Rabid Fiction Consumer

Honestly, this is less about Izuku imitating All Might and more about baby Gentry becoming fluent out of spite in order to get access to more content so of course, all my main characters can do the same.

Okay, but in the ‘Bakugou fixes things by lying and sorta telling the truth at the same time’ version, what about if a conspiracy theorist (a Todoroki cousin?) put some things together later on, maybe even after Izuku is Pro Hero Deku, new #1, and released it to the public through a ranting youtube video with a conspiracy corkboard in the background:

1) the fact that All Might and All For One obviously KNEW each other at Kamino and it was PERSONAL, even if no-one could hear exactly what was said.

2) All For One obviously knew All Might was deteriorating. That is what little WAS heard.

3) Villains for YEARS now have been talking about Deku as The Traitor Nomu, even before he was a pro.

4) Deku’s eyes only glowed green at first, when he was only using super strength, even before he could really control it. The Nomu eyes came later, as he started using more than one quirk. EXCEPT for when he was under MIND CONTROL.

5) Nomus are known to either have no will of their own (most) or have a constructed persona that is effectively controlling the body of the poor bastard that got Nomu’d. Which sounds a LOT like mind control.

6) ALL MIGHT’s eyes only ever glowed blue, but he only ever used super strength and was never mind-controlled, was he? (I’m assuming he was never mind-controlled, mainly because other heroes wouldn’t have stood a chance. If he was, and if it was brief like Izuku’s first brush with it, said conspiracy theorist would be combing old media to find if his eyes went rainbow)

7) Both All Might and Izuku have the DNA of multiple people in them, confirmed by their own legally disclosed tests. Just as Nomus have been documented to have.

8) The paternity test has always been disputed, since there’s been rumours of either the Hero Commission or All Might himself strong-arming the lab to give the results they wanted. And if it were true, why didn’t they go public with it earlier? Even assuming they wanted to keep it secret as the 'official’ story claims, you’d think they would have revealed it before it got to the point it did if it were TRUE.

9) All Might’s real name is Yagi Toshinori, as revealed after Kamino and his retirement. A combing of old records found Yagi Toshinori listed as QUIRKLESS, same as Midoriya Izuku. They both developed EXTREMELY POWERFUL quirks later in life than anyone else ever documented. Both of them have the Quirkless Toe Joint.

10) Garaki Kyudai aka Ujiko Daruma aka Tsubasa [NAME REDACTED], All For One’s doctor and Nomu specialist is KNOWN to have experimented on children and teens for decades, as seen in the declassified documents regarding Nomu.

11) Said doctor was Pro Hero Deku’s childhood physician, the one who diagnosed him as Quirkless.

12) In his Tsubasa persona the doctor had a family, including a grandson Deku and Dynamight’s age who went to the same primary school as them but went missing during their childhoods. According to seized documents, said child was made into the Nomu that briefly captured Deku during the Hosu Incident of Deku’s first year and attempted to FLY OFF with him, rather than kill him like the three Nomus had been doing all night.

Conclusion? Pro Hero Deku is a Traitor Nomu, like the villains have been saying. But something NO-ONE has realised, possibly because it’s been a state secret for longer than most of us have been alive, is SO IS ALL MIGHT. Currently unknown whether the Nomufication bred true and any of Pro Hero Deku’s kids will ALSO be ridiculously powerful Nomus (assuming said kids are through a surrogate instead of adopted, considering his widely-documented relationship with Temperance), or if Traitor Nomu All Might managed to rescue another Traitor Nomu. Either would have precipitated All For One to move before he was ready, leading to his (temporary? Depends how the AU plays out) defeat at All Might’s hands. But All Might obviously pushed himself too far, and the Nomufication (which MUST have been in a prototype stage at the time, considering the timelines and that such a powerful Nomu escaped) completely fell apart - which All For One KNEW would happen, because he had intimate knowledge of both the Nomufication process in general and All Might’s prototype process in specific.

Just IMAGINE what all this information being laid out would look like, without the knowledge of One For All!

