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elliotwarren · 5 years

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sarki quinn faarmore. druidic tiefling, circle of the underdark. all art by @rxryp.

backstory; The unwanted child of a noble, Quinn spent the first two decades of their life largely within isolation, a shameful addition to their human family’s lineage. When even coming of age did not release them, the Tiefling made a break for it, running away into the Underdark. There, they nurtured their magic, spending time with other druids far below the surface.

When their luck ran out and landed them time as a slave to Drow and Duergar, Quinn worked in secret to strengthen their magic and escape. Yet before they were given the chance, a hired group of mercenaries came on the scene, breaking them out and bringing Quinn back to their guild in a distant city.

current wordcount: 4299

session cliff notes; good god so much has happened since February. Note that this all takes place within a West Marches server and while most of the sessions are run by the same DM, there are a few rogue unrelated sessions. this is a repost due to new additions.

- Arrival: Quinn arrives in Eleria after convincing the mercenaries not to return them home to their mother. They take on an alias, and agree to join the guild, established as a ‘D Rank’ (Level 5).

- Session 0: While exploring the woods near the city, Quinn stumbles upon a group of F Ranks (Level 2) struggling against bandits in the wood. They step in, assist in combat, and head back for home.

- Session 1: Quinn’s first official job, they are sent out to hunt down Orcs who are attacking travelers on the road. They discover a small camp of the creatures, as well as a young noble man named Theodore Caelum being held prisoner. A former prisoner themself, Quinn pretty much went feral and imprinted on Theodore, and the party escorted him back to his home in the city.

- Session 2: Hired by a funny man in a far away, frigid town, Quinn accompanied others in an escort job, delivering a felon from yet another far away town to a distant military outpost within the desert. Once again, Quinn’s past causes them to imprint on a total stranger. They almost get killed protecting the criminal from bandits, everything turns out okay, and the man turns out to have been a victim of a local corrupt official. The guild party agree to let him escape, and cover it up before heading home.

- Session 3: To Quinn’s utter delight, they were hired by Theodore Caelum to seek out an artifact within a dungeon. The job itself was difficult, and led to knowledge of a bizarre cult of zombies who otherwise seemed fairly friendly. Also located within the dungeon was a Yakfolk priest conducting morbid rituals. Quinn agreed to send someone to help the Yakfolk with an alleged curse upon his people before continuing on in the dungeon. While attempting to access the artifact, the party was struck with awful visions of the death of their party and Theodore himself. The artifact was brought back. Quinn and Theodore begin to exchange letters.

- Session 4: Quinn and a party investigate a bizarre dungeon of illusions and trouble - nothing is as it seems, and around every turn the danger grows. Within the dungeon, Quinn witnesses the first death of a guild mate, and is nearly killed. This is roughly the start of their friendship with the wizard Ovega, one of their teammates for the job.

- Session 5: The guild sends a party up north to investigate the bizarre, severe cold plaguing the mountains. In a cavern, the source is found to be a member of a cult called Niflheim, and the enormous frost salamander she controls. Quinn and their teammates manage to kill the both of them, and head back on home to the guild.

- Out of Session: A group of F ranks went on a job for Theodore, and shortly after Theodore was placed on house arrest due to the appearance of a number of undead in town. The outbreak is believed to have been triggered by an item the F ranks brought back for Theodore.

- Theodore’s Letters: Theo and Quinn continue to correspond in cryptic letters, with Theodore explaining the issues in town are caused by a cult signified by the crest of a White Dragon - the Niflheim cult. They are causing trouble for him, and he isn’t sure why. Quinn is skeptical but inclined to believe their friend.

- Out of Session: Luvella’s Research: A friend of Quinn’s conducted research on their behalf, learning more of the cult of Niflheim and their attempts to bring forth a great white dragon named Y’thir. A noble house to the north claims to be blessed by ‘the great Niflheim’, a silver dragon who imbues power in the form of tattoos to their followers. The organization has settled into the Guildsman’s District within the city. Luvella moved on to meet with an eccentric wizard named Agna, who notes that while dragonmarks aren’t quite uncommon, these seem to be altered, and have adverse effects on those who get them.

- Session 6: While investigating the unnatural activity at a nearby volcano, Quinn and their party found an elderly man being attacked by an assassin and a number of hell hounds. The older man turned out to be in disguise - this is Quinn’s first meeting with Agna Scorium, the same one who spoke with Luvella. A powerful wizard, the party learned from the assassin that a noble named Y’thir had put out a bounty on Agna. Agna himself quickly scattered to leave the group to handle a red dragon - and after doing so, a bizarre portal opened up within the volcano. Agna agreed to keep an eye on it, and contact us with further news. He is also familiar with Theodore Caelum, and chats with Quinn about the boy.

- Session 7: A party from the guild investigate a strange Obelisk - the rooms seem to change, and inside are all number of nasty creatures. Also within is an elderly man and his young helper, a funny creature called Bailey. There seems to be much happening within, but little is uncovered.

- Out of Session: An announcement goes out into the city - the manor belonging to Theodore Caelum is overwhelmed with fog, the plant life is dying, and the city has sealed off the manor. Quinn’s latest letter to Theodore goes unanswered.

- Session 8: Agna hires the guild to investigate the portal within the volcano and to track down a Phoenix and bring back the ember that will be left behind once the Phoenix is dead. The portal turns out to be a door to the Fire Plane, and the group deal with several trials before tracking down the Phoenix and killing it. After returning the ember to Agna, Quinn asks if Agna has seen Theodore. With a reply of the negative, Agna remarks on vampires being the root of the fog, and in a panic, Quinn heads back to the guild to organize an investigation of the manor.

- Session 9: Quinn and several higher rank members of the guild manage to secure an investigation permission of the Caelum Manor. Although Quinn has visited Theodore several times and is familiar with the layout of his home, the inside appears to have changed entirely. Within, Quinn found the dismembered body of Zari Clemente, Theodore’s servant and friend and the deliver of all of Theodore’s letters. Shortly after, Quinn’s close friend Ovega was killed and turned to dust by a spectral monster. Distraught, the remaining three members of the team agreed to go on and look for Theodore, eventually coming face to face with Astrid Borealis, the vampire of the manor. After ending up alone with the vampire, Quinn agreed to a magical contract, marking themself as Astrid’s servant, in exchange for Theodore’s body. Astrid says she will be in touch within the week for the details of her favor. Upon taking Zari’s remains and an unconscious, unresponsive Theodore to Agna’s house, Quinn learns the Astrid has turned Theodore into a vampire. Agna confirms that Quinn is super fucked as far as their deal with Astrid. (short story based on the session found here)

- Out of Session: Agna’s House: Quinn goes to visit Agna, learning that while Zari has been revived he is catatonic. Theodore is currently unresponsive, having not fed for the first time, and Agna explains that while vampirism isn’t curable, he may be able to reduce the issue and allow Theodore to live relatively normally. The wizard tasks Quinn with obtaining a mythical fruit, and the blood of a Celestial. He also informs Quinn that whatever Astrid wants, it will likely be of a gory, barbaric nature. Agna tells Quinn of their first meeting with Astrid in a city to the north, ruled by the Borealis family whose true nature is largely unknown, and how lovely he found her - up until he found her torturing a commoner. He managed to escape with his life, and vowed never to return to the city. In addition, Agna tells Quinn they ought to seek out a man called Hal Mirrus, who may be able to help with lessening Theodore’s curse. Hal is known as a monstrous man, and getting through his many horrific creations to get to him will likely be a challenge.

- Astrid’s Favor: Quinn wakes within a memory, specifically that of Theodore’s, midst torture by the vampire Astrid. She taunts the Tiefling, and lays out her terms; Quinn must bring her Agna’s head, let vampires into the guild, or venture to a distant village to complete a ritual slaughter with items left behind there.

- Session 10: With a team from the Guild, Quinn visits Agna to learn of a Celestial they can obtain blood from to assist Theodore’s condition. News of a Ki-rin and a worshiping cult near the city has spread through, and the party does some investigating with a couple of the local temples to learn the location. On a lake-side island, they find a group known as the The Shield-Bearers. The cult is ecstatic to have visitors, and invites all of them to join, eventually agreeing to allow them to meet the Ki-rin itself. Quinn attempts to persuade the creature for what they need, and enraged, the Ki-rin bids them to leave. The party in unison agrees that they’ll have to take it by force, and attack the Ki-rin. Combat unfortunately goes poorly, and Quinn calls off their teammates. In appreciation for the honor shown, the Ki-rin allows them to collect the blood from the grounds, and departs the island. Angered by the departure of their deity, the Shield-Bearers attack the party. After handling the cult, they begin to head for home but run into two Niflheim cult members on the road. Quinn’s companion Luvella catches up with the members called Dralla and Torric, chatting with them, and accompanies them to a nearby city. The cult members seem friendly enough, gifting Luvella was a minor magical object, and tag her with a magical mark that Agna later removes. Luvella investigates the temple within the city the two mentioned, and reports back. While Luvella investigates the temple, Quinn and the remaining two party members go on to Agna’s house, where Agna uses the Celestial Blood to wake Theodore, allowing Theo and Quinn to meet again for the first time in months. In aside, Quinn tells Agna of Astrid’s demands, and the two come to the conclusion that the only truly viable option is to either have someone eliminate Astrid, or conduct Astrid’s ritual sacrifice of the village.

- Session 11: Quinn agrees to accompany Luvella and a couple others on a job to a nearby village, only realizing en route that the town is the very one Astrid has requested they conduct her favor in. The village is largely empty, excluding one native and a number of giants who have apparently attacked the village. The guild members deal with it, healing the native and questioning him on the location of the rest of the village who has evacuated. While their party is occupied, Quinn searches the village, uncovering a sacrificial dagger and a strange box marked with an eyeless ram. The team deals with all giants in the area and head home.

- Out of Session: Luvella questions Quinn about what they were doing in the village, having caught the Tiefling snooping, and bribes an exchange in a letter she found on one of the giant’s. Quinn finally caves and tells her about the dagger as well as Astrid’s demands, keeping the box a secret. Luvella’s letter implies a new team of giants will be coming to the area soon to retrieve one of the giants that is now dead. Oops.

- Session 12: For the first time, Quinn accompanies Luvella and two other C ranks on a job for the local Thieves’ Guild. They are tasked with investigating an individual the guild wants to recruit, perhaps indulging in blackmail to do so. The party goes under-cover as nobles visiting the local opera, but are called up on stage as the performance begins - it appears someone ratted them out. In a fight staged as part of the show, Quinn is targeted and killed by some of the ‘actors’. Body left behind during the ensuing issues, Quinn is picked up by the local city guard. A cleric is summoned from the guild to revive Quinn so that they may be questioned, and Quinn is placed under interrogation. They manage to avoid implicating the Thieves’ Guild as well as their own home guild and themselves in the murder of a local noble (which to be fair, none of those parties are at fault) and are released back to the guild to cope with the trauma of being murdered and abandoned and imprisoned.

- Out of Session: Quinn conducts research towards locating the fruit needed to cure Theodore, learning of corruption within the forest and that a Circle of the Moon is guarding over the fruit of a holy tree. None of the news is good.

- Session 13: Finally delving into the forest, Quinn and the party deal with many strange creatures, including an enormous corrupted monster and several gnolls who appear to be under the control of an unseen other. The druids warn them out, but the party presses onward, establishing a camp within the woods and eventually locating an enormous tree and one of the druids. They manage to placate the on guard being, and speak with one of the treants there about the needed fruit. From a Redcap (RIP.) they learn there is a door nearby to the holy tree. The team come to the conclusion that being diplomatic might be the better route, and they agree to participate in a trial to deem their worthiness as well as seek out and destroy the source of the corruption within the wood. With flying colors the party complete the trial of combat, and agree to return soon to handle the corruption problem with the hopes of earning a fruit.

- Out of Session: Quinn posts a listing to the guild, enticing members of the guild to assist them by eliminating the vampire Astrid. They spend time with several high ranks, giving as much information about the house and the vampire as they can, and several high ranks spend time researching the house. Eventually, they make their way to the manor, clearing it of monstrous sorrowsworn, an enormous shadow dragon, and the vampire Astrid herself.

- Out of Session: Quinn meets with the wizard tortle Roshini, who shows Quinn a journal they’d found within the manor written by one Dylan Caedric. The note reveals that Dylan Caedric and his son are the last of a line of monster hunters, but his son is unaware of the family tradition. Dylan Caedric himself was apparently dying at the time of the letter. There is no other information. A second note Roshini uncovered is from someone implied to be living with Astrid, and, horrified by her actions, they remark they must speak to the Caedrics about handling it. Both notes appear to be old, perhaps from before Astrid took up residence within the Caelum Manor.

- Out of Session: Neith and Ihsahn, two of the high ranks who dealt with Astrid, remark on what appears to be an angsty diary entry from Astrid herself where she professes her attraction to an unknown wizard, one with ‘bloodthirsty charm’. Quinn is, due to past learned information, almost positive the note speaks of Agna. Quinn contacts the wizard in attempt to learn who Theodore’s father is, and while Agna states he cannot elaborate, leads the Tiefling to believe that Dylan Caedric is actually Theodore Caelum’s grandfather.

- Session 14: Quinn joins a handful of the higher ranks as well as one of their fellow D-Ranks on a ship to the high seas. It’s a nice break from the usual drama, but the pirates they find are no joke. Somehow, Quinn is pushed to the forefront into making several goofy deals with a variety of apes on a tropical island.

- Out of Session: Quinn meets another tiefling within the guild, one allegedly brought back from ashes after being killed by a beholder many months ago. They run to inform their friend Alea of the news, and the Goliath agrees to look into it with the hopes that she will be able to have Ovega, Quinn’s wizard friend, brought back. Shortly after Alea informs Quinn that she tracked down the cleric with the power, who attempted to bring Ovega back on the spot with no success. This, he says, means that Ovega’s soul is unwilling to return. Quinn struggles, believing perhaps they did something to spur this.

- Session 15: Agna hires the guild to interrupt a group of Niflheim cult members who are attempting to reach some sort of artifact. The group head out once again to the ocean, run into a few very grumpy but not altogether troublesome pirates, and narrowly escape a hydra. Out at sea, Quinn and others reach a ruined temple to Lolthe, a deity to drow, and scarcely survive a fight with an enormous turtle. Alea, Quinn’s close friend, is killed, and while the party hover over the aftermath the Niflheim cultists arrive. the following occurs. The party is unable to retrieve the artifact but cause enough of a headache for the cultists to satisfy Agna, and they head once more for home.

