The Desert Mermaid

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Here we are! The end of the eternal spinning! I'd like to thank the Academy, and especially the MPA, for historical nonsense that gave me so much material to work with! WTF, guys. I'd also like to thank Joel Hodgson and everyone who worked on Mystery Science Theater 3000 for shaping my sense of humor so thoroughly. And thanks go to my buddies Josh and Liz for circulating the tapes.

Also, I should probably thank my dad, who if he ever reads this is going to be very confused. Sorry, Dad. You're confusing.

• The Feral Cannibal franchise is experiencing diminishing returns from its sequels, which are by and large said to be pale imitations with none of the thematic, uh, meat of the first one. However, the fourth installment, Feral Cannibal Botanical Garden, directed by an arhod, was hailed as a return to form and a fascinating deconstruction of the feralsploitation subgenre.


• I'm thinking I should put this together in epub form For Your Edification, but this is good for now.


• The roll call of the Deus crew right at the end is not going to be on the test. They're basically cameos. But if I ever publish Blood and Stardust, you'll have a few characters to work with!


• I'm inordinately proud that the safety videos paid off. It's a bit of a comfort to me to know that if disaster ever strikes, I'll at least know the Official Things To Do.

---

"Hi," I said to Giro, stepping into his cell.

He hauled himself upright. His brain may have been sluggish lately because of the busted implant, but he was still observant enough to put together what had happened.

"So you're using your powers for good," he surmised. He would have found this delightful if he weren't on mute right now, I thought. I had to get him somewhere he could recuperate.

"Well, technically," I said, standing in the doorway and gesturing him through, "I'm pretty sure Admin's gonna say I'm using it for delinquency. What with the crimes."

"Yeah, well, your timing isn't great," he said. "You couldn't have waited for me to recharge my batteries a little, could you?"

"I figured you'd enjoy recharging better on a feral cruise than climbing around in the mines."

I expected him to say something like, "No cannibals? I'm disappointed," but all he did was nod tiredly and look around. "Which way?"

( I considered. )

Chugging along!

Prologue and index here!

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CW for a depressive episode, a repressive dad, and the words "suicidal ideation." Also a slightly nonconsensual bath; I know someone on Twitter found that sort of thing upsetting. It's more of a surprise bath, but yeah.

• I feel as though we're going to have to have a cultural conversation about robots as stand-ins for people in fiction, because I've been hearing people being concerned about robot stories being "pro AI" when the robots are clearly not written as the dumb computer tool AI actually is. Come on, dudes. We anthropomorphize everything. Doesn't mean we're pro-technocrat.

• As somebody who can happily live in a story for months or years at a time, I absolutely do not get people who "already saw it once" and then never want to watch a thing again. In that sense, I guess I'm Jonathan Sims' Wario.

• Sometimes when you're trying to discipline your kid, he drops a total shocker about alternate endings to the cool movie you enjoyed, and you have to tear yourself away from that rabbit hole and try to focus on discipline. Parenting is hard.

---

"I don't want to tell you how to do your job," Thoren said to Dexer, "But do you think Lone Light Distribution could get some new stuff in? I'm dying to see Ugly Blood, and I don't think the Board's gonna approve of it."

"We'll take your suggestion under advisement," Dexer said, zeir voice pitched to a perfect customer-service drone, spitting out the disc Thoren had rented. "But we are experiencing a slight technical issue, which has slowed distribution."

"You gotta get going," Jod complained, looking over the menu. "I've seen all of these before."

"You don't like repeat viewings?" I asked, though I knew the answer.

"Why would I watch something again?"



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Index and Prologue!

Previous Chapter!

It feels a little weird to add a ✨Paypal link, ✨ but hey, writing is hard, so if you want to tip me, I wouldn't say no!

Hyperfixating on dumb shit against my will was a source of great angst to Little/Teenage Amelia. I thought I needed to be Intellectual and follow classical pursuits when all I really wanted to do was make up long, sweeping sagas about Super Mario or Star Wars or othersuch lowbrow nonsense. When I expressed my interest in writing, people would ask if I was going to write The Great American Novel, and my soul would die a little bit. It sounded like hell.

Fortunately, when I grew up I realized that writing silly shit about autistic gorillas in Space Pleasantville is totally valid, and leads to a great deal of insight that Deep, Serious Fiction™ might not. It's been a real relief, I tell you.

I also "hated" horror for a lot of my life. I think it scared me and, like Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, I had a hard time separating that reaction from the concept of it being immoral. I definitely got over that, too!

