#the city of lost children 1995

[creaturefeaturecommando]

Sonic The City of Lost Children AU where Dr Ivo Robotnik kidnaps children in order to steal their dreams because he can’t dream for himself and it makes him old and bitter but it backfires because instead of good dreams all of children all have nightmares of him

Sonic, who works for the circus to take care of his adopted little brother Tails and when Tails is kidnapped by Ivo’s cyborg goons and teams up with Cream to get him back.

I picture Jim Carrey Robotnik in thie role of Krank so that Stone could play the role of Martha, the person who dotes on him and indulges in his schemes of kidnapping children to steal their dreams to make him happy.

[quietattic]

I think The Sounds of Nightmares is a bit similar to The City of Lost Children(1995)...or they decided to take it as concept/an outline of TSON story. But in more tragic way.

No wonder, in fact. Little Nightmares itself was inspired by that film.

Actually Otto's dream machine reminded of that film but I wasn't sure... I didn't watch the film yet. But watching it now, I think it's worth digging down(and maybe post what I found later? idk lol) and the movie is quite fun and inspiring. There's a candy apple(or just an apple) even, also mentioned in the pod.

And, the girl named Miette(one of the main characters in the movie)... Her hair is a bit similar with Noone's. Not the exact same but take a look.

[elskanellis]

thanks @thehoneybeet for tagging me for COMFORT FILM. sadly this made me realize how rarely i re-watch my comfort films these days!

Annie (1982) THE movie i have seen probably more than any other in my life. I saw it in the theater when I was [age redacted], promptly decided I would move to NYC one day (AND I DID), told everyone I was an orphan, had extremely gay feelings about Pepper, was afraid to accidentally swallow bathtub water for my entire childhood due to fear of imbibing gin.

2. Fantastic Mr Fox (2009) my kids are both in slantwise ways named after this fim.

3. Princess Bride (1987) you already know it of course

4. True Stories (1986)

5. Some Like It Hot (1959)

6. Amélie (2001)

7. City of Lost Children (1995)

8. Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)

I have lost track of who has and who hasn't done this yet so tagging @goblinmatriarch @epitomereally @ladderofyears @otpcutie if you want to!

[soupdweller]

you guys know the film City of Lost Children (1995)? no? WELL I HAVE MADE AN AU OF IT-

+ some close-ups:

further AU lore and sketches under the cut!!

THE LORE: - much like the film - it takes places in a rusted steam punk portside town. - most people get by but a crazed scientist is said to be running things behind the scenes. - a series of unsolved child disappearance have started to plague the town.

SUN: - day-time performer/entertainer at the local carnival! - shares a body with Moon; and the two...used to be close... - can only see out of his right eye- but would die before letting anyone know his blind spot. - deceptively stronger than he looks. - courteous guy who definitely is not hiding any ulterior motives!

MOON: - night-time performer at the local carnival. - can only see out of his left eye. - ???? - ???? - ????

YN: - local handyman - puts on a cold front but has grown a soft spot for one of the neighbourhood street urchins. i'm sure nothing bad will happen to them. - untrusting and loathes owing people favours.

i've been working on this since November so have a stupid amount of concept sketches:

i changed a lot of stuff in the final designs, but i still like the older ideas :')

[mariacallous]

When you think of Eastern European Jewish cuisine, which words come to mind? Light? Healthy? Plant based? Probably not. Heavy, homey and meat-centric are more like it. 

Fania Lewando died during the Holocaust, but had she been given the full length of her years, Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine may have taken a turn to the vegetarian side and we might all be eating vegetarian kishke and spinach cutlets in place of brisket.

Lewando is not a household name. In fact, she would have been lost to history had it not been for an unlikely turn of events. Thanks to a serendipitous find, her 1937 work, “The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook” (“Vegetarish-Dietisher Kokhbukh”in Yiddish), was saved from oblivion and introduced to the 21st century.

Vilna in the 1930s, where Lewando and her husband Lazar made their home, was a cosmopolitan city with a large Jewish population. Today, it is the capital of Lithuania but it was then part of Poland. Lewando opened a vegetarian eatery called The Vegetarian Dietetic Restaurant on the edge of the city’s Jewish quarter. It was a popular spot among both Jews and non-Jews, as well as luminaries of the Yiddish-speaking world. (Even renowned artist Marc Chagall signed the restaurant’s guest book.)

Lewando was a staunch believer in the health benefits of vegetarianism and devoted her professional life to promoting these beliefs. She wrote: “It has long been established by the highest medical authorities that food made from fruit and vegetables is far healthier and more suitable for the human organism than food made from meat.” Plus, she wrote, vegetarianism satisfies the Jewish precept of not killing living creatures. 

We know little about her life other than she was born Fania Fiszlewicz in the late 1880s to a Jewish family in northern Poland. She married Lazar Lewando, an egg merchant from what is today Belarus and they eventually made their way to Vilna. They did not have children. 

Lewando, to quote Jeffrey Yoskowitz, author of “The Gefilte Manifesto” was “a woman who challenged convention;” a successful entrepreneur, which was a rarity among women of the time. She supervised a kosher vegetarian kitchen on an ocean liner that traveled between Poland and the United States, and gave classes on nutrition to Jewish women in her culinary school. 

“The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook” was sold in Europe and the U.S. in Lewando’s day, but most of the copies were lost or destroyed during the Second World War. In 1995, a couple found a copy of the cookbook at a second-hand book fair in England. They understood the importance of a pre-war, Yiddish-language, vegetarian cookbook written by a woman, so purchased it and sent it to the YIVO Institute’s offices in New York. There, it joined the millions of books, periodicals and photos in YIVO’s archives. 

It was discovered again by two women who visited YIVO and were captivated by the book’s contents and colorful artwork. They had it translated from Yiddish to English so it could be enjoyed by a wider audience.

Like many Ashkenazi cooks, salt was Lewando’s spice, butter her flavor and dill her herb. The book is filled with dishes you’d expect: kugels and blintzes and latkes; borscht and many ways to use cabbage. There’s imitation gefilte fish and kishke made from vegetables, breadcrumbs, eggs and butter. Her cholent (a slow-cooked Sabbath stew) recipes are meat-free, including one made with prune, apple, potatoes and butter that is a cross between a stew and a tzimmes.

There are also some surprises.

Did you know it was possible to access tomatoes, eggplants, asparagus, lemons, cranberries, olive oil, Jerusalem artichokes, blueberries and candied orange peel in pre-war Vilna? There’s a French influence, too, such as recipes for mayonnaise Provencal and iles flottante, a meringue-based dessert, and a salad of marinated cornichons with marinated mushrooms. 

“It’s hard to know who the target audience was for this cookbook,” said Eve Jochnowitz, its English-language translator. “We know from contemporary memoirs that people in Vilna did not have access to these amazing amounts of butter, cream and eggs,” she said. “Lewando was writing from a somewhat privileged and bourgeois position.” While many of these recipes may have been aspirational given the poverty of the Jews at the time, the cookbook demonstrates that it was possible to obtain these ingredients in Vilna, should one have the resources to do so. 

While the cookbook is filled with expensive ingredients, there is also, said Jochnowitz, “a great attention to husbanding one’s resources. She was ahead of her time in the zero-waste movement.” Lewando admonishes her readers to waste nothing. Use the cooking water in which you cooked your vegetables for soup stock. Use the vegetables from the soup stock in other dishes. “Throw nothing out,” she writes in the cookbook’s opening essay. “Everything can be made into food.” Including the liquid from fresh vegetables; Lewando instructed her readers on the art of vitamin drinks and juices, with recipes for Vitamin-Rich Beet Juice and Vitamin-Rich Carrot Juice. “This was very heroic of her,” said Jochnowitz. “There were no juice machines! You make the juice by grating the vegetables and then squeezing the juice out by hand.”

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, a Jewish scholar and Jewish cookbook collector, describes Lewando as “witty.” “She is showing us,” she said, “that once you eliminate meat and fish, you still have an enormous range of foods you can prepare.” Lewando is about “being creative, imaginative and innovative both with traditional dishes and with what she is introducing that is remote from the traditional repertoire.” She does that in unexpected ways. Her milchig (dairy) matzah balls, for example, have an elegance and lightness to them. She instructs the reader to make a meringue with egg whites, fold in the yolks, then combine with matzah meal, melted butter and hot water. Her sauerkraut salad includes porcini mushrooms. One of her kugels combines cauliflower, apples, sliced almonds and candied orange peel.

There is much that, through contemporary eyes, is missing in “The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook.” The recipes do not give step-by-step instructions; rather you will find general directions. Heating instructions are vague, ranging from a “not-too-hot-oven” to a “warm oven” to a “hot oven.” Lewando assumes the reader’s familiarity with the kitchen that today’s cookbook writer would not. 

Lewando and her husband were listed in the 1941 census of the Vilna Ghetto but not in the census of 1942. It is believed that they both died or were killed while attempting to escape. “She really was a visionary,” said Jochnowitz. “It is an unbearable tragedy that she did not live to see the future that she predicted and helped to bring about.”But in cooking her recipes, said Yoskowitz, as dated and incomplete as some of them may be, the conversation between then and now continues.

[goryhorroor]

What are some underrated horror films? I have watched all the popular ones and need more! Thanks!

mentally prepare yourself because im ready to give a gumbo list (this has been sitting in my inbox because i had to ask all my friends and this is the list we came up with):

curse of the demon (1957) the serpent and the rainbow (1988) paranoiac (1963) the old dark house (1932) countess dracula (1971) golem (1920) haxan (1968) island of lost souls (1932) mad love (1935) mill of the stone women (1960) the walking dead (1936) the ghoul (1933) tourist trap (1979) the seventh victim (1943) ganja & hess (1973) dead of night (1945) a bay of blood (1971) let's scare jessica to death (1971) alice sweet alice (1976) the deadly spawn (1983) the brain that wouldn't die (1962) all about evil (2010) black roses (1988) the baby (1973) parents (1989) a blade in the dark (1983) blood lake (1987) solo survivor (1984) lemora: a child's tale of supernatural (1973) eyes of fire (1983) epitaph (2007) nightmare city (1980) slugs (1988) death smiles on a murderer (1973) intruder (1989) short night of glass dolls (1971) the children (2008) alone in the dark (1982) end of the line (2007) the queen of spades (1949) the housemaid (1960) tormented (1960) captain clegg (1962) the long hair of death (1964) dark age (1987) the crawling eye (1958) the kindred (1987) the gorgon (1964) wicked city (1987) baba yaga (1973) 976-evil (1988) bliss (2019) decoder (1984) amer (2009) the visitor (1979) day of the animals (1977) leptirica (1973) planet of the vampires (1965) lips of blood (1975) berberian sound studio (2012) a wounded fawn (2022) matango (1963) the mansion of madness (1973) the killing kind (1973) symptoms (1974) morgiana (1972) whispering corridors (1998) dead end (2003) infested (2023) (this just came out but im adding it) triangle (2009) the premonition (1976) you'll like my mother (1972) the mafu cage (1978) white of the eye (1987) mister designer (1987) alison's birthday (1981) the suckling (1990) graveyard shift (1987) messiah of evil (1987) out of the dark (1988) seven footprints to satan (1929) burn witch burn (1962) the damned (1962) pin (1988) horrors of malformed men (1969) mr vampire (1985) the vampire doll (1970) contracted (2013) impetigore (2019) eyeball (1975) malatestas carnival of blood (1973) the witch who came from the sea (1976) i drink your blood (1970) nothing underneath (1985) sauna (2008) seance (2000) come true (2020) the last winter (2006) night tide (1961) the brain (1988) dementia (1955) don't go to sleep (1982) otogirisou (2001) reincarnation (2005) mutant (1984) spookies (1986) shock waves (1977) bloody hell (2020) the den (2013) wer (2013) olivia (1983) enigma (1987) graverobbers (1988) manhattan baby (1982) evil in the woods (1986) death bed: the bed that eats (1977) cathy's curse (1977) creatures from the abyss (1994) the dorm that dripped blood (1982) the witching (1993) madman (1981) vampire's embrace (1991) blood beat (1983) the alien factor (1978) savage weekend (1979) blood sisters (1987) deadly love (1987) playroom (1990) die screaming marianne (1971) pledge night (1990) night train to terror (1985) the devonsville terror (1983) ghostkeeper (1981) special effects (1984) blood feast (163) the child (1977) godmonster of indian flats (1973) blood rage (1980) the unborn (1991) screamtime (1983) the outing (1987) the being (1983) silent madness (1984) lurkers (1988) forver evil (1987) squirm (1976) death screams (1982) jack-o (1995) haunts (1976) a night to dismember (1983) creaturealm: demons wake (1998) the curse (1987) daddy's deadly darling (1973) nightwing (1979) the laughing dead (1989) the severed arm (1973) the orphan (1979) not like us (1995) prime evil (1988) the monstrosity (1987) dark ride (2006) antibirth (2016) iced (1988) the soultangler (1987) twisted nightmare (1987) puffball (2007) biohazard (1985) cameron's closet (1988) beast from haunted cave (1959) the she-creature (1956)

