KaktusKontainer

<Cimmerian> ARD: Working on a tale right now but I had some thoughts.
<ARD> yeah
<Cimmerian> I wonder what a street war in chicago between criminal elements linked to MC&D and the Chicago Spectre remnants might look like.
<Cimmerian> Right now I'm writing about the Sears Tower, which is the top half of the office building but dimensionally shifted. Because everyone thinks it's still called Sears Tower.
<Cimmerian> so it literally created this place
<Cimmerian> and my Journeymen are leasing it out to MC&D and other anomalous businesses
<Cimmerian> But my thinking is in the realm of like, Fargo Season 2, which you may or may not be familiar with. Where MC&D decides to just come in and crush the anomalous organized crime in the city under their heel and take it all over.
<Cimmerian> and all the smaller outfits get either wiped out or band together to try to fuck up this course of events
<Cimmerian> and the smaller outfits that band together? They do so under the banner of the Chicago Spirit
<Cimmerian> that sounds crazy or crazy good?
<ARD> hmmmmmmmmmmmmm
<ARD> I've been thinking about a story in which the spectre assaults a corporate tower
<Cimmerian> oh wow
<Cimmerian> that's fortuitous
<ARD> it is.
<ARD> I honestly hadn't had any ideas for it aside from an assault on a tower
<Cimmerian> that fully fits in with the story as outlined

• HippoAway is now known as Hippo

<ARD> mmmm
<Cimmerian> right now I'm working on a story where MC&D calls a Journeyman guy to their offices to let them know about the takeover in case they have any criminal connections they wanna salvage before the sweep
<Cimmerian> so the tower will be defined at least a little bit
<ARD> yeh
<ARD> there are Three stories I am currently thinking about for the Chicago Spectre
<ARD> 1) the tower assault
<ARD> 2) an anomalous street race
<ARD> 3) a trip to the moon to kill some witcheds
<ARD> *witches
<Hippo> hahaha oh man
<Hippo> that gives me an idea for a really, really simple chicago spirit tale
<ARD> w r i t e i t
<ARD> we're gonna make chicago spirit happen
<Hippo> fucking work

• Hippo is now known as HippoWork

<HippoWork> a very old man turns himself into the foundation, trying to pass himself off as anomalous; it turns out it's a trick, he has an anomalous object on his person. He's this rich old man with a criminal background

• HippoWork is now known as Hippo
• Hippo is now known as HippoWork

<HippoWork> eventually he explains he wants to be contained by the Foundation to protect him. He tells several stories all related to the Chicago Spirit, offering to turn over evidence/information/what he knows in exchange for their protection
<Cimmerian> I have another tale in my head next as well
<HippoWork> at the end, the last story/bit is about how he framed his partner for a crime he didn't commit, and how his partner vowed to 'kill him no matter what'
<HippoWork> and the final stinger is the old man freaking out because his partner was just finally executed this morning
<ARD> HippoWork: reminds me of 2632
<HippoWork> and now the partner, a hitman with unparalleled conviction, is a hitman *ghost*
<HippoWork> and coming after him
<HippoWork> scp-2632
<jarvis> hippowork: SCP-2632: No Fury (written a year ago by Doctor Cimmerian; rating: +130) - http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-2632
<Cimmerian> bunch o' anomalous criminals and anomalies get rounded up by Foundation agents and moved into processing. But instead of getting put into boxes they just all get murdered. Turned out it's MC&D pretending to be the foundation to lull them into a false sense of security.
<HippoWork> maybe — doesn't have the same twist tho
<HippoWork> it's more played straight
<HippoWork> also i like it as a framing device, and primarily bccause the idea of a hit-man who is a ghost is an idea i find hilarious
<Cimmerian> which admittedly is modeled after the valentine's day massacre
<Cimmerian> but still
<HippoWork> cimmerian: oh i like that; the idea of MC&D doing a foundation fake-out i mean
<HippoWork> actually haha that could work for the story i just described as an actual twist
<Cimmerian> yesh this is why I brought it up ;)
<HippoWork> where it turns out he didn't turn himself over to the foundation; he turned himself over to the chicago spirit posing as the foundation
<Cimmerian> twists and turns and fakes outs galore
<Cimmerian> this is organized crime war motherfuckers!
<Cimmerian> HippoWork: Your key there is
<Cimmerian> don't overplay it
<Cimmerian> like, just have the guy who's been interrogating him turn off the camera, like he's going to play hardball or something
<Cimmerian> then ahve the hitman ghost come in
<Cimmerian> and the interrogator see this ghost and do nothing about it
<Cimmerian> with a little reveal as to who he *really* works for
<HippoWork> haha — actually tbh, like
<HippoWork> if that's the twist i kind of would think about changing the underlying structure re: the hitman ghost *anyway*
<Cimmerian> oh oh shit
<HippoWork> but yeah i could definitely see wanting to avoid overplaying it
<Cimmerian> the guy interviewing him
<Cimmerian> the ghost is just the guy interviewing him
<HippoWork> right — like that immediately brought that to mind — maybe the ghost can possess people
<HippoWork> and actually maybe the stories the guy is telling is about this hitman ghost
<Cimmerian> yeah you can play that *real* subtle throughout
<Cimmerian> and then lay your cards on the table at the end
<HippoWork> though the moment i reveal he can possess people the jig might be up — it wold probably come up in the final tale, in a subtle way, yeah
<HippoWork> I just love the origin story being as simple, as, like — he was hired to do a hit
<HippoWork> they shot him mid-way through it
<HippoWork> and he just got back up as a ghost and kept going
<HippoWork> because *nobody* stops him from finishing his hit
<Cimmerian> well
<Cimmerian> that's the plain jane version
<Cimmerian> the fun one is: He realized being dead meant he could be better at his job, so he got himself killed.
<Cimmerian> not only does he kill you, he kills you after he kills you
<Cimmerian> like
<Cimmerian> imagine in an anomalous world
<Cimmerian> you have an informant who dies
<Cimmerian> just resurrect him or summon his ghost or whatever
<Cimmerian> and get the information that way
<HippoWork> haha. that brings to mind a hilarious scene where, he was imprisoned by the FBI, sentenced to life in prison
<HippoWork> and since it interfered with him finishing his hit, he just killed himself
<HippoWork> and kept going
<Cimmerian> what if there's a guy you call to make sure that does't happen?
<HippoWork> haha — yeah — kind of similar to ARD's tale — but an actual ghost who shoots ghosts
<HippoWork> a hitman who makes sure the dead stay down
<Cimmerian> also a bit more chilling when you think about it
<Cimmerian> no afterlife
<HippoWork> that's a pretty good tagline, too — in a business where death's just inconvenient, it pays to have a man who keeps them in the grave
<Cimmerian> no nothing
<Cimmerian> just non-existance, because you saw a guy shoot his girlfriend in an alley and he had the right connections
<HippoWork> yeah
<Cimmerian> "Honestly this job could be worse. I could be the guy who has to take care of the people who actually make it down below. Or even worse the guy who does my job up top."
<Cimmerian> just chillaxing on a cloud with your harp and shit and suddenly a laser sight shows up on your forehead
<Cimmerian> now *that's* a story
<HippoWork> haha someone hires him to kill a man in Hell

• HippoWork is now known as Hippo

<Hippo> the angel thing is fun but I always have reservations about defining heaven in fiction; there's a lot tied up into it, and getting too specific strikes me as a dangerous move
<Hippo> but hell feels like a place you can get away with a lot more
<Hippo> also it ties into an idea I really like about the Chicago Spirit, that I want to explore at some point, or bring up — or possibly even have as an alternative to the Chicago Spirit — a criminal organization that's run by people who have avoided death by becoming ghosts
<Cimmerian> so that's why it never seems to fully die
<Hippo> like a criminal organization run out of a graveyard, for example; something about the image of a bunch of old-school gangsters who have escaped death via any means they could
<Cimmerian> ARD: You know what you name your Chicago Spirit tower assault tale?
<Cimmerian> Spirit in the Sky
<Hippo> hahaha
<Hippo> if it's a diamond heist even better
<Cimmerian> I mean every tale I write about the Journeymen is going to be a lyric from a Journey song. I'll just keep doing it until someone notices and then I'll keep doing it after.
<Hippo> well i appreciate your dedication

