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4 yrs ago
How much wood WOULD a woodchuck chuck? If a woodchuck could chuck wood? Maybe that dork Sally selling seashells down by the sea shore knows...
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4 yrs ago
Can everybody do me a huge solid and like this post: roleplayerguild.com/posts/5…
5 likes
6 yrs ago
Because asking the mods "gib power" is a much better bid than demonstrating a groundswell of supporters, right? #Wraith4Mod2K19
2 likes
6 yrs ago
WRAITH, WRAITH, HE'S OUR MAN, IF HE CAN'T DO IT, NO ONE CAN!
5 likes
6 yrs ago
@KingOfTheSkies but could you fix it with Flex Tape? I say nay-nay

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<Snipped quote by Eddie Brock>

Man, why do I want this so badly?


To validate that your sex scenes are the only thing that keeps people coming back to this thread?
The colors are just hex codes, and Docs also does its coloring with hex, iirc, so that shouldn't be an issue.
I've got two posts before I'm ready for the MME. If I post them within the next few days, do you think it's unlikely enough to happen that I should carry on with anither arc? Or just wait for the MME?
Late post is late, but my crossover is moving to completion!

In terms of characters I've used/mentioned:


Those are the ones I could readily think of, but there might be more, I'll do a more exhaustive pass soon-ish. I should also probably add some characters that I'll be using down the line.

I apologize for my recent absence, but I've just moved into school for the first time, and that's been somewhat of an adjustment; so now my ass has a week of posts to catch up on.

”The Ranchero of Miracle Mesa” - Riders on the Storm: Part Six

“The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.”

-Anonymous




Warpath, Texas




Greg Saunders had always liked the old cowboy pictures. Ever since he was knee high to a grasshopper he’d always find himself tuggin’ at his Pop’s pant leg, askin’ him to put Mister Eastwood on again. There was somethin’ appealing about those oldies. There weren’t no flash and bang or fancy schmancy computer effects gettin’ up all over the screen, just a good old fashioned cowboy. A man, his gun, and his horse, and the open sea of possibility. He’d ride into towns that didn’t always want him, but usually, he’d make things better. No matter what he lost along the way. But sometimes it weren’t so clean. They didn’t all romanticize the life. You had to take it all: the good, the bad, the ugly. They were riders on the storm, charting out that great untangled wild of America, the soul of this country.

It was for much those reasons didn’t like most of the newer stuff that came out. He’d never been much of a buff on it himself, but things just didn’t seem to connect to life no more. Action heroes jumpin’ through windows with girls on either arm, shootin’ at folks from a faraway place. People with families, lives. Wrong folk, but… Well, folks all the same. There wasn’t as much focus on a man doin’ what he could for his town. John Wayne’s steady hand gets replaced with Bruce Willis killin’ folk with his bare hands for his and his alone. AN’ then there were the effects. A mess of computers n’ wires vomiting all over the screen. Huge explosions that couldn’t rightly exist. Even the biggest and fanciest of ‘em couldn’t touch the practicals. Maybe that appreciation for the genuine article was why it was so easy for him to watch the corona of the explosion coming towards him.

A little earlier than he’d expected, sure. But it’d done the job just fine, shoulda fried every Hunter in the town, just about. Hopefully Frank had gotten downrange enough. Time seemed to slow to molasses for the explosion. It was a beautiful sort of thing so see up close. First there was the pressure wave. His guns got yanked out of his hands and his hat blew clean off his head; but that was only a split second before a sweet orange glow crawled out from the center of the explosion. It was a soft light, creeping closer to him and growing brighter and brighter. Warm, welcoming. He accepted it. Felt it all around him. And then there was nothing.




The only reason Vigilante knew he wasn’t dead was because where he was wasn’t Hell -- and it sure as shit wasn’t Heaven, either. He found himself in some kind of Movie Theater, with the sies and the ceiling crawling off into infinity, like before. Yet somehow, the fog over his mind had lifted. Whatever spirit it was that had kept him tied in here before was gone now, leaving him to properly piece together his thoughts instead of snagging them at free random.

This, it seemed, was The Spirit’s domain. A grand chamber full of the wailing dead and the cackling demons. It must feel right at home among them. But The Spirits had quieted some. They sat in solemn silence, gaing up bleary eyed at the screen. Bags traced most of their eyes. Their pallor seemed even paler, if that were even possible. The Demons still had unnatural smiles drawing up to their ears and even past them, but they weren’t so rowdy, now. They just sat rapt. Watching, waiting.

