JAKE AND THE DYNAMO Chapter 10

JAKE AND THE DYNAMO

CHAPTER 10: THE MAGICAL GIRL’S BURDEN

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Grease Pencil Marionette knelt in the middle of the gym floor and laid out Card Collector Kasumi. She placed a hand on Kasumi’s face and drew her fingers down across her eyelids.

“I knew her,” she said. “I knew her name. I knew her family. Her parents have no idea she’s a magical girl, though her brother, I think, has figured it out.”

She wiped a sleeve across her eyes. “It’s always hard. Monsters attack, there’s chaos everywhere. When it’s over, you can’t find your child. You’re going mad from worry. Then Marionette shows up at your door to tell you your daughter was so brave—”

Her voice choked off. She lowered her head. Continue reading “JAKE AND THE DYNAMO Chapter 10”

Update

Featured image: “Megurine Luka” by rahulrk.

You haven’t heard from me this week because I have a number of things going on related to work. However, chapter 10 of Jake and the Dynamo will be posting tonight as usual. There’s more action as Jake and Dana hit the streets to clean out the latest infestation of monsters, and a new rival comes on the scene.

JAKE AND THE DYNAMO Chapter 9

JAKE AND THE DYNAMO

CHAPTER 9: PIZZA FOR BREAKFAST

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Bleary and grumpy, the Dark Queen slouched on her throne. She had another drink in hand: this one was a Bloody Mary spiced with Worcestershire, Tabasco, and horseradish—some hair of the dog to take the edge off a hangover. The night before, depressed by the Robosaurs’ early invasion, she had finally sat down with her henchmen in the Rec Room of Darkness to watch the battle unfold on the news.

When the Temple of the Moon Princess had fired the Weapon and opened a portal to eternal perdition above the city’s skyline, she had decided to get drunk. Her only consolation was the certain knowledge that many of the non-magical humans caught outside when the Weapon fired had failed their san checks. Continue reading “JAKE AND THE DYNAMO Chapter 9”

Here I am …

… staring at a joke in the latest chapter of Jake and the Dynamo, which is posting tonight, that I think goes a little too far, and I can’t think of another joke to replace it with …

Review: Sailor Moon: Crystal, Season 3 Episode 7

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon: Crystal, Episode 33, “Three Guardians.” Toei Animation, May 2016. Approx. 24 minutes. Available on Crunchyroll.

I think I missed an episode in here somewhere. Hm.

Anyway, in this episode, the pace picks up as the story heads toward its climax. The three outer scouts, Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto, finally explain what they’re doing, though by this time the audience already knows: they were reborn on Earth for the purpose of taking down the Death Busters from the Tau Star System, who invaded Earth through a rift in space-time. Same thing most of us do on weekends. Continue reading “Review: Sailor Moon: Crystal, Season 3 Episode 7”

Your Coffee Is Murder

Friggin’ hilarious.

I’ll often go looking up something to fact-check what I’m writing and stumble across bizarre things like this.  This is a pastiche of scenes from coffee ads ca. 1950s-1960s.

Of course, the comments on YouTube are all about “sexism” or whatever, but my experience of ads from that era is that they were a lot harsher and more aggressive all-around than ads of today.  In the 1960s, advertisers were unafraid to tell you that your breath stinks, or that you’ll never get a date if you’re bald, or that you can’t make coffee worth a damn.

Whether the shift in the tone of advertising is due to refinement in advertisers’ technique, or due to people today being pussies who can’t handle criticism, I leave to the reader’s speculation.

Happy Father’s Day!

Pesky Editing

I spent yesterday drafting chapter 17, and will spend most of today editing several other chapters.

I’ve also gone back and removed epigram from the existing chapter posts, as it appears to be conflicting with my SEO software.  The chapters are supposed to have summaries that show up on search engines, but the epigram, which is posted with the “excerpt” function on the blog theme, apparently overrides it.  That’s fine, as I was getting tired of seeing it at the top of every chapter anyway.

And speaking of SEO, I’m think of throwing in keywords on posts.  I don’t know if that works like it used to now that search engines have more sophisticated algorithms, but it’s worth a shot.

Keywords for this post:

Porsche, sickle cell disease, Donald Trump, Chicago Cubs, Jeff Bezos, Domino’s Pizza, Game of Thrones

Update

Title and artist unknown.

Should have another review up tomorrow, and Jake and the Dynamo will post Sunday night as usual.

‘Magical Girl Monthly’

The artist GDBEE has been making these covers for an imaginary magical girl magazine. I see them cropping up from time to time so I thought I ought to post one. She intends to make one for each month of the year. I’m not sure how many months she’s made it through.

Her DeviantART page is here, and her online shop is here.

Today’s a writing day for me. I’m drafting chapter 17 of Jake and the Dynamo to maintain my buffer.