—–

Pocket: wow. I’m thoroughly impressed by all the details caught here, and I’m also now imagining that Cousin Brian David Gilbertodoroki is absolutely losing their mind as they go on through this video. Also, oh my god, this theory like five years after the fact, just when everyone was slowing down and accepting that All Might fudged his tests to explain how the kid got powers, but then No Cousin Bdgodoroki throws fuel back on it because if the new reveal of quirkless Toshinori and the past AfO encounters and how they know a nomuzation can be impacted and not work a la super Tomura…. Then it’s not just All Might being himself and going plus ultra to keep the traitor nomu boy he rescued safe…

13) According to interviews with 3A alumni, Dynamight was the one to 'reveal the secret'. DYNAMIGHT. DEKU'S CHILDHOOD FRIEND WHO HAD A FALLING OUT WITH HIM BEFORE MAKING UP IN UA. And in those same interviews, Dynamight is said to have been having meetings with Deku and All Might for some time beforehand that no-one has admitted to knowing what they were about, and any attempt to ask Dynamight, Deku, or All Might about these meetings has been met with various deflections, denials, or in Dynamight’s case the same, but with more curse words.

14) Shigaraki Tomura, a clear Nomu-process-derived artificial enhancement, referred to Midoriya Izuku as LITTLE BROTHER, presumably referring to a shared heritage of experimentation, but also was completely fixated on All Might, both killing him and tearing down his legacy.

The bit about Nomu being documented to have multiple people’s DNA was supposed to be ‘...UNIVERSALLY documented to...’, and the bit about the Doctor was also meant to mention his clinics under other identities all over the country being used to scout for Nomu candidates.

And, in the Conclusion portion, there was meant to be a section saying that while All Might almost certainly had more quirks than super strength, and probably kept them secret to pass/in reserve for an emergency, given his debut was later in life when he had more control as opposed to Deku who didn’t get that option with the early brainwashing incident and then the public reveal of the Nomu, and then when he really needed them against the man he was experimented on to create a servant for, his modifications had already broken down to the point he couldn’t do so, there are other options. For example, because of the prototype process he was subjected to, that they weren’t as powerful/stable/controllable as the Super Strength that seemed to be a near-standard across most combat Nomu to at least some level, so probably the one that had had the most work put into it before what was done to All Might. It’s even possible that the injury that led to the ending of his career some years later was because he got desperate enough to attempt to use them in THAT battle with All For One, only to have them either cause the injury themselves, or their failure/uncontrolled nature leaving him open to his opponent.

All those errors and omissions’ll teach me to make such a thinky post after local midnight. On the other hand, being high on fatigue toxins probably made my phrasing more accurate to the cracked-out-on-no-sleep-and-red-bull Todoroki Cousin’s video, so swings and roundabouts.

(I also REALLY wanted to include something about Izuku and Bakugou’s initial falling out possibly being due to changes in Izuku from human experimentation and failed mind control, referencing his characterisation of Izuku as ‘weird’ and ‘creepy’ found out through the Bakugou-led investigation of Aldera Middle School for institutional Quirk Discrimination and encouragement of abuse (because bullying IS abuse, just one society is weirdly okay with for all it can leave lifelong scars) and the fact that the official story is so ‘patently unbelievable’ (you hated him because... he tried to HELP you? WTF?). but eventually decided it didn’t fit the timeline Cousin Todoroki would think most likely, although it might still get mentioned in an aside)

i have updated the keyboard driver.

i have UNINSTALLED the keyboard driver and restarted the computer

sticky keys is off

i have run so, so many malware scans

i have gone under the keys with a can of compressed air just in case

Try an external keyboard. See if it has the same issues.

Uninstall all your hardware drivers and restart

Remove the physical shift keys, and clean the board area with q-tips dipped in rubbing alcohol

Check for windows updates and run them.

Google the exact laptop model + keyboard error. You’re looking for reports of people having similar issues, and if they’ve found a fix.

If and only if the external keyboard doesn’t give you any issues, and none of Lectorel’s advice helps, maybe see if you can take your computer apart and reseat the connector? You should be able to find the service manual for your machine by googling ‘service manual [exact laptop model]’.

If reseating it doesn’t work, try cleaning the connector, the same way Lectorel said to clean the board area.

