#his last remaining relative perished in a terrible fire

[milf-lover42]

So I just got to season 4. I hate being a prophet.

Saul Goodman is snicketverse coded I said it

[dawnrider]

So this is a belated birthday dedication for the lovely @lemonlushff which I'll probably be posting later today. A Space Colonization AU that you mighht have spotted before during one of @clearwillow 's games.

Happy Birthday to you, Lemon!

Teaser:

Her initial reaction to him was fear.  In hindsight it shouldn't have been.  However, try pulling laundry down from the line and coming face to face with a man you've never seen before, and then realizing that there is something different enough about him to make you certain he shouldn't exist.  She guessed most people would have reacted far worse than she had.  In all fairness, his reaction to her wasn't exactly pleasant either.

“Oh, for crying out...” She tugged again on the comforter hanging on the clothesline which was refusing to come down.  It was too large for her bed and it was really too heavy for her to be hanging, but she had no other choice.  Tugging again, it finally came free, nearly suffocating her under all the fabric.  She struggled with it until it was at least folded enough to fit in the laundry basket and promptly dropped it.  Remaining stock still, not even wanting to blink, she stared at the tall man standing just across her yard.  He had long silver hair and what she swore were animal ears on the top of his head.  They twitched in her direction as if to confirm her thought.  He appeared equally startled to see her, as if he hadn't expected to find anyone this deep in the woods.

When he took a step in her direction, Kagome took several back, blindly reaching for anything to defend herself with.  She wasn't stupid, she knew the dangers of living in the wilderness on her own, she just hadn't had to utilize any of the preparations she'd made for such an occasion yet.  He seemed to know that she was afraid, not that it was hard to tell, and remained where he was.  She could tell that he was both curious about her and yet wary.  Finally latching onto the rifle leaning beside the tree at her right, she managed to lift it without her hands shaking, sighting down the barrel just as she'd been taught.  Unexpectedly, he snarled in her direction, disappearing in the blink of an eye.  Kagome felt her heart slowly calm from a racing flutter to a dull thud in her chest.  What...who on earth...Terra was that?  I've never seen anything like him!  Not wanting to risk another run in with the strange man or anyone else like him, she gathered up her laundry and bustled herself inside.

Making sure every door and window in the house was locked and pulling the shades herself, Kagome felt only slightly better.  She knew the house was resistant to being broken into by any traditional means, even fire-resistant to a certain point.  The house computer system already knew not to let anyone in that was not her, but she felt the need to remind it.  Just in case.  It replied with a soft “Understood Mistress.”  She hadn't been in the house long enough for it to have imprinted on her so she had yet to convince it to call her by her name.

Coming to this planet had been a dream come true.  Hundreds of thousands of miles of open wilderness, no people, no cities, no pollution.  Also very little technology and even less help if she needed it.  Stop it.  You don't need help.  You're a big girl.  Her pep talk didn't have the desired effect.  The strange man had seemed as disconcerted as she was to find someone out this far.  She had to remember that there were other people out there even if she hadn't seen any since the Ranger dropped her off with her things over a week ago.  Not only were there other people, there were other species.

As this was her first real foray off the planet Earth, Kagome was fairly limited in her experience with other species from within their galaxy.  Space travel of any kind had only become even mildly affordable in the last few decades and it meant that most humans had yet to venture very far from home.  Like Kagome, many of them made the journey a one-way trip to one of the few terraformed planets that had yet to be inhabited.  Land was cheap, housing even cheaper, with the travel there marking the largest total on the budget.

Despite the fact that the planet was in fact owned by several companies from Earth, they chose not to put much into defending it or the people that chose to immigrate there.  The Rangers, a combination of sheriff, magistrate and tour guide, were the only direct connection to anyone off-world.  Kagome had received a few messages from her mother and brother back on Earth and been able to send some in return, but they took days to transfer so it was somewhat like playing the worst game of telephone tag ever.  Kagome missed her family a lot, especially now that she was finally coming face-to-face with the danger she could be in out here on her own.  “This was my choice.  Freedom, space and fresh air,” she reminded herself aloud.

