no matter how benign and respectable the root has become).

. . .

A brief history of sci-fi films -- a very brief history.

Georges Melies’ 1898 short A Trip to The Moon is one of the earliest examples of the genre, and it arrived full blown at the dawn of cinema via its literary predecessors in Verne and Wells.

There were a lot of bona fide sci-fi films before WWII -- the Danes made a surprisingly large number in the silent era, Fritz Lang gave us Metropolis and Frau Im Mond, we saw the goofiness of Just Imagine and the spectacle of Things To Come and the space opera appeal of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers.

And that’s not counting hundreds of other productions -- comedies and contemporary thrillers and westerns -- where a super-science mcguffin played a key part.

That came to a screeching halt in WWII primarily due to budget considerations and real world science easily overtaking screen fantasy.  Still, there were a few bona fide sci-fi films and serials during the war and immediately thereafter, but it wasn’t until the flying saucer scare of the late forties that sci-fi became a popular movie genre again (and on TV as well).

Ground zero for 1950s sci-fi was George Pal’s Destination Moon, which was an attempt to show a plausible flight to the moon (it was actually beaten to the screens by a couple of other low budget movies that rushed into production to catch Pal’s PR wave for his film).

This led to the first 1950s sci-fi boom that lasted from 1949 to 1954, followed by a brief fallow period, then a larger but far less innovative second boom in the late 1950s to early 1960s.

BTW, let me heartily recommend the late Bill Warren’s magnificent overview of sci-fi films of that era, Keep Watching The Skies, a must have in any sci-fi film fan’s library.

Seriously, go get it.

Bill and I frequently discussed films of that and subsequent eras, and Bill agreed with my assessment of the difference between 1950s sci-fi and 1960s sci-fi:  1950s sci-fi most typically ends with the old order restored, while 1960s sci-fi typically ends with the realization things have changed irrevocably.

In other words, “What now, puny human?”

I judge the 1960s sci-fi boom to have started in 1963 (at least for the US and western Europe; behind the Iron Curtain they were already ahead of us) with the Outer Limits TV show, followed in 1964 by the films The Last Man On Earth (based on Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend), Robinson Crusoe On Mars, and The Time Travelers.

But what really triggered the 1960s sci-fi boom was Planet Of The Apes and 2001: A Space Odyssey.  The former was shopped around every major Hollywood studio starting in 1963 until it finally found a home at 20th Century Fox (whose market research indicated there was an audience for well-made serious sci-fi film and hence put Fantastic Voyage into production).  Kubrick, fresh off Lolita and Dr. Srangelove (another sci-fi film tho not presented as such), carried an enormous cache in Hollywood of that era, and if MGM was going to bankroll his big budget space movie, hey, maybe there was something to this genre after all.

From 1965 forward, the cinematic space race was on, with 1968 being a banner year for groundbreaking sci-fi movies:  2001: A Space Odyssey, Barbarella, Charly, Planet Of The Apes, The Power, Project X, and Wild In The Streets.  (Star Trek premiering on TV in 1967 didn’t hurt, either.)

And, yeah, there were a number of duds and more than a few old school throwbacks during this era, but the point is the most interesting films were the most innovative ones.

Here’s a partial list of the most innovative sci-fi films from 1969 to 1977, nine-year period with some of the most original ideas ever presented in sci-fi films.  Not all of these were box office successes, but damn, they got people’s attention in both the film making and sci-fi fandom communities.

=1969=

The Bed Sitting Room

Doppelganger (US title:  Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun)

The Gladiators

The Monitors 

Stereo 

=1970=

Beneath The Planet Of The Apes [a]

Colossus: The Forbin Project 

Crimes Of The Future 

Gas-s-s-s

The Mind Of Mr. Soames 

No Blade Of Grass 

=1971= 

The Andromeda Strain 

A Clockwork Orange 

Glen And Randa 

The Hellstrom Chronicle 

THX 1138 

=1972=

Silent Running 

Slaughterhouse Five 

Solaris [b] 

Z.P.G.

=1973=

Day Of The Dolphin

Fantastic Planet 

The Final Programme (US title: The Last Days Of Man On Earth)

Idaho Transfer 

=1974=

Dark Star 

Phase IV 

Space Is The Place 

Zardoz 

=1975= 

A Boy And His Dog 

Black Moon 

Death Race 2000

Rollerball

Shivers (a.k.a. They Came From Within and The Parasite Murders)  [c]

The Stepford Wives 

=1976= 

God Told Me To [a.k.a. Demon]

The Man Who Fell To Earth 

=1977=

Wizards

[a]  I include Beneath The Planet Of The Apes because it is the single most nihilistic major studio film released, a movie that posits Charlton Heston blowing up the entire planet is A Damn Good Idea; follow up films in the series took a far more conventional approach to the material.  While successful, neither the studio nor mainstream audiences knew what to make of this film, so 20th Century Fox re-released it in a double bill with another problematic production, Russ Meyer’s Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, and holy cow, if ever there was a more bugfuck double feature from a major studio I challenge you to name it.

[b]  Other than Karel Zemen’s delightful animated films, Iron Curtain sci-fi films rarely screened in the US, with the exception of special effects stock shots strip mined to add production values to cheapjack American productions (looking at you, Roger Corman).  Solaris is the exception.

[c]  David Cronenberg made several other films in this time frame, but most of them were variations on the themes he used in Shivers, including his big break out, Scanners.  Realizing he was repeating himself, Cronenberg reevaluated his goals and started making films with greater variety of theme and subject matter.

. . .

The astute reader will notice I bring my list to an end in 1977, a mere nine-year span instead of a full decade.

That’s because 1977 also saw the release of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and Star Wars.

The effect was immediate, with knock-off films being released the same year.

1978 saw Dawn Of The Dead, a sequel to 1968’s Night Of The Living Dead, and Superman, the first non-campy superhero movie aimed at non-juvenile audiences.  

1979 gave us Alien, Mad Max, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

These films were not just successful, they were blockbusters.

