#Rhesus replies

[kaengeru]

★!!~

★ Enya's (actual) honest opinion.

I like you // I love you // You’re one of my best friends // You’re like family // You are family // I dislike you // I hate you // I’d kill you if I got the chance // I want you to like me // I’m scared of you // I would adopt you // I’d date you // I’d sleep with you // I’d marry you // I’m worried about you // You confuse me // You’re annoying // I pity you

I respect you // I trust you // I feel protective of you // I’d invite you with me to parties // I’d lend you my money // I’d borrow your money // You’re good-looking! // I’m suspicious of you // I’m hiding something from you // You’re fun // You’re boring // I’m upset with you // You’re nice // You’re mean // I’m envious of you // You’re smart

You’re stupid // I look up to you // I think you’re a better person than me // I think I’m a better person than you // I want to apologize to you // I wish I’d never met you // I never want to forget you // I want to get to know you better

enya adores one (1) old rat man <3

[jellyfish-nursery]

MK || Age Regressor Headcanons 🍜

I actually wrote these a few months ago!

» The best part about being an age regressor and someone with the powers of the monkey king is that you can transform!! MK can use his transformations and ability to turn big & small to make himself look like an actual kid when he’s regressing! Makes it a lot easier to use little gear like pacifiers in public too- because as long as he looks like a little kid, he won’t get any weird looks!

» He tends to regress more when stressed or sleepy, but he still has positive triggers too! His favorite place to go when regressed is the arcade most of the time, but sometimes it gets much too overwhelming, so sometimes he prefers walking around the city with Tang or taking a stroll around Flower Fruit Mountain with Wukong.

» Mei sometimes gets into trouble with little MK by planning pranks with him and laughing when he does anything that would count as misbehaving– But she can still tell when MK might be putting himself in danger! Mei may be chaotic but she’s still got some sense in her, she’ll rush to MK’s aid when he may be about to hurt himself in an accident.

» Do NOT give regressed MK a stick that looks like a sword or else there is a high chance he can and will hit someone with it. He’d play pretend that he was Wukong and go “RAAAAAAAAAAAAH” and run at someone with it before promptly hitting them in the legs.

» He tends to regress to either toddler or big kid age, but if he’s EXTRA stressed or feels EXTRA safe he'll regress to a baby. He tends to get very upset when someone doesn’t have the time to spend with him, but there’s always other people!

» Wukong had lived for thousands of years and you think he wouldn’t have eventually figured out what age regression was? It was like he had dad instincts, he could immediately tell when MK was about to regress and would stop all training then and there. He gathered (stole) little gear for him to use after figuring him out, but he basically reads that man like a book.

» Little MK would often curl up in Wukongs lap or want to be held by him. He also loves when Wukong brushes his tail over him because the fur feels soft, he likes burying his hands into Wukongs head fur for the same reason.

» Wukong literally slaughtered mortals and immortals alike in his past– He’s protective. If someone puts regressed MK in danger or makes him greatly upset there is no doubt about it that Wukong is going to be ANGRY. He picks up MK, holds him close, and immediately goes; “Alright, who did it?” or something along those lines. Sometimes he even picks him up with his tail.

» Of course, regressed MK LOVES things, such as stuffies and toys, that are monkey themed. He loves them greatly and gets so excited about them.

Short fanfic I wrote under the cut!

Wukong spun around his weapon and cackled. “You’ve been doing great recently, bud!’ The macaque said, taking slow steps forward, each one slightly to his side to where he’d circle around MK in a menacing manner. His tail whipped left to right behind him, strong and decisive. His golden eyes narrowed at MK with focus.

MK would try to remain focused on Wukong. “Ya think so?” The boy asked curiously. “Yeah! You’re doing amazing.” Wukong replied quickly- He’d however pause.. His eyes looked MK up and down, processing the stance the boy held and the sudden tone of voice he had. He felt the tension in his shoulders relax and his narrowed gaze would soften. “You good, kid?” He questioned, cocking an eyebrow. MK would nod his head, producing a muffled ‘mhm’ as he held his staff tightly, leaning on it like he was trying to keep himself upright. Wukong’s brows furrowed and he stuck his weapon into the ground; the rhesus macaque jumping forward toward MK and tilting his head as he inspected the boy..

After a moment.. Wukong would widen his eyes ever so slightly. “Woah-kay, buddy. How about we take a break. C’mon.” He softened his voice and clapped his hands together. MK felt his head lighten and his eyes became heavy, shortly after a puff of smoke surrounded him and caused Wukong to flinch back- Once the smoke cleared, MK was revealed in a smaller, more childish form. Wukong would firmly nod his head and lift MK into his arms. “That's what I thought.” Wukong gingerly wrapped his fingers around the headband that was around MK’s head and slipped it off, the band poofing back to normal size as he did. “Let’s get you back to the cave, bud.”

Later….

Wukong would ever so gently place the small MK upon the couch inside his house. His house wasn’t really very big, it was more of a shack, but it’d have to do. He would slip off his tops and sit down on the other end of the couch, leaning back on the arm. MK would stare at him and then crawl forward before lying down atop Wukong, closing his eyes and just running his little hands through his fur. Wukong would open one eye and look down at him, placing one hand in MK’s hair and running his fingers through it. “You enjoying yourself bud?” He would lift his tail and wrap it around MK firmly, the now small boy chuckling and feeling the fur on Wukongs tail.

