#*without rosenbaum

[luthwhore]

for as much as i complain about s5-7 of smallville i will never be over lex’s murder-suicide plot that involved destroying the fortress of solitude with them both inside it while he cradles clark in his arms and tearfully tells him he loves him in a direct parallel to their meeting in the pilot

[samwinsgirl]

reminder that Michael Rosenbaum called me sweet twice (didn’t even say anything just liked my happy girl vibes) and Tom Welling called me cute (and my friend but that’s less important)

[ebongawk]

"Chrissy used to wait until her parents were out of the house and then dance around her bedroom to Corroded Coffin and sing into her hairbrush. It felt like a huge rebellion in her mind at the time." for @storiesofimagination

More than anything else, Chrissy hated being late.

It was unlike her. Even despite her mother drilling the entire family on being punctual all her life, Chrissy knew that being on time would have defined her. A flower planted in a vase could be just as beautiful as one grown in a field, after all. Just not quite as free.

Despite having a doctor's appointment as an excuse, Chrissy still took the stairs up to school two at a time. The excused absence in her hand for her first two periods felt meaningless – just more wasted time she'd have to use, taking it to the front office. She stormed through the hallway, swinging by the front desk before headed to her locker.

And she stopped all at once. Taking two broad steps back to absorb that which had attracted the attention of her peripheral vision.

A crystal tape case had been dropped on the ground. Innocuous enough, she leaned down, picking it up and turning it over in curious hands.

Songs she didn't recognized were scribbled onto the back fold. The front was hand drawn, as well, featuring a creepy, disembodied hand. Like someone had taken macabre liberties with Thing from The Addams Family (a lovely series of which she'd only been allowed to catch episodes at Vicki Rosenbaum's house during weekend sleepovers). A mixtape?

Without thinking about it, Chrissy tucked the case into her backpack. Wondering if she could figure out who it belonged to later, she regained the time she'd lost in her distraction by practically sprinting to class.

Later, after finishing out the rest of the day and walking home – breaking up with Jason, while the first act of liberty she'd taken for herself in some time, was almost met with regret when school let out and she didn't have a ride home – Chrissy found herself in a commodity of an evening.

She was home alone.

Her little brother was off at a friend's house, and her parents had a dinner event for her father's office. Chrissy was in pajamas, taking the stereo out from her closet with every intention of having her own Risky Business moment as she flipped idly through her small collection of contraband tapes her mother could never find out about.

And she stopped.

What about that tape from school?

It'd fallen beneath her pen case in her backpack at school. Chrissy dug it out, taking in the details of the case art she hadn't before allowed herself to see. Blood dripped down one side of the disembodied hand, with scars etched into the flesh. A hand freshly chopped for Frankenstein's monster, the blood still warm enough to flow.

For the first time, Chrissy also recognized a little brand in the corner of the case.

Corroded Coffin, she read. Why does that sound so familiar?

Only one way to find out.

Chrissy popped the tape into the player.

The sudden, grating sound of guitar feedback screeched through the speakers, and Chrissy slammed the stop button with a little cry of surprise. Her chest heaved, heart hammering against her ribs at the sudden noise. Gosh, but that was unexpected. Her own tapes usually started off with a gentle easing into the music. The steady drumroll or techtonic beat building up the artist to launch.

Turning the volume dial down a few dozen notches, Chrissy paused for a moment before leaning back and hitting play.

The wall of sound that hit her was far easier to manage at a softer level. She listened, waiting for recognition to wash over her, but the seconds ticked by with screaming bass and heavy drums, and Chrissy was no closer to recognizing the song. Even the singer, with his deep, gravelly voice, was an unknown.

The volume came up a few notches. Then a few more. And Chrissy found herself falling into the music.

It was different than anything she'd ever listened to before. Deeper, angrier, with grating sounds and heavy lyrics that pulsed a new heart in her chest. It was music that contained all these dark, terrifying emotions she didn't normally allow herself to feel. All the stuff she kept locked away and buried, only to rear up as monsters in her dreams she couldn't escape.

Even the instruments sounded angry. The drums marched and the bass crooned, but the guitar. It kept going off on these long, intricate tangents, accentuating the point of the lyrics by emphasizing the terrible, wonderful passion. The quality wasn't great – a little too echoey, like it hadn't been recorded in a studio – but the songs were beautiful.

Chrissy lost her will to return the tape back to its original owner. Instead, it found a half-permanent home in her Walkman. Pulled only from the anonymity of her headphones during the limited alone time she was awarded at home.

Every time, the songs greeted her with their energetic shouts. The lyrics embraced her like an old friend.

Chrissy learned them all. She screamed them into her hairbrush, falling dramatically to her knees on her mattress as she extended all of her own deep, dark emotions out into the ether of existence. As her Corroded Coffin album took them in, nurturing them and verifying that it was okay for her to have them. That negativity didn't equate bad, only new.

There was a risk, she knew. Her parents could come home early one day. Her mother could discover the tape case, on the rare occasion she accidentally left it at home. The tape would be disposed of, and Chrissy couldn't exactly buy a new one. She'd checked the record store downtown – the grumpy cashier had never even heard of Corroded Coffin.

She almost thought the tape had been dropped through a wormhole. Like there was another, luckier dimension out there where Corroded Coffin was a well-known band, but here, she would be the only person who would ever know their ingenuity and raw brilliance.

The thought was private and insane, but it made her sad. It made her selfish. It made her desperate to prove herself wrong.

And, completely by chance, she was.

Chrissy walked into Benny's the first Saturday of spring break to meet her friends for milkshakes before they made a trip to Star Court to start browsing prom dresses. Chrissy had to steel herself against their gentle, pitying looks when they talked about their own dates, knowing Chrissy had every intention of going stag. Like that was something to be ashamed of. (Going with Jason would've been much more shameful, considering she'd caught him cheating on her during winter break, but that didn't seem to matter in the eyes of her friends.)

As soon as she walked through the doors, though, something extremely familiar caught her eye. Chrissy had to do a double-take, because no way.

It was that same bloody, disembodied hand from her tape. With huge, boldly printed letters advertising Corroded Coffin's Metal Friday Bash! from the night before at some bar called the Hideout.

The night before.

"Oh, nuggets," Chrissy breathed in disbelief. She'd missed it? She'd missed it. Without warning, her eyes suddenly filled with tears, and Chrissy immediately turned and walked back out the door, much to the startled shouts of her friends.

They were real. They were real, and they'd been here, just the night before, and she'd missed it, and now she'd never find them again. She yanked her Walkman off her belt loop, holding it tightly to her chest like it alone could support her weight as she floated blindly through the vast, endless ocean of the parking lot. The salt spraying her eyes and making them tear up, and was it any wonder that she missed the broad-chested boat out in the middle of all that nothing?

"Ugh," she pitched, her voice drowned out by a startled, "Oh shit." Her Walkman went flying from her grip as she fell backward, two strong hands managing to hold her wrists and keep her upright but completely disregarding the flying tape player. She felt the tug of her headphones as they dislodged from the jack, the thing making a loud crack against the pavement upon impact.

Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no.

"Shit, fuck, sorry, sorry," the person still holding her wrists repeated over and over again above her. "Shit, Cunningham, I–– Fuck, I didn't see you–– Oh, shit, here, lemme get that."

Wrists suddenly released, the blob of black she'd barreled into headfirst suddenly swooped down. Chrissy turned at the same time, body operating separately from brain as she searched the ground for the Walkman that had already been collected.

"It doesn't look––"

"My tape," Chrissy gasped, reaching toward the hands holding her player. The bony wrists becoming her new lifeline. "Is my tape okay?"

"Uh, lemme check––" A pause as the hands holding her Walkman hostage popped the cassette lid open. Chrissy held her breath, anticipating the worst, and the mass of person she hadn't quite acknowledged let out a barking laugh. "Holy shit. Holy shit? Christ, dude, uh. What the fuck?"

