#the way he joins his mercenaries for gigs and the way he does everything in his power to keep them safe

[ruvviks]

vitali is so special to me actually because on a surface level he might look like just some corpo but when you KNOW him you know he's a lot sexier than that

[thecorteztwins]

No Acolytes in this little fanfiction, just two squads of some of my favorite Marvel mercs---Force of Nature and the Serpent Society! With some Mindmeld and the Shaws at the end!

When the wealthy eco-terrorists that called themselves “Project Earth” had needed some super-powered muscle, they had hired four individuals that they had deemed “Force of Nature” for their elemental powers. Though Project Earth had disbanded, Force of Nature had kept their name, since it was now a known one. Not widely known, but better than any of them had done as indivuduals, and that meant brand recognition, which meant being hired for more jobs. Environmentalists in particular tended to choose them due to their past with the aforementioned Project Earth, though most green freaks didn’t have that kind of cash so they ended up with a lot of less noble merc jobs. Today though, their target was indeed one that their original employers would have loved to see taken down---the Roxxon Energy Corporation. The task was simple---get inside, get deep into the most highly secure area, and wreck everything. They had succeeded in this---but, to their surprise, they were not the only ones. ”Who’re YOU?!” demanded a huge hulking blonde woman as the quartet burst in. She was part of a larger group of people, and judging by their costumes---not to mention two of the men appearing to be part snake---she and her gang weren’t Roxxon employees any more than Force of Nature was. ”I could ask YOU the same question,” retorted Skybreaker/Aireo, a miniature whirlwind forming around on of fists. The woman’s biceps were probably thicker than his entire body, but he was not at all deterred. ”Who cares who they are?!” said one of the men in the blonde woman’s group, a sturdy fellow with light brown skin, the only one of them bigger than she was, ”They’re witnesses or they’re competition---either way, let’s get rid of ‘em!” With that, the man began to increase dramatically in size, his already huge frame getting even bigger. ”Good idea, Puffy!” said the blonde woman, and came swinging at the elemental---swinging with arms that were suddenly twice the length they had been before. ”Now wait just a---” an Egyptian woman in a white dress began, before being knocked off her feet by a gust from Skybreaker, who was airborne now, while Terraformer had taken on his tree shape to grapple with the blonde and the giant man was being kept at bay by flame blasts from Firewall. ”Hang on, I think I know these mooks,” said Aqueduct, who had been in the supervillain business longer than any of his teammates, “The Serpent Society!” The Serpent Society was the kind of mercenary guild you wanted to get in on, big time. They had insurance, benefits, all that kind of stuff, just like a real job. Hell, their package was actually a lot BETTER than most “real” jobs! It was a level of legitimate-like professionalism that was unheard of in the underworld; even organized crime like the Maggia didn’t typically offer that kind of gig. Unfortunately, you had to have a snake name to join up...maybe he should start calling himself Water Moccasin? ”That’s us,” confirmed an attractive woman with long black hair as she snuck up behind him, “And if you know that---you know you’re finished!” Aqueduct turned to attack, only to find himself face to face not with Black Mamba, the succubus-like member of the Serpent Society, but one of her life-sapping love phantoms----which he currently saw, as anyone would who it was targeted at, as looking like the woman of his dreams, a perfect composite of his every sexual fantasy put together in one flawless and nude form. A form that fell upon in a full lip-lock, which he surrendered to helplessly. “Be glad I’m the one that got you, lover boy,” said the love phantom’s mistress as she looked down at where he lay, submitting to his fate, “You’re going to go out with the GOOD kind of bang.” “Release him from your shadows, harlot!” Skybreaker shrieked, using his winds to scoop Black Mamba up into the air, levitating her high above the floor. “Or what, you’ll drop me?” mocked Black Mamba, though in truth she didn’t like the idea. “No---I shall roast you!” Firewall threatened, flying up beside her, her entire body ablaze. “Fine!” Black Mamba said, and the love phantom vanished, leaving a very confused and rather disappointed Aqueduct looking around in a dazed manner. He sat up and blinked at the closest person to him, the Egyptian woman in the white dress. In her daily life, she was Cleo. As a supervillain, she was The Asp. But he knew her by another name,... “Hey, aren’t you The Temptress?” The second it left his lips, he was sorry he had let it out. Now he was hoping that she WASN’T, and would have no idea to what he was referring. Alas, she was, and she did, and she looked down her beautiful nose at him, “You remember me. But I do not recall you. Which means you must not have been a good tipper. So I shall feel no guilt in doing THIS!” And she hurled a venom blast at him, hitting him square in the chest and knocking him out once again. As for Black Mamba, Skybreaker had dropped her anyway, but she had been caught mid-fall by the extendable and strong arms of Anaconda, aka the huge blonde woman. One of her arms, anyway. The other had shot out even farther to grab Skybreaker by his lengthy ponytail, as she growl-shouted up at him, ”Cut yer hair, ya hippie!” He shrieked in hopes that Firewall would help him, but she was distracted by another Serpent, the silent and scale-covered assassin of the team, boasting a spike-studded casing for his tail and titanium talons on his gloves that were filled with snake venom. Her flames allowed her to keep him at a distances, but she couldn’t be too liberal with them lest she hit her teammates, especially Terraformer the living tree, and Death Adder’s enhanced speed and agility made it easy for him to keep dodging her fireballs. Her best bet was to keep her entire body ablaze to keep him from touching her, while keeping him distracted from her more vulnerable teammates, which was what she was doing. But she spared a jet of flame for Aireo’s sake, causing Anaconda to drop him. Then she turned her attention back to Death Adder, hoping to finish him once and for all, -”A pity. I like you far better than your comrades---for you do not speak.” With that, she sent a wave of flame to engulf him---only to have him be snagged away by the long arm of Anacondna. Roland had died before, she wasn’t letting that happen again. ”You’re a real chatterbox yourself, Mabel!” she quipped, using the default name she applied to any woman she didn’t know. “What did you call me, you swine?!” Not being American, Firewall thought that “Mabel” must be an insult. And likewise, Anaconda thought Firewall was insulting her looks, when in fact she tended to call ALL Americans some variant of swine or pig. She seemed to like them about as much as Aireo liked humans in general. The two women abandoned their former opponents and began trying to get at each other. Speaking of Aireo, he was back in the fray, attacking one of the Serpents who had been trying to slash through Terraformer with the two huge blades strapped to his forearms. Like Death Adder, he was one of the more inhuman looking ones (though Skybreaker would of course not use that term in such a way) as from the waist down he was an enormous green snake. And like a snake trying to get at a bird, he tried to strike at Skybreaker as he flitted around him, distracting him from hurting Terraformer further while the tree elemental continued tussling with the giant-size Puff Adder. ”Get away from him!” the Inhuman commanded, trying to blow the snake-man back, but his naga-like lower half proved too heavy, giving him the opportunity to dig his arm-blades into Terraformer’s....not flesh, but bark...and take hold there. ”Monster!” Skybreaker cried in outrage as his teammate did the same in pain. This seemed to phase his opponent considerably, as the man suddenly looked upset, ”Who are you to call me a monster?!” “Among my people, I was Aireo. In the human world, I am Skybreaker. But to you---I shall be MASTER!” ”There’s only one master here,” the snake-man retorted, “And it’s me---Bushmaster! And I’m as human as you!” This was the wrong thing to say to Skybreaker, who let loose a whole new torrent that sent Bushmaster flying--along with a few chunks of Terraformer---backwards into the nearest wall. ”Human?! HUMAN?! You dare call me HUMAN?! Did you not HEAR what I just said?! I am no human---I am INHUMAN! I come from ATTILAN! And while it is a regressive place in need of reform--which I was cast out for trying to give it---it is still a superior world to yours, human man!” Bushmaster actually hadn’t been able to hear half of what Aireo had said over his winds, but he looked surprised at this last bit, and even...touched? ”You...think I’m human?” Aireo descended to stand before him, his thin arms cross over his thin chest, scoffing, ”Most likely; they’re a common breed with many variants. But if you’re NOT? Take it as a source of pride. I do.” Meanwhile, Death Adder was silently slipping up to the prone Aqueduct, who was still down from The Asps’s blast. But then Terraformer, seeing this, defended his teammate by at last letting the gargantuan Puff Adder slam him to the side---right into Death Adder, who went hurling out of the way to avoid being crushed, causing him to crash into The Asp, who reflexively venom-blasted him by accident, taking her own teammate down. ”Enough!” she decreed, striking one bare foot with elegant force against the floor, “Does anyone here even know WHY we are at each other’s throats?!” ”She’s got a point,” said Black Mamba, “Guys, cool it. You four---I’m willing to stop fighting for a minute if you are. At least til we figure out if we SHOULD be.” Firewall and Skybreaker objected, but cooler heads prevailed---Aqueduct, getting back to his feet, agreed it was a good idea, and Terraformer corralled his more tempermental teammates with his branches. Firewall of course could have burned through them, through him, but she would not do that to him. He was the most gentle and inoffensive of them, even from her easily-angered perspective. “Okay the,” Black Mamba said, taking the lead from Asp, “The hell are YOU here for?” “You first,” said Aqueduct, figuring it’d be best if he did the talking for his respective team. For different reasons, none of them were what you’d call good negotiators---and really, neither was he, for the reason that he was none too bright, but at least he probably wouldn’t set things off again.