Wukong stared at MK with a softened, affectionate gaze. He took one of the cherry blossoms from his fur and placed it into MK’s hair before briefly nuzzling his nose into the top of MK’s head. MK would chuckle and reach upward, holding Wukongs face. “Fluffy.” He would say quietly. Wukong would snicker and nod “Yeah, fluffy, huh?” He pressed the tip of his nose onto MK’s and then sat up slightly on the couch, holding him close and protectively like a father cradling his own child. He began to chirp happily and gently stroked MK's side with his thumb, his touch being gentle and well-meaning. “Just rest, little buddy.” He reached to the floor beside the couch and picked up a pacifier hidden inside a shoe box, briefly placing it into the boy's mouth. The rhesus macaque brushed his tail over MK’s hair in a repeating pattern until eventually he simply wrapped the tail gingerly around MK’s arm. Ever so gradually, the regressed boy would drift asleep in the great sage’s arms. “Rest well, MK.” Wukong hummed.

[chipper-smol]

LMK DISCORD OPENING BACK UP FOR THE S4 SPECIAL DUB RELEASE

Rhesus' Pieces (A server name that is 3 puns in a trenchcoat) is a Lego Monkie Kid server that @payasita and I made a couple months ago because we wanted to create a fandom space with a relaxed atmosphere to enjoy with other fans.

It's become a decently large server (180+ members) which is why we closed it off before, but now we're open to seeing more new faces!

IMPORTANT NOTE: This server is open to all fans, ones who have indulged in the s4 special eps early (like me) and ones that are holding out for the english dub. We know how hard it is to not get spoiled so we are strictly enforcing spoilers to stay within their correct channels.

We also have all of the episodes, s1-s4, available if you've wanted to get into LMK but havent found a place to watch it.

C'mon and join so we can all scream and have a good ol time!

(invite in the replies)

[kyriat-stories]

A few weeks after the women’s protest Queen Alkmini found the oportunity to assemble the nobel men to a meeting. King Ifiklis was doing an inspection at the soldier’s camp, and would spend the night there.

In deepest secrecy the legal experts, loyal to the Queen, had worked out a new law, now presented to the nobel men.

It said “Young women, at an age ready for marriage, but yet not married, shall, when they are staying in a place not being their own home, and in the hours between sunset and sunrise, always and at all circumstances, be accompanied by an older, male relative or a person appointed by the family for this purpose, if such male relative does not exist.”

After the reading there was a fierce debate.

- This is much too limiting for young women! One of the nobel men pointed out. They will loose their freedom of movement entirely!

- Well no young women should be outside their home after sunset anyway, another said.

The Queen listened to the debate for a while, and then spoke.

- Gentlemen! We all know the background for this purposed law and what problem it is meant to solve. If any of you don’t possess this knowledge, I would be happy to inform you, in private. I realize that this law has it’s shortcomings, but under the circumstances... I don’t want any unpleasant upheavals, and the woman were quite clear - the common men of Manthos are on their side in this matter.

- Maybe if you gave him a warning? Kyrios Rhesus suggested.

- I’m afraid that would be a waste of time, Kyrie Rhesu, the Queen sighed. He’ve had many warnings already. Other suggestions?

- Maybe it would help if he was not at the palace or Manthos for a while? Kyrios Ignacio said cautiously. Until the unrest has calmed down, I mean? And that way we could solve another pressing problem for Manthos at the same time?

- What are you saying? The Queen replied, Please don’t speak in riddles!

- I’m thinking about the situation at the front, Ma’am. There is a desperate need of leadership, I would say.

- What?! The Queen gasped. Are you suggesting I send my son to the battlefield Kyrie Ignacio?

.

Previous | Index | Character overview | Next

[criticalbennifer]

Film Within a Film

“Argo” and “Sinister.”

By Anthony Lane

October 8, 2012

The new Ben Affleck movie, “Argo,” begins in November, 1979, with the storming of the American Embassy in Tehran. A crowd breaks into the compound, taking more than fifty Americans hostage. Six escape through the back of the building and take refuge in the residence of the Canadian Ambassador. How can they be spirited out of the country, or, as the jargon puts it, exfiltrated? Back in Washington, the task falls to a C.I.A. staffer named Tony Mendez (played by Affleck), from the Office of Technical Services. Various plans have been mooted, the most credible being that the hostages could make it to the border, hundreds of miles away, on bikes. Mendez, however, has an even better idea. Well, not a better one, but a more ridiculous one: how about making a movie?

Enter John Chambers (John Goodman), a prosthetics guru whose work on simian features, for “Planet of the Apes,” earned him an Academy Award, in 1969, and whose talents the Agency has called on in the past. Mendez goes to Hollywood and asks Chambers to devise a nonexistent film: find a script that requires a Middle Eastern setting, and build up a simulacrum of a genuine production. Posters, storyboards, costumes, read-throughs, buzz in the trade papers: everything will help. Mendez, posing as an associate producer, will fly to Iran, issue false identities to the six Americans, claim that they are scouting locations for a Canadian science-fiction movie, and then fly them out.

Four things should be said about this pipe dream. One, it went ahead; two, it worked; three, it wasn’t declassified until 1997; and four, it makes for a good movie, and further proof that we were wrong about Ben Affleck. Few of us, watching “Armageddon” and “Pearl Harbor,” could see a way out, or back, for an actor so utterly at the mercy of his own jawline. Did he flinch at a future composed of all-American strivers, each more earnest than the last, or had he always been nipped by the directing bug? Whatever the case, Affleck was suddenly there with “Gone Baby Gone” (2007), which was more roughened by energies and doubts than all his performances combined. He took the precaution of recruiting actors more formidable than himself—Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris—to boost his endeavors, and that habit remains. “Argo” has Victor Garber as the Canadian Ambassador, Bryan Cranston as Mendez’s superior, and, most enjoyable of all, Alan Arkin as Lester Siegel, a producer so scornfully amused by Mendez’s request that he has no option but to obey it. He does have one proviso. “If I’m doing a fake movie, it’s going to be a fake hit,” he says.

