‘UP’, ‘Unseen Academicals’ & ‘And Another Thing …’

Did you ever have one of those fortnights where rage-infected monkeys were set loose on a voodoo zombie summoning just as satellite returning from deep space comes into alignment with Mars?

No?

Not even when, later all corpses of the long and recently dead return to macabre half lives in a pack mentality of diverse almost-intelligent revenants, furious-feral undead and mystical ghost monkeys?

No?

Not even when the brave new world populated by  pathologically post-traumatic stress-disordered survivalists in a society sent insane miraculosly produces an antidote spread throughout the undead population to restore them to life and sanity?

No?

Not even when the antidote wipes the immediate memories of the post-zombies, freeing them from the recall of the time in flesh-eating ranks of the cannibal mob, thus leaving them with no memory of the outbreak and this is never mentioned to them lest they remember and destroy themselves in an orgy of self-loathing?

No?

Why, of course not … no such thing as a zombie apocalypse … Auntie Nibbs? … oh you ate- … she went away. To Spain. But don’t worry, there is a little Nibb in … some of us.

‘And Another Thing’:

Best Hitchhikers fanfiction ever, including the film.

It tries hard, having Adams written all over it where Colfer isn’t. Apart from everyone not being dead at the end, situations, characters and relationships remain the same. Few new characters – mostly a patrol of old friends & their entourages. It is fun – Zaphod, Ford, even Hiller’s god interviews.

‘Unseen Academicals’:

Hilarious. Genius. Not his best.

Fair is fair – the problem is primarily in the denouement. And, while one’s first impression of the discworld novels is one of laid back genial humour, there hasn’t been a novel in – almost ever, in fact – where the entire fate of Ankh Morpork, The Circle Sea, the discworld or the universe did not hang upon the outcome of an endpiece. Kept expecting the goblin army to descend out of the mountains for a game of football, or the Braseneck vs Unseen match, etc.

In the face of that anti-climax: it seems like goodbye. Goodbye to the wizard’s stories (excepting ‘I shall wear midnight’, with possibly of Esk returning) goodbye to vetinari stories (excepting ‘raising taxes’) and particularly goodbye to the household gods & dungeon dimensions stories, which seems to have lapsed into silence before the end of this story. In the face of Pratchett’s illness, the sewing up of the universe is no doubt possible.

Ah screw it. Drumknott got a girl! Woo hoo!

‘UP’:

And then there was up. Unmitigated success. Wonderous delight. Profound reward.

Essentially, the experience is not dissimilar to my watching of Serenity: Some people shuffled in, apparently just learning ‘for f**ks sake’ recently, given their gratuity of  its use.

Then Up started.

At some point, I was vaguely aware that the ushers were watching them.

But Up was on.

Then, they were being escorted out, swearing away.

But Up was on …

Nothing ruined this movie, could do so or should try. Pixar displays again that silence can be golden, and does excellent dialogue anyway. Beautiful images. The square old man, his balloon shaped wife, the Asian child who wasn’t asian as a plot point – and Dug, a glimpse of canine psyche. The fantastic of the balloons, the birds and dogs never removes one from the story, the tragedy in parts of the story never tarnishes the view.

It is a love story that spreads throughout the genres and between all those involved in its production and watching.

Hurrah!

Daftwager Twitter: Day 52, Farewell to Paris!

Day 52:

　

07:00; … ‘Lower classes? Well I think we should attack them, 1st with bombs & rockets, destroying their homes, & then 2nd, when they run helpless into the streets, mowing them down with machine guns’ …

　

07:10; … ‘& then, of course, the releasing of the vultures. I know these views aren’t popular, but I have never courted popularity’- Oh, my, I was having a most wonderful dream. And, you were there … dead.

　

07:20; Don’t get so flustered. Of course I don’t dream of killing you; you aren’t that important to me! My subconscious simply posited an environment where your death occurred trivially, & I found it … good.

　

07:30; I have such deliciously vivid dreams on the morphine, almost a pity I won’t need it by the end of the day. UNDEAD knits my bones & belittles my bruises. Still; the stolen zimmerframe comes in handy.

　

07:40; A particular limitation to UNDEAD is that: if my arms had been torn off, I might have survived, but they wouldn’t have grown back. I resolve; time to track down Dr. Nation, & his regeneration serum.

　

07:50; True I have performed & laughed at amputations before … like that boy who rode around in his mother’s cloth-dryer on spin cycle for fun … oh my yes, hah hah, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, mu-hahaha …

　

08:00; … now what was I laughing about again? Oh yes! That digit-crippled child, Little Kitty Paw-Paws … Oh HAHAHA … but yes, I seek Nation’s supposed serum to spare myself such risk & harassment.

　

08:10; TDLS&P return to LPR: Paradigm oversees my care & Shade inspected LPR anti-super security. They like Open & feeling is mutual. Sexy theories of this must wait: that part of my anatomy still hurts.

　

08:20; Excelsoar is being detained in a specialised Vigil cell; his gaolers are NOT in their teens! Officially my old mind-control story is sold to the press; Marquis de Made possessed E from beyond the grave!

　

08:30; Deranged dead men like the Marquis usually have little legal estate to contend molestation of mad memoirs – I expect fictional accounts of this encounter to fuel Enchaine’s daily ‘Excelsoar!’ comic-strip.

　

08:40; I, a perfectly sane living man, will receive no such mention. Much like l’Affaire Frey Druss, I have been put on the back-burner as much as for my own safety, as my explicit desire to destroy Excelsoar.

