A Tale of Heroes (WIP) - 224k words. Updated 29/01/2025!

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So ill need a while to fully think it all over, but from reading both blog posts there I can give an initial reaction, heaven help me figure out how poor MC will react to all this, dude just wanted to play sportsball in college.

I guess I’ll start with a blunt summary of my thoughts on it, I don’t think the Byzantines did anything wrong. To go further I’d say BQ n BK over acted to it all.

Like, I understand being there and witnessing the things the Byzantines did to the defeated forces would be rough, I can also see from the Byzantine perspective this was a quite literal pirate fort island that had for decades boldly raided them nonstop, it has to be dealt with.

To call what the Byzantines planned an invasion would only really be technically correct but not really, it was less an invasion and more of a punitive crusade. Which honestly you’d figure at least BQ could’ve figured out when you know “Oh yeah the Byzantine coast is great for work as they’re always raided by Crete.” and “The last Emperor spent years making this army, and even the new Emperor finished it so that way it could deal with Crete.” It seemed to me the idea was to erase the idea of raiding Byzantine farms and cities from the Cretes minds and as a message to the rest of the nations that aided Crete in doing so.

Oh could my man Nike have at least 2 braincells worth of tact to at least imply insults or just ignore the Broken Pair? Oh I had hope so but damn bro loved that stick up his ass.

As for the second Blog, what they did after the slaughter ehhh. I kinda see it as they felt… I dunno guilty? Or at the very least one of them realized a bit too late “Maybe shouldn’t have killed the WHOLE army…”

I’m also left curious how they’d be able to get any allies again after that. “Oh sure, ally with the insanely strong duo, makes sense…until our Nation has different plans then them, RIP our armies too now.” Must’ve left the most awkward “peace” and inspired a fair few other nations to ally up in case of the Duo going nuts.

Modern day nations ignoring the event from several hundred years ago sure I can get, but the prejudice it’d leave in the area must be crazy and I realize I’m just repeating myself at this point but it just has my noggin joggin’.

In conclusion, I like your funky words wordsmith.

Quick edit: I may place a fair bit of the blame on Constantine’s son, the Second Emperor for hiring the Broken Pair to begin with and not just following his Father’s plan but again I’d need more time to sit on this and mull it over more.

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Hi sick, I’m dad. Uh. I mean. Oh no. :frowning:

It very goddamn well is.

How dare you, sir? How DARE YOU! If I wanted to be insulted I’d frequent reddit.*

Take time to rest and recuperate. Just because you’re your own boss in this, doesn’t mean you have to exploit yourself - regardless of what bosses would like you to think, that’s not actually mandatory.

*actually, now that I’ve been playing League of Legends the insults just come freely about one out of every five matches or so

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So I’m not gonna say you’re wrong, most military conflicts are varied shades of gray so there’s room for any interpretation, but I think I should note that the MotD documentary was crafted by a Greco-Turkish individual, which means he’s both from a country that lives under Cretan suzerainty and a country that sees Crete as one of its main geopolitical rivals.

That may mean he’s a little biased in how he presents the matter (in truth all articles are biased in one way or another, that’s intentional).

Further, this’ll be brought up in Monarchy Leading the People, but the Byzantines did significantly escalate the conflict early on. Right after the Andalusian exiles settled in Crete (which was an occupation, though a relatively accepted one and somewhat cherished one from our sources), the Byzantines were already sending punitive expeditions to wipe them out, and that continued throughout the years. By the time that Cretan raids really started, the Byzantines had invaded and repeatedly brutalized the island at least two or three times.

Of course none of this justifies the Cretan acts (in my mind nothing can justify the taking of 20,000 slaves, for example), but it does bring a bit more context to the situation.

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My MC wants to be like them when she grows up.

A better, more serious answer: what my MC is taking away most from these documentaries is the duo’s power and what a deterrent it serves. My MC is frustrated by Gloria’s machinations and, previously, Stratton’s shenanigans and meeting Victoria, and seeing her be beholden to no one will probably just make those frustrations grow further.