It was only then, impossibly, that Chrissy looked up and finally registered who it was she was hanging onto like a buoy.

Eddie. Eddie Munson? Eddie Munson had her tape. Eddie Munson was staring down at her, his eyes twinkling in the mid-morning sunlight, with raised brows and a disbelieving grin stretching his cheeks.

Oh, she thought. When did Eddie Munson get so pretty?

"Cunningham, where the fuck did you get this tape?"

Blinking, Chrissy looked at the tape in his hands. Confused. No one knew who Corroded Coffin was. Why was he questioning her?

"Um, it's mine?" she answered, suddenly, just then, remembering that it wasn't actually hers. That she'd found it. That it likely had not fallen through a wormhole, because the band existed, proven just behind her in the Benny's entryway by a hand-drawn poster for a concert she'd missed.

"Uh, no it's not," Eddie laughed. "It's mine."

What?

What?

"What?" she squeaked out, fingertips tensing against his wrists. She couldn't let go, because if she did, he might take her tape. He might destroy it, or step on it, or kidnap it.

"It's our demo tape," he said again, still grinning. Still in obvious disbelief. "Uh, my band's, I mean. I lost it, like, two months ago. Now how, may I ask, did it end up in the dainty little paws of Hawkins' own Queen, Chrissy Cunningham the First?"

His. Eddie's. His band's? Eddie's band? Eddie was in Corroded Coffin. Why wasn't she more surprised? His tape? His demo tape? What was a demo tape? Was he gonna take her tape?

"Um," she said, still blinking up at him. "I-I found it. At school?"

"No shit?" Eddie laughed. "Well, fuck, Chrissy, that's–– Okay, but wait. Why were you listening to it? Why didn't you, like, throw it away?"

She let out an indignant noise of affront. Her own shock slowly succumbing to an accepting sort of anger.

"'Throw it away'?" she asked. "What? Why would I do that? I love it, Eddie!"

His eyebrows had disappeared behind his fringe, he was so shocked. Shaking his head like he couldn't believe it, though his eyes never left hers. After mouthing a what the fuck to himself, he looked over her shoulder. Seeming to remember where they were.

"Uh. I-I mean. Have you, uh. Have you eaten?"

"What?" Her head reeled with the sudden jump of conversation.

Scratching the back of his neck, Eddie shrugged. "I mean. Obviously you, like, listened to the tape, yeah? And, y'know, you're, like, the first, besides the fuckin' band, to do that. I'd, uh. I'd love to know your thoughts?"

Another shrug, bashful, and Chrissy watched in amazement as a flush crept its way up his neck.

"If you've got some time," he tacked on after a few seconds of silence.

Time. Time to talk about Corroded Coffin. Time to talk about Corroded Coffin, with Corroded Coffin.

"I, um, do," she answered. "I have time."

Oh, nuggets, the grin that split his face was brighter than she had ever seen the sun. It softened his features, displaying dimples as his eyes crinkled with warmth.

Chrissy couldn't help it. She smiled right back.

"Fuck yeah," he responded, snapping the case of her Walkman back in place, tape still stuck inside, and handing it back to her. Never breaking the skin contact they'd somehow maintained this entire time. "Well, uh. After you, then?"

She didn't end up going to Star Court that afternoon.

But she also didn't end up going to prom alone.

(inspo ask)

[philtstone]

juliet/shawn | bandaging an injury and/or falling asleep on a shoulder pleaseeeeee

i spent way too much time on this considering im still not sure how i feel abt the end result? i know in fantasy psych land concussions are a fun and easy trope but for whatever godforsaken reason i kept thinking "but the REALISM". like an idiot. anyway, set at some point in the second half of s3, but before the finale. enjoy!

Juliet is officially miserable. 

Her head hurts. Her ankle hurts. And, in between the stale Clorox fumes of the supply closet she’s currently wallowing in, creeping tendrils of embarrassment have wafted their way into her mental bubble and are sedimenting around her ears. 

This is so mortifying.

She’s supposed to be a good cop. She’s supposed to be beyond this kind of silly mistake. She’s not supposed to be knocked out and locked up in an ancient janitorial cupboard while the unexpected cabal of burlier-than-average plumbers (electricians? Air conditioning repair men? Juliet couldn’t quite catch the uniform logo) panic in the next room over whether the rest of the SPBD have wised up to their shockingly well-hidden gun smuggling ring.  

It was supposed to be an easy lead that she could follow up on all by herself, without Lassiter's overbearing, well-meaning interjections in her ear. His ability to trust her input has definitely grown, but sometimes Juliet gets tired of being ordered around. He was all wrapped up in the Rosenbaum case, anyway, and she was only dealing with a single teenage girl, alone and helpless against the world, worried about her idiot boyfriend’s midnight activities. Not five large men who got the drop on her in that alley way faster than Juliet is comfortable admitting. It wasn't even a particularly nefarious attack or anything – they panicked and knocked her behind the head, and Juliet was so surprised she tumbled down the back alley steps, like an idiot. Now she has a twisted ankle, a scraped up cheek, and is smack in the middle of a truly pounding headache that’s been around since the second she woke up. Now she's stuck here, unable to call for backup and with no idea when and how anyone's going to find her. Worst of all, now her favorite orange top is stained with whatever all-purpose cleaner was spilled onto the floor of this gross supply closet, now she’s scuffed the backs of her heels when wiggling them off so her swollen ankle throbbed just a little bit less, and now the flowery glass beads from the chopsticks in her hair are poking uncomfortably into the back of her neck. 

They haven't even tied up her hands. Her lame injuries and the comically large lock on the door are all the explanation necessary for why she’s not breaking out of here anytime soon. The only silver lining is the vent beside the closet door, which is probably the only reason she hasn’t yet suffocated on the cleaning supply fumes.

To add insult to injury, her stomach is growling loudly.

It’s all so unfair, she thinks. Lassiter’s going to be insufferable if he ends up having to come and rescue her, and half the progress they’ve made over the past year will be out the door. So long to him trusting her to do things alone. She’s dangerously close to feeling tears prick her eyes and just starting to wonder if she shouldn’t have put more stock in Shawn's two-days-prior vision about the new Nintendo Wii version of Mario Party when a muffled shuffling sounds abruptly from outside the thin closet door. 

Juliet stiffens.

It could be anything. It could be the plumbers returning; it could be a rat; it could be Candace -- that insufferable little snitch -- here to gloat about pulling the wool so successfully over a well-meaning Juliet’s eyes. So much for girl power, Juliet thinks uncharitably. She really hopes it’s not a rat. The shuffling turns into a faint scraping noise, then a clicking. Maybe it’s the vents. Maybe it’s the pipes, and these plumbers should spend more time plumbing and less time dealing arms. Maybe –

"Jules?"

Juliet blinks twice. This is it, she decides. The hunger and chemicals and possibly-a-concussion have gotten to her. She's started hearing voices. Not just any voices, but a-crush-that-it-is-absolutely-unwise-for-her-to-have voices. So what if in her knocked out delirium she considered, briefly and for a second only, what it would feel like to have him sitting here beside her, wrapping her up in a warm and secure hug that would make the dizziness and sprained ankle go away? That was a daydream that took place under psychological duress and was exclusively between Juliet and her god. There is no reason why –

“Juliet?” sounds Shawn Spencer’s unmistakable whispered tenor for a second time from behind the locked door. Juliet gasps. She sits up against the bucket digging into her back and ignores the wave of dizziness that washes over her. 

“Shawn?” she hisses in reply.

“Ha!” responds his disembodied voice. “I told Gus you’d be in here. Hang on, stand back.”

