"Nurse come in, please, where are you?" -Dr. Octagon, "General Hospital" (1996). "History records no more gallant struggle than that of humanity against the truth." -Ashleigh Brilliant Love police, I think I'm forming, I'm forming a crush. We'll get along great if you stand *right* over there. I'll have you know that I underwent the ritual, and it ordained me as fit to have only good opinions! Feels like making progress toward the goal is harder than ever. We figured we could storm one last megashroom together, just to cap things off. The only thing I'm looking to break is even! "I am afraid of the unknown... and also many parts of the known." -Ashleigh Brilliant Don't given 'em the satisfaction, is how! The trick is to work to keep their disorganization from becoming a feature rather than a bug. They will be the ones to tell you so. Thanks for havarting my back, you're a life shaver! My boots! My boots! My controlling shares for my boots! A curious war. The only way to win is not to kill. Come on in! The water's cold and under enormous pressure! Love is free. Love is free. Love is free. Love is free. (Ready to kick some ass!) If you stack one atop the other, you can make yourself a staircase to anywhere. A future we can all aspire to: "Become your best self. You can do it. We can help." "Stare into the subliminal for as long as you can." -They Might Be Giants There's treasure everywhere! So really, you should be thanking me for all these great gifts. These fun guys are now making all metropolitan stops. We thought today would be a good day for rolling. Been a long time gone, Leningrad. Why did Leningrad get the works? Where I'm going, I won't need color to see. This hall of whispers ain't quiet enough for the both of us. If you don't watch out, there's gonna tamagetcha! Invaders beware: This Kasbah's ready to rock back. They make me feel less alone, but I'm starting to worry it's not in the way I intended. Turns out, the world is actually overflowing with things we should be thankful for. I'm as surprised as anyone. Come on, daddy needs another couple hundred tickets. Let's just say there's been some real *combustion* in these internals, you know what I'm sayin'? Her witch hat brings all the dogs to the moors. She could walk them, but she'll stay indoors. None can contest that this hoard is mine and that it is safe in my keeping. Watch as these even dumber drawings speak to ravenous, feral audience! Three of two of them. "Scum of the Earth, overpaid to rob anonymously from a distance" -Metric, "Doomscroller" (2022). Can't look away, now that they've fallen into orbit. Orange above, dew-chilled below. From purple timber no good thing was ever drank. It's remarkable what you can turn up when you're a journalist by day. Dealer vs. dealer, the edge is going to go to whoever has more arms. It seems you've got a reply for my every quip. You wouldn't happen to be my foil, would you? Sometimes, it's nice to visit a theme park whose theme is modest sincerity. Cornifer, from Hollow Knight, explores a cave described as "cold, dark, damp, and stinky." Stay outta my personal space! Following the upheaval, life must go on. “Sax, who's paying for all this?” Sax tilted his head, blinked. “The sun.” -Kim Stanley Robinson, *Red Mars* "As long as the lookout manages to stay hidden, you can hide here as long as it takes to recover." Everything just gets more imposing with adulthood, doesn't it? When the only tool you've got is a lever, every problem looks like a fulcrum. All it takes is just one dropship, order yours today! Welcome to the haunted world of HORRIBO. What will be the face you wear after The Change sets in? It's not just about kaiju; it's about kaijhistory. By land, by air, or by sea, we've got the world covered. What better way to honor her contributions than to post via wifi? I'm just coming back from the shops. Hope these supplies aren't too haunted! Maybe you can't take it all with you, but this paraphernalia's gonna let me bring 'em all back! See them run hither and thither, each sporting their own accessory! Those copper-bottoms are no match for our shell-tops. "This would fix me," said many furs. Just think of it, a land created by Lord Larethian for all our kind. We'll just need to relocate these pesky humans. This retro aesthetic has a particularly appealing crunch to it! She's navigating that tenuous Middle Kingdom between cat girl and catgirl. When all you have is a skull, every problem starts to look like a fortress gate. I hope this doesn't corrupt any sectors in me... It's kind of wild how much the flora of an ecosystem rely on flowers to round out their collective color wheel. Take heart! There will be fascists enough to punch anon! Look, the expected value of going again is infinite. So hit me. Hit me. Hit me. A rare window into how royal succession plays out after the chess game has concluded. I'll tell you what, when we're done down here, it's going to be all mine! I'm hot 'cause I stayed out in the sun too long. You ain't 'cause you showed reasonable levels of restraint in the face of a fiery sky orb. Sure, the sun's out and life feels easy, but do you ever get the feeling that the shallows are getting less shallow all the time? Sure, the Moon is a lot smaller than the Sun, but it's also a *lot* closer! These sculptural creations are ready to make some mayhem, and are also immune to critical hits! As everyone knows, benevolent clowns favor bicycles, while malevolent clowns have all flocked to these new "motor vehicles." You know what would really get us ready for out astral raids? *Costume jewelry!