The fake they decide upon is entitled “Argo,” made by a bogus company called Studio Six, and lovingly described by Chambers as “a twenty-million-dollar ‘Star Wars’ ripoff.” I can’t be the only person who ardently wishes that he and Siegel had gone ahead and shot it. Affleck has a lot of fun, perhaps an ounce too much, with the daftness of the film industry; when Mendez, thinking ahead to the hostages’ cover stories, asks whether you can be taught to direct movies in a day, Chambers replies, “You can teach a rhesus monkey to be a director in a day.” No one is more skilled than Goodman, with his faintly bullying geniality, at dishing up lines like that, but must we buy his character’s implication that Hollywood is just another planet of the apes? Is it good for mendacity, and nothing else?

This matters because “Argo” is, in part, a battle of the textures. When it comes to period detail, Affleck seems to take his cue from Mendez, who worked for the Graphics and Authentication Division of the O.T.S.; just look at the typography of the opening credits, with its bulbous seventies curves. Affleck’s beard and hair style suggest someone who moonlighted from the intelligence services to pose for “The Joy of Sex,” and, as you study the fashions of the era, you have to ask whether the Ayatollah’s fury was provoked by U.S. support for the Shah or, more simply, by the width of Western shirt collars. Everything about the Tehran sequences, in fact, is a rebuke to style. The camera work is anxious and twitching, with a grainy surface to match. Here, we gather, is the real thing: life hemming us in, like a mob.

Then comes the climax. If you visit the C.I.A. Web site, you can read Mendez’s account of events in January, 1980. “As smooth as silk,” he calls the hostages’ passage through the airport, whereas Affleck, chopping up the action and spinning it out, insures that no nails remain unchewed. This is absolutely his right as a teller of tales, and “Argo” never claims to be a documentary. It struck me as a bit rich, however, to make such sport of Hollywood deceitfulness and then to round off your movie with an expert helping of white lies, piling on car chases that never occurred. As for the aftermath, it goes on forever. We get hurrahs for Canadian-American relations; a shot of Mendez hugging his wife, from whom he has been estranged, with the Stars and Stripes fluttering behind; images of the actual hostages, presumably for any skeptics who still find the film implausible; and, finally, a voice-over from Jimmy Carter, lauding the efforts of those involved. All this is, frankly, uncool—a pity, because the rest of “Argo” feels clever, taut, and restrained. Why not close with the perfect coda that Mendez himself supplied? “By the time Studio Six folded several weeks after the rescue, we had received twenty-six scripts,” he wrote. “One was from Steven Spielberg.”

At the start of “Sinister,” Ellison (Ethan Hawke) and his family arrive at their new house. “I had to move here. The new story I’m writing is here,” he explains. Hang on, is he proposing this as a basic principle of literary composition? If so, C. S. Lewis must have really stacked up the air miles on the red-eye from North Oxford to Narnia. Ellison’s excuse is that he writes true crime—that shapeless and often shameless genre which is to good crime fiction what pornography is to romance. His latest project—“This could be my ‘In Cold Blood,’ ” he says—concerns a family that was hanged from a tree outside the very house where Ellison now dwells, although somehow he has failed to inform his wife, Tracy (Juliet Rylance), of this cheerful fact. Up in the attic, he stumbles on a clue: a boxful of old Super-8 films, plus, helpfully, a projector on which to show them. Switching it on, he finds himself watching scenes not just of the hanging but of other multiple murders from the past. Who made the film? Or, rather, who made the film?, as Ellison writes on his notepad. The director of “Sinister” is Scott Derrickson, who co-wrote the script with C. Robert Cargill, and we can but pray that they move on to a new bio-pic of Melville. Imagine his questions: one leg only? and why a whale?

The insertion of found footage into horror flicks is now so common as to be almost compulsory, like the use of vomiting in mainstream comedies. What a golden age we inhabit. Ellison, peering at the clips, spies a masked figure known as Mr. Boogie; though that sounds like a bad compilation album from 1975, it refers to a mythological thief of souls, thus plunging the film into the lair of the unnatural. Nothing wrong with that—irrational terrors beset another writer, and his long-suffering family, in “The Shining.” But Kubrick had the common sense to keep the lights on in the Overlook Hotel, and the wit to infuse a simple, carpeted corridor with unease, whereas Derrickson is playing with loaded dice. How can you hope, or presume, to crank up our dread of the inhuman when, from the start, you refuse to play by regular human rules? Throughout “Sinister,” the rooms remain darker than crypts, whether at breakfast or dinnertime, and the sound design causes everything in the house to moan and groan in consort with the hero’s worrisome quest. I still can’t decide what creaks the most: the floors, the doors, the walls, the dialogue, the acting, or the fatal boughs outside.

None of this is fair to Ethan Hawke. From “Dead Poets Society” to “Reality Bites” and “Before Sunrise” to his modern-day “Hamlet,” where he soliloquized on a video display, Hawke was the standard-bearer of the adolescent temper, as it wrestled its way into adulthood. The gauntness, the waves of intensity, the smarting humor: they all made sense, as if his duty, wherever he trod, were to spread a little Hamletry. As Ellison, he looks unhappy and lost, not because some smirking demon wants to joint him like a chicken and drag him to Hell, which can happen to anyone in this kind of film, but because the prison of middle age, dank with fatherhood and money troubles, is no place for a prince, or for a kid who once dreamed of living like one. “Sinister” is a joyless ride, and its frights are too contrived to be surprising, yet somewhere, stashed in the attic, is a much less foolish film with Hawke at its heart. The only problem is, who will make the film?

