CHARACTER CLASS (1d20)
1-4 Poultry Wizard
5-8 Carpenter Ant Collective
9-12 Stain
13-16 Fighter
17-20 You don’t have to do this, you can just leave
RACE (1d20)
1-4 That last table could have used a d10, really
5-18 “Human” whatever that means
19 Roll again
20 Just, like, a noise. Blgh. That’s you.
WEAPONS (1d4)
No, that’s it. Your weapon is a d4.
Okay, um. Have fun!
Money can’t buy happiness.
Money can only buy copper-bottom cauldrons, the remains of an entire cave’s population of plague bats, accelerant, secret herbs from cursed cracks in the earth, recipes for plague bat extract, and a map of where your enemies refill their drinking flasks.
So.
“Eat your vegetables,” they say, and never say why. “Eat your vegetables,” they roar as we hide under furniture. EAT YOUR VEGETABLES and the very mountains shake, their deep roots cracking with the strength of growing, curling roots, a thick ichor pushing towards the sky.
It’s everything people like about a cocoon (you turn to mush, consciousness ends) but now it requires electricity to run!
Supporter Levels:
$100 – You can get in a K0KK00N
$500 – We’ll let whatever you become out of the K0KK00N
UNLOCK LEVELS
$1M – Everyone will be put in K0KK00Ns
$2M – They will never be opened and we will embrace the void as goop
Death must be an illusion because otherwise, why would I be winding down a weekend and burning hours of my precious single life by watching Crank 2?
In the original CRANK, underrated comedic talent Jason Statham was a cranky person who had a heart problem… or something. I don’t remember a lot about it. Someone gave him a terrible heart? Somehow? And then said “Oh, if your heart stops you die” just like happens to every other person whose heart stops, so Mr. Cranky says his catchphrase “Time to get cranky!” and then he runs around L.A. getting into terrifying danger so his heart beats really fast.
It’s so intense the camera people shake the camera a lot.
At the end of the movie he falls out of the sky and hits the ground and is dead.
Anyway. Cue starting credits as we watch what I have to assume will be 2 hours of watching Mr. Cranky’s body get scraped up, brought to a morgue, interred, etc. etc. because where else can this beloved franchise go but an exploration of how Los Angeles civil service deals with human remains?
Among the many ways I’m an idiot:
I knew, sitting down, that this film was a masculinist cartoon. A dumb power fantasy. So my brain powered down as the film picks up seconds after the scene that ended the previous film: Mr. Cranky hitting pavement and dying.
But some people pick him up and operate on him and remove his heart– which was such an important part of CRANK– and put in a plastic one. Mr. Cranky weaves in and out of consciousness until our first bit of lad’s humor arrives and it’s revealed the next “organ” he’s to lose is his generative unit, at which point he remembers his only character traits are to grimace and murder, which he does.
So far, so… “good.”
There’s a yellow electrode box at his waist that’s probably running his new fake heart and as he sneaks out of his organ-harvest hospice, he finds the other rooms feature acts of prostitution, and he reaches in to steal some john’s clothes.
And at this point, my brain perks up again and objects. “How could he know that prostitute-hiring fellow wears pants his size? What are the odds?”
NOW you want to talk plausibility, brain? NOW?
Okay, this violence-cartoon just got its first unforced laugh out of me. Mr. Cranky (without even giving his trademark “It’s cranky time!” battle cry) goes into a house and the house starts spontaneously jettisoning stuntmen out windows and doors.
And some wag crew member from upstairs chucks a latex arm out the window. Then a fake head.
Fun with props.
This movie may be overstuffed with sexism and racism, but at least all the multicultural villains are able to talk to each other in their native languages and be understood. The guy with the MS13 face tattoos perfectly understands the triad guy’s Chinese.
They’re all terrible stereotypes, but they /communicate/.
This is probably the film that America should put on the next Voyager mission to represent our decadent, failing culture.
Mr. Cranky just got into a gun fight with gang members in a strip club. These gang members were established as being in a back room, so presumably own/run the club.
And yet, as soon as bullets start flying, and with no explanation given (or perhaps required), one of the pole dancers appears on screen with a gun in her hand, shooting at the gang members.
Why does she have a gun? Why is she shooting at the criminal element that, presumably, employs her?
Why any of this, actually?
The last pre-credits image of the film is Mr. Cranky, on fire, flipping off the audience directly. Just in case you couldn’t read the not-at-all-subtext of the rest of the film.
Dude, we got it. You weren’t subtle.
All that remains is for a chemical spill to help this franchise become flesh, to rise as a towering embodiment of contempt, to crush the country beneath its heel so that nothing ever grows here again.
Has this ever happened to you?
Time and again you find yourself pulled from sleep’s embrace by the crushing weight of a cackling spectral crone who’s crouching on your chest?
If so, follow our very simple program:
1) Realize that sleep is just lost time. You weren’t accomplishing anything anyway. Be grateful you’re awake again.
2) Truly value the contributions of crones. If not for them, who would take on these valuable chest-crushing responsibilities? Spookums? As if!
3) Thank your crone with nice smoke offerings, and some lentils left behind your stove (uncooked).
It’s that easy!
PAID FOR BY THE LENTIL COUNCIL
A library, several blocks in size. After an arduous application process that includes two in-person interviews you get a membership card.
Every book you pull off of the shelves consists of nothing but crowing at how easy it is to create a library. The materials are cheap and the more exclusive you make it seem, the harder fools will try to get access.
At quiet tables, readers with their heads in their hands, finding every book a testament to their folly, unwilling to leave.
The villagers have once again voted for a particularly decorative gourd to lead the Council of Spirits this year. Among its responsibilities will be interceding on our behalf with the spirit world, making sure that no spectral demands go unmet, etc. etc.
Unfortunately, it is still true this year as it has been in previous years that gourds, no matter how shapely, are still vegetables and unable to communicate.
Not with us. Not with spooks.
But while we’re pulled from our warm beds by skeletal hands for the next few years, we’ll always have fond memories of the gourd’s fetching profile from those campaign posters.
YOU ARE INVITED
to a musical
JAMBOREE!
NO COVER CHARGE
— bring your beautiful bones —
**free calcium chews with every admission but you have to eat them immediately**
MAIN STAGE
Ogres But Not the Kind That Eat Bones
SECOND STAGE
Slurptime and The Marrow Spiders
THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE please don’t make me take another quiz I don’t want to know any more about myself QUIZ!
YOU GOT:
RACHEL! A sassy mother hen who knows how to party but also knows that proper nutrition can’t be overlooked. Your best friend is: A VAGUE SENSE OF UNKNOWING. You’ll work best with: X511, DRONE BEE.
This is a rare result! Only 3% of our survey takers are RACHEL!
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