#we ‘know’ tons about the multiverse but nothing about how to travel it

[marry-me-malfoy]

loving the idea that earth 1218 must actually be the laughing stock of the whole multiverse

[officialauthorofanotherworld]

A Walk Through the Archives - Another Long RoAW Writing Post: No. 3

Hello everybody, welcome to our third weekly lore/exposition/whatever post.

In this post, we have a lot to talk about. But I believe the best place to start is where everything began-- ergo, the creation mythos.

This one has been cooking for quite a while!

All right... here we go.

In the beginning, there was nothing. Perhaps to say there was simply "nothing" is incorrect. Outside of known existence, of all reality, is a creature known as the Body of God.

The Body of God is a non-sapient, unconscious creature that simply exists. it is impossibly big, unfathomable to imagine. I tend to see it as a great white thing, with huge hulking limbs that floats in endless white space, far away from any mortal plane of existence and away from anything truly "existent" It simply is. It is not alive, nor is it dead. It does not experience reality, it simply is. It's hard to explain, but it doesn't really matter.

There are universes in each "part" of God. The Eyes of God, Head/Mind of God, Arms of God, Fingers of God, Legs of God, Feet of God, etc. The Body would be its "Midsection" if it had one, but you could also say "Body" meaning its entire being. It doesn't matter.

Now, inside this being, The Body of God, lies everything. Inside of it is infinite multiverses, universes, timelines parallel and those not. Infinite of everything. Every afterlife, every everything. Think of it as a bunch of squares lined up. Each "universe" is a block, and they can't really interact without intervention from the Gods within that "block." (it's how Lelnas was summoned, he was pulled from a parallel "block" to the one Tamalnh is in.) Basically, each "area" of God has tons, and tons, of these. Tamalnh is one such universe in its own "block".

Each world is similar-- you could think of it like how, in Shield Hero, the world L'arc came from is similar to the one Naofumi got isekai'd to, yet its fundamentally different, right? It's kinda like that, I guess.

Anyway, each "block" has Gods, and those Gods created the world within their respective block. The Gods do not know of the existence of the Body of God. "space" does not technically exist, space travel isn't really possible as there are no other planets. If a world ends, the Gods would recreate it. One shared rule is likely that Souls are sacred-- not to be destroyed. The one thing you cannot take away is ones right to experience life-- or the afterlife.

Speaking strictly to Tamalnh's universe now, in the beginning was nothing. Then, a crystal. From that crystal, was born Neutrality. From Neutrality, was born Law and Chaos. Presumably eons later, Neutrality's children waged war against eachother because they could not agree on how the world should be formed. Their battle created the oceans, the sky, the elemental planes, and many other things one would come to know as "Earth".

Eventually, there were enough Gods that they began to populate the earth. Thus, the races (and monsters) were born into existence.

Off the top of my head, these are the existing races:

Catfolk (miqo'te basically, best way i can explain it. They're anime catboys/catgirls)

Dogfolk, Wolffolk, Horsefolk, Birdfolk (aarakocra with the expressive faces of the Rito people from BoTW/ToTK, best way I can explain it) , and some other furry/scaly races like otters, snakes, lizardfolk, sharkfolk, etc (anthro furries basically)

Elves (Of the sea, being Sea Elves with gills like the Hoshigaki clan from Naruto basically. Of the forest, being Elves like Legolas from LoTR. Then Dark Elves, and finally, in the Gods very image, considered to be second to the Gods themselves, High Elves. Unlike the Gods, however, High Elves are not omnipotent.)

Fun fact; High Elves are mostly androgynous and able to have either sets of genitals, although I imagine they probably have neither as "default". They're very alien. I don't imagine they have sexual desires on the level most races do, but... some of them probably do, uh, do it. Which, yaknow, leads to more High Elves.

Humans

Orcs (think of them as vikings, basically. Orcs in Tamalnh are very viking-like)

Dwarves

Halffolk: Gnomes, Halflings, and Dwarves too

Half-races aside from gnomes and halflings come into being later down the line, when races begin to crossbreed. I.e, half-elves are human + elf. (got some fun lore about this regarding the Aschwaz lol)

Half-orcs do exist, but are likely incredibly rare as Oku (the land of Orcs) is in a really dangerous part of the world, where war is almost constant and the tribes of Orcs never really get along long enough to formulate any technology. At a certain point, they do have boats and use them to, well, raid and kill eachother, it's really just a land of warring factions. A valhalla for the living, i guess.

(ty kashimo)

tl;dr Orcs are trapped in Oku. There is a deadly sea-beast (a particularly vicious kraken) that stops people from entering or leaving that part of the world. I'm sure he's probably the inspiration for the "World Serpent" if the Orcs believe in something akin to norse mythology.

Demonfolk do exist, as the Hells technically do exist as a plane, despite Hell not really being a thing the Gods subject those who "sin" to. I think i've talked about the Gods idea of worthy punishments for criminals/very, very bad people in a prior post, so I won't do it again here.

Basically, Demonfolk can be seen in two "categories."

True Demonfolk: Succubi, Incubi, and regular old Demons.

Half-Demonfolk: The spawn of demons, devils, Succubi and Incubi. Basically, "Tieflings" is what DnD calls them, but because i'm scared of copyright, they really are just "Half-devils", or "cambions". They are discriminated against because people are afraid of them. Succubi (demonfolk who were cursed and thrown out of the Hells as punishment) are known to kill people trying to sate their curses, so people naturally fear them. Hamelan's government welcoming them and allowing them to run their businesses only works on two fronts;

The Hamelan Royal Family has a demonfolk fetish (and the demonfolk fucking hate it, but tolerate it because statistically Hamelan is the safest place for a Demonfolk of any kind to be)

as long as they don't kill people, they can do whatever they want (obviously, within the confines of the law itself)

Anyway, the first peoples were "created" as full adults. I imagine when they discovered sex, that they found new feelings- the feeling of being a parent. I've read that people when they have kids feel very strongly instinctively protective over them, i'm sure it's the same for the first peoples in Tamalnh.

Anyway, here's where the chronology gets hectic. There are many races at place in the first days, and humanity at large is given one prime directive, one clear defined purpose from the Gods. Build, survive, thrive. Do so, so that future generations can seek out their purpose, their destinies, and so the world will thrive into a beautiful place full of different cultures and yadayada.

For this time, the Gods walk amongst men. This time-period is where all our cool fables, mythos, and lore books in-universe come from.

Anyway, the first peoples do that stuff. A few generations later, think like, 500-1000 years, I think conflicts start to rise as people have their "necessities" decided. Not to say that conflict doesn't exist, as I'm sure certain places (Like Kaarda, due to it's harsh climate and inhospitable landscape, or Oku, due to the fact that nearly everyone there is obsessed with fighting/expanding their faction's territory) end up having small skirmishes here and there.

So, around that time- the 500-1000 year mark is when the Beastfolk-Kaardan war happens, simultaneously war amongst the elves breaks out. you could think of this as the "warring" period.

I won't go into extreme detail about these wars because it's not really necessary to, although I do have notes on them.

Tl;dr, the Beastfolk warred for territory and the war ended when 4 of the 8 (or however many, cant remember off the top of my head) racial factions were subjugated. The races that lost became slave races, and although some of them managed to escape to other places of the world (mostly Kommodia and what would become known as Katan as they were the closest) many of them remain enslaved. Basically, this war ended when most of the races had lost, therefore the continent became "majority-ruled" by a select few races who had "proven themselves" while the rest became, effectively, lower (waaaay lower, like treated like trash) class citizens.

Tl;dr for elvish war: To understand this, first understand that, for the most part, elves all existed in one place in the very beginning. Elves, High Elves, and Dark Elves existed all on this beautiful continent known as Sylvania, or Sylphlande. It is possible Sea Elves lived here too, originally known as Water Elves if they did.

Eventually however, differences in idealogy (elves wanted to explore, dark elves wanted power and more control, they felt distrusted, and the high elves wanted stability and peace-- for everyone to remain as they were forever. the elves were restless, and thus arguments brewed.)

Eventually, the Dark Elves moved into action, trying to overtake the High Elvish council by force, demanding a piece of their power so to speak. Perhaps enraged, the Gods came down to intervene and stop what was happening between their creations, but found their avatar destroyed by none other than a certain elf named Sargantas.

Sargantas, having grown bored with existence despite its beauty, having tired of the "inequality" apparent just amongst his own people, (likely being jealous of the power and respect the Gods afforded the High Elves in particular, and how they alone seemed in charge of making each and every decision regarding their lands) killed the avatar of the "progenitor god" so to speak, Neutrality. Now, know this. You can't kill a God, it is not possible. Yet you can kill their avatar. So, he kills Neutrality's avatar, takes her power, and uses it to link his soul permanently to this realm. This is but one "step" in his plan which he sort of grows as he goes along.

Basically, with this, the elves are thrown into chaos. Sargantas flees and narrowly avoids capture and a likely execution, and sets about with what i've taken to calling his "Thousand-Year-Plan".

In any case, this action more or less ends the "war" which was likely a collection of small battles mixed with ideological skirmishes. It ends when the High Elves, boiling over with rage, tear apart the very Earth, creating a terrible, seemingly endless pit-- with which they cast the Dark Elves inside, sending them to what is essentially the Underdark.

After that, the other Elves are exiled, and, creating elven tribes from their ideologies, set out to find a new home. Many make their homes in Kommodia's forests, and other places in the world-- wherever nature calls them.

Then, finally, the High Elves uproot a piece of Sylvania, leaving behind a fractured landmass below-- which becomes Lower Sylvania, as the pieces they take to the sky becomes High Sylvania. Embracing their role as silent, actionless watchers of the world, they hide themselves away and are never seen again. Many years later, explorers find the lower landmass completely barren, with no trace of anything ever having lived there. (as the other elvish subraces were likely banished permanently from the land itself)

Later on, a Fae curse befalls (well, they were tricked into the contract) several elvish tribes, giving birth to the "Pacted Elves", elves suffering from a curse of eternal devotion to a certain area of the world. These elves become like the high elves, immortal, un-ageing, but (unlike the High Elves on High Sylvania, who do not leave out of choice and spite) unable to leave lest they choose to break the contract and activate the dormant curse within their blood.

Around this time, as wars end and people start to branch out more, the world becomes more "lively" so to speak. During this time, Fae are quite active, and cause lots of trouble. Eventually (couple hundred years), they either stop bothering with the Mortal Realm, are explicitly told to stop by the Gods, or stop being able to interact with it as "tangibly" if that makes sense.

With the wars over, the Gods retreat and decide to no longer intervene, as them doing so allowed someone like Sargantas to gain power that he shouldn't have. They made a mistake, and instead of fixing it or growing, in typical God fashion, they choose to just... go away. Go away, and watch silently. Like a two year old. Some people end up believing that they entered the great white tree in the northern bit of the continent. This tree becomes known as the Godstree, and Hamelan is built around it.

Eventually, Sargantas is put an end to by the summoned hero, Lelnas, and yadayada...

Thanks to Lelnas, adventuring eventually becomes popular enough that more people are doing it (instead of it just being like 10% of people who were wandering around trying to find work and stuff like Lelnas did, or explorers tracking down a single target... like Lelnas was.)

Give it a few more long periods of time, Lelnas, Sargantas, and the wars fade into history, myth, and become fables. No one alive except for the High Elves remember a time when those people were alive....

and so slowly, we enter the modern day. An age of myth, legend, of adventure. The GOLDEN AGE OF ADVENTURING AND MERCHANTRY IS UPON US!

Pirates wage war against the Kommodian Navy on the high seas, while Navy-Pirates wage war against the... bad pirates! (fun fact: Beriyl's sister, Esmerelda, is a pirate for the Kommodian Navy)

Merchants turn fortune in their favor with the toss of a coin, and adventurers seek fame and fortune, friendship and treasure. It's dangerous work, but it's rewarding and truly... truly the freest one could be.

Thus, we meet Taka, Beriyl, and Arthur. And as such.. the story begins.

I don't think i missed anything! I hope i didn't. if something i said doesn't make sense, feel free to ask a question and i'll elaborate.

random:

There is a place known as the Hall of Mirrors, existing outside of all realities. This place holds links to every known reality in all of existence-- even other worlds outside the Body of God, every possible reality in any timeline can be "watched" from here. The Hall of Mirrors is an infinitely long square-corridor of mirrors. You can not enter other realities from these mirrors, trying would result in you being shunted back to your own, which would be quite painful. (think of it as taking Psychic and Force damage at the same time)

bear in mind that this is still being added to, theres a possibility i forgot to correct something so it wont match up with what's in the text, but it's a pretty good look at the world at large i believe. most of the sea names are likely placeholders fwiw

alrighty... that was a lot lol, took me a few hours to write (despite me having all this written down in my notes...)

dungeon meshi.... AH, dungeon meshi!

anywayyyyyy

Concluding this post, here's a poll. And a question. Well... a few.

Does anyone read these?

Does it matter?

Are these interesting?

until next time! ^.^

@thelaughingstag

[silverview]

sooo...thinking about fat colin 🫣

so maybe he wasn't before, but after coming home, in the year he spends gaming on david's sofa, he's just so happy to have a reliable supply of comforting familiar martian food for the first time in 10 years. so he doesn't go outside for obvious reasons and he just lolls around the quarters eating david's snacks all day and putting on weight. with the introduction of the franchises there are a lot more varied + fattening food options available, & colin nags david to bring things home for him to sample. his clothes stop fitting so he just stops wearing them, much to david's annoyance. when he finally wants to go outside he has to make david fetch him all new clothes

alternatively: he gained weight while travelling/living with patrick. that's canonically what happened to patrick, so it makes perfect sense for them both to be affected. relationship weight :3 the bgu told him to take whatever he wants and that absolutely applies to food as well – he just starts eating whatever he wants all the time & gains a ton of weight before even making it back to mars, and the bgu likes & encourages it bc it represents his commitment to the philosophy. there are so many amazing exotic cuisines to try & he can go directly to all the best restaurants in the multiverse

alternatively 2: he was always chubby, and like the glasses, it made people see him as more approachable / friend-shaped. surely nobody that soft & squishy could be a ruthless psychopath !

sidebar, not to go into unhinged meta territory as usual, but hayley has a line in her human capital about how earthlings (specifically women) supposedly have more body fat than martians. first, note that culturally, martians regard thinness as desirable – interesting. secondly, a range of possibilities for what this tells us about their biology

hayley is trying to insult hob, based on absolutely nothing, and there is no physical difference between earthlings & martians in this regard

there is generally no physical difference, but hob specifically is actually fat. this possibility intrigues & delights me

martians in general are thinner than earthlings. i don't think we've ever heard anything to officially rule this out. this might be because their diet is different, or something more fundamental to do with the environment. we already know they have lower bone density

martian women specifically have lower body fat than earthling women. absolutely wild about the idea that they might be, very slowly, starting to evolve away from pronounced sex differences. WAY too much in that possibility to unpack right here. much to think about

[iwasnotaslasher]

Yep, time to make a masterpost!

Links only to the fics and series in English, complete or in progress (no hiatus).

Vaniller (Joel Miller/Cobb Vanth from crossover The Last Of Us/The Mandalorian)

~ Until we collide again [multichapter 3/?: set right after Joel and Ellie leave Jacksonville. Before the Miller brothers part ways, Tommy gives Joel a radio to contact a trusted man who lives near the border with Colorado, just in case they would need help through their journey. His callsign is 'Marshal' and when they meet him Joel takes a look at him and already knows he’s fucked in so many ways. - rated E]

Dreamling (Dream of the Endless/Hob Gadling from The Sandman TV show)

~ Curiosity killed the cat [multichapter 5/?: For some inexplicable reasons Morpheus keeps manifesting to Hob as a cat. In his journey to learn how to deal with a demanding Endless (and with his feelings for him), Hob will also learn how even a mere human can be as powerful as a god. - rated M]

DinCobb (Din Djarin/Cobb Vanth from Star Wars franchise)

~ Think I'll miss you forever (Like the stars miss the sun in the morning sky) [multichapter 4/4: A/B/O where omega!Din and alpha!Cobb unexpectedly imprint each other and don't know how to deal with it - rated E]

~ The Ballad of the Marshall and the Bounty Hunter [series: A/B/O smut with feelings - rated E]

This is life [one-shot: post-S2E01 of 'The Mandalorian', back in Mos Pelgo omega!Cobb finds himself in a stress induced heat and alpha!Din offers to help him through it]

Break the silence (damn the dark, damn the light) [one-shot: post-S1E07 of 'The Book of Boba Fett', alpha!Din sees his omega!Cobb in the bakta tank and goes feral, they share the resulting rut]

Picture my face in your hands [multichapter 6/6: alpha!Din makes up his mind and starts courting omega!Cobb, only he doesn't know a kriff on how to court an omega, also is a bit of a problem they have to know each other for real before bonding happily ever after]

Stony (Steve Rogers/Tony Stark from MCU)

~ Je veux ton amour, et je veux ta revanche [short multichapter 2/2: post-Endgame fix-it with Superior Ironman, time travel and multiverse travel - rated E]

~ Hidden in plain sight [short one-shot: Tony is ranting about Steve with JARVIS, except there's not only JARVIS listening - rated M]

~ All flowers in time bend towards the sun [one-shot: Tony is half dryad and shows his feelings sprouting flowers from his hair, but no one can sees it except the people who truly love him - rated E]

SamBucky (Sam Wilson/Bucky Barnes from MCU) 

~ Never give up (nothing comes easy) [one-shot: morning sex and intimacy between two soldiers still learning how to navigate their relationship - rated E]

LawRusso (Johnny Lawrence/Daniel LaRusso from Karate Kid franchise)

~ The one where Johnny finds out [one-shot: a funny, almost crack story heavily inspired by that FRIENDS episode where Ross and Rachel kiss for the first time - rated T]

Geraskier (Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier from The Witcher TV show)

~ His last dandelion [short one-shot: fairy tale style story with djinn!Jaskier and dragon!Geralt - rated T]

SuperBat (Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne from DCUM)

~ Under the light of a thousand stars [one-shot: A/B/O where Bruce is the last one to find out Clark is an omega and also that some “misterious” alpha had imprinted him - rated E]

[skelanonymous]

First - Killermare

Words - 3.1k

I decided I needed more happy Killermare, even though I’ve literally written a ton of it. I should write literally anybody else next…>_>

-

Killer entered into the kitchen with a tense back, casually perusing the fridge with a wince. He’d taken a hard hit on the side during the last fight with the Stars. Probably cracked something, but nothing was falling off so he didn’t bother too much with it. His determination would hold him together.

He grabbed the carton of milk and took a swig straight from the container.

“Other people use that you know.” 

“Too bad for them.” Killer turned around to grin at Nightmare. He’d recently gotten into his Boss’s VERY good graces and no broken bones were going to keep him out of it. “Well if it isn’t small, dark, and Lovecraftian.” That got a chuckle, a rare thing to hear from Nightmare. It made his target soul ache something awful, hearing that cute sound and not being able to do anything with it, not nearly close enough to Nightmare to capitalize on the opportunity. 

“As good with words as with a knife, hmmm?” Nightmare stood in his space, touching along his arm unconsciously. Killer tried to keep his mouth in check.

“I’m also pretty good with my hands.” God damn idiot brain, hitting on his fucking god level boss. There’s fucking with people and there’s shooting out of your league. He just smiled through it. “Whatcha need Boss?”

“I’m moving a wing of the library and needed an extra pair of hands.” 

“And you knew how talented mine were, so you came right to me?” Killer slid the milk back into the refrigerator. He leaned back on his left side to keep from agitating the right, elbows on the counter, a picture of relaxation. 

“Something like that.” Nightmare laughed again. Killer held in the pleased sigh, standing up, crossing his arms behind his head very delicately.

“I’m all yours Boss. Lead the way.”

They wandered down the hall directly towards the library, Killer keeping step just behind Nightmare, letting him stare all he wanted without being caught. Those strong thick tentacles swayed around his back, framing his ass for Killer to appreciate along the lengthy hallways. He rarely went over this way unless Night summoned him here.

Nightmare already cleared small sections away, stacks of meticulously organized books littering the floor. He gestured to a pile.

“Start here and work clockwise. I’ve laid it out to make it easy enough for you to do without me babysitting your progress.” 

So began replacing them on the shelves. Killer hid the winces of pain from stooping and bending fairly well, silently moving until he hit a tiny snag. He reached up to place one on a tall shelf when he flinched into the wall.

His body hit the shelves and dislodged an avalanche onto his head. He almost moved away before one smashed into his cracked ribs.

"Son of a fucking bitch!

"Killer!" Nightmare raced over to unbury him. The tentacles made quick work of them, stacking haphazardly off of Killer’s winded form. His hands were on Killer’s forehead in an instant, checking for cracks, diligently looking over him after hearing the cry of pain. Killer groaned angrily when he was cleared off.

“Fucking Blue and his fucking blue attacks. Ugh.” Killer couldn’t sit up, pain still blossoming fresh in his chest. Night paused in looking him over.

“Were you wounded on the last mission?” His single eye penetrated his two, pinning him under it until he relented, grimacing with a gesture to his ribs he’d been carefully avoiding.

“Yeah. Stars got a good hit in on me. Was fine until the book hit it though.”

“Clearly not, considering you lost your usually impeccable balance!” Nightmare’s tentacles wrapped Killer up to get him standing without making him bend the wounded area. “Come with me. Healing magic is easiest when accompanied by intent, wrapping it will make it easier.” He grumbled and took off towards his room, Killer hobbling after to keep up. 

Walking into Night’s room changed the mood. He suddenly felt out of place, surrounded by luxurious purples tones and dark wooden furniture. Night had gestured to the bed before wandering into his private bathroom.

His bed was comfortable. Killer’s nerves ruined any enjoyment of getting into Nightmare’s room, jittery from the moment he was directed to sit on the plush comforters. Nightmare returned with a roll of bandages and an unimpressed look.

“I thought you were smart enough to know how to care for yourself.” He moved in front of him. “Take off your jacket and t-shirt.”

Thankfully Night was too focused on unraveling the bandages and gathering antiseptic to see Killer’s face go red, suddenly very aware that he was in his boss’s room, said boss’s hands about to be on him after a request to undress. He pulled them off smooth and casual, but his grin practically cracked at the edges. 

“What the hell?”

Night’s hands hovered over the cracked ribs, flinching back at the small break that Killer had dislodged from its setting.

“Yeah, it’s not great.”

“Killer!” Night growled at him. “Why didn’t you seek treatment before THIS?!” He gestured to the crumbled ends of the break from grinding against each other. “This is entirely fucking curable! It’s ridiculous you didn’t, at the very least, wrap this!” The growl travelled up his body, baring his teeth at him, tentacles cracking like whips at his back. Killer didn’t move, but his voice took on a nervous edge.

“I’m a dead man walking boss. I’ll just keep going forward until I can’t anymore.” Healing magic was taxing. All of them were terrible at it besides Nightmare, who never offered, only taking over when he was clearly needed. They never want to bother him to ask for it.

“I could’ve fixed this sooner.” Nightmare pinched the bone into place with a click. Killer gasped in pain. He wrapped it tightly, uncaring about Killer’s harsh pants while doing so.

“We only take it when you offer. None of us wanna annoy you.” Fuck, he was so falling out of Night’s good graces for this. After he worked so hard, some dumb break was gunna take him back to zero. He fisted the plush comforter. “Your time is important.”

“To whom, when you dust from accumulating injuries that I can’t see?” 

“The multiverse I guess.”

“The multiverse doesn’t give a shit about me or my time. This is all I have.” Nightmare pinched his nasal crest after finishing. “You serve me, but I cannot do this alone. Your lives are valuable to me. I thought you, especially, would know this Killer."

"Why do ya say that?"

"Because of how important you are to me." Nightmare's hands grew warm with gathering magic, mending now that everything would heal correctly. "All of you are valuable, like the supporting beams holding the castle aloft, but you are more integral. You are the center pillar. As my right hand, as long as you stand, I have faith in my ability to recover. I believed you to be my most valuable asset, but if you’re going to just let yourself turn to dust, then I’ll-”

“No!” Killer’s soul snapped into a heart shape, eyelights flickering in time to meet Night’s inquisitive gaze. “I’m not dusting on you just like that.” He grabbed Night’s warm hands away, taking them up in front of his startled cyan face.

“K-Killer?” He brought them up and kissed the phalanges as one would do to their king.

“If you’ll continue as long as I am by your side, then I’ll remain with you until I die.” Killer’s sockets went half-lidded, struck by the emotion his inverted soul let in, his silly crush amplified ten-fold by Nightmare’s faith in him. He’d never seen his boss look so confused, eye wide and frantically searching Killer’s. “What’s wrong boss?” 

“You-I’m...what’s-why all-”Killer’s hands had long since gained a mind of their own. He slid wordlessy off the bed into Night’s space, silencing him with a casual touch on the cheek, fondly caressing the bright greenish glow. 

“Shouldn’t have told me I meant so much to ya cuz I’m gunna take that to heart.” Then he swooped down to kiss him.

Killer pressed their teeth together firmly, tilting their heads to line up for deepening the kiss. He relaxed into it, holding Nightmare close while getting a taste, slowly touching and teasing Night's tongue with playful flicks. He could feel the very hesitant kiss back before they parted for air.

"Feeling shy Nightmare? Don't worry. I'm bold enough for the both of us." 

Killer laughed into the next one, leaning into it to force Night's response, groaning at the feel of the shy tongue in his own mouth. He could feel his small partner shaking in his arms when they broke apart.

"Killer…" It must've been awhile since Nightmare got with anyone to sound so needy. 

"I'm here. Wanna have some fun Nightmare?" He whispered it into Night's ear, smiling at the trembling he could still feel against his ribs, lost in the heady feeling. Night devolved to breathy pants, which Killer dove into before he felt tentacles lay solidly against his chest to push him back.

"Killer, wait, I can't-I'm not prepared for this." Night's flushed face told a different story, but he didn't fancy being killed.

"I've got lots of patience. I'll just make you feel good until you are." Killer's mouth slid down to Night’s neck, sucking on the bone to the high pitched whines, sending all his thoughts south, ecto eager to form at the slightest provocation. His haze broke under the Night's firm push out of his space. 

"Killer, stop." 

His back connected with the bed, wincing from his still (though much less so) wounded bones. The rejection stung worse.

"Sorry boss." That HURT, knowing he'd fucked up pretty royally. God, he'd forced himself on Nightmare right after he'd been given a shred of attention. He was such a fucking idiot. "I'll keep my hands to myself." His eyelights poofed decisively. He almost couldn't bear to look at him, but he needed to see Nightmare's face at least once.

Night hadn't stopped shaking. His tentacles attempted to hide him from view, face fully blushing, head still tilted away from the fresh mark Killer had left, noises leaking unfiltered from his trembling body. 

"S-s-sorry. I-I c-can't handle it-t. Too much." Killer grabbed his shirt and hoodie from where it lay beside him.

"I'll leave you be. Maybe annoy Horror or something, I don't know." Anything to not be here. Playing it off would make it easier to take, even if it meant no second chances with Night. He slid his clothes back on. "Come find me when you got the next mission lined up."

A tentacle wrapped around his ankle before he took the first step.

"Why are you leaving?" His voice was airy, light, breathless.

"I'm a dick, but not that much of one. I went too far, I'll give ya some space for a day." He shrugged, a drop of hate splashing on the floor. He'd describe his emotions as 'in shambles.'

"I don't want space. I just need a minute."

