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autumnblogs · 3 years

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Day 11: Melodrama

WIth Act 4 over, we’ve finished setting up the pins on the Earth Side of this story. We are now roughly one quarter of the way through the full story - and Homestuck is set up more or less in four acts, rather than in six acts as its “official” structure would suggest.

Time to start setting up the pins on the other disc.

https://homestuck.com/story/1942

But first, some more of Andrew’s prose to detail the fallout of the Sovereign Slayer’s activity. He’s been a busy man.

Also, Rose goes off the rails, but we knew that already.

This is the part of the story where Rose becomes an antagonist, in my opinion. More on that later. More after the break.

https://homestuck.com/story/1955

A letter from another version of Earth.

One of the very first things that we learn about Jake is that one of his all time favorite movies is Weekend at Bernie’s, an association that is part of a long list of red-herrings that link Jake up with Lord English, but of which nothing ultimately comes. It’s an association mostly because Bernie is a corpse who is also a puppet (like Doc Scratch, for example).

All that has already been pointed out by a lot of people before me, so moving on.

https://homestuck.com/story/1957

Just missed her.

https://homestuck.com/story/1993

Act 5 off to a great start, and while Karkat is in many ways a parallel to John (via their shared interests), right away, this action compares Karkat to Dave. Their reaction to being misnamed by the command prompt is pretty much identical.

https://homestuck.com/story/1994

Like I said, Karkat is pretty much immediately compared to John in terms of their shared interests, what with his Terrible Taste in Movies and his Amateur Coding.

One thing that stands out as endearing to me that I’ve probably not thought so much about before is Karkat’s practicing with his Sickle in his room. It reminds me of lightsaber wielding kids on early youtube.

https://homestuck.com/story/1995

So let’s break this and the next few pages down. Viewing the narration through the same James-Joycesque lens of “Narration is more or less identical with the characters’ thought processes,” that we have been so far, Karkat seems pretty ambivalent about existing as a troll, going as far as to describe his bad dreams as *terrible.*

Do all Trolls have dreams as bad as Karkat does? Is it a chucklevoodoos thing? Maybe it’s specifically a Karkat thing.

https://homestuck.com/story/1996

Karkat gets distracted instantly by intrusive thoughts and does something else that’s very Johnlike.

https://homestuck.com/story/1998

Aw c’mon. Early Sandler isn’t even that bad. Then again, it’s been a while since I’ve watched this one, maybe it’s worse than I remember it.

https://homestuck.com/story/1999

This section of the story is even more time-agnostic than the rest of the story, and a lot of it is told in past tense prospective action, which says to me that what we’re experiencing here is the various trolls on the meteor at the End of Act 4 collectively remembering what has taken place in the past, while the parts of this segment that are narrated in the present tense are being relayed to us via the characters in the narrative present (which is to say, the events which are being relayed to us in the panel.)

https://homestuck.com/story/2008

I wonder if Troll Will Smith is a Troll Scientologist?

https://homestuck.com/story/2010

I didn’t like the Trolls very much originally. They’re so ornery and pissy with each other all the time, with the exception of Gamzee and Tavros, but on a reread, especially keeping the things in mind that I’m keeping in mind, all of these characters are a lot more tolerable.

Using the cipher that we’ve established from reading the characters as basically attempting to perform what is culturally expected of them in the first four acts, we can immediately decode what is going on between Karkat and his friends - they are trying to be the best trolls they can be, or at least, live up to certain ideals/stereotypes the way that Dave tries to live up to the stereotype of the coolguy, or John emulates the mangrit and fatherliness and so on of his father figures.

But something is way *way* more wrong with Alternia’s role models than Earth’s.

That’s all from a Watsonian perspective. From a Doylist perspective, there are very explicit stereotypes each of these characters is designed around - commonplace annoying internet people from the ‘00s (pronounce that as Naughts).

https://homestuck.com/story/2012

There’s a lot of early installment weirdness in the first bits of Troll Stuff we get where it’s clear that Andrew was riffing and trying to find clear definitions for their relationships - it’s somewhat poorly known these days, I think, but Andrew has said in the past that he hates worldbuilding, and it kind of shows. (Did I mention that Kanaya Sollux friendship back when those two were interacting not long ago? That’s another one of those bits of early installment weirdness).

Anyway, the actual bit of early installment weirdness that I’m drawing attention to is the fact that the Subjugglators are described as being an Obscure Cult here, but later Homestuck Media (and even stuff within Homestuck, honestly) will make them out to be basically the only major aspect of being a Purple Blood.

https://homestuck.com/story/2013

Gamzee’s ignorance and his bliss are pretty much immediately linked to one another.

That said, I’m not going to dive too deep into Gamzee’s inner life. Like a lot of the trolls, in spite of his great relevance, he’s a bit of a joke character, and the joke is on us - whatever is going on inside this lad’s head is a puzzle for most of the comic.

Gamzee has a Freudian excuse in the form of his absent Lusus, which incidentally, is a parallel to Jade - the Nurture is the same, but the Nature is very differently. Unfortunately, when God was handing out Natures, he gave Gamzee one of the really bad ones, so he’s a worthless goddamn piece of shit.

https://homestuck.com/story/2024

Already into the first few troll conversations, and we’re setting up some stuff for later. Gamzee and Terezi’s very first conversation demonstrates the terrible chemistry that the two have together - Gamzee legitimately unsettles Terezi, and there’s just nothing at all she can do to bother him.

https://homestuck.com/story/2025

Sollux is probably so handy with this coding language because of his ability to hear the voices of the imminently deceased - so he can write programs that will execute along a pretty reasonable time frame.

https://homestuck.com/story/2027

Leader is a phrase that ends up being used in conjunction with Karkat a lot, and the concept of leadership is another one of those things that Homestuck Talks About but not a thing that Homestuck Is About, at least in the sense that leadership as a role is part of the comic’s broader commentary on cultural reproduction, the same way that Homestuck’s conversation about gender is, or Homestuck’s conversation about Roles in general.

What do you want to be when you grow up? Karkat wants to be a leader.

As long as Sollux is making his first appearance as a character, I want to take a second to say that as a character, he’s always been pretty tough and enigmatic for me to write, especially in the sense that he‘s frequently referred to melodramatic and sensitive or similar terms by people around him, but he actually doesn’t really seem that way in most cases - he just seems like a guy who wants to his own devices, and is generally pretty non-reactive to other peoples’ bullshit. Maybe he’s melodramatic in the way that Dave is, hyping himself up as a coolguy who is the best there is, but then again, Sollux kind of lives up to his own hype, considering that up until the last possible moment, he wins pretty much every fight he’s in handily, adapts Sburb personally, and has more romantic success than just about everyone else in the comic.

Maybe Karkat’s just projecting.

https://homestuck.com/story/2031

Roleplaying - a concept that I’ve used frequently to refer to the way that John and his chums perform rituals in order to relate to their culture and parents - is made explicit through the language of Flarping, which for the Trolls, serves as a way for them to literally act out the adventures of their long-dead ancestors, although it strikes me that it’s probably a lot more gainful for highbloods like Terezi and Vriska than it is in general for lowbloods like Aradia and Tavros.