• Hippo was maybe going to do something similar with Queen >_>

<ARD> Cimmerian: honestly I was just gonna call it High Society
<Cimmerian> if you don't call it spirit in the sky you are a word criminal
<ARD> Heh
<ARD> Honestly? I see two very distinct styles for chicago spirit
<ARD> One is the hard boiled noirish pulp that you see in stuff like 2680 and Hartliss
<Cimmerian> Shit I'm trying to break in with a completely different style to the rest of y'all.
<ARD> The other is this animesque high concept thriller action like in all the -Velocity series
<ARD> The Chicago Spectre is literally modeled after a rap duo
<Hippo> I'm obviously deeply into the hard-boiled pulp image of the chicago spirit, but i like reconciling it with a more modern aesthetic
<Hippo> and i like the idea of those two contrasting aesthetics clashing
<Cimmerian> I'm doing that thing where I try to tie in MC&D any way I can do my works because I love the GOI
<ARD> Hippo: that kind of clash would be amazing tbh
<Cimmerian> *to
<Hippo> like ghost-gangsters who are old-school old-guard up against the modern version
<Cimmerian> think about it though
<ARD> I tried bridging the gap with Neo Noir stuff inspired by John Wick
<Cimmerian> ARD's absolutely right
<ARD> That’s partly what Zeitgeist was
<Hippo> 'you ain't real gangsters' — 'bunch of out-dated moldy corpses'
<Cimmerian> "MAybe we ain't but this is a real tommy gun!"
<Cimmerian> rat-a-tat-tat mother fuckers
<ARD> What other stuff can we have these guys do
<Hippo> haha
<ARD> I actually had a skip idea
<ARD> About a portal to another dimension that was opened by the spectre to sell alcohol to - because in that universe they simply never conceived of alcohol
<Cimmerian> …what do they do when the spectre disappears?
<ARD> That’s the rub
<Cimmerian> rubbing alcohol!?
<Hippo> i had a similar idea in mind for obskurakorps vs OBSKURA; like, the old-guard Nazis against the new 'Neo-Nazis' who were trying to push into a sort of technofascism and leave behind the old nonsensical beliefs and traditions of their ancestors, who they saw as basically nosferatu — these monsters from an old world that had grown hopelessly out of touch
<Cimmerian> I kid, continue
<ARD> They open a portal to ask for more alcohol
<ARD> Which is how the foundation finds em
<Cimmerian> does the foundation just teach them how to make alcohol?
<ARD> Good question
<ARD> Haven’t gotten that far
<Cimmerian> It would make the containment significantly easier
<Cimmerian> like
<Cimmerian> at first, imagine the foundation just keeps it contained
<ARD> I imagine that they treat it as IMPORTED alcohol
<ARD> The people in Abstinentverse
<Cimmerian> then these guys start opening portals elsewhere because fucking hell they'd like some more please
<ARD> Yeah they start making their own but it pales in comparison to the foreign brew
<ARD> Budweiser is high quality beer
<Cimmerian> so you keep them from doing that by going "ok here's how you do it"
<Hippo> ARD: maybe fermentation doesn't work in the alternate universe
<ARD> That opens up a huge can of worms tbh
<ARD> Lactic acid fermentation, yeast, etc
<Hippo> bacteria aren't present/didn't evolve in a similar fashion?
<Cimmerian> that's gonna pose way too many scientific issues
<Hippo> yeah true it wold mean te universe would like *way* different
<ARD> I would have to explore so much bio shit
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<Hippo> unless haha it is actually way simpler than that
<ARD> It’s way easier just to say “they literally never thought of brewing alcohol”
<Hippo> unless like some reality bender/god/universe-controller said "NO FUCKING ALCOHOL, UNIVERSE-WIDE PROHIBITION"
<ARD> Because pretty much all anaerobic life relies on fermentation
<Cimmerian> …
<Cimmerian> actually hippos last idea there is brilliant
<Cimmerian> fucking alcohol runners in a teetotaler run universe
<ARD> Its pretty good I’ll give him that
<ARD> Haha holy shit
<Hippo> oh fuck
<Hippo> the Foundation declared alcohol anomalous
<ARD> Cimmerian: they have to outrun the temperance group which is basically just a religious cult
<Cimmerian> heh
<ARD> A foundation trying to contain alcohol

• Cimmerian laughs

<ARD> On a global scale
<Hippo> like man
* Hippo is now known as HippoWork
<Cimmerian> see that's a fucking brilliant story thread
<HippoWork> gotta go start a pump
<Cimmerian> develop *that*
<HippoWork> make the Foundation theFBI yeah
<Cimmerian> see where it goes
<HippoWork> AFK
<ARD> Heh
<Cimmerian> like
<Cimmerian> point of divergence
<Cimmerian> the 1930's during prohibition, one of the temperance union people is a reality bender
<Cimmerian> and they just go "No more alcohol!"
<Cimmerian> and it is impossible ot make it there now
<Cimmerian> like as long as it's not for consumption, it works just like it's supposed to
<Cimmerian> it's a new fundamental constant for the universe: Alcohol that you drink to get inebriated cannot be created.
<Cimmerian> But it can be transported in from outside.
<Conwell> "Nya, shee! We're gonna bring in this here hooch from the dimension next door, shee!"
<ARD> Exactly
<ARD> Cimmerian: I think we got a stew goin
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<HippoWork> cimmerian: i had actually imagined it as the Foundation just *declaring* alcohol as being anomalous, but admittedly, a reality bender works too
<HippoWork> like the Foundation takes the role of the FBI during Prohibition — but this still leaves the Foundation itself as containing alcohol, since in this setting,alcohol would be anonomalous (since the laws of reality would prevent it)
<HippoWork> also interdimensional bootlegging seems like a p. hilarious idea
<Cimmerian> yeah that's the thing I'm stuck on

<Hippo> .tell ard re: chicago spirit, i'm thinking of going with the notion that in modern times, the 'old guard' are part of the Trust; they think of themselves as *literal* Chicago Spirits — on account of being actual ghosts
<jarvis> hippo: Sent.
<ARD> Amazing
<Hippo> .tell ard this is relevant toward your newer stuff only in the sense that they might consider themselves the 'genuine' spirit, while more modern variations consider them a bunch of moldy corpses sequestered away behind a ouija board
<jarvis> hippo: Sent.
<Hippo> 'yeah sorry grandpa but if we need somebody to haunt a funeral home we'll call you'
<Hippo> they're still remarkably dangerous but also very limited. and I think that this was actually a con they ran, to escape a debt — they sold their souls for something, but found a loophole, where if they continued to persist as spirits/ghosts, the debt could not be collected
<ARD> I’ve had a couple ideas for how to handle modern vs old spirit - one of the ideas I had is that chapelle - the founder of the spirit - put a curse on the word so that only a true heir could use it. That’s why the spectre calls themselves as such
<Hippo> hm that works too — it actually might sync up — since i imagine these are some of chapelle's original people — i also like the cursed name thing too yeah
<ARD> But Chapelle also hid a cache of loot to go to whoever would earn that name. So all the minor paracrime groups are feuding with each other to get the name and the loot
<Hippo> hahaha — al capone's empty vault
<ARD> Basically
<Hippo> is the twist here that chapelle's vault is nothing, and he just wanted to make them all squabble and kill each other
<Hippo> 'cuz none of them were worthy
<Hippo> even if that isn't the twist it's still a pretty fun idea/story — almost a modern day pirate tale — a bunch of old-school gangsters fighting against new-school gangsters to determine who gets the title and who gets the loot
<ARD> The Chicago Spectre themselves aren’t terribly interested in the loot anyways - I’ve tried to characterize the inside man as being more of a power broker. Like in terminal velocity, he has the rookie hijack the train not to steal gold but to steal Alexylva’s military secrets
<ARD> Which are worth far more than gold
<Hippo> hm fair enough; the ghosts could be pursuing it and perceived as just a bunch of fading shadows pursuing a decayed treasuremap that leads no where
<Hippo> running after a sun that has long since set
<ARD> Yeah
<ARD> The Spectre doesn’t give a damn about the loot - but they will be damned if a bunch of dead fogeys will make them do anything

