#(she then said ‘well it’s not rocket science to make them’ whilst still laughing)

[l4tedawns]

Another day another incident of parent being snarky as a joke for no reason I Don’t know why I bother

[itsallavengers]

TALK STARKQUILL TO ME I NEED

Their meeting was a little less meet-cute and a little more,,, meet-ugly sort of thing.

Mainly because they both read the situation very badly and ended up trying to kill one another. Completely accidentally, but.

Still.

And really, can you blame Tony? Their ship does crash-land in the middle of a crowded highway, and barely manages to avoid civilians. Then they pop out, and they’re armed to the teeth, looking pretty threatening and...well... alien.

People end up calling (what’s left of) the Avengers- which happens, at the time, to be Tony and Tony alone.

Except the Guardians crashed in Florida; when Tony got the call he was in New Orleans at a science convention, and the suit was still in New York.

But he went anyway. Suit or no suit, he had to try. He was the only line of defence now, after... everything.

So, armed with a sophisticated watch-gauntlet and a gun he always kept tucked in his jacket pocket, he takes the jet and leaves to try and stop them from potentially, y’know, annihilating the world or whatever.

Except things don’t really happen like that, in the end.

“Listen, what are the chances you’re gonna do as I say when I order you to drop your weapons and leave?” tony asks wearily, as he holds the gun at the biggest guy’s weirdly patterned face and the gauntlet at the woman holding the largest gun he’s ever seen in his life. He doesn’t even bat an eyelid toward the talking walking raccoon or... the tree...thing.

Just another day in the life, at this point.

Although it would be kinda embarrassing if he ends up getting murdered by the raccoon. What the damn hell would they put on his grave? Here lies Tony Stark- saved New York, but unable to protect himself from the dangers of the Mighty Raccoon?

As soon as he’d spoken, about 13 different weapons were pointed in his face. Which hardly made sense, considering there were five of them and they all only had two hands. But whatever.

“How’s about we ask you the same? Except more forcefully, considering we got all the guns,” the raccoon said.

Tony rolled his eyes. “Where the fuck would I go then, what with me being a human being who lives here? Just fling myself into the void of space? And yes, tempting as that might sound, I’ve been there done that. Not as appealing as I would have thought, to be honest.” 

The five stared at him in confusion for a moment, before what looked to be the only actual human stepped forward, head cocked. His eyes were bright and beard scruffy- Tony thought it suited him.

Tony also thought he should probably focus on the task at hand, and his ever-growing chances of imminent death, rather than how pretty his opponent was.

“You’re just a human, huh?” Hot Scruffy Man asked.

Tony raised an eyebrow, and then pointed the gun at him when he took another step. “What gave it away? The fact that I have the same composition and structure as every other human on the planet? The fact I look just like you, who is also a human?”

“Half human,”

“What was the other half, pure asshole?”

“Actually... kinda, yeah.” The Hot Scruffy Man paused, and then shrugged. “Daddy issues.”

Tony had a brief moment to wonder what the fuck he was doing before an involuntary snort of laughter had escaped out of him. “Yeah- rode that train before, buddy- still doesn’t explain why you’re on the planet I protect, waving your guns around at innocent people and causing millions of dollars worth in property damage.”

The team in front of him paused, and then the man looked back at the green lady, who just shrugged and put down her gun. “We were told there was an imminent threat to your planet. We were in the neighbourhood, so we thought we’d come save you.”

Tony stared at them, contemplating. “Where are your sources from?”

“The fine NovaCorps,” Massive Bulked Alien Dude spoke up.

Tony squinted, running a hand across his forehead. “Am I… supposed to know what that means?”

“Fancy space police,” Raccoon told him.

“You seen any apocalyptic aliens round here lately?” Hot scruffy Man asked him again, slightly confused now. 

Tony just sighed. “Nope. And if there were, I would handle them. You can go back…wherever you came from, guys, it’s fine, Earth is fine-“

“You? You’re gonna protect the Earth? With your fancy little handgun and hand-firey thing?” The Raccoon laughed, and Tony scowled.

Luckily, because he had been counting the seconds in his head since he’d called it, he knew he was about to do something really badass, and it wiped the scowl off his face, replacing it with a little smile as he stared at the stupid talking Raccoon. 

“No,” he said, shrugging as he heard the familiar whirring sound of metal moving at hundreds of miles an hour up ahead of him.

The aliens looked up, one of them pointing their gun at the source of noise, like it would do anything. But in the space of a few seconds, it had already reached its intended target, slowing down just enough to not vaporise his body and wrapping around him, every piece fitting in a way that made Tony want to give himself a round of applause.

“I’m gonna protect Earth with this,” he said, raising his two repulsors and loading them right in the Raccoon’s little face.

There was complete silence for a second, before Hot Scruffy Man made a noise that should really, for the sake of Tony’s sanity, be kept in the bedroom. “That was literally the coolest and most attractive thing I have ever seen ever. In my life.”

Tony couldn’t help himself; he smirked and cocked his head Hot scruffy Man. “Sweetie, I appreciate the sentiment, but you’re gonna have to keep it in your pants until we can sort this out.”

Green Lady sighed, and walked forward to smack Hot Scruffy Man around the back of the head. “You know what we talked about, Peter- no flirting with potential targets. It’s in bad form.”

“This guy certainly hasn’t got a bad form,” Hot Scruffy Man- Peter- nodded over to Tony and smirked.

Green Lady sighed, and then turned to Tony. “Listen. You want to protect your planet. We want to protect your planet. How about rather than pointing our weapons at one another, we try and… you know, do what we set out to do?”

Instantly, the smile slide off Tony’s face, not that any of them could tell behind the faceplate. “I work alone. Sorry. You’re gonna have to l-“

And that was when the world sort of exploded around them.

Without even thinking about it, Tony shot forward and wrapped his arms around the two closest to him- the Green Lady and Peter- rolling them to the ground and hoping that the rest of his team, especially the more flammable ones, were okay. Green Lady yelled at the sudden-ness of his approach, but Peter just sighed. “Here we go,” he muttered into Tony’s shoulder.

Tony was inclined to agree, there.

Half-way through the battle, Peter AKA Starlord AKA Galaxy’s Number One Asshole asked him out.

Tony looked at him for a good four seconds before he got tackled to the ground by… (Dracula? Dracker? He was having to learn the names on the go, and his mind was currently on other, more explosion-based things) the Massive Bulked Alien Dude.

“THAT IS VERY UNPROFFESSIONAL, PETER!” He yelled, before looking down at Tony. “Are you well? I thought you may have been hit with a paralytic beam of some sort.”

Tony nodded, and then sat up. “No paralytic. Just your team-mate.”

Massive Bulked Alien Dude nodded wisely. “He does tend to have that affect on people.”

“What? Endangering their goddamn lives on the field?”

Massive Bulked Alien Dude paused, and then shrugged as he rolled off Tony. “I was going to say rendering people speechless with his idiocy, but that too.”

“Hey, that’s not fair, I’m actually clever, Tony, I promise! Boyfriend material, right here!” Peter yelled across the battlefield, looking over to them and grinning as he shot an alien in the back of the head without even looking.

“You’re a god damn alien!” tony yelled back exasperatedly, trying to keep the smile off his face as he jumped high into the air and then landed on an unfortunate opponent.

“Yeah- think of all the new tricks I must know, then,” Peter countered, winking as he dived behind a car and then threw what must have been a fancy bomb over the bonnet.

Tony’s mind briefly short-circuited at that (Holy mother of God) astute observation- but he quickly regrouped and fired a repulsor at an alien attempting to sneak up behind Rocket. “I’m gonna need a few examples before I agree to anything, sweetie,” he replied.

Peter laughed and opened his mouth, but then the Tree hit him over the head. “Ow!” he complained, looking betrayed.

“I have enough issues dealing with one distracted team-member whilst in the middle of a battle, I will not be dealing with two! Cut the flirting out!” Gamora yelled, as Tony watched her utterly destroy two different aliens at once.

“She thinks we should be ‘professionals’ and ‘focus on the mission’ when we’re in battle,” Peter said grumpily, wiping a cut across his face and then shrugging. “I respectfully disagree.”