And none of them were original.

Close Encounters served as an excuse to do a Kubrick-style light show; plot and theme are about as deep as a Dixie cup, and of all the blockbusters of that era, it’s the one with no legs.

Alien’s pedigree can be traced back to It! Terror From Beyond Space (and It’s pedigree goes back to A.E. van Vogt’s “Black Destroyer” and “Discord In Scarlet” in the old Astounding Stories) and Demon Planet (US title: Planet Of The Vampires) by way of Dark Star (Dan O’Bannon writing the original screenplays for that film and Alien as well).

Mad Max, like 1981’s Escape From New York, differs from earlier post-apocalypse movies only insofar as their apocalypses of a social / cultural / political nature, not nuclear or biological weapons.  Mad Max, in fact, can trace its lineage back to No Blade Of Grass, which featured it own caravan of refugees attacked by modern day visigoths on motorcycles, and the original Death Race 2000, as well as an odd little Australian non-sci-fi film, The Cars That Ate Paris.

Not only was Dawn Of The Dead a sequel, but it kickstarted a worldwide tsunami of zombie movies that continues to this day (no surprise as zombie films are easy to produce compared to other films listed here, and while there are a few big budget examples of the genre, the typical zombie movie is just actors in ragged clothes and crappy make-up).

Superman was…well…Superman.  And Star Trek was Star Trek.

And the granddaddy of them all, Star Wars, was a cinematic throwback that threw so far back it made the old seem new again.

Not begrudging any of those films their success: They were well made and entertaining.

But while there had been plenty of sequels and remakes and plain ol’ knockoffs of successful sci-fi movies in the past, after these seven there was precious little room for anything really different or innovative.

1982’s E.T. was Spielberg’s unofficial follow-up to Close Encounters.

1984’s Terminator consciously harkened back to Harlan Elison’s Outer Limits episodes “Demon With A Glass Hand” and “Soldier” (not to mention 1966’s Cyborg 2087 which looks like a first draft of Cameron’s film)

All innovative movies are risky, and the mammoth success of the films cited above did little to encourage new ideas in sci-fi films but rather attempts to shoehorn material into one of several pre-existing genres.

Star Wars = space opera of the splashy Flash Gordon variety

Star Trek = crew on a mission (Star Trek: The Next Generation [+ 5 other series], Andromeda, Battlestar: Galactica [4 series], Buck Rogers In The 25th Century, Farscape, Firefly [+ movie], The Orville, Space Academy, Space Rangers, Space: Above And Beyond, plus more anime and syndicated shows than you can shake a stick at)

Superman = superheroes (nuff’ sed!)

Close Encounters / E.T. = cute aliens

Alien = not-so-cute aliens

Terminator = robots vs humans (and, yes, The Matrix movies fall into this category)

Escape From New York = urban post-apocalypse

Mad Max = vehicular post-apocalypse 

Dawn Of The Dead = zombies

Mix and match ‘em and you’ve got a nearly limitless number of variations you know are based on proven popular concepts, none of that risky original stuff.

Small wonder that despite the huge number of new sci-fi films and programs available, little of it is memorable.

. . .

It shouldn’t be like this.

With ultra-cheap film making tools (there are theatrically released films shot on iPhones so there’s literally no barrier to entry) and copious venues for ultra-low / no-budget film makers to show their work (YouTube, Vimeo, Amazon Prime, etc.), there’s no excuse for there not to be a near limitless number of innovative films in all genres.

But there isn’t.

I watch a lot of independent features and short films on various channels and streaming services.

They’re either direct knock-offs of current big budget blockbusters (because often the film makers are hoping to impress the big studios into giving them lots of money to make one of their movies), or worse still, deliberately “bad” imitations of 1950s B-movies (and I get why there’s an appeal to do a bad version of a B-movie; if you screw up you can always say you did it deliberately).

Look, I understand the appeal of fan fic, written or filmed.

And I get it that sometimes it’s easier to do a knock-off where the conventions of the genre help with the final execution.

But let’s not make deliberate crap, okay?

Oscar Wilde is quoted as saying “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” but he was quoting somebody else, and that wasn’t the whole original quote.

Wilde was quoting Charles Caleb Colton, a dissolute English clergyman with a passion for gambling and a talent for bon mots.

Colton’s full quote:   “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”

Don’t be mediocre.

Be great.

   © Buzz Dixon

[fuckyeahjoonmyun]

GRAZIA Magazine April 2019 issue - Interview with Suho

The photoshoot started in the afternoon. What did you do before getting to the venue?

“Because I got up too early, I went to play basketball, had lunch, and even went to an oriental clinic, which was quite diligent of me.“

Then the swelling [T/N: that you’d have after waking up in the morning] must have disappeared by now? (laugh)

“I’ve been starting a new diet that matches my body. I usually would eat meat but they said it wasn’t right for my type of body [T/N: probably metabolism]. They said that I should plan my diet primarily based on seafood and white rice now. I’ve been eating carbs, which I wouldn’t usually eat before, so my body is a bit swollen.”

In one of your previous interviews, you said that one of your mottos is to ‘be present at the moment’. What side of yourself do you want to present in today’s interview?

“I need to be present at the moment but I probably worked out too hard in the morning, my eyes can’t be all shiny now (laugh). But fortunately I think my current state matches the concept of today’s photoshoot too, so I guess it did my body some good relaxing.”

You recently attended Bvlgari’s B.zero1 20th anniversary event in Rome as Korea’s representative.

“It doesn’t happen everyday that you are invited to an overseas event. So it was an experience full of amazement and fun for me. It was also the first time I ever went to Italy so I took the opportunity to enjoy Rome to the fullest before coming back (laugh).”

You’re also known as one of the humorous members within your team. I feel like I know what that means now.

“I haven’t even started though? I’m talking in all seriousness right now (laugh).”

Do you normally wear jewelry too?

