I decided to do something different. Since I never get around to reviewing all the books I read like I wanted to my fiance suggested I try my hand at "vlogging." So here we go. Please be kind. Rewind. :p
Showing posts with label recap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recap. Show all posts
Friday, April 29, 2011
Sunday, May 2, 2010
The Last Vampire Returns!!!!!
For those of you out there like me who had an unhealthy obsession with Christopher Pike may remember a little story he wrote about a special girl called The Last Vampire. For those of you unfamiliar with the work of Pike let me give you a little recap.
Once upon a time a little aryan girl named Sita was born in rural India around 3000BC.
Her father and some evil priests raised an evil spirit into the body of a dead infant, thus creating the first vampire, Yaksha. But the fun's only just beginning!
He grows up and is the toast of the village, being all sexy with pretty blue eyes, but has those pretty eyes set on Sita. He creates a following of vampires and forces her to become one against her will, threatening her with killing her husband and child.
Around this time Krishna's on the loose spreading messages of peace and love and Yaksha decides it would be fun to challenge him. He loses and Krishna makes him promise to destroy all the vampires he created and he'll let him die with his grace. On the other hand he tells Sita that as long as she doesn't make another vampire he will give her his grace, thus putting Yaksha and Sita against each other. That crazy Krishna. Always playing games.
Yaksha and Sita wind up going their separate ways (that was an awesome song by Journey, by the way), neither knowing what Krishna told the other.
So anyways, 5000 years later Sita by a wacky set of circumstances she finds herself a high school student in Oregon. She has to get close to a certain handsome classmate to find out more about his dad who she killed when he tried to blackmail her. His name is Ray and he's whiny and annoying and I don't really understand what she sees in him, not when the clever and funny Seymour is around. Imagine Winston Egbert, only sexier and with HIV. She cures him with her magic blood and he is forever grateful. She also hooks up with Ray.
Yaksha tracks her down. After 5000 years he's tired of living and wants to die, but he wants to kill her first, so he makes Ray fall out a window so Sita will break her vow not to make another vampire. She does and Ray is an even more whiny and annoying vampire. She tricks Yaksha into making him think all three of them with perish together by blowing up her house but she and Ray design pop up chairs that make them go flying through the roof.
After that a psycho named Eddie who works at a morgue and likes to make girls suck popsicles on their knees while he's naked wearing his high school letter jacket. To this day I wonder if popsicle was a euphanism for penis. He makes himself a vampire and drinks his mother's blood along with a bunch of people in LA. the murders attract Sita's attention and she and Ray go to LA to investigate. She finds Yaksha in an ice cream truck and finishes him off, drinking him dry, which gives her all sorts of magical powers. Ray dies in an explosion with Eddie and Sita is rescued by an acquainted FBI agent named Joel. The FBI take her and Joel into custody to Area 51.
She escapes and starts fooling around with one of the scientists who works there who actually is an old blast from he past named Arturo, who thought she possessed the blood of Christ back in the dark ages and liked to play around with it using alchemy. He made himself a psuedo-vamp, where he still needs to drink blood but has been aging slowly over the last 800 years and now looks like a middle aged man. He takes her back to area 51 where she sets off another nuclear explosion, but she's able to turn herself into vapor and floats out of it.
Then she uses Arturo's magic alchemic crystals she turns herself back into a human!
After that she meets Ray again, who apparently survived the atomic blast. Then it turns out she's pregnant!
She convinces herself the baby's Ray's and it grows at an abnormally fast rate. While pregnant, though, she meets a woman who's name I cannot remember, but who's pregnant by immaculate conception. The baby's a bloodthirsty monster named Kalika whom Sita has to kill people to get enough blood for, including a some poor kid with a heart condition. Kalika grows up very fast and is a woman before the end of the book. And Ray's actually a Phantom Sita created because she was lonely.
After that Sita goes on a quest to kill her daughter because she thinks she's evil based on a bunch of tampered phophecies and that she wants to kill her friends daughter, who is the next incarnation of Christ. Seymour got mortally wounded some time around here and she made him a vampire. He solved the issue of his virginity and ditched the glasses. Seymour, I would've loved you. Kalika gets killed by an evil snaky guy and Sita discovers she was trying to protect the baby all along.
Things die down in wackiville and Sita is approached by a spaceship full of humanoid aliens.
Yes, aliens. At least if my memory from twelve years ago when I read the books serves me correct. Anyways, they want her to go back in time and kill a bad Italian guy who's castrated. She does and accomplishes her mission but on the way back she plays with time to go back to when Yaksha was being raised in a rotting carcus of a baby and stabs him so he can never hurt anybody again, and she can live the life she originally wanted, with her husband and child, leaving to Seymour to die of Aids never knowing the pleasures of a woman. The end?
Not for long! I have just discovered that following the rereleased versions with pretty new covers--albeing Sita has green eyes on them when her eyes are blue. They're fucking BLUE!!! But I can learn to ignore the little things.--Pike is coming out with a new Last Vampire tale.
Thirst #3: The Eternal Dawn. there's no summery yet but one can imagine. When the Tales of Terror came out Pike stated in one of the little author's notes that Sita was writing her own stories, her early days. So it could perhaps be tales of her adventures over her 5000 year long life. Or maybe the aliens erased her killing Yaksha so she'd have to come back to the present because there was unfinished business with the God Baby. Who knows? But it's coming out in October and I for one am excited. ^_^ Hopefully it will be better than the godawful sequel to The Vampire Diaries that came out last year.
Once upon a time a little aryan girl named Sita was born in rural India around 3000BC.
Her father and some evil priests raised an evil spirit into the body of a dead infant, thus creating the first vampire, Yaksha. But the fun's only just beginning!
He grows up and is the toast of the village, being all sexy with pretty blue eyes, but has those pretty eyes set on Sita. He creates a following of vampires and forces her to become one against her will, threatening her with killing her husband and child.
Around this time Krishna's on the loose spreading messages of peace and love and Yaksha decides it would be fun to challenge him. He loses and Krishna makes him promise to destroy all the vampires he created and he'll let him die with his grace. On the other hand he tells Sita that as long as she doesn't make another vampire he will give her his grace, thus putting Yaksha and Sita against each other. That crazy Krishna. Always playing games.
Yaksha and Sita wind up going their separate ways (that was an awesome song by Journey, by the way), neither knowing what Krishna told the other.
So anyways, 5000 years later Sita by a wacky set of circumstances she finds herself a high school student in Oregon. She has to get close to a certain handsome classmate to find out more about his dad who she killed when he tried to blackmail her. His name is Ray and he's whiny and annoying and I don't really understand what she sees in him, not when the clever and funny Seymour is around. Imagine Winston Egbert, only sexier and with HIV. She cures him with her magic blood and he is forever grateful. She also hooks up with Ray.
Yaksha tracks her down. After 5000 years he's tired of living and wants to die, but he wants to kill her first, so he makes Ray fall out a window so Sita will break her vow not to make another vampire. She does and Ray is an even more whiny and annoying vampire. She tricks Yaksha into making him think all three of them with perish together by blowing up her house but she and Ray design pop up chairs that make them go flying through the roof.
After that a psycho named Eddie who works at a morgue and likes to make girls suck popsicles on their knees while he's naked wearing his high school letter jacket. To this day I wonder if popsicle was a euphanism for penis. He makes himself a vampire and drinks his mother's blood along with a bunch of people in LA. the murders attract Sita's attention and she and Ray go to LA to investigate. She finds Yaksha in an ice cream truck and finishes him off, drinking him dry, which gives her all sorts of magical powers. Ray dies in an explosion with Eddie and Sita is rescued by an acquainted FBI agent named Joel. The FBI take her and Joel into custody to Area 51.
She escapes and starts fooling around with one of the scientists who works there who actually is an old blast from he past named Arturo, who thought she possessed the blood of Christ back in the dark ages and liked to play around with it using alchemy. He made himself a psuedo-vamp, where he still needs to drink blood but has been aging slowly over the last 800 years and now looks like a middle aged man. He takes her back to area 51 where she sets off another nuclear explosion, but she's able to turn herself into vapor and floats out of it.
Then she uses Arturo's magic alchemic crystals she turns herself back into a human!
After that she meets Ray again, who apparently survived the atomic blast. Then it turns out she's pregnant!
She convinces herself the baby's Ray's and it grows at an abnormally fast rate. While pregnant, though, she meets a woman who's name I cannot remember, but who's pregnant by immaculate conception. The baby's a bloodthirsty monster named Kalika whom Sita has to kill people to get enough blood for, including a some poor kid with a heart condition. Kalika grows up very fast and is a woman before the end of the book. And Ray's actually a Phantom Sita created because she was lonely.
After that Sita goes on a quest to kill her daughter because she thinks she's evil based on a bunch of tampered phophecies and that she wants to kill her friends daughter, who is the next incarnation of Christ. Seymour got mortally wounded some time around here and she made him a vampire. He solved the issue of his virginity and ditched the glasses. Seymour, I would've loved you. Kalika gets killed by an evil snaky guy and Sita discovers she was trying to protect the baby all along.
Things die down in wackiville and Sita is approached by a spaceship full of humanoid aliens.
Yes, aliens. At least if my memory from twelve years ago when I read the books serves me correct. Anyways, they want her to go back in time and kill a bad Italian guy who's castrated. She does and accomplishes her mission but on the way back she plays with time to go back to when Yaksha was being raised in a rotting carcus of a baby and stabs him so he can never hurt anybody again, and she can live the life she originally wanted, with her husband and child, leaving to Seymour to die of Aids never knowing the pleasures of a woman. The end?
Not for long! I have just discovered that following the rereleased versions with pretty new covers--albeing Sita has green eyes on them when her eyes are blue. They're fucking BLUE!!! But I can learn to ignore the little things.--Pike is coming out with a new Last Vampire tale.
Thirst #3: The Eternal Dawn. there's no summery yet but one can imagine. When the Tales of Terror came out Pike stated in one of the little author's notes that Sita was writing her own stories, her early days. So it could perhaps be tales of her adventures over her 5000 year long life. Or maybe the aliens erased her killing Yaksha so she'd have to come back to the present because there was unfinished business with the God Baby. Who knows? But it's coming out in October and I for one am excited. ^_^ Hopefully it will be better than the godawful sequel to The Vampire Diaries that came out last year.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
The Maxx, Episode 2
Last post I mentioned that this is a six episode series. That was both right and wrong. It's actually 13 episodes, but when it aired on MTV it aired in six episodes with five half hour segments containing two episodes each, and the final episode being an hour long with a recap of eps 1-10 and then eps 11-13.
But anyways, onto episode two. It begins with Maxx educating us about some of the creatures of the Outback.
The Outback Slug: "It can leap nearly a quarter mile straight into the air, but it has never mastered the ability to land. It has no predators. It is just...stupid."
The Great Northern Crabbit: "It can land and jump. But it has a natural enemy. The izs."
The Izs: "It can jump and land and has no predators. Unless you count...ME! "
And Maxx crushes it with his fist, killing the creatures.
Back in the city we have a voice on a radio informing us that Mr. Gone has thusfar killed 12 people and the cops are baffled. Maxx and Julie are walking back from the police station, Julie lost in her thoughts. She's thinking about Maxx. How he doens't have any idea what's really going on and justifies getting into trouble with the law with the excuse that in another world he was protecting the Jungle Queen. She thinks it's sort of good that at least in his dreams he's a hero. Overall she's pretty cynical. She thinks the city's full of people who are experts at avoiding reality. That no one really wants to know what's going on out there. The best thing is to not think about it and move on (very important facet of Julie's character).
When they get back to her apartment Maxx falls asleep on the couch and has another dream of the Outback. He quickly wakes up and Julie tells him it's almost night, he needs to go. She got him a coat and hat though. Maxx is more interested in toast.
Meanwhile in a dirty laundromat elsewhere, a girl named Glorie is doing her laundry with her boyfriend Tommy who is touching her ass. She's playing with a large butcher knife her father gave her for protection. She dresses like a ho so she'll probably need it. Tommy slips his hand down her panties and she tells him to lay off and get them some cokes. He goes and immediately after he leaves Mr. Gone appears and his evil cap seems to stretch to cover all the machines in the vicinity as if it has a life of it's own.