[bisexualcommando]

for u to be soothed here is new roommate's Cat

oh.. what a Creature........ lov them :)

[passionate-reply]

This week on Great Albums, we look at a surprisingly experimental album from a band who got royally screwed by their record label: Propaganda, with their arguable only LP, A Secret Wish. Oh, and did I mention that that record label was none other than Zang Tuum Tumb, run by none other than Trevor Horn? Find out the whole story in the video, or in the transcript below the break.

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! In this installment, I’ll be looking at a relative sleeper of its era, with a unique sound that’s set it apart and won it a contingent of cult followers over the years: A Secret Wish, the first, and only, studio album from the classic lineup of Propaganda, first released in 1985.

First formed in Duesseldorf, West Germany by Ralf Doerper of Die Krupps, Propaganda soon relocated to Great Britain in the hopes of finding a wider audience for their music. Their lucky break came in the form of being signed to the record label Zang Tumb Tuum, headed by then-rising star, Trevor Horn. Fresh off his first major success as a producer, ABC’s The Lexicon of Love, Horn then lent his famous production chops to Propaganda’s first single, “Dr. Mabuse.”

Music: “Dr. Mabuse”

The first time I heard “Dr. Mabuse,” I wasn’t familiar with the titular character, and that might be true for you, too, if you’re from the Anglosphere like me. Dr. Mabuse was a literary villain invented by Norbert Jacques, and later made much more famous in a film adaptation of his tale directed by Fritz Lang, the mastermind behind Metropolis. A manipulative criminal kingpin, Mabuse wields strange powers like psychic possession and astral projection, which, despite their seemingly occult origins, often exploit modern technologies, like cinema screens that can hypnotize people. While he may sound like the perfect subject for a chilling, brooding synth-pop anthem, I can’t help but wonder if the character’s relative lack of recognition in the English-speaking world may have hampered this single’s success. While its ominous, gothic energy sets it apart from much of Horn’s other work, it still has some of his characteristic bombast behind its sinister hook, and has an evident “hit single” feel. Still, it performed significantly better in Continental Europe than elsewhere.

Much like ABC’s famous hit, “The Look of Love,” was expanded into a four-part suite that included an instrumental reprise on its LP, this version of “Dr. Mabuse” is listed on the album with the subtitle “First Life,” and assorted variants of it were available in different formats. It also received an arguable reprise with the album’s final track, titled “Strength to Dream / The Last Word.” The title is a bit more opaque than that of “The Look of Love (Part Four),” which made the relationship more obvious, but the synth sequences do bear a rather strong resemblance.

Music: “Strength to Dream / The Last Word”

Unfortunately for Propaganda, Trevor Horn quickly became a little too successful for his own good. Labelmates Frankie Goes to Hollywood achieved unprecedented success with Welcome to the Pleasuredome, and their famous singles “Relax” and “Two Tribes,” which led Zang Tumb Tuum to throw almost all of their promotional support behind their newfound golden child. The release of A Secret Wish was postponed, and Horn was no longer able to produce the rest of the album, besides “Dr. Mabuse.” But despite the fact that Horn isn’t actually here, there’s still a noticeable attempt to finish the album in an aesthetically similar, “in-the-style-of” fashion, and the end result is an LP that's surprisingly quite sonically cohesive!

Music: “Jewel”

With its abrasive textures, aggressive energy, and heavy emphasis on percussion, “Jewel” feels more like a track from the Art of Noise than it does Horn’s triumphant pop productions like “Relax.” “Jewel” also has an alter ego on the same album, and serves as a sort of evil doppelgaenger for the similarly-titled track, “Duel.” The two tracks feature the same lyrics, but vastly different treatments and moods.

Music: “Duel”

I like to think “Jewel” displays how a tumultuous relationship looks from outside, painful and unpredictable, whereas “Duel” is a bit like experiencing it yourself, and being so enraptured by the blissful pain that you don’t realize how frightening the lyrics actually are. Besides the much softer instrumentals, the lead vocal performance by Claudia Bruecken is also markedly different, and I think the contrast between the two is a testament to her vocal chops. Throughout the album, Bruecken’s voice is rich and full of character, setting her apart as one of the more distinctive vocalists in 80s synth-pop.

Overall, “Duel” is perhaps the most accessible and easy to like track on A Secret Wish, and it accordingly became the album’s biggest hit. But unlike most obvious singles, it arrives at the tail end of the album’s first side, after a slew of much more experimental tracks. Not only does “Jewel” arrive before “Duel” does, but the album’s opening track, “Dream Within a Dream,” is an eight-minute psychedelic opus based around a text by Edgar Allen Poe! “Duel” feels a bit like a break for refreshments after listening to the earlier parts of the album. It really is a surprisingly experimental work given its relative commercial success, reaching #16 on the UK albums chart. Still, despite that success, *A Secret Wish* doesn’t seem too strongly remembered today, which is something I’d certainly like to see change. Counterbalanced between pop and the avant-garde, this album sounds like a cross between the Eurythmics and Einstuerzende Neubauten--something I say with as much affection as possible!

At first glance, the cover of A Secret Wish almost appears abstract, an inky web of squiggles. But upon closer inspection, one can see that the object depicted on the cover is actually a dress form, a wireframe in the shape of a human torso, which might be used to display clothing in a retail setting, or in the design of clothing.