“I have great interest in fashion, but I wasn’t that acquainted with jewelry. There was one time when I accidentally had a scratch on my neck during a dance session, so I became more careful after that. But then thanks to this event, I got to wear rings and necklace(s), and they seemed to look nice on me. Hahaha.”

Yeah I watched that live broadcast where you showed your ring too (laugh).

“It kinda matched the look that I went for that day so I wanted to brag a little bit.”

You did some travelling with your friend after finishing the schedule, normally it’s not easy for you to travel around, is it?

“I do travel once in a while. I’ve been planning my vacations ever since the 4th year after my debut. I personally love travelling, so I took the time to form a group with my friends and travel every year. But still, this was the first proper Europe trip with a friend.”

Not only Rome, you took your time to travel every corner of Venice too. What’s your travelling type?

“I wasn’t the type who would plan my itinerary so thoroughly in the past. That resulted in me belatedly knowing that the place I just came back from was a very famous place, or there was a good restaurant near my hotel that I passed by without knowing. It was kinda upsetting and such a pity. [Because] when would I ever get the chance to visit that city again. It’s really true that you only feel and see as much as you know. That was when I started to plan my travels and do my research diligently before going somewhere.”

Where was the most memorable place from this trip?

“My favorite spot was Colosseum. We unintentionally went there 3 times, but if it makes you go ‘Wow~’ looking from the outside, once you get inside, it gives you this unexplainable vibe. I didn’t have my expectations high but once I was inside, the scenes from the movies ‘Ben Hur’, ‘Gladiator’, the American series ‘Spartacus’ came to mind one by one and matched with what I saw, so it was a very interesting experience. It felt so incredible, the fact that thousands of people from the B.C. times would come to this huge building, sit here and cheer as they watched the matches.”

What’s your next destination?

“I’m thinking Paris. I’ve been there once but I just travelled around without a guide, so it’s a shame that I couldn’t feel much. This time I plan to go on a guided tour and also visit the nearby city where Van Gogh, my favorite artist, used to live before he passed away. And to view his artworks too.”

You put ‘Su-hwak-haeng’ in your instagram profile. What’s your trivial happiness these days? [T/N: su-hwak-haeng is a wordplay with so-hwak-haeng, which stands for ‘the guaranteed happiness that comes from small/trivial things’]

“I think I just feel happy after having a day a little well-spent. When I lie on my bed before sleep, watching Netflix, after spending time well. That really is the moment of happiness, isn’t it? (laugh)”

What’s Suho’s typical well-spent day like?

“I do a lot of sports, including fitness. Also for my lyrics composing, whenever I come up with something, I write it down. I meet my friends, we watch movies and share our stories, too. Or if there’s someone in the group with an audition coming up, we would help him with script reading too.”

Throughout the interview, I kept thinking that you reminded me of someone, then I realized that your voice or your vibe really resembles your close friend, Byun Yohan’s. Do you grow to be alike as much as you are close?

“My brother said the same thing too… A few people said something similar too. Is it because I do script readings with him frequently (laugh)? But as you get to know us, we always have big differences.”

Is there something you’re into these days?

“These days it’s basketball. My goal is to work hard and level up.”

What’s at the center of Suho’s life at the moment? Have you ever thought about that?

“I have my personal ambition regarding acting so I’ve been participating in musical and movie works, but the fact that I’m EXO’s Suho before anything else doesn’t change. Also during this Italy trip, I got recognized by many people, I think it was because I’m EXO Suho, and the invitation that I got to attend an event overseas was also thanks to my EXO title. That’s why it’s only natural that I always keep EXO at my center.”

We all know that you call yourself the funniest member in EXO. How would you define your gag code?

“Our fans call it the ‘gag pristine area’. That it’s the kind of gag where I don’t devalue and hurt any certain person, but only make fun of myself. I personally think it’s such a innocently funny thing. In itself, it’s a kind of heavens-helped gag (laugh).”

Do you know that the very fact that you are explaining it right now is funny too?

“Sometimes there are people like that too. They say that whatever I do is just funny. When we did the photoshoot sometime ago too, it seems I was quite interesting. The photographer said that I was interesting even when I just stood still.”

Aren’t you proud of yourself at times like that?

“Of course I’m happy (laugh).”

Who has the best understanding of this gag dimension of yours?

“Sehunnie really likes it. Our codes really match well.”

Then who’s the most incompatible member?

“I think it’s Chanyeol. Chen used to not match either but now he’s come to understand my code (laugh). But Chanyeolie seems to never get it.”

I think it’s not an overstatement to say that the relationships among EXO members now are like a family. When are the times when you are reminded oh so well that ‘As expected, we are one team’?

“Recently we got the chance to gather all the members after 2 weeks. It was such a happy and interesting time. Of course we ended up playing games that time too, and I don’t know why but I ended up last place.”

Was it because the members kept tackling you?

“I think eventually it’s because I take it well. And my reaction is good too. You know there are also people who pull a stern face and hate it when you joke around. But as for me, I don’t act like that as long as it doesn’t go too far. I think they tend to especially act that way even more because they want to see my reaction.”

Don’t you ever think ‘I want to get down from the leader position now’?

"I don’t know if it’s because of the years we’ve been working, but now be it the members or the company, they always come to discuss with me first. But these days I’ve been thinking, that even if I weren’t the leader, they would’ve done the same. It’s tiring at times, but at the same time it’s rewarding too, that ‘So I’ve lived a good life.’ I don’t think the situation would change much even if I were to retreat from the leader position now.”

If there’s something you wish from the members as the leader?

“We play games a lot, but I wish they started to learn how to lose now. You know people say losing is actually winning. To be honest, there were many times when I intentionally lost. More than feeling happy from winning in a game, I would hate it more to see the members who have strong desire for winning being upset from losing. Rather than ‘I need to win even if I have to die’, it feels more at ease to just let others win (laugh).”

I guess it’s the leader’s consideration.