I’ll get this out of the way up front instead of commenting it on a drip feed throughout Terezi’s upcoming courtblock roleplay - Terezi is the kind of kid who aspires to be a Cop. Or a lawyer, anyway, which in Alternian Law, is the same thing as a cop. In the wake of 2020′s scads of police brutality, and in general, having grown up into a nasty commie, it’s kind of hard to look at Terezi the same way.

While it’s clear that Terezi is remorseful later on toward her earlier attitudes and behaviors, Terezi is at least ambivalent, and at worst a purely antagonistic force throughout a lot of early Homestuck because of her authoritarian tendencies and her honestly pretty psychopathic behavior. She plays games with her friends’ lives.

https://homestuck.com/story/2047

Terezi adores having power over other people and making them helpless. For Terezi, alienation takes the form of emotional distance from the people that she’s tormenting. It makes it so much easier for her to conceive of them as wicked people who need to die.

https://homestuck.com/story/2055

Nepeta is an adorable girl who deserves all the good things. All of them.

That said, as long as we’re commentating and not glurging, Nepeta’s internet troll stereotype is probably less familiar these days, and I say probably less, but I can’t say for sure - it’s like this really specific thing that existed during the late ‘00s, where you had this highly specific stereotype, which I’ll call the Furry Artist Roleplayer, and I really hope that I’m not talking out of my ass by generalizing anecodtal evidence, but I know people who were pretty much exactly the Nepeta stereotype around the time that Act 5 was being written! Roleplaying in IRCs or on specialty forums with other people, all drawing art of their anthro OCs and writing stories about each other’s characters. That sort of thing still probably exists these days, but if it does, I’m not really part of any communities anymore where it leaks into the mainstream.

https://homestuck.com/story/2058

Okay, yup, Karkat is 100% projecting “Melodrama” on all the people around him. In a literal sense, Melodrama refers to theatrics that are exaggerated and sensationalized in such a way as to appeal to the emotions, often prioritizing spectacle and physical action over deep characterization.

Actually, if we’re taking it in the literal sense of the word, just about every character in Homestuck is pretty melodramatic - I keep talking about the way that they roleplay rituals and associate with symbols even when they fail to structures of power and culture that those rituals and symbols point to - performative participation without any actual substance. That’s practically the definition of Melodrama.

But Karkat is, perhaps, the most Melodramatic of all.

https://homestuck.com/story/2065

Aradia is one of my favorite characters in Homestuck, and possibly my favorite, something I can be up front about.

Our introduction to her is brief, and right out of the gate one thing about her is apparent - her relationship with destruction is central to her characterization.

https://homestuck.com/story/2069

While I was going to wait for the Hemospectrum to come up explicitly, now’s as good a time as any to talk about the fact that Andrew uses Troll society to comment on hierarchy a lot - hierarchy of just all kinds. Ageism is one of those, and Gerontocracy in particular in Alternia. In Alternia, just one of the ways that the oppression of the Hemospectrum manifests is the way that the Empire systematically takes advantage of its children by basically leaving them completely to their own devices. Trolls don’t have family units normally, but the fact that Troll adults are all offworld is not a “natural” part of Troll Society, it’s a decision. And while it’s a decision made by the Empress, it’s still one that, to some extent, benefits adult trolls at the expense of the children, since they’re not around spending energy on raising kids who are expected to raise themselves from the word go.

It’s honestly pretty late, and I’m tuckered out because of the steroids that I’m on, and the cough medicine, so in spite of the comparatively pretty short amount of reading I’ve done tonight, I’m going to call it here.

Cam signing off, Alive and a little High.

#liveblogging #commentary #nurture #nature #trolls

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onepdumpsterfire · 4 years

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Disclaimer: These stories are based ‘loosely’ on the game Obey me shall we date. The major stuff will be the same, but here and there the story will be changed or embellished. It is just an AU and I do not own the game the characters, from both One Piece or Obey Me, nor do I own One Piece in general. It would be cool though…

Warning: The characters will mostly be ooc and for the most part will not have the same background as in the anime/manga. The reader’s age will be above consent; the exact number is up to you.

Greed’s Pact

Devildom!AU

(pt2/?)

Various Characters X Reader

The room you’re shoved into is dark, littered with papers and books on every surface available. Most of them are medical books, others are novels and comic books. The ones that caught your eye were a series of books on a bookshelf on the wall opposite the door. They were the main attraction. The first thing anyone would see when coming in. “I see you’ve noticed my collection.” As if he hadn’t put them front and center on purpose. It seems like he’d take any opportunity to talk about them. “It’s a not so well known series.” walking up to them, he takes one off the shelf. “They’re about pirates. They are on a great journey across the sea to get a treasure. The One Piece, hence the name.” He turns the book so you can see the cover. In big bold letters, it says ‘One Piece: A Great Tale Lost To Time’. “As much as I’d like to talk about them, these aren’t why I brought you here.”

“I’m Trafalgar Law, most call me Law.” He puts the book back in its place, his back to you. “Call me Trafalgar. I’m the avatar of envy.” Law spins around, now facing you, “You’re gonna do something for me.” He leaves no room for protests. It’s a demand. Law won’t take no for an answer. “You’re gonna make a pact with Kid and get my money back.” A pact? Law noted the uncertainty on your face. “You really don’t know anything, huh?” He sighs, annoyed by your ignorance. “A pact is when a human and a demon have an agreeance. The human gives the demon something they want, and the demon lends the human their power.” Law walks over to his large wooden desk, it’s array with papers stacked up high and a half-open laptop in the center. Sitting on his chair, he swivels it around to look at you. “You may not have any power, but at the very least once you have his pact you can order him to give me back my money. And some extra for some books he ruined a while back.” It feels uncomfortable under his stare. You feel unprotected like if you made any move he’d jump up and kill you. “I know how you could get his favor.” Law motions for you to come closer, and with shaky legs you oblige. Stopping a foot away from him, Law continues. “Sabo took his credit card awhile ago. Get that and you’ll have him in the palm of your hand.” He grabs your arm, yanking you down to his eye level. “You’ll have to find it and make the pact. You will not refuse me, Y/n.” His tone is dark and menacing, it makes shivers travel down your spine. It’s the first time he’s said your name since he dragged you in here. He must have heard it from Sabo. “I’ll skin you alive and blend you into a soup if you do.” There’s no doubt in your mind he’d do just that if you refused to do as he said. Hesitantly, you nod your head in agreement, but he won’t let go of your arm. His grasp on you is firm, he’s waiting for you to say your acceptance. “O-okay.” You wince in his tight clasp. “Okay, what?”

“Okay, Tra-Trafulgar.” Law rolls his eyes at your mispronunciation. “Close enough. Now get out.”

The next day at school you are being harassed by two demons who were passing by. “Let’s just eat her.” The first demon said to the other. “No, we can’t. Sabo would throw a fit if we did.” Looking left and right you look for an escape but to no avail, they have you cornered. “I’m sure we could take a bite and he wouldn’t mind.” Suddenly, they are both thrown against the wall. A red-headed woman walks up to them. She’s emanating power. You couldn’t see it per se, but you could feel it. “Shouldn’t you guys be in class.” She raises her hand at them, a ball of light in her palm. You may not know what it is, but its intensity radiates all throughout the room. “Now go!” Both daemons scramble to get up, tripping over each other as they run away from where you two were. “I was looking for you,” The woman says putting her hand down. The immense power you felt before, dissipates. “I saw you drop your phone so I came to give it back.” She hands you the small device. “Weird that we get reception here, isn’t it?” She smiles wide at you, happy to be in your presence. That’s a first. Since you’ve got here all the demons seem to hate your guts. “My name’s Nami. I’m human like you.” That makes more sense.