Mr. Gone starts going on about how he can feel the beating of her heart and calls her a "small, delicious slug." Ew. He then sends out his evil minions to maim her.
Vicious little buggers. All goes dark and we next see Tommy coming down the walk gathering up the courage to tell Glorie they're going steady. He sees her body and faints.
Back at Casa Julie Maxx feels bad that the woman he was trying to protect got hurt. She tells him it's not his responsibity to try to save women who can't take care of themselves. As he leaves Julie's phone rings and it's Mr. Gone telling her "The others cry out for you, Julie Winters. Their screams of agony are the kisses I place along your neck." She's had the line tapped and asks him to go on. He's aware of it and tells her so, saying he's having a servant place this call. Outside as Maxx is walking by we see a little nasty blue Isz using a payphone while holding a wireless one (old cell phone?) beside it.
The Iz notices him, smiles, and runs for it. Maxx realizes it's a dark Iz and isn't sure what's it's doing there. The Iz goes through a narrow alley and Maxx runs around and catches him a trash can. He opens it up to deal with it and sees it's gone, it bit through the steel of the bin. He finds it climbing a drain pipe an chases it all over the city, ending up at a gas station where it leaps to it's splattering death. Maxx is greeted by Mr. Gone, who we really get to see for the first time.
Wouldn't want to roll over and see that thing in the morning. Maxx asks him who he is and he's very surprised Maxx doesn't remember and mentions that he normally hates killing amnesiacs. Maxx sees the Izs and remembers everything about the Outback, and now knows it's real. Mr. Gone confirms this and tells him it's too bad he'll be eaten before he'll have a chance to mutter it to anyone and we end with the evil little creatures giggling maliciously (or whatever it is they do).
But anyways, onto episode two. It begins with Maxx educating us about some of the creatures of the Outback.
The Outback Slug: "It can leap nearly a quarter mile straight into the air, but it has never mastered the ability to land. It has no predators. It is just...stupid."
The Great Northern Crabbit: "It can land and jump. But it has a natural enemy. The izs."
The Izs: "It can jump and land and has no predators. Unless you count...ME! "And Maxx crushes it with his fist, killing the creatures.
Back in the city we have a voice on a radio informing us that Mr. Gone has thusfar killed 12 people and the cops are baffled. Maxx and Julie are walking back from the police station, Julie lost in her thoughts. She's thinking about Maxx. How he doens't have any idea what's really going on and justifies getting into trouble with the law with the excuse that in another world he was protecting the Jungle Queen. She thinks it's sort of good that at least in his dreams he's a hero. Overall she's pretty cynical. She thinks the city's full of people who are experts at avoiding reality. That no one really wants to know what's going on out there. The best thing is to not think about it and move on (very important facet of Julie's character).
When they get back to her apartment Maxx falls asleep on the couch and has another dream of the Outback. He quickly wakes up and Julie tells him it's almost night, he needs to go. She got him a coat and hat though. Maxx is more interested in toast.
Meanwhile in a dirty laundromat elsewhere, a girl named Glorie is doing her laundry with her boyfriend Tommy who is touching her ass. She's playing with a large butcher knife her father gave her for protection. She dresses like a ho so she'll probably need it. Tommy slips his hand down her panties and she tells him to lay off and get them some cokes. He goes and immediately after he leaves Mr. Gone appears and his evil cap seems to stretch to cover all the machines in the vicinity as if it has a life of it's own.
Mr. Gone starts going on about how he can feel the beating of her heart and calls her a "small, delicious slug." Ew. He then sends out his evil minions to maim her.
Vicious little buggers. All goes dark and we next see Tommy coming down the walk gathering up the courage to tell Glorie they're going steady. He sees her body and faints.
Back at Casa Julie Maxx feels bad that the woman he was trying to protect got hurt. She tells him it's not his responsibity to try to save women who can't take care of themselves. As he leaves Julie's phone rings and it's Mr. Gone telling her "The others cry out for you, Julie Winters. Their screams of agony are the kisses I place along your neck." She's had the line tapped and asks him to go on. He's aware of it and tells her so, saying he's having a servant place this call. Outside as Maxx is walking by we see a little nasty blue Isz using a payphone while holding a wireless one (old cell phone?) beside it.
The Iz notices him, smiles, and runs for it. Maxx realizes it's a dark Iz and isn't sure what's it's doing there. The Iz goes through a narrow alley and Maxx runs around and catches him a trash can. He opens it up to deal with it and sees it's gone, it bit through the steel of the bin. He finds it climbing a drain pipe an chases it all over the city, ending up at a gas station where it leaps to it's splattering death. Maxx is greeted by Mr. Gone, who we really get to see for the first time.
Wouldn't want to roll over and see that thing in the morning. Maxx asks him who he is and he's very surprised Maxx doesn't remember and mentions that he normally hates killing amnesiacs. Maxx sees the Izs and remembers everything about the Outback, and now knows it's real. Mr. Gone confirms this and tells him it's too bad he'll be eaten before he'll have a chance to mutter it to anyone and we end with the evil little creatures giggling maliciously (or whatever it is they do).
Thursday, November 5, 2009
The Maxx, Episode 1
Way back in the good old days when MTV didn't suck and a small ten-year-old girl watched it as though it would answer all the secrets of the universe, there came along a cartoon called The Maxx, about a purple clad super hero who was homeless and got arrested all the time, all the while shifting between this world and a parellel dimension of his social worker's creation. Confused? Yeah, there was some fucked up shit going on in this cartoon. But I drank it in. I recorded every episode and watched it every weekend to the point that even NOW, I know the whole damn six-episode series by heart. Though I still have my tape my VCR stopped working some time ago so I haven't actually seen it in years. So imagine my delight in a vain attempt to find it on DVD I discovered that MTV put online. So many ideas for my stories came from this series, the characters from Jimmy Dearest were pure plagerism. It had such a tremendous effect on my writing and I can see it's effects even now. As soon as I saw the opening my mind screamed MUST.RECAP.THIS.NOW. How could you not love a show that opens with this:
Most of us inhabit at least two worlds. The real world, where we're at the mercy of circumstance. And the world within. The unconscious. A safe place. The Maxx shifts between these worlds against his will. Here, homeless, he lives in a box in an alley. The only one who really cares for him is Julie Winters, a freelance social worker. But in Pangea, the other world, he rules the Outback and is the protector of Julie, his Jungle Queen. There he cares for her. But he always ends up back in the real world. And me, old Mr. Gone, only I can see that the secret which unites them could destroy them. I could be helpful. Ah, screw it. I think I'll have some fun with them first. Mwahahahahahah!
Yeah. That was from memory. *the shame, the shame* So yes, I lift from obscurity a childhood obsession for others to enjoy: The Maxx.
So Maxx is a big guy who wears a purple suit and a mask and lives in a box. He has amnesia and has no idea who he really is. The show starts with an ass hole cab driver Renny dropping off a woman on her way to the theatre on the bad side of town where two of his lackey's, Fridge and Tigo can jump her. Maxx tries to save her and ends up killing Tigo, but the body falls out of site as does the woman. The Maxx is arrested for messing with Fridge and as the cops lead him away the serial killer that's been terrorizing the city attacks the woman. I love irony.
As Maxx is being driven to the station the cops complain about cleaning up his mess and how it must be great being nuts. Maxx has a habit of talking out loud and they tell him to shut up. He gets a headache and blacks out, waking up in the world called the Outback (aka Australia; aka Pangaea). How you can tell the difference is in the Outback he has a mane of gorgeous blond hair rivalling that of Zechs Marquise. Well, not quite. Creepy little white hands errupt from the ground and pull him under. The Outback isn't the Australia we know, it's more like a primordial land with volcanos, giant caveman, weird dinosaure-esque creatures, flying wales, my favoriet--the crabbits (which are exactly what they sound like, half crab, half rabbit) and the Izs. The Outback is ruled by the Jungle/Leopard Queen, who is always as scantilly clad as her real world counterpart and runs with a leopard. Maxx declares he can be a hero for her and rips free of the clinging arms (also ripping the arms from the bodies they belong to).
We flash to Julie Winters, who is a freelance social worker (does such a job truly exist?) She asks a homeless client the standard questions (like who's the president right now?) and he says she looks like a hooker. She classily throws him out of her apartment. She gets a creepy call after he leaves.
"I did it all for you, Julie. The pain. The sex. It was all for you."
She hangs up on him. Julie is a heroin with common sense. Gasp! The phone rings again and she calls the caller filth and turns out it's the cops on the phone, wanting her to pick up her old pal Maxx. She agrees and as she leaves mutters saracastically that if it weren't for the corruption and violence, the city wouldn't be any fun at all. As she walks through the rain to the police station she reflects on the fact that Maxx is always getting arrested for something different, and that he really seems to think he's a super hero. When she arrives Sargeant O'Conno tells her she should be careful, that women send out certain signals that attract men like Gone (the serial rapist and murderer going around the city) and that with the way she dresses isn't she worried about sending out the wrong kind of signals. Her response is to ring out her soaking wet hair all over his paperwork. I love Julie.
She tells Maxx it's getting harder to get him out of there and he claims it was his mask that did it. They leave, her promising to get him new clothes and hot bathe. As they walk off we see a radio playing and cloaked figure stomps on it, maliciously evil dark creatures giggling menacingly. God I love this show.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Fear Street: The Surprise Party
Tony: My life sucks. I'm poor, my dad's an alcoholic, and my best friend died last year. But I had nothing to do with it. I swear.
Shannon: Shut up. I'm gorgeous.
Lisa: Hey guys! You'll never guess what I just heard. Ellen's coming to visit! Nevermind the fact that I hardly knew her, but I'm super excited!
Meg: Let's throw her a party! A surprise party.
DUN DUN DUN!
----
Meg: Look at the cool invitations I got for the party.
Shannon: I don't think we should have a party.
Meg: But why?
Shannon: Oh, I don't know. My brother's dead and her parents decided to move her out of town. It just seems fishy somehow.
Meg: But why? Oh no! Someone cut up my invitations! Now I'm definitely going to have this party no matter what!
----
Tony: I've been getting threatening phone calls. I don't think you should have the party.
Meg: But being in danger gets me all hot.
Tony: You're a freak! I'm breaking up with you!
Meg: Surprisingly I'm really not that upset considering we've been together two years.
----
Dwayne: Hey Shannon, wanna get freaky with me.
Shannon: Eww.
Dwayne: She will be mine one day. I swear it.
----
Meg: (Calls Ellen) Hi Ellen.
Ellen: Hi Meg. Long time no see. Sooo....
Meg: Sooo....
Ellen: You and Tony still together?
Meg: Um...yeah?
Ellen: Lucky you. Bye.
----
Meg: (gets red paint put in her lunchbag. It looks like BLOOOOOOD) I'm still having this party.
Meg: (almost gets run over) I am sooooooo having this party.
----
Shannon: My cousin Mike who looks just like Evan is coming to visit in time for the party.
Meg: How convenient!
----
Brian: I'm Meg's weird cousin and I like to play Dungeons and Drag--I mean, Wizards and Dragons in the Fear Street woods. And one day I'm going to be a fourth level wizard and rule the world! Mwahahahah!
Tony: Sounds like a plan. I'll join you.
Brian: (shifty eyes)
----
Tony's Drunk Dad: Tony's missing. He went with Brian to play that weird game.
Meg: Oh no! I must go after them!
----
Evil Voice: Don't have the party for Ellen. (Pushes Meg down a ravine)
Meg: Oh I'm going to have this party, Mr. The best party you've ever seen.
Tony: Meg, you shouldn't have the party.
Meg's Dad: Get's your greasy hands off my daughter.
----
Dwayne: I'm so glad Evan's dead. Now he won't stand between mine and Shannon's true love.
Tony: DUDE! Not cool. Evan was my best friend!
Dwayne: Pussy.
----
Meg: You look like shit.
Brian: I'm a wizard. And I'm going to bring Evan back from the otherside.
Meg: Eh, this is Shadyside. Anything is possible I guess. But I think I'll be leaving.
----
Meg: Hey Ellen.
Ellen: Hey.
Shannon: So...
Meg: Remember that game we used to play, Eeek a Mouse!
Ellen: Yeah....
Shannon: This isn't awkward at all.
----
Meg: I talked to Brian.
Tony: You did. Let's go talk about it alone at the cliff. Where I can kill you without being seen.
