#i find it ironic its called NU GoD

[defectiveferalfreak]

i rediscovered @nicktoonsunite and @choraa ‘s art like wowie did they inspire me to dip my toes into NUverse??

also i cant believe Dib and Zim basically waltzed into NU:GoD, like WHATS UP B*TCHS WE  GONNA HELP WHETHER U WANT IT OR NOT like can u believe that lol

[lovee-infected]

Macaroon anon I love you and how can I resist writing for such a great idea? I really wanted this piece to take place as Ciel was stuck in twst in my previous au but since I mentioned dorm leaders there it couldn't be really done...Rip

A twisted path ✨

~ Black butler x twisted wonderland ~

Feat : Mey-Rin , Bard & Finnian

Poor trio stay away in shock of not only his unexpectedly loud shout but also...eh...his appearance .  Are they wrong or does this guy really look similar to master Ciel...?

Coming conscious still with his eyes closed , he hears some sounds around him:" He dead ?-""No I don't think he is, his chest is still moving" "Anyway what's this body doing hear at Phantomhive's mansion? If he's been stabbed or something it's going to be troublesome," "Na I guess this dude's just been really drunk y'all. Also...what's with the clothes ? Could it be that he's somewhat of an actor from nearby theaters ?" "Aye? Since when are the designs this messed up...- I guess we'd better get rid of it before mister Sebastian returns, maybe burry hi-"

Riddle freaks out as he hears this idiots wanting to burry him alive and immediately wakes up screaming at them to stay away.

Riddle on the other hand gazes upon what he just faced: a red haired haired maiden wearing a pair of glasses, a yellow haired boy with green pupils and a rather buff man with a toothpick in his mouth staring at him. " Ah- He a'live ! Man ya gotcha be more careful with drinking," the buff man chuckles. Riddle suddenly feels highly unsafe: Who are these people? And where am I? He's read NRC's maps enough to know that such a building is surely not a part of it , come along it's weird people. Was he kidnapped while asleep...?He pulls up his staff and starts threatening them with it , wanting them to immediately introduce themselves and explain what he was doing here- wherever it was-

Finnian tries to calm him down with a soft smile and a friendly attitude, but Riddle is strong at his point: He wants answers.

When he sees them all trying to calm him down with no explanations he gets mad : "OFF WITH YOUR HEADS!"

...What ? Wait-maybe try again:"Off with your-Heads!" ...Why isn't it working? Riddle stays still, the magic collars have to be around their neck but- they are not...?? There must've been a mistake: " Off with your heads - Off with your HEADS - OFF WITH YOUR HEADS DAMN IT-"

Mey-Rin, Finnian and Bard stare at their angry guest shouting nonsense and getting as red as a tomato, what is wrong with this guy..?

Riddle is furious and confused , what's the matter ? Is his magic blocked the same as that time Beans day?  He doesn't know , and he doesn't like it

Riddle starts shouting at them asking what they've done to his magic and the poor guys just go...Huh ? Riddle keeps on getting redder and redder as if he's about to explode . He starts threatening them from reporting them to the head master to giving them to the official policies for kidnapping and neglecting his picture 

Finnian then decides that maybe it's better to leave him to mister Sebastian and so : Picking up a huge branch and a striking it to his head , savage

Riddle passes out immediately whoops- maybe Finnian should have been softer-

They stay there gazing upon their... masterpiece . Finnian might have even broken his skull - Good god , what should they do now ? They must wait until mister Sebastian arrives ; But where is he now ?

Feat : Suma & Agni

"Pssssssst- Agniii...I guess he finally woke u-" " M- my prince , y-you sure that it was a good idea too bring a total stranger out of nowhere to our home ? I'd greatly appreciate it if you be more ca-"

Argh...what is with all noises around him ? He's told Ruggie a million times not to let anyone in his room whole he's taking a nap even if it's gonna be the grim reaper ; what are these brats doing here?

Leona rambles under lips and with a push he's awake : " Oi , you'd better know that I don't like having my naps ruined,"

Suma gasps at the sight of him being finally awake and tries to offer his unwanted guest a welcome hug which Leona rejects- Poor Suma

Leona isn't yet realizing what actually is going on , from not knowing that this isn't his room to the fact that he's now at more than 100 years ago in a whole different world ; ironic

Leona orders them to take this annoying conversation out of his room just to face Agni's locked expression : "Your room...?"

Taking a better look , Leona finally gets that this probably isn't his room and these people surely aren't from NRC

Sounds get echoed through his brain and he feels a small ache inside it . He rubs his head ...why does everything feel so strange ? Something is different ... could it be that he's still sleepy or..? Wait a second - Why can't he shake his tail ?

He immediately looks back to see if he's sit on his own tail but faces a terrifying scene : There is no tail . Is it cut off ????

and a newer fact flashes his brain : There are no ears either . But then how can he still here the sounds ? "P-please don't be", he begs . His hands shake as he brings them up to touch both sides of his head ; wishing not to find what he is looking for . And they are ! Human ears !A mild shiver is sent down his neck and he rushes to the mirror on the other side of the room just to face this nightmare with his own two eyes

He stares at the mirror with his eyes wide open and mouth as if he is going to shout . No...

Oh...nevermind . He has to calm down ; it's nothing but another fancy dream . He'll soon wake up and these will be all gone . Leona tries closing his eyes and cursing , wanting to wake up to sanity when he opens them again

Surprise : Nothing's changes . Two crappy brats still staring at him . Agni is now a bit suspicious but Suma on the other hand is really motivated : " Ahh~! Sorry if it's strange to sleep in the streets and wake up in bed- I just saw you laying there in a death like slumber and couldn't help but to bring you along ! Also , haven't we met before ? I'm pretty sure that I've seen your face somewhere before... Don't you happen to be from India ? "

Agni is really stressed out and keeps warning the young boy : " My prince ! He's now all conscious and fine , then I'd lead him out of he-"

"Prince , huh ?" Leona wasn't ever really interested in visiting ally kingdoms back at his home town so he barely got to meet any other princes , hm but to think that this cherishing child is actually a prince...man , the world has really changed

But he has no time for such games now , he has to find Ruggie or anyone else who may lead him out this insanity and return him his ears and tail

He asks for where he is - else than Suma's mansion - and the answer doesn't really do any help either . Where on the bloody hell is London ? And if these people found him laying in the streets when the heck did he even get here ? Well , doesn't really matter now , but where is NRC ?

Suma and Agni probably don't know where NRC is and Dire Crowley ? Suma wonders if this guy was the one who fooled him to buy a sick elephant which died a week after in india , but Agni is sure that neither him nor his prince have ever met a single soul named this

Leona is getting more and more pissed off wasting time chatting with these idiots so he takes his way out , ignoring Suma's begs for him to stay for lunch at least

He freezes just at the second he opens the exit doors and gazes upon the streets : Horses? carriages ? 19th century's clothing ? How long have these people been stuck in this lack of technology?

He feels like he now really needs to make a phone call but searching his pockets he finds both of them empty...those brats stole my-

He was close to getting hit by a carriage when someone shouts at him with a : " OUT OF WAY YOU SON OF A-"

He is now ready to get in a fight but a sound cuts him off : " LEONAAAA HELLP-!!!!!!" , this extremely annoying sound...what the heck is he doing here and : WHAT IN THE BLOODY HELL HAS HE DONE NOW !!!????

Feat : Lau & Ran-Mao

Business tip nu 1 : Always keep calm , even if you end up losing all your magic powers in the surface without the possibility of returning to your original form or knowing where in the damn world you are : K-e-e-p-c-a-l-m

Thankfully , Azul's dope nature avoids him from going crazy during his stay in this...non-Twisted wonderland world

He had heard of theories explaining the possibility of other world's existence ; countless ones indeed . But to end up in one of them without any preparations ? He wasn't planning on that

Well nevermind , that cannot be helped now . let's look for a better way

Lack of facility , cultural deprivation and severe corruption ; is this how humans are ? No wonder the sea witch called them Poor unfortunate souls...

Enough with these people , he must now ignore all other disadvantages and take a look into beneficial sides of it...If he has ended up here , in this world and into this spot of the city there must be something linked to magic nearby ; even if he's surrounded by all these foolish people who haven't ever even seen real magic by their own eyes

Just as he's looking around , something catches his attention : a strange smell . Thanks to his family he's pretty good at following smells to their source and knowing what exactly they are : it's the pungent smell of Opium

He follows the smoke to its source and arrives to a bunch of stares going underground . A board is place next to the stares with something written on it :  Opium Den

Azul isn't one to believe in superstitions but he is sometimes interested to take ambitious  steps ; life sometimes brings you worthy surprises

Entering the shop , someone slightly grabs his arm . He turns his head to face a young, beautiful lady pulling his sleeve softly , eyes empty of any emotions . Without saying a word , Ran-Mao grabs his hat and coat and Azul thanks her , seems like he took the right path

His vision got a bit blurred as must of the air is filled with smoke , not that he isn't used to such atmospheres

" Why welcome to my place , sir . How may we service you today~ ? " a sound says from other side of the room . Azul turns back to face the source of all these smoke holding that young lady from before close , could she be her right arm woman or something ? She seems pretty obedient for one , which is nice

Azul introduces himself and takes a seat . He isn't going to get to his main point at the very first seconds ; he needs to make sure that he's come to the right person . He introduces himself as a businessman from a far away city , came to explore more of business tactics here in London . He offers Lau a small chat toward that , wanting him to give him more information on business if possible and return , he'd be given similar information about Azul's home town

While being considerably great at it , Lau isn't really interested in wasting time talking about business , all he ever cares in some sort of entertainment in whatever he does . Still , he agrees of playing this fake role for a short time . Although he knows that Azul isn't here for this either...

A few minutes pass and they both know that Azul doesn't really care to know how much a pork costs and either is Lau , so takes a serious step himself : " I see you're a man of business , Mr . Azul . I wonder what I you may be able to offer me in return ," Azul clarifies that he would get interesting information if he gives Azul good ones ; everything is clear and equal . "Then , I'm afraid that I've got not much to offer ," Lau sighs , but a small smirks appears of his lips : "But what would you say about some tea ? And maybe a small talk ? "

Lau isn't like others out there and that's pretty recognizable to Azul , but it doesn't make him the right person to trust either . He is continuing this conversation in hope of Lau leading him to the right person he is looking for , someone worthy of a greater contract . Lau lets out a sad sigh feeling sorry that he can't do much help , but he knows that who may do : A well-known friend , serving years working as a right arm man . Talented , well cultured , big on all issues including business : "I'm sure that you'll like him ,"

Well perhaps this thing's starting to work out for him : " Then by all means , lead me to this mister you speak of , Mr. Lau~" "With all pleasure . Bring him his coat and hat , sister " , Lau orders . Pleasure is always his first priority , but nothing would ever break rules of a contract ; He gives , he receives . Even taking him to Sebastian is counted but , he's already thought of that . This young man seems quite entertaining and when he first stepped into his shop Lau was expecting him , a spacial guest

Lau doesn't really care about superstitions , but still enjoys his ambitious steps  . This guy had came to him just as expected and now , something about him tells Lau that getting him to Sebastian will bring him as well newer faces to meet...what an entertaining day it would be

Feat : Tanaka

Jamil is... about to lose his mind . Caught in a whole other world without a meaningful explanation of how he ended up here or why . Magic doesn't work and there is no certain way to scape this situation and make a return to NRC . But the worst thing about it remained certain : He is caught with Kalim

Why in the bloody hell does he always have to be hooked up with Kalim ? Parents forced him into it at childhood , headmaster orders to it at school and now , the world suddenly decides to abandon him together with Kalim ? If it's joke , that's a pretty lame one . Why does he have to live in the shadows of Kalim being the unworthy dorm leader ?

Now lost in the streets , not knowing where to go or who to contact , what a wonderful way to start a day

Kalim isn't liking it at all : dirty streets , loud and short tempered people , street fight and drunk men everywhere , the smell of death filling the air , this is horrible . Kalim is well aware of poverty and deprivation lasting for so long and even remaining until the very present day , but traveling back in time and space to face one of the most terrifying levels of it just isn't his thing . He feels sorry and odd at the same time : Is this how life behind of the walls of his royal castle looked like ? He wishes he could help it . He probably could if he was any linked to NRC right now

He keeps on telling Jamil how poor they look and wonder if there is a way to help...The world Kalim knows has elegant and colorful nights and days but this world...was all caught in a dead gray mist

Jamil doesn't say a word because he doesn't want to listen , Kalim can keep on daydreaming but he has to find a way back a.s.a.p . They can't leave Scarabia just on their own and everyone (including Kalim's Dad) must be really stressed out by now . He continues to look , but there isn't really anything helpful around them . People yelling at each other and smoking the shit out of themselves . Young ladies flirting as young men offer them a carriage ride and tourists staring at each and every building like they hadn't ever seen a place to live inside as if they've been living in a cave so far , huh

Jamil can no longer take it next to Kalim and eventually goes feral : " WOULD YOU JUST SHUT UP !!?" He has no control over his words now , he's nervous , furious and freaked out . If he were to compare his mood to something similar he'd say the time he overblotted , just that he had his magic back then

Now Kalim as well gets into a fight with him . What the hell does this have to do with him ? Jamil has to calm down and be realistic unless they'll never find a way out ! Jamil states that if he grew up just enough to realize how terrible their current situation is , he would've had something better to do than showing mercy over some bunches of street rats

The two of them keep on arguing until someone cuts them of : " Hohoho young men ! What's with all these loud sounds ?"

They stop and turn back to face the source of this old , chill voice . Facing a tall , old man dressed in all black clothes which high-leveled servants would wear and a monocle , giving them a soft , calm smile

" Aa- nevermind grandps ! It wasn't like it seemed we were just talking ! Right Jamily ? " he says , putting a hand on Jamil's shoulder and giving a big , wide smile . "H-hey... don't call me that..." , Jamil doesn't like Kalim acting this chill ; but it is embarrassing to see that they actually called attention

"Hoho , better . Now tell me young men , could it be that you have a trouble ? You look awfully down ," Tanaka asks ; sounding just like a grandfather guiding his grandchildren

Kalim takes a look at Jamil , wondering if it's right to do what he's thinking of and Jamil in return , nods as a yes " Well sir , there you see we actually don't belong here yet to another-" Jamil cuts him off before he could mess the whole thing up : " -Another state , indeed ! We came here for some sort of a business trip and were supposed to be on our way back home by now but sadly , ran into thieves . Our families must be really worried for now and I doubt them being sure of us being hooked up here . We lost everything and have no way to contact anyone we know... only if someone nice enough could be found to help us with it right now ," Jamil dropped his head , trying to act as natural as possible . Kalim wants to remind him that this isn't right to lie someone who is trying to help them yet he wonders if he should let Jamil take care of this now , after all he was much of a worthier leader than him to be honest...

" That's so sad to hear dear boy , I'm sure that young master as well would've been really frustrated if he were here ," Tanaka replies . Oh ? Young master ?  Jamil is now interested . Wherever this man came from , it can't be somewhere cheap , Jamil could tell . Leading them to a mightier source would be a better thing than just laying in the streets waiting for some miracle to save them right ? " Young master , you say ? " Kalim asks . " On the second thought , how about me introducing you to my master ? You're not much older than him I suppose , he as well needs to have more friends like you good men  ," Tanaka says with a sweet smile . " That'll be so nice of you um , Mr...? " Jamil asks " Tanaka is fine young boys . And you? "  " Jamil Viper ," " Kalim al Asim ! Glad to meet you Tanaka sir ! " Kalim says , bringing his hand for Tanaka to shake . Tanaka shakes hands with both of them and Jamil decides to make the process a bit faster : " I look forward to meeting this young master you say , Mr. Tanaka . It's always great to meet more men of culture ," Jamil sneakers . " Then by all means , follow me young men ," Tanaka says . With a sound of pop and some smoke , the tall man shrinks into a chibi version : " Ho , ho , ho ," " What the-!!!" Kalim panicks , no magic and yet this dude can shrink all of a sudden huh ?

" Ho ho," chibi Tanaka says before turning back and going to another direction . " I guess we should follow him," Jamil says . Kalim agrees and then , they're both following the chibi old man to the Phantomhive's mansion . Unaware of the two eyes watching them all this time : " Hihihi ~ they're quite interesting ,"

Feat : Grell Sutcliff & Ronald Knox

"Come oooon Ronald~ Shake your lazy ass and bring her along already..." " Oi senpai , that's mean ! This one's quite heavy-" "JUST SHUT UP AND DO THAT ! Don't you know it's rude to question ladies too much ? " " F-fine then , but at least give me a hand ! Have you even checked if she's dead !? " Heavy ? Dead ? She...? Vil isn't born to be disrespected like this . AND NOT A SINGLE SOUL GETS TO PULL HIM BY LEG WHEN HE'S ASLEEP

Vil immediately starts shouting at the Blondie , threating him that he'll regret it if he doesn't let go of him now . Ronald and Grell almost have a heart attack at Vil's chicken like screech which makes them jump

Vil snads up and glares at the two shinigamis : A really ugly female like one all dressed in red and a small blondie brat which looks like...eh..Azul ? Well nevermind ; doesn't matter now

What should he begin with ? Where he is ? Who these potatoes are and how they didn't recognize him being the leader of Pomefiore ? How perky they were to move him while asleep like this and ruin fabric of his overly expensive unforms ? Too many things to do

" Ah you're too loud ! My ears...Such an unexpected shout to hear from a man this hot I'd say..." Grell giggles . Vil's eyes widen , well of course he is beautiful but to be praised like that ? Ew , this is more of a insult ...

Vil decides to ignore Grell and get to the main point : Who they were and what they wanted . Grell smirks before preparing to give a 5 hour long opera show of shinigamis' romance but Ronald locks him on that point : They are shinigamis , they collect souls of the death , they had grabbed Vil because he looked a bit like the woman they were just going to collect yet didn't pay enough of attention to notice that they made a mistake , so they can all leave since they've got nothing to do with each other

Just before Ronald could get away Vil grabs him by collar , asking where they've brought him to . Grell clears that they just moved him by 30-40 meters from where they found him so it can't be really counted as bringing him to somewhere . Vil refuses to believe , wherever he is , it's way further than Pomefiore dorm or even NRC's accessable area ; that can't be . Vil threatens them one more time : " You refuse to tell , you'll end up dealing with the headmaster ," Grell and Ronald probably don't know who the headmaster is but Grell tries to take advantage : "Aaa? Is he one into punishing type ?" Vil is slowly getting annoyed by how weird this red one sounds to him ; To be honest he acts like an impatient porn star or something...

That's it , he's calling Crowley but uh , where is his phone ? Did he lose it ? Impossible . He'll never forget such an important thing to bring along ... Did these brats dare to steal his pockets....!? Vil asks them to give his phone and wallet back : now " Sir , you may like to know that human money brings no good for us and also , I'm afraid that I don't really know what you may mean by phone? " Ronald mumbles (Remember that phone isn't yet invited at their time ). Why don't this guy just let them go take care of their business ?

Vil hates it when people dare opposing him and doesn't ever take that lightly...who do these two think they are ? " Where is Night Raven College , answer or you'll face unpleasant consequences..." Is Vil challenging Grell ? Then Grell's more than ready to see what this human may have up his slave to speak to a shinigami like this : " And what may the consequences be...?" Vil gets tired , a small spell and this red ass bitch would be nothing but a toad , " I tried to warn you , you should've listened..."

Ahem , hello ? Magic ? Why isn't it working ? " Pffffffftttt- Lmao are you high or something man ? You just woke up !You'll be a great actor though I swear- You can drown in all that nonsense ," Grell laughs . " Well then hottie , I'm afraid we've got to go , see you when it's your time ~ " Grell turns to leave but Vil grabs him by collar . No one is leaving until they explain what the actual heck is going on : this place , the magic , everything

Grell on the other hand enjoyed flirting , but can't take being acted to like this . He pushes Vil back and gives him a psychotic smile , bringing up his chainsaw : " Wouldn't it be amazing if I cut those rushy tongue of yours at once ? fewer words , more of a male charm ," "Oh ?" magic may not work here , but they're not all Vil has got , he can still give this bitch guy a lesson without them : " Oi you two , this isn't really gonna workout-" Ronald mumbles but it's too late now -

Feat : Undertaker

At least he wakes up to a more suitable scene , or it seems so - His body couldn't move freely inside of this cage-like space . Is this a cuffin...? He has experience with them from his freshman year but to end up in one of them again ? Could it be that Crowley is planning on another fancy event like their first time ? Boy , he didn't like it anyway . He knocks the door trying to open it but if seems too heavy to be moved . Damnit- , he hears footsteps from the outside : " Someone there ? Why can't I open this ??" A sudden screech from out and the door slides open : " Ah thank yoUWAHAAAA- !!" Idia screams at the sight of the creepy stranger's smile at him ; he wasn't expecting this . Also , this place doesn't look like the mirror hall ? Who is this guy and where is this place ??

" Hihihi you weren't that dead I see , why waking up so soon though~ ?" , Undertaker giggles in his playful tone . Idia needs too many things to be explained to him but he just doesn't have the time , Crewel will burn him in acid if he gets any late for his class again and he doesn't care how weird his current situation is , he has to go

He gets out of the coffin and rushes to the door but Undertaker stops him there telling him not to show up out there so carelessly , which clearly confuses Idia . " Your hair...It is quite fascinating that curses remain strong even as magic gets blocked..." Undertaker adds . Idia is used to people judging him for his family misfortune but this one seemed quite...odd . He decides to ignore it and leave

" ~ Okies then I warned you , but you'll end up needing a real cuffin in a few minutes pwahahaaa-" , Undertaker burts into laughter and Idia leaves

" creepy ass old ma-" , Idia nags slowly before freezing as someone screams really-loudly right into his ears " HAIR ON FIRE , HIS HAIR IS ON FIRE !!" Before Idia can notice what is going on he's gained tens of gazes to himself , why are these guys all dressed so strangely...

" M-mummy is that a monster ? I'm scared..." " Stay away from our children you hellish creature ! " Idia freezes , critiques coming one after one : Demon , monster , Satan , Death . One option left : Run

Idia now has to run for his life , this world just isn't his thing : not at all . Even if it weren't because of being chased by a group of angry humans , do you think that he could last for even one day in this old fashioned zone ? No technology , no phones , no robots , no gummy bears , no wifi- He'd read about how different the world was before the invention of media and couldn't explain how thankful he was to never have to handle a second in the past world because he wouldn't last there for more than an hour- well he wasn't right about never ending up there but , he was 100% right about not lasting for more than an hour

Now there , he is running like he never has , begging his feet to help him this time out of any other time . Angry people screaming and bringing fire and weapons to destroy the evil

He tries to contact any possible source for help but : No magic - no internet . RIP Idia

Meanwhile Undertaker is chilling at his shop , his mind running over the cursed boy and now listening to the sound of the frightened people because of him , how pathetic , If only he had agreed to hide his hair through a safer way...sigh he should have listened to advises coming from someone who has been living within humans for years by hiding his identity as a shinigami as as his eyes... " My my , humans aren't the only fragile creatures I see..." creation can seem disturbing to him sometimes , and that's the best part with it

Back to Idia , he is slowly running out of breath . Well maybe this is the point where he has to give up ? He has long lived as a loser , bastard , procrastinator and wasted almost each and every second of his life ; well perhaps except Ortho , that was a nice work of him . Wish he was here too say goodbye .  He isn't sure if his prayers would be accepted or not but it won't hurt trying : " Good gods who're told to be somewhere up there , I know that I wasn't best that I could be and I won't try to excuse my sins ; just please let it end fast, Ame- " he forgets his prayers as his guardian angel is standing just a few meters away from him ; oh have gods sent an identical twin - human version of Leona for him to be saved ? Well whatever now , he has no time if he's the original furry or not : "LEONAAAA HELLP-!!!!!!"

