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jedimaesteryoda · 4 years

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Asha snatched the axe from the air and slammed it down into the table, splitting his trencher in two and splattering his mantle with drippings. "There's my lord husband." His sister reached down inside her gown and drew a dirk from between her breasts. "And here's my sweet suckling babe."

-A Clash of Kings, Theon II

Asha Greyjoy is very much the Action Girl trope. She commands a ship, fights and never shies from battle, living up to the idealized image of men in Ironborn culture, a misogynistic society whose designations for women are usually only stone wives (traditional wives) and salt wives (concubines and sex slaves). She embraced the martial ethos of the Ironborn to the point of naming her weapons as her family, and even won the admiration of her father Balon, himself an Ironborn revanchist.

"Do you want to die old and craven in your bed?"

"How else? Though not till I'm done reading." Lord Rodrik went to the window.

"You have not asked about your lady mother."

-A Feast for Crows, The Kraken’s Daughter

Of course, Balon’s hardcore embrace of the Old Way ultimately proved to be his undoing. His ill-fated rebellion resulted in his fleet being smashed, his isles scoured, his two eldest sons killed and his youngest son taken as a hostage. His second rebellion was doomed to failure as Tywin wasn’t going to accept his offer since he made the concession before he started bargaining given as @poorquentyn pointed out, the Old Way never taught him diplomacy.

Even Asha herself admits “Balon had been blind in some respects. A brave man but a bad lord,” but still insists “Does that mean we must live and die as thralls to the Iron Throne?”

She is given a choice of going to the kingsmoot to press her claim despite her uncle, the Reader, stating that a woman can never win the kingsmoot, and offers to make her heir to Ten Towers as an alternative. Asha turns that offer down, and goes to the kingsmoot to press her claim. Even with all her skills and accomplishments, she isn’t considered worthy enough to wear the driftwood crown in a heavily male chauvinist culture.

The result: she loses the kingsmoot, Euron marries her off to Erik Ironmaker and she is forced to leave in exile from the Iron Islands.

Afterwards, at Deepwood Motte in exile Asha is contemplating what to do. After the news of the fall of Moat Cailin, her male admirer Trisitifer speaks with her.

"Asha, it is time to go. Moat Cailin was the only thing holding back the tide. If we remain here, the northmen will kill us all, you know that."

"Would you have me run?"

"I would have you live. I love you."

No, she thought, you love some innocent maiden who lives only in your head, a frightened child in need of your protection. "I do not love you," she said bluntly, "and I do not run."

"What's here that you should hold so tight to it but pine and mud and foes? We have our ships. Sail away with me, and we'll make new lives upon the sea."

"As pirates?" It was almost tempting. Let the wolves have back their gloomy woods and retake the open sea.

"As traders," he insisted. "We'll voyage east as the Crow's Eye did, but we'll come back with silks and spices instead of a dragon's horn. One voyage to the Jade Sea and we'll be as rich as gods. We can have a manse in Oldtown or one of the Free Cities."

"You and me and Qarl?" She saw him flinch at the mention of Qarl's name. "Hagen's girl might like to sail the Jade Sea with you. I am still the kraken's daughter. My place is—"

"—where? You cannot return to the isles. Not unless you mean to submit to your lord husband."

. . .

"I have hostages, on Harlaw," she reminded him. "And there is still Sea Dragon Point … if I cannot have my father's kingdom, why not make one of my own?"

"You are clinging to Sea Dragon Point the way a drowning man clings to a bit of wreckage. What does Sea Dragon have that anyone could ever want? There are no mines, no gold, no silver, not even tin or iron. The land is too wet for wheat or corn."

I do not plan on planting wheat or corn. "What's there? I'll tell you. Two long coastlines, a hundred hidden coves, otters in the lakes, salmon in the rivers, clams along the shore, colonies of seals offshore, tall pines for building ships."

"Who will build these ships, my queen? Where will Your Grace find subjects for her kingdom if the northmen let you have it? Or do you mean to rule over a realm of seals and otters?"

-A Dance with Dragons, The Wayward Bride

Asha states her desire to make her own kingdom in the North to which Tristifer gives her the brutally honest truth that her aspiration is a pipe dream. Sea Dragon is thinly peopled and doesn’t have much in the way of resources. That’s not even taking account that the Northmen would never let her carve off a section of the North, and are coming to fight her. She actually proves to be not too far from the tree in that like her father, brother and uncles, she makes an ill-fated and ultimately doomed attempt at a crown, and insists on staying at a castle she cannot hold much like her brother Theon did at Winterfell for which she criticized him.

Tristifer offers an alternative to her: make life as a trader. This alternative isn’t unusual to the Iron Isles as after the Famine War “Merchants and traders sailing from Lordsport on Pyke and the harbors of Great Wyk, Harlaw, and Orkmont spread out across the seas, calling at Lannisport, Oldtown, and the Free Cities, and returning with treasures their forebears had never dreamed of.” Tristifer actually offers her a viable alternative.

Of course, Tristifer arguably didn’t need to make the offer to her. The alternative was always there in front of her. By the time they have their talk, Stannis and the mountain clans launch their attack on Deepwood Motte. Outnumbered and taken by surprise, Asha's ships are taken or burned, practically her entire army slain and she is taken prisoner.

We start to see a pattern. Asha is faced with a choice: answering the Call to Adventure or rejecting the Call and choosing a more peaceful, nonconfrontational path. Asha of course chooses the former, and it ultimately just ends up making her situation worse. The first time it results in her losing her bid for the Seastone Chair and being exiled. The second time, it results in her being made a prisoner with her military power destroyed.

The third and last time might potentially be the Battle of Ice, and she chooses to stay and fight despite a wounded ankle. She could end up getting herself killed.

She fails to learn from both her father and brother’s experiences that taking the more bold, adventurous path usually ends in disaster, or rather she acknowledges that it did in their cases but fails to apply it to her own situation. Like with Quentyn, it is the case where rejecting the Call is actually the smarter, more preferable thing to do. Asha’s story is effectively a deconstruction of the Action Girl trope.

#asha greyjoy #house greyjoy #iron islands #balon greyjoy #ironborn #the reader #rodrik harlaw #pyke #tristifer botley #theon greyjoy #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #a feast for crows #a dance with dragons

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allaboardtheloonyexpress · 3 years

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Three Points That Make Maiko the Only Good Zuko Ship

1. Zuko has to be the Fire Lord. He is the only legitimate ruler who is not a violent psychopath. (The only other option is Iroh, but Iroh has no kids. If Iroh takes the job, Zuko will still be Fire Lord in twenty years at most.) More importantly, he is the only one who can hold the Fire Nation back from killing everyone. So any lover of Zuko’s has to rule the Fire Nation with him. Something tells me Katara wouldn’t want to spend the rest of her life in the Fire Nation.

2. The Fire Nation People are deeply imperialistic, and probably xenophobic. They will probably have a bone to pick with Zuko for throwing away their imperial spoils. He and Aang are probably going to have to spend years putting down revolts. Why make matters worse by taking a foreign consort? Again, Katara is a bad choice.

3. To keep the peace, Zuko will need to have children, and they need to be clearly his. That puts the kibosh on Zukka, and definitely any sort of polycule with Sokka and Suki. Any would-be rebel against Zuko would just LOVE that! They could declare Zuko’s heir Sokka’s bastard, overthrow them, and get right back to the war!

Meanwhile Mai is a Fire Nation Girl from a good family. Theoretically, Ty Lee could be a decent Fire Lady, but she never expressed any interest in Zuko. Mai is the nice, safe choice that won’t get the Fire Nation rioting in the streets. More importantly, she demonstrated that she will be loyal to Zuko, rather than any revanchist faction in the Fire Nation. That means Zuko can trust her with bearing his heir without corrupting them.

#atla #the legend of aang #Avatar The Last Airbender #anti zutara #maiko

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thevividgreenmoss · 5 years

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How Laugier knows what these victims go through is anyone’s guess. Still, what sets his depiction of a split-personality, revanchist killing machine apart from his forebears is that he almost immediately reveals to the viewer that Lucie is the one still hurting herself. Lucie’s manifested guilt is not entirely the driving mechanism behind the film: what eventually takes precedence is uncovering who the monsters are that created it and why they did it.

The fact that Laugier has a perfectly normal family act as the perpetrators of the film’s gruesome activities serves firstly as a dig at Craven’s Last House. The wily and utterly audacious Frenchman effectively shames the fittingly named American for stopping as short as he did in pointing the finger of blame at a small suburban couple who, having just lost their daughter to a gang of thugs, decide to creatively slaughter her executioners. Laugier upends that film’s self-satisfied, pseudo-ambiguous conclusion by suggesting that perhaps these milquetoast, child-rearing folk had a reason for hurting other people that goes beyond their family tree, a reason that is infinitely more sinister because it serves a curiosity that has no ties to the domestic or even the mundane. These people torture others because they want to vicariously experience their “other”ness, to see what it’s like to have a person cross over to “the other side” and come back to tell them how green the grass is. This is where I really start to go out on a limb, so bear with me.

...Though it may look obvious or intentional, during this process of bloodletting, the skin color of the only martyr left alive gets a little darker after a couple of beatings (there’s no logical explanation for this as the martyr in question is never shown to be hurt with anything except her captors’ fists and boots). The martyrs are beaten without a word from their jailers, as if to show that the act of beating another person cannot possibly be called an “advanced interrogation tactic.” These girls must first be completely alienated and once they’ve been physically and emotionally broken down, they have their “other”ness and all other traces of their identity forcibly ripped away from them. This means literally losing their skin, the flesh ripped away to reveal glistening tendons and muscles. Any possible sign of their race or gender is thus completely removed, turning them into so much unidentifiable flesh. First the martyr becomes an “other,” then they become nothing. There is no possibility of “getting off” here, just a hyper-real representation of the horror of physical suffering. This is the kind of movie that justifies its daunting provocation with scant but revealing dialogue like,“People no longer envisage suffering, young lady.” Martyrs has an intelligence and a dogged determination to do and to say what its predecessors could or would not.

https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/martyrs-2008/

In one pivotal scene Anna discovers a victim, chained in a cellar dungeon beneath a family home. She’s a terrifying sight: her eyes covered with a metal visor which has been nailed into her skull and her emaciated body covered in scars and scratches.