Tony had to cut the conversation short again in order to swoop up and laser his way into the main hull of the ship that loomed barely even twenty meters over the battlefield, but he still had the team in the comm that FRIDAY had patched him into. “So what about Monday? You sticking around until then?” He asked.

Rocket swore at them down the line, but Peter just laughed. “For you, baby, of course I am.”

“Good. I’ve got a meeting with… let’s call him an ex. Be nice to have an excuse to blow him off.”

Peter whistled, “Oooh, want me to sweep you off your feet and declare battle with him for hurting you? I’m always up for it.”

“Much as I would like to see that, he’s kind of peak physical perfection. Plus I’d rather just make out with you,” Tony admitted.

“That’s fair. I want to make out with me too.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Yep- welcome to the Guardians- we’re all assholes here. You’ll fit right in,” Peter told him.

“I am GROOT!” Came a rumbling voice that Tony could hear even off the comms, and he looked down in time to watch the tree grab Peter around the wait and haul him, flinging him up in to the sky with a yell.

It was a perfect throw, to be fair to Groot. Peter’s momentum cut out just as he was level with Tony, who grabbed his shoulders and lifted his faceplate, just for a second, in time for Peter to plant one on his mouth with a grin and a raised eyebrow, before he began falling again, right into Groot’s waiting arms.

Through the comm, Gamora just sighed. “Idiots. All of you.”

[talesmaniac89]

Fatherhood

Summary: Dad!Crowley & Daughter!Reader - Crowley comes home to find his daughter playing hide and seek.

Word Count: 1877

Triggers: None, just father/daughter fluff

Y/N = Your name ¦ Y/E/C = Your eye colour ¦ Y/H/C = Your hair colour

Note: So, as promised, a little fluff after yesterday’s angst in Phone Call. This was fun to write so might do more little one shots featuring this duo!

—

Crowley had been called a lot of things through his well over 300 years alive, or well… Somewhat alive. Demon, sure constantly. Bastard, pretty much his middle name. Vindictive, who wasn’t? Son of a bitch, well, they’d clearly met his mother. King of Hell, soulless, heartless, crazy… Hell the list went on and on… But father, that was not a title he’d ever thought he’d hold again.

Fatherhood never suited Crowley. Therapists would likely say it was his own issues with his wench of a mother, or possibly his lack of a father figure or some similar obnoxious bullshit. He himself however just believed there wasn’t room for children in his existence, more now than back then. Emotions were chains and children were an extra weight on those chains made to slow you down on your rise to greatness. And he wanted to be great. Roman emperor level great, except of course without the backstabbing, iron poisoning and inevitable loss of power.

Plus, as all the stupid souvenir t-shirts said… He’d been there, done that, and completely screwed up his first child. His philosophy was simple, really. Child-rearing wasn’t one of those get back up on that horse kind of moments. If you failed the first time around you shouldn’t try again.

So, when Juliet, his favourite trusted hellhound, brought a crying infant back with her after reaping the ripe soul of a dealtaker, Crowley was clearly… Well, in a bind was putting it mildly. The hellhound was somewhat smitten with the baby girl. Taking a protective stance in front of the child if anyone but Crowley tried to come near and curling up around her to calm her hiccuping sobs.

Having just had pups Juliet was still a bit… Motherly. Which was probably why she brought the baby with her. The child had been the only family of the latest soul added to his collection. So, with her motherly instincts, and having just claimed the soul of the baby’s single mother, Juliet had probably been unable to help herself. Honestly, considering the woman had squandered her deal and sold her soul on a wish to be in a very specific TV show, which didn’t really pan out for her career wise… She clearly didn’t have the knack for planning ahead, and from what Crowley knew, which was a lot more than he often let on, she had been a horrible mother.

Still, bringing the child back to hell… It was more than he’d expected from his hellhound, but as always, she constantly surprised him.

And so, Crowley had been faced with a dilemma. It wasn’t just a pup. It was a baby, a human baby. A living, breathing, innocent child that really didn’t belong in hell, not even in his more… Luxurious private slice of it. Yet, he didn’t want to leave the kid with the Winchesters. They weren’t really the poster boys for a healthy upbringing and he doubted they could provide the kid with the apple pie life of a perfect made for TV family.

Sure, he could leave her at some stranger’s door in a some strange version of ding dong ditch… But he’d been there himself, the traded for three pigs type of been there. And though that might have been back in the 17th century in rural Scotland he knew for a fact, seeing some of the poor sods that walked past his not-so-pearly-gates, that the “modern” foster care system wasn’t all daisies and teddy bears either.

Crowley was evil, sure, and cruel, definitely, but he wasn’t a monster. At least not past the tiny little fact that he was a literal demon. So he had taken it upon himself to raise the child. After all Juliet had seemed like she would rip the head off anyone who tried to take her new human shaped pup away from her. And Crowley very much preferred his head where it was.

It was like something out of a rejected sit-com script. Crowley, King of Hell, leader of the crossroads demons, and now a single father. And that, that was how hell got its princess, a full five years ago, though only those closest to the king knew of her existence.

—

“I’m home,” The words that over the last few years had been coming easier each time he spoke them now rolled off Crowley’s tongue as if they were the most natural words in the world. As if hell had somehow, after hundreds of years, actually become his home due to the little girl who waited for him there whenever he was out on business. Loosening his tie he raised his eyebrows in slight confusion when he didn’t hear the distinct sound of tiny feet rushing to greet him.

“(Y/N) where are you hiding now you little chipmunk?” Crowley fully lost his patented king of hell tone as he looked around the hallway, knowing the little princess couldn’t be far away. A warmer smile than he ever offered to anyone else easily lighting up his face and deepening the smile lines around his eyes to make the man truly look like the father he was trying to be for the small child that had turned his life upside down.

“Hmmm… I know she’s hiding somewhere,” He said to the room, pretending he wasn’t able to sense her presence behind the decorative curtains further down the long hallway. The small childish giggle he was rewarded with better than any amount of riches he could possibly wish to get.

Walking toward her he made a show of looking under tables and behind pictures on the wall and teasing more poorly suppressed high pitched laughs out of the apple of his eye. Adding a few small surprised noises and confused head scratches to the mix for comedic relief he slowly made his way over to where his little girl was hiding. The bulge in the curtain larger than her little shape should have been, which meant she’d once more dragged Juliet along with her. The hellhound was practically her domesticated house pup by now and seemed to have taken well to the role as nanny.

“I wonder, could the little chipmunk be hiding behind the curtains?” He asked the empty hallway in front of him when he was only a few steps away from where the five-year-old was doing her very best to stand completely still. Which, for a five year old was the equivalent of rocket science.

“Nooo,” The laughed denial only making Crowley beam brighter at his little ninja before playing along.

“Oh really? Well, then she must be in the other room,” The King of Hell pretended to take a few steps forward and did a quick turn back towards the curtains with a shocked gasp as (Y/N) gleefully laughed at his little performance. She was the only audience a father would ever need. Even if the Winchesters didn’t appreciate his little jokes, she always laughed and played along.

“Wait a minute,” Crowley said as he tip-toed over towards the expensive velvet curtains. “I’m pretty sure curtains can’t talk,”

“This one can! It’s Mr. Curtain!” The small darling voice of his little girl was shaking with laughter and as he looked at the movements in the curtain it was easy to tell the whole girl was shaking right along with it.

“Really now, well Mr. Curtain, but… What’s this lump here then?” He reached out of the curtain with a curious gesture and his princess squealed in her hiding place. “It kind of looks like it’s (Y/N) shaped. You didn’t eat my little girl did you Mr. Curtain?”

“Noooo, I jus’ had ice cream,” The small voice giggled as Crowley placed his hands on the curtain, pretending to measure up the part of the curtain where she was hiding.

“Ice cream before dinner?That doesn’t sound like something Mr. Curtain would do. No, you know what I think?” Crowley let his hand reach for the side of the curtain with a warm smile as he crouched to be at the same height as his baby girl.

“What?” (Y/N)’s voice had that cute little lilt it always got when she was truly curious. And she was always curious… Ah, the struggles of raising small children.

