In which we're still here!

"For real? The camera battery is dead?"

"Shush," my person Maddy said. "Use my phone. It's just as good as my old point-and-shoot."

She is right, though.

We really haven't gone anywhere. It's just that with my person working full-time, it's been hard to find time to post. But we do intend to change that this year.

Speaking of which, my person just ran downstairs to see why the washer is starting another rinse cycle instead of spinning the blanket she's trying to wash dry.

"If she wants to, she can use the dryer in my TARDIS," the Lady Madrigal Baker, aka Maddy, said,

"You don't have a dryer in your TARDIS," I reminded her.

"Wait. Why don't I have a dryer in my TARDIS?" She looked at the Doctor, who just arrived from - I think she said Sheffield?

"Because you took it apart to make a jet pack for a Camaro," the Doctor said.

That sounds way cooler than a dryer, actually.....

"Nice kitty. Good kitty. Get out of here, kitty..." Daisy's voice alerted us to a minor crisis nearby.

"Gotcha, sweetie."

"Hey! Paradox! What are you doing out here? You're supposed to stay in the TARDIS!" Maddy hurried over, scooping up her cat. "I don't think he would have hurt you, Daisy. I'm sorry."

"No problem." Des, Daisy's rescuer, said. His lady Astrid moved here from Michigan back last March, and he followed her out here a few months later. He used to be in a band, but left just before everything went off the rails. They're both super nice.

"You didn't dye him, did you?" Astrid is a vet tech, works at a shelter, and worries about such things.

 "No, he's an Arcadian Ginsing Point," Maddy explained somewhat unhelpfully.

"He's from our home planet, Gallifrey," the Doctor added.

"Do they eat the same thing ours do?" Astrid said.

"Pretty much. Of course, Mr. Picky Paws here only likes Wild Endevour Chewy Kibbles," Maddy rolled her eyes.

"Where do you get that here?" the Doctor said.

"You know what they say. If you want it, KerBlam it."

Yeah, well, I hope there isn't any bubblewrap in those boxes.....

Our lovely Fawn is still very much here, BTW. She's currently rocking lighter hair.

These lovely ladies are Angelica (in back) and her sister Anna Miranda.

They're from a place called Dream Valley.

Angelica is almost completely blind - she can see light and shadow and some shapes. Miri is anxiously awaiting the arrival of what she hopes will be a guide fox for her sister. Yes, she said fox.

Clockwise from top is Piper, Willow, Chione (pronounced KEE-oh-nee) and Calais, Chione's brother.

Piper is technically an Ondine, not a mermaid. She's a river spirit. She is also insanely adorable.

And this is Iris. She's a chimera.

I think she also has a vlog called "Moose on the Loose."

We also have Devika, who also joined us from the Wylde Kingdom. She's currently grumbling over the sad state of this year's poinsettia.

Bonus shots....

Astrid modeling a new outfit and getting photobombed by a gerbil named Dagger

Maddy, Fawn and the Doctor about to get a shift on....

Angelica......

Anna Miranda......

And Des.

In which Howard gets schooled....

"Here it is," Lavinia said. "This is what I was looking for."

"Bizarre Plants?" Howard, aka HP Lovecraft said, looking over her shoulder. He's looking for a more "appropriate" body, but we haven't found one yet.

"Yeah. Maddy was asking about something - Gum Axtraxicia, I think. Something like that."

"Where is she?" I said.

"She and her sister went somewhere - I know, not a lot of help, right."

"In that time machine thingy?"

"The TARDIS? No. I think they took Aura's little car."

"I hope they got back before it started raining." It's been raining on and off - and more on than off - since Friday morning. We need it pretty badly, though. Everything was turning brown.

"Just made it!" That was Maddy. "Hey everyone, meet Bowie. She's the middle sister of the bunch."

"Sister?" Howard said.

"Yes. There are five of us," Maddy replied. "Myself, Sigourney, Bowie here, Swan and Alcyone."

"But she's...." Howard started.

"What? Black?" Lavinia stood up. "Oh for the Goddess' sake, Howard, don't start with that crap!"

"But - sisters? When they're....."

"That doesn't have a ****ing thing to do with it!" Since I'm trying to keep this somewhat PG, I'll leave some of Lavinia's language to your imagination. "When are you going to come to your damn senses and realize that we're all human beings, huh? It doesn't matter what color you are. I can't believe I even have to explain this to you. This is the twenty-first century."

"In our case, all Gallifreyians," Bowie said. "From the House of Jade Dreamers."

"We're sisters. We're all from the same genetic loom," Maddy added.

"Loom?"

"Our people lost the ability to bear children years ago. There hasn't been a womb-born child on Gallifrey for thousands of years now," Bowie said,

"And we're all the daughters of Cassilda, so shut up or else," Maddy added.

He seemed rather taken aback, but didn't say anything else about it. I think he has a lot to learn.....

Bonus pic - Maddy, me and Bowie.



















~*~
Note: HP Lovecraft's racism is pretty well-documented. I could only imagine what he'd make of Maddy and her sisters being such varied skin tones. And I can imagine Maddy ripping him a new one the instant he said anything ugly about them.