“Serpent Crown,” Black Mamba explained, “Roxxon’s been after it a long time. In fact, their Mutagenics Division gave all of us except Puff Adder and Asp here our powers, all in order to recover it. And they finally got their hands on it...but we’ve long moved on to new employers. One who’d like it for themselves. You?” “Roxxon Energy Company used to be Roxxon Oil, and really, they still are,” Skybreaker interrupted,  “And like all oil companies, they are ecological monsters. They have damaged countless---” “So there’s no conflict then,” Black Mamba cut him off, “We want the crown. You want to wreck the place, I’m guessing, maybe make an example of some people. We’ve got no beef with that. And I’m sure YOU don’t want these “ecological monsters” having an object of power like THAT.” Force of Nature looked at each other, and Aqueduct finally said, “Well...no. I mean, maybe OUR employers would like it too---but they didn’t say so, so their loss!” He’d added that last part quickly when he’d seen the Serpents tensing to fight again at the very idea he might be thinking of taking their prize. “I don’t think ANY human should have it,” said Aireo, “But since they’re all the same, it doesn’t matter to me if it changes hands from Roxxon to another.” “Any corporation shall use it for gain without a thought of what damage it causes,” said Firewall, the flames around her still crackling. “But Roxxon pollutes even more than most corporations,” Terraformer pointed out. “So uh, I guess what my crew is saying is, it comes down to who you’re giving it to,” said Aqueduct, a little uneasily, not actually caring himself and knowing already that this would not go over well. “That’s confidential. We’re professionals, come on now,” Black Mamba said, and continued to negotiate, “Look, I admire that you guys clearly have a sincere moral stake in this, but you’re still mercenaries, just like us, and like you said, Water Boy, you weren’t paid to take the Crown. We were. If your next customer tells you that your mission is to get the Crown from us, then we’re ready to make you work for it, but since that’s not the case, what’s the point?” Aqueduct agreed with her completely, actually. Like, he liked animals and rainforests and stuff and all that, but he wasn’t actually invested in it like his teammates. Skybreaker and Terraformer both had good reasons to want a cleaner Earth---Aireo being an Inhuman meant that pollution affected his health much more than a normal person, and Terraformer literally WAS a sentient plant---and Theary aka Firewall, well, she was just angry at the West and anyone in power, just angry IN GENERAL really, and Aqueduct didn’t really think he blamed her, given her background as a Cambodian child conceived during the Vietnam War. But him? Man, he just wanted a paycheck. And he’d prefer to get it without any extra complications, like getting clobbered by psycho-snake-people when he didn’t have to. “Guys, let’s let them have it,” he said, turning to his team, “Odds are, whoever they’re taking it too, won’t be WORSE than Roxxon. And if it turns out that our client DOES want it for themselves? They have to pay us for a second mission.” Firewall snorted and said something about his typical American greed, and while Terraformer and Aireo didn’t DISAGREE with that, they too wanted to get back to the task at hand of merely hurting Roxxon, not doing battle with other mercenaries over something that didn’t actually affect their mission at all. “Okay then,” Aqueduct turned back to the Serpent Society, smiling and feeling proud that he’d taken the reins of leadership and actually succeeded in making his team go with it, “Crown’s yours, guys! Carry on! Just be sure to get out of here before we bring the place down!” “Man, we didn’t NEED your permission,” Anaconda growled, “Mamba just didn’t think we should smash you without getting paid EXTRA for it upfront. But me--” She flexed her massive arms, and Aqueduct, even at a good distance, gulped. “---I would have done it for free.” With that, the Serpent Society walked away and left Force of Nature to continue destroying the room even more than the fight already had...but returned to attack them once again in suspicion when they realized that the Serpent Crown was ALREADY GONE. *** “Well boys, here’s your little tiara,” the statuesque and silver-skinned mercenary known as Mindmeld sauntered casually into the Shaw’s meeting room, the priceless weapon dangling off her perfectly manicured index finger like a mere trinket. “I’ll take my fee now.” After a quick counted, she quirked an eyebrow in irritation, “Hey---if you wanna stiff me, there are better ways to do it than this. This is NOT what we agreed on, you owe me---” “Exactly that, once we deducted the fee for those “Force of Nature” fellows that you called in on my tab rather than fight the Serpent Society yourself when you realized they were after the same target,” said the senior Shaw coolly over his steepled fingers, “A clever idea, Miss Mindmeld, but they don’t work for free---much like yourself. Since you procured the prize successfully, I’m willing to overlook it, but touch my bank account again without authorization...and we shall be testing the limits of Krakoa’s resurrection.” Mindmeld didn’t doubt it. She also didn’t doubt Shinobi’s old man knew a whole lot of ways to just make you WISH you were dead without ever delivering the final mercy. So without further complaint, she counted herself lucky and slid the crown over, albeit to Shinobi rather than Sebastian, just to get a tiny little dig in because she was petty like that. Whatever, it was still a LOT of money. More than she’d ever made on a job. More than she’d ever made on all her jobs put together. Which was why, despite it usually being very much outside her professional protocol, she had to ask, “So what IS this thing? Besides hideous and not going to match EITHER of your wardrobes.” “This,” said Shinobi, his gaze fixed on the diadem of intertwined snakes, his finger tips running delicately yet firmly over the textured surface of false scales with the enraptured eagerness of a lover in foreplay, “Is why Billie Eilish wrote that song.” And that was why Sebastian Shaw had long given up anything his son said sometimes. END

[acklest]

Time for a rant

It’s about time we stopped this “you’re not as valid or successful if you didn’t go to college” bullshit. This attitude is practically quaint, and I’m gonna tell you why.

It’s okay to go to a community college.

It’s okay to go to a vocational school.

It’s okay to get into an apprenticeship situation where a professional trains you to work in a specific trade. In fact, we need to get back to that system.

It’s okay to get specific certifications for the field you’re interested in.

It’s okay to be self-educated. That’s what I had to do. After years of food service, phone banks, retail, clerical work, and various temp assignments, I was able to secure a decent-paying job that put food on the table. But it took me well into my 30s to get there. For the first time in my life, I had health insurance (lolol America). Now my husband is disabled and I support us. I’m extremely privileged to be able to do that.

It’s okay to be someone who dutifully works a job and then just goes home. If you’re happy enough, if you have what you need, who gives a shit? Learn from my bad example: Don’t define yourself solely by your job and how flattering it might be that your manager depends on you. it’s just a job. The days of working somewhere for 20 years and collecting a pension are a thing of the past. A corporation isn’t going to be loyal to you, so don’t be loyal to them. If you see a better opportunity, take it. At the first sign of danger to the bottom line, the corporation will put you up against the wall. They may even feel apologetic about it. But you don’t owe them shit, so be a mercenary.