“I think this little lump is actually my princess!” Crowley said with a laugh as he pulled back the curtain to reveal his adopted daughter. Her surprised squeal automatically brightening the room and Crowley’s day as he caught her up in a big hug whilst Juliet nudged at them both with her snout. A bit jealous of the interaction as she felt as if she was just as big a part of the tiny little family as the two other members and just as entitled to a hug or at least an ear scratch.

“Daddy!” (Y/N) squealed as her little arms went around his neck to hug him back as hard as she could. Which honestly wasn’t very hard at all, but she always put all the strength in her little body into it.

“What have you been up to today pet?” Crowley said, standing up and lifting his princess with him as he focused on her brilliant (Y/E/C) eyes and her slightly messy (Y/H/C) hair from her time behind the velvet curtain.

“Walkies with ‘Ette!” She said, arms still around his neck as she looked down at the hellhound which he had yet to understand if she could see or not. Children all had a bit of magic in them, so it wouldn’t surprise him if she could. “Then Mr. Curtain ate us,”

“Really, did he gobble you up on your walkies?” Crowley asked with over-acted shock as he shifted the little girl so she was against his side like a little monkey. Teasing out another little laugh with a small tickle before carrying her easily towards the living room to ensure she got her dinner and possibly rewatch Moana, or whichever Disney movie she was obsessed with at the moment.

“Yes! You saved me from Mr. Curtain daddy!” Her big bright eyes widened as she nodded profusely, happy that her father was playing along with her little story.

“Did I? So is daddy your hero then?” Crowley said, his heart swelling like it always did when he held his world in his arms. Because shortly after Juliet had brought the little ray of sunshine into his life that was exactly what she’d become. His world.

“Yes! My daddy is the bestest hero!” Her little smile beamed up at him with so much love and admiration is nearly made the demon’s no longer beating heart burst. Her little hands holding onto each other as she gave him another big hug whilst he opened the door to the colorful and warm living room where he was just a father, and never the King of Hell.

To think he could love someone so much. With his little princess, his darling (Y/N), around everything was always fine. No matter what the world threw his way during the day.

It didn’t matter to him if the whole world saw him as a villain. Because to his little girl, Crowley was a hero.

Please do let me know if you wish to be removed from the tag list

Tags:  @auszimbo @upon-a-girl @gallifreyansass @mogaruke @skybinx-blog  @delisp @jensen-jarpad @supernatural-jackles @deathtonormalcy56 @27bmm @wildfirewinchester @just-another-busy-fangirl

Also tagging a few Crowley fans I know ‘cause I’m shameless that way: @roxy-davenport @crowley-you-sinnamon-roll @scheherazades-horcrux, @ajacentlee, @chelsea072498 @annabellerosemasters @alangel1895

[kykru-blog]

Let’s Face The Music And Dance - Chapter 2

Or, the second part of that Acapella AU that nobody asked for.

Read the first chapter here.

Clarke had already told the others they were to be at rehearsals on Saturday, bright and early at 8am. They hadn’t confirmed Bellamy at that point, but she had been ever confident that she would get the voices they needed this year, and it had paid off.

She’d been at the auditorium since 7.30am, organising her sheet music, checking the piano was tuned in case they needed it for pitching, and generally marking out spots for choreography.

The first to arrive was Murphy, of all people, looking suspiciously alert and ready to go.

“You’re early,” she deadpanned from the stage when his silhouette made its way down the central aisle and towards her.

His form shrugged and lopped over a few rows of seating as he made a beeline for where she was pacing out marks downstage left.

“Anywhere’s better than being at home, even at 7am.”

Sometimes Murphy was alarmingly honest.

Clarke paused for a moment, unsure what to say, so instead she nodded soberly and held out the multitude of coloured tape in her hand.

“You can help me with this if you like,” she offered.

He took her up on her offer until Miller and Raven arrived. They sauntered in, looking much too worse for wear, both wearing sunglasses - clearly hungover - and Miller with his shirt collar rolled back the wrong way.

“Clarke Griffin,” Raven yelled halfheartedly across the small auditorium. “My first official act this year as President is to cancel all rehearsals before 10am.”

“Motion denied,” Clarke told her without missing a beat, and climbed down from the stage to meet them at the front of the stalls.

“Seriously,” Miller complained. “8am?”

“It’s the only time nobody else wanted. We’ve got to be out by ten for the Shakespeare group.”

“Did you ever consider,” Raven grumbled as she threw her bag into the aisle of the first row of seats. “That nobody wanted this time because it was too damn early.”

“I did,” Clarke made no effort to sound less unapologetic. “But it’s ours for the rest of the year, so stop complaining Reyes and warm up those vocal chords of yours.”

She turned back to organise her paperwork, handing stacks to Murphy to look over, so Raven took that as her cue to wander off towards the piano as Monty, Jasper and Harper made an appearance through the back door.

“Hi guys!” Harper, at least, was excited to be there. “First rehearsal of the season!”

Jasper bounded down the aisle a few steps behind her and Monty, heading towards Miller as they wandered towards Clarke.

“There’s coffee and bagels downstage right,” Clarke greeted them. “We’re starting in fifteen.”

She heard Raven exclaim, “Coffee? Why didn’t you say so before!” as they all clambered towards the free breakfast she had laid out on top of the piano.

Because she was organising her paperwork, she heard Bellamy’s voice before she saw him.

“—don’t need to come with me, O,” he was grumbling in his trademark deep voice. “I’m older than you, you know.”

“I just want to make sure this is for real and you’re not hiding a secret affair with a teacher or something,” a female voice mocked him and floated down the aisle towards her from the door off to the left of the stage. It led directly out onto a parking lot so the sunlight filtered in for a brief moment before it was closed behind the Blakes.

He was wearing a plain blue t-shirt and jeans, his sister in a white bodycon dress, black tights and white trainers. The resemblance between the two of them was uncanny. They shared a ridiculously beautiful set of genes, alright. Clarke was pretty certain she was attracted to the both of them. Then again, from what she’d heard, half the school was already in love with Octavia or Bellamy Blake, so she was in good company.

“Blake,” Miller called in greeting from his position crowding round the breakfast. He waved a hand then went back to chatting with Monty.

Bellamy reached Clarke as he waved back to Miller and leaned against the raised platform of the stage, hands in his pockets as he surveyed what she was doing.

“Hey Clarke.”

She smiled up at him. “Hi Bellamy, I’m glad you could make it.”

“I’m glad I could too,” he said and watched her pensively for a moment whilst she focused on her sheet music.

Octavia made a noise which startled him out of his reverie. “Oh, right, erm, this is my sister, Octavia. You sort of met before.”

“Nice to officially meet you, Octavia,” Clarke said politely, making an effort to focus on them both instead of the paperwork in front of her.

“I’m sorry I didn’t join your acapella group,” Octavia opened with. “But I’m not changing my mind just because you’ve got Bell now.”

She could only blink at Octavia for a second, caught off-guard by her blunt words.

Octavia wasn’t rude, but she was defensive, and Clarke knew that mix all too well. She decided to take it for what it was - an abrasive personality and nothing personal.

“That’s ok,” she shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. “We didn’t want him for you, we wanted him anyway.”

Octavia grinned and slapped her brother teasingly on the arm. “They need you, Bell. See, I told you you could have a life without me.”

He rolled his eyes, embarrassed by his little sister. “O, please, stop talking.”

“Well, I guess I best get going then,” she announced cheerily. “Don’t want to snoop on the competition.”

And then she bounded away, back out the side door and into the sunlight.

After a brief moment, Clarke made eye contact with Bellamy.

“She’s…” She searched for the right word.

“Opinionated?” Bellamy supplied, an amused smile playing at his lips. He took some of the sheet music from the top of Clarke’s pile and pretended to peruse it. “Assertive? Feisty? Trust me, I’ve had all the synonyms.”

“Confident,” Clarke laughed as she plucked the music back from him. “I was going to say confident.”

He laughed out a quick bark, so loudly that the others glanced over to see what was going on. “Thank you.”

“Come on,” Clarke finally burst their bubble, self conscious now that they were being watched. “We’ve got a lot of work to do before sectionals.”