The reason I picked the four I did is because of the resemblance - and the fact that they were the ones of my crew who either didn't have backstories or didn't have well-defined ones. I think they look quite lovely together.

Bowie is a tan PKF Luna, BTW.

In which - Dalek!

"We should sit on the lawn. It's probably cooler," Paisley said.

"No way." Aura looked over her shoulder. "That bloody dog next door is out again. And he doesn't know to stay on his own side."

It sounded like a party next door - I don't think barbecue, since I couldn't smell anything barbecuing.

"Pardon me, ladies - has anyone seen Maddy?"

"You mean your Maddy, right?" I don't think he and my person have met yet.

"Of course. She said something about..."








"We're back!"

I don't know if it's that a Gallifreyian accent sounds British, or a British accent sounds Gallifreyian. And I seem to remember Fawn telling me about someone else who had a pet fox.

And what the heck....

"Everyone, this is the Eternal Dalek...." Maddy started, but the Doctor cut her off.

"Maddy, what are you doing? Don't bring one of those things here!"

"Doctor, stop! I'll have you know that he's my friend."

"You can't make friends with a Dalek..."

"I did with this one. If it weren't for him, we would never have gotten off of Cassinus."

"The other Daleks abandoned me. I was of no use to them," the yellow - whatever - said in a grating electronic voice.

"Really?" The Doctor looked at it - him, whatever.

"I had been captured by the Mogul. He sent me to exterminate Maddy when her TARDIS crashed on Cassinus. But she promised to rescue me instead. I had no other choice." The Dalek lowered its eyestalk a bit. "I discovered that she was my friend.


"He rescued LaMarr and got her back to the TARDIS. She was the one who knew how to evade the Mogul's defenses. I wouldn't have gotten off Cassinus without her - or him."

The Doctor's eyes went even wider. "You escaped his Time Lock Beam?"

She nodded. "LaMarr knew how it worked. It locks onto your dematerialization frequency and overrides it. But if you randomly hop between frequencies, it can't lock on, and you can escape."

"I didn't think you could do that."

"You can. You aren't supposed to, but you can."

"I'm just glad you're all right, old girl. We're the only ones left."





















"She hasn't told him?" Paisley said.

"Not yet," The Dalek replied. "I don't think she can yet. She said something about a fixed point in time."

I hope she decides to tell me, though.

















Bonus pic: Maddy and Tonio, her pet fox.

In which we have a tea party.....

 It was a nice afternoon for a tea party....


Until..........

"Excuse me, have you seen a blue box around here?"

"A blue box?" I was a little confused.

"Yeah, blue, has a light on top, says "Police Call Box" on it..."

"Wait, do you mean...." John started, but was interrupted by a very peculiar wheezing, swooshing, grinding-type noise...

 "There! That!"

Why does nothing that happens around here surprise me any more?

"Excuse me - is this Zarvos?"

"No, it's Earth, Doctor," the stranger replied.

"Missy? What are you doing here?"

"The same thing you are, apparently..." As she spoke, the box vanished with the same noise, only to reappear nearby on level ground.

"You always pick the worst places to land."

"Maddy? I thought I said...."

"Yeah, yeah. Stay in the TARDIS until we know it's safe. Which it is," she replied with an amused smile. "And it's also not Zarvos. It's Earth."

"And Missy? What are you doing here?"

"The same thing you are, apparently."

"Not exactly. I'm not recruiting Cybermen," Maddy replied.

"Neither am I. Now. I'm on vacation. Can't a Time Lady go on vacation without having her motives questioned? Besides, aren't you the one who's friends with a Dalek?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Friends with a Dalek?" The Doctor looked at her, wide-eyed. "What else weren't you going to tell me, old girl?"

"Well, if I told you it would spoil the surprise, now, wouldn't it?" Maddy said.

"What's a Dalek?" I had to ask.

"Pepper pot type thing. Nasty. Full of hate," the Doctor said. "It's all they know how to do."

"Well, not all of them. You haven't met the Eternal." Maddy looked at him.

"Yeah, he's pretty cool for being a mutant in a tin can." The speaker was...

"Kilbey?" This somehow explained a few things.

"Indeed. And this is the Lady Madrigal Baker, from Gallifrey, and her friend the Doctor."

"We're Time Lords, all of us. Missy, too," Maddy explained.

"At one point I believed us to be the last of our kind," the Doctor said.

"Not really," Maddy said, then whispered to me, "Long story. I'll explain later."

"What are you doing here?" I said.

"Lost, as usual," Kilbey said.

"Kilbey, we're not lost. We're on Earth," Maddy scolded. "We're actually supposed to meet my sisters here." She took out her phone - or what I guessed was a phone, anyway.

"This is Sigourney. She's the oldest next to me."

"This is Bowie..."

"Is that a publicity still?" The Doctor looked over her shoulder.

"No. I took this one." She looked at me. "My sister's a singer. Or she was, anyway, back on Gallifrey. I wish they'd stop saying we Patrexians never do anything useful. Isn't making others happy useful?"

"I should think so," The Doctor said. "But you know how they are back there. Nothing but logic and reason."