[folk-enjoyer]

Song of The Day/history of cotton eyed joe

do you want the history of a folk song? dm me or submit an ask and I'll do a full rundown

"Cotton Eyed Joe" Terry Callier, 1963

As a disclaimer, "Cotton Eyed Joe" is my least favorite American folk song and I'm going to talk about why, and I'm going to talk about why Terry Callier's version is subversive and good.

The Earliest date we have for the song's origins is from 1882 when it was Published in "Diddie, Dumps, and Tot, or, Plantation child-life" by Louise Clark-Pyrnelle. This book is a nostalgic recollection of her childhood as a plantation owner's daughter. She reminisces fondly about slavery, missing the old plantation days. Honestly, some of the quotes within this book are beyond parody, in one sentence she says "... My little book does not pretend to be any defense of slavery" and in the next sentence when referring to the morality of slavery she writes, "there are many pros and cons to that subject", later at the end of the chapter she laments about the forever lost emotional connection between the Masters children and the enslaved people. hate this woman and her little book.

It is also important to note that this book goes out of its way to caricature black people, throughout the book she exaggerates accents and dialects to dehumanize them. This is a recurring theme in early publications of this song. Another early publication of the song comes from Dorothy Scarborough in "On the Trail of negro folk-songs" 1925 who got it from her sister who also learned it on a plantation, in Texas. She writes "This is an authentic slavery-time song" This book, if you can believe it, is remarkably racist and dismissive of black music, even as a more "progressive" songbook of black folk songs.

In 1922, the song's history was documented a bit more extensively by Thomas W. Talley in his book "Negro folk rhymes". He writes that it has "deep roots in black traditional lore". Thomas W. Talley was also just a cool guy in general, this book is one of the first compilations of African American folk songs, and it has been a pioneering book in its field. Even today, this book is still one of the best sources for the history of African American folk songs.

So, this is a black song. This was a black song whose first wave of popularization was through the caricature of black people to be amusing for white folks. Let's move on to its second wave of popularization.

The song was first recorded in 1927 by "Dykes Magic City Trio" (all white band) then about a week later by Fiddlin' John Carson (white performer) then in 1928 by Pope's Arkansas Mountanaineers (all white band) then in 1929 by Carter Brothers and Son (all white band) and then it wasn't really recorded for a while because of the great depression and the war but the times it was recorded, it was by white people. We know this because it was mostly recorded by John Lomax and despite documenting southern folk songs, he almost went out of his way to avoid recording black people singing them. Then, in 1941, it was recorded by Burl Ives (painfully white).also covered by a few white country singers like Adolph hofner bob willis but I think you get the point. It wasn't until later that year that it would be recorded by a black person, performed by josh white in 1944-45, who covered it as a lullaby.

However, it wouldn't be until the 90s, during its 3rd wave of popularization that it became its most grotesque. "cotton eye joe" was recorded and released by Swedish Eurodance band Rednex in 1995 as a, to paraphrase reviews, 'Way to make fun of backwater southerners'. This song became incredibly popular throughout Europe and in the USA as well, charting as a number-one song in several countries, sometimes for weeks. Not only is this song incredibly classist, it is, whether by omission or deliberately, fundamentally racist, adding to the whitewashing of black folk and minstrelsy of black people. The attitude and humor derived from the Swedish version are the same as the version in 1882 when it was a "classic slave song".

So, why is Terry Callier's version important, why talk about it? Terry Callier's version is the first version of the song that I have heard and it is not a comedy. It isn't meant to be funny. It slows the melody down and draws attention to itself. It's almost a ballad, showcasing Joe as a tragic but mysterious hero, maybe a love song. His voice is angelic as well. Terry Callier once again, subverts expectations and creates something beautiful out of a song that has been so whitewashed and appropriated that no one remembers its tragic origins.

Thomas W. Talley

some other versions by black folks Josh white 1944-46 Nina simone 1959 The Ebony Hillbillies 2004 Leon bibb 1962 Ella Jenkins 1960 Josh White Jr 1964 Queen Ida 1985

[horrorfcb]

About FNaF 6(1995):

Charlotte is the protagonist of the "Saved" gameplay and Michael is the protagonist of the "Underground" gameplay

Henry had been imprisoned for three years until new disappearances occurred in 1990.

After being released, he believed that his business partner was responsible, he suspected it from the beginning... But he didn't want to believe it.

Henry became obsessed, he read and reread the diaries that William wrote about him... Diaries that reflected his envy and idolatry... It was scary for Henry the time he spent writing about him.

Henry spent years missing trying to find clues, evidence and trying to follow and predict the next steps of his old friend.

Charlotte had lived with her mother since 1985, and returned to the city in 1993 for the ceremony in honor of the children lost in the decade.

Since then, she hasn't returned because she believed she would help Mike and his father, she believed and needed Sammy... even though Henry didn't want her to participate...

[storiesbyrhi]

Part Six: That sometimes, if love proves real

Eddie Munson x Reader Series Masterlist 2584 Words

If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them. Buildings burn, people die, but real love is forever.

Warnings: canon typical violence, references to sexual assault, swearing, drug and alcohol use, sexual references, child neglect, death/grief, references to organised crime

Late, 29 October, 1995

You recognised the caller as Hopper because he used your real name. He sounded afraid and out of breath. You both knew he should not have your number, both knew it could put you in danger, but you felt some sense of homesickness and relief hearing his voice.

“Listen, I can’t be on the line long,”

“Hop, what’s-”

“No, no, just listen. They’re gone. They’re dead. T-Bird and his kid. Tin Tin too.”

It took a moment for you to catch up. You’d only ever used their real names. They didn’t get to hide behind gang bullshit. Neil Hargrove. Billy. Andy.

You didn’t understand why he was calling with such urgency. People like them were bound to meet untimely ends. They’d probably accidentally blown themselves up.

“I can’t explain it… I don’t know… I don’t know what he is…”

“Hopper, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“It’s Eddie… He’s back. He’s killing them all… I, I didn’t know if you should know. I… Jesus, kid. He’s… He’s different…”

You had stopped listening after Eddie’s name.

Time stood still.

It wouldn’t move forward again.

You hung up the phone, found your keys, and got in your car. If the road were okay and you only stopped for petrol, you could be back in the city that killed you in just over thirty hours.

Morning, 30 October, 1995

While Grange visited Eddie’s grave, finding the ground open and the casket empty, Susan Mayfield was in the kitchen of her apartment.

The television was on. “This is the 7:00 am edition of Action News. For over a decade, the night before Halloween has had a darker and deadlier nickname in the inner city, ‘Devil’s Night.’ The name given to what has become an annual plague of arson. Last year, 200 individual blazes were reported, and eleven people lost their lives-”

Max was woken by the smell of eggs. She sat up, still on the couch. She’d fallen asleep there, hugging a Corroded Coffin vinyl to her body.

“Hi,” Susan greeted nervously. “Do you like them up or over? I can’t remember,”

“What are you doing? I don’t like eggs,”

“What? Wait, no, you loved egg,”

“Yeah, when I was five,” Max said, crossing their small apartment to the kitchen.

“So, what do you want now? Black coffee and cigarettes?”

Max looked at Susan. “What… What happened? Since when were you mother of the year?”

A dark look crossed Susan’s face. She shook her head a little. “Someone kind of… woke me up, I guess,”

“You’re acting weird. Did you win the lottery or something, Susan?”

“Forget it! I was never too good at this mom shit anyway,” and she moved to tip the frying pan of eggs in the bin.

“No!” Max jumped to stop her. “Over easy… I like them over easy…” They looked at each other. “Did you… Did you see him too?” Max asked.

Eddie had followed Susan that morning. He’d scared her, of course, how could he – like that – not? But he told her she had a shot. No Hargrove thumbs to be kept under. “Mother is the name of God on the lips and hearts of all children,” he’d told her. Susan didn't know the quote, but she understood the meaning of a second chance.

“I didn’t know… I swear I didn’t know it was them,” Susan began to cry. She hadn’t known it was Neil, Billy, and their gang who’d murdered you and Eddie. If any part of her had connected the dots, it had been suffocated under the weight of fear.

Susan hadn’t exactly liked Eddie, never bothered to get to know him beyond the metalhead exterior, but she’d appreciated the way you and he had taken Max in. She’d always wished she could have been more like the two of you.

With pulp free orange juice and over easy eggs, Max learnt about Andy, Billy, and Neil. Her mother shook like a leaf in a hurricane as she told her that something, someone had come for them. That he’d come for her too, but armed not with weapons but words.

“I’m glad they’re dead,” Max said. Susan did not doubt it.

“You know what Devil’s Night morning is for?” Hopper asked Annie. She rolled her eyes at him, refusing to say it. “That’s right! Coffee and contemplation,”

“HOPPER!”

Hopper groaned, looking over to where the D.A. stood at the boundary of the bullpen.

In an interview room, photographs of Neil fused to his car were spread across the table. Hopper looked at them and shrugged.

“This is the third in less than twenty-four hours. We’re gonna have to identify him through his teeth,”

“That’s T-Bird,” Hopper said. “Well, it’s T-Bird’s car. Wouldn’t let anyone else drive it. His specialty was arson… Looks like he zigged when he should have zagged. Case closed.” He pushed the photographs away.

The D.A. looked incredulous. “Bull-fucking-shit. You’re holding out on me. I got a goddamn vigilante killer knocking off scumbags left and right, and you are covering up for somebody… Who’s the cartoon character with the painted face?”