Our first instinct is to shy away – to shun this horrific, yelping creature, who has been brutalised into something less-than human, and is all the more frightening for it. And yet, just as we’re poised for a nasty shock or attack, Anna reaches for the woman’s hand, presumably offering her the first kind, truly human contact she has received for years.

In a film filled with savagery and horror, it’s a moment that shocks to the core: a reminder that unexpected tenderness can be as viscerally, skin-shiveringly affecting as torture.

...Like the worst real-world monsters (Josef Mengele is the obvious example), the movie’s torturers, whose true motivation is revealed in the final act, are also convinced that they’re doing the right thing. They see themselves as experimenters, explorers, brave pioneers – and, disturbingly, Martyrs manages to temporarily put its audience into their blood-stained shoes. Even as we wince for the film’s victims, we find ourselves simultaneously desperate to know what their abusers will uncover.

Ultimately, horror movies can frighten us in lots of different ways, combining their inherent darkness with sly humour, adrenalin-fuelled scares, or with painterly splashes of gore. But Martyrs is a rare creation: a 21st-century film that subtly elicits all the sorrow of the preceding century, imbues its scenes of torture with a sense of vivid, heart-breaking pity, and forces us to really feel. Is it painful to watch? Very much so. But worth the suffering? Absolutely.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/what-to-watch/martyrs-2008-pascal-laugier/

Most of the conversation people have about Martyrs concerns its final 30 minutes or so, and for good reason: That’s when the film shifts gears and heads into the torture sequences that have given it such notoriety. (And definitively trumped the most harrowing moments in other French extreme horror movies like High Tension, Frontier(s), and Inside.) What they forget is that the first hour is completely gripping and suspenseful in an entirely different and infinitely more palatable way. Yes, it’s bloody and disturbing in its own right, but it’s also genuinely charged and full of arresting ambiguity, far from the clinical sickness that follows in the third act. Torture isn’t in the foreground yet, but informs the action, as a once-abused child grows up to exact a revenge that may be just or may be the product of a haunted and irretrievably damaged mind.

...In the final act, which is as bloodless and clinical as the first two-thirds were propulsive and emotional, Laugier seeks not just to reveal humankind’s capacity for cruelty and exploitation, but its capacity for suffering as well. The explicitness of Anna’s torture and “martyrdom”—a demonstration of female strength and resilience that’s meant as a (suspect) type of feminism—isn’t quite like that in so-called “torture porn” movie. It’s not mediated by gimmicky machines like those in Saw franchise or carried out in the spirit of psychosis or vengeance, as in Wolf Creekor The Devil’s Rejects. It has more in common with real, institutional forms of torture and human experimentation, and is conducted with an emotional distance that’s infinitely more disturbing and terrible. We simply watch Anna get broken down—systematically, inexplicably:

...And so on, until she’s so completely pliant that she doesn’t wince or fight or feel fear any more. Then it’s on to “Stage Four,” which is so horrific it isn’t worth describing. All of these sessions are handled in brief, methodical chunk, followed by a cut to black. They have the effect of breaking down the audience, too, because we eventually come to the realization that Anna—though strong and resilient in the classic “Final Girl” way—has about as much chance of extricating herself from this situation as detainees not named Harold and Kumar have of escaping Guantanamo Bay. Being robbed of that narrative expectation is incredibly deflating, even soul-crushing, and I think Laugier means it to be. On some level, Martyrs feels like a comment on other films of its kind, because it shuts down any notion that pleasure could be derived from watching it. It feels like the death of extreme horror—or at least takes the subgenre as far as it can conceivably go.

https://film.avclub.com/martyrs-1798223075

@lobotomybarbie

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visionmarred-archive · 4 years

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playing his game again and then screwing around with a dollmaker has me thinking of Lock when he was a Padawan and subsequently, his master, so I’m just gonna

His master’s name was Versé Ninx, a Mirialan woman who was in her 50s when she took Lock as her Padawan. Jedi master who specialized as either a sentinel or a consular - Lock himself is a consular, so it makes sense that Versé would be? But sentinel fits her more, so idk.

Chipper old lady who was always up when the sun came up and enjoyed a healthy lifestyle. Very social and thought of as a cool grandma to a lot of the younglings and Padawans in the temple, and was generally considered the most approachable member of the Jedi Council.

Lock was always a lot more introverted than Versé was, which led to them clashing at times. Lock would rather be reading, Versé enjoyed interacting with others. Cue some typical arguments like a mom and a son would get into.

Despite the disagreements over socializing, though, they loved each other like family. She was as much of a troll and practical joker as Lock would end up being, and encouraged his love of learning.

Fought in the Exar Kun War and ended up needing a prosthetic leg after the battle. Used that prosthetic for pranks a lot.

Remained a member of the Jedi Council until her death in her mid 60s, caused by getting into a skirmish with Exchange members on an Outer Rim planet.

Versé had just taken a new Padawan two months prior to her death, a Twi’lek boy named Jet’midu. When she died, Lock took over Jet’s training as a way of honoring his master and mother figure’s ghost. He was reluctant at first, though; he was still very much a loner, and he hadn’t trained anybody prior to Jet.

Got over those reservations quickly, though. Jet ended up being like a son to him, and they had a good master-student relationship. Until the Revanchists went to join the war, anyway.

#KOTOR tag #when you start getting thoughts and emotions about backstory OCs that you don't really write about much #kinda weird to think of Lock as a Padawan? or being that much younger?#35 isn't old but he's definitely the oldest of my KOTOR OCs #and writing him feels like it too #idk man I'm 23 #OC: Lockseydo Quill #OC: Versé Ninx #OC: Jet'midu

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someguyscaliforniavoterguide · 4 years

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Select L.A. County/California Races, March 3, 2020

Hi friends, it’s me again. I am here to offer my opinions on how you should vote. As before I am up front about my biases: I am a Warren supporter, I live in L.A. and I am actively pro-density (Yay SB50, you deserved better) and pro-transit. I live in the east Valley, so I tend to focus more closely on the issues that directly impact my side of town, though I try to keep an ear out on things countywide.

Last time I did this a couple of folks reached out to give me gifts to say thanks for doing this guide. This year, I would encourage anybody who wants to say thanks to donate $5 to Fair Fight, a group founded by Stacey Abrams to fight voter suppression in the 2020 election. We’re gonna need all the help we can get in November to defeat the GOP, and Abrams is doing it in a smart way.

Other voting guides

This is my voting guide and reflects my general opinion on things. However, I am indebeted to many other guides, including the Knock L.A. Voter Guide and the L.A. Podcast Voter Guide for their takes. I don’t always agree with them, but both of these are invaluable resources for the progressive voter in Los Angeles.

L.A. City Council

This year the even numbered seats are up for re-election. Half of them are effectively uncontested, a couple are very much contested, and two are free for all because of term limits.

CD2: Ayinde Jones

Look none of these candidates set my heart afire. I work with Councilmember Krekorian’s office a lot (remember, I live in the east Valley) and he’s a competent politician with a ton of endorsements and community ties, I have no illusion he’s going to win his full term comfortably on March 3. However, I believe it’s good to encourage competition, and Ayinde Jones did a good (not great) job at the candidate forum I attended hitting on themes of how the parts of CD2 north of Victory are being left behind as the area evolves. I wish he were better on S50, but then again all three candidates were opposed, so that’s kind of a wash. I look forward to hearing more from Jones in the future.

CD4: Sarah Kate Levy

From a paucity of options to a surplus of options next door. CD4 is currently represented by David Ryu, a politician who came out of the Neighborhood Council system and went on to become...a city hall politician. Both his opponents are great. Nithya Raman is the founder of SELAH, a group that does amazing work helping the unhoused in Los Angeles, and recently led Times Up! Hollywood for a year. I’d vote for her in a heartbeat, but I am encouraging people to vote for Sarah Kate Levy for two reasons: first, Levy is unabashedly supportive of SB50 and we need this kind of leadership, and second I am hoping these two excellent women will get so many votes that they overwhelm Ryu and leave him in third place. Fingers crossed.

CD6: Bill Haller

This is another shoo-in. Nury Martinez is the City Council president and has the backing of the County party and all the local clubs. I am endorsing Bill Haller because he supports an agenda that includes more public funding for affordable housing, more and better transit, and climate justice.

CD8: Marqueece Harris-Dawson

There are no other candidates in this race, so congratulations on your re-election Councilmember Harris-Dawson.

CD10: Aura Vasquez

This is an open seat, and the smart money has Mark Ridley-Thomas as the frontrunner. Ridley-Thomas is a current member of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors (more on them later) who is termed out of that position. I’m endorsing Aura Vasquez, a progressive activist with ties to Mid-City who has served as a commissioner for LADWP and led fights for renewable energy, banning single use plastics, and housing affordability in her community.

CD12: Loraine Lundquist

Dr. Lundquist rules. She takes public transit to debates, she is an honest to goodness scientist, and she nearly beat a Republican in what is the most conservative district in L.A. during a special election. I have donated money to this lady because we need to win this one. Her opponent, John Lee, wasted no time in trying to block housing for the homeless in his district and in attacking a successful safer streets project on Reseda Blvd. The city has a chance - a really great chance thanks to the realigned municipal elections - to toss out the worst possible councilmember in favor of the most progressive voice, don’t mess it up.

CD14: Cyndi Otteson

This race is Kevin de Léon’s to lose, but he won’t commit to serving a full term since he really wants to be mayor. I say let him have his spare time to run for mayor and select Ms. Otteson, a grassroots activist who has the support of the UTLA and who is the only voice in favor of the Colorado Blvd alignment of the NoHo to Pasadena BRT project. Transit equity matters, and Ms. Otteson deserves your vote this March.

LAUSD School Board

Deferring to the teachers’ endorsements on this one.

Board Seat 1: George McKenna

Board Seat 3: Scott Schmerlson

Board Seat 5: Jackie Goldberg

Board Seat 7: Patricia Castellanos

Glendale City Council: Dan Brotman

An environmental activist with progresive views, Brotman will be a useful voice in Glendale’s city hall.