If that doesn’t work, you could try and find that model keyboard second-hand, and replace the faulty part. Ebay can often be handy, people parting out old machines and selling the bits. Usually for $30 or less for keyboards, iirc from the last time I went looking.

The only “animals” that aren’t hybrids are the spirits

And Kuei’s pet bear

Feel free to prove me wrong, of course.  Submissions are open through the rest of June. 

My only goal at this point is to avoid the “But I would have submitted if I’d known!” conversation in July.  I’ve tried to reach the right crowds, but… *throws hands in the air* …tell your friends.

Oh, man. I would absolutely love for there to be progress and a release date. Things kept happening to slow it down (oh boy, did they), but also, each time I’ve gone to work on it...things have stalled out. Usually if that happens, it means I’m overlooking something or not seeing something the plot *must* have, but whatever I’m missing, my brain has yet to bloody well tell me what that is. That probably means it’s something BIG.

Of course it meant they had all these AUs beating down their mental door, now, asking for followups or expansions or just being pissy because all the other AUs got written, why haven’t we, author?

As a bonus, you own the copyright, so could either choose to publish the AUs in a collection later or put them on ao3 as your own fic of your fic. Sort of an ‘author’s collection of AUs’. I know of at least one published author with multiple popular series’ to their name who has in the past put fic of their fic on ao3 under a barely-anonymised screenname, and at least one of the primary writers for the TV series Leverage wrote fanfic on ao3 in the decade between the series ending and Amazon announcing they’re resurrecting it with most of the old team, who has posted on social media about being worried that now that they get to write for it officially again people will be able to place which popular fanfic author for the show was an an official writer for it all along and you can bet some of their stuff were AUs.

Yes, there’s a lot of Jedi-critical arguments that boil down to “Anakin didn’t get what he wanted”. I understand to a degree where it comes from, I’ve said before on that subject:

[It comes from] a combination of the audience buying into Palpatine’s charismatic lies (he’s the one pushing the idea of the Jedi not trusting or appreciating Anakin, and manufacturing tension between them so that it becomes a reality, and the idea that the Jedi’s standard teachings of self-restraint are specifically targeting Anakin to hold him back somehow, that he deserves to get what he wants just because he’s powerful, etc - and some of the audience soaks that up just as Anakin does), and the natural tendency to be more concerned with the personal impact on the protagonist just due to the focus on their character. People want the protagonist to achieve their goals, we’re predisposed to favor their POV, and so when anything gets in the way of that, many find it unfair, especially since Anakin does as well.

But…I mean…not everything is about Anakin. And the idea that a culture needs to entirely change just because it doesn’t suit this one particular person doesn’t sit well with me at all. What about all the people who find that way of life rewarding? Should they be denied their own environment that they’ve thrived in just because some new kid comes along and doesn’t like it? Oh, I know, they don’t think about it like that; they assume all the other Jedi are horribly repressed and no one could ever truly be happy and well-adjusted under such a system. I just can’t ever agree with such a view, since I so strongly relate to the Jedi and find their environment and culture appealing.

The thing is, changing their culture to cater to Anakin or merely handing him the things he wanted - none of that would really help him. It doesn’t get to the heart of his issues; if anything it enables them. Allowing him to openly be with Padmé while remaining a Jedi doesn’t change the fact that he’s willing to burn the Galaxy to the ground to spare himself the pain of losing her. Giving him the rank of Master doesn’t change the fact that he hasn’t mastered himself. Allowing him to do as he pleases without reprimand doesn’t get him to reflect on his actions or their consequences.

- @trickytricky1

THIS BOTHERS ME TOO

I mean, I like fix-it fics, but it’s so tiring that most of them focus so much on how the Jedi needed “reform” (usually pressured on them by an outsider - whether a time traveler or a maverick or even a non-Jedi, which really doesn’t sit well with me) and even if the fic doesn’t focus on that aspect it still can’t help but take potshots at the Jedi Order or the Council, with an implication of them being forced to change further down the line. If they’re not outright writing the Jedi off as a lost cause, that is, and just having their faves up and leave.