The rest of the day went by quietly, nothing setting off any alarms and no noises to make her nervous.  Kagome knew better than to assume that meant there wasn't anything out there at all, but it at least made her feel better that the man hadn't returned.  Dinner was a pot of stew using vegetables grown in her hydroponics unit.  They would be planted in the garden in a few days so she wanted to harvest as much as she could before putting them outside where they might die or get eaten by the local critters.

~~~~~

He didn't know why he was surprised by her reaction.  He knew better than to approach humans when they were alone.  Humans were relatively new out in the galaxy, inexperienced with meeting other races from the various inhabited worlds.  Her little house had been empty for the months since he'd arrived, so he hadn't expected to find anyone there.  Helen hadn't said a word about the owner coming, but maybe she hadn't known either.  Inuyasha shook his head as he lurked in the woods just beyond the edge of what seemed to be her property.  His most interesting and nonjudgmental conversation partner was a house computer.  Right now she was his only conversation partner.  But now this woman...  She was locked up tight in her house with all the blinds shut.  He couldn't really blame her, at least not now that he'd calmed down.  He couldn't be absolutely sure just off the initial scent, but he was guessing she was out here alone.  A lone human woman in the wilderness of a newly terraformed planet had every right to be jumpy.  She'd probably never seen an alien life form before.  Inuyasha snorted to himself.  Certainly nothing like me.  I've seen dozens of species and no one looks like me. She was probably terrified.  Of course, he hadn't smelled terror either.  Surprise, certainly.  Curiosity, confusion and determination.  She was going to protect herself.  He couldn't begrudge her that either, especially if she really was on her own.

To say he was intrigued was an understatement.  A woman who was brave enough to come from who knew where to a fairly new and wild planet all alone gained a few points in his book.  That she could and was willing to defend herself on top of that was another plus.  Too many times he had seen women, even ones that came with mates, that ventured out into the edges of the galaxy and perished because they didn't take the precautions they should have.  Inuyasha sighed, still watching the house.  It pained him to see the terrible things that happened to good people because some scumbag wanted an easier way to make some money or was so twisted they delighted in other people’s suffering.  That won't happen to her.  I won't let anyone get this one.  He flinched at the direction of his own thoughts, surprised by the easy dedication to her protection.

“Don't get roped in, stupid,” he muttered to himself.  He didn't want to see anything happen to her, sure, but he wasn't about to tie himself down to guard duty on a woman who would sooner draw a pulse rifle on him than speak to him.  With a rough growl, he headed back out into the wilds in search of dinner.  There were some animals he still wasn't sure were edible, but he knew the wild poultry he could hear rustling in the bushes a few meters away were good eating and easy prey.  Dispatching both of them fairly quickly, he cleaned them up before leaving one as a sort of peace offering on the woman's doorstep and taking the other home.  So much for not getting roped in...

@lemonlushff , @fantastiqueparfait , @heavenin--hell, @clearwillow , @mamabearcat , @thunderpo , @keichanz , @meggz0rz , @disgruntledbeast , @sarah-writes-stories , @zelink-inukag , @rikareena​ , @cammysansstuff​ , @mcornilliac , @redflamesofpassion , @superpixie42 , @underwater0phelia​, @cstorm86​ , @noviceotakus-blog​ , @lavendertwilight89​ , @hinezumi​ , @wenchster​, @hnnwnchstr​ , @lady-dark-69 , @itzatakahashi​ , @juliatheanimelover7​ , @kazeinori​, @theinuyashareader​, @inupotter​, @eternalnight8806-3​ , @smmahamazing​ , @willowandfog​, @gaysonthefloor​, @sistasecbhere​, @jennybean91​ 

[skypalacearchitect]

Dozens have already died in the fighting between Israel and Hamas, and more will perish if the fighting continues to escalate.

But there is little chance that the root cause of all this death — the long-running political status quo in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — will be altered in the slightest. Israeli-Palestinian warfare has become routinized; it follows a familiar script that repeats itself endlessly.

Since Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, there have been three full-scale wars and numerous rounds of lower-level fighting. But the basic structure of the conflict — Israel’s blockade of Gaza and occupation of the West Bank, and Palestinian rule divided between Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank — has remained remarkably durable.

It would seem as if the current round of violence emerged out of a complex series of events in Jerusalem, most notably heavy-handed actions by Israeli police and aggression by far-right Jewish nationalists. But in reality, these events were merely triggers for escalations made almost inevitable by the way the major parties have chosen to approach the conflict.

Both Israeli and Palestinian leadership have basically accepted the painful political status quo in Gaza, seeing the violence and humanitarian suffering it causes as bad but basically tolerable as part of an effort to secure their hold on power. Israel’s leadership bears particular responsibility: As the most powerful actor in the conflict, it has the greatest ability to break the pattern. But the factions in control of Israel’s government have strong ideological and strategic reasons for keeping the Gaza policy in place.

As a result, the underlying status quo will likely outlive this conflict, guaranteeing more violence.

“It’s like the worst version of Groundhog Day,” says Khaled Elgindy, the director of the program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli affairs at the Middle East Institute. Leaders “just put a Band-Aid on it and we go back to the pre-crisis normal.”

It’s a horrible equilibrium, one in which “manageable” levels of violence stand in for doing something to actually improve the lives of Israelis or Palestinians. It is also a direct result of the deepest political structure governing the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the iron hand of Israeli control over the West Bank and Gaza’s border.

The Israeli-Palestinian doom loop

The current violence began with a series of conflicts in Jerusalem.

Israeli police in the city blocked off the Damascus Gate, a popular gathering place for Arabs during Ramadan, sparking protests. An attempt by Jewish settlers to evict longtime Arab residents of Sheikh Jarrah, an Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem, inflamed tensions, leading to violent clashes with Israeli police. Arab youth attacked ultra-Orthodox Jews in the city, and Jewish extremists assailed Arab residents. All of this culminated in a violent Israeli police raid on the al-Aqsa Mosque, Jerusalem’s holiest site for Muslims, located on the Temple Mount (the holiest site in the world for Jews).

Then Hamas fired rockets at Jerusalem. Ostensibly, this was a display of solidarity with the protesters on the ground. But it appears to have been a political calculation — Hamas attempting to capitalize on Palestinian anger over the violence in Jerusalem to expand its own influence, especially in the wake of recently canceled Palestinian elections that likely would have strengthened its political position.

“This is much more about internal Palestinian politics than it is about what’s been going on in Jerusalem,” says Michael Koplow, policy director at the Israel Policy Forum.

The attacks on Jerusalem crossed what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to as a “red line,” breaking the unspoken rules that limited the pace and range of rocket attacks to limited barrages mostly targeting southern Israel. Israel responded with overwhelming force: massive airstrikes targeting Hamas emplacements in densely populated Gaza. This prompted more rocket attacks from Hamas and, in turn, more bombings from Israel. As a result, at least seven people in Israel and around 70 Palestinians are dead — with no end in sight.

But while the events that led to this point are unique, the broader pattern of events is not. This week’s violence is part of a recurring pattern determined by structural factors in the conflict. If the events in Jerusalem hadn’t prompted Hamas rocket fire and Israeli escalation, something else almost certainly would have.

“The most likely scenario is unfortunately the one we’ve been in for the past 15 years,” says Ilan Goldenberg, the director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.

Goldenberg co-authored a report in 2018 documenting what he terms “the cycle of violence” between Israel and Hamas. It documents the ways in which the political status quo is arranged in a way that makes frequent violent flare-ups all but inevitable.

The stage is set, Goldenberg and his co-authors say, by the policy approaches of both sides. Israel aims to minimize the threat posed by Hamas and other militant factions, imposing a harsh blockade on Gaza that limits the flow of goods and people into the territory. Hamas aims to cement its hold on power and expand its influence relative to its Palestinian rivals, seeing violence against Israel as a key tool in this struggle. This creates an underlying reality in which fighting breaks out again and again.

“Eventually, humanitarian and economic pressure builds inside Gaza, and Hamas escalates its use of violence both to generate domestic political support and to pressure Israel to ease the economic situation,” they write. “Israel responds with its own escalation, including military strikes inside Gaza and punitive economic measures that further choke the Strip.”

Once the fighting starts, it’s not clear how much it’ll escalate. Sometimes it ends swiftly and with minimal loss of life. Other times — as in 2008 to 2009, 2012, and 2014 — it turns into an all-out war, with hundreds of (mostly Palestinian) casualties. The current fighting is rapidly moving in that direction, with Israeli leaders pledging to continue the bombardment of Gaza indefinitely.

“The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] will continue to strike and bring complete silence for the long term,” Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said on May 12.

Ultimately, the warring parties either unilaterally decide to stop bombing or else agree to an internationally brokered settlement that does little to change the fundamental dynamics. This is the nature of current conflict: Many people die, and many more suffer, without any real prospect for change.

“The question isn’t why this keeps happening,” Elgindy says. “It’s why anyone isn’t doing anything to prevent it from [continuing to] happen.”

The doom loop has deep roots in Israeli politics

It’s clear that that this status quo produces horrors. The problem, though, is that these terrible costs are seen as basically tolerable by the political leadership of all the major parties.

Hamas continues to be able to rule Gaza and reaps the political benefits from being the party of armed resistance to Israeli occupation. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas appears cowed by Hamas’s power — most analysts believe he canceled the Palestinian election because he thought he would lose — and so is content to let Israel keep his rivals contained in Gaza.

Israel is the most powerful actor of the three: It controls access to the Gaza Strip and operates a military occupation in the West Bank. If the Israeli leadership wanted to take actions to short-circuit the cycle of violence, like easing the blockade of Gaza, it could. But despite the persistent rocket threat, the leadership isn’t willing to try something new.

Why?

The last time I was in Israel, on a reporting trip in November 2019, I spoke with Yehuda Shaul, the founder of Breaking the Silence, a group that helps Israeli soldiers tell their stories about service in the Palestinian territories. He told me that the traditional categories used to describe politics — left, right, and center — are fundamentally inadequate when it comes to explaining what happens in Israel.

These days, he argues, most of Israel’s leadership falls into what he terms the “annexation” camp or the “control” camp.

The annexationists are Jewish extremists, who want to formally seize large chunks of Palestinian land while either expelling its residents or denying them political rights — ethnic cleansing or apartheid. The “control” camp, which includes current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, sees things primarily through the lens of military and physical security: how the Palestinians are ruled is less important than minimizing the threat they pose to Israeli lives.

“The driving principle [of the control camp] is a national security idea,” Shaul explains. “We are in a zero-sum game: Between the river and the sea, there is room for one sovereign power. It’s either us or the Palestinians.”

The status quo in Gaza serves both groups. From the annexationist view, keeping the Palestinians weak and divided allows Israeli settlements to keep expanding and the seizure of both the West Bank and East Jerusalem to continue apace. Lifting the blockade on Gaza, and working to promote some kind of renewed peace process involving both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, jeopardizes the agenda of “Greater Israel.”

“It is Israeli policy to fragment Palestinians politically and geographically, to isolate them into these different areas. It’s classic colonial strategy of divide and conquer,” Elgindy says.

Meanwhile, the “control” camp sees this as the least bad option. Any easing of the Gaza blockade would risk Hamas breaking containment and expanding its presence in the West Bank, which would be far more dangerous than the rockets — a threat heavily mitigated by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. In this analysis, periodic flare-ups are a price that has to be paid to minimize the threat to Israeli lives — with heavy escalations like this one required to restore a basically tolerable status quo.

I witnessed one of these flare-ups on the same trip where I met Shaul, reporting from Israel and the West Bank as Israel and Hamas exchanged fire. After a few days of mayhem and air raid sirens, life just went back to normal in Israel — as if nothing had happened, as if dozens of Palestinian lives had not just been snuffed out (there were no Israeli deaths in that round).  

“A lot of the Israeli security and political establishment has sort of internalized this idea that ... there’s a sort of stable equilibrium,” says Koplow. “You get occasional rockets, and Israel will respond with a few missile strikes on Gaza, but it happens very occasionally and things immediately quiet down.”

For much of Israeli history, a third camp — which Shaul calls the “equality” camp — presented a different vision for achieving Israel’s security needs. Epitomized by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s government formed in 1992, it believed that Palestinians deserved a political voice as a matter of principle — either in a single state or, more typically, through a two-state arrangement. Such an agreement would sap Palestinian support for violent groups like Hamas by taking away the population’s underlying grievance: the lack of a state to call their own.

Yet the equality camp practically collapsed after the failure of the peace process and the second intifada in the early 2000s. Its political vehicles among Israeli Jews, the Labor and Meretz parties, make up a little more than 10 percent of Israel’s current Knesset (parliament). The result is indefinite occupation with no end in sight; no fundamental rethinking of the approach to either Gaza or the West Bank.

“As a society, the view is that the risks necessary to solve [the conflict with the Palestinians] are not worth it and it won’t work,” Goldenberg says. “So all we can deal with is the problem in front of us today, without really thinking long-term. We’ll deal with the other problems tomorrow — that’s basically the Israeli attitude.”

None of this excuses Hamas from its role in escalating the current conflict, or makes the deep divisions between Palestinians themselves less significant. The status quo is not only Israel’s fault.

But the Israeli government sets the terms for how Israelis and Palestinians interact, the underlying policy architecture that shapes the options available to the various sides.

So long as the annexation and control camps are in the driver’s seat in Israel, it will pursue policies that aim to maintain control over Palestinian land while simultaneously minimizing the security threats intrinsic to the enterprise of military rule over a hostile population. The Gaza situation is an outgrowth of this reality, the sort of policy that one pursues in a world where a more fundamental revision is ideologically foreclosed.

Barring some international intervention, it’s hard to see how things get much better — and easy to see how the same terrible things keep happening, over and over again.

[myhauntedsalem]

Ghosts of the Night Express Train  Hartford, Vermont

On the early morning of February 5, 1887, a Montreal bound Central Railroad train No. 50 known as the “Night Express” was speeding along attempting to make time because it was running late. At some point near Hartford, Vermont as it neared a large wooden railroad bridge, the last sleeper car on the train jumped the track, unknown to anyone on board as the express sped along through the night. The Night Express crossed the Woodstock Bridge as it was known at the time, and a disaster was about to unfold.

As the express steam engine rolled over the bridge and when the last car on the train which had become dislodged from the rail hit the bridge, it began sliding off. One of the conductors on the train felt that something was not right and signaled the engineer to stop. Realizing what was happening, the engineer accelerated the train in attempt to get as many cars as possible off of the bridge. In the end, the derailed car had pulled two other coaches with it as it plunged over the side of the bridge into the icy river below. Not completely submerged, the smashed rail cars, heated by wood burning stoves and lit by oil lamps, burst into flames immediately setting the wooden bridge on fire in the process. The survivors worked to save as many as possible, but in the end, twenty-four passengers and five train crewmen were killed either in the crash or by the fire that followed. Legend has it that a little boy was among the surviving passengers, however, he had watched in horror as one of his relatives died in the flames, helpless to save them.

A new bridge made of steel was constructed on the site of the disaster that same year to span the White River. However, the original bridge pilings were used so part of the original bridge remained. Over the years many folks traveling by train over the bridge and by foot along either side of the White River, have seen what appeared to be young boy standing in the water beneath the bridge trusses. Some say that upon closer inspection, the figure was actually hovering above the river waters only to disappear completely! In most cases, folks report him to be wearing clothing from the late 1800s. Many feel that this is the spirit of the boy who watched his family member die in the railroad bridge disaster of 1887. The boy seems to linger in the spot perhaps hoping for another chance to save those he loved from the flames. There are some who claim that they have also seen other figures standing around in that same spot who are also dressed in 19th century clothing. Perhaps these are a few of the victims who perished that terrible night.

A railroad bridge still stands in that very spot and can be found near the Savage Cemetery, Hartford, VT 05001, just south on Rt 14. Latitude: 43.682044 Longitude: -72.394966

[davidshawnsown]

MESSAGE IN COMMEMORATION OF THE 81ST ANNIVERSARY OF THE BEGINNING OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR AND IN ANTICIPATION OF THE DIAMOND JUBILEE OF ITS TERMINATION

Ladies and gentlemen, to all the people of the United States of America and Canada, to all our remaining living veterans of the Second World War of 1939-1945 and of all conflicts past and present and their families, to our veterans, active servicemen and women, reservists and families of the entire United States Armed Forces and Canadian Armed Forces, and to all the uniformed military and civil security services of the Allied combatants of this conflict, to all the immediate families, relatives, children and grandchildren of the deceased veterans, fallen service personnel and wounded personnel of our military services and civil uniformed security and civil defense services, to all our workers, farmers and intellectuals, to our youth and personnel serving in youth uniformed and cadet organizations and all our athletes, coaches, judges, sports trainers and sports officials, and to all our sports fans, to all our workers of culture, music, traditional arts and the theatrical arts, radio, television, digital media and social media, cinema, heavy and light industry, agriculture, business, tourism and the press, and to all our people of the free world:

