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hazbintrashbin · 5 years

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The Tale of a Moth and a Spider

Once upon a time, there was a young lady.

Said young lady sits on the window pane. In her hands she holds some sort of craft, and is finishing up the last touches with a couple more frantic sews. She pricks her finger and hisses, shoving her wounded finger into her mouth for a second —just a quick second!— only to go right back to sewing.

She was but a passing scalleywag, however, due to unforeseen events, ended up requested to go to a ball.

Finally, she finished her craft! She went over to the nightstand and looked into the mirror. Glaring at her one golden eye, she grimaces. “There is no way in the nine circles of hell I will allow myself to go through with this.” She took up her eyepatch from a coatrack, and slipped it over her other eye. This eye was no good, and not quite a sight to see… it was better this way.

This young lady was a pirate, and the most fearsome of them all.

She pulled her hat from beneath the bed and fastened it onto her belt, throwing a rather large coat over herself. She grabbed her small pouch and heaved her bag onto her back. She was ready to go.

At said ball, Princess Charlie had made a decree: the one she’d marry was none other than Vaggie, who happened to be —

“...Me.” Vaggie takes a moment to facepalm, groaning in frustration. Why did she have to choose her, of all people? Why not Lord Alastor? Or Lord-Sir Pentious? Or Duchess Nifty, or Lady Bomb? Hell, even Lord Husk would be a better fit! But not her, not Captain Vaggie —no way! Vaggie may be an airborne entity by nature, but she belongs on the water, gliding the winds into the World That Comes Tomorrow; she wants to keep traveling to smell the spice from every nook and cranny of the world, to seize ships from every yellowbelly daring to cross her, to rough house with every sorry squadron atop the floorboards and to sleep facing the stars, all while her ship, the Sea Moth, rocks gently: as if it were a giant cradle. Yes, that is where Vaggie belongs. Not standing beside some cheesy, smiling two-faced, tomato-cheeked—

“—snout-nose-having, bow tie NO collar-wearing, ghostface, pretty-pretty-Princess in constant distress, same ponytail having, no-good shit dripping, class-lacking, dumb look-on-her-face —ugh!”

So, ‘tis be her plan: once the time is right,

Vaggie peeks out the window. All clear; she grabs her makeshift rope and throws it over the edge. She watched it with mild interest as it unfolds all the way down into darkness, where she’d fall into water. From there, she’d have to carefully swim through the moat.

The little moth would fly into the night!

Down and down Vaggie flew as she clutched onto the joined fabrics for dear life. Quickly, she fell right into the water, spinning herself in a way as to make as little noise as possible.

Princess Charlie would be heartbroken, for her spark had flown like a kite,

Vaggie swam and quickly pulled herself up onto land, and dashed into the dark woods looming over the castle. They were menacing and silent. However, this phased her none: she just wanted to rid herself of this problem and return to her life. After all, she had never expressed to Charlie any desire to be with her —the two hadn’t even dated! No, no, no —more like Princess Charlie took a liking to Vaggie, and figured she’d have everything go her way at the drop of a hat, all because she’s the princess. As if! Vaggie doesn’t abide by such authority. Charlie and her family may be royalty, but they are not a fearsome force to her. Why, she’s seen much worse on her seafaring endeavors!

But Vaggie knew — “Fit like a puzzle” —Them? Not quite.

While running, Vaggie suddenly froze when she heard a snap. She glanced around. All she saw was darkness. It was chilly, and she could still taste a slightly metallic nippyness. Hairs stood up on her body.

But of course, as she stood in the woods so still,

Crack.

Vaggie clutched her spear, which had majestically appeared by command. She glanced around, turning on her heels to look this way and that way. She still saw nothing. She contemplated calling out to this… beast… but decided against it. Let it show itself on its own accord.

A monster has come to give her the chills.

Crick!

Vaggie twirls to the left, and gasps. She backs up immediately, gawking at the large beast towering over her. She watched as it completely revealed itself to her.

Multiple limbs and tall as a Blue Holly,

Vaggie blinked in stupor. The… “monster” held up their four sets of hands in a defensive manner. “Aye, hold your tits, toots.” Vaggie couldn’t help grimacing at this fool. “Ugh, do not call me “toots”.” She said. The fellow demon huffed, and said, “Well, fuck else do I call yah?” Vaggie rolled her eye, lowering her guard some. “Just call me Captain, Fool. And who the hell would you be?” She asked. The man laughed a little. “The one and only, baby; Angel Dust, in the fur!” He puffed his chest out a little, readjusting and re-popping his collar. It was then that Vaggie noticed his particularly tight leather jacket, and the contrasting vividly pink fluff poking out of it. She scoffed, and laughed a little.

Ah, it would seem that this “monster” was simply a folly!

“No, no, I’ve never heard of a so-called Angel Dust.” She said. Her smirk grew wider as he becomes dumbfounded. He cleared his throat and scratched his head. “Bah, whatever. What’s a little bug like you doing in the woods anyway? Yah just askin’ to get squished, huh?” He asked, changing the subject. Vaggie blew a raspberry, dropping her guard to a bare minimum. At this point, she was no longer dealing with a terrifying beast --now, she was only dealing with a funny idiot in the woods.

“As if,” She said, “nothing’s gonna happen to me. I’d love to see anyone try! I do the squashing here, and the conquering.” Angel raises his eyebrows. “Conquering? You some sort of Lord or something, er… or, Lordess or Duchess or whatever?” Vaggie laughed. It was somewhat high-pitched and soft, and hilariously interrupted by the occasional little snort. Angel smiles at her dearly, unbeknownst to the young pirate. She cups her slightly burning cheek after having laughed so genuinely, and shook her head. “That’s stupid. Stupid, but hilarious, to be honest. But, no, I’m not a princess or anything like that.” Vaggie shrugs, leaning against a tree. She makes a face at the man, unaware of how sultry it looks. Or, at least to him it does, but that’s beside the point! “What about you, chump?” She asks. Angel snorts. “Chump? Doll, if I were you, I’d be careful who I’m talkin’ to!” Vaggie looks at him incredulously. “Oh?” She hums. “Oh, yeah, baby. I be royalty!” Angel is clearly oozing with pride, and Vaggie nonetheless rolls her eye at him. Doing this makes her glance at the moon in the split second, and then also to the neighboring planet where the angels dwell. The angels of heaven, that is. Regardless, Vaggie knows she can’t hang around any longer: she’s gonna have to go really soon. She looks back to the strange man before her, and she smiles a little. He’s slowing her down, that’s true… Still, this man is entertaining. In more ways than one, to boot.

“Royalty how?” She asks. Angel grins even wider, and bows. “Lord Dust to you, dame!” He stands, and Vaggie is genuinely surprised. “You’re a Lord? Like, seriously?” Seeing his smug expression never falter in the slightest, she figured it must be true, and gawked. “That’s… something!” Deciding to be a rascal, Vaggie pushes forward. “Hell, seems like everyone’s becoming some sort of Lord or Duke these days! When the hell am I going to get my own estate and stuff?” Angel huffs. “Whenever you marry royalty, I guess.” A moment of silence passes. Suddenly, the air is tense and stiff, and all that sense of comfort that was there before goes out the window.

“So, why are you in the woods? Like, really?” Angel asks again. Vaggie frowns. “It’s a long story…” she sighs. “I was supposed to get married, but it wasn’t exactly a choice I was able to make. More like, the princess just so happened to like me a lot, and took it upon herself to decide for me that I would marry her. Tomorrow! And so…” Vaggie took in a breath and let it all out in one long blow. “And so I decided to run. Run back to my ship, and back to my life!” Angel listened closely, and watches Vaggie kick a nearby pebble. “Ugh, and I bet she was taking that kind of advice from that stupid, son-of-a-tramp Lord Alastor!” Angel tensed up, and noticing this Vaggie frowned even further. “What’s wrong, hun?” She asks. She sounds truly concerned, and Angel was admittedly consoled by this. “Ah, yeah, so about that Alastor fellow? Well, I was supposed to marry him myself, but, ah…” Angel clicks his tongue. “Clearly, that ain’t work out as well as I thought it would. He only accepted my proposal because he and everyone else knew I’d boost his own merit. If we ever got around to joining our estates, he’d have the largest, and would control even more turf than he does now.” He admits. Angel then says, “So, as I think about it, I kinda ran, too. I didn’t want to become his fool, is all.” Angel looks off into the sky, staring at the dimension of Heaven with a distant look. Vaggie began to think. She wondered…

In the heart of the night, two bugs have met,

“Say, where are you going after this?” Vaggie asks. Angel is surprised at the sudden question.

A Moth and a Spider, running from lives of regret;

Angel smirks. “I dunno, probably to rob a bank or some shit, crash at that pussycat’s casino. Why?” Ah, he must be referring to Lord Husk. Vaggie chuckles, and offers a hand.

Then, the little ol’ moth proposed a bet:

“Come with me.”

Angel blushes at her request. “What… Huh?” He stutters. Angel’s smirk had melted from his face, and somehow appeared on Vaggie, who repeated, “Come with me. You said you were gonna rob a bank, right? Why waste your time with that, when you could sail the seas with me? I do things like that all the time —and more!” For a moment, Angel seems reluctant. “Ah, I dunno, I’ve still got an estate to man, and all my employees are stupid, so I can’t trust them for shit. Plus, who’s gonna make sure they do their job and not rob me blind anyway?” He wasn’t so sure about just up and leaving. But the little grey skinned beauty held her ground. “Maybe they will. But come with me, and you’ll have not an estate, but multiple, with workers of all kinds who’ll never think twice about what they do for you! You’ll have ships and towns, even cities dedicated to you! Angel Dust will be the name that makes those ol’ yellowbellys quiver in their panties!” Angel grins at the thought. That does sound inviting. “All that and even greater, you could have!” Vaggie says. She smiled warmly. “We could have it.”

“The Spider and Moth will rule the seas,”

Angel squeezes Vaggie’s hand softly. He brings it to his lips to kiss.

To this, of course, the Spider agrees.

Together they run until they reach the deck’s end,

For a long time they plan to never come again.

When the Princess and Lord will awake to dawn,

The Spider and Moth will be very long gone.

——————————————————————————

I’m sorry this really wasn’t supposed to be this long but when you’re a writer at heart, four paragraphs become four pages so WHELP—

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ralfstrashcan · 5 years

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3x21 Reaction / Commentary

I was seriously wondering if this was Alec because Magnus loss = melt down = shaky fingers but Alec would never voluntarily drink something so pretentious. But uuhhh I had thought Jonathan angry-flapped through the rift to Edom? Why he now here still?

More seelie queen crown, yeah!!

Not buying that whole “your demon blood is burning away your humanity” because, again, he lived years without being bonded to Clary so what's taken that “transformation” so long? Also, will he become like, a raven? A harpy? Oh no, I saw the promo. He'll be blond. Makes sense.

He just showed that he's not interested, stop harassing him you sick cougar.

Uhhhhh, objection your honor. That fake blade only contained like three atoms of the original Glorious. But whatever, details amiright.

Also if they wanna tell me it's the blade that triggered the transformation then a) wtf why would a blade designed to break something evil make the evil actually MORE evil wtf for a shit equipment is that b) can we expect some ridic changes for Clary too, that make her even more Mary Sue? c) if Lucifer was so badass, where is he? Something killed him, maybe? Since Jonathan is declared most uniquest thing to ever unique?

“A splendid pet bird. And he died a few decades back so I'd like to recruit you as replacement,. Whatcha say? I'll even drop bird themed pick up lines around you all day.” God I'm making myself sick.

BS when you think about it, because every individual is unique. Good luck salvaging the climate change and what not, seelie queen, on your heroic quest to preserve all that is unique.

#rejected, take that you prowling predator. Can you believe she annoyed him so much he just abandoned his pretentious cream drink thingy? So rude. Also nice touch that they remembered that thing with the flowers and Jonathan making them poor flowers wilt. Btw would that have worked if they were plastic flowers?? Haha ok sorry.

Wtf I'm very much not on board with the seelie queen having a weird Jonathan fetish. Also, if the sole reason she has it is that Jonathan is “one of a kind” then I wonder why she wasn't ruthlessly hitting on Simon the same way? Or technically, before Simon became a daylighter, on Cain, getting him to leave the sewers and chill in the seelie realm instead?

1) Wow can you believe they managed to spare Malec's drama 3 seconds of consideration before getting absorbed in themselves again? Amazing. 2) Dude, you weren't in control of your actions while Clary was brainwashed and very much in control of her actions. That's not really comparable? But whatever.

Some great “love” you've got going on there, Maryse, writing Magnus off after, what? Half a day? Two days? Smh.

???????????????????? So they want to tell me Magnus plastered his magic like a bandaid over the rift but didn't really close it? Well, I am prepared with outrage to point out all the ways in which this is bullshit.

1) There clearly was no such thing to be seen from the other side.

Since Edom and Earth are two different dimensions and on Earth's side there was no rift in the dimension's fabric anymore that obviously means if the wraiths slipped through that Edom crack they'd either be lost in limbo or flapping around in some inter-dimesional space. But they couldn't reach Earth. So I fail to see how this is a problem.

2) How the hell do the NY Shadowhunters know about this? Since from their side the rift was well and truly closed? They don't know that Magnus has to keep his magical band-aid in place? The only thing they have to wonder about is why the hell Magnus hasn't returned yet since Magnus proved in 3x20 that apparently interdimensional travel works with normal warlock portals and those fancy pentagram things aren't necessary.

3) Uhhhh if Magnus has to stay there to keep up the magical band-aid (since exit options clearly aren't the issue here) wtf won't he tire at some point? Am I supposed to believe exhausting isn't a thing in Edom? What happens if he has to sleep? (Sidenote, what the hell do they eat in Edom anyway? Will he have to roast some shax demons? Disturbing.) Anyway back to the topic at hand, if I'm supposed to believe that Magnus is THAT strong he can keep up this magic (a magic that was so enormous he couldn't even achieve it from Earth) for eternity without taking a break, then I doubly don't get why he can't just SEAL the goddamn rift?! And don't tell me it's because band-aid magic is something he can do, and different from rift sealing magic which is something he can't do. Because again, 2x20 is a thing where Magnus proves that he is capable of sealing a rift; so the only explanation of why he didn't do it in 3x20 is because the rift was too powerful. Now correct me if I'm wrong but to me Magnus + Enhanced Edom Powers equals He Closes The Rift, not Weird Band-Aid Magic. Wtf.

HAHAHAH I CAN'T!!!!! THANKS MAGNUS FOR POINTING THIS OUT!!! AND IN THE SASSIEST WAY POSSIBLE!!!!! IT'S BEEN BUGGING ME SINCE 3x10 XD XD XD

Love that shot.

1) Thanks, Lilith, for confirming that Magnus is in fact constantly supplying the band-aid with magic and thus exposing this whole plot line as completely frakkin illogical. 2) Wtf Lilith, why the heck did you go back to Edom in 3x16 if you wanted to murder Jonathan????? IT MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL WTF 3) Where tf is Cain?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA I CAN'T

Wow that escalated quickly. I hate that even though Magnus knows it's just a trick to get into his head it still hurts him, because this is how he is: alwasy second-guessing his worth. He deserves better from all of them, deserves more from them, so he wouldn't feel this so keenly.

Ok, good save, I was just gearing up for a rage about why the hell Magnus is more powerful than the literal mother of demons who could defeat everyone, even with his Ddom-Edition-Powers because come on. However, Magnus must know that this is just a temporal solution because recovering means at some point she'll be recovered and, well.