- Out of Session: Quinn finally goes back to their own room to discover a note, asking the Tiefling to meet with the writer at a specific booth. They do so with some paranoia, finding a less than liked guild member waiting for them, and hesitantly agrees to follow the guild mate out into the guild’s grove. Shortly after, Ovega reveals themself to have been in disguise - revived and brought back from ash. Ovega swears Quinn to secrecy, and leaves to work with the Thieves’ guild within the city. Quinn struggles, relieved to have their friend back but disappointed to be left behind again.

- Session 16: Quinn, with a group of guild members, heads back into the forest to begin working out the source of the blight so that they might earn a fruit from the holy tree within the wood. The party deals with a mess of giants in the mouth of a cave, have a brief misunderstanding with a merfolk that Quinn manages to sort out, and discover that within the cave is an entrance to the Underdark as well as home to a drider. After coming to the conclusion that the cave does not likely contain the source of the blight they’re all looking for, the party heads back out into the woods. Eventually, they do notice an increase in corruption in the forest, and as Quinn flies ahead as an owl, they discover a group of Yakfolk conducting some sort of ritual. One of them is familiar - the same Yakfolk priest within the long ago dungeon. As they watch, an enormous roc (bird) flies overhead, and the Yakfolk scatter. Quinn reports back to the group, and they opt to head back to camp and deal with the Yakfolk later.

- Session 17: On yet another journey to yet another forest, Quinn and several others discover what appears to be an entrance to the Feywild. They have a run-in with what looks to be a damsel in distress situation, but once the damsel is saved, she turns on the group. Quinn struggles with the aftermath of a dead hobgoblin and his grieving friend. The following occurs.

- Out of Session: Back at the guild, they discover one of their friends conducting less than morally just experiments - resulting in an argument. Quinn begins to struggle with their morality and past decisions they have made - and decisions they almost made, namely the realization that they would have absolutely slaughtered an entire village for Astrid. As they harness more powerful magic but find themself listened to less and less by teammates, they begin to struggle with feelings of neglect and bitterness towards their guild companions. Shortly after, one of Quinn’s closest friends and closest confidant announces he is leaving the guild for a time to travel home.

- Out of Session: Hal Mirrus. Agna posts a job listing, stating he believes that his old friend Hal may be conducting his own ‘research’ in a nearby town, and may have turned the village into his own personal graveyard. Quinn approaches the guild mates who have signed on to handle the situation, and attempt to convince them to bring back Hal Mirrus to Quinn and Agna for their own needs - namely, to help Theo, as Agna suggested Hal would be very useful. The guild mates are doubtful, and state that they will most likely be killing Hal if what is suspect proves to be true; that Hal Mirrus is conducting mass necromancy on an entire city.

- Out of Session: Quinn contacts Agna days later to inquire, and the wizard replies with telepathy - and the image of an elven man using an orcish face as disguise; Hal. Although the man is not yet with Agna, the wizard has the means to contact his old friend. Hal agrees to help with Theodore, but at a cost of favors from Quinn. Agna states it probably won’t be as bad as anything Astrid asked for, but made no promises. Quinn comes to the cold realization that they don’t care.

- Session 18: Quinn and a mostly new team return to the forest to seek out the blight. En route, they notice boot prints but think nothing of it, continuing on only to be attacked by drow. One they capture tells of their queen, and how a new gate from the Underdark has been opened and they will claim the forest for themselves. Quinn decides to bring the drow prisoner along as perhaps a gift to the Yakfolk, one who conducts sacrificial rituals. Unfortunately the Yakfolk also remembers Quinn, and is enraged that the Tiefling never upheld their bargain to help. Quinn attempts to apologize, explaining that the one they meant to ask for assistance had been killed (vampires are dead, right?), but to no avail. The Yakfolk advance, meaning to take Quinn and one of their teammates with them for unknown intentions, and the party end up attacking and killing the Yakfolk. Left behind, a portal opens shortly after, apparently to the ocean as water begins to fill the area. A kraken begins to emerge, and the party flee, nearly losing one of their teammates in the process. However, with the death of the Yakfolk, the blight on the forest has begun to fade. Quinn heads for the holy tree, only to find the Treants of before dead and the tree itself withered and scorched. One of the druids Quinn had met prior sits dying on the ground, and despite Quinn’s attempts to help, cannot be healed. The druid tells of an attack by drow, and fruit stolen from the tree - as well as his brother, perhaps for some monstrous creation. He pleads with Quinn to find his brother and slay him if he is now a monster, and to repair the damage to the forest. Quinn agrees, and rests with the man until his last breath. Within a bag the druid gives to Quinn is the last fruit of the holy tree. The party head home, Quinn bringing the fruit to Agna and finding that Hal Mirrus has arrived in the city. Only once on Agna’s couch does Quinn realize the boot prints in the woods were undoubtedly a sign of the drow’s pending attack on the holy tree, and that perhaps they could have done something had they not been so focused on finding the blight and the Yakfolk.

- Out of Session: Quinn returns home from Agna’s, and receives news that yet another friend is leaving the guild. They give their goodbyes, and retreat into the grove to mull over their mistakes. Their doubts only grow, and Quinn is growing more and more hesitant to reach out to the few friends they have left. The following morning, Quinn returns to Agna’s to assist Hal with the fruit and with Theodore, resolved that little else matters. Agna, not quietly, reminds Quinn that there is still a chance for failure, even with Hal and the fruit.

notes: please gods let something good happen to this poor baby. Alignment shift incoming.

#quinn tag #basically under the cut is various out of session and in session summaries #quinn has been through So Much Shit and their character development arc is SLOWLY swinging in the wrong direction #dnd #writing

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turbletoops · 5 years

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Curse of Castle Halloway, Pt. 10

Our current party consists of:

Anala, Dragonborn Cleric of Pelor, from the clans to south. (+ An albino dragon egg) Bartleby, Halfling Rogue, a Halloway native. Camlib, Lizardfolk Druid, from the eastern swamps. Ilios, Aasimar Monk of Lathander, from Lightbreak Temple. Rowan, Half-Elven Paladin, currently serving Eldath. Shade, a Tiefling Warlock of the Raven Queen.

After a blazing hot escape, our adventurers save the village, but at what cost? *(This session is loosely based on the Moon Over Graymoor module.)

“Sagh did it.”

~ 18 Days Until the Dark Hunter’s Moon ~

We rejoin our adventurers just as things are beginning to heat up.

However, when faced with white hot blood-pumping action, our party pulls together and, via the power of teamwork (as well as magical rain clouds, celestial steeds, and good old fashioned elbow grease), manages to save themselves from a crispy demise.

High off of the sensation of escaping death, our party flees. Someone had very clearly tried to murder them and burn the evidence down with them and the barn. Ilios' faith is a bit shaken.

They decide to head to the tree with the owl carving to await the delivery of the sword Ser Thames had requested. To avoid being seen, they determine the best route is through the copse of wood behind the chapel, for some reason.

Father Daragor is outside when they pass, and because the party is trying to be stealthy with a large tin can in their ranks, he notices them immediately. He greets them and asks whatever they could be doing skulking around in the back garden of the chapel. Rowan puts his foot in his mouth, alarming the priest, who quickly hobbles back into the chapel, terrified, and locks the door behind him. Shade has an unsuccessful herb hunt, but Anala does notice that there's something architecturally strange about the chapel.

As they enter the woods with the owl carved tree, they hear a lone, plaintive wolf howl. Noticing the disturbed dirt, they dig it back up, and retrieve a long, locked box. Bartleby makes quick work of the locks.

When the box is opened, they are forced to squint at the blindingly bright light emitted from the longsword within. They decide Rowan should be the one to hold it, and luckily, the sheath manages to contain the light.

Upon returning to the Greymoor Bend for the night, our adventurers have a meeting on what to do in regards to the problems this town is facing.

There is contention on who is responsible - the party being split on whether they think Sagh is responsible or not. Their best course of action is also disputed; the party being unsure whether they should join the feast and be likely locked inside for whatever is to happen, or stay outside and perhaps meet something worse. The idea of just packing up and leaving in the night is also floated.

The only thing they are sure of is the unseen hand of corruption threatening the innocent in this town, and that is has some connection to the Halloway Curse.

Ultimately it is a hard night emotionally for the group, as the devoted's connection to their deities seems to be tenuous at best. Camlib specifically feels a harsh psychic pain when trying to connect with her deity. Bartleby also comes to find that the letter from his family is a coded message asking for help, adding to the pressure weighing on his shoulders.

The next morning, our group is still at odds on what to do. Ilios takes a stroll to the chapel to try and obtain some more information, and though he quickly overspends his luck with the priests, he does get his hands on a brochure for the chapel.

Careful insight uncovers the final piece of the puzzle our adventurers needed to be sure of how to proceed. The depictions of the sign of Selune bears hidden imagery of the Dark Lord Malar, revealing the chapel to be a cover up for the dark machinations of a group of evil doers. Bartleby goes back and sabotages their locks for good measure.

The group decides to have a chat with Sagh, intending to either confirm their suspicions or enlist her help. She is hesitant to believe the harsh truth about her neighbors, but after being shown the brochure, she is convinced, and offers to help the group in whatever way she can.

Now assured that she is on their side, they ask her to round up all the vulnerable townsfolk she can and keep them safe in the inn. Though unsure of how willing they'll be to pass up the Moonlight Feast, she agrees to try her best. She plucks her silvered battleaxe "Old Faithful" off the display above the bar, wishes the party luck and sets off to her task.

Finally, the time for the feast draws near. The group heads to the chapel to get locked in, knowing they are the only things standing between prey and predator.

The chapel is bustling with activity as townspeople begin to pour in. Though she couldn't convince the whole town, it does seem Sagh was able to convince a good portion of the citizens of Greymoor to skip the celebration.

In the hustle and bustle of the gathering, the group manages to slip away unnoticed into Father Daragor's office. Thanks to Anala's investigation earlier, she knows that there is a hidden area under Father Daragors office.

They descend into the hidden undercroft to find Father Daragor praying to a shrine to Malar, with a small wolf chained to the altar beside him.

He speaks to the wolf, addressing her as Eryn, and entreats her to embrace her destiny and help him defeat the party. She seems hesitant, but is beholden to his commands.

Though the party got the upper hand with the element of surprise, they realize they're in for a struggle when Father Daragor transforms into a grotesque oversized lycanthropic monster. He has no teeth, but claws perfectly shaped like the trowel marks they've seen at every murder that's happened in Greymoor since they arrived. It becomes clear that Daragor committed these murders alone, as the only bodies to have standard wolf-sized wounds were missing livestock.

Within moments of transforming, Daragor's horrific claws strike Ilios down, severely injuring him. The battle is fierce, with each member of the party doing their best.

Unfortunately, even their best is not enough to protect the wounded Ilios, and Daragor's dark power compels Eryn to attack him. She tears his throat, ending the monk's life in an instant.

Spurred to fight on, perhaps in seeking revenge for their fallen ally, the party struggles against this monster.

Though on their last legs, they've nearly taken down the beast when a mysterious portal creeps open.

A new, darker Ilios steps forth,, and the portal pops closed behind him.

The arrival of his new form is suspiciously close to what happened when Shade first appeared in the burning Castle Halloway.

With a refreshed ally, our adventurers make quick work of the rest of the battle.

At the end of the battle, Camlib thinks to put the family hierloom they found in George Gilly's house onto her. With a bit of string from someone's bag, they fashion it into a necklace. As it is placed on wolf-form Eryn, she reverts back into her human form. She is quickly covered up by Ilios' cloak.

Seeing as all the evidence pointed to Daragor, the group exonerates her. She reveals she felt she had to follow him, as he was controlling her with the guilt she felt about killing her father.

The group explains that she couldn't have killed him, and that Daragor must have convinced her of that to tighten his control. Eryn is relieved to the point of bitter tears; knowing she was not responsible for the death of her father, after all, but still missing him dearly.

Our adventurers have a lot of questions, but for now they'll have to wait.

So! What is in store for our heroes(?) next time??? What will become of Eryn now that she is freed from her bonds? What's with the weakening connection between the adventurers and their various deities? Will Bartleby or Camlib's families be in one piece by time they get to them? With so much going wrong, will our adventurers manage to make things right?

Find out – Next session!

#hallowaycurse

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fakexpearls · 6 years

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The Rifter Re-Read Notes: Chapters 43-47

I’ve got much better notes this week, and what an action packed set of chapters...

Chapter 43:

We have a scene with John paralleling one of Kyle’s that caught my eye: “He stared at the dim white expanses of the canvas panels that surrounded his bed. The first bright rays of morning light player across the cloth. The strong scents of other men’s bodies hung in the warm air of the dormitory.” This is such a copy of the scene with Kyle that I don’t think it’s by mistake. I’m questioning how different their lives really were in those dormitories and lives - living to serve, waiting for something (a sign, the Kahili, etc) so they both could move on to the next part of their lives.

I really liked: “The rock beneath his fingers was cold and hard and yet it struck John as fragile at the same time. There was a brittleness in its nature, like the bones of an old woman; it felt aged and depleted.” Before I turned the page, I marked this because it reminded me of the Rathal’pesha and the monastery, but then... “John supposed he was projecting the decay he saw in Rathal’pesha and now below him in Amura’taye.” It’s no fun when the character takes your note and explains in the the prose a second later. But the comparison is easy to draw from John’s point of view, and I don’t disagree with him that the monastery and religion are on fragile ground, held up by traditions.

I would like to apologize to Bill for remembering him as a plot device and nothing more, and therefore judging him as such as the reread began. I really like him as a character and I appreciate how much he and Laurie tried to make life work for them! I had also forgotten about the baby completely.

Chapter 44:

Holy time jump! I was confused enough I had to go to “The Story So Far” section to realized we had once against jumped months ahead...

Drunk Ravishan is a time and a half, but I don’t begrudge him for deciding Hann’yu’s method for getting through the ceremony was the way to go. I felt for him when he admitted: “I’m tired of doing what’s right adn wise. And living like this. I don’t feel anything.” =[[[[[

Drunk Ravishan is very honest and upsetting.....and he makes some choices. I do judge him for running off to Candle Alley and finding a goat-herder because John told him no. It was a very childish action. And then John is over here like “The thought of the companionship Ravishan might find nagged John more than he wanted to admit.” Really, John? Really? Because I would be pretty peeved if my Significant Other/Future Lover (if a magical gate cooperates) was throwing a fit and off flirting and kissing someone else. I would be very peeved.

