Musings of the Last Raigeki

Chun-Li by Ryan Carter

So this is going to sound weird but this fan art of Chun-Li was the one that could be the catalyst to why I got into things like uh... Hentai. Now, granted this is something which could be very sexy and even tasteful but... for me, this was the fanart that could be my sexual awakening.

So this fan art had eluded me for over many years since it was published on a September 1996 issue of Game Informer Magazine. Yeah, this is a fan art which could be considered an oldie but a goodie. And long after my clipping of this fanart from the magazine was lost around the late nineties or early millennium-- I had completely forgotten about it, but every now and then I'd search for the Game Informer issue it was printed in.

I rediscovered a wood burn imprint of the fanart over on DeviantArt a few years ago, and contacted the person who I believed was the artist. However... I will get back to that later.

I considered it to be lost UNTIL I found the issue on Internet Archive. Someone had managed to scan old Game Informer issues and uploaded them onto the internet. I had found the fan art which had eluded me for well over TWENTY FIVE years... And it even had the REAL artist' name on it-- whose name DID NOT match the individual who did the wood burning work I discovered on DeviantArt.

Honestly? I feel like as if... the fans back twenty something years ago was the hey-day for Predator and all things AVP because we all more or less had Steve and Stephani Perry's work as something of a guideline to work with. The Yautja at the time felt more than just like sadistic killers, they were warriors. They were warriors who had a sense of pride, a sense of honor, and then there was the warrior's code which felt like an unspoken but adhered law that the Yautja mostly followed.

But things changed in 2010 when PREDATORS happened, I felt like as if the films more or less started to drift away from what the Perry's laid out and then you started getting the whole subspecies idea (which if you ask me-- is dumb) and there was this... eschewing of the Yautja warrior's code with the whole idea of the Preserve Planet and the way the Hunt is done. And then it FURTHER eschewed when it was introduced that the Yautja practice genetic engineering-- THANK YOU Shane Black and Fred Dekker. 😑

Then Prey came along and... while the movie DID have promise, I felt as if Dan Trachtenberg fouled it up when he introduced ANOTHER subspecies with the badly designed Feral Predator, and when he messed with the story about the flintlock. Predator 1718 told the better story with the better interpretation of Raphael Adolini. In that story, he wasn't a cowardly fur trapper-- he was a heroic, noble pirate. And we saw how the Elder in Predator 2 acquired that weapon.

Yeah, I'll say it... I didn't like Prey. I downright revile that film alongside with PREDATORS and The Predator 2018. And I am not looking forward to Badlands.

Now... seeing Killer of Killers, it introduced something which I DREADED, especially after seeing the concept in Robert Rodriguez's 1994 PREDATORS script, which I think Dan looked at or he coincidentally conceptualized, as the whole idea of a Predator Warlord, or a Predator King. The Yautja are or... WERE a tribal based society, and a clan based one, and I really... see no basis of them having a King in any of the EU material. Then again, it has been confirmed by the folks at AVP Galaxy that Danny boy's been looking at Xenopedia... which is NOTORIOUS for making information up and passing it off as canon.

But... I feel as if the Yautja we know and love... was a projection by us, the fans. They don't feel like Warriors with a sense of honor anymore. They just seem to come off as nothing more than bestial sadistic killers who just come to other planets to see something bleed, and if it survives, they kidnap their prey for what's nothing more than a canned Hunt... or a dog pit fight.

It has been an EXTREMELY long time since I posted a journal entry on Tumblr. But right now, I am posting here to reach out and see if I can depend on the kindness of strangers who can help me and my Mother after we survived a serious car crash.

As of 3/23/25, we were caught in a severe car accident in which we weren't even originally a part of. A woman in a Black Rogue cut off a woman in a Silver Hyundai who had the right of way. We immediately saw the accident which occurred 3 lanes away from us and within seconds, the woman in the Silver Hyundai had somehow turned left (as she lost control) and ended up T-boning our SUV as we did not have enough time escape the impact.

The impact crushed my mother’s side of the car causing the air bags to be deployed. The windshield cracked and we saw smoke coming from somewhere in front of the car. My mother was unable to get out of the car, but she never panicked. Although injured, she managed to crawl out of the car through the passenger door on her back. Luckily, the woman who caused the accident and the woman who hit us (with 2 children in the car) were all okay. My mother suffered the most injury of everyone involved. I just suffered from a bruised elbow.

My mother had just retired 3 weeks ago, and she was perfectly healthy. Now she has to wear a leg brace and use crutches. We are both still traumatized by the accident.

The Police and Firemen showed up along with 2 ambulances. When the Police approached my mother, they told her that her car would probably be a total loss. Since then, the insurance company has confirmed that. So, now, we don’t have a vehicle, and we don’t have money to buy one.

