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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 years ago

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Patent troll's IP more powerful than Apple's

I was 12 years into my Locus Magazine column when I published the piece I'm most proud of, "IP," from September 2020. It came after an epiphany, one that has profoundly shaped the way I talk and think about the issues I campaign on.

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

That revelation was about the meaning of the term "IP," which had been the center of this tedious linguistic cold war for decades. People who advocate for free and open technology and culture hate the term "IP" because of its ideological loading and imprecision.

Ideology first: Before "IP" came into wide parlance - when lobbyists for multinational corporations convinced the UN to turn their World Intellectual Property Organization into a specialized agency, we used other terms like "author's monopolies" and "regulatory monopolies."

"Monopoly" is a pejorative. "Property" is sacred to our society. When a corporation seeks help defending its monopoly, it is a grubby corrupter. When it asks for help defending its property, it is enlisting the public to defend the state religion.

Free culture people know allowing "monopolies" to become "property" means losing the battle before it is even joined, but it is frankly unavoidable. How do you rephrase "IP lawyer" without conceding the property point? "Trademark-copyright-patent-and-related-rights lawyer?"

Thus the other half of the objection to "IP": its imprecision. Copyright is not anything like patent. Patent is not anything like trademark. Trade secrets are an entirely different thing again. Don't let's get started on sui generis and neighboring rights.

And this is where my revelation came: as it is used in business circles, "IP" has a specific, precise meaning. "IP" means, "Any law, policy or regulation that allows me to control the conduct of my competitors, critics and customers."

Copyright, patent and trademark all have limitations and exceptions designed to prevent this kind of control, but if you arrange them in overlapping layers around a product, each one covers the exceptions in the others.

Creators don't like having their copyrights called "author's monopolies." Monopolists get to set prices. All the copyright in the world doesn't let an author charge publishers more for their work. The creators have a point.

But when author's monopolies are acquired by corporate monopolists, something magical and terrible happens.

Remember: market-power monopolies are still (theoretically) illegal and when companies do things to maintain or expand their monopolies, they risk legal jeopardy.

But: The corporate monopolist who uses IP to expand their monopoly has no such risk. Monopolistic conduct in defense of IP enjoys wide antitrust forbearance. What's the point of issuing patents or allowing corporations to buy copyrights if you don't let them enforce them?

The IP/market-power monopoly represents a futuristic corporate alloy, a new metal never seen, impervious to democratic control.

Software is "IP" and so any device with software in it is like beskar, a rare metal that can be turned into the ultimate corporate armor.

No company exemplifies this better than Apple, a company that used limitations on IP to secure its market power, then annihilated those limits so that no one could take away its market power.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interoperability-reviving-elegant-weapon-more-civilized-age-slay

In the early 2000s, Apple was in trouble. The convicted monopolist Microsoft ruled the business world, and if you were the sole Mac user in your office, you were screwed.

When a Windows user sent you a Word file, you could (usually) open it in the Mac version of Word, but then if you saved that file again, it often became forever cursed, unopenable by any version of Microsoft Office ever created or ever to be created.

This became a huge liability. Designers started keeping a Windows box next to their dual processor Power Macs, just to open Office docs. Or worse (for Apple), they switched to a PC and bought Windows versions of Adobe and Quark Xpress.

Steve Jobs didn't solve this problem by begging Bill Gates to task more engineers to Office for Mac. Instead, Jobs got Apple techs to reverse-engineer all of the MS Office file formats and release a rival office suite, Iwork, which could read and write MS Office files.

That was an Apple power move, one that turned MS's walled garden into an all-you-can-eat buffet of potential new Mac users. Apple rolled out the Switch ads, whose message was, "Every MS Office file used to be a reason *not* to use a Mac. Now it's a reason to switch *to* a Mac."

More-or-less simultaneously, though, Apple was inventing the hybrid market/IP monopoly tool that would make it the most valuable company in the world, in its design for the Ipod and the accompanying Itunes store.

It had a relatively new legal instrument to use for this purpose: 1998's Digital Millennium Copyright Act; specifically, Section 1201 of the DMCA, the "anti-circumvention" clause, which bans breaking DRM.

Under DMCA 1201, if a product has a copyrighted work (like an operating system) and it has an "access control" (like a password or a bootloader key), then bypassing the access control is against the law, even if no copyright infringement takes place.

That last part - "even if no copyright infringement takes place" - is the crux of DMCA 1201. The law was intended to support the practices of games console makers and DVD player manufacturers, who wanted to stop competitors from making otherwise legal devices.

With DVD players, that was about "region coding," the part of the DVD file format that specified which countries a DVD could be played back in. If you bought a DVD in London, you couldn't play it in Sydney or New York.

Now, it's not a copyright violation to buy a DVD and play it wherever you happen to be. As a matter of fact, buying a DVD and playing it is the *opposite* of a copyright infringement.

But it *was* a serious challenge to the entertainment cartel's business-model, which involved charging different prices and having different release dates for the same movie depending on where you were.

The same goes for games consoles: companies like Sega and Nintendo made a lot of money charging creators for the right to sell games that ran on the hardware they sold.

If I own a Sega Dreamcast, and you make a game for it, and I buy it and run it on my Sega, that's not a copyright infringement, even if Sega doesn't like it. But if you have to bypass an "access control" to get the game to play without Sega's blessing, it violates DMCA 1201.

What's more, DMCA 1201 has major penalties for "trafficking in circumvention devices" and information that could be used to build such a device, such as reports of exploitable flaws in the programming of a DRM system: $500k in fines and a 5 year sentence for a first offense.

Deregionalizing a DVD player or jailbreaking a Dreamcast didn't violate anyone's copyrights, but it still violated copyright law (!). It was pure IP, the right to control the conduct of critics (security researchers), customers and competitors.

In the words of Jay Freeman, it's "Felony contempt of business-model."

And that's where the Ipod came in. Steve Jobs's plan was to augment the one-time revenue from an Ipod with a recurrent revenue stream from the Itunes store.

He exploited the music industry's superstitious dread of piracy and naive belief in the efficacy of DRM to convince the record companies to only sell music with his DRM wrapper on it - a wrapper they themselves could not authorize listeners to remove.

Ever $0.99 Itunes purchase added $0.99 to the switching cost of giving up your Ipod for a rival device, or leaving Itunes and buying DRM music from a rival store. It was control over competitors and customers. It was IP.

If you had any doubt that the purpose of Ipod/Itunes DRM was to fight competitors, not piracy, then just cast your mind back to 2004, when Real Media "hacked" the Ipod so that it would play music locked with Real's DRM as well as Apple's.

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3387871/Apple+RealNetworks+Hacked+iPod.htm

Apple used DMCA 1201 to shut Real down, not to stop copyright infringement, but to prevent Apple customers from buying music from record labels and playing them on their Ipods without paying Apple a commission and locking themselves to Apple's ecosystem, $0.99 at a time.

Pure IP. Now, imagine if Microsoft had been able to avail itself of DMCA 1201 when Iwork was developed - if, for example, its "information rights management" encryption had caught on, creating "access controls" for all Office docs.

There's a very strong chance that would have killed Apple off before it could complete its recovery. Jobs knew the power of interoperating without consent, and he knew the power of invoking the law to block interoperability. He practically invented modern IP.

Apple has since turned IP into a trillion-dollar valuation, largely off its mobile platform, the descendant of the Ipod. This mobile platform uses DRM - and thus DMCA 1201 - to ensure that you can only use apps that come from its app store.

Apple gets a cut of penny you spend buying an app, and every penny you spend within that app: 30% (now 15% for a minority of creators after bad publicity).

IP lets one of the least taxed corporations on Earth extract a 30% tax from everyone else.

https://locusmag.com/2021/03/cory-doctorow-free-markets/

Remember, it's not copyright infringement for me to write an app and you to buy it from me and play it on your Iphone without paying the 30% Apple tax.

That's the exact opposite of copyright infringement: buying a copyrighted work and enjoying it on a device you own.

But it's still an IP violation. It bypasses Apple's ability to control competitors and customers. It's felony contempt of business-model.

It shows that under IP, copyright can't be said to exist as an incentive to creativity - rather, it's a tool for maintaining monopolies.

Which brings me to today's news that Apple was successfully sued by a patent troll over its DRM. A company called Personalized Media Communications whose sole product is patent lawsuits trounced Apple in the notorious East Texas patent-troll court.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-19/apple-told-to-pay-308-5-million-for-infringing-drm-patent

After software patents became widespread - thanks to the efforts of Apple and co - there was a bonanza of "inventors" filing garbage patents with the USPTO whose format was "Here's an incredibly obvious thing...*with a computer*." The Patent Office rubberstamped them by the million.

These patents became IP, a way to extract rent without having to make a product. "Investors" teamed up with "inventors" to buy these and impose a tax on businesses - patent licensing fees that drain money from people who make things and give it to people who buy things.

They found a court - the East Texas court in Marshall, TX - that was hospitable to patent trolls. They rented dusty PO boxes in Marshall and declared them to be their "headquarters" so that they could bring suits there.

Locals thrived - they got jobs as "administrators" (mail forwarders) for the thousands of "businesses" whose "head office" was in Marshall (when you don't make a product, your head office can be a PO box).

Productive companies facing hundreds of millions - billions! - in patent troll liability sought to curry favor with locals (who were also the jury pool) by "donating" things to Marshall, like the skating rink Samsung bought for the town.

https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/why-south-korea-s-samsung-built-the-only-outdoor-skating-rink-in-texas

Patent, like copyright, is supposed to serve a public purpose. There are only two clauses in the US Constitution that come with explanations (the rest being "truths held to be self-evident"): the Second Amendment and the "Progress Clause" that creates patents and copyrights.

Famously, the Second Amendment says you can bear arms as part of a "well-regulated militia."

And the Progress Clause? It extends to Congress the power to create patents and copyrights "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts."

I'm with Apple in its ire over this judgment. Sending $308.5m to a "closely held" patent troll has nothing to do with the "Progress of Science and useful Arts."

But it has *everything* to do with IP.

If copyright law can let Apple criminalize - literally criminalize - you selling me If copyright law can let Apple criminalize - literally criminalize - you selling me your copyrighted work, then there's no reason to hate on patent trolls.

They're just doing what trolls do: blocking the bridge between someone engaged in useful work and the customers for that work, and extracting a toll. It's not even 30%.

There is especial and delicious irony in the fact that the patent in question is a DRM patent: a patent for the very same process that Apple uses to lock down its devices and prevent creators from selling to customers without paying the 30% Apple Tax.

But even without that, it's as good an example of what an IP marketplace looks like: one in which making things becomes a liability. After all, the more you make, the more chances there are for an IP owner to demand tax from you to take it to market.

The only truly perfect IP is the naked IP of a patent troll, the bare right to sue, a weapon made from pure abstract legal energy, untethered from any object, product or service that might be vulnerable to another IP owner's weapons.

A coda: you may recall that Apple doesn't use DRM on its music anymore: you can play Itunes music on any device. That wasn't a decision Apple took voluntarily: it was forced into it by a competitor: Amazon, an unlikely champion of user rights.

In 2007, the record labels had figured out that Apple had lured them into a trap, selling millions of dollars worth of music that locked both listeners and labels into the Itunes ecosystem.

In a desperate bid for freedom, they agreed to help Amazon launch its MP3 store - all the same music, at the same prices...without DRM. Playable on an Ipod, but also on any other device.

Prior to the Amazon MP3 store, the market was all DRM: you could either buy Apple's DRM music and play it on your Ipod, or you could buy other DRM music and play it on a less successful device.

The Amazon MP3 store (whose motto was "DRM: Don't Restrict Me") changed that to "Buy Apple DRM music and play it on your Ipod, or buy Amazon music and play it anywhere." That was the end of Apple music DRM.

So why hasn't anyone done this for the apps that Apple extracts the 30% tax on? IP. If you made a phone that could play Ios apps, Apple would sue you:

https://gizmodo.com/judge-tosses-apple-lawsuit-against-iphone-emulator-in-b-1845967318

And if you made a device that let you load non-App Store apps on an Iphone, Apple would also sue you.

Apple understands IP. It learned the lesson of the Amazon MP3 store, and it is committed to building a world where every creator pays a tax to reach every Apple customer.

#pluralistic

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whump-town · 4 years ago

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Whump Whump, tell me your headcanons for witsec Hotch please.

He gardens. He likes bright flowers but really likes yellows and purples and even orange— and though he likes roses he can’t think of them without associating them with that case with all those dead children. So, no, he doesn’t try roses

WITSEC forces regular doctors appointments and he hates them with his entire being. “Try to work on managing your stress” they say but that’s a little hard to do running from a serial killer. They’re always picking something new to worry about. Drawing blood. Checking this. Poking that. He’s worse about it than Jack

He reads to cope for a while. His library triples in a matter of no time because he’s sitting on a decades worth of book recommendations from the team. Even reads Dave’s last book (well, he skimmed it the first time when Dave sent it to him in rough draft format but this time he actually reads it and doesn’t like it but makes thoughtful notes to bring up to Dave later). After a while, that’s not enough

He writes letters— some are never meant to see the light of day and others are heartfelt and he imagines that if this all goes to shit he’ll leave them behind these (others are filled with confessions and broken thoughts that drive him to tears just thinking about but those get shredded and burned)

He can’t sit still for very long. He runs but can’t maintain a schedule for that in case he’s found out. He buys a treadmill and that helps him sleep.

He’s hypervigilant and sitting still produces restless anxiety. After spending so many years constantly doing something— paperwork, meetings, cases, running to a soccer game, picking Jack up from school— he’s overwhelmed by nothing. He starts to listen to music while he does things and develops a schedule to do a deep, deep clean every Sunday. He always has to be doing something. His mind has convinced itself that every chance he gets to just breathe is a moment he’s wasting and there’s something to be done

Obviously, he gets put on medication. He may not speak up for himself but his body is doing some talking. The anxiety is treatable and Jack is horrified by the idea that something was wrong and Hotch didn’t tell him. They meet each other half-way and while Jack doesn’t get the full disclosure he wants he does get to check the medicine (and Hotch would tell him but Jacks a kid and he will stand by his decision to treat him as a child and not burden Jack with things he can’t control)

He gets to be more involved with Jack and school (and more than that he gets to see he wasn’t uninvolved before). They don’t ask him to coach but he gets scoresheets to manage and assists things when needed for Jacks soccer team. He doesn’t have to worry about rushing here and there.

He spends a lot of time thinking about what will happen next. Will Jack graduate before they get out? What will that mean for Jack’s future? Would Hotch go back to the BAU? Would they let him? If they even miss him half as much as he misses them or if it’s better that when he’s released he disappears. Takes all his trouble and move away

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wonderlandleighleigh · 4 years ago

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A winding kind of post

(if you’re not into talk about Israel, then you should skip. If you’re Pro-Israel, you’re probably not gonna enjoy this post.)

My father taught me very few positive things in life. He has narcissistic personality disorder, PTSD and a myriad of other issues. so mostly what I learned from him was what not to do.

But here are the few positive things that Bruce taught me that I’ve taken with me in life.

1. Try every piece of food that is placed in front of you once. You never know what might be delicious.

2. Few things feed the human soul like music does.

3. A joke with the punchline “Somewhere in all this shit there’s gotta be a pony!”

4. Zionism is bullshit, and any fellow Jewish person who buys into it should be viewed with extreme skepticism.

It’s a viewpoint I didn’t understand as a child. Why did my father skip giving to the sadaka box during services? The money would go towards building a new temple in Israel.

When I was young, I assumed the answer was “because he’s a mean man and he hates everything.”

As an adult I know that the answer is: Because he’s an avid history student who knows the formation of the state of Israel and what’s happened since is bloody, and Israel is filled with sufferers of generational trauma, and giving them money was always a bad idea.

In my 20′s I had the opportunity to go on a Birthright trip to Israel. My cousin wanted me to come with her. She said it would be fun. For those who don’t know, Birthright trips to Israel are offered to Jewish people between the ages of 18 and 26. Essentially, it’s an attempt to convince young Jewish people to marry other Jewish people and have Jewish babies in the guise of a guided vacation to learn about Israeli Jewish culture and life.

And I almost went. But there was something in the pit of my stomach that stopped me. That said “This isn’t for me. There’s something not right about doing this.”

And ten years later, reading about what’s happening between Israel and Palestine right now? I know. I know that it was because Israel is full of Zionists, and Zionism is insane.

Should there be a safe space for Jews somewhere in the world? It’s not the worst idea. People have been attempting to exterminate us for a really long time, and we’re still not totally safe. Anti-Semitism has been on rise in the last decade. I’ve experienced it. So a place where we could be safe doesn’t sound awful.

Should we be willing to kill others to get it? Absolutely not. Full stop. We should know better. The Jewish people are well known for using phrases like “Never again” and “Never forget.” But it shouldn’t only apply to our own circumstances. It needs to apply to everyone who faces oppression. If it doesn’t, then we’re violating the modern meaning of Tikun Olam, and that sucks.

It’s time for Israel to wake up and take a long look in the mirror and check out what it’s become.

And then go the fuck to therapy and stop killing people.

#politics #if you come at me and tell me that They started it or "Israel is defending itself #Then we're gonna have to start looking at how big Israel's military is #and that in itself is a rude awakening #because it's enormous and their responses are far from proportional #AOC called it an apartheid state and she's probably right

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rainbowvamp · 4 years ago

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Miracle Merlin

Hi Friends! So.. I'm about to drop 4 chapters of the Princess Bride AU in one day. Sorry about that. :) Fill for “The Blessed Ones” for Albion Party Week 2 (plus red)

Warnings? some mentions of Gwen’s trauma around the color red and trauma in general. More Gwen and Merlin :)

To catch you up: Elyan asked Merlin to take Gwen as an apprentice so he could sell the forge and pursue revenge. This is establishing the Gwen & Merlin dynamic. I think it’s cute. :)

WC: 6.9k || Previous chapters. 1 2 3 4 5

----

At first light, the day after it is decided that Merlin will take Gwen with him, Gwen and Merlin ride out the half day to the nearest market, Merlin’s list and pouch of gold at the ready.

Gwen has to ride with him on the way there, because Elyan and Gwen don’t have a horse. It’s uncomfortably close, having to keep hold of Merlin’s waist, but she doesn’t waver when Elyan helps her on, and she doesn’t flinch when she settles behind him.

The ride to town is quiet. Gwen doesn’t feel much like talking, and Merlin doesn’t force it. They will probably have to find lodgings in the town, or else make camp, he tells her, but other than that he says nothing.

They arrive when the sun is beating down on them, and take lunch at a stall. Sweet bread drizzled with honey that is more decadent than anything she has allowed herself since her father died. She didn’t choose it, never would have presumed to, and by the look on Merlin’s face she thinks he might be bribing her. Either way, she enjoys the rare treat and even licks her fingers clean when she’s finished. Merlin hands her a cloth to wipe her face with, and she does so graciously before they set off to buy what they need.

Merlin is not rich, by any means, but what he buys her is far more than she likely would have ever afforded on her own. He buys her a couple of traveling dresses she’ll have to adjust, and a pair of boots she’ll have to stuff the toes of to keep them tight on her feet. He promises to have better things made for her, but she tells him over and over that this will be enough for her. She’s been wearing her mother’s altered clothes for years, she hardly needed anything made new for her when what they could find was just fine.

The traveling gear he buys after he buys her her own horse. It’s a beautiful creature, even if she’s getting on in years. Merlin hadn’t expected he’d be leaving with a companion, or he’d have brought a horse with him. “It’s always easier to fetch a good price for a horse that isn’t needed desperately,” he tells her. It reassured her a bit that Merlin had never intended to whisk her away, and was truly doing it at Elyan’s request.

Merlin’s idle chatter is soft spoken, and she finds him an easy companion once she has her own horse to ride. Merlin inquires about lodging, but it’s no good. Everything’s booked up and they’ve spent enough time in town that they’ll never make it back before dark, even with summer’s longer days.

“I know a place we can make camp. Come on.” He clicks his tongue and his horse just seems to know where to go. Her own follows suit without her even having to command it. That’s very helpful, but she wonders if it’s the horse’s training or Merlin’s magic that makes her follow him.

They make camp in a small clearing of trees that Gwen doesn’t remember having seen before. The grass is short, but plush, and the bedroll she lays out on it doesn’t feel as thin for it. They supped at the inn, and so now all that’s left is to sleep. She stripped to just her chemise while hiding behind one of the horses, wrapping herself in the thick blanket that still smelled new to preserve her modesty.

“You’ll want to keep that blanket with you. It will get cold tonight. The enchantment to make your clothes waterproof is too complicated to do on the road, so if you get up after the dew has formed, try not to let anything get too wet.” Merlin gives her several similar instructions about sleeping out in the open, and then he walks the perimeter of their camp, muttering to himself.

This, he doesn’t explain, but she feels entitled to know. So once he comes back to his bedroll, she asks him.

