#piper boomstick

[bridgetserdocksketches]

piper is just being sooooooo normal

[ancelineonline]

I was reading up on the prompts for the UC Celebration next week and the prompt go Day One (Favourite Arc/Roll for AU) did get my mind percolating on something which I find deeply amusing:

Arc 11 Off the Rails: Coffeeshop AU

Does this count as an AU? Yes but like only *barely* and that’s what makes it so funny to me.

Some highlights of this concept that make me smile:

- They work at Albion Coffee Roasters. It’s just ✨Fantasy Starbucks✨ including shitty union busting tactics. This is still fantasy world with magic but also with like… cars and cell phones and shit.

- Foq is (obviously) not an employee. He is a trust fund baby who makes everyone else’s life difficult in the best possible way, as usual. Still always dressed in something fabulous but incredibly over the top. Pretends to be a college student, no one believes him.

- Suds was fired for tinkering with the various coffee machines. He was trying to make them better, and probably succeeded but like… it’s a shitty corporation.

- Piper is a harried appliance repair tech because I love her.

- Chet is an employee but no one is actually sure what his job title is because he never seems to do anything that an employee would be required to do. Yes, I know this is not particularly different from the arc. It is just Who Chet Is

- Rian and Atelut are exactly the same in every way as they were in the arc because working as a bartender and middle manager on a train owned by an evil corporation is essentially the same as working as a barista and middle manager in a coffeeshop owned by for an evil corporation. Probably fewer demons and plane shifting at the coffee shop tho. But not like… none.

[yarn-dragon]

UC Celebration Week Day 7!

Fic inspired by @wall-e-gorl and their fankid oc Dyllin!

[leasdoodles]

UC Celebration Day 4: Favorite NPC | Animal Companions/Familiars

I loved Piper in arc 11 (and 11.5 of course), and I think she deserves a little cat to help alleviate how stressed she was during the arc! (Also added a bonus drawing from yesterday 'cause why not)

Also the only description we have of her is red hair in two braids so i improvised the rest, gave her freckles and mismatched eyes, and a nice little work shirt with overalls

Also yesterday when i drew this I wasn't sure if she should have jean overalls, because would Visteria have jeans? But a friend pointed out to me that if they have trains, they gotta have jeans - so she has jeans

[libsreese]

This Piper and Suds dynamic is everything to me!!!

“aRe YoU HaVInG ThE pAnIC AtTaCK oR Am I?!?!!”

[ancelineonline]

What a goddamn mood. That ship has sailed and I am on board forever

The amount I want Suds and Piper to kiss is equal to if not maybe even more than I want Rian and Attie to kiss.

[vo1tur3]

BRENNAN IS MAKING SOME CHARACTER CHOICES RN!

(And i love them)

[uc-fan-polls]

Hopkins Williamhead - a loud Gnomish man with big shoes and baggy clothes, he greets Beryl in Glaceria and invites her to his apartment, comes from a long line of Williamheads (Seen in Episode 8)

Ki Lon - former pirate king (Seen in Episode 1)

Maximum Davies - child of Theodrink and Nonaline (Mentioned in Episode 0)

Sharon - goth woman going through Tiffany's library (Seen in Episode 1)

Thorgash - Half Orc teen or early twenties guy befriending Marigold (Seen in Episode 1)

Piper Boomstick* - lead engineer on the Ascendant Engine; Human with red twin braids wearing plain work clothes (Seen in Episode 1)

Scenda - the consciousness inside the Ascendant Engine

[archivedandhorror]

TAGS

this is my boomstick * ashley j. williams chainsaw noises * jed sawyer be mine 4 ever? * tom hanniger / harry warden have you seen my sister? * clay miller horror writ * jeff sten actually i’m a warlock * dylan piper highlighters and flying broomsticks * cody dead until dark * tate lee california dreamin’ * billy hargrove charlie’s dead! * sheriff hoyt can’t outrun it * eric hill could use some hooch * jay forrest

[vidicus-com]

The Best Horror One Liners in Movies

Here are some of the most recognizable single lines of dialog from some of the best horror movies ever made.

“We’ll tear your soul apart.”

Spoken by Pinhead (Doug Bradley) in Hellraiser (1987)

“Here’s Johnny!”

Spoken by Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) in The Shining (1980)

“Sometimes, dead is better.”

Spoken by Jud Crandall (Fred Gwynne) in Pet Sematary (1989)

“There here.”