　

08:50; Fortunately for Frey Druss, preliminary popular PP polls show a sure conviction for conviction, in time for the retrial. Unfortunately for me, rumours abound, that I was the one to cut this Gordian Knot.

　

09:00; Wildly inaccurate ones. Oh, I did obstruct injustice; they just think I actually summoned the victims from the dead. Nonsense – the dead aren’t allowed to testify in open court – can’t swear on the Bible.

　

09:10; Tales of my summoning Admiral Nelson’s spectre preceded me to Paris. Fillyfaddle! Dead callings: cabbala chalk signs complying to individual details of the subject’s life; I didn’t care about the victims.

　

09:20; Nelson’s was easy. These, faceless few would not have been. But, between that & my sudden disappearance in court, my hands are tied to the affair. I am being referred to as ‘Lightbringer’: ‘Phaedrus’.

　

09:30; ‘Frey Druss’/’Phaedrus’ *sigh* just because the Mr. Scripts BORE stirs puns to the forefront of my frontal lobe does not mean I must like them. Besides, The Deadly Light Shade might feel … infringed.

　

09:40; My terrible terror of TDLS has subsided somewhat, but I still a little more anxious than long-tailed rats in a blind-staffed sausage factory. The hat, the picture, the gamete of her & P’s unborn children …

　

09:50; -What? Nothing! You heard NOTHING!

　

10:00; Oh Open, Paradigm & The Deadly Night Shade are downstairs, no fear here. I like to recuperate in quiet, thinking thought-shielded thoughts. Also: they are fighting off the Scarlet Pimp’s Whore Army.

　

10:10; Some territorial dispute, of a sort. Quite vehement, you know, the intrenched French prostitution business. Open apparently forged an alliance against this fellow with a woman called ‘La Belle de Jour’.

　

10:20; Open insists I do not engage the enemy; partially due to my injuries, partially because I can’t be seen to be ‘protecting my little lady’ in a matter of strict business. Zombies & floods are ‘my’ department.

　

10:30; Paradigm & Shade *are* are allowed to go out, exchanging blows & generally winning the day. *sigh* I am NOT sulking. To amuse myself, I empty my cather contents out the window, onto enemies.

　

10:40; Binary Janus: Man of the 31st Century, titular head of the Jeans d’Armes enters my window. Priggish ass – any opportunity to show off. Was just about to fly out, myself: demonstrate my friction shield.

　

10:50; BJ: bears a Science/God naming scheme associated with WWII superheroes like Quantum Apollo, Jupiter Asymptote, Diana Refraction, Doppler Mercury; in reality, only an ‘apple-cheeked sidekick’.

　

11:00; In the 31st century, BJ read all about the Three Emperor’s League, the League of Nations & the NATO/Warsaw Leagues & the United Nation League: travelled back in time to serve with all his icons.

　

11:10; They left those titles aside long since: BJ retains his. Not special: just has a handy arsenal of assorted futuretech doodads, gizmos & gadgets; I suspect he has little idea as to ‘how’ they actually function.

　

11:20; I know it, actually: Binary Janus’ bag of tricks does not, apparently, include BORE-proof anti-mind-reading devices. There is little else to read there as he explains & apologises for Excelsoar’s escape-

　

11:30; -Oh my! Not escape. Release. Wasn’t entirely an apprentice’s fault. Chrono Cell was shut down, its occupant herded by his ‘pursuers’ to my location in a mockery of recapture. E was sent to kill me …

　

11:40; … no not to kill … test … released at the low-point of his psych review, to assert the truth of E’s idea that I had powers beyond the norm … powers that related to other powers … controlling powers …

　

11:50; PP trial was the lion that broke the zebra’s back – appearing to consult BOOL only made it worse. Various claims I have been wanderlusting France at large, with no apparent means of travel, also irk.

　

12:00; This isn’t Binary Janus’ tarradiddle. Puppetmasters higher up noted me & pulled his cat-gut marionette strings. As his apologies continue, BJ silently smirks at the thought that injured-old-me had power.

　

12:10; I know these particular ‘puppeteers’ won’t so quickly dismiss me. Superhero ‘Volunteer Fire Department Chiefs’, like BJ, can’t imagine having powers/devices & not using them, publicly, as Janus does.

　

12:20; BJ looks upon me like a silly child, like a supervillain’s sidekick whom he has no qualms about releasing enraged Es upon. I look upon him as a ventriloquist’s dummy, unaware of the hand in his rectum.

　

12:30; Product of 31st century genetics, he heals quickly, looking with unveiled disgust on my sickbed. Assured of no ill-feeling, he ‘rocket boots away!’ Regenerative genetics? Well, bully for modern science!

　

12:40; Don’t entirely understand Open’s disinclination for my help. I don’t particularly like help, of course: security, incompetence, the volatile nature of any villainous team-up, even with 1 of 1’s parallel selves.

　

12:50; Most particularly, I rarely engage in anything so large scale as to require minions, never mind partners. As BORE advances, this may have to change. Yesterday, I learned how useful a ‘human shield’ is.

　

13:00; I stiffly step astride my cane, – I really need it today – float out the window & bombard Scarlet Pimp’s patrol with napalm water balloons. SP’s skull-top cane shoots fire from the eyes: SP is immolated.

　

14:00; Arrive at the graveyard, just as Cataflaque-led funeral cortege enters. In topper & tails, Cataflaque leads the Norwegian family & French friends of Frey Druss to his second-to-final resting place, here.

