Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2013 00:56:33 +0000 From: Davey R Subject: BlueShark-Video-19 Author's note: This is sheer dumb fantasy, with sex and violence and dark elements. Not cool in real life, and not to be taken seriously. Just something you've found on late night TV. Any movies, actors, television shows, comic books, etc, that feature in this series are totally fictional. Author's note continues: Now this series has a substantial number of chapters posted, and after a pretty climactic one, I thought I'd use this brief interim chapter to say a little about its format. BlueShark Video is an anthology series, but with an ongoing overall story. Any new chapter can be a complete departure from the last, and with different characters. But the various stories and characters do also cross over at points, so that it comes together as an ongoing series. I hope anyone who sticks with it enjoys this. However... I also write BlueShark Video with the assumption that everyone else reads Nifty stories the way I do - by scrolling right to the fucking awesome hot parts, then reading the rest outwards from there, if at all. So this is a series designed to be read as much or little as you like - and maybe not in the right order. Now back to the show... ------------------------ BlueShark Video 19: Intermission - like this bed is an altar, and Justin a sacrifice. Horrific. A breather is needed. You close the window on your laptop and go make a cup of coffee. Think over what you've seen. Just a movie - not even that; just an unseen story snipped from a lame TV show. Yet you'd give anything to rescue Justin Benchley from what has been set in motion here. But do not be too downcast by the grisly fate Sharkey has arranged for Justin. We all know that certain death in the movies has a habit of turning out to be anything but - a character can very easily return from apparent demise. And this is even truer of televison shows such as Ropers Reach, where the rules of mortality can be rewritten on a whim, especially if the return of a late, lamented character will prove a ratings draw. Let's face it, even if a fictional character falls off a cliff, we do not necessarily believe them gone unless we see the body hit the ground - perhaps not even then. The tiniest storytelling space exists for their escape. And even the smallest loophole opens up a universe of narrative possibility. In viewing terms, the beautiful boy's fate is no more sealed than that of Schrodinger's cat. Justin Benchley? Well, we never even saw the grim contextual equivalent of his body hitting the ground. Sure, he could have been destroyed under Bertoldt's deathly tools just as Sharkey believes. But other possibilities exist - might not the cold, inhuman Bertoldt have found his icy demeanour thawed by the beauty of Justin Benchley? Might he not have taken him home as his own slave or lover? A search on the Dorsal facility throws up this tantalising possibility; it arrives in the form of assorted stills and clips from a 'lost' silent movie, produced by a studio called Cladoselache Pictures. It's something that appears to be from the 1920s, but we must bear in mind that the apparent era of these movies means nothing - this we have seen with in the cases of Revenge on Roman and The Mighty Sun Surfer, movies from the 80s and 90s that intersect with Sharkey's narrative in present tense. This creepy-looking little film, apparently known as The Villainy of Doctor Bertolk, features a grotesque, German Expressionist-style cloaked villain, tall and angular, who operates from a stark castle on the outskirts of an old Prussian village. The creeping titular character hypnotizes and snatches away the strapping menfolk of this village to steal their limbs and heads and sell them on to the diseased oligarchs of a huge nearby city. The unlikely, fabulous city is itself rendered in the film by a series of magnificent paintings and backdrops, some of which are even now intact enough to be downloadable as desktop wallpapers. The nefarious, body-part stealing activities of Doctor Bertolk are achieved, from what remains to be seen - less than three full minutes of footage now survive - by a mixture of models, very primitive animation and clever editing. Tantalisingly, no footage remains of the 'Jacob' character who strongly resembles the actor Jared Shaden, albeit with the hairstyling and exaggerated facial makeup of a much earlier era. Perhaps this Shaden boy comes from an acting family, and this is an ancestor. Or perhaps the resemblance is coincidental. From the stills available it's hard to tell, and even with the clearer photographs that remain, it's impossible to be certain. What is certain is that Bertolk, when it comes to it, finds himself unable to cut up and redistribute the helpless young man who finds himself on the malevolent medic's stone-hewn operating table. This relent was framed, it seems, as a compassionate act - the doctor struggling to steady his theatrically trembling hand, emoting furiously and absurdly with a palm to the head, then throwing down his scalpel and clutching his crazy-maned skull in his hands. But contemporary accounts and a single photograph of the scene suggest a more likely reading where Bertolk has fallen in love with young Jacob, and is thus unable to bring himself to cause him