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fireteam-dauntless · 4 years

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A Tale of Two Guardians XI

Part 1 of the Destined Series. Chapter 11 : Memories of Adam masterlist

word count : 1.1K tag list : @mail-me-a-snail @basically-nacl send me an ask or a pm to be added to the tag list!

I woke up the next morning at the crack of dawn, as per usual. I sat up slowly and looked around at the humans in the safehouse. They were all still asleep. I stood slowly and slid on my helmet, gathered my belongings, and left them a pile of glimmer for their trouble. I nodded to the watch guard, then slipped outside into the early morning. I waited until I had walked a distance away before summoning my sparrow and riding through the Parisian streets. Most of them were in terrible condition, as the Hive had started to corrupt some of the city. This was where Gilly and I met Adam. He was training to be one of Ikora’s hidden at the time, and he continued to train after he joined our team.

Gilly and I were walking down the street, shooting down Hive Thrall with no issues. But all of a sudden, they started falling, one by one, each with a bullet in their heads. A warlock jumped down from the balcony of a building beside us, three stories up.

“Hey there, fellas,” he says with a laugh. “Sorry to take all of those guys from ya, I’ve been tracking them for a while now.”

“Really?” I said, surprise clear in my voice. “We’ve been following their trail for a while now.”

“I know,” he responds, and holsters his hand cannon. “I’ve pretty much been with you the whole time.”

“Well, you certainly got past us,” Gilly said. “We had no idea you were even nearby.”

“Well… I’m training, ya know?”

“I know,” I said. “I failed mine a little early on. Apparently I have a temper that can give me away far too easily.”

The warlock laughed. “Ha! Usually we fail because we don’t have the patience.”

I laughed with him. “My patience has grown since, but there are no second chances with Ikora'.”

“Yeah,” he said with a sigh.

“Ya know,” Gilly started, “You seem pretty young to already be training for that.”

“I know, but I think Ikora saw something in me. I asked to start, I was eager to learn, and I think she liked that I was willing to do whatever it took.”

“Well…” Gilly continued. “I know you have your own missions, but I like you. Would you like to join us? Genesis here does a lot of long range attacking and recon, I’m our front line enforcer, we could use someone to balance us out.”

He looked suspicious. “Don’t you think a Hunter would be the better bet?”

“I suppose,” I said with a shrug, “but to be honest, a lot of Hunters around that we asked to join our team have turned us down. They tend to like their independence.”

“I’m in,” he said happily.

“Wait, really?” Gilly was shocked. “Just like that?”

“Hey, this training is a good way to spend my time, but it’s only temporary. It’s lonely, anyway. I’d like to have people to kick some ass with.”

“Yes!” I exclaimed, and hooked arms with our new team member. “Well, I’m Genesis, you can call me Gen if you want. And our fearsome leader here is good ol’ Gilberto, but he hates it when I call him that, so Gilly usually works.”

The young warlock laughed and walked alongside me as we started to head down the street. “Well, I’m Adam. It’s really great that I met you guys.”

I was standing on the very balcony that Adam had jumped down from. The sun was high in the sky now, nearing noon, so I sat down and relaxed against the cool shade of the balcony above me. Ghost came out to check on me, again, and I sighed.

“You don’t need to be so worried,” I said to her.

“Yes I do. It’s my job to worry about you.”

“It’s not like I’m going to kill myself, you’d just resurrect me anyways.”

“True, but I can’t help but worry about you.”

I paused for a while before responding. “They were my family,” I said quietly.

“I know,” she said. “But you could have another family. Skinner and Maverick…”

“Skinner and Maverick don’t need an unstable Guardian on their hands. No, this is my burden, and I must bear it.”

“Certainly you can’t really mean that. What about Maverick? You left without saying anything to him and even locked yourself out of the private channel.”

Maverick. What of Maverick? Memories of our night out, our kiss on the roof, waking up in his apartment, him waking up in mine… It sounded like a love story that was destined to crash and burn.

“I don’t know… I think he decided what was going to happen to us when he decided to take a suicide mission to Phobos.”