And yeah, it’s fanfic, you can do anything you want, you really can’t think of another way to deal with Palpatine (as if he wouldn’t just adapt and twist whatever choices the Jedi made against them)? I’m not kidding when I say that my favorite AU concept is “Palpatine gets eaten by the Zillo beast” - there could be some really interesting political fallout and investigation from that, especially when people start realizing that the Separatists, who should really be taking advantage of the Republic’s sudden loss of leader, have mysteriously lost advantage. But unfortunately the only fic with that premise that I’ve come across was standard Jedi-critical fare.

I, as the person who is outside, looking in at this world, get the points about allowing the Jedi to have their own traditions and culture. And yep, totally see plenty of posts where the Jedi Order is somehow made out to be worst then Palpatine, which, big fat no from me. Dude, it’s not even close.

And god knows fandom’s ability to defend attractive white boy villains, and twist everything into he should have gotten what he wanted, and everything would be fine arguments.  Which is what a lot of discourse about Anakin pops up as.

jedi-order-apologist is right, the Jedi were most certainly “a unique minority culture". But unlike most culture’s like that on Earth, they were also a political faction within the ruling government. The Jedi were most certainly entitled to live their life the way they wanted to, follow the whims of the Force, and study it as they saw best. But the Jedi Order, not the group of people living togther as an  Order, but as a political entity in its own right, had responsibilities and duties far beyond the confines of their own internal culture. And it was the pressure of not separating the two, or I should say, allowing the two goals to be seen as one, that lead to their downfall. Because holy hell, did they fail so badly in their political role.

And not all of that was their fault. There simply weren’t enough of them, to do the job they were tasked with within the Republic. Playing the neutral mediator, the wise counsel in interplanetary disputes, and at times, intergalactic space cop, was definitely something they were well suited to do. But the sheer number of planets in the Republic where they were needed, and their own numbers made it, so they couldn’t be everywhere at once. But there was no other organization within the Republic to help them with this. So, as decades and centuries passed, as more and more responsibilities got shoved on their shoulders, (because they had lost all political power to say “no”), more and more things fell through the cracks.

Then Palpatine entered the picture, and used all those frustrations and anger of the general populace outside of the Core to his advantage. But I would like to point out, he did not CREATE it, just exploited the hell out of it.

That’s what I mean when I say their religious mandate, follow the will of the Force, got somewhat confused with their political role, protect the Republic. They were two very different, and I would say, opposing goals.

And yes, I get that criticizing them for how they choose to deal with their connection to a mystical energy field that gave them their very scary powers, is the height of ignorance, because I am the first to admit, trained Force users can do a lot of damage. Since I do not have any Force powers (more’s the bummer for me), I’m not in much of a position to either a. offer advice on how b. criticize how they go about it.

But, given their role in the Republic, a weird combo of the U.N., cop, and SWAT agent, to say that the Jedi can’t be criticized for their role in the Republic, smacks very close to the U.S. modern-day attitude of cop fetishization.

(To clarify, I’m not saying the Jedi were as bad as a good number of police forces in the US are. Hell, I would love it if the Jedi were the police force in the US, it would certainly be a step up in most cases. And with the population numbers the US has, it would actually be something they could handle, which wasn’t possible in the Republic. I’m just saying, that stating a political organization doesn’t need to be held accountable for the choices that it makes, especially ones that effects its citizens, generally speaking, leads nowhere good.) 

And that brings me to Anakin. Here’s where the argument jedi-order-apologist made loses me. For me, it isn’t about changing the Jedi Order to give Anakin what he wanted. It is about the fact, that they knew going into this, training Anakin the way they trained others in their order was a bad idea, and they did it anyway.

That’s where I have problems with how the Jedi Order handled Anakin. It is plainly stated in TMP that he is too old to be trained. Fine, that is very much their prerogative, they don’t have to take in anybody. But then, realizing, oh yes, the Sith are still a thing, perhaps it would be a bad idea to let this very powerful Force User run around unsupervised, they change their minds. Again, their prerogative.

But this is what blows my mind. Knowing that their methods do not work for someone who has not been raised in the temple, instead of modifying their teaching methods to accommodate him, they just treat him like he is any other student.

And even better, they give him not to a trained master, who has experience with several students, and is comfortable with the process, but the goddamn field promoted knight, who is grieving, hurting, and has no experience WHAT SO EVER teaching. I look at that, and go, what the fuck where you all thinking????? Did you want everyone involved to fail? Cause you sure as hell set it up that way.