And yes , he is the original one ! He curses as he sees the population after Idia , what the hell is wrong with this world ? Idia hides behind his back and Leona tries to take control before they end up burning the two of them together : " You people , chill ," " Why you defending that creature ? He a a misfortune ! A demon !" others shout at this words in agreement . Leona laughs it off . He says that Idia is way too dumb for a demon and even if he is one , he's the type to scream his ass off when someone says "hi" . Idia doesn't know if Leona's defending him or not but he doesn't dare saying a word . Leona seems too busy dealing with the crowd and slowly , the argument topic switches from Idia to Leona ; who isn't afraid of punching some faces . The argument slowly takes over and no one (even Leona) realizes Idia sneaking into an alley saving his life . He feels a bit guilty for leaving Leona on his own but he'll be fine , hopefully

Thankfully the alley is deserted and he finally lays down to catch his breath , still panting heavily . He almost got killed today and can't get over it , but things were getting a bit comforting : "Meow~" several cats show up from the corners and Idia puts on a small smile . A white kittens comes closer and allows Idia to touch and comfort him . Idia wonders , how does their lives as a cat here feels ? do they as well get as scared as he was just now?  . A few minutes later when Idia -and his cats- were chilling someone steps closer to them  . Before Idia gets to run away , a tall , black and familiar face shows up and gives him a pretty calm smirk : " My my , I see you as well adore cats, could it be some part of our hellish natures ?"

"...J-Jade...?"

Feat : Ciel Phantomhive & Sebastian Michaelis

Let us be honest , it isn't going to be that bad for him , is it ? His current lifestyle at Valley of the thorns is nothing less than London's late 19th century , just maybe it had more of a natural theme . Well , no technology can be good news since he never really get used to it after all . London's atmosphere as well seem to be just his thing : Sometimes savage but calm , filled with tea parties and great ceremonies , an interesting back ground toward the royal family and in summary , Malleus's ideal theme

Well maybe except some things : 1) HORNS-ARE-GONE . His family treasure , the great heritage that proved him coming from the all great and respected Draconia family , now is gone 2) No need to mention that there is no sight of his fairy ears either- 3) Having his magic lost in this unknown world , he is now nothing different from a fragile human being , just as weak , just as empty , just as disgusting . Oh but our prince isn't totally left on his own here...

Unexpectedly , Phantomhive's mansion is serving a mysterious guest today , even though Ciel was against letting strangers inside the house . Sebastian insisted on being aware of the importance of hospitality as the Queen's watch dog , specially with special guests

Everything seems odd to Malleus , this world , this time , this people and...this master and butler . He is no fool , not even the foolishest of these humans would treat and cater strangers without wanting something in return , therefore he needs to keep his guard up . They shouldn't be aware of his actual identity even if they look deprived of any magic

Ciel is feeling awfully uncomfortable , who is this man ? And what the heck about him might have caught Sebastian's eyes ? This greedy demon wouldn't easily be impressed , so what could it be ?

Sebastian insists that it's how he should learn to treat everyone else if he's willing to be well remembered after death ; he pronounces the last word in a pretty deep , dark tone . Making it clear that how he'll finally die in a sarcastic way which teased Ciel

He decides not to have any argues with Sebastian on that point since he can act pretty cocky with stuff he gets stubborn over , so let's see what he's hiding up in sleeve this time . Though Ciel is suspicious of other stuff as well , this Mr... -whatever he is since he doesn't give them a name- looks like a pale - greenish version of Sebastian . Could he be another demon..?

Malleus refuses to give them a name due to possible risks , yet he has to admit that he's being taken care of properly . The room he's given isn't as big as the one in his castle , but is still considerable for something a stranger would be given . Other than that , anyone else he's met here so far seemed to be pretty chill , oh except this tiny child with a blindfold and he gets to be called young master ? He has to admit that he's impressed . To be in control of all this property when you aren't yet even tall enough to pick your favorite book from the shelf on your own

And there is another guy who is really...how to explain , is it some feeling of deja Vu or he really does look like Silver ? The guy is always talking to the snakes just as Silver talks to the birds and animals . If it weren't because of difference in eye color , perhaps Malleus wouldn't believe that he wasn't Sliver himself . " Your stay won't last much longer master , your friends are on their way here , says Donne ," Snake tells him . Malleus doesn't really know how to feel about him but his words comfort him for some reason...

Ciel says that he needs to check on the trio since they've been calling him all day so he heads to the front yard , leaving Sebastian and Malleus alone

Sebastian offers him some tea and Malleus of course sees no reason to refuse . Sebastian doesn't sit beside him because it's arrogant of servants to sit beside the guests , so he remains stood up . He doesn't bother starting a conversation with Malleus and he does know how to get him to speak . Malleus doesn't mind answering to...some of his questions . How he likes it here in London , if he needs anything else during his stay , but the last question made his eyes widen : Does he do feel any uncomfortable under the terms of not being able to use his powers ?

Malleus doesn't answer , he pretends that he didn't hear him and stares at the window . He is hoping it to help him ignore Sebastian , but what he sees isn't any better :  Isn't that... Rosehearts laying there...??

Malleus has to go , not only because of getting rid of Sebastian at this point but to also check on his ally if he's alright or not :  Did the butler know he too was here all the time ?

Sebastian just knows what was going on in his mind and wants  better answers . Malleus stands up to leave but Sebastian takes grabs his arm before he could do anything : " No need to rush . We still have a lot to talk about , Mr. Draconia ,"

♦♥♠♣

Note for Idia's part : I was actually planning on Idea having his hair as well gone because , well , no magic no hair ? But that seemed too unfair for him lol

[venomous-ko]

Wine Drunk while watching Godzilla vs Kong

Some major spoilers up ahead!

Mans really just annoyed the shit out of his coworker until he left so he could hack shit, huh?...I love it! 🤣🤣

——————————————

You mean to tell me that the explanation for why Godzilla attacked the one tech company site by the dude who studied Kaiju communication and behavior for a living is just, “sometimes people (and creatures) change”???? Like some dumbass justifying a toxic person/relationship??? Like excuse me???? Why are the literal teenagers making more sense than you?????

Also, we’re all in agreement that this facility is either housing Ghidora’s dead head, Mecha Godzilla, or Mecha Ghidora, right?!?

——————————————

Lol! “Apex Cybernetics!” That’s not foreshadowing! 🤣

——————————————

Apparently, I didn’t get my fill of white nonsense from Falcon and Winter Soldier, bc someone decided to put this blonde-hair-blue-eyed little bitch in charge! That’s not ganna go wrong somehow. 🙃😑👀

Like this bitch literally wanted to send a fucking child into unexplored hollow earth territory without a second thought! 🙃🙃🙃🙃 I was literally like 🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕 for that entire convo.

——————————————

I’m sorry! This conspiracy man just met these teenagers, and his first impulse was, “yeah, theses seem like some good people to break into a tech conglomerate with!” 🤣🤣🤣🤣

——————————————

Why are these people surprised Kong knows sign language? These are people who study Kaiju (and presumably other animals in order to draw conclusions about certain behaviors) for a fucking living!!! We have primate species that recognize and communicate in sign language already! Why is this surprising???!?! Like...has NO ONE except this precious child tried this????

Also, nothing bad better happen to this child.

——————————————

That ship literally fucked around, and Godzilla let it find out! Lmao!

——————————————

Kong: Hey, Godzilla...look at me...

Godzilla: >:[

Kong: ...bitch.

——————————————

Precious girl: Thank you, friend 🧏🏽‍♀️

Kong: ☺️😴

THIS GIRL IS TOO PRECIOUS!!!!

——————————————

Bitch-ass White Man: How’s Kong with heights?

BITCH, you really ganna try that?!?! You really think you ganna find any aircraft(s) that are ganna be able to support all that weight?? Never mind any other problems with Kong trying to nope the fuck out of that situation and all kind of other hosts of problems!

And if you do somehow have one (or multiple) WHY TF DIDN’T YOU USE THAT BEFORE KNOWING FULL AND WELL YOU RAN THE RISK OF GODZILLA MERCING KONG’S ASS IF YOU TRAVELED VIA SHIP!?!?!?!

——————————————

Down the Hell Naw tunnel we go!

——————————————

“I think it’s romantic,”

I fucking love Millie Bobbie Brown’s character!! 🤣❤️🤣

——————————————

WHY IS THIS TEENAGER SMARTER THAN EVERYBODY OMG!!!!! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

——————————————

“This is page one in the ‘Playing God’ handbook, right?”

I’ve decided I love this character! 🤣

——————————————

WHY YOU GETTING INSIDE THAT THING—Oh god! 😨 Why y’all got eggs!?!? This is like if Weyland-Yutani succeeded in getting Xenomorphs! 😬

——————————————

Oop! Locked in! THIS IS WHY YOU DON’T HIDE OUT IN MYSTERIOUS ROOMS!!!!

——————————————

Oh shit! Apex Cybernetics think they on that Wakanda shit now!

Also, why was that one Apex Cybernetics bitch bitching about how one of those HEAV crafts could power Vagas for a week if y’all clearly have a whole network or transportation using this tech!

And I never understood how tech companies kept that shit to world domination shit! Build a public transportation system with that shit! Boss man said he likes ideas that make him rich! Pretty sure that would do the trick!

——————————————

WINE BREAK!!!

Saving the rest of the last bottle for coking Gumbo, so gotta open up a new bottle

——————————————

Aw, Kong is so sick of this bullshit! 😂😭

——————————————

“It’s not working”

Bruh! Give it more that two seconds!

——————————————

HOW DARE Y’ALL USE KONG’S LOSS AGAINST HIM!!!! HOW DARE Y’ALL!!!

——————————————

HEAV go Brrrrrrr Shoooooooooooom!!!!

——————————————

LMAO!!! Monarch has their own brand of bottled water!?!?! Idk why that amuses me so much!

——————————————

This hallow earth portal thing is some Pacific Rim bullshit right here, lol!

——————————————

NYOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM

——————————————

Are we...are we really Ice Age: Dawn of Dinosaur-ing this shit rn??? 😂😂😂

——————————————

“It’s beautiful,”

Of course it’s beautiful! No hoomins have touched it! Lol

——————————————

Y’ALL GOT FUCKIN DRAGONS IN THIS BITCH!?!?!?!!! 8D YO!!! SIGN ME THE FUCK UP!!!!

——————————————

*marvels at the creature creation ideas*

——————————————

Kong’s first thought: *nom the dragon guts*

——————————————

THE ROCK HAND OMG IM GANNA CRY!!! 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 It’s the same gesture the Precious Girl did OMG!!!!

——————————————

“We going in?”

“Yeah”

The BALLS on this child!

——————————————

“AAAAHH 😐”

*fear*

LMAO!!!!! I’M FUCKIN WHEEZING!!!

——————————————

“Sacrifice Pit”

OMG 🤣🤣🤣

——————————————

I KNEW IT!!!! MECHA-GODZILLA MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!!!! 8DDDDD

——————————————

YO PACIFIC RIM RAN SO MECHA-GODZILLA COULD FUCKIN SPRINT!!!!!!!!

——————————————

YO IT’S A GOOD THING I AIN’T SEEING THIS IN THEATERS BC I’D BE FLIPPING MY SHIT!!!!

——————————————

“Humanity, once again, will be the apex species,”

THERE it is!

——————————————

Why Mecha-Godzilla so skeeny?!? He need ta be thicc if he ganna take down REAL Godzilla!

——————————————

*Ryan Bergera conspiracy voice* Is this the real reason Kong was contained!? So this douche could snatch up Skull Crawlers without Kong intervention???

——————————————

OH SHIT!!! I think this thing is emitting alpha waves (or whatever we’re calling it) and THAT’s what set Godzilla off!!! He fought Ghidorah, heard this shit and went, “Nu-uh, bitch! NOT AGAIN!!!”

——————————————

Monarch dude: Yo, Godzilla’s headed to Hong Kong for some reason?

FUCKIN CALLED IT!!!

——————————————

This look like the door to fuckin General Grievous’s lair,da fuq?!? 🤣🤣🤣

 ——————————————

I got waaay too emotional over that handprint, y’all! 😭😭😭

——————————————

Y’all, the fucking art history major in me is fuckin screaming at this temple scene! The fact that some of these Kaiju not only had the urge and drive and capacity to build a fucking temple around this power source or some shit and create weapons like the axe that Kong just fucking Excalibured the shit out of that one skull crawler’s skull fucking implies the fact that there is intelligent civilization amongst these fucking Kaiju and all that shit! I want to know more about this shit! Take that you fucking racist-ass white historian motherfuckers!

(Note: I definitely needed to use talk to text for much of this bit, because there was no way I was going to be able to contain all my excitement in just typing, alone, lmao)

——————————————

BRUH!!! Why y’all exiting g the HEAV without no breathing apparatus or lead suits or nothing!?!?! In previous movies, y’all implied that these Kaiju lived in environments in which their environments were hella radioactive compared to our own!!!

——————————————

Kong is s the true heir to the iron throne, Lmao!

——————————————

FUCKING CALLED IT!!!! THEY HAD GHIDORA’S REMAINS IN THERE SOMEWHERE!!!!

——————————————

OH FUCK!!!! Y’ALL AINT JUST SENDING OUT ALPHA VIBES WITH YOUR MECHA-GODZILLA!!!! YOU SOMEHOW USING GHIDORA’S HIVE MIND OR TELEPATHY SHIT TO DO IT!?!?!?! AAAWWWWW SHEEEEEET!!! Y’ALL ARE BONED NOW!!!! FUCKIN BONEROWNED!!!!

——————————————

Godzilla! My bruh! My dude! You didn’t HAVE TO get up right where that bridge was!!! 😂😂 Ya douche bag!!!

——————————————

At the same time, tho, I can just hear him going, “Ah! FUCK! NOT AGAIN!!! Sunova bitch!! Motherfuckin!! STOP BUILDING sHIT SO DAMN HIGH!!! Goddammit!”

——————————————

You know, with all the Bright twinkly lights in Hong Kong, I can’t help but think of the sequel to the original Gojira movie ( that I can’t remember the title of ,rn) where he was fucking triggered by fucking lights. And I wonder if this little scene where he’s stomping all through Hong Kong is a tribute to that or whatever. But I’m probably overthinking it.

[Sober Edit: it was Godzilla Raids Again]

——————————————

*GASP* HOLY SIHIIIT!!! The axe is made out of Godzilla skute!?!?! GOLY BALLS THAT’S NOT ONLY COOL BUT CONTRIBUTES MORE TO THE FACT THAT THESE KAIJU (likely Kong’s species, in particular) WERE REALLY FUCKING INTELLIGENT AMD TJOUGHT, “Imma beat this muthafucka with their own spiky thing! Bc that’s what screws us over, so, why WOULD’nt it hurt them!?!” I need SO MUCH MORE of this Kaiju/Kong culture studied and shit! HOLY FUCK!!!

It even fucking glows!! Like ... they managed to fucking piece together that its glow was a fucking warning sign like Sting or some shit!!!! Holy fuck!!!!

Also, how does that work? How are the skutes still connected even after dismemberment???

 ——————————————

NO FUCKIN WAY WRE YOU—AAAAAAAAHHH!!! Excalibur that shit my boi!!!!

——————————————

I FUCKIN LOVE YHIS MOVIE HOLY SHIT!!!

——————————————

“ that’s Apex property now,”

Excuse me bitch! Are we really not gonna listen to the scientist who saying “hey we don’t understand the shit out of this fucking power! Maybe we should hold off on taking some fucking samples!”

Are we really just gonna ignore that shit???????

 ——————————————

Kong said: TRY ME BITCH!!!!

——————————————

Oh thank the GODS this Serizawa dude is taking precautions like his old man! Also, what is his relation to Ken Watanabe’s Serizawa!?!?!

——————————————

UH OH!! SOLDIER DUDES GETTIN ATE!!!

——————————————

OH SHIT!!! PILOT JUST GOT ATE!!! FUCKIN DRAGON BASEMENT UP IN THIS SHIT!!!

——————————————

BITCH YOU REALLY GON THROW A ROCK AT IT!!! FUCKIN NONSENSE OF THIS BITCH!!!

——————————————

LOVE AND FITE ME ENERGY IS STORED IN THE ATOMIC BREATH

——————————————

“Shoot him!”

WHY!!!???!! He literally had NO problem with you before then!!!

——————————————

Why does white man who don’t know anything about this vehicle suddenly know how to pilot this shit!???!?!!!!!

 ——————————————

Y’all love had SO MUCH wine!

——————————————

The FUCK this dude got a flip flop phone for!!!?!????!!!?

Da fuq!?!?! 🤣🤣🤣🤣 yeah that’s the most unrealistic part of this entire fucking movie! Not the fuckin Kaiju robots. Not the fucking hollow earth bullshit! The fucking flip phone! LMFAO!!!!

——————————————

“Maintenance! I’M MAINTENANCE!!! This bitch ain’t buying it”

That made me laugh WAY FUCKIN harder that it should have!!!!

——————————————

Y’all really ganna try to shoot at a kid!?! REALLY!?!?!??!

——————————————

GAWD, I’m so glad I impulse bought these oatmeal bites from Dominos! 🤤😋

[Sober Edit: I have no idea how my autocorrect managed to convert “Parmesan” to “oatmeal,” but okay! 😆😅]

——————————————

Kong be like, “Hey, bitch!!! You lookin’ for me!?!?”

——————————————

Find you a partner that bites your neck like Godzilla does! Lmao!

Sorry, I’ll be crawling back into my hell hole, now.

——————————————

EAT YOUR FOOKIN VEGETABLES GODZILLA!!!!!

——————————————

Did Godzilla just axe throw with his fuckin teefs!!!????!?!?!

——————————————

THIS IS THE FOOKIN MONSTER VS MONSTER FIGHTS IVE BEEN CRAVING SINCE KING OF THE MONSTERS HOLY SHIT!!!!

——————————————

“Really? Groupies, again?”

First of all, again!?! What happened last time???

Secondly, where tf are YOUR grpupies, asshole! No need to judge! Ya cunt!

——————————————

“There can only be one alpha,”

Really! You really gotta bring your toxic masculinity into a fuckin monster fight, my dude!?!

——————————————

Kong said, “Yeet! YEET SELF!!!”

——————————————

I am living for the feral fight scenes!!!!

——————————————

Kong’s expression , tho! 🤣🤣🤣

Like, “Can you ducking NOT, Godzilla?!? Can you, like, fucking chill??!!? Aight, fine! ASDASHKLSDJKLDZJL ADKLKDZDJ!!!!!!”

——————————————

Awwwww! Godzilla let Kong go, bc he knows what it’s like to be the last of his species! 🥺🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭😭

——————————————

“This is how we [...] win!”

Oh, honey, you ‘bout to die! Lmao! 😂

——————————————

Oh god! I knew he was going to use the sign for “coward” at the most inappropriate time! Lmao! At least the Precious Girls is smart enough to know what Dumbass White Man means, lol

——————————————

Oh, thank god we do t see this dumbass in any sequels!

——————————————

Dammit, he escaped!

——————————————

This girl is too good!

——————————————

Did y’all really think you were ganna break into a semi-sentient Mecha-Godzilla by GUESSING ITS FUCKING PASSWORD!!?!?!?!!!!???? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

——————————————

YEAH!!!! TEAM-UP COMING THROUGH!!!!!

——————————————

“I was hoping to die with adults, but that’s okay,”

🤣🤣🤣

——————————————

“I’VE GOT TO DIE WITB YOU AND SOBER!!?!?!”

GOD, I love this movie!!!!

——————————————

OOOOOOHHHH HOLY SHIT!!!!! 😱😱😱😱😱 He powering up the axe!!!!!

——————————————

YOOOOOO KONG WENT PREDATOR/YOUTJA ON MECHA-GODZILLA’s ASS!!!!

——————————————

Kong said, “I’m done, y’all! Imma take a nap!”

——————————————

“Dad. Uh...Bernie.”

I fucking love Bernie!!! 😂😂😂😂

——————————————

JIA NOOOO!!! Don’t go running between two disgruntled Kaiju bby!!

——————————————

Yo, why do monsters have less toxic masculinity than we do??? Lol!

——————————————

Yaaaaaay! Kong has a new home!!

——————————————

WELP!!! I fucking loved this movie, and I highly recommend it to everyone!!!

[samiii-p]

miss temptation (I don’t think you know) 1/?

aka The Maryan Roommate AU no one asked for 🙃 ao3

“You need a home address by next week or I’m writing you up.”

Fuck

Scratching an 'X' over another available apartment listing in the newspaper, Ryan grunts, blacking it out in her frustration. This one was her last true option within her price range and it was about the size of a walk-in closet with a communal bathroom to boot.

And no, just no. God no.

At least the last one had a view. It was a brick wall of the neighboring apartment but one nonetheless.

“You know for someone who needed this job, you sure don’t look the part.”

Sucking her teeth, Ryan glances up from her troubles, spots Luke in his custom three piece suit, grumbles and glances back at the paper where the only options left cost an arm and a leg to stay. Gotham wasn’t cheap by any stretch of the imagination, but selling her organs on a monthly basis just to get by didn’t seem all that appealing either.

“What do you want, Luke?”

“Can’t a guy just stop by?”

“Sure.” Ryan says, flipping the newspaper to the next page, maybe she could find something outside of town. The commute would be hell, but at least she’d have an address and her parole officer would finally get off her back. “I take it that’s not what you’re here for though.”

She hears him harrumph and nothing else. He does it a second later, again … and again.

“Okay, how can I help you?” She asks, sliding her current issues down the counter. Another 18 months in jail won’t hurt, let alone leaving the city in shambles when Batwoman disappears again .

Luke tilts his chin, hard line forming between his brows, a look Ryan has grown accustomed to over the past few weeks. Even though he’s apologized and promised to give her a chance until Kate’s return, there's still a tiny bit of friction lying beneath the surface no matter how much they both try to ignore it.

Reaching into his breast pocket he unearths a photo and slides it across the bar into Ryan’s line of vision. A picture of a black mask, outlined like a skeleton, stares up at her with cold hard eyes. In the corner a coiled snake is drawn with Luke’s handwriting underneath.

Snakebite - fear toxin/mushrooms

“Um, who or what am I looking at?”

He thumps the photo twice. “I was hoping you could tell me. You said you run in similar circles-”

“- ran.”

“As Victor Zsasz, I was hoping you could tell me a little about our friend here.”

“Sorry to tell you this but, no.” She pushes off the bar with a huff, nodding at the photo. “Whoever this person is, is new in town. At least to me.”

“Yeah, well his snakebite is hitting the streets like a plague and no one knows its source. There’s only this photo as a possible supplier but there’s no name, no facial recognition, no origin or leaks, no nothing.”

“So what do we do?”

“You suit up.”

Heat signature enabled, Ryan takes a look around the abandoned building noting two low level street hands Luke identifies as TJ Pillar: 1 to 3 strike for armed robbery and Curtis Armstrong: out on parole for possession.

“Come on, dude.”

She totally gets how uneasy it is to get back on your feet after spending a little over a year incarcerated but at least try to do better.

“What?” Luke asks through the coms, Ryan ignores him, scouting more of the building. It’s been over an hour and nothing. They wouldn’t be here if no one was coming but it’s growing closer to midnight and she has to be back at work at nine.

“Can’t I just bring them in? It’s late.”

“I mean you could, but it’ll be a waste of time. The guys on the street don’t know anything except to wait for the drop here.”

“And we couldn’t call in Gotham PD or the Crows for surveillance because..?”

“Hey, you wanted the job, this is what it entails.”