“How did you do that?” you ask, dumbfounded by what she’s done. “I’m also a witch. Some humans have the power to summon inner magic that most of us have.” Nami scans your body up and down, having a thought to herself. “You don’t seem to have any. I’m surprised they let you down here. It’s dangerous.” You feel scrutinized, but this is something you already knew. The other demons have reminded you of this fact since you got here. “I went ahead and put my number in. Give me a call if you need anything.” Nami gives you a wink before heading out. “You should get to class, Sabo roams the halls to see if anyone is skipping.”

“Hey, you!” What now? You turn to face Sabo, instantly pulling a face. How you wish you could disintegrate right now. “Y/n, what are you doing out here? You should be in class.” He’s in front of you now. Looking down at you, his eyes look judgmental. “Well, since it’s your first day I suppose it’s okay,” calling over his shoulder he begins to lead you to where your class should be. It’s now or never, you should find out where the card is. “…Hey….Sabo.” He keeps looking straight ahead, not slowing his pace for you. “Where do the students keep their valuables?” He hums, thinking. “I suppose their room. In yours, there’s a desk with a drawer that has a lock. I suppose you can use that.”

“What about you guys?” Abruptly, Sabo stops. “Us? Why? Did one of them pique your interest.” Scrambling for any other excuse you think that it’d be easier to take the one he gave you. Swallowing your own pride, you relent. “Y-yes. Kid. He seems like a uh…real character.” Sabo knows what you’re doing, but he won’t let you see that. Do as you please, Kid wouldn’t be so hot-headed to make a pact with you. Sabo keeps walking, a slower pace than before. Prolonging the way to your class. “What Kid finds most valuable is money. He’s always spending it on gadgets and trinkets. Even scrap for his own projects.” Kid makes things? That must be what he meant when he ran off to finish a project the first time you met Law. “Though I have to put a limit on him. Every now and then I have to freeze his spending.” He stops in front of a door, “we’re here. Have a good day, Y/n. Don’t be late again.”

Back in the house of lamentation, you told Law about what Sabo had said. Now you two stood in the kitchen. When Sabo said he had to freeze Kid’s spendings, Law took it seriously. He made you dig through the freezer in search of Kid’s card. “This is ridiculous, why would he have put it in he-” Pulling out, you hold a block of ice in your hand. in the center of it sat a frozen stiff credit card. “You’re joking.” Law snatched it from you, which is fine. The ice was starting to burn your hand anyway. “This is one place Kid would never look for it.” Smirking, Law begins to break off chunks of ice. “Let’s wait until it melts, if we chip away at it we risk ruining it.” Rolling his eyes at you, Law continues what he’s doing. “I know, but less ice means less waiting.” He turns to you, “why don’t you do something useful? Like calling Kid over here.” What bug crawled up his ass and died? You leave the room in search of the red-head. Where to look first… You settled on starting from the first floor and making your way up. Hopefully, you’ll run into him somewhere in between.

Finishing the first floor you move on to the second. Up here is mostly the rooms of the demons. You start off in Kid’s room he’s more than likely to be there. You’ve tried knocking over and over again, but he refuses to come out. He only shouts at you to leave him the hell alone, he’s busy. Deciding to take another approach to it, you pull out your phone. Sabo had put their numbers in your phone in case you needed them. You didn’t think you would need to use them considering the brothers avoided you like the plague. Yet here you were, calling Kid. He didn’t pick up the few first times, but finally on the fourth try, “What is it?!”

“Don’t yell. I have something you want.” It was best to be quick about this. He might hang up on you if you weren’t. “What do you mean?” There was a rustling from the other end. “Your credit card.” The door slammed open, there was no need to keep him on the line anymore. He’d oh so graciously granted you his presence. Note the sarcasm. “What’d you say?” Hanging up your phone you put it away. “Traful… Truffle… Law has it in the kitchen.” Kid didn’t even give you time to finish, already running towards the kitchen.

There was arguing. A clatter of pots as they fell to the floor. Law and Kid were screaming at each other. Then Law spotted you, throwing the half-frozen card your way. “She has it and will give it to you. In one condition.” Law made his way to you, making you stand behind him. “Go on.” He may be ‘protecting’ you right now, but it’s all for the card. Taking a breath in, you bargained with Kid. “Y-yes, I have it. And if you want it, make a pact with me.” Kid is pissed at the both of you. Fumes practically coming out of his ears. “Is that what this is about? I could crush you and take it.”

“You can’t,” Law interjected, “Sabo would punish you if you did anything to mess with the exchange program.” His anger burning into furry, Kid could only hold his tongue against you. He can’t take it, Law will start a fight. It’ll create much more destruction than if it was just you and him. “Fine, now hand it over.” Law lets you step in front of him, handing the card over. You now have his pact and can make him do as you want. “Now do as I told you, Y/n.”

“Why should I? You said it yourself, Sabo would be pissed and from what I’m hearing he’s the boss around here.” Law pushes you against a counter. Letting out a whimper, your eyes are trained on him. The corner digs into your skin as he pushes you harder into it, making you submit. Kid only watched from the sidelines, still fuming. “Don’t presume to think that you are worth more than you are. If you died, I’d be in trouble because Sabo is a devoted and prideful man. He wouldn’t care if you died. The punishment will pass.” He pulls you back off the counter, “so what’s it gonna be? Are you gonna keep defying me?” Shaking your head, you turn to Kid. It’d be better if you listened to him and NEVER did that again. “G-give Law his money back, a-and repay him for the books you damaged. That’s an order.”

“That’s what you want, really? Fine, whatever!”

#one piece #one piece imagines #one piece sabo #one piece law #one piece kid #eustass kid #trafalgar d. water law #trafalgar law #eustass captain kid #one piece nami #cat burglar nami #devildom #obey me #obey me shall we date

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thebibliomancer · 4 years

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #207: Beyond a Shadow...

May, 1981

“After countless centuries HE LIVES AGAIN! THE SHADOW LORD COMETH!”

He cometh riding upon a tornado like its a mighty sand worm. What a guy, this Shadow Lord.

Honestly seeing the Avengers tumbling about in a tornado cracks me up every time. Especially Wonder Man who looks nonchalant about it aside from being ass over head.

So I don’t think we’ve really talked about it but this period of Avengers is kind of between main writers.

Since issue 200 and its four writers, we’ve had David Michelinie and Roger Stern on the two-part adaptation of that Ultron novel, David Michelinie for that weird story with the Crawlers in the sewers; Jim Shooter, David Michelinie, and Bob Budiansky for the Yellow Claw two-parter, Bill Mantlo for the everything is on fire story and now Bob Budiansky and Danny Fingeroth for this issue and the next. We start getting a consistent writer again starting in #211.

I wonder what was going on behind the scenes around this time.