---

I had to hand it to Thoren: he did come through in earning the money to pay his fine. He did it with bad grace, but he got a job with Mx. Plim running deliveries, and he also did the odd jobs Dad had suggested around the neighborhood. The neighbors teased him about it. I wasn't sure what I'd have done if I got that kind of teasing, but Thoren adopted a carefree, cocksure, bad-boy-but-you-love-it attitude, liked Drack from The Golden Hammer, that the adults seemed to find charming. It wasn't too long before he could spend his pocket money on other things again.

That was good news for me: I had been busy, as well.

Giro had shown me how to burn movies, and I was getting prolific. The only difficulty I had was in trying to gauge what other teenagers would find interesting—I was still stuck on The Golden Hammer, which had hijacked my brain completely. But the other kids had moved on from it, at least as far as I could tell. Zarla was offering recommendations about what was popular, and it was easy enough to see what the theater was running and to go find the original cuts of those films.

( Jod was easy enough to guess. )

Next Chapter!

Index and Prologue!

Previous Chapter!

Hooray, an on-time update!

It feels a little weird to add a ✨Paypal link, ✨ but hey, writing is hard, so if you want to tip me, I wouldn't say no!

CW for body horror and self-sacrifice (in a movie)

• I'm not going to expand on the issues Zarla mentioned in the last chapter. She's got superpowers, but they're not really relevant to this particular story. Though she does come up in others!
• Somehow relevant to this chapter is the song "Belle" from Disney's Beauty & the Beast, where Belle really wants to talk about cool books and stories but nobody else cares. Belle's attempted infodumps really resonated with me. DREEDO'S GONNA GET THE TOWNSFOLK DISCUSSING MOVIES IF IT KILLS HIM
• Many thanks to my buddy Fade for consultation on ADHD medication. Giro's brain is a complicated labyrinth.
• The running courgette joke is a running gag for my own dislike of zucchini, which, if you ask me, can go fuck itself, but which I am assured other people enjoy. Those people are weird.
• One time in college I happened across a TV edit of Ridley Scott's Hannibal, and it was the funniest thing ever. I mean, okay, that movie's pretty ridiculous anyway, but Ray Liotta kept his frat-bro hat on all throughout That One Scene, and it was completely unintelligible.
• As a Utahn, I actually had a few friends who swore by CleanFlicks, or would have, if any of them swore. I can totally understand the appeal of getting a movie that won't trigger an upset, but on the other hand I've had some really good mind-blowing feelings when I've gone out of my comfort zone before. The tale of my discovery of horror through Alien is a long saga, and it also includes Ridley Scott, so shoutout to Ridley Scott, I guess.

---

Zevon, we have a problem with PQ896.

What do you mean? The study's over. It was a wild success.

I've been going back over the questionnaires, and have noted a discrepancy.

The two that reported adverse reactions had handwriting that didn't match the signatures of the guardians at the bottom.

So what?

So it appears that in those two cases, the subjects themselves filled out their questionnaires, whereas in the others, the parents filled them out.

This error in our protocol has led to differing reports. It's possible that many more subjects had adverse reactions, but they were not recognized as adverse by the parents.

I would like to do post-study interviews of the other subjects.

Bel, we've closed this. It's over. We're moving on to PQ now.

Yes, but new findings have come to light. It is possible the other patients are experiencing similar problems. E06 reported myoclonic jerks, disrupted sleep patterns, lethargy, drowsiness, mood swings, nightmares, ataxia, vertigo. The implants need further refinement.

The parents are reporting satisfactory results. I'd say we've done our job.

That depends on what our job is.

Look, if you want to refine it, you're always welcome to submit a new proposal. But this is a done deal, Bel.

Sorry.

Let's focus on CN12.

#

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Prlogue and Index!

Previous Chapter!

I was in my mid-30s when I read a Twitter thread explaining to autistic people that when people are angry and ask you questions like "Why were you late?" they are not actually looking for an explanation and will regard your answers as excuses. Holy hell, y'all. That explained SO. MUCH.

It is extremely jarring to talk to someone who remembers a movie/book as being utterly different from what you remember. I once had a conversation with someone who insisted that the Shitty Kids die in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, when I clearly remember a chapter called "The Other Children Go Home." It was very confusing and upsetting, and I had to go look at my copy of the book to prove that it was there. I have always wondered about that, especially after finding out about the Oompa Loompa revisions.

CW: Shitty family members, animal death, animal dissection, upsetting movie gaslighting, I guess, and Autism Warrior Moms. Also space tobacco.

---

Civic Hygiene recommended going to the theater for Sightseeing movies as a way to connect us to our planet of origin; to help us contemplate our connection to it and our duty to it. History class told us to consider where the Great Protector got zeir start. (I probably should do something to get on the history teacher's good side after accidentally making an enemy of her; it turns out you're not supposed to ask about plot holes in scripture.)