Here’s how I got my first job: At age 16, as a legally-emancipated minor, I walked into a McDonald’s without an appointment. I was given a paper application. I sat at one of the booths and filled it out, then handed it to a manager, who interviewed me a few minutes later. Because I was able to deal with a human being, I was able to make a personal appeal to prove I was motivated. By the following Monday, I had a job there and was scheduled to work 30 hours a week. Was I anything special? No. I was a traumatized teenage dropout who barely had a GED via a correspondence course who had three roommates in a shitty apartment, where I was about to be kicked out if I couldn’t chip in my share of the rent, groceries and utilities. Were my answers somehow more persuasive than someone else’s would’ve been? I seriously doubt it. It was the human aspect that made it work.

This doesn’t happen anymore.

Here’s how it works now: You see a “now hiring” sign in a company’s window that instructs you to go to their website and submit an application, where countless others will join you. An algorithm scans your resume for a predefined set of keywords that no one bothered to tell you. You may have already lost any chance at the gig, and not only was no human being involved in that decision, but you have no way of knowing if you’re still in consideration. If you make the first cut, you might get a perfunctory interview where a distracted manager asks you some rote questions that they printed out, who only half-listens to your answers unless you drop one of those keywords. This manager will mark you off the list for almost any superficial reason, because they know there are dozens or hundreds of others who are also vying for the same gig. If you make that cut, you’re presented with the job as if it’s an amazing gift. And then you’re expected to give $20/hours’ worth of effort for a $7.25/hour job, or they’ll just go out on the street, throw a stick, and hit a person who’s probably just as desperate for work. On top of that, some of these jobs will expect you to have a bachelors’ degree and immediately exclude you if you don’t.

I lost a receptionist gig because I didn’t have a bachelor’s degree. A receptionist gig. “Thank God I have that Communications degree or I would NOT know how to answer these phones.”

(Don’t even get me started on unpaid internships. If you get some college credits out of it, fine. “It’ll give you something to put on your resumé” is the same as “we’ll pay you in exposure.”)

How can anyone, unless they have grants/scholarships, or a financially-secure family that’s willing to help them out, afford college without going into crippling financial debt? Spoiler alert: Most of them can’t. Back when I was being encouraged to go to college, when it was quite a bit cheaper than it is now, there was never going to be any way I could afford it. The prices have only skyrocketed since then. But here’s the gist of the problem: Millennials are being pressured into getting college degrees, and the college is so prohibitively expensive that most of them are going to be in debt well into their 30s. Oh, by the way, the book for only one of your classes is $150. The one you bought used is the previous edition. It’s all a big shakedown.

If you were able to go to college without working a part- or full-time job on the side, without going into crushing debt, have the decency to admit that you’re one of the privileged few. I’m not saying you didn’t work your ass off to get there and to get your degree. I’m saying that the experience is no longer typical, and for most people in the current generation, not viable.

That’s why I don’t have much tolerance for the whole “lol Millennials/Generation Z haha so dumb” thing that a lot of people in my generation have. AMERICA IS NOT THE SAME CULTURE OR ECONOMY THAT IT WAS, so we can’t judge the current generation by those factors. Technology has changed everything. Corporations have gotten more cold-blooded. Everything is more expensive. The banks are fucking everyone in the ass without even offering to buy dinner first. It sucks and people are out there like “you just need to get a STEM degree.” Are you gonna pay for it, Grandpa?

My son is a millennial. He still lives at home. Most of his friends still live at home. He’s getting a programming certification, and he’s only able to do that because we’re lucky enough to be able to help him pay for the individual courses. All of his friends are in the same boat, working part-time jobs, and in some cases, helping their parents pay the bills. But they’re sneered at by the previous generations because they’re being judged by a standard that’s no long valid. “Where’s your house? Why aren’t you investing in a money market portfolio? Where are your 2.5 kids? You should travel more, see the world. Why are you killing the [blank] industry?” Fuck off.

What we really need is a revolution. This is getting out of hand. We shouldn’t have almost an entire generation that’s struggling this hard. It means things are out of whack. It means there are problems we need to fix.

When I was growing up, a person who worked an entry-level construction gig and another person who worked as a Wal-Mart checker could, in their mid-20s, conceivably buy a small first home and consider starting a family. 

Now, we have people who can barely afford to pay rent even though they have three roommates (and the more roommates you have, the more statistically likely it is that you want to bury one of them in the woods), forced to make horrible decisions like “Well, if I eat only one larger meal in the middle of the day, and then go to bed before I start to feel hungry, I can pay rent this month.” I’d move back home, too. 

Just because someone is selling you a Big Mac and you have a degree does not make you better than them. Better educated? Sure. But a better person? No. Go fuck yourself.

People have their own baggage, demons, and challenges to get through. They don’t need judgmental fuckery on top of everything else. Assume that everyone you meet is doing the best they can to muddle through. It’s that general “try not to be an asshole” thing.

All I have is a GED and a give ‘em hell attitude and some coding books I read, and through sheer luck, a few years of established work experience that might open the door to some better job down the line. But I still get that little patronizing “oh” when someone finds out I don’t have a degree. I dare anyone, on any day of the week, to tell me I’m stupid because I didn’t go to college.

A good place to store that elitist attitude is directly up your ass. 

Get it up there nice and snug, too. 

Anyway, I probably went off track several times and it’s after 2AM so it’s entirely possible that parts of this don’t make sense. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. (Do people still say that? I’m old.)

[racingtoaredlight]

Beans & Toast: Coast to Coast

“Jesus Christ, dad...she was a grade below me in high school!”

Connie du Pont’s breakfast was still steaming as she laid into her father’s romantic interests for the thousandth time.  He absolutely stank of cheap tequila and forgotten evenings, sitting down at the table to eat the fluffy scrambled eggs his daughter whipped up in the trailer’s meager kitchen.

“What, no bacon?”

***

The Somali coast, the Malacca Strait, the Caribbean...none of these places can hold a candle to the level of piracy around the Niger Delta, off the coast of Nigeria in western Africa.

It’s a pirate’s playground.  Where in other parts of the world, piracy can bemore about force, the Niger Delta is different.  Like border collie’s herding a flock of sheep, pirates can herd massive ships into the seas just off the western coast, and at that point, size and security don’t matter when you find yourself on your home turf.

The geographical location made pirate’s security a lot easier than the urban coastal towns in the Philippines or on the eastern coast of Africa, giving them free reign to operate with little interference.  But it’s the geographical features underneath the Atlantic in this stretch that give the pirates their biggest advantage.

Shallow waters dotted with rocky obstacles all over, it can be a disaster for a large ship manned by a captain unfamiliar with the submarine terrain.  Thousands of ships have met their fate in this stretch of the ocean, laying bare to the elements in a nautical graveyard.

You don’t see massive cargo ships steam through this part of the world.  It’s just too risky.  The Somali coast sees exponentially more traffic than this part...and yet despite that, three times the amount of ships are hijacked here.  It’s rare to make it through this stretch without at least being harassed, let alone attacked.

***

“Oi don’t want no part of this, Beans.  You hear me?  Oi’m not fockin’ around.”

Frank Toast had stared death down for a living, and now he’s absolutely petrified.  Beans didn’t judge the man he’d spent the better part of his career chasing around the world.  He’ll never forget hanging onto Toast’s arm, Toast dangling over the edge of a bridge after a high-speed chase down the Amalfi Coast in Italy.

It was the look...the “gotcha” smirk on Toast’s face as he clinked a set of handcuffs discretely hidden on his wrist onto Beans’ arm, mutually assuring any potential deaths.  A man like that doesn’t have the capacity to feel fear, in Beans’ experience.  And yet, here they were.

Beans thought about all those classes he took on the way to getting his PhD in Criminal Psychology.  About how the mere option of dying an anonymous, undignified death would be something a man with an ego like Toast’s would do anything to avoid.  About how, in their own personal experience, he couldn’t imagine Toast backing down from anything if it would guarantee his freedom.