Anyway, onward.

So we start the issue with who I assume is the Shadow Lord. But he’s not riding a tornado, like Pecos Bill. He’s standing on an invisible ocean structure of some kind. Apparently a mysterious invisible ocean structure of some kind that hasn’t been seen for almost two millennia.

And yet, someone has kindly painted the title of the issue in English on the mysterious invisible ocean structure of some kind.

Some guy, maybe the Shadow Lord: “The dreaded time has at last arrived, the moment I prayed would never come... the moment I knew would surely come. He is soon to return, and only the power entrusted to me is capable of stopping him. And even that power may not prove sufficient.”

“With every passing second, my city and myself pass ever more fully into the Earth’s plane of existence. Would that the cause of my return here from the barren vastnesses of the Shadow World was as joyous as the glow of this new day’s sun.”

“But the grim responsibility of an entire race is my unwelcome inheritance. It is a duty I cannot shirk. Alas, I must take what comfort I can in knowing that no matter what the result of the coming debacle, I will at least be free to rejoin Ayshera, she whom my heart holds most dear... though whether our reunion will be in celebration of victory -- or in darkest mourning for the ashes of this planet -- none willy truly know until the final battle.”

Some Guy sure is helpfully monologuing his entire life story here. And even so he manages to be vague, inside his own mind, about the nature of the threat he faces. Way to preserve the mystery, Guy.

Also, he’s from the Shadow World so he may be a Yugioh.

Anyway, as one might expect, a city appearing in the middle of the ocean out of nowhere is of alarm so US aircraft carrier Poseidon shows up and starts yelling at Some Guy.

Some Guy decides that they sound mad but he doesn’t have time for lengthy explanations so instead he gestures and the winds and waves start whipping up.

Welp! Seems like the US Poseidon is going on an Adventure!

Meanwhile, Mt. Vesuvius!

Yup. Its that kind of story, the kind partially set at Vesuvius.

Some archeologists are digging in the foothills of the mountain in what has been a fruitless several weeks of archeology but one of the archeologists finds a hand shaped object which may be a hand.

They mistake it for a statue at first but realize its actually a perfectly preserved lava mummified corpse.

And while they’re busy congratulating each other about how wealthy and famous this discovery will make them, they fail to notice the hand moving its finger shaped fingers.

And elsewhere again, the best damn thing.

A cowboy shouts “SLAP LEATHER, YA GALOOT!” and then gets shot by a cannon.

This isn’t the Wild West of the America, this is a spaghetti western film set and the director is very upset at Black Bart’s shitty death acting. How hard is it to get hit by a cannon and then to fall down and pretend to die like you just got hit by a cannon?

You wouldn’t think there’s a wrong way to get shot by a cannon but you’d be wrong.

Simon Williams, Wonder Man: “I’m sorry, Mr. Bertolini. It’s just that, being Wonder Man, it’s hard for me to pretend those cannonballs are hurting me when I can hardly feel them.”

Mr. Bertolini: “True, signore Wonder Man, but I hired you because I thought you could-a act!”

Oh yeah, Mr. Bertolini talks like Mario. So that’s another tally for Marvel’s respect of other countries and cultures.

Aside from this being the seventh take on a ‘guy gets hit by a cannonball, beefs it’ scene, cannonballs are expensive. The cannonball that bounced off Wonder Man’s midsection looks fine but maybe you can’t just reuse them.

The filming breaks for lunch and Wonder Man wanders over to where his moral support is.

His moral support, of course, being Beast.

And he is moral supporting but he’s also multitasking with some women because even in Italy, women are just fascinated by blue fur. Furries are universal.

Wonder Man doesn’t feel supported though and this lousy spaghetti western film is a good opportunity for him.

If you remember, the last project we saw him get was as a cheetah print leotard wearing muscle man on a kids show and he got fired for making the host Uncle Elmer look ridiculous.

(Revealed to Simon’s chagrin in #194, lost to mishap in #201)

Being in an actual movie, even a spaghetti western, is the boost his career needs.

(I think we need to confront the actual possibility that Wonder Man is not a very good actor. But he might be a good stunt man if he can learn to act like things hurt)

Wonder Man’s publicist Rachel Palmer shows up as well and wow. Rachel has never appeared before and given the fillery nature of these chaotic no consistent writer times may not appear beyond this story. But you instantly get the sense of their working relationship.

And they have good banter too.

Wonder Man: “Wait. There she is -- Rachel Palmer -- the apple of my eye, the light of my life, the bane of my existence!”

Rachel: “If you delivered your lines that well in front of the cameras, Simon, you might actually keep this job -- which’ll make it just a little easier to hype you as a star back in the States.”

Wonder Man: “Your encouraging words are a constant source of inspiration, Rachel. But I’d appreciate it if you’d confine them to your press releases.”

Rachel: “You’ve got me all wrong, Simon. I hope this whole thing turns out well for you. Really.”

Wonder Man: “And for yourself. After all, if you make me a big name, you can ride along on my coat-tails and become a media hotshot -- instead of being stuck as a flak for Grade D Westerns.”

Rachel: “No, Simon. I--”

Wonder Man: “Forget it, lady. I’m a big boy. I know that all’s fair in love -- and show biz.”

And then he walks off towards his trailer, satisfied at getting the last word with someone whose job it is to make him look good. Beast says that he thinks Wonder Man was too hard on her and that Rachel probably digs Wonder Man.

Wonder Man: “Maybe you’re right. But I still can’t get over feeling that Rachel’s motivated by sheer self-interest and everything else places a distant second.”

(I’m pretty sure she does dig Wonder Man because unbeknowst to Wonder Man and Beast, she follows them to the trailer, wanting to convince Wonder Man that she’s not as self-serving as he thinks and also to invite him to a romantic dinner)

Anyway, Wonder Man’s social life isn’t important. At all. And not right now. Because when he and Beast go into Wonder Man’s trailer and discover the Avengers’ emergency signal briefcase is BEEP BEEPing.

It’s Cap and there’s an emergency situation that demands immediate investigation.

A brand new island city has just popped up in the middle of the Mediterranean slash off the coast of Majorca from out of nowhere and the government wants the Avengers to investigate.

Presumably the US government.

Because if I know anything about mysterious island cities appearing from nowhere - and I know exactly one thing - by jingo, they start wars!

Beast is enjoying his vacation so asks why the US Sixth Fleet doesn’t handle it instead. They’re actually paid to do things while on an ocean. But Iron Man just says that the fleet has had problems.

And with a little reading comprehension we can guess what problems. Because we’ve seen it. Its not a mystery.

Iron Man has a Stark plane sent to pick Beast and Wonder Man up and fly them to Majorca. Or somewhere thereabouts. I don’t know if Majorca has or had an airport.

Wonder Man bemoans that he’ll never be a movie star if he keeps leaving the set to go have exciting comic book superhero adventures.

Which is a little like complaining about being too handsome. Ya jerk.

And remember how Rachel Palmer was peeping on them? No? Scroll up a little and look at the above panels again. Back? And remember how Rachel Palmer was peeping on them?

Her media senses are tingling and telling her that she should definitely go check out the city that appeared in the middle of the ocean. She’s much intrepid for not a reporter.