She watches, wide-eyed, as with a very faint click, the doorknob of the supply closet door turns an inch and the door pops open with a faint creak. Yellow light spills in from the old hallway and frames a grinning, familiar shape. She knows the t-shirt (characteristically green) and the jeans (uncharacteristically dirty) and his styled hair, which is mussed and flattened at the top like he’s been shimming through tight spaces, concerningly well. She’d just recently been ill-advisedly fantasizing about him, after all. Juliet blinks twice to make sure she isn’t dreaming. 

“Is that – a lock pick in your hand?” she hears herself say.

Shawn looks down at the unmistakable lock pick very obviously in his hands. 

“... No?”

Juliet has so many questions.

“And I have many answers,” Shawn says, shoving his tools into his back pocket and shuffling to her side on his hands and knees (he only just avoids knocking over a mop), “mostly to other, unrelated questions that you will not be asking. How’s your head?”

“H-how – how did you –”

He grins a little crooked grin at her and waves two fingers in the air. 

"Shawn,”  she whispers, frowning and not buying it, “what are you doing here?"

"Finding you, of course," Shawn whispers back. The cramped dimensions of the closet require him to fold himself closely against her, his dusty knees against her own. The muffled voices of their perps float down the hallway. Of course. Shawn is close enough that she can see the earnest curve of his eyebrows and smell the weird musty metallic tinge clinging to his clothes.

“Shawn,” she whispers again, “did you crawl through the vents?”

“Would you be into it if I said I did?”

The honest answer would probably be a little, but exclusively from the part of her who hallucinated hug action while unconscious. Consequently, "Oh my God," she hisses, ignoring him and the faint white spots dancing in front of her eyes. "How did you -- where's Lassiter?"

"Camped out outside and still trying to figure out how to bust into this place without starting a firefight. Those carpenters are packing some mean heat, Jules."

"You're a civilian!"

"That word has so many syllables. Here, hold these.”

She splutters as he pulls a battered cardboard shape from his jacket pocket and presses this into her hands.

Shawn’s always been the kind of good looking that takes a second or third look to notice. This frustrates her, like so many other things about him do, because it means the handsomeness sneaks up on her in quiet moments, like this one, where he’s looking at her with an expectant expression of genuine concern that her head hurts too much to dodge neatly. She’s still dizzy. He’s still here. Colorful cartoon shapes look up at her from the front of the Band Aid box. 

“You just … happened to have this on you?” Juliet asks weakly.

“These,” he agrees easily, “a taser. A sample of Gulligan’s Sweet and Salty Almond Butter that’s probably gone bad in my breast pocket. Jules, you’re bleeding.”

“I fell,” Juliet begins. The closet is dim, but there’s just enough light from outside that she can see the serious flutter in the back of his eyes. Suddenly she feels the need to explain. “Not on purpose,” she says. She knows her own eyes are wide. She hopes it isn’t obvious that she’s pleading. “I – I had to follow my hunch.”

“I know,” Shawn says simply, and nothing else. Her heart jumps dimly in her chest, and maybe that’s why Juliet doesn’t say anything when his hands move up to cup her jaw. He tilts her head to the side and brushes his thumb carefully under the bruising scrape that’s been stinging for the last thirty minutes. The pads of his fingers are warm and dry and the pinch between his brows is frustrating the same way his looks are; it sneaks up on her. She didn’t think Shawn was capable of being so gentle. He reaches down, one hand holding her face, and peels the paper off of a little butterfly bandage with Velma’s goofy grin on it. 

He’s talking again, easy and breezy and still in that whisper, like they do this all the time.

“Trust me. When you’ve been friends with Gus long enough, having Scooby-Doo themed first aid on you at all times is a legal requirement absolutely pursuable in a court of law. I’d say for twelve states, including the great nation of Puerrrrto Rico, which deserves independence, don’t you think?” The soft gauze in the center of the Band Aid presses soothingly over her cut face. She forgets to be mad and embarrassed and dizzy, just for a second. “Hm,” says Shawn. “I should’ve given you Daphne. The purple would’ve complimented your shirt.”

“For Gus,” she finally manages in a whisper, responding to his first point. “Because he’s so accident prone.”

“Definitely.” Shawn doesn’t miss a beat. “Gus is the one who broke his arm twice in tenth grade -- didn’t you know?” 

“Shawn,” she says. He squeezes her empty hand. 

“What say you and I get outta here?”

It’s her line. She knows how to do this. “I wouldn’t say no to a moonlit stroll.” 

Shawn grins. Despite the frustration, it’s easy with Shawn. It’s always been easy, with Shawn. He waggles his eyebrows.

"Sounds romantic."

"I was thinking ... haunting. Halloween." Juliet has to search for her words. "Oh! Spooky. No kissing allowed."

“Okay,” he says, again, simply. “C’mere.” 

She blinks a few times to focus. When she does, she looks at him as seriously as he’s looking at her. “Oh. Shawn. You’re going to … carry me?” she asks finally.

“Yes,” Shawn replies, with that expectant solemnity that always makes it sound like he’s waiting for everyone else to catch up.

"Why?" she asks, confused.

“Because your ankle’s on vacation, and your beautiful brain seems pretty scrambled. And because you are the approximate size and weight of a small bird.”

She probably shouldn’t be as flattered by this phrasing as she is. “Hmmm,” Juliet says. She reaches for him anyway and finds the back of his neck to be very warm – slightly damp with sweat. They only fumble a little bit in the half-dark trying to fit their limbs in the right places as the voices and footsteps in the next room continue. “I’m not fragile,” she informs him in a comically belated way, while Shawn picks her up in short, practical movements that only require a small grunt of exertion and his knee under her ass for leverage. Her feet dangle. Juliet didn’t realize her ankle was that swollen.

Like a little stockinged balloon, she thinks. Ow.

“I never said the small bird couldn’t totally judo flip my ass,” Shawn mutters. He looks kind of silly, Juliet decides, as far as rescuers go. From this angle she can sort of see up his nose while he cranes his neck to peer out the closet door. Her ankle throbs, but probably less than if she’d tried to stand on it. This is the most intimate they’ve ever been. She can feel his heartbeat against her shoulder and the strong shift of his arms against her back. His shoulders are very solid. And warm. Her hug delusions weren’t all that wrong after all, which might be a worst development than Juliet expected. Juliet doesn’t want to deal with that right now. She lets her forehead drop against his neck while he continues to chatter, presumably for her benefit, at the lowest possible register. She pretends he doesn’t smell good under the lingering strands of possibly-eau-de-vent. They creep out into the hallway, staying close to the wall, and Shawn’s feet are eerily, concerningly quiet. The yellow overhead lights spill over onto Juliet’s face. She winces, closing her eyes.

“... beyond a caboose design. I think that was when Gus discovered he was into clowns, romantically speaking. You can tell him I told you that, by the way.” 

“Ow,” she says, aloud this time.

Shawn’s steady stream of whispers die in the space above her head for only a second. Then he speaks again, soft and murmured:

“Hey, keep it together, Jules. You can’t go giving the small birds a bad name.”

It’s such an inane bit to commit to, the way all his bits are, and suddenly Juliet begins to feel the fuzz creep properly into the edges of her consciousness while her body inadvertently starts to sag. Relief, maybe? She’s not sure. She wonders again how he knew where to look for her. The spirits, her foggy brain supplies. That’s probably it. The only explanation. Like clockwork, Shawn appears on the scene only after she’s handled the situation first, even if she’s handled it poorly. She doesn’t always handle it poorly. Sometimes she handles it really well. Shawn loves to tell her so, and does things like take axes out of her shaking hands or very nearly almost kiss her late at night or ply her with homemade crab cakes while she puts regular, non-Scooby-Doo Band Aids on the gross roller skate blisters on her feet in the Psych office. He does stuff like that no matter how capable or incapable she was on her own. 

“Shawn?” she whispers, as they creep slowly against the wall in a direction she can’t really make out.