Also, this shot haha.

Hahahaha I see he inherited the hell puns from Asmodeus along with the real estate XD

I mean, yeah, and then he acted like a total fool in his last few days. Great way to go, man. #stillbitter

“People mattered to Jordan. People, their troubles, their pain...”

That was sweet.

HAHAHAHA THAT WAS HILARIOUS

Probably off to do something to enrage me, so same as always.

Oh look, he's robbing a bakery because being jobless and needing food doesn't mix well.

OMG I SUDDENLY REMEMBER THIS FROM THE 3B TRAILER. You know, Luke being all creepy in the back of a car? Wtf, honestly I think I'll have even less patience for Human!Luke than I have Inapt!Werewolf!Luke. They're really testing me.

“....like Sizzy” Hahahah okay I'll try to behave myself. And I had time to prepare, it was obvious they'd use that inspirational thing Maia said for Sizzy purposes.

Yeah...... #irony #obviously me behaving myself isn't working out, who's surprised? I'm not.

Don't they have fire extinguishers in the Institute somewhere? I mean, there's regulations for that, right? Lemme guess, that's remnants of the Glorious fake sword that pierced her? And now she can't be with Simon without killing him, hahaha, all Sizzy problems solved XD

When I saw this (in the Sneak Peek, but still counts) my first thought was “Aha NOW he tries to find a solution but when Magnus first lost his magic he couldn't be bothered RUDE ALEC WTF” lol ahahahah

Question time: 1) Didn't he have plants in there last episode?

OH RIGHT HE HAD!!! What happened to them? *Sherlock Voice* Did he eat them??

2) Why didn't Alec wonder where the hell Lorenzo was? Sure, he's a little preoccupied atm with losing Magnus, but he should have realized Lorenzo was weirdly absent about five hours into his happy little loft occupation???

3) I fully expected the scratching to be Chameleon!Lorenzo vying for attention, but seeing it, omg my heart broke a little. Can you imagine the desperation?? Poor evil lizard baby.

You know, I find it inherently troubling that Alec assumes Magnus always had this lizard and has only now decided to relocate its terrarium into the loft's main room, instead of thinking Magnus got the lizard as, idk, a pick-me-up after the breakup. I mean, what kind of lousy pet holder does he take Magnus for? Not even mentioning he has one, never taking care of it? That's not Magnus. Alec should know better.

Als Bohemian so incisively pointed out, why would he have created a pet cobra that he calls “baby” if he hated reptiles? And while, granted, Alec might not know about this, I believe Cat should. So wtf.

.....................................they honestly felt the need to tell her this? In grave detail and that this was their first kiss? Why would they do that?? Or did she look at the tapes??? So many questions.

Lol okay I didn't even intend to be so spot on with the Sizzy prediction. More importantly though, she won't be able to shadowhunt anymore.

Why is anyone (except Magnus (and occasionally Alec)) left in charge of anything, ever. *sigh*

But I mean, at least there's this

Small mercies (aka comedic pockets in a vast sea of illogic shit) I guess XD

HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA I AM DEAD I CAN'T HAHAHAH HIS FACE!!!!!!!!!!

Jace is me, I am Jace

So.... many....... questions...............

Okay, so I'm severely confused. If this demon has info on what's happening in Edom right now, then either he left Edom after Lilith started gathering her army so there's a rift there somewhere, OR there's a way for news to travel between Edom and Earth, probably through, you guessed it, a tiny rift. So wtf, show, please explain because I don't understand.

..............................................................

The audacity. The fucking audacity. MAGNUS WILL BE DEAD, IS WHAT YOU SHOULD TAKE AWAY FROM THAT. NOT THAT THE RIFT REOPENS ARE YOU KIDDING ME WTF JACE I CAN'T BELIEVE IT I EVEN CURSED EXPLICITLY I NEVER DO THAT WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

Wow. Alec, can you please punch him?

Don't get me wrong. They're shadowhunters, of course it is their duty to prevent this to protect the mundanes. But, delivery?! Show some worry at the prospect of the love of your parabatai's life dying??? before continuing with business as usual?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SAME CLARY, BECAUSE WTF?! I REPEAT, WTF!!!! Didn't she listen to Helen at all? It's not going to protect her, it's going to blast her to frakking pieces. Wtf how dumb is she??? Hääääääääääää?????

lol Simon, you'd just stab yourself in the eye with it XD But I appreciate the sentiment XD

I AM THIS CLOSE TO JUST, RECORD MY LAUGHTER BECAUSE I'M DYYYYYING OVER HERE OKAY HAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHA Also he should call Maia, because life as a werewolf suxx way less than life as a vampire. Then again, IMMORTAL HUSBANDS SIGN ME THE F UP, IMMORTAL ALEC WAS ENDGAME ALL ALONG AHAHAHAHAHA YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Okay, on a more coherent note. I LOVE this line. I was so painfully deprived of Alec throwing himself into risk and action just to protect and help Magnus during 3B that it's not even funny. So this was really awesome. But, consider this: if he really wanted to go through with it he'd have to wait like a whole day before the transformation is completed, so uhhh impracitcal.

YES. YES. PLEASE MORE OF ENRAGED ALEC SCOLDING THEM LIKE THE KIDS THEY ARE. (But, uh, ragefully running away from his sire in spe wasn't the cleverest move if he wants to go through with it immediately ahaha XD)

I mean, nice of them to contriubute. All it took was Alec (!!!!!) flipping his shit. It seems they didn't have the idea to look into something themselves. Lol I'm inclined to be with Lilith on that one, are they even worth it??? Smh.

Full disclosure, for the longest time I was sure those were burning dog shit piles XD

Can we talk about how Jonathan is at a point where he doesn't really seem to care if he lives or dies because everything is pointless to him? (Btw if I manage to actually write the epic 3x21+22 rewrite I have in mind then it'd start here.)

I mean this was smooth and all, but......? Wasn't Meliorn like, totally over Izzy? I'm meaning this in a premonition-y way, not just this line. His rekindled feelings come pretty much out of nowhere.

I get that this is the alliance rune from the books. But why the hell would she do that in this situation instead of a rune that allows Shadowhunters to survive in Edom? In which universe is alliance rune your first thought instead of resiliance rune?? Or just a plain Accio Magnus rune, ffs!!!Makes no sense.

This is epic and all, but excuse me while I roll my eyes real hard.

Also ignoring the seelie queen and her weird fetish 2.0 because who cares.

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I CCCCCCCCCAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT LORENZO IS A FANBOY HAHAHAHA I BET YOU HE WILL CORNER SIMON AT SOME POINT AND BEG HIM FOR AN AUTOGRAPH HAHAHAHAHA

“As my first act on the Downworld Council...”

So you mean to tell me that from 3x02 til 3x21 actually only a week passed? Because the Downworld Council meetings are weekly scheduled??? Tf hahaha.

Hahahhahhaa I mean I totally get why he reacts that way. Also, may I ask the dreaded question: WHERE THE F IS CATARINA???????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No honestly, I give up. I just. I give up.

Hahahahaha

“The angels wouldn't have given me this power if they didn't want me to use it.”

Premonition!Ralf: Ha. Hahahhahaha. Ha.

THE COMEDY WE DESERVE HAHAHAHA

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA PERFECT!!!! Not least because it's immediately followed by

which makes it seem as if Lorenzo is complimenting Meliorn's prowess as a lover LOL

SIGH. So in 3x10 it was the portal that allowed Magnus to EASILY travel back to Earth, not Asmodeus kindly giving him a lift. So then let me ask why the hell he didn't make a portal like this in 3x20?! Did he already know he wouldn't be able to seal the rift but would have to keep it closed 24/7? Ridiculous. Also, why does Alec even ask this, since he saw Magnus use that exact same portal in 3x10.

I think you should have held frikkin hands.

HAHAHA ALEC, HONEY, WHAT WOULD YOU WRITE ANYWAY???? “We're right here, next to those withered trees. There's sand on the ground and wraiths in the sky. Everything looks red. And from here I can see that one ruin!!”

Weird Lorenzo & Alec bonding is intriguing. That's all I'm saying on the matter for now. I'm reserving judgement.

(Edit: After watching both 3x21 and 3x22 this clearly marks the point where Lorenzo's Instant Redemption Arc sets in and simultaneously comes to a close. Thanks, I hate it. Let antagonists be antagonists, dammit. At the end of the day not everyone is a goody two-shoes. That's life. UGH. Also, let me introduce my theory that while traveling between Earth and Edom Lorenzo's character was ripped from him in a severe Plot Convenience Turbulence. What a shame.)

But hell yeah to Alec's emotions running rampant and him being unable to control the magic. Another headcanon confirmed (that I didn't really knew I had, lol).

Hahahahha dude could you be any more pretentious XD XD XD

Hahahahahahaha this is the best day of my life.

Hahahaha Meliorn just got promoted to one of my favorites. Better late than never amiright.

I get this, this taking stock conversation, from a meta standpoint. But BITCH CAN YOU FOCUS ON MAGNUS FOR ONCE IN YOUR SELF-ABSORBED LIFE IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK WTF DAMMIT

Yeah, me too. Who knew demonic transformations came with a villain hairdo make over?? Nature truly is beautiful.

Me, watching: I might be totally oblivous, but did this crown always have a stripe thing on the top, too? Ralf, editing this reaction post: Yes. Yes it did. You're not as observant as you like to think. Me, reading that: .......harsh

..........do I have to understand why he isn't running away screaming? I get the instinct to wreak havoc because everything hurts and is pointless but wtf, the seelie queen is doing the exact same things Lilith did to him. Using him, only seeing him as a power source that has to be cultivated but has no feelings, no worth, and weirdly kissing him. He should, for all intents and purposes, be running for the hills. (But also, uh, neat nail polish and rings, seelie queen. You've got style.)

HAHAHAHA I mean, I already prepared two Jeliorn Dumb Comics, but this is reaching ridiculous levels XD XD XD I'm soooo here for it.

Hahahahaha XD XD XD

“Runes bubbling back, incredible” Yeah, no shit. I'm not buying. I could even largely argue my point, making references to the seelies that got “treated” in 3x17 that weren't rendered half-human-half-angel but mundane, meaning they lost their angelic part, too, meaning the serum removes angelic blood as well as demon blood. But since I couldn't care less about Luke (right now or in general? That's your guess to make) I'm not even getting worked up over it XD

Dude, you're aware this is like the perfect opening for getting a verbal diss, right?

Wow, three seconds a shadowhunter and here we are with the racist jokes again. That was quick.

Also, let me say how exceedingly ridiculous it is that Luke just walks out of there with a “No thank you” and Evil Praetor Guy does nothing against it literally because Luke said “But blackmailing me would mean you're evil ;__;”

bitch please

Look, can we appreciate this a little more? Like, a lot more??? Can I pause the episode here and stare at this for half an hour or something????? Alec saying he's willing to just, leave behind life as he knew it, very possibly never seeing anyone of his family again, just so he gets to stay with Magnus? I mean, that's some Major Immortal Alec Energy right there. Serve me more please.

..................wow instead I get Clary depriving me of a Malec Reunion Smooch wtf?! Uuuhhhh no thank you!!!!

AHAHAHA THAT SUFFERING FACE HAHAHAHAHA OMG AMAZING Kicked Pouting Suffering Puppy Jace <3<3<3

Btw what Jace said about Simon really gave me something to think about. I'm confused but intrigued. I like.

#shadowhunters #3x21 #magnus bane #alec lightwood #clary fray #jace wayland #simon lewis #isabelle lightwood #lorenzo rey #maia roberts #luke garroway #meliorn #the seelie queen #jonathan morgenstern #lilith #reaction

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sierrabinondo · 5 years

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woodland creatures - day 4 (orlando pt. 2)

was i excited to be on tour? yes. was i also super nervous about going on tour before leaving? also yes.

was i excited to go to disney springs? Y E S. was it the one thing i knew i could look forward to even if i sucked at every fucking show???

B I G Y E S.

my poor bandmates. i said the night before, “hey, i just realized, we never actually really discussed going to disney springs.” and they were like, “yeah.”

but! we went anyway!!! bless their hearts!!!

the morning after staying up and partying was rough. i had the NASTIEST hangover. my headache was so severe that i couldn’t even fall back asleep following 5 hours of rest. i popped some advil and tried to get a couple more hours in but it was impossible, so i just got up and showered. the guys brought back panera for lunch, and then once everyone was ready we were off to disney springs. i could tell everyone was worried it was gonna be lame, i felt it in the air lmao. i was also worried i was leading them to a miserable afternoon in the hot florida weather. but i figured if they hated it we could always leave.

we pull up to disney springs and there is some semblance of what i remembered from the last time i was there but also a lot that i DID NOT recognize. the parking garages were definitely new. they had sensors over each parking spot that could indicate whether or not a car was in the spot, and it would update an LED screen outside the entrance with how many spots were available on each floor. i thought that was really cool. there were gardens on the sides of the garages too. we then go up some stairs and down an escalator to get in, and hooooly shit i was blown away. there was a brand new area that had a fountain and all of the shops looked reminiscent of spanish architecture. it was so beautiful.

we got group pictures in front of the fountain, and then i decided to get a happy birthday pin from guest relations lmfao. i wanted to see if i could get any free shit by just waltzing around with a birthday pin on. i was unsuccessful but i had never been in or near disney on my birthday anyways so i just rolled with it. we started to the right and went to world of disney, marketplace co-op, the lego store and the pin trading shop.

i was completely overwhelmed by how big all of the stores were. there was so much cool shit. i really thought i would have an easy time abstaining from spending money, since my sister was literally just there and got me the one thing i wanted, but i did NOT. at world of disney i bought ANOTHER pair of minnie ears, the rose gold sparkly ones lmfao. not usually my style, but there weren’t any others i was crazy about. joe got a shirt and ryan bought some stuff for his girlfriend christina. i wanted clothes but i decided to wait to see if there might be better merchandise elsewhere.

we moved on to marketplace co-op and i immediately found a disney world long sleeve shirt i loved so i grabbed that. i alsoooo balled out and got a print of the most beautiful mulan painting i have ever seen. it was a depiction of one of my favorite parts in the movie, when she is singing reflection and chops off her fuckin hair, but in the garden instead of the shrine. that movie means very very much to me as an asian american!!! besides that i got emperor’s new groove patches later on in the afternoon and that was all i spent my money on. $138 later. yeesh.

my friends eton and jeri who came to the show the night before wanted to meet up for food and drinks, so i walked over to frontera cucina. i thought maybe my bandmates might join us but they weren’t hungry and it was more of a sit down place, so we parted ways for an hour. i hadn’t seen eton and jeri since they moved down to orlando in january, holy shit. it was so good to hang out with them. we caught up and enjoyed some really good lunch. i ordered a gin and tonic that had a whole ass cucumber peel wrapped around the glass and pork belly tacos. i bugged out bad because eton wouldn’t let me pay nor could i get his venmo from jeremiah to cover my portion. it was so sweet of them to treat me. i met them through jeremiah, i always tell him how much i love his friends and how they’ve become my friends the more we all hang out together. it sucks our time was so damn brief but i’m just glad i got to see them.

after late lunch i met back up with everyone and we walked around a little longer, but i mistakenly let us stay a little later and lost track of time. it was just about time to start heading over to hail the sun. i felt really bad because people mentioned wanting to go swimming or take a nap and i effectively robbed everyone of any allotted leisure activity time by wanting to gallavant around more. i was definitely just as wiped as everyone, but i hadn’t been back to disney in forever. we hurried back to the van and drove back to kissimmee.