Spoken by Carol Anne Freeling (Heather O’Rourke) in Poltergeist (1982)

“I ate his liver with fava beans and a nice Chianti.”

Spoken by Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) in The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

“Be afraid, be very afraid.”

Spoken by Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis) in The Fly (1986)

“I see dead people”

Spoken by Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) in The Sixth Sense (1999)

“You’re going to need a bigger boat.”

Spoken by Brody (Roy Scheider) in Jaws (1975)

“The power of Christ compels you!”

Spoken by Father Merrin (Max von Sydow) and Father Karras (Jason Miller) in The Exorcist (1973)

“We all go a little mad sometimes.”

Spoken by Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) in Psycho (1960)

“They’re all gonna laugh at you!”

Spoken by Margaret White (Piper Laurie) in Carrie (1976)

“What’s your favorite scary movie?”

Spoken by Ghostface (Roger L. Jackson) in Scream (1996)

“Death by stereo!”

Spoken by Sam (Corey Haim) in The Lost Boys (1987)

“This is my Boomstick!”

Spoken by Ash (Bruce Campbell) in Army of Darkness (1992)

“We all float down here.”

Spoken by Pennywise (Tim Curry) in It (1990)

“I want to play a game.”

Spoken by Jigsaw/John Kramer (Tobin Bell) in Saw (2004)

“He’s got his father’s eyes.”

Spoken by Roman Castevet (Sidney Blackmer) in Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

“When there is no room left in hell, the dead will walk the earth.”

Spoken by Peter (Ken Foree) in Dawn of the Dead (1978)

“They’re coming to get you, Barbara.”

Spoken by Johnny Blair (Russell Streiner) in Night of the Living Dead (1968)

“We’ve traced the call… it’s coming from inside the house.”

Spoken by Sgt. Sacker (Bill Boyett) in When a Stranger Calls (1979)

“Every 23rd spring for 23 days it gets to eat.”

Spoken by Jezelle Gay Hartman (Patricia Belcher) in Jeepers Creepers (2001)

Context: Eccentric psychic Jezelle may indeed have a few screws loose, but her brief summation of The Creeper’s mythology is extremely chilling.

“Welcome to Fright Night… for real.”

Spoken by Jerry Dandrige (Chris Sarandon) in Fright Night (1985)

“It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent’s fritters.”

Spoken by Vincent Smith (Rory Calhoun) in Motel Hell (1980)

“Brains!”

Spoken by Tarman (Allan Trautman) in Return of the Living Dead (1985)

“Outlander!”

Spoken by Malachai (Courtney Gains) in Children of the Corn (1984)

“Get out!”

Spoken by an invisible malevolent entity in The Amityville Horror (1979)

“Groovy!”

Spoken by Ash (Bruce Campbell) in Evil Dead II (1987)

“Pancakes!”

Spoken by Dennis (Matthew Helms) in Cabin Fever (2002)

For plenty more horror, check out www.vidicus.com.

[swipestream]

Dream of the Iron Dragon, by Robert Kroese

Have you heard the one about how readers don’t cross genres, and so authors should pick one and stick to it if they want a large readership?  Apparently, neither has Robert Kroese, because his Dream of the Iron Dragon breaks every rule in the modern playbook, and always to good effect.

The time-travel subgenre of science-fiction has a long pedigree that stretches back to H. G. Wells and arguably beyond.  A few well-known works hand wave away most of the science-fiction and instead focus on the historical fantasy that arises when the time-travel introduces anachronistic technology to the past.  The Conrad Stargard/Crosstime Engineer series by Leo Frankowski drops a modern engineer into Poland ten years before the Mongols arrive, for example.  More recently, Eric Flint flung a West Virginia mining town into the heart of the Thirty Years War.  Some authors drop the modern men into a fantasy realm to see how knowledge of black powder might change things.  Examples include H. Beam Piper’s Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, in which a Pennsylvania cop slips into an alternate history where a priestly caste rules using the arcane knowledge of the sacred charcoal/sulfur/saltpeter recipe, and William R. Fortschen’s Lost Regiment, which plonks a Civil War era regiment of troops onto a wild planet ruled by hordes of iron age, giant nomadic aliens.  In each of these cases, the focus of the narrative revolves around the aftershocks of high-tech advances on low-tech societies, politics, and wars. 

While often classes as alt-history, these time-travel stories differ from pure alt-history in that they don’t change a historical event – as Harry Turtledove is wont to do – but drop modern man and his engineering knowledge into the past, or a near enough facsimile.  Instead of watching small changes ripple outward (or simply re-writing actual history with a few name swaps), these time-travel stories grapple with issues such as paradoxes, how the travelers’ knowledge of history can help or hinder their cause, and how the lack of modern infrastructure hampers any attempt to introduce high-technology into the low-tech world.

