The Incredible Adventures of a Mad Scientist

Punctuating Dialogue

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➸ “This is a sentence.”

➸ “This is a sentence with a dialogue tag at the end,” she said.

➸ “This,” he said, “is a sentence split by a dialogue tag.”

➸ “This is a sentence,” she said. “This is a new sentence. New sentences are capitalized.”

➸ “This is a sentence followed by an action.” He stood. “They are separate sentences because he did not speak by standing.”

➸ She said, “Use a comma to introduce dialogue. The quote is capitalized when the dialogue tag is at the beginning.”

➸ “Use a comma when a dialogue tag follows a quote,” he said.

“Unless there is a question mark?” she asked.

“Or an exclamation point!” he answered. “The dialogue tag still remains uncapitalized because it’s not truly the end of the sentence.”

➸ “Periods and commas should be inside closing quotations.”

➸ “Hey!” she shouted, “Sometimes exclamation points are inside quotations.”

However, if it’s not dialogue exclamation points can also be “outside”!

➸ “Does this apply to question marks too?” he asked.

If it’s not dialogue, can question marks be “outside”? (Yes, they can.)

➸ “This applies to dashes too. Inside quotations dashes typically express—“

“Interruption” — but there are situations dashes may be outside.

➸ “You’ll notice that exclamation marks, question marks, and dashes do not have a comma after them. Ellipses don’t have a comma after them either…” she said.

➸ “My teacher said, ‘Use single quotation marks when quoting within dialogue.’”

➸ “Use paragraph breaks to indicate a new speaker,” he said.

“The readers will know it’s someone else speaking.”

➸ “If it’s the same speaker but different paragraph, keep the closing quotation off.

But these fucking umbrella kids show up on TV, and at first none of them are paying much attention. Not right away.  They’re busy running cons, and none of them except Hardison watch TV for fun very often.

So they’ve all heard bits and pieces about this Umbrella thing, and aren’t quite sure what to make of it.  Superhumans, huh? Eliot mutters at one point. Whatever. Our lives are already so goddamn weird.

But eventually they catch a broadcast while they’re home in between cases.  it’s playing in the background while they’re enjoying a meal together at the brewery.

The Umbrella Academy saves the day yet again! the broadcaster declares cheerily. We go now to a statement at the Louvre from their leader, Sir Reginald Hargreeves.

It’s just novel enough to catch their attention–being who they are, they all perk up at the word Louvre–and it gets them half-watching as they chat over breakfast.

It’s Parker that sees it first.  She’s Parker, so what catches her attention is actually not the fact that one of them is covered in blood, nor is it the fact that their father is calling them by numbers instead of names.  It’s the way that they stand, tense and upright.  It’s the way that the one covered in blood is trembling minutely, so fine that it’s almost imperceptible. But she notices. And she notices the way that the one to the bloodied boy’s left–the fifth one in line–leans over ever-so-subtly when their father is looking away. Whispers something with the barest movement of his lips. And then, after a moment of hesitation, he links hands with his shaking brother, twining their fingers together.  Parker knows that whisper, knows what this is. She used to do that with her brother.  Used to hold Nick’s hand, just like that, when their fosters were scaring him, trying to provide comfort even despite the fear of being caught.

It’s not long before the others follow her gaze. She’s stopped engaging in the conversation entirely, is just staring at the television with a death glare, nose wrinkled.

“Parker, baby,” Hardison says.  “That’s your angry face.”

“I’m angry,” she says, and doesn’t elaborate.

“Got it,” Hardison takes it in stride, as he always does.

Eliot’s frowning at the TV.  Unlike Parker, his eye does jump to the most obvious thing first.  To the boy, no older than eleven or twelve probably, drenched head to toe with blood.  There’s no rips in his clothing; Eliot’s pretty sure the blood isn’t his. He’s standing up straight, but his shoulders are slightly hunched.  Like he’s injured.  Broken ribs, maybe?  And he’s been taught to hide them too. He’s also not the only one with that too-stiff posture. These kids aren’t standing up straight. They’re standing at attention.  Number One, their father calls one of them, and what are those? Fucking callsigns?  