***

The former Chocula sat in deep waters, the Nigerian coast visible through a set of strong binoculars.  Through another pair of binoculars, Abeo Chukwu-Ojhogar watched a Zodiac boat be lowered and begin to speed in his direction.

His nameless ship...rusty but sound...bristled with AK-47′s and Chinese-made RPG’s wielded by a crew who’s oldest member couldn’t have been past 20.  At 26, Chukwu-Ojhogar is already somewhat of an elder, a legend among the pirates in the region.

Just as the sun is about to set, the Zodiac pulls up alongside Chukwu-Ojhogar’s boat and two commandos wordlessly heave four giant black duffel bags before speeding off.  When the Zodiac returns to the former Chocula, Chukwu-Ojhogar hits his ship’s floodlight and escorts the cargo ship to its eventual target.

It was a good day.  They had agreed on two bags, not four.

***

“Jesus Christ, will you give me a break, darlin’?”

Preston du Pont was not an official member of the du Pont clan, something that he never was able to get over no matter how comfortable and affluent a life he had.  The illegitimate son of Pierre du Pont and his father’s Honduran nurse, Preston was a bastard child of aristocracy.  Shoved into the closet with fistfuls of cash, and forgotten by his family.

Dalton, Harvard, MIT...Preston blew through these schools, fueled by the chip on his shoulder.  He joined the Army, flew recon missions for MACV SOG in Cambodia and Laos, changing his last name to du Pont to piss off his father before he became Delaware’s governor, much to Pierre’s chagrin.  He even adopted a southern accent and lived in a trailer, to prove some point to the man who Preston knew didn’t care.

Working clandestine missions for the CIA for the next two decades, and all the years of drinking and whoring took its toll psychologically, because physically he didn’t look a day older than 60.  By the early 2000′s, he had set up a little private gig with his kids Connie and Tommy, contracting to intelligence services for covert logistics and intel work.

While Tommy might be the best pilot in the family, something Preston would begrudgingly admit, Connie is the brains of this operation.

“These eggs are shit, hun.”

***

Beans can’t stand Nigel Fitzsimmons.

The attaché from MI-6 was everything he couldn’t stand regarding the modern state of the intelligence community.  Mincing, overly bureaucratic, his overbite, it takes every ounce of Beans’ patience to keep from losing his temper every time he hears Fitzimmons’ pathetic rapping on his cabin’s door.

Deep breath, “yes Nigel?”

“Mmm...yes...good evening, sir.  I hope I’m not interrupting.”

Beans’ glare said more than any words could.

“Anyways sir, the prisoner says he has something he would like to discuss.  Should I set up the room?”

The way Fitzsimmons asked if he should set up the room pinged Beans’ instincts.  He thought to himself why he would find that strange?  Is it the way he asked?  Does he have an ulterior motive for setting up the room?  Why wouldn’t he just set the room up?

He steps into the interrogation room’s foyer, observes Fitzsimmons adjusting Toast’s restraints, and quickly stops the recording and disconnects the encrypted satellite link to MI-6.

***

“Dad, we got a message.”

“From Abeo?”

“Yea.  He’s escorting a bunch of mercenaries down the western coast of Africa.  Says they’re headed for Cape Town with a hijacked cargo ship.  White guys, not pirates.  Well equipped and trained.”

“No shit.”  Preston smiles to himself, while typing on his phone.

“Dad, what are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you texting Uncle Ben again?”

“Heh yea.”

Preston’s half brother has taken out numerous restraining orders, but when you’re sitting on an eight-figure trust fund with friends up and down both the diplomatic and intelligence communities, that’s not going to stop you from tormenting your family.  Preston shows his daughter the text.

“OH MY GOD WHY WOULD YOU SHOW ME THIS?!?”

“Lighten up, hun.  Tommy thought it was hilarious.”

“It’s not funny, dad.  Uncle Ben is a sweetheart and...wait...TOMMY SHOULD NOT BE TEXTING YOU WHILE HE’S ON A COVERT MISSION FROM A CLANDESTINE PRISON.”

“That’s why we got you in charge, Con.  You’re the steak, we’re the sizzle.”

***

TO BE CONTINUED

[silver-spider-art]

Borderlands Head Canons

Okay so I have horrible depression writer's block rn and have been replaying all the borderlands games while also daydreaming all the stories I want to tell with these characters. So I’m just going to write out my head canons for shits and giggles cuz I have a lot of thoughts.

Handsome Jack:

Jack is such a wild card. He’s an overgrown toddler and an impatient genius. Also sexy as hell and a problematic fave. I spend so much time playing the game sassing and back talking him (like he can fucking hear me) but I still adore him. And relistening to some of the dialog lines I’ve built up a variety of head canon and AU ideas for him. 

So canon vs fanon is a little squishy in my head but Moxxi claims his face is plastic surgery and I’m taking that to be more than the mask. He’s definitely ADHD and neurodivergent. Plus a good helping of PTSD and paranoia thanks to Grandma and trauma from his ex-wives. Those are all his starting points but he breaks into 3 categories based on Angel. Bad Dad, Okay Dad, and Good Dad.

Bad Dad is canon and tips the point of no return for Jack’s mental instability when Angel brutally (but accidentally) murders his wife/her mom. Afraid of his own daughter and horribly betrayed and without “the one good force” in his life, he starts down the path of ultimate Sheakspearian self-destruction. All relationships end tragically and he’s his own greatest enemy. As far as the wife goes, I’m 100% that she is on a pedestal in his head and while he can think no ill of her, the relationship wasn’t all roses. 

Okay Dad, in AUs this would be where however his wife died or was lost it didn’t result in his fearing Angel (I normally leave this idea for modern!AUs without Siren powers). He is still overprotective and “doing it for your own good” but without the torture or horrific manipulation. Because of this, while Angel might still resent or hate him, he still has something to live for and is capable of somewhat decent relationships. Still, he rather sucks at it and more often than not is self-destructive. (my fave for writing and reading)

Good Dad, this is a strange and mysterious creature that is nearly unheard of. So often this feels so out of place. So much would have to change to create a catalyst in his life for him to turn out healthy. I mostly see this as a redemption arch thing. Where he might be able to turn it around and make amends given the right people around him. 

The other thing I’ve been growing ever found of is trans!jack. He wears a ridiculous number of layers of clothing which is definitely hiding his soft gut, but I’m very fond of the idea that much of his bragging and defensiveness is overcompensation for his fear and trauma both from childhood abuse and gender. There is quite a bit in game dialog on the Jack vs John thing. For the trans!jack I’m actually loving the idea that when he came out and remade his life, he chose John and was hired in at Hyperion with them only knowing him as John. But as he got more comfortable with his new life (and Tassiter made him start hating his new name) he wanted to reclaim his birth name. That he’s always gone by the nickname Jack (born Jacqueline) and was now confident enough in presenting male (and helped by Nisha) that he would even let friends call him Jackie without feeling less masculine. (super self-indulgent reasonings for this)

Other random head canons, Jack is polysexual and pansexual. He prefers women romantically but usually has longer last relationships with men yet rarely thinks of them in the same light. He’s mostly into women powerful enough to crush him and while he is aggressive and into being on top, he’d make a shit dom. He’s impatient and easily losses himself to pleasure. He is, however, a very good sub but it takes a huge amount of trust for him to allow that. (this is also why he is so angry at his attraction to Rhys. Rhys is a soft nerd who can’t even fire a gun, the exact opposite of Jack’s type and he falls for him anyway.) Jack’s vanity knows no bound and he spends way too much time of his look every morning to look perfectly disheveled and like he doesn’t care. Also extremely attached to his favorite things with huge possessiveness (partially caused by aforementioned childhood trauma). Jack actually likes cats but hates being around then cuz old childhood pain. Jack is also complete and utter crap at taking about his feelings or opening up to people.

Timothy Lawrence: 

So for dear Tim, my beloved favorite, I have 2 main categories, canon doppelganger or au brother. 