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Ahh I didn’t appreciate you defining who made the documentary clearly enough then as that does roll things around more in my head.

If I had to give my MCs reaction, a simple guy just wanting to play his sportsball and has been stuck shanghaied into heroing, it’d probably be something along the lines of understanding the whys, but in the end to MC the Duo still went too far.

He’d have a bit more trepidation about actually encountering BK if plausible but at the same time the poor guy is a lil curious how long he’d last in a fist fight.

I dunno. Curious to think about, and bits of it are chaffing against my own ideals I guess, gonna be mulling this over all my free time for a while.

Side note, can pls train with Seeker again? I think I got a chance of beating him this time, it’s a .01 percent kind of chance but I think it’s there.

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Yo @Jjcb

I just finished reading the 2 snippets and GODDAMN how are we supposed to fight a guy who killed 80,000 men in an afternoon with his wife? Also massive shoutout to the Blitz Queen for not gutting Nikephoros any time he made misogynistic comments, and only humbling him after he tried to needless massacre a city. Though I have to ask why she didn’t kill him, and just resume command? The Emperor already knew both of them were the real deal (implied with how he met both in person and promised them titles in reward).

What I liked most was in the second snippet, you also wrote about the entire region’s reaction to the betrayal and subsequent massacre. Like you tackled, losing 80k troops in one go, is crippling, and they should’ve been punished for that. Though I must additionally ask, if The King and Queen were just mercenaries, and had little to no previous attachments to the Empire, how real was the fear that, the King and Queen would target any of Rome’s rivals if they made a move on them?

Check your PMs btw. I dropped you a few thoughts there as well. Anyway, a very fun read and Pls make Ignis an RO again! /s :sob: :confounded:

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Well, them not killing him and them not taking command are different things.

On the former, theories are that they wanted to spite him and humiliate him. Romanos sent him out with an unconquerable army, and the Hero-Monarchs sent him back with absolutely nothing.

Them not taking command has to do with the fact that a sack had already started, and bringing discipline back after such a thing is pretty impossible.

… There might also be the fact that when you’re an unstoppable juggernaut of destruction that’s been living off of murdering people for enough time, everything starts to look like murder can solve it…

Somewhat justified, I guess. The King certainly didn’t care (and still doesn’t tbh, there’s a reason the Venetians broke it), but the Queen likely would have gotten them involved if the Empire started getting savaged.

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@Jjcb New asks because I’m bored:

If each cast member could have one wish what would they wish for? Alternatively, how would that change with three wishes instead?

Favorite method of transportation for everyone?

Of the League, who could stay awake the longest? (If Seeker would clear because of any life-extending powers, maybe give the runner up)

If only Lat got her powers, would she have still ended up with the League? What would she do if not?

Can everyone in the League swim? Do any of them particularly like/dislike it?

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For my mc either his own car, assuming he ever owned or will ever own one with rail being a close runner up, even if it is kind of shitty in the US. If he lived in say Japan, rail would have won for sure with his own car being a good runner-up.

Oddly enough for someone with flying powers he isn’t really fond of it and while he did not have crippling fear of flying before the whole alien possession thing he did have a mild case of it where he tried to sleep through every flight to get it over sooner or, if possible, just take a little longer and get from east to west in the US a bit slower by car or train.

In my headcanon he hasn’t had enough experience with boats to form a strong opinion on that mode of travel either way.

Prior to chapter 4 my mc would wish to have never been possessed by an alien, right now he’d just keep the wish as an ace up his sleeve for a really desperate situation and that wouldn’t change with three of them, except he’d have three aces instead of just the one up his sleeve.

Headcanon, my mc can swim. He mostly used to do it as fitness activity (probably still does now he is rapidly developing that captain America level physique that is good for flaunting in swimwear) in the university gym on weekends in his old life. He’s used to be pretty decent at it in his old life but not so good that team USA was missing out by not recruiting him or anything.