Meg: What was that?
Tony: I mean, let me hold you until I smother you, or shoot you. Or...just forget it and come to the cliff with me.
Meg: Okey-Dokey!
----
Everyone: SURPRISE!!!!
Ellen: Oh dear God no.
Brian: I've become a fourth level wizard and with my newly acquired power I've brought Evan back from the dead.
Mike: Yo. I'm Evan.
Tony: You're not Evan! He's dead! I killed him.
DUN DUN DUN!!!!
Everyone: (STARES)
Tony: Oh shit.
(Everything goes dark. Tony gets shot. And Ellen and Meg are taken hostage by Dwayne)
Meg: Why did you take us hostage?
Dwayne: Because I killed Evan.
Meg: That makes zero sense whatsoever. What really happened that day?
Ellen: Tony and I were screwing around behind yours and Evan's backs. Sorry. Evan found out and went off into the woods with a hunting rifle. Me and Tony went after him. They fought for the gun. It went off. Evan died. Brian saw it happen too. Tony made us swear to never tell anyone.
Dwayne: Mwahahahahahah! Evan wasn't dead. He just hit his head. So I went and took the gun and shot him.
Ellen: You bastard!
Meg: But why?
Dwayne: Because I want to have sex with his hot leggy redheaded sister.
Meg: That's your motive? Seriously? You couldn't just rape her like all the other psychos out there like you.
Dwayne: There's no rape in Shadyside. Only murder.
Ellen: You suck as a villain.
Meg: Now we have to get out of this mess. Hey, Ellen, remember that game, Eek a Mouse.
Ellen: What does that have to do with our current hostage situation?
Meg: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek!!!!!!!!!!!!! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dwayne: Stop it. You're scaring me.
Ellen: Oh, I get it. Eeeeeeeeeeeeek!!!!!!! Eeeeeeeeeeeeek! Eeeeeek Eeeeek!!
Dwayne: Ahhhhhh! (Gets hit in head with frying pan. Cops come and take him away).
----
Tony: (Gets dragged off to mental instution) I killed my best friend.
Mike: Hey, you're pretty cute.
Meg: (Smiles as ex-boyfriend gets dragged away) So are you.
Shannon: My brother's still dead.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Feaar Street: The New Girl, or, Dead Cats in Lockers ar A-OK and You Should Never Report them to the Authorities
Fear Street was such a huge staple of my childhood and reading through my crappy old novels has sparked the desire to reread one of my most beloved book series. And maybe fulfill my lifelong dream of creating a Fear Street Timeline. Woohoo!
I don't plan on recapping all of them, just a choice few and maybe throw in some Bratz Doll Theatre for the really good ones. But I did do a summery of The New Girl about a year and a half ago before I stumbled upon any Fear Street blogs so I'll start with that.
Ah, Fear Street. This brings back memories. Now these are the books that made me want to be a writer. I lived and breathed Fear Street for two years. These books were about ghost stories and murder, exactly what every ten year girl can’t get enough of, right? Well this one couldn’t at any rate. But more than that what really hooked me on these books was the story of the Fear family. How this evil followed them for over two hundred years, and went on to consume the street the Fears lived on, Fear Street, and anyone who dared to tread.
The first one I ever read was Cheerleaders: The Third Evil. That book not only got me hooked on the series, but on reading in general, and most of all, the important murder device of pushing people off of cliffs that appeared in nearly every one of my earliest stories. t would seem appropriate to start with that one as it remains my favorite to this day, but I will start instead with the very first Fear Street book ever published, The New Girl.
Notice how R.L. Stine’s name isn’t taking up half the cover. Second edition, baby.
I’ve never particularly liked this book but this has always been my favorite cover. The reason: because it’s the only one where you get a glimpse of what Fear Street actually looks like, filled with dilapidated old Victorian houses.
The book opens with a little passage about Fear Street.
Are you sure you want to turn down Fear Street?
The most horrifying things seem to happen to those who live on Fear Street.
The town of Shadyside is nice enough. And the students at Shadyside High seem to be an average group of kids.
So why does everyone tell such stories about Fear Street…?
About unspeakable terrors, troubled cries in the night, twisted nightmares…
About people who venture into the Fear Street woods and are never seen again…
About strange cries late at night from the old Simon Fear mansion--a house that’s been deserted for fifty years…
About lost teenagers, mysterious fires, brutal crimes, unsolved mysteries…
About normal people--people just like you--who turn down Fear Street…and are never quite normal again!
Go ahead. Take a walk down Fear Street. Those stories couldn’t be true. No way. There couldn’t be that much terror awaiting you in one narrow, old street--could there?
Our book opens with a someone thinking over how easy it was to kill her sister Anna. Sure, she expected to feel guilty, but she never expected it to be so easy. A real psychopath, this one. Anyway, the prologue ends with her screaming “Anna’s dead, Mom!” Oh noes!
Then our book really begins. With our main character, Cory Brooks. Cory’s a gymnast and he’s testing his skills in the cafeteria by standing on one hand and balancing his lunch tray in the other. Why didn’t people do this when I was in high school? He catches glimpse of this absolutely gorgeous girl on the other side of the caf and literally falls for her (corny but begged to be done), losing his balance and collapsing on the floor, causing the tray of spaghetti to come crashing down on his head. His friends who are also on the gymnastics team, Arnie and David, laugh and make fun of him. He leaves the lunchroom covered in spaghetti and runs into his old friend and token girl-next-door, Lisa Blume. They both live in North Hills, the ritzier side of town. Fear Street is for white trash, by the way. She makes fun of him and gives him one of her extra shirts to wear and he washes his hair in the water fountain. It becomes quite evident to the reader that Lisa wants more than friendship from him. While in the hall he sees his mystery babe again, but she disappears inside a classroom.
Cory looks for her for three days with no luck. And he sucks when he goes to gymnastics practice. He keeps having semi-erotic dreams about her. Okay, maybe semi-erotic is a but of a stretch. He and Lisa walk home together, his thoughts on the pretty blond, and Lisa leans against him trying to get the courage to ask him out. And at the same time she asks him what he’s doing that weekend and he asks her if she’s seen the pretty new girl. Lisa drops about a thousand hints that she likes him and he asks her again if she’s seen the pretty new girl. Lisa knows her as Anna Corwin, and she’s very annoyed that Cory seems to like her.
Cory’s all excited and about to piss himself because Anna’s a real person and not a figment of his warped imagination and pesters Lisa about her. Lisa knows nothing but that she transferred from Melrose and moved onto Fear Street. Cory thinks Fear Street is creepy and there are a bunch of little tales about why Cory would think such a thing. When they get to their houses Lisa tries once again to ask him out but he cuts her off and goes into his house dreaming about the audacious Anna.
Cory calls information and gets Anna’s phone number and address. He even talks to a real person! Even when I was ten information was completely automated! Cory debates whether or not he should call her for over a page and finally decides to do so. The person who answers tells him there’s no Anna there and hangs up.
The next day at school Cory finally runs into Anna herself and makes conversation with her. He tells her she’s new and that she lives on Fear Street and says he called her house but they said there’s no Anna there. Stalker! She quickly runs into the classroom. Even if she wasn’t a crazy psycho I think she’d do the same thing.
They have a gymnast meet against Mattawan. Anna comes to watch and Cory screws up royally. He spends Saturday night obsessing about Anna. He goes over to Lisa’s and wants to talk to her about Anna. Lisa calls him a creep and tells him to go home. Cory calls Anna’s house again and gets a woman. He asks for Anna and she gets terse. In the background he hears a girl screaming “It’s for me!” and the woman tells him to just leave them alone. How he torments this poor family.
Cory’s creeped out, finding it all too mysterious, and decides to pay Anna a little visit at her house on Fear Street. While he’s driving over there he listens to the radio, where they’re playing a 24-hour marathon of Beatles music in alphabetical order. WTF?
He pulls up to foggy Fear Street thinking about a childhood trauma in the Fear Street woods and make himself go up to Anna’s house. A man comes up behind him, making him piss his pants (not literally) and asks if he needs any help. Cory says he was looking for the Corwins and the weirdo tells him they’re strange people. I think he’s a peeping tom. They’ve only been living there for a couple weeks.
He gets away from the creepy old man and knocks on the door. A young man answers, and when he asks for Anna the man tells him angrily that Anna’s dead.
Cory’s a little uneased by the whole thing (understandable) and spends Monday looking for Anna. He asks Lisa if she’s seen her and Lisa tells her she’s absent today and asks what his problem is. He pulls her aside and tells her the strange tale of going to her house. The have an almost-argument and he gets the idea of pulling her file in the office where he works after school on Mondays. His job is to use the ditto machine. What the hell is a ditto machine??? Is it a copier? Is that what they called them back in 1989? He got the brilliant idea of looking through the student records for Anna’s. While digging through them he nearly gets caught and dives under the desk just in time. He goes back to the files, and find there are no Corwins.
Cory goes to the school basketball game with his friends and spends the whole evening thinking about creepy ghosty Anna. He winds up telling them about Anna not having a file. His friend David brilliantly suggests that her file might not have been sent from her old school yet. He goes home and is awakened in the middle of the night by a mysterious phone call telling him to stay away from Anna. She’s dead and he’ll be dead next. Oh noes!
Cory tries to go back to sleep but is interrupted by yet another phone call. It’s Anna! Goody for Cory. She says she needs him to help her and asks him to come. She’ll meet him just past her house. He steals his dad’s car and goes, thinking about more chilling tales of Fear Street lore, and parks on the street. Anna climbs into his car, making his shit his pants (well, maybe). He asks what’s wrong? Can he help her? He can’t stop thinking about her. She says she’s been thinking about him, too. He finally comes down to it and tells her he needs to know if she’s even real. She says she’s real, and kisses him to prove it. She kisses him really hard and needy like. Eventually she goes to leave. He asks her why she called him and she tells him it was to see if he would come.
Cory continues to question her about the guy that keeps saying she’s dead. She tells him it’s her brother Brad. He’s not only crazy, he’s dangerous! Oooooh! She runs out of the car before Cory can force anything else out of her.
He wakes up late the next morning, which is the day he has a gymnastics meet. He thinks about what happened last night after Anna left. He’d run after her and the creepy old man’s dog attacked him. His name is Voltaire, by the way. The dog. Awesome name. He does horribly at the meet. Lisa goes to comfort him and tells him all about the previous night when she went over her cousin’s. Her cousin had a friend over who was from Melrose (coincidently where Anna’s from! Oh me oh my where is this going!). She tells him Anna had been in this girls class, but that she had died. There were all kinds of rumors. She’d fallen down the basement steps and died instantly. Cory won’t believe it so Lisa tells him to ditch the rest of the meet and go with her to the library and they’d investigate it. They find it on microfilm. A blurry picture of Anna with the caption , Melrose Sophomore dies in accident.
That night Cory has disturbing nightmares about Anna. The phone rings waking him up. It’s Anna, she wants him to meet her in front of the burnt out old shell of Simon Fear’s mansion.
He follows her call and waits in his car in front of the mansion, thinking all kinds of creepy paranoid things. Cory finally goes to the house where he encounters the evil Brad. Brad grabs him by the coat screaming that Anna is dead and to leave him alone. He lets Cory go after scaring the crap out of him.
He acts like a zombie in school and Lisa tries to cheer him up. She reminds him about the dance on Saturday and asks if he would want to go with her. Lisa’s not too bright. She knows he’s completely hung up on Anna and still wants to date him. He tells her he’ll go and then Anna comes up to them and Lisa introduces herself. They talk for a minute and Lisa bounces off to class. Anna reminds Cory about Friday in the Car and tells him he’s hers. She runs off.
That afternoon Cory goes with Lisa to her locker, but there’s blood everywhere! Somebody had killed a cat, slitting open it’s stomach in her locker. Ew. Oh, and attached to the cat is an endearing note claiming she’s dead, too. And instead of, you know, REPORTING this to anyone, they clean it out themselves, Lisa suggesting Anna did it because she’s jealous about the dance. You know, if anyone had found a dead cat in their locker at my high school, there probably would’ve been a lockdown and some serious questioning. I know this was published back in 1989, but STILL!!!
Cory catches up with Anna afterwards and tells her what happened. Judging from her reaction he’s sure she didn’t do it. He then confronts her about her creepy brother Brad. She gets all hysterical and he tries to calm her down by kissing her. She shoves him away and tells her to stay away, her brother’s there.