District Attorney: Rachel Rossi

George Gascón and Rachel Rossi will both be light years better than the current county D.A., Jackie Lacey. Both have promised to make substantial reforms in the office. I am really torn on this one, since I think Gascón’s experience as a Deputy DA in San Francisco is a big deal, and since he has the backing of the County Party. I am endorsing Rossi in a tilt-at-windmills hope that somehow she and Gascón make it to the final ballot in November and give us a thoughtful debate between a career prosecutor bent on reform and a public defender whose goal is reform about methods and ideas. Anyway, don’t vote for Jackie Lacey is all I am saying here.

Superior Court

Voting for judges is stupid. We shouldn’t be doing this, but since we have to, I’ll make some suggestions. My math is based on other progressive endorsements, Party endorsements, and reverse-engineering some well known conservative voting guides to, if nothing else, make sure I am not voting for their endorsement.

Office 17: Shannon Kathleen Cooley (the race is uncontested)

Office 42: Linda Sun

Office 72: Myanna Dellinger

Office 76: Emily Cole (Cole is a prosecutor, but her opponent is a man who literally changed his name to “Judge” after serving as a judge in Stanislaus County)

Office 80: Klint James McKay

Currently an administrative law judge, he impressed Public Defender Union representatives with his thoughtful and articulate answers to their questioning.

Office 97: Sherry L. Powell (Powell’s opponent ran as a conservative Republican for state assembly in 2018, this is a defensive vote)

Office 129: Kenneth Fuller

Office 131: Michelle Kelley (the race is uncontested)

Office 141: Lana Kim (the race is uncontested)

Office 145: Troy Slaten (Slaten’s opponent has a troubling history of misconduct and should not be elected to a judgeship)

Office 150: Tom Parsekian

Office 162: David D. Diamond

L.A. County Board of Supervisors

The Supervisors oversee policy for the County, including all unincorporated areas, the LASD, County Health services, etc. For a county of TEN MILLION PEOPLE, there are only five supervisors, so they have a hugely outsized influence.

Seat 2: Jorge Nuno

A lot of progressives are endorsing Holly Mitchell in this seat. Me, I just can’t go there when she’s speaking at events for Livable California and when she gave a floor speech opposing SB50. Though he’s the front runner, Herb Wesson doesn’t deserve your vote - he was City Council president when the homelessness crisis exploded and he’s done little to address it. Nuno is a progressive and has an ambitious platform.

Seat 4: Janice Hahn

She’s solid, and nobody’s pushing her from the left.

Seat 5: John Harabedian

Kathryn Barger, the incumbent, is a Republican who supports Trump’s immigration policies. John Harabedian is a solidly Center Left Democrat who has the backing of the county party and who could, in this presidential election year, win an upset in what is traditionally a Republican stronghold of L.A. County. Vote for him.

County Ballot Measures

Measure R: YES YES YES

This will provide crucial tools to the already existing civilian oversight committee for the LASD, including subpoena powers. It also requires the commission to study ways to divert offenders from jail. You need to vote yes on this.

State Ballot Measures

Prop 13: Yes

$15B in bonds to invest in public schools and “local control” to allow local school districts to issue larger bonds. The only real opposition is from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, a revanchist organization that is singlehandedly responsible for much of our state and local problems in the past few decades. Don’t listen to them.

Congressional Elections

Despite some misgivings, I am generally supporting the progressive challengers here to hopefully lead to a Progressive/Center Left election in the fall.

CD 25: Christy Smith

She has a good track record in the state assembly and a strong local support network. She’s not a carpetbagger with a YouTube show, and she’s not a Republican.

CD 28: Adam Schiff

He’s not the most progressive guy in Congress but he’s been critical to holding Trump accountable. He’s earned this vote.

CD 29: Angelica Duenas

Tony Cardenas is a bit of a non-entity on the national stage but he does good local work and he was an early vote in favor of impeachment. The rape allegations against him which troubled me last time were dismissed with prejudice in 2019. Cardenas has a progressive challenger, Angelica Marie Duenas, who has run in the past as a Green Party candidate. I don’t trust her decision to abandon that label and come into the Democrats after getting drubbed in 2018, but overall I like her ideas and I’d be happy to see her and Cardenas in a runoff this year.

CD 30: CJ Berina

Brad Sherman is an okay Congressmember. CJ Berina is a young, progressive challenger who’s attracted the attention of the Sunrise Movement. I’d vote for him to try to push the GOP out of the runoff and make this a race between the Center Left and the Progressive Left.

CD 34: Frances Yasmeen Motiwalla

Jimmy Gomez is solid; let’s push the GOP out of the runoff though by supporting this progressive.

State House

District 39: Luz Rivas

District 41: Chris Holden

District 43: Laura Friedman

District 44: Jacqui Irwin

District 45: Jesse Gabriel

District 46: Adrin Nazarian

District 48: Blanca Rubio

District 49: Edwin Chau

District 50: Richard Bloom

District 51: Wendy Carillo

District 53: Godfrey Plata

District 54: Tracey Jones

District 55: Andrew Rodriguez

District 58: Margaret Villa

District 59: Reggie Jones-Sawyer

District 62: Autumn Burke

District 63: Anthony Rendon

District 64: Fatima Iqbal-Zubair

District 66: Al Muratsuchi

District 70: Patrick O’Donnell

State Senate

SD 21: Kipp Mueller

SD 23: Abigail Medina

SD 25: No Endorsement - I rarely do this but honestly Anthony Portantino does not deserve your vote. Write in Mickey Mouse.

SD 27: Henry Stern

SD 29: Josh Newman

SD 31: Richard Roth

SD 33: Lena Gonzalez

SD 35: Steven Bradford

County Committees

Look this is getting waaaaaaaaaaaaaay into the weeds. What I am going to say is this: I know that a lot of “progressive” slates are out there and I encourage you to try your best to vet them. In my district, one of the candidates is somebody I know personally - she actively campaigned for Jill Stein, she circulated the decades-old “Clinton Death List” to voters, and she pushed Pizzagate theories. I am not voting for this person, but she is endorsed by “Progressive California” so...just be careful.

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jteroracleverse · 4 years

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Exemplar Prologue - The End Of The Age Of Heroes.

youtube

Whenever you asked anyone about the Battle of Calenhad, for years and decades to come, they would call it the day the Age of Heroes died.

Jack Myrddin, quoted in ��On The Night’s Fall’.

***

Calenhad Field, Albion, November 10th, Year 1873 of the Dreizan Calendar.

There was blood on the air. The scent of it lingered, twisting and turning through the red-tinged smog that had descended over the barren field of Calenhad. Harsh, booming sounds, like the distorted thunder of cannons, fired off in the distance, and the harsh clanking of metal on metal echoed through the valley.

A man with raven-coloured hair and a small, determined smile visible through a dark beard was standing at the head of a force of soldiers. He carried a longsword, and he was clad in a pale red tabard and heavy battle-armour, a red cloak flowing behind him.

He raised his sword, cutting through a figure in patchwork armour. A thin wisp of smoke floated from where the electrified blade had met material and skin.

“Hold the line!” he called out. All around him, Avaloni soldiers in battered plate armour fought against the raging, shambolically-equipped warriors that assailed them. Many of his comrades had already fallen, slain by their enemies in the chaotic melee around them.

Cultists and madmen, the warrior thought, grimacing, but for all that they’re insane, they’re still skilled enough to take seriously.

“For the dark gods!” a voice bellowed, and the warrior turned his attention to yet another enemy slamming into him, driving him back. With a shout, he lashed out, cutting the cultist down in a single strike and wincing at the smell of burnt flesh.

“Ser Percival!” someone called. The warrior – Ser Percival – turned, breathing hard. One of his comrades, this one an Avaloni Captain, judging by the feathered plume sticking from his helm, jogged up to him. A moment later, the man removed his helmet, showing a shock of red hair.

“Ser Percival,” he greeted.

“Captain Thorsson,” Percival replied, nodding respectfully. “What’s the situation?”

“Our men have routed the enemy on the left flank, but they’re still harrying our centre,” Thorsson replied, his voice tinged with a rough Avalonian accent, dulling his vowels. “We’re trying to rally our forces for the final push, but the line’s become fragmented. It’s difficult to gather men through the chaos.”

“And the other knights?” Percival asked.

Thorsson paused for a moment, his expression becoming dour. “Ser Jackson and Ser Vivienne have both fallen.”

Percival closed his eyes for a moment, taking the blow as stoically as he could. Two more dead friends. Grieve later. Even today, it had not been the first loss. It wouldn’t be the last.

“And the others?” he asked after a moment.

“I believe Ser Tristram was among the warriors at the centre,” Thorsson said. “Whether any of your other fellows were alongside him, I cannot say.”

Percival nodded. “I understand.” He paused, and then, after a moment, he whispered. “And… him?”

The Captain’s expression hardened. “I couldn’t tell you, Ser. The battle has become fragmentary, chaotic. There were whispers that he fought at one flank, but… we do not know.”

“Damn,” Percival swore, shaking his head. “Very well. Gather as many of our men here as you can. I’ll rally the centre, and we’ll end it there.”

Thorsson nodded, throwing a quick salute before running off, leaving Percival alone. He closed his eyes, feeling the weight of the day’s bloodshed threatening to crush him.

They had known it would be like this. Or at least he had.

***

Calenhad Camp, the night before.

It had been their last night together, camping in the fields near the Calenhad mountains as they awaited the arrival of their enemy’s armies.

Evelyn hadn’t been there, of course – the Lady Nimue had already seen to it that she was safely hidden in Charle City, and a handful of trusted fellows with her. Vivianne, Jackson and Geraint had been there, drinking with Tiberius and Bors: Tiberius, blue-eyed, dark haired and jovial as ever, had been making bets with everyone there about how many cultists he would kill. Tristram, the blonde haired knight normally so grim and resolute, had been laughing. Fatherhood, it seemed, had done wonders for his sense of humour. And then there was Bors, the biggest and strongest of them all, his white tabard covered in beer stains from yet another drinking game with their Avalonian allies, his bearded face split by a massive grin.

And yet Percival had not felt the same joyful mood as his fellows. He sat alone in one corner, melancholy settling over him. There was… something. A foul feeling in the air, maybe, or a sense of something coming that he couldn’t quite see.