pulses. had been grilling and chillin at the airbnb all day, so they were ready for the gig when we got back. we got back just in time to leave when they did, like 15 minutes before. we both hopped in our respective vehicles and we were off. they always dropped snails in the tour chat and called us with snails ahead because we were slow with the van lmfao but it’s not MY FAULT the shit is SO HUGE damnit. i drove the van to the gig with josef, jaime and kris while ryan and santino stayed home.

it’s interesting to go to a show in another state, it does feel pretty weird to go somewhere unfamiliar, but it really does feel the same as attending a show at home. people really are pretty much the same everywhere else, just different geographical locations and climates. the gig was really good but the venue was SO SMALL. too small. i like the soundbar but i might like it better if you didn’t have to wade your way through a crowd of swamp ass to get to the bathrooms alllll the way on the other side of the venue opposite of the entrance. plus, it got so packed that it was really difficult to be near the stage, let alone inside the building. for most of the show the 10 of us camped out in a really great spot near the bathrooms that wasn’t getting too much traffic and had its own bar so we stayed there.

we were at the show where sergio broke his headstock. i don’t think i’ve ever seen a show where sergio stands still the entire time, in the dozens of times i’ve seen him play. he was so close to that monitor/the ceiling but i didn’t suspect his guitar was going to break. i completely missed it because i was looking down at my phone (womp) but i heard everyone audibly gasp. that sucks dude. i think that was the only bummer the whole show though besides the heat and some sloppy drunks. pulses. are friends with zach garren so he was hanging out near us here and there throughout the night. daisy came to the gig so she came and found us, we hung out for a good portion of the show, too! it was a really good chance to talk more too after the gig the night before. she told us a lot about what the florida scene is like. we told her it’s infinitely better than the tri-state area LMAO. at least like, people show up to shows and STAY on a monday night which is insane. and then joseph arrington is a friend of ours so he said hi a couple times during the gig, afterwards him and i talked more when it was quieter.

it is one of the greatest honors in my entire life that joseph arrington sees me as a homie. writing this under the presumption he’s never gonna see this lmao, but i have to pinch myself sometimes. we’ve been friends since we played the last ALLB tour september 2017. i introduced myself and mentioned that we had opened for sianvar’s 2016 tour at webster hall and he actually remembered us. ryan also introduced himself as one of his patreon donors and they talked for like 45 minutes. that show he asked for a CD (and it was years in waiting our older album too yikes lol there’s bangers on there but it doesn’t sound like us anymore) and he messaged me later that night like, “we’re listening in the van right now, you’re a great singer”. we’ve hung out at gigs a couple more times, whether we played together or either ryan or i went to go see him play. the fact he considers us peers is one of the most validating things i have. i’ve learned a lot of helpful insight from him. i have tremendous respect for him and couldn’t be more grateful that he actually likes us as musicians and as people.

all of the bands of course were awesome, i couldn’t stand the heat enough to be inside for every single hail the sun song but i caught most of their set. it’s pretty insane to see them blow up like they have. they deserve it. and i think donovan is one of the best vocalists i’ve ever heard. that whole camp of blue swan musicians are just so talented.

josef, jaime and kris graciously waited outside for me to finish talking to joe arrington, and during that time josef actually caught will swan outside. he said he had the chance to tell will swan deathstar is the reason he plays music and it made him very happy to do so. it had happened like a little bit before i came back outside. we then got lost trying to find the van and hilariously passed the actual entrance to the parking garage like 3 times. it was literally across the street and i led them around the block twice.

we went back to the airbnb for one more swim and we almost had another super late night legit just talking to pulses. kris sat outside editing photos while some of the guys swam, some of us just sat with our feet in the pool. when we got back ryan and santino had been sleeping and i think i maybe saw santino get up once to go to the bathroom. i did really want to go to sleep but ughhhhh i also thought to myself, i can sleep when i get home from tour. i get really bad FOMO every day of my life. so we stayed up and we talked about all things dance gavin dance, blue swan, our local scene, and bein in a band. it’s insane how alike we all are in our way of thinking. i also find it hard to open up to other bands though because it seems like no one else sees playing music and trying to grow a band the way we do. i just wanted to eat up any time i could bonding with pulses., taylor and tyler. thankfully we weren’t up until 4 am again but legit any time up spending time with all of my friends was worth it.

#woodland creatures tour

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d-criss-news · 6 years

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In a brilliant moment of serendipity, Darren Criss discovered he had been Emmy-nominated as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie for The Assassination of Gianni Versace at an airport branch of Planet Hollywood. “We were sitting there looking at the most Hollywood thing we could. That just tickled me to no end,” regales the former Glee star, who played Kurt Hummel’s love interest, Blaine Anderson, in the musical comedy television show.

At the time, Darren was on his way to a gig in Aspen, Colorado. “The Emmy nominations were coming out at 8.30am and the flight was leaving at 9.45am and we – me, my fiancée, my manager, publicist, basically the work family – all wanted to go and watch it together, somewhere I would be close enough so that when it was announced I could run over to the gate.”

The punchline came while sitting there waiting for the nominations to be revealed: his Glee version of Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream” also started to play on the speakers. Looking around to see if perhaps one of the servers had clocked him and was being “cute”, because it was quite a bizarre coincidence, he realised that nope, “this is 8.30am in the international terminal and nobody gives a shit about my version of ‘Teenage Dream’,” he laughs. “But we just couldn’t fucking believe it, like what a crazy auspicious moment! But it was a nice little story.”

By now, it’s one that will have its ending fully wrapped up: the Emmys took place on September 17 in LA, which is where Darren is now on the other end of the phone. For context, it’s one of those intensely hot end-of-July days that everyone in London is complaining about. For Darren it’s a day of playing “Mr Octopus” as he puts it. “Today is insane. When you have ‘free time’, it’s actually more hectic because in the absence of stuff that you’re obligated to do you immediately see everything you’ve neglected a lot more clearly.”

In his perky twang, he gives me “the shorthand” of this: Elsie Fest to organise for autumn, the New York show-tune themed festival he founded; music to work on for Computer Games, the band he started with his brother; marketing for the new piano bar he and his fiancée, Mia Swier, have opened; projects he can’t talk about but is excited about; a wedding to plan “at some point” next year; work on the house; and that general life admin that creeps up on all of us. “Hey, we all got stuff,” he chimes.

And among all of this, he casually slips in: “I’m also reading scripts and trying to get another acting job if I can get one.” Which can’t help but make me laugh. If he can get one? Because, let’s be honest, regardless of the Emmys outcome (a big congratulations if you bagged it and if not, you were robbed!), his portrayal of Andrew Cunanan, as well as a stellar career to date (he replaced Daniel Radcliffe in How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying on Broadway to great success, is the mind behind A Very Potter Musicaland has starred in Hedwig and the Angry Inch), shouldn’t make that too hard. But it’s “cute” – as he would say – to know he doesn’t rest on his laurels.

Darren was terrifying and intriguing in his role as Cunanan, the serial killer who murdered four men before ending his violent spree with fashion designer Gianni Versace in FX’s American Crime Story retelling of the real-life event in Miami in 1997. When it aired earlier this year, I didn’t know anyone who wasn’t watching it. If you weren’t binge-streaming it, you were glued to BBC2 desperate for next week’s instalment to watch the unfolding plot of a story that in many ways is little known, certainly on the Cunanan front.

“A lot of it is pretty shrouded in mystery. There are two groups of people who have been particularly aware of the Cunanan story. Filipinos in my life all know someone who knew him,” says Darren, who, hailing from San Francisco, is also half Filipino, as was Cunanan. “And true crime addicts.” “The story itself, which is endlessly fascinating, is not only interesting but has significant social weight and things to be discussed and topics that I think are important. It goes on and on and on,” he enthuses. “The role is incredibly nuanced and varied and complex, which is something that actors wake up in the morning for.”

Where the first series spotlights The People v. OJ Simpson, a trial that arguably most people in the world – certainly in the US – are familiar with, the Versace murder, while shocking and awful (the designer himself being a significant cultural icon and his death a huge loss to the fashion industry) lent itself to more questions than answers. Which from Darren’s point of view gave him a certain amount of free rein. “You’re not stacked against people’s expectations of an impersonation of somebody. I think that helped audiences; it really gave me and our story a blank slate.”

It’s true. As a viewer, I couldn’t help but find my feelings and point of view change as the narrative revealed Cunanan’s own backstory. “That, to me, is the most heartening thing; that’s the most encouraging thing you could say – that’s the goal.”

His performance has been described as career-defining but it’s not the first time he’s had such an accolade aimed in his direction. Yet you can’t help but think that this one, Emmy nomination aside, might just be the one to carry a little more weight, such was the grit and darkness that came with it and played out by someone we’re more used to associating with the tween spark of Glee.

It seems, therefore, an apt time to ask what his fantasy role would be. “Oh man. I have a pretty wild imagination but I’d like to think that my brain isn’t good enough to imagine the part I’d want,” he says. “And, also, fantasies evolve throughout your life based on whatever situation you find yourself in.” American Crime Story, certainly, he says is the kind of role he’d been working and waiting his whole life to play – which is not to say he dreamt of being a serial killer! “Let’s keep turning left, turning hard rights and hard lefts as much as possible, as long as the story is good. The name of the game for me is variety and versatility. If every time I do a role we have people say that’s a real departure from the last thing that would be awesome.”

Darren got the acting bug – or “storytelling” bug as he prefers to call it – at a young age. He was a child at the heart of the Disney Renaissance era and Robin Williams lived locally in his native San Francisco. One day, when seeing Aladdin at the cinema (“I can’t even tell you how many times I went to go see it,”) and realising that the Genie was voiced by Williams, his eureka moment came.

“You know when you’re a kid and you have dreams of being something and they seem kind of far off from you unless there’s somebody you can see do it?” he offers. “I remember very distinctly watching this Genie bring so much joy to the people around me… and I wanted in on that, I wanted to be the Genie. But once you realise you can’t necessarily do that and I found out the voice of the genie was Robin Williams, I was like that’s the guy, that’s the famous guy that lives in our city! I can do that and so he was really a massive inspiration for me.”

So, too, was Peter Coyote, another San Francisco-based actor, whom Darren in fact cold-called to find out what he should do to be an actor. He subsequently enrolled at the American Conservatory Theater’s Young Conservatory Programme before studying drama at college. A keen violinist, music and acting had always worked in constant tandem. “So that’s why it’s so hilarious to me that by the time I got Glee I’d already been doing this my whole life,” he says.

At the time of the Gianni Versace murder, Darren was 10 years old. “I did [remember it] in a sort of vague sense of pop cultural event. Obviously, Versace is a massive international figure so I was aware that he was murdered.” It wasn’t until much later in 2011, when his Hollywood lifestyle led him to the world of high fashion, that the dots joined.

“We were on tour for Glee and I popped down to Milan to go to this Versace fashion show, which was an amazing event and you’re there with Donatella and there in the house, the estate of the Versace family.” On a tour of it, Darren recalls seeing beautiful home pieces and fashion works. “There were a lot of things from his personal collection and [the steward] of course was saying ‘Well this was made after Gianni’s murder in 1997.’ It codified in my brain. He was taken away a little too early.”

For ACS producer Ryan Murphy, it was Darren who codified in the brain. The Glee co-creator had long had him in mind for the part. “People like Ryan have had their eye on the Cunanan story for a long time and we had worked closely in a few capacities.” Darren just had to play the waiting game. “I honestly said just let me know when you want to do this because obviously it would be a huge opportunity for me and I think it would be an incredible story but I don’t really have the keys for that car, man. You’re the driver, let me know when you want to pick me up!” Three years later and that proverbial beep came.

In real life, Darren has to be one of the most modest and upbeat people, armed with an always-look-on-the-bright-side-of-life attitude. You imagine he’s not all that good at sitting still, hence his potentially self-inflicted to-do list, which you also get the feeling is built from passion not pain. “I just feel so grateful at every turn of my career; if you’re able to do anything and that there’s any definition at all is a huge win so I’ll take it where I can get it,” he says referring to the praise he’s received in playing Cunanan, one he’s also quick to bring back down to earth with a very grounding analogy. “Every moment of your life is defining. The fact that I decided to have granola this morning defines the rest of the way my digestive system works…” he laughs. He has quite the way with words.

This too is helpful in a Hollywood landscape right now that, post-Weinstein and post-Trump, has found itself in troubling times. “What a big, big topic,” he begins. “It’s the Wild West right now, truly, there are so many things that I think it’s not necessarily Hollywood figuring itself out, it’s our whole society figuring it out as represented by Hollywood. It kind of gets the brunt of it because of its exposure and its influence,” he explains. “There are a lot of good things happening in it for people who have been marginalised and we’re setting new standards for ourselves that we should have set a long time ago, and in that sense it’s really good. But there are unfortunately other things that are happening where it’s hard to draw the line of what’s right and wrong and a lot of questions are being asked that we’ve never asked ourselves before about what’s appropriate.”

Social media, too, he thinks plays a significant role, moving faster than we are able to keep up with. “There’s a lot of things that are falling by the wayside as a result of that. I’m making very vague comments but yeah it’s very tricky,” he concludes before diplomatically topic-shifting to his own lack of social media usage. Firstly, because he’s a private person. And secondly, unlike so many people, he does realise the responsibility that comes with publishing a post. “Even when Twitter started and people would post joke-stuff and I would say ‘Woah, woah, that’s out there forever, are you sure? I think you think only I’m seeing this,’.” He says he’s always been uneasy with the idea of this kind of ‘stuff’ existing in perpetuity.

Which means that the answer to the next question requires some serious thought. Who would make for his fantasy dinner party guests? British comedian Eddie Izzard (because Darren is a big Anglophile); if we could roll back time, Sammy Davis Jr, “who the world knows as a great entertainer but he was also an insane dancer and musician”; Nat King Cole for the same reasons; and, his number one choice, Howard Ashman, the lyricist and dramaturge behind the previously mentioned Disney renaissance (aka Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast). “I’ve always admired his craftsmanship and he’s someone I’ve always thought, if I had a dinner, I’d really like to have a chat with. All of my heroes are the people who were hyphenates,” says Darren, which makes sense because he’s just the same. One small suggestion: hold the fantasy dinner party at Planet Hollywood. That would make a nice story.

#darren criss #hunger magazine #acs versace #press #nov 2018

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afterspark-podcast · 3 years

Text

G1 Episode 41: Transcript

[This can also be found on AO3!]

[Stinger]

S: What's his face- the one that you said Rodimus would make out with-?

O: I like that!

[Intro music]

O: Hello, and welcome to the Afterspark Podcast, an episode by episode recap of the Generation 1 Transformers cartoon! I'm Owls!

S: And I'm Specs.

O: And today we're going to be talking about episode number 41: Making Tracks. Let's talk about giant robots today, shall we?

S: Sure, let's do it. Once upon a time in New York City, something, something, cars being pretty-

O: So we open up with two punks in the background on a rather beat up pink car.

S: In the foreground we see a blue corvette stingray with a large winged Autobot logo on its hood.

O: ‘Cause it's a Tracks episode y'all!

S: One of the punks says, “Those wheels are rude!”

O: Wait, wait is that- was that actual 80’s slang? I feel like I've never actually heard that used by, you know, a person.

S: Neither have I and I don't know- neither of us existed then, which I guess dates us rather.

O: We were but a twinkle in our fathers’ eyes.

S: Apparently, Tracks is just what they've always wanted as the two punks pick his door locks and hop on in.

O: One gets into the driver's seat and the other spots an expensive looking red boom box in the back seat.

