#i took the artifacts from him to recycle them the other day

[rouge-heichou]

we are underlevelled and poorly built, but thats okay. 

[shychick-52]

So, in the EPCOT interactive game DuckTales World Showcase Adventure, there are seven countries with a different mystical artifact- the Seven Plunders of the World- hidden in each one. It’s basically a scavenger hunt, and the player (‘Adven-sharer’, as the Ducks call them) looks for clues to help the Ducks find each treasure and thwart a variety of villains from stealing them. The enemies are a mix of regular/recurring villains and one-time villains from certain episodes. The seven countries in the game are Mexico, Norway, Germany, France, Japan, and China.

When I watched all the videos of them on YouTube, I was delighted to learn that Gyro and Fenton are in the game too! They aren’t in every country/mission, though- Gyro is in the France mission and Fenton is in the Japan mission.

…I was shocked that Gyro isn’t in the Japan mission, because of his significant association with Japan revealed in the season 3, episode 6 episode ‘Astro B.O.Y.D.’! ‘Astro B.O.Y.D’ took place in Japan, which was not only where Gyro suffered a traumatic past that changed him for the worse (his backstory is so good, and explains why he became the embittered, distant, and seemingly arrogant present-day Gyro), but also where he ended up gaining closure about his past, the beautiful beginnings of much-needed character development and healing, and the beautiful beginnings of a relationship with his robot son Boyd at the end of the episode. If Gyro had’ve been in the Japan mission of DuckTales World Showcase Adventure, maybe we could have also gotten a Boyd reference or even a cameo, which would’ve been fantastic because that little guy and his relationship with Gyro are both criminally overlooked.

It turned out that Gyro's role in DuckTales World Showcase Adventure (where he still wasn't given much character development, but was still hilariously snarky as usual XD) was in the France mission instead.

Sooo, no Gyro (or Boyd) in the Japan mission. But surely Akita is the bad guy for that one, right? You know, this guy? Guy responsible for forcing Boyd to be a killer robot and destroying Tokyolk?

I mean, that should've been the obvious choice, right?? Sure, he’s only a one-time villain, but three other one-time villains were brought back for the game to represent their respective nations (Toad Liu Hai for the China mission, the Kelpies for the United Kingdom mission, and Hecka- one of the Valhalla wrestlers the family faced in ‘Rumble for Ragnarok’- for the Norway mission).

Wrong! The villains for the Japan mission were the Beagles and Mark Beaks (which make zero sense), who’d teamed up to steal the Illustrated Scroll of Quackagawa from the temple where it was stored. (More ‘Astro B.O.Y.D.’ erasure, ugh) Turns out Ma Beagle had Beaks design a robot lookalike of Webby to steal the treasure and frame the real Webby at the same time. The plan was for the Beagles to sell Beaks the Scroll so he could “add it to his extensive collection of rare historical manga.” Ok, then…

Well, neither Gyro, Boyd, or Akita were even mentioned in the Japan mission, but we did get one reference to ‘Astro B.O.Y.D.’! A very quick image of Inspector Tezuka (silent recycled footage from that episode) while Dewey was explaining that “local police think that the real Webby took the Scroll because the bot looks exactly like her.” So, that was pretty neat!

Ok, I admit that Fenton was the second-best choice for the Japan mission. Fenton’s role in this mission? Well... once Beaks learned how dangerous the Scroll’s powers were, he stupidly decided to use the robot to activate those powers because “that story would be trending for at least an hour!” So, they needed a “robot expert” to help them stop the robot.

Still, you’d think Gyro would be that robot expert, right? I mean, duh. It’s Gyro, c’mon, who else?! DX All the more reason for him to be in this mission, and they blow it again. It takes place in Japan and involves an evil robot, and they don’t use him??

(At this point, Fenton should have reminded them that Gyro's the real robotics expert)

Well, ok, by “robot expert”, Huey was actually hinting that Fenton could handle it because he’s Gizmoduck (which Dewey clarified)- a superhero in a robotic suit of armor, which would be more than a match for the robot imposter of Webby.  Fair enough, I admit. I mean, Fenton’s role in this does make sense when you consider that. But still… it’s Gyro, man.

Quit squandering all these perfect opportunities to feature him (and Akita), DuckTales team!! DX

And even if Gyro still was banned from Japan at the end of 'Astro B.O.Y.D.' (even tho he was instrumental in saving the day and it was revealed the '2-BO' incident was neither his or Boyd's fault), there was no reason for Akita not to be in the Japan mission!!

Oh, and this post also explains how it was also a missed opportunity for them to reveal Akita ending up in F.O.W.L. in the show.

[novankenn]

"Ozpin's Fault AU"

Headmaster has Headache (1/1) (770 Words)

(Tumblr exclusive "Remake" of Oops My Bad posted on AO3)

Ozpin groaned, as he felt as if Ms Xiao Long and Ms Valkyrie were having a wack-a-grimm contest in his head. With his eyes still closed, he forced his aching and oddly cold body to roll over on to his back. Once flat on his back, he slowly opened his eyes and quickly shut them again as the morning light flooded in, not to mention that everything in his vision seemed to be swimming.

"That's it." he moaned, as he rolled onto his side. "No more Vacuoing my coffee... damn you Ironwood."

Ozpin knew it wasn't right to really blame the General for his choice of stress relieving activity, but still it felt good to blame someone, other than himself. With another groan, he rose to his knees and finally opened his eyes fully. Everything still swam, but was also completely out of focus.

"Glasses... need my glasses..." he muttered to himself as he set about searching the floor about him for the necessary accessory. "There they are."

With his eyewear firmly back where they belonged, he looked about. He was still in his office, and from the pretty much empty bottle of Mistralian whisky nearby, he knew he had over indulged.

"I can't let Qrow..." Ozpin paused, his thought processes slowly kicking into gear. "No, it's Glynda that I have to avoid finding out about this, not Qrow. He wouldn't care."

Ozpin leaned back, arching his spine and getting a satisfying pop, that instantly made him feel much less stiff. Rolling his shoulders, he placed his hands against his thighs and started to rise to his feet, only to stop when he realized that his hands were touching his bare thighs.

"Am I seriously only in my underwear?" he asked himself, "Wait! Nope, because they are over by my bookcase."

Sighing, he rose and just ignored the breeze on his nether area as he began to move about his office, picking up and putting on his various pieces of discarded clothing. Once clothed, he located his cane, and turned on his coffee maker. While it brewed, he made a quick trip to his attached bathroom to relieve his aching bladder, and freshen up.

Returning a few minutes later, he picked up the bottle, and a discarded book near the window that overlooked the garden. Depositing the bottle in the recycling bin, he placed the book on his desk and went to pour himself a mug of coffee. With the proper additions of creamer, and sugar, he took his first sip and nearly moaned.

"Libations of the Gods." he whispered to himself, before taking a second sip and letting the warm caffeinated goodness flow through him.

Carefully setting his mug on his desk, he took the next few minutes digging about his desk drawers until he located a small bottle of painkillers. Popping two into his mouth, he swallowed the capsules before taking a seat, and sighing for like the umpteenth time that morning.

Ignoring the book, he took several more sips of coffee, before powering up his holographic terminal.

"No word from Glynda, so maybe nothing out of the ordinary happened last night... lucky me."

Checking through his messages, and alerts, he saw everything was clear, and after a few more sips, he prepared to suffer through the rest of his day. As he began to sift through the messages from council about the Vytal festival preparations; his eyes drifted to the book he had picked up from the floor.

Deciding the council could wait for another five minutes, he reached over and pulled the well-worn leather-bound tome before him. As he looked at the very plain look manuscript, something in the back of his mind began to fight to see the light of day. Ozpin's eyes narrowed, as possible memories floated past his still hungover mind.

Picking the book up, he turned it about in his hands. It was definitely a Pre-Great War artifact, which wasn't unusual. He had several similar looking and aged books in his private collection. See as there was no title on the cover, he set it down and opened it. His eyes grew wide when he saw the title.

“TRANSMUTATION! THE GAG OF A LIFETIME!”

"Fucking shitcakes" he groaned as his shoulders drooped, and his eyes closed, trying to shut out the title of the book. Somehow, at some point, he knew he was going to hear about something having happened. Slamming the cover closed, he pulled open the large bottom drawer of his desk and dumped the book into it.

"I never saw that book, it does not exist. I did nothing."

[starrosefics-archive]

Treasure Bin- Chapter 1

Summary: MK hears about his great-aunt’s passing, Macaque gets back in contact with some old friends, and MK gets a call from his sister.

Notes: @watermelonjuicee wrote a fic based on one of my posts and I’ve been riding that happy high since yesterday. Go check it out.

Prologue

-_-

MK woke up to come down to a quiet restaurant.

That wasn’t unusual at the early hour and Tang only on his second bowl, he had been finding out. He had been falling asleep faster at night, which had been allowing him to wake up earlier. It had been agreed that this was due to his increased physical activity as the Monkie Kid. (Pigsy, much to his delight, had been giving him bigger portions of food to help.)

But this was a different silence. He opened his mouth to ask when his eyes landed on the newspaper. Tang grabbed it, but it was too late.

WEALTHY SPINSTER PASSED

He froze, heart not sure whether it wanted to sink or start running like a rabbit. He knew the woman that the article was talking about. 

For a moment, MK was back to feeling a wrinkled hand run through his hair, an aged voice cooing You’re our most precious treasure, starshine-

“-MK.”

It was Pigsy’s voice, calm and certain, that drew him back. MK tried a shaky smile. (The chef noticed the shakiness and added it to the mental list of ‘reasons to look up therapists’.) “Sorry.” He nodded to the article. “Great- She- dead?” Tang, thankfully, understood.

“Three days ago.” He thought before offering the article, relief passing over his face when the younger man shook his head. “They kept it secret until she could be buried.” Pigsy snatched it away, crumbling it up and throwing it at the recycling.

“C’mon kid, it doesn’t matter. Kitchen.”

“Yes sir.” MK said, thoughts already moving away from his former family and to helping Pigsy prepare.

Well, his thoughts attempted to move away.

He was stuck puzzling over Great Aunt Tetra all day. He greeted Mei when she poked her head in, did deliveries, and took orders, but it was all on autopilot. Sure, he didn’t like the woman- no. Dislike wasn’t the word to describe it. But he had known her.

Eventually, he had some free time to slip away to Flower Fruit Mountain. As he climbed the peak, he considered every angle until his brain landed on one question.

How was Bao taking it?

-_-

Princess Iron Fan was careful.

Being careful was often the only thing saving you from the forces of Heaven or whatever came. That was the lesson she had taught Red Son. So, as the world changed, both of them were careful with money. Both of them were careful with resources. And Iron Fan, most of all, was careful with places.

The small palace that the Demon Bull family now inhabited was the same palace DBK had lived in centuries ago, back when they were preparing for his strike against the Monkey King. The same strike that ultimately landed him under a mountain. His wife and son had lived there for a few years before moving to the city, but Iron Fan had been careful to keep a few servants in the hidden complex to keep it updated.

After the mess that the last lair had been left in, everyone was glad for that one.

Especially Red Son.

He sat in his room, staring at a bracelet. It was a cuff bracelet, made out of gold with one small ruby. The jewel itself matched the headband of a certain boy. He twirled the piece absently, considering the implications that hadn’t filled his head when he had started crafting the gift.

