Deer Country Network

[this, too, is a semi-anonymous post, though anna has used this username once before, nearly a year ago. she doubts anyone is left to recognize it, but given how things usually go, she'll just give herself away anyway.]

This place by the sea that so few will get the chance to see, and fewer still by the day.
Some of us might have begun calling it home by now.
And for a lot of us, it really did feel that way, didn't it?
Compelled to remain here, to treat this place as though we belong even though all of us are as outside to the whole system as Mariana is to us.
But not anymore. And maybe that's also the blessing of a Pthumerian. Freeing us from chains we couldn't even tell were around our necks.
Or maybe it's a curse. The curse of choice.

I'll spare you too much flowery bullshit.
If you had the chance to return home, would you take it?
Your true home. Where you came from before you washed up here.
Knowing what you know now. Knowing what you knew then.

Show your work.

[Someone has been having a month. technically two. so she looks almost combative when she asks]

Right, apparently I--me--some version of me has been here before.

I'm asking who knew me, what they knew about me, and if they want to keep knowing me.

[private to Kylo Ren]

Did you know?

[To begin with Maul and everyone Anakin is related to has been blocked from this post.]

When I was a child I met a man who promised to take me in. Shortly after that he was murdered. By Maul.

He only gets worse from there and he continues not just in my galaxy, but in the dream and then here. And when things start to reach a tipping point he makes some grand announcement about how things will be different now and all is forgiven. Until the next time.

I can't stop anyone from choosing to give him another chance, just like no one can make me forgive him no matter how much he screams that I owe it to him.

But I want to ask what makes someone worthy of a second, third, or however many chances? What makes him or even me any different from someone people are now clambering to kill? One day I'll do even worse and yet we're held to a different standard.

Here's a different perspective. Perhaps he was cruel to Maul in the past, but in the years since then he saw a boy placed in an unfamiliar environment and offered his hand in friendship. Isn't that the change you were looking for in Maul? In the entire time I've known him he's also never had the eyes Maul accused him of. In fact the only people I've seen with those eyes is him and his brother.

Is this really about doing what's right? Or simply revenge for someone you like? Be honest about your motivations because there's a good chance you'll die for them.

[And yes, this is the annoying, whiny, older one.]

[Maul's posts as of late had been a bit more lighthearted as he tried to set up his brother on a date and spoke of a memetastic grumpy batcat. But he'd been waiting for this day to come and so his face was as grim as if he was at a funeral during this post. His followers had been on the alert, watching for the signs, and had come to tell him that what he'd feared most had come to pass: Sidious was back at full strength and starting to possess people again in Trench. He couldn't put it off any longer. He had to warn people of what was coming.]

I come to you with the gravest of news. My former master, Darth Sidious, also known as Emperor Sheev Palpatine to some, has arrived in Trench. Many of you already know what that means, either through viewing my memories or listening to me talk about him. For those who do not, he was the man who raised me and turned me into....this. [The one word encompasses all of Maul, his psychopathic personality, the anger and pain he'd held onto for so long, his life being completely ruined by his master, getting turned from a person into a weapon and now spending the rest of his life trying to heal from that.] If you think I am dangerous, he is ten times as worse. He is pure evil. There is no reasoning with him, no way to appeal to any goodness that might reside within him, for he has none. All he has ever wanted in life is to gain power and he doesn't care how many people he must hurt or kill in order to do that. He's destroyed entire planets and every living thing that resided on them in order to do so. A city full of people is nothing to him if he wants to ascend to ultimate power.

Only his spirit has arrived rather than his physical body, so he is currently traveling from one body to the next as he tries to find a form he can take over for good. I have yet to discover a permanent way to banish him but I am open to suggestions. In the meantime, take whatever precautions you must in order to protect yourself and others. Trust me when I say if death is the only option, we must take it. You cannot afford to give him a chance, for he will brutally kill you if you give him one. Better to kill someone then allow him to remain and tear Trench apart at his whim.

His eyes look like this. [Maul closed his for a moment and channeled all the old anger he felt towards his master. When he reopened them, they had changed from the grey-brown color they had been holding steady as for the past three months and were back to the Sith yellow color they had remained for so many years.] They remain that color no matter who or what he is possessing, so it is a way to track whose form he is in. Please let me know if you spot a person or monster that has those eyes and I will deal with it.

[That euphemism of course meant that he would kill Sidious if he had to. Maul had gone over a year without killing anyone in Trench but he knew he couldn't afford to use kid gloves on his master. He'd need to be brutal and swift. He went to turn off the Omni and then paused, remembering one last thing he wanted to say.]

Oh, and Anakin? --The annoying whiny older one that is, not the annoying weird younger one-- if you try to interfere with this? I will stop you. That's not up for negotiation or debate. I'll kill you if I have to and keep you as a squid in the ocean to keep your idiotic devotion to this man from causing this situation to get worse. That is all.

[Then he does go and turn off the Omni for good this time.]

[OOC: This is the kickoff post for the Palpatine in Trench player plot! Feel free to interact with Maul, threadjack others to talk with them, or just head straight over to the log post to get started. As a reminder, Maul doesn't necessarily need to be involved in exorcising an NPC or character if you just want to do to something among two of you.]