“I don’t know,”

“You don’t know? Gideon’s blows to hell, and you’re having a chitchat with some weirdo who winds up in T-Bird’s car when it zigs instead of zags? Then I hear you’re looking through old case files? Making calls to unlisted numbers? It’s dead now, you know. Whoever you called last night – the line is gone. And you’re saying this was just an automobile accident?! Come on!”

Hopper nodded. “That was… That was a good speech. Sorry, I didn’t want to interrupt it. Did you write it down before or-”

“Alright smartass, well, here’s something written down for you. Welcome to the first day of the rest of your suspension,”

“Suspension? For what?” Hopper looked at the piece of paper handed to him, signed by the chief of police.

“Misconduct.” It was a stupid catch-all reason.

Hopper left his mug of coffee on his desk. Let that spoil and smell while everyone is busy with Devil’s Night.

Eddie was in the apartment going through anything that was left, when he heard the creak of the stairs. He hid.

“Eddie?” Max called, letting herself in. “I thought you were dead.” She saw smouldering remnants in the fireplace. She knew what the loft should look like. She’d been going there for a year. “I knew it was you. Even with the makeup.”

Eddie listened.

“I remembered your song… You said, ‘Can’t rain all the time.’ That is from your song, right?” She walked through the apartment. “Come on, Eddie. I know you’re here.”

The crow, Max looked up at it. The Night Watchman.

“I miss you guys. I get… lonely by myself.”

Nothing. Silence.

“Fine. Whatever. I thought you cared,” Max said, holding back tears. She grabbed her board.

“Max…”

Brenner and Grange watched Chance as he tried to tell a cohesive narrative. When Brenner slid a photo across the table, one of Corroded Coffin, Chance almost choked on his own insanity.

“YEAH! That’s him! That’s him! But he was painted up like some kind of fucking clown! T-Bird sent me in for some road beers. Then he took him away. And I tried to chase them down, but I don’t have a car, and he fucking flash fried T-Bird to his car. T-BIRD, here’s to you, buddy!”

“Maybe we ought to just videotape this, play it back in slow motion,” Brenner said to Grange.

Chance took a swig of whatever foul concoction he was drinking. “Fire it up! Fire it up!”

“You see the grave?” Brenner asked Grange.

“Empty,”

“Fire it- Grave? What about my fucking grave?!” Chance asked, getting too close to Brenner, and earning a hard shove from Grange.

“Three out of four. He’s working his way back to this speed freak right here,” Grange guessed.

“It’s not fair. It’s Funboy’s fault. He was out of control. Then T-Bird came in. He says to waste them both. Now this ghost is gonna kill my ass next!”

Brenner stood, bored of Chance’s breakdown. He lashed out, pistol whipping him hard. “There are no ghosts in my city.”

Hopper stopped at the hotdog stand. Max was already sitting there, not touching her food. Steve and Robin gave him a worrying look. They started to make his order.

“When someone’s dead, they can’t come back can they?”

“Are you referring to anyone in particular?”

“You’ll just think I’m nuts.”

Steve looked at Robin, mumbling, “I think she’s nuts.” Robin whipped him with drying towel.

Hopper said, “Yeah, well, then maybe they’ll have us both locked up,”

“You’ve seen him too?”

“I saw somebody… Maybe it was your fairy godmother,”

“Eddie didn’t come back for me… He can’t be my friend anymore because I’m… I’m alive…”

“Okay, but what does that mean, Max?” Steve asked.

Hopper looked from him to Max, gave her a look to which she returned a shrug.

“She tells us everything,” Robin said happily.

“Not everything,” Max mumbled.

“Most things. Told us about not-dead-Ed,”

“Can it, Harrington,” Max replied, throwing a piece of onion at him.

“Well, great. We can fill out the whole ward,” Hopper groaned, still finding it within himself to judge Robin’s mustard allocation. “Just let me-”

“Seriously though. Let’s say you both aren’t losing it. Say it really is this guy. Are you sure he actually died?” Steve questioned.

“Yeah. You don’t survive sev-” Hopper cut himself off. Max had looked over at him. She didn’t need to know the precise details. “I was there. And I was at the funeral,”

“They were closed caskets,” Max recalled.

Hopper nodded. “Yeah… But, Eddie… He died,”

“And now the same person is back? Not just someone that looks like him?” from Robin.

“Nah. Definitely him,” Max confirmed. It was the way he spoke to her, the words he chose. There was no mistaking anyone else for Eddie Munson.

“It’s like what you were telling us about the other day. The one about unfair deaths,”

“The raven,” Steve nodded solemnly.

“The crow,” Max corrected. The Night Watchman, she thought. Had she willed the lore into existence? Had her graveside story been a spell cast true?

“A crow?” Hopper asked.

Max told him the story of restless souls and wrongs made right. When she finished, all four friends grew silent. It was uncanny, how the myth fit the man.

“What happens when he’s done? Getting revenge, I mean?”

“He’s not getting revenge,” Max was quick to answer Steve. “He’s… he’s balancing the scales,”

“Think that depends on whose scales of justice you’re using there, kid,” Hopper grunted.

“As long as he sticks to those scumbags, the dude’s alright in my eyes,”

“Well as long as he’s alright in your eyes, Steve,” Robin scoffed.

“Steve’s right though,”

“I am?”

“No, I mean, not right, but about asking what happens next,” Max clarified. “How many are left? Just one, right?” she asked Hopper.

“Look, I don’t even know how you know-”

“Everyone heard when the Hargroves got got,” Steve whispered, as if saying their name could summon them from the dead too.

“Good riddance,” Max declared.

“Jesus… You didn’t hear it from me but… Yeah, just the one…” It would have been the right time to tell Max about you. He knew, in part, what happened after Eddie found Chance. He would look for you. He hadn’t really considered the mechanics of it all. What allowed Eddie to come back? What would it allow once the wrongs were righted? Would he die a second time, before he found you? If Neil and co. were acting on Brenner’s instruction, then would justice not include him?

“What is it?” Max asked him.

“Huh?” Hopper replied, shoving as much hotdog in his mouth as he could, stalling any further conversation.

Max used to figure all the things that went unsaid with Hopper were irrelevant to her. She was growing unsure of that. “When did you see him?”

“Crime scene,” Hopper got out, crumbs falling from his mouth.

“Did you talk to him?”

“Just the usual, you know… Freeze. Don’t move. Why do you look like a clown?” Hopper joked half-heartedly.

It was the joking that tipped Max off. She raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, look. He just… kick started the memory. Implied there would be more… Vengeance… or whatever, and then disappeared.”

Max seemed to accept his statement; she turned her attention back to her food. Steve changed the subject to Ace Ventura and the night rolled on.

Evening, 30 October, 1995

While the crow scoured the city looking for Chance, Eddie played the guitar. It’s what he had always done when he didn’t know what else to do.

Above the club where Corroded Coffin had once played, above the mezzanine, in that cold room, Chance was shoved into a seat. Brenner started, “Gentlemen… It seems our friend T-Bird won’t be making it tonight, on account of a slight case of death…”

Eddie followed the crow, perched just outside the window of the meeting. The room was bustling with men. Guns, money, and plans were on the table. The shittiest D&D campaign table Eddie had ever witnessed.

“Well, Devil’s Night is upon us again. I thought we’d throw a party, start a bunch of fires, make a little profit. Problem is, its all been done before. You see what I’m saying?”

“That’s no reason to quit,” one of the men said.

“Wrong. Best reason to quit. Only reason to quit.” Brenner stood, and began a loop around the table. The gang leaders and thugs watched him walk. “A man has an idea… The idea attracts other like-minded individuals. The idea expands. The idea becomes an institution… What was the idea? See, that’s what’s been bothering me, boys. And I’ll tell you. When I used to think about the idea itself, it put a big old smile on my face. But… You see, gentlemen, greed is for amateurs.” Brenner returned to the head of the table. He looked at the men. “Disorder. Chaos. Anarchy. Now, that’s fun,”

“What about Devil’s Night?”

“What about it? I started the first fires in this goddamn city. Before I knew it, every charlatan was imitating me. Do you know what they have now? Devil’s Night greeting cards! Isn’t that precious,” Brenner said facetiously. “The idea has become the institution. Time to move on,”

“You don’t want us to do light-my-fire time for the whole city?”

“No… No, I want you to set a fire so goddamn big that the Gods will notice us again.”

The room cheered; Brenner was as close to a god as those men would ever get.

He continued, “I want all of you boys to be able to look me straight in the eye one more time and say, ‘Are we having fun or what?!’”

The men continued to cheer.

“And you? What’s your name again? Skank? Don’t you feel that?” Brenner asked.

“I f-f-feel like a little worm on a giant fucking hook,” Chance stuttered out. The men laughed at him.

“A little worm on a hook? Well, boy, your mama must be damn proud of you!”

The laughter and celebratory whoops died immediately upon the cawing of the crow, who landed on the table without a quiver of a feather.

Chance almost vomited. Most of the men looked confused. Grange stepped in front of Brenner while he himself took in the sight of this delivery of undead with both trepidation and glee.

End Note: Six down, two to go. I love ya'll. xo Rhi

Fic Taglist (open): @mrsjellymunson @princesssunderworld @qweencrimson @b-irock @writinginthetwilight @bornslippys @ali-r3n @lexr86 @eddiesgirl1944

All Eddie Taglist (open):solomons-finest-rum @ruinedbythehobbit @sweetpeapod @thorfemmes  @corrodedhawkins @grungegrrrl @lilzabob  @averagemisfit03 @ches-86 @ilovecupcakesandtea @onehotgreasymechanic @hazydespair @mel-the-fangirl @eddies-hid3out @siren-lungs @aheadfullofsteverogers @hiscrimsonangel @dashingdeb16 @cultish-corner @mrsjellymunson @munson-blurbs

[babylon-crashing]

CGI memories:

1995. Peace Corps calls itself, "the toughest job you will ever love." What that translates into is, "We will abandon you at your site, assuming that the locals will take care of you out of the goodness of their own heart. No matter the conditions you find yourself in, no matter the misery, you are not to leave your site to return to the capital city, where they have electricity, heat and running water. You are not to write home begging for assistance while the children under your care suffer." Making lesson plans to teach kids still shell-shocked from losing everything in the 1988 earthquake became pointless. They needed PTSD-care, not the English language. I stared into the haunted, grim eyes of a boy in my classroom, the only survivor pulled out of the rubble, who helped bury his entire family and everything in me just ground to a halt. Horror does not live in scary movies, in cheap jump/ scares and rubber monsters, it haunts the souls of those still wandering lost and alone in Dante's Inferno.

[deniigi]

hey random question that you don’t have to answer if you don’t wanna but like i’ve ran into some free time and was wondering what your top ten movies are? mostly so i could watch them lol

Ohhh interesting.

I can list out some of my favorites in no particular order. I would recommend most with them although some have some period typical bullshit so just be aware of that!.

1) Tekkonkinkreet

Based on an incredible manga called Black and White about 2 homeless boys, one of whom is autistic and the other of whom struggles to keep the first safe as he fights the mob and tries to carve out a home for them in an ever changing city

2) Song of the Sea

Beautifully done animated film about a little girl who is a selkie and her older brother who tries to bring her home when she gets lost.

3) Glass Onion/Knives Out

Love a real life Professor Layton/Sherlock Holmes situation without Holmes.

4) Annie (1982)

Makes me sob every fucking time at the end. Look I am a mess and am suseptible to adopted children feeling like they belong. Do not fall for the capitalist propaganda obvs.

5) Hello Dolly (comfort movie don't look at Me) and WallE which is Hello Dolly adjacent.

Louis Armstrong and Barbra Streisand should sing together for this whole movie. The whole thing. I wouldn't mind.

6) Now You See Me (2013) heist heist heist heist HEIST film

7) Pride and Prejudice (TV show, 1995)

This is my only accepted version of Pride and Prejudice. Colin Firth is the most supremely awkward Mr. Darcy, no one compares and no one shall convince me otherwise. I love how fast he talks in this but especially Lizzie's mother. Perfect characterization. No notes.

8) Men in Black (I)

Aliens.

9) Pacific Rim

More Aliens. But the comic visuals in a real life medium? Um THANK YOU. The score of this fucks so hard.

10) Lilies of the Field (1963)

Watched it recently and was perplexed/intrigued. Its about a traveling laborer who gets roped into helping out a bunch of German nuns in the middle of the desert. Def worth a watch if only because Sidney Poitier is/was the most handsome man ever. Otherwise it's an interesting piece of its time historically.

I realize that this is a wild list of films but I hope something on here perhaps speaks to you.

[la-femme-au-collier-vert]

From the Library of Anne Rice (Part 3)

Flynn, Gillian. Gone Girl. New York: Crown Publishing, 2011. Lightly annotated. 

Green, John. The Fault in Our Stars.  New York: Penguin Books, 2012. Ownership signature. Annotated.

Le Carre, John. The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.  New York: Bloomsbury, 2005. Ownership signature. Tabbed. 

Martin, George R.R. A Dance with Dragons. New York: Bantam Books, 2011. Ownership signature. 

Metalious, Grace. Peyton Place. New York: Julian Messner, 1957. Ownership signature. 

Sebold, Alice. The Lovely Bones.  New York: Back Bay Books, 2007. Ownership signature. Annotated.

Sheldon, Sidney. The Other Side of Midnight. New York: Willam Morrow & Company, Inc., 1973. Ownership signature.

Sienkiewicz, Henryk. Quo Vadis. New York: Hippocrene Books, 2002. Ownership signature. Annotated.

Silva, Daniel. The Kill Artist.  New York: Random House, 2000. Ownership signature. Annotated.

Susann, Jacqueline. Once is Not Enough. New York: Willam Morrow & Company, Inc., 1973. Ownership signature. Lightly annotated. 

Susann, Jacqueline. Valley of the Dolls. New York: New Market Home Library, 1996. Ownership signature. Annotated.

Turow, Scott. Identical. New York/London: Grand Central Publishing, 2013. Ownership signature. 

Turow, Scott. Identical. New York/London: Grand Central Publishing, 2013. Ownership signature. Annotated.

Bowman, Carol. Children's Past Lives. New York: Bantam Books, 1998.

Burpo, Todd with Lynn Vincent. Heaven is for Real. Nashville, Dallas, Mexico City, and Rio de Janeiro: Thomas Nelson, 2010.

Fronkzac, Paul Joseph and Alex Tresniowski. The Foundling. New York: Howard Books, 2017.

Greven, Philip. Spare the Child. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.

Joyce, Stephen H. Suffer the Captive Children. By the Author, 2004.

Malarkey, Kevin & Alex The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven. Carol Stream, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2011.

Mcfarland, Hillary. Quivering Daughter. Dallas, Texas: Darklight Press, 2010.

Postman, Neil. The Disappearance of Childhood. New York: Vintage Books, 1994.

Rafferty, Mary and Eoin O'Sullivan. Suffer the Little Children. New York: Continuum, 1999.

Reilly, Frances. Suffer the Little Children. London: Hachett UK, 2008.

Szalavitz, Maia. Help at Any Cost. New York: Riverhead Books, 2006.

Taylor, Marjorie. Imaginary Companions and the Children Who Create Them. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Tucker, Jim B. Life Before Life. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2005.

Woititz, Janet Geringer.  Adult Children of Alcoholics. Deerbeach, Florida: Health Communications, Inc., 1983.

Bloom, Harold. The Book of J. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1990. Ownership signature. Annotated.

Collins, Andrew. From the Ashes of Angels. Rochester, Vermont: Bear & Company, 2001. Ownership signature. Annotated.

Collins, John J. The Scepter and the Star. New York: Doubleday, 1995. Annotated.

Cook, John Granger. The Interpretation of the New Testament in Greco-Roman Paganism. Hendrickson Publish, 2002. Ownership signature.  

Ehrman, Bart D. Lost Scriptures. [Oxford]: Oxford University Press, 2003. Ownership signature. Annotated.

Enns, Peter. The Bible Tells Me So... HarperOne, 2014. Ownership signature.  

Fox, Everett. The Five Books of Moses. New York: Schocken Books, 1995. Ownership signature. Annotated.

House, H. Wayne. Charts of the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1981. Ownership signature. Annotated.

Howard, Thomas. Evangelical is Not Enough. San Francisco: Ignatius, 1984. Ownership signature.  

Lockhart, Douglas, Jesus the Heretic. Shaftsbury, Dorset: Element, 1997. Ownership signature. Annotated.

Luckert, Karl W. Egyptian Light and Hebrew Fire. State University of New York Press, 1991.  

Parenti, Michael. God and His Demons. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2010. Ownership signature.  

Shaw, Russell. Our Sunday Visitor's Encyclopedia of Catholic Doctrine. Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitors Publishing, 1997. Annotated.

Sparrow, W. Shaw. The Gospels In Art. New York: Frederick A, Stokes Company, 1904. Annotated.

Townsend, Mark. The Gospel of Falling Down. Winchester, UK: O Books, 2007. Inscribed by author.  

Valenti, Connie Ann. Stories of Jesus. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2012. Inscribed by author.  

Yallop, David A. In God's Name. Toronto: Bantam Books, 1984. Annotated.

Zuesse, Eric. Christ's Ventriloquists. New York: Hyacinth Editions, 2012. Ownership signature. Annotated.

Cayce, Edgar.  On Atlantis. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 1968. Ownership Signature. Annotated

Collins, Andrew. Gobekli, Tepe Genesis of the Gods.  Rochester, Vermont: Bear & Company, 2014. Ownership Signature. Annotated

Cremo, Michael A. and Richard L. Thompson. Forbidden Archaeology. Los Angeles: Bhaktivedanta Book Publishing, 2003. Ownership Signature. Annotated

Eno, Paul F.  Faces at the Window.  By the Author, 1998. Ownership Signature. Annotated

Fiore, Edith. The Unquiet Dead. New York: Ballantine Books, 1988. Ownership Signature. Annotated

Hoagland, Richard C. and Mike Bar. Dark Mission: The Secret History of Nasa.  Feral House, 2007. Ownership Signature. Annotated

Icke, David.  The Biggest Secret. David Icke Books, 1999. Ownership Signature.  

Joseph, Frank. The Atlantis Encyclopedia. Career Press, 2005. Ownership Signature. Annotated

Knight, Christopher and Alan Butler. Before the Pyramids.  London: Watkins Publishing. 1988. Ownership Signature. Annotated

Leshan, Lawrence. A New Science of the Paranormal. Wheaton, Illinois: Theosophical Publishing House, 2009. Ownership Signature. Annotated

Peake, Anthony. The Out-of-Body Experience. Watkins, 2011. Ownership Signature. Annotated

Redfern, Nick. Shapeshifters Woodbury, Minnesota: Llewellyn Publication 2017. Ownership Signature. Annotated

Roberts, Scott Alan. The Secret History of the Reptilians.  Pompton, N.J.: New Page Books, 2013. Ownership Signature.  

Spence, Lewis. The Occult Sciences in Atlantis. London: The Aquarian Press, 1970. Ownership Signature. Annotated

Temple, Robert with Olivia Temple. The Sphinx Mystery. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 2009. Ownership Signature. Lightly Annotated

Thyme, Lauren O. The Lemurian Way. Lakeville, Minnesota: Glade Press, 2012. Ownership Signature.  

Wilson, Colin and Rand Flem-Ath. The Atlantis Blueprint. Delta Trade Paperback, 2000. Ownership Signature. Annotated.

[patheticbatman]

The 52nd Win A Commission Contest was the film Napoleon (1995)! I wrote it in prose form in conjunction with my drawings (lmk if you think I should add the songs), so if you’d like to see that, please

Once upon a time, there was a golden retriever puppy, who had big dreams, and no idea how to reach them.

His mother had named him Muffin, but one day, he heard humans speak a name – Napoleon! – And knew that had to be his true name. In his soul, he knew his heart beat to a tune that was both more warlike and wild. Often he had even heard the howls of wild dogs. Unfortunately, no one else saw it like that, and his mother insisted on calling him Muffin.

It didn’t help that he was afraid of water. He told himself that while every warrior had his trials, there was no need to be afraid of the humans’ pool; he was bred for swimming. Still, he hesitated.

One day, the small human had a birthday party. Cruelly, but without malice – for many young creatures are oft inconsiderate – the child decided to show off Napoleon's adorable qualities by placing him on a turtle pool floaty. The puppy panicked. Then, in an even worse turn of events, the humans forgot he was there, and soon he floated to the middle of the pool – the stuff of nightmares for both him and his mother.

Thankfully, the floaty eventually made its way to the steps of the pool, and Napoleon rescued himself – though not before a balloon fell on his head.

Irritated, he chewed and slobbered on the various objects the children left by the poolside to assuage his ego.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted something new to investigate - a basket, tied to a bunch of helium balloons. He crawled in, much to the chagrin of his mother. She asked him to get out immediately, but embarrassed and overfocused on asserting his bravery, he did not heed her commands. And as she was tied to the dog house, she could do nothing to enforce them.

His wiggling and jiggling as he sniffed all over the basket – it smelled and tasted like a child with a lightly sticky hands had been messing with it – he did not notice that the basket had come untethered. Only when he had righted himself, did he notice that the basket - and thus himself – were in fact, flying.

His mother pleaded with him to jump out, but the balloons rose too fast, and he was soon too high up to tumble out safely. Both parent and puppy were terrified, and she tried to assure her son that he would stuck get in the trees, and to just sit tight.

But through some twisted miracle, he floated into the open sky.

Trying to calm his nerves as his mother’s frantic barking grew fainter and the world underneath grew smaller, he sang a song of adventure. A warrior, a true, wild dog, must of course be able to make the best of bad situations.

Soon he floated out of the suburbs, and into Sydney, seeing the incredibly tall skyscrapers from above for the first time.

And just when he was starting to float down, and his hopes rose – for maybe some human could take him home! – His basket got caught on the front spike of a monorail train.

Speeding through the city, he enjoyed the wind in his face and the rush of people in cars below. Unfortunately, the train came to a stop, and his basket came loose, and once again, he was free - floating right towards the harbor. Water!

Soon, he was over open water, and the weight of the situation settled heavily on his poor heart. A plane passed overhead, but did not hear his pleas for rescue.

But a lost galah named Birdo did. Screeching and curious, but also cautious for the puppy, he encouraged Napoleon to sit more securely and balanced in the basket. However, Birdo was still a bird, and he had a bird-brained idea. As the two floated over a beach, Birdo started popping the balloons in an attempt to gradually lower Napoleon to land.

Bemused, for Napoleon did not quite follow the plan, he watched as the first popped balloon fell to the side of the basket. However, by the second, the basket began to worryingly shudder its way to the ground - and Napoleon was not close. Still, Birdo persisted.

Unfortunately, the fourth popped balloon was one too many, and the basket hurtled to the ground.

Horrified, Birdo screamed for Napoleon to jump out as the basket impacted, and then began bouncing and rolling violently down the windswept cliff. When the basket finally reached the bottom, Birdo feared the worst, for he saw no sign of the puppy.

But it was empty! Napoleon was on a rock ledge. He ridiculed Birdo, and the galah was both irritated at Napoleon's ingratitude, and worried over the puppy’s fate in the wild.

Napoleon, ignoring both his and Birdo’s fears, decided to embrace his situation and go look for wild dogs. He climbed up a different cliff to overlook a vast rainforest. Birdo warned him that house pets don’t survive out in the wild and said he should head home. Hearing the call of a wild dog, Napoleon ignored Birdo’s warnings and descended into the forest.

It was soon dark, but Napoleon wasn’t worried, making his way through the slender moonlit trees. High above him, a tawny frogmouth caught his attention and warned that housepets either died or became something monstrous to survive. Napoleon once again ignored the advice, believing that the frogmouth was merely trying to frighten him.

—

Eventually, Napoleon decided it was time to sleep. He had gone a long way today, and would likely have further to go.

Napoleon ran across a spider and asked her for a good place to sleep. She instead fished for a compliment about her web. Napoleon pointed out a mistake, panicked because it stuck to his nose, ran through the web and ruined some more of it with his tail. The spider was quite displeased.

Unconcerned, the puppy ventured forth, until he came to a great tree, with a tunnel running between its roots. Napoleon sniffed it, hoping that it could be his bed for the night, but found it to be someone’s home. Calling out in the hope of finding someone willing to share for the night, Napoleon did not notice a feral black cat watching him from above.

"Is that a mouse I hear?" the cat said rhetorically, stalking forward. Napoleon entered the tree roots. "Can’t have a mouse in my house." Napoleon munched on something inside. "Furry mouse. Big yellow mouse."

Napoleon thought he heard something but quickly turned back to the food.

"Time to rid my house of the mouse!” the cat said, coming into view.

"Huh? What?" Napoleon said, his wide, dark eyes shining against his pale yellow face.

"The mouse." The cat growled – whether or not in reply to Napoleon, only she would ever know. Her intense, yellow eyes squinted menacingly, her body barely standing out from the dark of the night.

Napoleon laughed nervously, panting. "Good thing I’m not a mouse."

"You can’t fool me with that pitiful disguise!" She crept forward and hissed. "I’ll RIP it off you!"

Napoleon tried to run, but the ribbon the birthday child had wrapped around his neck got caught. The cat growled, and the puppy ripped free, leaving the ribbon behind. She ran after him, in that flat, close to the ground way cats do, far more familiar with the landscape than he was.

He hid, hoping that a lack of movement would protect him from the grimalkin.

Unfortunately, he had hidden right next to a boulder, which was perfect for her to creep up, plan her attack, and then pounce on the unsuspecting Napoleon.

He ran into the forest, the cat catching him occasionally, and even once bowling him over. She chased him onto a log, crossing a small, muddy pond.

He froze when he realized he was stuck over water, and the cat taunted him.

“Listen to me. I am not a mouse. You are a deeply disturbed animal." Napoleon foolishly appealed to her sense of reason.

“Shuddup!” She snarled. Napoleon whimpered. "My job is to destroy all vermin in this house. The mouse must die, now!" She started biting at his face, hoping to knock him into the water.

The tawny frogmouth, who had been observing, took pity on Napoleon, and flew down, knocking the cat into the water.

Only bubbles rose.

The frogmouth scolded Napoleon, but he did not care, and mocked the spot where the cat fell in. Remembering his manners, Napoleon thanked the bird.

"That cat won’t rest until you’re dead,” It said.

"That cat is fishbait by now." The puppy scoffed, and ran away.

The cat rose out of the mud and swore revenge, but by then, Napoleon was far out of earshot.

—

Snuggled at the base of a tree, the sun rose, and Napoleon heard his mother say, "Rise and shine, Muffin. It’s a beautiful morning. Time to get up, Muffin. Wake up."

“Mom? Mommy?” He woke up, expecting his mom to be there, but was dismayed to find himself alone.

Shaking his sadness off, Napoleon scampered through the verdant rainforest, and congratulated himself for surviving his first night away from home. He came upon a waterfall, and sat stymied. Out loud he wondered why he was so afraid of water.

A bunch of rainbow lorikeets started mimicking him. In between taunts, they told him that the wild dogs are on the other side.

Soon, Napoleon’s desire to meet them won over his fear. He found a flat spot to cross, and the lorikeets mocked his progress. But he made it!

He met a much nicer lorikeet who confirmed his intel and sympathized with him over the rudeness of the others … which gave Napoleon an adorably wicked idea.

Crossing back over - for he was slightly distant desensitized to his fear of water by then – he tricked them into calling themselves stupid, and went on his way.

Eventually, he arrived in a less dense forest, and overhearing a suspicious sound, went to investigate.

In the clearing, on a slanted tree, was a koala.

Napoleon tried to growl at the koala, but he was nonplussed. After a little more boasting from Napoleon, the koala climbed down, unconcerned with the puppy’s antics as he followed behind his odd waddle on the ground.

Napoleon tried to goad the koala into climbing up a tree and spotting the wild dogs – for once again, he heard them, but could not seem to find them. The koala turned it back on him, and kept the fact that he couldn’t see farther than a meter in front of himself, until he was away from Napoleon's reach.

The puppy stalked away, irritated. That was when Birdo found him again. Napoleon immediately jumped on the chance of having a lookout, but accidentally insulted the galah instead.

He apologized and then ignored Birdo‘s advice about going home, instead, asking for wilderness survival skills.

Unfortunately, when trying to open up to Birdo, to convince the galah of his mission, Napoleon let slip that the that they called him ‘Muffin’ at home, near a dastardly frog, and the same taunting lorikeets from before, looking for revenge. On the spot, they came up with the whole song about how he should go home. Napoleon tried to bite the frog, but it plopped onto his head. Birdo, being a good friend, kept knocking the lorikeets off their perch, but they kept flying back.

Tail held high, Napoleon walked away from the twittering animals, and found a log floating in the water. Unthinkingly, he walked on, and was surprised when it detached from the shore and floated into a bay. Despite his dismay, he resolved to sit tight, and let it take him to the other shore, where he was headed anyway. Less work!

Of course, it ended up dead in the water.

Birdo, impatient and dedicated to keeping this dog alive if he wasn’t going to go home and save himself, decided to toughen Napoleon up. He swooped down and knocked the puppy into the water, encouraging him to doggy paddle.

Napoleon was surprised to find that he was really good at it – perhaps forgetting that he was literally a golden retriever. He still needed a little instruction on how to get up the bank, but he made it.

—

The first lesson to become a wild dog, Birdo decided, was food. They had reached a rocky area, overlooking mountains. Birdo lead Napoleon to a rocky hill, covered in dry grass. A chorus of rabbits briefly scattered into sight before hiding behind other boulders and grass.

"Do you want me to eat these?" Napoleon said incredulously. All he had ever eaten was his mother’s milk, dog food, and dropped human food.

“You want to eat," Birdo said, with no small amount of vicious glee in his voice, "You’ve got to learn to KILL!"

Napoleon's incredulity did not lift. But somehow, he was convinced to try. He wandered over to where the bunnies were flitting about.

Sadly, they moved so rapidly, Napoleon had trouble focusing on just one to catch. They sang as they escaped, aware that they had the upper paw, but unwilling to show anything other than caution.

Birdo sang in opposition, calling upon Napoleon's bloodlust and hunger to drive the puppy to kill. Napoleon managed to get one alone, and it sat huddled, mostly frozen to its own detriment, as the puppy engaged in rough play with its tremorous body. But the rabbit managed to gather its wits, and after it jumped on top of a rock, Napoleon lost interest.

Birdo scolded Napoleon, but eventually gave up on the bloody venture once the puppy found lichen to eat. It did not stop his complaints.

They moved to drier, flatter land. The next lesson, according to Birdo, was learning to discern whether an animal was dangerous or not.

Napoleon approached a wombat, but as soon as it caught sight of him, it ran away, screaming, "A house pet!"

Next, he found some quokkas, former victims of the cat. They were more friendly, but still shaken from the encounter. One’s ears were quite torn.

Birdo was satisfied, so they traveled onto some snow-topped mountains. Napoleon, who loved using his nose, remarked that snow made smelling more difficult. That did not stop him from smelling something unusual.

Birdo was uninterested. He felt that it was time to learn the third lesson, about the weather. In fact … he felt a huge storm coming.

The snow that sat on the trees shivered and fell. A large rumbling came ever closer. Then Birdo realized his mistake. The rumbling wasn’t a storm. It was brumbies!

"Run!" the bird screamed, and flew away, landing in a far tree.

As the feral horses thundered by, the bird realized with great dismay that he could no longer see his friend. He called out, but if there was an answer, the galah could not hear it.

Once the herd passed, Birdo fluttered down and searched amongst the trampled snow, panic rising. But Napoleon merely had slipped into a snow burrow.

Napoleon yelled at Birdo, for he had at least smelled the horses. Birdo protested, and it only made Napoleon angrier, vowing not to trust Birdos ‘faulty’ advice again, and ran down the mountain. His nose caught something, so the puppy paused for a moment, looking over the land below. "I smell sweets!” – Napoleon followed his nose to a field of what he thought was tall grass. Birdo followed, and tried to warn him what happens to fields of dry sugarcane.

Being a dog, and one irritated at Birdo, Napoleon ignored the warnings and followed his nose instead.

Napoleon ran into a red-bellied black snake, and was nearly drawn into its eyes, but Birdo’s worried screeching pulled him out of it.

The cane around him got hotter and hotter as he pushed further in. Then he smelled smoke. And where there is smoke, there is fire. Terrified, Napoleon trampled through the burning cane, skirting around blazes and coughing, while Birdo guided the puppy out with his voice.

Stumbling out of the cane, the two reunited joyfully, and Napoleon apologized.

Of course, that was when the cat caught up with them. Bird and puppy hurried away, the cat following close behind.

Surprisingly, they stumbled upon Birdo’s flock, whom he had been searching for these last few days. Birdo joyfully flew among his kin, screeching.

This gave enough distraction that the cat, not wanting to miss an opportunity to rid her ‘house’ of vermin, crept up on a tree full of galahs.

Happy for his friend, Napoleon wandered a gulley lined with red dirt, making slight fun of the reunited family as he passed underneath. By chance, Napoleon turned his head and saw the cat creeping up behind some of Birdo‘s cousins.

Napoleon had to yell repeatedly that the cat was behind them, their excitable din nearly causing their own demise. But the galahs noticed the cat and flew away in time.

Birdo didn’t see it that way, and scolded him. He hadn’t seen the cat, and only saw what he thought was Napoleon scaring his family away. He quickly changed his tune when the cat crept up behind him.

Napoleon sauntered away as the cat lay defeated in the tree, looking for Birdo. They soon found each other near a highway. Birdo failed to land on a traffic sign, and Napoleon refrained from commenting beyond a genuine query about his health, as Birdo delicately climbed onto his chosen perch.

"Where does this road go?" Napoleon asked.

"It leads to the shore, where you landed." said Birdo. "It can be one of the most dangerous places out here!"

The puppy shrugged him off, saying, "I know all about roads!"

This was when a tractor trailer truck came into view. Napoleon wisely got to one side, but then noticed a dark colored frilled-neck lizard, laying flat on the road. Desperately, he barked at the lizard, believing it to be asleep. He wanted to go into the road, to nudge it away from the path of danger, but Birdo and some of Napoleon's housepet instincts held him back.

The truck roared by, covering the poor lizard from sight. To Napoleon and Birdo surprise, once the truck passed, they saw the lizard lay unharmed.

Napoleon went forward to make sure that the lizard was all right.

"GO! AWAY!" snarled the lizard, terribly offended at Napoleon's proximity and concern. "THIS IS MY SPACE!" The lizard leapt threateningly into Napoleon’s face. Friendliness made Napoleon a little slow on the uptake, so he didn’t really walk away until the lizard leapt.

"Never expect gratitude from a cold blooded creature. Hah!" Birdo said, landing on the road to walk away with Napoleon.

Soon, they encountered dry shrublands. In between dull green plants with thin leaves, the red earth lay cracked and uneven.

Birdo urged Napoleon to go home, reminding the puppy that his family surely missed him.

Napoleon's eyes shined wetly, but he couldn’t ignore the call of the wild dogs. It was his lifelong dream, after all.

The two debated for a while, but Napoleon held fast, claiming it was a dog thing, and Birdo wouldn’t understand, but that he was grateful for all of Birdo’s help so far. They came to the edge of the desert, and both felt in their hearts that it was time to go their separate ways.

As evening fell, they sang a bittersweet duet of parting, and bid each other goodbye, wishing to meet again. Birdo flew off to rejoin his family, and Napoleon continued on his quest to find the wild dogs.

—

Napoleon followed along a narrow footpath.

A small, spiky animal groaned as it came his way, as if each step hurt. An echidna! Napoleon went over to say hi, but it dismissed him stingily, anticipating jokes about its appearance, and wishing to keep its potential water to itself. Napoleon assured it that he would share any water he found, but that didn’t seem to matter to the echidna. Then he made a poorly-timed pun, and the creature clumsily rolled into a small pit in sheer irritation.

The echidna begin to dig, though its small paws made for slow going. Napoleon helped, and the puppy quickly uncovered some water, and drank first, much to the echidna’s chagrin, complaining about germs.

Napoleon set off again, and found himself in the desert. Red sand laid burning, wind blown into long waves of dune lines, stretching on for desiccated kilometers. The puppy scampered across, as the gait afforded him less time for each paw to touch the scorching ground. Nevertheless, it hurt.

Brown mountains rimmed the stretch of land, and Napoleon kept along until he found a solitary tree, providing precious shade. There he rested among the dead branches bleached white like bones, when he spotted an odd animal.

It stood – as much as a lizard can stand – upon a shrubby hill, and howled and barked in a heart-sinkingly silly voice.

"That’s what I left home for?" The lizard barked some more as Napoleon stared on in disbelief.

Disconcertingly, the thing started approaching Napoleon, making odd gulping noises with each step it took.

"Were the wild dogs I’ve been hearing… that?” Napoleon had to make sure. He ran to the creature and asked.

Pleased with the attention, the goofy looking beast – which he came to realize was a perentie lizard - let out a long, ridiculous howl, ending in a guffaw. Without prompting, the lizard demonstrated his poorly rendered repertoire, which included cow noises.

Napoleon ran away, heartbroken and disillusioned, the lizard’s haunting "Moo. Moo. Moo. Moo. MOO!" echoing in his ears as he climbed up the mountains.

"I am such an idiot. All this time, I’ve been chasing after a barking lizard. There’s no wild dogs anywhere. I’ve been running after something that doesn’t even exist." He whimpered. "Now I’ve got no home. No wild life. I don’t have my mother. I don’t have the instinct to make it out here. I’m a dumb house pet.” He cried for a moment. “Who doesn’t know a retriever from a reptile. I don’t deserve the name Napoleon. Not a crumb like me." Then, with a sob, "I’m just a Muffin after all."

He kept running, racing along ridges, until at last he fell down from exhaustion.

—

When he came to, small creatures - rodents, or marsupials, he wasn’t sure - were running around, hiding in rock cracks and burrows. A few noticed him, and presumed him dead or soon to be. A rain storm loomed ever closer, and promised to sweep all incautious creatures away.

Napoleon got moving. He knew better now than to ignore their warnings. Sure enough, fat drops soon splattered the ground, and currents began to form as the water overtook the earth.

Running into a crevasse, desperately hoping to find himself a cranny or nook to press himself into until the flood was over, Napoleon stumbled into a cave that stretched upwards, away from the coming water.

It was still dry, the red soil still untouched by water that would turn it into a bland tan. Napoleon climbed upward, sniffing excitedly. A safe spot! And then, at the very top, a pale movement. Two other puppies!

"Mother? Is that you?" a sweet voice called out.

"Hello?" Napoleon couldn’t believe his eyes.

"A stranger! Get out, or we’ll attack!" a rougher one said. He knocked his sister down to Napoleon in the guise of a pounce.

They were creamy tan, with ears that were still floppy like his, but looked like they were going to lift up soon, likely into sharp points.

Nancy, for that was the girl puppy’s name, decided Napoleon was fine, and after clearing up that she and Syd (the other puppy) weren’t lost, that this was their home, she tried to play with Napoleon.

But it was not meant to be. A wave rushed into the cave, and soon caught up to where Napoleon and Nancy were standing, washing them away. Syd, safe on a rock shelf, screamed as his sister was thrown about, yelping. Napoleon managed to pull himself to sit on a rock shelf, a larger and stronger swimmer.

Napoleon took charge once he saw that Nancy was still in the water. He instructed her to keep talking, and to hold on.

Nancy disappeared for a moment, the boys’ hearts leaping into their throats. But then she reappeared on a rock, the water still lapping at her feet, threatening to catch her again.

Napoleon could feel his heart racing - all his troubles with water had lead right to this moment. He swam to Nancy’s rock, barely keeping his head above the water as lightning flashed and thunder rumbled.

But he made it! Too scared to swim, Napoleon coaxed Nancy onto his back. Confidence and a need to save her strengthened his paddles, as he pretended to be a boat, to distract her from panicking. Both stayed above water. He had a little trouble getting her onto the ‘dock’ -the rock shelf where her brother stood - but they managed.

And just as quickly as the rain had come, it stopped. And there, standing at the cave mouth, limned by the tentative sun, was a figure.

"It’s a wild dog!" exclaimed Napoleon in wonder.

"Of course it is. It’s our mother!" exclaimed Syd.

She shook the rainwater off, and smiled at the puppies.

"I’ve been with the wild dogs all along!" Napoleon couldn’t believe it.

In a comforting voice, the mother dingo said, "Syd. Nancy. Are you all right?" she panted. "Who is this?"

Shock at his own luck and a sudden drop in adrenaline hit Napoleon like a hammer, and he fainted.

—

He woke up hours later, with Nancy licking his face. After shrugging her off, and spotting her mother, he got straight to the point.

"Can I stay here with you? I want to be a wild dog."

"But what about your mother?" ask the dingo, her kind eyes watching from above.

"I want to live here. In the wild!" The other puppies pleaded his case too.

The mother dingo answered the only way she could: "Of course he can."

"I’m a wild dog. At last!"

All the puppies began to tussle out of sheer happiness.

—

The days passed by. The two dingo puppies played ‘Napoleon’ with the vanishing puddles, taking turns being rescued.

Both Napoleon and the mother watched over their antics. At the beginning, he would sometimes sit out of their games to make sure he did not tumble the other two puppies - being bigger and older, he could hurt them. But as time went on, he grew disillusioned with playing. For the last few days, he had not played at all, and only laid next to the dingo mother.

His new life in the wild didn’t quite satisfy him anymore. The thrill of living with real wild dogs was amazing, of course, but something felt missing. Napoleon thought it was just because they hadn’t started the more bloodthirsty aspects of the life, like fighting and hunting. But the dingo mother knew better, and so as she cuddled with the retriever puppy while he took a big nap, she made a plan.

—

"Wake up, Napoleon. Today is the day." She nudged him awake and led him out of the cave. “Come on, it will just be the two of us." She trotted it across a field of flat rocks, covered in red clay, and baked in the sun. Being unfamiliar with the terrain, Napoleon struggled to keep up, but was buoyed by enthusiasm.

"Tell me child; why did you leave home?" she asked.

"I wanted to go where there were no rules."

"And what did you find?" They crossed onto a plane of white sand.

"Well, I found that there were a lot of rules, about living with other animals, and being on your own."

Now they were walking parallel with the shore, black shells littering the ground. "And what did you want to do out here?"

“I wanted to hunt my food, and kill it!"

"And did you enjoy that?" Her voice continued to be kind.

"No. I ate moss instead." He confessed.

"Anything else you wanted?"

"Well, yeah! I wanted to stay up late and have fun all the time!"

"And did you? Have fun, all the time?" The two laid down, front paws ahead, watching as the sun bowed down to darkness.

“No. Sometimes it was scary. Lots of times I was alone."

"Then why do you want to be out here?"

"I want to be a wild dog! So I can be really brave and fearless!"

"But you’ve been that, all along. You couldn’t have come this far without being fearless. And it was YOUR bravery that saved Syd and Nancy." She paused, and then said, "In your heart, you’ve been a wild dog all along, Napoleon."

Their shadows grew long. "I guess I have!"

"Is there something more you want?".

"Well, yes."

"Tell me."

"I want – " Napoleon paused, for a moment, unsure if he was willing to say it. "I want to go home. I miss my mom."

"What if I told you I had a friend who could take you back?"

"Really?!"

"Come along." The sun‘s last rays lit the two dogs as they went back to the cave one last time.

—

The next day, Napoleon was treated to what was possibly the most inane song in existence as he rode in a red kangaroo’s pouch. Repeatedly, Napoleon was smashed full in the face with tall, bristly bushes and narrowly evaded what should have been easily avoided obstacles, such as trees. He called for help several times, but to no avail, as the kangaroo crooned to her ‘possum’. He tried hiding his face, but it didn’t fit well in the pouch.

As soon as she stopped, Napoleon hurried out and into the forest, to get away from her insanity. Somehow, he ran into the same koala as before.

"Well, well, " the koala drawled.

"Oh no, not him again!" Groaned the puppy.

"If it isn’t my favorite dining companion, the wild dog himself."

"No! I’m Napoleon! Wild house pet! Conqueror of the outback, and the backyard!" Napoleon declared, sure of himself.

“I can run fearless across waterfalls!" he yelled as he did just that.

The lorikeets, who still didn’t have anything better to do, mimicked him. "Little birds suck!" Was all he said, tricking them into insulting themselves once again.

Soon he was back at the beach where he first arrived. "Now what do I do?" he said, clambering over the rocks and pebbles that lined the shore. He could see home! But how was he to get across? Then he spotted his basket, a little worse for the wear, but still floating, and felt triumphant. He went over to the tide pool where it rested, bobbing occasionally with eddies of the waves.

But instead of it being empty, as he had assumed, a New Zealand Adélie penguin popped his head out! It was nearly full grown, but was still small and round.