Our greeting to the millions who today celebrate such an important day in our history.

It was on this very important day that we mark -

The solemn anniversary of the 1604 transfer of the Guru Granth Sahib, the sacred book of the Sikhs, to the Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar, Punjab,

The anniversary of the 1715 death of King Louis XIV, the longest ever European monarch of his time,

The 1772 founding of Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa,

The anniversary of the 1774 Powder Alarm by Massachusetts citizens,

The day in 1864 in which the 4-month old Siege of Atlanta ended,

The anniversary of the opening of the Tremont Street Subway in 1897 in Boston,

and various other events including: The anniversary of the Great Kanto Earthquake (1923), the anniversary of the the ANZUS Treaty (1951), the day of the historic SR-71 Blackbird world record flight of 1971, the anniversary of the Pioneer 11 arrival in Saturn in 1979, the final stage of the Marathon of Hope in Ontario (1980), the 1982 raising of the USAF Space Command, the anniversary of the tragic 1983 shoot down of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, and the beginning of the 2004 Beslan hostage crisis.

On this day in 1937 the founding president of the International Olympic Committee and the father of the modern Olympic Movement, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, passed away after many years of faithful work for the sake of international sports, having been at the helm when the Olympic Games were formally reborn for the modern era beginning in 1896.

And ladies and gentlemen, as we one united people of the world, await the celebrations of the upcoming 75th year since the termination of the Second World War and the Allied victory over the forces of the Empire of Japan,  as we continue to endure the greatest health crisis of our time, in solidarity with all the millions of medical workers and professionals who are fighting the COVID-19 pandemic in many countries across the world, and in remembrance of those who have fallen due to this virus and in prayer not just for the recoveries of those who are ill but also for the success of the vaccines against this virus and its effects on the human body, for it is by this pandemic and the crisis it has brought has resulted in the cancellations and postponements of many important events and celebrations and brought untold pain and suffering to millions around the world, we today celebrate the historic 81st year of the beginning of this long and bitter global conflict, for just as war was already occuring in parts of China and then-occupied Korea between the Japanese and the Chinese armies together with partisans from within China and Korea, this long war began on this exact day in 1939 when the Wehrmacht, acting to implement the provisions of the just recently signed Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, invaded western portions of Poland  (on the same day as the official launch of the Nazi program Action T4, aimed for forced euthanasia of the disabled and the mentally ill), which in turn led to declarations of war pronounced by the governments of France and the United Kingdom against the Axis Powers, marking the official commencement of hostilities of this war in the European contingent and in northern Africa. It would be the beginning of a long and lengthy conflict that would forever change the history of the human race for generation after generation, in a war that would cost millions of lives and tons of economic sectors devastated and cultural relics destroyed. It cannot be denied that the opening shots of this war fired on this day in Poland was only the start of one of the bloddiest chapters of human history, a long chapter that would last 6 years and cost millions of lives.

These 6 years and 2 days of a war that forever changed the world and saw the continous evolution of warfare in these modern times was indeed a war that will forever be a part of our history and affected millions of people all over the globe. For as the new ways of conventional, non-conventional and partisan warfare stunned the world, so too were the millions who suffered under the cruel hand of the Axis Powers in Europe and the Asia-Pacific, especially Jews in Europe, minorities, and political prisoners, as well as the Japanese who were interred by the Allies as well on suspicions of sympathy for their compatriots in the homeland and those serving in the armed forces, and millions of military service personnel and civilians also suffered and died in the fields of battle as well. But that cost would lead up to the long victory against the Axis Powers by the strong and determined men and women of the Allied Powers  - the Greatest Generation – helped and supported by the men and women of the home front, within just 6 years and a day later, the 2nd of September. For this year, that day marks the diamond jubilee year of the end of this long and painful war, which has dramatically changed the history of the human race and of the whole war, a war that must never be forgotten generation under generation. Looking onwards thus to the 80th anniversary and even futher to the centennial celebrations, in recalling the millions who perished in this war and the Allied heroes of this conflict, of which only a few thousands still live, we must therefore uphold the enteral memories of the fallen and the legacies of heroic battles in which courage and bravery defined the victories of this war against the Axis aggressor.

Today, marking the 81st year since the beginning of thus war leads us towards the diamond jubilee of this conflict’s historic conclusion, wherein as we remember the heroes and martyrs of the beginning of this war in Poland, we also honor the millions of Allied men and women under arms who fought the Axis aggressor towards the goal of achieving today victory for the cause of freedom and independence of the peoples of the free world. As we reflect upon the millions who perished in this long conflict 80 years on since its beginning, we remember the millions of heroes of the Allies who fought night and day in conventional and unconventional military operations,  and worked tirelessly in the home front to support the men and women in the battlefields, supporting the wounded and comforting the families of the deceased, as well as providing entertainment and material support to all the servicemen and women fighting the Axis Powers, no matter who they were and where they came.   They, the millions of soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen, coast guardsmen, paramilitary service personnel, policemen and women, firefighters and intellgience personnel who risked their lives for the sake of the future of our people against the Axis political, military, ideological and economic might, they who served in the uniformed services and in the partisan resistance movements within the Axis-occupied territories in Europe, northern parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific, and those who sustained the war effort in their homes, in industries, culture, the press and mass media and in sports are the ones that we always honor and remember, especially today and tomorrow as we mark once again as one the bookends of this very long conflict in these two important days of our history. Even as only a few remain of the millions of participants of this war from the victorious Allies, in light of recent events and the rising tide of polarizing politics and ideologies of these current days even more important it is now for us to forever perpetuate the eternal legacy left behind by the victorious generations who fought the war to the very end. In addition, due to the fact the whole world is currently facing one of the greatest health  crises of our times in this COVID-19 pandemic, we also honor the modern day heroes of the medical profession and the uniformed organizations who have been at the forefront of this tough and dangerous period of our history, remembering those who have died, honoring the strength and determination of those who survived and recognizing the determination and hard work of millions working to ensure the success of medication and vaccines against the virus and to help in the recovering the economy, culture and the arts, and sports.

The eve of the great victory over Japan and the end of that great and terrible war is upon us and the dawn is about to rise of a world of peace and prosperity, progress and care for the enviroment that we have been called upon to build upon the sacrifices made by the millions who perished in this long global conflict. For as we anticipate this historic 75th  year anniversary since the victory over the Empire of Japan and the conclusion of the Second World War, with great respect to the millions who died and the millions of heroic men and women who fought till the end, as we recall the beginning of this long global war that changed forever the face and destiny of this planet we today take vigil preparing for the festivities of tomorrow as we prepare to mark  the day of the last page in a long history that will forever be a part of our heritage and patrimony, the end of the six-year long global war that forever bears a mark in the historic books and archives all over the world, the diamond jubilee of which will be marked next year. For it is such a day that we indeed remember the conclusion of a huge part of these years of our history, wherein our ancestors and forefathers fought against the Axis menance that exactly eight decades ago threatened the very existence of our freedom and independence and the future of our generation, and made their contribution to the defeat of international fascism, imperialism, racism, xenophobia, dictatorship and totalitarianism symbolized by the Axis Powers. Tomorrow’s anniversary is a reminder to all, especially with the decreasing numbers of living veterans of this war from the millions in active service by the time of the conclusion of this war, to always uphold the values they fought and risked their lives for and to work towards continuing the legacy of the struggle in which they undertook for the sake of our future generations. Indeed, the sacrifice and hard work that these millions of military and police personnel and home front workers did that helped the Allied Powers win this great war against the military forces, governments and people of the Axis Powers, as long as we remain alive and as long as we’ll continue to honor them and their service to their country and people, will remain forever in our hearts and memories for generations to come.

The sacrifice of the millions of servicemen and women of the Allied armed forces and all our milions of Allied partisans and home front workers who helped win this great war, and most of all, of our millions of Allied military personnel and partisans who perished in the field of battle, must never be forgotten, for their contributions to the great victory gave us the freedom and liberty that we all enjoy and cherish this day and for every day of our lives. For as long as there are people forever honoring the memories left behind, the lessons taught to us by this war and the legacies of these millions of heroes will be passed on to future generations.

In conclusion, as we, one united people of the world, mark the 81st year anniversary of the beginning of the Second World War and await with great joy the 75th anniversary of the victory over Japan and the official conclusion of thislong and bitter global war that changed the destiny of humankind, as we once more recall the moments of this war from its beginning in which we mark today up to its conclusion that will be celebrated tomorrow, and remember with our words and actions these very important days in the history of humankind especially to all who served in this war we today hope that with the legacy bequeathed to us by these men and women who served in this great global conflict and keep these sacred  and memorable days of such a great victory with respect and reverence especially for those who went before us we shall be worthy of what they fought for, for building a world of peace, harmony and progress, a clean and preserved  environment, and a brighter future for all our children and grandchildren - truly the very future that is truly worth defending and the very future our forefathers fought with their very own lives. With our greatest gratitude may we always and forever treasure in our hearts all those who have gone before us and have entrusted to us the spirit of defending our freedom and liberty in all those years from the beginning of the war up to the great victories in which we honor today, everyday and in the years and decades to come, and therefore become successors to the legacies of the great victories won in the past and the generation that will bring humanity towards a brighter tomorrow as one united people.

As the men of Easy Company would always say:  WE STAND ALONE TOGETHER!

ETERNAL GLORY TO THE MEMORY OF THE MEDICAL WORKERS AND PROFESSIONALS AND PERSONNEL OF UNIFORMED SERVICES WHO PERISHED IN THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC!

ETERNAL GLORY TO THE MEMORY OF THOSE WHO PERISHED IN THE BEGINNING OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN POLAND AND EAST ASIA!

ETERNAL GLORY TO THE MLLIONS OF THE FALLEN AND THE HEROES AND VETERANS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN EUROPE, NORTHERN AFRICA AND THE ASIA-PACIFIC FROM 1939-1945, WHOSE LEGACY WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN BY ALL OF US TODAY AND BY ALL THE GENERATIONS TO COME!

ETERNAL GLORY TO ALL THOSE WHO GAVE THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE FOR THE FREEDOM AND INDEPENDENCE OF OUR WORLD AGAINST FASCISM, NAZISM AND IMPERIALISM IN THE FIELDS OF BATTLE, THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS, AND IN THE HOME FRONT!

LONG LIVE THE VICTORIOUS MEN AND WOMEN IN THE SERVICE OF THE ALLIES OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN EUROPE, NORTHERN AFRICA AND THE ASIA-PACIFIC!

LONG LIVE ALL THE ALLIED MILITARY, PARAMILITARY AND CIVIL VETERANS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR!

LONG LIVE THE INVINCIBLE AND FOREVER VICTORIOUS PEOPLE OF THE FREE WORLD AND ALL OUR SERVING ACTIVE AND RESERVE SERVICEMEN AND WOMEN AND VETERANS OF THE ARMED SERVICES OF ALL THE COMBATANT ALLIED COUNTRIES THAT HELPED WIN THIS GREAT WAR AGAINST FASCISM, NAZISM AND IMPERIALISM, AS WELL AS ALL OUR ACTIVE AND RESERVE SERVICE PERSONNEL, CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES AND VETERANS OF THE POLICE, FIREFIGHTING, FORESTRY, BORDER CONTROL, CUSTOMS AND RESCUE SERVICES AS WELL AS OUR YOUTH OF TODAY AND THE CHILDREN OF OUR TOMORROW WHO WILL CARRY ON THE LEGACY OF ALL THOSE WHO HAVE GONE BEFORE THEM, ESPECIALLY TO THE MILLIONS OF MEN AND WOMEN WHO TOOK PART IN THIS GREAT WORLD WAR!

LONG LIVE THE GLORIOUS 75TH YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE END OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN THE PACIFIC THEATER OF OPERATIONS AND THE GREAT VICTORY OVER THE FORCES OF THE EMPIRE OF JAPAN AND THE AXIS POWERS!

GLORY TO THE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, CANADA, THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND AND FRANCE, TOGETHER WITH THE ARMED SERVICES OF THE OTHER VICTORIOUS COMBATANT COUNTRIES OF THE ALLIED POWERS, GUARDIAN DEFENDERS OF OUR DEMOCRATIC WAY OF LIFE, OUR FREEDOM AND OUR LIBERTY AND GUARANTEE OF A FUTURE WORTHY OF OUR GENERATIONS TO COME!

TO THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND TO ALL OVER THE WORLD, AN ADVANCE HAPPY  75TH VICTORY OVER JAPAN DAY!

And may I repeat the immortal words of the Polish National Anthem:

Poland has not yet perished, so long as we still live!

CURRAHEE! AIR ASSAULT! ARMY STRONG! SEMPER FI!

Ooooooooooooooooooraaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!

  1000, September 1, 2020, the 244th year of the United States of America, the 245th year of the United States Army, Navy and Marine Corps, the 126th of the International Olympic Committee, the 124th of the Olympic Games, the 102nd since the conclusion of the First World War, the 81st of the beginning of the Second World War in Europe, the 79th since the beginning of the Second World War in the Eastern Front and in the Pacific Theater, the 75th since the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa and the victories in Europe and the Pacific, the 73rd of the modern United States Armed Forces and the 53rd of the modern Canadian Armed Forces.

   Semper Fortis

JOHN EMMANUEL RAMOS-HENDERSON

Makati City, PH

  (Requiem for a Soldier) (Honor by Hans Zimmer)

(Slavsya from Mikhail Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar)

(Victory Day by Lev Leshenko)

(Last Post) (Taps) (Rendering Honors)

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Quis Copyright Ipsos Custodes?

by Dan H

Wednesday, 06 June 2012

Dan rambles about copyright, DC, and the Watchmen Prequels~

Poking around the internets a couple of days ago I discovered the

following article

about the upcoming (or by the time this article is published, recently released) Watchmen Prequels.

I'm in two minds about this. Part of me says that this is a horrible shameless cash-in that pisses on the memory on one of the greatest graphic novels in history. Another part of me says that the first part of me is just being reactionary and fanboyish.

The Slate article I link at the top of this piece starts off with the oft-repeated observation that DC paid Siegel and Shuster $130 for the rights to Superman and went on to make a shit-ton of money out of the Man of Steel while his creators died in relative poverty. It also points out that the estate of Jack Kirby, who created most of the original Avengers saw nothing from the recent movie.

Now obviously there is a lot wrong with the comics industry. Comic book companies do treat a lot of their writers and artists like shit, and the comics fandom as a whole is as problematic as all fuck. But try as I might, I can't get angry about the fact that the rights to most comic book characters are owned by big companies, instead of by the people who created those characters for those companies.

Perhaps it's that my professional background is in Education while what limited creative background I have is in RPGs, so I'm very used to the idea that what I do in either my professional or my creative life ceases to be mine the moment I put it out into the world. If one of my D&D players wrote a book based on my campaign, I might expect a thank-you but I wouldn't expect royalties, and I obviously don't expect my students to cut me in on their future earnings just because I teach them things which help them get on in their lives (nor does it bother me that the various syllabus documents, schemes of work, and sets of revision notes I have produced as part of my work belong to my school and not to me).

Indeed thinking about it from the perspective of any industry apart from the creative media, the notion that somebody might deserve a share of the profits from a piece of work somebody else does based on work they did as part of their job ten years earlier is completely alien. It reminds me, tangentially, of that

SMBC

strip which suggests that the principle known in academia as “publish or perish” is known in the rest of the world as “do your job or get fired.” There's the same peculiar sense that something which is seen as the mother of all injustices in one industry is just par for the course in most others.

To put it another way, although like most human beings I'm prone to irrational and inconsistent ideas, I do make a vague effort to keep my beliefs consistent with one another. And I'm a big fan of Creative Commons, a supporter of fanfiction, and a strong believer in fair use and the value of transformative works. I am not sure that I could reconcile my belief that the Harry Potter Lexiconhad every right to compile information from the Harry Potter books into an accessible format, or that people have the right to write original stories using other people's characters and put them on the internet (fanfiction.net, for what it is worth, already hosts nine hundred and forty pieces of Watchmen fanfic), with the belief that it is unreasonable for the people who published the original Watchmen to publish sequels if they damned well want to.

I think what bugs me the most about this issue, and more specifically with the attitude that it is somehow self-evident that the person who “creates” a character is entitled to royalties in perpetuity, is that it seems grounded in a mindset with which I am all too familiar. I am, as I believe I have said in many previous articles, an overeducated underachiever. I am very, very good at coming up with ideas and very, very bad at following them through.