Doppelganger: needing money he took a job as Jack’s body double and had plastic surgery to look like Jack. Depending on Jack (Bad/Okay/Good) his relationship turns out drastically different. 

Bad ending poor Tim gets branded and has to fell his possessive and deranged boss and spends his life masked on Pandora as a mercenary. Always hiding his face for fear of those who want revenge on the man whose face he wears. 

Okay fate, he and Jack are lovers. They fight a lot and Tim’s most often catchphrase is “damn it, Jack” but in the end, Jack is his asshole. Their relationship is polyamorous and stable. But Tim is often in the shadows and overlooked, partially by choice. 

Good end? This is so rare I have no idea.

Twin/Brother: having grown up together they get Jack’s asshole and abusing Grandmother and Tim’s “laughs at your death” mother. Having one family member and someone he can always fall back on to help him and someone to be a hero for, Jack never goes full Bad ending. Despite all their fighting and issues, they balance each other out. Always falls in the Okay category of Jack’s relationship to Angel. 

But I’ve been working out the redemption arch to lead to a Good Dad ending. Jack actually being self-sacrificing for once and giving up something he wants for his brother's happiness. One idea is that both he and Tim are both pursuing Rhys but after some inciting incidents, Jack comes to realize that his family and friends are happier with Rhys in their lives and Jack knows that he’ll just ruin it like he’d started to do. I can see this beautiful scene of Jack seeing Tim and Rhys talk at a party and seeing Angel come up to join them. His heart aches because he wants that to be himself in Tim’s place but knows it would never happen. That in the end, he’s poison. So he chooses to give up. To let that peaceful scene be reality. That he can accept his claim on Rhys just being as family and not as lover. And that moment of clarity and change of focus helps get him on the path to repairing his relationship with Angel and his brother. Never a smooth ride and he fails a lot, but it does get better.

But back to Tim. 

Tim/Rhys is life. I love these two together like nothing else. Jack/Tim and Jack/Rhys is always unstable and huge potential for unhealthy. But Tim/Rhys is heaven and precious and good.

Tim loves cats and sweaters. He wants to write an epic fantasy story but has no faith in his abilities. He’s anxious and terrified of heights but he will be it anyway even while white with fear. He has a huge cybernetic kink he doesn’t want to admit to. Tim dated Wilhelm until the end and still deeply cares for the huge quiet man. While Tim dislikes blood and guts, he found he was actually really good and fighting. After he started the body double gig he got swoll and has stayed in shape since (his own vanity showing). He’s covered in freckles and tans dark in the sun. His voice can be very awkward and scratchy but confidence and vocal training helps that in the non-canon or modern!au settings. Tim is a much better fighter than Jack and can handle any weapon thrown into his hands (I mean just look at his skill tree in game) but he always holds himself back outside of combat and thinks of himself as weak. Despite his skill, he lacks confidence and in the bad endings always believes Jack is actually stronger than him.

Rhys:

My boy. Rhys is trans and autistic. He works very hard to make sure it doesn’t show. He volunteered to get the eye and experimental echo port in order to help compensate for his mental limitations and further enhance his positive skills. His cybernetic arm was also technically voluntary and for badass points he always claims so, but he wasn’t giving up a “perfectly good arm” but a barely functioning arm that always caused him chronic pain due to a poorly healed childhood injury. He stared in Data Mining and while he refused to act in violence to advance, Rhys has very gray morals and had done plenty of shady things to advance in Hyperion. He never had a problem with killing in the vague sense, just not wanting to get his hands dirty directly. This does change slowly, but he still hates guns. They are just very hard for him. When he must fight, melee is the way he goes. Rhys got his chest tattoos after his top surgery to disguise the scars. like his flashy cybernetics, his main goals are “if I have to stand out I want them looking at me because I’m too pretty to look away from”. He tries to fake it till he makes it with confidence even when he has no idea what’s happening. 

He always looks everything up on the EchoNet and panics when his connection to it is cut off. It’s his safety net/blanket in many ways. The more the situation is out of control and not following his plan, the more his anxieties act up and leave him vulnerable. This is how Jack easily manipulates him when everything is going to hell. He needs more time to think through things then the chaos of Pandora allowed. Once he’s used to the wasteland and it’s people, this is less of an issue. (Hyperion Rhys vs Atlas Rhys)

His special interests are colorful socks, Handsome Jack (he regrets that deeply after meeting the man), and his new interest is A.I.s. Though Rhys is very into his cybernetics and has moded them some, he can’t build them. His skills are haking, programming, and coding. His old goals where to get a job in digital security or programming once he could get out of data mining. Now as Atlas CEO his pet project has been building and refining A.I.

Random: Rhys is bisexual and leans a bit poly. He is sex positive but doesn’t have to have it in a relationship. He will follow along with most all his partner's kinks as it’s most important for him that they are having fun together. Soft fluff and cuddles are what he lives for though. (everything about this is super self-indulgent)

Angel:

Angel is autistic. It puts her in an especially dangerous/vulnerable position with her powers and Bad Dad Jack doesn’t know what to do with her without his wife to help. He loves his baby girl dearly, but he’s lost and doesn’t know how to help her. In the end, he uses her to fuel his own obsessions and the veneer of childhood is stripped from her eyes as resentment sets in. She lost her father long ago and now only wants release. Like Tim, she could have tried to kill him herself, but while she can and does betray him, he’s still her father in the end.

Okay Dad Jack, (mostly modern!aus) struggles with how to raise Angel but genuinely tries his best. His second marriage was entirely to have a mom for her, knowing he was a shit parent. That wasn’t a good marriage and Angel still didn’t get a mom out of it. Angel goes up angry and resentful of her dad and often refuses to call him anything but Jack. She’s angry that he still treats her like a child. She can’t live on her own and needs assistance in common tasks due to her limitations, but can’t stand being treated childishly like his always buying her unicorn themed things and his insistence on not swearing. She struggles to understand that Jack needs these things for himself too and they both just suck at communicating to each other. They circle around each other, in a strange dance, more like roommates than family. Angel works for Jack as his security expert and hacker/spy. She was instrumental in him taking over Hyperion.

Good Dad... like beforementioned, this is hardly a thing. The good times are mostly in her early youth.

Angel is a lesbian and in okay or good settings falls for Gaige. Jack is very not okay with his daughter dating an openly Anarchist Anti-Cooperate Terrorist who has built death machines. They met online and spend nearly every night having hour long conversations. Gaige makes her feel more normal and nonbroken than anything else in her life ever has.

Random:

Tiny Tina is trans. I read this in a fic and it’s just canon now.

Zer0 is a nonbinary cyborg. They have had most of their body replaced and generally don’t want to be human, so they took matters into hand to make that happen. They feel kinship for Rhys because of this and are growing fond of the awkward man and proud of his bravery foolishness for going into battle despite having no skill. Zer0 and Tim fight well side by side but they do NOT get along outside of combat.

Nisha is aromantic and pansexual and only doms. Her whip very much is used in the bedroom. She and Jack are always off again on again.

Maya is aro/ace and a total badass.

Sasha and Rhys date for a while but end it mutually finding they fit better as friends than lovers.

Gaige helps Rhys make his new cybernetics and he has to argue with her to not install more than one weapon in the new arm or lasers in his eye.

Wilhelm was always going to die of Bone Waste and the surgeries and cybernetics were just delaying the inevitable. Jack set him up to die, but it was willingly on Wil’s part because he didn’t want to die in a hospital but in a huge and epic fight that would be the stuff of legends. 

Vaughn is aromantic and sex nonpulsed and he and Rhys are platonic bros for life. Rhys is 100% okay with this and anyone else in his life has to accept his deep love for his bro.

(I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot, but this is long enough for now, oops)

[wilsonneate]

GEOFF BARROW KEEPS HIS PECKER UP WITH BEAK>

(Interview done by me in 2009, originally published in BLURT magazine)

After Portishead’s second album, Geoff Barrow quit music for five years. Since the 2008 release of Third, though, he’s remained active, as boss of the Invada label, as a producer (The Horrors’ Primary Colours) and now as a member of BEAK>, a Bristol trio featuring Billy Fuller (Fuzz Against Junk) and Matt Williams (Team Brick).

