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abybweisse · 1 year ago

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Blood Work (p1), Elitism, transmutation, and religious fear

⚠️ long post ⚠️

So, I now have a copy of Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution, by Holly Tucker. It's a reference for Yana-san, as she mentioned it in her old tuna.be blog around the start of the blue arc.

I see in the list of important people a mention of the real Dr. Moreau, and there's a later chapter about chimeras... so I know I'll be talking about that some, over this series of posts.

It's important here, too, because when researchers were first attempting blood transfusions in the 17th century, people were terrified about receiving blood from animals, like sheep and cattle. They thought that animal blood would transmute humans into human-animal hybrids. Even in the 20th century, some white people were terrified of receiving blood from black people, because they thought the blood could effect the race of their future children or grandchildren. Nonsense, of course, but they didn't understand.

17th century blood transfusions were generally performed by taking blood from a lamb or a calf. The barbers/physicians/researchers had no clue about blood types. Jean-Baptiste Denis successfully transfused blood from a lamb into a teenage patient. Then he made several successful attempts at transfusing from a calf to a "madman". The guy later died, and Denis was blamed. Turns out some doctors who didn't want him to succeed had actually poisoned that second subject with arsenic.

It wasn't even a matter of those physicians wanting his experiments to fail while theirs worked; no, they simply didn't want blood transfusions to become a practice. They were afraid of transmutation from animal blood, and they were afraid of what animal-to-human blood transfusions would reveal about humanity -- that we are truly just animals, too. The trial against Denis ended research into blood transfusions for about 150 years.

Blood types were still unknown in the late 18th century, when a physician wanted to attempt to revive George Washington's largely exsanguinated corpse with a transfusion of lamb's blood. FYI, he died on a December 14th, just like Prince Albert. His family refused the offer only because they feared sullying his body with animal blood, and they insisted his body must be left untainted and wholly together for him to be properly received into heaven. Such was the continued lack of understanding. Yana-san might have given Undertaker the idea to use blood transfusions in conjunction with other techniques for the reanimating and revival process from the account of what that physician wanted to do to Washington.

When blood transfusion research was in full swing, in the 19th century, they were starting to piece together the idea of blood groups, but they still didn't quite know about things like universal whole blood donor and universal whole blood recipient. There was a strong elitist element to this, so they generally thought like could only be compatible with like. They also still saw non-human blood as inferior, even if it might be compatible. The best compatibility was expected between twins and then between close relatives.

I have a feeling that Yana-san has played around with this bias, which would explain why real Ciel is only receiving AB (Sirius) blood, Canopus B, Vega O, and Polaris A. All those people at Sphere Music Hall are led to believe they are being treated as equals, when they are in fact being split up into a caste system where some "stars" are of a higher magnitude than others. And, at times, Blavat Sky and others have made it clear they see some blood types as being less worthy than others. By extension, some people are treated as less worthy. Blavat seems to realize that Sirius can receive blood from other blood types, because he gives "leftovers" of Vega and Polaris blood to the Sirius renal patients. It's possible that real Ciel doesn't know he can have any type of whole blood, but I suspect he knows and simply doesn't think anything else is good enough for him.

I'd also like to mention Snake and Finny here, since we know Finny was injected with something to increase his strength and other traits. Then we see Snake with various attributes that are associated with snakes. In either case (or both) we could be dealing with transmutation. It's not realistic in our world, but it might very well be possible in theirs. Each of them might have been injected with chemical cocktails derived from other animals: Snake from snakes and Finny from perhaps a few completely different species.

We now know Snake wasn't born a snake and turned into a human, but there's nothing to say he wasn't born human and "adulterated" with snake traits. There's also the weird story the freak show attendant claims: human mother and snake father. Maybe not an actual snake as his father but more like his mother being injected with snake blood or something... and that producing a hybrid child. Again, not what we'd consider possible, but the Kuroverse plays by different rules.

One other aspect I want to touch on in this post: Othello's and Grelle's fears regarding the very nature of human souls and existence. This is a form of religious fear, not too different from what George Washington's family feared. His family feared he wouldn't be accepted into heaven, while these two reapers fear humans might no longer even need souls, and that heaven may no longer matter to them. What would that mean for the existence of reapers, when their supposed salvation requires them to keep collecting souls?

Well, I'll probably talk about bias and fear again, as well as these other issues, but I'll stop here... for now.

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merlyn-bane · 10 months ago

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212th Breakout

I offered....several months ago to post my personal breakout for the 212th that I use in my own works, and then promptly got distracted and forgot to clean it up like I was planning to. Well that post started getting notes again and reminded me, so here it is!! More info under the line break.

Please bear in mind that 1. these are my own head-canons and I'm not going to sit here and tell you that they're canon compliant and 2. this is a living document and can and probably will be updated at any time.

There is a second tab at the bottom that will take you to a page full of OC character sheets for the OCs listed in the breakout on sheet one. They are all in different levels of development and I will probably be adding to them over time, especially more pictures. If you want to use any of them feel free, just let me know because I would love to see. Frankly it's a dream of mine for Bent to end up a fanon character one day like Bones or Helix.

#212th attack battalion #212th meta #star wars #star wars meta #star wars: the clone wars #resources #writing resources #references #reference material #also going to tag this #codywan #just bc my fellow codywan fans might find it useful

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southwest-pottery-bracket · 1 year ago

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A crash course in some vocabulary

Archaeology, like all sciences, has a lot of specialized jargon we use to talk about pottery. To make sure everyone’s on the same page, here’s a list of some common terms I’ll be using, what they mean, and how to pronounce them.

