After-work

(Attention! Spoilers for the WITCH cartoon and comic book!)

Hello there. Hope that you enjoyed it. Pretty weird for a WITCH fanfic, eh? Well, not really. You see, dear reader, recently, due to the finalizing of my student period, I have enjoyed a sort of "WITCH-marathon", due to nostalgia. I have been re-watching the complete TV show and re-reading the first six or seven sagas of the comic. Dam I liked this thing when I was a kid.

I mean, the first season of the cartoon is weak as wet paper, but it has still its moments. The second season improves incredibly in comparison (bless Greg Weisman and the apparent fact that every story that he touches becomes almost gold; until he gets fired when the second seasons end) with better characterization, a better plot, and a mysterious, cunning, despicable, but also enjoyable and compressible villain (also the villains from the first season enjoyed a sudden augment in their IQs).

The comic book stars fantastically. It has a simple but effective plot, it has good characters for protagonists, it has amazing drawing (no, seriously, look at it, is awesome), a satanic archetype as the main villain, Cedric being MORE of an asshole than in the cartoon (although in the fifth arc he redeems himself by the power of love…) and an Elyon that starts in the bad side WILLINGLY AND BEING MORE COMPETENT THAN CEDRIC AT IT and also being creepy as hell (that scene in the cemetery at the beginning of the comic storyline. That smile. That was creepy). That it is, until Elisabetta Gnonegot out of the project, and Elyon became good (although in a much intelligent and developed way than in the cartoon, seriously she is incredibly smart in comparison with her cartoon version), Phobos passed from being an ultimate evil allegory of Satan to a… to his cartoon version from the second season; Caleb appeared out of nowhere as Cornellia´s dreaming man… and the list goes on. Trough subsequent story arcs, albeit interesting characters showing up, like Ari, Yua and Maqi (I like the cartoon Nerissa more than her comic counterpart, the version of Weissman seemed more complex and human)… the original idea, that looked a lot like an interesting and original comic book in the beginning; became an average commercial comic book with time. Especially when Barbucci (this man´s artistic talent is awesome) and the other original members of the team that survived Gnone´s firing quit the project.

And then, the third season gets cancelled. Because… Weisman Curse. So I was doing the marathon and I thought "Ey, this concepts could be used for a very incredible story if there is a third season someday" And a lot of people had thought of it already. Here, in fanfiction, there are a lot of people that had started to develop the WITCH universe with their own stories. Some ones with alternative versions of the cartoon seasons; others inventing their own third season (which I intend to do too); and others with their own original stories inside the comic version.

But what kind of story tell? Well, God or possibly the Devil, (certainly the Devil) wanted that, while I was re-reading the comic, I were also re-reading the Berserk manga, of Kentaro Miura. Yeah… you have possibly known that already if you are familiarized with Berserk. I am also a fan of Lovecraftarian horror and stories, and also I have read the Hellbound Hearth and watched the first and second Hellraiser movies a lot of times. You should probably know where this is going…

Yes, I pretend to unleash HELL on the protagonist´s faces. But, I cannot do that immediately. That is why this prologue, Four Royals of the Supernatural, IS a Prologue and it´s gonna be separated from the main story line. It is made that way to establish the Four as the final and most powerful of the antagonist; and the Abyss as the ultimate universal evil force of the story. But they are not going to fall into the antagonistic spot until the story is way advanced. I am going to create my own characters, I had planned to use characters that were planned to be used in the third season as the main antagonists at the start, I am going to recuperate old antagonists and redeem a few (wait until it happens, it is going to leave a surprise); while making sure that these Four are nothing but a word in the wind; but that also they are there, waiting. Sometimes they will appear and maybe interact with others (they are going to mindfuck a lot of people. Because why not?), but they are not going to be the primal antagonist until the half of the story, more or less; but some of the Dasa will start to show up to made the sensation that something is starting to go very wrong in a cosmic level. Until then, the main antagonist will be Theodore Riddle, and his lieutenants Victor and Sephiria Doomstad (which according to the wiki, would have been respectively expies of Dr. Doom and the Scarlet Witch of Marvel, which means that they must be badass and good antagonists) and their lackey Sylva, which we saw at the end of the second season (and in the comics, but there he was working for the Interpol).