Meanwhile, some slice of life filler fluff that doesn’t matter but that I find delightful.

And if this liveblog isn’t about sharing things that I find delightful then what is it about? Exhaustively recounting plots to comic books from decades ago? That’s just a side benefit!

The call to action back at Avengers Mansion comes right when Wanda is having Vision move a couch.

Vision: “Wanda, while it may be true that I am capable of moving this couch about all day, it seems a gross misuse of my android abilities to do so.”

Wanda: “Maybe if we just move those shelves then you just put it down there. We’re Avengers, not interior decorators.

This is the content I eagerly crave.

So back in not America, Beast and Wonder Man complain about the plane ride but passing over the ocean they see what trouble the Sixth Fleet was having.

Some Guy, Possibly Shadow Lord managed to strand the Poseidon aircraft carrier fully on a deserted island.

And I was wrong about the plane taking them to Majorca. Its apparently taking them to Poseidon because it lands on the ship’s airstrip so the two Avengers can consult the stranded sailors about what the heck is going on.

Captain Paul Garrison tells them that they were investigating the mysterious new island/city (not mentioning that they were also yelling at it) when a tidal wave suddenly swelled up and carried the Poseidon several miles and left it on this island.

And apparently the same thing happened to any other plane and ship that attempted to approach the island. Thwarted by winds and waves.

Damn you, nature!

Anyway, its all rather mysterious but Wonder Man figures

“Well, we were sent here to investigate. So... let’s investigate.”

And Wonder Man rockets off to investigate the city. While giving Beast a piggyback ride.

Which. Amazing image. Bless this issue for its bounty of amazing images.

Bear in mind that the captain said that the aircraft carrier was carried several miles. Wonder Man’s belt rockets have impressive duration considering he can’t be carrying much fuel on his person.

When they reach the city, they find a localized hurricane hovering right above it. But Wonder Man just flies down through the eye of the storm to get to the city.

Some Guy Shadow Lord is surprised because he had been expecting big boats and planes. Not a guy with rocket pants and a blue gorilla riding on his back.

But he’s able to shoo them away just as easily as any big thing, with a wave of his hand summoning a wind that carries Wonder Man and passenger Beast away from the city.

Meanwhile, Rachel Palmer is also here. She spent all her money renting a plane and then a boat but she’s going to get to that mysterious city and get an exclusive inside story!

So is she a journalist? Or what? She’s Lois Laneing but as far as we’ve heard her job is to convince people they want to see Wonder Man do stuff in movies.

Wonder Man spots her and tries to fly to her rescue but two water spouts spurt up to ruin this rescue plan.

The first one launches Rachel’s boat into the air and smashes it to pieces. The second blasts Wonder Man out of the sky preventing him from saving Rachel from falling to her death.

But unseen by either of the Avengers, a strong breeze safely lowers Rachel to the ground of the city.

Because what is an Avengers comic without men developing weird and intense feelings for a nearby woman.

Some Guy: “How beautiful she is, how like my own Ayshera. And, also like Ayshera, she is courageous... and more than a little headstrong.”

Cool. I hope this doesn’t get weird. Or that we’re not asked to sympathize with a guy whose only ‘sympathetic’ trait is a possessive attraction to a woman. Looking at you, Living Laser. And, I guess, Graviton.

Anyway, Wonder Man doesn’t see Rachel getting rescued by an airbender so he works himself into a lather.

Wonder Man: “That sinks it! It’s one thing to attack naval ships and planes... one thing to attack Avengers... But when he kills an innocent woman who could do him no harm -- that guy’s gonna answer to WONDER MAN!”

Honestly, I think you’re selling Rachel short. I’m sure she could do harm if she put her mind to it. Like, what if she covered him in bees. That would suck.

Anyway, Wonder Man rages through the city’s protective winds and then gets SAFUUSH!’d between two walls of solid water.

He’s left sputtering and disoriented in the ocean. At least until some hooks hook down from the Quinjet, hook Wonder Man, and then hook him up into the ship.

I didn’t know that the Quinjet had hooks for grabbing people out of the ocean but I am thrilled.

Ideally, the Avengers would use their newfound ability to vaudeville hook people into orbit more often. I can think of so many instances where it would be useful, or at least hilarious.

Anyway, Wonder Man apprises the other Avengers into the situation.

Meanwhile, not dead Rachel Palmer wakes up and finds the Shadow Lord brood slouching in a chair and watching her while she was unconscious.

She is alarmed that he’s just sitting there staring but he basically goes ‘DON’T WORRY I READ YOUR MIND TO LEARN YOUR NAME AND LANGUAGE’ and then decides to explain his entire backstory.

Shadow Lord: “The city in which we stand is the Shadow Realm and I... I am called the Shadow Lord!”

DAMMIT I KNEW HE WAS A YUGIOH!

Anyway.

THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO! Give or take! An ancient tribe decided to move to an island to isolate themselves from “primitive, superstitious neighbors who feared [their] more advanced society.”

Off to a good start with this guy.

Free of the mundane concerns of living in a world that hated and feared them, they were able to peacefully ALL BECOME WIZARDS WHO COULD CONTROL THE FORCES OF NATURE.

Maybe the X-Men are onto something.

So the Shadow Lord’s people learned to control, winds, waves, earth, and maybe fire so what I’m saying is that it was an entire island of Avatars.

Boom, sequel idea. Give me millions of dollars, Nickelodeon.

“Though veiled in mystery, rumors of our existence spread throughout the world. We were feared and shunned by the other peoples of the Earth -- which allowed us to continue our studies undisturbed.”

“Those who mistrusted anything they could not comprehend... they called us witches and sorcerers. Those who knew and understood us called us... the Earth Lords!”

“For centuries our sole purposes were to augment our knowledge of the Earth’s forces and to maintain the natural balance between these forces. Otherwise, we had no interest in the day-to-day affairs of the outside world.”

Maybe I was wrong about them being Yugioh. Maybe they’re the Time Lords from the Doctor Who.

Anyway, the Earth Lords were happy sitting on their island being Avatars but over the eons they sensed a disturbance in the Force, for I must reference all the things.

"Over the eons, we became aware of a seemingly immortal, human force of awesome destruction, one who could potentially plunge mankind into an irreversible slide to its doom.”

“Singlehandedly he could destroy towns. With an army beside him -- countries. Time and again, he did. It was when he finally joined the legions of Rome at the peak of the Empire’s power... that we first feared the balance of nature was in danger of being destroyed. Rome could forever take over the world.”

The Earth Lords tried on several occasions to destroy this menace. We don’t get to know what constituted these efforts and that’s disappointing because of what the final successful attempt was.

By 79 AD, they knew he was on the slopes of Mt. Vesuvius so they caused it to erupt, just to bury this one guy under hundreds of tons of rock and ash and lava.

Mission accomplished.

Except for the little thing where the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius also wiped out Pompeii and Herculaneum and other cities people know significantly less about, killing over 20,000 people.

As things go, that’s pretty dire amount of incidental deaths to kill one person. And the Earth Lords realize that this was a pretty major fuck up.

So they decided that they couldn’t be trusted with their powers and that they would disperse into the outside world to live and die as people do and have their powers dissipate over the years.

