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nelvana · 4 years

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In which there is one last break

First [ARC 1]: In which the human is transformed First [ARC 2]: In which a present is prepared Next: In which the dreams are nightmares Previous: In which there are no anomalies

“They… are still here.” Ceebee was the first to speak up after Primal Palkia had left, ending the battle without a true winner. “They’re deeper in the cave, like Dialga is.”

“Should we go right after them, then?” Tsuki questioned, shaking out her fur, sending some dirt scattering. “They are… primal now, right? We… should deal with that as soon as we can.”

“M-Maybe we should take a break first,” Edgar suggested, slowly creeping back out from the shadows to join the others.

“I agree with Edgar. We’re in no condition to go right back to fighting them,” Damien responded.

Tsuki sighed, “that is true, but we should not stay long. We do not want them to be causing more damage now that they’ve fully turned primal.”

“Of course,” Alex agreed, then after waiting a few moments to see if anyone else would say anything, he darted over to his partner. “Nel! You evolved! That was amazing!” he exclaimed.

Nelvana gave him a shaky smile, “wow you’re shorter than me now, this is so weird.”

Alex laughed, “you’ve been taller than me before!” he pointed out.

“Not like this!” Nelvana replied, “this… is actually really trippy, I… I didn’t realize I was evolving until it happened, I- oomph!”

She was cut off as a warm bundle of feathers barreled into her. Unlike Alex, who had stopped at a respectable distance to give his partner some space, Keahi had sprinted from across the room to dive in and give her a hug. Once realizing what hit her and who it was, Nelvana reached out to return the hug, picking up the torchic to properly wrap her arms around zim.

“Nel! I was so worried when you took that hit and didn’t come back right away but then you did come back except we couldn’t say anything to each other because of the battle, but now you’re evolved and-“

“I love you too, Keahi,” Nelvana hummed, cutting off her partner’s rambles.

Taking a moment to catch zir breath, Keahi leaned up to bump zir head against Nelvana’s, the two taking this small moment together to relax themselves again.

“How do you feel?” Keahi asked.

“I… I’ll need to get back to you on that one, I’m still processing everything,” Nelvana admitted with a weak chuckle. “This is probably the strangest day of my life. And that’s… saying a lot.”

“Hey, how about everyone sit down over here, a bit further away from all that damage, and we can talk things through?” Damien suggested, gesturing over to an area deeper into the cave.

Nelvana smiled at him, “yeah, that’s probably for the best,” she agreed, and then looked back down at the torchic in her arms. “You’re so tiny now!”

Keahi giggled, “you just got really tall! Hey, can I sit on your head? You must have a nice view from up there.”

Complying to her partner’s request as they walked over with the rest of the group to sit down, Nelvana placed Keahi atop her head, the torchic fitting in the space between her ears perfectly now. Keahi giggled again, letting out some “oohs” and “ahhs” despite there not really being much to look at, even at that height.

Sitting down in a circle together, everyone took this time to breath for a couple minutes and check how they felt once adrenaline wore off. Keahi hopped off of Nelvana’s head, but only to settle zirself onto her lap instead. Alex and Damien sat down beside each other, emptying out their bags to sort through the remaining supplies. As Alex shook out his bag, there was the clatter of stones tumbling onto the floor; Giratina’s rock, a fire gem, and that stone from Lapis Cave. Damien eyed the blue crystal momentarily, peeking over at the similar one he still carried around in his own back. Alex chuckled at the latter item before scooping it up and stuffing it back in the bag, but his hand hovered over the fire gem.

“Oh hey, I almost forgot, Keahi, I’ve been hanging onto the fire gem Ceebee gave you for your birthday. Do you want it now?” Alex commented, picking up the small crystal.

“I guess so!” Keahi decided, “There will probably be a time I’ll want to use flamethrower for the range again. Better at least get one boost out of it.”

“Can’t think of a scenario you’ll need it more for anyway,” Tsuki added with a yawn, “there isn’t really anyone that will be stronger than Primal Palkia, I figure.”

“Well, you never know, but I could always get another fire gem for if something like that comes up,” Keahi responded.

Meanwhile, as Alex handed the fire gem over to Keahi, Damien leaned over to pick up the other stone, brushing off some of the dirt with one thumb as he turned it over a couple times in his hands.

“Hey, Giratina, we have a moment to be able to talk again,” he said.

“…the battle’s over?” Giratina’s voice faded in, sounding mildly hesitant.

“Sort of,” Alex answered, turning his focus back to sorting through the rest of the items.

“…I see. I can… sense Palkia still from here,” Giratina murmured, “are you all okay? I can sense that you’re all here… Oh, Nelvana! Did you evolve?”

Nelvana let out a mix of a chuckle and a sigh, “yeah, I did. Happened right at the end of the fight.”

“Well, congratulations! I can tell that is… difficult to pull off in these current times. We’ll need all the extra strength we can get, know that…” Giratina paused. “I am sensing that correctly, right? Palkia is… primal now.”

“Unfortunately, yes. We were unable to defeat them before it happened, and they ran off right afterwards,” Ceebee told them.

“Why did they leave though?” Edgar questioned quietly, “I thought they were still going to fight us, but they just… went further into the cave, like Ceebee said.”

“Now that they’re primal, their instinct is to stay that way. Survival is now the top priority. They must have felt threatened by you all, and didn’t think they would be able to win the fight in that moment,” Giratina explained, “they also instinctively want to be at the center of their home, like how Dialga always stayed at Temporal Tower, Palkia now hides here.”

“They felt threatened, huh? We might stand more of a chance than we thought,” Alex commented, grinning slightly.

“Yes! Please, do not lose hope! I still have the upmost faith that you will be able to defeat them, even if they are primal now. You went into that fight without the chance to recover after a mystery dungeon. Now you have that chance. Recover, and go out to rematch Palkia,” Giratina responded.

“That’s the plan!” Keahi chirped, “thanks for the encouragement!”

“No problem. I only wish I could do more to help,” Giratina replied, “if you have anything to ask me, just let me know. In the meantime… I do not wish to disturb your break. I will check to see if there is… anything I can do from here to assist you more. Perhaps with the fabric of space tearing more, I may find an opening to provide more assistance. We’ll see. Best of luck to you either way.”

With that, Giratina’s presence faded from the rock once more. Letting out a sigh, Damien set the rock back down on the ground, closer towards the middle of the seated circle everyone was forming together before turning back to help Alex with inventory.

Keahi leaned back while still sitting on Nelvana’s lap, zir back touching her chest and zir head feathers grazing the marowak’s chin. Zie quietly fumbled with the fire gem for a few moments, furrowing zir brows as zie thought of something, and then looked up at zir partner, opening zir beak to speak and break the growing silence in the group.

“What did it feel like, to evolve?” zie asked her.

“It…” Nelvana paused, furrowing her brows as she did her best to recall the short moment. “I felt like a had a lot of energy, like when you use an attack, except just all over me.”

“Did it hurt?” Edgar chimed in.

Nelvana quickly shook her head, “no, it didn’t hurt. It felt more like… kinda like being stretched? But it didn’t hurt, and I could still feel myself getting stronger. I feel… kind of lightheaded though now, actually.”

“That’s normal,” Alex reassured her, “here you should probably have something to eat. Your body both burned through a lot of energy, and created new energy for yourself,” he explained, passing the marowak an apple to eat.

“Is that why you went to sleep right after evolving, despite talking about how energized you felt?” Nelvana asked him as she accepted the food, without thinking.

“Yeah! That’s pretty… much… Wait.” Alex looked up at Nelvana properly, eyes wide as a smile grew on his face. “I forgot you don’t have amnesia anymore,” he whispered to himself.

“I… Yeah, I don’t,” Nelvana murmured back, taking a bite out of the apple to give herself an excuse not to say anything else at the moment.

Alex paused, his smile fading, “do you not want to talk about that right now? We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“I just… I do but I don’t,” Nelvana sighed, “let’s just… not for now, and I’ll bring it up later when I’m ready, okay? Maybe when I’m done eating this apple.”

He nodded back, “got it.”

“Evolution is still a safe topic, let’s stick with that. Hey, Damien, how did you evolve?” Nelvana said, shifting the subject back to what they had been talking about before.

“Oh, uh… nothing special, really,” Damien mumbled, “I didn’t like… being a gastly, so I did everything I could to evolve into a haunter. Then I evolved right away into a Gengar, since I got a link cable in advance as a gastly,” he explained, “makes me feel the most like myself to actually have arms and legs.”

“Hey, speaking of having hands, maybe I’ll be able to evolve after this! Or during our next fight with Palkia!” Keahi chirped, “that would be cool! Do you think I’d be taller, or shorter than you, Nel?”

“Well, I was taller than you even as a cubone, so I’m going to guess that you’ll still be shorter than me when you’re a combusken,” Nelvana answered, “Alex is a bit taller than most of the combuskens at your home, and I’ll taller than him right now too,” she added.

“Excuse me, apologies for interrupting…” Tsuki spoke up, “do we still have some water packed? I’m quite thirsty,” she requested, looking over at the pair with the two bags.

“Oh, yeah! That’s one thing we really aren’t low on,” Damien responded, “here, everyone should probably have some water while we’re taking a break, actually. Stay hydrated and all that jazz.”

Pausing from their previous conversation, they passed out some water bottles to everyone to drink. Fortunately, between restocking back at the guild, and being restored to an earlier state from Dialga before, not much water had been used, like Damien said, so they were able to drink as much as they wanted now. And though they had less food readily available than water, after Dusknoir pointed out that they likely wouldn’t have another break like this until everything was over, they decided to lighten the bags a bit and dish out the remainder of the food to everyone to fill themselves up before what would, hopefully, be the final confrontation.

“…hey, Alex? Do you think you would have been shorter or taller than me, when you were a treecko compared to when I was a cubone?” Nelvana suddenly asked after the lull of conversation during everyone eating.

Alex blinked over at her, “oh… I dunno! It feels like ages ago since I was a treecko… I came up to about your knee then, but we can’t exactly use that to compare now.”

“What did Alex look like as a treecko?” Keahi blurted out, then stiffening slightly and looking up at zir partner to make sure it was okay to ask that now, still uncertain if Nelvana was ready to talk about what she remembered now that she didn’t have amnesia.

Despite Keahi’s worries, Nelvana smiled back to zim. Truthfully, she still felt uncertain treading this conversation territory, but she knew now that she would need to address it sooner rather than later. She was just thankful that for now they could stick to some easier topics relating to that.

“He was this tiny boy, with big eyes,” Nelvana began, her voice squeaking as her tone turned to teasing her partner. “You see how sharp he is now? He was rounder before, rounder shapes. He had a rounder face, round little hands, and-“

“No, stop!” Alex howled, though he couldn’t stop himself from laughing either. “My image is being ruined! Betrayed by my own sister!”

Keahi laughed, “you’re reminding me of my mom when she gets an excuse to talk about what her kids were like when they were young!”

“Isn’t that why you asked?” Nelvana responded, sporting a wide grin on her face. “I did my best to tease him as much as I could, did I do well?”

“…” Keahi grinned back, “yeah.”

Alex let out a mock gasp, “I knew it from the start, you’re both conspiring against me.”

“Aww, now I wish I got to see you as a treecko!” Ceebee chimed in, leaning forward and placing her chin into the palms of her hands. “I bet you were adorable.”

“Alright, alright, the joke has worn out its welcome now…” Alex announced, raising his hands up slightly in front of himself.

“Fine.” Keahi stuck her tongue out at him playfully, but seemed otherwise willing to drop the subject. “What about you, Nel? What did you look like as a human?”

“Oh! Well, I… hm, I’m not sure how to describe that, since most of you know what the average human looks like,” Nelvana responded, starting out ready to answer the question before trailing off towards the end, furrowing her brows.

“You’ve tried drawing yourself before!” Keahi offered, “I have a vague idea ‘cause of that.”

“Think kind of like… a sawk for the build, except without the blue skin and robes of course, they have hair on their heads…” Alex described.

“That’s a terrible description,” Nelvana snorted.

“Bet you can’t do any better.”

“Too bad we can’t draw that here. The ground is too firm, Nel couldn’t even use her club for that,” Damien commented.

“I’m not sure how well I can use my club to draw anymore anyway,” Nelvana replied, picking up her club which she had set down by her side to hold it out in front of her to examine more with a small frown.

“I think we all have a vague idea, with Nel’s old drawings and Alex’s description,” Tsuki said, “if you wish to still go on with your own description of yourself; I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”

“If not, we can wait!” Edgar added, “I’m sure stuff like this will be easier to draw when we get home anyway!”

“Ah, alright, well let’s see… I still had blue eyes then, and my hair, which was brown, a bit darker than my fur here, was cut pretty short. Some humans grow their hair out longer, but not that often, at least in the dead timeline; it got tangled in everything,” Nelvana told them, “I had pretty light colored skin, kinda light peachy color… And I was pretty tall.”

“And by ‘pretty tall’, she means nearly six feet tall!” Ceebee exclaimed, “Alex would sit on her shoulder when we were just casually walking around.”

“Wait no, before anyone comments about how tall that is, how tall were you exactly?” Damien demanded, jolting up from where he was still sitting.

“Oh, uh…” Nelvana’s face scrunched up as she thought. “Jeez, I dunno. Not like I got many chances to measure myself.”

“I’d put your human height around five feet ten inches,” Ceebee decided, “I think you were done growing before we went back in time too, so that should be fairly accurate.”

“Dammit!” Damien snapped, tossing his hands into the air. “I would have been shorter than you.”

Nelvana laughed, “how tall were you?”

“I wanna say five feet six inches,” Damien sighed, “I might have had another growth spurt in me, since I can’t tell off the top of my head if that was my height when I was thirteen or when I was fully grown.”

“You could ask Gardevoir when we get back,” Tsuki suggested, “she might remember.”

“Maybe… Don’t wanna get my hopes up though,” Damien murmured, turning back to focus on the remainder of his work with Alex.

“How are you two doing over there, anyway?” Keahi asked, turning over to the bag holding duo. “What’s our inventory looking like?”

“Are you ready for us to return our water bottles as well?” Tsuki chimed in, one paw curled around the now empty bottle she had drunken from.

“Oh, yeah, go ahead and pass them over, they won’t be in the way,” Alex responded, waving towards the others to encourage them to give back the items.

Taking a quick moment before addressing Keahi’s questions, everyone tossed, rolled, or passed over their water bottles; of which nearly all were now emptied. Edgar was one who passed his over, and as he passed by the center of the circle, he floated down to pick up Giratina’s rock as well, sensing them nearing the end of their break, and likely not needing to speak to Giratina if they weren’t going to in this moment. Passing both items over to the grovyle, Edgar silently floated back over to where he had been laying down before beside Tsuki.