"I don't know Boss. Shouldn't rush that kind of thing." He could stomach taking advantage of people outside of this castle, but betraying the ones inside it, those who guarded his back and knew where he slept (and cared about but he'd never tell them that), it turned his mood sour. It ate at the pit of his stomach and it’d eat through him entirely if he didn’t get the fuck outta dodge.

"What thing?"

"Being assaulted, harassed, whatever you wanna call it. And being the person who forced themselves upon ya, don't think I should be here." He tugged at his ankle again, but Night hadn't relented.

"Killer, I didn't stop you because I didn't want it." He avoided Killer's eye roll.

"Uh-huh." Killer really didn't want to resort to cutting off the tentacle. It wouldn't hurt him, but it'd suck and prove he was an asshole, so he pulled harder. "Say I believed you. Then why?"

"Killer, I…" Nightmare looked like he wanted the carpet to swallow him. "I've never kissed anyone."

"...What?" He stopped struggling against his restraint. "There's no way. You're telling me, five hundred years of existing, and you hadn’t had your first kiss?"

"Yes." And Killer commited a cardinal sin without thinking.

"But Dream definit-" Is fucking Ink or Blue or Cross or all of them, he wanted to say, but Night was quicker.

"I am aware." Nightmare's glare was potent, but Killer's confusion was denser. "But he is lovable, unlike me."

"You're lovable." It slipped out in-between all the mental gymnastics. He wasn't sure he wasn't being fucked with still. "So you haven't…" How to phrase this delicately, he wondered. "...slept with anyone?"

"Killer, I haven't kissed anyone. Why the fuck would I have slept with someone?"

"You gotta know how unbelievable this is." Talking wouldn't reassure him, so Killer leaned down into Night's space again, stopping just shy of his teeth. "You're telling me that someone as fuckable as you's been ignored all this time?" Nightmare's single eye widened with the flush. Killer smoothed out his tone, dropping it low to hold him at the edge of his words. "Nice juicy peach you are, no one's tried to pluck you up? I can barely look without salivatin'." He lapped at his teeth, careful to keep his hands in safe places. He wanted to see how inexperienced Night really was without ruining his chances forever.

Nightmare's tentacles laid limp behind him, all the tremors coming from his real form, whose hands had raised to snatch at the shoulders of his hoodie, gripping tightly when he caved under the languid licks at his mouth by letting Killer in.

Patience led this one, Killer carefully taking over every inch of Night's mouth. The slower pace served to work up his partner faster. Nightmare's calmness abated, tentacles waking up to come and clutch at Killer's form, Night crawling onto him, transforming the kiss into a frenzy of desire that Killer surrendered to, as long as Night was leading the way. The tentacles touched plenty of hot spots, but he kept his own hands on innocent ground. Night's confidence could crumble under too much of a good thing.

"Take a breath, Nightlight." Night shivered against him after breaking apart, so much sensation his body was unaccustomed to. "I gotcha." Killer rubbed soothing circles into his back.

"I can see how that could escalate." Nightmare finally got out. It made him laugh. 

"Yeah. It's pretty easy to get carried away." He kissed the top of his skull before laughing again. "You give handsy a whole new meaning though."

"Sorry." The sweet little monster in his arms barely resembled his boss, hiding his face by burrowing into Killer's chest. 

"Don't be. It's pretty hot." His lewd grin made Night blush again.

"I would've thought my corruption would be the ugliest and most disgusting part of me." He punctuated it with said appendages undulating behind him.

"Boss, I just kissed the fuck outta you and I've never known you without it. Trust me, not a deterrent." Killer stroked down one to make Night's spine curl. "If you learn how to use ‘em right, they're pretty useful in the bedroom."

"Don't call me Boss when we're like this." Night whispered softly. His face caught between a glare and something soft, he was starting to come back to his senses.

"That might be too much power Nightlight." He grinned at the tiny glare. "How was your first kiss then?"

"Nice." Nightmare sighed as he sat up, unfurling all the aching limbs. The usual persona rebuilt itself. But now, Killer knew how easy the composure was to break. "I'd like to repeat it sometime."

"I'm all yours." He'd never get sick of that face if Night was willing to let him see it. They rose together from the floor, Night reestablishing the space between them.

"I'll have to talk to the others about not bringing injuries to me. Time spent on them is not time wasted." He straightened his sweater, presentable before opening the door. Killer choked the urge down to mess it up again. “The idea that you would’ve rather lost a rib than speak to me is absurd.”

"Yeah." They better not take his catch. Fuck them.

"I'm not going to kiss them Killer. The sour look is atrocious on you." Night's brow raised. Caught red handed. Killer laughed.

"Can you blame me? I know the kind of filthy degenerates who live here; I'm one of them. I don't want 'em to take a bite outta you." Subconsciously, he shook his sleeves to feel the weight of his multiple blades.

"You act as though there are many vying for my affection. People used to throw rocks at me for walking by their homes, and now they try to kill me. I'm not surrounded by suitors." He said this while walking down the hall towards the still upturned library. His strides were confident, power inherent is his manner, carried with a royal grace that Killer could only ape with minimal success. The only reason he wasn't swamped with competition was everyone had been too chickenshit to make a move. 

"Ya also thought I wasn't interested and nothing has ever been less fucking true." He pushed his luck a little further, stepping in front of Nightmare to kiss him quickly. The chaste thing was almost too much considering the shakes. "I'll just keep doing it if ya don't say anything."

“We need to reassemble the library.” He huffed through, walking by with weak knees, Killer trailing just behind. “This wasn’t an invitation to touch me at all times.”

“Only some of the time then?” 

“Shut up.” He humored the request once inside Night’s treasured library. 

Back to quietly organizing, clockwise, his talented hands flipped them onto shelves with ease now that he wasn’t hindered by aches. It was quick and effortless like it should have been the first time. He’d begun humming by the time he placed the last one, not expecting the hand on his shoulder but welcoming it as he had earlier the same day. Night silently pressed something into his palm.

“I trust I don’t need to explain.” Killer’s fingers closed over the silver key, smiling and spinning it on his pointer while leaving the now neat library. Guess his league was a lot wider than he thought. It wasn’t an invitation to his bed, but the invitation to his heart was just as good.

“Gotcha loud and clear boss. See ya soon.” 

-

They CUTE.

[sexy-zeitreise-detektiv]

okay but where tf is my hg tannhaus content at? he basically had to raise some baby just after he lost his kid and grandkid, he's a clock maker who doesn't (or does depending how you see his 'splitting the world' thing) time travel and his 'life's work' is borne from a bootstrap paradox. all i'm saying is. hg tannhaus king.

Sorry I kind of forgot about this asks and I'm not sure if this response will satisfy your need for more Tannhaus content but here we go.

It's true, his clockworker aesthetic is extremely underutilized in fanart and I rarely see any fanfiction of him, even though there's tons of potential interactions with Charlotte and internal struggles that the show chose not to portray. Like how does Tannhaus deal with the absolute whiplash of losing his entire family and then becoming a father again in the same night? What's the relationship between him and Charlotte like? Besides all the obvious angst? Do they make pancakes together? Does Tannhaus actually dare to love her or is he scared that he will lose her "again"? We will never know!! Although sealandreich on ao3 has a very good Charlotte- and Tannhaus-focused series, so I would recommend you check that out.

Usually I would rant more about how this character deserved way more screentime, however! in this case I understand the artistic choice behind retaining Tannhaus for as much as they did. It makes sense if you see the series through a Jewish/Christian lens with Adam and Eva representing their biblical counterparts and Tannhaus as the creator of their universes representing god. Though usually in religious texts, god is presented either as a punishing force or as a loving fatherly figure. Dark subverts this expectation by making it's god figure mostly ignorant towards his creation. Very angsty and *Hannibal voice* nietzschean, if I dare say so. On a side note, it's also very obvious that Claudia is Dark's take on Satan, even though (or rather especially because) she is not a purely malicious force. She's the one pulling all of the strings, she's the one getting Jonas and Martha to commit the original original sin, and generally being a morally grey queen. And like... she gets called "Der Weiße Teufel" all the time, I think we get it lmao.

Another religious approach, that also fits nicely into Dark's love of the number three, would be a Hindu reading, where Tannhaus, Adam and Eva each represents a part of the Trimurti. Tannhaus would therefore be Brahma the creator, Eva would be Vishnu the conserver and Adam Shiva the destroyer. I am not at all an expert on Hinduism but as far as I understand all of them are actually one entity (->everything is connected). Which also ties in with a third possible reading:

The whole multiverse is Tannhaus's trauma response to losing his family. I know, this is basically canon but I propose that if we theoretically could see every character, who was created in the time travel bullshit thing, as a facet of Tannhaus's personality/emotional response to his trauma. Adam represents pure anger and bad coping mechanisms that only hurt him and others more, whereas Eva represents his urge to remain in this sort of comforting stage of depression. I guess that would make Claudia a therapist of some sorts? Or maybe his only healthy impulse in all of this mess? Idk at this point I'm just rambling.

This got very dry and very serious very quickly so fun Tannhaus headcanons: He loves bird watching (while they are alive), he once met Nena but didn't recognize her (one of many things to fuel Charlotte's teen angst) and.... he's trans. (There's nothing to indicate that any of this is true, I just want it to be.)

To conclude this essay, yes, Tannhaus is actually technically speaking the main character and yes, I will probably make fanart of him soon and lastly yes, Dark good. Have a wonderful day, anon.

[skyfirecn]

So I’m not sure if anyone really cares, but I wanna talk about Amphibia’s ending and my thoughts on it. Warning, there be some hot, and quite possibly bad, takes ahead -

I think, as a blanket statement, I’ll start off with the fact that I think The Hardest Thing was extremely rushed in pacing. This is probably most notable in the battle against the moon. We go from the girls kicking butt, to the moon gaining on Amphibia, to Andrias’ robots helping to push it back, to it not being enough and Anne having to go pseudo-god-mode and destroy the dang thing in the span of like seven minutes or less. I get the flow they were going for, but it’s just too fast that the little ground they gain mid-battle, before Anne makes her sacrifice, feels like a useless addition. I also feel this in how suddenly Valeriana and Mother Olm pop up, and in how quick the goodbyes are. The goodbyes aren’t nearly as bad as characters randomly appearing for plot convenience, but what bugs me is that Anne is sad about leaving, yeah, but she isn’t even torn on her decision. We don’t even see her mull it over; she’s just like, welp, better head back home. Bye found family, ‘till we meet again when I’m god or whatever. It feels like all the bonding Anne did with the people of Amphibia was just for nothing? It taught her good life lessons, but she doesn’t even consider staying with them for a second. Sprig is way more torn up about it than her, and the way she just says this is the way it has to be felt… wrong to me. She should be more upset imo

On the matter of the Earth stuff; I’m torn. I understand the argument that real life friend groups drift apart and that’s just how it is sometimes, but these three went through a ton of trauma and wonderful adventures together. As realistic as it is for them to drift apart, it makes no sense given what they’ve experienced together. Thematically sure, they can drift apart all they want to really hammer that message home. But logically? Yeah, I can’t really green-light that. If this was somehow a real story, there’s no way those three would let themselves be torn apart by little things like distance or different social groups. But, I digress. I’m not against the hard ending of the girls never going to Amphibia ever again, it’s not a concept I’m inherently opposed to. It bothers me because, again, it feels like all the characters had these intense bonding moments with people in Amphibia - Marcy was literally willing to give up her life on Earth to travel the multiverse when she got Andrias’ proposal - but then at the end, when the hard choice is there, none of them even think about actually staying behind. Like, when the chips are down and they get one choice, no take-backs, they all choose to willingly leave behind their friends and family in Amphibia. It just feels kinda cruel to me. A small moment of Sprig trying to convince Anne that he can come with her, that he can make living on Earth work for him, would’ve gone a long way. Or even something so simple as Marcy remarking to Olivia and Yunan that she sincerely wishes she could stay, but she knows she has a life to get back to and needs to grow as a person before she can make the choice to stay in good faith. It’s like the characters are all on autopilot, just being like yeah sure time to go back now because that’s what the writers said. I dunno, the whole leaving Amphibia forever with only some teary farewells came across as stiff and manufactured to me, but maybe I’m just weird.

Now, if I may, a look into the absolute bs that is the girls in the ten year time skip. Their careers make perfect sense, the way they come back together again is great, I don’t have complaints about any of that. I actually love Sasha and Anne’s jobs; Sasha helping kids not repeat her mistakes and Anne working at a place that gave her comfort in two worlds, I love it. No, the part that irks me is how flippant everything is. Judging by the dialogue alone, the three girls haven’t seen each other in person, all together, since before high school. I infer this because Marcy asks if Sasha and Anne hung out a lot in high school. Obviously, if they had like a yearly visit set up, Marcy would’ve asked them that much sooner. And her asking it now implies that the three had minimal to no contact leading up to the Frogvasion anniversary. Them drifting apart is whatever, it’s just sort of meh for me. But I’m supposed to believe that, in less than half a year after the end of the show, they were basically just not even talking anymore??? They were in seventh grade when they got sent to Amphibia, and apparently Amphibia’s story is almost a whole year’s worth of time. That means they were in eighth grade when Marcy moved, and probably like mid-year at that. Which means that by the end of that school year, they straight weren’t talking at all anymore. Wtf?!? What happened to Anne’s whole speech about how they’d stay friends no matter what, about how their friendship would endure even in the face of change and distance? I guess that meant nothing? Like, I just don’t get it. Why make it such a focal point of the show to pose this question - will the girls repair their friendship and stay friends despite everything? - if you’re just gonna turn around and say, nah things didn’t work out too great anyway even if they’re starting to reconnect now?? I just… I know I’m biased on things like this, but it really gets to me.

Real talk; I have a lot of firsthand experience with friendships crumbling apart. I basically had a new social group every school year because we wouldn’t talk all summer and then we just didn’t start talking again when school started back up. I always felt like I was being left behind, though. I wanted the relationship to continue, to come back, but everyone else seemed to move on. I had to learn to fight for my friendships. I’m not gonna fight if the other person clearly doesn’t care of course, but if a friendship means a lot to me, I give everything I have to keep it. So I think I get uniquely upset at Amphibia’s ending in that the trio splitting up going into adulthood is something I could never see myself allowing to happen. It’s a very specific trigger (?) I guess? And I’m aware that other people can be totally fine with letting friendships do whatever they’re gonna do, and I’m fine with that. But I think that’s the other reason why it bothers me so much. Sorry, didn’t mean to make this all personal but I guess 2 am brain is ready to just spill some guts up in here.

Anyway, to wrap this all up, I don’t say any of this to offend or belittle, or imply that what we got was inherently a terrible ending because it rubbed me the wrong way in a few places. It’s still a good ending and suits the themes well while being pretty believable and fairly true to life. These are just my stipulations with it, and if any of you guys would like to add your own two cents go ahead and reply to this :0 I’ll probably respond, I like chatting about this sort of stuff. If not, I hope this made some amount of sense and didn’t come across as too mean-spirited XP But if it did, oh well, I guess that’s just how it’s gonna be

Now I should probably go to sleep -.-

[aion-rsa]

Upcoming Marvel Movies Release Dates: MCU Phase 4 Schedule, Cast, and Story Details

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A bold new era for the Marvel Cinematic Universe began in 2021 on Disney+ with the wildly successful WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but Marvel Studios certainly hasn’t been resting on its laurels in terms of upcoming cinematic blockbusters. Not only does it have Black Widow (finally) ready for theatrical release, but we’ve also got Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Eternals, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness all in various stages of production, there are also TV series on the way for the likes of Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight, She-Hulk, and more!

Well, if you’ve been a little confused by Marvel’s shifting dates and streaming priorities, never fear! We’ve got a comprehensive release calendar for you here detailing all the forthcoming MCU projects, so you’ll always be able to find the latest updates when you need them.

Let’s take a look at everything Marvel has in store over the next few years…

Loki

Release Date: June 9, 2021

Tom Hiddleston will reprise his most famous role, as Loki finds himself on a heist through time and space “as he steps out of his brother’s shadow” after the events of Avengers: Endgame! Oh, and based on this trailer, there’s all kinds of time-travelling weirdness awaiting, including the return of Heimdall, some other Asgardian hijinks, DB Cooper (yes!), Owen Wilson playing an obscure character based on a beloved Marvel Comics writer, and…Loki possibly running for President!

Tom Hiddleston stars, of course, and the cast also includes Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sophia Di Martino, Wunmi Mosaku, and Richard E. Grant. Michael Waldron is head writer and Kate Herron is directing.

Black Widow 

Release Date: In theaters and on Disney+ with Premier Access Friday, July 9, 2021

The Black Widow movie was heading for a May 1, 2020 release before the pandemic, but Disney and Marvel decided to delay it until the industry’s infrastructure was back to some semblance of normal. They seemed absolutely committed to keeping Natasha on a theatrical release rather than sending her to Disney+, but eventually semi-caved in March as it was confirmed that Black Widow would hit both streaming and theaters simultaneously in July.

Here’s the official synopsis:

“Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.”

Cate Shortland directed the film, and Scarlett Johansson stars, with Florence Pugh and David Harbour alongside her. One of the movie’s villains is Taskmaster, and we wrote a little bit more about him right here.

Natasha Romanoff will get a prequel movie of sorts here, as we catch up with Widow right around the events of Captain America: Civil War. Will the plot affect her character’s ultimate fate in Endgame? Do not count on it.

What If…?

Release Date: Summer 2021

The beloved comic book series that tells tales of how things might have turned out differently in the Marvel Universe is becoming an animated series on Disney+!

Here’s the official synopsis:

“What If…? flips the script on the MCU, reimagining famous events from the films in unexpected ways…Marvel Studios’ first animated series focuses on different heroes from the MCU, featuring a voice cast that includes a host of stars who reprise their roles.”

We know that at least a couple of these roles include Chadwick Boseman’s final performance as T’Challa as well as the return of Hayley Atwell as Agent Peggy Carter!

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Release Date: September 3, 2021

Simu Liu has been cast as the titular Shang-Chi and Tony Leung as The Mandarin (hey, that name sounds familiar! But this time, we’re getting the real Mandarin on screen). Destin Daniel Cretton is directing from a script by Dave Callaham. Given its “Ten Rings” title, Shang-Chi should be steeped in Marvel lore, going all the way back to the first Iron Man film!

Hopefully this will be Marvel’s most action-packed movie yet. The trailer sure makes us think so.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage

Release Date: September 17, 2021

Andy Serkis (Mowgli) steps behind the camera for Venom 2, which now boasts the catchy title of Venom: Let There Be Carnage. The first film, buoyed by a terrific showing at the Chinese box office, made an absolute ton of money, despite being released to mostly scathing reviews.

Venom: Let There be Carnage will follow up Sony’s 2018 Spider-Man-less spinoff film, but will likely be more connected to the MCU this time around, thanks to a renewed deal between the company and its Marvel Studios partners. Tom Hardy will return as Eddie Brock, of course, and as you can probably guess from that title, he’ll be facing off against Woody Harrelson’s villain, Cletus Kasady aka Carnage!

We wrote about all the cool Marvel stuff happening in the above trailer right here.

The Eternals 

Release Date: Nov. 5, 2021

Acclaimed Nomadland helmer (and Oscar winner!) Chloe Zhao is directing Marvel’s Eternals from a script by Matthew and Ryan Firpo. Marvel described the film as an “epic story, spanning thousands of years” that features “a group of immortal heroes forced out of the shadows to reunite against mankind’s oldest enemy, The Deviants.”

The cast features Richard Madden as Ikaris, Kumail Nanjiani as Kingo, Lauren Ridloff as Makkari, Brian Tyree Henry as Phastos, Salma Hayek as Ajak, Lia McHugh as Sprite, Don Lee as Gilgamesh, Angelina Jolie as Thena, Gemma Chan as Sersi, and Kit Harrington as Dane Whitman, the Black Knight. We meet all these characters in the trailer, which we wrote more about here.

This one was another victim of the release date shuffle, but we’ll finally get to see Jack Kirby‘s wildest creations soon enough!

Spider-Man: No Way Home

Release Date: Dec. 17, 2021

The next Spider-Man movie looks like a big one! Spider-Man: No Way Home will once again take place in the MCU since Marvel and Sony solved their differences, good sense prevailed, and Tom Holland’s Peter Parker will remain a vital part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

This one, well…this might be a live action Spider-Verse movie from the sound of it. Jamie Foxx will reprise his role as Electro from the maligned Amazing Spider-Man films and Alfred Molina will return from the Raimi era as Doctor Octopus.

Wait. Are they trying to make this a multiversal Sinister Six movie? Because…we could be down for that.

Hawkeye

Release Date: Late 2021

Jeremy Renner returns as Clint Barton to train his replacement as Hawkeye, Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop! Apparently based on the brilliant run of comics by Matt Fraction and David Aja, Hawkeye will also prominently feature Lucky the Pizza Dog, one of the great canines in Marvel Comics history.

The cast also includes Vera Farmiga as Eleanor Bishop, Fra Fee as Kazimerz Kazimierczak, Tony Dalton as Jack “Swordsman” Duquesne, Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, Alaqua Cox as Maya “Echo” Lopez, and Zahn McClarnon as Willie Lincoln. We wrote more about all these new characters here.

Ms. Marvel

Release Date: Late 2021

Ms. Marvel is finally coming to live action! Here’s the official synopsis for the series…

“Ms. Marvel introduces Kamala Khan—a 16-year-old Pakistani-American growing up in Jersey City. “A great student, an avid gamer and a voracious fan-fiction scribe, she has a special affinity for superheroes, particularly Captain Marvel. But Kamala struggles to fit in at home and at school—that is, until she gets super powers like the heroes she’s always looked up to. Life is easier with super powers, right?”

The cast includes Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel, Aramis Knight, Saagar Shaikh, Rish Shah, Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, Matt Lintz, Yasmeen Fletcher, Laith Naki, Azher Usman, Travina Springer, and Nimra Bucha. Episodes are directed by Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah, Meera Menon, and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.

This is going to be a big one, folks, because Kamala is going to be a significant player in Captain Marvel 2. How significant? The title of the movie is now The Marvels!

Morbius

Release Date: January 21, 2022

Spider-Man spinoff Morbius is Sony’s next big Marvel wild card, and it’ll officially be the first spinoff to properly connect to the MCU (even if Marvel Studios still isn’t officially acknowledging it in their own promotional materials the way they are with Spider-Man: No Way Home). Here’s the official synopsis for the film…

“Dangerously ill with a rare blood disorder, and determined to save others suffering his same fate, Dr. Morbius attempts a desperate gamble. What at first appears to be a radical success, a darkness inside him is unleashed and transforms this healer into a hunter.”

Safe House‘s Daniel Espinosa directs from a script by Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway. Jared Leto stars as the vampiric title character, and the cast also includes Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, Al Madrigal, and Tyrese Gibson.

Read more about the character of Michael Morbius here.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Release Date: March 25, 2022

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness looks like it will open up the storytelling possibilities in the MCU like never before. And that’s just based on the name alone. Scott Derrickson was scheduled to direct, but bowed out because of “creative differences” with Marvel. But the good news is that Marvel found a suitable replacement in none other than Sam Raimi, who of course has plenty of superhero experience thanks to his Spider-Man trilogy in the early 2000s!

This one has loads of connections to the wider MCU. Elizabeth Olsen will be here as Wanda Maximoff post-WandaVision, and the film will also connect to Spider-Man: No Way Home and its own multiversal ambitions. There are also a few rumors doing the rounds that Jericho Drumm aka Brother Voodoo could be introduced in this sequel. We’ll keep an eye on that and update this if there’s any substance to them.

Thor: Love and Thunder

Release Date: May 6, 2022

Taika Waititi, who gave us the delightful Thor: Ragnarok, will return to write and direct. Chris Hemsworth will be back. Natalie Portman is your new Thor (yes, you read that right, Jane Foster will wield the hammer…just as she did in the comics!). Christian Bale has also joined the cast as the terrifying Gorr the God Butcher. Not only that, this movie will finally put Olympians in the MCU with Russell Crowe as Zeus. Can Hercules be far behind?

Oh, and did we mention that the Guardians of the Galaxy will be along for the ride, too?

Black Panther 2: Wakanda Forever 

Release Date: July 8, 2022

Black Panther 2 is now called Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Marvel has made it official that after the tragic, untimely death of Chadwick Boseman they have no intention of recasting the role of T’Challa, which is absolutely the right move.

Ryan Coogler will return as director, but there are no other details currently available. Interestingly, Coogler is also bringing a Wakanda TV series to Disney+ at some point in the future, too, and something tells us this Wakanda-centric title for the sequel is a sign of things to come.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Sequel

Release Date: October 7, 2022

Is it technically an MCU movie? Nope. But with all the legal weirdness going on between Marvel and Sony, and this franchise’s very multiversal concept, who’s really to say that it ISN’T an MCU movie either, right? In any case, the sequel to the best Spider-Man movie of all time is coming in 2022 with Avatar: The Last Airbender mastermind Joaquim Dos Santos directing and David Callaham writing.

There’s also an “untitled Marvel movie” still technically scheduled for this date but…that is almost certainly not gonna happen now. Expect whatever that project was to move to one of these below dates or to some other currently unspecified date on the calendar.

Captain Marvel 2: The Marvels

Release Date: November 11, 2022

WandaVision writer Megan McDonnell has been tapped to write the screenplay for Captain Marvel 2, which now boasts the title of The Marvels. You know what else is really cool? Candyman‘s Nia DaCosta will direct!

We have no idea where we’ll find Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) in the sequel to her hugely successful first standalone MCU entry. Will she be fighting to loosen her former Kree pals’ iron grip on a pre-Avengers galaxy? Or will the follow up film see her fighting for justice in the present?

In any case, we know that she’ll be facing off with Zawe Ashton as a currently-unnamed antagonist, and WandaVision‘s Monica Lambeau (Teyonah Parris) will also return in her superpowered state after the events of that game-changing show. Considering that Monica was once known as “Captain Marvel” in the comics, that title of The Marvels becomes more appropriate. And even MORE appropriate when you realize that Kamala Khan, Ms. Marvel, will also be making her big screen debut.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Release date: Feb. 17, 2023

Peyton Reed will return to direct the third installment of the Ant-Man saga, making him the first director in MCU history to complete a trilogy…perhaps the most unlikely trilogy in Marvel’s entire arsenal. Paul Rudd will return as Scott Lang, and you can certainly expect Evangeline Lilly to return as The Wasp and Michael Douglas as Hank Pym.

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The villain of the film? That will be Kang the Conqueror, who will be played by Lovecraft Country‘s Jonathan Majors. The inclusion of Kang opens up all kinds of interesting possibilities for the MCU, and may even tease the arrival of the Fantastic Four down the line! We wrote more about those possibilities right here.

We’re also going to need fast confirmation on Michael Pena’s return as Luis, though. Luis is key…

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 

Release date: May 5, 2023

After a tumultuous period which saw James Gunn fired and then rehired as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 director, he will finally return to complete his spacefaring trilogy for the studio. However, Gunn can’t even begin filming Guardians 3 until he finishes production on The Suicide Squad for DC, as well as an HBO Max Peacemaker prequel. Once those projects are finished, he’s free to return to the MCU.

Avengers: Endgame left the team in an interesting place. We broke down some of the story possibilities right here.