“It’s not that simple,” my Ghost said. “I don’t think he’s going to let you get found out by the Vanguard. Genesis, do you know what they do to Guardians that go AWOL?”

“Not… entirely. No.”

“Complete lock down. I’m talking about solitary confinement lockdown. They can’t be let outside, not even in other parts of the Tower, until the Vanguard deems that you are stable enough to be let out. Even then, most Guardians that go into lockdown never stabilize, and I’m pretty sure most of them agree to become Exos so that their memories can be wiped and rebooted, just so they can get out of confinement. No. Guardian. Makes. It. Out.”

My stomach dropped. I didn’t think about that. “Okay, Ghost, I get it. Maybe he does care enough not to give away my location, but I can’t go back. If I get put on lockdown, I don’t… I don’t think I’d make it out.”

“Genesis…”

“C’mon. We need to find some shelter for the night. A storm is coming.”

I found a small, somewhat hidden abandoned shelter near the Eiffel Tower ruins just after night had covered Paris in darkness. It had started raining shortly before nightfall, so I was soaked through and chilled to the bone when I hunkered down for the night. I held my Ghost in my hands close to my chest, when I saw a group of Vanguard patrol Hunters go riding by on sparrows. So they were starting to have an idea of where I was. I desperately hoped that they wouldn’t find me, and paranoia prevented me from sleeping.

I closed my eyes, clutched onto my Ghost, and prayed to whatever god was out there that I wouldn’t be found tonight.

#destined pt 1 #destined #destiny the game #the taken king #destiny guardians #fireteam dauntless #destiny fanfiction #destiny fic #my writing #a tale of two guardians fic

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comic-critic-squad · 6 years

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NaCl 001: The Meteor Tribe

Welcome to the first post in what I hope to turn into a semi-regular thing.

These may come in two types—individual examinations of certain things in individual comics. For now, Home is easy as hell to do this with (and there is a lot to say), but I’d love to take a deeper look at comics I like (I have a tiny few criticisms of Scurry, but there’s obviously way more things I think Mac did well; I’m an enormous fan of Ghost of the Gulag), comics I’m so-so on (AFRICA, Frostbite; Off-White), and comics I think are total trash (Home, obviously; Legacy; The Flightless Bird).

Without further ado, welcome to my thoughts on why the Meteor Tribe is poorly written and not all that well thought out, beginning with the dude right at the top: the jarl.

1. There's no reason to respect/follow the jarl—especially Ranach.

Rulers rule through two means: love or fear. Hate doesn't work, and we have evidence none of the members liked Ranach: Fuss says he was mocked in his absence and told Ulfr he would make a worse leader than Ranach (implying they saw Ranach as a terrible ruler), Vigr showed their feelings toward him when Ranach was denied entry and said Ranach had lost his mind during Three Ranach Moon, obviously none of the female dogs cared for him, and so on.

While we're given the impression Brodir and Arenak were genuine tyrants (and the MT had more members then, but since we know nothing about Brodir and barely more than nothing about Arenak, they’re mostly irrelevant), Ranach was pathetic. It’s amazing anyone actually listened to him post-Arenak since he wasn’t really liked...not that he did much anyway.

The most evil thing he did as ruler? Tell someone else to kill his father...a worse character. Outside of that, he ordered Rogio killed for betrayal—which would be in-character had Kique not suddenly sprung that bullshit "THIS HURTS ME MORE THAN IT HURTS YOU I LOVE YOU SO MUCH ROGIO" and then make Ranach completely pathetic afterward.

(Also—Ranach does not have NPD. Even if he did, congratulations for playing right into ableism. Characters are never assholes on their own, but this is also coming from a guy who thinks the only requirement to be a villain is being a rapist.)

He got pissed at Galti, ordered his papa killed, conned Ronja into joining, captured Ferah and Kargo, ordered the death fakeout of Rogio, and...oh. That's it. All he’s done recently is give evil looks.

He didn't even let the spirit take his pups.

Damn, wouldn't that have really shown his supposed NPD and "he really misses the way Rogio made him feel" we've had hammered down our throats? Wouldn't that have actually been a good way to subvert the whole "everyone fucking survives and this story is goddamn predictable and there's no need for three additional characters that are all obviously going to get their own POVs/screentime."