“Alright, so we’re looking at a slight oran shortage… We still have enough reviver seeds because of how many we got in the guild, those should last just fine. And then all other berries and seeds we have not really used at all, we haven’t suffered from any status effects in these fights,” Alex told everyone, waving a hand over the items laying out on the ground. “We’ll split all the items between us, any odd number extras going to Damien. I’ll hang onto Giratina again… and I think that’s it?”

“That’s the important details, yeah,” Damien agreed, nodding.

“So… does that mean we will be going after Palkia next?” Tsuki asked, sitting up and looking over the rest of the group.

“Well, we still need to put this back away but otherwise…” Alex answered, trailing off as he too looked up at everyone else. “…if everyone is ready now, I don’t see any reason we should sit back any longer.”

“If everyone is ready,” Damien repeated.

Keahi nodded, “yeah! I think I’m okay to go to the fight, as ready as I’ll ever be at least, but if anyone isn’t, don’t be afraid to speak up! We can wait a few more minutes to make sure that everyone will be prepared and comfortable enough to head back out,” zie hummed.

There were some nods and quiet responses of confirmation and agreement before the conversation faded out only having the sounds of Alex and Damien picking up various items and organizing them in the bags to break any silence. Edgar bobbed up and down in place for a couple moments before going to offer to help the pair, and when told “thanks, but we can handle it,” he settled for hovering over them to watch instead. Every so often Alex would relay a packing tip to Damien, but the rest of the group didn’t say much in these last moments.

Or, at least it seemed it would be that way. Nelvana sat in the silence, her mind running in circles as she stewed with a choice. This would be a chance to address something, but it was challenging to form the words in her mouth and then actually have them spoken aloud. She reached for her club again, which she had set down not long earlier to toss Alex her and Keahi’s water bottles before. Rubbing over the now nearly smooth bone with a thumb as she thought, which soon just turned to her gripping the item tightly. Keahi, still sitting in her lap, frowned as zie watched this, zir feather’s ruffled as Nelvana hunched over zim.

“Are you alright?” Keahi whispered, placing a wing on zir partner’s arm.

“I…” Nelvana swallowed her breath. “No, there’s… something I need to talk about,” she said, her voice growing louder and clearer as she sat up again, drawing attention back to her.

“What is it?” Ceebee asked earnestly.

Nelvana paused for a couple moments, rolling the words over in her mouth one last time.

“When Palkia… broke that part of the curse, I didn’t just remember my past before getting amnesia,” Nelvana began, rolling the club over in her hands now, staring at it to focus on what she was saying instead of on the others around her. “I remember what happened after we were erased from time, too.”

Alex glanced up from his work, a mix of emotion flickering in his eyes, “are you saying that as a good thing, or a bad thing…?” he questioned.

“I don’t know. Maybe both,” Nelvana answered, “what… happened in general wasn’t that bad. We were in… some part of the spirit realm, obviously not one I’ve been in before. We met up, and found that everyone else from our time was there too. In some sort of, uh, limbo, I guess,” she explained.

“Like a lobby?” Damien asked, biting his lip as he hoped his input would be more helpful than not.

“Sure,” Nelvana responded, “and we decided to wander a bit while we waited for Gardevoir or someone helping Gardevoir to come find us. You know, say some final goodbyes to old friends and whatnot while we had the chance.”

“Did you have your memories back when you were in that moment?” Tsuki asked.

“No, but it was the thought that counted. Alex and Ceebee would remember, and could fill me in about who it was we were about to talk to,” Nelvana answered.

“You did mention before that you were good at recognizing familiar people, even with amnesia,” Alex added.

“Yeah, that too.” Nelvana paused. “We… We didn’t find my family there, though.”

As she went to look up, to stop staring just at her own weapon, she saw Dusknoir tense from across her. Whether he had pieced together that she knew what happened to her family or not, it was evident by this strangely obvious display from him that he knew what happened. Out of the corner of Nelvana’s eye, she saw the light from Edgar’s eye darken, though she didn’t think much of it; if he knew, it wouldn’t surprise her that much, and she wouldn’t blame him for not telling her before.

“Dusknoir, why did you kill my family?”

Her question, though her voice was quiet, spoke louder than any yell in this moment, the intensity of such a question paired with the already generally silent room made these words pierce true and clear.

Dusknoir tensed more, eye widening at the question being so suddenly and bluntly stated to him, nailing him onto the spot like a wooden plank onto the flooring of a house. Instantly Nelvana’s words, drew everyone to stare at Dusknoir as well, waiting impatiently for his answer. Despite this, he appeared far too stunned to say anything right away, so Nelvana went on.

“We didn’t find my family there, but we found you. You told me that you killed them, trying to use that fact as a leverage against me.” It was becoming a struggle to keep her own words steady by this point, but she pushed on. “So, now I ask, why? Just because they’re related to me? They didn’t do anything against you, or your cause!”

The long, tense seconds drew on without any response from Dusknoir. Nelvana was gripping her club so tightly now that her hands shook, but she kept her gaze trained on the ghost-type, waiting for him to say something, anything.

“I…”

Dusknoir almost seemed to choke as he tried to speak, his body shuddering. He turned to look away, breaking any previous eye contact with Nelvana to face the ground instead, eye closed tightly. He shook again, and then blinked his eye open suddenly as, to everyone’s surprise, inky black tears dripped out of his eye, slowly trailing down his face. Reaching up a hand, he gingerly touched one of the tears, leaving a dark, wet mark on his finger.

“I can cry…?” he whispered, the astonishment clear in his voice.

He paused for a couple more moments, staring at his hand with a wide eye as he cried for the first time; at least, the first time in an incredibly long time. Suddenly though, his gaze narrowed, and he closed his hand into a fist, lifting it up to wipe away the rest of the tears with the back of his hand. Dusknoir rose to his full height, looking back down at Nelvana, who still stared back up at him.

“No, that… isn’t right of me. This is not my loss, my grief, my right to cry, it is yours,” Dusknoir said, “Nelvana, I killed your family for no reason at all. I grew desperate and frustrated after Cee- Celebi escaped my clutches, and I sought for any way to get back at you all. That is no excuse though. How I felt was no excuse for any such actions. What I did was an absolutely horrible thing, and I am deeply sorry that I did that. You are right, they did nothing to earn such a punishment, to rob them of… the choice of where to go, whatever choice there is, after being erased from time.”

Nelvana blinked, though did her best to hide her surprise at such a response as she narrowed her eyes back at him again. Again, he seemed in every way to being honest, and yet she couldn’t help but have her doubts.

“Really? You’re really sorry?” she questioned, unable to keep the bite back from her voice.

He nodded, “yes, I am. And it is alright if you do not believe me. At the end of the day… I did terrible things to you, to all… to all of you. I wanted to save myself so badly that I harmed so many lives, and there is truly nothing I can do to make up for that. But I would still like to try. I have seen now why you fought so hard to bring this timeline back to life, why you still fight now, even at the risk of your own lives. This is a time worth fighting for, and really… I don’t deserve to be a part of it. So, I truly wish to do whatever I can to make up for the harm I did in the other timeline, and make it so I do deserve to be here,” he told them, “so, yes, I am really sorry. And not just to you, Nelvana, but to Grovyle and Celebi as well. I am sorry. You have every right to hate me, but if there is anything I can do to help more, I will do my best to complete it.”

Dusknoir bowed his head slightly to them, silently signifying that he was done with what he had to say. He remained standing up, though he bobbed in place for a moment as if considering sitting back down again. There still seemed to be some tears welled up in his eye, but they didn’t drip out again.

Silence returned as it was now the others’ turn to figure out how to respond. Ceebee had her arms crossed over her chest, mouth closed in a pencil thin line as she fluttered in place in the air. Alex’s lips curled back into a snarl, crouched close to a more quadruped stance as he still sharply glared at Dusknoir. Nelvana still gripped her club tightly, finding herself staring back down at it again as she mulled this over. Eventually, she let out a sigh, releasing her grip on the bone slightly and sitting back up straight again.

“You are right about one thing; I don’t think I can forgive you. And I think I safely speak for Alex and Ceebee when I say that they cannot either,” Nelvana began, “however… I am going to have to give you the benefit of the doubt, and hope that you are telling the truth about how you feel now. Frankly… I’m still processing everything that I was forced to remember all of a sudden. But that doesn’t change the fact that I don’t think it would do any of us any good for me to hate you over something that cannot be changed. I don’t know how much I can trust you, but at least for now, we still need to cooperate. And it would probably hurt me more than help to be thinking about this endlessly and hating you at every moment. So, no, I do not forgive you for what you’ve done. But I’m willing to see what you can do to become better,” she told him.

Dusknoir visibly relaxed, as if weights had been removed from his shoulders, “thank you.”

Ceebee bit her lip, and then exhaled, turning to face Dusknoir, “I’ll think about it,” she said, “for now… you’re still just a temporary ally to me, and an enemy at the end of the day. I’ll want to really see change before I can believe in what you’re saying.”

Dusknoir nodded to this, accepting such an answer without any complaints.

Eyes turned to Alex next, who still didn’t seem to show any signs of giving his own answer yet. In fact, as he felt the stares on him, he sharply turned away from the group, from Dusknoir, and staring back down at the bags and the remaining unpacked items. Letting out a sharp hiss through his teeth, he grabbed the remaining items and shoved them back into his bag, slinging the satchel over his shoulder, all without turning to look at anyone else again.

Time continued to drag on, until it became undeniably clear that Alex wasn’t going to give any sort of answer at all, which turned out to be the loudest answer of all. Nelvana’s gaze softened as she stared at the back of her brooding partner. She wasn’t sure where to go from here. It was important for her to speak and leave things dealt with for now, but what difference would it make for him if he were forced to speak up? He needed more time, she figured, and he gave her time to think before, so she was going to make sure to give him the same curtesy.

“Is everything packed then, Alex and Damien?” Nelvana asked, abruptly changing subjects.

Slowly, Alex turned to look back at his partner, his hardened expression fading into something more relieved at being released from having to respond to the previous conversation. Still, it was Damien who answered her first.

“I think so. We should be all packed and ready for the fight now,” he answered.

Alex nodded slowly, “yeah… So, if everyone is ready, we should go now.”

“I’m ready now,” Nelvana replied, knowing that it was her that hadn’t been ready before, and thus now confirming that she was would be helpful.

And, despite everything, everyone else was ready too. At least, as ready as they would be.

Everyone standing up, Ceebee directed them onwards to Palkia, even though there were no diverging paths to possibly get someone lost. There was only one way forward, and they headed out.

First [ARC 1]: In which the human is transformed First [ARC 2]: In which a present is prepared Next: In which the dreams are nightmares Previous: In which there are no anomalies

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aurora-daily · 5 years

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Interview with AURORA

Interview by Amy Smith for Amnplify (June 7th, 2019).

Much like the enchanting light display with which she shares her name, AURORA, the prodigiously talented 22-year-old singer, songwriter and producer from Norway, is an inspiring spectacle. Since releasing her debut album All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend in 2016, she has attracted a legion of fans worldwide with her angelic voice, dark lyricism and sunny personality. Following over 200 million streams and huge sales with her debut album, the singer dropped the second LP in a two-part project. The first part, entitled Infections Of A Different Kind (Step I) dropped last September. A Different Kind of Human: Step II is set for release this June. AMNplify’s Amy Smith caught up with AURORA when she was in Australia last month, between her Groovin’ The Moo Festival and Headline shows to discuss how she ‘Hunts’ for songs, what it is like being a woman in the music industry, stressing out the The Chemical Brothersand much, much more.

Hi Aurora! My name is Amy, I’m calling on behalf of AMNplify today. How are you?

I’m good thank you. I am a bit better now. I’ve been a bit sick, so I had to cancel (ED: The interview a few times). My nose is still a bit stuffed, but at least my voice is OK. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me, even though you’re unwell.

Oh! No problem.You are in the country as part of the Groovin’ The Moo festival. How is the tour going so far?

The tour is going really good. Australia has a very lively crowd. A very lovely crowd. They give us the energy that we need. So it’s been really nice.

I’m very glad to hear that! You also have some headline shows while you’re here. What are some of the things that you think about when putting together a live show?

I don’t really think about much. I just want to do the songs that I feel I like the most at the moment. Sometimes it’s different every night, sometimes it’s not. I try to accompany my own mood. And, of course, I try to include a bit of every emotion so that people can go on an emotional journey together with me.

I have been very, very lucky to have had the opportunity to give A Different Kind of Human: Step II a listen. I can really hear how you’ve evolved as a producer with many different soundscapes and structures. It really is a wonderful piece of work, congratulations! I often hear something new on each listen and often wonder how you produce some of these sounds!

Thank you!

In the past, you have likened the process of songwriting as ‘Hunting’. Could you please tell me a bit about how you ‘Hunt’ for songs?

I hunt with my instincts, like every hunter should. I go with my belly emotions, as I like to call it. You know if it feels right. If it doesn’t feel right, I move on and I hunt more. I’m not easily satisfied with things. It’s interesting, It’s quite instinctual actually because when you make music, every minute you make a decision. If you’re not sure that you like what you have because you know that you can do better, I just continue searching for the right melodies, words and sounds until I know 100% that I love what I’m left with. It’s an instinct thing. You know when you got it right. It’s really exciting, Step II was produced in a very different way than the first step. In a much more minimalistic space. Much less equipment around me. So it’s kind of both simpler and less complicated. I’ve been recording sounds with my I-Phone and quite bad microphones but it kind of creates the right sound. It’s been really fun to work with the lack of equipment and even more with your imagination. Like, hitting things around you and making a universe with what you got.

What did you do differently when producing Step II? What challenges did you face?

Yeah. Well, I think that’s the biggest difference that on Step I, I wanted to feel really out worldly and the goal is to escape somewhere really beautiful, I wanted feel like I was on a different planet. On this one I needed to go even more within myself. So I was in a room with a purple floor and blue walls together with my drummer, Magnus, and we just stayed in there for a month and we made the album.

Clear thought and planning goes into how and when you release your music. All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend was a very introspective, self-healing album. Infections Of A Different Kind: Step I started to look at challenges outside of ourselves and Step II feels like a call to arms! Just how far into the future do you you have planned? What’s next?

I’m already making my fourth album. So my head is definitely somewhere far, far, far in the future. The minute I’m done with an album, like the second I know that I can’t touch it anymore and I can’t change anything, it’s officially done. It’s a few months before the world will hear it,but still that I know that I can’t work on it anymore. So then I have to kind of jump right on to my next project. It’s quite interesting because I always know, like the minute I’m done with the album I’ve been working on, I know what I will do next. I already know the title of my next album almost a minute after I’m done with the album that I just did. I actually finished this album (Ed:Step II) the 1st of December 2018 and then I already knew the title of my next album. I have actually hidden some clues on Step II that point toward my fourth album.

You recently had the opportunity to collaborate with The Chemical Brothers! So cool! Tell me a bit about that experience.