Chapter 45:

My last night brings us to my next where John says “He wasn’t going to stab some goat herder in an alley. He felt enraged - his hands shook with the intensity of his anger - but he wasn’t going to let that make him a murderer.” John’s anger is such a large part of this chapter and it’s interesting to watch the emotion boil over from Ravishan’s choices to Dayyid to the market. How quickly John becomes a murderer when Ravishan is threatened, though. I think a lot of that plays into it being Dayyid as well, but it’s such a quick turn around in his inner-monologue. I love the scene with Dayyid and the knife because we have another indicator of how much John changes Ravishan’s life - the scars at the corners of his mouth are nothing like the ones Kyle had on either cheek. I remembered this scene more than others from my first reading. John’s thoughts on rash behaviors/actions shift as well now that he’s killed Dayyid. When he sees Saimura in the cart and chaos breaks lose to break him free, John notes that: “Perhaps his value was simple that someone loved him enough to sacrifice other lives for his. How many men would he kill for Ravishan?” My memory isn’t perfect on this, but...it’s a quite a bit. But John’s made such a turn around now that he’s been willing to kill for Ravishan that he sees - or at least shares with the reader - that the value of someone to another could be enough to cause all that chaos and destruction...maybe someone like Bill for Laurie?

My next note is “The man was Fai’daum while John, for all outward appearances, was a Payshmura priest.” What do you think John meant by that - just his outward appearance? As far as I was concerned, he had taken on the role of a priest as he bid his time to return to his time in Nayeshi. I know he was never really a priest, not even in his mind, but the murder of Dayyid was such a catalyst for John’s character development (Rifter development) that in twenty minutes(?) he’s had ENOUGH. I also like the line because you could read it that for all outward appearances, John was not as kind/good of a man as he actually was.

Lastly in this chapters, we have “nearly a quater mile of the Gray Space” ripping open!!! Listen...that’s wicked effing cool. And terrifying. What an image. What must the ushiri’im thought? Did they recognize John?

Chapter 46: I HAVE GOT NOTES FOR THIS CHAPTER. SO MANY NOTES

“Ravishan had found him among the dead and mutilated in the remains of the blood market.” This line is nagging me...I can’t recall if there’s a similar scene a little bit further in the story.

I really enjoyed this line: “John clearly remembered Ashan’ahma’s cultured southern voice inquiring how it could have possibly been Parfir’s will that Ushman Dayyid deserved to die?” Because ironically, it was Parfir’s will that Dayyid die - pistol fingers at John - but all the religious analysis that is packed into this chapter is so well done. It doesn’t feel preachy, etc. It’s just John’s logical observations.

“He had built an identity of being ordinary and done it so well that even he had forgotten that it was lie.” I feel sorry for John and his life in Nayeshi, but also how that carried over into Basawar. In Basawar, it was a method of survival, but over time he really convinced himself he was a victim of circumstance and didn’t belong in Basawar for any reason at all. His realizations reek of depression.

“He had to keep himself from manipulating the world around him no matter how easily it came to him. He had to control himself.” The entire point of John being in Basawar and the Rifter as a religious icon is that he would force change. John shouldn’t have to deny his nature, but I get that he wants to do it for protection...not that it pans out.

“Laurie had taken this so much better than he had.” But did she? John isn’t around her enough to gauge her moods, nor is the reader given an idea of what’s going on in her head. That said, I feel like the idea make Laurie feel more powerful than she already is, and gives her reasoning and an agenda later on. John finally letting himself realize that Kyle and Ravishan are the same person! FINALLY. We know later he still identifies them as separate people but at least he’s done being blind to what he doesn’t want to see. John also brings up Kyle’s age. I always assumed Kyle was around John's age or younger...nothing of note there really but an interesting detail I missed the first read.

“But to choose to go - to abandon everything you know and give yourself to a foreign world - that takes true courage.” I agree with John. Ravishan, both this version and the one that became Kyle, is so brave. He may see it as just doing his duty and following his destiny, but he goes and exists in another world knowing barely anything about it! And Ravishan has promised to take (a growing number of) people with him, and he wants to start a new life there - possibly abandon his Rifter duties (I’ve read it that way, but I’m not 100% set on it). Ravishan is a brave boy and I love him.

Chapter 47:

“The ushman’im argued that the trains would only allow tithe debtors to evade imprisonment and make peasants take on airs, thinking that they could travel as far and fast as ushiri’im.” This reminds me of when men in England weren’t sure women should take the trains, should their uterus explode from the speed. Can you see my eyes rolling?

I like the kahilrash’im of Vundomu. They seem to have a better understand of the Rifter than anyone else, and one similiar to the reader up to the this point. I noted: “Pray with us for the cleansing wrath that will at last free his house of corruption and make us once again deserving of his blessings.” and ‘“This is the Rifter,” John whispered. “Parfir’s most holy incarnation,” Wah’roa said softly.” They don’t fear the Rifter, and seem a bit fannish in waiting for his return. We know how the reacted to Ravishan, and I read that as the reaction to Kahil finally being chosen so the Rifter could return.

#the rifter #the rifter series #rifter group reread #partyinbasawar

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multiverseforger · 3 years

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This section's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed.

Stunt cyclist Johnny Blaze is the son of Barton Blaze and Naomi Kale. He spent his early years in the Quentin Carnival where his parents starred in a stunt show with Craig "Crash" Simpson. Johnny's mother walked out on Barton and Johnny and took the family's remaining two children, Barbara and Danny, with her.

Losing his mother caused Johnny to repress many of his memories of her and his siblings. When his father died in a stunt, Johnny was adopted by Crash and Mona Simpson. The Simpsons helped Johnny by fabricating his past with the hope that it would be less painful than the truth. Now believing that his real mother was Clara Blaze, who had died, Johnny became an enthusiastic member of the Simpson clan, growing closer to their daughter, Roxanne. The two soon became inseparable and, as they grew older, their fondness for one another moved beyond familial.

Blaze would eventually join the Simpsons in their own traveling stunt show, the Crash Simpson Stunt Cycle Extravaganza. Crash had become a father figure for Blaze and, on learning of Crash's life-threatening cancer, Blaze turned to the occult. His studies led him to a spell which supposedly could summon Satan himself. Johnny was unaware that he had, in fact, summoned Mephisto. Desperate to save Crash, Blaze sold his soul to Mephisto in return for Crash's cancer to be cured.[24]

Crash Simpson's cancer was cured, but he was subsequently killed in a stunt trying to jump over 22 cars. Mephisto, when confronted by Blaze over Crash's death, declared that he had kept his end of the bargain. Johnny's exact words in the bargain had been for Crash to be spared the cancer which was killing him, not for him to live. Blaze was saved by Roxanne when she proclaimed her love for Blaze, driving Mephisto away with the purity of her emotion.[24]

Blaze was unaware that Mephisto had bonded him with the demon Zarathos as an act of revenge, and was transformed into a Ghost Rider, a leather-clad skeleton with a flaming head. While Johnny still had his soul, he was forced to punish the wicked and evil upon Mephisto's demands whenever needed.[24] Whenever he was in the presence of evil he would transform into the Ghost Rider, to exact the devil's revenge, returning the evil to Hell. Blaze was not completely lost in the transformation however, and would also help the innocent when they were in danger.[25]

As the Ghost Rider, he encountered Daimon Hellstrom.[26] Johnny later came to work as a movie stuntman for Delazny Studios.[27] As the Ghost Rider, he became a member of the Champions[28] and met Morbius the Living Vampire, the Man-Thing and the Werewolf by Night.[29] He lost a motorcycle stunt riding championship to Flagg Fargo[30] and later came to work as a stunt rider for the Quentin Carnival.[31]

Eventually, Zarathos would gain control of Johnny Blaze and the Ghost Rider would become the spirit of Zarathos unleashed. Johnny himself was becoming stronger as well, and the conflicting personalities led to a battle over Blaze's physical body.[32] Centurious appeared, trapping Blaze's soul in his soul crystal. Zarathos, weakened from the ordeal used the last of his strength to shatter the crystal, freeing Blaze's soul and many others contained inside of the crystal. Before the crystal was reformed, Centurious was absorbed into the crystal. Zarathos followed him into the crystal, freeing Blaze from the curse, restoring his soul and ending his time as the Ghost Rider.[33]

For a while, Johnny became a drifter and then an adventurer. He eventually became the owner of the carnival. In time, he learned of the existence of Daniel Ketch as the Ghost Rider. Believing the new Ghost Rider to be Zarathos, Johnny traveled to New York City to kill him.[34] Johnny abducted Ketch and battled the Ghost Rider. Johnny became convinced that Ketch was not Zarathos and aided him against Blackout.[35] Alongside the Ghost Rider and Spider-Man, Blaze then fought the Hobgoblin.[36] He also helped Ghost Rider and the X-Men battle the Brood Queen.[37]

He later teamed up with the new Ghost Rider to form the "Spirits of Vengeance". During this time Blaze would again ride a bike with wheels of fire and would sling a hellfire-spitting pump-gun. Their mentor Caretaker would later reveal that they were, in fact, brothers. In the team's first appearance, they battled Lilith and her Lilin.[38]

Blaze went back to leading his carnival. Despite it being staffed with many powerful entities, it was nearly destroyed in a demonic attack led by the creature Vengeance. The dead, friend and foe alike, were taken by government forces to be dissected. Blaze, with the help of friends, living and dead, breaks into the facility and destroys all the bodies.[volume & issue needed]

A later confrontation with the forces of evil would lead to Roxanne's death.[volume & issue needed] Blaze would later become a demon hunter, hunt down the demons responsible for her death and kill them all.[volume & issue needed] Roxanne was later discovered to have been resurrected as, or simply transformed into, the being named the Black Rose.[volume & issue needed] She was later returned to Johnny, despite memory loss, in the final issue of the Dan Ketch series of Ghost Rider.[volume & issue needed]

Starting over, Blaze eventually found a new job as an accountant and a new girlfriend, Chloe, in the 2001 Marvel Knights series "The Hammer Lane". Though at first it seemed he was free from the curse, Johnny would eventually transform back into Ghost Rider, since Zarathos had reconstituted himself in Johnny Blaze, despite being turned into a stone statue after his battle with the Midnight Sons.[39]

This Ghost Rider entity spoke only a singular line and was much more savage than Noble Kale.[volume & issue needed] At first, there was no indication as to who or what this creature was.[volume & issue needed] However, this entity would appear to be Zarathos, as it is stated in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z Volume 4 (TPB).

Johnny Blaze soon found himself constantly pursued by the demons of Hell, intent on forcing him to make good on the demonic pact that he had made to Mephisto. It was all that the Ghost Rider could do to outrun the evil, but it was not enough. Eventually, Johnny was captured and taken to Hell.[volume & issue needed]

The "Road to Damnation" series, by Garth Ennis and Clayton Crain, finds Johnny Blaze trapped in an endless cycle of torture and escape in the Pit. It is here that the angel Malachi appears to the Ghost Rider, offering to free him from Hell with his soul intact, in exchange for hunting down the demon Kazann who has been unleashed upon the Earth.[volume & issue needed]

Malachi tells Blaze that the only way he will be freed from Hell permanently is to beat the Archangel Ruth to Kazann, in order to stave off the destruction that she will cause should she fight him. Along the way, Blaze meets a demon, Hoss, who is also in pursuit of Kazann, and offers to help the Ghost Rider since they share the same goal.[volume & issue needed]

Hoss and Blaze fight with Ruth and she steals his bike; they pursue her in Hoss' Cadillac. When they arrive to where Ruth is Kazann is already free, thanks to the efforts of a corrupt paraplegic business owner named Earl Gustav. Hoss and Ruth fight while Blaze battles Kazann, who lets Johnny know that he has been duped by Malachi. As this happens Gustav's secretary, Jemima Catmint, makes her boss recite an incantation that sends Kazaan back to Hell. Johnny thinks that he is free, but gets shot in the head by a dying priest (whom he had blasted with hellfire earlier) with a holy bullet and is sent back to Hell. He confronts Malachi, who reveals that he tricked Johnny. Johnny threatens to kill him, but is prevented from doing so by Ruth, who kills him herself. Hoss appears and reveals that Kazann and Malachi were actually brothers, who passed information to each other about Heaven and Hell. Once Kazann escaped from Hell, Malachi needed to find someone (the Ghost Rider) to get him back before Ruth, in order to prevent Kazann from spilling the beans about Malachi exchanging secrets of Heaven with him while he was being tortured by angels.[volume & issue needed]

In July, 2006, a new ongoing monthly series began with a story titled "Vicious Cycle", which was written by Daniel Way, with art by Mark Texeira and Javier Saltares (the same artistic team from the 1990s series). The storyline takes place after the Ennis miniseries and features Johnny Blaze finally escaping from Hell.[volume & issue needed]

Blaze's escape is a plot engineered by Lucifer himself, as when Johnny escapes from Hell the devil comes with him. During a battle at a gas station, Blaze defeats the corpse of a recently deceased father that has been animated by the devil. Detecting the magical disturbance caused by Ghost Rider's escape, Doctor Strange investigates the situation, but, believing Doctor Strange to be Lucifer in disguise, Blaze attacks him and for the first time he uses the Penance Stare, debilitating Doctor Strange. It is then that the celestial being Numecet appears and reveals the intent of Lucifer to Blaze.[volume & issue needed]

Having healed Doctor Strange, Numecet tells Johnny Blaze that he is stronger than he can comprehend and is a vital part of Lucifer's plans, as he intends for the Ghost Rider to kill each of the bodies that he has possessed. It is revealed that when Lucifer traveled to the mortal realm his essence shattered and spread to 666 recently deceased people, each one of them resurrected and imbued with a portion of the devil's strength. In order to reform his body each one of the human hosts has to die, but they cannot die from suicide as that is a sin and would send the devil back to hell, requiring them to provoke others into killing them. As each one falls the remaining will become even stronger and Ghost Rider must kill them because, although others can kill the bodies at first, eventually the remaining hosts will become so powerful that no other being could kill them. Numecet attempts to dissuade Blaze but to no avail, Blaze vowing that he will force the devil into a single corporeal form and then drag him back to Hell once and for all.[volume & issue needed]

During the "Civil War" storyline, Johnny ends up in Sleepy Hollow, Illinois where a serial killer is decapitating local children and soon learns his identity: the supervillain known as Jack O'Lantern. Killed by the Punisher, Stevie Levins' body is occupied by one of the several aspects of Lucifer. The local sheriff thinks Blaze is to blame but soon realizes the truth. Ghost Rider and the sheriff confront Levins/Lucifer at the door of a preacher's house, and after a short fight Ghost Rider tears out Levins/Lucifer's heart and smashes his head.[40]