There was a knock on the door. Red let out a yelp, trying to both stuff the bracelet into his pocket and scramble off the bed. "Come in!" He managed out eventually, smoothing his shirt down.

The door opened, revealing a servant. He straightened, trying to look like the cool and confident prince he was. “Your parents request your presence.” they said with a bowed head. Red Son nodded, not trusting his voice.

He stalked out of his room, keeping his head high. It was probably to talk over plans, he supposed. There had been some silent agreement to not talk about the White Bone Spirit at the moment. But his thoughts kept wandering.

To his enraged father.

To the cry of traitor.

To MK-

A chuckle broke him out of his thoughts. Red Son looked around, confused and a little wary due to the said spirit. There was a tap on his shoulder and he let out a shout. On instinct, his fist slammed out before slamming into a hand. There was another chuckle.

“Jumpy, kid?”

He drew back. “Macaque.” he said, giving a respectful bow of his head. The dark-furred immortal chuckled, eyes glowing. “Excuse me. I...”

“We weren’t expecting you here, Macaque.” His mother’s voice broke the tension as she strode down the hallway, his father following. Her face was frozen into one of politeness and he couldn’t blame her. Given his and Monkey King’s past...relationship, it was hard to determine if he was now friend or foe. “What brings you.”

Unannounced was the word Iron Fan didn’t use.

“Iron Fan!” Macaque said, striding forward to meet her. He grabbed her hand to press a chaste kiss to it. “Can’t a guy come visit some old friends?” She drew her hand away. “Anyway, I’ve heard about your difficulties.”

“There are no difficulties at the moment.” his mother said stiffly.

Macaque chuckled. “Denial. But I’ve brought all of us a chance.” He pulled out a jar, full of what Red Son could only describe as slime. “One of the few sorceresses in the world left us three days ago.” Everyone stared at the information as Macaque swirled the jar. “But she did manage to leave us this.” He snapped his fingers. “And we still have a guide.”

Out of the shadows, probably carried by one of his shadow clones, a girl tied up was thrown. She looked to be a few years older then Red, dressed in a teal sweater and white leggings, and covered in soot. She also looked completely pissed. Macaque stepped forward, ignoring how she was struggling against her bonds, and pulled out the gag.

She coughed, clearly getting used to the freedom of speech, before ignoring everyone except Macaque. “I told you already, I have no idea exactly what that does! It could make the Monkey King loopy or it could kill him! It could blow us up! I! Have! No idea!”

His mother grabbing her shoulder stopped the struggles. “Ah ah ah! Except you do!” Macaque pulled out an aging journal. He paused. “Excuse me, I’m being rude. Everyone, meet the Monkie Kid’s older sister, Bao.”

MK had an older sister?

“And you better not touch a hair on his head!” Bao yelled, struggling against her bonds again. “Look, I might know what that stuff is supposed to do, but I have no idea if it does and you f-”

Macaque pulled out his staff.

She went silent.

“This stuff,” He explained to his audience, holding up the glowing jar. “Is a special spell that her great aunt developed. For lack of a better word, it’s a virus that loosens their controls, like under the influence of alcohol. Which means that they’re easy to catch and control.”

Red stepped forward, considering the jar. “And what do you want?” he voiced.

Macaque grinned harder. “Simple. To work with you to create a trap for both Wukong and MK. She,” Bao grunted as he gave her a kick. “Is the current owner of a huge warehouse full of magical artifacts. Artifacts that will be useful to you and...” He leaned forward, eyes lighting up. “Especially to the brat. I get Wukong to undo whatever that monk did to him. You get MK-”

“LEAVE HIM ALONE!”

“SHUT UP!”

“Shutting up.”

“As I was saying, you get MK for whatever you want.” Macaque said, smoothing back his hair from where it had fluffed up. Red Son's thoughts whirled, all circling around the bracelet in his pocket. He didn't move, however. Instead, he watched his parents before Iron Fan finally nodded. “Great! As for you!”

Bao winced as he reached...to untie her. She blinked when the bonds came loose and he pulled out a phone. “Call your brother. I told you, you’ll come with us but at the end of it, you’re going free.”

She glared but typed in the number.

-_-

“My great aunt’s dead.”

Wukong let out a yelp. MK couldn’t blame him- it had come out of nowhere. They were in the middle of after-spar meditation, but he couldn’t keep it down. “I...” the immortal said after a moment. “I’m sorry- wait, no. Your great aunt, from what I saw, was a bitch.”

“I know!” MK said it in a burst. “God, I hated her when I left. But she’s still my blood and I...I don’t know? Feel sad?” He stood, starting to pace. “She thought I couldn’t do a thing for myself, just because I couldn’t do magic like her or Bao or my parents! But she...I don’t know.” He sat back down, staring at his hands. “She still loved me. Kinda.”

His mentor stared before letting out a sigh. “Kid...you shouldn’t think about this. You left because she was your family and she was unhealthy. You shouldn’t let the family part weigh you down-”

There was a ringing. MK pulled out his phone. The number niggled at his memory, but he didn’t remember where. With a shrug at Wukong, he answered. “Hello?”

“Star- MK?”

“BAO?!” On instinct and encouraged by Wukong’s frantic waves, MK moved to end the call.

“Wait, wait, wait- I left!”

He paused. “What?”

“I left Mom and Dad. And...that’s why I’m calling you. Auntie left the shop to me.”

He blinked before moving forward. “That’s great. But I don’t want you in my life, so...”

“I want to make amends.”

He paused again. “What?”

“I...I’m calling. Because I want to make amends.” The words were awkward and the silence was long. Long enough that MK could barely make out a few taps, repeating over and over again. “The White Bone Spirit’s still loose, right? There’s some artifacts here that could help you.”

More tapping. A pattern, repeating over and over again.

“Okay.” MK hadn’t realized he had said it before Bao was talking again.

“Great! That- that’s great! Most of it is in this other warehouse, down north, but Auntie had a portal. I’ll leave instructions and I’ll meet you there, cool?”

He nodded before realizing she couldn’t see. “Yeah. Cool. Bye.”

“...Bye. Dress up warm!” Then the call was over and MK was left staring at his phone. Wukong let out a whistle, startling his student.

“Well, that was a trainwreck-”

“Bao’s in trouble.”

[starsfic]

Treasure Bin- Chapter 1

Summary: MK hears about his great-aunt’s passing, Macaque gets back in contact with some old friends, and MK gets a call from his sister.

Notes: Reposted from my old blog. @purble-turble

-_-

MK woke up to come down to a quiet restaurant.

That wasn’t unusual at the early hour and Tang only on his second bowl, he had been finding out. He had been falling asleep faster at night, which had been allowing him to wake up earlier. It had been agreed that this was due to his increased physical activity as the Monkie Kid. (Pigsy, much to his delight, had been giving him bigger portions of food to help.)

But this was a different silence. He opened his mouth to ask when his eyes landed on the newspaper. Tang grabbed it, but it was too late.

WEALTHY SPINSTER PASSED

He froze, heart not sure whether it wanted to sink or start running like a rabbit. He knew the woman that the article was talking about.

For a moment, MK was back to feeling a wrinkled hand run through his hair, an aged voice cooing You’re our most precious treasure, starshine-

“-MK.”

It was Pigsy’s voice, calm and certain, that drew him back. MK tried a shaky smile. (The chef noticed the shakiness and added it to the mental list of ‘reasons to look up therapists’.) “Sorry.” He nodded to the article. “Great- She- dead?” Tang, thankfully, understood.

“Three days ago.” He thought before offering the article, relief passing over his face when the younger man shook his head. “They kept it secret until she could be buried.” Pigsy snatched it away, crumbling it up and throwing it at the recycling.

“C’mon kid, it doesn’t matter. Kitchen.”

“Yes sir.” MK said, thoughts already moving away from his former family and to helping Pigsy prepare.

Well, his thoughts attempted to move away.

He was stuck puzzling over Great Aunt Tetra all day. He greeted Mei when she poked her head in, did deliveries, and took orders, but it was all on autopilot. Sure, he didn’t like the woman- no. Dislike wasn’t the word to describe it. But he had known her.

Eventually, he had some free time to slip away to Flower Fruit Mountain. As he climbed the peak, he considered every angle until his brain landed on one question.

How was Bao taking it?

-_-

Princess Iron Fan was careful.

Being careful was often the only thing saving you from the forces of Heaven or whatever came. That was the lesson she had taught Red Son. So, as the world changed, both of them were careful with money. Both of them were careful with resources. And Iron Fan, most of all, was careful with places.

The small palace that the Demon Bull family now inhabited was the same palace DBK had lived in centuries ago, back when they were preparing for his strike against the Monkey King. The same strike that ultimately landed him under a mountain. His wife and son had lived there for a few years before moving to the city, but Iron Fan had been careful to keep a few servants in the hidden complex to keep it updated.

After the mess that the last lair had been left in, everyone was glad for that one.

Especially Red Son.

He sat in his room, staring at a bracelet. It was a cuff bracelet, made out of gold with one small ruby. The jewel itself matched the headband of a certain boy. He twirled the piece absently, considering the implications that hadn’t filled his head when he had started crafting the gift.

There was a knock on the door. Red let out a yelp, trying to both stuff the bracelet into his pocket and scramble off the bed. “Come in!” He managed out eventually, smoothing his shirt down.

The door opened, revealing a servant. He straightened, trying to look like the cool and confident prince he was. “Your parents request your presence.” they said with a bowed head. Red Son nodded, not trusting his voice.

He stalked out of his room, keeping his head high. It was probably to talk over plans, he supposed. There had been some silent agreement to not talk about the White Bone Spirit at the moment. But his thoughts kept wandering.

To his enraged father.

To the cry of traitor.

To MK-

A chuckle broke him out of his thoughts. Red Son looked around, confused and a little wary due to the said spirit. There was a tap on his shoulder and he let out a shout. On instinct, his fist slammed out before slamming into a hand. There was another chuckle.

“Jumpy, kid?”

He drew back. “Macaque.” he said, giving a respectful bow of his head. The dark-furred immortal chuckled, eyes glowing. “Excuse me. I…”

“We weren’t expecting you here, Macaque.” His mother’s voice broke the tension as she strode down the hallway, his father following. Her face was frozen into one of politeness and he couldn’t blame her. Given his and Monkey King’s past…relationship, it was hard to determine if he was now friend or foe. “What brings you.”

Unannounced was the word Iron Fan didn’t use.

“Iron Fan!” Macaque said, striding forward to meet her. He grabbed her hand to press a chaste kiss to it. “Can’t a guy come visit some old friends?” She drew her hand away. “Anyway, I’ve heard about your difficulties.”

“There are no difficulties at the moment.” his mother said stiffly.

Macaque chuckled. “Denial. But I’ve brought all of us a chance.” He pulled out a jar, full of what Red Son could only describe as slime. “One of the few sorceresses in the world left us three days ago.” Everyone stared at the information as Macaque swirled the jar. “But she did manage to leave us this.” He snapped his fingers. “And we still have a guide.”

Out of the shadows, probably carried by one of his shadow clones, a girl tied up was thrown. She looked to be a few years older then Red, dressed in a teal sweater and white leggings, and covered in soot. She also looked completely pissed. Macaque stepped forward, ignoring how she was struggling against her bonds, and pulled out the gag.