It was really beautiful. I’m a really big fan of them, so it was a true honour to be able to work with them. The first time I went to… I think I visited Tom, from Chemical Brothers, two times to do all the vocals, write the music and all that stuff. The second time I came, I forgot to order a hotel, so I got to stay in his attic. His daughter had a birthday and everything, so I was there on quite a rare occasion! It was really sweet. I went for a long walk, for them to have some peace because it was a birthday and everything. I went out around 8pm for a walk. I walked for like two hours in the woods because they live really far away from everything in England, it was really beautiful. I found this bar and I had a beer and some food and then I continued to walk for three more hours. Suddenly it was really late, it was really dark, it was 1am in the night. So they became really worried about me. There’s no reception where they live, which is really nice, but they couldn’t call me and get to my phone to ask if I was OK. I tried to give them some peace of mind by being away for a bit on her birthday, but I think I just made the night more full of worry! Worried about me being alone in the woods in the dark! So, it kind of became the opposite of what I was trying to do! But, it was really magical. It was really fun. A really good experience for me.

Just waiting in that Gojira collaboration now!

*Laughs*

I think an Aurora and metal band collab would be amazing! I saw that song that you recently did with Wardruna too, that was beautiful!

Yeah! Yeah! I’m a really big fan of them too! In general, I like really dark music. So I’m a big fan of them.In previous interviews, you have talked about writing music from a very young age, music seems to be a natural talent for you!

However, you didn’t picture yourself being a singer as a career. What would you be doing now if you weren’t a singer? Did you have any specific dreams growing up?

I did want to be a scientist. Maybe be a researcher on molecular technology. That’s what I originally wanted to be because Chemistry and Physics really interested me as a child. It all made sense, it makes more sense than people! But, I had to quit school and everything because I was too busy with the music. I would still be writing music, I think, because music is just something that I have to do. It’s still something that I do for myself because it makes me feel good. It makes me feel like I know why I’m here, it makes me feel meaningful.

How is creating music different from performing it?

Creating music is kind of like all the best things together. Like having sex. And being on tour is kind of like having the child. It’s also beautiful in another way, but you have to be less selfish because there are so many more other people involved; It’s about the crowd, not about me. Like when you have a child, it’s about the baby and not about you. It’s still nice, but a bit more exhausting than the intercourse itself. I like to be in the studio, I like being in the studio the most because it makes me… it’s weird because it can keep you awake. And you forget to eat. And you forget that you have to pee. It just makes you forget everything else that you need to do. Because it’s the only thing that you like doing. It’s just a really, really magical thing. Sometimes that can happen live, but it’s very rare. I do have fun on stage though!

youtube

What is your experience as a woman in the music industry?

I personally know some women who work in the industry, both in bands and who work behind the scenes, whose skills and knowledge are often minimised. I’m wondering if you face any similar challenges? Well, I have. I was born with a lot of determination. I’m very strong minded naturally. I take my space if it has to do with my own child, my own music, my own career. But, that’s just good luck that I am like that! I know definitely that I am very well equipped for this business, just like when comes to being able to stand up for yourself. You have to be very clear. I noticed that very young. Luckily, I have gained respect from people. I feel like, in this industry, I have gained the respect that I demand and need and want. I’m really happy about that. But I do notice a very strange rule that when you write music, if there’s other people in the room, even if they don’t write anything, it says that they have written the song with you even though they haven’t. When I produce, I notice often that, as a woman, the world often thinks that you don’t produce. Which is really annoying because it is such a big part of making music! And it’s such a big part of my identity and why I love being in the studio all the time. I do notice that it is very difficult to be credited as a producer on my own music, even though I have been producing it. On many of my albums, I’m not even listed as a producer! It’s really strange! That’s definitely a thing that I have noticed. I read an article, long ago, about Bjork saying the same thing that, in the beginning, she wasn’t listed as a producer either on her own work. That’s really strange! That’s definitely one of the things I’m really annoyed about and can feel the problem. That’s the thing that I’m ready to fight even more for!In this fast-paced, noisy world, it is often difficult to find peace and quiet.

What are some strategies that you use?

I am very addicted to peace and quiet. I need it a lot. Often, when I’m the the cities, my head can get really tired and I forget to look across the road before I cross it because I get so busy from all the people, sounds and smells. It is definitely, I would say, a problem in most places. I have learnt, in the last few years, that you can find that peace and quite within yourself. We have earphones. We have relaxing music. Noise cancelling earphones I find really helpful! I think it is important. In every city, there is some park or maybe just in your room if you have a wall where there is not too much stuff, where you can find a bit of simplicity. Just close your eyes in your room and just try to find a quiet place within yourself. I like to close my eyes a lot. If I’m in the streets, I like to put my fingers deep into my ears, so I can’t hear a thing and just look up in the sky. I like to sit in my hotel room and I like to close my eyes, breathe in really deep and just imagine that the room is really high and that I’m on top of this pier and the ground is really far down. That’s really nice, I think. It’s nice to kind of imagine myself being in the middle of this huge space. Or, I really like taking baths. When you put your head under the water, it’s completely quiet.You can hear your own heartbeat and I find that really relaxing. I would recommend that.

Is there anything that you feel that I have missed over the course of this interview that you would like to add?

No. I think you’ve asked quite nice questions. I’m very excited for the release (ED: A Different Kind Of Human: Step II). I’ve hidden many clues. And, you’re right, it’s all very connected, all the way up to my first album to now. It’s all a part of this big, emotional process. Step II has a really big voice! It’s getting quite political now. It’s very exciting!

#aurora #aurora aksnes #step 2 #collaborations #the chemical brothers #warduna #interviews

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criminalnourished · 7 years

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Midnight Shenanigans

~ A Shayne Topp Imagine/Fluff ~

A/N: Look, I don’t write, I was going to make a short parody, but it kept getting longer and longer and I actually kinda liked how it turned out, so I thought I’d share it. It’s super long, so if you get through it, I applaud you!

Warnings: Fluff. Like, a lot of it. (also, alcohol? like, having a drink)

Words: way too many, I like my epithets.

Enjoy!

Winter Games.

The event of the season.

And it was going to be extra special this year. Why? Because you get to go!

As one of the newly established head writers and producer, you would be reffing this year’s Games, along with Sunny, Joe and Matt and you were hardly able to contain your excitement.

The venue was the same as the previous years’ one – Big Bear.

The evening before, you were starting the slow process of packing when it hit you.

You were a part of the Smosh family and have even been in the background of a few videos, though you were more of a ‘behind the scenes’ kind of person, so this was going to be a big step. This would’ve been your first on-screen appearance that included talking. Oh geez. Your stomach churned. Oh holy geez. Mostly unscripted. Unscripted. I literally work with scripts, how in God’s name am I going to pull this off?, you thought to yourself.

Thankfully, you were taken out of your trance with a noise. That familiar iPhone ringtone we all know and never change. Standing up, crossing a mountain of bags, you reached for your phone and looked at the caller ID. Shayne. You smiled briefly before picking up. That guy always knew how to make you smile.

‘Hello?’ you said, going back to the suitcase. However, being the clumsy potato that you were, you caught your leg on a plastic bag, managing to lose your balance and fall directly on your bum, with a noisy *thud*. A loud laugh escaped the phone.

‘I get that it’s part of your “brand” to just barely be capable of walking, but please try not to die, we prefer our writers alive’ Shayne joked.

‘Ha-ha’ you said sarcastically, picking yourself up from the floor. ‘Thanks, I appreciate it. Now that you’ve told me, I am sure to stop tripping and falling over’ you joked back.

‘Perfect! Don’t say that I never did anything for you!’

‘I shall remember this piece of advice till the day I die, which will inevitably be by slipping on a banana peel or tripping over my own two feet while carrying coffee.’ He laughed.

You started organizing your clothes into neat piles on your bed.

‘And your tombstone will say “Here lies our beloved (Y/N), who forgot to follow the Great Shayne’s advice.”’ You giggled, folding a shirt into your suitcase.

‘So anyways, what are you up to?’ he asked.

‘I just started packing’ you replied.

‘Oooh, right on time! It’s only…’ he stopped, presumably looking for the exact time. ’11:43pm!’

‘Hey, I only need about an hour, I have plenty of time. Have you already packed?’

‘Yup! All done, ready to go!’

You scoffed. ‘You must’ve forgotten something.’

‘I pretty sure I haven’t. Triple-checked.’

Another scoff from you.

‘And hey, if you “only need an hour”’ he mocked, ‘that’s great, you have enough time to get food with me!’

‘Oh, Shayne, it’s almost midnight, I don’t know, and-‘ you trailed off.

‘And?’

‘And… I don’t know, we need to be up in 5 to 6 hours?’

‘That’s a terrible excuse. You’re living on your own, you make your own rules and then break them, because rules are meant to be broken, dammit!’ he said, overly enthusiastic.

You kept folding clothes into your suitcase, silently. You wanted to go, really, it seemed so fun and like the epitome of ‘living’, from what you’ve seen in those typical young adult movies. Fun, you thought, not a good enough argument. All of a sudden, your stomach grumbled. Now that’s a good argument.

‘And also, I’m kinda maybe possibly in front of your building…’ Shayne added.

You dropped the dress you were neatly trying to fold.

‘You’re what?’

‘An evolved monkey’, he said, a hint of pride in his voice.

‘No, gah! Why are you-? How did you-?’ You tried to formulate a question but failed miserably. ‘Wait, let me buzz you in.’

‘No, no, I’ve got a better idea – you come with me. I’m already here and you already said that an hour is plenty of time for packing. Plus, I can help you with that later. So…. whaddaya say?’

You approached the window looking towards the building entrance, in disbelief, but sure enough, there he was, one hand in his pocket, pacing.

‘Alright’, you sighed, ‘give me three minutes to get down there.’

‘If you don’t make it, food’s on you. And your time… starts… now! Three minutes, go!’

You threw on the first shirt you saw – a baggy gray tee with the NASA logo on it, which was way too big, pairing it with boyfriend jeans.

Forty-five seconds to go.

You grabbed your little leather backpack, along with your phone, keys and wallet, stuffing them inside violently.

Twenty-seven seconds left.

You slammed the door, locking it quickly and sprinted down the stairs, skipping over multiple steps and almost dying thrice.

As you opened the big entrance gate to the building, you heard a beep. Shayne’s phone went off, signaling your three minutes had been over.

When you looked ahead, Shayne was peering back, a Cheshire cat-sized smile was plastered across his face.

‘No!’ you yelled, while bending over, resting your hands on your knees, trying to catch a breath. ‘Nonononono, I made it, I- I… I got out of the building!’

‘Nope! Doesn’t count! Looks like I’ll be enjoying some… whatever our food of choice turns out to be.’ Shayne said smugly, putting his hands behind his head.

When you finally got your air back, you stepped towards him, holding your side. You were really out of shape.

‘But I did it, the deal was to get down here in 3 minutes!’

You approached him, slouching. He threw an arm around you, as a way of greeting you and, well, because you looked like you were barely standing. This will have proven true merely moments later, when you shifted all of your weight off of your feet, forehead pressed against his clavicle.

‘Ah, yes, but you did not stop the alarm! That’s the unspoken rule of race-bets, always stop the clock!’ he said in a matter-of-fact tone, while patting the back of your head.

‘Fiiiine’, you let out a slow sigh, still in the same place. Maybe you were exhausted after a long day at work, maybe this three-minute workout from hell got to you or maybe this scenario felt pleasant, but you didn’t move. And neither did he. You just stood there, for a good while, taking it all in. You didn’t remember how long, but at some point he stopped patting your head and just rested his chin on the top, his arms around you. It was… nice. Man, male colognes are the best, you thought to yourself.

However, this suddenly made you feel extremely aware of the close proximity in which you were, making your cheeks a few dozen shades more red. You shifted a bit and Shayne, understanding the signal, let you go, scratching his head. You couldn’t help but think you’d seen a bit of red tint in his cheeks, only for a mere second, however, as it faded away quite quickly.

‘Um… so, since midnight snackage’s on you, it’s only fair that you get to pick the place.’

‘Hmmm… the closest ‘eat-now-regret-later’ place is McDonald’s. Does that work?’

‘Ughhh, fine’, he fake-complained, ‘No, yeah, sure! That’s a few streets down, though, might be a bit of a walk’ said Shayne.

‘Or we could take my car?’

‘Nooo, come on, look at this weather’ he said whinny, pointed to the sky. It was rather beautiful. The sky was completely clear, there were a few stars visible. The air was way too warm, considering it was technically winter, a light breeze was blowing. ‘It’d be a shame if we didn’t take advantage of this, doncha think? And if you get tired… I don’t know, I’ll just carry you or something, we’ll figure it out!’

‘Why don’t we go to the drive-through, get our food, drive up to the hills and eat there? We can go for a walk and have a vehicle at our disposal, if we happen to need it! Boom, compromise!’

‘Deal!’ said Shayne, giggling slightly. You stepped towards your Mini Cooper.

‘I mean, hey, I know you’re in shape, but I feel like I could collapse any moment now’ you informed him. He chuckled, already seated in the passenger seat, seat belt on.

‘Ho, boy! Food – here we come!’

About 7 minutes later, you entered a McDonald’s drive-through, ordered way too much food, and soon enough, you were on your way for the hills.

‘Yo, drive-throughs’, said Shayne, with a mouthful of fries, ‘might be the best thing we ever came up with. No human interaction, you don��t even need to leave your car!’

‘Definitely. I’d say it’s up there with fire and the computer’ you replied.

You talked the whole ride, finding yourselves in sporadic fits of laughter. After 10ish minutes of traffic-free driving, you were there. Shayne insisted he should carry all the food, you knew that any attempt at arguing would be in vain. A short walk later, a small bench graced you with its presence and you decided to occupy it, the food bags taking most of the space.

‘Woah’, you exclaimed, trying to squeeze the BigMac™ into your mouth, ‘in the two years that I’ve lived in LA, I’ve never been here at night. It’s so peaceful and beautiful.’

‘Right? And the best part?’ he said inquisitively, looking at you, ‘The view!’ He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, with a rather constipated facial expression, barely holding in the giggles. You laughed and shook your head.

You sat there for moments? Minutes? Hours? Who knows how long, talking about… nothing yet everything, really, while eating you food as slowly as possible, and almost choking a couple of times due to excessive laughter. When you finished your meal, you felt 500lbs heavier and completely incapable of moving. Shayne removed the scrunched up wrappers and scooted a bit closer. You held your stomach and let out a long grunt, reminiscent of vocal fry.

‘I think… I think I’m just gonna stay here… live my life on this bench, y’know, become an urban myth’ you said, curling up into fetal position.

‘”The girl on bench” ’ he said, in an overly dramatic tone, patting your back, ‘some say you can still hear a faint rumble of her stomach trying to digest the ton of food she consumed on that faithful night.’ You giggled.

‘Why, oh why, cruel world must it taste so good but hurt so badly?!’ he yelled to the sky, his voice shaky.