Or maybe it was just the quiet despair of loss. So many of his friends had not made it this far. How many, he wondered, would even survive this battle?

“A copper piece to hear your thoughts, old friend?” a voice asked as he sat, brooding.

Ah, of course Myrlin was there. His shabby grey robe was conspicuous among the varied colours of knighthood present, his wrinkled face smiling, his beard bristling.

“Tomorrow will be a day long remembered,” the wizard said quietly, not waiting for his answer. “Though whether it is for the right reasons, we shall have to wait and see.”

“Am I meant to feel better?” Percival had asked. He gave the wizard a tired, empty smile. “Tomorrow might be remembered, but who’ll do the remembering? Cara, Lionel, even…” He closed his eyes. “Even him, for the Thirteen’s sake. They’ll still be gone.”

“Don’t tell me you fear death, Percival,” Myrlin said, poking him in the shoulder. “After all the battles we’ve been through, this is something of an odd time to start.”

“Not death.” Percival shook his head. “Change. And maybe… maybe the thought that whatever world we make with tomorrow, no one will remember who made it.”

Myrlin nodded. He let out a soft sigh, his smile disappearing and a more melancholic look replacing it.

“I have lived a very long time,” he eventually said, his tone even, yet tinged with something morose. “Everything gets forgotten in the end. The Dreizan Templars remember the Revanchist, but they forgot his name and the names of his comrades an age ago. Avalon recalls the legends of the Shieldmaiden, but how many warriors fought and died alongside her?” He turned back to Percival. “We who fight for the future may be forgotten, Percival, that much is true.” He gave the Knight a small, hopeful smile. “But the future will be there. That’s something to hope for, isn’t it?”

As he said it, he moved his hand, tapping the symbol sewn onto Percival’s tabard – the star of knighthood, eight connected points around a single centre. Percival sighed, mulling over the wizard’s words, and looked down at the symbol, thinking about it and all it represented.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “Maybe…”

“Percy!” came a call from one of the knights. Tiberius Von Nachten, his hands full with mugs of beer, was grinning over at Myrlin and Percival, and he raised both mugs up. “Come over here and help us drink some of this stuff, will ya?”

Percival couldn’t help but smile. “Gimme a minute, Tiberius.”

Tiberius nodded, turning back to Bors, who was currently arm wrestling with Tristram (and winning, not that anyone was surprised).

None of this deserves to be forgotten, Percival thought, watching his friends. None of these people deserve for the world they build to leave them behind.

“Tomorrow,” Myrlin said, cutting into Percival’s thoughts, “we fight the most important battle of an age.” Percival looked at him, and Myrlin was smiling again. “We decide the shape of the world. Whatever your fears, my friend, know this.” He put a hand on Percival’s shoulder. “You all have fought to bring the best future we can have to pass. I know, whatever happens, that the world you make will be a good one.”

Percival nodded slowly. “I’m glad you, at least, believe that, Myrlin.” He stood. “I’ll say this much. Tomorrow we fight.” He grinned. “And I’m not afraid of that part.”

“I know,” Myrlin said, nodding. “Now, I believe there are beers waiting for you, and…”

He trailed off, chuckling as he turned to look at the collection of knights. Bors and Tristram’s arm wrestle had turned into something of an impromptu boxing match.

“Eden preserve us.” Percival rolled his eyes, getting to his feet. “Those two idiots are going to injure themselves, and the night before a battle, too!”

He moved over to them, letting his worries for the future fade into the background of his mind, and completely missing the knowing smile Myrlin had as he watched the knights bicker amongst themselves.

***

The Battle of Calenhad.

His mind returned to the present as he raced through the smog of war, occasionally happening upon injured soldiers or small fights as he did so. Deep in his bones, Percival felt fatigue beginning to settle, but he grit his teeth and pressed on.

As he did so, he came upon a rocky outcrop, upon which stood a group of warriors: some in the heavy armour of Avalon, but more in the lighter, darker armour of the soldiers of Charle City. Amongst them was a healer, the woman moving from soldier to soldier with a grim expression.

“It hurts!” one of the soldiers was yelling. “It hurts so much…!”

Percival stopped for a moment, before moving over to the man, kneeling by him.

“Alright, lad,” he said, speaking softly. “Calm down. Everything will be fine.”

The soldier – no more than a boy, really – stilled, meeting Percival’s eyes. Percival examined him – he had a ragged hole torn in his arm, bleeding copiously, and a similar hole in his leg, but nothing that would require amputation. But one look at his expression told Percival that the boy was afraid.

“It’s alright,” Percival said, putting a hand on his shoulder and concentrating. “It will all be alright, lad. You’ll get through this.”

The boy’s expression calmed as Percival channeled a small modicum of power into soothing his fear.

“What’s your name, lad?” Percival asked.

“W-Will Renner, Ser,” the soldier said.

Percival smiled. “You haven’t been a soldier long, have you, Will?”

“N-no, Ser,” the boy said, smiling nervously. “I just… I needed to do my part.” He paused. “T-this is actually my first battle.”

Percival let out a small chuckle at that. “Well, you certainly picked a time to join, didn’t you?” He put his other hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You’ll make it through today, lad, and you’ll have a tale or two to tell when you’re through, don’t doubt it.”

“Y-yes, sir,” Will Renner said. He grimaced again. “I… I'm sorry I couldn’t do more.”

“Every little is a gain, lad,” Percival said with a wink. He looked up at the healer, who was approaching the two of them. “Ma’am.”

“Ser Knight,” the woman said, inclining her head. “How is the boy?”

“Will here’s doing fine,” Percival said, standing. “I can’t see anything life-threatening, but I think he’ll benefit from your experience.”

“Of that, I have no doubt,” the woman said blandly. Her expression softened, and when she spoke again, it was quieter. “I’m afraid… one of your comrades was among us.”

“‘Was’,” Percival repeated, frowning.

“Ser Geraint,” the healer said. She sighed. “He fell, fighting a cultist berserker.” She glanced at Will. “The boy slew his killer: that is how he got his wounds.”

Percival glanced back at Will, who looked somewhat glum.

“Thank you,” Percival said quietly to him. “It was a well struck blow.”

“T-thank you, Ser,” Will said quietly. “I… I’m sorry I couldn’t save him.”

“There are many we could not save today,�� the healer said. “This day will reap a heavy cost, I fear.”

That much is true, Percival thought, nodding without speaking. He patted Will once more on the shoulder, and then moved on, following the sound of battle along the field.

He still had a job to do.

***

Elsewhere on the field, another warrior strode among the dead, gripping the hilt of a mighty greatsword and pondering the battle around him with a feeling of detachment. Blood was splattered across his armour and black tabard, and for a moment he pondered just how much was on his hands by now.

Enough, some would say, he thought, but he dismissed it. But no. Not enough. Not until the task is done.

It almost was: only a few Knights remained. Today, he would end their order, end the war, end all of it… forever.

***

It took him longer than he thought it would, but finally, in the midst of the smog, breathing hard, Percival saw his brothers in arms. Their tabards and armour were covered in the grime and filth of battle, and their weapons slick with blood, though all their blades glimmered and glinted with energy that ran up and down the blades. They were clustered around several crates and a single, broken cannon. Despite this, however, they seemed to be in high spirits as he approached.

A couple of figures in the same dark, patchwork armour charged their little group, and one of them – Tiberius, in his pale blue tabard and stole – stepped forward and cut him down in a single swift stroke, blood spraying across his face. He spat, a grimace crossing his face, before his smile returned in full force. No more foes seemed to charge forward for the moment, and the group took a moment to breathe.

“Is that it?” Tiberius asked, finally, letting out a deep sigh. “Is it over already?”

“Don’t count on it,” Bors said grimly. The big man leaned heavily on his greatsword, planting the tip in the dirt with a wet-sounding thunk, and its energy dissipated. The man looked at his gauntleted hand: it was covered in blood.

“Not quite the battle for Blackreach, is it, Bors?!” Tiberius said, flashing the burly man a cheeky grin and a wink. Bors scowled, but said nothing.

“Not everything’s a joke, Tiberius,” Tristram said. The blonde man was busy wiping blood from his weapon – unlike the others, he carried an axe rather than a sword, and it had clearly been through the works, its blade notched.

“Of course not,” Tiberius replied. “Some things are a lark. Or a jape. Occasionally a jest, but I never liked the word ‘jest’.”

Bors rolled his eyes, before elbowing Tristram. “How are we doing?”

“How do you think we’re doing?!” the blonde man replied.

“Forty three,” Percival said, getting the group’s attention He glanced around the group, grinning as they smiled at him. “Or was that not the question?”

“Percival!” Bors said, laughing. “Was beginning to think you’d never get here!”

Only now did Percival see the bloody stain on Bors’ tabard, from a wound to his side. It didn’t look terminal, but there was no way to be sure.

“Aye,” Percival said, refusing to worry about it yet. He smiled again. “Well, you lot do tend to get lost without me.”

“Well, I got forty one kills last I checked,” Tiberius said after a moment, “counting those few I got when we started.”

“Thirty nine and a half, Tiberius,” Tristram snorted. “I killed the one with the axe you seemed to think was charging you, and that pikeman was half dead anyway.”

“Still about three more than you, Tristram,” Tiberius chuckled. He rolled his shoulders, his stole rippling in the soft wind.

“Children,” Bors muttered, grimacing as he clutched his wound. He paused, looking up at Percival with a suddenly grave expression. “Vivienne? Geraint?”

Percival paused, and then shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “And Jackson, too.”

Tristram cursed loudly, kicking one of the dead cultists in frustration. Bors closed his eyes, and even Tiberius’ ever-present smile faltered.

“Dead?” he whispered.

Percival nodded. “I wasn’t there. Captain Thorsson told me about Vivienne and Jackson, and Geraint died protecting the wounded. Right now, they’re gathering to push the enemy back in the centre, but I needed to find all of you -”

“Was it him?” Tiberius asked suddenly. The coldness of his voice struck Percival dumb, such a contrast it was to his usual manner.

“We’ve not seen him here,” Bors added, a growling timbre to his words. “But he must be, somewhere. He wouldn’t miss this.”

Percival swallowed. “Thorsson said there were whispers, but nothing concrete. I -”

“Wait,” Tristram said, holding up a hand. His eyes had widened. “Listen!”