“I think it’s just my personality. I’ve been like that ever since I was small. Even when we played games where we bet a jjajjangmyeon, my friends would fight and end up injuring themselves. So I never joined (such games).”

Who’s the EXO member with a particularly strong desire for winning?

“It’s Chanyeol (laugh). As for me and Kyungsoo, we have no desire to win, nor are we interested. Anyways, my hope is that they would learn the happiness when you lose intentionally for others’ sake. Haha.”

Just 1 year after you challenged yourself in the musical field with <The Last Kiss> in 2017, you ascended to starring in <The Man who Laughs>. You even won yourself many newcomer awards. It must mean that you got your recognition now, right?

“I think to some people, I’m forever an acting idol who came from an idol group. That’s all the more reason I feel thankful being awarded. Because it means that I got recognized a little as a musical actor. I know very well that with every award comes the responsibility and pressure, so I need to work even harder in the future. Because I’m a new actor who just starts now.”

You’d hinted a few times that you wanted to work with seniors. Now that it finally came true, what did you learn from them personally?

“I’ve learned so many things. Jung Sunah nuna especially pointed things out and helped me meticulously. She would make precise comments like ‘You were slower than the beat in here’. Even in the middle of the actual show too (laugh). I learned a lot from observing how the seniors did it, and all the process of working together with them became such great energy to me. I was able to learn from watching carefully every move of Park Hyoshin hyung as he did it. Haha. I think I worked hard to try to catch up through that process of watching them for reference, then reinterpreting it in my own way.”

2018 was a year that you worked hard not only in EXO’s activities but also as an individual. What kind of plan do you have for this year?

“So far there’s no exactly finalized plan. It’s just that I really want to work on a movie or a drama, and a musical is a good idea too. EXO also has plans to show various sides of us.”

If you could choose, what kind of face would you want to meet the viewers with?

“I don’t particularly look for a certain character. But I do hope that it’s not one that is too stiff. I want to act someone who’s flexible, mischievious, and shows their emotions well. But I don’t want it to be another cool character again. Because it’s kinda burdensome. Haha.”

What’s the picture that Suho’s visualizing for the future to come?

“I want to become someone of positive influence, who sets a precedent. So that I can become a senior who starts and paves the way for my junior colleagues, and is of help to them. For instance I can be of positive influence to my fans or others just by donating or founding a volunteer organization. Also, if in the past, when you say you want to be awarded at Cannes or the Oscars, it would be common for people to tell you to ‘stop dreaming’, but now, that thought is gradually becoming something realizable, not a dream without any hope. I believe that someday a Korean will make it. And the junior actors who see that will be able to dream bigger dreams.”

(cr. LittleAriel13 blog)

[higuchimon]

[fanfic] Desired Disobedience:  Chapter 3 [end]

  "Did you find anything interesting?"  Lucifer asked as his image appeared in Desire's sphere.  Ryou kept himself quiet; he wasn't sure yet of what Desire had in mind.  Better to observe until he knew more and possibly could do more - if he ever could. 

"Oh, I did indeed.  And you're going to love this,"  Desire chuckled.  He grabbed Ryou by the back of his neck and dragged him to where he could be seen.  "First, I've located the vampire."

Lucifer regarded Ryou for a few seconds before he looked back at Desire.  "Someone used sigil magic?  Haou isn't going to like this.”

"It gets even better.  It's Vail.  He thinks he can use Hell Kaiser to drain Haou dry."

The two Fallen Angels regarded one another in silence for a few moments, then both laughed uproariously. Desire shook his head, dropping Ryou back onto the bed and returning his full attention to his brother. "If I'm reading the sigils right, though, it's going to be difficult to get the collar off him.  It's designed so only someone of the blood of Light can do it."

Lucifer frowned.  "That's not even possible.  I made sure of that.  The Blood of Creation has been extinct for over twenty years."

"I know."  Desire shrugged.  "There might be someone around with enough of Hope in them to be useful?  Does anyone even know what happened to that family line?"

"Not that I know of.  Hope likes to stay out of sight and pop up when one least expects it."  Lucifer considered.  "I'll pass this along to Haou-sama.  How long are you going to stay there?"

"I think until he releases Hell Kaiser to go feed on Haou.  Someone should keep an eye on him.  Vail thinks I don't like having to serve you and Haou."  Desire snickered.  "How little he knows."

Ryou shifted position quietly.  He knew exactly why Desire wanted to stay here and it had nothing to do with keeping an eye on Vail.  Or at least, it wasn't just because of him.  Desire lived his name, after all.

"I'll see you next week, then.  Do amuse yourself.  I know how you can be when you get bored."  Lucifer smirked before the sphere's magic faded, and Desire tucked it back to wherever it had come from.  He turned his full attention to Ryou.

"Have you missed me?"  Desire murmured, sliding his helmet off and his armor fading away.  "I've certainly been looking forward to seeing you again."

Ryou turned his head away.  The sigils had been slightly altered so that they didn't drag him down as much so if he'd wanted to, he could have answered.  But he doubted Desire actually wanted to hear him speak.  At least not in words.

Desire tucked one hand under Ryou's chin and turned him so that their eyes met.  Desire's eyes were nothing like Yuusuke's - not a sweet violet, filled with shadows and mystery.  They were a brilliant scarlet, matching his wings, just like his hair, and shone with a rich form of life that made Ryou shudder.  He knew this look so very well.

"Did you know Haou promised you to me for an entire month if I brought back interesting word about your whereabouts?  I think this qualifies.  I look forward to that month - and to the rest of this week.  You really were born to be someone else's property, weren't you?"

Ryou's eyes sharpened as he tried to pull himself back and found that he couldn't - bound by both the sigils and Haou's standing command to allow Desire to do as he willed that didn't interfere with any other commands.  "No!"  He could at least say that.  Regardless of how it seemed true sometimes. He might not have been meant to be a tool, but plenty of people treated him like that.

Desire only chuckled and pulled him closer.  "You were born to be used - and reborn to make it easier.  You should stop fighting it."