S: They jam to some tunes on our buddy Blaster.

O: I'm really confused, why do they not just use Track’s stereo?

S: Maybe they're listening to whatever cassette Blaster has got in his player.

O: Ah, yes, the soothing sounds of Eject. Please note: Eject does not actually appear in this episode.

S: Yep, he is Sir-not-appearing-in-this-film today.

O: Because Soundwave is allowed to have buddies but Blaster does not get any for a while, I swear.

S: They're on break. They're always on break.

O: They're always on break.

S: The two punks drive the new joy ride to a shady warehouse and meet an even shadier man.

O: Apparently Tracks is only worth $800.00, which is still too little- even adjusted for inflation at $2526.99.

S: Oh, that's so accurate.

O: Thank you, inflation calculator.

S: I would think that he'd be worth, you know, closer to $8000.00 in current, uh, US dollars but this is probably a chop shop and they're definitely not getting paid market value if we're here- for anything here.

O: I’d say they're getting ripped off, even.

S: Yeah.

O: So Tracks says nothing about this clear insult but transforms into robot mode, scattering all the humans.

S: One of the punks is still carrying Blaster, who transforms and picks up both the punks like two naughty little kittens.

O: The shady chop shop guy makes it just outside the door before running headlong into Optimus and then he pulls a gun on Optimus and shoots at him.

S: And it's a laser gun, no less. How did this man get a laser gun?

O: Though the power of 80’s cartoons and they're not allowed to use real bullets.

S: Oh maybe this should have been our first, uh, hint about who our true enemies are on this episode.

O: Perhaps, maybe.

S: The Autobots head on back to Sparkplug’s garage after, you know, finishing busting up that chop shop

O: Is this a new thing that Sparkplug’s acquired since getting chummy with the Autobots or has he had this this entire time?

S: He's the most interesting man in the world, I mean it could be either.

O: It really could, but to make this more confusing when they arrive back at the garage it really does look like an Autobot construction of some sort, not a man-made one.

S: It's even Autobot orange, how about that?

O: Hey, you know, do you- do you think they went shopping for just the right Earth paint color to match? Like they can- or did they have paint on the Ark? I-I have concerns, I have questions.

S: Someone probably went and got, you know, color swatches and compared them to the Ark.

O: They made Sunstreaker do it.

S: Oh, Sunstreaker, Tracks, and they went and, you know, got Carly because she had better color vision than Spike.

O: Obviously. So Tracks talks about how he likes New York and he could stay here forever.

S: His teammates poke fun at Tracks cosmopolitan preferences, even saying he'd rather hang out with humans than them.

O: Okay, so apparently Tracks is so attracted to humans even before meeting Raoul that the other Autobots regularly kink shame him about it.

S: Oh, he just cares about the culture. He's a man of culture-

O: [Laughter] Uh-huh, uh-huh.

S: If you will.

O: Sure.

S: Our current New York roster includes not only Optimus, Blaster, and Tracks, but also Powerglide, Cosmos, Seaspray, and Hoist and Huffer.

O: Yay, Cosmos!

S: It's gonna be a weird, weird day for New York.

O: Yeah, they must be used to it by now. Optimus sends these various Autobots out to patrol the area but Tracks walks off in a huff to go take a drive.

S: And apparently the state of New York City is so bad in the 80’s that immediately after getting on the road three dudes run out into the street and try to rob whomever they think is driving Tracks.

O: Those windows are either tented or these are the dumbest robbers in existence who are trying to rob an empty car.

S: They're opportunists. Dumb opportunists, because they are in fact the dumbest robbers in the world as they eventually realize that there is definitely no one in that damn car.

O: And they also have laser guns and shoot at Tracks.

S: One of the shots hits his tire and he goes careening into a convenient lamp post.

O: Obviously, Tracks is devastated by the cosmetic damage.

S: He has discovered that New York is not all bright lights and fancy shit.

O: It's also men with laser guns.

S: Tracks tries to transform but apparently getting dinged up like that was just too much damage.

O: A young man sees Tracks and is basically like, “Oh well, it's damaged but still a sports car. I'm going to take it home with me.”

S: What he actually says is: “Well, apparently nobody wants you so that makes you mine,” like, that is not how that works Raoul!

O: Haven’t you read fanfic? Of course that's how that works!

S: Well, considering some of the random accidental baby acquisition things that I've read-

O: What!? [laughter] Baby acquisition was the thing that got said to me today! I had to hear it now so do you, dear listeners.

S: Let's put it this way sometimes fanfic is very weird.

O: Indeed.

S: Accidental acquisition- accidental baby acquisition. ...Yeah, no, that is not how any of that stuff works. Tracks is currently unable to drive and the man enlists some people to help push him into an abandoned lot of some sort.

O: Of course, this young man, as we alluded to earlier, is Raoul and he, again, comments on whoever owned Tracks before, he owns him now.

S: Tracks replies, “Nobody owned me, I'm mine.”

O: Raoul did not expect his new car to talk to him tonight.

S: Well, I think if I was Raoul i would have, uh, maybe taken a step back to-

O: Rethink my life choices?

S: Yeah, but so- yeah, Tracks asks Raoul to repair him and we find out that Raoul intends to sell him, presumably because he has promised a car to two dangerous characters named the Geddis brothers by midnight.

O: Raoul says, “The first time I try to steal a car and I get one with a big mouth.”

S: Track is being somewhat snooty about however Raoul got car parts at this time of night but Raoul's not in the mood to get, you know, a lecture from a car.

O: He pops open Tracks’s hood and comments on “What the hell is all this machinery?” only, you know, without the hell because we are talking about an 80’s cartoon, before snipping an innocent looking wire.

S: Cutting said innocent, delicate, little wire completely incapacitates Tracks.

O: Because, apparently, that's the main cable to his computer and that seems like quite a design flaw. I hope that doesn't become important in any way, shape, or form later in this episode!

S: [Laughter] Hint.

O: Hmmmmmm..

S: Sea spray is patrolling the river and is cranky about humans being litter bugs.

O: While Powerglide and Cosmos report to Prime that they have not seen any Decepticons or Tracks.

S: Hoist complains about being stuck in traffic due to a car accident and hops out of Huffer to help.

O: Which is hilarious because Huffer is shorter than him in robot mode but Hoist apparently has no problem riding in him.

S: And when we say riding in him, we mean riding in his cab, not in his back seat or you know-

O: Whatever you want to take that as an innuendo for.

S: Well, that wasn't what I was thinking- I was just- he's not riding in like a pickup truck bed or something.

O: Oh, yeah, okay I get ya. Huffer laments that they can't all just fly like Tracks before we cut back to Tracks and Raoul.

S: Tracks is looking much better as this front end has been hammered out and, you know, fixed up and Raoul is in the process of polishing him.

O: Which I'm sure Tracks is appreciating.

S: Mm-hm. Two large, adult men have apparently stopped by to shake this teenage boy down.

O: These are the Geddis brothers and they want their car and even call Raoul a bad little boy.

S: Yeah, that's, um, well I mean that's incredibly creepy, by which I mean it's the creepiest thing they could have possibly said.

O: In this exact scenario, yes. Raoul’s in immediate danger! Cut to commercial.

S: Or Shockwave modeling, you know, striking a pose.

O: And after we're done with that, uh, we're back and, uh, these guys insinuate they're going to give Raoull his own set of cement shoes.

S: Well I guess they're part of the mafia or something?

O: I don't know what they are but yeah they're like, “Uh, can't give us a car? Murder.”

S: Yeah, and then Tracks comes to the- well, comes to the rescue by driving up and transforming and putting the intimidation on and because, you know, and the guy's grand plan to get away from the giant metal man is to chuck Raoul at him.

O: Who is, obviously, caught gently in Tracks’s hands and is totally fine.

S: Tracks is a very careful fellow.

O: Yes, I would hope so.

S: So the two Geddis brothers hop in their car and speed off.

O: Cue a not so high-speed car chase as Tracks transforms and chases after them with Raoul in tow.

S: Passing by such renowned New York locations as the Casablanca Abba Cafe.

O: Don't forget about the Appliance Store and Bar or, quite possibly, the Store and Bra. We can't tell.

S: It's unclear. Also the Fashion Forker.

O: Because I don't know what was going on with these names but, boy, are they a joy to read. Raoul thinks that they have lost the Geddis brothers but Tracks says, “Hardly,” and takes to the air.

S: And it is at this point that, uh, rap- Tracks finally introduces himself to Raoul.

O: Yeah, Raoul's basically just been calling him ‘car’ this entire time, I think.

S: I'd rather suspect Tracks has been pouting over that.

O: Probably. Uh, Raoul and Tracks do lose sight of the guys near the docks and head back to the empty lot from before.

S: Tracks has reached the conclusion that the Geddis brothers are working with the Decepticons.

O: Which, you'd think, if you were working closely with either the Autobots or the Decepticons, you'd take the time to learn their damn badge colors so you don't accidentally ruin your entire plans by mouthing off to the wrong bot, because I don't remember what the Geddis brother said to Tracks but they were, like, “Wait? What are you doing here?” or something, I think, to Tracks.

S: Yeah, something like that and, I mean, it's an 80’s cartoon. Nobody's getting points for intelligence here, except maybe Perceptor.

O: Because Percy always gets intelligence points. Tracks asks Raoul to take him to where the brothers are storing the stolen cars and Tracks says he's going undercover... as a stolen car.

S: Again!

O: You know, because that's what you just spent all night doing.

S: He knows what he is. He knows he wants- he knows he has to be the damsel in distress here. They arrive down at the docks and see a parade of cars on a bridge crossing the Hudson into Jersey.

O: I regret to inform you that at this time we are legally obligated to make a New Jersey joke. A-hem! Of course the Decepticons are in [New] Jersey!

S: Ah, the Geddis brothers crossed the bridge and Tracks and Raoul will follow.

O: Back with Powerglide, he reports spotting Starscream to Optimus.

S: Starscream realizes pretty quickly that he's being followed and tries to lose Powerglide but is shot at by Cosmos who wishes him a terrible day.

O: You know, considering the last time they met, I can hardly blame Cosmos for not liking him.

S: Neither can I because, yeah.

O: That whole idol thing? It just didn't go over super well, you know.

S: Yeah. Starscream lands and transforms, running into a shopping mall that somehow- somehow scale to fit them. Roughly.

O: And somehow still open. Like Tracks, earlier, kind of insinuated it was rather late at night, but whatever! Cosmos and Powerglide follow him in but Starscream opens fire on both of them and the smattering of humans in this huge- again- very empty mall.

S: Yep. Powerglide and Cosmos repeatedly lose sight of Starscream, who really should still be in their line of sight.

O: Because he's like one floor up from them! That's how this is going, essentially and so I'm just like, “Do you two need your optics checked?”

S: Maybe!

O: Ratchet, it's time for an eye exam!

S: Yeah, time to check out their sensors. Starscream gets the drop on them again and knocks them off a higher level of the mall before escaping via smashing through the ceiling.

O: Because nobody can use a fucking door.

S: Yeah, no one can really use a door here. Powerglide and Cosmos report into Optimus who, based on Starstream's escape direction, concludes the Decepticons are in New Jersey and most likely the Pine Barrens.

O: Pine Barrens!? I am now massively disappointed by the lack of Jersey Devil in this episode.

S: I don't think they have the budget for the Jersey Devil.

O: I mean, if you've seen the Jersey Devil- I- Honestly, I am devastated, devastated! I did not get to see great Transformers’ animation for this demonic beast, because I want it so bad.

S: Maybe the Jersey Devil will appear in some other iteration of Transformers at some point.

O: But will he be-

S: Just imagine it.

O: But will it be bad 80’s animation, Specs?

S: Well, someone could do, um, Transformers versus American cryptids and potentially do it with bad 80’s animation.

O: That sounds like a delight. However, speaking of the Pine Barrens, the Geddis brothers drop off all the cars and then they send all the drivers back to the city on a bus.

S: Of course, the camera pans over to the right and we see Megatron who was apparently in, uh, plain sight this entire time or showed up extremely stealthily in the last five seconds.

O: The Geddis brothers having delivered the shit ton of cars, asked Megatron where their million dollars is. Megatron being Megatron just aims his fusion cannon at them and says, “Right here.”

S: They shoot at Megatron with their teeny little peashooter laser guns which is just as ineffective against him as they've been against all the other giant robots that have been shot at in this episode.

O: The two humans manage to dodge the fusion cannon blast and presumably run off into the woods.

S: Tracks and Raoul are in the trees nearby and Tracks only just now attempts to contact Optimus but is unable to due to a broken radio.

O: Soundwave and Rumble are loading cars into a giant conveyor belt as Tracks gets closer to investigate.

S: Tracks is really pulling a Daphne this episode, it feels like.

O: [Laughter] It really is.

S: As the cars are pulled into the building Scrapper is waiting just inside with a giant sword- I keep wanting to say laser sword but I don't remember- and he hits them with the sword. Tracks is not happy about possibly becoming robot sushi and the wire repair from earlier conveniently chooses that moment to fall to pieces.

O: Raoul used electrical tape, or at least it certainly looks like electrical tape, and speaking from experience- electrical tape does not just fall apart like that!

S: It's plot.

O: [Laughter] I know it's plot but they should have used, I don't know, like masking tape or something that doesn't stick very well.

S: It’s plot.

O: [Laughter] Oh, right, right, right, right- switching my brain to off.

S: Raoul notices that Tracks isn't moving and whisper-shouts at him to get out of there.

O: Tracks is immortal danger, time for a commercial break.

S: Raoul runs out and yells at the nearby Cons that they'd better not touch his car.

O: Megatron gives him a look that can only be described as “Where the fuck did this one come from? We had gotten rid of the humans.”

S: Unfortunately, humans are a bit of an infestation, Megatron.

O: Raoul-

S: They will turn up wherever.

O: They truly will, and then Raoul lies and says he had a bomb in his car.

S: Raoul goes big.

O: Megatron then threatens him with his fusion cannon for a bit, uh, because he wants him to remove the non-existent bomb.

S: Starscream and Soundwave are just, you know, chilling nearby.

O: Rumble was just here. Is he on coffee break?

S: Probably.

O: [Laughter] See, the Decepticons have legally mandated breaks is what I'm getting from this.

S: They stop at the conveyor belt and Raoul fixes Tracks, who quickly transforms and opens fire.

O: And then the two of them basically run away.

S: Yep, and Ravage and Rumble follow on foot.

O: So much for that coffee break, but now Tracks is running low on energy because he's kind of been all over the place tonight.

S: He feels faint.

O: And he plans to make his last stand in robot mode.

S: Hey, you do what you got to do, I suppose. But Raoul runs off, trying to draw the cassettes away.

O: And Ravage nearly gets him before being tackled out of nowhere by Sideswipe.

S: Bee and Jazz arrive as well and the three of them chase off the Cassettes.

O: Tracks and Raoul are brought back to the Autobot base or Sparkplugs’ garage anyway, and shortly after the missing cars which were modified by the Decepticons begin to enter the city.

S: Optimus, Ratchet, and Blaster attempt to stop as many as possible on a bridge. I mean, good idea: natural choke point.

O: Right but then all the cars transform into robots and fire on the group of Autobots.

S: Meanwhile Bee, Sideswipe, Inferno, and Tracks take on the cars that have already entered the city.

O: Thankfully the cars are terrible shots and miss the Autobots. Unfortunately, they end up hitting a nearby skyscraper and it gets on fire now.