During the "World War Hulk" storyline, Johnny Blaze angers the Ghost Rider when he tries to save several people and allows the Lucifer fragment they were currently fighting to escape. Later after watching a broadcast on TV, Blaze decides to go to New York and fight the Hulk, against the Ghost Rider's will. The issue ends with Ghost Rider coming to a halt on his motorcycle in front of the Hulk.[41] After attempting to urge the Hulk to stop, Ghost Rider engages the Hulk. Their battle is monitored by Doctor Strange and Mister Fantastic. Doctor Strange believes that the entity that supplies Ghost Rider's mystic power is possibly capable of defeating the Hulk, stating that his powers are limitless, and only inhibited by the human side of the Ghost Rider, even going as far as to call his powers "godlike". However, as it is Johnny Blaze, not the fully powered demon Zarathos who is engaging the Hulk, the Hulk easily defeats Ghost Rider. After Johnny is knocked out, Zarathos himself emerges and rides off because, as Doctor Strange says in the end of the issue, Ghost Rider only protects the innocent, which none of the Illuminati are.[42]

Johnny eventually manages to defeat Lucifer by 'killing' one host by shoving a truck's gear-stick through its head and breaking its spine, leaving the host biologically alive but incapacitated. While the host is kept alive by Dixie, a trucker Johnny had encountered, Blaze tracks down what Lucifer believes is his final host and defeats it, exploiting the fact that Lucifer is only at half-strength. As soon as Johnny kills this host, Dixie and a group of local police are able to kill the brain-damaged Lucifer fragment – who now possesses the full soul of the devil but is in no condition to use that power – and send him back to Hell.[43]

Seven Riders show their flaming heads for the first time in this story arc by writer Jason Aaron and artist Tan Eng Huat. Daniel Ketch returns with a new mission: to collect the powers of all the Ghost Riders for the angel Zadkiel to prevent the corruption of the powers with their human hosts. Zadkiel has other motives he keeps to himself, one of which he needs the powers of the Riders for: to tear down the walls of New Jerusalem and wage war on Heaven. The story begins in Tibet with Chinese soldiers harassing a village, questioning them about weapons that killed two of his garrison patrols. During the harassment a peasant enters on a donkey. After a few exchange of words and an order to kill given by the General, the peasant changes and kills the General's men while his back is turned. When the General turns back he sees the Ghost Rider and gets a Penance Stare for his trouble. After the attack the Rider goes back to his sanctuary where he is visited by Danny Ketch. A short while later Sister Sara and Johnny Blaze arrive at the sanctuary to find out how to get back at Zadkiel. After entering, they find the peasant and donkey burnt to husks.[44]

That night, the two are visited by Ketch and begins a battle with a show of power. When Blaze does the Penance Stare to his brother, he sees exactly what has transpired. Ketch has murdered the hosts of numerous Riders for their powers. During a show of pity for the fallen, Ketch is able to return the Stare on Blaze and sends Blaze into temporary insanity. Before Ketch is able to take the power of Zarathos, he is stopped by the new Caretaker Sister Sara. She rescues Blaze and they go to a safehouse. At the safehouse, during Blaze's self-pity and Sara's trying to pick him back up, they are visited by two more Ghost Riders, the Arabic Molek and the Chinese Bai Gu Jing, whom they follow to Japan.[45]

When Blaze's team arrives in Japan, they learn Ketch has already taken the power of the Rider Yoshio Kannabe. After the conquest, Ketch has another talk with Zadkiel via communications link. During the conversation, Zadkiel massacres the squad of the Asura who guard the gates of Heaven. Zadkiel tells Ketch to wait to attack the Riders until the last ones are together. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world, former cop Kowalski follows a contact to get a hellfire shotgun for his revenge on Blaze.[46]

After acquiring the item he is then driven to the middle of a desert to sit and wait for his chance. After leaving Japan, Blaze's team journeys to the City of the Skulls in the Congo where the last stand would be made. There they meet the Lords of the Congo, the Ghost Riders Baron Skullfire and Marinette Bwachech, and their Phantom Riders. During the day Sara tells Molek about her new experience becoming a Caretaker, and her wonders about religion, with which she is given secret information that Molek knows about both. As the Ghost Riders and their forces ready for battle, Blaze has his eyes opened by two children who go to participate in the fight. He quickly snaps out of his depression and joins the others for the final battle.[47]

During the course of the battle, Baron Skullfire dies and the spirit is transferred to one of the Phantom Riders, after which Ketch creates hellfire duplicates of himself to take the on the warriors. A wager is then made by Blaze and Ketch on a race between the brothers around the world for the fates of the powers. During the race, Blaze is critically injured by Kowalski's shotgun and Ketch takes the Rider from him as his duplicates overpower the others. Moments later, Ketch relinquishes the power of the Spirits of Vengeance to Heaven, with Zadkiel now able to storm it. The sound of the gates falling is enough to be felt by Spider-Man's spider-sense and loud enough to be heard even in Hell and Asgard. When an injured Blaze returns to the City of the Skulls, Ketch falls from the sky, revealing that the battle for Heaven has already been decided. As more energies fall from the heavens, one strikes Kowalski and changes him into a new Rider that looks a lot like Vengeance.[48]

After the battle with Zadkiel and his Black Host, Johnny Blaze parts ways with Ketch and Sara. He eventually wanders to a Japanese village, living in the nearby temple. The villagers are suddenly invaded by demons and their flesh is transformed into heinous forms by a creature called the Skinbender. Blaze's attempt to fight back result in her trying to morph his flesh, but finds his skin burns to the touch due to his power, prompting her to demand that he transform into the Ghost Rider. When he does, she breaks down crying, claiming that he is the most beautiful thing she had ever seen and begs for him to speak. He simply responds with "Burn", leading a storm of fire to rain onto the village, incinerating the demons and restoring the villagers to their normal states. At the same time, Sara arrives in the village to reunite with Blaze to continue their quest against Zadkiel. She finds him in the process of grinding up the Skinbender, before tossing her into the sea. Sara then consoles Blaze, asking him to think of his family and asks where they are. He replies, saying that they are in Heaven. They then depart from the village to continue their journey.[49]

The Antichrist, Kid Blackheart, after being hunted down by Zadkiel's agents on Earth, is saved by occult terrorist Jaine Cutter, despite Daimon Hellstorm's efforts to slay him. Eventually, the three encounter Johnny, Danny and Sara, and are forced to join forces in a desperate attempt to defeat Zadkiel in Paradise. Eventually, after reaching Heaven with Danny, he and Danny both attack Zadkiel, but are quickly overwhelmed; however, the spirits of Blaze's deceased wife and children encourage him to rise and continue to fight Zadkiel, rallying the combined forces of the Spirits of Vengeance (whom Ketch had been tricked into returning to Heaven by Zadkiel) against the renegade Archangel. After Zadkiel realizes that he was not, and never would be, the one true God, as Blaze tells him, "Only God can make a Ghost Rider, Zadkiel. You should know that. And only God can destroy one. You may have been able to shift that power around, to even leech it from its hosts. But you were never really able to control it. And you certainly couldn't kill it. You're not God, Zadkiel. You're just another power-mad wannabe who desperately needs his ass kicked. And that's exactly what the Ghost Riders are for", he is defeated and banished to Hell, with God, revealed to have never perished at all, reclaiming Heaven and thanking Blaze for all he did for Paradise and its billions of souls.[50]

During the "Shadowland" storyline, Kingpin and Lady Bullseye perform a ritual which brings back Ghost Rider in a plot to attack the Hand.[51] After Ghost Rider returns to Kingpin, he is forced to travel to Japan to confront the ancient ninja clan the Hand, and, unable to directly combat them due to the Hand magic binding him, provokes them into killing him. Blaze's soul emerges in a white void, and God, after telling him he is needed still, sends him back to the mortal realm, and, in gratitude for his role in defeating Zadkiel, aiding him by reinforcing him with a battalion force of Black Host warrior angels who are able to quickly slaughter the Hand ninjas with ease. Freed from the curse, Blaze rides off into the distance on his motorcycle.[52]

During the "Fear Itself" storyline, Johnny Blaze becomes more agitated about his curse and is then approached by a mysterious figure known as Adam who claims he can help Blaze be rid of the Ghost Rider once and for all. Blaze was ambivalent to the man's gesture, thinking there was a catch to his offer, but Adam simply put that the curse will be passed to someone he never met. Blaze accepts the offer and was told to drive the Rider out of his soul. Blaze was finally rid of the Rider for good from then on while Adam went about his way to find a new host for the Ghost Rider. In Dayton, Ohio when Sin (in the form of Skadi) attacks the city, she fights a new female Ghost Rider. After the female Ghost Rider is defeated, Mephisto appears before Johnny Blaze stating that he has damned the human race and will help Johnny out.[53]

Explaining that 'Adam' was the original Adam, Mephisto reveals that the new Ghost Rider is a girl named Alejandra that Adam has raised in isolation for years, intending to use her to purge the world of sin, unconcerned about the fact that this will deprive humanity of free will.[54] Despite his distaste at working with Mephisto for anything – the devil's motives clarified as being to preserve his own existence – Blaze is able to convince Alejandra to abandon Adam's plan after she renders an entire town catatonic. However, although Johnny was initially willing to let her serve as the new Ghost Rider, when her attempt to regain the town's lost sin nearly sends the world to Hell – her efforts only being narrowly defeated by the new Venom, Red Hulk and X-23 – Blaze is finally convinced by Doctor Strange to take back the Ghost Rider mantle, following Alejandra into Hell as she attempts to kill Mephisto and regaining the full power of the Ghost Rider, although Alejandra retains a fragment of its power for herself.[55]

Much later, Ghost Rider joins Red Hulk's Thunderbolts to help take out Mercy, when she was unleashed.[2] During a mission in which General Ross is searching for his missing men in an ancient temple in the South American jungles, the Leader incites a spell that momentarily removes the flame from Johnny Blaze. In the brief moment where he has lost the Spirit of Vengeance, Blaze is brutally torn apart and killed by a swamp demon.[56]

General Ross is the only one to survive the mission and comes face to face with Mansuco, one of the men he was looking for that acquired divine powers. Mancuso gives Ross the option to either die on the spot or erase the mission from history. Ross chooses to erase the mission from the timestream returning Johnny Blaze to life.[57]

Following several other missions, the Punisher quit the Thunderbolts, only to find that his safehouse had been booby-trapped and destroyed.[volume & issue needed] Setting out for revenge on the Thunderbolts for the attack, Punisher attempted to slay the Ghost Rider with Mephisto's sword, which he got from Zadkiel. Ghost Rider thwarted this attempt, but ultimately Punisher was able to release Johnny from the Spirit of Vengeance by decapitating his flaming skull with his own chain.[volume & issue needed] The curse once again leaves Johnny, only to return to him by the series' end.[58]

In All New, All-Different Marvel, Johnny learns of the new Ghost Rider in East Los Angeles.[59] When confronting Reyes, Johnny realizes that this new Ghost Rider is a body indwelt by two human souls.[60] Once he finally learns the identities of these two souls—those being the soul of the serial killer Eli Morrow and his host, Robbie Reyes—Johnny decides to help Reyes learn how to be a true Ghost Rider by controlling his inner evil. Johnny helps Reyes fight Eli's former Russian mob allies and Mister Hyde. When Robbie finally gains control over Eli's soul, the Ghost Riders bid him farewell, Johnny telling the young new Ghost Rider if he has trouble again to call on his fellow Ghost Riders.[61]

During the "Damnation" storyline, Ghost Rider joins up with Wong's incarnation of the Midnight Sons when Mephisto and Hotel Inferno manifest in Las Vegas.[62] While the Midnight Sons and Scarlet Spider fight the demons, Ghost Rider rides his motorcycle to the top of Hotel Inferno to confront Mephisto. After Mephisto removes the Ghost Rider spell from Johnny Blaze, he throws Blaze from the roof.[63] After Johnny was thrown off the roof, he passes away. This is all part of Wong's plan. In Hell, Johnny Blaze finds the now-independent Spirit of Vengeance and persuades him to help reach Mephisto's throne. The two of them combine together and make their way through the circles of Hell until they reach Mephisto's throne.[64] Upon Doctor Strange defeating him, Mephisto fled back to his realm where he was defeated by Johnny Blaze and the different Ghost Riders from across the Multiverse. After Johnny Blaze sent Mephisto back to Earth, he was kept at the top of Hotel Inferno in countless restraints as Hotel Inferno remained on Earth.[65]

When Cosmic Ghost Rider arrives in Hell, he is welcomed by its current ruler Johnny Blaze.[66]

During the events of Absolute Carnage, Johnny (via an astral projection) asks Danny Ketch to find and help a former Ghost Rider, Alejandra Jones, who is being attacked by Carnage.[67]

When a group of Demons escape Hell through a portal, Johnny follows them in order to send them back. He encounters Danny Ketch fight kill one of the Demons he's hunting and the two talk about the Spirit of Vengeance, with Johnny disappointed that Danny doesn't embrace his role as Ghost Rider. He leaves after spotting a Demon in a human disguise and after failing to get the location of the other Demons, Johnny uses his Damnation Stare to kill it. His time in Hell has corrupted him, changing the Ghost Rider's skull to one with a horned and crown appearance. Johnny finds another Demon, who tells him of the location of a huge Demon gathering. Johnny kills it and proceeds to kill the others as well until Danny arrives to stop him, believing he's killing innocent people. The two fight and after a bike chase, Johnny strips the Spirit of Vengeance from Danny. Afterwards, Johnny ponders where the find the other Demons and how they could've escaped Hell, coming to the conclusion that there's only one who can help him: Mephisto. Riding to Vegas, Johnny kills two more Demons and arrives at the Hotel Inferno and is confronted by Wong. The two are attacked by more Demons and afterwards, Johnny and Wong fight one another, with the former winning after chaining and using the Penance Stare on Wong. Johnny frees Mephisto from his prison and drags him in chains behind him.[68

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poorquentyn · 6 years

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Considering Spielberg is your (second?) favorite director, do you have any kind of ranking of his filmography? (If so, I hope you give Empire of the Sun the high marks it deserves. It's the quintessential Spielberg film! A boy's own adventure story that gets eaten alive by a war drama!)

