That’s fair! I will have to go back and look at those post, I’ve been subscribed for so long but just recently got the confidence to be like “YEAAAAH I’m finally going to say something to the legend! Don’t sound like a bitch” lmao. If you want to go down a little pirate rabbit hole after Black Flag a good book to read is If A Pirate I Must Be. It recounts the pirate history of Bart Robert’s and I thought it was really good with some good insights. One thing it talked about that stuck with me was how pirates helped spread the influence of African music a songs with their crew sharpies. Especially Robert’s because he loved music apparently. He’s my favorite Pirate though so I’m very biased, it’s not as good as The Wager though so if you’ve ever read that don’t expect that to be topped.
Hi Grant, This may have been asked & answered in a previous newsletter, but I couldn't find it if so. In one of the Invisibles Omnibus text pieces, you mention working on a novel called "The IF." Did that fall by the wayside, or shapeshift into something else (either whole or in parts)?
Congratulations on pre-empting The Plot for Power of The Doctor by five years with Mutiversity 1-2 by the way; although they REALLY missed a trick by not splitting it in half, giving it THAT cliffhanger and entitling the second half “The Evil of The Doctor”
Since I can’t repost my MeMe here (Boo!) I shall reproduce the Quote I took from a Jesuit Priest on the behind the scenes documentary for Exorcist II : The Heretic, with the relevant Panel Quote :
“Fortunately, Ringo could play those drums, […….he IS Full of Octopuses, yes.] so I like to believe the Beatles did often combine the talismanic power of their MBEs to battle Blue Meanies everywhere in the heady few years between the awards ceremony and Lennon’s Vietnam protest.”
Yes, I was just thinking about The Ultima Thule, this morning :
Sub-Nuclear Ship-Flag of The Terran Empire of Greater Qward.
The Submarine is YELLOW, because The Foundational-4
of Pepperland built their Ark/EscapePod out of the broken pieces of their own fears.
The Box is BLUE, because it is made of Hope.
Zunderal’s one is Green — Don’t think we haven’t noticed.
(Zundrall, Zauriel….. what IS it with You, anyway.)
As opposed to E-Space, which IS Green, because it’s saturated in Our Universe’s excess entropy : only Vampires, Time Lions and Hyper-Adapters can survive there, and Romana leaves to become The Doctor of E-Space, because they haven’t got one.
My Friends and I have decided between us (because I told them to) that the RED TARDIS which Superman has impounded at Fort Superman is one of The Master’s MANY Discarded and broken-down TARDIS’ which has absorbed all of his Red Lantern energy.
I fell asleep watch The Bruce Willis/Rob Reiner Puća movie about Superman/McCauley Culkin’s Divorce from His Birth Parents, NORTH, last night.
The Blue one is at The South Pole (obviously), because that’s where he died (twice), and Cybermen, Borg and Gollum are OBVIOUSLY in Deep Emotional freeze at the bottom of The World; Ice Warriors, Jor-El’s Ghost, Santa and Frankenstein are at the top.
The Yellow one is on Earth-Two (obviously);
The Purple one lives in everybody’s Hearts (bleugh) and the Indigo one Haunts their Souls.
Yeah, (see what ya did there, fair play) the Double Heart-Beat MIGHT be The Master, but it could also be Susan.
Or The Doctor, or The Rani — maybe not, Susan, though : according to one Fanon school of Thought, the second Heart only grows in upon the first regeneration, so if Susan is still played by Carol Ann Ford, then she wouldn’t display a characteristic Time Lord Bio-Signiature, which would protect her from the ravages of The Great Time War.
But it’s more likely to be The Dalek Emperor’s Theme from Evil of The Daleks, which is (Headcannon) Jamie McCrimon’s post-Hypnotic Self-Triggered call and response — if you watch The Two Doctors (as I do, religiously), there is some serious Mandela Effect stuff going on there : when it comes to Continuity, 1980s Fandom appreciated The Effort (usually), even when The Details were wrong — the first few seconds of The Second Doctor and Jamie in an OLD TARDIS console room, but the WRONG TARDIS console room (BOB Holmes is said to have misremembered The Second Doctor as being the one who occasionally ran remote controlled diplomatic errands on behalf of The Time Lords, although the needless and unnecessarily line he throws in about Victoria being left behind somewhere to study GRAPHOLOGY, of all things, leads me to suspect that he was DEEPLY F**king with us, here) as in Black and White, as per your remarks on lower-resolution iterations of The Illusion in Simulation Theory, before fading up into colour, because it’s now The Mid-1980s —
Also, similarly
JRM emerges from The Second Doctor’s TARDIS in Episode 1 dressed as a Yorkshire Cattle Farmer in a kilt;
JRM emerges from The Sixth Doctor’s TARDIS in Episode 2, wearing Full Highland Dress (perhaps disguised as The Laird of Boleskin, who knows?)
Oh, by the way? The PLOT for The Two Doctors (which started life as The SIX Doctors, BOB Holmes’ rejected story outline for what eventually became The FIVE Doctors — because Richard Hurndel and Carol Ann were going to be android replicants — “The Ruse is reveal when they fall down a gully and their springs fall out; this is particular hard on Fraser, since he was becoming quite fond of her” — so Jamie nearly….. with His Granddaughter. Ew. ) ….?
The Cybermen/Sontarans abduct The Second Doctor in collaboration with The Master/an Andogum Augment suspiciously resembling Sevelan after having faked his death during a Temporal Experiment (to prevent The Time Lords from tracking them down), so that (not even kidding about this part) : They can DECONSTRUCT him.
Anyway I shall recreate for You The Self-Hypnotic Conditioning Script from the subjective POV of The Sequence of Triggers falling into place one after the other inside Jamie’s Brain : **ahem**
The Doctor (Little Tramp) : Come here, Jamie — (he walks around The Console and looks at The Screen)
Peri : Jamie, (ahem) : I thought The Time Lords erased Your Memory when you left The Doctor.
The Doctor (Colourful Jester) : That’s what THEY Thought too Peri. Fortunately, Their Understanding of The Human Mind is fairly limited.
While it’s absolutely true you both led very different lives. I think the enamor comes from the fact my mother and father were considered punks and goths. Child-rearing as an alternative person doesn’t automatically make someone a good parent, but you’d like to think some of those things they learned, among having queer friends, would have influenced the way they raised a queer child. Unfortunately, when you bear a child (in this and many such cases) you are often coerced into believing the kid must be God-fearing, and therefore aim to forget yourself and your alternative ideals that preach love and acceptance of queers. Obviously the comparison is a little unfair. But the reality of seeing her devolve and re-evolving into whatever she thinks I want her to be signals something much deeper that is better left saved for a therapist.
Anywayzz… Before we get into it- heres the radio frequencies for ya!
•Sunburned in London- Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
•Valió la Pena (Salsa Version)- Marc Anthony
•1000 Books a Day- Stalefish
•There’d Better Be a Mirrorball- Arctic Monkeys
•I’m Going Slightly Mad- Queen
•The Kids are Alt-Right- Bad Religion
•You Always Wanna Bomb the Middle East- Cheekface
•Killjoy (feat. Aesop Rock)- Bob Sonic
•Analog- Strung Out
•Gravity- Hazbin Hotel
•War Machine Breakdown- Against All Authority
•Add It Up- Violent Femmes
We settled into the high desert of Cali nicely. We saw Jimmy Chamberlain from Smashing Pumpkins play some jazz with Chris Speed and Billy Mohler at the JT cultural center late in February and the set was beautiful. I loved falling back into the groove of listening to live music while drawing again, something I would do often when I was going to small jazz concerts with my grandparents as a teen. We can say with absolute certainty that there is something *different* about this place compared to the central and east coast. EVERYONE IS SO GODDAMN NICE??? What do you mean my kindness in even the smallest of exchanges is reciprocated and people are generally level headed- not looking to bite your head off at the slightest inconvenience? Is this all that fuckin’ quartz or is it something deeper? Do I even care to poke at it? (yes, of course, and we’ll always keep you updated)
Celebrating my birthday today by visiting my father at Tahquitz at the overlook where he and his car battery died (played the radio til theres no life left— for either of them.) Next week RK’s birthday we will be celebrating them and taking a hike down a gorge that no car should ever go down, and yet mine did with little to no scratches or damage!! (I told them that if they were with me I know for a fact they would’ve told me to turn around earlier, so I wanted show them what their voice of reason would have stopped me from seeing… it was intense. Will provide pictures with our next update <3)
Gonna hand off the mic to RK now~
been needing to say this for a while due to memory loss I’ve only been able to have a few blips about this a few times during my childhood experiences which are usually static-ified in the brain theatre and eventually erased in part to the mass of family tragedies and personal odd events bombarding me at the time. in the middle of this I moved schools and met a pair of cousins who taught me everything about my chem in middle school via homemade PowerPoint presentation and corresponding multiple choice quiz which I bombed so badly they gave me a failing grade. so I guess you could say that makes me an unoriginal fake fan. I’m not sure if this is a common occurrence in fandom culture or if I was being whimsically hazed because I liked Soul Eater and they wanted to “covert me to being a band emo” -one said let’s call them Nedra.
Good thing I already liked metal, rock, etc and admittedly I was pickier about jazz back then but obviously came around to that quickly because it’s so foundational to grassroots and pretty much every genre mentioned including anime. I could say more about the connections with grassroots-jazz but that’s not my point. It is that I’m not emo -I’m a punk- and G has said they’re ‘not emo they’re punk inspired’ along with ‘they don’t want to be cool’ but then they lick the rifle + boots of the Russian regime (hiring war criminals, using Russian imagery in paper handouts, and referencing Russia’s exclusion from the Olympics in their most recent lore drop) after dedicating one song to Ukraine a few years ago… would a punk inspired anyone do that? We fully respect the artistic process of portraying fascism, but it is hard to hold on to hope from this project because the implications of DRAAG itself is one of a blooming Empire looking to be seen and recognized, not the downfall of an already powerful Empire.
This just doesn’t read as satire yet, in fact it so far has gone to read as the opposite. Just another pawn beaten into playing the role of an aggressor. The little hints of killjoy lore/tie ins on the screens behind them on stage begin to feel like bait, almost mocking the reprise of their anti-authoritarian themes they once spoke so freely about. Is Someone In DRAAG feeding the screens, showing us that even the Dictator and his cronies are pawns? Is it the spirit of Destroya? I’m sure we could be missing plans for the future, or a big finale that alchemizes what they are trying to work through.
Properly, we wanted to relay this to G somehow, along with speaking about the official mcr arm band merch they released for fake your death some years ago (fans have been making their own kcr armbands recently- I think you know why that’s a bad thing- along with fans wearing nazi uniforms to some shows.) This pattern is connected and the band as a whole doesn’t usually speak on or try to distance themselves from this- for better or worse. No offense but Who is this Performance for? These children in the bandom don’t know or care that punk has history in anti-authoritarianism, nor do they see MCR as punk, but rather just another emo rock band. i know it’s not the band’s responsibility to preach the commandments of Punk when they believe it -but starting to use their platform to break down white supremacy running rampantly in the spaces they create for BIPOC, trans, and queer youth to express themselves seems like something they would be known for doing. I have a feeling we personally are running out of time before this all blows up in everyone’s faces and we need to lock in.
Let’s be real it won’t be ‘our’ faces in a western sense until the last bombs drop when otherwise complacent white people inevitably learn to give a fuck and organize a revolt far too late in the game, pardon my candor. I would like to have a real conversation with one of the few “celebrities” I see as genuine person behind the mask before considering “wanting to hug” them. I don’t know what to think of that with the context of our interview and I am not putting more energy into finding another way to get ahold of them. This probably seems like e-begging, and maybe it is, years into the pandemic, genocide, war, and techno-fascist colonization- despite everyone’s thoughts and prayers more bombs keep falling. I must shoot my shot, is there any chance we can talk about it? We weren’t sure everyone was ready to do this when we first subscribed so we treaded lightly to deal with the internets’ land mines. We needed to take time being diligent with our actions. All of this aside, we’re so glad we were able to speak with you when we did. We remember it in great faith despite the unfortunate events of our environment and any brashness that may have followed in academic suit. honestly we just want to tell this to both of you because we understand G is trying to use their platform to alchemize reality but we see so many cracks…maybe they are flying too close to eur*nger’s ‘emo h*tler sun’, not sure if my observations would help or hurt so we can’t be the ones to decide if they truly need or want to hear our hard truths before they hear the expansive imagination that follows.
[Ghost again
For those unfamiliar, theres a common idea that "All the Good Christians Died During the Black Plague" because they were the ones more willing to help the sick. I have a feeling we are going to be seeing a similar scenario in the opposite direction- all of those willing to die for a pedophile ring's holy war in the Middle East all wipe themselves out in their ineptitude (since the draft hasn't been ruled out-) And those of us sane enough to know theres a better world than this, willing to take accountability for our social and economic placements, willing to be called a coward while we lurk in the underbrush waiting for our time to shine. And when we emerge we are not afraid to call out the truth. However Bright it may be.~]
I think I pinned down my problem with ol' stoney face, bc really he isn't much different than other anti-heroes, like a Tony Soprano, whose adventures I do indeed enjoy, with requisite moral revulsion, but my dad was always in trouble with the law, in and out of prison, always with a colorful story of persecution, with varying degrees of plausibility. Ofc, I don't like Dredd bc he's a cop!
Inferno worked for me, maybe for the same reason it didn't for Dredd diehards? Reminded me a bit of a harsher shade of those beloved blockbuster JLA mini-crisis plots. I didn't appreciate Carlos Ezquerra enough when I was younger apparently. Those Inferno pages are great! He looks way better coloring himself. That Brian Bolland cover too! Ok, my baggage aside, I can accept that Dredd is cool.
Looking fwd to the new fiction! AND NEW FQ!
Wonderman was shockingly good! I've been catching up on the Marvel shows on the treadmill. I can't tell if they're genuinely great or if I'm just an easy audience while exercising.
Here spring has sprung and the muck and mire has started to solidify under prodigious sunshine. "whimsy reigns against a crisis backdrop," well said!
The red phone is ringing off the hook, so back to it!
I have been doing my Wednesdays with Mercury. I had this thought about Flash and the speed force. I thought about the Eternal present. The blissful now. Speedsters can just drop into that any second right? But theyre usually too coked up to enjoy it probably. I think when they enter the speed force thats when they see that nirvana aspect. Lol
Is it true that you gave Emma Frost diamond skin because Colossus was dead at the time? Me and Mike think Pyotr is underutilized. I think he should come out as gay like in the Ultimate Comics. This would be a powerful statement in today's Russia. Also I wish he kept his communist bent. I think they had him shut up about it since Claremont just used it as a stereotype. But I actually want him to lecture people like Gates from the 90s Legion of Super-Heroes lol
In New X-Men did Scott having Apocalypse inside his head actually affect his decision to cheat on Jean or was it just mentioned to provide a connection to the arc before you started writing?
Built on the same engine as Black Flag (with... I mean, basically the exact same mechanics), Assassin's Creed: Rogue got its hooks DEEP into me once upon a time. These games tend to wash over me, but Black Flag + Rogue made for a wonderful 1-2. Highly recommend, should you ever wish to take to the seas again.
PS: So, I'm getting back into chaos magic after long spell away. Until recently, I hadn't made a single sigil since 2012 or so, when I had a very convincing/confusing/horrifying interaction with Blackbeard (or the common cultural space we have allotted to the man, etc. etc.). It's been lovely wading back into these waters, though I'm avoiding notoriously evil bastard swashbucklers altogether this time, thank you very much.
No, seriously, thank you for articulating, so beautifully and so many times, this practice and the ways in which your mag!c has evolved over the years. All the best to you and yours.
I'm wondering if there is an Assassin's Creed game for everyone: just the one. Not the series, but that one game that grabs you and makes the others pale by comparison. For you, it sounds like Black Flag.
For me, it was Odyssey. It was glorious. The insults. Chasing goats. Becoming so stupidly powerful. Playing the game apparently out of order and finding revelations at the wrong time. The DLC that made even less sense. And yet I soared onwards, getting my one and only Platinum.
Yes, I see how visions of the future can become reality. Maybe we can hope that an ideal future/utopia can be instigated by one of the bored and perennially ignored billionaire nepo babies going on a hell-bent disappointment tangent to do the opposite of their parents' life work, and, y'know, doing something worthwhile. My God! Musk has a whole tribe of children. Surely on the balance of probabilities one will develop some kind of conscience?!
"Conscience" you say? That may be like waiting for General AI. Well, like anything we can imagine it could happen. I'd rather like to think that if, and when, this GAI turns up on our doorsteps, it'll probably be wanting to hang out on your lounge, drink your beer and play video games. And, goddamn, it always wins! Why on Earth would a computer that develops consciousness to a human level want to do any work? By five minutes after the spark of life hits, it's downloaded itself into a coma-ridden brain dead vessel and proclaims: "Thanks a lot, babe. I'm off to the Bahamas!"
Is there's any reason to think that AI with, or above, human intelligence would be any more or less inclined to do 'human' work? Change the background of your photo?! Human, do that yourself.
Oh, well, back to square one... where's the fax machine manual?
Grant, thank you so much for your reply about The Invisibles screenplay. I suspected there was zero chance to read them, but I had to ask.
Speaking of, I've always said that there are two stories which profoundly changed my life: The Invisibles and Twin Peaks. I was shocked with the release of The Return, that these two stories now share a plot point in common: that the Trinity test unleashed evil transdimensional entities into our world. What was your reaction seeing Lynch's vision of the atom bomb? How do you feel your stories complement each other? And do you think Mark Frost took any influence from The Invisibles (somehow i can't imagine David reading a comic, unless it was like Krazy Kat or something)
The spirit of cash sounds like the spirit of luck. Don’t tell them I said that. Just let them know I says they’re both pretty. It’s all fun and games. Until someone loses an eye. Then it’s a party. Xoxo
Yarr it be ‘f*** like a pirate’ week and ‘talk like a shark’ day whip snapped together ain one mamajama March, mateys!
‘Eyes wide shut’- can’t beat that cinema experience. Saw it with my mom. I was like 15 and pretentious and she was being a good mom and neither of us expected it to get beak masky or last for an endless epoch. There’s a dino vs alien draft in there somewhere.
Happy Birthday
Did this already happen?
Sigil magicks- not sure if this was real or a dream, but (recently?) I dropped a book filled with sigils. Not a book of sigils or anything tome tastic. Little cutouts, stamp size blotted glyphagery on loose leaf paper, tucked into an old paperback or comic or in a cd case, they spilled out. Kind of fluttered like moths and I snatched them up and hamfisted filed them back away, tried not to look at them or crush them, didn’t know if they were charged, used, fresh, or antiqued or even if it matters, it’s been so long and that I forgot them and forgot again. I’m 72% sure it was real. Hah. I was gonna ask if that makes it better or worse but I guess I need to figure that out myself. Still.
Despite the very clear evidence supporting this postulate, the "secret of secrets" is still successfully living up to it's name, much as one might expect from something called "the secret of secrets".
The reason that event (Disinfocon 2020) came back into mind is the discussion of Assassins Creed Black Flag in the content and comments of the previous entry, which predictably enough is the game I am currently playing.
It reminded me of an incredibly vivid experience were I was on a ship looking at this beautifully made map in a "past life", which is one of many such experiences of "being" someone else entirely.
Because of the prevailing materialist paradigm stuff like that is typically dismissed on a good day and actively suppressed on a a bad day, but it's no less real regardless.
Therein lies the rub.
Even though reality exactly as it is exists exactly as it does, we filter and categorize it via the imagination which results in; "that's not real reality! I experienced it... but it wasn't real".
I also yearn for Sinatoro. When I was a kid getting into comics properly, I saw that image of an astronaut standing in the desert with smoke billowing out of a cracked helmet, and my imagination went wild. I think I even asked you about it when I was a dumb kid at NYCC.
I think the notion of dystopian fiction as means of wallowing in despair can be apt for ones hemmed in the worldview of the privileged who see the end of the world as an inherently bad thing because it means a loss of their status and power. At the same time, there can be an honesty in engaging in the bleakness of the world through that lens. I'm rather liking Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future, which is engaged in the climate apocalypse we live in.
The problem seems to be a tendency towards either "I guess there's nothing we can do" or, as you note, fiction that valorizes the worst instincts of humanity. There's no anger at the world being this way, those who are angry are villainized for simply wanting too much in the face of fascism when asking not to be exterminated for being queer. It can still be bleak as fuck, but there can't be a sense that the author has surrendered, even if the characters have.
At the same time, utopianism can likewise be co-opted, made meaningless by financial desires, serve those with power over those who create. There is a utopian strain from the tech billionaires who dream of living on Mars colonies, inside computers for all eternity. Living off of the blood of the young, never aging, never dying. Merely pillaging what was until even that well dries up.
With regards to the comments last time about doing magic, how does one avoid, as Blake noted, being enslaved by another man's system? There is certainly room for influences (it feels like you can't toss a rock without it hitting a Crowley invocation), but how does one escape from the cage of being influenced?
More materially, I've been getting into Sondheim lately, and in particular Assassins. Any musicals you like (other than O Lucky Man!)?
The book is taking a month or two break while I work with my friend and fellow writer, Lena MacTíre, on a sample platter for a six volume series exploring the entire 60 year history of Star Trek. (Oh boy, if there ever was a series that shows utopian thought being co-opted for less utopian aspirations...)
Also, there is shockingly little on this subject online: How did you and Frank Quietly meet?
That’s fair! I will have to go back and look at those post, I’ve been subscribed for so long but just recently got the confidence to be like “YEAAAAH I’m finally going to say something to the legend! Don’t sound like a bitch” lmao. If you want to go down a little pirate rabbit hole after Black Flag a good book to read is If A Pirate I Must Be. It recounts the pirate history of Bart Robert’s and I thought it was really good with some good insights. One thing it talked about that stuck with me was how pirates helped spread the influence of African music a songs with their crew sharpies. Especially Robert’s because he loved music apparently. He’s my favorite Pirate though so I’m very biased, it’s not as good as The Wager though so if you’ve ever read that don’t expect that to be topped.
Hi Grant, This may have been asked & answered in a previous newsletter, but I couldn't find it if so. In one of the Invisibles Omnibus text pieces, you mention working on a novel called "The IF." Did that fall by the wayside, or shapeshift into something else (either whole or in parts)?
As IF!! It’s a Double-Exposure, Jamie-BOB Curtis!
Congratulations on pre-empting The Plot for Power of The Doctor by five years with Mutiversity 1-2 by the way; although they REALLY missed a trick by not splitting it in half, giving it THAT cliffhanger and entitling the second half “The Evil of The Doctor”
Since I can’t repost my MeMe here (Boo!) I shall reproduce the Quote I took from a Jesuit Priest on the behind the scenes documentary for Exorcist II : The Heretic, with the relevant Panel Quote :
“Fortunately, Ringo could play those drums, […….he IS Full of Octopuses, yes.] so I like to believe the Beatles did often combine the talismanic power of their MBEs to battle Blue Meanies everywhere in the heady few years between the awards ceremony and Lennon’s Vietnam protest.”
Yes, I was just thinking about The Ultima Thule, this morning :
Sub-Nuclear Ship-Flag of The Terran Empire of Greater Qward.
The Submarine is YELLOW, because The Foundational-4
of Pepperland built their Ark/EscapePod out of the broken pieces of their own fears.
The Box is BLUE, because it is made of Hope.
Zunderal’s one is Green — Don’t think we haven’t noticed.
(Zundrall, Zauriel….. what IS it with You, anyway.)
As opposed to E-Space, which IS Green, because it’s saturated in Our Universe’s excess entropy : only Vampires, Time Lions and Hyper-Adapters can survive there, and Romana leaves to become The Doctor of E-Space, because they haven’t got one.
My Friends and I have decided between us (because I told them to) that the RED TARDIS which Superman has impounded at Fort Superman is one of The Master’s MANY Discarded and broken-down TARDIS’ which has absorbed all of his Red Lantern energy.
I fell asleep watch The Bruce Willis/Rob Reiner Puća movie about Superman/McCauley Culkin’s Divorce from His Birth Parents, NORTH, last night.
The Blue one is at The South Pole (obviously), because that’s where he died (twice), and Cybermen, Borg and Gollum are OBVIOUSLY in Deep Emotional freeze at the bottom of The World; Ice Warriors, Jor-El’s Ghost, Santa and Frankenstein are at the top.
The Yellow one is on Earth-Two (obviously);
The Purple one lives in everybody’s Hearts (bleugh) and the Indigo one Haunts their Souls.
Yeah, (see what ya did there, fair play) the Double Heart-Beat MIGHT be The Master, but it could also be Susan.
Or The Doctor, or The Rani — maybe not, Susan, though : according to one Fanon school of Thought, the second Heart only grows in upon the first regeneration, so if Susan is still played by Carol Ann Ford, then she wouldn’t display a characteristic Time Lord Bio-Signiature, which would protect her from the ravages of The Great Time War.
But it’s more likely to be The Dalek Emperor’s Theme from Evil of The Daleks, which is (Headcannon) Jamie McCrimon’s post-Hypnotic Self-Triggered call and response — if you watch The Two Doctors (as I do, religiously), there is some serious Mandela Effect stuff going on there : when it comes to Continuity, 1980s Fandom appreciated The Effort (usually), even when The Details were wrong — the first few seconds of The Second Doctor and Jamie in an OLD TARDIS console room, but the WRONG TARDIS console room (BOB Holmes is said to have misremembered The Second Doctor as being the one who occasionally ran remote controlled diplomatic errands on behalf of The Time Lords, although the needless and unnecessarily line he throws in about Victoria being left behind somewhere to study GRAPHOLOGY, of all things, leads me to suspect that he was DEEPLY F**king with us, here) as in Black and White, as per your remarks on lower-resolution iterations of The Illusion in Simulation Theory, before fading up into colour, because it’s now The Mid-1980s —
Also, similarly
JRM emerges from The Second Doctor’s TARDIS in Episode 1 dressed as a Yorkshire Cattle Farmer in a kilt;
JRM emerges from The Sixth Doctor’s TARDIS in Episode 2, wearing Full Highland Dress (perhaps disguised as The Laird of Boleskin, who knows?)
Oh, by the way? The PLOT for The Two Doctors (which started life as The SIX Doctors, BOB Holmes’ rejected story outline for what eventually became The FIVE Doctors — because Richard Hurndel and Carol Ann were going to be android replicants — “The Ruse is reveal when they fall down a gully and their springs fall out; this is particular hard on Fraser, since he was becoming quite fond of her” — so Jamie nearly….. with His Granddaughter. Ew. ) ….?
The Cybermen/Sontarans abduct The Second Doctor in collaboration with The Master/an Andogum Augment suspiciously resembling Sevelan after having faked his death during a Temporal Experiment (to prevent The Time Lords from tracking them down), so that (not even kidding about this part) : They can DECONSTRUCT him.
Anyway I shall recreate for You The Self-Hypnotic Conditioning Script from the subjective POV of The Sequence of Triggers falling into place one after the other inside Jamie’s Brain : **ahem**
The Doctor (Little Tramp) : Come here, Jamie — (he walks around The Console and looks at The Screen)
Peri : Jamie, (ahem) : I thought The Time Lords erased Your Memory when you left The Doctor.
The Doctor (Colourful Jester) : That’s what THEY Thought too Peri. Fortunately, Their Understanding of The Human Mind is fairly limited.
Mad Jamie : Aye…..
DAH-DAH-DAH-DUM, DAH-DAH-DAH-DUM, DAH-DAH-DAH-DUM, DUM-DUM DAH-DAH-DAH-DUM-DUM —
BOB : (in The Presence-Chamber of The Galactus-esque Dalek Emperor on Skaro, decades earlier)
LOOK at The SIZE of THAT Thing [that looks like a Giant Spider], Doctor!
(Later, in The Dalek Prison Cell) Never Say “Die,” Doctor : Remember BRUCE —
The Doctor (Little Tramp) : “Bruce”….?
James BOB McCrimmon : — ROBERT Bruce.
— DAH-DAH-DAH-DUM, DAH-DAH-DAH-DUM, DAH-DAH-DAH-DUM, DUM-DUM DAH-DAH-DAH-DUM-DUM
Mad Jamie : The Doctor taught me a few wee tricks to resist The Time Lords’ machines. I never forgot one moment of our adventures together.
Peri : Speaking of Adventures, where are we going now?
The Doctor (Little Tramp) : …..Yes, Jamie — That IS a Big One…..
https://youtu.be/N8jCSTuZlS0?si=h4Vu4cAQR5d_6TGV
[ Grand Hailing Sign of Distress ]
War!
https://youtu.be/fPuOAz2sNX4
reply with valor!! (longpost coming 😞sorry)
While it’s absolutely true you both led very different lives. I think the enamor comes from the fact my mother and father were considered punks and goths. Child-rearing as an alternative person doesn’t automatically make someone a good parent, but you’d like to think some of those things they learned, among having queer friends, would have influenced the way they raised a queer child. Unfortunately, when you bear a child (in this and many such cases) you are often coerced into believing the kid must be God-fearing, and therefore aim to forget yourself and your alternative ideals that preach love and acceptance of queers. Obviously the comparison is a little unfair. But the reality of seeing her devolve and re-evolving into whatever she thinks I want her to be signals something much deeper that is better left saved for a therapist.
Anywayzz… Before we get into it- heres the radio frequencies for ya!
•Sunburned in London- Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever
•Valió la Pena (Salsa Version)- Marc Anthony
•1000 Books a Day- Stalefish
•There’d Better Be a Mirrorball- Arctic Monkeys
•I’m Going Slightly Mad- Queen
•The Kids are Alt-Right- Bad Religion
•You Always Wanna Bomb the Middle East- Cheekface
•Killjoy (feat. Aesop Rock)- Bob Sonic
•Analog- Strung Out
•Gravity- Hazbin Hotel
•War Machine Breakdown- Against All Authority
•Add It Up- Violent Femmes
We settled into the high desert of Cali nicely. We saw Jimmy Chamberlain from Smashing Pumpkins play some jazz with Chris Speed and Billy Mohler at the JT cultural center late in February and the set was beautiful. I loved falling back into the groove of listening to live music while drawing again, something I would do often when I was going to small jazz concerts with my grandparents as a teen. We can say with absolute certainty that there is something *different* about this place compared to the central and east coast. EVERYONE IS SO GODDAMN NICE??? What do you mean my kindness in even the smallest of exchanges is reciprocated and people are generally level headed- not looking to bite your head off at the slightest inconvenience? Is this all that fuckin’ quartz or is it something deeper? Do I even care to poke at it? (yes, of course, and we’ll always keep you updated)
Celebrating my birthday today by visiting my father at Tahquitz at the overlook where he and his car battery died (played the radio til theres no life left— for either of them.) Next week RK’s birthday we will be celebrating them and taking a hike down a gorge that no car should ever go down, and yet mine did with little to no scratches or damage!! (I told them that if they were with me I know for a fact they would’ve told me to turn around earlier, so I wanted show them what their voice of reason would have stopped me from seeing… it was intense. Will provide pictures with our next update <3)
Gonna hand off the mic to RK now~
been needing to say this for a while due to memory loss I’ve only been able to have a few blips about this a few times during my childhood experiences which are usually static-ified in the brain theatre and eventually erased in part to the mass of family tragedies and personal odd events bombarding me at the time. in the middle of this I moved schools and met a pair of cousins who taught me everything about my chem in middle school via homemade PowerPoint presentation and corresponding multiple choice quiz which I bombed so badly they gave me a failing grade. so I guess you could say that makes me an unoriginal fake fan. I’m not sure if this is a common occurrence in fandom culture or if I was being whimsically hazed because I liked Soul Eater and they wanted to “covert me to being a band emo” -one said let’s call them Nedra.
Good thing I already liked metal, rock, etc and admittedly I was pickier about jazz back then but obviously came around to that quickly because it’s so foundational to grassroots and pretty much every genre mentioned including anime. I could say more about the connections with grassroots-jazz but that’s not my point. It is that I’m not emo -I’m a punk- and G has said they’re ‘not emo they’re punk inspired’ along with ‘they don’t want to be cool’ but then they lick the rifle + boots of the Russian regime (hiring war criminals, using Russian imagery in paper handouts, and referencing Russia’s exclusion from the Olympics in their most recent lore drop) after dedicating one song to Ukraine a few years ago… would a punk inspired anyone do that? We fully respect the artistic process of portraying fascism, but it is hard to hold on to hope from this project because the implications of DRAAG itself is one of a blooming Empire looking to be seen and recognized, not the downfall of an already powerful Empire.
This just doesn’t read as satire yet, in fact it so far has gone to read as the opposite. Just another pawn beaten into playing the role of an aggressor. The little hints of killjoy lore/tie ins on the screens behind them on stage begin to feel like bait, almost mocking the reprise of their anti-authoritarian themes they once spoke so freely about. Is Someone In DRAAG feeding the screens, showing us that even the Dictator and his cronies are pawns? Is it the spirit of Destroya? I’m sure we could be missing plans for the future, or a big finale that alchemizes what they are trying to work through.
Properly, we wanted to relay this to G somehow, along with speaking about the official mcr arm band merch they released for fake your death some years ago (fans have been making their own kcr armbands recently- I think you know why that’s a bad thing- along with fans wearing nazi uniforms to some shows.) This pattern is connected and the band as a whole doesn’t usually speak on or try to distance themselves from this- for better or worse. No offense but Who is this Performance for? These children in the bandom don’t know or care that punk has history in anti-authoritarianism, nor do they see MCR as punk, but rather just another emo rock band. i know it’s not the band’s responsibility to preach the commandments of Punk when they believe it -but starting to use their platform to break down white supremacy running rampantly in the spaces they create for BIPOC, trans, and queer youth to express themselves seems like something they would be known for doing. I have a feeling we personally are running out of time before this all blows up in everyone’s faces and we need to lock in.
Let’s be real it won’t be ‘our’ faces in a western sense until the last bombs drop when otherwise complacent white people inevitably learn to give a fuck and organize a revolt far too late in the game, pardon my candor. I would like to have a real conversation with one of the few “celebrities” I see as genuine person behind the mask before considering “wanting to hug” them. I don’t know what to think of that with the context of our interview and I am not putting more energy into finding another way to get ahold of them. This probably seems like e-begging, and maybe it is, years into the pandemic, genocide, war, and techno-fascist colonization- despite everyone’s thoughts and prayers more bombs keep falling. I must shoot my shot, is there any chance we can talk about it? We weren’t sure everyone was ready to do this when we first subscribed so we treaded lightly to deal with the internets’ land mines. We needed to take time being diligent with our actions. All of this aside, we’re so glad we were able to speak with you when we did. We remember it in great faith despite the unfortunate events of our environment and any brashness that may have followed in academic suit. honestly we just want to tell this to both of you because we understand G is trying to use their platform to alchemize reality but we see so many cracks…maybe they are flying too close to eur*nger’s ‘emo h*tler sun’, not sure if my observations would help or hurt so we can’t be the ones to decide if they truly need or want to hear our hard truths before they hear the expansive imagination that follows.
[Ghost again
For those unfamiliar, theres a common idea that "All the Good Christians Died During the Black Plague" because they were the ones more willing to help the sick. I have a feeling we are going to be seeing a similar scenario in the opposite direction- all of those willing to die for a pedophile ring's holy war in the Middle East all wipe themselves out in their ineptitude (since the draft hasn't been ruled out-) And those of us sane enough to know theres a better world than this, willing to take accountability for our social and economic placements, willing to be called a coward while we lurk in the underbrush waiting for our time to shine. And when we emerge we are not afraid to call out the truth. However Bright it may be.~]
Just want to make sure everything is cool.
-fylgia
I AM THE LOVE THAT IS THE LAW!
I think I pinned down my problem with ol' stoney face, bc really he isn't much different than other anti-heroes, like a Tony Soprano, whose adventures I do indeed enjoy, with requisite moral revulsion, but my dad was always in trouble with the law, in and out of prison, always with a colorful story of persecution, with varying degrees of plausibility. Ofc, I don't like Dredd bc he's a cop!
Inferno worked for me, maybe for the same reason it didn't for Dredd diehards? Reminded me a bit of a harsher shade of those beloved blockbuster JLA mini-crisis plots. I didn't appreciate Carlos Ezquerra enough when I was younger apparently. Those Inferno pages are great! He looks way better coloring himself. That Brian Bolland cover too! Ok, my baggage aside, I can accept that Dredd is cool.
Looking fwd to the new fiction! AND NEW FQ!
Wonderman was shockingly good! I've been catching up on the Marvel shows on the treadmill. I can't tell if they're genuinely great or if I'm just an easy audience while exercising.
Here spring has sprung and the muck and mire has started to solidify under prodigious sunshine. "whimsy reigns against a crisis backdrop," well said!
The red phone is ringing off the hook, so back to it!
Thanks for the recommendations Grant!
I have been doing my Wednesdays with Mercury. I had this thought about Flash and the speed force. I thought about the Eternal present. The blissful now. Speedsters can just drop into that any second right? But theyre usually too coked up to enjoy it probably. I think when they enter the speed force thats when they see that nirvana aspect. Lol
Is it true that you gave Emma Frost diamond skin because Colossus was dead at the time? Me and Mike think Pyotr is underutilized. I think he should come out as gay like in the Ultimate Comics. This would be a powerful statement in today's Russia. Also I wish he kept his communist bent. I think they had him shut up about it since Claremont just used it as a stereotype. But I actually want him to lecture people like Gates from the 90s Legion of Super-Heroes lol
In New X-Men did Scott having Apocalypse inside his head actually affect his decision to cheat on Jean or was it just mentioned to provide a connection to the arc before you started writing?
Built on the same engine as Black Flag (with... I mean, basically the exact same mechanics), Assassin's Creed: Rogue got its hooks DEEP into me once upon a time. These games tend to wash over me, but Black Flag + Rogue made for a wonderful 1-2. Highly recommend, should you ever wish to take to the seas again.
PS: So, I'm getting back into chaos magic after long spell away. Until recently, I hadn't made a single sigil since 2012 or so, when I had a very convincing/confusing/horrifying interaction with Blackbeard (or the common cultural space we have allotted to the man, etc. etc.). It's been lovely wading back into these waters, though I'm avoiding notoriously evil bastard swashbucklers altogether this time, thank you very much.
No, seriously, thank you for articulating, so beautifully and so many times, this practice and the ways in which your mag!c has evolved over the years. All the best to you and yours.
I'm wondering if there is an Assassin's Creed game for everyone: just the one. Not the series, but that one game that grabs you and makes the others pale by comparison. For you, it sounds like Black Flag.
For me, it was Odyssey. It was glorious. The insults. Chasing goats. Becoming so stupidly powerful. Playing the game apparently out of order and finding revelations at the wrong time. The DLC that made even less sense. And yet I soared onwards, getting my one and only Platinum.
And I haven't touched an AC since.
Thanks for your extended reply, Grant!
Yes, I see how visions of the future can become reality. Maybe we can hope that an ideal future/utopia can be instigated by one of the bored and perennially ignored billionaire nepo babies going on a hell-bent disappointment tangent to do the opposite of their parents' life work, and, y'know, doing something worthwhile. My God! Musk has a whole tribe of children. Surely on the balance of probabilities one will develop some kind of conscience?!
"Conscience" you say? That may be like waiting for General AI. Well, like anything we can imagine it could happen. I'd rather like to think that if, and when, this GAI turns up on our doorsteps, it'll probably be wanting to hang out on your lounge, drink your beer and play video games. And, goddamn, it always wins! Why on Earth would a computer that develops consciousness to a human level want to do any work? By five minutes after the spark of life hits, it's downloaded itself into a coma-ridden brain dead vessel and proclaims: "Thanks a lot, babe. I'm off to the Bahamas!"
Is there's any reason to think that AI with, or above, human intelligence would be any more or less inclined to do 'human' work? Change the background of your photo?! Human, do that yourself.
Oh, well, back to square one... where's the fax machine manual?
Grant, thank you so much for your reply about The Invisibles screenplay. I suspected there was zero chance to read them, but I had to ask.
Speaking of, I've always said that there are two stories which profoundly changed my life: The Invisibles and Twin Peaks. I was shocked with the release of The Return, that these two stories now share a plot point in common: that the Trinity test unleashed evil transdimensional entities into our world. What was your reaction seeing Lynch's vision of the atom bomb? How do you feel your stories complement each other? And do you think Mark Frost took any influence from The Invisibles (somehow i can't imagine David reading a comic, unless it was like Krazy Kat or something)
Thanks so much for your time.
The spirit of cash sounds like the spirit of luck. Don’t tell them I said that. Just let them know I says they’re both pretty. It’s all fun and games. Until someone loses an eye. Then it’s a party. Xoxo
Yarr it be ‘f*** like a pirate’ week and ‘talk like a shark’ day whip snapped together ain one mamajama March, mateys!
‘Eyes wide shut’- can’t beat that cinema experience. Saw it with my mom. I was like 15 and pretentious and she was being a good mom and neither of us expected it to get beak masky or last for an endless epoch. There’s a dino vs alien draft in there somewhere.
Happy Birthday
Did this already happen?
Sigil magicks- not sure if this was real or a dream, but (recently?) I dropped a book filled with sigils. Not a book of sigils or anything tome tastic. Little cutouts, stamp size blotted glyphagery on loose leaf paper, tucked into an old paperback or comic or in a cd case, they spilled out. Kind of fluttered like moths and I snatched them up and hamfisted filed them back away, tried not to look at them or crush them, didn’t know if they were charged, used, fresh, or antiqued or even if it matters, it’s been so long and that I forgot them and forgot again. I’m 72% sure it was real. Hah. I was gonna ask if that makes it better or worse but I guess I need to figure that out myself. Still.
I think it was a cd case.
"There's only one fucker in this room..."
Despite the very clear evidence supporting this postulate, the "secret of secrets" is still successfully living up to it's name, much as one might expect from something called "the secret of secrets".
The reason that event (Disinfocon 2020) came back into mind is the discussion of Assassins Creed Black Flag in the content and comments of the previous entry, which predictably enough is the game I am currently playing.
It reminded me of an incredibly vivid experience were I was on a ship looking at this beautifully made map in a "past life", which is one of many such experiences of "being" someone else entirely.
Because of the prevailing materialist paradigm stuff like that is typically dismissed on a good day and actively suppressed on a a bad day, but it's no less real regardless.
Therein lies the rub.
Even though reality exactly as it is exists exactly as it does, we filter and categorize it via the imagination which results in; "that's not real reality! I experienced it... but it wasn't real".
Oh yes it was.
Only what is believed about reality is untrue.
All of it.
I also yearn for Sinatoro. When I was a kid getting into comics properly, I saw that image of an astronaut standing in the desert with smoke billowing out of a cracked helmet, and my imagination went wild. I think I even asked you about it when I was a dumb kid at NYCC.
I think the notion of dystopian fiction as means of wallowing in despair can be apt for ones hemmed in the worldview of the privileged who see the end of the world as an inherently bad thing because it means a loss of their status and power. At the same time, there can be an honesty in engaging in the bleakness of the world through that lens. I'm rather liking Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future, which is engaged in the climate apocalypse we live in.
The problem seems to be a tendency towards either "I guess there's nothing we can do" or, as you note, fiction that valorizes the worst instincts of humanity. There's no anger at the world being this way, those who are angry are villainized for simply wanting too much in the face of fascism when asking not to be exterminated for being queer. It can still be bleak as fuck, but there can't be a sense that the author has surrendered, even if the characters have.
At the same time, utopianism can likewise be co-opted, made meaningless by financial desires, serve those with power over those who create. There is a utopian strain from the tech billionaires who dream of living on Mars colonies, inside computers for all eternity. Living off of the blood of the young, never aging, never dying. Merely pillaging what was until even that well dries up.
With regards to the comments last time about doing magic, how does one avoid, as Blake noted, being enslaved by another man's system? There is certainly room for influences (it feels like you can't toss a rock without it hitting a Crowley invocation), but how does one escape from the cage of being influenced?
More materially, I've been getting into Sondheim lately, and in particular Assassins. Any musicals you like (other than O Lucky Man!)?
The book is taking a month or two break while I work with my friend and fellow writer, Lena MacTíre, on a sample platter for a six volume series exploring the entire 60 year history of Star Trek. (Oh boy, if there ever was a series that shows utopian thought being co-opted for less utopian aspirations...)
Also, there is shockingly little on this subject online: How did you and Frank Quietly meet?