#‘ed how do you know they were mafia guys’ imagine a mafia guy. that was those guys. also im in a major city

[eldritchsquared]

a group of guys came into the store i work at. they each had matching lanyards. i asked if there was a show going on, and they said yeah, they just got done playing at a pretty decently sized venue nearby. i chat with them a bit. metalcore band. they buy a shit ton and pay separately, each of them tipping me the entirety of their change. ok

[samstclair]

Tony Soprano's Goomah

Tony Soprano X Reader

Anonymous Request -

Hiya Saint Samuel!!!!! So listen to this, I've just started Sopranos, you know, the HBO show? Anyway I've come to the conclusion that Tony is exactly my type. He's brought out an inherent and animalistic part of me I never realized was there in the first place. Like, a strong attraction to alpha men. I'm not that far in the show, but I love the idea of him taking me to dinner at Vesuvio's, you know, Artie's restaurant? I love that he supports his friend's small business when he's not busy blowing it up! So could you come up with an imagine about the date? Let me know!! Thank you!!!!

P.S. - I love your work but please keep this one short! It's gotta be a quickie before bed!

Word Count: not that long tbh

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"It's so gloomy out," you said, face souring as you looked out the window of your apartment. "It's always gloomy." 

"Um, where the fuck do you think we're at? It's New Jersey," your friend, Snooki, said. "That's why I only like the shore. It's different out there."

You smiled. Her thick Jersey accent always threw you off but it felt so warming. You forgot people actually talked like that. She'd come to visit you from the Shore to help you get ready for your little date. She was filming a season of her TV show, which you didn't completely understand, but nonetheless you were supportive cause you always supported your girls. That's just how being a girlie works. 

"So who's this guy anyway?" Snooki asked as she began to flat iron your hair, clouds of thick smoke rising from it as it fried your shit straight. "You're so like, secretive about him. You never ended up telling me."

You blushed, living for the idea of this little forbidden-esque romance you and Tony had. 

"I didn't tell you because I'd only just met you, I had to make sure you were a girl's girl first, you know?"

"And when was that?"

"When I found out you were down to help hide me go into hiding from the stupid ugly IRS men-in-black people, THAT'S when I knew."

She smiled to herself, she DID that. 

"Anyway, and I couldn't tell you over the phone cause you were on that stupid duck phone. I didn't want the show to be recording my business, silly," you said, "plus, those guy friends you have there are creeps. I don't want them knowing my business, either."

You shuddered at the thought of those overly-tan, Ed Hardy cologne smelling boys. You didn't trust them in the slightest. After one of them called you a grenade because they caught a glimpse a single stretch mark, you knew DAMN well they had never been connected to any basis of reality and therefore not REAL.

Except Paulie, you didn't really mind him, if you catch my drift if you catch the flow! ;). He was lowkey a girl's girl.

"So tell me now! I'm so over waiting!" she whined. She really was over it. You loved holding back information some times just to create a little suspense. A little of that never hurt no one never hurt a FLY.

"Well, what do you wanna know?" you smirked to yourself. 

"Is he Italian?"

"Oh, def."

"Is he tan?"

"Oh, no."

She suddenly stopped the ironing and gave you an annoyed look in the mirror. You knew that was a no-no in Snicker's book. "Then why are you wasting your time?"

"Because he's just hot, like, I don't know how to explain it," you really didn't. When you first met, you just found it odd how insanely attracted you were to him. You just were. It made you feel like a middle-aged mom. But who cares? EXACTLY! "He's low-key, rich, high-key. He works in like, garbage disposal or some shit."

"That's what they say when they're in the mafia." Snooki said, continuing to iron your hair. 

"I did my fair amount of business with Italians back in England, I know what the mafia looks like." Of that, you did. But that was your old life, you were supposed moving on. The Queen is dead, after all. Don't push! 

You wish you could tell your girlfriend more, but you had to remind yourself that you were under a different identity - as you mentioned before, the IRS are actually a bunch of Debbie downers and negative Nancies who wanna see you, just a girl, down. They hated seeing you, just a girl, succeed, and that's not cool or cute. They ran you out of the country once, but not again. You were a full, beer-blooded American and that's that. (if ur reading this and not American just pretend you are! Who wouldn't want to?!)

You met Tony through the Italian connections you had in England, and once you knew you had to escape back to America, they were the only allies you knew that could help smuggle you in like the cocaine in little baggies shoved up the asscracks of a flight attendee. If it weren't for that, New Jersey would have definitely NOT been the first place you had in mind to arrive in. 

Once the Italians brought you through, they directed you to this deli place called Satriale's after you moaned and groaned about your tummy rumbling. You kept joking that you were a different person when you were hungry, what you dubbed as the "hungry monster", over and over. Safe to say, the Italians soon grew increasingly uncomfortable with that and your other incoherent ramblings about food and decided you needed some gabagool. 

Let's just say - you went to absolute fucking town on those slices of meat and cheese. All those thoughts about becoming a vegetarian? Yeah, out the window they WENT. 

You assumed that none of those Italian-Americans knew that a girl could fucking eat, because they looked at you with both horror and confusion. Also, a little concernment. You also learned the complete difference between Italian and Italian-American, as if that horrendous atrocity that is your bff Snooki's Jersey Shore season 4 wasn't enough to learn from.

As you were munching away on what you were sure was only your third slice of 'salam' (salami), (it was actually your eleventh), the door swung open along with the little bell atop ringing. That wasn't what broke you out of your trance, no, no it would take a LOT for that to happen in the state you were in, but it was who....

"Hey, sweetheart, save some for the rest of us, huh?" He giggled, his other goons giggling behind him.

You looked up. You hated being spoken at while eating. It was really a trigger.

But there he was. Tony.

Tall, big, low-key balding, leather jacket and Goodwill's men section polo with some khaki pants, cigar in hand, under-sized gold rings and necklaces bulging, and a whiff of men's cologne (probably an Italian designer's).

You were stumped. Stunned. Stupefied.

So were they. They watched you, waiting for some sort of response whether it was verbal or physical. Instead, they were given your mega disassociation-state, blank expression, mouth full with a slice of meat in one hand and a slice of cheese in the other.

The entire deli went silent - it was literally as if there was a cowboy standoff going on like some Western film shit. A Spaghetti western here, perhaps?

"Fuck's wrong with her?" one of his minions asked. You later found out this was his wannabe Aaron Sorkin nephew Christopha.

"Hey, Ton', I think you broke the poor broad!" the other said, who had crazy white streaks of hair. This was his other minion, Paulie who giggled with the possible case of Tourette's syndrome.

"Ayyeeee, sweethaarrttt," the other said with a grumpy face and crazy hairline, (Silvio), "what's tha matta?"

You didn't know what the matter was. And honestly, neither did Tony.

All you two knew, is that you were both locked IN. What you didn't know at the time, was that he realized he had landed his eyes on one of the most beautiful, fine ass women he'd ever seen. And man was down BAD! Of course he was, girl, LOOK AT YOU!

(For realsies all respect to Carmela she did not deserve any of Tony's caca!)

"Who the fuck is this?" he finally asked, somewhat angrily. He wasn't angry, just taken aback someone had defied him as much as you did in that moment from that face off. And that's just the regular tone of how a lot of these people talked, which you ALSO later learned.

"I'm me," you said back.

The three minions behind him all raised their brows in shock. They couldn't conceive a girlie, like you, could sass just as hard back. That response ALWAYS worked.

And that was that. You two were history <3. 

You then met Snooki at a bar later that same night and she let you stay at the Jersey Shore house for a bit until Tony gave you enough money to get your own spot. And now, here you two were. Some full circle shit. 

So yeah back to your apartment WE'RE BACK AT THE APARTMENT!!

You were in the midst of a rant to Snooki about beefing with your hairstylist, the same lady who bleached your hair and unknowingly participated as an accessory to concealing your real identity from authorities. 

"...and so I was like, I want a bleach and tone, like can you do a bleach and tone for me please, like smiley face emoji and she was like tone? (question mark) and I was like, a bleach and tone, like, a bleach and tone, like a bleach and tone, like what do you mean tone, like? Like after you bleach it, can you tone it, like make it not brassy, and she was like 'oh oh I understand' and put, like, the blonde princess emoji and I was like, okay I'm glad you understand."

"What a fucking dumbass," Snooki laughed, finishing your hair. "I can just give you the number to my hairdresser, just let me know."

You heavily considered. A couple chunky stripe black highlights here and there? Some reverse raccoon shit? SHIT!!!

As she wrapped up, you admired yourself in the mirror. Your other girlfriend, JWoww, had done your makeup but had to leave early to let out her dogs at her house. She'd done the full Y2K trashy mcbling look - black smokey eye with glitter, heavy on the contour, thin ass brows and a nude lip. You looked like a Pamela Anderson variant and you were fucking it up! 

After taking some grainy ass photos on your hot pink bedazzled camera, Snooki hyping you up some more and pregaming with you before your date, you got a text! 

"I've got a text!" you said like a Love Islander. 

"Oh my god, is it from him?" Snooki asked, drinking the remnants of the Ron-Ron juice she made, the only good thing he's ever been associated with.

"Oh, fuck he's like - he's like here! He's here!" 

You ran towards your window and peeped your head through the blinds - he was indeed here in his red Chevy. A wave of anxiety flushed over you - but you weren't sure why? You were literally his 'goomar' or 'goomah' however you spell it and this definetly wasn't your first time on a date with him. But every time before one, you felt like you needed to shit yourself. He just made you all nervy! Like, that's a MAN RIGHT THERE!

"Oh, fuck Snooki," you said, frightened. "I think I need to go."

"You're kidding. You don't have time! You said he made a reservation, right?"

"Oh, I don't know. He just walks into anywhere and he automatically has a reservation for that exact time. You really think I can't go?"

"I mean, how fast can you go?"

You ended up going. And you were fast.

It was a quickie, definitely not ALL that needed to come out, but it was something for now. You knew your body too well. As you hit that flush lever thingie, you saw all your anxiety go down with it. You were ready, renewed, and refreshed. THOSE are the real three R's for saving the planet. You also smoked the last bit if your blunt, a 'roach' if you will, to see if that could calm your nerves. Spoiler - it didn't. Girl there was less than an inch left the fuck did you think that would do.

As Snooki was closing the front door, she yelled somewhat drunkenly "YOU'RE FUCKING HOT!" It definitely gave you a little pep in your step, to say the very least. Your heels clicked and clicked down that staircase, you felt like Rose in Titanic to Jack in that one scene.

Tony exited the car, admiring his view. Snooki was very right. You were eating it UP LIKE THAT BITCH!!

You had a slip on sequin dress, not too clubby but not too dressy, low-key classy and a little not too shabby? Your hair was all done up and your hoops dangled from your ears. You smelled of some sweet Nicki Minaj's body spray from TJ Maxx.

A cloud of cologne (a good cologne, one that you secretly stole for him also from TJ Maxx) hit you as you and Tony embraced. Even with your heels, he still stood over you like a fucking wall. You got why the gays love their bears. 

"How do I look, Tony?" you asked. You knew your answer you just fucked with compliments. 

"You look beautiful, hun. Like an old Hollywood actress. Let's get goin'." He opened the passenger's seat door for you like the gentleman he was and closed it behind you. Once he was in the driver's seat, you two were off. 

It was now Christmas time - so the aesthetic was KICKING! Lights were all around on people's houses and trees, the air was cool and there was a little snowfall. It felt like some cozy 2000's digital photos you find under looking up 'nostalgic' on Pinterest. The car's heater was on full and the warmth felt good against your ass. You thought about fucking up a sauna and how you'd love one of those. Maybe a future date with Tony?

You lowered the sun visor to check yourself in the mirror. These false lashes were CRAZY. You only trusted JWoww or Snooki to put them on. 

"You smell that?" Tony asked, sniffing the air.

"No," you said. You only smelled the his strong cologne and Nicki.

"You smell like weed," he said. 

You did forget about the 'roach' and plants you were growing on your balcony to make some extra cash. But then, you thought, this could be the perfect lay-up right now. If it worked on Megan Fox, maybe it would work on Tony? If it didn't, you'd honestly Lady Bird yourself out of his car from the embarrassment.

"I am weed," you said, trying to sound femme fatale, biting your tongue like a mom. 

He didn't get it. 

"What did you say?"

You weren't high enough for this.

"Man, never mind," you said. "Where we going, anyway? You said you were take me to eat some real food. Cause apparently McDonald's isn't."

"Oh please, you're gonna start with that shit again?" Tony said. One thing with Tony, and all these mafiosos, they have more insecurity than a thirteen-year-old middle school girl. You've had to learn how to dodge Tony's whiny moments. 

"So where?" you asked again, back to the topic. 

"Italian."

"Oh, like Olive Garden?"

He stopped at a light and faced you, with a look of pure disgust.

You saw him in the corner of your eye, trying not to smile. You loved fucking with him. It was like fucking with a toddler.

"The fuck did you say?" 

And there it was. 

Tony then began to rant about what true Italian dining and food was, as he always loved to flex in his whiny self about how there's no other shame of an establishment other than Olive Garden to bring embarrassment to Italian cuisine. You disassociated for much of it after, watching the lit-up suburbs as you drove by.

"....and that's why Vesuvio's puts back the honor in the Italian name. End of story!"

"That's crazy," you said, one of your many safe automatic responses to have after your disassociation trips. 

Anyway, you two had finally made it to the restaurant, as Tony mentioned before, called Vesuvio's. It was owned by a close friend of his, which made you all happy as it was refreshing to see Tony support small businesses. It was the late evening, so the sun had already set and the ambience was hitting. 

Before you entered the restaurant, Tony said he had a surprise for you and took out from the back of his car a quite large box.

"What is this?"

"Go ahead," he smiled slyly, "open it up."

You felt like a child needing to rip the bitch open, but you stopped yourself - you liked playing hard to get so you knew you had to act indifferent. You instead opened it slowly, as if it was just an ordinary box but no it WASN'T!

"No. Fucking. Way," you were in disbelief. "Tony - a FUCKING VINTAGE HOT PINK JUICY TRACKSUIT?! THESE ARE LIKE, $100 ON DEPOP?!?!?!?!"

He was fucking up your reaction. He must've really listened to when you indulged in him your airport troubles and losing your suitcase, as well as your vintage Juicy Couture tracksuit. This got you all hot and shit down there to know he cared like that. Again, this is a MAN. He makes ugly dudes like Tate tater tot look like a little bitch and that's that.

"You like it?" he asked as you yanked that shit out and were admiring it. "Here, let me help," he put the box down and helped put the top jacket part on.

You were too shock to speak. Non-verbal, if you would.

"Tony, no bro it's that I can't - "

His little dumbass smile made it all the better. You hated that he knew he ate with this.

The fresh smell of baked bread and pasta was making your toes curl violently. You loved being a fat ass. Once inside, Tony greeted like half the staff because that's what these men do, but you were just bouncing your eyes from table to table at all the dishes. Shit was about to HIT! You purposely didn't eat all day so you could have room for what tonight was to come. But, with that, the Ron-Ron juice was now in full effect. Uh oh oh no.

No, no - you couldn't. Had you not learned before in England? You cannot embarrass Tony, no, not in front of all these people. Tony was like a pillar in this little suburban community, you needed to make him look good!

But then, you caught a glimpse of yourself in the mirror - you DO look good! 

And then it hit you - you're just a girl who likes to dress up and eat good. The last thing you were gonna do was hide who you truly were! High key who gives a fuck about Tony? You do but you get what I mean.

A very pretty, blonde hostess came to you guys and led you to your table. Tony said hi, gave her the usual besitos, and introduced you two. 

"Y/N, this is Adriana. You know, Christopha's girlfriend?"

"Oh my god yes! I remember!" you brought her in for a hug and your own besitos. She smelled great. It made you so happy to see another girl do her thing! "You look so good, bro! And your nails!"

"Oh, my god thank you!" she said, modestly. "You're so pretty!"

Tony smiled, happy to see two girls do their thing. Men will never understand.

You two sat a little more secluded towards the back. He had introduced you to Artie, the best friend and owner of the restaurant.