Our SUV was going to be paid off in about a year and my mother was looking forward to paying it off to keep it because she knew she would never be able to afford another car. However, because it is a 7-year-old car that got refinanced so that we could afford a mortgage, she was upside down. It is very likely that once the finance company gets paid off, there will be nothing left for us.

The loss of our vehicle has affected our lives significantly, as it is the only vehicle which we have for transportation. We are now relying on a rental provided to us by Enterprise through our insurance, but they can only cover us for 14 days, so we don’t know what we are going to do after that. The accident has affected us mentally, physically and most of all, financially.

With my mother now retired and with my job at risk due to my company closing all its stores, I've decided to start a campaign to help raise funds for her to get a reliable car. The money raised will go toward a down payment so that we can get our lives back to normal.

If you could spare any kindness from your heart, any contribution to this campaign, no matter the amount, would be greatly appreciated and make a difference.

Happy Halloween from Barovia! by @theravenloftwanderers

A commission done for my by TheRavenloftWanders!

I honestly thought that this wasn't going to get done considering how suggestive the subject matter happened to be but I'm quite happy with how it all turned out!

This was supposed to be one of two commissions done for Halloween and Curse of Strahd but the second commission had to be either cancelled or put on hold because of a situation which happened with my job that ended up cutting my hours.

I wanted something fun, cheeky and suggestive with Anastrasya Karelova, particularly this version of Anastrasya and a self-insert character who seems to have gotten her attention-- and find himself completely over his head in the dark realm of Barovia.

I look forward to getting more work involving the Ravenloft setting and working with the artist once again!

So my table managed to finish Curse of Strahd as of today after a very hard and lengthy battle-- and this is Pyram King's Legends of Barovia version of Curse of Strahd, mind you, so it's not rules as written.

Thankfully, my character was revived with a Sword of Luck which an NPC used a Wish spell to resurrect my character. And while we have defeated Strahd, I want to say that... through out the campaign, I was essentially the Yamcha of the group (I love Yamcha, no disrespect to the character!) as I fell the most and had very little moments to shine, and the beginning of the campaign, the narrative alluded to how my character was to return home with the Sunsword through dreams and the Tarokka deck.

Instead, this wasn't the case as I died and our Cleric turned Paladin wound up utilizing the Sunsword from my character after she died from being one shot crit by Strahd.

My experience with Curse of Strahd left me with a sour taste, as the game is not really meant for Monks, and I maxed out my Dex and got high points in Wisdom and Constitution.

I really want to give the game another shot... Preferably the same version of Curse of Strahd, but maybe with a different table and different people but with my character, Rika. Having that said... with the game being done, it's not likely I'll be able to play Rika as the DM wants new characters.

I really want to redeem the character in my eyes and see if I can have a better run in a game like Curse of Strahd in a different table through FoundryVTT and done on Discord chat.

Is there anyone out there who is going to host a Curse of Strahd DnD campaign, specifically Pyram King's "Legends of Barovia" version preferably on FoundryVTT and does voice chat on Discord?

My character died in the final battle against Strahd and this wasn't really the intended out come which I had for her.

Rika Mochizuki: [Pulls off a Chun-Li with the Sunsword]

Strahd Von Zarovich: ....This is going to hurt. Isn't it?

Rate my Monk!

Rika Mochizuki's current stats as she's progressed her way through the trials and tribulations during her time in the Curse of Strahd campaign.

As we're currently at the endgame, she's got her Dexterity maxed out, and her Constitution and Wisdom are fairly high. She's also equipped with a Cloak of Protection, an Amulet of Health and the Sunsword!

This is it... We're at the endgame.

Soon... We face Count Strahd Von Zarovich.

Curse of Strahd has been one hell of a road and it's also the first campaign where I've played my Kensei Monk reskinned to be an Iga/Koga inspired ninja. And the trials and tribulations which the party have confronted will definitely be something for me to remember.

Rika Mochizuki has made some friends in the form of Celine Whitewolf, Gurthe, Freebird, Ezmerelda D'Avenir, Ireena Kolyana, and many other characters in the campaign. She's also suffered some pretty bad bumps along the way, being nearly killed by Strahd, having the Sunsword stolen from her by the Dark Lord, having her soul contested by the Dark Powers Zrin-Hala and Norganas, and even being killed by Vampyr during the sealing ritual only to be resurrected by Celine at the cost of Celine losing her Cleric powers... PERMANENTLY.

Rika is now going to be facing an enemy who is considered to be nigh unstoppable so long as the Heart of Sorrow exists, but now with a goal set and new powers gained granted by the now restored Fae of Barovia, the party sets out what must be done and rescue Ireena.

Rika has since reclaimed the Sunsword after she and the party infiltrated Castle Ravenloft through the Pillars of Ravenloft. She's defeated and broken the contract with Zrin-Hala, and even dealt the final blow to aid the party in sealing Vampyr.

