#his requiem version is tall

[cactusmisslittle]

We're swimming in circles (and we're calling it love) - Waylon Jones x Reader

Summary: You notice that Waylon's skin has been causing him trouble, so you offer to help. Fluff. I didn't have a specific version of Waylon in mind writing this, though he is definitely inspired by his appearance in Batman #471: Requiem for a Killer.

Word Count: 1.1k

Warnings: None, really. Self-esteem issues? But that's sorta par for the course with Waylon

You had known since you had met Waylon that his unusual appearance was caused by a skin disorder. Even so, it didn't occur to you that it caused him any grief outside of aesthetics. That is, of course, until you moved in with him. Immediately thereafter, you started noticing how frequently he scratched at his arms, often without even realizing it.

You worried about him, naturally, but any time you asked if he was alright, he brushed it off. You didn't believe him for a second, of course, but it's hard to force an eight foot tall criminal to take care of himself.

The last straw, though, was when you were making breakfast one morning and he hugged you from behind. You smiled up at him, leaning into his chest with a contented sigh, before the domestic bliss was suddenly cut short by a horrified squawk.

"Waylon!" you scolded, eyes widening as you saw smears of red on your shirt, "You're bleeding!"

You turned to face him, and he looked at your stained shirt with wide eyes. "Shit- I didn't know- Look, I'm real sorry, I'll clean it-"

"I'm not worried about the shirt, dummy!" You rolled your eyes and crossed your arms, trying to look as intimidating as you could manage while having to look up at him. "I'm worried about you! Doesn't it hurt?!"

Waylon looked between you and his own arms dumbly, unsure of how to respond. Eventually, he managed a lame, "I done told you, I got a skin problem…"

You took a deep breath. It wasn't his fault, you reminded yourself. He's never cared about his own well-being before, and it's a learning curve.

"Look. There's nothing we can do while it's bleeding but try to keep it from getting infected. But once it's scabbed over, I'm getting you a goddamn lotion, okay?"

Waylon bristled and barked out a bitter laugh. "Oh, sweetheart… It'll take more than a lotion to fix this." He gestured to his body in thinly veiled disgust.

"Waylon, you know damn well that's not what I meant!"

Waylon hesitated, and you realized then that… maybe he didn't. Well… maybe you could kill two birds with one stone, then.

A few days passed before his elbows had healed enough for you to not worry about getting them infected. It was time.

Gently, you guided him to the couch and had him sit down, smiling encouragingly as he looked at you with an anxiously furrowed brow.

"Relax, Waylon," you said softly as you squeezed some cream into your hand, "I've got you."

You smiled and slowly began to rub the lotion into his rough skin, starting with his hands, then slowly working your way up his wrists. His muscles were still drawn up so tightly it seemed they might snap. When he was still just as tense by the time you reached his elbows, you looked up at his face and frowned. His eyes were glazed over, as though seeing right through you, and pinpoints of blood were forming on his lip under the force of sharp teeth.

"Hey…" You let go of his arms and cupped his face gingerly in your hands. "Waylon, look at me. Come back to me, okay?"

This sort of thing wasn't uncommon.. Waylon was so unused to being in a relationship, to being loved in general, that he would get stuck in his head when he didn't know how to process what was happening to him.

Slowly, his eyes focused on you once again and a sigh rumbled in his chest.

"You don't gotta do this," he said, his voice barely above a hoarse whisper.

You tsk at that and place a small kiss on his forehead, making him smile despite himself.

"Of course I don't. But I love you and I don't like seeing you in pain."

"I know, but…" Waylon was looking at anything but you. "I know my skin ain't too nice to touch. I don't want you… y'know…"

His voice trailed off and threw his head back with a defeated groan. You couldn't help but roll your eyes.

"Let me guess, you think I must surely be disgusted by your skin, and touching you is an ordeal that I'm forcing myself to tolerate for your sake?"

"You gonna tell me it's not?"

"Waylon!" You lifted his face towards your gaze a little more forcefully. "Look at me. Do I look disgusted to you? Do I look like I'm putting myself through something awful?"

"Well… no, but-"

"But nothing." Your hands moved back to his arms, beginning to gently rub his bumpy skin once again. "I love every part of you."

You brought a scaly hand to your lips and pressed tender, feather-light kisses along his knuckles, between his thumb and forefinger, and followed the mount of Venus down to his wrist. His hand was trembling slightly beneath your lips, and when you looked back up at his face, he was blinking rapidly and his lips were pressed tight together. You sighed and worked your hands upwards, rubbing lotion into his upper arms and then his shoulders. You could hear slight sniffles coming from above you, but you knew better than to point them out.

"It's amazing, really," you said breathily, half to yourself as you jumped down to his knees, carefully working around the bloody cracks that had formed from lack of care, "You're so strong, you could probably snap me like a twig if you wanted, but-"

"But I don't want!" Waylon interjected, panic swelling in his chest all over again, "I'd never-"

"-but," you continued patiently, "you can be so gentle. You hold me like I'm made of glass. Always making me feel so safe…"

That did the trick. You felt Waylon's whole body shudder beneath you as he finally relaxed fully. You smiled and worked your way down his shins before deciding that was enough for now. Besides, you were pretty sure that if you went for too much longer, you'd be faced with a very different type of tension. You tucked that tidbit away for a future evening, but for now, you settled next to Waylon on the couch and rested your head on his shoulder. Half in a daze, his arms found their way around you and he buried his face into the crook of your neck.

"You doing okay, baby?" you asked gently, rubbing slow circles on his back. His shoulders hitched in a tiny, silent sob before he answered.

"I'm… I'm more than okay." You could feel his smile against your skin. "Dunno what I ever did to deserve you, is all. But… now I got you, I ain't never letting go."

[edogawa-division]

“I'm crazy and I don't pretend to be anything else.”

Introduction

A.R.K or as he is otherwise known as “Aruto Shinozaki” is an android created by Wicked Requiem’s 2nd Member Kaoru Shinozaki, and is the “twin brother” to A.D.A/Ageha Shinozaki. A.R.K much like his twin is considered as good as family to Kaoru. However, unlike his kind-hearted sister, it seems like the absolute love and devotion Kaoru has given him over the years has allowed A.R.K to discover a twisted version of “humanity” becoming someone who would destroy anyone who dares to harm the ones he cares about, sending a message to any of his enemies that his family is off limits.

A.R.K is a young man of tall height with a lean figure with many considering him extremely handsome. He has short dark blue hair that is slightly wavy and reaches the base of his neck. He has six eyes which are a sharp gray with black sclera and whenever he goes out he expertly camouflages four of them. However, his eyes shift to blood red whenever he enters “Kill Mode”.  Around his mouth are several diamond markings giving him the appearance of a Glasgow smile.

Unlike his creator, A.R.K is quite fashionable, often seen in punk-style clothing. He usually wears a distressed long-sleeved gray shirt and black ripped skinny jeans along with a black and dark blue jacket. He also wears a harness around his legs, with several chains hanging from his belt loops and ankle-length black combat boots. For accessories, he wears several piercings on his ears and his right eyebrow, a black leather choker, and multiple leather bracelets around his wrists.

Name Meanings

Shinozaki (紫乃崎) - Violet Peninsula  

Aruto (亜瑠人) - Next, Lapis Lazuli, Person 

Aliases

“A.R.K”

ShadowSpider - Gaming Handle 

Brother - A.D.A

Nii-san - A.M.U

A.S Hiden - Pen Name 

“Boogeyman of The Internet” 

“Tartarus”

Biographical Info

Gender - Male

Age - 7 (22 Physically)

Birthday - August 31st 

Ethnicity - Japanese

Hair Color - Dark Blue

Eye Color - Sharp Gray 

Height - 195cm / 6’5

Weight - 196lbs / 88kg

Star Sign - Leo 

Piercings - Lobes, Helix, Industrial, Eyebrow

Markings - A symbol in between his shoulder blades, Diamond markings around his mouth

Family 

Creator / “Cousin”

“Twin Sister”

“Little Sister”

“Brother-in-Law”

“Sister-in-Law”

“Brother-in-Law”

“Niece”

“Niece”

“Nephew”

“Biological Son Nephew”

Voiced By - Gero (Rapping)

Personality

Despite being made of metal and synthetic flesh, A.R.K is disturbingly expressive with his most distinguishing features being his maniacal laughter and psychotic smile. His status as an android makes A.R.K near infinitely intelligent as he is constantly processing the whole internet through his mind. Making him a horrifying enemy to anyone unfortunate enough to earn his ire. Unlike his twin who seems to care for everyone, A.R.K has little to no regard for life, in fact, at times he seems to even enjoy taking it.

A.R.K is often brutal, arrogant, disrespectful, murderous, and sadistic. He has no issue with ripping apart anyone who gets too close for his liking, getting satisfaction from destroying and wreaking havoc either in cyberspace or in person. Taunting his enemies as they lie in front of him dying. Humorously, A.R.K gets a bit impatient during this, even tapping his fingers while waiting for them to croak.

A.R.K seems to treat nearly everyone around him as if they're pawns in a game of some sort. As such, he takes joy in observing events unfolding in front of him before he joins in. He often lies, manipulates, and even fabricates evidence to get people to attack each other. Doing this to see if anyone would be willing to provoke him so he can quickly put his opponent in their place by simply proving his superiority.

When around Kaoru and his sisters he tones down the energy, softening a bit. He even relaxes and becomes more talkative, and his usually malicious taunting becomes much more teasing in nature. Even pranking them to get a little rise out of them. However, make no mistake A.R.K is fiercely loyal and protective of his loved ones with this bond going far beyond what was expected with A.R.K even gaining sentience because of it.

Much like his twin A.R.K developed what many would call a “Kill Mode”. When like this A.R.K drops his sadistic personality and becomes completely emotionless not even bothering to taunt his opponents. A.R.K is considerably more frightening in this mode than he is normally with his only objective being to get rid of the threat as quickly as possible. Thankfully, it's rare for A.R.K to enter this mode as he is more than capable of dealing with any threat in his normal mode.

Trivia

As part of his identity as “Aruto Shinozaki”, A.R.K claims to be Kaoru’s “cousin” who lives with her. 

His virtual form is the same as the symbol on his spine.

A.R.K has reached what Kaoru calls “Singularity” and is fully sentient and autonomous. 

A.R.K is Kaoru’s go-to twin whenever she wants to send a message to any of her enemies something that A.R.K is more than happy to help her with. 

A.R.K and A.D.A each represents a side of Kaoru. A.D.A is her cheerful energetic side while A.R.K is Kaoru’s malicious and uncaring side. 

A.R.K is the creator of a shojo manga called The Spider & The Butterfly under the pen name A.S Hiden. 

One of A.R.K’s main hobbies is to “haunt” people. One of his favorite targets is Tomi Chōten of Aoyama, often stealing money from his account and short-circuiting any technology in the Chōten Manor. 

A.R.K is good friends with Sumire Shinomiya’s A.I., Malphas/Masuzō Shinomiya with the two of them often secretly hanging out. 

A.R.K has a spider bot form, which he uses to discreetly follow people around. 

Along with helping Kaoru, A.R.K is in charge of operating [RETRACTED] with A.D.A. One of Kaoru’s more dangerous inventions.

[darkmatter-nebula]

Eda's Requiem in the Colli version

Hi! Thank you for the request!

Eda's Requiem in the "Lost But Now Found" AU version? Got it! 👍

One-Shot: Mom's Almost Sacrifice

It was a quiet morning on the Boiling Isles. Eda tried to use bard magic with her instrument. Unfortunately, she accidentally endangered her precious Little Star, who was in the same room! Her curse creeped already up to his chest.

"MOM!" Eda heard the panic in Colli's voice and immediately stopped in her tracks. "Little Star, I'm so sorry! Are you alright?" "Y-yes." Colli was still shaken. His small body was trembling. Eda immediately wrapped her arms around her son.

Thankfully, it didn't take long for the celestial boy with otherworldly fluffy lavender hair and a heart of gold to calm down. Colli, who was in his mother's arms, watched with her a Livestream about the new Bard Coven Head.

"Do you know them, mom?" Colli asked, clearly curious. "Yes. They're... a childhood friend." "Ok." Colli accepted this answer. Meanwhile, Luz and King had some training for the Gland Prix. Eda was secretly worried that King was going to leave her.

What Colli didn't suspect was, that Eda was reunited with Raine and started some kind of rebellion with them. As the Gland Prix began, Colli didn't fail to notice his mother's disappearance. The sweethearted starboy decided to investigate.

"Eda, you have kids?" Raine, who was seeing a picture with Luz, King and Colli, asked. Before Raine could end the spell, someone else did it for them. "Mom, what are you doing?" Colli asked, clearly concerned. Raine decided to distract Darius and Eberwolf and ran away.

Colli didn't even notice that the bard was there, he was too concerned about his mother. "Little Star, what are you doing here?" Eda asked. "Mom, I could ask you the same! You could've died!" Colli teared up as he spoke the last part.

"Little Star..." Eda whispered. She was ashamed of herself for worrying her precious baby. She wrapped her arms around him and carried her sobbing son back to the Gland Prix, where King had a big surprise for Eda and the kindhearted starboy.

"You're legally my brother now!" Colli was beyond excited about that. Colli already was legally adopted by Eda, and King adopted himself as Eda's son. "Yes, we're legally brothers now! Even though, you always were my brother, Colli." King said softly.

Eda teared up and immediately felt as Colli floated into her arms for a soft hug. Eda returned Colli's embrace and kissed lovingly her Little Star's freckled cheek. Colli levitated King into Eda's arms as well and she cuddled both.

Later, a very tall figure approached Hooty and gave him a letter for King. The house demon got distracted by a bug and ate it and the letter.

The End

[fauzhee10069]

JJBA Meta Post Masterlist

Read first: Regarding Tags and Spoilers

Multi-parts:

Why “Stand” is my favorite battle system

JJBA main villains’ Stands (simple illustration)

Wives & Moms in JJBA

JJBA Youthful Moms

Retconed Age in JJBA

The consistency of birth year & age in JJBA

JJBA Canon Height Chart. Is it trustable?

Common Misconceptions in JJBA

Be prepared to be disappointed on r/StardustCrusaders

The Oldest and Youngest Parent in JJBA

The Bad Romance in JJBA

JoJo Random Headcanon: Cioccolata’s little family

Part 1:

Theory: Dio Brando’s height in his original body (pre-vampirism)

Part 4:

Two unsolved mysteries in Diamond is Unbreakable: Josuke’s hero & Mikitaka

「Killer Queen: Bites The Dust」, “Killer Queen Requiem” or not?

The Kawajiri family’s case: you still had a chance to fix it, but would you?

Part 5:

Cut Moments in JJBA: Golden Wind anime

The parallel of Giorno & Diavolo: Golden Wind (Vento Aureo)’s hidden theme

How Diavolo’s death loop actually works…

Buccellati’s gang anime height chart, do you believe this bullshit?

What Exactly Had Happened in Buccellati family? (The Untold Story of Bruno’s Past)

The Problematic Past of Pannacotta Fugo

When you realized that Giorno’s pain tolerance is a whole nother level

Passione Omegaverse Headcanon

Trish Una, when “Escort The Girl” character trope done right

Donatella Una? Is she really Trish’s mom?

Diavolo

Diavolo and Doppio. Which one is Trish’s dad?

Diavolo and Doppio. Multiple Personalities (DID) or Possession?

How Tall Is Diavolo?

Diavolo‘s stupidity, is it in character?

”King Crimson” and its confusing mechanism

Diavolo’s little fun facts

(La) Squadra Esecuzioni

Why was Squadra Esecuzioni underpaid?

Why did Squadra Esecuzioni need Trish? (+ the relationship of Prosciutto & Pesci)

Regarding Pesci’s Height

Part 6:

Cut Moments in JJBA: Stone Ocean anime

Two Versions of Universe Reset & jolysui/irekiss

Part 7:

Steel Ball Run’s Shades of Blonde (headcanon)

Steel Ball Run Random Headcanon: Hot Pants is SBR verse’s Pucci

JoJo fic idea: Rubí, but with Diego instead

Lucy Steel

Agent Lucy in 1901

Lucy Steel, The Government Agent in 1901

Part 8:

JoJolion Timeline LOG

JoJolion Investigation: Family Tree

Higashikata-Joestar family tree (little fun facts)

JoJolion Random Headcanon: Idol Trish

JoJolion Bizarre Mystery: Josefumi Joestar’s missing geta

How can the flash forward in chapter 83 happen? (or no)

Kujo Josefumi “Joestar”, is it canon or just Araki’s mistake?