Nope. Instead Ranach doesn't go through with it...you know, a good thing. It's not like he could've been really shown to be heartless if he'd been like "lol take 'em gimme back my Rogiboy."

Anyway, back on topic.

Essentially, Ranach was hated (even though he didn’t really...do much...) by the members, and they had no reason to follow him. Dogs like Fuss (oh, good ol’ Good Guy Fuss) could have led a coup or something. (I mean...Fuss loved the MT’s broodmare so much. I’m sure he would’ve done anything to free his love.)

We’re not given much about the MT’s culture and history, and I’m not going to give any “well maybe years ago...” credit. As far as we know, all these dogs have been 100% fine listening to a jarl who treats them like shit and abuses them. We’re not given any indication of severe brainwashing or cult-like indoctrination, and so while one or two (like Ulfr) may be in it to get their kicks, all of them are okay with that way of life? (Of course, until they weren’t okay with it--like when they suddenly get screentime and need to be a good guy.)

Regardless, even if all those dogs magically follow the same hivemind despite zero indoctrination and are a-okay listening to someone who abuses them, there’s an even bigger issue: the Meteor Tribe is small.

2. The Meteor Tribe isn't large.

We're given the impression early in the comic that the MT has numbers. Well, that's quickly ruined—and no, Kargo the Killer and retcon "actually, x number died before the story" are excuses.

They’re not a threat, and it’s amazing everyone is oh-so terrified of them considering they don’t really do shit. (Let. Me. Repeat: FOH with “it happened before the story.” There has been AMPLE TIME to flesh out the MT, explain their past, or even just imply how it used to be, because right now, the only difference seems to be they were starved in the past.)

Something else that goes with the MT being small? Their ranks spread them too thinly, and some of them ranks are fairly arbitrary. Why are hunter and warrior separate? What is the obscure difference between healer and herbalist? Artisan and caretaker really need to be separate—or a thing to begin with?

a. Hunters/warriors. They're not constantly at war. Actually, we haven’t been given any indication these dogs ever fight—check out the allies list on the wiki—and while Vigr says they’d face an attack if they didn’t meet the Guild…what? The wiki itself tells us no one actually has to listen to the Matriarch:

Throughout the years, the Matriarch has set out a set of guidelines, to keep life in Aedra as peaceful as possible. No tribe has to follow these guidelines, but doing so will grant them access to get more help from the capital if needed, and ally bonds with other tribes can be created.

Even if they were out and about, it'd be a bit essential, don'tcha think, for warriors to know how to hunt. Otherwise they'd have to bring hunters with them...and that's just extra weight. Or are hunters meant to stay at the tribe and bring food there? Well, in that case, then the warriors HAVE to do their own hunting—and if the answer is that they already do, why have a separate hunters rank?

b. Herbalist/healer. Let's get one thing out of the way: the limits on healing bark haven't been established, and apparently that shit can heal everything from falling off a fucking waterfall to decades-old scars. It's Applied Phlebotium. That said, it really ignores how primitive the rest of their medicine is. Herbs are not that simple...nor are they always strong/effective. In real life, holistic/herbal remedies are trashed for a reason.

This could've been a really interesting point to expand on. I would even accept Aedra has stronger herbs, like an opium-like plant the dogs use as a painkiller. Eat too much of it, it'll kill you. Of course, I'd lean toward "well, we hope these herbs will work, but there's a 40% chance you'll live. Cross your tail!" (Or toes, since they can probably do that.)

Another thing—you know how people say you shouldn't guess if wild mushrooms are edible? That's because many of them look nearly identical. And one is edible, and the other will cause violent stomach cramps. Or kill you. Give me a dog who's a healer and fucks up herb identification and kills a packmate. Makes skilled herbalist-healers valued. Since Aedra’s as dangerous as a stapler, though, there’s really no use for them either.

More on topic, why are healer and herbalist separate ranks anyway? The healer would just need the herbalist right beside them saying what to do and use. Doctors still know about medicine. They're not pharmacists, of course, but this is a primitive medical system in Home. They’re not messing with fentanyl.