* With family like these, who needs mortal enemies? Whatever they're doing, it's not thinking. If it wasn't for the certification, you'd never even know the place was haunted. A nibble here, a nibble there, and before you know it, you've made a treasure from someone else's trash! They say that by the time you make it to the deep end, visibility goes down to zero! Just one problem! Someone put all the racing stripes on sideways! We need to claw back these resources before nature does it for us! "Text me back in like 30. I'm watching that episode of SpongeBob where he has a 3-day rager with his jellyfish." -Alfred Pennyworth Ponder it, won't you? Ponder the eternal and beautiful orb, seen across so many orders of magnitude. This looks like a job for Claude Chappe, inventor of wireless long-distance semaphore! "Just make sure you don't leave this one out overnight like you did your last bike." Bears shouldn't walk on sunshine! Not like this! If enough of us force ourselves into this box, you won't even be able to tell there's an echo! Maybe y'all better go home, because I'm about to go big. Raise the iron curtain on the first of many acts, but never lower your guard! Who needs spinal column when you've got all this brain power?! Integers! They're only natural! "Are these dreams a clutch of stifled memories? Was there something in my mind? There are things they say man was not meant to know... Is this shadow out of time?" -The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, "Some Things Man Was Not Meant To Know" (2007). "Come closer. Closer." (Whispers in your ear) "Now fight me like a man." *On the Fresh Grave of Your Lifelong Love Who died of Consumption and Being Found the Next Morning Unconscious, Naked, and Nearly Frozen to Death by the Groundskeeper. On the Internet, everyone knows you can't possibly be a ghost who died before 1969, because they never received the necessary operating system upgrade. We all saw you both from across the room, and we agree: We like what you've both got going on. I didn't give my heart to a rubber wasp, so much as have it stolen. Unfortunately, as reliably as the conveyer belt provides ants, food preparation times quickly add up. So, let's see, after four double-or-nothings, I believe you now owe me 16 times what we wagered. No? Look, do you want to get into the Field of Reeds or not? "Words are a wonderful form of communication, but they will never replace kisses and punches." -Ashleigh Brilliant Pokémon shouldn't fight! Not like this! It might take some doing - these bastards looks like they're going after those pearly whites. You can't even call him Mr. Potato Head anymore. Because of woke. WARNING: Improper use may cause a hazardous condition. Do not top off. Teach a monkey to shoot, and they'll paint on a grimmer, grander canvas for the rest of their lives. I emerged from the disorienting journey changed in ways I could not have anticipated. All I need is water, and fruit, and to impress my friends. This is not a genre-defining collection of contributions that transformed multiple creative industries. This is just a tribute. I touched the giant geodesic orb at the American Pavilion and all I got was this self-referential chost. It's a tough market out there, no horsin' around permitted. Behold, the first feed manufacturing facility to shift the focus from responding to contamination of the supply to preventing it. Just who is being protected from whom, here? "I'm addicted to shiny things," they said, as they both reached for the lizard. These troublemakers are about to blow their tops! Things are gonna get hot! This motley crew of brash trend-setters are making their way downtown the way *they* would prefer to travel. These saxa aren't going to frangere themselves. "In an orderly world, there's always a place for the disorderly." -Ashleigh Brilliant In the future, music will consist of food sounds, and be prepared by those no longer among the living. They say the uprising was started by a cadre of Jameson-type cyborgs. This crew's so gently pliable, they've not got one bone between them. No book in the world held the secret I sought, so I gave myself the book in dreams. A lancer pilot sits atop a stone wall. Ahead, a pastoral landscape of rolling farmland. Behind, a darkened industrial hellscape. SNAKE FARM SNAKE FARM SNAKE FARM The essence of the chaotic alignment is a little less conversation, a little more mayhem. Folks will do whatever it takes to be these dogs' best friends. No more fearsome collection of bounty hunters has ever been assembled! "When all other means of communication fail, try words." -Ashleigh Brilliant Sure would be a shame if we took these, the