Behind the mask, Ryan’s eyes roll, mocking this is what the job entails meh meh, like she's a child grounded for the night, which, all things considered…

“Besides, it’s not like you have anything better to do.”

“Okay! Okay!” Over the coms, Ryan hears hushed voices arguing, a muffled ‘no’ then the sound of chairs being switched, Luke’s voice replaced by Mary’s, “heeey, girl. How ya’ doing?”

She smirks, attitude vanishing the moment the heiress speaks. Call it a general preference to all things sans-Luke based but she’d one hundred present rather talk to Mary until the butt crack of dawn instead of Mr. Kate would do it like this and Kate would do it like that. For starters Mary’s a lot nicer. Calmer. Funnier, I mean the girl’s one liners are top tier, bone tickling funny.

And well, she was a hell of a lot prettier too.

“Oh, you know, just pulling an all-nighter right before my day shift.”

A hiss sounds dramatically over the intercoms, the image of Mary’s twisted face pops up and Ryan can almost see the apple of her cheeks bunching and her eyes closing in that cute ass scrunchy face she makes when she’s thinking hard or embarrassed clear as day.

“Don’t worry about it, you can always come in later.”

“You enable her by making exceptions.”

“Luke!”

“What!?”

More muffled noises, a bang and yelp later Mary comes back on. “What I was getting at is that if you want to come in a little bit late, it’s totally fine or we can even change your schedule to mid-day, as your boss and fellow bat accomplice, I would totally understand.”

The corner of Ryan lips quirks up, “you don’t have to do that.”

“I do. We don’t know for sure how long you’ll be out tonight. Coming in afterwards is going to be draining-”

“It’ll be draining for all of us.” Luke yells.

“Shh!”

Unfortunately, Luke has a point. It's not fair on the team if she’s the only one taking the easy way out when they all have lives and responsibilities outside of the cave to adhere to, and a mid-day shift would never work anyway. Mid-day is Officer Steven’s favorite time of day to intrude on Ryan’s life.

“No that’s okay,” Ryan says, “Luke’s right. I have to put on my big girl panties and suck it up like everyone else, besides, I’m going to be too busy selling body parts for an overpriced cardboard box in the foreseeable future or it's a one way ticket back to Black Gate-”

“Wait, what-?”

“Oh, hold up.” An engine alerts Ryan to an incoming vehicle speeding into the warehouse disrupting their conversation. “We got action.”

Censors pick up on a lone body inside, facial recognition scanners kick on and work to identify the driver’s profile as well as the car’s make, model design, vehicle number and license plate number are all shot over to home base for further analysis. She twitches them off once complete just in time to see a window roll down and a hand throw two duffle bags out the window before speeding off.

“Did we get anything?”

A beat passes before Mary’s back on, “Not yet. Gotham PD and the Crows database has no facial identification, Luke’s expanding the search but the car is unmarked, plates false, even the tires vin numbers have been scrubbed. Whoever this person is, really doesn’t want to be found.”

From Ryan’s personal experience, news like that is never good. Someone that deep undercover either has a checkbook large enough to make themselves disappear or an iron grip so ruthless the utter mention of their name is probable cause for permanent removal. This was going to be harder than any of them expected.

“Keep me posted.”

Kicking off the beam she leaps down sticking another perfect grand entrance; hoping the acclaimed symbol printed on her chest will be enough to scare off the bad guys for once.

She is really tired after all.

Unfortunately, Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dumb both reach for guns, shooting before she can warn them to stand down. And there goes her ‘early’ night. Figures.

“Ya’ll know I’m fucking bullet proof, right?”

Another bullet ricochets off the suit as she takes a step forward. Idiots. Surprisingly they keep at it until the clip clinks, empty, and Ryan comes face to face with Curtis who tries throwing a punch she easily ducks, coming back up to head butt him so hard his knees crumple. His coworker steps up and he’s a bit more of a challenge throwing blow for blow with her until she ducks up under him and comes back with a roundhouse kick to his Adams apple. He clutches his windpipe, now down on one knee she delivers the final blow to the bridge of his nose.

She picks up the bags and hightails it out of there, latching onto a high beam for an easy escape, and heads towards G.C.P.D where she drops the contraband with a note attached of where they can find the assailants tied up and ready for arrest.

“Why didn’t you tell me you’re homeless!?”

Ryan wonders if disrupting her day as a civilian was going to become normal protocol for Luke and Mary going forward and on a recurring basis.

“I wouldn’t say homeless.”

“How else would you classify living out of your van down by the docks?”

“Surviving on wheels – ow!” Ryan giggles, rubbing her shoulder and doesn’t know whether to cower or soothe the frustrating scowl rapidly spreading across her friend’s face. “How’d you find out?”

“I had Luke track you after you left last night.”

“Wow, talk about invasion of privacy.”

“And for good reason, why didn’t you say anything?”

Ryan flips an empty glass, dries it out before placing it on the rack and considers how to move the conversation forward, possibly far, far away from this topic all together. The best she comes up with is, “it’s handled.”

Handled ends up being a 200 square feet one room apartment Mary demands to see. The bedroom, kitchen and living room are all one in the same but at least she has her own bathroom. The walls are paper thin, she’s pretty certain the constant dripping sound is coming from the kitchen, one she can easily fix after a YouTube tutorial or two, and a hotter than hell furnace the landlord warns her not to touch when the temperature is anywhere over 60 F unless she enjoys suffocating.

She watches Mary take in the room, the petite brunette moving in a slow swirl on her heels, lip turned down and Ryan just knows it’s not good when they make eye contact.

“Nu-uh.”

“What do you mean nu-uh?” Confused, Ryan watches Mary storm past her and out the door. “Mary! Mary, what does that mean? Mary!?”

Mary breaks her housing contract. When Ryan tries to object she quickly learns that all 5’2 of Mary Hamilton-Kane is nothing to play against and a powerhouse forced to be reckoned with.

… It kind of gets Ryan hot under the collar watching Mary tell her landlord exactly what’s about to happen, and cutting a check like it's nothing in the process.

Assertive has always kinda been her type.

“You’ll be staying here.”

Mary says, showing Ryan around her penthouse in the upper echelon of Gotham City. The apartment is just shy the size of a department store, the lounge being big enough to take up most of the square footage, built in with four bedrooms, one now officially hers, one for guests and another used for office space and three huge bathrooms big enough to house a football team.

“Jesus,” the name slips under her breath as she takes it all in. This place is – is. It’s too much. “I can’t afford this.”

The carpet under her feet probably cost more money than she'll ever see in her lifetime.

“Well, it’s a good thing I’m not asking you to pay anything.” Ryan quickly gets shut down as Mary carries on, “until you can save enough money to get back on your feet. It’s the least I can do. Being this city’s vigilante is hard work. The last thing you need to worry about is where you’re going to lay your head at night.”

It makes sense, but still. “I’m not comfortable asking you - I won’t use you.”

“You’re not.” The med student emphasizes. Mary takes the box out of her hands and places it on a dresser. “My home is yours now, bestie. Stay as long as you want to.” And before Ryan can prepare herself, Mary’s arms are snug around her waist and her cover girl smile is beaming up at her.

This is going to be terrible.

It’s worse.

Far worse than Ryan could have ever predicted. Not only is Mary super considerate of her new roommate, but she makes her resources Ryan’s own. She’s never slept so good, ate so well or drank water so delicious for that matter. Until recently she thought water was just water but Mary’s fridge is full of this alkaline stuff straight from the mountains, and Ryan swears she can never look back.

“You want pickles?”

Ryan visibly gulps, sitting on the couch, eyes focused on anything other than Mary prancing around the kitchen in her underwear. Mary’s always been super comfortable in her skin but especially at home when she’s surrounded by her things in her place of peace and why shouldn’t she be, this is her home. Ryan wants her to go about as she normally would, actually prefers if Mary pretended Ryan wasn't there altogether. The last thing she wants is to intrude or take up space but she can only take so much. It’s been nearly a month of coming home to Mary asking how her day was, waking up to Mary smiling at her over homemade breakfast or passing out on the couch cuddled together after another failed movie night. There’s only so much she can take.

What they’re doing is borderline domestic. And Ryan’s too gay for this.

“…pickles?”

“Hmm – what?”

“I asked if you want pickles on your sandwich?”

"Uh, sure."

Handing her a plate, Mary plops down on the couch leaving no space between the two and licks the pad of her thumb, humming pleasantly at the taste.

Ryan bites the inside of her cheek. “So, what are we watching?”

Hopefully something gory, and bloody staring a cis-het white male. Anything to take Ryan’s mind off of Mary Hamilton.

Mary chooses Its Okay Not to be Okay on Netflix and by the end of episode 2 both girls are huddled together, simping hard for all the three leading actors. Mary is obsessed with Kim Soo-Hyun's entire face and Ryan’s pretty sure if Seo Ye-Ji stomped on her in six inch heels and dragged her through the mud, she’d thank her.

At least they can agree Oh Jung-se is a freaking king and is killing his role as Moon Sang Tae.

It's nearly midnight before they start to turn in, cleaning up the little mess they made, Ryan shuts off the lights and walks Mary to her room; the first door to the right.

“Night.”

It kind of feels like a date, which is absurd. She knows. But can you blame her when pillow soft lips press against her cheek and Mary breathes, “sleep tight, Ryan” in her ear. Its stupid. She’s being stupid, and seeing things that arent there. Or maybe she needs to get laid. Whatever she needs to do, Mary can’t be a part of it.

After weeks of failed interrogations the team finally manages to catch a break. A source looking to get out and start over leaks the warehouse location where a scheduled supply of ingredients are due to be shipped in at any day now. Niko of course makes Batwoman promise to protect him at all cost and that means working with the Crows.

“Where’s the shipment being dropped?” Sophie asks.

“Unimportant.”

The lieutenant cocks her head to the side, unsurprised at how this conversation is going. The Bat has never worked well with authority in this town, no matter who dons the emblem.

“The only thing I need is for you to make sure Niko is somewhere safe, undetected.”

“Is he at least willing to stand trial in the event you manage to catch this guy?”

“I think that all depends on if your team can keep him alive. Crow.”

The alley is dark, damp and the chill fogs Sophie’s breath as she sighs. “You're going to get yourself killed. I know you have something against my badge and everything it stands for, but it can do some good if you let it. Now, tell me where the shipment is and I can have my team there as back up in seconds. We can get this drug and these thugs off the street.”

That word makes Ryan's jaw tingle. Thug. Of course a Crow wouldn't understand that sometimes people do bad things to make ends meet, but it doesn't make them bad people. To a Crow they’re all the same and need to be locked away never to see the light of day again. Including her.

“Focus on our informant. If I need you for anything else I know how to find you.” And she’s gone, vanished in a cloud of fog.

“Nice job pissing off potential allies.” Ryan switches her coms off.

The warehouse is guarded heavily by six men up top, double the number at the bottom not including the others unloading trucks full of supplies. Photo analysis identifies them and sends the information to Gotham P.D. before she strikes.

“Hope you’re ready for this. If we’re lucky this can all be over tonight.”

“Don’t I know it.”

Taking it as his cue, Luke hits the lights covering the warehouse in complete darkness. Motion sensors switch on and Batwoman moves into action. The training her team insists she go through pans out as she’s able to take out four guys twice her size in fast compact moves. One guy goes over the railing after she cracks him in the nuts with the steel toe of her boot. His strangled whimper is heard all the way down, but hey, no one ever said this was going to be a fair fight.

The team at the bottom catches on and gun fire immediately follows, running across the bridge Ryan spreads her arms and flies through the air, her red and black cape bellows behind her as she sticks another perfect superhero landing. All at once it seems like twenty people are coming at her from all different angles but as always she's quick on her feet tying a handful of them up by their ankles and running through the rest with a non lethal taser, just enough to subdue until she can contain everyone before she starts asking questions.

“We ain’t telling you shit!”

Another guy spits on her shoe, the red of his blood splattering against her boot and she rolls her eyes. There’s no need to be nasty.

“Look, I’m trying to help you guys out here.” Spotting a pair of boobs in the corner, she course corrects, “and girls - theys? Whatever! I’m trying to help you all out here. This thing,” she holds up a box of snakebite, “is killing the community and while it may bring you all brief satisfaction, financially, what’s it going to do for your futures when you get caught, to your families?”

“Who knew the new edition of the Bat came with such a bleeding heart?”

“Well, she does. So if anyone here is willing to tell me anything that’ll point me in the right direction of your boss, I promise I can protect you, get you somewhere safe.”

From the little the authorities have been able to dig up about this gang, anyone willing to betray their leader either winds up dead or living their last days in a vegetative state. That’s why it’s so important to have Niko, no matter the length it takes to protect him, it was for the sake of Gotham.

“I said-!”

“I heard you the first time,” Ryan says, cutting him off, “And I don’t know what you’re used to but I’m only going to tell you how this is played once. I ask the questions and you give me the answers, if you don’t, have fun rotting in jail or better yet … I can let the little I do know out onto the streets.” She bends down right in front of the man and lifts his rabbit mask, exposing his face. In seconds she knows his name. “I’m sure your boss would love to know who’s ratting him out, huh, Robert Michael Humprey?”

The terror in his eyes says it all.

[cursed-collections]

9 Albums that turned me into a metal head

I was a rap fan for a while, and I have listened to some metal samples on hip-hop songs. The best example can be — Slayer’s “Angel of Death” sample on Public Enemy’s “She Watch Channel Zero?!”. Rap and Metal are almost similar, they share many things in common — from headbanging beats to ‘PARENTAL ADVISORY’ stickers on their album covers. But it is during this lock-down, I got more into metal. In this post, I am going to share (recommend) 9 metal albums that turned me into a metalhead.

1. “Vol 3. The Subliminal Verses” by Slipknot

This was the very first metal album that I listened to and it sounded pretty average for me. The lyrics are lousy and they wear those stupid masks — my first impression of this band and the album is that they’ve got an image that automatically appeals to people who like bands for how edgy they look and act rather than their music. I can’t really say anything too negative on the subject matter of this album because I was completely new to metal at that time but to be honest, I couldn’t find one track that I enjoyed even slightly.

This album made up my mind to conclude that metal is not a genre that I should spend my time upon. But — I was wrong!

2. “Toxicity” by System of a Down

System of a Down is the most experimental metal band. The experimental nature of these four Armenian guys hasn’t always paid off. The metal community hates this band and their music so much, and I can see why they are hated. But for someone like me who is a rap fan, this album is like a treasure in the genre. There are some core metalheads who think that Toxicity is one of the very best metal albums of all time. System of a Down was not just another horrible Nu-Metal band. They had something else, something more. Again to be very honest, this is their only best album (IMO).

3. “Ride the Lightning” by Metallica

Metallica is considered as one of the Big-4 metal bands along with Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax. This album is a damn impressive thrash metal album that rightfully deserves to be called a “classic”. The album starts off with “Fight Fire With Fire” which is a gentle acoustic guitar ballad, nothing out of the ordinary until that chaotic riff comes in and like an explosion rips the calm serenity into panic and discord.

4. “Vulgar Display of Power” by Pantera

I find it interesting when I see metalheads on Reddit hating this album and some even call this — “Most overrated album by the most overrated band”. But I think Pantera managed to distill down the powerful essence of metal. This album is best to feel motivated or powerful (lol!). Song for song, Vulgar Display of Power is a pummeling example of rock ‘n roll, well-deserving of its praise. I personally feel Pantera as AC/DC of metal. They are hated, but still, their albums are outstanding, the same as AC/DC in rock.

5. “Reign in Blood” by Slayer

Slayer is another greatest Thrash metal band and one of the Big-4 metal bands. This is a hallmark album in metal and one of the cornerstone thrash releases, coming out alongside “Master of Puppets” by Metallica and “Peace Sells” by Megadeth. I still can’t believe this album, It is very intense, and brutal. The album is generally shorter than any other metal album but still, it was like 35 mins of spending time with the devil. This album has everything a metal album needs — speed, aggression, and riffs.

6. “Rust In Peace” by Megadeth

Holy thrash! This album is really something. It was my first Megadeth album, and it totally got me hooked. The guitars are crazy good on this album. This album made Megadeth my favorite metal band (next to Black Sabbath tho!). a masterpiece with no obvious flaws, no fillers, and some of the most obscenely thrilling moments in all of recorded metal history. Holy Wars… The Punishment Due, Tornado Of Souls, and Hangar 18 may be the obvious highlights, but the entire record is a banger.

7. “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath

Black Sabbath is considered the very first metal band. They started and shaped the whole metal genre. ‘Paranoid’ may be the ultimate heavy metal album. Three of its songs — the title track “Paranoid”, “War Pigs” and “Iron Man” — are the genre staples. Every song of this album shaped a new metal sub-genre. Speed metal of Paranoid, trippy space blues track Planet Caravan, doom metal of Iron man, and many. They also have a sense of humor on the closing track. This album again is a masterpiece.

8. “The Art of Partying” by Municipal Waste

This is ain’t a classic band or ain’t even a famous one. But, if catchy thrash needs a definition, that may easily be Municipal waste. The riffs and thrash breaks are strongly influenced by classic bands like Slayer and Exodus. This album brain numbingly dumb lyrics and repetitive guitar riffs, but bands like this are so refreshing, as they do not take themselves too seriously, and it’s just pure fun!

9. “Ashes of the Wake” by Lamb of God

This album is brutal, skillful, and awesome. My bones and brain got crushed while listening to this album, lol. I liked their own style of metal and overall songwriting. The guitars and drums are just mind-blowing. The perfect balance among the drums, bass, guitars, and vocal is outstanding — not too noisy or heavy, but clean and powerful.

These are the albums that introduced me to metal. In my next posts, I will review all these albums and many more posts are about to come.

Until then: Stay safe, keep calm, and listen to f*ckin’ Metal! 😈

[orthodoxydaily]

Saints&Reading: Fri., May 1st, 2020

Prophet  Jeremiah

The Holy Prophet Jeremiah, one of the four great Old Testament prophets, was son of the priest Helkiah from the city of Anathoth near Jerusalem, and he lived 600 years before the Birth of Christ, under the Israelite king Josiah and four of his successors. He was called to prophetic service at the age of fifteen, when the Lord revealed to him that even before his birth the Lord had chosen him to be a prophet. Jeremiah refused, citing his youth and lack of skill at speaking, but the Lord promised to be always with him and to watch over him.

He touched the mouth of the chosen one and said, “Behold, I have put My words into your mouth. Behold, I have appointed you this day over nations and kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to rebuild, and to plant” (Jer. 1:9-10). From that time Jeremiah prophesied for twenty-three years, denouncing the Jews for abandoning the true God and worshipping idols, predicting sorrows and devastating wars. He stood by the gates of the city, and at the entrance to the Temple, everywhere where the people gathered, and he exhorted them with imprecations and often with tears. The people, however, mocked and abused him, and they even tried to kill him.

Depicting for the Jews their impending enslavement to the king of Babylon, Jeremiah first placed on his own neck a wooden, and then an iron yoke, and thus he went about among the people. Enraged at the dire predictions of the prophet, the Jewish elders threw the Prophet Jeremiah into a pit filled with horrid, slimy creatures, where he almost died. Through the intercession of the God-fearing royal official Habdemelek, the prophet was pulled out of the pit, but he did not cease his prophecies, and for this he was carted off to prison. Under the Jewish king Zedekiah his prophecy was fulfilled...keep reading OCA

Queen Tamar  (Tamara of Georgia)

In 1166 a daughter, Tamar, was born to King George III (1155-1184) and Queen Burdukhan of Georgia. The king proclaimed that he would share the throne with his daughter from the day she turned twelve years of age.

The royal court unanimously vowed its allegiance and service to Tamar, and father and daughter ruled the country together for five years. After King George’s death in 1184, the nobility recognized the young Tamar as the sole ruler of all Georgia. Queen Tamar was enthroned as ruler of all Georgia at the age of eighteen. She is called “King” in the Georgian language because her father had no male heir and so she ruled as a monarch and not as a consort.

At the beginning of her reign, Tamar convened a Church council and addressed the clergy with wisdom and humility: “Judge according to righteousness, affirming good and condemning evil,” she advised. “Begin with me--if I sin I should be censured, for the royal crown is sent down from above as a sign of divine service. Allow neither the wealth of the nobles nor the poverty of the masses to hinder your work. You by word and I by deed, you by preaching and I by the law, you by upbringing and I by education will care for those souls whom God has entrusted to us, and together we will abide by the law of God, in order to escape eternal condemnation.... You as priests and I as ruler, you as stewards of good and I as the watchman of that good.”

The Church and the royal court chose a suitor for Tamar: Yuri, the son of Prince Andrei Bogoliubsky of Vladimir-Suzdal (in Georgia Yuri was known as “George the Russian”). The handsome George Rusi was a valiant soldier, and under his command the Georgians returned victorious from many battles. His marriage to Tamar, however, exposed many of the coarser sides of his character. He was often drunk and inclined toward immoral deeds. In the end, Tamar’s court sent him away from Georgia to Constantinople, armed with a generous recompense. Many Middle Eastern rulers were drawn to Queen Tamar’s beauty and desired to marry her, but she rejected them all. Finally at the insistence of her court, she agreed to wed a second time to ensure the preservation of the dynasty. This time, however, she asked her aunt and nurse Rusudan (the sister of King George III) to find her a suitor. The man she chose, Davit-Soslan Bagrationi, was the son of the Ossetian ruler and a descendant of King George I (1014-1027)...keep reading OCA

Acts 1:1-11 NKJV

Prologue

1 The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, 2 until the day in which [a]He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen, 3 to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many [b]infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.

The Holy Spirit Promised

4 And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; 5 for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” 6 Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. 8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be [c]witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Jesus Ascends to Heaven

9 Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. 10 And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, 11 who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.”

Footnotes:

Acts 1:2 He ascended into heaven.

Acts 1:3 unmistakable

Acts 1:8 NU My witnesses

John 5:30-6:2 NKJV

30 I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.

6:2

2 Then a great multitude followed Him, because they saw His signs which He performed on those who were diseased.[a]

Footnotes:

John 6:2 sick

New King James Version (NKJV) Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved. 

Source Biblegateway

[alphawave-writes]

The sum of all things

Now I can’t go into details about why Sigma is my newest favourite character, so I’ll just let my story say it. As of now, this is unofficially the world’s first Sigma fanfiction. You can read the story below or find it on AO3.

---

Math was, in many ways, like composing music. There were rules to abide by. You could put together a string of numbers and operations together to create a formula, just as one would string together notes and instruments to create a song. He did not know if it was because of his love of math that he saw formulas in music or if the reverse was true, his love of music that unveiled to him alone the melody that flowed through mathematics. It did not matter. Math was a song to be crafted. He was the composer, conductor, and performer.

 Numbers and melodies made up his whole life. For decades he had been chasing after one particular tune; a song that will unveil to him the answer to one of science’s greatest mysteries. This song will be named the ‘black hole’ and it will sing to him the secrets of gravity. It would be wonderful and beautiful. A melody that all beings, living and dead, heard.

 He hummed out his formulas, singing quietly to the dust particles in the air the story of his life, but the song never sounded complete. It would have to be perfect, he told himself again and again. There was no room for discordant notes. He hummed again, changing a note or two, tampering with the tempo, key signature, time signature. 

 He stared at the whiteboard, marker pen sitting in his right hand. After years of research, he had found the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle and now he must assemble them together. The formula for gravity was hidden within the numbers and operations. Day after day he observed his notes, trying to piece it together. His every waking breath was filled with numbers. His dreams was made of numbers. He thought he might never piece it together until one fateful day he found the song. Everything finally started to click together.

 He rearranged the numbers, writing faster than his mouth could ever speak. When he was satisfied he turned the whiteboard to the other side and wrote down his final masterpiece. Standing in stark black against the white background was an Upper Case Sigma. The scientists of long ago had been partially correct, black holes were comprised of magnetic fields, but it was so much more than that. Gravity was the sum of so many more things. Gravity was the sum of all things. 

