#3 Time Wars
The Book Cage: Episode 97 - Time Wars #3: The Pimpernel Plot
It is once again time to pay our respects to the patron saint of The Book Cage: Simon Hawke. We've unfortunately landed back in France again. And during the revolution, so what could go wrong! This time the fan fiction is about no one's favorite story: The Scarlet Pimpernel. At least now, the time displaced lady-knight Andre Cross joining the team should add some interesting wrinkles, right? Right?
Credit where it's due, the time bandit cover art always slaps for these books
That's David Mattingly. He's the only cover artist I know by name because all his cover art features one person facing directly forward, shoulders squared
Some kind of bizarre compulsion
He's also the animorphs guy, so there's that
so there's a dave mattingly who frequently presents on NPR
that'd be nuts if this were the same guy
Coming up on the hour it's Time Wars #3: The Pimpernel Plot. Here's the preview, and a picture of a tiger for some reason
Sweet tiger, thats straight from someones "Thailand tattoo ideas folder Number 2."
Tyger tyger burning bright
In the pulpbacks of the night
Who with fearful hand or eye
Could frame Steele's perfect suckitude?
Oh shit it's 10:40 pm here, am I a bad enough dude to do book cage?
For like the first 20 minutes, yes
I just got invited out to a cocktail bar by a shapely stranger but GODDAMN IT it's Hawke night.
I would have walked on the Hardys but you only get so many Hawkes in your life.
This is Brendan's "MvC3 or two extremely hot bisexual women" choice
MvC is amazing though.
Get busy pimping
Damn right.
The Maroon Pimpernel let's gooooo
The wine-dark Pimpernel
The book begins with a timeline of the invention of time travel again, skipping that
No time for it, huh
Then there's the prologue where a man gets his head cut off
We should really be using the guillotine on some of these run on sentences
Then there is a brief history of the French Revolution, if you were unfamiliar
"Citizen Guillotin, we need a new way to execute traitors, counter revolutionaries and people who piss us off. Come up with something, chop chop"
"Wait— run that last bit by me again."
The French Revolution: the Tumblr of its day. A great idea that only took a year to become madness.
For most of the same reasons, come to think of it
And like so many things, tangibly bad because it was run by lawyers.
At least we dont have to deal with French kings afterwar........goddammit Napoleon.
It took them six months to go from "Kill all the nobles" to "July is now called Reasonvember!"
Sirs Brendan, Badger and Sausage, I'm still stuck at work another 45min, so I'm counting on you to catch me up when I get free please
I bet half of all French revolutionaries identified as a garlic scapekin.
So, anyway, there is a future soldier was sent back to fight in the Time Wars named Alex Corderro. He decides to get involved in a border crossing which results in a deadly comedy of errors
"Life in France is nasty, brutish, and short" is about the size of it so far
Shark, the only thing you've missed is the murder of children.
Dangit!
And as a citizen of these united states, I entrust you're familiar.
maaaaaaaaaaaannnnn
Yes yes, we all remember the Kintner Boy Incident
Anyway, Alex is dead now
Those children are dangerous counter-revolutionaries and conspiring with the German government.
It's near the Fourth of July and I'm in Wisconsin. I know about the risks children face from explosions
GIF
And, oh no! The rich playboy with a secret identity is now dead!
Fireworks are the Miserables of chemistry.
This was gold, fuck y'all
Oh nooooooooo not the.......the who now?
Old Batman
Oopsie
Also the kind of final line I would maybe have made a paragraph break for but what do I know
Michael Keaton's honestly in pretty good shape
Man helping French nobles flee to England is consigning them to a fate worse than death, he had it coming.
Skip forward one thousand years
Andre, we dont add time travel time to your age.
Thats not how that works.
"She was extremely legal, but still considered jailbait, just not in ways that would get you arrested. So theoretically I could absolutely ask her to stick her big toe in my mouth beneath the twilight of the hunter's moon and the law can't do anything about it."
"Hi, I'm Todd Macfarlane, creator of Spawn. That crude scenario I've just depicted? Possibly."
That has real actually-a-thousand-year-old-dragon energy
Also "antiagathic drug treatments" is code for "Antibiotics and decent water."
"I could live to the impossibly ancient age of sixty!"
I can't be sure, but I think her breasts are small
"She had an extremely flat chest. This isn't really a character trait as much as me being progressive by lusting after breasts of all sizes. Hi, Todd again."
"Describe her breasts more breastily" Hawke thought to himself.
Oh wow book cage
Future shock
Also, if a bullet goes through your heart can make it a 1000 yards? Cough or no cough
… is what they would have called System Shock if they weren't cowards
We call this the anti-Steele
The Arisia Principle
Fucking hell. Let's address her vagina right upfront
Well having a kid is really the only thing a woman could do to affect the course of history, obviously
How am I supposed to take this 1000-year old co-ed seriously as a warrior, knowing that her strength is tempered by her inability to wear boob-shaped armor?