harm. It's not clear, though, what happens next - or indeed, if anything does; it's quite possible that this is the climactic moment of the film, that perhaps the repentant Doctor Bertolk turns himself in to the authorities right afterwards. Certainly it's difficult to imagine that, in this ancient movie, we see Bertolk take the striking Jacob as his lover. Another still image, however, shows Jacob shrunken down and trapped in something like a fishbowl as a maniacally grinning Bertolk looks on. This suggests a sequence involving the lad's unwilling participation in far more bizarre experiments - but it's unknown now whether the scene comes before or after Bertolk's dramatic faltering at the operating table, or whether it was used in the finished film at all. Likewise, who knows if this really has anything to do with the fate of Justin Benchley, the real Justin, or whether the resemblances are mere coincidence. The fishbowl a perfect metaphor for being permanently on camera. A tenuous hope, perhaps. You are staring through opaques and facets looking for something definite. But remember: it is only in reality where death is inevitable, where all things come finally to dust. There is no rewinding or remaking in life. In movies, in fiction, there is always the possibility of sequel. All it takes is imagination, ingenuity. For that matter, sheer massive contrivance: Consider: - What if, thrown together, Justin Benchley and Luis Reis had teamed together and effected a daring escape from Bertoldt's clutches? - What if the pair had even fallen in love? - Or the goon in the helicopter had decided he liked Justin too much to take him to Bertoldt? Wanted him for himself? - If he had then made Bertoldt an offer of his own - and instead of Sharkey's boy, Bertoldt had received two other, different youths, as compensation? - And if so, what of their stories? Do those movies exist? - Or if the helicopter had been forced for some reason to land, and Justin had by some means escaped? A scenario that needs development, for sure, but the spark of an idea is there. - And what was the meaning of the scene with Rob Garrett, trying to persuade Justin to take Sharkey up on his offer? He cannot have been trying to save Justin from the deal with Bertoldt; that had not yet even been struck as they spoke. - Yet Rob certainly knew about it by the end. If, as it seems, he had some concern for Justin's welfare, might he have pulled some strings to intervene? - If so, would he really have dared defy his boss? And how could he have done it? Through contacts? A network of henchmen? Is there such a thing as goons in law? - What if Bertoldt was, perhaps, arrested before he could take delivery of Justin? Is Sharkey as far above the law as he thinks? After all, we only know what we have seen so far. Our story has no known ending. - Alternatively, Bertoldt could have fallen fatally foul of a mob boss, who would then have 'inherited' Justin before the lad could come to the evil surgeon's incisive brand of harm. - Or is the finality better? Is the terrible injustice of Justin's Benchley's tragedy, dramatically speaking, beautiful? You can unscramble an egg, given the right editing suite, but should you? - Is Sharkey's power something to covet? - Or is Sharkey a wretched thing, living in a trap of his own? - Could Justin return? Perhaps even for revenge? - What would you do if Justin was yours? - What would you do to save him? Another possibility exists also: that Sharkey had a change of mind, and saved the boy himself. Yes, it's true that Sharkey seemed more than merely satisfied with what he had done when he despatched a helpless Justin into the night. For him it was an awesome moment of sexual power, an apotheosis of his cruelty; even perhaps a triumph over himself, his own weakness in falling for the boy. Sharkey destroyed Justin in order to destroy a part of himself. An obsession purged. Yet - we have once before seen Sharkey wake the morning after a cruel and brutal night, and experience a change of heart. We saw it when he first awoke with Ramon, a boy he had at first been happy to see sent off to exactly the fate that has now been shifted to Justin. We have seen Sharkey renege on a deal also - by taking back all of the money he had given to Justin during the course of their arrangement. What, then, is to stop him taking Justin back, too, from Bertoldt? Perhaps sending someone in to steal him? Certainly, a sense of honor does not stand in his way. And should that happen, Sharkey would undoubtedly be too embarrassed by his change of heart to let Ramon witness it. Justin would be sent off elsewhere, out of sight, perhaps as a slave to another master. Perhaps a kind one, perhaps cruel. You haven't viewed any such scenes, no, but unless some sequel comes along to these events, you just can't know for sure. --------- An old-fashioned ringing noise like a tolling bell alerts you to a separate download beginning on your laptop, aided along by the throbbing blue plug-in device. A pop-up box on screen tells you in that retro blocky font that this is a bonus part of the package - inviting you into an episode in the life of a peripheral character. So this new, unexpected 'Beyond Ropers Reach' feature quietly downloads. You've got stuff to do, though, and what happened to Justin has shaken you; you'll come back to it soon.