Re: LAST. THING. STANDING. [S!1][ROUND ONE: TELEVISION LAND]
12-14-2011, 01:52 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Pharmacy.
Meanwhile, Kriok was reluctantly conforming to the insane rules of this hellhole of a sitcom. The kitchen was literally bursting with bounty. Various fishes, vegetables, and meats lay strewn about – to give the feeling of plenty (along with the unintentional artificial vibe). A nearby placard commanding her to cook dinner. Cook? How could she cook? Kriok had literally zero experience (and no, protein synthesis did not count).
She would not balk. She was an engineer, a scientist. Heck, if she could build a spaceship, she could cook a turkey. After all, cooking is another form of science. The cyborg Nerrin shrugged and aimed her Fabricator at the largest target: the massive turkey on the cutting board. Kriok could not help but feel a bit clever. Sure, she had to cook,
but that does not mean that she could not take any shortcuts.
Tschichold jolted from his seat as the kitchen door exploded violently. As billowing smoke and grey ash daintily drifted from the opening, the painter silently commented that Kriok lady may have some problems with cooking. At that moment, recorded laughter immediately followed after. Tschichold rubbed his temples. He kept on forgetting that he was in a sitcom.
Before the painter could elicit a groan, a doorbell rang. Of course, those were the Neighbors. However, little did the artist realize, the Neighbors were Noisy Neighbors and since they were Noisy Neighbors, they barged in without even waiting for someone to answer the door. How rude.
A man in formal attire waltzed in, arms a-swinging and feet a-dancing. His bedecked wife came in after, her legs exaggeratedly taking dainty steps into house. The man and woman looked to be completely opposites, yet the exaggerated almost fake-looking smiles, the plastic aesthetics of the two – they were all in all, completely the same.
“Gee golly! Boy, were we late! I wonder what our Neighbors are cooking today?” The man broke the silence in his own peppy way. He swung his head back and forth – his dinner-plate eyes eager for an answer.
“Honey, I have no idea!” His wife placed her hands on her cheeks and puckered her lips to show an exaggerated manner of feigned surprise.
They cooed and cuddled (they are a family show, after all!). As Tschichold observed, the manner in which they expressed their G-rated love was a type of cute reminiscent of a fuzzy rabbit taking a dump on his face. A nearby floating placard told the artist the two were the<font color="White"> Shepherdson couple. The man was Herbert. His wife was Melinda. And they love each other “Very Much.”
Immediately after the placard floated away from his face, Tschichold received the full frontal assault of Herbert’s face. </font>
“HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLO CHAD.” The man mouthed, grinned while the same. The sudden appearance made the painter jump ten feet off his air.
“HA HA HA,” Herbert guffawed, making sure to force his laughter from his lungs. “That always gets me.” While Tschichold was recovering from his heart-attack scare, he neighbor immediately took a pipe out his pants and begin to smoke, looking quite smug. “Now, where is that good ol’ Timmy Blake. I swear.” He turned at the camera. “He is so much better than all of us.”
“Here I am, mister!” Junior popped from his chair and scurried to the open arms of Herbert, who proceeded to play pretend airplane with him. The saccharine scenario almost convinced Tschichold to punch himself to unconsciousness.
Almost.
Ablendan stared at himself. He was in uniform and it was rather uncomfortable. The clothes did fit, only just barely. The demonic servant felt like if there were cotton bindings wrapping incredibly tight on his arms, torsos, and legs. Fashion was the farthest thing from this former man’s mind. However, you do not even need half a brain to realize that the uniform was incredibly tacky looking. He tried to chew off this hindering garb, but the astringent taste of polyester convinced him otherwise.
However, he had the bat and that was all he needed. Of course, in order to gain access to this bat, he had to follow their rules. Apparently the rules, as “Mr. Big” dictated, were to stand on this plaque on the sandy ground and “keep the eye on the ball.” Ball? What ball? Where was the ball what he needed to hit?