04:49 Hippo: Peppersghost: oh! that's super-cool! uh there's nothing *I* can think of to add lore-wise; I was going to mention to you that the guy in hartliss with the razor-teeth and rusty
04:50 Hippo: bleh — the guy with the razor-teeth and rusty nails and such was based off that one mention of a character's nickname you had ('saw-teeth' i think)
04:50 Hippo: like it doesn't have to be that guy but that's what made me decide to go with that
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04:53 PeppersGhost: I noticed that! I'd vaguely imagined a metal-mouthed character, but the random bits of sharp objects was perf
04:53 PeppersGhost: I think in a previous draft of the page I'd named one of the characters Cheeseface
04:54 Hippo: hahahahaha
04:54 Hippo: just re-imagining that bit except now the man's face is made out of cheese, and he can't stop eating it becaus ehe is delicious
04:55 Hippo: 'I Have No Mouth And I Am Delicious'
04:57 JohnMK has left IRC (Quit: CGI:IRC)
04:57 PeppersGhost: "Ey bwoss, are youse eating yer own head again?"
04:57 Jabyrwock: I Have No Mouth and Lots of Cream
04:57 PeppersGhost: "SHADDAP MUGSY"
04:58 Hippo: hahahaha
04:59 Hippo: flashbacks to pizzaface the hut
04:59 Hippo: .g pizzaface
04:59 jarvis: hippo: [1/10] Urban Dictionary: pizza face - https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pizza%20face - An offensive term telling people that they have bad acne.
04:59 Hippo: .g pizzaface the hut
04:59 jarvis: hippo: [1/10] Pizza the Hutt | Spaceballs Wiki | FANDOM powered by Wikia - http://spaceballs.wikia.com/wiki/Pizza_the_Hutt - Pizza the Hutt's death in the movie is coincidental, seeing as how his reputed voice actor, Dom Deluise, died of a heart attack in May 4, 2009 at the age of 75. Van Halen's "Good Enough" missing […]
05:00 PeppersGhost: Hippo: I need to see that one, I think it's on Hulu
05:01 PeppersGhost: This is what I thought of
05:01 PeppersGhost: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvrYEnRFZjM&feature=youtu.be&t=12m28s

05:01 jarvis: peppersghost: Histeria! 1x08 The U S Civil War 2 - length 18m4s - 11↑1↓ - 1,534 views - Bo Finneran on 2017-03-11
05:02 PeppersGhost: "sOthy about the Pegmakship, Bud I have EaBen mY oWn HeaD"
05:02 Hippo: omg histeria
05:02 Hippo: i loved that show
05:03 PeppersGhost: saaame
05:06 PeppersGhost: Yep, I had Cheeseface as Charles Derringer's nickname. Don't have one listed for him now
05:06 Hippo: that's like a dick tracy name for a villain
05:07 Hippo: I mean that's not a criticism if anything that's a reason to have it haha
05:08 Hippo: now I imagine it as some sort of greenland/iceland deal, like him and sawtooth
05:08 Hippo: 'oh shit they're sending SAWTOOTH after you' — 'yeah they're sending cheeseface after you' — 'haha i got this'
05:08 PeppersGhost: I think that's why I included it; I can't remember exactly why I backpedaled but I was probably worried it was too silly
05:09 Hippo: 'what happened to bill' — 'cheeseface murdered his whole fucking family and made him eat their bones'
05:09 PeppersGhost: HA
05:09 PeppersGhost: Write that into something, somewhere, and I'll have no choice but to make Cheeseface canon again
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05:10 Hippo: haha i can can imagine him just being completely ordinary looking
05:11 Hippo: 'why do they call him cheeseface then' — 'you see his face, you cheese it'
05:12 Hippo: semi-related: 'cheese it' really needs to come back as a phrase
05:13 PeppersGhost: truth
05:13 PeppersGhost: Come to think of it, I rather like the idea of this guy choosing Charles Derringer as a cool-sounding mobster alias, only for people to start calling him Cheeseface
05:14 Jabyrwock: "Chucky Cheese"
05:14 Hippo: yes haha it's like one of those call sign things
05:14 Hippo: you try to pick your own cool sounding call sign
05:14 Hippo: so they give you the most annoying stupid call sign possible
05:14 Hippo: 'what do they call you, kid' — 'CHARLES DERRINGER'
05:14 Hippo: 'haha yeah no you're cheeseface now'
05:15 Hippo: 'what?! why that doesn't even make any—' — 'yeah yeah sure cheeseface whatever'
05:15 Hippo: and once that sticks it's locked in for life everyone knows you as cheeseface
05:15 Hippo: you either own it or you shoot anyone who calls you it
05:15 PeppersGhost: That's it. That's how it happened.

05:17 PeppersGhost: Also, looking back on this previous version of the page, I'm sorely tempted to turn at least one of these fake tales into a real one
05:17 Hippo: fake tales?
05:17 PeppersGhost: Yeah
05:18 PeppersGhost: the Chicago Spirit page was originally made as a spoof of the GOI contest articles that were going up in rapid succession
05:18 Hippo: oh do you mean the ARC things?
05:18 Hippo: oh — there were fake tales that used to be on previous iterations of it?
05:19 PeppersGhost: Yeah
05:19 Hippo: hahaha looking at them now
05:19 Hippo: 'zoot suit quiet'
05:19 Hippo: imagining that song, except someone interrupts the line by screaming 'QUIIIEEEET'
05:20 Hippo: 'in which 682 gets totally hammered'
05:20 Hippo: 'where did all my articles go' haha
05:20 PeppersGhost: If I end up writing one it'll probably be In Which 682 Gets Totally Hammered
05:20 Hippo: 'Live Hard, Speakeasy' that's like the ionizing radiation of puns
05:21 Hippo: 'Creature Crime Syndicate' immediately makes me think of a cross-over fanfic with Buckaroo Banzai vs Chicagi Spirit
05:22 PeppersGhost: .s buckaroo bonzai
05:22 jarvis: peppersghost: Page not found.
05:22 Hippo: (seriously tho how is there no buckaroo banzai vs the Foundation crossover fanfics)
05:22 PeppersGhost: .g buckaroo bonzai
05:22 jarvis: peppersghost: [1/10] The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension … - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Buckaroo_Banzai_Across_the_8th_Dimension - The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!, often shortened to Buckaroo Banzai, is a 1984 American science fiction romantic adventure comedy film directed and produced by W. D. […]
05:22 PeppersGhost: … I'm intrigued
05:22 Hippo: wait have you never seen that movie
05:23 Hippo: it's like if somebody distilled the 80s into a drug then smoked it while reading a paper on quantum entanglement
05:23 PeppersGhost: I've never even heard of it
05:23 PeppersGhost: I guess I'm one of today's lucky 10,000
05:23 Hippo: I mean to be fair you might not like it it's not everyone's deal — but the one thing i love about it is that it's like, hm
05:24 Hippo: you know how marvel's cinematic universe — like how if you plucked one of their movies out of context and watched it in a vacuum it would feel kind of weird, referring to all these other movies and events in a fictitious universe that don't exist
05:24 Hippo: that's buckaroo banzai
05:24 Hippo: it's like a marvel cinematic universe movie plucked out of another dimension
05:25 Hippo: all sorts of shit going on and you have no idea why but the movie treats it like you ought to know precisely why; in-jokes that make no sense but have the structure of in-jokes, etc
05:25 Icepick: o/
05:25 Maxson: http://www.scp-wiki.net/forum/t-5073632/scp-style-resource#post-3694172
05:25 PeppersGhost: well I know what's going to the top of my watch list

