RAMBLINGS OF AN ANTIHERO - THE BLOG OF THOMAS GUNN



RECENT NEWS
DOMINIC DIABLO DEAD
Not hours after deposed Chimaeran Queen, Gitanne Noblesse, declared that Diablo King Dominic Diablo was banished for being behind the Entropy attack, the Kindred Mafioso was reportedly killed after refusing to flee the city and step down as leader of his clan.  It is unclear whether the act was carried out by his own people or another party.  Adriana Diablo was declared the new Queen in an informal ceremony last night.  The young Queen was seen within Gitanne Noblesse's entourage at Aligheri's opening but has been unavailable for comments since then.

JUSTICANAL
In less than 12 hours Gitanne Noblesse, heiress to late Chimaeran King Marius Noblesse, and former Queen of the Chimaera will be judged by her peers after her grandsire Darian declared her unfit for rule and implicated her in the death of King Marius.  Deposed by the coup, if Gitanne is found guilty she will sentenced to Final Death.  What that means for us is still unclear, but undoubtedly the throne will be up for grabs to any who can fight and hold it.  If the Kindred Queen is found innocent, she can fight to regain her throne just as she did seven years ago after her sire's death. For those who do not know what the Justicanal is it is part magic, part quest, and part trial by jury. It is as old as the Chimaeran clans though it has evolved over the eras.  Full of magic, this trial by fire and jury is the final decision among the preternatural. There is no stay of execution or chance of a mistrial.  You are either found innocent of the charges or guilty and thus either save your life or lose it.  In the age of the Council there has never been a Justicanal for a King or Queen, nor have both parties been from the same clan.  The Justicanal consists of three parts: the sword (xiphos), the flame (heile) and the blood (haima).   The Judges/Jury consist of the 7 clans (Diablo, Giovanni, Seelie and Unseelie Courts, Shapeshifters, Talamasca, Feranti) and delegates from the Satinamuh and the Human World who are already part of the Council.  Charges must be made formally and be proven.  If the charge is false, punishment will de dealt firmly. Though humans are generally not permitted into the Chimaeran society, as a Council member I will try to report more when I attend the trial. 

NEW CHIMAERA HOTSPOT OPENED LAST NIGHT
Aligheri's, a themed entertainment hotspot opened last night with plenty of fanfare. The club, operated and owned by the Giovanni Kindred clan hopes to become a spot where both Chimaera and Mortals can mingle and enjoy themselves. If last night's turn out was any indication it will be the new place to be seen in the coming weeks. 

STORMY WEATHER OR SOMETHING MORE?
If you've looked up in the sky towards the East since last night, you will have no doubt seen the dark storm clouds brewing.  The weather service has declared a hurricane warning although they seem reluctant to actually call it a hurricane.  Regardless, I would stay inside if I were you tonight.

DIABLO BEHIND ENTROPY ATTACK
Two nights ago Entropy, the club owned and operated by High King Roarke Bellemorte and the Unseelie Court was attacked.  Casualties were reported from every clan, and after an announcement by Adriana Diablo it was discovered that the Diablo were behind the attack. The Chimaeran Task Force assures that the High King will not retaliate in any way and in fact Prince Ian has requested that funds be set aside for the victims. We will report more as we get it.

STARBUCKS BLOWS UP, PURGATORY RAIDED
Two days ago, according to Sgt Sullivan, a motorcycle had driven into a Starbucks and set the building ablaze. The perp had been spotted by more than a few bystanders screaming by Purgatory just seconds before the coffee shop went up in a fireball. the driver had made such a graceful leap from the bike before it made contact, it was an assumption that a Chimaera had been navigating. Naturally, the Chimaera Squad was called in and the team raided the popular Arena, Purgatory, where a fight between heavyweights Nethander and Gregson was taking place.  Apparently beneath the main arena is another club, a fight club, that the Chimaera frequent.  Several Chimaera were taken into custody including a lycanthrope rumored to be none other than Doyle Andrews, former lover of the deposed Queen Gitanne.  Several members of the Squad were also killed by an unidentified young woman with shocking red hair.  If anyone knows the whereabouts of this woman please contact the Police Department.

