#The Raft

[defclan]

[alphamecha-mkii]

Gravite by Philippe Bouchet (Manchu)

[therobotb9m3]

"Throughly familiar with bag of wind right here." (The Raft)

[helenvader]

Another poster. This time for the fake movie I made a trailer about last year. Link is below the poster, just in case, but I've shared it quite a few times already, so maybe I could have skipped that.

The trailer:

[nickfuryagentofsword]

Avengers: Twilight 1 (2024) by Chip Zdarsky & Daniel Acuña

Cover: Daniel Acuña (variant)

[extraordinary-heroes]

Spider-Man City At War #4 (Cover art by Eduard Petrovich)

[cinder-no]

THE RAFT: ACCEPTING NEW INMATES

The Raft is a villain focused character server for Marvel fans of all varieties. Whether you're a fan of A-listers like Doctor Octopus or the niche Z-lister, there's room for you here! We have a selection of general channels for chatting and sharing, character and team specific channels, media channels like #comics and #movies, and a host of bots to help out. We're also accepting #suggestions for new bots/channels/features, so if you feel anything is missing, feel free to ask!

Categories and channels list/preview under the read more.

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[quillandquotation]

The Raft Of Medusa

In 1816, a raft carrying 147 people was abandoned in the ocean. On the second day a mutiny broke out. 65 passengers died while the survivors resorted to canabalism shortly of complete starvation and thirst. After 13 days, a ship rescued the crew by chance with only 15 people left on board.

//Work of Théodore Géricault

[ivyf0x]

agatha all along started so strong it got me back into marvel, and i’m so happy but if i start reading raft wanda fics again somebody shoot me

[fireland]

Creepshow 2

[beatasticband]

[namorthesubmariner]

The Prisoners of The Raft in Thunderbolts (1997) #150 + 159

[defclan]

[the-nosy-neighbor]

The Nature of the Beast (Black Ooze)

This post includes spoilers for Welcome Home a little bit, but there are also several spoilers for science fiction/horror movies/tv/stories.

It's nothing new though, I think the most recent reference is Deep Space Nine. Also !Spooky Pictures!

A history of oozing blob-like creatures in American film and television--

Ominous Obsidian Ooze:

According to tvtropes.org, this trope (of oozy black stuff) is called “Ominous Obsidian Ooze.”

It is defined by a black ooze, often shiny and often in stark contrast to its environment (and of course the example picture is Supernatural) . It is believed to have evolved from the prevalence of and concern about oil spills and other pollution.  I think, for me at least, that pollution does really fit the vibe.  It reminds me of Pollution from Good Omens.

So black ooze (the creature/entity) often leads to pain, mutation, unnatural death, and “even a Fate Worse Than Death.”

(So help me if we find out Sunny is the weathervane on Poppy’s house…)

Anyway, the ooze is speculated to have evolved from a fear of pollution, but also basic human fears such as water too dark to see into and water that you shouldn’t drink. 

The closest association I have from this trope is the Stephen King short story, "The Raft," which was dramatized on Creepshow 2.  I saw this as a younger kid, and the whole thing was spooky.  There is a group of teens at the lake, probably playing hooky and definitely smoking cigarettes.  They swim out to a raft in the middle of the lake (think floating wooden platform) and then this black slick on top of the water appears, and starts stalking and eating them, and they are trapped. 

Just for you, I went to see what the plot is because I probably have misremembered all the important bits. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raft_(short_story), OK, so, college kids, one of the girls sees pretty rainbows on the surface and touches it, and she gets sucked in and “ripped to shreds”

So, then the beastie pulls someone through the cracks on the raft, and they are no longer safe on the raft.  The remaining woman faints, and the remaining guy can’t swim to shore while it is eating because he’d be leaving the woman to die, and he couldn’t swim fast enough while hauling her.  They spend time taking turns watching and then end up committing the sin of sex, so death it is.

The thing that I find interesting in this portrayal of the black ooze is that it is attractive to the viewer.  I guess secondarily, I find it interesting that this is a monster of inevitability, kind of like the Evil Dead universe, where they are trapped in one spot, die upon leaving the safe zone, but at the same time are convinced that they will die if they remain in the same place.  What I’m trying to say is that someone needs a chainsaw hand.