05:27 Hippo: also peppersghost: i don't think i've told you (i don't think i've told a lot of people actually) but one of the reasons i like the chicago spirit — well there's a couple of reasons but one element i like is that it feels like an element of a pulp story from the 30s, but treated historically
05:27 Hippo: like 'the shadow', except 'the shadow' was a real dude who lived and died
05:27 Dora: then he was like "hang on a sec lemme run off to the other side of the road"
05:27 Dora: and I followed him
05:28 Hippo: and that's actually something that i've wanted to try/the chicago spirit goi made me want to see if you can do — elements of pulp/superhero in the foundation-verse
05:28 Dora: and there was a smaller, white cat there
05:28 SunnyClockwork: awww
05:28 Hippo: particularly since, narratively, superhero stuff is completely contradictory to the themes at the center of the foundationverse
05:29 Icepick: .s vector
05:29 jarvis: icepick: SCP-353: "Vector" (written 9 years ago by Slate, rewritten 9 years ago by Pair Of Ducks; rating: +156) - http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-353
05:29 Dora: SunnyClockwork white cat is shy & hasn't allowed me to pet it yet, but I left it a chicken nugget & Tabby was openly affectionate with me in front of white cat, so with some luck it'll get used to me
05:29 PeppersGhost: Hippo: I know, right? Like, we've built up this huge cultural mythology around their period in time, and while there's some fascinating stuff, it's rarely as deliciously lurid as the stories we tell about it
05:29 Hippo: haha yeah and i like how vector rides that line (icepick)
05:30 Jabyrwock: I mean, I feel like the closest thing the Foundation has to superheroes is 076, so that probably dissuades a lot of people
05:30 SunnyClockwork: Dora: good luck then :P
05:30 PeppersGhost: Hippo: I did some research a while back, and if you trace the popularity of Dick Tracy against the popularity of Batman, it's like, inversely proportional
05:30 Hippo: yeah peppersghost — like, the whole notion of it being almost mundane, in a sense, but with just a spritz of magical realism and the premise of horror
05:30 Dora: :3
05:30 Hippo: huh
05:30 Hippo: in a certain way that isn't surprising but it is maybe a bit surprising — dick tracy is an authority figure
05:31 PeppersGhost: Heroes like Dick tracy were basically superheroes in those days
05:31 Hippo: while batman's motif is as an individual picking up where the authorities failed
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05:31 PeppersGhost: Keep in mind Batman took off in popularity around the time of the civil rights movement
05:31 Jabyrwock: ^
05:31 PeppersGhost: When police started to really be seen more as an oppressive force rather than a noble one
05:32 Hippo: i wasn't aware of that (the timing of batman's popularity), but it makes sense — yeah — and i know that originally batman was working with police but in later stories his relationship with them was often antagonistic
05:32 Dora: Hippo the better crossover is Dick Tracy vs. Dick Grayson
05:32 Dora: or as I call it
05:32 Dora: Battle of the Dicks
05:32 Dora: ;)
05:32 Hippo: haha
05:32 PeppersGhost: of course, Dick Tracey's decline in popularity might also have something to do with him marrying a moon woman
05:32 PeppersGhost: but that's debatable
05:33 Hippo: peppersghost: tho like, the shadow is a proto-batman, and the shadow was immensely popular during his time — and he's definitely someone who operates outside of the scope of authority — same for the spider
05:33 Hippo: hahaha
05:33 Modern_Erasmus: I just finally watched Your Name
05:33 Dora: PeppersGhost I mean, could've been worse
05:33 Dora: his decline in popilarity could've been due to mooning a woman
05:33 Modern_Erasmus: Holy fucking shit one of the best movies I’ve ever seen
05:33 Dora: :P
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05:33 Icepick: whooooooo wants to read a draft about crocodiles eating rich people with a view to give me ideas on how to expand it
05:33 Modern_Erasmus: Like my mind is fucking blown rn
05:33 Tufto: Good morning guys and gals.
05:33 Dora: but Modern_Erasmus
05:33 Icepick: Hey Tufto
05:34 Hippo: well ultimatly though yeah dick tracy is a story about a guy who does his job well; a story about the system working — there's only so far you can go with that
05:34 Dora: have you seen The Last Jedi
05:34 Dora badum tish
05:34 Tufto: 'lo pick.
05:34 Icepick: Your train skip is the second longest article on the site :P
05:34 Modern_Erasmus: I have actually
05:34 Tufto: Icepick: …
05:34 Tufto: what.
05:34 Modern_Erasmus: I kinda hate TLJ actually :P
05:34 Tufto: how.
05:34 Tufto: fuck.
05:34 Modern_Erasmus: Icepick: second longest skip
05:34 Icepick: Tufto: http://www.scp-wiki.net/list-of-articles-by-word-count
05:34 jarvis: icepick: List of Articles by Word Count (written 4 hours ago by DeRockProject; rating: -7) - http://www.scp-wiki.net/list-of-articles-by-word-count
05:34 Modern_Erasmus: There’s a few tales that are longer
05:34 Icepick: oh, yah I guess that list doenst include tales
05:34 Modern_Erasmus: But yeah, you knew you were up ther Tufto
05:35 Tufto: …
05:35 PeppersGhost: Hippo: That is true. I just know more about Dick Tracy since I researched the shit out of him for a uni project :p
05:35 Modern_Erasmus: Didn’t you?
05:35 Dora: Modern_Erasmus understandable. the first half of TLJ has some weird pacing
05:35 Modern_Erasmus: I mean, 3444 is fucking huge
05:35 Dora: but I love the second half
05:35 Dora: I mean, TLJ kinda hit all my weird personal softspots
05:35 Modern_Erasmus: Anyway, who cares about TLJ
05:35 Dora: it's so… Iliadic
05:35 Tufto: I knew it was like, in the top 20 or smth.
05:35 Tufto: but not #2 O.o.
05:35 Modern_Erasmus: When masterpieces like Your Name exist
05:35 Modern_Erasmus: Ughhhhhhhh
05:36 Hippo: peppersghost: fair! i know way more than i should about the shadow and the spider because i read a lot of that stuff as a kid >_> but yeah i see what you mean and i never thought about it but it makes sense
05:36 Modern_Erasmus: It was so amazing
05:36 Dora: a story about the Age of Heroes tha openly questions what's even the ruddy point of the race of heroes anyway
05:36 Dora: perfect :D
05:36 Dora: Modern_Erasmus I haven't seen Your Name so no spoil :P
05:36 Modern_Erasmus: Dora: stop what you’re doing and go watch it right now
05:36 Modern_Erasmus: You’ll thank me later
05:36 Hippo: there's just this weird emergence of counter-culture heroes versus culture-heroes; the shadow vs doc savage, or batman vs superman — characters who are about the system functioning as per normal, and characters who are about the system being dysfunctional
05:36 Dora: I will when I have the time
05:36 Dora: ;)
05:37 Tufto: Icepick: the founder of ikea just died, a sad day :(.
05:37 Icepick: aww
05:37 Hippo: and yeah i never thought about it but dick tracy is totally a superhero who fits into the 'the system works' category
05:37 Icepick: now would be a good time to write a tale in 3008 then
05:37 Dora: tsk
05:37 Tufto: ooooh I keep meaning to watch your name, 's on amazon prime.
05:37 Icepick: but im busy writing about crocodiles
05:37 Hippo: also re: that list i am marginally surprised video game violence is like in the 30th-40th slot
05:37 Tufto: if you recommend it erasmus, will watch it now.
05:37 Jabyrwock: the list doesn't actually sort by word count, it's just the length of the page code, so of dubious validity
05:38 Dora: Hippo I tend to encounter the phrase "culture hero" in, like, folklore studies context
05:38 Tufto: oooooh subbed or dubbed.
05:38 Tufto: ordinarily I'd go subbed but with animated films I'm never sure.
05:38 Dora: "mythological hero specific to some group (cultural, ethnic, religious, etc.) what discovered key inventions or institutions for that culture"
05:38 Tufto: especially japanese ones, where the sound of the language is far removed from anything I can guess.
05:38 Tufto: choices choices.
05:38 Hippo: oh nvm video game violence is like #78 i suck at counting
05:39 Dora: Hippo and now I'm imagining if Zeus vs. Prometheus can be read in that counter-culture heroes vs. culture-heroes context :P
05:39 Hippo: dora: do you ever hear it applied to trickster characters
05:39 Jabyrwock: also Hector vs. Achilles arguably