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Hmmm, well, I’ll list all three- the first one is obviously the most important and the one they would put above the others.

Aki: Making sure her immediate family lives forever (father, mother and grandfather only), being able to actually do her assigned job, and… childishly enough, being a little taller. Expect these to change a lot as the story develops.

Seeker: Spoilers all around. But they all concern Victoria, one way or another. He plans to keep her blade safe until he can return it to her.

Lat: Making it so neither you nor her can die. Everything beyond that is secondary. A distant second would probably be something related to ending war forever.

Nova: An assurance that his sister will grow well as #1. Fixing his country as #2. Turning his father into a better man is #3.

Mars: Healing his father. From his pov atm, that’s all he wants. He’d probably offer the remaining two to someone else.

Ignis: Making her parents love her, and a wish to make her brave enough to take what she wants. A chance to wipe out that memory, too.

Forlorn: Getting his home back. Never have to fight in the war. And go back to when he was 10, so his parents can actually raise him.

Ignis likes planes and cruises.

Seeker likes sailing ships.

Forlorn enjoys rails, and Aki finds them the most tolerable too.

Lat loves long car rides, and Nova does too.

Mars, obviously, likes trains the most.

Victoria… enjoys horseback riding and sailing ships in somewhat equal measures, but her favorite method is flying on her own power.

The runner-up’s Forlorn. He’s used to going several days with minimum sleep.

That doesn’t mean he’s going to like it, though. As he’ll tell you eventually, he is “done with war”.

The sucker.

Definitely, though it’d likely be a more convoluted way to getting there.

If she didn’t join the League, she’d probably stay in school and do crime fighting business mostly at night. She’d start off just patrolling campus and making sure the creepy students are dealt with and the girls kept safe, but it’d develop into more from thereon.

They can. Seeker likes it the most, and whenever they go swimming, he tends to stay the deepest and the longest in the water.

Ignis enjoys swimming, but unlike the others, you’ll see her using baggy, full-body covering clothes whenever she does. You’ll die without ever seeing her in a bikini.

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Amazing story, one of the best in here. It is one of the games i will for sure get when it will come out.

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@Jjcb Is the Moody.ink link gonna get a save system anytime soon?

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There is already a save system. You just need to create an account

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I don’t remember if I asked this before or if it was mentioned already but are we gonna see a Lat/Aki poly in the public demo or when the game is completed?

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Any poly is reserved for game two I’m afraid. At best you might see some preliminary set up this game, but nothing official. Goes for Mars/MC/Nova as well.

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Tada:

I wrote this around the start of the week, actually shared it on the Discord and stuff, but I may have messed around with remembering to share it here.

Anyway, with this particular piece, we have the three possible views: Anti-Crete, Neutral, and Pro-Crete represented in these articles. This will likely be the final ‘full’ snippet too, at least until the chapter is finished (which is still planned for October, I haven’t forgotten!).

Again, if you’ve any thoughts or opinions that your MC may want to share, please don’t hesitate to share them, better to add them now than have to wait for after the chapter’s out.

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It’s nice you keep updating, seeing this make me playing the game again. It’s intriguing how this supes historical character shape how modern people’s seeing supes. I suspect someone will get God complex again

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@Jjcb moar askses:

What’s “enough” for Gloria? Is he just in eternal pursuit of American dominance over every point of the globe? Does he even have a “plan” beyond crisis management?

What would the BK actually do if he ever gets the Queen back and stops being a wandering sad sack? Just become a wandering happy sack?

Forlorn and Seeker arm-wrestle, who wins? Ignis makes an arm-construct and uses it to wrestle both of them, does she beat either?

Who wins in a fight, Other You or Other Lat?

If Forlorn/Aki returned home (assuming any barriers to such a return were lifted), would they be accepted or shunned?