S: Inferno goes to play King Kong and climbs up to put it out and then Ironhide, Huffer, and Windcharger engage another group of cars.

O: I love that when these Decepticon cars transform all of their robot modes are the exact same red and yellow color scheme despite their vehicle modes all being different colors.

S: Um, the- the Decepticons got all of that, uh, got all that paint on discount or something.

O: [Laughter] Obviously.

S: On the bridge, Ratchet examines one of the downed cars and realizes they're being, you know, they're remote controlled.

O: So they broadcast a jamming signal and all the nearby cars, at least, stop.

S: The Autobots then head to the Pine Barrens to destroy the Decepticon base of the week that Tracks and Raoul found before.

O: Optimus yells, “We're putting your company into bankruptcy, Megatron!” Did Cybertron have bankruptcies?

S: Either that or the Autobots have been very well educated on Earth's financial systems which I would not put past, you know, Prowl insisting that they know.

O: Right my brain just went- obviously, Spike told them about this. Then they were educated about Earth financial institutions by a 14 year old boy mostly just because it's funnier.

S: Oh and probably, uh, Sparkplug coming in and having to-

O: Correct him?

S: Re-educate them.

O: [Laughter] Anyway bankruptcies aside, another firefight ensues.

S: Raoul has the power of a crowbar and God on his side and runs into the building to destroy the control panel but is quickly snatched up by Megatron.

O: So, wait, you're telling me that not only did Raoul just march off into that building, by himself, to wreck shit but also that Megatron was prescient enough to go inside and stop him despite being outside three seconds ago?

S: Yep.

O: Alright then.

S: Megatron walks back outside with Raoul and tells the Autobots they’d better stop firing.

O: Raoul, to his credit, is attempting to get out of Megatron's hand this entire time.

S: Tracks is threatening to turn Megatron into scrap metal, himself, if he harms Raoul.

O: Again, they've known each other for, like, a couple of hours, tops. They're, like, ride or die, it's great.

S:Mm-hm. Unable to get out of Megatron's grasp, Raoul reaches into his coat and pulls out a can of spray paint, mashes a button on Megatron's torso, opens a panel and then sprays paint into it.

O:This is apparently enough to completely incapacitate Megatron, who falls onto the ground.

S: Soundwave and Rumble grab Megatron and fly off to the main Decepticon HQ.

O: And they're never seen again. Obviously not. But, uh, a well-placed shot from Tracks causes the entire building to go up in flames.

S: Well, that was, uh, incredibly badly built.

O: Are you insinuating that the Constructicons have shoddy workmanship?

S: Well, they may not have been the ones called in to do that this week.

O: I mean, fair. He has so many. Even the Constructicons need a break.

S: Back in New York all the Decepticon cars are parked in and around Sparkplug’s garage.

O: They plan to fix them all and return them to their actual owners but Sparkplug’s not sure if Ratchet and him can handle it, even with Wheeljack helping out.

S: Raoul takes this as his cue to leave but Tracks walks over and picks him up and drops him next to a nearby car, apparently volunteering his labor.

O: The two bicker good-naturedly as the episode ends. So they are a couple now, right? Right?

S: Mm-hmm.

O: Yes!!

S: Or at least ride or die buddies, who may eventually evolve into a couple.

O: For clarification they're not actually in a romantic relationship because this was the 80’s but there is some fanfic which we have for recommendations in a moment but join us next time for: The Autobot Run. In which the Autobots will do no running... because they will not have legs.

B: [Laughter]

S: Oh yeah. It's a race, dudes. So, Owls has, uh, our fanfic recommendations for today. If you would like to take it away?

O: Uh, if you're not aware from my jokes during this episode, I actually really like Tracks and Raoul as a pairing so I just actually had these all ready, uh, which doesn't happen that often. Um, so our two picks for today are: “Danger, Sudden Swerve” by Chibibee or, uh, Rebecky_Mo in parentheses. It is G1 Cartoon, it is PG-13, it's slash, our pairing is Tracks and Raoul. Our characters are Tracks and Raoul, and in summary, “All it takes is one wrong turn to find yourself somewhere new and amazing.” Uh obviously this is based on this episode having Tracks in it and it is a collection of shorts.

O: And then our second fic for today is: “Following the Tracks” by LittleMissSweetgrass. Continuity is actually Transformers Prime for a change. It is rated T, it is slash again, characters and pairings are Tracks and Raoul although I do want to point out that there's actually a lot of characters from a lot of different continuities that get pulled into this one which makes it a lot of fun. So a lot of the human characters from IDW show up, um, as well as some Autobots that basically got humanized as human characters within the context of they were in relationships with some of the other human characters but, uh, it's really neat- it's nice to see some of these characters that have basically not popped up in anything for years like, uh, is it Asteria or Astoria? Uh, the one that's in love with Powerglide.

S: Yeah.

O: She pops up-

S: I don’t actually remember her- I don't remember her name, I'm afraid.

O: I bet- but her, the rich chick, uh, pops up. So does Chip. It's really nice, definitely recommend, uh, it is unfortunately ongoing so has not completed yet, so I'm, like, it's- it's very good and I read every single update, uh, but in summary, “At the start of Transformers Prime they mentioned that it's been three years since the last Decepticon attack but what if it was also the last time they lost a team member? Tracks was attacked and abandoned in New York City with no way to contact his fellow Autobots. It just so happens that he meets a young man that will help him survive amongst the humans until he can make it back to his team. But what if they can't make it back to them before they leave Earth?” And again it's a Tracks/Raoul recommendation.

S: I know I need to read that one.

O: It's just- it's okay I have had the worst time keeping up with fics this year because 2020 is the gift that keeps on giving. I realize this will get posted in 2021 but we are recording it at the end of 2020.

S: Yeah, it's been a bad year, folks but I think you already know that.

O: Most people do anyway. So our, uh, [art] recommendation for today is Lantana, uh, they have a Tumblr and a Pixiv and their thing is chibis basically, uh, kind of, uh, that's a bit of an oversimplification but their colors are lovely and they have some very super-super-super-duper cute chibi robots. They're soft, they're colorful, I love them, and I want to give them all hugs. So, uh, some of the ones we're recommending: one of them is, uh, it's basically at least an IDW-esque Megatron but done up as a medic. That makes a lot more sense if you've read the comics, I'm sure, um, and then there's one where, uh, they decide- where his Decepticons decide to get him a birthday present. That birthday present is basically a, you know, a captured and tied up Optimus Prime in a giant present box.

S: Tied up with a big pink ribbon.

O: Of course. And then our other one is a Soundwave with a bunch of itty-bitty kitties and him feeding them. It is super cute.

S: Like, initially, I thought that this was a weird Polly Pocket situation where Soundwave had a Polly Pocket house for cats in his chest- it does not but-

O: That would be funny. They've also got a lot more stuff they've posted since I added them to our recommendation list, that is also gorgeous including some Shattered Glass stuff which, because, I love Shattered Glass and there's not a ton of stuff of it, so, uh, yeah, check out their work. It's lovely.

S: Yeah, it's really pretty. I really like the Soundwave and cats.

O: It's- it's just- it's so cute.

S: It is very cute and that about wraps it up for us today. Remember to check us out on Tumblr or Pillowfort as Afterspark-Podcast for any additional information, show notes, or links we may have mentioned. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter at AftersparkPod (all one word) and various other locations by searching for Afterspark Podcast such as AO3, iTunes, Spotify, and Youtube, just to name a few. And feel free to send us questions on Tumblr, Youtube, or AO3! Till next time, I'm Specs.

O: I’m Owls.

S: Toodles.

[Outro Music]

#transcript #g1 episode 41 #afterspark podcast #afterspark

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colorado2018 · 7 years

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Day 20 - 06/03/2018

Day 20

Another early rise this morning. I was still struggling when rob woke me up this morning at 7:15. If anyone knows me I like my sleep. We were up early to try put me through robs testing before I have to start the set up of my testing today. The good thing is that I knew what I was doing this week. My stomach was somewhat better this morning but still not that great. We had a very busy day ahead of us, so I had no opportunity to be a wimp and sit in bed moping.

First thing first I got up and chucked some clothes on because I was due to be partaking in robs ice bath study. I was participant number 1 and 10. How you may ask. Well there is a different response to the different ice temperatures for the different legs. So yes, I am now Joe Bloggs. Anything for science I guess. It does mean that I have to be subjected to the ice bath another two times. We couldn’t get in the ice baths first thing this morning. Everyone is getting rehabbed prior to leaving for nationals an hour later. It was so busy.

We decided to get an early start on my testing as we didn’t want to waste the day. My testing takes place over 4 sessions in one day. It is manic. You know how that went last week. The plan was to make this week so much better. The normal set up takes about 1 hour is we are rushing. I planned to set up nice and steadily and just take the time. We almost did it too slow today. It was much easier the second time around. That would be because we know exactly how we want it set up from ironing out the bugs last week.

Again, we didn’t know who our helpers were and of course they turned up 5minutes before we were due to start. Luckily, one simple trial run for lactate sampling and they were all good to go. I think it is just the teacher that is so good. I think I will continue to believe that. The testing session went extremely smooth today. I’m very impressed with how it went and how little data we lost doing such as hectic testing procedure. You always lose some data but minimising it as much as possible is ideal. The sessions went so well that we were actually able to take 45minutes to have some lunch. You know you are getting more experienced and efficient when you go from no lunch the week before to 45-minute lunch. It was lovely. The afternoon session went very smoothly as well. It was weird because the week before rob and I were falling out with each other and now because he can finally do what’s been asked of him he is happy as larry! Im happy that we aren’t falling out. I think it really helps that the stress is relieving hour by hour because we are slowing getting through it.

Straight as I finished my testing we were back in the training room doing robs testing. As I mentioned earlier I was being a participant. As I couldn’t do it earlier we decided to chuck me in quickly before the end of the day. Not the nicest end to the day for me but its for science so im happy too. Also, it means that we can leave Alamosa earlier because I only have to squeeze in one more rather than two more. Fingers crossed we can finish up tomorrow and then head to boulder Thursday. The testing went really well. I think it is because I can help out as a participant because I know the procedure just as well as rob. The problem is I know how uncomfortable it really is. Not the nicest thing to anticipate. The water is never as bad as its anticipated. I think it made it so much more enjoyable because I had my headphones. That allowed me to rock out to a bit of meatloaf whilst literally freezing my testicals off.

Once we had finally finished testing for the day it was the long evening of cleaning and clearing up from the day. It really is the bit of the day I hate. We had to wash and dry over 50 separate components. So boring. Then I had to try pack them away so when I do the final pack tomorrow it wont take so long. Once we had finished the clearing up, it was dinner time. It’s a Tuesday so that only means one thing. Taco Tuesday. Im going to really miss 50cent tacos when were home. I took it easy tonight as I still had a bit of a belly ache so only had 7 compared to the 10 the week before. Its crazy because between rob and I we had 17 tacos and two beers, and it only come to $12. It is ridiculously cheap. Really nice food as well. We sat with a group of the runners. Different to the first week but was really nice. Some of them took part in my study so it was nice to actually get to know more about the person I had just put through hell.

We still had a long evening ahead of us when we got home. It was a case of getting all the blood shipping documents together and make a reciprocal to send them in. My job was to do the reciprocal and robs was to fill out the forms ready for tomorrow. I had an ingenious way of fitting the cooler we brought into a box tom gave us. Fits perfectly. Lets, hope it is big enough to fit all the samples etc in tomorrow. As I said it was robs job to fill in the forms correctly. As you can imagine he messed up the first one. Problem was we only had one of them, meaning tomorrow im going to have to get another one and then fill it in quickly. the rest of the forms went well and its all sorted ready to be shipped. Tomorrows job is to print the labels and stick them to the box then buy the dry ice and ship it off. Exciting times.

The evening didn’t finish there. We dropped joey off at his on the way back from tacos. 5 minutes later he appeared at our door. One of his house mates was playing on the playstation and had been for hours. Joey was getting very fed up with it. So, he come to ours to do ‘homework’. Very weird when a 22-year-old says he has homework to do. It started off as a quiet evening because rob and I were doing our jobs whilst joey pretended to do homework. He spent most of the evening looking at shoes and then toys. We were all getting really tired so I quickly vlogged. That turned into a photoshoot of joey, firstly with ice cream and then chocolate sauce. I found it hilarious. Once he went I uploaded it to YouTube then hit the bed. It was a very long day so im very tired.

Night guys! See you tomorrow for our last day in Alamosa.

#phd #colorado #america #alamosa

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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 years

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BOING BOING GIFT GUIDE 2017

Here's this year's complete Boing Boing Gift Guide: dozens of great ideas for stocking stuffers, brain-hammers, mind-expanders, terrible toys, badass books and more. Where available, we use Amazon Affiliate links to help keep the world's greatest neurozine online.

Gadgets + Gear

Books + Music

Home + Kitchen

Toys + Games

Naughty + Nice

Gadgets

CORY

Edu-Toys Night 'n Day Mechanical GlobeElenco's Night 'n Day Mechanical Globe uses a system of translucent, exposed gears to rotate an internally illuminated globe that displays the seasonally adjusted, real-time night/day terminator as it spins.[Read More]

BUY

XENI

iPhone 8 PlusNow on its eighth numbered generation, the iPhone remains my entire creative studio and almost everything I need to do my work: it replaces my fancy camera, my audio gear and everything else I had to lug around. This thing really is everything. I go big on screen size and storage capacity, with that in mind: the Plus, and 128 GB.

BUY

DAVID

Audio Technica AT-LP60Forget those vinyl-destroying, vintage-inspired all-in-one units. They're all crap. The Audio Technica AT-LP60 is a fantastic beginner (or revivalist) turntable for the price. Its built-in pre-amp means all you need to do is plug it any powered speakers with an audio input.You won't find a better turntable than this for under $100 unless you hit the second-hand market.

BUY

MARK

Flitt Flying Pocket Selfie Camera Drone ($100)I honestly didn't expect that this tiny fold-up drone would perform as well as it does. It does a great job of hovering in place, and is easy to control with a smart phone. It's the first drone I can fly without crashing it into a wall or getting it stuck in a tree.

BUY

ROB

Kano Computer KitBuild your own computer and learn to code art, music, apps, games and more with the Kano Computer Kit, an introduction to the bare metal you just won't get with crap-laden commercial machines. Hundreds of schools use them, and Includes everything you need, including the Pi that acts as its brain, case, speaker, wireless keyboard, RAM, and cables. And unlike most edumuacational computer gear, it looks absolutely cool as heck.

BUY

JASON

An airbag for your motorcyclistDo you love your motorcyclist? This simple, tether activated airbag inflates less than .10 of a second after a rider becomes separated from their bike. Helping to secure the neck, and protect the torso and internal organs, the Helite Turtle, is a top choice for next-generation motorcycle safety.

BUY

DAVID

Kindle E-reader loaded with free classicsFor $50, the entry-level Kindle E-reader is priced right, and comes in black or white! This model has a 6” display and the battery lasts for ages between charges. (If you want to get fancy, go for the Kindle Paperwhite with a built-in reading light so you don't bug bedmates.) Load it with free classic books from Project Gutenbergbefore gifting!

BUY

MARK

Igloohome Deadbolt2 ($238)The Igloohome Deadbolt2 has a programmable keypad instead of a keyhole. It took me about 20 minutes to install on my door. You can send your friends or other people single-use PINs. The smartphone app can also be set so the door unlocks when you touch the keypad - no PIN needed.