And then there are still some dates that Marvel has announced that they have yet to match projects to. Those dates are…

July 28, 2023

Oct 7, 2023

Nov. 10, 2023

Some of those dates could very well be good fits for the following films…

Fantastic Four

The MCU Fantastic Four movie is finally happening! Marvel seems to be hinting that Fantastic Four will be their next priority after Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. So is it possible that we’ll see it on July 28, 2023? That sure would be a great piece of summer blockbuster real estate to launch what might be the most important piece of the MCU going forward!

Marvel’s first family will join the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a film directed by Jon Watts, who did such a wonderful job with the first two MCU Spider-Man movies. That’s all the information that’s out there at the moment, but as soon as we have more, we’ll update this. It also appears that WandaVision started to set up the Fantastic Four, so stay tuned. We have our own theories on why Marvel went with the Fantastic Four before the X-Men, but that’s another story.

Blade

In 2019, Marvel announced that they will be rebooting the Blade franchise with Mahershala Ali playing the titular daywalker. Ali’s True Detective co-star – and former Blade villain – Stephen Dorff is excited to see what he can do with the character, and so are we.

Could Marvel decide to drop this in that Oct. 7, 2023 release date? Considering that’s the Halloween season and Blade is, y’know, a vampire hunter, they’d have to be foolish not to, right?

Captain America 4

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier showrunner Malcolm Spellman is co-writing a currently-untitled Captain America 4 with another FWS alum, Dalan Musson. Those are pretty much all the details that are currently available on this one at this time, but at least we know that Anthony Mackie will return as Sam Wilson in that incredibly badass Captain America costume they gave him for that show. We wrote some more about the potential story possibilities for this one right here.

There’s no date or director for this one yet, so even 2023 seems like it might be a longshot.

Deadpool 3

Wendy Molyneux and Lizzie Molyneux-Loeglin will be the writing team tasked with bringing the Merc with a Mouth to the MCU. What a Deadpool 3 could look like in the interconnected Marvel Cinematic Universe is, of course, anybody’s guess, but if anyone can crack wise about the follies of this kind of corporate synergy, it’s Ryan Reynolds.

And then there’s the lingering TV stuff, at least two of which will arrive in 2022, with the balance likely to arrive in 2023…

She-Hulk

Tatiana Maslany will play Jennifer Walters, a lawyer who ends up with her cousin Bruce’s gamma-irradiated blood. Hilarity certainly ensues. Kevin Feige has promised that since this will be a courtroom show, you never know who else from the MCU could show up.

It’s possible we’ll get She-Hulk on Disney+ in 2022, but nothing is confirmed at this stage.

Moon Knight

Oscar Isaac will play Marc Spector, a disturbed fortune hunter who also happens to be the avenging avatar of an Egyptian moon god. Oscar Isaac is already training hard for the role, and the series is now officially in production, so we wouldn’t be surprised if we see this one on Disney+ in 2022.

Ironheart

The first of two series that will explore the legacy of Iron Man and Tony Stark in the MCU, Ironheart stars Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams, a teenager at M.I.T. who creates her own suit of armor to right the wrongs of the world.

Armor Wars

Don Cheadle will reprise his role as Rhodey and will have the solo spotlight in the War Machine armor in a series that deals with a nightmare scenario for the MCU: what if Tony Stark’s Iron Man technology fell into the wrong hands and was getting duplicated by villains? Based on a classic comics run, Armor Wars promises big action and lots of obscure bad guys. We can’t wait.

Secret Invasion

Samuel L. Jackson will return as Nick Fury alongside Ben Mendelsohn as Talos for a series about the shape-shifting Skrull infiltration of Earth. Kingsley Ben-Adir is apparently playing the villain of the series. Olivia Colman, Emilia Clarke, and Killian Scott also star.

On directing duties are Thomas Bezucha (Let Him Go) and Ali Selim (The Looming Tower) while Mr. Robot vet Kyle Bradstreet is the head writer.

Secret Invasion could be the biggest thing to happen to the MCU since Endgame.

Wakanda

Very few details are available on this one at the moment, but Ryan Coogler will develop at least one Wakanda-set TV series for Disney+. Could this have anything to do with that Wakanda Forever title for Black Panther 2? We wrote more about some of the implications of this here.

We’ll keep updating this with new information as it becomes available!

The post Upcoming Marvel Movies Release Dates: MCU Phase 4 Schedule, Cast, and Story Details appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[xantchaslegacy]

Forgiven, Ch 3

This has been on Ao3 for a while but I never got past posting Ch 2 here ~

Link to Ch 1 and Ch 2 :)

Lesser eldrazi had many qualities that made them deadly predators, most of which made them relatively pathetic prey. The power to desiccate the land was a great liability when it gave your pursuers a trail to follow, especially when moving in packs. The average drone’s physiology, so adept at ambushing and bringing death, made them slow and clumsy when on the retreat.

The swarm had had a full day’s head start before Nissa, Sorin, and Nahiri set out on their trail. A day’s worth of travel that the planeswalkers could cover in considerably less time.

Unfortunately, what the Eldrazi lacked in natural advantage, inland Tazeem made up for by being an impenetrable maze of massive hedrons, cavernous ground, and rolling, titan forests. The eldrazi hadn’t even followed the Umara river, where the planeswalkers might at least have relied on reports from the merfolk settlements to indicate where the swarm was headed.

Thankfully, Nissa still felt the itch. One massive, festering, migrating rash for the mass that had abandoned the Halimar Basin, and minute irritations that helped her, Sorin, and Nahiri take care of any stragglers as they made their way north, through the reclaimed stretch of Oran-Rief.

Nahiri was dispatching two such stragglers now, far below in one of the forest’s many cavernous shafts. Nissa knelt by the mouth of the tunnel, a sheer drop of ridged stone in the middle of a large grass clearing. Sorin stood a few paces further off, one hand tapping irritably and irritatingly at his pommel. A pair of merfolk kitesailors watched from a slight distance.

“Wouldn’t that go faster with all three of you folk down there?” The smaller of the two merfolk called.

“Not enough space,” Nissa responded, gaze fixed on the tunnel. For the dozenth time she pressed her hand to the damp grass around the mouth of the cave shaft, feeling for signs of life. The underground networks were less-used nowadays ever since the threat of the Roil had subsided, but there was always a chance that a few elves might have gotten caught between the cave walls, the eldrazi, and an angry kor lithomancer.

“She’ll be careful,” Sorin said, unsolicited. “Nahiri has a skill of precision with her stonework like no other.”

“Thank you for the input,” Nissa muttered back. No unexpected pulses of life moved in the tunnels, which was the far greater reassurance at the moment.

“What sorta coat is that, mister?” The small merfolk asked.

“Demon hide,” Sorin replied, voice flat.

“Demon hide, he said, Olmer. What do you make of that?”

“Seems unlikely,” The tall merfolk replied. “But the world’s full of unlikely things, I suppose.”

Sorin rolled his eyes. “I could go help her. She shouldn’t be having this much trouble, if it really is just two.”

“The caves are vast,” Nissa said. “I’m not surprised it’s taking her a while to find them.” She glanced up at Sorin. “You have a lot of faith in her.”

Sorin crossed his arms. “She’s ruthless and she knows what she’s doing. That’s just the truth.”

“Then she’ll be fine. You’d just get in her way down there.”

Sorin sniffed, and ignored another question from the merfolk. They passed a minute in silence before he spoke again.

“We fought as a team on Zendikar before, you know. On many different worlds, for that matter. We can work together, and rather effectively, I might add.”

“I look forward to you showing me.”

That bought another two minutes of the vampire’s sullen silence. Nissa remained crouched by the tunnel shaft, trying to focus on the trailing winds drifting through the network of hedrons and trees that surrounded them. On the long, wild grasses trailing under the breeze.

“Ha!”

They both started at the sound of Nahiri’s laugh echoing up out the shaft, followed by the faint clash of stone on stone. Nissa let out a small relieved breath. Sorin’s shoulders slackened noticeably.

Nissa watched him out of the corner of her eye. He glanced down at her twice, and looked back away both times. One of the nice things about having eyes that glowed bright green was that Nissa could observe a person without them really knowing exactly what she was looking at.

  If you have something to say, mover, you should not feel fear to say it.

Nissa narrowed her eyes. She was cherishing the silence-

  Silence immersed in actions undone is no true silence.

“You’re very concerned for her,” Nissa blurted out in a whisper. “In light of what she took from you.”

Sorin shrugged and flicked his the wrist. “I’m allowed. I can be angry about what she’s done and worry as well.”

“You just sound like you regret what happened-”

“Of course I regret it! My entire plane-”

“That’s not what I meant. You seem like you regret it because you lost a friend as well.”

Sorin’s crossed arms tightened around each other, like a snake’s coils drawing close. “You say it like you think I’m incapable of that sort of regret.”

Nissa suppressed a twist in her stomach. No need to planeswalk away. Just deal with the confrontation at hand.

“You’ve never given me a reason to think you’re someone who regrets the consequences of their actions until a few days ago.” She turned to fully face Sorin. “I’m not complaining, but if you asked me whether I thought you were a creature of regret a week ago...well I’d have said ‘no’.”

“I’m very lucky, then, that your opinion on the matter means nothing to me.”

Nissa felt a stab of anger and irritation. She turned back away.

  Are you satisfied?

Nissa shut her eyes, and sighed. “No I suppose not.”

“What was that?” Sorin asked.

“Speaking to myself.” Nissa stood. Behind Sorin, the merfolk were whispering to one another. “And...I apologize. I’m was trying to be honest, not hurtful. Your regrets are your own business.”

Sorin nodded. “Thank you.”

He was avoiding her eye, but his jaw unclenched. “It’s...it’s a matter of preservation. If that makes sense.”

“Not entirely.”

Sorin pursed his lips, frowning. A long breath trailed out his chest. Nissa wondered how much of that was habit, and how much was for effect.

“I prefer change in the world that I can control. The eldrazi were always the antithesis of that. I fought beside Ugin and Nahiri because by defeating the titans we preserved the multiverse as it was. I preserved my home from the possibility of uncontrollable, devastating change. When I thought the multiverse safe, I moved to ensure its preservation in the future.”

Nissa nodded.

“I took it for granted that the bonds I had made would preserve themselves. Next to the dangers to the physical worlds, the bridges of companionship seemed...well, much less assailable. So I neglected them. Then one friend died. And another almost lost everything she had fought for.”

“And then you lost the plane you’d given everything else up for all the same.”

Sorin nodded, slow. “All because I neglected the connections I’d made. I regret the ruin to my home most of all. And I am angry in a way that I don’t think will ever fade away. But for all that I still have space in my soul to regret that I did not preserve my friendships.” He looked past Nissa, toward the tunnel.

“That makes sense,” Nissa crouched back by the mouth of the shaft. After a beat Sorin stepped forward to stand at the edge, just a few paces away.

“Ha-haaaaa!”

A glow lit the depths of the tunnel, growing brighter and hotter with each passing second. Nissa and Sorin ducked back from the cave mouth.

A rush of air roared up, and Nahiri burst form the shaft, a cow-sized eldrazi clutched in each stone-gloved hand. She hovered above them a moment, bearing a grim grin of triumph along with her trophies. Then she set down onto the grass and cast the bodies to the ground.

“Just these ones, but if you want to check...”

Nissa nodded and felt for the leylines. The ground below was twisted and scarred still, but the active itch had subsided.

“We’re done here.” Nissa stood. “North, again.”

“That’s quite a trick, miss,” one of the kitesailors called from a slightly further distance. “How’re you flying in them tunnels?”

Nahiri grinned and patted her boots. The heels and soles, constructed so that bars of stone could slot into them, glowed with the hot-white flare of lithomancy, and gave her a lift several feet into the air, where she somersaulted over Sorin. “It’s all in the rocks, girls.”

The taller of the merfolk whistled appreciatively. Sorin pursed his lips.

* * *

The tangle of roil-sculpted earth, titan trees, and mountainous hedrons thickened the further north they ventured through the reclamation zone. And they ventured quickly. There was an urgency to Sorin and Nahiri that pressed them to weave impatiently through the roots, trunks, and floating rock. Nissa found herself relying on Ashaya more often than not for a ride and the speed necessary to keep up.

Above and to her left, Nahiri swooped under a low-floating hedron, scattering a flock of manta. Years ago there would have been no shortage of dangerous creatures about, even without the eldrazi, but the largest predators had been slow to return to the Rief, and the speed and suddenness of the trio’s travel had so far been too startling for the ones who had to even consider ambushing them.

To Nissa’s right, Sorin sprinted along a branch three times as thick around as he was tall. He hadn’t tired yet. When they’d first struck out, Sorin had suggested simply planeswalking off Zendikar, then using Nahiri and Nissa’s expertise to ‘walk back where the swarm had run to,’ to save time.

“It’s possible,” Nissa had replied, “But if the swarm disperses, I would prefer we do a thorough search on foot than have any of them scattered around the continent.”

So far the itch had remained a coherent mass. Whatever guided the drone and spawn movements, it had only led a few of the eldrazi to disperse along the way, and those few were easily dealt with without undue delay.

The merfolk, who’d introduced themselves as Olmer and Ton, had followed the trio from the cave on their flying kites, jabbering and shouting questions all the while. Occasionally Sorin even answered them back.

“Are you certain there aren’t any settlements ahead?” He called, the second such question in an hour.

“Not a one,” Ton, the shorter merfolk called back. “Most everyone’s still sheltered in an’ around Coralhelm. You’ll miss that by a good 30 miles if you keep this heading, and you’ll have nothing but leagues of dead woods around you by then.”

Nahiri caught Nissa’s gaze, nodded over at Sorin, and rolled her eyes. Nissa just grunted, and scanned the paths ahead. The low ground to the left faded into shadows as a web of roots and curved pillars of earth lifted the trees well above the dirt. On the right, the ground rose in a mossy shell of roots and massive, fallen logs.

Ashaya opted for the higher ground, and the elemental’s tread became light as the falling leaves as he loped through the moss. The trees here left tough remains, but it was the careless traveler who ruled out the possibility of a decayed spot taking their feet out from under them.

A speck of pale blue on the carpet of green ahead caught Nissa’s eye.

“Likely you won’t find any folk wandering this stretch of Tazeem for a while,” Ton drawled. “Mostly it’s bolder folk like Olmer and me who-”

“Body!” Nissa shouted to her companions. “There’s someone up ahead!”

Nahiri and Sorin split off to the left and right, as they’d discussed before leaving the wall. If either didn’t return in five minutes, the remaining two would treat the figure ahead as a trap. Ashaya slowed to a stalk and padded forward silently, Nissa scanning the surrounding trees as they approached. The merfolk landed on either side of Ashaya at her signal for caution.

“Haven’t seen much in the way of wildlife,” The taller merfolk said, just under her breath.

“It’s the despoilers, love.” The shorter merfolk pointed to the trails of dust and spots of twisted stone that grew, almost indiscernible, against the black bark of the trees.

Ashaya halted a hundred paces from the body. Nissa crouched low on the elemental’s shoulder and shut her eyes. The leylines were quiet, save for the itch to the north. On the edges of her mind the creatures that had fled from the Eldrazi’s path went about their business, a short distance displaced from their usual haunts. Calm, but alert.

Nahiri emerged first, gliding down from the trees, signaling ‘all safe’ with a brusque wave. Sorin emerged a second later, one hand wrapped around his sword, another around a grey sack that trailed spiked tendrils.

Ashaya crossed the distance to the body in a handful of long strides. The thing dangling from Sorin’s hand was covered with glassy, half-lidded eyes. An eldrazi. One of Kozilek’s drones.

“Hit it from behind.” Sorin threw the drone to the ground. A diamond-shaped gash ran straight through its body, leaking a faint distortion into the air, like it was full of gas. “It was waiting up in the branches, watching the body.”

  Impressive.

“I didn’t feel that,” Nissa said, a cold lump forming in her stomach.

Sorin shrugged. “They’ve got all sorts of tricks.”

  The one you called Kozilek was an apex of distorting the senses. There is no shame in having missed a trick, so long as you recognize it the next time it is played.

“So the body’s bait?” Olmer called from a distance.

Nahiri knelt by the merfolk. “Not a body.” She put two fingers to the merfolk’s neck, along his flattened gills. “There’s a pulse. We need to get him to a healer.” She ran a hand along the chest, mottled with ugly, plum-colored bruises. “Ribs shattered. He’s probably bleeding underneath. I can do some simple mending but-” She paused, as if remembering something, then looked up at Sorin.

“What?” He stared back. “We stabilize him and then what? Are we going to carry him with us?”

Nahiri’s face twisted into a scowl. “Maybe.”

“If we delay-”

“Please.” Nahiri squeezed the words out between grit teeth. “You said you were helping. This is the least you could do.”

Sorin wrinkled his nose, but still knelt across from Nahiri, laying hands on the merfolk’s neck. His fingers flexed and the veins tensed in the merfolk’s neck. The chest rose slowly, and then the belly, then the veins in the arms bulged as Sorin pushed the blood to flow to where it was needed.

“Splints.” Nahiri looked to Nissa.

“Splints.” She nodded and thrust her staff into the mossy log underfoot. Emerald shoots tore through the bark, twisting together in tight bundles. In seconds a small arc of saplings surrounded her.

Nissa pulled one up, and directed the skysailers to do the same. They exchanged wary looks, but followed her lead, stripping away the stubby roots with their trail knives. By the time they had cut the saplings to the appropriate size, Nissa had produces a length of vine to lash the splints to the fallen merfolk’s limbs.

He was drawing breath now, and a steady rise-and-fall had returned to his chest. A faint whistle of breath trickled through his lips. The bruising still looked horrible, but the body beneath was less shattered. Less sunken.

“Blood’s out of his lungs.” Sorin rose to his feet, and produced a handkerchief from his breast pocket. With slow, deliberate strokes he began to wipe down his palms and each finger. “and I’ve healed what the veins can heal. He won’t be moving under his own power without at least a month of bed rest, and he certainly won’t be able to defend himself out here.”

“We can take him to Magosi,” Ton volunteered. “We’re due there in the next week; won’t hurt too much to get back a bit early.”

“Thank you.” Nahiri glared at Sorin. “Are there survivors enough to take care of him?”

Olmer laughed at that.

“Plenty. And when they find out he was ambushed and used as bait by the despoilers? Well, you’d think folk would get tired of stories like that, but they’ll all be clamoring to hear it. Yeah, he’ll be well looked out for.”

Ton and Olmer spent the next few minutes rigging a hammock between the frames of their kites, joining them into a single, two-winged arrangement. Then they mounted the closest tree, Nissa following close behind on Ashaya, who cradled the injured merfolk in its arms.

“This’ll do.” Ton scrambled out onto a broad branch, grappling the kite with Olmer to get it up onto the limb. Ashaya lay the merfolk into the stretcher between the kites, and Nissa helped lash him down.

“Glad we found you.” Ton offered a hand to Nissa, who politely declined it. “Good to work with good people in these dangerous times.”

Nissa smiled faintly. “Always danger in our world, isn’t there?”

Ton shrugged. “Always good to find good people, then.” With a wave, she and Olmer kicked off from the branch, and glided quietly away through the depths of Oran-Rief.

* * *

Nahiri called for a short rest before pushing forward any further. She made the flight via lithomancy seem effortless while she was in the air, but the energy needed to move that way was clearly taxing her.

Oran-Rief didn’t lend itself to campfires, but Nahiri had enough energy in reserve to set a small boulder to glowing, providing some warmth for herself and Nissa. Sorin stalked off into the woods, and returned nearly an hour later, leaves and sticks tangled in his hair and clothing, two iridescent snakes hanging from one hand, and a handkerchief-wrapped collection of roots and fruit in the other.

“Supper,” He placed everything in a pile next to the stone.

Nahiri took the snakes without a word. The stone flared brighter, and she reached three fingers into the white-hot surface. When she pulled her hand back the fingers clutched a long, square knife. She let the blade cool, and began stripping the skin and scales away.

“These are poisonous.” Nissa held up several of the fruits before tossing them aside. “These are fine. This one should be cooked before we eat it. And this...well, this is technically edible...”

Sorin shrugged. “Then I guess it’s technically supper.” He didn’t move to sort through any of what he’d scavenged, and didn’t appear the least interested in partaking of any of it.

“Are you just going to stand around and look unpleasant then?” Nahiri had one snake skinned, and tossed it on top of the stone. The meat struck with a hiss and sizzle, followed by a stinging smell of cooking meat.

Sorin bristled. Nissa busied herself with rearranging the inedibles into random piles.

“Or were you looking for a ‘thank you?’”

“I never asked for thanks,” Sorin replied, tone cool. “I would appreciate not being treated like I haven’t been contributing.”

“Baby,” Nahiri replied, carving a strip of scales from the second snake with a flick of her wrist.

“Beast,” Sorin growled back.

“How about that.” Nahiri sneered up at Sorin. “Looks like the selfish old bat isn’t as willing to let things go as he claims.”

“There’s no shame to you, is there?” Sorin’s feet shifted, though he did not step forward. “Not a bit of remorse for what you’ve done and who you’ve hurt. It’s all just my fault for not being there for you, isn’t it?”

“If you call a thousand years imprisonment ‘not being there,’ then sure.”

“I did that to you,  Nahiri. What you did was an act against hundreds of thousands. That is not justice of any kind.”

“You want me to do something to you?” Nahiri tossed the second snake on the stone, and pointed her knife at Sorin. “All you had to do was ask. I’ll cut off that dainty face and shove it-”

Ashaya took a step toward the three planeswalkers. Sorin and Nahiri froze and fell silent.

Nissa continued to re-arrange produce.

For a long minute there was no noise but the cooking of snake-meat. Nahiri leaned forward and flipped the pieces with her knife.

“It’s like Ugin used to say, Sorin. We’re older than some planes’ gods. We don’t do shame.”

Sorin folded his arms. “Perhaps that has been our mistake.”

“by the Pistons...” Nahiri rolled her eyes, and they landed on Nissa. “What do you think? Am I a monster like he says?”

“I didn’t-”

Ashaya shifted again, cutting Sorin off. Nissa hefted one of the fruits-a deadly green and purple thing the size of a fist-in her hand, and looked up, meeting Nahiri’s collarbone with her own gaze.

“I don’t think you care about what I think.”

Nahiri snorted. “You’re damn right I don’t care about-”

“Which is just as well, because I don’t care about what you’ve done.”

Sorin rounded on Nissa. “How can you say that? You were there! You fought the eldrazi on Innistrad. You saw the devastation!”

“Yes, I was there. I did see what happened and I did everything in my power to mitigate.” Nissa’s fingers tensed, and her gloves dug shallow furrows into the fruit skin. “And if I had been the person responsible for the things that happened on Innistrad...well personally, I don’t think I could ever look at myself without some disgust for a long time.”

Nahiri’s lip twitched.

Sorin threw his hands up in the air. “Then-”

“But that was then.” Nissa relaxed her grip on the fruit. A small crack ran down the skin where her index and middle finger had rested. “The damage is done, and it will always be done. What am I going to do about it? Kill you? For revenge? The multiverse doesn’t care about justice the way you do. I don’t care that you let worlds fall apart because of your neglect, or that you brought Emrakul to his world. Those problems are dealt with, and neither have any bearing on what we need to do next to fix the world.” Nissa met Nahiri’s eyes. “So unless you plan on turning yourself over for execution on Innistrad-” she jerked her head at Sorin “I-I suggest you do what he’s doing and focus on doing good with the power and the freedom you have.”

“Well, I would have had a lot more time to do good on the planes,” Nahiri impaled a snake with her knife and ripped it off the stone. “if someone hadn’t thrust me into a demon pit and forced my inaction.”

Now Nissa felt a hot pit erupt into her chest. She let the fruit fall to the ground, where it burst along the seam, leaking pale juices.

“It must have taken a while to make all your preparations for what happened on Innistrad.” She kept her voice level.

Nahiri scowled. “Yes. I’m not trying to hide that. I-”

“We were fighting against the Eldrazi for months. Sometimes...sometimes I feel like I spent a whole lifetime ripping out every inch of myself to preserve any scrap of our world from them. All Zendikar rose up to drive them back, and more lost their lives than anyone could ever mourn. And yet, I don’t think I ever saw you. Not in my travels. Not when we finally brought down the titans.”

Nahiri’s jaw twitched. Her eyes were flared. She lowered her knife from her face, until the snake nearly dragged against the moss.

“I thought you didn’t care.”

“I’m not angry about what you did, not anymore. I’m upset by what you could have done instead. And...and I think you should be just as upset. You said before your regrets don't matter, but I don't trust someone with no regrets.”

Nahiri just glared across at Nissa. When Nissa said nothing more, she glared instead at the rock and started tearing chunks of meat off the knife with her teeth, letting the second snake to burn on the stone.

Nissa turned to her small pile of fruit and started eating herself, not even bothering to cut anything up, but letting the pulp stain the sides of her mouth.

After the silence stretched into minutes, Sorin spoke. Nissa almost wished he hadn’t. The strange silence between angry companions was miserable. Breaking it was worse.

“I’ll...take watch. If you two need to sleep.” There was still anger in his voice, but he drifted up into the treetops without any further comment. Nahiri settled back against her tree once she’d finished eating, and turned away so that Nissa couldn’t have told whether she was sleeping or not, even if she could have brought her eyes up to look the kor in the face a second time that night.

  You wielded your words with conviction and truth.

Nissa almost jolted to her feet. She had, for the first time in a long time, forgotten the squatter in her mind.

  You should be proud. With every ounce of self-belief you cultivate, the closer you come to being a true mover of existence.

Nissa didn’t reply right away, but lay back, letting her head sink into the moss. Her stomach hurt, her mouth felt dry, her head felt like there was a stone where her brain should be, and she would have felt entirely miserable if not for Ashaya. The elemental sat cross-legged at her side, wind trailing through his lusher body parts.

“Life isn’t chess, you know,” Nissa said at last, murmuring up at the treetops.

  The games of the flesh minds are just a simple way to express what I mean. What matters is not the metaphor, but that it helps you understand. You deserve to be the one who directs your life. Whether it is pieces or lives you deal in, there is the risk of becoming a passive reactor. Be the actor. The one who puts ideas and movement into the minds of others.

“I don’t want to manipulate anyone,” Nissa said at last. She kept her voice to barely an echo of a whisper. “I’ll use the leylines where there’s good to be done, but I won’t force my will onto others.”

  I don’t mean by force, unless force is brought against you. Though it is a skill worth cultivating. You’ve seen that not all great powers are as friendly as I.

“Then I don’t know what you mean.”

  Many among your companions, past and present, have had the power of the word to inspire and direct and bring others together. A magic that needs no mana, and that I see you struggle to even try to use.

Nissa almost laughed, despite the heaviness pulling at her eyes. If the eldritch voice in your head spoke, what was there to do but listen?

  I worry sometimes, mover, that you will let life slip through your fingers without ever seizing what you want.

“I’m very happy in my homeworld, actually,” Nissa snapped. Nahiri stirred slightly, and Nissa clapped a gloved hand to her mouth before continuing. “I’m satisfied with the work I do, and I don’t need you telling me I should be dissatisfied because I’m not...because I’m not powerful enough.”

  That is-I will not argue that. Presuming the intent and wants of the flesh has not been my own greatest strength. I will say, whatever your intentions in this world, or any other, power will help you meet those goals. Power and understanding how to wield...no, how to apply it.

“And what would I need that for? I can heal the world with what I know.”

  You should listen when the binders speak. There’s more than what you can touch that you can fix. And that’s with just your words. Or would you tell me you don’t want peace between your companions?

Nissa glanced over at Nahiri. Her pale shoulders where rising and falling in slow time. Above, Sorin was just visible as a sliver of moonlight hit his breastplate.