About an hour in, the vibes were HITTING! You were on your third slice of bread, dipping it in the olive oil and vinegar (though you preferred butter, but you weren't just about to say that in front of all these Italians, LITERALLY when in Rome like??), laughing as Tony was making his shitty dad jokes, light Frank Sinatra and 'like a big pizza pie in the sky' in the background, the chatter of other customers who were also vibing, and, like you, looking forward to absolutely demolishing the dishes. 

What those dishes were, you wouldn't know. The moment you sat, Artie pulled up and took your menus, saying he would make y'all something exclusive from the menu. Like THAT? Like that. You felt like it was 2017 all over again and you just found out about the secret Pink Drink that wasn't on the Starbucks menu. Exclusive! 

As Tony was rambling on about his new horse, you were just thinking about how insanely attractive he was. Again, this ain't no boy - no, this is a MAN. This is a man who gets shit done, whenever and wherever. You always thought yourself to be pretty humble and not consider power a trait to find attractive, but you just realized you were lying to yourself this whole time, cause Tony proved it was. Is it shallow? Oops. Who gives a fuck be real. That and giving you money every time he saw you was definitely a plus! He was just too smooth with shit.

And let's be real again, it was a little bit of a power trip for you too. Like, you're TONY'S girl. You know what that's more powerful than? Exactly. Anyone other than Tony's girl.

"What's your horse's name?" you asked.

"Pie-O-My."

"That's such a cute name!"

Dumbass name, you thought. But in all honesty you would've named a horse like Pickle or some shit so.

"Do you like horses? I should take you ta see her sometime."

You weren't a horse girl, even though you did have a small phase in middle school. "How could you not? They're so, like, otherworldly. Back in Colombia, my old boss used to have a zoo, and there were a bunch of horses there too."

"When were you in Colombia?"

You froze - you forgot. You're not Y/N, you're Y/N! You're supposed to be under a false identity! You can't just be revealing your past, Colombia was not supposed to be talked about! Have England Colombia not taught you anything?

"A long, long, long, long time ago. Long time. Looooong time," you said, smiling sheepishly and taking a nervous sip of your wine. This topic needed to be SKIPPED.

"For business?"

And then you forgot. Tony literally knows you're a fugitive. You are safe <3

You went on to expand about your brief but not-so-brief, actually extensive, time in Colombia, working for Pablo and committing heists with your girls. It seemed like another lifetime ago, but recounting it brought you such nostalgia, it made you happy to reminisce. Tony was eating it up too, he fucked with the fact that you weren't just no ordinary girl, no, you were a girl with a past. Dare I say, not like other girls at that. A criminal one, at that. To these macho mafiosos, seeing a girl do more than being a housewife is considered very exotic. 

"One time, in Colombia, I almost set off one of Pablo's bombas by accident," you giggled to yourself. Shit was crazy. "It was supposed to be a hit on someone and I opened the wrong door to the wrong car lol. Thank god it malfunctioned and didn't detonate, but ever since then my close experience with death has just taught me to live, laugh and love more, you know? He was reaalllyyy pissed at me, for like a minute. Then he got over it, cause like, it's never that serious, you know?"

You dug into your pasta, which had just been brought out. It was Alfredo, your favorite. You weren't sure how Alfredo was an exclusive dish, but whatevs. You felt the warmness go down through your intestines - deletable. You felt Mark Weins possessing your spirit.

Tony was in awe of your stories. 

"Wait, wait, Pablo's what?"

"Bombas. You know."

He still didn't comprehend. Ugh boys.

"Bomb bass?" you repeated.

"Boss Baby? Like that cartoon scientist prick?"

You'd never seen Boss Baby, but was pretty sure he wasn't a scientist. Just a baby in STEM. "No, Tony, bom-bas."

"Baz Luhrmann?"

"Oh my god, no, but I miss that summer," you said, thinking about that curse of a movie. "All that our love surviveeeesssss. So good. So good." 

You continued eating your pasta, imagining Jacob Elordi's face instead of Austin Butler. It helped with the nightmares.

"Wait, you mean bombs?" he whispered. 

"Yes, that!" you covered your mouth with your hand, still chomping away, "Sorry, all that time in Colombia I forgot English words. I should redownload Duolingo again."

"You can't say that around here. Not around Artie."

"Why not?"

"He's sensitive to subjects like that. Gets him all nervous." Tony then went on to basically play with his food by making his fork dance in and out of it, never actually accumulating more pasta. This was his fidgeting.

"You garbage disposal guys love to pretend you're all hard and shit."

He stopped. Again, he's offended. "What did you say?"

"Like, you pretend you're all hard, and shit, but then you're not. Okay, like, okay - Paulie doesn't like me cause I made a joke. A little joke and he got all butthurt."

"Yeah, cause you said that if he eats more than 12 grapes on New Years, he's cursed."

"Yeah, so what? His fat ass ate the entire bag. I had to make him feel bad for that. Reparations, honestly."

"You know Paulie, he's superstitious. And you weren't helping when you asked his zodiac sign or whatever bullshit."

"And what about Silvio, huh? So what if I've never seen the Godfather? How else is a normal person supposed to react if you just randomly say 'once I'm out they pull me back in'? Like, what? Back into what? I was being nice pretending I knew what he was talking about the first couple of times. I can only fake it til I make it so much."

Tony was growing more impatient. 

"And Christopher? Sorry if I didn't know that an Elf Bar would break his sobriety. I just thought he'd love to invest -"

"Listen, sweetheart, I gotta be honest with ya. My friends, they're not perfect, but they're my family. Let's not forget about the sanctity of loyalty and respect. So let's put this aside and enjoy each other's company, huh -"

"How's the food, huh?" Artie asked, suddenly appearing like an Gusteau's ghost. 

"It's great, Artie," Tony said, somewhat dismissively.

"Artie, you ATE this shit up! I'm gonna be sleeping sooooo good tonight!" you smiled. He smiled that you smiled. 

"Well thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Let me know if you need anything else, okay?" Artie then walked off, leaving you two to yourselves. He quickly turned around and came back. "Be sure to call if you feel you have food poisoning, though."

"Wait, what?" you asked, mimicking Trisha Paytas.

"Cause if you do have it, it's not my food," he chuckled. "Right, Ton'?"

With that ominous comment/inside joke that you really had no idea what he was talking about, he walked away laughing. Tony wasn't. He, underneath it all was fuming but holding it in. He didn't like to raise his voice in front of you, because he knew you would hit lengths that exceeded his. One of your favorite activities was to make guys feel stupid, and you were too good at that and he knew. Honestly, he was kinda scared of the power you held, like one of Pablo's bombas. 

You just shrugged it off and continued eating up your pasta. 

It was quiet. It wasn't an awkward quiet, just a 'who's gonna talk first to get us past this quiet' sort of quiet. You didn't care, you were being wined and dined for free. 

You then thought about how you could enhance the dish, like a wizard adding potions and his creation. You pointed to the parmesan. 

"What?" Tony asked, oblivious, munching. 

"Cheese, hellur?"

"The fuck is 'hellur'?'

You swallowed the food that prevented you from saying 'hello' correctly. 

"Like, hello. So, cheese, hello?"

"Why not say hello?"

"Tony, I don't make fun of you when you say things in Italian," you shot back. He couldn't know food delayed your speech. "Don't make fun of my language, xenophobia doesn't look good on you."

He passed the parm, again in awe. "You know, of all the women I've been with, you're the weirdest fucking one," he laughed to himself. 

"Awe, Tony, you're so sweet." You smiled. The bad quiet vibes had gone away and the good vibes had returned. So what if there was a boulder on the path? You walk AROUND it!

Fast forward to dessert. Artie brought you some cannolis because we're in an Italian restaurant remember. 

Tony was in the middle of being pretty vulnerable with you. You loved that type of shit, when a man opens up. It's like seeing them fully evolve to becoming a normal person and you were front row.

"The things I do, you know. It's to get food on the table for my kids. But they, they don't understand. Meadow does, she's still young, but AJ? I don't know about the poor kid. Stays in his room all day, on that fucking computer, listens to that metal bullshit -"

"He's just going through his emo era. We all have it, don't worry. Some worse than others. And, he's a boy. They all enjoy a little Reddit from time to time. But just cause you're a criminal, Tony, doesn't make you a villain. The IRS just love to hate, trust me, I know."

He appreciated that you cared. "Therapy helps too, or whatever."

"Awe, that's great Tony!"

"But don't tell anyone, or I'll get whacked."

"By who?"

"You know. My associates."

"That's nice that you play games with your associates. It should be more than just business, you know. Like, there should be room for some bonding time and exercises."

"What are you talking about?"

"Like, Whack-a-Mole. Isn't that what you were talking about?"

Tony laughed. You thought he got it, but he was just still confused and was actually laughing at the shit you just say. 

After the check (there was no check cause it's Tony Soprano), you two stopped by at Wawa to get some SpongeBob popsicles, cause those cannolis didn't hit that 'sumthin sweet' feeling. The flavor you got wasn't as good as his, despite being the same thing, so at every free opportunity when he wasn't looking you scooped a little of his. He started to notice as his popsicle shrunk and shrunk, getting hot at what you were doing. You didn't mind, you liked it sometimes when he got mad cause you thought it was funny you got to him like that. He got over it eventually, realizing that it's never THAT serious. 

Some time later you were back at his place, what your girls would call an 'open crib'. It was just you two, and as Nicki once said, the night was still young. The possibilities? Yeah, they're endless. You had to admit, you were getting impatient. You needed something and that something was NOW.

By the pool, you two were making out. Shit was getting heavy and the night was getting pretty fucking chilly. A little too chilly, like the Juicy tracksuit was cute asf, but let's be real not helping in the slightest. But you weren't just about to have that interrupt you. What's a little cold? People literally live in like, Russian tundra.

Still making out, you felt small droplets of water hit you. 

You broke from the kiss and said, quite sensually but not exactly meaning to, "I'm wet."

Tony chuckled with his goofy, excited smile. "Tell me more -"

He brought you back in for another kiss.  

You felt more of those droplets hit you. You broke your kiss off again.

"No, I'm actually wet."

As if on cue, the rain began to pour pretty hard, increasingly violent. He grabbed your arm and pulled you to go inside. You two laughed as you were drenched, trying to escape the heavy downpour on some rom-com bullshit. 

You slid your heels off and ran, you ran and ran. One thing you knew how to do - you knew how to ran. Your feet hit those puddles of water with such velocity, Tony could no longer catch up to you and lagged behind. Your hands let go - you couldn't wait for him. Once you were in this state, there was no breaking out of it. He was amazed at your abilities. You couldn't risk your makeup running. That's a big no-no, no?

Once inside, he brought you two towels and began drying you off. You caught a quick glimpse of your make up in the mirror, and needless to say, you needed JWoww to drop you that link of the setting spray she used cause shit was STUCK. Immovable.

"Thanks for the towel, Tony." you said. He winked at you, pulled his soaked shirt off and tossed it on the kitchen counter, then pulled out a jug of orange juice from the fridge, downing that bitch. Your eyes trailed from his body hair, down to his chest, to his belly, then his happy trail down to - oh. Oh there it is. 

"Peter, the horse is here." you said. That bulge was bulging. 

Tony clocked his head to you. 

You thought you said it in your head, but you actually said it loud and clear.

"Who the fuck is Peta?" he interrogated, getting scared into thinking someone else was in the house, or that maybe 'Peter' was someone you were seeing...

"My god Tony you're such a fucking boomer."

"Is Peter your boyfriend -"

"- oh SHUT UP TONY!" you said, before pouncing on top of him. You hugged him, and he hugs tightly back, he then throws you on the dining table and you feel his member pressed against your leg. He begins kissing you, his tongue licking your lips for entrance. You let him in. Your tongues fight for dominance but you let him win. He eventually starts going down on you, taking your sequin dress off, and starts kissing your labia.

"This...this is a labia," he says. "End of story!"

You lift your legs as he begins to eat you out, his wet breath on your cooter. He holds your foot up and raises himself, ready to press his member into your entrance. Your eyes are closed, ready to take the man from North Caldwell, New Jersey in. This is it. No Peta, no duck phone, no garbage disposal, nothing - just you and Tony.

Hope you guys enjoyed!

Also, a heads up!  A friendly warning - DON'T tell me how long to make story. That is up to me, myself and I. Anyway this one's shorter so whatevs. 

xoxo, 

~ Sam St. Clair

[volturialice]

Spork Haven chapter 23: salt fucking peter

welcome to spork haven, where I spork the EL James fic you’ve never heard of

previous chapter | next chapter | contents

previously on Spork Haven:

actor!Edward got an outlandish fucking award and became Best Actor!Edward! hotel maid murder witness cello prodigy orphaned ““cajun”” heiress!Bella was his date to the awards show! Ed looked into Emmett’s dark burning eyes and had a Moment! Bella felt dizzy and then went missing! will the Volturi mafia succeed in murdering her? let’s hope so stick around and find out!

warning: this chapter is incredibly long. please check the tags for content warnings—there are a lot! it’s eventful, though, so we’ll give it a pass. but settle in and make yourself comfortable. maybe go get a drink or something. I know I needed a drink after I read this garbage.

chapter 23 opens with Edward attempting to process the fact that Bella has disappeared. he does this in what I have to admit is a pretty seamless fusion of el james’s and stephenie meyer’s trademark styles (negative space here preserved for authenticity):

wow. eat your heart out, New Moon.

once we’ve experienced that bit of totally original typesetting magic, Edward leaps into action! 

just kidding. he’s “totally fucking immobilized.” paralyzed with fear, he “stifles a sob” and toys with whether to “wail, scream, and tear his hair out with impotence”

luckily, he’s very good at giving himself pep talks:

this bracing self-administered kick in the pants unfreezes him, allowing him to summon the mental faculties to go get Emmett.

Emmett clears the ladies’ room and calls for backup. He and Edward search the restroom and are joined by a rando Local security guard as they discover—gasp!—a secret second exit to the bathroom (shoutout to the phoenix airport womens’ room, amirite?) leading into a service tunnel.

the Local security guard informs them that the tunnel leads to an alley, but the alley’s only exit is onto Hollywood Boulevard. you know, the street currently clogged with limos, paparazzi, cameras, and fans. idk about y’all but I’m starting to think this kidnap attempt may have been just a tad poorly conceived. why kidnap her at all? they had ample time to kill her, dump her body in the service tunnel, and make their escape unencumbered.

as Ed, Emmett, and Local race down the service tunnel, Emmett radios for Jasper to go around and cut the Bad Guys off in the alley. Edward is the slowest of the bunch

so he quickly falls behind the other two.

he’s trying to catch up when—wait! what’s that on the ground? something...sparkly?

that’s right: he pauses in chasing after Bella and her kidnapper in order to notice “six thousand dollars’ worth of earring” lying on the ground.

then he stops and picks it up.

now, I know what you’re thinking, guys—is he seriously stopping to pick up a lost earring when Bella’s life is in danger?—but keep in mind, these earrings were twelve thousand dollars. also, Edward loves earrings! they make him horny! what else is he supposed to suck on at Bella’s funeral?