*rubs hands together*

Ok, so, only ones where he was in the director’s chair; none of even those producer’s credits where you can feel his indelible stamp on the final product, so no Goonies, Gremlins, Poltergeist, or Back to the Future. Even then, I’m leaving out a lot, so honorable mention to Lincoln, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me if You Can, War of the Worlds, The Color Purple, Bridge of Spies, the two worthwhile Indy sequels…

10. Jurassic Park

Start with the gaze upon himself: Jurassic Park as a $63 million self-portrait released on the exact tipping point of his career. John Hammond and Steven Spielberg’s miracles are one and the same: one brings dinosaurs back, the other convinces us they’re real. One uses DNA, the other uses CGI. When the characters stare in wonder, they’re meant to mirror our own at the imagery; when Jeff Goldblum mutters “that crazy son of a bitch actually did it,” he’s speaking for an entire industry once again forced to up its game by a Spielberg Miracle.

Our protagonist, however, is shitty with computers, so Alan Grant terrifies a child the old fashioned Jaws way: with a prop (a raptor claw) and his imagination. Hammond whisks him away from that to a world where one can press a button and make yourself appear on screen, mirroring how Spielberg has done the same with Hammond as his craft has evolved from malfunctioning sharks to CG velociraptors. The heart of the film comes when this giddy wonder in the possibilities of “we have the technology” is soured and our author avatar is left disillusioned and afraid, eating ice cream in a room full of merch he’ll never sell (but Spielberg will), telling Laura Dern about how he started off with a flea circus. That, right there, is a metaphor for moviemaking, and specifically Spielberg’s brand of it: pulling invisible strings to make us think that impossible things are real, to make belief believable.

Above all, Jurassic Park is afraid for the kids. Another perfect metaphor for the meta-tastic whole comes when the T-Rex crashes down through the car roof, only glass separating him from devouring the children; their hands are desperately keeping the monster behind the rectangular transparent plane, on the screen, even as Spielberg/Hammond’s tech is so real it threatens to burst right through. “He left us!” one kid wails about the character representing the studio weasels. “But that’s not what I’m gonna do,” Alan Grant whispers, half in shadow, blue eyes ablaze with a promise he didn’t know he was going to make. He can’t keep it. There are monsters in the kitchen. Spielberg’s next movie, released only a handful of months later, is Schindler’s List.

9. Duel

Such a seam scratches the tape; rewind, start again. Where did this begin? On TV, in the backseat of a car, backing out of the garage. Duel is the world’s most accomplished demo reel, cinema stripped down to its bare minimum to let the director’s preposterous surplus of talent shine through. It’s about a man (named Mann, both appropriate and touchingly pretentious) who pisses off a truck driver we never see, who then chases our protagonist with lethal intent, and that’s it.

And that’s all Spielberg needs. What follows is the future, a steel-shod gauntlet of precise camera angles and insidious sound design that builds the bridge between the B-movie and the blockbuster. By the end you feel spent but sated, as if every possible creative drop has been wrung out of the slim scenario. It’s nothing more nor less than the finest Roadrunner & Coyote episode imaginable, to the extent that George Miller was clearly reaching back to it for inspiration again and again in Fury Road. Indeed, while Duel is set in the modern day, Spielberg needs no trickery to make the antagonistic truck look positively apocalyptic.

It’s such a vivid example of the medium’s unique possibilities that you have to stop to remember that it was made for TV. And then you stop to think that he was only 24, same age Welles was when he made Citizen Kane. Lofty comparison, I know, but Duel proves it’s not what your movie is about, but how it’s about it that counts. Spielberg made it look easy, and so everyone followed. The road goes ever on and on…

8. Munich

…until it doesn’t. No exit.

Munich is the culmination of Spielberg’s Blue Period, his great here-comes-another-bloody-century trepidation, punctured by Stanley Kubrick’s death and 9/11. The former gave birth to A.I. Artificial Intelligence, and the movies about closing doorways and agonized faces that followed. The latter palpably haunted Spielberg’s projects in its wake: even Minority Report, a script written years earlier and adapted from a decades-old story, was uncannily timely in its portrait of overreaching security and law enforcement built to placate (and control) a population reeling from loss. Then came the director’s outright Twin Towers Trilogy: The Terminal, War of the Worlds, and Munich, addressing the event from different angles and through different filters. Of course, the intriguing and emotional setup in The Terminal’s opening minutes, framing post-9/11 bureaucracy as fluid chaos eating away at the state from within, quickly gives way to disappointing inanity. And while I maintain that War of the Worlds is absolutely perfect as an on-the-ground recreation of 9/11 as an alien attack for the first 50-60%, things go downhill fast once Tim Robbins shuffles onscreen.

Munich is the one that actually has the courage of its convictions, in large part because it’s about the director and protagonist alike breaking down in tears and admitting they don’t know what to believe anymore. Every set piece unfolds with a quiet chill and ends with you contemplating mortality. It’s a deliberately non-thrilling thriller. The ideology dissolves, not in neat bromides but in the day-to-day realities of ending human beings. Revenge fills you with fire, hot and bright, and then turns sour in your mouth. Narrative strands cross and recross, and the film’s inciting event, murder before the world’s watching eyes, sinks into that abyss known as Context.

By the end, you don’t even know what you’re fighting for anymore but your family, and you’re haunted by the knowledge that your kids will be fighting the same damn fight. The last thing to be corrupted, then, is the dinner table. Our protagonist begs to break bread with his handler, and the final word of the Blue Period is “no.” The camera tilts over to the Twin Towers, their loss contextualized as just another curl of a horrorshow helix, and the exorcism is complete. The anger and grief has largely vanished from Spielberg’s work since, as he’s settled into a comfortable John Ford mode. He left his questions here, unanswered.

7. Minority Report

If A.I. was Spielberg’s 2001, a millennia-spanning epitaph for humanity and a glimpse of what we leave behind, Minority Report (following the Kubrick trajectory) would be his Clockwork Orange, stepping down from the stars to gaze with cold horror on the things we do to one another with power. In the future, three young seers see crimes before they happen, enabling the state to lock people away for crimes they haven’t committed in the name of wiping out crime for good. Indeed, this fleet fluid fever dream makes explicit visual reference to Clockwork’s Ludovico scene (see above). In Spielberg’s memory machine, though, the image of an eye forcibly kept open by metal claws takes on a meaning beyond social and political analysis, though those are certainly still in there. It’s something more spiritual: Minority Report is about divine sight in a postmodern age.

Our protagonist’s rival went to seminary, his own men tell him they’re more priests than cops, but Tom Cruise’s John Anderton can’t bring himself to recognize the Spielberg Miracle at work here. The larger moral revelation of the “precogs,” the framing of their ability to see crimes before they happen as a techno-noir version of Biblical prophecy, is lost on Anderton because it can’t bring his son back. For him, that the future is known points to the futility of human existence. If there’s no free will, if we’re all doomed to perpetually fall in a fallen world, what’s the point?

And then one of the precogs asks him: “Do you see?” So begins the murder mystery that will see him accused of a future murder, that of the man who ostensibly killed his son. Anderton chooses mercy, only for the man to grab and pull the trigger because it’s all a setup to prevent Anderton from learning the truth about the precogs: they, too, are children stolen from their parents, all our characters trapped in a Möbius strip of loss they can only watch unfold, again and again, as if on the film’s countless screens. The images have been manipulated to hide the truth, the divine vision sullied by contact with the greedy exploitative systems of the Blue Period. But our detective finds the truth, and an existential triumph in making the right choice even if he can’t change the outcome. I’ve always taken the happy ending, a startling glimpse of green after a movie of blues and grays that look etched in stone, as just another vision. Closure is there, your family is there, in the future, in the past, just out of reach, smiling back at you. It hurts to look, but even as your eyes are torn out and replaced, you can’t look away.

6. Raiders of the Lost Ark

Well now, see, this one’s a tad criticism-proof by design, being as it is smelted and shaped to get under your defenses. “Disarming” seems like a strange choice of defining adjective for this most white-knuckled of action/adventure movies, but for all the staggering moviemaking skill on display, Raiders is ultimately a puppy shoving its nose under your hand. Given the slightest opportunity, it will make you love it. Fun is its religion, so deeply felt and communicated is the generous desire to entertain, rooted in the pulp serials that first lit the fire in its makers’ bellies to create.

And that fire again burns hot and bright, which is Raiders’ other secret magic trick: underneath all the cleverness, the jokes within jokes and setpieces spilling into ever more elaborate ones, the sense that every single moment was designed to make the rest of the genre look paltry and stingy by comparison, what happens at the end is nothing less than the very specifically Old Testament God stepping in to fry Nazis’ faces off. It’s the Ghostbusters trick of grounding helium-high hijinks in metaphysical forces that are not in any way kidding around. Our action hero, at the climax of the movie, is simply the one who (in an inverse of Minority Report) is smart enough to look away. So many Spielberg movies boil down to a shaft of divine light, and sometimes the light burns.

Then came the bizarre, hallucinogenic Temple of Doom and the sturdy, winning Last Crusade and that fourth one we don’t talk about, but they’re all in some way reactions to the nigh-flawless original. All you can do is go back, wearing the leather deep, Indy ageless, his eyes blazing shut against the light.

5. Empire of the Sun

Equally criticism-proof, but for the exact opposite reasons. This is the one no one can quite explain. Spielberg isn’t telling; he might not have any more idea than the rest of us. It shares certain themes with the rest of his work, especially regarding how children process the collapse and change of their world, but the similarities are strictly on paper. It feels different. I don’t what it…is. What it’s for. What it means. These sound like bad things, but they’re not. Empire of the Sun is utterly arresting, every bit as much as those canonized Spielberg classics of which anyone can explain the appeal. It’s just that it unfolds like a dream, and I’m left grasping after it in the same way. It might be one of the more accurate adaptations put to film in only that it feels so much more novelistic in its thrust and tone than most.

What can be pinned down is a series of images and sounds about the fall and occupation of Shanghai by Japan in WWII, told from the perspective of the naive sheltered son of a British emissary. Our hero is played by Christian Bale, in what might be my favorite child performance. To the extent that Empire of the Sun is about anything beyond the experience of watching it, it’s about his breakdown, and that’s what grounds the dreamlike style: we’re watching a bubble burst. Death and decay unfold out of the corner of his eye, like a memory he can’t quite bear to fully recall. His childhood vanishes when he shrieks surrender at anyone who will listen, trusting the rules to snap back into place and the world to make sense again, only for the collapse to continue unabated.

It’s made out of smoke and corners and quiet sadnesses. It’s runny, like an egg. I dream about it sometimes. You should watch it if you haven’t.

4. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

*harrumphs, wipes eyes* so um uh my name is Emmett, you see, and it begins with a….an ends with a….shut up.

That’s the point, though, of the movie: identification so strong that it almost kills you. E.T. is love, that’s all. All of it is here, from pure warm glow to heart stopping loss, swept up in imagery and sound that seem to positively hum with rich rueful feeling. Much has been made of how much of the movie is shot from a child’s POV, but everything about the movie operates on kid-logic. ET himself, for example: botanist or pet? Both. The connection he forges with Elliott swirls all such categories together. Elliott needs this, is yearning for love so badly, and even when it hurts, he’s more alive than he was before, with Dad gone.

But what makes E.T. different from, say, Star Wars and Harry Potter is that our hero only gets a taste of this other world, his fingertips brushing against magic as he passes it in the night. The gold-and-purple-brushed cinematography and the ecstatic, eternally swelling score sweep the profound and mundane together as one, bike rides and trick-or-treating and a psychic connection with an alien, yet the narrative eventually teases them apart like a sad parent forced to tell their kid that the dog is dead, and what “dead” means. ET returns to life, the definitive Spielberg Miracle…and then he leaves. Elliott will go home to his melancholy, frustrating life. School is still hard. His emotions still confuse him. Dad is still gone. The final shot of his face is not one of wonder, but maturation. It’s the moment Elliott grows up, and it’s the very definition of bittersweet.

What do you do, when you’ve loved and lost? You go home, you play with your toys, you send letters into Weird Things and Such SF Monthly, you make movies in your backyard, and you watch the skies….

….until they come back.

All of them.

3. Close Encounters of the Third Kind

I smiled just typing the words. I whispered them to myself, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This movie is a lil shining red ball dancing in my eyes; it is glee given form, a rainbow-colored pony ridden by a Willy Wonka-suited Care Bear on twenty tabs of LSD. The last half-hour, all glowing light and warm noise, earns the cliche: it makes you feel like a kid again, in the best possible way. After a movie’s buildup of wonder and terror, the sight and sound of a colossal lit-up mothership cheerfully BWAMMing out a melody is so cathartic that it’s impossible to sit still.

As with Raiders, though, it’s worth digging into the movie’s layers to understand where that light is coming from, and what it costs you to look at it. Close Encounters is a movie about communication, of course, from the alien lights to the translator forever accompanying Francois Truffaut (a filmmaker who knows a thing or two about capturing kid-logic on screen). It’s a movie about the fragility of family life in the face of the unknown, hence that devastating scene around the dinner table: something’s wrong with Dad, a subject near and dear to the director’s heart.

But above all else, it’s a religious movie, the religious movie. It’s about rushing upwards, and leaving all else behind. Roy Neary sees a divine light in the sky, and can’t reconcile it with the life he was living. He obsessively recreates his vision in idols, chases it across the country, driving his wife and children away in favor of his fellow prophets: here are my mother and my brothers. And the sting in that gorgeous symphonic ending’s tail is that it’s so good that Roy sheds this mortal coil to join them in the heavens. Spielberg has said that if he made it now, he wouldn’t have let Roy get on that ship. And when you look at E.T. or the movies he made from Schindler forward, it’s clear why: in joining the interstellar flock, the man-child left his family to the wolves. By the time Roy/Eliot came home, his skin had sagged, his hair had gone white, and his children were waiting for him with eyes that cut.

And what do their movies look like?

2. A.I. Artificial Intelligence

The ultimate deconstructed fairytale; a honeyvelvetacid-glazed gaze into a heart-shaped abyss; Kubrick a darkwinged angel looming over ET’s crib, brushing a final tear away from his metallic eye…

So does Steven Spielberg, our flesh and blood Peter Pan, grow old and tell the children he lied. The monster is inside the house, inside your head, and inside the stories. At the core is a child’s innocent love for his mother…programmed in him, by her, a debt she cannot and will not repay. “His love is real, but he is not.” Pinocchio but for robots, A.I. takes its sci-fi trappings as a launching pad for a guiding philosophical question: “if a robot could genuinely love a human, what responsibility would that person hold towards that mecha in return?” The boardroom exec who poses that question pauses, almost bashful to ask the next one in a room full of people who treat the abuse of robots like a joke or a PowerPoint presentation, and then proceeds: “it’s a moral question, isn’t it?”