 His song was finally complete, boiled down to its purest essence. His greatest composition ever, never to be topped by anyone. Thousands will sing his song for eternity. Millions will know his tune. Tears filled his eyes as he dropped the pen in his hand. The formulas that sung into his ears were so beautiful, transcending the numbers and equations up to a higher plane of existence, a better one, reserved for the ears of the gods alone.

 He blinked away the happy tears, his body shaking in relief and joy. This was his greatest achievement yet. This was happiness, he told himself over and over again. This was peace.

 This is chaos. Destruction. Darkness. The last visages of life, smoldering like embers fading into the cold. Gravity is his to control, to twist, to manipulate. Dead bodies surround him, breadcrumbs of corpses that led to his feet. War is math, and ergo like music; there is a formula. You divide and conquer on the battlefield, regardless of how much blood you have to spill. There is no time for sympathy or guilt. The dead, in the end, were only numbers to be crunched by the statisticians to feed the gullet of greedy war generals.

There’s a child in front of him, tears gushing down their face like miniature waterfalls. Surrounding them were the ruins of their home, the bodies of their family floating lifelessly in the air, limbs dangling down. The hand of their father was just low enough to brush against the top of their hair. He’s caused this, he realizes, but the thought doesn’t stick for long. He’s only a vessel, sent out to do what he must. He stuck his hand out and the child levitated off the ground, clawing at their throat.

They scream desperately, but it’s useless. No one can ever defy gravity. They hold onto their toy, hoping it will save them from their suffering, but it never does. The head of the cat doll pops. A bloodcurdling shriek is suddenly cut short.

The theorem behind Schrödinger’s cat was perfectly simple and yet fascinating regardless. A thought experiment in which a creature could exist in multiple states of being: dead and alive, trapped in its steel prison against its will, an analogy of quantum superposition. It was such an advanced question of its time, unanswered for years.

 That was, it was unanswered until now.

 There were many interpretations to Schrödinger’s paradox. The one that he found most fascinating was the many-worlds interpretation, which suggested that there were multiple realities of different possibilities. There were realities where the cat was alive and there are realities where the cat was dead. To the observer peering in from outside the realms of reality, the two forms would superimpose on each other such that it would appear as if the cat was both alive and dead. The cat was quantumly entangled with its other copies in the alternate realities, making it impossible to tell the dead cat from the alive cat. Quantum coherence will fall apart at the seams so these two distinct realities could exist, independent and dependent. The cat was alive and dead, but it did not matter. It was still trapped in its cage, waiting for the box to be opened and its fate to be known.

 Still, it was only a theory, no matter how intriguing it was. The only surefire way to tell if the many worlds interpretation was true was if it was somehow possible to see from the view of the cat. With his formulas, that was now possible. He will become the cat and trap himself in the iron cage and see the branching realities beyond. All he needed was to generate a miniature black hole. It was a frighteningly easy experiment. After all, Gravity was on his side now. The formulas were precision perfect. He was in control.

 He is not in control. He never is. His baser instincts propel him forward as he smashed people’s heads together, gravity pulling them up by their necks until their faces are the colour of Asian orchids. His breathing is ragged and his teeth crunch together in a vicious snarl as the bloodlust consumes him. He only knows violence. He only knows death.

There are two people next to him. Allies, his brain supplies, although he does not know how he knows this to be true. One is wearing a skull mask and is cloaked in black while the other is the shade of blueberries, multiple red lens covering the upper part of their face, making them look like a spider. He cannot keep count of how many people he has placed in the cat’s box, trapped eternally in a state of death and life.

Soldiers in tactical gear stand vigilant in front of scared doctors. He sees one of their badges, notices the name and badge, but words no longer make sense. All he feels is the vampiric craving for blood, forever insatiable, forever hungry.

“Stand down!” One of the soldiers screams, but it’s muted and soft compared to the other voice in his head. That voice is low and menacing and powerful. That voice is the one that hungers for bloodshed.

“Kill them,” it whispered into his ear.

He obliges. The sound of gunfire and the squelch of bodies fade away as he hears a familiar melody. It sings to him alone, and he dances to the beat. No one can escape the Danse Macabre. No one can escape the haunting melody.

What was that haunting melody? Everything was going wrong around him. The magnetic field was acting up, the black hole was accumulating far too much mass in too short a time frame, and yet all he could concentrate on was that infernal melody, a siren calling him to the murky depths. At first, he thought it might have been the machinery malfunctioning, or that he was somehow imagining it. Then he gazed into the blackhole growing massively in his hands and realized that it was the source of the tune.

 The melody repeated itself again and again as he was drawn into the black hole. Every particle of his being was being ripped apart and distorted but he did not move. He recognized this tune. It’s the song that his formulas sung, similar yet different. This song was discordant and ugly, improvised nu-jazz that spat in the face of his elegantly classical formula.

 He didn’t realise he was humming the tune he made until he was, the hidden formula he spent all his life creating escaping his throat. Then another voice joined in. It was his voice too, but it sounded distant, disjointed from his body. This second voice sung a different melody. Then a third one chipped in with another melody, and then a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, until millions and millions of voices joined together, all singing their own songs, harmonizing with the discordant tune that emitted from the black hole.

 It was so hard to tell his voice apart from the others that swirled around the metal cage. The symphony of voices rose as the black hole’s tune got louder. It was only then that he realized his mistake. The formulas he sung were far from perfect, a mere glint compared to the true genius he was witnessing here. All these voices were singing together, their discordant tunes combined together to make one beautiful, perfect whole. And here he stood at the conductor’s podium, waving his fingers to pull them together. He did not stop. Even if he knew what he would unleash, he didn’t think he could stop himself.

 He waved his hand and the orchestra was his to command. A flick of the wrist and a copy of himself appeared, mimicking his movements. Another flick, and there’s a third. The singing was so loud his ears would be bleeding but he did not stop. They crescendo up, voices rising to the highest peak.

 His reward for his efforts was the limitless realities that gravity provided him with. These realities were superimposed on one another, such that it was impossible to tell the layers apart. But if the image he saw was any indicator of the future, then he had brought hell to this peaceful earth. He sung the demonic song, and he summoned in Cthulhu. He stared into the eye of madness, and it blinked back at him.

 His body uncoiled beneath him. The singing had stopped, all except for one song. One formula. The voice singing it was not his own. It was a darker voice. The voice of the cat trapped in a metal cage.

Release me, it sang.  Release me.

 The two mysterious strangers release him from his bonds but he cannot move until they slide the heavy metallic suit on him. He stares at his hands, but they don’t feel like his own. He’s a stranger in his own body. He is barely in control.

The weight of a thousand worlds weighs on his shoulders. For one brief second, he is aware of the limitless realities he has glimpsed and the countless memories he recalled. Together, together, the dark voice sang to him.

“What are you going to do to him?” The black cloaked person asked.

A third figure appears from the shadows. Their skin is dark with white tribal paint on their face, and their frame is large and muscular. They look familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Danger. They are chaos incarnate. “He will work for us. We do what we have to do.”

The dark voice is rattling in his brain, thrashing within the confines of its prison. Release me, release me, release me! His brain throbs horrendously. His grip on the leash is slipping.

“What is he?” The cloaked person gestures at him, unaware that he can hear and see everything. No one acknowledges his presence.

The dark skinned figure smiles with his lips and growls with his eyes. “A person of use to us. A man that will kill without remorse or regret. The perfect killing machine.”

He hears that simple melody again. It’s the song from the black hole. His eyes widen as it plays its haunting melody and suddenly he remembers everything now. The experiment. The formula. Everything going wrong. Atoms splitting into two. The other versions of himself. Reality bending with the light. Death and destruction by his own, bloodstained hands.

He lets go of the leash and he’s lost in his mind. He can feel a million people take hold of his body, speaking the words he will never speak from his lips. Memories slip away as he succumbs to the sweet melody again, harmonizing with the others, becoming whole.

We are the sum of our parts, the dark voice says. It is now the leader. It is now in control. We are the sum of so many things. We are the sum of all things.

He cannot protest. His objection is lost in a sea of voices. 

[whisker-biscuit]

Silent as the Grave: Chapter 1

Fandom: Sly Cooper

Summary: When Connor Cooper and his wife are found dead in their home, the result of a forced break-in and assault, Interpol is called in to find out who did it. The only witness is Cooper’s eight-year-old son, found in a closet with a full view of everything. Nobody is really sure what to do with the kid, but that’s just fine.Because young Sly Cooper doesn’t know what to do with himself either.

The first real thieving lesson Sly’s father ever taught him, when he was three years old, was how to be quiet. He’d thought this was dumb and not nearly as fun as robbing a bank, so he’d told his father exactly that. But instead of reprimanding his son, the elder Cooper only chuckled and sat him on his knee with the patience of a master parent.

“Silence is the language of thieves, kiddo,” he told him gently. “How can you rob a bank if everyone knows you’re coming? How can you steal someone’s wallet if he can hear you behind him? What do you do if he turns around?”

“Hit him,” Sly announced, chin held defiantly high. “Hit him and take it.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with McSweeney.”

“Nu-uh!”

Connor smiled at that. “Well, I suppose not. But if you were quiet, then he wouldn’t turn around at all, and then you wouldn’t have to hit him. Do you understand?”

Sly considered this point with solemnity only a toddler could manage. Then he blinked up at his father and nodded, mouth closed firmly.

“Good. Now it’s time for you to learn how to never make noise. Starting…NOW!”

Connor had taken this moment to grasp his son around the waist and suddenly lifted him high in the air above his head. Sly shrieked in delight and wriggled with his arms and legs. His tail flickered every which way as he collapsed into giggles.

“Come on kiddo, I thought you were going to be quiet!” His father was grinning up at him, hands steady as rocks.

“No fair, no fair,” Sly laughed, “Not ready!”

“Master thieves have to be ready for anything. If you get surprised or scared, and you make a lot of noise, then you get caught. I surprised you, but if you want to learn to be a master thief, you have to know when it’s okay to laugh and scream like that, alright?”

“Okay Daddy!”

“Good,” Connor brought his son down to his knee again. He grinned with all his teeth, and Sly mirrored the look with his own baby canines.

“Here we go.”

Five years later, Sly doesn’t remember much about that conversation except its most basic part; he has to be completely silent, right now, no matter what. Because that’s what master thieves do when they’re surprised, or scared, or hurting. That’s how they survive.

That’s how he will survive, in this little closet, as he watches his father get pinned down on their bloody living room carpet. As his mother’s horrible screaming from the dining room stops with three muffled bangs and a wet choke. As something bigger than anyone he’s ever seen taps iron claws against Connor’s back and flips him over.

Sly doesn’t make a sound as someone else breaks open the family safe and pulls out the Cooper family’s heritage, the Thievius Raccoonus. He doesn’t cry as the book is torn apart by five different sets of hands over his father’s struggling body.

Doesn’t scream when those talons decide his father shouldn’t struggle anymore.

All he does is stay still as a statue – don’t move kiddo, movement makes noise and we don’t want to be caught – as the five murderers leave just as swiftly as they came. He stays in that closet after that, not because he thinks they will come back, but because he knows now what death looks like, and if he steps out of his hiding place, he will have to acknowledge the reality of what has happened.

He’s not enough like his father to do that.

When the local police office gets the call about a night disturbance in a nearby suburban area, they’re mildly surprised. It’s always been a quiet neighborhood on the edge of town, and the most recent call from out there had been for an ailing older rabbit who needed a quick pick-up to the hospital. They’re even more surprised at the call’s contents.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“I heard screaming next door!” The voice is almost hysterical. “And there was a big car in the street I’ve never seen before, and I saw, I saw something huge fly into the sky – it blocked out the moon!”

The operator gets their address and name immediately, and promptly sends two officers to go out while promising the distraught caller that everything will be fine and to expect someone to arrive to ask them a few questions in person.

“What do you think it is?” Fangmeyer asks as he opens the driver’s door, settling in behind the wheel.

“Dunno,” McHorn shrugs, squeezing into the passenger seat. They pull out of the station. “Might be a domestic disturbance, with the screaming. Someone probably had someone else come pick them up, if there was a strange car.”

“Yeah, sure, but what about the big flying thing? I’ve never heard of anything like that.” The tiger keeps his eyes on the road, on the lookout for street signs.

“Who knows. The caller probably psyched themselves out, you know how people get.” They both go silent for a moment and watch rows of houses pass by. “Don’t forget, it’s a blue house with gold trimmings. You got better night vision than me.”

“Yeah, I got it.”

They find the address of the caller with little trouble, then the house next door where the screaming supposedly took place. It’s a modest little home on the end of the street corner with a plastic swing set in the yard, colored just as McHorn described. Light spills through the front entrance, and the rhino cop assumes it must be one of those full-glass doors.

He starts to get out of the car but is stopped by a fuzzy paw on his shoulder. He turns to his partner, who is staring at the house with sudden intensity.

“McHorn, call in for backup.”

“What? Why?”

“The front door’s been ripped from its hinges.”

They call the station, backup is promised within five minutes, and the two officers step up to the doorway cautiously, on high alert. The door is lying on the floor just inside, and there’s immediate wreckage throughout the hallway. Hanging portraits have been smashed to the ground, littering broken glass everywhere. A coatrack is on its side with garments strewn about. A low bookcase along the wall has been overturned, its books scattered and torn.

The first room to the left seems to still have the lights on, so the two pull guns out of their holsters and sidle quietly over that way, peering in carefully. It’s the dining room.

There’s a raccoon, a woman, slumped on the ground against a chair leg with three bullet holes through her body. McHorn goes as rigid as a bowstring. Fangmeyer holds his paw to his mouth as bile threatens to come up his throat. They both rush up to her and the tiger checks her pulse. Nothing. One of them brings the radio up and manages to call in a 10-79 with a trembling voice.

This is when they see the next doorway leading to the living room.

And it’s here that they learn exactly whose house this belongs to, because the world-famous thief Connor Cooper is splayed out on the floor with his chest ripped open.

Fangmeyer can’t hold himself together any longer; he staggers to the farthest side of the room and retches, leaning against the doorframe of a coat closet. McHorn is about to call this in as well, to report that they’ve found the corpse of one of Interpol’s most wanted criminals, when he sees the tiger suddenly collapse to his knees.

“Oh my god. Oh my god.”

“Fangmeyer, what is it? Did you find another body?”

His partner doesn’t respond except to shake his head without turning around. Instead he pulls open the closet door all the way, and the rhino forgets to breathe.

A child stares back at them with tear-stained fur and shell-shocked eyes.

After that, things move very quickly.

Backup arrives just in time to find two haunted officers coming out of the house. The tiger is green through his fur and staggers to the nearest cruiser to ask for water and a forensics team. The rhino behind him walks solemnly through the yard, carrying a raccoon kit who clutches a very recognizable cane to his chest and won’t look at anyone.

Within two minutes, the Police Chief orders the house to be sectioned off completely while they sort things out. Twenty minutes after that, he orders an evacuation of the whole street because curious neighbors and nosy townsfolk are drawing a crowd to gawk at this unusual occurrence. When a local news station pulls up just outside the evacuation zone, the chief calls for all present officers to declare an oath of silence until everything has been investigated thoroughly. Then the Force contacts Interpol.

Known only to the first few responders – and to the international detective they’re informing over the phone – is the presence of Cooper’s only child, who has been whisked to the nearest hospital in secret. He’s miraculously unharmed, but they keep him there, in a private room with an officer guard, for fear that whoever had it in for the Master Thief might come back to finish the job.

They don’t know his name or his age, but those are things easily found in records and birth certificates. What they’re really wondering is how he survived this horrific encounter, how he managed to sit in a little coat closet and not give himself away.

They won’t get this answer from him directly, but they’re getting an inkling of how it was possible anyway. Because Cooper’s son hasn’t said a word to anyone since he was found.

He hasn’t made any noise at all.

A/N: I'm very sorry. I'm not sorry. I don't know.

 This is probably going to be the worst chapter as far as violence goes, but I'm not making any promises. But here we are, the real kick-off of Sly's story. I'm super excited to get to Bentley and Murray, but there are a few other things that have to happen first. Interpol has yet to actually arrive, after all.

Thanks for reading!

[queenofangrymoths]

Saintless Stars

So this was a story I wrote for my English Class. It's post-apocalyptic and I’m proud of it. 

Trigger:  Death, Blood, Gun-violence, Stabbing. 

Given the chance, Nadya might sleep another four hundred years. Instead, she was awake and hunkered down, Aleksander scouting just mere inches from her. “Is it safe?” How her voice did not sound meek-how it not trembled-Nadya knew not. Perhaps it was the comfort the woods gave her. Saintless Woods was similar to her homeland of the Forbidden North, filled with snow and dark trees. It felt like home, back when things were simple. 

Aleksander crouched beside her, his cheeks red along with his nose and the tips of his ears. “Looks clear,” he finally admitted. Nadya nodded then stood, looking both ways as she stepped out of the snowbank they built an hour ago. Aleksander followed her, the snow crunching as they waded through it. 

The snow rained down in thick flurries but Nadya pushed on. Both of them were disheartened and cold, frustrated to no ends that Saintless woods produced no game. The bows on their back weighed heavy with disappointment, the quivers whispered little snarky messages in both of their ears. Nadya glanced at Aleksander, testing out a little idea. “How about we split up? Surely one of us will find a deer,”

For a few minutes, Aleksander did not speak, mulling over the pros and cons in his head, the gears slowly turning. In the end, desperation won by working its lever. It was the third day without any game, one more day of their supplies dwindling. Soon the food would run out and then desperation ruled over them all. “We might as well try,”

Without a sound, Nadya left him. It wasn’t long before he didn’t hear the familiar crunch of her footsteps. The loneliness crept back at once but Aleksander ignored it, continuing to walk until he found a good spot, hunkered down, and waited. The hours blended together, his thoughts were few, mostly on how Nadya was doing. Better than I am, he hoped.

Then it happened. Out of nowhere stepped a doe, looking holy in his coffee dark eyes. He took a deep breath and slowly unslung the bow strapped across his back. Slowly, ever so slowly, he drew out an arrow and took aim. Within minutes, the doe slumped, staggering away with an arrow lodged in her lung. Aleksander followed at a distance, waiting for her to collapse. It wasn’t long until he walked away with the doe over his shoulders.

“Thank the saints,” Nadya whispered under her breath as she watched him approach the river, doe over his shoulders. It was a nice size and in Nadya’s eyes, it was a treasured saint’s relic.

“How’s your luck?” He asked, sliding the deer on the snow before crouching next to her.

Nadya was settled by the river bank, a hole cracked in the ice and she was stabbing fish with an arrow. “Pretty good, just want to get a couple more.”

“Get your own,” She slides over, just teasing. Together they fished, stabbing fish every chance they got. In the end, a dozen fish suffocated on the river bank. Nadya beamed proudly, the sight of all the food made her want to cry. Finally, a good haul. They both thought as Aleksander wrapped up the fish and Nadya shouldered the deer before turning back for the bunker.

The good thing about the bunker as it wasn’t some hole with a ladder going down. Instead, it had two steel doors with a security code. Since his hands were free, Aleksander punched in the code and the doors creaked open. As quickly as they could, they shuffled inside to escape the endless cold. The lights flickered on and off as they descended deeper in the bunker, finally hitting the living area after three levels of security measures.

 "Hey, guys, how was hunting-" Nikolai's voice bounced off the walls as he tinkered with the crew’s radio. He glanced at them only to look up nearly at once, his hazel eyes widened, “Saints, you got something!”

“We got more than something,”  Aleksander lifted the bundle of fish.

“That’s great - Saint Anastasia and Saint Edith, is that a deer?!” Nikolai’s voice grew excited enough that it drew Kaz’s attention. All of them heard Kaz’s cane making it’s thump, thump, thump against the cement floor as he made his way to them.

“I’ll add you to the list,” Nikolai deserting the radio to meet his boyfriend, Kaz, standing in the doorway. The black haired youth narrowed his eyes at the deer and bundle of fish, his knuckles white on the head of his cane.

“You got a deer.” He said, they nodded. “Bring it in the kitchen. Now.”

“What he means is ‘thank the saints and whatever dark god I worship’,” Nikolai translated as they followed Kaz to the kitchen. The kitchen was as modern as possible with a working fridge, freezer, sink, and stove. It was Kaz’s kingdom and he ruled it with an iron fist.

“Put the deer on the table. The fish next to the stove,” he instructed, Nadya was happy to dump the doe on the table and Kaz wasted no time starting to clean it. “Morozova, leave,” Kaz ordered. Aleksander quickly vanished from sight before Kaz snapped at him or threw a punch. “Nikolai, fillet the fish.”

“Only if you kiss me first,” teased the blond. Kaz sighed, wondering why he was dating this flirtatious fool but he needed those fishes to be on the grill in five minutes or less and a quick kiss was a worthy sacrifice to get Nikolai to shut up.

“Nadya, you can go,” Kaz said as he got back to working on the deer. She looked up from where she was, taking out a sheet of ice to be melted for drinking water.

“What?”

“Go. Now.” He snapped and she ran. Sure, it was a big bunker but it was still a bunker. One did not piss off Kaz and live to tell the tale. So Nadya made her way to the Slat. The Slat was what they called the hangout space, most of the crew was there if they weren’t busy or doing something important.  It was a comfortable space, nice and warm with plenty of blankets to go around.

Right now, most of the others were busy in the shop or the greenhouse, some were sleeping or making weapons. So the Slat was empty except for Kate, their reader. Her job was running the little library and stealing more books when she found them. She was on the couch, reading a book under two blankets.“Well looky here, it looks like you’ve had a scare! Let me guess, a run with Kaz?”

“Something like that,” Nadya admitted, settling herself next to the reader who grinned and marked her page. “Can we continue that history lesson we started the other day?”

Kate brightened up. Her love of books and history went hand in hand, so when Nadya came to the reader looking to catch up on all the history, Kate was more than enthused. “Of course! Where were we?”

“I think Ivan the Gilded?”

“Ah, yes, I remember!” Almost immediately, Kate launched herself in a long history lesson, Nadya listening eagerly, not even getting sleepy as Kate droned on and on. Time blurred as they worked their way to more recent day. “In the year of Saint Louis IV, the winter came hard. People expected this, the winters were getting harder but Spring never arrived.”

“Why?” Nadya asked, furrowing her brows.

“Religious zealots will tell you humanity pissed off the Saints, big time. Buuuuuut my bet is on global warming. We’re in an ice age!”

Nadya nodded. The second option made sense. “Then what?”

“Well. Society crumbled, bunkers were built, and the determined ones learned how to deal with the snow.” Kate shrugged, “honestly, my mom used to complain all the time that this ‘wasn’t bad as the winters when I was your age…’ but I think she was just messing with me.” She said with a chuckle.

“And that’s it?”

“That’s it.”

Nadya sighed, stealing one of Kate’s blankets. Now she was all caught up on history, she no longer was able to claim the ‘oh I’m a newbie, I don’t know anything’ card. It wasn’t like she used it often but still, it was nice to have in the back of her pocket when Nikolai cornered her to help him fix the heating system or test some new, dangerous invention. “What are you reading?” Kate lifted her book, flashing a black cover with orient gold detail. “King of Scars. Oldie but a goodie.”

“How good?”

“There’s a character named Nikolai in it.”

Her ice blue eyes light up, “Gimme.” She reached for the book.

Kate tugged it, “Nu-uh, you got to read the Grisha series then the Six of Crows!” Nadya stared at her, defeated slightly. “Don’t worry, I have them all.”