The smog was thick, making it impossible to see beyond the immediate area. There was ringing in the air, but the sounds of battle were dying off.

“What?” Bors asked from next to him.

“Bet you’re just wondering how many the rest have left for us,” Tiberius said, though his renewed grin quickly faded.

Percival’s eyes widened too. He knew what the quiet meant.

“Tiberius, Tristram,” he said, “I need you to get back to the rally point. Tell them they might want to pull back.”

Tiberius raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. He immediately turned and began jogging back towards their lines, disappearing into the smog. Tristram frowned.

“You want rid of us?” he asked.

Percival said nothing, instead meeting Tristram’s gaze evenly, hoping he was conveying his feelings adequately. After a moment, Tristram nodded.

“Fine,” he said. “You’d better come back alive. My son deserves to know his father’s best friend.”

“I know,” Percival said. He smiled. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

Tristram nodded, and then jogged after Tiberius, leaving Bors and Percival alone.

“So,” Bors said after a brief silence. “What’s that about?”

“Can’t you hear it?” Percival asked, motioning to the smog.

Bors turned, frowning in concentration, then he shrugged.

“No battle,” Percival said quietly. “There were thousands of them, Bors. Where have they gone? Where are our people?”

Bors’ face paled as he realised what that must mean.

“We should pull back,” he said at once. “There’s no way we can -”

“Bors,” Percival said, smiling ruefully at him. “Can you get back to the rally point?”

Bors scowled. “Can. Won’t.”

Percival’s smile faded. “Bors -”

He paused, turning back to look at the smog. A single figure was emerging from the swirling red-tinged smoke, a purple-black cloak flowing behind him like the shadow of death. A long greatsword was held lazily in a single gauntleted hand, coruscating energy glimmering across the blade, and his black armour glinted with the light of the smog and fire around him. He wore a black tabard, the scarlet symbol stitched onto his chest a mockery of the star of knighthood.

“Ah, hells,” Bors hissed. “Him.”

“Go, Bors,” Percival said quietly. “I’ll hold him off.”

Bors blinked, and opened his mouth as if to speak. Percival held up a hand, forestalling any objections, and simply smiled again. Bors hesitated, and then he nodded, before reluctantly limping away.

Percival watched him go for a long moment, before turning to the dark figure, a scowl on his face. For a second, something twitched on his face, and he closed his eyes briefly. Then he took a deep breath, his eyes opening, blazing with anger.

“So,” he said, loud enough that his foe might hear. “It’s nice to see you again.”

The dark figure said nothing. He raised his sword and pointed it at Percival in a gesture of challenge.

“What?” Percival asked with an easy grin, bringing his own sword into a guard stance. “No mocking words, no banter? Come, old friend, this is probably gonna be my last fight. Give me something to remember you by, at least.”

The figure did not move from his stance, and quiet descended between the two of them, nothing but the distant sounds of battle and the whistling of the wind. Finally, Percival broke the silence, his tone less jovial and his smile gone.

“You won’t touch them,” he said, his grip on his sword tightening. “Not while I’m standing here.”

The dark figure said nothing for a moment, bringing his other hand up to his sword and settling into a guard stance of his own.

“Surrender,” he finally said, “or you will die.”

Percival growled. “I have stood firm against evil for my entire life. What in the hells makes you think I’ll give in to you?”

The dark figure seemed to consider this, holding his ready stance for a long moment.

“Noted,” he finally said. He raised his sword a fraction. “This will be… interesting.”

Percival growled. “Let’s just get on with it, you bastard.”

He shifted his grip ever so slightly, feeling a wave of certainty settle upon him. His enemy raised his sword fractionally, bending his knees and lowering his stance into a ready posture. Both were waiting for some unseen signal. Percival could feel it in the air. He moved one hand briefly to the symbol on his tabard.

I call upon the virtue of courage, he thought. May fear never rule my heart, may doubt never cloud my thought, and may despair never dull my senses.

How many times had he repeated the catechism in his mind, before meeting some great evil? Would this be the last?

If it is, he decided, it will be worth it, if he dies too.

And then it began.

***

Half a mile away from the duel about to start, Tiberius and Tristram had already reached the rear of their lines, climbing up the slopes of the Calenhad hills. This far from the main battle, the smog was visible as a red cloud hanging over the entire field. The two stopped at a small outcropping, and Tiberius looked down at the battlefield, letting out a low whistle.

“That’s… disturbing,” he said.

“Understatement of the age,” Tristram murmured from next to him, his own eyes wide in horror. “What in the hells is that? Some sort of… of sorcery?”

“I don’t know,” Tiberius said quietly, “but whatever it is, I’m hoping Percy gets his arse out of it sooner rather than -”

He stilled. Behind them, there came the sound of footsteps. Turning, both of them saw a young woman in a deep purple cloak, her white-blonde hair tousled by the wind and a pistol holstered by her side. She was followed by a man in a deep grey robe, his hood covering his face and a grey beard poking out, barely visible.

“What happened?” the woman asked. “Where are Percival and Bors?”

Tiberius and Tristram shared a glance, but before they could answer, there came the sound of wheezing and groaning.

Bors was walking up the hill, clutching at his side.

“Bors!” Tristram yelled, running to his friend’s side. “Where’s Percy?”

In answer, Bors pointed down at the battlefield. The woman’s eyes widened in horror, and she turned to look at the hooded man.

He said nothing. Hobbling over to the edge of the outcrop, he looked down at the battlefield silently, the others behind him.

“Myrlin?” the woman asked.

Still the old wizard said nothing. Tiberius’ eyes widened, and he looked back over the battlefield.

“Him,” he stated, knowing it wouldn’t be a question. Bors nodded once.

“Percival can’t fight him alone,” Tristram growled, taking a step forward, only for Bors to hold up a hand, stilling him.

“He didn’t want us there,” the burly man said quietly. “He wanted to fight alone.”

“That’s suicide!” Tristram snapped.

“I agree,” the woman said. She turned to Myrlin. “We have to go down there.”

“At this point, Nimue,” Myrlin said quietly, “we will not make enough of a difference for it to matter. Percival must face this enemy alone.”

“He’s going to die,” Tristram hissed.

Myrlin turned back and gave the blonde knight an impassive glance, only his eyes - the soft glint of liquid visible - hinting that he felt anything at all. All the others there could do was watch the smog, and wait.

***

The first blow sent a shockwave out that rippled outward, scattering loose stones and bodies and sending the smog flying backwards, revealing the true state of the battlefield. Soldiers in the raggedy armour of the cultists lay amongst warriors in different gear, some in gold-tinted plate with red cloaks, some with brown cloaks and light armour, some wearing the same silver armour and tabards Percival and his comrades had, and many in Avaloni and Albionite armour.

Percival’s eyes were fixed on his opponent, his sword blocking the dark knight’s greatsword at every turn. Sparks flew from the blades, the metal grinding with a harsh, screeching whine, and then the two disengaged.

Clang, clang, clang.

The sound of swords clashing against each other sounded almost like the tolling of a bell. Somehow, even as he desperately parried strike after strike, Percival couldn’t help but smile at the comparison.

He parried a blow almost instinctively, letting his muscles remember the movements. Parry, parry, riposte, block… every step, every strike, every movement, honed, trained…

But not enough.

He parried another blow, and the dark knight immediately brought his blade up for an overhead strike, but Percival was too fast, and dodged sideways immediately, before slamming the butt of his sword into his opponent’s chestplate, staggering the dark figure momentarily. Grinning, Percival slashed, but his foe brought his gauntlet up and blocked the sword with his wrist, the armour sparking from the impact. Percival’s grin disappeared, and suddenly the gauntlet had grabbed him by the throat. In a single heaving motion, the dark knight threw Percival across the field, before settling into an almost leisurely guard stance.

Coughing and rubbing his throat, Percival scowled at the dark figure, before pushing himself to his feet.

“It’s going to take more than that,” he hissed, bringing his sword up and pointing it at the dark figure.

“I know,” the figure said, bringing his own sword up.

For a moment, Percival stepped back, taking a breath and adjusting his guard as his foe did the same.

The dark figure did not move, instead merely standing there, waiting. Percival hesitated for a brief moment: here was the man who had killed dozens of his brothers and sisters in arms. Here was the man who had laid low some of the finest warriors that had ever worn the mantle of knighthood. And Percival thought he had a chance?

May fear never rule my heart.

“I’m kind of disappointed,” Percival said, giving his foe a cocky grin. “You’ve got such a reputation, after all.”

At this, a slow, low sound emanated from the dark helmet. It took Percival a moment to realise that it was laughter.

“Geraint,” the figure said, his voice low and tinged with dark amusement. “Gareth. Vivienne. Cara. Lionel.”

Percival’s face hardened at each name spoken, until it became a mask of rage, his nostrils flared, his eyes glinting with hatred.

“You dare,” he hissed through his teeth. “You dare!”

He charged forward, bringing his sword up and slashing at the dark knight. The dark figure blocked the strikes lazily, holding his sword one-handed as he parried strike after strike. He gave ground, in the manner a full grown man gives ground to a furious child striking impotently with tiny balled fists. Finally, he blocked a fierce overhead strike and pushed against it, sending Percival off-balance.

“You will not get past me!” Percival yelled, spinning and lashing out. Again the dark knight blocked the blow, before sending the blade’s tip into the dirt. A single gauntleted hand came up and smacked Percival across the jaw, sending him to the ground. Rolling, Percival avoided a strike that would have cleaved him in two, and stood up, blocking another overhead blow. The dark knight pressed, and Percival gave ground, stepping backwards but keeping their blades locked.

Suddenly, the dark knight kicked out, sending Percival sprawling to the ground and rolling away with the impact. Trying to get to his feet dizzily, Percival could only barely parry the next blow, before his opponent kicked him again, this time with enough force to send him hurtling across the battlefield once more.

The brave warrior finally came to a stop near the broken cannon he and his friends had clustered around. He looked up, to see the dark figure striding across the battlefield, stepping over bodies, sword still held lazily.

“Brave,” the dark figure commented. “They were all brave. But they still fell.” He paused, before pointing his sword at Percival. “You must have known how this would end.”