I mean, yeah, if your worst fear was that Bella might lose an earring.

what indeed, Edward. what indeed. 

imagine for a second that you’re Emmett in this fic. you’re a law enforcement professional racing to protect your charge’s life, bellowing into your walkie for backup, preparing to apprehend an armed and dangerous suspect in an area full of innocent civilians...when suddenly, from somewhere far behind you in the dingy gloom of the service tunnel, you hear the sniveling, British-accented voice of the bitchass manchild celebrity who’s tagging along:

“I’vE fOuNd hEr eArRiNg!”

jesus.

still ahead of Eddie boy, Emmett and Local burst out into the alley, guns drawn. Edward hears gunfire and is terrified for Bella as he finally catches up and arrives at the scene.

this is about where erika’s writing gets...incredibly confusing. and not in a POV, “we’re in the character’s head experiencing the chaos with him in real time” way. more like in a “several dozen drunk blind amputees playing Twister” way. this is my cute way of saying “it’s bad” and “I had to read it four times before it began to make sense.”

in the alley, all is chaos. a gun has just gone off

I’m sorry. salt...peter? saltpeter? did someone shoot off a Ye Olde Civil War Musket? I know fuckall about firearms and even I know they phased that shit out in the fucking 1880s.

and while we’re here, fun trivia fact about saltpeter: in Olden Times, people would ingest saltpeter in order to nuke their sex drives. silly Olden Times! if it’s a bonerkiller you’re after, all you have to do is read this fic!

ok, back to the alley. security are cordoning it off, keeping the “fucking jackal” paparazzi at bay (already?)

the LAPD are arriving (already??) 

but perhaps most interestingly,

real quick before we get into whose body it is, why we’re sexually objectifying it, and what it’s oozing, I just wanna draw your attention to the construction of that sentence. the artistry, if you will. below, I have replaced some of the nouns so that we may all appreciate the sheer poetry of the syntax:

“there’s a fucking meatball lying prone on the floor, all covered with cheese, a dark cloud oozing under the meatball.”

sitting a few feet away from the Skirt & Heels Body™ is Jasper, cradling the unconscious Bella. you could be forgiven for thinking that first body (you know, the oozing one) was Bella’s, because that’s what the narration wants you to think. the effect is somehow both enhanced and ruined by the fact that Bella’s actual body is mentioned in the next sentence. erika really tried to have her suspense cake and eat it too, with the result that by the time I finished reading this paragraph, I had absolutely no idea how many bodies there were or who they belonged to, which ones had on a skirt and heels, which ones were oozing, and where.

another excerpt I should probably share is the paragraph where we describe Edward reacting to this tragic pietà.

here’s our text, raw and unedited:

I can’t even begin to list all the ways this paragraph makes me uncomfortable, so I won’t attempt to.

anyway. remember how in the last chapter, there was an incredibly gay bit where Edward looked into Emmett’s dark, burning eyes? fasten your seatbelts because we’re about to blow that bit out of the water.

ｌｕｍｉｎｏｕｓ ｈａｚｅｌ ｅｙｅｓ

filled with

𝓈𝑜𝓂𝑒 𝑒𝓂𝑜𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃 𝐼 𝒹𝑜𝓃'𝓉 𝓌𝒶𝓃𝓉 𝓉𝑜 𝓃𝒶𝓂𝑒

the next sentence tries to take us back into heterosexual territory with

are we meant to understand that Jasper’s luminous hazel eyes are saying “don’t you just wish it was you getting to cradle Bella’s unconscious, injured body?” yes, that is exactly what we’re meant to understand. this attitude continues as Bella is loaded into an ambulance. at first, Jasper tries to stop Edward from coming, then the paramedic says they can both come but only if they sit on opposite sides of the ambulance like kindergarteners in Time Out.

l o n g i n g l y

the paramedics also checked the other body (you know, the oozing skirt and heels body) and Edward made a startling observation:

though oozing, the mystery person is still alive, and a second ambulance hauls off

and here I was thinking all this story needed to make it complete was some veiled transphobia! what a fun new direction for erika.

once at the hospital, Ed is banished to the waiting room with Emmett, Jasper, and Taylor. the doctors won’t let him see Bella, even when he tells them he’s her fiancé.

hmm. is it just me or is there a movie about this exact scenario?

yep, there are at least two movies about this exact scenario.

after the “fiancé” thing, Edward picks up on some bad vibes from Jasper

interesting. can you feel MY animosity hit you like a brick fucking wall? I guess it’s more of a brick fucking skyscraper at this point.

things we learn at the hospital:

Bella was roofied! so if you voted “poisoned” in the poll, I’m gonna give you this one. congrats on your victory.

Bella is fine now

Jasper shot the mysterious kidnapper in the chest. 

that’s right, Jasper is the cause of all the oozing. well done, Jasper. good luminous hazel eye.

finally, Bella wakes up and asks to see Edward. He goes back to see her 

and

she

dumps his ass.

not for any Sane People reasons, of course. having decided she’s “too dangerous to be around,” she breaks up with him in a scene straight out of New Moon, complete with “eyes full of tortured pain” and dialogue like

“You are too precious to me. Please. Go.”

Edward spends the whole scene in panicked denial, to the point where he’s practically gaslighting Bella, telling her she’s just been through a traumatic ordeal and she can’t possibly mean what she’s saying. 

then he interrupts her mid-breakup 

to fucking propose.

🤣🤣🤣 READ THE ROOM, BUDDY. Bella is resolute for the first time in her doormat life, turns down the proposal, and firmly breaks things off with Edward. he returns her earring (you remember, the six thousand dollar earring we paused in the middle of the climactic chase scene to pick up), “inhales her fragrant hair for the last time,” and leaves.

and with that, the chapter is FINALLY over.

possibility.mp3

best “fucks”

“level fucking head”

“a fucking microsecond”

“fucking sirens”

“loud fucking noises”

“enough fucking damage”

“a soothing fucking balm”

“fucking Hale”

“fucking purgatory” (the hospital waiting room)

“pale as fuck” (bella)

“fucking lifeless” (bella)

“non-believing fucking arse” (edward)

“like a fucking idiot” (edward)

best “shits”

next chapter: fucking blinds and curtains

[dolphin-enthusiast]

It is FINALLY SPOOKY SEASON I AM LIVINGG SJKVSBZBSNMS but yeah anyway -how do you think the Jojos would react to finding out their SMOL and sweet s/o is actually a witch, like it runs in her bloodline, she’s practicing, and she may or may not be part of a coven (the whole shebang). Like she’s just so SMOL n CUTE but someone (Dio, Kars, Kira, Diavolo) fucks with her Jojo and she does a fucking 180 -Goes TERRYFIYING APESHIT with BITCHCRAFT??? Sorry I got a flip side 🧙🏼‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️

S p o o p i s e a s o n

Jonathan:

- FUCKING SHOOK. Little ol' you is in fact a goddamn witch??? When you said you wanted to tell him something he did not expect THIS out of all things.

- But he lowkey finds it interesting. You're more than what meets the eye and he loves it. Like who could've thought a cute little thing like you is part of a witch family?

- Is shook once again when you suddenly go apeshit and yeet Dio's ass. You literally cast a spell on him (most likely a curse but shh) and he just...disappears. Sure he may have been fucking awful but holy shit.

- Would stand by your side and watch you do your magic. He's not too knowing of witchy stuff so he'd probably ask you silly things like if you make potions. Just imagine his face if you'd say that you can indeed make potions as well.

Joseph:

- He first discovered it when you suddenly joined in and helped him on his journey to defeat the Pillarmen. Ngl he wasn't expecting you to come out as a damn witch.

- He'd just gape at your powers the first time he sees you in action. Even the Pillarmen were afraid of your spells. After the battle would end he would run up to you and tell you that you were completely amazing.

- Sure you may look cute and tiny but you sure as hell are deadly. He'd often tease you and tell you to turn him into a frog and then kiss him so he could turn back into a human. You'd just shake your head at his antics with a small smile.

- Everytime someone angers him he tells them that he's going to bring in "his personal witch" and curse them. Said person would just give him a questioning look in return.

Jotaro:

- Hol' up you're a wHaT?? First time you tell him he'd give you the most puzzled look he had ever given someone before. You rendered him speechless for the first time in his life.

- Doesn't believe you until you do a spell in front of him or something. And when you do it he's going to lose his shit and tell you that from now on he's never going to doubt you again.

- Whilst he would still be worried about your safety, he wouldn't stop you if you wanted to accompany him and the Crusaders. He knows how powerful you are and he only gets more proud once he sees you beat enemies left and right.

- Even Dio is shaking and quaking at your spells. Of course that the edgy vampire would just laugh at first but he'd quickly shut the fuck up once you'd cast a curse on his ass. After that everytime someone would come to Jotaro and ask him "if he's the guy that beat that one vampire lord" he's just going to say no and point to you proudly.

Josuke:

- "YOU'RE A WITCH??? THAT'S AMAZING BABE-CAN YOU MAKE STUFF APPEAR??? PLEASE SAY YES I NEED THAT ONE VIDEOGAME-"

- Basically chaotic crackhead energy. Asks you if you can curse people then threatens everyone that angers him that he knows a witch who can turn them into an ugly rat.

- Doesn't want you to get involved in the whole Kira business but wouldn't be surprised when you show up and put him on the run. You most likely uno reverse card-ed him and created a cursed hand that follows him around and kick his ass or something.

- Since that day Morioh was never disturbed again. Just like Jotaro he's going to proudly say that YOU were the one to beat the infamous serial killer. Just the fact that you look so cute and small but could kill a man is purely amazing to him.

Giorno:

- Ok but he'd be hella intrigued. He would find your family history interesting and would ask you things about witchcraft.

- Honestly he just thinks you're pretty fucking amazing. Especially when you'd suddenly step in and protect him and the gang from La Squadra.

- And when you met with Diavolo and managed to fight him as well? You made him even more proud. Not that he wasn't already, but your powers are unique and interesting to him.

- You're literally the perfect fighter. You look innocent but are capable of many. Of course that he wouldn't pressure you to join the mafia, but wouldn't mind if you'd take an active role in it by his side once he'd become the boss.

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Shield Hero 20 - 22 | Sarazanmai 7 - 9 | BSD 32 - 34 | Fruits Basket 8 - 9 | Demon Slayer 8 - 10 | OPM 20 - 21

Shield Hero 20

Motoyasu getting dragged by Filo was funny…not enough to get a proper laugh though. Just a smirk or two.

Stop narrating and just get on with it, Naofumi and friends…!

“I was saying we should fight together all along.” (from Itsuki) – Were you, now…? (skeptical)

Ass-pull! I call “ass-pull” at the power to swallow the phoenix flame! Seriously, when did the dragon get the opportunity to teach Naofumi how to do that???

How did Naofumi not die after losing so much blood…?

What does the Q even stand for in the queen’s name…?

Sarazanmai 7

The seagulls…so fluffy…

For some reason, I expect a fakeout, but then it never arrives…these boys are really connecting…

I found some kappa croquette thingy online, but it referred to a “Shiki City” which probably isn’t in Asakusa…

The shirt…Kazuki’s shirt says “frog” but I get the feeling it also means “return”.

Shirohasu water. It’s Irohasu in Japan.

Was the lyric to Kawausoiya (the otter song) “gonna take ‘em”…?

Nice ET reference, Sara.

Balls…not just sport entendre, but…y’know. The sort of humour I don’t like as much.

Ooh…Keppi is shaping up to be the bad guy. But what plans does he have? Am I speculating too much and is he being framed? Hard to know until next time…

BSD 32

When Kyouka is eating the sundae, she looks like the Tofu Kyouka from Mayoi…hmm.

Can I confess something? Before I saw the illustrations for s2, I thought Louisa’s hair was much darker than what it is in the anime…hmmm, indeed.

I don’t think we were ever told (in the manga or the anime) what Louisa’s wish was…

This bit with Fyodor…I don’t think it was in the manga.

Subarashi-sou is a pun on “it seems wonderful”. That wasn’t in the manga, but it’s a great pun (because it’s right up my alley).

Fitz laughing at the neighbour’s TV wasn’t in the manga either, but that’s just the anime director’s humour peeking through.

“Blalack Daniel’s”, LOL.

Ohh…a quick Google reveals TJ Eckleberg is from the Great Gatsby. In there, he’s an eye doctor, but here, he’s an engineer.

George B Wilson is also from the Great Gatsby…Here be spoilers, but…George dies in his original work too.

Manhasset is a place in New York…I assume it’s connected to the Great Gatsby as well…

Oh yeah! Random Poe moment. That’s in the manga, so Igarashi (or whoever’s responsible for the terrible humour) doesn’t have to fake that bit.

Cue “Objection!” by Fitz, lemme guess. Even if I know the outcome and how it was done, I’d like to have my memory refreshed (by stabbing in the dark…and making an Ace Attorney joke in the process).

I already know, without googling, that Tom Buchanan is part of Great Gatsby as well…

Bank of Amerigo…LOL.

Fruits Basket 8

“If you show up for the banquet now…”

“The banquet sounds just like the folk tale!” Honestly, subbers, proofread…

Haa-kun and Haa-san. No distinguishing between them (aside from honorifics), even though they’re two completely different people.

Hatori’s squinty face was…hilarious, to put it simply.

Oh…I forgot the dance seems to be something the animal of the year does. So if Yuki was 3 years ago, it makes sense Momiji is doing it this year.

Best seat in the house for a sunrise, huh?

Kimetsu no Yaiba 8

I’ve seen Muzan being described as “Demon Michael Jackson” and now I can’t get that out of my head when I see him…sorry.

Tsukihiko, huh? It translates to “moon’s radiance” or something like that. That name is appropriate for a bad guy, isn’t it?

This is the first time I’ve really listened to the OST (aside from the OP and ED), so it’s…really something.

Ooh, I didn’t realise until now, but Ufotable even imitated the paper Jump is printed on with the next-ep previews…

OPM 2 8 (OPM 20)

Er…I haven’t mentioned it for the past few episodes, but Suiryu is hotttttttt. (No? I said that? Okay, next step.) That’s basically the only reason why I’m watching anymore…I can’t seem to find anyone who thinks positively of this tournament arc enough to do reviews of it that I can read, which has made my own opinion of this beloved series go down the drain…Also, if you weren’t aware, my taste lies not in Suiryu’s huge bulk, but rather in the fact he’s got long hair.

Didn’t Suiryu get pierced in the abs??? Where’s the blood coming from his injuries??? Update: He does have injuries there, they’re just not bloody…that’s all.

The main criticism for OPM 2 is the fact that it keeps cutting between different events, so it’s hard to follow. Well, I’ve had worse (see Concrete Revolutio) so that’s why I’m still here.

People say that clothing changes you – say if you put on a new outfit, you feel like a new person. (Of course, that’s all glamorising and praising consumption, but that’s beside the point here.) I think that’s what’s up with Max and Snek.

Shield Hero 21

“…the Shield Hero is worshipped.”

Really? Boob jiggle, at a time like this??? (Context: Malty is getting th slave crest painted on her.)

Wait, was there ever a Shield Church???

Okay, that felt like a real seasonal ending. What the heck is going to happen in the last few episodes, I wonder…?

Sarazanmai 8

Chikai knows the real meaning of YOLO…heh. I’m only kidding…

To be honest, I think I like Toi best out of the main trio. I tend to like the boys in blue…and no, I don’t mean the otter police.

Kazuki’s service provider is “Kappa Phone”, LOL.

When Reo held up the gun, I was yelling, “Enta! Get it for him!” (i.e. take the bullet) I didn’t expect him to actually do it…

…and here I thought tragic yuri was common enough and we don’t have enough Tragic Yaoi Dudes…

Notably, Toi was registered on Enta’s phone as “Kuji”, while Kazuki is registered as “Kazuki” (katakana) on Toi’s.

Shots fired…!

Update: I didn’t notice this, but the evil dude with kamome written behind him (I think it’s in this episode, but it might have been in the last one instead) must be based on a seagull…because that’s what kamome means.

Bungou Stray Dogs 33 (BSD S3 Ep 8)

I think it was around here I stopped reading the scans, because the series was picked up legally anyway…but I can see the death flags for a certain Port Mafia man…one who stands at the top.

As expected…butt shot. Igarashi (or whoever’s responsible for that shot) likes butts, so between this and Sarazanmai…*imagines image of kappa!Kazuki holding a shirikodama* There’s absolutely no buts about it (LOL), there’s no shortage of butts this season.

“To think that the rabbit being hunted would show its face…” – I think it’s hard for you to say that, Akutagawa, when you yourself have no face in that frame…

Why are both Akutagawa and Fyodor Naruto running today???

“So you’re doing this for that woman.”

What is “Mukurotoride”? I don’t seem to remember…maybe I never learnt what it was. Update: Apparently a tower in Dead Apple is called Mukurotoride.

Conspiracy time! This book sounds like Kunikida’s Ability…so imagine if it were under Dazai’s nose the entire time…

Fruits Basket 9

I love how the synopsis for this episode goes, “Kyo fights Yuki, Yuki fights a cold…”

Hatsuharu’s wearing such an ostentatious fluffy jacket…LOL, I love it.

Holy cow (LOL), I forgot how old Hatsuharu is…so that means he’s 15-ish, right?

Come to think of it…I see Fruits Basket characters in Ro Te O, which I started writing at about this time in 2013. The Azrael of that time was a hybrid of Hatsuharu, Ritsu and Ayame, Tetsuya is basically Yuki and Ryou is Kyou…hmm.

Apparently, Shigure had in the 2001 anime a song that went like, “High school girls, high school girls, cute high school girls for me.” So that’s where it was??? (Context: I haven’t seen Fruits Basket 2001, but read the entire manga.)

Kimetsu no Yaiba 9

Recap time, recap time…so the lady’s in the back room and Tanjiro conveniently forgets the man is in the basement…? Wuh?

Moya was complaining about how repetitive this show can get when it comes to the script (i.e. it repeats itself because it doesn’t trust its audience, but I think that’s because this is originally serialised on TV week by week that people may forget if they’re not bingeing, taking notes or following the manga). I’ll talk more about that in my KnY collab post, I guess…

When Yushiro said “watch your back”…he really meant it, huh?

Temari are the balls, but kemari is when you kick the balls.

“…the eyeballs on his hands are creepy.” – LOL.

Shield Hero 22

The ep title just says “Hero Council”…not specifically that there are 4 of them.

My stream’s been buffering more than usual, so I went “like mother, like daughter” before Naofumi did…

It would’ve ben massively funny to hear Melty call Malty either “Trash” or “B****”…especially the last one, because that’s always a fun way to end a sentence (especially for a girl as young as her). Update: She does, but the way she does it isn’t as funny as I thought it would be (and she doesn’t end her sentence with her sister’s new name).

Wait, I thought they got rid of her slave pact??? I thought it was only for the duration of her trial that she needed it for.

L’Arc and that lady seem like they’re foreshadowing for later…hmm. Update: The next-episode synopsis says “yes”. So does that new visual.

Sarazanmai 9

I can’t believe this show’s almost over…That means I gotta get a move on with RobiHachi, but to be honest? Non-anime things are probably going to kep me busy until…a few days from now. So I’ll get RobiHachi watched then.

Characetrs are dying en masse in this episode, aren’t they??? I saw a spoiler that (well, SPOILER) Chikai’s gonna die, but I don’t know about Enta or Keppi…Update: To be honest, I thought Chikai was going to become the next monster – a gun monster, perhaps. Maybe now that I’ve finished the episode, he’ll become a real zombie. (Hey, see what I did there with the bolding…? How’s that for hiding spoilers, eh???)

Oh yeah…I forgot Enta’s sister was Kazuki’s teacher…

There was a sign behind Masa that said”Hinode Asakusa” – “hi no de” meaning roughly “under the sun” or “leaving the sun”.

Tokarev…? The gun? Gun monster, maybe? Is this a critique of the American gun…(exaggerated voice) Nah, can’t be…this is Japanese.

Lionel…Lionel…for some reason, that name in relation to soccer seems familiar...I just can’t put my finger on who it reminds me of, though. Update: Is it, perhaps, Messi…? Yes, I think that’s the guy I was thinking of…!

Aw…I’m not crying, you are…But these words were running through my head before Toi chucked the bag of money away and yelled, “F***!”: “Everything I do, I do it for you.” Isn’t that cute…?

Bungou Stray Dogs 34

“…one by one?” Junban means “sequentially”, so I don’t see why you have to use the phrase “one by one”. Or “one at a time” would also work.

Hardbank…to contrast Softbank (a phone company in Japan).

Face-stealing aliens strike again…(re: Atsushi)

Oh flip. This reminds me of my Kunikida fic…yeah, I bet you don’t remember it.

Hey, this dude! Apparently he’s from one of Kunikida’s stories. I really am approaching the end of what I know of canon…*gulp* Update: Oops, we already passed that part…

I wonder if the real Fyodor could play cello…? Or is this just a thing to make him ominous and villanous…?

The cross on the wall behind Kunikida…makes this show more like Eva than Kekkai Sensen…exquisite. Absolutely exquisite, isn’t it?

Another cool cross, behind Tanizaki!

What’s a tatamigatana? Also, I didn’t know other people could be synchronised using Doppo Poet and Ranpo’s deduction…

Does Kouyou mean (by “the one I most despise”)…Chuuya? Or herself? It’s definitely not Ace.

Kimetsu no Yaiba 10

Headpats for Yushiro as well! Headpats for everyone!

There’s a lot of Tanjiro being terrified in this episode…

Wait…Kizuki? I thought they were the 12 Moons? (Well, “tsuki” means “moon”, but then what’s the “ki”?) Update: The “ki” means “demon”, so the Kizuki are the 12 Demon Moons.

Being alone with the body…that’s always a scary thought in murder mysteries…for the people who dissect them to determine the cause of death, that is.

Considering the name of the episode is “Together Forever”…nup, I don’t see Nezuko and Tanjiro separating anytime soon…

The Kasugai crow is what happens when you can’t turn off your Google Assistant…or GPS…or Siri.

If Tanjiro knows the name of his crow, how do the crows get their names? Do their trainers (is that the right term for a crow breeder in this case…?) give them names?

OPM S2 Ep 9 (Ep 21)

LOL, that one shot of the ants…JC Staff really don’t care about this series, do they…?

I kinda forgot about Genos after a bit more than a week…sorry, I was watching other anime in between. (More than usual, at least. I started playing Chibi Tamago – a forum game for AniList where you collect badges for watching anime - that’s why.)

Did he (Pri-Pri Prisoner)…store his phone in his butt…?

[whisperandmantra]

My Favourite Shows of 2018

Happy New Year! It was a good year for comedy anime I thought and there were quite a few good shows. Thanks for following and here’s to another good year of anime. Next year’s shows look pretty dope. Please enjoy my list of favourite shows and maybe you’ll discover something new to watch!

Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Arc

Wow, so many years after the original Cardcaptors ended they bring out a sequel. It brought me back to the old show in the first scene. It was just as fun and cute as I remember. Sakura’s outfits were awesome as usual as well. However, just like the original show it kind of ended without a proper conclusion and that makes me want more. Will we get more? Who knows.

Hinamatsuri

Oh one of the first comedies that I watched this year and it was pretty funny. It also had a lot of emotional feel-good moments which I enjoyed. Give it a shot if you like slice of life comedies. The facial expressions are also top tier. Ha ha! 

Hisone to Masotan

What a cute show! The voice acting was really great and the animation style was unique and different from most shows that season. This show tells the story of cute girls flying dragon fighter jets for the JSDF in a top secret program. The girls have to grow their bonds with each other and their dragons if they hope to be able to complete their missions. It’s really cute and I love the catchy ED! It’s got an old-school show feel to it.

Mahou Shoujo Ore

Ha ha! Another comedy show. Magical boys? Count me in. Lol This show is so absurd and self-aware it’s hilarious. Take two aspiring idols who “enter a contract” with a fairy mafia and become magical boys. But I guess the twist is that they are female idols who transform into magical boys. Shenanigans ensue.

Asobi Asobase

OMG I think this show was the funniest one this year. Three girls make a club at school whose whole purpose is to do nothing. The voice acting and facial expressions of the characters is top notch. I was actually laughing so hard while watching this show, it’s so ridiculous and over the top. 

Chiyo-chan no Tsuugakuro (Chio's School Road)

Another AMAZING and absurd comedy. I also laughed out loud so much while watching this show. It’s just a serious of random events that happen to this girl and some of her friends on the way to school. The one thing I like about this show is that it doesn’t take place in a classroom. It’s a little bit refreshing from comedies that primarily take place in the classroom.

Hataraku Saibou (Cells at Work)

This was an imaginative show that takes place inside the human body. Following a red blood cell on her duty to deliver oxygen to the body, she encounters various cells and germs on her daily work. Surprisingly informative for an anime on the human body.

Banana Fish

An action mafia show that really surprised me with how interesting it got. Based off an older manga they adopted a similar old-ish style feel but it still looks modern. Does that even make sense? This tells the story of a rent boy for the mafia who tries to get revenge on those who did him wrong. He meets a Japanese boy who he befriends and protects. It’s got some pretty good animation as well and good story arcs that tell a pretty succinct story.

Golden Kamuy

This is a nice show with quite a bit of humour despite it’s action tag. This show is about an ex-soldier who starts to search for some treasure and ends up teaming up with a girl from a mountain village. They work together to seek out the map to the treasure and have to fight some pretty scary guys along the way. It has good action scenes and started to get really exciting once it ramped up.

[optimisticcritique]

Gotham 4x14 - Review 

Is this technically a review? Sometimes I wonder if I should call this “highlights” or “reactions” instead but I do share opinions and recap the ending so...kind of a review? I’ll stick with review I suppose. 

Wait, why are you burning the mask? Did the hallucination mean nothing to you?!

I know it is supposed to be a bit revolting but the way that guy is eating that pickle makes me want one.

You know, if you had chewed quietly with your mouth closed, she might have let you live. #tablemannerscansavelives

"It's all about family" says the person that hired people to murder her father... 

"Never said it was a happy family" relatable, unfortunately.

I don't blame Alfred for refusing. Bruce, you suck at apologies. Try actually saying the word “sorry” next time. 

At least Alfred is giving him the chance to show him that he changed. 

I was wondering why Ed hasn’t tried any pills by now. Dude, that cannot be safe. I hope you know what you are taking.

"cuckoo pills" lol just the way he says it.

"Who's it from?" That smug expression as he pretends to be oblivious. 

Whoa whoa whoa *pauses to look at the letter and holds up giant magnifying glass* If there is a clue in here... I have no idea what it is. That being said, this letter of apology is amazing. I hope Oswald actually means it and doesn’t say “haha just kidding. I only sent it so you would find the clue and break me out” later.

"I think that's a nice letter" Okay, this made me laugh too much. I love you, you conniving piece of-wow, now I can’t get the riddler playing match maker out of my head. 

The Riddler:  "It's a nice letter...you should hear him out...possibly rescue him since you will already be there...cause some murder together while you are at it....maybe grab some dinner afterward...." 

I just picture him pushing even further, “Remember the good times you shared? Nursing him back to health, murdering mister Leonard, being his chief of staff, hallucinating him singing to you seductively...” “I was not-those were-UGH”

"I'm never going to forgive him" never say never Ed. You are destined villain soul mates apparently.

 "What has eyes but can't see?"  I think you are having way too much fun. Also, I don't know the exact answer but I am betting it has to do with not seeing the bigger picture with the letter or the origami penguin message.

Jim, you totally interrupted Lucius. He was on a role! I know you are worried about your boyfriend Harvey being dead with plants bursting from his body but let's look at priorities here. Harvey has decent sized plot armor and Foxy probably won't get much screen time in this episode, let him finish a sentence.       

"Too late" "No, we're not" He knows him so well. He just looks dead. It's how he sleeps. 

Speaking of which, look at how sprawled he is on that couch....when there is a bed inches away from him. Like, honestly, I know he is probably hung over/drunk but that's not a bad way to sleep. 

Harvey: *sees a squad of police that burst into the apartment* *thinks about what is most important* "Hey, someone's paying for that door!" 

"You can't put this on me!" "I'm not putting it on you!" Oh, grade A bickering right there... 

I guess you aren't a real villain until you end up on TV. How do the villains end up with this kind of connection? 

"...once I find my pants" At least you noticed before you started walking down the street. That's progress. 

The Narrows stealth squad is on the case!

"A complete set of encyclopedias...minus the T" *silence* "plus twenty bucks"  *cheers and runs out* 

Lol Ed. Yeah, don't blame them. Let's face it though, the main reason they weren't excited was because the T was gone. If it isn't complete, what is the point? 

I have so many thoughts from this short scene. 

First...what happened to the T? Was it stolen? Who stole it? Why did they want it?  

Second... Pretty certain the reason he chose encyclopedias was because that is what HE loved and wanted as a kid. That was little Eddie's dream right there. Ugh give us more on Ed’s childhood already!

Third... Ed does well with kids! I want an Ed/Martin scene. I want him to give him encyclopedias, teach him riddles, play video games together, etc. as Oswald wears matching outfits with Martin and teaches Martin how to murder. Give it to me, Gotham!

"You couldn't even stop her from hypnotizing your own cops" fair point. Selina would have better luck. 

Yes! I am so happy to see Selina say she is her friend. I love when the show focuses on these relationships and does not forget them.

Should have noticed something was fishy when Harvey actually did call, saying he got a lead. You know he would try to do this on his own.

Hit him Jim! Hit him like you did Lucius! ...Does Harvey have any hidden fighting/defense skills that we know nothing about too? 

"Cognitive impairment. Definite check. Though, to be fair, how would you know?" The super extra hand gestures are always a delight. 

Scenes like these make me laugh more than it should. It's like Ed doesn't need anyone else to make fun of him or insult his intelligence. He already has this covered....actually... this is also quite sad. As it is basically him belittling and making fun of himself...wow, I just totally ruined the moment for myself. 

"The only way to get rid of me is to kill yourself" Oh no...no...I thought this might come up as a possibility but I just assumed the show wouldn't go down this way. Such angst...I mean, I like the angst and it makes sense but...it is so real. 

I am kind of surprised that the "you shot my father" revenge decided to come into play now and not sooner. I guess she is more powerful and ruthless now but she had somewhat perfume power last season. 

"I'm sure whatever happened was your fault" Well, she isn't wrong.   

"So technically, your ex has been sleeping with your dead husband's mafia sister" lol well, when you put it like that, Ed... And this is what people who are not watching the show are missing. 

Imagine if Ed actually did tell Lee what has been happening, his issues and all. Would it make things better? Worse? He should really talk to someone about his problems before going suicidal.

I never noticed how great Harvey's hair was...he wears the hat so much that I forget he has hair under there, let alone how long it is.

"I've only got myself to blame" ...okay, Jim. This is the part where you say, "No, don't blame yourself. I screwed up too." Harvey did make some bad choices but you shouldn't let him take ALL the blame, even if you think it is true.  

"He's been everything to me...a teacher, a protector, he's been a father to me" That’s pretty ambiguous. Who are you talking about? Alfred? Jim? Your pet bird? I mean, he said he hoped he would give him another chance but didn't actually name names...

Crowd: "Yeah...but what about the foundation? What does this man taking care of you have to do with money? Where did the money go?"

 Come on, Bruce! Don't give up so easily. You are supposed to be more stubborn than this. 

This got dark fast. I know he won't kill himself but man...

He's going to try to get him to go to arkham so he can meet Ozzie, isn't he?  

Those flowers are rather lovely...although, I would prefer ones that didn't cause mass murder as they grow within the bodies of those that breath them, thanks. 

Yeah, you get them, Bruce! "This is who you are." Yes, thank you Alfred. Embrace it, Bruce. Embrace it! Honestly, it wasn’t that long ago when Alfred told him not to do stuff like this. Time really flies. 

Geez Jim, why can’t you be more careful when you shoot guns. 

If only he knew who he was chasing. Maybe he would use his time so much better if he was looking for Ivy instead. 

Get used to the disappearing, Jim.

It seems Bruce isn't the only one that will wait and creep in the darkness to get a drop on you. 

"Well, Selina Kyle turns out to be the hero" "I'm no hero" Maybe not but you are not as bad when compared to most criminals in the city. 

"I wasn't running. I was getting this. "  Thinking with her smarts there.

Selina, you are doing great. This is the stuff I love to see. 

Well, at least she got through to her enough to not murder her or turn her into a human plant incubator. Progress. 

Imagine if Ed was there with Lee. Wonder if they would have tried to shoot him dead too... 

What is with Gotham and their hand fetish?

You know, I have seen hands get cut off and stabbed every which way in this show but the hammer...the hammer is the one that gave me sympathy pains and had me cringing. Poor Lee, it sounded painful. 

Oh, Sofia, you are going to wish you didn't do that. You would have been better off if you had Lee as an ally. 

"Arkham doesn't get many volunteers" Can't imagine why. 

"You do know who I am, right?" It's like a famous person trying to get into a party. Except, I don't think this is a party Ed would want to get into. 

Wow, Oswald with his tears of happiness. He looks so proud and excited that his love letter was answered. 

Why does Oswald look totally insane in this scene? How long ago did he send the letter? I mean, he was miserable but he wasn’t quite like this.

Oswald: *is all excited, proud, and emotional* “He read my letter!”  This seems like the same reaction someone would have if a famous person liked or responded to their tweet/email/fanart. 

“I’m not talking to you Ed” Dang, first Ed was the third wheel in 4x12 with Lee/Jim and now here he is again with Oswald/Riddler. 

"I'm talking to him..." wait...so he knew about the riddler being...okay, I admit, I did not see this coming. At all. 