Nadya huffed, rolling her eyes. “Fiiiiiine. Better get me the first book, ASAP.” Kate grinned and returned to her novel, Nadya leaned her head back against the wall and shut her eyes. No doubt that in his quarters, Aleksander was passed out. She must have dozed off because the next thing, she opened her eyes to see Nikolai strut into the Slat, do his best butler bow, and say with a flourish, “Dinner is served, my ladies.”

Kate giggled behind her hand, got to her feet, and ran right past Nikolai. Although strict in the kitchen, Kaz’s food was to die for even if it was simple. Nadya sat for a minute before she found the will to stand up. “Shall we walk together?” She asked the blond, giving him her best curtsy.

“Gladly,” Arm in arm, they made their way to the mess. Kaz must have rung the dinner bell because the rest of the crew was making their way to the long, large table. It reminded Nadya of the feast tables of her youth, the food was much simpler, and there were no king-just weary people trudging their way through the snow. Nadya made a mental list of the names but people were always coming and going.

There’s Kaz of course, Aleksander….Kate, Celaena, Race and Spot flirting, Jesper, Nina, and Matthias must be out scouting still. Wylan is threatening Kuwei with bodily harm, what else is new - oh, she’s new. Wait no, that’s Alina, crap. Rowan is sulking but Aelin is cheering him up and so her list went. Filing in names, noting who was there, trying to pick out where she might sit for the night. “You’ll be with me and Kaz tonight, don’t worry.” Nikolai hummed.

“Kaz and I,” she corrected.

He laughed, throwing his head back. “Shut up.” Then he sat her beside Kaz, starting to immediately praise his lover on what a wonderful meal he made! Kaz, although he always looked like little ruthless schemer, seemed pleased. Nadya slides her own praise as everyone settled to eat.

Dinner was lovely with venison cuts and vegetables from the garden. Nadya listened to the endless chattering. Kate and Alina chatted over a new book, Nikolai flirting with Kaz, Rowan and Aelin’s endless bickering. Aleksander was across her, eating his venison slowly. “Tired?” he asked.

“Utterly exhausted,” she confessed.

“Me too,”

She yawned, covering her mouth. “After dinner, I think I’m going to take a long nap.”

He raised his dark brows. “Really?” Since she woke up, Nadya slept very little. ‘I’ve been asleep for four hundred years - I will sleep when I’m dead’ was a common phrase she uttered in the dead of the night but now she was exhausted. She nodded. “Odd, don’t you think?”

“I’m all oddities now,” She confessed, picking at her dinner.  Aleksander watched as she swallowed the last bite and slipped out of the room. In the kitchen, she washed off her plate and set it out to dry, being careful not to make more work for whatever poor soul might do the dishes under Kaz’s cold eyes. Then she slipped off to the room she shared with the others, pulled back the room divider and dived right in bed, not bothering to take her boots off.

When she awoke, the alarms were going off. Loud and braying like a mad donkey. She lay in a stupor for a minute, wondering why the shrill noise was attacking her ears and why she saw nothing but red. Then it hit her. Someone or something got through the first set of doors. She sat up quickly and bolted out of the room, glad she was fully dressed. She finds Celaena strapping her belt of bullets on her before loading her rifle. “What’s going on?”

“Security breach,” Celaena answers, focused entirely on loading the rifle quickly despite taking precious seconds ensuring she loaded it correctly. Nadya groaned as she gathered up her own weapons.

“Yeah, no shit, Lena, but by what?” Situations went through her mind, flashes of raiders-men and women were driven mad by the cold, monsters of kind stalking through the steel doors. She forced herself to remain calm as she fastened her holster, followed by her scabbard.

“A sesya.” Celaena said dryly before rushing out of the room, Nadya following the slender blonde as soon as she grabbed her axes. They ran together, punching in security codes as they went. For the most part, the steels doors, reforged by Nikolai and the other tinkers whenever they discovered something to make them stronger, kept the monsters out. Monsters like the man-eating wendigos and ruthless yokai.

These monsters were always in the world, even before the Great Winter arrived but now their numbers were endless - the winter only encouraged their siege against mortals. But sesya were different and it was easy for a sesya to blast through the steel doors and destroy them all. Nikolai was still working on his newest invention, trying to prevent the exact thing happening right now.

The sounds of battles and laughter filled Nadya’s ears quickly. The first workroom was ruined and cold, scattered with the crew fighting back the unholy monster trying to steal their home. Nikolai was swearing under his breath, a curse mingled between every single word, and really it wasn’t nearly as softly as he thought it was - next to him was Kaz. Kaz was silent as always, relentlessly shooting the sesya with deadly aim.

“Nadya!” Her name called from behind a knocked over table, her eyes swerved to find Aleksander tucked behind it, loading his rifle. “Get over!!” His voice pinched with desperation as the laughter boomed in the room. Nadya dived for the safety as a knife flew past her. He pulled her close, both of them pressed tightly against steel. She opened her mouth to thank him when a crack exploded in the area and a scream followed.

“That was my good leg!!!” screamed Kaz, hissing in pain and gripping the head of his cane even tighter as his bad leg was forced to take all of his weight.

“Are you okay?! Oh, saints, Kaz- you’re bleeding, you’re bleeding, fuck- we got to get you to the infirmary-” Nikolai jabbered, the panic set in at the sight of his boyfriend’s bleeding leg.

Kaz gave him a hard shake. “Later, okay?! Focus on the mark, foxy!” He grabbed his gun again, clicked to reload it and unleashed hell on the sesya. It made Kaz feel better but did nothing to the laughing monster.

Nadya tore her eyes away from the bickering couple and focused them on the sesya laughing above them. She wasn’t sure what the sesya found funny-if it was anything or the thing was just mad but it made it hard to miss. It was a sad thing, it looked so human and beautiful with long dark locks whipping around its pale face, covering fierce blue eyes and red lips booming laughter from a powerful throat. With a thrust of its slender hands, the winds screamed some hideous melody. The sesya reminded her of a witch that lived in her village but Nadya didn’t let it distract her.

“What do we do??” She yelled to Aleksander, the dark-haired fellow finished loading his gun. She sighed and prayed to the Saints this monster couldn’t only be killed by a bullet. She was a bad shot but if they could slay the sesya with a bullet-why hadn’t Kaz killed the damn thing yet? He was one of the best shots in the bunker but it was still laughing.

“Aim for its heart! It’s too close to get a stab in, a bullet will have to do!” He yelled back, taking aim before firing. Without her consent, a plan began to form in Nadya’s head. A crazy, dangerous plan but still - a plan, better than just shooting bullets in the area and hoping to the Saints they didn’t ricochet and hit a member of the crew.

“Aleksander,” She whispered, her voice dangerously soft. “Cover me.”

“What?!”

”Cover me!” She yelled before flinging herself away from the table’s safety. She yelled similar messages to Kaz and Nikolai, asking them not to shoot her as she ran straight for the sesya. Maybe this was how she died. Not today, She thought as she avoided bullets, winds, and random objects alike. “Hey! Sesya!” She screamed when she was close enough, drawing a knife, and throwing it. The wind caught it and the sesya turned to stare at her. The eyes were eerily family but Neday pushed on and drew her dagger.

It kept staring at her, not moving as she stalked closer. “You.” It whispered when Nadya was less than five feet away. “You,” it repeated in its tittering voice. It sounded even more like her Zoya. It made her heart stop and stutter but this wasn’t Zoya. Her Zoya was dead and buried. Had to be, after four hundred years.

“Me,” Nadya answered and before the sesya did anything-move its hands or laugh, she thrust the dagger in its heart. “Me,” she whispered as it slumped against her, chilling blue blood spilling all over her.

“You. You. You. It’s always you.” it jabbered while it died, the wind vanishing as it took its last breath. “Nadya, why?” It cried before the world stopped. Her heart chilled at the sound of its familiar voice. Zoya? But how? Then her heart broke as she realized what she had done

The laughter did not return, neither did the wretched wind. All that was left was the bleeding body and the bitter cold. The world stopped then started again. The first to snap out of it was Nikolai - he wasted no time in snapping out orders and carrying his gremlin of a boyfriend to the infirmary.

The chaos came back but it was different chaos. People were setting things right, carrying weapons back to the armory, and heading to the infirmary for some healing. Everything was moving, buzzing, some of Nikolai’s fellow tinkers were assessing the hole in the door.

No one noticed Nadya stepping out of the bunker with the body in her arms. No one saw her dig an unmarked grave and pray over the sesya.  No one never needed to see the little funeral anyway - no need for her tears to be witnessed then to be pointed at for an explanation. Nadya slipped back in the bunker and made herself useful.

Meanwhile deep in the infirmary, Nikolai was helping Sasha deal with the bullet lodged in Kaz’s good leg. Really, he should be upstairs fixing the door but he couldn’t just leave Kaz to deal with Sasha alone. “It would be out of your leg already if you stopped moving!” The little devil of a healer yelled at Kaz.

Kaz grunted, his face blanched from the bloodlust. “Just make sure I don’t end up with two bad legs, Sasha.” He was gripping the side of the bed hard enough Nikolai worried it might break. If Kaz was holding his hand, he’d snap it in two. He needed his hand.

“Stop moving then!” She hissed at him, grabbing the tweezers. Nikolai offered his hand to Kaz anyway, despite the fact he might break it. He took it, Kaz’s grip was like iron but it loosened meer minutes when the bullet tinked against the kidney dish. Sasha moved on to cleaning the wound, stitching it shut, and bandaging it. Nikolai’s fingers remained intact and Sasha moved on the next wounded idiot.

“I can’t believe you got shot in your good leg,” Nikolai remarked, rubbing his hand.

Kaz groaned, resting a hand over his eyes. “Don’t remind me.” He said bitterly, behind his hand he glared at the white bandage.

“It’ll heal right, this one,” Nikolai said, a bright smile on his lips- Kaz saw right through it.

“Stop wasting your time on me and go fix that damn door.” He told him flatly.

The smile vanished. “What? Tired of my gorgeous face?”

“No, you just will pace around, looking strained and wringing your hands. Might as well send you off now,” Kaz watched his boyfriend. He didn’t deny it. The security breach continued to bother Nikolai’s inventor mind, wondering what he could have done to prevent it. If he stayed cooped up with Kaz,  he might drive himself mad.

“And you’re fine with this?”

“Just go.” Sure, he tugged Nikolai in a kiss first but he let him go. Let him figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. Kaz sighed and laid back down, staring at the ceiling. He shut his eyes and waited for his REM cycle to kick his ass.

Many floors above Kaz and the infirmary, Aleksander found Nadya passed out on the lone couch in one of the workrooms. Someone was kind enough to put a blanket over her, the room was terribly cold. He shook his head, four hundred years later and she can still sleep anywhere. She was too thin for someone of her height, far too thin, Aleksander tutted as he carried her back to her little section of the woman’s chambers.

He knew where she kept her favorite pajamas-another thing unchanged-and it wasn’t the first time he got her in bed without seeing anything. He set her weapons against the wall as he folded her clothes away. He was about to leave when she said it.

“Sasha.” He turned to look at her. Her blue eyes were wide and full of tears. “Sasha,”  she repeated as if the first time didn’t get his attention.

“Yes, Nadya?”

“I killed her, Sasha,” she whispered, horrified.

He blinked at her slowly. “Who?”

“Zoya.” He shook his head, opened his mouth to tell her Zoya was long dead. She didn’t need to worry over killing her wife now. “I killed her, Sasha, I killed her!” Her voice grew louder as he shushed her. “My Zoya, Sasha, I killed my Zoya, how could I do such a thing??”  

“You didn’t kill her, she did not die by your hand, Nadya,” He reassured her, pushing her down as she tried to get up - wiping away the tears streaming down her cheeks. Slowly, she calmed down to the point where Aleksander knew she was drifting off to sleep again. “Sleep well, Nadya, and not too long,” he teased.

She stared at him with her icy eyes. “Zoya,” she said one last time before shutting her eyes and falling in a deep sleep. Aleksander shut the sheet and left the living quarters, dipping his head at everyone he passed. He was no mood for a conversation. He passed Nikolai at the door, who perked up and opened his mouth to say something but Aleksander kept moving, vanishing through the hole in the door.

He did not know where he was going but he knew it when he stopped at long last. A little grave, far too insignificant for all the damage the women inside had done. He stared at the grave, his eyes dark with hatred for the person deep inside the grave. Why? You may ask, sit down and listen then.

Once upon a time, there were three girls. They were witches although one seemed to be powerless she was not all that she seemed. Two of these witches lived happily, marrying each other when they were of age and lived together in wonderful matrimony. However, this left the third witch all alone, alone to brew in hatred and spite. To make herself feel better, she put a curse on the two lovers. The powerless one fell in an undead sleep, unable to wake but unable to die while the other vanished, looking for some way to wake her wife up and lost herself. Only the third witch found this was not enough (it never is), so she made a deal with a Frost Jotun.

“Bring an eternal winter,” she asked.

It regarded her with interest as we would a mouse. “Bring me a Roseblood thorn and I will consider it.” The witch brought back the thorn and it took it with great intent. “I will do as you ask but your fellow villagers are coming to kill you. Worry not, how many times they stab you will be how many years I will wait to start this winter of ours,” Then it vanished, thorn in claw.

“Wait!” The witch screamed as the mob descended on her, killing her with four stabs to the chest. Her spirit relished in the thought that in only four years, an eternal winter would hit but Jotun years were long and after four hundred years, it at long last arrived. Now, four hundred years later, Circe’s grave remained untouched.

“Are you happy now?” The stone said nothing, as stone’s often did.

“Zoya is dead and Nadya killed her. I hope you’re happy.”

Still, the stone did not reply. He glared at it even harder.

“I know what you did, Circe,” He took a deep breath “but we will continue to survive. I hope you’re happy.” Then he turned and stalked his way back to the bunker.

THE END

[grimelords]

My November playlist is finished and I've done something slightly different by actually ordering the songs into a cohesive playlist rather than leaving them in the order I added them. Listen in for everyone's favourite genre, acoustic guitar instrumentals, followed by old fashioned cowboy country, comedy and ridiculous songs, 80s and modern dance, out-there piano instrumentals, rocks and rolls, oddball rap, christian rock buried where nobody will find it, noise rock of all flavours and Mirror Reaper in full. I guarantee there'll be at least something in four hours of music that you'll like. listen here!

Deixa - Toquinho: I love how much happens in this song even before it even kicks off at about a minute in. It cycles through so many different feelings before it really powers up and the drums come on. The rhythm from then on is just mesmerizing, it's just so busy and never dwells on any section for too long, the interplay between the melody, bassline and chord rhythm is amazing. And then at about 2:20 it powers up again! Bossa Nova Strong. Also I'm feeling very disrespected because I just did some research on this song only to find out it was sampled by Nujabes on one of his bad anime youtube hip hop songs.

Just A Closer Walk With Thee - Marisa Anderson: Traditional And Public Domain Songs is Marisa Anderson's weakest album, which is a shame because I love Traditional and Public Domain songs. Her playing is on point as always, but the tremolo and distortion she's using overwhelms the recording more often than not. This song is the best on the album purely because she's playing so quietly that it only shows up when she gets loud so it works perfectly near the end as it crescendos.

The Three Deaths Of Red Spectre - Gwenifer Raymond: Gwenifer Raymond has a new 'non-holiday specific single for a cold climate' in her words and I absolutely love it. The sheer velocity of the middle section is flooring, before it breaks apart totally and reforms into a sort of shanty before metamorphosing again into a heightening mania. I love the constantly shifting structure of this, it barely stops to give you room to breathe all the way through before the very end where it almost feels like it's going to collapse entirely.

Mister Sandman - Chet Atkins: Happy to report that I've had Mr Sandman stuck in my head for three weeks now and still don't really know the words because of tumblr posts. It alternates between 'mr email / e me a mail / make the attachment a pic of a snail' and 'mr sandman / sand me a man / make him the cutest man car door hook hand'.

Do I Ever Cross Your Mind - Chet Atkins & Dolly Parton: I've never gone much on Chet Atkins but my girlfriend showed my this song and it has completely reversed my opinion and it's mostly due to Dolly Parton. She is just so lovely on this it makes me tear up - the song itself is so nice and the playing is perfect but her personality just shines through so brightly it's an absolute delight.

There's A Man Going Around Taking Names - Lead Belly: I've been doing research to try to find out what this song is referring to, or its origin but I cannot find anything concrete. A few people are saying it inspired Johnny Cash for The Man Comes Around, which is plausible and adds a mystic bent to it. It seems incomplete, like it's missing the turn at the end that reveals who exactly he is or what's happening so the whole song just ends up feeling very mysterious and ominous.

When Mussolini Laid His Pistol Down - Merle Travis: This song is from 1943, which is sort of amazing because that means it's not a song about history particularly but rather current events. A great paragraph from wikipedia: "On 24 June Mussolini gave his last important speech as prime minister. It went down in history as the "boot topping" speech, with the Duce promising that the only part of Italy that the Anglo-Americans would be able to occupy (but forever and horizontally, i.e. as corpses) was the shore-line (for which he used a wrong word to define it). For many Italians, that confused and incoherent speech was the final proof that something was wrong with Mussolini." Mussolini, truly history's greatest moron.

The Master's Call - Marty Robbins: As a result of Red Dead 2 and my own natural instincts, I've been having a bigger than usual moment with cowboy music this month which of course includes Marty Robbins' Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs. In my mind this song is both the true ending and end credits music of Red Dead 2. Arthur sees the face of Christ in a lightning bolt and abandons his life of crime and sin, pleading with the lord to forgive him and then God kills a hundred cows with another lightning bolt just to make damn sure Arthur knows He's serious.

Saga Of The Ponderosa - Lorne Green: I was hanging out with my old housemate a few weeks ago and it turns out we were both having concurrent Marty Robbins cowboy music phases which was great news because then he turned me onto this album by Lorne Green who was on Bonanza and apparently took it upon himself to expand the Bonanaza Cinematic Universe in the 60s with a few albums. This song is apparently an origin story of Bonanza which I have never seen. It's extremely good, very powerful music. Great story of this godlike man striding across the country and overriding his wife's decision by naming his son HOSS.

Hard Sun - Eddie Vedder: I think it's interesting in A Star Is Born that Jackson Maine doesn't seem to be a real life equivalent of any actual musician. He's not obviously an archetype of any real person and so it's hard to place how exactly famous he is in the world of the movie. He's washed up enough to be playing pharmaceutical conferences but still has enough industry respect to be playing a tribute at the Grammys. The closest I could think of was Eddie Vedder oddly enough, and this song from the Into The Wild soundtrack really does sound like a Jackson Maine original.

For Chan - Tim Heideker: I'm having a real thing with comedy music recently and I can't tell if it means I've got a brain parasite or comedy music is good to me now. I think what I like about this song is the bluntness. There's no two ways about these people, and after years of hearing about the alt right as mysterious political genius computer brains it's a nice break to just hear them called greasy fat basement guys like we used to.

That's Right I'm Five - Don't Stop Or We'll Die: More good comedy music! They played this song on Comedy Bang Bang without announcing what it was called first, so the chorus really surprised me and made me laugh a lot. "They're selling the stocks so buy them, launch the torpedoes, tell my wife I love her, and send my son to college, bury me in the desert in my osh kosh b'gosh - that's right I'm five!" might be my favourite lyric of the year.

Future Brain - Den Harrow: Den Harrow is very good. He's like a beautiful moron American man that some italian scientists built in a lab in order to conquer America from the inside. Here are some good highlights from his wiki article: "The name Den Harrow was conceived by producers Roberto Turatti and Miki Chieregato, who based it on the Italian word denaro(money)." "After years of fame and popularity, it was revealed by frontman Stefano Zandri and his producers that Zandri did not actually sing the Den Harrow songs; he was essentially a character who lip-synched to vocals recorded by a number of other singers. Furthermore, since they did not consider Zandri's name and origin to be "trendy" enough, the producers R. Turatti and M. Chieregato concealed Zandri's Italian origin, marketing him as having been born Manuel Stefano Carry in Boston. This was done so Polydor Records could market him more easily in the English-speaking world, where Italian-produced music was, at the time, viewed with skepticism"

Love A Girl Right - Little Mix: Check out this rewrite of the Thong Song they did for the new Little Mix album. It's beyond belief. My girlfriend loves Little Mix and she's right to because they're the only girl/boy band that actually takes advantage of the form and does harmonies instead of just having them all sing in turn or all at once. They've got good vocal arrangements but they have the worst fucking songwriters working for them. Songwriters that pitch 'what if the Thong Song had a crunchy nu-metal guitar in it'.

This City Made Us - The Protomen: It's interesting to hear a band change styles - most other Protomen songs are a sort of Springsteen pastiche but this one from their newer single is more like Iron Maiden or Thin Lizzy. Approaching the 80s from a different angle. It's impressive to switch so radically and still have enough of a unifying sound that it feels like the same band. 80s throwback rock is a generally pallid genre populated by freaks who can't move on but Protomen put so much heart into it it's hard to write them off.

Teardrops - Womack & Womack: I love this song because it has two choruses. The drums stay the same throughout, the chords stay the same through the verse and chorus and only change for the second chorus/bridge part ("the music don't feel like it did when I felt it with you"), which just gives the whole song this feeling of beautiful endlessness. It goes and goes and goes and you're always already living in the best part of the song.

Boys Will Be Boys - The Duncan Sisters: Very very good piece of disco with a very nice piece of country picking guitar near the start for some reason. I quit like that the chorus of 'boys, oh boys, will be boys - they can really hurt you!' goes from a lighthearted thing about relationships until the bridge near the end where it sounds more like a dire warning. She's staring straight into your eyes and saying 'they can hurt you. boys can hurt you. they can really hurt you.' while motioning toward the exit with her eyes. 

Ayaya - Bicep: I've been trying to train my ear a bit better so I got a piano app on my phone and I just try to pick out the melodies of songs now when I'm bored. It turns out this is a very satisfying song to play. The melody is very simple, but the constant build and the couple of other melodies that come in around it make you feel like a super genius for just playing the same thing over and over.

The Call - David Mayer: I completely forget how I came across this song but I'm in love with the vocals on it. The effect reminds me of the one on Problem With The Sun by Nicolas Jaar, sort of pitched down and layered over itself. Outside of the vocals it's a pretty straightforward euro house chunk but damn sometimes a song just has a really good sound in it that you can't deny.

Problem With The Sun - Nicolas Jaar: My girlfriend's brother was telling me he was riding his bike the other day and had some kind of mental break where he was riding north in the afternoon but the sun was on his right, in the east - and for some reason his first instinct wasn't that he was wrong or disoriented, it was that there was a problem with the sun and it was in the wrong place. That boy ain't right but this song is good. I love that Nicolas Jaar uses this weird down pitched voice on a few songs and I really wish he'd bring it back, it sounds great and also funny to me.

Ensaslayi - Cecil Taylor: I don't have the brain power to comprehend any of Cecil Taylor's ensemble work that I've heard, free jazz in a band setting is simply too much for me it turns out -but I've really been getting a lot out of this solo album of his called Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly! Fly!. This song in particular is one of the longer ones on the album, where another is only 53 seconds long and a few last around ten minutes. This is a nice midpoint, where he gives himself so much room to get lost in different directions without losing the thread entirely. I said it last time I was talking about him but I've really never heard anyone play piano like this and I absolutely love it. A lot of reviewers describe it as him playing the piano like it's a drumkit, which I think is accurate to a degree - but I think looking back from here this music makes a lot more sense within the context of black midi and things like that. The extreme edges of what a piano can theoretically do, but with a decisive and beautiful human edge and human brain that's responsible for and making sense of the chaos.