“Are you telling me you wouldn’t just...reach into their heads to have them do what you wanted?”

  I can twist minds to embrace my being, and that is a type of victory. I myself am not satisfied with that sort of adoration. I want my foes and my friends to decide themselves that I am right, not to have to twist their minds to bring them to that conclusion. The final decision should be theirs, made freely.

Nissa rolled over so her back was facing the stone. The forest was cold. And she’d left her blankets and bedroll behind to move quickly. “I’m going to rest, now.”

  Yes. The burner?

“Away.” Nissa curled her knees up, and shuffled closer to Ashaya. “Away, please.”

* * *

Nissa managed about four hours of sleep before the itch clawed her awake, burning a trail of fire-ant bites down her back. Her groggy grunts stirred Nahiri, who rolled to her feet, face calm, but brandishing her dagger in a tight-knuckled grip.

“Are you alright?” Sorin floated down, nearly at a dead drop, sword drawn.

“Fine. It’s-” Nissa shook her head, and flexed her shoulders, trying to steady her heartbeat. The itch subsided by degrees as she focused. “-the swarm is close. Moving slower.”

“Good.” Nahiri hurled her knife into stone between them. It stuck fast, then melted into the rock. “I’d like to kill something, and I don’t want to rest again until that happens.”

* * *

Nahiri led the renewed chase with a grim energy and a speed that left Nissa and Sorin trailing behind where the terrain got rough. After a mile they had lost sight of her entirely.

The trail grew more confused miles along as the markings of the retreating swarm intersected with larger swaths of eldrazi devastation. Further still and the trail disappeared entirely as the reclaimed swath of the Rief disappeared into the dusty ghost of itself.

It was at the edge of the ruined forest that they found Nahiri, staring out over the dusty landscape. The same shapes of trees and roots and bridges of earth loomed above them, but pale and desiccated. It was as if a sculptor had sought to re-create the forest from the memory of another, and had nothing but ashen whites to work in.

“It’s like this for miles further,” Nissa offered, gently, as Nahiri stared. “They didn’t get all of it, obviously, but...”

Sorin grit his teeth, audibly. “The Oran-Rief covers most of the continent for miles ahead.”

“It does.” Nissa slipped down from Ashaya’s shoulder to stand behind Nahiri. “It did. I believe it will again. Part of the forest we’ve traveled through is the result of our efforts to regrow and revitalize. Much of the land around Coralhelm and along the Umara has regrown as well, thanks to the waters returning in full. The land is eager to heal, and-”

“-and they have you.” Nahiri nodded, jaw set. “Someone with relevant skills. I’m glad,” She added, when Nissa cringed back from the result. “I really am. I couldn’t have done something like this.”

She rushed out into the forest ruins before Nissa could respond.

“Rash,” Sorin muttered. “Still rash.”

“Did you take the destruction of your home any better?” Nissa asked, quiet.

“Hardly.”

Nissa nodded. “I’m still waiting on you to show me you can work together.” Ashaya scooped her up and took a step into the dusty tangle, then another, and fell into a jog.

“I shouldn’t have called her a beast,” Sorin muttered, drifting forward after them. “That was a wound that didn’t need to be opened again. I’m sorry.”

“...Thank you. I’m not the one who needs to hear that.”

They both ran ragged to catch up. Nahiri’s pace fluctuated now, between bursts of speed that took her out of sight, to long, lagging floats through the air to the point that Nissa and Sorin would pass her by a quarter mile before she matched pace. Another hour into the chase and, without warning, she burst through one of the desiccated roots, one wider than a wurm’s neck, and swearing, doubled back once to pulverize the broken section into dust.

  The remorse of a game badly played.

Nissa made no attempt to respond to Emrakul. The itch was growing stronger now, and she had to focus every fiber of her mind to not let the inflaming sensation overwhelm her. They were close. So close. They could put an end to this horde soon...

Ashaya sensed her agitation. His pace doubled, outstripping Sorin and the still-fuming Nahiri.

Nissa shut her eyes. There was life, even here, if she followed the leylines deep enough. True, it was buried under hundreds of feet of chalky forest-corpse, but it was there, ready to thrive again. Here worms still turned the soil. Here there were still minerals for life to grow strong on. Nissa sent mana through to these pockets of life, and felt them swell. Felt them jolt with energy, and begin the long climb through the waste to taste the sunlight.

There were years, maybe decades to go before Oran-Rief looked anything like its former self. In truth, there was little chance it would ever look exactly as it had. That was fine. Recovery was a slow process, change was part of recovery, and Nissa would be there to help her world heal every step of the way.

  The land is steeped in my brothers’ touch

Nissa grit her teeth. “I’d noticed. Or did you miss the months I’ve spent trying to heal the land?”

  An ambitious and a powerful endeavor. But I didn’t mean the wastes. My brother’s-

“I’m done hearing about Ulamog, actually,” Nissa hissed.

  No, mover, not my one brother. I mean that my brothers pieces are-

A noise from behind shook Nissa’s focus. Sorin was calling after her. Bellowing something.

Her name.

The itch flooded Nissa’s mind like a rush of filth-laden water. Ashaya had passed under the bent form of an eldrazi-withered tree, and ahead, a small, sunken clearing radiated the itch from every direction.

Even below.

The ground beneath Ashaya splintered and burst upward in a column of shattered, desiccated plates. Nissa and the elemental were thrust up into the air. Trees shattered into dust. Purple-blue arms shot through the newly-formed hole in the forest floor, followed by taut red muscles and a face of blank bone.

A crusher. One of Ulamog’s brood.

Nissa leapt from Ashaya’s back onto an airborne sheet of hard packed-dust. It came apart under her feet as she sprinted along its length and flung herself onto a second chunk of airborne debris, just behind the crusher’s head. She bent her knees and sprang through the air, drawing her sword mip-leap and scoring a deep gash along its shoulder.

But not deep enough to kill.

And there were more coming. Spawn poured out of the hole. Drones leapt down from the grey-white branches of the ruined trees, filling the suddenly much larger clearing. Ulamog’s brood moved over the brittle ground with ease, and Kozilek’s obsidian-clad eldrazi added twists of bismuth to the surroundings as they threw themselves down into the clearing.

It was the swarm they had been tracking, and then some, all joined together for an ambush. Nissa swore and dove off the crusher’s neck just as it slammed its hand down where she had crouched. The blow echoed like an explosion, ringing in Nissa’s ears.

She hit the ground, rolled to a stand, then raised staff and sword as a tidal wave of eldrazi spawn flung themselves towards her.

Nissa stepped back with her first swing, cutting through the skull of one spawn and voiding the space where its companions slashed and stomped and lashed out with a dozen types of limbs. Each swing of her sword necessitated another step away from the horde. Each blow felled an eldrazi, but there was a pit full of them, a crusher just behind her, and nowhere else to dodge. Nissa threw a desperate glance over her shoulder. Ashaya had landed safely and was grappling with the titanic thing, though the crusher’s arm alone arm alone outweighed him two-to-one.

A sudden disorientation swept over Nissa, and she slipped on a sharp divot. She hit the ground hard, her vision nearly inverted. A crab-shaped eldrazi hovering above her, an upside-down crown of obsidian emitting iridescent pulses all through the clearing.

At least a dozen eldrazi converged on her. Nissa held out her sword. Her vision filled with red, and her chest a sudden, overdue fear.

“Too many.” Her gasp was barely a whisper. “Too many.”

  Breathe, mover. You’ve faced worse odds.

“I had friends,” Nissa whispered. “I had-”

  You still have them.

A blur of white and red swung down from the trees, scorching the air in its wake. The sizzling pendulum swept away a score of the eldrazi. The remainder of the spawn menacing Nissa lurched to a sudden stop. Their skulls burst. Their bodies fell limp to the dust.

Sorin and Nahiri loomed behind them, the vampire’s hand outstretched in an invocation of blood magic, the kor rushing forward, a molten sword in each hand.

Nahiri swept through the front ranks of the eldrazi, leaving each sword buried in the breast of a still-standing eldrazi before sweeping Nissa up in her arms. The stone that had smashed into the swarm followed in her wake like a blazing comet.

“This them?” Nahiri shouted over the rush of air.

Nissa nodded, weakly. The distortion in the air made it difficult to tell where Nahiri’s face ended and the white of the dead trees began. A blur of purple slid into her vision behind Nahiri’s head-

“Look out-!”

Nahiri swerved in the air in time to miss the full force of the crusher’s blow, but the glancing hit still sent both planeswalkers tumbling from the sky, and rolling into the dust.

Nissa recovered in time to register the looming shadow over them. Nahiri must have noticed it too, and they flung themselves in opposite directions just as the fist struck again. The ground caved in under the blow. Fragments of chalk peppered the air.

The fist jolted back up, and Nissa braced to roll out of the way of a third strike. Then the disorientation hit her again, and she fell, clutching at her ears. The crab-eldrazi was right above her. There was so much noise in the distortion. The light howled in her skull. A few feet away, she registered Nahiri scowling up at the air. The rock, which had fallen and embedded in the ground, glowed hot and streaked toward the crab-drone.

It never touched the creature. A blur of black and silver collided with the crab, and Sorin tore it neatly in half with a sideways stroke of his sword. The rock shot through the now-empty gap in the air, and glanced off the crusher’s face, cracking its skull across the bottom with the sound like a thunderbolt.

The fist still fell, square over Nissa.

This time she didn’t even flinch. With so little life in the surrounding earth, she sensed Ashaya’s approach with ease. The elemental threw himself over Nissa, intercepting the crusher’s blow and dragging the massive eldrazi off-balance. As it flailed backwards, Nissa noted that its other arm now ended in a ragged, purplish stump, and that Ashaya was splattered with similarly-colored gore. She sprang to her feet to face a second wave of the swarm with her comrades.

“Stop getting in my way, Sorin!” Nahiri had recalled her boulder, and split it in half to form two jagged, long-bladed gauntlets that covered her up to her forearm.

Sorin, coat still splattered with the remains of the crab-eldrazi, snarled.

“Keep your wits about you, then! I can’t coddle you all the time!”

“Just keep clear of me!” Nahiri shot back over her shoulder. She moved toward the trees, wading into the torrent of Kozilek’s eye-riddled drones and began cleaving their many limbs from their bodies.

“Oh, so now you don’t want help.” Sorin flipped his sword in his hand and spun in the air, striking the crack in the crusher’s face. The skull splintered, and the nightmare that passed for a face underneath was visible for a moment, until Sorin shoved his sword through the gap up to its hilt. “Good! I’d hate to respond the wrong way and have you try to kill me again!”

“Focus!” Nissa shouted, already racing towards the crusher. Ashaya followed a step behind. Even stabbed through the face, the giant eldrazi swiped at Sorin. With a thought from Nissa, Ashaya pounced at the eldrazi’s arm, somersaulting through the air, a buzzsaw of wood and root and earth. The arm, already cut deep by Nissa’s sword, was ripped from the crusher’s shoulder with a sound like a hundred coils of rope tearing apart. Sorin pumped plumes of blood colored magic into the crack in its skull, and a second later it burst, showering them all with solids and semi-solids which Nissa decided not to think about too hard.

“You don’t get to use that against me!” Nahiri screamed, she’d pinned the largest drone in the latest wave to the dust with her gauntlet. “Not when you wouldn’t even listen to me after! Not after you left me to rot in that demon filled hell!”

“I think I can use just about whatever I want.” Sorin rode the crusher’s body to the rim of the pit, and leapt off, diving through a crowd of sinew-winged spawn. Each one he dealt a single blow, cleaving their bodies in half. “unless stating facts is somehow more heinous than genocide!”

Nissa ducked under the swipe of one lanky eldrazi, and found herself face to no-face with a trio of spawn that looked like floating mountains in miniature, with fibers of alien flesh strung Between the peaks.

  Ah, that’s me. One moment.

The mountains froze in place, then dropped heavily to the ground, their weight embedding them in the fragile earth. Nissa was so dumbfounded by the sight that the gangly eldrazi’s second swipe caught her in the stomach, folding her over.

Too many.

  Not too many. Not for you. Breathe, mover. See them for the mass they are.

Nissa fell to one side to dodge another blow. As she fell she drove the butt of her staff through the underside of the lanky eldrazi’s skull. The force of the strike lifted the creature up and over the rim of the pit, where it fell away without a sound.

Perhaps it was the quiet of their opponents, Nissa mused, that let her comrades keep up their screaming match.

“Do you think-” Nahiri shouldered aside one squat eldrazi, then stabbed another right through its obsidian crown. “-That I don’t regret what I did? That I’m not just as angry with myself as I am with you? I have fucking nothing now. I was a protector. I kept the multiverse safe for centuries. Now I’m another gods-cursed killer.” Nahiri strode up the small pile of corpses, white face shining with sweat. “I wish every damn day I hadn’t brought that monster to your world!”

Sorin snarled, diving to the ground with a drone impaled on his sword. “Try acting like it, then!”

“What do you want to hear?” Nahiri roared, an upward swing bisecting one of Ulamog’s brood from groin to crown. “An apology? Do you want to hear sorry??”

Sorin sprang up, plunging his claws through the skulls of two more drones. “It would quite literally be the least you could do.”

“Please focus!” Nissa bellowed. An obsidian-crowned eldrazi with rows of eyes lining its bulging arms swiped at her once, twice, and shattered the rim of the pit with a scream that made the air ripple. They both stumbled, but Nissa kept her balance better than the eldrazi, and ran her sword through the flesh where a neck might have sprouted on any other creature. She jumped back and let it fall into the pit, knocking several other eldrazi down with it.

Sorin started to shout something back, but then the air was split by a vision-blurring screech, and a long-limbed eldrazi sprang from an overhanging branch, wrapping itself around Sorin, and slamming him flat into the dust. The other Eldrazi converged on him in a pile of pounding, flailing, grasping limbs.

Nissa and Nahiri paused for just a heartbeat, but that was enough time for their own opponents to capitalize on their distraction. One of Kozilek’s brood warped the space around Nahiri’s arm, slipping past the joint of her gauntlet with an oily sucking sound. The kor swore and screamed horribly as her arm went limp. Ashaya was just barely able to pull Nissa away from a disemboweling strike, but not quickly enough to keep the bony claws from drawing blood.

Nissa instinctively reached out for something. Dirt. Seed. Vines. There was nothing for miles, save for Ashaya. All that time spent coaxing growth back into the plane and she still found herself with nothing to call to their aid.

  Your connection is with your plane, mover.

“I’d noticed, actually,” Nissa grunted, brandishing her sword. She cut down the spawn in front of her with a savage thrust, and began wading toward Sorin. Ashaya took her flank, providing a buffer and a plow through the crowd.

Well,  this is your plane now. And not just the dirt and the vines. You are no less able to-

Nissa didn’t have the energy to focus on a retort, so she screamed, pushing forward with greater fury.

Sorin was nowhere in sight. More eldrazi piled onto the mass already pinning him down, unable to reach to the center, but adding weight with every drone.

“Sorin!” Nahiri’s scream matched and outstripped Nissa’s, as she hacked through the spawn with her good arm. “Don’t you dare die here, you selfish ass!” She hewed her way through the crowd around her with wide swipes, carving a gore-spattered path to the Sorin. Other eldrazi converged behind her as she started to carve through the pile. The blade of her limp arm flowed over her shoulders and head, hardening to shield her from the eldrazi piled onto her back.

That was the last glimpse Nissa had of her ally before the next wave of spawn roared up from the pit, joining the clutch that already beat down on her from the forest side. Her warpath came to a sudden, heavy stop. Even Ashaya could not wade any further through the crush of bodies.

  Sword and stick won’t solve this, mover.

“It’s all I have,” Nissa screamed back, pressing closer to Ashaya’s back. “Look around you! They’ve cut me off! I can’t bring more of Zendikar here in time!”

  Zendikar is here. It may not look like it once did. It may not look like how you plan it to look in the future. But it is still here. A rusted sword may not slice, but it can bludgeon.

To Nissa’s left, eldrazi were still pouring up from the pit. She could hear Nahiri bellowing somewhere far away. There were so many. Too many. Their presence flowed like a dirty stream across the leylines.

  Will you swim against the current, or flow with it?

Nissa felt for Zendikar again. Delving desperately as she beat back drone after drone. This time she did not dig. She let her mind rest on the dust and desiccation right at her feet.

The voice that answered back was sickly. Strange. But it answered.

“I think,” Nissa grunted, “That I’ll dam up the whole stream.”

  Magnificent.

Chalk blew out in geysers from the shattered edge of the pit, knocking several spawn back into the darkness as they tried to clamber onto level ground. A crack ripped down the side of the hole, bursting with even more dust.

A gaping maw tore itself free from the pit wall and reared up, Jaws of desiccated earth slammed down beyond the rim. Skeletal teeth punched into drones and spawn, pulping them to the ground.

Then the maw-thing, the soul of the wastes, fell backwards, dragging dozens of eldrazi with it, crushing the rest of the eldrazi rushing out of the pit against the walls. The grind of its fall echoed through the clearing, even as the eldrazi that remained pressed against Nissa all the fiercer.

  Absolutely magnificent.

“Can’t...can’t do that again.” Nissa was panting hard. She could barely keep her sword and staff in front of her, barring the crush of eldritch limbs. “Check. Or however that damn game goes.”

  The game is in disarray. You’ve made one important realization already: When the game has gone poorly, you always have the option of ripping the board out from under the arrangement of pieces that displease you. And now that they lie on the ground, let me give you another clue: who is to tell you that you may not take whatever piece you want for your own?

Nissa blinked, then furrowed her brow. Three spawn sprang at once, the bone-faced ones spreading their arms wide, the eyeball-covered one leaping at an angle that gravity should have made impossible. Nissa killed one with her sword, and found herself grappling with the other two.

They pressed in with rough shoves. They were not especially strong physically, and they blocked out the spawn gathering behind them, but the press of the whole crowd moved them forward. A sack-like limb struck Nissa across the jaw. Claws the color of twilight jabbed through the gaps. A slash tore through Nissa’s wrap and tunic, ripping flesh and scoring a nick on her ribs.

  This is simple, mover. If your opponent would kill you, what must you do?

“Fuck off,” Nissa grunted.

  I think you’ll find this germane to your present situation, mover.

Nissa almost laughed at that. At the bank-faced monsters pressing in around her. She felt something wet seeping into her tunic along her flank.

Suddenly Nissa felt as if she was seeing the eldrazi for the first time. Alien, yes. Horrifying in numbers, yes. But they were not gearhulks or elder dragons or gods-

 This is ridiculous. I’ve laid better opponents than this low without every drawing my blade.

  Yes!

Nissa relaxed her muscles, and the crowd shoved her back immediately. She let them push. Ashaya flowed around her, embracing Nissa in a cage of wood with just enough space for her to fall back, as the limbs of the eldrazi scratched at the wood and grasped through the holes of the cage. Leaf-coated vines descended from the roof of Ashaya, wrapping around Nissa’s flank to staunch the flow of blood. She felt the lines of Ashaya’s vital force surrounding her, and, using that as her starting point, reached out to the eldrazi.

Their lines were confused. They were individuals, certainly. Yet in another, truer sense, parts of greater, more intricate wholes. Wholes that had been burned out of existence, leaving a hole in the multiverse. Leaving these lesser eldrazi severed. And yet fragments of the ties that had bound them to the larger entities remained; strands of power, severed at one end, but alive, in their own strange way.

Nissa seized those strands by the metaphysical handful, gathering them together and folding them into a single thread. Grasping them was tricky. Like snatching streams of current from the water. Some she fumbled. Some wriggled through her grip. But with each pull of her mind, more spawn twisted under her power. Her influence radiated outward from where she stood, and slowly a growing number of eldrazi stood still, providing her a bulwark against those that remained hostile.

Nahiri cried out.

Nissa couldn’t see the kor from her position, so she directed the drones closest to Ashaya to lift him up, over the heads and head-like appendages of the crowd. Ashaya peeled open as he rose, wooden limbs curving outward like petals to protect Nissa from the eldrazi on the ground, though none in the immediate vicinity made a move towards her that she did not direct.

Further out, spawn still fought their way towards her, and towards Nahiri. Nahiri had met them with a fury that outmatched anything the mindless drones could hope to amass. Her stone armor was cracked and pitted in a dozen places. She was bleeding from more wounds than Nissa could count. Still she shredded eldrazi, one-handed, bellowing and driving closer to the pile atop Sorin, inch by hard-won inch.

“I’m sorry, you miserable corpse! Isn’t that what you wanted to hear?!” Her armor flared red-hot, singing the drones closest to her. A second later it exploded outward, and debris ripping through skulls, sinew, and eldritch flesh. She thrust the hand of her good gauntlet into the pile, and heaved.

Sorin emerged. At least, his arm and upper body did, the rest still pinned under the swarm.

But he lived, and somehow, still moved. His other arm cut free of the pile, gripped tight around a strange, jagged-edged knife. Nissa sifted further into the horde, grabbing more and more of the eldrazi and commanding their stillness, reaching out for the mass that menaced her companions.

“Sorin!” Even from a short distance, Nissa could make out the look of manic relief on Nahiri’s face.

“I hear you.” Sorin gasped. His flesh was bruised and torn, his garments shredded ribbons of leather and cloth. He thrust with his strange knife, impaling a drone at Nahiri’s side before it could slash at her. It died, but Sorin’s arm crumpled under the creature’s weight. “I said I wanted an apology, not for you to die.” He thrashed, freeing his legs from the pile and turning his knife back on the eldrazi that had buried him.

Nahiri snorted. “Who’s dying? It’ll take more than-”

Sorin’s blow caught her in the shoulder. Nahiri stumbled to one side. A spike of obsidian punched through the air where she had stood, and then, just as easily, through Sorin’s breastplate, pinning him to the ground.

Nahiri was back on her feet in seconds, swatting aside spawn left and right, desperately trying to keep them from converging on Sorin again. Nissa grit her teeth. She could set the eldrazi she had under her influence on the ones that still fought against the planeswalkers, but that wouldn’t stop the hostile ones before they tore her allies apart. And if she couldn’t grab control of the rest in that time-

A bolt of black flew into Nissa’s periphery. Just as quickly, Ashaya lashed out with a tendril, deflecting another spike of obsidian into the dust. Nissa glanced up into the trees. A broad-chested drone was perched in the ashen branches, a long spiral of tapered black stone forming from its throat, aimed right at her. She scowled and, with a strain that drew blood from her nostrils, reached into the dead leylines of the wastes and severed the branch. The eldrazi plummeted to the forest floor, where it landed among the still-growing horde that surrounded Nahiri.

Nissa gasped. She tasted iron as her blood ran over her lips.  There’s too many

  You see them as individuals and grasp them as individuals, Mover. A general does not call soldiers by name, but by unit.

Nissa blinked, and furrowed her brow. “What do you-?”

The spike-shooting eldrazi reared up suddenly from the crowd, a thorn of obsidian still forming in its throat. It lunged through the crowd, bowling other drones aside, its spike aimed at Sorin’s head.

It made it within a foot of the vampire’s face, and not an inch closer. Nahiri grabbed the spike with her gauntlet, stopping it dead and, with a scream, super-heated the spike until it cooked the drone from the inside out.

Nissa watched for only a moment until her attention was grabbed by a shape lying in the space the drone had cleared when it charged. More of the round, mountain-shaped eldrazi lay unmoving in the dust, unmarked by any weapon. Emrakuls in miniature A quick glance around the clearing confirmed a dozen other like them, some lying where none of the fighting had taken place.

  Dealt with all at once. Like snapping my finger.

Nissa shut her eyes. In her mind, the eldrazi had were bundled together like bales of hay, the ones she did not yet have under her control lying loose like straw littered in a field.

“Straw will take too long to gather,” She muttered.

The image in her mind shifted. The spawn of Kozilek were like silt pouring through of muddy, running water. Rough. Difficult to perceive. She formed a sieve in her mind, and dragged it across the stream, collecting up the alien consciousnesses of the brood. In one swipe, she had half the clearing frozen under her control.

Ulamog...Ulamog was salt. Drying. Desiccating. In her mind Nissa pictured the clearing as a table, and swept the grains of Ulamog’s spawn into a bowl.

When she opened her eyes, every creature was still. All except Nahiri.

Sorin hung at an angle with the ground, forming a triangle with his body on one side, the earth on another, and the spike as the third. Nahiri cracked the spike with a blow form her gauntlet and pulled Sorin off onto the ground. He was bruised over every inch of exposed skin, and a hole ran straight through his belly.

Nahiri, at a sudden loss of anything dangerous to hit, then channeled her fervent energies at Sorin.

“I’m sorry!” Nahiri screamed down at Sorin’s still form. “Please! I shouldn’t have done it! It was wrong!” She didn’t seem to even register the circle of drones around her, still and watching.

Softly, Nissa commanded the Eldrazi to lower her and Ashaya to the ground. There was a slight buzz in her head as she instructed the individuals holding them up, but it faded away as she tucked them back into the collective in her mind, and strode through the still crowd toward her comrades. Ashaya plodded behind, the chalky ground crumbling under each of his steps.

Nahiri looked up as Nissa neared. Her eyes were wild. Bloodshot. There was something between a smile and a grimace on her face.

“They can’t have killed him, right? He wouldn’t just die like this. Somewhere like this.”

Nissa grimaced. “Nahiri-”

The Kor’s sudden gasp cut her off.

Sorin’s head lolled, then slowly dragged upright. His eyes slid open and a groaned.

“No fear there.” He lifted a hand slowly and lay it across his breast. “I freed myself from an impaling trap made by the meanest lithomancer in the multiverse. What’s one spike from a cockroach?”

Nahiri’s set Sorin down in the dust. “I-I thought so!” She laughed. A rough, manic bark. She held the smile for a moment, then it fell off her face. “I’m sorry.”

Sorin shook his head. Barely a twitch of his neck to the side. “You don’t have to-”

“I’m sorry,” she echoed, soft. “I really am.”

His face twisted. “I can’t accept an apology from you. I don’t deserve forgiveness any more than you do. I hurt you in a way few people in the multiverse have been hurt, and I did it deliberately, to preserve my own selfish peace in the world.” He lay a hand on Nahiri’s. “I don’t want you to be what I pushed you toward being. Not when I know destruction isn’t what your soul is meant for. I’m sorry. That was selfish as well.”

Nahiri shook her head, rapid. “It’s no excuse. Whatever happened to me, it’s no excuse for...for...”

She stood, suddenly. She stared past Nissa like she was seeing something far off among the dead trees. Nahiri’s chest rose and fell with an increasingly furious pace, and she stepped over Sorin, past Nissa, almost to the edge of the eldrazi circle.

Then she just stood, staring.

Sorin and Nissa exchanged glances. The Vampire’ face was contorted as he pumped blood magic into the hole in his chest, but the contortion was mixed with...it was the same look Gideon used to make when he fretted over the others.

Nahiri fell to her knees, screaming in a sudden rage.

“Damn you!” Her fists broke the brittle ground easily. “Damn me! Another fucking killer!” Her fists quickly reduced the patch of ground to a conical pit of powder. “The sealing, the hedrons...none of it means a damned thing now!”

“You kept your plane alive for millennia!” Sorin shouted, horse. There was a horrible sucking sound as he yelled, and Nissa realized with a start that he only had one inflated lung. “That’s not nothing.” He struggled upright, and Nissa ran forward to grab him under the arm before he collapsed again. He wheezed, and looked up at Nissa. “Thank you.”