Vig felt a hand on his shoulder. He bristled and snapped around, grabbing for a gun that wasn’t there. His eyes met a pair of baby blues. Johnny Blaze.

“I won’t lie to you, Saunders. I didn’t expect you’d make it out of that one alive.” Blaze leaned back in his seat and kicked up his boots. He flashed his pearly whites.

“Neither did I. Figured the explosion’d make me look more like chunky salsa than man.” Vig relaxed his hands and set back to gazing around the room. The souls and demons still stayed locked on the screen. They didn’t seem to much notice that Blaze was among them. ”Now… This seems t’ me like a question you might get a lot, but… Why ain’t I dead?”

Johnny threw back his head and laughed. The metal buckles and spikes on his jacket jingled with his movement. “Oh, Greg fuckin’ Saunders. I love you, man! It’s like this: if any jackass that wants a shot at killing whoever holds The Spirit, they have to kill both halves. You got yourself blown up, sure. But The Spirit’s still kicking, and that means you are, too.” Johnny rubbed Greg’s shoulders. “And you did it, man! Those Hunters are engineered to kill people like us. Like poison to The Rider. Even making him fight them is like cramming a horse pill down his throat. But you took them down the old fashioned way.”

”Yeah…” Greg shuffled his shoulders, shaking Blaze’s hands off. ”Just doing my duty.” Greg pulled his hat from his head and held it, wringing it in his hands. Something didn’t feel quite right about the place, like it was before. Something had taken what life there was to the place and drained it right on out. Now it was just silence. Blaze’s voice leapt down ten rows before it even started fading.

“Just your duty? Man, that was more of them than any of the other guys have ever seen!” Blaze whooped. “Hey, check it out! He’s waking up. Concentrate, now. All you need to do to fight with The Rider is focus. It’s like a ‘zen’ kinda thing. At least, that’s how I understood it.”

Greg nodded and tore his attention away from the spirits around him. He locked his eyes on the screen. The blackness that swallowed it was being pushed away, bit by bit. It was like The Spirit was being crushed, but pushing its way through the rubble, piece by piece. Greg reached out with his mind, and he felt an acid sting push back at his prodding. He pushed through it. He felt a squeeze on his temples while he soldiered on through the mental barrier, only to feel sharper resistance stab into his brain. It wasn’t like his dreams anymore. There it fought with a kind of acerbic style. Confident and zealous in its superiority. But this was like fighting a momma dog. He drew back and he felt a set of controls had risen up out of his armrests. They were alien to him. A series of buttons and do-dads with no real meaning to ‘em. He frowned. His eyes flickered over the crowd again. Many of them had curled into themselves, arms wrapped around their legs while they stared with eyes like the moon.

“Greg? What’s wrong?”

”I think I’m… I think I’m gonna jes’ see what happens.” There was nothing left for it to hurt. All the people he cared about were puppets, and Frank seemed to be on the thing’s good side. And if not? Well, he could take care of himself.




The Spirit of Vengeance emerged from the smoldering rubble of what was once The Crossroads Saloon. There was no fanfare to it. The skeletal form of a man rose from the ashes, pushing aside a slab of floorboard. It surveyed the destruction silently, ignoring the quiet sobs of the man who knelt near the crossroads. His heart yearned for vengeance, for blood. But The Spirit only spoke for the dead, and today, the dead had to be collected.

Its fires did not rage as they once had. They boiled low, a muted yellow giving a ghastly glow to the head. It didn’t stand out much in the shine of the Texas sun. The only thing a passerby might have noticed was the sound of his gait, the crunch against the debris. Finally it reached a chunk of ceiling, laying against the three foot nub of a support beam. It reached down and tossed the debris aside.

The crumpled form of a Hunter lay there. Wounded, but not dead. It looked up at the creature before it, and a broken hand squirmed for a spectral gun. The Spirit toed it away. The Hunter’s red eyes looked up to meet The Spirit. They squinted in the sunlight. The Spirit reached down and hoisted the Hunter up in both arms, like it were carrying a child. It burned. The mere contact sent agony spiraling through its arms, bones and marrow trying to curl back from the pain. But The Spirit pressed on, and sat itself on the last shred of the bar that remained, an end corner.

The Spirit caressed The Hunters jaw with a bone hand, drawing the creature to look it in the eyes. Pain exploded through The Spirit’s fingertips. It did not care.

“Look into my eyes, little one.” Tendrils of black fire spiraled out from The Spirit, evevolping the Hunter in their embrace.

It was a cool day for the summer, but he’d still dressed too warm for it. The leather of his coat barely kept the hot metal plates pressed against his body. Those things had gotten hotter n’ hell, but ol’ Nate Cassidy had tol’ him it’d help keep them bullets from gettin’ him killt.