‘Shayne! It’s midnight, keep it down’ you tried to stop laughing and act serious, but failed.

‘Whyyyy?!’ he cried, falling onto his knees in front of the bench. Your stomach started aching, this time from laughter. You stood up and approached him, with the intention of helping him get up, extending your arm, however, when he grabbed it, you wobbled in the air and ended up landing on top of him.

Good job, wow, you’ve really outdone yourself this time! you thought, while hoping for the ground to swallow you.

‘Oh my gosh’, you said, completely flustered, not looking at him. You turned your head to glance at him, noticing that his face was way closer than you initially calculated. ‘I- I- I am so sorry, that was so… Oh gosh, I’m sorry, are you okay?’ you rushed to get up. Shayne just looked at you, laughing, with an amused look on his face. He was going to make a joke, but upon seeing how utterly distressed you looked, he decided against it.

‘Of course I am, I’m great, couldn’t be better’ he stood up, holding his side, ‘minus the fractured rib you might’ve caused me, but hey, I’ll live!’

‘Hey, no, don’t’ worry, really, it’s all good!’ said Shayne, putting a hand on your scapula. A short period of silence followed. ‘Hey, wanna go pack?’

‘Oh, sure, but I can do it, really, I’d hate to keep you up, but thanks for-‘

‘Nooo, you’re not keeping me up’ he exclaimed, ‘I dragged you out, so I need to redeem myself!’

You sighed.

‘Okay, fine. But my apartment ‘s a mess, don’t say I didn’t warn you!’

Your face was still a bright shade of red, the embarrassment unbearable. You hugged yourself, as if you were cold, and kept murmuring many I’m sorry-s along the way to the car.

During the ride, the constantly opened window helped you calm down and your skin tone to go back to normal.

Much to your surprise, the mess you had left at your place before was still there. :(

‘Woah, was there a nuclear explosion here?’ Shayne asked, evidently trying to push your buttons.

‘Actually, yes, that’s very insensitive of you. How dare you bring that up?’ you played along, while taking two clean glasses from the cupboard. ‘Want some gin?’

‘Woah, hey, heyhey, I don’t know if… I..’ Shayne stuttered, evidently taken aback by this suggestion. ‘I had no idea you drank.’

‘Well… I’m full of surprises’ you said, with an over exaggerated wink. The corner of Shayne’s mouth twitched. ‘And besides, I just do it occasionally.’ He nodded. ‘So, do you want some?’

‘I… uh… sure!’ he replied, still a bit confounded.

You poured the liquid into the glasses and added two ice cubes. Taking both glasses, you approached Shayne, who was looking at the clothes you already packed and handed him the glass.

‘Y’know, I’m pretty sure you don’t really need a cocktail dress… and I’d say that’s more than enough T-Shirts for a week and a half’ he stated, taking the glass from your hand.

‘Yes I do! T-Shirts are comfortable and great for layering and that’s how you combat the cold, you layer and-‘

‘But you don’t layer T-Shirts on top of T-Shits!’

‘But- yeah, you’re right, I mostly sleep in T-Shirts’, Shayne turned his head towards you, ‘What? They’re comfy so I bring extra, in case some get dirty or sweaty, y’know.’ You took a swig of your drink, almost downing it all at once, stumbling a bit.

‘Woah, easy there, you don’t want to be hung-over for the trip’, said Shayne, steadying you.

‘Nah, don’t worry about it, it’s just gin…’

‘Okay, well, you need to pack!’

‘You said you’d help!’

‘I will! You need a supervisor, to maximize efficiency.’

‘So you’ll just sit and tell me what to do?’

‘No, don’t be silly… I might stand up eventually’, replied Shayne, evidently proud of his comeback, which earned him a disapproving headshake.

‘Oh really?’ you said, grabbing your bras and underwear from a drawer.

It was Shayne’s turn to change into a tomato, clearing his throat, trying to look anywhere else, scratching the back of his neck and basically doing every other tick in the book signaling he was uncomfortable.

You grinned mischievously, realizing what you’d done and quickly put it all away into the suitcase.

‘You can look now’, you said.

‘Oh, hah, psh, no, I- I wasn’t, I-‘ he tried to come across as calm, cool and collected, but ended up looking even more awkward. You awed and kept packing, moving on to sweaters.

You kept packing and at some point, the gin started kicking in, making you extremely sleepy. Surely enough, the process took more than an hour, even with Shayne’s eventual help. You collapsed onto your bed, headfirst, and he lied next to you, on his back.

‘This was exhausting’, you exclaimed.

‘Nah, I’d say it was fun!’ he replied. You rolled over so that you were also lying on your back.

‘Thanks for helping, I would’ve probably fallen asleep had you not been here’, you said, turning your head to look at him.

‘See?’ he beamed, ‘I told you!’ he chuckled.

This was the first time you got to look at him so closely – the laugh lines and those baby blues, the slight beard he was trying to cultivate, his radiant smile… You caught yourself staring and only then did you realize how close you actually were, which in turn made you blush profusely. He kept smiling, but his gaze trailed down your face and focusing on your lips, for a split second only. You batted your eyelashes, not knowing what to do. Sh-Should I do anything? you thought. This will just make things awkward, probably. Oh goodness I messed up again, what am I supposed to do, I-

At this point you could feel his breath on your nose. He moved his hand to brush off some of your hair. The tension was so thick, you could cut it with a knife, which made you panic even more. I gotta move, you thought, this will be way too weird in the long run, I should probably just cough or something or-

And then it happened. He moved just slightly towards you, closing the tiny gap that remained between the two of you. Your mind, while racing up until that point, was completely blank – no worry, no panic, just bliss. The kiss was shorter than you would’ve hoped for, yet still sweet, making you smile like a mad man, which in turn made his lips curve into a grin, as well.

Shayne was gently caressing your cheek. He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by you initiating another kiss, this one deeper and more passionate than expected. He put one hand on the back of your neck and wrapped an arm around your waist, pulling you closer, while you held onto his shirt and neck. A few minutes later, you broke apart, neither of you able to stop smiling. You laid there for a few minutes, intertwined, without saying a word.

After some time, you tried to move, but Shayne’s embrace wouldn’t let you.

‘Shayne’, you called out. No response.

You looked up and saw him pretending to be asleep.

‘Shayne’, you repeated. No response. You tried wiggling out of his grip, but couldn’t. He started laughing, eyes still firmly shut.

You placed a kiss on his clavicle, which instantly made him open his eyes and look at you.

‘Wanna watch a movie?’ you asked.

‘Depends on what you got’, Shayne said, seemingly loosening his grip.

‘I’ve got whatever you want’, you beamed. ‘Well, I don’t, but the torrents do!’

‘”Space Jam” it is, woo!’ he exclaimed, throwing his arm in the air. You laughed and mimicked his ‘woo’.

‘Okay, I’ll go set it up, you refill our glasses and get the popcorn ready, there’s some in the cabinet.’

A few minutes later, everything was in order and you were huddled up on the sofa. The movie started playing and you immediately started commentating out loud, laughing. Neither of you said anything about what had happened, which was bound to backfire, but at the moment it seemed fine.

The file you had illegally downloaded was buffering quite a bit and you were really tired… I’ll close my eyes just for a few seconds, you thought.

And lo and behold, you fell asleep. As soon as he noticed, Shayne spent a few moments looking at you, wondering whether he should carry you to your bed or leave you be. He ended up choosing the latter, as your bed still contained the residue of a nuclear explosion that took place earlier. He tried to move, in search of a blanket, however, you fell asleep on him and he just didn’t have the heat to move you. Instead, he threw an arm around you and you got even comfier. Shayne lost track of time – for a certain period, he was just observing your serene expression, but he ended up falling asleep next to you.

Feedback is highly appreciated, hit up my inbox or leave a comment or sth, thanks. :3

#oh gosh what have i done #im sorry #smosh #shayne topp #shayne topp imagine #shayne topp x reader #smosh shayne #fluff #feedback #smosh squad

899 notes · View notes

gethealthy18-blog · 5 years

Text

295: Health Foods That Are Actually Making Us Sick With Dr. Gundry of the Plant Paradox

New Post has been published on http://healingawerness.com/news/295-health-foods-that-are-actually-making-us-sick-with-dr-gundry-of-the-plant-paradox/

295: Health Foods That Are Actually Making Us Sick With Dr. Gundry of the Plant Paradox

Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.

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Katie: Hello, and welcome to the “Wellness Mama Podcast.” I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com, and I am here today with one of the most requested podcast guests ever. Dr. Steven Gundry MD is a renowned heart surgeon, four-time “New York Times” bestselling author and physician-scientist. He’s considered the leading expert in the world on a lectin-free diet as the key to reversing disease and boosting longevity, and he explains the science and the protocol in his book, ”The Plant Paradox.”

He also wrote a book called “The Longevity Paradox: How to Die Young in a Ripe Old Age” where he talks about how to get younger as you age, and he certainly seems to be an example of that. He also has written several cookbooks, including ”The Plant Paradox Family Cookbook,” which comes out right about the time you are listening to this and is available everywhere books are sold. This is one of my favorite interviews I’ve done. It’s fascinating.

We go into a lot of different topics, including autoimmune disease and how to reverse it, how to keep your family healthy, even things like we go deep on APOE-4 genes and a whole lot of fascinating science. And Dr. Gundry practices medicine still seven days a week with his waitlist only clinics and helps thousands of people a year to get healthier. And, stay tuned to also hear how some of his clinical studies that he’s working on, they have a 95% reversal rate for autoimmune disease. So, like I said, one of my favorite episodes that I have done, and I hope that you will enjoy it as much as I did.

Katie: Dr. Gundry, welcome, and thanks for being here.

Dr. Gundry: Thanks for having me, “Wellness Mama.”

Katie: I am so excited to have you. In fact, you are one of my most requested guests ever, and I’m so excited to finally get to chat with you on air. And I mentioned in your bio you are well-known for your book, ”The Plant Paradox,” and I think that’s a perfect place to start because I read it and really enjoyed it, and I know it caused a stir to say the least. And you talk about lectins being a problem. So to start broad, can you give us an overview of what lectins are?

Dr. Gundry: Lectins are a plant protein that’s a sticky protein, and they’re designed by plants as a defense mechanism against being eaten. These, believe it or not, plants don’t want to be eaten, and they don’t want their seeds or babies eaten. So one of the ways they fight against being eaten is to produce these lectins, which like to bind to specific sugar molecules in us or any of their predators. And those sugar molecules line the wall of our gut. They line the lining of our blood vessels. They line in our joints. They line the spaces between nerves.

And when lectins hit these places, they are a major cause of leaky gut. They can break down the gut wall barrier. They’re a major cause of arthritis, they’re a are major cause of heart disease, and they’re a major cause, in my research, of autoimmune diseases. And so anything that a lectin can do to make its predator, us, feel bad, not do well. A smart predator says, “Every time I eat these particular plants or their seeds, I don’t do very well, and I think I’ll go eat something else.” That’s the defense mechanism that plants use.

Katie: That makes sense. So what would be examples of foods that contain lectins and some of the different types of lectins that are in these foods?

Dr. Gundry: Most grains have lectins primarily in the hull, sometimes in the germ of the grains. So we’re talking about, for instance, gluten happens to be a lectin, but there are other mischievous lectins in wheat in the hull called wheat germ agglutinin, which is probably even worse than gluten present in all grains except sorghum and millet. Sorghum and millet don’t have a hull and have been tested as lectin-free. They’re present in all beans. Beans and legumes have some of the highest lectin content of any food, and that includes peanuts.

Peanuts are a legume, they’re not a nut at all, and that includes cashews. Cashews are part of the nightshade, Oh, sorry. Not the nightshade family, poison ivy family. And anyone who thinks that cashews are good for them might chew on poison ivy and find out how bad that really is. I mentioned nightshades. The nightshade family includes potatoes, eggplant, tomatoes, peppers, and even goji berries. And then there are also lectins in new world’s squash families, things like zucchini, things like summer squashes, things like cucumbers actually all have lectins, primarily in the peels and the seeds. So that’s a good overview.

Katie: Got it. So, that sounds like a lot of foods. I know people who are not familiar with this may be thinking, like, “That’s half of what I eat.” What would be on the converse, what would be some examples of foods that do not contain lectins?

Dr. Gundry: Well, you know, interestingly enough, all of those foods that I mentioned, no human being ever consumed any of those foods until about 10,000 years ago when agriculture started. We did not eat wheat. It didn’t exist. Rice began being cultivated 8,000 years ago. Things like the nightshade family, most of us come from Europe, Africa, or Asia, and all of these nightshade families are American plants, and so none of our ancestors ate any of these until 500 years ago. And beginning to be introduced to something in 500 years is like speed dating and evolution, and I think we haven’t been able to catch up with adapting to these modern foods.

So an answer to your question. We have been eating leaves and tubers for probably millions and millions of years. There is evidence that early man primarily got a lot of its food supply by tubers, including, fun fact, those little tiger nuts, which are actually not nuts at all but little underground tubers. There’s some pretty cool archaeological evidence that we consumed quite a bit of tiger nuts in the past. But yams, for instance, are another thing and all the leafy green vegetables. Great apes like chimpanzees and gorillas eat mostly leaves, and we started as one of the great eight families.

Katie: That is really fascinating. So to clarify one point on this because you just mentioned a lot of vegetables and even tubers that are sources of starch, I think that there was some misconception with “The Plant Paradox.” People thought it was essentially a carnivore diet or that you were saying to avoid all plants, and that’s certainly not the case at all. But can you just clarify that a little bit?

Dr. Gundry: Yeah. This is not a carnivore diet. It’s the antithesis of the carnivore diet. I’m actually very plant-friendly. In fact, there’s a vegetarian and vegan version of every one of my recipes in every one of my books. And I’m secretly trying to make people pretty close to vegan as possible. My wife and I eat pretty much vegan during the week. Then on the weekends, we add usually wild shellfish or wild fish into our repertoire. Now, the reason I think people think that this is a carnivore diet, the carnivore diet folks have jumped on the lectin bandwagon because, quite frankly, all plants have lectins in them.

And my point in “The Plant Paradox” is that there are some plants that we have eaten for literally millions of years and our bacteria, our microbiome, has evolved to handle those particular lectins and eat them and also teach our immune system that, “Yeah, this plant has a lectin, but, hey, you don’t have to get all upset about it because you’ve seen this lectin for a million years and don’t get your shorts in a wad. And I think that’s the difference. The carnivore diet folks say, “Okay, well every plant is bad, and so we auto-eliminate all plants.”

That’s, I think, taken to an extreme. I will say this about the carnivore diet. In a way, it is the ultimate elimination diet. And I do have patients with severe IBS or leaky gut that even raw vegetables, particularly raw cruciferous vegetables, are really mischievous introducing them initially into the program. And I write in all the books, and some people don’t read closely enough. But if you do have IBS, or a leaky gut, or diarrhea, then raw vegetables are way down the list that you should add to your diet. And if you want those vegetables, you need to cook them to an inch of their life and make them kind of mushy, particularly a pressure cooker really helps.