But before they did that, they discovered that the seemingly immortal guy they hit in the face with a volcano was somehow still alive somehow. Just trapped. Under hundreds of tons of rock and ash and lava that cooled into rock.

They killed thousands and didn’t even permanently kill the dude they were trying to kill? That’s pretty incompetent. They really can’t be trusted with their power.

Since he eventually might get out and resume being a dick, the Earth Lords drew lots and chose one of their number, the Some Guy later known as the Shadow Lord from the Shadow Realm, to forever watch over the city alone and await the day that the immortal guy would again walk the land.

And to help him solo the dude that took an entire city of people and a volcano to deal with, the Earth Lords concentrated all of their powers into this one Shadow Lord guy and taught him how to send himself and the city into a twilight plane of nothingness which is back to being called the Shadow World.

So this might also be Twilight Princess.

For two thousand years the Shadow Lord in the Shadow Realm in the Shadow World observed Earth and waited. And now, it seems that the seemingly immortal dude is back.

Rachel: “But I don’t understand. How can one man threaten a whole world -- and live for thousands of years in solid rock?”

Shadow Lord: “This is no mere man, my dear... this is the Berserker!”

And speak of the devil and we scene transition to him because we scene transition to Pompeii.

The lava mummified human figure that seemed to move before has stopped beating about with finger twitches and has gotten up to rampage around and backhand archeologists.

Don’t feel bad though. They were in it for the money and fame, those fiends.

Back at the city of Shadow Realm, the Avengers suddenly show up as a full team and basically enter swinging. Iron Man even blasts a wall for no reason.

Rachel tries to tell the Avengers that Shadow Lord means no harm but the Avengers can’t hear her over the sounds of Wonder Man loudly reassuring Rachel that they’re here to rescue her.

Iron Man exploding a wall for no reason probably also didn’t help.

So Rachel instead tries to tell Shadow Lord that the Avengers are a force for good. While he can hear her, he chooses to ignore her.

Using his powers of being the Avatar, he tries to pull a rocks fall but nobody dies. Rocks falling is something the Avengers deal with panache and also lasers and punches.

Some panache. Beast’s skycycle gets hit by a rock and he ends up leaping onto one of the spires of the city to avoid crash. And then, like a cat who climbs a tree except its a building in this context, Beast has a hard time figuring out how to get down from there.

While the larger Avengers punch and laser boulders and jump onto spires, Wasp just flies right in and shoots Shadow Lord in the eyebrow.

Amazing. Another good use of Wasp powers, being able to get in close while the opponent thinks the team is distracted at a distance.

Shadow Lord is none too pleased to be shot in the eyebrow by a tiny insect-sized flying woman and decides that a particularly karmic punishment is required.

Shadow Lord: “An insect-sized flyling woman! What sorcery is this? But if an insect you be, then it is only fitting I ensnare you in a cocoon of living wind... a cocoon which will grow and envelop your so-called fellow Avengers!”

And as Rachel still pleads with Shadow Lord to knock it off, he summons a giant tornado that suck in all of the Avengers (save Beast stuck up on his spire).

Shadow Lord even has the tornado carry him along, the better to continue mocking the Avengers as he carries them to their doom.

Shadow Lord: “You hopeless children! Did you actually think to defeat me, to deter me from my purpose? I who who command the earth and wind themselves to do my bidding?”

Yeah, dude. Definitely not sounding like a supervillain now. Cannot fathom why the Avengers are assuming you are one.

Iron Man manages to escape the tornado by firing his boot-jets at maximum, sending him flying free with a SHA-BOOSH! but also carrying him far away because momentum.

Shadow Lord then creates a whirlpool in the ocean and has his tornado carry the Avengers towards it. The whirlpool goes to the bottom of the ocean. Which then cracks open to reveal bubbling magma.

That’s right. The Shadow Lord is going to shoot them out of a tornado, into a whirlpool and into magma beneath the ocean floor.

Its. At least more precise than hitting them with a volcano, I’ll give him that. Definitely feels like overkill to go from rocks to tornado-whirlpool-magma execution but its definitely more precise.

Somewhat more precise.

Because when Iron Man manages to slow himself down to turn back he notices that a yacht is being swamped by the waves Shadow Lord is churning up.

And because of heroism, he takes the time to scoop the yacht out of the ocean and rest it safely on an island.

Geez. There’s a lot of boats being beached in this story.

Shadow Lord actually sees this. And a thought starts penetrating his thick skull that maybe he should have listened to Rachel.

Shadow Lord: “The armored one paused in his attack on me to save those people -- innocent people... which is more than we were able to do 2,000 years ago. Perhaps, as Rachel says, they are not agents of evil...”

He decides that he’ll stop throwing them out of a tornado into a whirlpool into magma but he doesn’t get the chance to put that train of thought on the tracks.

Beast waves Iron Man over. From his perch on the spire he’s noticed that the building he’s on is cracking from the strain of all the power Shadow Lord is throwing around even though he’s not been throwing it at that building.

So Beast deduces that the city is key to Shadow Lord’s power in some way and should have the shit beaten out of it.

And as Iron Man starts punching some wall, Shadow Lord doubles over in pain and the tornado he was about to dissipate dissipates.

The other Avengers get free and decide hey, follow the leader.

Jocasta: “The battle has truly just begun. Malevolent power such as this must not be allowed to exist. We must follow Iron Man’s lead and destroy the city -- totally!”

So unnoticed by the Avengers as they level the city into a pile of rubble, Shadow Lord staggers and swoons at Rachel’s feet.

But even dying, he still has some exposition bottled up.

To be fair, he’s been isolated for 2,000 years with no one to talk to.

He explains that the powers of an entire population of Avatars was way too great to be contained in one squishy mortal body so the powers were instead imbued in the city itself.

And with the city destroyed, it can no longer serve as a source of power and also can’t keep him alive anymore.

He’s honestly not too broken up over it. Since the Avengers are valiant and worthy, they can pick up his unfinished business while he goes and dies and gets to reunite with his girlfriend who died sometime during those 2,000 years.

Shadow Lord: “But please understand... I am as much to blame for today’s events as anyone... I bear you no malice... we misjudged each other. I have done my best... no more can be expected of a man... perhaps you will succeed... where I have failed. So do not mourn my passing... for me, death is but the long-awaited door that opens to my beloved... Ayshera.”

And the Avengers realize belatedly ‘we done goofed.’

“A sad -- and confused -- group of heroes grimly watches the passing of the Shadow Lord... and only then does the cruel truth reveal itself to them: what they had thought to be one of their greatest triumphs is instead... one of their most bitter defeats.”

Oh, and as I expect they’ll soon find out, the Berserker has been kicking the Italian army’s ass near Pompeii so that’s probably escalating into a bit of a situation and they just accidentally killed the guy who could have helped with that. Although in fairness, he deliberately ignored Rachel when she told him that the Avengers were heroes.

Like he said, he fucked up too.

Still, while its a bit of a Marvel tradition to have mighty misunderstanding fights, I don’t think they tend to result in people dying. One for the history books.

Next time: the Berserker.

Follow @essential-avengers. Also like and reblog. And send me Avengers triumphs that are way more impressive than beating up a city.