Whereas nearly eleven years passed between the second and third Portishead albums, BEAK> hatched their debut in just twelve days. An exercise in what Barrow calls “instantaneous writing,” this is a Krautrock-influenced affair, infused with a touch of proggy weirdness, some drones and out-there noise and a bit of doom-metal heft. Although BEAK> shares a few influences with Portishead’s last album, particularly an affinity for Simeon Coxe’s Silver Apples, Barrow also sees BEAK> and Portishead as worlds apart. Exploring a largely different creative process, traveling to gigs on budget airlines, carrying his own gear and playing small venues all add up to a welcome change, one that he finds re-energizing.

Barrow spoke to BLURT about working with BEAK> and, among other things, his love of Can, his ambivalent relationship with Bristol and the difficulties posed by being a singing drummer.

BLURT: As an expat Bristolian, I was immediately struck by the track titles on the BEAK> album, many of which are the names of places around Bristol. Is that just playful or is there a link to the music?

GEOFF BARROW: It was very playful but, at the same time, we kind of said, “No, no that doesn’t sound like [the village,] Pill – that one sounds like Barrow Gurney.” So there was a connection, but it was definitely a playful connection. But when I think of the place, Pill, I do think of that tune [“Pill”], and when I think of Barrow Gurney, I do think of that tune, cos it’s a sort of mad synthesizer tune.

BLURT: Yeah, the sound is pretty manic – so the title “Barrow Gurney” refers to the Barrow Gurney psychiatric hospital, rather than the village of Barrow Gurney itself? When my grandfather was frustrated with us he used to say, “You’ll drive me out Barrow Gurney, you will.”

GB: Yeah, right. I know a lot of people who went to Barrow Gurney and a few mates of mine worked there as well, as mental health nurses. It’s closed now. It’s all Care in the Community now. They all do crack…. That was Thatcher for you.

BLURT: And is “The Cornubia” a reference to the Cornubia pub in Bristol?

GB: Yeah, it’s a proper Real Ale pub…. As I was saying that, I felt like a proper Real Ale drinker [laughs]. We had an Invada night at the Cornubia and we got banned from putting on gigs there again. It’s a good pub. It’s one of the only real pubs left standing in Bristol. I think it actually survived the bombing in the [Second World] War. If you see pictures of it, it literally stands alone. It’s the most peculiar kind of setting because everything else was destroyed either side of it, in front of it and behind it, and it just stood.

BLURT: Bristol was bombed heavily in the Blitz. My mum’s house actually took a direct hit, killing most of her family.

GB: Bloody hell! Bristol got hit badly during the War. If you look at photos of how it was before the War and afterwards, you can really see it. It’s pretty different.

BLURT: A lot of Bristol musicians have stayed in the area. Do you feel a strong connection to the West Country?

GB: I don’t know really. I just haven’t really been anywhere else. It’s home. At times I don’t like Bristolians and I don’t like what the city’s become. I don’t really like the history of the city, either, but this is where I live.

BLURT: When you mention the history, are you referring to the slave trade in particular? [In the 18th century, Bristol prospered as a key British port in the triangular trade.]

GB: Yeah, and the corruption. It’s always been corrupt. Do you know that book, A Darker History of Bristol by Derek Robinson? It’s a thin book that takes you on a little historical trip into why Bristolians are the way they are. They’re pretty apathetic. They don’t really want to join any side. They just want to get pissed and have an all right time, really. It’s got that kind of port mentality, you know? Like Liverpool. It’s got that about it. People just can’t be bothered down here, really. The only people who can be bothered are thieves and mercenaries.

BLURT: You recently organized a big event at the Colston Hall in Bristol featuring bands on your Invada label. There’s been controversy surrounding that venue because it’s named after the Bristol merchant Edward Colston, a prominent figure in the slave trade. Do you think the name will actually get changed or do people not give a shit?

GB: Bristolians don’t give a shit about it, but the middle classes do. So it will change its name eventually because it’s like having a place called the Hitler Rooms. It doesn’t sound great, does it? Or the Goebbels Village Hall.

BLURT: It doesn’t really have a good ring to it.

GB: Maybe the Goebbels Community Center? I think it’s got to change and eventually it’ll just happen. It’s just a name, but you’ve got to move forward. So yeah, we did the Invada Invasion there. We took the place over with Mogwai and a load of other bands. It was a really good night for people into alternative music. That’s something that just doesn’t happen in Bristol, and we just thought, “Right, we’ll do it.”

BLURT: Was BEAK> a collaboration that had been on the cards for some time?

GB: I think we’d all always liked what each other did. I’ve always liked Billy and his bass playing and stuff, and I’ve always been a fan of Matt’s. I mean, that’s the reason I put out their records on Invada. And we played together at a New Year’s Eve party, and me and Billy said it’d be great to do it again – and that was two years ago. Then we bumped into each other and said it again. And Matt (as Team Brick) had played on the last Portishead record and we had this bit of free time, so we did it. But there was no discussion about it, really. We just went in there and set up the microphones, and the first thing we played was basically the first track on the record, “Backwell.” As you hear it, it’s pretty much the first time we played together, which was really refreshing.

BLURT: So was the record largely put together from improvisation and, for want of a better word, jamming?

GB: It all came about in that way, although I’m not really into the term “jamming” – it was more about a kind of instantaneous writing, really. Cos jamming, to me, reminds me of bands that stick on a chord and play a solo for a couple of days, do you know what I mean? Like the saxophone player goes [approximates ostentatious jazzy sax solo] and it’s all about getting your chops in, and it’s just bollocks. For me, it was about being sat there and being aware of the space you’re in and the sound you’re creating: being totally aware of it and then moving things forward and just trying to write instantaneously. It was like a flow of consciousness, really – whether it’s lyrics or melodies or whatever. We actually played things a couple of times when we said, “Yeah, that’s a really good idea, but it completely went and fucked up there. Shall we just have another go at it?” And it wouldn’t be a couple of days later, it would be in the same half an hour. But in the end we’d usually go back to the first take and say, “Oh, it had something about it.” So, like I said, there wasn’t really that much discussion. We’d listen to a track after we’d played it and it’d be like, “Well, that’s done!” And there wasn’t a sense of it being throwaway, it was more like it just being refreshing. I mean, the album’s got bits that fuck up on it, but that’s what gives it its character – rather than it being put on Pro Tools and some bloke moving the snare drum so it’s in time. It’s not that kind of music, you know.

BLURT: Do you think the experience of the way you work with BEAK> will feed back into how you do things with Portishead?

GB: Well, the thing is that Portishead has actually always had that aspect of it. Like the song “Numb” on Dummy – it was written by me being sat in one room with a sampler and Ade [Adrian Utley], Gary [Baldwin] and Clive [Deamer] basically doing the same thing that BEAK> does. But that came from a hip-hop loop mentality. So it would be like, “Yeah, play that again,” and I’d just stick it in the sampler and loop it up. So Portishead have always had that, really. It’s just that people get a different impression because we’ve taken so long over records. Because of that, people perceive that it’s a more traditional setup. Portishead is weird – it can be instantaneous. Like sometimes the riff is written in an afternoon, but the beat takes twelve months. It’s just kind of fucked. And anything that can help my brain to be more productive in a writing way is great, but you can’t leave one record, do nothing and then start a new record without feeding your brain. That’s why I gave up music for five years, really, after the second Portishead tour, because I was kind of empty of ideas. I didn’t want to prove anything, didn’t want to move forward.

BLURT: In addition to improvising the music, you also made up the lyrics as you recorded the BEAK> tracks. When you play live, do you invent new ones?

GB: Yeah, basically, there’s a general vibe with the lyrics; there’s always one word that fits in it – like the sound of the pronunciation, how it suits the mood – and then you just kind of make it up. It’s interesting because playing drums and singing, it’s odd anyway.