~ 🏺🏺🏺 ~

Ware: A broader term for a technological/cultural tradition in pottery. Typically, construction method, color, clay type, temper type, and paint type are what defines a “ware.” So Chuska Gray Ware is unslipped, usually unpainted gray clay with crushed black basalt temper. Roosevelt Red Ware is red-slipped clay with sand temper and carbon-based paint. Hohokam Buff Ware is unslipped or cream-slipped buff-colored clay with coarse sand temper, created using a paddle-and-anvil forming method and painted with red paint.

Type: Within a ware, a type is a more narrowly specific decorative style. Roosevelt Red Ware has multiple types within it, such as Salado Red (unpainted red-slipped), Pinto Black-on-red (black paint on the red in a specific radially symmetric interlocked hatched-and-bold pattern), Pinto Polychrome (same decorative style but on a white-slipped interior field), Gila Polychrome (red exterior, white-slipped interior, a usually-broken black band around the rim, black painted designs in a two- or -four-fold symmetry), Tonto Polychrome (bolder and less symmetric black-and-white designs on a red field), Cliff Polychrome, Dinwiddie Polychrome, Nine Mile Polychrome… different stylistic variations on the Roosevelt Red Ware technological/visual core. You can read more about categorizations here.

A note on naming conventions: Pottery in this archaeological tradition tends to have a two-part name: a location where it was first defined and described, and a colorway. Wares tend to be “[Broad location or broad cultural group] [Color] Ware”; types tend to be “[Specific site] [paint color]-on-[clay color].” So within Tusayan White Ware is Flagstaff Black-on-white.

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Gila: A river in southern Arizona and a bit of New Mexico, and a lizard and a polychrome type named after it. Pronounced hee-la.

Hohokam: An archaeological term for a Native American cultural group that lived in southern Arizona and northern Sonora, defined by traits like red-on-buff pottery, massive canal systems for field irrigation, and platform mounds. It comes from the O'odham-language word huhugham, “ancestors.” They are the ancestors of the modern Tohono O’odham and Akimel O’odham people (it’s a little bit more complicated than that but that’s basically the case.)

Mogollon: An archaeological term for a Native American cultural group from central New Mexico, eastern Arizona, and northern Chihuahua. Most iconic trait is the elaborate range of corrugated and smudged pottery. Named after the Mogollon Rim, the geological formation that marks the edge of the Colorado Plateau and a drastic change in geology and climate in the northern Southwest and the southern Southwest. Along with the Ancestral Pueblo, the Mogollon culture are ancestors of modern southern Rio Grande and Zuni pueblos. Pronounced moh-guh-yon.

Olla: A water jar with a wide body and narrow neck. Pronounced oy-ya.

Polychrome: Pottery that is three or more colors (poly+chrome), most often meaning red, white, and black.

A Tonto Polychrome olla. Southeastern Arizona, 1350-1450.

Pueblo: A collective term for Native people of the Southwest US (particularly in the Rio Grande river watershed, but also Hopi and Zuni) who share cultural traits and history—most immediately notably, a tradition of living in square adobe houses in large villages, which are also each called pueblos. Ancestral Pueblo is the term for the archaeologically-defined cultural group that share these similar traits and are, generally, from the northern half of New Mexico and Arizona, and a southern strip of Colorado and Utah. The Ancestral Puebloans were formerly called “Anasazi” but that has fallen out of favor due to pushback from modern Pueblos. Also, each modern Pueblo prefers to be called a Pueblo rather than a tribe in most cases—so you say the Pueblo of Acoma, the Pueblo of Ohkay Owingeh, Picuris Pueblo, Taos Pueblo, the Pueblo of Zuni, etc.

Temper: Non-clay bits that are added to natural clays to make them easier to work with. When you buy clay from a store now, it’s already mixed and processed and ready to use. When you find clay out in nature, it’s almost never so easy. Typically, you have to mine/harvest clay from riverbanks or cliffsides, and it’s hard and dried; then you have to grind the hard clay up into fine particles, and mix them with water. But natural clays are often puddly and don’t always hold together well, so you add temper, something hard and grainy to make your wet clay stick together more easily and make it good to work with! Temper can be sand, ground-up rock, ground-up shell, or even ground-up bits of other broken pottery. What different people used as temper is one defining feature of a pottery ware and pottery tradition.

Sherd: A broken bit of pottery. NOT shard. When it’s pottery, it’s “sherd.”

Slip: Very runny wet clay. It’s used to help attach clay pieces together, but more pertinently here, plain-colored pots are covered with an even layer of bolder-colored clay slip to get the desired color pot.

Smudging: A decorative style that potters made during the firing stage. They would have open pit-fires for firing their pottery, and cover the desired part of the pot with a layer of charcoal or ash. This creates a carbonized, reducing environment—that is, a lot of carbon, and little oxygen. This creates a smooth, inky black finish on the completed pot.

A Starkweather Smudged bowl. Mogollon, western New Mexico, AD 900-1200.

Vessel: Another word for pot, basically. Means a ceramic container of some sort. Bowls, jars, ladles, pitchers, mugs, etc are all vessels; effigies and statuettes are not.

#pottery #archaeology #reference material

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soyoudontlikejazz · 2 months ago

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Dwayne McDuffie’s Fantastic Four/Doctor Doom graphic novel outline, preserved here in its entirety! (Original link below as well!)

“To Hell And Back!”

Years ago, while still a graduate student at Columbia University, REED RICHARDS lives at the boardinghouse of JEWEL DINKINS. Jewel is the aunt of twelve-year-old SUSAN STORM and her younger brother, JOHNNY. Reed is hard at work on the "Star-drive" that he hopes will someday propel a spaceship to another solar system.

Despite Mrs. Dinkins' repeated warnings not to "open space-warps in the house," Reed has a small device in his room that he tinkers with incessantly. Whenever he tests it by opening a small dimensional "wormhole," Jewel appears to give him a firm dressing-down concerning the rules of her household. "How does she always know?", Reed wonders as he thumbs the warp closed with a remote control unit.