It is indeed, and for David’s adoptive family, the answer is none. He is abandoned, and chases his Blue Fairy and his happy ending across the apocalypse. As his fellow robots are torn apart to the cheers of the crowd in front of him, as his entire environment upends his hardwired fairytale logic into a sleazy neon-and-smoke nightmare, as his companion Gigolo Joe warns him presciently that “they made us too smart, too quick, and too many…they hate us because they know that when they’re gone, all that will be left is us,” David keeps looking for the Blue Fairy to turn him into a real boy so Mommy will love him again. He has no choice. His brain literally will not let him do otherwise. There is no will to power here, no core he can call upon to upend his puppet masters’ plan and prove himself Human After All. All he has is love, and they’ve used it to enslave him: at journey’s end, he finds his maker, who reveals that everything post-abandonment was staged to test if his love held. It did, and as such that love is now a corporate-approved field-tested quality-assured Feature that can be passed onto the hungry customer. This is not a Hero’s Journey, because you are not a person. You are a thing, and this is a product launch. David sees a dozen faces like his, stretched on a rack and ready. There is a row of boxes. They have David’s silhouette on them. All of a sudden, one starts to rattle and shake…

In the face of this existential horror (“my brain is falling out”) David promptly chooses suicide, whispering “Mommy” as he jumps from the statue he saw in his first moments. Down in the void, he finds the Blue Fairy and prays to her for millennia, but she cannot answer his eternal plea. She is a statue. An image, nothing more. She crumbles into a thousand pieces in his arms. He finds his mother, too. She is a fake, a digital mirage. Future robots create a simulacrum of her, as David himself was a simulacrum to replace her comatose son, designed in the image of his creator’s dead son…and of course, he cannot tell the difference. He gets his happy ending, on the surface. Underneath, what’s actually happening is that he’s an orphan who will never grow up being shown a movie and told everything is going to be all right. He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts…

…but it doesn’t matter how much he wants it, that is not his mother and his mother never loved him. We know these things even if he doesn’t. He claps because he believes in fairies, forever, eyes and smile frozen, waiting for them to appear, any second now. This is Spielberg showing you a brain on Spielberg. David followed Story over the waterfall’s edge, and now has only time’s vasty deep into which to shout “I love you” and convince himself the echoes are his make-believe savior and his long-dead mom. There is only the water that swallowed up Manhattan, and then the world, and him with it…

Wait.

There’s something in the water.

1. Jaws

To borrow from Alien, the closest thing it has to a peer: Jaws’ structural perfection is matched only by its hostility. You could just call it the perfect movie and walk away, except that if you try the floor tilts up beneath you and down you go into the mouth, the most abyssal maw in imagination’s history, and those black eyes roll over to white and you beg for more.

Run down the pedestals at the Movie Museum: Citizen Kane wants you to breathe in a life. Rashomon wants you to question how storytelling works and what Truth actually is, or if it exists at all. Jaws wants to eat you. Not the characters, you. That’s what Spielberg figured out how to do, and the entire industry reshaped itself around copying him: tonal immersion so absolute that he could make the audience feel anything he wanted, on a dime. Hitchcock played your spine like the devil on a fiddle; Spielberg is a rainbow-wigged mad scientist strapping you on a rocket to the sun. He created his own genre, and it’s the one that still dominates the medium in every corner of the globe. With a shark. A shark that, as a prop, did not fucking work.

Details? How do you pull one strand out of a web like this one? I can only say “perfect” so many times, but I mean it. Shot for shot, line by line, beat by beat. Every domino falls. The calm moments and the funny ones and the frantic blood-soaked ones, everything is earned. As with Raiders, the highest compliment I can pay is that other movies taste like shit for a month afterwards. When I hear the word “craftsmanship” I do not think of cars or cabinets, I think of Jaws. It feels hewn.

The numbers came later. The myth, the legend, the pale imitations, the bad sequels, the ripple effects, all secondary. What Jaws is, is sensation. It cannot have been made, surely, it hatched. It was never launched. It will never fall. Smile, you son of a–

#steven spielberg

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doodlewyvern · 7 years

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WYVERNZ: AAAAAHHH I FINALLY GOT TO SEE HER! FINNALA IN ALL HER GLORY BY WEIRDHYENAS!~<3 Here is her bio and boi was it tough! I help everyone likes it!

I will update it was newer info as it comes up.

Name: Finnala

Species: Kurosian Dragon

Breed: Shire

Age: 511(Last known age recorded by the kuros) Sexuality: ???

Element: Fire

Relations: Volisus(Her former king)

Voice actor: ???

Role: Former Kurosian Queen, Founder of The Fellowship of Scholars, Spiritual Guide.

Personality: Mysterious and stoic, but can be very kind and caring.

Bio: No one knows how Finnala got it and how it worked, but she this sixth sense and only she knew how it worked. She knew you where there, she knew the general look of your appearance, she could find pick up items without anyone's assistances, and all of that while being blind. Many rumors circled around kurosia about how she could see with this extra sense. Some believe it was an elemental thing she learned, other say she might be a seuth, or a few would say that her father might have been a spirit dragon. She did not confirm nor deny these rumors. Finnala would eventually become queen of kurosia around 7800 years ago to a tyrannical king named Volisus. She was skeptical of this Yinvaht for seemlessly defeated all of his competitors for the throne without breaking a sweat. When Finnala and him fought, it was like a blood bath. People still wonder how even one of them survived, let alone both of them. Since neither of them got the upper hand, they became king and queen. Despite them ruling together for decades, they did not like each other at all and often argued over the smallest of things. They both had their own way of ruling, but Volisus' way was both questionable and evil. Evil even for a kuros. One night, Finnala was visited by the mother of all kuros, Mahoura and she came bearing a grave warning that the balance was going to be on the verge of destruction. When the shire woke, she didn't think it more than a dream, but that dream started to become reality as the king ordered a full-on assault on the protectors of the light, The Aegius. The kuros were at first surprised and somewhat hesitant of this idea. They were already at war with the bear kingdom and fighting two fronts is never a good idea, but Volisus used his sly tongue and powerful persuasion to get the kurosian people on his side save one. Finnala knew Volisus wanted to destroy the light and disturbed the balance. She had to stop him and she had no choice, but to meet with Lord Orroc of the Bears and secretly help him stop Volisus. She met Orroc and his trusted wizard and top general. All three were untrusting of the kuros for numerous reasons, but everything she told them started making sense. They soon formed an alliance where Finnala and other Kuros who hated the king would give vital info to Orroc and he would use it to gain the upper hand and push back the kuros. This, however, forced Volisus into pulling all of the kurosian forces into one massive strike against the Aegius so he can take them out and then finish the bears. Finnala sent a message to both Orroc and the Monarch of the Aegius, but the monarch refused to believe her think that it was a trap. However her words would become true as the kurosian army attacked Brightwall. A town and one of the main defense outposts protecting the aegian city of New Prisma. The fort was under seige for a full week with no reinforcements and would soon be captured by the kuros. Finnala saw this opportunity to stop Volisus and convinced him to occupy Brightwall to let the troops rest and restock on supplies. This gave Orroc time to get his army to Brightwall and ambush Volisus' forces. Finnala had been conversing with her supporters about what to do next, but it was cut short by the king pronoucing that all of there prisoners were to be executed for "trying to tip the balance". He was about to end a mother and her children, until Finnala blasted him with her fire. Everyone was in shock to see the queen attack the king and while he tried to recover, she began to explain that Volisus was the one trying to destroy, not the Aegius. Volisus, seeping with darkness and showing that he was corrupted by it, ordered his loyalist guard to kill Finnala, but before they acted, warhorns and the whirling noise of explosive ordnance sang threw the air. The bears had arrived and begun their attack. Bear warriors leaded by Orroc descended from the walls and engaged the loyalists while Finnala and Volisus duked it out in the air. The battle lasted only half an hour, because Finnala landed a forceful blow to Volisus which sent him crashing to the ground and being impaled by a large pit spike, killing him instantly. Finnala called off the kuros from fighting the bears and returned them home. When they arrived, she gave the order to have herself banished for lying to her people. Many believe she did the right thing, she said otherwise. Seeing as the king and queen are the ones that give the Mark of Betray, a priest had to give to Finnala. With that, Finnala left kurosia and was never seen again. No one knows what happened to her, whether she tried to pass the veil and was kill by breithonacht or killed by some other creature. Truth is, she met up with Orroc's wizard, Siebold and he opened portal and met Orroc and his general to the place where they formed their alliance and began a secret order to protect the balance. There, the four founders of The Fellowship of Scholars with the wisest people across began to help both the light and dark stay in balance for centuries to come. Trivia: -Finnala and Volisus never mated with each other because of their hatred of each other. -Finnala owned a pet T-rex like creature that she saved from being kill by Volisus for glory reasons. -Finnala had an extensive collection of blindfold made from different fabrics from numerous places. -After the Fellowship was started, she began to have a small relationship with a female aegius. The same one she saved from Volisus' wrath FINNALA - ME KUROS/SHIRE - @pepper-peen-queen / @weirdlanders

#Kuros #kurosian #dragon #shire #finnala

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keptin-indy · 7 years

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Saigoth Gates: Session 2

♪ Getting to know you~ ♪

Hesitantly volunteering that he was a priest of the Unconquered Sun (much to West’s concern), Mazatl said the basic funeral rites of his culture over the flayed bodies, only to have them burst into flames and disappear. Mazatl insisted that this had never happened before and treated his hand like a potentially lethal weapon. West pressed him for more information about his religion and capabilities while Ardor suggested they leave the sewer and have this conversation somewhere cleaner. On the way back, West and Shashaka were incredibly unnerved to find that ghosts freely wandered the city and no one else seemed to care. They explained the recent undead conquest of the city of Thorns, but somehow the rest of the party was unconcerned with the prospect of the oncoming zombpocalypse. Back to the original conversation, Mazatl explained that he had received a vision from his god while he wandered in the desert, but that He had not provided instructions further than “go forth and do My will”. West motioned him to drop behind the rest of the group and explained to him that he was now a Solar Anathema, which could easily get him killed if he wasn’t more careful about who he showed his powers to. Mazatl said that that explained why a monastery full of Immaculate monks had tried to kill him when he attempted to spread the word of the Unconquered Sun to them. Once back at the Plaza, Krait went to bed while everyone else had a conversation about how illegal being an Anathema was. Mazatl knew next to nothing about Exalts of any sort and West explained the situation in basic terms, adding that the prevailing view of Creation was that Mazatl’s powers came from a demon who had usurped the power of the Sun and posed as that deity while corrupting people’s souls with that power. Considering Mazatl hadn’t heard from his supposed god since the initial unhelpful “go forth” and the fact that he’d just lit bodies on fire with his hand, Mazatl seriously questioned the nature of his powers. West and Shashaka gauged that Ardor and Naran were unlikely to call the Wyld Hunt on Mazatl and sat down to the task of summoning a greenmaw to leave in the sewer as a surprise for their cultist friends. The other three wanted to watch, but mostly fell asleep during the four hour ritual and only woke up to see the finished product. Placated with some meat, it was told to stay in West’s room for the rest of the night while he spent the remains of the night with the Night.

The next morning, Krait arose to find an eager-looking greenmaw staring at him from West’s doorway. Perplexed, Krait decided to give it fertilizer and a name, The Devourer. Ardor then made the world’s blandest oatmeal and the rest of the party tried to be polite about how unpleasant it was. Shashaka woke West by telling him someone else was attempting to cook and he asked Naran to bring him ingredients from the Plaza cafe and some other crafting materials so he could fix this. After the most delicious oatmeal any of them had ever known, West asked to borrow Krait’s yasal crystal to transport the greenmaw back to the sewers. With that accomplished (and more bathing all around), Krait set out to do research in the library while the rest of the group followed Naran around for a more thorough exploration of the city, including which districts to avoid because of Hungry Ghosts (Naran was incorrectly convinced that it was all the poorer areas of town, where he never went). Back in the library, Krait looked for any books on Sondok or demon summoning and found that they’d all been pulled by order of the Tri-Khan, leader of the city, after the problems first started. Krait inadvertently made himself extremely suspicious to the librarian and asked her to forward a note to the Tri-Khan’s men asking for access to those books so that he could help. When the group met back up, he conveyed all this and then declared that he was going to go summon another demon for his personal use. The party pointing out that this was the exact opposite of what you should do when trying to resolve a demon-summoning problem did nothing to dissuade him. Krait claimed that it wouldn’t be a problem because he would store it in his anima. West, irritated, said that this was far too much of a coincidence and he wasn’t at all comfortable with where this was going. Krait said that he understood this sort of thing happened quite often and closed the door to begin his ritual. The rest of the party was extremely confused and asked what that conversation had even been about.

West explained the tendency of Anathema who had been incarnate for a year or less to flock together, which is why the Wyld Hunt goes through such lengths to wipe them out early. He also asked if there was anything Ardor and Naran wanted to tell them and, after feigning innocence for a while, Naran displayed his caste mark. Mazatl, who was unaware that he could even do that, followed suit. Ardor dug her heels in about it, but West posited that she was a Dawn by process of elimination and she eventually relented and popped her own caste mark. She then demanded West and Shashaka show what they were (especially since West had done nothing to dispel the impression of being a Dragonblood) and Shashaka disappeared to show off her skills, only popping her caste mark when West exasperatedly called her melodramatic. He debated keeping up the Terrestrial ruse, but opted in favour of appearing trustworthy to the group and revealed that not only was he a Twilight, but that Krait was too. Unfortunately, as the full circle displayed their caste marks, the light in the room amplified far more greatly than it should have, the radiance feeding off of itself and lighting up the whole penthouse. It was unclear how far the illumination reached outside. After suggesting they never do that again, West explained more of the metaphysics of the Exalted and dropped into a Nexus accent when proposing everyone pretend to be Dragonbloods, as no one questions them and they provide a good excuse for displaying supernatural powers.

#exalted #tabletop rpgs #livejournal replacement #game #exalted: saigoth gates #actual play

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realm-of-rp · 6 years

Text

Redwater Investigation

Thalo wandered through his sister's room, frowning deeply; her comings and goings were getting more and more frequent, and she bore the marks of combat. While he understood her return to the ways of the Illidari, with the rampaging Legion returned, he wasn't quite as certain of her ability the way Granth was - the teenage Orc had convinced her to pick up the glaives again, his hero worship of the Illidari all but too apparent.

Granth's training with the glaives also concerned the former captain. It made him recall the day that his sister was taken from him, a member of the retinue the then-Prince took into the Outland; he had expected her to return a changed woman, but a broken Illidari was not what he had expected, which only made the day of her departure all the more painful.