The Biology of Rock-Humans

The Rock-Women, extinct or exist?

Kira Holy Joestar and the mysteries that surround her

”89 years old” and ‘the calamity’ (when Araki used meme as foreshadowing)

The Main Villain and The Red Herrings

JJL chapter 101: The Good and The Bad of “Symbolization”

JoJo’s Bizarre Mystery: The Identity of Akefu Satoru

JoJolion chapter 108: The End of Calamity (and how my disappointment is immeasurable)

JoJolion chapter 109: Grandma Lucy’s Bizarre Adventure

JoJolion chapter 110: Josefumi Joestar & the ‘sorta hanging’ ending

MangaSins: Everything Wrong With JOJOLION

Tooru

“Wonder of U” and its mechanism

What is the actual trigger of 「Wonder of U」?

Tooru, the main villain or the red herring? (aka “Tooru, the underrated villain”)

Reblog: The Climactic Battle of 「Wonder of U」

Tooru, the unconventional JoJo villain

Tooru, the first JoJo villain with ‘sentimental feeling’?

The Wonder of You (The Miracle of Your Love), JoJolion’s Mega Arc

What the hell was Tooru doing in 1941??

Aesthetic Interpretation battle: Caato vs Tooru

Higashikata family

Childhood in Higashikata, growth problem or possible retcon age?

The crossdressing tradition in Higashikata’s heirs is quite a trick

The Card-Theme Naming in Current Generation of Higashikata Females

Hirose Yasuho

Yasuho’s “Paisley Park” and the Wall Eyes’ bitemark

How does Joshu-Yasuho-Tooru work?

Is Yasuho immune to 「Wonder of U」’s calamity?

Hirose Yasuho’s little fun facts

Yasuho’s Town-House Doesn’t Make Sense

Nijimura Kei

How does Kei trigger 「Born This Way」? (and Kei’s possible role in Wonder of U arc)

The Hard Life of Nijimura Kei

Mamezuku Rai

JoJolion Headcanon: Mamezuku Rai “Zeppeli”

What actually happened in Mamezuku Rai's past?

Reblog: My Caato’s headcanon in Rai's past

JoJolion Meta: understanding the changing of Rai’s past

(Higashikata) Caato

Caato’s Stand, “Space Trucking” and its mechanism

How does the hype of Caato turn really bad? (archives)

Caato, the JoJolion’s true red herring

JoJolion chapter 107: Caato’s actual role

Caato: A reboot Jolyne in JJL verse

Part 9:

TJL chapter 001: Breaking Bad in Hawaii

[m39]

Doom WADs’ Roulette (1997): Requiem

Ladies. Gentlemen and Others, welcome, to the Doom WADs’ Roulette, where I review the best WADs according to Doomworld’s Top 100 WADs of All Times and (eventually) Cacowards. Today, we are starting checking out top WADs of 1997. Here are the rules:

#1 We are playing on GZDoom (ver. 4.5.0 4.6.1).

#2 We are playing on Hurt Me Plenty.

#3 Vertical aiming is on.

#4 No infinitely tall monsters.

#5 The WADs will be downloaded from the archives. Otherwise, it will be downloaded from the author(s)’s website if possible.

#6 We are playing chronologically.

#7 Lighting is set on Legacy.

#8 Deathmatch maps do not count.

Welcome to the year 1997. The year of Doom 64, the last, classic Doom game created (I’m not gonna review it. It’s too soon I feel). The year, where Quake II got released, and its predecessor got two expansion packs. And the last big year for Doom according to Doomworld; the end of the reign of "WAD teams”.

Yeah, right. Last big year for Doom? Don’t make me laugh, Doomworld from 2003. If only you had hindsight of the future.

Okay guys, to be fair, here is how I see and interpret these words –1997 can be probably considered as the last year of the first generation of the WAD makers. Most of the creators of that time basically stopped modding or moved to other games/game engines. Also, people basically learned every trick with the Doom engine, reaching the peak of its abilities (until the release of limit-removing source ports).

Changing the subject, remember how there were three, 32+ maps big megaWADs from the 1996 section of Doomworld’s Top 100 list? Well… ’97 has SIX! MEGA!! WADS!!! FIVE OF WHICH ARE 32 MAPS AT LEAST!!!! And would you look at that?! The first WAD on the ’97 list is that kind of megaWAD!!

:]

Fffffffffffffffffffffffff…

…

sigh

I can deal with this. This isn’t gonna be my… Requiem.

>:]

#1: Requiem

Main author(s): Various

Release date: July 4th, 1997 (archives)

Version(s) played: Final (???)

Levels: 32 (standard 30 + 2)

We are starting our list with, as I said earlier, 32 maps-big megaWAD called Requiem. The WAD that is basically a child of all-star makers of that time. Combing their efforts to make the best WAD of all time.

From what I’ve gathered about this WAD’s background, moderated by Chris Thornton, it was created with the mindset of Doom going obsolete because of Quake. It was labeled as the last great megawad for Doom at the beginning (since the use of the word requiem as a title). The development was problematic. There were rules in order to make the WAD steadily harder as it goes on. Each map had to distinct itself. Supposedly the creators had to mail the maps to each other to check for bugs and if it doesn’t repeat the layout, but it didn’t really go anywhere (only Hatred got that kind of treatment). Four of the maps were pulling the WAD into the development Hell, forcing one of the authors (Adam Windsor) to contribute three maps meant for one of his personal WADs called Demonfear and make the second secret map in a hurry.

And it all ended up with lots of bugs… And the levels Chaos Zone and Excoriation ended up switched… whoops.

So yeah, it doesn’t really look good for Requiem. The question is – is it still a good WAD after all of its development problems?

Well… I can start up by saying this – This WAD looks fucking amazing! There are so many styles in Requiem: castles, factories, mountains, urban areas; it’s so diverse but at the same time, the architecture, the new textures, the stuff I probably didn’t see in previous WADs, it’s all beautiful (for standards of 1997 at least).

My favorite-looking ones were the ones created by Fingers. Maybe because of the Dystopia 3 feelings they gave me (like seriously, change the background to a nighttime and tell me it’s not unofficial Dystopia 4 maps) but still, it’s all fucking incredible.

The music is very good, but I don’t think it’s as good as the music from Memento Mori II or Icarus. Like with the former WAD, the music was mostly created by Mark Klem and David Shaw (Tolwyn), with three tracks created by Jeremy Doyle, who contributed music for Icarus before. If I had to choose the best tracks it would be Breach of Madness, The Everlasting Negative, Last Resort, and Lamneth's Ground. And yes, the best tracks are from Mark Klem.

I will also give Requiem some more credit ‘cause it has some interesting ideas on how to progress the levels. To bring you few examples:

The Reactor is basically a recreation of MAP08 from Dystopia 3, with the circle-like shaped elevator gimmick but more linear and ending up with the self-destruction of the titular reactor.

Dens of Iniquity changes the locations of the blue and yellow keys depending on the difficulty level you choose.

Skinny Puppy has all the keys in its center and you have to go through its four wings to bring them to the ground (here is a little hint – start from the eastern wing and go counter-clockwise with each gained key).

And Fetals' Remains has you searching for the red skull to put it back at the altar with the other skulls.

Changing the subject, there are two Icon of Sin fights. The first one, in Hatred, is a more traditional one, while in the second one, Nevermore, you have to shoot some reactor’s core in front of Baphomet’s face…

Meh, it could’ve been worse.

As for the other things, some levels are way smaller/shorter than the others, particularly the ones created by Adam Windsor(except for Rats in the Walls which is more normal-sized). Militant Reprisal has way too many secrets, making it a slough to find all of them (for the first time at least), and even then, two of these cannot be reached (technically three but we will get to that). Some of the secrets require an inhuman speed and precision to get to them, like the one with the Automap in Cursed Kingdom (still great level by the way.) And the first secret level, Doorway to Quake, is basically The Door of Chthon from Quake but on Doom Engine...

It feels funny and amazing at the same time.

There is still some bullshit about how to progress some of the levels to talk about but we would be here a whole day, so let’s change the subject to the difficulty.

Requiem is somewhat challenging. I played tougher WADs from what I can remember but this one has the moments when it can kick ass. It starts out mediocrely tough up to map 20. After that point, it gets harder but even then, unless you don’t know the location of the secrets, you won’t really feel that much of a difference.

It’s all mostly stuff that you can expect: high-ground sniping monsters, ambushes, teleporting swarms of enemies, etc. Sometimes, however, you get stuff like Demonic Nahtzee Fountain from Hatred, AKA Arch-vile hidden in the blood fountain turning smooshed SS-men into ghosts (it’s the only time they appear and other developers felt iffy because of them).

There are bullshit parts here and there but there isn’t really anything that was painfully noticeable. The biggest case I can come up with is the red key room in Base of Thorn, where after grabbing the key you get ambushed by the Hoovies without wider covers to help you.

Even though I read that this WAD has many bugs, the only one I remember I‘ve encountered was in Sacrificium with Pinkies in the Stonehenge-like location, not reacting at all until attacked.

From what I’ve read on Doomwiki.org, I was expecting bugs related to secret registration but the version of the WAD I’ve played either removed them from the equation or changed something in the levels to get to them.

I have no idea if that’s the work of GZDoom or the WAD itself, but I was expecting something more unstable.

After all that I’ve just said, all I can say is… We are off to a good start. Requiem is a very good WAD on almost every level. If it had actually been the reign of the Doom community and it forever moved to obscurity, it would have been a beautiful ending from modders. Well, one of the beautiful endings to be fair... for now at least...

Phew… First megaWAD finished, unto the-

You notice that three next megaWADs have at least 32 maps.

O_O

gulp

Welp… buckle up buckaroos… This is going to be a long 1997.

See you next time.

Bye…

In the background

I’m fucked.

[hmse-research-blog]

Overwhelming & Brutal

Overwhelming (verb)

Have a strong emotional effect on

Overcome with emotion

Affected by something very strongly

Synonym to: strike, move, affect

Brutal (adjective)

Unpleasant or harsh

Direct without any attempt to disguise unpleasantness

Synonym but not limited to: violent, savage, direct

Brutal & Overwhelming

A combination of both words have a negative-leaning connotation. The experience of course, is subjective to each audience. People who loves seeing horror or action film might find these emotion exhilarating while people who hates loud noises and jump-scare might hate the emotion and feel scared. Study by Lynch and Martins (2015) shows that low empathisers have more tendency to enjoy violent and gore media and vice versa.

Horror enthusiast seeks sensation from suspense and resolve. Suspense for example, is when a character is in threat of a masked killer and resolve is when the killer is finally caught or killed in retaliation. We often feel a sense of euphoria and relieve when a threat is resolved and such logic happens behind a horror enthusiast’s mind.

Zuckerman’s model of sensation-seeking mentions four related but different factors that includes:

thrill and adventure seeking

experience seeking

disinhibition

boredom susceptibility.

Bibliography:

Lissek S., Powers A. S. (2003). Sensation seeking and startle modulation by physically threatening images. Biol. Psychol. 63, 179–197.

Lynch T., Martins N. (2015). Nothing to fear? An analysis of college students’ fear experiences with video games. J. Broadcast. Electron. Media 59, 298–317.

Zuckerman M. (1988). Sensation seeking and behavior disorders. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 45, 502–503.

Here are the examples of 11 artworks that feels brutal or overwhelming or both:

Requiem for A Dream

(viewer discretion is advised)

Requiem for a Dream (2000) is a film depicting addicts who are connected to each other. This movie often uses parallel cuts to indicate things are happening at the same time. The use of meditative music over heart-wrenching scenes creates a haunting effect. The editing choice in the final scenes successfully created tension and the continuously looping parallel shots of the characters proves to be overwhelming.

Before Your Eyes

Before Your Eyes tells a story of a boy who died very young due to an illness. This game utilises motion sensors and the game progresses every time the player blinks. Each scene is crafted with great details making the players holding their blink to elongate the scene. The first person perspective makes the audience sits in the young boy's place watching life flashing before their eyes. This game is overwhelmingly beautiful and heart-wrenching in its aspect to cherish whatever amount time we have left on earth.

Devotion

In Devotion (2019), the user plays as a father solving clues and puzzles as to what happens in his life. This game criticises the influence of cults in Taiwan. It also heavily criticises overbearing parents and the stigma of mental illness in Asia.

The use of red colour during revelation and flashback scenes and the silent jumpscare during most of the gameplays is very effective to keep the players anxious. This technique also does not over expose the players resulting in a more unpredictable jumpscares. Besides it’s graphic imagery and colour scheme, this game is brutal due to its harsh and raw depictions of cults and superstitions that affects vulnerable families in Taiwan.

Source:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/20059000

https://factsanddetails.com/southeast-asia/Taiwan/sub5_1b/entry-3814.html

Everywhere At The End of Time

This album created by The Caretaker depicts the mind of a patient with alzheimer. The 6 hour long piece involves a continuously degrading set of music. Each stage shows a deteriorated version of it’s previous stage. The album ends at static noises and ultimately long silence.

What makes this album eerie, overwhelming and brutal is the idea behind it. Exposing the audience to what dementia sounds like forces them to emphatise with the memories. The duration of the album also emphasises the slow and painful degeneration and by stage 5 the sudden void creates a horrible overwhelmingly somber aura knowing the memories are forever gone.

Ouroborindra (album)

Ouroborindra (2005) was produced by Jim Jupp under the pseudonym “Eric Zann”. Jupp stated this album was inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. Similar to Lovecraft, this album has a haunting and hair-raising aesthetic. A minute listening session gives the audience a taste of Lovecraftian cosmic horror.

The static noise and continuously evolving sounds creates an overwhelming eeriness while not being painful to hear. Some parts are accompanied by pianos giving the listener’s ear some time to rest. This arrangement choice proves to be excellent as it creates a pleasant bridge and outro.

Source:

https://ghostbox.greedbag.com/buy/ouroborindra-0/

Brutalist Architecture

At a glance, this architecture looks boring and unappealing. What makes a brutalist characteristic is the blocky and chunky design.

Some argue that brutalism is an egalitarian movement, this movement strays away from white painted walls with decorated windows typical of the time. At the time, the geometric and blocky design was considered modern. This evidence appears in futuristic movies and in spy/war movies symbolising rebellion, modernism, and revolution.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Black Mirror (2011)

Source:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10331867.2015.1032481

Shoujo Tsubaki (Camellia Girl)

(viewer discretion is advised)

Shoujo Tsubaki (1992) is a film adapted from the comic of the same title. The uncensored animation completed with voice acting added many layers of disturbance and the feeling of dread. Many people found this film very upsetting resulting to banning in several countries.

This artwork is one of the greater known titles within the ero-guro (short for erotic-grotesque) genre. The Ero-guro genre symbolises resistance and rebellion during world war 1. Some also enjoy it as escapism and sexual liberation. This film is brutal due to its depiction of grooming, abuse, and nonsensical grotesque scenes.

Source:

https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1570686&dswid=8039

Sistine Chapel Church

The wall and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel were painted by Michelangelo (1508-1512). It is not surprising that this work took an incredibly arduous time that Michelangelo dreads working on it. The details and paint stand the test of time and the colossus artwork will make every visitor gasps in awe. Each painting has incredible details and the colours are carefully coordinated. It only takes a single glance to feel overwhelmed by the presence of this artwork.

Source:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1464068

Japan Sinks

Japan Sinks is a Japanese animation series created by Masaaki Yuasa. The animation was an adaptation of a novel with the same title. Each depiction of death are raw and uncensored oftentimes includes close-ups. This series was a contribution to Paralympics 2020 and was set to release as a promotional campaign.

It doesn’t take the brightest bulb to notice the brutality of this series. The main characters experienced sudden deaths of their loved ones and the grief was left unprocessed until much late. Naturally, this end of the world scenario includes a multitude of body counts. Many great characters did not survive and their final scenes include close-ups and slow motion of their remnants making their sudden demise even more brutal, leaving a gaping hole in the viewer’s heart.