But Thoren and his friends had decided we were going to see the new action flick, The Golden Hammer. He and the rest of the Ball team were passing a pouch of dust between them, which was not only delinquent, but also unsanitary, , plus it led to a lot of obnoxious sniffling and a few sneezes. I should really report it, but I remembered how Mr. Sordell and Nielli had reacted last time I reported a problem, and it seemed like way too much trouble. I didn't take any when Thoren offered me the pouch, though.

Prologue and Index here!

Previous Chapter!

It feels a little weird to add a ✨Paypal link, ✨ but hey, writing is hard, so if you want to tip me, I wouldn't say no!

Note that the formatting is a little weird; you might have to sidescroll through certain parts to read all of it.

Do I have feelings about group projects? You bet I do!

Also, the pressure to change the world as a kid is strong when you take things literally. It's really difficult.

But hey, social media opens up new horizons even if your home doesn't have a horizon!

---

I wound up doing most of the project by myself, of course. I don't know what Mr. Sordell expected; the others didn't take it seriously. The work they did was halfhearted and slovenly, so I had to redo a lot of it anyway.

Dad had suggested that we start with observations, so while the others went to practice and games, I found two colonies of feral sixcats to observe: one that gathered near the library's garden, and one that roamed the maintenance alleys behind Plim's and the surrounding businesses. (I suspected the latter was Toast's original colony. I wondered if I should put her back with them, but Dad said she seemed happy where she was.)

Dad's tablet was immensely useful. I found an old charger in a junk pile behind Plim's, so I could hang onto it indefinitely. I was learning where and how to look for information on ecomanagement and feral sixcat colonies. And Dad's various experimental notes were excellent models for my own studies. But the amount of helpful information in the Greater Galactic Database meant I could find help with that, too.

( Also, the sixcat videos were adorable. )

I had never seen Hereditary, so I decided to watch it last night! I live-tweeted i on Twitter and on Bluesky (live-skeeted?), but tl;dr I enjoyed it immensely! It was especially fun dorking out over the Utah scenery!

I just don't understand people in horror movies who walk into horrific tableaux, like, for example, ( a shocking and spoilery scene; tw gore and child death ) and immediately start screaming actual bloody murder. Wouldn't it take you a moment to process it, to put together what sequence of events led to this moment of Bad News? Or maybe that's me. Is it the autism?

Speaking of autism, I wound up especially intrigued by the Creepy Girl.Creepy Children in horror movies always fascinate me. They're written and directed to seem neurodivergent, and as a late-diagnosed ND person I gotta say, it's kind of a revelation that ND mannerisms default to creepy for writers and directors. I mean, I've had to learn to read NT body language, so I can also understand that the flat affect and weird stims/tics* and special interests and stilted, developmentally skewed language come across and confusing--I just never notice when I'm doing it MYSELF.

I did think it was funny that in this movie the Calamitous Horror Disaster was a direct result of the worried mom pressuring her ND kid to Go Out And Socialize Like A NORMAL Kid, Jeez. I'm waiting for the Scream franchise to add that to the list of Horror Movie Rules: along with Don't Go To Irresponsible Teenage Sex Parties and Don't Drive While High, you gotta put Don't Pressure Your ND Kid To Act Neurotypical.

Anyway, I used to be impatient with demon-type movies because I thought they implied that Christianity was true in the movie universe, and my grumpy atheist ass has Issues with Biblical worldbuilding. But then I realized that these movies only posit that demons are real, just disembodied malevolent entities all floatin' around randomly terrorizing hapless dumbasses, and religion might have evolved as humans' attempt to gain some semblance of control of the monsters. I mean, look at human responses to other disasters--plague, famine, pestilience, natural disasters, predators, trauma, abuse, and neurodivergence! It makes sense that a cult would pop up trying to bargain with this! Poor, confused humans just trying to make sense of a confusing universe. That's what horror is all about, Charlie Brown!


FUN STORY: When my sister was tiny, she was sitting in her car seat munching on a box of croutons as a snack, and she dangled the box out the open window. The croutons got blown out of her hand and she dramatically screamed, "MY CROUTONS!" as they flew away. That was my first thought when That Scene happened.

We also tell a story about how my sister, in her car seat, screamed bloody murder for no apparent reason. There was a beat. Then a little gasp, and she cried out in the inexplicable Southern accent she had as a toddler, "I scared myself!"

Given these two incidents, I consider this movie to be the Little Sister Car Seat Special.


*Dammit, what is that click sound she makes called? I'm fairly sure it's a retroflex click, but the internet is cagey about clicks for some reason.