BLURT: You’re now part of a great tradition of singing drummers: Robert Wyatt, This Heat’s Charles Hayward, er, Karen Carpenter…. Is it difficult?

GB: Yeah, it’s pretty mad, singing drummers [laughs]. You know, I’ve never done it before. It’s not too bad. It can throw you a bit. Thinking about the lyrics at the same time as you’re playing, it’s like tapping your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time or playing keepie-uppie with a football.

BLURT: You’ve said that you don’t really enjoy playing live with Portishead. Are you enjoying it more with BEAK>?

GB: I am, yeah, to be honest. Recently we’ve been playing not gigs, but little places – like we played a gallery the other day, without a PA. We’ve been playing most of the gigs like that, without a PA. We just set up and it’s refreshing; there’s no real pressure. There’s a huge difference between that and playing Coachella, you know what I mean? I engineer the drum sound when Portishead play live and me and Ade are like the MDs of it. And with BEAK> it’s a very simple kind of setup: playing live is pretty much as we recorded the album. There’s a couple of echo boxes we use to get that kind of dark, deep reverb sound, and it works and I’m not stressing over it. So, yeah, it has been really enjoyable. I mean, setting up your own kit and setting up your own sound and all that kind of stuff has been quite funny as well. When you compare touring with Portishead, with a crew of eighteen, to BEAK> on an easyJet flight with a synth in a suitcase and a snare drum in your pants, then basically it’s a different vibe. But it’s all really refreshing and gives you a different take on things.

BLURT: So doing BEAK> has been re-energizing for you, musically?

GB: Yeah, it has been. I think Ade finds it incredibly refreshing to play with other people. And Beth [Gibbons], as she’s writing her songs, it comes from a different part anyway – so it’s all good for feeding us. Our brains being fed like that was what brought the last Portishead record about.

BLURT: Some of the influences I heard on the BEAK> album were, maybe, “Church of Anthrax,” Tony Conrad and Faust, Silver Apples, Can. Are these things you’ve all been listening to?

GB: What was that first one?

BLURT: “Church of Anthrax,” a track by Terry Riley and John Cale, from 1971 – very much in a Krautrock vein….

GB: I don’t know it, but it sounds great! [laughs] We’re definitely into lots and lots of different music, especially the Can thing. I think we’re definitely influenced by them. I think they’re an incredible band, and if we’ve got anywhere near to where they were…that’s just brilliant. We didn’t try to sound like them, though. It’s just where I’ve found myself rhythmically, coming out of being influenced by hip hop and electronic music and having a vibe where it’s got a beat and it’s heavy, but heavy in the right way – it’s not heavy sonically, like, “I’m gonna smash your head in with this sound.” Our influences are pretty wide, especially what Billy and Matt are into. Matt’s really into the Cardiacs and Billy’s really into bands like Plastic People of the Universe, and I’m into that as well: music that’s really out there, but that still retains melody and rhythm. I really like Moondog, too – that was a big influence on the last Portishead record.

BLURT: And Silver Apples….

GB: Yeah, yeah – I’m actually interviewing Simeon for a magazine. We met at All Tomorrow’s Parties and it was really weird because he was playing in Bristol and he asked me to play the drums, but I didn’t do it. If it was now, I would have done it, but back then I hadn’t played drums in quite a long time. So maybe we’ll just arrange it again. Maybe I’ll see if he wants to play again. But yeah, our influences are there. We’re not embarrassed by them. We think they’re brilliant bands.

BLURT: Some musicians I’ve interviewed emphasize that they don’t listen to any other music, so as to avoid being influenced. That’s not the case with you, then?

GB: Well, it’s really strange because I actually listen to very, very little music. An incredibly small amount. Like I’ll get into a Silver Apples track or one Can album, Ege Bamyasi, and I don’t want to hear any more. I just want to hear that one. I think it’s just a perfect record. It’s weird: I’ve always made more music than I’ve ever listened to. I don’t know much about other artists and I don’t know about their techniques or anything – I’d like to! – but Ade’s kind of the opposite. He’s a walking encyclopedia of music, but I just like to make music, really. And he does as well, of course. Ege Bamyasi is an absolutely genius record. I first heard Can on [BBC] Radio 1. It was Mark E. Smith on Radio 1 talking about his favorite tracks. It was around 1990 or something, when I was listening to A Tribe Called Quest and Gang Starr and stuff like that. And Can’s “Vitamin C” came on and I was bowled over. It was just like the first time I ever heard Public Enemy as a kid. I thought Can were a new band, and I thought they were the greatest band that ever lived [laughs]. I still think that tune is just unbelievable. No one’s even gone close to it, really.

BLURT: Talking of Can, did you see that recent BBC documentary, Krautrock: The Rebirth of Germany?

GB: Yeah! What I absolutely loved about everybody in it was their true feeling that they were just doing it because they were doing it – for no financial gain or anything else. They were just really solid in their musical form, and they were still there. Which is a really lovely thing.

[swipestream]

New Release Roundup, 17 November 2018: Science fiction

Video game mercenaries, sky race pilots, Martian private investigators, and an army of alien bears feature in this week’s roundup of the newest releases in science fiction.

Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science – Alec Nevala-Lee

Astounding is the landmark account of the extraordinary partnership between four controversial writers—John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, and L. Ron Hubbard—who set off a revolution in science fiction and forever changed our world.

Drawing on unexplored archives, thousands of unpublished letters, and dozens of interviews, Alec Nevala-Lee offers a riveting portrait of this circle of authors, their work, and their tumultuous private lives. With unprecedented scope, drama, and detail, Astounding describes how fan culture was born in the depths of the Great Depression; follows these four friends and rivals through World War II and the dawn of the atomic era; and honors such exceptional women as Doña Campbell and Leslyn Heinlein, whose pivotal roles in the history of the genre have gone largely unacknowledged. For the first time, it reveals the startling extent of Campbell’s influence on the ideas that evolved into Scientology, which prompted Asimov to observe: “I knew Campbell and I knew Hubbard, and no movement can have two Messiahs.” It looks unsparingly at the tragic final act that estranged the others from Campbell, bringing the golden age of science fiction to a close, and it illuminates how their complicated legacy continues to shape the imaginations of millions and our vision of the future itself.

Before the Shattered Gates of Heaven Part 1: Trickster’s Pit (Shattered Gates #1 Part 1) – Bryan S. Glosemeyer 

Deep in the subterranean Labyrinth of a cruel, alien world, a nameless girl has one chance to choose her fate, earn a name, and join the conquest of the stars:

Nine victories in the bloody fighting pits of the Divine Masters.

With eight kills behind her, she is one fight away from realizing her dreams. But what must be sacrificed, and what must she become, in order to survive the Trickster’s Pit?

Part 1: Trickster’s Pit is an action-packed novelette that introduces an exciting, new science fiction adventure through outer and inner space.

Daisy’s Run (The Clockwork Chimera #1) – Scott Baron

Life in deep space could be a drag sometimes, but Daisy supposed things could have been worse. They were still alive, after all, which was always a plus in her book. Now if only she could figure out who, or what, was endangering her return home, things would be just peachy.

With the powerful AI supercomputer guiding the craft beginning to show some disconcerting quirks of its own, and its unsettling cyborg assistant nosing into her affairs, Daisy’s unease was rapidly growing. Add to the mix a crew of mechanically-enhanced humans, any one of whom she suspected might not be what they seemed, and Daisy found herself with a sense of pending dread tickling the periphery of her mind.

Something was very much not right––she could feel it in her bones. The tricky part now was going to be figuring out what the threat was, before it could manifest from a mere sinking feeling in her gut into a potentially deadly reality.

Deception (Forgotten Colony #2) – M.R. Forbes

Somewhere in deep space, Caleb wakes from stasis, unprepared for what he discovers.

The Marines he was supposed to relieve are missing, something monstrous is roaming the corridors, the dead are rising, and the starship is inexplicably low on fuel.

Now Caleb is fighting time, desperate to find some way, any way, to overcome an impossible situation and get the colonists to their new home.