“Yeah?” he whispers back immediately. 

“D’you … do you really have’a taser?”

“Sure. Nicked it off Buzz.”

“Tha’s illegal.”

“What? Nah. Tasers are totally pickpocketable items in the state of California. Just ask Gus.”

“Gus’s a pharma … pharmaceutical salesman,” Juliet mumbles.

Is Shawn holding his breath? He's kind of tensed up against her. Juliet’s mind suddenly feels like it’s wading through molasses. Her cheek smushes against his warm collarbone as her head starts to nod. Someone’s talking from a long distance away. The plumbers, maybe. Or were they landscapers …?

A door bangs open and shakes Juliet awake. Footsteps again. Not Shawn’s. Where –

“Jules,” she hears, whispered urgently over her head. “Jules, sweetheart, you can’t fall asleep with a concussion. Just hang on, okay? We’re almost there.”

She’s not asleep, she wants to tell him. And she likes that he called her sweetheart, but she doesn’t like that she likes it. He should know. She likes him. He would be a worse idea than her little jaunt this afternoon, though. She hopes that doesn’t hurt his feelings. It kind of hurts hers. Juliet wants him to call her sweetheart more, even though she doesn’t, and he just has really comfortable arms. It’s embarrassing, but not any more than being stuck in a supply closet with a twisted ankle was. 

When she blinks her eyes open again, it’s harsh and sudden and awful, and she’s sitting in the back of an ambulance groaning at the blinding white light around her. Carlton sits across from her, looking pale.

He reaches out and grabs her arm to steady her. She thinks blearily that he looks scared.

“Don’t be mad,” she blurts out.

“Ju – what the hell are you talking about?” Carlton rasps.

Juliet isn’t sure. The last couple hours are kind of a blur.

“Did we get them?” she says, after a long moment of silent mutual staring. His eyes widen imperceptibly. He coughs. His shirt is open at the neck and his tie is rumpled and he smells like a shooting range. Then he laughs.

“Jesus, O’Hara,” he says. “Yeah, we got ‘em.”

Juliet nods absently. She can see Shawn standing slumped against a cop car through the open back door of the ambulance, over Calrton’s shoulder. He has a split lip that she can’t remember from before – she supposes it was pretty dark in there. Gus, standing beside him, seems to be furiously whispering at him about something, but he waves when he catches her watching. He doesn’t make a move to come over. That’s fine, she thinks. She’s happy just waving back. 

For once, Carlton doesn’t complain.

[power-chords]

I just watched Billy Bathgate and it was bananas. I’m obsessed. I saw Leopoldstadt on Broadway in 2022 and the press angle at the time was that Tom Stoppard was finally openly addressing his heritage in his work, and I guess everybody decided to collectively repress their memory of this movie’s existence, Stoppard included. I can kind of understand why, there’s a definite Philip Roth by way of Derbyshire vibe in there, and you either despise Philip Roth for being a pig and a shanda or you get a secret thrill (maybe not-so-secret) out of the Bad Jews, whether they were self-hating or gangsters or maybe self-hating gangsters. Me, I find a spoonful of venom helps the sentimentality go down. And Stoppard actually got dealt a much, much more fucked up hand in life — it was the price he paid to live, to become a converso for the Crown, so to speak. Nathan Fischbein says it best in Leopoldstadt, speaking to Leo, the author addressing a version of himself: “No one is born eight years old. Leonard Chamberlain’s life is Leo Rosenbaum’s life continued. His family is your family. But you live as if without history, as if you throw no shadow behind you.”

[s-che]

simplicity in design is a virtue, you cretins

i'm rereading Avery Alder & Ben Rosenbaum's Dream Askew / Dream Apart in preparation to finally do some serious editing of my game of intimacy, liberation, and faggots at sea Beneath Pirate Flags. among the billion other small things i'm reconsidering as i go over the bob/ndnm fundamentals, i'm really struck by how simple both these games are — elegant in a way i think i really failed to capture in the first public versions of bpf.

i have a theory about this, and it has to do with why i think the sprawling "always another sourcebook" approach taken by a lot of dungeons & drasprawling, commercially successful ttrpgs is fundamentally weak design — but first, here's one of them fancy 'keep reading' buttons you can click on to keep this post from being six and a half miles long.

hey, welcome back. lets get into the details:

bpf makes a critical break from the original ndnm games in the way its environmental playbooks work. mine are things like "the fort" and "the map" (see images) — individual iterations of broader concepts, much like the character playbooks ("legend", "dandy", "monkey" etc) are iterations of common pirate types. there are, almost certainly, multiple "monkeys" in one world — much as there are almost certainly multiple forts.

this contrasts with Askew / Apart's setting books — things like "varied scarcities," "society intact," and "goyishe world." these are intentionally broad environmental pressures. although "society intact" may be encountered different times in different places — with different names and different faces — it is, fundamentally, the same force.

2. this isn't necessarily a thing i want to change (although there are tweaks i'll be making to just about all the playbooks) but it is real interesting to think about how bpf got here, from a design perspective. the story is simple: bpf didn't start from playing either dream. it started with me reading wanderhome, and this design is borrowed (nearly) directly from there.

wanderhome, like bpf, has players create new environmental elements again and again over the course of a campaign — from the smallest kith to the largest citadel, you might be doing generation multiple times in a single session. wanderhome handles this by simplifying, simplifying, simplifying — a trait has one picklist, a nature two, and so the process of generation is quick and nondisruptive, and you're quickly able to create a populated world without losing yourself in any particular moment of generation.

(che, i hear you shouting, you baited us in with an inflammatory claim about d&d's bad design. get to the point already. ok. i will)

one of the things i like most about possum creek games as a whole (ha, got you again) is the way they can become sprawling without ever overwhelming players. this has been talked about a lot in advance of the yazeba's release — but it's true for wanderhome, too.

where both dream askew and dream apart have just six setting elements, wanderhome has (even if you disregard the seasons and holidays) a whopping forty-eight traits and thirty-six natures. it is — despite seeming small in the shadow of yazeba's — a sprawling game, and it's only through a tremendous efficiency and elegance in design that the whole thing doesn't come bursting apart at the seams. some of that is thanks to the ndnm token economy as a whole and some of it is good writing specific to wanderhome, but none of it is possible without an ethic that prioritizes simplicity — cutting the building blocks into their smallest fundamentals, so they can fit into something huge and, more importantly, comprehensible.

this all stands in sharp contrast to what seems to be the tendency in dice- and percentage- based games (told you i'd get there eventually), who — out of a need for a bespoke, simulationist tool for every situation, maybe — have a tendency towards appendices, supplemental books, and a proliferation of minutiae. i am talking about d&d here, although i don't think it's the worst offender — i still have nightmares about the hand-to-hand system from top secret, a game my dad only recently admitted he was "basically only pretending to understand the rules of" when he ran it for my friends and i when we were kids. i'm not saying all crunchy game design is like this — honestly, i think crunchiness is a totally different spectrum from rules-complexity — but i do think that, sometimes, in an effort to feel sprawling and more importantly substantial, games become inefficient and more or less illegible. it is hard to play d&d. it is hard to hold all those rules in your head. by comparison, dream askew, dream apart, and wanderhome can held pretty easily in your head. you could probably even reconstruct some of the playbooks from the design fundamentals (act weak = gain token, act strong = spend token, evocative picklist). the most important thing about these games is that the rules are evocative and they let you stay in the fun part of play for as long as possible, interrupted as little as possible.

let me make this totally clear: the fun part of a game can absolutely be tallying numbers and consulting armor ratings, but i don't think that's the reason some of these games get so big. the real answer is: cutting shit is hard! eliminating systems is hard! saying "this is not helpful, let it go" is really tough, especially when you're left with a design document that was shorter (and by extension, whispers the awful voice in the back of your head, worth less) than you were expecting. still, it's important to remember: 'good system design' is not the same thing as 'filling as many pages as possible.', even if that's hard to accept in an industry that feels like it has to be prices and paid by the page.

how does all this affect beneath pirate flags? well, that's simple — pretty quickly in my recent playtesting, i realized that pausing mid-session to create new maps, forts, ships, and so on sucks ass. it's fun to brainstorm with friends, but the environmental generation throws off the pacing of sessions in a way the wanderhome kith stuff just doesn't. why? there's too much shit in my environmental playbooks! wanderhome has two picklists per nature and one per trait. askew & apart have just one per setting element — and you only have to do it once per campaign. beneath pirate flags has five. five! it sucks! and cutting out that unecessary shit — even if i do want to straddle the middleground between dream askew & dream apart's simplicity and wanderhome's sprawling growth — is going to be the hard first step on the long road to getting this game where it ought to be.