They ambled over to Nahiri. Sorin knelt nest to her, head bowed. “What I did to you...where I left you. I owe you as much of an apology.”

“You didn’t kill anyone to hurt me. Not on purpose.” Nahiri’s response was ragged; barely a whisper through a scream-sore throat. “You were a fucking selfish bastard but you didn’t try to kill anyone other than me. I’m worse than you.”

“Maybe.” Sorin said it automatically. “Probably. I still wronged you.”

Nahiri shuddered suddenly, with a violent sob. She reached out and seized a handful of Sorin’s torn sleeve, and slammed her other fist against the dusty ground. Her shoulders shook, and her hand twisted the leather around. Sorin did not move or back away. Nissa wondered if  she should.

“I’m a murderer! Evil! I don’t deserve anything!”

“That’s true,” Nissa whispered. She leaned back against Ashaya, holding the vine-bandages wrapped tight around her side. “But life’s not about what we deserve; it’s about what do.” Her legs started to buckle, and she slid down the elemental’s leg to sit in the dust. “What we’ll do next.”

Nahiri drew in a dry, rattling breath, and shuffled around to face Nissa. “Next?”

“This...this is good, what we did here today. Together. Look how much fewer we’ve made the spawn that still threaten our world.” Nissa looked down at the waste beneath her. “Look at how much world remains to be saved.” She lifted her head and looked from Sorin to Nahiri. “You can heal. You can build. I can grow. And if you can work with each other, I would...happily work with you.”

Sorin nodded, slow, and looked to Nahiri. She returned his gaze with eyes red and watering, but unblinking.

“No forgiveness.” She held out her hand to him. “We build something new, starting today.”

“That...that works for me.” He grasped her hand, and they shook; a quick, singular motion. He turned to Nissa, and inclined his head. “And I hope we might do the same. My actions against you and toward your world-”

“When I said I didn’t care, I meant it. And I meant nothing of malice against either of you.” Nissa jabbed a head at her temple. “I’ve had this force in my head for some time now. By most sane definitions it is evil, a thing that’s twisted and killed millions. Still I tolerate it. I listen to it. I try to use its guidance to do good, because I do not have the power to oppose it, and because the alternative is to leave it unattended.”

My guidance  has been of great use.

“I had a friend who believed in justice. Who believed that there were good actions in the world, and wrong ones, and that the latter should be opposed without question.” Something rose up in Nissa’s chest, but she forced in down, breathing slow to calm her heartbeat. “But he believed in every person’s capacity for good, no matter their past. I can’t say if he was right in the end, only that that sort of justice is the only kind that’s ever made sense to me.” Her arms felt heavy, but Ashaya lifted his own for her. “So please. Let’s do better, and let our mistakes be lessons, not yokes.”

The other two said nothing, though Nahiri nodded, slowly. Sorin leaned forward, hand still pressed to his breast, fingers still weaving healing magic.

Silence and dust drifted through the clearing. When the latter settled, only silence remained.

* * *

They sat around another stone fire that night, back where the chalk wastes gave way to the green remains of Oran-Rief. Nissa sat cross-legged in front of the stone, both hands laid in the comforting sponginess of the moss. The remaining spawn, a little under four-hundred by Nahiri’s count, all lay a distance away, huddled together in a crude corral of vines and stone bells to alert the trio if they starting moving while Nissa slept.

Her head was full of buzzing, and there was a throbbing ache behind her eyes.

But it was better than their last rest. The tension had gone out of her companions, and Nissa could breath easier.

“There’s pockets all over,” Nahiri said over a supper of roasted tubers and wild onions. She picked at her food with her left hand, her right still hanging limp in a sling. “Not just spawn, but opportunists taking advantage of ruined settlements and wild creatures displaced by the dead stretches on the plane. We could, the three of us, we could give those Zendikari a better chance at starting their lives over.”

Nissa nodded. She was leaned up against Ashaya, moving as little as possible to not disturb the lacerations along her side.

“That’s true, though I would like to set aside time to continue replenishing the forests. Oran-Rief is a daunting project, and I still hold out hope for restoring Bala Ged to a place for the elves.”

“Is it true, the stories about the elemental?” Nahiri was much more eager to talk since the battle.

  All the words unsaid over the past week.

“Yes. Yarok, they call it. Another creature we may have to coexist with.” Nissa dared a small smile. “But, coexisting is something we’re all getting much better at.”

Nahiri nodded, suddenly interested in wolfing down the rest of her supper. Sorin just nodded from where he reclined on a stone slate cushioned with harvested moss. Faint wisps of blood magic crawled over his form, and the bruises that mottled his body were beginning to receding by bits. He pointed in the direction of the spawn. “Will they be coming?”

“Until I can find something useful for them to do. There is a strain, trying to keep them in line,” Nissa noted after a time. “I expect we may still need to face more in the days to come.”

“Not the companions I expected,” Nahiri observed through a mouthful of food. “But...beats having enemies, I guess. Were you ever able to track down Ugin?” She asked, looking to Sorin.

“Not a sign since Tarkir. When it comes to that dragon, I don’t know what to believe anymore.” The barest hint of a smile crawled over Sorin’s face. “Remember how surprised we were to find out he was in contact and collaboration with so many other walkers? Even in the middle of that accursed mess on Ravnica?”

Nissa lowered a piece of onion from her mouth. The memory of the spirit dragon, bright and looming, flashed briefly in her mind. He’d been there at the end last time. He’d spoken to her. To Jace. To...to Gideon and-

“Of course. I stopped trying to kill you, I was so intrigued.” Nahiri chewed her lip. “Do you think it’s true?”

Sorin glanced over to Nissa. “The mind-mage was your companion, right? Do you trust him?”

“With my life,” Nissa said, soft. She pressed down another lump in her chest.

“What about you?” Nahiri asked Nissa. “You didn’t-I never even thought to ask how your companions fared after the...well, the war, I guess we’re calling it. The mind-mage and the pyromancer and-”

“We’re fine,” Nissa replied. “All fine.”

“Ah.” Nahiri nodded.

“More hands couldn’t hurt here,” Sorin ventured. “If we can’t get the spirit dragon...I don’t know how many of your companions are able and willing to help, but I saw many talents on display against Bolas that would help here. The time mage, certainly. I believe I saw another elf calling upon dead spirits as well. Plenty of those to go around. Even the fire-flinger might be useful for clearing out-”

Nissa didn’t hear the rest as she, much to everyone’s surprise, hunched over and started sobbing.

“...but maybe not...?” Sorin finished.

Nissa tried to catch her breath, but she could not stop the heaving in her lungs, and the twisting of her face as tears spilled out over her chin and into her lap.

The other two didn’t say anything right away. Through shudders Nissa could see them exchange nervous glances.

“I’m sorry,” She muttered, choking out the words between sobs. “Sorry, I-”

“It’s fine.” They said it together automatically. Nahiri leapt up from her spot to amble over and sit next to Nissa. Nissa dug her fingers deeper into the ground, if only to keep herself from covering up her face.

Nahiri lifted her good hand, and it hovered over her own lap a moment before she moved to rest it on Nissa’s shoulder. Nissa shook her head. A tight, frantic shudder that might have been mistaken for more shakes from her crying, but Nahiri took her hand back all the same.

“I’m sorry.” Nahiri lay the hand instead on the grass next to Nissa’s. “I owe you one as well. If I...if we distressed you – I mean, if we acted in such a poor way as to-”

“No.” Nissa shook her head, a more deliberate movement this time. “Not you.

“Mostly not you,” she added.

Sorin cleared his throat. “Is it...is it something we can help with?” The words stumbled out from him so unnaturally that Nissa almost laughed through her tears.

“I-no? I don’t know.”

The other two exchanged another look. What look, Nissa couldn’t say, but even through blurred eyes she could see them turn toward each other.

“Is it the pyromancer?” Sorin asked after a moment. “Did something happen to-”

“I don’t know!” Nissa pulled up a fist and punched the ground, grinding her knuckles into the moss. “I haven’t seen Chandra in months! I – she came to see me and then she just-she just...”

“What did she do?” Nahiri’s own fingers clenched, and the heat from the stone rose perceptibly. “Did she hurt-”

Nissa shook her head. “She just...she just came and left. And I  let  her. I stood there like an idiot and I just  let her.” She brought her elbow up and coughed into it. Snot was starting to run down to her lips. “I’m sorry, this isn’t important, I just-”

“Clearly it’s important to you,” Sorin interrupted. “So it is, by definition, important.”

Nissa shook her head. “I just wanted her to be  happy  . She said distance was what she needed, and I let her...of course I let her go. I  love her. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”

Sorin drew and released a breath in a long sigh. “You need to be a bit more selfish sometimes.”

“And what?” Nissa replied. “Force her to stay with me? Make her do something that will make her miserable?”

“You said yourself,” Sorin returned after a short silence, “that you didn’t even tell her how you felt. That you let her make assumptions from your silence.”

“What would you know?”

“It’s what you did last night,” Nahiri cut in. “Until I provoked you. Um, sorry for that.”

“She said she wasn’t right for me.” Nissa steadied herself, and drew in a short, rattling breath. “She said...she knows I like the quiet sometimes. I liked that about her, that she understood that. But then she said she couldn’t-that we couldn’t be...I don’t know.” She brought the back of her glove up to clear her eyes. “She thought...she thought I wouldn’t have made space for her in my life. That I wouldn’t have liked making space for her in my life” She breathed in again, longer this time, steadying herself.

“Would you have?” Nahiri kept her voice low, just loud enough for the three of them.

“I think so.” Nissa lifted her head. Sorin had sat up and to face them. “It wasn’t the firs thing on my mind when we parted the first time. There was too much work for me here. But I did think about it when I came back again, after Ravnica, but there was still so much to do, and...” She choked again. “I took too long. I didn’t...I needed more time. I didn’t think she’d just-”

“That’s not your fault for needing time,” Sorin said. “No matter what came of it, there’s no shame in thinking through a hard decision.”

“Months though?” Nahiri said. “I mean – sorry, that’s not the point.” She lifted her hand again tentatively, but put it back down on the moss without Nissa having to say anything or shake her head. “It’s...it’s been a strange time for all of us, since, well since we were all together last. A hard time for introspection.”

“I don’t think she had to wait for me,” Nissa whispered. “I just wish she had.”

For a while there was no sound but the occasional hiss of the wind carrying a stray leaf into the stone. The trails down Nissa’s face started to dry, and she drew in slow breaths of the cool night air.

“Your paths could easily cross again,” Sorin offered, eventually. “She knows where you are, and even if you don’t-”

“I do.”

“...what?”

“I do,” Nissa said. “I mean, I could know. I can feel many things in the leylines now. More and more since I traveled with the Gatewatch. Since...since Emrakul began speaking to me. If I focus-” Nissa held out her hand, and channeled mana into the leylines that threaded through the air. There were so many on Zendikar. The plane was so abundantly alive in a way that so few other planes were.

“-She burns brighter than anyone I’ve ever met. If I wanted to – that is, if I felt it was right, I could just follow that light.”

“So why don’t you?” Nahiri leaned in, voice louder now. “Go and tell her what you told us.”

“She said we weren’t right for each other. What if she still feels that way?”

“Then you’ll have tried,” Nahiri replied. “You’ll have told her how you feel about her, and she can make her decision knowing what you want. Otherwise she’ll just go on thinking that she made a choice that you agreed with, and...well, it doesn’t seem like that’s the case.”

Nissa tensed. The thought of doing just that had occurred to her weeks ago, and seemed laughably implausible since then. Nahiri suggested it like a real possibility, but...going to Chandra? Using her words to express whatever it was she felt for her? It made Nissa’s whole body seize up from the inside out. But if she could bring the right words…

“I...think I would like that,” Nissa said at last. “But, even now, I don’t know that I’ve given it the thought it deserves.”

“Then take the time,” Sorin said. “You’ve got us now, as long as you need us. You don’t need to run yourself as ragged as a one-elf savior across the whole plane. We’ll all do our good work, and we’ll be your counsel as you work through your thoughts. And when you’re ready, whenever that might be, you can go to her with the right words.”

Nahiri nodded. “If you want our help, of course.”

Nissa was silent a long while. Her head still ached from the commotion and confrontation of the day. Her body still throbbed with pain from a dozen wounds, and the alien tinge of the eldrazi spawn still crawled along her body like a new limb. She didn’t want to talk. Didn’t want to do anything but close her eyes and rest.

Still, the comfort of caring company made the night just a degree less cold.

“I think...I think I would like that. Thank you.”

* * *

  Mover, before you sleep…

Nissa groaned softly. She had just lay her head down and begun to close her eyes. The soft ground felt like a balm against her buzzing scalp, she had only a few hours before Nahiri woke her for her turn at night watch, and she wanted nothing more than the quiet of sleep.

  If you’d rather wait...though I find the sooner the debrief-

“No, let’s do this now,” she muttered, keeping her whisper low.

  You’ve added great power unto yourself. We’ll discuss that.

Nissa waited for Emrakul to say more. The eldrazi titan remained silent.

“I’ve reached out and taken control of another mind. Minds. Or lack of a mind. Several voids where minds should be. I’m not sure I understand entirely what I’m going to do with them, and I’m not sure that qualifies as becoming more powerful.

  You used one method to add the power of my brothers’ pieces to yourself. You used another to add the power of your companions, the binders. Even the mere act of finding a new application for an existing competency is an act of growing power.

“Yes. Nissa poked wearily at her connection to the herd of drones off in the wastes. “That will take...it will take some getting used to. And there’s peace between Sorin and Nahiri now. I’m not certain how much of that was me, to be honest.”

  You facilitated a renewal of their companionship. Indirect intervention is still intervention. It’s all part of becoming powerful.

Nissa blinked. “I...I’m pleased to have them as allies. As friends, even. But I don’t know what you...I haven’t been sapping their powers or taking power from them or-”

  Friends are power stored in other bodies. A friend made is power added unto yourself, and better still, power that aids you willingly. Joyfully.

The earlier battle flashed in Nissa’s mind. The crush of bodies. Emrakul’s voice booming in her mind all the while…

“If my opponent is about to kill me, make them my friend.”

  Yes.

“I don’t know how to feel about that. What if making a friend means conceding part of who I am?”

  Then you get to decide if it’s worth it to you. Look around though, and I think you’ll find you’ve conceded very little.

“I’ve conceded to interrupt my work healing the plane. I’ve conceded to speak the language of the eldrazi. To let them into my mind.”

Emrakul was silent a long moment.

  You’ve spoken my language with me for some time now. Has it not been worth your while?

“...let’s talk about that later.”

  ...has my presence been unwelcome?

“No but...having someone else’s thoughts in your head all the time makes it challenging to know what thoughts are your own.”

  This is so. I do intend only to advise, mover. I do not wish to control a fellow controller.

“I’m glad,” Nissa whispered. “And glad you’ve been less prone to objecting to our fight against your...pieces.”

 I am not beyond learning, mover. And any sentimentality for what remains of my brothers does no good. All in the past, as you said to the binders.

Nissa nodded vaguely. Her eyes were growing heavier by the minute.

  On the topic of my presence, do you wish for the possibility of dreaming of the burner tonight?

“Why do you call her that?” Nissa’s eyes opened slightly. “Burner? She had a name, you know. I have a name.”

  She is defined by her burning. That is what binds the two of you.

Nissa pursed her lips. “That’s all you think binds us? That we killed eldrazi together?”

  The burning of my brothers is not what defines her to you, Mover. It is her mind that burns for you, so she is the burner.

It seems obvious to me, at least , Emrakul added.

“You call them the binders.” Nissa nodded at Nahiri's sleeping form, and at Sorin, hovering further away.

  They bound me. It was a significant, defining thing that they did.

“That’s not what defines them to me.”

  It’s not always about you.

“Mm.” Nissa laid her head back. “Sure.”

  Mover...the burner?

Nissa stared up a long while, past the looming edge of the hedron mass overhead. A thousand pinpricks of starlight filled the open stretch of night sky beyond that.

“Not tonight. If I dream of her...” Nissa lapsed. A pair of glints, like from twin panes of glass filled her mind, along with a brush of cinnamon. “If she’s in my mind, I prefer she remain there.”

Emrakul did not reply, but a warm rush crawled along the back of Nissa’s scalp as her eyes slid shut.

The above is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards. Portions of the materials used  are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.

[jess-the-vampire]

Sky And The Forces Of The Multiverse, Chapter 20

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Celeste glared at landon, geez well this was a trainwreck, she was trying to think up some lies in her head to tell the boy but the more quiet she was the more she looked like she was searching for a fake excuse. She glared at him harder as she stood up, "Dude!? Stop coming into my room like this! It's super weird! I'm not your go-to when you wanna hide away from whatever you got going on right now i got my own stupid stuff to worry about and you're just....butting in!". "Well apparently you're doing things that my own brother doesn't know about and considering you don't have any other reason to leave your room, i'm guessing whatever it was....i just caught you in the act...", Upon closer inspection Celeste could still see he had been crying, though his tears were dryer now. "You know, i just came in here cause judas has been trying to talk to me all day and i just wanted to be left alone, but i guess i could just go and force myself to speak to him and tell him you're doing some stupid shady stuff...". "Try me, i was gonna tell him anyway!". "Oh, so you WERE doing something shady?".

