Month: July 2024

  • “Toujours” — A Dark Shadows Story

    “Toujours” — A Dark Shadows Story

    by Barb Lien-Cooper

    FOREWORD:

    Like a lot of Dark Shadows fans, I was not a fan of the character of Roxanne Drew. I eventually realized that the reason I had no emotional connection to her was that she had just sort of showed up one day in Parallel Time. Usually, when the DS writers introduced a new character, the new character either had a major tie to the Collins family, or a tie to a character on the show that wasn’t a Collins, or the new character would be a major player in the plot that was going to be introduced. None of this seemed to properly apply to Roxanne. The writers had Barnabas say he was falling in love with her, and we, the viewers, were just supposed to accept that idea.

    I said to my husband once that I had an idea for a story concerning how Roxanne could’ve been introduced to the audience in a way that might have worked better, which is how this story came to be.

    However, much later, as I was writing this story, the idea I had turned into something else: the story of a very unusual friendship.

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  • Fiction: A Hungry Ghosts story: “The Well” PART ONE (of two)

    Fiction: A Hungry Ghosts story: “The Well” PART ONE (of two)

    by Barb Lien-Cooper

    ~~~~~~~~~~

    Kiyoko wasn’t doing well in the battle, and we could all see it. These weren’t just tough peasants with big talk, these were experienced soldiers, and she was a young woman (with her hair cut short, who happened to be passing herself off as a young man). She was not half bad with a sword, not at all, but these were killers, and she lacked the killer instinct.

    “We would gladly share our food with you, sirs. None of this is necessary,” I heard Eisai-sama say, over on my left.

    “We want the magical pouch of rice you carry! Then we would never be hungry!” shouted the leader of the pack of soldiers as he lunged at Eisai-sama, who easily blocked the man with his sword, the legendary Lightning-on-the-Water.

    “…We’re hungry for blood, Takeshi,” the voice of the old man in my head said.

    “Starve yourselves,” I told the old man’s voice in my head, “just like these soldiers starve. Just because you want me to use my sword to kill doesn’t mean I want that…”

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  • “Guidance Counseling” — A Dark Shadows Story

    “Guidance Counseling” — A Dark Shadows Story

    Carolyn Stoddard Hawkes stared into the fire of the drawing room.

    My father is dead, she thought. My husband is dead. But no one cares but me. My mother has gone on with her life, which isn’t surprising, since she and Father separated years ago. My uncle doesn’t care, because he never liked my father nor my husband. Cousin David doesn’t care, because he’s so young—at that age, everything is about him. Cousin Barnabas is too busy spending time with Dr. Hoffman to care, whatever it is that those two do together… Cousin Quentin is too busy dating whoever he’s dating right now to care… Isn’t family supposed to care when someone’s grieving?

    She barely noticed when her uncle Roger came into the room and poured himself a brandy.

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  • OFFICE WORKERS SAVING THE WORLD: DAI-GUARD

    OFFICE WORKERS SAVING THE WORLD: DAI-GUARD

    Park: Okay so what happened was that our internet went out yesterday. Spectrum– and by the way, we’ll be switching to Google Fiber in less than a week because of this, because it’s been happening more and more– Spectrum gave us unstable and then totally missing internet. Well, we played board games a little, but… for some time, I had been planning to re-watch the anime Dai-Guard, because we own the complete show on DVD. Back when Barb and I were in charge of a website called MangaLife, we reviewed things, and so companies would send us manga and DVDs to review. One such company was ADV, based out of Houston, and one such thing they sent us was the anime Dai-Guard. And Dai-Guard is really good in my opinion, but the funny thing is, it’s from the turn of the century (1999, adapted to English in 2002), so when Barb and I watched it, we were comparatively new to all this. Partly because of this: Dai-Guard holds up REALLY well!

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