It had worked out pretty good so far, but he hadn’t gotten shot, yet. Least he had that going for him. The fellers they were fighting today knew what they were doing. They were cool and clean with their revolvers. Mosta their shots hit, an’ the rest of the gang was falling to pieces around him.

Nate said it was going to be a clean heist. In, out, take the money and run. Nobody gets hurt, and we get rich, he said. Even tried spiking the Sheriff’s shipment o’ water that morning to make double-sure. Hadn’t counted on the teller keeping hisself a boomstick under the counter. The screams. Or the shooting. God, the shooting.

But they still made it out in the end, cash in hand. Took a while to wash the blood out, but Nate said to pay that no mind. The river’d get everything clean enough if you gave it time. Meanwhiles they jes had to lay low in town, keep an eye out for any lawmen that might come lookin.

Whoever these folks were, they sure weren’t the po-lice. Towns didn’t hire Sheriffs like them, no sir. N’ they certainly didn’t work for one of the gangs. Golden Joe wouldn’t a hire a mex’can, n’ neither would the Domergues. Far as he could see, it was a mex’can n’ two of his buddies. One of em had a real messed up face, but they’d got ‘im, at least. Frank Horn had tagged ‘im real good before takin’ one between the eyes ‘imself. Then there was the mex’can, and a feller swingin’ a whip like crazy. The mex’can was a real good shot, give him that. He worked his irons like nobody's business. At least the whipfighter was slowin’ down. His hits were getting sloppier. He’d taken a few hits but he hadn’t dropped yet. But exhaustion was about to get him, yessir.

The fight went on for a while. Mostly cover shootin’ and shoutin’. Til’ the whip boy dropped. The Mex’can dropped his guns. Stepped right on outta’ cover n’ asked to talk to Nate. They were sittin pretty.

Soon as Nate stepped out, the mex’cans face started to… To melt. It wasn’t like nothin’ he’d ever seen before. Fire jumped out of every one of his orifices, n’ that mex’can just started killin’. His whip was everywhere, slashing so hard that people’s necks split clean open.

Eventually, the mex’can got to him. The string of that burning whip around his neck. The draw of those eyes… Those black, black eyes… And then? Then there was anger. Nothing but anger and anger and anger and…


The Hunter was gone. The Spirit held the form of a boy no older than seventeen in his arms, swaddled in a Yankees sweatshirt. His switchblade hung out of his backpocket. A peashooter of a pistol poked out of his waistband. A piece of the Crossroads had pierced him, through and through. He was dying. The Spirit could felt his soul, calling out. Waiting.

”Who sent you, my child?” The Spirit brought the boy in close, holding him against its breast. The fires in The Spirit’s chest died, turning down to a subtle warmth.

“I…” The boy looked up at him. His eyes were glossed over, uncomprehending. “Momma? I’m sorry. I...”

The Spirit laid him down, pushing aside rubble and sweeping up a pillow of ash.

”Please.”

The boy looked him up and down. “I… I went to Mr. Solomano’s office today, momma. He… He had… Something… Something for me to… Why is it so cold, Momma?”

”It’s okay. You can rest, now.” The Spirit touched the boys face. Fire danced off of his fingertip. The boy smiled. The funeral pyre had begun.

“Thank you.”
Are we losing anyone due to school this fall?


I start at college tomorrow, but hopefully that shouldn't really impact my posting schedule. But, who knows? Maybe I'll get a social life get slammed with work.
On the subject of costumes:















That’s all I care to list, for now. May post more later.

”The Ranchero of Miracle Mesa” - Riders on the Storm: Part Five

“The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.”

-Anonymous




Warpath, Texas




They were both jammed in the Saloon now, keeping them back from the windows as best as they could. Some part of the idea was make ‘em think that The Saloon was their last stand, like an old Eastwood picture; when in reality the thing was the biggest bomb Texas had ever seen.

"Cavalry's here." I stood up, twisting around to the entrance of the old saloon. "You got this place primed and ready to blow at a moment's notice?"


“It’s fixin’ to blow like The Alamo!” Vig hollered. He was down to his last two pistols, and it seemed Frank was, too. Thankfully, they kept up a tight enough wall of lead that none of ‘em had breached. Yet. He wasn’t sure how many of ‘em were left. Between him and Frank, they’d dropped several dozen, but who knows how many were left? Maybe his initial assessment was wrong. Maybe there were untold legions of ‘em, and he only saw a hundred from the get-go. But no matter how many there were, they had to stand and fight ‘em to the last man.