As for Anakin, we don’t actually get to see that much of his training in the films, so how the Jedi Order treated him is rather up to interpretation, or the interpretation of expanded material. And while I’m not an expert on the expanded material by any means, the current continuity suggests that Anakin was accommodated. If you’re interested, @gffa has a good reference for how the Jedi are characterized in the current continuity.

I’m not an expert on the old EU either, but I did start reading Rogue Planet and so far the Jedi been very reasonable with Anakin, focusing on having him figure out and admit what he did wrong, then asking him what he needs from them. Now maybe this book is an exception - the ending of the Darth Plagueis novel certainly suggests a much stricter treatment of Anakin (though I personally don’t find that scene consistent with the films, considering that Obi-Wan is fine, even sympathetic, with talking about Anakin dreaming of his mother in AOTC) - but I think there’s enough basis to say that the Jedi did their best to help Anakin without catering to him.

Obi-Wan may have been young and inexperienced, but it wasn’t as though he lacked support. They weren’t on their own, there was an entire Temple of older, wiser Jedi who he and Anakin could seek guidance from. TCW also suggests that it wasn’t uncommon for teaching to be a community effort, even around the usual Master-Padawan structure.

That having the duties and responsibilities they did, without any input into how they were deployed, even to the point of not being allowed to go to the Outer Rim and really work on the injustices there, because it would be against powerful people’s interests, was what set them up for Sheevy-boy (I refuse to give him the dignity of referring to him by his full last name, he should be viciously mocked as all fascist and/or authoritarian arseholes should be) to put them in the position he did. If the Jedi had, over the last several generations, been allowed to work according to their mandate, instead of limited by the Senate from doing what they agreed to after the Ruusan Reformation (or whatever new-canon has it as, need to catch up on a lot of it), if they had’ve had some say in how they were used and the direction the Republic was going, rather than being negotiators and enforcers for a government they were not allowed to have any say in because ‘the Jedi keep out of politics’, things might have been different.

But whoever agreed to that, whoever came up with the idea that the Jedi should have no say in the government they both represented and served as high-level operatives of, that is who set up the Jedi to fail, who set things into motion that would leave the Jedi vulnerable to the Sith plots.

They needed to be more involved in the Republic’s running, not less. Just like they needed more Jedi, like the numbers the Temple was designed for or the numbers they used to have in the past. Just like they needed to be more active in the Outer Rim, so tensions didn’t build and build over generations until they could be used by unscrupulous greedy rich people who were in turn being used by the Sith. None of these are the fault of the modern Jedi (likely not even Yoda, since the Ruusan Reformation predates his birth by a century or more, and we’ve recently been enlightened as to how long it takes his species to mature), but it’s what their predecessors left them with, and it’s what the Sith used.

So… I have a guilty love of the prohibition era.  I’dd never want to LIVE then, but int terms of really interesting social dynamics, fashion, art and narrative possibility, its really, really interesting.   During the ‘Would-Bacta-work-as-lube?“ question posed by @poplitealqueen a few months ago, I set about scouring-SCOURING, I TELL YOU- Wookieepedia and all my SW-related material to find out what Bacta actually COST, and how it operated, to answer the question of whether it was economically and practically feasible.  And I found out that:

1. It apparently makes ideal lube, as long as you don’t mind the smell of Pineapple.

2. It’s basically ultra-thick saline with suspended nutrients and ACTUAL BACTERIA in it.

(so, these next couple conclusions are made in the face of conflicting canons, but it’s the one that makes the most sense for how shit plays out)

3. Bacta is the GMO reconstruction of Kolto, which is a psuedo-parastic microorganism that may or may not be related to midichlorians that alters it’s DNA to turn into the host’s cells.  (IDK it’s science fiction, roll with it) Kolto was the more effective substance, able to treat things like cirrhosis, brain damage, etc,- but was wiped out by a virus during the KOTOR era as part of a plot to get rid of the Jedi.

Good job guys.