The other reason why this prologue exists is to make sure that, not everything is gold and roses with the "Good Guys". Something that I despise from both the cartoon and the comic (and from fiction in general) is that the Good Guys (aka Kandrakar, the Rebels and the Guardians) are a Heavenly Flawless Force; and that it doesn´t matter how much a good point the antagonists make, they don´t doubt themselves and always win happy in the end. Also, where the hell are the sympathetic and well intentioned villains in this thing? The closest thing that we had is cartoon!Nerissa, and it was just an excuse to cover her addiction to power and the murder of her first lover. What? Everyone knows that there was something between cartoon!Nerissa and cartoon!Cassidy. Weisman confirmed it in his web!

So yeah, while Vritra and Ba´al Zaabub are my original characters (except the names, those are names of a Hindu Asura and a Sumerian God/Demon respectively) Qetesh and Moloch are N´ghala and Escanor; the First Oracle of Kandrakar and the First King of Meridian; which were shown into some comic specials, but almost briefly.

This is made to show how fucked up could really be the WITCH universe. Also, by having two completely heroic and flawless figures from the comics becoming members of this universe version of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, I am settling a plan in march to "Break the Haughty" at cosmic levels. I mean, could Kandrakar still be watched as a force of peace and good if their founder is nothing more than a sexual repressed monster? Could Phobos´s actions still be seen as wicked when the first man that wore the crown was nothing but a blood knight? And that the first Queen was a treacherous racist? That is the reason behind calling this fanfic "A different story"

And finally, this prologue is of course to show the Four´s stories, downfalls and motivations to become what now they are. Yes, they are Gods, but they are also just petty people that fell to despair and made the wrong choice. But they are also flawed mortals and those decisions are their decisions. Just like the girls are ordinary people that, deep down are extraordinary; these four were extraordinary people that deep down were sinners and that choose by themselves (with a little cosmic help) to become monsters and indulge in their desires in contrast to face their responsibilities and failures. Although they have very good reasons to be turned into monstrosities, they have committed monstrous acts (I will reveal some of them in the main story) just because they can and want to do it; and they are beyond redemption. They are ancient and godlike (no really, remember how in-universe a Hearth is incredibly powerful and it only represents a world? These four represent a whole universal concept. Elyon and the girls at full power are JUST a world. One of these is a ¼ of the whole universe! Well, the Abyss, in this case, which is an entity outside the universe), but they are also petty and cruel. That is what they are.

And, of course, Vritra is an expy of Void; Ba´al Zaabub is an expy of Ubik with a little touches of Conrad; Qetesh (which is the name of a goddess of sexuality) is an expy of Slan, and Moloch is a mix between Femto and Zodd. They are basically the WITCH version of the God Hand and the Cenobites.

And that is all. Whooohooo… What a discourse! So, I am going to leave this one here in the website; I will wait until comments show up, and then I will start with the story properly; showing our five girls and their relatives living their lives and playing their Guardian role; and starting to use Sylva as the starter villain to get into the Riddle arc; the first arc of this story. Because I am going to decompose the story in various arcs, just like the comic did. Of course, during the Riddle arc I will focus in the lives of the meridianites too. After all, they are an important part of the story and I want to develop them. But I want to develop them in their own. No Guardians popping out in Meridian almost daily to save the day. They need to be developed in their own. After all, Elyon has been trapped in a jewel for a lot of time and she has been deceived in two occasions; abandoning her world to its luck. Also, now Raythor is a good guy. But we shall not forget that he was once a loyal servant of the tyrant. And I suppose that the fact that discovering that he is a child by rape has left a few scars in Caleb´s psyche. That proves for a lot of character development and storytelling in its own. No need to merge the two bands of Good Guys against the same enemy since the beginning. Let's go slow and with good letter.

I promise that I will start working in the principal story soon. So until then, have pleasant days and nights.

I will see you all that start to read this in "A different story".

Goodbye.