05:39 PeppersGhost: Hippo: All this talk really has me jonesing for that ML vs CS story
05:39 Hippo: dora: i think most counter-culture characters tend to be pretty close to the trickster mythos, or reflective of the trickster in some way, and prometheus def. qualifies
05:39 Tufto: what do you guys think, should I watch japanese animation subbed or dubbed?
05:39 Hippo: like prometheus is def. a trickster, or at least kind of trickster-ish
05:39 PeppersGhost: Because yeah, it'd basically be a superhero story in a historical fantasy context
05:40 Tufto: ok I will try subbed.
05:40 Hippo: haaha peppersghost i honestly don't think ML works in history though since he's built out of tropes we've projected on another period in time after that time has passed
05:40 Hippo: it'd be like real pirates encountering long john silver
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05:40 Tufto: this had better be good Modern_Erasmus :p.
05:40 Hippo: er wait was long john silver fictional
05:40 PeppersGhost: > it'd be like real pirates encountering long john silver
05:40 Hippo doesn't remember
05:40 PeppersGhost: you say this like it wouldn't be awesome
05:41 Tufto: Hippo: yes he was.
05:41 Dora: Hippo he was
05:41 Hippo: haha FAIR yes and there's a certain element of that which is hilarious, like
05:41 Dora: but like
05:41 Dora: .g Long John Silver
05:41 Modern_Erasmus: Tufto: I watched dubbed and it was really good
05:41 Hippo: the historically real people being like 'WtF is this bullshit'
05:41 jarvis: dora: [1/10] Long John Silver's: Seafood - Fish And Shrimp Restaurant - http://www.ljsilvers.com/ - Long John Silver's, as a expert Fish & Shrimp Restaurant, is a US based Fast Food Seafood Restaurant chain. Long John Silver's food offerings include Fish & Shrimp, platters, and various single items.
05:41 Hippo: but there's a sense of it being temporally 'off'? IDK tho it could work
05:41 Dora: .w long john silver
05:41 jarvis: dora: Long John Silver - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_John_Silver - John Silver or Long John Silver is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the novel Treasure Island (1883) by Robert Louis Stevenson. The most colourful and complex character in the […]
05:41 Modern_Erasmus: Tufto: I reccomend the dub because trust me, you will not want to take your eyes off the screen to read the dialogue
05:41 Hippo: I mean it's not like people weren't writing about 1930s gangsters when there were still 1930s gangsters around
05:42 Hippo: or cowboys when there were still cowboys
05:42 PeppersGhost: Sure, ML probably wouldn't have been created during the actual CS period, but that's easily remedied with some good ol' Weird Plot Shit
05:42 Hippo: oh god actually hahahaha
05:42 Tufto: Modern_Erasmus: huh ok.
05:42 Tufto: Modern_Erasmus: eh I'm managing subbed thus far :p.
05:42 PeppersGhost: Something I've been thinking about, I hadn't originally intended for CS to be something other people would write about, and I'm a little sad that I basically killed them off in the 30s
05:43 Tufto: admittedly it's been about 100 seconds but still :p.