[lol-jackles]

I agree with your opinions for the most part. But there are still some points of contradiction. For example, if Jared left the show, the spn wouldn't last much without him. If you exclude the bias towards Jensen and Misha, with a proper plot, the series could very well exist. Like making a move with Sam finally finding peace, leaving hunting and starting a family. Dean is happy for him and continues to do what he loves and knows well - hunt monsters and protect people and that includes Sam and his new family. Just if you take the concept that Sam(Jared) is the main character and the story is about him and Dean(Jensen) is secondary and the story can't be without a main character, then what about The Big Bang Theory series? Obviously Leonard is the main character and Sheldon is secondary. But when James Parsons wanted to leave the show(several times) it wasn't allowed? Why? Sheldon is not the main character, neither is Dean, BUT they are both audience favorites. Suppose if the situation was the other way around and Jensen was the one who wanted to leave the spn, the show wouldn't make sense either? Just based on your logic, the main character leaving is a failure for the show. That said, the departure of the same James Parsons would be a big blow to the show. His character even got his own series in the end. Maybe that's what Jensen wanted. And then I don't understand why he didn't just do a series about John when Meri died and he was left alone with kids and monsters. That would have been so much more interesting!

I think I may be misinterpreting "bias towards Jensen and Misha", as in my bias or the show's bias? If the latter then put down that non-canon-compliant fanfiction and slowly step away.

The Big Bang Theory worked with Leonard as the lead until he and Penny got married, which ideally was when the show should have ended because the show started with him pining after Penny. But the show continued for 2 more seasons with the focused moved to Sheldon & Amy and it was very noticeable that the original magic was gone and the show was cancelled shortly after. The ratings in viewership and demo for the last 2 seasons were steadily going down.

I've said many times here that when shows lose their leads, they are either cancelled or limp along for 1 or 2 more seasons (X Files, The Office, Scrubs, 70's show, The OC) but then fans and critics complain that the show got way worse. So even though The Big Bang Theory still had their lead Leonard on the show, moving the focus to Sheldon & Amy still resulted in the show's cancellation 2 years later.

Moving SPN's focus from Sam to Dean & Cas would have had the same result, cancellation in one or two seasons. So the "proper plot" you speak off wouldn't save a Sam-less show. WB knew that and that's why they cancelled Supernatural.

If it was Jensen who left SPN back in season 3 or 4, the show still would have continued to season 5 to reach syndication. During that time the role of Sam's new partner would have been casted and if he or she worked well enough with Jared, then the show could have continued after season 5. Shows that lost their main secondary character have successfully continued for several more seasons: Monk, Cheers, Greys Anatomy, Law&Order:SUV, and of course Walker. NYPD Blues' Andy famously went through 4 partners in 12 seasons, each partner just as popular as the last.

I agree that the Supernatural prequel should have been about a widowed John and wee Sam and Dean. That was Michael Rosenbaum’s immediate assumption on his podcast interview with Jensen. He missed a real opportunity for a young Sam and Dean prequel because nostalgia for the 80s is at an all time high. It could have been his version of Stranger Things as wee Sam and Dean explore the strange and the supernatural, like Sam’s imaginary friend Sully and we get to know more about the Zannas, the only supernatural creatures without agendas against mankind.

[choiceofgames]

NEW GAME - The Ghost and the Golem

We are pleased to announce our newest game! "The Ghost and the Golem." On sale until August 15th.

Confront mystic perils and revelations, pogroms, and your own wild heart in this Jewish historical fantasy set in the violent spring of 1881 amid bandits, betrothals, klezmers, and kabbalists! Can you save the shtetl…or do you long to escape it?

https://www.choiceofgames.com/ghost-and-the-golem/

When the czar is blown up by anarchists on a St. Petersburg bridge, the Jews are blamed, and a wave of anti-Semitic riots spread throughout the Russian empire. Though they haven't quite reached your sleepy little market village on the border of Poland and Ukraine, tensions are rising, and otherworldly portents foretell approaching doom. Can you delve into the mystical secrets of the Unseen World, investigate the underlying causes of the brewing pogrom, or make alliances with the local Christian peasants, the Czarist garrison, or the bandits of the wild forest? And let's not forget that Mamma is itching to get you married! Will you embrace the match that she and Gittel the matchmaker have arranged? Or do you have other plans?

In the tradition of the stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer, Sholem Aleichem, I. L. Peretz, and the particularly zany parts of the Talmud (as well as modern authors like Michael Chabon, Naomi Novik, and Helene Wecker), The Ghost and the Golem lets you experience a magical nineteenth-century Jewish Eastern Europe. Surrounded by an often hostile Christendom, by wild forests in which anything might creep, and by the invisible creatures of the Unseen World—angels, demons, ghosts, and spirits—the Jews of the shtetl feud and reconcile, bargain and gossip, celebrate and mourn, and snatch a little joy and love where they can. Life in the shtetl is sweet as raisin pastries and bitter as horseradish: may it be the Divine Will that it endures another season…

"The Ghost and the Golem" is an interactive fantasy novel by Benjamin Rosenbaum, where your choices control the story. It's entirely text-based—450,000 words and hundreds of choices long, without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

[ladytabletop]

Game Roundup 2023: Part 4 (The Final Part)

Okay, this final post is going to be (unfortunately) mostly just a list of things I've read because it turns out I've read A LOT this year! First, let's highlight a few things.

FIST: Ultra Edition by CLAYMORE

This game is mechanically tight. Play all your action team/spec ops/military sim without too much sim fantasies! It's already spawned a ton of additional content and hacks!

Slugblaster by Mikey Hamm

Teens! Dimensional skateboarding! Goopy creatures! What DOESN'T this game have? It's Forged in the Dark but honestly it iterates on that system in a way that is perfect to me. Really slims things down AND makes downtime better with built-in character arcs to pursue. Plus a thriving fan community that's made a lot of cool content (yours truly included).

Voidheart Symphony by Minerva McJanda

This was pitched to me as Persona the TTRPG. (I have not played Persona). The thing I find fascinating about it is that you're using different rules depending on whether you're in The Kingdom or The City. It's gorgeously laid out, and I'm excited to run it!

Dream Askew/Dream Apart by Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum

I had to pick up the OG Belonging Outside Belonging game(s) at GenCon and I waasn't disappointed. One game has you playing a bunch of queer post-apocalyptic survivors. The other has you playing an alternate history of a Jewish settlement.

CBR+PNK by Emanoel Melo

Another one I picked up from GenCon! The design on this one is TIGHT. if you have the chance to get a physical copy, do it! The presentation is unrivaled. This is cyberpunk FitD.

Other games I've read (and I'm sure many many many are missing!)

Inevitable

Running Together, Leagues Apart

Spellchitects!

Badger + Coyote Duet RPG

Three Kobolds in a Trenchcoat

Unreality/Strictness -- The Single-Page Version

Totally Real Human Adults

The Dark Below

Memories by Moonlight

Wild Duelist

Hack the Planet!