Judith Slaying Holofernes (Artemisia Gentileschi version)

The painting showed an “uncensored” gory scene of Judith beheading her abuser helped by another woman. It is said that Gentileschi was inspired by her master, Caravaggio. Caravaggio’s version had a different composition and the painting shows Holofernes holding his blood, resembling strings.

Judith beheading Holofernes (Caravaggio)

Unlike her master, Gentileschi did not hold back nor consider making the painting palatable for the viewer. The more brutal interpretation made the intention behind the painting even clearer. It is one of the strongest depiction of complex independent women and a strong message of feminism in baroque era.

Source:

https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/urc/2018/arthistory/2/

Notre Dame Basilica (Montreal)

This gothic style cathedral is located in Quebec City, Montreal. The three-story-tall hall symbolises the church’s power and the huge size of a cathedral has been known to give psychological effects to the devoters. The blue colours represent the sky and heaven, the red colours complemented by gold accents gives a royalty and majestic look. The pillars will reverberate the sound of organs creating an effect of “heavenly sounds”, many believers are attracted to this sound resulting in higher attendance. The design of the cathedral makes the attendees feel small and overwhelmed as if the church attendees are “meeting” God.

Source:

https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/11/9/478/htm

https://askinglot.com/why-are-gothic-cathedrals-so-tall

Final short reflection:

Each of the artworks above shows a great amount of research and thoughts poured into the small details. They each have their own unique approach creating unique and impactful results.

[bangtan-madi]

All Of Our Lifetimes — Five: Requiem

Pairing — Taehyung x Reader

Tags — boyfriend!Taehyung, husband!Taehyung reincarnation au, lovers to strangers and to lovers again, established relationship, implied soulmate au

Genre — fluff, angst, crime (ish)

Word Count — 2.5k

Summary — Does love ever truly end, or does it simply take another form in a new life? The cycle is like clockwork: your lives end and you’re reborn again. You’ve lived it over and over. Each cycle, one of you loses your memories and is tragically unaware until the other finds and awakens their lover. After all these eons, all these lifetimes, is it possible to find each other again—even when neither of you awakens with your memories?

Part — 5 / 15

Warnings — language

A/N — Taglist is open! Comment, message, or ask and I’ll add you to the roster :) (Also I’m a freakin’ moron and forgot to post on Wednesday night like usual, which was yesterday. So enjoy this late chapter lol!)

Previous — Next

The first person you text is Namjoon. To you, he was the obvious choice. Friendly, open, and the first of the members to accept you into their enclave. It wasn't anything in particular, just saying hi and reminding him of who you are and that you were looking forward to tomorrow.

Not two minutes later, he replies and invites you to join a group chat he'd just created for you and all seven members.

"This way, we can all keep in touch!" he says. "DMs are fine, of course, but if we all wanna get to know each other, group chats can be a lot of fun."

He wasn't wrong. The remainder of Sunday evening is spent texting the members. On the way home, while you cook a quick dinner, and when you're relaxing before bed. They're flooding your messages with all kinds of hilarity. Jungkook and Hoseok are a fan of memes, while Yoongi seems to prefer the straightforward communication that gifs provide. Jimin and Namjoon adore emojis, and Jin sticks to his usual bad dad jokes. Taehyung replies to a question every now and then, but for the most part, he's absent from the conversation.

"You're awfully quiet, Taehyung-ssi," Jimin teases half-way through a conversation on whether or not mint ice cream is edible.

"I'm working, but you guys are blowing up my phone so it's hard to concentrate."

A sigh slips out as you reply, "You can put your phone on vibrate, Taehyung. Really, we won't mind. Or at least I certainly won't."

His response is speedy. "Okay. I'll talk to you all tomorrow."

Namjoon sends you a private message. "Don't let him bother you. He can get like this when he's focused. He doesn't do well with things distracting him."

"Yeah...you're probably right."

"Oh, I definitely am!"

"Hey, thank you again for everything. Except for Kim Taehyung, I really feel at ease with everyone. I feel like we're going to get along great at the set tomorrow."

"My pleasure, [Y/n]. I really wanted to avoid you feeling like more of an outsider than you probably already do. Being in a new country, even if you speak the language, can be scary. I've been to enough of them to know that there's no place like home...but maybe we can make it a bit easier."

A smile spreads across your face at his genuine spirit and pure kindness. "You have, big time! Each of you is really fun to be around. Honestly? I can't wait for 'Run' tomorrow! Can I ask where we're going? I didn't see a production report yet, and Director Hyeon hasn't responded to my email."

"We'll probably knock out a few episodes in one night, and I think we're closing down the Seoul Museum of Art. They're going to close a bit early so we can have it to ourselves. The games we have planned will happen there!"

You turn your eyes away from your cell phone at the mention of the museum. Recalling what happened over the weekend, returning to that place doesn't seem like a terrific idea. But then again, if you are there with Taehyung, maybe the two of you can finally talk about what you see in your dreams.

Maybe, just maybe, you can get those answers.

Your resolve strengthens a little bit, and a new message comes through, one not from the group chat or Namjoon. You click out of your conversation with the leader and check the notification.

"Who are you?"

The question is blunt and straightforward, coming from the second-youngest member via a private chat. You open the message, and your fingers hover above the keyboard for a few moments.

"Hi Taehyung. What do you mean?"

"I know we've met before. I can't remember where."

You bite your lip at his statement. So you were right; he does have some sort of familiarity with you, too. Now, to figure out just how much.

"Have you been to a concert before? Or a fan-sign? Maybe you worked on the set of Hwarang?"

"None of those. I actually didn't listen to much of your music before recently, and I've never been to a concert or fan-sign. And I've never worked on any set before."

"You weren't a fan of BTS? Even though you applied to Big Hit?"

"Nope. Actually, my roommate Milo was the Bangtan superfan. I heard of you guys through her, and then of Big Hit. I applied because I wanted to live in Seoul. It's been my dream all my life. Big Hit just happened to have the job I wanted in the ideal location. Call it fate, I guess."

A half-truth, but it will have to do for now.

"I know. I remember. Your gut feeling."

You pause, your fingers halting mid-type. How did he already know about that? You hadn't mentioned it in either the group chat or in the earlier conversation. In fact, the only person you'd mentioned the gut feeling about Seoul to was—

"I have to go, sorry. I'll see you at the museum tomorrow. I think you know the way."

The museum looks almost spooky after the sun begins to set over the buildings that touch the sky. Downtown Seoul is as beautiful as ever as the bright oranges and pastel pinks bathe the exteriors of each in brilliant colors. If it weren't for the thirty or so Big Hit employees rushing about, you might've stood at the entrance for much longer than thirty seconds.

But the moment you're on-scene, you go to work. One of the producers flags you down, offers a brief introduction, and tells you where to hide the English words.

"Have you seen what we did a few episodes back, eighty-seven and eighty-eight?" he asks, shoving a stack of stickers into your hands. "When we put Hangul all over the Oil Tank Culture Park?"

You shake your head, offering a sheepish smile. "I haven't...exactly watched too much 'Run.'"

The producer waves it off. "Just run around the building and stick these wherever you think seven boys may or may not find them. Feel free to go crazy. We have fifteen minutes to get everything set before filming starts. The boys should be here soon. So, go! Once you're done, come back here. While they're running around, you can help me with the grading system."

"Grading system?"

"They're going to make sentences with the words they find. Since you know English the best, you can award points to each word based on difficulty in using."

A smile spreads across your face. "Got it! Sounds fun."

You speed off into the museum, weaving past the sound and lighting crew that are attempting to set up. Several of the museum staff have also stayed behind to give guidance, and you're relieved that the boys and company have the entire building to themselves. This wouldn't be possible during daytime hours when the public is here.

You begin sticking several dozen stickers along the walls, on the frames of pieces of art, on the marble floor. Basically, anywhere you can reach. You cover the Van Gogh exhibit with difficult words like "effervescence" and "halcyon," along with colorful words like "lilac" and "vermilion."

The further into the building you move, the fewer and fewer people you see. Once you've passed the room of modern art and approach the Winged Victory of Samothrace, there's no one in sight. Down to your last few words, you slip into the dimmed hallway and turn the corner.

Winged Victory is just as you remember. Tall and beautiful and haunting. The statue is still so familiar to you. Looking at the base, you can almost see the body of the woman from your dream. Right before you and Taehyung started running for your lives, this was where a murder occurred.

You flinch at the memory of the blood, but something else inside you is pulling you out of the room and towards the fountain. Last time you saw it, you ran from the room and left the friendly acquaintance behind. Part of you wonders what he must've thought. Surely, you looked like you'd seen a ghost.

But you might as well have.

Your feet tip-toe on the marble. The boys have most certainly arrived, and the filming has started from the sound of it. Their crazed and excited laughter fills the echo-y halls. Seeing as there aren't any stickers this far into the museum, you take your chances and continue moving deeper in. The producer could wait just a few more minutes, couldn't he?

The last of the sunlight ricochets across each panel of glass in the dome ceiling, greeting you with shards of light skewed in every direction. Like fireflies dancing together, they bring an almost magical aura to the open space, one very different from the horrors of your nightmares. The columns are made of ever-moving fire, and the fountain is made of glittery stars.

As you stand in the doorway, your throat drys and tightens. Seeing this place again, no matter how different, brings back the memories you can't explain. Are they even memories? Surely, that has to be what they are. But from when or from whom, you can't explain. They're a requiem for someone you hardly know.

Does Taehyung know the answers? Does he know more than you about this event you keep playing over and over in your mind? He's been in your dreams ever since you were a child, as a version much older than you were then and even older than you are now. Who has just one dream their whole lives, unless the explanation is that he has that dream, too?

You shake your head at the absurdity of it all. "What am I doing here?" you murmur, running your hand through your hair.

"Are you okay?"

The deep voice behind you causes you to jump and spin, eyes wide as you spot a familiar face at the entrance to the fountain. Taehyung stands with his hands in the pockets of his pants, his head tilted as he observes you.

"Holy shit, don't sneak up on people!"

The brunet smirks a little and shrugs. "Didn't mean to, sorry. You were staring off into space and didn't even hear me walk down the hallway. And it's hard to be quiet on marble floors."

"God, sorry, I didn't mean to snap." You run your hands over your face. "This museum has...some strange memories for me. I thought coming back here would help, but I think I've made it worse."

"How do you mean? I thought you hadn't been to Seoul before?"

"I haven't. It's complicated." Your eyes flicker to the corridor behind him. "Where's your cameraman?"

"I ditched him, told him I was running off to the restroom. But I didn't see you anywhere, so I figured you'd be back here."

Eyebrows pulling together, you reply, "How'd you figure that?"

"Well, you seemed really freaked out last weekend. You ran out of here like a ghost was chasing you. I was honestly worried until I saw you at Big Hit the next day, and you seemed fine, so..."

He trails off, and the realization of his words hits you. "Wait...shit, were you the one I was talking to both times I visited here this week? The one in the hoodie and mask?"

Taehyung nods, though there's a tiny line between his brows that shows he's as confused as you are. "Yes? I thought you knew that from day one, when you spoke to me at the Van Gogh exhibit."

Shaking your head fervently, you spout, "No! Not at all. I had no idea, honest to god. I just thought you were shy or introverted or maybe had a tough time talking to girls. I never, ever thought you were..." You gesture to all of him.

His brown eyes widen as he steps closer and out of the doorway. "Wait, really? You had no idea."

"None!"

He chuckles softly, turning to gaze at the fountain as the sunlight fades to soft blues of night. "I'd assumed you knew who I was. You were so open and friendly to a perfect stranger. I thought you'd recognized me."

"Not at all," you retort. "I was being nice and friendly because there was something about you that was so damn familiar. Kind of like this whole place, actually. I don't know. I can't explain it."

Taehyung nods and runs a hand through his curly locks. "I won't lie, there's something off about this place for me, too." He shifts his attention from the fountain to you. "You weren't lying about anything you said before, were you? About you being called to Seoul and not knowing why?"

You lock eyes with him as you reply, "I promise, everything I said was true."

"Then why did you run away?"

A heavy sigh slips out, and you sit down on the water fountain's edge. Looking into the water to your side, you run various ways to go about this disclosure. Blunt truth? A comforting lie? A bit of both?

"[Y/n]?"

"I've had this...nightmare, ever since I was a little girl. Ever since I could remember. It's always the same. I'm running for my life with someone I know that I care deeply about. We're trying to escape a murderer who's closing in behind us. He's just slaughtered one of our friends and he's coming for us."

You pause to take a breath, and Taehyung takes that pause to sit beside you. He doesn't say a word, only waist patiently for you to continue.

"We're eventually trapped. The man with me tells me to run while he distracts the murderer. Of course, I don't listen. There's a fight. We're both injured. And we both die."

There's a pregnant pause in the air before Taehyung hangs his head and murmurs, "That sounds horrible."

"I haven't told you everything," you reply. "I'm afraid I shouldn't...but what the hell." You gesture to the space around you. "In my dream, the entire thing is set here, in the Seoul Museum of Art. Our friend was killed at the base of Winged Victory. The fight happens among these columns. And the man and I, we die in this very fountain, bleeding out from gunshot wounds."

You turn to face the man beside you, seeing his eyes shift from his feet to yours as his head tilts slightly. "And every time, it's the same three people besides me. The same woman at the base of Winged Victory, the same murderer with a gun, the same man that this nightmare-version of me loves. I have no idea who the first two are..."

In your hesitation, Taehyung says, "But you know the last one."

Nodding, your knuckles turn white as you drip your knees. Here it goes. All or nothing. No turning back now.

"I do. He's—"

"—Me."

Taglist — @just-call-me-trash-can​, @jaienn​

[kehideni]

I think it’s time i rant why i ship the Commander with Caithe.

And not specifically MY commander, but the general commander character. (which is why i don’t care that my Commander happens to be male)

I don’t even know where to start... i guess for clarifications:

I personally don’t feel either way for Caithe. I guess i like her but she wouldn’t be on my top 10-20 favourit character list.

When i first played Guild Wars 2(yes my main character is my first ever character) i played through with the mindset that i am this charr and i will make the choices that i think will save the most lives(lel.... later on i learned it didn’t matter). So when i plowed through the personal story of the Commander i was in the mindset of “I AM A CHARR!!! AND IN THIS WORLD OF CONSTANT BATTLE I AM THE DEADLIEST WEAPON OF ALL!” (also mild Denalien influence but Denalien is intertvined with my being so... let’s not go into that)

I LOVED that Rytlock was badass and unflinching and angry i guess in simpler way: Charr = GW2′s version of orks(WoW) which means Rytlock = Thrall but actually badass.

By pure coincidence i made the choices that made me meet with mainly charr characters and it made me believe it’s because i chose charr that i meet charr. Later on i learned that... no... i just chose the paths that made me meet charr.

Queue in the story instances from 10 to 80, and past-kehideni notices a pattern. Rytlock is not the one that your character connects to the most.

I know, the letters you get are all from Rytlock when you are a charr, but the one other person Arenanet pushes your Commander to connect with is- you guessed it- Caithe.

Twilight Arbor- now you would argue Rytlock Logan and Caithe but Rytlock leaves before you start fighting any nightmare court and Logan after just a bunch of spiders. Canonically, it’s just the Commander and Caithe. Nothing actually that i’d noticed when playing through because the Commander only asks questions from Caithe that i’d want to know anyway. However this instance literally has established a connection between the two that later on gets referenced in a throwaway speechline with someone you’ll be surprised by. We’ll get to that.

Sorrow’s Embrace- Eir, Zojja and Caithe: the Commander asks Caithe for information (of course, who else. Not like they can ask Zojja at that moment, but these are all just starting off things)

Honor of the Waves- Eir and Caithe: the Commander tells Caithe to shut up and let Eir come to the right conclusion herself which makes me laugh to this day xD (This is where my personal meme comes from “Shut up, Kyle Caithe!”)

Ruined city of Arah- the Commander sasses Caithe. Basically in the story instances the Commander and Caithe work towards the same goal, to reunite Destiny’s Edge.

Things happen in the between though: There is this quest where Trahearne and the Commander enter a vision of the Pale Tree. In there, the Pale Tree tells the Commander that they MUST reunite Destiny’s Edge and this is where Twilight Arbor greets back a bit. 