Initial rehearsals were slow. They managed to tune a lot of their voices and work out who sounded best with who, and agree on a lot of ideas, but nothing concrete was planned by the end of their first two sessions. Clarke proposed that they each do some research on songs that they could work on, and they agreed to look for three in total - two sung by a mixture of the entire group and one solo ballad.

They weren’t overly worried about sectionals, now that they had a range of tone, but they still wanted to be prepared. And they still wanted to put on a good show.

Bellamy and Harper had settled in to the group almost seamlessly. Harper wasn’t very good with technical terminology and Bellamy was a little clumsy on his feet, but overall they’d lucked out. Neither of them needed hand holding, for which Clarke was thankful. It gave her more time to plan and arrange their songs, once they’d finally agreed on them.

The week after their third rehearsal Clarke met them for lunch on the grass outside the Math block. She had been held up by a meeting with her careers advisor so they were already full-flow in the middle of a debate by the time she arrived.

Bellamy was lying on the grass off to the side, seemingly just watching the argument unfold and trying to keep up.

She bounded over and smacked Bellamy’s feet until he moved them and she could sit down in the space between him and Harper.

“What’s the poison today?” She asked him conspiratorially.

“Whether we should do musical numbers or not at sectionals,” He told her quietly as he sat up and bumped his shoulder against hers.

“Hmm,” Clarke gave a noncommittal nod of her head as she dug out her sandwich from her bag. “Who’s winning?”

Bellamy grinned. “Raven, I think.”

“What does she want?”

“Complete and total anarchy on stage.”

He wasn’t wrong, Raven seemed to be arguing just to rile up the others.

Clarke laughed. “That sounds like Raven.”

“—is all I’m saying,” Raven was arguing over the commotion as Murphy and Monty traded off song titles.

“Judges look for uniformity,” Harper pointed out. “We can’t just barrel onto stage with no plan.”

“Planning who sings which bit of songs we all hate seems completely pointless,” Raven argued.

“And that is why Clarke’s the musical director of this group and not you,” Miller reminded her.

“This isn’t rocket science, Raven, it’s just acapella,” Monty pointed out. A few of them gave mock-gasps. “It’s not that hard.”

“Oh, Monty,” Raven reached forward and pretended to caress his face. “Sweet, sweet Monty… of course this isn’t rocket science, I could do that in my sleep. Composing an arrangement for eight people? No thank you.”

“That’s why you have Clarke,” Bellamy pointed out, echoing Miller’s words.

Clarke nodded. “And I’ve decided we’re doing show tunes.”

They erupted into a bustle of commotion.

“Clarke!”

“What?”

“Why didn’t you say so before!”

“Yes!”

Clarke rolled her eyes at them all and raised her voice. “Look, we’re competing with the Grounders, and mashing up modern chart music into a kick-ass setlist is their forte. If we try to do it, we’ll just be giving the judges and audiences something exactly the same to compare our set to. If we do show tunes, we’ll be different.”

Miller wasn’t too happy about it, but they all understood where she was coming from.

“So…” Bellamy asked first. “Which ones?”

“I have a few ideas,” Clarke told them excitedly as she opened her notebook.

For the rest of lunch they discussed song options and traded off song titles from both popular and obscure musicals. Eventually, they decided on a few tentative songs, with the understanding that they could switch them up at a later date if they weren’t working.

By the time they met for their fourth rehearsal the day after, they were all committed to the two group numbers - the classic Grease Lightning to pick up people’s moods, and an emotional You Will Be Found from a more contemporary musical.

The solo was the thorn in their side.

“It should be As Long As He Needs Me from Oliver,” Monty was saying as they all lounged over seats at the back of the auditorium stalls. “It’s emotional, it’s got great vocal range, everybody knows it but it’s not over-sung.”

Murphy gently kicked him in the back of the head from where his feet had been propped up on the row of seats behind him. “Not over-sung?” He scoffed. “What world are you living in?”

Monty glared at him, so Clarke interrupted before an argument could ensue. “Ok, that’s one suggestion. Anybody else? I’m in favour of a more emotional ballad, we’ve got Grease Lightning as our gimmick already.”

“How about On My Own from Les Mis?”

“Way too over-sung,” Harper pointed out quickly.

“How about something from Newsies?”

“Just because you love that musical like nobody’s business,” Raven told Jasper bluntly. “Doesn’t mean the rest of us care about it.”

Jasper gasped and looked genuinely offended.

“It wouldn’t translate to the audience,” Clarke tried to be more reasonable. “We don't have time to explain the context. We need a song that explains itself.”

That appeased him a little, but he still glared at Raven.

“Can’t we think outside the box a little bit?” Raven asked. “I’m sick of doing the same white people show tunes every year.”

Bellamy tried not to laugh at that. His sister would like Raven.

“That’s it,” Clarke exclaimed, sitting up straighter in her seat, stopping everybody’s conversation. “I’ve got the perfect song.”

“Let me guess,” Murphy rolled his eyes. “And you’e the perfect person to sing it?”

“No,” Clarke said quickly. “Not me. Raven.”

Every eye turned to Raven. She looked as shocked as them.

“Me?” She asked, self-conscious. “I’m just here to have fun and mess around between classes, Clarke. I don’t want that responsibility.”

“Raven,” Harper began softly. “Your voice is incredible, why shouldn’t you have the chance to show it off.”

The others all nodded and murmured their agreements, which seemed to bolster Raven’s mood a little.

“Alright, what song?” She asked Clarke tentatively. “What were you thinking?”

“A modern musical classic,” Clarke told her happily. “Nina’s song from In The Heights.”

“‘Breathe’?” Raven’s eyes lit up and a slow grin spread out across her face. “That’s… perfect.”

“I know,” Clarke grinned. “And it has great potential for acapella bass notes to accompany you.”

Bellamy was smiling until he realised that meant him.

“Who, me?” He asked, alarmed, when he noticed all their faces now looking at him.

“Think about it Bellamy,” Clarke placed a hand on his forearm reassuringly. “You’ll get to use your voice but you won’t have to stand too much in the spotlight. It’s perfect for your first show.”

He seemed unsure but as soon as he made eye contact with her, he knew he was impervious to her excitement.

“Fine,” he sighed and she clapped her hands against her thighs in success. “But only because I want to keep you all happy.”

“All of us, sure,” Murphy smirked from across the row.

Bellamy glared at him whilst Clarke lobbed a roll of coloured tape at him, hitting him in the face and knocking him off his perilous perch and into the aisle. Monty and Harper helped him up off the floor once they’d finished laughing.

“Listen,” Bellamy was saying animatedly as they walked home together on a cold winters afternoon in November. “I don’t reject the notion that all Greek myths had an element of political bias to them, I’m just saying that if you believe that they were created for the sole purpose of political propaganda, you shouldn’t be teaching Ancient History.”

Clarke watched him in fascination as he worked himself up over a particularly irritating teacher whom he disagreed with almost every class. Friday afternoons were her favourite because, not only did she have the weekend and rehearsals to look forward to, but she always walked home with just Bellamy whilst Octavia was at kickboxing, and he always had Ancient History on a Friday afternoon, so each walk was a foray into the brain and inner workings of Bellamy Blake.

“—-Can you believe that?” He was asking, and then suddenly his eyes were on hers instead of the path ahead and she had to look away quickly to hide that she was staring.

“Uh huh,” she nodded vigorously to make up for it. “How… demanding.”

Bellamy surveyed her for a moment. “You weren’t listening to a word of that, were you?” He asked, but he didn’t seem to take it personally.

“I’m sorry, Bellamy” She told him. “I was thinking about how deep your voice was.”

He shot her a surprised, somewhat confused, somewhat panicked, look.

A second too late, she realised how that had sounded.

“No,” she rushed on with. “I mean, how great it is to have you this year. I mean, not that I have you, I mean, not that it’s me you— I’m making a mess of this.”

She gave up, throwing her hands out in front of her in a gesture that meant “I-give-up”.

Bellamy laughed and watched her from under his eyelashes in that serious way that made Clarke feel like he was looking into her soul. “I think I get what you mean, Clarke.”