Have You Heard About the Beast?

Wizardry and Bureaucracy

Spire

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Here's to more reading next year!

[cinnamonanddean]

Okay Smallville friends, here we go: finale time.

"And now, the series finale of Smallville" WHAT IF I'M ALREADY SAD

"Special Guest Star: Michael Rosenbaum" wow spoilers much?? I mean not for me obviously but for OG viewers. I would have SCREAMED.

Lois, sweetie, he could be saving people every minute he's doing anything, by that logic. Why is his working at the Planet, etc, any different than spending time with you?

Aww, bye Luthor Mansion. You've been a fun place to stage so, so many Clex fics. Hmm I wonder if there are more fics set there or in the barn loft? I'm torn between them, personally.

Kind of rich for Martha to complain about Clark moving on when she hasn't been around for years. "This is our home" okay but you left him here. He's had to cope without you. It's not fair to put the responsibility of keeping the past alive on his shoulders alone.

Oh no his vows 😭😭😭

I feel like we don't have enough time to wrap up this (rather dull) Darkseid plotline AND have a wedding AND bring Lex back? I know this is a double episode but still. Although I suppose Lex's scene will be short and right near the end.

Oh no her vows 😭😭😭

Again I ask: has there ever been a TV wedding that just goes smoothly?

At least Lois's dress is nicer than Lana's. That bow haunts me.

Is he gonna walk down with her AGGHHHH this is so sweet 😭

Uh oh. Lois girl, pay attention, that's not the right ring. Oh thank god for Chloe.

Can't believe they're doing this to Oliver ☹️ hasn't he suffered enough?

So wait: did Clark Luthor not have powers? Did I miss that? I swear he was throwing people around and shit.

Lol is that a Herve Leger bandage dress on Lois?

Agggh Tom does vulnerable so well. "I can't, Dad" just like a little baby boy, I weep.

OH GOD I KEEP FORGETTING ABOUT ALT!LIONEL, it's a fucking jump scare every time.

Oh my god so this Lex is a fucking Frankenstein?? That's...weird. A Frankenlex.

OH MY GOD HE'S GONNA TAKE TESS'S HEART

IS THAT MICHAEL?? Wait probably not, we didn't see his face.

YES GIRL KICK THEIR ASSES

YES GIRL KILL THAT OLD BASTARD!

God this Darkseid CG is so bad

Omg omg omg omg omg OH MY GODDDDD

Oh I hate when they take an already blurry photo and then CSI-style ENHANCE! it to magically unblur it

OH MY GOD OKAY HERE WE GO

I see one of the Franken-pieces was his sassy ass mouth. God I've missed him.

Lex, honey, you've been back for thirty seconds and you're already waxing poetic about how he says your name??? I see another of the Franken-pieces was the need to make every interaction so incredibly gay. "Yet...with a hopeful finish" oh my god honestly

Apologies in advance: I might have a comment on every line of this dialogue.

Oh dear, you can see the bald cap a bit when he raises his eyebrows. I remember Michael said the bald cap was more trouble than just shaving his head lol

Lord, it wouldn't be a proper Lex return without a history speech. HONEY I'VE MISSED YOUUU!

"that's the thing about memories: you can't forget them" mmmm I don't think that's true baby.

Oh gosh the vitriol.

"You and I - we will both be great men. Because of each other." Honey the WAY you talk about the two of you. THE VOICE CRACK. "We have a destiny together, Clark, only on different sides."

Everything he says sounds like a love confession I'M SO SORRY BUT IT DOES

Stop wait one fucking minute here. The last piece of Clark's little "am I strong enough to face this threat" puzzle, the last person to give him the courage and the conviction to do what he needs to do - is LEX FUCKING LUTHOR??? NOT LOIS NOT HIS PARENTS NOT CHLOE BUT LEX??????? oh my god what is happening that is INSANE OF THEM

I need to watch that again. Gosh I haven't done that since the Lexana scene from Fracture.

HAHA I missed Lex's joke about Lionel's heart the first time around. Why is he so funny

God Michael is so fucking good. He just elevates the tone. It's really what's been missing from these last seasons. The others are good - Tom is so good, I'm not discounting him at all - but Michael is on another level.

Hmm seemed a bit too easy killing the Prophets

Oh poor John Glover. This is Not Good. He was always so suave and cool as Lionel, this is a step down.

Aww look how far our sweet boy has come 😭 I'm so proud of him.

HE'S FLYING 😭😭😭

OH I DIDN'T KNOW WE GOT MORE LEX I THOUGHT IT WAS JUST THE SCENE WITH CLARK

Ahh jeez. I kinda came around to Tess. She wasn't Lex but she was fun.

Oh riiiiiiight, I forgot he gets his memory wiped. Again.

OH MY GOD THE LAST MEMORY IS HIM AND CLARK OF COURSE IT FUCKING IS

Lol what the fuck does he think is happening, now that he can't remember?

THE LUTHORCORP SIGN TURNING INTO LEXCORP THAT WAS SO RAD

Our baby finally in the suit 😭

Girl I don't think they just let you film the President like that. That camera is gonna be taken away IMMEDIATELY.

Oh yeah I forgot about Jimmy. That was...a choice.

ALL HAIL PRESIDENT LEX!!!!

"yes Miss Lane" "that's so hot" girl yes it is.

Oh the theme 😭 what an ending

That was so great. A bit hokey in parts, but overall such a satisfying finale. What a ride.

[demisexualnathanvuornos]

Funny thing happened as I was checking Lucas Bryant's imdb page, as one does. Suddenly there was a new/old entry. Apparently he was in two episodes of a show in Australia in 2022.

He was in a show called Irreverent, an Australian one season show with Colin Donnell which is a remake/version of the sitcom Impastor with Michael Rosenbaum around 2016. I've watched one ep of that show (2x1) because an actor I like was supposed to be on it (she wasn't). Impastor was a straight up comedy with a Lutheran joke I still think about. So I thought I'd check this new imdb info out and the show. This time imdb was right.

So I checked Irreverent 1x4 which Lucas is credited for and sure enough he is right there from the start of the episode. It's a flashback where main character's shitty father (Lucas) almost let's him drown. Very different start than I expected based on Impastor. The rest of the show is an hour long comedy so the scene feels even weirder in context. Lucas is also briefly in 1x6. It's a very different role than the ones he usually does. The show aired on Peacock but can be found elsewhere.

Again, as someone who checks Lucas' imdb page quite regularly, it's weird I haven't heard anything about this in the year and a half since this would have aired in Australia/USA. It's odd that he did promo work for Five More Minutes Moments Like These without mentioning that he did some acting in Australia. He must not update his imdb much.

[archiveofkloss]

st. louis public radio: “Fashion icon Karlie Kloss emphasizes Missouri's role in national abortion rights fight” by Jason Rosenbaum

Webster Groves native Karlie Kloss took the modeling world by storm in the 2010s before launching a highly successful effort to connect young women with computer coding and, more recently, helping relaunch Life magazine.

On Monday, Kloss discussed another passion: her advocacy for abortion rights in Missouri and around the Midwest.

“I'm one of four daughters. I grew up here in the Midwest. My father is a physician. The idea of reproductive care was never political in my house,” Kloss said. “It's devastating to me the reality of what is happening and how it has become so politicized. Because to me, this is a conversation that belongs between an individual and their physician and an individual and their loved ones. To me, politicians should not be involved.”

Kloss helped gather signatures in Creve Coeur for the Missourians for Constitutional Freedom initiative, a measure that would legalize the procedure up to what’s known as fetal viability. That’s defined in the initiative as when medical professionals determine that a fetus could survive outside of the womb without extraordinary medical intervention.

Before Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, Kloss started the Gateway Coalition, which provides financial and logistical assistance to small clinics that provide abortions throughout the Midwest. She said those facilities, particularly the ones in Illinois, have become havens for people in states like Missouri where most abortions are prohibited.