“Yes,” Percival said, coughing blood. “But I’m the knight of courage, not brains, after all. Nobody said I had to be smart.”

He brought himself to a sitting position, leaning his back against the cannon, and glanced sideways, his eyes alighting upon something. Suddenly, he grinned, and with a tremendous effort pushed himself to his feet, one hand clutching at his broken ribs.

May doubt never cloud my thought.

“But maybe,” he continued, as the dark figure approached, “I’m smarter than you think I am.” He brought his sword up in a high guard as the dark figure got closer, flicking a switch and making sure the coruscating energy of his blade was still working. Only going to get one shot. “You’ve killed a lot of my friends. Do you know that?”

“I remember every one,” the dark figure said, his voice tinged with something unreadable. He had nearly reached Percival, and he brought his sword up in a guard stance.

“So do I,” Percival said, grinning. He brought one hand to the symbol on his chest.

May despair never dull my senses.

And then, in a single stroke, he brought his sword down hard on the broken cannon – and the unignited ammunition within. The energy from his sword flashed as it carved through the metal and connected with the ammunition, igniting the enhanced gunpowder and cracking the mana-bound shell.

The dark knight raised his sword in a futile warning gesture. There was a roar like thunder, a flash of light, and then silence.

***

The explosion could be seen from where Tristram, Tiberius and Bors were standing, along with Nimue and Myrlin. Tiberius’ eyes widened in horror, and Bors looked away, eyes closed. The explosion was the first of a dozen more, unexploded ammunition setting off in a cascade of fire and noise across the broken battlefield, stretching along the valley all the way to the edges of the mountains.

Nimue’s hands had gone to her mouth, but as the explosion died down, she lowered them, approaching Myrlin.

“Does… does that mean…?” she asked.

Myrlin said nothing. He turned away from where he stood, and faced Tristram.

“Evelyn?” he asked quietly.

“Safe,” Tristram said hollowly. “And her child.”

“Good,” Myrlin said. “Then this was worth it.”

“Was it?” Tristram asked as the old man passed him, but Myrlin said nothing more, simply walking away.

“How many, do you think?” Tiberius asked as he stared down at the broken battlefield.

Bors clasped his hand on Tiberius’ shoulder. “Enough. Enough that we made the right choice.”

“Did we, Bors?” Tiberius asked, meeting Bors’ eyes. “Did we really?”

Bors said nothing, and silence fell, as eight pairs of eyes watched the valley below burn.

#original work #original writing #original character #fantasy #exemplar #serial #story #writing

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thebeautifulmountain-blog · 7 years

Note

Thoughts on the BlizzCon news?

Oh geeze, where do I even begin.Let’s try, least to most.

Nothing for Diablo, again… maybe one day. (though I’m assuming it’s because they’re actively all off working on something big - which probably isn’t Diablo related)

Starcraft 2 going free to play. - sure, but it isn’t a new single-player experience so why should I care? Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good game and you should definitely play it, but I’m not good enough to play against other people any more so yeah… means nothing to me.

Hearthstone got a new expansion and it’s… kobolds? The trailer for it is as awesome as ever, and Matt Mercer singing is just beautiful. I really hope the K&C expansion is literally just the team going “you know what is fun. Dungeons and Dragons, lets just do a Warcraft version and get Matt Mercer to do the trailer.”. I really hope that was the creative process. Plus it has a PvE Arena mode - which if it is a permanent feature to the game, I’ll definitely probably get into it.

Heroes of the Storm got new heroes revealed - we’ve all seen the spoilers, so no huge shock here. The trailer was a little meh, but Alexstrasza is #1 dragon bae and clearly the best choice for the first dragon aspect into the Nexus. We’ve got two dragons and two shimadas now, but still no proper Gnomes.Feels bad.

Overwatch is finally getting an Irish terrorist. FINALLY! She looks cool to play but her actual design and the fact she kind of came out of no-where without any kind of teasing or cinematic, considering what her backstory is and how crucial it actually is to Blackwatch.Her character design is not my favourite - I don’t think every agent of talon needs the terrible black trench-coat school-shooter vibe. She’d look way better in her Mercy-esque outfit that doesn’t wash out her already pale face and clash with her red hair. And there are other colours that would work well with the whole glowing chemical tubing (which is the only actual cool part about her outfit) and they really could have played up the bioshock alchemist vibe that she seems meant to have. Because honestly, if she doesn’t have a “would you kindly” voice line I’ll quit.I think if she was more monstrous and less just generically pretty like all the rest of the Overwatch characters, she’d be far more interestingly designed. Blizzard obviously knows how to make a good sexy monster - I mean, look at dragon-demon Symmetra, or the Queen of Blades, or Sylvanas Windrunner, the Banshee Queen, Lady of Darkness, Breaker of the Scourge, Reaper of Souls, Bane of the Alliance, Queen of Lordaeron and the Northern Kingdoms.Kit wise, she is absolutely interesting and should be heaps of fun to play. I’m not a massive fan of the beams, but the bouncing orbs, the teleport (as if we needed another one) and the kamehameha wave heal/damage ult is pretty tasty.The cinematic though, I was kind of disappointed in at first because we’ve got a new character and I was hoping it’d shed some light on her and get me invested in her as a character. I’m guessing they’ll do an Ana style thing on her (though I’m still waiting to give a shit about Orisa). But that it was Reinhardt’s backstory was pretty interesting. Turns out Reinhardt was a complete and utter toolbag who left his friends to die because of his own selfish glory-hounding.What a fucking piece of shit.That hair though really was glorious.

They should have given us Balderich. He was a beast, and a team player.Seriously though, fuck Reinhardt - I lost all respect for him.

Warcraft… oh geeze, where do I ever start. It’s all lore for me. It’s all amazing and depressing and happy and dark and fucked up. I was going into it expecting a massive Old Gods mess with major characters dying off and Sylvanas probably getting retconned into some evil monster and maybe Jaina actually ending up an Old God puppet.

Nope, we’re getting Mists of Pandaria 2.0.Lorewise, I’m livid because there is absolutely zero reason so far as to why the Horde and Alliance are so out for blood against one another - but I’m going to assume that that amazing trailer is depicting the Alliance being their usual evil-masquerading-as-good selves and attacking first.Yeah guys, we get it, the original Horde got in one sneak attack, doesn’t mean you get to do it for the rest of eternity.And we might lose Lordaeron - which also makes zero sense. The currently strongest part of the Horde getting driven out of their heartland is like if a group of uncultured Orcs sacked Stormwind - actually nevermind…Doesn’t matter, we’re taking Ashenvale, which means the Orcs will finally have unfettered industrial growth and land to farm. Finally Thrall’s dumb fucking decision to found a city on a desert will be righted. And I’m hoping the Forsaken get Tel’drassil, can you imagine how cool an undead world tree would look? Geeze.

The features of the expansion are cool as well, two new continents, one per faction - which is a real kick for people like me that super heavily invest in one faction over the other. Kul’tiras is kind of like a lore shangri-la, to finally actually have it and that it is Alliance gated (by the looks of it) is salt-inducing, but if I ever manage to pay for that sub again I’ll definitely roll through on my druid.Even better though, the Horde is finally moving to make reparations with the Zandalari - who really are natural allies now that that Old God loving self-proclaimed prophet Zul is defanged.

Plus other stuff, blah, blah. Oh, and Classic WoW servers.

Anyway, about that trailer.That is what the Warcraft movie should have been. I don’t even care if it ended up as Michael Bay-esque single-scene war-porn, watching the Alliance and Horde battle it out for an hour would be bliss. The Alliance are actually wearing armour like they’re meant to - while slowly morphing into the obvious villains they are.

I really super appreciate it as a lore-nerd, a real-world lore-nerd, a military-science nerd and a political lore-nerd. Just that cinematic really underpins why I find Warcraft a compelling setting despite all the flaws of the writing team.

It is a melange of cold-war ideologies clashing, between two imperfect empires with completely different world views and philosophies despite the similarities in their overall structure.You have the Alliance, whose prime goal has always been the destruction of the Horde and establishment of Alliance supremacy, finely honed and heavily armoured. They form up in neat lines and integrate their armies using mixed-unit tactics - the human shield wall and the dwarven rifle volley. With kaldorei archers supporting in the back and siege engines rolling up from behind. Draenei shock troops waiting for the break through and just one Worgen gude (fuck Genn so much) being all like “yeah, Gilneas is totally here as well my dudes.”

The Horde though, they’re messy, they’re all fury and bluster. They don’t need armour, they’re already all like tanks. Saurfang leading at the breach, Sylvanas standing on the walls directing her archers. The Horde doesn’t integrate, they just are. They’re brawlers not soldiers, they’re fighting for survival not some revanchist notion that all Alliance land is their own.Their leaders don’t send in their pawns to die, they’ve always lead from the front - they do it through honour and not a sense of nationalism.You see this when Saurfang stands against the fallen rampart, taking arrows instead of retreating to led his men die. When he personally leads the charge out into the melee. When Sylvanas, realising she can do better elsewhere unleashes her fury on the siege engines and fucking melts an entire squad of alliance footmen.

As factions they stem from the same place but grew to have very different conclusions. The Horde revolutionaries against the Alliance reactionaries, collectivism versus integrationism. Individualism fighting against bureaucracy.

I haven’t always agreed on some of the decisions that the lore team has made in terms of growing these two factions; be it introducing a greedy randian libertarianist Goblins into the largely socialist Horde, or the introduction of the rather obviously communist Draenei into the monarchist alliance. But the fact that they’ve worked on integrating those kinds of problems into the fabric of each faction really makes it feel far more real.

I kind of think it is a shame that it didn’t include at least one Gnome though. Mekkatorque in his battle armour looks pretty friggin’ boss.

I think that mostly covers it.

