Further Assimilations

– another in the Sidequest series: fiction fragments which may be expanded someday –

Alex Waverly stood over the crumpled shell of Featherton’s protector. The other four were dazed and wounded, but this one was dead. He couldn’t believe he’d watched her fall less than a meter away from him. The Doves couldn’t fall. It was impossible.

He grabbed the neck brooch from Wing Majesty’s immobile form. Her magically generated costume had faded to the sweatshirt and jeans she must have been wearing before transformation. The gem upon the brooch was as lifeless as its owner.

Alex clenched his fist around it. He knew he might be killed for what he was doing, but he wouldn’t let the Hate Beast do as it would with its fallen foe. Perhaps, just perhaps, he could trigger the Purification Beam in a final vengeance.

Everyone in Featherton knew the power phrase; they’d all heard it in a hundred television specials, limited movie events, and radio commercials. He held the brooch above his head and shouted it, knowing it was a futile, ridiculous act. “I Defend the Living Light!”

It served only to attract attention. Seven glowing eyes swung toward him, and the Hate Beast began to advance. Once more Alex shouted the phrase, and he might as well have been holding a plastic toy for all the good it did. The creature scuttled closer.

“I Defend the Living Light!” he screamed a third time, meaning it as he never imagined he could. A thrill shot through his body; he understood his life was over, but he had not gone down without a fight.

A strange sensation made him look up to see the Light Gem glowing brightly in his hand, sending a kind of painless burning through the nerve endings in his skin and shooting down his arm. He felt decidedly odd.

“Welcome, hatchling…” echoed a voice nearby. An image of Wing Majesty stood tall and proud beside him, no longer battered and wounded, and wearing the ornate blouse and cropped skirt of her Dove uniform. Her eyes were closed as in trance. “Only one fully committed to the Living Light may take the place of a fallen Dove. You, young lady, have shown your faith, and shall take my place as I replaced my predecessor. Kneel before me to receive your – “ She opened her eyes to look at him. “ – oh.”

Alex stared back at her. He couldn’t find words.

“Oh… oh!” She started to laugh, and laugh, and laugh. “Never in a thousand years has any Dove seen anything like this!”

“This – this isn’t funny!” he choked out.

Majesty’s laughter died down. “It is… and it isn’t. You are right that becoming a Dove is no matter for humor. Still… every Dove as far as our memories go has been a woman. Yet, you are utterly committed to the Living Light. Without it, you wouldn’t see me now.”

“What’s going on? Did I defeat the Hate Beast? Are the other Doves okay?”

“Do you wish to defeat it? Do you wish to save my sisters from a horrible demise?”

“Well… I mean… of course I do. The Light has kept us all safe, for uncounted generations. We all owe you so much.

“I believe in what you do. I have for as long as I can remember… I have always wished I could help, somehow.” From somewhere deep inside him, the words came almost without thought. “I swear with my life to defend the Living Light.”

She pierced him with her gaze. “You mean every word of that. You truly do.

“Very well. You shall be known as Wing Chrysalis. Arise, and take your place among the Doves!” Her stern expression slipped ever so briefly into a grin. “This should be interesting.”

The next thing he knew, Alex was back in the street. The Brooch of the Light felt warm in his hands, and the Hate Beast lay dead with a 15-centimeter hole burned clean through it. The other Doves were on their feet and rushing towards him.

“How did you… I saw you grab her brooch. You couldn’t have triggered a Purification!” Wing Scimitar shouted.

“Um… look at, er, him. I think maybe he could have,” said Wing Chalice.

“Oh, no,” sobbed Wing Scepter, looking down. “Majesty has passed beyond, hasn’t she…”

“And she passed it to some guy? Some random guy? Are you kidding me?” cried Wing Talisman.

Alex tried his best to follow their exclamations. “Would someone please tell me what has happened? And why do I feel so cold?”

The Doves looked at each other. Chalice nervously twisted a fold of her skirt and said, “Majesty’s brooch is yours now. You put a Purification Beam right through the face of the Hate Beast. You saved all four of us. You’re a Dove.”

Talisman had trouble meeting his eyes. “It seems so. You’ll need training, but you have the powers… the responsibilities… and the uniform.”

Alex looked down at the pair of hairless, shapely legs visible beneath the hem of his glowing, sparkling skirt… and at the fully developed chest filling his short-sleeved blouse… and fainted.