And after that, Desire lived up to his name.

Vail had too much to do to spy on whatever it was Desire and Hell Kaiser were doing.  He knew exactly what it was, after all.  Desire made no bones about what he enjoyed doing.  So instead of doing what he might have if it had been anyone else taking their pleasure with the vampire, he researched exactly what he would do after he'd had his pet vampire kill Haou.

It wouldn't be easy to do that, he knew.  That was why he'd had the sigil-crafted collar made, to override Camula's control.  Camula herself could override it if she stood there, but he'd seen to her.  As tempting as it was to have her killed, doing so would release Hell Kaiser from her control, and he wanted nothing of that.  A vampire needed to be controlled and used.  They were undead beasts who pretended to life.  Not at all like him.  His pulse had never stopped.  He'd never stopped drawing breath.  He didn't need human blood - he just needed their souls.

I should have a good meal or two before I go to sleep.  He needed normal food as much as anyone else did; his dining upon human souls merely kept him from dying.  He considered his options, then had his guards bring him one of the captives he kept for just this purpose.  Really, he would have to imprison more people for whatever crimes he could, if both he and Hell Kaiser were to feed off of them.  He didn't need a good soul-meal as often as a vampire needed blood but unfortunately, it wasn't possible to share kills.  Otherwise, the meals would have gone on farther.

Though he'd never actually tried to take someone's soul as they were being drained by his vampire.  It might be worth testing out.  He knew the perfect test subject as well - Haou himself.  Just what would it be like to take the soul of the incarnate form of Dark Destruction?  Vail licked his lips just at the thought of it.

He prodded his shock collars and pondered exactly who he should have Hell Kaiser duel.  He had more than one option; it would all depend on who he thought was the most interesting.  He had so many plans that pruning them down to the ones that had the best chance of success could take most of the coming week.

What matters most is finishing Haou off.  After all this time, he doubted that Haou even remembered what he'd done to earn Vail's ire.  Would he even remember how he'd come to be Brron's chief gladiator?  Or did it remain on the dustheap of memory alongside everyone else that he'd murdered over the years.

Vail cheerfully admitted to himself that he didn't remember how many people he'd ended up killing himself.  It all blended together after a while.  He didn't think it mattered that much.  Not when he would always need to kill more.  The count would keep rising.  Why keep track of it?

Lucifer put away the sphere and considered his options before he shook his head.  As much as he would like to, now wasn't the time to inform Haou.  By this time of evening, Haou would be in his bed, savoring the sweetness of his consort. 

Something strange about that one,  Lucifer mused, as he so often had since he'd first seen Johan Andersen in person.  He couldn't quite put a finger on what made him strange, only that he was, and it felt oddly familiar, in a way that he'd not encountered in quite some time.  It confused him and Lucifer didn't like to be confused.

But he would figure it out another time.  It wasn't as if he could do anything to hurt Haou.  Haou - Juudai - had gone out of his way to ensure that Johan had been broken quite thoroughly.  He knew that his purpose wasn't to lead a rebellion or fight against Haou.  He served to kill those whom Haou wished dead and to provide intimate pleasure for his master.

Truly, Juudai quite took after him.  Lucifer approved thoroughly.  He'd done much the same thing to Zerato so many years earlier.  He remained a good, obedient servant as well, currently taking care of Lucifer's home castle. 

When morning rolled around, Lucifer made a point to arrive in front of Haou as soon as he settled himself on his throne.  He would have delivered the news at breakfast, but Haou never enjoyed doing business while he ate.  So he'd kept himself confined to simply pleasantries during the meal.

"Lucifer?"  Haou asked, eyebrow quirked up.  "You have information?"

"Oh, I do.  I heard from Desire last night.  I didn't think it wise to interfere with your night, though."  Lucifer chuckled softly, his wings twitching in pleasure.  "It seems that Vail thinks he can use your vampire to take you out."

Haou remained where he was for a few moments, head tilted very lightly to one side.  Finally he spoke.  "Are you serous?"

"Very.  Even better, so is he.  He currently has collared Hell Kaiser and used sigil magic to keep him under control.  Desire is going to stay there and keep an eye on him until next week, when Vail will send him back with orders to kill you."

Haou's lips twitched, eyes glittering golden.  "Really."

"This is the most interesting part."  Lucifer gestured briefly.  "It seems he's crafted both collar and sigils so that only someone from a very specific family can break the collar.  One that he believes no longer exists - and one that doesn't exist.  I should know, I made sure to wipe it out myself."

He wasn't surprised to see acknowledgment dawning in Haou's eyes.  He'd always been a bright one.  "The Light of Creation."

"Exactly.  Though Hope could do so as well.  No one knows where that family line is right now."  Lucifer shrugged.  "Though knowing them, I'd not be surprised to find them in the rebellion."  

Haous' fingers tightened on his throne for a few seconds before he turned to where Johan knelt, head down, awaiting for when his master needed him.  He started to open his mouth, then shook his head.

"You wouldn't remember, would you?"  He murmured, fingers going through Johan's hair for a few seconds.  "You don't remember anything about the rebellion.”

"They're your enemies, and your enemies are my enemies,"  Johan replied at once, tilting his head a little, but not enough to move Haou's hand from his hair.  "Is there anything else that I should know, Haou-sama?"

Haou smiled down at him, hand caressing the side of Johan's face.  "Not at all.  Don't worry yourself about it.  I'll deal with it."

Lucifer didn't take his eyes off of Johan the entire time.  The more he regarded Haou's consort, the more that strange sensation crept over him.  The longer he looked, the more something began to look familiar.  He'd never noticed it before, but now he began to suspect that was because he'd never truly looked at Johan with this in mind. 

It had been a long time since he'd seen the features of someone who carried the Blood of the Light of Creation.  He'd certainly not expected to see them kneeling at Haou's feet.

Slowly, he began to smile.  "Haou-sama.  I think I have some interesting news."