“What I really realized, especially once Roe fell, was about the fragmentation of care across this country, but specifically in the Midwest,” Kloss said. “I wanted to do whatever I could, and initially focused on Illinois of just the infrastructure that exists — the independent clinics, the clinics across Illinois who are really holding up the front line.”

She called the Missourians for Constitutional Freedom initiative “an opportunity to take it to the ballot box and actually have Missourians reinstall protections in our home state.”

“So you don't have to leave Missouri to receive just the vital care that I believe every woman deserves,” Kloss said.

Since rolling out the initiative at the beginning of the year, Missourians for Constitutional Freedom has raised more than $4.5 million in contributions of more than $5,000. That includes a $50,000 donation from Kloss.

She said that the initiative can find support with a wide range of voters — pointing specificallyto polling from SLU/YouGov that showed more than 20% of Republican respondents backed the initiative.

“They see this as a human issue,” Kloss said. “And also, the fact is that the trigger ban that went into effect had no exceptions, which to me is just unacceptable.”

Kloss was referring to how Missouri’s abortion ban that went into effect in June 2022 contained no exceptions for anyone who became pregnant due to rape or incest.

If organizers get roughly 171,000 signatures all over the state, the amendment legalizing abortion could go before voters in either August or November. It’s part of a trend in other states, including Arizona and Florida, of trying to use the initiative petition process to enshrine abortion rights.

Backers have until May 5 to turn in signatures.

Kloss said there’s a reason for people everywhere to care about what’s happening in Missouri and other states with strict abortion bans.

“To me this issue is about dignity,” Kloss said. “It's about respect and an individual's bodily autonomy to decide what is right for them in their life at whatever time they need to be making that choice. And so this ban, I believe, we have a chance to overturn.”

While in town Monday, Kloss participated in a ceremony officially naming a portion of Washington Avenue after her.

[aulel-process]

Lex's dad uses a stone of power to switch bodies with Clark... Lex can tell something is up... Lex can always tell when Clark isn't Clark ❤️

I love how Lex speaks... the intonation, cadence, inflection of his voice is so collected, cool, unperturbed, in control but without aggression or force... his voice becomes prickly around his dad but is usually gentle/playful or earnest with Clark.... Michael Rosenbaum is also a voice actor and the things he can do with his voice is really mesmerizing...

I love their outfits here too... funny that Lex's dad doesn't even try to pretend to be Clark.

[fancoloredglasses]

Smallville (a 10-year origin story)

[All images are owned by DC Comics and Warner Bros-Discovery. Please don’t sue me]

(Thanks to jimgerakaris)

A bit of history of Superman before the actual review…

(Thanks to DC)

When Superman was created in 1939, no thought was given to Clark Kent’s life before coming to Metropolis. One day, he decided to wear a blue body suit with red underpants on the outside and a giant S on his chest.

However, after the second World War came to a close, Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel decided to expand on Superman’s origin, saying that he actually donned the “Captain Underpants” look as a teen.

(Thanks to Comics Archaeology)

I would like to note that Smallville looked like a town of less than 10,000 people. This would be the type of town where everyone knows everyone, so there’s NO WAY Clark’s secret would remain a secret for long (in fact, Clark’s best friend Pete Ross DID find out)

However, following Crisis, Superboy was removed from the continuity and once again, Clark Kent first donned the tights as an adult…

…after he was forced to reveal himself to the public.

But what about his life before he came to Metropolis? In 2001, the WB Network (which would later merge with UPN to become the CW Network) sought to answer that question with Smallville, which was to chronicle the life of a teenage Clark.

Warner Brothers executives has two demands to green light the series: No tights and No flights (meaning Clark couldn’t “suit up” over the course of the series and couldn’t fly.

However, in the second episode we see Clark floating over his bed)

The series started as you’d expect (with baby Kal-El landing in Smallville, Kansas) However, he didn’t come alone.

(Thanks to Varun Hans)

The meteors that fell on Smallville (three guesses what those meteors are made of) have radiation that has mutagenic properties (in addition to being poisonous to Kryptonians) Season 1 was pretty much Clark Kent vs. the Kryptonite mutant of the week (they started easing up on it starting with Season 2)

Anyway, let’s meet the stars of the show…

Young Clark Kent (played by Tom Welling), who starts the series as an awkward teen starting at Smallville High School. He spends much of the first four seasons discovering his powers and heritage (more on that later)

Clark adopted parents and Martha and Jonathan Kent (played by Annette O’Toole (who played Lana Lang in Superman III) and John Schneider (who played Bo Duke in The Dukes of Hazzard)), who try to instill in Clark small-town values while teaching him to use his powers to help others.

Clark’s best friends are Chloe Sullivan (played by Allison Mack [FUN FACT: Chloe was created for the series; due to her popularity, DC brought her into the comics]) and Pete Ross (played by Sam Jones III)

While Pete is the first to learn Clark’s secret, Chloe is editor for the school paper and has an obsession over the strange happenings around Smallville that started the day of the meteor storm (so naturally she eventually finds out as well)

Clark has a crush on Lana Lang (played by Kristin Kreuk, who would go on to play the title character in Street Fighter: The Legend on Chun-Li), whose parents were vaporized in the meteor storm. She wears a pendant made of meteor rock to remember them (which means she is literally toxic for Clark)

Naturally, you can’t have Superman Clark Kent without Lex Luthor (played by Michael Rosenbaum) Lex lost his hair due to Kryptonite radiation during the meteor storm. At the beginning of the series, Lex was more or less banished to the Smallville fertilizer plant owned by his father…

…Lionel Luthor (played by John Glover, who played Daniel Clamp in Gremlins 2), founder and CEO of the multinational corporation known as Luthor Corp.

Lex and Clark start out as friends after they meet…

(Thanks to Varun Hans)

While Lex initially tries to do the right thing, he eventually goes down the dark path we all know he will as he and Clark become enemies.

There are others who join the cast as the series moves beyond a teen drama with super powers after season 4 (it ran for 10 seasons), including future members of the Justice League…

…such as Green Arrow

Martian Manhunter

…and the Flash.

However, Krypton exerts influence on Clark and the Kents, as the spirit of Jor-El (played by Terrence Stamp, who played General Zod in Superman II) repeatedly tries to push Clark to a destiny he’s not sure he wants.

But Stamp and O’Toole aren’t the only callback actors, as we have one more cast member from the films…

Christopher Reeve (the Man of Steel himself) in his final role as an astronomer with insight into Krypton.

Clark eventually finds his way to Metropolis (which is visible from Smallville’s water tower. So would that place it in Kansas, Nebraska, or Missouri?) and the Daily Planet, which would put him working with…

…Chloe’s cousin Lois Lane (Played by Erica Durance, who would later play Dr. Reid on Saving Hope)

…and Jimmy Olsen (played by Aaron Ashmore, who would go on to play Johnny in Killjoys)

Despite skirting the issue (Clark would use his abilities without the tights, moving so fast that the Daily Planet dubbed him “The Blur”), they gave in to the inevitable for the series finale.

(Thanks to smallville21KAL)

However, that would not be the last we’d see of Welling as Clark Kent, as he got closure 6 years later.

(Thanks to TV Promos)

If you would like to watch the series, it’s available on Hulu or behind your favorite paywall.

As always, if there is an episode you would like reviewed, please let me know!

[blowflyfag]

Pro Wrestling Illustrated: December 1994

JIM NEIDHART: THE MAN WHO POISONED OWEN’S HART

Nobody knows Bret Hart better than Jim Neidhart, his former partner in The Hart Foundation. And nobody had a better way than Neidhart to get revenge against Bret: He went through Owen

[Jim Neidhart revitalized the Owen Hart-Bret Hart feud just when it appeared the brothers were ready to patch things up. Neidhart had reason to back Owen, for “The Anvil” was seeking revenge against Bret.