They argued a bit, but the puppy was able to assert ownership over the basket, and then they fell to talking. As Conan the penguin kept extolling his fierce nature and super–penguin abilities, Napoleon had to laugh; the little bird was exactly like him at the beginning of his journey!

Conan’s speech started to turn dangerous, so Napoleon decided to tell his own story, hoping to help the penguin avoid his own mistakes.

—

By the time he finished, an unconvinced Conan stood watch as Napoleon struggled to climb into the basket – the plan was that he would be carried out into the bay at high tide during midnight. But the penguins' bravado dissolved as soon as he saw his family.

"Pengy!” a raucous voice called out. Conan tried to hide, but as his mother just called out “Pengy!” again, he reluctantly turned to face them. Napoleon laughed at the silly name.

Terribly embarrassed, Conan waddled up a dune to escape, only to find his family already there.

Apologetic, Napoleon convinced the family that he could persuade Conan to go home. He felt bad for making fun of Conan’s name, but still thought it best to try and stop any so-called adventuring – even going so far as to continue to call him Pengy.

Napoleon climbed into the basket before Conan could, annoying the penguin.

"It’s my turn to howl! You’ve had your fun!" said the penguin, who then howled in a goofy manner. Conan began waddling up a hill, continuing to monologue about his future adventures.

There was a low rumble. At first, it sounded like a vicious wind blowing through trees, but it soon transformed into a noise Napoleon knew and dreaded. It came from the hilltop.

"That sounds… Could it be?" Napoleon tilted his head in hopeful confusion. "Hello, is somebody else up here?"

Rocks fell. Napoleon knew it had to be her. "She’s back!" he yelped, voice high with fear.

Lightning illuminated a black figure, stalking downhill. Unconcerned and unaware, Conan carelessly looked for the cat, peering down and making empty threats, as the predator gazed from above. Thunder rolled, and again, the cat growled.

Napoleon scrambled out and up the hill. He couldn’t let that dumb bird die!

"Time to rid my house of the mouse!" the cat announced.

Finally, seeing her, Conan, ignorant of his impending mortality at the claws of the creature above, suavely said, "All right. Come on! Let’s go, hunt down a few."

"But I’ve already found one! An unusual, black and white mouse."

Napoleon finally arrived. "Leave the penguin alone!"

"Well, if it isn’t the Muffin mouse!", she hissed. "The mouse dies!" She lashed out at him, claws outstretched.

Finally getting a clue, Conan waddled away. “Well. There is such a thing as too much adventure!"

“Just you and me, wacko!" Napoleon challenged.

"Seems unfair, nine lives against one," the cat quipped.

Within his head, Napoleon quickly came up with a plan to get her into the water, where the cat seemed much less of a threat. "Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!" he called, while backing closer to the water.

Showing her absolute detachment from reality, she followed his call. As both walked across constantly wave–beaten slippery rocks, one hit her body, and she slipped off the rock, yelling.

"Bull’s-eye!" Napoleon yelled, then gasped as he saw the drenched cat hissing from behind another rock.

"You’ll pay for that!" she vowed.

"Okay, it’s payday!" Napoleon ran up a hill.

The cat shook herself and followed.

"Come on!" he taunted. "Come after me!" Napoleon slipped and loosened some rocks, sending them tumbling at the cat's face.

"No!" she wailed, unable to stop as the rocks underneath her paws became loose and pulled her now towards the edge. "Kill! No!" she hooked a paw on the ledge as more rocks tumbled down, persistent to the last.

"Running out of lives?" Napoleon said unsympathetically.

"I still have many more!" Her paw was slipping. "Come, let me slash you!"

“Happy landings!"

"Slash you with-" She shrieked, falling to the dark depths below.

Napoleon pulled himself to the peak, and looked down at the tumultuous water. "I knew that cat was on the edge." The waves raged on. "Look at that! Guess she used up her lives." Suddenly, he remembered Conan. "But what about that penguin? Hey Pengy, you down there?"

The cat watched the golden figure from behind, hate burning in her eyes. She hissed, and Napoleon sent a glance her way, but he must have not seen her, for she she was able to rush behind and headbutt him off the cliff.

She laughed at the puppy stuck on the ledge below. "That’s it! No more games."

"Games?!" exclaimed Napoleon incredulously.

The cat encouraged the puppy to jump to his blue death; the waves beat mercilessly upon the shore.

He refused and tried to appeal to their common background; after all, weren’t they both just lost house pets?

She hissed and crept her way down to him, telling him to shut up and boxing his ears. It was looking a bit dire.

“Hey, ‘fraidy cat!" called Conan from further down. No way was he going to let some cat hurt his friend!

This distracted the cat just enough for Napoleon to push her off the ledge and into the basket waiting below.

She laughed maniacally as the impact of her fall dislodged the basket from the rocks and pulled her out into the bay.

Conan jeered.

From the ledge, Napoleon heard a howl. Looking up, he saw the spirit of a wild dog; and just as soon as it appeared, it was gone.

"I really am a wild dog, " he murmured in awe. But his awe soon drained; forlornly he watched his way home disappear, yowling into the night.

—

Morning came.

Conan questioned Napoleon's plan to get home, but the puppy had no idea what to do. He was very distraught.

Then Conan spotted something, approaching them from the water. A green sea turtle, with something … on its back?

It was Birdo!

Puppy and galah reunited, Napoleon agreed that his friend was right all along, and Birdo brought good news. He had found Napoleon a way home!

As Napoleon stood on the turtle’s back, letting it take him back to Sydney, he bid his friends goodbye, reminding them to come visit soon.

—

Running, running, running, Napoleon made his way home. His tail wagged like a propeller as he saw a familiar yard.

"Mum! Mum! Mum! Mummy!"

His mother, who had just a moment before had been slumped mournfully, stepped out of her dog house and began a full body wag. “Muffin? Is that you?!" She couldn’t believe her ears.

"Mum! Mummy!"

She scanned the yard, but could not see her baby.

"Mum!"

“Well come here!" she said desperately. "Come here! Let me put my paws around you!"

His little head peeked over the patio wall. "Mum! It's me! I’m back! You wouldn’t believe where I’ve been!" He put his front paws on top of the wall.

She spun around, unable to contain herself, held back by the rope attached to the doghouse. "Come here! You didn’t get hurt, did you? What happened to you!?"

Maddeningly, he came no closer. "What happened? Everything happened to me!"

"Careful! You can’t get over that wall!”

"Are you kidding? Piece of cake!" He leapt down, and ran to his mother, nearly smashing into her face out of sheer exuberance.

They jumped and tumbled and kissed joyfully, relief and love filling their hearts. Mother refused to let son out of her grasp and finally, the world was right again.

"Muffin, I want you to promise me you’ll never run away like that again."

"I won’t. And I want you to promise me something."

His mother laughed. "Anything darling, anything."

"I want you to call me Napoleon."

"From now on, you’re my Napoleon."

—

Nobody noticed the cat peering over the wall. "Ah, not a mouse. A dog! Dog must die!"

Napoleon Explanation

So this was a story that took me a long, long time. It’s definitely my longest adaption of film, tv or podcasts yet - and I hope it stays that way! The adaption ended up a little dry, but I feel that I was able to describe the events effectively, and utilize the dialogue (the hardest part to adapt) sparingly but appropriately. At the beginning of my transcription, I tried to avoid any dialogue at all, but oh well. This covers the entire movie, a movie without any books or scripts to help me avoid typing.

Last summer, 2023, I had the job of Lost Parents. That basically meant I’m the person lost children are brought to if the security guards can’t find their parents right away. Eventually, a security guard brings the guardians, or the guardians come themselves, and pick up the kid(s). Which is all fine and dandy, especially since I don’t have kids for most of the shift. Kids have stayed with me for over two hours, but usually they’re gone within half an hour and I’m rarely brought any in the mornings. So I get projects like these done!

The movie is on youtube (see link), so over several days I slowly worked through it and wrote out all relevant details into a notebook (I find writing easier if I start in a notebook and type it into a document later - if I just start on a document I never finish. Plus I wasn’t really supposed to have my phone out, and switching between apps is annoying). Then I typed it up - often via voice-to-text, unless I was recording dialogue. For some reason, the program does not recognize quotation marks very often. Then I fixed it up and whalla! What you see above is what I wrote!

But I didn’t finish editing it until after that summer, because I was more interested in drawing the pictures. In fact, drawing the title picture was the first thing I did!

To be honest, I often drew the title pictures well before anything else. They were easy.

This title picture was in reference to the old VHS cover I used to have for this movie. It’s an Australian movie, so they speak English, but for some reason they released an American dub and released it over here. So I’ve loved this movie ever since I could remember. But the balloon scenes were iconic, so of course I had to include it. Especially since I decided this adaption would only have four pictures total. As I wanted to save my labor for my more original projects, and because this was a movie, it has less pictures.

The second picture is Napoleon getting chased by the cat. It used to scare me as a kid, so I always had a clear picture of it in my head. Plus, it serves to contrast Napoleon’s bravery in later scenes.

The third picture is Napoleon saving Nancy. I basically just wanted to draw all the puppies and Napoleon being brave. So we ended up with that part!

Last is Napoleon and Pengy/Conan looking up at the wild dog spirit. It’s the least accurate picture, but one I felt fit well. In the movie, Napoleon and Pengy look up to see a wild dog on top of a cliff who gets swept away by mist. But considering that they were still up on the high parts of the cliff at the end of the fight, the timing and location doesn’t quite make sense. And drawing *lineart* of mist is hard with my style, and requires more texture than fits in line with my most recent coloring book drawings. Way back at the beginning, I used to add details like shading, lines of hair and such, but that gets in the way of coloring, so I stopped. As such, I adapted it to fit my needs. Now Napoleon and Pengy/Conan are in the shot (I wanted to include both), and the wild dog spirit is in the clods and stars! I’m decided that the storm went away.

The Pengy vs. Conan thing was something of which I struggled when writing the last part. I support chosen names, especially when the old names totally don’t fit anymore. Hell, Napoleon insists on being Napoleon right to the end! But I decided since this was basically from his viewpoint, he would not call the penguin Conan, not even in his head. For the rest of the movie, after all, he calls the penguin Pengy. So while this choice does not reflect my preferences, I think it does reflect Napoleon’s.

Last thought: the setting of this story is genuinely fantasy. I think the creators wanted to go for a pan-Australian vibe; so many different ecosystems from across the continent are shown in the film. This means, of course, that Napoleon went to a fantasy kind of island across from the city though. There is nowhere in Australia where ALL of those environments are present. If he truly walked the entirety of Australia, a continent, he would have been a grown dog well before the end of the movie. But since he is still a puppy by the end, that just means he went to a fantasy Australia. Which is kind of cool.

Hope you enjoyed, and please check the movie out!

[famy-x]

The City of Lost Children Directed by Marc Caro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet 1995 France

[mariacallous]

When you think of Eastern European Jewish cuisine, which words come to mind? Light? Healthy? Plant based? Probably not. Heavy, homey and meat-centric are more like it. 

Fania Lewando died during the Holocaust, but had she been given the full length of her years, Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine may have taken a turn to the vegetarian side and we might all be eating vegetarian kishke and spinach cutlets in place of brisket.