Combine the damn ranks. Maybe make herbalists the healer’s apprentice and they gain that rank once they’ve mastered herb identification and can move on to putting the herbs to use.

Hilariously, this is what the wiki has to say about it:

Both the Herbalist and Healer will have about the same knowledge when it comes to herbs, but the Healer will always stay with the tribe while the Herbalist will go out on long travels to collect the various herbs the tribe is in need of. Healers are often well rounded when it comes to healing the sick and wounded, while Herbalists may also know what herbs can be used to keep meat stored and fresh for a long period of time, how to craft poison and even how to summon malevolent spirits.

So basically, “Basically these ranks are the same.”

c. Artisan/caretaker.

Couldn't be more useless.

Akleja and Ronja's WIP pups weren't in the story at the time those ranks were conceived (no pups at all, actually), and the MT hasn’t had pups in a while...so clearly the caretaker has fuck-all to do most of the time. Mothers would be the caretakers, and during the moments they want to get away from the pups, someone else could watch them for a bit—does there really need to be an entirely separate role for something so brief and rare?

A Caretaker will be in charge of taking care of the young in the tribe. They will stay with newly born offspring and help the mother out if needed. If the parent is absent, the Caretaker will teach the young how to read and write, the laws of the tribe and everything else there is to know.

Oh, silly me. They also teach the young how to fucking read and write.

And artisan? Christ. Worst rank, hands down. Apparently tribes living in the harsh world of Aedra have enough resources to waste on a rank devoted to painting markings for an hour (and how long does this shit last anyway?) and then clocking out. See ya at the timeclock tomorrow, Alva.

According to the wiki, this is what they do:

An Artisan is in charge of keeping the huts strong, re-applying paint to the members and repairing clothing.

Yeah, guys—these dogs can repair clothing. Kique even says they could mend clothing by attaching a tough thread to a piece of bone. Fuck the fact threading a needle requires tying it.

Then again, given we have a tribe whose leader says they need to hunt frequently—yet his tribe regularly holds community LARPing—is anyone surprised no intra-tribe resource/energy economy is taken into account?

d. Gendered rank pairs

Why do we need a male/female pair for lead hunter and lead huntress? Whoever’s best at the job, give it to them. Hunter is gender neutral, for fuck’s sake. Adding –ress/-ess to words that are otherwise neutral is unnecessary.

(But speaking of painting…)

3. The paint is useless.

Okay, two questions:

1.) How are these dogs deft enough to apply paint? In Fjordor’s case, how the fuck is his paint applied? HE LITERALLY LIVED ALONE. (Don't @ me with "it's long-lasting" or "he's been alone for a week." Then again, that last explanation actually works considering how these characters face major life events and fall in love within days. Remember: 100 pages = two hours.)

2.) Why is the paint even necessary? It'd be one thing if they had a splash of color to mark them out to other tribes, but differentiation within? The tribes aren't large enough to need rank-identifying paint. They would know each other by sight. If the tribe was so massive it’d be impossible to know all packmates intimately, sure. In that case, it would be necessary to know someone's rank by sight, especially if the system were based off a strict hierarchy, like passage keepers being the lowest of the low or warriors honored like deities when they stride into camp.

4. All tribes follow the same hierarchy. Even when they have no reason to.

All the tribes follow the same ranking system, apparently no dogs live as loners or in tribeless family units, everyone is allied sans the MT, a jarl always leads, they use identifying paint within their own tribe—not paint that would mark them out to other tribes—and so on. What kind of networking is going on that makes all these tribes—all of whom seem to inhabit different biomes—follow the same system even when the standard tribe setting may not be beneficial to their culture/survival?

But more on that latter point, the MT was characterized as problematic rebels with no allies, yet they still listen to the Guild...even though they don't respect Axilyah and her group...and while it was said they'd face attack if they refused, we were later told ACTUALLY…—no one has to listen to the Guild! Fjordor even tells Axilyah she's in no place to question him...so exactly what authority does the Guild have?