So Bacta is the GMO they managed to cobble together afterwards with the remaining info they had, and while it’s pretty miraculous as a traumatic injury treatment, it doesn’t do chronic diseases like Kolto did

4. Bacta is literally grown in cultured vats, much the way insulin is farmed today.

5. While it’s heavily regulated in the TPM era, because it’s MEDICAL EQUIPMENT, it’s still really easy to grow once you get your startup costs out of the way.

6. The expensive part of bacta is the administration devices- bacta doesn’t do well in tubes, so you either need to keep a small live colony (a bacta tank ala ESB), or flash-freeze them in the ultra thick saline, and have a small…bacterial microwave, essentially, to thaw bits of it out for use.

7. During the clone wars, Palpatine subsidized the crap out of the bacta industry so he’d have enough for his army and the worlds loyal to him- post 66, he was a punitive asshole who controlled all “legitimate” (but not necessarily well-run) bacta production, and would just not ship it to worlds he didn’t like.

The point I’m getting at is- The conditions are PERFECT for there to be a massive Bootleg Bacta trade starting in TPM and going all through the empire (and into TFA probably, we’ll see what the timeline looks like once this all shakes out)  Just thing- ALL the shenanigans people got up to with bootlegging, but with bacta.

People with illicit ‘stills’ in the basement, people doing insane planetary runs to get it to worlds in need- or pirating Imperial ships for the stuff.  Kids going to school with an “ice pack” in their lunch bag, only to give the frozen bacta to their Rebel-sympathizing teacher.  Imperial Facilities get raided by Bacta Pirates, not for the shitty imperial strain, but literally to pull the piping and saline tanks out of the walls. 

Of course, some people are gonna be unscrupulous and cut corners with their vats, resulting in horrible mutant strains that do god knows what (but that’s another plot bunny).  Or Strains of bacta that are more refined and effective, because much of the scientific Community was not friends with Sheevy P, even before the war.

AND CLONES WOULD KICK ASS AT BACTA FARMING- because a LOT of bacta farming happened On Kamino, and hell, it was probably part of chores to tend to the tanks. “Feed the vats so your brothers can live”

The HARD part about starting your own farm is 1. finding/making suitable vats 2. GETTING YOUR HANDS ON A GOOD STRAIN.

Kix becomes an unintentional fucktillionaire distributing the Kamino strain.  He wasn’t even charging, people just kept giving him money. “Uncle Jesse’s Extra-Viscosity Varmint Grease” is the joke name of the best strain.  Kix is SO MAD that drunk Jesse named it that but you know? No imp inspection officer has ever wanted to open those barrels.

 The things people pretend to be shipping instead of bacta though, which might actually include booze:

 "Booze! Twelve million gallons of Zanbar Blue!“ “Oh that stuff is gross. Carry on.”

Also, the REALLY enterprising people who figure out how to start mixing spice in with their bacta- and create a medical revolution in the process. Glitterstim is a bad idea to snort, but the trace amounts in the “Candy Cane” strain heal nerve damage! "Pineapple express” is a strain that essentially acts as a topical PTSD treatment  "Beskar Berserker” is a strain that has some pretty awesome painkiller/amphetamine combo, and while it was meant to keep people from coding, it becomes REALLY popular with former ARC troopers.

Hera gets Kanan a strain called “second sight” after he loses his eyes.  She did it because it was supposed to be good for treating optic injuries and numbing visual hallucinations… they find out later it’s basically bacta + Midichlorian chow.

That means bacta smuggling is a thing.

Like, large cargo holds worth of it possibly.

I’m just imagining how much of a bitch and a half this stuff would be to transport. Like OP said, if it’s premade stuff you’re dealing with, it’s gotta stay frozen which means you gotta be able to either turn your ship hold into an industrial freezer or have a specially-made ship for it. Regular smugglers looking for credits would probs just go with fiddling with temp controls to keep the stuff frozen, which of course can lead to screwups that end in the unfortunate ship being flooded with sticky yuck (Han’s boots still stick to one patch of floor near the smuggling hatches months after the Incident, and poor Chewie’s fur still smells slightly like pineapple…)

Having a big fancy transport ship to get the bacta places would be almost near-impossible— unless you were, say, royalty and had government backing.

