Postively Unhinged Elden Ring Fanfic Hour

Saiziku

 

Previous installments: (Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5). 

**

You are Marika the Eternal, and your son is dead. 

Godwyn the golden, beloved of all your demigods, is dead. Seven more of the Golden Lineage died with him. Your dynasty is ended. The assassin stood in silent defiance as you ordered her execution and chained her spirit to an evergaol. The wound remains. 

The time you bought by plucking Death from the Rune is fully wasted; the Fingers and their guiding Will still pull at your strings. The gilded cage remains intact. The slaughter of your family is of no concern to them. Godwyn is dead and the Fingers sign that this is only a minor disruption. They only noticed because they lost their primary Empyrean, and even then it barely registers as a setback; if the twins are non-viable hosts, you are Marika mother of demigods - you can always go fuck yourself and make more. The Will demands an agent in the Lands Between.

Someone needs to bear the Ring. 

Someone needs to maintain Order. 

Their consent is optional.

Ranni chafed at the yoke that was prepared for her. You never blamed her for hating you: You were offering her up to the Fingers to secure your own emancipation, and if she inherited anything from you it was a refusal to kneel to anyone or anything. 

Still, you tried to make the succession a painless affair, or as painless as it could be. Ranni would inherit the Ring, choose a Lord Consort as she saw fit according to love or convenience; then she would only need to lie back and think of Liurnia for a few uncomfortable nights, produce a demigod or two to appease the Will, and then she could retire to her rise to do as she wished for the rest of her life-without-death. The mundane realities of rule would be handed over to Godwyn, anyway. The people already called him the Young Lord, favoring his warmth and life over grim and reclusive Radagon.

Godwyn. A good man in a nest of vipers. A man for whom cruelty was alien, a man who could tease the good out from a blackened soul and broker peace between the most bitter enemies. Noble, idiot, innocent Godwyn. The best thing you ever made. Perhaps the only good thing, in the end. Godwyn, cut down by Destined Death as he rallied his sons and the knights of the guard against the black knives of the assassins.

Did he recognize the assailants? Did he know the danger he was in? No, he couldn’t have. The Eternal Cities were vanished into deep history, their people driven underground. Destined Death rested safely in Maliketh’s hands. He would have thought, perhaps to the very end, that he was facing ordinary steel and common sorcery from a band of Liurnian revanchists.

And now he’s dead. He and his seven sons and daughters. His body has poisoned the Erdtree and Deathroot spreads across the Lands Between like cancer.

Your surviving children - those fortunate enough to be away from the capital that night - play at cooperation but you know they are all a breath away from drawing swords and squabbling over your empire like tantruming infants. None of them are fit to inherit the Order that you built.

It doesn’t matter.

You pace the palace halls day and night, your mind gnawing at itself like a wolf with its foot caught in a trap. They’ve cleaned the blood from the floors. Your son’s blood, soaked up by a servant with a mop. The corridors reek of perfumers’ disinfectant. Memories and the dreams of memories seethe and foam, losing their time-blunted edges and boiling together until your thoughts cannot be discerned from your delusions and Now can no longer be separated from Then.

The snake lifts its head from where it naps in the roots and tells you the last secret of godhood.

You plant a golden tree in the field, near the old firepit where you would dance and sing and celebrate the spirits. It is the kindness of gold without a trace of Order - perhaps the last kindness you will ever offer to the world. You leave, and you will never return. 

You hold a pale, flabby infant in your arms, swaddled in the soft and supple skin of your enemies.

A messenger arrives in the ash-choked city with news from the front: the Storm Lord is dead, and Castle Morne has fallen. The Weeping Peninsula is yours, the last resistance to your rule over the Lands Between is gone, and Lord Godfrey stands victorious at the head of a battle-hardened host with no more lands left to conquer and more loyalty to their Lord than to his Order. Something must be done.

You climb to the summit of the hill, to the spirit tree where the Grandmother’s mummified body rests. Drawing the knife from your belt, you cut off a braid and lay it there in the roots.

The midwife cowers as you command her to stop her whimpering and toss the wretched things into the sewers.

The stone-scaled dragon nods in approval at last, and strikes the clay tablet with lightning to leave his mark next to Godwyn’s seal. The treaty is made.

The flame-haired giant kneels, holds up his trembling hands in surrender. The war is over; the fields of dead are left for the crows. The enlisted men are already calling you Godslayer, crediting you with the fall of the giants’ Fell God. 

Radagon is different now; his years of autonomy in Liurnia have given him experiences that you don’t share. His new formulations of the Golden Order spread like giantsflame; The court teems with Fundamentalists. 

The village is silent. All the villages are silent now. There is no one left.

The blind drunkard Shabriri, caked in filth, is dragged out of his cell and thrown before the baying crowds. You wave your hand and the carnifex gouges out his eyes. All the while he screams “Lies, all lies, do you not see it? Order and chaos are one! She is not a god! She is not a god!”

Messmer and his penal legions march towards Belurat. You reach into the Ring and transform a thousand-thousand segments of ciphered light. The world is remade. The past is re-written. The path you took to your throne is wiped out of memory and out of time - you are eternal as the Erdtree is eternal, and always have been.

The highland barbarian bounces on the balls of his feet, bored with the Tower priest’s endless sermon. You feel neither love nor lust for Horah, but this is a marriage of alliance, not pleasure. Mutual respect for prowess on the field will suffice.

Melina stares back at you with her gloaming and Graceless eye. “Order alone cannot continue, Mother. The world strains under the weight, like a scale in need of balancing Isn’t that my purpose?” The ruinous flame takes her then, and she screams.

Horned riders crest the hill, their horses like thunder. Your mother begs you to run into the woods, to keep running and not look back.

The sun’s golden blood drips from the boughs of the grasping tree into the great bowl. You dole out your blessings of sap and grace to your loyal converts. 

You pour over stone tablets by lamplight, deciphering the cuneiform of Rauh syllable-by-syllable.

The misbegotten blacksmith bows his head, and says “Yes, my lady. It’ll be done.”

The knife glimmers in the evening light before you drive it into your breast and carve out your dusk-eyed other self - There is no place for Death in your new Order.

The old woman - the one you call Grandmother because everyone calls her Grandmother - offers you a mushroom like a dead man’s finger, and as the cosmos unfolds in your vision she inducts you into the sisterhood of spirit-tuners.

In suffocating darkness, you feebly beat your fists against the jar’s inner wall as your organs melt and your bones dissolve into the raw mass of your new flesh. A dozen mouths gasp for air that isn’t there. A hornless slave stamps the wax seal with a serial number and an inquisitor’s mark.

You wrest your coiled sword from the old queen’s corpse. The inert Ring in her heart is small and dull, worthless without its divine vessel. The serpent whispers in your head "devour it...together..."

The burial shroud rustles softly as you withdraw a few fibers of gold. The red Gates of Divinity drip gore down their flanks. You are the last living being in Enir-Ilim.

The last of Godfrey’s ships passes into the encircling mist. A shrouded figure stands like a tower on the deck. He does not look back.

You walk through the ruined huts, the fields of flowers, the empty places where there used to be people. People you knew. People you loved. You remember the slaughter, again and again and again and again. Men in centipede masks drag you from your hut and chop your body apart with heavy blades. Hounds tear at your heels as you run into the night. An arrow buries itself in your back; a spear pierces your side; an axe cleaves open your skull. You remember your mother and your mothers and your mother; your sister and your sisters and your sister; your daughter and your daughters and your daughter. You remember the gaping mouth of the jar.

You lie with the serpent, and two are made one flesh.

You go to the base of the Erdtree. The place where Order was first imposed upon the crucible of primordial life. Maliketh waits for you there, his eyes betraying the agony of a dog torn between two masters. He begs you to turn around, to go back to the palace and grieve in the company of the living.

You brush off his desperate words and cross the plaza. The black blade forms in his hand.

He lands a single blow on you before he flees in horror and shame. But a single blow is all that was needed; a bloody red shard of Destined Death tears at your gut, and as it grows it will turn your body to lifeless stone. 

Let it come. You have danced beyond death for so long that you no longer care if you live. You stagger onward in your waking dream, your hand clasped to your side. 

You are Marika, and you are dying, and your Order is dying, and the Lands are dying, and you are still trapped here. Your body is not your own. You have backed yourself into a golden throne atop a mountain of corpses, and your son is dead. 

May chaos take the world. May night reign. May the Order be broken forever. You no longer care; all this was for nothing.

Your son is dead.

You stand before the Ring and raise your hammer 

**

A lot of the lore community likes portraying Marika as an unbeatable chessmaster who is always a billion steps ahead of everyone and planned the entire thing beginning to end - I think that's boring as sin. Lore is fun but it can strip all the humanity out of a story and leave it a lesser thing. (Noah Caldwell-Gervais says something like "lore doesn't stand next to you in the grocery store" in his DS video, I don't have the exact quote on hand).

Though if I am being honest I wrote this because I'm tired of Tarnished Archaeologist's current string of "it was all an incest singularity" theorizing. If Ranni had killed Godwyn specifically for that reason, she would, I don't know, fucking mention it? Even for a game as obtuse and vaguer as ER I would find total silence in those circumstances an impossible stretch - and it also just drains all the tragedy and pathos out of Night of Black Knives and turns it into "Ranni was totally justified, the end." 

So I made it basically accidental. The assassins had their own agenda - no better time to kill Marika or the Fingers than while storming the palace - and Godwyn got blindsided because he's the resident himbo and went to play the hero because of course he did.

Several other theories went into this.

• The Golden Lineage are Godwyn’s offspring; Marika only had the children we see in game (thanks to kyana for this theory, it solves many problems).
• The Woman with the three wolves (as we see in Maliketh’s boss chamber) is Placidusax’s god; or more properly Placidusax was her Lord, because the god chooses.
• The Serpent, as serpents do, offered Marika a devil's bargain. 
• Marika fucked the snake (prior to her ascension) and birthed the first generation of what would eventually become the Godskins. They were her personal kill squad back when she was hunting the Missing God, roughly analogous to Godfrey's Crucible Knights.
• Speaking of Godfrey, Marika married him prior to her ascension as an alliance between the Hornsent and the highlanders against the Giants. He and his tarnished were banished because with the Tree burnt and Radagon still in Liurnia there was basically nothing stopping him from marching on Leyndell and deposing Marika if he wanted. If he actually wanted to is another thing entirely.
• Shabriri understood that Marika had stolen godhood in some way (I do agree with TA on this point, and basically nothing else in that video) - though I don’t think he knew specifics (I think it was essentially a three-part plan: kill the Missing God to get the Ring, usurp the ritual at the Gate of Divinity to attain godhood, and then eat the sun to gain control over the Will / limit its influence in the Lands Between.)
• The Lands of Shadow are so disjointed from the base game and their own contents because it exists outside of the world of Order. It’s basically a dreamscape with no dreamer - everything in there existed in the normal Lands Between at some point, but it’s all been mashed together into illegibility.
• The Hornsent filled the power vacuum left after the collapse of the Eternal Empire, and they justified their pogroms against the shamans by the victims being numen (and thus, their old oppressors)
• The Grandmother Shaman was either a descendant of one of the four Eternal Queens (the giants in the thrones), or the queen herself. The other empty throne is a symbolic / traditional one, set aside in case the Missing God (herself also a numen) were to return.
• Marika is herself an amalgamation of dozens of shamans.
• The Gloam-Eyed Queen is like 4 different people, or one god in 4 persons.
1. The Nameless God, a numen woman who became head of the empire of Farum Azula.
2. Marika the hornsent jar-saint (after killing and eating the Nameless God)
3. Fragments of the Nameless God that Marika cut out of herself a la Miquella when she ascended to godhood. This St. Trina-like other self later tries to topple Marika and is killed by by Maliketh.
4. Melina, a clonal daughter who inherited some of the incorporated GEQ-ness. 
• Melina burnt the Erdtree some time after Marika used it to eat the sun in an attempt to re-establish the balance of the world. I have no evidence to say that she was spurred to do this by a meeting with Shabriri, but it’s narratively satisfying to me. 

Anyway, next post will hopefully be timeline and then I can close the book on this for a nice long while. 

Star Wars Movies that Don't Exist and Never Will

Since I am listening to THREE different Star Wars podcasts right now, this was an inevitability. As there is nothing Disney likes more than announcing projects that will never happen, I figured I could score some points by not wasting anyone’s time with false theatrics and skipping directly ahead to the part where they don’t exist.

**

1. The film focuses on a Sparticus-style slave revolt against the Hutts, led by Baduk the Klatoonian . The film follows the revolution over several years from the initial colosseum riots to the capture of the planet’s chief overseer, but ends in tragedy just short of success; Republic security forces and a detachment of Jedi are deployed against the revolutionaries, breaking their war effort before they are able to secure the planet’s primary spaceport. At the very end, as clone troopers fresh from Kamino dig mass graves for the revolutionaries, we learn that the Republic gauged that the Hutts’ continued cooperation is more valuable to the war effort against the Separatists than a new and unstable polity. “It has never been the Jedi’s role to free slaves,” one of the knights says matter-of-factly.

** 

2. A non-combat rebel cell runs Bochi’s Salvage and Repair as a front for distributing fake transport visas to people fleeing the Imperial occupation of their planet. The only human characters featured are the Imperials: everyone else is an alien. Trio of main characters: a twi’lek, a droid, and a vratix. (We will be throwing a bone to the boring assholes with the purse strings by having a basically-just-a-human alien as one of the leads, but she’ll be playing against typecasting: no one ever thinks about the twi’lek ex-dental assistants.)

Central to the plot is an attempt to smuggle an entire family of Force-sensitives onto an approaching cargo freighter while dodging the investigation of suspicious Imperial bureaucrats. While the family does escape, the film ends with the cell splitting up and going to ground, having lured the Imperial investigators into a trap with a jury-rigged spaceship engine. 

**

3. Set a few years pre-Phantom; two padawans mere weeks away from knighthood form an unlikely interspecies romance (let’s have some fun: a Caamasi and a…Sauvax). They are found out by a third party and reported to the Council, who puts the pressure on them to end the relationship quietly. Before they make their decision they are contacted by an anonymous figure, who reveals exactly how common these secret relationships are within the Order all the way up to the Council (If you ever wanted to know who Kit Fisto’s friend-with-benefits is, and whomst among us has not, this movie will provide you with answers.)

The pair are encouraged to go public with their story, serving as media figureheads and giving the whistleblower an opportunity to leak the data. The stranger frames this as part of their quest to reform the Order, believing it to be hypocritically focused on minor dogmas rather than actual institutional issues. The young lovers are persuaded, and decide to go to the media.

What follows is unfortunate, but predictable. The Order retaliates, using its considerable resources to bury the story and hide the leaks. The lovers are barred from knighthood, demoted to the Jedi Service Corps, and in an episode of spite that only Prequel Yoda could muster they are assigned to opposite sides of the galaxy.

But since I am a sucker for these sorts of things, we get a post-Endor epilogue where the two re-unite by coincidence / the Force; both of them respond to Luke’s call to any surviving Force adepts as he builds his academy. I want the audience bawling their god-damn eyes out over an elderly lobster-person.

**

4. A character drama centered on an impoverished alien family on the Outer Rim as they weigh handing over their daughter to a passing Jedi knight. The family’s culture practices a native Force tradition centered on community and relationship (and is thus diametrically opposed to the Jedi and their repressive monasticism), but younger generations (such as one of the child’s parents) are more and more aligning themselves with the greater galactic supraculture in the hopes of eventually getting Republic membership to aid their struggling economy (this does not work out well). Offering up a new Jedi would be a step towards the betterment of all, or so they believe - encouraged along by the knight in question, who clearly has a horse in this race.

The Clone Wars are on the horizon, and with them the implicit doom.

(I originally wrote this before The Acolyte came out; fuck the Jedi)

**

5. A war movie, all blood and guts and mud and wetwork. Rebel intelligence agents attempt to lock down an alliance with the inhabitants of a logistically-vital world, and find themselves dealing with alien partizans who have been fighting offworld incursions for generations and are none too happy to offer their support to the Republic’s government-in-exile. They’d fought the Hutts for centuries, and the Republic didn’t do shit for them. They’d fought against the CIS, failed, and then got invaded again by the Republic in retaliation. They’d fought against the Empire after the Republic fell. And now some liberal-ass core-worlders come along begging for help? Stuff it up your sphincter, Organa.

**

6. A ship smuggling antiquities for gray market resale inadvertently ends up with a Sith holocron in its inventory. One of the crew members is just Force-sensitive enough to activate it, which then leads to a whole lot of fucked up Sith ghosts haunting a spaceship. The crew is picked off one by one, as is tradition, as the survivors attempt to scuttle the ship (save the Force-sensitive, who tries to exorcize it). As the survivors launch the escape pod with moments to spare, they look out the viewport to see that there’s no explosion despite what they did to the engines. With no-one at the helm, the ship enters hyperspace.

**

7. An in-universe documentary about the New Republic’s war-crimes trials against Imperial officials. While the Herculean effort saw a good amount of success, the Empire was simply too big to bring its many millions to court; controversial amnesty declarations were granted to minor Imperial officials and bureaucrats, and eventually the Republic found itself unable to expend the resources needed to hunt down all those warlords who fled to the Outer Rim and Unknown Regions. That task was left to a panoply of paralegal and paramilitary groups, the most notable being the remnants of Wraith Squadron and other Rebellion-era units that merged into “Dumb Luck Division” under the command of Leia Organa.

**

8. The version of The Phantom Menace where they get Michelle Yeoh to play Qui-Gon and they do not waste her talent. And you know what, fuck it, Ahmed Best gets to be a Jedi. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan are headed to Naboo to find out what happened to him. 

**

9. The version of The Force Awakens where the attack on Maz’s Cantina is interrupted by a Yuuzhan Vong worldship jumping out of hyperspace in high orbit, at which point we leave the rails far behind us. We do not need them where we’re going.

**

Well, there you have it. Part of what inspired all this is a conversation on A More Civilized Age, where the hosts digress for a bit about how Star Wars has consistently been disinterested in culture as a part of its world. The other part was rewatching The Force Awakens for the first time since 2016 and boy howdy did that movie not hold up. I am 100% serious that it should have been derailed by (a better version of) the Vong. 

 I really do go back to the well again and again for some of these topics, don't I?

Ecstatic Visions, Chapter 2

 Chapter 1

**

Chora's Den, Lower Wards. You can hear the pounding music from outside, and that is the problem. You are outside, when you would prefer to be inside. Inside, there is a certain volus in the back who, in exchange for letting him take a plea deal during a major smuggling bust years ago, has served as your finger on the underworld pulse.

The volus is inside. You are outside. And between you and him, there is a very large, very shirtless man blocking the door. His shaved head has been tattooed with the colorful scales of a phrenological chart. His muscles have been outlined like a butcher's diagram, labelled and rated for their physiological perfection.

You are wearing an obnoxiously bright tropical-print shirt, and also still hung over.

MEASUREHEAD - "NO ENTRY."

The guy is new. The last bouncer would let anyone in (which is how you got in), but looks like that's no longer an option.

SHEPARD - "I know Fist. Go tell him Tequila Sunrise is here."

MEASUREHEAD - "THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS."

KIM - "We should go."

OBNOXIOUS SHIRT - YOU CAN TOTALLY TAKE THIS GUY, BRATAN!

[PHYSICAL INTRUMENT] - You can totally take this guy.

[ELECTROCHEMISTRY] - You should absolutely take this guy.

You punch him in the stomach, and your hand crumples like newspaper.

MEASUREHEAD - "YOUR BODY BETRAYS YOUR DEGENERACY."

His fist collides with your head the world is spinning. Stars whirl in your eyes as the ground meets you, with force.

[PAIN THRESHOLD] SHIT HURT PAIN OW OW OW

MEASUREHEAD - "YOUR HAPLOTYPE WAS POISED TO INHERIT THE REWARDS OF THE GREAT SUBJUGATION, BUT WAS CORRUPTED BY THE DEGENERATIVE INFLUENCES OF AL-GHUL, DISCO MUSIC, AND MOE ANIME. YOU AND YOUR HAM-SANDWHICH RACE HAVE BEEN RENDERED OBSOLETE.

[CONCEPTUALIZATION] Wait, hold up: what the fuck are this guy's politics?

[PAIN THRESHOLD] WHY WOULD YOU CARE ABOUT THAT NOW

[RHETORIC] No, no, I want to hear this.

[CIVITATIS GALACTICAE] The Great Subjugation is a theory that the Asari Republics' long-term political strategy is the total cultural absorption of the other Citadel species. The asari's pre-existing position of hegemonic power means that they can curtail or outright cripple a polity's ability to function on the galactic stage, and likewise it means that those polities who pass policies in the interest of the Republics, or the Citadel Council at large, will be favored over those that do not. This encourages the spread of asari culture into other species, including the normalization of asari-other unions.

[CIVITATIS GALACTICAE] This last point is the lynchpin factor for most proponents of the theory. Such unions will typically only ever produce asari children, and so are seen as the preliminary steps towards a future where non-asari are reduced to reservation-bound breeding stock.

[CIVITATIS GALACTICAE] Great Subjugation Theory is a common far-right talking point, popular with Terra Firma and related anti-alien groups. The reaction from pro-Citadel factions is to dismiss any fears of asari hegemony as conspiratorial sentiment, overlooking the fact that galactic politics is indeed heavily weighed in favor of the asari and their close allies.

[PERCEPTION] And that the Council has publicly committed two species-wide genocides and is currently working through a third.

[RHETORIC] But if he is talking about rewards...

[CONCEPTUALIZATION] Oh god, we found a human asari-supremacist.

[RHETORIC] Like Martian bigfoot in the flesh...

[INLAND EMPIRE] Wake up babe new type of racist just dropped.

[CONCEPTUALIZATION] This man believes in the Great Subjugation, but instead of manifesting as hate crimes against asari or their partners, he's decided that the best course of action is to use eugenics to become the ideal mating partner in the fuck-enclave future.

[PAIN THRESHOLD] BLOOD HE JUST PUNCHED OUT ALL OF OUR BLOOD

[RHETORIC] Shush, let the adults talk.

When the world stops moving, you see that Kim is offering you a handkerchief. He's helped you limp off to the side of the causeway, out of the way of the foot traffic.

KIM - "Keep it."

He stands like he's on a sentry post. You stuff the handkerchief up your nostrils to try and stop the flow of blood.

OBNOXIOUS SHIRT - OH HE DID US DIRTY BRATAN, THESE STAINS WILL BE RIGHT HARD TO REMOVE. OR! OR THEY COULD BE A BADGE OF HONOR, A SIGN OF YOUR MARTIAL PROWESS!

KIM - "I am going to guess that wasn't supposed to happen.

SHEPARD - "No. It wasn't."

KIM - "Do you have an alternative for...whatever it was that you were trying to do?"

You don't. And honestly what even was your plan? Get a handful of no-name mob bruisers and petty thieves to hunt down Saren? Idiot. If Fist is circling the wagons like this he probably pissed off someone big, there's no guarantee at all your informant was still there, or even still on the Citadel. Dumbass.

[COMPOSURE] Square one is still on the board.

SHEPARD - "No, that's...that's a dead end. Just... give me a few minutes."

**

The ride to the Normandy's docking bay is long, awkward, and mostly silent.

OBNOXIOUS SHIRT - OI YOU SHOULD TELL 'IM ABOUT THAT ONE TIME YOU FUCKED A KROGAN, BRATAN.

[COMPOSURE] - No.

So it goes.

**

You arrive without fanfare, and go through the motions of checking in with the crew, showing Kim around. You start with the cockpit.

JOKER - "Hey, Commander."

[EMPATHY] - Something is clearly wrong, it's practically written all over his face in neon.

SHEPARD - "Something wrong?"

The pilot sighs.

JOKER - "Wallet got hacked. Someone stole all my varren. Poof, like that. Holding them for ransom."

[INLAND EMPIRE] Por que?

SHEPARD - "Not sure I follow."

KIM - "I believe he means he was collecting Indolent Varren. They're a variety of non-fungible token."

JOKER - "Yeah, had some of those. Someone stole them right from my wallet."

[INLAND EMPIRE] Imagine if you will the sound of a dial-up modem.

SHEPARD - "..."

KIM - "It's rather complex, I can explain it in detail later if you'd like."

JOKER - "Oh, didn't know you were into them too?"

KIM - "I'm not."

[EMPATHY] - He emphatically is not.

JOKER - "Oh."

[INLAND EMPIRE] You know what, let's just not say anything and pretend we understand, yeah? Blah blah, Joker's varren got funged.

SHEPARD - "At ease, Joker. We'll see you around."

The rest of the tour passes without further incident or embarrassment.

**

You spend the next few hours reviewing the files Anderson sent you, bottle of Commodore Red at hand.

[ELECTROCHEMISTRY] The buzz loosens up ideas and taps into the universal ego-death!

The helmet-cam footage of Saren is Patterson-Gimlin quality. Blurry, out of focus. Saren appears only for a few seconds, in the distance, attended by a pair of red geth. He's identifiable - not many turians of his generation grow their cranial spurs that long - but you have to admit that yes, this could be fabricated.

[VISUAL CALCULUS] You'd need someone skilled enough to make it look this bad, but it could be done.

The cover investigation you were given is much more solid. On paper, Anderson's sent you after one Clara Mills, who headed a human-supremacist terrorist group through the 60s and 70s. The Alliance was never able to confirm her death, and the cover story for the Eden Prime attack uses a similar group, so as long as you can worm some "convincing evidence of connection" into your reports, you can write it off as a wild goose chase.

[SPECIAL OPERATIONS] Not forever. Naval Intelligence is absolutely still keeping tabs on her and they will notice something is up the longer this goes on. Stay on your toes.

The dossiers for the Normandy's crew are what you expect. Half the people were here during your first run as its commander, and the rest were brought on by Anderson personally. It would be difficult to find a ship better staffed for your purposes.

[ESPIRIT D'CORPS] They'll follow you for now. Don't let them down.

[ELECTROCHEMISTRY] Speed has never let anyone down. You should get some.

The Saramiriza is currently en route to Arcturus. You'll meet it there, and take on the artifact and the four marines that recovered it. Anderson included their files.

You take another gulp of Commodore Red. Nice and sweet. You flick through files, skimming the important parts out of the padding. You'll pass these on to Kim when you're done, if you can remember.

Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko - Born 2151 (32 years old), Earth. Systems Alliance Marine Corps. Biotic (L2 implant series), underwent Biotic Acclimation and Temperance Training (BAaT) at Gargarin Station.

[SUGGESTION] I'm positive I've seen this guy before...

Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams - Born 2158 (25 years old), Sirona. Systems Alliance Marine Corps. Fourth-generation Alliance military. Grandfather (General Thomas Williams) oversaw the surrender of Shanxi to turians forces during the First Contact War. Has been passed over multiple times for promotion despite competent service record.

[AUTHORITY] Good odds of a chip on her shoulder.

Corporal Richard L. Jenkins - Born 2160 (23 years old), Eden Prime. Systems Alliance Marine Corps. No combat record of note. Disciplinary record for minor infractions (mischief et cetera). Wounded by geth during surface engagement.

[WAR HERO] Everyday roughneck shmuck. Seen a thousand of them. Join the marines, they said. See the galaxy, they said.

Sergeant 1st Class James Vega - Born 2150 (33 years old), Earth. Systems Alliance Marine Corps. Took part in the defense of Fehl Prime against a Blood Pack raid, which was later adapted into a critically-panned film.

[VISUAL CALCULUS] Jesus look at this guy, it's like he popped out of the womb and shouted "MOTHER GIVE ME PROTEIN."

[INLAND EMPIRE] SLAB BULKHEAD

[DRAMA] THICK MCRUNFAST

[ELECTROCHEMISTRY] CHUNK SLAMCHEST

[PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT] PUNCH ROCKGROIN

[RHETORIC] SLAB SQUAT-THRUST

[SAVOIRE FAIRE] TOUCH RUSTROD

[SHIVERS] BIG MCLARGEHUGE

[AUTHORITY] ROLL FIZZLEBEEF

[INLAND EMPIRE] Well, I'm glad we got that out of our system.

There's a fifth additional dossier, with the briefest of memos. 

"Best option we have at the moment."

Liara T'soni - Born 2077 (106 years old), Thessia. Doctorate of Exo-Archaeology, specializing in prothean civilization (see attached publication history). Theories regarding the destruction of prothean and older galactic civilizations (including a vitriolic critique of Dr. Senara Dosare and her Biotic Ascension Hypothesis) have remained controversial and, along with her age, have prevented her from breaking into the field. Currently at active dig site on Therum (Knossos System, Argus Rho Cluster)

[CONCEPTUALIZATION] Clever, Anderson. A prothean expert who won't cause a stir if they happen to go missing.

You marinate for a while in the alcohol fugue, half-plotting out the next steps of the investigation. Arcturus, Therum, Eden Prime. Arcturus, Therum, Eden Prime.

You pass out in your chair.

Ecstatic Visions: A Disco Elysium + Mass Effect fanfic

It is the sleep of the dead. You simmer, dormant, suspended in the hazy soup of warm chemical oblivion.

It is...nice...to Not Be.

And then there is a disturbance. Something moves in the black mist, and like detritus caught in floodwaters you are picked up and swirled around in the murk and there is a thrum in your eardrums and a hole in your stomach and a crust in your throat and the stink of stale ethanol and dried sweat and you piece your fucking self together and string together the web of neurons that has been cursed with metacognition and you are Commander Shepard

You wish you were dead.

Your door is pinging you. The apartment VI, now aware that you are awake, says "There's a Captain Anderson here to see you."

[PAIN THRESHOLD] - It feels like a krogan is repeatedly stomping on your skull. You remain limp on your couch.

The door pings you again.

[ENDURANCE] - You pull yourself up from the couch. Your organs are in revolt. Down with standing up!

[INLAND EMPIRE] - They will storm the Bastille tonight, tearing the demon called metacognition out from your prefrontal cortex, dragging it through the winding grey streets to the guillotine. You shall gladly let it happen.

You pat yourself down; the crumpled clothes you fell asleep in seem to lack any noticeable stains from piss or vomit. This is good enough. You stumble through the dim apartment, reaching blindly for the door, opening it to reveal the bright sterility of the Presidium's false day.

Two men are standing on the external walkway. One of them is Captain David Anderson - former commanding officer, an old friend. The other one you don't recognize - he's shorter than you though not by much. Thinner. Glasses, the lenses thick and round. Dusky orange bomber jacket. Dark green pants. C-SEC badge.

[ESPIRIT D'CORPS] - This man would throw himself in front of a bullet. Just as a matter of course.

ANDERSON - "You look like shit, Shepard."

[EMPATHY] - Sadness and pity behind those words. He doesn't like seeing you like this.

[ELECTROCHEMISTRY] - Cause he never learned how to PARTYYYYYY!

[ESPIRIT D'CORPSE] - Enough. At attention, soldier.

SHEPARD - "I feel like shit, Captain."

The words slur together and come out as a rough croak.

[INLAND EMPIRE] - Like a bullfrog dying in a polluted stream.

Anderson's eyes harden for a fraction of a second.

[ESPIRIT D'CORPSE] - He wants to reprimand you. He holds back.

[EMPATHY] He knows what you've seen. Why your apartment is filled with bottles of Commodore Red.

[COLONIST] - Mindoir.

[WAR HERO] - Elysium.

You glance to Anderson's companion. He shifts his weight slightly from one foot to the other. Not nervously. Extends his hand to shake.

KIM - "Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi, Precinct 57."  

[SHIVERS] - Precinct 57. Martinaise Ward, on the border of the Revachol Industrial Harbor. A volus merchant frigate just arrived in port. The teamsters cluster at dock, praying that their number is called. Humans, vorcha, krogan, quarian, shoulders hunched and faces sweat-stained, straining to hear the announcement over the tinny speakers. Somewhere, a man is learning of the tumor growing on his pancreas. Lovers, intertwined, share a last few moments in bed, in a studio apartment above a kebab shop. An old vorcha, their mind nearly gone, watches the pigeons. An asari in a dive bar strums a guitar with scarred fingers and starts singing "Solidarity Forever".

You shake his hand best as you can manage. What accent is that, French? It's French.

ANDERSON - "I'm afraid I'm here on official business. May we come in?"

Your mind is still swaddled in its haze, but you're cogent enough to know that whatever Anderson is here for, it can't possibly be good. But you are well past caring about consequences anymore, aren't you?

You nod, invite them into your apartment. You keep the lights dimmed for your own sake, and make a half-effort at clearing a space among old takeout containers, bottles, cans, clothing, garbage. The holo on the wall, having detected additional persons in the apartment, has reverted back to am empty tropical beach - nary an unclad asari to be found.

[ENCYCLOPEDIA] - Asari do not have nipples. They are not mammals.

Neither of your guests sit down. You do, and your swimming head thanks you. Kim wordlessly navigates through the garbage towards the kitchen.

ANDERSON - "Officially, this is a wellness check. Unofficially, we have a crisis brewing on our hands.

Behind you, there's the splash of water from the faucet. Kim returns with a glass.

KIM - "You are going to need this, I think."

[ESPIRIT D'CORPS] - You have known this man for less than ninety seconds and you would die to protect him.

ANDERSON - "Here's the situation as we know it: eighteen hours ago, a geth ship was detected in the Utopia system.

[ENCYCLOPEDIA] - Utopia System, Exodus Cluster. Relay connections to the Arcturus Stream, Horsehead Nebula, Hades Gamma, and so on. Five planets - Arcadia, Eden Prime, Nirvana, Xanadu, Zion. System capital at Eden Prime, planetary population 3.7 million. They put it on postcards.

[CONCEPTUALIZATION] - The core of human-controlled space. The geth shouldn't be anywhere close to it.

ANDERSON - We had one ship in-system at the time, the frigate *Saramiriza*. It was discharging its drive core around Zion when the geth vessel was detected, and so wasn't able to engage immediately. That left the geth ship unopposed on the approach to Eden Prime and allowed it to land ground troops around the Prothean ruins on the southeastern continent. Local security forces and the Alliance garrison were deployed and were able to interrupt the operation. The *Saramiriza* engaged the geth vessel in orbit, at which point it activated its mass effect drive and fled the system. Geth units on the ground self-terminated.

[INLAND EMPIRE] - KA-BOOM!

[SPECIAL OPERATIONS] - Typical for the geth. Stranded platforms fry themselves to prevent anything useful falling into enemy hands.

[LOGIC] - This doesn't add up.

SHEPARD - Do we have any theories on their objective?

ANDERSON - Not exactly. The geth forces were seen loading prothean artifacts onto their shuttles when our troopers reached the site, but what they were going after in particular, if they had a specific target, we don't know.

[CIVITATIS GALACTICAE] - The geth have displayed no prior interest in the protheans. None. They have ignored every ruin site within their sphere of influence, as best as the monitoring posts can tell.

[LOGIC] - This doesn't add up.

ANDERSON - Our troops were able to recover one of the artifacts that the geth were preparing to remove from the site. It's currently in transit, along with the soldiers who recovered it.

SHEPARD - Do you know what it is?

ANDERSON - No.

[INLAND EMPIRE] - A magic box! A ~~ mystery ~~ box!

ANDERSON - All told, there were sixteen casualties on our side. Eleven civilians present at or around the ruins, and five Alliance marines.

[EMPATHY] - Sixteen beds in the morgue.

SHEPARD - This doesn't add up.

ANDERSON - There's one more complication, unfortunately: helmet video from our troops clearly shows Saren Arterius present with the geth on the ground.  

[HALF-LIGHT] - FUCK

[SPECIAL OPERATIONS] - Spectre. Poster child of the entire operation. Veteran of the Contact War. Well-deserved reputation for brutality. Service record dipped in ink to save time. Outspoken anti-humanist.

SHEPHARD - Did you contact the Council?

ANDERSON - We have. The video was dismissed as a fake, drummed up by one of our many conspiratorial factions as part of anti-Citadel propaganda. As a courtesy, they issued an investigation through C-SEC into Saren's whereabouts. Gave us an alibi less than an hour later. According to them, he has been taking extended leave on Illium for the last four months. They have witnesses, financial records, direct testimony.

[SPECIAL OPERATIONS] - And any Spectre would have half a dozen stories like that set aside, just in case.

[CONCEPTUALIZATION] - They know we know, and they don't care. They hold the high ground here. There is no such thing as legal accountability for a Spectre.

ANDERSON - None of this is public information. For the time being, our cover story of a terror attack by protheodeist dominionists is holding up.

[CIVITATIS GALACTICAE] - Worship of the protheans is not limited to the hanar. Among humans, the movement has intersected neatly with anti-alien and anti-Alliance sentiment. Attacks by far-right Christian-Protheodeist terrorists killed over 1206 people across human space in the last year.

ANDERSON - Udina is furious. He's been eating up the embassy's bandwidth allotment in calls with Arcturus Station. He's desperate for any sort of leverage against the Council.

[CIVITATIS GALACTICAE] - The Systems Alliance Parliament has been in a stalemate for the last decade, pulled between pro-Citadel and anti-Citadel factions. Prime Minister Ikari has remained neutral so far but word from the clerks is that he's leaning towards the anti-Citadel platform. More extreme proponents have called for withdrawing from the Citadel entirely and pulled out of the Treaty of Farixen.

[CONCEPTUALIZATION] - You know what this is building to...

SHEPARD - What do you need me to do?

ANDERSON - Find evidence of Saren's alliance with the geth. Find out what he is attempting to do. Put a stop to it.

[RENEGADE] - And if necessary, make it look like an accident.

[PARAGON] - Not so soon after the Alliance inquired into him. Too obvious. Can't afford it.

ANDERSON - We won't get help from the Council, and any move the Alliance makes on our own will be under intense scrutiny. You are...I'm afraid you are a deniable asset.

[EMPATHY] - He hates saying that most of all. You are his friend, and he yours, and it is eating him alive to throw you away like this.

[WAR HERO] - You are trapped in a machine, and the machine is bleeding to death.

[COMPOSURE] - You really wish you could cry right now.

[VOLITION] - Later. Focus.

[PARAGON] - Lives at stake.

ANDERSON - We have a cover investigation for you, and Lieutenant Kitsuragi has already been assigned to it. The Normandy and her crew are ready to be transferred back under your command and I've sent further instructions ahead. Operating budget is slim, but it's as much as I can get for you. The rest is up to your discretion.

[ENDURANCE] - You'll make do.

ANDERSON - We'll be in touch. Take care of yourself, Shepard.

And he goes to leave, Kim following behind. You are left alone in your dark apartment, an apartment that cost more than the majority of the galaxy will ever see in their lives, given to you in thanks for the practice of state-sanctioned murder.

[WAR HERO] - A batarian conscript crumples to the cement with a thud, half his head missing.

[WAR HERO] - You hear a gasping voice cry out, begging for his mother.

[WAR HERO] - You can smell burning flesh.

[HALF-LIGHT] - You were magnificent.

[VOLITION] - Hold. Center. Forward, not back. One foot in front of the other.

You stand in the shower for as long as your hot water allotment will allow. You dig decent clothes from out of some storage that hadn't yet been trashed in a blackout rage. Brush your teeth. Drink more water. Put in an order for something cheap and greasy to eat. Drone will bring it. Leave.

Kim is there, on the walkway, looking out over the gardens of the Presidium. Must have stuck around. No sign of Anderson.

He's smoking an actual cigarette. He taps the ashes off, and they fall like faint snowflakes over the railing.

KIM - So. What's the plan?

[RENEGADE] - Hit Saren hard enough that they'll pin a fucking medal on whoever can ID the corpse.

[LOGIC] - Review helmet-camera footage of incident. Get Normandy prepped for departure. Contact Eden Prime survivors and transfer artifact to safe location for study. Interview survivors. Put out feelers. Get team together. Investigate Eden Prime ruin site / reports of geth past the Veil / Saren operations.

SHEPARD - Meet me at the garage in fifteen minutes. We're going down to the Wards on an errand, then to the Normandy. I don't expect that we'll stay on the Citadel for much longer.

KIM - Okay. Meet you then.

He gives you a curt, polite nod, and walks off. You stand there at the railing for a while.

You can feel the fire coming back. Dimly, that half-smothered spark kicks and screams through your alcohol-corroded nervous system.

You have a goal.

[INLAND EMPIRE] - What wonders we have to show you!

You let out a long, death-rattle breath. Try your best to unclench your jaw and loosen your shoulders. You flex your fingers, stretch out your arms.

A goal. A direction to work in.

You can't wait to leave this fucking place.

[SHIVERS] - The asari throws back another shot, re-adjusts herself on the stool, changes chords, moves into a new song.

[SHIVERS] - "There's bound to be a ghost at the back of your closet, no matter where you live..."

[SHIVERS] - You have never met this woman. She wears a red bandanna, though she has no hair. She sews patches into her overalls. Her favorite holo is The Screaming on the Alexis. She has a caricature of Matriarch Benezia stamped on the bottom of her right boot, just in case she steps in dog shit.

[SHIVERS] - The closest you ever came was on January 3rd of this year, where you both went to the same falafel stand in Jamrock two hours and forty-one minutes apart.

[VOLITION] It is time to go to work.

The Korra Fixfic

Mon drew this!

 

E: Mon drew this mere hours after I posted and I absolutely love it.

People liked the depressing review post well enough that I shall drag its positive counterpart into the light.

I guess I'm Sequelisers now. 

Barely Organized Notes

Three Seasons, TV-14 Rating 

 Don't want to overextend, since the season arcs will not be severed from each other like they were originally, and if we truly want to make the show a little more mature, let's put it right around FMA level. I don't know if you can actually do this on TV, but I am playing by movie rules and permitting myself one (1) "fuck" usage. Korra, Tenzin, or Pema gets it, and I do not know which just yet.

Korra's Arc 

Will remain mostly similar - starts out full of herself, self-centered, spiritually inert, and convinced that punching things solves all problems. Will gradually mature to realize that this is not a good thing.

Cast Changes

Mako, Bolin, and Asami will not appear in this version of the series. Their slots will be filled by the Red Lotus 

Current Status of the Gaang & Descendants

• Aang (Dead) & Katara (Alive)
• Kya - Waterbender. Surgeon for not-Doctors-Without-Borders.
  
• Bumi - Nonbender. Married Izumi. Unemployed eccentric.
  
• Tenzin - Airbender. Current head of the Monastery Island Temple.
  
• Jinora - Eldest, helps Tenzin teach the acolytes. Bookworm.
  
• Ikki - Middle child. Developing an art hobby.
  
• Meelo -Youngest. The weird kid.
  
• Sokka (Dead) & Suki (Dead) 
• [Currently Unnamed Daughter] - Professional wrestler. Introduced by suplexing Tenzin at the family reunion in the first episode.
  
• [Currently Unnamed NB] - Shaman & educator.
• Toph (????, presumed dead)
• Lin - RCPD chief of police.
  
• Suyin - Libertarian gazillionaire and fascist sympathizer. 
  
• Zuko (Alive) & Mai (Alive)
• Izumi - Reigning Fire Lady
  
• Mako - Son of Izumi and Bumi. A civil service worker.
  

Azula, while not appearing, is confirmed alive, and in good enough state that Zuko's occasional visits are cordial. (Man did she go through a lot of therapy and deradicalization).

Antagonists

• Tarlok - Charismatic chairman of the Republic City council. Commits suicide by throwing himself off a building during the Revolution, rather than be taken to stand trial.
  
• Lin Beifong - Chief of Police in Republic City. Infamous for her brutal crackdowns against nonbenders, including those that led to the Equality March of 157. Eventually joined Kuvirate forces alongside her sister Suyin.
  
• Varrick - Industrialist and film mogul. Found to have ordered a string of bombings and vandalism attempting to frame the Equalist movement, so as to profit off of increased militarization of the RCPD. Escaped the city during the revolution and proceeded to supply Kuvira in preparation for and in the aftermath of, her coup.
  
• Kuvira - General in the Earth Kingdom military. Heads a coup of the EK. Has absolutely nothing special or unique or meaningful about her - a dime-store fascist to the bone.
  

Added to these four, we have-

The Lady of Fangs - A new character who will serve as the series' ultimate antagonist.

A spirit local to the region that would become Republic City. Preferred form is a tall woman in a red silk gown, with a tiger-wolf's head. She is a spirit of wild and untamed places - not particularly nice on the best of days, but if you sacrifice a moleboar to her every solstice and don't overhunt on her territory, she and her servants will leave you well enough alone.

The capitalist meatgrinder of Republic City is, in her own words, "a poisoned feast". A perpetual blood offering that is both keeping her alive and killing her. She is changing because of it, lashing out with cruelty. Her servants (what if a tiger was also a spider was also slenderman) and other displaced & desperate once-nature spirits that have flocked to her stalk the back alleys and slums of RC.

The Red Lotus

A band of revolutionary punks sharing a tiny loft apartment on Temple Street. Bender allies of the Equalists.

• Zaheer - An air temple acolyte (having developed airbending when he returns from pilgrimage in Season 2). Incredibly charismatic. Has a boyfriend, who I have not developed at all but rest assured he will be there.
  
• Khazan - Earthbender. The chill comic relief guy. Romantic relationship with Ming-Hua.
  
• P'li - Firebender. The militant believer in the cause. Standoffish at first, but eventually has the closest bond with Korra after backstory revelations yet to be determined.
  
• Ming-Hua - Waterbender. The cynic. Romantic relationship with Khazan.
  

The Equalists

A motley community drawing from Republic City's unions, religious communities, immigrant neighborhoods, senior citizens, youth groups, and the overall working poor.

Amon doesn't exist. The mask and character are that of an ogre from Earth Kingdom folklore, a stock character used to express the anger and indignation that it would not be safe for a normal person to say. The mask is passed around depending on who is available.

The primary actor for Amon (the one who does all the speeches and crowdwork) is a factory worker named Lee. (He admits that even if that wasn't his real name, he would probably go by it anyway. There's a million Lees, etc) He's the sixth member of the Red Lotus after S1, being the direct link to the Equalist Party. Former factory worker, was let go after the industrial accident that fucked up his face and arm. Chronic pain he takes significant medication for. Married, wife works as a maid.

Korra's big revelation in Season 1 is that the Equalists are neither terrorists nor outside agitators, as Tarloc and Lin would claim.

Spirits

Significantly more influence and appearance than in even the original show. Full on weirdass yokai time. In truth there will be a lot more organized religion in the setting (all very appropriately channeling aspects of Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, and Shinto)

The White Lotus 

After the death of the old masters we knew, the new leadership in the Order of the White Lotus sought to reform the organization into modernity, abandoning the "superstitions" it was rooted in. This is directly responsible for why Korra was kept sequestered at the south pole (instead of traveling the world on her own) and why Katara was banned from being her waterbending teacher.

I don't know where the subplot that deals with this comes in - likely Season 2.

The Airbending Family

It is taking EVERY MICROGRAM OF SELF CONTROL I POSSESS to not just make the kids expies of the gremlins from Eizouken.

I have failed. They are absolutely all expies for the gremlins.

Jinora's arc is of note because it is rooted in her (kid level, but very valid) hatred of Korra just as a person - "I never got to meet grandpa and now I have to babysit this absolute meathead who gets treated like a god when I've been working my ass off at this every day since I was 4." They will eventually come to an understanding but never really a friendship. Sometimes you just don't like people.

Pema gets multiple opportunities to be cool - not because of badass martial arts, but because she is really good at taking command during crisis situations.

Increased Diversity of Cultural Influences

A minor bit of retconning to make the world seem bigger. All four nations will get an influx of cultural influences. Easiest way to reflect this is with the signage, which has diversified considerably.

EK languages: Mandarin Chinese, Korean, Mongolian, Manchu, Avestan, Sumerian, Navajo, Xhosa

FN Languages: Cantonese, Tamil, Nahuatl, Thai, Japanese, Igbo

WT Languages: Inuktitut, Cree, Maori, Tlingit, Ainu

AN Languages: Tibetan, Quechua, Sanskrit

So there might be a scene where Korra hands off something for someone else to read because she still has trouble with Chinese characters, being used to the Canadian Aboriginal Syballics used to signify WT writing.

The Return of Airbending

This version of the series clarifies that bending is spiritual in origin, with no regard for genetics - children of benders are more likely to become benders because of the circumstances of their early childhood (if your parents are X religion, you are likely to be X religion), but there are far more factors in play than just that. Rule of thumb is that people typically demonstrate some bending ability, if they have it, by 5-7 years old. As they age it is increasingly difficult and rare for someone to develop bending, and would require a sudden and drastic shift in lifestyle and beliefs.

This is the long way of saying that there are other airbenders outside of Tenzin and his kids - folks have been living like air nomads for long enough now that they are becoming airbenders all on their own. Spiritual equilibrium is asserting itself.

Most of the current airbenders (I envision about two dozen of them) are young children, with a few older adults who have manifested less pronounced abilities. There's a 70+ year old man who can just barely do the marble trick and he is the happiest, most fulfilled human being in the world.

The First Avatar

A veiled figure in a painted cave in the Spirit World, sitting next to the embers of a fire. They are impossibly ancient - the other Avatars themselves say that, in the few times any of them have heard the First speak, it was in no language that they could understand.  

The avatar first came into being when a human achieved and then rejected enlightenment, choosing instead to use their spiritual insight to maintain peace among people and between humans and spirits. This Seeing the Big Picture is why the avatar can bend all four elements.

Other Notes That Don't Get Categories

• The end of AtLA I proposed in my series rewatch post - the one where Aang visits the court of Surya and Ursa and Zuko reunite at the end - is treated as canon.
• The upper class of Republic City is still predominantly descended from Fire Nation colonial nobility, with an influx of Earth Kingdom nobles.  
• Republic City was founded as a stop-gap measure - the wealthy Fire Nation landowners who ran the colonies in the Earth Kingdom were able to resist Zuko's attempts to strip them of position and make restitution by influencing matters in the newly-founded domestic parliament - Zuko's leadership reforms curtailed much of the Fire Lord's direct power, and he was not able to get the 2/3rds vote in parliament to return all overseas territories to the Earth Kingdom. 
• The establishment of Monastery Island was accepted by the Republic City council only in exchange for the promise that the Avatar would never hold its representative advisory / ambassadorial seat on the council. With his influence in the city minimal and dropping fast, Aang instead devoted himself to rebuilding the Air Nomads. (For this reason, there is a decent population of people in RC who do not care for Aang, feeling that they were abandoned, and they are not wrong to think that.
  
• The RCPD regularly hires from the Dai Li. 
• Early on, first episode, even, Katara asks Korra if she can speak to Aang, and it is incredibly sad. This isn't able to happen until a brief moment in Korra's return to RC, prior to descending to meet the Lady of Fangs.
  
• Ghost Aang is appropriately a goofball. He's definitely channelling a lot of Gyatso in his old age.
  
• Monastery Island is not part of Republic City proper, but an enclave of the Air Nomad Nation. There is, technically, an immigration and border office, which consists of a guest book for visitors to sign that Pema keeps in the kitchen.
• At least one filler episode will be a spirit arriving on Monastery Island and everyone scrambling around to fulfill the correct hospitality rites. (Cue a scene of Pema frantically looking through the library for a reference on what kind of tea that particular variety of spirit likes)
• Everyone thinks Zaheer is super handsome. Korra's infatuation lasts about thirty seconds until Z's boyfriend shows up. 
• First episode is a family reunion where we get to see all the surviving Gaang & descendants, save Toph and her daughters.
  

Series Summary

Season 1: Korra arrives in Republic City, meets with the Red Lotus, uncovers the truth of the Equalist movement and the conspiracy to undermine it, throws her support behind them when the revolution breaks out in full. Season ends with the Equalist party establishing a new government in Republic City. Tarloc commits suicide. Lin Beifong vanishes before she can be captured. Varrick flees to the Earth Kingdom.

Season 2: Zaheer returns to Republic City after his pilgrimage / grassroots organizing. Korra and the Red Lotus focus their efforts on solving the problem of hostile spirits in Republic City. Spirit Detective Adventures ensue. The Lady of Fangs is revealed as the summit of the spiritual issues. Equalist growing pains occur - Korra has her first major personal victory when she is able to prevent the party from devolving into Standard Issue Leftist Infighting (TM) through skillful negotiation.

In the outside world, the Earth Kingdom, long suffering under incompetent rule and economic depression, Kuvira (accompanied by Lin and many veterans of the RCPD, and materially supported by Varrick and Suyin Beifong) executes a coup, assassinating the Earth Queen, framing it as being part of an Equalist scheme, and assuming control by riding the wave of anti-RC sentiment (too rich! too modern! too foreign!) that has been long simmering and now come to boil over. (Also she has the Dai Li. Fuckers did it AGAIN!)

Season 3: Kuvira & the Lady of Fangs are ramping up their associated threats. Earth Kingdom resistance movement, aided by Equalists and the Red Lotus, fights back against the fascist takeover.

Toph, thought dead by even her close friends, emerges from her anchorage to fight Lin and Suyin. She is not happy with the career and political trajectory her daughters have taken. Not happy at all. ("Should have listened to Katara and never let you join the academy.")

Korra, seeing no way to deal with the Lady on her own, makes a journey to deep in the Earth Kingdom to a certain sacred place, where she makes a successful trip to the spirit world and meets the First Avatar. Here she is shown visions of the First's life and how they maintained balance among humans and the spirits.

Learning that Korra is gone, Kuvira invades Republic City. The Lady of Fangs has reached her breaking point. Spirits turned monstrous in their anger lash out against all and sundry. Varrick gets straight-up eaten by an angry spirit. Kuvira's invasion goes terribly - she tries to salvage it by taking the inhabitants of Monastery Island hostage and sending out her demands in an attempt to threaten Korra into servility.

This proves to be her undoing, through Pema's terribly effective overhand application of a sturdy iron wok to the situation.

Korra receives the message returns to find the fascists routed, Kuvira already taken care of and the city in chaos. The Equalists can handle the fascists, but not the spirits.

Korra descends into the underlayers of Republic City, transitioning into a proper underworld, where she finds the Lady of Fangs. She makes an offer.

The relationship between humans and spirits is mutual - if one side acts poorly, they must make restitution to the other. The Lady of Fangs is too far gone for a sacrificed boar and a bit of fasting as apology to set things right.

Korra's offer is a spirit marriage to the Lady - a vow to bind them together, so that if Korra should fail at restoring and maintaining the balance of the Lady's home, it will directly hurt her as well (and likewise, if she does maintain it, she will benefit)

She explicitly says that she has no idea what she is doing, but she's going to do her best and figure things out as she goes (Solving the problem through humility, patience, and nonviolence!)

The Lady accepts. There is a wedding ceremony - short, attended only by spirits - but it is enough.

Series ends with Korra attending the peace accords between RC, the other nations, and the interim EK government. After the day's diplomacy is done, she takes a bicycle a short distance out of the city into the hills where the wind farms are being built, and on a secluded hill raises standing stones, inscribing them in honor of the Lady of Fangs.

Korra sits on the altar and watches the sun go down. The Lady of Fangs, still imposing but no longer terrifying, emerges from the trees to join her.

End credits.

Final Thoughts

I am actually really happy with how this came out - turns out, adding more weird spirits makes things fall into place really easily, just like it did with my little fanfic ending for the original series. It's almost as if powerful entities who have a different set of motivations to humans can be really effective at pushing the plot forward!

Also I'm glad how it didn't take all that much to make things work. Only had to add like, two new main characters and treat some side characters more appropriate to their actions. Cutting out Mako / Bolin / Asami caused exactly 0 issues, which certainly says something about those characters.

I love the Lady of Fangs so much that she's gonna get her own post separate from this. She's rad.

Star Wars Clearinghouse

Doing some notebook clearinghouse and metal tidying, so here's a summary of the Skywalker Saga Dodecology.

Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Obi-Wan finds Anakin working on a spice freighter in the Outer Rim (alongside Uncle Owen, it ought be noted). Takes the boy under his wing, hoping that his potential in the Force might save the crumbling and corrupt Order. The first battlefronts of what would become the Clone Wars are opening up, interrupting their journey to Coruscant.

Episode II: The Clone Wars

Vignettes from the Wars, spanning several years. Anakin completes his training under Obi-Wan, starts a secret relationship with senator Padme Amidala, and is assigned an apprentice (Ahsoka). Campaigns on Geonosis, Nelvaan, and in interplanetary space are featured.

Episode III: The Dark Times

The wars have dragged on for over a decade at this point. Padme is pregnant with twins. Ahsoka knows about this and has essentially been adopted into the family at this point. Anakin becomes more and more vocally critical of the Council, the Republic, and the war effort. The Council, fearful of Anakin's legendary popularity with the public, attempts to blackmail him: this drives him toward Palpatine, who capitalizes on Anakin's desire to renew the Order and see the end the war. Anakin kills most of the Jedi council during Order 66 (no child murder), duels Obi-Wan to a standstill. Anakin is rebuilt as Darth Vader, Obi-Wan flees with Padme and Ahsoka. Complications during childbirth due to lack of appropriate medical care lead to Padme's death a few days later. Leia is put under the protection of Bail Organa, to be watched over by Ahsoka; Luke is sent to Owen and Beru on Tatooine, to be watched over by Obi-Wan.

Episode IV: A New Hope

Timeskip. Plot progresses as normal. Primary deviance is that Ahsoka is present (in disguise) as Leia's bodyguard. Obi-Wan and Ahsoka fight Darth Vader aboard the Death Star - both die. Everything else remains more or less the same, barring the psychological strain of Luke being responsible for the deaths of millions. Republic established as being both the Republic government-in-exile and the remnants of the CIS.

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Plot progresses as normal, save Luke's guilt over the events in the previous movie fueling his abandonment of Yoda's teachings. The revelation of Vader as Luke's father is a surprise to the audience more because of the moment of humanity for Vader.

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

Plot progresses as normal. Luke wrestles with his despair; his forgiveness of his father is also forgiveness of himself. Luke vanishes from the public eye at the end, to collect as many remnants of the Jedi as he can and work towards rebuilding both the order and the galaxy.

Episode VII: Rogue Squadron

Timeskip. The Alliance pushes towards the core. Leia is the only one of the core three to appear. Rogue Squadron manages to open a path at Borleas with the help of smuggling kingpin Talon Karrde, allowing the main fleet to reach Coruscant. Mother-fucking space battles.

Episode VIII: The Hand of Thrawn

Leia is very pregnant with twins. Luke emerges from his travels a changed man. He lays out plans for building a new Jedi Academy and the gathering of new recruits. Thrawn shows up, wrecks everyone's shit. Luke and Han meet up with Karrde to see about using his intelligence network to hold off Thrawn. Luke gets googly-eyes for Mara Jade, she thinks he's pretty swell, they start a little wink-wink nudge-nudge, it's all good. Space battle against Thrawn above Myrkr, Thrawn held off in a last-minute victory.

Episode IX: Heir to the Empire

Leia travels to Honoghr and convinces the Nohgri to switch sides. Luke and Mara fight the mad Jedi C'baoth on Wayland. Final battle with Thrawn. Jaina and Jacen Solo are born in the middle of said space battle. Han dies. Thrawn is killed by one of his bodyguards, Captain Pellaeon assumes control of the Imperial fleet and retreats to the border of the Unknown Regions in the Galactic north. Luke and Mara move to Yavin 4 in preparation for renewing the Jedi Academy.

Episode X: The Force Awakens

Significant timeskip. Luke, satisfied with his work, has handed off the Academy and has retired to a remote hermitage with Mara Jade. Rey, a jedi-in-training, is introduced as the new main character. Kyle Katarn, Corran Horn, Dorsk 81, Kirana Ti, etc are featured (at least in passing) as instructors.

Everything then goes all to shit as the Academy is sacked by an Imperial Remnant strike force, led by one Kylo Ren and the Knights of Revan. Rey barely manages to escape the assault, taking refuge on a rustbucket ship alongside Finn (Imperial defector), Poe (hotshot Republic pilot) and Rose (mechanic). They learn that the strike was one of several, all aimed at crippling a galaxy that had grown complacent. A man known only as Snoke has declared himself emperor and returned the Remnant to strength in the Unknown Regions. Rey and co. zip-zap around trying to find Luke's hermitage and avoiding Kylo and the Imperial Remnant (It's Avatar in space at this point, we're doing Avatar in space.)

Episode XI: The Last Jedi

Cannot be fixed.

For real, I have bashed my head against this wall for ten months now and I have to finally admit that i don't think it's possible. So much of TLJ is possible only by ignoring factors that lead into it, and in this setup I've written there are even MORE factors to deal with than went into the actual movie.

So the buck stops here. Substitute Avatar Season 2 for filler. Rey learns both the light and dark from Luke and Mara. There is a wound in the Force. The division of light and dark was never supposed to exist, and now the two sides devour each other in an eternal cycle.  Luke and Mara get an amazing final fight duet against Kylo Ren (who is Jacen Solo). The torch is passed for the final time to Rey. Last shot to bring balance.

Episode XII: Balance of the Whills

Rey goes to Korriban, site of the original wound in the Force, defeats Snoke (who might be channeling some Nihilus), and ends the cycle of imbalance. Form hereon there are no Jedi nor Sith, there is only the Force in balance.

Other notes 

• Liam Neeson plays Talon Karrde.
• The final trilogy might work better as a TV series. I am sticking to Avatar in Space.
•  I wanted to keep changes relatively in line with the current of the existing movies (hence why TLJ was a "give up" moment - fixing requires replaced in that case)
• Fitting Mara in the Rey trilogy was one of the more difficult things to manage. In old versions of this she was heading the search for Luke in disguise, Ben Skywalker had been killed by Kylo at the academy massacre (which of course eliminated the plot because Mara just insta-gibs Kylo on sight in that case.) and overall she just sunk the story.
• Consider this ghost exorcised. We're done here.