Sophie and Nate are watching too.  Their faces are carefully blank.  They aren’t happy, Parker’s pretty sure, but they’re trying not to react.

“What the hell?” Hardison says slowly.  He’s the last one to catch on, though only by a very narrow margin.  He lacks Sophie and Nate’s cynicism, and the years of personal experience Parker and Eliot have, but he’s still too smart to not figure it out almost immediately.  And he is first one to abandon the stunned stillness that’s fallen over the rest of them, pulling his laptop out of his bag, already quickly tapping away at the keys.

“This ain’t right,” Eliot says, voice a growl in his chest.  “This is–this is–it’s televised child abuse.”

Sophie makes a quiet noise of agreement then. “It is,” she says, quietly disgusted. “Those poor children.”

Nate is still staring at the screen, lips pressed flat.

“This Reginald guy looks rich,” Parker says.  Then: “Can we kill him?”

Eliot chokes on his drink.

“How is this even legal?” Sophie asks.  She sounds curious, though not particularly surprised by the grievous violation of child protection laws before her. “It’s so…blatant.”

“Sir Reginald Hargreeves,” Hardison says, no longer typing.  “He is–oh shit.” And the typing resumes, faster and a little more panicked than before.

“Hardison?” Nate prods after a moment, giving Hardison a sidelong glance.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s all good,” Hardison says.  “The INTERPOL files on this guy are locked up tight though.  Almost tripped their security system there.  I didn’t, of course, but–”

“You couldn’t get in?” Eliot says, smirking.

“Yet,” Hardison says.  “Dammit, man, it’s been less than five minutes.  Give me a couple hours and that thing is mincemeat.  Metaphorically speaking, of course.  But I do see what’s going on here and,” he clicks his tongue, shaking his head in disappointment.  “Y’all, this is hinky.”

“Yes, I think we got that,” Nate says.  The corner of his lip twitches up.

“Yeah, yeah,” Hardison says.  “This guy has got friends everywhere.  No one knows how he got the kids, but it looks like he technically bought them–”

“He what?” Sophie sounds like she’s been suckerpunched.  Parker can’t think of the last time she heard Sophie sound so shocked.

“Oh yeah.  You think that’s bad?  The numbers aren’t code names  The numbers are their name names.  Like, legally.  I just found an article that said he ordered them by how useful he thinks they are, but judging by the adoption papers it was actually in the order he, uh,” Hardison coughs, “acquired them.”

Eliot is swaying where he stands.  “Common tactic.  He’s pitting them against one another so they’ll be easier to control.  It undermines the self worth of the ones lower on the scale and makes the ones that are higher up feel obligated to do what he wants.  Son of a bitch.”

“…And it looks like he leveraged their powers as excuse to gain exemptions from child protection laws,” Hardison continues like he hasn’t been interrupted.  “Claimed their abilities meant they don’t need the same safeguards.”

“That’s bullshit!” Eliot sounds thunderous.

“I know, buddy,” Hardison reaches over blindly, waving his hand around vaguely until he finds Eliot’s shoulder.  He gives it a comforting squeeze.  “I didn’t write it.”

Eliot heaves in a shuddering breath.  “That’s just–”

“Evil,” Sophie finishes.  

“I’m inclined to agree,” Nate says.  He’s not watching the TV anymore.  He’s staring off into the middle distance, arms crossed over his chest.

“Oh!” Parker perks up.  All the grief and distress that had been brewing on her face vanishes like storm clouds parting for the sun.  “Nate! Nate, are you scheming?  You look like you’re scheming.”

Nate makes a noncommittal grunt.  “It would be dangerous.”

“They’re in danger,” Sophie says softly, jerking her head in the television’s direction.

Eliot’s long-since gotten to his feet.  He’s pacing, and that’s how Parker knows he’s furious.  When Eliot is too angry to stand it, he has to move, has to find some way to handle the rage roiling under his skin.  Usually he cooks, chopping vegetables with furious aplomb.  And when he can’t cook, he paces.  