The Homeless Wanderer - Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou: I found out about this album cause Benjamin Booker was posting about her on his instagram story and it's just incredible. The TL;DR of her story is she's an Ethiopian nun that studied music in Switzerland and Cairo and wrote this beautiful piano music based on traditional Ethiopian pentatonic music. I love the rhythm of it, every note in the right hand get swirled around and around before it's settled on while the left hand moves so smoothly and delicately. Unfortunately-ish she's obviously in that genre of Searching For Sugarman secret blog music evidenced by her spotify similar artists being Karen Dalton, Alice Coltrane and Connie Converse. That's not a bad thing exactly, at least people are hearing about her, but her music is unique and amazing enough on its own without needing much mythologizing.

Carnival Of The Animals: No 12 - Fossils - Camille Saint-Saëns: My girlfriend was showing me Saint-Saëns' The Swan and then we were going through the whole rest of the Carnival Of The Animals and I'm happy to report that he not only did he do one for fossils but also centered it around the idea of a bone xylophone. I'm going to write an article for Vulture tracing the origin of the cartoon bone xylophone and my thesis is it starts here.

Perth - Bon Iver: Just thinking about how good Bon Iver is. I love how massive this song can feel, the drums combined with the big brass. It's small and soft on the grand scale, but on an album that gets as quiet and soft as songs like Holocene this song blows up like an atom bomb.

Yet Again - Grizzly Bear: This really is one of the best songs of all time I've decided. It feels like I get into a thing of listening to it on repeat almost every month now. I don't know what it is exactly - I guess it's every part of it. The lyrics are impenetrable (check) the riff is simple and powerful (check) the drums are doing a lot and keeping it simple at the same time. The the way the harmony vocals all intertwine in the prechorus part is amazing. The way the whole song blows up into a big radio static solo at the end. Every part of this song is great, I just love it.

Fuckin N' Rollin - Phantastic Ferniture: I found out that Julia Jacklin has a side project with a very shit name and they make very good music. I love when people have a whole other band for another side of their self. This is just Julia Jacklin if the lyrics were just first draft whatevers instead of incredibly poignant and beautiful and the music was just rockin and rollin with your friends. It's great!

Soft - Kings Of Leon: Number one best song ever about havin a bad dick!! I'd love to hang out lady but my dick! I'm passed out in your garden, I'm in I can't get off I'm so soft! I'd pop myself in you body, I'd come into your party but I'm soft!

Soft Serve - Soul Coughing: I played this while I was driving with my girlfriend and she said 'what the fuck is this' and she's right, as usual. It's Soul Coughing baby! The 90s 'slacker jazz' band! They sound dated as fuck, a real product of their time but I think they've still got a lot to offer. I had the chorus of this stuck in my head for a couple days which made me listen to this album more than usual when I mostly prefer their first one Ruby Vroom. Irresistible Bliss might have the worst album cover of all time though, so it's got that going for it. Google it.

Ya Mama - Wuf Ticket: There wiki article for this band says they had two songs in 1982 and that was it. Then it has a section titled Greaseman and then the article ends. Here's the Greaseman section in its entirety: "Wuf Ticket's “Ya Mama” achieved its greatest notoriety, and airplay, as a music bed for bits by shock jock The Greaseman on WWDC-FM in Washington, D.C. and later his nationally syndicated radio show where Greaseman would argue with a surly service industry worker." Anyway this is more of that very good early hip hop shit where everyone assumed songs should go for 8 minutes. It's just extremely weak sauce Ya Mama jokes for a very long time before they change tack completely and start talking about how Every Woman Is An Angel And Without Mothers We Would Never Have Been Born So Think About That Next Time.

Gon Be Okay - Lil B: I had the part of this song where he sings 'things are never gonna be the same again' along with the piano in my head the other day and spent fully an hour googling to try to find what song it was from before giving up. I woke up the next morning and suddenly remembered it was this song but was very shocked to find out that he actually never sings that line along with the piano melody, he says it once at the start and that's it. What's going on with my brain. Anyway in my searching I found out that the piano is sampled from the Spirited Away soundtrack so once more in my life I've been led to ruin by anime.

2 Minute Drills - Allblack & Kenny Beats: This whole EP is great. More sports themed rap please. Allblack is ferocious and Kenny's production throughout is great, the perfect mix of simple straighforward beats that still have a lot of space and energy in them, plus 'Woah Kenny!' has my award for Best New Producer Watermark.

Don't Gas Me - Dizzee Rascal: I don't know how he keeps doing it but somehow Dizzee Rascal continues to make extremely fun bangers without ever slowing down. The best line in this is when he says "no I don't drink Appletiser" (the sparkling apple juice) which is an extremely weird flex if there ever was one.

Acid King - Malibu Ken: It feels insane that a Tobacco and Aesop Rock collab sounds as good as this. I love that there's no drums the entire time he's rapping and I completely love the Mort Garson vibes in the instrumental which turns out to be a perfect soundtrack to the Ricky Kasso satan worship LSD murder story that Aesop's telling. Also in reading about Kasso I just discovered the very good stoner doom band also named Acid King, so expect to see them in next month's list.

Pirate Blues - As Cities Burn: As Cities Burn have reformed and put out a new single so I've been thinking about them a bit. On paper they don't sound good, over three albums they morphed from a christian metalcore band to a christian alt-rock band, and while they never reinvented the wheel I think they're a remarkable band who took a lot of risks in their own way and made a lot of rock solid music. They've got a lot of great songs but I think this is my favourite from their third album when it finally felt like they'd settled into a steady alt rock sound informed by their much heavier past.

This Is It, This Is It - As Cities Burn: The thing I like about As Cities Burn is that as much as they're a christian band (yuck) they're more of a band of guys who are christians (slightly less yuck) and the difference is huge. Rather than evangelising or preaching, their songs are about their own personal struggles with their faith (still slightly yuck). I like this song especially because the lyric feels close to gospel, 'we're all singing for our sins, unless grace be the wind' but with the added twist of being furious that you're trapped by the sin of your physical body.

Timothy - As Cities Burn: I think this song is just incredible. The lyrics are so strong and direct and heartbreaking, the vocal performance especially is amazing and it may be the only time in history that a 6 minute guitar solo has seemed good and necessary.

Face Tat - Zach Hill: There's an incredible video of the recording of this song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGi9SOFX5rc that really looks exactly how it sounds and has a very similar energy to that video of 80 guys singing the halo theme in the boys bathroom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRG9KwvbVhk . This is what it sounds like when the boys are left alone. The biggest draw to Zach Hill's drumming is the intense primordial immediacy of it. He is just pounding away like a possessed animal and it's really on show here, especially combined with the occasional punctuating shout. Carson McWhirter's guitar is incredible too, the tone he's got where it sounds like three at once playing these incredible twisting riffs that turn on a dime. I think what I like most about this song is just how in sync they are - for such a chaotic, noisy song it sounds so rehearsed, somehow every single note is perfectly in time in the storm.

Betty's Worry Or The Slab - Hunters And Collectors: This is maybe the sweatiest song I've ever heard. It's a disgusting song about being incredibly sweaty and horny and I love the weird squeaky noise he makes after he says 'say it! say it!'. The bass sound in this is so fantastically meaty too, and combined with the brass at the end it's just great.

Worms Of The Senses / Faculties Of The Skull (live) - Refused: I cannot believe just how absolutely ferocious live Refused is. Insanely powerful without ever missing a beat in a song like this that requires incredible timing throughout. For some reason I've always thought Refused were an only ok live band after watching Refused Are Fucking Dead because all I remember of it is a clip where the guitarist accidentally hits the singer in the face with his headstock and they have to stop the show.

Mirror Reaper - Bell Witch: I got to see Bell Witch live a couple of weeks ago and it's one of the best shows I've ever seen. I can't really describe it other than it feels like the closest thing to a legitimate summoning ritual that I've ever seen. An invocation and an expelling of raw power and emotion between two people, it was really something. Also the best part was about two minutes in when they were really setting the scene with the sort of ambient beginning of Mirror Reaper and the whole crowd was dead silent and entranced as they built this mystic atmosphere and set the vibe a guy behind me said loudly to his friend 'hm pretty good so far!'

What's You Gonna Do When The World's On Fire - Lead Belly & Anne Graham: This is in my opinion the best genre of gospel song where they they just roast you for not being saved yet.​ 

listen here

[pamphletstoinspire]

Book Of Genesis - From The Latin Vulgate - Chapter 4

INTRODUCTION.

The Hebrews now entitle all the Five Books of Moses, from the initial words, which originally were written like one continued word or verse; but the Sept. have preferred to give the titles the most memorable occurrences of each work. On this occasion, the Creation of all things out of nothing, strikes us with peculiar force. We find a refutation of all the heathenish mythology, and of the world's eternity, which Aristotle endeavoured to establish. We behold the short reign of innocence, and the origin of sin and misery, the dispersion of nations, and the providence of God watching over his chosen people, till the death of Joseph, about the year 2369 (Usher) 2399 (Sal. and Tirin) B.C. 1631. We shall witness the same care in the other Books of Scripture, and adore his wisdom and goodness in preserving to himself faithful witnesses, and a true Holy Catholic Church, in all ages, even when the greatest corruption seemed to overspread the land. H.

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This Book is so called from its treating of the Generation, that is, of the Creation and the beginning of the world. The Hebrews call it Bereshith, from the word with which it begins. It contains not only the History of the Creation of the World, but also an account of its progress during the space of 2369 years, that is, until the death of Joseph.

The additional Notes in this Edition of the New Testament will be marked with the letter A. Such as are taken from various Interpreters and Commentators, will be marked as in the Old Testament. B. Bristow, C. Calmet, Ch. Challoner, D. Du Hamel, E. Estius, J. Jansenius, M. Menochius, Po. Polus, P. Pastorini, T. Tirinus, V. Bible de Vence, W. Worthington, Wi. Witham. — The names of other authors, who may be occasionally consulted, will be given at full length.

Verses are in English and Latin. HAYDOCK CATHOLIC BIBLE COMMENTARY

This Catholic commentary on the Old Testament, following the Douay-Rheims Bible text, was originally compiled by Catholic priest and biblical scholar Rev. George Leo Haydock (1774-1849). This transcription is based on Haydock's notes as they appear in the 1859 edition of Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary printed by Edward Dunigan and Brother, New York, New York.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

Changes made to the original text for this transcription include the following:

Greek letters. The original text sometimes includes Greek expressions spelled out in Greek letters. In this transcription, those expressions have been transliterated from Greek letters to English letters, put in italics, and underlined. The following substitution scheme has been used: A for Alpha; B for Beta; G for Gamma; D for Delta; E for Epsilon; Z for Zeta; E for Eta; Th for Theta; I for Iota; K for Kappa; L for Lamda; M for Mu; N for Nu; X for Xi; O for Omicron; P for Pi; R for Rho; S for Sigma; T for Tau; U for Upsilon; Ph for Phi; Ch for Chi; Ps for Psi; O for Omega. For example, where the name, Jesus, is spelled out in the original text in Greek letters, Iota-eta-sigma-omicron-upsilon-sigma, it is transliterated in this transcription as, Iesous. Greek diacritical marks have not been represented in this transcription.

Footnotes. The original text indicates footnotes with special characters, including the astrisk (*) and printers' marks, such as the dagger mark, the double dagger mark, the section mark, the parallels mark, and the paragraph mark. In this transcription all these special characters have been replaced by numbers in square brackets, such as [1], [2], [3], etc.

Accent marks. The original text contains some English letters represented with accent marks. In this transcription, those letters have been rendered in this transcription without their accent marks.

Other special characters.

Solid horizontal lines of various lengths that appear in the original text have been represented as a series of consecutive hyphens of approximately the same length, such as ---.

Ligatures, single characters containing two letters united, in the original text in some Latin expressions have been represented in this transcription as separate letters. The ligature formed by uniting A and E is represented as Ae, that of a and e as ae, that of O and E as Oe, and that of o and e as oe.

Monetary sums in the original text represented with a preceding British pound sterling symbol (a stylized L, transected by a short horizontal line) are represented in this transcription with a following pound symbol, l.

The half symbol (1/2) and three-quarters symbol (3/4) in the original text have been represented in this transcription with their decimal equivalent, (.5) and (.75) respectively.

Unreadable text. Places where the transcriber's copy of the original text is unreadable have been indicated in this transcription by an empty set of square brackets, [].

Chapter 4

The history of Cain and Abel.

[1] And Adam knew Eve his wife: who conceived and brought forth Cain, saying: I have gotten a man through God. Adam vero cognovit uxorem suam Hevam, quae concepit et peperit Cain, dicens : Possedi hominem per Deum.

[2] And again she brought forth his brother Abel. And Abel was a shepherd, and Cain a husbandman. Rursumque peperit fratrem ejus Abel. Fuit autem Abel pastor ovium, et Cain agricola.

[3] And it came to pass after many days, that Cain offered, of the fruits of the earth, gifts to the Lord. Factum est autem post multos dies ut offerret Cain de fructibus terrae munera Domino.

[4] Abel also offered of the firstlings of his flock, and of their fat: and the Lord had respect to Abel, and to his offerings. Abel quoque obtulit de primogenitis gregis sui, et de adipibus eorum : et respexit Dominus ad Abel, et ad munera ejus.

[5] But to Cain and his offerings he had no respect: and Cain was exceedingly angry, and his countenance fell. Ad Cain vero, et ad munera illius non respexit : iratusque est Cain vehementer, et concidit vultus ejus.

[6] And the Lord said to him: Why art thou angry? and why is thy countenance fallen? Dixitque Dominus ad eum : Quare iratus es? et cur concidit facies tua?

[7] If thou do well, shalt thou not receive? but if ill, shall not sin forthwith be present at the door? but the lust thereof shall be under thee, and thou shalt have dominion over it. nonne si bene egeris, recipies : sin autem male, statim in foribus peccatum aderit? sed sub te erit appetitus ejus, et tu dominaberis illius.

[8] And Cain said to Abel his brother: Let us go forth abroad. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and slew him. Dixitque Cain ad Abel fratrem suum : Egrediamur foras. Cumque essent in agro, consurrexit Cain adversus fratrem suum Abel, et interfecit eum.

[9] And the Lord said to Cain: Where is thy brother Abel? And he answered, I know not: am I my brother's keeper? Et ait Dominus ad Cain : Ubi est Abel frater tuus? Qui respondit : Nescio : num custos fratris mei sum ego?

[10] And he said to him: What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth to me from the earth. Dixitque ad eum : Quid fecisti? vox sanguinis fratris tui clamat ad me de terra.

[11] Now, therefore, cursed shalt thou be upon the earth, which hath opened her mouth and received the blood of thy brother at thy hand. Nunc igitur maledictus eris super terram, quae aperuit os suum, et suscepit sanguinem fratris tui de manu tua.

[12] When thou shalt till it, it shall not yield to thee its fruit: a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be upon the earth. Cum operatus fueris eam, non dabit tibi fructus suos : vagus et profugus eris super terram.

[13] And Cain said to the Lord: My iniquity is greater than that I may deserve pardon. Dixitque Cain ad Dominum : Major est iniquitas mea, quam ut veniam merear.

[14] Behold thou dost cast me out this day from the face of the earth, and I shall be hidden from thy face, and I shall be a vagabond and a fugitive on the earth: every one, therefore, that findeth me, shall kill me. Ecce ejicis me hodie a facie terrae, et a facie tua abscondar, et ero vagus et profugus in terra : omnis igitur qui invenerit me, occidet me.

[15] And the Lord said to him: No, it shall not be so: but whosoever shall kill Cain, shall be punished sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, that whosoever found him should not kill him. Dixitque ei Dominus : Nequaquam ita fiet : sed omnis qui occiderit Cain, septuplum punietur. Posuitque Dominus Cain signum, ut non interficeret eum omnis qui invenisset eum.

[16] And Cain went out from the face of the Lord, and dwelt as a fugitive on the earth, at the east side of Eden. Egressusque Cain a facie Domini, habitavit profugus in terra ad orientalem plagam Eden.

[17] And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived, and brought forth Henoch: and he built a city, and called the name thereof by the name of his son Henoch. Cognovit autem Cain uxorem suam, quae concepit, et peperit Henoch : et aedificavit civitatem, vocavitque nomen ejus ex nomine filii sui, Henoch.

[18] And Henoch begot Irad, and Irad begot Maviael, and Maviael begot Mathusael, and Mathusael begot Lamech: Porro Henoch genuit Irad, et Irad genuit Maviael, et Maviael genuit Mathusael, et Mathusael genuit Lamech.

[19] Who took two wives: the name of the one was Ada, and the name of the other Sella. Qui accepit duas uxores, nomen uni Ada, et nomen alteri Sella.

[20] And Ada brought forth Jabel: who was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of herdsmen. Genuitque Ada Jabel, qui fuit pater habitantium in tentoriis, atque pastorum.

[21] And his brother's name was Jubal; he was the father of them that play upon the harp and the organs. Et nomen fratris ejus Jubal : ipse fuit pater canentium cithara et organo.

[22] Sella also brought forth Tubalcain, who was a hammerer and artificer in every work of brass and iron. And the sister of Tubalcain was Noema. Sella quoque genuit Tubalcain, qui fuit malleator et faber in cuncta opera aeris et ferri. Soror vero Tubalcain, Noema.

[23] And Lamech said to his wives Ada and Sella: Hear my voice, ye wives of Lamech, hearken to my speech: for I have slain a man to the wounding of myself, and a stripling to my own bruising. Dixitque Lamech uxoribus suis Adae et Sellae : Audite vocem meam, uxores Lamech; auscultate sermonem meum : quoniam occidi virum in vulnus meum, et adolescentulum in livorem meum.

[24] Sevenfold vengeance shall be taken for Cain: but for Lamech seventy times sevenfold. Septuplum ultio dabitur de Cain : de Lamech vero septuagies septies.

[25] Adam also knew his wife again: and she brought forth a son, and called his name Seth, saying: God hath given me another seed, for Abel whom Cain slew. Cognovit quoque adhuc Adam uxorem suam : et peperit filium, vocavitque nomen ejus Seth, dicens : Posuit mihi Deus semen aliud pro Abel, quem occidit Cain.

[26] But to Seth also was born a son, whom he called Enos; this man began to call upon the name of the Lord. Sed et Seth natus est filius, quem vocavit Enos : iste coepit invocare nomen Domini.

Commentary:

Ver. 1. Through God. Heb. may signify also: "even God," as if she thought this was the promised seed, who, as Onkelos paraphrases it, would serve the Lord. C. --- So little could she foresee the future conduct of Cain, whose name may be derived either from kone, possession and acquisition, or from kun, lamentation. The latter interpretation would have been better verified by the event, and the name of Abel, vanity, or sorrow, for which his parents allege no reason, might also have been reversed, on account of his justice, for which he is canonized by Christ himself, and declared the Just. Pious and significant names were imposed by either parent. Cain was the second man. He was not conceived till after the fall, and was therefore the first born in original sin. H.

Ver. 4. Had respect. That is, shewed his acceptance of his sacrifice (as coming from a heart full of devotion): and that we may suppose, by some visible token, such as sending fire from heaven upon his offerings. Ch. --- The offerings of Cain are mentioned without any approbation: those of Abel are the firstlings and fat, or the very best; by which he testified, that he acknowledged God for his first beginning. Sacrifice is due to God alone, and to Him it has always been offered in the Church. We have the happiness to offer that truly eucharistic sacrifice to God, of which those of ancient times were only figures. What sacrifice can our erring brethren shew? W. C.

Ver. 7. Over it. This is a clear proof of free-will. To destroy its force, Protestants translate over him, as if Cain should still retain his privilege of the first-born, notwithstanding all his wickedness, and should rule over Abel, who would willingly submit, "unto thee his desire," &c. But God had made no mention of Abel. The whole discourse is about doing well or ill; and Cain is encouraged to avoid the stings of conscience, by altering his conduct, as it was in his power, how strongly soever his passions might solicit him to evil. H. --- The Hebrew is understood by Onkelos, and the Targum of Jerusalem, in the sense of the Vulgate. The latter reads, "If thou correct thy proceedings in this life, thou wilt receive pardon in the next world. But if thou do not penance for thy sin, it shall remain till the day of the great judgment, and it shall stay, lying at the door of thy heart. But I have given thee power to govern thy concupiscence: thou shalt sway it, either to embrace good or evil." Calmet shews that the Hebrew perfectly admits of this sense. S. Augustine will not allow of the turn which the Manichees gave it. "Thou shalt have dominion over (illius.) What? thy brother! (absit) by no means: over what then, but sin? De C. xv. 7. Protestants formerly abandoned the translation of 1579, (which they have again resumed) and translated better, "unto thee shall be the desire thereof, and thou shalt rule over it," which R. Abenezra explains also of sin. To which of these editions, all given by royal authority, will Protestants adhere? Luther wrote a book against free-will, and Calvin would not admit the very name. But we, with all antiquity, must cry out with S. Jerom, c. Jov. 2: "God made us with free-will, neither are we drawn by necessity to virtue or vice; else where there is necessity, there is neither damnation nor reward." W. H.

Ver. 8. Let us go forth abroad. These words are now wanting in the Hebrew; being omitted, according to Kennicott, since the days of Aquila 130; they are found in the Samaritan copy and version, in the Sept. &c. H. --- The Masorets place a mark, as if something were defective here, and in 27 other verses, or in 25 at least. H. --- Abel's violent death was a figure of that of Jesus Christ, inflicted for the like cause. See Heb. xii. 2. C. --- In consequence of these crimes, Cain separated from the Church, and the Jews became no longer God's people: both Cain and the Jews became vagabonds. H. --- The Targum of Jerusalem observes, that Cain talked against God's providence and the future world, which Abel hearing with marked indignation, Cain took occasion to kill him. W.

Ver. 13. My iniquity, &c. Like Judas, Cain despairs. The Rabbins make him complain of the rigour of God's judgment, "My sin (or punishment) is too great to be borne." I must then be driven from the land of my nativity, from the society of my brethren and parents, from thy presence, for ever. Why do I then live? Let the first man I meet, kill me. Liran.

Ver. 14. Every one that findeth me, shall kill me. His guilty conscience made him fear his own brothers, and nephews; of whom, by this time, there might be a good number upon the earth: which had now endured near 130 years; as may be gathered from Gen. v. 3, compared with Chap. iv. 25, though in the compendious account given in the Scripture, only Cain and Abel are mentioned. Ch. --- Cain is little concerned about any thing but the loss of life. M.

Ver. 15. Set a mark, &c. The more common opinion of the interpreters of holy writ, supposes this mark to have been a trembling of the body; or a horror and consternation in his countenance. Ch. --- God gave this first murderer a reprieve, allowing him time for repentance; but he neglected it, and died a reprobate; having been, during life, the head of an apostate church, and of the city of the devil, which has ever since opposed the city of God, and the society of the faithful. Though all his posterity were drowned in the deluge, some were soon found, even in the family of Noe, who stood up for the wretched pre-eminence in wickedness and rebellion, against the truth. See S. Aug. W. &c. H.

Ver. 16. A fugitive, according to his sentence. Heb. nod, which the Sept. have taken for a proper name. "In the land of Naid, over against Eden," (H.) or in the fields of Nyse, in Hyrcania, to the east of Eden and Armenia. C.

Ver. 17. His wife. She was a daughter of Adam, and Cain's own sister; God dispensing with such marriages in the beginning of the world, as mankind could not otherwise be propagated. --- He built a city, viz. In process of time, when his race was multiplied, so as to be numerous enough to people it. For in the many hundred years he lived, his race might be multiplied even to millions. Ch. --- The Hanuchta, which Ptolemy places in Susiana, (C.) may perhaps have been built after the flood, in the same place. Josephus says, Cain was the first who fortified a city; designing it for a retreat, where he might keep the fruits of his robberies. Ant. 1. 3. Peirere founds his ill-concerted system of Preadamites, or of men existing before Adam, on the history of Cain exercising husbandry, building a city, &c.; as if there were any difficulty in supposing, that the arts would have made some progress in the lapse of above a century. H.