BUY

MARK

Mixcder Wireless & Wired Over Ear Headphones ($80)I bought these relatively inexpensive headphones for my daughter, who wanted wireless headphones for when she paints and sculpts. These are comfortable, have good sound quality, and pair easily with an iPhone.

BUY

MARK

PacSafe Transit Travel Hoodie ($130)The thing I like about this pocket-covered hoodie is that the interior pockets have little line drawings indicating what you should put in them - pen, eyeglasses, tablet computer, phone, passport, earbuds, wallet, etc. I like having a garment that tells me what to do, it keeps life simple while traveling.

BUY

ROB

Elf ear earbudsOnce hard to find, these low-end but unique earbuds are now at Amazon. For elves who can't quit their record collection even for a moment, they're still, sadly, only available in lily white. But cheap, at just $13.

BUY

ROB

Raspberry Pi 3 Model BThe best $35 you can spend on a wee yet straightforward and accessible barebones computer, Raspberry's Pi is now in its third generation and lives atop a vast and growing ecosystem of accessories, cases and general craziness to have fun with. The latest flagchip model has a 1.2GHz 64-bit quad-core CPU with twice the Pi 2's performance, integrated WiFi and Bluetooth, and backward compatibility with earlier models.

BUY

XENI

Black & Decker CHV1410L 16-volt Lithium Cordless Dust Buster Hand VacStill the best selling hand vac for keeping your office, home, workshop or hackerspace tidy. CHV1410L has strong suction, and a bagless dirt bowl that's easy to see and empty. Holds a charge for up to 18 months when it's off the charger. High efficiency Lithium ion chargers protect it by automatically shutting off when the battery is charged, so you can store it on the charger.

BUY

ROB

ArduboyBeautiful 1-bit graphics in your wallet! Arduboy is an open-source platform to create and share games and the hardware is made to the dimensions of a business card. Best of all, this tiny toy is only $50. Want more? The PocketChip, at $70, plays Pico-8 games with a dazzling 16 colors; the dev community is more mature and there are countless games already.

BUY

ROB

Second-gen Apple iPad Pro 12.9-inchWith the lastest 12.9" model I've changed my mind about Apple's biggest iPad. Its unmatched pencil latency and powerful processor leave Microsoft (and even Wacom) trailing, while markedly improved third-party applications make Photoshop less critical, at least for me. Finally.

BUY

Books and Media

MARK

The EC Artists Library Slipcase (Vol 3 $54)This high quality box set of four hardbound books has 904 pages of the very best comics of the 1950s. Volume one of this series is out of print and sells for over $250. Volume three is just $54. With art by greats like Wally Wood, Joe Orlando, John Severin, and George Evans, this set is a must-have for comic book aficionados.

BUY

CORY

Canadaland Guide to Canada (Published in America), by Jesse Brown and friendsBrown finds plenty of hilarious awfulness in Canada's past and present, especially in the way that Canadians talk about themselves when they expect Americans might be listening to them. From Justin Trudeau (who talks about refugees abandoned by Trump but takes no action to improve their lot, because he's too busy taking away the citizenship rights of naturalised Canadians with objectionable politics, greenlighting climate-destroying pipelines for the Tar Sands, and making the most of the sweeping surveillance powers he promised he'd abolish after taking office) to Rob Ford to Quebec separatism and the long, deplorable traditions of drunken, racist Canadian leaders who are remembered as wise, even-handed leaders, Brown punctures ever bubble that Canadians have ever blown over the border toward our American cousins.

I laughed aloud at many of these jokes, and they got under my skin, in just the same way that a perfect Samantha Bee rant will. This is a book of weaponised jokes about a country that has spent more than a century burnishing its credentials by blithely asserting its moral and temperamental superiority to its erratic and flamboyant southern neighbour -- and every shot hits its mark. [Read more]

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CORY

Briggs Land Volume 1: State of Grace, by Brian WoodStories matter: the recurring narrative of radical Islamic terror in America (a statistical outlier) makes it nearly impossible to avoid equating "terrorist" with "jihadi suicide bomber" -- but the real domestic terror threat is white people, the Dominionists, ethno-nationalists, white separatists, white supremacists and sovereign citizens who target (or infiltrate) cops and blow up buildings. That's what makes Brian Wood's first Briggs Land collection so timely: a gripping story of far-right terror that is empathic but never sympathetic.

Briggs Land builds on the empathic -- but not sympathetic -- portrayals of far-right separatists in Wood's seminal graphic novel DMZ. It's timely: the Trump era has been a moment of uneasy glory for white nationalists and their fellow travelers, who, having long craved the spotlight, aren't entirely sure what to do with it.

Briggs Land is also in development as an AMC TV series, further evidence of its zeitgeisty nature. Being a Brian Wood comic, it's also gripping as hell, a nonstop crime novel that involves rogue FBI agents, ruthless skinheads, closet racists and overt ones, doting parents who also happen to be unspeakable monsters. [Read More]

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Kindred (Graphic Novel), adapted from the novel by Octavia ButlerKindred is the story of Dana, an African-American writer married to a white man in 1976, who finds herself being violently yanked through time and space to the side of her distant ancestor, Rufus, the son of an enslaver who lives on a plantation in antebellum Delaware. Rufus -- a self-destructive, traumatized and spoiled child -- periodically puts himself in mortal danger, and when he does, Dana is torn from 1976 to save him, and is stranded in the violent, totalitarian south until she experiences mortal terror, whereupon she returns to her present, only moments after she left. Luckily for Dana, mortal terror is a commonplace occurance for black people in Delaware in the 19th century.

Dana's relationship to Rufus, and to Rufus's freeborn, African-American friend Alice -- whom Dana knows to be her ancestress -- is wrenching and claustrophobic, as she is enlisted to help Rufus sexually assault and eventually enslave Alice, revealing the deep violence lurking in Dana's own distant past.

For many years, Dana and her white husband, Kevin, are stranded in history, together and separately, and this affords Butler a chance to add yet more nuance to her tale, weaving in the point of view, privileges and horror of a white ally who, nevertheless, enjoys a measure of safety his black wife cannot claim.

The graphic novel adaptation is extremely faithful to the Butler novel, and does brilliant things with color-palettes, using different tones to demark the present and past, and also the belowstairs and abovestairs places in the lives of the enslaved people. The lines are vigorous and rough, conveying emotion and urgency.[Read More]

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The Magic Machine: A Handbook of Computer Sorcery ($4)This 1990 BASIC programming book is long out-of-print, but is still valid and a great way to explore fractals and artificial life. I loved this book when it came out and just bought a replacement for my lost copy. Use copies are cheap on Amazon. Get it for a smart kid in your life.

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Voyager Golden RecordIn 1977, NASA launched two spacecraft, Voyager 1 and 2, on a grand tour of the solar system and into the mysteries of interstellar space. Attached to each ofthese probes is a beautiful golden phonograph record containing the story of our planet expressed in music, sounds, images, and science. It’s a message for any extraterrestrial intelligence that might encounter it. And now you can experience on Earth as a lavish 3xLP Box Set or 2xCD-Book edition.

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The Photographs Of Charles Duvelle - Disques OCORA And Collection PROPHETDecades before the term "world music" became common parlance, Charles Duvelle was traveling the globe recording the sounds and sights of indigenous people around the world. To enable us see the world through Duvelle's eyes, Sublime Frequencies' Hisham Mayet in collaboration with Duvelle released this magnificent tome contains field photographs from 1959-1978, a deep interview, a report he prepared for Unesco in 1978, and two CDs of music that will move you.

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Art Sex Music by Cosey Fanni TuttiThe stunning memoir of musician, artist, and cultural provocateur Cosey Fanni Tutti is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of avant-garde music, performance art, underground culture, radical living, and female empowerment. Best known as co-founder of pioneering industrial groups Coum Transmissions and Throbbing Gristle (famously called “wreckers of civilisation” by a British MP), Cosey has also explored the fringes of sex, music, and creativity as a pornographic model, video artist, electronic composer, and, yes, writer. This is her story so far and it’s a doozy.

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Little Book of Wonders: Celebrating the Gifts of the Natural World by Nadia DrakeNational Geographic contributor Nadia Drake’s science writing sings with knowledge, rigor, and her own infectious curiosity. This slim and delightful book is no exception. A lovely miniature wunderkammer of Earth’s magical places, startling phenomena, and amazing wildlife, it pairs beautiful photos with Nadia’s poetic and informative captions that spark the imagination and instill a sense of wonder about our world.

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Dalí: The Wines of GalaFirst published in 1978, Salvador Dalí’s The Wines of Gala is a stunning and strange guide that groups wines “according to the sensations they create in our very depths” such as “Wines of Frivolity,” “Wines of the Impossible,” and “Wines of Light.” Featuring more than 140 of Dalí’s surrealist illustrations, this is the most bizarre, sensual, and sensational book about viticulture and libations that you’ll ever experience.

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THEFT: A History of Music, by James Boyle and Jennifer JenkinsTheft traces millennia of musical history, from Plato's injunction against mixing musical styles to the outrage provoked by the troubadours who appropriated sacred music and turned it into bawdy songs about wanting to have sex with hot teenagers (a trick Ray Charles repeated hundreds of years later!); from the racist outrage over rock and roll's challenge to white supremacy to the fights over sampling and the exploitation of African-American musicians who were ripped off 40 years ago versus the interests of their musical progeny whose sample-based music has been distorted and even outlawed by the same musical corporations that screwed the R&B artists, in the name of defending those artists (!).

Jenkins and Boyle are two of the staunchest defenders of fair use and remixing -- their first comic, Bound by Law, was a kind of Understanding Comics for the legalities of fair use -- and it shows: Theft is as laden with visual, textual and musical references as a Dizzy Gillespie solo, an early Public Enemy wall-of-sound, an illegal Girl Talk mashup.[Read More]

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The Free, by Lauren McLaughlinIsaac West is a mixed-race kid who never knew his dad; he and his sister have raised their alcoholic, abusive mother as much as she's raised them. But Isaac has a plan: his little sister Janelle is smart, better than he'll ever be, and he's going to get her out of their mutual hellhole and into a private school -- and to make that happen, he's graduated from petty theft into grand theft auto, under the supervision of his high-school auto-shop teacher, a cut-rate Fagin who trains and oversees a gang of junior car thieves.

It's this teacher who insists that Isaac should plead guilty to beating a man comatose in a car-heist that went wrong, though the kid who actually did the beat-down was the teacher's cousin, a hulking giant of a kid who has already got a conviction under his belt and faces being tried as an adult if he goes down.

For Isaac, it's an easy choice: spend 30 days in juvie, complete his rehab program, and in return, he'll get enough to send Janelle off to private school. All he has to do is survive, and he's been doing that all his life.

From here, McLaughlin has all the elements for a tight, claustrophobic novel that veers between the terror and camaraderie of incarceration; the brutally honest drama therapy group that Isaac must attend if he's to be released; the mounting danger to his sister and all of the repressed feelings and guilt that weigh Isaac down.

While there's some revenge and redemption here, mostly what there is is unblinking reality, a willingness to confront the impossible without denying it. The kids in Isaac's world are in trouble, and that trouble isn't going to get better for most of them, and maybe not for Isaac. Some of those kids are pretty terrible, but even at their worst, they're still kids, and still rounded people with their own virtues and stories.

I don't know when I've read a more empathic novel, and it's been a long time since I read one that was more sorrowful and joyful at the same time. [Read More]

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The Complete Elfquest Vol. 4Fresh out in November, this volume contains some of the most exquisite and touching episodes of Wendy and Richard Pini's Elfquest saga, a great alternative to genre fantasy and its grim 'n' gritty modern counterparts. One of America's best indie comics, it's illustrated by Wendy's wonderful artwork – even at its most lighthearted, unanswerable questions of identity, family and freedom lurk between the lines. (Newcomers should not feel they have to start at the beginning, but it sure helps.)

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The Hardware Hacker: Adventures in Making and Breaking Hardware, by Andrew "bunnie" HuangThe book draws heavily on Huang's own hardware projects, which have included substantial manufacturing in south China, with many hard-won lessons about how things can go wrong and how to make them go right. This is more than a checklist or memoir: it's nothing less than a masterclass in modern manufacturing, and even if you never plan on manufacturing anything, reading these chapters will explain the material world around you like few other texts.

This dovetails neatly into a meditation on the differences between Western and Chinese approaches to "intellectual property" and the way this has informed the manufacturing processes whose outflows are all around us. In these chapters, Huang proves himself to be a thoughtful and incisive critic of law as well as technology, and the thorny questions he raises show up the normal discussion on these subjects up for a shallow scrape over the surface of something deep and difficult.

Huang uses these broad legal and technical passages as a foundation for the second half of the book, which lay out the detective work that Huang did to realize his various hardware challenges, from stick-on soft circuits to an insanely clever device that circumnavigates the law through tight and unsuspected secret creeks that allow him to enter territory that no engineer has ever seen by legal means.

The book concludes with its most speculative and future-looking chapter: a disquisition on the similarities (and differences) between computational bioscience and hardware hacking, based on his work with his "perlfriend" -- his perl-hacking, bioscientist girlfriend -- on hacking genomes. [Read More]

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New York 2140, by Kim Stanley RobinsonIt's 2140 and trillions of dollars' worth of the world's most valuable real estate is now submerged under fifty feet of water, resulting from two great "surges" where runaway polar melting created sudden, punctuated disasters that displaced billions of people, wiped trillions off the world's balance sheets, and turned the great cities of the world into drowned squatter camps.

But it's 2140, and the cities are coming back. The combination of financial speculation, desperate refugees willing to do anything to find shelter, and new technological innovations are spawning "SuperVenice"s where boats replace cars and high-rises connect to each other with fairytale skybridges, and pumped-out subway stations become underwater leisure clubs. No SuperVenice is more super than New York City, where the boats ply midtown Manhattan's skyscrapers and everything from Chelsea down is an intertidal artificial reef where, every now and again, hundreds of squatters die as the buildings topple.

The forces of finance are deeply interested in the intertidal zones. These great cities were once the world's ultimate luxury products and now they're marine salvage, waiting to be dredged up from the tidal basins, dusted off and monetized. Yeah, there's millions of inconvenient poors hanging out in them, but they're a market failure, producing suboptimal rents on some seriously distressed assets that need a little TLC, capital infusion, and ruthless securitization to bring them back.

Robinson is a master of turning stories about zoning disputes and local politics into gripping, un-put-down-able adventure tales (his novel Pacific Edge remains the most uplifting book in my library). New York 2140 is a spectacular exemplar of the tactic: the financial shenanigans form a backdrop for submarine drone-wars, black-ops kidnappings, private security assassinations, non-state actor cyberwar and economic terrorism, buried treasure hunting, and big, muscular technologies from giant dredging barges to aerosolized diamond sprays. [Read More]

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WAKE UP!, by Rick Lieder and Helen FrostLife is a continuing cycle of newness, then growth, and then gone: then birth and growth again. Photographer Rick Lieder started thinking about that theme of new life and new beginnings several years ago, and WAKE UP!, published by Candlewick Press, is the result. Working with his collaborator, poet Helen Frost, our book is about opening eyes—our own, first—and pointing to the world that’s right here, containing us all. Helen and rick are both based in the US Midwest, so we started there, with a world that we didn’t need to travel far to explore, only wake up enough to actually see. [Read More]

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Penguin Galaxy Boxed Set, introduced by Neil GaimanLast October, Penguin released its Galaxy boxed set, a $133 set of six hardcover reprints of some of science fiction's most canonical titles: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K LeGuin; Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A Heinlein; 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C Clarke; Dune by Frank Herbert; The Once and Future King by TH White; and Neuromancer, by William Gibson.