(Evil Dead has some black goo in the form of on or coming out of Deadites.)

Of course, there is a version in DvD, named “Black Pudding,” deltailed as “large ooze, unassigned.”  So thank goodness the ooze in neutral.  It is very strong and has a strong constitution.  Immune to blinging, charming, deafening, exhaustion, fright, and being knocked prone.  It also can eat through 2-inch thick wood or metal in 1 round.  It can also climb, including hanging upside down on the ceiling.  They can be split apart into separate entities of a smaller size with certain hits taken.  (https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/16808-black-pudding)

This is actually pretty reminiscent of the puppetmaster creature that I saw before, the Puppeteer Parasite, which seems to be somewhat cross-referenced to the pudding monster.  The Puppeteer Parasite catches a ride and eats your life force.  It can make you do things.  (I believe that Skip from Dropout’s Dimension 20, Starstruck is a creature similar to this.) https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/2506151-puppeteer-parasite

Star Trek had its own version of the black blob monster, Armus from the episode, “Skin of Evil.”  The concept in this episode is that the people of Vagra II had found a way to remove all evil from themselves and it mainifests as a black goo that can take the form of a human shape.  It could also absorb people, and inflict psychic damage and physical weakness while you were in there.  This guy famously killed Tasha Yar.  For some reason, I must usually skip this one, because it is very vague for me.  Anyway, it wants to torture people (castaways normally, they abandoned him on this planet) he wants to find a way to find those that made him for revenge purposes.  Picard pulls a fast one (Look, a three-headed monkey!) and they beam up and take off. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Armus

Fun fact:  Later that year, Ensign Mariner, furious over Boimler being promoted to lieutenant junior grade and transferring to the USS Titan, threatened to "feed [him] to an Armus." (LD: "No Small Parts")

You could make an argument that Odo from DS9 is a creature of this type, as he is a shapeshifter that spends a necessary amount of time in a liquid state regularly.  If he doesn’t, he will be forced to revert (forced by his body).  Any time Odo is in a liquid or shifting state, however, he is gold. 

He doesn’t know if there are any others like him at the beginning, but as the show progresses, he forms a difficult relationship with his extended family, who exist as a sort of single consciousness, like the Borg, but more evolutionary instead of tech-based.  When the changelings are in their natural state, they essentially look like a gold ocean on the planet’s surface.  While this is dark, it also has the gold highlights.  In fairness to the theme, though, these are not good people and they believe themselves to be god-like creatures or at least more worthy than anyone else.  There is a whole period of the show where the paranoia of who is humanoid and who is changeling reaches a fever pitch. Listen, I could talk DS9 all day.  (https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Changeling)

I think the original version of this being is the classic movie monster, The Blob.  “The Blob is an amorphous mass of alien goo that appears in the 1958 film of the same name. Appearing as nothing more than a mass of red gelatin, this creature possesses animalistic intelligence, acting purely on the instinct to feed. It feeds on flesh and gains mass as it consumes other creatures.”

Common tropes for ooze monsters:

Mesmerizing

Grows when it eats

Eats all life forms it comes across (the changelings qualify for this, but only in the conquering sense)

Eats the inexperienced

Can’t be killed by guns, electricity, or fire

Inescapable (at least seems to be)

This quote:  “The Blob does little else except eat and grow”  Same girl, same.  But I think that the eat grow cycle is the thing that might be most important about this kind of monster.  Impervious to ways that humans generally attempt to control or avoid things, and dead set on eating everyone.  (https://monster.fandom.com/wiki/Blob)

For Welcome Home, that could be a direct link.  We have seen the black goo underneath Home grow during our time with the website.  We’ve also noticed stringy bits that have started to reach outward from home, like fingers looking to grab.  Whatever else this force is, I think the idea that it is trying to devour people/puppets in some aspect is the right idea. 

Coming soon, part 2, where goo in Welcome Home specifically is explored.

[musicollage]

The Raft – Summerheads And Winter Beds.   2021 : Shore Dive.

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