What’s everyone’s favorite animal?

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I’m assuming the Other MC would win since they curbstomped our asses while Lat won because the Other Lat had their guard down and there’s the fact that Lat isn’t exactly built for direct combat as Gloria points out in Japan.

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Maybe not over every point of the globe, but yeah, theoretically his goal is to more or less ensure American dominance of the global order for another century or two at least. This can be done by a myriad of ways, and it’s not really brought up yet, but Gloria’s goal is to make the US completely indispensable, and reduce alternative options as much as he can.

This is part of the reason why he’s so quick to rejoin the international/global agreements in Chapter 4, he’s trying to pump the brakes on the traditional coalition partners from finding other ways to sustain themselves that don’t rely on the USA.

That said, he doesn’t exactly want the utter collapse of rival powers like Russia or China. Those would be global humanitarian disasters.

But, if they just so happen to occur, then naturally the US of A will step in to aid with the reconstruction and create a strong partner that relies on American goodwill and just so happens to be run by Americaboos.

Well, his original plan was to ride Stratton’s coattails as a ‘reasonable’ sideman, garner support from both sides and then make a run for President as soon as he was able, essentially making sure he dictated policy for 16 years.

Now, that plan is probably shot to bits. He’s scrambling at the moment, but assuming he has a chance to get back on his feet, the first goal is to break Crete as a reminder of American power and influence, and then bring the rest of Europe under the ‘Gloria Curtain’.

Forlorn, if you’re talking pure strength. He did these contests more often.

She beats both. Energy constructs don’t tire or disappear as long as she’s conscious. Her arm-construct is more than capable of holding on until Forlorn gets cramps.

Depends on the circumstances. In a straight up battle ala DBZ, Other You would win with relative ease. In a more… ‘hunting’-esque scenario, with distance and places to hide and just more animal-esque (or heavily populated urban!) scenarios, Other Lat eats Other You alive.

If Aki returned home, such an event would be celebrated for a week straight. What a joy, what a joy. Hope’s returned!

For Forlorn, it depends on who receives him. The general populace would be pretty ecstatic.

The army would tell him to not bother unpacking his shit, he can fuck back off.

Forlorn likes cats.

Aki is a pretty big fan of wolves.

Ignis likes dogs.

Nova likes parrots.

Mars likes ducks. They get the best of three worlds!

Seeker isn’t popular with animals, but falcons and lions don’t hate him as much.

Lat likes every animal alive, they’re all gorgeous and if she was rich she’d devote ungodly amounts of wealth to preservation efforts.

Hm. The first thing he would do?

Sob like a fucking child.

Something that I haven’t gone too deeply into (and that I don’t think I’ll get a chance to, which makes me a little sad) is just how shattered the King is. I know there’s a lot of jokes about ‘Broken’ being a fun name, but I named him that because that’s what he is.

The King drinks… whole barrels of alcohol every day, he goes through his days with his eyes half-closed, just stumbling around, not really paying attention to people- he doesn’t really even make an effort as far as powers go, he goes through life at like, minimum settings all the time.

The King is consumed by his grief. He is incapable of caring about people, he is terrified of getting close to others, and the whole of his existence is burned from the inside out as the memories of their time together assault him at every moment. Every event in history that the King sees feels empty, because he doesn’t care about witnessing these things alone, he was meant to show them to her, and now every big thing that happens is a reminder that he failed, like the fact her last words have been stuck inside his brain for the past thousand years aren’t enough of an acknowledgement that he’s a failure.

As far as the King’s concerned, he gave the Queen his soul, she died, and his soul shattered into a billion pieces that are right alongside the Queen in her coffin, and until she returns, he can never recover it again.

When the Queen returns, he is going to bawl, as the joy-starved beast he is finally regains that which he most wants.

The King will be whatever the Queen wants him to be.

The Queen’s gonna have a lot of thoughts about that.

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