“Wards.” He says with an easy shrug. “I always put them up when I’m not home. It keeps away ne'er-do-wells and any opportunistic thieves. It won’t stop someone determined to find us, that sort of magic is harder to do, but it will misdirect anyone who might just happen to stumble upon us.”

That did seem like a handy bit of magic. Gwen nodded, satisfied, and settled herself down to sleep, careful to keep herself covered completely in the blanket.

“You need sleeping clothes.” Merlin muttered, but it seemed to be mostly to himself. She quite agreed, but she hadn’t really thought of it during the day.

The pillow she uses is rough, and better suited for laying on her back than on her side. She finds that she can’t sleep with all the thoughts of what may be in her future. There’s a very real chance, no matter what Elyan or Merlin say, that she’ll be burned at the stake for Merlin’s magic. She finds it hard to care about that, though, when she knows that if Elyan and his treasonous plans are discovered, he’ll be killed and she’ll be all alone in the world.

The stars are easier to focus on, so she turns her attention to the clear sky.

The canopy of trees breaks toward the center of the clearing, and so she looks there for the few star formations she remembers. Hunt as she might, she can’t find anything that she recognizes. It’s disappointing, but she just pulls her blanket in closer to her chin and reminds herself that stars rise and fall just like the sun does, and she could very well see some later.

“That’s the great bear, there.” Merlin says, startling Gwen and making her sit up, clutching her blanket to her. He laughs, and she looks at him, indignant that he could be laughing at a time like this.

He’s still laying down, looking up at the same patch of clear sky she had been. “Not in the woods. Up in the stars. The great bear is just there.” He points and she tries to follow his line of sight, but it’s useless. He seems to see her struggle and he gets up, in only hit shirtsleeves and his trousers, and lays down beside her to get a better look at her vantage point. “Alright, see” He points his finger and she leans her head closer to him to try and see what he sees. “By that leaf, that’s the bear’s body.” He makes a square with his finger and she can sort of start to see it. “There’s his head, and his two legs.”

“Where are the other two?” She asked, and he laughed.

“Probably hiding. Or maybe he’s just got the two.” He shrugged. When Gwen focused she could see the shape that he was pointing out, and though this wasn’t one of the ones her mother had taught her, she’d try to watch for it, now. He points again and shows her Lyra, which was one of the one’s she’d been looking for, though she hadn’t called it by that name. Her mother had shown it to her, the musician’s constellation.

“My mother told me the story of that one, when I was young.”

“Did she? I think every culture tells it a little differently. What did she say?”

Gwen settles in, turning her body unconsciously to face him while she kept her face turned toward the sky. “There was once a girl who sang and played so beautifully, that she was the envy of all the five kingdoms. She traveled for miles and miles to bring her music to new places, and to bring joy to the people she met. But one day, a man was jealous of the power she had, and he slew her, and broke her instrument. The gods were so displeased that they sent wild dogs to attack him and tear him to pieces, but they never touched the girl’s body. She was found by the townspeople, who loved her music so much they buried her with a brand new lute so she could sing and play in the afterlife. The gods immortalized her in the stars, and she watches over musicians who travel alone.”

Merlin laughed, turning to face her, despite the hard ground beneath him. “I’ve never heard that version.”

“My father used to tell my mother not to make up stories, so it’s possible she just made it up.” Gwen smiled, but it wasn’t nearly so joyous as Merlin’s as the weight of memories pressed in on her. “She never went to school, or had tutors, but she was a very smart woman. She always told the best stories.”

“You may have inherited her gift.” Merlin tucks a stray hair back into her cap and lays a soft kiss to her forehead. “Goodnight Gwen.”

She’s so flushed by the action that she stays frozen there for a time. When her senses finally return to her she turns away from him, completely lost for words at his actions. They weren’t family, and they were barely friends. It was totally inappropriate to kiss her. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe this was a mistake. The anxiety of that thought made her wake several times in the night, and she could never seem to get back to sleep peacefully.

In the morning, she finds the grass wet with dew, and she takes heed of Merlin’s warning not to get her blankets wet. She puts on the same dress she’d worn yesterday, since the traveling dresses wouldn’t quite fit her, and for the sake of her modesty didn’t change her chemise. She’d change when they returned home.

Home. Well, not home for long, was it? They’d pack up the few things Gwen had, she’d say goodbye today, and they’d likely be on the road again tomorrow. That wouldn’t give her enough time to mend her dresses…

“Come along, Gwen, we’re losing daylight.”

It was just past first light, but sure, they were losing daylight.

Merlin gave her a helping of bread and cheese and an apple for breakfast, and they ate while they packed up camp. Gwen was glad that she had her own horse to pack, and that she’d likely be able to decide where everything went and how to organize it without having to deal with Merlin’s input. She’s spent years having to cater to what Father and Elyan liked best in the house, and this space would be just for her.

Well, at least that was one good thing to come from her brother selling her off to a wizard he met in the forest once.

She sighed at herself and tightened the clasp of her saddlebag too much in her frustration. Elyan wasn’t selling her. No money was exchanging hands. Essentially, she was going to work for Merlin. She’d even make a small wage. Not much, but with her room and board covered by Merlin, she wouldn’t need much. Just maybe to have for emergencies, and to keep her wardrobe up to date.

She’d already tried to talk him into considering everything he bought her yesterday a loan, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Called it part of the favor he was doing for Elyan. She couldn’t begrudge his logic, because she couldn’t have afforded half the supplies she needed without his help, but she still wished he’d let her pay him back.

Well, her gratitude would just have to come out in the work she did. Gwen was no stranger to hard work, and she’d do the best she could for Merlin, even if she wasn’t entirely sure what exactly he needed her for.

——

They’d been living and traveling together for several months, now. Gwen had a routine, all her supplies fit, and she enjoyed the work. She liked to think that she was picking up medicine quickly. Plus, being able to help people, attend to their needs and make them feel better was fulfilling.

They were just about to set out to help a pregnant woman give birth when Merlin surprises her.

“I’ve been thinking I’d like you to train as a midwife.” He doesn’t even look in her direction, just continues saddling his horse. “I’ve found women are much more responsive when it’s other women helping them through the birth. What do you think?”

Now he looks up at her, piercing blue eyes curious, but unwavering. He wanted her to do this. Really.

“I mean- I would- I think that would be great.” Gwen didn’t have much understanding of what a midwife did. She’d never had occasion to know more than the basics about childbirth. This would be only the second birth she was present for, aside from her own, but Gwen imagined that it would be a bit uncomfortable to have a man poking around down there who wasn’t your husband.

Merlin smiles at her, bright and warm. “Good. There’ll be a midwife in attendance today. I’m mostly going in case bleeding gets out of control or there’s something wrong with the baby. Young mothers.” He shrugged, and she couldn’t tell what the look of disapproval was on his face. “There can be complications, but she’s married, and it’s all above board, and so, we’ll be seeing to her.”

Ahh. He thinks the girl was too young to be married. She can see it in the way his shoulders are stiffening and his movements are a little more jerky than is normal for him.

“How old is she?” Gwen asked, and Merlin has to pause a moment before he answers.

“15.”

“And the husband?” Gwen hates to ask, but she needs to know what she’s walking into.

“26.”

Gods, that’s older than Elyan. Imagine Elyan being married to a 15 year old girl. She shook her head, thanking the gods once again that Elyan hadn’t forced her to marry. And Gwen was 18.

“I can’t do anything to help her.” Merlin said quietly, and Gwen looked over her horse at him. “But we’ll do what we can to make the birth easy. The midwife will be inside with her, and probably the girls’ mother. Between the three of you, she should have everything she needs.”

Gwen nods and mounts her horse, bags packed and ready to go.

—

It takes a year for Gwen to be trained enough as a midwife to attend births on her own. And “on her own” actually means with Merlin attending along side her, but their services count as one fee, and so for families with less money, it’s much more affordable to have Gwen there than an more qualified midwife. And Merlin is there to answer questions if she needs any help.

Merlin is very encouraging, and Gwen does very well for being so new. Merlin tells her she’s a natural with patients, and Gwen is inclined to believe him.

She likes helping with babies, though it does make her very glad she doesn’t have to have one anytime in the near future. Cleaning them up and handing them off to their mother for the first time is a always a joy. Watching a mum and dad coo over their new little baby. It really made this job feel worth it.

It’s birthing season, lots of babies this time of year, and this is their third birth this month. As eager as Merlin was to have Gwen trained as a midwife, she thinks that Merlin prefers these sorts of calls to the ones where they’re tending the injured. The eldest daughter of the household had offered them each a mug of warm cider and a sweet roll while they waited for the mother to finish the first feed, for Merlin to give her and the baby a last check to make sure everything was going to heal alright and the baby was as healthy as could be.

“Do you two have any children?” The eldest daughter asked. Sigrid, Gwen thinks her name is. The birth was early, the baby crowning when they got there, so she hadn’t had much of an introduction.

“No,” Merlin answered easily, not an ounce of unease in his tone. She doesn’t know how he can say that so easily. She always feels awkward anytime anyone assumes they’re married. Gwen does wear a ring on her finger like they’re married, but that’s mostly for appearances sake.

As Merlin has grown more and more dear to her over the year, the question has only become more awkward, more intrusive. And Gwen always felt powerless beneath it.

Because there’s no hint of briskness in Merlin’s tone, the girl doesn’t catch on that these are questions better left unasked and presses on. “Any plans to?”

Gwen had liked the girl, really she had, until she started asking these sorts of prying questions that were honestly better left unspoken.

“It’s a sore subject,” Merlin took a sip of his cider and reached across the table to squeeze Gwen’s hand and break the building tension inside her.

The girl looks away then. The implication is that they have tried, and could not, which would be hard to discuss for anyone. The girl gets up and busies herself tidying the already immaculate kitchen, but Gwen is just relieved not to be in her company any longer. She sends Merlin a grateful smile and he returns it easily.

A few minutes later, the husband comes out and lets them know that the wife and baby are ready for their last check in. Gwen sees to the wife while Merlin looks over the baby. She sees him slip a drop of the potion he gave most babies to stave off sickness, but the wife is listening to her explain next steps for her recovery that she probably knows all too well.

The woman seems surprised when she recommends abstention from “wifely duties,” with the implication being sex specifically, for at least a month, preferably longer. Gwen only nods and assures her that yes, she really does mean a month.

And by the time everything is done and she and Merlin are packed, it’s only barely past noon. They accept a bit of food for the journey home, the small amount of pay Merlin takes for births, and they head back home. The ride should only be a few hours, and they can make it back easily before nightfall. This time of year the roads are well kept, and the traveling is pleasant. Gwen never used to move around this much before she met Merlin. It was… really refreshing.

So was Merlin’s company. He was just so much more accepting than most people she knew. Growing up in a small village, the blacksmith’s daughter, she’d been fairly sheltered. And even after her Father died, Elyan was always there to scare off anyone who even thought twice about Gwen (right up until he’d decided it was time to marry her off).

So this feeling she had for Merlin, whatever it was, was strange and new and left her stomach dancing in a way that was unpleasant to experience, but still somehow made her smile. She was afraid to call it what it might be, and so she didn’t. She just enjoyed herself as best she could.

They pass a mother duck and her little ducklings that make Gwen laugh and smile. Merlin smiles as well, but he’s not nearly so amused. Mostly thoughtful.

“Would you?” He asks her, while he’s still looking at the ducklings. He even turns back to watch them once they ride past, which Gwen finds just as strange as his incomplete question.

“Would I what?” Her lip quirked up at one corner, watching Merlin like she was afraid he’d lost his marbles.

“Like to have kids one day.”

She and Merlin have had a lot of very awkward conversations in the year and a half that she has been his assistant. There was the time she’d bled through her dress in the night and had to explain why she so desperately needed to find somewhere private to change and clean up. Then there was the incident where she’d had to establish that, yes, she did still want Merlin to not look at her while she changed, even though they’d been living together in a one room hut for a year. And they’d even had a frank talk about self-stimulation in men shortly after a visit with a patient where they’d walked in on something that left Gwen a little shaken.

Somehow, Merlin asking her if she wanted kids felt worse than all those conversations combined.

It wasn’t, it just felt worse, Gwen knew. She was making a bigger deal out of it than she needed to.

“Right now? Not particularly. I’m only 20. I’ve years to think about it.” Gwen was proud of how she managed to keep her tone even. Maybe she was learning more from Merlin than just medicine.

Merlin nodded keeping his eyes firmly ahead. “I’m sure you do.”

Gwen thinks maybe the conversation will end there, but it doesn’t.

“If that were something you wanted, you would have to find it elsewhere. Not that I don’t love children, I just… don’t have any interest in having them. Or in having any kind of relationship that would lead to them.”

Gwen suddenly feels very put on the spot. She doesn’t look at Merlin, and the way her whole body tightens, trying to reel herself in, accidentally signals the horse to go faster. It looks like she’s running off.

Well, maybe she is. Maybe she should. What a strange and terrible thing to say to her.

“My brother made it very clear that there was nothing like that between us.” Gwen holds her head high, even though her chest is tight and her throat is aching with a desire either to scream or sob.

“I know. But… I know these things sometimes happen. I didn’t want you to get your hopes up.” He sounds a bit contrite, at least.

“You think very highly of yourself, Merlin.” Her tone is harsh, making it very clear that she is insulting him.

He doesn’t speak again, seeing that the battle is lost, and they ride most of the way back in silence.

When they arrive back at home, Gwen doesn’t ask Merlin if anything needs doing. She goes straight to the back, fetches her thimble and her sewing, and starts work on her embroidery. Elyan was due for a visit in a months time, and she’d wanted to give him a little handkerchief with his initials stitched on it on the finest piece of fabric she could afford. It also served as a distraction from Merlin, the man who acts too cool to care right up until he puts a foot in his mouth.

Even with the thimble, she stabs herself a few times, and she has to stop once, to staunch the blood flow on the underside of her apron before she continues. She can hear Merlin puttering around with his potions and his tinctures on the other side of the house, but she doesn’t pay him any mind, just like he doesn’t pay her mind.

They don’t speak again till supper.

Gwen cooks, as she always does. Merlin can cook, but it’s mediocre, and Gwen has no patience for subpar food. He’d complained more than once that she was trying to make him fat, but she’d just tell him to do more hard labor. It always evened out for Elyan and her father, at least.

There’s no remark about Gwen trying to fatten Merlin up, or even a lighthearted comparison of Gwen’s cooking to another place or time in Merlin’s life. They eat quietly, but just for a few minutes, before Merlin feels the need to speak.

“I didn’t mean anything by what I said earlier. I really did just want to make sure we were on the same page.”

“Yes, and you made yourself very clear.” Gwen muttered, stabbing a piece of a potato more harshly than she meant to, cutting it clean in half.

“I only meant. I can’t love, Guinevere.”

She hates when people use her full name. None the less, it catches her attention. “What do you mean, ‘you can’t love?’” It was the stupidest, strangest, vaguest confession she’d ever heard. Gwen had watched Merlin fight tooth and nail for the lives of his patients, spend hours upon hours developing remedies, and secreting magic just beneath the noses of common people to cure their sicknesses.

What part of that wasn’t love?

“I mean that… I mean, well, I do love you. But I love you like a very dear friend. I’m not capable of anything else. I can’t love a woman like a man might love his wife.”

She raises her eyebrows, thinking, and then her mouth pops open. “Oh.”

Suddenly, his bachelorhood well into his twenties, despite being more than capable of supporting a family, made much more sense.

She paused, trying to find the right words to say what she wanted to say, trying to be delicate. “You… prefer the company of men?” It’s a question, and she’s not sure how he’ll take it, but she feels like she has to ask.

He smiled, but his eyes don’t meet hers, and the corners of them stay turned down, sad and wary.

“I don’t prefer any company at all.” He shrugs, and his lips are thin, tight, like he’s waiting for some sort of rejection.

It’s hard for Gwen to imagine that he simply doesn’t love, but she does believe him. She nods her head and puts her hand on his, much like he had done to her earlier that day. It has the desired effect, draws him out of his thoughts, his eyes back on her. “I understand.”

He still looks so sad though.

Gwen doesn’t push it. She retrieves her hand and goes back to her supper, giving Merlin the opportunity to do the same and put the whole thing behind them.

She’s had many awkward conversations with Merlin, and will likely have many more as his assistant, but there was one thing she could say for these talks. Eventually, slowly, they learned and grew from them. In the end, their friendship was stronger for having spoken than it would have been otherwise.

—

One of the reasons Gwen likes Merlin is that he always asks for her opinion. Anytime something affects both of them, he takes what she will think into consideration. This is especially true when a messenger rides in one evening and asks Merlin to go to Camelot proper to try and heal the King’s ward.

“What’s wrong with her?” Merlin asks while Gwen hangs back, images of men in Camelot red glimpsed through trees, of blood on dirt floors and Elyan’s broken ankle coming to the forefront of her mind, more prevalent than the scene actually playing out in front of her.

“She won’t eat, isn’t sleeping well. They’ve had to force feed her, but she’s withering away still. No energy to get out of bed. Her parents died just a few months ago. The physician on hand couldn’t find anything wrong with her physically, but the King refuses to accept that. He’s looking for second opinions.”

“Camelot is a far ride.” When he says this, he glances back at Gwen, though she doesn’t see him. She’s chewing the extra length of her fingernail off, eyes focused somewhere Merlin can’t see but knows all too well.

“The king will provide you with money and protection for your travels.” The messenger doesn’t even spare a glance for Gwen, and Merlin is grateful for that. She didn’t need any more stress than she probably already had.

Even though the messenger doesn’t look her way, Merlin takes a step or two subtly to the right, so that the messengers gaze moves completely away from Gwen when he looks at Merlin.

“Let me think it over. There’s a woman who houses people for just a few coins down the road. See about getting yourself a room for the night and I’ll have my decision for you in the morning.”

“The king will not accept a no.” The messenger said, and Merlin nodded.

“I’ll see.”

The messenger goes and Gwen’s breaths deepen from the shallow, fearful things they’d been, practically gasping now. Neither of them had expected a Camelot man to knock on their door that evening, and Gwen had already been about to settle into bed. Merlin took her wrist, subtly feeling for the beat of her heart while he lead her to the bed, sitting her down on it gently.

Gwen looks between Merlin and the door, like she’s afraid of something and Merlin pats her hand before he gets up to bolt it closed.

“He’ll be back in the morning.” Merlin said with a sigh. “He already knows where we are, so a misdirection spell won’t work. If you don’t want to go, we can pack a few things and go on the road for a few days. He’ll give up looking for us eventually.” Merlin went through his potions, looking for the calming draught he sometimes gave her.

“If I don’t want to go?” Gwen asked, looking at Merlin like he’d grown a second head.

He looked over his shoulder at her, brows furrowed. “The man killed your father, Gwen. I’m hardly going to force you to service his ward. It’s your decision.”

“My decision?” This is a question, but it’s not one she’s posing to him. When he returns with her calming drought, mixed into a cup of cider, she’s looking at a blank spot on the floor, but seeing nothing he can see.

He sits beside her and presses the cup into her hands, muttering a quick warming spell so it’d be more comforting.

“Merlin?” She asked when she’s held the cup for several minutes without taking a drink from it.

“Yes?”

“If we don’t go, that girl will die, won’t she?” Her eyes finally meet his, and he is moved by the determination beneath her own uncertainty.

He tries to ease her mind a bit, “It’s possible that someone else will find a cure for what ails her.”

“But it’s not certain.”

“No.” Merlin nodded, “But it’s not certain that I will be able to heal her either.”

“But you have a better chance than anyone else, because you cheat.” The last bit is teasing, more light hearted than anything that has happened in the house since the messenger walked in.

“I maintain that using magic is just taking advantage of all my resources, not cheating.” He bumps her shoulder with his and she smiles for the first time since the knock had come upon their door.

“You can keep saying it, but that doesn’t make it true.” Her gaze fixes on the a spot on the floor again, and Merlin sits quietly, waiting for her verdict.

Eventually she nods and turns her head up, squaring her shoulder like she’s bracing herself for her own decision. “If we don’t go, and she dies, I’ll never be able to live with myself.” She nods, but this is most certainly reassurance for herself, because she doesn’t even look at Merlin. “We’ll go, and you’ll do the best you can for her. I hate Uther, but that doesn’t mean his ward deserves any less than anyone else.”

Merlin grins and pulls his friend into a hug. “You’re one of the strongest, bravest women I have ever known.”

She laughed. “You’re just saying that because you don’t know very many women.”

“I know plenty of women. Great women. It’s a very high compliment.” His tone is earnest, sincere, when he says this, and he feels Gwen clutch him a bit harder, making the hug more firm.

“Thank you.”

“It will be okay. I’ll make sure you never have to see him.”

“You can’t promise that.” She said, rolling her eyes at him to keep herself from being scared again.

“Well, I can promise I’ll do my best.” He kissed the top of her head, just like that first night almost two years ago now. “Get ready for bed. I’ll settle the house for the night. You’ll need your rest.”

Gwen nods and Merlin gets up to put out the candles in the main room and close all the windows up for the night.

Merlin always gives her a choice, always listens to what she has to say, and she appreciates that so much.

—

In the morning they set off, Merlin packing much like he would to go to a house call for an unknown ailment. He takes nearly everything with him that he can, putting some of the overflow in Gwen’s bag and leaving some of their traveling gear in the care of their messenger, now turned guide. The man’s Camelot red is much more brilliant in the light, and Gwen is grateful for the spell Merlin does to make her horse follow his. She looks just slightly away from the path in front of her, where Merlin rides alongside the messenger she now knows to be a knight, and tries not to think about where they are going or whose company they may soon be in.

They make quick time to Camelot’s castle, and true to his word, Merlin tells the knight to show Gwen to their accommodations for the short time they’ll be there, rather than bringing her with him to see the king. Gwen doesn’t think that Merlin is particularly fond of Uther either, considering his magic ban is what keeps Merlin from practicing openly, but he never gives any sort of indication of it. Just smiles and leaves her and the knight with their things to make their introductions.

It is much more difficult to follow the knight on her own two feet, especially laden down as she is with equipment and supplies. The way the red cape flows behind him reminds her too much of a party of knights glimpsed through woods when she was just 15.

The knight is nice, at least. Tries to make small talk and be kind to a woman who is so obviously afraid of him. She does him the courteousy of at least looking up at him to thank him for helping her with her things and showing her to the room. He bows to her, and she is struck by the gesture. Being the supposed wife of a physician did leave her in a higher class than a simple servant, or blacksmith’s daughter, but she hardly earned such a show of deference. He leaves and only says, “I’m Sir Leon, if you require anything else.”

She doesn’t plan to require anything.

In their room, an empty space in the servant’s quarters with only one bed, Gwen unpacks Merlin’s medicines and supplies from their careful travel wrappings and puts them back in the order that she knows he prefers them for treatments. As she’s sorting through the bottles of potion, she notices that some of them are ones she’s never seen before, or only seen once or twice. When Merlin had said he was bringing everything, he’d really meant everything.

“There you are.” Merlin said from the door well after Gwen had finished organizing their things. “Let’s go and meet our new patient, shall we?”

They don’t actually meet their new patient first. At the door, waiting for them, is the crown prince, Arthur Pendragon. Gwen had heard a few snippets about the prince, but she’d never thought she’d meet him. At first glance, he came off very unkind and almost brusk, but it took only a few questions from Merlin about Morgana’s condition to realize that his standoffishness was born from worry. He cared about Morgana, and he was concerned for her wellbeing. Of course he was a little bit harsh.

Gwen stood by and listened while Merlin asked questions, getting more and more specific. Asking about her loss, asking if there were anything else that she might be upset about. Arthur tells him that previous doctors have determined it must be mind sickness, and Merlin confirms that this is his theory as well, just based on the symptoms that he’s heard.

Gwen and Merlin go in behind Arthur, but the Crown Prince stands to the side and lets them work. Gwen sets out one of Merlin’s bags on the bench at the foot of the bed, and Merlin sets his own carelessly aside, choosing instead to go through the contents Gwen has placed. Merlin has his back to the Arthur, so he doesn’t see the flash of gold in Merlin’s eyes, a part of his regular examinations, but Gwen does. He nods his head while he’s looking through the potion bottles and he reaches for one that Gwen has never seen him use. It’s a soft purple color, clear with a few small flowers suspended in it.

“Take this.” He says to Morgana while the woman looks off in the distance, like she can’t even be bothered to focus on what’s being said.

Merlin’s beside manner is never usually this curt, and Gwen huffs a bit at him before taking the potion from his hand and setting it on the nightstand. Whatever it is, he thinks that it will cure her, and Gwen will make sure she gets it.

“He looks very young, doesn’t he?” Gwen asks. It’s a problem they’ve faced before, where people who didn’t know Merlin worried about his skill, and so she tried to reassure her, smoothing a strand of hair that was very nearly falling into her eye away from her face. “He is, but he is very knowledgeable. Studied with all the best physicians in the five kingdoms.” Gwen smiles softly, her tone gentle and calming. “Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.” She takes Morgana’s hand and after a few idle seconds, she squeezes it. Morgana squeezes back and Gwen smiles. “Good. I’m Guinevere, Merlin’s assistant. We need to sit you up so you can take the medicine Merlin has for you. Do you mind if I help you sit up?”

Morgana says nothing, and Gwen frowns, tilting her head like she’s thinking, the funny little wrinkle forming between her brows that Merlin finds such delight in.

“Squeeze my hand if it’s okay for me to help you sit up.” She tries again. There is a little delay between her question and the responding squeeze, but once she has her permission, Gwen helps Morgana sit up in bed, careful to leave the sheet covering her from her chest down, since it looks like she’s only in her chemise. The crown prince moves to adjust her pillows and she smiles gratefully at him, trying to be reassuring in the same glance, but his eyes stay hard and untrusting.

According to the prince, a dozen physicians had been to see her already, and none had any effect. It only made sense that he was starting to lose hope.

“There, now. I’m going to give you the medicine. Drink it if you can.” She puts the bottle to her lips, and when they part, Gwen carefully tilts the bottle, letting the contents drip slowly into her mouth.

The bottle empties relatively quickly, and Gwen lets Morgana relax. Maybe it was because she was sitting up, or maybe Merlin’s potion was already working, but Gwen could swear some of the pallidness of her cheeks was starting to fade, and a bit of rose was returning to her lips.

“What did you give her?” Arthur asks Merlin, who is still much less receptive and kind than he usually is. Gwen finds it strange, but she’ll ask him about it later.

“Something to ease the mindsickness. It won’t cure it. Nothing will cure it but time, but the symptoms, the body ache, the lack of drive and appetite, will all be decreased, maybe even vanish if she takes to it well.”

“You are not the first man to give her something meant to cure mind sickness. What will you do if it doesn’t work?” Arthur’s tone is accusatory, and Gwen bites her tongue. He is worried for Morgana, and she can excuse his brashness because of that, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.

“It will work.” Is all Merlin says, and Gwen can hardly believe that he’s being so dismissive to a royal. Of course, Merlin has always been a little funny. What else did she expect?

“It’d better. You’re dismissed.” Arthur returns to Morgana’s side and Gwen puts the empty bottle back in the place it had come from, taking the bag of potions with her as she and Merlin leave.

In their room, with the door shut, Gwen dares to ask Merlin what he’s given her.

“It’s safe.” He said dismissively, rather than explaining himself, and this was the first clue Gwen had that something was suspicious about this remedy.

“Of course it’s safe.” Gwen said while unpacking the two extra dresses she had brought and hanging them in the wardrobe to be ironed later. She also hung up Merlin’s two sets of clothes, but he’d have to iron those himself. “But that isn’t what I asked. You examined her. What was wrong?”

“Mindsickness, just like I said. The potion will counteract the worst of it, and she should be back to herself in a couple days.”

“You’re not worried someone will be suspicious of her being better so quickly?”

“She won’t be better, not really. The symptoms will just be gone.”

Gwen looks at Merlin, who pretends to be sorting through his potions. He’s hiding something, and she doesn’t know what, but whatever it is, it can’t be good.

#albionparty21 #merlin #gwen #arthur #fic #leon #pbau proper #pbau #lysa's pbau

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pearlsephoni · 5 years ago

Text

When Immortal Meets Ineffable

Can also be read on AO3

Rating: G

Fandoms: Good Omens, The Old Guard

Pairings: Joe/Nicky, Aziraphale/Crowley (ofc)

Summary: Nicky's love for books has introduced him to many wonders, but he never anticipated meeting a pair of men whose existence seems just as impossible as his own. Or: a gay, immortal couple walks into an old bookshop owned by a gay, angel/demon couple.

A/N: The sign on Aziraphale's bookshop door is real, I copied the text from here lol And I owe my life to this 3D recreation of the shop Also this is my first time attempting to publish a fic on here, so pardon any formatting weirdness. More author’s notes can be found on the AO3 page!

Immortality was exhausting. It was impossible to build a normal life and settle down without sparking suspicion, so no single place could be “home” for very long. They couldn’t build a family, or climb the ladder of a career, or even build many friendships outside of their core group.

Without the more…“standard” goals available to them, each member of the Old Guard ended up setting their own personal quests. Andy learned every language and style of martial arts she could. Booker challenged himself to try a new whiskey at every bar they visited. Joe was close to completing his goal of visiting every possible art museum in Eurasia, and would soon be expanding his scope to the world. And Nicky was determined to read as many of the world’s books as possible.

But that wasn’t the only reason why he and Joe ended up seemingly visiting every bookshop in Europe. Living forever meant you had an infinite amount of time to lose and find things, and unfortunately for Nicky, his list of lost items included a near-first edition copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Books didn’t hold the same appeal for Joe, but he was still always willing to join his life partner in his visits to bookshops. What caused him chagrin wasn’t the visits, but the seemingly futile quest to find such a rare copy of a classic book. So when Nicky immediately tugged his jacket back on to head into London, Joe was a bit more reluctant than usual.

“Hayati, wouldn’t we have better luck looking in museums for something so rare?”

“I’m not just looking for La Commedia, my heart,” Nicky reminded him with a small smile. “I need a new book to read, too.”

“Of course, and that’s why you are going to Waterstones and not another small, old bookshop?” That small smile turned guilty, and Joe couldn’t help letting out a sigh. “Do you have a destination in mind, or will you be wandering again?”

“Why don’t you come with me and find out?”

It wasn’t fair of Nicky to use his rare, broad smiles to win their smaller bickers, he knew it. But even a relationship with the love of his life wouldn’t have lasted almost a millennium without the occasional cheap trick. And it was so hard to feel guilty when his little tricks resulted in Joe’s hand warmly wrapped around his as they walked through London.

As it so happened, he did have a destination in mind: A.Z. Fell & Co., an old bookshop that he remembered seeing on a random street corner in London. It had been closed the first (and last) time he tried to pay it a visit, all those years ago, and the sign on the door detailing the store hours simply raised more questions than answers for Nicky:

Bookshop Opening Hours:

I open the shop on most weekdays about 9:30 or perhaps 10am. While occasionally I open the shop as early as 8, I have been known not to open until 1, except on Tuesday. I tend to close about 3:30pm, or earlier if something needs tending to. However, I might occasionally keep the shop open until 8 or 9 at night, you never know when you might need some light reading. On days that I am not in, the shop will remain closed. On weekends, I will open the shop during normal hours unless I am elsewhere. Bank holidays will be treated in the usual fashion, with early closing on Wednesdays, or sometimes Fridays. (For Sundays see Tuesdays.)

-A.Z. Fell, Bookseller

“It’s a miracle this place is still running,” Joe muttered now, squinting at the wordy sign. Nicky was more interested in the sign hanging next to it, blissfully simpler and blessedly flipped to read, “Open.” The door was unlocked, and rang with a cheerful jingle as the immortals pushed it open.

“Hello there! Welcome to A.Z. Fell & Co!”

Nicky had barely been able to fully take in the warm, crowded space of the bookshop before his attention was pulled to a small, pale man dressed in a white suit. He seemingly appeared out of thin air from behind a small desk next to a bookshelf to the left. He had a bright, welcoming smile, and looked positively cherubic with his light blonde curls and rosy cheeks. “How may I help you today?”

“Oh, I-”

“We’re just looking,” Joe cut in, giving Nicky a gentle nudge. It was a reminder enough not to draw attention with their unusual search. “Wanted to see what we could find in such a unique shop.”

“Lovely! Well, if you need any help at all, don’t hesitate to ask!”

“Thank you,” Nicky replied with a smile, before wandering over to the cluster of bookshelves on their right, pulling Joe with him.

He always lost track of time in bookshops. Even Joe, for all he insisted that Nicky was the reader, could get lost in the trinkets and random findings to be seen in an old shop. Maybe that was why, for all their battle-honed instincts and attention to detail, they didn’t realize someone else had entered the store until a new voice broke the comfortable silence.

“Angel!”

“Ah, Crowley! What a pleasant surprise! What’re you doing here?”

“Just wanted to see what you’ve got in stock.”

“Really?”

“No, of course not, I was going to ask you to lunch.”

“Oh! Well...that’s very kind of you, but I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t just close my shop in the middle of the day!”

“Yes you can, it’s your shop, if anyone can, it’s you.”

“But I have customers! Like...like these young men!”

Nicky, with a thousand years of life behind him, never thought of himself nor Joe as “young.” No matter how ageless they were, every year weighed on them, a burden that was only bearable because they didn’t have to weather it alone. So it didn’t occur to him that they were the “young men” the shop owner referred to, until the small, pale man suddenly appeared at his elbow. “Hello there! May I help you with anything?”

A Genovese curse flew from his lips, followed by a grunt after Joe gently pinched him. Nicky smiled apologetically at the owner. “Sorry, ah...we’re alright, just looking.”

“Yes, well…” The shop owner had a confused tilt to his eyebrows, at odds with his kind smile. “I’m so sorry, I don’t mean to be nosy, but...was that Old Genovese you were speaking?”

“You recognize it?” Nicky blurted out before he could stop himself. It had been centuries since either of the immortals had met someone else who knew the language.

“Oh, I don’t know, it’s been a while since I’ve heard it.” A pink tint had risen to the small blonde’s cheeks, and his eyes now had a proud glint to them. “That’s very impressive, I didn’t think anyone spoke it anymore!”

“No...neither did we.” He glanced at Joe, and was met with eyes that looked as disconcerted as he felt.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it. Please let me know if you need help with anything!” The shop owner cheerfully strolled back to the counter, where his friend - Crowley, Nicky remembered - was staring at him and Joe with what felt like suspicion, even through his sunglasses. The redhead murmured something to the blonde that made the latter glance back at them with another smile, one that Nicky returned before he quietly urged Joe behind another bookshelf.

“What the hell?” Joe hissed as soon as they were out of eyeline of the shop owner.

“Language, tesoro mio.”

Joe’s words switched to old Maghrebi, but remained just as confused and indignant. “Nico, we haven’t met anyone else who speaks Genovese in decades, maybe even centuries, if we don’t count linguists.”

“I know.”

“So how does an owner of an old bookshop recognize it?”

“We’ve seen some books that are much older than what we usually see in a shop like this. Maybe he recognized it from a book?” Even as he uttered the words, Nicky knew the explanation was pathetic. The look of disbelief he received from his lover let him know he wasn’t alone in thinking that.

“He said it’s been a while since he’s heard it,” Joe reminded him. “And he recognized it as it was spoken, not written down somewhere.”

“What are you trying to say? That he’s another immortal? One we somehow haven’t dreamed of in all this time?”

“No, of course not...but…” Joe peered at the shop owner and his friend through a gap in the books. “Maybe there’s something different about him. Maybe immortals aren’t the only strange people in the world.”

“Even if that were true, Yusuf, don’t you think we would have run into one before? Our abilities have been noticed before, by people who didn’t know what to look for. We of all people would have noticed if there were other powers out there.”

“Unless they do as much as we do to stay out of notice.”

It was Nicky’s turn to peer at the odd couple through the books, except this time, the redhead, Crowley, was looking right at him. Or at least, in their direction. He jerked away from the bookshelf and immediately moved deeper into the shop, tugging Joe with him. “We can talk with the others about it later. For now, let’s buy something and leave.”

“Still determined to find your book?”

Nicky offered a sweet smile to Joe, but didn’t bother hiding the mirth in his eyes. “Of course, my heart.”

He didn’t end up finding the book he was looking for, much to his disappointment and Joe’s quiet amusement. But he did find an old, old Italian Bible that stirred distant memories of a classroom reciting verses, and that was enough to justify the visit.

Satisfied in his choice, he moved towards the cashier register, only to be pulled up short by Joe. Nicky furrowed his brows in confusion - for someone who had been so reluctant to come, Joe suddenly seemed very keen on staying. He glanced back at him to find those dark eyes trained on the men behind the counter, one finger to his lips. Battle instincts kicked in, and he obediently trained his hearing to the low muttering coming from the other men.

“Now really, Crowley, it’s simply not possible! Even if the Almighty really did send spies after us, I would at least recognize them. I’ve never seen those men in my life!”

“Then maybe they’re demons. We’ve always had better corporeal disguises anyway. Would explain why we don’t recognize them.”

“Have you ever seen demons behave like that with each other?”

“Like what?”

“Oh come now, you must have felt it. The energy around them is downright bursting with love! It’s just like…”

“...Angel, like what?”

“W-well...like two people in love. Nothing at all like you demons behave.”

“‘You demons’? Might I remind you of who saved the most valuable books here, Aziraphale?”

It could’ve been just another argument between an old couple, especially an old married couple. There was no mistaking the love and pure affection that drenched every bickering phrase between them. But where Nicky had thought “Angel” was a sweet nickname, the casual use of terms like “demons” and “the Almighty” stirred a deeper sense of suspicion awake in him...and a rush of exhilaration. The sensible majority of his mind told him there was no earthly way he was staring at an angel and a demon. Even if angels and demons were real, they wouldn’t own an old bookshop, or walk around dressed like a dandy or an aged member of a rock band.

But a small part of him, the part of him that had him wandering to a church on calm Sundays and uttering panicked prayers over Joe’s body in the middle of battle, felt a thrill at the idea that he was staring at proof. Proof that his centuries of faith, his short-lived livelihood in the church, wasn’t in vain. When he finally tore his eyes away from the odd couple to look at Joe, he was met with a small smile of understanding under an unsure gaze. Of course his love understood what was running through his mind, even without a single word uttered between them.

Nicky took a steadying breath before he finally nodded at Joe, giving his hand a light squeeze. The shop owner and his...friend (partner?) were still bickering when they approached the cashier, and Nicky caught snippets of something about a church, a bomb, a satchel of books, before the argument was cut short by their arrival at the counter.

“Ah, gentlemen, hello again! Did you find everything alright?” the small blonde man - Azira...phale..? - greeted them with a wide smile, while Crowley simply stared at them with an unnervingly straight face. His gaze prickled at Nicky’s awareness, despite his best attempts to ignore him and return Aziraphale’s smile.

“I didn’t find the book I was looking for, but you have many rare gems here.”

“Oh, I’m sorry you couldn’t find it!”

“Don’t be. We have visited almost every bookshop in Europe in search of it,” Joe snorted with a grin. “At this point it’ll take a miracle to find it.”

Aziraphale perked up at Joe’s response, and glanced eagerly at Crowley...who returned the blonde’s hopeful smile with a stony stare. A moment of silence passed before the redhead finally muttered, “Sounds like you won’t be finding it any time soon.”

“No, but that’s alright. Seeing all these wonderful little shops offers a special kind of joy,” Nicky murmured with a reassuring smile to Aziraphale. “You should be proud of this shop. It’s a lovely refuge in this city.”

The owner looked a bit crestfallen, but brightened at Nicky’s smile and words. “That’s very kind of you to say! I’ve had it for quite a while, so it’s turned into a home of sorts for me. I’m so glad it feels that way to my patrons as well!”

Crowley’s attention was back on Nicky, and even though he couldn’t see the redhead’s eyes, he didn’t feel as burdened by the scrutiny anymore. It felt somehow softer now, more of a mild annoyance as the transaction was carried out. Crowley had been so quiet throughout their visit that when he suddenly spoke up, the surprise nearly made Nicky drop the small paper bag containing his book. “Just out of curiosity...what book were you looking for?”

“Ah...an early edition of The Divine Comedy in the original Italian. First edition, if possible.”

“...Dante’s Divine Comedy?” Crowley repeated, skepticism practically dripping off his words. “You’re looking for a first edition from the late Middle Ages?”

Nicky could hear the rustle of Joe straightening just behind him, ready to defend his admittedly-futile quest. He shifted just enough to hook their pinkies together in reassurance while he shot a small smile at Crowley. “More just seeing if it’s possible to find outside of a museum.”

Crowley nodded, but he still had a small frown of disbelief on his lips as he wandered towards the bookshelves at the very back of the shop. Aziraphale watched him meander away with wariness and hope lining his eyes, a combination of emotions that made Nicky wonder what kind of history the odd couple shared to prompt that kind of response.

“Nicolo,” Joe murmured, pulling him out of his idle curiosity. “We should be going. Andy will wonder what happened to us.”

“Right...yes, of course.” Nicky smiled again at Aziraphale, who suddenly looked panicked at their impending departure. “Thank you again.”

“Oh, are you leaving so soon? A-are you sure I can’t help you find anything else? I have other first editions that might interest you!”

“Really, it’s alright-”

“Here we are.” Crowley was suddenly back at Aziraphale’s side, tossing a book onto the countertop with a carelessness that became alarming when Nicky realized what he was staring at: an old, worn volume, the cover made of what used to be red leather, but was now faded into a dull brown. Pressed into the leather, and traced with gold flakes, were the words “La Commedia.” Nicky reached out to brush the worn cover, gingerly lifting it to reveal the title page, where he could read the publication date: 1438. “This...this is…”

“Not quite first edition, but about as good as you’re gonna get outside of a museum.” Crowley’s voice was casual, as if he had simply found any old book. But his smirk was smug, the gravity of his achievement definitely not lost on him, especially when Aziraphale was staring at him in what could only be described as adoration.

“How...how did you find this?”

“Call it a little miracle. How much does a little miracle cost, angel?”

“Oh, ah...well, the best miracles are priceless, wouldn’t you say?”

Nicky’s gaze jerked away from the book to stare at Aziraphale in shock. “No, I’m sorry, I cannot in good faith take this without paying you.”

“No, really-”

“Please, I insist-”

The shopowner was strangely reluctant to give Nicky a price, but with Joe’s help, they were able to settle on an amount. By the time they left the bookshop, it was even later than they had planned on leaving, but Nicky was in such a daze of disbelief over his luck, Joe ended up being the one to call Andy.

“Boss, we know, we’re sorry, but you’ll never believe- no, trust me, even Booker will get excited over this. We’ll be there soon, it will be worth the wait, I promise.” He laughed as he tucked his phone away, shaking his head fondly at Nicky. “Well, my heart, I hope this find is worth Andy’s wrath. She is not happy with us.”

“Yusuf...who were those men?” Nicky was staring numbly into the bag, still not believing the impossibly old book he held in his hands.

“What do you mean?”

He finally looked away from his new treasure to meet Joe’s eyes. “Do you think...that maybe…”

“What? That an angel and demon helped us find a book?”

“Stranger things have been true.”

“Perhaps…” Joe’s arm wrapped around Nicky’s waist, tucking him against his body to drop a kiss to his temple. “Whatever those men were, they were kind. I hope the bookshop continues to do well.”

“Mm...thank you for coming with me.” Nicky’s smile was full of adoration, and earned him another kiss, this time on his lips.

“Of course, hayati. Anything for you.”

“Anything? Well, there’s another book I’ve been looking for-”

“Buuuuut Andy and Booker might not approve.”

After almost 1000 years, he should have been able to better resist the effect of Joe’s cheeky smile. But after almost 1000 years, Nicky wasn’t in the habit of denying himself the little joys to be found in life, especially when they came from this impossible man.

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vanxcks · 5 years ago

Text

and a movie

Abed Nadir lives in LA now, and there's something they still haven't done.

Word count: 1766

AO3 link in notes

“I want to make a movie.” Abed says it abruptly. It’s the reason he came, after all. And it’s important to make your point early in the conversation; otherwise it runs away from you.

“You know I’m not a producer, right?” his friend asks.

“I know that. But I wanted to be able to air the idea out. See if it’s Hollywood-ready. I know what I’m doing, but a second opinion can’t hurt. Besides, you seem to have some success.”

His friend laughs. “I mean, a couple movies in, I guess my opinion counts.” Abed cracks a smile. “What’s it about?”

“Friends. Not the show. Friends of mine. Old friends, actually. From before I moved here.”

“A movie based on your friends?”

“I was thinking my friends could be in it, actually.”

“So, a biopic?”

“Yes. I could document some portion of their lives.”

“You mean it would be a documentary.”

Abed pauses and then says, “Technically, yes, but six seasons and a documentary doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

“Sorry?”

“Nothing.”

Abed doesn’t have a roommate, but he does have friends. People that he hangs out with regularly—going out to dinner after work, having movie nights where they all bring different snacks. They have bad taste in movies, but so does he. He’s the first to admit Kickpuncher isn’t a masterpiece. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t still have his costume hanging in his closet for emergencies.

Or non-emergencies. But only if they involve watching the movie alone at two in the morning and acting out the scenes as they go. Those are acceptable.

In high school, he didn’t think he’d ever have any friends. He thought he was stuck in the underdog role, the nerd that got his books knocked out of his arms, the kid that no one wanted to be partners with. Although Abed had never actually gotten his books knocked out of his arms. He thought it was a ridiculous trope. He’d fit into the rest of the categories though.

At some point at Greendale, he’d thought he would never again have friends like the study group. These were the days, the short period that would change their lives forever. The period that they would eventually have to leave behind, but that nothing would ever measure up to again. He’d expected to spend the rest of his shallow life thinking back to these four (five, six) years with his found family. As it turns out, though, tv shows are short because of budget, because of the inability of writers to churn out more, because of low viewership. And just because they’re short doesn’t mean there isn’t more to the story. He’s happy now. He’s comfortable.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a picture of that first halloween up on his bulletin board, though.

“So, what exactly would this documentary be about?”

Abed cocks his head. “I don’t know. It would be about them. It would be about them and...I guess it would be a little bit like Friends, except funnier. I mean, the relationship and drama of it. Although the emotional bits were always my least favorite. I liked the action episodes the best.”

“The action episodes from Friends?”

“No, from when I was at Greendale.”

“Oh, sorry, yes, the episodes from when you were at Greendale,” his friend says, and Abed can tell it’s sarcasm, but he can also tell that it’s not mean.

Abed nods. “Yes. Maybe I should do something more whimsical, like that. It’s not exactly in the sitcom format, but the show never was.”

“And by whimsical, you mean…”

“Oh, you know, paintball fights, eerily accurate homages, the like. Genre-bending stuff.”

“That’s what college was like for you?”

“I told you,” Abed says. “Genre-bending stuff.”

Everyone still keeps in touch. Annie visits the most. She’s happy, and he’s glad he told her to take a forensics class. It’s better for her.

She visits and she asks how he’s doing (well), what he’s doing (he’s working on his portfolio before he starts trying to get a big title—it’s an important step), and where his new dreamatorium is (he doesn’t have one. He’s grown past the need for childish things like that. He doesn’t need a designated room for rendering imaginations. He’s an adult. He can do it anywhere in his house now.)

Annie’s doing well, too. She had to intern for a few years, but now she’s properly training at the FBI Academy. (“Basically, I’m, like, really fit now,” she says and laughs. “And they let me carry a gun.”

“But you already had a gun.”

“What? No I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did. Troy and I found it in your bag when you moved in.”

“You searched my bag?”)

Abed and Troy talk to each other sometimes, when Troy has cell service. It’s not often.

Troy didn’t bring a DVD player (which is ridiculous, Abed should have helped him pack), but he did manage to buy a crappy portable one from one of the places he’d stopped for fuel and food. Every several weeks they call, put the same DVD in, and then count down to play. Troy’s movie is always scratchy and terrible, so it’s awkward (“Pause. No, wait, play...oh no, it’s lagging again. Did it just skip over a scene? Pause.”) They dress up and make popcorn, and a couple of times they even made a blanket fort like back at Greendale.

Troy has been on his trip for longer than any of them had expected, but that’s what happens, right? And that has to be okay. He’ll be back eventually, and Abed is okay with that.

Troy says he’s been making music. It makes sense. He’d always liked writing raps for the two of them.

Britta visits often too. Mostly to detail him on the rampant racism and misogyny in the film industry. (“You work with these people? Abed, I can’t believe you. Do you understand the history behind this? These people have been silencing voices for decades. Blackface, yellowface, and don’t even get me started on the women’s roles in a lot of these movies.”

“They’re good movies.”

“Yes, but the impact of them on our society is astronomical!”)

He knows about all of it, anyway—he’s a muslim and half-arab man watching movies made in the twentieth century. It’s difficult not to notice the bigotry. But he knows she means well. And he likes it when she visits.

Abed shows her the neighborhood. It’s small and busy and feels like a movie set, probably because it is the movie set. He’d seen so many stories told in Los Angeles. Being here is amazing. They go to a coffee shop, and she drinks coffee while he eats a cupcake. Then, they go for burgers.

-- New Message To: [email protected] Subject: Props

How much would it cost me to get enough paintball guns to stage a school-wide fight if the school had about one thousand people in it? Try and get back soon.

New Message To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Props

Disregard the paintball guns. It’s been done too many times.

Shirley visits the least, although he knows that she wishes she could come more. (“I’m so sorry,” she says, “I just wish I could take care of all of you, but my babies take up so much of my time.” Then, “did you know that Ben Benjamin took his first steps last week?”

“Yes. You sent me a video, remember?”

“Oh, yes. Wasn’t it nice?”

“Very nice.”)

She bakes for him. She bakes for all of them, actually, since she always makes them send pictures of themselves with the food to the group chat. It’s not like it was. She knows her worth, and she knows that they need her. “I just like to take care of you, is all,” she’d said. They sit at the table and eat. Shirley doesn’t like silence. Which is nice, because it means that she’ll listen to him talk for hours. He can’t always tell if she’s getting bored, but she doesn’t outright stop him, and that’s nice. She thinks everything is nice.

New Message To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Props

How about a vat of lava?

Jeff doesn’t visit the most out of all of them, but he does stay the most in touch. He’s still at Greendale, the only one other than Britta. They’re still trying to keep the school running. Britta started a bartending class, which is ironic because Britta is terrible at bartending. But being incompetent is part of Greendale’s charm, isn’t it?

When Jeff comes to visit, he wants to watch Abed’s documentaries. They’re getting good. Jeff thinks so too, and Jeff would say if he thought they were bad. Abed likes that about Jeff—he says what he thinks. Except for the sarcasm. And the lawyering.

The point is, Jeff rarely lied to them.

He does critique everything except the filmmaking, though. He jokes about Abed’s friends, about his boss, about the logo for the coffee shop at the corner of the street. He gets distracted by every conventionally attractive woman that comes on-screen, too.

“Hey, you’re doing all of this documentary filming, Abed,” he said, during his last visit.

“Yeah?” Abed pressed pause.

“Remember when you would film us? Make all those movies? Like when Pierce tried to fake his goddamn death, and you wouldn’t put down your camera even when we were all having breakdowns? Or when the dean made that commercial, and you wouldn’t put the camera down because of his breakdown?”

“Yeah, I do. Why?”

Jeff paused, and Abed turned a little to stare at him. “I don’t know. It was fun.”

“You’re right.” Abed’s brow creased. “It was fun.”

Jeff didn’t reply, so Abed pressed play again.

It takes a lot more planning, but Abed eventually cobbles together some things. A ragged film crew. The equipment he needs. He isn’t sure what he’s going to do with this, once it’s done. Sell it? Keep it on his shelf, along with his other documentaries? Their adventures had always seemed like too much to keep from an audience.

He types out the email a few times, many times, because he’s not sure it’s right, because it’s too long, because it’s too brief, because it’s too cliche, too plot-twist-slash-sequel-slash-unecessary-renewal. In the end, though, he deletes the whole thing and just writes what he wants to say.

New Message To: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Subject:

Hi,

I want to make a movie.

A/N: i binged this show on netflix during quarantine and it absolutely destroyed me. i immediately opened up a document to write a fix it before realising that there wasn't anything to fix, really. i just wasn't used to show creators actually knowing how to write, so props to dan harmon for that, i guess. i have a bunch more fic ideas, so i'll definitely get to work posting them soon!! thank you so much for reading and please leave a comment and/or kudos if you liked it! (all email addresses in this fic are either fake and made up or blatant and obnoxious references to the show! you'll never know)

#community #fluff #fix it #fix it fic #one shot #abed nadir #troy barnes #jeff winger #shirley bennett #annie edison #britta perry #my writing #i love them so much #ficlet #post canon #etc

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radramblog · 4 years ago

Text

A handful of hot cardboard takes

So due to having assignment work to do and a relatively busy day tomorrow, I’m going to be writing both today and tomorrow’s blog articles tonight. Unnnnfortunately, it’s approaching 11PM, and I haven’t even figured out what I’m writing this one about- it has to be relatively short, since I don’t have that much time, and I want the tomorrow one to be an album, and that always takes time, and ehhhh…

I guess it’s been a hot second (read: a week exactly) since I talked about Magic, so that’ll do. But what specifically?

I mean, I guess there’s these new spoilers to go on about. I guess I’m hotting some takes.

First of all, we have the D&D set, Adventures in the Forgotten Realms. I feel like this set’s creation was inevitable. WoTC has had D&D and Magic for decades now, and the only crossover we got was the Un-Card Sword of Dungeons and Dragons? And yet fucking Walking Dead got a whole-ass secret lair? Yeah no way this wasn’t happening. So far we only have 5 cards, so one by one I suppose.

Tiamat was obviously going to be a thing, but she feels exceptionally underwhelming. Admittedly, cramming her massive list of abilities and flavour into one 2.5 by 3.5 inch card was going to be difficult, but this is just meh. She finds five dragons, whoop de fucking do. This is never going to see any play outside of Commander, and I can’t imagine picking her to lead your 5-colour Dragons deck above The Ur-Dragon, it’s Scion, or even Morophon. And, I’m all for underrated jank commanders, but I also don’t like tutors, and if you’ve ever resolved Conflux (which this kinda feels like) you know it can be a huge pain. A solid Meh/10. I do like that they didn’t give her an epithet, though.

The Vorpal Sword is actually pretty sick. Not only is it a cheap coloured equipment that slots great into Black/X Voltron Commander lists, not only is it an alternative wincon that isn’t complete shit but also requires going all in and is very interactable, but I actually think this has a slot in cubes interested in Black Aggro, Black Artifacts, or both. The arts for this card look sick aas hell, and I’m extremely interested in seeing in snicker-snack someone to death.

I was wondering whether or not Halfling was going to be a creature type, and that question got answered fairly quick. Citizen on the typeline is interesting considering it’s only been seen on 4 token producers so far (and also Mobilized District becomes one), and the recent Edgewall Innkeeper being a peasant. I guess this guy is too prosperous for the peasantry.

Oh, the card itself? Well, I was never a fan of Wily Goblin, but I don’t really think that’s why we’re here. This charming fellow is a second Green Soul Sister, supporting the Witherbloom lifegain archetype from Strixhaven, and it’s nice to see colours other than White (and occasionally, Black) get to do life things. It’s always been secondary (tertiary? They don’t get lifelink) in green, or only on shite cards, so it getting pushed is an interesting twist.

It is an utter tragedy that you can put a Bag of Holding in a Portable Hole in Magic now, and it doesn’t even do anything. I get the feeling this is going to be either everywhere or nowhere, though I’m leaning towards the latter. Any permanent type is really nice, but 2 or less is restrictive enough that this misses way more often than you’d like. But, if it ends up being good, you’re going to see a lot of Portable Holes exiling Portable Holes, and that’s just kinda funny.

Isn’t there supposed to be a colon in there? This is just a more splashable, flavour-twisted variant of Victim of Night- though that card ends up being one of the best Terrors Mono-Black gets to run, out of a long long list. This, unfortunately, is a bit worse than that is in competitive formats, and considerably worse in EDH where giant Angels, Demons, and Dragons are often the targets you want to tell to die. I’m just going to stick with Doom Blade. And Go for the Throat. And Snuff Out and Hero’s Downfall and Victim of Night and Heartless Act and

So, I actually really like these basics, but specifically for this set. Box text is an essential part of D&D, and putting it on the basics is just a lovely bit of flavour. I don’t know if they’ve said whether every basic variant is going to have this, but I kinda hope they do. The art for these is top fucking notch, too. I’m not convinced this should be a permanent thing though.

But of course, that’s not the only set we have spoilers for, because Magic Spoiler Season is a sine wave of hype now and it will never end. Modern Horizons 2: because the first one didn’t fuck enough formats up. That’s not very fair, that set was cool as fuck, but in my eyes that’s for the kookier designs rather than the bonkers powerful shit. More Throes of Chaos, less Hogaak. Anyway, we’ve got 3 new cards and some reprints, so let’s get into them.

I’m really not sure how to feel about this art, but hey, that’s just my opinion. Brainstone is a solid role-player in all sorts of artifacty, eggsy decks, probably the best Egg we’ve seen in a while. It’s going right in my Radha deck, I’ll tell you that much. Considering how expensive the worst card ever made, Sensei’s Divining Top, is getting, having a colourless topdeck manipulation option that’s likely not too spenno is nice, even if it’s a oneshot. I like it.

Oh, haha, it’s Lion’s Eye Diamond but they drew the rest of the fucking Lion. While this looks absolutely gorgeous, it doesn’t go into Cat tribal, and I’m not that much of a degenerate, so meh. For real though, this doesn’t actually look broken to me- LED is powerful because it’s a lotus, whereas this takes that and makes it a slow, multi-turn Pyretic Ritual. I also don’t think having an LED effect in Modern does much for the format, so. Eh?

Ok, here’s the one everyone’s talking about. Urza’s Saga is such a slam-dunk on a meta level. It’s a card named after a set, a fun reversal of Time Spiral block all being named after cards, and considering Modern Horizons was basically Time Spiral 2 I wouldn’t be surprised if MH2 was TSP3. It’s also an Enchantment Land but doesn’t look like it, referencing the fact that Urza’s block was actually Enchantment Matters but no-one remembers that because basically none of those cards were the good ones. This card is blatantly powerful, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see it pop up in a loooot of decks in various formats. In commander, this is a land for 3 turns that then turns into a Sol Ring, while also maybe making you a token or two and maybe even finding a weird hate piece or combo machine (…or Top) instead. In Modern or Legacy, it tutors for all sorts of nonsense, while making potential threats for artifact decks in the land slots. This card, while slow, has potential to be patently absurd, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it was banned in at least one format by the end of the year. We’ll see which ones.

Counterspell in modern is something a very specific group of people were counting for. Personally, it’s not the vintage spell I would have been hyped for, I was wanting Swords, but here we are. I almost feel, however, that Counterspell’s potential in Modern has been wasted at this point. Like, how many decks are even running Mana Leak these days? And how many of those decks want to be holding up UU on turn 2? Because in a fast format like this, Mana Leak might as well be Counterspell most of the time. The new art is baller, ill give it that.

I…don’t know enough about how this card is in Legacy Death and Taxes to know how well it would be in Modern Death and Taxes. It seems pretty good? I like that they’re doing old-border reprints again, though, that was like the only good thing behind Time Spiral Remastered.

Fucking Finally. With that said, I’m not convinced that finally reprinting these fetches is going to keep the price down much, and for long- the Horizon lands from MH1 see a fair bit less play, and they are creeping up to $20 a pop for some of them at this point. I guess if you need them, buy them now, because they aren’t going to stay low. It’s going to take more than a single reprint in a premium product before I’m satisfied in the reprint quality.

Anyway, that’s the lot of them. My takes on these cards was probably a bit chiller than what you’d see from someone who’s actually in the know of competitive formats these days, but if you came here for serious analysis, then I’m not sure what to tell you. More well-thought-out Magic talk, uhh, next time I talk about Magic.

#ramble #mtg #hot takes #adventures in the forgotten realms #modern horizons 2

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aion-rsa · 5 years ago

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RiffTrax: A Guide to Christmas and Holiday Episodes

https://ift.tt/3p3xspq

Since its inception, RiffTrax has regularly visited the crazy world of Christmas movies and shorts because when you get down to it, Christmas is a crazy time and Santa’s such a rich concept that it’s easy to go completely off the rails with him. Here’s a look at all the various Christmas-related movies they’ve watched. Luckily, all of them are available on-demand, so you can buy them and download the entire movie with the audio already synced up.

A handful of the shorts were featured in previous editions of RiffTrax Live, but are also available on their own. Then there’s the Christmas Shorts-stravaganza, which not only featured a bunch of Christmas-based short films, but also a film about serving pork and some kind of competitive swimming event. Weird Al was there too! At the show…not…not the swimming event.

Like when I discussed the 30 Most Insane RiffTrax Shorts, I’m going to give both the lucid explanation of what each short or movie is supposed to be in a sane, reasonable world and what we actually get.

You can check out RiffTrax’s collection of Christmas movies and shorts right her.

“Now, come on. Let me show you the rest.” “No, really, I have to go, I…”

NESTOR THE LONG-EARED CHRISTMAS DONKEY (1977)

The Idea: Remember how great the Rankin/Bass stop-motion version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was? It was such a classic that people watch every year as a holiday tradition. Expanding on that world, the same company released Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey, figuring they’d spin another classic out of a more religious context. In it, Nestor undergoes some hardships due to the massive size of his ears, but is chosen to help Joseph and the pregnant Mary make it to Bethlehem.

The Output: You remember how Rudolph went, right? He was teased for a bit for being different, but that led to him discovering lovable, memorable characters and getting into fantastic adventures before proving his worth and showing that his so-called deformity was really his greatest strength. Okay, now imagine that exact story, only remove the lovable, memorable characters.

Then take that part of the movie where he’s teased and stretch it so it makes up 95% of the story. Hell, just make the thing completely depressing. There. You have Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey.

Movies

MST3K: A Christmas Episodes Guide for Mystery Science Theater 3000

By Gavin Jasper

Movies

The 21 Best Christmas Horror Movies

By Rosie Fletcher and 5 others

This is an earlier RiffTrax release, so the only one on it is Mike. Hearing one riffer can be a little off-putting, but it’s worth it to see such a terrible rewrite of Rudolph without any of the magic. Oh, and spoilers for a 40-year-old holiday special, but Nestor ends up becoming best buddies with the man who killed his mother and it’s never explained because it’s at the very end of the movie. I guess Jesus being born really packed a punch.

“Introducing Chewbacca’s family!” “And many scream-yourself-awake nightmares!”

STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL (1978)

The Idea: In a time when Empire Strikes Back was far from release but the studios wanted to keep Star Wars in the public’s mind so they’ll keep buying their merchandise, it was decided to bring the cast in for a prime-time holiday special in the ’70s. Based on Han Solo trying to get Chewbacca home to his family in time for Wookie Life Day, the special features everyone from Luke to Vader with special guest stars Art Carney and Bea Arthur. It also has an animated short that gives us the very first appearance of Boba Fett!

The Output: Whenever I try to explain the Star Wars Holiday Special to someone who has never seen it or even heard of it, I point out that George Lucas, known for being a pretty greedy guy, refused to make money off of it in any way. He would never release the Holiday Special in any format because he was that disgusted by it. I don’t blame him because if not for Mike, Kevin, and Bill, I wouldn’t have been able to sit through it myself.

Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader Had a Rematch Before A New Hope

By John Saavedra

100 Best Christmas TV Episodes of All Time

By Wesley Mead

Each segment appears to be more horrific than the last. We get huge stretches of time where Chewbacca’s family just kind of meanders around their household, growling at each other, with no subtitles. There are “comedy” and musical bits that are just a slog to sit through. One such bit appears to be Chewbacca’s father Itchy watching virtual reality porn. Not even kidding. Mark Hamill is covered in enough makeup to put the studio in the red from their cosmetics budget, Harrison Ford looks like he’d rather be doing anything else, Carrie Fisher is pretty high, and Bea Arthur sings lyrics over the “Cantina Song.” It’s a glorious Hell.

As the cherry on top, the version they watch has all the 1970s commercials completely intact. One of which features Schneider from One Day at a Time!

“He always has loads of fun.” “Why, here he is in Dallas in 1963!”

A VISIT TO SANTA (1963)

The Idea: A couple of kids send a letter to Santa Claus, asking to visit him at the North Pole before Christmas. Santa decides it’s a good idea and has them picked up and brought over in a magic helicopter. He shows Dick and Ann around his home and talks for a moment about how he spreads yuletide cheer through Thanksgiving parades. Then they ride around on a rocket and look at Santa’s prized train set.

The Output: It’s summed up perfectly when Kevin notes, “Interesting. I didn’t know that David Lynch made a Christmas film.” The whole production is very creepy, reminiscent of Manos: Hands of Fate’s cinematography. With all the many Santas that the RiffTrax guys have seen over the years, this one is probably the least jolly (that is, until A Song for Santa). He comes off as a deranged murder suspect trying to lay low with a disguise. In fact, everything about this short is suspect, like the elves, who are really just little kids in miniskirts.

Movies

Why Chronicles of Narnia’s Santa Claus Celebrates Christmas with Weapons of War

By Juliette Harrisson

Movies

Christmas Movies: A Complete Holiday Streaming Guide

By Alec Bojalad and 1 other

Dick and Ann only have a few lines in the opening and thank God for that. We can understand maybe five percent of anything they have to say.

“Ah, good. Finally, on the silver screen, the be-top-hatted spider-dog of my nightmares. Unless…I’m just having another nightmare.”

CHRISTMAS TOYSHOP (1945)

The Idea: As two kids are put to bed on Christmas Eve, their father tries to set up the tree and all the gifts downstairs. He stumbles around and the ruckus makes them think – in their dreams – that Santa just fell down the chimney. Sharing the same dream, they go downstairs and greet Santa. The little girl asks about where the toys come from and Santa tells the story of a magical toy shop. From here, it becomes a cartoon about living toys having fun when the shop owner is gone.

The Output: The animated sequence is your usual old, black and white cartoon fare. A bunch of toys do stuff for several minutes, including a forgettable musical number, then a plot suddenly happens at the end. Here, it’s an evil spider showing up to try and kidnap a toy of Little Miss Muffet, causing the toy soldiers to come to her rescue.

Movies

20 Christmas Movies for Badasses

By Michael Reed

Movies

The Mystery Picture on the National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation DVD Cover

By Daniel Langrish-Beard

Somehow, the live-action segment is supposed to be a framing device and everything about the cartoon is being related by Santa. Why he’s telling them about a spider kidnapping a toy, I don’t know, but there you go.

This won’t be the last questionable piece of Santa Claus storytelling. We’ll get to that in a bit.

“Wow. I have literally never seen anything as small and of no account as this tree.”

CHRISTMAS RHAPSODY (1947)

The Idea: A lonely, tiny tree sits in the middle of the snowy forest, feeling itself worthless and meaningless. To its surprise, it’s taken in by a family and set up in their cabin. They decorate it for Christmas and give it the meaning it had been wanting for all this time.

The Output: You know, this one is almost decent, at least in concept. The basic Christmas moral buried in there is rather touching. Too bad the short has two things working against it. One, it’s really boring. Two, the tree is such a sad sack and won’t shut up about how much it sucks. It keeps explaining itself as being small and of no account, which will get your eyes rolling after the eighth time it repeats that.

There’s really nothing else to talk about here. Well, maybe the father’s creepy scalp.

“I need you tonight.” “WHOA!”

RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER (1948)

The Idea: No, not the Rankin/Bass cartoon we all know and love. This animated short is a completely different adaptation of the Rudolph song, predating the stop-motion special by decades. Rudolph is still made fun of for his nose and Santa needs his help due to a foggy night, but don’t expect to see his elf dentist buddy or the abominable snowman.

The Output: Other than the missing characters (which isn’t a criticism, since this came first and those guys weren’t mentioned in the song), the biggest difference in this telling is Rudolph’s status. The Rankin/Bass version made sense in that Santa had a bunch of reindeer living at the North Pole, so of course Santa would come across Rudolph. Here, Rudolph lives in a reindeer civilization. According to this short, animals live like humans around the globe in different sectors (ie. a rabbit-only town) and the only known human being is Santa Claus.

Doctor Who: revisiting Steven Moffat’s Christmas specials

By Mark Harrison

Movies

17 Movies Secretly About Christmas You Need to Watch

By Mike Cecchini and 4 others

Oh, man. Maybe this is a sequel to Peace on Earth. Pretend you know what I’m talking about.

Another high spot is Rudolph’s mother, who is for some reason shown completely dressed, walking on her hind legs, and having almost human proportions. The riffers all find themselves sexually confused by this.

“Watch this!” “I saw Bam Margera do this on Jackass!”

A CHRISTMAS DREAM (1946)

The Idea: A little girl is happy to receive a few new toys on Christmas. So happy that she discards her older, rattier doll. As she goes to sleep that night, Santa decides to teach her a lesson about the value of one’s belongings by giving her a dream where her old doll comes to life to plead for her attention.

The Output: This is live-action and the doll is depicted with stop-motion animation. To this short’s credit, the animation is incredibly well done, especially for such an old film. It’s also really horrifying and the riffers don’t stop harping on that. The little girl is so excited when any sane person would be in a fear coma.

Movies

The Strange History of the Die Hard Movies

By Ryan Lambie

Doctor Who: revisiting Russell T. Davies’ Christmas specials

By Mark Harrison

Also, Santa can make you dream whatever he wants. I didn’t know that. That’s disturbing and a far bigger threat than getting coal in your stocking. All he needs are elves in the background, playing jump rope.

“One, two…you better not shout… Three, four…you better not cry… Five, six…you better not pout… Seven, eight…I’m telling you why…”

“Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!” “Well, Happy Christmas to the one household I visited! The rest of the planet can ram it for all I care!”

THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS (1946)

The Idea: We all know the famous poem A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore. This is another adaptation of it, though without the bickering cartoon mice. Rather, we see Santa as he visits a home, delivers gifts, and flies off into the night.

The Output: This is one of the most reasonable of all the entries here because there isn’t much you can do to screw up that classic. The only questionable stuff is how rather than have any kind of special effects budget, shots of Santa flying off on his sleigh are done through animation and go back to live-action in close-ups. Otherwise, it’s fairly forgettable amongst the other freaky shorts and movies they watch.

Still, it is a dick move of Santa to give one kid a tiny toy shovel for Christmas. Who the hell would want that?

“Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in 150-plus movies, RiffTrax has nothing to say.” “Just this…enjoy.”

SANTA AND THE ICE CREAM BUNNY (1972)

The Idea: Santa is stranded in the sands of Florida. His sleigh is partially buried in the sand and his reindeer have abandoned him. He calls over a group of children to help him get the sleigh out of the ground, but to no avail. Santa insists that they don’t give up and relates their situation to the story of Thumbelina (or Jack and the Beanstalk). Luckily, the kids know one magical creature who just might be able to help Santa and make sure Christmas is saved.

The Output: God, where do I even start with this? It’s hard to sit through, but this is one of the most must-see riffs.

The Ice Cream Bunny is practically a mascot for RiffTrax (sorry, Disembaudio). It’s bad in every way. It’s an inconceivable mess. The Santa parts are embarrassing to watch and make you feel really uneasy in its disturbing, low-rent cheesiness. Then you’re rescued from it thanks to Santa telling the story of Thumbelina. By that I mean that they play a completely separate movie with a higher budget that has absolutely nothing to do with the Santa situation. This “flashback” is 50 minutes long and the entire movie is an hour and a half, so yeah. The Thumbelina stuff is also creepy to watch, if not boring at times, but it’s worth powering through.

Movies

A Complete History of RiffTrax Live

By Gavin Jasper

Movies

The Rod Serling Christmas Movie You Never Saw

By Chris Farnell

Once we return to Santa, we’re finally introduced to the Ice Cream Bunny. Words cannot do this justice. It’s a guy in a terrible rabbit suit driving a fire truck filled with kids when the guy most certainly can’t see what he’s doing and almost runs over a dog. There’s this really unsavory feeling watching what’s supposed to be a delightful movie for children and Bill kills it by adding a horrifying, demented laugh whenever the Ice Cream Bunny is on screen.

RiffTrax has two different versions of the movie. One is the classic VOD released in 2010, where the movie takes a lengthy break to show us the stuff with Thumbelina. In 2015, they did a RiffTrax Live edition with a different print of the movie. In it, the Thumbelina stuff was replaced with Jack and the Beanstalk. Comparing the two is a no-brainer as Jack and the Beanstalk is far more entertaining on its own and is 70s as hell. Plus the RiffTrax Live version includes several bonkers shorts beforehand.

“The sequel to The Ice Cream Bunny’s Amos and Andy!”

SANTA CLAUS’ PUNCH AND JUDY (1948)

The Idea: Santa visits a large group of children (orphans?) and delivers their presents, but one of them asks for a Punch and Judy puppet show. Santa uses his magic to summon such a performance to the delight of the children.

The Output: Have you ever watched a Punch and Judy show? Yeah, nobody goes out of their way to see one. There’s nothing all that wrong with the kids, Santa, or the setup in this short. The focus is just on what I imagine to be a skilled exhibition of puppeteering that hasn’t aged well. Just a puppet beating his girlfriend with a stick, as well as various animals, and we get a break where two minstrel show puppets have a boxing match. So yeah, fun for children.

“He’s like some horrible Soviet Bloc animated version of Santa.” “His nose looks like an infected thumb!”

THE SHANTY WHERE SANTY CLAUS LIVES (1933)

The Idea: A poor little boy live alone and in the cold, doomed to freeze on Christmas Eve. Luckily, he’s discovered by Santa, who takes him away to his own home, where the kid sees all sorts of wonders.

The Output: First thing’s first, the Santa Claus in this movie is rather horrific, one of the scariest of all the Santas in all of these movies, which is impressive for a cartoon. Despite being the title character, he only gets about a minute of screen time anyway. The rest is either the kid being depressed and cold or the kid watching yet another old-timey cartoon scenario where the toys just kind of do stuff and sing for several minutes until something resembling a plot happens at the end. In this case, the tree accidentally catches on fire and the boy has to help put it out.

The most striking thing about this short is the never-ending parade of racism. Lot of uncomfortable toys lounging in the shanty where Santy Claus lives.

“Ooooooh, I’m full grown, all right!” “Kids, if you ever hear someone say that in that voice, call the cops.”

MAGIC CHRISTMAS TREE (1964)

The Idea: A child befriends a witch around Halloween and is given a seed that will eventually sprout a magical Christmas tree. Not only does it talk, but it will also grant him three wishes! Unfortunately, the power goes to the boy’s head and his poor decisions put Christmas in some serious danger.

The Output: While it may not be the absolute best RiffTrax, it’s the best kind of bad movie for them to tackle. The movie is incredibly strange, but it gradually builds on it. In the beginning, it’s almost straightforward, but it gets more and more questionable as the minutes pass. For instance, there’s a scene where the main character’s family leaves to go Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve. The boy makes a wish to have ultimate power for a limited time (why a limited time? I don’t know) and uses his power to make it day and then goes around messing with people who are doing their usual daily routines, not at all aware that it’s supposed to be the night before Christmas.

Movies

The Best Alternative Christmas movies

By Mark Harrison

Movies

Disney+ Christmas Movies for Kids: The Best Family Films to Watch this Holiday Season

By Alana Joli Abbott

By the end, we have a greed-loving giant living in the mountains showing up out of nowhere. What Christmas movie isn’t complete without a greed-loving giant living in the mountains showing up out of nowhere?

“And in the second place, ice cream break was over more than an hour ago!” “Ah, kids love it when furries have labor disputes.”

SANTA’S ENCHANTED VILLAGE (1964)

The Idea: As a sequel/extension of the Mexican Santa Claus movie (more on that later), we see a village where Santa’s various helpers get toys ready for the holiday season. Unfortunately, Stinky the Skunk would rather take extremely long breaks, much to the chagrin of his supervisor, the Ferocious Wolf.

The Output: By “sequel” I mainly mean that the guy who made this had the rights to the Santa Claus movie and would occasionally toss in clips from it. The original footage in this short (and the two that follow) are incredibly low-rent, mainly in the form of the mascot costume characters and their terrible voices. Most notable is how the Ferocious Wolf is accompanied by loud, obnoxious accordion noises whenever he walks around. Which is a lot.

Movies

The Best Christmas Movie Soundtracks of All Time

By Ivan Radford

The Best Christmas Movies Available on Netflix

By Alec Bojalad

One of the true highlights is when the Ferocious Wolf visits Santa’s office and rants about how Stinky the Skunk is such a bad employee. Santa’s reaction is to just sit there the entire time, nodding and laughing his ass off like a lunatic. Which reminds me, the Ferocious Wolf complaining about his ulcer is – I kid you not – his catchphrase.

“Hey! Right here at this moment, this officially became the craziest thing ever made by man.” “Seriously, Merry Christmas, everyone. Merry Christmas.”

SANTA CLAUS AND HIS HELPERS (1964)

The Idea: The Ferocious Wolf, Stinky the Skunk, and Puss’n Boots get in a big argument and Santa is none too pleased. Watching from space along with his good friend Merlin, Santa decides to go give his angry employees a visit and set them straight.

The Output: This installment of the Santa’s Village of Madness Trilogy is easily the least coherent. Seeing the costumed characters is complete bedlam and even the riffers give up in awe of the chaos. Not only is half of the footage of this short taken directly from Santa Claus, but a couple minutes are taken from Santa’s Enchanted Village! But hey, no angry accordion music this time, so that’s something.

“Whoa! He’s got a face like a squid’s anus!”

SANTA’S MAGIC KINGDOM (1966)

The Idea: Puss’n Boots is the head of security in Santa’s Village and he confronts a visitor. It turns out to be a princess on the run from a giant ogre that’s out to destroy Santa Claus and end Christmas! Puss needs to gather an army together to face this beast and save Christmas.

The Output: So this giant ogre? They never actually show him. Well, except for a shot of a lame dinosaur statue that we see for a second. I don’t know if that’s actually supposed to be the ogre. Whatever. Otherwise, the narrative is just another fever dream filmed with the tiniest budget. Merlin ends up being the one to challenge the big monster and what a fight it is! I think. They never actually show any of it. We just hear them off-screen while everyone else reacts. The elves couldn’t even do that right.

“Ladies and gentlemen, a third-string ballerina on painkillers.”

SANTA CLAUS AND THE FAIRY SNOW QUEEN (1951)

The Idea: A six-inch tall woman called the Snow Queen visits Santa on Christmas Eve, but is annoyed to see him sleeping in her presence. As a joke, she gives life to a handful of nearby toys. The various toys dance and laugh, but are reluctant to be given off to children as lifeless gifts. Not only have they taken to being alive, but they’ve also grown attached to each other. Whatever will Santa and the Snow Queen do?

The Output: This whole thing is incomprehensible and it doesn’t help that the Snow Queen has a really thick European accent that you can barely cut through. The real star of this short is the Candy Lion. See, while you have understandable, recognizable toys hanging around like a toy soldier, a ballerina, a ragdoll, a Jack-in-the-box, and so on, you also have the Candy Lion. Described as a half-mummified Chewbacca, the dead-eyed toy stands around in the background for the most part and gets one memorable line when he excitedly brags to Santa, “I can eat candy!”

13 Craziest Interpretations of Santa Claus to Ever Slide Down a Chimney

By Daniel Kurland

Culture

The Beatles Christmas Messages Were Carols to Be Played at Maximum Volume

By Tony Sokol

The Jack-in-the-box is easily one of the more annoying characters in RiffTrax history, though. Goddamn that repeating freak. This is all hosted by Snoopy, a high-pitched “brownie” (which appears to be no different than an elf) who I’m not sure if I’m repulsed by or attracted to.

“My finger isn’t tired!” “Oh, God! What is he about to do?!”

SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS (1964)

The Idea: On Mars, children have become joyless and robotic due to the planet’s lack of fun and insistence on constant studying and good behavior. The only thing that brings them any happiness is watching Earth programs, such as news on this Santa Claus character. Afraid for the future of his planet, Kimar and his crew visit Earth to kidnap Santa (and eventually two children) and bring him to Mars so that he can spread joy to their world…whether he wants to or not!

The Output: While this movie may be on the IMDB bottom 100, I consider it a guilty pleasure. As I discussed when speaking with Kevin Murphy, I think at its core, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a great concept for a children’s movie. It has its own unique whimsy. Unfortunately, it’s hurt by bad, hammy acting and the kind of bad costuming and effects you’d expect from a movie like this.

Movies

10 remarkable things: Santa Claus Conquers The Martians

By Ryan Lambie

The Best Christmas Movies Available on Amazon Prime

By Alec Bojalad

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is the only RiffTrax movie to also be featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, Cinematic Titanic (the offshoot where the other MST3K cast members went off to), and RiffTrax, all with their own unique set of jokes. There’s a good reason for that. The movie is incredibly silly and ripe for mockery, yet at the same time completely and utterly watchable. The RiffTrax version features the movie in its entirety, rather than the abridged version from MST3K.

“Don’t you wish that your school bus looked like this?!” “Packed with bearded lunatics and flanked by grim clowns? No!”

FUN IN BALLOON LAND (1965)

The Idea: A little boy goes to sleep and dreams of a world of giant balloon people and other children to play with. After getting into a variety of adventures, he and a little girl watch a holiday parade filled with all sorts of balloon floats.

The Output: This 1960s nightmare is the perfect B-side to Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny. The first third of it is complete and utter nonsense. This little boy would just wander around a warehouse, stumble upon some kind of big balloon statue, someone would voice said statue by shouting from across the room off-screen, and then it would move on to a completely unrelated scene. There is a group of ballerinas who show up to dance for absolutely no reason. At one point the boy is inexplicably walking around in only a gold lamé diaper and Kevin wonders, “Is this movie even legal?” The boy proceeds to hit on mermaids and plays hide-and-seek with a lobster thing.

Culture

25 Unsung Christmas Icons

By Gavin Jasper

The Best Christmas Movies Available on Hulu

By Alec Bojalad

Then it becomes old footage of a holiday parade that lasts about a half hour and has more clowns and majorettes than I have ever seen in one place at one time. It’s pretty dry, but the woman narrating it is completely insane and the RiffTrax crew show absolutely no mercy in painting her as some kind of drunk lunatic. She ends the movie with a “guessing game” where she keeps changing the rules every three seconds and you don’t even know what the hell is going on.

“Still going? If this was a game of Ski Free, the Abominable Snowman would have gobbled them up hours ago.”

ZLATEH THE GOAT (1973)

The Idea: A boy named Aaron reluctantly has to bring his family’s prized goat Zlateh to the butcher in order to sell her. During the journey, the weather takes a horrible turn and Aaron and Zlateh are forced to hide out under a pile of hay for several days. The two form a bond that allows them to survive the ordeal.

The Output: This Hanukkah story is absolutely miserable. Despite being just a short, it feels like it goes on forever and pads itself out with many shots of the kid having to drag the goat through the snow. And you know how I just said that they form a bond that allows Aaron to survive? Yeah, that’s from him drinking milk directly from Zlateh. It’s nasty.

“It’s fun to make things of sugar. And they are good to eat.” “WHAT?!” “Just grab a slice of instant diabetes, kids!”

AT YOUR FINGERTIPS: SUGAR AND SPICE (1970)

The Idea: The At Your Fingertips series is all about arts and crafts using stuff around the house. Here, we see how you can use sugar to create festive Christmas ornaments. Through creativity and hard work, you can make decorating a blast!

The Output: The At Your Fingertips series is all about spending way too much time on ugly and insane crap that really looks far from fun. This Christmas-related one is no different. Things come off as less festive and more gross and unpleasant. And that’s before the children start eating pure sugar. Ugh.

“If she’s already sleeping, we might be able to see her dreams.” “We’re in, children. Let’s get ready to begin our Christmas inception. I won’t lie to you: we might have to shoot our way out.”

SANTA CLAUS (1959)

The Idea: In a Mexican adaptation of the Santa Claus myth, we see the jolly one as he spends the night delivering presents. Some children get extra focus for the movie, including a little boy whose parents don’t seem to have time for him and a poor, little girl who only wants a doll to play with. As Santa tries to make right by them, he’s vexed by Pitch, a devil sent to ruin Christmas for everyone.

The Output: This is another MST3K double-dip, but for good reason. It’s delightfully insane. See, Santa is already a nutty concept, but we get into Drunk History territory here where the people behind the movie don’t quite get it and his mythology gets even stranger in translation.

Movies

The Strangest and Most Disturbing Santa Claus Movie of Them All

By Jim Knipfel

The 12 Best SNL Holiday Sketches

By Chris Longo and 1 other

Did you know Santa is good friends with Merlin the Magician? Did you know that he has a burly blacksmith working for him? Or that Santa lives in space with little children from all around the world doing his bidding? Or that he regularly fights the minions of Satan?

The MST3K version might be better, but it is nice getting to see the full cut of the movie for once.

“Who and what are you?” “I am—“ “Meryl Streep. I am good in everything.”

A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1952)

The Idea: The Alastair Sim version of A Christmas Carol, otherwise known as Scrooge, is considered an outright classic. Perhaps the greatest telling of the Charles Dickens story of a hateful rich man realizing his own humanity thanks to being visited by ghosts. Here, we get to see the movie in its abridged form and get through it in minutes.

The Output: Listen, A Christmas Carol has a pretty solidified structure. Scrooge is a dick, his dead friend warns him, he gets led around by three other ghosts, and he comes out of it a better person. Abridging it simply does not work. Basically, Marley introduces him to the Ghost of Christmas Present and that’s enough to make a change. Bridget puts it best: “They edited the Dickens out of the movie!”

Movies

A Christmas Carol: The Best and Worst Adaptations

By Robert Keeling

The Most Disturbing TV Christmas Specials

By Wesley Mead

This short is part of Have a Mary Jo Christmas and a Bridget New Year, which is done by Mary Jo Pehl and Bridget Nelson instead of the usual riffers. It features some non-riff stuff in-between this and the following short…

“Man, I wish I hadn’t gone commando today…”

THE LITTLE LAMB (1955)

The Idea: During storytime, a group of children ask to hear a story about an animal while one girl wants to hear a story about Jesus. Their mother figures to cover both by telling the story of Jesus’ birth from the point of view of three shepherds. While two of them brave strong winds to save a lost, little lamb, an angel appears to them to tell them about the birth of Christ. They and their curmudgeonly associate go off to find the new king.

The Output: Honestly, this one isn’t all that bad, really. It’s a pretty solid production and the only part that really gets a rise out of Mary Jo and Bridget is when they warm baby Jesus’ body by laying the lamb next to him. It’s not the most memorable little short, but it’s fine for what it is.

Plus I’m always distracted by how much the guy playing Joseph looks like CM Punk. It’s downright uncanny in some shots.

“A real child’s actual tears! I know I’m ready for Christmas!”

I BELIEVE IN SANTA CLAUS (1984)

The idea: Simon is a bullied child whose parents have been kidnapped by African soldiers. Desperate to get them back, he and a friend sneak off from a school field trip and board a plane in hopes to find where Santa Claus lives. Alongside a Christmas Fairy (who looks an awful lot like Simon’s kindly teacher), Santa goes to Africa to rescue the captives. Meanwhile, the children are captured by an ogre.

The Output: Did any of that sound lucid? Because this French film is out there, man. It’s cute, but it also decides that being a kid’s movie means it doesn’t have to be logically coherent. You know, even though there’s an entire plot thread about African warlords kidnapping people. Kids like that stuff, right?

You know that, “I’m the captain now!” part of Captain Phillips? Imagine Tom Hanks replaced with Santa in that scene and you’re just hitting the tip of the iceberg of how bizarre this Christmas film is.

“Monkeys, you know, are very much like human beings in many ways. And sometimes they do the very same things that we do.” “Why, here’s a monkey Black Friday stampede!”

SANTA CLAUS’ STORY (1945)

The Idea: It begins with Twas the Night Before Christmas and ends with the, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,” speech. In-between, Santa tells two children about how monkeys also celebrate Christmas and have their very own Monkey Santa Claus.

The Output: Monkey Santa Claus. Really.

This short is barely being held together by a narrative. They basically have a bunch of footage of monkeys and chimps doing stuff and since this includes 20 seconds of a chimp wearing a horrifying Santa Claus mask and costume, they decide that there’s a Monkey Christmas and write everything around that.

Somehow, this was the sanest thing shown at the RiffTrax Live for Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny.

“Bricks on his face. Sure! He’s a dragon.” “All dragons have bricks on their face.”

THE TALE OF THE CUSTARD DRAGON (1965)

The Idea: Ogden Nash’s poem for children comes to life. A little girl has a pet dog, cat, mouse, and dragon. The dragon, named Custard, is a bit of a coward and only wants to be let alone. But then on one Christmas Eve, when his friends are attacked by an evil pirate, Custard has to stand up and save their presents.

The Output: The poem is acted out via a handful of kids in little Halloween costumes, including Custard being a dragon with a brick facemask. The short takes place in somebody’s den and aesthetically, the whole thing is a weird mess. Custard also straight-up murders the pirate, which makes sense on the page, but feels a bit off the reservation when we see a child viciously attacking an adult in a lame costume.

“AAAAAHHHH! Hannibal Lecter’s Christmas trees!” “Good God, he’s keeping them alive!”

THE CHRISTMAS TREE (1975)

The Idea: This short tells us the story of three pine trees who are cut down and go through the process of becoming Christmas trees. This means being sold, being decorated, enduring Christmas, and, sadly, being discarded. Shown in live-action, the trees are portrayed by mimes in tree costumes and facepaint.

The Output: It’s cute, but also bewildering. With zero dialogue, we watch these three guys mug at each other while Christmas stuff happens around them. As strange as it is by default, it loses its mind in the final minutes when we see the trees thrown in the garbage as they start to die. Not only do the trees-with-faces die, but we get to see their trees-with-faces ghosts fly up into the sky.

Tree ghosts. Yup.

“GAH! His face looks like a series of horrible wounds!” “That just started healing.” “What are the dots..?!”

SANTA’S CHRISTMAS CIRCUS (1966)

The Idea: Hey, kids! It’s time for Whizzo the Clown! This local TV clown has a special show in store for everyone as he and his audience of kids play around and pretend to be circus performers! Then they check out some motorized Christmas-based decorations before getting ready for the main event: riding a magic carpet and visiting Santa himself!

The Output: This one’s best summed up right after the opening credits end. As Whizzo walks out and mumbles loudly like he’s having an episode, Mike laughingly wonders if they’ve gone too far, knowing that the three of them are about to sit through some rough shit. While Whizzo certainly has energy and some kind of charisma, he’s also the poster boy for why people are frightened of clowns without having to go the easy serial killer route. No, he’s a friendly and jokey clown, but he’s also completely horrifying to look at.

This low-budget affair not only features Whizzo’s catchphrase of, “Now I have that to worry about,” but also the catchphrase of one girl in the audience loudly coughing throughout the hour. It’s incredibly uncomfortable to sit through.

“Yeah… Celebrate the nativity… That’s what daddy likes…”

GIFTS FROM THE AIR (1937)

The Idea: A poor boy wanders through the snow, enduring Christmas Eve without food, family, or toys. He comes across a toy store where a dancing toy soldier annoys the store owner enough to have him thrown out. The boy takes the soldier in to his humble home and his good deed is rewarded as the toy soldier happens to know how to summon Santa Claus himself!

The Output: Dancing toy cartoons with poor kids is nothing new for RiffTrax, but this one is certainly unique enough to be a must-watch. The moment Santa delivers the toys to the little boy, it becomes complete and utter madness. It’s a bunch of bizarre toys who talk like what appears to be 1930s celebrities. Like there’s a goat that sings like Bing Crosby, so even though I know who Bing Crosby is, that doesn’t make the toy goat make any more sense.

Movies

MST3K Turkey Day: The Long History of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Thanksgiving

By Gavin Jasper

Culture

Best Holiday Gifts for Geeks in 2020

By Chris Cummins

The highlight is when a Santa Jack-in-the-box pops out and tells another toy something so indistinct that Mike notes, “‘How the hell are you, scramble puss? Smelly Christmas to you,’ is what I heard.”

“Well. This place looks cozy. I LIVE HERE NOW!”

SANTA CLAUS’ WORKSHOP (1930s)

The Idea: Once again, we get to see how Santa Claus performs his duties. From his home in the North Pole to the home of a nice middle-class family, we see Santa get letters from kids, fly on his sleigh, and deliver the presents themselves. We also get a look at the family in question, who celebrate the holidays via singing a lovely rendition of “O Come All Ye Faithful.”

The Output: It’s your usual fare on this one and not too much that sticks out. That’s not to say that it’s meant to be skipped, as Kevin singing “Pretty Woman” over “O Come All Ye Faithful” makes this worth the dollar.

The one part of the short that makes it seem off is the revelation towards the end that Santa doesn’t simply fly across the world to deliver presents in one go, but instead flies back and forth for every single household. I mean, Santa can only carry so many presents in that sack of his, right?

“And so, they started out together, not realizing they were being followed.” “Well, they were easy to track…thanks to a long trail of spunk.” “DAMN IT, KEVIN!” “(Sorry.)”

SPUNKY THE SNOWMAN (1958)

The Idea: When a group of children write a letter to Santa, it’s up to their newly-created snowman Spunky to deliver it to Santa himself. Spunky and the little dog Jeff go on a quest, only to be opposed by a fox, an owl, and a wolf. Each creature wants to steal that letter and bring it to Santa, figuring that they can then steal the gifts. Spunky and Jeff are soon aided by a bear, but can even he keep them safe?

The Output: The guy’s name is Spunky. You know exactly what kind of jokes you’re getting the second you see that title.

Otherwise, it’s an animated story that tries to be whimsical, but is really just nonsense. It takes a bunch of Christmas cliches like magic snowmen, letters to Santa, talking animals, and desire for Christmas trees and badly pastes it all together into a confusing package.

“When you’re not shaking that over our heads to make us work, you can hobble around on it and enjoy your sciatica!” “A zinger from TV’s Frank!”

BEYOND CHRISTMAS (1940)

The idea: Three old rich men feel lonely during Christmas night and one comes up with an idea of throwing wallets with $10 bills out onto the sidewalk and inviting anyone kind enough to return them to enjoy dinner with them. The gambit pays off and leads to a romance between a Texan with a golden voice and a schoolteacher. Unfortunately, tragedy strikes the old men and they have to help the couple out from beyond the grave.

The output: This movie (originally known as Beyond Tomorrow) is actually pretty damn good. It’s a little sluggish in the second half, but it’s original, has some likeable characters, and never really gets too stupid. Even Bridget and Mary Jo find themselves getting invested in what’s going on when they should be telling jokes. With them, it feels more like you’re watching a movie together rather than just watching them rip it apart.

Personally, I think it would make for a better Christmas movie if the first act took place during Thanksgiving and built towards an ending happening during Christmas. Might have made the supernatural and uplifting stuff pop more.

“Seriously, what the Hell is going on with the mitten tree?!”

CHRISTMAS CUSTOMS NEAR AND FAR (1955)

The idea: As some children prepare for a Christmas pageant, one asks their teacher about the origins of the Christmas tree. This leads to her explaining how children from different countries celebrate Christmas in varying ways.

The output: As we all know, different = funny. While some of the customs might be normal, it doesn’t help that most of them are depicted by children dressing up as foreigners while standing in front of a curtain. So it’s a Christmas pageant within a short about the attempt to rehearse a Christmas pageant. Crazy.

Through the short, we get to see a weird kid dancing around in an elf hat, a Christmas tree covered in mittens, and a thing about how kids in China do a big ceremony to celebrate the events of Christ’s birth.

“Whaddya know?! Armed and dangerous!” “None of my quips are funny but some…make very little sense!”

JACK FROST (1997)

The idea: Not to be confused with the Michael Keaton family film from the same time, Jack Frost deals with a serial killer who escapes captivity, only to be seemingly vaporized by a chemical spill. In actuality, he survives as living snow and uses his new form to attempt revenge on the police officer that arrested him in the first place. Even when the officer and his family know what they’re up against, they don’t even know if there’s a way to stop him.

The output: I remember renting this baby back in the late-90s and, hoo boy, it’s a lot worse than I remembered it being. As a horror villain, Jack Frost wants to be like Freddy Krueger or Chucky, where he kills his victims while belting out memorable one-liners. The problem is, everything he says falls flat or is complete nonsense. He constantly stumbles on his own attempts at charisma.

Movies

MST3K: The Landmark Episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000

By Gavin Jasper

Doctor Who: The Weird Anomaly of the 1965 ‘Christmas Special’

By Andrew Blair

Despite taking place in a town in winter that’s supposed to support the existence of snowmen and sledding and the like, it’s obviously taking place in a hot and sunny area with weak attempts to hide it.

It’s still better than the sequel, which was one of those cringeworthy “intentionally bad” gems.

“God… Oh no, have they been hypnotized?” “I…I…I think it might be a cult. They’re quietly chanting to that tree right now.” “…I think the tree might be marrying them.” “This is horrible!”

A CHRISTMAS FANTASY (1962)

The Idea: Two children admire their Christmas tree before falling asleep on the couch. As they dream of trees in the winter, Santa Claus appears to deliver gifts. It’s only just over five minutes, so there isn’t much happening here.

The Output: Despite its short runtime, this one really meanders. The way the kids stare at the tree like they’re about to be murdered by the Blair Witch. The endless shots of trees with no leaves on them.

The money shot of this short is when Santa shows up. Rather than just get a guy to wear a beard and call it a day, they instead have him wear a mask. It seriously looks like Leatherface is pretending to be Santa here and it’s HORRIFYING. As the guys put it, even Krampus is freaked out by this Santa.

“Santa, I wrote you a new song!” “Oh, good! A song! That’ll get me hammered.”

A SONG FOR SANTA

The idea: A trio of lost boys find themselves in a church and sit down to enjoy the warmth and chorus. One child nods off from the music and finds himself in Santa’s domain, where he offers to create a new and original Christmas song to delight Santa and his angels.

The output: The first half is normal enough, despite little of interest happening. Right when the Santa stuff happens, things get weird and creepy. Instead of elves, Santa has little girls dressed as angels and disturbingly leers at them like there’s no good that can come out of whatever’s happening. The boy’s attempt to write Santa a new song goes nowhere, as he just sings him an old song with the justification that, “I didn’t know this song until now, so it must be new to you too.”

This is another one of those oddball shorts or movies where there’s a framing device that’s forgotten about. The boy never wakes up from his dream or anything. It just ends with him hanging out with creepy Santa and his underage harem.

“Spirit…tell me if Tiny Tim will live.” “I see an empty chair in the chimney corner.” “Oh, so he not only lives, he walks?!” “No!” “It’s a Christmas miracle!” “No, no!”

A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1959)

The idea: I explained Christmas Carol earlier. Luckily, we finally have a version that’s the full story and not abridged like what Bridget and Mary Jo watched.

The output: This one’s by Coronet Films, meaning it’s old as hell and feels cheap. To its credit, despite running at just over 20 minutes, it tells the complete story without feeling rushed. It just feels a bit under budget, what with the limited quality in costumes and several sets being some props on a fog-filled sound stage.

Still, it’s A Christmas Carol and you have to go out of your way to do a bad job with that. This one’s still fairly watchable, even if the riffs are well-deserved.

“This isn’t so much A Miracle on 34th Street as it is A Horse Who Took a Dump on 34th Street.”

SANTA’S SUMMER HOUSE (2012)

The idea: A group of travelers get lost in a fog and end up at the doorstep of a kindly couple who allow them to stay in their mansion for a couple days. Little do these visitors realize that their hosts are none other than Santa Claus and his wife! The two try to use their wisdom and magic to improve the lives of these visitors and mend their relationships.

The output: This piece of shit is written and directed by the same guys who gave us A Talking Cat!?! It even takes place in the same house. At least with Talking Cat!?! there were two separate houses used. Here, it’s just the one.

It’s a hell of a lineup of actors. Mrs. Claus starred in RiffTrax target Honor and Glory. The egomaniac scientist guy in this movie is the JCVD knockoff from MST3K’s Future War. Santa himself is played by Robert Mitchum’s son. Even though he isn’t all that overweight and doesn’t have a beard, he’s still identified as looking a lot like Santa.

The movie is just bad dialogue said by bad actors, occasionally broken up by wipe edits featuring Christmas Clip-Art. It never reaches Talking Cat!?! levels of batshit, but it’s still stupid as a pile of rocks.

“They’re buying a brother?!”

CHARLIE’S CHRISTMAS SECRET (1984)

The idea: A young Seth Green plays Charlie, who feels that he’s outgrown Christmas. The commercialism does nothing for him and makes him feel hollow. At first, his instincts are vindicated when he comes across various others – a bitter, old woman, a poor single mother, and a scheming homeless man – but soon he realizes the meaning of Christmas by putting their needs first.

The output: Again, this one is halfway decent. All in all, it tells a really sweet story. It just happens to have a few awkward aspects to it. The whole thing has subtitles and they almost never match what’s actually being said, instead going for the simplest way of conveying whatever thoughts. Like instead of saying, “No thank you, I’m not hungry right now,” it would just say, “No.”

The most questionable part of this special, and something that I’m glad is called out by the riffers, is that Charlie apparently has to buy his own Christmas gifts. Part of the plot is that he has his eye on a stereo and instead of asking Santa for it or having his parents buy it for him, he has to save up the money from his paper route, get the stereo, and then have his mother wrap it and place it under the tree.

What the Hell?

“No. No way. There’s no such thing as Santa Claus. You’re just someone in a Santa suit.” “That’s why YOU never get anything for Christmas!” “Also, ’cause you made Feeders!”

FEEDERS 2: SLAY BELLS (1998)

The Idea: Previously, aliens invaded and feasted on a handful of confused and horrified Earthlings. Now a second UFO has arrived to conquer again, this time with its aliens creeping around and causing havoc through a suburban town. As one family gets ready for Christmas, they gradually come to realize how doomed they truly are.

The Output: RiffTrax was kind of slick on this one. On Halloween of 2019, they put out a riff for an utterly terrible low-budget piece of garbage called Feeders, which is about a bunch of laughable alien puppets invading Earth and killing some of the ugliest people to ever show up on film. Then, just a couple months later, they released a riff on its Christmas-themed sequel.

While I do suggest watching the first one, you won’t be too lost if you don’t. A survivor from the first movie goes about summarizing the first movie’s events in a series of loose framing devices that aren’t directly connected to the rest of the movie. It is pretty funny on its own, though, because a character who died in the first movie and is featured prominently in the flashbacks is played by the very same guy who is the protagonist of this movie.

Movies

The 16 Best Winter Horror Movies

By Daniel Kurland and 3 others

The Twilight Zone Marathon: A History of a Holiday Tradition

By Arlen Schumer

Not only does the climax take place on Christmas Eve, but Santa gets involved! Santa, who for some reason sounds like Homsar from Homestar Runner, is attacked by aliens (who look even worse than in the first movie) and proceeds to be the secret weapon in saving the world. He’s up there with the over-the-top boss character and the silliest-looking dead cat special effect in reasons why you should watch this one.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

“And now I will read you this editorial.” “‘The Rent is Too Damn High!’ by Virginia O’Hanlon”

YES, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A SANTA CLAUS (1974)

The Idea: A young girl, teased by her classmates, wonders about the existence of Santa Claus. Various adults try to assure her of his existence despite admitting that they’ve never actually met him. She ends up writing to the newspaper and asks them. Egged on by an ambitious paperboy, the newspaper’s editor decides to publish his response for everyone to read.

The Output: Imagine watching a Peanuts special that features absolutely none of the Peanuts cast and is at about 75% the quality. That’s what this cartoon is. It’s also very dull, what with them trying to add a narrative to the whole newspaper editorial.

There is some real heart in it, but it doesn’t work as a whole. Probably my favorite part is when the “Yes, Virginia” editorial is read out loud. Despite the simplistic animation, the people’s reactions are emotional. Some kids seem humbled. Some adult couples embrace. Then all of the sudden, the local Irish cop character does a happy jig that probably cost them half the animation budget.

“All of this was in Dickens’ first draft, by the way. Even the goofy music.”

BANKS: THE MONEY MOVERS (1977)

The Idea: Due to his familiarity as a popular literary character, Ebenezer Scrooge (er, Arthur Scrooge?) is used as a window to help people learn about how banks work and why they are a worthwhile place to put your money. As a stand-in for the viewer, Scrooge learns about deposits, withdrawals, interest, loans, and other aspects of the business.

The Output: This is all explained via a version of Christmas Carol where Scrooge is taught a lesson by ghosts for being stingy with his money. Namely that he keeps it in his mattress. As Mike points out, it’s incredibly messed up that Marley is suffering eternal damnation because he never got a Wells Fargo account. I get trying to map your lesson onto a preexisting story, but think it through a little!

Also wild in this is how despite his old-timey appearance, Scrooge exists in modern times and is even seen using a check to buy a motor scooter. It’s completely inane, but at least the guy playing Scrooge seems like he’s having a fun time.

“The birth of Jesus Christ, ladies and gentlemen. That’s what it’s all about.”

ALIAS ST. NICK (1935)

The Idea: As a family of adorable mice get ready for Christmas, a scheming cat decides to get through their defenses by dressing up as Santa Claus, delivering their gifts, and then devouring them. His plan appears to be working extremely well, but there’s one mouse child who doesn’t believe in Santa and is quick to see through his disguise.

The Output: Although the guys don’t bring it up, it’s kind of odd that the kid who spends the whole cartoon being loudly and annoyingly skeptic about the existence of Santa Claus is absolutely 100% vindicated. There isn’t some kind of last-second evidence of Santa or something. It just ends.

Otherwise, this is just your average off-brand Looney Tunes cartoon. Probably the most bizarre moment is when the cat puts together his Santa costume and strips a doll naked to make his beard.

“And now the ancient tradition of giving a present to Tommy Lasorda.”

DECEMBER HOLIDAYS (1982)

The Idea: A narrator explains three of the bigger December holidays: Posadas, Chanukah, and Christmas. Through what appears to be fly on the wall footage, various families celebrate these holidays with their festive traditions. The narrator tries to educate the viewer on the families’ behavior and how it relates to the origins of the holidays.

The Output: I mean, that’s…pretty much it. There’s nothing wacky about this short. It’s pretty dull, but it’s a decent enough target for Mike, Bill, and Kevin. Sometimes you don’t need an Ice Cream Bunny to have a good time.

“When are you planning on going back to Florida?” “I think we’re going to wait until you have your baby. Just want to make sure you’re okay.” “And that you don’t give birth to a CGI vampire baby.”

BABY OF THE BRIDE (1991)

The Idea: A made-for-TV movie starring Rue McClanahan is actually the second in a trilogy about a dysfunctional, all-grown-up family filled with all kinds of interpersonal problems. In the previous movie, Margaret Becker married a much younger man and it took her children some time to adjust. Now things are getting crazy as not only is one of her daughters pregnant, but Margaret is pregnant too! She, her new husband, and her four kids all have to deal with a ton of drama, which all culminates at midnight mass!

The Output: This is another Bridget and Mary Jo installment and the two have a habit of tackling movies that aren’t so much the worst thing ever, but are too corny to ignore. That’s Baby of the Bride, pretty much. It’s very much a watchable movie, but it’s also a movie about Blanche from Golden Girls being pregnant, which is buried among all kinds of different subplots about how dysfunctional her family is. This family collectively gets divorced more than they get their cars’ oil checked.

The whole narrative is about eight months long because of the whole double pregnancy thing, but the climax is during Christmas Eve, so I guess it ultimately counts as a holiday movie. It just takes a long time to get there.

“I think this guy was a boss in Cuphead.”

THE SNOWMAN (1932)

The Idea: Somewhere in the arctic, an Inuit child and his animal friends enjoy their slightly-less-chilly summer by building a snowman. After happily putting it together and throwing snowballs at it, the snowman comes alive and goes on a rampage. Can the child destroy what he created before the malevolent snow beast goes too far?

The Output: This cartoon is all over the place and is one of the absolute best holiday shorts RiffTrax has commented on. So much crazy shit is compressed into this package. Snowman buttcracks? Check. Jimmy Durante impressions? Check. Penguin church? Check. I won’t even spoil how the snowman is defeated other than saying that it’s completely ridiculous and makes zero sense.

Still, it’s better than that Snowman movie with Harry Hole getting all the clues.

The post RiffTrax: A Guide to Christmas and Holiday Episodes appeared first on Den of Geek.

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ruiyuki-archives · 5 years ago

Text

Star Tear AU - Alt. Timeline: Todoroki ver. [Part 1]

This is an AU I wrote on the todomomo discord server eons ago. Anything posted to this blog will be transcripts of old original work and not really edited, save for formatting. I have no guarantees if I will ever finish these AUs either so these will only be kept as an archive.

Original transcript posted to tdmm discord: Aug 2020

Momo ver. Alternate timeline: Todo ver. Part 1 || Todo ver. Part 2 || Todo ver. Part 3

Star tears in which Todoroki falls for Momo first.

shortly after the exam with Aizawa he doesn’t know what he’s feeling but just admires her strength and quick thinking

and him hanging out with Deku and Iida at lunch means Todo hears all the nice and good things Momo does when she and Iida to discuss class prez stuff

which intensifies this ??admiration?? and respect more

and he just?? Holds onto those feelings unable to figure out what they are until idk maybe holidays where 1A and 1B throw that holiday hotpot party

and Momos really cute lookin’ in that Santa hat she made with the festive turtleneck

and so that feeling inside Todo grows into something more??? bc "oh shit she cute".... and Todo’s blushing while looking at her from afar. Probably.

so Todo talks to Fuyumi abt it and Fuyumi’s like: “I think you like her Shouto”

and he writes to his mom abt it and Rei's like: “she sounds like a lovely girl Shouto”

and he texts Natsuo abt it and Natsu's like: “aw little bro has a crush”

but all the while this is happening, Momo's gotten closer with Iida over class prez stuff and hero stuff and everyone in 1A (read: mina and hagakure) think iimomo might be a thing???

ofc Momo denies it and making excuses politely like "no no ofc not we're being responsible class prez and vice prez" but she’s kinda stuttery while doing so, so no one buys it

and no ones brave enough to ask Iida except Ochako but he gives some straight laced answer like "i admire her work ethic and respect her as a hero and vice prez" but he also has some tint of blush across his cheeks

so idk fast forward to graduation where Todo's been holding onto these feelings for Momo since first year and iimomo is still very very likely

so its all cherry blossom petals flying around and congratulatory celebrations

and when Todo sees Momo amongst the sakura trees smiling like he's never seen before (bc they're finally officially heroes!!) he thinks she’s beautiful

but just as he's about to approach her, Iida approaches her and Todo can see she's blushing and he knows its really not good to eavesdrop on one of his best friends and the girl he likes

But... he's curious.

or so he lies to himself.

Ofc what he hears isnt what he ever wants to,,,,

cuz Iida just confessed to her.

and she feels the same.

and a star tear slips from Todo's eye as he walks away.

he stops mid step as he touches his cheek bc he didnt even realize he was crying

but what are these tears??? What’s happening?? He's never had these before bc even though Todo is an emotional crier, he doesn’t cry that often.. only when he is completely overwhelmed with emotion

so he has this dumbfounded expression staring at his fingers as these star tears are twinkling out of his eyes catching sunlight and sakura petals

until he hears "Youre a fucking idiot" from a few steps away

Bakugou.

(Baku really likes eavesdropping ok its not the first time lol)

Baku: theyre called star tears.

Todo: You know what these are?

Baku: it happens when you like someone and that person doesnt like you back, idiot.

Todo: ... oh.

Baku: get that shit sorted or you'll go blind

(And for those who are curious, yes maaaayyybe Bakugou has a case of the stars in this timeline too, that’s how he knows. To whom? I'll let you decide bc honestly, I just want todobaku brotp bonding over unrequited love)

so now Todo thinks he might be fucked. One of his best friends confessed to the girl he likes too and she likes him back and now Todo has this disease that might make him go blind and might get in the way of heroing (which they've all secured post graduation positions by now) and what can he do about it?

nothing, says the doctor he sees. The disease is not curable and the only way to stop it is to have your feelings returned else you'll go colour blind and then completely blind, so he's told.

ya he's really fucked.

maybe its a good thing then, that he doesnt cry often. It makes it easier to ice over these feelings, freeze them in time with the memories of U.A.; of his last congratulations to her and her smile at the end of the ceremony an hour after he overheard that confession

maybe its another good thing that right after graduation, everyone went off to their own positions as side kicks with agencies across japan, focusing on heroing

but its 3 months after graduation that Iida tells Deku and Todoroki that he is seeing Momo when they meet up every Friday to catch up

its 6 months after graduation that its publicly announced in Hero Magazine that Ingenium and Creati are dating

its 9 months after graduation that he sees Iida and Momo attending the Hero Association's rising stars gala as a couple and are seated at the same table as them

(Bakugou is scowling at him across the table.)

Todo tries. He really does. To be happy for them.

but he's angry at himself that he can't be happy for them. That it saddens him to see Momo glowing under the ballroom lights but its not himself to make her shine like that, its Iida. That he sees she is the one to make Iida genuinely happy in the way his eyes light up when he smiles at her.

and all three times Todo goes home, lies down alone in his room, an arm slung across his forehead as the star tears leak from his eyes.

he starts to lose seeing colour at 12 months.

after 24 months he needs glasses for colour correction (and ironically gets a sponsorship with the brand. The fashion magazines print headlines for weeks "Hot-Cold Hero Shouto Fall Fashion! See page 7 spread for his newest spotted specks and turtle necks")

at 36 months Iida breaks the news. Iida's gonna propose to Yaoyorozu and wants him, Deku, and his brother to be his groomsmen

she said yes.

and a part of Todo washes away with the star tears flooding him room and twinkling against the tatami.

he tries to stay out of the wedding planning as much as possible. He'll go to the tuxedo fittings as requested and still keep up hearing the updates when seeing Iida and Deku for their weekly get together on Friday nights.

But for anything involving Momo's presence, there will always be a "sorry i have a mission that week", "sorry im visiting my mom", "sorry Endeavor needs to see me about the agency"

... all excuses Bakugou knows, but the others pay no mind. They are rising heroes near the top of the billboard by now

month 48. Wedding day.

she's stunning. Gorgeous. A near goddess walking down the aisle on her big day.

but she's not walking down for him. No its for iida.

there was the ceremony, the cheers, the congratulations, the reception. Fairy lights around the dance floor and along the walls, champagne glittering after the sound of a cork

Todoroki stands off to against the wall as the night dies down, a glass in hand, watching the newly weds grace the dance floor.

someone slides up beside him, he feels the presence. Bakugou.

"She's beautiful isnt she?"

"Yeah."

. . .

a star tear falls from Todoroki's eyes, twinkle hidden among the fairy lights and champagne glitter.

she's beautiful, but maybe its a good thing I can't see

somebody said: what if she knows everything that had happened and the reason why he couldn't continue his career is bc of her?

me: ok you’re asking for it

Momo, 3 months pregnant with iimomo baby, announces with Iida the news to their friends

the soon to be parents want to choose godparents for the baby so Iida gets to choose the baby’s godmother and Momo gets to choose the godfather

and ofc along with the announcement Momo asks Todoroki to be the kid’s godfather

he can’t say no to her.

the same week later Todo and Momo's agencies are requested to deal with this one villain case while Ingenium's agency deals with another in another town (later turns out the cases were connected)

small talk, civil, very professional between Momo and Todo when they’re in the debriefing

at this point Todo's pretty much completely blind and uses some special contact lenses from Hatsume to help "see"

but the contact lenses can only do so much as to detect light movement and shadows and it reallllllllly doesnt work well when he's using his fire

so Todo already had tossed around the idea of running away to the mountains like Roy did in the FMA 2003 ending, "mysteriously" retiring bc really his vision cannot keep up

until this last mission with Momo

and really its been nearly a decade now since they last worked together side by side (not since U.A. he thinks).. so just let the blind man be selfish one last time

and so smth smth missiom happens, Todo and Momo fighting side by side

but Momo senses there’s something off with Todo's movements? His reflexes are slower.. it doesnt seem like he's prediciting the opponents moves like he used to.. he's more so reacting and retaliating than attacking..

she chalks it up to that they havent fought side by side in a long time and his style must’ve changed and really, she doesnt know him anymore... not like she used to

smth smth 3 months pregnant Momo gets hurt, knocked unconscious for a bit

Todo saves her

and when she comes to, while Todo's holding her, star tears fall onto her cheek from Todo's eyes.

She's shocked. Reaches up to gently graze a finger tip at his left cheek.

"Todoroki-san, these are?"

and again its like Todo didnt realize he was crying. He jerks away from her hand and brushes her off with "its nothing”. Changes the subject with "are you ok?"

Momo: yes.. i think so

Todo: and the baby?

Momo, sitting up: we're ok I think

Todo, moving away: good

the mission concludes and they meet up with Ingenium’s group to wrap up the two ends. Todo slips away before Iida and Momo and approach him

theres no activity from Todoroki for the next month

neither Iida, Deku or anyone else in 1A know where he went except the Hero Association's vague comment on "Hot Cold Hero Shouto has taken a sudden indefinite hiatus"

(Only Todo’s family knows and Endeavor asked the Association to say "hiatus" instead of "retirement" bc Enji wants to believe in his son making a comeback. He didnt stop Shouto from taking off)

and ofc Momo upon hearing this is so confused??? Her last mission with him was the last time she saw him and he was crying. Why was he crying? Strange star tears twinkling and landing on her cheeks? What even is that phenomenon?

its too many questions and ofc Momo's gonna investigate. For the sake of her friend.

so she digs up all the texts she can find on star tears. Internet search all the possibilities. Consults the doctors at the hospital. Even asks Tenya if Todoroki has been acting strangely during their weekly catch ups.

but Tenya tells her Todoroki hasnt been the the meet ups since after their wedding

so she asks anyone in their pro hero circle of associates she can think of. Tsukiyomi, Burnin', heros from his agency, anyone she can think of that has worked with Todoroki before and could comment on his behaviour

no body knows. No body noticed anything different either. Sure there were some off days but the Hot Cold Hero Shouto was always on his game being one of the top 3 heroes on the billboard charts

she searches and searches, splitting time interviewing colleagues and researching the possible star tears phenomenon

until eventually her search takes her to...

Bakugou.

Of course.

Momo, pleading: please Bakugou, you know something about him dont you?

Bakugou, who at this point had been very careful trying not to get cornered knowing her investigation: save it pony tail, you’re about to have a baby. Go have people harass you about that brat in your oven instead of harassing other people

Momo, nearly begging: please. You and I both know he's strong and a good hero that would not suddenly retire. Whatever he is doing, he might need help.. please tell me Bakugou.

... theres something about pregnant women that you cant say no to.

Bakugou, relenting: tch. The half ass is somewhere in Yokohama

and thats all she needs nearly running waddling (as fast as a pregnant woman could) out the door

Bakugou, calling out after her, still reluctant: when find that half ass, i suggest you throw him a gift. Literally. Throw it at him. He deserves it.

she finds him along the port, watching the sunset in Yokohama (its really not that hard to find someone with heterochromia and two tone hair in a city, especially if youre a hero that knows what methods heroes will use to go incognito)

and for some inkling of a feeling, Momo takes Bakugou's advice. She has a carton of strawberry milk in hand.

Momo, a few feet away from him: Todoroki-san, it's been a while.

Todo, turning his head in her direction: Yaoyorozu...?

Momo, sadly smiling: the sunset is beautiful here isnt it?

Todo, brows furrowing: .. sure. Yaoyorozu what are you doing here--

Momo, interrupting him: --i brought some snacks. Strawberry milk, you liked this while we were in school right? Catch.

she tosses it at him.

he tries to reach out.

But he'es completely off. And misses

Momo, sad: Todoroki-san. You're blind, arent you?

Todo, guilty: ah.

Momo, tearing up: will you please tell me?

he still can say no to her and confesses his story

and when he's finished telling the tale of star tears, the stars above are twinkling too

she's crying and choking and sobbing through tears and its intensified by baby Iida with pregnancy hormones

But the last thing she manages to croak out at the very least is still wholly her

She apologizes

“Im so sorry Todoroki- san. I cant love you that way.”

“I know.”

END NOTES:

red is the last color Todoroki wanted to lose because it reminds him of Momo

during missions, as long as he could see her, “that’s ok” he thought. she is the only one he sees in color. that is okay with him

to him, Momo is his shining star. And there’s something tragically poetic of him losing his sight to the stars if its for his shining star Momo

He leaves the last stars in a tiny little jar like those paper stars as a gift for her with just the words on a note "goodbye Momo" the day after she finds him in Yokohama

Momo has the jar of stars forever on her bedside and looks at them with this melancholy expression. Baby Iida grows up and asks mom: "what is that jar of stars?"

Momo responds: "a gift from someone that was blinded by love"

Bakugou in this timeline had a case of star tears too but I'd like to think he got his feelings requited so he never went blind to contrast Todo

So thats why Baku is (begrudgingly) sympathetic to Todo cuz he thinks: “that could’ve been me”

The ending shot of a blind Todoroki in a dark room, all alone, eyes closed, thinking back to Momo's shining smile from UA surrounded by star light with a sad smile on his face and it fades to black

> archives masterpost

#todomomo #todoroki shouto #momo yaoyorozu #tdmm star tear au #ruiyukis unfinished aus #sorry not sorry #for spamming the tag #this ones my baby #angst angst baby #oops heres a bandaid for your heart #buckle up yall it just gets worse from here

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iamartemisday · 5 years ago

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90 and 32 for Loki and your choice?

Is there really a choice? lol

Pregnancy Fic + Unexpected Virgin

...hoo boy.

Okay, so Loki decides one day to go to Midgard. No real reason why. He’s just bored.

While there, he meets some mildly interesting people, including a young woman about to graduate college named Jane Foster. She’s just escaped an incredibly painful blind date and Loki further helps her avoid the hapless human by pretending to kiss her in an alleyway. Her hot breath on his face actually makes him think of kissing her for real, but that’s a ridiculous notion. What kind of prince would he be cavorting with mortals?

Regardless, as they talk about life and Jane’s plans for grad school, he finds himself intrigued by her. She’s highly intelligent for her species and while her grip on the Bifrost could not be more basic, if anyone was going to figure it out, he’d say it was her.

Over the next month or so, Loki starts visiting Midgard and Jane more and more. As far as she knows, he’s another student like her home for summer break. As they grow closer, Loki thinks more and more about what it would be like to kiss her. Finally, the day comes and by Odin, can she ever kiss.

Of course, there’s no way something like this can last. Even putting aside Loki’s greater longevity, there are so many people out there he’s pissed off. If they know a vulnerable mortal woman has caught his eye, no way they won’t take advantage.

That’s how Jane ends up a hostage of one of Loki’s many enemies. He is able to save her and kill the perpetrator, but he realizes now that their relationship can only end in pain. He knows now just how deeply in love with her he’s fallen. He loves her so much that he can find it in himself to erase every trace of him from her memory. Everything from their first meeting to the day they first kissed. He gives her one more kiss before he leaves her, pouring all his love and magic into it. Along with a wish that one day, somehow, their paths would cross again.

And so, Loki leaves her. Jane wakes up the next morning in her apartment with no recollection of her harrowing adventure or the prince she once loved. It’s as if nothing ever happened.

Except as the days go by, Jane starts to have some odd symptoms. She’s weirdly sick in the morning and feels faint during the day. She’s moodier than usual, only wants to eat food she hates and gets random headaches.

There is an obvious answer that is also completely impossible. Jane is not ashamed to admit she’s never had sex (like it even matters how long someone waits). In fact, she hasn’t dated since that one awful blind date a few months ago (every time she thinks about it she feels sad for no reason, and she still can’t figure out why). Days later, the symptoms persist. As a joke, she buys a home pregnancy test. Not like it’s going to mean anything.

The test comes back positive.

Jane buys three more. All positive.

She goes to the doctor, who confirms it.

Pregnant.

Now, this is a major problem because again, Jane has never had sex. She rarely drinks and hasn’t been to a bar recently. A few guys in her department like her, but there was no way they’d ever do something like that to her. Right?

The time frame of conception is determined. Jane recalls a day during that time when she did go to the bar, and now that she thinks about it, her memory of that week is a bit spotty...

At that point, Jane, being the determined woman she is, decides she can’t worry about what might’ve happened right now. She needs to think about what is happening. The obvious answer is abortion. That or adoption. How can she, a grad student going into astrophysics of all things, take care of a child? It’s not that she doesn’t want kids, it’s the idea never even crossed her mind because she’s just that focused on her goal.

Now, motherhood is an actual reality. It’s still early enough for her to make an appointment at the clinic. She’s online researching, still unsure if she’s actually going to call, when she feels something. At first, she thinks she’s imagining it. She feels her stomach and there it is again. The tiniest movement. Maybe not even a movement at all. Maybe just a heartbeat...