After school his parents make a big to-do about Cory’s date with Lisa and he feels weird. His parents leave to go to Lisa’s to play her parents. He’s trying to do homework when his friend David calls him and tries to get him to talk about him and Anna. Cory gets mad and they hang up on each other. Cory goes over to the Blume’s to see how Lisa’s doing (I’m guessing she didn’t tell her parents about the cat). He notices her laugh is sexy and then tells her about Anna and reads the paper (why does she like him again?). She then gets a threatening call telling her she’s dead, too.
They go to the dance together and Lisa keeps insisting that it was Anna that made the call and put the cat in the locker. Lisa tells him Anna’s a good actress and has him fooled. Give the girl a prize! They get in an argument about it and Lisa storms off. Minutes later Cory hears her scream. Cory finds her at the bottom of a flight of stairs. She was pushed! Oh noes! From her description of her assailant Cory figures out it was Brad. They search the building and get locked in a classroom. Cory uses his super spiderman skills to climb out the window onto the roof and shimmy down a tree then goes back to unlock the door for Lisa.
Cory goes to Anna’s to confront Brad. No one’s there but the creepy neighbor.
Cory waits for Anna by her locker at school. He makes her go get pizza with him and tell him EVERYTHING! Oooh! Anna’s father ditched them, her mother’s not well. Brad had a girlfriend, Emily, who died in a plane crash, and he never got over her death. The drama! She tells him about her older sister Willa who was the true beauty of the family. Brad started confusing Willa for Emily and saying she was dead. Then Willa died. She fell down the basement stairs. They moved, hoping to snap Brad out of his stupor but it didn’t help. Now he’s getting overly protective of Anna and saying she’s dead.
Brad appears at the pizza place and Anna takes off, terrified.
Later Cory calls Anna and Brad picks up telling him again that Anna’s dead. Cory goes to Anna’s. He goes into the house. Anna’s screaming that Cory’s come to see her. Brad tells him to get out of there. Cory and Brad get into a fight and Cory finally renders Brad unconscious. Cory wants to call the police (Cory’s thinking! Go Cory!) but Anna just wants to celebrate. She gets a dagger and says it’ll take care of Brad. He tries to stop her but she won’t let him. He holds her back. Brad comes to and Cory warns him to stay away. Brad tells him he tried to warn him, that he wanted to keep Cory safe from her.
Brad tells him the Whole Story. She’s really Willa and Anna was her older sister. She pushed Anna down the stairs. Because their mother is ill and couldn’t handle losing both her daughters Brad didn’t pursue it, he thought she would get better once they moved. But found out she was dressing like Anna and calling herself Anna at school once Cory came around. And she’s been making all the threats to his friend. That he did push Lisa at the school but it was a mistake, he thought she was Anna. He tells Cory to call the police.
Cory tells Lisa the whole story and tells her she should pick his girlfriends for him. She says maybe she should and kisses him. The End. I wonder what happened to Willa.
I don't plan on recapping all of them, just a choice few and maybe throw in some Bratz Doll Theatre for the really good ones. But I did do a summery of The New Girl about a year and a half ago before I stumbled upon any Fear Street blogs so I'll start with that.
Ah, Fear Street. This brings back memories. Now these are the books that made me want to be a writer. I lived and breathed Fear Street for two years. These books were about ghost stories and murder, exactly what every ten year girl can’t get enough of, right? Well this one couldn’t at any rate. But more than that what really hooked me on these books was the story of the Fear family. How this evil followed them for over two hundred years, and went on to consume the street the Fears lived on, Fear Street, and anyone who dared to tread.
The first one I ever read was Cheerleaders: The Third Evil. That book not only got me hooked on the series, but on reading in general, and most of all, the important murder device of pushing people off of cliffs that appeared in nearly every one of my earliest stories. t would seem appropriate to start with that one as it remains my favorite to this day, but I will start instead with the very first Fear Street book ever published, The New Girl.
Notice how R.L. Stine’s name isn’t taking up half the cover. Second edition, baby.
I’ve never particularly liked this book but this has always been my favorite cover. The reason: because it’s the only one where you get a glimpse of what Fear Street actually looks like, filled with dilapidated old Victorian houses.
The book opens with a little passage about Fear Street.
Are you sure you want to turn down Fear Street?
The most horrifying things seem to happen to those who live on Fear Street.
The town of Shadyside is nice enough. And the students at Shadyside High seem to be an average group of kids.
So why does everyone tell such stories about Fear Street…?
About unspeakable terrors, troubled cries in the night, twisted nightmares…
About people who venture into the Fear Street woods and are never seen again…
About strange cries late at night from the old Simon Fear mansion--a house that’s been deserted for fifty years…
About lost teenagers, mysterious fires, brutal crimes, unsolved mysteries…
About normal people--people just like you--who turn down Fear Street…and are never quite normal again!
Go ahead. Take a walk down Fear Street. Those stories couldn’t be true. No way. There couldn’t be that much terror awaiting you in one narrow, old street--could there?
Our book opens with a someone thinking over how easy it was to kill her sister Anna. Sure, she expected to feel guilty, but she never expected it to be so easy. A real psychopath, this one. Anyway, the prologue ends with her screaming “Anna’s dead, Mom!” Oh noes!
Then our book really begins. With our main character, Cory Brooks. Cory’s a gymnast and he’s testing his skills in the cafeteria by standing on one hand and balancing his lunch tray in the other. Why didn’t people do this when I was in high school? He catches glimpse of this absolutely gorgeous girl on the other side of the caf and literally falls for her (corny but begged to be done), losing his balance and collapsing on the floor, causing the tray of spaghetti to come crashing down on his head. His friends who are also on the gymnastics team, Arnie and David, laugh and make fun of him. He leaves the lunchroom covered in spaghetti and runs into his old friend and token girl-next-door, Lisa Blume. They both live in North Hills, the ritzier side of town. Fear Street is for white trash, by the way. She makes fun of him and gives him one of her extra shirts to wear and he washes his hair in the water fountain. It becomes quite evident to the reader that Lisa wants more than friendship from him. While in the hall he sees his mystery babe again, but she disappears inside a classroom.
Cory looks for her for three days with no luck. And he sucks when he goes to gymnastics practice. He keeps having semi-erotic dreams about her. Okay, maybe semi-erotic is a but of a stretch. He and Lisa walk home together, his thoughts on the pretty blond, and Lisa leans against him trying to get the courage to ask him out. And at the same time she asks him what he’s doing that weekend and he asks her if she’s seen the pretty new girl. Lisa drops about a thousand hints that she likes him and he asks her again if she’s seen the pretty new girl. Lisa knows her as Anna Corwin, and she’s very annoyed that Cory seems to like her.
Cory’s all excited and about to piss himself because Anna’s a real person and not a figment of his warped imagination and pesters Lisa about her. Lisa knows nothing but that she transferred from Melrose and moved onto Fear Street. Cory thinks Fear Street is creepy and there are a bunch of little tales about why Cory would think such a thing. When they get to their houses Lisa tries once again to ask him out but he cuts her off and goes into his house dreaming about the audacious Anna.
Cory calls information and gets Anna’s phone number and address. He even talks to a real person! Even when I was ten information was completely automated! Cory debates whether or not he should call her for over a page and finally decides to do so. The person who answers tells him there’s no Anna there and hangs up.
The next day at school Cory finally runs into Anna herself and makes conversation with her. He tells her she’s new and that she lives on Fear Street and says he called her house but they said there’s no Anna there. Stalker! She quickly runs into the classroom. Even if she wasn’t a crazy psycho I think she’d do the same thing.
They have a gymnast meet against Mattawan. Anna comes to watch and Cory screws up royally. He spends Saturday night obsessing about Anna. He goes over to Lisa’s and wants to talk to her about Anna. Lisa calls him a creep and tells him to go home. Cory calls Anna’s house again and gets a woman. He asks for Anna and she gets terse. In the background he hears a girl screaming “It’s for me!” and the woman tells him to just leave them alone. How he torments this poor family.
Cory’s creeped out, finding it all too mysterious, and decides to pay Anna a little visit at her house on Fear Street. While he’s driving over there he listens to the radio, where they’re playing a 24-hour marathon of Beatles music in alphabetical order. WTF?
He pulls up to foggy Fear Street thinking about a childhood trauma in the Fear Street woods and make himself go up to Anna’s house. A man comes up behind him, making him piss his pants (not literally) and asks if he needs any help. Cory says he was looking for the Corwins and the weirdo tells him they’re strange people. I think he’s a peeping tom. They’ve only been living there for a couple weeks.
He gets away from the creepy old man and knocks on the door. A young man answers, and when he asks for Anna the man tells him angrily that Anna’s dead.
Cory’s a little uneased by the whole thing (understandable) and spends Monday looking for Anna. He asks Lisa if she’s seen her and Lisa tells her she’s absent today and asks what his problem is. He pulls her aside and tells her the strange tale of going to her house. The have an almost-argument and he gets the idea of pulling her file in the office where he works after school on Mondays. His job is to use the ditto machine. What the hell is a ditto machine??? Is it a copier? Is that what they called them back in 1989? He got the brilliant idea of looking through the student records for Anna’s. While digging through them he nearly gets caught and dives under the desk just in time. He goes back to the files, and find there are no Corwins.
Cory goes to the school basketball game with his friends and spends the whole evening thinking about creepy ghosty Anna. He winds up telling them about Anna not having a file. His friend David brilliantly suggests that her file might not have been sent from her old school yet. He goes home and is awakened in the middle of the night by a mysterious phone call telling him to stay away from Anna. She’s dead and he’ll be dead next. Oh noes!
Cory tries to go back to sleep but is interrupted by yet another phone call. It’s Anna! Goody for Cory. She says she needs him to help her and asks him to come. She’ll meet him just past her house. He steals his dad’s car and goes, thinking about more chilling tales of Fear Street lore, and parks on the street. Anna climbs into his car, making his shit his pants (well, maybe). He asks what’s wrong? Can he help her? He can’t stop thinking about her. She says she’s been thinking about him, too. He finally comes down to it and tells her he needs to know if she’s even real. She says she’s real, and kisses him to prove it. She kisses him really hard and needy like. Eventually she goes to leave. He asks her why she called him and she tells him it was to see if he would come.
Cory continues to question her about the guy that keeps saying she’s dead. She tells him it’s her brother Brad. He’s not only crazy, he’s dangerous! Oooooh! She runs out of the car before Cory can force anything else out of her.
He wakes up late the next morning, which is the day he has a gymnastics meet. He thinks about what happened last night after Anna left. He’d run after her and the creepy old man’s dog attacked him. His name is Voltaire, by the way. The dog. Awesome name. He does horribly at the meet. Lisa goes to comfort him and tells him all about the previous night when she went over her cousin’s. Her cousin had a friend over who was from Melrose (coincidently where Anna’s from! Oh me oh my where is this going!). She tells him Anna had been in this girls class, but that she had died. There were all kinds of rumors. She’d fallen down the basement steps and died instantly. Cory won’t believe it so Lisa tells him to ditch the rest of the meet and go with her to the library and they’d investigate it. They find it on microfilm. A blurry picture of Anna with the caption , Melrose Sophomore dies in accident.
That night Cory has disturbing nightmares about Anna. The phone rings waking him up. It’s Anna, she wants him to meet her in front of the burnt out old shell of Simon Fear’s mansion.
He follows her call and waits in his car in front of the mansion, thinking all kinds of creepy paranoid things. Cory finally goes to the house where he encounters the evil Brad. Brad grabs him by the coat screaming that Anna is dead and to leave him alone. He lets Cory go after scaring the crap out of him.
He acts like a zombie in school and Lisa tries to cheer him up. She reminds him about the dance on Saturday and asks if he would want to go with her. Lisa’s not too bright. She knows he’s completely hung up on Anna and still wants to date him. He tells her he’ll go and then Anna comes up to them and Lisa introduces herself. They talk for a minute and Lisa bounces off to class. Anna reminds Cory about Friday in the Car and tells him he’s hers. She runs off.