Well as long he could hit something…
Despite the smoke and that fact that everything was either a horrible mess or a slurry of unusable organic compounds, Kriok was sure her cooking was pretty much a success, even though the kitchen was on fire and the casserole seemed to be halfway alive. To be honest, Kriok did not give a shit about the quality of food. For now, she would bend to the placard’s command, “Praise Timmy.”
Kriok trooped out of the kitchen. As she expected, there was the Shepherdson couple, as the previous placard dictated. To her consternation, they were giving lavish praises to the eponymous character of the show.
“Timmy is such a responsible young man.” Herbert gushed. “He helped me find my missing mail and polished my shoes.”
“Oh, Timmy.” Melinda gushed equally the same. “Timmy is such a smart lad! Helping my slow son with his reading and arithmetic!”
“WHY CAN’T YOU BE LIKE HIM, CHAD?” The vapid smiles of the couple focused on the painter.
If Kriok had a lower eyelid, it would twitch. The praise continually lavished on this Timmy Blake was gratuitously excessive. It was disgusting. It was like audio torture. However, Tschichold did not seem to care. In fact, he was visibly bored! Kriok guessed he got used to it – or was already driven insane. However, the Nerrin had a placard to get out of the way.
“Timmy is a good kid,” Kriok spoke. Her synthesized cords were so flat that it was close to auto-tune.
“I KNOW, AM I RIGHT?” The couple squealed in delight, eliciting a groan from the painter.
“Timmy is a good kid,” Kriok repeated, folding her arms. Then, a pause. “Better than my useless son, Chad,” she added.
“WHY CAN’T YOU BE LIKE HIM CHAD?” The couple brought up that line in unison, along with canned laughter.
Tschichold mumbled something rude and just slumped on the table. He was more focused on the couple’s face than the nature of the insults. The Shepherdson’s faces were unappealingly unnatural. Luckily, the aesthetics was not exactly unsalvageable. A touch up and some diverse hues would fix it up. The painter would have done some touch-up with his brush, but nooo, escape was a bigger priority to him.
That made Tschichold sad.
Fortunately, a shower of sparks sputtered from the kitchen, filling the entire dining room with choking smoke. The fire alarm set up, drowning the atmosphere out with its annoying beeping noise. “One second,” Kriok mumbled as she sauntered back into the kitchen. Tschichold could hear some sort of laser noise as the alarm was immediately cut short.
“Strike nine!”
Meanwhile, a transition away, Ablendan was positively furious. He tried swinging wildly. He tried to wait for the ball to get near. He even attempted to bat with his claws. However, for some reason, he could not hit the damn ball. The demonic servant looked up, his only eye positively burning with irate hatred, as the baseball was tossed back to Mr. Big, who looked positively smug.
Before the undead man could even react, the ball zipped across him, nearly beaning him on the shoulder. “Striiiiiiiike ten!” Oh, how Ablendan was starting to hate that voice, the voice of Mr. Big positively oozing with triumph.
“Well, Mr. Blake!” Mr. Big exclaimed, smiling in a manner that reminded Ablendan of crawling leech. “You positively are out of your game. I was letting you off easy since you are a beginner and everything. People usually go off after three strikes, you know!” The man cocked an asking brow at Ablendan. “Try again?”
An animalistic rumble resonated from Ablendan. Despite his insanity, the undead servant knew that Mr. Big was tossing the ball horribly on purpose. This man was doing idiotic tomfoolery around him! Ablendan wanted to tear his face off more than ever, but wait, he had a much better idea…
“Yes, please.” Ablendan growled under his breath, although his eyes hid a rather malicious plan.
Mr. Big swaggered back to the pitcher mound. Spitting a wad of saliva on the ball, the founder of Big Co. prepared to throw yet another curveball at Ablendan. Yes, Ablendan was a novice baseball player. However, little did Mr. Big realized the flies were not just around because of the smell.
To his surprise, Ablendan did not swung. The flies condensed into a tiny wall, engulfing the baseball into its swarm. Droning angrily like bees, the hellish insects shot forth like a missile – into Mr. Big’s face. Ablendan felt a certain spark of happiness as the screams of the CEO echoed across the field, the minute servants of Beezlebub digging into the plastic flesh of this man. People were running away. Co-workers were panicking. Sure, it was not part of the act,
but it was totally worth it.