The reason people like me react so strongly to the story of Siegel and Shuster isn't that we have genuine sympathy for the hardworking Jewish immigrants who were screwed over by the cynical fatcats at DC, it's that we're all dreaming of the day when we will come up with that one “idea” that will make us millionaires without our having to do any actual work. We baulk at the idea of comic book companies making millions from an idea for which they paid $130 not because it was exploitative (although it probably was) but because we see no value whatsoever in all other work that went into turning a $130 character idea into a billion-dollar IP. This is particularly ironic since a lot of that work was, in fact, done by Siegel and Shuster themselves (and it was work for which they were in fact well paid, Wikipedia reliably informs me that while the pair were only paid $130 for the rights to Superman they were paid $75,000 a year to write Superman – and that was in the 1940s).

People like me love to pretend that ideas are all that matter, that because The Avengers was a pre-existing IP, that all the people who made the film had to do was show up and shuffle things into vaguely the right order. This is, of course, nonsense. Yes, The Avengers wouldn't have existed without Stan Lee or Jack Kirby, but nor would it have existed without Wayne T. Silva the assistant payroll accountant, or Nuo Sun the actor trainer, or Matthew Roper the set medic, or any of the literally hundreds of people who were directly involved in making the actual movie. Of course the original characters are part of what made the film successful, but so is the fact that the actors did their stunts right, or that the payrolls were correctly managed.

Valuable intellectual properties aren't created by individual geniuses – even when a single person owns the copyright the actual brand (and make no mistake about it, thats all a valuable artistic property is – a brand that people buy into and want to hear stories about) is created by a vast army of professionals. We might believe that Harry Potter was created by JK Rowling, but in truth it was partly created by Thomas Taylor (who drew the first cover for Bloomsbury), Mary GrandPre (who drew all of the US covers and seems to have created the distinctive “Harry Potter” font later used in the movies) and Daniel Radcliffe. Yes, the fact that JK Rowling started out as an unemployed single parent and is now one of the richest people in Britain makes for a lovely rags-to-riches story, but one could make the case that she is (in part) reaping the rewards of other people's work. Building a brand, after all, is the role of a corporate marketing department, not an individual artist.

To put it another way, Siegel and Shuster may have created Superman, but it was undoubtedly DC that turned him into a billion-dollar brand, and it is downright perverse to celebrate the success of that brand while at the same time condemning the company that created that success. Did the creators of Superman get screwed? I honestly don't know. Certainly DC negotiated a contract that was in the company's interests rather than the artists', but it is not inherently wrong to make a lot of money out of something for which you initially paid very little money. If DC had known for certain that the Superman property would make millions then it might have been immoral to encourage Siegel and Shuster to give up all rights to the character, but they almost certainly didn't. They took a punt on the property, and it paid off.

Of course money isn't the only issue here. Alan Moore is far more upset about control of his creations than anything else. But even this is a commercial issue. It's easy to be snooty about the way the comics industry exploits its IPs, but – well – that's kind of how they make their money. More than that, it's kind of what's good about the medium. As in, what's artistically good. If Superman had remained in the exclusive control of its original creators, it would still look

like this

. Batman, by a similar token, would still look

like this

. Enduring comic-book characters remain relevant to a modern audience precisely because they are continually created and recreated, and this is possible only because the rights to these characters are owned not by their individual creators but by corporations. This idea doesn't sit comfortably in the mind of the average comics reader, who I suspect likes to place themselves on the side of the artist (not least because so many of us believe ourselves to be artists), but the truth is that we benefit directly from the system being the way it is.

Which brings us all back to the Watchmen prequels. The instinctive reaction of, I expect, most of nerddom, will be to raise a hue and cry because blah blah capitalism blah blah integrity blah blah cash-in blah blah blah. Because apparently we've forgotten that doing new things with old characters is what comic books are all about. The question of whether they are actually any good or not will be entirely academic (as

this edition of Our Valued Customers

nicely illustrates).

The whole thing seems grounded in a kind of skeevy Great Man Theory. The prequels might be brilliant, or they might be terrible, but what people seem to be concerned about is the fact that they will no longer be the product of One Man's Genius, that the mere fact that the prequels will not be written by Alan Moore irrevocably taints them. The whole thing reminds me of the kerfuffle over the proposed (but I believe never realised) Buffy revamp, when people were up in arms about the idea of Buffy without Joss Whedon. Even more peculiarly, people were insisting that a de-Whedoned Buffy would be a terrible blow against feminism, despite the fact that the lead writer on the proposed revamp would have been an actual woman.

This last point – that taking a property away from its straight, white, male creator will be bad for women and ethnic minorities – was made quite explicitly in the Slate piece that inspired this article:

For example: Moore’s comics have often been concerned with feminism, and one theme of Watchmen is that the superhero genre is built in part on retrograde sexual politics and thuggish rape fantasies. And how does Before Watchmen address these issues? Like so. If this were some piece of fan fiction detritus—naked Dr. Manhattan, porn-faced Silk Spectre!—it would be funny. But given that this is an "official" product, it starts to be harder to laugh it off.

I'm not sure where to begin with this. The first thing I'd say is that I have no idea which version of Watchmen this person was reading if they (a) think that “naked Dr Manhattan” is in any way a deviation from the original text and (b) think it's remotely appropriate to describe the original comic as “feminist”. This is a comic in which the fact that Sally Jupiter had a relationship with, and became pregnant by, the man that raped her is the detail which convinces Dr Manhattan that humanity is beautiful and worth saving (this is a slightly uncharitable gloss to put on that moment in the comics, but only slightly).

The second thing I'd say is that I can't help but notice that the article not only assumes that you can deduce an entire comic's gender politics from the cover of one trade paperback, but also fairly deliberately chooses the only cover that could have remotely illustrated his point. You can look at all of the other covers

here

. Most of them don't feature women at all, but this is a consequence of there only being one significant female character in the original text, which is surely Moore's fault as much as anybody else's (and again, doesn't seem to say much for his “concern for feminism”). You might specifically want to take a closer look at the cover of the

Silk Spectre

prequel, which is not only a good not-especially-sexualised portrayal of the character, but which is also drawn by an actual woman.

I think what I find most ironic about the backlash against the Watchmen prequels is that it's grounded in the very same notions of heroism which the comic itself deconstructs. The only reason to believe that (as the Slate article puts it):

Rorschach and Nite Owl and Dr. Manhattan have been raised from their resting place, and Moore—and the rest of us—now get to watch them stagger around, dripping bits of themselves across the decades, until everyone has utterly forgotten that they ever had souls.

Is if we accept that Alan Moore is somehow so uniquely talented that nobody except for him is capable of writing decent stories with those characters. As if somehow Moore's talent was so great that unlike Superman, Batman, the X-Men, the Avengers, or all of the characters he purloined for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen his creations would be uniquely tainted if they were touched by lesser mortals.

Perhaps even more tragically, this really does seem to be Moore's attitude. In

this interview

he makes a number of almost embarrassingly self-aggrandising claims about how uncreative, miserable and talentless pretty much everybody working in the mainstream comics industry is. He also, inexplicably, insists that his use of the character of Allan Quatermain in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is different from the Watchmen prequels because apparently nobody had heard of Allan Quatermain before he put him in a comic (whereas Dr Manhattan is – what – a literary icon?). And complains that the people who got his share of the money from the Watchmen and Extraordinary Gentlemen movies didn't ring him up and personally thank him.

Perhaps the most mystifying quote in the whole interview is the part where he claims that the people working on Before Watchmen are doing so because: “It will probably be the only opportunity they get in their careers to actually be attached to a project that anybody outside of comics has ever heard of”. Leaving aside the fact that one of the writers on the project is J. Michael Straczynski – who created one of the most respected (although perhaps also most overrated) works of TV SF ever made – what is Moore smoking if he believes that anybody outside of comics has heard of Watchmen at all other than as that movie that guy made in 2009.

The thing is, Alan Moore absolutely does have the right to be bitter and angry about this whole affair, because he did get screwed by DC. But whatever he might think, Watchmen is not some dazzling beacon that demonstrated to the outside world the true potential of the comic-book medium. It's an okay-but-slightly-dated long-form comic book which comics nerds (and only comics nerds) obsess about because they think it makes them look clever.

The Watchmen prequels are very likely to be dull and uninspiring, but that is because Watchmen is dull and uninspiring. And any spark or relevance they have for a modern audience will have come from the people who wrote and drew them, it will not have been reflected from Alan Moore's imaginary genius.

Themes:

Topical

,

Sci-fi / Fantasy

,

Comics

,

Watchmen

~

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~Comments (

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)

Arthur B

at 14:31 on 2012-06-06I simultaneously have no sympathy for the "what about Alan Moore?" argument but also think

Before Watchmen

is highly likely to be an enormous waste of time.

On the first point, it's worth noting that originally Alan Moore

didn't intend to use original characters for Watchmen at all

. Moore wanted to use the characters from the Charlton Comics stable of superheroes, which DC had acquired after Charlton bit the dust. DC were like "ummmm... we'd prefer you didn't junk these characters, why not make some original ones anyway?", Moore acquiesced and cooked up the Watchmen we know and love as thinly-veiled re-imaginings of the Charlton chumps.

The important thing about this anecdote, vis-a-vis this discussion, is that

the entire concept of Watchmen came about as a result of the corporate ownership of characters created by people who were not Alan Moore, and Moore wanting to write a story very much at odds with the original intentions of the characters' creators.

So the idea that the

Watchmen

characters somehow get to be sacred and mustn't be tampered with when they owe their very existence to Moore wanting to tamper with other people's characters seems pretty hypocritical to me.

On the other hand, with respect to

Before Watchmen

itself, I can't see how it can really be very interesting.

Watchmen

was constructed like one of those really cool domino runs - the interesting thing is watching this very delicate setup collapsing as the result of one little push. Watching the dominos getting set up before the actual domino run is just going to be tedious and I'd rather not.

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Wardog

at 14:54 on 2012-06-06I'd have more sympathy for Moore in general if he was less of a complete dick...

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Arthur B

at 15:07 on 2012-06-06Theologically Moore says he believes that all fictions are real in some sense.

If that were the case it shouldn't matter that someone else is using those characters or messing with those stories because they were never Moore's in the first place, he just found them.

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 16:01 on 2012-06-06

The whole thing seems grounded in a kind of skeevy Great Man Theory.

This is a bit of a tangent, and I apologize if it goes too far off course.

I've been thinking about the Great Man Theory as it applies to capitalism and entrepreneurship, especially the popular notion that all great successes in business are the work of individual (male) supergeniuses. An entrepreneur has a Great Idea that works and makes him billions, he becomes a cultural icon, and he can then do no wrong until he does. Women can't have Great Ideas, because barefoot pregnant make me a sandwich.

The other day I hear a guy bring up that Sheryl Sandberg is the real brains behind Facebook, for taking that slack-ass Mark Zuckerberg's idea and finding a way to make it profitable. Another guy loudly counters that Zuckerberg was the "visionary" who had the "great idea" for Facebook and therefore deserves 100% of the credit and fame he's received at everyone else's expense.

Now obviously Zuckerberg's role in Facebook was much greater than simply coming up with the original idea, and his role in creating and running the company shouldn't be downplayed. And the second guy is a bitter, thwarted misogynist anyway, so if Sandberg and Zuckerberg's roles had been switched he'd be championing execution over ideas. It just strikes me that an idea rarely, if ever, starts out as a Great Idea, and only becomes so in hindsight. If we're not used to thinking of women's ideas as potentially Great Ideas, we're never going to get to the point where women have a reputation for Great Ideas to point to. And of course nascent ideas are a lot harder to judge fairly and objectively than, say, job performance.

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James D

at 17:35 on 2012-06-06

The important thing about this anecdote, vis-a-vis this discussion, is that the entire concept of Watchmen came about as a result of the corporate ownership of characters created by people who were not Alan Moore, and Moore wanting to write a story very much at odds with the original intentions of the characters' creators. So the idea that the Watchmen characters somehow get to be sacred and mustn't be tampered with when they owe their very existence to Moore wanting to tamper with other people's characters seems pretty hypocritical to me.

While you have a point, I think it's oversimplifying to some degree. I'm pretty sure that, had Moore been allowed to use those old characters, they would have been significantly and obviously different from the originals. They would have been almost totally reimagined. With the Watchmen prequels, they're supposedly about the actual characters themselves, so what happens in the prequels may directly relate to what happens in the original graphic novel itself.

Even so, I really just don't see what the big deal is, to be perfectly honest. It'd be one thing if Alan Moore were some poor downtrodden author whose works barely got any attention beyond a small but loyal cult following, and then some huge corporate giant came in and swindled him out of his rights and completely ran away with the man's franchise in a way he never intended and never credited him with anything. But The Watchmen is a very, very well-known graphic novel. There have been numerous sequels written to the Oz books by a variety authors, yet nobody really bitches and moans about those because the originals are firmly understood to be the originals. The millions of Star Wars tie-in books, games, action figures, etc. don't somehow warp the quality of the original movies.

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Arthur B

at 17:49 on 2012-06-06

While you have a point, I think it's oversimplifying to some degree. I'm pretty sure that, had Moore been allowed to use those old characters, they would have been significantly and obviously different from the originals. They would have been almost totally reimagined. With the Watchmen prequels, they're supposedly about the actual characters themselves, so what happens in the prequels may directly relate to what happens in the original graphic novel itself.

Actually, as I understand it the point was to use established characters with an established history to sucker in readers with a cosy sense of familiarity before exposing them to just how vile the characters really are, so had that plan gone ahead I imagine it would have involved more than a few callbacks to the Charlton stable's original stories.

But it's impossible to say one way or another because DC didn't let Moore do it.

The millions of Star Wars tie-in books, games, action figures, etc. don't somehow warp the quality of the original movies.

Of course, in the case of Star Wars George Lucas has proved himself perfectly capable of ruining it all by himself...

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http://scipiosmith.livejournal.com/

at 18:09 on 2012-06-06

The whole thing reminds me of the kerfuffle over the proposed (but I believe never realised) Buffy revamp, when people were up in arms about the idea of Buffy without Joss Whedon. Even more peculiarly, people were insisting that a de-Whedoned Buffy would be a terrible blow against feminism, despite the fact that the lead writer on the proposed revamp would have been an actual woman.

Disregarding Buffy's feminism (I never interpreted Buffy as a show about feminism but rather about vampires, becasue I was 10) I don't think you can argue that it would have been different. Star Trek was very different after Gene Roddenberry's death to what it was before; which some people preferred and some people hated, but the difference is undeniable. So if you thought that Buffy was perfect just the way it was I can see the idea of someone messing it about might be upsetting.

Of course people ought to be honest and admit that they don't like the idea because they don't want their cherished memories polluted instead of trying to conjure politics, but that wouldn't sound as good in Slate.

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http://scipiosmith.livejournal.com/

at 18:09 on 2012-06-06Sorry, wouldn't have been different.

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http://barefoottomboy.livejournal.com/

at 18:40 on 2012-06-06Not being overly attached to Watchmen (or Alan Moore in general), I may not be best placed to make this call, but I just can't get too worked up about the prospect of a prequel that isn't/might not be as good as the original. As James D says, the existence of (a) prequel(s) doesn't negate the existence of the original, or somehow retrospectively reduce its quality.

Not to say that all prequels/sequels/extensions/whatever are always a good idea, of course. But if you don't like them, there's nothing stopping you ignoring them and sticking to the originals you liked in the first place.

In terms of creators getting screwed over by copyright & the comic book industry, I really don't know enough about either to comment intelligently. Though I must confess that my immediate/gut reaction to Jack Kirby's *estate* losing out on a share of the profit of the Avengers film is "so freaking what? Why should I care about Jack Kirby's estate - what did they have to do with the creation of those characters?".

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Arthur B

at 19:29 on 2012-06-06

Though I must confess that my immediate/gut reaction to Jack Kirby's *estate* losing out on a share of the profit of the Avengers film is "so freaking what? Why should I care about Jack Kirby's estate - what did they have to do with the creation of those characters?".

We care because it's the 18th Century and people's copyrighted works aren't just meant to earn them money, it's also meant to be a way for them to provide for their wives and children.

This is

literally

