Tag Archives: Agents of change

Eyes Scream

(Nimue Brown and James Weaselgrease)

Those are actual eyes in there, not just decorative ones. But whose eyes are they? Whose eyes would you put in a pudding? 

We’ll come back to what kind of eyes. First, let us set the scene. Imagine The Crow, on a damp and uninviting Tuesday afternoon, on a day when everyone is unreasonably bored. The stew had been beaten into submission, the things in the cups had been chased to the point of tedium and no one wanted any more of the slightly soapy cake Mrs Ephemery kept offering them.

“Have you ever had ice cream?” a more recent arrival enquired.

Of course those words were unfamiliar in islander ears and were misinterpreted as a consequence. But Jemmy Vizor – the aforementioned new arrival –  had spotted some tall glasses that were clearly meant for sundaes and enthused in all innocence about the glory of a cool pudding in a tall glass.

Within half an hour, a few intrepid souls (Nob Chevin, Third Chevin and Spork Chevin) were busily putting eyes in a tall glass. Unfortunately the eyes in question belonged to a number of rather youthful and innocent agents of change who did not realise their peril until it was rather late in the proceedings.

By an odd coincidence, the consumers of the eyes scream were rather young and misguided humans who also did not realise their peril until rather late in the proceedings.

This dish was created using whatever milk could be obtained. There is a distinct possibility it was donkey milk. While agents of change floating in donkey milk does not look intrinsically that attractive, the descriptions of sweet and luscious eyes scream had the young Chevins willing to try.

The most usual consequence of eating an agent of change, is transformation. It’s an unpredictable process at the best of times. Eating an entire glassful is ill advised. In fairness, Third Chevin looked rather unusual before all of this and there are those of us who say that what happened to his nose was a great improvement. Nob Chevin is now even less likely to be able to play the harmonium. Spork Chevin ripped in two and both parts then fled into the sea.

Eyes Scream will remain on the menu at The Crow until further notice.

How Hopeless changes people

The Aunties are agents of change, tiny Gods of changemaking and mayhem. Perhaps you’ve met them already. If you’ve read Keith Errington’s Oddatsea – published by Outland in the ‘Hopeless, Maine’ volume – you’ll have met The Aunties. You may also have found them here on the blog, in Merry’s story – https://hopelessvendetta.wordpress.com/2018/07/06/the-aunties/

Often the changes in the world made by Agents of Change are pretty random – at least from the perspective of people seeing the impact. They like a bit of asymmetry, hence the three legged chickens. They like getting in your storage jars and creating surprise flavours, for better or worse.

Most islanders prefer to think of fate as either cruel, or random. Life is considerably more bearable when you don’t have to take it so personally. Terrible things happen all the time for no reason. If you thought there was a reason for it you might go mad trying to find a way of keeping yourself safe. We can say with some confidence that placating the terrible gods of callous indifference gets you nowhere, and tends to make everything that little bit worse.

The Aunties are not distant, powerful beings who care nothing for your irrelevant mortal life. The Aunties are mighty, they believe in justice and they suffer dreadfully from boredom. As a consequence, they may do to you that which they believe you truly deserve. Unfortunately, the logic by which they operate is incomprehensible to the fragile human mind. Why one person grows a tentacle from their elbow, while another sprouts antlers from their head is utterly mysterious. 

The Aunties wish to make it known that they are not responsible for recent outbreaks of vampirism and people getting especially hairy at full moons. They have no idea how donkeys get on roofs, or where all the blood came from the other week. They are not all powerful and it annoys them immensely when people imagine they are *that* sort of gods, and can be expected to Do Things on demand. 

Do not pray to them, for they are not persuaded either by your distress or your ideas about how to fix things. Do not ask what sort of problem they thought you had that they felt could be solved with the sprouting of tentacles, or antlers, or whatever else they may have done to you.

(With thanks to Rostov for the loan of his face. By using his face on this post we are definitely not implying 1) that he’s actually Keith Errington or 2) that he really does have antlers. We’re fairly confident the hat is real.)

Hopeless Food

What do people eat on the island? It’s not a great place for growing crops. The cows are small. The chickens are psychopaths and may well turn out to be demons. You can eat the sea life but only if it doesn’t eat you first. There are potatoes, but their eyes glow and they will try and run away. The fungi…. just no…

who knows how your meese will grow?

Sometimes things wash ashore from wrecked ships. You might want to eat those. And weevils are high in protein.

The preferred cooking technique is to cut things up very small, and hope for the best. What the eye doesn’t see, the stomach might or might not grieve over.