In the back of Vig’s mind The Spirit cowered, sequestered away behind whatever mental walls it found to hide behind, crying like a wounded animal. Vig would’ve thought that the thing would take pleasure in it. Unrelenting carnage and eradication of damned souls, no holds barred. Instead it hid from them. The role that The Spirit normally held in his mind had seemed to fade and be replaced by a primal animal made of fear. A mass of squealing souls reduced to a cat on a hot tin roof. Blaze had seemed afraid of them, too; but what was it? For all their darkness n’ the spirit-stuff they leaked, they were more or less ordinary folk with guns. A whole goddamn lot of ‘em, to be sure, but just men.

Regardless of what it was that kept it away, now would’ve been really goddamn good time for it to jump on outta the birthday cake. There wasn’t anything really human thing for it to hurt. Vig felt himself firing his guns on autopilot, but he reached into the back of his mind, clawing for The Spirit, trying to pull it out of its hiding place.

”No...” It whispered. For the first time it was like there was a great big wall between them. Any line in the sand Vig had tried to make The Spirit had gleefully crossed and played havoc with his mental defenses. But now it was obstinate, refusing to come out. It was like trying to drag an old racing horse out of the barn, when all the fight in him was gone. But for a moment there was a breach. As if a miniscule fragment of whatever The Spirit was floated across the breach to caress Vig’s face.

”Understand.” It begged. Vig felt his focus dragged back to reality, the rhythmic movement of his hands and his trigger pulls. Each Hunter that passed a window pulsed with arcane power. Wisps of purple and red weaved among the black, twisting together like thorns on a briar bush. They were ingrained up and down The Hunters arms and all up their bodies, even spiraling from their palms into their weapons themselves. They radiated an energy that Vig couldn’t place, it was neither Daemonic or Holy, but whatever it was, it burnt him to his very core. He felt it in every cell, pain stabbing through his sinuses and into the crevices of his brain. Whatever it was, it was engineered to kill him.

Vig heaved out a cough and stumbled backwards, missing an easy headshot. He shook his head to clear his vision. Some of them had started to burst through now, shattering a window only to be put down by a bullet to the head. Whatever that just was… Seemed The Spirit had a good enough excuse, time being. Now was time to focus on letting the place blow.

Nothing fancy, the explosives were tied to the tripwire that lead out the backdoor. Once that got sprung, all the boxes of dynamite and all the molotvs and frag mines in between would blow the ol’ Crossroads sky high. But there was a snag they hadn’t considered. There were so many of ‘em that it’d be hard to make sure the explosion wiped ‘em all at once. They’d been expecting a together knit group, a team, and that charge into the Saloon in one burst. Instead, a straggler might burst through and inadvertently save the rest of his friends. Someone would need to stay behind and make sure the house and nice and packed before they happened.

”Frank! End game time, compadre! Meet ‘cha out back!” Vig started taking his steps back as the horde started to pull in, inch by inch. It wasn’t much of a choice. Greg Saunders was more or less an old world cowboy with a demon camping in his soul and a head full of baggage. Frank Castle was a family man with a lot of pain in his heart. A pain that, whether he liked it or not, would let him save the whole goddamn world. And maybe Warpath along the way.

”The Ranchero of Miracle Mesa” - Riders on the Storm: Part Four

“The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man, or take unfair advantage.”

-Anonymous




Warpath, Texas




The firefight was like Hell on Earth, and in a way that was comforting.

The hordes of Bounty Hunters swirled after him, each taking another's place as they dropped. At least Frank had split 'em up; his guns worked a whole lot better in close quarters. Their horses didn’t much take to being crammed between tight rows of windows. But the closer the Black Riders got the further The Spirit seemed to recede, sparsely whispering in protest. Vig ignored it and focused on the rhythm of his guns.

“BLAM BA-BLAM KA-BLAM” His revolvers kicked in his hands as he fanned the hammer as fast as he could. He could feel the heat of the cylinders through his cowhide gloves. It was just like his Pap had taught him. Focus on the gun.

“The only things in the world are yer weapon and yer enemy. Know yer gun like you know yerself. Learn the beat of the hammer an the whistle of the rounds. Sight up n’ aim true. Look yer enemy in the whites of his eyes an’ pull the trigger.”

There was somethin’ about justice in there, too, but it didn't seem relevant to the screaming mass of spirits he faced now. Aim, shoot, kill -- er, disintegrate or whatever the hell was happenin’ to the things. Every head blown off or heart punctured was met by an inhuman screen and renewed fervor in their attacks. The bullets came faster and more and more plumes of sand jumped up around his ankles. At this point, the only real way to keep ‘em at bay was to kill them so fast that their fading bodies became makeshift barricades.