That afternoon Cory goes with Lisa to her locker, but there’s blood everywhere! Somebody had killed a cat, slitting open it’s stomach in her locker. Ew. Oh, and attached to the cat is an endearing note claiming she’s dead, too. And instead of, you know, REPORTING this to anyone, they clean it out themselves, Lisa suggesting Anna did it because she’s jealous about the dance. You know, if anyone had found a dead cat in their locker at my high school, there probably would’ve been a lockdown and some serious questioning. I know this was published back in 1989, but STILL!!!
Cory catches up with Anna afterwards and tells her what happened. Judging from her reaction he’s sure she didn’t do it. He then confronts her about her creepy brother Brad. She gets all hysterical and he tries to calm her down by kissing her. She shoves him away and tells her to stay away, her brother’s there.
After school his parents make a big to-do about Cory’s date with Lisa and he feels weird. His parents leave to go to Lisa’s to play her parents. He’s trying to do homework when his friend David calls him and tries to get him to talk about him and Anna. Cory gets mad and they hang up on each other. Cory goes over to the Blume’s to see how Lisa’s doing (I’m guessing she didn’t tell her parents about the cat). He notices her laugh is sexy and then tells her about Anna and reads the paper (why does she like him again?). She then gets a threatening call telling her she’s dead, too.
They go to the dance together and Lisa keeps insisting that it was Anna that made the call and put the cat in the locker. Lisa tells him Anna’s a good actress and has him fooled. Give the girl a prize! They get in an argument about it and Lisa storms off. Minutes later Cory hears her scream. Cory finds her at the bottom of a flight of stairs. She was pushed! Oh noes! From her description of her assailant Cory figures out it was Brad. They search the building and get locked in a classroom. Cory uses his super spiderman skills to climb out the window onto the roof and shimmy down a tree then goes back to unlock the door for Lisa.
Cory goes to Anna’s to confront Brad. No one’s there but the creepy neighbor.
Cory waits for Anna by her locker at school. He makes her go get pizza with him and tell him EVERYTHING! Oooh! Anna’s father ditched them, her mother’s not well. Brad had a girlfriend, Emily, who died in a plane crash, and he never got over her death. The drama! She tells him about her older sister Willa who was the true beauty of the family. Brad started confusing Willa for Emily and saying she was dead. Then Willa died. She fell down the basement stairs. They moved, hoping to snap Brad out of his stupor but it didn’t help. Now he’s getting overly protective of Anna and saying she’s dead.
Brad appears at the pizza place and Anna takes off, terrified.
Later Cory calls Anna and Brad picks up telling him again that Anna’s dead. Cory goes to Anna’s. He goes into the house. Anna’s screaming that Cory’s come to see her. Brad tells him to get out of there. Cory and Brad get into a fight and Cory finally renders Brad unconscious. Cory wants to call the police (Cory’s thinking! Go Cory!) but Anna just wants to celebrate. She gets a dagger and says it’ll take care of Brad. He tries to stop her but she won’t let him. He holds her back. Brad comes to and Cory warns him to stay away. Brad tells him he tried to warn him, that he wanted to keep Cory safe from her.
Brad tells him the Whole Story. She’s really Willa and Anna was her older sister. She pushed Anna down the stairs. Because their mother is ill and couldn’t handle losing both her daughters Brad didn’t pursue it, he thought she would get better once they moved. But found out she was dressing like Anna and calling herself Anna at school once Cory came around. And she’s been making all the threats to his friend. That he did push Lisa at the school but it was a mistake, he thought she was Anna. He tells Cory to call the police.
Cory tells Lisa the whole story and tells her she should pick his girlfriends for him. She says maybe she should and kisses him. The End. I wonder what happened to Willa.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood ~ Episode 1
I was at the store yesterday and some guy came up to me and complimented my worn and ragged Fullmetal Alchemist purse I've been carrying around for four years. He also asked me if I'd seen the new series. New series? What? I've been out of the anime loop way too long.
Yes. A new series. Supposedly a little darker and follows the manga more closely. I had a slight hesitation towards watching it. The original series is one of my favorite animes ever. Yeah, it doesn't follow the manga and the ending was kind of weird, but I loved it. I still think it's one of the best animes out there. So it's with a slight hesitation that I watch the new one.
The character designs are pretty much the same. Ed was prettied up from the manga for the first series, he's not as prettied up here, looking more like manga Ed. The only thing I really don't like is all the characters hair has outlines that are a darker shade of the haircolor. I hate that style. I like my anime hair to have black outlines, Dammit! It reminds me of the old cartoon dollz of yesteryear who's bodies and clothes had black outlines but the hair did not.
Ugly, right? Anywho...It starts off with some dude named Isaac MacDougal creating chaos all over Central. I'm not remembering this from the manga. But lucky for the fuhrer Mustang and Ed are there to try to thwart his evil plans. Ole Ike is the Freezing Alchemist and apparently did the same dirty deeds in Ishbal with Mustang and Armstrong. Ed fights MacDougal and MacDougal pulls a Scar on him and tries to boil all the water in his arm, which the audience is supposed to be surprised to find out is automail and that Ed can transmute without a transmutation circle. I feel like shouting I know! I know! This has been done already! But then, this is a new series, so everything has to be reintroduced to us and I need to shut my mouth.
MacDougal mistakes Al for the Fullmetal Alchemist and makes the double mistake of calling Ed short, which sends him intoa hissy fit. They catch the criminal and one of the guards also mistakes Al for Fullmetal. Ed goes off by himself to fix his jacket that got torn with alchemy. I alsways wondered how when his jacket got ripped so many times he was in the scene with it in tact. One mystery solved.
As they're leading the prisoner away he steps into a puddle and uses his steam powers to knock out all the guards and get away. Mustang berrates Ed for letting him get away, telling him he should've listened to the breifing and explains who Isaac the Freezer is. Isaac got the shittiest nickname. Mustang asks in a teasing way if Ed's found any leads on how to get his body back to normal and in comes Hughes.
Yay! I love Hughes! It's so nice to see him alive. I wonder how far into it he'll die... I watched the original first season when it aired on Cartoon Network before it went to crap (Cartoon Network, not FMA, though some might say otherwise) and I kept myself far far away from any spoilers and totally didn't see his death coming. The funeral made me cry. *sniffle*
Hughes is apparently meeting Ed and Al for the first time and also mistakes Al for Fullmetal and quickly invites the boys to stay with him and his family since they don't have a place to stay in Central yet. He's quick to brandish a photograph of Gracia and Elicia. They have a lively dinner in which Al watches Ed eat and Elicia, in her three year old wisdom asks Ed why he's so much smaller than Al if Al's younger.
McDougal breaks into Central Prison and invites crazy psychopathic Kimbly to join him on his holy crusade. Apparently he's got a beef with King Bradley about the Ishbal Massacre. Kimbly laughs at him because he's crazy like that and McDougal goes on his merry way.
Back at the Hughes homestead he can't sleep and talks to Gracia about the Elrics. He's sad Ed already has to deal with being a dog of the military at the tender age of 15. Upstairs Ed and Al discuss how they want to get their bodies back. Ed has his hair down. It's cute. I always wished he had his hair down in the original series. Outside McDougals drawing circles at various locations across Central. The commercial break things are shots of various characters with a very American accented guy saying Fullmetal Alchemist in various ways. Kind of...weird...
An order to kill McDougal is given from the Fuhrer and the entire entourage of state alchemists are out to find him. It's Armstrong who does. He's still got his sparklies, but they're a salmon kind of color and bigger. I liked them in the first series better. Mustang eventually corners him on a rooftop but before he can do his fire attack at him McDougal squirts him with a bunch of water, telling him fire can never beat water. It's true. He runs away and ignites his transmutation circles, which causes a sheet of ice to flow through the city, creating huge transmutation circle with HQ right in the middle. Ed and Al go to stop him and Armstrong destroys the separate trasmutation circles. It kind of amuses me that if you fast forward through the series they'd be on the same side as this McDougal dude.
They fight and McDougal knocks Al's head off. Shock! Al's an empty suit of armor. Oh my. McDougal figures out from Al's body and Ed's missing limb that they attempted the taboo of their world, human transmutation. We get a quick flashback of Ed as a kid with his leg missing boding Al's spirit to the suit of armor. Ed's hair is different, but then I think they were younger than they were in the first series. Ed gets pissed and the two fo them rough him up, knocking him down the sheet of ice. McDougal freezes his blood and uses it as a spear to puncture Ed, rambling about how they don't understand what's really going on in the country. He walks off laughing maniacally.
The soldiers try to destroy the ice but their weapons are useless against it. Mustang soaking wet, uses his flame to destroy it. McDougal wanders down an alley and runs into King Bradley himself and the show gets all stylishly black and white, the only color the red blood running down McDougal's arm. He procures another blood spear and goes after him but Bradley, in one flick of his sword, slices through it and McDougal almost too fast for the eye to see. A little drop of red floats away from McDougals body and disappears. A drop of the philosopher's stone, perhaps? Maybe he never gave back the ring he had in Ishbal.
Kimbly's not too sad to hear of the Freezer's *snort* passing. Mustang and Armstrong destroy the sheets of ice and the transmutation circles. We get a quick shot of some old guy's face. It doens't look like Ed and Al's father or his evil twin. Bradley acts too humble about taking him down and gives Mustang and Ed most of the credit. Ed's in the hospital (a scene you'll many many times) and Armstrong comes bearing the gift of flowers. He takes off his shirt and flexes his muscles to alieve their boredom. I love Armstrong. The boys are understandably weirded out by this.
We get a creepy scene where Lust is talking to someone on the phone, being told that Isaac is dead. It's all stylized in black and red and looking really cool. She scolds Gluttony for eating whatever it is he is eating (it's probably best that we don't know) and says things are going well in Liore (which is where the first series and the manga both begin!) and how it will all begin soon. Oooooh.... So ambiguous.....
Overall I liked it. I liked it more the second time watching it because it wasn't such a shock. It seems like it has a faster pace than the first series, which was pretty fast at times to begin with. I'll watch more. I only wish their hair had black outlines.
What confuses me though is that they prelude the episode on the funimation site with a commercial for Veet. Isn't this geered more towards teenage boys?
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Gakuen Alice #6
Now it's time for something completely different. A little taste of what this blog was originally meant for, Book Recaps!!!! ...erm, manga recap... It's a book with pictures. ^_^
Today we have Gakuen Alice #6 (the sixth installment of the manga series Gakuen Alice, go figure) by Tachibna Higuchi.
I first stumbled upon Gakuen Alice in the mutli-colored pages of Hana to Yume Magazine back in the days before I discovered Erin's Sanctuary (she posted summaries and translations) and ordered the magazine in order to get my biweekly Cain fix. Yeah, I couldn't read a word (It is in Japanese) but I could look at Yuki-sama's beautiful artwork and get the gist of what was going on in God Child. Gakuen Alice caught my eye because it had the most adorable artwork and color pages outside of Cardcaptor Sakura. I looked it up online but couldn't find anything about the series anywhere. I didn't pay much attention to it. But then in 2004 I heard they were coming out with an anime. I downloaded each and every episode (on dialup!)--well, except for the last four because they were done by a different group and whatever media type they used wouldn't work on my computer--and became a rabid fan.
Finally, scanlation groups started picking it up, but only released chapter on IRC. I hate IRC. I scoured the web and read through every tutorial I came across but never managed to make the damn program work on my computer. Damn you scanlation groups that release only on IRC!!!!! *doneranting* So I actually never got to read it until Tokyo Pop got a hold of it.
And Volume 6 finally takes us to where the anime left off!!! Woo-hoo! Are you excited? I know I am.
BASIC STORY: Alice Academy is a school in Tokyo for kids with special abilities called Alices (abilities that range from pyrokenesis to a kid who's farts knock you out. Hey, my father-type-person's an Alice!) are gathered, taught, and "protected." There's something dark going on behind the scenes of this cutesy manga and the Academy's been giving unusual attention to new student and heroin Mikan Sakura, and bad boy Natsume Hyuga. It kind of reminds me of a cross between Harry Potter and Cardcaptor Sakura for some reason.
We start of with Naru-sensei (one of the teachers at the Academy) delivering a letter to Mikan's grandfather from Mikan. (Letters home are forbidden).