05:43 Hippo: like peppersghost: i was talking to ard about this the other day i don't know if you ever heard/were there, but i really like the modern theme of the chicago spirit being old guard versus new; like a bunch of pretenders to the throne vs a bunch of old foggies who still think they're relevant despite it having died off
05:43 PeppersGhost: Maybe they're all actually living in the patalinguistic detective fiction world now
05:43 fleshcrafterAngel: PeppersGhost: Clearly they get an extended tenure stretching into the modern day in the next Daevic restructuring.
05:43 Icepick: who wants to read a draft about crocodiles eating rich people with a view to give me ideas on how to expand it
05:43 Tufto: these visuals are gorgeous though.
05:43 PeppersGhost: There's probably some great tale fodder in that
05:43 Hippo: but one of the ideas i had was that a bunch of chappell's cronies managed to pull off a deal where they got to persist in the form of a bunch of old-school gangster ghosts haunting a graveyard or something, trying to call the shots from beyond the grave — basically like
05:44 Hippo: *literally* the chicago spirit(s)
05:44 PeppersGhost: pfffHA
05:44 Hippo: but the new people who want the old name are like 'fuck you you're just a bunch of foggies trying to control things through a ouija board'
05:44 PeppersGhost: I could actually see that as part of the hierarchy
05:44 Hippo: and the great thing about that idea re: ML is it *lets you have* that conflict in the modern day; the ghosts of the chicago spirit versus murphy law, and the ghosts being like 'WTF are you'
05:44 PeppersGhost: you're not a *real* Made Man in the Spirit unless you're literally a ghost
05:45 Hippo: hahaha yes precisely
05:45 fleshcrafterAngel: (Speaking of literally the Chicago Spirit(s) - they can manifest anywhere that alcohol which went through Chicago is. :P)
05:45 Hippo: it's how they got out of something i figured — like they owed a debt or it's how they evaded the foundation or just JAIL TIME haha
05:45 Jabyrwock: taxes, too
05:45 Hippo: 'you can't jail me if i'm dead, copper'
05:45 Hippo: hahaha yes
05:45 Hippo: tax evasion via death
05:45 PeppersGhost: perf
05:46 Hippo: or some metaphysical entity, death itself — something, anything — and when they did that, like, the chicago spirit's spine was pretty much broken because they can only interact with the world in roundabout ways
05:46 fleshcrafterAngel: (This was much more useful to their business operations during Prohibition, of course, when it meant they were able to supervise deals directly all along the way.)
05:47 Hippo: also i do like the idea that they're limited somehow to chicago fleshcrafterangel — or alcohol in chicago
05:47 PeppersGhost: You could also potentially link it to SCP-3792
05:47 Hippo: scp-3792
05:47 jarvis: hippo: SCP-3792: Up In Smoke (written 7 months ago by Roget; rating: +29) - http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-3792
05:48 Hippo: whoa
05:48 PeppersGhost: I like the idea of them being bound to wherever their organization is strong, though
05:48 Hippo: this is actually pretty close to the feeling i imagined they might evoke, yeah
05:49 Jabyrwock: maybe like graffiti that tethers them to reality?
05:49 Hippo: like they managed to pull off one last twist, one last clever exit, but in doing so, they became half-formed entities, just wisps of smoke
05:49 Hippo: barely able to exert their will anymore — all they have left is their reputation
05:49 Jabyrwock: not in specific, just, anywhere there's a gang sign
05:49 Hippo: and the new breed *realizes* it and hence they get so little respect
05:49 Hippo: but there's still secrets they know, knowledge they have that can make them relevant and dangerous
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05:50 JohnMK: hello
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05:51 Dora: .lc
05:51 jarvis: dora: SCP-3783: The Siberian Assassin (written 2 hours ago by Bear-run) - http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-3783
05:51 jarvis: dora: List of Articles by Word Count (written 4 hours ago by DeRockProject) - http://www.scp-wiki.net/list-of-articles-by-word-count
05:51 jarvis: dora: The Subunit: Origins (written 7 hours ago by ISOSI) - http://www.scp-wiki.net/the-subunit-origins
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05:51 PeppersGhost: Hippo: I watched a documentary on the fall of the American mafia recently and that's pretty similar to how it went down in real life
05:52 PeppersGhost: Old guard would get killed or caught, and the new guys couldn't keep their families going because they stopped honoring the Old Ways
05:52 Hippo has joined (~PI.B07106FD.E1DC0F18.E35E1CF1|criigc#PI.B07106FD.E1DC0F18.E35E1CF1|criigc)
05:52 PeppersGhost: 05:51 PeppersGhost: Hippo: I watched a documentary on the fall of the American mafia recently and that's pretty similar to how it went down in real life
05:52 PeppersGhost: 05:52 PeppersGhost: Old guard would get killed or caught, and the new guys couldn't keep their families going because they stopped honoring the Old Ways
05:52 Hippo: connection dropped
05:52 Hippo: peppersghost: oh man i didn't even think of that parallel but yeah that's pretty excellent
05:52 Hippo: like the whole idea of their fall mimicking the fall of the real life mafia i mean
05:53 Hippo: also that desperation for relevancy in the face of their own impotence making them dangerous
05:53 Jabyrwock: though that's also a bit of an inverse, because the old guard would also be like - look, you could all get killed or jailed at any time. you can't actually guarantee anything. but no matter what, we'll still be here.
05:53 PeppersGhost: Hippo: Netflix also a 4.5 hour Ken Burns series on Prohibition I'm working through to gear up for writing about the CS again
05:53 Hippo: because they might just be a bunch of moldy old ghosts chasing after a setting sun but they've got nothing but time to exact their plans
05:54 Hippo: time and a long, long goddamn memory
05:54 fleshcrafterAngel: And, of course.
05:54 fleshcrafterAngel: They've got time to find people who will listen, importantly.
05:54 Hippo: the group was tentatively called 'the Trust', an inner circle of the chicago spirit, but — also yeah that
05:55 Jabyrwock: would that make the members Trustees
05:55 Hippo: also peppersghost: there's a couple of books i remember reading, at least one audio book, way back — will try to see if i can remember the name, it was p. excellent
05:55 Hippo: haha prolly
05:55 Hippo: tbh i picked the name 'the Trust' because it made them sound like a supervillain outfit
05:55 Hippo: also because it set them up opposite of capone's 'Outfit'
05:56 PeppersGhost: Hippo: Now I'm thinking, if the Trustees could somehow regain a little more corporeality (but still stay kinda smokey cuz that's cool), they might run into the Chicago Spectre and be like "who are these fucking posers"
05:56 Hippo: yes exactly, haha
05:56 PeppersGhost: and you have Spirit vs Spectre for more tale fodder
05:56 fleshcrafterAngel: (Also, it's pretty hilarious if anyone actually tries to go for a mirror group.)
05:56 Hippo: and the Chicago Spectre would be like, 'fuck you grandpa you don't even have a cybernetic brain implant'
05:56 Hippo: 'go haunt a goddamn museum'
05:56 PeppersGhost: Hippo: Yeah hit me up with good research material you come across
05:56 fleshcrafterAngel: ("You're the… You're the fuckin' DISTRUST? Who the hell told ya THAT was a good name?")
05:57 Hippo: also ard came up with a pretty great idea idk if he told you about it (peppersghost)
05:57 PeppersGhost: I need to log like this entire conversation
05:57 Hippo: it was that chappell somehow cursed the name 'the chicago spirit' before he went down to prevent any pretenders to the throne
05:57 PeppersGhost: ARD and I haven't talked much about the CS since earlier hub discussion
05:57 Hippo: which is why you have 'chicago specter', etc
05:57 Hippo: and why the trust wuld be like 'we're the *REAL* chicago spirit' because they were actual original members that escaped the downfall/collapse via death
05:58 PeppersGhost: Nice, yeah, that's very in-character
05:58 fleshcrafterAngel wonders how precise the curse is, and if you could get away with the Chicago Spear-It
05:58 Hippo: haha
05:58 PeppersGhost: Because he built that thing from the ground-up
05:58 PeppersGhost: It's like the whole captain-goes-down-with-the-ship thing, but backwards
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05:58 PeppersGhost: If the captain goes down, he'll bring his ship down with him
05:58 Hippo: right, yeah — i can def. see someone like that being very 'fuck you this is mine'
05:59 PeppersGhost: I need to log like this entire conversation so I don't forget it after I've slept
05:59 Hippo: haha i have a bunch of notes dumped *somewhere* I'm sure but also i think i have a log of the convo with ARD and Cimmerian about the CS i can send you at some point
05:59 fleshcrafterAngel: "If I can't have this, then it will burn so hot that any who come to rake through the ashes burn with it."
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05:59 fleshcrafterAngel: (Though obviously not an actual quote, because I seriously doubt anyone in the CS talked like that. :P)
06:00 Hippo: haha