When you walk past the members you hear them talk to each other, blame each other.

Caithe however stands out because she isn’t talking with one of her friends, she talks to Faolain. The crazy part is that in this vision you are not supposed to AND can’t talk to any vision-npc.... that is except for Faolain herself. But let’s see what happened beforehand:

Narratively speaking when a character says they are alone and tired, it’s supposed to elicit protectiveness from the viewer and/or empathy.

“So here i am a bulky a** charr, why is her love life any of my buisness?” - very emotional quote from kehideni of the past

Aaaaaha... sure whatever you say Trahearne, but wait.. because here comes the kicker. The ACTUAL kicker where past-kehideni went 

“Wait jus- hold on just a minute here...”

Faolain that was awfully possessive of you, i’m a big a** charr. What competition would i be in this future-vision to you? And then the Commander says “I won’t let Caithe fall into nightmare.”

A little bit of extra:

“Pft... whatever... you’re just her ex.” says the Commander. :v

In Arah Caithe thanks you for saving Destiny’s Edge (also interestingly she is the chosen companion npc as she’s the one that resses you if you get downed) and at the end of the fight she says that all of Tyria is in the Commander’s debt. Ok ... casual stuff. She’s been thanking the Commander left and right that day. As if she didn’t drive home the fact that she’s grateful she thanks the Commander once again at the end party and also is the one to suggest the Commander should go after the rest of the Elder Dragons too.

The next you meet her is the Aetherblade path in Twilight Arbor, the narrative distances Caithe from the Commander. By this time canonically they are friends, duh. So it’s like a friend has a side the Comm didn’t know so far. Nothing interesting yet, let’s hurry on.

She attends the summit, of course she does. You can’t talk with her.

In Echoes of the Past Comm saves her, their talk is still friendly but distanced. I do want to note that Canach and Caithe are so similar in attitude xD

Tangled Paths: Comm goes up to her to talk and she says “don’t mind me” and proceeds to follow you around and friendly-mocks you as “boss”. We know NOW why, but not back then. This is important because not long before this i realised that the Comm can’t possibly be me. It’s MassEffect’s case of Commander Shepard. You controll them but they are their own character and your choices have only slight weight in the story because the Commanders’ choices are already set in stone by the actual writers. What you CAN do is write the WHY parts, and this is soon the part where my writing interferes with actual canon but you’ll see my reasonings.

When the Comm talks with Caithe she’s the most civil with them among their allies. (We later learn it was to keep the Comm. in the dark.)

The beauty of this scene is that Caithe WILL learn why a mother can’t keep their eyes off of their children.

“Is that a problem?” “Not for me.” Still can take this line as civil but kinda funny line in hindsight. (Get it? Because it will be a problem for them.)

So Caithe’s betrayal happens, and the Comm is FURIOUS!

Lol my charr is too tall, but the shot was meant to place the Comm face to face with Caithe because in the next shot she looks them in the eye and goes for the egg.

When Marjory notes that Caithe is a Sylvari the Comm goes defensive “So? What are you trying to say?” Their friend would never do that- is what narratively they want to convey, but later on in HoT the Comm reacts so harshly to her betrayal i took the wheel a bit.

I mean let’s add up what the Comm knows: Mordremoth created the sylvari, he has mental access to them, he can mind controll them, fool them if they are too strongwilled to do his bidding. Caithe is a sylvari with a strong will. If she betrayed them it’s not of her free mind. It’s like the victim-blaming when a girl gets drugged and they take her body to do as they please. Try as she might she wasn’t clear in the head but she made it clear later on that she didn’t want to betray the Comm. Why would she after all she can be thankful for to the Comm?

So what gives? Well in my mind, the only way to rectify Anet’s nonsense writing(they should really stop reading GW2 reddit forums, not a good place to be influenced with) is to give the Comm a reason to take it to heart a bit too much, say... if they were harboring feelings for her. In my mind it adds up.

So HoT happens, and Caudecus is making his move.

Where next you meet Caithe: Out of the Shadows. (fitting title for her, huh?)

I’m just gonna link the video with timestamp, that whole part is reconciling:

https://youtu.be/AABguDwhieE?t=2612

At this point the writing of GW2 seems to take a chillpill so i go with the flow. The Comm realising that he overreacted inspects himself: Why? This is the part the Comm realises that “oh sheet, they got them feels.”

Aurene hatches, Caithe is there.

The first time the Comm is voiced in LW and he jokes around with a character it’s with Caithe.

Comm: “I’d feel better if someone i knew was watching the chamber.”

Caithe fishing for the one line that would reassure her that the Comm talking with her actually means that they are ok with her now: “Someone you trust?”

Comm: “Yeah, so... could you ask Taimi to get her right away?”

Caithe relieved her relationship with Comm is safe: “You’re joking with me, i take that as a good sign.” They talk around a bit more, they are healing and that’s adorable.

Later on she thanks the Comm for letting her prove herself to them by looking out for Aurene.

Path of Fire happens, she’s like throwaway-ly mentioned by Taimi.

I was all, “Well, goodbye Caithe you got Zojja’d, it was a good headcannon while it lasted” but THENNNNNNN ARENANET THROWS ME THIS

Like... are you fkin’ kidding me. This line alone means that she’s been stalking the Commander IN STEALTH ATLEAST since they met Zafirah in Sun’s Refuge!!! THE BARE MINIMUM SHE SAW FROM STEALTH WAS THE COMM GOING IN ON A SUICIDE MISSION, HOW ABOUT SOME HELP YOU CONNIVING VEGETAB- sorry... my personal annoyance at her came out.

Back to story, after this All or Nothing happens where the Comm and Caithe are confirmed parents of Aurene. When Aurene branded Caithe only the Comm asked if she was still herself, not even Rytlock nor Logan, the actual two people who know her longest. The Comm and Caithe are constantly paralleled next to Aurene as her “champions” because dragons apparently don’t have parental bonds*sarcasm* :V

Requiem happens and Rytlock himself says he sees it now. Coincidentally as of writing this he is going through the very same trauma Caithe and Comm went through when Aurene died.

Caithe calls for Comm to return to her because she needs them, and the Comm tells everyone they should go and spend whatever time they have with people they love. Implying that Aurene is who Comm loves but then again Caithe is there too. The 3 of them were going to spend the last of their lives with each other. (not saying they don’t love the rest of the group, but had they decided to leave, the 3 would still stay together.)

As from War Eternal to till now their co-parental connection is getting stronger.

[stupendoustrashmagazine]

A 10-pp. selection of poems

Personage The terrace offers a point. From this point a view. It's only a stop-off; it assumes the motion requisite for temporary stays will continue. The speculative friction required to stop those passing through would require planned extinction; would require war against generations of persistence across biome, suffering & misery magnified it remains threatened always. Building requires digging. Digging creates hollows to be filled. A move past botanicals—it doesn’t exist. A pulse in the web. Walk toward beyond the view: journey’s luck to close in on production. Pace picks up, dusk’s dis- appearing light invites one in: welcome.   Prelude Tonight the act of naming fell through the floor. We speak permeable solids inflected by light. Skull’s grid moves units indistinctly: windshield & palette cross paths, hatch an Ovidian shift, difixiones to devotio; the faux-gorithm teases pantheon from closet, traces flotilla’s down, hot air balloons, celebrating you or prairie fair. You’ll learn to kill that hunger for thunderhead drift. I follow shapes of your speech, attend to your syntax, taste your configuration; to keep up I sketch stick figure, code hypertext script cascading in style, the result of which confirms, again: we’re lost. Plot is a plait’d plat, flatland destination & another assemblage? I want aura to invite aural meiosis, aurora splitting into rural roads, for the bassoon quartet to be forgiven for plastic bag reeds on my direction, for aria to, moody, move into a different mode & travel out through spring’s open window; I want the racket splenetic melancholy, for dynamic accompaniment fit for unfashionable passion, the like. That state of exilium you described as a quantum between. Always pain hover triangulated. Frame Matisse with me, guilty stokes both— say the magnolia blooms shall remain & not at the expense of any other but they do not. Creek diverted, river dead: suck’d dry wax & cone though still dragonflies are purple, abdomen metallic sets of curvature & husk. Nearby: field of lightning. We walk through fjords of light forking down, resisting electrocution, naturally. The taste of our nakedness waking in early in your bed, black walnut leaves catching first October light. If I leave the house or library I sit on benches in Walmart or go to the Coralville mall alone, growing frosting in my chest & English ivy in my sinuses, scribble notes with my fork-tongue alone. Walk with me this once, again, into notional forest, ash-grey landscape dotted in umber, newborn beetles radiating, cobalt blue.   Skykomish in Summer In Goldbar Washington boys crossed river with driftwood staves feet slick-step between slime & rock, underbelly of serpentine but liquefied, algal nets stretch’d between toes, Like scales without edge—stiffened Cold after crossing they crawl’d up & into caverns allowing in fractions of sun but they felt cradled in a way shielded, intimacies there before they dove into round pools spun by spit current’s swirls, the bank of the cove gritty enough for a grip as they’d climb out out of sorts, alive they’d look at the congregation from which they just emerged tangle of nets, sunken conflagrations their bodies against the wake pressed a force there, quiet, endless, sound moving through medium beckoning, shape taking a form inky jar, turbine spat out from the bottom of an oil well.   Grass Cuts Nyanza Street. South Tacoma—we’re on A hill & approach it, tall grass, foreclosure. Blackberry brambles thick on the lawnslope purple, thorns & stickers, irritable touch. Boss climbs roofs with too steep a pitch; Hauls mowers from mud when I mire it Good in a ditch. His daughter today works with us, we weedwhack waist-high grass, rake clippings & tufts long enough to be hay in neat quadrants. They steam mornings we make it out as early as seven. A canopy borders the two-acre lot. I stare – emptying’s substance against nothingness of total inattention’s default setting. Metal asphalt shingles, roof’s pitch steep Low ground valley & everywhere: unhinged Botany thrives. Ivy plaits helices Around five-feet in diameter firs, in follow some twenty feet up when Jamie grabs a pitchfork. See something. It skitters through raked mounds, Goes through tunnels punctured By tines or cleat-roller aerating the lawn She shanks its body up against weed- blocker & brick. A metallic pling rings fades, she scoops it somewhere— this brought up her enjoyment killing, dressing, & cooking fowl. We move more grass I looking for insects, think of meat saws yawning day & night do they Day & night, fumbling—sound like chain saws or Colorado cattle feedlots, cottonwoods standing by during a drought, the sugar factory’s honey-butter burnt hair & soccer cleats left for week in a car. Mulch, juncos, midmorning sun on, sun off, Rake, return, pile, killing rabbits once we snapped their necks wrong, twice partial Breaks, botching it, both shaking we Shared an acute horror in our optics. Then we crushed their skulls with a hammer, But that’s when we lived near the volcano, when the halcyon sensation when standing at the bottom of Nisqually glacier, the sheaves of receding rose-grey gravel in aggregate felt like meteoroid field sent to grave resting place, armatures of old growth First & hemlocks in steep fractals jagged landings in glaciated river so thick with silt it looked an ash-blue sleeve. We take HUSKY 55-gal. trash bags of grass to the organic waste dump. We smell like gasoline & two-cylinder oil & grease. When I get home my house mama says Pew-whee! You smell like Marty; you smell like something that kills.   Shards What was it that came out the water in a sled a Wayward gesture young-&-stuffed Mess to common rendition Duchamp’s Pearl Neckless? In his version The sledgehammer fell square to carcass/shard/caress. You wanted/saved like anyone else wanted, A sequence of diadems, diamondic scales on A yellow python’s back. Be-figure, a mole Amongst slag pits, a slog truce from igneous slab. Bats tunnel boroughs, funnel rigmarole We keep one ray or dot of spun molybdenum— Torque at the end of the…—that glint relieves Grog, luster, a clutch lets cable go its single, slackening line. True fundament! come to the party— From up there, from below? Come beat through this bog’s Excrement, creakily swung skew joints, fallen centurions, Carve away gluttony,—an economic model Levels the field of every thistle’s purple demarcation. Remains disappear. Binary caskets Glisten polyurethane on oak grab it… If - you – get – to – the – place To – get – you – the – records: Prefabricated dirt tastes discard bottles, Skittling crevice, crick or face, collections Binding fractures. That which goes unseen. Make & model, blue castes. Signature mummies. Huffing. That kinetic thrill Pushing hammers through Masonite, Bulls snorting horns at a flag The very requiem of the horse’s eye A black so dark it blued the muscle in deafening Postures of grey fog: a way: body: yes, a shard, Blight-bit, a descending distend, steep bends— A weather system approaches Centripetally, a large unformed cat, To distillate—nothing—to pray to the grommet, One ventricle, alas—poor valve, the idea Of the river. The river. Is. Itself. Course vessel in a Losing resonance a tributary vacillation tip-toed beyond A materiality that is, is not, any old trick.   Spilling the Flour Began not thrush’s stamp, nor cardinal blue whistle but The sour flack going out, the waist line spilt. Emptying cylinders combed in sheet metal corrugate, Fill another vision, the conveyor belt muscle Persuasion. Sometimes a harvest sits like pheasants Before buckshot, freeze-frame, promise cannon— What will be. Corn stalks chopped at maggot root twist Wind crowing a parade, sans confetti, sans soleil. Platoon the distant mist, forgetting it’s metal multiplied In numbers not quantity. Not fog. That’s fire But the wound continuum in ears splits hair mimics a mime Brown cerumen flax spreads flat lays down in- To a line. Elements bind fetch needle & borrow thread Stitch from denim you see the voices hear. Spiders don’t mean to. Bats garner a wick of light Against normalcy of shadow. When is not Important. Con memory commemorate ingrown toe- Nail sunk into rib-line fleshed out for sake Of sake of being. Forsaken lake: equivalent to constrictor Vine, not theorem. Carpet moves imagined Equestrians run between alder beetles the abandoned Horses heaving in the meadow along the orange Vector. The chemilume incision furcates the dark shells Guarding liquefied innards, the many legs.   The Awful Cutlery Traveling by Greyhound between Dominguez- Escalante and Grand Mesa National forest, We’re full enough In the filled up four-wheel lurch on blacktop I-70 elegantly swung across Secluded Rocky Mountain scrag. “This shit’s too country” a woman remarks. You see what she means. The rosaries Of apricot, peach, cherry, and plum disintegrate Vineyard to vineyard to bottle To California, mid-stride Maybe she means. Maybe Damian The off-shore welder tells me about hanging above The water, rigged up, slung out, strapped in, Gluing thousand-degree metal to solid stack Rigs, working twelves till three months pass So he can go—“I go everywhere”—to complicate Home—“Love Alabama but I need to see it all The whole shit.” Dusk is a disk with a predictable arc. I’m here twenty years, this red land. From bottom canyon ditch combs Of bygone eon drag across mesa, leaving scar, Evidence of water, wind, shaggy coats left To bear, bear themselves, on other creatures Pitching, tent-by-tent, a story, a new story, old. The mother tells you, you & me, of Rocky Mountain Flats, the Climax Uranium Mill, A fire beginning with a crack, croaking a Groan to a glow, plutonium then, dizzied in dust, Vapored amoeba flung across the whole Front Range. Cows were the first to show up Without usual parts: eye, ear or triple-tongue. Do I believe anything I say anymore? Set that head against Plexiglas. Feel the chill— A lavender fork makes an albino tarantula Of sky, yet there’s a merge, the speech Corks off. Into each direction, asymmetry Between passengers a music nonetheless, The hiddenness behind tall sediment walls Now, this cutlery mass Stalking hungry movers, clawing at the dirt To reveal the intact pores of a distant femur.   Safe/Way Courtesy Clerk In the aisles of nondescription halogen baleen Sifts shop-cart rift-racket & geriatric dances. Old/new toothpick paradigm cues a mist/turn: Old is to new as young is to old, meaning Painting the urn in synthesizer blue still undoes. The unheard chambers are sweeter. Polyethylene is a mon-on- monomer ladder of Chain-stacks, bindings, writes the blurb We’re all in this together. Savings save you From it, from it you’ll be saved the lapse: Western tanager memorizes its own memory Launched in citrus beneath the varied canopy. Really: in this Safeway a woman chutes Hundreds of one-liters into the re/cycle Machine. She leans on cart rail, no wheel. Her child helps he laughed he threw them into The bin, the coins emerged. Someone said Music moves from a fix-point fence post, studded Down into ground. He’s right—what is there to do But do, bag up a customer’s purple cabbage Dreams stuff them sweet potato mush- Room into room, sacked. They’d blister From oxygen’s lack they’d try to make it, try To survive. Wouldn’t it be courteous To curtsy before bags bulge as balloons stuffed With vision? Even in tulip & rose section I Hand out the foxtail elixir, all the loot; were they Bodies turned down, turned into what now, soup? The day is butternut squash but wouldn’t A lizard do today let’s get all the gutter newts Recalling now how Scooby returned From a long drive he threw an iguana On the chopping block on the counter top In the apartment he was making soup He sawed off its head. What was inside The eyes? Nothing much. Eye cones con, resemble The black glass of a tick’s back. You’ll try To reach in & what — find out who looks back Tell yourself that’s you looking back. A gaze. Scooby ran cool water over the head, on it. Its jaw opened and closed again & again. “This is good soup that’s what happens After the head’s cut off.” What would the body Do after, what voice would reclaim itself, Would reconvene re — gather protest against scores Settled, dust made fall silk, unnoticed? What takes when taken back, how’ll things Exactly as they are be exactly as they’d been? What music shapes the marina, the guitar Rustling out a poison ivy arpeggio to become The place and the things of things as they are? How do you bargain or take the lead For the dreaded duet? The mouth opens cilia Tongue juts out pink premonition the sky boom Nitro’s paisley maize radished in the Word-Ward. Blue pollen doesn’t exist but when the man Who looks one-hundred buys the dyed-blue orchid & says “it’s for my” I cut him off & ask but He just laughs & says “it’s just a flower it’s just An empty bag” & walks out, away, toward Automatic sensor doors, glass partitions that open Like megafauna with a belly full of a world on fire.

