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charcherry-weekly · 3 years

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Charcherry Weekly - Issue 52!

Heya peeps, Prince of Time Garnett Garren here. With Nick on vacation for a while, you're gonna be seeing me a lot more often.

1 year anniversary!

Seeing as its issue 52, that means this newsletter's been going for an entire year now! A lot has gone on in the single year that this has been running. While there aren't that many dungeons being crashed lately, there is a metric heckton of other things in the wings. One thing's for sure though, things don't show any sign of slowing down so expect this newsletter to keep going for issues to come!

Since when are emeralds red anyways

Very early in the week, Emerald Guardian Barack Obama sent Seals (as in like, navy seals or something) after the runaway Hoopa while in the Fire Nation. Apparently they got into a stand-off against a group of firebending bears, which wound up setting a portion of the forest on fire. The red Super Emerald, having been found with the hoopa, was apparently shattered, its pieces having been reported thousands of miles away.

There has yet to be any conclusive efforts on seeking out the emerald shards, and the hoopa is still at large, having been reported of summoning more pokemon to starter planet.

You know what would be really funny though? If hoopa made a bunch of starter pokemon show up on starter planet. Like, even without that happening, I can still imagine someone asking where Nick got their first pokemon and being just like "I got my starter from starter planet", with absolutely nobody outside of the dungeon crashers even believing them. That being said, what type would starter planet wind up being? it's got water, grass (albeit pink), and fire on it.

Thankfully, contrary to Nick's previous concerns, the conflict was limited to only one battle, with only one recorded casualty (rip unknown primeape).

Terrors of Terraria Defeated!

A couple days back, Enker.exe, Magical Fae Brae Emit, and *CaFAI reconvened to fight against the Eye of Cthulhu in Terraria. Reportedly, they were actually successful this time, and moved on to the Eater Of Worlds, which they also managed to defeat in battle, with minimal deaths to boot. It seems they're getting pretty far with this thing.

This is the current list of npc's present at the main base:

Golfer - Harry Madison

Zoologist - Daphne

Party Girl - Candy

Tavernkeep - Driscan

Angler - Tyler

Dryad - Faye

Goblin Tinkerer - Grodax

Nurse - Lorraine

Arms Dealer - Maurice

Stylist - Esmeralda

Painter - Marco

Dye Trader - Yehomilk

Merchant - Gus

Demolitionist - Darur

Guide - Maxwell

As someone who's never played Terraria ever, I have no idea what half of these npc's even do most of the time. From the way things are going, it seems there's still more bosses to be fight on the horizon.

The Mage is Out

The other night, me and Mage of Light Nick Card (and Slope the Slowpoke, can't forget about Slope!) were invited over for dinner at the lab in Desertia. It was spaghetti night. It was alright at first, the spaghetti was excellent, but Nick just kept escalating in anxiety over worries about the safety of a close friend as the night continued on.

There wasn't much I could do for them in their upset state, to the point where I just sorta went home by myself after the Kitten couple retired for the night.

The next day, Nick hadn't come home yet, and neither had Slope. Last footage of them showed them entering a fairy ring and disappearing. According to local experts, by using fae tokens while in an emotionally compromised state, it wound up redirecting their destination to somewhere else entirely. I was freaking worried for a bit there.

Later on, a letter had apparently appeared in Gene's Garden, having been penned by Nick. Here's the contents:

My dear newsletter readers, Rest assured, your dear newsletter writer is safe and sound. I have found myself in the world of pokemon, in a region seemingly pulled from my own imagination, but extrapolated further than what I could ever dream of. The Pinto Region is Real. I am currently travelling with my faithful companion slowpoke Slope. I plan on catching more pokemon later on, as I do plan on taking on the pokemon league, however, it appears I have to take a day-class to get my trainer's license and the class isn't until tomorrow. While I didn't expect a vacation like this, perhaps this is what I really need. Stay safe over there. -Nick Card, Mage of Light

According to Nick's letter, they wound up in the "Pinto Region", identified as a location that the two of us had (very vaguely) written about in our self-insert pokemon fanfic, Pichu quest. It can be assumed that Nick will be just fine, as long as they don't run into any hungry snorlaxes. Likely Slope will be able to protect them until they accumulate a larger party.