Naru is kind of a mysterious character with some kind of hidden agenda going on so I'll let you in on what we know about him thus far. He's very pretty (the blond girly kind of pretty that makes me go weak in the knees). He has the Alice of Human Pheromones. He's obsessed with whom we believe to be Mikan's mother and is rather protective of Mikan though the students might not see it that way. He dislikes the way the Academy is run. And he's my favorite character. (If you think it's because of his resemblance to Lorent Parker you are correct ^_-).
Mikan (Nullification Alice), her best friend Hotaru (Invention Alice), and Nonoka (some kind of science Alice) are raking leaves and are really excited that Prez (Illusion Alice) is coming back. He won the best student award and got to go home to visit his family for a week (he hasn't seem them in four years. He never even met his little sister.). And yeah, you're not allowed the leave the Academy once you're there. They're kind of strict about that. And I totally thought Prez was a girl all through the anime until I read the manga. Prez's real name is Yuu Tobita, but a lot of characters have nicknames and it's easier to keep track of them that way.
There's an important bulletin telling the students that five adults out in the outside world's Alices have disappeared without warning. While everyone's freaking out Hotaru listens in on a conversation between two fo the teachers with her "panda with ears tracer."
Naru's talking to Misaki-sensei (who seems to be Naru's best friend at the academy) and they admit a student in the junior division has lost their Alice. (Mikan and co. are in the elementary division). Misaki-sensei warns him not to do anything extreme or it'll effect Mikan.
Natsume (Fire Alice) sulks and wanders away from the other students. His best friend Luca--or Ruka--(Animal Pheromone Alice) follows him and asks what's going on and if something happened. Natsume tells him not to worry about it. I think he's a masochist.
Mikan goes to the Specials room (the are five different ability types--Latent, Somatic, Technical, Special, and Dangerous. Mikan's in the Special group--the leftovers that don't fit in anywhere else, kind of like Hufflepuff) and pouts about Natsume avoiding her. (She so likes him and just doesn't know it yet). In comes a very handsome senior with cigarette in hand and she hangs out with him until Tsubasa (Shadow Manipulation Alice) and Misaki (Doppelganger Alice, and yes it's another Misaki so the other one will always be referred as Misaki-sensei. Wonder if they're related...Hmm...) who up. Tsubasa yells at Mikan to stay away from Tounochi (Amplification Alice) who's a womanizer and apparently not above hitting on ten-year-old girls. Eww.
Tounouchi does a lot of jobs outside the academy because his ability is so useful but the current on was cancelled so he's just hanging out for the day. He's also the Special Ability Type's representative.
Tounouchi recognizes Mikan's name when introduced because she's Natsume's partner and asks her about Natsume's health since he's been seen going in and out of the school hospital a lot. He has kind of a weird interest in him. Maybe he likes to hit on ten-year-old boys, too.
Mikan asks Noda-sense (the specials teacher and Time Travel Alice) about the "loss of Alice" incidents. Node-sense doesn't seem to know anymore than Naru.
Meanwhile Prez is on his wy home when a bag lady runs in front of the car and the car slams on the breaks to avoid her. Prez gets out of the car to see if she's okay and offers her his hand to help her to her feet. Prez thinks that the woman reminds him of someone but can't think who. Deathy's bad guess that will ultimately be wrong: Mikan.
Prez returns to campus and everyone happily exclaims "Souvenirs!" Hotaru een holds a flag that says "Big Catch." Nice welcoming for your friend.
Prez passes out his gifts and someone writes on Curly's (Her name's Sumire, Cat Alice) doll and she gets pissed. She discovers it was Mind-Reader (Mind-Reading Alice, maybe?) and Fox-Eye (Flying Alice)--no idea what their names are--and commands Prez to create an illusion to frighten them. Prez then discovers that his Alice isn't working! Oh noes!!!
Prez is put into quarantine and after two days Mikan begs Naru to let her see him. He can't let her but offers to give him a message. Hotaru throws a flower pot at his head. A FLOWER POT. At his HEAD. He's knocked unconscious (ten-year-olds are strong) and she attatches some kind of mind control device to his head and order him to take them to the lab where Prez is being kept. I love how random this manga is sometimes.
Prez is extremely moved that they came to see him. He's scared, wondering what's going to happen to him and starts to cry. I love Prez. He's so cut.
Mikan's grandfather once told her that if you fold 1000 paper cranes with a prayer, they'll grant your wish, so she and her friends start folding paper cranes (origami is a required course in Japan). Hotaru makes a more elaborate one. Two other kids in their class wearing strange hats come over and start bullying Mikan for visiting Prez and infecting them all. Curly punches them then berates Mikan for doing something so reckless.
They're interrupted as Prez rejoins them. It wasn't a virus or anything and the teachers believe there's a change he could regain his Alice. They think it was stolen from him, that it was the bag lady who stepped in front of the car, and that she's a member of the Anti-Academy rebel organization "Z." Why did they tell all this to a ten-year-old? Shouldn't some things be kept under wraps? Seriously!
We first heard about Z in Volume 3, when super pop star sensation Reo kidnapped Natsume and asked him to join Z. Natsume declined.
Natsume thinks about Reo's invite and wanders away from group once more. Mikan follows him, calling him out on his behavior and demands to know if there's something about her that bothers him. He tells her he hates everything about her and walks away.
In the previous volume Natsume was threated by Persona (S&M weirdo freak extraodanair and leader of the Dangerous Ability Group) into continuing to do the Academy's dirty work or they'll hurt his friends, and mentioned Mikan in particular, which is why he's staying away from her. He knows the Academy is watching her. He thinks about the little girl who called him big-brother.
There's a sudden emergency at the Academy. A member of Z has infiltrated the school! Oh noes!!!
Natsume runs outside followed by Mikan, Prez, and Luca follow him, but Hotaru beat him to it. She's already on her hovering duck and tells them she's going to see the ones who stole Prez's Alice with her own eyes and asks Mikan to go with her. Mikan doesn't have to think twice and dives on the duck.
Mikan and Hotaru hide in the bushes near HQ and Mikan expresses her surprise that Hotaru would go this far for Prez. Hotaru explains that Prez is the glue that keeps the class together, he's one of the things that keeps her from being completely twisted by the academy. She used to think he was an idiot for trying so hard to keep the peace in their class by himself but when she asked him about it he told her they're all alone in the school but the school is their whole world. He hopes the day will come when everyone helps each other and they won't be sad and lonely anymore. She admires him for that. I think she has a crush. ^_^ They make a vow to get Prez's Alice back together.
The teachers discover that Mikan and Hotaru are near HQ but before they can get to them they're spotted by intruders. And now there are three instead of the two the academy believes there are, one with a gun. They see Hotaru first and keep going, but then Mikan pops out of the bush and the woman stops and reaches out for her. The gun-toting guards of the academy show up and the intruder with the gun fires aiming for the one behind Mikan. Hotaru, thinking he's trying to shoot Mikan, dives in front of the bullet and is shot in the shoulder.
The invaders get away and Hotaru is rushed to the campus hospital. The bullet is removed but there's an unknown virus that was tipped on the bullet. Hotaru's brother is also at the Academy. I can't remember his first name so I'll just call him by his last name, Imai. Imai has both the Healing Alice and the ability to inflict the pain he takes from people onto others. Pretty cool, huh? He's able to keep the virus from getting any worse but he can't get rid of it entirely. They need the anecdote for that.
Mikan's beside herself with worry because Hotaru was protecting her and got hurt because of it. Noda-sensei and Tounouchi show up in the hospital. Noda-sensei tells Natsume he's wanted in a Dangerous Ability meeting and will escort him there. Mikan is to be confined in her room until her punishment is decided. He asks Tounouchi to take her.
Mind-Reader is looking in on Hotaru through the glass and tells Mikan to come over, Hotaru's awake! She "tells" Mikan to smile and not worry about her. Mikan goes outside to cry and Luca follows. She tells him that Hotaru is in so much pain and she only worries about her instead of herself. She wishes she could be strong like Hotaru. Luca comforts her.
Instead of taking her to her room Tounouchi takes her back to the Specials room where she is scolded by Tsubasa, who keeps calling Tounouchi Gramps for some reason. Tounouchi tells them what happened to Hotaru and that they're going to have to steal the technology from Z, but he can't figure out how Z got in in the first place. (Int is a word, by the way). All he can think of is an unfounded rumor from a long time ago about a kid who had the Alice to make worm holes in the time-space continuum. He made a worm hole that led outside the Academy and has a student with a Spell Casting Alice hide it. He wrote the direction in a notebook and hid it somewhere in the senior division. And no one's ever found it.
It's enough to get Mikan all riled up and wanting to go look for it. She wants to do anything she can to help Hotaru. Tounouchi thinks one of the guys in the newspaper club might know where to start.
Natsume wanders away fronm his meeting and overhears Naru, Misaki-sensei, and Jinno-sensei (another teacher with the Thunder Alice. He's really mean.) discussing Hotaru. Jinno is unwilling to let Hotaru's parents see her even though she's in critical condition. He alludes to Mikan and Naru asks how he knew. Jinno says he can guess from the facts, and tells Naru he better watch himself.
Natsume looks in on Hotaru and kicks the little penguin robot she made that's crying about her. She tells him, or rather a voice imitating, mind-reading nurse that's passing by, tells him that it was expensive and he'd better not break it.
Mikan's behind talking out of her crazy plan and one-by-one the other kids agree to help her, Luca being hte first. Only seniors are premitted in the senior division so their first hurtle is that they're mostly kids. The little robot that followed Natsume hands Mikan a bag filled with Gulliver candy, a candy that allows you to age or de-age? the number of years indicated on the wrapping. (Man that would be useful.) The only thing about them is they only work while the candy's in your mouth and it has weird side effects, which was why it was pulled from shelves.
Since Mikan has to be confined in her room, Misaki will use the candy to be younger and pretend to be Mikan, while her doppelganger will continue to be her. A boy whose face can be molded lik clay will be the doubles of Luca and Natsume, and they'll use a hollogram for everyone else.
Mikan emerges as a fifteen year old dress in senior clothes (she really doesn't look any different) and Tounouchi gets all pervy and Tsubasa very protective. Natsume and Luca get ready (and are the hottest manga ten-year-olds ever) and Mikan's very surprised by how they look. Luca can't stop staring at Mikan. Natsume grabs Mikan by the chest and tells her it hasn't grown an inch (that's tactful). Tounouchi stares at him longingly wishing he were ten so he could get away with that. (Or maybe for another reason....)
They go to the senior division whose walkway is lined with very creepy looking statues. They sneak around the school and Mikan confesses to Luca that she's so nervous her candy's already dissolved. He tells her to hide in a corridor and when the two step in they're trapped in a time warp. Tsubasa uses his shadow manipulation to get them out but they're already elementary students and are noticed.
They escape and finally make it to the newspaper club and find Hayami, the information freak that wears weird goggles for no reason, kind of like Quatre.
Tounouchi asks about eh worm hole and he tells him it most like exists. There's an area in the west building on the second floor where two peopel were seen around the time of the incident with the intruders. That ghosts often appear in that area, always in groups of two and holding an old notebook. And that one looks exactly like student body president Shuichi Sakurano.
To be continued...
Today we have Gakuen Alice #6 (the sixth installment of the manga series Gakuen Alice, go figure) by Tachibna Higuchi.I first stumbled upon Gakuen Alice in the mutli-colored pages of Hana to Yume Magazine back in the days before I discovered Erin's Sanctuary (she posted summaries and translations) and ordered the magazine in order to get my biweekly Cain fix. Yeah, I couldn't read a word (It is in Japanese) but I could look at Yuki-sama's beautiful artwork and get the gist of what was going on in God Child. Gakuen Alice caught my eye because it had the most adorable artwork and color pages outside of Cardcaptor Sakura. I looked it up online but couldn't find anything about the series anywhere. I didn't pay much attention to it. But then in 2004 I heard they were coming out with an anime. I downloaded each and every episode (on dialup!)--well, except for the last four because they were done by a different group and whatever media type they used wouldn't work on my computer--and became a rabid fan.
Finally, scanlation groups started picking it up, but only released chapter on IRC. I hate IRC. I scoured the web and read through every tutorial I came across but never managed to make the damn program work on my computer. Damn you scanlation groups that release only on IRC!!!!! *doneranting* So I actually never got to read it until Tokyo Pop got a hold of it.
And Volume 6 finally takes us to where the anime left off!!! Woo-hoo! Are you excited? I know I am.