By Dave Rosenbaum

THE WWE'S GREATEST tag team of the 1980s didn’t have one star, but two. Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart, the feared and respected Hart foundation, seemingly proved the locker room cliche, “There’s no ‘I’ in team.”

At least that’s how most people remember them. From 1984 until early–1991. Hart and Neidhart were perfectly in sync. Their only equals were The British Bulldogs, and the teams feuded brilliantly for fans fortunate enough to see them live or on TV. 

Unfortunately Neidhart has different memories about The Hart Foundation. He doesn’t recall two WWF World tag team titles and years of dominance. Blinded by jealousy, Neidhart sees a partner who hogged the spotlight and grabbed the glory. For “The anvil,” turning against his brother-in-law Bret at the King of the Ring pay-per-view wasn’t difficult, but an act of revenge. Owen Hart was his tool. 

[Under the management of Jimmy Hart, The Hart Foundation had two WWF World tag team title reigns totalling about 16 months (far right). While The New Foundation (right) never approached their success, Neidhart has fonder memories of the latter unit.]

Neidhart has far fonder memories of his partnership with Owen. The New Foundation, formed in late-1991, never won the WWF World tag team title, but Neidhart remembers the impressive victories over several top tag teams. He also remembers that the team clicked. 

“Owen never tried to hog the spotlight,” Neidhart said a few years ago. “We were a real team. It wasn’t like with his brother.”

Now we can see how the stage was set some time ago for the WWF’s hottest feud and most controversial story. Owen Hart might have turned against his brother without interference, but an instigator put him over the top.

[Owen might have not have been able to beat Razor Ramon in the King of the Ring tournament (Far left), without Neidhart’s interference (left). Despite the fact that he remains beltless, Owen says he is superior to brother Bret, the WWF World champion.]

Neidhart poisoned Owen’s heart in a way none of Bret’s actions could have. Owen perceived and Neidhart confirmed. All along, Neidhart was the troublemaker lurking in the background, fueling Owen’s fire. That flame is now burning hot and threatens to consume the Hart family.

The arsonist? Jim Neidhart.

“Neidhart didn't just show up at King of the Ring and that was that,” said a WWF fan favorite who requested anonymity. “A few times in the past months I had seen Owen with Neidhart, but I never made anything of it. After all, they were teammates for a long time. Now we’ve all put two and two together and we can see what was happening.”

The Hart-Neidhart-Hart triangle is the result of brewing resentment. It’s impossible for anyone to look at the old Hart Foundation and say, “Bret was the better wrestler. Neidhart got short-changed. Hart hogged the spotlight.” Neidhart was the feared brawler, Hart the respected scientific star. Both were capable rulebreakers and, later, equally liked fan favorites. 

If anything, The Hart Foundation’s dedication to teamwork made it what it was. So how could Neidhart emerge from that  partnership feeling as if he were the lesser half?

“It’s possible that Neidhart was very bitter over the breakup,” said WWF expert Thomas Pilliard. “As we all know, Hart went on to great things while Neidhart’s career stalled. Nobody really knew what would happen at the time, but that’s what happened. 

“What's interesting to note, though, is that although Neidhart blames Bret for stealing the spotlight, Owen was incredibly selfish when teaming with Neidhart. Owen scored the pin in most of The New Foundation’s matches. That’s a fact.”

Facts obviously don’t matter. According to insiders, Neidhart felt Owen was a far more cooperative partner than Bret. Neidhart and Bret often argued over the team’s direction. Bret wanted more science, Neidhart more violence. They never came to an agreement.

In contrast, Owen didn’t try to push his style on Neidhart. Instead, they discovered what The Hart Foundation quietly acknowledged all along: Opposites attract and make for dangerous tag teams.

Perhaps “The Anvil” enjoyed his partnership with Owen because Neidhart was perceived as being more famous. Or maybe they just became friends. Neidhart and Bret were never anything more than partners.

When presented with the opportunity to influence Owen, Neidhart struck relentlessly. Every time the brothers seemed ready to make amends, Neidhart reminded Owen that the scales still weren’t balanced. Bret had all the glory, Owen had none. 

At King of the Ring, Neidhart helped the balance by interfering in Owen’s tournament championship match against Razor Ramon. The Bret-Owen feud was one-sided until Owen became “King.” Neidhart kept things going.

And that’s the way things have to be, because Neidhart really doesn’t care if Owen is in Bret’s spotlight. He doesn’t care if Owen never wins another match. This is more about Neidhart vs. Bret Hart, the War of The Hart Foundation.

One more thing, Neidhart might be wondering. Why wasn’t it the Neidhart Foundation?

[Owen has become an excellent all-around wrestler, though he can still boast only one victory over his older brother (top). But with Neidhart assistance, Owen might finally be able to become the dominant Hart (left).]

[mybeingthere]

A great photograph of Howard Finster by Margo Rosenbaum.

Born on February 17, 1939, she earned her bachelor’s degree in painting and drawing from the San Francisco Art Institute in California and her master’s degree in the same field from the University of Iowa. In 1966 she married Art Rosenbaum, also an artist and musician. Over the years, Rosenbaum has collaborated with her husband on numerous projects, most notably photographing folk musicians as he recorded their performances.

Howard Finster (1916 – 2001) was an American artist and Baptist minister from Georgia. He claimed to be inspired by God to spread the gospel through the design of his swampy land into Paradise Garden, a folk art sculpture garden with over 46,000 pieces of art. His creations include outsider art, naïve art, and visionary art. Finster came to widespread notice in the 1980s with his album cover designs for R.E.M. and Talking Heads.

Finster was born at Valley Head, Alabama, and lived on the family farm as one of 13 children. He attended school from age six into the sixth grade. He said he had his first vision at the age of three years, when he saw his recently deceased sister Abbie Rose walking down out of the sky wearing a white gown. She told him, "Howard, you're gonna be a man of visions."

He became "born again" at a Baptist revival at the age of 13 and began to preach at 16. He gave the occasional sermon at local churches and wrote articles for the town newspaper, and became a full-time pastor at Rock Bridge Baptist Church in 1940. He later served at the Mount Carmel Baptist Church in Fort Payne, Alabama, shortly before venturing into full-time art.

Finster began building his first garden park museum in Trion, Georgia, in the late 1940s. It featured an exhibit on the inventions of mankind in which Finster planned to display one of everything that had ever been invented, models of houses and churches, a pigeon flock and a duck pond.

When he ran out of land in Trion in 1961, he moved to Pennville, Georgia, near Summerville, and bought four acres (16,000 m²) of land upon which to build the Plant Farm Museum "to show all the wonderful things o' God's Creation, kinda like the Garden of Eden." It features such attractions as the "Bible House," "the Mirror House," "the Hubcap Tower," "the Bicycle Tower," "the Machine Gun Nest," and the largest structure in the garden, the five-story "Folk Art Chapel." He also started putting up signs with Bible verses on them because "he felt that they stuck in people's heads better that way."

He retired from preaching in 1965 and focused all of his time on improving the Plant Farm Museum. In 1976, he had another vision to paint sacred art. According to Finster, "...one day I was workin' on a patch job on a bicycle, and I was rubbin' some white paint on that patch with this finger here, and I looked at the round tip o' my finger, and there was a human face on it... then a warm feelin' come over my body, and a voice spoke to me and said, 'Paint sacred art.'"

His diverse range of subjects include pop culture icons like Elvis Presley, historical figures like George Washington, Ronald Reagan, religious images like The Devils Vice and "John the Baptist," UFOs and aliens, war and politics. His paintings are colorful and detailed; they use flat picture plane without perspective and are often covered with words, especially Bible verses. Every painting also has a number: God had asked him to do 5,000 paintings to spread the gospel and Finster wanted to keep track.