Oh, right.

None at all.

Maybe “no one actually has to listen to them” shouldn’t have been created after the pages where Vigr expressed fear of the Guild’s arrival. (Also, so much for the Guild anyway if everyone else turns a blind eye to what goes on in the MT yet still demands those arbitrary scrolls. “We need to know your population but fuck the suffering going on within.”)

5. None of the female MT dogs have lasting trauma.

If there's one things fans on DA loved screaming anytime anyone criticized the female MT dogs' lack of trauma, it was "Not all victims act the same!"

Well, they're right. Not all victims act the same...yet that same exact logic can be applied to Home, where all victims act the same. Literally no one is traumatized. It's obvious they're trying any argument they can (without thinking about what they're actually saying. Congratulations, you played yourself.) to get the opposition to shut up.

This point alone could turn into it’s own thing, but its better lumped under the much larger discussion surrounding sexism and the female characters.

6. Productivity and unnecessary brutality.

The Meteor Tribe: *complains about infertility and health problems* Also the Meteor Tribe: *abuses their members capable of furthering the population*

So who wants to tell me why abuse even goes in the MT? The answer can't be "because they're just assholes." I'm looking for something along the lines of "cheap drama and the creator is as unimaginative as every other male creator out there with a rape fetish." Really, I’m curious—give me a good reason they abuse their female members, especially the ones capable of reproduction.

Abused creatures aren't productive creatures, and we were shown the mothers starving and skinny in flashbacks, yet...

1.) …none of the current members are in an emaciated state.

2.) …why would you abuse members who've proven they can reproduce? You think you'd want to treat them like royalty.

7. The tribe isn't really that inbred.

Yeah, this is another one of those things we've been given the impression is happening but...isn't. If you’ve seen one of the various fan-made family trees, you’ll notice there sure is a lot of outside blood. The inbreeding happens in really only one line—Ranach’s family.

Maybe it's just the science/genetics nerd in me, but this could've opened a lot of interesting and unique plot points—someone's condition starts acting up at the wrong moment or it has dire consequences on themselves or those around them—and it would add an actual sense of urgency to the tribe. As it is, they've been living...just fine and dandy. Ranach says they've been plagued by infertility and inbreeding, yet the tribe isn't actually experiencing any negative effects. Supposedly they have an issue with infertility, yet the tribe is full of outside blood (Fuss, Rogio, and other dogs shown on the chart to have come from outside the tribe)...and their numbers looked fairly large before Kargo the Killer singlehandedly decimated them.

8. Ferah and Kargo were involved in and led the only escape attempt.

Don’t come at me with “we don’t know that!” because nothing implies otherwise. “Actually, there were ten attempts at liberation before Home started” is meaningless. You can pull any explanation on the spot when your story is so shallow. What was it about Kargo and Ferah—both of whom grew up in the same environment as all the others—that made them have the guts to escape?

Aside from being the protagonists.

9. M-m-m-missed opportunities to make the MT threatening.

This story had the potential to be so much deeper had anything been put into it. The MT doesn’t really do much except take others captive…but with so many surrounding tribes, all it’d take is one war to get rid of them. While the MT would have the defense advantage due to their wall, the dogs have fire. Burn that shit down and kill they asses. Everyone else is allied anyway, for fuck’s sake.

Cannibalism. Worshiping dark spirits. Sacrificing caught outsiders. Ambitious for more territory. Rumors they’re not fully canine. Maybe Aedra dogs are very suspicious. Who the fuck knows.

We do know the MT sucks.

10. Ulfr and Ranach pose no threat.

So...why are Fuss and the others afraid to go outside? Because of Ranach and Ulfr?

Okay, they could be a threat...if it weren't for a few things.

1.) Ulfr and Ranach are two dogs.

2.) The tribe has Rogio, Roamer, Vigr, Javo, Galti, Fuss, Fremja, Inna, Alva, Vandi, Ronja, and Jonna. Even if you argue "but the female dogs can't fight!", that's bullshit for two reasons:

a. Rogio, Roamer, Galti, Vigr, Fuss, and Javo still outnumber Ulfr and Ranach.

b. Goddamnit, they're dogs. They know how to fight. It's not like Inna suddenly doesn't know how to use her teeth. It’s not like they’re even traumatized, either, and would freeze up when faced with one of their abusers.