While this emblem may not sound particularly sinister, I’m tempted to compare it to Harry Harlow’s famous experiments on rhesus monkeys. Harlow took orphaned baby monkeys and offered them a “cloth mother” and a “wire mother.” Artificial effigies of monkey mothers dispensed food for the test subjects--one with a soft and cuddly body of cloth, and one with a cold and barren armature of wire. When distressed, Harlow’s monkeys sought shelter and comfort from the cloth mothers, regardless of which mother had dispensed food to them, suggesting that the comfort of their soft touch had a value of its own to the monkeys. The results of this research have often been used to suggest the importance of physical contact between children and their caregivers. Propaganda’s use of the cold, bare, female-coded wire frame, enshrined, alone, in the center of a drab-coloured composition, centers the idea of the inhospitable and the unloving. Perhaps it is a symbol of the inhumanity and alienation of modern life?

As I hinted at earlier, A Secret Wish ended up being the only album this version of Propaganda managed to put together, despite the tremendous promise that it shows. Feeling flagrantly under-compensated per the terms of their contract with Zang Tumb Tuum, the members of the band went to court, and eventually jumped ship to Virgin Records instead. That is, except for Claudia Bruecken, who decided to stick with Zang Tumb Tuum for several more years. Later in the 80s, she would team up with Thomas Leer to form the synth-pop duo Act, whose lone LP, Laughter, Tears, & Rage, is a worthwhile listen that I would consider the ideal follow-up to A Secret Wish--though it’s markedly less experimental and percussion-driven, sounding more like late 80s, post-Pet Shop Boys, baroque synth-pop.

Music: “Absolutely Immune”

My personal favourite track on A Secret Wish is the album’s final single, “p:Machinery.” With pounding percussion and buzzing synths, not to mention some dramatic and dystopian lyrics, this is definitely the track on the album that reminds me of Ralf Doerper’s industrial music roots! Apparently, parts of this track’s melody were composed by none other than Japan’s David Sylvian, who receives a minor thank-you in its liner notes. While I don’t think the finished track sounds terribly similar to anything of Sylvian’s, I can’t say I don’t find that pretty interesting. That’s everything for today--thanks for listening!

Music: “p:Machinery”

[fumblebeefae]

zooophagous replied to your post

“hang on, what mammal reproduces asexually?”

Dude that concept blows my tiny mind. Do you have any info on how that works?

I don’t know a ton about it but here are the papers on it: 

High-frequency generation of viable mice from engineered bi-maternal embryos

Parthenogenesis and Human Assisted Reproduction

Parthenogenetic Activation of Rhesus Monkey Oocytes and Reconstructed Embryos

Derivation of Rhesus Monkey Parthenogenetic Embryonic Stem Cells and Its MicroRNA Signature

[esandcasg]

Chapter 2 - The Future in Now

“Hello mate.”

The words hung in the air. The stiflingly hot air of this sweaty pit that he had called home for the last three years. The jungle heat and humidity somehow adding to the moment; the viscosity of the air slowing down the words.

He looked at me. I saw a whole spectrum of emotion cross his face. Surprise at my sudden appearance after eight years. Disappointment that we had managed to find him. Anger at how we had lied to him and destroyed him all those years ago.  There were surely plenty more that I couldn’t read and probably didn’t want to.

“Andrew?” I ventured, trying to get a response from him.

He continued to just look at me. Thoughts being processed behind blue eyes. I noticed him studying my face, clearly wondering what had happened since that night in the tunnel in the middle of Kangleong. I, in turn, studied the face of the man in front of me, replicating the slight shock at his appearance. Whilst still undeniably handsome, the past eight years had clearly taken its toll on him, the long scraggly unwashed hair and beard making him appear to have been sleeping rough for some time. I contrasted this to the man full of positivity and excitement that I had met in the Blue Oyster bar in Kathmandu. A flash of guilt passed through me. That fateful night eight years ago had clearly set off a chain reaction that had led him here. And it was partly my fault.

Finally, he spoke. “Sister Teresa called me mate in the Third Grade. My friends call me Andrew. You're neither, shithead.”

With that he went to slam the door. I saw the move coming and stuck my foot in the door. The flimsy swing door to his hut bouncing against my Ed Viesturs signature La Sportiva Trango boots. I didn’t come all this way to get shut out before I said what I needed to say.

“Andrew, you are going to want to hear this,” I tried to reason.

I couldn’t see Andrew at this point, the door blocking my view. Whether it was subtle change in the lighting that I registered through the slit of the open door, the sound of his sudden movement, or just intuition, but I realized his intention to put his shoulder into the door and force me out. I countered him by slamming the full weight of my body into the door just before he got there. Whether it was because I had gotten the jump on him, or whether it was the extra weight that I have put on through lockdown, but Andrew went crashing backwards, landing on his back in the middle of the hut.

I quickly entered the hut like a trained marksman, not taking my eyes off the target, anticipating his next move. But at this point he seemed resigned. He lifted himself up into a sitting position, his shoulders sinking. My thoughts went back to the storm-wrecked slopes of Kangleong after the serac collapse and death of Fred Viesturs. The way I had held him as he cried, his snot freezing on my down suit. It was heartbreaking to see him like this once more.

I offered my hand to him, as if he was sitting on the floor next to a 1950s car, and I had just laid out Biff with a left hook. “Are you… okay?”

He ignored me, and instead responded to my earlier question. “What do you want, Adam? What am I going to want to hear?”

I looked around his hut for somewhere to sit, but there was no furniture aside from the bed, the soiled sheets not looking like they had been washed in some time. He noticed me looking for somewhere to make myself comfortable, and - resigned to me being here for some time - slowly got to his feet and offered me a drink.

“I wish I could offer you a Harbour Reef like the old days of the Blue Oyster, but I only have a Pumpkin Spiced Latte to offer. Do you want one?”