Reed also wonders, to the extent that he notices, what to do about the painful adolescent crush that Sue ("Susan", she insists) has on him. For her part Sue is equally embarrassed as her attempts to be seductively ladylike are frustrated at every turn by her omnipresent kid brother.

The big news in the boardinghouse these days is the impending visit of Reed's old roommate, All-American football star (Heisman Trophy winner? What position did he play? And what did he get his degree in anyway, Aviation? Also, why didn't he play pro ball?) Ben Grimm, who is coming by (perhaps on leave from the Air Force?) to spend some time with his old buddy.

On the roof of Jewel's brownstone, Johnny shows Sue the toy Reed built for him, a remote-controlled flying vehicle (which may visually prefigure the "flying bathtub" Fantasticar). They argue about Reed. Johnny thinks that Reed is too cool to be interested in "mushy stuff". Sue contends that Reed loves her. "He just doesn't know it yet."

Meanwhile, Jewel has let in a visitor, an old classmate of Reed's, and calls Reed down to meet him. The figure, who wears a hooded cloak that shrouds his face, is known to Reed but isn't who he expected. He is VICTOR VON DOOM. Doom claims, in an especially unconvincing manner, that his arrival is coincidence. He simply needs a room, and although this place isn't up to his usual standards... Sue and Johnny enter the sitting room. Johnny races towards Doom shouting, "Mister Grimm?" Doom pushes him away and Johnny hits the floor. Sue threatens, "You hit my brother again and I'll pound you !" "I don't need my dumb sister to stick up for me, I'll pound him myself!", Johnny protests.

"Don't call your sister 'dumb', kid. She was just lookin out for ya." It's Ben Grimm, standing in the doorway. "Hi, stretch. You didn't tell me this was a class reunion. I like the hood, Doomsie. But if I had a puss like yours, I'd do the public a favor and stay off the street !"

Ignoring Ben, Doom comes on courtly with Jewel. He made a mistake, Johnny surprised him. With Reed's encouragement, Jewel gives Doom a room. Doom retires to it.

Reed makes introductions. Johnny is impressed by Ben and adds to his sister's introduction. "She's Reed's fiancé." Embarrassment all around. Johnny is confused, Ben amused. Jewel shoos Sue and Johnny away to prepare for dinner, then leaves herself. On the way out, Sue smacks Johnny on the head. "What'd I dooo?", he whines.

Ben wants to know why Reed encouraged Jewel to let Doom stay. Doom has been obsessed with proving he's Reed's superior ever since "the accident."

FLASHBACK to Reed and Doom's first confrontation.

Reed suspects Doom is up to no good again, and wants to keep an eye on him. Ben concurs uneasily, then invites Reed to hit some nightclubs with him. Reed agrees. Ben wants to know if Reed'll ask Sue to fix him up with one of her friends, as he "don't want to be no third wheel." "Give me a break, Ben."

Much later, Jewel is checking up on the peacefully sleeping Johnny when Sue calls her into the next room, "Hurry Auntie, it's coming on !" Jewel enters the den, and sits on the couch next to Sue. They begin to watch The Avengers on television. Sue wants to be Mrs. Peel.

Reed and Ben are at a table in a Village nightclub. As a jazz trio plays behind them, Reed tells Ben about his plans for a spaceship. Even with the government's help, he's already spent over half of his considerable inheritance. However, he remains confident that he can solve the remaining technical and financial obstacles to his spaceflight. As once before, he asks Ben to fly his ship on its maiden voyage but this time he means it. Ben accepts, truly honored. They shake hands. A longtime friendship deepens.

Doom sneaks into Reed's room and ponders Reed's warp projection apparatus. Just as he thought, this will do. He attaches leads from a potentiometer-like device to the warp projector and opens a warp. "Yes, with a few, simple adjustments... Soon, Mother. Soon..."

"Mrs. Peel, we're nee...--fissssszt--" Back in the den, The TV picture turns to static. "Hey !", Sue complains. Jewel gets up muttering that "Reed's got that thing on again." Sue follows her out of the room.

Sue and Jewel discover Doom testing Reed's equipment. "What do you think you're doing?" Doom uses "the mists of Morpheus" or somesuch to put them to sleep.

Sometime later, Ben and Reed return to the boardinghouse. Ben banters as Reed pays for the cab. "I think the redhead would have gone with me if you'd've taken her friend." Johnny interrupts, running down the front steps in his pj's. "Aunt Jewel and Sue are 'sleep and won't wake up!"

By the time they arrive in Reed's room, Jewel and Sue are awake again but confused. "Doom!," Reed exclaims. Ben adds, "Hey, he stole your doohickey!" Jewel confirms, filling Ben and Reed in on what happened. "He just waved his hands and we fell asleep like magic," Sue finishes breathlessly. "Probably some sort of hypnosis," Reed allows. "What could Doom want with my warp drive?"

Doom explains his scheme-and the incredible apparatus surrounding them-to Boris. A few adjustments to Reed's projector and he can open a portal to Hell that his dead mother's spirit can pass. By using "Mephisto's Tears" -mystical gems somehow connected to the demon- the portal will bar Mephisto himself.

Johnny is flying his toy around. It annoys Jewel but gives Reed an idea. They can use the remote control to turn the projector on wherever it is. A device in Reed's Columbia University lab can detect the projector's signature radiation and they can find out where it is.

Sue and Johnny plan to go with. Sue is dressed in a black leotard and ballet shoes, the closest she can come to an Emma Peel jumpsuit. Johnny refuses to wear a bowler.

Sue and Johnny arrive in the vestibule, ready to go. Both Reed and Jewel insist, "No!" Ben says to Reed, "Sure, we're just gonna go get your doohickey back. Let's give Mrs. Dinkins a break and take 'em along."