BASIC STORY: Alice Academy is a school in Tokyo for kids with special abilities called Alices (abilities that range from pyrokenesis to a kid who's farts knock you out. Hey, my father-type-person's an Alice!) are gathered, taught, and "protected." There's something dark going on behind the scenes of this cutesy manga and the Academy's been giving unusual attention to new student and heroin Mikan Sakura, and bad boy Natsume Hyuga. It kind of reminds me of a cross between Harry Potter and Cardcaptor Sakura for some reason.
We start of with Naru-sensei (one of the teachers at the Academy) delivering a letter to Mikan's grandfather from Mikan. (Letters home are forbidden).
Naru is kind of a mysterious character with some kind of hidden agenda going on so I'll let you in on what we know about him thus far. He's very pretty (the blond girly kind of pretty that makes me go weak in the knees). He has the Alice of Human Pheromones. He's obsessed with whom we believe to be Mikan's mother and is rather protective of Mikan though the students might not see it that way. He dislikes the way the Academy is run. And he's my favorite character. (If you think it's because of his resemblance to Lorent Parker you are correct ^_-).
Mikan (Nullification Alice), her best friend Hotaru (Invention Alice), and Nonoka (some kind of science Alice) are raking leaves and are really excited that Prez (Illusion Alice) is coming back. He won the best student award and got to go home to visit his family for a week (he hasn't seem them in four years. He never even met his little sister.). And yeah, you're not allowed the leave the Academy once you're there. They're kind of strict about that. And I totally thought Prez was a girl all through the anime until I read the manga. Prez's real name is Yuu Tobita, but a lot of characters have nicknames and it's easier to keep track of them that way.
There's an important bulletin telling the students that five adults out in the outside world's Alices have disappeared without warning. While everyone's freaking out Hotaru listens in on a conversation between two fo the teachers with her "panda with ears tracer."
Naru's talking to Misaki-sensei (who seems to be Naru's best friend at the academy) and they admit a student in the junior division has lost their Alice. (Mikan and co. are in the elementary division). Misaki-sensei warns him not to do anything extreme or it'll effect Mikan.
Natsume (Fire Alice) sulks and wanders away from the other students. His best friend Luca--or Ruka--(Animal Pheromone Alice) follows him and asks what's going on and if something happened. Natsume tells him not to worry about it. I think he's a masochist.
Mikan goes to the Specials room (the are five different ability types--Latent, Somatic, Technical, Special, and Dangerous. Mikan's in the Special group--the leftovers that don't fit in anywhere else, kind of like Hufflepuff) and pouts about Natsume avoiding her. (She so likes him and just doesn't know it yet). In comes a very handsome senior with cigarette in hand and she hangs out with him until Tsubasa (Shadow Manipulation Alice) and Misaki (Doppelganger Alice, and yes it's another Misaki so the other one will always be referred as Misaki-sensei. Wonder if they're related...Hmm...) who up. Tsubasa yells at Mikan to stay away from Tounochi (Amplification Alice) who's a womanizer and apparently not above hitting on ten-year-old girls. Eww.
Tounouchi does a lot of jobs outside the academy because his ability is so useful but the current on was cancelled so he's just hanging out for the day. He's also the Special Ability Type's representative.
Tounouchi recognizes Mikan's name when introduced because she's Natsume's partner and asks her about Natsume's health since he's been seen going in and out of the school hospital a lot. He has kind of a weird interest in him. Maybe he likes to hit on ten-year-old boys, too.
Mikan asks Noda-sense (the specials teacher and Time Travel Alice) about the "loss of Alice" incidents. Node-sense doesn't seem to know anymore than Naru.
Meanwhile Prez is on his wy home when a bag lady runs in front of the car and the car slams on the breaks to avoid her. Prez gets out of the car to see if she's okay and offers her his hand to help her to her feet. Prez thinks that the woman reminds him of someone but can't think who. Deathy's bad guess that will ultimately be wrong: Mikan.
Prez returns to campus and everyone happily exclaims "Souvenirs!" Hotaru een holds a flag that says "Big Catch." Nice welcoming for your friend.
Prez passes out his gifts and someone writes on Curly's (Her name's Sumire, Cat Alice) doll and she gets pissed. She discovers it was Mind-Reader (Mind-Reading Alice, maybe?) and Fox-Eye (Flying Alice)--no idea what their names are--and commands Prez to create an illusion to frighten them. Prez then discovers that his Alice isn't working! Oh noes!!!
Prez is put into quarantine and after two days Mikan begs Naru to let her see him. He can't let her but offers to give him a message. Hotaru throws a flower pot at his head. A FLOWER POT. At his HEAD. He's knocked unconscious (ten-year-olds are strong) and she attatches some kind of mind control device to his head and order him to take them to the lab where Prez is being kept. I love how random this manga is sometimes.
Prez is extremely moved that they came to see him. He's scared, wondering what's going to happen to him and starts to cry. I love Prez. He's so cut.
Mikan's grandfather once told her that if you fold 1000 paper cranes with a prayer, they'll grant your wish, so she and her friends start folding paper cranes (origami is a required course in Japan). Hotaru makes a more elaborate one. Two other kids in their class wearing strange hats come over and start bullying Mikan for visiting Prez and infecting them all. Curly punches them then berates Mikan for doing something so reckless.
They're interrupted as Prez rejoins them. It wasn't a virus or anything and the teachers believe there's a change he could regain his Alice. They think it was stolen from him, that it was the bag lady who stepped in front of the car, and that she's a member of the Anti-Academy rebel organization "Z." Why did they tell all this to a ten-year-old? Shouldn't some things be kept under wraps? Seriously!
We first heard about Z in Volume 3, when super pop star sensation Reo kidnapped Natsume and asked him to join Z. Natsume declined.
Natsume thinks about Reo's invite and wanders away from group once more. Mikan follows him, calling him out on his behavior and demands to know if there's something about her that bothers him. He tells her he hates everything about her and walks away.
In the previous volume Natsume was threated by Persona (S&M weirdo freak extraodanair and leader of the Dangerous Ability Group) into continuing to do the Academy's dirty work or they'll hurt his friends, and mentioned Mikan in particular, which is why he's staying away from her. He knows the Academy is watching her. He thinks about the little girl who called him big-brother.
There's a sudden emergency at the Academy. A member of Z has infiltrated the school! Oh noes!!!
Natsume runs outside followed by Mikan, Prez, and Luca follow him, but Hotaru beat him to it. She's already on her hovering duck and tells them she's going to see the ones who stole Prez's Alice with her own eyes and asks Mikan to go with her. Mikan doesn't have to think twice and dives on the duck.
Mikan and Hotaru hide in the bushes near HQ and Mikan expresses her surprise that Hotaru would go this far for Prez. Hotaru explains that Prez is the glue that keeps the class together, he's one of the things that keeps her from being completely twisted by the academy. She used to think he was an idiot for trying so hard to keep the peace in their class by himself but when she asked him about it he told her they're all alone in the school but the school is their whole world. He hopes the day will come when everyone helps each other and they won't be sad and lonely anymore. She admires him for that. I think she has a crush. ^_^ They make a vow to get Prez's Alice back together.
The teachers discover that Mikan and Hotaru are near HQ but before they can get to them they're spotted by intruders. And now there are three instead of the two the academy believes there are, one with a gun. They see Hotaru first and keep going, but then Mikan pops out of the bush and the woman stops and reaches out for her. The gun-toting guards of the academy show up and the intruder with the gun fires aiming for the one behind Mikan. Hotaru, thinking he's trying to shoot Mikan, dives in front of the bullet and is shot in the shoulder.
The invaders get away and Hotaru is rushed to the campus hospital. The bullet is removed but there's an unknown virus that was tipped on the bullet. Hotaru's brother is also at the Academy. I can't remember his first name so I'll just call him by his last name, Imai. Imai has both the Healing Alice and the ability to inflict the pain he takes from people onto others. Pretty cool, huh? He's able to keep the virus from getting any worse but he can't get rid of it entirely. They need the anecdote for that.
Mikan's beside herself with worry because Hotaru was protecting her and got hurt because of it. Noda-sensei and Tounouchi show up in the hospital. Noda-sensei tells Natsume he's wanted in a Dangerous Ability meeting and will escort him there. Mikan is to be confined in her room until her punishment is decided. He asks Tounouchi to take her.
Mind-Reader is looking in on Hotaru through the glass and tells Mikan to come over, Hotaru's awake! She "tells" Mikan to smile and not worry about her. Mikan goes outside to cry and Luca follows. She tells him that Hotaru is in so much pain and she only worries about her instead of herself. She wishes she could be strong like Hotaru. Luca comforts her.
Instead of taking her to her room Tounouchi takes her back to the Specials room where she is scolded by Tsubasa, who keeps calling Tounouchi Gramps for some reason. Tounouchi tells them what happened to Hotaru and that they're going to have to steal the technology from Z, but he can't figure out how Z got in in the first place. (Int is a word, by the way). All he can think of is an unfounded rumor from a long time ago about a kid who had the Alice to make worm holes in the time-space continuum. He made a worm hole that led outside the Academy and has a student with a Spell Casting Alice hide it. He wrote the direction in a notebook and hid it somewhere in the senior division. And no one's ever found it.
It's enough to get Mikan all riled up and wanting to go look for it. She wants to do anything she can to help Hotaru. Tounouchi thinks one of the guys in the newspaper club might know where to start.
Natsume wanders away fronm his meeting and overhears Naru, Misaki-sensei, and Jinno-sensei (another teacher with the Thunder Alice. He's really mean.) discussing Hotaru. Jinno is unwilling to let Hotaru's parents see her even though she's in critical condition. He alludes to Mikan and Naru asks how he knew. Jinno says he can guess from the facts, and tells Naru he better watch himself.
Natsume looks in on Hotaru and kicks the little penguin robot she made that's crying about her. She tells him, or rather a voice imitating, mind-reading nurse that's passing by, tells him that it was expensive and he'd better not break it.
Mikan's behind talking out of her crazy plan and one-by-one the other kids agree to help her, Luca being hte first. Only seniors are premitted in the senior division so their first hurtle is that they're mostly kids. The little robot that followed Natsume hands Mikan a bag filled with Gulliver candy, a candy that allows you to age or de-age? the number of years indicated on the wrapping. (Man that would be useful.) The only thing about them is they only work while the candy's in your mouth and it has weird side effects, which was why it was pulled from shelves.
Since Mikan has to be confined in her room, Misaki will use the candy to be younger and pretend to be Mikan, while her doppelganger will continue to be her. A boy whose face can be molded lik clay will be the doubles of Luca and Natsume, and they'll use a hollogram for everyone else.
Mikan emerges as a fifteen year old dress in senior clothes (she really doesn't look any different) and Tounouchi gets all pervy and Tsubasa very protective. Natsume and Luca get ready (and are the hottest manga ten-year-olds ever) and Mikan's very surprised by how they look. Luca can't stop staring at Mikan. Natsume grabs Mikan by the chest and tells her it hasn't grown an inch (that's tactful). Tounouchi stares at him longingly wishing he were ten so he could get away with that. (Or maybe for another reason....)
They go to the senior division whose walkway is lined with very creepy looking statues. They sneak around the school and Mikan confesses to Luca that she's so nervous her candy's already dissolved. He tells her to hide in a corridor and when the two step in they're trapped in a time warp. Tsubasa uses his shadow manipulation to get them out but they're already elementary students and are noticed.
They escape and finally make it to the newspaper club and find Hayami, the information freak that wears weird goggles for no reason, kind of like Quatre.
Tounouchi asks about eh worm hole and he tells him it most like exists. There's an area in the west building on the second floor where two peopel were seen around the time of the incident with the intruders. That ghosts often appear in that area, always in groups of two and holding an old notebook. And that one looks exactly like student body president Shuichi Sakurano.
To be continued...
Friday, September 26, 2008
V.C. Andrews Theatre Presents...
Zipporah: Karen Stoker is my best friend. She’s beautiful, mysterious, intriguing, amazing, demanding, bitchy, moody, and looks down on everyone else. She’s everything I want to be. *dreamy sigh*
Karen: Don’t be thick!
Karen: Hey, Zipporah, I have cleavage.
Zipporah: I want some too!
Alice: Karen’s bad news. I’d make some real friends if I were you.