I'm kinda split about this whole debacle. while it seems like it'll be a good vacation for them and all, what if they wind up getting into trouble over there? What if they start causing personal crises upon potentially revealing that they may have had some part in that region's creation? Damn, now I'm starting to sound more like them @ _@.

I wonder if I should try again on the whole pokemon training thing, now that I don't have tigeplushsprite figuratively breathing down my neck anymore. This house sure could use some more noise now that I have it to myself, that's for sure. It's just like, its hard to heal after losing someone you bonded with for so long. Yes, I do realize that Scrabble was probably on the edge of going feral after the blood dress incident on my ascension day, but we had a bond. He started out as an eevee plush prototyped imp and ended up evolving into an umbreon prototyped imp. It takes a lot of work to gain the trust of an underling. Probably the only reason things worked out was because he got injured to near breaking point when I first met him on the Land of Holes and Numbers, having fallen into one of its many holes.

Anyways, back to the topic, if things pan out as expected, Nick will probably be on a pokemon adventure for like, a year or something.

That should do it for this week! There's been some reports of even moar vandalism on important government buildings in hepi, as well as Brae apparently really getting into the whole pokemon trainer thing as well.

https://letssosl.boards.net/thread/275/charcherry-weekly-issue-52

#charcherry weekly #sbarg2.5dungeoncrashers #sbargv2 #terraria #pokemon #shinyjiggly

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natzeeab1962 · 3 years

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SPLITING HAIRS OVER SPLITTING BODIES

On a typical day of enduring the drudgery of professional pretense in my old workplace, I chanced upon a news item regarding acclaimed Filipino Film Director, Amable “Tikoy” Aguiluz’s aborted Manananggal Project for Hollywood. For reasons not entirely clear, the project fell through. In discussing the project’s failure to launch, Tikoy bemoaned not being able to shoot the opening scene he had already conjured. It was the Manananggal circling the Empire State Building on its way to hunting prey in the whole borough of Manhattan.

For those not in the in the know, the Manananggal, also known by its categorical name Aswang, is the stuff of Philippine goblin folklore; a creature that severs its torso from its other half (hence the label) and roams the moonlit skies hunting for nourishment. The creature usually dwells in the countryside and is believed to prey mostly on infanticipating women in their first semester. It lands on the roof of a Nipa Hut (a native shack made of indigenous materials, chief of which is Bamboo and Nipa leaves), and there slips its long forked tongue through the cracks or slats and carves out the fetus of its unsuspecting victim. If there are no preggy moms to feast on, it makes do with its usual staple of human liver (raw and bloody, natch).

I’m not sure if it was Aguiluz’s failed attempt to put the Manananggal on the global cinematic map that got me started on my own Manananggal fauxibility. One thing for sure, the image of the creature roaming and scouring for human cuisine in a highly urbanized setting such as New York city brought me back to my childhood haunts.

In the early 70s, a tabloid report exploded about a Manananggal sowing terror in the metro. As if to amp-up the scare factor, the article went on to talk about reported victims, albeit anonymous, and the public was advised to take necessary precautions. As asinine and preposterous as that news might sound today, there were some adults who were not quick to junk it as hokum (pretty much like the Trumpbeciles who still believe their Il Douche won the election). I chanced upon some conversations in my neighborhood, where men in their early 20s babbled about spiking a lei of garlic on their window frames as a surefire measure to make them impervious to the Manananggal’s assaults while they slept (just like vampires, the Manananggal is averse to the scent of garlic). Others bragged about their augmented arsenal of salt, ready to do damage in case the Mananggal’s abandoned half showed up somewhere (as per folklore, vast amounts of sodium spread on the creature’s abandoned trunk would inhibit it from grafting its torso back leading to its demise).

These guys were not being facetious. Most believed that the creature was not just some figment of a twisted reporter or old wives’ imagination. Some based the veracity of its existence on hearsay that the creature walked amongst us in broad daylight. They transacted business; they rode public utility vehicles; they could even act as a Good Samaritan, lending a hand to someone who might need it in the street. No one would suspect that this wolf in sheep’s skin sitting or standing next to him could be coming after him or his pregnant wife that same evening. If you were sharp enough, this was how you could spot an Aswang amongst the crowd. No ridge or groove ran across its upper lip, making that portion beneath its nose as smooth as a grazed plain.