At that moment, something fundamental within Jane changes. She closes her current web search and opens a new one on pregnancy guides and nearby baby stores.

A few months later, Jane’s daughter is born. While it’s definitely a bit on the nose given the circumstances, Jane can’t resist writing Christina on the birth certificate.

It’s not as hard as she thought it would be. Erik and her mother are both huge helps. They immediately fall in love with the baby and watch her while Jane is at school and studying. By the time she gets her degree, Christina is five and has spent the last few years providing constant encouragement for her mother. She walks at Jane’s side during her graduation. She gets a little stuffed bear with a cap and gown while Jane gets her doctorate.

The next few years are a bit hectic. Jane tries to give Christina as much stability as possible. They live in one place for a few years while Jane teaches at the university and builds up goodwill with the staff in order to get the grant money she needs to fund her research. Her efforts finally pay off when Christina is about to turn nine. Jane sets up her lab in New Mexico and they move there for the summer. They might stay longer depending on what Jane finds, but she doesn’t tell Christina that just yet. She’s already complaining about how boring Puente Antiguo is.

To entertain herself, Christina reads and writes about all sorts of fun adventures she could be having. She’s never showed her mom this, or anyone for that matter, but she has a few strange little talents no one else seems to have. For example, she can sometimes move things around without touching them. One time, she swears she turned a mean kid’s hair blue when he was bullying her and her friends. Snakes seem to really like her. She can’t talk to them like Harry Potter, but they do follow her sometimes. There are tons of snakes in New Mexico, but she’s not too bothered by it. They all seem pretty nice.

Soon Darcy arrives and she more or less bonds with her new boss’s kid. When some guy in town starts hassling Darcy, Christina asks one of her snake friends to make him go away and the guy never comes back. Another guy makes fun of Jane on the street, calling her a crackpot. He rather suddenly trips over nothing and knocks a few of his teeth out.

Jane does notice a lot of this stuff, but not once does she think to connect it to her innocent daughter. Meanwhile, Christina is well aware that she’s the one doing this. Somehow or other, she does have powers no one else has, and she’s starting to realize just how strong those powers might be.

It all comes to a head with the arrival of Thor. Jane went out with Darcy and Erik to watch for an incoming storm. Christina had to stay home, as this could be dangerous. So, of course, she snuck along in the back hidden under a blanket. She’s right there when Thor falls from the sky. Terrified that they’re all about to die, Christina unleashes a HUGE wave of magic. Big enough to disrupt the bifrost and send Thor flying into a nearby rock formation. He hits his head hard, and as he is now human. this is not an insignificant injury.

In fact, when they get to the hospital, the poor stranger has already slipped into a coma. Jane is left to comfort her hysterical daughter who won’t stop blaming herself for what happened, She finally admits the truth about her powers to Jane and demonstrates by summoning a pen from the nurse’s station. Jane is shocked and has no idea what to do. Christina interprets this as her mother being scared of her and runs away. Jane chases after her. By the time she turns the corner, Christina is gone. Jane searches the entire hospital, but her little girl is nowhere to be found.

Now comes Loki. He’s been pretty out of it ever since losing Jane. Though it’s been close to a decade on Earth, that barely feels like a week to him. Now Thor has been banished, he has some truly uncomfortable questions to ask Odin about his origins, and to top it all off, one of his old enemies has just randomly appeared with a little girl in tow.

(NOTE: I honestly have no idea who the enemy would be. If I actually wrote this I’d just figure it out later)

His enemy mocks him for growing soft and not protecting his progeny like he should have. Loki has no idea what the hell this guy is talking about until he gets a better look at the girl. Her midnight black hair, terrified blue eyes, that face just like a younger Jane.

Jane...

He hadn’t looked in on her since he left. He just couldn’t bring himself to. Now he wishes to all his ancestors that he had. The enemy issues a challenge, daring him to come and save his newfound daughter. He disappears with Christina, and try as he might, Loki can’t trace where they’ve gone. He has a few ideas, but he’s going to need some help.

And he’s going to need to correct some old mistakes as well.

At the hospital, the police have arrived and are searching for the missing girl. Jane curls up in the waiting room, thinking of everything that led them to this point. If only she hadn’t accepted the grant money. If only she’d gone somewhere else to search for bridges. If only she’d paid enough attention to her own fucking child to know that she was literally psychic. Or magic. Or something!

While she cries, a shadow appears over her. When Jane looks up, a tall man with dark hair and eyes like Christina is watching her.

It all comes flooding back.

She remembers Loki. She remembers their kiss, that monster thing that kidnapped her. Loki saved her, and then he told her they’d never see each other again. Then she woke up at home as if from a dream and it was like he never existed at all.

But he had. She knew now that she had, and she had a daughter to prove it.

Which still begs the question of how. She knows now that they definitely didn’t have sex. Loki’s theory is that his magic somehow infused with latent abilities within Jane herself (she might actually have a small percentage of Asgardian in her) and created a child born of them both. It’s a tenuous idea at best, but it’s all he has right now, and who even cares how Christina was conceived. Point is, she exists and she’s been kidnapped and Thor is in a freaking coma now and can’t help them. Time to gear up and save their kid!

Not going to go into too much detail here as I’ve already written way too much. Basically, Loki teaches Jane to harness the magic within. She already knows a few knife tricks from self-defense classes, so Loki gives her a new knife that never dulls and is virtually indestructible. When she’s ready, they strike out to find their daughter in the enemy’s secret hideout. At some point, Thor wakes up and rushes to help his brother. His willingness to go to a far off planet and fight to the death for a child he’s never met makes him worth of Mjolnir again at just the right time. Loki and Jane rescue their little girl, who instinctively knows her father the moment she sees him. The enemy is defeated and now they’re free to start over and live as the family they were always meant to be.

#Lokane #Loki #Jane Foster #fic prompt #fic I won't write

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thismightbeaterribleidea · 5 years ago

Text

Accidental Snowbirding

So I went to Florida and accidentally became a snowbird. I drove south in September with no real timeframe for anything in mind, and I ended up staying on the Gulf coast north of Tampa (Pasco County) for almost three months, minus a couple of weeks I was in Georgia.

Some friends have asked me how the new, nomadic life is going, and I tell them that it hasn’t really felt that nomadic. I’ve enjoyed being close to my friend Ron — I had a regular rotation of several campgrounds, none of them more than half an hour from his place. It reminded me of the decade-plus ago when we both lived in Denver, in old, cheap apartments within walking distance of each other. A friend calls and says “do you want to come over?” and you just go over. It’s lovely. We both got into paddleboarding (more on that later) and explored some rivers. We even took an airbnb trip to the Smokies and northern Alabama before the pandemic escalated. So it’s been interesting and good, if different from the types of images that motivated me to buy this big-ass van (wilderness, solitude, aspen groves, desert mesas).

Here’s what I remember from the last few months:

A cotton-candy-pink bird forages on a shoreline and it is so quiet that you can hear its three-clawed feet pattering in the mud. Ninety minutes later we are scarfing down fried chicken in the car in a crowded parking lot.

In the trailer park, people drive golf carts around in loops: maybe this passes for exercise, or maybe they are hoping to run into someone to talk to.

Until November, I sweat and sweat and sweat, and then it cools off enough for me to run in the morning and it’s glorious.

During the day, there is constant traffic and the lights are always red. There are a lot of billboards, all promising different things, but the one that makes us angry is the one that says “Jesus promises stability.”

I spend the night at a trailer park and the ladies in the office are sweet and efficient and wearing masks. But the spot I’m assigned is across from a mobile home with one of those flags that is half the U.S. flag and half the Confederate flag, and although my privilege probably keeps me safe here, I keep running through the equations with slightly different variables: who would be safe in this spot, in this trailer park/this county/this state/this country, and under what circumstances? What could make all of us safer? And the people who chose to pay for and display that absurdity of a flag, why is that flag the story they tell themselves? And what is the topography of the shared responsibility for all of this bullshit?

We paddle the Hillsborough River and see no other boaters but two alligators. One is basking on a log, and when I turn my head for a second it drops into the water with a massive splash: one moment there was a six-foot alligator; the next moment there was nothing but ripples. It was that fast. My friend decides he will not paddle here alone.

I see live oaks that have Spanish moss hanging from their branches, sure — but they’re also covered in lichens, and on the horizontal branches there are carpets of multiple kinds of moss and clusters of foot-tall ferns. It’s a whole ecosystem in one tree.

I’m driving “home” (most frequent campground) late one night and I am alone on a very dark road. In my headlights, I see a human figure in the middle of my lane, facing directly at me. I think: goblin! But it is a human person. I swerve into the other lane in case he moves. But he doesn’t move a muscle. He is in a half-crouch with his hands on his knees. I catch a glimpse of him in profile as I pass: his face is set in a rictus, jaw clenched. He is still staring straight ahead, unblinking, as if he hasn’t even seen me.

I call Ron just to reassure myself that I haven’t slipped out of the real human world and into someplace else.

“Oh my God,” he says. “But no, you’re still in the real world. There’s a lot of meth around here. He’s not a demon or anything. It’s just Florida.” He is wearing a dark sweatshirt and standing in the dark on a dark road; what if he gets hit? I call the police and I hate that to this day I still wonder if that was the right decision.

We get into paddleboarding. Ron already has an inflatable paddleboard, and I buy one with money I should be saving for things like van insulation or the loose crown on my lower left molar that is already living on borrowed time. But the paddleboard is amazing. Previously, I hadn’t gotten it: why stand when you could sit? I’m lazy and I have crappy feet; I hate standing. But this isn’t regular standing. It’s walking-on-water standing. In our favorite river, the Weeki Wachee, you can see all kinds of things from a paddleboard that it’s harder to see in a kayak, just because of the angle. On a paddleboard, you look straight down and there’s a fish striped like a zebra, an old pine log submerged ten feet down in the clear water, a scurrying blue crab, a bed of rippled sand.

We start at the public park and paddle up against a stiff current. Twice, we get to the three-mile mark and there is the same black-and-white cormorant in the same tree both times. We are familiar with the fact that if you time it right, so that you get back to the park as late as possible without actually paddling in the dark, and the crowds taper off so you have the river to yourself, the deepest pools are turquoise on our way upriver and viridian on our way down.

There are sometimes manatees on the river. In this part of the world, manatees are THE charismatic megafauna. And they are charismatic as hell. Once we are out late, a couple miles up the river with no one else around, and we see a mother and baby grazing on eelgrass in shallow water. We watch for minutes, mesmerized. The baby is tiny for a manatee: about the size of a Corgi. It must be very, very new. There is another manatee that I’m pretty sure I see several times on different days: it is very plump, with three pink slash marks across its back. We get to the point where, if there is a throng of other boaters stopped near where manatees are feeding, we don’t try to stop and see the manatees. We’ve seen them before, and we’ll see them again, when we don’t have to worry about the people and their kayaks and canoes in the current.

The last time I went to the Weeki Wachee, I went alone. The leaves were turning, because the calendar’s close-to-Christmas is Florida’s fall. I hadn’t ever planned on seeing a blazing orange maple next to tropical blue water, but it happened. Close-knit formations of big, soft gray, doe-eyed fish darted under my feet, and at the appointed time the water started turning dark green. In one of the final bends just upriver from the park, there is a deep spot called Hospital Hole. As I paddled down towards it, I saw one manatee, then another break the surface to breathe. I drifted over the hole, away from the manatees near the surface, and I saw the outline of another one eight or ten feet down against the very dark blue of very deep water.

The Weeki Wachee is a very narrow river, usually not more than thirty feet across and often only twenty. It’s also shallow, four or five feet on average, twelve where the current has carved a deep groove or pocket. Hospital Hole is at one of the river’s widest points, I’d guess maybe 150 feet from bank to bank. The hole itself — technically a sinkhole, but with a couple of small springs feeding into it — is only about 30 or 40 feet wide, but 140 feet deep. It goes down so far that there are different layers of water: freshwater, saltwater, a layer that is anoxic, another layer that is so full of hydrogen sulfide that divers can smell the rotten-egg odor even though they’re breathing compressed air. I read online that the manatees often go to Hospital Hole to sleep at night. The sinkhole-spring, like a big deep pocket, gives them space to stay together and still spread out. They can sink down below where they have to worry about boat engines or curious paddle boarders or whatever else manatees worry about. Every so often, they come up to breathe, then sink down again. Respire, rest, repeat.

It’s 7:17 p.m. as I am writing this, so they’re probably there right now.

***

So that’s Florida! Other, more nuts-and-bolts things that have happened include...

I installed lights and outlets. This was a big project and a big deal, since it means that I can have things like a fan (to keep me from sweating to death in the summer), an electric cooler (a.k.a. mini-mini-fridge) for things like vegetables and hummus and cheese and cold boozy beverages, and, well, lights at night that aren’t a harsh blue-white solar lantern, which is what I was using before October, when I made these improvements. Anything electrical is always a little scary; I’m nervous every time I have to go into the breaker box and always surprised when I’m able to touch it without shocking myself. I also had an extremely minimal understanding of how to splice wires together and how to connect all these lights to each other, to the dimmer switch, and to the breaker box. This involved a lot of googling, and even though the DIY van blogs seemed to say that installing lights would take half a day, it took me the better part of two days. But it’s done, and I’m very happy with it. Fiat lux, motherf***er!

My new favorite public agency is the Southwest Florida Water Management District. Occasionally, if I’d had a few drinks at Ron’s house, I spent the night parked in his driveway. Sometimes I stayed in private RV parks. (This was mostly driven by the need to empty the van’s port-a-pot once a week or so — public dump stations are not easy to find in this area of Florida; the closest was about an hour away.) But mostly, I stayed at campground operated by the SWFWMD. These campgrounds are in big tracts of forested, marshy, watery land, and they are great primitive campgrounds that cost $0. There’s no water, no showers, no other fancy campground amenities, but there is usually one outhouse, and each campsite has a picnic table and a fire pit. They’re basic and beautiful.

My favorite campground is called the Serenova Tract. It’s about 15 minutes from Ron’s house, and the campground is in a bunch of pines and live oaks. Horses are allowed, and on one of the last weekends I spent there, several people with horses stayed overnight and hung up Christmas lights. The next morning, they were joined by a dozen other horses and riders who all went for a morning trail ride through the woods. I was insanely jealous.

The other SWFWMD campground I stayed at was called Cypress Creek. It’s a little farther from Ron’s place than Serenova, so it was my second choice when Serenova was full but my van’s shitter wasn’t. It’s a beautiful spot, with tons of big pines. But right now I’m a little wary of it because the last time I stayed there I woke up from a dead sleep at 4:51 a.m. when I heard someone singing and talking to themselves. (The campground had been totally empty when I got there and still was as far as I could see.) It was probably just someone who had come in on foot and was drinking because it was cold (40 degrees) outside, but it was still a bit unnerving.

I also have a favorite RV park. I was thinking that my relationship with these places would be strictly utilitarian, and it still mostly is. But out of the three RV parks that I’ve stayed at, there’s one small one called Suncoast that I actually kind of enjoyed: even though I only went there occasionally, the three staff people remembered me when I called or came in, and they often gave me a discount on their regular rates because I don’t use any electricity. They (both staff and most guests) also seem to be taking pretty good pandemic precautions. (I actually saw someone get kicked out of the office when they tried to come in without a mask, something that I’ve never seen in any other business since March!) The place has nice big pine trees, and by the office there’s a table where people put free food that they aren’t using, or occasionally two-day-old bread that someone got from Publix for free. The last time I was there, some people had decorated their campers and RVs with lights and it was kind of charming. I still heavily prefer to be out in the woods by myself and not spending any money, but I’m glad I found someplace pleasant for my once-a-week-or-so sewer/water needs.

I figured out how to stay warm while sleeping. This is a bigger deal than it sounds because a) I haven’t insulated the van yet, so at night, it’s only a few degrees warmer than whatever the temperature is outside, and b) I’m a very cold sleeper. Florida is SUPER WARM compared to any other place I’ve ever lived, but in December, it started getting a little chilly at night: down into the fifties, then the forties, then, a few nights ago, 30 degrees. I’ve camped in near-freezing or slightly-below-freezing temperatures before, but sometimes it wasn’t very comfortable — even with good long underwear and socks and a hat and a zero-degree-rated sleeping bag. But I’ve figured out a system for my bed that uses four blankets, layered like a licorice allsort: a quilt, a heavy wool blanket, another quilt, and a faux-wool blanket. If it gets below 40, I can add my zero-degree down sleeping bag and be not just comfortable but actively toasty, like a baking croissant.

Unrelatedly, I’ve been having a hard time getting out of bed in the morning.

I’ve found that my life in a van is basically like my life has been anywhere else. I work. I sleep. I stay up late reading things on the internet when I should be sleeping. Sometimes I go running or do yoga (while trying not to bump into the cabinet or kick the front console or hit the ceiling). Sometimes I do fun things, like paddleboarding or talking to friends. I make goals and plans and don’t follow through on them, except when very very occasionally I do. But when I’m looking up van stuff online, I often run across photos of people who are #selfemployed #vanlife and the photos of them working are:

A woman is seated propped up on pillows in the bed in the back of her van. The doors are open, framing a view of the cerulean sea, so that you can practically smell the gentle breeze blowing over the dunes. She has a laptop on her lap and is looking thoughtfully out to sea while a cup of tea steeps on a tray that is on the white coverlet of her bed.

A man is seated at the dinette in the back of his van. He has a laptop, a French press, a mug of coffee, and a plate with two scones on it on the table. The table, and in fact the whole dinette with its two upholstered benches, would be at home on a small luxury yacht, and it’s the kind of dinette that you make into a bed at night. The astute, intent expression on the man’s face give the viewer to understand that he is competent and disciplined and never stays up two hours past his bedtime because he’s too lazy to lower the dinette table and rearrange the cushions and put on all his sheets and blankets. We are also given to understand that the electrical system in his van would have no problems handling the power drain of a bean grinder, even though he is clearly parked in the high Rockies — again, with the back doors open, the better to take in the late spring air and see the fresh green of the aspen trees — and it’s often cloudy. Lastly, we are given to understand that he baked those scones himself, because when he’s not working, hiking, lumberjacking, or otherwise living his best life, he enjoys unwinding by baking bread and pastries. (Not in the van; don’t be silly! He bakes outside, over a wood fire.)

(A tangent: Why do so many people have their van doors open in photos I see online? Do they only stay in places with no bugs? If I tried that in Florida, or even Maryland or Colorado half the year, I’d be awake half the night swatting at mosquitoes and/or flies.)

In contrast, a photo of me being self-employed in a van would look like:

A woman is sprawled in an ungainly fashion on her narrow bunk. Her laptop is braced by her lower ribs and propped up with a pillow placed over her gut. The pillow has a cat on it. The windows of the van are covered in silver bubble-wrap, so very little light gets in. Absolutely no doors are open, because the van is parked behind a Dunkin Donuts so the woman can get free wifi and not burn through all the data on her phone plan. She takes a break to heat up a can of Campbell’s soup on an alcohol stove, adding a handful of dehydrated mixed vegetables, to be healthy. As she stirs the soup, she gazes contemplatively out the windshield towards the adjacent parking lot, where there is an IHOP. #vanlife

A woman is sitting in the passenger seat of her van with her feet on the dashboard and her laptop on her lap. Beside her in the cupholder is a steaming Hydroflask full of the cheapest tea she could buy at Publix. The van is parked in a grove of live oaks. Spanish moss sways gently in the morning breeze. Behind the woman, in the dark recesses of the van, sets of clothes are hanging: leggings and a shirt, still sweaty, by the side doors, a bathing suit over the sink, a t-shirt and shorts for sleeping in by the rear cabinet. Several kitchen towels are draped on the driver’s seat and on the dashboard because the cab leaks above the sun visors when it rains, and even though she’s tried caulking it three times, she still can’t get it to stop. #vanlife

The good thing, though, is that I’m still getting work and making a living. I can do it someplace that’s safe, without having to risk my life to do it. And I’m getting paid a fair hourly wage. But then the very terrible thing is that everyone should be able to say what I just said, but so many people can’t: they’re not making a real living through their work, they have to risk their lives to do it, and they’re not getting paid a fair wage.

(Brief interlude as I stare at the ceiling angrily.)

***

Here’s what I’m doing next: I left Pasco County on the 16th. I’ll be in what I think of as “traveling quarantine” until the 30th, staying in a national forest near Jacksonville. (With a couple of stops at state parks to refill water, empty the port-a-pot, and maybe take a real shower.) I’ll be in Maryland on New Year’s Eve and will stay at my parents’ while I insulate the van, build interior walls, and do a bunch of other stuff so that I can call it (mostly) finished. Then I’m thinking of going to New Mexico and spending late winter/early spring there… parked on top of a mesa… sipping a cup of French-press coffee on my white coverlet while I thoughtfully gaze out the open doors of my van… (I really would like to park on top of a mesa though.)

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