She coughed, clearly getting used to the freedom of speech, before ignoring everyone except Macaque. “I told you already, I have no idea exactly what that does! It could make the Monkey King loopy or it could kill him! It could blow us up! I! Have! No idea!”

His mother grabbing her shoulder stopped the struggles. “Ah ah ah! Except you do!” Macaque pulled out an aging journal. He paused. “Excuse me, I’m being rude. Everyone, meet the Monkie Kid’s older sister, Bao.”

MK had an older sister?

“And you better not touch a hair on his head!” Bao yelled, struggling against her bonds again. “Look, I might know what that stuff is supposed to do, but I have no idea if it does and you f-”

Macaque pulled out his staff.

She went silent.

“This stuff,” He explained to his audience, holding up the glowing jar. “Is a special spell that her great aunt developed. For lack of a better word, it’s a virus that loosens their controls, like under the influence of alcohol. Which means that they’re easy to catch and control.”

Red stepped forward, considering the jar. “And what do you want?” he voiced.

Macaque grinned harder. “Simple. To work with you to create a trap for both Wukong and MK. She,” Bao grunted as he gave her a kick. “Is the current owner of a huge warehouse full of magical artifacts. Artifacts that will be useful to you and…” He leaned forward, eyes lighting up. “Especially to the brat. I get Wukong to undo whatever that monk did to him. You get MK-”

“LEAVE HIM ALONE!”

“SHUT UP!”

“Shutting up.”

“As I was saying, you get MK for whatever you want.” Macaque said, smoothing back his hair from where it had fluffed up. Red Son’s thoughts whirled, all circling around the bracelet in his pocket. He didn’t move, however. Instead, he watched his parents before Iron Fan finally nodded. “Great! As for you!”

Bao winced as he reached…to untie her. She blinked when the bonds came loose and he pulled out a phone. “Call your brother. I told you, you’ll come with us but at the end of it, you’re going free.”

She glared but typed in the number.

-_-

“My great aunt’s dead.”

Wukong let out a yelp. MK couldn’t blame him- it had come out of nowhere. They were in the middle of after-spar meditation, but he couldn’t keep it down. “I…” the immortal said after a moment. “I’m sorry- wait, no. Your great aunt, from what I saw, was a bitch.”

“I know!” MK said it in a burst. “God, I hated her when I left. But she’s still my blood and I…I don’t know? Feel sad?” He stood, starting to pace. “She thought I couldn’t do a thing for myself, just because I couldn’t do magic like her or Bao or my parents! But she…I don’t know.” He sat back down, staring at his hands. “She still loved me. Kinda.”

His mentor stared before letting out a sigh. “Kid…you shouldn’t think about this. You left because she was your family and she was unhealthy. You shouldn’t let the family part weigh you down-”

There was a ringing. MK pulled out his phone. The number niggled at his memory, but he didn’t remember where. With a shrug at Wukong, he answered. “Hello?”

“Star- MK?”

“BAO?!” On instinct and encouraged by Wukong’s frantic waves, MK moved to end the call.

“Wait, wait, wait- I left!”

He paused. “What?”

“I left Mom and Dad. And…that’s why I’m calling you. Auntie left the shop to me.”

He blinked before moving forward. “That’s great. But I don’t want you in my life, so…”

“I want to make amends.”

He paused again. “What?”

“I…I’m calling. Because I want to make amends.” The words were awkward and the silence was long. Long enough that MK could barely make out a few taps, repeating over and over again. “The White Bone Spirit’s still loose, right? There’s some artifacts here that could help you.”

More tapping. A pattern, repeating over and over again.

“Okay.” MK hadn’t realized he had said it before Bao was talking again.

“Great! That- that’s great! Most of it is in this other warehouse, down north, but Auntie had a portal. I’ll leave instructions and I’ll meet you there, cool?”

He nodded before realizing she couldn’t see. “Yeah. Cool. Bye.”

“…Bye. Dress up warm!” Then the call was over and MK was left staring at his phone. Wukong let out a whistle, startling his student.

“Well, that was a trainwreck-”

“Bao’s in trouble.”

[dandiesunzipped]

A Series of Unfortunate Debaggings, Chapter the First: The Wretched Reunion

If you are looking for happy-go-lucky Tumblr posts, dear reader, then exit out of this browser tab this instant. Then open your search engine of choice and enter “octogenarian makes friends with a hummingbird.” Or, better yet, destroy your electronic device in a fire and never open an internet browser again, sparing yourself from the cruelty and misfortunes of the world.

You see, dear reader, it is a sad truth in life that order continually diminishes. A cracked egg may never uncrack, yet clean, white eggs everywhere continue to fall off refrigerator shelves, adding to the world’s misfortune and chaos. A secret organization, however brilliant, talented, and kind its members were, may never truly heal after a devastating schism. And the corpse of a cherished loved one will never, ever unburn, no matter how grievously an author weeps over the pitiful tale. 

In the story I am about to tell, I am sorry to report on a panoply of augmenting disorganization, a phrase which here means “not what you want to read.” Orphans grow two years older, and with those years develop styles and interests ever more macabre and meterless--which is to say, one orphan does that. Mystery and intrigue each grow heavier and more complex, like how the derelicts that fill your recycling bin grow heavier and more complex with each passing day. And finally, all the young men in this tale (with the exception of one) are eventually separated from their clean-pressed trousers, left for the remainder of the tale with their scandalously mid-twentieth century underpants exposed.

This story begins like many before it: Violet, Klaus, Sunny, and Beatrice Baudelaire were charming, resourceful children, each with pleasant facial features and each with certain precocious gifts in the arts or sciences, such as memorizing and reciting passages of British Modernist poetry.

“We shall not cease from exploration,” recited Klaus, expertly steering the Beatrice onward. The outrigger bobbed in the gentle waves as it approached a safe gap in the line of ominous jagged rocks on the horizon that Violet had identified.

“And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.”

As the four Baudelaires walked across the sand and then through the waterfall of foliage on the hill separating the halves of their island, Violet recited the next stanza:

“Through the unknown, unremembered gate,” When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall.”

All at once, fond and wretched memories swarmed together. At last, the Baudelaires were back at the tree. The tree where their parents had lived and ruled. The tree that held secrets below the root. The tree that had saved them from a sad, painful death.

“And the children in the apple-tree” finished Sunny.

“I’ve always found T.S. Eliot opaque,” noted Klaus, “but that poem of his is clearly relevant to our situation today, don’t you think? Who would have thought we’d return to this apple tree?” 

“Before you wax too romantic,” Violet said warmly but firmly, “Don’t forget our purpose here: to collect supplies and leave this evening. If we leave too late, we may be living on this island another year thanks to the tides.”

“Yeah, I’ll be in the library” said Klaus vacantly rushing away, past the old elephant skeleton and into the open arboretum. Violet shook her head, knowing exactly what silly trinket Klaus would be fruitlessly searching for all day.

As afternoon rudely pushed into evening, desperation rudely pushed Klaus to the ground, as he kicked and tossed flotsam around near his feet. The most interesting artifact he had found today was his old concierge shirt, which he now wore to complement his sandy trousers. “I know it’s here...” he murmured to himself. “Father--what would you have done?” That’s when a new idea struck the middle Baudelaire, a bit like the moment when Violet’s hero Sir Isaac Newton was struck by his big idea.

“Last year,” he asked Violet breathlessly as they rushed past each other in the arboretum, “Did you ever look behind the book case in Ishmael’s upper room?”

“No... but remember, Klaus: no matter what, we’re leaving this wasteland tonight at the violet hour. If the tide recedes too far, the Beatrice will scrape the rocky atoll and may sink!

But Klaus was already gone. Up the stairs of the massive apple tree Klaus ran. In Ishmael’s upper chamber, bookcases had been carved into the tree itself, with centuries of histories of the island filling the space. Klaus spent several minutes finding the volume that about the first arrival of “Ish” to the island. Reaching deep into the carved space behind this volume, Klaus finally touched what he was looking for. Greedily grabbing the long, mahogany object, he blew, long and steadily, even though it was Decision Day and not Rosh Hashanah.

Satisfied, Klaus joined his family. They took Beatrice on a visit to her mother’s grave to place flowers and recite to the young girl their precious few memories of her mother. After Sunny and Beatrice went off to finish dinner preparation, Violet and Klaus stood pensively over Olaf’s grave. Then Violet spoke, flatly:

“We learned so much from him.”

Klaus stared. “I mean, he was a horrible villain,” Violet clarified, “but if it hadn’t been for the pressure he placed on us, I never would have thought of so many inventions, and you never would have learned about nuptial law, for example.”

Klaus nodded. “And I doubt he’s responsible for our parents’ deaths, anyway.”

“Oh, don’t bring that up again, Klaus,” said Violet shaking her head and walking away. “Of course it was him!”

“But he didn’t confess, even when we finally pressed him!” Klaus called after her. “Even on his deathbed! Even after he saved Kit!”

Later, over a parting supper of smoked oysters, seaweed wraps, and coconut smoothies, the cook confronted her brother about his wasted hours during the others’ laborious day: “What’s in the box?” Sunny asked perkily. After a day of labor, all Klaus had to offer the boating party was a light, tightly wrapped package shaped like a question mark.

“Oh, it’s just an old artifact I was researching. You know, once we have our fortune, I think that’s what I think I’d like to do with my life: collect artifacts, become a successful archaeologist. I think VFD has prepared me well for decrypting ancient languages.” 

“Maybe we’ll find more artifacts on the next island we come by,” Violet replied, passing the seaweed to Beatrice. “Sunny and I made sure our supplies will last another year if need be.”

“Excellent work,” Klaus congratulated them. “And what method of propulsion will we be using this time? How can I help with that?”

“Generally, the sail should be sufficient. The tide is receding, so we don’t need any additional thrust: the water pressure on the single opening in this atoll will generate a current swift enough to propel the Beatrice outward to sea.” Violet took a sip of unfermented coconut smoothie. “Swimmingly. This day has gone swimmingly.”

As you may know, “swimmingly” is a word which here means “well” or “splendidly” or “lacking a villain to inflict unfortunate events upon you.” But anyone who, while swimming, has gazed into the murky depths beneath their vulnerable, dangling legs, or who has been subjected to a physical education class in a swimming pool will know just how ridiculous this definition of “swimmingly” is. Too often, swimming is an involuntary, unnecessary, and downright cruel activity. For instance, my day once went “swimmingly” because I was pursued through a fire pond by a pulchritudinous platypus. I’m sorry to report that the Baudelaires’ day was about to become worse than that one.

The Baudelaire’s evening continued to go swimmingly, or perhaps sailingly. Just as Violet predicted, the Beatrice was pulled by the receding tide toward the gap in the atoll, which would free them into the open sea. Out of the blue, Sunny asked, “What’s that?” happily pointing. Out of the blue sea, exactly behind the gap in the atoll, a sharp, scaly plate covered in seaweed was emerging. Then came another, and another, until The Great Unknown had fully reared its ugly, pointed head. Enormous and slippery, desperate and hungry, it hung its jaw agape, ready to let in any driftwood, sea water, or passing sting rays past its six shiny rows of very sharp teeth. Even if the Baudelaires had abandoned ship right then, the current would undoubtedly have swallowed all who traveled--whether swimmingly or sailingly--into the jaws of The Great Unknown.

Beatrice screamed as the bombinating beast obscured the setting sun. Violet wept profusely, thinking of the promise she made to keep her siblings safe. Klaus stared fixedly into an eye of the beast, as though hypnotized. Sunny simply smiled.

“Come, sweet death!” she cried as the jaws of the bombinating beast crashed down, enveloping all four Baudelaires, Beatrice and all.

***

“Baudelaires!” As soon as the children came to, they found themselves inside what could have been the Curdled Cave but warm and oddly lit. “Oh, Baudelaires! I’ve been so afraid! I’ve been absolutely panic-stricken on your behalf! But you’ve returned to my care!”

“Josephine?” asked Klaus, astonished. Indeed, the Baudelaires’ second cousin’s sister-in-law whom they knew as Aunt Josephine stood on a ledge, glowing in a white robe over the confused, distraught Baudelaires.

“Don’t be afraid! I would come down to hug each one of you if I wasn’t afraid of the germs and leeches that may have washed in along with all that kelp and sea water.”

“Ike?” asked Sunny, suddenly recalling the image of Josephine’s late husband the cave explorer resting in a warm place in the afterlife. Then, with wide eyes, Sunny asked more softly, “Parents?”

Josephine looked at Sunny confused for a moment. Then she cocked her head to one side, smiling poignantly at the young girl. “I don’t know where your parents are. I’m sorry, honey. And you really must learn to speak in complete sentences someday, Sunny,” she added with disappointment.

“But look on the bright side:” yelled a figure, emerging on crutches from the dark. “You’re alive!”

“Phil!” cried Violet, rushing in to hug the optimist. 

“We’re alive?” mirrored Sunny with confusion.

“‘Baudelaire orphans found alive!’ That’s the headline I would submit to The Daily Punctilio if nefarious villains intent on hunting us all down weren’t lurking around every street corner.”

“Duncan!” shouted Violet running further into the cave to hug yet another friend from her past. “And Quigley?”

For a brief moment, Duncan’s face dropped. The thrill in Violet’s voice, the distance in her eyes, the emphasis she placed on his brother’s name--all of it indicated to Duncan that he was her second favorite. But just as quickly, Duncan returned to grinning and stepped aside for his triplet brother to hug the eldest Baudelaire. 

“Words:“ began Isadora in the tone of a slam poet, everything about her style now black and bleak as she leaned against a wall obscured in shadow. “Why torment me? Why needle and prod me as you do with meaning? If I repeat you, words, over and over, meaningless you become. When our Selves defy measure and lilt and vowels--even grammar!--who dares, dares to confine this Ether reality, this cryptic vivacity, this Great Unknown! inside of--words.” She and Klaus smiled shyly at each other while others sounded their approval.

“But how did you find us here?” Violet questioned after a few pitying snaps. “What brought you to this island?”

“Do you have food?” Sunny demanded. “Can I help?”

“What even is this place?” Violet enquired. “A camouflaged submarine?”

“Why are you alive?” Sunny asked Josephine.

“Selmo!” shouted Beatrice.

“Calm yourselves, Baudelaires! For once, all that is mysterious to you shall soon be revealed--I promise.” proclaimed Josephine, still perched authoritatively from her ledge.

“Even to those of you without any questions...” remarked Quigley, glancing askance at the middle Baudelaire. 

“Why so quiet, Klaus?” asked Isadora with a teasing smile.

The middle Baudelaire orphan had remained remarkably calm this whole time, as if non-plussed by the situation. He shrugged nonchalantly “After you’ve read the book that answers the questions that burn like a fire in the mind, the act of asking feels--hollow. There’s just one burning question I’d like an answer to: where’s Fiona?”

“Oh, Klaus! You mustn’t end an independent clause with a preposition,” Josephine chided with motherly concern. “My daughter is busy on the command deck with my husband. The two are co-captains now!”

“Actually, Aunt Josephine, I find that preposition rule antiquated nowadays. Plenty of authors simply ignore it.”

“Hmph, your grammatical proclivities may be on the, er, modern side, Klaus Baudelaire, but for as long as you’re under my submarine walls, I insist that yo--”

“Wait!” interrupted Violet. “Fiona is your daughter, Aunt Josephine?! Does that mean she’s our,” Violet gulped, “cousin?”

“All of your questions will be answered, dear Baudelaires! For example, ‘technically speaking, second cousins once removed,’ is the answer to your most recent of inquiries, Violet, darling.”

“First let me serve them tea, Josephine!” pleaded Phil angelically. “I want to try a special recipe: bitter as wormwood and sharp as a two-edged sword.”

Sunny yipped in agreement, following Phil down a shady corridor, deep into The Great Unknown.

“After you, Violet,” said Duncan with an unctuous smile and hand gesture. I needn’t tell you, dear reader, how eagerly the three Quagmires and four Baudelaires came together for tea, ready to reconnect after years of cruel wrenching apart. But one detail that may intrigue you remains. For in the interim, a word which here means, “the duration in which Phil offered the Baudelaires tea and Josephine offered the Baudelaires her tale of survival,” or “Chapter 2 of this narrative,” a mysterious figure reentered the anteroom to rearrange the kelp that had washed aboard The Great Unknown along with the Baudelaires. I regret to inform you, dear reader, that this rearranged kelp formed letters on the wall, and that those letters formed a cryptic couplet, and that cryptic couplet formed a threat to all aboard:

“Abandon ship or abandon pants./ Your fates are sealed; leave naught to chance.”

And so began, dear reader, a series of unfortunate debaggings along the eerie corridors of The Great Unknown.

[titleknown]

Two Films That Don’t Exist

Apologies for not posting much of interest today. I was kinda sidetracked by Twitter drama I'm not directly involved in, but still hit a lot of my angst points. But, enough with that, on to happier things

Namely, things that don't exist! More specifically, films that don't exist! I got of 'em, ready to go, sorta, free to use as if they were public domain; under a CC0 License (Tho credit is nice) in whatever you wish!

Hands Of Judgement- Alledgedly started from a bet by 50s effects artist Al Orton to a drive-in producer about the latest piece of crap he had to work with that “I could make a better monster than you chumps with just my two bare hands,” Hands of Judgement is indeed an unusual hybrid for its period. Namely: A horror/western piece.

Done using recycled sets from the other Westerns of this period, Hands of Judgement is the story of a crime-ridden old-western town attacked by a pair of ghostly hands, done through a combination of Bert I Gordon-type editing of human hands onto live footage and the use of miniature models for the hand-actor to actually interact with; with the actor's hands hidden via clever framing.

The model's a standard whodunnit, with the murder of the town's sheriff leading to his ghastly return as a pair of disembodied hands, as unscrupulous individuals in the town are picked off one by one as the new sherrif and his love interest try to find out who did it.

The characters are relatively stock for this period, complete with an evil railroad baron who turns out to be a land-grabbing mastermind and the true murderer, though the implication that the love interest may be a sex worker is interesting at least; albeit it seems more intended for exploitation purposes rather than for progressivism’s sake.

Orton was a first time director, and it shows in terms of his relative shakiness in terms of pacing and framing; more often sins of over rather than under ambition that make it odd to watch with the otherwise boilerplate plot and editing.

The effects though are still fascinating, having aged far better than many of its contemporaries even if they still have their flaws in spots. The manifestation of a gun by the hands in the climax seems to have been an act of necessity to allow them to stay in the scene with the actors the whole time and yet still pose a threat, but it is undeniably a striking vision

Though, there is a rumor that the buildings in the miniature shots were made from parts of Marx miniature sets, which Orton has said in the past is only “partially” true, though he has refused to elaborate.

March Of The Puppetmaster- Made under the notorious producer Ronnie Sharikov, the film was essentially designed as a commission for a ballet troupe that had essentially hired Ronnie’s company to make a film as essentially a feature-length promotion.

Ronnie, of course, decided to do it as cheaply as possible, re-using the “Hell House” he’d used for most of his other productions; which he only bought because it was barely safe enough to avoid condemnability, and hiring some kid right out of film school to work on it.

Of course, that kid was the young Walton Buckner; later to become famous for his work on the legendary Helltel franchise; and he knew what to do with a tiny budget.

The film itself was a creative marvel, about a woman who stumbles into a house along with an unfortunate drifter durring a torrential rain that seemingly never ends; where mysterious puppets seem to wait on her hand and foot; with a mysterious host who only appears as a voice seeming to have a strange agenda.

The “puppets” of course are the ballet troupe in simple blank; featureless masks, with the film often utilizing their routines re-purposed to show paralells with the lives of the characters. Aside from that, the effects are relatively light. A simple makeup effect is used for the scene where the drifter pulls out a puppet string from his arm, and the disquieting “Rat King” mask of the film’s final villain was made by the director himself, allegedly brought to the set one day with zero explaination.

As much as the budget was basically nothing, the director worked around it with creative and breathtaking cinematography, with the many dialogue-less shots due to the difficulty of wiring for sound for the shots he wanted and the usage of classical music to avoid the costs of writing a score creating a haunting feeling that many have compared to the similar Carnival Of Souls.

The final scene in the theater room; where the heroes confront the Rat King in front of his artifact The Black Cross which is slowly turning them into puppets; is especially notable due to how well it turned out for the fact that every take was essentially done in a singular night, after the crew had broken in illegally.  Though, Walton never admitted it, it has been corroborated by the cast, and there is no way Sharikov would have ever approved that additional budgetary expendature.

The film was a hit; at least as far as drive-in exploitation goes; but beyond his original production fee Walton never got paid a dime. But, Walton never regretted it, despite his experiences with Ronnie being allegedly miserable, as it put him in the eye of other producers to get better films made; and he did like the final product...

Well, there’s only two of ‘em, I’d planned for three but these took a lot longer than I thought. Tho, there’s proooooobably gonna be a followup this week, so...

[avengers-nextgen]

Prometheus X

“What the hell was that?” Fox asked, freezing on the flight of stairs leading downwards. The others froze as well and each listened intently.

“I hear hissing,” Thalia frowned, picking up on the noises long before the others did.

“Water:” Bianca breathed. “Go. Go!”

No one needed to be told twice. The group of three turned quickly and bolted up the stairs towards the upper deck. Whatever had exploded, had ruptured the boat’s exterior.

Feet pounding, they woven through the hallways until they finally saw sunlight over head. “Go! Everyone off! It’s sinking!”

Enzo was the first to hear Bianca’s warning. At first he didn’t believe it, but slowly he could feel the deck begin to shift as the boat took in water and weight. “Oh no. Oh no no.”

“Janet, run a scan on the boat’s exterior,” Piper ordered. She watched the blueprint slowly form and a series of red lacerations highlighted the 3D model. “Four punctures! We have approximately three minutes until this goes down!”

“James, get ready to take on passengers,” Arthur called, already forming a portal.

“Copy that.”

Enzo was the first to go through followed by Chloe who carried Penny. They arrived safely in the rear of the jet. James watched from above as the boat tilted to the left. Arthur staggered nearly toppling sideways, but Siyanda managed to steady him. If he fell the portal would close.

“Orion I’m sending others your way.” Arthur managed to get Fox, Bianca, Siyanda, and Thalia through onto Orion’s ship. “Piper let’s go!”

“Wait!” Piper glanced about anxiously. “That’s not everyone.”

“It has to be.”

“It isn’t.” Piper argued counting off everyone she’d seen. “Where’s Alex?”

— — —

Water lapped at her face as it soaked through her suit and drenched her wounds. Her eyes opened in a panic as she nearly sucked water into her lungs. Groaning, Alex rose to her knees looking dazed.

“Fair try,” Crowed a familiar voice, “but you’ve only accelerated the process.”

Alex glanced over her shoulder to spot Prometheus merely a foot away. Dark shadows coiled around him flickering like a cloak. “No, it should have worked!”

“You miscalculated,” He sneered. Alex felt like giving up then and there, but she caught sight of the artifacts bobbing in the water. Sage said they couldn’t be destroyed, but what if they could be? Matter only recycled. If Prometheus had absorbed whatever power was in the ancient items-then their essence was no different than any normal object.

They were breakable. No ancient magic protected them anymore. If she managed to ruin the source of the power it would lose its anchor point. It was the best bet she had. Lunging Alex landed in the water with a splash.

Barely managing to grasp the statuette she clutched it like a life line. Springing from the water she chucked it hard at the wall. The object crumbled into dust.

“What are you-“ Prometheus clutched agitatedly at his head. His face contorted briefly in pain but vanished as quickly as it had set on. “Stop it!”

Alex had already fished out a second object and with a grunt crushed it in her palm. The shadows around Oroemtheus hissed in anger and once more he was overcome with pain.

With each second that passed water continued to rise. It was at Alex’s knees now. Navigating was beginning to be impossible. A third artifact met its end.

Prometheus collapsed into the water gasping, thrashing, and wailing. His face disappeared below its surface. When Alex snapped the last ancient treasure he no longer moved. Across the way his mask floated solemnly across the top of the water.

Panting, Alex steadied herself for only a moment. She needed to leave. Fighting the force of the water, Alex grasped the railing of the stairs tugging herself onto the steps. Underwater currents threatened to pull her back into the room but she pushed on.

Pounding up the stairs she reached the next floor when the ship gave a mighty groan and a severe lurch. It tipped sideways. Alex went weightless falling into the railing with a thud. Before she went further she managed to snag a pipe.

Pulse pounding, she was now dangling awkwardly in the air. Locating her destination despite the disorienting shift Alex swung to the next pipe. Clasping it firmly in her hands she made an attempt to drop down when it burst open. Water slammed into her face and her grip slipped.

Landing flat on her back she spluttered crawling away from the mess. Over head two more pipes burst open to spill out their contents. The water was cold. Shivering she pushed on but the levels were rising much quicker than before.

Soon the line was at her chest. Currents tugged angrily at her clothes and ankles making it impossible to move. She clung to a pole like a cat stuck in a tree. Debris spun about in the turmoil of water slamming into her hip.

Alex’s head dipped under and she was spinning head over heel. Fighting her way to the surface it seemed that the water was even higher than before. There was little room to breath. Breaking the surface her lungs sought air hungrily but water invaded her mouth traveling down her airway.

— — —

“What’s going on?” James demanded. “Piper, Arthur, we have to go.”

“Alex isn’t with us!” Piper yelled over the coms.

“What?” James’ heart seemed to stop. His face went pale and his stomach twisted into knots.

“She’s below,” Orion explained, “Siyanda said they were going down to get her when the ship started filling with water.”

“I’m going to get her.” Piper decided.

“You can’t. Your suit isn’t designed to be submerged for that long,” Scout recalled.

— — —

“Where is everyone?” Sage frowned, walking into the crowded room in search of Enzo. She’d promised to take him to lunch. It was the least she could do to cheer him up on the day of his dog’s birthday-the dog he used to have anyways.

“What’s taking then so long?” Maria chewed anxiously at her thumbnail.

“You didn’t.” Sage already knew the answer before Fury even acknowledged her presence. “You didn’t send them-“

“They asked to go.” Fury explained watching a screen intently. Sage shoved her way through the watching agents to examine the chaos for herself.

I’m seconds she vanished and reappeared by Enzo. The boy jumped in surprise before smiling, “I knew you’d come!”

“What the hell? Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“I told the bastard not to let you go!” Sage growled, examining her baby brother for injury.

“What are you doing here?” James glanced back at the sorceress wide eyed. “I don’t have time for you!”

“James!” Nathaniel warned.

“Piper you can’t get to Alex in your suit and you can’t hold your breath that long. The water pressure could kill you!” Scout worried.

“What’s going on?” Sage frowned glancing at Enzo who chewed at his bottom lip.

“Alex is stuck in the water.”

— — —

Inches of space remained. Her cheek was pressed against the ceiling-or he wall or whatever it was-a she sucked in small bursts of air. She’d been trained to stay calm in situation like this, but that training had failed.

One final ragged breath was all she had before the room was full of water. If she opened her eyes they’d be burned or damaged from debris floating about. There was no way to navigate to a higher floor.

Part of Alex wanted to cry, but the logical side of her knew that she’d only die quicker. She was aware of the burning in her lungs as it slowly gnawed into her stomach and then her head. She’d never felt so much pain before and she’d certainly never had to ignore the urge to breath.

It was overwhelming until her resolve shattered and a desperate breath was met only with suffocating water. Things became foggy, her movements slowed, and her body became heavy. Alex was only spared when things went dark.

— — —

From above Scout watched the water turn like boiling soup. Inky black oozed out into the ocean like lifeless blood. Slowly though it began to change.

“Guys, we have a situation,” Orion called nervously over the intercom. “Whatever that is it’s moving!”

“It must have gotten through from the shadow realm before it closed,” Nathaniel concluded.

“I don’t care what it is. I’m tired of this shit!” Fox growled.

“Everyone strap in. Someone take the gun. We’re about to test my pilot skills,” Nathaniel frowned, eyeing the growing form.

“Alex.” James insisted.

“Oh, my sister’s already on it.” Enzo explained buckling into a seat.

“She tells us nothing.” Bianca sighed. “I swear I’m going to kill her.”

“Me too.” James mumbled.

“Can I shoot that thing?” Valkyrie piped up over the headset.

“You can shoot it as much as you want.” Orion snorted. “Something tells me we may be in need of assistance.”

“Oh I’m going to have fun.” Valkyrie smiled. “Let’s light the bastard up.”

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

Time Tripping with Galaxie 500 (2004)

Sunday interview! This is a long one, conducted for Neumu around the time of the Don’t Let Our Youth Go To Waste DVD. All band members were very nice. 

The camerawork may be shaky, and the sound decidedly lo-fi, but short of the invention of a time machine, some of the footage on Galaxie 500's newly released DVD, Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste, is as close as we're going to get to experiencing what it was like to witness the group at the beginning of their career. Take a look. It's 1988, and Galaxie 500 are onstage at the then-fledgling Middle East club in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Guitarist Dean Wareham looks pale and uncomfortable. Drummer Damon Krukowski nervously fiddles with his drum kit. Bassist Naomi Yang tries hard to project the impeccably cool stage presence she'll later perfect, but mostly comes across as bored. Krukowski counts off the beat and the band fumbles through "Oblivious," a tune that will appear on their debut album, Today. All three look relieved when they reach the end of the song. But even in these early days, there is something unique, something special about this band. Wareham's Velvety guitar tone, Yang's melodic bass lines, and Krukowski's imaginative drumming all make up a bewitching, cohesive sound. As "warts and all" as the Middle East footage may be, it's a priceless artifact. 

There are countless more moments like this on Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste, a double disc set compiling live footage, television appearances, and promotional videos, out now on Plexifilm. "This is a refined version of recycling," Krukowski said from the Cambridge office he shares with his longtime partner Yang. "You know, you go through your closets and find things you never even knew you had. And we thought, ‘Can we do anything with this stuff?'" "It turned out that we just had these boxes full of stuff," Wareham said during a separate interview, on the phone from New York City, where he currently fronts the band Luna. "I had some and Damon and Naomi had some. I had totally forgotten about the tape of the Middle East show, for example. That was quite a shock to see. We had no idea what we were doing." 

Inspired by the Velvets Galaxie 500 formed in Cambridge after Krukowski, Wareham, and Yang graduated from Harvard University in the mid-'80s. All three were big fans of proto-punk groups like the Velvet Underground and the Modern Lovers (itself a Velvets-influenced combo), as well as more recent British exports like Spaceman 3 and New Order. The footage of the band at the Middle East captures one of their earliest gigs. "That was very exciting to us," Krukowski recalled. "We didn't think we were going around the world or anything like that. That was not in the cards for bands of our type at the time. So playing a local show and making a record that we thought was worthy of being on vinyl was what we wanted to do. And it was exciting — people were there and they listened and they applauded, and that was a thrill." Watching such early footage now, the former band mates are both amused and horrified. "There are a lot of 'least favorite moments,'" laughed Yang. "Some of the early stuff is vaguely embarrassing," agreed Wareham. "[Early in your career], it takes a while to get used to being onstage and using a microphone. It's kind of scary. And everyone goes through that, I think. But not everyone has videotapes of it." "You're not so used to watching yourself play," Yang said. "You see a lot of still photos of yourself over the years, so you're used to that. But the film/video footage is so different. So it was a lot more surprising. It made you remember exactly what it was like that much more. It lifted the veil of nostalgia that a photograph could have. It was like YOU ARE THERE." "That's what I think is good about it," Krukowski added. "It's funny to watch how we change. We set up that first disc chronologically so people can watch us gain experience and change. So it ends up being a little parable of a band's life." 

Making Records With Kramer The band recorded its debut with underground producer Kramer, who ran the Shimmy Disc label and produced and played on records by Bongwater and Jad Fair, among others. "Part of that process where you see us changing [on the DVD], is when we met Kramer and we'd been in the studio with him," Krukowski said. "He really instructed us musically. He taught us to arrange our songs differently." "Just watching him work taught us a lot," Yang added. "He's a great musician, and he has an amazing ear." "He took us seriously," said Krukowski. "He thought we were bringing in material that we could make great records out of. So you see us change our musical attitude." "The first record we made in about 18 hours, maybe three six-hour days," revealed Wareham. "Kramer probably didn't do very much except put a whole lot of reverb on it. But we were really stunned how good we thought it sounded when we took it home and listened to it. After a year of playing in our rehearsal room, and after making some demos that we thought didn't sound that good, we were really pleased." "Kramer's an amazing engineer," Krukowski continued. "The thing about Noise New York [Kramer's studio] is that it was a big room, with high ceilings and all that. Kramer had no interest in separation; he mixed things as he went along. He put a lot of reverb on everything; he allowed bleed-thru on all the mics. There was none of the kind of stuff that at the time passed for pro studio sound. But the thing was that he was really making a great sound with the materials he had at hand." The band went on to make three records with Kramer, 1988's Today, 1989's On Fire, and 1990's This Is Our Music, all released on Rough Trade. The albums sounded unlike any others that were being made at the time, whether in the underground or mainstream musical scenes. "I think they hold up pretty well because they don't sound like the '80s," Wareham said. "What we were doing was pretty different from what everyone else was doing in Boston, or anywhere else." "We didn't know at the time what our records should sound like, but we knew they had to be records," Krukowski said. "We didn't want to document the band, we wanted to make records. And Kramer wanted to do that too." 

Almost on the Cover of Sounds The band quickly gained a following in the UK. "It was really different over in England," Krukowski said. "When we went over there, [the music press] took us very seriously as representatives of some new movement, which is the way they received every band. So we were portrayed as spearheading the 'wimpy' movement. So it was a weird situation. We were only in a scene in this most strange scattered sense [in the U.S.]. And they were trying to make it into some kind of more cohesive, next-big-thing type deal. And they need like 10 of those every week! And that's both why we did well over there and why we never broke out completely there. Because we weren't the next big thing." "That's the thing — a lot more happened than we thought would ever happen, but it's funny because in retrospect people think it was much bigger than it really was," Yang continues. "I remember that the record company kept being disappointed. There were three magazines over there, Melody Maker, Sounds and NME, and Sounds was going to put us on the cover. Sounds was like the lowest selling of the three. But the publicist in Rough Trade's English office was so excited! And then in the end they didn't put us on the cover, and she was so devastated. I remember us trying to comfort her. So it wasn't like we went over there and were on the cover of every magazine." "We almost made it on the cover of the third best selling English music weekly!" Krukowski said with a chuckle. "We were the first band on the first day at 11 a.m. at Glastonbury!" laughed Yang. "You know, we were having fun and it was all great. But in retrospect it was not very large-scale. We were not the Pixies." Nevertheless, Galaxie 500's audience grew steadily on both sides of the Atlantic, and the band became a potent live act. On the DVD, a November 1990 performance at the University of London shows the trio stunning a sold-out crowd with a powerful set of psychedelia-tinged guitar rock. In just a few months, however, it would all be over. 

It's All Over Now, Baby Blue Wareham left the band shortly after a tour in support of This Is Our Music ."Why did we call it quits?" he mused. "Let me see if I can remember. I guess we were getting on each other's nerves!" "It was really confusing at the time," recalled Krukowski. "Many, many bands go through this — you leave your little circle and enter this wider world with all of these commercial aspects. And it puts all kinds of pressures, and everybody responds differently. And Dean and we responded quite differently. There were a lot of disagreements rising up in the band. And that was the moment when the major labels woke up to everything that was going on. They all kind of swept down." "They had just signed Nirvana, so they were like, 'What else is out there?‚'" said Yang. "Everyone we knew was being courted. It was some kind of frenzy." "Suddenly everybody had the chance of making money, and making it big and having fame and fortune," continued Krukowski. "And people went nuts. There was a lot of awful behavior, a lot of awful people on the scene. We were at the time negotiating with major labels. We were very much enmeshed in all of that. And that's when the band split up. And in retrospect, it's like bands either get through those times or they don't. And we didn't. We just couldn't. We hadn't developed a way to deal with those things as a group or to mutually agree on them." "In some ways, a band is an unnatural thing," Wareham said. "They all have the seeds of their own destruction in there from the beginning. It's fun to collaborate with people, but it's difficult to collaborate with the same people for a period of years and travel together all the time and make decisions together all the time. You don't really see that in any other art form. People put on a play or a movie, and the collaboration is great, but then it's over. I don't think bands are supposed to last forever. Damon and Naomi were very angry at me when I quit. When you break up with someone, they get angry at you. But bands are weird democracies. And we were a three-piece democracy where the other two were a couple. I think it was bound to put a strain on me." Wareham went on to form Luna with members of the Feelies and the Chills, and continues playing with them (in a somewhat altered lineup) to this day. Krukowski and Yang record under the name Damon and Naomi and run a publishing company, Exact Change, together. Despite the band's acrimonious end, all three are proud of their early work in Galaxie 500. "Truthfully, the dream is that you can make music that can communicate for longer than just this week," said Krukowski. "If it does, that's a miracle to us." Does Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste signal the end of Galaxie 500's archival releases? Wareham isn't so sure. "There are a few Peel Sessions left over," he said. "There is some good stuff on there. The highlight for me is a performance of the Sex Pistols song 'Submission.' We're talking about trying to put some of that out at some point." Krukowski just laughed. "There are still other closets we haven't gone through!"

[youhadmeathewwo]

Dani ‘n’ Dungeons ‘n’ Dragons

My first fic in a long time! It’s good to be back. Made for @moreroads​ for the Secret Slackta 2017.

Dani - Dani Phantom to her friends - looked nervously around as she climbed down the wide, dimly-lit stairs to Sam Manson’s basement. At the bottom lay a hallway bigger than some apartments; through a doorway was her goal. ​ Clutching her filled-out character sheet, Dani stepped into the room. The others were already there; Sam, sitting at the head of a long mahogany table, rulebooks by her side. Valerie, at the other end of the table, talking across it to Sam. Danny Fenton, chatting to Tucker Foley. Tucker had a big grin on his face, while Danny sipped his soda. ​ “...anyway,” Val said to Sam, “I can’t make it next week, so Leo’ll be subbing for me.” Sam nodded. “Got it.” She made a note on a pad and turned to look at Tucker, who was still talking loudly with Danny. ​ “...all I’m saying is,” Tucker said, “the bag can hold all of this stuff, right? So what you do is, you put the stuff in the bag, you build a room, stock it with really nice furniture and rugs and soda and stuff—“ Jazz Fenton, who had her nose in a sourcebook a few seats downstream from Danny, spoke up. “This isn’t DnD Modern, so soda hasn’t been invented yet.” ​ “Whatever they drink in medieval times, then,” Tucker countered. “Anyway. So you do all that, and then you have...” He spread his arms wide for emphasis. “...the perfect bachelor pad.” Valerie Gray, at the end of the table, looked across it at Sam. Their eyes met. Both girls did their best to keep a straight face. A quiet snort echoed through the room. ​ Dani chose this moment to make her entrance. “Hi Danny!” she said, waving with her free hand. “Ready for some dungeoning and dragoning?” Danny rose from his chair with the speed of a dozen hornets and beelined over to Dani, whispering to her while she was still by the door. ​ “Are you nuts?” Danny hissed, eyeballing the rest of the table to check no one was suspicious of them. “Sam said I could come. It’ll be fun!” Dani whispered back. “What about Val? She doesn’t know about the ghost thing, but she’s already suspicious of me! And she hunts ghosts! What if she—“ “So then if you’re so worried, why are we all playing DnD with her?” Dani interrupted. “Well, uh...” Danny trailed off, flushing a little, and sighed. Turning back to the group, he announced, “Everyone, I’d like you to meet Danielle: my third cousin once removed.”

​There was a chorus of “Hey”s. Sam, in her role as DM, cleared her throat. “Dani’ll be joining us today, so... how about, we all tell her about our characters? So she can get up to speed.” ​ Tucker cleared his throat. “I’m... Shades Eddie, the patron of disco music, spreading a beat around the world, even as...” He grinned. “I’m on a quest to seek out the most beautiful lady in the world.” Valerie sighed. “He’s a bard,” Jazz added helpfully. ​ When no one said anything else, Jazz spoke. “I’ll go next,” she said, picking up her character sheet. “My character is named Florina Lightseeker; she...” Jazz turned the sheet over, looking closely at it. “She’s... here we go. From a holy order of clerics, sent to travel the world and recover the Lightwell Staff, a stolen holy artifact.” ​ Jazz Fenton put the sheet down— and then she began speaking faster. “I was able to give Florina an amulet which gives her a bonus to her attack when she’s using her mace against Evil characters or the undead, or when she’s channeled divine energy at least once in the scene— and she gets an extra channel opportunity after each long rest where...” ​ Sam cleared her throat, sharply. “Sooo, Danny! What’s your character?” ​ Danny set his soda down, and grinned. “My character’s Danny Ph...” Dani’s eyes widened. ​ “...izzle, the Wizard,” Danny finished. Dani blinked. Wait, what? She shot a look at Danny’s character sheet— “DANNY FIZZLE” was written there at the top. Danny looked innocently at Dani. “What?” he said. “He’s pretty neat, for a Wizard! There’s some more backstory, but we can bring that up later.” ​ Dani tried, and failed, to not shoot a glance over at Valerie, sitting at the end of the table with a bowl of nacho chips nearby. When she noticed Dani looking at her, Val realized she was next. As she shuffled her character sheet, getting ready, Dani looked at Danny and blatantly rolled her eyes. ​ “Okay,” said Valerie, as Danny picked his soda back up and leaned in his chair. “My character’s Gh’anne, last of the Empyrean Monks. See, originally, the Empyrean Monks lived in their element-rich homeland, coexisting with their nearby orders, the Pelagic Monks, the Loaman Monks, and the Igneon Monks.” Val wasn’t looking at her character sheet, Dani noticed. “But one day,” Valerie continued, “the Igneon Monks became crazed with fiery power, invading the ancestral lands of the other Monks. Gh’anne escaped— she wanders the world in search of power and allies, as she knows one day she must defeat the leader of the Igneon Monks, Pyroz!” ​ Dani shot a look at Sam. Sam shrugged. Seeing that everyone had finished, she turned to Dani. “And you?” she asked. “Who’s your character?” ​ Dani looked around at the group. Her gaze stopped on Danny, with “DANNY FIZZLE” just below him. After a moment, Dani’s eyes narrowed, and she grinned. “My character,” she said, holding her character sheet behind her back so no one could see it, “is Cassandra Shadowstalker! She’s the daughter of a sorceror and a ghostly stage magician’s assistant, and she roams the world looking for ADVENTURE!” ​ Dani looked straight at Danny, her expression never changing. “And she’s half-ghost.” Danny choked on his soda. ​ Ignoring Danny’s spluttered protests, Dani turned to Jazz. “There is a type like that in the rulebook, right?” Jazz began flipping through books, then nodded. “Mm-hm!” she said, pointing to a page reading, ‘Half-Ætherling’. “It’s a good race for a Rogue, because you get a lot of bonuses to hiding and moving silently, and that sort of thing. The only real drawback is ethereal beings have to be careful around magical—“ ​ Dani cut Jazz off, pulling out her character sheet and grabbing a pencil of the table. “That sounds perfect. What stats do I change?” A few seconds later, Cassie Shadowstalker was ready. ​ =========== ​ “Now then,” said Sam, pressing a switch by her seat. The room lights dimmed; a set of lights built into the table came on, illuminating her face from below. “When we left off last week, you had been ambushed by Deep Stalkers in the hall outside the Lightless Lair of the Great Darkness Wyrm. I want everyone to start by rolling for initiative.“ ​ The sound of dice on hard wood. ​ Sam waited for the rolls, then turned to Tucker. “You’re first, Tucker. What do you do?” Tucker grinned, flipping open his laptop. “I use Bardic Inspiration, on Florina,” he said, clicking a play button. A cheesy disco tune filled the air. He took a deep breath, ready to sing along— and glares from Sam and Jazz stopped him short. Danny quietly shook his head. ​ Tucker sighed, then finished, “And I attack with my lutebow.” He rolled a die, his good mood returning when Sam confirmed a hit. ​ Sam shifted focus. “Danny Fizzle?” Danny tossed his drained soda can into a recycle bin. “Danny shouts... uh... ‘It’s time for you to make like fruit and stop stalking!’ And then he casts Conjure Barrage.” ​ Dani snickered, turning to Val as dice clattered on the table. “Does he do the witty banter thing a lot?” Val nodded. “Mm-hm. It’s pretty good sometimes, though.” ​ Sam, after a lot of scribbling, looked at Valerie. “Val! Several Deep Stalkers are in disarray after getting peppered with flying daggers. What do you do?” ​ Val grinned, pushing the chips aside and taking out a custom-made set of dice that had a reddish sheen. “Gh’anne plants her staff next to the nearest two Deep Stalkers, pushing the button to turn on its Immovable Rod. She spins around, using the staff as a fulcrum, kicks one stalker in the head—“ ​ “Deep Stalkers don’t have heads, they have gaping appendages,” Jazz helpfully pointed out. ​ “—the gaping appendage, then. Whatever. And springs from that one to punch a second in the noodle arms! She pulls back with her staff, loosing it from the ground, and spins to smash a third in the appendage, too.” Val rolled her dice, her grin never wavering. Sam winced once or twice under her breath, then said, “All right, that’s two of them down, and a third gravely wounded...” She turned to Jazz. “Jazz! You’re up.” ​ Jazz looked at Tucker, still playing disco. “So with Tucker’s Bardic Inspiration as a secondary bonus, I channel divine energy. My mace begins to glow with holy light, as I shout a battle cry—“ ​ “What is it?” asked Sam. “Huh?” said Jazz. “What do you shout?” ​ “Uhhh...” Jazz hadn’t prepared for this. “Okay. I shout, ‘Stand back! I’m trained in this thing!’ And I swing.” She tossed her die onto the table. ​ Sam looked at it, doing some calculations. “Okay, with your strength bonus... proficiency bonus... bardic inspiration... divine energy... amulet bonus...” She stared Jazz right in the eye. “The Deep Stalker hears you, and stands well back. You miss.” “But—” ​ “Dani!“ Sam said, cutting Jazz off, “You come upon the party as the battle is going on. You’ve approached while using your invisibility power, so no one is going to try and attack you. What do you do first?” ​ Dani looked at Sam. “Who am I nearest?” Sam checked some notes behind her screen. “Val’s character. Gh’anne.” ​ Dani nodded. “In that case, I move close to Gh’anne, as she battles her Deep Stalkers...” Unexpectedly, she grinned. “...and then I pick her pocket.” ​ Tucker, who had been looking at his laptop, blinked. Danny choked on his soda again. And Val shot a steely glare at Dani. "Watch it, ghost girl,” she said. ​ Dani couldn’t help keeping her grin as she looked back at Val. “This game is gonna be fun!”

“After the perils of the Lightless Lair and the portal to the Rainbow Tunnels, and getting tossed on underground seas, you now know the Gnome-Man spoke true. This is the legendary Gnome War Hammer, the weapon that will save their people. It sparkles with silver and precious, eerily glowing stones.” ​ “Nice!” said Tucker, grinning at Sam. “Gimme gimme.” “Unfortunately,” Sam replied, with the smirk she’d been hiding for the past 30 minutes, “the hammer is gnome-sized. You could about hammer nails with it... maybe.” ​ “Well...” Tucker said, “I take it anyway! We can probably give it back to the gnomes, or something.” ​ “That’s what we were planning to do, Tucker,” Val pointed out. ​ “The hammer is yours. Are you getting out of there?” Sam asked. Everyone nodded. ​ “All right!” Sam clapped her hands. “When you return to the gnomish village, you find out that the Gnome-Man is on an Errand Quest and will be back in a day or two. The party has some free time. What do you do?” ​ “Does the village have a library?” asked Jazz. “It does,” said Sam. “Do you want to look for books on any particular topic?” Jazz thought for a moment, then answered, “Magical psychiatry, mind reading, better healing, works that showcase gnome culture—“ ​ “OK, stop, stop. I’ll handle your stuff in a moment,” said Sam. “Val! What are you doing?” ​ “Gh’anne spends her time praying for the spirits of her lost Empyrean Monks, as she remembers the first invasion of the Igneon Monks...” Dani realized Valerie was staring at her as the girl kept talking. “It was only a few years ago. But she will recall it forever. Gh’anne was—“ ​ One Flashback Later ​ “...and that is why Gh’anne KNOWS she must not fail,” Val finished. Tucker looked up from his computer games; Jazz from her sourcebook. Danny took his head off the table, yawning a little more theatrically than necessary. ​ Sam simply waited, her demeanor polite yet forbidding. “Great,” she said. “So you’re praying.” She made a note behind her DM screen. “Tucker?” ​ Tucker put his computer on sleep and grinned. “Can I hire carpenters here?” Sam blinked. “Carpenters?” “Yeah, builders,” Tucker said. “I hire a bunch of gnome carpenters and have them start constructing my Bachelor Pad of Holding with the diamondwood and beams I stuffed in there earlier.” ​ Dani, who had missed Tucker’s remarks at the start of the game, suppressed a snicker as Tucker and Sam (playing the carpenters’ foregnome) started haggling. When it was over, Sam sighed. “OK, fine. You only pay ten gold. The carpenters head into the bag and get to work.” Sam sipped some water from a nearby glass, then looked at Danny. “Danny Fizzle! What are you doing during this period of rest?” ​ Danny put down the dice he’d been stacking, and started thinking. “Well... I prepared my spells, right?” Sam nodded. “You did.” “In that case...” Danny said, “I examine the Gnome Warhammer. I’m not sure the three merkids were telling the truth when they said all the corrupting enchantments had been stripped off it.” ​ Sam smiled, sweetly. “Roll Arcana, then.” A die hit the table. Sam studied it. “All right. I’ll tell you the results of your examination once everyone’s said what they’re doing.” She counted down the table, stopping at Dani. “OK, Dani, this is basically stuff your characters do over time - they can follow up on their own ideas and quests and things like that. What do you want Cassie to do now that you’re with the party?” ​ Dani looked around. “Can I delay my downtime actions until the rest of the party is asleep?” Sam thought for a second, writing something even as she looked at Dani. “That’ll work. You don’t do anything until it’s night and everyone is resting. Let me resolve everyone else’s downtimes first, then.” She finished her writing, passing the completed note to Jazz. “Jazz! You found these books in the library, with this information in them.” Sam took a breath, then— “Danny! Your magical investigation proves... the hammer’s clean. The magical traces prove that the original villain to curse it was the Great Darkness Wyrm, however.” She shifted focus. “Tucker! The carpenters construct things quickly, collect their fee, and leave. It’s coming along pretty nicely.” Sam shot a sidelong look at Val. “Val! You were praying. Which you did. You didn’t recover any more memories, though.” Val groaned. ​ With the others at ease and Jazz reading, Sam looked back at Dani. “Now, Dani. It’s all you. The party is in your room at the inn. Everyone is asleep. What are you going to do?” ​ Dani’s gaze focused on Tucker. “Carefully, making sure I don’t disturb Shades Eddie over there, I sneak by his bed, open his Bag of Holding, turn invisible, and sneak inside. I want to see this ‘Bachelor Pad of Holding’ for myself.” “Dani,” Sam said, looking at her carefully. “Are you sure you want to do that?” ​ There was a hush. Everyone else at the table had stopped moving, reading, dice-stacking, and was staring at her. Jazz mimed a faint ‘no’ shake with her head. ​ “Of course I do!” said Dani. “There’s nothing Cassie Shadowstalker is afraid of from a bag.” ​ “Now then,” said Sam, clasping her hands. “When you look in the room, you see Tucker’s vision. The room is half-finished, luxuriously upholstered, with a big bed at one corner of the room. The other side is half-finished, with sketches and blueprints tacked on the walls, showing what will go there. It looks like it will be quite cozy.” Sam grinned. “And. As you enter the bag, something feels wrong. There’s a shimmer in the fabric of space around you; the bed and fine furnishings - even the construction debris - appear to be... wavering.” ​ “Wait, what’s going on?” Dani asked. Jazz interrupted, nervously. “I tried to tell you earlier, when you were making her,” she said. “You see, when a half-ætherling enters a dimensionally enhanced space like a Bag of Holding—“ ​ “Jazz,” Sam reminded her. “Not now.” She cleared her throat, and continued. “The feeling only lasts for a few seconds. Then, the bag implodes, and space turns inside out. In its place, you have opened a portal to the Astral Plane, which sucks in you, the Bachelor Pad’s goods, the sleeping forms of your companions, your gear, the inn’s furniture, and a gnome carpenter who took an ill-advised nap. As the portal fades away behind you, you are now trapped on the Astral Plane, with no way back.” ​ Sam shut a rulebook with a snap. “Aaaaand that’s where we’ll end it this week.” Dead silence. Jazz, Valerie, Tucker, and Danny all stared at Dani, faces in various states of anger, shock, and consternation. ​ In the quiet, Dani raised her hand. “Sooo.... does my character gain experience?” she said. ​ ~fin~

[abbyklinkenberg]

01 July 2017

I just finished reading One Hundred Years of Solitude for the second time. It's a hot day in Chicago and the edge of the circle of time is so sharp. 

I decided that I should try to see all 50 major museums here in Chicago before I leave, so yesterday I went out on the Brown line & transferred to the Red line in order to get to the Chicago station. There, I had a Potbelly sandwich and talked to Aidan for a little while before heading to the first museum: the Loyola University Art Museum, which turned out to be a very Catholic museum full of religious artifacts from the middle ages/Renaissance era, mostly. There were relics, the bones of saints, in some of the pieces--there were silver chalices from Germany in the 1700s and Roman keys from the first century BC and paintings by students of Caravaggio and stone apostles defaced during the Reformation. One of the hallways was full of self-portraits done by member of a poor community somewhere in Chicago, just pencil sketches that mostly looked as if they were done by children but were probably done by adults who never had the time or resources to fool around with artistic experiments. I tried to read all of the little museum information signs but at some point I got overwhelmed by the religious imagery and simply took it in aesthetically. There were two stained-glass windows done mostly in gray with bright yellow shading as the only color that I probably liked the best. A display of keys from the copper ones of the Roman empire through to the iron ones of the Middle Ages and steel ones of the Renaissance was also really striking. I like that they all did the same things but in slightly different ways, that they were all so neat and precise in their designs--one even had a club shape as the barrel of the key, or whatever it's called. It was really empty, I only saw maybe one or two other people apart from the staff (college-aged girls in blue shirts and black pants) who gossiped with one another while I walked through the museum. 

The Museum of Contemporary Art was only a block away, and was the real object of my day, so I went over there and paid the $8 entrance using my JNU student ID that expired last month. Lots of young people sat on the steps leading up to the entrance and the windows above were adorned with a giant tentacle motif in homage to the Murakami exhibition on the third floor. The first floor had two exhibitions, ETERNAL YOUTH and SMOKE, RISES or something; the first was nostalgic somehow, with magazine prints of Marky Mark and Kate Moss in Calvin Klein ads, an Instagram model blown up to be life-sized, and some other not-so-surprising or provocative looks at youth; it's not surprising anymore, to see kids wrecked by drugs or hiding behind masks or struggling with the trials of adolescence; we're so oversaturated with such content these days, it felt like a somewhat lazy exhibition--I did find some of the text pieces interesting, talking about the commodification of youth and how it's used as an empty promise and vague reason to buy something. 

The other, across the hall, was a series of basic sculptures involving 'other people' outside of the exhibition somehow, outside of the museum. Marble sculptures with shallow pools containing contact lenses of people who didn't know one another, SIM cards in cement blocks, manipulated window panes folded in strange shapes with cigarette buts or guitar strings attached to them. The most provocative one, to me, was a 'wall' with a square canvases on either side painted in the pattern of a shirt and a dress worn by a man and a woman who would occasionally come to the museum; the might meet, they might not; the canvases were put on parallel tracks that ran the length of the wall. And then a metal rod with a single earring through it--the other is presently worn by a woman somewhere in the world, which is the complementary part of the sculpture. The artist invites you to imagine the human elements that are contained in-part, yet that ultimately transcend, the museum space and sculpture itself. I found myself wanting more of that one, I felt that it was real art that provoked something in the viewer, a creative act that was the same and different every time. 

There was another gallery on that floor, tucked in the corner--a series of made-up constellations was on one wall, understandably meditating on the arbitrary yet meaningful nature of any constellation in the night sky that we have come to identify. The exhibit was named after some part of Moby Dick, 'the shallow level' or something like that. From Ahab's quotation about needing to strike through the mask, about how there is something beyond us that we can't quite access. Though the written explanation of the intention excited me tremendously, I found the art to be somewhat lacking, probably just because it's not to my taste. A painting that was overlaid with pink paint such that you can still kind-of see the stuff beneath (really obvious relevance, not profoundly interesting), a set of concrete blocks that looks solid from 3/4 sides but opens on the other, a map written over with a poem by the artist about metaphor and perception and imagining an analogous human example of reducing the world to a map, which I liked best, and some other things that didn't strike me particularly. 

Upstairs was an installation that I really hated with some computer-generated supermarket images of fruit and weird grocery store dollies and something about trying to make you feel like you're inside of a freezer with bags of fake ice and all that. Then things that look like paint cans but are actually meticulously crafted wooden sculptures of paint cans. The only part I liked, which was small, was built into the wall; a supposed massage parlor--you can see the entry with the sign, a stairway up to a door, and a back entrance, all in miniature, through holes in the wall. Playing the voyeur with nothing to see, sparking a curiosity that exists but can't exist there. 

On the third floor was the Murakami exhibition, which I didn't expect to love so much. The wall was covered in silver and electric pink, tentacles patterns and a stylized 'MURAKAMI.' Some of his beautiful early works with a traditional Japanese artistic technique that depicted turtles that seemed to have been made of condensed and reptilian mystery. A massive blue wall of many panels and absurdly deep blue pigments, an ornate stage setting with 2/1 at the top to celebrate the artist's birthday by making fun of that one guy who only made art that was the date written out on a canvas. More of those mocking types except the date and the canvas were painted the same color so it can hardly be distinguished. And then some rooms on Mr. DOB, his mouse-thing, that I liked sometimes but mostly didn't. Some explanation of his workshop technique making his larger pieces was also featured, but I wasn't too interested in seeing how the magic is made, but rather in the magic itself. His 'superflat' pieces were really compelling--flowers with faces covering an entire wall, for instance--and his aesthetic came back to me from his various famous collaborations with people in the 2000s, especially. None of that stuff was really my thing, but the rigorous detail impressed me. It started to get really exciting for me upon seeing Kanye's Graduation album cover in real life, in addition to a sculpture of the Kanye Bear and another painting from that time-period. A grandmother was trying to explain to her grandkids who Kanye West was--'a very famous rapper' and I found it funny. 

The room that made me feel the most, though, was a huge rectangular gallery with two massive sculptures of demons or something, red and blue, at the entrance and exit of the room, with some Murakami stained-glass windows behind them in a sort of religious allusion. The long walls were covered by two pieces--one was a white and blue dragon that didn't captivate me terribly much, but the other was a huge, intricate, and profoundly striking work of 100 monks of various sizes, stylized and detailed in the most precise and stunning manner. It was both grotesque and ascetic, simultaneously religious and irreverent. The size of everything was really moving to me. 

The final room displayed Murakami's most recent piece, done especially for the exhibition, entitled 'the octopus eats its own tentacle' or something like that. It's a reference to a Japanese saying that deals with cutting off an arm in order to grow a new one, with the recycling of the past and the coming of a circular future. That one was also beautiful, though I had been too impressed by the previous room to feel anything but a visual hangover as I pondered the equally beautiful scene. 

I left looking for a place to read and enjoy something to drink while listening to Vince Staples' new album, which I was inspired to hear because the museum is having him speak there later this month. I really liked what I heard and keep meaning to peruse it further. I ended up at a little French bistro where I had some happy-hour red wine that I had missed. Red wine was plentiful in Argentina, but I was very deprived of it in India, so it felt like a revelation. I read my book, talked to my sister and parents, and then ordered some muscles around sunset. They were gorgeous; I had smelled them from another table earlier in the evening and resolved to try them despite my ongoing attempts at vegetarianism (currently, I've decided to eat meat only one day per week). And it really was a beautiful day, I couldn't have asked for anything better. Solitude isn't necessarily that bad. 

[ramrodd]

Not the Guy You Would Have Figured (Acts 10:1-8) | TMBH Acts #43

COMMENTARY:

Here's the thing: going through your lectures to find those moments when you should literally be wearing a MAGA is like playing darts with a nerfball dartboard: it is literally a no-brainer. Anytime you are not literally wearing a MAGA hat in your series on Acts, generally. Is an exercise in false advertising in a KGB dis-information kind of way.

On the other hand, finding those moments in these profoundly self-indulgent displays of sloppy thinking as manifest by the fact that you lack the discipline to actually deliver a 10 minute commentary on your subject is less like darts than trying to pick the corn out of cowshit to make a salad for a church open dish 4th of July fire works display and prayer meeting. You would be better off spending 10 minutes, going line by line.

Try this: do a 10 minute video of John 11:35 “Jesus wept”.  This is the moment God declares Him guilty as charges and signs a warrant for His crucifixion 6 days hence. All the shit in the Bible comes down to verse. The Mundane Numerology is reduced to 1, the first station in a 9 station process of creation, like making and baking a loaf of bread. This is a standard exercise in process theology. A “chiasm” in literature is an exercise in process theology. John 11:35 is that singular moment in history when the check for John 3:16 comes due.  

History is a subset of literature, generally, and narrative, in particular. Oral history is a form of narrative  that is celebrated in Fahrenheit 451. An argument can be made that the first oral history that was committed to a Noumeal structure, such as on Egyptian artifacts and surviving architecture, was military history, which, in the context of Clauswitz, is Political History in the Aristotle metaphysics of  Aristotle. Of all the thinkers of recorded history, Jesus is the only one who argues from resurrection. And, historically, it all comes down to this climax of a chaism process.

And you're arguing with sophists like Richard Carrier and Ken Humphrey's regarding the historicity of Jesus on their terms. That's part of the reason they are winning,

Now, of course, reviewing your 2015 videos in the context of 2019 MAGA hats is analysis by anachronism. That's Richard Carrier's essential rhetorical mechanism. “If I  was God, I would have done it differently than an inundation of 40 days”. And most of your observations at the end of your videos have the same combination of egoism and anachronism. And that's when a lot of sloppy thinking gets air time.

The thing is, you don't believe in God. You believe in your parents and you've been a part of the family business since before you punched out some kid for teasing you about being a Christian, maybe a Jewish boy who challenged you regarding Messiah because you call him a Jesus killing Jew in some school yard kind of way and you have come to love the whole idea of muscular Christianity. And your apologetics are informed by your anger that anybody would not commit their lives to Jesus and get a Jn3:16 tattoo on their foreheads, although in 2016, that became a MAGA hat.

You are in the business of selling Jesus. That's the family business and selling Jesus is an American Evangelical cottage industry. I mean, you people have really made monetizing Jesus into a management science. Literary. That's what Liberty University is all about. And the paradox is that Evangelicals are doing God's work, in a Pardoner's Tale in Canterbury Tales. He admits he is a fraud but that his relics aren't. He believes in his relics because his purse is attached to them.

You're the same way. And you're good at it, in Campus Crusade for Christ/Norman Vincent Peale kind of way. But you're no Peter Marshall: Peter Marshall had exactly the kind of encounter with God that you complain you lack and the difference between him and you, as a consequence, is that you have been taught by Evangelicals like John Piper to deny the Holy Spirit as a requirement of Solo Scriptura. I mean, you people have a real fucked up idea on how this stuff works, the first being that Solo Scriptura is a substitute for the supernatural.

Here's the thing about the MAGA hats from the perspective of a combat crazed Vietnam veteran: I was scared out of a military career by an officer the same age and rank as my dad who had the same  cognitive organization as Mike Pompeo and he, Pompeo, sleeps in a MAGA hat. When I got back from Vietnam and began to form a career in the corporate culture, I was surrounded by guys just like you with MAGA hats, but not necessarily Evangelicals. The reason I ended up doing business with the Soviets was because venture capital was a way forward where you hired MAGA hats to tote the barge and lift the bale. The people that did the most to discourage US-Soviet dialogue, generally, much less commercial ventures in the federal government all wore MAGA hats, but they were recognizable and easy to isolate until Reagan came to town with three tribes of MAGA hats, the Hollywood tribe, the Miami Tribe and D. T. Reagan's Merrill-Lynch tribe of made men. Basically, the cancer growing around Nixon had morphed into a vast right-wing conspiracy who have set up shop in the GOP Deep State and depend on the MAGA hat generation to fuck things up enough that people won't notice the larceny occurring in the Oval Office.

Here's the thing, Matt, suicides among veterans is spiking because the guy running the VA is a MAGA hat guy and the spiritual sludge from him is the only thing about Trickle Down economics that actually trickles down. I use the VA all the time. There is a palpable sense of despair in the organization since Duck Ass Don's pick to privatize the agency took over.

This is really just a preamble to my comments on you lectures on Cornelius. You are just typical of the alumni of the Christian Academies establish by white bigots as part of the Massive Resistance tantrum set off by Nixon's busing policy. They were like incubators for several generations of white kids born with MAGA hat diaper and offer “Thank you for your service” as a substitute for actual participation in the Liberation Theology of the US Army.

The main character in the Book of Acts is the Holy Spirit and he's everywhere. He is the Liberation Gospel in action. Salvation is yesterday's news: the Liberation Gospel is the gathering in of all humanity in the Salvation promise of the secular humanism and rule of law of the ethic of Jesus and the example of His devotion to Duty as a servant-leader that becomes the agenda. We can reverse engineer God's Plan, historically, from Milvian Bridge, another chiasm of the historical processes Hegel will identify as a direct result of the epistemology of the Bible that leads to Isaac Newton's reconciliation of the Rational Idealism of Plato and the Empiricism of Aristotle and Kant's Categorical Imperative. Salvation was established, existentially, with the Cross, but the active progression of that process occurs at the leading edge of the Liberation Gospel and Cornelius, in 40 AD, was that leading edge 5 years before Barnabus recycles Saul in Antioch and triggers the process leading to the 13 epistles of Paul defining the ethic of Jesus to the Italian Regiment in Rome, that was synthesized by Theophilus into the manifesto of the Holy Catholic Church cited in the Apostle's Creed that emerges from Acts 10:34 – 43. And the Holy Ghost is all over everything that happens and you can't identify the supernatural, Solo Scriptura, much less your own life.

This is why the anti theist and Muslim apologists are winning: you basically agree with them, but it would be bad for business to admit it.

Here's a subject for a Ten Minute video: the 10th Legion camped on the Mount of Olives during the siege of Jerusalem, which is why Cornelius is the subject of Acts 10. It's the Holy Ghost fucking with your mind, inviting you to deny him yet again.