Welp, she couldn't back out now. Dangit why did this boy have to constantly be so nosy or walk in at the wrong time? And she was technically related to him too? His face was still mad but he raised an eyebrow at her knowingly, she almost wanted to spit back about how he liked to hid his secret about spending his freetime watching performers in a coffee house but she couldn't seem to get it out this time, probably because landon wouldn't take the bait anyway. "It's not your business Landon, you're not the only one whose got things they need to worry about. Look, can you just.....", she was about to try and push him out but landon didn't budge, "No, i'm not going...i needed somewhere to hide and sunny'll never let me hide in HER room, so i'm staying here for now thanks...". He walked away and took a seat at the foot of her bed, "You might as well tell me what you were doing, or what? Are you gonna erase my mind?". The girl snorted at him and sighed, taking a disgruntled seat next to him, "For the record.....you only caught me because i was bailing out at the wrong time.....". Her legs swung off the bed, "I swear something out there was after me....". She slipped off her raincoat and tossed it on the floor, "How'd you even get in here anyway? The guards just let you walk into a girl's room in the middle of the night just because you're the prince of this kingdom?". "Uh...teleportation?", he said, giving her a look. "We don't need scissors to travel so we just kinda teleport around when we need to get somewhere fast, though that tends to always be a problem when we teleport into rooms at the wrong time so we don't always do it.....", his facial expressions told Celeste he'd probably had seen some things from entering rooms that he wished he hadn't, but landon shook his head and got back on subject. "Oh right, you know being able to do that wherever you want seems like a REALLY bad idea...". The boy snorted, "Not nearly as bad as giving you scissors, you were outside.....you know that's kinda a bad idea to go anywhere alone when there's some weirdo with a doll mask running around right? You get kidnapped and my parents are gonna freak...." he huddled up, pressing his legs against his chest. "Running around in the forest of Certain death in the middle of the night rarely tends to end well for most people around here, is your forest back home just laking the "Sudden death" part?". "Look, i just had to help luna out...". "Wait....luna? You mean stick in the mud, blonde, kinda annoying half sister luna?". "How many other lunas do you think we both know?". "What the heck are you helping HER for that apparently my brother isn't supposed to know about? She's not doing anything weird right?", sighing, Celeste folded her arms, "No it's more like, we're doing our own stupid investigation cause your brother isn't really doing squat to help us. He's so busy with other things and the guy refuses to do any of our ideas that we'll all probably be 50 by the time we find a way back to whatever universe we're from...so...luna wanted me to help...". She kinda expected Landon to scoff at her helping Luna but to her surprise Landon seemed to understand fine, "That's because he doesn't think about the rest of us most of the time...what any of us wants, he makes his own decisions regardless of what we want....". His tail slipped out of his pj pants and swished behind him, "You can't make your own choices around him cause he won't let anyone else make the calls or whatever, and it's so annoying...he'll help some people, but only if it's important to HIM.". The brunette took note of his frustration, "Geez, that bad huh? Sounds like you've been dealing with this a lot...". The boy crossed his arms, his face red, "Not like you have any idea, but yeah, and everyone loves him...everything's about him, his stupid arm, him being king, mom and dad can't bear to treat him like me or mason cause he's got that stupid arm. Like he's still 17, arm or no arm that doesn't mean they can't ground him or anything...". "Sounds...fun...". "He thinks he can just apologize and everything will be fine, and it's just like, it's not like that! My family just seem to care a ton more about him then me or mason...cause i guess we weren't important enough to treat as important as he is...". Celeste turned her head away from him, before licking her lips and turning back to him, "Well, you wear your mom's hoodie a lot it seems....so i kinda doubt you're not at all important to your parents in some degree....". "Don't patronize me...",  the pink demon sighed, "My mom and I just have a close relationship, since they want me to be more confident and stuff.....but that's not the same thing. My family doesn't really talk about my talents, or things i'm up to...they care more about Judas and everything about him. It's like....I don't even exist! Not surprised though, it's not like the rest of the kingdom even cares much about me being here either.". Celeste raised an eyebrow at the demon, seems this conversation had stopped being about "Landon AND Mason". "Well i mean, if they asked to hear your songs or ask about your boyfriend, would you even really say anything anyway?", Landon grumbled at her, she could almost barely make out him telling her not to call Bernard his boyfriend under his breath. But his silence on her question continued and the girl stared dagger at him, "Just saying, you wanna sorta talk about these things but also not really because you don't even like showing this stuff off much except like...when you feel comfortable with it...". "Ok fine, maybe I just want judas to leave me alone, i'm sick of hearing him try and say sorry...". "Yeah...I've been there....families are so annoying". He turned his head, "got any siblings...?". "Yeah, but it's not what you're thinking...trust me...", she elbowed him, "Anyways i might just give up on this alliance, i just wanted to do something and i already almost got killed out there. She freaking made me go out there all by myself and who knows if she's doing ok right now....". Landon almost smiled at her, "Well at least you're trying to hurry it up as soon as you can, can't say you didn't try anything at all once you get back home to your parents...". "Right....parents.....", her hand covered her mouth a little as she looked off into the distance. "You ok?", technically he already knew the answer to that but he couldn't help but still ask her, even if he wasn't expecting a real answer. And as expected, Celeste seemed to not be listening to what he was saying, thinking about things, probably about whatever was going on back home. Landon had his own thoughts, about what she wasn't telling him, but saying something almost guaranteed he was being kicked out of this room almost immediately. "Hmm?". "You seemed kinda upset there...". "It's nothing...", she was clearly lying about whatever it was and he knew it, but he also probably had to save it for another day. There was silence between them and landon clapped his hands together, "You know, you don't have to tell judas if you don't want to....if anything it'll probably cause another stupid fight between him and luna. And then she'll get on your case or whatever...." The girl looked over to him like he was crazy, "So what? You're not gonna tattle on me sneaking out anymore? What happened to telling your brother about me and luna working together?". "I'm too mad to talk with him anyway...", he pressed his legs against his chest, "In fact.....i'll let you know if i find anything....or whatever. Team's kinda useless if it's just the two of you anyway, especially since you aren't allowed to go anywhere without guards on your tail...". The princess next to him looked him over and her expression dropped, "Wait? You're asking to...help us? Geez, you must be really mad with your brother if you're going that far...". "Well, what am i really hurting? You guys wanna go home, my brother's not doing squat, not like i have anything better to do anyways...."., He clearly still seemed heartbroken about his friend and Celeste sighed, "Can't you just...teleport to him? I don't think your parents will really notice if you head out for a little bit to see him...". But to her surprise landon shook his head, "I'm....not much of a...."Rule-Breaker "Guy if that wasn't obvious enough....and besides...he knows i'm grounded....he'll be mad with me, my mom will be mad with me...". "Why do you care so much about what other people think about you?". "Because i do, why don't you?". "I got my own problems...". "Do they got anything to do with why you don't seem to like my mom very much when they're also YOUR dad?", nevermind, he WAS going to bring it up now, his glare at her was full of frustration, guess she sorta had it coming after kinda being rude to him anyway. "Look, if you wanna help us, you can start by not getting so nosy in our lives or whatever....you stop talking about my parents and i'll stop talking about your boyfriend....". But landon didn't seem happy with that last bit, still mad, with an added blush. "How many times do i have to tell you we're not dating!", he lept off the bed and started pacing, "Look, i really think he's super cool and i'm still really anxious about hanging out with him, but we're not boyfriends, ok? He's...just my earth friend..". Celeste snorted at his words though, "You don't gotta deny it dude, i've been in a similar boat, trust me it's way better just owning the stupid thing and wearing it on your sleeve then acting like it doesn't exist..". "But it doesn't!". She raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure about it? It's not weird if you are...I mean i think it's kinda weird you won't admit it to yourself already but the crush thing itself isn't weird". "What happened to you not talking about it and me not talking about your parents?". "Well, you haven't agreed to it yet, buuuttt....does this mean you do like him? Cause it kinda sounds like you just confirmed you did." Landon crossed his arms, his tail swishing and his back turning to the girl, "Ok, fine? So what if i do? I just think he's...cool, he's one of the few people i know who really likes hanging out with me....and I like hanging out with him and talking about earth stuff.". He turned his head and for once, Celeste was smiling , something she rarely seemed to do in the first place. "Yep, i called it, eh, to be honest he seems just as weird as you anyway, so i guess you two secretly are a match made in heaven.....or hell i guess.", her smirk didn't seem to amuse landon. "Zip it, i'm not asking him out...we're just friends right now and....I don't wanna scare him.", his three eyes took a look around the demonic bedroom, "Not a lot of mortals adjust down here, besides like.....my mom and my grandad but they're the rare exception. Most mortals kinda freak out about the underworld, it's not exactly the most comfortable or the most fun place for them to be most of the time. Not to mention the heat cause yeah that's.....ugh..". "Well like, how did your mom and grandad overcome them?" Landon blushed and grumbled, "Because they love their partners enough to adjust, ok? But don't try to pull that on me, you don't know bernard. I don't know how much he likes the idea of spending so much time around....demon stuff , he's like....he's an earth kid, and sometimes...demons are kinda seen as...evil. But what....no wait what am i doing? We're getting off topic I don't wanna talk about this stupid stuff right now when we're supposed to be...i dunno, teaming up or something?". Celeste stopped smiling, going back to her usual unhappy self, "Welp, fun's over......look, if you wanna help, i'm not gonna stop you, but you also probably should speak to luna, cause she'll fuss if she's not treated as the leader of this lil group. Just, don't think optimistically....I think she has a bit of trust issues anyway. And don't ask her about her stupid private life cause i guess that seems to really get under her nerves when you talk about it...". "She sounds like you..." Celeste made an inappropriate gesture at him and he smiled, "Whatever....i guess i'll text you and we'll see about this but uh....can i still stay here in the meantime?". Celeste feel over on the bed, tired, "Fine, whatever, but you're not sleeping anywhere near me...just sit in a chair or something and leave before i wake up, ok?". Landon didn't say anything as he took a seat nearby, making himself comfortable, he may be mad with his brother for now, but it wasn't all bad. Taking a breath, he closed all his eyes and rested. - Finding the passageway was hard enough but trying to be silent while traveling through it was worse. If a guard caught luna in here, she was deader then dead. Worse then her soul being forever tortured in the underworld kinda dead. Therefore, she BETTER get some answers out of this. She even had her wand out, just in case she needed it, the memory erasing charm on the tip of her lips in case she needed it. The worst case scenario was janna was on the other side or she had some sort of security system, but then again if anyone was quite familiar with security charms, it was luna. She continued to crawl in the tunnel until she hit a clear end, pressing her ear against the wall to listen for any signs of life on the other side. Hearing nothing, she got her wand ready. She pushed the painting aside and breathed a sigh of relief that she had found her way in here without any issues. Leaping down from the hole in the wall she took a good look at her surroundings, man Sky's mom was still kinda creepy, even if most of these things were probably fakes and didn't even work. Probably. Her first step was the shelves of obscure items, monster tusks, lemon, crystals, whatever weird stuff the queen seemed to be into. She could even spot supernatural books on display as well, as Janna seemed to be into the occult quite a lot. But a lot of this stuff wasn't anything to arrest her about, in fact there was no reason for this masked person to use most of this stuff, unless some of these potion ingredients were perfect to use to keep Lucy's scent off her tracks. Luna took a mental note of that before taking another look around, and then she noticed something she swore she saw the first time she was here by paid no mind to. While janna had no creepy doll-looking mask, there was a mask on display, just a clearly plain looking one. Luna glared at it, janna didn't even label the thing so it was impossible to tell what it even was, but then again if she owned one mask, she could have more somewhere else around here. She moved on to check the drawers, putting on some long gloves, and using magic to open them up and go through the Queen's files. She couldn't exactly expect Janna to just have incriminating evidence right where luna could find them but at the same time if she missed a single drawer she had the potential to miss something she'd regret. She just had to hope Janna didn't have anything hidden away too deep that she couldn't access it without a map or list of secrets. There were matters on taxes, letters from earth, and...photos of queen lucitor? But there didn't seem to be anything worthy of suspicion, well, actually photo's of judas's mom was kinda creepy but not the creepy luna was looking for. The vault was her next best option in here unless there were some secret compartments, however knowing mewni, this vault wasn't guarded by a normal code, but by a little bit of magic to keep criminals out of  it. Boy, it was gonna be hard to open it silently wasn't it? But then again, if someone non-magic like JANNA could get in here...that meant there had to be a way for her to access it without just having Star join in and use her own magic to remove the spells. Luna found herself pulling out her want and using magic to examine the magic being used around the vault. Yeah, this wasn't gonna be solved with the flick of her wand, this vault was locked unless presented with a certain....smell? Because of course it was. The girl took another look around her surroundings, grabbing some items off the shelves and making some quick work for a basic mixture of....a stink bomb? She plugged her nose as she slowly grabbed the handle of the vault and before anything could happen she held out the stink bomb. The door swung open, the magic protecting it fading due to the familiarity of janna's character, magic was weird sometimes but boy wasn't it great when the craziest things worked. The bomb was poofed away as Luna made quick work of the vault. It didn't look like much at first glance, full of a ton of papers, and when she starting inside she almost found nothing of interest. Only to find... More...documents on...criminals? Peaking her interest, luna browsed through the files, some criminals she knew, some she didn't. But most if not all were convicted already and some were files of investigations on some criminals. Leave it to janna to be the one to keep tabs of the criminal side of mewni of all things, the problem was that none of these people seemed to be quite what luna was looking for. But then again if it were that simple sky's parents would've already known who their target was. And as expected, there was no one in this listing who was known for wearing a creepy mask, there were monster criminals who stole baby clothes, a mewman known for dressing up like a bird, there where even a few who attempted to use Yada Yada berries on some political figures but there didn't seem to be anyone to place this. Mostly because the dead giveaway was them being good at magic and every criminal listed was unable to do it according to their profiles. She found herself a tad disappointed, she'd gone a long way to not find anything out about their case. Just a few antics of Janna's and some criminals that weren't very important to know about at all. She grumbled to herself as she breezed through the profiles and closed them all one by one. She broke into a queen's office to search through her stuff, hoping to find out something she could use to further help her get home, and what did she get instead? Nothing, she had gone through all this and had nothing to show for it. Then she stopped and paused, none of these profiles had particularity given her anything remotely interesting to work with at all. However. What WAS interesting was among the files, there was one in particular that caught luna's eye. Eclipsa's. Taking pictures of any info she might need later, luna put everything back as she found it before opening Eclipsa's file and browsing through it. But her ears perked up, there was someone coming down the hall , their boots getting closer. Taking a picture real quick, luna moved fast, replacing the file perfectly and closing the vault, the seal for it returning as she checked her surroundings and dived behind the portrait, sealing herself into the tunnels and heading out before anything happened. It wasn't exactly what she was looking for, but it was something. - "Why didn't you tell me anything about this sky?". "Luna, it's 3 in the morning.....can't you wait to talk about any of this?", she rubbed her eyes, her bed was covered in tissues and stains from days of being mad and upset about judas, she was in no state to be woken up so early to talk about eclipsa, especially not with luna. The older girl's eyes glared at her, "No, it can't wait, seems to me your...our mom had a good reason for not being fond of letting eclipsa teach you anything, she wasn't doing it to be bossy...". "Look, i was 2 or 3 apparently if you're right about this, i don't remember squat about eclipsa accidentally almost getting me hurt with dark magic....ok? Like, if she did, i would've probably have said something by this point, ok?", her response didn't seem good enough for the blonde though. "You don't seem to get this, she has a criminal record, she almost ended up hurting the princess, your mom had her reasons for being so nervous around here....in this universe....she's not being mistreated just because of the globgor thing...". "Look, eclipsa's weird....but it was probably an accident, and ...I'm not hurt....", the dark haired girl yawned, "This really was not worth waking me up so early, you could've waited, i mean like...I've kinda done stupid things that almost hurt people too....". Luna grumbled, "Sky, we need suspects, don't you think eclipsa is at least a little bit suspicious? At all?". Sky shot the girl a dirty look and was almost considering pushing her off the bed for a second. "Luna look, i'm tired....i'm upset, i get you wanna find this guy but we need stronger evidence then that...eclipsa's just....not....a bad person. She made my mom upset yeah, but she still lives here with us, i mean it's still weird when she runs off to do things or creeps in the walls but that doesn't mean she's doing anything evil....like luna....let's just go to bed, we can talk about this stuff in the morning.". Her half-sister sighed, "Well, at least i've been doing something....can't say much for the rest of you...". "Uh...what?". "Forget it, We're talking tomorrow...er today, and bring judas...I need to speak to him as well, you both better be up and ready to speak to me...". Sky mumbled, remembering tomorrow...er....today.. was the day she and judas would see nora together for the first time, "Yeah....fine...". Luna nodded and left as soon as she came in, man she was such a stick in the mud, couldn't it wait till everyone was up and had the energy to talk about this kinda thing? Sky didn't even have time to really process much about what she was talking about. Though one thing was for certain, she was going to be speaking to judas again. Hopefully for the better. She turned over and fell back asleep. - Judas's arm was still....well it was still transformed and the boy couldn't help but feel frustrated, it'd be so easy if he could just will this thing away but that would only be so simple. And magic was never simple, especially spells like this. Nora was not perfect but someone who was trained in some kind of healing was better then nothing at this point, though he kept his shocker very close just in case he needed it. He was considering shocking his arm right now, thinking that would do something but maybe it was better to save for actual emergencies. He wasn't even sure if it wouldn't just make the thing angrier at this point. It did make it harder for him to sleep though, a giant tentacle arm stretched out next to him on his bed. His body just felt so heavy and it was hard to sleep with the fear his arm would attack him or something while he was out. Most people might think it's incredibly silly to be scared of your own arm attacking you but for judas it was a very real fear, though luckily his arm was rather docile as it usually was since it appeared. His parents  of course were upset but they were more then used to it. Judas really just wanted to talk to his brother, and even sky right now. Landon was still in the wrong but, he might've had a point. And Sky, well it might be unhealthy but judas didn't meant to make her opinions feel unimportant if he did. He just needed to work things out with them as soon as possible, the sooner they were all talking again the better. He sighed as he looked at the ceiling, counting the shadows that were bouncing among the walls and placing his normal hand on his chest. He tried closing his eyes again when he heard his bedroom door open, light coming through and a small demon with giant wings stood on the other side. Mason was staring at the floor, still sad, still anxious. "Mason? Hey...what are you-". Judas didn't have much time to react as his younger brother closed the door and ran up, hugging his older brother and wrapping his wings and arms around him. "Mason? hey.....is everything ok? Did you have a nightmare?", the boy was only 13 but he was still only a kid, he was still young and was prone to have scary thoughts. The boy nodded, "I had a nightmare and mom and dad are a little too far away and your room was the closest and...". His brother smiled, hugging him with his one normal arm, "Hey it's ok....you wanna keep me company? I'm having a hard time sleeping..". He nodded softly, "I dreamed you and landon were fighting and my plant attacked you and....", he seemed to still be wiping tears from his eyes. His older brother tried to sooth him, "Hey it's ok, it was just a bad dream, we all get them....me and landon are fine....". Well, as far as them both being alive and safe they were fine, as far as their relationship goes it seems there were things they needed to talk about between the two of them. Even mason seemed to know that. "He's mad at you....". "Landon snaps at everyone sometimes...". "Yeah but.....he's really upset with you, more then usual....", His wings stretched out then folded back against him, "I'm sorry....it was my fault, i shouldn't have been planting anything mom and dad said were too much to handle for my garden....now you guys are fighting and dinner is weird and....i'm sorry..". He sounded so small, so upset, and judas was reminded how young he kinda still was, how upset things like this always made him throughout his life. He tried patting his back with his one normal arm, sighing and trying to find the right words. "No mason, look, the seeds were a bad idea but....whatever is happening right now isn't because of you, i think landon's been waiting to say something like that for a long time. And i think he would've said it to me soon enough, even if your plant wasn't the cause.", his eyes were still to the ceiling and he tried to keep himself as calm as he could for his brother's sake. "It'll be ok mason, we'll talk it out and things will go back to normal.....landon just....he just needed some time alone...we all do sometimes. Don't worry about it, it's not your fault.", the smaller part demon seemed to understand and sighed against the pillow. "You think he's gonna ask his crush out soon?", the sudden shift of this question left judas slightly perplexed for a moment before he shook his head and got back in focus, "Wait, what?". "I'm supposed to be his matchmaker....remember?". Oh right, he DID do that didn't he? "Well, like i said mason, landon-". "Doesn't handle crushes like how i do....I know, it's just, i want to help and he keeps pushing me out...maybe i'm not as great as i thought i would be at helping him...", He rolled over onto his back, being mindful of his wings, "You like helping people judas....what should i do?". His small brown eyes matched the boy's three red ones, waiting for an answer as judas turned back to look up on the mattress, looking for a good answer. "Well, sometimes, some people....don't want your help, and maybe....maybe sometimes you do need to learn to give them space to figure things out on their own...", his bit his lips, "Sometimes that's the best way you can help them, by leaving them be..". "Is that what landon is doing? He's leaving you all be so he can help?". "Maybe....". Mason sat up, "I don't like you guys fighting, i like when our family hangs out all the time, and we get to play games and have fun and laugh. When mom and dad give us hugs and laugh and our grandparents are having a blast. But when you and landon get mad, i get upset....I feel like when you both get mad at each other you might never be friends again and i don't want you guys not to ever be friends again. I like hanging out with my brothers and stuff...". "We'll work things out mason, we always do....things will pass and we'll be hanging out with mom and dad and having the best day ever together, ok? We'll all be playing games together, laughing, and mom and dad will be so happy and we won't be fighting.", he went silent for a moment,  "I hate fighting with landon too mason, i know it's not weird for siblings to bicker sometimes i just wish me and landon didn't bicker so much....I don't...I never mean to hurt him.". "Do you think he knows that?", Mason laid himself back down on the bed yawning and sinking into the soft mattress. "I-I'm not sure mason...but i'm gonna make sure he knows anyway.", he could hear the faint sound of the ticking of a wall clock and he sighed, "We better get some sleep though, we all have things to do tomorrow and we both need to try and get some rest...". He reached over to give mason a hug, only to realize sometime during his talk, his arm had returned to normal. He looked over it and snorted, "Huh, well what do you know?", and mason smiled before yawning and making himself comfortable on the bed. "Thanks judas...". "It's ok, thanks for talking to me little bat...i needed that.."., he pulled the covers over both of them, "When we get up we can go get some pancakes from the kitchens together, sound good?". The demon smiled as his wings wrapped around him and both managed to drift off into a delightful sleep. Judas's mind was still conflicted and he had a lot to take care of within the next 24 hours, but at least talking to his younger brother did help him feel a bit better. Hopefully talking to the others would be easier, and this could be hist last night thinking about nothing more then apologizing to everyone the next day. Hopefully. - Unlucky for Luna it seemed, finding time to talk to Sky and Judas was harder then it seemed. Jackie seemed to have taken a liking to her and wanted to see her train more often, resulting in her spending more time in the gym then she wanted that morning, and between sky's class with angel and other actitivites finding time where she could speak to judas and sky in private was increasingly difficult. Especially since judas was caught up talking to his parents about his coronation. Sky didn't mind on the other hand, she wasn't entirely looking forward to meeting judas right away, even though she knew she needed to. Though was it weird she was starting to somewhat get along with Angel of all people? Well, she still kinda thought he sucked in a lot of ways, but for some reason, he seemed to think she was actually a capable person. Well, judas and eclipsa and a lot of people that knew her thought she was capable, but it felt weirder coming from the guy she beat up way too often for her liking. She was still keeping a close eye on him because she still didn't really trust he wouldn't pull something and go to another extreme to get what he wanted. But she supposed in a time where she was kinda doubting herself it still was kinda nice that weird dude thought she was more powerful despite them not liking each other. She almost waved to him as class dismissed, almost. Though she was a little more focused on eclipsa, luna's rambling wasn't entirely unjustified.  And to be honest sky had always kinda wondered why her mom was so antsy around eclipsa despite the fact they usually seemed on good terms, but then again if sky had been her mom in that situation maybe she would've freaked out too. She almost wanted to ask eclipsa but was that even appropriate to bring up? It was all kinda in the past anyway and eclipsa seemed more careful now. Then again... "Sky, darling? Class ended, do you have a question?". Oh yeah, sky WAS just kinda staring at eclipsa for no reason now wasn't she? "Oh uh.....not really, i just uh.....", Eclipsa smiled and leaned against one of her tables, "Any mother issues you wanna talk about? boy problems? Or is there anything else you want to tell me but think i might be worried about?". She rubbed her arm and diverted her head, "I mean, i dunno, maybe something like the first but also...not exactly?". Her strange expression was followed by the biting of her lips,"It's just uh....uh, how do YOU feel, about my mom?". "Me? Oh well, of course i adore your mother, she's a powerful and capable queen. I do think she sets out a lot of unfair expectations on you and maybe doesn't always do the best to help you out and make your life easier but i still think she's a good queen and a wonderful person.". Sky leaned against the wall of eclipsa's room, not entirely satisfied with her answer, "Do you think.....she likes you?". Eclipsa blinked at her, confused before going to surprised instead. "Likes me? Well, your mom tends to like everyone sky, is this because your mother wasn't sure about me being your new teacher? I'm sure she didn't mean to make it sound liked she hated me or anything...she just cares about your safety and what you learn....". But the more she looked at sky, the more her smile dropped, "Oh dear, you found out about the accident, didn't you?". Sky nodded, "I mean, yeah, but i don't know what happen or anything, i guess i was too young to remember..". "Sky...". "I don't think you were doing anything harmful, i'm just kinda....well it's just kinda weird..". Eclipsa sighed, "Well no, it was not intended to do anything to you, it was just....i was being trusted to take care of you for a moment, i tried to do some magic....things got outta hand....and you almost ended up hurt. Your mother hasn't trusted me the same since then, though she still lets me stay here and everything....". Sky nodded, "Yeah that.....that explains a lot...is that why you kinda don't seem to well...our balls and parties as well? Y'know?". "Something along those lines yes...sometimes things like relationships are just complicated, i think your mother was worried if she told you about the accident she'd be forcing you under her rule and well, your mother never liked so many of those.", she then grew a sad smile, "Does that help make you feel a little better?". The princess simply nodded and looked off to the side, "I guess it just feels better being trusted , to uh, know all these things or whatever..". "You're still worried about not being respected?". "Maybe....". Eclipsa's face became more sad and sky grumbled, "Look, it's not easy, it seems so easy to just tell someone they're great and they'll do great and they're overthinking things. When people don't like your ideas, or don't tell you everything, and you just feel so useless the whole time. Like i know you wanna help, and so does judas.....i guess it's just hard....when even you feel like you kinda suck most of the time and you're not the person people want you to be....". "Darling, you don't need anyone's approval but your own...". Sky didn't answer. "Now of course, we all need support to do what we want and feel confident in ourselves but at the end of the day you need to trust in yourself to do these things. Pushing yourself down never quite....ends well for most people.". She walked over to pat the girl on the shoulder, "I should've said something sooner about my carelessness, but we all sometimes have secrets and things we don't like to talk about. Don't take it as a sign i don't trust you sky....you're a wonderful girl, but even I have things I don't like to talk about and I don't want to trouble you with...but that's only because I care about you....". She bit her lip, "Wait....", heading over to another part of the room, she pulled out a book, "I mean, i was planning to give you this another time but maybe you'd enjoy seeing it now.". The book was quickly recognized as a photo album, and of who? Sky of course, who else would it have been? Sky looked a little stunned, especially since her and eclipsa had never been all that close to each other. How long did eclipsa take to make her a gift like this anyway? There was no way she would've gotten all these pictures unless it was from... Her moms. "You made me an photo album...?", she stood there in disbelief, "Wait......why did you make this for me at all?". Eclipsa almost seemed to cry for a moment, "Well, i may not technically be your grandma, but, i still consider you my grandchild. And well, what kinda grandma would i be if i didn't make you something nice? You're 15 sky, you're growing up and you deserve something nice for all the things you've gone through, it's nice watching you grow...". "Eclipsa....". "Sorry for making today rather emotional, but trust me when i say, you can do this...I mean, you can't do any worse then me.", she winked and it got sky to laugh, "You took me talking about all this way better then i thought you might've.....uh, sorry for dumping my weird emotional issues on you. Just....got a lot on my mind these days and there's so much pressure.". She made some weird hand movements as she spoke and eclipsa sighed, " Don't let anyone tear you down sky, be yourself....and you'll do great things..". "Thanks eclipsa....". "Anytime dear, you better get ready to head off, Oh and uh....skyler......before you go, is there....anything else you wish to talk to me about, anything else troubling you?", the woman looked at sky with a serious stare and Sky could've help but maybe shiver in her place, Sky was tempted to almost confess to her about everything happening but that was something that was not worth the risk. Instead she shook her head, and readjusted her outfit as her eyes wandered to the pages of the book. "No Eclipsa, sorry, that's it...thanks". - Sitting next to judas again felt weird, wondering who should speak first between them and wondering what the other one was thinking and so much else. Luna was in front of them, leaning against the wall in her bedroom, she was still in her knight gear, because as soon as she left she managed to get the two of them in a place where she could talk in private. Though the whole thing made sky feel like she was being scolded by her own mother of all people. Luna had the face of a disapproving mother. She wondered what Luna was like back home with an attitude like that, did all of her friends back home feel the same way she did? Were they as bad as her? Though she sure hoped whoever Luna hung out with didn't have to deal with this side of her as often as she and Judas seemed to have to. "So, you wanna tell me sky?". Ugh, she even SOUNDED like a mom. "How do you know?". "I hear things.....so, fess up...". "Look, i talked to eclipsa, it was just an accident, she didn't do anything to me...", sky said gently, "You're losing it luna, like i get it.....it's just, you need stronger evidence to go against eclipsa to do anything? I mean, did you even find anything else to be suspicious of?". Luna's face didn't change but her lack of an answer made judas smirk and sky sigh, "Ok, so maybe we haven't been of much help but we're looking out for strange stuff, it's just hard when we don't know what to find....". Then she tugged a little on her hair, "I guess i could contact Katrina? I just.....i don't know if i'd be wasting her time or if it's a good idea. I feel like if i have a chance to talk to her, i might not get another one so easily...and what if she doesn't know anything and i go there for no reason and-". Then she thought about what eclipsa told her, "Ok maybe i can just pick a day and go and speak to her, see if she knows anything, i guess it can't hurt to try.". "Yeah, might as well, uh....is it ok if i come with to see her as well?", sky looked over to the demon who was rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, "She's kinda always been like our weird older sister, and I want to see her again. Uh...but it's ok if you don't really want me to come.". He was doing that thing again, he probably got it from his parents, where he was so guilty that all confidence he'd have at times was completely drained from him, leaving him a little mopey and blank. Guess their kinda sorta fight was really getting to him too. Luna grumbled, "You know, this conversation isn't going to get any easier unless you two actually speak to each other. I don't know why you're both having such a hard time looking at each other in the face but i suggest working it out because I can't spend all night here trying to speak to both of you when your both won't even speak to each other.". The teens were silent for a moment, thinking about things and deciding what to say to each other, one of them needed to speak and get this over with. "Yeah, you can come.....", sky made a smile towards him and she could just feel luna giving them a glare, but she ignored it.  It was nice to see judas again, even as worried as she was to talk to him now that they were in the same room she felt a lot more comfortable. He didn't seem to be mad, and he looked just as happy to see her. "Thanks, i uh.....hey i uh...I'm sorry if i was being kinda pushy or rude last time, i didn't mean to hurt you or anything.". "No, you were kinda right, i might've overreacted a touch or something to...y'know...", she slightly looked over to luna remembering what judas told her, "But uh....i didn't mean to like....accuse you of not caring or anything, that was kinda rude....". They exchanged a smile and a laugh and luna sighed, getting their attention, "Listen, we have work to do, now that you both are looking at each other again, is there anything else you guys have even found out? Or have you decided there are more important things then finding this creep?". "We're royals, not crazy.....we can't do a ton from our angle.", judas stood up, "We can't exactly risk doing something if our parents find out, not to mention what if this guy overpowers us? It's like this luna, let's say we do find this guy? What then? Are we expected to fight him? Her? Them? What if they kidnap us, almost kill us? Maybe back home you have the authority to boss around people and have them do dangerous tasks for you but that's not the same here..". "Well what exactly are you doing to help?" Apparently the tone of her voice had hit a nerve for the demon prince, walking over to the princess and staring deep into her blue eyes with a serious glare. Luna wasn't the least bit scared of him of course but Sky could tell Judas was really getting sick of Luna's behavior around him and everyone else for that matter. Though at the same time he still seemed to be getting a hold of himself, his voice remaining calm despite how mad he seemed to be. "Listening to my parent's work on the matter, keeping the group updated, attending all meetings my family has so i can figure out what they know and where they suspect? Just because i don't have a ton to say doesn't mean i don't do anything luna. We're all busy people with our own lives, we want to help, we really do.  But we can't just fix everything so easily, find everything we want in the span of a day. Look, i'm sorry nothing's come up but did you really expect this to be fixed so easily?", luna glared at him before grumbling and tugging her hair. "Things don't get done unless you put in the work to do them.", she said, staring harder into his eyes. "They also don't get done right if you don't wait for what you need first before going for it, you can't bake bread without knowing the recipe...or otherwise it ends up a disaster.", he shot back at her, still somehow remaining calm. "Well sometimes if you wait too long people get hurt and things only get worse!". "And other times you end up doing something reckless and stupid and end up regretting it entirely!" Sky sighed, here they went again, arguing. "HEY!". Her yell got their attention fast. "Look, maybe me and judas could be doing more and maybe you are way too bossy about this whole stupid thing. But is this really helping? At all? Like you guys wanna be good rulers but you both kinda...have a hard time just..talking to each other.". Luna looked to her, then back to judas, "it's normal, just because we have a similar mindset does not mean i agree with him in every way. We disagree and i'm quite used to dealing with people like that back home thanks.". "Then let's agree to disagree thanks...", judas took a breath and nodded to sky, "Thanks for talking to us luna, about this whole thing, but me and sky have other things to get done today. We'll call you if we find anything, ok?". He gave her s skeptic look, he didn't seem to entirely trust her to do as he said and he probably had every reason not to trust her. Though then again he also might be slightly annoyed he got roped in here to talk about something that lead nowhere and then was being accused of not caring. Could go either way. Luna didn't answer, turning her head away and judas bit his lip and started heading out. Sky didn't really want to admit feeling kinda bad for luna, but even though she was kinda bossy and rude, she was also kinda desperate for answers to get back where she belonged. Geez, maybe luna and angel could go to therapy together, going to such extremes out of desperation and hurting the people around them in the process. Sky attempted to follow judas out as fast as possible but then luna called out to her. "Sky, i saw my mom...". So close, and yet so far. Sky stopped in her tracks and turned her head around to face the tall blonde, "Yeah, what about it?". "What can you.....tell me about her?". Sky turned completely around now, eyes glancing to the door where judas was waiting for her no doubt, "Uhhh....well, she's our head knight, she's usually not here most of the time cause she has missions, my moms love her a whole lot. I think she dated Jude's mom awhile back? I think she's still single? I mean, are you sure you even wanna know about any of this? I mean, you don't talk about your universe at all and well....it's dangerous to know too much about them since it might well....make you have a crisis, I've kinda maybe been there.". "I don't care about her love life sky, i want to know how she works. Is she assertive? How many people has she captured? Is she smart enough to discover i'm not just another mewman? She's taken a liking to me and i need to be careful around her-", she closed her eyes and folded her arms together, though sky was sure there was more to what she was saying. "Look, i'm not the kinda person who y'know, looks into people that much? I don't know luna, you're just gonna have to handle that yourself..". "But you know her here, you live here, you grew up knowing her. You need to give me more then that..". "Me and judas were young when we first met her, and like i said, she wasn't always around much. Sorry luna, handling her is just gonna have to be your problem because i really don't know all this kinda stuff. She's like, a great knight and does a lot of work but if you're going to fool her, you're gonna have to be creative , but then again, i dunno how many people on mewni would just assume you're her daughter from another alternate timeline.". There was a silence between them. "I should go, sorry it's just....i'm not exactly much of a strategist, just....don't get too involved with her or anything....keep your distance i guess. I mean, you don't suspect HER of doing anything right?", luna didn't say anything for a moment, "No, but....I don't entirely trust her either.". Sky gave a knowing glance, "Well, I guess let us know if you find anything interesting.....we'll...we'll see you later I guess....uh...sorry this meeting didn't go better?". "Just go, i have matters to attend to as well...". Sky gave her one last look as she headed out the door, luna pulling out her compact and sighing as she texted someone else she needed to have a talk with. Luna: "Celeste? My room, now - "Hey.....i'm glad we're uh....talking again, I was SO worried y'know and...", judas laughed it off, playing with his hair and smiling, "I know I shouldn't have been so worried, I guess with everything going on and my brother being mad at me I think my anxiety caught up with me.". Sky walked alongside him, she almost felt like a huge weight was lifted off her chest, "Yeah, I guess we just don't really fight all that often now that I think about it, things have just...gotten complicated.". "Well, yeah.....we're older then we were....we're growing up....we're not the young kids who'd do stupid stuff like we used to.", he seemed to be thinking back to fonder memories as he said that, "I'm sorry if me wanting to hang out with nora so much made you feel......weird. Maybe i'm just...putting too much of myself into nora these days....and it's just making things harder for everyone. I guess it's just....she's just so nice to me and I feel obliged to help in a way...". Sky snorted, followed by weak laughter, "You get it from your parents, trust me, they rub off on you a lot. My moms sometimes talk about how your folks feel inclined to do their best to help even in issues that don't involve them so there's no further conflict, i mean your mom loves being a hero and getting to do crazy adventures. Though maybe don't tell your family too much about nora cause knowing them they'll start setting you two up on dates more then anything...". "Yeah, when my mom started dating my dad, my grandfolks went ALL OUT to set them up on perfect dates together and that made things weird for awhile. Though after they got them to back off things worked out just fine, but yeah, better not say anything, they might get the wrong impression. ". He suddenly thought of something before looking to sky, "Hey? How are classes with angel going? Is he on his best behavior the whole time or do you think he's still up to something?". "He asked me to beat him up." Judas stopped walking and gave her a strange look. "Uh.....what?". "I told him I sucked at magic, he didn't buy it, and he said for me to use magic on him like we always did when we had our regular fights. And yes, he ASKED me to fight him, so....don't freak out too much I didn't attack him in an attempt to hurt him.". Judas's stare still remained though, his hands out in front of him, "Sky!!! I told you you can't just do stuff like that, imagine if he got really hurt and you got in serious trouble because of it! That wand? out of your hands and even out of ours until we figure out why it sent these girls here!". "SHHHH!", sky placed a finger to his mouth, "You're supposed to be the careful one here mr loud mouth, might not wanna talk about some of that stuff out loud.". Judas held a moment of embarrassment as he moved sky's hand away from his mouth, "Look, i get it, but he's fine....honestly i didn't even want to do it, he just sorta flinged a web at me and i sorta.....well, hit him with a narwhal on instinct. It's like, I do spells better when i'm not really thinking too hard about them...". "And angel...helped you huh? Hmm, i knew he always had some good in him....i just had no idea he uh...well he even wanted to help you. I always got the impression you two were almost impossible to stick in a room together without you fighting like kids....", sky gave him a look but sighed in response, "Well, don't get me wrong I still think he kinda sucks, but I at least think he sucks a little LESS for sorta, being weirdly supportive of me for whatever reason?". "He cares more then he lets on...". "I still kinda think he's using this class as a way to talk to my mom and convince her to help him though...". "And you kinda still have every reason to think that...", they resumed their walk, "Truth is, angel has not given you much of a reason to think otherwise. But that's because he's kinda stubborn and has no real reason to feel like he needs to change....then again, maybe we could...". Sky raised an eyebrow at him, "Judas, you know you can't help everyone right? I mean, no offence it's just that we already have a ton going on and if luna already found out we're talking to nora she'd be mad as is..". "Well, not, actually....it kinda involves nora....", he reached behind the back of his neck, "Sky? Did your moms ever tell you about where the land of the spiderbites came from exactly? How it got into their hands?". Sky shook her head and he nodded, "Well, when the first mewman settlers arrived, that land used to kinda be owned by angel's family, they were renowned spider creatures who well, lived in a forest full of spiders that they were considered to be friends and lived in peace with...". His voice sounded sad, his head turning away, "And when the mewmans took over, they saw his species as untrustworthy and dangerous foes, so they drove them back using the wand and took away all of that land, the forest. But when they found out it was infested with spiders, they refused to live in it or make it apart of the Butterfly kingdom. So they handed the land off to one of their allies, the man who helped lead the charge and took the land from the Arachfords.....Sir Cornelius. And as he loved the forest despite it's dangers, he renamed himself as the king of Spiderbites, and the land itself became his kingdom. A kingdom for a bunch of mewmans who live under the conditions of creatures who had been living in peace in that land for ages...". As sky thought about it, she did realize over the years how strange nora and angel's families were to each other. Angel's folks were polite of course and seemed to get along with the queen and slimy monster king, but angel seemed to have a weird relationship with nora. Nora either seemed guilty or afraid of him to some degree, and angel got tense and weird whenever he ended up running into her. Sky really hadn't questioned it much beforehand but if what judas said was true...it made sense. "You have to remember sky, mewmans were not native to this land, the monsters lived here first, you can't believe that kingdom full of mewmans outside of the butterflies had existed long before the first mewmans arrived, could you? Considering the spiderbites never minded monsters I'm surprised they hadn't tried to work things out sooner between the kingdoms but at the same time maybe the tension between them just makes it hard to make the first move and just speak to each other....", His tone was soft and his mind seemed to be wandering. "How.....did you find out all that?". "Demons live a long time, i have some relatives i could ask about the history of mewni, thought not all of it is very pleasant. I mean, your family nearly drove his species to near extinction and starvation where his kingdom ended up in ruins, but he also kinda has a beef with nora as well he doesn't entirely act on. I'm saying this, because i think if we want to help him, we might need to just, separate you and her from the mistakes of your ancestors...and maybe....nora...could help...with his mom..". "Uh...you're asking a lot of nora to cure your curse and his mother you know, it's....no offence, it's just it's already hard enough for her i don't know if putting a life on her shoulders is a good idea too .What if she can't be cured? Like i know it'd be amazing if she could be cured so easily, but if she can't?  You've seen his mom, like.....his dad's weirdly right, if anything were to happen.....he kinda needs to have support and friends or he might....get worse...", man, and now she was agreeing to HELPING him? When did she go soft? "Maybe but.....think about it, we resolve the tension between those families, and angel might change his mind about the things he's been doing.". "Maybe...". "We have priorities and other things to focus on, but i also think something is up with angel....and i think we're better off being his friend then his enemy right now. I'm still suspicious of him being found in the castle in the middle of the night and we can't entirely rule out his patience at your lessons as something else in case he is still up to something. Either way I think we need to finally put things to rest between him, which we were going to have to do eventually if we want to make the alliance work when we take over..", he turned to look at her straight in the face again, "We need Nora to help if she can...". His tone was serious and sky seemed to fully understand what he was talking about as they kept walking. When she really thought about it, maybe she and judas should question angel at some point on the masked character. Not that he'd probably tell her, he was brutally honest at times but that might be the one thing he'd probably want to keep his sharp toothed mouth closed about unless he wanted to get into even more serious trouble. "Well, we can work on it then, i guess...I mean, the dude already seems to sorta kinda like you? and maybe sorta kinda respect me? Maybe we can work off of it or something so we can get him to admit what's really going on with him and all of this...", judas snickered as she made hand motions as she spoke, "Yeah, i think maybe we can work something out later and figure out if something else is up with that prince, well, after we talk to nora of course.". They stopped in their tracks and sky grabbed judas's arm, "Speaking of nora, we better get a move on soon, we don't wanna keep her waiting..". The friends turned to each other and nodded, "Yeah, i think that's one thing we can both agree on right now." . They smiled and the fire engulfed them as they vanished from the hallway, unknowing to them that someone was watching from down the hallway, the figure moving off somewhere else as fast as they came.