Ed looking back like, "You can see him too?" Honestly, he seems like he assumed Oswald knew nothing about what was going on so I can see why he might think that. Imagine how weird would it be if Oswald could see him. Like, it is not plausible but it would blow fans minds. 

"I see the other you" Hmm...just last episode you said I know you and now this. I feel like this needs to be added to an analysis somewhere.

The way Oswald lets go... he's trying not to be too rough. He has made similar movements with Ed before.

Earned it? Through what? Solving your clues and willing to break you out? Even when Oswald has to say the name he still has to be this way, giving an excuse like that. 

I really want to know how much Oswald actually understands. I don’t think he realizes how serious this is for Ed but it is all very unclear on what he does know. Great...this is going to bother me for at least a week now. 

"Please....don't...." Well, this makes me sad. I don't know how to feel about this. I hate seeing ed like this. 

"I need you....” *whispers* "riddler" Wow, okay. Thanks for this. That was more tender and sexual than intended. 

The Riddler needed to be Oswald-approved with his kink before he could show up.

Then caressing his hand against his cheek...totally a normal thing to do with an ex-best friend and co-conspirator. This scene is confusing my emotions. 

Ooh those laughs. They look so happy. The Riddler is coming! ...and with the Penguin! Nygmobbleplot begins. 

This Alfred and Bruce scene is so touching.  

"I'm home" yes, you are <3 Let's face it, the mansion is better than any place you were living any way. Cheaper, better food, more space, less getting framed for murder... 

You better specify when you knew that she hired the Pyg, Jim. Don't want him to think you knew too early. 

You decided to take her down now? It really should have been when you found out that she murdered her father but better late than never I guess. 

I am curious how long Sofia will last. Granted, she has quite a few people on her side...but she also has many enemies. I can't see it ending well. Better book a vacation and get out while you still can, girl.  

Over all: I enjoyed the episode a lot. It did bring some confusion on the Ed situation but I enjoyed it nonetheless. It is just kind of sad that it seems Ed/Riddler still is not “whole” yet. That being said, I need to see more before I make too many assumptions. I am interested in where it goes and excited to see what happen next. I am also happy to see Bruce changing his ways once again and seeing reunions all around. This should be fun now that everyone is back together again. Bruce and Alfred make up, Bruce accepts that he ready to save people again. Ivy and Selina have a confrontation where Selina tries to appeal to her friend, Ivy still flees. Harvey and Jim make up, plan to take down Sofia as Jim shares the truth with Harvey. Sofia crushes Lee’s hand that sends her to the hospital, essentially takes the Narrows more under her control. Ed deals with his riddler issues and ends up visiting arkham. The riddler has returned, teams up with Penguin, and is going to break him out of arkham.   

Previous review: 4x13   Next: 4x15

[sinrau]

Last night, the world watched America turn into North Korea. Or at least Washington, DC. By way of the absurd, comical, jaw-dropping spectacle that Trump’s made of the RNC.

If Monty Python to wanted to write a parody of textbook authoritarianism, they couldn’t do any better. What cliched, farcical elements of authoritarianism were there, on loud, violent display?

Not just the general atmosphere of gloating and sneering, rage and contempt. Not even the fact that the White House was pimped for political gain. Nor even the build-up speeches from functionaries, like the Secretary of State, that consisted of…nothing whatsoever but veneration and prostration to the immaculate perfection of Dear Leader.

There was the fact that much of the night consisted of…well…Trumps. Authoritarianism is a family business — Big Daddy builds a dynasty, and his kids pick up the mantle. That was the message of Eric and Tiffany Trump giving equally bizarre speeches. Imagine for a moment if Hunter Biden or Malia Obama gave a speech at the DNC. The nation’s pundits would be in an uproar. But Eric Trump? Apparently that’s OK, because we’ve all been worn down by Trump’s transgressions by now. What on earth do Eric and Tiffany Trump have to say about…anything? What do they know about…anything? Yet there they were. Why? Let me make the import of this moment clear.

The authoritarian is now grooming his kids to take over the family business,* which is dictatorship , the abuse of power, fascism.* That is a very, very bad sign. It is a thing that happens when democracies are about to break and die. It tells us the authoritarian is confident he can break the back of a society. That he doesn’t care at all anymore who knows he intends to do it. It is not to be taken lightly. It is as massive, flagrant, loud abuse of power — and warning sign — there can be. It’s not just a comical moment, though it’s usually funny to watch a dictator’s idiot kids on podiums. It means that authoritarianism is growing in scale, scope, reach, confidence, power, gravity, aspiration, developing a long game, capable of reaching across generations, emboldened to keep a stranglehold on democracy.

Then there was Melania’s even more bizarre speech. Styled in a military jacket — designer authoritarian-chic — Melania detailed how Trump was just a man fighting impossible odds, doing his best, heroically, for a troubled nation. He was strong and wise. He was always there when you needed him. And thanks to him, America was doing better than it ever had before. And by the way, if you’d lost someone to Covid, Melania extended you her warmest sympathies.

Wait, what? 170,000 — no, wait, 180,000 dead now — and counting. If my spouse had been responsible for…mass death…you know what? I’d probably get a divorce. Even if — no, especially if — they were the head of state. Let me make the meaning of this moment, too, crystal clear.

Melania was there to gaslight an entire nation. Think about it this way. Mafias need good guys and bad guys. The bad guy threatens to break your legs. The good guys pals around with you, acts like your friend, and pretends nobody’s threatened to break your legs. What, us? We’re Goodfellas!

That was Melania’s job. To gaslight an entire nation. Into believing the fictional alternate reality the Trumpists are trying to construct, and always have. Yesterday, that fictional alternate reality was: hated minorities like Latinos are responsible for all of America’s problems, they’re the reason you, the “real” American, don’t have healthcare, a job, money in the bank, dignity, self-worth, purpose and so forth — not your own stupid, self-destructive choices at the voting booth for the last four decades or so. Today, that fictional alternate reality is: Trump’s a hero! He rescued the economy! And Covid would be so much worse if he hadn’t intervened! He’s perfect!

Wait, what? 180,000 dead and counting, 30 million unemployed, 50 million facing eviction, a massive wave of bankruptcies , an economy teetering into depression , the worst public health crisis ** since…forever. That’s reality.Trump is the worst President there’s ever been, and that’s not a political statement — it’s an** objective empirical reality .

That disjuncture between what reality is and what the authoritarians need it to be is precisely why Melania gave that speech. Someone needs to gaslight the country, so that it doesn’t believe — or at least parts of it don’t believe, and I’ll come to that — in empirical reality. If people comfortably believed in reality, authoritarianism would never win, and yet instead it makes up most of human history. Hence, the absurd divergences — “Trump rescued the economy, he fixed Covid, etc”, while the bodies pile up by the hundreds of thousands, and people go broke by the millions. Who better than Melania to do it?

(After all, she’s not really a Trump, is she? The impression is that she’s somehow innocent of the abuses of power and hate and brutality of the “real” Trumps, because she’s just some kind of hapless immigrant, a dumb model, a powerless prisoner, a damsel in distress. But do you really gaslight an entire country if you…just want out? )

You might well ask something like “OK, Umair, Melania’s job was to gaslight a country, sure. But who on earth is dumb enough to buy this guff? Come on! LOL.” The answer to that, sadly, funnily, idiotically, would be…all of America’s intellectual class. I woke up, as you did, to op-ed after op-ed gushing over what a wonderful job Melania had done. How warm and fuzzy she’d been. How she’d connected with people, and displayed noble human qualities. How empathetic and kind and gentle and sweet she was. So brave! So strong. So courageous. Love you, Melania!

Wait, what?

“ She rounds out his rough edges.” She’s literally on a podium conditioning Americans to get used to mass death, depression, brutality, incompetence, corruption, stupidity, hate, lies —presenting a “ softer side ” to authoritarianism. Making it “ palatable.” And the American pundit celebrates it because it’s said with a winsome smile, not realizing that that was the point. Because she managed to acknowledge the pandemic that the RNC had managed to ignore until that point. To sympathize with families. The bar is so low, my friends. The bar is in hell. The answer to the question: “who on earth is dumb enough to believe in the gaslighting of America, at the point of literal mass death?” is, sadly, too many in a position of mainstream intellectual and cultural power in America.

That’s a big problem. Because while you might say to yourself, “Phew, I’m glad I don’t read the dumb NYT op-ed page anymore!” the question is: do you really get the danger American democracy’s in ? As in, really get it?

Let me ask that another way, with a much more visceral question.

If I was to say to you that America’s one step away from having classic features of authoritarian societies like secret polices and death squads, would you believe me? Probably not. “Death squads!” you chuckle to yourself. “Is this guy for real? LOL.”

So I invite you to take a look at Kenosha, Wisconsin. Where the police apparently shot yet another unarmed black man…in the back…for no reason whatsoever…multiple times. And now armed “ white supremacist militias ” are roaming the streets beating and maybe shooting people at will.

Those, my friends, are one step away from death squads.

Yes, really. And secret polices? Don’t forget who was beating moms and disappearing people in Portland just a few short weeks ago.

So let me ask you again. Do you really understand the danger America’s in?

My guess is that you don’t. That’s OK. You probably don’t have experience with authoritarianism. You’ve never experienced it, lived through it, seen its horrors up close and personal, suffered its abuses and depredations.

Let us survivors of authoritarianism warn you. This is not a drill. It’s not a game. It is the real thing.

When a spectacular event like the RNC takes place, it is a powerful signal. When kids are groomed for power, when spouses are rolled out to gaslight a country, when the house of government is used for political theatre — all that is telling you something. This is the real deal. It is authoritarian fascism of the absolute and lethal kind. It’s funny, until it’s deadly. Its objective is to murder democracy. To kill off its institutions — the rule of law, constitutions, rights, freedoms — and replace them with fascist-authoritarian ones, like secret polices, cronies, death squads, show trials, mock democracy, power held for life, and dynastically passed on to kids.

This is 100% real.

Now let me come back to you. If you’re the sane and thoughtful American, you’re probably equal parts amused and horrified by this spectacle. That’s OK, too. But don’t forget. You’re not the target. They don’t care if you’re laughing at them, the authoritarians. Why not?

The target is the minority of committed fanatics it takes to bring down a society. It’s never — never — taken a majority, from Stalinist Russia, to Nazi Germany, to Islam now. The goal is to drive them into a frenzy, a mania. By sending them all the signals above. “Wow, one of us can hold power forever,” thinks the Trumpist, watching the little Trumps give their bizarre speeches. Their hearts pound in anticipation. “Things really are getting better!! What a great guy Trump is!” thinks the Trumpist, watching Melania gaslight a nation. They grin in triumph.

The point is to drive the fanatical minority to a frenzy. So that they vote like never before.

Meanwhile, you? The sane American? The bad news is that you don’t vote. Maybe not you, specifically, but you, generally. America has the lowest voter participation rate in the rich world, by a very long way. Just above 50%. That’s barely a democracy at all, if you think about it. And mostly, it’s sane, thoughtful Americans who don’t vote — the fanatics and extremists on the right do. That’s how they’ve captured society’s political institutions wholesale, all the way to the White House.

The authoritarian personality grasps all of this intuitively. They don’t need pollsters to tell them, usually. They just know. That the good people don’t vote. That the silent majority stays silent. And so all they have to do is goad and whip their base into a manic, hysterical state, and then use it to capture power forever. If you think I’m kidding, go ahead and take a look at Iran, Russia, North Korea.

Let me distill the point I’m trying to make. Authoritarianism means “most of us didn’t want this. ” That’s the part Americans still don’t get, I think. They seem to imagine, too many of them, that simply laughing at the bad guys is going to defeat them. It’s not.

This is how authoritarian collapses happen. All this. Exactly. An aspiring tyrant who’s absued power for years jokes about never leaving office. He builds a dynasty in plain sight. His wife gaslights the nation. The intellectuals have never read a history book — and they appear to have no clue, and normalize all this as just another legitimate kind of politics, through op-eds that glorify it all. But fascism is not legitimate, not normal. It’s deeply abnormal.

Meanwhile, the nascent institutions of real violence begin to emerge. Today’s paramilitaries are tomorrow’s death squads. Today’s phalanx of mysterious men without badges are tomorrow’s secret police. Today’s vigilante mobs are tomorrow’s SS’s, and today’s true believers are tomorrow’s Gestapos. Today’s “lock her up!” is tomorrow’s show trial. Today’s “enemies of the people!” is tomorrow’s opponents, rivals, dissidents thrown in camps — what did you think those camps were for? All of that is what’s on the cards.

Let us survivors of authoritarianism warn you. This is how it happens. Exactly how it happens. From the aspiring tyrant announcing his intention to stay in power, to the dynastic politics, to the intellectual class normalizing it all, to the still silent majority — America deviates not one inch from the time-tested textbook of how societies collapse. Not one inch.

That brings me to the question Americans always have, to which the answer is so eminently obvious. “But what should we do?” Listen. You have one — just one — barely working institution left. An election.

You know what to do. You know what you should be planning to do right now, with friends, holding each other to account, encouraging others to do, building networks for, igniting, sparking.

You have to vote.

Like never before.

Like your life depends on it.

It does.

Umair

August 2020

The Trumps are Gaslighting a Collapsing America

[johngarrisonmusic]

Tour Diary Part 2

Arrive at JFK fully expecting a thorough, Trump era inspection and interrogation. However, I breeze through immigration and even have a nice conversation with Errol, my inspector. Although his authority muscle was flexed a little when questioned what music I was playing. “I play bass for James Blunt” I reply. “Who?” he says “That’s Showbiz” I quip……..!!!! An icy stare falls onto the once happy face of Errol. “I only like rap” are his final words as he stamps my passport and shouts “Next”

June 26

3 hours sleep. 4am lobby call. It’s Good Morning America live performance today of “OK”, Blunt’s new single here in the States. This track is quite personal for me as they are releasing a version of the track that I remixed along with James, as the main version to radio here in the States.  You need to have many strings to the bow to make a living in music these days. We’re all in a daze as we check our hire gear. God knows what time our crew arrived but all the gear is set up and ready to go.  Writing this a few days later and I can’t remember much about the performance but the label and management all seemed happy. I think. Or maybe I dreamt that…!!!

Jet lag and the general buzz of being in New York means an attempted snooze doesn’t happen. So Pembers (keys), Kristoff (drums) and I go for a power walk around Central Park. Gotta take the opportunities to stay in shape on the road. Something I’ve learned over the years. And failed at mostly..!!! Central Park is such a wonderful place.  It never fails to impress. A perfect way to pass a few hours off.  Days like this I feel very privileged to be doing what I do.

We then head off to another TV studio to perform on the Seth Myers Show. The studio is bloody freezing. It’s always the way with US TV shows. God knows why. There must be a reason. No idea what that is though. But it’s full jacket wearing performance for this show.  Which is odd as it’s 27oC outside.   A planned big night out in NYC is thwarted by jetlag that eventually kicks in too hard to ignore. Early night for us boring folk. How very un rock n roll…!!!

June 27

5am wake up. Not for any particular reason. Just jetlag. But that’s ok in NYC. I go out and wander the streets for 4 hours interspersed with coffee breaks. I still love this city. I lived here for 2 years back in 2006/7. It still feels like home. There’s an energy that emanates through the floor here. You can feel it coming out the walls of the buildings and skyscrapers. Everyone is here for a reason. There is a focus here that brings out the creative side in everyone who has one. I still love it and today I soak it up.

We are performing on Kelly and Ryan TV show today.  Another freezing studio. A trailer filled with farmyard animals is parked right outside our dressing room. The odd ‘Moooo” and Baaahaaaa” interrupting James’ vocal warm up are highly amusing breaks to the tedious boredom of TV world. Still no idea why they were there as they never appeared on the show…!! Slightly gutted that the very cute Kelly is on holiday.  It’s always a treat for the eyes playing on her show.

The boredom is abruptly shattered when we are told we have to lose 30 seconds of the track. We have already soundchecked so it’s a strategic edit arranged, board meeting style, around the table with no way of checking. Times like this we are thankful we are a fully live band with no backing track. We visually cue the changes live on air while being broadcast to millions. It’s times like this you know you are alive. It works. No time to stress or panic. We nail it. 3 mins dead. Everyone is happy. And we are done for the day. With nothing but a fight tomorrow, there is a palpable air of excitement amongst the band.

We head downtown to my favourite Italian restaurant in NYC called Emilio’s Ballato. It’s an old school mafia style Italian that I was introduced to when I lived here. Emilio is a terrifying, yet lovable character who sits at the door. Always does. Has done for decades. You only have to imagine a mafia style Italian restaurant owner with a gravelly voice who has to occasionally pop out to “take care of business” to know what he looks like. The mental picture you have now……. That’s Emilio.   The first time I came here, Sting was sat at the first table with Jay Z and Rhianna. It’s that kinda place. Emilio Jnr takes us to a table and explains the menu in his “baddabing” way.  It’s so cliché one or 2 of our party suspect it’s all a show. But I know for a fact it is not. The family back in Sicily send over the ingredients twice a week. All 3 of Emilio’s sons work at the place. It’s the real deal. And it’s awesome.

Tonight we are all on the guest list of the Imelda May gig at Webster Hall. Pembers, our keyboard player, is Imelda’s player too. He depped out the last 2 Imelda gigs as they clashed with the Blunt tour.  But coincidence means we are all here in NYC. The band are amazing and Imelda’s voice soars in this place. A great old school sweaty gig. We hang out with the band at an Irish bar around the corner after the show. God knows what time we finished but it was a long hazy walk back to the hotel. 

Goodbye NYC 

June 28

Flight to Kansas today. We arrive to find they have not sent the mini bus that we asked for, but a car….!!! For 12 of us. So we squeeze in 3 cars with gear and bags on our laps. It’s not all glamour…!! 

June 29 It’s the first day of our Ed Sheeran support today. Kansas City the first show. Still  jetlagged. I’m up and wide awake at 5am. I decide to check out Kansas. I set off on a head clearing 90 minute walk. In the space of a few minutes, the sky turns apocalyptic black and I’m suddenly in the middle of an almighty downpour and a violent thunder storm.  Flash floods come hurtling down the street. It’s actually pretty scary. But awesome too. Mother nature flexing her muscle and reminding us how insignificant we all are. Trash cans hurtling down the street. I run back to the hotel and watch the storm from the safety of my hotel window. 

A post shared by JohnnyVic (@satellites_johnnyvic) on Jun 29, 2017 at 5:38am PDT

The tour bus pulls up outside our hotel. Always a hugely exciting moment. There’s something about American tour buses. It’s probably subconsciously linked to the childhood dream of touring the States that most musicians had at some point. But also just how cool the busses look. This is home for the next 2 months.

We get to the venue.  The Sprint Arena. Sold Out 16,000. We meet Ed and all the crew. They are all super nice and friendly which is a welcome relief. It’s not always the case. The support act can occasionally be treated as a lesser entity. But not here. I think the fact James is such a big name in his own right helps. And the fact James and Ed are friends. Ed co-wrote some of the tracks on James’ new album and we even recorded one of them at Ed’s house earlier in the year.

We soundcheck the whole set. It feels a bit weird. Ed does his thing with just an acoustic guitar and a loop pedal. And rarely sound checks. So seeing all our full band gear on his stage feels a little intrusive on his minimal set. But again, Ed’s crew are all super helpful and asking if we need anything.  We iron out a few issues from the rehearsals and drop a song as we creep over our allocated 40 mins.

My Bass Set up.

James and I then play a quick 3 song set unamplified on acoustic guitars for 25 competition winners. We haven’t worked out the songs before on acoustics so it’s very much on the fly. But they all seem thrilled.

Ed pops in to wish us luck as we all do our vocal warm ups. We go on.

It’s a younger crowd than we are used to. It’s quite clear pretty early on that a few of them have no idea who James is. I guess it is 12 years since his debut album was no.1 here in the States. But rather sweetly, you can see a lot of the crowd are holding their phones with the lyrics on and are attempting to sing along. So cute.

James announces “most of you were probably conceived to this song” as he strikes up the opening chords to the world wide smash that is “You’re Beautiful”. You can see the penny drop in the audience. And in a scene reminiscent of an 80’s style cheesy high school movie, the crowd slowly all get to their feet and whoop, with fists in the air as they all realise ‘it’s that guy’. It’s an amazing moment. And from that point on it’s an amazing show. James gets all the 16,000 to their feet as he piano surfs during the outro of our set.

We all come off and have a post gig huddle. It’s a success. There’s always a slight element of doubt before a support gig. But those doubts are put to bed tonight. Ed pops in before his set and pours us all a mandatory Tequila.

Ed hits the stage to an ear splitting shrill of 16,000 very excited people. It’s an amazing spectacle. Just a man and a guitar with a loop pedal. He is a master of his craft. Everyone is on their feet. From the hardcore fans at the front to the reluctant parents on the very back row, Ed has them all in the palm of his hand. With just the occasional look down at his loop pedal multi track set up, the accompaniments he makes on the fly with his voice and beating the guitar body for percussion, it’s seamless. And mighty impressive.

[thedeaditeslayer]

TDS Exclusive: Interview with Evil Dead 2 actor Danny Hicks

Below is a transcribed interview done over an internet call with actor Danny Hicks. After starting in theater, Danny started his film career with Evil Dead 2 and went on to star in other Michigan Mafia flicks such as Intruder, Darkman, Spiderman 2, and My Name is Bruce.

A more recent headshot of Danny Hicks (source)

Q: First off, can you tell us what got you into acting and how you got into the profession?

A: Yes I can. It’s a little embarrassing but I’ll tell you anyway since I’m pretty hard to embarrass. Actually I was a heavy equipment operator in the Detroit area and a friend of mine invited me to take part in a little tiny performance on stage in a place called the Farmington Player’s Barn. It wasn’t even a real play. It was called The Still Alarm and I played a British fireman. I think that I had two lines. After the play was over this very attractive woman came up to me and said you know what? I run the YMCA down the street here and we have a beautiful hot tub. What do you say we get naked and get in the hot tub? And I thought you know I can get laid doing this stuff! And that’s how I became an actor. I got on stage that night and I didn’t really get off the stage again for five years.

Q: How did you hear about the audition for Jake in Evil Dead 2?

A: Even though we were all from the Detroit area I’d never met Bruce or Sam or any of those guys. I’ve met Ted Raimi before but I didn’t know much about him. I did cast him in a play one time but that was a couple of years before the audition for Jake. My agent called me one day and said that they’re shooting this movie; a bunch of guys from Detroit, and she gave me the character description which was “Scuzzbucket”. Well I said well I know that I can do scuzzbucket. That might be fun so I got up that morning and opened the hood of my car and combed my hair with grease and smeared gravel all over my face and just got as ugly as I could. Then when I got in front of the camera for the audition I said “Scuzzbucket, how scuzzy do you want this guy” Sam Raimi says as scuzzy as you can make him. So I pulled out my partial plate which made me look incredibly stupid and scuzzy and then said “You want him this scuzzy?” Sam then said “Oh my god. An actor without an ego. I love it!” That’s how I became Jake. 

Q: Did you feel excited or nervous after you got the part?

A: It was my first feature film though I’ve been on stage for about five years and I’ve done a ton of television commercials and hundreds upon hundreds of industrial films but I’ve never done a feature film before. So I was really excited about it. And then of course they postponed it for three months which made me think that maybe it wasn’t going to happen. But actually it was very good for me because it allowed me to go back on stage and play the role of George in Of Mice and Men. George is one of the best characters in American literature so I was glad that I got to do that role. It was very challenging. I had a whole week to get ready for it. It almost killed me but it was worth it. When I was finished with that, they were ready to start shooting Evil Dead 2. So I really didn’t have enough time to get nervous about it. Excited, yes. Especially after they said that they were going to start the shoot now. Then I really started to get excited. 

Danny Hicks as George in "Of Mice and Men" The Attic Theater, Detroit. 1986. (source)

Q: Supposedly Sam Raimi had the hardest time with casting Jake and was going to do the role if he couldn’t find someone to his liking to do the part. How do you think the movie would have fared if Sam ultimately played Jake instead of you?

A: Well Sam Raimi is probably the best director in the world right now or at least in my opinion. He’s a decent actor. I worked with him as an actor. He was in Intruder with me and I got to kill him which was fun. I got to kill Ted too. I got to kill most of the Raimi family which was enjoyable. I don’t know. That’s a good question. I’m sure that he would have pulled it off but I can’t really imagine the film without me as Jake. It’s pretty hard to do. I think that he would have done a decent job. I don’t know if the movie would have been exactly the same but who knows it might have even been better. 

Q: How much input did you have in your character of Jake in Evil Dead 2?

A: It really didn’t need much of my input however Sam is a great director to work with because after he gets what he wants he’ll let you do anything you want. Well at least back in the day back in that time frame. He would let me especially have a take off of my own and just do it anyway I wanted to. To tell the truth with you I don’t know if any of those takes actually ended up in the movie but they might have. I know one particular instance after Ash cuts up Evil Ed with the ax and he’s all over the floor I asked Sam if I could deliver a line. He said, yeah go ahead. I’ve been trying to get this line into movies forever and somehow or another, it’s always been cut out. The line was “I’ve been to three world’s fairs and placed second in a donkey f**king contest and I ain’t never seen nothing like this before!” And they cut it out. Can you believe that?

Q: How would you describe the difference of being a theater actor and being directed for a feature film such as Evil Dead 2? Was it difficult to adapt to the changes?

A: First of all let me answer the last part of that question. No I didn’t find it very difficult mainly because I’ve done so many industrial films and I knew how to work with the camera already. I knew what lenses were and how they affected me and my performance and so I pretty much knew all of that stuff. Though the second that I got on set of a feature film I said that this is what I want to do. I pretty much gave up theatrical acting after that. Not that I don’t miss it occasionally. But it’s an awful lot of hard work and the disciplines are completely different. When you go on stage to do a play you have to have this energy that’s burning bright that lasts for about two hours or usually a little less than two hours. If you try to keep that same attitude onto a feature film, you’re going to be dead after two days. It will literally kill you. The main difference if you have to learn how to turn that energy on and then off. When the camera is rolling, that is when you have to have that fire burning. When the camera is off you better sit down and have a Pepsi or a Coke or even a glass of water or whatever because if you don’t you’re just going to burn yourself out. As soon as I started to work on Evil Dead 2 that’s when I realized that is what I wanted to do with my career. 

Danny Hicks as Jake and Sam Raimi on the set of Evil Dead 2. (source)

Q: After Evil Dead 2 your next big role was for Intruder. How would you compare the severity of the Evil Dead 2 shoot to Intruder? Could you tell us more about the shoot?

A: Yeah there’s just about difficulties on any shoot I think. We didn’t necessarily have the hot weather like we did on Evil Dead 2 but we had the confines of the grocery store that had been abandoned. You couldn’t get near the dog food aisle without gagging. I mean the stench was just awful. We had some meat carcasses hanging up in the storage room and that were pretty ripe. Intruder was actually a pretty easy film for me. Scott had done an earlier version of this film and because I worked with him indirectly with Evil Dead 2, he kinda rewrote the script for me. He told me that I would be pretty good in this part and he kind of tweaked it so the character was more so written for me. So as a result it was a pretty easy shoot for me. I didn’t get along with some of the actors, well one actor in particular but I don’t know if I want to get in too deeply into that. But other than that it was just like any other feature film. It was very physically demanding. The hours were just horrible but the movie itself was pretty easy for me. 

Q: KNB EFX did an amazing job on Intruder with the death scenes. Supposedly crew members were getting queasy. How well did you fare? Have any memories from the shoot that you’d like to share?

A: Well personally I didn’t feel sick. I just thought that this was amazing! This looks so real! I remember that the band saw effect when it starts going through the teeth, the script supervisor who I think that her name was Pepper because we called her Dr. Pepper, well she was on top of a step ladder so she could look over the heads and shoulders of everybody and see what was going on. When they did that scene and the saw started vibrating in the teeth she actually passed out and fell off the ladder. She didn’t hurt herself seriously, thank God. It was just incredibly believable. They did a marvelous job. 

Interesting little side note, there’s a scene where I beat a guy with the head of Danny which was cut off even though you don’t see that and I’m smacking him in the back and beating him with this head. I couldn’t hold on to it because there was nothing to grab. The hair was just glued in there. So I remember talking to Robert Kurtzman and asking if he could drill some holes in this thing so I could hold it like a bowling ball. He really didn’t want to do that because it was actually a work of art but it was also a prop and I had to handle it. So he said yeah so he drilled some holes into the scalp area so I could put in my fingers just like a bowling ball. I then proceeded to beat the hell out of the other actor in the head with it and I’m sure it hurt.You know sometimes you got a suffer a little pain for your art.

Q: After working on both Evil Dead 2 and Intruder how would you compare Scott Spiegel as a director to Sam Raimi?

A: Well they’re both actually the fourth Stooge in The 3 Stooges. That was kinda similar. With Intruder, Scott just kinda let me go and do whatever I wanted to do as long as I stayed kinda close to the script. The script again was so well written that I didn’t have to change a thing. It was just perfect. He had his hands full with a lot of the other actors since they really hadn’t been in front of a camera before. So he just basically said that he was going to concentrate on those people and let me do what I do best. I still don’t know what I do best but that is what Scott wanted of me. He kinda just let me go to do my own thing so that was cool. That was actually one of the reasons why it was such an easy film for me in that regard because Scott trusted me. I think that he got what he wanted out of the film. 

Director Scott Spiegel and Danny Hicks goof around on the set of Intruder. (source)

Q: You went on to be a henchman in Darkman alongside the great Larry Drake who passed away last year. Could you tell us what it was like working on a larger budget and with Larry?

A: It was great. Larry Drake was one of the most incredibly gifted actors that I’ve ever worked with. In fact, I don’t know if you remember him from L.A. Law but he played a mentally challenged guy named Benny. He did it so well that people actually thought that he was retarded! I’m sorry that’s an antiquated term but they really thought that he was. The first time that I met him, I’d just come out of work and I was wearing a tie that was pink and black and purple and green and I walked into the makeup trailer and he was sitting there, looking at me through the mirror. I asked the woman who was doing his makeup what she thought about my tie. He answered of course. He said that it was boring, drab, blaaah just about like you. I just looked at him and said “You’re really are f**cking retarded aren’t ya?” That started my friendship with Larry Drake. He had a wonderful sense of humor and he was such an intelligent man. He was one of the smartest people that I had ever known which goes to prove what a gifted and talented actor he was to portray Benny so believably that people actually thought that he was mentally challenged. He was just a great guy. I lost touch with him for many years and then I saw him again at a convention. I believe it was in Indianapolis. It was just so good to see him again. We got to talk a little bit and reminisce which was really great because he died not too long after that. It was just a real shame, a real travesty. 

As for the big budget, it just didn’t seem to mean much to me. I mean it really didn’t affect my surroundings or anything like that. It was just work as usual. I can’t really remember now but I’m pretty sure that the catering service was better. One thing with a big budget film like this, everyday they died my hair red every morning and did my nails every morning. At the end of shooting they washed the dye out of my hair and took the nail polish off of my fingers. I guess that I did get pampered quite a bit on that film now that I’ve come to think about it. It was fun to be able to.....well for example we shot a large portion of that in a condemned area of downtown Los Angeles and they actually let us blow shit up. That was really cool. I wasn’t there for the helicopter scenes to which I’m sure that cost a fortune. It sure worked well in the movie. It was a lot of fun to work on a big budget film. 

Danny Hicks alongside Larry Drake in Sam Raimi’s Darkman. (source)

Q: My Name is Bruce had a small budget and was filmed on Bruce Campbell’s property. Can you share your experience in getting involved with the film and the shoot as well?

A: Timmy Quill and I went up there together and there was nothing in the script for us. So Bruce just says come up with just whatever you want to do and we’ll do that. We’re getting ready to shoot the first scene that Tim and I are in and this was another Evil Dead type circumstance because it was so hot in there. It was brutal. Timmy and I are sitting there and I had decided that the movie was about Bruce making fun of himself so I thought that it would be great if I make fun of myself. Tim Quill said yeah, I’ll make fun of the blacksmith in Army of Darkness. That’s what we did and we worked on our shtick. Bruce came up to us just before we started shooting and asked us what we’re going to do. We told him and he thought it was great and that it was a good idea but then stated that we’re also a gay couple. Roll cameras!! I tried so hard not to laugh. I was almost peeing myself especially right at the end when Tim leaned over and pinched my leg and goes “I wish that I could quit you”. If you look at me you can see that I’m trying to not laugh. I think that I did pee my pants a little. I was trying so hard not to laugh! That movie was a tremendous amount of fun to work on. 

TDS: That was one of my favorite parts of the movie! That and the fact that Ted played multiple roles and also died multiple times.

A: As for Ted Raimi, I don’t know how many times he died in that movie. He was so good. He got a lot of flack too from impersonating the Chinese character. I guess a lot of people took offense to that. Why that is, I don’t know! In fact I was with Ted a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about that and how much flack he got for playing that character. I really don’t know why. He did such a great job with all of the characters. Ted Raimi can do anything. That guy is such an incredibly good actor. He was hilarious. I don’t know why anyone would take offense to anything that he did. In fact my favorite scene in the movie is where he keeps on trying to disappear and he doesn’t and then finally after three or four times, he’s finally gone. I kept on saying look! He’s gone! It was so stupid but it was so funny. If you get the chance, watch the making of behind the scenes for My Name is Bruce. It’s called Heart of Dorkness. It’s directed by a friend of mine called Mike Kallio who also played the sleazy director in the movie. He did the making of Heart of Dorkness. It’s really entertaining so if you get a chance then watch that. 

Timothy Patrick Quill alongside Danny Hicks in their roles for My Name is Bruce.(source). 

Q: You seem to be paired with Timothy Patrick Quill often now in your newer features. Did co-starring with him in My Name is Bruce and Spiderman 2 open up the door to a new collaboration?

A: No I don’t think so. Although it’s funny that you mention that because we’re working on a feature film in September that shoots in Montana called Blood Hunter and Timmy and I are both in that. I don’t know if that really happened or not though. I’ve known Tim for awhile before we shot My Name is Bruce. I think that we worked on a couple of projects together but we get along really well together. We have a lot of fun working with one another and we’ve done some conventions together. I don’t know how that came about. Perhaps it did come about that way. I’m not really sure. 

Q: Are there any roles, projects, or missed opportunities that you’ve been involved with in the past that never came to fruition?

A: I’m sure that there’s a lot of them. I try to not dwell on things that didn’t happen. There is one I was originally supposed to play one of the leading roles in....help me out here. George Clooney ended up playing my role. 

TDS: Wow really?!

A: Yeah Quentin Tarantino was in it with George Clooney. It was one of Clooney’s first films. 

TDS: From Dusk til Dawn?!

A: Yes! From Dusk til Dawn. And the original cast was supposed to be myself, Robert Englund and Ted Raimi. They actually used our names to raise money in Europe. Then of course Robert Kurtzman didn’t direct it anymore and then one thing led to another and the next thing I know, George Clooney is playing my role and I honestly had to sit back and say ok well look. You have Danny Hicks here and you’ve got George Clooney here. You know what? I would have cast George Clooney too! That’s one of the things that I don’t know if I regretted it or angry about it but I’ve since then forgiven everybody. Actually I’ve forgiven them a long time ago. That was one and I really wish that we could have set Intruder up so it could have had a sequel. I would have really loved to play that role again. Of course that never happened. I kinda regret that one a bit. I think that it would have been fun to play that character again. 

George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino as the Gecko Brothers in From Dusk til Dawn. (source)

Q: Have you checked out Ash vs Evil Dead yet and if so what are your thoughts?

A: I have checked it out. I watched the entire first season and then I moved and didn’t get cable television anymore so I’m out of the loop there. I thought that it was fun. I thought that it was way over the top. It was more Army of Darkness than it was Evil Dead. But that’s OK since the fans seem to really enjoy it and they’re eating it up and I know that Bruce is having a good time. Well at least he was the last time that I was talking to him which has been a couple of months. I can’t imagine that they don’t beat him up too much in the third season so yeah I’m really happy for him. The fans seem to really be getting what they want. Although of course they’ll never stop clamoring for an Evil Dead 4. I mean that’s what they really want. Instead they got Ash vs. Evil Dead. I think it’s great. 

Q: The show shoots in New Zealand and Ellen Sandweiss has returned in the franchise last season as well as Ted Raimi. If you were offered a role in the show, would you do it?

A: I would be on a plane right now. I would be packing to get to the airport. I would love to do it. If you blinked then you probably missed it but they actually use a clip from Evil Dead 2. I think that it was the final episode of season one where they showed me for like a tenth of a second and then they showed my bones dressed in the overalls down in the cellar. I think that they used a little clip from Evil Dead 2 of me and then they went down to the basement and saw my bones. They paid me for it let’s just put it that way. They couldn’t use it without my permission. I don’t know if that would stop them from bringing me back as a character. I really don’t know but if they asked me then yeah. I would do it in a heartbeat. 

Jake’s deceased body in Evil Dead 2. (source)

Q:  What got you involved in the horror convention circuit and what is your opinion on it?

A: I got involved probably five years ago or maybe six years ago and the reason why I got involved is because Bruce Campbell called me from a convention that he was doing in New Jersey. He said “Danny, they’re selling your pictures at these conventions and they’re making money from it. If you don’t start doing these then I’m going to kick your ass!” So I looked into it and thought well it might be fun so I started doing them and I love them. I do maybe six or seven a year. I’ve been all over the United States. I’ve been to Germany twice and it’s all basically because of Evil Dead 2. I mean that is what I’m the most famous for although there are a lot of Intruder and a lot of Darkman fans but mostly Evil Dead 2. I’m very thankful for that. The best part about doing these conventions is how excited the fans are to just see you and say hello to you or get a picture taken with you. You know a hug or a kiss or whatever and I think that it’s just wonderful. Even though there’s money involved, I think that the best aspect of it is giving something back to the fans because without them none of us would have jobs. It’s really a good chance to give something back to the fans.

Q: Do you have any projects going on right now that you’d like to share with us?

A: There’s Blood Hunter. They’re shooting that now. It’s a low budget vampire film starring Mr. Timothy Quill and I have a little cameo in it. Well probably a little bit bigger than a cameo. That film is also set up a little for a sequel. I shouldn’t really be talking about it but I am anyway. What are they going to do? Fire me? We’re going to do that and I’m going to shoot my role sometime in September. After that I’m off to Sinister Creature Con in Sacramento, California and that’s in October. Also I might add, I’m happily retired though it doesn’t sound like it does it? I am. It’s kind of neat. In fact I love that as an actor being your job then it’s looking for a job. That’s what you do and you do it seven days a week, fourteen hours a day and I’m glad to not have to do that anymore. A lot of people send me scripts and I read them and it’s any good or if there’s something in it that I like then I take it from there. I don’t actively look for work anymore. That’s what I considered to be retired. I’m really enjoying it and I enjoy playing with my granddaughter. 

Q: You’re an associate producer in your latest film Dick Johnson & Tommygun vs. The Cannibal Cop. Is producing, writing, or directing something that you might venture into in the near future?

A: Not producing per say. I don’t know enough about it and I don’t really have much of an interest in that. There are films that I’ve worked on where I’ve taken an associate producer role just to take the credit more than anything else. I may have helped out a little bit with technical advice or something. As for directing, I don’t think that I’m qualified. I’ve had a very good career on the dumb side of the camera. I think that’s where I belong. Although I did direct a few scenes in a movie that Tim Quill and I were in called Elder Island. The director decided that he wanted to play a part in the movie so I directed his scenes and it was kind of fun. Also it made me realize that I didn’t really know enough about it but it was fun to say action and cut but I really don’t know enough about it. In writing that is something that I’ve done quite a lot of but mostly for my own self amusement or amazement I should say. I’m not going to say that I’ll never write anything because I might. I think about it every once in a while. 

I’ve also been involved in music in the last four or five years with an incredibly gifted musician named Tim O’ Saben who is in the St. Louis area. He and I have recorded thirty-nine songs now which is taking up quite a bit of time but I have an incredible amount of fun doing it. Basically Tim will write the music and play the instruments and he plays just about everything. I’ll write the lyrics and then we’ll record the music together. We’ve been doing that and having a lot of fun doing it. I actually met Tim at a horror convention and we got to talking about music and horror movies. He decided that the two went hand in hand very well so he wrote The Ballad of Jake & Bobby Joe and asked me if I’d be interested to go to St. Louis and record it and then doing the music video. We did that and it was a blast and after that we recorded another thirty-eight songs. Music was my first love before acting. Unfortunately I can’t play anymore. I have horrible peripheral neuropathy in my hands. Even picking up an instrument is painful. That doesn’t stop me from writing. 

Danny Hicks reprises his role as Jake in the music video for The Ballad of Jake & Bobby Joe. (source)

Q: As an actor, is there any type of role that appeals to you the most or that you have the most fun with? Is there any role that you would like to take on in the future?

A: I’ll just do about any kind of role that I think is interesting. In fact the movie that I mentioned earlier Elder Island, they wanted me to play the police chief to which the role went to Tim Quill. I’ve done that before and I said you know I’ve done that role about ten times and I don’t want to do that again but this other guy and I can’t remember the character’s name right now.....Lucas. His name was Lucas. I told him that I would like to play this guy because he has no redeeming qualities. There’s nothing good about this man. I would love to play that role and they let me! It worked out pretty well. To answer your question, I think that I’ve played about every type of role that I would really want to and I’ll play any role that I find interesting. 

Q: Thank you so much for your time with us Danny! Anything that you’d like to share with TDS followers?

A: No not really other than pay attention to this site! It has some incredible stuff! I’ve looked at The Deadite Slayer a few times and I always get a kick out of it so congratulations to you and I hope that you continue doing it. I appreciate all of the attention that you’re giving to me. I really do.

From left to right: Ted Raimi, Danny Hicks, Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry and Kassie Wesley DePaiva pose in for a photo taken at Wizard World. (source)

Thank you greatly to Danny Hicks for taking his time to do the interview for The Deadite Slayer!

Visit Danny’s IMDb page here.

Visit Danny’s official Facebook page here. 

[janiedean]

(part 1) ur gonna roast me for this but im legit curious why mafia AUs are so bad? im asking in a non confrontational way, i get it romanticizing mafia is wrong, but i also believe that 1)most mafia AUs are a really toned down type of mafia;2)they do make for some interesting kinds of dynamics with fanart and with fics; 3)in a fic specifically u can create your own world and call something mafia and still make it so they don't kill innocent people but only idk members of other gangs or sth

(part 2) plus theyre a way to put ur charas in a completely diff context and see what theyll do. i mean i dont believe that writing ships in a certain context (like mafia) equals romanticizing that context. mafia AUs arent even my fav things to read (in fact i almost never do), im sure many ppl romanticize it and i obvs dont agree with that but im just trying to udnerstand bc i believe fandoms are a way to explore things that we normally wouldnt.

I’m not gonna roast you don’t worry xD okay wait let me check if I replied to this already if yes I’m gonna c/p because it’s half past midnight otherwise I’ll just go at it again wait *checks tags* fff obviously I don’t have a general post but anyway pls read this after you’ve done with my post and then this which is also choke-full of links. plus for a (not nice) laugh: here. AH WAIT I FOUND THE POST.

okay, so, let’s have it out of the way: I have nothing against mob aus or crime aus. I have a problem against calling them mafia AUs because in the US mafia = organized crime at large, in Italy mafia = ACTUAL EXISTING ORGANIZATIONS THAT ARE ACTIVELY HARMFUL. now that I introduced the topic I’ll c/p you the reply I gave to another anon who while discussing the issue pointed out that most writers don’t even know Italian mafia is a thing, which is pretty much on the same discourse so...

*The thing is - in the US it might not be enough of a deal anymore and I honestly do get why people make the mafia = regular mobsters, since the mafia was the first foreign organized crime being exported to the US via italian immigrants (sorry if this sounds horrible in English but I just woke up and I still didn’t have coffee) so I understand that mafia became the umbrella term.But the thing is that - as you said, these people don’t even know that there’s a mafia in Italy anymore or where the word comes from.

 I’m going to link to italiansreclaimingitaly’s tag about the mafia and its perception outside Italy because they posted about this extensively and it’s an excellent resource, but meanwhile I’m gonna do a very short bullet point list and about the topic:

Mafia might not be a big deal in the US, but it still is here. We have the beauty of four different mafias (Cosa Nostra - the Sicilian one, camorra which is the one in Campania but has tendrils spread everywhere, the 'ndrangheta which is in Calabria and the Sacra Corona Unita in Puglia) which are all active [especially camorra and 'ndrangheta] and whose actions have direct impact (negative) on our economy and on our society. Actually mafias are one of the main reasons we’re currently economically fucked up, and if I start talking about how mafia culture keeps some areas literally backwards I could talk about it for three months.

There are still people who are killed for standing up against them. These days the most prominent personality is Roberto Saviano who is a writer who dared to put together a book documenting minutely the way camorra works and he’s been living under protection for years by this point. Like, they want him dead because he wrote a book. And I’m sorta sure that he was talking about leaving Italy and going to the US after years of sticking with it here because he can’t take it anymore but I don’t know if it was a taken decision or if it’s still debating it.

It wasn’t even thirty years ago that we had the stragi di mafia - in english it’d be something like the mafia slaughters, basically around the beginning of the nineties there were a number of bombs planted by the mafia targeting people who were trying to oppose it including judges Falcone and Borsellino, actually the anniversary of Falcone’s death is like... tomorrow. And they’ve killed people for way longer than that. Here is a list of only Cosa Nostra victims including the ones from the eighties/nineties. And people are still dying because of it. The slaughters I’m referring to are just the ones in the nineties which are enough of a number.

They also perpetuate a culture where if you testify against your mafia-employed relatives you’ll be shunned forever. There are women who testified against their families and couldn’t see their children anymore never mind that they weren’t automatically considered a relative anymore the moment they sided against the mafia. Some people have committed suicide after becoming witnesses also because our police force/justice system can be terribly non-supportive in this kind of situation so they got left on their own. Never mind that back in the day - it was the beginning of the nineties? - I recall at least a particular story of - I think, correct me if I remember wrong but I can’t remember the names for the life of me - where this guy testified against the local mafia when he either used to work for them or was forced to pay them the pizzo and in retaliation his six-year old (or five? Anyway he had a son younger than ten for sure) got kidnapped, killed and thrown into acid to dispose of the body. That happened in what, 1993? 1994? It’s pretty much yesterday. And now the camorra is doing the same - there’s a list here of camorra victims among which accidental passerbys that got killed because they were in the way which I can tell just by glancing is not complete. And I’m not even going into the 'ndrangheta. That is to say, here mafia still kills people and cripples our country.

Now, I get that it’s a word, but the point was: let’s say that instead of the Italians the Japanese came to the US first and the umbrella word for organized crime was yakuza rather than mafia and let’s say yakuza was still what it was originally in Japan while in the US it stopped being a big deal and people write yakuza!AU instead of mafia AU. Let’s say someone Japanese gets angry at that and goes like 'listen the yakuza is a real deal it does this this this and that and it’s a plague in our country so can you please at least look it up before writing your fanfic’, which is what had happened way back then when this whole mafia and fanfic thing blew up. A bunch of people told us to get over it because it’s just a word and if it’s a problem in Italy it’s not in the US so why should they care? Now, if we had been Japanese (or Chinese or Russian or Mexican) would they have said the same thing? Considering the general tumblr attitude I’m pretty sure they would have received either an apology or 'this is an important deal let’s keep that in mind’ with signal boost reblogs and stuff. 

It’s the fact that we should get over people not knowing that it’s still a real problem for us and that they can’t take five seconds to google it that is the problem imo. Especially when instead of mafia au you can just say mobsters au or tag it as organized crime and everyone is a lot happier, mostly because as the tag above explains romanticising the mafia is a good thing for them because it means they can act outside Italy with less stigma because everyone thinks that the mafia is dead or not relevant anymore, if I’m explaining myself. (And it’s active outside Italy - like, there was a mafia kill in Germany in 2007 where six people died (sorry the link is in Italian but there isn’t an English wiki page, if you look the city up you’ll find something probably) and it was because of the 'ndrangheta.