the only reason why copyright has this weird "until the author's death plus X years" duration thing going on.

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http://scipiosmith.livejournal.com/

at 20:25 on 2012-06-06You say that like its such a bad thing.

I must say I'm of the opinion that if you can live on unearned income you probably should- and free up a slot in the job market for someone who needs it.

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James D

at 21:15 on 2012-06-06

Of course, in the case of Star Wars George Lucas has proved himself perfectly capable of ruining it all by himself...

One might say the same of Michael Moorcock and Elric, or any number of other creators who went on to ruin their creations. Honestly, when it comes to shoddy sequels, I can't really think of any corporation that did as much damage to other people's characters as those two did to their own. There are plenty of shoddy corporate sequels out there, to be sure, but does Alien: Resurrection really tarnish Alien at all? I certainly wouldn't say so. It's much harder to be that sure about the Star Wars prequels, or Moorcock's ill-advised later Elric stories that he shoehorned into the original chronology, when new viewers/readers could very well go into those series and take them as a whole, without differentiating much between the old and the new.

An argument might be made that the comics industry is unfairly entrenched in the practice of forcing authors to sign the rights of their characters over if they want to be published, but as I mentioned earlier it's not like Moore and his family are starving while corporate fat cats reap the benefits of his ideas. It's not like they're spuriously attaching Moore's name to projects he has no part of. There may be an argument to be made here, but The Watchmen is hardly the ideal battleground for it.

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http://melaniedavidson.livejournal.com/

at 21:53 on 2012-06-06

He also, inexplicably, insists that his use of the character of Allan Quatermain in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is different from the Watchmen prequels because apparently nobody had heard of Allan Quatermain before he put him in a comic

I think it's funny that he chose probably the most obscure character for that example. Because even if Allan Quatermain was "almost entirely forgotten" (I don't know if this is the case even though I personally hadn't heard of him), the others are all from pretty well-known classics. I'm sure he knew how ridiculous it would sound if he said Jekyll and Hyde were obscure and forgotten and only about six people had heard of the story.

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Arthur B

at 22:07 on 2012-06-06

You say that like its such a bad thing. I must say I'm of the opinion that if you can live on unearned income you probably should- and free up a slot in the job market for someone who needs it.

The number of copyrighted works which actually still rake in a substantial amount of royalties decades after publication is amazingly small. I don't know whether the Tolkien Estate rakes in enough loot from LOTR for Christopher Tolkien and his extended family to sustain themselves without working - I suspect not given the drip-drip-drip of unpublished works coming out from those quarters. In fact, a hell of a lot of the beneficiaries of properties which still rake in mad loot after decades aren't estates or widows or orphans at all. It's the Disney Corporation and people like them.

An argument might be made that the comics industry is unfairly entrenched in the practice of forcing authors to sign the rights of their characters over if they want to be published, but as I mentioned earlier it's not like Moore and his family are starving while corporate fat cats reap the benefits of his ideas.

And of course anything we can say about the state of comics industry author contracts with regards to Watchmen applies mainly to contracts as they existed in the 1980s, when the rights were actually handed over, and offers us little insight into contracts as they exist now.

The situation in the 1980s isn't one I've investigated much, but today I'm really not bothered about it. We exist in an age when if a comic creator wants to publish their work online for everyone to enjoy, they can do so - and in fact make some money out of it. Enough to live lavishly? Probably not, but unless you're writing/drawing a big heap of stuff for DC/Marvel as well as your own personal pet projects you're not likely to be earning great cash from them either. There's no

reason

to even offer your all-original creations up to DC or Marvel in the first place unless think signing over your rights to them is a worthwhile price to pay to get wider distribution and a higher profile - and if you don't think that's a worthwhile price, don't sign the contract in the first place.

Conversely, if you want to write for DC and Marvel because you want to write stories using their characters, it's only fair that they should have editorial control over what you do and only fair that they get to play with any original creations you add to their universes. If you want to play in the big sandpit which is Gotham City (or wherever) it's silly to expect to be allowed to take your sandcastle home with you, and short-sighted to imagine that another kid won't kick over or improve your sandcastle once you leave.

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Dan H

at 22:44 on 2012-06-06

I think it's funny that he chose probably the most obscure character for that example. Because even if Allan Quatermain was "almost entirely forgotten" (I don't know if this is the case even though I personally hadn't heard of him), the others are all from pretty well-known classics. I'm sure he knew how ridiculous it would sound if he said Jekyll and Hyde were obscure and forgotten and only about six people had heard of the story.

That's a good point and one I'd failed to notice.

(Sorry, I have no comment beyond that)

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https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawkWbOwQVOANXVz3Xs8lGIILC0qzTMuEKS4

at 13:13 on 2012-06-07

Leaving aside the fact that one of the writers on the project is J. Michael Straczynski – who created one of the most respected (although perhaps also most overrated) works of TV SF ever made

Wow, I didn't realise Jeremiah was so popular!

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Sister Magpie

at 02:54 on 2012-06-09

I'm sure he knew how ridiculous it would sound if he said Jekyll and Hyde were obscure and forgotten and only about six people had heard of the story.

I'm not that familiar with LoEG but the little I remembered from it was making me ask just this question!

I must say I'm of the opinion that if you can live on unearned income you probably should- and free up a slot in the job market for someone who needs it.

But what's funny about that is that it's actually not about giving all money to someone for having the idea. Once you're talking about the estate you're saying that it's somehow more ethical to pay someone for being related to the person who created the character than for being the person who had something to do with making the character famous.

I really think people's real fright when it comes to things like this is that someone's going to tell a story they really don't like that bums them out--and I can sympathize because I hate it when comics play around with backstory in ways I don't like. Luckily if a story sucks it usually gets quietly dropped from continuity anyway. (There's a name for it I can't remember, referring to a bizarre alien who visited the Flash...)

With Watchman it seems like it's got a lot to do with the importance that Watchman is supposed to have, even though it's not really that tremendous.

Also, not only is it ironic that Moore was originally planning to use someone else's characters for the story, but it's not like Moore hasn't made some major changes to other peoples' characters and left others to sort them out. For instance, by paralyzing Barbara Gordon in The Killing Joke. I know he says he never knew it would be in continuity, but it changed comics--and not because of his story (which gets imo overpraised) but because other people came in afterwards with an idea for the character.

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Sister Magpie

at 02:55 on 2012-06-09Oh, p.s. That reminds me, thinking of the TKJ that yeah, I am really confused by the idea that Watchman needs to be kept in the hands of AM because other writers--especially female ones--will mess up all the feminism.

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Arthur B

at 13:14 on 2012-06-09

I know he says he never knew it would be in continuity, but it changed comics--and not because of his story (which gets imo overpraised) but because other people came in afterwards with an idea for the character.

I think it would be incredibly short-sighted for any comics author to say "but I didn't know that this idea I put forward in a

Batman

story would become

Batman

continuity!"

I mean, I see that you genuinely wouldn't know whether any particular story of yours would become key canon, get banished to the outer darkness of non-canonicity, or linger somewhere in between. But to not at least consider the possibility that DC might declare that something you have done should stick seems to involve wilfully ignoring how comics continuity works in the first place.

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Adrienne

at 23:09 on 2012-06-09Arthur B: Not so much so, actually. There's a lot of stuff done by the major comix houses that's very specifically pitched and written from the start as not-in-continuity. All of the

Elseworlds

from DC, and similar "What If..." stories from Marvel are in this category, as are the "Ultimate [Whoever]" stories by Marvel that explore alternate origins.

I grant that a VERY FEW of the Elseworlds stories have eventually ended up with bits in continuity (they apparently wrote a sequel series to Kingdom Come, and brought bits of that timeline into continuity. Which makes me sad, mostly because i think Kingdom Come was a remarkably self-contained and lovely piece of storytelling!) But if Alan Moore was told that Killing Joke was Elseworlds, frex, it would not at all have been an unreasonable assumption that nothing in it was going to ever be in continuity.

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Arthur B

at 23:32 on 2012-06-09

Not so much so, actually. There's a lot of stuff done by the major comix houses that's very specifically pitched and written from the start as not-in-continuity. All of the Elseworlds from DC, and similar "What If..." stories from Marvel are in this category, as are the "Ultimate [Whoever]" stories by Marvel that explore alternate origins.

True enough, though

The Killing Joke

wasn't, to my knowledge, promoted as being any of these (and as you point out, if an idea in an Elseworlds thingy gets popular enough then it'll snake its way into canon anyway).

As you say, if Alan Moore was told that

The Killing Joke

was an Elseworlds but then it wasn't promoted as one that'd be kind of sucky on the part of DC, but I don't see any suggestion that that was the case. On the other hand, I don't see that this is one of the reasons why he's upset with his treatment by DC in any case. Surely any comics author would be

thrilled

to have a plot element they introduced become a major ongoing thread in Batman continuity rather than something retconned away within a story or two?

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Sonia Mitchell

at 13:08 on 2012-06-12I have to admit to feeling that Watchmen is a bit of a special case, not because of merit (although I do like it an awful lot) but because it's *specifically* about how characters interpret the past. The story's present is not the key date; it's the lead-up to the Keane Act that the narrative really revolves around.

Which does kind of mean that any 'glory days' Minute Men [II] prequel is going to be dipping into the same timeline Watchmen covers in the narrative, which to me blurs the line between 'prequel' and 'reinterpreting a story which has already been told'. Watchmen showed us the Minute Men days from a number of perspectives - either the prequels will show more of the same old thing (in which case why bother?) or they'll introduce something which will specifically challenge the parent narrative.

I'm sort of intrigued to see what they do, and I do agree that Watchmen can bear to be challenged, I just don't think it's quite as clear-cut as some other prequels. Yes, plenty of comics and other stories have had backstory added later, but I don't think all that many of them were specifically *about* backstory.

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https://me.yahoo.com/a/bpFlIkMVk4ZqOVtCOXzX2V_0665JvfqFHA--#af083

at 14:16 on 2012-06-13A thoughtful and thought provoking essay. Excellent stuff.

I wonder, though, if your focus on commerce and copyright doesn’t tend to swerve a bit around Alan Moore's concerns. I think that the argument is not that DC and the writers and artists involved can't produce Watchmen prequels but rather that, for aesthetic or artistic reasons, they ought to choose not to. And the question of who profits from the endeavour is, as far as I can see, neither here nor there for these purposes.

So Watchmen is, according to this view, a finished work of art, and by monkeying around with the characters and back story you monkey around also with the integrity of the work; you risk diluting its affect or altering its cultural resonance. You might legitimately argue that no amount of monkeying prevents Watchmen from continuing to exist as the thing that it is. However, there seem two reasonably valid counterpoints, both stemming from the basic assumption that art is rarely meaningful without context. First, as Sonia Mitchell very acutely pinpoints above, Watchmen is very much about time and continuity, the future and the past, and by filling in the backstory you almost necessarily, although perhaps in a limited sense, do damage to the extant work. Second, Watchmen speaks implicitly to comics as a medium, and part of its power may be that it remains separate from the usual retrofitting, rebooting, continuity errors and the associated slash and burn approach to narrative. These arguments still rather depend on a willingness to think of Watchmen as exceptional, I admit (although as far as US superhero comics go I think it takes a lot of work to say that it’s not).

What I suspect really gets Moore’s goat about this is the simple disrespect, in particular as evidenced by his fellow artists. Watchmen is his single best claim to cultural relevance and longevity, he has explicitly said he’d much rather they left it alone, and yet still a whole bunch of quite eminent comics dudes (many of whom seem to bang on about how much they like/admire/were influenced by Moore in general and Watchmen in particular) are happy to take a DC cheque to monkey about with a story which he feels is complete.

On Moore ‘the personality’ I tend to think that while he may be intemperate, a bit silly, creatively stalled and less unimpeachable on, in particular, gender politics than I’d like, he’s generally more consistent, principled, and intellectually interesting than his opponents.

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Arthur B

at 14:40 on 2012-06-13

What I suspect really gets Moore’s goat about this is the simple disrespect, in particular as evidenced by his fellow artists.

Again, though: is this really that different from Moore's original intention to take characters and stories from the Charlton stable and monkey around with

them

? The only substantive difference is that whilst we know Moore's feelings about

Before Watchmen

nobody seems to have asked the Charlton creators how they'd have felt to have their characters despoiled had Moore's original vision for

Watchmen

come about.

I have a simple stance on these things: if you don't want someone to slaughter your baby,

don't sell your baby to them

. If

Watchmen

really is Moore's best claim to cultural relevance and longevity*, then at least part of that is down to DC's promotion of the book as this big-time smart comic for smart people and in their efforts in keeping it in print.**

* I'd dispute this point too.

V For Vendetta

, surely, has attained a greater level of cultural ubiquity thanks to Anonymous.

From Hell

is arguably on a par with

Watchmen

when it comes to critical acclaim.

** I understand that Moore argues that DC swindled him by not letting

Watchmen

go out of print, thus ensuring that the "reversion clause" in his contract would never kick in (which would have caused the rights to revert to him and Gibbons). It's hard to say how truthful or accurate this statement is unless Moore or DC actually publish the contract. However, if that is the case it seems that Moore negotiated a contract with DC where they'd either have to keep his comic in print for perpetuity - which I would argue goes a long way towards reinforcing that cultural relevance and longevity shebang - or give the rights back to him. In other words, they have to do one of two things they wouldn't do for Joe C. Ordinarywriter, and they chose the first option over the second option. Who could blame 'em?

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James D

at 15:04 on 2012-06-13The difference between the Watchmen characters and the Charlton Comics characters is that they were conceived very differently. When DC discouraged him from using the Charlton Comics characters, he invented his own - not to be a series, but to be a one-off novel with a specific character arc for each that brings their stories to a close. Comics writers inventing series understand that their characters will be written by other people, and probably take great pains to introduce plotlines and conflicts that they know won't ever truly be resolved or will at least last a really long time - Batman vs. Joker, Darkseid's quest for the Anti-Life Equation, etc. Watchmen instead invents characters not for a series, but for a novel, and ends them decisively.

Had Moore used the Charlton Comics characters, it would have been clear that the Watchmen story was very separate from their original stories, and highly unlikely to be ever seen as 'canon' to the original series, especially since he permanently kills a lot of them. Instead, it would have been seen by those who knew about the characters as an ironic counterpoint to who they actually were - like if someone wrote a one-off graphic novel in which Batman and Superman were evil, or something. That's the difference as I see it.

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Arthur B

at 17:52 on 2012-06-13Well, Moore thought that there'd be scope for a prequel - back when the thing first came out he said he'd consider doing one if

Watchmen

did well enough.

Of course, that was under the assumption that it'd be Moore writing it rather than someone else, which he was always against. But again: if someone doing something with your characters is unacceptable, don't sign a piece of paper giving them the right to do that.

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James D

at 19:00 on 2012-06-13Yeah, no argument here. It's not like there weren't alternative comics publishers back then that might have offered him a better deal in terms of what rights he would retain, but that would probably have involved settling for smaller print runs, less distribution, and less money in the end too.

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https://me.yahoo.com/a/bpFlIkMVk4ZqOVtCOXzX2V_0665JvfqFHA--#af083

at 12:38 on 2012-06-15

Again, though: is this really that different from Moore's original intention to take characters and stories from the Charlton stable and monkey around with them?

I think it’s pretty easy to draw distinctions (see eg James D. above), even if only of nuance, and I don’t, in any event, have much interest in asserting that Alan Moore is a paragon of moral and philosophical consistency (although he may very well be). However, I suspect that the extent to which you find the distinctions convincing and the possibility of hypocrisy forgivable will in the end align with how highly you rate Watchmen.

I have a simple stance on these things: if you don't want someone to slaughter your baby, don't sell your baby to them.

I wonder if this simplification obscures more than it illuminates. Selling a baby might well reduce the stake you have in its future, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you have neither say nor interest in how the new owner treats it, and nor does it mean that they have no responsibilities towards it, particularly in a world where baby-sale is the standard means by which babies are encouraged to fulfil their potential. However, this just takes us into contract law, and as I say there’s no suggestion that DC are doing anything illegal.