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luxettenebra · 6 years

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Some ideas for Castlevania verse:

Revan is the daughter of a vampire (Lady Umbra Val Kyria) and a Prince. He’s not very high on the succession, but he’s high enough that Lady Umbra is interested in having a child with him so she can manipulate the succession to get her child on the throne

Lady Umbra is betrayed, and she killed. Prince Verenthal (maybe I have to change his name but eeeeeeeeeh), in the only not-cowardly thing he does and sends Revan to be raised elsewhere. I guess the equivalent of Jedi would be monster hunters or maybe a Speaker??? I like a monster hunter better though, honestly, because it means baby Revan can be on opposition to those she was raised by/grew up with and I am all about that

‘Revan’ is a shortened form of the title ‘the Revanchist’. She’s very good at going in and regaining lost territory

before she lost her sight, Revan found treaties/codices on dark/forbidden magics. After she lost her sight, she forsook her duties and went in search of those who could teach her more forbidden magics. As a magic user, she is adept at almost every form of it----and those she isn’t, she knows how to counteract/deal with

her preferred weapons are two blades. She usually pairs them with surrounding her body in lightning.

few people know her face, since she either wears a mask or just pulls her hood down over her eyes (even growing up she is sensitive to light----a childhood symptom of her vampire nature, along with her craving for blood, strength, and quicker healing)

after she defects to become a full fledged vampire, she gains the title of Revan the Butcher

her memory is fucked due to repeated torturing over the years. At some point she was locked in a torture chamber for around 300 years

she likes to manipulate humans. killing them all means she won’t be able to have anymore fun. she does acknowledge that there are people worth saving (Tari and those she loved in her younger years especially).

Despite what you might think, Revan has very few vampire children. Oh, she has a rather large collection of adopted human and her own dhampir children. But vampire offspring where she turned them? Tari is one of them, where she was forced to turn her to save her life. As a result, her lineage is only carried on through more traditional means

after becoming fully fledged, she rarely fall for a human. she can feel respect for a few, but almost never feels love. almost all human lovers she keeps around as pets until they’ve died or she grows bored

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krishnaprasad-blog · 4 years

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As a pictorial representation of the perverse inhumanity that the “land of Buddha and Gandhi” has embraced as its key performance indicator since 2014, it is difficult to beat the two images that emerged out of Karnataka’s northern-most city, Bidar, in the week following the 70th year of the founding of the Republic.

In the first picture (above), two boys, barely four feet tall, sit alternately crouching and cowering in fear before two XL policemen, one carrying a questionnaire, the other a clipboard. A third policeman, video camera in hand, languidly records their “interrogation”. Behind, a lady cop is planted to keep child rights’ activists at bay.

In the second picture (above), an authority-figure stands where an affectionate teacher would, in a classroom of boys in skull caps and girls in hijab. Here, too, a chappal-clad cop captures their confessions for posterity, as if Nirav Modi and Lalit Modi, Mehul Choksi and Vijay Mallya have suddenly surrendered and shrunk themselves into school benches.

The lens is the lathi: anything the kids say can be held against them, or their parents, or their school—or their community.

The cause of such conspicuous savagery in a BJP-ruled state: an “inflammatory” dialogue in a play staged by children aged between 9 and 12, at the Shaheen primary and high school, which pierced through the otherwise impregnable 56-inch armour of the mighty ‘Pradhan Sevak’. Or, at least the fragile ego of one of his jobless defenders.

A 26-year-old domestic help, no less, the widowed mother of the Class VI girl who, during the course of the play, said that if anyone asks for papers to prove citizenship usko joote maaro, has been arrested—for “tutoring” her daughter. As has the school headmistress, 52, who oversaw the grand production on January 21.

The girl’s slippers have been seized as “evidence”—the hand that waved them has been spared. Stupidity is clever enough sometimes to realise its limits.

The school society president and an Urdu “journalist” who put up a clip of the play on Facebook have been charged under five sections of the Indian Penal Code: 124A (sedition); 153A (promoting, attempting to promote disharmony); section 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace); 505 (2) (statements creating enmity or promoting enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes); and 34 (common intent).

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Three years ago, Narendra Modi said: “You are free to criticise me. Constructive criticism makes our democracy stronger and is vital.” Two years ago, he reiterated: “I want this Government to be criticised. Criticism makes democracy strong.”

In 2020, Karnataka Police, which acted on a complaint by an ABVP activist, appears to be treating the honourable PM’s words (and democracy) as a joke.

The joke plays on in loop: Police have turned up five times at the school to question over 80 students, most of whom had nothing to do with the play. Among the searching questions they have asked:

# Did the school coerce them into making statements against the prime minister?

# What role did teachers play in organising the play?

# Was the script changed to accommodate the “insulting” dialogues?

# Where did they practise?

# Why was a flag used?

Having cracked the puzzle to the satisfaction of their political masters in Bangalore, 700 km away, the Police in Bidar seem to be hunting for the jigsaw pieces that will fit the “national” imagination. And, as they always do till the fat lady (or a bored boy, or hungry girl) sings what they would like to hear, they have now “intensified” the probe.

The single mother, already a week in jail, has been consigned to another week in it by a judge who returned from weekend leave. A neighbour is taking care of her 11-year-old daughter.

Each day, students take turns to pray for the sedition case against the school to be lifted.

Each day, they could well be praying for Karnataka to return to its senses.

For, a standout aspect of the abomination in Bidar is the coolness with which the “land of Basava” has absorbed this outrage. Not a single major Kannada newspaper has felt the need to aggressively report the misreading or misuse of the sedition law, or editorially comment on it. Only a couple of them have even deigned to publish the CCTV grabs.

Opposition politicians who adroitly tweet in multiple languages were silent for a week till Rizwan Arshad, a newly elected Congress MLA from Bangalore, took the trouble. Asaduddin Owaisi of the Majlis has jumped in. What should have been a straight forward humanitarian case has been turned into a “Muslim issue” with all its attendant baggage.

WhatsApp, it appears, has deleted empathy from the smartphones of the “majority” of Kannadigas.

***

To understand why Karnataka Police can instantly jump into action in Bidar, look no further than Mangalore in the west.

Here, students of a school belonging to RSS leader Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat, staged a play in December last enacting the 1992 demolition of the Babri masjid. Unlike in Bidar, Mangalore Police are still awaiting “legal opinion” on filing the chargesheet. When the incendiary Bhat was on the verge of arrest earlier in a different case, BJP MP Shobha Karandlaje warned that the state would “burn” if he was touched.

To understand why Karnataka Police can brazenly strike fear in school kids in Bidar at will, look no further than Mysore in the south.

Here, at a protest in early January against ABVP hooliganism at JNU, Nalini Balakumar, a girl holding a “Free Kashmir” poster was booked for sedition. And this, even after Mumbai Police had dealt with a similar case and dismissed it. The Mysore bar association has barred its member-lawyers from extending legal support to the girl without a squeak.

To understand why Kannada media can find no story in Bidar, look no further than Mangalore again.

Here, on January 20, the discovery of an improvised explosive device (IED) at the airport led excitable newspapers to suggest that an “international gang” was behind it. “Revenge for CAA,” screamed Vijaya Karnataka, the no.1 Kannada daily edited by a former personal assistant to Pramod Mutalik of the Sri Rama Sena and Bajrang Dal. When it turned out to be a local Hindu from Manipal, no apology, no clarification.

To understand why the Karnataka government can charge a school with sedition in Bidar, look no further than the capital, Bangalore.

When the identity of the Mangalore airport “bomber” was still unclear, the state’s home minister Basavaraj Bommai could breezily declare that not just the bomber but “terrorist forces” would be firmly rooted out. When the “terrorist” surrendered and said his name was Aditya Rao, he was instantly declared “mental disturbed”, and acting out of frustration.

To understand why the Karnataka Police finds the “usko joote maaro” line in Bidar so seditious, look no further than the mining hub, Bellary.

Here, in early January, when BJP MLA Somashekhar Reddy says on video, “I want to warn people who are protesting. If you do too much nakhra (drama), imagine what will happen to you when we come for you We are 80 per cent and you are 18 per cent. If we hit back what will happen to you? Be careful when you are in this country,” they can only watch.

To understand why Karnataka suddenly finds it easy to stereotype Bidar’s school kids, look no further than Bangalore again.

Here, on January 20, the police in India’s so-called hi-tech capital watched on as civic authorities demolished the shacks of ‘Bangladeshis’, who they found to their dismay were actually Kannadigas from Kolar and Koppal. Without contrition, Bangalore’s police commissioner Bhaskara Rao now claims there are 300,000 illegal Bangladeshis in the city.

To understand why Karnataka Police are questioning the school management in Bidar to reveal who was behind the “plot”, look no further than the MP from Bangalore South, Tejasvi Surya.

On Christmas eve, the motormouth had labelled those opposing CAA as “puncture” wallahs. On January 16, Bangalore police arrested six Muslims—a ladies tailor, an electrician, a mechanic, a delivery boy, a shop keeper and a civil contractor—allegedly for plotting to kill him.

***

Amit Shah’s words ‘Aap chronology samajh lijiye’ have become a cliche, but they are prescient.

The first stint of the BJP in Karnataka 12 years ago was marked by moral policing of pubs and bars, and vigilante attacks on churches, besides of course mind-numbing corruption which sent a serving chief minister and half his cabinet to jail. Then, too, bogus cases were foisted against Muslims for assassination attempts on embedded journalists. Then, too, there was dog whistling against burqas and hijab.

In the run-up to the assembly elections in 2018, the battle cry of the BJP was that Hindus were in danger in Karnataka.

As naturally as night follows day, the coming to power of the B.S. Yediyurappa government in 2019 has resulted in a cascade of dark rumours and conspiracies in a state labelled as “Hindutva’s laboratory in the south”. And the Bidar school play is just what the doctors ordered to humiliate and harass a decades-old institution on specious grounds—and in the process to stereotype and showcase a community to the rest of the state and, indeed, the country.

Over the years, a steady drip-feed of resentment in the north (Idgah maidan in Hubli), centre (Bababudangiri in Chikamagalur), west (conversion, love jihad in Mangalore), and south (Tipu Sultan in Mysore), has normalised hatred. The collective inertia to the humiliation of the meek and the poor in Bidar, shows why Karnataka is the only state in the south to open its doors to revanchist forces, and watch tamely while its writers and thinkers are killed at their doorstep.

Teaching lessons is the objective behind every school. For the moment, a state seems intent to teach a lesson—that students of class IV, V and VI can wage war against the mighty Indian nation. Aided by an unlettered domestic help.