I wasn’t convinced whether these autumnal flavours really suited the fresh spring morning that had broken an hour ago, but I suspected that offence would be taken if I pointed this out.

“Yeah, su-“ I stopped as he suddenly grabbed his stomach in pain and bent over.

“I need to go and lay beef. All these lattes have gone straight through me. Wait there.”

He rushed over to the door in the corner of his bedroom, revealing the plush en-suite facilities beyond. Closing the door behind him, I heard the sound of trousers being rapidly pulled down, and straining as he let rip. The occasional fart rolling around the amphitheater of the bowl.

Not sure where to look, I inspected the eleven latte cups sitting next to the dishwasher. There wasn’t much else to look at in his hut apart from the high-tech coffee machine and Harry Kane calendar. I smiled to myself as I inspected the coffee machine, memories of him pulling it out of his daypack at the top of Kangleong and making a celebratory brew, his frustration as the ground cinnamon blew off in the high winds, rather than being sprinkled onto the white milky foam.

I heard a flush and Andrew appeared from the bathroom, kindly leaving the door open. He walked back to the coffee machine.

“So,” he began, grinding the fresh locally sourced coffee beans. “What I am really interested in knowing, is what has happened to you in the last eight years. You look like you’ve aged about twenty years.”

The smell of freshly brewed coffee started to do battle with the smell of freshly laid beef, the contrasting smells playing a game of aroma tennis in my nasal passages. One a strong, dark, powerful thing of beauty, the other a stinking pile of shit. One could argue it was like a game between Nadal and Djokovic.

I didn’t have a good answer to the question that he had asked, so didn’t pull any punches.

“Andrew, I am from the future. And I came here in a time machine that Ifan invented. Now I need your help to go back to the year 2013 and stop Sir Henry Craven.”

The cup of pumpkin spiced latte that he was about to offer to me slipped from his hand and shattered on the floor. The brown liquid goodness splashing all over the floor and up the walls of his hut.

“Is this some sort of joke?” He said. But I heard the doubt in his voice. Surely he could see it in my face that I was fifty years old, and not forty. Eighteen years older than the last time I saw him, not eight. It was not possible to age that much in that space of time without having a lot of kids.

“It’s no joke. I have travelled back from ten years in the future. From 2030.”

“Okay, ‘future boy’, who is the president of the United States in 2030?”

“Donald Trump,” I replied.

“Donald Trump!” He exclaimed. “Still?!”

“Well, he refused to leave, so in the end everyone gave up.”

“Makes sense,” Andrew said, as if my story suddenly had more merit. “So come on then, I will humour you and ask what is going on here.”

I drew in a deep breath, and began. “Even though you have isolated yourself, I am sure you are aware of the ongoing pandemic?” I had noticed CNN playing on the TV in the corner.

“Of course. What about it?”

It had started in 2019. The outbreak of Covid-19 that led to the lockdown of most of the world. Conspiracy theories and fake news on Twitter became the norm. An astonishing 0.016% of the world’s population perished. But ultimately it had been traced back to one point. One moment in time that would change the world forever.

Sir Henry Craven had met terrorists at a market in Wuhan to sell the latest batch of weapons grade plutonium. To celebrate the deal he had been presented with a tasty pangolin snack, which, having lived on mountain rations and grilled owl, he wolfed down with relish. As in, with delight, not the tomato-based garnish. That would have been a total clash in flavours.

Craven had become patient zero, and his subsequent travels around the globe in arms deals had triggered the start the pandemic. First Iran, then Rome, then Madrid. And so on it went.

Driven by panic, scientists had tried to find a vaccine. A cure to the insanity. But the stress of trying to be the first to crack the cure, and the expectations of bringing the world back to some sort of normality had led to mistakes, and ultimately disaster. A laboratory, which became known as Lab X, was the first to develop a vaccine and announce it to the world. But testing had been carried out on rhesus monkeys, and the combination of the monkey DNA and coronavirus had caused a mutation to the virus – some sort of retrovirus – turning the monkeys into something else entirely. Malformation, together with heightened strength, intelligence and, most crucially, aggression.

The resulting events are still unclear. One laboratory worker managed to air his side of events but in-between the potential facts were the rambles of an insane man, that gave his side of the story little in the way of credit. But what we do know is that laboratory workers were killed and the monkeys escaped. Some rumours and Tweets indicated that some scientists had caught the virus and were responsible for the other deaths, killing their colleagues. They might have also released the monkeys on purpose. Though some believed that the monkeys managed to escape on their own, killing everyone in the process. No one knew for sure.

But ultimately the end result was the same. In the years following the outbreak the mutated retrovirus ended up in the outside world and in the food chain. It spread like wildfire, first through Asia, then Europe, then the US. First contracted by animals, then people. Every corner of the world was affected. People died in the billions, either as a result of the virus, murdered by infected people, or taking their own lives before they could “become”.

“I don’t understand what all this has to do with me,” Andrew interrupted, before adding. “Why are you here?”

“Wait, there’s more.” I walked over to the window and looked out across the desert planes. It was strange seeing the world as it used to be, before life changed forever, when you could enjoy a view without searching the sky for an infected sparrow that could at any minute sweep down and gouge your eye out. Or a house cat that hunted human life instead of mice. A time when you didn’t have to go everywhere with a loaded M4 Carbine Rifle.

“Craven somehow found out what had happened with the outbreak at Lab X,” I continued. “You see, the lab was located in China, deep under the Karakoram mountains. Craven decided to take matters into his own hand and launched a nuke at the lab, trying to kill everything in the blast radius. Wipe out what he had started. I guess he was driven by guilt. But he was too late, the virus had spread too far.