Katie: Let’s talk about that a little bit more. I’m a huge fan of pressure cookers and Instant Pots, and I have actually several of them. But how do pressure cookers help with lectins?

Dr. Gundry: So there is good evidence that all lectins can be destroyed with the application of high heat and high pressure simultaneously. The exception to that is gluten. Gluten does not appear to be broken down by high heat and high pressure. Interestingly, I was a professor and chairman at Loma Linda University for much of my career, and the Adventists are vegetarians. And, the primary protein source in the Adventist diet is texturized vegetable protein, TVP as it’s known. And this is actually defatted soy meal that is extruded under high heat and high pressure. And I think maybe unbeknownst to them, this deactivate the rather nasty lectins in soy.

So some people characterize me as anti-bean, and that’s actually not the case. I think beans have some great soluble fibers that if you deactivate the lectins by pressure cooking them, they’re a really great source of food. And so, as you know, I’m a big fan of the Instant Pot. In fact, on November 19th, I’m introducing ””The Plant Paradox Family Cookbook,” which has mostly Instant Pot recipes for busy families. And you’ve got six kids, so you are one busy wellness mama. And so, an instapot is just a great option for delectinizing foods and getting a great meal on the table very quickly.

Katie: I definitely agree. I’m a huge fan of it. I’ll make sure to share your new cookbook when it comes out and also to grab a copy. But just to make sure I understand, so if people are using an instapot or pressure cooker correctly, does that make things like beans, and nightshades, and squash safe to consume?

Dr. Gundry: Yes, absolutely. And I go through that in every one of our books, that the key is using a pressure cooker, like an Instant Pot and following the package directions. The other thing I think that’s important for people to know who maybe are still afraid of the pressure cookers, the Instant Pot or other modern pressure cookers are not their grandmother’s pressure cooker. My mother exploded one when I was growing up. These are incredibly safe, useful devices. I think the other great thing is, and I have no relationship with this company.

There’s a company called Eden, E-D-E-N, that not only soaks all their beans and legumes and lentils but also pressure cooks them. And they’re really one of the few companies that has a non-BPA lined can. And just to give you an example. I ran home from filming, in San Francisco, a public television special Wednesday night, and I opened a can of Eden Garbanzo beans, threw in a bunch of chopped onions and a half head of radicchio with some Italian herbs, and stirred it all around, and that was dinner. And so you can report that Dr. Gundry admitted to eating pressure cooked Garbanzo beans. Oh my gosh. News flash.

Katie: I have it on the record now. We have a record of this. What about grains? So you mentioned sorghum and millet do not have lectins. Does that make them okay as is to consume?

Dr. Gundry: Yeah, I think they’re really a great underutilized grain. Both sorghum and millet, you can make into oatmeal which has the texture, which has the flavor. I’m a sucker for sorghum popcorn. Sorghum popcorn looks like miniature popcorn. It smells like popcorn. It tastes like popcorn, only it’s really tiny. And I think it’s another underutilized grain. Now, one of the things that I talk about in all my books, these should be used not as the mainstay of anyone’s diet. I think they are additions to a diet. They still have a lot of starch that breaks down into simple sugar.

And one of the things I’ve seen through the years in dealing with my patients is that a lot of people see my list of friendly foods page and look at the resistance starches and say, “Oh, I can have unlimited amounts of sorghum, or Yuca, or millet.” And I’ve tested this on myself, and I’ll have a bunch of sorghum popcorn and then check my blood levels of triglycerides. And sure enough, if I’m munching, even a couple cups of sorghum popcorn as a snack, within a week, my triglycerides are elevated. And as people have heard me talk, that’s really bad longterm for heart health.

Katie: That makes sense. Let’s go a little deeper on that because I think that there’s also a misconception that you are just, by default, low carb or that you recommend a low carb or keto-type diet because a lot of these foods that contain lectins are also high carb, but you are a heart surgeon as well as a research scientist. So give us the low down on that. What do you personally consume carb-wise, and what do you recommend for your patients?

Dr. Gundry: Well, so I’m actually, as you probably know or as people know, I have a ketogenic version of my diet that I use for anyone who is insulin-resistant, or prediabetic, or diabetic, who has issues with cancer. I treat a lot of patients with cancer with my version of the ketogenic diet. But my version of the ketogenic diet is plant-based in that I want people to consume about 80% of their calories as primarily olive oil and/or avocados. And that’s where the vast majority of their calories should come from. I literally want people to consume about a liter of olive oil per week. And as strange as that may seem, that’s 10 to 12 tablespoons of olive oil per week.

My wife and I go through about a liter and a half of olive oil every week. And David Palmiter, a good friend, he and his wife, each have about a liter of olive oil per week. And you can look at any of us, and we’re certainly not overweight. In fact, there’s a beautiful study out of Spain forcing people to use a liter of olive oil per week for five years at the age of 65, and they actually lost weight during that time period. And they had improved brain health and memory, and they actually reduced their incidents of coronary heart disease by 30%.

So back to your original question, I believe that most of the food that we should be to get olive oil into our mouth. In other words, the purpose of eating broccoli is to get olive oil into your mouth. The purpose of having a salad is to get olive oil into your mouth. In fact, when I pop sorghum popcorn, I pour olive oil over it. And in fact, in my previous cookbook, I recommended that people, instead of butter on their approved waffles pour olive oil on it. And people go, “Wait a minute, olive oil on waffles?” Well, it’s a fat, and it’s a good fat, so why not use the waffle to deliver a good fat like olive oil? Everything goes better with olive oil.

Katie: I’m a huge fan of olive oil as well. I’m glad that you are such a supporter. So another thing I’d love to go a little bit deeper on. So I first really started learning about lectins starting with gluten but then all of the others when I was in, like, the really bad part of having Hashimoto’s. And so, I was trying to figure what was wrong with me, and I eventually figured out it was Hashimoto’s. And for a long time, I had to be very restrictive with my diet. And I’m much less so now. But let’s go deep for a little while on the lectin autoimmune disease connection. Can you start by explaining what’s going on in the body that there’s that link?

Dr. Gundry: Yeah, I think the first person to talk about this was Loren Cordain from Colorado State University, who, I think, is the true father of the paleo diet. And Cordain postulated that one of the things plants do is molecular mimicry. And the best way to explain this is lectins are proteins, and our immune system is set up with literally barcode scanners that read the barcode on all proteins that enter us. And the immune system is educated as to which proteins are friendly, that they’ve got a valid passport, or which proteins are on the no-fly list. And when, give you an example of a splinter, is under your skin, it gets all red, and that’s your white blood cells attacking that foreign protein.

So lining the wall of our gut is about 65%, 70% of all the white cells in our body line our gut wall. So if a foreign protein, you know, like a lectin, makes its way across the border, our immune system scans the barcode on that protein and says, “Aah, that’s a bad protein. And number one, we should mobilize the troops and kill this guy, but we should also memorize what this barcode looks like so that if we ever see something that looks like this barcode again in our body, we will attack it.” Now, I think plants are a lot smarter than people give them credit for, so plants have made these proteins resemble other proteins in our body.

For instance, they resemble the proteins in the thyroid gland. They resemble proteins in joints. They resemble proteins in nerves. They resemble proteins in skin. And, they even resemble proteins in the brain. So that when your immune system is activated by a leaky gut, then your immune system or I call them your fighter jets are going through your body and they go past your thyroid or Kelly Clarkson’s thyroid and says, “Oh, my gosh, you poor person. There are lectins in your thyroid, and we’re going to shoot to kill. Now, they don’t quite look like the electrons we’re looking for, but they’re pretty close. And so we’ll shoot first and ask questions later.” So that’s molecular mimicry.

Last year, I published a paper of 102 people with biomarker-proven autoimmune diseases like Hashimoto’s, like Crohn’s, like rheumatoid arthritis, like lupus who were put on the Plant Paradox program. And in six months’ time, 95 out of 102 patients were biomarker negative for those autoimmune diseases. So that’s a 94% success rate in six months. Not bad if I do say so. So we’ve seen people like yourself, like Kelly Clarkson, become completely autoimmune negative within a fairly short time period. In fact, just recently, I mentioned on another podcast, in my practice, for a new patient, usually my PA will see the patient first, and then I see the patient the next visit.

And I saw a woman in her mid-50s who had Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, and she had been on the program for three months. When I saw her, first thing she did was introduce herself. She said, ”Well, I’m here because I have, you know, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.” And I said, “Well, no you don’t.” And she said, ”Well, of course, I do. That’s why I’m here.” And I said, ”Well, you don’t have it anymore.” And she said, ”Well, how could that be?” So I held up her new lab work and sure enough, her anti-thyroglobulin antibody or anti-thyroid peroxidation antibodies were previously positive, but now they were negative. And that was in only three months. So, obviously, she was delighted and so was I, but that’s what we’ve come to expect.

Katie: That’s an incredible success rate, and I love that it turns the idea on its head. There’s an understanding that autoimmune diseases are not reversible, and I’ve heard that, you know, from a lot of doctors saying, “Once you have it, you always have it.” And so I’d love a little bit more just to clarify, these people are not just in remission, but they don’t even have the biomarkers at all for autoimmune disease at that point.

Dr. Gundry: Correct. The biomarkers are negative. They’re zero. And, you know, that includes rheumatoid factor, that includes anti-CCP3, that includes anti-nuclear antibody, that includes anti-DS double-stranded DNA, that includes Sjogren’s syndrome. We’ve seen reversal in so far every autoimmune disease. So, we’ve tackled…including MS. We’ve recently… Let me give you another example. There’s some beautiful new tests looking at attack on brain myelin that’s measurable with tests. We’ve got anti-cerebellar antibodies.

Recently saw a gentleman, young man in his mid-30s, very successful businessman, young wife, who had brain fog, for lack of a better word. And he came to us, had autoimmune markers for lupus, but also had two markers of his brain being under attack, one of them a de-myelination antibody. And we put him on the program, and he travels a lot. And I saw him back after two months. He said those two months were the most difficult that he’s ever had in his life. He hated me. But his wife, to keep him on track, actually made all his meals and packed them for him while he was traveling because, you know, he’s a 35-year-old guy who’s got markers for MS, and his brain doesn’t work.

So he said, you know, after six weeks, he said, “I really began to start liking you, so let’s see what we got.” And sure enough, his marker for lupus antinuclear antibody was gone. But I think most encouraging was that both of his brain autoimmune markers were now turned off. And that just gives you the power that people have to take control of what…many doctors are telling them, “Well, you got MS, and you’re just gonna have to live with it.” And, you know, Terry Wahls perfectly proved that this is something people do not have to live with. This is something that’s reversible, and these are fixable problems as long as we repair the gut barrier.

And, I think, my research over the last 20 years has stood the test of time that Hippocrates was right, that all disease begins in the gut. And I’ve added to that, that all disease can end in the gut if we stop a leaky gut from occurring. And if lectins are one of the major causes of leaky gut, and I and others believe they are, then getting lectins out of the diet is a first step.

Katie: I love Dr. Wahls. Her work is so encouraging as well. And I’m guessing there’s a lot of people listening who are going, “Oh, my gosh, is this actually possible? I have X, Y, Z autoimmune disease. Where do I start?” And I know that, obviously, they need to get “The Plant Paradox,” and we’ll talk about your new book in a couple of minutes as well. But can you, kind of, give us just a broad overview, both as a doctor and as a researcher, what you think an optimal diet for most people sort of, like, a specific issue looks like? Like, where should we begin with the good?

Dr. Gundry: Well, like, principle number one of “The Plant Paradox” is what I tell you not to eat is far more important than what I tell you to eat. And I can’t emphasize that enough. It’s the foods that you remove from your diet. And if you want to call it an elimination diet, that’s fine with me. But there’s certain foods that are making people sick. And getting these foods out of their diet, the ones I’ve just talked about, the ones that we were not designed to eat and that we were not exposed to until 10,000 years ago is the perfect place to start.

And I jokingly say I want people to party like it’s 9,999 years ago and eat that way because these modern foods didn’t exist in the human diet. And that was actually my research as an undergraduate at Yale University. I had a special major in human evolutionary biology, finding the foods and the environment that transformed a great ape into a modern human. And that’s actually was the basis of my original program.

Katie: That’s amazing. And also, you do talk a lot about the microbiome, and I know that removing lectins is a big part of that. Most of the people listening have kids, and that’s been a big area of research for me as well, as, how do we give our kids the best start in life by fostering a good microbiome early on? And I’d love to hear your research and your take on that. As parents, what can we be doing from the very beginning with our kids to make sure that they have the best start in life when it comes to this?

Dr. Gundry: Well, that’s why I wrote ”The Plant Paradox Family Cookbook” because, number one, I was a professor of pediatrics at Loma Linda, was a children’s heart surgeon, and a lot of my practice now involves children with the juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease. I see a lot of children with asthma and eczema that have had no results elsewhere. And having children follow this program is obviously challenging because of peer pressure. But what we found was that if children were encouraged to follow this program, their Crohn’s disease went away, their rheumatoid arthritis went away.

And if they slipped, even if they cheated one time, had a cupcake at a school party, that they would flair immediately. And one of my patients early on said, “You know, feeling good, never tasted so good.” And I think that’s a really important point. So how do we do this with our kids? Now I have two young grandchildren. And bless my daughter and her husband’s heart, they have fed their kids with the Plant Paradox since day one, and they’re both thriving three and five-year-olds now. One just started kindergarten. And they cook in the kitchen.

I think that’s one of the most important things you can do, is involve your kids and making things very early. I give step-by-step advice to mothers who wanna get pregnant on the steps you need to do. Once you’re pregnant, what you should do. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of high dose fish oil, particularly DHA for building your baby’s brain. There’s a new study out that shows mothers who supplement with vitamin D have smarter kids who do better athletically than mothers who do not supplement with vitamin D during pregnancy. I think this is incredibly important information, and we give the all the suggestions in doing that.

In addition, please, please, please keep cows milk out of your child’s diet. Your baby is not a baby cow, and cow’s milk is designed to make baby cows grow rapidly so they do not get eaten by predators. We, as you, as a mother knows, are a very slow-growing species, and we do not want to have insulin-like growth factor, IGF1, which is high in cows milk given to our kids because it will actually make our kids grow faster and fatter. And that’s the last thing we actually want. Kids who grow rapidly have a much higher incidence of childhood cancers and cancers in their teenagers than kids who grow slowly and normally. So those are a few of the helpful ones. We can go on and on, but it’s all in ”The Plant Paradox Family Cookbook.”

Katie: Yeah, definitely. Again, echo the recommendation for your books.

Katie: And you mentioned in kids that they were even able to see reversal of autoimmune symptoms and certainly in adults. There’s studies on this as well, but then it took complete adherence and no cheating. And so, I’m curious how you respond because I get these, too, people who say, “This is way too extreme. Everything in moderation. It should be fine. Like, you don’t have to completely avoid it.” I’m just curious how you answer those types of questions.