Tschichold stared.
As if the visual and audio senses were not enough, some higher force decided that it was time for his gustatory senses to get a little tortured. The dinner was nothing he expected because everything looks like crap. All the dishes were horrifying crimes against humanity (and art too!)! Barely identifiable and inhumanly identical, Tschichold was pretty sure each dish was unpalatable. Wait, was that casserole moving.
“Wow, Missus Blake, you are sure ahead of your time!” Herbert slapped his knee dramatically. “How did you know radioactivity is the cooking of the future?”
However, the worst was the turkey centerpiece. The turkey, if it could be called a turkey, was beyond any cuisine recognition. The smell emanating from the horrible roast was a combination of unholy and awful. Also, it was slightly glowing blue.
Kriok shrugged. "I think this is charred beyond recognition so I synthesized a couple of protein paste packets as a sauce." At that note, Kriok decided to toss a few plastic packets, filled with some sort of future mystery sauce, on the table.
Tschichold edged away from the table. Sure, he was a starving artist, but he would not sink that low! Unfortunately, the placard near him told him to insult the cuisine. He had to act and judging from the dinner, it seemed pretty reasonable. “It looks like crap.” It was not the best insult, but it worked.
Each second in this sitcom wore away at Kriok’s patience. She would liked to be in a next channel, but noo, in order to do that, she had to play along. For the sake of outdated philosophical values, she was an engineer, not a housewife.”Eat your vegetables, young man,” Kriok started to heap potatoes onto Tschichold’s place.
Tschichold looked down. The shiny paste was supposed to be mashed potatoes. Scooping up a chunk for closer examination, the artist realized it was not mashed potato-like at all! It was more jelly like, like a wobbly slug on a spoon – which was disgusting and inedible. Well, screw acting – and escaping too! Tschichold really did not want this blasphemous crud in his mouth.
Kriok’s eye glared down at the artist. “The potatoes have too many carbohydrates for my taste. I took the liberties to break these tubers into basic components and add some necessary additions. Now, the potato dish consists of 99% protein, and contains all essential vitamins and nutrients. Now, it is healthier for my unthankful, ugh, son.” Kriok rolled her optics. “Now eat.” Kriok’s augmented eyes pointed daggers at the painter.
Getting the message, Tschichold relented to his "mother" and shoved the spoon in his mouth. The potatoes tasted bland, horribly bland, existentialist bland. It was a bland far beyond the comprehension of his taste buds. Was this really how the future tastes like? Gagging on the cyberpunk aftertaste, Tschichold vomited the potatoes back on the plate.
Immediately, canned laughter followed. Tschichold should have excepted that. However, his nerves were dangerously thin and the hallucinations were getting even worse. Everything, everything was getting horrible. To show his suffering, Tschichold let out a tiny, but very audible groan.
Kriok looked a little annoyed but otherwise did not spoke a word. “I shall carve the turkey,” she snapped and so she did. It was less of carving and more of hacking away at the turkey like some sort of avian psychopath. Although the faces of the Shepherdsons and Junior did not change, Tschichold felt the urgent need to hide from the Nerrin. Man, Kriok was scary! After a bit of rearrangement, everybody had an uneven chunk of “turkey” on their plates.
The Shepherdsons dug into their glowing blue turkey with surprisingly plenty of gusto. Tschichold covered his hand with a face and poked the oddly pulsing poultry and mashed proteintato around into pleasing shapes. He would rather drink his own paint than to stick this synthesized garbage into his pie hole. However, for now, he would pretty up the food, so it looked somehow presentable.
Like Kriok, Tschichold was getting more and more impatient by the second and the hallucinations were not really helping. The artist was feeling the violent urge to jump on the table and scream his head off at this injustice. Cadium red, perhaps, Tschichold fumed to himself. He wanted to paint over fucking everything: Kriok, Shepherdson, Junior, even the damned static. He really wanted to, but he could not.