She sighed and corrected herself. “I just meant that I’m thankful you’re a part of our group, Bellamy. We really could get to Nationals this year.”

“Let’s just try to get me through Sectionals first, ok,” he grinned, slowing to a stop as they reached the corner at the end of town where they usually parted ways. He paused, seemed to consider his next words for a moment, then added, “So, any plans this afternoon?”

“I’m meeting my mum at the hospital to organise work experience,” She turned to face him, hitching her bag higher up onto her shoulder. “So fun.”

Bellamy’s lips twitched into a small smile.

“What about you?” She asked.

He kicked the ground and seemed suddenly interested in the lines on the pavement. “I’m… er, taking O to visit our mother’s grave on Sunday.”

“Oh.”

“It’s… it’s ok,” He tried to reassure her. Clarke was always baffled by Bellamy’s selfless ability to put other’s emotional needs before his own. “We’re doing better, in a way, now that she’s gone. Seeing her ill was… god, it was terrible, but at least she’s at peace now, y’know?”

Clarke smiled sadly at him for a moment but didn’t want it to come across as pity, so she leaned forwards and planted a gentle kiss on his cheek.

When she pulled away, he was smiling without seeming to realise it, his eyes trained on hers.

“What was that for?” He asked.

“For telling me,” She told him simply. “Now, do you want to get milkshakes so I have an excuse to be late to meet my mother?”

“Definitely,” He grinned as she linked her arm through his and they turned to walk down the road together and towards the Drop Ship, their local hang out spot.

When they arrived, the snow had just begun to fall and they were freezing cold. Bellamy pulled the door open and ducked inside after Clarke, trying desperately to warm up his glove-less hands.

“How can you remember to pick up four text books on Greek Mythology on your way out the door, but you can’t remember to put gloves on?” She’d mocked him this morning.

Clarke peeled hers off her own hands as they wandered towards the counter.

“Chocolate Surprise, or Vanilla Melt?” She asked, guessing his thoughts, as she read off the specials board.

When he didn’t answer, she turned to see him standing closer than she thought and looking intently at her. His hand came up to wipe away some snow that had settled high upon her cheekbone.

They smiled tentatively at each other for a long second, until they were interrupted by Jasper.

“Hey guys!” He appeared out of nowhere, in true Jasper style. “What’s up?”

They each took half a step back as quick as a flash.

“Jasper!” Clarke greeted him quickly. “What are you doing here?”

“Helping wingman Monty with Miller,” He laughed. “Those two are so hopeless.”

“Monty likes Miller?” Clarke asked exasperated.

“Confirmed,” Jasper replied smoothly, pointing a finger gun at her. “The real question is, does Miller like Monty?”

“He does,” Bellamy answered almost immediately. They both glanced at him in surprise. “Just trust me on this one, he’s… he’s definitely into Monty.”

They both considered it for a moment, then Jasper smiled slowly.

“Excellent news,” he slapped Bellamy on the shoulder, which quickly turned Bellamy’s smile into a frown, but he was off back to their corner table before Bellamy could respond.

Clarke shook her head as they turned back to the counter. “Honestly, this group just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”

“You’re telling me.”

Feel free to talk to me about this, I’m sort of digging myself into an acapella hole and I probably need to be looked after.

The next chapter will be sectionals so the pace will pick up a bit after this.

Also, I basically just inserted my own favourite musicals into this, so these likely won’t be the last In The Heights/Dear Evan Hansen/Newsies references.

[harrison-abbott]

ODE FOR THOMAS PYNCHON

  There is an episode in Season 6 of The Simpsons called Hommie the Clown. The story begins when Homer is driving down a motorway, and, seeing lines of billboards in front of him, exclaims, “It must be the first day of the month! New billboard day!” He drives closer and stops in front of the first billboard, an advert for English muffins, which perks his interest, and then onto the next, an advert for BBQ sauce, which makes him chuckle. He then spots a billboard with the bold letters ‘KRUSTY’S CLOWN COLLEGE’ with four dancing Krustys under it. Homer scoffs and remarks, “Clown College … You can’t eat that!” and drives off. Despite declaring himself uninterested in the Krusty billboard, it keeps popping into Homer’s mind. He begins to hallucinate at work, his colleagues turning into clowns, accompanied by jangly circus music. At the family dinner table that evening, he makes a circus tent with his pile of mashed potatoes. Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie turn into dancing clowns, prompting Homer to explode, “That’s it! You people have stood in my way long enough! I’m going to clown college!”

 This is an analogy for a discovery I made as a younger man in my University days. But, before going on, allow a brief introduction to the personal context within which that discovery was made.

 I was 22 and had just completed the 3rd Year of my Psychology undergraduate degree. It was summer, and I’d just moved in to a new flat. I’d also just been dumped by a girl – ha – which made me rather blue. The said girl had been inviting me out on dates for around two months. The first month went pretty well, or so I thought back then. The second month the girl began to repeatedly talk about her ex-boyfriend, who had been a half-friend of mine before and who I hadn’t known was her ex. Her talking of the ex grew more repetitive on our dates, until it became one of the main things she talked about. On the last date I had with the girl, she invited me out on a picnic, and talked about how impressed she was with the ex for getting a 1st in his Degree. He was graduating that same day, and she was sending him a surprise bottle of wine for his afterparty. We finished the picnic, which she had prepared, and she made to leave. I motioned to kiss her bye on the lips; she snatched her head away to the side and allowed me to kiss her on the cheek. I made some jokey remark, like, “Oh I was actually aiming for the lips …?” She laughed, turned, and walked away. A few hours later she called me up to break it off, insinuating that there was another man in her life. And kept asking me to guess who this other man was.

 But, blah blah, this story is so absurd I now just find it funny. The relevant thing was that it led me onto a horrific alcoholic binge after it ended. I got fucked out my brain on whisky, wine, beer for weeks on end – drank as much as I could, just to hurt myself. I became obsessed with Kurt Cobain, like some 14-year-old, and kept self-harming with Bic razor blades, determined to convince myself that I had Bi-Polar Disorder. Haha, it was pathetic. I drank a half bottle of cheap whisky before every shift at work: I don’t know how I didn’t get fired.

 My flatmate whom I’d just moved in with went off on a long summer holiday to Europe, meaning I had the space to myself for three months. My binge came to a moment of clarity, one lucky day, and I decided to halt the boozing for a night. I cleared all the bottles/cans out to the bins, and I went down to the University Library that evening.

 The Sir Duncan Rice Library at Aberdeen was terrific – probably the place which has most nurtured me intellectually. Whilst I studied a scientific degree, which was dependent on reading electronic science journals, I was far more interested in the physical literature section in the Library, which was huge. So I would raid the novels and poetry collections alongside doing Psychology, a healthy mix of art and science. The Library also had this little music room in an isolated corner of the building, with a keyboard and recording equipment. I’d go in there and make weird recordings, many of which became part of the Violent Birth of the Moon repertoire. The Library was thus an enchanting place where I could learn and be creative.

 It also stayed open into the a.m. hours each night, so that a handful of us insomniac-Travis-Bickle types could go there whenever we pleased. But that day when I sobered up was the most important day of my University era.

 I first saw it – the book – whilst roaming the American literature section. ‘Gravity’s Rainbow …’ I thought, ‘That’s a ballsy title …’ I picked it up – a huge, blue, hardbacked, clumpy thing, without any jacket or front cover image. Just those words and an author I’d never encountered before. I skimmed through it and the text was smaller and denser than any of the other books I had in my current haul. I��d come on it by chance, and why hadn’t I heard of it? And why was there no blurb, or author bio – nothing to explain it? Annoyed with curiosity, I hesitated, but then put it back on the shelve. And I went back home with the other books, and sat in my silent flat, trying to read them. I managed to avoid buying booze from the shop before 10 p.m., and I dosed off to sleep, unsatisfied with the books I’d tried. I had a dream about the enormous blue book I’d left behind in the Library. I woke up whilst it was still dark, got dressed, and cycled back to the campus and took Gravity’s Rainbow out.  

 I stopped drinking, ended the absurd binge, forgot about the silly girl-incident, and became completely obsessed with this new book.

 These are the two sentences which complete the first paragraph of Thomas Pynchon’s 760 page novel Gravity’s Rainbow:

“A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.”

After and during my obsession for the book, I kept telling other people about it. I kept trying to explain the answer when they asked “what’s it about?” I couldn’t do it, at least not very well. Wikipedia cites the basic setting and plot of the novel as thus:

“Lengthy, complex, and featuring a large cast of characters, the narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II, and centres on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military. In particular, it features the quest undertaken by several characters to uncover the secret of a mysterious device named the "Schwarzgerät" ("black device"), slated to be installed in a rocket with the serial number "00000".”

Except, the above is not a revealing explanation. Not that I could do any better, but I’ll try.

 The main plot-premise involves the central character Slothrop and his adventures during the closing chapters of WWII. Slothrop travels across Europe a great deal and has sex with a great deal of women. Every time Slothrop has sex, a V-2 rocket strikes the exact same spot in which the sexual incident occurred, a few days later. All kinds of military craftsmen and rocket scientists begin to believe that Slothrop has some mystic ability to thus predict the powers of the V-2 rockets, which is in someway connected to this coveted secret called the Schwarzgerät with the special number 00000. These military craftsmen and scientists seek to capture Slothrop in order to understand a mystical element of warfare for self-benefit. Slothrop’s sexual exploits take him from London, to the French Riviera, Northern Germany … yet nowhere is specific, and Europe becomes a roaming magical place of setting. Alongside his women he meets MI5 agents, SS officers, sex slaves, Pavlovian psychologists, a militarily-engineered octopus with which he has a physical fight, Schwarzkommando cadres, a witch, a porn star … Slothrop slowly begins to lose his mind, and channels a variety of alter-egos, as a war reporter, a German actress, a Russian troop … It is too hard to explain, really.

 Because it is unlike any thing I have ever encountered artistically. Not even solely in a literary sense. There is no book like Gravity’s Rainbow, but no film, or symphony or spectacular work of art either. I love GR for its ability to blend the obscure, the offbeat and the irregular into something that can be read with a type of astonished relish. The book is narrated almost entirely in present-tense, which gives it a rollicking pace. Words and sentences constantly explode in chaotic directions, yet all seem to be linked together in perfect imperfection. Pynchon bends his syntax, elongates language, punches and drags the reader through wacky scenarios. There are rape scenes, murder scenes, which should be too horrific to read – and they are horrific, but are described so exquisitely that one’s eyes lap them up. A lot of the book is very funny, often crass, crude. And yet most importantly Pynchon clearly has morality behind his multivariate approach. For instance, here’s an example, taken from a single paragraph (from my edition pages 549-551):

“The nationalities are on the move. It is a great frontierless streaming out here … Poles fleeing the Lublin regime, others going back home, the eyes of both parties, when they do meet, hooded behind cheekbones, eyes much older than what’s forced them into moving … Estonians, Letts, and Lithuanians trekking north again, all in their wintry wool in dark bundles, shoes in tatters, songs too hard to sing, talk pointless … white wrists and ankles incredibly wasted poking from their striped prison camp pajamas, footsteps light as waterfowl’s in this inland dust … bobbing, drifting, at a certain hour of the dusk, like candleflames in religious procession – supposed to be heading today for Hannover, supposed to pick potatoes along the way … non-existent potato fields plundered by the SS, ja, every fucking potato field, and what for? Alcohol. No, not to drink, alcohol for the rockets. … Women in army trousers split at the knees … looted chickens alive and dead … harmoniums, grandfather clocks … paintings of pink daughters in white frocks, of saints bleeding, of salmon and purple sunsets over the sea, dolls smiling out of violently red lips … So the populations move, across the open meadow, limping, marching, shuffling, carried, hauling along the detritus of an order, a European and bourgeois order they don’t know yet is destroyed forever.”

What can we see here? Aside from wonderful wordplay and beautiful language we see how clever Pynchon is. He has a wide knowledge of the war, and a compassion for the masses of people it affected. The sense of setting is profound; the enormity of the war is emphasised. This is only a fragment of the quoted paragraph …

 Pynchon is thus a historian as well as a writer of fiction. As well as a mathematician, scientist, music fanatic, film buff; all seen in a glorious collection of references, stats, diagrams, quotes, you name it. I’m clearly a nerd of this book. And perhaps not everybody would feel the same about it. Indeed, the book received much negative backlash by the critics upon initial reception in 1973. Although nominated for the Pulitzer Fiction Award in 1974, it was described as ‘unreadable’ and ‘overwritten’ by the jury board. And directly rejected because of a sex scene involving coprophagia – the consumption of faeces, in this case for sexual gratification. This particular scene is only one of many erratic moments in the book, and definitely not the most ‘immoral’, if that is the correct word. This is a common example of how stupid the critics can be. And another example of how great works of art do not receive the attention they deserve by the critics of their time.

 Anyway. Thomas Pynchon is a writer who has influenced me vastly, in a way differently from other influences. I’m not saying he is the ‘best’ or ‘most important’ to me, his work simply has a unique power over me. That particular summer, when I cleared up and read GR was among the most exhilarating periods in my life. It set me new ambitions, not necessarily to emulate Pynchon’s work (because this is impossible) but to be confident that there are always new things to be expressed in literature, and art. How an artist can be playful, universal with his craft, not afraid to seep up all his influences and hurl them wherever he wishes. I’ve read Pynchon’s other works too, and love them as well. I’ll admit I have a personal attachment in Gravity’s Rainbow because it singlehandedly pulled me out of that deranged period of alcohol, yet more importantly extended my love for literature to even greater levels, which I would never have thought possible. It’s an obsession which I still have, lingering.

 I found a rare copy of Gravity’s Rainbow which I’d been looking for for ages. In a second hand bookstore – a neat, antique copy, for only £3. Thrilled, I took it into the woods by my home neighbourhood to read again. And I still can’t quite believe it, but I went and lost it somewhere in the woods. I was playing football with my dog at the same time, and somehow I must have left it on one of the park benches perhaps. Somebody found it, picked it up – and took it home? Or they threw it into the bushes? Either way, it feels like there’s a copy of it, waiting, hidden somewhere in the woods for me to find one day in the future. And hidden in my childhood play-arena, as it were, gives it a further sense of mysticism. When works of art can obsess a person so, they must have something special. As a developing writer myself, I hope I can make something that will affect people in such a way, one day. But I’ll need to put a lot of effort in before I can get anywhere near Gravity’s Rainbow.

  15/05/19

[insert-witty-comment]

Hello again, ladies and gentlemen.After quite a bit of debating with myself, I’ve decided to write up another overview of Peter Moon’s and Preston B. Nichols’s Montauk Project series, because the madness just keeps on going and I have to share it with you, if for no other reason than to leave a written record of my own mental breakdown after reading this. Maybe this will reveal more hints as to Season 2, so there’s a glimmer of hope.So, seeing as how this is probably going to turn into a regular thing, I’m hereby calling this little column/commentary/whatever the ”Hawkins Book Club”.Yes, it’s not spectacularly original. Now, without further ado, onto the summary!Montauk Revisited: Adventures in Synchronicity was published in 1994 after the surprising success of the first book (my overview of which you can read here) presumably due to sales from conspiracy theorists who read it like the Bible and people who just wanted to laugh at it. The book starts out with this dedication;“This book is dedicated to the memory of Jan Brice, a fellow seeker on the path, and the man who photographed ‘The Beast’.”In a similar vein, I am dedicating this snarky commentary to the memory of Shepard, the man who waved a flashlight in the face of “The Beast”.The book starts off with a prelude that for whatever reason talks at length about John Whiteside Parsons, the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the evolution of rockets.Well this is boring, where’s all the time-traveling Neo-Nazis?“But Jack Parsons was far more than a brilliant rocket scientist. He was not only a colorful and popular personality but also an occultist and practicing magician. In fact, his sphere of influence was so great that rumors consistently circulated (and are still heard even today) that the other scientists worshipped him and practiced strange rites under his direction.”Oh, thank God. I was getting worried that you suddenly regained some of your sanity, Moon. Saying that one of the pioneers of rocketry was a magician put any doubts to rest.So because of these “strange rites”, the military assigned a Naval officer to investigate. However, the officer “had his own agenda”. For you see, this officer was part of several psychological studies done with ��truth serum” and “abnormal psychology”. Why were these studies done?”These studies, in pan opened the door to the consciousness of aliens and their influence upon mankind.”Of course. And who exactly is this Naval officer, you might ask?“The name of this Naval officer was none other than L. Ron Hubbard who would engage Parsons as a friend and participate in his magical workings.”………………………………………………………………………………Well, you best pour yourself a drink; this is gonna be a long one.“Parsons was assassinated in 1952 by an explosion in his laboratory. I was born down the road six months later (this is not meant to imply that I was Jack Parsons) and my life followed a rather incredible path that eventually lead me to the doors of L. Ron Hubbard, Preston Nichols and Jack Parsons' wife, Marjorie Cameron (an artist, poet revolutionary and an extremely feared occultist in her own right). For the most part, my meetings and involvement with these people were not consciously planned. They seemed guided by a higher power that was part of some overall scheme.”Okay, three things;1). That’s not what the term “assassinated” means.2). Why would you assume that your readers would think that you were Jack Parsons?3). What the hell do you mean by a “higher power”? Is that just your cute euphemism for liquid sunshine?Regardless, Moon ends the Prelude with this sentence;“For now, just realize that the events that preceded my involvement in all of this came as a direct result of three very famous and powerful magicians.”Sure Moon, whatever you say. We haven’t even reached the book proper and already I’ve face-palmed at least three times.So after the Prelude comes the Introduction (Moon really seems to want to put off writing the actual damn book for some reason). It basically just talks about what our old friends Preston B. Nichols and Duncan Cameron have been up to. Nichols is now studying psychic phenomena and Cameron is working as a carpenter. Kind of a downgrade from “mind-controlling time-traveler”, but to each his own. Moon then reveals his expertise; implants which “cause you to think in ways that are not in your own interest. It is a vast subject and is right at the heart of the cosmic conspiracy.”…Uh-huh.So we finally get to Chapter 1, where Moon provides an extremely pretentious explanation of what he thinks constitutes a “legend”. Seriously, you can practically feel his smugness radiating off the page. He also explains what the purpose of Experiments in Time was;“’The Montauk Project’, as it has been told by Preston Nichols, calls on us to rally around the symbol of time and break free from its limitations. It has its own place in legend simply because it is so unique. Whether or not it is true is secondary… If parts of this book cannot be accepted at face value, they should be understood in the context of legend and what the bizarre meaning is behind it all. Only in this manner can one arrive at the truth behind the subject matter.”I assume this is here so that if Moon ever gets sued for libel and defamation by any of the people or organizations he mentions in this book, he can point to this disclaimer and say it was all fiction.Hey, conspiracy theorists, I think you’re being had. Chapter 2 describes the day that started this madness. On November 7th, 1990, Moon met both Nichols and psychic Cameron for the first time (Hmm…). The two of them were speaking at a lecture alongside Cameron’s half-brother Al Bielek, discussing the Philadelphia Experiment and the Force Orgone Energy. Moon asked them why they were able to speak about such matters so freely.”Preston explained that the Government was losing control. He said they have learned over time that they can't just kill people anymore. In the past, silencing people has had a tendency to create a martyr syndrome.”I guess executing oblivious diner owners for little to no reason backfired on them.So after the lecture, Moon tried to arrange a private meeting with Nichols through the “Long Island Pyschotronics” chapter treasurer, Jewel (seriously?). However, Jewel called him a few days later saying that she was leaving the organization because;“Preston was apparently the devil and all she would say about Duncan was that he was damaged.”Well, she isn’t that far off.So apparently Moon happened to run into her a couple of days later. Jewel had “fell flat on her face that day and had to be taken home. She was incapacitated for several days”.So Nichols drove to her house to “console” her. Then;“Duncan later did an extremely elaborate reading which indicated she was working undercover for another psychotronics group.”God damn, who would have thought that psychotronics were so cutthroat?Anyway, Moon visits Nichol’s lab and witnesses demonstrations of the equipment he had lying around, including a “Biofiss”. What’s a Biofiss, you ask? I’ll let Nichols himself explain.So yeah.“During the evening, one gentleman had become excited about the idea of a book and movie for the Montauk Project. He asked Preston about it and was told that he could talk about it at a later date. By the end of the evening, as we walked to our cars, this gentleman did a total about face. He became afraid of the entire affair and said that he wanted to have nothing to do with it… For some reason, this subject has a way of frightening the living daylights out of those who get close to it.”I’m pretty sure that’s just the proper response to speaking with Preston B. Nichols for a prolonged length of time. So it’s up to Moon to write the book.“I am skeptical by nature, and I didn't even know if any of the information I'd been told was true. I took it all with a grain of salt but found it high adventure and good entertainment at the very least.”Whatever you say, Moon.“If the story was not true, I thought that it was better science fiction than I'd ever read.”Okay, now that’s definitely a lie.Moon then proceeds to praise Hubbard for a while, specifically in regards to his theories on implants. I have no interest in getting sued into oblivion and/or murdered by Scientologists, so I won’t touch upon that, sorry.So before he starts writing the book, Moon goes out to Camp Hero himself with a “pyramidologist” and psychic, Howard Metz. Whilst wandering around they happen to find some blueprints for a “Sperry gyroscope” just lying around, get yelled at by a park ranger, and come across a destroyed building that Nichols would later say was destroyed by the Demofoot, which he inexplicably named (and I swear I’m not making this up,) “Junior.”Yes, Junior. Next time you watch Season 1 of Stranger Things, keep that name in mind.After that, Moon is approached by a man who he refers to as “Mr. X”. Mr. X gave him some more information about the Montauk Project and was apparently a “double agent”. Moon then has several horrific nightmares that he claims were “amplified by psychic means,” and spotted a government agent watching him. He told Nichols about it a week later, but Nichols told him that the problem was taken care off. He explained that Cameron had did a “reading” two weeks prior and was able to detect that a government agent was after Moon, so Nichols told a “highly placed” friend to tell the CIA to knock it off, or else Nichols would publish some secret papers. After that, Moon’s nightmares stopped. Nichols then showed Moon some photographs that a guy named Jan Brice (Hmm…) had taken of Junior (ugh). Apparently, the picture was an accident and only picked up Junior as a sort of ghostly figure in front of a destroyed bunker (Brice wasn’t really paying attention). A month later, Brice dies of a heart attack.Chapter 3 begins with Moon describing his frustration in trying to find proof;“Proof does not come easily. I liken it to the analogy of a father who abuses his entire family. The father, of course, denies that he does anything wrong. The family are so cowed that they absolutely deny any wrong doing by their patriarch. This type of behavior is also seen in the movie ‘The Wizard of Oz’ when the witch's entire army cheers after Dorothy throws water and melts her. Prior to this, they were all profusely bowing down.”So we went from domestic abuse to The Wizard of Oz in the space of one paragraph. Okay…Moon describes some conversations he had with a historian, a journalist “who remained skeptical” of the first book (gee, I wonder why), and a guy who claimed to be a technician on the base who ended up repeatedly lying to Moon. Moon also met with a psychic named Maria Fix, who was investigating the Project on her own. They head out to Montauk together, and Fix literally Mind Tricks a poor old woman to get out of paying three bucks for parking.I would condemn this, but then I realized that I’m such a cheap-ass myself that if I could use the Force Orgone Energy, this is exactly what I would do (and let’s face it; you would too).The duo wander around the base and to their shock, someone actually bothered to lock the door for once. After filming the area for a while, they leave and Moon claims to have heard a voice ordering him to stay away. Six weeks after that, the camera goes missing. Moon of course has a perfectly logical explanation; the government teleported it out. Well, of course. What other reason could there be?So, Nichols messes around with the receivers he bought at the end of the first book. Then two psychics who claim to be part of the Project show up.“These are two individuals who remember working in the Montauk Chair. They went into the radio room, sat down and seemed to concentrate on the various frequencies. Duncan explained that they were just trying to pick up on a frequency that they could synchronize with and "trip out" on. In other words, certain psycho-active frequencies would promulgate various responses in the psychic.”Yeah, I bet you did a whole of lot of tripping out.Moon then gets a call from a friend named John, who had a friend that went out to Camp Hero. This friend was a professional photographer, and claimed that he was getting some unusual photos developed. After that, they lost all contact with this friend. Meanwhile, Nichols bought a massive amount of infrared photography equipment and went out to Montauk himself where he recorded several “thought forms”. For some reason, this leads Moon to think that the photographer had recorded a UFO. A bit later, Moon finds out that the photographer’s house had burned down. He then gets a short phone call from the photographer saying not to believe anything he hears about the fire. After dispensing possibly the most cliché piece of advice possible, he vanishes.Moon is then contacted by a young boy who had some papers in his possession because I guess the government is so incompetent that even children are able to get their hands on top secret files. However, Moon was unable to contact the kid again.A woman named Ivey then calls and reveals the following information;“Ivey remembered taking care of a man who had been a top scientist. This scientist claimed he had worked on a project that included a ray gun that made people invisible. The staff view was that the man was nuts but Ivey said no. He didn't act crazy but just claimed this unusual experience. She argued about it with her supervisor, but the supervisor simply said that he must be nuts. After all, he was in an institution!”I’m tempted to put in a quip about current events here, but like I said, I have no interest in a Molotov cocktail being thrown through my window, so I’ll abstain.After that, Ivey disappeared without a trace as well. Another woman named Madalyn (seriously?) calls, claiming to be a clairvoyant who was in Montauk in 1973. During her stay, she shared a house with a “wino fisherman” who had several different books on psychic phenomena. She broke into his room and read some of his books. After that, “Madalyn had an incredibly strong clairvoyant vision of Jesus Christ,” as one does. The fisherman appears, and does the following;“…he suddenly looked her straight in the eye and said, ‘You and I are different from these other people…’ He then waved his hand to make a partition so as to divide us from the rest of the group. The light on our side of the room became lighter and the light on the other side became darker. He had made a statement and then backed it up with a demonstration.”I don’t really know what to make of this, so let’s just move on.Moon concludes the chapter with yet another disclaimer;“Although these experiences are entirely legitimate, none of the information presented herein is designed or intended to constitute objective court of law style proof. That is an entirely different project that someone else might want to take up further down the road.”You know Moon, your constant legal disclaimers are really not convincing me that what you’re saying is legit.Chapter 4 starts off with a brief mention of Aleister Crowley. What does he have to do with time-traveling Neo-Nazis, you may ask? Well, apparently Nichols suddenly remembered an earlier life as a man named Preston B. Wilson (sure). He was the twin brother of Marcus Wilson who was apparently the prior incarnation of Cameron (fine). Together, they “created the first electronic instruments in Great Britain,” and worked with Crowley to help create Thorn EMI (this is stupid). Nichols acquired this information after a Thorn historian showed him a picture of himself and Cameron as the Wilson brothers in the 19th century. In addition, Thorn EMI released a film based on the Philadelphia Experiment.). This information came courtesy of a man identifying himself as “Mark Knight”, a childhood friend of Nichols and… wait…“Mark also claims to be the actor Mark Hamill who appeared as Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars trilogy. Preston will not officially identify him as Mark Hamill as he thinks he may be a look alike. It is also interesting to note that I have received totally independent information that Mark and Duncan Cameron used to be good friends. Based upon this and a private file I have seen, I believe Mark Hamill and Mark Knight to be one and the same.”…...what.“There is also another important point to consider about Mark Hamill. When he was married at the height of his fame, the "National Enquirer" ran an article about him and his new bride. It just happened to drop the information that his father was a retired U.S. Naval intelligence officer. Mark Knight not only looks exactly like the aforesaid actor, but he remembers working at Montauk while the project was in full force.”“he remembers working at Montauk while the project was in full force.”…......………………..…………………………………………………….I’ve… sat here for about five minutes, slack-jawed and eyes squinted in sheer befuddlement just staring at those words. How am I supposed to respond to that?There’s thirty three chapters in this book, but I might as well stop here because there’s no way in hell Moon is going to top that.Sigh.Moving on…“In any event, he was instrumental in getting Preston work as a sound engineer for ‘The Empire Strikes Back’.”Oh really? So why aren’t you in the credits, Nichols?“He was not listed in the credits as he wanted to keep his identity secret.”Of course.This book…I’m not even going to bother with the rest of this chapter, so the short version is that Thorn made the movie based on a VHS tape they received in the 1970s, met some resistance to releasing it, and the Illuminati was involved (did you really think that Moon wouldn’t work those guys in somehow? If so, I admire your optimism).Chapter 5 deals with Cameron’s family. I’d like to remind you that this is the family of the guy Eleven was based off of, so prepare yourself.So apparently Crowley made several references to Cameron in his autobiography. Next, a woman named Chelsea Flor contacts Moon and tells him the following;“She said that her sister used to date a man by the name of Cameron Duncan. He had a twin brother and his father was an associate at Princeton University (the same place where the theories for the Philadelphia Experiment were hatched). Cameron Duncan had a strong interest in Crowley and was believed to have experimented heavily with LSD (a mind control drug). The fact that he was a twin was also curious because, according to information I'd learned at a Psychotronic meeting, twins were the best candidates for psychic (including psycho-sexual) experimentation in certain secret projects.”Why am I not surprised by his heavy LSD use?“The Third Reich had also done extensive experimentation with twins.”Well, Moon managed to go a full four and a half chapters without mentioning the Nazis. I congratulate him on his restraint.When Moon tells Cameron about this, the psychic responds that several “doubles” of him had been spotted across the country. He is bizarrely calm about this.So a psychic named Joy tells Moon that she had been channeling the name “Cameron”, but she didn’t know why. Moon then somehow figures out that Jack Parson’s wife was also named Cameron, so he flies out to California to meet her. She then tells him that Hubbard had infiltrated Parson and Crowley’s group to break it up for some unknown reason. She also reveals that her real last name wasn’t Cameron at all, but it was actually Wilson. Hubbard’s name was apparently Wilson too.Confused yet?Chapter 6 continues this conversation and elaborates that Hubbard’s father had changed his name from “Wilson” to “Hubbard” and was born within a hundred miles of Cameron in Iowa.“This entire experience validated Preston's memory about the Wilson brothers. It may not have proven it on a court of law basis but even the most dense would observe a synchronicity that is beyond ordinary belief. The Wilsons, Camerons and Crowleys were inextricably connected by some workings which could best be described as magical.”I need another drink.So Moon drives back to his childhood neighborhood which is exactly as he remembered it. It is there that he realizes the purpose of the Montauk Project;“It is the harbinger of a grand homecoming. We have the opportunity to come home and regain our inheritance. Our consciousness was ripped asunder eons ago. Analogies about this can be read in the Holy Bible and sacred texts from many other sources. The Age of Aquarius has mandated that we will recover the lost knowledge of millennia. Hence, the holocausts of the past are coming to view and we can regain our birthright as fully conscious spiritual beings.”Make that two drinks.“According to psychic readings and memories, Preston and Duncan would be incarnations of the Wilson brothers. And while they are wizards in their own right, they are certainly not capable of having all the answers in their present state. It would therefore seem that the Wilson brothers are lost parts of their entire soul bodies, existing in other dimensions and occasionally leaking through (perhaps quite purposely) to the third dimension. And, on a broad level, we all probably have our own "Wilson brother" parts that exist in other dimensions of existence. We will come into contact with these other dimensional soul-parts of ourselves as we fully integrate with the entire universe.”……………………Anyway….Chapter 7 drags on explaining that the lunacy Moon came up with basically boils down to the fact that “Magick” is real, and is constantly competing with science. If you really want to know more about that, buy the damn book.Before we finally get back to the actual Montauk Project (and by extension, its relevance to Stranger Things), we get one more chapter in which Mr. X (remember him?) explains that Crowley was a Time-Lord. I have no further comment.Well, apparently the full posted overview was too long for reddit, so expect part 2 to come along shortly. via /r/StrangerThings