Awareness crept back over Ryou.  He opened his eyes and saw Desire's wing remained tucked over him.  He closed his eyes again and wondered if he would be allowed to feed today or not.  Vail at least made sure that he didn't get too hungry, but it was getting so very close to the "celebration" when he'd be sent back to kill Haou.  That meant food would be withheld so he'd be completely dry.

Desire's hand crept up his chest.  "Awake, are we?"  He murmured, sounding quite sated and pleased.  He usually sounded like that after their activities earlier.

"Yes."  Ryou knew if he didn't answer, Desire and Vail both would take pleasure in dragging the words out of him.  He would at least not give them that satisfaction. 

He wasn't surprised that Desire chuckled at that.  His fingers sank into Ryou's hair and he tugged the vampire closer to him.  "We'll be going back to Haou-sama soon.  Won't that be amusing."  That wasn't a question, so Ryou didn't have to answer it.

But he had been thinking about it regardless.  He considered before he said anything.  "Killing Haou isn't going to be that easy.  He has Lucifer-sama and Johan - at the least.  There's also the Death Duelists to consider."  He chose his next words carefully. "Vail-sama thinks I can just be pointed at him, released, and no one will defend Haou-sama."

"I know he does.  And that's what's going to make it even more amusing."  Desire made himself quite comfortable, wing still folded around Ryou.  "I've heard from Lucifer and Haou-sama.  They're well aware of what's going on."

Ryou didn't find any comfort in that.  He suspected that Haou's manner of dealing with this might well just be to bind him out in the sunlight or slam a wooden stake between his ribs.  Or perhaps he could find a way to destroy the collar regardless of not being of the line of Light.  He was Destruction, after all.

Desire nudged at him.  "But they don't want me to tell you what they're planning.  You'll find out when we return."

Of course.  Not only were both of them overly dramatic, but it wouldn't be safe to let him know, since he would pass it on to Vail if he were asked.  He did wonder if Vail would ever ask, but that might mean the dark sorcerer considered him capable of giving useful information.  He doubted that would happen any time soon.

When they joined Vail in his favored chamber, Vail gestured towards Ryou.  "Tomorrow night you're going to start back so you can kill Haou.  Make it as painful as you can.  I want to hear him scream - and I will be there to hear him scream."

Ryou made no gestures of acknowledgment but Vail continued as if he had.  "Swallow every drop of his blood. Don't stop until he's dead.  I'm going to take his soul at the same time."

Where Ryou knelt, he could see Desire.  The Fallen Angel had restored his helmet and armor and when Vail said that, Ryou could see him twitch.  Someone else would be laughing hysterically.  Ryou thought he would have done the same thing.

He didn't want to trust Haou.  He didn't have any reason to trust Haou.  But he didn't have any choice.  Haou knew he was coming and knew that Vail wanted to kill him.  Haou wasn't the type to just die.  Ryou's life wasn't that good.  Or his undeath.  Whatever.

By the time Vail looked up again, Desire composed himself perfectly.  Ryou wouldn't have been surprised if he had a smirk on under the helmet, but it wasn't possible to tell. 

"Would you join me?"  Vail wanted to know.  "I'm certain I can find a use for you once I've claimed Haou's realm for my own."

"I don't doubt it for a moment,"  Desire replied, voice absolutely calm.  "And I would be quite honored to see this."

Ryou closed his eyes.  He hadn't been looking forward to this 'celebration' at all.  This wasn't making it any better.

The trip back to Haou's castle was indeed different from the trip out.  Ryou couldn't travel as quickly as he did on his own, nor did Desire.  Vail loaded them both into his personal carriage and they all rattled along ill-kept roads.  The carriage had been enchanted to not only have all the necessary room, but to keep the sunlight out during the day.  This allowed them to travel when normally they would have to rest.  No horses or oxen pulled the carriage, but it rumbled along all on its own.  There was a coachman at the front who guided them along the road with gestures of his hands but nothing more.

Ryou appreciated one thing about this trip - it meant Desire wasn't going to have the chance to bed him again.  He suspected if Vail wanted to, they could have stopped somewhere, taken rooms at an inn, and matters would proceed as they normally did when Desire was around.  Thankfully Vail didn't do that.  They did take short breaks for Desire and Vail to spread out a blanket in a sunny area, feasting on the supplies Vail brought along, while Ryou remained in the carriage by himself.  That didn't bother him.  He enjoyed the time by himself.

Being in the carriage alone also allowed for Cyber Dragon to be there with him.  Now that they'd begun to speak again, the spirit stayed close by no matter what.  Ryou couldn't say much; he didn't want Vail or Desire to figure out what he was doing and prevent him from having that tiny connection.  He didn't want to think about what Haou might do when - not if - he ever found out.  But he took the time to enjoy it while he could.

Great silver scales snuggled close to him, Cyber Dragon's head resting next to his.  He didn't close his eyes, not wanting to miss a moment of this.  He didn't think he'd been this comfortable in years - three of them, in fact.  Probably more.  He'd certainly never been comfortable during his living torment by Haou.

We will be there for you,  Cyber Dragon reassured him.  Do you trust us?

Ryou tilted his head.  He kept most of his responses to gestures when he could; much better than to risk being heard.  Cyber Dragon pressed harder against him. 

Good.  Cyber Dragon sounded extremely satisfied before fading out of sight.  Moments later the door to the carriage swung open and Desire entered, followed by Vail.  Desire glanced at Ryou, and while his expression couldn't be seen, Ryou wondered if he'd somehow become aware of Cyber Dragon's presence.  If he was, he said nothing about it as he settled beside Ryou, tucking one scarlet wing around him.

Ryou fell back into total silence, wondering what the Cyber Dragons and Cyberdarks had in mind.  He couldn't do much else.  The sigils on the collar made that impossible.  The sigils that had first bound him weren't in effect now.  Vail apparently didn't think them worth the effort, not with Desire there to keep Ryou in check as well. 