Hopefully, that damned <font color="#B0C4DE">bird had plans.</font>
Meanwhile, Kriok was reluctantly conforming to the insane rules of this hellhole of a sitcom. The kitchen was literally bursting with bounty. Various fishes, vegetables, and meats lay strewn about – to give the feeling of plenty (along with the unintentional artificial vibe). A nearby placard commanding her to cook dinner. Cook? How could she cook? Kriok had literally zero experience (and no, protein synthesis did not count).
She would not balk. She was an engineer, a scientist. Heck, if she could build a spaceship, she could cook a turkey. After all, cooking is another form of science. The cyborg Nerrin shrugged and aimed her Fabricator at the largest target: the massive turkey on the cutting board. Kriok could not help but feel a bit clever. Sure, she had to cook,
but that does not mean that she could not take any shortcuts.
***
Tschichold jolted from his seat as the kitchen door exploded violently. As billowing smoke and grey ash daintily drifted from the opening, the painter silently commented that Kriok lady may have some problems with cooking. At that moment, recorded laughter immediately followed after. Tschichold rubbed his temples. He kept on forgetting that he was in a sitcom.
Before the painter could elicit a groan, a doorbell rang. Of course, those were the Neighbors. However, little did the artist realize, the Neighbors were Noisy Neighbors and since they were Noisy Neighbors, they barged in without even waiting for someone to answer the door. How rude.
A man in formal attire waltzed in, arms a-swinging and feet a-dancing. His bedecked wife came in after, her legs exaggeratedly taking dainty steps into house. The man and woman looked to be completely opposites, yet the exaggerated almost fake-looking smiles, the plastic aesthetics of the two – they were all in all, completely the same.
“Gee golly! Boy, were we late! I wonder what our Neighbors are cooking today?” The man broke the silence in his own peppy way. He swung his head back and forth – his dinner-plate eyes eager for an answer.
“Honey, I have no idea!” His wife placed her hands on her cheeks and puckered her lips to show an exaggerated manner of feigned surprise.
They cooed and cuddled (they are a family show, after all!). As Tschichold observed, the manner in which they expressed their G-rated love was a type of cute reminiscent of a fuzzy rabbit taking a dump on his face. A nearby floating placard told the artist the two were the<font color="White"> Shepherdson couple. The man was Herbert. His wife was Melinda. And they love each other “Very Much.”
Immediately after the placard floated away from his face, Tschichold received the full frontal assault of Herbert’s face. </font>
“HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLO CHAD.” The man mouthed, grinned while the same. The sudden appearance made the painter jump ten feet off his air.
“HA HA HA,” Herbert guffawed, making sure to force his laughter from his lungs. “That always gets me.” While Tschichold was recovering from his heart-attack scare, he neighbor immediately took a pipe out his pants and begin to smoke, looking quite smug. “Now, where is that good ol’ Timmy Blake. I swear.” He turned at the camera. “He is so much better than all of us.”
“Here I am, mister!” Junior popped from his chair and scurried to the open arms of Herbert, who proceeded to play pretend airplane with him. The saccharine scenario almost convinced Tschichold to punch himself to unconsciousness.
Almost.
***
Ablendan stared at himself. He was in uniform and it was rather uncomfortable. The clothes did fit, only just barely. The demonic servant felt like if there were cotton bindings wrapping incredibly tight on his arms, torsos, and legs. Fashion was the farthest thing from this former man’s mind. However, you do not even need half a brain to realize that the uniform was incredibly tacky looking. He tried to chew off this hindering garb, but the astringent taste of polyester convinced him otherwise.
However, he had the bat and that was all he needed. Of course, in order to gain access to this bat, he had to follow their rules. Apparently the rules, as “Mr. Big” dictated, were to stand on this plaque on the sandy ground and “keep the eye on the ball.” Ball? What ball? Where was the ball what he needed to hit?
Well as long he could hit something…
***
Despite the smoke and that fact that everything was either a horrible mess or a slurry of unusable organic compounds, Kriok was sure her cooking was pretty much a success, even though the kitchen was on fire and the casserole seemed to be halfway alive. To be honest, Kriok did not give a shit about the quality of food. For now, she would bend to the placard’s command, “Praise Timmy.”
