[TEXT]

[uber_marionettist]

How do I bring Nicolas Cage to Poké-Japan? No wrong answers.

Comments

[sweetbrohellayiff]

ok youre gonna need a lot of dinosaur bones but i think its basically foolproof

[uber_marionettist]

Hm. Supposing a guy might know where to get some of those on the black market... but you didn't hear that from me.

[amaure]

I would offer you advice, but I am afraid I do not know whom that is. As such, I must needs ask: who is he and why do you wish to bring him here?

[uber_marionettist]

Sure you do. You had a whole conversation with me while I was playing Motor Drive Angry in the background.

So, he's an actor. Does that answer both your questions?

[amaure]

Now that you mention it, I suppose I do.

It does, in a way. If you cannot convince him nor otherwise bring him here, then perhaps we should come up with another plan. Though, I should be glad to hear what his acting is necessary for, what creative enterprises are cultivating in that brilliant mind of yours.

[uber_marionettist]

I thought about alternatives, but I've made up my mind, and it's Cage or nothing.

Forget that, though. Who's saying I have any 'creative enterprises' invested in this search? Maybe I just want to see if I can leverage my vaunted Champion-cum-Gym Leader status into a photo op with a famous personage outside my own family line. Test my access to someone with real celebrity status. There could be layers here.

I'm not saying there are layers, but I'm not saying there ain't, neither.

[amaure]

With you, there are ever and always layers, my dear. I know well to expect them.

I shall hope he will listen to reason and answer your request. However, should you merely need his likeness, I suppose we could make due with Zoroark. A shame the creature cannot speak to fully sell the illusion, but that is hardly impossible to correct.

[fingersandteeth]

You could try offering him a part in a movie, but then you'd actually have to make that movie.

[... wait a minute.]

... wait, *are* you trying to get him here to make a movie, Dirk? Or is this about something else?

[uber_marionettist]

Who said anything about movies? Do I look like the Director to you?

Don't answer that.

Besides, I'd have to find him to offer him the strictly hypothetical part that we've created for the sake of this strictly hypothetical conversation, and his P.O. box or whatever isn't publicly listed. Also, I don't know if I can send mail out to Unova. Which is where he supposedly lives.

So finding all that out'd have to be step one. And it's not the kind of weekend where I can just tap into my powers as a fully ascended Heart player and expand my massive consciousness into the internet itself. So that's off the table, at least for now.

[fingersandteeth]

Of course it's not publicly listed. He's a celebrity.

Have you tried researching who his agent is? I'm pretty sure that's the person who you're supposed to offer hypothetical acting roles to. Or any other unrelated-to-acting gigs.

[uber_marionettist]

I don't want to talk to his agent. Who even fucking uses one of those. I never had an agent on Earth C and I didn't need one. No, I'm looking for a direct line to the man himself, not some gatekeeping girlboss type with a paycheck to justify.

[fingersandteeth]

Most professional actors have them, Dirk. It's just how the business operates.

That said, have you tried leveraging your position as an Aurora League champion? Champion Dirk might have more doors open to him than private citizen Dirk does.

[uber_marionettist]

And you're telling me Nicolas Cage is 'most' professional actors? Nah. I like this other idea of yours, though. It's going to take some doing, though. A lot more work on my part. God-celebrity that I am, I'm used to people clamouring at my door, not the other way around.

[fingersandteeth]

Since you wanting to hire actors is news to all of us, Mr Cage probably doesn't realize he'd have reason to beat a path to your door yet. Perhaps you could go public. Rent a billboard. Put an ad in Pokeworld's equivalent of Variety.

[islandshore]

Stupid question, but who is Nicholas Cage? Some famous guy?

Whoever he is- you might have to bribe Arceus. It likes sandwiches.

[uber_marionettist]

An exceptionally prolific and (according to some) meme-worthy actor from my world.

Much like Will Smith.

And like Will Smith, his persona appears to be multiversal.

No sandwiches required.

(Unless Nicolas Cage wants one, I guess.)

[islandshore]

Huh. Never heard of either, so I gotta wonder how far that multiversal reach really goes.

But maybe there's some weird expy or something? Nick Camerupt or something just as tacky.

with apologies to Mark Hamill's tragic audition mishap story

[uber_marionettist]

No? Maybe you just weren't contemporary to them. These things happen. It's fine. Not your fault you don't know anything.