#Avengers #Essential Avengers #Wonder Man #Beast #SHADOW LORD #essential marvel liveblogging #Iron Man #Wasp #Captain America #Jocasta #Vision #Scarlet Witch #huh its been a while since they've gotten to do much #from the volcano thing and the tornado whirlpool depths of the earth thing #i think that the Earth Lords just had no grasp on subtlety at all #go big or go big

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benjaminrush · 7 years

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once upon a possum

The thrilling sequel to @skittles-sky’s work featuring Alexander Hamilton getting his ass kicked. Here, have John Laurens getting his ass kicked too! (he’s a Nature Gay tbh)

tagging: @skittles-sky; @l0vedoesntdiscriminate

It was late at night when he received the letter. John Laurens (who definitely had not been killed in a skirmish after the war and was living comfortably on the outskirts of New York City) had been paging through the day’s post and and nursing a glass of tea when he’d seen a letter than didn’t fit in. The return address was that of a prominent doctor in the city, and scribbled on the side of the envelope in hasty, shaky script were the words Regarding the Well-Being of Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton.

John felt the blood drain from his face, and he placed the cup back on the table. His hands shook as he tore open the envelope. He didn’t read the letter thoroughly, but caught scattered words and phrases. Injury…critical…unknown…eyebrows…grievous…possum.

Possum?

Brows furrowed, John hastily rose from his chair, threw on a thick overcoat and retied his cravat. After scrawling a quick note to Martha, he tugged on his boots and quietly headed outside. There was no time to call for a carriage, so a horse would have to do. He’d always preferred riding horses, anyways.

A few minutes later, the sound of hooves against the road, with quiet yet frantic murmurs from the agitated rider, broke the silence of the chilly winter night. The ride was a short one, and John made the trip in under an hour. Leaving his horse at a familiar location in the heart of the city - it would be safe there - John all but sprinted the remaining few blocks to Hosack’s residence. Past the taverns, the meeting halls, the homes - it all seemed quieter at this time of night.

He was just passing by the park bordering the good doctor’s house when he saw a flurry of movement out of the corner of his eye. Pausing, he slowly turned around. There was nothing there.

Was he imagining things?

Shrugging, he kept walking, trying to ignore the uneasiness growing inside him. He looked over his shoulder again.

Another flash of movement. He couldn’t have imagined that. Just as he was slowing his pace, he felt something thin kick his legs out under him, and Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens suddenly felt himself falling. Stars exploded across his vision as his (as he called it, delicate) head hit the ground.

He couldn't breathe for a second. His right hand instantly flew up to the attacked spot on his forehead. It would probably bruise, he figured absentmindedly. It took John a moment to regain his senses - truly, he wouldn’t fare well back in the army, anymore - and he slowly rolled over and propped himself up on his arm.

Facing him was one of the most bizarre sights he’d ever seen in his life.

A dark brown possum, with bands of white curving around its tail, stood before him, hat that distinctly reminded him of General Washington’s own tricorn hat perched on its furry little face. It let out a short, shrill screech, before running over to where John lay.

“What the hell?” muttered John, scrambling to his feet - only to be kicked back down again. He let it a sharp yelp, and the possum let out something that sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

“‘Tis I,” said the possum, leaping nimbly onto John’s heaving chest and smirking. “Major General Possum, here to wreak havoc. I’ve already finished off your boyfriend -”

Alexander. That’s why the letter, John thought, had mentioned a possum. This was the thing that had injured him so.

His vision, already disoriented, went red.

“ - and now I’m here to finish you off, too. But you’re not putting up much of a fight, are you? This should be easier than it was with Hamilton, then.”

Enraged, John shoved the possum off chest, catching it off-guard, and leapt to his feet.

“Fuck you, possum!” he shouted, making to attack the animal.

“Ah ah ah,” it said condescendingly. “Major General Possum.“

Damnit. He was outranked by a goddamn possum.

“Well,” he spat, “Fuck you, Major General!" This thing was worse than even Charles Lee. Grabbing a heavy branch that coincidentally lay nearby, he charged at the possum.

And something flipped.

The possum no longer looked intimidating, devilish, deadly. In the moonlight, its round eyes seemed almost comically large and glittering. The tail pointed towards the sky twitched once, twice, then over and over. The coat and hat it wore looked like they were falling off its luxuriously soft fur, like the possum was playing at dress-up. It looked soft, harmless, confused, sweet, cute enough to make John go -

“Awww!” The Nature Gay in him had finally awoken. John raced for the possum again, but not to attack. He tentatively reached for the fur on its scalp, wanting nothing more than to adopt this little possum that he’d run into on the way to fulfill some unimportant errand, take it home and give it love and care and -

Smack!

Moaning softly, a welt rapidly growing on his face, John stumbled, and fell to the ground. He was down for the count. The possum, sinister smirk back on its adorable face, crept over to John to make sure his punch had served his purpose. John’s breathing was slow, but there. He wasn’t dead. That had never been the possum's intention.

No, John Laurens and Alexander Hamilton would be the examples. The victims. The lessons learned.

The possum’s mission has only begun.

Flipping up his collar and adjusting his hat so it cast a shadow over his face, Major General Possum turned and returned to the depths of the park where he lay in wait. Not even the moonlight dared to follow him.

#major general possum #john laurens #writing #*

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virovac · 7 years

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Create a Kaiju Contest Entry 2

Bajingis

Place of Origin: Gobi Desert

Date discovered: April 17,1956,

Date of awakening: May 1, 1956

Notable stomping Grounds: Coldouthere (a newly emerged Antarctic Island), Austrailia

Height: 80 feet

Length: 145 feet

Powers

Aside from the standard kaiju abilities, she posses the “angry eye”: A beam of searing green light mixed with an less visible heat ray blasting from from the bone filled eye-socket on her left side. The outer layer of armor is lased while also cooking the endodermis of an enemy.

Biology:

Almost a fitting reversal of how primitive retrosaurs gave rise to species similar in build to the synapsid pelycosaurs that preceded them, Bajingis is a synapsid with a build similar to the True tyrants that came long after. In body-plan Bajingis is similar to a true tyrant, except for her plantigrade feet, and the fact she is covered in tannish brown hair (which has raised many questions about where in synapsid evolution such coverings first appeared). A patch of dark brown hair occurs on her throat, almost as if an alternative to a dewlap. Her back posses three small dark grey stripes. While her ancestors probably had a coat of hair,her sheer woolliness seems to be more of a disorder than an actual adaptive feature: as she shows no other adaptions for a cold climate; and her flaring nostrils would be extremely vulnerable to frostbite if she were not a kaiju. However, her kaiju metabolism has allowed her to survive quite well in her chosen home: the recently unsubmerged island Coldoutthere.

While her head is reptilian, it lacks any of the bony crests common in retrosaurs; and the synapsid features of different specialized teeth are apparent, with both slicing and crushing teeth present. Her whiskers are small and undeveloped.Some kaijuologists have described as her head similar to that a Dimetrodon but with eyes more ventral to the and teeth more like a dinogorgon. However, a more accurate comparison is probably a Titanophoneus with less prominent canines on the upper jaw and a more robust lower jaw. Her powerful forearms are similar to those a kangaroo, but more muscular, and with slight traces of webbings in the paws. The tail can best be described as having a shape somewhere between a crocodile and an otter’s, tipped with a vestigial, black tadpole-like paddle.She lacks either the ability or creativity to use her tail in combat, except as a counterweight for a kangaroo-like kick, an appropriate ability for a kaiju who treats Australia as a vacation spot.