Kriok trooped out of the kitchen. As she expected, there was the Shepherdson couple, as the previous placard dictated. To her consternation, they were giving lavish praises to the eponymous character of the show.
“Timmy is such a responsible young man.” Herbert gushed. “He helped me find my missing mail and polished my shoes.”
“Oh, Timmy.” Melinda gushed equally the same. “Timmy is such a smart lad! Helping my slow son with his reading and arithmetic!”
“WHY CAN’T YOU BE LIKE HIM, CHAD?” The vapid smiles of the couple focused on the painter.
If Kriok had a lower eyelid, it would twitch. The praise continually lavished on this Timmy Blake was gratuitously excessive. It was disgusting. It was like audio torture. However, Tschichold did not seem to care. In fact, he was visibly bored! Kriok guessed he got used to it – or was already driven insane. However, the Nerrin had a placard to get out of the way.
“Timmy is a good kid,” Kriok spoke. Her synthesized cords were so flat that it was close to auto-tune.
“I KNOW, AM I RIGHT?” The couple squealed in delight, eliciting a groan from the painter.
“Timmy is a good kid,” Kriok repeated, folding her arms. Then, a pause. “Better than my useless son, Chad,” she added.
“WHY CAN’T YOU BE LIKE HIM CHAD?” The couple brought up that line in unison, along with canned laughter.
Tschichold mumbled something rude and just slumped on the table. He was more focused on the couple’s face than the nature of the insults. The Shepherdson’s faces were unappealingly unnatural. Luckily, the aesthetics was not exactly unsalvageable. A touch up and some diverse hues would fix it up. The painter would have done some touch-up with his brush, but nooo, escape was a bigger priority to him.
That made Tschichold sad.
Fortunately, a shower of sparks sputtered from the kitchen, filling the entire dining room with choking smoke. The fire alarm set up, drowning the atmosphere out with its annoying beeping noise. “One second,” Kriok mumbled as she sauntered back into the kitchen. Tschichold could hear some sort of laser noise as the alarm was immediately cut short.
***
“Strike nine!”
Meanwhile, a transition away, Ablendan was positively furious. He tried swinging wildly. He tried to wait for the ball to get near. He even attempted to bat with his claws. However, for some reason, he could not hit the damn ball. The demonic servant looked up, his only eye positively burning with irate hatred, as the baseball was tossed back to Mr. Big, who looked positively smug.
Before the undead man could even react, the ball zipped across him, nearly beaning him on the shoulder. “Striiiiiiiike ten!” Oh, how Ablendan was starting to hate that voice, the voice of Mr. Big positively oozing with triumph.
“Well, Mr. Blake!” Mr. Big exclaimed, smiling in a manner that reminded Ablendan of crawling leech. “You positively are out of your game. I was letting you off easy since you are a beginner and everything. People usually go off after three strikes, you know!” The man cocked an asking brow at Ablendan. “Try again?”
An animalistic rumble resonated from Ablendan. Despite his insanity, the undead servant knew that Mr. Big was tossing the ball horribly on purpose. This man was doing idiotic tomfoolery around him! Ablendan wanted to tear his face off more than ever, but wait, he had a much better idea…
“Yes, please.” Ablendan growled under his breath, although his eyes hid a rather malicious plan.
Mr. Big swaggered back to the pitcher mound. Spitting a wad of saliva on the ball, the founder of Big Co. prepared to throw yet another curveball at Ablendan. Yes, Ablendan was a novice baseball player. However, little did Mr. Big realized the flies were not just around because of the smell.
To his surprise, Ablendan did not swung. The flies condensed into a tiny wall, engulfing the baseball into its swarm. Droning angrily like bees, the hellish insects shot forth like a missile – into Mr. Big’s face. Ablendan felt a certain spark of happiness as the screams of the CEO echoed across the field, the minute servants of Beezlebub digging into the plastic flesh of this man. People were running away. Co-workers were panicking. Sure, it was not part of the act,
but it was totally worth it.