• 10:42 News is that the house contract is almost done and we can overnight it to the sellers in the next couple of days. Please let this all work. #
• 13:14 For the Interstella 5555 fans, a great Daily Costume pic of the Crescendolls: dailycostume.com/archive/greenabsence/ #

Sent subspace radio by LoudTwitter

There's a "25 Things About Me" meme going around Facebook. Rather than just re-post it here, I was inspired by John Scalzi's column to write "20 Memories of Sci-Fi Movies of My Youth". Agreed, it's not quite a catchy a title, but I can live with that.

1) The first SF movie I saw in the theaters was "Star Wars", when I was seven. I remember seeing the commercials and thinking, "Meh, might be okay." Yeah, underestimated that one a bit. I do not remember "Episode 4" atop the opening crawl. The John Williams soundtrack spent long hours in the following months accompanying my pretending to blast TIE fighters from a laser gun turret.

2) The next one I recall seeing in the theaters was "Starcrash". This would only have been a good movie had I been old enough to enjoy Caroline Munro's outfit. I can't remember too much about it now, which may be a good thing, but I'm tempted to find a copy and enjoy the badness from a whole new perspective.

3) "Close Encounters" confused and frightened me, especially the part where Richard Dreyfuss starts losing his sanity. I didn't understand the ending at that age, either. In fact, to this day, there's a lot of unexplained bits having to do with the aliens, which is just as well; I suspect that any explanation from Spielberg would have been far lamer than the mystery.

4) While we're on such movies, I was mildly traumatized by the laser surgery and 'cannibal' robot in "Logan's Run", and I didn't understand the whole "Carousel" thing at all. That's another movie which is probably unwise to watch before puberty, especially in a midnight showing in a darkened house.

5) "Star Trek: The Motion Picture": Wow, new Klingon ships. Whoa whoa, new Klingons! Triple whoa: I am in love with the new Enterprise model! Okay, excellent, what's going to happen for the next ninety minutes? Oh. Not much. I'm glad I never took it in to my head to get myself one of that movie's uniforms.

( Fifteen more behind the cut )

So, that's a snapshot of my first 20 years of SF movie watching, and I am already remembering a bunch I left out. Maybe I'll hit this meme again if I remember anything interesting about the next bunch.

• 11:13 Experiencing a blast from the past: I have Eve Tokimatsuri songs running through my head now. #
• 11:45 @snidegrrl "The spiders launched to the space station a supply of tasty fruit flies for food" - spiders with orbital capability? Uh-oh. #
• 12:07 Noting that the "post Twitter entries to LJ" script is doing so at wildly varying times of day for some reason. #

Sent subspace radio by LoudTwitter

It's been a heck of a week, and I haven't had much opportunity to post. Let's see if I can catch up a bit.

As of Wednesday evening, Starr and I began sleeping at the new house. This was slightly impeded by the fact that our bed hadn't been moved yet, and Starr's parents had returned for some of their stuff, so we had to share a twin bed in a guest bedroom. Note: no matter how cuddly the other person is, tucking two people into a twin bed gets old quickly.

I'm now getting up at 5:30 every morning to get out of the house by 6:30. My efficiency's improved, as it was taking me up to 90 minutes to get showered, dressed, and moving, but it means I have exactly enough coherence to drive safely and not a bit more. The commute's indeed an hour; thank goodness for podcasts.

Each day last week, I stopped by the apartment on the way home to grab some more stuff. Slowly, all the vital necessities of life have been put in place at the house, such as transforming Macross toys and Lensman paperbacks. By this weekend, I expect to have the silly stuff moved like cooking gear and clean underwear. (Okay, I *am* kidding about the underwear; that was high-priority.)

Starr's parents left on Friday - or was it Thursday? - but returned once more on Saturday for more stuff, and so we could take her little sister to Nekocon. We only stayed for a few hours Saturday afternoon and evening; I had no idea that the con was so HUGE. 3,000 people were claimed in one press release, and it sure looked like it. I could not believe the number and variety of hall costumes! (Of course, I forgot a camera.) Starr dressed as a loligoth, while her sister wore an InuYasha costume. Many pictures of them were taken, but I have seen none posted; me, I was grumpy that morning, and didn't wear a costume. By the end of the evening I regretted the decision, but oh well.

Tuesday, I had the day off, and I headed back over to the apartment to collect more stuff. Our downstairs neighbors are both military, and were also home; when they found out what I was up to, they instantly volunteered their two pickups, and pitched in on the packing. Thanks to them, we're about 70% done with the move, and should be able to finish this weekend; I had reason to appreciate our veterans even more that day! They were awesome folks.