That is very convenient
She was a small tit barren nobody. Got you.
Lady, you can't bear children because you've had 15,000 periods.
It's so sad she traveled to a future where the standard of living is so much higher but adoption is completely outlawed for no reason I guess. I well
"we don't even know why we hired her"
Temporal Human Resources.
"Hey guess what, we found out that not only are you biologically a dead end, you never accomplished anything of note either! Welcome to the future!"
Is there a 12 monkeys kick ass comic?
Oh I just realised any time travel of any significance causes a paradox by definition
I'm going to call this
The time travel narrative paradox
Preposterous to send a female agent back in time when her paltry breasts are incapable of seducing Frenchmen.
All Frenchmen like boys
Should have sent a champagne-glass breasted woman to pose as Marie Antoinette.
This actually explains a ton about the last 60 years of women's fashion.
She's from the fictional Robin Hood universe, so yeah
"No girls"
Voltaire
"Can I have his girls?"
--Hugo
Simon is uninterested in having any kind of fish out of water shenanigans or perspective. So, get Andre gets fully future brainwashed
George Sand comin for everyones holes anyway, France.
Discord decided to post those out of order, so read it in reverse
Rad. French Cyber Knight, now we are talking.
"why don't we just hire someone from this timeline"
TEMPORAL HUMAN RESOURCES
They stopped short of giving her a trick hand that unfolds to reveal a baguette launcher.
Why did we even meet her before now if this was gonna happen.
The insignia was majestic and dong-like
Her vagina dispenses cigarettes in reward for orgasm.
This is a really visually confusing insignia.
No frenchman can resist.
There was a musket interwined with nunchucks
You got two full books of Andre, and as a full member of the team she must be boring
I think it looks some thing like this 8==D
A regional variation of the Exact Change trick
That's my point, just a new character now.
She is now a male character
Just shows where they think the important part of history is or they'd have tossed a gladius or a pilum in there.
The author is going to work something out later even he is in denial about
Strange
"A broadsword crossed with a rapier", two great tastes that go worse together
This will become a signature of this series
hahahaha what
"Hi, Todd again. What the fuck?"
Now they're doing a SAVAGES but through time.
Do..........do they kiss alot in the future?
Not gay if Andre is female. The author is just feeling this out now
Like im pretty sure affectionate kisses from your coworkers are not gooood?
Maybe its fine in the future.
Also, when they pinned the insignia to her did she just collapse to the floor or is it a teenee tiny broadsword then
I've read the first seven books. This goes nowhere. I was surprised to see it here
Like I imagined pinning a claymore to a child's lapel like a prefect badge
Maybe they know they're going to France already
Radical temporal relocation, dudes
Plus......time.
What a weird way to segment the infinite.
Plus time wouldn't work because it would always be the present from the viewpoint of the assignment
Hi welcome to plus time. You know, now.
Maybe they measure it from the time it became possible to time travel?
Or, plus time always works...because it is now, now. But wasn't a minute ago
You mean like how math do
Heathen sorcery.
Everybody. Welcome to plus time
Drinking time!
IF people were meant to count to more than 20 we would have more fingers.
Sounds like she's getting date raped
WHOOOOOOOOO KEGSTAND IN THE FUTURE!
Settle down
maaaaaaaaaaaan
I've been in bars with soldiers. They like to sing.
But, yes, Andre is looking to get boned
Shes a soldier now so she has to be able to do three shots and deepthroat a dildo in front of the whole barracks.
I fucking told you
"I haven't slept with anyone in a thooousand yeeeears!"
<laugh track, rimshot, clown horn>
"Oh.........uh.......Andre we dont really do that kind of thing anymore."
"Here let me get you the headset brochures."
Oh I'd hate to be the last one as well
If not with them, then an expert male prostitute
Who left a lot to be desired
Man that suggests a hell of a certification system for sex workers. Nice job future.
She's had a man but hasn't been kissed since she was a child?
"The idea of a male whore intrigued me greatly" is an all time hall of fame way to fail the bechdel test
Mouth stuff is for Italians.
Butt stuff for the french
Yeah but you need to put in a lot of mouth stuff hours to get your class 1
Allison Bechdel only watches movies about two men and a woman who may or may not is used to be a man who still has a man name talking about a man who is also a whore.
Elbow stuff for the greeks
The certification process has a lot more red tape and written exams than youd think.
Shot the Bechdel Moon
Anyway, she wins
This book reads like the plot is running down the aisles of an adult VHS shop.
For a second I thought hed say "Okay but we get to watch."
I mean duh. Back then you drank ale instead of water because no one figured out how to purify that shit. Of course the peasant is gonna win
Oh I missed the start is she full 17th century
I am so glad I'm past the age of drinking contests.