[onemalevolentapocalypse]

CW The Flash ripped Smallville!

So I'm pretty sure that Smallville and The Flash are pretty much the same. To be honest The Flash ripped off Smallville ideas and here's why in my opinion.

Smallville TV series had a good long run from 2001-2011. Giving everyone an idea of Clark Kent (AKA Superman) Growing up in Smallville, Kansas. A tragic meteor shower event that traumatized/ turns ordinary people and giving them superpowers that either makes them good or evil, Going to High School, Teenage drama, Relationship Drama, Learning and Developing about his powers, A Circle of Trust with close Friends and Family members knowing about his “Powers” and true Identity. Tons of Iconic Comic Book Characters from the DC comics and put into a live cast adaptation within the show in a good and bad way. A few nods/references from old casts and from the comics, And then finally become the superhero that we all know.

The Flash (CW) 2014- continuing. Gives everyone the Idea of how an ordinary forensic scientist Barry Allan got his power and then become “The Flash”. Going to work and solving CSI cases, Adult drama, Relationship drama, A tragic Particle Excellorator explosion accident that either traumatized/ turns ordinary people and giving them superpowers making them good or evil. Learning and Developing about his powers, A Circle of Trust with close friends and family members. Tons of Iconic Comic Book Characters from DC comics get a live adaptation into the show either in a  good or bad way. and Becomes the iconic superhero we all know.

Okay, see the difference? Not Yet? Here are 20 reasons why CW The Flash ripped Smallville’s ideas.

1. Meteor Shower and  Particle Excellorator explosion.

2. Ordinary people turned good or evil from “Meteor Rocks” and “Dark Matter”

3. Circle of Trust from Close friends and family members from the “The Kents” and “The Wests”

4. Montages and personal episodes that help our main characters learn and develop their powers to help people.

5. They call people who have been affected by that tragic event “Meteor Freaks” and “Metahumans”

6. Close Family members that died that help gives our main heroes a good moral compass that reminds them to do it for them, “Johnathan Kent’s death” and “Nora Allan’s death”

7. Close friends and other characters betraying and redeeming themselves for our main heroes.

8. Tons of Time travel and multiverse travel that will either ruin or aid our main heroes. 

9. Tons of Hospital and Recovery scenes.

10. Our Heroes making regrettable decisions that will reflect upon their actions and “character development”. (I’ll give you a hint, It starts with Time-)

11. Iconic Villans from that will come and go from the series and continue to win/lose and our main heroes to deal with. “Lex Luthor or Zod” and “Reverse Flash or (whoever villain they want to scrub the bottom of the barrel for the shows appeal)” 

12. Lots of costume redesign for our main heroes.

13. Both Heroes had crossover run-ins with others but with different actors. Clark meeting “Bart” (Smallville’s Flash) and Barry accidentally traveling into another multiverse and meeting Supergirl and then meeting Superman in another season/ crossover event.

14. Supergirl and Green Arrows constant appearance in each other shows.

15. Little tiny references of The Justice League. 

16. Both keep accidentally or doing a crap job keeping their own powers and secret identity hidden.

17. Both have Iconic Music openings.

18. Tons of Adult and Teenage Drama that keeps the audience interested in the show that somehow works every time.

19. Both show’s supporting characters help the main heroes in drastic life-threatening events.

20. Both keep letting the “Bad Guys” get away and never can do nothing about it and even though they have “incredible speed” to end it all. ( Seriously every time!)

[eregyrn-falls]

I wonder how many of Ford's degrees are still usable after he got back from the portal 30 years later?

(Sorry to take a bit to get to this! It came in right before I was going on a trip, but I’m back home now.  I think this was related to this post that I’d reblogged last week, which I’d tagged “FORD WHAT IS YOUR DEGREE IN? ANY OF YOUR DEGREES?”)

But… YES, actually!  This is a good point!

I mean, it does depend a bit on whether you think that all of Ford’s ph.D.s are from Earth institutions; or whether he is counting doctorates earned elsewhere in the multiverse.

I can see him having gotten multiple ph.D.s before he went through the Portal.  As often noted, we don’t know what his undergrad major was, and we don’t know what he even got his first ph.D. in.  After that, he WAS kind of busy (from 1975-1981, when he met Bill) doing the work for which he received that grant… but this is Ford, so it’s quite possible that he simultaneously did the work to get at least a couple more ph.D.s during those years, while he was studying Gravity Falls’ anomalies and working on his Grand Unified Theory of Weirdness.

(Let’s leave aside for the moment that it usually does not work that way.  Ph.D. programs are not usually correspondence-courses, and you don’t just waltz in and hand in a bunch of papers and a dissertation and somebody gives you a degree.  *Handwave* ) 

Gravity Falls has many amazing things for a nowheresville lumber town in the middle of the mountains, but I sort of balk at the idea that it has a college, let alone a university.  Although… hmm.  What’s sort of interesting is… to go back for a moment to another post I made a short time ago, talking about how Gravity Falls may be located in the Cascade range in central Oregon, but it’s clearly modelled after the coastal redwoods area of northern California / southern Oregon… I would note that Confusion Hill is located only an hour and a half’s drive away from the College of the Redwoods, near Eureka.  They offer associate degrees rather than full bachelors degrees, and they don’t have any ph.D. program.  But, in principle, it shows that you could have an institute of higher learning in the general vicinity of a place like Gravity Falls. 

In fact, now that I look at the maps: if Gravity Falls is approximately where I think it should be, then it’s probably a less than 2 hour drive from either Bend, OR (which has Oregon State University-Cascades) or Eugene, OR (home of the University of Oregon).  So in good weather, it was quite possible for Ford to have commuted to a university campus.  Perhaps he got a couple of his ph.D.s that way.  

I’ve honestly always wondered (again with reference to that first post linked at the top) what the heck Ford’s first ph.D. was in, such that he got a grant to go “study anomalies”.  I mean, we all know that Ford was basically doing theoretical / practical engineering in high school (building the perpetual motion machine), and he mentions being excited that WCT has multi-dimensional paradigm theory studies.  So like… what is that?  He doesn’t seem to have gone on in engineering (although he did create those mind-control ties during that period, which is a big engineer-y).  So… theoretical physics?  Seems legit.  But then how do you turn that (and whatever the heck his doctoral dissertation was on) into a grant to “study anomalies” in the field?  Apart from all of the equations, his Journals mostly read like a combination of fieldwork ethnographies and field bio observations.

But assuming that first degree WAS in theoretical physics or something like it, I would like to think that he did then get ph.D.s in field biology, anthropology, and possibly folklore, at least to apply the methods of those disciplines to what he was encountering in Gravity Falls.  (U of Oregon has a well-respected folklore program, so I say that at least one of Ford’s ph.D.s is in that field, because I want to.)  Quick, somebody search JSTOR for an anthro doctorial dissertation on Plaid Coding Among the Flannel-Wearing Population of a Cascades Lumber Town…

However, all handwaving aside, for Ford to have gotten TWELVE ph.D.s, purely in terms of time and effort, I sort of have to believe that he got some of them in other dimensions during his travels through the Portal.

ANWAY.  To go back to your original observation – YEAH.  In some senses his degrees will still be “good”, and useable; it just depends on exactly what uses he wants to put them to.  No matter what he studied in the 70s, all disciplines on Earth have moved on since then. There have been new discoveries, refuting old information, and new methods would now be common.  Ford would need a refresher-course in ANY field he had gotten a degree in back in the day.

In some ways, I think this would come as sort of a shock to him; but in other ways, not?  I mean, after traveling the multiverse, he has to be used to the idea of new discoveries and the advancement of science. In a lot of ways, I think, he would have been more dismayed on his return if science and scholarship on Earth had not advanced at all?  Buuuut… Ford does exhibit some curmudgeonly reactions during the Journal, so he might indeed be a bit more dismayed than excited at first.

I personally would like to think, though, that he would soon become excited about catching up, once the pressures of Weirdmageddon and dealing with Bill were in the past.  I kind of bet that the Stan o’ War II is a bit loaded down with a ton of miscellaneous books that he’s constantly reading to catch up with the latest theories; that the McGucket laptop I feel sure Fiddleford has provided has bookmarks for JSTOR and subscriptions to all kinds of scholarly and scientific journals, and that in whatever bits of down-time he finds, he’s reading, or watching documentaries.  Working hard and having things to learn seem to be things that really get him going.

(I also wonder if Stan ever picks up some of those books.  Feigning disinterest, of course, or reading them just because he’s “bored and there’s nothing else to read except your nerd books”, but kind of getting into some of them himself.  I’m not sure whether Stan would truly get excited about that kind of learning – it may bring back too many bad memories of desperately trying to teach himself physics and so on, especially during those early years of trying to get the Portal working again. But he’s a smart guy, and a curious guy, and I think if he allowed himself to view it as pleasure-learning, he might find it interesting.  Even if he explains it out loud as reading it just to keep up with what Ford is always babbling about.)

[spideytorchbigbang]

Art Claims Big Bang 2017

Welcome to the artist claims for the Spideytorch Big Bang! We have eight fantastic fics up for claiming! A big round of applause to all of our authors – you’re all spectacular.

Please read the summaries carefully and when you’ve selected your top picks, send an e-mail to spideytorchbb@gmail.com with the e-mail address and tumblr username you signed up with along with your first, second, and third pick. When you’ve successfully claimed a fic, you’ll be put in contact with your author.

Claimed summaries will be crossed out, so keep an eye on this post. We may be opening for double claims this year once all fics have been claimed. Thank you!

JAILBREAK

Universe: AU [616-based] Rating: M Warnings: college rejection/dropouts, morally grey decisions, breaking and entering, involving a teenager in illegal things, dubious consent due to alcohol (not painted in a good light), manipulation, sexual regret, mentions of canon compliant character death, shady and illegal government organizations, prison Summary: When Johnny Storm is fourteen years old, Reed Richards and Ben Grimm move next door. Due to his sister's strange attraction to them, and his intense love for his sister, Johnny finds himself sucked further into their world, until one night Reed decides to steal a spaceship and bam -- along come the Fantastic Four. At first, the F4 are heroes, but they soon take a menacing turn, and it takes a chance run-in with Spider-Man, the new kid on the block, to remind Johnny that he can be a hero again. But when things take a turn for the worse, Johnny is left alone in a world of heroes, desperately fighting to find his family (and maybe even himself). Or: the Fantastic Four are well-meaning but evil, SHIELD is generally shady, Johnny kisses boys he shouldn't, Peter Parker has a hot girlfriend and a motorcycle, and Spider-Man is always in Johnny Storm's corner.

FAMILY

Universe: 616, but current canon is more of a suggestion than anything Rating: Mature Warnings: Kidfic (but not mpreg), Peter Parker's Poor Decision Making Skills, Tentacles, Implied Foggy Nelson/Matt Murdock/ Kirsten McDuffie , HEAVILY Implied Venom Symbiote/Flash Thompson Harry Osborn/Flash Thompson and Venom/Harry/Flash, child illness, Johnny Is Shirtless All The Time Because Reasons Summary:   Peter always thought he'd have more of a say over when he had a kid, that it would be something decided between him and his hypothetical lover some time down the line. But between his board of directors insinuating that the public doesn't trust a single and child-free CEO, and a rather insistent alien queen wanting him as some kind of stud male to save her people,  Peter's 'someday maybe' plan has ended up becoming 'no time like the present' when said alien queen gifts Peter with an egg. Inside? A baby made up of his and Johnny Storm's DNA, because name dropping Johnny Storm to get out of hot water was never a good idea. In the face of Johnny's depression over his still missing family, Peter decides that Johnny could never know the baby was his, too. Instead, Peter invites Johnny to live with him as the baby's nanny, because living with the guy you have over a decade and a half of repressed romantic feelings for and raising your daughter together under false pretenses is a plan that can't possibly back fire.

Good Job, Pete.

WOLF

Universe: MTV-Teen-Wolf-inspired AU Rating: Mature Warnings: secondary characters’ deaths including a police shooting scene, bullying incidents, scenes with Peter in chains, mild horror content (a wild werewolf chasing and threatening Peter), expletives (swearwords), animalistic characteristics of Peter in some scenes, shapeshifting into a werewolf, violent incidents, some scenes are heavily influenced by the Teen Wolf series Summary: When Peter gets dragged by Gwen into the Central Park in the middle of the night to look for a body he doesn’t expect to be bitten by a werewolf (it’s not like they exist, right?), but that’s exactly what happens. His life takes rapid turn, he’s lost his uncle, a crazed killer alpha werewolf is trying to get to him, and he can’t even control his own body. To make the matters worse the fate seems to like playing with him as it turns out that the only person who can calm him down is none other than Johnny Storm, a self-absorbed cheerleader who seems to embody everything that Peter hates. But maybe being a werewolf won't be as bad as Peter thought...

SPIDER

Universe: AU Rating: M Warnings: violence, drug addiction as a minor plot point (Harry Osborn), alcoholic parental figure/legal guardian, a lot of bruises and visible physical injuries on Peter, one usage of a homophobic slur, one usage of a racial slur, heavily implied child abuse (and child abuse is discussed), very minor Peter/Flash is sort of there technically, perceived relationship between an adult and a minor, keep your eyes wide open and you'll still probably miss it but it's definitely in there reference to canonical childhood sexual abuse, a brief Spanish language conversation that while is not google translate bad I also am not very strong at Spanish, and I think that about covers it Summary:  Possibly the worst part of being a superhero was dealing with villains such as the notorious and mysterious Spider. But Johnny has bigger problems to deal with. His girlfriend just left him for some twerp named Peter Parker. He meets the kid and he sort of gets the appeal. Oh god, no. Of course Parker has no clue what Johnny's talking about when Johnny calls him out for stealing his girlfriend. The Spider has nothing on this sort of terror. Or: AU where Peter Parker chose to be a super villain instead. Featuring Johnny not knowing jack about Les Mis, Snitch the teddy bear, the magic of criminal profiling, "Dorrie Evans? Isn't she gay?", and a completely made up super villain origin story.

Additional Information from the author: In this fic Johnny and Peter are both Latino. To be more specific Johnny is Mexican and Peter is Puerto Rican. I felt that was something an artist should be aware of going in.

MULTIVERSE

Universe: Main Universe: 616, Guest Universes: Fant4stic, World’s Greatest Heroes, an original universe or two Rating: T or M Warnings: A character dealing with intense grief over an AU character’s death Summary: Johnny’s been hopelessly in love with Peter almost as long as he’s known him, but he’s never told Peter how he feels. During his lengthy stint in a Negative Zone prison, he promised himself that he’d finally tell Peter the truth if he ever sees him again. He’s been back a few weeks, but he still hasn’t been able to work up the courage. When he and Peter step through the Inhuman Eldrac, a magic door, he and Peter are jointly sent on a trip through the multiverse, where they encounter version after version of themselves, all in different stages of their lives…all of whom are deeply in love. Could Eldrac possibly be trying to tell them something? Featuring mutual pining, angst, babies, weddings, old marrieds, a widower, and tons of Peter being his usual oblivious (and possessive) self.

MORNINGSTAR

Universe: AU Rating: E Warnings: Canon and fairy tale typical violence, references to self-immolation, brief sexual assault (a forced kiss) in an encounter with the villain. The explicit rating is due to consensual sex between Johnny and Peter. Peter is a giant talking spider for part of the fic. Summary: When Johnny makes a deal with the monster that lives in the woods -- himself for his sister’s happiness -- he doesn’t expect the giant spider to take him to a beautiful castle, or to reveal himself a cursed prince. There’s only one catch: he’s only a man in the darkest night, and Johnny can never see his face. Still, they grow closer, and Johnny is happy with their strange arrangement -- until a visit home ruins everything. Now he must travel east of the sun and west of the moon to reclaim Peter from the Goblin King. An East of the Sun, West of the Moon/Polar Bear King-inspired AU.

BARK

Universe: no clear universe, it’s a mashup (character-wise, I follow Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker pretty closely, but Johnny is also a bit of a mashup based on how I see him) Rating: Teen Warnings: canon-typical violence, kissing, injuries, brief nakedness (when Johnny gets turned back to human), Johnny is a literal dog for most of the fic, underage drinking (Johnny is nineteen), cursing (including at least three uses of the f-bomb), animal violence and abuse (dog fighting ring), non-consensual drugging (chloroforming Johnny while he’s in dog-form) Summary:  A witch turns Johnny into a yellow lab, effectively leaving him in the middle of New York City with four paws, no way to communicate, and oh yeah - a dog that can flame on isn’t exactly inconspicuous. All his instincts scream for him to run home, but to his confusion, his paws aren’t leading him to the Baxter Building. Aka Johnny Storm turns up at a run down apartment near Empire State University only to discover that the apartment belongs to one Peter Parker. Only problem is, Johnny doesn’t know that Peter is Spider-Man, and Peter doesn’t know that Johnny is a dog.

CIVILIAN

Universe: AU Rating: Teen Warnings: canon-typical violence, identity porn Summary:  Peter Parker meets and starts dating Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four, which is unusual, as Johnny is a super-human super-star and Peter is...not. Competing with an adoring public and the frustration of being stuck on the ground while Johnny is up in the sky makes Peter wonder if he fits in with Johnny's spectacular life. Then he gets a bite from a certain spider and becomes Spider-Man! Problem solved, right? The only issue: Johnny hates Spider-Man. Misunderstandings and hilarity ensue.

ALL CLAIMED for now, but watch this space...

[mostlysignssomeportents]

An interview with Cory Doctorow on beating death, post-scarcity, and everything

So, this is a sort of prequel to Down and Out. Is it also a sort of sequel to Makers, at least on the theme of the end of scarcity?

You know, that's an interesting question. I just finished reading a whole ton of essays that a group of academics wrote about Walkaway for the Perfect Timber blog, which is doing a symposium. A lot of them were like, "Well, this is a novel that's about 3D printing producing abundance." I was like, "Well actually I wrote that novel [Makers] 10 years ago." This novel is about coordination changing what abundance is—our ability to, in that kind of GitHub-ian way, make some stuff, and then have someone else make some stuff, and then someone else, and for all three of those things to be captured and combined.

If you think of abundance being a triangle, one side is what we want, one is what we can make, and one is how efficiently we can coordinate and use it. Makers was definitely about what we can make. But this is about using the things we already have—fully automated leisure communism, the ZipCar edition. We have high-quality physical objects, and we don't have to have a personal one because they're all circling in a probabilistic cloud that we can collapse down into "the car will always be there when we need it." That's a form of even better abundance than everyone having their own lawnmower in their garage because, if everyone had a lawnmower, they would also have to have some place to store it.

The question of what we want is the third piece of abundance that I addressed a little in Walkaway. But it's something that's come up a lot in our wider debate, because everyone keeps bringing up the old Keynes essay where everyone will have a three-day week by 2015 and that his grandchildren would lack for work because productivity has increased to the point where we can just fill all of our needs.

We kind of got there, but then we had this advertising innovation to produce more goods than we ever wanted. Even though we can produce enough goods for John Keynes to be happy, we can't produce enough for everyone to be happy in 2017—because we want so much more. And, of course, that's the other way to adjust what our view of abundance is—how much we want. And those three levers—three dials that we can turn—are what determine whether we feel like we're moving into an era of scarcity or abundance.

I think that's why Marie Kondo is so hot. A lot of people are coming to realize that there's a luxury in getting rid of all of your stuff. There's a real class dimension there, too, because one of the reasons to hold onto a bunch of things is because the opportunity cost of getting rid of it means you might not be able to afford to replace it later; whereas, the richer you are, the more you can afford to buy things as you go. Buying your clothes as you travel as the cheap way to not have to carry luggage with you is great unless you don't have enough money to buy more clothes.

The model you use for the walkaway community in your novel and the social behaviors that are exhibited remind me a lot of some of what we see in open-source software communities. You've clearly drawn from a lot of experience there.

Yeah, totally. I mean—I've been in the middle of these fights about things like free and open source software, and whether they're a meaningful category, whether open source is incompatible with free. I've been around people who fork and unfork and refork and merge, and I've kind of lived through multiple versions of that. And I've lived through watching people who open things up and then wished they could close them again, that felt like they made the wrong choice. So having a front-row seat to all that stuff was hugely influential in how I wrote the book.

There are also reflections of other cultures, or countercultures, in Walkaway—aspects that reflect Depression-era "hobo" culture. Walking away with almost nothing, the walkaways seemed like a futuristic version of what hobos were.

Well, in a sense that hobos were a response to vapor lock in the economy. There was stuff that needed doing and people who wanted to do it, and the economy couldn't figure out how to marry those two phenomena. Job one for an economy is to marry stuff with people who can do it. And certainly in the high-tech world, hobo culture has had an interesting overlap. Warchalking, for example, exists because Matt Jones wanted to adapt hobo-glyphs for people who wanted Wi-Fi. Then there was John Hodgeman and his hobo names. Hobo-ness seems to have been in the air through the era of tech.