IN OTHER NEWS
President Bradley has been meeting with top officials from Australia, Japan, Greenland and Chile to discuss the new temples that have risen in the past couple of weeks.  It is unknown what other things the diplomats have been discussing, but President Bradley is expected to make a press conference in the next couple of days.

Rumors of a body, carved with strange symbols, have been reported to the police.  It is unknown who the victim or murderer are.  We will report more when we receive it.

THE WORLD SEEMS TO TOTTER?
May 20th (6 p.m.)

Current Mood: Concerned
Current Music: Always and Forever – Space Cowboy

There are less than one hundred South Asian tigers in the world. That’s counting the ones in the zoos and out in the wild, and although we try to save them by conservation projects it’s much like when you were seven years old and you broke the living room lamp because you were horsing around: it is your fault, you can’t glue it back together before somebody notices and when they do notice that’s your ass in a sling, kid. So goes the folly of mankind, I’m afraid. Six billion of us, ruling the planet with sheer numbers, our great leaders having all the accumulated wisdom of a brain-damaged bulldog, and that’s just dealing with our own kind, never mind our stranger neighbors that we share the planet with.

It’s a very simple thing when you step back and look at the problem between Mankind and the Chimaeras. We don’t like them because it a reminder of darker times when we weren’t in charge of the world. Back in the day we were the bystanders, the ones that hid in caves while the other species roamed the lands and worked magic by mere thought alone. From what I understand it only took the slightest whim in the early days and nearly everybody could do it except for us humans. Our climb to the top of the heap wasn’t due to weaponry or magic, no. The honest truth of it was that we fucked our way into contention and we’re still dominant by way of fucking.

You snigger at this, and fail to understand.

It’s a matter of birth rate, ladies and gentlemen. Humans don’t have the sheer power, man to man, that the Chimera possess, but there are six billion humans and counting (in fact there are so many of us that there’s a serious problem looming in the wings; you might look askance on the vampire two doors down, but face it, he’s not putting a strain on the planet). It certainly isn’t a matter of hi-tech weaponry versus magic, I’ll tell you that much, and if you can’t figure out why that is then you haven’t been paying attention to the world around you. If it really came down to a war both parties involved would have to seriously consider mass genocide; you would, in essence, have to have a very cold and very, very hard soul to see it through to it’s logical conclusion… or you would have to be scared out of your fucking mind. And when the dust settled you might not like the look of the planet afterwards.

I’m drinking as I write this, and my editor can go fuck himself if he has a problem with my opinions. You don’t like my words, don’t read my blog.

A heavy sigh and I go another topic that sits slightly better in my belly, but not by much: I’ve an appointment to see the Scarlet Lady later today, and this is just after the statement that was issued by Her Majesty Queen Gitanne of the Noblesse in regards to Dominic Diablo, who doesn’t have a title any longer. I have no idea on how to feel about such a thing. Elated, perhaps? The man ruled the underworld with an iron fist that wore a poisoned glove, but fact of the matter is that until he went bonky he kept that bag of snakes in order, and by that bag of snakes I mean the nastier criminal element in general. Now, never mind the pandemonium that’s going to happen a few hours from now when the NYPD collides with god knows how many Consiglieres and Caporegimes that have their eyes on becoming the new King of the Underworld. I didn’t like the man, he was a monster in the purest sense of the term, like Pol Pot or Stalin, but he was the devil that I knew and that devil kept everything stable. As you might have noticed things aren’t as stable as they used to be.

Anyway, the Scarlet Lady, aka Darian Noblesse, aka Madame Coup d'état…That’s something I can’t wrap my head around no matter how I view it, because the Noblesse, in regards to their own, ran a pretty tight ship. They had their arguments and tragedies sure, every family has that, but they presided over the other clans for a good two hundred years without much of the way of emergencies. Now, with all of these temples popping up, Darian decides on a sudden seizure of political power? What purpose does it serve to do such a thing so openly, even if Gitanne was presumably unfit to rule the Chimaera Nation? I must have missed something recently folks, because when I saw the woman – and this must have been maybe an hour ago – it didn’t look as if she was having anything close to a mental breakdown. Trust me on that one.