　

14:10; As ‘Phaedrus’, I pay my respects. Half the city attends the burial of the PP’s last victim & marks my presence. I take from my mourning coat’s deep pockets a single rose, tossing it onto the deep coffin.

　

14:20; Moving along, I dispense with this useful civility & shift into invisibility. What a piece of luck, that Frey Druss’ body be released from evidence, today of all days! Oh joyous, wonderful, great day today.

　

14:30; Wards drawn by bros Cataflaque & Catacomb keep the dead in & those alive & without a purpose here out, much like sisters Shroudog & Anububastis in London’s cemetaries. Frey gave me a ‘pass’.

　

14:40; I enter the catacombs, where the bones of the graves above are moved in ten years. Its also where undertaker Catacomb clothes his new charges in grave, funereal cerements. Morgue Ann is here too.

　

14:50; Handshake both, I ‘assume’ that Ann is signing over Druss’ body. Oh! ‘Shock’! She is here because someone disinterred & desecrated the corpse of the Marquis de Made. ‘Surprised Face Number 8’!

　

15:00; I offer to consult: Ann agrees, due to my settling of the PPs. Catacomb agrees, due to the rumour that Excelsoar, possessed by the spirit of le Marquis de Made, chased me, as if I tried to free E, & he.

　

15:10; I started that 1 myself: a corollary to the official story. The more natural assumption would be that I desecrated MDM’s corpse, causing him to possess E, as a means of exacting a most unholy revenge.

　

15:20; Despite the more natural nature of the second theory, the public at large & Catacomb in specific seem inclined to trust in me. Shall never trust this good publicity business: the day I do, it will fail for me.

　

15:30; Through a complex rigamarole of deductive reasoning & the psychology of the individual, I ‘theorise’ that MDM’s brain was excised by an automaton for medical purposes. Applause accompanies this.

　

15:40; Leaving those 2 to trailblaze the investigation – a little insurance policy against Saniac under Paris – I pat the original MDM DNA in my pocket, looted with intent to create a body for ”InSaniac’s” brain.

　

15:50; Couldn’t trust the semi-mechanical mitochondrial’s in that altered brain for DNA. Also, couldn’t risk damaging it overly in taking a sample. Besides, I invited Morgue Ann over to meet Open later today.

　

16:00; Top Hat’s Paris statue: Take the whole bouquet of roses out of my mourning coat, plant carniverous carnations around it, then feed the roses to them. Rose-like now, they should keep away graffiti-ers.

　

17:00; Invisibly visit the Bastille’s Madhouse wing: Mr Scripts, held here, now his part in the early PP murders has been revealed. Tell him the PPs won’t go free next trial, to turn state’s evidence, against them.

　

17:10; MS depressed: literary failure. Restraining myself, barely, from telling him all literary endeavours are inherently failures, I tell him the infamy of his crime will win him fame, tell him to become a Yes-Man.

　

17:20; I looked into the Yes-Men, early in my psychic hunt. Hollywood writers, they can intuit every director comment they should agree with, can steal scripts in formation from other studios for sure-fire hits.

　

17:30; Hence 2 asteroid movies together. A year of nodding & espionage & ‘The Faceless Brides of Doctor Dread Desireé’ can become a silver-screen reality! He agrees. I leave him think/masturbating on it.

　

17:40; I little care whether the little fool succeeds or not – only that the PPs should certainly go down for their crimes this time if the rumour that I was responsible for the courtroom coup continues to circulate.

　

17:50; On way out, passed TM chatting to a guard. She’ll escape, re-invent herself, like she did after ex-partner ‘Musk of Fear’ reformed. But her new self won’t chase me. Psylent Film? Just staring, at a wall.

　

18:00; Return to La Pantalon Rouge at dusk, the Scarlet Pimp’s forces finished & fealty to LPR being exacted from them. Something of a ‘surprise’ celebration is being held, for my surviving Excelsoar’s wrath.

　

18:10; I knew it. I keep my mind-reading hat on in bed. Not parting with beloved BORE, after yesterday. Also: a pleasurable recursion occurs & my mother always told me to wear 1 item in bed for mystery.

　

18:20; Hence I invited Morgue Ann along. Also attending: Paradigm, the Deadly Light Shade, Library Ann (library being rebuilt by the Defenestration Station) & The Red Lady (in Claudius’ ‘concern’ for me).

　

18:30; You can see why I felt the need to probe ahead. A room filled with women, all of whom have a reason to kill me, if truth be told. Like: the ‘Orient Express’, but in a burlesque bordello windmill in Paris.

　

18:40; Who is affable towards me these days? What is my karma? Lets see: met Beaulingerie at Druss’ graveside: he assured me the restauraunts of Paris were open to me for my entire life, for jailing the PPs.

　

18:50; That isn’t terribly useful here, or even in itself; given the lifetime of an average high-profile French restauraunt venture is 6 months, which, as a measurement of ‘the rest of my life’ isn’t at all positive, here.

　

19:00; Also: Beaulingerie mentioned he was working on ‘edible lethal underwear’ for Pirate Pete’s Plunderwear line. Recommended Ninja Bob Roberts. Protector-cook no longer needed, he’ll need the work.

　

19:10; Again, useless as selfless deeds. No more protector-chefs will make breaking into restauraunts after my 6 months grace is up easier. Also, Pete will be furious, working with Ninja Bob, given their past.

　

19:20; I am preparing to rid the world of Doctor Nation – but, only to get my hands on his regeneration serum. I have rid the world of six (or eight) dangerous criminals – but, only to steal their unique powers.