At his Columbia lab, Reed tries to turn on his projector by remote control. No go, it's out of range. If only they had a more powerful transmitter. Ben's got an idea. Reed thinks it could work. Johnny and Ben go off to the college transmitter. Reed explains the plan to Sue who embarrasses the hell out of him by flirting shamelessly, if inexpertly.

Ben and Johnny sneak past a guard at Columbia's WKCR radio transmitter. Johnny "cries," distracting the other guard, who Ben grabs in a bear hug from the rear and tosses into a closet. They then reset the frequency of the transmitter, in effect turning the entire station into a remote control for Reed's projector. "Hope the FCC doesn't hear about this," Ben mutters.

As Doom continues to prepare his spell/experiment, Reed's warp projector suddenly switches itself on. "Richards is often more intelligent than I give him credit for. Still, he is too late. I am ready."

Back at Reed's lab, Sue helps Reed pinpoint the energy surge on a map. Ben calls and gets directions.

Everyone meets outside of a warehouse. Reed is holding a detection device and proclaims, "This is the place. Ben and I are going in. You two stay right here." Ben disagrees. "No way we're leaving them outside in this neighborhood at this time o' night. They'll be safer in there with Doom!"

The pre-fantastic four enter through an ominously open front door and head up the stairs. Steel bars shoot up and form a cage around them. Ben can't budge them. Doom reveals his plot and boasts of his genius. His melding of Science and Magic has accomplished something that neither could alone. He tells them about his mother. Reed explains the set-up but doesn't understand the mystical aspect. Doom laughs. Sue listens very carefully. Doom turns back to his preparations.

The Pre-FF discuss the morality of the situation. Reed doesn't believe in Hell and wonders what Doom is really up to. Johnny thinks that trying to save your mom isn't such an evil thing. Sue agrees, it won't hurt to let him try. "Yeah," says Ben. "Let him use the doohickey. Then punch him out!" At least they all agree that they have to get out of the cage. No problem. Sue squeezes between the bars. Johnny doesn't even have to squeeze. With directions from Reed, Sue opens the cage. Doom doesn't have time to fool with them. He sics primitive Doombots on them.

Ben takes a poke at one, probably breaking his hand. Sue takes a powder. Reed is distant, thinking it out. Johnny buzzes a bunch of them with his flying toy. Three of the robots chase the toy out of a window and fall to the ground several stories below. The toy flies back in. "Not too bright," Johnny says. Reed has found the control panel and gives Ben instructions how to turn the robots off. Ben runs through the robots like a kick-off return specialist as robots close threateningly on Johnny and Sue. After making his way through the bulk of them, even tricking some into crashing into each other, Ben's way is blocked by one last robot. There's no way around it. Reed bowls it over by blocking it across the knees. Ben shuts them down and they freeze in mid-motion. Sue pushes over the one that was reaching for her. Reed is shaken up but okay. All of this is too late. Doom finishes his spell.

A mystical portal opens at the center of Doom's apparatus, debris sails across the chamber. Demons and spirits pour out freely and the warp widens. Mephisto's Tears are not acting as a barrier the way Doom thought they would. Reed says that Doom didn't consider negative pressure. Obviously this dimension Doom's tapped into has a higher energy density than our own. The warp will widen, and draw in ever greater amounts of matter, perhaps the entire city, before the effect exhausts itself. Ben is disinterested in the lecture. "How do ya shut the blasted thing off?" Reed turns off the projector with his remote control. Nothing happens. "Ben, disconnect the power supply!" Ben rips a heavy power cable from the apparatus. Sparks fly, and the effect is reversed, everything in the lab is sucked towards the warp, which is shrinking, but not quickly enough.

Sue notices that a scrap of paper inside of the pentagram isn't moving. It's safe in there. Reed doesn't see why this should be but hauls the unconscious Doom into the safety zone nonetheless. Ben does the same with Boris. Johnny and Sue are also safe inside the pentagram. Reed does some quick calculation and realizes that at the moment before the warp closes, there will be a point singularity in the room with them. Even if a full-fledged black hole isn't formed, there will an incredibly dense object suddenly appearing in real space. It will create intense gravitic waves and deadly radiation fully sufficient to destroy the Earth. It shouldn't be happening but it is. There has to be some way to cut it off from whatever its energy source is. "I know what it is!," Sue says. "It's magic!" She fastens her lipstick to the side of Johnny's flying car and tells him to draw a star around Mephisto's Tears just like the one they're standing in. Johnny draws a pentagram around the tears and the warp disappears. The Tears, which were hovering a foot above the ground, fall to the floor in the pentagram's center.

Doom awakens just in time to see the warp close. His mother's spirit, along with all of the others, Johnny's toy, and Reed's projector are all pulled spectacularly to the warp, then trapped on the other side. Doom curses Reed and launches himself at him. Ben intercepts, flattening Doom with a hard right. Boris rushes to Doom's aid. "You want some too, pal?" He does not. As the Pre-FF are intruders on Doom's property they decide to get out. Doom nurses his busted lip, clutching the Tears in his hand and hiding the tears on his face. Today's indignities will not be forgotten. But, if he is to free his mother, he must first learn more magic.

In Hell, Mephisto laughs at Doom's failure. He's been watching the whole thing. When Doom is ready to try again, he will be waiting.

Meanwhile, in a deserted corner of Mephisto's realm, the warp projector lays ignored only a few feet from Johnny's broken toy.

Back at the boardinghouse, Ben says his good-byes. He's sure that they'll all meet again. "Yes," Reed muses. "We do make quite a team, don't we?"