None of Haou's guards seemed to think there was anything to worry about when Vail's carriage arrived at the palace.  The celebration already seemed to be in full swing as they entered, with music and feasting filling the air.  Ryou could feel the nervous tension in the air regardless - something wasn't right somewhere and he didn't know what it was. 

Desire pressed his fingers onto his shoulder, hard enough that it would have left bruises in mortal flesh. "Let's go.  The show is about to begin."

Unable to stop himself, Ryou moved forward, just slightly behind Vail as the other strutted his way to where Haou sat on his throne.  Johan knelt in his usual place beside him and Lucifer stood to one side.  Ryou noticed a fading bruise on Johan's cheek and wondered if Haou had been more enthusiastic than usual.  He didn't usually bruise Johan these days, though Ryou had heard that during Johan's initial training, he'd been covered with them.

"Haou,"  Vail addressed the name with mockery edging his voice.  "It has been a very long time since I saw you last.  You've come up quite far in the word since then."

"Vail."  Haou uttered the word calmly.  "Or I suppose I could call you Saruyama."  He said it in a way that shaped the word as a weapon.  Vail hissed ever so softly.

"I would prefer if you didn't."  Vail waved one hand.  "But we can discuss names some other time.  I've quite enjoyed having the vampire with me the last few days.  So did Fallen Angel Desire, in fact."

Haou snorted.  "I don't doubt that at all.  Now if you intend to attend, then step aside, remove that rather admittedly attractive collar from my vampire, and go get something to eat.  You have five seconds to comply before I lose my patience."

Vail stared until he started to laugh, shaking his head.  "You don't even understand.  You're still the same foolish boy that you were all those years ago.  Let me demonstrate what I can do.  Hell Kaiser Marufuji Ryou, fulfill the orders that I have given you."  He stepped aside with a flourish of his black cape, and Ryou started to take a step forward.  He hadn't fed in a day and a half by now and while he still had some control over his mind, he remained aware that there was blood not that far away and he only needed to reach it to have it.

He shifted the weight off of his feet and flitted forward as quick as he could, despite the inner scream that told him his target was Haou-sama, that he couldn't do this, his body wasn't allowed to hurt his master, and at the same time he couldn't stop himself.

The roar came from his deck.  Cyber End Dragon and Cyberdark Dragon flashed out, Cyber End coiling all around Ryou and holding him into place, so that he couldn't take another step towards Haou.  Cyberdark Dragon lashed their tail at Vail, knocking him down and then coiling their dark-scaled tail around him, wings spread and fangs snapping threateningly.

Cyber End raised all three heads towards Haou.  "Even we cannot hold him forever, so long as the collar binds him.  Find a way to remove it!"

"I already have."  Haou replied, far more pleasure in his voice than Ryou would have wanted to hear under any other circumstances.  He tapped Johan on the shoulder.  "Do it."

Ryou had no idea of what Haou had in mind, until Johan stood up and walked over to him.  He barely even seemed to notice the spirits holding Ryou into place.  He did step around Cyber End Dragon's tail carefully but he didn't look the metallic dragon in the faces.  All of his attention was on Ryou.  He reached up and laid the tips of his fingers on the collar, then slid them under the lock and tugged a little.  The lock came open at once, and Johan pulled the collar away, going back over to Haou. 

Slowly Cyber End Dragon released Ryou, taking a position up by him.  Cyberdark didn't move from where they held Vail, and no matter how he struggled, with Cyber Phoenix hovering overhead, there wasn't anything that he could do to stop them.  Ryou didn't need to breathe but he took a deep one regardless.  He'd never thought he would be so grateful to Haou, let alone to Johan as he was now.

Haou took the collar and examined it as Johan sank back down to his knees, clearly pleased that he'd satisfied his master's orders.  Haou rewarded him with a hand on his head for a few moments, then tightened his other hand around the collar.  A column of thick darkness rose up from his hand around it, and with a tiny snap only dust and ashes remained.

"An amusing trick, but did you really think that I couldn’t counter this?"  Haou turned his attention to Vail, who looked fit to explode from rage.  "I could have told you - my vampire belongs to me.  He cannot harm me, even if he wanted to."

Ryou hated to think of how true that was.  He also hated the thought of the Cyber Dragons having to live under Haou's rule as he did now.  But he could feel all of them not caring. 

"Now, what to do with you,"  Haou mused.  Vail thrashed in Cyberdark Dragon's grip and snapped towards Desire.

"You would serve me!? Then destroy them!  Destroy all of them!  Now!  I command it!"

Desire didn't so much as twitch a wing.  Instead, he turned to Haou.  "Lucifer informed me that if I provided interesting information as to Hell Kaiser's whereabouts, I'd have him in my bed for a month.  Is this true?"

"Of course."  Haou waved one hand.  "Starting after the celebration, you may do with him as you please."

That didn't surprise Ryou.  At this point in his undeath, not much would have.  He didn't care that much.  He had the spirits of his deck back.  That mattered a great deal more than anything that might happen to his body.

But now Haou regarded Vail carefully.  Ryou noticed his attention also slipped around to Cyber End Dragon and Cyberdark Dragon.  But most of his focus remained on Vail.  Finally he spoke.

"Hell Kaiser."

At once Ryou straightened up.  He knew that tone - he was about to feed.  He knew who he'd feed on; he knew far too much about Haou thought. 

"Haou-sama."  After the last week, he uttered the title with just a trifle more pleasure than he ever had any time he'd addressed Vail. 

"How often did Vail allow you to feed this past week?"  Haou raised one hand before Ryou spoke.  "In fact, tell me everything that happened this entire week."

Ryou at once started to talk.  He related about how he'd gone there to kill Vail in the first place and had intended to bring some of Vail's treasure to Haou as the gift he'd wanted.  He told about the sigils binding him and exactly what Vail did until Desire showed up, and afterward.  He left nothing at all out. 

"Desire?"  Haou asked, one eyebrow quirked upward.  "Is this all true?"