06:00 PeppersGhost: BTW, I don't know if you want to do anything with Mr. Night; that's something I threw in at the end to be like "okay, there's more to this than previously let on, the book's not entirely shut on these guys"
06:00 Hippo: this also ties into something i've wanted to do but haven't had the gumption — i wanted to create a shadow analogue who pursued the spirit and other criminals, particularly anomalous ones
06:00 PeppersGhost: I didn't have anything planned beyond that, aside from a veiled implication that Mr. Night might be Dark of MCD
06:01 Hippo: yeah — i really liked that final twist — i feel like that's a great hook/plant of something more that can be gestated later — i didn't have any thoughts on that tho
06:01 Hippo: plus the way that chappell went out felt credible
06:01 Hippo: not 'blaze of glory' just 'old man in a prison cell'
06:02 Jabyrwock: I do actually kind of like the idea of his note regarding the curse to be simply "The captain always goes down with his ship"
06:02 PeppersGhost: I also liked the idea of this real high-and-mighty mob leader finding out he was set up to be the patsy for some antimemetic douchbag
06:02 Hippo: haha yes
06:02 Hippo: to both sentiments yeah
06:02 Hippo: kind of a kaiser soze deal almost
06:03 fleshcrafterAngel: (Huh.)
06:03 Hippo: re: the shadow analogue — an idea i've long been fascinated by — the thing about batman is he's supposed to be scary but he's actually not when you look at it; i mean why would a criminal be scared of a guy in a furry suit who never kills anybody
06:03 PeppersGhost: I have not seen The Usual Suspects but I can add it to my list
06:04 Hippo: eh i mean it's a neat and tidy movie idk I'd recommend it just because it's fun but not so much for inspiration or anything
06:04 fleshcrafterAngel: (Oh, that's a shame. That search string is for flights to Chicago on Spirit Airlines, not "Chicago Spirit Airlines".)
06:04 PeppersGhost: So Murphy Law isn't your Shadow analogue, then?
06:04 Hippo: oh no
06:04 Hippo: well actually hm maybe
06:04 Hippo: yeah i can see that; i was about to say that the shadow kills, but so does murphy law
06:05 Icepick: The Shadow was retro-causually derived from Murphy Law
06:05 Hippo: that's the diff. between the shadow and batman; the shadow doesn't have a rogues gallery because he guns all his villains down in cold fucking blood
06:05 Icepick: causally
06:05 fleshcrafterAngel: (Are we talking radio show Shadow, or a different iteration?)
06:05 Hippo: radio shadow
06:05 fleshcrafterAngel: Neat.
06:05 fleshcrafterAngel used to listen to episodes of that.
06:05 PeppersGhost: Hippo: nice, so the solution to that is to have a rogues gallery that can't die
06:05 Hippo: anyway the reason this fascinates me and why i want to try and create a shadow analogue (not murphy law but a historical one)
06:05 Hippo: *yes* hahah you already see kind of where this is going
06:06 Randomini: what if your rogues gallery is inner demons
06:06 Hippo: what kind of shadow analogue would scare *anomalous* criminals
06:06 fleshcrafterAngel: (Although Murphy Law's name makes me think more of Johnny Dollar.)
06:06 Hippo: what kind of Shadow-analogue makes the Chicago Spirit fucking terrified of you
06:06 Randomini: Hippo: you should read The Sentry
06:06 Hippo: like how fucking hard-core would you have to be
06:06 PeppersGhost: Hippo: I like where this is going
06:06 PeppersGhost: I like it a lot
06:06 Hippo: to make richard chappell not want to fuck with you
06:06 PeppersGhost: I need it yesterday
06:06 Randomini: they whisper his name in the dead of night
06:06 Hippo: and like — the idea with the rogues gallery not being able to die
06:06 Hippo: that's why the Trust happened
06:07 Randomini: looking askance both ways before uttering it
06:07 Hippo: they had to get away from this person
06:07 Randomini: "dennis", they exhale
06:07 Hippo: they were so terrified they would rather be *ghosts* than face them down
06:07 Hippo: but even death isn't going to stop this person from hunting them down
06:07 PeppersGhost: okay this is off the top of my head but what if it's Nobody
06:07 Hippo: and like the new breed has no fucking clue
06:07 Randomini: what's that one SCP that hunts people down if they see it
06:08 Hippo: 'yeah sure grandpops there's some scary person from the 30s who gunned you down coming for you whatever'
06:08 Randomini: what if it used to be a person
06:08 Hippo: 'no you fucking idiots you have no idea'
06:08 Randomini: and then they tried to poison that person
06:08 Randomini: and made it substantially worse
06:08 Hippo: peppersghost: i don't know enough about nobody but they might fit — in my mind it was a woman called 'the Terror' but
06:08 Jabyrwock: wouldn't that end in the Shadow-analog thrashing the new guard to the curb and making them run with their tails between their legs to the Trustees
06:08 Hippo: also randomini: the sentry? from marvel?
06:08 PeppersGhost: Haha, that's a clever idea actually; some failed magical assassination ends up making him more powerful
06:09 Jabyrwock: unless the Shadow cares more about going after the old ones than the new ones
06:09 Randomini: Hippo: yeah you basically want The Void but for murphy law
06:09 PeppersGhost: Hippo: Nvm the Nobody thing; I think this is a cool enough idea that it warrants a new addition to the pantheon
06:09 Hippo: also randomini: haha actually like part of the idea in my mind was that they try killing her and now *she's* a fucking ghost except she doesn't stop because fuck you
06:09 PeppersGhost: I'd choose something other than The Terror, though, since that's the main antagonist of the new Tick series which is getting kinda popular
06:09 Randomini: also there's a storyline running in dr strange right now with the sentry
06:09 Hippo: oh — haha — fair enough it was a reference to the black terror, whic hwas an old pulp hero
06:10 Hippo: but yeah i totally forgot about the terror from the tick
06:10 Randomini: dr strange used to have this bunch of people who would suffer on his behalf but he didn't know and when he found out he stopped it
06:10 Randomini: but the sentry is just like "yeah, sure, I'll do that for you"
06:10 Randomini: and pretty much turns strange into a god
06:10 Hippo: peppersghost: you ever read, uh, 'lobster johnson' from hellboy? basically that
06:10 PeppersGhost: Hippo: Now I'm imagining this shadow analogue as just straight-up Carrie Nation
06:10 PeppersGhost: I have not read lobster johnson
06:10 Hippo: randomini: hahaha
06:11 Hippo: lobster johnson is the hellboy equivalent of the shadow — he's fucking fantastic too
06:11 Hippo: 'fear the claw'
06:11 Hippo: like he's ridiculous in concept and on paper but in practice he fucking terrifies everyone
06:11 Hippo: because he's just got so much *conviction* and won't ever stop
06:11 PeppersGhost: I'm not sure anything would strike fear into the hearts of rumrunners like the undead phantom of Carrie Nation coming at them with hatchets and scriptures
06:11 Hippo: .g carrie nation
06:11 jarvis: hippo: [1/10] Carrie Nation - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrie_Nation - Carrie Amelia Nation was an American woman who was a radical member of the temperance movement, which opposed alcohol before the advent of Prohibition. She is particularly noteworthy for […]
06:12 Hippo: oh, *shit*
06:12 PeppersGhost: tl'dr she's an old lady whose life was ruined by alcohol
06:12 Hippo: I forgot all about this lady, haha
06:12 PeppersGhost: so she made it her life's goal to fucking destroy every saloon she came across with a *hatchet*
06:12 Hippo: yeah i remember this lady she is pretty awesome haha
06:12 PeppersGhost: That's a fucking superhero origin story
06:13 PeppersGhost: One of those stories that should be too good to be real
06:13 Jabyrwock: the Prohibiter
06:13 Jabyrwock: eh nvm
06:13 Hippo: there's this line i wrote ages ago that i want to use for this character — it's so dumb but i fucking love it
06:13 Hippo: basically, at some point, a group of people discover her, locked away or as a ghost or whatever, and accidentally release her into the modern age
06:14 Hippo: and she's about to go and do her thing, and they're like 'uh wait no you don't understand the world has changed a LOT since you've been gone'
06:14 Hippo: her: 'is there still injustice'
06:14 Hippo: 'uh i mean i guess'
06:14 Hippo: 'then nothing has changed'
06:14 Hippo: *LOADS GUNS*
06:14 PeppersGhost: YES
06:14 PeppersGhost: I'm so all about this
06:14 fleshcrafterAngel: (Now I'm thinking of this one quote from Halo, where the Brutes will go "Who gave him a hammer?" when you pick up one of the weapons, only instead it's "Who gave her a hatchet!?")
06:15 PeppersGhost: Lobster Johnson's giving me some Rocketeer aesthetic vibes
06:15 Hippo: yeah haha i think that's intentional tho i'm not sure
06:15 Jabyrwock: "-well, okay, ma'am, guns have changed, for example, now there-" [POINTEDLY LOADS GUNS]
06:15 Hippo: also lobster johnson has the best ending
06:15 Hippo: it's only *mildly* spoilers, but not really, like
06:16 Hippo: you know by the time the story starts that he's been dead for a while and now he's a ghost
06:16 Jabyrwock: hmm
06:16 Hippo: and at some point in the story they come across a nazi base filled with the spirits of like, hundreds of nazi specters
06:16 Jabyrwock: "The Untouchables were by far the most famous group of prohibition agents, because they were tasked with taking down the famous gangster Al Capone. They earned their famous nickname because they were seen as fearless agents who were not as easily corrupted as other prohibition agents were."
06:16 Jabyrwock: the Untouchable
06:16 Hippo: and the lobster is like 'I've got this'
06:16 Hippo: his ending is literally him pulling them all down with him on the spectral plane to continuously fight and slaughter them, for eternity
06:16 Hippo: and they're like 'that sounds a lot like hell'
06:17 Hippo: and someone else is like 'for lobster? it's fucking heaven'
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06:17 PeppersGhost: HA
06:17 PeppersGhost: That's fantastic
06:18 PeppersGhost: Hippo: So I don't know if you're actually looking for more name suggestions, but I'll throw one into the hat anyway: The Skeptic
06:18 Hippo: also 'untouchable' is a p. good name jabyrwock and i didn't even think of a link-up with the untouchables like maybe she was the sister of one of ness' agents who got killed or something
06:18 Hippo: the skeptic?
06:18 PeppersGhost: Just seems like an appropriate name for someone who hunts supernatural criminals
06:19 Hippo: oh haha hm maybe — like part of her deal is that she uses anomalies herself i thought — but maybe not — like i imagined that her pursuit has made her almost inhuman
06:19 Hippo: the skeptic would work if like, part of her ability was the ability to suppress anomalies or something liek that but i always get leery of that sort of thing
06:20 fleshcrafterAngel considers attempting to actually contribute seriously, but decides she should instead have breakfast. Or at least yesterday's lunch or dinner.
06:20 PeppersGhost: Ah, I guess I was under the impression that she hadn't *intentionally* made herself anomalous
06:20 Hippo: oh hm yeah that is a good point (and i don't know if she actually has)
06:20 Hippo: like she might be anomalous but not even aware (or even care)
06:20 PeppersGhost: That would set up an interesting contrast with ARD's Ruhkmini character in his Spectre tales
06:21 Hippo: oh is that the person mentioned at the end
06:21 Jabyrwock: that could work with the angle of they tried to stop her with anomalies, but all they did was make her weirder
06:21 PeppersGhost: who pumps herself full of *all* the magic *all* the time
06:21 Hippo: of 'zeitgeist'
06:21 Hippo: right, haha
06:21 PeppersGhost: Yeah
06:21 PeppersGhost: And Hypervelocity
06:21 Hippo: jabyrwock: oh yeah that actually would work, like, they tried to blow her up and it resulted in something even more terrifying
06:22 fleshcrafterAngel: (Although - related to this, like. Where ARE all the anomalous criminals? We see MC&D, but that's basically it outside of the Spirit, as far as I can tell. At least for any really organized sort of thing.)
06:22 PeppersGhost: and they call her…
06:22 Jabyrwock: contained
06:22 PeppersGhost: Cheeeesefaaace
06:22 PeppersGhost: *thunderclap*
06:23 Hippo: hahahahaha
06:23 Hippo: full circle >:
06:23 Hippo: part of the reason i like her as a device thematically in regard to the modern iteration of the trustees/chicago spirit is because it creates a great narrative setup re: the chicago spirit's impotence; like, you go to great lengths to show the old ways are no longer relevant, they're increasingly powerless, the new breed has embraced the new ways
06:23 Hippo: and then you have this one thign, from the past, that shows up
06:23 PeppersGhost: fleshcrafterAngel: Presumably it's hard to stay out of the Foundation's reach if you're not part of an organized group
06:23 Hippo: and the spirit is like 'you don't understand, this is serious'
06:23 Hippo: and the new breed is like 'yuh-huh right whatever'
06:24 fleshcrafterAngel: PeppersGhost: That's actually sort of what I meant - we only really seem to have MC&D to fill that niche in the present, as far as I can tell?
06:24 Hippo: and then this old-school pulp anti-hero just starts tearing through all their new-fangled magic tricks like they're made out of fucking tissue paper
06:24 Jabyrwock: she kills a newbie and she's like …huh. forgot what that felt like
06:24 Jabyrwock: neat
06:24 Hippo: 'oh you have an anomalous paratech mecha suit? that's nice, I've got a .45'
06:24 Hippo: *blam*
06:24 PeppersGhost: fleshcrafterAngel: There's Lefty on the Russian wiki, but yeah, I guess the CS is the first real anomalous racket we have
06:25 fleshcrafterAngel: (Technically GAW and AWCY and the CI are probably all being criminals, sure - or would if there were actually laws to cover that kind of thing -, but. That's quite a different sort of group.)
06:25 fleshcrafterAngel nods.
06:25 PeppersGhost: Hippo: This is indeed a great setup
06:25 Hippo: yeah like it creates a nice feel to subvert the idea that the old ways are always irrelevant/not powerful
06:25 Hippo: they *usually* are but sometimes something comes back and it's like 'holy shit'
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06:26 Hippo: (it also makes the chicago spirit suddenly relevant again because only they remember her, remember what her deal is)
06:26 Hippo: (and the new breed suddenly actually *does* need their help)
06:26 PeppersGhost: Hippo: So in a four-way battle between the Spirit, the Spectre, the Shadow Expy, and ML, who does ML go after?
06:27 Jabyrwock: in that context I think ML would go after HIppo
06:27 Hippo: haha i have no idea — he'd just try to solve the case
06:27 PeppersGhost: fair
06:27 fleshcrafterAngel: "THIS IS NOT WHAT I SIGNED UP FOR, AND I WILL ASSUREDLY RAISE MY RATES."
06:28 PeppersGhost: Maybe the new breed finds a way to unbind the old guys somewhat? Like they try to get themselves on even (or better) grand as the Shadow with their own team of undead oldies with superguns
06:28 PeppersGhost: except it spectacularly backfires and the trustees turn on them almost immediately
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06:28 fleshcrafterAngel: …that sounds like it's going to bite them. Hard. x3
06:28 fleshcrafterAngel: Oh, you got there first. :P
06:29 Hippo: haha i could def. see that yeah
06:29 Hippo: or the trustees want to possess their bodies and resume living again
06:29 Jabyrwock: in the weird parallel universe reverse-buddy-cop story, the way it works is a member of the new guard agrees to be possessed by - damn, inb4'd
06:29 Hippo: at which point the shadow expy is like 'oh hey you have nice juicy bodies now don't you'
06:29 Hippo: 'guess what works on those' *the answer is bullets*
06:30 PeppersGhost: Body-hopping undead mobsters sounds like a fun idea to play with
06:30 Jabyrwock: (reverse-buddy-cop possession requires participation between the new guard and old guard)
06:30 Hippo: yeah
06:30 PeppersGhost: Like Dr. Bright, but a mafia family
06:30 Hippo: peppersghost: i think i imagined/suggested a hitman that worked for the CS who was a ghost that could body-hop haha — i like that as an element for the trustees too — anything with that seems like it could work well yeah
06:31 Hippo: also haha a mafia version of bright sounds pretty hilarious
06:31 Jabyrwock: lol that makes them literally trustees
06:31 Jabyrwock: okay, old guard, we're giving you these bodies, so please… please use them toward our benefit?
06:31 Hippo: haha i guess it does; like maybe you literally sign a contract and they become a trustee for your body for a while
06:32 Jabyrwock: h e l l y e a h
06:32 PeppersGhost: Ooooooh
06:33 Jabyrwock: and of course it's not like a satanic contract at all, it's an old-timey mob writeup
06:33 Hippo: i imagine at least one or two of them must be lawyers, haha