only remaining Talismans, into the Valley with us! From blunt force all sharp things are made. "To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and, whatever you hit, call it the target." -Ashleigh Brilliant A mountain guide stands near a warm cabin and points across a vast expanse of snow at a shimmering peak. They say you can kill over 200 pounds of rabbit and bison with just 1 Bullets card. Is that really true?! One might go so far as to say that we live in a society. "Cause every chromosome is a hand-me-down." - Weird Al Yankovic, "I Think I'm A Clone Now" (1988) It's race to discover land between the lookouts in the crow's nests and the crew looking into the water! Sunset with the girls. What's not to love? Behold the future conveyances of ages past! Ladies! Now available in blue. The jeans are from grandma, the Nintendo is from Uncle Red. When you're a resurrectionist, you get to be in everybody's will! Where my guinea pigs at! Come and get some citrus! "Take this milk. Why do we drink *cow* milk? Who was the guy who first looked at a cow and said, 'I think I'll drink whatever comes out of these things when I squeeze 'em!'? Isn't that weird?" -Calvin & Hobbes, 1993-06-14 The heart want what it wants, which is trouble if the heart wants the heart. Hold me closer, dabbing Lancer! Tell us experience that we can earn. The Grand Palace is getting positively mobbed by flying aircraft. You have nothing to lose but access to a power supply! Nothing shiny is safe from this clever birb! Don't get it twisted, the bozo on the horse knows what he did. Emmy Noether, iconic physicist and mathematician, was operating on a whole different level. All! About! Bees! Games have rules, so it follows that they probably also have those who think themselves rulers. We greased the rails at the station terminus, and you won't *believe* what happened next! A squeezebox, two flutes, and *three* stringed instruments?! Now that's what I call a party! It's November, and all around, the natural world is settling into its slumber. Something about them all, can't quite put my finger on it... Say 5 degrees by the next 100 years and it sets the world on fire. You think the people aren’t just going to sell the Earth and move? American cereal manufacturers ask: What if the Bride of Frankenstine was instead his no-strings-attached DJ cousin? Hunted by horrors, Horace had his heart humbled and his hopes hollowed. Long after the collapse of the imperial core, a long and cryptic shadow is still cast by its ghosts. Look, it's just a bunch of little guys! They don't have top-shelf gear, leave 'em alone, don't worry about it! This motley crew's only got one thing on the mind: Dem bones. Team Rocket takes a tumble from a castle into the trash. In a state of nature, nobody knows you're *Canis lupus familiaris*. It's autumn, and what better time to share our reflections with one another? For thousands of years, cats have had homes. Now, they have demands. A salmon is dead, and the culprit has been identified by a witness. Nothing to do on a rainy day but take it in stride and dress appropriately. A diminutive kobold is ready for training with the swordmaster. ’Tis now the very witching time of night, when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out contagion to this world. Now could we drink hot blood, and do such bitter business as the day would quake to look on. "If we all work together, we can totally disrupt the system" -Ashleigh Brilliant. A pink zebra is looking to get a trio of animals drunk; only the one with the worst judgment is interested. The car's not going to know what hit it. A pair of stegosaur sailors discuss the dream of starting over on a new continent. Princess Zelda is very unimpressed by this clown's Android. An antelope has the undivided attention of seven dogs. Assassinate the Imperator with the power of light! Imagine, if you will, a field with every kind of flower. A stretch of ocean separates the ambitions of the explorers on the left from the predations of the pirates on the right. The world is so much simpler when it's this complicated! It's hot in this desert, it's boring, and it's time to go home! "How to survive eating animals in the wilderness: The tongue, eyes, and brain are all edible." A space telescope gazes across a starry expanse at the white-hot chaos of a black hole accretion disk. A young witch reads an occult tome by the light of a single very intimidating candle. Loose lips cost souls. Pigeons are very fine birds, but please appreciate them respectfully. That grinning cat can't pierce my force field. Tintin is threatened by an unnaturally big spider. Yo, listen up here's a story about a little guy that lives in a stone world. Ooh, let's slip that gap! "After the last sixty million years, I suddenly feel very tired." -Ashleigh Brilliant A ground-based galleon must fend off an armada of airships descending from space. Folks with skin untouched by the sun. Crowd around the scrying pool, you're not going want to miss the preview of next week's episode! "Please turn down the volume or play something other than Drake." When three clocks disagree