"Yeah, well, I know where they can stick that," she said.

"And this is Swan...."

"I know her! Only I thought she was a deva...."

"She has a gift of communication. She's been posing as one," Maddy said.

"And this is my youngest sister, Alcyone."

"And I just realized you're a doll," the Doctor said, looking at me. "Which means, if we're the same size..."

"We'll have to talk to Swan," Maddy said. "That's what we're here for, remember?"

Well, that and tea.....

In which it's a party!

Join us on Saturday, July 23rd for a Mad Tea Party Blog Hop!

In which let's just call this "From The Void"

I do not know how long it was.

For seeming eons I floated, both aware and yet unaware, at once a part of all creation and yet apart from it, seeing all that had been and was and was yet to be...

Yet, I did not see this. 

The cold green fire, the icy burning, the swirling, mocking, silently shrieking horror that tore me from - where I know not - hurling me through endless space and time until I collided, unaware, with a force that rent me from my senses, left me in unknowing blackness...

Until....

"Hello, Howard."

A voice, human.

I opened my eyes - dumbly aware that I somehow had eyes again to open. The figure leaning over me, white on white on - pink? 

I should have known who she was, but my senses had been torn from me. I attempted to focus my eyes upon her.

"Remember me? The crinkly-haired, slatternly deformed albino slut you so gleefully shamed in your stupid little tale? How much did they pay you for that one, anyway?"

That one? Which one? Which...which.....Dunwich?

"Lavinia?" I somehow succeeded in sitting up. 

"That's right." Her displeasure was evident. "Of all the idiots that idiot had to bring back, he picked you."

"Bring back?" I still could not fathom where I was nor how I had come be there, but my memory was returning. I was - had been - Howard Philip Lovecraft, failed writer of weird fiction. Where I was now, and in what form, I knew not. I knew I was in a body of some sort, for I could move and speak. But where and how I had come to be in it - as well as the identity of the "idiot" Lavinia spoke of - I knew not. 

"We've been afraid of this happening ever since Dr. West escaped from prison over Halloween. We think he had help." The speaker was - a cloth doll?!

"Who - surely you cannot mean Herbert West?!" This could not be. 

"That's him," Lavinia said. "The first idiot."

"Idiot indeed, but just intelligent enough to be dangerous," her companion agreed. "By the way, I'm John Ashton Smith, Paranormal Investigator, Miskatonic University."

Miskatonic.....surely I was mad. Surely this was a product of my fevered imaginings, not....

And yet, the most abysmal shock awaited. For when I raised my hand...

"It could be worse," John Ashton Smith's pink-clad companion spoke. "At least he stuck you in something that was finished. He tried to stick a bunch of spirits in these half-finished doll bodies he got from this obnoxious woman in Arkham."

"Bishop?" Lavinia said. "Yeah, she's a little off. So much for the "undecayed" side."

"Will someone please tell we where I am and what - what is going on? Why am I a nightghast? And how..."

"Okay, first, technically, you're a gargoyle," Lavinia said. "And secondly, Herbert West tried to bring you back from the dead, but he forgot that anyone with half a brain - which is about all you have, in my opinion - is going to be useless for a few days until they get adjusted, so he just left you in the woods out back. And thirdly, I don't appreciate the way you slandered me and my family at all. Not to mention trying to blame my mother's murder on my father, And I don't care how much you didn't agree with my life choices, as they say, you had no freaking right to shame me or my children. Okay, maybe Wilbur didn't turn out the way I hoped, but a mother can only do so much. At least Edwin is a good son, despite you making him out to be a horror."

"Edwin....?"

"They both had names, you know. And I trusted you to tell my side of the story. Not turn it into some cheap, good-against-evil load of garbage!"

"I would agree that you do owe Miss Lavinia an apology," John Ashton Smith added. "She and her son have proved invaluable advisers to the Paranormal Studies department."

"But why would West have tried to - reanimate me?"

"Because you're the one who wrote all of this down." Lavinia's tone softened somewhat. "If he has you on his side, then guess what? We're screwed. If he finds out you've some to your senses, he's going to go after you. You have a choice to make - him or us. The Old Ones aren't the evil ones. It was Wilbur's human side that doomed him. He fell in love with power." She looked square into my face. "You have a chance to help make all this right. What are you going to do?"

What could I do? I had to trust Lavinia and her most unusual friends, even though she had just cause for despising me - truly, I had wronged her.

"Perhaps start by admitting that I was wrong about you," I confessed. "Then perhaps see about finding a different body."

"One thing at a time, okay?" she replied.

~*~

- Maddy's note - I've been searching for a BJD to turn into HP Lovecraft for awhile, with (obviously) no success. So I settled on a Monster High doll for now. Somewhat appropriate, no? Although if anyone had any ideas for a BJD that's not too out of scale for my crew (nothing over MSD size, please) I'd love to hear them.

And yeah, I tried to write this in Lovecraft's voice. I don't think I succeeded. 

In which we are all Parisians.....

Maddy told me that on the day after September 11th, one of the largest French newspapers ran a headline that said: "TODAY, WE ARE ALL AMERICAN."

Ce soir, nous sommes tous les Parisiens.