I'd like to think that Rika is strong enough and better prepared to fight someone like Strahd. I'd like to think that her best weapon aside from the Sunsword is the knowledge she's acquired of Strahd's strengths and weaknesses from what Exeanther has shared with the group.

But this upcoming Saturday, we kick off the final battle by dealing with Rahadin and then the Heart of Sorrow and finally... Strahd himself.

This is it. It's all or nothing.

Win or lose, I think I will remember the fun and anticipation of each session I've had the most!

Wish me and my party luck, fellow adventurers!

I joined the CBUB around mid to late 2006 when the site had a lot more members and was definitely a lot more active. For many years I was the guy who often took the Alien-Predator characters' corner and fought vehemently against many overwhelming challenges from the opposition-- specifically, Marvel and DC characters. While I am not the Alien-Predator fan I was those many years ago, I still have a love for the characters and what they used to represent and were in character before 2010 had hit and the Disney acquisition of 2018 had happened.

But now with the Disney acquisition of Twentieth Century Fox's intellectual properties and film library, and the acquisition of the licenses from Dark Horse to Marvel-- it was only a matter of time before we had any official Marvel/Alien-Predator crossovers. There were many teases in the past with such crossovers with variant covers featuring the Alien and the Predator.

It's 2024 and there are already THREE crossovers involving Marvel and the Alien-Predator franchise.

We've already got Predator vs Wolverine, and the story was told from the view of Wolverine in a century's long blood hunt between the Predator and Logan. Now, I recall in my time of the CBUB these many years that a lot of people would cite that Wolverine steamrolls over the Predator. And as someone who has acquired many years of knowledge of the Yautja, and read the comic, I was pleasantly surprised to know that this isn't the case-- as Marvel treated the Predator with respect and showed that he is a legitimate threat to Wolverine, even showing that without the Adamantium skeleton-- a Yautja dominates that fight straight up, and both characters were young and fresh faced during their first encounter in the 1900s.

Now, we're getting Predator vs Black Panther-- and while I do have some issues with the portrayal of Yautja society in that particular comic, it shows so far-- the Yautja HAVE infiltrated and breached through Wakanda's defenses, and even have acquired Vibranium in the past which is the cause between a blood feud of two brother Yautja. One had inherited a Vibranium spear from his father, another-- born smaller, weaker than his healthier brother, is forced to be smarter and has to rely on technological prosthetics and upgrades, and the younger sibling has come to Wakanda to get the motherload of Vibranium. The comic shows that while Wakandan tech is advanced, Yautja tech is capable of matching and surpassing in some ways, and even a Yautja plasma caster is capable of knocking out T'challa even when he's wearing the Panther suit, as the caster isn't kinetic in terms of power and output-- according to once source who is knowledgeable of physics over at AVPGalaxy.

And then there's Aliens vs Avengers-- which shows a Marvel universe which is set in the Prometheus/ALIEN timeline. In this particular universe, some Xenomorphs were bred and gestated in Strontian, Kotadi, D'Bari, and Skrull hosts-- and as noted by the "Shi'ar" scientists (there's a reason why this was quoted), the Xenomorphs have acquired the physical traits of their hosts. And these Xenomorphs are Queens. A Kree was experimented on with a Facehugger, but it seemed as if the hosts didn't take to the implantation process and died immediately. With a coordinated attack on the universe, one of the places of interest was Earth, and four Xenomorph Queens are deployed with some drones for added protection, and numerous hives are established. If anyone is familiar with the old Dark Horse ALIENS: Earth War series, this is the same scenario except on a much more DIRE situation, as narration implies that even Marvel's superheroes and villains have been acquired into the Hive and made as hosts or were killed. Now there's only one remaining city on Earth left, and the seemingly only heroes remaining are Captain Marvel, Hulk, Miles Morales, and Valeria Richards-- and Valeria, the smartest one of the group, made a critical mistake in acquiring an Egg from a Xenomorph Hive and was rendered a host.

It feels so refreshing to see that the Yautja and the Xenomorph are finally getting the respect from what I consider to my my greatest opposition, Marvel, and in some ways... I actually feel vindicated in participating in those debates so long ago, even if the votes were not really in favor of the Xenomorph or the Yautja characters often.

-=Rika Mochizuki=-

Artwork by @theravenloftwanderers

A commission done for my by the great and wonderful TheRavenloftWanderers. I've been keeping tabs on their exploits in the Curse of Strahd game on YouTube and have also enjoyed the game myself in my own adventures that are done in FoundryVTT.

Here we have a depiction of my Curse of Strahd character, Rika Mochizuki, a Kunoichi of the Kurogame clan (Black Turtle clan), standing defiantly in what appears to be some desolate and gloomy woods, likely the Svalich Woods in Barovia.