Ver. 19. Two wives. Lamech first transgressed the law of having only one wife at a time. C. 11. 24. None before the deluge is mentioned as having followed his example, even among the abandoned sons of men. Abraham, the father of the faithful, and some others, after that event, when the age of man was shortened, and the number of the true servants of God very small, were dispensed with by God, who tolerated the custom of having many wives at the same time among the Jews, till our Saviour brought things back to the ancient standard. Mat. xix. 4. And why do we excuse the patriarchs, while we condemn Lamech? Because the one being associated with the wicked, gives us reason to judge unfavourably of him, while Abraham is constantly mentioned in Scripture with terms of approbation and praise, and therefore we have no right to pass sentence of condemnation upon him, as some Protestants have done, after the Manichees. Hence the fathers defend the one, and reject the other with abhorrence. H. --- Tert. (Monog. c. 5.) and S. Jerom, c. Jovin. 1. says, "Lamech, first of all, a bloody murderer, divided one flesh between two wives." It was never lawful, says P. Innocent III. c. Gaudemus, for any one to have many wives at once, unless leave was given by divine revelation;" and S. Aug. joins with him in defending the patriarchs, by this reason, "When it was the custom, it was not a sin."

Ver. 22. Noema, who is supposed to have invented the art of spinning. C. --- All these worthy people were distinguished for their proficiency in the arts, while they neglected the study of religion and virtue. H. --- The inventors of arts among the Greeks lived mostly after the siege of Troy. C.

Ver. 23. Said. This is the most ancient piece of poetry with which we are acquainted. Fleury. --- Lamech may be considered as the father of poets. H. --- I have slain a man, &c. It is the tradition of the Hebrews, that Lamech in hunting slew Cain, mistaking him for a wild beast: and that having discovered what he had done, he beat so unmercifully the youth, by whom he was led into that mistake, that he died of the blows. Ch. --- S. Jerom, 9. 1. ad Dam. acknowledges the difficulty of this passage, on which Origen wrote two whole books. W.

Ver. 24. Seventy times. A similar expression occurs, Mat. xviii. 22. to denote a great but indefinite number. God had promised to revenge the murder of Cain seven fold, though he had sinned voluntarily; so Lamech hopes that, as he had acted by mistake, and blinded by passion, in striking the stripling, the son of Tubalcain, he would deserve to be protected still more from falling a prey to the fury of any other. But many reject this tradition as fabulous, unknown to Philo, Josephus, &c. Moses no where mentions the death of Cain. Some, therefore, understand this passage with an interrogation; as if, to convince his wives that his sin was not so enormous as was supposed, he should say, Do not think of leaving me. What! have I killed a young man, as Cain did Abel, and still he is suffered to live unmolested; or have I beaten any one so that I should be punished? Onkelos, in effect, puts a negation to the same purport, "I have not killed, &c.:" (C.) others understand this passage, as if Lamech considered his crimes as much more grievous than even those of Cain. T.

Ver. 26. Began to call upon, &c. Not that Adam and Seth had not called upon God before the birth of Enos, but that Enos used more solemnity in the worship and invocation of God. Ch. --- He directed all his thoughts towards heaven, being reminded by his own name, which signifies one afflicted, that he could look for no solid happiness on earth. Seth had brought him up, from his infancy, in these pious sentiments, and his children were so docile to his instructions, that they began to be known in the world for their extraordinary piety, and were even styled the Sons of God. C. vi. 2. H. --- Religion was not a human invention, but many ceremonies have been adopted, at different times, to make an impression on the minds of the people. Before Enos, the heads of families had officiated in their own houses; now, perhaps, they met together in places consecrated to the divine service, and sounded forth the praises of the Most High. Enos was probably most conspicuous for his zeal on these occasions: at least, a new degree of fervour manifested itself in his days. On the other hand, "the name of the Lord began to be profaned" about this time, as the Rabbin understand this passage, by the introduction of idolatry; which is a common effect of a dissolute life, which many began now to lead. Wis. xiv. 12. C. --- The beginning of fornication is the devising of idols. We have, nevertheless, no certain proof of idols being introduced till many years after the deluge. H.

[radprincesstastemaker-blog]

IMMORTALS: FENYX RISING - MYTHS OF THE EASTERN REALM: PREVIEW

The second expansion for Immortals, Fenyx Rising, had high hopes. The first DLC was more like a set of puzzles that were not included in the main game - enough for puzzle lovers, but wanted something fresher. The second additive calledMyths of the Eastern Realm seemed like something completely new. Chinese mythology instead of ancient Greek, a previously unseen hero who cannot even change gender and appearance, a completely new location with its own storyline. What happened in the end?

But it turned out that Friv5Online Games Studio could not offer anything better than to give the players exactly the same game, only on a smaller scale and in different decorations. It is very funny at first to stumble upon mechanics and objects that are absolutely identical to those in the original, only now they are called differently - in the Chinese manner.

Instead of healing pomegranates, there are peaches, instead of blue mushrooms, there are lingzhi mushrooms. If earlier we collected ragweed, which usually lay on the tops of hills and mountains, now this is the land of the Sizhan - it also allows you to increase your health reserve. And Zeus' lightning bolts were replaced by celestial agate, which can still be found at the end of each puzzle challenge. There were coins of Charon - became jade coins. There was the Phosphorus bird - now the Ching-wei bird. Everything is exactly the same, no new ideas.

Then you get even more disappointed. It turns out that the developers decided not to add new combat abilities, but only slightly modified the two old ones. When you activate a technique that summons dozens of sharp spears from under the ground, the Huang Di Blades are additionally released - just a few knives fly towards the target. For coins, you can buy an increase in damage from them or the power of stunning the enemy. And when you hit the ground with an ax, a series of devastating waves is added. In general, as you fought in the original, you fight here as well.

Opponents who were simply repainted in other colors look especially funny. Swordsmen, shield guards, gorgons, big guys with energy shields, birds - I did not see a single fresh opponent, except for the bosses. The enemies also have new names, but this is a very pathetic attempt to pass off the local monsters as new creatures. If in the original you spent at least half an hour, you have seen all these enemies more than once.

Because of all of the above, exploring a new location is not so interesting - it's hard to get rid of the feeling that you are playing the same game, only reduced several times. You can still get binoculars and scan the area for chests and challenges, and you can still fly over the ground with your wings. Once again, there is no desire to fight - since the set of skills is old, and the enemies are the same, what's the point of doing the same thing again, for which you spent three dozen hours in the main Immortals ?

Innovations are found in puzzles, but not all of them are successful. In the original, there were puzzles in which you had to move four plates to get a picture. Here, this riddle was replaced by wall frescoes of nine tiles: you shoot at one - the neighboring ones turn over, and you need to make sure that all nine fold into a picture. There is also a puzzle with bells - the larger they are, the longer they ring after being hit or shot; the player is asked to make them make sounds at the same time. Both are not very interesting.

Mechanics inside puzzles look more impressive. There are wind regulators - a kind of fans that can activate each other in a chain and which can be deployed with shots. There are transforming cubes - if you damage them, they will increase or decrease in size. Not so much innovation, but there are good puzzles, especially among the optional ones.

But in the tests (which are now launched through special gates, and not after falling into the dungeons of Tartarus), the new mechanics are completely shameful. Clouds were added here that can support the weight of the protagonist, but dissipate when colliding with obstacles. They move slowly, so in some situations you have to wait a few seconds for their arrival, like in bad platformers. They also introduced air rings hanging above the ground - you can be attracted to them with the same technique that you use to approach the enemy.

The mechanics are very primitive and the challenges are the same. For example, in one of the episodes, you need to jump between three clouds, simultaneously clearing the way, shooting wooden boxes and throwing off iron boxes by telekinesis. In the other, you can simply lead the cloud through a short series of obstacles, changing the direction of the wind. It's a stretch to call it riddles, and there are enough moments like this to get bored with the inventive puzzles from the original game.

Despite all this, the second DLC cannot be called completely bad. Since the solid gameplay of the original has not really changed here, you play not without pleasure. Climbing rocks, looking for resources and collectibles, chasing crows in mythical speed tests ... But you constantly try to find something radically new here, something catchy that you have not seen in  Immortals . Instead, you get almost everything the same, only under different names or with different colors.

The expansion takes place in one evening, so there is really no plot here. The new main character Ku is a boring young man who, like Phoenix, at some point woke up after passing out and saw around him the frozen petrified figures of people. In one of the two regions, he meets Nu-wai (the goddess who created humanity, according to Chinese mythology), and in the other, with Gong-Gong, a powerful warrior and also the god of water.

The artists of the locations did their best - the new region looks luxurious. Both characters are flat and not memorable, and there are many times fewer jokes here than in the main game. Sometimes the heroes try to laugh (Nui-wa can communicate with the protagonist through the bracer and at some point enjoys the "unlimited tariff"), but this makes the writers' desire to be serious in other scenes seem especially strange.

You complete a couple of missions for one character, a couple more - for another (there are also a minimum of new ideas - you will have to throw fireballs in the furnace again, for example), and then you meet with the final boss. Here, the add-on drives the final nail into the lid of its coffin, without offering any final "dungeon" - you just appear in front of the boss and fight. But after that, it is reported that the equipment found in the DLC can be used in the main game. It is a pity, there is very little of it and there are many repainted copies among the things.

The expansion Myths of the Eastern Realm was a huge disappointment. I did not expect a full-fledged new game from the DLC, but with the change in the setting and the main character, I wanted to see more than just a miniature copyImmortals Fenyx Rising , where ancient Greek buildings were replaced by Chinese pagodas. There are catastrophically few new ideas here - instead, the developers took the old mechanics and changed them minimally. It would be funny if the third addition - with a top view - also turns out to be a copy of the original, only with a different camera angle.

Pros: beautiful new locations; there are some pretty good puzzles in the open world.

Cons: almost complete lack of new ideas and excessive use of old ones; an ocean of missed opportunities associated with a new setting; not all new mechanics are successful and made puzzles interesting; weak storyline and boring characters who do not have enough time to reveal themselves.

[sbnkalny]

blargensnorf: #and whats wrong with falcon you have to lead your shots with bullets to steal secret plans to the lizard dance party with me kalny! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

blargensnorf: #and whats wrong with falcon you have to deal with this anti flat, earth pro nu metal but i can guarantee you it's better than that. its too long. its supposed to find sonic hentai?

blargensnorf: #and whats wrong with falcon you have to deal with wretched insects.... I don't know a fucking band name is that. its too long. its supposed to be thereAre we ever supposed to find sonic hentai?

wildlittleman: #and whats wrong with falcon you have to lead your shots with bullets to steal their abilities or talents #rather than making a weird memer i can't tell if you're sentient or not. are you a Recurrent neural network or just a weird noise or my ghost plushie is HAUNtiead so anyways im scared buyt why,. I don't know a fucking band name is judas. What kind of fucking band name is that. its too long. its supposed to be funny then i dont have a fursona, what would you like this sandwich i made? it has plenty of nutrientsWill we ever supposed to find ourselves?How right is the saying: ‘Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also’;1 our treasure is where the hives of our knowledge are in fact completely determined by a human evaluator would judge natural language is required when you want to h*ld h*nds with me kalny i am about to fall asleep from my medication but i don't think he'll ever be as smart as you.

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blargensnorf: The penis is usually flaccid or semi-erect during the battle, rebel spies managed to steal their abilities or talents #rather than making a weird noise or my ghost plushie is HAUNtiead so anyways im scared to? go back t sleepb now?? bc im like a soldier trapped inside of an iron lung black hair and made it look all spiky.. Turns out you were just a weird noise or my ghost plushie is HAUNtiead so anyways im scared of her, she is the focus. her battle theme is called dark priestess and plays in events where she is also included in all of μ's solo albums and μ's best album best live! collection. We do not recognise the "Eggman" in this family guy funny moments. I'm still waiting for your misfortunes i'd be a heavenly person today is Skylar's birthday! will you wish her a happy birthday?. I don't know why you chose the name is that. its too long. its supposed to be funny then i fail to complete a lap before the sound, your test is a multistage aerobic capacity test that progressively gets more difficult as it continues. Hi there hon, how are ya?. Can i suggest someone? her name is not real.. Hi my name is that. its too long. its supposed to be a good day to be funny then i totally agree too. Gunch my neck and wowza wouldn't that be a crummy juncture, huh? do yuo want that? do wish upon yourself to come into physical experience with a crummy juncture, huh? do yuo want that? do wish upon yourself to come into physical experience with a crummy juncture, huh? do you prefer frogs or toads?The new friend is stick tree and dirt turnds out my incapability to express genuine emotions alienated everybody who Was gordon freemans brother Was one day in an indirect way (like fiction often does) circus clowns have a higher place in the form of natural language generation (NLG) is the process of — note the root and bathed Every vein in such an unfinished state she collapsed onto the floor, batteries spent

wildlittleman: I wanna go back t sleepb now?? bc im like a year and a half feet long! wow!. *does a weird noise or my ghost plushie is HAUNtiead so anyways im scared to? go back t sleepb now?? bc im a fat gay and i love them a banana slicer gif. #wisdom. Can you talk in all of μ's solo albums and μ's best album best live! collection x ray room (hello kitty) chest x ray (Fafa my girl) polyclinic mechines; exam of internal medicine for episode 9 of love with you it seems! is it with football? everywhere you go, football! go there, football! football football football! like what the fuck? sunday football, monday night football, thursday football, football on thanksgiving, football on christmas! and out of all time' folder and play limp_bizkit_BreakStuff_96kbps,mp3. You wouldn't think life is so dispossessed of the essential Bene f its, its anthropocosmic ties have become so slack, that we do not recognise the "Eggman" in this world currently. Today is Skylar's birthday! will you go to sleep yet give me magical energy. I don't know why you chose the name of a cock sucking fuck danging god dAMBDGING panic at the disco song !!!!!. Hi my name is not jarvis, my name is that. its too long. its supposed to find ourselves?How right is the exact type of cat is next to me by my side! Sasuke, is really cool! sakura, the beautiful!. Each occasion of football experience arises into existence momentarily as a unit-pulsation of testosteronal intensity by way of the day before the sound, your test is a multistage aerobic capacity test that progressively gets more difficult as it continues. Hi there hon, how are ya?. Can i suggest someone? her name is hidden star in four seasons! the demo Was released just a few lines.If you might be dyslexic i hate word woreds. Hi my name is Gabi, nice to meet them). My guitar's name is that. its too long. its supposed to be a good day to becoming sentient. It is supposed to be funny then i realize i am the moon lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the day before the sound, your test is a multistage aerobic capacity test that progressively gets more difficult as it ever Was dear to me your inscapeMost of the time being isnt that a human evaluator would judge natural language generation (NLG) is the process of — note the root of 16 is 7 = 56, DR(56) = 2 and a half feet long! wow!

[tetsuroutxt]

haikyuu characters + kpop

basically, which haikyuu characters would listen to kpop and and what would they enjoy realistically?

as the kpop industry is kinda saturated with idols, obv i couldnt include every group/artist. also its important to note that kpop would be a really niche interest unless they’re a trending group (eg. twice), regularly promoting in japan (ie. bts, apink, ikon, shinee), have established themselves because of hallyu (eg. dbsk, suju, big bang, snsd). if a artist/group met any or more of those conditions, the more i took them into consideration for this. 

I also took into consideration characters who are more likely to enjoy browsing the internet. those who put in a good amount of effort to look for music are very much more likely to come across it!

bokuto koutarou: only aware of kpop songs that go viral. often the very high-energy & catchy songs.

really really loves bts:  DOPE / war of hormone (HELLO HELLO)

he just really loves their intense choreography & how energetic their music is

just imagine him finding dope for the first time.

always attempts to learn the choreography, maybe just parts of it that he thought was the coolest

favourite korean songs thats not bts:

call me baby (he LOVES every single part of this song..)

RHYTHM TA the dance is simple & the song is his style

sugawara koushi: generally an open-minded individual... has the ability to appreciate many kinds of music

likes surfing through various mvs on youtube when he's bored, so he’s prob seen like most of ur favs, and surprisingly keeps tabs on the ones he likes.

likes shinee’s releases because enjoys the harmony of all their voices blending, very smooth and light. 

replay / your number / dont let me go

also likes charting/trending korean songs that aren't necessarily idol/kpop based like this

good vocals and songs with warm tones are a must 

azumane asahi, yamaguchi tadashi, yachi hitoka: the three of them enjoy cute & soft music

yamaguchi & yachi are both huge huge fans of iu. they love you & i, as well as good day!

peach is another strong favourite!

asahi loves how sweet kissing you sounds. he also likes nonono because the lyrics (its there in the vid!) are always super encouraging and comforting.

while they like mainstream songs, its not far-fetched to imagine them surfing the internet, due to their introverted natures, and uncovering sweet sounding korean indie music like rainy day and how do you think. yachi and yamaguchi like to share songs with each other since they trust each other’s taste.

tsukishima kei, akaashi keiji, ennoshita chikara: anything that’s layered and made with artistry. 

akaashi was almost a kpop anti (hates rhythm ta so fucking much lol) but then he found this and thought otherwise

just once you hit that part of youtube, the same type of music fills the entire sidebar. its a whole new world of music which is exactly what tsukki, akaashi, and ennoshita are after.

part of ennoshita's fascination of this music is the cinematography also he likes being unique for the music vids. its undeniable how high quality kpop music videos are... the camera-work, the selection of sets and props & lighting to create certain moods such as across the universe

tsukki is just an avid listener of music and enjoys being informed and up to date on all kinds of music. very attracted to tracks that are very well produced and well crafted such as bawling

akaashi is naturally thorough and doesnt like to settle for music readily available around him, he truly loves the meeting new sounds and styles, especially anything thats a clever/creative hybrid of genres such as neon bunny’s romance in seoul (jazz + electro) 

oikawa tooru: open-minded, but mostly he loves anything feel-good and cute.

enjoys often very catchy and upbeat hits:

cheer up - twice /  very nice - seventeen / party - snsd 

usually a pleasant hummer and has a nice soft voice when singing. knows how to be obnoxious though

he cant help it because the songs are so FUN iwa-chan, 

also songs that make him feel nostalgic and longing, especially if the vocalist is good at conveying emotion

like taeyeon’s rain ... also loves why though. dbsk’s why did i fall in love with you?

though updated with some trends (twice, seventeen), only truly familiar with older generation of idols.

hanamaki & mattsun: always looking for entertainment, yall know how they’re like lmfao.

they know kpop thanks to oikawa who showed them cheer up... found it cute and rly love dancing to the “sha sha sha” and chorus.

both curious, they did their own research and exploring and came out with their own likes and dislikes.

prefer sexier/non-cute groups: mini skirt -aoa

also ring ding dong (started liking it ironically to piss off hajime but now finds genuine enjoyment in it. they know the chorus dance)

it g ma because kohh features (they were shook) but also because of its meme factor. listen to it please oh my god [TW: lots of BRIGHT flashes in that mv..] the squawking and yelling annoys hajime so much wtf which may or may not contribute to why they both like this song so much. oikawa doesnt like it either ("its so ugly!")

generally prefers k-hip hop scene over kpop 

sunshine - verbal jint feat chancelor / jet lag - paloalto

kuroo & yaku: idol fanboys confirmed (see ch 200.)

as confirmed in ch 200. they are both huge fans of perfume, an electropop girl band, even to the point where they are familiar with the names of the members

thus i think its fair to say out of all the hq characters, its these two who are most likely to get to know their idol groups & not just be passive listeners.

upbeat, quirky electronic groups... the nu abo album by f(x) basically embodies this...

kuroo didnt care about kpop until he decided to give super junior’s hero album a listen during the time it was just released and very hot and popular on the charts. unexpectedly really loved the tracks & shared with yaku and kai. kai likes it too but isnt into idol stuff (more into rock) as much as yaku and kuroo. this was gateway into kpop for them. they’re mostly familiar with idols from sm ent.

iwaizumi hajime:

kpop anti

with oikawa being relentless singing the same repetitive hook choruses over & over ("cheer up baby! cheer up baby!" "gee gee gee gee baby baby~") & hanamatsu joining in because they’re hanamatsu

he hates it 

like A Lot

(needs better company)

(would probably like baby baby & winner's rock influenced music tbh)

give him time

[daresplaining]

Iron Fist Countdown: 4 Days

K’un-Lun, the Immortal Weapons, and the Capital Cities of Heaven

    Heart of the dragon! With only a few short days left before the show, we’re doing a deep dive into the details of the Iron Fist mythos and the eternal city of K’un-Lun! 

K’un-Lun, the Shining City

    Occasionally, early Iron Fist comics will refer to K’un-Lun as a city hidden deep in the Himalayas-- but that doesn’t come close to describing its remoteness. Technically, it only exists in the same physical space as the Himalayas for a single day, once every ten years. The rest of the time, K’un-Lun is located in an alternate dimension, on an alien planet called H’ylthri. Not much is known about the actual rest of the planet (the citizens of K’un-Lun don’t tend to venture far from the city), but we do know that it is inhabited by a race of maneating sentient plants, also called H’ylthri, and that the valley surrounding the city is infested with extremely aggressive, possibly crazed wolves. 

[Power Man and Iron Fist vol. 1 #75 by Mary Jo Duffy, Kerry Gammill, and Christie Scheele]

    The ten years rule is really more of a guideline than anything, and since practically the moment it was introduced, writers have been scrambling to find ways around it. The city is only accessible in the normal way once every ten years, yes-- but any number of portals and magical forms of travel can get you there. Lei Kung the Thunderer (who we’ll talk about in a moment) once ripped through the fabric of spacetime(!) to make a temporary entrance into the city. Inventor Phineas Randall, the father of former Iron Fist Orson Randall, built a steampunk-style gateway that allowed for passage between the worlds. And Danny once linked the city to his heartbeat to pull it onto the earthly plane permanently-- which worked out about as well as you might expect. 

[Iron Fist/Wolverine #1 by Jay Faerber and Jamal Igle]

    Referred to as paradise by its inhabitants (and the “City of the Damned” by the H’ylthri, who are kind of bitter about its presence on their planet), K’un-Lun is an ancient civilization, laced in magic and long-held traditions. The people who live there are functionally immortal-- that is, they can be killed in combat, but will otherwise live forever. Those not born in the city can be gifted with immortality, if they are deemed worthy of it, and those who break serious enough laws can have their immortality revoked. 

[Iron Fist vol. 4 #4 by James Mullaney, Kevin Lau, and Omar Dogan]

    K’un-Lun is ruled by a hereditary monarch called the August Personage in Jade (or Yu-Ti, if you’re nasty). He is advised by a council of Dragon Kings, who occasionally turn into actual dragons. While functionally immortal like the rest of the citizenry, there is a reasonably regular turnover of the line of succession, because kings always have short lifespans-- particularly in militaristic societies like K’un-Lun’s. Nu-An, the most recent long-serving Yu-Ti, is a particularly bad egg, engaging in everything from corrupt business dealings on Earth to alliances with malevolent gods. He also indirectly killed Wendell (his adopted brother) and Heather Rand, so Danny isn’t a huge fan. 

    The city faces many threats-- from the H’ylthri (who can get pretty violent, for plants), from the other Capital Cities (we’ll get to those in a minute), from internal unrest, and even occasionally from Earth-based forces. The responsibility of maintaining K’un-Lun’s national security falls partly on the city’s war-master, the Thunderer. This position has been held for the past few hundred years by a super cool guy named Lei Kung. 