Not long to the Saloon now, anyhow. Just had to trick ‘em into going in and blow ‘em to kingdom come. They were packed in tight to one another, their horses struggling to breach the alleyway and advance on Vig’s position. A handful of shots went wide; sometimes they hit each other. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

“The bounty is collected!” A voice erupted from Vig’s left as a inky black form shattered and spilled out of the window, tackling Vig to the ground. Damn things had gone around. Vig squirmed as best he could, trying to bring his gun to bear. He felt two knees on his chest while the Hunter looming over him unsheathed a knife from its chest. The knife sailed for his head and Vig juked to the right and slammed his forehead into the Hunters chest.

The crack of its chest bone was masked by the shattering of windows all around. The Hunter hissed and drew its hand back to its injury. Vig jammed a gun into its mouth and had already sighted his next target before he pulled the trigger.

Black gore exploded over his face while his other gun barked and dropped another Hunter. The Spirit yelped like a cornered pup in the recesses of Vig’s mind. They were everywhere. Vigilante’s world was a sea of black bodies, advancing on him with knives and whips, wizened up on not hitting their buddies. Vig fired from his the ground anyways, pushing himself back to the nearest wall and forcing himself to stand up against it. He dropped his pair of revolvers and yanked a fresh set the instant he’d fired his last round.

The tips of whips brushed his skin instants before their owners detonated into plumes of viscera and knives near made holes in his new button up before a torrent of lead beat them back. Blood started to run down his body as their cuts got a little deeper every time, that much closer to cooking his gosh darned goose. Vig remembered what he’d said to Johnny Blaze.

Sheriff Saunders didn’t raise no slouch. Vig grunted. He brought one gun up to bear and fired indiscriminately, keeping them back as best he could while the other hand blew holes through the wall behind him. Greg threw himself back and smashed through the weakened wood, crashing through a precarious pyramid of knicknacks. He was in the general store.

Greg jumped to his feet while Hunters slashed their way through the walls and bashed through what windows there were. He pulled his lariat from his side and it shot to the other end of the store. He heaved a sent a case of soda pop crashing into the first Hunter through the breach.\

The second lunged at him, but he sidestepped it and fired. It was dead before it hit the floor. Vig twisted his arm and his lariat snapped the knife out of another Hunters hand. As he worked he retreated to the front of the store, hurling cheap goods and shooting as fast as he could cycle the revolvers.

Finally he shouldered open the store’s door and found himself in the main road. There, just a block down the road, The Crossroads Saloon seemed to beckon. Asking him to have one last drink before he blew the town’s most recognizable landmark to smithereens.

”I’ll give ya that y’all got gumption, but y’all’re already worn slap out!” He taunted them as he ran for it. He dropped his lariat and his gun and broke into a full tilt sprint for the bar. Jne set of pistols left between him and Frank being demon chow. Hopefully ‘The Punisher’ had done his bit and Vig wouldn’t end up stuck trying to throw the trap on his lonesome.
For me, there's really been a lot I intended to accomplish that I haven't gotten around to. Part of that it me joining late relative to a lot of you, but a lot of it is getting ready to go away to school soon and going on a "last hurrah" sorta thing with some friends that sucked away my time.

I originally intended Vig's arc this season to focus a lot more on his relationship with the Seven Soldiers, but I ultimately decided that going more intimate with what's happening with Vig would be the better way to to. Season Two will ideally see the reunion of the team and be a lot more about interpersonal relationships between them.

In terms of plot goals this season, I'm pretty short of the mark. Originally I wanted Vig to run through a gauntlet of ten villains, culminating in a showdown with The Hand himself. But what was supposed to be ten fleshed out villains turned into one and a half rushed ones close to seasons end, so the goal is now five with the showdown next season. To be fair to me, ten was a little high of a bar to set; I could probably do to manage my expectations better.

In terms of character goals, I definitely shot myself in the foot and didn't really think about Vig's character all too much. I had just kind of thought, "What plot elements would be cool?" and started thinking about The Council of Riders and the Ultimized Hand, Ultimized Dummy, etc., and who Vig was a person kind of got lost in all of that. A big goal for me in season two is to sit down and really think deeper about Vig as a character, explore what makes him tick, etc.

Anywho, I'll be back to my PC on Thursday and should have a post up then, starting to wrap up the thing I've got going on with Punisher.

EDIT: Shoutout to my phone for periodically correcting "Vig" to "Big".
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