"Yes, it is,"  Desire agreed, admiring the spread of his own wings.  "Though I could go into more detail on exactly what we did.  If you'd like, of course."  Ryou suspected one of those insufferably smug grins existed under his helmet.

"I'll consider that for another time,"  Haou decided before looking back to Ryou.  "Drain him dry.  Make it as painful as you possibly can for him.  I want to hear his screams.  I want everyone to hear his screams. That is the treasure I desire."

Ryou didn't hesitate for a moment.  Cyberdark Dragon dragged Vail over to him and held him in place as Ryou grabbed onto the dark sorcerer's shoulders.  The other babbled, but none of it made any sense.  It seldom did when Ryou fed.  He sank his fangs deep into Vail's neck, the sweet taste of the blood coursing down his throat.  His grip tightened on the shoulders and Cyberdark Dragon slowly released Vail as Ryou fed and Vail's strength failed him.  The sorcerer batted at Ryou's hands feebly, but no matter how hard he tried, he could do nothing.  The screams that echoed off of the walls soon faded away, and Ryou continued to feed, fulfilling the command - not a single drop of blood to be left.

He didn't normally feed that much off of one person.  Feeding smaller amounts off of many different people kept deaths to a minimum.  So when he bled someone dry, it was usually because Haou wanted him to do so.  He kept on sucking, finally stopping and letting the body drop to the floor.

"I had intended for you to feed off of the captives that my Death Duelists brought back,"  Haou said, once Ryou had recovered enough from his feeding to focus on what was being said.  He gestured to a corner where five people huddled, wrapped in chains, terrified expressions plain.  Ryou glanced from one of them to another, checking. 

Not his brother.  Not Shou. 

Not his friend.  Not Fubuki.  

Not his lover.  Not Yuusuke.  

Not Edo or Saiou or Asuka or anyone else that he knew from the rebellion.  If these were rebels - and he couldn't even be sure that they were - then they weren't ones that he'd known.  The way they existed in small cells of ten or twenty in each enclave helped with that.  But he returned his attention to Haou, who smiled a devil's smile.

"A little much for you right now, though.  So you'll feed off of them once a night until they've given you all that they can - and until I have no further use for them."

Ryou nodded.  A small flicker of gratitude existed that no one he cared for was in this bunch.  He would have preferred it if it consisted of people more like Vail than innocents, but when he couldn't choose his own prey, then he had to deal with what he was allowed.

Haou glanced at Lucifer.  "Is the army ready to move in?"

"Of course."  Lucifer nodded.  "Would you like me to deal with it?"

"Yes.  Let me know when you've taken it all."  Haou dismissed him with a wave of one hand and Lucifer headed out quickly.  He smiled in satisfaction, leaning back on his throne, before he looked at Ryou again.  "Vail's realm will now belong to me.  Lucifer is taking in my army to deal with any resistance.

That made horrible sense.  Ryou suspected there would be people who fled there and went on to join the rebellion.  It happened like that everywhere. Haou moved in and those who didn't want him as their lord fled to join those who fought against him.  Some of them ended up as his dinner or as Haou's slaves or who knew what else.

None of that seemed to matter to Haou right now.  He watched as other servants carried the body away, and Cyberdark Dragon joined Cyber End Dragon beside Ryou.

"How pleasant to see you all again,"  Haou said, this time addressing the spirits directly.  "I thought you would have abandoned Hell Kaiser when he died."

"We would never do that."  Cyberdark Dragon hissed, dark scales gleaming in the enchanted light, tail twitching.  "He did not call for us.  We must be called."

Haou's lips quirked.  "Of course.  I should have known."  He rested one hand under his chin, the other playing with Johan's hair.  "I might allow him to duel again.  And I believe Vail had something interesting in those shock collars - I might have to check into those."

Ryou didn't look forward to that.  Something else had his attention regardless.  He shifted briefly and Haou glanced at him, one eyebrow cocking.

"You have something to say, Hell Kaiser?"  Haou wanted to know.

"How did Johan get the collar off me?"  Ryou wanted to know. "Only the blood of the Light could do it."  The sigils had been very clear.  Even worse, Vail had been very smug about that fact.  It shouldn't have been possible.

Haou's hand didn't leave Johan's head.  "Because it seems that my precious toy here is of the Blood of the Creation's Light.  He never knew himself.  But it seems when Lucifer destroyed Norbu all those years ago, he and his siblings were taken away to be kept safe."  Haou chuckled a little.  "How fascinating that he ended up with me.  And his siblings are still out there somewhere."

He kept on stroking slowly.  Johan closed his eyes and keened, a low pleasure-filled sound.  "That is going to be one of your tasks - to find Yubel and Rune Andersen, and bring them here to me.  Unharmed."

Ryou nodded.  He wondered how he was going to do that.  Before he could ask for any further information, Haou waved a hand towards Desire, who'd patiently waited all this time.

"Feel free to retire and enjoy yourself,"  he told the Fallen Angel.  "He won't be on duty until the month is over with, except for feeding."

Desire had one arm around Ryou's shoulders a breath later.  Cyber End Dragon and Cyberdark Dragon both faded from view, though Ryou could feel them watching.  He wanted them to know that it didn't matter; he'd dealt with this before.  Cyberdark didn't seem very happy about it regardless. But they said nothing else.  It seemed Haou would allow them to remain.

"Thank you, Haou-sama."  Desire guided Ryou away, and Ryou wondered if his spirits could take a message to Yuusuke, or bring one back.  No, probably not.  He wasn't allowed to communicate in any way with the rebellion.  At least not deliberately.  Accidents could happen.  But sending his spirits out deliberately wasn't allowed.

But thinking about Yuusuke made what came over the next month, and what came after, much more bearable.

The End

Notes: There are other scenes I could have put in here but they didn’t quite fit with everything. Remember, Johan will only be bruised if Haou decides that he will be. So why is Johan bruised? Exactly what happened between Lucifer, Juudai, and Johan? I know. And one day, I’ll tell you.