[nuclearblastuk]

The Bards’ Tales: A Blind Guardian Chronicle

Blind Guardian are one of those bands which you will not have gotten far into heavy metal without coming to know. You will have seen their records in shops. You will have seen their logo on the fronts of t-shirts, on the backs of hoodies, or proudly stitched into a denim vest. You might have heard their music played in rock and metal bars. You may even have caught a glimpse of them performing live from far across a festival-ground somewhere. To many the music and imagery of Blind Guardian epitomises the power metal style, and while it is fair to say that Rainbow and Iron Maiden are the real progenerators of the power metal aesthetic, Blind Guardian certainly codified many of the elements which you might hear in contemporary power metal titans and label-mates Battle Beast, Beast In Black, Rhapsody of Fire and Sabaton – high-register wails, fast and technical musicianship, symphonic layering and a conceptual approach to album arrangement and composition. To fans they need no introduction of course, but in celebration of their thirty-fifth year of making music and the remixed and remastered reissue series now available on Nuclear Blast, it seems only right to tell the chronicle of the Bards’ tales.

To see the full remixed and remastered reissue series:  nuclearblast.com/blindguardian-reissues All Blind Guardian albums are also available on picture-disc vinyl and on CD.

Our story begins in Krefeld, Germany (1985) where four young bards – Hansi Kursch, Andre Olbrich, Marcus Dork and Thomen Stauch - have just completed their first work under the name of Lucifer’s Heritage. As though caught under the spell of a premonition, that work was entitled Symphonies of Doom, foreshadowing a grand masterwork to be completed some three decades later by Hansi and Andre - the Blind Guardian Twilight Orchestra’s Legacy of the Dark Lands. The opening song ‘Halloween’ would, in time, become ‘Wizard’s Crown’ and feature on the debut album Battalions of Fear. Marcus and Thomen would before long part company with Hansi and Andre - though Thomen would, of course, be soon to return. 

A second demo under the name of Lucifer’s Heritage would be put to tape a year later in 1986 - also called Battalions of Fear - in which Hansi and Andre were joined by Christoph Theissen and Hans-Peter Frey. All the songs on the second demo, with the sole exception of Gandalf’s Rebirth (which is now available on the remixed and remastered version), would in due course find their way onto the Bard’s debut album in a rerecorded form. These demos are notable for their musical acuity, in spite of the limited production facilities available to them; listeners today will recognise them as falling within the bounds of a fairly straightforward speed/thrash metal style, quite unlike the elaborate arrangements the Bards are known for today - though there is some indication of things to come amongst several of the high-fantasy themed tracks. Before long, of course, Lucifer’s Heritage would be no more. The Bards, unwilling to succumb to the beckoning evil of Black Metal record sales, cast off their Satanic moniker and – under the inspiration of another wandering troupe of bards, Fate’s Warning, took up the name Blind Guardian instead.

Battalions of Fear  (1988)

Battalions of Fear is the first album to bear the Blind Guardian name, and while for the most part it retains the speed and thrash metal techniques of the Lucifer’s Heritage demo tapes, it remains a distinctly Blind Guardian artefact - for it is in this second chapter of the Bard’s story that the Blind Guardian aesthetic is first established; the lustrous gold logo and hooded figures adorning the cover, the unapologetically grand narrative approach to storytelling through lyrics, and the utterly diverse selection of sources from which stories are told – from the enduring inspiration of Tolkein and Stephen King, to the passion of Christ and the Strategic Defense Initiative of the Reagan administration. Thomen Stauch returns to the fold on drums, while Marcus Siepen takes up rhythm guitar duties: this line-up would remain unchanged until 2006’s A Twist in the Myth, beyond what many would consider the ‘classic’ Blind Guardian period. There is much for latecomers to the Blind Guardian story to take from the Bard’s debut: it remains the purest expression of the speed and thrash metal influences which run at the core of the power metal sound which Blind Guardian were the first to forge, opens with fan-favourite and long running live-staple ‘Majesty’ and, for the adventurous, the current remixed and remastered version is appended with the Symphonies of Doom demo, featuring the Bard’s early tribute to Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

Follow The Blind  (1989)

Just as Battalions of Fear now concludes with a direct reference to Monty Python, the 1989 sophomore album Follow the Blind opens with one: Inquisition samples the monk’s chant from Monty Python and The Holy Grail (“Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem”) This sets the tone appropriately, for Follow The Blind sees the Bards shifting towards an even more heavily themed and thrash-orientated sound than on Battalions of Fear, apparently brought about by their exposure to U.S. thrash metal royalty, Testament, at the 1987 Dynamo festival. While the Bards’ consider this to be their weakest album as a result of the emphasis falling on musical intensity, fans who also share an affection for this heavier sound are unlikely to depart from Follow the Blind with any disappointment, especially from live staple Banish From Sanctuary and anthemic live sing-along Valhalla, whose studio-take features the stylings of Kai Hansen, of Helloween and Gamma Ray fame. Hansen would lend his talents to the next two Blind Guardian albums too, featuring on the songs ‘Lost in the Twilight Hall’, ‘The Last Candle’ and then‘The Quest for Tanelorn’. Curiously, at the time the Bards were reluctant to include Valhalla on the album, now a fixture and highlight of their live performances; much like Black Sabbath’s hit-single Paranoid, it was written towards the end of the studio session, and was only included to make up the running-time for the album. Revisiting Follow The Blind, dedicated Blind Guardian fans will find the Bard’s first references to fantasy writer Michael Moorcock (“Dammed for All Time” and “Fast To Madness” are based on characters from the Eternal Champion series) and another Stephen King inclusion (title-track “Follow The Blind” is based on the authors collaboration with Peter Straub, The Talisman.) However, listeners of all persuasions will find joy in the closing number, a medley of The Regent’s Barbara Ann and Little Richard’s Long Tall Sally; the very embodiment of the performer’s maxim, “Always leave them laughing.”

Tales from the Twilight World (1990)

While Battalions of Fear and Follow The Blind certainly laid the foundations for what would become Blind Guardian's signature sound, Tales From The Twilight Hall builds upon this groundwork substantially. Any pretentions the Bards might have had towards being just another speed/thrash metal band, with some classical and high-fantasy themes, are abandoned. This album is the start of what many would consider to be Blind Guardian’s golden-era, and with it perhaps even the genesis of the power metal style. The album’s cover art marks the beginning of a fruitful working relationship with Andreas Marschall, who would create the iconic cover art for the next three studio albums too. In order to record this seminal album, the Bards constructed their own studio to spend more time working on it, and this time was indeed well spent: we can hear them, for the first time, embracing singalong choruses and rich storytelling verses from track-to-track and incorporating acoustic guitars and synthesized instruments in order to reify their world-building efforts. This album is not yet, however, a full-blown concept album - such as we will see later in the Bard’s tale. Rather, the album's diverse themes treat of Moorcockian characters, Gandalf's death at the hands of the Balrog, and subsequent reincarnation, and - supposedly - E.T. ("Goodbye my friend, goodbye!") The lighter-brandishing melodies of fourth track, Lord of the Rings, stand testament to the maturity of song writing which generally permeates this album. Had the Bards ended their journey at Follow The Blind, one might speculate that Blind Guardian would have been no more than a footnote in the grand heavy metal story: Tales From The Twilight Hall places them at the genesis of true fist-pumping dragon-riding power metal.

Somewhere Far Beyond (1992)

Succeeding the success of Tales From The Twilight Hall  is Somewhere Far Beyond, which largely reaffirms the originality and spirit of that breakthrough release. The cover art depicts a circle of time-travelling Bards - which would, in time, earn the band their nickname - assembled around a gyroscopic timepiece, establishing the tone perfectly for the distinctly modern stories which the Bard’s recount on this album: the science-fiction of the Replicant’s story in Blade Runner, a journey through the haunting, surreal world of Frost & Lynch’s Twin Peaks, in addition to the now familiar Tolkein, Moorcock and King inspirations. The album also features several bonus tracks: a cover of Queen’s Spread Your Wings, an escapist’s manifesto, Satan’s Trial By Fire, which tells the story of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bomb attacks as well as an alternative mix of Theatre of Pain from the album itself. This album is particularly notable for its widespread and international critical acclaim, reaching #1 in the Japanese charts. This chart-topping success in the East would beget the Tokyo Tales live album the following year.

Imaginations from the Other Side (1995)

Imaginations From The Other Side reiterates on the quasi-conceptual character of the two previous studio releases and, perhaps, ups the ante somewhat: the titular opening piece abstracts from particular imaginative stories and instead tells a story about imagination itself, referencing the childhood escapist-fantasies of The Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland and Chronicles of Narnia. The album proceeds to tell the story of a child’s escape through a mirror to an Arthurian world of swords, dragons and crusades before being brought back to reality. This story is picked up again twenty years later on the Beyond the Red Mirror album, which tells the story of how the ‘other side’ has fallen into darkness, and the quest to find a way back. Imaginations From The Other Side is the last album to feature Hansi on bass, who would thenceforth give himself over entirely to vocal and lyric-writing duties. Two singles were released from the album, ‘A Past and Future Secret’ and ‘Bright Eyes’ which would secure the Bard’s a wider listenership, introducing the music of Blind Guardian to the heavy metal world at large.

Nightfall in Middle-Earth (1998)

Blind Guardian’s conceptual inclinations reach an apex on Nightfall in Middle-Earth; a thoroughbred concept album from start to finish, telling a portion of the tale of Tolkein’s Silmarillion – middle-earth’s descent into the dark-age, preceding the events of The Hobbit. It is worthwhile to mention that the album antedates the Peter Jackson film-series by three whole years – the Bards were not riding in the wake of the Tolkein-wave of the early 2000s, but instead had helped to create it. Indeed, in a 1999 interview, Hansi intimated that – owing largely to the praise which Nightfall in Middle-Earth had received within the wider Tolkein fandom – there was some serious deliberation as to whether Blind Guardian might be involved in soundtracking the films. While this project would not - alas! - come to pass, Nightfall in Middle-Earth perhaps stands alone as a heavy metal concept-album adaption of Tolkein worthy of attention. The instrumentation, and arrangement around a core of scene-setting spoken samples, make this Blind Guardian’s most ambitious venture yet – both musically and thematically. This is the first album to be recorded entirely at Blind Guardian’s own studio, aptly dubbed the Twilight Hall Studios. It would not be remiss to say that Nightfall in Middle-Earth is an essential, if not the essential, Blind Guardian album.

A Night at the Opera (2002)

After the heavy-themes and grand-concept stylings of the four previous studio albums, the Bards change tack in an altogether dramatic fashion on A Night At The Opera, so called after the Queen album of the same name, itself named after a Marx brothers production. Just as Blind Guardian fans were beginning to know what to expect from the Bards, it’s as though they said - in true Monty Python fashion - “ ... and now for something completely different.” The result is an album which arguably owes more to the British variety-rock act than to U.S. speed and thrash metal. On this album we hear Blind Guardian at their most musically expansive, and correspondingly, the album marks a return to their earlier approach in which they broach an assortment of stories and themes, most notably: two tracks dealing with Cassandra and the Trojan war, Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, the Nazi propaganda machine and the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s descent into a paranoid vision in which he is judged by saints. The galloping track ‘Battlefield’ has since earned the dubious honour of soundtracking the Heavy Metal edition of Adult Swim’s game Robot Unicorn Attack. The last of what most would consider to be the classic Blind Guardian period is marked by Live – a double-album comprised of recordings taken from their world tour, and the last before the departure of Thomen Stauch and their subsequent signing to Nuclear Blast Records.

Blind Guardian would go on to release three studio albums via Nuclear Blast, A Twist in the Myth (2006), At the Edge of Time (2010), Beyond the Red Mirror (2015) with their most ambitious project to date Blind Guardian’s Twilight Orchestra: Legacy of the Dark Lands due out on the 8th of November this year. The album is a direct sequel to - and not the soundtrack of -  fantasy author Markus Heitz’s bestselling novel Die dunklen Lande (’The Dark Lands’) and will be a Blind Guardian first insofar as it features no electric guitars! You can pre-order the Nuclear Blast mail-order exclusive edition via this link: https://www.nuclearblast.de/en/products/tontraeger/vinyl/vinyl-boxset/blind-guardian-s-twilight-orchestra-legacy-of-the-dark-lands-mailorder-edition.html

 - written by Jack Moar (jack.moar@gmail.com)

[thedeaditeslayer]

Bruce Campbell Calls Hosting ‘Ripley’s Believe It Or Not’ A ‘No-Brainer,’ Pans Hollywood’s Lack Of Originality.

This interview includes a hint of more “Evil Dead” but for what we would like you to consider is to take it with a grain of salt. The interview covers various topics but mostly Ripley’s Believe it or Not.

Over the course of his storied career, actor Bruce Campbell has brought to life many memorable, colorful characters. As the definitive character-actor-trapped-in-a-leading-man’s-body, he’s portrayed Elvis in the campy Bubba Ho-Tep, Ronald Reagan in Fargo, Sam Axe in Burn Notice, and is, perhaps, best known as the Deadite-killing Ash Williams in Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead franchise.

As the Travel Channel prepares to relaunch Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!, Campbell finds himself in the role of host, introducing us to a fresh round of the spectacular and amazing. Over the course of 10 episodes, he’ll invite viewers on a journey to explore the lives of people capable of incredible things.

“Shooting this iconic series in the Ripley’s warehouse was actually unbelievable,” said Campbell. “I was blown away by the treasures that unveil a fascinating time capsule into the past and present. Fans are not going to be disappointed when they see the scope of wonderful and weird stories we reveal every week.”

Bruce Campbell was groovy enough to get on the phone with me and talk about his new gig with the Ripley’s relaunch, the fates of some of his iconic characters, and the lack of originality in Hollywood — all with the grace to forgive my fanboying.

Kevin Tall: Hey Bruce! I appreciate you taking some time to talk to me.

Bruce Campbell: I happened to be in the neighborhood so I thought I’d step in.

KT: I usually make an effort to at least pretend to be professional but I’m not sure I’m going to pull it off today.

BC: That’s exactly right.

KT: I do want to say it’s an honor to talk to you and I promise I’ll do my best to keep my inner fanboy in check.

BC: Very good.

KT: Can I call you ‘El Jefe’?

BC: Whatever you’d like, sir.