If Watchmen really is Moore's best claim to cultural relevance and longevity*, then at least part of that is down to DC's promotion of the book as this big-time smart comic for smart people and in their efforts in keeping it in print.**

Sure, I suppose so - good work DC! But so what?

It’s not directly relevant to this issue, but I’ve always struggled with the characterisation of Watchmen as a smart comic for smart people, it strikes me as at its best if understood as a smart superhero comic for smart superhero comics fans.

You may well be right about V for Vendetta, and From Hell - it’s probably an indication of my age that I still think of Watchmen as a sacred cow.

I’ll set out my stall for what it’s worth (the paper it’s written on, ie): I don’t care very much about Watchmen prequels, although I’d prefer it if they didn’t make them and I suspect DC of being a creatively bankrupt shower; I don’t think the prequels will do harm to Watchmen but I do think there’s a genuine risk that they might; I don’t find Alan Moore’s response to the decision particularly edifying; but I think he’s earnt the right to the respect of his peers and to be heard sympathetically.

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Arthur B

at 13:25 on 2012-06-15

Sure, I suppose so - good work DC! But so what?

So then Watchmen as a cultural institution is not purely a product of Alan Moore's unfettered genius or Dave Gibbons' stylish art; it's also a product of the promotion that DC has provided it with and DC's custodianship over the franchise as a whole. DC has a stake in the thing's success, and has more than earned it with said custodianship, so the idea that DC has no place to decide whether or not a prequel series would be a good idea because AUTHOR UBER ALLES seems a stretch. You can quibble as to whether DC is

practically capable

of doing a good job or whether the particular writers they have are up to the task, of course, though the arguments Dan's objecting to in the article aren't about such specifics; they're about general, absolutist claims that the prequels

cannot possibly be good because Alan Moore isn't involved

.

You may well be right about V for Vendetta, and From Hell - it’s probably an indication of my age that I still think of Watchmen as a sacred cow.

I dunno, I can't think of

any

pop cultural work which I'd describe as a sacred cow these days whereas I was much more inclined to do so when I was younger.

I don’t find Alan Moore’s response to the decision particularly edifying; but I think he’s earnt the right to the respect of his peers and to be heard sympathetically.

I think he has the right to be heard but how sympathetic I hear him kind of hinges on how much what he says makes sense to me. If someone's talking whiny, self-serving crap then I'm going to call it that whether it's Alan Moore or Random McWebcomicartist.

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James D

at 14:19 on 2012-06-15

So then Watchmen as a cultural institution is not purely a product of Alan Moore's unfettered genius or Dave Gibbons' stylish art; it's also a product of the promotion that DC has provided it with and DC's custodianship over the franchise as a whole. DC has a stake in the thing's success, and has more than earned it with said custodianship, so the idea that DC has no place to decide whether or not a prequel series would be a good idea because AUTHOR UBER ALLES seems a stretch.

I think this is oversimplifying things. The roles Moore and DC fulfilled in the production of the Watchmen were totally different; as far as I know, DC had little to nothing to do with the creative aspect of the novel, and Moore's objections to the prequels seem to be purely creative in nature. If on the other hand the dispute were on the business side, that Moore didn't think Watchmen prequels would sell and DC did, the shoe would be on the other foot.

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Arthur B

at 14:31 on 2012-06-15Again, since Moore a) wanted to do prequels back in 1985 and b) has said he'd have gladly accepted DC's offer to do the prequels (which was going to involve giving him the rights to

Watchmen

back if he said yes!!!) if they'd offered in 1985, then it seems to me that the dispute is entirely on the business side and the complete collapse of Moore and DC's professional relationship (and more particularly, the fact that Moore would rather keep sulking than engage in any sort of constructive dialogue with DC, even one which would lead to him getting what he'd wanted all along).

Also, FWIW Dave Gibbons is 100% fine with the prequels, so at half the original creative team is cool with the project.

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James D

at 17:37 on 2012-06-15Ah, I didn't know Gibbons was down with them. That does change things a bit. Moore is pretty much handling the whole thing like a big whiny baby. If there were prequels coming out to a book I'd written and there was nothing I could do about it, the first thing I'd say was "let me do them." If he didn't have ridiculous demands, DC would probably jump at the chance to slap Moore's name all over them.

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https://me.yahoo.com/a/bpFlIkMVk4ZqOVtCOXzX2V_0665JvfqFHA--#af083

at 09:39 on 2012-06-18

So then Watchmen as a cultural institution is not purely a product of Alan Moore's unfettered genius or Dave Gibbons' stylish art; it's also a product of the promotion that DC has provided it with and DC's custodianship over the franchise as a whole. DC has a stake in the thing's success, and has more than earned it with said custodianship, so the idea that DC has no place to decide whether or not a prequel series would be a good idea because AUTHOR UBER ALLES seems a stretch

.

Setting aside the perplexing CAPITALISED ALLUSION to the German national anthem (or possibly the Dead Kennedys), this is a fair point, although it seems designed to address a binary understanding of this dispute - I think everyone who has contributed to this thread has expressed a fairly mixed view, despite tending one way or the other. Meanwhile, the fact that DC are going ahead with this, in the face of Alan Moore’s explicit disapproval suggests that their interests are fairly well protected and represented. Your implicit notion that DC have earnt a right to a say in the artistic content of Watchmen (beyond questions of marketing, design and the commercially relevant business of protecting, managing and exploiting lucrative copyrights, I mean) is one that hadn’t really occurred to me, and that I instinctively don’t like, but I ought to go away and think about it properly. Thanks!

You can quibble as to whether DC is practically capable of doing a good job or whether the particular writers they have are up to the task, of course, though the arguments Dan's objecting to in the article aren't about such specifics; they're about general, absolutist claims that the prequels cannot possibly be good because Alan Moore isn't involved.

I’m not sure who you’re arguing with here so I’ll leave it.

I dunno, I can't think of any pop cultural work which I'd describe as a sacred cow these days whereas I was much more inclined to do so when I was younger. I think he has the right to be heard but how sympathetic I hear him kind of hinges on how much what he says makes sense to me. If someone's talking whiny, self-serving crap then I'm going to call it that whether it's Alan Moore or Random McWebcomicartist.

Quite a nice unintended irony here, but perhaps I’m just reeling from the old school ‘... yeah, I used to think that too … but then I grew up...’ dis. Is it possible, do you think, to imagine an

even older, even wiser Arthur

? I can just about manage it: he’s grizzled and twinkly-eyed, smoking a pipe, and, with a wry smile, looking down the years at his younger self’s righteous withholding of sympathy from both the mighty and the meek, his fearless enthusiasm for detecting 'whiny self-serving crap' in strangers, and his habit of slaying sacred cows while denying their existence.

JK! Before this degenerates into us chanting 'no YOU'RE immature!' at each other, I should also say, Arthur, that your precipitous enthusiasm for getting stuck in with the minimal possible delay is one of the things that make Ferretbrain fun for me, a fond reader.

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Arthur B

at 10:00 on 2012-06-18

Setting aside the perplexing CAPITALISED ALLUSION to the German national anthem (or possibly the Dead Kennedys), this is a fair point, although it seems designed to address a binary understanding of this dispute - I think everyone who has contributed to this thread has expressed a fairly mixed view, despite tending one way or the other.

Actually, it's a CAPITALISED ALLUSION to the extraordinarily pervasive idea that authors are an exalted form of being and anyone else's contribution to the success of a creative endeavour is secondary. Putting DC aside, I'd say there's a strong case that Dave Gibbons' contribution to the art, which extended to more than simply drawing stuff Moore described to him, is a part of the final package which can't be ignored, so Gibbons' support for the prequel project ought to be weighed against Moore's disapproval. And yet, so often in discussions about the subject Gibbons isn't even mentioned.

Is it possible, do you think, to imagine an even older, even wiser Arthur?

I can imagine all sorts of things, but winning an argument by hypothesising a version of your opponent who will agree with you is a strategem I hadn't even begun to conceive of. Bravo, I guess. ;)

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https://me.yahoo.com/a/bpFlIkMVk4ZqOVtCOXzX2V_0665JvfqFHA--#af083

at 10:16 on 2012-06-18Ha ha! Such a speedy reply, arguing so fiercely against points no one is currently making, is surely a nice intended irony!

I surrender the field to you Arthur - please continue to slag Alan Moore without any let or hindrance. I will instead exchange gentle, supportive imaginary emails with the imaginary future Arthur, who, you must concede, does at least seem like a jolly nice chap.

Good piece on the Soul Drinkers by the way.

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Arthur B

at 10:20 on 2012-06-18I anticipate being as confused by our future correspondence as I am by our present.

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http://fishinginthemud.livejournal.com/

at 19:50 on 2012-06-18

I will instead exchange gentle, supportive imaginary emails with the imaginary future Arthur, who, you must concede, does at least seem like a jolly nice chap.

Best. Flounce. Ever.

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Fin

at 23:51 on 2012-06-18and now for the moment when it's revealed that you've been speaking with your future self all along.

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Arthur B

at 00:08 on 2012-06-19/decodes lottery numbers from posts in thread.

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Ibmiller

at 18:44 on 2012-07-02So, anyone check any of these out? I'm currently following Silk Specter, Minutemen, and Nite Owl, and liking them. Because his Superman story left me cold and his Wonder Woman story leaves me furious, I'm giving Azzerello's Comedian and Rorschach stories a pass. Plus, I'm not a huge fan of those characters by themselves - seeing a young Rorschach with a Nite Owl is much more interesting to me.

[iceraptor]

Trollgust 2018: Day 2 - Ruins

Music Here

Sholazar Basin was uncomfortably humid at any time of year. Sweat beaded on her brow and clung to her fur in a way that made her skin itch. The light armor she wore offered a little respite, but left her skin exposed to the sun and swarms of stinging insects in the brush.

At least there was some shade. And plenty of water.

She'd been patiently following the family of mammoths for days. A female with two juveniles that followed trailed behind her. Her attention had fallen on the smaller of the two, that ladded behind the rest. Waited for it to peel away to examine something in the landscape before she stepped out from her hiding place behind a large, ancient fern.

She stretched out one three-fingered hand and closed her eyes

---

The hunting party approached the Altar of Mam'toth from the south, skillfully avoiding Argent patrol routes as they went. Their leader rode a great blue raptor with bones and mummified remains strung all along the barding. Some of them looked very fresh.

Their spirits were high. They'd recently taken out a Scourge detachment that had included a potent necromancer, and they laughed and joked and passed the sorcerer's skull headdress between them. Taking turns wearing it. They weren't afraid of death anymore, or whatever minions of the Lich King they met on the roads. When the arrived at the shrine, they expected to be blessed and heralded as champions.

They imagined they'd drink deeply of the mammoth god's blood so they could fight on.

One of the scouts pointed out an anomaly of the landscape - no sight of the Altar where it should be. A hush descended on the party, and they hurried the rest of the way in silence until they were close enough to see it right in front of them.

They stood at the edge of a deep crater where the ancient temple once stood. An eerie light emanating from the ground cast onto all of their faces.

"Look," their leader pointed at something near the bottom. "There's blood still down there - lets go get what we can." And he spurred his raptor on and started down.

The god's own blood roiled up out of the ground and overwhelmed him before he could get ten paces down. Angry fluid glowing with powerful mojo that rose up where it had soaked the permafrost, moving with a clear purpose of its own.

As the last cries of the dying raptor fell silent, it roiled again and turned on the rest of them like a wave. Those that survived scattered and fled and hid. Torgali's clearest memory of the even was the sight of the necromancer's skull clattering to the earth as the troll who was holding it perished. Of raising her bow (the weapon covered in so many bones it might as well have been made of them) and firing arrow after arrow after arrow as she made herself a path to get away.

As she fled north for the relative safety of Gundrak, she could almost hear the loa's anguish and rage behind her. Just an echo, the voice of a ghost howling just under the wind

-- Taming a wild beast was difficult. It required patience and the ability to form a kind of spiritual bond with the animal spirit. Sometimes the animal initially reacted with hostility or violence, but with her fingers outstretched towards the mammoth, she felt nothing at all. No contact, for good or for ill.

And when she opened her eyes, she was alone. The small herd had moved past like she wasn't there at all.

As a dying curse on his treacherous followers, the loa Mam'toth had sacrificed his own life in a violent conflagration that had destroyed his temple. The ground there was still poisoned with his blood and pain, and now the mammoths of Northrend would not come to her hand. Not in Zul'drak or the Borean Tundra, not even here in the cradle of Sholazar's powerful life essence. The only thing that answered was the memory of the dead god's terrible rage.

Huffing a defeated breath into the sticky air, Torgali turned to retrieve her cached gear and leave. Both further north and further south of here, the weather was cooler and more pleasant.

Maybe it was for the best. She had no idea where or how she'd house a mammoth anyways.

[medicinenew]

A dreadful night, it had surfaced during this faithful hour. once more a reminder rung itself again. For years a hunter of vague desires had taken to walking the very Earth in search of a monster, one so murderous and vile, that it had brought death to the hunter’s very own family. They had taken to their crusade without even a longing for assistance. Perhaps believing their weapons, their abilities that took years to hone, to be enough. One such weapon was a mockery, one meant to mimic a grander tool belonging to another bloodline. It was not blessed, it was not holy, and it was not only means for the beasts that dwell in the dark. It is a cursed weapon of blood-thirst, a chain of sharp edges that sunk into arms of flesh, it was as though it longed to drain it’s host dry of what kept them living, and only could it be kept at bay by blood of beasts and mortal from killing the one that controlled it.

Some may even say it was the true hunter, and the person it was attached to was the tool by which it killed. Now then, enough talk of such a weapon, this was the hunter’s tale, and they were on the verge of finding the monster’s location. A monster searching for a monster... at least that is what the hunter believed, approaching the castle on foot with neither steed or nor carriage. A foolhardy quest to say the least, but the hunter had learned of local townsfolk going missing, and a man of simple attire luring them away into the night. Where they went? No one knew, but a guess could be surmised, as the bodies would be found not too far off but the man... descriptions always varied. A monster of changing shape, draining those of untainted blood dry. No one dared approached the long-abandoned castle, either in fear or doubt. But the hunter lacked fear, and only ought vengeance as they traveled down the dirt path, and trekked along the stone path near the castle till they came across a gate ajar.

It was something to take note of, entering through the gateway, and into the overgrown courtyard, the hunter made a mental note, and proceeded to open main entrance into the castle’s interior, the door leaving a loud creak in it’s wake. “I hope he heard me, loud and clear...” muttered the hunter, an odd shift of their voice as they proceeded onward. The inner walls were nothing but history of the ones that once resided there, everything was in shambles, from the floor to the ceiling, seems the monster couldn’t be bothered to bring the place up to keep... stone walls were loose, almost ready to collapse inwards, but seemingly they were still in well enough condition to keep together to a point. Thus far, the only things lighting the path forward was candlelight, perhaps the monster suspected someone to come. It seemed only natural by how many he had taken away to drain, someone would grow suspicious eventually...

Snarling caught their ears as they continued to keep movement steady, trying not to stop in hopes of picking up the pace of the searching. But the sound grew louder and closer, till a beast was what blocked their path, a wolf of enlarged proportions, snarling at the hunter with teeth as large as a two-handed claymore. The glow of the monster’s eyes shone through the dark before it charged forward, and the hunter ever prepared slid along the floor with whip out at the ready. The chain was gripped with ferocity as the hunter stood up, and took to charging at the wolf this time, monster doing the same once more, but with the slide the chain was flung, and darted right into the beast’s hide, sinking into the flesh and becoming trapped with it. The wolf let out a howl of pain and tried to shake it out, or at the very least pull on it, but, making the weapon budge was nigh impossible, once in, the difficulty of getting it out was too much. For now.. .the hunter just had to survive, keeping away from the beast’s ferocious jaw and from becoming trapped under it’s body.

They say, the bigger they are, the harder they fall, and fall it did, ensnared in a tangle of the whip’s chain, it’s legs tightly wrapped as blades sunk inwards to feast. All it could do was whimper as they hunter strolled on over, humility was lacking in the hunter’s soul, but even they could not allow such suffering to continue, so they pulled on the chain, and it’s grip hung onto the beast before being pulled out. Seems it went in deeper than they thought, assaulting the organs to satisfy a terrible taste. As the whimpers softened, the hunter moved forward, crimson trickling down the chain, as well as it’s wielder’s wrist. The monster’s of the castle were few, but that was to be expected from the hidden ruler of this abode, they weren’t some grand monster, let alone a being that struck fear into the hearts of man and woman alike... no, he was much less than that.

Approaching the castle’s throne room, the hunter had just dealt with the few guardians that remained, primarily that of gargoyles surprisingly, no wonder the place seemed so unguarded, with monsters that only appeared to be statues. With one boot in the room, the place lit up, fire crackling as it shone on the castle’s current inhabitant. Commoner clothes, pale skin, a gangly physique, seemingly easy to approach, but... the darkness is what kept people from truly seeing how unnatural he was, sitting on that throne like some sort of regal ruler. “Ah, and who has come to bother me at this hour? A pesky villager sent to see the ongoings of this castle? Or perhaps a hunter of my kind?” he asked with a tired tone, lips wet with blood from his recent victim. “Either way, I know why you come, now, how about I tell you just whom your dealing with?” As though the hunter didn’t know, “Enough! I did not come for idle talk, I came for your death, to pay you back for what you did so long ago!” The hunter was almost on the verge of screaming through tightly clenched teeth, and he could only look at them, not with amusement, or curiosity, but a strange sense of understanding. “Ah... is it you then? I believed the curse to have taken your mind, did you come for me because of what I did? Or because of what you have done?  I must admit that you were very trusting to allow me into your home and into your life... so I wonder... did you seek me out for the death of your sister, cousin?”