All of this and the murder of the Governor of Massachusetts, which made everybody’s hair stand on end, mine included. In light of the riots that had killed a number of chimaeras from every clan, I could see someone going off the deep end and making a statement. I don’t agree with it, I think that the murderer should be caught and thrown in prison for a thousand years… but I understand the motive. In fact, let me state right now that at this point in time nearly everybody is acting like a Grade A asshole on some level or another, and sadly I‘m starting to  think that  the snowball effect has gotten too big to stop with words and phrases. I have hope that it can be stopped though. One, because words and phrases are all I have, being a journalist, and two, those temples and this prophecy is bigger than all of us.

I need another drink and a pack of Marlboros, which is funny since I don't smoke. I also need to remind myself that I’m a council chair and I should act accordingly. For those faithful readers of this blog that are biting their nails over my safety? Not to worry, I’ll be fine.

IS THIS IT?
May 20th (5:30 a.m.)

Current Mood: Not good
Current Music: Placebo – Blue American

By now everyone has probably heard about Entropy.  For those of you who haven’t, just pick up your local or national paper. I have been writing about the Chimaera most, if  not all, of my journalistic life.  I keep thinking that nothing can surprise me anymore.  People. The world.  And I keep getting proved wrong. Entropy doesn’t matter.  Prince Ian’s little donation doesn’t matter either.  None of it will matter…

Everyone is choosing sides.  It all started two and half months ago:  the betrayal, the violence, the odd and the scary.  To be honest its all been like a soap opera.  A soap opera about the End of the World as we know it.  First there was the massacre at Club Muse, a club that was supposed to be a Sanctuary to all and then what we all thought was an assassination on High King Roarke Bellemorte.  I held my breath, along with millions of others assuming that the following morning we might discover another Venice Jihad on our hands.  Then that damn temple arose from the ground in Central Park both scaring the bejesus out of me and utterly fascinating me a the same time.  The devastating EMP two days later crippled the city and was a big cause of the anti Chimaeran mob sweeping through the city killing hundreds, a good portion of them Unseelie Fey.  Even I began to wonder if the End of Days was seriously fucking nigh.  Either that or World War Three.  Sure we've had chaos before, but it all seemed controlled somehow.  At least the Chimaera or we the humans knew something about it.  Not this time.  The more questions I asked, the more questions I got in return.  Even the Chimaera seemed to be as clueless as the rest of us which is scary considering the lifetimes half of them have lived through.  Maybe that's what has worried me the most.  Yep, good old Thomas Gunn actually worried.

In the days that followed the initial craziness, Katrina Diablo was killed in a massive explosion with more strange occurrences following soon after.  A war between the Talamasca and the Diablo was imminent and a rash of strange disappearances spread across our city streets.  The Queen of the Chimaera, Gitanne Noblesse, held a massive Masquerade Ball to calm fears and unite her people.  At least I think that was what her intentions were. And to be honest I really wanted her to unite the clans, to calm everything down.  I had hoped in calming the Chimaera maybe the rest of the world would calm too.  No such luck.  I should have known.  It was that night that the Queen's grandsire Darian Noblesse accused her grandchilde of murdering former King Marius, her son,  and staged a coup overthrowing Gitanne. The shiteth hath hiteth the fan…eth. I am not like them. I may live in their world, follow their moves even befriend them.  But I am human.  My mortality has become something I think of every day.  I have never been more aware of the consequences of one little coup despite the ones that happen every day in governments across the world.

In less than 24 hours, Queen Gitanne’s trial by fire will decide all of our fates.  Some hope she dies.  But despite all of her faults, will the next ruler be any better?  And what does that mean for the rest of us?  Who will be the first casualties?  Will our governments attack first rather than wait for what they think is inevitable?  But then I remember that little Prophecy everyone used to talk about.  It hasn’t gone away folks.  That temple is still in the Park.  Does it really matter if the Queen gets her throne back or if someone else takes it over?....

I have tried to cover as much news as I can, to keep you all informed whether it be through my actual articles or this mindless blog.  I don't know what's going to happen.  Personally I would rather go back to reporting tabloid type articles on my favored subject.  The seriousness…I don't like it. As for sides, I still haven't chosen mine. Eventually I will have to.  But for now, I have hope.  I have to.  What side are you on?

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