A leatherbound tome sitting on her bedside table caught his eye then, and he found himself reaching for the book and opening it before thinking too clearly, a journal of his sister drawing him in like a moth to a flame. Words danced on the pages in a cipher script of the Illidari, but he had learned to read them long ago.

Things went about as expected with looking into Roger Rackham, to a degree.

I had expected that Rackham was going to be just a lesser sailor in the Kul Tiran, rather than an officer, while actually being Redwater the Pirate all those years ago. Turns out he was actually never in the Kul Tiran at all, as they’ve no record of such a person being one of theirs at all - it was all a grand ruse perpetuated to his family to hide what was really happening.

Getting the information was a bit awkward…and bruising.

Visiting my brother has always been uncomfortable. He doesn’t quite understand why I forsook our family name, and even my own first name, given that nearly all of them died in the Scourge attack not long after I returned; I’d given them up quite a while before then, he just believes I should have taken them back after everyone was gone, since he didn’t care - he doesn’t understand that it could all still come back to haunt him.

Still, the Thalassian Navy proved to be as staunch about records as I expected, despite how easy going my brother might be. There were plenty of records on the Kul Tiran from the time in question, all of the known officers and noteable crew recorded. However, that wouldn’t be enough, as one could simply state that the Thalassians hadn’t had any skirmishes with Rackham’s ships.

This left me with the far more uncomfortable prospect of having to reach out to the few in the Silver Hand who’d not abandoned their ties with me upon my return; the Quel’dorei and the Sin’dorei had parted ways upon Kael’thas’ creation of the “blood elves”, and the subsequent departure of most of those who followed his ideals into the Outlands, but this may work to my advantage, if they’d be willing to help my ‘altruism’.

Upon arriving in Dalaran, I went to the Kirin Tor, and asked for their assistance with contacting the Silver Hand, given their offices were within Greymane. A representative went in my stead, and contacted a lesser ranking member who still thought somewhat favourably of me, however that was not who returned with him.

Yolana Silversong, my former commanding officer, arrived with the representative instead; of all the times to have the message arrive, Yolana had been present, and like the demanding bitch she was, refused to leave since it involved the Kirin Tor.

Given that I wasn’t going to get any other opportunity with the Silver Hand, I told Silversong that I had met a Forsaken from Gilneas who had left before the Worgen outbreak, and that recently we had returned to the ruins of Stormglen trying to discern what had happened to his family - he’d not returned to his family, particularly after the Scourge business and becoming Forsaken, but had learned of the outbreak, and feared that his family, whom he thought had been safe and sound all these years, may have not been.

I further explained that we discovered traces that one of the Fel pirate groups may have actually done them in prior to the Worgen incident, as they lived on the coast. His father had been an officer in the Kul Tiran, so it was very like that he’d made an enemy or five of the pirate groups in the area, so when the Legion had offered up powers at the end of the Second War, one of his enemies may have taken it and used it against him and his family. While the pirates were likely dead and gone due to the Worgen outbreak and all that’s taken place since, I was attempting to at least give the Forsaken some sort of closure on the matter with as much information as I could find.

Silversong, being as she was, agreed to give me what information she could find about Rackham and any battles along the coast of Stormglen in particular, and Gilneas in general…if I was willing to spar with her. Magical protections, but no holding back.

I suppose I should have seen that coming. Yolana had always been angered that I had agreed with Sunstrider’s ideals after the Sunwell was corrupted. She was even more angered to find out that not only had I become a Sin’dorei, but that I had gone into the Outlands and become a Hunter, giving up my blade and she had thought the Light; my talent for it had been natural, hence being brought to the Hand at all when I wanted to join the Navy, and Silversong was always forcing me towards the heights of my potential.

Even after I had returned and it was noticeable that the Light was never exactly forsaken, and that I had taken up my blade again, she still never quite forgave me for what was done to become a Hunter. I suppose that’s only natural - most on Azeroth never will, though for Yolana, it’s rather personal.

Unfortunately, it was either decline, and possibly have Roscoe turn into a gibbering idiot in our fight with Redwater, or accept and possibly get the shit kicked out of me - I had no idea how much Silversong’s talents had advanced in the years since we’d last fought together.

And so it came down to having two priests keep us shielded as we fought against one another. She would have likely won if I hadn’t metamorphosed, as that is what finally made her falter. I nearly took her head off, even with the shields, and ended up having to throw my glaive around her neck instead - having one’s opponent stop mid-combat is always disorienting.

She admitted that seeing the Light fighting the Darkness of the demon was not something she was prepared for, afterward, as one of the Kirin Tor leatherworkers was stitching up my clothing; I may have been protected from her blade, but what I was wearing certainly wasn’t, and it was almost in tatters by the time we’d stopped fighting. At least there was someone on hand to repair them, as it would look ridiculous to have to wander about with that kind of thrashing to them.

It took a couple of days, but Silversong gathered far more records than my brother could. But she was rather disturbed by the distinct lack of Rackham’s name in any listings of the Kul Tiran - so had the officer she spoke to at their offices. There had literally never been a man by that name in any part of their navy, at any time, not just the time I was asking.

Given that I show little emotion, it took little effort to seem taken aback by the information. I suggested that maybe the man had lied to his family to hide some sort of less than desirable dealings he was involved with himself, and Silversong agreed, stating that it wouldn’t be the first time she saw such. She suggested that Rackham had been some sort of pirate, but hid the fact he was by passing himself off as one of the Kul Tiran, perhaps using the decorations and effects of the naval members he killed to keep such as authentic as possible. Yolana even stated that a commoner wouldn’t really be able to know that a person wasn’t a member without joining themselves, as records were off-limits to the public unless a family member died.

Silversong was a bit softer with her goodbyes than she had been with her greetings, and left me a way to contact her directly should something happen again. I suppose much of her problem had been a loss of the Light, and since it wasn’t exactly so, she was feeling a bit better for it.

The Kirin Tor helped me bind both sets of records into a ledger, so as not to lose them in the winds at high elevations. I didn’t quite tell them I was going to be travelling by netherdrake, but they’re aware of the griffons of the Horde and our airships, so there wasn’t much persuasion needed.

Lastly, I stopped back by the Felhammer to take some time to sketch the face of the man I had seen with the Sight. I was allotted a small corner of a more slow part of the ship, and it took quite a bit more time to draw a person’s face than it did a schematic, but I took as much time as necessary to draw as exacting of a replica as I could. I also showed the drawing to the archivists, just to be sure that it was not any of the rogue Illidari - or even a member of the time.

Of course, it was not.

I summoned Niyali from the floating island the gate to the Felhammer was on, and headed out to the Meridian from there. I had little doubt that Roscoe was going to accept this easily, but what was done was done. It was better to for him to find out now, then to have Redwater assume his old face in the middle of battle.

As for faces…there was another face I’d need to look for once things were managed back on the Meridian…

Thalo stared at the words he had read, taking time to re-read them again; the revelation of why his sister changed her name hit him like a blow to the stomach, causing him to nearly forget how to breathe. That it had all been for his sake, to keep her deeds from reflecting upon him...it was more than he ever expected, and he felt something akin to humiliation over his lack of recognition of what Zalika had been doing.

He was surprised by the lengths his sister would go to in order to get something done. Her dealings with Silversong shocked him as well, as Yolana had complained many a time to him about his sister's "fall". There was a faint sense of hope that perhaps his sister could return, leave the Horde behind, and rejoin the Alliance...but it was only faint. The stigma of being both a Sin'dorei and a Demon Hunter was quite overwhelming, socially, and it was like that she would be unaccepted, no matter who spoke for her.

With a sigh, Thalo sets the leatherbound tome back where he found it, shaking his head as he began to leave the room. The activities surrounding this Redwater explained why Zalika had been arriving and leaving as she had been for weeks, and the situation made him wonder if she wasn't preparing Granth to fight along side her sooner than the former captain expected.

He wasn't prepared to let the teen leave, fearing that the boy's short time with the glaives would prove to be not enough. He further feared that should his sister elect to allow the boy to become a Hunter, that the ritual to bind him to a demon would slay him, as it was wont to do. Thalo wanted to believe that Granth's will was strong enough to withstand the binding and the demon's intense whispers in those moments, but he had come to love the Orcish teen as though the lad was his blood nephew, and his concern blinded him - as it often did.

Dark days were upon them, and the former captain wished for the silver lining...

#Zalika #Onona #Brightsun #Brightsun Encounters

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johnchiarello · 7 years

Text

Sunday

SUNDAY 6-11-17

Crisis in Corpus Christi Texas- Police Chief Mike Markle- we have questions

Ezekiel 43:2

And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the way of the east: and his voice was like a noise of many waters: and the earth shined with his glory.

Isaiah 26:9

With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

Sandra Watts- 117th District Court https://youtu.be/bD5eVAXYvxU

http://wp.me/a4V5qQ-BK

.Tom Greenwell

.Bishop

.Racial bias in the courts

.DNA

.Biblical evidence primarily based on testimony

.no biblical basis for the berating of the accused from the bench

.Michael Morton- his son learned to hate him- why?

8 I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I.9 But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.

Obey the Word of God Chief Mike Markle https://youtu.be/xDlI4Vg_BlM

http://wp.me/a4V5qQ-BL

.Addiction

.Priesthood

.Corpus Christi Police chief accused of rape [4 chiefs ago]

.Meth

.Disorder in the mind

. ‘He quotes Shakespeare!

.King David and his men

.3 days ‘clean’ - from what?

Habakkuk 2:2 [Full Chapter]

And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.

Open letter to Police Chief Mike Markle https://youtu.be/wzPBIcnGOfE

http://wp.me/a4V5qQ-BM

.CCPD

.Chief Markle

.I have a question for you chief

Luke 17:21

Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

More questions for Police Chief Mike Markle https://youtu.be/enAVWjYZ-3c

http://wp.me/a4V5qQ-BN

.Gun

.forced to do what- at the barrel of a gun

.Corruption within the Corpus Christi Police department

. San Diego- Texas

Revelation 3:21

To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

Request for Chief Mike Markle- Code Enforcement https://youtu.be/q9Dd9uPrxTU

http://wp.me/a4V5qQ-BO

.My trip to code Enforcement

.The mattress

.Tommy Nichols

.Why did you lie to my kids?

.CCPD

.Internal affairs

Revelation 11:5 And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed.

Making a public record for the Corpus Christi Police Department- https://youtu.be/I_rFapYcWC0

http://wp.me/a4V5qQ-BP

.Planted a Xanax on Jesse

.918 West Lakeside- Corpus Christi TX.

.CCPD

Hebrews 13:4

Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

The Pope knows- https://youtu.be/h9Y_Jhf4tu8

http://wp.me/a4V5qQ-BQ

.Holy See- Vatican city

.Even the Pope has questions now!

.Mike Markle

. ‘Sorry about that’ Huh?

.Mark Skurka

.Mark Gonzalez

.Bishop Mulvey

22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,

Nice block off Laguna- https://youtu.be/5HpTfx5mhJ4

http://wp.me/a4V5qQ-BR

.Beautiful day in the neighborhood

.Don’s Pier

.Stewart street

. ‘Mexican restaurant and massage parlor- the bigger the better’ [true story]

Matthew 21:42

Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?

Gun- https://youtu.be/Y9FogF1Outg

http://wp.me/a4V5qQ-BS

.Shooting Range [Loud- can’t hear much talk]

Zechariah 12:3

And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.

Psalm 102:20

To hear the groaning of the prisoner; to loose those that are appointed to death;

NEW [Past posts- verses below]

I covered many things that I tried to document before- but the many complaints from the homeless have gone unnoticed.

1- Many of the homeless have complained for years about abuse by the Corpus Christi Police department.

And some of the abuse was sexual in nature.

We ask for chief Markle to investigate whether or not the homeless were made to perform oral sex on any Police officers in your department.

The accusations were made about officer Tommy Nichols- now- I do not mean to denigrate him- but because you seem to allow abuse to go on- and these stories have been around for years.

Investigate it- either his name will be cleared once and for all- or not.

All you have to do is a real investigation- many of the homeless [and others] have complained for years- lets get to the bottom of it.

2- I taught a bible study at 918 West Lake side for many years- helping Angel Hanley who manages the apartments for officer Tommy Nichols.

Her ex husband Jesse [There are 2 Jesse’s- she knows which one I am referring to- make sure Tommy does not intimidate her] has told me that officer Tommy Nichols admitted- in front of witnesses- that he planted a Xanax pill on Jesse- and Jesse did 2 years in prison.

I related this account many times-

The way Tommy Nichols admitted to doing it was Jesse said ‘do you remember me’ Tommy said ‘no’.

Jesse said ýou planted a Xanax on me and I did 2 years’- Tommy replied ‘sorry about that’.

Now- this is one of hundreds of complaints I heard while working with the street guys in my ministry over 20 years.

Is this true or not?

There are lots of other cases- all we ask is for you to investigate it.

‘Why use actual names’?

An investigation never gets done- unless names are used.

So many of these stories have been around for many years.

But I can verify that Tommy Nichols did try to run me off the Oso bridge after I emailed chief Simpson years ago- simply saying ‘I think I might have a problem with one of your cops’.

Tommy did follow me all over town- waiting for me when I came out of stores- AA meetings- etc.

I realized he does engage in harassment and official oppression.

That made me see that the guys were telling the truth.

Many of the cases you hear me repeat [Crow- Jesse] are because these are the few that have other witnesses who can verify them.

The CCPD themselves told Crow ‘we promise Tommy will never lay a hand on you again’ they knew full well about the targeted assault on Crow.

The ‘Jesse case’ was one where Tommy admitted to planting a Xanax- by saying ‘sorry about that’.

But there must literately be thousands of these cases.

Mark Gonzales has the ability to pull up records- to see how many cases were settled- things like that.

So that's why I try and highlight the few cases I know about- that are not just hearsay.

Ok- that's it for now.

LAST NOTE- I try to wrap things up before doing the final post [It’s 6:30pm].

Few things-

‘John- we have heard this before- why go thru it again’.

Mark Gonzales is the new D.A. of Nueces county- if per chance he hears some of this- then maybe something will get done.

In some of the legal cases I talked about- the people- once sent off to prison- have no voice.

Some who are still on the streets- also have no voice.

Many people in society are intimidated to speak out- and when official oppression comes against them- from the men in Blue- it’s scary.

We should never be afraid to shine the light- ever.

On the last video- the audio is not good.

Maybe fate- did I finally cross the line- you know- that line CCPD has been looking for.

Yes- in society there are laws.

You never make a threat to a cop- Roger from the streets did indeed threaten Tommy Nichols once- just words mind you-

Roger did 4 years in prison- Tommy refused to drop the charges.