The series is curated and introduced by Neil Gaiman, whose essay on the charm and value of science fiction appears at the start of each of the handsome volumes. It's a fine essay, placing each book in its historical context, and turning a writerly eye to their construction and techniques, as well as some of the memoir that makes Gaiman essays such fine reads (see, for example, his 2016 essay collection The View From the Cheap Seats).

As nice as that essay is, it's eclipsed by the gorgeous design, courtesy of Spanish designer Alex Trochut, whose impressive CV includes a Grammy nomination for Best Recording Package. Trochut does away with fussy book-jackets and prints his titles straight onto the books' boards in stylized, embossed gold leaf type -- with clever type-art for every cover. [Read More]

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Brutal London: Construct Your Own Concrete CapitalBrutal London: Construct Your Own Concrete Capital tells the stories of nine of London's greatest brutalist structures (with an intro by Norman Foster!), including the Barbican Estate, Robin Hood Gardens, Balfron Tower and the National Theatre -- and includes pull-out papercraft models of these buildings for you to assemble and display. [Read More]

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SHADE THE CHANGING GIRL v.1: Earth Girl Made Easy, by Cecil CastellucciLoma Shade, as her own unique character, was a way of being steeped in the world of Shade the Changing Man, while being its own thing. Some people say that Shade the Changing Girl seems to be a direct sequel of the Milligan run. I say not so. I’ve always approached it as a kind of side-quel. Creator Cecil Castellucci wanted to take care to have nods and echoes to them both, but to be able to stand narratively on its own. It was a way of striking out in a new direction while plucking elements from the Ditko original and the Milligan run.

Our Shade the Changing Girl is a way of changing the changing.

The body of a teenage girl was a great place to start that change. The body of bully was the way to take it to the next level. The idea of a real alien, who moves like a bird in human form was the best way to express it. Add in Marley Zarcone’s wongld. They are blooming and bursting with feelings and big body changes. They are confident and awkward. They are experimenting with identity. They are constantly changing.

When we are teenagers, we are figuring out how to become who we are. To throw down and figure out what it really means to be human and to break free from our parents and to think for our selves. This is why Castellucci loved writing Shade, because as an alien, she mirrors our own growth in this world. She can see the quotidian with eyes that we can’t see the world with. She has to figure out how to transform herself from who she was to who she isn’t. And through her we dive deep into her attempts to discover the meaning of humanity. Loma Shade is changed profoundly by being this mean girl and having to navigate the fall out of living in Megan’s body and in her world. [Read More]

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Paper Girls 1, 2 and 3, by Brian K Vaughanhttps://boingboing.net/2016/12/14/brian-k-vaughan-and-cliff-chan.html https://Paper Girls stars an all-girl cast of newspaper delivery kids for a fictional Cleveland newspaper, circa 1988 -- they are instantly and wholeheartedly likable, like the Goonies or the cast of Stranger Things. They convene on November 1, when the mean teenagers of Cleveland are still out an about and making mischief, picking on the likes of them, and they band together in mutual self-defense.

Then things get weird.

The girls are assaulted by a group of costumed teens, who rip off a Radio Shack walkie-talkie that one of them saved for months to buy. The girls chase down these goons, ending up in a partially built house, whose basement holds a spaceship of some kind, or maybe it's a time-machine -- and after a flash and a bang, they emerge to a transformed neighborhood, overcast with a tornado out of which flap huge, monstrous dinosaurs ridden by lance-wielding, argot-speaking warriors who kill and kidnap all they meet.

Before long, the girls are hurled into a mystery tale of Vaughnian complexity, chased through time and space, meeting ambiguous heroes and villains, including several who may be clones of them -- or older versions, or neither. (Don't foreget books Two and Three) [Read More]

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Bitch Doctrine: Essays for Dissenting Adults, by Laurie PennyIf you've followed Penny's work, you'll know that the thing that sets her apart from other enraged columnists is her empathy: her ability to understand the self-serving rationalizations, radioactive bullshit, and emotional damage that drives men to threaten her with rape and murder for pointing out that things aren't exactly fair.

But while Penny is perfectly capable of understanding her ideological opponents -- better than they understand themselves, without a doubt -- she doesn't offer them any sympathy. This sympathy -- no less well-informed, no less analytical -- is reserved for people who are getting the shittiest end of the stick: trans people, people of color, poor people, disabled people, other women. Even when she feuds with them, even when she is laid low by anger from her allies, she does the hard work to look past her own hurt feelings, to the missteps that let her to a place of conflict.

Penny is a bridge between two modes of political writing, a hybrid that gets the best of both and offsets their deficits: on the one hand, she's clearly in the Hunter S Thompson gonzo tradition (her adventures running down violent neo-Nazis in Greece are a match for anything HST wrote about Hell's Angels or police detective conventions); on the other hand, she's got the scholarly habit of finding and presenting an issue from every side, even the ones she disagrees with. But while the gonzos reduce their opponents to caricatures, and while scholarly work can dissolve the point of view into a view from nowhere, wishy-washy and free from any kind of thesis or real muscle, Penny is able to forcefully convey her point of view, and back it up by showing that she understands exactly what her opponents are thinking, and why, precisely, they are full of shit. [Read More]

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Lizard Music, by Daniel PinkwaterLizard Music is a novel about Victor, a kid who falls asleep while doing a model airplane and wakes up when the local TV station is going off the air, who discovers that the true late-night programming comes from humanoid lizards who live in a secret nearby volcano and worship Walter Cronkite.

Victor travels to the land of the lizards with the Chicken Man, a recurring Pinkwater character: a kind of hobo figure whose pet chicken is wise beyond her years and dander. What happens next will... Well, it will make you weirder.

No author has ever captured the great fun of being weird, growing up as a happy mutant, unfettered by convention, as well as Pinkwater has. When I was a kid, Pinkwater novels like Lizard Music made me intensely proud to be a little off-center and weird -- they taught me to woo the muse of the odd and made me the happy adult I am today. It's one of those books that, in the right hands at the right time, can change your life for the better and forever. [Read More]

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Landscape With Invisible Hand, by MT AndersonIn 2002, MT Anderson blew up the YA dystopia world with Feed, his zeitgeisty, prescient novel about "identity crises, consumerism, and star-crossed teenage love in a futuristic society where people connect to the Internet via feeds implanted in their brains" -- in his latest, Landscape with Invisible Hand, Anderson takes us to a world where neoliberal aliens have sold Earth's plutocrats the technologies to make work obsolete and with it, nearly human being on earth.

Now we all have to live with that reality: former superstar luxury car salesmen, bank tellers, teachers, programmers -- everyone except for a tiny elite of financial engineers, really -- have been replaced by technology sold by the vuuv (that's the alien race) to the world's 1 percenters when they inducted the human race into the galactic prosperity sphere.

Landscape is told as a series of acerbic, short vignettes -- latter-day Douglas Coupland riffs -- in the voice of Adam, a teenager living in a rotting suburban home amidst the remains of his rotting suburban life, scrounging for rice and beans and painting, painting, painting, the only escape he has. Each chapterlette opens with Adam describing a painting that sets the scene, part of the blasted, wasted dystopia that 99% of the human race lives in while sneering aliens and financial executives tell them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, get jobs, and stop looking for handouts. [Read More]

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Stories of Your Life and OthersTed Chiang's writing is rare and precise, weaving threads of science fiction into something so haunting and humane I've woken up dreaming about it more than once. Here you can read most of his published work, including the novella that was recently filmed as Arrival and is currently in U.S. theaters. But my favorites are the Borgesian "Tower of Babel," about an engineer breaking through the vault of heaven, and "Division by Zero."

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The Power, by Naomi AldermanIn The Power, a day dawns, not so long from now, in which every 15-year-old girl finds herself with the power to deal out electric shocks, emanating from an unsuspected organ called "the skein," which rests along the collarbone. What's more, any woman can do the trick, once a 15 year old shows them how.

Chaos. Glorious chaos.

The world's sex-slaves kill their pimps. The women of Saudi Arabia foment revolution. Women whose husbands beat them strike back. Girls whose fathers rape them find themselves able to defend themselves -- with lethal force, if it comes to that.

Concerned parents ask to have their boys separated from the vicious girls who stalk them through school. Mean girl cliques take on a new, deadly overtone. Law and order teeters.

Against this background, a cast of characters: Roxy, the daughter of a ruthless British gangster; Joc, the daughter of an ambitious midwestern politician; Allie, a much-abused foster kid whose foster father has a surprise in store for him, and Tunde, a Nigerian lad whose workshops of storytelling through digital photography just took on a new significance.

Through these characters, a plot as intricate and fast moving as any thriller, with lots of grace notes and seeming detours that converge with the main storyline, giving it energy and velocity.

And throughout, when you're finished, the realization that there was so much more going on, stuff I can't discuss without spoilers -- a story within the story that is chilling, thrilling, disturbing. [Read More]

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Archangel, by William GibsonFrom the start of its run in 2016, Archangel went from strength to strength, packing in so many goddamned O.G. cyberpunk eyeball kicks per page that it felt like some kind of cask-strength distillation of all the visual and action elements that gave the original mirrorshades stuff its dark glitter.

Now that the comic's run is done, the five-issue tale is revealed as a masterful, beautifully plotted war story set in three different wars: WWII as we know it, WWII as it might have been, and a distant all-out nuclear conflagration that may or may not have been an inside job.

This is a time-travel story, but it's one that sets out to break the genre's conventions: it opens with the ruthless son of America's power-grabbed president-for-life traveling back to Berlin at the end of WWII to murder his grandfather and take his place. Take that, grandfather parodox.

Hunting the president's son and his goons is "The Pilot," a USAF ninja in a camouflage suit who must prevent Junior from destroying another world without giving Junior the chance to detonate the belly-bomb all US armed-forces members must have implanted when they enlist. Thankfully, it has a 30 foot range.

Archangel is visually stunning, with all the dark romance of war-torn Berlin as a setting: deviant cabarets, black marketeers' dens, chop-shops, makeshift Soviet command-posts and secret airfields. Then there's the futuristic world of Junior and the president, seen in a cramped bunker in which a rogue scientist is scrambling to support The Pilot from the distant future and a different timeline. [Read More]

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Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches, by John HodgmanMy first impression of Vacationland was that I'd found a modern version of Steve Martin's classic Cruel Shoes. Hodgman is so very witty, and as he sets up his memoir -- the story of how he was a weird kid raised by loving but largely unconcerned parents -- he has so many tinder-dry asides and beautifully turned sentences and jokes with long fuses that unexpectedly detonate paragraphs later that I was really getting ready to relive my own childhood.

Right as I was getting comfortably settled into Vacationland, I discovered that Hodgman had smoothly transitioned me into some really profound emotional truth -- it's where he starts talking about his mother's untimely death and how he reacted to her terminal illness -- and then back into that dry, comedic mode, slipping the knife in and pulling it out so smoothly that I hadn't even noticed until the blood started to drip. That kind of maneuver requires both a steady hand a very sharp knife, and Hodgman has both.

This sneaky book pulls that move over and over, using comedy and narrative confidence to make important points about privilege, self-delusion, parenting, death, birth, cities, alienation, love -- the whole gamut.

All without ever losing the comedy, which is funny stuff, and it's not a spoonful of sugar that helps all that serious medicine go down, it's perfectly blended into those serious themes.

This isn't a book like Cruel Shoes: it's the book Cruel Shoes gets to be when it grows up. [Read More]

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XENI

Sport-Brella XLPortable wind, sun, and rain shelter that's easy to set up. Can you open an umbrella? Can you drive a couple stakes into the ground? You got this, then. Haul it to the beach, outdoor gatherings or events, camping, sports, and you feel like you have a little private room outdoors. Comes in 6 different colors. Provides UPF 50+ shade. Opens to 9 feet wide, has a metallic undercoating for additional sun protection, internal pockets for stakes, valuables, and gear, plus top wind vents and side zippered windows for efficient airflow. Water resistant, weighs only 11.5 pounds. I first saw someone else on our local beach use it, and asked them where they bought it. Amazonned one for myself. Now I use it nearly every weekend, and love it.

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3" Glass PyramidMade of "optically clear crystal" and three inches tall, Amlong's Crystal Pyramid is the best Crystal Pyramid. My bacon is fresh, my airspace dangerous, and my undertakings favored.

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OXO Good Grips Solid Stainless Steel Ice Cream Scoop ($15)The old ice cream scoop we had wasn't really an ice cream scoop. It was a disher, and was more suited for scooping mashed potatoes than ice cream. When the trigger mechanism on it finally broke, I happily got rid of it and replaced it with the OXO Good Grips Solid Stainless Steel Ice Cream Scoop($15). This surprisingly heavy scoop is made from a solid chunk of stainless steel with a comfortable rubber grip, and comes with a pointed end that digs right into hard ice cream, especially if you run hot water over it. It's supposedly dishwasher safe but why put it in the dishwasher? Just rinse it and dry it with a towel.

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Brondell SourceI bought the Brondell Source in 2015 and it alleviated allergy symptoms; here's the latest model, adding a touchscreen, remote control and an adjustable air quality sensor. Rids the air of dust and dander and tiny particles you don’t need to be breathing—but also filters volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Three-stage advanced purifier system includes certified True HEPA and Granulated Carbon technology. Glowing light indicator tells you when it’s working. One time my dog farted a particularly noxious plume and this thing kicked into high gear with an emergency red glow. That’s when I knew I’d be giving it a five star recommendation.

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Lynx Sonoma Stainless Steel Countertop Natural Gas Smoker ($2500)This capacious, ultra high-end smoker has a digital control panel, smoker chip box, an instant-reading meat probe. It's got built-in Wi-Fi, of course, so you can monitor the process wherever you are.

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JASON

Wise Owl Camping HammockThe comfort to weight ratio of a good camping hammock is off the charts. Durable and easy to set up, you'll be happy anyplace you can find two appropriately spaced trees.

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Cuisinart 14-Cup Food ProcessorThe latest model of the best food processor for people who are serious about broadening their happy foodie horizons. Shove entire fruits and veggies into the giant feed tube. Listen to the 720-watt motor fill a 14-cup work bowl with steel slicing and shredding discs. It still comes with a free recipe book.

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Toys and Games

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Rainbow SlimeA glittery additive mixed with kid-safe Elmer's glue, Rainbow Slime is what you make of it. Fun when forming and flexible when dry, the results are beautiful, weird and extremely cheap at $6 or so.

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The Intellivision Flashback ConsoleRemember the unlucky kid with the parents who got them an "Intellivision" instead of an Atari? Make someone that miserable again! With games no one can remember except maybe that OK one with a snake that couldn't touch its tail but isn't SNAFU, the Intellivision really sucked.

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Ejector Seat Button For Your CarA perfect stocking stuffer, this very clever eject button fits into most automobile cigarette lighter sockets. Unfortunately, the product listing clearly states that it's "designed for show only." It is a functional cigarette lighter though so I guess they mean it won't actually trigger your ejector seat.

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Swish card gameA beautiful and deeply compelling card game, Swish is challenges your spatial perception to find matches of balls and hoops on transparent cards. It’s a wordless game of pattern recognition that has entranced my entire family including our youngest child, age 8.

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Bulk Generic LegoYou can get 1000 random pieces of off-brand building bricks for less than $30, guaranteed to "fit tight" and come with "less filler" than the even-cheaper bulk buys.

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Palomino Blackwing 602 Pencils ($23/doz.)This is a faithful reproduction of the Eberhard Faber original, which is no longer being made. Blackwing 602 have dark, soft lead (the motto printed on the pencil reads"Half the pressure, twice the speed") and features a unique eraser holder. I've been using them for years.

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Make your own Crazy Aaron's Thinking PuttyThe one thing my 10-year-old enjoys more than making her own floam or slime is playing with Thinking Putty. Textured quite like the legendary Silly Putty of yore, Crazy Aaron's putties come in a rainbow of colors and styles. This set lets you design your own! I am pretty sure Mark could be easily distracted by a can of magnetic Thinking Putty.

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Copic Ciao Marker SetAt about $200, a full set of 72 Copic markers is a pricey proposition. But that's because they're the absolute best, with perfect colors, easy blending, and a big brush tip good for detail and wash alike. Dip an elbow in the water with a relatively inexpensive 12-marker set; great deals on partially-used sets can also be found haunting eBay.

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Because cats are totally down with the Dark SideYoda and Chewie as mice for your cat to attack, because all cats align with the Dark Side. Except for Loth-Cats for some reason, but I wouldn't exactly trust them either.

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JASON

Star Wars Viewmaster gift setI am not sure how the whole putting gifts in a sock thing works, but this Darth Vader themed Viewmaster Viewer looks like it'd fit in a traditional Christ inspired gifting sock. Star Wars Viewmaster reels are always pretty sweet. This also makes a good Hanukkah day 4-7 gift for kids who can pull off the entire 8-day challenge. My kid starts getting a hug after day 3.

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JASON

You sank my holiday experience!While it doesn't look much like the genre-defining 'This game isn't as much fun as a commercial made it look' toy of our youth, Electronic Battleship is now more exciting looking while boastin' the same old lows in game-play disappointment! Eeeeelectronic Battleship is no more fun than regular old Battleship, which is also a pretty god damn boring game. This is an excellent gift for someone you do not like, but want to appear you gave a cool gift at opening time.

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JASON

Prison Life RobloxKnow a kid that just can't behave? Maybe a co-worker? Make sure they understand a life of crime will come to no good.

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ROB

Mysterious and Indistinct ShirtFabulous yet classy, the Mysterious and Indistinct Shirt is a premium youth tee and "wears rough and tough for kids who play the same way."

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DAVID

MastermindInvented in 1970 by an Israeli telecom expert, Mastermind is still the terrific game of strategy, logic, and deduction that you might remember from childhood. True, the packaging lacks the Bond-inspired photo of the dignified man and woman that appeared on the original box, but the game is just as elegant and addictive.

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CORY

Largemouth bass sandalsYou will look amazing in sandals that look like gasping largemouth bass, seriously (max size is a Men's 10, so only the dainty of feed need apply, e.g., not me). [Read More]

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ROB

Blank Playing CardsMake your own games! Or just stare at them. Whatever.

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Naughty + Nice

MARK

Wink Plus ($79)In William Burroughs' novel Naked Lunch, Steely Dan III from Yokohama was the name of a stainless steel sex toy. The USB-chargeable Wink Plus vibrator from Crave is probably not what Old Bill Lee had in mind, because it is quite small, but it is made from stainless steel, and packs quite a vibrational wallop, with five intensity levels and two patterns.

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ROB

Wolf Crotch UnderwearWith a "convex design, large space and breathable," the 3D Wolf Head Crotch Underwear "make man looks sexy and wild" and can be yours for as little as five American dollars.

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JASON

Spend your holiday season TwistedThe Twisty Glass Blunt is a brain-hammer. Fill the glass chamber with your favorite herb, screw in the brass mouthpiece, and you are prepared to smoke a lot of weed. Perfect for a day at the beach, or an outdoor music festival, the Twisty Glass Blunt is an absolute favorite. I've got the mini as well.

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JASON

Poop emoji Santa HatWar on Christmas? Christmas seems to be integrating into todays meme-filled emoticon world. Now your Santa can proudly display his favorite emoji, or perhaps this is mean to signify something else.

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https://boingboing.net/2017/11/25/giftguide2017.html

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ask-de-writer · 8 years

Text

MAD - IRRITATED SCIENCE! : Bizarre Borderland : (1 Part)

MAD IRRITATED SCIENCE!

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

2488 words

written 2008

TUMBLR EXEMPTION

Blog holding members of Tumblr.com may freely reblog this story provided that the title, author and copyright information remain intact, unaltered, and are displayed at the head of the story.

Fan art, stories, music, cosplay and other fan activity is actively encouraged.

~~ ~~ ~~ ~~

I read an item in the SCI-NEWS that I personally found amusing. A lot of people, especially the other Desert Rats like me, would have said, “So?” For them, they'd be right. Me, I'm the odd one, the duck that swims in the desert.

The item? Somebody found and totally documented that the human brain's neurons use electrons to transmit information, which everybody already knew. The new bit was that the neurons and the so-called white matter, the glial cells, also used protons to carry information. The positive charge wasn't there just for balancing potentials.

Like I said, odd man out. I already had a working headset that used passive electrical pickups to read brain activity. In the past, and the reason that I built it, I used it to locate the speech processing center. My plan for riches was simply to use the headset to read subvocal thought for controlling a computer or word processor. Like many great notions, this one ran aground on the reef of reality. It barely worked at all and was prone to massive errors. Apparently it couldn't read the necessary brain center finely enough.

I looked over the equipment and began to rewrite my software to take into account the positive charges as information along with the negative ones. Wow. Dullsville, according to my few friends out here. I shut up about my experiments.

Al Martin was a particular thorn all the way through the paw. After I caught him cutting my gate lock chain to come up “for a friendly visit”, I got a Protective Order put on him to keep him away. He took to calling me Dr. Freakenstein and making 'hilarious' jokes about creating monsters and EVIL SCIENCE.

Al Martin aside, I kinda like it out here. The natural silence of wind, bird, coyote howl and such like, combined with the sheer joy of waking to the desert sunrise and watching the day unfold, lets me have both the time and the peace to think. Sometimes I tinker with the things that I think about. Unless Al finds a way to be a nuisance.

The last few months, he's been running a “neighborhood watch” scam. He got a telescope and started trying to charge folks for keeping an eye on their places. By a pure coincidence I'm sure (NOT), the places on his watch list get robbed by burglars more often than the ones that he doesn't watch. He even watches my place, which isn't on his watch list. Caught him in the act several times. I have a telescope, too.

Sorry about the digression. Back to my idea of fun stuff. The result of looking at both sides of the charge equation was a complete surprise. Much of the mystery of brain intercommunication simply fell apart. Most, if not all, of thought was processed as fractal interfaces between “clouds” of positrons clustered about various brain centers. Still sounds dull, I guess.

Point, set and match occurred when a rat wandered near, under my house. The sensor setup on my head spotted the interference of ratty's little “mind clouds” at once. I personally hadn't noticed. The computer showed me why, too. My mind was automatically blocking the signal.

It took both concentration and help from the computer to open up to it. As the little critter moved about, I started to get a feel for it. If I could feel it, could it respond to me?

That took quite a few tries and failures. After somewhat over an hour, I got the rat to come out from under the house and sit up on my porch in full view. He was a dusty gray with lines of white spots down his back. His tail was long but fluffy. Some sort of ground squirrel perhaps. Not really a rat after all.

Now that I had him in sight, I experimented more freely because I could see how Ratty responded. I needed the computer for the first few hours while I was learning to use my 'clouds' to influence his 'clouds'. I kept blocking the signal by old habit. With some work, I finally got Ratty to stand up and do a little rat-dance on his hind legs.

When I realized that Ratty was hungry from all of my experiments, I gave him a chunk of a peanut butter sandwich. A few curious little birds landed on my porch rail while Ratty and I were munching. I tried reaching out with my 'cloud' and encouraged them to hop up close. More of my sandwich disappeared into little birdie craws.

By the end of several days of practice, I knew that my maximum range was about fifteen feet. Inside that distance, I could simply execute small vermin like fleas, mites, lice, ticks and flying bugs. Larger critters were harder but not much. I didn't harm many of them though, it was more fun to control them and simply send them away. Ratty was the exception, of course. He was both a kick as a pet and a great little test subject.

Had to wonder, you know, if folks learning to do this sort of thing wasn't the basis of the tales about witchcraft. Thinking it through a bit more, after destroying a few persistent vermin in my garden, I realized that if this was the foundation of witchcraft, those fears in the general population could be well founded. It took almost no imagination at all to see how someone with this sort knowledge could be a very real danger to the community at large. Especially if the general population treated the “witch” badly. I didn't intend to find out what would happen in a case like that.

I'd just got a pair of deer up close and doing a bit of a step-dance for a big flake of hay when I noticed the dust cloud of a truck barreling along the road from Al's place. I sent the deer away, cursing Al under my breath. Bad news only got worse when Al's pickup roared up my drive, scattering gravel as he skidded to a stop. Al bailed out with a rifle in hand, starting to aim at the retreating deer.

I glared at him. Al's rifle fell to the dirt from hands gone nerveless. Wide eyed with anger, he demanded, “Damn you, Art! What did you do to me?”

Not bothering to get up from my seat on the porch steps I replied tartly, “Me? I'm here on my porch. You are ten feet away. From here, it looked like you managed to drop your gun just in time to avoid poaching charges on top of the Felony Trespass and Protective Order violation.”

Frowning in a black faced rage, he flexed his now almost functioning fingers and retorted, “Poaching? No way! This is private land so its legal. No hunting without permission your signs says. Wasn't no time to ask first, so's I was gonna ask after I blasted 'em. Would'a given me a whole Winter's meat.”

Lips pulled into a tight line I snapped, “Only problem, Al, is I would have said NO. Those signs allow me to get game from my land. Desert game is spread thin and I don't share mine. At least not with you. I heard from Joe Sanderson how well you share yours.”

Al was looking down at his hands and flexing them. Still pissed off, he spit out, “Joe had it coming! Bastard wouldn't pay me for Neighbor Watch.”

I raised one eyebrow and pointed out, “Neither will I. Looks like your hands are better. Get into your truck and shove off. Don't come back, either.”

Al stared to bend over to get his rifle and just kept on going down. He landed in a heap on the scattered gravel of my drive. “Don't try to take that gun, Al, unless you want to leave here in a hearse.”

Twitching on the ground, Al yelled, “I knew it, you asshole! You've used some sort of evil witchcraft on me. I'll have the law on you for this!”

I smiled down at him from my vantage point on the steps. A sensible wolf would have stepped away from that smile. “One: Killing Felony Trespassers is legal, and that's what you became when you hauled out that rifle. Two: You have a Protective Order that requires you to stay at least a hundred fifty feet from my property line and do nothing to compromise my property, including discharge firearms on or across it. I can legally kill you for that violation, too. Three: Witchcraft IS legal. Four: I just sat here and watched you apparently have some sort of seizures. Five: I am calling the Sheriff's Office on your Trespass and and Order violations.”

I got on my phone and called the situation in to the County Police. I fixed a sandwich and went back out on the porch to watch Al. He was staying down. I knew that he would.

As I started to eat, Ratty popped up from his nest under the house. He did his little rat dance and got his chunk of sandwich. He settled down by my feet and happily nibbled his bread and cheese.

Al looked on in what I believe was genuine fear. Trying to point, he exclaimed, “There's the proof! You are a witch-man! That's your familiar!”

Amused, I replied, “Ratty? A familiar? The worst he could do is nip your nuts while you're down.”

Ratty squeaked firmly.

I laughed, “Right Ratty! Why should you risk lice and other crawling vermin just to bite Al's privates?”

Ratty expressed his opinion of Al by taking his part of the sandwich and retreating back under the house. With his tail up to show Al his ass.

Not too much later a deputy arrived. I greeted him, “Hi, Deputy Mustic. 'Fraid your cousin Al's in a spot of trouble. Seems to have not only broken the Protective Order, he brought a firearm onto my place. Trouble is, unless he's faking it, he seems to have some sort of paralytic neurological event. He's even trying to blame me for it. Witchcraft, no less. Can you believe it?”

Deputy Mustic closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Of Al? I'd believe near anything. I gotta call for a backup and let him do this one to be sure that everything's done right. If I try to do the arrest, Al's lawyer is sure to try for a conflict of interest or some such because we're related.” The deputy got on his radio and I overheard him giving dispatch a piece of his mind for sending him out to deal with a relative.

Soon both the backup, Deputy Jorgen, and an ambulance were on the scene. Al was duly informed of his rights and placed under arrest while the ambulance crew verified with a pin that Al really was paralyzed. Deputy Mustic took me aside, day book out and asked, “Art, why didn't you call the ambulance? Even if he is my family, we both know that Al is slime. Still, you should'a called.”

I nodded, while watching Al being loaded into the ambulance to be hauled away, “I would have, Deputy. Thing is, he pulled that stunt on Sadie Halloway where he faked an injury on her place. Since she called the ambulance, she wound up getting stuck for near enough a grand. Al did it because she wouldn't pay into his neighbor watch scam. I won't pay him either and just figured he was doing the same to me as he did to her.”

Writing in his day book and flipping a page to finish, Deputy Mustic nodded, “I heard about that. Thought it might be the reason. Needed it clear for the record is all.”

More anxiously, now that he was done being official, he asked, “Any idea what is wrong? I mean, scum or not, he is family and I'm worried for him. Believe it or not, the kids like him at reunions. He does slight of hand coin tricks and card stunts really professional.”

I shrugged, “The slight of hand for entertainment is something I'd not have guessed. Slick as he is at lifting small tools and such, I should have known something like that was behind it. As for this, no idea at all. I am sure that it's not sunstroke. The AC in his truck was on and it works. I would guess that it might be an oddball stroke of some kind. Maybe an aneurysm or bleed in the upper spine could do it. Just a guess, though.

“Al appears to be sure what it is. I heard him telling both Deputy Jorgen and the paramedics that it's witchcraft. If it is, I don't think that I'm the one. Frankly, I hope he's right. Witchcraft is legal.”

Three days later, Deputy Mustic was back. It was an unofficial visit. Looking sad, he said, “Al died in the hospital, last night, 'bout midnight, Art. The doctors did find what it was but there was nothing that they could do. Doctor Collins said that it was the fastest growing neurological tumor that she's ever heard of. It was just near to the top of his spine. Inoperable. Al died swearing to everyone there that you cursed him.”

I watched a hawk soar overhead for a moment before I replied, “Not to speak ill, but if I could have, I would have. Didn't like him at all.

“You, on the other hand are one of the best. Never heard a single bad word about you, even from folks you've arrested.”

Deputy Mustic smiled but only slightly, “Thanks for that, Art. I didn't expect any sympathy for Al but I figured that you'd want to know.”

“Indeed, Deputy. My condolences to your family.”

As Deputy Mustic drove away, My mind was in high gear. I liked it out here, but it did get pretty lonely on occasion. The ease with which I influenced animals and settled Al's hash led to an interesting line of thought.

The next time that I was in town, I spotted a pretty young lady. Checking her out by 'feel' I found that she was not only available, she didn't like being tied to one guy. She enjoyed having a variety of lovers.

All that I planted was the urge to drive out my way. The weekend was fun for both of us. Besides bed, Sally hiked around the hills with me and even liked watching a hawk or buzzard fly. We took a bunch of pictures of her around my house and up in the rocks and hills. Nice cheesecake, barely risque. Good memories.

It turned out that Sally knew a fair number of other like minded friends. After she introduced me to her buddies, neither my days or nights stayed lonely.

---The End---

#MAD - IRRITATED SCIENCE!#Bizarre Border #Modern Science/Fantasy #written by De Writer

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