He’s also about to come to the most frightening realization of all:

They may have already arrived…

Dirty Deeds (The Omega War #6) – Mark Wandrey

Abraham Murdock left his home of Sheridan Arkansas at seventeen to start a merc career that spanned almost 50 years, working for dozens of companies, killing aliens and getting paid across the galaxy.

Near the end of his career, he landed a gig with Cartwright’s Cavaliers. The storied Four Horsemen unit was just coming back from near catastrophe, and the battle-proven Murdock was an ideal choice for their top sergeant. It would have been a perfect last contract, but then his dropship was destroyed in the Chimsa system, killing the flight crew and him.

Or did it?

Nobody was more surprised than Murdock when he found himself alive. After weeks of surviving in a failing CASPer, floating in space amid the ruins of dead starships, he was rescued by an alien salvage crew.

Deciding retirement was the right call, he headed to Valais, a beautiful aquatic paradise not unlike the South Pacific on Earth. Warm sun, sandy beaches—peace and quiet. That is, until the alien mercs arrived, and he suddenly found himself back in his old trade, and up to his ass in the Omega War. What good is a 70 year old merc in a star-spanning war?

Never trust an old man in a career where most die young. Murdock isn’t quite done…yet.

Embark – Jon Justice

In the not so distant future, flight culture has replaced car culture. Two of Earth’s largest corporations now supply the planet with the technology and fuel to make air and space flight available to everyone.

Taft Gaurdia spends his weekends at an abandoned flying field, racing through the skies with his three best friends and the girl he longs to be with, Kaytha Morrow. After receiving a mysterious message from her deceased NASA-scientist father, Kaytha and Taft make a shocking discovery.

With Earth now suddenly facing a great disaster, a ruthless and power hungry enemy emerges. Unwittingly, Taft, Kaytha and their friends are thrust into the middle of humanity’s fight for survival and future among the stars.

Emergence (First Colony #6) – Ken Lozito

As the colony grapples with the realization that New Earth is not as uninhabited as they’d once thought, tensions between the colonial settlements rise to new heights, and the Colonial Defense Force finds itself caught in the middle.

When Connor uncovers evidence of a militant colonial faction secretly exploiting the NEIIS, he has to investigate. Connor learns that some of the colonial settlements have been holding back discoveries of their own. He’d thought the NEIIS were a threat to the colony, but he was wrong. They all were, and the truth is beyond anything Connor could have imagined.

Meanwhile, Colonel Sean Quinn’s latest mission brings him off-world to investigate a previously discovered NEIIS settlement. When all communications from home go silent, he must return to New Earth to investigate. Cut off from everything, Sean must lead the crew of a CDF warship against a mysterious foe. Sean must forge a path into the unknown if he’s to have any hope of unraveling the mystery.

Hokas Pokas – Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson

When a human thinks he’s Napoleon Bonaparte, it’s time to get out a straightjacket. But when a Hoka thinks he’s Napoleon Bonaparte, you’d better believe it! Particularly since there’ll be hundreds of other Hokas around who know for a fact that they’re the French Army, mon amis, even if they’re on another planet lightyears away from Earth, and the forces they’re facing aren’t the British but very nasty warlike aliens who by all reason should be expected to make mincemeat out of the Hokas.

But when it comes to Hokas, reason does not compute. These friendly, fuzzy aliens who resemble large teddy bears have a very vivid imagination and have never quite grasped the difference between human fiction and reality, or (in the present case), between past history and the much later and rather different present. Always bet on the Hokas. Even when a young lad and his Hoka tutor find themselves stuck on a planet where they seem to be scheduled to fulfill and ancient (and lethal!) prophesy that neither of them had ever heard of until now. Hokas as usual find that reality is merely optional and the good guys—and bears—always win, quicker than you can say HOKAS POKAS!

Old Enemy (The Survivors #6) – Nathan Hystad

Dean Parker has brought his wife home, and he’s looking forward to relaxing and having a future with his family on New Spero. The Iskios vortex is gone, vanquished by the Hero of Earth, but unforeseen enemies linger in the universe.

The Bhlat send a warning to the humans, one that suggests the Kraski may not all be dead. All signs point to Lom of Pleva, a wealthy and very dangerous enemy to have.

Dean must unite with the Bhlat to fight against a common adversary, but when push comes to shove, can he trust them?

Join Dean and the others as they seek to save themselves from the race of beings that beamed them off Earth years ago, setting everything in motion.

Who do you turn to when everyone is trying to kill you?

Pop Kult Warlord (Soda Pop Soldier #2) – Nick Cole

It’s way more than just a game!

PerfectQuestion is back! He’s running and gunning his way across an incredible civilization-building game set on Mars. But this time he’s employed as an online ringer for a corrupt dictatorship and trying to avoid getting “disappeared” in a reckless world of intrigue, epic parties, sports cars, and women who are as dangerous as they are beautiful.

Five million in gold says he can do it and put the next Sultan on the throne by leading a rag-tag clan of gaming jihadis to victory, but revolution and revolt are afoot. The long knives are out in Calistan for the hero of Soda Pop Soldier and anyone else who gets in a murderous prince’s way.

Renegade Children (Renegade Star #8) – J.N. Chaney

People are dying.

Shortly after Captain Jace Hughes and his team recover hundreds of surviving Eternal refugees, disaster strikes. A recently unearthed fauna dome, one of many biological arks on Earth, is destroyed and several people are killed.

All proof points to the Eternals.

Meanwhile, shortly after the slip tunnel at the center of the planet is shut down for good, a strange distress signal is detected. It appears to be coming from somewhere on the planet, but the exact coordinates are unknown.

Two investigations are launched. One for the saboteur; the other for the source of the signal. With rising tensions between the colonists and the Eternals, Jace must do everything he can to prevent a bloody confrontation.

Spartan Valor (Spartan Company #2) – Toby Neighbors

Only the strong survive on the hostile planet of Apex Venandi. Space Marine Orion Porter is stranded with his Master Sergeant “Money” Eubanks and the injured Staff Sergeant Barnes. Surrounded by hostile natives, and running out of resources, their only hope is the return of the Fleet. Their call for help was beamed into space, but no reply has come. For the foreseeable future, the only help they can count on is themselves.

Apex Venandi holds an invaluable resource. Ignatius Xelum is an ultra rare element needed to power intergalactic star ships. Humanity’s fleet is dependent on IX gas, but mining it on a world filled with five intelligent species who are constantly at war with one another may be too a great a challenge, even for the vaunted Space Marines.

Thin Air – Richard K. Morgan 

On a Mars where ruthless corporate interests violently collide with a homegrown independence movement as Earth-based overlords battle for profits and power, Hakan Veil is an ex–professional enforcer equipped with military-grade body tech that’s made him a human killing machine. But he’s had enough of the turbulent red planet, and all he wants is a ticket back home—which is just what he’s offered by the Earth Oversight organization, in exchange for being the bodyguard for an EO investigator. It’s a beyond-easy gig for a heavy hitter like Veil . . . until it isn’t.

When Veil’s charge, Madison Madekwe, starts looking into the mysterious disappearance of a lottery winner, she stirs up a hornet’s nest of intrigue and murder. And the deeper Veil is drawn into the dangerous game being played, the more long-buried secrets claw their way to the Martian surface. Now it’s the expert assassin on the wrong end of a lethal weapon—as Veil stands targeted by powerful enemies hellbent on taking him down, by any means necessary.

The Titan Probe (Ice Moon #2) – Brandon Q. Morris

In 2005, the robotic probe “Huygens” lands on Saturn’s moon Titan. 40 years later, a radio telescope receives signals from the far away moon that can only come from the long forgotten lander. At the same time, an expedition returns from neighbouring moon Enceladus. The crew lands on Titan and finds a dangerous secret that risks their return to Earth. Meanwhile, on Enceladus a deathly race has started that nobody thought was possible. And its outcome can only be decided by the astronauts that are stuck on Titan.

New Release Roundup, 17 November 2018: Science fiction published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames