Tale of the Valkyrie

Tale of the Valkyrie (Formerly Whispering Illusion) was considered to be Bhaalspawn's best story so far. It held a word count greater than all of Bhaal's other stories combined.

=Plot= The first story starts off when Meg and her family are going to shop for Halloween decorations. They meet up with a young boy named Matt, who is revealed to have been a good friend of Meg in Elementary school. Matt joins them to Lois's parents, where he saves Meg from freezing. He dies alter, after saving Meg from being kidnapped by street gangsters. Matt returns as Meg's Guardian Angel later in the story, and becomes the central protagonist. Matt and Meg then have a fairly episodic run of adventures, eventually leading up to several big showdowns with dangerously evil villians.

The story currently runs with two arcs. The first arc introduced Matt as an Angel, and followed him through learning his powers. This arc ended with a showdown after Matt was possessed by the then-unknown Shadow's Prey.

The second Arc followed Jaina more than Matt, as he was blind for the first half. THe plot in the second followed a mysterious trickster who called himself Shadow's Prey. The arc ended with Matt being possessed once again and fleeing.

=Characters=
 * Matthew Ryder: Protagonist. Matthew Ryder is a Valkyrie, assigned to guard his wife, Meg Griffin. He has a massive array of powers, and can do almost anything.
 * Jaina Ryder: Matt and Meg's infant daughter. She possesses many of her father's powers, as well as some unique powers of her own. She is rarely seen without Stewie around.
 * Xanatos Ryder: Antagonist. The dark part of Matt's soul. He hates Matt for an unexplained reason, and tries his best to kill him and his family. So far, he has only appeared once.
 * Karen and Jordon Smith: Matt's parents. Depicted as self obssessed and unlikeable. Not much else to say here.
 * Jacob Ryder: Meg and Matt's son. Born before the Shadow's Prey mini-arc, and featured prominently in the Mini-Arc.

=References To Pop Culture= Whispering Illusion has made the usual habit of referencing lines from the hit TV series Two and a Half Men, often with the same delivery, or similar context. Most of the references are hidden in quotes that are not often recognizeable, and add more to the humor rather than being strictly for a reference. More often than not, the line will be funny or thought provoking wihtout knowing the reference.

=Notes/Trivia=
 * Stewie gay jokes have been all but ommited in this story.
 * Several reviewers have critisized Bhaal for increasing the severity of Meg Bashing in this story.
 * Whispering Illusion holds far fewer Canon Elements than it's sister stories. The amount of Original Content seems to drown out the more obvious references. Bhaal stated that his Canon References are only used if they help or are related to the plot in some way.
 * Whispering Illusion has three games and a CGI Mini-Series under it's arc, made by Val'Kyr Studios.
 * After South Park's 201 Controversy, the episode The Angel Within: Part 2 contained numerous jokes at the expense of Comedy Central. Bhaal also dedicated the episode's RVI to the controversy.

=Goofs=
 * While Matt has stated that his robes are grafted onto his skin, and therefore unremoveable, he has removed them on several occasions.
 * Matt has stated to having no blood flow, due to the fact that he's dead, to any part of his body, yet him and Meg are still able to have sex. Also, when he does not have his sword, and he is cut, he bleeds.
 * Jaina directly told Stewie she wouldn't fall in love with him, yet she had a long standing relationship with him throughout the first two arcs of the story, and well into the third arc.
 * In the first thirty chapters, Matt's off hand sword was a normal iron sword. Yet, he was still able to deflect bullets and cut through anything with it.
 * In the first Whispering Illusion, Meg had a new look. In the second, she was reverted back to her old look without any explaination as to why.
 * Stewie said he would do Jaina if she lost the wings, yet he has previously said that her wings are the most attractive thing about her.
 * Matt went blind in the premire for Season 2, but there are several occasions where he can see perfectly. This may be a reference to Cartoons ignoring continuity.
 * The episode Jaina's Innocence contained many speech and canon errors, even by Bhaal's Canon standards.

=Running Gags= Mary Sue gags are often the most prevalent humor device in WI2. The main character, Matthew Ryder, has been established as one of the biggest Mary Sues there has ever been. Rather than scale it back, Bhaal decided to play the cliche for laughs, causing Matt to become a part-time Parody Sue.

On several occasions, Bhaal has set up a cutaway featuring a controversial topic (Lolicon, incest, ect.) only to narrate himself yelling at the reader for expecting such a cutaway. He then ends by saying "I don't even know why I'm talking to you. Piss off! Close the browser and fuck off back to The Spellbook/Stewie-Brian/Aerisdies!" The internet media he tells them to fuck off back to changes every time, but the joke remains the same.

Bhaal made a small exposure about content after his hiatus. One running gag that some people would have to look hard to notice, is that in each chapter, Jac will have a different middle name. This is usually to poke fun at pop culture, or simply to make readers wonder why the name was changed. So far, Jac's name change was to "Eddie", to poke fun at the Twilight Series.

"Eddie huh? I really have to take those books away from your mother. Matt when finding out his son's middle name in Road To The Multiverse."

=Reader Reaction= Whispering Illusion was marked incredibly high. Many people praised Bhaal's success at mixing Family Guy's trademark humor, with dramatic moments. People like how well Bhaal meshed Humor with Drama, and it is widely known that it is incredibly hard to do so. Whispering Illusion is also the only episodic Family Guy fanfic to not be marked as a Meg's Family Clone, due to it's floating genre, ande underlying plotline.

Critisizm
Only one user, Ander Arias has critisized Bhaal's story. He marks it down for the focus on Matt, which Bhaal addressed and is fixing in the second season. He also marked the story down for it's Stewie/Jaina incest pairing, as well as putting action into the list of genres. Ander has started "If you want to write an Action fic, then you are in the wrong section." This may be paraphrased. The same user critisized WI2 for it's floating genre. He stated that it's drama element doesn't belong in a Family Guy section. Conversly, Ander has given a perfect score to fics that are all drama and no humor.

WI2 has been critisized by a few as being very Non-Canon. The story centers less around the family, and more around their reaction to a looming threat. A lot of people have liked this treand, but Bhaal still get's critisizm from a select few.

Debate Thread Incident
Ander Arias had been planning to write a formal review on Whispering Illusion, and came to a point he was having trouble with. He asked Bhaal in the Debate Thread about why Stewie had changed so drasticly throughout the course of the story. Bhaal responded with somewhat obscure answers, as if he either didn't grasp the question, or he didn't have a definitive asnwer. After discussing the aspect with Ander for a bit, they came to the conclusion that Bhaal didn't have an explaination, and that the characterization was merely something that fell into his lap.

But another user, walked into the thread talking about how disgusted he was with how much the story had changed the canon. Bhaal responded quite angrily to these posts, marking that it was his story and he was free to do whatever he liked with it. He made a not that debating a story was a privellage given by the author, and that privelage could be rescinded at any time.

"As much as some people may love the Canon, they need to understand that there are people who don't love the canon, and they seek to improve upon it. I don't want to sound arrogant, but I will admit that I've improved on a lot of Family Guy's existing formula, while I am lacking in a few others. But every story has it's flaws, and demanding the same quality of work that you get from Harvard grads sitting in an office with twenty other writers is nothing short of unfair."

- Bhaalspawn, in a Full Punctuation interview.

When the argument seemed to be finished, Material, Tanadra, and Soldier of Sorrow responded in Bhaal's defense, stating that being Non-Canon is not nessacarily a bad thing, and that the readers of WI2 needed to take a different mindset than the readers of Meg's Family or The Spellbook.

In a sumamrize of the argument, it was clear that Ander was merely asking a question, to which Bhaal tried his best to answer. EdenLEO is considered the instigator, by trying to control how other people are writing, to which Bhaal clearly got offended and bit back. Some members of the forum, and even a few moderators wanted EdenLEO banned, and one moderator even suggested that herself and Bhaal turn in their moderator positions.

Bhaal deleted the posts containing the argument, and edned the argument by messaging Ander Arias, and giving him a more revised answer to his original question. The WI2 Debate Thread remained locked for a few weeks after it, and Bhaal even opened a Debate Thread on Canon Defilement to keep the Canon/Non-Canon arguments out of Fic Debate Threads.

Character Analysis Incident
In August of 2011, Tanadra posted an extensive character analysis of the story's main character, Matthew Ryder. In retaliation, another user posted a response trying to refute all of her points. This was nothing new to the story's reputation, as the critisism posted had been said repeatedly by the same person. Tanadra at the time was masquerading under the identity of a celebrity, and she was called out on it. In response, Bhaalspawn announced that Tanadra had written the analysis in December, before dying of suicide in January. It was at Material's urging that Bhaal posted the analysis for others to see. This revelation on who Tanadra was sparked another user to refer to the story as a "soap opera". This plucked a particularly fine nerve in Bhaal, who left the forum, deleted his stories and announced on his deviantART blog that he was leaving FF.Net for good. Material posted a message on the forum calling out the other user on his behavior, but it was deleted by the forum administrator the next day.

Currently, Bhaalspawn hasn't been seen on Fanfiction.Net, though he remains active on Youtube and deviantART. He has said he will only return to the site should he recieve an apology, upon which he will administer one in return.