A giant two-or-three page splash illustrates highlights of the Fantastic Four's career aided by a series of captions that go something like this: "A daring spaceflight. A billion-to-one accident. The discovery of power. And of purpose. Righting wrongs. Saving worlds. Discovering new worlds. Love, marriage, life. Heartbreak, separation, death. Secrets revealed. Victories won. And...a loose end or two..." At the last, we see an inset panel of Reed's warp projector coming to life where it lies half-buried in Hell.

It's the present. The Thing is walking the streets in his somewhat concealing trenchcoat. There'll be captions to let us know that this is the Ben we met in the first half of the story. He sees a car spin out of control and smash into a wall. Throwing aside his trenchcoat [this is the first time we see him clearly -now we know what the caption was referring to when it spoke of him gaining the power to do good...at a price], he rushes to the side of the badly crushed car. When he tears the car's roof off he reveals Mrs. Dinkins. She's older, he only met her once -and that years ago- but he remembers her. "Lady, are you alright? Hey, don't I know you?" Jewel claps her palms over the Thing's ears. He howls in pain and grabs his ringing head. She punches him in the face with a roundhouse right. The impact sends him sailing through the air. He lands in a heap at the foot of a building and struggles gamely to his feet. "It's clobberin' time..." he offers weakly. Indeed it is. Jewel pulls the pin from a hand grenade with her teeth, then extends the arm in front of her so that it is pointing towards the Thing. Her arm detaches midway between elbow and shoulder and flies off, rocket exhaust streaming from its rear. The new angle reveals that the arm she punched the Thing with is now a twisted mass of metal and wires. The other arm, with a live grenade clenched in its fist slams into the wall behind the still-dazed Thing, exploding and burying him under tons of rubble.

Johnny Storm, "the Human Torch," and his wife Alicia are taking advantage of Indian Summer with a walk through the country. Johnny is shocked to see Aunt Jewel, who appears from nowhere asking for help. Johnny sits Alicia on a bench and follows Jewel to a nine foot wide metal pipe set into the side of a hill. Using his finger as a light source, he follows Jewel down the long pipe until they reach its end: an iris. Jewel pushes a button and the iris opens. A wall of water pours out at deadly speed. Johnny bursts into flames -except for his arms- and grabbing Jewel under the arms, flies towards the open end of the pipe. The water is gaining on him. We are looking at the exterior of the pipe when abruptly, water rushes out, dumping an extinguished and unconscious Johnny , and a "broken" Jewel on the ground.

Sue Richards, "the Invisible Woman" finishes a charity performance that allows us to see the range of her powers. She finally makes it to her dressing room where, no surprise by now, Jewel is waiting for her. Sue greets her warmly. "Aunt Jewel! I didn't know you were going to be here tonight." As she hugs her, Jewel injects her with a hypodermic hidden in her index finger. Sue falls to the ground unconscious.

Reed Richards is at a big university's particle accelerator looking at some fusion-power research. Jewel appears but Reed isn't buying it, he recognizes the subtle but tell-tale motion that gives away even the best robots. He stretches towards it to attack. Jewel discharges a massive amount of electricity into Reed's body. Reed writhes in pain as only he can and then, mercifully, passes out.

The Fantastic Four awaken in a gigantic room in Doom's castle. They are each bound in traps designed to neutralize their powers. Johnny floats in a tube of liquid; his arms behind his back, his feet lashed together, and an oxygen mask obscuring his face. Ben has been cast into a solid block of metal, only his neck and head are free. Reed is in a plastic bubble [actually that's kind of boring -maybe he's wound painfully around some kind of reel?-I'm still working on this but I'll think of something]. Sue's arms are bound behind her and her head is in some Kirbyesque helmet to prevent her from using her force-field powers. They are all facing a platform -almost a stage- that is dominated by a large screen. On the platform is Doom, who stands at the center of an apparatus that looks like an updated and much more powerful version of the one he tried to use to free his mother years ago. Doom's armor has been altered in a high-tech and visually appealing manner. Reed might comment that it looks like an ELF reception web has been bonded to his armor. Doom begins to explain what he's up to. The Fantastic Four were all present when he suffered his most humiliating failure. Now they will watch him succeed at the same task. He has a new approach to the problem of his mother's imprisonment. "Boris?"

Boris hits a switch and the screen comes to life, showing that Reed's warp projector is already operational. Johnny's flying toy rests in the background. Doom enters a pentagram amid the tangle of high-tech and mystical artifacts and exits (we see on the screen) through the warp into Hell.

Mephisto greets Doom gleefully and torments him by torturing his mother's spirit as graphically as I can get away with. Doom is enraged and threatens Mephisto. Mephisto laughs and reminds Doom that this is his realm and that here, his word is reality. Doom's only response is to say, "Now, Boris."

Back on Earth, Boris is ready. He presses the enter key on a computer that has a mystic spell displayed on its monitor. The spell vanishes, replaced by the word "Running."

Doom 's armor unfolds into a huge receptor web not unlike solar collector panels. Mephisto is amused. "Do you think a machine can protect you from even a fraction of my power? Burn, Doom!" Mephisto fires a mystic bolt at Doom and is horrified to discover that he can't stop -his power is flowing out of him and into Doom! Mephisto discorporates painfully. Doom's armor glows until we can't see him within its glare. When the glow fades, Doom is transformed, his green robes are now red, and are those flames flickering behind his faceplate? "This world is mine!," he shouts, turning to look out on the FF from the screen. "Do you see, Richards? do you grasp my plan?"

Reed does, and begs Doom not to do it. "Do what?, asks Johnny. "He can't free his mother from Hell so..." "So I am bringing her the Earth!," Doom concludes. He has usurped Hell, and when he moves Earth into his dimension, he will rule over it as well. Doom creates a giant warp and the Earth moves through it as he speaks. "I have had but three goals in my life, Richards: To free my mother from Mephisto, to prove that I am your superior, and to rule this world. Today, my grandest dreams and your worst nightmares have come to pass at once. Today is Doom's day!"

The Earth now rests securely in Hell. It is hideously transformed. Everything is recognizable but twisted into the Dante version of same. This is really a chance for the artist to go nuts. Everything is disturbing, familiar but hellish, even Doom's playroom, where the FF are still bound, has been changed. The Doombots that guard the room, for instance, have been transformed from ultra sleek, high-tech, fighting machines to metallic demons. Doom appears. "Boris! Take a note, we must do something about the decor." Boris, also transformed, does as he's told. Doom uses a fraction of his power to transport his mother into the room. She is dazed and confused (as anyone would be after decades of torture) but she understands that somehow, her son has rescued her. They hug. "Mother, I would like to introduce you to my most hated enemy, Reed Richards, and his lackeys the Fantastic Four. Richards, my mother, Cynthia von Doom!" Mom is tired. Doom creates a doorway to an elegantly decorated bedroom and sends her to rest.

Doom turn his attention to the FF. He informs them that they are the only four free minds in Hell. He has done this both to provide him with the challenge of opposition missing the last time he conquered the Earth, and to allow him to prove his continued superiority to Reed. With a wave of his hand he frees the FF from their bonds. "We can't fool around. Take him!," Sue shouts, projecting a spike-shaped force field through the torso of one of the Doombots. "Flame on!," cries Johnny. He fires a flame blast at one of the robots, then realizes that his power isn't the most useful one to have in Hell. "Great. Now what do I do?" The Thing sinks his fingers into the chest of one robot and smashes it into a second one. Reed winds his way through the feet of several of the robots, tripping them and sling-shoting one into several more. Johnny buzzes around a handful of robots, annoying them. A robots hand and arm are smashed against Sue's force field when it tries to punch her. "Reed, how can we put the Earth back where it belongs?" Reed is absorbing force blasts with his elastic body. He is confused by the mystical aspects of the apparatus. Johnny flies out of a window and the three Doombots on his tail follow him, then fall to the ground far below. Johnny flies back in. "Hee hee hee!" Sue tells Reed not to think of it as a magical problem but just as a problem. The Thing bashes Doombots with great success and makes it to the control panel. Reed has an idea. Sue blocks a force blast that was about to hit Ben from his blindside. Reed postulates the mystical power totems as 3-D shadows of Nth dimensional machines, if so this device can return the Earth to its normal hyper and real space coordinates... "Never mind the lecture!, Ben bellows. "How do ya turn the blamed thing on?" "Oh. Pull the red lever." Ben reaches for it then he the rest of the FF are suddenly transported to Times Square.

Imagine Times Square if it really were the Hell that some people think it is. The FF are in the middle of it, and Doom's face is on the screen above the Coke sign. "Ne deja vu pas.." says Johnny. "What?"

"That's the persistant feeling that you've never been somewhere before." Doom speaks. He is surprised that Reed's formidable but rigid intellect could solve the problem but it's not going to be quite that simple. He will see them when they get back to Latveria.

The FF plan their next move. Sue wants to go find Franklin. No. He wont even know you. Our first priority has to be transportation to get back to Latveria, Johnny believes. If we save the world then Franklin will be safe too. Reed is wrestling with a plan. It's difficult to do because Doom is so much more powerful than they. Ben says that power isn't the point. "It wuz never power that beat him. We sure didn't have no power the first time we took him. It wuz...I dunno. Us together." They are going to go to Four Freedom's Plaza and see if they can get a Fantasticar going.

Mama Doom has been watching her son and she is shocked at his behavior. She realizes that the misshapen creature beside him is Boris, her husband's best friend. "What kind of man have you become?" Doom restores Boris to human, and explains to his mother that he plans to change Hell to paradise. He begins with the castle which he returns to its normal opulence. The FF crash through the wall flying a Fantasticar that looks like everything else does in Hell. After quickly routing a few Doombots, the FF face Doom. Ben tells Cynthia that Doom hasn't just come to Hell -he's brought the entire Earth here.

Doom roars with anger and throws himself at Ben. His gauntlets crackle with energy. He is tearing Ben apart. The rest of the FF try to restrain him. Sue projects a field to separate Ben from Doom and a second thicker one to protect them from him. It's not going to hold for long. Reed says that they have to get to the console. How can they keep Doom away? "A pentagram!" Sue's isn't carrying lipstick. Reed has an idea but they'll need Cynthia's help. "My son..." she says sadly, then agrees. Reed orders the FF to form a pentagon with each of them forming a corner and Cynthia, who is standing by the console, forming the fifth corner. "Hurry. please," Says Sue, whose shield is withering under Doom's attack. Reed stretches his arms around and through them forming a pentagram. Sue drops her shield. Doom rushes forward but is barred by the pentagram. "Mother, no!" Reed asks her if she understands what she's doing. She does. "Victor, never again do evil in my name." She pulls the lever...

...And reality shatters. The Earth returns to its place in real space. Things and people regain their normal appearance. And inside Castle Doom...

Everything is as it was. Doom's robes are green again, the FF stand in their positions in the pentagram and Cynthia is gone. Reed's warp projector is on the floor forever closing the doorway to Hell. Doom sinks to his knees, throws back his head, and screams.

Sometime later, the FF visit the real Jewel in her boarding house. The current college residents swarm them in the lobby. The real Jewel appears and announces to everyone that these are 'her kids' and that she's proud of them. She always has been.

#reed richards #mr fantastic #victor von doom #doctor doom #fantastic four #johnny storm #human torch #ben grimm #reference material #text #the thing #susan storm #invisible woman #cynthia von doom #storm siblings

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tgmsunmontue · 2 months ago

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#fighter planes #reference material #top gun maverick #history #part one of three

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nixariel · 1 year ago

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Timelines and Carmen Sandiego: To Steal Or Not To Steal

...or, can I make the interactive special play nicely with canon? Meant as a companion to my previous timeline; please note that this is centred around the 'perfect' route where Carmen manages to save both her ground crew and the stolen items. For an overview of how to access all eight endings, I would highly recommend this excellent schematic.