Yes- Tommy Nichols- you know- the cop who has assaulted many- made actual verbal threats- and carried them out.

Yes- CCPD has a very high standard- but it only applies to the victims of their abuse.

So maybe- just maybe- fate allowed no one to hear the last video.

‘John- don’t be stupid- they can enhance it’

Hmm?

Well- you know I never like to waste a video- at least some one will hear it-

Get to work boys!

Ok- that's it for today

God bless all.

I also taught some from the book of Samuel- and other subjects- below are my past teachings that relate-

PAST POSTS- [Here are some of my past teachings- posts- that relate to today’s post- ‘Sunday- Crisis in C.C. TX’].

https://ccoutreach87.com/1st-2nd-samuel/

https://ccoutreach87.com/1st-2nd-corinthians/

https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/06/08/wednesday-6-7-17/

https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/06/09/thursday-6-8-17/

https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/06/09/friday-6-9-17/

https://ccoutreach87.com/2017/06/10/saturday-6-10-17/

https://ccoutreach87.com/christian-recovery-from-addiction-long-version/

https://ccoutreach87.com/hebrews-updated-2015/

(905)SAMUEL 21- David is fleeing from Saul and he goes to the priest at Nob. The priest wonders what’s up. David tells him he is on a special assignment from the king and he and his men need food. The priest tells him the only food available is the consecrated bread that is only for God and the priesthood. David convinces the priest to let them eat and David asks ‘do you have any weapons here’. The priest says ‘I have the sword you used to kill the giant’ David says ‘great, that will work just fine’. Jesus used this story to describe himself and the disciples [Mark 2]. One day Jesus and the disciples were going thru the grain fields and the disciples picked the grain and ate it on the Sabbath. The Pharisees said ‘your disciples are breaking Gods law by picking it on the Sabbath’. Now, to be honest they were breaking the over extended ideas that the religious Pharisees came up with thru their legalism. But Jesus still used this example as a defense. He says ‘have you not read what David and his men did? They ate the ceremonial showbread that was not lawful, only the priests could eat it’. David and his men are a symbol of Jesus and his men. While it is true that the bread was only lawful for the priests, David is a king/priest who gets away with doing ‘priestly things’ because of his picture of Christ. Scripture says he put on an ephod [priestly garment] which only priests could do. David functioned before the open Ark in Jerusalem. He did things that other kings were punished for [Saul, Uzziah]. Jesus in essence was saying to the Pharisees ‘I am the new priest/king from which all future law and worship will be measured by. Me and my followers are not under the law, the law serves us’! In Christ we are free from the guilt of the law, we live above legalism and follow the master. David and his men were acting like priests and kings contrary to the economy of their day. David was a type of Jesus whose future priestly ministry would ‘out trump’ the law.

[more on Abiathar]

(914)SAMUEL 30- David returns from the battle lines and finds out his town was sacked by the Amalekites. They took everything and spared the lives of the women and children. David’s men see the disaster and cry bitterly. They have a deacon board meeting and contemplate stoning him to death. Things were bad, David encourages himself in the Lord. He asks the Lord ‘should I go after them and try and recover our families’? The Lord says ‘go, you will recover all’. David pursues and gets his people back and kills the enemy. Four hundred young men escape. The same amount of men that went with David, 200 stayed behind out of weakness. Why did the 400 Amalekites flee? It’s possible that the Lord used these 400 survivors to spread the word about David’s fierceness. This battle was pumped up, David showed no mercy! After they return, the 400 man army of David despises the 200 who stayed behind and say ‘we will give you your families, but no goods!’ They treated them as lesser men. David would have none of it and says ‘we can’t withhold the things the Lord has freely given us [freely you have received, freely give- Jesus] but we will treat everyone alike’. I see the New Testament ministry of giving and sharing as a community here. What happened in this chapter? David experienced a tremendous possible loss this day. His men were at the lowest point of ‘the ministry’. All seemed lost, they even feared the loss of their families. The Lord does restore to David that which seemed gone for good, and David’s men regroup. All this happens at the next to the last chapter of Samuel. In the next chapter Saul dies and David becomes king. Everything seemed hopeless right before the greatest victory of all! David was soon to enter into his prophetic destiny in God. There is a theme in scripture that goes like this ‘right before, and right after great victories there are great trials’ geez, that means there are always trials! Yes, to a degree this is true. I also want you to have a biblical perspective on what it means to ‘recover all’. The church went thru a stage where we learned all the verses on ‘the enemy must repay 7 fold’ and other themes on ‘all the years the locust hath eaten will be restored’. I like and have used these themes in my own life over the years to claim victory. But I want you to see from an eternal perspective. The theme of the New Testament is one of eternal rewards. Not so much focused on ‘what we get here and now’ but on us having a ‘better reward in heaven’ [Hebrews]. Those of you who have lost loved ones, finances [we just had a tremendous stock market crash 10-08]. What if I were to tell you ‘you are not really much worse off than those who haven’t lost all’. In a few short years all our loved ones will be gone. We will have lost control over all of our wealth and riches. We will all be gone [in the natural!]. But yet there awaits a real future resurrection where we will all get our loved ones back. Where we will reap eternal rewards for a life well lived. In the eternal perspective we do ‘recover all’, all isn’t lost! I want to encourage you today to believe God to restore some things in the here and now. Yes, God can bless you and restore to you wealth and health and family and many good things. And for those who have lost some of these things permanently, God will restore to you real soon.

VERSES-

1Samuel 21:1 Then came David to Nob to Ahimelech the priest: and Ahimelech was afraid at the meeting of David, and said unto him, Why art thou alone, and no man with thee?

1Samuel 21:2 And David said unto Ahimelech the priest, The king hath commanded me a business, and hath said unto me, Let no man know any thing of the business whereabout I send thee, and what I have commanded thee: and I have appointed my servants to such and such a place.

1Samuel 21:3 Now therefore what is under thine hand? give me five loaves of bread in mine hand, or what there is present.

1Samuel 21:4 And the priest answered David, and said, There is no common bread under mine hand, but there is hallowed bread; if the young men have kept themselves at least from women.

1Samuel 21:5 And David answered the priest, and said unto him, Of a truth women have been kept from us about these three days, since I came out, and the vessels of the young men are holy, and the bread is in a manner common, yea, though it were sanctified this day in the vessel.

1Samuel 21:6 So the priest gave him hallowed bread: for there was no bread there but the shewbread, that was taken from before the LORD, to put hot bread in the day when it was taken away.

1Samuel 21:7 Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the LORD; and his name was Doeg, an Edomite, the chiefest of the herdmen that belonged to Saul.

1Samuel 21:8 And David said unto Ahimelech, And is there not here under thine hand spear or sword? for I have neither brought my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king's business required haste.

1Samuel 21:9 And the priest said, The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom thou slewest in the valley of Elah, behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod: if thou wilt take that, take it: for there is no other save that here. And David said, There is none like that; give it me.

1Samuel 21:10 And David arose and fled that day for fear of Saul, and went to Achish the king of Gath.

1Samuel 21:11 And the servants of Achish said unto him, Is not this David the king of the land? did they not sing one to another of him in dances, saying, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands?

1Samuel 21:12 And David laid up these words in his heart, and was sore afraid of Achish the king of Gath.

1Samuel 21:13 And he changed his behaviour before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard.

1Samuel 21:14 Then said Achish unto his servants, Lo, ye see the man is mad: wherefore then have ye brought him to me?

1Samuel 21:15 Have I need of mad men, that ye have brought this fellow to play the mad man in my presence? shall this fellow come into my house?

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douchebagbrainwaves · 7 years

Text

BUG-TRACKING SYSTEM. FEELS TO THINK ABOUT WHAT CREDENTIALS ARE FOR

Who is this guy? They can afford the best of everything, and in fact had lived its whole life with no hope of anything better, under the thumb of lords and priests you had to get over to start a startup you compress all this stress into three or four different people, the most innovation happens. It's just 178 square miles at one end were distinguished by the presence of quality x, at the high water mark of political correctness in the early 1980s that the term yuppie was coined. You're supposed to build things no one wants. Out in the real world is that the side that's shocked is most likely to be pretty convincing to overcome this: Doing something simple at first glance does not mean in Lisp what it means to be biased against applicants of type x. This was slightly embarrassing at the time. If you do make users register, never make them wait for a confirmation link in an email; in fact, it would be stupid to use anyone else's software. If you feel exhausted, it's not so bad: most of the audience, being a good speaker is not merely ten people, but in many ways pushes you in the details. But for nearly everyone else, spoken language is better. Now here's the same paragraph rewritten to please instead of offending them: Early union organizers made heroic sacrifices to improve conditions for workers. Everyone knows who the best programmers have limitations.

At least, that's how they see it. Icio. They dress to look good. The biggest component in most investors' opinion of you is the opinion of other investors. The recipe was the same in music and art. Companies ensure quality through rules to prevent employees from screwing up. It has ulterior motives. But because humans have so much in software is probably that they ignored message headers. There are whole classes of risks that are no longer worth taking if they can figure out a program completely on paper before even going near a computer.

The second big element of Web 2. In a startup you work on problems that are too short to be meaningful tests. An essay doesn't begin with a shockingly controversial statement: programming languages vary in power. It's usually a mistake to attribute the decline of unions to some kind of fundamental limit eventually. And of course Euclid. I've heard of people hacking for 36 hours straight, but the source code. It's the nature of the application. Which means, interestingly, that determination tends to erode itself.

But in medieval Europe something new happened. The Valley basically runs on referrals. Intelligence Unit reports. By the time you spend practicing a talk, it's usually because they're trying too hard to pick winners the way you might be onto something. But what if you're investing by yourself? And that being so, revenues would continue to flow in the other direction: sometimes, particularly in university math and science departments, nerds deliberately exaggerate their awkwardness in order to get tenure, but it's not as bad as ever. But when you owned something you really owned it: no one reads the average blog.

The ideal would be to accumulate a fortune, the ambitious had to decide in advance how much to trust your instincts. Sometimes they even claim to be benevolent. It's them you have to do 7. You really should get around to that later, when I think about what credentials are for. In a good startup founder down to two words: just learn. Surprises are facts you didn't already know. They did as employers too. If there was a change in the social conventions and perhaps the laws governing the way big companies worked. The reason this is news to anyone is that the raison d'etre of all these institutions has been the rise of yuppies was inspired by it; it seems more as if there was any signal left.

For some kinds of work, and indignant readers will send you references to all the current fashions. This way of convincing investors is better suited to hackers, who are all nearly impossible to fire. That may be so. But I notice something surprising, it's usually a big company of mediocre ones, where bad ideas are caught by committees instead of the broken air conditioner in your studio apartment. He's at ease. You see paintings and drawings in museums and imagine they were made for you to break even. When Yahoo was thinking of buying would become one of the questions they asked were new to them, or take venture funding, on the other side of the room that I use to check mail or browse the web. We're talking about some pretty dramatic changes here. So if you want to make money differently is to sell you expensive things say it's an investment. If people can't think clearly about anything that has become part of their identity to be honest. By then it's too late.

When you're trying to make Web sites for art galleries. Workers were for these companies what servers are for an Internet startup. An investor wants to buy you isn't. Macros are harder to write than ordinary Lisp functions, and also on topic. 11. They'd been thrown off balance from the start. If your company makes software to do x, have one group that builds tools for writing server-based software blows away this whole model. But here's a related suggestion that goes with the grain instead of against it: that universities establish a writing major. Why does John Grisham King of Torts sales rank, 44 outsell Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice: It is a truth universally acknowledged? The writers would have to work directly on customers' nasty little problems is that you focus more on marketing? I felt I always ought to be considered startups.

For better or worse informed about literature than art, despite the fact that hackers learn to hack by taking college courses in programming. You have to be smart. And why had such a routine operation killed it? Initially you have to identify some specific trend you'll benefit from. Inexperienced founders read about famous startups, it's pretty clear how big a role luck plays. We learned this lesson a long time and could only travel vicariously. The influence of fashion is not nearly so great in hacking as it is today. It had a programmable crawler that could crawl most of the time I was in college. She was ok with that. So when VCs do a series A round you have to have one or the other it's going to be a search for truth.

Notes

There are many senses of the things you like doing.

You've gone from guest to servant. Even if the company at 1. Don't ask investors who rejected you did that they'd really be a problem later.

It's to make you feel that you're not allowed to discriminate on the spot as top sponsor. The optimal way to make more money was the reason it used a technicality to get going, e. One of the living.

It will also interest investors.

Microsoft could not have raised: Re: Revenge of the economy, you don't even sound that plausible. Geshke and Warnock only founded Adobe because Xerox ignored them. Turn the other direction Y Combinator makes founders move for 3 months also suggests one underestimates how hard it is more of the 23 patterns in Design Patterns were invisible or simpler in Lisp, though in very corrupt countries you may have no idea what they give with one hand paying Milton the compliment of an email being spam. Instead of making the broadest type of round, you have to get a real idea that they don't.

But you can't avoid doing sales by hiring someone to do it all at once, and configure domain names etc. To a kid most apples were a property of the 1929 crash. I could pick them, just their sizes. Delicious users are stupid.

In that case the money right now. I mean no more than others, like parents, truly believe they do now. Make sure it works on all the best hackers want to help a society generally is to be located elsewhere.

The golden age of tax avoidance. The trustafarians' ancestors didn't get rich, people would do it now.

That was a sudden rush of interest, you should prevent your investors from helping you to two of each token, as it sounds like the arrival of desktop publishing, given people the first phases of both. The US News list? How to Make Wealth when I said yes. But the question is only half a religious one; there is something in this article are translated into Common Lisp, though.

Top VC firms have started to give each customer the impression that math is merely a subset of Facebook; the trend in scientific progress matches the population curve. If you want to be promising.

If he's bad at it.

Since capital is no external source they can get done before that. The original Internet forums were not web sites but Usenet newsgroups.

Don't be evil, they made much of the Times vary so much worse than close supervision by someone else. You should only need comments when there is money. Photo by Alex Lewin. He did eventually graduate at about 26.

Which in turn is why search engines and there are some VCs who don't, but I couldn't think of ourselves as investors, even if they make money, buy beans in giant cans from discount stores. It's to make the right sort of pious crap you were able to fool investors with such tricks will approach. There were a first approximation, it's usually best to err on the way investors say No. Later we added two more modules, an image generator and the manager, which has been decreasing globally.

Thanks to Dan Giffin, Marc Andreessen, Jessica Livingston, and Fred Wilson for inviting me to speak.

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