Due to, like monotremes, lacking mammaries, she was first referred to as male by the press; and with her tendency to attack human vehicles and structures in her island home, it took a long time for kaijuologists to get close enough to investigate.

Bajingis’s most well known aspect is her left eye socket.The eye socket is completely encrusted with yamaneon infused bone,from which she can fire a terrifying beam of green light that can leave horrible , if not very deep wounds on other kaiju. What circumstances could have caused this unique growth is of great interests to kaijuologists.

A strange quirk of her regeneration is that, for any wound not along her belly, the injury will first heal with wrinkly gray-green scales, then changing to a more mammalian covering. The time for the change is inconsistent between wounds, and a fierce enough battle can leave her patchy for several months. Still, she has shown a demonstrated preference for cold environments, only moving into Australia occasionally when the mood suits her, but prolonging her time there if a fight leaves her waiting for hair to grow back.

History

Many kaiju have been discovered in Yamaneon caverns they almost certainly did not originate Bajingis is one of them. Discovered hibernating in a relatively small Yamaneon cave along the border between Mongolia and China, her discovery became a matter of tense negotiation between the two governments. Parties of both governments debated hotly on how to deal with the slumbering kaiju, only made worse by how China had just three years earlier blocked Mongolia’s recognition by the United Nations. The argument would become moot. A Beyonder Alliance scouting party awoke her, either accidentally or intentionally, and she made a mad rush south all the way to the ocean. During her island hopping, she gained her name in the Philippines as a corruption of of Bungisngis, a giggling gigantic cyclops of folklore that was said to once menace what is now Orion,Bataan. She somehow found her way to Antarctic Ocean; perhaps following an internal compass dreadfully out of date with the shifting of continents and the repeated flippings of the earth magnetic field. Eventually she made herself at home on the island of Coldoutthere, an island recently brought to the surface by one of the several megaquakes caused by atomic tests hitting yamaneon deposits.

From her home of Coldoutthere ,she mainly feeds off the wildlife she can get on other nearby islands, however occasionally she makes her way into Australia for no apparent reason except her own curiosity. In this way she has come to be an irregular party in the conflict between Australia and its resident kaiju. Thankfully she avoids cities, preparing to stick to the wilderness or ranching territories.

A relative of mammals so similar to retrosaurs has brought into question into the paleontological community what made retrosaurs so successful in comparison. Dr. Wilhelmina Lerna has opined such comparisons are not advisable due to three reasons: that Bajangis relatives have not yet been found in fossil record, it is not known what type of ecosystem they lived in, and that it is not even clear what size its nonmutated kin tended to be. Still, people cannot help but draw comparisons and ask why no mammalian land predators ever reached the sizes of predatory retrosaurs. Her hunting and territorial instincts are linked to a mammalian metabolism, actually makes her less social than many reptilian kaiju because her instincts often tell her there is not enough food to go around (despite the fact yamaneon in her body chemistry making this incorrect). If her ancestors had survived the Permian extinction, they would easily have been outcompeted by retrosaurs. Still, Bajingis is an animal evolved to “live fast, die young”that has been granted near immortality, making her a terrifying combatant.

Personality:

Bajingis does not make friends easily, nor does she particularly desire them. With a roar like the shrieks of a thousand tortured mice, or a hiss like a steam vent, she will bellow challenges to even the weather itself. Like a hyena, her main way of showing affection is to go “see I could hurt you, but I didn’t”, or her unique method of greeting of gently locking her jaws with those of another kaiju.

While willing to tolerate humanity in their territory , she attacks any vehicles or built structures within her own Antarctic domain. Most peculiarly, she seems to have a strange sense of kaiju solidarity:she assumes humans are at fault in any kaiju-human conflict and will instantly side with the other kaiju present. In fact she will instantly come to the aid of any kaiju under military attack, even if normally she would consider then a prey item. This has gained her several friendships among Australian kaiju in her visits and she seems to honor this comradery in return by making no attempt to feed upon them. The main other way she tends to form relationships is through cooperative hunting, be it it herding clusters of smaller prey into traps or ganging up on another kaiju. She is one of the few kaiju to use her “special abilities” regularly in hunting, using her eye to blast away armor or thick hide and then focusing her attacks on the wound she has created. A partner makes thing much easier for her since she is blind in the eye socket she shoots her beam weapon from. However bonds developed through hunting are not as strong, and she will turn on former allies if she feels they are declaring too large a share of the spoils.

A simple carnivore, humanity would find her tolerable if she stuck to her own domain. Failing that, if she was willing to work cooperatively with humans to hunt kaiju harming the Australian ecosystem, it would well be worth the loss of the occasional herd of livestock. However the fact she will side with kaiju against humanity in any conflict has made her neutralization a top priority for the Australian government. Unless she comes to a revelation that humanity is not always in the wrong in its conflicts against kaiju, she will need to be captured or killed.

Meta:

Homage to the Old One Eye and her ally, the leader of ”the furry tyrannosaurs from the north” from Flesh comics. Old One Eye led an army of carnivorous dinosaurs against time traveling cowboys, and this inspired Bajingis’s combination of viciousness yet willingness to dedicate herself to a cause of what she perceives to be the greater good. She was also somewhat inspired by the “T-rex” superman fought,and Attack of the Killer Shrews.

The Day and month from her year of discovery comes from the date the feathered tyrannosaur Yuutyranus was named and published.

For the “Kaiju War” of Australia, a sort of homage to the Great Emu war, she acts as a sort of foreign mercenary, coming and going as she pleases.

Originally I was going to have her in the Siberian Monster zone, and have her try to assemble the kaiju there into a sort of militia to keep out human interference following the Beyonder invasion, but I then realized the Siberian monster zone might be on its last legs by that time. Eventually I decided to put her in Austrailia with Artilleron.

I considered first having the crew that discovered her attacked by kaiju lice, in an homage to Rodan, but ultimately felt it was too distracting. Also I was unable to find any pictures of Permian parasites in amber.

All prehistoric life referenced in her biology section was checked to make sure they were known in the era ATOM takes place.

Her slight aquatic adaptations are partially an explanation for her willingness to travel between land masses, and also a reference to how all modern day egg laying mammals are either aquatic (platypus) or descended from aquatic ancestors (echidnas).

The fact her name is based off a Philippines myth is from me looking for inspiration for names wherever I can, and plotting her course from Mongolia to Australia realizing it worked. It also plays on the fact that reporters in Tyrantisverse come up with hilarious names for kaiju. Still, like how Promythigor is a better name than Prometheus, Bajingis is a much better name than that of a mythological figure that is only alike in having fangs and a single eye. So good on you, fictional culturally insensitive reporter that named her..

For some reason, I imagine that if she were in a movie the puppet for the closeup shots would be noticeably inconsistent with her stop motion models, and the stop motion models also being inconsistent in their features.

@tyrantisterror

#atomic time of monsters #ATOM Create a Kaiju Contest

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