My mom was among those who scoffed at that news. My impressionable mind though would not agree and she had her own stories to blame for why I ignored my throbbing bladder in the middle of the night just to avoid gazing at the bedroom window where the creature could just pop up.

As a young girl growing up in the province, she too, heard rumors about the Manananggal preying on their community. Those stories naturally stuck with her on those nights she was asked to run errands like fetch water in remote places. (Why her mother chose her to be the designated runner and not her three other siblings could be attributed to middle-child syndrome which deserves another story on its own. My grandma reckoned that if the creature was coming after her children, it was her third child that should be on top of the pecking order).

On those errands, my mom might have picked up some disturbing noises along the way. However, the spooky sounds failed to put a face or figure to it that would have easily brought the fear of the creature in her. Sure, she might have felt goosey at some point but she resolved not to be subdued by fear. Instead, she looked for something lethal to defend herself. She then dared whatever was lurking in the dark to show up, ready to sling it with the hard object in her hand while pelting it with colorful language that should never come out of a kid’s mouth. The creature never showed its face. Apparently, it was averse not just to garlic and sodium but to feisty little girls with salty language. After that, she was possibly more predisposed to believe Santa slipping through the cracks of their thatched roof than the Manananggal landing on it.

She had another story though about her older brother with a not-so similar experience. While on his walk home, he sensed somebody tailing him and saw a woman in a flowing white gown with eyes as dead as the night. He scampered off, paused, bent forward, and peered between his legs, perhaps based on what he heard was a preventive measure to keep the hell hound of his tail. What he saw next was just that; the woman had turned into a black dog snarling at him. He scurried off without looking back. The dog/woman obviously didn’t give chase as he managed to reach home unscathed. As to why, go figure.

With those memories in mind, my own little Toy Truck process got me going. As I was plowing on, it became clear that I wanted to avoid the trap of another Spook-and-Shock-Them tale. There’s just way too much of that already in those clunky and campy Tagalog flicks. What I was gunning for, much like Coppola did for the mob genre, was fashion my Manananggal story into a family saga like The Godfather (or at least come within proximity of that).

What came of it was Jebediah Magtanggal and his tale “The Honorable Magtanggals”, the second installment of the trilogy “Heroic Fauxibilities”. Following the thematic thread that binds all three books, Jebediah is an ordinary guy thrust into extraordinary circumstances. An orphan left under a tree and adopted by a poor childless couple, Jebediah doesn’t discover his otherworldly feral nature until the age of five. When he makes his first kill, he is beset with guilt. After that, he resolves to live by the moral code to only hunt those that deserve to be chewed out of this world.

If there’s a Yin there has to be Yang, right? The Yang in this case is his own family with whom he enjoins to live by his code. However, in due time, his family wages a mutiny led by his wife. Under her influence, their children stray from their raison d’ etre by using their condemned abilities not just for nourishment but to feed a much baser instinct, that is, to use that power to subvert both the powerful and the powerless.

Of all my babies so far, this book proved the most difficult to get in shape, despite how easily it commenced. Even when the book was ready to go to print, I was doing last minute revisions and rewrites. I wanted to insert as many why’s and wherefores while still leaving lots of room for the imagination to speculate about certain things. The time it took me to do that almost proved costly. The final version of the book almost never made it to print, partly due to my failure to advise the publisher that I was still tinkering with the manuscript. But all’s well that ends well and what eventually emerged is the story of Jebediah that I found gratifying to tell.

Did I achieve my intentions? I would like you be the judge of that. Here’s hoping you can check out my book available on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Fauxibilities-Heroic-Honorable-Magtanggals/dp/1952894433/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2MUW4P631VSMN&dchild=1&keywords=the+honorable+magtanggals&qid=1607562252&sprefix=the+honorable+magtang%2Caps%2C390&sr=8-2) and Barnes and Noble (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-fauxibilities-series-natzee-ab/1137630280?ean=9781952894435). Let me know what you think.

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