Lewando is not a household name. In fact, she would have been lost to history had it not been for an unlikely turn of events. Thanks to a serendipitous find, her 1937 work, “The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook” (“Vegetarish-Dietisher Kokhbukh”in Yiddish), was saved from oblivion and introduced to the 21st century.

Vilna in the 1930s, where Lewando and her husband Lazar made their home, was a cosmopolitan city with a large Jewish population. Today, it is the capital of Lithuania but it was then part of Poland. Lewando opened a vegetarian eatery called The Vegetarian Dietetic Restaurant on the edge of the city’s Jewish quarter. It was a popular spot among both Jews and non-Jews, as well as luminaries of the Yiddish-speaking world. (Even renowned artist Marc Chagall signed the restaurant’s guest book.)

Lewando was a staunch believer in the health benefits of vegetarianism and devoted her professional life to promoting these beliefs. She wrote: “It has long been established by the highest medical authorities that food made from fruit and vegetables is far healthier and more suitable for the human organism than food made from meat.” Plus, she wrote, vegetarianism satisfies the Jewish precept of not killing living creatures. 

We know little about her life other than she was born Fania Fiszlewicz in the late 1880s to a Jewish family in northern Poland. She married Lazar Lewando, an egg merchant from what is today Belarus and they eventually made their way to Vilna. They did not have children. 

Lewando, to quote Jeffrey Yoskowitz, author of “The Gefilte Manifesto” was “a woman who challenged convention;” a successful entrepreneur, which was a rarity among women of the time. She supervised a kosher vegetarian kitchen on an ocean liner that traveled between Poland and the United States, and gave classes on nutrition to Jewish women in her culinary school. 

“The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook” was sold in Europe and the U.S. in Lewando’s day, but most of the copies were lost or destroyed during the Second World War. In 1995, a couple found a copy of the cookbook at a second-hand book fair in England. They understood the importance of a pre-war, Yiddish-language, vegetarian cookbook written by a woman, so purchased it and sent it to the YIVO Institute’s offices in New York. There, it joined the millions of books, periodicals and photos in YIVO’s archives. 

It was discovered again by two women who visited YIVO and were captivated by the book’s contents and colorful artwork. They had it translated from Yiddish to English so it could be enjoyed by a wider audience.

Like many Ashkenazi cooks, salt was Lewando’s spice, butter her flavor and dill her herb. The book is filled with dishes you’d expect: kugels and blintzes and latkes; borscht and many ways to use cabbage. There’s imitation gefilte fish and kishke made from vegetables, breadcrumbs, eggs and butter. Her cholent (a slow-cooked Sabbath stew) recipes are meat-free, including one made with prune, apple, potatoes and butter that is a cross between a stew and a tzimmes.

There are also some surprises.

Did you know it was possible to access tomatoes, eggplants, asparagus, lemons, cranberries, olive oil, Jerusalem artichokes, blueberries and candied orange peel in pre-war Vilna? There’s a French influence, too, such as recipes for mayonnaise Provencal and iles flottante, a meringue-based dessert, and a salad of marinated cornichons with marinated mushrooms. 

“It’s hard to know who the target audience was for this cookbook,” said Eve Jochnowitz, its English-language translator. “We know from contemporary memoirs that people in Vilna did not have access to these amazing amounts of butter, cream and eggs,” she said. “Lewando was writing from a somewhat privileged and bourgeois position.” While many of these recipes may have been aspirational given the poverty of the Jews at the time, the cookbook demonstrates that it was possible to obtain these ingredients in Vilna, should one have the resources to do so. 

While the cookbook is filled with expensive ingredients, there is also, said Jochnowitz, “a great attention to husbanding one’s resources. She was ahead of her time in the zero-waste movement.” Lewando admonishes her readers to waste nothing. Use the cooking water in which you cooked your vegetables for soup stock. Use the vegetables from the soup stock in other dishes. “Throw nothing out,” she writes in the cookbook’s opening essay. “Everything can be made into food.” Including the liquid from fresh vegetables; Lewando instructed her readers on the art of vitamin drinks and juices, with recipes for Vitamin-Rich Beet Juice and Vitamin-Rich Carrot Juice. “This was very heroic of her,” said Jochnowitz. “There were no juice machines! You make the juice by grating the vegetables and then squeezing the juice out by hand.”

Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, a Jewish scholar and Jewish cookbook collector, describes Lewando as “witty.” “She is showing us,” she said, “that once you eliminate meat and fish, you still have an enormous range of foods you can prepare.” Lewando is about “being creative, imaginative and innovative both with traditional dishes and with what she is introducing that is remote from the traditional repertoire.” She does that in unexpected ways. Her milchig (dairy) matzah balls, for example, have an elegance and lightness to them. She instructs the reader to make a meringue with egg whites, fold in the yolks, then combine with matzah meal, melted butter and hot water. Her sauerkraut salad includes porcini mushrooms. One of her kugels combines cauliflower, apples, sliced almonds and candied orange peel.

There is much that, through contemporary eyes, is missing in “The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook.” The recipes do not give step-by-step instructions; rather you will find general directions. Heating instructions are vague, ranging from a “not-too-hot-oven” to a “warm oven” to a “hot oven.” Lewando assumes the reader’s familiarity with the kitchen that today’s cookbook writer would not. 

Lewando and her husband were listed in the 1941 census of the Vilna Ghetto but not in the census of 1942. It is believed that they both died or were killed while attempting to escape. “She really was a visionary,” said Jochnowitz. “It is an unbearable tragedy that she did not live to see the future that she predicted and helped to bring about.”But in cooking her recipes, said Yoskowitz, as dated and incomplete as some of them may be, the conversation between then and now continues.

[sandinmybed]

Please tell me about prophecy and the seventh sign and any other movies/media that explores the dynamics you're talking about I wanna hear!!

WALL OF TEXT!

For anyone reading this who doesn't know what this is about, I am recommending movies with religious themes that are not like... NICE religious. These are more along the lines of "Angels do not have free will and exist to do God's bidding - God's will frequently involves horrible, horrible things. Source: the Bible." My mother, who was raised to be devoutly Protestant and is now a devout atheist with religious trauma, loves movies like this. She calls them "nasty angel movies" but in general she likes things with religious themes that aren't preachy - and in fact might be the opposite. She likes media with the premise that God (of abrahamic faiths, particularly christianity) is real, but not benevolent. i'm struggling to define this genre because it's late lol

so, The Prophecy (1995)! fucking great movie. it's told mostly from the perspective of a detective who was previously training to be a catholic priest but lost his faith because of horrible visions. Christopher Walken portrays the angel Gabriel who has come to claim an extremely evil soul as a weapon for a second war in heaven. he is NOT a nice angel. i THINK the angels are upset that God has focused all His energy on humanity? but i may be misremembering. anyway this evilest soul ever has been placed temporarily in the body of a little native american girl who immediately becomes ill and is looked after by her teacher mostly, and Gabriel is looking for it and he's the villain of the movie, basically. it does have potentially uh,, slightly 90s ideas of Native American spirituality? possibly problematic/stereotyping? but i'm british and know almost nothing about native americans so i can't tell you if it's egregiously bad, or if its just a bit cringe. but the movie itself is really really good imo. also, Viggo Mortensen as Lucifer. Can't really go into that too much without spoilers, but he's INCREDIBLE. He makes the entire film.

I personally loved it because Gabriel is the angel who told Mary she would be giving birth to the son of God, right? most children raised in Western Christian nations are familiar with the Nativity and angel Gabriel above all others. But he's not a nice guy here - he's a servant of God, and he's mad about it. He uses humans as tools, kills, he's horrible lol. Interestingly, wikipedia seems to suggest that most people thought it was bad but it's gone on to become a cult film? idk i think its great.

Seventh Sign (1988) I didn't enjoy as much (personal opinion, my mum loves it) but the concept is really good. Basically, signs of the biblical apocalypse are happening and mostly being explained away, but they're happening. Leans a little bit into Hebrew theology too. A woman (demi moore) is pregnant with a baby, but there were a limited amount of souls in heaven, and now the first baby without a soul is soon to be born, and it's hers.

My mother also recommends Devil's Advocate (1997) which I've not seen myself but the main actors are Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino so I reckon it must be good lol. From the wikipedia it seems to be more of a horror, so if you have triggers I'd search on "does the dog die" (i've heard it's good for spoiler free trigger warnings) but according to wikipedia: "Based on Andrew Neiderman's 1990 novel of the same name, it is about a gifted young Florida lawyer invited to work for a major New York City law firm. As his wife becomes haunted by frightening visions, the lawyer slowly realizes the firm's owner, John Milton, is in fact, the Devil."

She also likes Constantine and Legion but i've not seen either nor talked to her about them so can't say anything about those lol

also this is a series and not a movie but I NEED you to watch Midnight Mass. it's by the same director who did The Fall of the House of Usher and the Haunting of Hill House and it's just absolutely incredible. It's a single series and it's about a village of like, a hundred or so people that's dying because small village. it's quite a religious town, the centre of the community is the catholic church, and the aging and senile priest has gone on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He doesn't return, and instead, a younger, unknown priest returns with new enigmatic sermons and then he performs actual miracles - he heals a girl in a wheelchair, for example. I don't want to spoil this but weird shit starts happening and it's a horror series again. My mum particularly liked (hated) a character called Bev Keane, she said she reminded her of her mother. The most miserable, awful, religious zealot, who never actually says anything cruel - she hides her awfulness behind scripture and religious quotes and is impossible to argue with or accuse of anything because she serves god! she's awful in such a hard to define way. Honestly the whole series is fantastic, and it's so well done. its one of those series where its impossible to make a sequel because its done perfectly. can you tell i liked this one

Also i think everyone on tumblr knows this one, but Good Omens. Obviously not a horror show like the others, and the "bad angels who are meant to only do god's will" thing is taken much more lightly here, but still worthy of inclusion imo. The book and the series are different, but not hugely. Humorous take on the apocalypse, and a demon and an angel who've been watching over earth for 6000 years and have decided actually, they like earth, and they dont want it to explode because heaven and hell are actually full of pricks and they dont want to deal with them, theyre too busy enjoying earth. so they decide to stop the apocalypse. they're not very good and it all goes a bit wrong a few times.

Final "religious themes" rec is Small Gods by Terry Pratchett, who also cowrote good omens and it's not actually about christian religion or angels but I think it's worth a mention because it's about a young monk called Brutha who is training in the city of Omnia, a religious city state on the Discworld that is devoted solely to the worship of the Great God Om. The church of Om run the entire city and everyone is a believer, the church is ultimately powerful, and everyone lives in fear of upsetting the church. And then the Great God Om is dropped from the sky from the talons of an eagle, and lands in a garden in the main church citadel - because he's a tortoise. He's been stuck in the form of a tortoise for years because he has no power anymore, because in Pratchett's discworld, there are many many gods and they only have power if someone believes in them. Om has just one believer - Brutha. Brutha is the only person in the ENTIRE CITY who actually believes in the god they claim to worship - the rest just believe in the system, in the religion and in oppression, because that's very real. Brutha knows more about Omnian religion than Om does, because to say Om was an absentee god is putting it mildly. it was the first discworld book i read and it's what got me into the series, it's absolutely great. Also really, really funny as well as reorients your worldview a bit. Pratchett is good at that

okay i need to stop, I have work in the morning, but hopefully this enormous wall of text wasn't too much for you!