3.) Even if they wouldn't fight well as individuals—and that’s a mighty big “if” since Rogio, Roamer, and Ronja have killed motherfuckers—there's goddamn six times more MT members than Ranach and Ulfr. They could overwhelm them by sheer number.

11. Ulfr's personal code of conduct.

I have one thing to say about this: it was done to avoid drawing a fight scene between Fuss and Ulfr. Like the recent bullshit with Roamer the Mature & Wise and Kargo.

Okay, I have a bit more than one thing to say about this, but it’s not restricted to Ulfr and this sudden character revelation.

12. There’s no depth to the MT characters.

See, the issue with Kique waiting so long to show us individual characterization for the various MT members is that so much of it comes as an ass pull, and we’ve known these characters since the early comic, but they were just background fodder and existed to waste space.

I can’t even give thumbs up to Jonna since she was shown to be bubbly and peppy and switched to demon overlord in a second…and then that was also forgotten, and now she’s against the guys. Or is she? We saw it with only Ulfr.

But according to Vandi, Javo, Vigr, and Fuss are totally good guys. Once again, none of that was shown. Let’s look at a few things first:

· Vigr

With Vigr, actually, we got the opposite of what Vandi said. He was among the dogs who roped Ronja, and he was specifically the one who held her down for Arenak—held her down to be raped.

“He was scared of Arenak” doesn’t fly. While we know little of Arenak (and this is something I consider a massive failure, too; we didn’t need tons of screentime—or really any screentime at all—to know he was a super feared guy), and these dogs were all too eager to follow along.

When Ronja was coming into the tribe to be roped, there was no moment of hesitation on Vigr’s part—even a brief moment of him being reluctant and the other dog telling him to do it would’ve shown not all of them were comfortable.

But that didn’t happen.

· Fuss

Good ol’ Fuss. Another we’re-told good guy…yet he joined a rapist cult, had ample opportunity (just like Rogio) to leave and didn’t, and rather than busting out his woman, he impregnated her. All while under Arenak’s rule. So he knew from the beginning what environment his offspring would grow up in: the boys would become rapist murderers, and the girls would be sex slaves.

You think his priority would be freeing Vandi rather than fucking her.

· Rogio

Oh, Rogio, Saint Rogio. He’s going to get his own post probably, but I’ll sum up his being a good dude:

Rogio was retconned into not having a choice to join the MT even though he had opportunity after opportunity to escape with others or even by himself but he didn’t because his love for Raniboy overpowered his horror at what went on in the tribe so he stayed and led the patrol that fully intended to capture Alva’s sister and said sister’s pups and he was mad at Ronja being made viscountess because that meant Raniboy wasn’t solely his anymore and then he left the tribe and fucked Roamer who was fresh out of a relationship after they had a long retconversation about who was the bigger saint and then he went back to the tribe and is now back at his baron position and no one has any lasting bitterness toward him and Ronja even apologized to him for treating him badly even though she never did.

Yay for Rogio! Such a great guy.

· Inna, Fremja, Jonna, Alva, and Vandi

They were a hivemind. Not a single one of them wanted to leave during the second freedom run—and Jonna flip-flops on characterization depending on how much Kique needs his fans to say some gross shit—yet now Fremja is having an orgasm over the wilderness, and Vandi, who could’ve been portrayed as a mentor/motherly figure from the beginning, is now doing it. Alva is still pure background fodder and seems to exist just to stare around and be the resident Golden Retriever.

Inna needs to stay off-screen since she has a nice design and I don’t want her to be ruined once she says more than ten words.

Anyway, I can’t talk about this anymore and am now actively aware of how shitty Rogio is so I’d rather scream about him. If there’s something obvious I missed, let me know. Thinking about that half-assed comic has me braindead.

Or even if anyone just wants to comment/discuss it, go ahead.

#nacl #001 #meteor tribe #asmundr #sodium chloride

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