KT: Groovy. Alright. So, coming soon to a cable network near you, you’re hosting the newest incarnation of ‘Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!’ on the Travel Channel. How did you come to be attached to the project?

BC: Things come across the old desk, you know, and you evaluate them. And this was a no-brainer. I still have the Ripley’s book, the red cloth-covered book with those strange illustrations of people doing crazy stuff inside. As a kid, I had it on a shelf so I’m like, ‘Yeah I know Ripley’s.’

And I haven’t done a show like this in a while; I’ve hosted stuff. Back in Detroit, I got my Screen Actor’s Guild card doing training films for industrials, for Chrysler, and some of the other companies. Now I’m back doing it again, so here I am… I guess, showing people, in this case, it’s not about the cross-section of a Chrysler car seat but people doing extraordinary things.

KT: Ah, cool. Part of me thought this revival of Ripley’s could have just been a thinly-veiled attempt at revenge on Dean Cain for stealing the television role of Superman out from under your chin in the 90s.

BC: No, no revenge necessary on Mr. Cain. I see him at conventions all the time.

KT: While I do feel you have the superior jawline, I was a huge fan of ‘The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.’ There have been several Supermen but there was only one Brisco County. Er, two, if you count his dad.

BC: Anyone can play Superman.

KT: Would you ever consider reprising the role of Brisco?

BC: Brisco would be fine. You could do Brisco Rides Again. He started as a lawyer and then someone has to get killed. I’ll put the spurs back on, sure.

KT: So I got to see a screener of the first episode of Ripley’s. I have an idea if you’re open to suggestion.

BC: OK.

KT: Do a follow up in which you balance on a slack line while swallowing a sword and someone throws playing cards at you from a ladder balanced on someone else’s chin.

BC: [Laughs] I think you’ve got it. I think you should work for the Travel Channel.

KT: So your parts were shot on location at the Ripley’s warehouse in Orlando.

BC: Yes, yes, we shot at THE warehouse.

KT: Did you get to see anything amazing or… unbelievable?

BC: You know, the warehouse, where would you start? It is the closest we have to one of those Indiana Jones-type warehouses. It’s probably the most richly appointed warehouses in the world, I would say. They’ve collected for a hundred years. I can’t think of anyone else, maybe the Smithsonian, but Ripley’s is probably a close second. Ripley’s might have more stuff than the Smithsonian, that would be a fun one to test.

KT: Which do you think would have more body parts?

BC: Well, Ripley’s would have more body parts.

KT: OK, but the Smithsonian does have John Dillinger’s, well, you know.

BC: So the rumor goes.

KT: As they say. So, speaking of ‘Believe It or Not!,’ I still can’t believe you retired iconic character, Ash Williams. Are you sticking to that? No way I can talk you into reconsidering?

BC: Yeah, I’m sticking to that; it gets easier every year.

KT: [Laughs] Fair enough.

BC: I’m still doing video games, I’m doing voices for Ash. I’m just not going to grovel in the blood anymore.

KT: I think that’s fair. It’s not retiring the character, just a retirement plan.

BC: I’m retiring from certain types of roles, ones that require looking at tennis balls on sticks.

KT: I’m excited to see you’ve got the paperback for ‘Hail to the Chin’ coming out; I was a big fan of ‘If Chins Could Kill.’ Although when you were teasing that on social media, I think a couple of fans interpreted that as a little bit of foreshadowing of a new gig for Ash.

BC: That’s fine. Fans are always going to do that. Everyone’s a genius, everyone’s got opinions and the internet fans the flames. No, it’s all good. They’re going to see different versions, they’re going to be seeing more ‘Evil Dead,’ too. We’re not done with the ‘Evil Dead’ saga, more stories to tell.

KT: Do you think Fede Alvarez might return?

BC: I don’t know, Fede’s a big Hollywood director now. I don’t know if Fede needs this. We’ll have to see.

KT: Everyone needs a passion project.

BC: Fede had it. Fede came and pitched his version of ‘Evil Dead.’

KT: Any juicy tidbits you want to tease from the ‘Requiem For Ash’ Edition?

BC: It’s a fuller explanation of the birth, life, and death of ‘Ash vs. Evil Dead’ and then the ultimate retirement of that character. It’s a little more of an essay approach, it’s a little more esoteric.

KT: Psychologically, what is it about Ash Williams that inspires such devotion from fans?

BC: Because he is the fans, the fans are him. Ash has no skills, Ash doesn’t come from another planet, he comes from Michigan. He’s the guy you want in the foxhole, but he probably got low SAT scores. So people watching him, I think they root for him because they’re like, ‘Damn, that’s like my neighbor. That’s like if my neighbor decided to save the world from evil.’ Kind of like that. That’s how I look at it and that’s how we played it. That’s why it was worth bringing the guy back 48 years later to try it again… He’s the ultimate anti-hero, anti in that he can’t even get out of bed, you know?

KT: He comes across as an oafish, ill-mannered lout as well.

BC: Of course, but you know what? He was written in an ancient book, so there’s more to him than just the trailer park guy. That’s what was fun exploring.

KT: The prophecy of the ultimate average guy.

BC: Exactly.

KT: Got it. You’ve had a number of memorable, colorful roles over the years, from Ash to Brisco, Autolycus to Sam Axe, even a fictionalized version of yourself in ‘My Name Is Bruce’ (shout out to Guan Di, the patron saint of bean curd). Is there one, in particular, you’ve enjoyed playing the most, above all others?

BC: Elvis was pretty fun. I think most American males would have enjoyed playing that part. Playing President Reagan on ‘Fargo’ was fun, I used to imitate him with my buddy, John Cameron, who produced that show. In the ’80s we were both subjected to endless Reagan on television. That was fun.

KT: Have you been in that situation professionally, where you’ve gotten kind of a lousy role on a great show?

BC: Well, I’m better at saying no to stuff now, so hopefully I won’t find myself in that situation nearly as much.

KT: Circling back to Elvis, there was talk of a ‘Bubba Ho-Tep’ follow-up years ago. What are the chances of that coming together?

BC: Zero. I’ve retired that character as well. I’ve notified Don Coscarelli and Joe Lansdale. You know, it’s Don Coscarelli’s project, he’s more than welcome to forge ahead. We couldn’t crack the script the way I saw it and we were going to come to loggerheads. I didn’t want to do that, so I backed out because I know now if the script isn’t where it needs to be, the movie will not get there either.

KT: Marlon Brando advised a young(er) Johnny Depp to play Hamlet before he got too old for the role. Are there any of those iconic types of roles you’d like to tackle?

BC: Of iconic people?

KT: Yeah. Just those classic roles from that sort of timeless production, like ‘Hamlet.’

BC: No. No, I don’t, because I like original stuff. I mean, if we’re going to remake something, let’s remake our own stuff. That’s the case with ‘Bubba Ho-Tep.’ It won’t be as good and people will only remember that you blew it on the second try.

KT: So the legacy of the project would be one of failure.

BC: You have to have original stuff out there to make up for the movies that have a seven, eight, and nine after them.

KT: The old maxim is that there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

BC: Yes, except ‘Ripley’s Believe It or Not!’ There’s never too much of that.

KT: [Laughs] Well played, fair enough. Fan question: Who would win in a left-handed arm wrestling match, Ash Williams or Sam Axe?

BC: I don’t do those questions, because they’re hypothetical and impossible to answer.

KT: Can you hook me up with a six-pack of Ash’s favorite beer, Shemp’s?

BC: No, because it’s fake.

KT: Well, Bruce, I came here to ask questions and kick ass, and I’m all out of questions.

BC: Let’s go kick ass!

KT: Again, thanks so much for taking some time to talk with me and putting up with my silliness and unending admiration.

BC: Yeah, my friend. All good. Thank you, sir. Have a good day.

KT: Thanks, Bruce!

BC: Cheers.

[alexanderburrsir]

Dear Anna imnotrevealingmylastnameontheinternet Today was a good day and here's why: ya girl finally saw Dear Evan Hansen tonight. Having done 8 Broadway shows all in a row, tonight was the one I was most looking forward to and the one that will stick with me forever and always. Noah as Evan was INCREDIBLE. The boy can S I N G. GIMME A FULL AUDIO BOOT OF HIM NOW I NEED TO REMEMBER THAT SHIZZ HE's sO good. His height difference with Mike was hilarious when they kinda-hugged at "your average kinda bond" Noah was literally below Mike's shoulder and has his hand around Mike's waist and I died a lil. Mike Faist is SO TALL. And incredible. Such a beautiful, talented boy. His voice kinda broke at the end of Sincerely Me reprise and it was sweet. Olivia was on as Zoe and killed it. I honestly prefer her version of Requiem?? Flawless emotional portrayal and she's made me love Only Us due to her chemistry with Noah which was so adorable and perfect. Cameron made her Alana AND Broadway debut!! and the girl SLAYED. I'll admit I've seen the obc boot and she was picture-perfect in her Alana portrayal, could not at all tell it was her first night. I could go on (for) forever about every little detail of the show, but I'm putting this here for now to say thank you, Evan Hansen. I bawled my eyes out during You Will Be Found, and sat there sobbing during intermission with no shame. It was everything I waited 8 months for and more. (also I was walking to the other side of the marquee for photos before the show and Rachel straight up walked past me and I made eye contact and smiled at her and proceeded to stand there shaking while she went into the theatre) Sincerely, Me.

[avaliveradio]

Zealandia Angel Release 'Christmas Dreams' a Touching New Holiday Single

‘Christmas Dreams’ has been written in the middle of the Global Financial Crisis. My family's business crashed, my child was sick. It was time for me to decorate our Christmas tree. It would've been exciting if it was not for those two things. 

Artist: Zealandia Angel

New Release: Christmas Dreams

Genre: Dream Pop - Holiday

Sounds like: : Selena Gomez, Hasley, Alizee

Located in: : Auckland, New Zealand

This is when a beautiful melody poured into her mind along with the words: 

"I will hang my dreams On the Christmas limbs Evergreen, 

ever-bright They will shine all night For Peace and Hope and Grace.  Over praying heads, Over infants’ beds, 

Over healthy and sick, Over proud and meek, 

For Hope has come to the Earth. 

Through the needles I see Angels looking at me, 

A sweet and gentle voice Tells me to rejoice: 

Whether young or old, 

Whether scared or bold, 

Whether dancing or crying, 

Whether living or dying For Peace has come to the Earth."

Music Talk… Ava Max is the only singer who I respect. I wish I could have her mid belt. But I am thankful for what I am blessed with and hope to be a blessing to others.

This Christmas, many people can resonate with the message I received 10 years ago. A sad Christmas is still Christmas. Have hope, help others, and be blessed, as well as stock up on antivirals like L-Lysine, elderberry, and EpiCor Plus.

Right now we are...

I recently received my weekly Shazam report and there was 1 shazam of my "Christmas Dreams" from California. It means 2 things to me. It is played on air and someone liked it enough to learn more about the artist. I have a dozen of singles with music videos that are pending releases. I am excited about sharing it with our label's 35 000 subscribers and 6000 radio stations. I am also excited that I was personally invited to participate in the 17th IAMA (International Acoustic Music Awards). I hope my Christmas Dreams will win a prize.

About the Artist...

Zealandia Angel is an actress, singer, writer, and composer who is known for Song of Songs, Diamond Bay, and other musicals. She learned mixing and sound engineering from Grammy Awards recipient - Andrew Scheps who mixed Adel's 21, Lana Del Rey's Born to Die, and Lady Gaga's Artpop.

Her music is an extension of her character: gentle but not submissive, fragile but not broken, vulnerable but empowering.

In 2020 ZA released her Neo-Victorian album Virgo De La Mar. The album and the artist achieved great reviews such as "super fresh" (The Groove Cartel) and "super talent" (MindMassage Music). She was credited with creating "a beautiful genre of music" (Italian composer Riccardo Pietri), having a "beautiful" voice and "great ethereal tone" (Jeremy Lim Music), "pioneering sound ... which dares to go places others will not" (SoundOut).

Here is what fans say:

"Again this artist has done it again with delivering great work into her songs. The song provides creepy, yet pleasant echo vocals along with great beats into the mix..." and "You all need to listen to this voice angel. The voice is tuneful, amusing, melodious and a very powerful one."

But Zealandia Angel who spent 2 years in her New Zealand Bay of Islands studio producing this 25 track album already had an ample amount of artistic training and dramatic performance in her past. In her Russian university, she was allowed to display her course mastery (in lieu of a final exam) by writing a classic tragedy in the dactylic hexameter style of Homer. Her translation and performance of the Latin song Gaudeamus Igitur won 1st place in a student vote. She was an honor student and received a scholarship from Concordia University in the USA from which she graduated with a BA in Humanities.

Her deep understanding of cultures, histories, and the ever-changing nature of arts allows her to have a bird's eye view of the current trends as well as seeing beyond the horizon. Her passion and vision for music are her only guides in her journey. "It gives a real middle finger to the conformist nature of music today and gives its alternative take with its production and vocals. The surreal lyrics and clear pitch of the vocals are fascinating and disturbing" (SoundOut)

While in attendance at Concordia she participated as a soprano in a joint venture between Concordia Theological Seminary and Fort Wayne Philharmonic Orchestra in the production and performance of a 90-minute long recording of Brahms's Requiem. To make the atmosphere even more intense the maestro decided to deliver the piece from a mezzanine while leaving the audience in complete darkness. When the performance was over she walked down to meet the audience just to find them in tears. People whom she did not know were giving her hugs like her closest friends.

Zealandia Angel was born in a provincial Russian town north of Ukraine. Her father was a fighter pilot born in Moscow. Her mother was a math teacher born in Voronezh county, Russia. While her parents were stationed overseas, she lived in her grandparents' historic house on Main street surrounded by a century-old garden of mature fruit trees, lilacs, and roses and her Grandma's folk songs sung in Russian and Ukrainian.

At home, as a teen, she had an impressive collection of literature assembled by her father but her favorite book was a small collection of poems by Evgeniy Baratinski. They were philosophical and sophisticated. She was trying to grasp the superior thinking patterns which were not found in works of other poets.

Her family legend claims that her father is a great-grandson of Prince Peter Ivanovich Meschersky. According to the legend, Peter Meschersky took his wife's maid as his wife after his wife died in 1867. He never formally remarried and the relationship was never legalized. They had a daughter, Maria, born c. 1870.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Maria and her husband, Vasiliy Mininkof, abandoned their property in Smolensk and dissolved into the masses of Moscow, avoiding political repressions. Maria never told the story and it nearly was buried with her. After her death, it was accidentally mentioned by a drunk uncle.

If the story is true, then, some of Zealandia Angel's ancestors were Ruriks who were Vikings and ruled Russia before the Romanovs for over 700 years. Her family DNA test found traces of the Scandinavian DNA, which would be expected in that scenario. She jokingly calls herself 1/16 princess, 15/16 - angel.

On her mother's side, she had a beloved Grandfather who was a Jew but it was disclosed to her only after his death. Foods that she ate at home and thought were Russian turned out to be sold at the Jewish sections in US supermarkets. The song Gooseberries is a true love story of her grandparents during the trials of WWII when her grandfather spent 7 years in concentration camps. Her second album will be named after this song.

Zealandia Angel's husband, Joshua, inspired all of her love songs. He was born in San Antonio and graduated from TX A&M. Joshua is a software engineer who takes her music videos to the next level. He has an AI-equipped 3D render farm that can challenge Hollywood. They have 1 son.

Funny facts

The sound of military jets at night rocked her to sleep.

One time her Dad brought home a tall pile of rabbit drawings to her sheer excitement! It was the product of an assignment he gave to his military pilot cadets - to draw rabbits for his daughter.

In Russia, as a kid, she would climb a fence to sneak into the military territory after school to go see her Dad. At the time, he was the head of the aerodynamics department and had a partly disassembled fighter jet in the middle of his office.