Bankrupted by prostitutes
Andre has been drinking the French equivalent of scumble for like ten years and isnt blind, guys, you were destined to lose.
Wasn't booze back then like 2% though
French scumble is Calvados, I think
They didn't even bone. They just played Mario Kart all night and left the meter running.
At best the sex worker told her how to use the three seashells.
Well, if you're hungover, might as well start doing speed
The most Victor Hugo plot point imaginable.
Are they actually in a situation were this is necessary
"adrenergen" suggest they did a cocktail of like meth and adrenaline.
Which sounds rough as fuck as a way to start your work day.
Nitro seems fun
Maybe just a half hypogun next time
Why did he just take that?
Man just letting him be hungover would have been better.
It's just Turkish coffee Delaney, chill out.
He decided on an image that would strike fear into his enemies: a flower
That's not— that's just having a seizure.
"working" said the computer.
Terrifying.
Smuggling aristocrats.
And again those poor French nobs, having to go to fucking ENGLAND of all places.
Not rescuing them.
Begin the foppination process
And not like Spain or Germany.
Better than France
What kind of name is gellaho anyway. Sounds Welsh
If there's anything these books have taught me it's that France inspires the worst in people
It rarely inspires the best
French PEOPLE are the worst mankind has to offer. France itself is quite nice, which is why we should take it from the French.
Just saying I understand why everyone invades France at some point.
"He's also fictional, so that doesn't help."
You ever stop to realize we finally have that computer from decades of sci fi?
Alexa: playback wiki HAWKE, SIMON
It's pronounced "Blorm."
Or you know..........dont. The world wont miss a couple French nobles, the bastards are fuckin everywhere.
French forever, what a terrible curse
It's pronounced "Owen"
If the timeline isn't restored, Vietnam will suffer decades of peace.
"Go back in time and impersonate this dead guy. As a side bennie you can fuck his wife." is a hell of a sell for an assignment.
We are beginning to witness Delaney slowly take over as protagonist of this series
Priest going full tex avery wolf on this thousand year old woman
Oh mama
GIF
Simon couldn't scrounge up any side characters in the Pimperneliverse
"Fortunately Delaney, we have immunized you against one thousand strains of STDs, including syphillis so you should be good to raw dog this widow for years."
This is, I mean it's not even anything. Is this Simon hawke still
The game computer
Dressed in.
The future rests on the palms of… 21st century larpers.
Dressed in period.
Man you could have gotten assigned to the fuckpits of Imperial Rome and you pulled First Republic France.
Someone add the word garb. It's Keeping me awake all night already
27th century. And I think they got this
Only the best for our timeline-preserving campaigns.
"They kept laughing as the roomba cleaned his brain off the floor."
I like to imagine it went "fjshhpl" as it stuck in him.
Myoclonus the Wise
Myoclonus is when the time portal makes an evil twin clone and you have to fight
Or fuck.
Myoclanus is altogether different.
"The plastiskin will, however, confuse the fuck out of some archeologists"
Not as bad as that gun they found from dinosaur times.
Finn doing his Nutty Professor impression
"oh yeah, the lady you wanted to bone hates you. Forgot to mention that"
maaaaaaaaaaaannnnn
haha, topical!
LOL POLITICS
Finn makes a good point
FREEDOM!
Status report
Scarlet Pimpernel got capped, Delaney has to replace him and maybe fuck his wife while they figure out if he mattered or not to history.
lol
Also Andre bankrupted Delaney and Finn with a sex worker.
I think Simon's F key got stuck
Man who gets tired of beheadings? Its the sport of kings.
That paragraph reads like someone trying to bluff an episode of Downton Abbey
Sport from kings
Specifically the head from the body
Them Duke Boys are at it again!
yeeeeeeehaawwwwwww!
Ffoulkes gets very persnickity if you don't pronounce both F's
It's not like they have time machines or something
The key with time travel is to treat it like a save point
"She caught the consumption and starved to death. At the same time."
Here's your drug ring
The moment you screw up, you reload time and try again. Yes I know that's a plot point in a recently released movie. It's still sensible.
Finn's a big Judas Priest fan
"And yes, we've taken into account that these are all chemical compounds someone of the 17th century is in no way prepared to process"
Prefer Painkiller or Hell Patrol to Hell Bent for Leather but its still a good song.
red ones are lethal, yellow ones wake people up, blue ones make you trip balls
Green ones are minty
☑️ Redhead
☑️ Legs
☑️ Earthy sensuality
Love injecting mint
It makes the organs smell fresh
The purple ones are grape flavored.
But only if you eat them.
Injected they make your mouth dry as hell.
Nothing else.
Ah, we've recovered from our boob defecit
Uh
the.......gamin?
Ah
huh
She's got some poverty hotness
One of Simon's types
Ohhhh shes a little trailer trashy. Cool.
Beehive hairdo and a snake tattoo.