“They’re fucking child soldiers,” he says.  “I can’t–” he cuts himself off with a furious shake of the head.  I can’t believe, he was about to say, Parker thinks, but he had to stop because that’s not true.  Eliot knows better than anyone what the government–what the world does to people they find useful, whether its skill or power that makes them so.

“Y’all are behind,” Hardison says in sing-song.  “I’m already trying to burn this motherfucker down.”

“Hardison, do not tip our hand,” Nate says, snapping into his leader-voice automatically.  Parker grins.  He’s already got a plan, then.  She knew all that reluctance was just for show.  Sophie laughs, as clear and bright as the ringing of a bell, and even Eliot perks up.  

Hardison grumbles, closing his laptop and stuffing it back in his messenger bag.  

Nate is grinning a little too, though it’s that angry smile he gets sometimes when Parker knows he’s thinking about hurting bad people.  She understands.  She’s wearing hers too right now.  Nate glances them all over, and for all the malice dripping off the knife’s edge of that smile, his eyes are soft.  Maybe even a little proud.

“Fine. Fine. You guys win,” Nate says, lifting his hands in defeat.  He’s putting on a show of being beleaguered, but Parker can hear the sparking anger in his voice, and oh, how could she have forgotten?  Sophie is so gently righteous, Hardison so achingly distressed, and Eliot so full of fire and fury that she almost didn’t notice Nate’s seething wrath, nearly forgot that Nate looks at every injured child in need of help and thinks of Sam.  “Everyone, get your things.  Hardison, get us some plane tickets.  Let’s go steal some children.”

“Okay, okay.  I ain’t complaining cause, like, fuck that guy,” Hardison says, slinging his bag over his shoulder.  “But stealing children?  Could you have made us sound anymore like kidnappers?”

“Hardison!”

Give me Parker teaching Five how to pick a safe.

Give me Harrison teaching Luther and Ben how to code.

Give me Sophie teaching Klaus and Allison how to act (aka lie really good.)

She tells Hardison that something’s wrong with Vanya, concerned about the apparent strength of the medication someone was giving to a child, and inside of a day, Vanya is experiencing the joys of a blood draw, the glories of orange juice and a cookie and a nap while analysis is performed.

When the results come back, everyone gets very quiet.  The children are already legally theirs; even Hargreeves doesn’t have the resources to pay lawyers faster than Hardison’s hands on a keyboard.  But now Hargreeves is off-limits, at least until Vanya is old enough and detoxed enough to rationally answer the most important question in the world:

“Uh, you know that medicine Dad was giving Vanya to make her powers go away?”

“It didn’t exactly make her powers go away,” said Sophie. “But yes, why do you ask?”

Klaus looks up, shaking like a leaf and asks, “Can I have some?”

The team had not asked what Klaus’ powers were.  Now the story comes out.  Klaus has got an appointment with a child psychiatrist the next day (and not just to design his med regimen—Hargreaves locked him in the catacombs how many times?!) The team makes sure the kids know: 1) Klaus is on meds because he wants them. 2) Klaus is on a normal regimen. His dose is much, much smaller than Vanya’s because the point is to make him feel better and part of that is regular checkups to make changes. 3) Vanya’s powers aren’t an illness; Klaus’ are, at least as far as being constantly accosted by dead grownups screaming at you translates to the DSM-V.

Luthor, who may never stop being Number One asks, “But what about our responsibility to help others?  Only Four can talk to spirits.”

So my trainer’s bf cheated on her. She broke up with him. He’s holding her stuff hostage until she agrees to talk with him. Which she refuses.

She trains; for free mind you; three college linebackers, a college wrestler, two martial artists, a body builder, and… wait for it…. a Navy seal. We’re gonna go get her shit for her.

Arrival:

So the super friends all jumped into one of the linebacker’s explorer and headed over to dude’s house. Ok the squad: you all know me, but the other martial artist is a little wirey hapkido guy, the linebackers are all giants (an estimated combined weight of I’d say 750-800lbs), the wrestler looks like an escaped gorilla, then the navy seal looks like your average guy but something about him is unsettling. Really unsettling. Unfortunately, the body builder had to work. Anyway, we send the Hapkido guy and the wrestler to the door first and dude answers, screams at them, and then slams the door in their face. Then the giant linebackers head over and they ring the door bell again. Lo and behold, he was much more polite, but still denied access. Finally, me and the seal join the fray. I casually make my way towards the front of the group, but the seal decides to CLIMB THE BANISTER. We all just turned and started at him completely shocked when dude answers the door. He looks at this weird mismatched group of relatively threatening individuals and one guy perched on his banister like batman. He was like “FINE. Go take what you’re looking for.”