Shanghai (stated in dialogue as approx 1 year after Carmen started stealing from V.I.L.E.; "which part of the last year")

· "Notorious V.I.L.E. stronghold" is in Lujiazui district of Shanghai; location roughly corresponds to the Jin Mao Tower based on position relative to the Shanghai Tower and the Shanghai World Financial Center · Carmen can enter from the air by ziplining across from the Shanghai Tower or from the ground via the elevator shaft · Walks into conspicuously-open vault to learn her ground crew has been kidnapped; if she does not cooperate, the faculty will use Dr. Bellum's mindwiping device to turn Ivy and Zack into V.I.L.E. operatives ◦ As per bad ending 1, Coach Brunt had bet Professor Maelstrom a steak dinner that Carmen would refuse V.I.L.E.'s deal point-blank · Curiously, a 10-19 licence plate is visible on a passing car during Player's intro of the target; in the main series, this number seems to be used exclusively for A.C.M.E. vehicles

Xi'an (roughly 2h direct flight time from Shanghai to Xi'an)

· First task is the theft of a terracotta warrior for Brunt; Carmen goes to a "fresh dig site" where more statues have recently been found · Exact date unknown but apparently a Tuesday; "it's either dress-up Tuesday for the security staff or..." · Tigress has been sent as V.I.L.E.'s handler-slash-back-up for Carmen; leaving her in the pit reveals she has a fear of insects but helping her enables the later 'imperfect good' ending of saving Zack and Ivy while V.I.L.E. keeps the statue · Carmen gets her first check-in with the siblings, then is offered the choice of going to either Hell Creek, Montana, to retrieve a T. rex bone for Dr. Bellum or Monte Carlo, Monaco, to steal one hundred tins of Beluga caviar for Countess Cleo

· If trying to establish a 'canon' narrative for the special, Cleo's caper would make the most sense as the next theft; Carmen has managed one heist for V.I.L.E. but now struggles with the implications of needing to do it again, and to a charity no less. Mime Bomb is also present more to monitor Carmen than to help, much like Tigress, and Julia does not mention a stolen dinosaur bone despite bringing up the missing terracotta warrior during her brief conversation with Carmen. Going from one plainclothes agent in Monte Carlo (or presumably only one; no recognizably-A.C.M.E. faces in the crowd and Julia reaches for her pen rather than an earpiece if tricked into going to the roof) to three officially-dressed agents in Montana also seems like a more appropriate escalation of A.C.M.E.'s efforts to catch Carmen than the reverse.

Monte Carlo (roughly 11h direct flight time from Xi'an to Monte Carlo)

· Exterior of the hotel hosting the charity dinner appears somewhat similar to the Hotel Metropole Monte-Carlo · Debut of 'Scarlett Santarosa' as an alias; Player's startled "who??" upon hearing it suggests that this may not have been entirely planned · Declining the diplomat's offer to dance leads to Carmen expressing a preference for tango over the waltz; accepting it shows her losing focus/drifting into a daydream partway through, which may be a sign that having to rush through back-to-back capers is starting to wear on her · Evidently A.C.M.E. has received intel that V.I.L.E. may be targeting the caviar, Julia assigned to investigate and/or thwart; she seems much more comfortable blending in with upper-class society than pretending to be a fashion model in Milan · Julia also much more overt with her willingness to extend Carmen the benefit of the doubt; that she's carrying around a champagne glass full of some unspecified sparkling liquid is probably pure coincidence ;)

· Carmen acknowledges having "joined forces with Jules before"—a phrasing that suggests something more like their collaboration in Milan than simply leaving the recovered Magna Cartas on a train seat; trusting Julia is necessary to achieve the 'perfect' route ending · The successful grab 'n' dash route leads to Carmen landing on a bridge-like structure with some similarities to the Fontvieille Shopping Centre; the unsuccessful stash 'n' sneak option has her walking down what is almost certainly the Rue de Millo in La Condamine

Terminal 5 of Heathrow Airport (roughly 2h direct flight time from Monte Carlo to Heathrow)

· Before continuing on to the third heist, Carmen demands another check-in with Ivy and Zack; comparing the amount of light coming through their cell window at different times of day allows her to deduce that they are being held somewhere with 24/7 sunlight · Player confirms that this would currently be the North rather than South Pole; midnight sun in the Arctic goes from late March to late September

· Choosing to attempt a rescue instead of continuing with the third heist reveals that Tigress has been stationed at the Arctic facility, presumably to oversee the guarding of Carmen's ground crew; unclear how/if she is involved in their transfer to Île d'Oléron for the ending of the 'perfect' route ◦ The diner from the post-Arctic bad ending is located in none other than San Diego, suggesting that this is after Team Red purchases the Carmen Brand Outerwear warehouse (and is quite possibly the Best Sneaky Detail in this entire special asdfghj XDD)

Hell Creek (roughly 9.5h direct flight time plus 3.5h drive time from Heathrow to Hell Creek State Park)

· Carmen more resigned than upset at the thought of stealing the T. rex bone for Bellum; would be in keeping with having managed to get through two heists for V.I.L.E. already · Archaeologist from Morocco can be seen entering one of the tents at the excavation site (a.k.a. the OTHER contender for Best Sneaky Detail XD)