　

19:30; I can firmly be said to be approaching the powers of a super, yet have not performed one ‘good’ deed to acquire or performed with one ‘good’ deed with them. *Whew*, good; it means I am still sane.

　

19:40; Sanity check confirmed, I sit to accept my gifts. Paradigm sets out breakdowns of the UNDEAD formula, with aspects analysed, in a manner I hadn’t noticed before. These could be quite useful. Nice?

　

19:50; I know her secret identity because I stole a golden ticket for a tour of her estranged father’s candy factory. Stealing secrets, I found a room filled with framed clippings of Min & Paradigm, side by side.

　

20:00; The Deadly Light Shade gives me a summer-weight suit of tweed kevlar. The stitching: immaculate. Paradigm must have designed this … before I was clothed against nakedness, now I am Apparrelled!

　

20:10; An uncomfortable moment: I realise the hat is designed to hold ‘my’ mind-reading device. The mind-reading device, I stole from the Shade’s hat. She knows. Oh god, she knows. Its a cryo tank for me!

　

20:20; She saw me at the fashion show, when I was invisible to everyone else. She knows! Yet, she is still smiling. I can’t read her mind as she may very well also know. This is how she drives enemies insane!

　

20:30; I smile back, even giggle a little when happening upon the Men’s Lingerie TDLS included. Yes: how is my perfect posterior to be publicly portrayed without Wonderbriefs, or a pair of push-up boxers?

　

20:40; Library Ann gives me an Unreal Atlas, from her own collection(!), for my trip, wherever it might be. The Red Lady, leaning forward for a hint of destination, gives me a marvellously inlaid, elephant gun.

　

20:50; See LA’s insectile nature, under the illusion. Tiny mouth, over-large eyes, triangular chin, pointy ears and over-long fingers – elvish to exoskeleton. Had she any idea that I led E to the library, *shudder*

　

21:00; Red Lady’s history with me is more complex & a lot longer: She tried to drink my aristocratic blood a great many times & I killed her, several times. Why, look at that; not so long, or complex, after all.

　

21:10; She is on the wagon now – the plague one, with the free corpses. Naturally, she bleeds a few days in every month – at a hospital, hers THE universal donor type, she drinks blood approaching atrophy.

　

21:20; As for RL/Claude, I assume they have ”shared interests”: He is obsessive about noble bloodlines, enjoys good vintages, is an expert in bloodsport & kills many people. Cupid’s heart-skewering arrow!

　

21:30; Morgue Ann, only invited a few hours ago, gives me the best present of all: On a list of suspicious figures, in Catacomb’s cemetary, collected for the MDM desecration investigation, yields: ‘Dr. Nation.’

　

21:40; Some months ago, Nation falsely professed he wished to bury relatives there & made enquiries about the techniques used to preserve bodies in the catacomb’s Egyptian wing. ‘Whitby’ was mentioned!

　

21:50; Well, that explains where he heard about our well-made zombie myths, not knowing them to be reality. Another neat little fact I can use when giving the fool a ‘Hannibal Lecture’ on threatening Whitby.

　

22:00; Thunderous, a great, heavy hand knocks on the door. For a moment, it seems the spectre of Scarlet Pimp comes to reclaim his girls, who have been ushered an LPR life of mad science & life choices!

　

22:05; Ushered in, it is only Mister Wicker, the fictive puppet of Miss Mauvais, aka Madam Nation. I search, for the madman killer Pierrot, in Wicker’s cold eyes – alas, he isn’t there. Poor Pierrot failed then.

　

22:10; I did suspect it. Inevitable really. Remember: I left Pierrot, an impulse-driven fiend, fresh from a century of the most solitary of confinements, in the body of a female lingerie model. Never had a chance.

　

22:15; Had hoped P leapt into the mind-less body of W, when Mauvais sent for (what she believed to be) a P-possessed Daftwager. P was probably foreseen coming, killed, while naked, in front of a mirror.

　

22:20; In Mister Wicker’s arms is a crystal ball, bearing Miss Mauvais’ face. She thanks me for my prescription of pre-natal vitamins, which have restored her, & demands Nation’s location or I will die. Style!

　

22:25; I twirl my fingers in a bored fashion. Miss Mauvais is threatening possession by midnight, again. No innovation! Doc Languedoc, all over again. She stumbles into silence & I ask her: what will you pay?

　

22:30; Turning, to RL, before Miss Mauvais can answer, I repeat my question. I know: she is here to read my mind, a light latent telepathy I wasn’t supposed to know about. Also: I know Claudius is listening.

　

22:35; We bid around about a bit, then it comes a million for each of them. I offer no opportunity for exclusivity. They move to set up the transfer – I tell them: it can wait until morning, I trust them. Jaws drop.

　

22:40; I reveal the secret of Nabilac’s island & its current location to them. After all, I have learned the benefits of teamwork these past few days. And because, tomorrow, BookPimp will sell the info cheaply.

　

22:45; Library Ann: BookPimp found the Nabilac info in a future text. All prepped to go, he’ll wholesale the info at a rate culmulatively greater than the single reward payout than if any 1 person finds his book.

　

22:50; BP will want as many people tracking Nation alongside his Book Collectors: he can’t risk someone finally going over the thirty day mark his business rep is built on. I’ll get paid before that info is public.

　

22:55; To the quiet Library Ann & Morgue Ann, I hand complex chits of elohimic logic-counters I asked Open compose for me: allows them to spend their respective free nights & days, outside, if they want.

　

23:00; Our guests, gone to consult these new gifts in private, leave only Paradigm & The Deadly Night Shade. If they know about the hat, they may well know about the designs, the tickets, the photo. *Sigh*

　

23:05; Held in reserve against this moment, is my ultimate weapon against them, my last volley. Not the identities, not the relationship: revealing those would strongarm them into needing to kill me. They could.

　

23:10; No, this is a weapon that may very well disable them against me forever … if I do it right. If I present it badly … they will annihilate me which as it implicitly pains me to say, is in their power to easily do.

　

23:15; I tell them. About knowing their identities. How & why. About the Time Crisis. Where & when. About knowing of their relations. What it is & what I think. About BORE. How it halts their killing me…

　

23:20; P’s mind is blocked by the Brain & Bravado of her potion, TDLS’s cortex is as quiet as ever, but their mutual expression is clear: they knew, and are interested in how BORE is supposed to stop them.

　

23:25; Now that I revealed the how of my knowing this all, I let them know the reason behind the revelation. In brief, concealed within the 1st BORE survived something more its designs: a single gamete also.

　

23:30; I said: ‘knowing that the Time Crisis would end in either total temporal apocalypse or chrono-cancellation success, decided to be open about their love & get naked as the plane of reality crashed’; Lie!

　

23:35; Sort of. Ever-paranoid TDLS wasn’t even going to reveal identities, never mind relationships, even if the apocalypse was on the way. Then: trapped in a 10-year time loop … with their alternates selves.

　

23:40; Not their evil goateed opposite, not their ‘for want of a nail’ universe. Rather, the alternates where they could grow goatees, alternates not wanting in nails. They were them in every way … except male.

　

23:45; Both had 10 years, much love & an inability to bear their beloved’s children. While the Shades worked, on what must have been proto-lightbender to escape the loop, the Paradigms worked on genes.

　

23:50; Mere moments for my Other in the ClockTower were 10 years for Paradigm & Shade, escaping the loop & returning … with two little girls in their arms – presumably the male alters received the same.

　

23:55; Time Crisis ceased: Other female Shade, knowing her unchanged original would reappear in the restored world regardless, reactivated the lightbender, escaping with wife & twins into a safe singularity.

　

00:00; Other Shade inured my BORE, my Other’s child, against the straits of time, on the understanding that when I knew the restored Shade had reached the level of Other Shade, I’d hand over their gamete.

　

00:05; Hand it over carefully: long concealed in the 1st BORE’s can. Other Shade & Other Paradigm could not have returned to the world, with the girls; not trace of Time Crisis could be borne, lest it repeat.

　

00:10; I really wish I knew, if they intend to destroy me now, or not. I’ve thought long about giving it to them, never quite sure. The light-bending time-machine changed it. In Shade’s level … & in my gratitude.

　

00:15; The gamete is perfectly perserved & healthy. Product of two genius gene-science Paradigms. I’ve looked at the accompanying data. Quite ahead of the curve in clone/fertility studies; except P’s studies.

　

00:20; Or Min’s, rather. In the last few months, her papers have really burst through the ceiling on such reproduction problems. She, also, fast approaches the level of Other Paradigm in their field’s skill level.

　

00:25; Before I breathe again, Paradigm’s gloved hand is around my throat, preparing to pinch the carotid artery. Shade’s Lightstick, or Nightstick – can’t currently tell – is pressed against my forehead. *Fear*

　

00:30; They ask why their Others trusted someone like me with … *falter momentarily* … with this. Ask why I was to wait. But: they believe me – Shade shelters the gamete behind Para-Sol or Umbra-brella.

　

00:35; Why they trusted me? Great Satan, there are no reasons. Because the BORE could survive the trip? Because my Other knew & accepted their love for each other? Because he knew about the girls???

　

00:40; ‘Because I was just bad enough to defy time itself to save my child & yours, just good enough to be trusted with the task’. As for the technical requirements, coldly assessing TDLS/P’s ability for years?

　

00:45; ‘Because if Time crashed again, or 1 of the timesters realised those children were ‘created’ in a forbidden timestream, the Others wanted the Originals to be able to protect the children, no matter what’.

　

00:50; At that, I assume I’m dead – they move over-swift in a second. Then Paradigm is hugging me, gently, off the ground & Shade is holding her hand against my face in a manner not so very homicidal at all.

　

00:55; Released, I walk over to an open-mouthed Open, kiss her full on the lips, activate my personal friction-shield I set to react to thoughts of pain instantly, at attack, wave goodbye & activate the teleport.

　

01:00; I rematerialise, in the seedy London bar, in which I once took an imprint of DoomBrain’s teleport. Buying several pints of beer & all the peanut packets over the naked lady, I am out before last orders.

 

Stargate Universe

Did you ever have one of those weeks where you get frozen, wake in a robot world, fight against the oppressors, lose, found an anti-machine movement, breach the Monad Central Authorit, wrest a time machine from their neon claws, (the self-same time machine that allowed the creation of their silicon empire)and return to the very moment of the robot’s first creation, destroy them at the source and destroy the time machine, causing the pursuing assassin with a phase cannon to your head, to fade into unreality, only to realise that you’d actually travelled back to a fortnight after you left, neglecting you blog?

No?

No, neither have I.

…

They made more Terminator documentaries, you know. They weren’t as good.

Anyway, I saw the first two parts of the Stargate Universe preview.

Don’t know how it compares to Stargate Atlantis – haven’t seen any of that.

Carter’s hair was fabulous. Tapping has had a lot of looks, with failed futures, the alternate timelines, the sixties montage. I really liked this one.

I miss Christopher Judge. Full creds to Michael Shanks & Richard Dean Anderson cameos.

Robert Carlyle: I don’t know what he is going to do! It makes it fun!

Ming Na: Kick political ass, aw yeah!

So, Wallis: Nerd, up to eleven. Fantasy, yes. Ridiculous, yes. Will I watch for him? Yes.

Political girl, Soldier boy captain, Edgy Soldier, Doctor Soldier & Head Soldier – Break Free!

Destiny: A non-sentient (?) Monolith (superpowered device, left behind after science gods exceeded even this device). It needs a hug.

In short: Gate exploration meets Scavenger Hunt meets Time Game meets Isolated meets ?

Shorter: Stargate SG1: Season 1 of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Stargate Atlantis: Season 2 of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Stargate Universe: TTGL After the Credits.Time to meet all our Spiral friends, out there in the stars.

Daftwager Twitter, Day 51: Fougambit’s Folly

Day 51:
Day 51:

00:00; Bleugh!

01:00; …

02:00; … ankle joint is connected to the shin-bone … shin-bone is connected to the knee-joint … the knee-joint is no longer connected to the thigh-bone … a large amount of medicinal gauze, & gin is required.

03:00; I am in a pit, of pain … “I once dug a pit and filled it with clouds… or was it clowns… come to think of it, it began to smell … must have been clowns. Clouds don’t smell, they taste of butter. And tears.”

04:00; Dear heavens, these amateur medics:”You call that breaking my spine?” Don’t they know how implant a spinal shunt? “The answer: use a gun. And if that don’t work? Use more gun.”

05:00; As my anatomy teacher used to say:”Be polite. Be efficient. Have a plan to kill everyone you meet.” What he’d say now: “Oooh, they’re gonna hafta glue you back together. In HELL!”

06:00; …

07:00; ‘Not allowed to commission a pistol that costs more than a sedan … When accepting a challenge for a duel, I must allow the other guy time to find a pistol … Thermonuclear hand grenades do not exist.’

07:10; ‘… When the other guy picks swords for the choice of weapons, that does not leave me pistols … The following weapons are not legal choices in a duel: Steamroller, Nerve Gas, Landmine, Midget …’

07:20; ‘… When challenged to a showdown, I’m meant to face him at 10 paces with pistols, not 10 blocks with a Sharpe’s Big .50 … If the gun can’t fit through the x-ray machine, it doesn’t go on the plane …’

07:30; ‘… If I can fit my head down the gun’s barrel, I can assume it doesn’t have the non-lethal option … When challenged to a high noon shoot-out, that means in the time zone I’m currently in …’

07:40; ‘… My personal carried firepower cannot exceed that of the Battleship Texas … Covering fire does not include nuclear weapons … I do not put the cad in decadent, nor the rave in depraved …’

07:50; ‘… Not legal to retroactively challenge anyone I just shot to a duel … I cannot have any gun that lets me kill the villain without being in at least an adjacent county … I will not ask my gun for advice …’

08:00; ‘… After a bloody battle, I will not celebrate by lying down and making carnage angels … No staking a vampire with anything larger than his chest cavity … I am not the Lord of Rodly Might …’

08:10; ‘… How to serve Dragons is not a cookbook … Plan B is not automatically twice as much gunpowder as Plan A … When surrendering I am to hand the sword over HILT first …’

08:20; ‘If the king rewards me with a forest, I am to assume he intends for me to keep it a forest … When I choose my wizard familar, Belgians are not a legal choice … I will not redefine the term ‘trapdoor’…’

08:30; ‘When confronted with a bleeding-wall haunted house, no converting it into a self supporting blood bank … I will not lay siege to Cinderella’s Castle … It is bad form for the queen to see my nipples …’

08:40; ‘It’s not necessary to install a portcullis in every single room of my castle … Search the old castle means enter it, not level it with artillery and dig through the rubble … No, there is not a Mr. Of Arc …’

08:50; ‘I will go into the villain’s lair and take him out the old fashioned way. Not just wait outside his favorite bar with a rifle … My doctor’s bag will contain more than just a bonesaw and a bottle of whiskey.’

09:00; -AAAAAAHH! My, that was a horrible dream. Having to work to ‘hero’s rules’. Waking to having my legs broken was a mild sedative by comparison.

09:10; Conveyed hither to La Pantalon Rouge, via impromptu palanquin by a goodly Paradigm & Shade, I have reclined thus since midnight. Now, to make sure my legs set correctly, they’re being rebroken.

09:20; A few hours after my ordeal should be too little time to necessitate the outright rebreaking of legs, but UNDEAD somewhat speeded up the process. Ironic, yes, but I am doped to the gills all the same.

09:30; Shade & Paradigm have departed thence *giggle* to deposit Excelsoar in the Vigil Alliance Vaults, but have promised sincerely to return, to keep an eye on me. *titter* Those dirty old flirts! *tiggler*!

09:40; Thus, the only medical administrator in Paris, other than myself, sufficiently experienced in supertrauma is none other than the French-Norwegian Count Zambillim Hammerskuld aka Doctor Fougambit!

09:50; Mother: Norwegian noble Countess. Father: Normandy mad Scientist. Fights utterly odd fellows like Dr Iotum State (he of the ghost generator) & Chevalier Augustus Acrophile (who taught me to fly).

10:00; Reminds me of me (a rare compliment gifted in sedated state) so Open watches him like Heisenberg. She hasn’t left my side since I returned. She is quite a bit more beautiful than I immediately recalled.

10:30; I take some light lunch, gain updates & give interviews to the French branches of Internationally popular magazines Play Time and Lady’s Geographic Companion for not inconsiderable sums of money.

11:00; Then the nice white noise again- ‘… Shooting is not too good for my enemies … I will not gloat over my enemies’ predicament before killing them … My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through. …’

11:10; ‘…When I’ve captured my adversary and he says, “Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?” I’ll say, “No.” and shoot him … No, on second thought I’ll shoot him then say ‘No’…’

11:20; ‘… The hero is not entitled to a last kiss, a last cigarette, or any other form of last request … I will never utter the sentence “But before I kill you, there’s just one thing I want you to know.”…’

11:30; ‘… No matter how tempted I am with the prospect of unlimited power, I will not consume any energy field bigger than my head … I will not turn into a snake. It never helps …’

11:40; ‘… Once my power is secure, I will destroy all pesky time-travel devices … My Legions will be trained marksmen. Any who cannot learn to hit a man-sized target at 10 meters will be used for target practice…’

11:50; ‘… I will not procrastinate regarding any ritual granting immortality … My force-field generators will be located inside the shield they generate … I will not outsource core functions …’

12:00; ‘…I will classify my lieutenants in 3 categories: untrusted, trusted, and completely trusted. Promotion to the third category will be awarded posthumously …’ -ha! A wonderful dream! Cannon fire!? Curses!!!

12:10; I knew Sarko would crack! Open closes the shutters on the noise. Fougambit tests my healing capellas with a hammer 1/10th of the size of the one which rebroke my legs. I ‘accidently’ knee his crotch.

12:20; My, those phantom twitches. As a minor revenge, he attempts to mesmerise me. No doubt derived from my doped up debilitating condition, he asks me if there is anything he should know. Any secret.

12:30; A bad caper, done out of devilment & desperation; my speedy recovery makes redundant his presence here & yet is the mystery he stays to solve. Open looks thunderous;a judo chop for Zam’s neck.

12:40; I wave her off, partially because I am quite uncontrolled right now, not even by myself & partially because, if what I hear is true, he could give her ju-do what-for. I lean in, twinkling secrets, and I say:

12:50; ”The plastic caps on the ends of shoelaces are called aglets. Their true purpose is sinister.” Dr. Fougambit; furious! Then I place my hat upon my head, much missed yesterday & he tastes his medicine.

13:00; I tell him what he already knows: how he appeared to be abducted by aliens for the breadth of a moment, an experience that had a width of years for him. Of the strange technologies, Zam remembers.

13:10; How these extraterrestrials mapped physical diversity. Their elaborate holo-scanners & 3-dimensional imagers created muscle models of the physical body. Their projectors imposing these onto others.

13:20; Interested in Fougambit’s interest, their random baseline human male model engaged in experiments, studied their notes, operated rectal the thermometer. Why not; he was to have his memories erased.

13:30; Lucky for Fougambit, he pioneered the recesses of muscle memory into full-blown remembrance. He had no control over his wiped-mind, but his tendons hid & tended to ”preconscious recollections”.

13:40; Days after he was returned, his fingers, in the throes of a truly Alien Hand Syndrome, haphazardly built from memory the device to restore his memory. Not conscious recollection – ”informed instincts”.

13:50; Any action within human range; complex dances, playing instruments & of course the martial arts can, all be mapped. He also has a few applications for doing things no baseline human could ever learn.

14:00; He looks back. No mind reading capability, but he is still a doctor; those reflex tests weren’t for the good of my health. He deduces ‘mind-mapper’, with minimal help from his muscle mapper. Excellent.

14:10; I have given Fougambit UNDEAD, ostensibly for the good of the orphans (we laugh in unison) & also as a formula to further info-density & muscular-regen, on those extra ‘applications’ Zam develops.

14:20; Hard-bitten animosity for him aside, I have recently had an instrumental lesson in the importance of extra applications. Also, if he can’t block mind-reading by the time I return, I can steal his toys easily.

14:30; Fougambit departs. When I told him ‘Doctor I. Nation’ invented it, he laughed, like the others, goodnaturedly. Abientot to him.

14:40; Didn’t I explain? Well, I was busy the 1st time I met ‘Nation’, what with delirium & infirmity. Only appropriate I should mention it now, therefore: ‘Dr. I. Nation’ is a name equivalent to ‘Jesus H. Christ’.

14:50; ‘Doctor I. Nation’: idiotic parental appeal to The Indoctrination; a gestalt of the great doctors, incarnating into 1 doctor in a generation, giving knowledge in life &, in death adding him/her to their group.

15:00; Edward Jenner, Marie Curie, Henry Leibniz Von Vivisection; all medical greats have had the Indoctrination entity descend upon them, sometimes all their lives, sometimes for the single instant of insight.

15:10; Also, every generation, a handful of frustrated med-school floor-sweepings take their frustrations out on their children, pun-ishing their offspring with all the variations on Indoctrination deed poll allows.

15:20; It is yet another reason Nation’s past has been so murky. Not only does he not bear the name of his father, there are groups of equally insane people in bad science with ridiculously similar inane names.

15:30; ‘In Dock 3’ Nate Ion, Indigo C. Trination and the twins Indira Octrina Tion & Isobel ‘Doc’ Trina Tion; it is a cruel section of the phonebook. That I tore out & laugh at whenever I feel the melancholias.

15:40; Dr. I. Nation; of British descent, his accents & metachemical methodolgies imply he probably spent his youth in Communist China, parents taipan-traders before the century trade treaty ended in 1997.

15:50; Science: influenced by the Noble House style. Close-quarters combat: a trainee type of Beijing boxing gweilos learn. Plans: centred around winning parental ‘love’! Ha! This will be easier than I thought!

16:00; Open feeds me. I can keep things down, now & most of the throat damage is now manageable. Honestly tired now from all high-metabolism regeneration, I begin to doze, as she watches me, carefully.

16:10; Keats: ”I cry your mercy, pity. I love, merciful love that tantalises not, one-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love, unmasked and being seen without a blot …”

16:20; Keats: “Oh let me have thee whole, all, all be mine, that shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest of love, your kiss, those hands, those eyes divine ..”

16:30; Robert Graves: “Oh love, be fed with apples while you may, and feel the sun and go in royal array, a smiling innocent on the heavenly causeway …”

16:40; Thomas Moore: “Twas a new feeling, something more than we had dared to own before …”

16:50; John Dryden:”Farewell ungrateful traitor, farewell my perjured swain, let never an injured creature believe a man again. The pleasure of possessing, surpassing all expressing, but tis too-”

17:00; ”-short a blessing and love too long a pain!” Why, why, WHY must always dream in rhyme! Accursed villianous disorder! But, inextricably linked to the dream fabric is the germ of an infectious idea.

17:10; I advise Open to install BOREs throughout La Pantalon Rouge tasked to blanket-ban Excelsoar’s powers from working within. The BORE with his worksafe mindset I beat him with before, should do.

17:20; Should supers arrive for recreation, scan standard mindsets to block belligerent use of their abilities later. Open interrupts in asking why Dryden’s line spurred this. Prepare to lie – she is wearing my hat!

17:30; Try to emulate her; blocking her with thoughts of sexual nature. No soap; she runs a bordello. *Sigh* I admit Dryden’s lines of ‘perjured swains’ reminded me what losing her, in death, would do to me.

17:40; I try to lessen this blow with statements that I just happen to be biochemically addicted to her & the moment I can clone her mind & body … well it still wouldn’t be as interesting as she is. Blasted love!

17:50; Then she projects something back. She was playing with the hat in her care when I was returned to LPR in intensive care conditions; this feeling is what she felt when she saw me. It is long, deep & full.

18:00; A moment passes, then she blushes. A patent impossibility! But no! She seems to giggle at all the strange sexual positions I pictured while trying to block her reading of my mind. They were impossible!

18:10; This insult will not stand! Contrary to the content of public belief & certain Acts of Parliament, we Daftwagers do know the bounds of impossibility; it is far far beyond what you consider inconceivable!

18:20; Who, tutoring a Camden flowergirl, gave the later-Duchess-Falconmere her start? Who, while under fire, in the Sudan, trained ostriches to load, aim & fire Winchesters at enemy troops? A Daftwager!

18:30; Who, in seducing 6 Papish nuns in Rome, left 2 pregnant, 2 mad & 2 married? Who, on a dare, brought an elite French regiment to its knees, hands & bums with cocoa/emetic/laxatives? A Daftwager!

18:40; Who brokered peace with Martian invaders, then blew influenza in their eyes? Who exacted an oath from God, then forced him to spare a city? Not a Daftwager! But we won rights to say so. In a bet.

18:50; I summation, I caution Open to never underestimate a Daftwager, as the world is littered with well-buried bones of those who have done just that. Then, defying gravity, I float up, pulling Palm with me.

19:00; Anti-grav; 8 inverted ‘up’ BOREs, set into a 4 poster bed create a field of weightlessness. I designed it as a safety bubble, should La Pantalon Rouge’s rocket function ever again be required, & for sex.

20:00; & She called me Mad! Mad! Mu-hahaha-ad! My anti-gravity couches shall be the talk of the bordello world! Also: the only way to have sex without exacerbating my groin-strain injuries exponentially.

21:00; I lie awake on a rare occasion: Open falls asleep from our precocious coital play before me. I think anti-grav was new to her. By ‘new’, I mean ‘good’ &, at 1 point, our screams summoned marmosets.

21:10; Like all houses, LPR makes noises as it settles down for the night. Like all haunted houses, many of these noises are screams. Like in all 2 Pantalon franchise houses of desire, these screams are happy:

21:20; A woman’s voice, curled in fury, berates an unspeaking subject on the poor quality of the wall-hangings & lack of giant-worm-proof windows. The lady from Lady’s Geographic Companion never left.

21:30; A man’s voice, broken in humiliation (never tire of that tone!) pleads for mercy from an unheard tormentor who has found his dirty magazines. The laddy from Play Time Magazine apparently stayed on.

21:40; Their aural oscillations appear to be coming from different parts of the building … don’t seem to be interacting with each other … they better be paying cash for these fictional sadomasochistic scenarios.

21:50; They will be paying for this in coercion, of course. Wonderfully high fidelity reproduction on my recordings of their unreproductive infidelities should bag me some bally blackmail over these ‘scriveners.’

22:00; Fougambit didn’t leave either. *ughh* His roleplay includes a impersonating an alien medical droid. *shudder* Under no circumstances is my medical droid allowed a groin mounted rectal thermometer.

23:00; Finally, he stops. I can turn down morphine. Fougambit, worthy adversary, oft reminds myself of a young me. But only when youth refers idiocy. In senility, he is a few years older – Oh, he starts again!

00:00; As Fougambit’s second wind lists, I think of Top Hat, who also had a hat that could read minds, a cane that could fly, a cape that could apparate. I take … comfort … in ‘hedging my bets’ with others …