Dr. Gundry: Well, in the paper that I published at the American Heart Association in Lifestyle and Epidemiology meeting on the patients with autoimmune disease, seven of the patients subsequently, once they were in remission or cured, had no biomarker evidence of disease, started liberalizing their diet. And all of those seven people relapsed. The good news is once they went back on the program, they cured themselves again. They went back into remission. And that’s what we see. I lectured at Harvard two years ago at the neurosciences meeting.

And after giving this evidence, one of the professors said, “Well, that’s ridiculous. You know, everything in moderation. What do you say to that?” And I said, “Well, that’s fine. You know, if you want moderate heart disease, if you want moderate arthritis, if you want moderate dementia, and if you want moderate autoimmune disease, then please do that. But who in the world would actually want that? It’s preventable. These problems do not exist in societies that eat like us.” And I mean, believe it or not, when, you know, when I was in medical school, autoimmune disease and childhood cancer were aberrations.

They were oddities. And now, every commercial we see on TV is for, oh, you know, a happy person smiling with our autoimmune disease because of an immunosuppressant drug. And people forget that I was a transplant immunologist. I’m world famous in Xenotransplantation and how to fool the immune system to accepting a pig heart as normal. And what I’ve taken with my knowledge of autoimmunity and immunity is bringing that into, “Okay, we know what the immune system is looking for, let’s calm it down. This is fixable.”

Katie: And that makes so much sense. And a couple more questions, I don’t know, that will probably come up and that are probably common questions for you. You talk about how you eat seafood on the weekend, and there’s also that conception in the natural health world that things like shrimp and crab aren’t good for you because they’re bottom feeders with their filters. And so I’m curious your take on that.

Dr. Gundry: This is one of my favorite questions. I have a very good friend who’s a professor at the University of Texas in Galveston, which is one of the shrimp capitals of the world, and he delights in telling anyone who will listen that a shrimp is not a bottom feeder. They’re free swimmers, and they are a quad with trawlers nets, and so they are absolutely not bottom feeders. I used to live in Baltimore, Maryland, and I can assure you that crabs are not bottom feeders either. They actually are free swimmers.

And, in fact, there’s a Pulitzer prize-winning book that I recommend to anyone about the Waterman of the Chesapeake Bay called ”Beautiful Swimmers,” which is about crabs. And so, that’s one of the great misnomers of all time. Incidentally, muscles may be one of the greatest health foods known to mankind. They are regenerative creatures. They actually filter about six gallons of water every day. They do not accumulate toxins, and they clean the ocean, and they actually do not use up any energy. So, they’re really one of the best foods that you can eat.

Katie: That’s great to know. And what about fruit? I know that’s a common food for kids. You didn’t mention it as being a source of lectins, so I’m curious your take on fruit.

Dr. Gundry: So two things on fruit. We forget at our peril that a few short years ago, fruit was only available seasonally during seasons that primarily were summer and early fall, and not the rest of the year. Unless you lived in the panhandle of Florida, you didn’t have fruit during the winter. In fact, there’s volumes of research that show that great apes only eat fruit during the summer, and they eat fruit to gain weight for the rest of the year. In fact, fruit consumption, fructose, is one of the best ways to gain weight that there is. Let me give you a recent example.

I recently appeared on the “Kelly Clarkson Show” because she cured her Hashimoto’s by following my book. All she did was read my book. She never met me. She didn’t have a consultation with me, and lo and behold, you know, she lost 30 pounds, and her Hashimoto’s was gone by…well, it’s up to 40 pounds now just by following my book. So I was talking with her producer a few weeks beforehand on, you know, what we’re gonna do on the show. So I showed up in the green room backstage, and the producer walked in, and he said, ”I took your advice. I gave fruit the boot. I gave up fruit, and I’ve lost five pounds in two weeks. And that’s the only thing I changed. I gave up fruit.” He said, “How did you know?” And I said, ”Well, because we use fruit to gain weight.” Fruit is not a health food for children, and particularly fruit juice. There’s a recent study in the “British Medical Journal” showing that fruit juice consumption is a leading cause of cancer. And we have to understand that cancer cells vastly prefer fructose, fruit sugar, over glucose. And so, you know, give fruit the boot.

Now, berries are great. Pomegranate seeds are great. Persimmons are in season right now. Those are some of the safest fruits you can eat. But this should be a treat. We should treat fruit as what it is, and that’s dessert. It is not a healthy snack. You’re much better off giving your kids a handful of walnuts, or pistachios, or macadamia nuts as a healthy snack rather than a healthy piece of fruit. And to elaborate on that, most fruit in this country is brought over incredibly long distances from Argentina, and Chile, and even Mexico, and it’s picked unripe and then ripened with ethylene oxide.

An unripe fruit actually has lectins in it. I am old enough to remember eating green apples as a kid and suffering what we called the Green Apple two-step, which was pretty impressive diarrhea. And that’s because the lectins in green apples were designed to not make you eat that fruit until the seeds actually had a peel on them that you couldn’t digest, and then the plant actually wanted you to eat its fruit. That’s how it works.

Katie: That’s really fascinating. So, as an action step, you’re saying things like local, seasonal berries when they’re in season as a treat, that’s totally great. It’s just eating all fruits year-round like we live on a tropical island confuses our body basically.

Dr. Gundry: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And it’s really one of really the major causes I see of weight gain in this country, of insulin resistance in this country, and heart disease, quite frankly. Actually, it raises triglycerides. Triglycerides are the first form of fat that we make from sugars. And also, by the way, fructose is a toxin, and it’s such a toxin that we carry it immediately to our liver where it’s detoxified into triglycerides, which is a fat, and uric acid. And uric acid causes high blood pressure, and it also causes kidney stones and gout. So we always have to go back to realize that fructose is not our friend. Fructose, oh, by the way, is a mitochondrial poison. So why anyone would want their kids consuming a mitochondrial poison is beyond my comprehension.

Katie: That’s a great explanation. And as some really important people in my life get a little older, my parents, and also as I get older myself, you also are well-known for your book, ”The Longevity Paradox.” So to switch gears a little bit, explain to us what ”The Longevity Paradox” is.

Dr. Gundry: Well, we all want to get old. And live a long time, but we don’t wanna get old. And that’s actually ”The Longevity Paradox.” We look kinda into the future and getting old, we don’t wanna die, but getting old doesn’t look very good. It means hip and knee replacement. It means stents or open-heart surgery. It means maybe not remembering your loved ones’ names or ending up in a skilled nursing facility or assisted living, and none of that looks particularly good. What we really wanna do, the subtitle of the book is we wanna die young at a ripe, old age.

And that’s what we want, and it’s actually achievable. And the purpose of ”The Longevity Paradox” is to give people the hope and the evidence that it’s never too late to make changes in your life that will change your life around. And the examples that I see in my practice, and I see patients seven days a week because I learn from my patients. I learn what happens when I ask them to do certain things. I learn from their blood work what works, what doesn’t. And you know, I can’t resist not seeing patients every week, every day because every day I get to learn something new from one of my patients. And, you know, what a tremendous gift my patients are to me. So ”The Longevity Paradox” is how to get young, no matter how old you are.

Katie: I love that. And I’m curious, are there any supplements or go-to things that you take or that you think are essential for both getting rid of autoimmune disease, living longer, a lot of these things that you’ve talked about?

Dr. Gundry: Well, as you know, I formed my own supplement line, Gundry MD, three years ago now. All the supplements that I manufacture are based on my research in tens of thousands of patients, looking at their blood work and their response to certain ingredients. So I’m obviously biased that there are some really good things that people should take. Now, I’m a nut. And I list every one of the supplements that I currently take at the end of ”The Longevity Paradox,” and there are a rather impressive list. I take about 120 different supplements in the morning and about 80 at night. And I’ll tell you when I’m 150, how that worked out. In fact, our saying in our clinic is “150 is the new 100.”

So having said that, I think there are certain supplements that really every human being should take for maximal health, and that is vitamin D3. The current recommendations are being raised. Most labs now, a vitamin D level of 120 is now considered normal, not elevated. I have run my vitamin D level greater than 120 for the last 17 years to prove that I’m not dead. And so far so good. I’ve yet to see vitamin D toxicity. It may exist, but I certainly not seen it in my patients. So I’m aggressive at pushing vitamin D on my patients, at least 5,000 international units a day. Most people with autoimmune disease should start with 10,000 international units of D3.

The second thing that I think is critical for most people is to get enough fish oil, and I don’t care if it’s algae-based DHA, but to get enough fish oil to have 1,000 milligrams of DHA per day. And look on the back of whatever omega-3 or fish oil you’re buying and look for the amount of DHA per capsule and then just choose accordingly. I take care of a great number of people with the APOE-4 gene, which is, unfortunately, nicknamed the Alzheimer’s gene. And about 30% of Americans carry the Alzheimer’s gene. And in those people, I supplement with krill oil in addition to their fish oil.

Not as a substitution because there’s a phospholipid in krill oil that will carry DHA into these people’s brains, which otherwise might not get there. It’s a small technical point. But since Dale Bredesen who wrote the end of Alzheimer’s and I have become friends, we’re both very adamant about getting people with the APOE-4 gene, not only on fish oil but also on krill oil. And so, those are the essential things. The third thing that anyone can do for longevity is to practice time-restricted feeding. Now, whether we call that intermittent fasting, whether time-restricted feeding, which means limit the eating time during the day to a small number of hours, start with 10 hours, work your way down to even four to six hours, that’s probably one of the best ways to prolong good health of any trick that anyone has ever discovered.

And I profile a gentleman from the 1500s, Luigi. Carnero, who wrote a book on how to live to 100. He actually died at 102 in the 1500s. And he wrote a book on how to do this. And he actually practiced calorie restriction, and he gives the complete guide of how to do it. And one of the things that I always remember him, he said that most people think that 65 is pretty much the end of life, and there’s not much worth living for. And he says, “I stand to correct everyone that 90 and 100 is the best years of your life, and here’s how to do it.” And that’s what I want for everybody.

Katie: I love that. And I’ll make sure there’s links to all of your books in the show notes, and I’ll also post them on social media. But I’d love that you address the APOE4 because that’s something that runs in my family and something I’ve done quite a bit of research on as well. It’s good to know that there are things people can do to really mitigate that. Another clarifying point, I just wanted to make sure we touch on.

When I made this dietary switch myself when I was just learning about autoimmune disease, there was definitely an adjustment period where I didn’t feel very good. And you mentioned one of your patients didn’t like you those first few weeks. So, can you talk about, is there an adjustment period with this when your body’s still kind of like trying to figure out what’s going on, when it’s not as fun, and when do the beneficial results kind of start to work?

Dr. Gundry: Yeah, I actually tell any of my new patients that “You’re gonna hate me for two weeks and then you’re going to love me.” And it’s worked out to be pretty true. Most of us are addicted to the morphine-like compounds in grains and in dairy, and it’s like being withdrawn from a drug. One of the reasons we love wheat products, and rye, and barley, and oats is because of these morphine-like compounds that they are morphed into. And one of the reasons we like cow’s milk and cheeses is a beta-casomorphine, which goes right to our brains, particularly women’s brains, and goes happy, happy, happy, happy.

And interestingly enough, since you mentioned the APOE-4 gene, remarkably, saturated animal fats like cheeses are really detrimental to people with the APOE-4 gene, and vast majority of people with the APOE-4 gene love cheese. And it’s one of the hardest things to get away from them, and it’s because of these morphine-like compounds. And I really do think that most of us are, you know, addicted to this and it’s withdrawal. And once you withdraw, that’s when things start kicking in.

The second thing that happens, the vast majority of Americans are insulin-resistant. They have high fasting insulin levels. And I tell anyone who will listen in all the residents that come through my clinic and family practice that the best test if they’re gonna spend their patient’s hard-earned money on a laboratory test, the best test to get is a fasting insulin level. And that’s gonna tell you more about your patient’s fate than just about any tests you can get. Most people are insulin-resistance, and insulin resistance, not only feeds cancer but also makes your brain die rather rapidly.

We now know there’s a condition called type 3 diabetes of the brain and your brain becomes insulin-resistant. And so, when people go on a program like my own, they’re not able to actually get to the fat cells and make ketones, you mentioned the ketogenic diet earlier, and so they really crash and burn because they don’t have what we call metabolic flexibility. They can’t change on a dime from burning sugar as a fuel to burning fat as a fuel. And I talk about those and how to get around it in all my books. And it’s a big factor in making this transition easy for people.

Katie: Amazing. And again, I know I’ve said it a couple of times, but I definitely recommend all of your books. I’ve gifted them to my parents. I tell a lot of people I love. And I’ll make sure they’re linked in the show notes, but, of course, they’re available anywhere books are sold. And speaking of books, I’d love to ask, mainly selfishly for my own ideas, if there are any book or books besides your own that have really impacted your life that you’d recommend?

Dr. Gundry: Well, actually, in my grade school library when I was 10 years old, I found a book called ”All About You.” And it actually changed my life at 10 years old. And after reading that book, I decided to become a doctor. And one of the things you’re…you know, you’re a mother, and you probably already know the importance of reading to your kids, number one, and getting your kids to read.

I think just reading opens up so many doors. Early in my lectin research, I was most impacted by Michael Pollan’s really first book, which was called ”The Botany of Desire,” about how plants are intelligent thinking creatures that manipulate animals for their benefit. And it just, you know, was tantalizing how smart plants are, and I think it really set the stage for me to give plants the credit they are due.

Katie: I love that. And reading is a huge, huge part of my life. Even in the busiest of times, I’m sure I get in time, like at least 30 minutes to read each day. I think it’s such an important thing for all of us. That and community, which I also personally think is huge for health and longevity and like having strong relationships and really nurturing those are kind of my two non-negotiable when it comes to life.

Dr. Gundry: Well, you’re absolutely right. In “The Longevity Paradox,” one of the real factors in all of the blue zones, those people with extreme longevity. And interestingly enough, I’m the only nutritionist who’s ever actually lived most of his life in a blue zone in Loma Linda University, so I hope I know what I’m talking about. Blue zones have this intense social network, and it’s this social network that is really critical to longevity.

And so you’re right. One of the things you’ve got to have is a social network, however you wanna constitute that social network, whether it’s, you know, whether it’s based on religion, whether it’s based on community service, whether it’s based on, “Let’s play bridge together at your house once a week”, you know, “mothers against drinking alone on a Friday night.” I’m just making that up.

Katie: I love that. I know you talked about it, and I’ve seen the stats as well about how having those solid relationships and making them a priority, it actually statistically is more important than things like even quitting smoking or exercise. Like, it’s absolutely vital to our health. And so I love that you talked about that.