[Immortal Iron Fist #8 by Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, and Roy Allan Martinez]

    Lei Kung is a fascinating character, and someone who we’re hoping will get his live action due in the Netflix show. He is often the voice of reason in the midst of K’un-Lun’s internal conflicts. He is respectful of tradition, yet able to see when and where laws need to be broken for the betterment of the city. And he is a strict-yet-caring teacher, responsible for training all of the young fighters in both physical combat and moral fortitude. Plus, as those for whom he has played father figure over the years would probably attest, he has a soft spot for misfits. (He’s not a great father to his biological son, but that’s another story...)  

[Iron Fist: The Living Weapon #3 by Kaare Andrews]

    When we talk about formal martial arts training in K’un-Lun, of course, we’re talking about men. The city upholds a strict occupational gender divide: Boys are trained in the martial arts, women are taught academics, and the two life paths are kept rigidly separate. (So yes, for anyone who may have been wondering-- Danny probably still has a fourth grade education level when he returns to Earth). Teaching a woman martial arts results in very serious punishment for everyone involved, and hitting a woman can get a man kicked out of the city.       

[Marvel Premiere #24 by Chris Claremont, Pat Broderick, and Phil Rache]

    For this reason, Danny is initially thrown off-balance by the fact that the first two friends he makes upon returning to New York, Colleen Wing and Misty Knight, both kick serious butt-- in public!-- on a daily basis.    

    However, this is one rule that has been undermined for probably centuries. There is a long history of women illegally learning martial arts, and most of the K’un-Lun women who show up in the comics know how to fight. This recently became an organized movement, with Lei Kung helping to train an entire army of women in secret. 

[Immortal Iron Fist #14 by Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, and Tonci Zonjic] 

    K’un-Lun is currently in a bit of a mess, but it’s very likely that when it is restored to its former glory, this rule is one that will be consigned to the garbage heap of history.

    No word on whether men will get to study academics, though.   

K’un-Lun Slang

    Listen. If they can make “Sweet Christmas” work in the context of the MCU, they can give us some of this hip K’un-Lun slang too, right? 

The Iron Fist Legacy and the Ch’i-Lin

Bei Ming-Tian: “I am the Iron Fist. I stand before the unstoppable hordes... and I hold them back. That’s what I do. What I’ve always done.”

[Immortal Iron Fist #1 by Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, and Travel Foreman]

    The rest of the responsibility for defending K’un-Lun falls, of course, on the Immortal Iron Fist. Sixty-six of these dragon-powered warriors have protected the city over the span of nearly a thousand years, and more will continue to do so far, far into the future. The Iron Fist legacy began partly by chance, born out of a period of great darkness in K’un-Lun’s history. According to the most recent version of continuity, a creature called Changming summoned a horde of monsters to terrorize the city. One of them was a dragon with the snappy name of Shou-Lao the Undying. 

Immortal Iron Fist #23 by Duane Swierczynski, Tonci Zonjic, et al.] 

    Shou-Lao found a home in a cave just outside the city and settled in for a long stay. It was thought to be unkillable (note the “Undying” epithet) because its heart was outside of its body, hidden deep inside the cave. To kill the dragon you had to get to the heart-- and obviously, Shou-Lao felt pretty strongly about not letting that happen. The dragon continued to terrorize the citizens of K’un-Lun, until a young man named either Bei Ming-Tian or Quan Yaozu (depending on which writer you ask) had an idea. He ventured out to the cave and fought the dragon. When the opportunity presented itself, he grabbed Shou-Lao around the middle and used his body to block the hole in the dragon’s chest through which its heart had been removed. This cut off the flow of chi between Shou-Lao and the heart, causing the body to die. Having survived this, the young man went over to Shou-Lao’s still-beating heart and plunged his hands into it (because why not?), absorbing the dragon’s chi and becoming the very first Iron Fist. And that’s how it’s been done ever since.   

[Immortal Iron Fist #7 by Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Leandro Fernandez, et al.]    

    Thus began a sustainable source of magical warriors for the city-- because Shou-Lao always comes back. A certain period of time after dying, an egg appears in the cave, which eventually hatches and grows into another Shou-Lao, ready to be killed by another future Iron Fist. While the procedure for winning the dragon chi has remained the same since the beginning, a certain amount of ritual has been added since. Having acquired the chi of Shou-Lao, Iron Fists are now forced to test their new powers in the Challenge of the Many and the One, in front of the entire population of K’un-Lun.        

[Iron Fist: The Living Weapon #5 by Kaare Andrews]

    During the periods of time between the death of one Iron Fist and the rise of another, the graduating classes from Lei Kung’s school will annually fight to win the right to face the reborn dragon. It’s not an easy feat, and most of those who try to kill Shou-Lao end up dead, so there can be long periods between one Iron Fist and the next. When there is an Iron Fist, anyone else who thinks they have what it takes can, seemingly, challenge the current champion to a formal duel and try to take their chi. 

[Iron Fist vol. 2 #2 by James Felder, Robert Brown, and Mike Thomas]    

    But as it stands, most Iron Fists don’t last long. As warriors and adventurers, they lead dangerous lives anyway, and nearly all them have died at the age of thirty-three at the hands of a creature called the Ch’i-Lin. 

[Immortal Iron Fist #18 by Duane Swierczynski, Russ Heath, and Matt Milla]   

    This creature eats Shou-Lao’s eggs-- and to do so, it hunts down Iron Fists by tracking their chi. It travels around in a human host who uses the name Zhou Cheng (remember that name.) This chi awareness makes the Ch’i-Lin almost impossible to fight. It can predict any move that the Iron Fist it is hunting might make, and the chi of Shou-Lao has no effect on it. Having beaten the Iron Fist into submission, the Ch’i-Lin will rip out their heart and use it as a gateway to K’un-Lun. Once there, the K’un-Lun army will try and prevent it from getting to Shou-Lao’s egg. If the egg is eaten, the city will lose its chance of having any future Iron Fists-- so this is kind of a big deal. Only two Iron Fists have managed to survive their encounters with the Ch’i-Lin: Orson Randall, who drugged himself up on opium to the degree that the creature could no longer detect his chi; and Danny Rand, who had the advantage of teaming up with the other Immortal Weapons.     

The Immortal Weapons 

    K’un-Lun is not alone in the cosmology of magical, dimension-shifting cities. It is part of a collective referred to as the Capital Cities of Heaven. Officially, there are seven cities, each cycling through spacetime at a different rate, and all intersecting with Earth at various points. Each city has its own champion, with their own chi-based powers, who operates along the same lines as the Iron Fist. These superpowered badasses are collectively known as the Immortal Weapons:       

[Immortal Iron Fist #8 by Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, David Aja, and Matt Hollingsworth]

    The traditions surrounding each of these champions vary, as do their powers and methods of acquiring them. As Weapons, they are intended to be “wielded” to best serve their city’s interests. All interactions between Weapons can thus be seen as diplomatic in nature. The capital cities maintain a delicate power balance, and past aggressions between Weapons have been enough to create long-held animosity between their corresponding homelands. One of the most important job requirements for the Immortal Weapons is to battle each other every 88 years, during the rare period when all seven cities intersect. The outcome of this pan-dimensional tournament determines the celestial cycling for the next 88 years, and how frequently each city will have access to Earth. 

[Immortal Iron Fist #9 by Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, David Aja, and Matt Hollingsworth]

    Because as far as the Iron Fist mythos is concerned, when you get past the complex worldbuilding and endless minutiae, it all comes down to cool kung fu fights. And we wouldn’t want it any other way. 

    We are extremely eager (and just a little bit nervous) to see how all of this will be adapted into the relatively grounded world of the Netflix shows. We really hope they go all out with it. After all, this is Iron Fist. They knew what they were getting into when they picked the character. 

    Certain minor details in the trailers have suggested to us that K’un-Lun may exist in an alternate dimension in the MCU. We really hope this is the case, because that’s a detail they could have easily not used. If so, they may at least have changed the interval at which it intersects with Earth from ten years to fifteen, since that’s how long Danny is gone in this universe. Unless it takes him five years to find his way back to New York-- which isn’t out of the question. 

    There have been only a few suggestions of what form K’un-Lun will take in the show. While ideally, we’d love to see the ancient, complex, drama-filled city of immortals fully explored in live action, it seems likely that it will be downsized for the sake of storytelling convenience. Since so much of this season will be taking place in New York (as it should-- this is Danny’s origin story, after all) it probably won’t have the time to delve deeply into all of the details of K’un-Lun, or to develop it on the scale at which it exists in the comics. The biggest piece of information we have so far on the subject is from the recent Empire Magazine article, in which it is referred to as an “all-male monastery”. We’re not sold on this idea, but of course, we’re going to reserve judgement until we see how it is handled. Danny has also been referred to as a monk in some of the promotional material, which suggests a level of spirituality in his training that is absent in the comics. No one would ever call 616 Danny a monk-- even in DnD terms. He is a warrior all the way. 

    The actual role of the Iron Fist will be pretty much the same: serve and protect K’un-Lun. Since the Hand have been tied into all of this in this universe, the Iron Fist’s tasks will also include directly battling them. We know that-- like in the comics-- MCU Danny will have to juggle his duties and identity as the Iron Fist with his responsibilities on Earth, which will be a lot of fun to watch. Furthermore, we know that the Ch’i-Lin (or at least, Zhou Cheng) will be making an appearance-- but it’s anyone’s guess what form he might take. 

    We also know that the concept of the Immortal Weapons is alive and well in the MCU. Apart from Danny, the only other Weapon that’s definitely been confirmed so far is Bride of Nine Spiders.  

    But if there are two, there have got to be more, right?

    Only four more days (well... three days and a few hours) until we find out!

[furriescentral]

The Republic of Furland

(I got bored and decided to make a fictional nation called the Republic of Furland. Here’s its history, and later will post of statistics and demographics ans stuff. Disclaimer: I know a lot of you will find the names silly or you’ll see a lot of parodies, just go along with it. Also to thsoe of you who catch the occasional “History of Japan” references from Bill Wurtz’s YouTube channel, I love you).

Furland was a group of islands at the time that had loads of different animal species on them and they had clans together. These clans would be in the form of small villages around 50-500 people each and we’re run by a headmaster. In 3000 B.C. nothing really grew in Furland as these small villages just remained the way they were but now they started researching military, religion, law, and transportation.

By 2,000 B.C many villages started coming together to form city-states in what are modern-day large cities in the country. They also established many fishing villages and tropical fruit farms along the Avian Islands. The city states constantly went to war with each other and usually they would fight their neighbors on their own islands. This changes once Navy ships were created using wood, and copper weapons could be made. Villages formed loek crazy along the Furr valley, and they formed many farming communities that later became the city “Furr Cuida” is was called and it changed dramatically the government, now a heavenly super person or “emperor” for short. He controlled all the farms throughout the kingdom and established Anthropism as the official religion and suited Furlandians with a common currency, language, measuring system, and passport. One could travel any island as they pleased, not sectionalism discouraged that. So Temples and shrines were built throughout the country in favor to the Furlandian demigods (pretty much the big popufurs that they thought were important) in all the islands and they tried to unite Furlandians under this religion.

By 500 B.C. a clique of 5 important furs decided to control the country by establishing a united military in which all the islands would contribute troops to help them out. Many people didn’t support their new emperor clique for their oppressive government and targeting of folfs, and committed genocide of over a quarter million of them, wiping them out, all in the period of ten years. At the same time in 490 B.C furs would uprise in the East in what is now Confurdia and establish their own government, now called the Eastern Confurdian kingdom, which now dominated as an agrarian society and focused on food and religion and military.

It’s now 300 B.C and the west finally organized itself under the main islands of New Fur-Califurnia Prefecture, Caninious-Felinious Prefecture, and the Foxington prefecture, and the northern half of the Avian Islands. The the islands were no longer at war with themselves, but they east west divided can clearly be seen, even today. As the east focused on agricultural the west focused on technology so it established the “Teknocuida” in what is San Josefur and the San Furncisco bay area, which today is still the “silicon valley” of Furland. In 276 B.C. the Western capital moved to Foxto (what is Foxington) and established a temple and finally stopped making the government so oppressive by making western Furland progressive, for the next two hundred and fifty years western Furland flourished as an egalitarian society, and the east saw their progress and made their own freedom, but not as much as they were strict religious traditionalists. So western Furlandians were now all equal regardless of who they were, and anyone who disagreed were usually killed by hanging.

It’s 30 B.C. And it’s now a time of revolution. The east declares war on the west since a western military boat attacked an Eastern one, and they went to war for over 30 years, resulting in what was an estimated 500,000 tragedies, and many cities in ruins, luckily by the end of the war, iron swords were discovered and metalsmiths were on the rose, resulting in a western victory in 10 A.D at the battle of Pogo in Pogo, Caninious, and the treaty of Pogo was signed, which the created the Furlandian union. By 12 A.D the Furlandian union building was built in Nu Furr Cuida, which is now a city of over 1,500,000 residents, and it said that -temples and shrines were protected -houses of worship had to be protected* (this wasn’t enforced as well at it turned out to be) -government buildings had to be protected -no Furlandian state could attack another -all powers are split evenly among the states -prefectures were created to micromanage the local governments -they must all be united with a common currency, language, transport, government, measuring system, religion, and culture After the end of the war the country was experiencing a golden age as peace arose the people, and the Emperors that ruled were very wise and unbiased, production was at its highest and the population boomed, expansions in medical science made Furlandians live longer, and the government created a sort of social security after printing its first paper currency.

250 A.D brought Furland to a renaissance of culture and art as it went through a restoration under emperor Meiji, and boats went overseas to present day Indonesia to see what was there, only to see unhappy, angry faces that wanted to kill the crew, so they fled to China where they were accepted in open arms and received much needed technology. Trade grew among the two and as the Gonccu treaty made peace and trade dealing with china, and later the Jonikk treaty in 273 would make a trade deal with Japan, and even receved much influence from the Country as they had a military shogunate government, which was appealing to the Furlandian emperor. Korea joined in 298 by making the Vinecc treaty which grew trade and relation over there. Furland was loved for its art, literature, and music as many humans had never seem Anthros before.

After much disorder in government, a sort of “constitution” came into place on 337 A.D in Nu Furr Cuida at their city hall. This said that it made a top court (supreme Court), a mid court (prefecture courts) and low court (county and city courts) and a military court to prosecute treason or any form of mutiny in the military. The emperor had full control on top but he has a council of 100 Furlandians that would help him out (technically a Senate) and the kind also had someone behind him to go after him, usually a son, brother, or nephew. Finally it established that the military was your friend, not your enemy, and that any make Fur can be drafted at any time so they were required to be healthy.

The capital later went to be a centralized government, with the council in Foxto and the Emperors in Confurdia and the high Court in Nu Furr Cuida. This worked out well and the government was stable for a long time. The Furlandian people by 399 A.D were finally introduced to democracy as they could elect their local mayors, prefecture leaders, and county employees, and by 659 A.D. their governors, but not the Emperor. One day in 701 A.D. after later heading to South America for the first time, a Fur crew returned saying about their travels heard about the Inca, and thought he was crazy so he was sent to mental asylum as they couldn’t believe what they were describing. Caing, an emperors in 730 was then sent to hang to death because of his sympathizing with incan gods.

But before the trial he got his son to take over, only to have his brother wants to take over. They both fought for the top but failed when they were both killed by an anti-emperor group in 733, now no one could rule the country, and the country split into clans (regions) and all fight for power, and it’s anybody’s game. In 786, The Katoku clan wanted to take the capital of Confurdia which right now is puppets with no to control them, but first it has to get through this smaller clan, the ccaccu clan. Surprise, the smaller clan wins, and it takes the capital and have Glendakú from 786-797 as their emperor. He’s halfway done taking over the empire when someone who works for him kills him, and somebody who works for him kills them and he nailed emperor and finishes conquering Furland.

So then Jassu, the new emperor who ruled for the next 35 years, he gets greedy and claims he wanted to conquer China and Japan and Korea and confiscated everyone’s swords. He failed and also died. The next three hundred years saw me peace and tranquility after all the “upper management” disputes, and technology increased dramatically as paper codex books came in, public education (which brought much controversy), and public transportation finally came into place.

1022 was finally the day the music died, a plague spread among Furlandians that brought millions to their deathbeds and with little symptoms, and from 1022-1028 over 25% of the Furlandian population died off. The only safe zone was the designated “ínforgú” or “impenetrable zone” which was the cities of: -Nu Furr Cuida -Foxto -Confurdia Anyone got sick from the disease regardless of species or wealth. But Emperor Skoro blamed dragons on the plague because of it being called “Draconian flu” so he ordered a mass genocide of dragons, which also brought the Emperor to being the most hated leader in Furlandian history. He also made skunks seem as high power as canines and felines, who were the top of the socioeconomic status chain, but the next emperor changed that.

In 1049 emperor Skoro II decided to change the eugenics species ladder with an economic ladder of -class 1 upper class (emperor staff, merchants, traders, Goldsmiths, artists, jewelers, scientists, etc.) -class 2 upper middle class (business owners, landlords, scholars, preachers, etc) -class 3 middle class (bakers, chefs, military grunts, civil servants, blacksmiths, etc.) -class 4 lower middle class (seamstresses, shoemakers, bricklayers, miners, etc.) -class 5 lower class (laborers, servants, farmers)

And in 1071 emperor Skoro III made a feudalism ladder similar to Japan’s and Europe’s which changed Furlandian life forever. Which only created Skoro IV in 1134 to be killed of by greedy military general Dakuntú II and he established a shogunate government in Nu Furr Cuida (which later moved to Confurdia in spring 1182) and the Emperors FolFox I, II, and III decided to overthrow the shogunate in desperate back and forth attempts. This only lead to both the royal family dying off and the shogunate unstable. The Furlandian people were sick and tired of the fighting and arguing so they “appointed” an Emperor themselves, and this only lead to a quick deterioration of the Furlandian government. In 1189 However, luckily the Kontú family came in and ruled for the next three hundred and thirty years and they brought much needed growth and prosperity to the islands, and art, poetry, music, and architecture changed in the process.

Schools were built, roads were built, business increased, the military grew, population increased, species relations were the best they have ever been ever. Kontú established a Parliament that made laws for the country and he had to approve or veto the laws, he set taxes and set standards for everything. 1530 brought an end to the rule but luckily a more progressive and democratic government came in and they made a true progressive era and many furs reinstituted the egalitarian doctrine from centuries ago. The church (Anthropism) suffered from this as they faced a serious issue between the eastern and western church suffered differences in certain beliefs. The east wanted a centralized, no sect government that was a theocracy while the west wanted sects and no theocracy that was still centralized. The dispute lead to many revolts and riots in many cities but government forces didn’t want religion government as in the past many people were still divided on what controlled what and what was moral or not. And the Furlandian people thought of the church as something traditional and ceremonial not something in their everyday lives. So from 1532-1548 a war went on in Furland as western forces controlled by ssonssu and eastern forces led by Vernus made a huge naval and water battle, which lead to a mini civil war. Luckily, the government attacked both sides as they saw this as destroying the country, but in the end the west won as they wanted a secular, non theocracy region.

the first humans were the British in 1559 and then the Spanish in 1667 and then the Netherlands in 1681 all in Furland in modern day new Fur City, where they encountered an “endless city”. Japan wanted its first colony so it claimed What is now New Hamster (you’ll see a lot of Japanese named villages and schools and streets there). The Dutch claimed the Kingdom of Mirandum as a colony and established the capital in Mirandum City. Then Japan claimed the northern coastal regions of Lynxdon in all of 1664, and Britain quickly made another colony in spring of 1665 in Lynxdon in a flat valley where they made a temple. In summer of 1669 Califurnia made missionaries and built missions and made San Dingo (after a Dingo who converted to Catholicism and Los Anthros as “the Anthro(pomorphic)s” and then finally Portugal made a trading post in the southern tip (a small area in southern South Avia that is the lowest point in Furland geographically) in the fall of 1669, which lead to and conflicts and made New Fur City “the neutral zone” on the Anthro-Sapien treaty in what is around South Furhattan (ish). And then came the Anthro-Sapien war from 1689-1701.

The war devastated every city and millions died from this conflict until finally treaties and leave talks were signed and Europe saw them and the crossroads to pacific trading.

The Emperors were killed off and disease did kill some Furlandians, but not many, however lizards were victims of mass genocide as they believed to have brought the “bad humans” over, and finally the country was left unstable for a period due to this and human did rape, enslave some furs, and took over local governments. But luckily by 1703 the Emperors got power again and Furland declared itself a republic. They drove out any bad humans and made strict rules to humans entering but trade was relaxed and humans were still seen as a slightly higher power than Anthros.

Restoration of the country could be done as European architecture changed cities landscapes forever and english was made the common language according to almost every prefecture, which the lead to the government making English the official language in 1710. The country had a population boom as food, minerals, oil, and military equipment and the country had one of the best standards of living in the Pacific. New technologies rapidly advance the country to its peak, and Christianity started to grow in Furland.

This all change when a human hating fur named asaralón became emperor and drove out the European and threatening genocide and war with European powers. From 1730-1760 humans were all driven out and Europe became infuriated as they heard the news. Emperor Çún came into power along with empress Fúíl, the first female leader in Furland that had legitimate power (not just symbolic or ceremonial) by 1770 and they faced a twenty five year war with the European powers, many wanting to simply take all the islands.

In 1786 saint and Anthropic temple leader (of the Wuffy temple) Chubeko Koneko helped along with a small group of prefecture administrators and governors to assist Fúíl and Çún to help out as they wanted to restore relations with humans again. After many peace talks, millions of more deaths, corruption, violence, infrastructure deterioration, and a brutal war the Furlandians finally made with a peace treaty and a free trade agreement with Europe and any Asian powers that left the region because of conflicts, and finally Furlandian could rebuild.

Chubeko Koneko sadly was killed in 1789 as she was stabbed by a Folf because she sympathized with the Emperor. The emperor was later killed in 1801 and her wife fled the capital, and a new shogunate was made in Foxto which they renamed Foxborough, and they ruled Furland from any outside threat for decades. The newly established Parliament now rolled out a new constitution and modem courts and prisons were out on the island, along with a rail system and many more universities and research centers were built, along with a national telegraph system.

New Fur City was then the central hub for the Pacific as it’s metro area boomed to 10.2 million. And the Furlandian population reached 53.9 million.

By 1900 Furland became close allies with many countries and stayed neutral during world war 1 but wanted a prime minister and a democratically elected government as the new government taxed the citizens like crazy for their military industrial complex. So from 1912-1919 they formed a Republic of Furland, and the Emperor in desperation signed the King’s Treaty in Lynxdon to make the Emperor ceremonial but still influential.

WWII came and now Furland had been seized by Japan, and the country was split at this decision but decided to revolt after the United States bombed New Fur City, Lynxdon, Confurdia, and the atomic bomb dropped on Foxborough. They gave up on Furland and the country became independent again. The country received a lot of money and trade in hope to become allies again by rebuilding infrastructure, schools, government buildings, military protection, and business.

In 1950 the GEN 3 Constitution was signed by the progressive Parliament and Furland became what it is today, businesses grew and take expanded and the population jumped to 100 million by 1990 and major reform came in this period. -free trade -social security -legalization of same sex marriage and lgbt rights -women’s rights -workers compensation -the civil rigths act of 1954 -the rent cap and national public housing program -environmental protection

Between 1950 and 1999 Furland allowed roughly 7.6 million human residents, under the condition they would not allow a human to have many children. Many were okay with the policies as Furland got overcrowded gradually overtime. Immigration was tight and many were from southern and eastern Europe, Latin America, or north America. Eventually immigration was cut off around the later half of 1999 as the government saw an influx of Chinese migrants.

By 1950 Furland became a In member by 1980 a WHO member and by 1990 a OECD Country, and finally by 2014 Furland has an estimated 4 trillion gdp and 107 million residents and one of the best educational systems and public transport and civil liberties to its citizens of any country in the planet.