“China thought it was an attack by the US and countered. Russia got involved. Suddenly the world was full of flying nuclear missiles. Out of 7.8 billion people on the planet, only a few hundred thousand remain in 2030, hidden on remote islands or in the wild to avoid contact with the infected. A combination of the nuclear war and the virus has effectively wiped out the entire population of the world. All due to Sir Henry Craven.”

I turned back from the window and faced Andrew. He was noticeably paler than when I first arrived. “I was on an expedition in the South Pole with Ifan when this started, following a lead that Craven was there. How wrong we were.” I explained. “We heard the news and decided to remain there. But we knew we couldn’t survive there forever, so we had to do something.”

“Again, what does this have to do with me?”

I drew a breath. We were starting to get to the moment of truth.

“The last known sighting of Craven was on Kangleong in 2013, before this vortex of disaster that has followed him. Ifan and I, we need your help to go back and stop him before all this happens. As you know, Kangleong is a three man climb. We can’t do this without you, you’re the only one we can trust.”

Andrew sat on his bed and put his head in his hands. His body language suddenly changed as he noticeably stiffened and shot back up again.

“This is complete and utter bullshit. What is this, some sort of joke to rub salt in the wounds of eight years ago? Because they haven’t healed, you know that, right?”

“I know you think this is a joke, but I have proof. Look out of the window.”

Eyeing me suspiciously, Andrew walked over to the window close to where I was standing. I watched as his pupils dilated.

“My God. Ifan… he’s…”

“Yes,” I finished. “He’s driving a Ford C-Max.”

“I thought he would never drive anything other than a Focus.”

I glanced out of the window at the C-Max that we had arrived in. But of course this was no ordinary C-Max. The front was fairly standard, though Ifan had added those eye-lash things to make it look like a girl. But along the sides and top were a series of lights, cabling and circuitry that he had added whilst being stationed on the South Pole. The back of the car housed two large industrial exhaust ports, which were currently blowing out plumes of cold air, creating huge clouds of evaporation as it met the damp jungle atmosphere. The car was covered in ice, rapidly thawing and dripping onto the ground below.

“Wait, are you telling me that you built a time machine out of a C-Max?” Asked Andrew.

“The way Ifan saw it, if you are gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?”

Clearly in shock, Andrew strode over the door and disappeared through it, staggering down the steps to the jungle road where Ifan had taken ten minutes to park. Catching up with him, we watched as Ifan continued with his set of deadlifting the C-Max-slash-time-machine, oblivious to our arrival. His gargantuan thigh and calf muscles pumping like the pistons in seven times world champion Lewis Hamilton’s Formula 1 car. To borrow an analogy from Vertical Summit 1. Finishing his one hundredth rep, he dropped the car back down with a thud, before noticing our arrival.

As he saw Andrew for the first time in eighteen years something feral flashed across his face. In the weeks and chapters to follow I would wonder whether I should have realised that Ifan had contracted the retrovirus and was becoming, or whether I was just fully focused on the climb, whether Summit fever had once again taken hold of me. It went without saying that the traits of extreme strength and heightened intelligence were something that was synonymous with Ifan anyway. Or, at least, that is what I would later tell myself as my reasoning. As my excuse.

Andrew turned back to face me. “Okay, assuming this is real. Why now? Why did you choose this exact moment to appear?”

“We timed it so that you would have just heard the news report of the earthquake in the Karakoram mountains. That wasn’t an earthquake, that was Craven’s first nuke detonating.”

“You mean…?”

“Yes, it has begun.”

Andrew seemed to consider this for a moment, before shaking his head and walking back towards the hut. He stopped at the doorway and turned back to face me.

“I’m really sorry, but I can’t do this. I can’t go back in time and kill someone. I’m no killer. I’m no time traveler.” He looked down at the ground before adding. “And anyway, I will never set foot on a 8000 meter peak again. Not after… not after the last time.”

I had just one card left to play. If he wouldn’t join me, then he would meet his destiny.

“Andrew,” I began softly. “You and your family are killed in this. You, your wife, and your daughter.”

He turned and walked back down the steps towards me, confusion on his face once more.

“What? My what?”

“This is hard to say, but in eight years’ time you contract the virus and kill your family. The question is whether you want to come and save the world… save your future self. Or whether you want to stay here and wait for the end to come. It is your choice. But as I said, we can’t do this without you.”

Andrew stood there staring at me. His face slack, a bit like that photo from the Lakes after the first night out where I fell off the flower pots. He had held his toothbrush in his hand. But not now, now he held a pumpkin spiced latte. It slipped from his hand and shattered on the ground.

The decision was his. Would he join us. Or would he let us disappear into the past so that he could continue with his own story ideas?

[kaengeru]

Grooms Enya grooms Enya grooms Enya! ... Gets comfy in her lap, give lil smoochie, getting comfier with that! GROOM GROOM! Swappin stinky smells!

An alternate version of friends...

[bees-against-humanity]

"my friend Avery didn't know what butter was and got bitten in the face by a monkey" AND? you can't just leave is hanging like that

As I said, stories for a different time. It is, apparently, now that time.

1) Avery didn’t know what butter was

Perhaps a mild misnomer, but still. Anyway, my last year of high school I took this fancy science class where we did science internships instead of actual classwork (I removed brains from fruit flies). We had one big final presentation at the end of the class, so no exam, but the way my school worked we had a slot scheduled for an exam anyway.

To use this period, my teachers decided to have a potluck, where we each had to bring something in and say something “science-y” about it. I think it was mostly just so that they could say the potluck was relevant to what we were doing, but whatever, I digress.