Dr. Gundry: Yeah. Yeah. We are very definitely social creatures. And the other thing I can’t stress enough is having a pet, particularly a dog or a cat, in every study that’s ever been done, not only promotes longevity but is a great social connection. Making you to walk your dog twice a day is a great way to meet other people, and having a pet improves your microbiome and your children’s microbiome. And, in fact, mothers should realize that children who have pets introduced early in their life have far less allergies and far less eczema than children who don’t have a pet, exactly the opposite of what many mothers are taught.

Katie: I love that. I’m gonna use that to help talk my husband into another dog, and I think that’s the perfect point to wrap up, have strong relationships, have a pet that you love, and eat a clean diet, and get some sunshine for vitamin D. I think we covered so much in this episode. I hope that maybe one day you’ll come back for round two, but I’m so grateful for your time and for all that you shared today.

Dr. Gundry: I’d love to come back, and thank you for all the great work you’re doing. And we’re gonna have you on my podcast, and we’ll talk about all the stuff that you’re up to, and I’ll really look forward to it.

Katie: Thank you. I can’t wait. And thanks to all of you for listening and sharing one of your most valuable resources, your time, with both of us today. We’re so grateful that you did, and I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the ”Wellness Mama’ Podcast.”

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/podcast/dr-gundry/

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themastercylinder · 5 years

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SUMMARY

In the distant future, at a genetic research station located on the remote desert planet of Xarbia, a research team has created an experimental lifeform they have designated “Subject 20”. This lifeform was built out of the synthetic DNA strain, “Proto B”, and was intended to stave off a galaxy-wide food crisis. However, Subject 20 mutates rapidly and uncontrollably and kills all of the laboratory subject animals before cocooning itself within an examination booth. After Subject 20 hatches from its cocoon, it begins killing the personnel at the station, starting with the lab tech charged with cleansing the subject lab of the dead animal test subjects.

Professional troubleshooter Mike Colby, accompanied by his robot assistant SAM-104, is called in to investigate the problem. After Colby settles in, his decision to terminate Subject 20 to prevent further deaths is met with research-minded secrecy and resistance. The staff of the station includes the head of research, Gordon Hauser, his assistant Barbara Glaser, lab assistant Tracy Baxter, the station head of security and Cal Timbergen, the chief of bacteriology.

As Subject 20 continues to kill most of the station crew, the reason for the deception is revealed. Subject 20’s genetic design incorporates human DNA, and its method of killing is to inject its prey with the Proto B DNA strain which then proceeds to remove all genetic differences within specific cells. The result is that the victim’s living body slowly erodes into gelatinous pile of pure protein which Subject 20 consumes for sustenance. After its final mutation, where the creature evolves into a huge insect-like being with a large mouth full of sharp teeth, the creature is slain when it eats Cal’s cancer-ridden liver, its body genetically self-destructing from within. Mike and Tracy are the only survivors.

DEVELOPMENT

FORBIDDEN WORLD is the proving ground for first-time director Alan Holzman, another in a long line of Corman’s protégés (including Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich and Martin Scorsese). Holzman put together Corman’s theatrical trailers for the last couple of years, and like Joe Dante, another Corman promoted editor, asked for a chance to direct. Sets used in filming GALAXY OF TERROR were still standing and camera equipment was not due back at the rental outlet till the end of the week, so Corman agreed. “Show me what you can do in one day,” he said. Frantically, Holzman convinced character actor Jesse Vint to don a mothballed uniform, came up with a make-shift script overnight, incorporating left-over footage of dog-fight effects from BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS and enthusiastically completed an incredible 94 set-ups in one day. With his trailer experience, Holzman then edited the footage into an action sequence which Corman adjudged so accomplished that he not only gave Holzman his chance to direct. A few months later, using a screenplay by Tim Curnen based loosely on a story by New World marketing whiz Jim Wynorski, Holzman went to work on FORBIDDEN WORLD, using the space battle as the film’s exciting pre-credit sequence. The film was shot on a break-neck 20-day schedule for under $1 million, and it displays every penny of its budget right up on the screen.

Tim Curnen’s screenplay of a constantly evolving mutant on the prowl in a remote scientific outpost on the planet Zarbia is from a story by New World publicist Jim Wynorski and R.J. Robertson. Both acknowledge ALIEN and THE THING as “inspiration.”

The project actually began about 3 years ago when the motion picture ALIEN was making so many bucks at the boxoffice. Jim Wynoroski was approached by a producer who wanted to make another picture just like ALIEN so Wynoroski & his friend Robertson cooked up a 10 page treatment that Wynoroski titled MUTANT.

“My first concern,” said Robertson, “was getting our plot as far away from ALIEN as possible while maintaining the elements which had made it popular in the first place.”

The essential elements, as Robertson saw it, were an isolated group of people who were being murdered by a particularly unappealing monster. Wynoroski & Robertson’s original story was set on a lunar base near the end of the century. A group of scientists are working on an experiment to speed up the evolutionary process with the ultimate goal of allowing humanity to function in alien environments without the need of life support systems. (This proved to be a good idea since in the movie the monster attaches itself to the base’s life support system at one point in the story. That way the humans couldn’t kill the monster without killing themselves.)

A beautiful view of the model showing the outside of the research station.

One of the experimental subjects, a laboratory mouse, succeeds in adapting to various atmospheres. A little too successful for after the little critter consumes all of the other test animals in the lab it not only is able to absorb the minds & memories of its victims but also takes on whatever physical characteristics it needs to survive. After eating a cat the mouse can see in the dark. After digesting a dog it has acquired a keen sense of smell. A monkey gives it agility. The scientists are unable to capture the thing and eventually it consumes one of the technicians. From that point on, the remaining scientists battle the creature for control of the lunar base & their lives.

Unfortunately, the producer who asked for the treatment lost interest in the project, “You get used to that sort of thing.” Robertson said with a wry grin. “I guess producers work on the assumption that you’re so grateful to get a chance to break into the motion picture industry that you’ll put up with treatment that you’d never accept in any other line of endeavor.” So MUTANT met a quick death, or so Robertson & Wynoroski thought.

Building the cocoon for the Mutant in FORBIDDEN WORLD (1982

Two years later Roger Corman, president of New World Pictures, was looking around for another outer space type movie. Jim Wynoroski in the meantime has become the advertising director for New World Pictures. So he dusts off the old MUTANT treatment and hands it to Corman, who appreciates the commercial potential. Another writer was brought in to finish a script.

When Robertson saw the completed motion picture at a sneak preview he was surprised that the ending of the film was neither the one from the original treatment nor the clever ending of the screenplay in which the creature was treated like a bacteria, was given an injection of penicillin and blew up & burst like a balloon. It was completely different and we won’t spoil anything by revealing it here.

The film is now about a group of scientists working on developing a new source of synthetic food on an outpost on planet Xarbia. One of the scientists decides to try a little experiment of his own. He takes a new type of protein that grows wild on the planet and splices it together with human sperm which he then injects into a female volunteer who must have also short-circuited for a few minutes. They don’t have long to wait for the results. In 2 weeks the offspring is born. It immediately kills its mother and then goes into hiding inside a cocoon. Everyone concludes that since the new life form is inside a shell, it is therefore harmless. It is quite obvious that these scientists are completely ignorant of sci-fi literature or motion pictures for no sooner have they ceased to concern themselves with the creature than it emerges from its shell, stronger & more deadly than before. One by one the scientists fall prey to the clever creature.

Draft of the 2nd stage of the MUTANT monster by Jim Shaw

BEHIND THE SCENES

Most of FORBIDDEN WORLD’s live-action filming was done right at the Venice Studio, which meant that as the camera was rolling on one setup, another area of the stage was being struck, repainted and or redressed. Hammering stopped only long enough for rehearsals and takes. Actors and technical crew had to be careful where they stepped and leaned during production-many of the sets still had wet paint even as they were being filmed. Administration offices, hallways and various lab areas were pressed into service. A corrugated metal storage shelter served as a not-so-soundproof soundstage; an entire wall of New World’s main building was dressed and painted to provide a massive two-story space station exterior as a backdrop for one of the mutant’s killings, and a nearby vacant lot was converted into a sandy alien desert.

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The sets for FORBIDDEN WORLD incorporate a lot of ordinary components in unusual ways. A standing joke during production, as volunteers went to pick up fast-food, was the effects men saying, “See if you can grab an extra handful of food trays!” A few thousand trays from McDonald’s can look impressive when spray painted and strapped to walls, augmented by such “high-tech” bricabrac as PVC piping, sheets of plastic “packing bubbles,” cut and formed upholstery foam, and cannibalized radio and TV parts.

In FORBIDDEN WORLD, you were the pilot of the first spaceship constructed entirely out of Big Mac containers and egg cartons.

Vint: Oh yeah. I was pretty amazed when I walked through that set. “These are egg cartons!” They said. “Yup. that’s what they are.”as they were tacking them to the wall and spray-painting them silver. And whenever we turned a comer and went through another portion of the ship, we just walked down the hall again and all the egg cartons would be spray-painted gold. – Jesse Vint

SPECIAL EFFECTS

FORBIDDEN WORLD’s special effects are provided by a talented in house” effects team supervised by Bill Conway and headed by Bob and Dennis Skotak. Effects newcomer Steve Neill was given less than five weeks to come up with four major, fully operational embodiments of the evolving, rampaging life form. Neill and his constantly growing staff (which came to include Michael F. Hoover, Rick Lazzarini, Michael LaValley, Mark Shostrom, Anthony Showe and Gene Barsamian) found themselves saddled with some unworkable concepts from a previous production designer. Subsequently they agonized over several major changes from upstairs” with no easing of deadlines.

Though Neill’s delivered fourth stage design failed to operate properly, it was filmed anyway, over his objections. Since the “monster” proved so difficult to wrangle, it was decided to go heavy on the monster’s wrath. John Carl Buechler, was tapped to whip up some “death scenes” for assorted crew members.

The design and execution of the carnage fell to Buechler and a hastily assembled staff, including Stephan Czerkas, Chris Biggs and Don Olivera (who also played, in his own home-made robot suit, SAM-104, the hero’s robot sidekick). The on-screen result is a series of escalating Mutant murders, the style of which Buechler sardonically calls punk rock horror.”

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POST PRODUCTION

When the hectic shoot was wrapped, Holzman locked himself into the editing room and fashioned a quick first cut. It soon became apparent that, in his time-pressed decision to “Do it anyway” on some of the Mutant effects, Holzman had shorted himself on footage of his title-star. An urgent call went out to Buechler to come back and re-do some of the third-stage Mutant work, of which there was critically insufficient footage. Within a week, Buechler delivered a Mutant head which blinked, snarled and opened wide its ravenous jaws.

Then, it was back to the editing room for Holzman, the place where many New World pictures are eventually saved. That just may be the reason Corman promotes his directors from the ranks of trailer editors. Preliminary word from insiders who have seen Holzman’s final cut of FORBIDDEN WORLD is that despite the production’s hurried pace and budget limitations, the film races.

REFERENCES and SOURCES

Shock Cinema 18 (2001)

Cinefantastique v12 n02

Famous Monsters 185

Promotional and Advertising Material

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Susan Justin on her “Forbidden World” Score

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Forbidden World AKA Mutant (1982) Complete Soundtrack Composed by Susan Justin

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Track listing

Theme From “Forbidden World” (02:35)

Titles (02:36)

Birth And Death (01:27)

Mourning (01:26)

Alone (03:24)

Steam Room (01:23)

Mutation (02:31)

Xarbia (02:29)

The Hole (02:43)

The Doctor Returns (01:27)

Laser Shower (01:16)

Communication (01:43)

The End (03:58)

End Title Theme From “Forbidden World” (02:13)

Total Duration: 00:31:11

Credits

Jesse Vint as Mike Colby

Dawn Dunlap as Tracy Baxter

June Chadwick as Dr. Barbara Glaser

Linden Chiles as Dr. Gordon Hauser

Fox Harris as Dr. Cal Timbergen

Raymond Oliver as Brian Beale

Scott Paulin as Earl Richards

Michael Bowen as Jimmy Swift

Don Olivera as SAM-104

Makeup Department

John Carl Buechler …special makeup effects (as J.C. Buechler)

Sue Dolph … makeup artist

Karen Kubeck …special makeup effects artist: assistant makeup artist

Susan Moray … hair stylist

Steve Neill … prosthetic fabricator

Don Olivera … special makeup effects

Jim Shaw … prosthetic designer

Christopher Biggs …special makeup effects artist (uncredited)

Bart Mixon … special makeup effects artist (uncredited)

Mark Shostrom …special makeup effects artist (uncredited)

Forbidden World (1982) a.k.a Mutant Retrospective SUMMARY In the distant future, at a genetic research station located on the remote desert planet of Xarbia, a research team has created an experimental lifeform they have designated "Subject 20".

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magmasliveblogs · 5 years

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1.14

here is the 16th chapter! to recap: last chapter erin had a very awkward first visit to the city, where she was kicked out of the adven guild and ripped off by a racist drake

Erin had four silver coins left after buying a large cloth bag and the food. That was just enough for…well, she didn’t know. But it certainly wasn’t enough for a lantern, much less a sword. She doubted it was even enough for her clothes.

She sat in the shade of one of the buildings and stared silently at the four silver shapes in her hand. It wasn’t so bad. She still had some money, and she’d bought enough food for now. It was just…

She’d started out with two gold coins and a full handful of silver and copper ones. And in an instant they’d been spent. And that wasn’t bad either; she’d bought a lot of food. Stuff like sugar was expensive, right? Especially in a place that wasn’t modern like this. But she couldn’t help but feel it was a mistake.

She hadn’t seen any other shoppers trade gold coins for what they’d bought. Not one and especially not that much for some food. She had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. She thought—

No. She knew she’d been ripped off.

And it hurt. It really did. Erin wanted to go back there and punch the Drake shopkeeper in the face, but she had a pretty good idea of what would happen if she did. Plus, he could probably eat her face if she tried.

So. Erin sat and stared at her hand. Four silver coins.

She could still go shopping with that much money. She could find another market, find another, shop and…

And do what? She didn’t know how much money things cost and she didn’t know how to buy clothes for her.

Everyone in this city wore clothing, but the definition of that really varied. Some of the male Drakes wore extremely exposed clothing, sometimes leaving their chests completely bare save for a light cloak, while the female ones usually had more on. Still, even that was varied because it seemed showing skin—or rather, scales, was the fashion around here. Only the Gnolls seemed to adhere to human-style dress code.

It was one of the hidden truths of the world. Money was useless if you had no idea what to spend it on and everyone ripped you off.

as i said, she was obviously ripped off. nice to know the fashion.

Everything would be so much simpler if she could read. Was that too much to ask?

Erin put her head on her arm and closed her eyes for a moment. Her head jerked up and she nearly smacked it against the building behind her as she realized something.

She couldn’t read. But she knew people who could.

Relc. Or Klbkch. Either one of them would know all about clothing and money and stuff like that.