***
Tschichold stared.
As if the visual and audio senses were not enough, some higher force decided that it was time for his gustatory senses to get a little tortured. The dinner was nothing he expected because everything looks like crap. All the dishes were horrifying crimes against humanity (and art too!)! Barely identifiable and inhumanly identical, Tschichold was pretty sure each dish was unpalatable. Wait, was that casserole moving.
“Wow, Missus Blake, you are sure ahead of your time!” Herbert slapped his knee dramatically. “How did you know radioactivity is the cooking of the future?”
However, the worst was the turkey centerpiece. The turkey, if it could be called a turkey, was beyond any cuisine recognition. The smell emanating from the horrible roast was a combination of unholy and awful. Also, it was slightly glowing blue.
Kriok shrugged. "I think this is charred beyond recognition so I synthesized a couple of protein paste packets as a sauce." At that note, Kriok decided to toss a few plastic packets, filled with some sort of future mystery sauce, on the table.
Tschichold edged away from the table. Sure, he was a starving artist, but he would not sink that low! Unfortunately, the placard near him told him to insult the cuisine. He had to act and judging from the dinner, it seemed pretty reasonable. “It looks like crap.” It was not the best insult, but it worked.
Each second in this sitcom wore away at Kriok’s patience. She would liked to be in a next channel, but noo, in order to do that, she had to play along. For the sake of outdated philosophical values, she was an engineer, not a housewife.”Eat your vegetables, young man,” Kriok started to heap potatoes onto Tschichold’s place.
Tschichold looked down. The shiny paste was supposed to be mashed potatoes. Scooping up a chunk for closer examination, the artist realized it was not mashed potato-like at all! It was more jelly like, like a wobbly slug on a spoon – which was disgusting and inedible. Well, screw acting – and escaping too! Tschichold really did not want this blasphemous crud in his mouth.
Kriok’s eye glared down at the artist. “The potatoes have too many carbohydrates for my taste. I took the liberties to break these tubers into basic components and add some necessary additions. Now, the potato dish consists of 99% protein, and contains all essential vitamins and nutrients. Now, it is healthier for my unthankful, ugh, son.” Kriok rolled her optics. “Now eat.” Kriok’s augmented eyes pointed daggers at the painter.
Getting the message, Tschichold relented to his "mother" and shoved the spoon in his mouth. The potatoes tasted bland, horribly bland, existentialist bland. It was a bland far beyond the comprehension of his taste buds. Was this really how the future tastes like? Gagging on the cyberpunk aftertaste, Tschichold vomited the potatoes back on the plate.
Immediately, canned laughter followed. Tschichold should have excepted that. However, his nerves were dangerously thin and the hallucinations were getting even worse. Everything, everything was getting horrible. To show his suffering, Tschichold let out a tiny, but very audible groan.
Kriok looked a little annoyed but otherwise did not spoke a word. “I shall carve the turkey,” she snapped and so she did. It was less of carving and more of hacking away at the turkey like some sort of avian psychopath. Although the faces of the Shepherdsons and Junior did not change, Tschichold felt the urgent need to hide from the Nerrin. Man, Kriok was scary! After a bit of rearrangement, everybody had an uneven chunk of “turkey” on their plates.
The Shepherdsons dug into their glowing blue turkey with surprisingly plenty of gusto. Tschichold covered his hand with a face and poked the oddly pulsing poultry and mashed proteintato around into pleasing shapes. He would rather drink his own paint than to stick this synthesized garbage into his pie hole. However, for now, he would pretty up the food, so it looked somehow presentable.
Like Kriok, Tschichold was getting more and more impatient by the second and the hallucinations were not really helping. The artist was feeling the violent urge to jump on the table and scream his head off at this injustice. Cadium red, perhaps, Tschichold fumed to himself. He wanted to paint over fucking everything: Kriok, Shepherdson, Junior, even the damned static. He really wanted to, but he could not.
Hopefully, that damned <font color="#B0C4DE">bird had plans.</font>