Retrieval:

So we’re all walking through the house gathering what we think are her things and putting them into two boxes. Mind you. We are completely guessing. We didn’t even tell her we were coming, therefore we had no list of items.The only one really being productive was Hapkido, who was legitimately looking for stuff. The linebackers were just randomly picking up furniture, turning it over, and putting it back down. Just showing off how strong they were. In case the numbers game wasn’t enough, I guess they were letting him know they could break him if they wanted to. The seal was just shadowing dude in his own house. Walking behind him, not saying much, just being creepy. Then there’s me. Who was causing general mischief…. He said to take what I was looking for, that’s what I was looking for. Ahaha and the wrestler made a fricken sandwich. Because “you guys look like you have it under control, and I’m a sucker for egg salad.” We were in and out in 15 minutes.

Delivery:

So the autobots rolled out and headed towards homegirl’s spot. She was conveniently outside when we rolled up. We got out and she was like, how do you all even know each other. The truth is, we don’t. She sent us all an email once and didn’t blind copy us all. She vented to all of us about dude holding onto her stuff and we started emailing and that was that. We told her that we went to see her ex. “OMG what did you say to him?” Nothing. We’re not messenger boys. We’re delivery boys. And we gave her her boxes of stuff. She went through the first box and said that was most of her stuff. Then she got to my box and asked “Wtf is all that shit.” So I explained that I took all the batteries out of his remote controls, his deodorant, the light bulb out of his master closet, every pair of dress socks that I could find, the laces out of his running shoes, and all the toilet paper in the house. The guys just looked at me and kind of nodded like they were impressed. She then unexpectedly started CRYING and thanked us. So you have this group of meat heads all standing awkwardly with this weeping trainer. It was quiet for a second when the seal was like “So…. chipoltle?” And we all got burrito bowls.

favorite lyrics per album → fall out boy’s save rock and roll

Like, they come and meet us and they’re like ‘hey this is an awkward question but what’s your gooblebygark?’

And we’re like what.

‘You know, the… the thing. Your goobledygark. The thing that dictates whether you’re gnarfgnoovles or brubledoopes’

What. What. What the fuck, those words don’t even mean anything??? What are you talking about?

‘Look, your ridiculous human languages don’t seem to have the words for these! But they’re totally a thing, they’re like, fundamental aspects of social life for our species, just… just let us lick you so we can know what verb tense to use when we speak to you.’

What does one thing have to do with the other??? That makes no–

‘UGH, nevermind, you’re totally brubledoopes, I can just tell, I don’t even need to taste your bacterial skin colonies.’

And then another alien overhears and is like ‘holy shit, you can’t stereotype like that, that’s SO NOT COOL’

IT GETS BETTER.

This mummy, found in the  Altai mountains of Siberia, is actually that of a young woman who died at about the age of twenty-five; she is thought to have been a member of the Pazyryk tribe.

She was buried with six horses and two similarly-tattooed men (the horned griffon that decorates her shoulder also appears on the man buried closest to her, covering most of his right side), possibly escorts. She was also wearing a horse-hair wig, silk, and elaborate boots, which is all a level of ceremony that would have likely only been accorded to a woman of high rank. You didn’t get inked like this unless you were very important, and had worked your way up to that importance. 

…Hence, of course, the references to her by researchers as ‘The Ukok Princess,’ although due to the lack of weapons in her grave they have concluded that the woman was in fact a healer or a storyteller.  

And now I’m all consumed with curiosity: Who was she? What amazing things did she accomplish? Why these symbols, and what did they mean? Who were the two men alongside her?

SHUT UP

Happy news! masturbation actually has health benefits.

Rejoice!