Besides, if any actor worth a name was going to be called Camerupt, it'd be Mark Hamill.

...I have so many questions and must now hurry to google.

[islandshore]

Could be that I don't know, could be that my world's outta the loop. Maybe that's the trade off for having giant, magic keys and tons of interconnected worlds.

But now you've got me wondering about this Hamill guy. What's his deal?

FORGIVE ME, IRL.... IS SURE A THING

[uber_marionettist]

Keys do sound like a smoother means of egress than meteors, I'll grant that much, but let's not start a conversation about interconnected worlds. We'll be here all day and into next week.

Anyway, I'm not a huge movie buff, but I knew a guy who is. Hamill is known for maybe two roles, and one of them is the blond-haired, babyfaced protagonist of a science fiction/fantasy space opera-style action trilogy that defined a generation.

The other is a cackling megalomaniac with a permanent mask of clown paint on his face.

That aside, his name sounds a lot like Mark Camel and he used to be too shy to correct directors at audition when they fucked it up. It's a goddamn miracle he didn't have to change his name to match the credits for his appearances. Just a bit of movie trivia for you. A little humanising detail, about a dude who probably doesn't even exist yet in your slice of reality.

[un_oiseau_rebelle]

Create a mock-up of the US Declaration of Independence and publicize it as the real thing?

[He's still not sure why he was subjected to that movie, but it's stuck in his head now, so.]

Or offer him a movie part, although that might just get any counterpart that exists here.

[uber_marionettist]

I might know enough about the Declaration of Independence from its desecration and subsequent "revision" to pull that off. Don't know how well that'd work on this one, though.

Basically, I just need a Nicolas Cage, I'm not that picky about which dimensional slice of Cage I get.

[un_oiseau_rebelle]

[This raises questions that Shinobu is not sure he wants to ask.]

He's an American actor in at least some realities, right?

[uber_marionettist]

Yup. My Earth, too. While there was still an America to live in. Or on. I'm not actually clear about his fate in all that. I mean, he's dead, obviously, but I don't know at what point he became part of the mass extinction of humanity.

This is a unique opportunity for me. Like if you could go back in time and jam with Christopher Marlowe, or Clark Gable. Not that he's a Clark Gable, or a Christopher Marlowe for that matter, but you get the idea. More like a Buster Keaton meets Rock Hudson.

Holy shit I hate that I was able to make that comparison. I feel dirty just reading it. Really fucking loathsome. Let's pretend I didn't say any of that. I'm striking it from the record. The last half a dozen sentences never happened.

[un_oiseau_rebelle]

If it helps, I didn't recognize most of those names anyway. My knowledge of Western popular culture is extremely uneven.

[Losing ninety years to being kidnapped by faeries will have that effect.]

But sentences erased.

[Ignoring the eidetic memory anyway.]

[uber_marionettist]

Great, thanks. I'd call you a real one, but the nature of our existence in this tenuously-justified pseudo-liminality means that you're anything but.

Anyway, I'm well aware your suggestion was a joke, but I do hear he's a bit of a collector, and prone to... let's call it 'impulsive shopping.' Maybe I can make that work for me?

Hmm.

[un_oiseau_rebelle]

[Thanks, Dirk. He needed yet another identity crisis on top of the ones he already has.]

A collector?

[He can think of a number of ways one might take advantage of that, but the main question on his mind is still "why."]

[Text]

[cyan_maid]

...Okay, I'll bite.
Why?

LOCKED Text

[uber_marionettist]

I don't want this getting out yet, but I've written a movie. It's just a script right now. I won't get into why, but I started out writing myself a samurai film, and then it began to drift a bit thematically, so I adjusted the casting, which required more editing until it became a Western, but now I'd describe it more like modern action-horror.

[Private Text]

[cyan_maid]

Oh, no problem, my lips are sealed.
I am intrigued at how a samurai film transformed into a western, and then a modern action-horror, but it doesn't seem completely out of the realm of possibility to happen...
All that I can assume, however, is that there's going to be some memetic shenanigans if you're looking for Mister Cage to play a role.

[uber_marionettist]

Samurai and Cowboy films share a great deal of thematic and cinematic real estate. The cultural notes they hit and mythos they represent... they're practically writ in parallel.