Zealandia Angel learned English by reading the King James Bible in Russia. When she arrived in the US and was asked to read an NIV version in her theology class at Concordia University, the lack of eloquent style made her think it was a children's bible.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Alisha Riley aka Zealandia Angel

LINKS:

 https://youtu.be/VaM1rlATP3E https://open.spotify.com/album/6zimqifCgoDuCApTPH2yln?si=DId5vbj8TTWO8tBRXKBpbw https://twitter.com/ZealandiaAngel https://www.facebook.com/ZealandiaAngel https://www.instagram.com/ZealandiaAngel

Dropbox link or reverbnation link so we can download your song: http://zealandiaangel.com/christmasdreams

LINK to the photo we should use for this:: https://zealandiaangel.com/img/In_the_Forest.png

[longforgottenunofficial]

When the Spooks Have a Midnight Jamboree

They say that whatever music you loved when you were 17, that's the music you will love the rest of your life.  For Buddy Baker, who wrote the music for the Haunted Mansion, that would be 1935.  For X. Atencio, who wrote the lyrics to "Grim Grinning Ghosts," it's 1936.  That's just an interesting factoid to keep tucked away as you read what follows. No one doubts that a big part of the Mansion's appeal is its superb musical scoring.  The "Grim Grinning Ghosts" tune, written by Buddy Baker, appears in numerous arrangements throughout the ride, and however much it's rearranged and recast, it always sounds creepy.  Magic!

The lyrics are not exactly Shakespeare.  Actually, the title is Shakespeare.  The phrase "grim grinning ghost" appears in line 933 of the epic poem, "Venus and Adonis." "Hard-favour'd tyrant, ugly, meagre, lean, Hateful divorce of love,"—thus chides she Death,— "Grim grinning ghost, earth's worm, what does thou mean To stifle beauty and to steal his breath, Who when he liv'd, his breath and beauty set Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet? Too bad it wasn't in line 999.  Whether X borrowed the phrase consciously and deliberately or plucked it from a subconscious memory of his readings in Shakespeare—who knows? Anyway, there is no point in pretending that the lyrics are poetry with a capital P.  The graveyard jamboree scene (the only place you hear the lyrics sung) is not conducive to hearing a song with any kind of narrative.  "Grim Grinning Ghosts" is calculated so that someone can hear a line here or a piece of a phrase there and still get the general idea of ghosts and ghoulies coming out to party.  Except for the tagline at the end of each verse, you could almost put the rest of the lines in a hat and reorder them at random. [Edit 8/13: But see now the argument by T. Hartwell in the Comments.]  The song is a laundry list of spooky phenomena, explained at the end of each verse as ghosts coming out to socialize.  The arrangement is suitably rollicking and undeniably catchy: Grim Grinning Ghosts [Audio Link]

Grim Grinning Ghosts When the crypt doors creak and the tombstones quake, Spooks come out for a swinging wake. Happy haunts materialize, 
 And begin to vocalize. Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize.

Now don't close your eyes and don't try to hide. Or a silly spook may sit by your side. Shrouded in a daft disguise. They pretend to terrorize. Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize.

As the moon climbs high o'er the dead oak tree, Spooks arrive for the midnight spree.
 Creepy creeps with eerie eyes, 
 Start to shriek and harmonize. 
 Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize.

When you hear the knell of a requiem bell, 
 Weird glows gleam where spirits dwell. 
 Restless bones etherialize, Rise as spooks of every size.(Laughter)

Incidentally, those singing busts have official names, which are on the blueprints and the film strips for each one (before things went digital).  Left to right you've got Rollo Rumkin, Uncle Theodore, Cousin Algernon, Ned Nub, and Phineas P. Pock.  We've already met Rollo and Phineas as tombstones in the original outside queue.  "Cousin Algernon" is the name of a character in the Oscar Wilde play, "The Importance of Being Earnest."  There was originally going to be a sixth bust, Aunt Lucretia, but they went with an all-male chorus, and Aunt Lucretia found useful employment elsewhere in the Mansion.

But let's get back to our topic.  When it comes to comic songs about ghosts and goblins coming out to party, the first one that comes to most people's minds is probably "The Monster Mash," but long before that record came out the theme was popular.  In fact, the heyday of such songs was the 1930's and 40's.  If you listen to some of those, you're probably hearing the inspirational roots that led to GGG.  Put another way, GGG is part of an established genre of novelty songs rooted in the 30's and 40's.  At times, the lyrics to some of these songs come so close that you could almost suspect direct inspiration, but there are no smoking guns that I know of.  Nevertheless, I've highlighted a few such lines in what follows.  These songs are a real kick to listen to, whatever the excuse for doing so.

The Skeleton in the Closet [Audio Link]

There's an old deserted mansion on an old forgotten road, Where the better ghosts and goblins always hang out. One night they threw a party, in a manner à la mode, And they cordially invited all the gang out. At a dark bewitching hour, when the fun was loud and hearty, A notorious wallflower became the life of the party. The spooks were having their midnight fling, The merry making was in full swing, They shrieked themselves into a cheerful trance, When the skeleton in the closet started to dance. Now a goblin giggled with fiendish glee, A shout rang out from a big banshee, Amazement was in every ghostly glance. When the skeleton in the closet started to dance. All the witches were in stitches, while his steps made rhythmic thumps, And they nearly dropped their broomsticks when he tried to do the bumps. You never heard such unearthly laughter, or such hilarious groans, When the skeleton in the closet rattled his bones.

That's Satchmo himself, of course, Louis Armstrong, from the soundtrack of the 1936 film, Pennies from Heaven.  The similarity of theme between "Skeleton" and GGG is obvious.

Swingin' at the Séance [Audio Link]

In a house up on a rock along the countryside, At precisely twelve o’clock the spooks begin to rise. Swingin’ at the seance, twelve ticks, Swingin’ at the seance, hot licks, With the medium in trance, How that horn began to dance. Swingin’ at the seance, five men, Swingin’ at the seance, jive men, When the trumpet blasted out, All the spooks began to shout. That music came through so sweetly low-down, Yet nobody knew who was riff-riff-riffin’ around. Swingin’ at the seance, black coats, Swingin’ at the seance, blue notes, While the trumpet could have won a cup, Its jivin’ broke the seance up, And who do you think was a riffin’ away? No one else but Billy May.

That's the Glenn Miller Orchestra, with Dorothy Claire, in 1941.  Looks like it may have been written by Billy May.

The Headless Horseman [Audio Link]

Now, gather ‘round while I elucidate On what happens outside when it gets late. ‘Long about midnight the ghosts and banshees Get together for their nightly jamboree. There’s ghosts with horns and saucer eyes, And some with fangs about this size. Some short and fat, some tall and thin, And some don’t even bother to wear their skin. I’m a-tellin’ you brother, it’s a frightful sight Just to see what goes on in the night.

When the spooks have a midnight jamboree, They break it up with fiendish glee. Ghosts are bad, but the one that's cursed Is the Headless Horseman, he's the worst.

When he goes a-joggin' 'cross the land, Holdin' a noggin in his hand, Demons take one look and groan, And hit the road for parts unknown.

And there's no wraith like a spook that's spurned. They don't like him, and he's really burned. He swears to the longest day he's dead, He'll show them that he can get a head.

So close all the windows, lock the doors, Unless you’re careful, he’ll get yours. Don’t think he’ll hesitate a bit, ‘Cause he’ll flip your top if it’ll fit.

And he likes them little, likes them big, Part in the middle, or a wig, Black or white or even red, The Headless Horseman needs a head.

With a hip-hip and a clippity-clop, He's out lookin' for a top to chop, So don't stop to figure out a plan, You can't reason with a headless man.

So after dark he’ll get the goods. Head home, the way that you should, ‘Cause right outside, a-waitin’ there, Is the Headless horseman.  Beware!

Now we're closer to home.  This was sung by Bing Crosby in Disney's The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949).  Nothing at all against Bing, but I prefer this version by Kay Starr, released only a few months after the original Crosby version.  Kay's lyrics are slightly different, as you can see, since I've printed the BC version.  When she and those background singers get to "...what goes on in the nighhhhht" you know you got your money's worth for THAT record.

The Haunted House [Audio Link]

When the doors all squeak And the windows creakAnd the ceilings leak ‘Cause the roof’s antiqueAnd you hear a shriek And your legs feel weak— It’s a haunted house

There’s a dismal moan Like a weird trombone And the old hambone Is suddenly thrown You are all alone With the great unknown In the haunted house

There’s only one good spirit, it’s the spirit in the bottle. With shaking hands you pull the cork and pour some down your throttle.

There’s a clank of chains And a smell of brains And a gory stain Where the Duke was slain And you’ve got chilblains And varicose veins In the haunted house.

When the old oak beam Feels a corpse [?], you seem To feel a wet stream With a sinister gleam And you wake with a scream From a horrible dream Of the haunted house.

When the cavalier With the dreadful leer Tried to disappear Through the chiffonier And you cling with fear To the chandelier It’s a haunted house.

The air is full of clammy claws that clutch you by the collar. So gargle night and morning just in case you have to holler.

There are lights and sprites And awful frights In flesh-pink tights But the dead of night Comes a woman in white So you’re quite all right In the haunted house.

When the old church clock Strikes twelve, there’s a knock. With a sudden shock You remember the lock On the door is a crock— Oh, why did you mock? At the haunted house.

It is black as pitch And your eyeballs twitch In the darkest niche Sits a dirty witch And the lighting switch Is out of reach In the haunted house.

When the slavey’s filled with gravy why is she so pallid? Something pushed her in the pantry when she fetched the salad.

“I’m filled with dread. Yes I’m nearly dead. I saw a head Underneath my bed. Come out if you can. I could do with a man In the haunted house.”

That's the oldest one of the bunch (almost: see below).  1931, Ray Noble and the New Mayfield Orchestra.  It's British, and there are a couple of pop culture references in there that are hard to decipher at this distance.  "Slavey" is slang for any menial servant.  What the flesh-pink tights are all about, I don't know [Edit: see comments].  The opening line is startlingly like GGG, and the structure of the song is similar: a litany of spooky phenomena with an explanatory line repeated at the end of each verse.  No partying spooks in there, however. This list could easily be extended by quite a bit.  You can buy a whole CD full of these '30s-'40s novelty ghost tunes.  But you get the idea.  "Grim Grinning Ghosts" features a contemporary arrangement (for 1969), but it feels right at home with some of these old chestnuts, don't it? Reader Melissa has directed our attention to a Gilbert and Sullivan ditty that may be the granddaddy of all these songs, and as it happens, it's a very good match to GGG in a number of ways.  The laundry list of spooky phenomena followed by an explanatory final line.  The topic?  Ghosts having a midnight jamboree.  The repeated lines at the end of each stanza explain that to us.  This is a lot like GGG.

When the Night Wind Howls by: W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911)

When the night wind howls In the chimney cowls,  And the bat in the moonlight flies And the inky clouds Like funeral shrouds, Sail over the midnight skies--

When the footpads quail At the night-bird’s wail, And black dogs bay at the moon, Then is the spectre’s holiday-- Then is the ghost’s high noon!

Ha! Ha!

Then is the ghost’s high noon! As the sob of the breeze Sweeps over the trees And the mists lie low on the fen, From grey tomb-stones Are gathered the bones

That once were women and men, And away they go, With a mop and a mow, To the revel that ends too soon, For cock crow limits our holiday-- The dead of the night’s high noon!  

Ha! Ha!

The dead of the night’s high noon! And then each ghost With his ladye-toast To their church yard beds take flight, With a kiss, perhaps, On her lantern chaps, And a grisly grim, “good night!”

Till the welcome knell Of the midnight bell Rings forth its jolliest tune, And ushers in our next high holiday-- The dead of the night’s high noon!  

Ha! Ha! 

The dead of the night’s high noon!

W. S. Gilbert (1836-1911) Taken from: Ruddigore: or, The Witch’s Curse (London: G. Bell & Sons, 1912)

We will revisit this song and go into greater detail in THIS post.

Originally Posted: Friday, August 13, 2010 Original Link: [x]

[yugenronin]

Takenaka Hanbei - The Arrival

The last thing Takenaka Hanbei could remember was falling. The remnants of a smile remained on his face as he, with eyes closed, welcomed the darkness. His last words echoed in his mind.

“Oh, Hideyoshi! You’ve returned. I’m all right now… I should be able to join you in your next battle. With Ieyasu-kun and Mitsunari-kun, Toyotomi stands strong. We’re just one step away from realizing our dream. Now, Hideyoshi, where shall we go next?”

When he had spoken them, he had believed wholeheartedly that Hideyoshi had been standing before him ready to continue the fight. He had believed, truly, that his diseased body was healing, and that the world was in their hands. He died with a smile on his face and hope in his heart. But now, now as the last flicker of his consciousness waited to be consumed by the cold and everlasting darkness of death... he knew it was a lie. Hideyoshi was dead, killed by Tokugawa Ieyasu. Betrayed. He too was dead. Consumed by a disease that had never cared about the strength of his blade or his will. The prospect of death nearly excited him. Perhaps there, his soul could live in the fever dream he had experienced so many nights... Hideyoshi ruling the Land of the Rising Sun, nay, the world... with Hanbei by his side.

But the cold embrace he had expected failed to come. Nor did he hit the rocky soil that he otherwise should have were he alive. He felt the warmth of the sun upon his skin, heard the song of birds on the breeze, and something soft beneath his body. Opening his violet eyes, those beautiful eyes that had so fondly gazed upon Hideyoshi, he blinked until his vision began to clear. Fluffy white clouds rolled in the blue skies above, sunlight warming his skin as the cool breeze carried the sounds of birds and the smell of flowers. Raising a hand to his face, he felt his features and sighed. His mask was on, as it always was, and based on his own assaulting of his face he wasn’t dreaming. Sitting up slowly, he glanced down at his body expecting to see the bloodstained white yukata he had died in but instead saw the crisp uniform he typically wore. There wasn’t a spot of blood on it. The red that greeted him was not blood but petals. As he took a deep breath in and began to look at his surroundings, his confusion grew. He was sitting in a field of spider lilies in the midst of a valley. A strange place, surrounded by a thick bamboo forest and tall mountains, it was unlike anything he had seen before. Standing, Hanbei took another breath and found himself overcome by a fit of coughing. Blood splattered across his hand and dripped between his fingers.

“Am I... not dead?” He wondered aloud, eyes settling on a small house with a dirt path leading up to it. He supposed he could go there. Perhaps someone was home who could tell him where he was? After all, disease should not afflict the deceased.

Following the path up to the house, he wiped the blood from his lips and knocked. His eyes widened in surprise as a young woman wearing a jūnihitoe opened the door. Her long black hair was free flowing and her eyes matched the sky. Lips painted crimson curled into a smile as she bowed to him.

“Takenaka Hanbei, is it? Please come in,” She offered, motioning for him to enter.

Once he had, she slid the door closed behind him and led him down a small hallway into a room with a singular table. She motioned for him to sit, to which he obliged, and seated herself across from him. Her smile was somewhat disarming but the way the pieces of this puzzle failed to fit together left Hanbei ill at ease.

“You must have many questions, Hanbei-san. I will do my best to explain.”

“I do. Where I am, who are you? How do you know me?” He asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion. 

“This is Japan, and yet not Japan. It is an in-between state, you see. We call it Requiem. It is a version of our beloved Japan most will never see. My name is Princess Yuraga Yura, the lady of this land. You could say that I am one of the few remaining original residents. I know about you, somewhat... only the vague details. You loyally supported Toyotomi Hideyoshi until your death from... was it tuberculosis? An illness, at the very least. Your name is Takenaka Shigeharu but you more commonly go by Hanbei,” The strange princess explained calmly, her smile unwavering.

“Why am I here in this... in Requiem?” 

“Select souls come here in death. Ones like you, who harbor a deep regret that perhaps they do not know they have. Damaged individuals. What is it you regret, Takenaka Hanbei? Do you know?”

“I... I was unable to see Hideyoshi fulfill his dream but...”

“Are you worried about not being able to see him again? Don’t be. An eternity here is but a fleeting moment elsewhere. Perhaps he will arrive here one day, perhaps he has arrived in the true afterlife. Regardless, Hanbei-san, he will be without you for but the blink of an eye. You may leave Requiem if you choose, when you have learned to live again,” Yura stated as she stood and turned to leave. “If you have no further question, please allow me to guide you to where you will be living henceforth.” 

“Wait. What do you mean if I choose?”

“Some choose to stay once their wounds have healed. To help others achieve the same. But be warned, not all is as peaceful as it seems here. Do not leave this valley.”

“Very well. Where is it I will be staying?” He asked, standing a quiet cough. 