Zipporah: You’re bitchier than Karen. Why would anyone in their right mind want to be friends with you?
Karen: My life sucks. I wish I had your family and we were sisters. I hate my stepfather. He’s mean and strict and my mother lets him do whatever he wants with me.
Zipporah: Poor Karen! Come here, I’ll make it feel all better. What’s with the bruise on your shoulder?
Karen: Nothing! Mind your own business! Don’t be thick!
Zipporah: Karen, you’ve been ignoring me for days. Tell me what’s wrong!
Karen: Get away from me. Even though you’re the only--and I do mean only--friend I’ve got, I’m going to be cold and distant with you and act like you mean nothing to me.
Zipporah: Wah!! Why is Karen crying? Why won’t she talk to me? What have I done to deserve this cold-hearted bitch of a best friend?
Zipporah: Why won’t Karen answer the door? Why is she avoiding me like this?
Mrs. Pearson: Karen, come down and talk to your only friend.
Karen: Leave me alone!
Zipporah: I’ve had it. Karen Stoker, you’re my best friend and I’m not going to let you ignore me. Tell me what’s going on. Or else!
Karen: You wanna know? Fine. My stepfather touches me and fondles me and has sex with me every night while my mother’s getting her nails and hair and whatever else done. He pretends his mother’s still alive in the apartment on the back of the house and dresses up in her nightgown and wears her wig.
Zipporah: Sure you haven’t been watching too many movies lately?
Karen: I’m you’re only friend. Why would I lie to you? Don’t be thick!
Zipporah: I know what we can do. The next time he comes to you, you could wear the nightgown and the wig, pretending to be his mother, and tell him he better leave you alone. Or that might turn him on.
Karen: There’s no reason in the world why that won’t work.
Zipporah: Karen wasn’t in school today. I wonder what happened last night.
Mrs. Stein: Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. Karen murdered her stepfather last night and took off.
Zipporah: Karen? My precious Karen?
Zipporah: OMG it’s Karen! She’s been hiding in my attic!
Karen: I have no place to go. And since you’re my whipped doormat I knew you wouldn’t turn me in if I came here.
Zipporah: What happened?
Karen: I killed him, you moron. Don’t be thick!
Zipporah: I mean, oh never mind. You can’t stay here. You’re putting me in danger now, too.
Karen: I thought you were my friend, Zipporah! After everything we shared, after all I’ve meant to you, I though you could at least do me the teensy itty bitty favor of aiding and abetting a murderer!
Zipporah: You’re right. I’m sorry I ever had a thought that forged itself from my own free will. Of course you can stay here. But now you have to tell me what happened?
Karen: I killed him. What are you, thick? But if you want gory details, he got mad at me pretending to be his mom and got violent, so I got out my knife I keep next to his bed and kept stabbing him until he was dead. It was sort of fun. I'd do it again.
Mr. Stein: The police want to talk to you about Karen, honey. Since you were her only friend. Do you have any idea what might’ve happened.
Zipporah: Well, she never liked him.
Mean Police Officer: Do you know what she did? Huh? Do you?
Zipporah: She never liked Mr. Pearson. She had headaches a lot.
Other Mean Police Officer: I think she’s hiding something.
Karen: So they grilled you? You didn’t let anything slip, did you? That would be so like you.
Zipporah: No! Of course not! All I told them was you didn’t like him and you had headaches.
Karen: Good. Everything’s going according to plan. Muwahahaha! Thick.
Zipporah: Karen? Are you alright?
Karen: Never better! Let’s have pizza!
Karen; You have to have all the romance for both of us now.
Zipporah: Are you serious?
Karen: Absolutely. I will not leave until you’ve lost your virginity.
Zipporah: *stare*
Karen: Dana, the most hottest guy at school, likes you. I made sure of that by telling him you’re a slu-sweetly beautiful girl. By the way, you should read your brother’s diary. I did.
Zipporah: How could you?
Karen: Because I slept with him last summer and it was really fun.
Zipporah: What was that?
Karen: Eat some more pizza.
Zipporah: My parent’s are taking me to New York this weekend to get my mind of the tragedy.
Karen: Perfect! This is a great opportunity. I’ll record a message for my mother and you can play it for her over the phone while you’re in New York so it'll throw the feds off of me being here. The fact that you happen to be in New York the same day I make the call won’t appear suspicious at all! Hey, that rhymes. I should be a poet. To kill thy bastard step-father, or not to kill thy bastard step-father? That is the question.
Alice: You’re friend didn’t turn out to be so great, now did she.
Zipporah: I’d still rather be friends with a murderer than with you.
Dana: What’s cookin’, good-looking’?
Zipporah: Nothing. I’m eating my lunch right now.
Dana: Oh, don’t be thick.
Zipporah: That’s Karen’s phrase! I won’t let you use it for your own perversion!!
Dana: I bet you know where she is, don’t you? We should get together and you, “talk” about Karen. And by talk I mean have sex. In my car. A lot.
Zipporah: I’m going out of town.
Zipporah: Dana tried to get me to go out with him today. I don’t think I will.
Karen: Oh yes you will. I worked so hard on getting him to like you! Now this is how you’re going to do it. You’re going to meet him in secret and have sex in his car. It’ll be so much fun. And then we’ll be sisters because we’ll both be sluts!
Zipporah: I’m not following your logic.
Karen: Don’t be thick!
Zipporah: Don't you ever get sick of saying that?
Zipporah: It sure is fun here in New York. I almost forgot about Karen. My dad met some friends and my mom’s in the shower so I’m going to make that phone call to Mrs. Pearson now at a phone booth only one block away from the hotel. And no one will even notice the recording device I’m holding up to the phone.
Mean Police Officer: Karen called here from New York the same day you Stein’s were in New York. That sounds pretty damned coincidental if you ask me.
Mrs. Pearson: Zipporah, you must’ve had some idea that something like this might happen.
Zipporah: None at all. *whistle*
Mrs. Pearson: I’m sorry if I sounded like I was interrogating you. Karen was difficult to deal with and I’m only sorry you chose her for a friend.
Zipporah: This isn’t her fault.
Mr. Stein: Out with it, Zipporah, what are you hiding?
Zipporah: I can’t take it anymore. Mr. Pearson raped her. He came into her room at night.
Mr. Stein: I see. I’m going to talk to the police about it.
Dana: I’m giving you one last chance to act like I’m the handsome sex God I know I am. Meet me by the ice cream parlor tonight. Be square or be there. Wait…
Zipporah: I’ll think about it.
Karen: Make sure you’re the one who touches him first. You have the power!!!! Oh, and wear my red panties. And my skirt. Actually, wear my whole outfit. That way it’ll be easier for him to pretend you’re me.
Zipporah: Karen, you’re starting to weird me out.
Dana: Let’s have sex.
Zipporah: I don’t want to.
Dana: I don’t care.
Zipporah: Don’t do this, Dana. Don’t be a rapist! I’m a virgin!
Dana; You better not tell anyone about his.
Karen: Well, what happened.
Zipporah: We didn’t have sex. It was awful. I’ve had it. We can’t pretend anymore. Everything’s gone too far.
Karen: You’re making me feel unwanted, Zipporah. You don’t want to make me feel unwanted. Look what happened to my stepfather.
Zipporah: Um…yeah. My dad’s home. I have to go downstairs and pretend I don’t know where you are now.
Mr. Stein: You’re brother’s coming home early.
Zipporah: Oh no! I mean, good. I missed him.
Mr. Stein: Why do I keep getting this strange feeling that you’re not telling me something.
Zipporah: Because I’m not.
Mr. Stein: Oh, that explains it.
Zipporah: You have to go. There’s no way we can keep this up after Jesse gets home.
Karen: Oh, I’ll think of something. I always do.
Jesse: Hey, sis.
Zipporah: Jesse! You’re home!
Jesse: I love these periods of quality time we share. How are you?
Zipporah: Well...
Jesse: Enough about you, now tell me what happened with Karen.
Zipporah: Her step-father was coming into her room at night.
Jesse: That poor girl. So do you know anything else? I mean, she was really hot.
Zipporah: Huh?
Jesse: About the murder. About where she might’ve gone.
Zipporah: No. I don’t. Can we talk about something other than Karen now?
Mr. Stein: Time to go see the police again, honey. They want to talk to you about this nasty rape business.
Zipporah: For the last time, Mr. Pearson was coming into her room at night. He used to pretend his mother was still alive and talk to her in the back apartment of the house. He would even wear her nightgown and wig and make up.
Mean Police Officer: Sure you haven’t seen Psycho a few too many times?
Zipporah: I’m telling the truth! Why doesn’t anybody believe me?
Zipporah: Karen, I have to talk to you.
Karen: I don’t need you. I’ve got Jesse now. He knows I’m here. I pretended like I just got here and cried about how hard it was in New York. I wish they gave Academy Awards for performances in real life. And I’m being completely modest.
Zipporah: It doesn’t make me suspect in the slightest that you may have put on a “performance” for me.
Karen: I was protecting you, you know. I made Jesse think you don’t know I’m here.
Zipporah: Of course. You’re always doing everything for me.
Dana: Did you tell Karen about our fun adventure together?
Zipporah: I think I’m feeling a bit sick. Cough Oh, nurse. Nurse, I need to go home.
Zipporah: OMG! Karen! How could you?
Jesse: It’s not what it looks like. Okay, you caught me, it is. But she needs help right now.
Zipporah: She’s wanted for murder, Jesse! What kind of help is having sex with her? I used to think you were so much better than me but not anymore. Now you stay down here and be quiet and I’m going to go upstairs and talk to Karen.
Karen: What? Are you going to blame me for everything? Don’t be thick. He has his own free will.
Zipporah: Did you ever do it with him before.
Karen: Of course I did. You should try it. That boy is HAWT!
Zipporah: As much as I know everyone loves to hear the kinky details of sex with their brother, there are more pressing matters at hand. We’re gonna tell him the truth.
Karen: Of course. The “truth”. It’s a good thing Jesse knows. He’ll help us.
Jesse: I’m gonna find out what the police questioned your mom about.
Karen: You’re the best.
Zipporah: And what am I? Chopped liver?
Karen: You know I love you, Zipporah! Night night.
Jesse: Tomorrow night we’re gonna check out the Bates Hotel.
Zipporah: You did not just say that.
Zipporah: Well, what’d you see.
Jesse: Nothing.
Zipporah: What do you mean, nothing? What did you see, Jesse?
Jesse: It’s an unfinished apartment. Harry Pearson’s mother could never have lived there.
Zipporah: Her original plan was to dress up as his mother and pretend she was her and order him to leave Karen alone.
Jesse: She left the wig and nightgown behind?
Zipporah: Yes.
Jesse: How do you know all that?
Zipporah: I knew she was here the whole time. She lied to you to protect me, so she says. I was the one who made the phone call in New York. She also read your diary, just so you know. And neither of us will even think about what else Karen could’ve lied to us about.
Jesse: I’m gonna pick you up from school tomorrow and we’re gonna talk to Karen about the apartment and what I find out from Dad.
Mr. Stein: I got that phone call you were waiting for, son.
Jesse: And?
Mr. Stein: There was no way anyone ever lived in the apartment. According to Mrs. Pearson, the other Mrs. Pearson had her own bedroom upstairs and never moved out. They found Harry Pearson’s body and the knife. Nothing else.
Jesse: Could they have missed something? Like a nightgown shaped something?
Mr. Stein: You two know something more than what you’re telling me? Spit it out.
Zipporah: It’s my fault. I spoke to Karen after the murder. Here.
Mr. Stein: Where is she now?
Zipporah: In the attic. She’s been here the whole time.
Mr. Stein: You’ve gotta be effing kidding me. Bring her down here!
Zipporah: Karen, are you here?
Karen: No.
Zipporah: Karen’s not here anymore.
Mr. Stein: I’m going to the cops.
Zipporah: Karen, come out now.
Jesse: There’s no proof to support your story. There’s no apartment, no wig, no nightgown.
Karen: They’re lying, Jesse.
Jesse: Dad knows everything.
Karen: Even about us?
Jesse: Karen.
Karen: Bye, squares. It’s been fun. Or something like the opposite of fun. I can’t tell which. I think I’ll go home now.
Zipporah: Well that was anticlimactic.
Mrs. Pearson: Karen’s pregnant.
Jesse: My bad.
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