Erin stood up. She pocketed her silver coins and wished she’d thought of this beforeshe’d lost all her money. But maybe four silver coins was a lot of money? She’d have to ask. And they’d help her, surely. Because that’s what guardsmen did, right? Just like how police officers were so willing to help anyone who came to them with a problem.

Erin pushed that thought out of her head. Guardsmen were not police officers. They were allowed to kill people without due process, for one thing. And besides, Relc liked her pasta. Now all she had to do was find the guardhouse without being able to read the signs.

She started walking down the street, looking around for anything that screamed of jail cells or law and order. She tried very hard not to think about what she’d do if Relc or Klbkch were both off-duty.

yes lets hope those two are on duty

Relc was off-duty. So was Klbkch. But for the moment Relc was lounging around the mess hall of the guard’s barracks. He was playing a game where he tossed a wickedly sharp dagger up into the air and caught it as it fell back to the floor. Half the time he caught the dagger. The other half he missed or knocked the dagger flying. He sat in a widely vacated corner of the room.

Only a few other Drakes were sitting at the long wooden benches, chowing down on hard bread, cheese, and unidentifiable strips of meat. Well, unidentifiable to humans. It was more gray than red.

One of the guards was talking with his fellows. He stood up and approached Relc cautiously. Unlike Relc, his scales were a very pale blue, and he was smaller if not shorter than the other Drake. He cleared his throat while standing at a respectful distance from Relc’s game.

“Hey Relc. I hear there’s a Human wandering around the city.”

Relc looked up and missed the dagger as it flipped down.

“Ow.”

The other guardsman sighed as Relc sucked at the point of red blood oozing from his scales.

“You’ve got no talent for that game. If you didn’t have [Thick Skin], you’d have cut your hand off years ago.”

Relc smiled smugly.

“I don’t just have [Thick Skin]. I’ve got [Iron Skin] too.”

The blue Drake rolled his eyes.

“That explains everything. What kind of level do you have to be to get that, anyways? No one else has it so it must be high level.”

“It is.”

Relc began trimming his claws with the dagger. Although in his case, he wasn’t making the nails shorter; just sharpening them.

ooo evolving skills! also it is scales not skin, thats one of the inconsistencies

“It was the last skill I got from my [Soldier] class. I think you get it in [Spearmaster] as well, but I don’t know. Either way, it’s a life-saver.”

“I’ll bet. No wonder you don’t worry about hurting yourself you smooth-scaled bastard.”

“Now, now. Don’t be jealous.”

Relc swept the nail clippings off the table with one hand.

“Too bad I never got any dagger skills. I can’t understand how this stupid flipping works.”

“Then stop flipping. It’s annoying and you keep nearly hitting people. Remember Lism? He’s still got scars.”

“No. If Klbkch can do it, so can I. Anything that damn bug can do I can do better. But hey, what’s this about a Human? Is it that female one I was telling you about?”

“Not sure.”

This time another green Drake jumped into the conversation.

“Belsc – the guy on western gate duty – he didn’t say much other than that he thought it was a Human female. What was the name of the one you met?”

Relc scratched his head and looked up at the ceiling.

“Um. Sol? Solace? It was something like that. Ervin Solace? Did he mention anything else about her?”

The green Drake bared his teeth.

“Yeah. He said she was really annoying. And she talked too much.”

“That’s her.”

Relc laughed. The other Drake shook his head.

“Humans. I don’t know why you’re interested in this one. It’s certainly not the smell, to hear Belsc talk.”

“Yeah, you get used to that.”

Relc leaned back in his chair and played with the dagger.

“Still, she’s interesting. Erin, or whatever her name is. She makes a mean plate of pasta, let me tell you. And she’s tougher than she looks—I didn’t think any Human could survive out in the floodplains that long. She’s funny too.”

He grinned as the other guards made disparaging noises.

“Hey, I’m telling the truth here. Little Miss Human isn’t that bad. You should meet her. But let me tell you, she can also be pretty annoying. Remember that Necromancer guy I told you me and Klbkch tracked down? She wouldn’t let us kill him even after he blasted us both with a few spells. Just kept saying that he wasn’t that bad.”

“Stupid Humans.”

“I know!”

Relc nodded in agreement with the other guard.

“They’re interesting and entertaining, but they don’t have much inside their fleshy heads. I’d never trust a Human to make the smart decision. Am I right?”

Relc looked around for confirmation as the other Drakes laughed with him. He laughed boisterously until he saw the human female staring at him across the mess hall. His laughter cut off instantly.

“Oh.”

The other Drakes looked over in curiosity at the human female. She wasn’t that special to them; one human looked much like the other. She was staring at Relc, who looked extremely uncomfortable.

He cleared his throat.

“Um. I—”

The door closed behind Erin as she walked out.

A nasty silence fell over the mess hall. Relc looked at the others.

this is why you shouldnt insult people behind their backs. praising them is fine, but dont insult them

“How long was she here?”

The blue Drake shrugged.

“Dunno. She must’ve walked in while you were talking.”

“Oh bite me.”

Relc leapt up from his chair.

“Hey Miss Human! Wait! I didn’t meant it!”

The other Drakes watched as he dashed out of the room. Then they turned back to their conversation.

“So. When did you spot her?”

“Right at the start. Did you see her expression? Relc’s not gonna have an easy time explaining that.”

“Serves him right. But did you smell her?”

“Yeah. Humans. They don’t wash.”

“I hear they roll around in their own filth.”

“Disgusting. Why’s Relc interested in one anyways?”

“Why do you think?”

“I still don’t get it. There’s no scales, nothing firm to grab. What’s the point?”

“Search me. Maybe it’s just Relc. He’s weird.”

“True.”

“Anyways, Humans. Haven’t seen one in a long time. Did you see it? So fleshy.”

“Disgusting. Let’s go eat some meat.”

“Agreed.”

yep, seems drake racism against humans is common

Erin walked out of the city gates and through the grass. She walked as fast as she could, which wasn’t very. The cloth bag she was carrying was more like a satchel, and it was loaded down with a lot of stuff. She was impressed that it could fit the bag of flour and other ingredients she’d bought without the fabric breaking, but it also meant she had to carry all of that on her shoulders.

A bag of flour is quite heavy. But Erin carried it anyways, ignoring the pain in her right shoulder. Her left one was already sore. She’d switch shoulders when the pain became unbearable.

“Hey! Miss Erin! Wait!”

Erin kept walking.

“Oh come on. Please?”

Relc appeared next to her in a blur. He was quick for such a huge guy. Erin turned her head so she didn’t have to look at him directly.

“So, how’s my favorite Human doing? Good? Bad? Um. I uh, don’t suppose you heard what I was saying. It was just a joke, really. I didn’t mean…”

Keep walking. Erin’s feet were already sore, but she put one foot in front of the other. She had a long way to go to get back to the inn, and the bag she was carrying was heavy.

“Look, I know I was sort of—okay, I was rude, but let’s talk. Hello? Are you listening?”

Erin didn’t look at him or speak. She just kept walking. Put one foot in front of the other. She was so tired and sore she barely felt hungry.

welp, erin is mad

Eventually he went away. Erin kept walking though. She was trying to make it back to the inn before the sun set. It was going to be a close race.

She was about halfway to her destination when the first stone flew over her head. Erin instinctively ducked and so the next two stones missed her and landed in the grass. She looked around.

At first she couldn’t spot where the stones were coming from. Two missed her, but the third struck her on the shoulder.

“Ow. Ow!”

Erin spotted the origin of the stone. It was a Goblin. The small creature was hard to spot in the fading twilight. It was standing on a hill and hurling rocks down at Erin. And it wasn’t alone.

Two more Goblins screeched and threw stones at her from their hilltop, making her flinch away and pull the bag up to shield her head. But then they just pelted her legs.

“Ah. Ow.”

She covered her face with her arms. The stones kept flying. And they hurt. Even at this distance the rocks cut her arms and bruised her flesh. Already she felt blood trickling down one arm.

Erin knelt on the ground and shielded her head with her bag. That made her less of a target, but the barrage of stones continued. It wasn’t as if the Goblins could hurt her, not so long as they kept hitting her back, but they just didn’t stop. And if she got up they’d aim for her head.

What could she do? Erin felt the stinging hail cut into her back. She had to run. At them? Away? They’d steal all her food if she did. But could she attack them? Fight? If she got any closer the stones could gouge out her eyes, injure her badly. What could she do? What could she—

Something moved past Erin in a blast of air. She flinched and looked around but it was already gone. Then her eyes travelled to the hill. Someone was rushing at the Goblins, ducking under the stones and deflecting the ones that came close to his head with a fast-moving…spear…?

“Hey! Slither off you little bastards!”

The stones stopped flying abruptly. Erin heard a high-pitched scream and several heavy thwacks. Cautiously, she got up and looked around.

The Goblins were running away in full retreat. Relc stood on the hilltop, spear in hand. He waved at her and leapt down the hill in a few long strides.

“Hello there, Miss Erin. Fancy meeting you here.”

Erin stared up at him. He offered her a toothy grin and a hand up. She stood up by herself and picked up her bag.

Relc cleared his throat expectantly.

“It’s not often I get to rescue a damsel in distress. That’s what they call Human females, right? Damsels? Anyways, I saw you were in trouble so I immediately rushed to help.”

“Thanks.”

Erin began walking again. She heard Relc follow after a second’s hesitation.

it seems relc is living up to his apparent [spearmaster] class

“Okay, okay. So they weren’t that dangerous. And I was just doing my job; true. But I amsorry. Really. I said too much back there.”

She said nothing. Her vision was blurring over from the cutting pain of the bag’s strap as it carved a groove into her shoulder.

“That looks heavy. Here, let me carry it for you.”

Relc reached for the bag. Erin pulled away.

“No. I’m fine.”

“Oh come on. Don’t be like that. I just—well, it was just me being careless, alright? Let’s talk. Please?”

Erin tried to walk faster, but her legs were already giving up. Relc easily kept pace with her. He was even able to walk backwards faster than her.

“Look. I’m very sorry Miss Erin. Let me carry your bag. It must be quite heavy, and this way we can talk without one of us falling over.”

Erin grudgingly slowed down. It was a tempting offer. Her legs were screaming to accept Relc’s generous offer and have him carry her as well. Her shoulder was already in another dimension of pain.

“Fine.”

She unslung the bag, wincing as blood returned to her arm. Relc lifted the bag with one hand and slung it over his shoulders. Then he kept pace with Erin as if nothing had happened.

“So.”

Relc scratched the spines on the back of his head, looked down, looked up, and sighed.

“I really didn’t meant it. It’s just—Necromancers, y’know? They’re dangerous. And it’s best to kill them on sight. You ever seen a thousand zombies trying to eat anything in sight? Even if they’re low-level, even if they play nice, I could never trust a Necromancer.”

“Especially not if they’re human.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But that’s what you think.”

“…”

Relc didn’t have anything to say to that. They both walked on in silence, faster now that the bag wasn’t weighing Erin down.

“So. You bought food, huh? Making lots of pasta tonight?”

“I’m going to sleep.”

“Right, right. But uh, good to see you made it to the city. So how’d you like it?”

“It’s fine.”

“Good, good.”

Relc was clearly casting around desperately for subject matter. He peeked into the bag. Erin could practically feel him salivating.

“Sausages. Mm. But hey, why didn’t you buy any clothes? I thought all females loved clothes, Drake or Human.”

Erin’s stomach twisted. She avoided his gaze and mumbled.

“I didn’t have enough money.”

“What, really?”

Relc looked at her askance and peered into the bag he was carrying.

“No. I mean, there’s food in here but that’s only a few silver coins at best. I’m sure you had more than that, right? How much did you spend?”

Erin felt her face heating up. She looked at the ground.

“A few gold coins. Some silver ones and copper ones.”

He stopped. Erin didn’t. She heard him muttering to himself and then swearing. It sounded like swearing. He loped forwards and was next to her in an instant.

“Really? What kind of rotscale sold you—why did you spend that much money?”

She stared at the grass as she trampled it. It was tinted with a lovely deep orange color in the sun’s fading glow.

“I just thought it was the right price, I guess. I didn’t want to argue.”

Relc muttered under his breath and sighed in exasperation.

“Well, I could go back to the market and ask around. But—I don’t suppose you caught the name of the store.”

“I can’t read the language here.”

Relc sighed again. Deeply.

“Right, right. Well, if you remembered his face I could find who sold you all that, but I doubt anyone’d bear witness against him. And there’s not much for me to go on. I mean, he sold you overpriced goods but it was your fault as well. No offense meant Miss, but how’d you trade a gold coin for a sack or two of flour?”

Erin couldn’t think of anything to say to that.

awkward. plus we get some slang

“Sorry.”

They walked on in silence. At last the inn was in sight. Erin trudged up the last incline, her legs screaming all the way. She paused at the door.

“I can take the bag now.”

Relc hesitated.

“You sure? I can carry it in—”

“I’m sure.”

Erin accepted the bag and her legs wobbled. She opened the door with one hand.

“Right. Thanks.”

She wanted to close the door, but Relc held it open effortlessly. He scratched at the back of his neck awkwardly.

“Look, I’m still really sorry about before. I didn’t mean—well, I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

Erin looked up at him. She just wanted to close her eyes. But he seemed sincere. So she mustered a bit of sincerity herself.

“Thanks for helping. With the Goblins.”

Relc gave her a wide, toothy grin.

“It was nothing. They’re no threat to me, or anyone with a few levels in any warrior. But don’t worry about those pests. I said I’d make it up to you, didn’t I? I’ll do something about them.”

Maybe it was an empty promise. But it made Erin smile a tiny bit.

“Thanks. Good night.”

Relc curled his tail up and flicked her a salute with both hand and tail at the same time.

“Until later, Miss Erin.”

Erin watched as he rapidly disappeared into the dark landscape. She vaguely envied the speed and effortless grace with which he moved. Then she closed the door.

There wasn’t much light so Erin just put the bag in the kitchen and lay down on the floor of the common room.

“I need to buy a pillow. And blankets. When I have the money for it.”

So instead she just used the cloth bag she’d bought as a pillow. Erin tried to get comfortable on the hardwood floor, but the very nature of it was giving her a…hard time. Besides, her shoulders ached. Her legs still hurt from the long walk. And if it were only that which hurt, she would already be asleep.

But instead Erin lay in the silence, listening to her heart beat. She wanted to say something, to think something better. But there wasn’t anything. So she stared at the hazy shapes in the dark room. It took her a long time before her eyes closed.

[Innkeeper Level 6!]

This time she said nothing at all. She just cried for a bit before she fell asleep.

well hey at least erin leveled from this whole debacle. i dont enjoy reading awkward convos, nor do i enjoy watching them, hence why i skipped a lot of the previous chapter

aaaaand thats the end of the chapter! will erin get her revenge? will relc enact revenge for her? will erin not be awkward in the city next time?

see you tomorrow.

#chrono

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