06:34 PeppersGhost: BTW Hippo: The original, hypothetical GOI format I came up with for the Spirit was just correspondences with Chappell and other Spirit members
06:34 Hippo: oh?
06:34 PeppersGhost: I haven't actually come up with anything I'd use that format for, but I figured it's worth mentioning :p
06:34 Hippo: was the opening quote from chappell from one of those letters
06:34 PeppersGhost: Yeah
06:35 Hippo: it's a p. excellent quote/quickly characterizes chappell and locks it down in history i feel like
06:35 PeppersGhost: I figured correspondences would let writers integrate the kind of subjective, first-person tone that you don't get with the rest of the wiki's formats
06:36 PeppersGhost: Like you'd be able to write each article in a completely different voice, but it's still a GOI format
06:36 PeppersGhost: Kind of like the footnotes on the Serpent's Hand ones, except less erratic
06:36 Hippo: yeah — i really like letters as a story-telling medium — oh! haha that's a p. interesting idea re: a GOI format, yeah
06:37 PeppersGhost: Of course, it begs the question of how many of these guys would be literate and to what degree… but that's easily handwaved
06:38 Jabyrwock: the old guard would have good reason to encourage literacy, ouija boards and whatnot
06:38 PeppersGhost: I'm not married to that idea if you think of any other format suggestions though
06:39 Hippo: wait would this be the chicago spirit's GOI format or — ? either way i think letters is a p. great way to like tell a story
06:39 PeppersGhost: That was my line of thought, yeah
06:40 Hippo: oh! hm yeah — actually that makes me super-curious how like — did Al Capone's Outfit actually have anything resembling internal memos
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06:40 PeppersGhost: Just collections of missives to and from Spirit members regarding an anomaly or event
06:40 Hippo: how did they run their operation how 'official' did they make their documentation etc