The hunter went silent for a moment, and the monster looked with sorrow to the relative of blood. But that silence did not last for as long as it was broken by a sound echoing throughout the walls of the room, the chain, as it’s blade went through the chest and into his heart. Mild annoyance was the expression that spread on his face as her rose, gripping the chain with two hands. “Do you think to kill me with this alone? This will not be how I die tonight, my foolish relative.” And he pulled with an inhuman strength, powerful enough to wretch the weapon from his undead heart. It dropped to the ground, shirt stained with deep crimson from the hole left. a terrible wound but survivable. “No, I do not.” Came the few words spoken from quiet breath, and out from the hunter’s coat came daggers, tossed with surprising accuracy to pierce flesh, but all of them seemed to go straight through him like that of a spirit, or a ghost. “I hope you know, I am not one to be caught off-guard twice, the first time was only because I felt pity for you, but now... I do not feel such sorrow.” and just outside the castle’s window storm clouds began circle from above, lightning crackled and struck the ground just below in the courtyard, and the rain became to trickle, but such small drops grew heavy, and the rain almost seemed to suffocate with how hard it was falling.

“Now then, prepare to perish, just as the rest of your family has, Hunter!” it almost felt like the divide between them grew stronger, now no longer was one considering the other as family, it was simply monster versus monster. They tried to catch him by surprise once more, daggers out to mask the true weapon, and he went through them again, only to be met by chain... the chain he was quick enough to catch, wrapping it around his arm he felt it dig, and then used it, pulling the hunter closer, and then flinging them into the nearby wall of stone. Pain rushed through the mind of the monster’s would-be killer, but they strove to keep alert and awake. Another tug was enough to send them tumbling to the floor, and the man pulling them closer. “Look at you, seems you weren’t prepared to murder me like you thought, unfortunate, is it not?” then he lifted them by shirt and expected to be met with typical weapon, “Go ahead, I know just what you plan to do, and I can tell you... it will not be enough.” but instead of sword meeting body, it was water meeting his eyes, an unexpected bottle was smashed against his face, burning, seething pain that felt almost like fire as he dropped through hunter. “You... had holy water on you?!” The monster was giving pained breaths as he made effort to recover from the attack. “Yes, and it gave me just the opportunity I needed.” and then the chain was gripped tightly, blood flowing straight out from the other glove, and then whip sought to sink even deeper. “Ahhh... AHHHHH!!” Pain from two angles infuriated him, blinding his rational with rage, “Enough of this!” his size began to change, the monster expanding closer to the ceiling as he grew large enough to not be so easily felled, but the ceiling gave way, and rain began to pour in. “You will die now, and you will not live through this night!” he tore the weapon right off, along with bits of flesh falling to the wet floor.

Perhaps he hoped to crush the hunter in a single grip, or tear them limb from limb, but that was not to be like it seemed. As then lightning struck down from the out of control storm, combustion was caused upon impact as it struck him, flesh burning as patience thinned even further. He could not take it anymore, attempting to put it out, and then trying to ignore it when stuck about. He last sought to attack the hunter, but size was cumbersome, and the hunter found a way to get the chain around him, to an extent. Problems only sought to arose further, the worst of all being the castle’s structure... apparently in his anger he had not realized that the support was becoming loose, and buckling under his weight, for rather soon the floor was giving out, and he was the one descending to the bottom below, flesh burning all the way down, and dragging the hunter with him. Though they both fell, the hunter was one to rise back up, bruised and battered, with some broken bones atop his undead corpse. Why had fate sought to ruin his quiet life after so long. “And here... I thought... only I would be surviving, just like before...” his form began to revert back to the size it once had as he lied there amongst stone and rubble, staring up at the covered face of the hunter. “But... it seems fate was not in my favor...” then the piercing power of her whip went straight into his body once more. “It was in yours... cousin... you were the one to best me... the fearsome Draugar... I’m sorry for what pain I put you through... but I suppose I felt jealousy for the life I could not have... now, may I see the face of the one to best me?..” a last request, and the hunter obliged, such cold, rotting hands touched the soft face belonging to the hunter, and the Draugar couldn’t believe his eyes. “Ah... I see now... my assumption was misplaced... well... at least you acquired what you sought... vengeance...” the hunter nodded, watching as her former relative closed his eyes for the final time, and the hunter felt satisfaction, peace, and yet... something still had to be done, so he would not return once more to torment the living.

“You did not have a grave, I realize now, it was no wonder you could not be stopped...” spoke the hunter, digging up the nearby ground in the courtyard, even if there was loathing in their mind, a proper burial still had to be given. With no coffin in hand, he had to be laid into the ground without one, and covered in freshly dug dirt. The hunter even took one of the nearby tombstones, blank, and unused and put it right above his grave, scratching his name into it with a blade. “Here lies Christoph... may he rest in piece...” a sigh escaped those lips and the hunter stood up, now desiring to keep going on, but maybe this was a good time for a nap, as the cloud cleared, and moonlight shone upon the castle, off the hunter went, to sleep and recuperate for another hunt...

[xaoh-f-goon]

All the filler pages carry the same filler text (as a prop, obviously the in-universe book does not. Probably). I recognise the bulk of the text as from this edition of the Daily Punctilio, and the rest is also in the writing style of a newspaper, so in a roundabout way I believe I now have an accurate transcript for some of the first season’s articles. Mostly by Geraldine Julienne, though the last three articles feel different to this volunteer. I don’t think these appear elsewhere (ie, written for the show not copied from TUA) but please correct me if I’m wrong. It is not the first time I’ve recognised articles but not known where from, so clearly I have a Blind Spot yet to be fixed.  [It must be show-only as it refers to the Poes as married - Ed]

Transcript under cut. I have used my intuition to separate the articles. Content warning for major series spoilers, inaccurate reporting and repetitive writing.

“I think the way into a man’s wallet is through the stomach” she said! Women in the office is sure one for the books!

Well when Montgomery was on a snake expedition in the Western Ghats Mountains of Southern India he could hear an odd immature giggle. Montgomery thought he was going crazy after hearing this giggle over a few days he decided to go on a hunt. 

Finally good news to report on the orphan Baudelaire children. Citizens can rest easy as the children have found a new guardian Count Omar. Count Omar is a famous actor from the Grand Theatre in The City and has graciously accepted the children into his home. After a grueling few days the children were living with Mr. Poe and Eleanor Poe our amazing and exceedingly distinguished Editor-In-Chief. Mr. Poe announced today that Count Omar is the children’s closest living relative and has agreed to help the poor orphaned children by taking them into his lovely, clean and beautiful home. Our investigative photo reporters were able to snap some photos of the children entering Count Omar’s home. They look more than thrilled to be able to finally call a new place home again. Veronica, Klyde, and Susie Baudelaire can res easy now knowing that Count Omar is their closest living relative and is there to take care of them. Count Omar is a distinguished actor in The City’s community and has put on countless plays that he has written, directed, and starred in. Some you may know such as The Most Handsome Man in the World, and its sequel Why, I believe I’ve Become Even More Handsome! And a very suspenseful play One Last Warning to Those Who Try to Stand in My Way, a very enthralling play I do say so myself. Count Omar seems to be a very suitable guardian for the Baudelaire children and he has seemed to have taken such a great interest in their well-being that there is talk amongst the town that he is writing a new play and it is to star the children themselves. Our sources say that he wants the children to feel welcome in his and in his theatre community be showing them first hand what it is he does as a career and what they are now apart of. Our sources say that the play will be called The Marvellous Marriage and it sounds very exciting! Hopefully with the children settling into Count Omar’s home they can finally start to heal the burn wounds that the great fire left by taking their home and their parents. As reported a few days ago a great fire took place at the Baudelaire mansion burning it down to the ground and taking the lives of Beatrice and Bertrand Baudelaire leaving behind their three children. The Fire Department is still investigating the fire even though they are sure it was nothing more than just a terrible fire leading to a series of unfortunate events for the children. 

It has been a short time since the Baudelaire’s parents tragically perished in a blazing fire that took their lives and also their home. Veronica, Klyde, and Susie still remain orphans. Mr. Poe the husband of the great Eleanor Poe our Editor-In-Chief here at the Daily Punctilio is currently looking after the children till their closest living relative is found for them to live with. The children were seen standing in the ruins of their home. Sifting through ash and rubble looking for belongings they can take with them on their new adventure as orphans. It looks like the children are trying to find reminders of their past life and look for photographs to remember their late parents. We were able to speak with the children briefly before they left with Mr. Poe. To summarize what they said “we miss our parents dearly, and we could not have foreseen the unfortunate events that have taken place this afternoon” - Klyde.  “Our mother Beatrice had suggested we go to Briny Beach to enjoy the sunshine as if she knew we shouldn’t be in the house. I would never have thought that those would be our last words spoken to each other. I wish I could have hugged her for just a moment longer before letting go of her.” - Veronica.  We are not sure if Susie the children’s infant sister can truly comprehend the loss she has suffered. She will never know her parents which is a tragedy in its own. 

Our hearts break for these poor orphan children. Enduring a loss such as the loss they are currently enduring is simply to hard for one to comprehend. Unless they to have lost their parents and home in a fire that engulfed all their memories, and belongings containing such sentimental value, then they can comprehend and sympathize for the Baudelaire children. Hopefully the children can find their long lost relative and are able to begin healing and start rebuilding a relatively normal life. Although going through such a series of unfortunate events such as these ones they have been subject to so far seems very difficult to be able to continue a normal life. It seems the children have a great many struggles ahead as they begin their new lives alone. 

The only person who works at the library also owns it and there is a separate area where they live. Only some tourists usually visit the library to see what all the fuss is about but it is indeed just a library. Many find it to difficult to access the library so they simply go to the one in The City. As the investigation goes so far the VPD and the VFD believe it was a fire that started in the library and the heat that cracked the glass. It is unsure if the owner started the fire or if it was started by an arsonist trying to burn books that hold many clues to many things. Luckily the owner was able to escape and explained that some one had started the fire. A customer who looked like neither a man nor a woman. This person will be very hard to catch because of the lack of a description to the owner could give. What does a man nor woman look like, that is the question many are posing. The VPD and the VFD also say that cannot really investigate more because the library sunk to the bottom of the ocean near which is located near briny beach. The underwater libraries flooding will remain a mystery. Unless a new and easier way to get to the library is invented. 

Many citizens who live around The City’s train tracks are complaining of a loud tooting sound, sounds you hear usually coming from a train such as toot-toot. As you know the trains tooting sounds were taken out last year due to people’s complaints that they were annoying.

[thebaudelairecase-blog]

The news paper clippings on Snickets wall in the miserable mill, what do they all say?

Hello! I’ve broken them down just to make it easier to read:

Noted Scientist Dies of Snake Allergies- Dr Montgomery Montgomery Hated the Slimy Creatures: 

There has been much speculation in the media this week as world renowned herpetologist Dr. Montgomery Montgomery was found dead in his Reptile Atrium in the late afternoon. Police and a coroner did confirm that he died from a snake bite that contained very deadly venom. It has been speculated that Montgomery died from snake allergies

… being allergic to the snake. It is due from the deadly venom that is injected by the snake and into the blood stream that causes death. Many believe that ‘allergies’ however he said if that was the case then everyone in the universe would then be ‘allergic’ to snakes. He claims many are confused by this and he isn’t sure why. The herpetologist refused to try and explain it

… investigating the fire even though they are sure it was nothing more than just a terrible fire leading to a series of unfortunate events for the children. It has been a short time since the Baudelaire’s parents tragically perished in a blazing fire that took their lives and also their home. 

Veronica, Klyde and Susie still remain orphans. Mr Poe the husband of the great Eleanor Poe our Editor-In-Chief here at the Daily Punctilio is currently looking after the children till their closest living relative is found for them to live with. The children were seen standing in the ruins of their home. Sifting through ash and rubble looking for their belongings they can take with them on their new adventure as orphans. It looks like the children are trying to find reminders of their past life and parents.

Lakeside Home Destroyed- Authorities Blame Cabal of Real Estate Agents: 

Reported by Special Correspondent Bo Wilch. 

However we are finally not reporting about another house fire instead many are speculating that this disaster was much worse. Josephine Anwhistle and her house tore apart and crashed into the jagged cliff rocks below into Lake Lachrymose where the leeches were waiting and ate Josephine alive. Perishing in a fire would have been much better compared to being eaten alive by deadly leeches. She succumbed to the same death as her husband who also died by the leeches. 

Again another caretaker of the Baudelaire children has died. Somehow these children seem to be in the middle of a series of unfortunate events. Many speculate that somehow Count Olaf is also involved, police have yet to confirm this. Josephine was an Aunt to the Baudelaire children and now she is a distant memory just like her house. Police have now started to investigate the children seeing as they are always involved in their guardians death. They keep insisting that Count Olaf is the one to kill their guardian in order to kill them in order to kill them in order to steal their fortune. 

Perhaps the children killed their parents, killed Dr Montgomery Montgomery, and now killed their Aunt Josephine to protect their fortune from anyone trying to steal it.

Snicket, Author and Fugitive, Dead!

… And eventually turned to murder. Though there has not been enough evidence to support these claims police are more than sure like pretty sure it was Snicket.

 … this afternoon” - Klyde. 

“Our mother Beatrice has suggested we go to Briny Beach to enjoy the sunshine as if she knew we shouldn’t be in the house. I would never have thought that those would be our last words spoken to each other. I wish I could have hugged her for just a moment longer before letting go of her”- Veronica

We are not sure … Susie the children’s in a very exciting night has occurred at the Grand Theatre this evening. Count Olaf a local performer at the Grand Theatre staged the Marvelous Marriage. The play featured Count Omar as the Groom, Veronica as the bride, and some other folks as extras! What seemed to be a very boring play at the beginnign it sure sure turned out to be more exciting in the end in the final act, Count Locations where Snicket has been hiding out had been found with an alarming amount  of research on the Baudelaire children. It is unclear at the time what his research…

Accident At Lucky Smells

One of Paltryville’s ctizen has gone missing inside Lumbermill believe to have been an accident

One of Paltryville’s citizen has gone missing inside the Lucky Smells Lumbermill detectives believe foul play may have been involved. 

Due to circumstances surrounding the incident the victim’s name cannot be released at this time. Trouble in Paltryville began when three orphaned children Baudelaire showed up in town young may guessed it the Baudelaire children. After countless troubles with the children they were given an opportunity of a life time and were given the chance to work alongside Sir at world renowned Lucky Smells Lumbermill. Lucky Smells has received praise all around the world for the quality of lumber they supply and the outstanding customer service…

… Indeed if a snake killed him however another popular theory are the Baudelaire children were somehow involved. 

They were later taken and given to their Aunt Josephine who also has perished due to her falling off a cliff she had lived on with her late husband that succumbed to the Lake Lachrymose leeches. as you can guess the…

So I suppose the real question is what don’t they say? 

[blookmallow]

ok so i noticed that the words in Sir’s book are actually legible if you pause at the right times so i uh

spent entirely too long reading as much of it as i could and this’s what i found :’) 

there’s one page that just repeats over and over and it. weirdly seems to be the daily punctilio article mrs. poe wrote about the baudelaires?? im guessing they probably used it for a newspaper prop somewhere and just reused the text since they figured no one would be. doing this :’ ) but anyway i transcribed it. weird punctuation/misspellings/etc are copied as it was written

"I think the way into a mans wallet is through he stomach" she said! .Women in the office is sure one for the books!

Well when Montgomery was on a snake expedition in the Western Ghats Mountains of Souther India he could hear a odd immature giggle. Montgomery thought he was going crazy after hearing this giggle over a few days he decided to go on a hunt. Finally good news to report on the orphan Baudelaire children. Citizens can rest easy as the children have found a new guardian Count Omar. Count Omar is a famous actor from the Grand Theatre in The City and has graciously accepted the children into his home. After a grueling few days the children were living with Mr. Poe and Eleanor Poe our amazing and exceedingly distinguished Editor-In-Chief. Mr. Poe announced today that Count Omar is the children's closest living relative and has agreed to help the poor orphaned children by taking them into his lovely, clean and beautiful home. Our investigative photo reporters were able to snap some photos of the children entering Count Omar's home. They look more than thrilled to be able to finally call a new place home again. Veronica, Klyde, and Suzie Baudelaire can res easy now knowing that Count Omar is their closest living relative and is there to take great care of them. Count Omar is a distinguished actor in The City's community and has put on countless plays that he has written, directed, and starred in. Some you may know such as The Most Handsome Man in the World, and its sequel Why, I believe I've Become Even More Handsome! And a very suspenseful play One Last Warning to Those Who Try to Stand in My Way, a very enthralling play I do say so myself. Count Omar seems to be a very suitable guardian for the