· Even considering something as risky as trying to catch and break into a plane while it's taking off may be another sign of strain/fatigue affecting Carmen; this would also fit with Montana being her third caper in a row · Research lab is approximately 200 miles away (and is attached to an amusement park like the discount version of a Michael Crichton novel, there's even a Tyrannosaurus head over the main entrance, this is ABSOLUTELY intentional XDD) · Bellum expected her to have snagged the bone within mere hours of landing in Montana ("been in Montana for an entire afternoon"); pushing Carmen to complete the thefts as quickly as possible is likely part of keeping her too busy to out-think V.I.L.E.'s trap · Carmen is offered the choice of El Topo or Le Chevre for assistance; El Topo will show up having helpfully researched potential exit routes while Le Chevre drops a pinecone on her head and calls her "the bossy one in [their] class" · Compared to El Topo, Le Chevre also distinctly under-impressed by the quality of A.C.M.E.'s suits · El Topo's knowledge of the tunnels underneath the combo museum/amusement park leads to a quick and A.C.M.E.-baffling disappearance after nabbing the bone; picking Le Chevre, on the other hand, leads to the very serious A.C.M.E. agents very seriously commandeering a dinosaur-themed roller coaster train in order to chase Carmen along said roller coaster's track until she manages a daringly acrobatic escape that ends with her hang-gliding off into the night (yes I have a favourite operative how can you tell)

· As an alternative to a straight reconciliation with show-canon, might I suggest that riding a literal roller coaster in order to chase Carmen Sandiego through an amusement park in the middle of the night sounds suspiciously like someone trying to prank a newly-reinstated Devineaux? ;)

Terminal 5 of Heathrow Airport (unknown drive time plus roughly 9.5h direct flight time from Montana to Heathrow)

· After she returns to the airport, the faculty sends Carmen an e-ticket for a ferry to the Île d'Oléron; she is to bring the dinosaur bone and caviar tins there to exchange for her ground crew · Somehow Julia has managed to track Carmen to Heathrow, unclear if A.C.M.E. aware; her attempt to tail the thief is quickly noticed and Carmen uses the opportunity to ask for her help

Île d'Oléron (roughly 75 min direct flight time from Heathrow to La Rochelle; ferry to the island takes another hour)

· Paperstar watching from the Phare de Chassiron; as per the final bad ending, V.I.L.E. plans to have Lady Dokuso and the Cleaners ambush Carmen after she disembarks

· All real-world ferries to Île d'Oléron look to be from La Rochelle; closest actual stop would be Saint-Denis-d'Oléron, approximately 4 km away, as the coastline near the lighthouse is too shallow to permit a commercial dock · Carmen has Julia take her place on the ferry and swims to the island instead, finds Zack and Ivy in the V.I.L.E. aircraft hangar there · Paperstar notices Julia's glasses and alerts the guards, interrupting their escape · Zack figures out how to fly a helicopter in a hurry and Carmen references Casablanca ("here's looking at you, crew"); terracotta warrior conveniently found to be already stowed/never unloaded in back

Julia's apartment, presumably still in Poitiers

· All stolen items deposited neatly outside Julia's door, complete with a bouquet of roses; we do not see who rings the doorbell · One possible explanation for the opening and closing scenes of Ivy and Zack during the post-ending bonus music video is that they indeed managed to break out of their cell at least once while Carmen was busy with V.I.L.E.'s capers, even if they were then recaptured before they could find a way off the Arctic base; certainly their parts of the song are referenced in-episode during both the post-Xi'an check-in and the post-Arctic bad ending

Special vs. Canon

In terms of trying to fit the special with the rest of the show, both Carmen's dialogue ("which part of the last year", see estimated date for Boston caper in previous timeline) and the Arctic midnight sun reference suggest a late spring/early summer time frame, meaning roughly April to June-ish depending on how strict we want to be with the definition of a year. Shadow-san's absence from the faculty and from the special in general, plus the fact that the remaining members appear to be in some transitional location—as per the industrial metal-panel backgrounds during most of their calls to Carmen, rather than anything resembling either the Canary Islands school or the Outer Hebrides castle—isn't as definitive, but would at least be in keeping with a post-explosion (March-ish) pre-move-to-Scotland (October) placement.

There is also Julia's readiness to trust Carmen's intentions in Monte Carlo, combined with Carmen's "joined forces with Jules before" line, which would suggest that this is before Player Trojan-horses the A.C.M.E. database but after the Milan caper. Given the notable absence of any reference to Stockholm, this might further suggest a point after both that mishap and the failed Botswana collaboration because Carmen's willingness to reach out for A.C.M.E.'s help with the diamond mine could be seen as forgiveness for chasing her off a tower in Sweden—and with that attitude of letting bygones be bygones, Julia might consider doubling down on her faith in Carmen to be a more convincing apology than dragging up bad history.

With how quickly things go from Brunt dropping the Wolfebomb to Carmen salvaging the mainframe hard drive to her demanding answers from Shadow-san, it would be very difficult for the special to take place then regardless of how conveniently it would excuse the ninja's absence. However, there is an unspecified amount of time between that confrontation and Carmen showing up at Chief's usual coffee shop in Seattle—and since Carmen wouldn't have confirmed Shadow-san's truthfulness yet, he'd most likely still be benched in San Diego (nor would the faculty expect to see him with her given their belief in having driven a wedge between the two). Chase, at this point, would also have been retrieved from the island and fired by Interpol but not yet reactivated as an A.C.M.E. agent.

Although not a perfect reconciliation—that Carmen would be willing to put a hold on finding answers about her father's death in order to raid a random V.I.L.E. vault in Shanghai is... questionable, to say the least—the most plausible canon setting for the special would therefore seem to be after the reveal of how Shadow-san became a faculty member but before Team Red comes up with a plan for how to hack A.C.M.E.'s database.

As always, this is the work of only one person. If there's something missing or incorrect, let me know and I'm happy to update. Otherwise, I have a CS 2019 trivia tag for the things that didn't quite fit in either timeline, as well as the odd headcanon that does a little more reading-between-the-lines. ;) Have fun.

END

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