“As you arrive in Requiem in the state where you felt your lowest, many arrive in a poor state and heal over time. Few, however, have me called to greet them. As such, you will be staying at my residence. You will, of course, have your own space.”

“Staying with you...?” Hanbei questioned, ever more suspicious, as he followed the princess back out into the fields of spider lilies. 

“Indeed, with me. We will talk more once we arrive. Alright?”

He nodded, keeping a close eye on this alleged princess as the two of them wandered along the dirt path. Passing through a torii, the beautiful red gate decorated by a single unlit lantern, he watched the scenery around him change. A veil had been lifted. Instead of merely one small house among a field of spider lilies, he could see the dirt path leading up to a town in the distance. Cozy looking homes dotted the landscape beneath the manor that glittered atop the hill, like a gem, as the sun shone upon it. This had to be a dream. He hadn’t died, it was simply the fever eating away at his mind, right?

No. He was fairly certain he was dead... but this? How was he supposed to believe that this was real? He had never heard about a world between the living world and the afterlife. He had never heard of... Yuraga... Yura? Or had he? The name seemed familiar. Like the tale of an old maid, he had heard once. 

They walked in silence for a while before entering the town. Hanbei’s uncertainty wavered as he looked around, seeing families laughing and smelling the scent of food that lingered in the air. How could this be?

“There are children here?” He asked, getting a nod from the princess.

“Yes, of course. Some people regret not having a family of their own. Hardly anyone stays forever. They raise their children and then they leave for the afterlife. Often, their children who have never experienced the turmoil of the world you lived in, will remain here to raise their own families before joining their parents. Food does not run out so we have no need to worry about the population’s growth,” She explained, waving to a group of children who were playing with pinwheels. “People here have come from many different eras, from many different realities. It is possible for us to see several versions of Takenaka Hanbei throughout the years but luckily only one ever comes at a time... unless you were to become a long-term resident.”

“Multiple of me? How strange,” He muttered, a faint smile gracing his lips at the sight of a small boy enthusiastically shouting about wanting to be a samurai. “Do you have need for warriors here?”

“We do. But you needn’t concern yourself with that. You may be a skilled tactician and swordsman but in your condition, you would only be a burden to them.”

“How harsh,” Hanbei complained half-heartedly. He knew she spoke the truth but she was far too blunt about it.

Upon arriving at the manor, Hanbei was taken aback. Osaka Castle had been beautiful, the place where he and Hideyoshi had come so close to achieving their dream, but the manor was a shock to him. The way the sun cast shadows upon the ground and the trees rustled in the breeze... it felt inviting. It was as if this world was trying to say welcome home. He still didn’t trust it but the idea of staying here, at least until he figured out how to return to Hideyoshi, didn’t seem so unpleasant. 

She led him to his room and left him there for a moment, returning with tea and bowls of hot miso soup. Staring at it, he made no move to eat anything. Instead, Hanbei’s gaze settled upon the princess’ face as he tried to discern any detail, no matter how small, that might suggest she was deceiving him. 

“Are you not hungry, Hanbei-san?” She asked as she began to eat her own meal. Her expression was so calm it was almost unsettling. Why would a princess have the look of a warrior who had just returned from battle in her eyes? 

“Ah, no. My thanks but I shall refrain.” 

“I doubt that is your body speaking. All new arrivals come here needing sustenance. It is a combination of your disease and your lack of trust in me that speaks, is it not?”

The tension in the room felt was suffocating. As she gazed calmly into his eyes, that forlorn look in her own contradicting the smile she wore, he felt as if he was staring down a fox. It was a game, the two of them trying to see who could outfox the other first. Or so it certainly seemed. 

“I suppose it is. Very well. Thank you for the meal,” He stated flatly as he brought the spoon to his lips. 

“Hanbei-san, the fact that I was called to greet you personally does complicate some things. Once you have adjusted to things here, I will be sending you to various other worlds to expand your horizons. There are people that you should meet, things that you should see.”

“Other worlds? My, you do know that sounds absurd, correct?”

“I am well aware of that fact. Please make yourself at home. As you are ill, you need not help with any of the household duties. The others will assist when they arrive. Focus on resting until you are ready to go out.”

“No, I will make myself useful. What others do you mean, however?”

“I am unsure who they are as of now but I sense four more shall be joining you hear over time. Now, I will be on my way-”

“Wait. How... How do I leave Requiem, exactly?”

“The fact that you are asking me this, and you cannot tell me it is not the truth, in order to rush to the side of Toyotomi Hideyoshi once more... Hanbei-san, you must learn to be happy without Hideyoshi. Only then will the option for you to leave become available.” 

Without... Hideyoshi? Hanbei’s heart sank and frustration twisted his face into that of bitter disgust. He watched the princess give him a curt bow and leave before letting his gaze flicker around the room he had been provided. A sigh escaping his lips, he approached the window and looked out at the town below. It seemed he had no choice... he would have to play the princess’ game for now. At least until he awoke from this fever dream. There was nothing else it could be but a dream. 

[istrys]

Memories of a Requiem Pt 3

Whitstan opened his eyes to darkness.

 It was a colorless void, shapeless and stretching infinitely outward in every direction. The cage he found himself in was confining and cold, swinging gently from a chain too long to fathom. The Writhing Watcher was nowhere to be found, but he knew they must have locked him up in here. Off in the distance a shimmering light filtered through the abyss like moonlight through the surface of the sea. It wasn’t particularly beautiful nor interesting, but it was the only thing he could pay attention to in this prison.

 … Whitstan…

 His ears perked up to the familiar voice, but it was too distant and faint to ascertain whose it was. He sat upright and placed both of his hands against the bars, straining to focus and listen should his name be called again.

 … Whitstan…!

 It belonged to Syrahn. Whitstan could no longer differentiate his dreams, his memories, and reality, and the urgency in her voice did not put him at ease.

 Whitstan!

 What was once a soft light shimmering from above the sea brightened into a harsh beam, reflecting off the numerous facets of the cage to be redirected into Whitstan’s face.

 WHITSTAN!

 Although he was blinded by the light, he could feel the cage beneath his bare feet nearly burst into flame. Before he could cry out in pain, his prison shattered, sending him in freefall. As the metal that once held him aloft turned to ash and cinders, the former Breaker no longer had anything to cling to while he plummeted away from the searing beam of light and back into the darkness.

Whitstan opened his eyes to the ocean, with the familiar cawing of seagulls riding the wind’s current overhead. The water splashing against his body was fairly cold, and the jagged rock he was laying on was almost consumed by the sea. Whitstan recognized this place almost instantly; this was Gilneas.

He drew a breath. Another desperate gasp followed. His lungs felt like they were on fire being used for the very first time. Confusion and desperation overcame him as he clung to the rock the endless waves beat him against. Cold was another sensation he had forgotten as he begun to shiver violently. He was able to pull himself atop the rock that strutted out from within the water. He barely brought himself up to his feet on top of the set of stones he had washed up on.

 He looked around for a long moment, wondering what caused him to end up there. The confusion began to overwhelm him before the familiar sound of metal clashing against metal drew his attention. His eyes focused off into the distance as he saw two figures caught in a violent duet of life or death. The metal sang and the air exploded as their runeblades met. He could almost remember one of the figures. “... Rethandus…” he uttered as he watched him barely hold his own against his overwhelming opponent. He seemed much less experienced and pressured in battle. He had given into his rage and continued to swing blindly with all the hatred he could muster.

 Parry after parry, the dark figure possessing but a single runesword seemed to trivialize Rethandus’ assault and eventually buried its runesword within the rage-consumed Death Knight. A familiar voice rang in his head as it pounded against every sense he possessed, “Better luck next time.” it spoke with a dark echo that reached across, disregarding the distance as the words boomed in his mind.

 A smile wore on its dark features as it kicked Rethandus’ impaled body away from its runeblade. Whitstan focused his eyes as best as he could, staring at the figure to make out the details hidden to him through his memory. A pale color returned to the figure’s flesh and a familiar tabard shifted into sight.

 He stared with disbelief as he saw himself. A dark version of himself moving to finish off someone who had earned a modicum of his respect. Rethandus dived to roll away from the final slash meant to finish him off and dashed toward the cliff’s edge to dive into the water. The dark figure approached and looked down, a smirk apparent on his lips. The fleeing Knight was too weak to appear as a threat, and clearly not worth the effort of swimming after. Victory was had here. This image of his own sadistic self continued to watch the water beating against the cliffside before it paused and shifted its gaze to him. Whitstan stared and watched his own self looking down at him with a malicious gaze.

A raspy voice escaped with a nightmarish tone. “We. Found. You.” His eyes widened the moment a part of him realized the situation he was trapped in. A semblance of sanity touched him as he remembered he was trying to overcome the dark figure that kept haunting him as he traversed through his memories. He understood a part of this picture painted before him, it wasn’t exactly reality but the vision he saw of himself rang true as real while the vision before him sank in. This was him before he was affected by the Shadow Priest, Artemisia. She given her life to fracture his memories, but perhaps she had gone further than just to break his mind. Regardless of her intent, one thing was abundantly clear to Whitstan now; it was time to leave.

 He dove into the ocean toward the beach, barely missing a few jagged rocks hidden beneath the tide. The former Breaker swam as hard and as fast as he could, convinced he may not simply be put in a cage like last time should the Writhing Watcher catch him. The moment his feet sank into the coarse grey sand he glanced over his shoulder to keep track of his predator, but the creature was gone. Confusion began to settle in while the memory remained intact, strangely unaffected by the shadowy aberration like last time. “Forget. Forever.”

 Whitstan instinctively ducked in response, barely avoiding the dripping hands of the Writhing Watcher that reappeared behind him. The blighted teeth from its extending reach quivered and grew, pointing toward the former Breaker with murderous intent. He took the first opening he could to escape, rolling out of the way of another attack to make a mad dash along the coast. Much to his relief his pursuer wasn’t particularly fast, but it waved him over with a disturbingly welcoming hug. An opening deeper into the mainland was an easy choice to make, stirring the Death Knight to sprint up into the dead wood in an effort to completely lose his attacker.

 “He’s getting closer.” Syrahn spoke softly, clearly becoming exhausted. “Yes… I think he’s almost there.”

 “Almost to what?” Istrys asked, shooting Ijiro a confused glance. “Certain death? All of his lost memories? Some sort of divine ascendance?”

 “I’m pretty sure she means the second one, yeah?” The Hunter narrowed his eyes at the Necromancer, who gave him a half-hearted shrug in return. “Just keep him anchored, girly. Hopefully this’ll all be over before supper.”

 “I’m not too sure…” The Priestess whispered to herself, catching the attention of the other two; she was more or less just thinking out loud, but the longer she held his mind steady with such sinister Shadow Magic, the less confident she became. She traversed in unfamiliar territory, and if the worst case scenario occurs, she’ll end up either turning Whitstan into a mindless husk, or kill him outright.

 Whitstan walked for miles, occasionally glancing over his shoulder to ensure he wasn’t being followed. He was certain this was now supposed to be southern Silverpine, but the complete lack of wildlife, and a beaten path, kept him guessing. Tiny droplets of water struck Whitstan’s shoulders and forehead, and before he knew it, he was caught in a heavy downpour. The sound of a nearby battle caught his attention and hastened his steps. Although he had been walking for what felt like hours, the promise of another memory compelled him to move forward.

 All he witnessed was death. Soldiers of every Horde race clashed with the damned, as several frostwyrms chased a netherdrake far above the battle. Felfire rained down on several soldiers that were pinned and trapped beneath the corpse of an undead giant, and the maniacal laughter bellowing from the elven witch could only belong to one woman; Doni’terian. Whitstan found himself bound to a mortal shell he could not break free from. “Kill them all.” he simply commanded. The words escaped his lips as he struggled intensely to find the reasons behind his calculated outburst. A surge of verdant flame washed over the survivors while they shouted in agony, sent writhing in the dirt shortly before they collapsed. Doni’terian continued her cruel laughter, letting her chaos bolts hiss through the air to pierce the retreating foes. Watching her rip the souls from their bodies was a grim sight to behold, for it was clear these brave men and women posed little threat to the empowered witch.

Off in the distance half of a body was sent flying through the air. A hulking worgen three times as tall as any mortal man tore through their ranks like a blade through grass; it was none other than Nightcloud, the feral worgen that was once in Whitstan’s servitude. The former Breaker paid little attention to the monster, letting him sate his bloodlust. The shadows of the battle in the sky caught his attention, causing him to glance up just in time to see the Val’kyr bound to his will tear the wings off the netherdrake like a child plucking petals off a flower. This was his moment of triumph. The Bloodsworn Vanguard was meeting its first major defeat, and the undead forces under his command suffered insignificant losses; from here it was just a brief walk into the Plaguelands, where the cowards were no doubt awaiting their doom. All of his surviving enemies were on the run, abandoning their dead and dying to save their own skins. Whitstan felt excitement surge through his body once he vividly remembered this crowning moment. “Advance!” he shouted, waving his hand as he began the long march. With his feral beast brought to heel and his faithful sorceress at his side, the former Breaker felt invincible.

 His eyes shot open as his body settled. He laid still for the longest time before looking about to the allies who held him in place long enough to re-establish his sanity. He paused before looking toward the cell door, where Rethandus was no doubt behind. “I suppose we could have been better friends… but I know now why you hated me so.” he whispered out.

 “You’re back!” Syrahn gasped out, removing her fingers from his temple; she couldn’t hide the excitement in her voice, but she didn’t care. At long last her task to restore his old memories was complete. “I… so you remember now…?”

 “Yes… I remember… everything.” he commented as he continued to scan the room. His eyes settled on Istrys as something else clawed at her mind. A slight whisper continued to scratch at the Necromancer as she focused. A smile grew on his lips. “... Not… im.” a voice whispered. Her satisfied smirk slowly faded the longer she looked into his eyes; something about his stare felt... unfamiliar.

 “It’s NOT HIM!” the voice continued to echo as it reached her ears. The spirit bound to his runeblade shouted as loudly as it could to grasp the attention of anyone else.

“Thank you…” he calmly responded, “...for releasing me.”

He shifted down the table to strike at Ijiro with a forceful kick, before dragging his hands along it while he turned to his stomach to regain balance. “JIRO!” Syrahn yelped while she staggered back, focusing her terrified gaze on her lover as he was slammed into the cell door. Several undead manifested themselves from the walls of the dungeon, clawing at anything they could reach all while struggling to free themselves. “The Amber Glade… it will be the first to fall.” his voice echoed while he continued to summon undead aberrations bound to his will. “And this is all thanks to you, Lady Bloodfeather. Choke on the ashes.” he commented before moving to incapacitate Istrys. The Necromancer raised her arms in defense, but without her runesword, there wasn’t much she could do in terms of combating this new menace. Whitstan’s hand shot through her defenses and caught her by the throat, instantly ripping the flailing woman off the ground to slam into the wall.

Rethandus came barreling into the cell like an enraged tauren, already drawing both of his runeswords to bury deep into Whitstan’s chest. “Don’t… you remember how this turned out the last time?” he responded after parrying the assault. His eyes settled on Rethandus’ chest before striking him with kick. The Harbinger was accustomed to Whitstan’s strength, but he was not prepared for that familiar force he lost to time and time again before; the Death Knight was sent airborne, slamming into the stone wall of the prison. Istrys did her best to break his arm, but her punches proved useless against his crushing might. Syrahn struggled against the ghouls that grabbed her by her arms and hair, panicking desperately to free herself in order to rush to Ijiro’s aid.

“Let’s play a game…” Whitstan commented as he held the Necromancer up by the throat. “All of you can fight for your lives… but only one of you will survive. Who lives and dies… it’s all up to you.” he said as a sinister smile overcame his expression. “Let the games… begin.” The Death Knight drew the runeblade across his back as he kept the weight stable across his shoulder. “Good luck.” He continued as he winked at the Necromancer he held by the throat, the impending threat of cutting her in half remained as he announced the challenge. A part of him knew that she proved the biggest threat and should be snuffed out immediately… and a part of her knew that the darkest part of Whitstan understood the true danger that she offered. The end of the game drew near as his gaze drew in toward the Necromancer while he grasped the hilt of his blade. “He cannot be stopped...” Vesk warned, causing the woman to grit her teeth. “We all may die down here tonight.”