(An earlier version of this piece appears on Rediff.com)

A steady drip-feed has normalised hatred against Muslims in BJP-ruled Karnataka. Which is why Kannadigas are so apathetic to the Police claim that a poor, unlettered domestic help tutored a Class VI girl to wage war against the mighty Indian state. As a pictorial representation of the perverse inhumanity that the “land of Buddha and Gandhi…

#Amit Shah #Asaduddin Owaisi #B.S.Yediyurappa #Basavaraj Bommai #Bidar #CAA #Churumuri #Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat #Narendra Modi #NPR #NRC #Pramod Mutalik #rediff.com #Rizwan Arshad #Shaheen School #Shobha Karandlaje

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recentnews18-blog · 6 years

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New Post has been published on https://shovelnews.com/the-love-song-of-dril-and-the-boys/

The Love Song Of Dril And The Boys

I have not read dril’s book. I cannot read dril’s book.

Dril Official “Mr. Ten Years” Anniversary Collection compiles 1,500 of the pseudonymous Twitter user’s greatest tweets, and it is simply too funny for me to read for more than a page or two at a time without laughing so hard, I feel physically ill. Ask my family if you don’t believe me. Ask the patrons of the West Babylon Public Library, who have been shooting me dirty looks since I began writing this essay. Every time I crack the book open, I’m seconds away from hitting something like this …

“hello 911 I need a moat dug around my house immediately” “sir this line is for emergencies only” “Thuis is an emergency moat”

— wint (@dril) May 18, 2014

… or this …

koko the talking ape.. has been living high on the hog, wasting our tax dollars on high capacity diapers. No more. i will suplex that beast,

— wint (@dril) September 7, 2014

… or this …

where do girls live

— wint (@dril) October 20, 2010

… and that’s it. Show’s over. “Goodnight Irene,” as Gorilla Monsoon would say. (“I will suplex that beast.”)

Dril’s blend of fist-on-the-table bluster, abject confusion and burned-toast syntax — the style of humor he pioneered, which became the lingua franca of Funny/Weird Twitter in toto — has my number. Like Monty Python’s run-on sketches, non sequiturs and Terry Gilliam animation; like the endless awkward pauses, omnipresent electrical humming and recycled animation of “Space Ghost Coast to Coast”; like Tim and Eric’s garish colors, glitchy video and non-actor stars, dril’s tweets are a new way to be funny, with a rhythm and vocabulary all their own. I love it.

But dril? Dril loves the boys.

A recurring collective character in dril’s oeuvre, the boys occupy a unique place in his taxonomy, which, thanks to the book’s arrangement of tweets by topic, is easier than ever to get the hang of. For example, girls are mysterious sources of intermingled awe and terror, like the monoliths in “2001.”

ah, So u persecute Jared Fogle just because he has different beliefs? Do Tell. (girls get mad at me) Sorry. Im sorry. Im trying to remove it

— wint (@dril) November 1, 2015

Brands are icons of integrity, as admirable as they are untouchable.

just deleted 23,000 tweets at the request of Sbarro. feeling Purified

— wint (@dril) July 5, 2015

The trolls are contemptible pests, an implacable obstacle.

will no longer be livestreaming foreskin restoration process; the trolls who attempted to summon [インプ] (Imps) into the chatroom are to blame

— wint (@dril) February 3, 2012

And then there’s rival Twitter user @DigimonOtis, a class by himself: He is nemesis, the anti-dril.

(reading my latest death threat ) “from the desk of DigimonOtis…” this is bullshit. digimonotis has never owned a desk

— wint (@dril) November 6, 2014

But the boys are on dril’s level. The boys welcome dril with open arms. They share his hopes and fears, his loves and hates. He’s one of the boys.

Just met w/ Boys Lunch Club. Seems to me, That we are very pissed off that teen girls would rather kiss, “Soldier Boy,” than Actual Soldiers

— wint (@dril) May 16, 2016

pleased to report my custom beer tap that makes a dramatic diarrhea noise while filling the glass is a hit with the boys at the fondue club

— wint (@dril) October 16, 2014

best 90s memory is gathering around the old oak tree with the boys and passing around trading cards featuring all of our dads #DamnGood90s

— wint (@dril) April 30, 2013

Crucial to the boys’ appeal is their exclusivity. Like any clique, they’ve invested their aesthetic preferences with moral weight, and those who violate them do so at their peril.

darknet 2002: pics of dead guys in bath tubs, warez darknet 2017: discussions amongst the boys as to which of our acquaintances aren t funny

— wint (@dril) August 11, 2017

me & the booys are riffing on 78 hours of stolen walgreens security cam footage. this guy on here just bought a toilet brush. bitch!! bitch!

— wint (@dril) December 8, 2014

me and the boys have decided that the least gay way of wiping your ass is to dump a quarter bottle of Palmolive Spring Sensations back there

— wint (@dril) September 17, 2016

Dril may be a member in good standing, but membership brings responsibilities as well as privileges.

the boys held an intervention about me “Going hollywood” because i;ve been buying plastic toothpicks now

— wint (@dril) June 1, 2018

THE BOYS: were watching the mr bean episode where you can see his ass. get over here ME: cant. wifes making me watch mr beans holiday (2007)

— wint (@dril) June 14, 2017

If the boys function as dril’s superego, instilling and policing values, they are also his id — an embodiment of his most voracious physical drives.

pussy log 12.29.11: justin unscrewed the knob from the door to the ladies’ room and now the club boys all take turns cradling it

— wint (@dril) December 30, 2011

“Ah!! Lunchtime, Boys!” i snort several lines of Hamburger Helper, tilt my head back and shake with unbearable agony as my head turns purple

— wint (@dril) May 15, 2013

The comedy and tragedy of dril is that he is a man without ego, the mediating force that balances the needs of id and superego. He is perpetually out of balance, careening from excess to shame. He requires the intervention of the boys, the example they set, just to function.

This is why the saga of dril and the boys is a love story — conditional and occasionally unrequited though that love may be. It is poignant because it is impossible to imagine dril living without them any more than Juliet could live without Romeo.

When the lovers are in harmony — when the needs of id, ego and superego are aligned at last — the result is a thing of beauty.

going ape shit at the gym. rotating in full 360 degrees with the boys, flawlessly synchronized

— wint (@dril) November 28, 2017

The boys can be peers, contributing to the good posts for which dril is best known at a level beyond dril’s own imagining.

cant wiat to see what devilish thanksgiving scenarios me and the boys of twitter can conjure up. “The turkey was taken by spiders? ? Whua??”

— wint (@dril) November 24, 2014

Together they can be silent guardians, watchful protectors, dark knights, defending boys both within and outside the circle from the depredations of rival groups.

me & the boys will be holding hands., forming a Covenant Ring, to protest girls who only want to fuck the main pirate from the pirate movies

— wint (@dril) June 4, 2017

the epic shit of 2017; is the boys getting TheSegaPimp fired from his job at The Red Cross for not wishing me a “Happy Halloween”

— wint (@dril) January 2, 2018

the boys are enjoying their fave jukebox when ths sarge steps in SARGE: TURN OFF THE DAMN JUKE BOX! ITS WAR ME: Fuck u sarge. The armys crap

— wint (@dril) July 7, 2015

Not every tweet about the boys made it into the book. This is fitting, as when they’re operating at full force, nothing can contain them.

thje opening riff of “Life In The Fast Lane” repeats over and over forever while me and the boys shoot at a septic tank with airsoft rifles

— wint (@dril) August 1, 2014

me N’ the boys eating messy sandiwches, sneaking around with big binoculars looking for girls & letting every one know who runs this TJ maxx

— wint (@dril) July 21, 2016

So we come to the crux of the matter. Dril and the boys are the great love story of our time because their insecurities, their mania, are our time’s prime motivators.

Dril and the boys wallow in the same miasma from which all our era’s reactionary movements have emerged — the MAGAs and Pepes, MRAs and incels, GamerGaters and ComicsGaters, Sad Puppies and Proud Boys and all the other doofuses with unwittingly infantilizing sobriquets.

With “the boys,” the humorist behind dril has tapped into the overall vibe in this country that there exists, somewhere out there ― perhaps in a TJ Maxx ― a lost masculine ideal. No one agrees on what it is, least of all dril, whose psyche is as piecemeal as his punctuation. It could be yelling at NFL protesters to stand for the national anthem or screaming at Disney for committing white genocide in the “Star Wars” films. It could be having sex all the time or having no sex at all. It could be respecting the majesty of the law or flouting it or both, depending on whom the law is meant to penalize. It’s the nightmare superego-id hybrid, 10 pounds of Blue Lives Matter shit in a five-pound “Live free or die” bag.

When men fail to live up to the puritanical amorality of the boys, they’re less than men, which is to say — as women have a lifetime to learn — they’re less than human. Such men earn sexualized insults like “betas” and “cucks.” They’re reduced to contemptuous acronyms like “SJWs” and “NPCs.” They make the soy face. They listen to dad rock. This blend of macho aggression and childlike vulnerability cannot be resolved in the real world, where it results in a racist, revanchist, minority party controlling all branches of government and installing sexual predators in every available position of power yet still acting like the David to the Goliath of Me Too, female gamers and the theoretical casting of Idris Elba as James Bond.

me and the boys watching james bond morph into a black guy before our very eyes , and braying at the movie screen like distressed cattle

— wint (@dril) September 4, 2018

Dril and the boys reside in this all-American astral plane where the Large Son–Libtard civil war rages, where misandry is real and must be guarded against with magic spells. We recognize our own reality in their incoherent but nevertheless militant search for reasons to hoot and holler. As such, their romance presents us with an opportunity to convert the problematic into the pleasurable, just as surely as antihero dramas or even halfway decent kink.

In the world of dril and the boys, all the pride and greed and wrath and lust and envy and sloth and gluttony of the movements that have fouled the entire adult lives of multiple generations of Americans can be boiled down to a gaggle of morons screaming about toilets. It’s a beautiful fantasy, and like all fantasies, it’s as romantic as it is remote.

Sean T. Collins has written for The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Esquire and Vulture. He and his partner, the cartoonist Julia Gfrörer, are the co-editors of the art and comics anthology Mirror Mirror II. They live with their children on Long Island in New York.

Source: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dril-and-the-boys-twitter_us_5bb66529e4b028e1fe3bfd71

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