Robert Kroese’s Dream of the Iron Dragon takes things one step further by presenting a decidedly hard science-fiction universe where one unfortunate accident throws a starship back to Viking age Scandinavia. 

The full first half of the novel owes far more to the Campbellian style of science-fiction than to the meticulously researched historical novels where some digital tech thrown into the mix.  Our intrepid time-travelers don’t even set foot on Old Earth until a third of the way into the book, and they don’t start thinking about how to use their knowledge of advanced tech to build a way off Old Earth until the last quarter of the book.  All of the creative MacGuyver-fiction – the clever ways to work around the limitations of iron age tech and resources – that one might expect from an alt-history/time-travel novel don’t take the field until late in the game.  Most of the action on Old Earth takes the form of Vikings fighting over the sorts of things Vikings fight over, and the marooned space farers delicately balancing how to use of their limited supply of tech.

Which leaves Dream of the Iron Dragon as a strange mélange of genres.  It isn’t really hard sci-fi, and it isn’t really time-travel, and it isn’t really historical fiction, and it isn’t really MacGuyver-fiction.  It’s a narrative that slides back and forth across all three, and it does so in a natural and seamless manner that will please any open-minded reader who doesn’t sneer at works outside of the usual carefully proscribed genre boundaries.  It has enough “men with screwdrivers solving problems” to satisfy the Campbellians.  It has enough “modern men blasting screaming, charging Vikings” to satisfy the pulpsters.  It has enough “actual historical figures doing what they should when they should and where they should” to please the historical fiction crowd.  Dream of the Iron Dragon has enough of each to satisfy fans of any of those genres, but hidebound readers who can’t break out of their usual ruts should probably pass on it.

The glimpse at the earliest days of the Vikings packing up and moving south to warmer climes makes for an interesting central conflict.  The wash of civilizations back and forth across northern and western Europe at this time has always been a dark and foggy part of history classes where time-pressed teachers gloss over just how a few boatloads of Vikings can turn the backwaters of Normandy and Briton into powerhouses ready to take on Constantinople and the great Mediterranean powers just a few short centuries later.  Seeing that happen in real-time, and packaged in a fun adventure novel like this, provides a better handle for understanding the past than the usual dry history books.

As nice as that aspect is, for my money the meat of the novel comes in the last few chapters when the time-travelers finally decide to get serious about showing the primitive screw-heads how to use boomsticks to full advantage.  The struggle to pare down technology to its essential salts, to find those basic and easy tricks that can make the greatest impact on the past, that’s the sort of fiction that provides insight to the problems of engineering and chemistry as implemented on a practical scale.   Instead of a slow sweep of gradual improvement in tech, a novel like this can leapfrog generations of struggle, thought, and experimentation, to show the evolution of scientific advancement.  Instead of a dozen small steps of invention, the natives are presented with a great bounding change that relies on all of those little steps.

As the first in a planned trilogy, Dream of the Iron Dragon ends on a high note, despite the fact that the crew – remember this book is the first in a trilogy so it doesn’t really spoil anything to tell you this  – the crew doesn’t return to their own year by the end of the book.  Nor does it spoil anything to warn readers of a significant twist at the ending of the novel that does a great job whetting the reader’s appetite for the next novel.  Speaking as a huge fan of the sort of MacGyuver-porn (you know what I mean, don’t be gross, all you commenters) that features prominently in the latter stage of the book, I didn’t need the introduction of that little element – the prospect of another kitchen sink style book featuring smart men finding paths around technological limitations was all the enticement I needed to follow this series through to the end.

  Dream of the Iron Dragon, by Robert Kroese published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

[silly-goofy-mood]

Me??? Posting a fic??? That isn't angst or about arc 6???? It's more likely than you think

[ancelineonline]

Look. See. I have been fully delighted by one Piper Boomstick since her very first appearance. Piper was so great in the arc, and she is so great in the three shots. But the bit where she’s just like “yeah you go do your thing, I’m gonna rig the building to explode” that bit? Perfection. So hot. Amazing. I will be devastated if anything happens to Piper

[leasdoodles]

They deserve to be friends okay

[leasdoodles]

why get attached to the actual player characters when i can get attached to this npc?

[leasdoodles]

Dylan is right, we all love Piper, she's great