I’d really like to not get worked over it because it meant it was a thing of the past y'know, but the problem is that it isn’t and I’d rather spread some awareness in hope some of these writers look it up (because it’s a good thing that people know what mafia is since as stated they have tendrils everywhere - if you read Saviano’s book the entire first chapter is about how camorra regularly deals with Chinese import/export in Italy for one) than shrug and figure that since they’ll think everything is good for fanfic then it’s not even worth my time.*

Now, ^^^ that was the c/p-ed reply that should answer most of your doubts. What I didn’t address was:

im sure many ppl romanticize it and i obvs dont agree with that but im just trying to udnerstand bc i believe fandoms are a way to explore things that we normally wouldnt.

aaaand as we say here in Italy, this is where the donkey falls (sorry we have weird sayings), because in theory there’s nothing wrong with that... except that in 99% of the mafia aus I’ve seen around the thing is that they’re supposed to be cute.

like, I see a lot of shit with TINY MAFIA BOSS STEVE ROGERS with RUSSIAN ENFORCER BUCKY (????? bucky isn’t even russian???) and the yoi thing I saw before had the japanese character being the leader of a russian mafia gang which is... like... guys it doesn’t happen it really doesn’t, and a lot of them re-use wrongly terminology taken from the godfather without context or knowing what the hell it means, and it’s always from the criminals’ pov and they’re somehow seen as criminals doing justice where the police can’t (???) and like... no. mafia bosses/enforcers/employees are bad people period, and at least here if you try to leave or repent they kill your family in retribution. like, not even ten years ago there’s been a woman who used to belong to a mafia family (or one colluded with the mafia) who testified and her entire town/family shunned her and she couldn’t take it anymore and... killed herself drinking acid if I don’t recall wrong. it’s not even special cases. this shit is not funny, it’s not cute, it’s not adorable and it’s not good fodder for your imagine your otp scenario (srsly I saw one like.. let me find it,

LIKE. just look at this shit. in a regular context, the enforcer goes to the show owner to force them to pay a monthly sum to their boss lest they destroy their shop and their lives and their family’s life never mind that mafia culture is deeply homophobic so the mafia enforcer flirting with the shopkeeper is like completely fucking out of the question. I mean, people here like to shit on the sopranos but that show was actually excellent representation of Horrid Criminals Who Were Never Supposed To Be Good People and the small arc that happened when one of tony’s friends turned out to be gay (closeted) was REALLY well done. btw, it ended that when they found out he was gay most of the crowd rejected him and thought badly of him until I think they killed him also for other reasons, but that spiraled from finding out he liked dick. and that’s american mafia that they actually based on well-done research of the culture in Italy it came from, I assure you that here it doesn’t work that differently. like. the shit above is so inaccurate and frankly offensive, it’s like... I get people romanticizing problematic stuff but the thing is that when you tell them that it’s actually offensive you get brushed off as ‘ah well you’re being too sensitive it’s just a word u__u’. now, I’m all for exploring shit we wouldn’t be into, but not like THAT, because that’s like mafia romantic comedy and that’s not how it works. now, you wanna do a fic where the mafia characters are deeply flawed and bad people and the police tries to catch them? fine, great, go ahead. you wanna do a fic where the enforcer above deals with dunno an entire life of internalized homophobia when he finds the shopkeeper attractive and feels conflicted over having to con money out of him and doing horrible shit for a living and maybe understanding that crime isn’t worth it and then he actually collaborates with the police and gets shit from about everyone he knows and loves for that? okay, awesome, go ahead. nothing bad in that.

but the shit above is not exploring things we wouldn’t/writing darkfic, it’s THINKING THAT A CRIMINAL ORGANIZATION WHICH IS STILL A THING IN OUR PART OF THE WORLD IS CUTE AND ADORABLE. and that only plays in their favor because it takes the bad aura out of the word and we really should not let that happen. like. that is what is bad about mafia aus and mafia discourse, that people don’t realize the mafia is alive and well and thriving and not a thing that doesn’t exist or a generic word for organized crime.

you wanna write the shit above? okay, CALL IT CRIME AU or mob au, not mafia au.

btw, add-on: idk if I mentioned it in the above post or not, but in case I didn’t, I said that people would balk at the idea of a mexican cartel au. sadly since then I’ve found out a fandom where not only there is one but it’s also extra cutesy and people apparently love it and it has a bunch of kudos/comments and idek I’m not even touching that with a ten foot pole but like... I’ve avoided it and everything that author wrote because to me it’s just... nope. like, nope. if you do mafia aus don’t make them fucking cute. (also: in the same fandom I had to mute a v. famous fanartist whose art I actually liked but did cutesy mafia aus and.. like... haahahhaahahahahaha nah sorry. can’t go there. nope.)

[exo-freaks]

RUBY [PART 1] CHANYEOL MAFIA AU

DISCLAIMER No.1: This story will deal with DRUGS, PROSTITUTION and other graphic things that could upset people so if you are sensitive to these topics please do not read. 

DISCLAIMER No.2: Ruby is in no way Lisa from Blackpink I just liked the way she looked and I found the footage I found great for the Teaser. I really got a good vibe of her videos so I thought she would be the girl I use for my pictures. Hope that makes sense. haha

Also this story is in the same timeline/ universe as the ‘DONE FOR’ story and will just have side stories that align with the ‘Done for’ story so this will be a not so frequent upload (as if I would upload regularly anyways  haha but I’m trying to get better) because I don’t want to spoiler any other stories as I’m also working on 2 other side-stories as well and I need to be careful to not spoil shit. 

She didn't know how she found drugs, how she started them why she took them and how she even got the drugs. Maybe she never found them maybe they found her. However they seemed to be around you for a long time, she started with the light ones alcohol cigarettes weed but eventually she tried LSD, Heroin and other stuff. Depending on what she wanted to feel she took a different one: Heroin for feeling numb, Crack for feeling hyper and energetic and LSD to just feel colourful. Today she needed a little cheer up so her got up and started walking. She was on her way to her usual spot to meet Ed. He knew her and he knew she paid. She always had the money. Prostitution, robbery, begging whatever there was to get money fast she probably had done. She arrived at the alleyway and waited for Ed. A man leaning against the wall looked at her, she thought that he was probably also waiting for Ed to show up and give him his drugs too so she didn’t paid him much attention. She looked at her watch and started walking up and down the street. Why wasn't he there. What was she supposed to do when he wouldn't show up. The man that was watching her walked towards her.

'Hey you're waiting here for Ed?' He asked her with a sly  grin on his face. Ruby ignored him. "he can be a cop'' she thought to herself even though he looked a little bit too young to be a cop.

'I don't think he is coming today' he said this grin still on his face, his grin made her mad. It was a smug bright grin. This guy was way too happy for Ruby’s liking.

'So are you waiting for Ed' he asked again.

'So what if' she scoffed at him making his grin even wider.

'Then I would tell you that he is out of business and I'm sure he will not pick it up' he said way too happy but as soon as those words left the guys lips panic crashed over her. How was she supposed to get her drugs. Sure she knew other spots but that was not the very good things and you could never be quite sure what you've got when you buy their stuff. Ed always had the good stuff the stuff that you know was clean not something weird mixed into it.

'Fuck' she mumbled kicking a little pebble against the wall. The tall guy laughed. Ruby's head shot at him. 'How do you know that?' she asked quickly earning another chuckle from him.

'Because I was the one that got him out of business' he said gloatingly. "Fuck so he is a cop. Well they can't get you you have nothing on you. Ruby keep calm just go home. So even if he follows you he can't get you.'' She thought and turned on her heel. She took a few steps really pissed at the whole world at Ed that he let himself get caught at this guy that put him out of business at herself because she didn't knew any good alternative, she was angry at so many things.

'I'm not a cop' the guy said but she kept walking.

'Only a cop would say that' Ruby said dry and heard the man laugh again.

'Would a cop have this' Ruby had always been a curious girl and once again she hated herself for that but she turned around. The guy was holding up a small package with some powder in it.

'Or what do you want?' He said playing with the rim of the little plastic bag.

'How do I know it's good stuff?' She asked before she even really thought about it.

'You have to trust me' he said and again this grin. Oh how much she wanted he knock that grin out of his face. But then she was in desperate need of something.

'Why should I?'

'Where would you go. To the east of the city. Well if you want to have stuff mixed with the weirdest shit you can imagine and that wouldn't even get you really onto it. Have fun but I can assure you my stuff is even better than Ed's' Ruby wobbled from side to side hands in her pockets thinking.

'I don't have all day so do you want to buy or not?' He scoffed at her and Ruby cussed.

'How much?' She flinched at his price he was way more expensive than Ed but she was sure she wouldn't get it any cheaper anywhere else.

'So do you want to?' He asked wiggling her eyebrows. She looked into her pockets and fumbled out some money gave it to him and snatched the packet from his fingers. Without a word she turned around and left.

'Come again soon' he said and Ruby could hear his big grin reflecting in his speech. Ruby was pissed. Very pissed. This smug grin he had, she wanted to punch it out of his face. Ruby was pissed, full of rage, she would have had enough money for at least a few days if this asshole of man wouldn't have gotten Ed out of business. Ruby asked herself what happened to Ed. Was he dead? Probably. In prison? Also likely but would this man give Ed to the police and then take his place. The drug business was hard and Ruby didn't cared much if she was honest. Sure Ed was a nice guy and he had always good products but they were never really close. She didn't knew anything about him and he didn't know anything about her. So was she pissed that her best source of drugs was gone? Yes immensely pissed but did she care what happened to him? Not at all. The only thing that she knew right now that she needed more money and she needed it as fast as possible. She went home still extremely pissed at the new guy and the whole world but she was also looking forward to be home and get onto a trip and forget what she was pissed about.

so I hope you liked the story and if you are bored you can check out the masterlist. If you have a request for a Scenario or so or if you just want to talk and leave a comment you van do that here. I added Nct to the blog so you can also request for them if you want to. 

Also one shots that are currently in the making but I can’t tell yozu when they will be done are:

Renjun fluff

NCT Chinaline Pyjama party

[portugalisinsa]

Telling my Friend, Who Still Hasn't Watched Gotham, All About S03E13 (and Why I Haven't Told Her Anything Else)

Me: So let's start with something neither of us gives a shit about: Catwoman.

--------------------------------

Me: Selina is quite reasonably angry about her mother abandoning her when she was five or something. I posit that if she was this annoying when she was five then I kinda see where her mother comes from, but understanding is not condoning and all that.

--------------------------------

Me: And you think, okay, so this boring dribble about her being angry about her mother abandoning her is going to be her plot for the season, I see, I hate it but it's not like I was really paying attention when she happened anyway. However, you'd be wrong, because two scenes later Bruce says "being an orphan sucks" and she discovers that her mother had a box full of things that reminded her of Selina, so she's instantly forgiven.

Friend: ...Then what was the point of this?

Me: I have no idea. My theory is that somebody told the writers "no, there's always drama when people find their estranged parents, so we must have this" and the writers were like "ugh, FINE, here's your stupid DRAMA".

--------------------------------

Me: Alfred has a crush on Selina's mother. There's nothing much to say other that it's embarrassing for everyone involved, most of all the audience.

--------------------------------

Me: Done with that, let's go on with the next completely useless drama: Lee. I'm pretty sure she didn't see her husband running towards her with a knife for reasons too unlikely to explain, so she's pretty angry at Gordon for killing him. Which is understandable, I'm not saying it isn't, but does it warrant her causing a scene in front of the entire GCPD in which she calls out Gordon? Wouldn't a call have sufficed?

Friend: Imagine being part of the crowd and seeing that, though, it must have been amazing.

Me: Oh yeah, I assume someone was passing the pop-corn.

--------------------------------

Me: So you think, oh, this must be her plot for the season, right? Well you would be wrong.

Friend: Jesus christ, does it get solved the next scene too?

Me: No, the next scene has her and Falcone posing while discussing how they both hate Gordon and he must die.

--------------------------------

Me: By the way, I never told you about Zsasz, I think, so very quickly: he's awesome. He's a hitman, but I swear to god I can't understand who the fuck he's working for. He was very loyal to Falcone the first season, but then he was taking orders from Penguin, then from Ed, then from Falcone again. I assume he's freelance, but in my heart he works in a waffle house. He also usually works with a crowd of leather-clad women who are apparently called 'the Zsaszettes'. As I said- fucking awesome.

--------------------------------

Me: Lee then talks to Barnes, you know, I Am The Lawwwwwww, to ask him about the virus. I have no idea why she doesn't ask Mad Hatter, the guy who actually infected him, but whatever.

Friend: Maybe because he's a fucking hypnotist.

--------------------------------

Me: Barnes is all "no, I totally like killing and I want to do it forever" and Lee is like "that instantly makes me change my mind" and sends her to Falcone to beg him to spare Gordon. Falcone thinks nostalgically of times gone by, when people angered the mafia and their bodies ended up in a barrel of acid with no 'ifs' or 'buts': then he remembers he's the kind of idiot who had a woman who wanted to kill him and get his criminal empire tortured rather than killed, and brainwashed the right hand of the aforementioned woman because, I don't know, there's no person who knows how to keep a club who also hasn't tried to betray him, I guess, and spares Gordon.

--------------------------------

Me: So thus concludes another one-season-plot in one single episode. In my mind, an image of the writers mumbling "there, you have your fucking former-lover drama now, you happy now? Are you being entertained?! ARE YOU, YOU LITTLE SHITS?!" appears.

--------------------------------

Me: On to Nygmobblepot. Edward has disappeared, leaving a guy who looks a lot like Draco Malfoy behind. Penguin, no longer the most Slytherin guy in the room, pouts.

--------------------------------

Me: Then this woman appears and she's all "come on my show, so you will be revealed as a horrible person in front of the whole US and be ruined forever."

Friend: ...I see at least two problems there.

--------------------------------

Me: Okay, so, long story, I never told you about Penguin's father, but basically he was this nice guy who met Penguin when he was reformed, and he was the best, and he was married with a wicked woman and her two children, another wicked woman and a guy who I honestly kind of loved, he was too dumb to be malicious in his dickery and I think he actually wanted to pounce Penguin. Like, in a sexy way.

--------------------------------

Me: -he made her eat her children, then chopped off her head and mounted it somewhere in the mansion where I think it still is

Friend: God I love Penguin

--------------------------------

Me: His father appears and he's like "beware the birthday boy", and I was like 'the birthday boy better not be Edward, because 'Edward' has way fewer syllables than 'birthday boy''. Then it turns out the birthday boy was Draco Malfoy, and I was like "oh, okay, he just had no idea what was his name, got you".

--------------------------------

Me: The woman now goes "be ready, mr Cobblepot, the world is watching". Somehow, that is not supposed to be a joke.

Friend: Why the fuck would the world care about an interview to the mayor of some city? Do they translate it for other countries? Are you telling me that, in Gotham's world, Japan is watching the interview to the mayor of Modena?

--------------------------------

Me: We then discover this was all a plan by Edward to... something something ruin Penguin in front of the people.

Friend: ........I still see at least one glaring flaw in this plan.

--------------------------------

Me: My main problem with this is, I'm pretty sure that's what counts as an April Fools in Edward's world. Like, tell me stealing the corpse of Penguin's father and then hiring a shapeshifter to be the father's ghost and make Penguin slowly lose his mind and kill a random person isn't Edward's version of sticking a 'kick me' sign on his back.

--------------------------------

Me: So that was a couple of episodes ago. Now you might be wondering, what happened after that? The answer is, I only have a vague idea, because I don't really care to find out.

Friend: Oh? Why?

Me: Well, Gordon's and Harvey's plot was that there's a group of people who want to bring Jerome back to life, so I'm now debating whether I care enough about Nygmobblepot to suffer through Jerome. The answer is, I don't. God, I so don't.

--------------------------------

Me: I just, look, ignoring the fact that I don't like him as a character- I saw some gifs of Jerome in the following episodes, alright, and apparently it was him trying to make Bruce kill someone, and for fuck's sake, if I have to live through another fucking villain that wants to destroy the hero's ideology I will punch a fucking puppy.

--------------------------------

Me: The truth is that Christopher Nolan ruined us. He made his Batman movies, and now villains are too fucking fancy to just want to kill people with a big laser. What is wrong with wanting to take over the world? What's wrong with wanting to kill the hero with a rock? Big rocks are good. There's no shame in being practical.