Now, it’s towards middle of our last year of high school; most of us were getting acceptance letters from universities and such. Avery was always super school-driven and what we would call “book smart”: she had great grades, got accepted to all the Ivy League universities, and ended up being our salutatorian (like a valedictorian, but one degree lower). She was bright on paper, and everyone knew that.

So we’re going around in a circle talking about our foods, and we get to someone who has brought in some sort of cake that had butter in it, and was talking about saturated fats and how that bonds or something like that, I’m not quite sure any more. I’m sitting next to one of the advisers for the class, and that adviser is sitting next to Avery. I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to say about the bread I’ve made, when Avery leans over to the adviser.

“Why does butter have saturated fat in it?”

“Well, Avery, it’s an animal derived-fat…” she might have continued, or possibly Avery interrupted.

“Butter’s an animal product?”

At this point, the adviser– our former biology teacher– starts to look mildly horrified. “Yes, Avery, butter’s an animal product.”

“Oh, right,” Avery said, clearly proud at having solved the problem for herself. “Butter comes from chickens.”

If I live to be a hundred years old, I swear to whatever gods that I will never, ever forget the horror in that woman’s voice as she replied.

“Avery…. butter doesn’t come from chickens.”

2) Avery got bitten in the face by a monkey

Some years go by. Avery goes to Yale, I go to my school in Montreal. The science life does not choose me, but Avery continues on with the science life. Her parents really want her to be a doctor, and, after several personal crises, she also decides she wants to be a doctor.

As you can probably tell from the above statement, her parents are very “YOU MUST BE SUCCESS”, and from the above story, you can probably tell that Avery was success. Again, at least on paper; in yet another incident, in our third year at the same high school, Avery got lost on her way to school and had to call her mom. Her parents also have a lot of money.

So she does her pre-med or whatever the fuck it is you major in at Yale to become a doctor, and in the summer between her third and final year of school, she does what all the kids with money, connections, and drive/parents making all the decisions for them do, and does an unpaid internship/“voluntourism” sort of thing. Essentially, they ship a bunch of undergraduates with no experience or training off to some developing country’s health clinic, they help out for like three weeks, and then they spend three weeks touring the country (voluntourism in almost all its forms is a terrible model, but that’s not what this is about).

I think Avery ended up going to Guatemala, or possibly Honduras. Some place with a large rural population, and also monkeys. She does her three weeks in the health clinic, and then they load up all these kids onto a bus to tour around the country. I’m not really sure where this went down, but I like to imagine it happening in some old ruins in the jungle.

So, quick thing about monkeys*: they’re usually pretty calm if you’re just passing through the area and visiting and don’t, like, pull on their tails or attack them or whatever. The one “human” thing, however, that you cannot do around them is make eye contact and smile. This is actually because eye contact + bared teeth = aggression to a monkey, and it makes them attack. You can maybe see where this is going. It is, however, also worth noting that the reason I know this is because it was told to me twice, once when I lived in Costa Rica for four months and once on a tour of a primate research facility in the aforementioned fancy science class. Avery was also present at both of these things, so theoretically, she knew this.

The way it happened was apparently this: one of Avery’s friends was taking a picture of a money, and, in the process, sort of reaching out as if to touch it. The real numbskull in this story is that girl, because who the fuck reaches out to touch a wild monkey, but anyway. Avery’s laughing and joking with this girl to try and get her away from this monkey; not too serious with her peer, but y'know, a “hey man why are you trying to touch that monkey.” So she goes up behind the girl and pushes her to the side a little bit, and in the process reveals the monkey behind the girl… while Avery was laughing.

Still smiling, she and the monkey made eye contact.

The monkey jumped at her and bit her face.

I know this because my mother is good friends with Avery’s mom, and afterwards Avery had to call her mom and get her medical records for vaccination records because, y'know, she had gotten bit in the face by a monkey. She apparently didn’t catch anything from it and was fine, but I saw her in a Panera a few months back, and you can definitely see little scars on the side of her face from little monkey hands and little monkey teeth.

So, uh, that’s Avery. We’re not really even friends and never really have been, but our moms are good friends and we went to the same schools for 15 years. Still, every time I speak to my mother, she feels the need to report on how Avery’s doing, which is why I know so much about her life despite the fact we haven’t spoken in probably six years.

*I say monkey, but in all cases I’m just referring to rhesus macaques

[beingatoaster]

whats-ursine replied to your post: @whats-ursine you know if the cleric ever has to...

   if the cleric has to do a field transfusion, we’re probably screwed (also what blood types do different fantasy races even HAVE)   

The same as regular, but + and - refer to your alignment instead of your rhesus factor?

[shin-yan]

hehe I died laughing when I first heard the song. well AB is not a dominant one so could be anything. Most common one is O though

i’m still laughing tbh lmao well, actually here in germany the most common blood type is A+ and while A and B are both like, half dominant O isn’t, so the thing is, depending on what my dad has my blood type could be either A, B or AB but it’s definitely not O, bc O is always repressed by A or B, even if he has O i’d have either AO or BO, trust me, i’ve been trying to figure it out for a long time lmao

[405blazeitt]

jakebstumblrman replied to your photo “made a better, more accurate one”

Your dad is Goku? You're a Soyan?

im just a regular old rhesus macaque

[bisexualcommando]

Men in turtlenecks or men with deep v-necks?

turtlenecks, absolutely. that’s my greatest weakness, don’t tell anyone (except the guys in turtlenecks)

[gachabastard]

anna-navarre replied to your post: *watches nick robinson stream* *gently presses my...

he is becoming Too Powerful

WHEN WILL HE LOVE ME RHESUS