by this much, best to call it a day after lunch. The Moon has many secrets, and many feel a pull other than that of the tides. The quest for justice is worthy work, and befits the use of a little magic. Even a flat Earth resides in a vast and voluminous universe that is full of wonders. You cannot learn statistics without first considering the simple coin flip. "It's strange, but wherever I take my eyes, they always sen things from my point of view." -Ashleigh Brilliant A battle group of bookish ships close in on a space station. Two leviathans consume meal fit for a world-devouring hunger! The painting spoke to me, and only to me, and fell to me to rescue her. A trio of long-beaked birds jointly consider their shared two centuries of experience. You are a toad. Toad toad toad. The desert is full of strange and wondrous visions. The Kird Ape is 1/1, and receives +1/+2 when the controller has forests in play. These ladies in red are the belles of the bug ball. The hills are alive with the sound of ravenous, toothsome, flowering plants. "Yes, but you're taking the universe out of context." -Ashleigh Brilliant These boys done been kicking your ass so hard, their shoes wore out! "There's freakin' cats everywhere, dude." -Jacob Andrews A team of horses mill restlessly at the edge of the world. The Knight brandishes its nail as it is borne by the Last Stag into the deepest, buggiest corners of Hallownest. Hackers from the 90s attempt to infiltrate the Internet of the 21st century. Auber on fiddle, K. K. Slider on guitar, Snake on flute, Turtle on drums, Oryx on lyre, Prizmatik on pipes, with vocals by Cool Cow. The ambassador has a message for the diplomat. "Oh wad power the giftie gie us, to see oursels as others see us!" "By using your intelligence, you can sometimes make your problems twice as complicated." -Ashleigh Brilliant "It is unbelievable that this stubborn darkness, this eternal eclipse, this flaw in geometry, this eternal cloud on virgin truth can be endured." -Farkas Bolyai, c. 1825. A continental mystic of some notoriety seeks to complete a quest amidst an array of assets and obstacles. A view from the ocean of the Hale Kai condominium complex, with a hearty salute ready for the next setting sun. Light up the night! There is a city that this darkness can't hide. I wish I was the animal which fits into that mood. Every zoo is a heavy petting zoo if you're brave enough. A mighty blue whale visits a decidedly uneventful bay. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA Code 21 CFR) sets the standard and regulates the range of irradiating laboratory animal food products between 10-50kGy for Electronic Beam (e-beam), X-Ray and Gamma (Cobalt) Irradiation. "I accept that the planet is warm, and I rejoice that it is warm." -Mark Steyn (ghoul), 2015. A pair of two-dimensional eyes gaze though anaglyph glasses into the third dimension. "It grows harder from here," she warned the cat, but it dropped to the path and walked forward as though to say, 'You are wasting your time.' -Kij Johnson, 2016 "Why'd they make that drawer so hot?!" "Is this the original board game of death?" -Colin Barras, 2020 The Tacoma Art Museum invites residents of 2009 to discovery how David Macaulay works. How is an ungulate like a human-powered aircraft? It should be noted that the motor car was also invented by pedestrians. But for some reason the motorists soon forgot about that. They began to run over the meek and mild, clever pedestrians. The streets built by the pedestrians passed into the hands of the motorists. the roads doubled in width and the sidewalks narrowed down to the size of a tobacco wrapper. The pedestrians began to huddle against the walls of buildings in alarm. -Ilf & Petrov, 1962 An incredulous bird is surrounded by smaller birds and approximate birds. A variety of grim portents induce a melancholy atmosphere. A single powerful tome can have the weight of a whole stack of fluff. You have been greeted by an inhabitant of the Moon. A postal cat swipes at a postal rat, with a speech bubble saying, "oh no." A dog dreams, calmly and cozily, of what it is like to be a dog. Birds are made creepier by their unknowable secrets. Cats playing golf, with a speech bubble saying, "oh no." A shadowy figure beside a table looks out over a desert, with a speech bubble saying, "oh no." A person holding a brilliant lantern aloft, with a speech bubble saying, "holy crap." Eight ants circle on a Moebius band, with a speech bubble saying, "oh no." Opus the penguin tries and fails to fly, with a speech bubble saying, "oh no." A wanderer stands above a sea of fog, with a speech bubble saying, "oh no." A surfer tips off the crest of a wave, with a speech bubble saying, "oh no." Dr. Strange is attacked by a monster, with a speech bubble saying, "oh no." A man holding a and puppet aloft, with a speech bubble saying, "oh no." Saint George, having broken his lance, swings a sword at a dragon, with a speech bubble saying, "oh no." A Chinese print of a bird, with a speech bubble saying, "oh no." The Eiffel Tower, manipulated to appear upside-down, with a speech bubble saying, "oh no." 