Baudelaire children and he has seemed to have taken such a great interest in their well-being that there is talk amongst the town that he is writing a new play and it is to star the children themselves. Our sources say that he wants the children to feel welcome in his home and in his theatre community by showing them first hand what it is he does as a career and what they are now apart of. Our sources say that the play will be called The Marvellous Marriage and it sounds very exciting! Hopefully with the children settling into Count Omar's home they can finally start to heal the burn wounds that the great fire left by taking their home and their parents. As reported a few days ago a great fire took place at the Baudelaire mansion burning it down to the ground and taking the lives of Beatrice and Bertrand Baudelaire leaving behind their three children. The Fire Department is still investigating the fire even though they are sure it was nothing more than just a terrible fire leading to a series of unfortunate events for the children. It has been a short time since the Baudelaire's parents tragically perished in a blazing fire that took their lives and also their home. Veronica, Klyde, and Susie still remain orphans. Mr. Poe the husband of the great Eleanor Poe our Editor-In-Chief here at the Daily Punctilio is currently looking after the children till their closest living relative is found for them to live with. The children were seen standing in the ruins of their home, Sifting through ash and rubble looking for belongings they can take with them on their (blocked by subtitles)

It looks like the children are trying to find reminders of their past life and look for photographs to remember their late parents. We were about to speak with the children briefly before they left with Mr. Poe.

To summarize what they said "we miss our parents dearly, and we could not have forseen the unfortunate events that have taken place this afternoon" - Klyde. "

Our mother Beatrice had suggested we go to Briny Beach to enjoy the sunshine as if she knew we shouldn't be in the house. I would never have thought that those would be our last words spoken to each other.

I wish I could have hugged her for just a moment longer before letting go of her." - Veronica. We are not sure if Susie the children's infant sister can totally comprehend the loss she has suffered. She will never know her parents which is a tragedy in its own.

Our hearts break for these poor orphan children. Enduring a loss such as the loss they are currently enduring is simply to hard for one to comprehend. Unless they to have lost their parents and home in a fire that engulfed all their memories and belongings containing such sentimental value, then they can comprehend and sympathize for the Baudelaire children.

Hopefully the children can find their long lost relative and are able to begin healing and start rebuilding a relatively normal life. Although going through such a series of unfortunate events such as these ones they have been subject to so far seems very difficult to be able to continue a normal life. It seems the children have a great many struggles ahead as they begin their new lives alone. The only person who works at the library also owns it and there is a separate area where they live. Only some tourists usually visit the library to see what all the fuss is about but it is indeed just a library. Many find it to difficult to access the library so they simply go to the one in The City.

As the investigation goes so far the VPD and the VFD believe it was a fire that started in the library and the heat the cracked the glass. It is unsure if the owner started the fire or if it was started by an arsonist trying to burn books that hold many clues to many things.

Luckily the owner was able to escape and explained that some one had started the fire. A customer who looked like neither a man nor a woman. This person will be very hard to catch because of the lack of a description to the owner could give. What does a man nor woman look like, that is the question many are posing. The VPD and the VFD also say that cannot really investigate more because the library sank to the bottom of the ocean near which is located near briny beach. The underwater libraries flooding will remain a mystery. Unless a new and easier way to get to the library is invented. Many citizens who live around The City's train tracks are complaining of a loud tooting sound. sounds you hear usually coming from a train such as toot-toot. As you know the trains tooting sounds were taken out last year due to people's complaints that they were annoying.

however one page repeated most of this but then changed to something else partway through but i couldn’t pause it with the page flat enough to be able to completely read it 

something about the marvellous marriage, the grand theatre being boring, a deadly crash, and Seacars

then the page before the censored page

says this:

An exchange between Sir and Ray Hardwood took place days before the Paltryville Fire. Many suspect that the argument the two men had are what caused Ray to act out and torch Paltryville. However due to lack of evidence aka lack of Lucky Smells Lumbermill the Paltryville Fire and Police Department could not pin how the fire was started or who started the fire. After Lucky Smells was burnt to a crisp biscuit Roy left town leaving many in suspicion that it was indeed he who started the fire. Only a few past employees have spoken about the exchange that occurred and the details truly bring to light the events that lead up to the Paltryville Fire. Roy had come to town to take back what he thought was rightfully his Lucky Smells. But as we all know to be true Sir started Lucky Smells from the ground up. Roy believed that it was his families name that started in Paltryville and his father and Sirs father had an idea about using driftwood from the Mortmain Mountains to begin a small lumber mill to help supply lumber to a growing Paltryville.

Roy accused Sirs father of stealing the idea and began building his own lumber mill. When Sir refused to believe Roy and explaining to him that it was his father who began Lucky Smells, and when it came time he took that company from his father and turned it into the empire it is today. After that exchange Sir banned Roy from Lucky Smells and had his men kick Roy out. Roy began acting outrageously pushing employees and swinging logs around and so Sir had no other choice but to call the police and the was the last anyone had seen Roy until the fire.

and the uncensored page, which is what STARTED ALL THIS bc i wanted to know what it said and realized it was visible just long enough that you could potentially see it, is clearly written by sir: 

The Baudelaires were unequivocally responsible for putting out the fire. "We happened to be enjoying a lovely picnic at our favorite picnic spot at the edge of the Finite Forest when we saw the flames", Mr. Baudelaire told representatives of the Official Fire Department once they arrived on the scene. His wife added, "As good citizins, it was our duty to leap into action. Would you care for a madeleine? They're freshly baked." Eyewitnesses claim Mr. Baudelaire repurposed a large cowbell, a hammer, and a ten-foot pole to create a makeshift fire alarm, which he rang to warn the townsfolk to evacuate their homes, while Mrs. Baudelaire re-distributed the Lucky Smells water circulation system to put out the blaze. (Rest assured, I have billed her for the use of the water. It's not like it just falls from the sky!)

As if one day of heroics wasn't enough, the Baudelaires were also responsible for relocating the survivors, and setting them up with "good jobs in the city, where they can raise their families in peace and security, knowing that their homes are protected and non-flammable and that a reliable fire department is always nearby." A lovely sentiment, but I sure hope that my tax dollars aren't paying for that!

I myself was away on a busman's holiday in the city, where I took a bus to my favorite hot wood sauna, so I completely missed the fire, though I'm happy to report that my time in the sauna was quite relaxing. In fact, it was so relaxing that I fell asleep. When I woke up, either several minutes or several hours later (the sauna did not contain a clock), I was very hungry, and ordered a lunch of alphabet soup, which I ate with my silver spoon, and a cigarillo, which is a bit like a cigar and a bit like a cigarette. My favorite part of eating alphabet soup is rearranging the letters to form my first name, which of course you readers already know to be

[myhauntedsalem]

Ghosts of the Night Express Train  Hartford, Vermont

On the early morning of February 5, 1887, a Montreal bound Central Railroad train No. 50 known as the “Night Express” was speeding along attempting to make time because it was running late. At some point near Hartford, Vermont as it neared a large wooden railroad bridge, the last sleeper car on the train jumped the track, unknown to anyone on board as the express sped along through the night. The Night Express crossed the Woodstock Bridge as it was known at the time, and a disaster was about to unfold.

As the express steam engine rolled over the bridge and when the last car on the train which had become dislodged from the rail hit the bridge, it began sliding off. One of the conductors on the train felt that something was not right and signaled the engineer to stop. Realizing what was happening, the engineer accelerated the train in attempt to get as many cars as possible off of the bridge. In the end, the derailed car had pulled two other coaches with it as it plunged over the side of the bridge into the icy river below. Not completely submerged, the smashed rail cars, heated by wood burning stoves and lit by oil lamps, burst into flames immediately setting the wooden bridge on fire in the process. The survivors worked to save as many as possible, but in the end, twenty-four passengers and five train crewmen were killed either in the crash or by the fire that followed. Legend has it that a little boy was among the surviving passengers, however, he had watched in horror as one of his relatives died in the flames, helpless to save them.

A new bridge made of steel was constructed on the site of the disaster that same year to span the White River. However, the original bridge pilings were used so part of the original bridge remained. Over the years many folks traveling by train over the bridge and by foot along either side of the White River, have seen what appeared to be young boy standing in the water beneath the bridge trusses. Some say that upon closer inspection, the figure was actually hovering above the river waters only to disappear completely! In most cases, folks report him to be wearing clothing from the late 1800s. Many feel that this is the spirit of the boy who watched his family member die in the railroad bridge disaster of 1887. The boy seems to linger in the spot perhaps hoping for another chance to save those he loved from the flames. There are some who claim that they have also seen other figures standing around in that same spot who are also dressed in 19th century clothing. Perhaps these are a few of the victims who perished that terrible night.

A railroad bridge still stands in that very spot and can be found near the Savage Cemetery, Hartford, VT 05001, just south on Rt 14. Latitude: 43.682044 Longitude: -72.394966

[pika-ace]

ITH Lemony Snicket AU Sneak Peek

Alright! The people have spoken! As promised here is your sneak peek! And in the spirit of Lemony Snicket, I must warn you that this is not a happy blurb you will be getting. (Apologies in advance to the smol Son-shine)

After Usnavi’s parents perish in a terrible fire, Usnavi, Sonny, and Chip find themselves in the care of their ‘closest living’ relative, Count Rodriguez. However, all he wants is the De la Vega fortune that Usnavi will inherit when he turns 28 (the will was very specific), but Rodriguez is willing to do anything to get his hands on it, as Usnavi is about to quickly discover when Sonny goes missing.

It was safe to say Rodriguez had been expecting Usnavi, as he turned right around the minute Usnavi stormed into the room, Chip right behind him. “Usnavi!” He greeted, a little too happily. “What can I do for you?”

“Where is he?!” Usnavi demanded.

 “Who?”

 “Sonny!”

“Sonny?”

“My cousin!”

“What about your cousin?”

“He’s missing!” Usnavi yelled, holding out Sonny’s hat. “I know you had something to do with this; where is he?!”

‘Answer the question, or I’ll go for your nose!’ Chip growled loudly.

“Oh dear!” Rodriguez exclaimed, putting a hand to his chest, “Little Sonny is missing? How dreadful!”

Chip’s growling grew louder, ‘Don’t mock us!’

“Oh, wait!” Rodriguez put a hand to his ear, “I think I heard something outside!” It wasn’t much, but Usnavi was willing to take it. He turned and hurried out the door, Chip following.

They ran out to the backyard, “Sonny?!” Usnavi called, glancing around the desolate yard, “Sonny!”

‘Curly! You out here?’ Chip barked loudly.

 “You won’t find him here.” Usnavi turned as their guardian walked towards them. Rodriguez handed him a pair of binoculars and pointed towards the tower, “You might want to look up there.”

Usnavi frowned in confusion and put the binoculars to his face, following his finger. He was looking at the tower, but something was hanging from the window. Usnavi zoomed in, realizing that the object was a decent sized cage, like a birdcage in shape but larger in size; but something was inside it.

Usnavi zoomed in closer and the color slowly drained from his face; it was Sonny.

The younger De la Vega was bound hand and foot, thick ropes wrapped tightly around his upper body, thighs, calves and ankles, nearly mummifying him. Duct tape was placed over his mouth, sealing his lips shut. The tape was wrapped around his head multiple times creating a thick silver belt that muted his cries almost completely.

The binoculars began to shake in Usnavi’s grasp as he watched Sonny move and squirm about in his bonds, looking desperately for a way to escape, fear in his eyes, but he was completely trapped.

Usnavi lowered the binoculars and faced Rodriguez sharply, “Let him go!” He yelled, his paternal instincts for his cousin shooting into overdrive while Chip barked madly.

“Gladly.” Rodriguez pulled out a small radio, “Let him go.” There was a loud clunk and the cage began to fall, Sonny’s muffled scream barely audible.

“No!” Usnavi yelled in horror.

 “Hold it.” Rodriguez said into the radio, and the cage came to an abrupt halt. Usnavi looked through the binoculars again; Sonny seemed pretty shaken, but not hurt as the cage was raised back up to the window.

Usnavi’s jaw clenched as he made towards Rodriguez, “If you hurt him-”

“Ah ah ah,” Rodriguez said, holding up the radio, “I wouldn’t do anything rash if I were you; that tower is over fifty feet tall.”

“He’s done nothing to you!” Usnavi protested. “How could you do this?! He’s a child!”

“You think I care about that?” Rodriguez asked. “I’m much more interested to see just how hard he’ll hit the ground when he falls.”

“No!” Usnavi cried, his voice close to cracking from fear. “Please, stop, don’t hurt him! I’ll-I’ll do anything, anything, just, please, don’t hurt him!” He hated that he had been reduced to begging, but he had no choice.

“Anything?” Rodriguez asked gleefully. “Anything, such as, signing over your life and fortune to me?”

Usnavi sucked in a sharp breath; that’s what this was all about?! This man, this…this maniac was willing to threaten his baby cousin just to get his hands on their fortune?!

 “Think carefully, Orphan.” Rodriguez said, waving the radio tauntingly in front of Usnavi, “Your precious little boy’s life quite literally hangs in the balance.”

Usnavi grit his teeth and looked back up the cage; he could see it moving slightly from Sonny struggling. Poor Sonny was probably scared out of his mind! Usnavi lowered his head in defeat; they were helpless. There was nothing Usnavi could do to save Sonny, except do as he was told. They really had no choice.

“Fine.” Usnavi finally said, clenching his fists tightly, “I’ll do it.”

“Very good.” Rodriguez smiled cruelly, “He’ll remain up there until my play is over. But, any funny business, I give the word, and your little Son-shine will be setting for the last time.”

Usnavi glared at him, his eyes beginning to sting, and Rodriguez entered the house. Usnavi watched him go and looked back up at the cage as water dripped down his cheeks.

You might think those were tears, but they were in fact raindrops, as it had just started to rain. Weather can have the uncanny ability to mirror one’s emotions, and right now, Usnavi was feeling despair with the rain.

However, with rain, there can be thunder, and Usnavi was not about to give up due to despair, as he put his hat firmly on his head. “Hold on, mijo…”

Usnavi hurried back to their room, Chip close behind. Chip tilted his head as Usnavi began examining the torn-up curtains in their room.

As much as he loved his two humans, Chip couldn’t help but sometimes be stunned by how strangely they could act sometimes. ‘What are you doing?’

 “I’m not sure yet.” Usnavi answered, basically meaning that the gears in his head were starting to turn.

‘What are we going to do?’

“I don’t know.” Usnavi answered again.

Chip leapt onto their bed and lay down with a whine, ‘I’m scared.’

Usnavi gave him a sad look, “Me too, buddy, me too.”

Night quickly fell and Usnavi managed to convince Chip to go to sleep, as the husky was adamant about sleeping when Sonny was trapped.

Once Chip was asleep, Usnavi took the torn curtains and exited their room, hurrying down to the backyard. He inwardly grinned as he spied just the thing he needed: an umbrella with the fabric torn off (it had caught his eye when he was chopping wood earlier).

Usnavi grabbed it and hurried to the tower, where Sonny’s cage was still safely hanging at the top. Usnavi knelt down and got to work, tearing up the curtains into long strips. Once they were torn, he tied them together, forming a long rope, exactly fifty feet long. Usnavi tied the rope to the end of the umbrella, making it just the right length; if you recall, Rodriguez said that the tower was over fifty feet tall.

Usnavi stood and held the umbrella in one hand, staring up at the tall tower. He took a dee breath and began spinning the umbrella in a circle, building momentum. After a few seconds, he released it, only to have the umbrella hit the wall and come crashing down.

Meanwhile, in the cage, Sonny, who had been slightly dozing off (a very difficult task when you’re tied up with tape over your mouth), was jerked awake by the sounds beneath him.

Usnavi tried throwing the umbrella many more times, until finally, the umbrella reached the windowsill, latching onto it. Usnavi gave the curtain rope a few tugs, finding it stable, and began to climb.

Physical strength had never been Usnavi’s strong suit; in fact, many would call him a wimp or something far worse. But even the weakest humans can tap into something when the situation demands it, and that is adrenaline.

With adrenaline, the human body’s equivalent to an enhancing drug, humans can pull off incredible feats. For example, a mother may lift a car to save her child trapped underneath, or a teenager may punch a bully into submission for threatening a friend or loved one.

And in Usnavi’s case, climbing the side of a tower with only a rope made of curtains, was made much easier than it should have been, seeing how his dear cousin’s life was in jeopardy.

The climb was slow and careful, but at no point did Usnavi feel tired or the need to let go. Soon, the window of the tower was less than ten feet away. He was almost there; the cage was just about within arm’s distance.

“Sonny!” Usnavi called softly. “Sonny!”

Sonny peeked out of the cage and his eyes widened in shock and relief. He began to let out a string of muffled cries, struggling with a new energy.

Usnavi quickly shushed him and put a hand on the base of the cage to keep it still; he only had one shot at this, he couldn’t risk alerting anybody. “I’m coming, mijo.” He said.

 He climbed the rest of the way up and hoisted himself into the window, his limbs rejoicing at the solid ground beneath him. He turned back to Sonny, whose eyes were full of hope, pleading to be released.

“Is the key to the cage somewhere in here?” Usnavi asked.

Sonny nodded quickly, urging for him to hurry.

“Alright, just hold on a little longer,” Usnavi promised. “I’ll get you out of there.”

So? What you think? Let me know, please!