Wi-Fi is a little parable about abundance. To go from networks as planned, explicitly connected things where literally someone has to go to a patch panel and connect a switch to light up a jack near the place where you're standing, and sometimes you even have to let somebody know what your TCP settings are, to like, "Oh, I'm in a place and there's radio energy, let me see if that radio energy will give me Internet"—that's sort of a death-of-scarcity parable.

How close do you think we are technologically to being able to sustain the kind of world where the sort of post-scarcity in Walkaway exists?

I think that out of the triangle of technology making, coordinating things, and changing what things we want, that the one that is really most advanced and most reliable is coordinating things. Changing what people want is hard. We treat marketing like it's super good at what it does, but the reality is that there's a massive survivor bias in marketing. Everything gets marketed [and] most things fail. We only notice the tiny number of things that succeed and the fact that a lot of them are materially like garbage. That leads us to conclude that marketing can sell anything, but marketing really sells nothing—it's a statistical rounding error.

Coordinating things, though, we're good at. McDonald's was successful because it's a supply chain management system with hamburgers in it. Wal-Mart, al-Qaeda, open-source and free software—all these are things where people are doing collaboration and coordination. Sometimes we do it in a very improvisational way. Compare what it was like, growing up, going out 30 years ago to hang out on a Friday night, versus now. Thirty years ago, you would have to find those people on Thursday, and look at what movies were playing, and figure out where you were going to meet on Friday night. Now, you just go to the center of town and send out a text to all your friends or put up a beacon on your social network and say, "Who's up for the movies?" And they all find you or you find them.

That's the sort of fluid improvisational thing that happens all the time now. And then there's collaboration across time and space without any intention—for example, when you need to do code a thing, and you find a library, and you integrate that into your thing, and that person doesn't know that you've done that and you don't know that they've done it.

Every person who ever did hypertext wanted to do back links, and they'd all given up on them as being too hard for version 1.0 and swore they would come back and do them later. And every time, they failed to do them later. You know, Google was started to create Backrub, which was just back links. And it turned out to be transcendentally hard. Xanadu... every one who wanted to make these explicit collaborative mechanisms found it to be transcendentally hard, and they dramatically underestimated how much we can do with inexplicit hooks for collaboration, without explicit semantic tagging, and without explicit APIs.

You think about all the sets of APIs, and how much has been done successfully just with REST—with all those sites that don't have APIs, but Google can figure out how to search them because they can tell they have something RESTful in their URL. Like in WordPress, you just add a question mark to the base URL and then "s=" and what you're looking for, and you get back search query results.

That phenomenon of unintentional inexplicit... "coordinated" is the wrong word, but a coordination without the two parties ever having to communicate or even knowing that they're coordinating... it's an amazing story. And it's amazing because it works so well that when it occasionally falls apart it's huge news and it makes us all step back and say, "Wait a second—how does the whole Internet work now?" You remember when Leftpad got yanked?

Yes.

And it was like, "Wait a second, what the F is Leftpad, and, like, how did it get embedded in all of these websites? And how much more of this stuff is there?" But you think about 10 seconds and you realize, of course! Because code reuse is good coding, because the way to improve code is to iterate it, and so anything you write as a first iteration will not be as good as something someone has re-factored four or five times. So rolling your own is often the worst possible option, and you know the whole Web is built on small pieces loosely joined in this way that we only discover when it stops working—because it works so well most of the time that we don't even noticed that we're doing it. We're just soaking in it.

Read the rest:

https://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2017/04/an-interview-with-cory-doctorow-on-beating-death-post-scarcity-and-everything/

[davidmann95]

Age old comic questions to ask: in the old debate regarding "which side of Superman is the real person whole other one is the fake identity", I consider Clark Kent the real person and Kal El/Superman his mask. What's your opinion?

In spite of being such a profoundly significant aspect of him - arguably THE significant aspect of him - I actually have two pretty irreconcilable answers to this one. In part it’s a matter of a multitude of fundamentally incompatible takes on him being presented over the years, and to narrow it down to a single vision in terms of legitimacy is impossible after 1940 or so. But if we’re being really honest, it also has to do with my mood at a given time, and my frustration with how he as a character is often treated.

The first answer, what I’d call the proper answer for a modern mainline take on him, is both of them are real. Or, depending on your standards, neither of them. He doesn’t just turn off who he is, or spend half his life pretending. When he’s slouching in a bad suit and pretending to be near-sighted he can still count and mentally sort by size every dust mite in his field of vision in a picosecond, he’s still listening into police band frequencies, he’s still fighting for truth and justice. He’s still being Superman. And when he’s wearing a leotard and holding up collapsing bridges, he’s thinking about hitting deadline and feeling bad about bumping into that one guy from accounting and remembering how to make the recipe he tried on a recent time-travel trip that he’s sure Lois would like. He’s still being Clark. And at the same time he can’t be angry or bold as Clark, or scared or awkward as Superman, same as you might have Work You and With Your Friends You and With Your Family You, and they’re all real but not whole. The ‘truest’ guy such as he is would probably think of himself as Clark, but that’s the guy who knows how to drive a tractor and has been tinkering with a one-man Multiversal transportation unit in the Fortress and is wondering if he’ll ever write another novel, not exactly fitting with either of the above. And you could count on your fingers all the people in the universe who interact with that side of him on anything like a regular basis. Ultimately, they’re both meaningful and valid expressions of who he is, Clark the part of him that feels awkward and alien but determined to do the right thing in spite of the limits even he possesses, and Superman the very nice godling raised by the Kents to help people because he can.

…but there’s another answer too. If you’re enforcing a more rigidly-defined take on the identity binary, if you’re focusing on one side as being a ‘truer’ expression of himself even if neither encompass all of it, if you’re picking between the Silver Age Superman or the Byrne Superman as a more valid expression since they both decide on one, or if I’m just particularly frustrated with DC’s treatment of him on a given day and feel they need to flip the script - if one way or another, you’re being forced to pick one. In that case, my answer is definitely, unquestionably that he has to be Superman who sometimes pretends to be Clark Kent, not the other way around.

I know that goes against 30 years of conventional wisdom - especially since Kill Bill/Quentin Tarantino’s argument to that effect left a sour taste in a lot of mouths - but like the old narrator says, he’s SUPERMAN, DISGUISED AS MILD-MANNERED REPORTER CLARK KENT. That’s how Siegel and Shuster made him, that’s how the majority of his most critically-acclaimed stories portray him, that’s how he was for 48 years until John Byrne kinda-sorta-maybe broke everything forever, and of all the things he changed for the worse, Clark as the unambiguously true character of the two might have been the most destructive. ‘Power levels’ can be adjusted, he can start fighting bigger and stranger or smaller and more intimate threats, Krypton and the presence or lack thereof of Ma & Pa Kent in the present can be retconned, but that’s a fundamental change to the innermost core foundation of who he is, and while it arguably led to the more well-rounded “they’re both real” take down the line - though I’d argue it was headed that way anyway and Byrne actually significantly delayed it - at the time, it absolutely, catastrophically cut the character out at the knees. I would sincerely say that DC accepting it as the True Canon take on the character has been one of the biggest reasons he’s struggled to regain a foothold in the public imagination.

For one thing, if Clark’s the ‘real’ guy, he’s probably not going to be that different from Superman. He has to be brave and charismatic and unwilling to let injustices go unaddressed no matter the cost, because those are all clearly fundamental aspects of who he is, and Superman has to be capable of all those things too. The problem of course being that that makes him a Superman who isn’t doing cool Superman stuff, and unless you really zero in on the office drama or reporter intrigue as equally relevant and exciting parts of the story - which most don’t - that makes a Clark who’s real ironically a distraction from the real event of him being Superman, a set of interstitial scenes to break up the robot-punching. And it takes away the drama of him having a secret identity if they’re both the same: of course he spends half of his life as the guy he truly is when he’s not being a superhero, for the same reason Peter Parker doesn’t just take an Avengers paycheck and spend all his time as Spider-Man. Him willingly spending his time acting klutzy and insecure when he’s actually Superman is a fascinating insight into his character. If nothing else, it hits on the primal motherlode of relatability that is “to be normal and accepted he has to pretend to be someone he’s not”; there’s no overstating what a long way that goes in making a borderline god someone who you can sincerely empathize with, and everyone on Earth can do that with that experience. Handsome Hero Reporter Clark Kent fighting crime on the other hand is an obvious thing that character does if he has superpowers, and nothing more. It cuts him down from having an interesting motivation for each identity to one for both, and undoes a lot of potential complexity in the process.

American Alien is the one story to come down entirely on the side of Clark Kent being the real one that I know of to really, powerfully work, and it rewrites a ton of how he functions to make that fit. In spite of some of what I said above still applying - the story is about how he becomes Clark Kent, superhero, his decision to put on the suit being an ancillary aspect of that, rather than him going down two parallel tracks that converge in interesting ways - it actually turns out well; it’s arguably the best Superman story since All-Star even if I’ve personally preferred a couple others, and in the isolated context of that story, it works incredibly well. As a Superman who’s meant above all else to address the specific themes and aspects of who he is that this story wants to go into, it goes perfectly: he’s a Clark who can still believably do Superman stuff, but because he’s really Clark that image ends up cracking, yet when the chips are down Clark is still tough enough in and of himself to get the job done. It’s absolutely a fair-game reimagining for the sake of what the creators are trying to do.

But just the same, while it fits for that one story and any possible sequels, I don’t think it fits with the broader portrayal of Superman as an icon, for a very important reason: one of the big things at the heart of his story is the idea that it’s our best selves that are our truest selves, at least in his eyes. Jor-El isn’t just the guy who failed to save Krypton, he’s the man who gave us Superman. Jimmy Olsen may be a dope who wanders into danger so often he needs a signal watch to summon the most powerful man on Earth to regularly save him, but he’s also a quick-witted crusading action reporter who’s decent enough that the best guy on Earth considers his best pal. Perry can be a dick boss, but he’s he’s a crusading journalist of integrity who wants to bring the best out of the people he works with, and because of that Clark looks up to him. Lex has done horrific damage, but Superman above all thinks of him in terms of the kernel of goodness inside him being squandered, and all the wonderful things he could do for the world. In Superman’s world it’s the best in us that’s the most essential part of who we are; he…screw it, Morrison put it better the way he always does:

“In the end, I saw Superman not as asuperhero or even a science fiction character, but as a story of Everyman.We’re all Superman in our own adventures. We have our own Fortresses ofSolitude we retreat to, with our own special collections of valued stuff, ourown super–pets, our own ‘Bottle Cities’ that we feel guilty for neglecting. Wehave our own peers and rivals and bizarre emotional or moral tangles to dealwith.

“I felt I’d really grasped theconcept when I saw him as Everyman, or rather as the dreamself of Everyman.That ‘S’ is the radiant emblem of divinity we reveal when we rip off our stuffyshirts, our social masks, our neuroses, our constructed selves, and become whowe truly are.”

The essential truth of his story is that inside every Clark Kent - the person our fears and vulnerabilities make all of us be, even him - when the time is right and you tear your shirt open there’s a Superman who will emerge as your highest, truest self to make things better. Not that behind every seemingly-magnificent Superman there’s the moments where he has to calm down and stop rocking the boat and go back to being scared, vulnerable, mild-mannered Clark Kent. You can rectify that by presenting Clark as a profoundly appealing figure in and of himself - Superman’s really just like you too! (though isn’t he just Spider-Man at that point?) - but like I said earlier, while Clark should be admirable, past a certain point that runs into some major problems of its own, and Lois is supposed to be the one to show how a normal person can be super anyway. Again, I think the best path forward is for both of them to be true. But if you’re making a decision, Clark may play his part…

[aion-rsa]

Upcoming Marvel Movies Release Dates: MCU Phase 4 Schedule, Cast, and Story Details

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

A bold new era for the Marvel Cinematic Universe began in 2021 on Disney+ with the wildly successful WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but Marvel Studios certainly hasn’t been resting on its laurels in terms of upcoming cinematic blockbusters. Not only does it have Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Eternals, Thor: Love and Thunder, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness all in various stages of production, there are also TV series on the way for the likes of Hawkeye, Ms. Marvel, Moon Knight and She-Hulk!

Oh, but there’s more. Marvel Studios just revealed a teaser reel celebrating everything they’ve built so far, with teases of NEW projects including a newly-named Captain Marvel 2 (The Marvels) and Black Panther 2: Wakanda Forever. Check it out, and try not to get chills while you watch it. We dare you.

There’s a LOT there, right? That’s why the rest of this article is going to help you sort it all out.

Well, if you’ve been a little confused by Marvel’s shifting dates and streaming priorities, never fear! We’ve got a comprehensive release calendar for you here detailing all the forthcoming MCU projects, so you’ll always be able to find the latest updates when you need them.

Let’s take a look at everything Marvel has in store over the next few years…

Loki

Release Date: June 11, 2021

Tom Hiddleston will reprise his most famous role, as Loki finds himself on a heist through time and space “as he steps out of his brother’s shadow” after the events of Avengers: Endgame! Oh, and based on this trailer, there’s all kinds of time-travelling weirdness awaiting, including the return of Heimdall, some other Asgardian hijinks, DB Cooper (yes!), Owen Wilson playing an obscure character based on a beloved Marvel Comics writer, and…Loki possibly running for President!

Tom Hiddleston stars, of course, and the cast also includes Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sophia Di Martino, Wunmi Mosaku, and Richard E. Grant. Michael Waldron is head writer.

Black Widow 

Release Date: In theaters and on Disney+ with Premier Access Friday, July 9, 2021

The Black Widow movie was heading for a May 1, 2020 release before the pandemic, but Disney and Marvel decided to delay it until the industry’s infrastructure was back to some semblance of normal. They seemed absolutely committed to keeping Natasha on a theatrical release rather than sending her to Disney+, but eventually semi-caved in March as it was confirmed that Black Widow would hit both streaming and theaters simultaneously in July.

Here’s the official synopsis:

“Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.”

Cate Shortland directed the film, and Scarlett Johansson stars, with Florence Pugh and David Harbour alongside her. One of the movie’s villains is Taskmaster, and we wrote a little bit more about him right here.

Natasha Romanoff will get a prequel movie of sorts here, as we catch up with Widow right around the events of Captain America: Civil War. Will the plot affect her character’s ultimate fate in Endgame? Do not count on it.

What If…?

Release Date: Summer 2021

The beloved comic book series that tells tales of how things might have turned out differently in the Marvel Universe is becoming an animated series on Disney+!

Here’s the official synopsis:

“What If…? flips the script on the MCU, reimagining famous events from the films in unexpected ways…Marvel Studios’ first animated series focuses on different heroes from the MCU, featuring a voice cast that includes a host of stars who reprise their roles.”

We know that at least a couple of these roles include Chadwick Boseman’s final performance as T’Challa as well as the return of Hayley Atwell as Agent Peggy Carter!

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Release Date: September 3, 2021

Simu Liu has been cast as the titular Shang-Chi and Tony Leung as The Mandarin (hey, that name sounds familiar! But this time, we’re getting the real Mandarin on screen). Destin Daniel Cretton is directing from a script by Dave Callaham. Given its “Ten Rings” title, Shang-Chi should be steeped in Marvel lore, going all the way back to the first Iron Man film!

Hopefully this will be Marvel’s most action-packed movie yet. The trailer sure makes us think so.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage

Release Date: September 17, 2021

Andy Serkis (Mowgli) steps behind the camera for Venom 2, which now boasts the catchy title of Venom: Let There Be Carnage. The first film, buoyed by a terrific showing at the Chinese box office, made an absolute ton of money, despite being released to mostly scathing reviews.

Venom: Let There be Carnage will follow up Sony’s 2018 Spider-Man-less spinoff film, but will likely be more connected to the MCU this time around, thanks to a renewed deal between the company and its Marvel Studios partners. Tom Hardy will return as Eddie Brock, of course, and as you can probably guess from that title, he’ll be facing off against Woody Harrelson’s villain, Cletus Kasady aka Carnage!

The Eternals 

Release Date: Nov. 5, 2021

Acclaimed Nomadland helmer (and Oscar winner!) Chloe Zhao is directing Marvel’s Eternals from a script by Matthew and Ryan Firpo. Marvel described the film as an “epic story, spanning thousands of years” that features “a group of immortal heroes forced out of the shadows to reunite against mankind’s oldest enemy, The Deviants.”

The cast features Richard Madden as Ikaris, Kumail Nanjiani as Kingo, Lauren Ridloff as Makkari, Brian Tyree Henry as Phastos, Salma Hayek as Ajak, Lia McHugh as Sprite, Don Lee as Gilgamesh, Angelina Jolie as Thena, Gemma Chan as Sersi, and Kit Harrington as Dane Whitman, the Black Knight.

This one was another victim of the release date shuffle, but we’ll finally get to see Jack Kirby‘s wildest creations soon enough!

Spider-Man: No Way Home

Release Date: Dec. 17, 2021

The next Spider-Man movie looks like a big one! Spider-Man: No Way Home will once again take place in the MCU since Marvel and Sony solved their differences, good sense prevailed, and Tom Holland’s Peter Parker will remain a vital part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

This one, well…this might be a live action Spider-Verse movie from the sound of it. Jamie Foxx will reprise his role as Electro from the maligned Amazing Spider-Man films and Alfred Molina will return from the Raimi era as Doctor Octopus.

Wait. Are they trying to make this a multiversal Sinister Six movie? Because…we could be down for that.

Hawkeye

Release Date: Late 2021

Jeremy Renner returns as Clint Barton to train his replacement as Hawkeye, Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop! Apparently based on the brilliant run of comics by Matt Fraction and David Aja, Hawkeye will also prominently feature Lucky the Pizza Dog, one of the great canines in Marvel Comics history.

The cast also includes Vera Farmiga as Eleanor Bishop, Fra Fee as Kazimerz Kazimierczak, Tony Dalton as Jack “Swordsman” Duquesne, Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, Alaqua Cox as Maya “Echo” Lopez, and Zahn McClarnon as Willie Lincoln. We wrote more about all these new characters here.

Ms. Marvel

Release Date: Late 2021

Ms. Marvel is finally coming to live action! Here’s the official synopsis for the series…

“Ms. Marvel introduces Kamala Khan—a 16-year-old Pakistani-American growing up in Jersey City. “A great student, an avid gamer and a voracious fan-fiction scribe, she has a special affinity for superheroes, particularly Captain Marvel. But Kamala struggles to fit in at home and at school—that is, until she gets super powers like the heroes she’s always looked up to. Life is easier with super powers, right?”

The cast includes Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel, Aramis Knight, Saagar Shaikh, Rish Shah, Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, Matt Lintz, Yasmeen Fletcher, Laith Naki, Azher Usman, Travina Springer, and Nimra Bucha. Episodes are directed by Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah, Meera Menon, and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.

This is going to be a big one, folks, because Kamala is going to be a significant player in Captain Marvel 2. How significant? The title of the movie is now The Marvels!

Morbius

Release Date: January 21, 2022

Spider-Man spinoff Morbius is Sony’s next big Marvel wild card, and it’ll officially be the first spinoff to properly connect to the MCU (even if Marvel Studios still isn’t officially acknowledging it in their own promotional materials the way they are with Spider-Man: No Way Home). Here’s the official synopsis for the film…

“Dangerously ill with a rare blood disorder, and determined to save others suffering his same fate, Dr. Morbius attempts a desperate gamble. What at first appears to be a radical success, a darkness inside him is unleashed and transforms this healer into a hunter.”

Safe House‘s Daniel Espinosa directs from a script by Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway. Jared Leto stars as the vampiric title character, and the cast also includes Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, Al Madrigal, and Tyrese Gibson.

Read more about the character of Michael Morbius here.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Release Date: March 25, 2022

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness looks like it will open up the storytelling possibilities in the MCU like never before. And that’s just based on the name alone. Scott Derrickson was scheduled to direct, but bowed out because of “creative differences” with Marvel. But the good news is that Marvel found a suitable replacement in none other than Sam Raimi, who of course has plenty of superhero experience thanks to his Spider-Man trilogy in the early 2000s!

This one has loads of connections to the wider MCU. Elizabeth Olsen will be here as Wanda Maximoff post-WandaVision, and the film will also connect to Spider-Man: No Way Home and its own multiversal ambitions. There are also a few rumors doing the rounds that Jericho Drumm aka Brother Voodoo could be introduced in this sequel. We’ll keep an eye on that and update this if there’s any substance to them.

Thor: Love and Thunder

Release Date: May 6, 2022

Taika Waititi, who gave us the delightful Thor: Ragnarok, will return to write and direct. Chris Hemsworth will be back. Natalie Portman is your new Thor (yes, you read that right, Jane Foster will wield the hammer…just as she did in the comics!). Christian Bale has also joined the cast as the terrifying Gorr the God Butcher. Not only that, this movie will finally put Olympians in the MCU with Russell Crowe as Zeus. Can Hercules be far behind?

Oh, and did we mention that the Guardians of the Galaxy will be along for the ride, too?

Black Panther 2: Wakanda Forever 

Release Date: July 8, 2022

Black Panther 2 is now called Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Marvel has made it official that after the tragic, untimely death of Chadwick Boseman they have no intention of recasting the role of T’Challa, which is absolutely the right move.

Ryan Coogler will return as director, but there are no other details currently available. Interestingly, Coogler is also bringing a Wakanda TV series to Disney+ at some point in the future, too, and something tells us this Wakanda-centric title for the sequel is a sign of things to come.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Sequel

Release Date: October 7, 2022

Is it technically an MCU movie? Nope. But with all the legal weirdness going on between Marvel and Sony, and this franchise’s very multiversal concept, who’s really to say that it ISN’T an MCU movie either, right? In any case, the sequel to the best Spider-Man movie of all time is coming in 2022 with Avatar: The Last Airbender mastermind Joaquim Dos Santos directing and David Callaham writing.

There’s also an “untitled Marvel movie” still technically scheduled for this date but…that is almost certainly not gonna happen now. Expect whatever that project was to move to one of these below dates or to some other currently unspecified date on the calendar.

Captain Marvel 2: The Marvels

Release Date: November 11, 2022

WandaVision writer Megan McDonnell has been tapped to write the screenplay for Captain Marvel 2, which now boasts the title of The Marvels. You know what else is really cool? Candyman‘s Nia DaCosta will direct!

We have no idea where we’ll find Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) in the sequel to her hugely successful first standalone MCU entry. Will she be fighting to loosen her former Kree pals’ iron grip on a pre-Avengers galaxy? Or will the follow up film see her fighting for justice in the present?

In any case, we know that she’ll be facing off with Zawe Ashton as a currently-unnamed antagonist, and WandaVision‘s Monica Lambeau (Teyonah Parris) will also return in her superpowered state after the events of that game-changing show. Considering that Monica was once known as “Captain Marvel” in the comics, that title of The Marvels becomes more appropriate. And even MORE appropriate when you realize that Kamala Khan, Ms. Marvel, will also be making her big screen debut.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Release date: Feb. 17, 2023

Peyton Reed will return to direct the third installment of the Ant-Man saga, perhaps the most unlikely trilogy in Marvel’s entire arsenal. Paul Rudd will return as Scott Lang, and you can certainly expect Evangeline Lilly to return as The Wasp and Michael Douglas as Hank Pym.

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The villain of the film? That will be Kang the Conqueror, who will be played by Lovecraft Country‘s Jonathan Majors. The inclusion of Kang opens up all kinds of interesting possibilities for the MCU, and may even tease the arrival of the Fantastic Four down the line! We wrote more about those possibilities right here.

We’re also going to need fast confirmation on Michael Pena’s return as Luis, though. Luis is key…

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 

Release date: May 5, 2023

After a tumultuous period which saw James Gunn fired and then rehired as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 director, he will become the first Marvel director to ever complete a trilogy for the studio. However, Gunn can’t even begin filming Guardians 3 until he finishes production on The Suicide Squad for DC, as well as an HBO Max Peacemaker prequel. Once those projects are finished, he’s free to return to the MCU.

Avengers: Endgame left the team in an interesting place. We broke down some of the story possibilities right here.

And then there are still some dates that Marvel has announced that they have yet to match projects to. Those dates are…

July 28, 2023

Nov. 3, 2023

Some of those dates could very well be good fits for the following films…

Fantastic Four

The MCU Fantastic Four movie is finally happening! Marvel’s first family will join the Marvel Cinematic Universe in a film directed by Jon Watts, who did such a wonderful job with the first two MCU Spider-Man movies. That’s all the information that’s out there at the moment, but as soon as we have more, we’ll update this. It also appears that WandaVision started to set up the Fantastic Four, so stay tuned. We have our own theories on why Marvel went with the Fantastic Four before the X-Men, but that’s another story.

Based on that sizzle reel we showed at the top of this article, Marvel seems to be hinting that Fantastic Four will be their next priority after Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. So is it possible that we’ll see it on July 28, 2023? That sure would be a great piece of summer blockbuster real estate to launch what might be the most important piece of the MCU going forward! Nov. 3 would be fine, but that one could be a better fit for…

Blade

Well this one was a surprise. In 2019, Marvel announced that they will be rebooting the Blade franchise with Mahershala Ali playing the titular daywalker. Ali’s True Detective co-star – and former Blade villain – Stephen Dorff is excited to see what he can do with the character, and so are we.

Could Marvel decide to drop this in that Nov. 3, 2023 release date? Maybe with some Halloween-season previews to hype it up? We don’t know, nor do we know how far along this one is.

And now we’re into the stuff that’s even further in the future.

Deadpool 3

Wendy Molyneux and Lizzie Molyneux-Loeglin will be the writing team tasked with bringing the Merc with a Mouth to the MCU. What a Deadpool 3 could look like in the interconnected Marvel Cinematic Universe is, of course, anybody’s guess, but if anyone can crack wise about the follies of this kind of corporate synergy, it’s Ryan Reynolds.

She-Hulk

Tatiana Maslany will play Jennifer Walters, a lawyer who ends up with her cousin Bruce’s gamma-irradiated blood. Hilarity certainly ensues. Kevin Feige has promised that since this will be a courtroom show, you never know who else from the MCU could show up.

It’s possible we’ll get She-Hulk on Disney+ in 2022, but nothing is confirmed at this stage.

Moon Knight

Oscar Isaac will play Marc Spector, a disturbed fortune hunter who also happens to be the avenging avatar of an Egyptian moon god. Oscar Isaac is already training hard for the role, so we wouldn’t be surprised if we see this one on Disney+ in 2022.

Ironheart

The first of two series that will explore the legacy of Iron Man and Tony Stark in the MCU, Ironheart stars Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams, a teenager at M.I.T. who creates her own suit of armor to right the wrongs of the world.

Armor Wars

Don Cheadle will reprise his role as Rhodey and will have the solo spotlight in the War Machine armor in a series that deals with a nightmare scenario for the MCU: what if Tony Stark’s Iron Man technology fell into the wrong hands and was getting duplicated by villains? Based on a classic comics run, Armor Wars promises big action and lots of obscure bad guys. We can’t wait.

Secret Invasion

Samuel L. Jackson will return as Nick Fury alongside Ben Mendelsohn as Talos for a series about the shape-shifting Skrull infiltration of Earth. Kingsley Ben-Adir is apparently playing the villain of the series. Olivia Colman, Emilia Clarke, and Killian Scott also star.

Secret Invasion could be the biggest thing to happen to the MCU since Endgame.

Wakanda

Very few details are available on this one at the moment, but Ryan Coogler will develop at least one Wakanda-set TV series for Disney+. Could this have anything to do with that Wakanda Forever title for Black Panther 2? We wrote more about some of the implications of this here.

We’ll keep updating this with new information as it becomes available!

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