What I’m getting at is, we don’t really know what exactly Alderaan’s “mercy-missions” consisted of. Rebels tells us that one of Bail’s plans to supply the Rebellion with ships by having his mercy ships get conveniently attacked and stolen, oh rats, what a shame. What was on them?

What I’m getting at is, one of the best centers for a bacta startup would probs be in a palace with restricted access.

What I’m getting at is, on top of shadow-funding the rebels for years, Bail and Breha were ABSOLUTELY also bacta-bootleggers and one of Leia’s first jobs for the alliance was running bacta during those “mercy missions”.

“Han, the best way to smuggle something is if people don’t know that you are a smuggler. So unlike you, I didn’t put ‘smuggler’ on my business cards and didn’t get caught.”

“….NOW WAIT ONE DAMN MINUTE HERE I AM PRETTY SURE YOU DID GET CAUGHT.”

We will never know their names.

The first victim could not have been recorded, for there was no written language to record it. They were someone’s daughter, or son, and someone’s friend, and they were loved by those around them. And they were in pain, covered in rashes, confused, scared, not knowing why this was happening to them or what they could do about it - victim of a mad, inhuman god. There was nothing to be done - humanity was not strong enough, not aware enough, not knowledgeable enough, to fight back against a monster that could not be seen.

It was in Ancient Egypt, where it attacked slave and pharaoh alike. In Rome, it effortlessly decimated armies. It killed in Syria. It killed in Moscow.  In India, five million dead. It killed a thousand Europeans every day in the 18th century. It killed more than fifty million Native Americans. From the Peloponnesian War to the Civil War, it slew more soldiers and civilians than any weapon, any soldier, any army (Not that this stopped the most foolish and empty souls from attempting to harness the demon as a weapon against their enemies).

Cultures grew and faltered, and it remained. Empires rose and fell, and it thrived. Ideologies waxed and waned, but it did not care. Kill. Maim. Spread. An ancient, mad god, hidden from view, that could not be fought, could not be confronted, could not even be comprehended. Not the only one of its kind, but the most devastating.

For a long time, there was no hope - only the bitter, hollow endurance of survivors.

In China, in the 10th century, humanity began to fight back.

It was observed that survivors of the mad god’s curse would never be touched again: they had taken a portion of that power into themselves, and were so protected from it. Not only that, but this power could be shared by consuming a remnant of the wounds. There was a price, for you could not take the god’s power without first defeating it - but a smaller battle, on humanity’s terms. By the 16th century, the technique spread, to India, across Asia, the Ottoman Empire and, in the 18th century, Europe. In 1796, a more powerful technique was discovered by Edward Jenner.

An idea began to take hold: Perhaps the ancient god could be killed.

A whisper became a voice; a voice became a call; a call became a battle cry, sweeping across villages, cities, nations. Humanity began to cooperate, spreading the protective power across the globe, dispatching masters of the craft to protect whole populations. People who had once been sworn enemies joined in common cause for this one battle. Governments mandated that all citizens protect themselves, for giving the ancient enemy a single life would put millions in danger.

And, inch by inch, humanity drove its enemy back. Fewer friends wept; Fewer neighbors were crippled; Fewer parents had to bury their children.

At the dawn of the 20th century, for the first time, humanity banished the enemy from entire regions of the world. Humanity faltered many times in its efforts, but there individuals who never gave up, who fought for the dream of a world where no child or loved one would ever fear the demon ever again. Viktor Zhdanov, who called for humanity to unite in a final push against the demon; The great tactician Karel Raška, who conceived of a strategy to annihilate the enemy; Donald Henderson, who led the efforts of those final days.

The enemy grew weaker. Millions became thousands, thousands became dozens. And then, when the enemy did strike, scores of humans came forth to defy it, protecting all those whom it might endanger.

The enemy’s last attack in the wild was on Ali Maow Maalin, in 1977. For months afterwards, dedicated humans swept the surrounding area, seeking out any last, desperate hiding place where the enemy might yet remain.

They found none.

35 years ago, on December 9th, 1979, humanity declared victory.

This one evil, the horror from beyond memory, the monster that took 500 million people from this world - was destroyed.

You are a member of the species that did that. Never forget what we are capable of, when we band together and declare battle on what is broken in the world.

kyoshi warriors: um we were the ones who captured you

sokka: