Brinks home security lock box instructions
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2024.05.22 02:11 No_Emu_3674 Turo host took my things
Hi,
I was renting a car for about two weeks. Due to a weird amount of miscommunication* the host was instructed to retrieve the car and apparently was authorized by turo to take my belongings out of his car and into his house. The car was packed to go on a trip in a few hours so the items included one of my documents, a backup banking card, some medication I take regularly and regular stuff you take on family trips.
When we found out what happened - literally hours after the host retrieved the car, i couldn’t get a hold of him. Eventually he replied and he said he would send the items by post. As I live just a few blocks away from him, I walked over to his house (with his permission).
The host was very aggressive towards me - he shouted at me and called me names both face to face and in the turo chat. I was crying and shaking for the remainder of the day.
I managed to get most of my stuff back (a few items are missing and a few were damaged as he put everything in a box including a day-old a half-drank coffee over an expensive jacket and a sleeping bag that was ready for my kid in the backseat). Also in the time he was in possession of my baking card, it got mysteriously suspended by my bank. Could be a coincidence - although it’s a backup card that has no money on it and I never use it 🤷🏻♀️
Now, I reported this entire situation to turo support team right away and they went from „we will call the police, you stole the car” emails (that were actually ending up in my spam) to being completely mia.
My question is - are hosts allowed to take your belongings out of the car and store them in their house? Shouldn’t the police have been called to at least secure my documents and the bank card? Is turo ok with hosts being this aggressive towards guests?
Thanks
—
*Just a big of background on the miscommunication for those interested:
I asked the host to extend it for a few days. This was the second time I was extending it and the first time went smoothly, so when I got a message or two from the host in his native language (which I don’t understand and we always communicated in English) I assumed it was just a standard notification from the app or something.
I have also let the host know several days prior that the app is glitchy and I’m not getting all of his messages.
Turns out the host didn’t extend the reservation and turo tried to contact me (although I had no missed calls and their emails ended in spam)
submitted by No_Emu_3674 to turo [link] [comments]
I was renting a car for about two weeks. Due to a weird amount of miscommunication* the host was instructed to retrieve the car and apparently was authorized by turo to take my belongings out of his car and into his house. The car was packed to go on a trip in a few hours so the items included one of my documents, a backup banking card, some medication I take regularly and regular stuff you take on family trips.
When we found out what happened - literally hours after the host retrieved the car, i couldn’t get a hold of him. Eventually he replied and he said he would send the items by post. As I live just a few blocks away from him, I walked over to his house (with his permission).
The host was very aggressive towards me - he shouted at me and called me names both face to face and in the turo chat. I was crying and shaking for the remainder of the day.
I managed to get most of my stuff back (a few items are missing and a few were damaged as he put everything in a box including a day-old a half-drank coffee over an expensive jacket and a sleeping bag that was ready for my kid in the backseat). Also in the time he was in possession of my baking card, it got mysteriously suspended by my bank. Could be a coincidence - although it’s a backup card that has no money on it and I never use it 🤷🏻♀️
Now, I reported this entire situation to turo support team right away and they went from „we will call the police, you stole the car” emails (that were actually ending up in my spam) to being completely mia.
My question is - are hosts allowed to take your belongings out of the car and store them in their house? Shouldn’t the police have been called to at least secure my documents and the bank card? Is turo ok with hosts being this aggressive towards guests?
Thanks
—
*Just a big of background on the miscommunication for those interested:
I asked the host to extend it for a few days. This was the second time I was extending it and the first time went smoothly, so when I got a message or two from the host in his native language (which I don’t understand and we always communicated in English) I assumed it was just a standard notification from the app or something.
I have also let the host know several days prior that the app is glitchy and I’m not getting all of his messages.
Turns out the host didn’t extend the reservation and turo tried to contact me (although I had no missed calls and their emails ended in spam)
2024.05.22 02:08 GradeAScrewup It's been 2 weeks
Dear D
It's been 2 weeks since you broke up with me. 2 weeks since you told me you didn't feel like you could be in a relationship anymore. 2 weeks since my world crashed down around me. 2 weeks since the hole appeared in my chest.
You said you felt like you were toxic in our relationship. I wish you had talked to me about it before deciding. You said I didn't want to be around your kids. But I was picturing school dances and graduations and being there for them. You said that you felt it was all because of your childhood trauma. Yet you never wanted to discuss it with me. Yes I didn't push the issue when you would get close and I noticed you shut down I just wanted you to be comfortable.
In these two weeks you have isolated me from you. The one I love more than anything I've experienced in life shut me out as if I was a stranger. It's not no contact because you've still responded at times but the coldness is palpable from the messages.
I watched video of us returning from our date night captured by the security cameras The smile on your face felt genuine. The way you pulled me in for a kiss and kissed me so passionately. Did you know at that time that that would be the last time you would kiss me? Or did you figure it out when you went to hang out with your friends afterwards.
I've been looking online and so many of these posts hit close enough to home that I wonder if they are you reaching out to me. But then I notice that they're not. I just want to have a real conversation with you. Not one where you shut me out and mask up so that way I can't see your emotions.
My biggest wish is that you're willing to talk to me and we can work on repairing our relationship. Near two years all gone in 1 hour 2 weeks ago.
My therapist says that I need to contact you and give you your stuff from the house back but I don't want to. To me that feels like admitting that we will never be back together. Even now as I have your stuff in a box it bothers me that it's not in its rightful place waiting for you to come use it.
My second biggest wish after being able to talk would be that we could get back together.
How is it you could say you still love me, that it's hard for you to text me because all you want to do is flirt, that seeing me miserable makes you miserable. Those are not things said by somebody who no longer loves you.
I know there is little to no chance you are here posting things. I know there is little to no chance You're going to see this message. But just know no matter what I am here for you. I love you Amore.
A
submitted by GradeAScrewup to BreakUps [link] [comments]
It's been 2 weeks since you broke up with me. 2 weeks since you told me you didn't feel like you could be in a relationship anymore. 2 weeks since my world crashed down around me. 2 weeks since the hole appeared in my chest.
You said you felt like you were toxic in our relationship. I wish you had talked to me about it before deciding. You said I didn't want to be around your kids. But I was picturing school dances and graduations and being there for them. You said that you felt it was all because of your childhood trauma. Yet you never wanted to discuss it with me. Yes I didn't push the issue when you would get close and I noticed you shut down I just wanted you to be comfortable.
In these two weeks you have isolated me from you. The one I love more than anything I've experienced in life shut me out as if I was a stranger. It's not no contact because you've still responded at times but the coldness is palpable from the messages.
I watched video of us returning from our date night captured by the security cameras The smile on your face felt genuine. The way you pulled me in for a kiss and kissed me so passionately. Did you know at that time that that would be the last time you would kiss me? Or did you figure it out when you went to hang out with your friends afterwards.
I've been looking online and so many of these posts hit close enough to home that I wonder if they are you reaching out to me. But then I notice that they're not. I just want to have a real conversation with you. Not one where you shut me out and mask up so that way I can't see your emotions.
My biggest wish is that you're willing to talk to me and we can work on repairing our relationship. Near two years all gone in 1 hour 2 weeks ago.
My therapist says that I need to contact you and give you your stuff from the house back but I don't want to. To me that feels like admitting that we will never be back together. Even now as I have your stuff in a box it bothers me that it's not in its rightful place waiting for you to come use it.
My second biggest wish after being able to talk would be that we could get back together.
How is it you could say you still love me, that it's hard for you to text me because all you want to do is flirt, that seeing me miserable makes you miserable. Those are not things said by somebody who no longer loves you.
I know there is little to no chance you are here posting things. I know there is little to no chance You're going to see this message. But just know no matter what I am here for you. I love you Amore.
A
2024.05.22 02:07 GradeAScrewup It's been 2 weeks
Dear D
It's been 2 weeks since you broke up with me. 2 weeks since you told me you didn't feel like you could be in a relationship anymore. 2 weeks since my world crashed down around me. 2 weeks since the hole appeared in my chest.
You said you felt like you were toxic in our relationship. I wish you had talked to me about it before deciding. You said I didn't want to be around your kids. But I was picturing school dances and graduations and being there for them. You said that you felt it was all because of your childhood trauma. Yet you never wanted to discuss it with me. Yes I didn't push the issue when you would get close and I noticed you shut down I just wanted you to be comfortable.
In these two weeks you have isolated me from you. The one I love more than anything I've experienced in life shut me out as if I was a stranger. It's not no contact because you've still responded at times but the coldness is palpable from the messages.
I watched video of us returning from our date night captured by the security cameras The smile on your face felt genuine. The way you pulled me in for a kiss and kissed me so passionately. Did you know at that time that that would be the last time you would kiss me? Or did you figure it out when you went to hang out with your friends afterwards.
I've been looking online and so many of these posts hit close enough to home that I wonder if they are you reaching out to me. But then I notice that they're not. I just want to have a real conversation with you. Not one where you shut me out and mask up so that way I can't see your emotions.
My biggest wish is that you're willing to talk to me and we can work on repairing our relationship. Near two years all gone in 1 hour 2 weeks ago.
My therapist says that I need to contact you and give you your stuff from the house back but I don't want to. To me that feels like admitting that we will never be back together. Even now as I have your stuff in a box it bothers me that it's not in its rightful place waiting for you to come use it.
My second biggest wish after being able to talk would be that we could get back together.
How is it you could say you still love me, that it's hard for you to text me because all you want to do is flirt, that seeing me miserable makes you miserable. Those are not things said by somebody who no longer loves you.
I know there is little to no chance you are here posting things. I know there is little to no chance You're going to see this message. But just know no matter what I am here for you. I love you Amore.
A
submitted by GradeAScrewup to heartbreak [link] [comments]
It's been 2 weeks since you broke up with me. 2 weeks since you told me you didn't feel like you could be in a relationship anymore. 2 weeks since my world crashed down around me. 2 weeks since the hole appeared in my chest.
You said you felt like you were toxic in our relationship. I wish you had talked to me about it before deciding. You said I didn't want to be around your kids. But I was picturing school dances and graduations and being there for them. You said that you felt it was all because of your childhood trauma. Yet you never wanted to discuss it with me. Yes I didn't push the issue when you would get close and I noticed you shut down I just wanted you to be comfortable.
In these two weeks you have isolated me from you. The one I love more than anything I've experienced in life shut me out as if I was a stranger. It's not no contact because you've still responded at times but the coldness is palpable from the messages.
I watched video of us returning from our date night captured by the security cameras The smile on your face felt genuine. The way you pulled me in for a kiss and kissed me so passionately. Did you know at that time that that would be the last time you would kiss me? Or did you figure it out when you went to hang out with your friends afterwards.
I've been looking online and so many of these posts hit close enough to home that I wonder if they are you reaching out to me. But then I notice that they're not. I just want to have a real conversation with you. Not one where you shut me out and mask up so that way I can't see your emotions.
My biggest wish is that you're willing to talk to me and we can work on repairing our relationship. Near two years all gone in 1 hour 2 weeks ago.
My therapist says that I need to contact you and give you your stuff from the house back but I don't want to. To me that feels like admitting that we will never be back together. Even now as I have your stuff in a box it bothers me that it's not in its rightful place waiting for you to come use it.
My second biggest wish after being able to talk would be that we could get back together.
How is it you could say you still love me, that it's hard for you to text me because all you want to do is flirt, that seeing me miserable makes you miserable. Those are not things said by somebody who no longer loves you.
I know there is little to no chance you are here posting things. I know there is little to no chance You're going to see this message. But just know no matter what I am here for you. I love you Amore.
A
2024.05.22 02:06 GradeAScrewup It's been 2 weeks.
Dear D
It's been 2 weeks since you broke up with me. 2 weeks since you told me you didn't feel like you could be in a relationship anymore. 2 weeks since my world crashed down around me. 2 weeks since the hole appeared in my chest.
You said you felt like you were toxic in our relationship. I wish you had talked to me about it before deciding. You said I didn't want to be around your kids. But I was picturing school dances and graduations and being there for them. You said that you felt it was all because of your childhood trauma. Yet you never wanted to discuss it with me. Yes I didn't push the issue when you would get close and I noticed you shut down I just wanted you to be comfortable.
In these two weeks you have isolated me from you. The one I love more than anything I've experienced in life shut me out as if I was a stranger. It's not no contact because you've still responded at times but the coldness is palpable from the messages.
I watched video of us returning from our date night captured by the security cameras The smile on your face felt genuine. The way you pulled me in for a kiss and kissed me so passionately. Did you know at that time that that would be the last time you would kiss me? Or did you figure it out when you went to hang out with your friends afterwards.
I've been looking online and so many of these posts hit close enough to home that I wonder if they are you reaching out to me. But then I notice that they're not. I just want to have a real conversation with you. Not one where you shut me out and mask up so that way I can't see your emotions.
My biggest wish is that you're willing to talk to me and we can work on repairing our relationship. Near two years all gone in 1 hour 2 weeks ago.
My therapist says that I need to contact you and give you your stuff from the house back but I don't want to. To me that feels like admitting that we will never be back together. Even now as I have your stuff in a box it bothers me that it's not in its rightful place waiting for you to come use it.
My second biggest wish after being able to talk would be that we could get back together.
How is it you could say you still love me, that it's hard for you to text me because all you want to do is flirt, that seeing me miserable makes you miserable. Those are not things said by somebody who no longer loves you.
I know there is little to no chance you are here posting things. I know there is little to no chance You're going to see this message. But just know no matter what I am here for you. I love you Amore.
A
submitted by GradeAScrewup to UnsentLetters [link] [comments]
It's been 2 weeks since you broke up with me. 2 weeks since you told me you didn't feel like you could be in a relationship anymore. 2 weeks since my world crashed down around me. 2 weeks since the hole appeared in my chest.
You said you felt like you were toxic in our relationship. I wish you had talked to me about it before deciding. You said I didn't want to be around your kids. But I was picturing school dances and graduations and being there for them. You said that you felt it was all because of your childhood trauma. Yet you never wanted to discuss it with me. Yes I didn't push the issue when you would get close and I noticed you shut down I just wanted you to be comfortable.
In these two weeks you have isolated me from you. The one I love more than anything I've experienced in life shut me out as if I was a stranger. It's not no contact because you've still responded at times but the coldness is palpable from the messages.
I watched video of us returning from our date night captured by the security cameras The smile on your face felt genuine. The way you pulled me in for a kiss and kissed me so passionately. Did you know at that time that that would be the last time you would kiss me? Or did you figure it out when you went to hang out with your friends afterwards.
I've been looking online and so many of these posts hit close enough to home that I wonder if they are you reaching out to me. But then I notice that they're not. I just want to have a real conversation with you. Not one where you shut me out and mask up so that way I can't see your emotions.
My biggest wish is that you're willing to talk to me and we can work on repairing our relationship. Near two years all gone in 1 hour 2 weeks ago.
My therapist says that I need to contact you and give you your stuff from the house back but I don't want to. To me that feels like admitting that we will never be back together. Even now as I have your stuff in a box it bothers me that it's not in its rightful place waiting for you to come use it.
My second biggest wish after being able to talk would be that we could get back together.
How is it you could say you still love me, that it's hard for you to text me because all you want to do is flirt, that seeing me miserable makes you miserable. Those are not things said by somebody who no longer loves you.
I know there is little to no chance you are here posting things. I know there is little to no chance You're going to see this message. But just know no matter what I am here for you. I love you Amore.
A
2024.05.22 02:06 GradeAScrewup It's been 2 weeks.
Dear D
It's been 2 weeks since you broke up with me. 2 weeks since you told me you didn't feel like you could be in a relationship anymore. 2 weeks since my world crashed down around me. 2 weeks since the hole appeared in my chest.
You said you felt like you were toxic in our relationship. I wish you had talked to me about it before deciding. You said I didn't want to be around your kids. But I was picturing school dances and graduations and being there for them. You said that you felt it was all because of your childhood trauma. Yet you never wanted to discuss it with me. Yes I didn't push the issue when you would get close and I noticed you shut down I just wanted you to be comfortable.
In these two weeks you have isolated me from you. The one I love more than anything I've experienced in life shut me out as if I was a stranger. It's not no contact because you've still responded at times but the coldness is palpable from the messages.
I watched video of us returning from our date night captured by the security cameras The smile on your face felt genuine. The way you pulled me in for a kiss and kissed me so passionately. Did you know at that time that that would be the last time you would kiss me? Or did you figure it out when you went to hang out with your friends afterwards.
I've been looking online and so many of these posts hit close enough to home that I wonder if they are you reaching out to me. But then I notice that they're not. I just want to have a real conversation with you. Not one where you shut me out and mask up so that way I can't see your emotions.
My biggest wish is that you're willing to talk to me and we can work on repairing our relationship. Near two years all gone in 1 hour 2 weeks ago.
My therapist says that I need to contact you and give you your stuff from the house back but I don't want to. To me that feels like admitting that we will never be back together. Even now as I have your stuff in a box it bothers me that it's not in its rightful place waiting for you to come use it.
My second biggest wish after being able to talk would be that we could get back together.
How is it you could say you still love me, that it's hard for you to text me because all you want to do is flirt, that seeing me miserable makes you miserable. Those are not things said by somebody who no longer loves you.
I know there is little to no chance you are here posting things. I know there is little to no chance You're going to see this message. But just know no matter what I am here for you. I love you Amore.
A
submitted by GradeAScrewup to UnsentLetters [link] [comments]
It's been 2 weeks since you broke up with me. 2 weeks since you told me you didn't feel like you could be in a relationship anymore. 2 weeks since my world crashed down around me. 2 weeks since the hole appeared in my chest.
You said you felt like you were toxic in our relationship. I wish you had talked to me about it before deciding. You said I didn't want to be around your kids. But I was picturing school dances and graduations and being there for them. You said that you felt it was all because of your childhood trauma. Yet you never wanted to discuss it with me. Yes I didn't push the issue when you would get close and I noticed you shut down I just wanted you to be comfortable.
In these two weeks you have isolated me from you. The one I love more than anything I've experienced in life shut me out as if I was a stranger. It's not no contact because you've still responded at times but the coldness is palpable from the messages.
I watched video of us returning from our date night captured by the security cameras The smile on your face felt genuine. The way you pulled me in for a kiss and kissed me so passionately. Did you know at that time that that would be the last time you would kiss me? Or did you figure it out when you went to hang out with your friends afterwards.
I've been looking online and so many of these posts hit close enough to home that I wonder if they are you reaching out to me. But then I notice that they're not. I just want to have a real conversation with you. Not one where you shut me out and mask up so that way I can't see your emotions.
My biggest wish is that you're willing to talk to me and we can work on repairing our relationship. Near two years all gone in 1 hour 2 weeks ago.
My therapist says that I need to contact you and give you your stuff from the house back but I don't want to. To me that feels like admitting that we will never be back together. Even now as I have your stuff in a box it bothers me that it's not in its rightful place waiting for you to come use it.
My second biggest wish after being able to talk would be that we could get back together.
How is it you could say you still love me, that it's hard for you to text me because all you want to do is flirt, that seeing me miserable makes you miserable. Those are not things said by somebody who no longer loves you.
I know there is little to no chance you are here posting things. I know there is little to no chance You're going to see this message. But just know no matter what I am here for you. I love you Amore.
A
2024.05.22 01:53 FrenchStephy Kamen Rider 555 20th: Paradise Regained interviews part 1: Kento Handa (Takumi Inui) and Yuria Haga (Mari Sonoda)
 | From Uchuusen Vol. 183. Also I don't know what the consensus is but I use 555 to refer to the show and Faiz to refer to the Kamen Rider. submitted by FrenchStephy to KamenRider [link] [comments] Part 2: Shinichiro Shirakura (Producer) and Ryuuta Tasaki (Director) https://preview.redd.it/cf17s2fr7v1d1.jpg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=38973491b8e7cc12aed2b2972655da56a35e7961 It's been 20 years since the show ended, but have your impressions of the show changed? Handa: My impression of the work known as Kamen Rider 555 changed after filming this movie. Previously, I had a rather dry impression of the show, calling it "my debut work" or "my first job after moving to Tokyo", but with the developments of recent years and the fact we were able to make this 20th anniversary movie, I realized that it was a necessary part of my life. It was one of the most special jobs I've ever had the pleasure of working on. Haga: I think of 555 as my youth and starting point, and that hasn't changed even after 20 years. But once I go to the Kamen Rider filming set, I feel like a child. When I meet the director and staff, I am instantly transported back to those days. And it feels good. Handa: I get it. I'm almost 40 years old, and as I get older, the sensibilities I had in my teens and 20s tend to fade. I wonder what I was thinking and how I was living back then. But when I'm with Haga-san or when I go to the Kamen Rider set, it instantly comes back to me. That feels strangely comfortable (laughs). Haga: That's right (laughs). Handa: It's not good for this to continue forever, but I think it's good to have moments like this every now and then in life. You two have both appeared in the Kamen Rider series since 555, but surprisingly this is the first time you have worked together since then. Haga: Yes. It's been 20 years since then. Handa: We've been together at events and such, so you might get the impression that we've often worked together, but this is the first time we've appeared in the same work since 555. Haga: But it doesn't feel like it's been a while. If anything, I'm more like "What?! It's already been 20 years?" Handa: It feels like it happened just yesterday or the day before yesterday, when we were testing cameras, deciding on settings, and talking about silly things in our free time. Haga: It's a feeling you won't find in any other work. When did the two of you learn about the project for this Paradise Regained movie? Handa: For me, it was when I appeared in Good Morning, Sleeping Lion 2 starring (Seiji) Takaiwa-san, which was released in April 2023. At the filming set, someone from Toei told me "We'll be doing it next year, so thank you for your cooperation". I was focused on that filming when he suddenly told me, so I was a bit shaken (laughs). However, I was happy that what we had hoped for came true. What do you mean by "what we had hoped for"? Handa: When the 555 cast members got together some time ago, we talked about how it would be great to do something for the 20th anniversary. However, it is impossible for us to make a movie on our own, so all we could do is show our determination. I only told Toei of my determination: "if you ever want to do it, I am ready". Haga-san has appeared in Kamen Rider Genms -Smart Brain and the 1000% Crisis- and Kamen Rider Outsiders as Mari and Smart Queen, but were you aware of this at the time of filming? Haga: At that time, there was no such talk, so I'm glad we had the opportunity to convey our intentions. Handa: That's right. If we hadn't said that, the work wouldn't have come this far. I think we would have gotten an commemorative event at most. Haga: When I learned that May 5, 2020 would coincide with the 20th anniversary of 555, I felt that it was fate that the number "5" would be lined up so miraculously. But to be honest, even if a new work was made, I thought it was going to be at most a collaboration with the latest Kamen Rider, so I never thought that we would be able to make a standalone 555 work. Handa: I was certainly surprised that they would make such a large-scale work that would be released in theaters. Takumi's death was confirmed in Kamen Rider 4, but what were Handa-san's thoughts on playing the role of Takumi this time? Handa: I think of Takumi from the TV series and Takumi who guest starred in subsequent works as separate entities. If you don't interpret it that way, you'll end up worrying about parts that don't make sense. That's why I don't think of No. 4 and this movie as being connected. In the first place, after No. 4, I also appeared in Kamen Rider Zi-O. Even at that time, I didn't let No. 4 weigh me down, and instead only played my role of Takumi of the world of Zi-O. Haga-san also played the dual roles of Mari and the Smart Queen in works such as Outsiders, but what were your thoughts on playing the role of Mari this time? Haga: Even before that, I had appeared in Kamen Rider Kiva and Decade, but it was the first time in 18 years that I played Mari. I was surprised and thought "I haven't played Mari in that long?" But that's because for the past 20 years, I have been called "Mari-chan" here and there. Handa: That's right (laughs). Haga: Outsiders was not written by Toshiki Inoue, and to begin with, I played the Smart Queen role more often than Mari there, so in that regard this was the first time in 20 years that I played the post-555 Mari. What did keep in mind when playing Takumi and Mari of 20 years later? Handa: This is similar to what I mentioned earlier, but 20 years is just the passage of time in the real world. Although this movie takes place a long time after the TV series, there is no clear setting for how many years later. Takumi no longer have the body to continue working at the dry cleaners, and due to various reasons, has given himself to Smart Brain. I acted with that in mind. Haga: That's right. We were both teenagers at the time of 555, so we have both changed as people. Handa: We've both gone through a lot of things in the real world. But I felt like we didn't have to think about those changes in our state of mind in the 555 world. The director of this movie is Ryuuta Tasaki, who was also the main director of 555. What was your impression of filming with the Tasaki crew after a long time? Handa: For me, the only word I can say is "easy to act". However, since there were many young actors on set this time, the director was also strict. At the time of 555, we didn't really get yelled at. Haga: Yes. I don't remember being scolded by Director Tasaki. I've worked with him on many other works (besides 555) such as Sh15uya and Kiva, so of course I know of his tough side. Handa: For me, he is like a teacher or a club advisor. When I was a teenager, the 555 set was like school or a club activity. Even when things were tough, we overcame them and made it through as a group of members that wouldn't be complete with a single person missing. Haga: He is like a guardian to me. Also, Director Tasaki's acting instructions are very easy to understand. Handa: He's good at explaining things, without using emotional arguments. Haga: He is watching the set carefully. Handa: He's very considerate. If it's cold at the filming site, he'll say things like "put a blanket over him". Haga: The very first scene we filmed this time was on the roof of a building, and he remembered that I was afraid of heights. He was really considerate and told me "you'll be fine at this height" and "there's a fence, so it's okay". Handa: I think the director was impressed by Haga-san's talent even back then. That's why you're still treated with courtesy even today. Haga: No, no, no! I was 15 at the time. Handa: Now that I think about it, there are no 15-year-olds like Haga-san. She was much more level-headed than (Mitsuru) Karahashi-san (laughs). Haga: Well, I'm confident in that (laughs). I still remember the conversation we had when I first met Karahashi-san. "So you are the rumoured Mari?" "Yes." "I heard you don't do any retakes." I thought "what's wrong with this adult?" with the way he talked to the 15-year-old me (laughs). Handa: Karahashi-san brought home many leftover lunch boxes from the filming set, and used the baths at the filming studio to save up money for bathing. His way of life was very much like Naoya Kaido. He is a lovable man (laughs). Please give us your impressions on co-starring with Kouhei Murakami-san (Masato Kusaka), Mitsuru Karahashi-san (Naoya Kaido), and Ray Fujita-san (Kitazaki/Dragon Orphnoch) in this 555 20th anniversary movie. Handa: Though I worked with Murakami-san in Heisei Rider vs. Showa Rider: Kamen Rider Taisen and Zi-O, I thought it was really nice to see Takumi and Kusaka together. Karahashi-san was a key person in No. 4, so it was really only Fujita-kun who I met for the first time in 20 years. (After seeing him) I thought he too had become an adult. Haga: Fujita-kun was a child even to me at the time (laughs). Also, Murakami-san loves Kaixa so much that he hosts a fan event called 913 (Kaixa) Festival. He also invited me there, so I regularly watch him play Masato Kusaka (laughs). Handa: No, no, 913 Festival's Masato Kusaka is way too exaggerated (laughs). But it's amazing that he took Kusaka, a role that would normally be disliked by viewers, and turned it into a character that is loved so much. I think this is the result of Murakami-san's personality and hard work. Haga: It seems that there are many people have come to like him after all was said and done. That Masato Kusaka (laughs). How was your reunion with Karahashi-san, who was mentioned earlier? Haga: I was surprised at the fact that he hadn't changed at all (laughs). Handa: He really hasn't changed (laughs). I guess his hair is shorter now? Haga: He always tries to sneak ad-libs during the actual takes. And everytime, the director would stop him and say "(you) don't (have to) do that!". Exactly the same scenery as back then (laughs). Handa: It's fine to stay together with him for a day or so. He's pretty interesting after all. But every day is tough (laughs). Haga: It would stop the filming from progressing (laughs). Handa: It must be difficult for his wife (laughs). In this work, Next Faiz, a new form of Faiz, appears. Please tell us your impressions after watching it. Handa: When I first saw the design drawings, I thought it was an excellent design. While making the gimmick modern, it remains Faiz-like. I was impressed that they were able to create such a difficult design. I liked it at first sight. Also, while matching the old Faiz, the colors have been slightly changed. The red that used to be deep red has turned vermilion, and the silver has also become darker. Between the TV series, movies, and this work, multiple Kamen Riders have appeared in the 555 series, but which Rider left the most impression on you? Haga: Aside from Faiz, of course, I really like Psyga, who appeared in the movie Paradise Lost. I thought he was really cool, including the provocation pose he did when fighting Kaixa. Handa: Back then, white riders were rare. And he could fly too. Haga: When he fought Faiz, he was defeated right away, right? I seriously thought "what a waste!" (laughs). Handa: Nevertheless, this is the first time I've heard that you like Psyga (laughs). Haga: Just like Faiz, it has a really nice design that screams "Made by Smart Brain". Handa: I was impressed by that too. Smart Brain's front face is a company, so they must be making products other than Riders. It's amazing that they are conscious of the commonalities that are unique to that company when designing their products. Even though it's a non-existent company. As a railway fan, I would like to see trains made by Smart Brain. Something like a Maglev (laughs). Handa-san, how did you feel about using the Faiz Driver, which has evolved into needing a smartphone? Handa: The conventional model has its advantages because I'm familiar with it. I think I would have gotten used to the new model if I had used it more often, but just from this experience I wasn't able to make it "my own". And it's not just me, but Takumi himself should be the same, so I thought it wouldn't be a problem even if I wasn't used to it. I think it's more realistic that way. Since it's a smartphone, you had to use both hands to press "5.5.5. ENTER." Handa: That was just for the sake of the filming, but if I really want to, I can do it with one hand. But as expected, it's still difficult to press (the touches) with one hand (laughs). Please tell us the highlights of this work. Haga: Please pay attention to the last scene. Handa: It's the "true last scene", right? The scene that plays with the end credits. Haga: Yes. I really love the Takumi and Mari of that scene. Handa: Even though it was an ordinary scene, it was difficult to play, so in the end I came to the conclusion that I would "not act". Without thinking about how to make facial expressions, what kind of movements to make, or what tone to use in one's voice. I was wondering if that's what it means to truly "act". Haga-san acted the same way. Haga: It was a scene that wasn't in the script in the first place. The story was that I could do whatever I wanted while the cameras were rolling. Handa: The reason it was used properly is because the director could sense that Takumi and Mari were possessing us. Haga: I haven't heard anything about it, but you're probably right. Lastly, please give a message to the fans who are looking forward to the screening. Handa: This is a work for 555 fans. It is a work that we can confidently deliver to the core 555 fans who say I like this" or "that" about 555". It's not just that "we made this movie just to celebrate the 20th anniversary". Rather, it's more like "20 years have passed by coincidence". At least if you ask us (laughs). Haga: I think the fact that the Faiz Driver, which used to need a flip phone, was upgraded into needing a smartphone, was only possible because 20 years have passed. However, it is a work that does not make you feel the passage of time. There are well-balanced scenes that make you think "this is what 555 is like". And this too "gets you fired up" (laughs). Handa: Another big factor was that the filming took place at a time when we, the actors, were in good mental condition. The mental state of an actor will appear on the screen. Haga: Please check out what Takumi and Mari are thinking and how they are living as adults. Handa: But as I said at the beginning, I was a child again on set (laughs). That's why I would like (Toei) to create new 555 stories on a regular basis. So that we can also become younger (laughs). |
2024.05.22 01:49 Mrmander20 [Vell Harlan and the Doomsday Dorms] 4 C7.1: The Elephant in the Room
At the world’s top college of magic and technology, every day brings a new discovery -and a new disaster. The advanced experiments of the college students tend to be both ambitious and apocalyptic, with the end of the world only prevented by a mysterious time loop, and a small handful of students who retain their memories.
Surviving the loops was hard enough, but now, in his senior year, Vell Harlan must take charge of them, and deal with the fact that the whole world now knows his secrets. Everyone knows about Vell’s death and resurrection, along with the divine game he is a part of. Now Vell must contend with overly curious scientists and evil billionaires hungry for divine power while the daily doomsday cycle bombards him with terrorists, talking elephants, and the Grim Reaper himself -but if he can endure it all, the Last Goddess’s game promises the ultimate prize: power over life itself.
[Previous Chapter][Patreon][Cover Art]
“Should I be worried?”
Why would you be worried?” Kim said. “Dean Lichman loves us.”
Dean Lichman had asked the two of them to stop by his office, though his brief message had not said what for. That left Vell to concoct nightmare scenarios in his head.
“He doesn’t love all of us.”
“Alex doesn’t count as ‘us’,” Kim said. She was a looper in purely a technical sense, mostly due to her own refusal to be a team player. “Besides, she’s been behaving lately. She’s only been an asshole, not an active liability.”
“That we know of.”
“If we don’t know about it, Dean probably doesn’t either,” Kim said. “It’s fine, Vell, he probably just wants to ask us for advice or deal with some problem he has.”
“That’s not much better,” Vell said. “How weird would things have to be that the Dean is asking us for help personally?”
“Only one way to find out,” Kim said. She gestured to the door to the Dean’s office.
Kim entered first, and found it in much the same state as it always was. The desk piled high with paperwork, a small bowl of assorted candies shoved into the corner of the desk, and Dean Lichman behind it, frantically tapping away on a laptop. Vell had not been in this office for several years, and it was vastly different than the last time he’d been here.
“Ah, there you are, come in, have a seat,” Dean Lichman said. “Unless you’d rather we have our conversation elsewhere, Vell.”
“Why would I want that?”
“Well, it’s my understanding you haven’t been in this office since my, uh, predecessor,” Dean Lichman said.
“Oh, right, the kidnapping,” Vell said. “No, I’m good, I don’t really get traumatized by things anymore.”
Vell had been killed too many different ways in too many different places to have a functional trauma response. A few days ago he’d gotten his legs chewed off by a vending machine, and still stopped by it to pick up a soda on his way to the office.
“That’s a very concerning response, Mr. Harlan.”
“Yeah. Anyway, what did you need?”
Dean Lichman gestured for the duo to take a seat, and both did so. He folded desiccated hands in front of himself before beginning to speak.
“I would like to ask you two to take a look at an experiment that will be occurring later this week,” Dean Lichman said. “I don’t have any reason to believe it poses a threat, but I would like to be assured it is a safe and ethical environment, and, well, you two have a knack for identifying trouble spots.”
“You could say that,” Kim said. It was more accurate to say that trouble had a way of identifying them -and then leaping at them and ripping their heads off.
“I’d appreciate it if the two of you could simply examine the laboratory and give it your approval, or disapproval, as the case may be,” Dean Lichman said. “Though if you’re too busy, I fully understand.”
“If you don’t think this is dangerous, why are you asking for our help anyway?”
“Simply for my own peace of mind, frankly,” Dean Lichman said. “The school’s policies on animal experimentation are...satisfactory, I suppose, but I do want to take extra precautions when the subject is a creature as smart as an elephant.”
“An elephant?”
“Yes, a resident of a reserve in Thailand,” Dean Lichman said. “An older elephant by the name of Mae Noi. She has cancer, apparently, and she is submitting to experimental treatment in the hopes it will be useful for younger elephants.”
Kim’s digital face briefly flashed with a facial expression of concerned skepticism.
“‘She’ is submitting to treatment? As in the elephant?”
“Yes. Apparently the elephant can talk,” Dean Lichman said. “No, I don’t know how it works, they said it was ‘more impressive in person’.”
“Well now I kind of want to go just to see the talking elephant,” Vell said.
“Same.”
“Well, do try to take a few glances at the experiment’s safety while you’re there,” Dean Lichman said.
“Sounds like a plan,” Vell said. “Thanks for the heads up.”
“I’ll be there too,” Kim said.
“Excellent. Thank you both, and I’ll try not to take up too much of your time,” the Dean said. He then bid them both a polite goodbye and returned to his mountains of paperwork. Vell took a step out of the office and then took a sip from the soda he’d recently retrieved from the evil vending machine.
“So, what do you think?”
“I think I really do want to see the talking elephant,” Kim said.
“Obviously, yeah, we all want to see the talking elephant,” Vell said. “I mean the whole situation. You think the elephant thing is going to be the daily apocalypse for that day?”
“Well, on the one hand, an elephant seems like the kind of thing that would kill us,” Kim said. “But on the other, I feel like the fact we have advance warning means it’s not going to happen.”
“True. The universe probably wouldn’t make it that easy for us.”
“Yeah, but the elephant thing still feels pretty threatening,” Kim said. “Only way to find out is to wait a few days, I guess.”
A FEW DAYS LATER
“Hello you two,” Dean Lichman said. “And Hawke.”
“Hey,” Hawke said.
“He also wanted to see the talking elephant,” Kim explained.
“Well, that’s not a problem, it was an open invitation,” Dean Lichman said.
“Thanks. Still, sorry for not saying I was going to show up in advance,” Hawke said. “It took me a long time to make up my mind whether I was more interested in or afraid of a talking elephant.”
“They are rather large, aren’t they? I suppose that could be intimidating.”
“I’m okay with elephants on their own, it’s the talking part that doesn’t sit right with me,” Hawke said. “What if the elephant doesn’t like me? What if I’m the first person to ever get insulted by an elephant?”
“You’re less afraid of getting trampled by an elephant than insulted by one?”
“I’m a little afraid of trampling, but elephants are chill,” Hawke explained. “They wouldn’t attack unless provoked. I kind of feel like one might call me a dipshit unprovoked, though.”
“You have oddly specifics fears, Mr. Hughes,” Dean Lichman said.
“Yeah.”
In spite of those fears, Hawke happily stepped through the door to the zoology lab. It did not take a long time to locate the elephant in the room, as it was a literal elephant. The towering pachyderm was in a makeshift pen in the center of the lab, with an ample supply of food and a strange pedestal in front of her.
“Dr. Chanthara,” Dean Lichman said, with a polite wave to one of the researchers in the room. “Good to see you. These are the students I told you about.”
“Hm. Nice to meet you,” Dr. Chanthara said. He was, perhaps not unreasonably, skeptical of why three seemingly random students were in charge of a safety inspection. The fact that one of the three was a robot made him even more skeptical.
“Hi, nice to meet you too, and, uh, don’t mind us,” Vell said. “We just have an eye for weird things other people might miss.”
“Sure. I- wait. Aren’t you that kid who got chosen by a god?”
“Yeah, that’s me,” Vell said. “And her too, technically.”
Kim shrugged. She didn’t care for any extra attention on that point.
“Right,” Chanthara said. He was beginning to see why these students might know their stuff. “I suppose we should start by introducing you to Mae Noi. Say hello, Mae.”
The elephant shifted on her feet and poked her trunk at the wide pedestal in front of her twice.
“Hello. Friends,” a synthesized voice droned. Vell stepped a little closer to the pedestal, just enough to see that there were an array of buttons on the side facing Mae Noi.
“Oh, it’s kind of like a keyboard,” Vell said. He’d seen similar things used with dogs, though usually in a much simpler fashion. Mae Noi seemed to have a few dozen buttons at her disposal.
“Smart,” Mae Noi said, with another prod of her trunk.
“We initially put it into our sanctuary as a bit of a novelty, something elephants could choose to interact with,” Dr. Chanthara explained. “Mae Noi took to it a bit better than most. Especially once she found out she could use it to ask for food.”
“Food. Pumpkin. Pumpkin. Pumpkin.”
“No, Mae, no food until after experiment,” Dr. Chanthara scolded.
“Experiment,” Mae Niko said with a prod. “Pumpkin.”
“Yes, experiment then pumpkin,” Dr. Chanthara said.
“That’s not really a talking elephant, is it?” Hawke said.
“It’s more talking than most elephants,” Dr. Chanthara said.
“Elephant. Smart,” Mae Niko said. “Smart.”
“Yes, uh, right, elephant smart,” Hawke said. He took a step back, to avoid any further offense and any further risk of being insulted by Mae Noi.
“You’re very impressive, Mae, don’t mind him,” Kim said. “How many words does she know?”
“Our platform back home has around three hundred words, though she’s still learning some of them,” Dr. Chanthara said. “The ‘travel’ version we put together only has a hundred, just enough to make sure she can get her basic needs met and communicate about the experiment.”
“Right, speaking of, I do believe we should put some time into our reason for being here,” Dean Lichman interjected. “You’re welcome to stick around afterwards, at Dr. Chanthara and Mae Noi’s discretion, of course, but we should get underway.”
“We probably should get to business, yeah,” Kim said. She tapped the side of her metal head. “I’m going to scan the lab. Vell, you talk to the elephant and make sure everything’s above-board.”
“Abov- oh, right,” Vell said. “Sorry, not exactly used to being able to ask animals if they agree to animal experimentation.”
“Experiment,” Mae said.
“Yeah, experiment,” Vell said, as he turned to Mae. “So, Mae Noi, this experiment might hurt, do you know that?”
“Experiment. Hurt. Elephant,” Mae Noi prodded. “Experiment. Help. Elephant. Help. Baby.”
“Help baby?”
“Baby. Baby. Elephant. Sick. Baby. Sick.”
“We’ve explained the nature of her condition to Mae Noi as best we can,” Dr. Chanthara said. “She has several children, and is concerned they might be similarly affected.”
“Help. Baby,” Mae Noi said. “Experiment. Help.”
The way Mae Noi frantically tapped the buttons tugged at Vell’s heartstrings, but he choked those emotions down.
“So you want to do this experiment to help baby, got it,” Vell said. “Even if it hurts you?”
“Elephant. Old,” Mae Noi said. “Hurt. Okay. Help. Baby.”
“Huh. Well, that does sound like informed consent to me,” Vell said. “Passes ethical muster, at least.”
The campus rules allowed students to be experimented on, with their consent, so Vell saw no reason not to apply the same standard to an elephant.
“You speak up if you change your mind about the experiment, okay?”
“Stop. Stop. Stop,” Mae said, mashing the same button a few times. “Yes.”
“You got it. I’m going to go help my friends check things out,” Vell said. “Good talking to you, Mae.”
“Good. Talk. Friend,” Mae said. She waved goodbye with her trunk, and Vell waved back. He wandered away from Mae Noi’s pedestal and found Kim and Hawke carefully examining rows of beakers and various other supplies.
“Nothing sus yet, boss,” Hawke said.
“Nothing caustic, mutagenic, or explosive?”
“Well, something mutagenic, but it’s supposed to be,” Kim said. She had scanners built into her body much like those that had once been in Vell’s glasses, allowing her to analyze the complex chemical formulas at a glance. “They’re going for some gene editing similar to what we’ve tried to do on human cancer patients. Low success rate, but not harmful. Some adaptations to work on elephants, of course.”
“Run it by any of our chemistry and biology student friends yet?”
“A few,” Kim said. “Haven’t gotten anything back yet, though.”
“Maybe run it by Skye, too,” Vell said. “She’d recognize anything that’d mutate an animal.”
“She does love to mutate things,” Kim said.
“Benevolently,” Vell insisted. “Just show her. I’m going to check for any stray equipment.”
The presence of an unusually large test subject had resulted in the lab being rearranged and reshuffled, so Vell did a quick scan for any misplaced equipment that might pose a threat. He found, to his surprise, a tidy and well-organized environment, with any and all extraneous materials securely locked away. There wasn’t so much as a shrink ray out of place. Vell did another loop just to be sure, but returned to his friends empty-handed.
“This place has less safety hazards than my lab,” Vell said. Hawke stared at him for a while.
“Why does your lab have safety hazards?’
“I do runecarving, there’s like, hammers and chisels,” Vell said. “Those can hurt people.”
“Mm, true,” Hawke said. “So you really didn’t find anything?”
“Nothing,” Vell said. “This place is secure as I’ve ever seen a lab be.”
“It’s like I said,” Kim began. “We got an actual warning about it, so obviously nothing’s going to go wrong. That’d be too easy.”
“Maybe,” Vell said. “Things can get teleported in, or someone could cast a spell, or something.”
“Yeah, but that applies to anywhere, at any time,” Kim said.
“Kim’s right,” Hawke said. “I say we go business as usual.”
“I guess,” Vell said. “We have to branch out a little, at least. Can’t keep an eye on one room all day.”
The trio stopped sulking around the outskirts of the lab and returned to Dean Lichman and Dr. Chanthara.
“Everything looks good,” Kim said. “Probably the safest lab I’ve ever seen.”
“I’ll choose to take that as a compliment,” Dr. Chanthara said.
“We have very high safety standards here at the Einstein-Odinson,” Dean Lichman said, defensively. “Relatively speaking. Innovation requires some risk.”
“I understand perfectly. So does Mae.”
“Hurt. Okay,” Mae said.
“Not that okay,” Vell said. “Nice meeting you, Dr. Chanthara. You too, Mae.”
“Wait.”
Mae prodded one of the buttons on her pedestal and then pointed her trunk at the three of them. Hawke looked deeply concerned, but stepped forward alongside Vell and Kim. Mae Noi appraised them with massive brown eyes, and then moved her trunk back towards the pedestal. Vell noticed a distinctive scar on the bridge of her long nose just as Mae Noi pressed another button.
“Joke.”
“...Joke?”
Dr. Chanthara sighed and rolled his eyes.
“Just go along with it,” he said. “She likes to tell her joke.”
“Uh, okay,” Vell said. “Let’s hear it.”
“What. Elephant. Favorite. Part. Tree.”
“Umm...I don’t know, Mae,” Vell lied. He’d heard this joke from a kid, once. “What part?”
“Trunk,” Mae said. She gave a loud bray of amusement and then slammed her trunk down a few more times to emphasize the punchline. “Trunk. Trunk.”
“Oh, ha, I get it,” Kim said, hoping her feigned laugh was convincing. She’d never tried to lie to an elephant before. “Good one, Mae.”
Mae Noi shifted from side to side, looking pleased with herself, while the trio took a step back and stopped their feigned laughter.
“Did you give her buttons just to tell that joke with?”
“She gets upset,” Dr. Chanthara said. “I’m not even sure she understands the pun, she just likes people’s reactions.”
“As long as she’s having fun,” Hawke said.
“We’ll get out of your hair now,” Vell said. “Good luck with the experiment, feel free to let us know if you need a hand with anything.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Dr. Chanthara said. Some of his earlier skepticism seemed to have softened, but he did not seem entirely onboard with three strangers mucking about with his experiment. Vell and his friends left before they stretched what little goodwill they had any further. Mae Noi waved her trunk goodbye as the three left the lab and stepped back onto the quad.
“I’m going to try and sneak some classes in,” Hawke said. “Later.”
“I’ll check some of our usual hot spots,” Kim said, before she too left. Once again alone, Vell headed to one of his own classes, and called up Samson.
“Hey, Samson,” Vell began. “See anything interesting while we were playing with the elephant?”
“Well, I thought I clocked someone acting suspicious, but it turns out he was only sneaking around to go see his boyfriend,” Samson said. “Nothing apocalyptic, but I did get called a homophobe, which is pretty emotionally devastating.”
“I’m sure you’ll recover someday,” Vell said. “Keep an eye out. Usually the safer things look, the more dangerous things end up being.”
“Will do,” Samson said, before saying goodbye and hanging up.
***
Vell got increasingly nervous the longer the day went without its daily disaster. He thought about checking in on Mae Noi again, but then recalled Kim’s warning about it being too obvious, but then remembered that nobody had seen anything suspicious anywhere else, but then remember that Mae Noi’s lab had looked perfectly safe-
“Vell.”
“Huh?”
“You’re spiraling,” Kim said.
“I’m not spiraling, I’m just,” Vell said, with a pause for contemplation. “Considering multiple options.”
“In a spiral fashion,” Kim said. “Eat the damn french fries. Honestly, what’s the point of ordering so many if you’re just going to let them get cold?”
“It’s not like they’re going to go to waste,” Vell said. The same time loop that allowed him to eat massive amounts of french fries without fear of gaining weight also allowed him to avoid food waste. One of the upsides of life in a time loop.
“Just eat, Vell,” Kim said. “You worry too much about all this shit.”
“I’m in charge, it’s my job to worry about it,” Vell said.
“It’s your job to handle it,” Kim said. “There’s no point thinking about this shit before it happens, you spend all day thinking about an elephant and then the universe drops, like, a bat with tentacles on your head. Just deal with as it comes, Vell.”
Vell leaned on the table and managed to chomp down on a french fry or two.
“You know, next year, when I’m not running the show anymore, I’m going to call and see if you still think it’s that easy.”
“I sure hope so,” Kim said. “I’m saying all this shit trying to make myself believe it too.”
“Oh good, you’re lying to both of us,” Vell said. “That’s cool.”
“Fake it ‘til you make it, Vell, that’s how it goes,” Kim said. “Eat your damn french fries.”
Vell rolled his eyes and returned to his fries, which were now starting to cool. Thankfully he would not have to worry about finishing them. A loud crash from across campus interrupted him mid-bite and nearly made Vell choke on his fries. He painfully swallowed the half-chewed food and then looked over his shoulder.
“Son of a bitch, finally,” Vell said. A few years ago he’d found it weird whenever he was relieved about a disaster, but now he was just genuinely glad to get it over with. The waiting was as killer as the apocalypse. He tossed his fries in the trash and headed toward the sound of chaos, with Kim right behind him.
“Already told everybody?”
“Well, I may or may not have left Alex and Helena out of the loop…”
“Kim.”
“They’d find out anyway,” Kim said. “I got to use my brain parts to get in touch with them, even over wi-fi that shit feels dirty.”
“Just get in- stop.”
Vell held out his hand. Kim froze in place and did not move. Not intentionally, at least. There was a small amount of unintentional movement. The ground was vibrating.
“Always love a good earthquake,” Kim said.
“That’s not a quake,” Vell said. “That’s...footsteps!”
Vell grabbed Kim and dove out of the way just in time for something to barrel through the walls of the dining hall and stampede across the room. Tables, chairs, and more than a few students were crushed under the feet of a hulking, brown-furred behemoth as it charged. Kim picked herself and Vell up off the floor and tried to trail its progress.
“That’s a- oh fuck me,” Kim said. “Please don’t say you told me so.”
Vell got his bearings and looked across the room at the titanic form of a woolly mammoth. Though it was definitely recognizable as an archaic mammoth, the ancient creature was also heavily mutated, unnaturally large even by mammoth standards, and with multiple curled, jagged tusks protruding from a slobbering maw.
“Well that could be unrelated,” Vell said. “Mammoths can come from a lot of places, cloning accidents, time machines…”
The mammoth reached a wall, and rather than barreling through, turned around, facing directly towards Vell. A prominent scar covered the bridge of its broad trunk.
“Oh, nope, that’s definitely Mae,” Vell said. The scar was in the same place and at the same angle. Even a clone wouldn’t have an identical scar.
Once the revelation had struck, Mae took her turn. Vell found himself staring straight down the barrel of a very angry mammoth coming right at him at Vell-squishing velocity. Luckily he’d been charged at by a lot of creatures over four years of looping.
Vell jumped up and to the side, and latched on to one of the curled tusks, which made for very convenient handlebars. Kim did the same on the opposite side of Mae, and punched her in the head.
“Wait, wait, hold off on the violence for a second,” Vell shouted. He tried to wave at Kim to stop, but Mae was thrashing so violently he had to grip the tusks with both hands.
“Good plan,” Kim shouted. “Can you get Mae on board?”
Another set of tables got crushed underfoot. Thankfully the other students were out of trampling range by now, but Mae Noi’s feet were still coated in the blood of earlier victims.
“Mae’s smart, maybe we can calm her down,” Vell said. He then ducked to dodge a swat from Mae’s mutated trunk.
“Call me crazy, Vell, but I think this is more than just a bad mood,” Kim said, as she climbed up Mae’s seven jagged tusks like a ladder.
“We have to try,” Vell said. The loopers rule against hurting other intelligent life forms had some flexibility for blood-crazed mutants on violent rampages, but they had to at least try to reason first. Vell climbed up on of Mae’s tusks and looked into one of her bloodshot eyes for any sign of recognition. “Mae! It’s Vell, do you remember?”
The only response Vell got was an enraged trumpet, which he didn’t think was a “yes”.
“Come on, bud,” Vell said. “What’s an elephant’s favorite part of a tree, right? The trunk?”
The massive brown eye staring at Vell blinked, and he felt a brief glimmer of hope. He then felt a brief glimmer of his lungs being crushed as Mae swung her head and slammed her tusks into the wall, and Vell along with them. Kim punched Mae in the throat and then jumped across the tusks to grab Vell and carry him to safety.
“You okay, Vell?”
He opened his mouth to respond, and a pint or two of blood came out instead.
“Apparently not,” he mumbled. “I might be down a few ribs. And a lung. Or two.”
Kim carried Vell a safe distance from the fight and set him down on the ground, where he promptly spat out another mouthful of blood.
“Okay, uh, you just lie there and try to die peacefully, I guess,” Kim said.
“Way ahead of you.”
***
“Was that last bit as funny as I thought it was?” Vell asked. “I think the blood loss was affecting my sense of humor.”
“It was kind of hard to appreciate in the moment,” Kim said. “But as far as dying jokes go, it was pretty good.”
Vell and Kim walked into the lair for their morning meeting and joined the loopers that had already gathered.
“Okay, what’d I miss while I was dead?”
“Well, after Alex was done getting herself killed,” Samson began.
“You’re saying that as if it’s something to be ashamed of,” Alex said. “Vell also died.”
“Yeah, but he got killed trying to do something good. You got killed trying to do something stupid.”
“Trying to eliminate a threat is not stupid,” Alex said.
“We don’t kill intelligent creatures,” Hawke said. “Sometimes we punch them into a coma, but we don’t kill them.”
“When a dog bites, you put it down, I don’t see why the same principle doesn’t apply to a mammoth that’s crushed seventy people.”
“That wasn’t Mae’s fault,” Vell said. “She got mutated, or something. On that note: did you guys figure out what happened to Mae Noi?”
“Nothing,” Hawke said. “Looked like Mae smashed up the entire lab, trampled everyone involved in the experiment too. Nothing left to investigate, and nobody left alive to interrogate.”
“Typical,” Vell sighed. “At least we have an easy out. Dean Lichman was really concerned about the ethics of that whole experiment. We raise some kind of complaint, we could probably get the whole thing shut down.”
“The problem is getting the complaint,” Hawke said. “That lab was airtight, Vell.”
“Apparently not completely airtight,” Kim said. “I can camp out in the lab and raise an entirely justifiable stink whenever something capable of making a murder-mammoth shows up.”
“And what if it happens so suddenly you can’t complain about it?” Samson asked. “For all we know that could’ve been some kind of dimensional rift, or time anomaly, or something. It might not be as simple as somebody just putting in the wrong syringe at the wrong time.”
“He’s got a point,” Vell said. “We might want to shut this down before it gets there.”
“Seems like our best option is to plant evidence, then,” Alex said.
Everyone else at the table spent a few seconds brainstorming ways to prove her wrong, and much to their frustration, could not.
“Okay, fine,” Vell said. “But it needs to be something incidental, not something anyone would get blamed for. We want to cancel the experiment, not get anyone in trouble.”
“I could have a seizure on some sensitive equipment,” Helena offered. “It’ll break something and nobody would dare get mad at me.”
“Can you fake a seizure?”
“No, but I’m allergic to elephants, so I’d probably have one anyway the moment I stepped in the lab,” Helena said.
“I don’t feel entirely comfortable sending you into anaphylactic shock for a bit,” Vell said.
“Offer’s on the table,” Helena said. “I’ll live. Wouldn’t have made it through that trip to the zoo otherwise.”
“Anybody have any non-medical emergency suggestions?”
“Seagull in the air vents,” Kim said.
“Will that work?”
“It happens now and then,” Kim said. “Seagull gets in, and Dean has to close down the whole lab for potential material damage and biohazard risks if they shit in the vents.”
“Really? We’ve never had to deal with anything like that,” Hawke said.
“It may shock you to learn that sometimes minor, tedious bullshit happens that we have nothing to do with,” Kim said.
“That is kind of surprising, actually.”
“Enough. Kim, can you grab a seagull?” Vell asked. He shouldered his bookbag, and stuck a hand into the extradimensional pocket that existed within it. “I can probably smuggle it in with my bag.”
“Yeah, I can get you a seagull,” Kim said. Since she did not need to sleep, she had to find ways to keep herself entertained at night, seagull-grabbing being among them.
“Alright, we’ll go grab one and put it in the bag,” Vell said. “The rest of you, be ready to meet us when I call.”
***
Roughly three minutes later, Vell put out the call and they reconvened in front of the biology lab.
“Yeah, that was much faster than I thought it would be,” Vell said.
“I’m great at grabbin’ birds,” Kim said. Seagulls were among the easier birds to snatch, even. They were suckers for food, and many of them were attracted to her shiny metallic body anyway.
“Let’s just get this over with,” Vell said. “I want this thing out of my bag ASAP.”
Even though the seagull was safely within a pocket dimension, Vell would swear he could still feel the bird thrashing and squawking inside his bag. He tightened his grip on the shoulder strap and led the way towards the zoology lab entrance. He grabbed the handle and held it as he froze for a second.
“Vell, what’s up? Is this bird escaping?”
“No, the handle’s vibrating,” Vell said. It was shaking the same way a wall near an incredibly loud speaker might. He pressed his ear to the door and listened closely. He opened the door immediately, and let all his friends hear the frantic trumpeting of a panicked elephant.
Inside the lab, Mae Noi was stomping her feet and trumpeting as loud as he long trunk would allow. She swayed from side to side in her pen, bumping against the walls not quite hard enough to damage them, but hard enough that it was clear she was doing it on purpose.
“What the heck is happening here?”
“Ah, Vell,” Dean Lichman said. He hustled over to Vell’s side and gestured to the entire room. “Maybe you can figure out what’s going on.”
Mae Noi stopped braying long enough to start mashing her trunk against her pedestal, mashing out the word “Bad” over and over again.
“Our test subject, Mae Noi, has been throwing an absolute fit ever since she got here,” Dean Lichman said. “Dr. Chanthara, these are the students I was telling you about earlier.”
While Vell reintroduced himself to Dr. Chanthara, Kim and Hawke stepped up to examine Mae Noi and her enclosure. It was a far cry from the peaceful, orderly scene they had examined on the first loop. They were half an hour earlier this time than before, but Kim found it unlikely that they had been able to calm Mae Noi down, clean everything up, and get back to work in such a short amount of time. They hadn’t mentioned any of this panic on the first loop either. They were soon joined in their confusion by Chanthara and Vell.
“We’ve tried everything; food, water, her favorite toys, even videos of her children,” Dr. Chanthara said. “We’ve even offered to call off the experiment, but she won’t listen.”
“She is an animal,” Alex said. “Sometimes they do things arbitrarily.”
“Not Mae,” Dr. Chanthara said. “Some of our sanctuaries residents from traumatic backgrounds can have outbursts, but Mae was injured in the wild. She’s never been like this.”
“Maybe some experiment on the island is upsetting her,” Vell said. “A sonic experiment only she can hear, or something…”
Vell stopped and thought about it. If there had been such an irritant, it would’ve been there on the first loop too. Everything always repeated exactly the same, except for-
“Could you, uh, take a step back for a second?” Vell mumbled. “I want to try talking to her.”
“Don’t get close,” Chanthara warned him.
“I’m not, I’m not,” Vell said. He didn’t need to get very close to tell a joke.
The massive brown eyes of Mae Noi stayed locked on Vell as he approached, and she continued to mash the “Bad” button on her pedestal.
“I know, I know, bad,” Vell said. “But, uh, do you want to hear a joke?”
Mae Noi stopped. She locked eyes with Vell for a few seconds, and then cautiously tapped a button on her pedestal.
“Joke.”
“Right, joke,” Vell said. He tried to recall the exact sequence of words Mae had used on the first loop. “What elephant favorite part tree?”
Mae didn’t blink.
“Trunk,” Vell said.
After a moment of contemplation, Mae Noi let out one final, fervent, trumpet, and then started mashing buttons on her pedestal again.
“Bad. Help. Help. Experiment. Bad. Help. Bad. Help.”
“Yeah, bad help, one second,” Vell said. He turned away from Mae Noi to look at Dean Lichman. “Hey, uh, excuse me, Dean? Hey, uh, if I remember correctly there are some pretty complicated rules on having intelligent animals on campus, yes?”
“Well, yes,” Dean Lichman said. After hearing of some questionable ethical practices involving an octopus back in first year, he had instituted a few clauses into the school’s ethical code of conduct regarding intelligent animals like elephants, octopuses, and dolphins. “Mae’s presence here is a bit of an outlier, but there were workaround, given her apparent consent to the experiment.”
“Yeah, about that, is she, uh,” Vell began. “Is she registered as a student?”
“Yes.”
Vell pursed his lips. It took a few seconds for his friends to catch on.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Samson snapped. He turned his back on the crowd and leaned against a wall while Hawke put his head in his hands.
“The first rule of looping,” Alex said quietly. “Loopers are randomly selected-”
She looked up and locked eyes with Mae Noi.
“From all registered students.”
submitted by Mrmander20 to redditserials [link] [comments]
Surviving the loops was hard enough, but now, in his senior year, Vell Harlan must take charge of them, and deal with the fact that the whole world now knows his secrets. Everyone knows about Vell’s death and resurrection, along with the divine game he is a part of. Now Vell must contend with overly curious scientists and evil billionaires hungry for divine power while the daily doomsday cycle bombards him with terrorists, talking elephants, and the Grim Reaper himself -but if he can endure it all, the Last Goddess’s game promises the ultimate prize: power over life itself.
[Previous Chapter][Patreon][Cover Art]
“Should I be worried?”
Why would you be worried?” Kim said. “Dean Lichman loves us.”
Dean Lichman had asked the two of them to stop by his office, though his brief message had not said what for. That left Vell to concoct nightmare scenarios in his head.
“He doesn’t love all of us.”
“Alex doesn’t count as ‘us’,” Kim said. She was a looper in purely a technical sense, mostly due to her own refusal to be a team player. “Besides, she’s been behaving lately. She’s only been an asshole, not an active liability.”
“That we know of.”
“If we don’t know about it, Dean probably doesn’t either,” Kim said. “It’s fine, Vell, he probably just wants to ask us for advice or deal with some problem he has.”
“That’s not much better,” Vell said. “How weird would things have to be that the Dean is asking us for help personally?”
“Only one way to find out,” Kim said. She gestured to the door to the Dean’s office.
Kim entered first, and found it in much the same state as it always was. The desk piled high with paperwork, a small bowl of assorted candies shoved into the corner of the desk, and Dean Lichman behind it, frantically tapping away on a laptop. Vell had not been in this office for several years, and it was vastly different than the last time he’d been here.
“Ah, there you are, come in, have a seat,” Dean Lichman said. “Unless you’d rather we have our conversation elsewhere, Vell.”
“Why would I want that?”
“Well, it’s my understanding you haven’t been in this office since my, uh, predecessor,” Dean Lichman said.
“Oh, right, the kidnapping,” Vell said. “No, I’m good, I don’t really get traumatized by things anymore.”
Vell had been killed too many different ways in too many different places to have a functional trauma response. A few days ago he’d gotten his legs chewed off by a vending machine, and still stopped by it to pick up a soda on his way to the office.
“That’s a very concerning response, Mr. Harlan.”
“Yeah. Anyway, what did you need?”
Dean Lichman gestured for the duo to take a seat, and both did so. He folded desiccated hands in front of himself before beginning to speak.
“I would like to ask you two to take a look at an experiment that will be occurring later this week,” Dean Lichman said. “I don’t have any reason to believe it poses a threat, but I would like to be assured it is a safe and ethical environment, and, well, you two have a knack for identifying trouble spots.”
“You could say that,” Kim said. It was more accurate to say that trouble had a way of identifying them -and then leaping at them and ripping their heads off.
“I’d appreciate it if the two of you could simply examine the laboratory and give it your approval, or disapproval, as the case may be,” Dean Lichman said. “Though if you’re too busy, I fully understand.”
“If you don’t think this is dangerous, why are you asking for our help anyway?”
“Simply for my own peace of mind, frankly,” Dean Lichman said. “The school’s policies on animal experimentation are...satisfactory, I suppose, but I do want to take extra precautions when the subject is a creature as smart as an elephant.”
“An elephant?”
“Yes, a resident of a reserve in Thailand,” Dean Lichman said. “An older elephant by the name of Mae Noi. She has cancer, apparently, and she is submitting to experimental treatment in the hopes it will be useful for younger elephants.”
Kim’s digital face briefly flashed with a facial expression of concerned skepticism.
“‘She’ is submitting to treatment? As in the elephant?”
“Yes. Apparently the elephant can talk,” Dean Lichman said. “No, I don’t know how it works, they said it was ‘more impressive in person’.”
“Well now I kind of want to go just to see the talking elephant,” Vell said.
“Same.”
“Well, do try to take a few glances at the experiment’s safety while you’re there,” Dean Lichman said.
“Sounds like a plan,” Vell said. “Thanks for the heads up.”
“I’ll be there too,” Kim said.
“Excellent. Thank you both, and I’ll try not to take up too much of your time,” the Dean said. He then bid them both a polite goodbye and returned to his mountains of paperwork. Vell took a step out of the office and then took a sip from the soda he’d recently retrieved from the evil vending machine.
“So, what do you think?”
“I think I really do want to see the talking elephant,” Kim said.
“Obviously, yeah, we all want to see the talking elephant,” Vell said. “I mean the whole situation. You think the elephant thing is going to be the daily apocalypse for that day?”
“Well, on the one hand, an elephant seems like the kind of thing that would kill us,” Kim said. “But on the other, I feel like the fact we have advance warning means it’s not going to happen.”
“True. The universe probably wouldn’t make it that easy for us.”
“Yeah, but the elephant thing still feels pretty threatening,” Kim said. “Only way to find out is to wait a few days, I guess.”
A FEW DAYS LATER
“Hello you two,” Dean Lichman said. “And Hawke.”
“Hey,” Hawke said.
“He also wanted to see the talking elephant,” Kim explained.
“Well, that’s not a problem, it was an open invitation,” Dean Lichman said.
“Thanks. Still, sorry for not saying I was going to show up in advance,” Hawke said. “It took me a long time to make up my mind whether I was more interested in or afraid of a talking elephant.”
“They are rather large, aren’t they? I suppose that could be intimidating.”
“I’m okay with elephants on their own, it’s the talking part that doesn’t sit right with me,” Hawke said. “What if the elephant doesn’t like me? What if I’m the first person to ever get insulted by an elephant?”
“You’re less afraid of getting trampled by an elephant than insulted by one?”
“I’m a little afraid of trampling, but elephants are chill,” Hawke explained. “They wouldn’t attack unless provoked. I kind of feel like one might call me a dipshit unprovoked, though.”
“You have oddly specifics fears, Mr. Hughes,” Dean Lichman said.
“Yeah.”
In spite of those fears, Hawke happily stepped through the door to the zoology lab. It did not take a long time to locate the elephant in the room, as it was a literal elephant. The towering pachyderm was in a makeshift pen in the center of the lab, with an ample supply of food and a strange pedestal in front of her.
“Dr. Chanthara,” Dean Lichman said, with a polite wave to one of the researchers in the room. “Good to see you. These are the students I told you about.”
“Hm. Nice to meet you,” Dr. Chanthara said. He was, perhaps not unreasonably, skeptical of why three seemingly random students were in charge of a safety inspection. The fact that one of the three was a robot made him even more skeptical.
“Hi, nice to meet you too, and, uh, don’t mind us,” Vell said. “We just have an eye for weird things other people might miss.”
“Sure. I- wait. Aren’t you that kid who got chosen by a god?”
“Yeah, that’s me,” Vell said. “And her too, technically.”
Kim shrugged. She didn’t care for any extra attention on that point.
“Right,” Chanthara said. He was beginning to see why these students might know their stuff. “I suppose we should start by introducing you to Mae Noi. Say hello, Mae.”
The elephant shifted on her feet and poked her trunk at the wide pedestal in front of her twice.
“Hello. Friends,” a synthesized voice droned. Vell stepped a little closer to the pedestal, just enough to see that there were an array of buttons on the side facing Mae Noi.
“Oh, it’s kind of like a keyboard,” Vell said. He’d seen similar things used with dogs, though usually in a much simpler fashion. Mae Noi seemed to have a few dozen buttons at her disposal.
“Smart,” Mae Noi said, with another prod of her trunk.
“We initially put it into our sanctuary as a bit of a novelty, something elephants could choose to interact with,” Dr. Chanthara explained. “Mae Noi took to it a bit better than most. Especially once she found out she could use it to ask for food.”
“Food. Pumpkin. Pumpkin. Pumpkin.”
“No, Mae, no food until after experiment,” Dr. Chanthara scolded.
“Experiment,” Mae Niko said with a prod. “Pumpkin.”
“Yes, experiment then pumpkin,” Dr. Chanthara said.
“That’s not really a talking elephant, is it?” Hawke said.
“It’s more talking than most elephants,” Dr. Chanthara said.
“Elephant. Smart,” Mae Niko said. “Smart.”
“Yes, uh, right, elephant smart,” Hawke said. He took a step back, to avoid any further offense and any further risk of being insulted by Mae Noi.
“You’re very impressive, Mae, don’t mind him,” Kim said. “How many words does she know?”
“Our platform back home has around three hundred words, though she’s still learning some of them,” Dr. Chanthara said. “The ‘travel’ version we put together only has a hundred, just enough to make sure she can get her basic needs met and communicate about the experiment.”
“Right, speaking of, I do believe we should put some time into our reason for being here,” Dean Lichman interjected. “You’re welcome to stick around afterwards, at Dr. Chanthara and Mae Noi’s discretion, of course, but we should get underway.”
“We probably should get to business, yeah,” Kim said. She tapped the side of her metal head. “I’m going to scan the lab. Vell, you talk to the elephant and make sure everything’s above-board.”
“Abov- oh, right,” Vell said. “Sorry, not exactly used to being able to ask animals if they agree to animal experimentation.”
“Experiment,” Mae said.
“Yeah, experiment,” Vell said, as he turned to Mae. “So, Mae Noi, this experiment might hurt, do you know that?”
“Experiment. Hurt. Elephant,” Mae Noi prodded. “Experiment. Help. Elephant. Help. Baby.”
“Help baby?”
“Baby. Baby. Elephant. Sick. Baby. Sick.”
“We’ve explained the nature of her condition to Mae Noi as best we can,” Dr. Chanthara said. “She has several children, and is concerned they might be similarly affected.”
“Help. Baby,” Mae Noi said. “Experiment. Help.”
The way Mae Noi frantically tapped the buttons tugged at Vell’s heartstrings, but he choked those emotions down.
“So you want to do this experiment to help baby, got it,” Vell said. “Even if it hurts you?”
“Elephant. Old,” Mae Noi said. “Hurt. Okay. Help. Baby.”
“Huh. Well, that does sound like informed consent to me,” Vell said. “Passes ethical muster, at least.”
The campus rules allowed students to be experimented on, with their consent, so Vell saw no reason not to apply the same standard to an elephant.
“You speak up if you change your mind about the experiment, okay?”
“Stop. Stop. Stop,” Mae said, mashing the same button a few times. “Yes.”
“You got it. I’m going to go help my friends check things out,” Vell said. “Good talking to you, Mae.”
“Good. Talk. Friend,” Mae said. She waved goodbye with her trunk, and Vell waved back. He wandered away from Mae Noi’s pedestal and found Kim and Hawke carefully examining rows of beakers and various other supplies.
“Nothing sus yet, boss,” Hawke said.
“Nothing caustic, mutagenic, or explosive?”
“Well, something mutagenic, but it’s supposed to be,” Kim said. She had scanners built into her body much like those that had once been in Vell’s glasses, allowing her to analyze the complex chemical formulas at a glance. “They’re going for some gene editing similar to what we’ve tried to do on human cancer patients. Low success rate, but not harmful. Some adaptations to work on elephants, of course.”
“Run it by any of our chemistry and biology student friends yet?”
“A few,” Kim said. “Haven’t gotten anything back yet, though.”
“Maybe run it by Skye, too,” Vell said. “She’d recognize anything that’d mutate an animal.”
“She does love to mutate things,” Kim said.
“Benevolently,” Vell insisted. “Just show her. I’m going to check for any stray equipment.”
The presence of an unusually large test subject had resulted in the lab being rearranged and reshuffled, so Vell did a quick scan for any misplaced equipment that might pose a threat. He found, to his surprise, a tidy and well-organized environment, with any and all extraneous materials securely locked away. There wasn’t so much as a shrink ray out of place. Vell did another loop just to be sure, but returned to his friends empty-handed.
“This place has less safety hazards than my lab,” Vell said. Hawke stared at him for a while.
“Why does your lab have safety hazards?’
“I do runecarving, there’s like, hammers and chisels,” Vell said. “Those can hurt people.”
“Mm, true,” Hawke said. “So you really didn’t find anything?”
“Nothing,” Vell said. “This place is secure as I’ve ever seen a lab be.”
“It’s like I said,” Kim began. “We got an actual warning about it, so obviously nothing’s going to go wrong. That’d be too easy.”
“Maybe,” Vell said. “Things can get teleported in, or someone could cast a spell, or something.”
“Yeah, but that applies to anywhere, at any time,” Kim said.
“Kim’s right,” Hawke said. “I say we go business as usual.”
“I guess,” Vell said. “We have to branch out a little, at least. Can’t keep an eye on one room all day.”
The trio stopped sulking around the outskirts of the lab and returned to Dean Lichman and Dr. Chanthara.
“Everything looks good,” Kim said. “Probably the safest lab I’ve ever seen.”
“I’ll choose to take that as a compliment,” Dr. Chanthara said.
“We have very high safety standards here at the Einstein-Odinson,” Dean Lichman said, defensively. “Relatively speaking. Innovation requires some risk.”
“I understand perfectly. So does Mae.”
“Hurt. Okay,” Mae said.
“Not that okay,” Vell said. “Nice meeting you, Dr. Chanthara. You too, Mae.”
“Wait.”
Mae prodded one of the buttons on her pedestal and then pointed her trunk at the three of them. Hawke looked deeply concerned, but stepped forward alongside Vell and Kim. Mae Noi appraised them with massive brown eyes, and then moved her trunk back towards the pedestal. Vell noticed a distinctive scar on the bridge of her long nose just as Mae Noi pressed another button.
“Joke.”
“...Joke?”
Dr. Chanthara sighed and rolled his eyes.
“Just go along with it,” he said. “She likes to tell her joke.”
“Uh, okay,” Vell said. “Let’s hear it.”
“What. Elephant. Favorite. Part. Tree.”
“Umm...I don’t know, Mae,” Vell lied. He’d heard this joke from a kid, once. “What part?”
“Trunk,” Mae said. She gave a loud bray of amusement and then slammed her trunk down a few more times to emphasize the punchline. “Trunk. Trunk.”
“Oh, ha, I get it,” Kim said, hoping her feigned laugh was convincing. She’d never tried to lie to an elephant before. “Good one, Mae.”
Mae Noi shifted from side to side, looking pleased with herself, while the trio took a step back and stopped their feigned laughter.
“Did you give her buttons just to tell that joke with?”
“She gets upset,” Dr. Chanthara said. “I’m not even sure she understands the pun, she just likes people’s reactions.”
“As long as she’s having fun,” Hawke said.
“We’ll get out of your hair now,” Vell said. “Good luck with the experiment, feel free to let us know if you need a hand with anything.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Dr. Chanthara said. Some of his earlier skepticism seemed to have softened, but he did not seem entirely onboard with three strangers mucking about with his experiment. Vell and his friends left before they stretched what little goodwill they had any further. Mae Noi waved her trunk goodbye as the three left the lab and stepped back onto the quad.
“I’m going to try and sneak some classes in,” Hawke said. “Later.”
“I’ll check some of our usual hot spots,” Kim said, before she too left. Once again alone, Vell headed to one of his own classes, and called up Samson.
“Hey, Samson,” Vell began. “See anything interesting while we were playing with the elephant?”
“Well, I thought I clocked someone acting suspicious, but it turns out he was only sneaking around to go see his boyfriend,” Samson said. “Nothing apocalyptic, but I did get called a homophobe, which is pretty emotionally devastating.”
“I’m sure you’ll recover someday,” Vell said. “Keep an eye out. Usually the safer things look, the more dangerous things end up being.”
“Will do,” Samson said, before saying goodbye and hanging up.
***
Vell got increasingly nervous the longer the day went without its daily disaster. He thought about checking in on Mae Noi again, but then recalled Kim’s warning about it being too obvious, but then remembered that nobody had seen anything suspicious anywhere else, but then remember that Mae Noi’s lab had looked perfectly safe-
“Vell.”
“Huh?”
“You’re spiraling,” Kim said.
“I’m not spiraling, I’m just,” Vell said, with a pause for contemplation. “Considering multiple options.”
“In a spiral fashion,” Kim said. “Eat the damn french fries. Honestly, what’s the point of ordering so many if you’re just going to let them get cold?”
“It’s not like they’re going to go to waste,” Vell said. The same time loop that allowed him to eat massive amounts of french fries without fear of gaining weight also allowed him to avoid food waste. One of the upsides of life in a time loop.
“Just eat, Vell,” Kim said. “You worry too much about all this shit.”
“I’m in charge, it’s my job to worry about it,” Vell said.
“It’s your job to handle it,” Kim said. “There’s no point thinking about this shit before it happens, you spend all day thinking about an elephant and then the universe drops, like, a bat with tentacles on your head. Just deal with as it comes, Vell.”
Vell leaned on the table and managed to chomp down on a french fry or two.
“You know, next year, when I’m not running the show anymore, I’m going to call and see if you still think it’s that easy.”
“I sure hope so,” Kim said. “I’m saying all this shit trying to make myself believe it too.”
“Oh good, you’re lying to both of us,” Vell said. “That’s cool.”
“Fake it ‘til you make it, Vell, that’s how it goes,” Kim said. “Eat your damn french fries.”
Vell rolled his eyes and returned to his fries, which were now starting to cool. Thankfully he would not have to worry about finishing them. A loud crash from across campus interrupted him mid-bite and nearly made Vell choke on his fries. He painfully swallowed the half-chewed food and then looked over his shoulder.
“Son of a bitch, finally,” Vell said. A few years ago he’d found it weird whenever he was relieved about a disaster, but now he was just genuinely glad to get it over with. The waiting was as killer as the apocalypse. He tossed his fries in the trash and headed toward the sound of chaos, with Kim right behind him.
“Already told everybody?”
“Well, I may or may not have left Alex and Helena out of the loop…”
“Kim.”
“They’d find out anyway,” Kim said. “I got to use my brain parts to get in touch with them, even over wi-fi that shit feels dirty.”
“Just get in- stop.”
Vell held out his hand. Kim froze in place and did not move. Not intentionally, at least. There was a small amount of unintentional movement. The ground was vibrating.
“Always love a good earthquake,” Kim said.
“That’s not a quake,” Vell said. “That’s...footsteps!”
Vell grabbed Kim and dove out of the way just in time for something to barrel through the walls of the dining hall and stampede across the room. Tables, chairs, and more than a few students were crushed under the feet of a hulking, brown-furred behemoth as it charged. Kim picked herself and Vell up off the floor and tried to trail its progress.
“That’s a- oh fuck me,” Kim said. “Please don’t say you told me so.”
Vell got his bearings and looked across the room at the titanic form of a woolly mammoth. Though it was definitely recognizable as an archaic mammoth, the ancient creature was also heavily mutated, unnaturally large even by mammoth standards, and with multiple curled, jagged tusks protruding from a slobbering maw.
“Well that could be unrelated,” Vell said. “Mammoths can come from a lot of places, cloning accidents, time machines…”
The mammoth reached a wall, and rather than barreling through, turned around, facing directly towards Vell. A prominent scar covered the bridge of its broad trunk.
“Oh, nope, that’s definitely Mae,” Vell said. The scar was in the same place and at the same angle. Even a clone wouldn’t have an identical scar.
Once the revelation had struck, Mae took her turn. Vell found himself staring straight down the barrel of a very angry mammoth coming right at him at Vell-squishing velocity. Luckily he’d been charged at by a lot of creatures over four years of looping.
Vell jumped up and to the side, and latched on to one of the curled tusks, which made for very convenient handlebars. Kim did the same on the opposite side of Mae, and punched her in the head.
“Wait, wait, hold off on the violence for a second,” Vell shouted. He tried to wave at Kim to stop, but Mae was thrashing so violently he had to grip the tusks with both hands.
“Good plan,” Kim shouted. “Can you get Mae on board?”
Another set of tables got crushed underfoot. Thankfully the other students were out of trampling range by now, but Mae Noi’s feet were still coated in the blood of earlier victims.
“Mae’s smart, maybe we can calm her down,” Vell said. He then ducked to dodge a swat from Mae’s mutated trunk.
“Call me crazy, Vell, but I think this is more than just a bad mood,” Kim said, as she climbed up Mae’s seven jagged tusks like a ladder.
“We have to try,” Vell said. The loopers rule against hurting other intelligent life forms had some flexibility for blood-crazed mutants on violent rampages, but they had to at least try to reason first. Vell climbed up on of Mae’s tusks and looked into one of her bloodshot eyes for any sign of recognition. “Mae! It’s Vell, do you remember?”
The only response Vell got was an enraged trumpet, which he didn’t think was a “yes”.
“Come on, bud,” Vell said. “What’s an elephant’s favorite part of a tree, right? The trunk?”
The massive brown eye staring at Vell blinked, and he felt a brief glimmer of hope. He then felt a brief glimmer of his lungs being crushed as Mae swung her head and slammed her tusks into the wall, and Vell along with them. Kim punched Mae in the throat and then jumped across the tusks to grab Vell and carry him to safety.
“You okay, Vell?”
He opened his mouth to respond, and a pint or two of blood came out instead.
“Apparently not,” he mumbled. “I might be down a few ribs. And a lung. Or two.”
Kim carried Vell a safe distance from the fight and set him down on the ground, where he promptly spat out another mouthful of blood.
“Okay, uh, you just lie there and try to die peacefully, I guess,” Kim said.
“Way ahead of you.”
***
“Was that last bit as funny as I thought it was?” Vell asked. “I think the blood loss was affecting my sense of humor.”
“It was kind of hard to appreciate in the moment,” Kim said. “But as far as dying jokes go, it was pretty good.”
Vell and Kim walked into the lair for their morning meeting and joined the loopers that had already gathered.
“Okay, what’d I miss while I was dead?”
“Well, after Alex was done getting herself killed,” Samson began.
“You’re saying that as if it’s something to be ashamed of,” Alex said. “Vell also died.”
“Yeah, but he got killed trying to do something good. You got killed trying to do something stupid.”
“Trying to eliminate a threat is not stupid,” Alex said.
“We don’t kill intelligent creatures,” Hawke said. “Sometimes we punch them into a coma, but we don’t kill them.”
“When a dog bites, you put it down, I don’t see why the same principle doesn’t apply to a mammoth that’s crushed seventy people.”
“That wasn’t Mae’s fault,” Vell said. “She got mutated, or something. On that note: did you guys figure out what happened to Mae Noi?”
“Nothing,” Hawke said. “Looked like Mae smashed up the entire lab, trampled everyone involved in the experiment too. Nothing left to investigate, and nobody left alive to interrogate.”
“Typical,” Vell sighed. “At least we have an easy out. Dean Lichman was really concerned about the ethics of that whole experiment. We raise some kind of complaint, we could probably get the whole thing shut down.”
“The problem is getting the complaint,” Hawke said. “That lab was airtight, Vell.”
“Apparently not completely airtight,” Kim said. “I can camp out in the lab and raise an entirely justifiable stink whenever something capable of making a murder-mammoth shows up.”
“And what if it happens so suddenly you can’t complain about it?” Samson asked. “For all we know that could’ve been some kind of dimensional rift, or time anomaly, or something. It might not be as simple as somebody just putting in the wrong syringe at the wrong time.”
“He’s got a point,” Vell said. “We might want to shut this down before it gets there.”
“Seems like our best option is to plant evidence, then,” Alex said.
Everyone else at the table spent a few seconds brainstorming ways to prove her wrong, and much to their frustration, could not.
“Okay, fine,” Vell said. “But it needs to be something incidental, not something anyone would get blamed for. We want to cancel the experiment, not get anyone in trouble.”
“I could have a seizure on some sensitive equipment,” Helena offered. “It’ll break something and nobody would dare get mad at me.”
“Can you fake a seizure?”
“No, but I’m allergic to elephants, so I’d probably have one anyway the moment I stepped in the lab,” Helena said.
“I don’t feel entirely comfortable sending you into anaphylactic shock for a bit,” Vell said.
“Offer’s on the table,” Helena said. “I’ll live. Wouldn’t have made it through that trip to the zoo otherwise.”
“Anybody have any non-medical emergency suggestions?”
“Seagull in the air vents,” Kim said.
“Will that work?”
“It happens now and then,” Kim said. “Seagull gets in, and Dean has to close down the whole lab for potential material damage and biohazard risks if they shit in the vents.”
“Really? We’ve never had to deal with anything like that,” Hawke said.
“It may shock you to learn that sometimes minor, tedious bullshit happens that we have nothing to do with,” Kim said.
“That is kind of surprising, actually.”
“Enough. Kim, can you grab a seagull?” Vell asked. He shouldered his bookbag, and stuck a hand into the extradimensional pocket that existed within it. “I can probably smuggle it in with my bag.”
“Yeah, I can get you a seagull,” Kim said. Since she did not need to sleep, she had to find ways to keep herself entertained at night, seagull-grabbing being among them.
“Alright, we’ll go grab one and put it in the bag,” Vell said. “The rest of you, be ready to meet us when I call.”
***
Roughly three minutes later, Vell put out the call and they reconvened in front of the biology lab.
“Yeah, that was much faster than I thought it would be,” Vell said.
“I’m great at grabbin’ birds,” Kim said. Seagulls were among the easier birds to snatch, even. They were suckers for food, and many of them were attracted to her shiny metallic body anyway.
“Let’s just get this over with,” Vell said. “I want this thing out of my bag ASAP.”
Even though the seagull was safely within a pocket dimension, Vell would swear he could still feel the bird thrashing and squawking inside his bag. He tightened his grip on the shoulder strap and led the way towards the zoology lab entrance. He grabbed the handle and held it as he froze for a second.
“Vell, what’s up? Is this bird escaping?”
“No, the handle’s vibrating,” Vell said. It was shaking the same way a wall near an incredibly loud speaker might. He pressed his ear to the door and listened closely. He opened the door immediately, and let all his friends hear the frantic trumpeting of a panicked elephant.
Inside the lab, Mae Noi was stomping her feet and trumpeting as loud as he long trunk would allow. She swayed from side to side in her pen, bumping against the walls not quite hard enough to damage them, but hard enough that it was clear she was doing it on purpose.
“What the heck is happening here?”
“Ah, Vell,” Dean Lichman said. He hustled over to Vell’s side and gestured to the entire room. “Maybe you can figure out what’s going on.”
Mae Noi stopped braying long enough to start mashing her trunk against her pedestal, mashing out the word “Bad” over and over again.
“Our test subject, Mae Noi, has been throwing an absolute fit ever since she got here,” Dean Lichman said. “Dr. Chanthara, these are the students I was telling you about earlier.”
While Vell reintroduced himself to Dr. Chanthara, Kim and Hawke stepped up to examine Mae Noi and her enclosure. It was a far cry from the peaceful, orderly scene they had examined on the first loop. They were half an hour earlier this time than before, but Kim found it unlikely that they had been able to calm Mae Noi down, clean everything up, and get back to work in such a short amount of time. They hadn’t mentioned any of this panic on the first loop either. They were soon joined in their confusion by Chanthara and Vell.
“We’ve tried everything; food, water, her favorite toys, even videos of her children,” Dr. Chanthara said. “We’ve even offered to call off the experiment, but she won’t listen.”
“She is an animal,” Alex said. “Sometimes they do things arbitrarily.”
“Not Mae,” Dr. Chanthara said. “Some of our sanctuaries residents from traumatic backgrounds can have outbursts, but Mae was injured in the wild. She’s never been like this.”
“Maybe some experiment on the island is upsetting her,” Vell said. “A sonic experiment only she can hear, or something…”
Vell stopped and thought about it. If there had been such an irritant, it would’ve been there on the first loop too. Everything always repeated exactly the same, except for-
“Could you, uh, take a step back for a second?” Vell mumbled. “I want to try talking to her.”
“Don’t get close,” Chanthara warned him.
“I’m not, I’m not,” Vell said. He didn’t need to get very close to tell a joke.
The massive brown eyes of Mae Noi stayed locked on Vell as he approached, and she continued to mash the “Bad” button on her pedestal.
“I know, I know, bad,” Vell said. “But, uh, do you want to hear a joke?”
Mae Noi stopped. She locked eyes with Vell for a few seconds, and then cautiously tapped a button on her pedestal.
“Joke.”
“Right, joke,” Vell said. He tried to recall the exact sequence of words Mae had used on the first loop. “What elephant favorite part tree?”
Mae didn’t blink.
“Trunk,” Vell said.
After a moment of contemplation, Mae Noi let out one final, fervent, trumpet, and then started mashing buttons on her pedestal again.
“Bad. Help. Help. Experiment. Bad. Help. Bad. Help.”
“Yeah, bad help, one second,” Vell said. He turned away from Mae Noi to look at Dean Lichman. “Hey, uh, excuse me, Dean? Hey, uh, if I remember correctly there are some pretty complicated rules on having intelligent animals on campus, yes?”
“Well, yes,” Dean Lichman said. After hearing of some questionable ethical practices involving an octopus back in first year, he had instituted a few clauses into the school’s ethical code of conduct regarding intelligent animals like elephants, octopuses, and dolphins. “Mae’s presence here is a bit of an outlier, but there were workaround, given her apparent consent to the experiment.”
“Yeah, about that, is she, uh,” Vell began. “Is she registered as a student?”
“Yes.”
Vell pursed his lips. It took a few seconds for his friends to catch on.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Samson snapped. He turned his back on the crowd and leaned against a wall while Hawke put his head in his hands.
“The first rule of looping,” Alex said quietly. “Loopers are randomly selected-”
She looked up and locked eyes with Mae Noi.
“From all registered students.”
2024.05.22 01:13 adamAlexanderGreen Young Avengers will be a Entanglement Movie
Young Avengers film formed by Kamala Khan & Lead by Kate Bishop, will bring together the Young Avengers via Quantum Entanglement.
First seen in The Marvels, where they are Entangled by thier light based powers. connection to Kree based teleportation devices such as the Bangles and the Infinity Stones themselves. Quantum entanglement key element is transportation. Transportation will be the key to the Film, as it is a theme of the Multiverse Saga in general.
The Movie will see Kamala once again being in an entanglement scenario, where a Time traveling Nathinel Richards arrives in Kate’s Pad and warns the teens about Kang’s invasion onto the multiverse. As he was searching for the Avengers in other timelines, but his Armors Temporal pad malfunction after a Kang Fight and lead him to Kamala & Kate’s timeline.
Ironlad is also a teenager, but feels like Kamala isn’t ready for the responsibilities to help save his world. Ironlad attempts to time jump to another universe but actually transports Kamala and Kate to San Francisco in the same timeline. In need to fix his temp pad, he asks where is Tony Stark. Kamala informs him that he died in Endgame. Kate tells him that her parents own a Security company and both of thier partners are Avengers. The girls reach for thier phones, but they left them back in New York. Kamala goes asking people to borrow thier iPhones so she can call Carol Danvers. But Hawkeye and Carol don’t answer. Kate tells them they can try to go find Scott Lang. IronLad is arrogant and doesn’t need the kids help to find a hero, Kamala grabs him before he can fly off. To test thier power he begins a fight with them in the middle of the city.
Kate quickly hits him with a emp arrow, but IronLad advanced armor reboots itself. Kamala uses her newly improved Embiggen powers to protect civilians and stall IronLad. Kate uses several trick arrows in coordination with Kamala and they manage to remove his helmet. (The actor that played Harley Keener Ironman 3) reveals his face, and stops fighting once Antman intervenes. Kate, Kamala, & Cassie meet for the first time at Scott Lang’s lab as they interrogate Ironlad about the validity to his warnings about Kang.
Scott is traumatized that he didn’t actually defeat Kang, and tells the kids that he will buy them a flight back home and to let the adults handle this situation. Kamala ask Cassie what’s it like to have a superhero dad. Even tho her’s is human, Kamala thinks her family is as much of heroes as the Avengers. Cassie & Kate realize their favorite color is purple. Ironlad gets bored of the bonding, and doesn’t think Antman is up to the challenge of helping him. He begins to start his temp pad, but realizes that high quantum frequencies are being detected by his armor. Ironlad demands Scott use his science to help rebuild his pad. For Quantum is the basis to his tech as well. Antman tries to reason with him, but ironlad describes the eradication on his world. Antman and Ironlad begin to fight for access to the basement of his home. Cassie and Scott shrink, while Kamala & Kate try to fight and reason with him. The team crashes into the basement, where ironlad races to the focal point of quantum in the room. Picking up the device that sent the Pym family into the Quantum realm in Quantumania. Ironlad’s nanotech absorbs the device and the temp pad starts to activate. Scott gets serious and starts to enlarge, but Ironlad blasts him back upstairs. The kids all shift and are transported to Westview New Jersey.
They all start having a screaming match, as Cassie is furious that he shot her dad. Kamala tries to calm the team down, but it’s Kate Bishop who makes everyone shut up with a puzzle arrow. This arrow expand an entire acre of land with Purple lasers. She explains it’s a game, that you have to work together or you’ll burn. Cassie laughs and shrinks, ironlad armor is tough enough to not be phased, Kamala has to actually maneuver around to escape the maze of lasers. Kate shows her reflexes and experience by doing flips and evading the laser beams.They all laugh realizing Cassie and Ironlad cheat. As tension dwindles, ironlad explains why he is so serious. That in his future he is a genius prodigy, and learn about the existence of the multiverse in a dream as a kid. Then a week ago Kang invaded his world and eradicated a majority of human life, and took away knowledge and education rights to the slaves of his world. The teens tell thier experience during the blip and how it took away thier own youth, and that’s why the Avengers are an important symbol of hope for them. Kamala starts to fangirl about Carol, Hawkeye, and Ironman… but is stop by Agatha.
Agatha says she saw the kids in her crystal ball, and is aware of the Kang Situation. Using magic to transport them into her suburban home. IronLad is confused why a witch is helping them. Cassie & Kate both keep thier guards up, but hear her out. Agatha tells them that they are on a children’s Crusade, but she can help them all get back home. Ironlad interjects, he needs heros that are competent and ready for war. Agatha uses magic to upgrade thier outfit, then tells them her step son should be home from school soon. Ironlad is tired of waiting as the girls continue to bond and learn more about their abilities. He doubts Billy/Wiccan is as powerful as Agatha claims, and ask why won’t she just use her magic to fight Kang. Agatha says that’s not her role. Billy enters awkwardly, wondering why all these teens are in his house. Kamala ask just how powerful is he, and he simply says he can do whatever he wants.
IronLad test him, and fires a rocket. Wiccan makes it turn into a headband. Picking it up and wearing it, he repeats he can do whatever he wants. Agatha, ask what exactly is Ironlads plan to stop Kang since his Quantum enhanced temp pad can teleport but still can’t take him home. Ironlad says he just needs more power, and rushes Wiccan. Sending his armor to liquidity and consume the sorcerer. Wiccan force pushes back and as they struggle for control, the temp pad activates and sends the group to a new Location; Kahmer Tajh.
Agatha makes fun of the monastery architecture and compares it to her home. Only Kamala & Agatha know this is the home of the sorcerer supreme. Wiccan and Ironlad argue over the consent of letting him suck his energy. And the girls grow more wary of how much they can trust ironlad. Agatha tells them they can find power in teamwork, and disappears into the castle. Kate & Kamala breaks the team into groups. To find Wong or other sorcerers that can help thier fight against the Kang invasion. Wiccan follow where Agatha went. Kate & Cassie search the for more weapons and gear. Kamala and ironlad find Wong & America Chavez.
The 2nd half of the movie has the group coming to face thier teenage fears, as the castle has a horror hex. Ironlad is too afraid to time jump, as memories from his home being overran by Kang haunts him. Wiccan and Agatha are immune to castles spells, as they are magical in tune, however they can’t use thier magic to its fullest extent due to the runes places around the Thaj that prohibits forbidden spells. Wong meets Kamala and tells the young avengers that he didn’t put the horror hex on. There is a Skrull sorcerer in the castle doing this. Kate finds an Asgardian bow and arrows, and takes it for “emergency”. Cassie tells her she is a criminal too, and jokes she spent a day in Jail. Ironlad finds the skrull sorcerer, under stress from the truama spell he is getting beat in the fight. But Wiccan arrives and they team up to defeat him. With a massive display of science meets magic, the young avengers put thier animosity behind them and regroup with Kamala and Wong. Wong is then impaled by a spear by Agatha. Wong’s skin turns Green and it’s revealed he is a skrull too.
America Chavez is distraught, and prepares to fight all the young avengers as she don’t know who to trust. Kamala relates to her humanity, and proves she is just a kid too. She tells her to help them fight off the other skrulls that may be in the castle. Agatha and Wiccan use thier magic sight to determine who is a skrull and who is a real sorcerer. The young Avengers fight off the skrulls, and learn America Chavez can travel the multiverse freely. IronLad sends his armor around her, but she punches and the star impact sends them to Baltimore, USA. The result sends all the hero’s and the Skrulls they were fighting as well.
Inside the Bradley home, Eli is playing video games when the hero’s instantly appear in his house. This sequence is shot from his perspective, as if it’s a home invasion. He runs for his granfathers room, to get his gun. But the safe is only full of a vials of Serum. A skrull breaks into the room and swings an axe at him. He ducks, and drinks the serum. He takes a diluted version of the serum as a hormone and steroid boost, but he never drank the original source of his grandfather saved juiced. He punches the Skrull so hard that his guts explode. Eli runs into the living room ready to box, but see’s the young avengers beating up the Skrulls. Shrugging his shoulders he jumps in and helps.
The team see’s how Brutal he fights and Ironlad likes him. Kamala says they can’t just recruit every teen they see, but looks closer and realizes she seen him on tv. He is the grandson of the first black super soldier, revealed in Captain America Brave new world where they were wrongfully accused of a terrorist attack at the White House. He explains that he has actually been taking his grandfather’s serum and synthesizing it for a hormone steroid supplement. But today he drank the original source out of fear for his life. Making him 10x stronger than he has ever been on the drug. Agatha has a funny don’t don’t drugs PSA, as the kids formulate a way on how to repay Eli for his housing damages. We learn his grandfather is still on trail, and he lives alone. Kate gets everyon back on focus and tells them maybe they can’t help ironlad. They have destroyed homes & Castles today and she needs to get back home to feed her dog Lucky. Kate makes a PowerPoint presentation on how to get ironlad out of their lives, and get Captain Marvel. Ironlad becomes more interested in Carol after Kamala keeps hyping her up to be the strongest avenger of all. Wiccan & Agatha use magic to fix the house as the hero’s finally contact Fury and the whereabouts of Captain Marvel. Fury asks why the hell didn’t she just call him to begin with. Kamala didn’t want to get in trouble for stealing the intel about all these characters
The final act has Kamala & Kate using each hero’s best quality to get Ironlad back to his world, and deflate the Kang dictator in his timeline. Kamala nicknames them Team Red & Team Blue after Captain America & Ironman and Team Purple after Hawkeye since he Don’t get much love.
Team Red; Ms. Marvel, America Team Blue; Wiccan, Eli, Team Purple; Kate Bishop, Cassie, Agatha
America Chavez punches 2 Star portals, one to ironlads homeworld and another to the location fury tells them Carol is. They all wear a harness rope that Kate gives them so they don’t get lost in the multiverse jump. America isn’t sure she can send so may people at once into a diffrent timeline, but Cassie uses her quantum shrinking disk and ironlad’s tech to help keep them from all turning fall off and turning into spaghetti.
While they are preparing, Kamala meets Carol in a New York park and catches up. Ironlad watches them from behind the portal and says this must be what it’s like to have a true friend. Kamala tells Carol that if she keeps asking her for support then she wouldn’t be a hero. Carol gives her the 2nd Bangel and tells her just let her know if she needs backup. Ironlad is still hesitant that going into the fight against Kang with a bangel isn’t gonna do much. Kamala tells them she isn’t a normal human, she is inhuman.
And the team all suit up as the prepare to Jump into the Star. IronLad suddenly laughs and fires his rockets around the building. Knocking out America and collapsing the roof, and shoves Kamala into the future with him.
It’s assume all the young avengers and Agatha are crushed under debris. The perspective changes to Eli who has to save all the hero’s bleeding out or stuck. Eli saves them By bear crawling and dragging them out of the fires. America uses her last strength to send the heros into the future
Kamala fights IronLad alone in a future hala. Ironlad reveals that he is the Kang variant, and his master plan was to go to a past timeline where both bangles existed. These weapons of mass destruction are his way of fighting off other Kang’s tryin to conquer his conquered timeline, following the events of Loki. Due the branching timelines, not even the tva knew he was a variant of Kang since his biological DNA is that of a Reed Richards. Kamala is losing the fight, as Ironlad has one of the bangles and can temporarily stop time. He continues to toy with Kamala and steals her other bangle. Mocking her for playing hero, he kicks her off a platform and into a pit of terrain crystals. Kamala uses the last of her will to let out a furry of punches, cracking the crystals around her and filling the battlefield with mist. Kamala goes through terrgenises, turning into stone. Ironlad fires a missle at her, but ironlad blocks it with a shield formed by Wiccan
Kate Bishop arrives saying Young Avengers Assemble, all the Young Avngers exit America portal. Kate then says that ones for Kamala, and Cassie grows and begins the final fight. The team hold off the firepower of ironlad while Kamalas scales break off. Ironlad can combat Wiccan’s magic with the bangles, and uses time stop techniques to stay ahead of the gang. Kate shoots Cassie’s shrinking disk onto one of the bangles, crushing ironlads left arm. Wiccan uses kamala’s satchel scarf to drag ironlad like a whip. Eli uses his magic shield to block the repulsor blast, and Kate uses the Asgardian bow to pierce his Armor. Cassie uppercuts and shrinks rapidly as the team closes in to fight close quarters. Ironlad makes an energy shield then blows back them all, Kamala is awake and grabs his wrist from far away. Realizing she don’t have light energy anymore, but can stretch her body like Reed Richards. She slams him like hulk did in the original Avengers. Nathinel monoluges about how there will be more conquerors just like history. Tva agents appears, Mobius enters telling the heros thanks for fixing this slight anomaly they better return home or they will all be prune in seconds. IronLad vaporizes and the timeline is erased as the heros return home
The movie ends with Kamala having a to explain to the khan family the events of the film and who all her new friends are. They all are ready to return to thier respected homes, when fury enters and says he heard there was a secret invasion. A running joke about how fury is now last to know anything
Post credit 1: Jessica jones is taking on a private investigator case when she spots a teen couple in an alleyway. She comments that they must be runaways, she zooms in and it’s Cloak and Dagger. They teleport away
Post credit 2: on another planet the Skrull Queen is talking about the failed relations of Kree following Captain Marvel restarting the Hala Sun. The humans are no longer allies after the declaration of war against all allies the President made. She says maybe it’s time we fight back son; and the camera pans to Hulkling
The Young Avengers will return in Avenger’s Secrt Wars
submitted by adamAlexanderGreen to MCUTheories [link] [comments]
First seen in The Marvels, where they are Entangled by thier light based powers. connection to Kree based teleportation devices such as the Bangles and the Infinity Stones themselves. Quantum entanglement key element is transportation. Transportation will be the key to the Film, as it is a theme of the Multiverse Saga in general.
The Movie will see Kamala once again being in an entanglement scenario, where a Time traveling Nathinel Richards arrives in Kate’s Pad and warns the teens about Kang’s invasion onto the multiverse. As he was searching for the Avengers in other timelines, but his Armors Temporal pad malfunction after a Kang Fight and lead him to Kamala & Kate’s timeline.
Ironlad is also a teenager, but feels like Kamala isn’t ready for the responsibilities to help save his world. Ironlad attempts to time jump to another universe but actually transports Kamala and Kate to San Francisco in the same timeline. In need to fix his temp pad, he asks where is Tony Stark. Kamala informs him that he died in Endgame. Kate tells him that her parents own a Security company and both of thier partners are Avengers. The girls reach for thier phones, but they left them back in New York. Kamala goes asking people to borrow thier iPhones so she can call Carol Danvers. But Hawkeye and Carol don’t answer. Kate tells them they can try to go find Scott Lang. IronLad is arrogant and doesn’t need the kids help to find a hero, Kamala grabs him before he can fly off. To test thier power he begins a fight with them in the middle of the city.
Kate quickly hits him with a emp arrow, but IronLad advanced armor reboots itself. Kamala uses her newly improved Embiggen powers to protect civilians and stall IronLad. Kate uses several trick arrows in coordination with Kamala and they manage to remove his helmet. (The actor that played Harley Keener Ironman 3) reveals his face, and stops fighting once Antman intervenes. Kate, Kamala, & Cassie meet for the first time at Scott Lang’s lab as they interrogate Ironlad about the validity to his warnings about Kang.
Scott is traumatized that he didn’t actually defeat Kang, and tells the kids that he will buy them a flight back home and to let the adults handle this situation. Kamala ask Cassie what’s it like to have a superhero dad. Even tho her’s is human, Kamala thinks her family is as much of heroes as the Avengers. Cassie & Kate realize their favorite color is purple. Ironlad gets bored of the bonding, and doesn’t think Antman is up to the challenge of helping him. He begins to start his temp pad, but realizes that high quantum frequencies are being detected by his armor. Ironlad demands Scott use his science to help rebuild his pad. For Quantum is the basis to his tech as well. Antman tries to reason with him, but ironlad describes the eradication on his world. Antman and Ironlad begin to fight for access to the basement of his home. Cassie and Scott shrink, while Kamala & Kate try to fight and reason with him. The team crashes into the basement, where ironlad races to the focal point of quantum in the room. Picking up the device that sent the Pym family into the Quantum realm in Quantumania. Ironlad’s nanotech absorbs the device and the temp pad starts to activate. Scott gets serious and starts to enlarge, but Ironlad blasts him back upstairs. The kids all shift and are transported to Westview New Jersey.
They all start having a screaming match, as Cassie is furious that he shot her dad. Kamala tries to calm the team down, but it’s Kate Bishop who makes everyone shut up with a puzzle arrow. This arrow expand an entire acre of land with Purple lasers. She explains it’s a game, that you have to work together or you’ll burn. Cassie laughs and shrinks, ironlad armor is tough enough to not be phased, Kamala has to actually maneuver around to escape the maze of lasers. Kate shows her reflexes and experience by doing flips and evading the laser beams.They all laugh realizing Cassie and Ironlad cheat. As tension dwindles, ironlad explains why he is so serious. That in his future he is a genius prodigy, and learn about the existence of the multiverse in a dream as a kid. Then a week ago Kang invaded his world and eradicated a majority of human life, and took away knowledge and education rights to the slaves of his world. The teens tell thier experience during the blip and how it took away thier own youth, and that’s why the Avengers are an important symbol of hope for them. Kamala starts to fangirl about Carol, Hawkeye, and Ironman… but is stop by Agatha.
Agatha says she saw the kids in her crystal ball, and is aware of the Kang Situation. Using magic to transport them into her suburban home. IronLad is confused why a witch is helping them. Cassie & Kate both keep thier guards up, but hear her out. Agatha tells them that they are on a children’s Crusade, but she can help them all get back home. Ironlad interjects, he needs heros that are competent and ready for war. Agatha uses magic to upgrade thier outfit, then tells them her step son should be home from school soon. Ironlad is tired of waiting as the girls continue to bond and learn more about their abilities. He doubts Billy/Wiccan is as powerful as Agatha claims, and ask why won’t she just use her magic to fight Kang. Agatha says that’s not her role. Billy enters awkwardly, wondering why all these teens are in his house. Kamala ask just how powerful is he, and he simply says he can do whatever he wants.
IronLad test him, and fires a rocket. Wiccan makes it turn into a headband. Picking it up and wearing it, he repeats he can do whatever he wants. Agatha, ask what exactly is Ironlads plan to stop Kang since his Quantum enhanced temp pad can teleport but still can’t take him home. Ironlad says he just needs more power, and rushes Wiccan. Sending his armor to liquidity and consume the sorcerer. Wiccan force pushes back and as they struggle for control, the temp pad activates and sends the group to a new Location; Kahmer Tajh.
Agatha makes fun of the monastery architecture and compares it to her home. Only Kamala & Agatha know this is the home of the sorcerer supreme. Wiccan and Ironlad argue over the consent of letting him suck his energy. And the girls grow more wary of how much they can trust ironlad. Agatha tells them they can find power in teamwork, and disappears into the castle. Kate & Kamala breaks the team into groups. To find Wong or other sorcerers that can help thier fight against the Kang invasion. Wiccan follow where Agatha went. Kate & Cassie search the for more weapons and gear. Kamala and ironlad find Wong & America Chavez.
The 2nd half of the movie has the group coming to face thier teenage fears, as the castle has a horror hex. Ironlad is too afraid to time jump, as memories from his home being overran by Kang haunts him. Wiccan and Agatha are immune to castles spells, as they are magical in tune, however they can’t use thier magic to its fullest extent due to the runes places around the Thaj that prohibits forbidden spells. Wong meets Kamala and tells the young avengers that he didn’t put the horror hex on. There is a Skrull sorcerer in the castle doing this. Kate finds an Asgardian bow and arrows, and takes it for “emergency”. Cassie tells her she is a criminal too, and jokes she spent a day in Jail. Ironlad finds the skrull sorcerer, under stress from the truama spell he is getting beat in the fight. But Wiccan arrives and they team up to defeat him. With a massive display of science meets magic, the young avengers put thier animosity behind them and regroup with Kamala and Wong. Wong is then impaled by a spear by Agatha. Wong’s skin turns Green and it’s revealed he is a skrull too.
America Chavez is distraught, and prepares to fight all the young avengers as she don’t know who to trust. Kamala relates to her humanity, and proves she is just a kid too. She tells her to help them fight off the other skrulls that may be in the castle. Agatha and Wiccan use thier magic sight to determine who is a skrull and who is a real sorcerer. The young Avengers fight off the skrulls, and learn America Chavez can travel the multiverse freely. IronLad sends his armor around her, but she punches and the star impact sends them to Baltimore, USA. The result sends all the hero’s and the Skrulls they were fighting as well.
Inside the Bradley home, Eli is playing video games when the hero’s instantly appear in his house. This sequence is shot from his perspective, as if it’s a home invasion. He runs for his granfathers room, to get his gun. But the safe is only full of a vials of Serum. A skrull breaks into the room and swings an axe at him. He ducks, and drinks the serum. He takes a diluted version of the serum as a hormone and steroid boost, but he never drank the original source of his grandfather saved juiced. He punches the Skrull so hard that his guts explode. Eli runs into the living room ready to box, but see’s the young avengers beating up the Skrulls. Shrugging his shoulders he jumps in and helps.
The team see’s how Brutal he fights and Ironlad likes him. Kamala says they can’t just recruit every teen they see, but looks closer and realizes she seen him on tv. He is the grandson of the first black super soldier, revealed in Captain America Brave new world where they were wrongfully accused of a terrorist attack at the White House. He explains that he has actually been taking his grandfather’s serum and synthesizing it for a hormone steroid supplement. But today he drank the original source out of fear for his life. Making him 10x stronger than he has ever been on the drug. Agatha has a funny don’t don’t drugs PSA, as the kids formulate a way on how to repay Eli for his housing damages. We learn his grandfather is still on trail, and he lives alone. Kate gets everyon back on focus and tells them maybe they can’t help ironlad. They have destroyed homes & Castles today and she needs to get back home to feed her dog Lucky. Kate makes a PowerPoint presentation on how to get ironlad out of their lives, and get Captain Marvel. Ironlad becomes more interested in Carol after Kamala keeps hyping her up to be the strongest avenger of all. Wiccan & Agatha use magic to fix the house as the hero’s finally contact Fury and the whereabouts of Captain Marvel. Fury asks why the hell didn’t she just call him to begin with. Kamala didn’t want to get in trouble for stealing the intel about all these characters
The final act has Kamala & Kate using each hero’s best quality to get Ironlad back to his world, and deflate the Kang dictator in his timeline. Kamala nicknames them Team Red & Team Blue after Captain America & Ironman and Team Purple after Hawkeye since he Don’t get much love.
Team Red; Ms. Marvel, America Team Blue; Wiccan, Eli, Team Purple; Kate Bishop, Cassie, Agatha
America Chavez punches 2 Star portals, one to ironlads homeworld and another to the location fury tells them Carol is. They all wear a harness rope that Kate gives them so they don’t get lost in the multiverse jump. America isn’t sure she can send so may people at once into a diffrent timeline, but Cassie uses her quantum shrinking disk and ironlad’s tech to help keep them from all turning fall off and turning into spaghetti.
While they are preparing, Kamala meets Carol in a New York park and catches up. Ironlad watches them from behind the portal and says this must be what it’s like to have a true friend. Kamala tells Carol that if she keeps asking her for support then she wouldn’t be a hero. Carol gives her the 2nd Bangel and tells her just let her know if she needs backup. Ironlad is still hesitant that going into the fight against Kang with a bangel isn’t gonna do much. Kamala tells them she isn’t a normal human, she is inhuman.
And the team all suit up as the prepare to Jump into the Star. IronLad suddenly laughs and fires his rockets around the building. Knocking out America and collapsing the roof, and shoves Kamala into the future with him.
It’s assume all the young avengers and Agatha are crushed under debris. The perspective changes to Eli who has to save all the hero’s bleeding out or stuck. Eli saves them By bear crawling and dragging them out of the fires. America uses her last strength to send the heros into the future
Kamala fights IronLad alone in a future hala. Ironlad reveals that he is the Kang variant, and his master plan was to go to a past timeline where both bangles existed. These weapons of mass destruction are his way of fighting off other Kang’s tryin to conquer his conquered timeline, following the events of Loki. Due the branching timelines, not even the tva knew he was a variant of Kang since his biological DNA is that of a Reed Richards. Kamala is losing the fight, as Ironlad has one of the bangles and can temporarily stop time. He continues to toy with Kamala and steals her other bangle. Mocking her for playing hero, he kicks her off a platform and into a pit of terrain crystals. Kamala uses the last of her will to let out a furry of punches, cracking the crystals around her and filling the battlefield with mist. Kamala goes through terrgenises, turning into stone. Ironlad fires a missle at her, but ironlad blocks it with a shield formed by Wiccan
Kate Bishop arrives saying Young Avengers Assemble, all the Young Avngers exit America portal. Kate then says that ones for Kamala, and Cassie grows and begins the final fight. The team hold off the firepower of ironlad while Kamalas scales break off. Ironlad can combat Wiccan’s magic with the bangles, and uses time stop techniques to stay ahead of the gang. Kate shoots Cassie’s shrinking disk onto one of the bangles, crushing ironlads left arm. Wiccan uses kamala’s satchel scarf to drag ironlad like a whip. Eli uses his magic shield to block the repulsor blast, and Kate uses the Asgardian bow to pierce his Armor. Cassie uppercuts and shrinks rapidly as the team closes in to fight close quarters. Ironlad makes an energy shield then blows back them all, Kamala is awake and grabs his wrist from far away. Realizing she don’t have light energy anymore, but can stretch her body like Reed Richards. She slams him like hulk did in the original Avengers. Nathinel monoluges about how there will be more conquerors just like history. Tva agents appears, Mobius enters telling the heros thanks for fixing this slight anomaly they better return home or they will all be prune in seconds. IronLad vaporizes and the timeline is erased as the heros return home
The movie ends with Kamala having a to explain to the khan family the events of the film and who all her new friends are. They all are ready to return to thier respected homes, when fury enters and says he heard there was a secret invasion. A running joke about how fury is now last to know anything
Post credit 1: Jessica jones is taking on a private investigator case when she spots a teen couple in an alleyway. She comments that they must be runaways, she zooms in and it’s Cloak and Dagger. They teleport away
Post credit 2: on another planet the Skrull Queen is talking about the failed relations of Kree following Captain Marvel restarting the Hala Sun. The humans are no longer allies after the declaration of war against all allies the President made. She says maybe it’s time we fight back son; and the camera pans to Hulkling
The Young Avengers will return in Avenger’s Secrt Wars
2024.05.22 01:09 Emasraw The Polite Exodus
In the year 2050, astronomers made a chilling discovery - a massive meteor was hurtling towards Earth at an alarming speed. Scientists calculated that the impact would be catastrophic, potentially wiping out all life on the planet. Panic spread across the globe as governments scrambled to find a solution to save humanity.
After intense deliberation, world leaders came to a controversial decision - only the polite and considerate individuals would be allowed to evacuate Earth before the impending doom. Those who had ever engaged in rude behavior, whether in person or online, were deemed unworthy of salvation.
Governments around the world established special committees tasked with evaluating each individual’s conduct based on their interactions with others. Social media posts, comments, and even past records were scrutinized to determine who would be eligible for evacuation.
People who had a history of cyberbullying, spreading hate speech, or engaging in disrespectful behavior were immediately disqualified from the evacuation list. Acts of kindness, empathy, and politeness became the criteria for securing a seat on the spacecraft that would transport survivors to a new habitable planet.
As the evacuation date drew near, tension mounted among the population. Families were torn apart as some members were approved for departure while others faced rejection due to their past transgressions. The world witnessed a stark divide between those who had upheld civility and those who had succumbed to negativity.
On the day of departure, only those who had passed the stringent criteria lined up at the spaceport, ready to embark on a journey into the unknown. Tearful goodbyes echoed through the air as the chosen few boarded the spacecraft, leaving behind a planet on the brink of destruction.
As Earth braced for impact, those left behind grappled with their fate. The meteor struck with unparalleled force, unleashing chaos and devastation on a global scale. In its wake, civilization as we knew it crumbled, leaving behind a scarred landscape devoid of life.
The survivors aboard the spacecraft looked back at their former home, grateful for their second chance at life. United by their shared experience and commitment to kindness, they set out to build a new society based on respect and compassion - determined never to repeat the mistakes of their past.
submitted by Emasraw to shortscarystories [link] [comments]
After intense deliberation, world leaders came to a controversial decision - only the polite and considerate individuals would be allowed to evacuate Earth before the impending doom. Those who had ever engaged in rude behavior, whether in person or online, were deemed unworthy of salvation.
Governments around the world established special committees tasked with evaluating each individual’s conduct based on their interactions with others. Social media posts, comments, and even past records were scrutinized to determine who would be eligible for evacuation.
People who had a history of cyberbullying, spreading hate speech, or engaging in disrespectful behavior were immediately disqualified from the evacuation list. Acts of kindness, empathy, and politeness became the criteria for securing a seat on the spacecraft that would transport survivors to a new habitable planet.
As the evacuation date drew near, tension mounted among the population. Families were torn apart as some members were approved for departure while others faced rejection due to their past transgressions. The world witnessed a stark divide between those who had upheld civility and those who had succumbed to negativity.
On the day of departure, only those who had passed the stringent criteria lined up at the spaceport, ready to embark on a journey into the unknown. Tearful goodbyes echoed through the air as the chosen few boarded the spacecraft, leaving behind a planet on the brink of destruction.
As Earth braced for impact, those left behind grappled with their fate. The meteor struck with unparalleled force, unleashing chaos and devastation on a global scale. In its wake, civilization as we knew it crumbled, leaving behind a scarred landscape devoid of life.
The survivors aboard the spacecraft looked back at their former home, grateful for their second chance at life. United by their shared experience and commitment to kindness, they set out to build a new society based on respect and compassion - determined never to repeat the mistakes of their past.
2024.05.22 01:04 Prior-Highlight-357 Advice for international student
Good time of day to everyone , I got accepted in Essex university and I'm moving to UK in September . I lived in Uzbekistan my whole life and never travelled in European countries , everyone I know tells me that moving to Essex will be a bit problematic for me in terms of security . In my country I almost never lock my car in public places and always leave my door open when I am not home . Can someone explain me what exactly people mean when they say that Essex is not a very safe place ? I also have a lot of problems when it comes to LGBT or pronouns stuff because it is illegal in my country and I don't know how to behave myself properly if I met them Would be very thankful if you will chew it up for me
submitted by Prior-Highlight-357 to Essex [link] [comments]
2024.05.22 01:00 Glass-Funny-4956 New Smart Home Setup
I am currently in the process of closing on my first home and am very new to the smart home world. Based on what I’ve read and my current devices I have decided to use Apple HomeKit to control all smart devices and automations. I know that there are limitless possibilities when it comes to creating a smart home but for now I am looking to get the basic controls/system down and create more in depth automations as time goes on. Below are the categories I’m thinking about tackling first. Mainly looking for some product recommendations, general advice on getting started, and what you guys would do if you had the chance to build a smart home from scratch.
Security Cameras / Doorbell Front door lock Thermostat Smoke/Carbon Monoxide Detector Wateleak detector with main value shutoff unit Garage door opener Sprinkler controller Light switches
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
submitted by Glass-Funny-4956 to smarthome [link] [comments]
Security Cameras / Doorbell Front door lock Thermostat Smoke/Carbon Monoxide Detector Wateleak detector with main value shutoff unit Garage door opener Sprinkler controller Light switches
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
2024.05.22 01:00 livia2lima Day 13 - Users and Groups
INTRO
Today you're going to set-up another user on your system. You're going to imagine that this is a help-desk person that you trust to do just a few simple tasks:- check that the system is running
- check disk space with: df -h
You'll be covering a several new areas, so have fun!
YOUR TASKS TODAY
- Create a new user
- Create a new group
- Create a new user and add to an existing group
- Make a new user a sudoer
ADDING A NEW USER
Choose a name for your new user - we'll use "helen" in the examples, so to add this new user:sudo adduser helen
(Names are case-sensitive in Linux, so "Helen" would be a completely different user)
The "adduser" command works very slightly differently in each distro - if it didn't ask you for a password for your new user, then set it manually now by:
sudo passwd helen
You will now have a new entry in the simple text database of users: /etc/passwd (check it out with: less), and a group of the same name in the file: /etc/group. A hash of the password for the user is in: /etc/shadow (you can read this too if you use "sudo" - check the permissions to see how they're set. For obvious reasons it's not readable to just everyone).
If you're used to other operating systems it may be hard to believe, but these simple text files are the whole Linux user database and you could even create your users and groups by directly editing these files - although this isn’t normally recommended.
Additionally, adduser will have created a home directory, /home/helen for example, with the correct permissions.
ATTENTION! useradd is not the same as adduser. They both create a new user, but they interact very differently. Check the link in the EXTENSION section to see those differences.
ADDING A NEW GROUP
Let's say we want to all of the developers in my organization to have their own group, so they can have access to the same things.sudo groupadd developers
On most modern Linux systems there is a group created for each user, so user "ubuntu" is a member of the group "ubuntu". But if you want, you can create a new user directly into an existing group, using the ingroup flag. So a new user fred would be created like this:
sudo adduser --ingroup developers fred
ADDING AN USER TO GROUPS
Users can also be part of more than one group, and groups can be added as required.To see what groups you're a member of, simply type: groups
On an Ubuntu system the first user created (in your case ubuntu), should be a member of the groups: ubuntu, sudo and admin - and if you list the /valog folder you'll see your membership of the sudo group is why you can use less to read and view the contents of /valog/auth.log
The "root" user can add a user to an existing group with the command:
usermod -a -G group user
so your ubuntu user can do the same simply by prefixing the command with sudo.
Because the new user helen is not the first user created in the system, they don't have the power to run sudo - which your user has by being a member of the group sudo.
So, to check which groups helen is a member of, you can "become helen" by switching users like this:
sudo su helen
Then:
groups
If you try to do stuff only a sudo user can do, i.e. read the contents of /valog/auth.log, even using the prefix sudo won't work. Helen is not a sudo and has no permissions to perform this action.
Now type "exit" to return to your normal user, and you can add helen to this group with:
sudo usermod -a -G sudo helen
Instead of switching users again, simply run the groups helen to check. Try that with fred too and check how everything works.
See if any of your new users can sudo reboot.
CLEVER SUDO TRICKS
Your new user is just an ordinary user and so can't use sudo to run commands with elevated privileges - until we set them up. We could simply add them to a group that's pre-defined to be able to use sudo to do anything as root (like we did with helen) - but we don't want to give fred quite that same amount of power.Use ls -l to look at the permissions for the file: /etc/sudoers This is where the magic is defined, and you'll see that it's tightly controlled, but you should be able to view it with: sudo less /etc/sudoers You want to add a new entry in there for your new user, and for this you need to run a special utility: visudo
To run this, you can temporarily "become root" by running:
sudo -i
Notice that your prompt has changed to a #
Now simply run visudo to begin editing /etc/sudoers - typically this will use nano.
All lines in /etc/sudoers beginning with "#" are optional comments. You'll want to add some lines like this:
# Allow user "fred" to run "sudo reboot" # ...and don't prompt for a password # fred ALL = NOPASSWD:/sbin/rebootYou can add these line in wherever seems reasonable. The visudo command will automatically check your syntax, and won't allow you to save if there are mistakes - because a corrupt sudoers file could lock you out of your server!
Type exit to remove your magic hat and become your normal user again - and notice that your prompt reverts to: $
TESTING
Test by logging in as your test user and typing: sudo reboot Note that you can "become" helen by:sudo su helen
If your ssh config allows login only with public keys, you'll need to setup /home/helen/.ssh/authorized_keys - including getting the owner and permissions correct. A little challenge of your understanding of this area!
EXTENSION
If you find this all pretty familiar, then you might like to check and update your knowledge on a couple of related areas:- Restricting shell access
- Linux Password & Shadow File Formats
- What's the difference between 'useradd' and 'adduser'?
- How to create users and groups in Linux from the command line
- Learn how to use the $EDITOR environmental variable to set your default editor to vim. With this done, visudo will use vim rather than nano for editing.
RESOURCES
- How To Edit the Sudoers File
- Sudo – An Advanced Howto
- A cartoon that should now make sense!
- Basic Linux Permissions: sudo and sudoers (video)
PREVIOUS DAY'S LESSON
Some rights reserved. Check the license terms here2024.05.22 00:46 GleepGlop2 Wireless home internet are my parents on a contract?
My parents have Wireless Home Internet 25 (no Fibe service in the area) with the Home Hub 2000 modem.
They are paying $100/ month for this with 2 more months of a $10 credit reducing the cost to 90/ month. The cost per month for the Home Hub 2000 is $0 / mth on their bill.
Looking on the Bell website they offer this plan for 70/mth with a $20 credit reducing the cost to 50/mth. Is there any reason I can't ask Bell for the current cost for this service, or are we locked in to this price for a certain term?
I was on the phone with them and brought this up and asked if we were on a contract and if that was why we were paying more and they said yes but I honestly got the impression they weren't sure and just said yes as an easy explanation.
Id like for my parents to pay the current price and also get the current Home Hub 3000 modem because the range is poor on the 2000 especially being at the far end of the house next to the cellular box outside. Do we have to wait until the $10 monthly discount expires in a couple of months to signify our "contract" has ended?
submitted by GleepGlop2 to bell [link] [comments]
They are paying $100/ month for this with 2 more months of a $10 credit reducing the cost to 90/ month. The cost per month for the Home Hub 2000 is $0 / mth on their bill.
Looking on the Bell website they offer this plan for 70/mth with a $20 credit reducing the cost to 50/mth. Is there any reason I can't ask Bell for the current cost for this service, or are we locked in to this price for a certain term?
I was on the phone with them and brought this up and asked if we were on a contract and if that was why we were paying more and they said yes but I honestly got the impression they weren't sure and just said yes as an easy explanation.
Id like for my parents to pay the current price and also get the current Home Hub 3000 modem because the range is poor on the 2000 especially being at the far end of the house next to the cellular box outside. Do we have to wait until the $10 monthly discount expires in a couple of months to signify our "contract" has ended?
2024.05.22 00:42 EqualGuarantee1264 Curiosity - Why would the electric company plug a generator to a street side box during an outage?
Hey all, hoping I can get some information on the use of the generator in the above picture (just a curiosity).
For context, I live in Newton, KS and we were hit by a pretty bad storm Sunday night, knocking out the power for the entire town mostly due to down trees, down power lines, piles, etc. Its a mess, but the crews repairing the system have been great.
I'm two days without power, so have been looking around to better understand the power system/infrastructure around me and handing out high-fives, thumbs ups, and thank you's to the electric crews working in the area. It's been interesting to look up different items and learn how they're used in the power structure of my area.
While out today I noticed this generator plugged into this street side box and running. It's locked to the pole and owned by the electric crews.
I'm curious as to what the purpose might be. I don't want to bug them, as they're busy, so came here to see if folks may know as I couldn't find anything online. This is purely a curiosity.
They're still trying to find all of the issues in the area. Is this being used to put power to a small area so they can track where it is and isn't getting to? I assume they're not actually powering homes with it.
Any thoughts?
Thank for your expertise and I totally understand if there's not enough info. Again, just a curiosity to better understand the systems around me we use everyday.
Have a stellar day!
submitted by EqualGuarantee1264 to AskElectricians [link] [comments]
For context, I live in Newton, KS and we were hit by a pretty bad storm Sunday night, knocking out the power for the entire town mostly due to down trees, down power lines, piles, etc. Its a mess, but the crews repairing the system have been great.
I'm two days without power, so have been looking around to better understand the power system/infrastructure around me and handing out high-fives, thumbs ups, and thank you's to the electric crews working in the area. It's been interesting to look up different items and learn how they're used in the power structure of my area.
While out today I noticed this generator plugged into this street side box and running. It's locked to the pole and owned by the electric crews.
I'm curious as to what the purpose might be. I don't want to bug them, as they're busy, so came here to see if folks may know as I couldn't find anything online. This is purely a curiosity.
They're still trying to find all of the issues in the area. Is this being used to put power to a small area so they can track where it is and isn't getting to? I assume they're not actually powering homes with it.
Any thoughts?
Thank for your expertise and I totally understand if there's not enough info. Again, just a curiosity to better understand the systems around me we use everyday.
Have a stellar day!
2024.05.22 00:42 Tricky-Sand-6358 [WTS] *NEW* Silver Items 99.9% Pure Silver: Kookaburra, Large and small keys, Locks, Silver Arrowheads, Silver Fidget spinners, Anime figure, Grecian Urn
New Silver Items!! Kookaburra!! Kallen (from Code Geass + more
New Silver Keys, Anchor, Arrowheads, fidget spinners (BOGO 50% off) and more!!!
Please use “chat” to signal a buy and then send me a message.
Proof: https://imgur.com/a/f8QOqCv
All returning customers will receive a 5% off your order. (Forever ♾️)
I do this for fun but I am also doing this as my sole source of income. Absolutely any and all support is greatly appreciated 🫶
1- Large Key #1 - 17.5g ($30)
2- Large Key#2 - 16.6g ($30)
3- Large Key#1 - 19.1g ($30)
4- Large Key #2 - 18.6g ($30)
5- Lock - 18.4g ($25)
6- Sm. Key - 6.7g ($20)
7- Sm. Key - 6.5g ($20)
8- Anchor - 8.3g ($20)
9- Spartan Sword #1 - 7.1g ($15)
10- Spartan Sword #2 - 6.0g ($15)
11- Kallen Kozuki figure - 8.1g ($20)
12- Grecian Urn - 10.9g ($15)
13- Arrowhead - 20.2g ($30)
14- Arrowhead - 19.8 ($30)
15- Fidget Spinner ($25) 5-6g
16- Fidget Spinner ($25) 5-6g
17- Fidget Spinner ($25) 5-6g
18- Kookaburra (stands) - 35.1g ($45)
All purchases come with reference tag 🏷️, and extras mentioned later in post. Thank you for your continued support!!
💰 Payment: Accept Venmo, Cashapp, Chime, Cash & Zelle
Shipping: * Fed Ex Ground
✅ You only pay $7
✅ I cover the rest which comes out to around $14 but I can eat the shipping cost
✅ After shipping I will send tracking #
✅ Most orders processed and shipped same day.
Not liable for parcel accidents after the package is in the hands of FedEx I will ship securely with small box -(inside contents protected by bubble wrap) all of this sealed within an additional bubble mailer.
Package also to include:
submitted by Tricky-Sand-6358 to Pmsforsale [link] [comments]
New Silver Keys, Anchor, Arrowheads, fidget spinners (BOGO 50% off) and more!!!
Please use “chat” to signal a buy and then send me a message.
Proof: https://imgur.com/a/f8QOqCv
All returning customers will receive a 5% off your order. (Forever ♾️)
I do this for fun but I am also doing this as my sole source of income. Absolutely any and all support is greatly appreciated 🫶
1- Large Key #1 - 17.5g ($30)
2- Large Key#2 - 16.6g ($30)
3- Large Key#1 - 19.1g ($30)
4- Large Key #2 - 18.6g ($30)
5- Lock - 18.4g ($25)
6- Sm. Key - 6.7g ($20)
7- Sm. Key - 6.5g ($20)
8- Anchor - 8.3g ($20)
9- Spartan Sword #1 - 7.1g ($15)
10- Spartan Sword #2 - 6.0g ($15)
11- Kallen Kozuki figure - 8.1g ($20)
12- Grecian Urn - 10.9g ($15)
13- Arrowhead - 20.2g ($30)
14- Arrowhead - 19.8 ($30)
15- Fidget Spinner ($25) 5-6g
16- Fidget Spinner ($25) 5-6g
17- Fidget Spinner ($25) 5-6g
18- Kookaburra (stands) - 35.1g ($45)
All purchases come with reference tag 🏷️, and extras mentioned later in post. Thank you for your continued support!!
💰 Payment: Accept Venmo, Cashapp, Chime, Cash & Zelle
Shipping: * Fed Ex Ground
✅ You only pay $7
✅ I cover the rest which comes out to around $14 but I can eat the shipping cost
✅ After shipping I will send tracking #
✅ Most orders processed and shipped same day.
Not liable for parcel accidents after the package is in the hands of FedEx I will ship securely with small box -(inside contents protected by bubble wrap) all of this sealed within an additional bubble mailer.
Package also to include:
- Mercury dime stickers
- Custom silver art stickers
- Multiple decorative silver tokens
2024.05.22 00:38 Total-Flounder-8258 Best Arf Pets Products
 | https://preview.redd.it/oj70bbcdxu1d1.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=381097c507348c24ceed8eb07e88c65b22864432 submitted by Total-Flounder-8258 to smartgadgets1975 [link] [comments] Arf Pets is a brand that epitomizes the joy and companionship that pets bring into our lives. With a mission to keep 'em happy, Arf Pets has become a beacon for pet owners seeking quality, innovation, and style in pet care products. The brand’s story is one of passion and commitment, driven by the belief that our pets deserve the very best. Founded on the principle that pets give us the best years of their lives, Arf Pets aims to reciprocate this unconditional love by providing everything pet owners need to spoil their four-legged friends. From memory training activity toys to waterproof dog beds, the brand offers unique solutions and one-of-a-kind accessories that cater to the diverse needs of pets and their owners. promise to make your pet's life purr-fectly splendid! 🐶😺 🐾 Welcome to the ultimate haven for your furry friends! At Best Arf Pets, they believe that every whisker, wag, and woof deserves the finest in pet care. So, let's embark on a tail-wagging journey through our top-notch products that promise to make your pet's life purr-fectly splendid! 🐶😺 Smart Automated Pet Feeder with Video CameraThe Smart Automated Pet Feeder with Video Camera from Arf Pets is a high-tech solution for pet care. It schedules feedings, offers live video monitoring, and features two-way audio for interaction. This smart device ensures your pet is fed and happy, even when you’re away.Ever wondered if your pet thinks about you when you're away? Wonder no more! Our Smart Automated Pet Feeder not only feeds your pet but also lets you sneak a peek into their day - talk about a 'feed' of a different kind! 😹
Freestanding Dog Gate with Walkthrough DoorThe Freestanding Dog Gate with Walkthrough Door from Arf Pets is a versatile pet barrier. Crafted from sturdy wood, it allows you to section off areas of your home while keeping them accessible. The hinged door gate lets both adults and pets pass easily, and the stabilizing support feet ensure balance. It’s like a VIP velvet rope for your furry friends! 🐾🚪🐶They say good fences make good neighbors, but great gates make happy pets! Our Freestanding Dog Gate is the 'pawsome' barrier that keeps Rover safe without ruining your home's chic aesthetic. 🏡🐕
Car Booster Seat for PetsThe Car Booster Seat for Pets from Arf Pets is a travel essential for your furry companion. Designed to fit in trucks, cars, and SUVs, it keeps your pet safe and secure during car rides while providing a cozy boost for better views. Made of solid foam with a reversible velvety soft fabric, it’s comfort and safety rolled into one 🚗🐾Hit the road with confidence knowing your petite pal is perched safely in our Car Booster Seat. It's like first-class flying, but on four wheels and with a better view. 🚗✈️
Read the full article |
2024.05.22 00:12 Low-Significance-202 Foot into Tech - Recommendations?
Hey Hillsboro peepz,
TLDR: Moving to Hillsboro looking to get into cyber. Recommendations? (Recruiters, Companies, Courses, Skills)
I'm moving my young family from our warm abode in Oahu (Hawaii) to the good ol' Silicon Forest in mid-June.
We have been fortunate enough to lock down a place to stay already which has alleviated a ton of stress.
A bit about me:
I have worked in restaurant for the better part of a decade up to management.
The last couple of years I've worked successfully as a Licensed Medicare (Health Insurance for Seniors) Advisor in Vancouver, WA and HI.
I do have some formal education in the form of an AS in ICS (concentration in Networking), a Certificate in Risk Managment and Insurance, and a BA in Business Administration (concentration in Finance).
Blessed to have passed Security+ this past March 2024.
Currently learning Linux and do have some home labs under my belt (Azure/SIEM/Vulnerability Managment).
My end goal is to get into cybersecurity (blue team/defensive side).
I am open to opportunity and understand that I may have to work towards cyber in time.
For those already in tech, could you please provide me some insight on breaking into tech and what skills you obtained to be an asset?
I appreciate any and all input!
Thank you in advance and we can't wait to begin our new chapter.
submitted by Low-Significance-202 to hillsboro [link] [comments]
TLDR: Moving to Hillsboro looking to get into cyber. Recommendations? (Recruiters, Companies, Courses, Skills)
I'm moving my young family from our warm abode in Oahu (Hawaii) to the good ol' Silicon Forest in mid-June.
We have been fortunate enough to lock down a place to stay already which has alleviated a ton of stress.
A bit about me:
I have worked in restaurant for the better part of a decade up to management.
The last couple of years I've worked successfully as a Licensed Medicare (Health Insurance for Seniors) Advisor in Vancouver, WA and HI.
I do have some formal education in the form of an AS in ICS (concentration in Networking), a Certificate in Risk Managment and Insurance, and a BA in Business Administration (concentration in Finance).
Blessed to have passed Security+ this past March 2024.
Currently learning Linux and do have some home labs under my belt (Azure/SIEM/Vulnerability Managment).
My end goal is to get into cybersecurity (blue team/defensive side).
I am open to opportunity and understand that I may have to work towards cyber in time.
For those already in tech, could you please provide me some insight on breaking into tech and what skills you obtained to be an asset?
I appreciate any and all input!
Thank you in advance and we can't wait to begin our new chapter.
2024.05.22 00:01 ikieneng My fanfiction - episode 4!
 | The next part is here! This episode is so long that I had to split it, and today, you're finally getting part 3 of 3. submitted by ikieneng to teamleanne [link] [comments] You can find the previous episodes in the side bar! (Community info page in the app) DISCLAIMERS (the same ones as before) The point of this fanfiction is not to be a straight-up continuation of events with the same themes, intensity, and tone. If you go into it with those expectations, you are probably not going to like it. Rather, it’s supposed to be how I wish things went if these events were real life. The resolution you want for a real-life situation isn’t often the right choice for a show, but it can be incredibly beautiful. Think of what you’re about to read to be a separate show then. Episode 1 of this fanfiction begins after the episode “2:00” (season 2 episode 4), so it replaces the episode “Cake” and the ones that follow it. This fanfiction expects you to have seen the entirety of seasons 1 and 2, so you should watch those first. I myself am bursting into the story here. The narrator and me are the same. While my character is like 95% real me, don’t take events about my life described here as facts. Some aspects of my life have been changed for the story. In my head, I started writing like an “alternate me” character in 2016, fulfilling a lot of the things that I wish I had in life, adding that to my story. I’m not really from Ukraine. I speak fluent Ukrainian as a foreign language, I started learning it in 2014, and I’ve talked to tons of people from there, but I’m not from Ukraine. I also don’t have as much money as I do in the story. I wish lmao. If you want to post your own fanfiction, feel free to do so! To get your own post flair for your fanfic, and to appear in the side bar, please message me. Part 3 (days 3 and 4) We’d wake up on day three, and still, nothing would be any different - we’re still locked up. We’d both feel really worried not knowing if we’ll have to forfeit our whole plan because we might run out of food and water and take the risky route - calling the police and getting ourselves into a situation where we’d have to be freed by force, which would be so dangerous because the Turners have proven that there’s nothing they’re not prepared to do to us to “get Jericho back”. Leanne would ask me “What do we do if we call the police, and Mrs. Turner comes up here and tries to hurt us?” At first, I’d insist that we start thinking about that when we do run out of food the next day, but she’d insist we should come up with a plan. I’d point at the corner on the edge of the attic facing Spruce Street, the corner that’s to one’s right when coming up into the attic, https://preview.redd.it/knoz0zwpou1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=bd1694f292bb546ea45339ebecea7ffacfe33541 and say “Then you’d curl up and hide over there, and I’d take the radio, you’d take the metronome, and I’d sit down in front of you, shielding you, and if she gets in here before the cops do, we’ll defend ourselves. And we’d record everything on my phone. And we should probably hide behind the sofa. Maybe then, she might not notice we’re still up here at first. She’d probably be in a state of panic.” She’d look at me with sad, but touched eyes and just hug me and say thank you. I’d reply “Of course”. After some silence, I’d tell her “If anything happens to me… Please bring me back”. She’d be touched by that, but say that if she reanimates me, the Church of Lesser Saints will come after ME as well because they’ll believe that I’ll be obligated to join. With a worried smile, I’d say “I know... But they’re probably already gonna do that, right? Because I won’t let them get to you!” We’d both nod with the same half-happy, half-worried expression. “And if things go terribly wrong and you have to bring me back, we can try again!” I’d ask if I’m getting it right that the “great sins” they think she’s committing are not spending time with the Church and helping another family from the one that was assigned to her. She’d say yes and add that there’s a lot more they hate her for, like her “disobedient and rebellious streak”, disobeying their instructions, putting curses on people, and now, leaving the Marinos. https://preview.redd.it/4obn4r9uou1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=1e77adafbde221c320999ba1169adb0a1c6b2b17 After a few seconds of silence (out of shock that this is how the Church of Lesser Saints frames it), I’d be like “If you disobey so many of their instructions, then...”, look her directly in the eyes, and go “Good! Keep on disobeying them! I’m actually kind of stunned that this is how they frame your actions, because that is so manipulative. Wanting to have a life where you don’t have to worry about your every step being watched and controlled, where you can actually freely explore what you believe – not what they tell you to believe, but what YOU believe, where you can do totally normal human things like listen to music, and where you can go wherever you want and make some basic decisions for yourself and work wherever you want, that doesn’t make you...” (doing the “quote-on-quote” with my hands while I say it) “quote-on-quote ‘disobedient’ or ‘rebellious’, it makes you a normal human being. If they forbid every little thing that people do that makes you happy, if you then look for happiness elsewhere, that’s on them. You can’t take every bit of joy away from people and then expect them to just deal with it. You wanting to run away, that’s the logical result of their bullshit. And you didn’t ‘leave’ the Marinos, you were taken. Don’t let them think you’re at fault in any way!” She might have never heard any verbal confirmation before that her feelings about leaving are valid, and this would be so reassuring to her. She’d tell me that whenever she did things like not be there for meals at the Church, skip assemblies, or curse people without permission, she would be brought before May and the rest of the community, get questioned about her behavior, and she’d have to self-flagellate to receive forgiveness. https://preview.redd.it/roex7c20pu1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=32cecf94a41a97e66b1c74967cb074ca89321777 I’d go really still and quiet when she mentions the self-flagellation, which she’d then explain is a frequent punishment. That would freaking break my heart... I’d ask her when was the last time she hurt herself, and it was a little less than two weeks ago, before she was forced to leave the Turners. Very carefully and quietly, I’d ask her if it would be okay if she can show me her scars and add “You do NOT have to if you’re not comfortable, PLEASE don’t do it if you’re not”, and after a second, she’d nod and show me her back. My heart would break for her even more seeing her scars, I’d just express how horrible it is that they made her do that… I’d show her some of my cut wounds from when I self-harmed, which I hadn’t done in like three and a half years at that point. I’d want her to know that way that I get the urge, that I really do, but I’d tell her that hurting oneself achieves nothing. All it does is make you feel horrible mentally and physically, and every time you do it, there’s a risk of infection and even death. I’d just tell her I understand while taking her in my arms. I’d ask her to please look me in the eyes and tell me she won’t hurt herself again, and that when she feels like doing it again, to please talk to me first. She’d quietly say “I promise” while looking me in the eyes, and after some longer embraces, we’d both smile a bit, that would make me really happy to hear! I’d ask that when we’re out of here, if we can call a doctor sometime soon and get them to look at her scars to make sure none of them are infected, if she’s comfortable enough, and she’d nod and smile at me a little bit some more. We’d eat after that. We’d run out of tomato soup that meal, and I’d tell her that when we’re getting out of there, I’d get her all the tomato soup in the world! “We’re gonna fill a whole hotel fridge with tomato soup!” “And with Ben & Jerry’s?”, she’d ask, and I’d say yes and say that we’re probably gonna need more than one fridge. I’d say we’re gonna pick the nicest and most expensive hotel to stay at, an idea that she’d love! “You still think Allentown is a good idea?”, I’d ask her, and she’d think my reasoning from the day before makes sense and say yes. We’d look for the nicest hotel in Allentown online and see that there are “only” three-star hotels in Allentown. Leanne would ask if getting such an expensive place to stay is really okay, and I’d say “Money is not an issue, don’t worry about it” while reaching across her back and like caressing her right shoulder, looking her in the eyes, and smiling. “And besides, let’s spoil you, you fucking deserve it after all this!” We wouldn’t book anything yet because we wouldn’t know when we can get out of there yet, but looking at all those insanely nice hotels would lift our spirits a bit. After eating the first half of that day’s rations (only two half day’s rations would be left after that…), we’d think that it would probably be a good idea if we started writing the document for the police right now. Writing it can take hours upon hours, and there’s no point in delaying the rescue to write the document after I leave if we can do it right now, so we’d begin right that moment. It would begin something like “My name is Daria Horenko, born July 30, 1999 in Odesa, Ukraine, residing in 501 Pembroke Ave, Philadelphia 19050, Pennsylvania...” (I don’t live there. I have no idea who does. Please leave them alone lmao) “...I sent this statement to my Facebook friend Liam [...] (residing in Tipperary, Ireland, using Facebook as Liam [...]) as a PDF file and told him to call the Philadelphia police and read this statement to them if I don’t come back online and confirm that I’m okay by 10 PM Philadelphia time / 3 PM London, UK time on December 22, 2022. If he is reading this to you, it probably means that there was no sign of life from me by that time, and that I’m not safe, probably kidnapped and locked up by Dorothy Turner, Sean Turner, Julian (I’m not sure about his surname, but I’m referring to Dorothy Turner’s brother - redhead, not very tall, moderately overweight) in the attic of their residence at 9780 Spruce Street, Philadelphia 19139, Pennsylvania”, and then document everything I’ve seen in chronological order and everything that Leanne has told me, with a link to our video and photographic evidence, references to DNA evidence that can probably be found in the hole in the basement if they haven’t covered it up by now, and a statement at the end saying that I’ve written it together with Leanne to make sure that everything is correct. That would take a really long time, hours for sure. But when it’s done, I’d run spell- and grammar checks on it and send it to my printer at home, to be queued for printing when I get home and turn it on. We’d also know that today (December 21) or tomorrow will be the day when we leave one way or another, so I’d schedule a text message to 911 in 30 hours from that moment. The message would say “This is a scheduled message. If you’ve received it, then Leanne Grayson (born October 13, 2001)...” (We only ever learn Leanne’s birth year from the gravestone. October 13 is Nell Tiger Free’s birthday, so October 13, 2001 being Leanne’s birthday is kind of my headcanon) https://preview.redd.it/0hr9niq1pu1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=4dbead2015781ed8beee236188b8273aac1b3fb0 “...and me (Daria Horenko, born July 30, 1999) are probably not safe, abducted and locked up against our will by Dorothy Turner, her brother Julian, and Sean Turner in the attic of their house at 9780 Spruce Street, Philadelphia 19139, Pennsylvania or somewhere else on the property. We need help immediately. The Turners should be considered dangerous and very clearly willing to use violence and intimidation. We need help NOW. Details in our prepared statement: [the link]”. Because we’re holding out hope that we won’t have to call the police from inside the attic, the document would include information on what our plan is to get Leanne (and me) out of there as safely as possible and call the police from the taxi, but that if we run out of rations, we won’t have a choice but to call the police while we’re unarmed and while the Turners still have the upper hand. We would debate whether we should include information about the Church of Lesser Saints right away or tell the police about them later because we know how that sounds, considering that this would hurt the credibility of our testimony, https://preview.redd.it/sinvabf3pu1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=e37811b53eb90cb8a066bfcb30f6244bb9f34ad4 but we’d modify the document and include the most important information about them as well, with more believable explanations - how they forced Leanne and other members to self-harm (meaning that current members or those who recently left), where they’re currently operating from in Lancaster, https://preview.redd.it/mxbm8445pu1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=1f9b5f1c671c15afce7149eeb90926c2c29b9bdb that they faked their deaths, that they forced Leanne to leave the Turners, and the necessary lie that they took the real baby, and that Leanne hasn’t seen it since that day and doesn’t know where they’ve taken it. We’d also include names and stuff, and most importantly, reference the baptism tape and say that it shows May and George watching us from the sidewalk outside the church less than three weeks ago, and that piece of evidence would change everything in regards to investigating the Church of Lesser Saints and make the police believe us. We’d add that it’s probably among the other DVDs in the Turners’ living room, and that I’ll try to get it when leaving the building if our original plan is still going to be an option, rip the DVD at home, and add a link to the video file to the document. We’d modify the scheduled text message as well, and we’d charge both phones, mine first because the scheduled message is so important, but it’s an iPhone, so we could charge it to 100% rather quickly and then charge hers. And we’d add that we’d want the police to get Leanne’s things from the Marino estate. All her stuff being there would be further evidence that she was taken suddenly and against her will. We’d also add what number Leanne can be reached at for now with the Samsung Galaxy phone. And then, I’d send the document to Liam on all platforms where I know how to reach him, followed by a message to alert the authorities if I’m not back online confirming that we’re both okay in what’s now probably more like 29 hours, the phone number of the Philadelphia police, and caps at the beginning saying that it’s an actual emergency. Out of nowhere, I’d ask her if she’s seen “Titanic” lmao, and with her near total isolation growing up, she wouldn’t have seen it. “I’ve only seen movies on TV”. I’d be like “I can show you lots of movies if you want! I got several subscriptions to streaming services, and also a bunch of stuff offline on an external drive at home.” https://preview.redd.it/lr58woa7pu1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=63537b149270faeebb2c3f1be9ba2af0d259e1b7 Back on talking about “Titanic”, I’d tell her it’s wonderful and so freaking romantic, albeit over-the-top at times for sure and a bit overrated. It has that glossy feeling and some superficial characters to it that all James Cameron movies have, but it’s still really wonderful. After explaining the plot to her (since she’s grown up so isolated), I’d tell her about one scene that I’m thinking about a lot from time to time - near the end of the movie, when old Rose is done telling the researchers her story, she says that she doesn’t even have a picture of Jack, and that has hit me so hard from the first time I’ve seen the movie. https://preview.redd.it/96bgw8s8pu1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=476c1a4cbee498c26a0be4651ef83258f0aa7748 She has no physical memories of him, she can never see his face again, and she can never show people what he looked like. That just rips my heart. I’d ask Leanne if we can take some pictures together. We’d look pretty horrible because we haven’t been able to shower in days, but we wouldn’t care and take them anyway and really, genuinely smile so hard. I’d send them to her email address (leanne_grayson@icloud.com, that email address is on her resume in the show), https://preview.redd.it/frfz9e7apu1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=1b65065ab622e71f52edc6e9b84a2974e7efe9cb manually sync my gallery with iCloud, and I’d send them to Liam. I’d ask what phone she got back at the Marinos’ and if she’s got any pictures of herself in her iCloud gallery, but she’d tell me she’s rarely ever taken pictures of herself, only for the resume she applied at the Turners’ for, and I’d be like “Whaaaaat? But you’re so beautiful!”, and she’d smile hard, a bit embarrassed. I’d look her straight in the eyes and say it again and say that I mean it for real, she is so incredibly beautiful! It’s probably so rare that anyone’s ever said that to her in her entire life (her mother definitely didn’t, and given that the Church of Lesser Saints believes that anything that feels good is dangerous, https://preview.redd.it/msylzejbpu1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=b343bf8d10b86f7c731eed3c8a5204460daec4d4 it’s rather unlikely that they did), Tobe saying it in “Balloon” might even have been the only time ever… https://preview.redd.it/jdce6tndpu1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=c9edaacd72634c3dbe7dbf29abcc84f2412a10d4 I’d then add “Inside AND out!”, and she’d smile some more in a bit of embarrassment and then look me in the eyes and say “You, too, Daria!”, and as you’d expect, I’d smile so hard and even with my eyes! It would be rather late by then, so we’d eat and listen to some more music together from the Spotify playlist I created for her and talk so much about what we’re hearing. After dinner, she’d bring the topic up on her own (this is kind of making fun of these fan theories) - she’d tell me that some in the Church of Lesser Saints think she’s the Devil or Lilith because of her rebelliousness, and how she’s inspired doubt in some people in the Church. I’d make such a weirded-out face. After realizing she’s serious, I’d say “If you are the Devil, then hail Satan! Like, seriously, if YOU are what God is threatening will happen if we don’t follow him, then that’s literally the weakest threat I’ve ever heard of. Then God is the villain here. We need more people like you in the world!” Shy as she still is, she’d still be almost embarrassed to hear this (she’s so not used to compliments), and I’d make it clear I’m serious, that I really think she’s fricking wonderful and the sweetest, and that she clearly has a huge heart full of so much love, and that she deserves so much better than what she’s ever experienced! Almost in denial, she’d see in my eyes that I really mean it and just smile and hug me, and then, we’d both smile even more! I’d rub her back a lot in that moment and promise her again that everything will be okay. “I’ll make sure of that!” After some more music together, knowing that tomorrow will be the day we leave, no matter which plan we’ll go with, we’d make sure we haven’t forgotten anything. Looking around, I’d realize I have to give her my earphones with a cord because the internal mic of my Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini is essentially useless. I’d tell her that when I call her the next day to tell her it’s safe to come downstairs now, she should answer the call, plug in the earphones, and then, it will take a few seconds until I can hear her, but then, it should be fine. We’d set a code phrase that I’ll mention to let her know if the Turners got me and it’s NOT safe to come down. She’d suggest “tomato soup”, and I’d smile and say yes, that’s gonna be our code phrase. “And if it IS safe to come down?”, she’d ask, and I’d suggest “ice cream”. I’d realize that we should probably find her fresh clothes in the attic and a coat right now, so as I said, it’s not too obvious that she’s been locked up for a long time the second she walks out of the door, because if she’s in dirty clothes or nightwear, with it being obvious that she hasn’t showered in days, and I get her out of there and into a taxi to drive off while I got a gun, it would look as if I was kidnapping her, so we’d find her a nice dress and coat up there, and I’d turn around and close my eyes while she puts it on, and when she’s done, I’d tell her again that she looks amazing! 😊 https://preview.redd.it/zp5gbjwfpu1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=777d2120f72b5002e2d5e5e9ffe4760ab2d5fada And she’d smile and thank me this time, sort of the way she says it to the makeup artist at the street fair in S3E5 “Tiger” in that typical way of hers that’s so adorable for real, https://preview.redd.it/fuu6x7ohpu1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=ec5f23b8de4568996bd6e4c706ab4f95b8f98063 and she’d look in my direction and say “You look really beautiful, too!”, really shy, before peeking me in the eyes for a moment, and we’d just look at each other for a moment. “Can I have your pictures?”, she’d ask me, and I’d say yeah, open my iPhone, and select ALL pictures of myself in my gallery and send them to her email address, and send her those that are too large via a Google Drive link (iCloud isn’t great for sharing files lol), and then, I’d take her Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini, download them all (which would take a while because that phone is ancient), and set one of the pictures we’ve taken together as her wallpaper, and then set it as my wallpaper on my iPhone as well! 😊 We’d consider if there’s anything else we’ve missed. She’d mention that parts of the floor screech, especially one tile, so when I sneak out, I gotta be careful on the stairs, especially with that one tile. https://preview.redd.it/nijqz08jpu1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=6f6756ae6c304a5f5133c21ef857e0f91c6c91d7 After a few seconds, she’d ask me if we wanna book a hotel now, and I’d smile and say sure! “Did you like any hotels in particular, out of the ones we looked at?” She’d say “The one with the big jacuzzi looks great” with big eyes and enthusiasm in her voice, like she does during some of her conversations with Tobe in S3E5 “Tiger”. “You’ve ever been in a jacuzzi?”, I’d ask her, and she’d go “Nooo, but I wanna try!” in the same tone, https://preview.redd.it/6rh2p63lpu1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=987a19161b85fe5ee6a500f452c168ba7dec961b and so, after lying down now, we’d look up which hotel she was talking about and book a two-room suite in that hotel in Allentown for three weeks. I’d add “So we can easily look out for each other, and so you’ll also have some privacy.”, and she’d smile and nod, that consideration would probably mean a lot to her. We’d then get ready for bed. For the next day, I’d get some better clothes as well and put them on while she’s turned around with her eyes closed. I’d take the last ration of food out of my backpack, put the clothes I just took off at the bottom of it, above Leanne’s Bible (the porcelain baby and card are already in one of the other pockets), and put my phone and the chargers in another pocket. I’d look around and ask her if there’s anything else I should take with me to safeguard, and at first, she’d also look around because she wouldn’t know how to answer right away, but she’d then point at Mrs. Barrington with her face, https://preview.redd.it/amqsh2mmpu1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=12d0bfe376210a8798671d45f31e96e28037870b and I’d be like “Well, I think she’s a little too big for my backpack, but I can talk to the police when we’re out of here, maybe we can try to get her!”, and Leanne would nod with a big smile again. We’d lie down on the mattress and share the covers again. Just like the night before, I’d lie down on the side of the mattress that’s closer to the stairs, in case Dorothy changes her mind and tries to assault Leanne again… On the mattress, she’d suddenly hug me really tight, break into tears, and thank me over and over again, and I’d just hold her tight, say “Of course”, and assure her that everything’s gonna be okay, that we’ll get out of there tomorrow. I’d wipe some of her tears off her face 🥺 On the mattress, we’d just look each other in the eyes and both just smile more and more, and after a minute or two, she’d kiss me on the lips for a tiiiiny moment and then, we’d just smile at each other even harder! She’d say “I’m not supposed to do that” while still smiling just as hard and looking me directly in the eyes! “Says who?”, I’d reply. She goes “My aunts and uncles”, and I’d say “I don’t think they’re a reliable source!”, and we’d kiss each other some more and longer, and both feel each other’s smile on our lips, and peek at each other a few times in between 😊🥰❤️ We’d both put our arms around each other before telling each other good night and before I promise her one more time it’s all going to be okay! https://preview.redd.it/08fqmdqspu1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=477498f6f3e6260f2a0429defebf98475b14eda1 At some point during the night, she’d wake me up, and when she does, I’d realize I had a nightmare, like, not from my night terrors, and she’d tell me I had a nightmare, that I was sniffling in my sleep, and that I told her two days earlier to wake me up if this happens. Still feeling terrible (the feeling of immediate dread always takes a while to subside for me), I’d thank her. I’d ask what I was saying, and she’d say that I wasn’t speaking English. I’d consider if I should tell her for a moment, but then, I’d take a deep breath, look up for a second, and with a heavy voice, slowly say “What if we try plan A tomorrow, and I fail? I’m scared… I don’t wanna mess this up… I don’t wanna fail you…” And she’d slowly look at me and just say two words: “You haven’t!” I’d look at her and almost laugh a bit out of joy. I’d smile and just cuddle up to her a bit, and she’d do it back. I’d say I’ll try to listen to music for a while to calm down because doing something else makes it much easier for me to zone out of the feeling of dread again. “Why only you?”, she’d ask. “I don’t wanna keep you awake”, I’d say, “You need the sleep”, and she’d say “It’s okay” and just smile a bit, and so, we’d listen to some music together for about half an hour. I’d tell her that my sleep is so horrible (she’d say she can tell) because I don’t have my meds, and I’m really fricking looking forward to taking them again. Without them, the quality of my sleep is terrible, and it takes so long for me to fall asleep at all if I don’t take them. She’d ask if I’ve taken them for a long time, and I’d say that I haven’t taken these particular meds for long because whatever I take, my body builds up some resistance to them pretty quickly, so after a while, I always have to get new ones, but I’ve taken sleeping meds for years now. “It sounds like they’re really helping you, right?”, she’d ask, and I’d nod and say “Yeah, they really do. I’m also taking antidepressants, and they were an absolute gamechanger for me. It’s okay if I don’t take them for a few days because they don’t work in the moment, but they like rewire your brain over time, and they’re the best thing that’s ever happened to my mental health. Before I started taking them, it was so hard for me to avoid bad thoughts or resist them, like, it was hell, but ever since then, it got sooo much easier, and not letting things get to me or not letting bad things really take over me is just so much easier now.” After a while, I’d say “I was at a psychiatric clinic voluntarily for six months, but I also had nowhere else to go, and the doctors and employees really abused their power. They only intervened when there was physical violence, they didn’t intervene in any other conflicts, so because of them, the patients constantly bullied each other. My doctor switched to another department while I was there, so I got a new one, and the new one wasn’t perfect, but at least, she cared. I got really lucky to get a place at a living group for mentally ill people, which was when I could finally leave. But honestly, all my experiences with mental health professionals since then have been better. I went to a different clinic for four or five days voluntarily in 2019, and even they were far better. “That sounds scary…”, she’d say. I’d reply “It was. But things got much better after that. I had lots of setbacks, like, you know, but if you get help, it’s always better.” After the current song’s over, we’d lie down to try and sleep again. We’d smile at each other again in bed, and I’d give her a short-ish kiss before saying good night, and we’d both smile even harder after that 😁 And we would fall asleep for good after a while (it would still take me longer than her). In the morning, Leanne would wake me up again. She’d show me that the door is unlocked and open by a little bit now (they’re “letting” her out for a few hours…), https://preview.redd.it/sqql9udupu1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=b2505bc6f7795639777433a1897f0d31e5753d67 and we’d both just embrace and chuckle in huge joy, as we can go with plan A now, the less risky one! We’d remember to quiet down after a few seconds and whisper from then on out. I’d go to the toilet roll, take eight pieces, rip them into two bands of four pieces each, and roll each of them up into a little bunch. I’d give them to her and tell her to put them into the wall pieces of the door when she gets out (so it looks like the door is closed while it can’t actually lock) and give me an audible signal when the third floor is clear, so I’ll get out with my backpack, take out the toilet paper, and hide in her room. https://preview.redd.it/bzze2o6wpu1d1.png?width=304&format=png&auto=webp&s=aaa155b611408db6e9960485f6f726125fc2698d “Is there anything you want me to get from there?”, I’d ask. “No. Everything is here or at the Marinos’.” I’d go “Okay” and move on - since I’m almost definitely unable to come down to the second floor right away (I’m using American English in all of these episodes. “First floor” in American English = “ground floor” in British English; “Second floor” in American English = “first floor” in British English; “Third floor” in American English = “second floor” in British English, etc.), she’d give me a signal when coming back upstairs. We’d agree that when she comes back upstairs, if it’s safe to go to the second floor, she’d shout something, maybe in conversation, maybe some sort of cry, doesn’t matter, and if not, she’d kick something. She’d be locked upstairs again after that, so I’ll have to tell when to get further downstairs myself, which I’d do as soon as I’ve heard absolutely no sounds from inside the house for at least a few minutes. On the first floor, I’d get the DVD from March 11, 2001, and if the baptism tape isn’t clearly labeled among the tapes, I’d unplug the DVD player from the TV, turn on the player, open the DVD slot, and if the tape isn’t in there, I’d take all unlabeled tapes. I’d then listen in on the basement door for a few seconds, and if I hear no sounds from down there, I’d quietly open the basement door and go downstairs, and if no one’s there, I’d get out through the side entrance down there, out through the back gate, walk back to Spruce Street, drive my bike home, take a shower, watch the tape from March 11, 2011 like she told me I could, hide it somewhere at home, print out the document for the police, take it with me in an envelope, print out a second version of it to give to the taxi driver, so I can say “If I’m not back in an hour, please call the police for me and read this to them”. I’d then call a taxi (a taxi with a large trunk whose driver is allowed to drive to Allentown and back), load my gun, and leave for the Turners’ and get Leanne. We’d see that Liam has replied by now. Of course, he’d be super worried, but he’s got our backs for the plan, and that would be really reassuring. We’d look each other in the eyes, and then, I’d hug her sooo tight for several seconds, and we’d have one loooong kiss (hoping it’s not the last time we see each other…) before she goes downstairs while looking back at me on the way before putting the toilet paper in the door. I’d then put on my backpack. Once Leanne loudly shouts “Mister Turner?”, that would be my signal, and I’d hide in her room for about 45 minutes before she’s “let” back upstairs and shouts “You can lock me in now, Mrs. Turner”, https://preview.redd.it/uy9loclypu1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=16abd51170405f1ef3123ff22f4559642a0c0c92 which is when I’d sneak into the storage/guest room and wait. It would take like five hours until I hear nothing for a while, which is when I’d sneak onto the first floor, look around to make extra sure no one’s there, and go to the living room. I’d get the tape from March 11, 2011, and the baptism tape would be among the labeled DVDs, and I’d put it into the box of the March 11, 2011 tape (I’d put the original DVD loose in there and use the spot inside the box for the baptism tape because it’s probably more important. I then wouldn’t hear anything from the basement, so I’d slowly and quietly go down there. No one would be there, so I’d leave as planned and go home and take a shower. I’d watch the March 11, 2011 DVD. I’d be surprised to see the interaction between Leanne and Dorothy for sure, but sort of knowing her, I wouldn’t think anything bad of it. I’d actually get it because of my past celebrity crushes (which I know isn’t what she was feeling for Dorothy) and the desire to meet them, especially with Blanche. I’d get why Leanne wouldn’t want the police to see it, it would look bad for her. I’d wrap up the DVD in a thick piece of paper and tape it to the back of my closet, between the closet and the wall. I’d burn the piece of paper in the DVD case in my bathtub with a bucket of water next to me just in case. I’d test if the DVD of the baptism tape still works (it does), rip it, upload the video file to Google Drive, add it to the document for the police, cancel my printing queue, print the document (two versions of it. The one for the taxi driver would just have a short introduction at the beginning, like, that I’m the person who ordered the taxi), order the taxi, pack my things for the next couple of weeks and anything that Leanne might need, so I’d include any clothes that I think could fit her, and go to the taxi. I’d tell the driver to get me one block away from 9780 Spruce Street (which isn’t actually a real address, by the way) and wait there for me. Before leaving for the Turner house, I’d give him the envelope with his version of the letter for the police and tell him what I said I would tell him. I’d then get my backpack with the gun in it from my luggage in the trunk, and walk to the Turners’ house. I have already "written" so much more in my head, but I've now reached the end of what I've actually written down, so it will take longer until the next episode is out now! Hope you've enjooooyed this one! |
2024.05.22 00:01 Gossip-Luv2 Retrieved the content of Tweets on SLB's eccentricities - The Mythmaker’s Legacy - Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, I am the Greatest of Them All!
Thanks to Patron Member u/Entharo_entho - Here is the wiped out Tweet retrieved
Context - Wiped out from Internet
In March, I got a chance to work with filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali right after he made Gangubai Kathiawadi, and Alia Bhatt, playing the titular character in the film, retweeted me.
The headline (in my head) was going to be, ‘The Boy From Kamathipura Goes To Bhansali Mandi.’
Then reality struck in April.
One of my closest friends Sweta called me from the Shivapuri National Park near Kathmandu and put me on speaker. Two other friends Mona and Ayush were listening to the WhatsApp call.
‘How’s it going with Bhansu?’ Sweta asked.
‘We are not working together anymore,’ I said.
‘Whaaaaaaaat?’ the three people shrieked, creating a wavy disturbance in audio frequency.
‘Whyyyyy?’ they cried, collectively anguished.
‘He said he is not feeling the vibes.’
‘What?’
‘Vibes,’ I said aloud, causing a seismic tremor in the audio frequency.
‘What vibes?’ Sweta jibed, ‘Maybe he can’t feel the vibrator.’
Laughter upped the vibes.
First, a little context on how I got that far. Check this, this, this & this.
So my tweets were going viral in February-March.
In the second week of March, a woman DM’d me saying she loves the tweets. I said thank you. She said she works at Bhansali Productions.
Whoopsie Daisy!
I asked if I could be a part of the production. She checked with SLB and team. He said he wants to meet now.
NOW!
How?
I was in Calcutta.
I called an actor friend in Bombay and told him about it.
“They will book your tickets and put you up in 5-star,” he said, “Like Hollywood.”
“This is Bhansaliwood,” I said, “Yahan dhanda hamesha manda hai.”
I flew (on my own expense) and met him.
I was ‘prepared’ by his team for the meeting with His High and Mightiness.
I was told:
I sashayed in a brown kurta and white linen trousers. Please see Madhuri Dixit-Nene’s brown ghagra for aesthetic reference I used from my very limited wardrobe of the only kurta I had at the time. By the way, the chorus sings ‘Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje,’ aesthetically referencing you know what, right?
He was lunching with his minions (strictly calling them minions from his pov) when I arrived in his pristine white dining hall in a building called Magnum Opus. Where else should he reside, no? Both his house, and his office (where I was ‘prepared’ earlier) were tastefully done in creamy white.
It was, as I said to my friend later, like walking into a cumulus cloud, or like sitting on his favourite singer Lata Mangeshkar’s lap. Calm, serene and quite surreal. I was inside his snow globe. Violins from a Bach concerto (in my head) were replaced with say Madan Mohan’s doleful rendition of ‘Mai ri main ka se kahoon peedh apne jiya ki.’ (Side effect of writing this on Mother’s Day.)
I look for books when I enter a house for signs of intelligent life. There were lots of lamps and candelabras but where were the stacks of books they were perched on? The aesthetic was high on film set disposable kitsch. I stared into a cumulative void.
The minions were intensely debating Darjeeling momos. What’s that? I spent my childhood there. Never heard of this GI tag!
SLB relished his meal and said, “I want puranpoli today.”
Puranpoli appeared not out of thin air, but a house-help flipping wishes instantly on a griddle on the fifth floor. We were on the first floor. Although the puranpoli is shaped like a flying saucer, it doesn’t fly, perhaps burdened by the weight of excess ghee and crowd-pleasing expectation. It does, however, reach SLB’s plate at the speed of light.
‘Give him some,’ he asked a minion to serve me while I waited on the sofa.
‘I’ve had lunch, thank you,’ I said, trying to behave. The plate arrived. I took a mousy bite to exhibit my failing attempt to transform into a champion minion.
When he came to chat, he noticed the unfinished food and gently reminded me how there were days he went hungry. I should have rolled my eyes for my own lean days.
‘One should not waste food,’ he said.
‘I don’t,’ I said, ‘I was going to parcel it home in a doggy bag.’
Hearing the word doggy, his well-behaved dog came over to inspect me.
He observed me. I petted her perfunctorily. Am a cat person. Stereotypical writer stuff — allergic to undesired petting and attention.
‘So, what have you done?’ he asked, sitting on a sort of empire-style bergere chair. Full marks for faux-ornate.
‘A novel, some writing for a series,’ I said nervously, dismissively.
‘Anything I might have seen?’ he asked.
‘No, not worthwhile.’
‘Are you interested in direction also?’
‘No, am not delusional.’
A moment passed. I might have displayed an errant repartee.
‘I mean, I can only write, or am trying to,’ I said. L’esprit de l’escalier.
He gave me a spiel on writing, how screenplay is an art not many understand, etc, et cetera.
I nodded to make his voice disappear.
‘What are you writing now?’
I showed him the cover of my new book, The Last Courtesan, featuring my mother, on my phone.
‘Oh, this is so fascinating,’ he said.
He spoke rapturously about Calcutta’s great food and colonial architecture when I mentioned growing up in Bowbazar kothas. If you watch any of his interviews now on YouTube you will realise he only speaks in raptures. He’s always explaining things like an impassioned conductor at a dime-store opera. It can exhaust the boorish audience immediately. He spoke about living in the Kamathipura area as a child when I said I had lived there. The mythmaker was interested in exoticising his own legend as an ‘outsider’.
‘But how will you work here if your mother is in Calcutta?’ he said, ‘I am a maa-ka-bhakt.’
Everything is about him or his mother. I have reached that stage too, though only by circumstances unavoidable.
‘Actually it was my mother who asked me to come here. I told her it would only work out if you understand that I will have to vacillate between the two cities initially. Jaise Sanjay ki Leela hai, waise meri Rekha.’
Corny dialogue, but worked. No one calls him by his first name, except perhaps his own mother. He is sir for everyone.
‘If I am speaking to you for so long means I like you,’ he said. ‘Otherwise, I would have asked you to leave long ago.’
Barely five minutes into the conversation, he asked me to return to his office and inform his team that I was going to be a part of his writer’s room.
I went back to his office and read a script. This is the part I cannot mention. His legal team sits in the adjacent room.
I flew to Calcutta and was to return after a week. I had to make arrangements for my mother’s tri-weekly dialysis sessions at a nearby hospital, figure out a tiffin-delivery service for her, find a house help (she sent four nurses scurrying in the past), all of which is a bit of a task in this retrograde city.
Remember the woman who had DM’d me about my tweets? She messaged. She had met SLB after my meeting. He said this about me: ‘What a wonderful find. That boy has so much potential and is talented. Most importantly, he is sensitive.’
I told her I’d get this engraved on my tombstone.
Like how he wants to take Alia Bhatt’s golchakkar in Dholida to his grave.
“It’s a shot that I will take to my grave. If there’s any shot that I want to be played when I breathe my last, it would be Alia doing that shot. It is the best thing I have seen an actor do in a very long, long time.”
I was only emulating the high priest of hyperbole in my tombstone comment. Perhaps I was regressing into a minion.
I had only managed a few tasks for mother when I was back in Bombay. It worried me that the old, frail woman with shaky limbs and slurred speech was trying to be brave to send me to work. I hadn’t worked since the pandemic; she was in and out of hospitals so frequently that I had surrendered the thought of getting another job ever again. Taking care of her was my full-time job.
The first day in his office was to chill in my new, aesthetically pleasing kurta I had shopped for in Gariahat. There was a security camera in every corner that was apparently accessible on his phone. My skin tingled with this information. Chilled. He was at home. Probably watching. That’s a great way to create a myth.
The next day, there were more minions on the lunch table in his first floor apartment. The magically appearing steamy and fragrant sheera was delicious. A minion deemed it the best sheera in the city. I nodded to make that statement evaporate.
A courier boy interrupted for a document signature. SLB flared at a spelling mistake in the document papers.
‘Go wash your face and come back,’ he yelled at the young man.
The minions at the table laughed nervously. I so wished I was wearing a mask to cover my surprise emoji face.
The minions on the table were writers and assistant directors.
‘Dastavez,’ SLB said, ‘would that be correct to use?’
‘Kaaghzaat,’ the minion replied.
‘Kaaghzaat is paper, dastavez is document,’ said the second minion.
‘You always mislead me,’ SLB sternly reprimanded the first minion. ‘Don’t ever do that again.’
Only that minion tried to laugh, offering an apology. He shut the minion down.
My mask, my mask emoji face.
A third minion was sulking in a corner before I arrived for the writing session. This minion had reportedly offered a script suggestion, which he disliked and barked down. I liked this minion the most. Relatable.
A faint noise of a person running or perhaps just a rumbling sound from somewhere outside interrupted the room. He looked up at the ceiling and said, ‘No one lives there. Am certain it is a ghost. I hear running sounds all the time. I have heard sounds of furniture being dragged.’
I wondered if he actually believed in half the things he uttered, or was he just saying it to create enigma about himself. Mythical thoughts certainly kept him preoccupied.
Reality bored him. SLB had nothing good to say about the ‘current plague’ of South Indian films upsetting the Bollywood cartel. He compared them to a circus. He wasn’t kind to the actors he had worked with in his last film. He cracked lame jokes about everyone and everything. The minions laughed and kept him busy. I chuckled a few times to blend in. The mythmaker revelled in his prophesies about the impending doom of charlatans with no aesthetics: just crass, commercial peddlers pimping art. It was all said to amuse and bemuse while he fussed over the yellow shade of fabric from several swatches.
When he left for his music session, the minions bitched him out, and how! All the horror stories I had heard over the years about his moods, behaviour, language and violent temper were true. How else will he create myth about himself as a maestro? The Glomar response. Let the plebs indulge in hearsay. I will neither confirm nor deny. The minions sang effigy songs in happy tunes, if I may stretch this part a bit like his penchant for high camp.
That night, when I went to my actor friend’s house, where I was temporarily staying, I said to him, ‘I don’t think I will last a week there.’
I was rattled by how he spoke to the courier boy and the minions, with no filter. Well, at least it was clear he had no tact, endearing as that might be of a ‘genius’ if one compromises with his erratic behaviour. The CEO of his company does it beautifully and advises to develop a ‘thick hide’ around him. Cows, essentially.
Verve
The words genius, great, master, maverick, were so loosely bandied by his office staff even in his absence that I was tempted to add auteur, if they could spell or pronounce it. They worked in perpetual fear of him turning up at any hour and checking on their tidiness. A minion whined she wasn’t dressed appropriately for his surprise visit. Once, he even cut pay for unscheduled leave, said another minion. A minion narrated a shot he copied from a photographer in Gangubai Kathiawadi. Another minion recounted how he made her cry on shoot by screaming at her for a silly mistake. Minions couldn’t leave the office till his evenings were scheduled. It was a well-paying job so long as they did not have to see ‘chacha’s’ face and only applaud his cinematic sorcery.
His office team would assign me desk-work and warn me not to inform him about it.
‘What am I supposed to say if he asks?’
‘Make up something,’ I was told.
‘Why should I?’
‘You will slowly understand,’ I was told.
His team of assistants would sneak around me. I didn’t know who was reporting what back to him. He would interrogate the management team. They would lash out at me for informing the assistants. The management wanted to control me a certain way because ‘sir’ does not need to know everything. It was quite a guessing game. He had created an ecosystem of complete chaos and loved the hubbub. New people were hired for him to use the ‘new energy’ to rekindle the ‘old energy’ that needed to be reminded it could be snuffed out and replaced. He thrived on confusion because it all boiled down to him to sort out the mess. He was the provider so long as the minions ingratiated and served their grand master.
One time he called me upstairs, what his CEO called the god’s chamber aka the Shahenshah’s durbar: his office on the seventh floor. Walls were lined with giant posters of his films. We minions sat on the fifth floor. I was of course by now a week old in the toady mill. On the seventh floor, production team members, set designer, director assistant, young people sat on the floor, armed with notebooks and laptops, alert and sugar-tongued. He sat on a throne and dictated each one about their duty. A masseur massaged his leg. He asked me what I thought of a script. I said it was lovely. He asked me to elaborate. I said I liked a character’s resolve. He denied it was written. I said that’s my interpretation. A minion promptly backed me.
‘What changes do you suggest?’ he asked.
‘We should sit on it collectively and decide,’ I said.
He mumbled something. My suggestion was dismissed. I was dismissed. I bowed out. A minion whispered to me, ‘We all walk on eggshells around him.’ I had to be a chicken in a coop I suppose.
Another time he dismissed my suggestion for a scene saying, ‘That’s not how art is made.’ I had referenced a scene from Bandit Queen to illustrate my point. Just like his entire oeuvre is homage to a classic. How else does he make his art?
Allow me to illustrate with a frame from his first film Khamoshi: The Musical. The second image is from Pakeezah.
Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam references Red Beard, Woh 7 Din.
Devdas references Pakeezah more than once.
Black references The Miracle Worker.
Saawariya references Pyaasa, Awaara.
Guzaarish references Whose Life Is It Anyway?
Goliyon Ki Raasleela: Ram-Leela references Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story.
Bajirao Mastani references Mughal-E-Azam.
Padmaavat references Mirch Masala.
Gangubai Kathiawadi, let’s give him the benefit of doubt is all his own, original artistry.
The American filmmaker Jim Jarmusch once meta quoted the French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard when he said:
“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery — celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from — it’s where you take them to.”
SLB believes he takes art and betters it, removing the grubby coat of slime from the sublime, often not concerned with acknowledging the source. He is a master’s master, elevating it to an otherworldly experience, the creator of a mythoverse.
He asked me to rewrite a scene I didn’t agree with. He banged the script folders on the table like a petulant, little child. I watched his posture change into a frump. Tiger Shroff’s ‘Bacchi ho kya,’ dialogue comes to mind.
‘You are talking like those critics who find fault but don’t know how to write. They should write the film,’ he said.
That argument will never make sense to me but since I write movies now and not just about them, I rewrote the scene in half an hour and showed it to him. He found it rubbish.
I was not called to the writer’s room for a week.
His CEO said I should go to his house; hang around him, like the other assistants whose only purpose in life is to feed his ego. We are slaves to his vision, she said. She thought I was a better writer than the team he had assembled. ‘From whatever I read, only three lines of your work on social media, I could sense it,’ she said.
Either she was encouraging, or bluffing with a perfectly Zen face. From the hundreds of Ganesh idols stacked in her room, it was clear she wasn’t a reader. She was good at reading numbers, data, and stats. She would sense a sign if one of the metal idols sucked milk from a spoon on the day she enquired about box –office figures.
There was more than one right-wing hardliner in his office. Secular staff was invisible. A pretty minion in baby pink t-shirt, whose main grouse was that another minion called him a Barbie doll, said he was happy with the Modi government building roads in his home state Bihar. Another minion countered him by asking: What about the persecution of minorities by the same government? The pretty minion said he didn’t care for that. He was assisting ‘sir’ because he wanted to be an actor. Which lead me to wonder how many Muslim actors has this production worked with? Silly of me to think, right? Given that I myself don’t use my Muslim surname. I’ve now successfully planted a myth in your head. That’s how it works.
In the time that I was in Versova during my brief stint at Bhansali Productions, I met several people with their own SLB horror story. A producer said, ‘He is a difficult man but life changes for good after you work with him. Some people want to go through hell first. Life bann jaati hai.’ I didn’t understand why purgatory was necessary. Another former assistant said, ‘When you work with the worst (SLB) and the best (KJO), you are ready for the rest.’
A young woman gave him a thesis she wrote on his films. He asked her to write a book on her. She said she wanted to assist as a director. She never heard from him. A filmmaker said SLB was too friendly with another assistant, suggesting intimacy. A writer wasn’t given credit in a film.
Another writer was promised his script will be turned into a film but it never took off and now he feels his life has been ruined. A young filmmaker’s debut movie SLB produced was delayed, not promoted, and called ‘kachra’ to his face.
The young man said SLB is sexist, homophobe, classist, fat shamer, emotional abuser, and a body shamer. “He is a joyless pit of darkness where happiness goes to die. And those are the nicest words I can think of to describe him,” he said. Another filmmaker said a choreographer was in a relationship with SLB and wanted to marry him but he wouldn’t even touch her, a hotly discussed conversation amongst his minions.
Everything sounds hokum. A successful man is likely to upset a few. The few will talk. Their words may ring true through a gossamer veil of implausibility. Myths magnifying his persona.
There are too many myths about his personal life, aroused by his silence on the subject but all too obvious in his work. When people want to confirm with me, I am equally appalled at their lack of aesthetics. Like the great reader of curtains, Edgar Allan Poe, you only have to look at SLB’s use of billowy curtains in films to guess.
Hope you get the drift, or draft, hawa ka jhonka! By the way, am digressing now, is the weirdly named character Sameer Rosselline in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam the first mainstream Hindi film hero to pass wind? The ruffled curtains are first to be cautioned though.
Unlike most people willing to swallow their pride to work with SLB, few like the eponymous Gangubai character choose izzat. The house-help employed in my actor friend’s house was asked to work as a cook in his house. When she heard the whimsy, dessert-craving demands, she declined the offer. I identify with her no-nonsense style.
In November 2021, a filmmaker read a film script I wrote and said, ‘This is SLB territory. Only he can make it. It is the modern love-story he has been wanting to make for a long time.’
‘Are you sure?’ I asked, somewhat flattered but also bewildered.
‘Yes, we just have to change the setting from Calcutta-Bombay to Calcutta-New York. It is what he has been trying to crack. I’ll get him to read it.’
I never spoke to SLB about my script. I did not want to look like a schemer. I had only got a chance because of my mother’s story. I had come to write courtesan songs. Hindi films are recognised by their songs. His films have show tunes that live on long after the sequins and mirrors reflect a decadent style. He employs the old-fashioned method of making Hindi films, which is to stitch scenes around a song, not the other way round. And when you glean your references from the best of classical melodies, how can you falter?
My own SLB story is that after watching Saawariya in 2007, I wrote a few songs, moved to Bombay, lived in Versova, close to Magnum Opus, and hoped to meet him, but made no effort even though I came in close contact with people who worked directly with him. I never requested for a meeting. Over the years, I too had heard a few horror stories about him. I only believe in what I see. I waited when he would call for me, my work would have to speak for itself.
A day before Good Friday, his CEO sat me down and said it’s not working out.
There’s a mythical story of how Lata Mangeshkar was on her way to record a song for SLB but the heavens poured and she had to turn her car back. A typical SLB frame of hope and hopelessness.
Never work with your idols. You’ll have a better story to imagine and create myths.
I was so relieved to leave. I hadn’t got a moment to read, or write, let alone think since I got here. Why I wanted to work with SLB was to not believe in hearsay. I will either confirm or deny.
‘Great,’ I said, ‘everyone deserves an off on Good Friday.’
The office was unsure about public holidays. SLB’s mood dictated the calendar.
Before returning to Calcutta, I met a friend entrenched in the film business.
When she heard of the fiasco, she said, ‘I’ve heard he is very anal, is he?’
The vibrator jokes never stop.
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Context - Wiped out from Internet
In March, I got a chance to work with filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali right after he made Gangubai Kathiawadi, and Alia Bhatt, playing the titular character in the film, retweeted me.
The headline (in my head) was going to be, ‘The Boy From Kamathipura Goes To Bhansali Mandi.’
Then reality struck in April.
One of my closest friends Sweta called me from the Shivapuri National Park near Kathmandu and put me on speaker. Two other friends Mona and Ayush were listening to the WhatsApp call.
‘How’s it going with Bhansu?’ Sweta asked.
‘We are not working together anymore,’ I said.
‘Whaaaaaaaat?’ the three people shrieked, creating a wavy disturbance in audio frequency.
‘Whyyyyy?’ they cried, collectively anguished.
‘He said he is not feeling the vibes.’
‘What?’
‘Vibes,’ I said aloud, causing a seismic tremor in the audio frequency.
‘What vibes?’ Sweta jibed, ‘Maybe he can’t feel the vibrator.’
Laughter upped the vibes.
First, a little context on how I got that far. Check this, this, this & this.
So my tweets were going viral in February-March.
In the second week of March, a woman DM’d me saying she loves the tweets. I said thank you. She said she works at Bhansali Productions.
Whoopsie Daisy!
I asked if I could be a part of the production. She checked with SLB and team. He said he wants to meet now.
NOW!
How?
I was in Calcutta.
I called an actor friend in Bombay and told him about it.
“They will book your tickets and put you up in 5-star,” he said, “Like Hollywood.”
“This is Bhansaliwood,” I said, “Yahan dhanda hamesha manda hai.”
I flew (on my own expense) and met him.
I was ‘prepared’ by his team for the meeting with His High and Mightiness.
I was told:
Arre, then what do I say?
I sashayed in a brown kurta and white linen trousers. Please see Madhuri Dixit-Nene’s brown ghagra for aesthetic reference I used from my very limited wardrobe of the only kurta I had at the time. By the way, the chorus sings ‘Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje,’ aesthetically referencing you know what, right?
He was lunching with his minions (strictly calling them minions from his pov) when I arrived in his pristine white dining hall in a building called Magnum Opus. Where else should he reside, no? Both his house, and his office (where I was ‘prepared’ earlier) were tastefully done in creamy white.
It was, as I said to my friend later, like walking into a cumulus cloud, or like sitting on his favourite singer Lata Mangeshkar’s lap. Calm, serene and quite surreal. I was inside his snow globe. Violins from a Bach concerto (in my head) were replaced with say Madan Mohan’s doleful rendition of ‘Mai ri main ka se kahoon peedh apne jiya ki.’ (Side effect of writing this on Mother’s Day.)
I look for books when I enter a house for signs of intelligent life. There were lots of lamps and candelabras but where were the stacks of books they were perched on? The aesthetic was high on film set disposable kitsch. I stared into a cumulative void.
The minions were intensely debating Darjeeling momos. What’s that? I spent my childhood there. Never heard of this GI tag!
SLB relished his meal and said, “I want puranpoli today.”
Puranpoli appeared not out of thin air, but a house-help flipping wishes instantly on a griddle on the fifth floor. We were on the first floor. Although the puranpoli is shaped like a flying saucer, it doesn’t fly, perhaps burdened by the weight of excess ghee and crowd-pleasing expectation. It does, however, reach SLB’s plate at the speed of light.
‘Give him some,’ he asked a minion to serve me while I waited on the sofa.
‘I’ve had lunch, thank you,’ I said, trying to behave. The plate arrived. I took a mousy bite to exhibit my failing attempt to transform into a champion minion.
When he came to chat, he noticed the unfinished food and gently reminded me how there were days he went hungry. I should have rolled my eyes for my own lean days.
‘One should not waste food,’ he said.
‘I don’t,’ I said, ‘I was going to parcel it home in a doggy bag.’
Hearing the word doggy, his well-behaved dog came over to inspect me.
He observed me. I petted her perfunctorily. Am a cat person. Stereotypical writer stuff — allergic to undesired petting and attention.
‘So, what have you done?’ he asked, sitting on a sort of empire-style bergere chair. Full marks for faux-ornate.
‘A novel, some writing for a series,’ I said nervously, dismissively.
‘Anything I might have seen?’ he asked.
‘No, not worthwhile.’
‘Are you interested in direction also?’
‘No, am not delusional.’
A moment passed. I might have displayed an errant repartee.
‘I mean, I can only write, or am trying to,’ I said. L’esprit de l’escalier.
He gave me a spiel on writing, how screenplay is an art not many understand, etc, et cetera.
I nodded to make his voice disappear.
‘What are you writing now?’
I showed him the cover of my new book, The Last Courtesan, featuring my mother, on my phone.
‘Oh, this is so fascinating,’ he said.
He spoke rapturously about Calcutta’s great food and colonial architecture when I mentioned growing up in Bowbazar kothas. If you watch any of his interviews now on YouTube you will realise he only speaks in raptures. He’s always explaining things like an impassioned conductor at a dime-store opera. It can exhaust the boorish audience immediately. He spoke about living in the Kamathipura area as a child when I said I had lived there. The mythmaker was interested in exoticising his own legend as an ‘outsider’.
‘But how will you work here if your mother is in Calcutta?’ he said, ‘I am a maa-ka-bhakt.’
Everything is about him or his mother. I have reached that stage too, though only by circumstances unavoidable.
‘Actually it was my mother who asked me to come here. I told her it would only work out if you understand that I will have to vacillate between the two cities initially. Jaise Sanjay ki Leela hai, waise meri Rekha.’
Corny dialogue, but worked. No one calls him by his first name, except perhaps his own mother. He is sir for everyone.
‘If I am speaking to you for so long means I like you,’ he said. ‘Otherwise, I would have asked you to leave long ago.’
Barely five minutes into the conversation, he asked me to return to his office and inform his team that I was going to be a part of his writer’s room.
I went back to his office and read a script. This is the part I cannot mention. His legal team sits in the adjacent room.
I flew to Calcutta and was to return after a week. I had to make arrangements for my mother’s tri-weekly dialysis sessions at a nearby hospital, figure out a tiffin-delivery service for her, find a house help (she sent four nurses scurrying in the past), all of which is a bit of a task in this retrograde city.
Remember the woman who had DM’d me about my tweets? She messaged. She had met SLB after my meeting. He said this about me: ‘What a wonderful find. That boy has so much potential and is talented. Most importantly, he is sensitive.’
I told her I’d get this engraved on my tombstone.
Like how he wants to take Alia Bhatt’s golchakkar in Dholida to his grave.
“It’s a shot that I will take to my grave. If there’s any shot that I want to be played when I breathe my last, it would be Alia doing that shot. It is the best thing I have seen an actor do in a very long, long time.”
I was only emulating the high priest of hyperbole in my tombstone comment. Perhaps I was regressing into a minion.
I had only managed a few tasks for mother when I was back in Bombay. It worried me that the old, frail woman with shaky limbs and slurred speech was trying to be brave to send me to work. I hadn’t worked since the pandemic; she was in and out of hospitals so frequently that I had surrendered the thought of getting another job ever again. Taking care of her was my full-time job.
The first day in his office was to chill in my new, aesthetically pleasing kurta I had shopped for in Gariahat. There was a security camera in every corner that was apparently accessible on his phone. My skin tingled with this information. Chilled. He was at home. Probably watching. That’s a great way to create a myth.
The next day, there were more minions on the lunch table in his first floor apartment. The magically appearing steamy and fragrant sheera was delicious. A minion deemed it the best sheera in the city. I nodded to make that statement evaporate.
A courier boy interrupted for a document signature. SLB flared at a spelling mistake in the document papers.
‘Go wash your face and come back,’ he yelled at the young man.
The minions at the table laughed nervously. I so wished I was wearing a mask to cover my surprise emoji face.
The minions on the table were writers and assistant directors.
‘Dastavez,’ SLB said, ‘would that be correct to use?’
‘Kaaghzaat,’ the minion replied.
‘Kaaghzaat is paper, dastavez is document,’ said the second minion.
‘You always mislead me,’ SLB sternly reprimanded the first minion. ‘Don’t ever do that again.’
Only that minion tried to laugh, offering an apology. He shut the minion down.
My mask, my mask emoji face.
A third minion was sulking in a corner before I arrived for the writing session. This minion had reportedly offered a script suggestion, which he disliked and barked down. I liked this minion the most. Relatable.
A faint noise of a person running or perhaps just a rumbling sound from somewhere outside interrupted the room. He looked up at the ceiling and said, ‘No one lives there. Am certain it is a ghost. I hear running sounds all the time. I have heard sounds of furniture being dragged.’
I wondered if he actually believed in half the things he uttered, or was he just saying it to create enigma about himself. Mythical thoughts certainly kept him preoccupied.
Reality bored him. SLB had nothing good to say about the ‘current plague’ of South Indian films upsetting the Bollywood cartel. He compared them to a circus. He wasn’t kind to the actors he had worked with in his last film. He cracked lame jokes about everyone and everything. The minions laughed and kept him busy. I chuckled a few times to blend in. The mythmaker revelled in his prophesies about the impending doom of charlatans with no aesthetics: just crass, commercial peddlers pimping art. It was all said to amuse and bemuse while he fussed over the yellow shade of fabric from several swatches.
When he left for his music session, the minions bitched him out, and how! All the horror stories I had heard over the years about his moods, behaviour, language and violent temper were true. How else will he create myth about himself as a maestro? The Glomar response. Let the plebs indulge in hearsay. I will neither confirm nor deny. The minions sang effigy songs in happy tunes, if I may stretch this part a bit like his penchant for high camp.
That night, when I went to my actor friend’s house, where I was temporarily staying, I said to him, ‘I don’t think I will last a week there.’
I was rattled by how he spoke to the courier boy and the minions, with no filter. Well, at least it was clear he had no tact, endearing as that might be of a ‘genius’ if one compromises with his erratic behaviour. The CEO of his company does it beautifully and advises to develop a ‘thick hide’ around him. Cows, essentially.
Verve
The words genius, great, master, maverick, were so loosely bandied by his office staff even in his absence that I was tempted to add auteur, if they could spell or pronounce it. They worked in perpetual fear of him turning up at any hour and checking on their tidiness. A minion whined she wasn’t dressed appropriately for his surprise visit. Once, he even cut pay for unscheduled leave, said another minion. A minion narrated a shot he copied from a photographer in Gangubai Kathiawadi. Another minion recounted how he made her cry on shoot by screaming at her for a silly mistake. Minions couldn’t leave the office till his evenings were scheduled. It was a well-paying job so long as they did not have to see ‘chacha’s’ face and only applaud his cinematic sorcery.
His office team would assign me desk-work and warn me not to inform him about it.
‘What am I supposed to say if he asks?’
‘Make up something,’ I was told.
‘Why should I?’
‘You will slowly understand,’ I was told.
His team of assistants would sneak around me. I didn’t know who was reporting what back to him. He would interrogate the management team. They would lash out at me for informing the assistants. The management wanted to control me a certain way because ‘sir’ does not need to know everything. It was quite a guessing game. He had created an ecosystem of complete chaos and loved the hubbub. New people were hired for him to use the ‘new energy’ to rekindle the ‘old energy’ that needed to be reminded it could be snuffed out and replaced. He thrived on confusion because it all boiled down to him to sort out the mess. He was the provider so long as the minions ingratiated and served their grand master.
One time he called me upstairs, what his CEO called the god’s chamber aka the Shahenshah’s durbar: his office on the seventh floor. Walls were lined with giant posters of his films. We minions sat on the fifth floor. I was of course by now a week old in the toady mill. On the seventh floor, production team members, set designer, director assistant, young people sat on the floor, armed with notebooks and laptops, alert and sugar-tongued. He sat on a throne and dictated each one about their duty. A masseur massaged his leg. He asked me what I thought of a script. I said it was lovely. He asked me to elaborate. I said I liked a character’s resolve. He denied it was written. I said that’s my interpretation. A minion promptly backed me.
‘What changes do you suggest?’ he asked.
‘We should sit on it collectively and decide,’ I said.
He mumbled something. My suggestion was dismissed. I was dismissed. I bowed out. A minion whispered to me, ‘We all walk on eggshells around him.’ I had to be a chicken in a coop I suppose.
Another time he dismissed my suggestion for a scene saying, ‘That’s not how art is made.’ I had referenced a scene from Bandit Queen to illustrate my point. Just like his entire oeuvre is homage to a classic. How else does he make his art?
Allow me to illustrate with a frame from his first film Khamoshi: The Musical. The second image is from Pakeezah.
Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam references Red Beard, Woh 7 Din.
Devdas references Pakeezah more than once.
Black references The Miracle Worker.
Saawariya references Pyaasa, Awaara.
Guzaarish references Whose Life Is It Anyway?
Goliyon Ki Raasleela: Ram-Leela references Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story.
Bajirao Mastani references Mughal-E-Azam.
Padmaavat references Mirch Masala.
Gangubai Kathiawadi, let’s give him the benefit of doubt is all his own, original artistry.
The American filmmaker Jim Jarmusch once meta quoted the French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard when he said:
“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery — celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from — it’s where you take them to.”
SLB believes he takes art and betters it, removing the grubby coat of slime from the sublime, often not concerned with acknowledging the source. He is a master’s master, elevating it to an otherworldly experience, the creator of a mythoverse.
He asked me to rewrite a scene I didn’t agree with. He banged the script folders on the table like a petulant, little child. I watched his posture change into a frump. Tiger Shroff’s ‘Bacchi ho kya,’ dialogue comes to mind.
‘You are talking like those critics who find fault but don’t know how to write. They should write the film,’ he said.
That argument will never make sense to me but since I write movies now and not just about them, I rewrote the scene in half an hour and showed it to him. He found it rubbish.
I was not called to the writer’s room for a week.
His CEO said I should go to his house; hang around him, like the other assistants whose only purpose in life is to feed his ego. We are slaves to his vision, she said. She thought I was a better writer than the team he had assembled. ‘From whatever I read, only three lines of your work on social media, I could sense it,’ she said.
Either she was encouraging, or bluffing with a perfectly Zen face. From the hundreds of Ganesh idols stacked in her room, it was clear she wasn’t a reader. She was good at reading numbers, data, and stats. She would sense a sign if one of the metal idols sucked milk from a spoon on the day she enquired about box –office figures.
There was more than one right-wing hardliner in his office. Secular staff was invisible. A pretty minion in baby pink t-shirt, whose main grouse was that another minion called him a Barbie doll, said he was happy with the Modi government building roads in his home state Bihar. Another minion countered him by asking: What about the persecution of minorities by the same government? The pretty minion said he didn’t care for that. He was assisting ‘sir’ because he wanted to be an actor. Which lead me to wonder how many Muslim actors has this production worked with? Silly of me to think, right? Given that I myself don’t use my Muslim surname. I’ve now successfully planted a myth in your head. That’s how it works.
In the time that I was in Versova during my brief stint at Bhansali Productions, I met several people with their own SLB horror story. A producer said, ‘He is a difficult man but life changes for good after you work with him. Some people want to go through hell first. Life bann jaati hai.’ I didn’t understand why purgatory was necessary. Another former assistant said, ‘When you work with the worst (SLB) and the best (KJO), you are ready for the rest.’
A young woman gave him a thesis she wrote on his films. He asked her to write a book on her. She said she wanted to assist as a director. She never heard from him. A filmmaker said SLB was too friendly with another assistant, suggesting intimacy. A writer wasn’t given credit in a film.
Another writer was promised his script will be turned into a film but it never took off and now he feels his life has been ruined. A young filmmaker’s debut movie SLB produced was delayed, not promoted, and called ‘kachra’ to his face.
The young man said SLB is sexist, homophobe, classist, fat shamer, emotional abuser, and a body shamer. “He is a joyless pit of darkness where happiness goes to die. And those are the nicest words I can think of to describe him,” he said. Another filmmaker said a choreographer was in a relationship with SLB and wanted to marry him but he wouldn’t even touch her, a hotly discussed conversation amongst his minions.
Everything sounds hokum. A successful man is likely to upset a few. The few will talk. Their words may ring true through a gossamer veil of implausibility. Myths magnifying his persona.
There are too many myths about his personal life, aroused by his silence on the subject but all too obvious in his work. When people want to confirm with me, I am equally appalled at their lack of aesthetics. Like the great reader of curtains, Edgar Allan Poe, you only have to look at SLB’s use of billowy curtains in films to guess.
Above stanza, courtesy Poe, poem: The Raven.
Hope you get the drift, or draft, hawa ka jhonka! By the way, am digressing now, is the weirdly named character Sameer Rosselline in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam the first mainstream Hindi film hero to pass wind? The ruffled curtains are first to be cautioned though.
Unlike most people willing to swallow their pride to work with SLB, few like the eponymous Gangubai character choose izzat. The house-help employed in my actor friend’s house was asked to work as a cook in his house. When she heard the whimsy, dessert-craving demands, she declined the offer. I identify with her no-nonsense style.
In November 2021, a filmmaker read a film script I wrote and said, ‘This is SLB territory. Only he can make it. It is the modern love-story he has been wanting to make for a long time.’
‘Are you sure?’ I asked, somewhat flattered but also bewildered.
‘Yes, we just have to change the setting from Calcutta-Bombay to Calcutta-New York. It is what he has been trying to crack. I’ll get him to read it.’
I never spoke to SLB about my script. I did not want to look like a schemer. I had only got a chance because of my mother’s story. I had come to write courtesan songs. Hindi films are recognised by their songs. His films have show tunes that live on long after the sequins and mirrors reflect a decadent style. He employs the old-fashioned method of making Hindi films, which is to stitch scenes around a song, not the other way round. And when you glean your references from the best of classical melodies, how can you falter?
My own SLB story is that after watching Saawariya in 2007, I wrote a few songs, moved to Bombay, lived in Versova, close to Magnum Opus, and hoped to meet him, but made no effort even though I came in close contact with people who worked directly with him. I never requested for a meeting. Over the years, I too had heard a few horror stories about him. I only believe in what I see. I waited when he would call for me, my work would have to speak for itself.
A day before Good Friday, his CEO sat me down and said it’s not working out.
There’s a mythical story of how Lata Mangeshkar was on her way to record a song for SLB but the heavens poured and she had to turn her car back. A typical SLB frame of hope and hopelessness.
Never work with your idols. You’ll have a better story to imagine and create myths.
I was so relieved to leave. I hadn’t got a moment to read, or write, let alone think since I got here. Why I wanted to work with SLB was to not believe in hearsay. I will either confirm or deny.
‘Great,’ I said, ‘everyone deserves an off on Good Friday.’
The office was unsure about public holidays. SLB’s mood dictated the calendar.
Before returning to Calcutta, I met a friend entrenched in the film business.
When she heard of the fiasco, she said, ‘I’ve heard he is very anal, is he?’
The vibrator jokes never stop.
2024.05.21 23:45 WhatCanIMakeToday ComputerShare Confirms DSPP Details (Both in DTC and Beneficially Owned)
 | ComputerShare has generously updated their FAQ on holding registered shares and Paul Conn has generously answered some questions on video about DRS and DSPP shares. [1] submitted by WhatCanIMakeToday to Superstonk [link] [comments] Chain Of CustodyA chain of custody [Wikipedia] represents the documentation of ownership and/or control as an item may pass through various parties. Applied here to registered shares, a chain of custody can detail who owns a share and through whom, if applicable. As is generally well known on this subreddit, “street name” shares all have a chain of custody from Cede & Co through DTC to broker to a “street name” shareholder as the ultimate beneficial owner. Based on ComputerShare’s answer outlining the chain of custody and ownership for Pure DRS and DSPP shares, we can identify 3 separate categories of ownership with 3 different chains of custody as shown and described here with color coding:Illustrating Chain Of Custody For DRS & DSPP Shares per ComputerShare 1. DRS or Pure DRS shares (Purple) have no “chain of custody” as “investors hold the shares in their own name” with “no intermediary”. This is as clean and clear as you can get for ownership of property where investors have both title and possession (see below for more details on these terms). 2. DSPP Shares @ ComputerShare (Light Purple) For DSPP shares, there can be 2 different chains of custody for shares which I’ll denote as “DSPP @ CS” or “DSPP @ DTC”. The “DSPP @ CS” shares comprise 80%-90% of Plan shares which are “held on the register in the main class”. The chain of custody for this “DSPP @ CS” group of shares is “CPU Nominee” to Investor where CPU is shorthand for ComputerShare as their ticker symbol is CPU [Wikipedia]. ComputerShare’s nominee is Dingo & Co. For this group of 80-90% of DSPP shares, ComputerShare’s ledger identifies ComputerShare’s nominee. As ComputerShare (or their nominee) are the only intermediary, title and possession of these shares is clean and clear. 3. DSPP Shares @ DTC (Light Pink) For DSPP shares held via ComputerShare’s broker at DTC (denoted as “DSPP @ DTC”), the chain of custody is Cede & Co to ComputerShare’s broker to ComputerShare to Investor. For this group of 10-20% of DSPP shares, ComputerShare’s ledger identifies Cede & Co (who holds shares for the DTC which is a subsidiary of the DTCC). DSPP Shares @ DTC ARE Beneficially Owned By InvestorsWe can build upon that Overview diagram with more detailed information from ComputerShare who directly answers questions about DSPP shares held at DTC for Operational Efficiency and which, if any, shares may be beneficially owned.For the DSPP @ DTC shares, “Computershare holds the title for the benefit of the underlying plan participants” where shares are held with ComputerShare’s broker who has an account at the “DTC [who] holds shares on the register through Cede & Co”. (Red) ComputerShare also says a “portion of shares will be beneficially owned by the investors” referring to “any portion of the Plan shares in a brokerage account through DTC”, which corresponds to the DSPP@DTC category. (No other chain of custody meets that description and there are only two possibilities for Plan shares.) Thus, the DSPP@DTC shares are beneficially owned by investors. (From the previously available FAQ text, we also know that “[t]hese particular shares are maintained by [ComputerShare’s] broker (for the benefit of Computershare, and in turn, for the benefit of plan participants” so the line from Broker to ComputerShare is also labeled FBO designating “for the benefit of” for beneficial ownership [Wikipedia]. Detailed Illustration Of Chain Of Custody for DRS & DSPP Shares per ComputerShare To be abundantly clear regarding the “DSPP shares held at the DTC for Operational Efficiency” (denoted DSPP@DTC), “On the ledger, the title for this specific portion of the shares falls within the Cede & Co holding”. TADR: ComputerShare Has Confirmed
Title & PossessionTitle identifies who has rights to ownership and possession of property.https://preview.redd.it/6ja7ax0piu1d1.png?width=1732&format=png&auto=webp&s=d951547572ffa97cebdc72e025596c96961a41cd “Title is distinct from possession)” where “possession and title may each be transferred independently of the other.” [Wikipedia: Title (property))] The concept of separating title from possession for property (including securities) may not be well known or familiar to everyone and, I suspect, was a huge fundamental source of confusion. Title basically identifies who owns property while possession is who holds property. Here are a couple (hopefully) relatable examples to illustrate this concept to help clear up confusion: Example 1: Your Wife’s Boyfriend Driving Your Car Imagine your wife and her boyfriend are speeding down Lover’s Lane when they’re pulled over by a cop. The cop will ask for license and registration because those two documents identify who is in possession of the car (i.e. your wife’s boyfriend as the driver) and who is the registered owner with title to the car (i.e., you), respectively. Applying this to stocks, we can ask the “license & registration” question of every party in possession of GameStop stock to determine who has title and/or possession. Apes have title and possession of pure DRS shares. But for DSPP@DTC shares, title for shares begin at Cede & Co passing down to ComputerShare; while apes only have possession of beneficial rights to shares. (See, e.g., “On the ledger, the title for this specific portion of the shares falls within the Cede & Co holding”, “Computershare holds the title for the benefit of the underlying plan participants”, and “that portion of shares will be beneficially owned by the investors”. [Updated FAQ]) Example 2: Your Home Imagine you are renting your home. As a renter, you probably tell people the place is “yours” because you have possession by renting even though your landlord is the owner with title to “your” home. This is an example where we use the term “your” to refer to having possession without title. At the same time, if someone were to ask your landlord if the place you rent is theirs, your landlord would also say yes. Me to Your Landlord: Is that your place where the ape lives?In this case, the same term “your” refers to having title without possession. Which means that two different parties, you and your landlord, can simultaneously claim ownership of your home depending solely on having either title or possession; without needing both. Applying this to the various Chains of Custody shown above for GameStop, we can see how both Cede & Co and ComputerShare have title to DSPP@DTC shares (see, e.g., “On the ledger, the title for this specific portion of the shares falls within the Cede & Co holding” and “Computershare holds the title for the benefit of the underlying plan participants”). And for DSPP@CS shares, we can see how both Dingo and apes hold shares (i.e., possession; see, e.g., “Dingo holds assets but does not own any of them” and “all plan holders are treated as registered holders of the company”) with ownership by apes (see, e.g., “As a nominee, Dingo & Co has no interest in and no rights to the property it holds in its name on behalf of Computershare” and “While Dingo & Co holds plan shares on the registers of Computershare’s issuer clients, the owners are treated as the registered owners of the plan shares”). [Updated FAQ] DSPP in TWO PARTSBased on the above, we can visualize the aggregate DSPP “Plan” shares as divided into two parts: (a) 80-90% held by ComputerShare through their nominee, Dingo, and (b) 10-20% held in DTC; with the corresponding chain of custody.DSPP Holdings Are Split In Two Portions BUT BUT BUT… SEC email!A previous post summarized an email response from the SEC as “PLAN SHARES ARE OUT OF DTC” [SuperStonk]. Unfortunately, that was a mis-reading of the SEC email with a misleading post title. We can illustrate the SEC response with color coding as shown below (and with comparison to ComputerShare's disclosure):Slightly different words, but similar overall description The SEC clearly states that “the overall count of issuer plan shares includes” (orange) two parts (a) investor shares held at the transfer agent (light purple) and (b) non-investor shares (light pink); thus we can divide up a box representing issuer plan shares (orange) into two parts labeled investor shares (light purple) and non-investor shares (light pink). The investor shares portion is described by the email with two statements: “The investor’s shares are not held at DTC” and “investor shares held at the transfer agent”. We can annotate the investor shares portion with both of those statements. The non-investor shares portion is described by a single statement: “The non-investor shares are held by the transfer agent’s broker at DTC in order to facilitate settlement for plan sales that occur” which can be similarly annotated for the non-investor shares portion (light pink). Visualizing statements in the SEC email allows comparing the SEC’s description and ComputerShare’s description, where we see striking similarities for the description of Plan shares.
Part 2, the shares held at DTC, is described by the SEC as “non-investor shares” (where the prefix non- literally means “not” so literally "not investor shares"). Part 2 of the Plan shares is quite clearly described by ComputerShare and the SEC as held at DTC by ComputerShare’s broker; corroborated by the Chain of Custody above with the ledger identifying Cede & Co as holding these shares for DTC who holds shares for ComputerShare’s broker where Plan Participants are beneficial owners of these shares (per ComputerShare, above). The main difference between the two descriptions is that ComputerShare says they typically have 10-20% of Plan shares in DTC, which yields a split between 80-20 or 90-10, whereas the SEC provides no information on the proportion of the two portions (thus illustrated simply as 50/50). Hopefully, this settles the long-running debate once and for all. One last thing… BE NICEApes are not exactly making friends with Wall St and the securities industry; and most are not the kind of friends we would want anyway. ComputerShare works as a transfer agent for issuers like GameStop so ComputerShare is pretty much the closest thing we have to a friend in industry. Paul Conn pretty clearly doesn’t like how some are accusing them of wrongdoing.Transfer Agents, like ComputerShare, are in a fairly heavily regulated industry. There’s been no indication ComputerShare is breaking any regulations. If there’s a failure, check for gaps in the regulations first. Don’t hate the player, hate the game. And, instead of blaming transfer agents, the SEC has already directed responsibility to the DTCC and NSCC in the SEC GameStop Report. [SuperStonk DD see section “So… who’s bag holding?”] Not the transfer agent. Paul Conn and ComputerShare have provided time and resources engaging with and answering questions from the community. Be nice and don’t fling brown semi-solids until you’re 110% sure it’s deserved. (We must be better than Wall St.) To Paul Conn & ComputerShare, thank you for having answered our community questions. We appreciate the clarity provided especially given the position you’re in. s/WhatCanIMakeToday/ [1] All quotes and citations within (including the post and images) are to ComputerShare’s updated FAQ on holding registered shares (which are corroborated by Paul Conn’s Q&A video); unless otherwise noted. |
2024.05.21 23:31 Evening-Finance8540 Kwikset Lock
Hi Folks-
I purchased a Kwikset Convert smart lock from the xfinity store, but cannot get it hooked up to xfinity's home security system. The only smart locks that show up on the xfinity app are brand "August". How do you connect the Kwikset lock?
Thank you,
-J
submitted by Evening-Finance8540 to Comcast_Xfinity [link] [comments]
I purchased a Kwikset Convert smart lock from the xfinity store, but cannot get it hooked up to xfinity's home security system. The only smart locks that show up on the xfinity app are brand "August". How do you connect the Kwikset lock?
Thank you,
-J
2024.05.21 23:30 OkParticular440 If you were pulling the trigger on hardware tonight with a $250 budget
So I have went in circles for two weeks now on what to buy for hardware to start an OPNSENSE router, and I cant for the life of me make up my mind, so I am going to just give it one last go here.
I know things constantly change, so if you were to have a budget of $250 USD and live in the US and planned on buying hardware in the next 24 hours. What would you buy?
Here is my current layout:
ATT 2GB Fiber
I have 2 XT8 mesh routers, connected cat6e for backhaul.
1 trendnet POE switch running 4 outside POE cameras
About 64 random smart devices
3 random wireless security cameras
security system with sensors and locks
2 Home Offices.
I am horrible about making these decisions and obsess a little too much, so based on the best feedback here tonight, that's what I am going to end up doing.
submitted by OkParticular440 to opnsense [link] [comments]
I know things constantly change, so if you were to have a budget of $250 USD and live in the US and planned on buying hardware in the next 24 hours. What would you buy?
Here is my current layout:
ATT 2GB Fiber
I have 2 XT8 mesh routers, connected cat6e for backhaul.
1 trendnet POE switch running 4 outside POE cameras
About 64 random smart devices
3 random wireless security cameras
security system with sensors and locks
2 Home Offices.
I am horrible about making these decisions and obsess a little too much, so based on the best feedback here tonight, that's what I am going to end up doing.