The action-horror thing... was kind of an accident, I admit, but it was one of those happy accidents. You know, where you're left holding just one remaining piece of the first thing and it fits perfectly into the new one, and suddenly you're looking at Blockbuster gold. Or maybe a niche cult film. Probably the latter, if I'm being honest.

National Treasure aside, you don't cast this man if you're hoping to beat Star Wars on opening day. You cast him when you want a film that will be remembered for one scene, but a scene that will enter the cultural consciousness via an unspoken process of communal absorption, usually evoking the pathos of overwrought emotion or a key moment of glorious spectacle.

You'll see. It's going to be incredible.

[cyan_maid]

I suppose that makes sense. I'm a bit rusty in my history, but I want to say that I think there were still samurai around when there were cowboys. Do not quote me on that.

You mean like the thing with the bees, right?

[Thank goodness she would at least be aware of that, thank you 2006 Wicker Man]

[uber_marionettist]

Exactly like the thing with the bees. Although I plan to do better than that. In both directions.

And yeah, they were contemporary to each other. Not a lot of people realise that, but it's actually pretty significant to understanding their role in the cultural consciousness(es) of their respective societies. People pinned their hopes and futures to industrialisation and space as the final frontier soon after, but the samurai and the cowboy represent something else, something heroic and pure that was lost with the new age.

I don't know how much of that will come through in my film, but I tried to capture a character of that spirit with the protagonist, at least. A kind of stoic, masculine ideal, restrained not because he is forced to by fear or societal demand, but because it is his natural choice.

Of course, it's impossible for a man like that to come into contact with the rest of society without it being fundamentally absurd.

[cyan_maid]

I feel like absurdity would be the only way it could ever come into contact.

[More like she feels Dirk would not rest until his main character was as absurd as possible with layers of irony, so minute, like a crepe cake.]

I won't ask about the plot because I would not want to spoil the experience for myself, but...what's the general gist of the adventure that Mister Poke-Cage shall find himself in?

[VIDEO]

[seacub]

[Look, Emporio's busy, and by busy, we mean trying to stir curry while curious local gastly try and investigate the pot. He's sort of....shoving them back.]

Is Nicolas Cage the 'Bees' guy? I didn't get to see too many movies up close.

[That's a really weird way to put it but don't worry about it.]

[uber_marionettist]

Okay. That was a weird thing to say. You do see how that was a weird thing to say, right?

But yeah, The Wicker Man wasn't one of his finer appearances. On the contrary hand, it's a veritable magnum opus.

[seacub]

You mean about the movies?

...this feels like something I'd have to see to understand...

[uber_marionettist]

Yeah, you'd definitely need to see it to know what I'm talking about. Look, do you need a hookup? I'm not a charity, but this is sad. And that's coming from me.

What is the deal here, were you peeping through someone's windows like the Little Match Girl of cinema or what?

[seacub]

I don't...think it's that bad??

Are you offering to screenshare a movie though?

[uber_marionettist]

You don't "think" it's that bad. I'd suspect you of doing this on purpose, but at the point where such accusations are levied, it's never actually a bit. Why don't you just lay it out and I'll figure it out from there.

And I was just going to send you some illegal uploads, but that's probably a better idea. I'm getting the feeling a lot of the cultural context is going to need some explaining.

I cant make the special characters on mobile... u-u

[seacub]

All I really know about the little match girl is that she's used to compare really impoverished situations, so... ...I definitely wouldn't call myself that...

If it's alright with you, I think I should probably savw that many details for later though. I don't even really know who you are... (I guess if anything comes up in the movie though...)

Mnnn...I can give my name at least? Emporio Alnino. I'm...I guess 12 now? I wasn't really sure of the date between where I was and when I got here...

[uber_marionettist]

[Glad this isn't a video call because I actually just dropped my goddamn Gear.]

Dirk Strider. My age is a little complicated. Let's just say I'm an adult for now.

See? No problem; we can't all be open books, and there are good reasons for that.

But, just so you know, there's more than one kind of poverty. They don't all have to do with cash or goods.

[seacub]

Dirk?

Oh! I think I saw you at the cooking contest!

...complicated huh...were you one of those 'not human' people before arriving here..?

[Well, anyway,] Yeah, I know. I think people have worried if I'm 'impoverished' here because of that actually...I just like being able to travel now! I'm okay staying in a tent most of the time.