We're switching the house from Verizon to Cox for our internet and phone, and were surprised to learn the the cable junction box is across the street. Shortly after we learned this, we learned that the underground line to our house is bad, and they'll have to bore a new conduit for us this week. The cable, phone, and Internet at the apartment was disabled on Wednesday, so communications have been impaired. Right now my cell phone and work Internet are my main connections to the world.

Midori has been introduced to Tigger and Precious, two cats we're inheriting from Starr's parents. They seem to be more amused than anything else by her hissing and posturing, and she seems to be slowly understanding the uselessness of making all the fuss. With any luck, they'll civilize her a bit.

This Saturday, I hope to have everything out of the apartment that isn't tucked in my office. Sunday, I'll pack all the little figures and toys and books and such I have on display in my office, and move that over, and at that point the actual move should be about done. We can then spend a week or so cleaning up the place nice before we hand over the keys.

Then... maybe... perhaps... a rest. I don't think that's an unreasonable reward!

The other day, I finally broke out my subtitled, un-cut copy of My Youth In Arcadia. I've owned the cut, dubbed release for a long time, to the point that I know the script pretty well, and I looked forward to seeing what had been removed from the original.

I only made it to the end of the World War II sequence, but I was still pretty surprised. While this version is clearly a slightly better translation, so far the only new material I've seen is the World War I-era prologue. Plot points that I'd assumed would be better explained in an uncut version remain murky.

Of course, this is a common condition with anime films, which have a habit of stringing together cool sequences with a minimum of narrative linkage, and letting the viewers fill in the gaps from their own imaginations. I'm not saying that it's an invalid technique - there are some American SF / Fantasy movies that would have been better had they explained less - but I was hoping for more.

Just found out that Anime Mid-Atlantic is being held right in my backyard next month.

Anyone on my Friends List planning to go? Not much fun going to a con unless I can hang with some cool people. Besides, I haven't been to an anime con in years and years - may need someone to show me the ropes!

It seems that actor Chris Pine is up for the part of Captain James Kirk in the upcoming Trek movie. Among other named participants are Zoe Saldana as Uhura, and Zachary Quinto as Spock. Looking pretty good, so far.

"You've wrecked my childhood!" is a phrase oft heard on the Internet, when the new remake of a favorite property comes along. Most recently, some Transformers fans screamed it to anyone who would listen. I can't help but think that these people show a disappointing level of perspective; who over the age of 20 hasn't picked up an old book, or the DVD of an old movie, and discovered that it just doesn't speak to them the way it did all those years ago?

I recently acquired the first season of "Battle of the Planets": an anime import about a team of bird-costumed super-ninjas in a rocket-jet fighting a high-tech criminal syndicate. It suffered from translation; the translators were forced to make massive cuts of violence and teenage-level plot points while adding in footage of a cute robot and space travel. Imagine that someone had told you that, for Freedonian broadcast, classic Trek had to be cut to 30 minutes per episode, never leave Earth's solar system, and ditch the pointy-ear guy.

I loved "Battle of the Planets" when I was 8. I made paper airplane versions of the hero's razor-edged jet boomerang, tinfoil helmets, and beach towel capes. Finally seeing it again all these years later was fun, but I couldn't help but admit that I was no longer able to appreciate it the way I once could, and that was okay. The upcoming live-action movie will probably be a tiny bit more mature; and I won't complain at all about all the things they got "wrong".

Or at least not very much.

Questions from rattrap ( have activated the cloaking device )

New phone now. At first, the RAZR wasn't performing any of the tricks I wanted it to, but I fiddled with it a bit, and now GMail works, and I've figured out a way to get my own ringtones onto it without buying ones from Sprint or purchasing a Bluetooth dongle for the Mac. (I might try to get the dongle anyway, since I can then do calendar synchronizing.)

I also found "One More Time", the first cut off Daft Punk's "Interstella 5555 (The 5tory Of The 5ecret 5tar 5ystem)" on YouTube. I'm still deciding whether I like the music (think it's a yes), but the video was throwing me some serious late 80's flashback with its Leiji Matsumoto-y goodness. Gonna have to try to see the whole thing, now.

Speaking of anime, rattrap gave a good review to Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles, which I had just recently heard about on the RDF Underground podcast. The podcasters agree with him that the character designs for the ladies are a bit mammary-focused, but I guess they were shooting for what they felt was an authentic modern anime look. Still, it's supposed to hold up well, and I'll be adding it to my collection when I can swing the cash, even if (like The Sentinels) it uses Alphas instead of Valkyries.