Honor and Prophecy In Depth

Honor and Prophecy was a really fun part to write. It has Hellboy, Abe, Liz, a Griffin, a witch coven resurrecting their Witch Queen, and a whole lot of witch puns.

I originally wanted to write this because, well, why not? And that's what I really sort of want out of writing the Space Between, is that I can put whatever and I want and have them do or fight whatever I want them to. This specifically was great because I was able to sort of move away (temporarily) from superheroes into something more supernatural, which there's not going to be a lot of.

At the beginning I knew that I wanted to explain in my own way why John Myers got reassigned to Antartica in between the first and second Hellboy movies. And no reassignment can go without a going away party, and no going away party can go without beer and cake.

I also had a whole backstory about the Witches, the Griffin, the Book of Merlin, and Merlin's last descendant planned out. (Which is as follows)

Some hundreds of years after Merlin and Arthur, the last of Merlin's bloodline, Branwen, inherited the Llyfr Myrddin o Hud (The Book of Merlin) and began to travel around the countryside, befriending all manner of mythological creatures, including the Griffin, and filling in what few blanks Merlin's book had.

The Griffin became her travelling companion, and they eventually fell in love.

Unfortunately, while travelling through Wales, Branwen was attacked by a coven being led by Queen Esyllt. The Book of Merlin was stolen and Branwen was sacrificed to give Queen Esyllt more power. The Griffin ultimately killed the Witch Queen, and as punishment for his inability to protect Branwen, hid the Book of Merlin in the woods near Tintern and now roams the same woods to protect it.

In early 1967, the Griffin received word of a special meeting of his race, which mainly concerned the hunting and near extinction their species was being faced with at the time.

At the same time, a young woman named Mary who regularly went into the woods to pick wild food, took another path than she usually had and accidentally found the Book of Merlin. She took it back to her house and read a little bit of it before she went to sleep last night. During her sleep she had horrific nightmares that tormented her and led her to believe that the object was cursed. 

Mary first asked a Priest to exorcise it, but he didn't really believe that the book was cursed. She tried to burn it, but then it wouldn't burn. She took it to the ruins of Tintern Abbey, which was a common place in her nightmares and Mary believed that if she took it there and 'gave it back' that she'd be able to get rid of the curse.

By doing so she instead gave power back to the witches, who in turn sacrificed her, and several other young women in Tintern, to resurrect Queen Esyllt.

When women began to disappear, the Priest that Mary had sought out contacted a group of Witch Hunters, who were in turn acquainted with Doctor Bruttenholm and a Professor Sterling. (OMC - A minor Wizard who specialized in Occultism and often helped Witch Hunters. His daughter, also Professor Sterling, has a little bit of magical sensitivity. She can feel magic, but she has no real knack at casting.)

The group tracked the kidnappings to the ruins of Tintern Abbey, and slew Queen Esyllt. Doctor Bruttenholm took the book with him for safe keeping.

The Griffin had arrived in time to see the end of what had happened, and knew that Bruttenholm would keep the book safe for many years. He continued to live in the woods around Tintern up to the beginning of the part.

There are a few minor things that happen during the part that are important to note:

- Earth-1617105 was not just picked out of a hat or grabbed from a random number generator, it's actually the date that Hellboy was conceived, October 5, 1617.

- The line 'A cold wind, is blowing from the North.', that the Griffin says to Kitty isn't just gibberish, it's a prophecy. I can't really say much more than that without spoiling something that's coming up, but it's not just something dumb and out of place.

-EDF

'Unity' In Depth

I wrote 'Unity' specifically on request by my husband/editor, who said that everything had been going too fast in the previous parts and it needed to slow down a little. And a change of pace was welcomed for me, since there were a few other reasons I wanted to write something like this.

This is only one of two parts that has a chapter for every single 'main' character (The other is 'The Wastes'), but is the only part where each character has only one chapter. This allowed me a little wiggle room as I could focus more on each character individually and not have to worry about the overarching plot of that part.

Without them jumping to another Earth or anything happening (Like in part 'The Harbinger of War' and 'Nocturna' [Which hasn't been uploaded as of writing this]) I was also able to write more of how they interact with each other and how they think of the others that they live with, and even get an insight into Diana's feelings and thoughts fresh after arriving.

I know all this isn't really that groundbreaking, but it's a pretty straightforward part. I just liked being able to write them in their living situation and what they do when they aren't looking for food or tech or fighting off monsters and witches.

-EDR

'The Wastes' In Depth

I've been thinking about writing something else up for the blog, but I keep thinking, what else is there for me to write about? And besides, I made this for the sole purpose of talking about my fanfiction. Even if no one reads this ever, it's still helpful to actually write through some things and just let my mind wander and my fingers type whatever they want.

So, anyways, Part Four of The Space Between, aka 'The Wastes'. It's actually two stories told side by side, one of the Betweeners (Stephen, Kal, Kitty, J'onn, Martha, and Tony) trying to not only scavenge, but survive a post-apocalyptic Earth, and the other following Diana/Wonder Woman as she lives through the events that lead up to it becoming a post-apocalyptic Earth. (This was originally conceived as an Earth that takes place in the Fallout universe, but I thought against it, since I wanted to add Diana and didn't have any other good storylines to introduce her, so I combined it a little)

Unfortunately for Diana, I think I left out a few important bits of information, or maybe it's not so obvious as I'd like it to be, so I'll retell the events here, but very plainly.

The first thing that happens is Bruce Wayne's assassination, which was carried out by Deadshot (Floyd Lawton), under the instruction of Amanda Waller (Who in turn had been provided false information that Bruce Wayne was laundering money that was being used to fund the various escapes at Arkham over the years, and this information had been brought to her by Hugo Strange).

After his death, Martian Manhunter stepped in to be Batman (Dick Grayson, who would've stepped into the role himself, but was doing deep undercover reconnaissance in Russia.) Simultaneously to this, Superman put Gotham in lockdown in everything but name, and set the entire League in search of Deadshot.

Soon disagreements between Martian Manhunter and Superman broke out, over how criminals were to be dealt with from then on, and separated the League into nearly half. Most stayed with the League, and others joined Martian Manhunter, disguised as Batman, in his new group called The Outsiders, who went about their own investigation into Bruce Wayne's death. The group found that everyone involved in his death had 'coincidentally' died themselves, most from hemorrhaging in the brain. This, along with Superman's death grip on the country and his erratic behavior, led Martian Manhunter, the Question, and Lex Luthor to believe that Superman had been the one to tip off Hugo Strange to Batman's true identity, thus starting the catalyst that would end in the Dark Knights' death.

Simultaneously to their investigation was reports from several countries of Superman stealing nuclear bombs, though none of these countries could actually prove it with any video evidence. Raised tensions in Russia lead to a thorough sweep of all facilities and thorough background checks of all high-leveled personnel. This led to the death of Dick Grayson, and to Superman becoming even more erratic in his behavior.

The eyewitnesses had actually seen Superman, but it wasn't the real Superman, but Ares in disguise. This didn't cross anyone's mind, as the real Superman assumed that it was Martian Manhunter trying to discredit him, and Martian Manhunter thinking it was Superman preparing for some sort of end game.

At some point in time, Circe, Ares' most current lover, had killed Hawkgirl and taken her place in the League without anyone the wiser, pretending to be scared of Superman, when in actuality she was pulling the strings that had led Superman to believe some of the other Leaguers were traitors, which is how Hawkman had ended up on the suicide mission that had ended his life.

The rest is pretty plain in the chapters themselves, Diana meets up with the Outsiders, Ares goads the rest of the world into war and lures Diana to Themyscira (And likewise luring both Leaguers and Outsiders to vastly different locations where they would be no help to anyone, and wouldn't be able to stop the launching of the worlds' nuclear weapons) where her mother, Hippolyta, uses a Medusa Amulet to turn Diana into a statue to save her life.

Everything else is pretty much self explanatory, yes?

-EDR