One of the key features of Hopeless Maine cookery, is the agent of change. But don’t eat them, the consequences are unpredictable. The wise cook adds agents of change to pretty much anything, and waits around in the hopes of getting something a bit more edible.

Agents of Change

Agents of change are small entities that often crop up in the background in Hopeless images. They are beings who live out their names. They change things. The more of them there are, the more scope there is for change. Their presence on the island is a major reason for the island’s odd flora and fauna.

We’ve not used them prominently in any plot. But, Merry Debonnaire has used them repeatedly – first in this short story https://hopelessvendetta.wordpress.com/2018/07/06/the-aunties/

And then again in this excellent tale about what really happened to Annamarie Nightshade https://hopelessvendetta.wordpress.com/2020/02/04/annamarie-nightshade-is-going-to-die/

Merry’s concept of the agent’s of change as Aunties was taken up by Keith Errington and turns out to be significant in his Oddatsea novella.

There have to be agents of change in the film, because if you look closely at the opening to The Gathering, there they are in the water with baby swimmy Sal. Helping her change. They are not solely responsible for Salamandra’s watery transformations – she does most of it for herself, but they give her a lot of ideas.

If you would like to help us make agents of change as puppets, we’re crowdfunding the film as we go along and your support would be greatly appreciated.  More of that here – https://hopelessvendetta.wordpress.com/bringing-hopeless-maine-to-the-screen-one-creature-at-a-time/team-creatures/

The Aunties

There are many strange and inexplicable things on the island, most of which you wouldn’t want to meet on a dark road at night, or even in weak sun at noon. There are weird beasties, worrying fogs, and innocuous-looking birds that scream. There are things that have been around as long as the island. And there are also things which have, perhaps, been around longer…

You might know them as the Agents of Change, or the Ocular Ones, or even the Aunties. Personally, they refer to themselves as Mildred, Ludmilla and Gertrude. They spend a lot of time floating around in saltwater, glaring at anything stupid enough to try eating them.

Their story, or at least a version of it, goes something like this: the island appeared. It came from somewhere. Ludmilla says it rose out of the ocean, Gertrude says it emerged from the fog, and Mildred says there was a geological phenomena involving an underwater volcano. All three agreed that it was messy and inconvenient, and for some time (a century or so) the Aunties were quietly outraged and considering how they might get rid of this lurking growly thing.

It was Gertrude who pointed out the persons.

“Well,” said Ludmilla, “I don’t know what they think they’re doing here. It’s not as if they’ll survive.” and she blinked her three eyes furiously.

“I don’t think it’s their fault,” Mildred warbled, “there’s bits of shipwreck everywhere.”

“Well that’s what you get when you sail ships close to mist-covered cursed places,” harrumphed Ludmilla.

“Oh the poor dears, they are trying,” trilled Gertrude, “look, they’re building things.”

“Bet they don’t even last a century,” said Ludmilla, and, after a pause, “That’s no way to go about building a house.”

The Autnies watched. They had a lot of eyes, after all, and the island couldn’t exactly get rid of them (even though it wanted to). It became clear that the island wasn’t letting its people go anywhere either.

If asked who started helping first, the Ocular Ones would shift and point tentacles and say things like: “I can’t very well go letting them eat that muck no can I?” or “Built his house right next to a soft spot in reality; of course I moved the whole thing!” or “Help is a strong word really, I just move resources around.” And if doing all this happened to remind the island who had been there first, well, that was merely a happy coincidence.

They did notice that, after a while, there were rather a lot more sea-beasts, some of whom thought that snacking on the Aunties was a valid life-option. The island, it seemed, was not happy with their meddling. Ludmilla, Gertrude and Mildred knew how to deal with fanged beasties though, and if they meddled a bit more and kept an eye on that nice young fisherman, well, all was well wasn’t it?

And then there was yet another beastie, sinking into the water.This beastie was different. This beastie wanted to change. And change was what the Aunties did.

Mildred made sure the nice fisherman found the now baby and took it home, and the three of them together made sure it would be mostly people-shaped. And then the Ocular Ones settled in for an interesting few years keeping an eye on the newest inhabitant.

“After all,” said Gertrude, “we’re almost like her parents now.”

“Hrrrummph,” said Ludmilla.

“Oh hush,” said Mildred, “we’ll miss all the interesting bits if you don’t quiet down.”

And they turned mobile eyes back towards the island, waiting…

Written by the entirely amazing Meredith Debonnaire. (We are fans of her work, obviously. She writes about Tantamount, which is probably a sister town with Hopeless, Maine. You can also find Angel Evans right about…here)
Art-Tom Brown