#CRICKET AND THE PHOENIX AT THE END GETS ME SO BAD

[astro-inthestars]

JUST GOT BACK FROM WATCHING PUSS IN BOOTS THE LAST WISH LETS GOOOOOO HOLY SHIT FINALLY. OKAY. YEAH. THAT WAS GOOD.

[falloutboylyricss]

Fall Out Boy and Questions

note: this is a list of lyrics that are questions themselves, not ones that contain the word "question"

Evening Out With Your Girlfriend

"But that's none of my business, is it?" - Pretty In Punk

"Knocking boots in the back, how degrading is that?" - Pretty In Punk

"How's the weather up there?" - Short, Fast, And Loud

"Where can I go when I want you around but I can't stand to be around you?" - Moving Pictures

Take This to Your Grave

"Where is your boy tonight? I hope he is a gentleman" - Grand Theft Autumn / Where Is Your Boy

"Are you through with me? / So, and when it all goes to hell, will you be able to tell me sorry with a straight face?" - The Patron Saint of Liars and Fakes

From Under The Cork Tree

"Why don't you show me the little bit of spine you've been saving for his mattress?" - Dance, Dance

"Am I more than you bargained for yet?" - Sugar, We're Goin' Down

"Is this more than you bargained for yet?" - Sugar, We're Goin' Down

"Isn't it messed up how I'm just dying to be him?" - Sugar, We're Goin' Down

"Can I lay in your bed all day?" - Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner

"Are we growing up or just going down?" - Sophomore Slump Or Comeback Of The Year

"They say, 'You want a war? You've got a war,' but who are you fighting for?" - Champagne For My Real Friends, Real Pain For My Sham Friends

"She said, she said, she said, 'Why don't you just drop dead?'" - A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More "Touch Me"

"So say, what are you waiting for? Kiss her, kiss her" - A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More "Touch Me"

"Write me off, give up on me, 'cause, darling, what did you expect?" - A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More "Touch Me"

"Why put a new address on the same old loneliness?" - Get Busy Living Or Get Busy Dying (Do Your Part To Save The Scene And Stop Going To Shows)

"'What did it ever do for me?', I say" - XO

"Which came first, the music or the misery?" - The Music Or The Misery

"And did you hear the news? I could dissect you and gut you on this stage" - My Heart Is The Worst Kind Of Weapon

Infinity on High

"Wouldn't you rather be a widow than a divorcee?" - "The Take Over, The Breaks Over"

"How cruel is the golden rule when the lives we lived are only golden-plated?" - Golden

"'Who does he think he is?'" - Thnks fr th Mmrs

Don't You Know Who I Think I Am? (title only)

"Got postcards from my former selves saying, 'How you been?'" - The Carpal Tunnel Of Love

"I am God's gift, but why would he bless me with such wit without a conscience equipped?" - Fame < Infamy

"Baby boy can't lift his headache head, isn't it tragic?" - You're Crashing, But You're No Wave

"Do you remember the way I held your hand under the lamp post and ran home this way, so many times I could close my eyes?" - I've Got All This Ringing In My Ears And None On My Fingers

Folie à Deux

"Why, why, why won't the world revolve around me?" - America's Suitehearts

"Does your husband know the way that the sunshine gleams from your wedding band? / Does he know the way? Does he know the way of the crickets that would convince me to call it a night?" - Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet

"It's a sign, what if you peaked early?" - Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet

"Does he know the way I worship our love?" - Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet

"So when the world ends, will God go down with it?" - What A Catch, Donnie

"Are all the good times getting gone?" - 27

"Oh, freckle, freckle, what makes you so special? What makes you so special?" - w.a.m.s.

"And mama, if we pray to the Lord, does he sing on a stage?" - w.a.m.s.

"Have you ever wanted to disappear and join a monastery, go out and preach on Manic Street? / Who will I be when I wake up next to a stranger on a passenger plane?" - 20 Dollar Nose Bleed

Save Rock And Roll

"Hey youngblood, doesn't it feel like our time is running out?" - The Phoenix

"I don't know where you're going, but do you got room for one more troubled soul?" - Alone Together

"Do you wanna feel beautiful? Do you wanna?" - Alone Together

"Woah, where did the party go?" - Where Did The Party Go

"Did you trip down twelve steps into Malibu? / So why the hell is there a light that's keeping us forever? / Bel Air baby, did you get dressed up?" - The Mighty Fall

"Americana, exotica, do you wanna feel a little beautiful, baby?" - Young Volcanoes

"Are you ready for another bad poem?" - Rat A Tat

"How'd it get to be only me?" - Save Rock And Roll

PAX AM Days

"Miss me? Me, love? Mr. Superstar" - Eternal Summer

"What if it were all a dream? What if we were demigods?" - Demigods

"What if we grow like a weed?" - Demigods

American Beauty/American Psycho

"Don't you know that the kids aren't al-, kids aren't alright?" - The Kids Aren't Alright

"Did you ever love her? Do you know? Or did you never want to be alone?" - Jet Pack Blues

"Don't you remember how we used to split a drink?" - Jet Pack Blues

"And I'm starting to forget just what summer ever meant to you, what did it ever mean to you?" - Fourth Of July

"Do you, do, do you remember when we drove, we drove, drove through the night and we danced, we danced to Rancid?" - Favorite Record

MANIA

"Are you smelling that shit?" - Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea

"You were too good to be true, gold-plated, but what's inside you?" - The Last Of The Real Ones

"Confidants but never friends, were we ever friends?" - HOLD ME TIGHT OR DON'T

"And in the end, if I don't make it on the list, would you sneak me a wristband? / Would you give me, give me, give me, give me a boost, a boost over Heaven's gate?" - Heaven's Gate

So Much (For) Stardust

"What would you trade the pain for?" - Love From The Other Side / So Much (For) Stardust

"Is there a word for bad miracle?" - Heartbreak Feels So Good

"But could we please pretend this won't end?" - Heartbreak Feels So Good

"Who am I dialing tonight? That's a bummer" - Hold Me Like a Grudge

"Do you laugh about me whenever I leave, or do I just need more therapy?" - Fake Out

"Baby, please, would you read my eulogy?" - Heaven, Iowa

"Tell me, when the party ends, will you still love who I am?" -Heaven, Iowa

"Oh God, kinda please, would you kill me now?" - Flu Game

"What is there between us, if not a little annihilation?" - Baby Annihilation

"I got the quarantine blues, bad news, what's left?" - What a Time To Be Alive

Misc.

"Why can you read me like no one else?" - It's Not A Side Effect Of The Cocaine, I Am Thinking It Must Be Love

"What good comes of something when I'm just the ghost of nothing, nothing?" - "From Now On We Are Enemies"

"Lunatic of a god or a god of a lunatic?" - "From Now On We Are Enemies"

"When they say, 'You and what army?', I guess they're talking about you and me, baby" - Bob Dylan

"Would you bury me next to Johnny Cash?" - Bob Dylan

"So what fates do we share?" - Bob Dylan

[swirlysmile]

Heyyy, I'm leaving here this hangman prompt in case you like it :) -the reader is a pilot and they usually fight a lot but care about each other- on one of the last days before the mission they can't sleep so they get up and came across the other in the middle of the night at the base, after a little talk Jake says something like let's go and they end up watching the sun go up together🌅

YES

requests are taking a little longer due to school!

word count: 530

warnings; small fight

Sunrise

“Keep your ego out of the air, Seresin.” You snarl after a particularly bad training session. He refused to let you go in for the shot, claiming that he had it.

He did not have it.

“I bring my ego everywhere, thank you!” He says, somewhat defensively. “If you hadn’t been riding my ass, I would have had it.”

“If you had listened to me, I would have had it!” 

You’re seriously about to bitch-slap him, but Rooster (your savior), comes to drag you away before you can get yourself dishonorably discharged. “You need a little cooldown, [callsign].”  

You don’t fight him. Rooster is right, you need some time away from Hangman. 

You’re relaxing in the air conditioned common room, a bottle of cold water being held up to your head. 

“This headache is seriously beating my ass.” You complain to nobody in particular. Phoenix scoffs, amusement evident. 

A few days later, you’re sitting in bed. Tossing and turning in your bunk is doing nothing to ease your racing mind, instead it’s just irritating Phoenix. She’s about ready to smack you. 

“I’d like to sleep, you know” She grumbles. You sit up, almost hitting your head, and stretch a little bit. Breaking curfew to grab some water can’t hurt, right? 

“Alright, I’m out of here.” You say, and you’re met with no complaints when the door clicks to a close.

You check your watch and walk down the hall. It’s 4:23 a.m. and you’re praying that each step you make doesn’t echo throughout the base.

You make it outside, only bumping into two walls during the 4 minute journey. The anxieties are a bit less concentrated, but you’re still feeling it. The smell of the halls will send you right back into a spiral, so you decide to walk around a little. It’s quiet except for crickets chirping, and Hangman’s breathing?

“You know it’s like 4:30, right?” 

“Do you know it’s like 4:30?” 

You roll your eyes and plop down on the concrete next to him. It’s cold, and a little moist, but not the worst place you’ve been seated whilst in the military. 

“So, whatcha thinking about?” You whisper, popping your fingers a little bit.

“What are you thinking about?”

“I asked first.”

“I asked second.”

“Answer the damn question, Hangman.” You roll your eyes, lightly punching his arm. “Nothing really. Your turn.” he 

“That’s complete bullshit and we both know it, but I’ll tell you anyway. We’ve only got two days before the mission,” 

He wraps his arm around you, pulling you a little bit closer. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.” 

“Now, c’mon.” He clicks his tongue, pulling you up. You cast a confused glance in his direction, but follow him despite your best judgement.

He wouldn’t actually lead you to death, right?

The answer is no. He leads you to the parking lot, it’s got a great view of the rising sun. “Think we’ll get in trouble?”

“You’re too cautious for your own good, we’ll be fine.” 

You shrug and follow him to sit in his truck bed. The only thing that leaves your mouth while you watch the sunrise is “Wow.” 

[unpopularly-opinionated]

To get it out of the way, I didn’t drop a dime on Disney to watch the new Mulan movie, but I have seen it.

The TL;DR, non-spoiler review is, when you compare it to the original animated movie, it’s about a 3/10, but when you judge it as it’s own movie, I think it’s about a 7/10.

Pre-post edit: Before I wrote everything below (which is filled w/ spoilers btw so be warned), I wanted to give this a 7/10 on it’s own merit w/o comparing it to the original, but after really examining the message of this version it’s really difficult to give it a 7/10, so I’ll say 5/10.

It’s not a bad movie, I just think the message it sends is kind of fucked up and a huge 180 from the original, which I know I said I wouldn’t compare it to, and I’m not, but just objectively the messages are contrasting.

The movie isn’t actually that bad, it’s just different and similar in very odd ways. The whole movie felt really conflicted over whether to make it it’s own thing separate from the original, and whether to make it a 1:1 copy of the original. Put into words, I think it just had a bit of an identity crisis.

Some aspects of the movie that they changed from the original don’t immediately make it clear why they were changed, which leads me to believe they wanted to make it it’s own thing, but then they threw in clear scenes that were from the original, and evidently the movie is called Mulan, so clearly they didn’t shy away from that.

Some of the changes made sense. It’s very obvious they wanted to try and go for a “more serious” tone for the film. This is likely why there’s no singing which is the biggest missing feature, but also likely why Mulan is missing her humor from the original, and why her grandmother isn’t in this, and obviously Eddie Murphey’s Mushu and the Cricket. This movie isn’t funny, and it’s not supposed to be, which is fine.

The changes that didn’t make immediate sense to me though were small changes, such as changing her family name from Fa to Hua, or even changing her fake name from Ping to Jun, or the Huns to the Rourons, or the family worshiping a Phoenix instead of a Dragon, or giving her a younger sister, etc. Very small minor changes which don’t ultimately change anything of the film or plot itself so ultimately aren’t a huge deal but then why change them? This is what I mean when I say it seems like they wanted to make this movie their own thing...but also the same.

The scenes they decided to recreate weren’t obviously 1:1, but I think they did a pretty decent job. The Matchmaker scene happens. The lake scene happens. They soldiers talk about what they look for in a woman and all say relatively the same things. Those were pretty cool scenes.

Hands down, the instrumental version of Reflection was the best ever. They used it a couple times and every time I get chills cause I was just fangasming over it. Really minor detail, but fuck was it awesome to hear nonetheless.

The action was actually pretty well choreographed I thought. It really reminded me of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon with the sort of flying through the air, running on walls, etc.

The actor they got to play the villain, Bori Khan (also different from the original), looks identical to the animated Shan Yu. Like as identical as a real human being can be to an animated character. I honestly thought that was perfect casting. I don’t recognize him, or 99% of the actors in this (honestly the only one I recognized at all was the general from Rogue One), but he was great.

Some of the more major changes were...a bit hit or miss. This movie evidently focuses a bit on what they call Chi, which is kinda magic but also kinda not magic? It all gets vaguely Disney-explained but Mulan’s Chi just makes her a pretty decent acrobatic fighter. The enemy “witch” uses Chi to straight up transform into a hawk or a swarm of bats among other things, but she’s sort of implied to be more advanced with Chi than Mulan is so that’s okay I guess. The Emperor also has Chi and he briefly uses it to...make some fabric defy the laws of physics briefly I guess.

The part about the Chi that bothered me slightly was how they used it to reinforce this sense of otherness about Mulan. Obviously Mulan has always been about a girl defying social norms to save her father and to bring honor to her family and country, but in this version Mulan has Chi, and girls aren’t supposed to have Chi. Only boys can have Chi, and women with Chi are seen as witches and are usually exiled. This is the story behind the bad “witch”, she was exiled for having strong Chi.

The reason why this felt like an issue is because it sort of takes away the fact that Mulan is “just a girl” infiltrating a male-dominated space to defy social norms and do what only men are “allowed” and “capable” of doing. Instead, she’s some pseduo Jedi-like character with abilities that not only show her as more capable than the men, but also not like other women.

So whereas in the original you could point to Mulan as an example and say “See, women can do what men can do” you can’t do the same in this movie because this Mulan actually has something that makes her special and unique that not every woman might have. To use another Star Wars reference, Chi is quite literally the Midichlorians of Mulan. Whereas before any woman could do what she could do, now only some women like Mulan can do what she did.

Another weird aspect was I guess the message of the movie. Like, people say this movie was made for China and uh...yeah, the message of this movie kiiiiinda proves that.

Throughout the training parts, the General emphasizes the virtues they all live by which are engraved on everyone’s swords: “Loyal. Brave. True.” and the conflict stems from the fact that Mulan isn’t being true by hiding her identity, which is why she’s failing as a soldier and I guess a human being and it’s only after she embraces who she is that she starts kicking ass.

There’s also the scene at the very beginning with the Emperor, like in the original, where the soldier tells him about the invaders approaching. In the original, the Emperor was a very kind and caring old man who cared more about his people than anything else. Evidently, they tried to like...make it more realistic or something, I guess, so in this the Emperor doesn’t really seem to care about his people, and he keeps emphasizing in that scene and throughout the movie that they need to “protect the dynasty” which was just weirdly loyalist.

And then of course the end where they’re supposed to repeat the message of the film, the part you’re supposed to take away which is...”devotion to family”. That, along with the previous two things I mentioned, really make this movie feel like a 180 from the original. Whereas the original was about a woman defying social norms to be protect her father and bring honor to her family, this one felt more like a woman defending her country and vaguely reinforcing those social norms...?

Perhaps I misinterpreted, I don’t know. I just thought it was weirdly the opposite message the original sent.

[captaincoffeegirl515]

I just saw the live-action Mulan movie, and in short, it sucked.

It’s not worth the money! Not worth the 37 dollars you’ll need to pay so that you can merely rent the movie. Don’t worry, I pirated it. I didn’t give Disney any money, and I’m writing this so you won’t have to as well.

To think, my mom was so excited about this film especially since we are Chinese and the animated Mulan film was one of her favourite Disney films. But throughout the film, we were disappointed again and again.

First of all, the directing, camera work, pacing, and editing was terrible. The pacing of the movie was all over the place. The fight scenes especially, were so erratic and badly put together. Either they’d have the scene move at a normal pace but would cut and change to a new angle or perspective multiple times until you can barely tell if there were any hits or what they were doing. Or they would do slow-mo and do a zoom-in on Mulan’s blank, stiff face.

They had Donnie Yen, a famous martial artist and actor, doing some incredible swordsmanship and martial arts in front of the soldiers but then they ruined it by constantly cutting away from him to some random blank-faced soldier. What wasted potential!

Did I mention the blank faces. Everyone looked so stiff during the movie, barely any proper acting done. This was especially obvious with the Witch, whose face barely seems to move. The most emotional I saw her was when she had teary eyes, but still, the rest of her face stayed smooth.

My biggest problem lay with the fact that they took the sexism of the animated Mulan movie and managed to crank it up to a thousand. The whole concept of chi/qi was wrong. For starters, real chi lies in everyone, and it does not give you superpowers or suddenly makes you a good fighter. But in the movie, apparently only men can use chi and gain superpowers, and that if a woman somehow had chi then she’s a witch and must be outcast or killed. And it made it seem like the only reason Mulan could keep up with the men or be better than them was because she had these superpowers. I honestly have no words to express my anger and disappointment at this.

I understand they removed Mushu in the live action since it was offensive to Chinese mythology. But replacing it with a phoenix based on Greek mythology?? That made no sense. And not only that, the CGI was terrible. Not only did it look obviously fake, my siblings and I all felt like the phoenix was made of paper. One of them joked that it was a kite. The coloring also reminded me of the bird in Wings of Time that I saw in Sentosa Singapore.

Btw, Chinese don’t have any concept of witches or witch hunts. Lord knows why Disney tried to put more Western concepts when they wanted to make an Asian movie.

Moving on to the characters and their chemistry. In short, there was none. Little to none actually. I don’t understand why Honghui was supposed to be her love interest. No chemistry and barely any meaningful interactions. They met with him insulting her and continuing to insult her throughout most of their scenes. The “love interest” also spent a lot of his time staring at Mulan like one of those creepy perverts that you try your best to ignore. Is this really the kind of lesson you want to teach kids?

And Ling? Yao? Chien-po? What happened to them? Their names were barely mentioned and their characterizations were so one-dimensional. There were not enough scenes building them up as proper characters, which made them easily forgettable. Because of this, we also had trouble telling all of the soldiers apart, and this includes Honghui and Cricket. Cricket was initially mistaken as Chien-po. There was even less time emphasizing their friendship with Mulan. I also didn’t understand why the need to add Cricket in the movie as another soldier. Disney still didn’t give him any proper growth or arc beyond that one shining moment with the arrow. I also didn’t understand why he suddenly decided to play dead at the end of the corridor fight. Another “dramatic moment” that fell flat.

Where do I begin with the Witch? Shan Yu was an incredible bad guy already. Why did they try to make his falcon human and have her as a witch? For the most part, it seemed like she was just there to drive down the movie’s point that women should be subjugated. She had the power to kill Bori Khan easily, but… chose not to because she thought he would help make her not an outcast?? And even when she changed sides, instead of idk killing Bori Khan when he tried to shoot Mulan, she just… flew… in front of… the arrow… and died. Wow.

What was Bori Khan’s revenge supposed to be anyways? For the most part, it looked like he was trying to slow-cook the Emperor. Like what was up with the random forges and the 2 inch pool of lava?? Were forges back then even hot enough to make lava and have it stay red hot the whole time even when it was in that pool?? Also, swords do NOT melt that fast.

Also, the part where Bori Khan was talking to the captured Emperor was so unintentionally funny. Like at the end of every sentence he would just suddenly make sparks with his weapon at the Emperor’s face. If it was a one-time thing, it would have been fine. But he just… kept… doing it. And with every strike I just started laughing more and more.

The Emperor was… something. Of course he was probably one of the men who has chi powers judging by his sleeve attacks. Honestly, that part felt so random, my siblings and I were all laughing and going “what??”. His voice was so clearly dubbed in, and badly done. He also seemed to have been given the clunkiest dialogue in the movie. I also miss the scene in the animated movie where Shan Yu tells the Emperor to bow down to him and the Emperor replies, “No matter how strong the wind blows, the mountain cannot bow down to it.” because that line was awesome.

The sister’s character was also completely unnecessary. According to Disney, she’s to showcase Mulan’s devotion to her family and give her more motivation to do what she does. But?? She took her father's place in the war to protect him?? Wasn’t the whole point of her story is her pretending to be a man to protect her father from certain death?? Is that not already a huge motivational factor and shows her devotion to her family??

Does anyone else also find it weird that when Mulan was in the army, everyone referred to her by her full name? Like everyone had their first names and were called that, but for Mulan it was always Hua Jun? Btw for those not aware, with Chinese names, the surname is at the beginning. Hua is Mulan’s surname. So shouldn’t they be calling her simply as Jun??

Moving on, I have to bring attention to several of the changes in the movie. It’s like they cut out all the scenes that gave the movie an emotional impact and replaced it with bland scenes that didn’t add to the story at all. Her decision to take her father’s place in the war and steal his armor was replaced with some weird thing about her getting lost and the phoenix having to bail her out.

The incredible moment when Mulan gets the arrow from the top of the post was replaced by bringing two buckets to the top of the mountain. Anyone who is strong and determined enough would have been able to do that. With the arrow, she needed to think and strategize, using the weights to help carry her up. With the buckets, she just used her chi superpowers.

The drama and shock as the happily-singing soldiers come upon the destroyed village becomes a drawn-out traveling scene that has the General asking Mulan to marry his daughter, and then cuts to the army at the village.

The scene where it looked like Shang was going to kill Mulan but then he spares her because she saved his life is gone completely since they decided to split Shang into two characters instead. Even Mulan’s line where she says, “You believe Ping, why not Mulan?” was given to Honghui instead, robbing Mulan of her moment.

Honestly, there was no need for the Witch and her fight scene with Mulan, but apparently in the movie, chi is weakened by dishonesty. It’s weird that the Witch is even telling her that since they’re supposedly enemies, and telling her about the dishonesty will make Mulan stronger.

Another thing is Disney’s weirdly intense focus on arranged marriages and matchmaking, with multiple characters mentioning whether or not they are matched or asking others if they are. Even at the end, the sister goes “oh I am matched”. I didn’t see the point of having that in the movie.

I almost forgot about the trebuchet/catapult! The Rourans are supposed to be a Nomadic people. Where are they finding the time and energy to drag that gigantic thing around? I also have to mention that the Rourans had some incredibly good aim when firing at the soldiers but missed by a long shot when they fired at where Mulan was hiding. That was… dumb, to say the least.

How did Mulan even get there anyways? And how did she carry all those helmets with only two hands? I’m even giving her some leeway because there are people who can control a horse with just their legs. The actress for Mulan also has clearly never fired an arrow before and was not given training for it. The way she loaded the arrows and how her fingers sprung open like that screamed CGI arrows

And now I’m remembering the random horse gymnastics the Rourans used to turn around on their horse so that they could fire arrows while riding. It looked cool, yes, but I don’t think that was the most efficient way to turn around.

Back to the fight scene, Mulan managed to go from chasing the Rourans into the mountains and fighting the Witch, to back to where her army was, then somehow teleported to a different mountain behind where the Rourans were. She also somehow outran an avalanche?? She also killed her own men in that avalanche. Not the best plan in my opinion.

Ultimately, Mulan’s growth and arc to become a soldier and hero of China was undermined by the fact that she was already perfect due to her chi powers. There was no need for her to grow and train because her chi made her strong, her chi made her skillful. And because of this, she lost her relatability. I hate to say this, but she became a Marysue.

I don’t know where to put this but Mulan’s makeup and outfit for the matchmaker scene was the ugliest thing I have ever seen. Green eyebrows?? Really?? What happened to her face? What happened to her dress? Everyone’s costumes also felt unrealistically colorful for a poor farming village.

Lastly, I’m sure many of you know that Disney worked with, credited, and gave thanks to the Xinjiang authorities. Those authorities are responsible for imprisoning up to TWO MILLION Uighur Muslims in concentration camps, forcing them to learn and be patriotic about China’s communist doctrine and propoganda, not allowing them to practice their faith, and subjecting them to horrific conditions, torture, sexual abuse, forced sterilization, brainwashing, and other abuses.

To end this overly wordy review, I don’t understand why Disney would willingly get so much wrong. They tried very hard to make changes and appeal to the Chinese audience but refused to have Chinese creators to help with the screenplay, directing, costume and makeup, etc. Now all they’ve done is alienate said audience.

[talldecafcappuccino]

Title: Between Close Friends

Rating: General Audience

Chapters: 1/1

Relationship: Ted Lasso/Rebecca Welton

Summary: Ted is bad at social media, but is that a bad thing?

Ted, what the fuck are you doing????

Ted peers at his phone, rubbing sleep from his eyes and reads the message again.

He scrolls down and sees he has twelve more texts and three missed calls all from Keeley Jones. He turns off his nighttime notifications with a few exceptions for emergency contacts, so it’s not surprising he slept through the messages.

He scratches at the stubble along his cheek and checks his clock. It’s seven o’clock here in Kansas, so it must be . . . early afternoon in London. He thinks through the last day, but he can’t remember anything interesting enough to have Keeley on the case.

Henry came over to his extended-stay hotel, they went to an American football game, got a late dinner in downtown Wichita, and watched a movie before bed.

They did make it on the Jumbotron for the Lasso-off, the team’s half-time dance contest, but his moves weren’t especially embarrassing. At least not in his opinion. Unless one of the moves was actually an insult to the English in which case, oh jeeze, he needs to get on this quick.

The call barely connects before Keeley’s voice echoes in his ear.

“Oy! Ted!”

“Keeley, I am so sorry for whatever I did to offend the great people of the United Kingdom. I am ready to make a statement and an apology tour as soon as you tell me which dance move I need to retire immediately.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I need you to log out of the AFC Richmond Instagram account. Like, now.”

That stops Ted in his tracks.

Does he even have access to that? He remembers a post-it note of accounts and passwords from Beard on their first day with Richmond.

There was an account run by the previous manager, but Keeley had taken it over long ago, converting it to the official team account. She had also made Ted a personal Instagram for his own use and brand development, but he never posted publicly.

He puts her on speaker phone and opens the Instagram app. She’s right. He’s logged into the team account with all 25 million followers. Well, shoot.

There are about a dozen stories posted from last night. All of Ted and Henry’s day together. There’s puns (“having a cow” at dinner with an image of Henry holding up a beef rib and screaming his head off), Ted and Henry singing at a dueling piano bar, the two brushing their teeth together in the bathroom mirror.

“No offense, but I think this may delay the Tom Ford deal you asked me about.”

“Yeah. I get that.”

“It’s just, you know, dads aren’t quite their brand. Or our brand. I mean we’re not anti-dorky dad, but you know with the whole comeback narrative during the season hiatus . . .”

“No I get it. You’ve put a lot of work into rebranding this team and I just undermined that.”

She sighs, but it’s fond.

“Sorry, Ted. It’s not like what you posted was bad, it’s rather sweet actually. It’s just a little different from the posts I had scheduled.”

Ted nodded. It wasn’t the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to him, but he felt bad for making Keeley’s job harder than it needed to be.

“No, I’m sorry Keeley. I swear, it won’t happen again.”

****

“Can you believe what Ted did last night? I’ve never seen someone so bad at social media.”

Rebecca has no idea what Keeley is talking about when she walks into her office. She flops onto the couch, feet splayed on the coffee table, clearly exhausted by whatever Ted has done from 4,438 miles away.

“So many puns. Which, don't get me wrong, I love word play more than most people. But I don’t think it’s right for the team right now.”

Rebecca shuts her laptop.

“You’re right about puns not being part of the team plan, but what’s this about Ted? What did he do, exactly?”

Ted hasn’t posted anything in at least 24 hours. Not that Rebecca is keeping track.

“Oh he managed to switch to the team account on Instagram and posted about his entire evening out with Henry. It was quite sweet, actually. The ones that made sense,” but then she pulled a face.”He’s like, really, really bad at social media.”

Oof. Well that isn’t great, but Rebecca doesn’t think there’s anything particularly terrible about Ted’s social media use normally.

“But everything seems under control? No big PR actions needed.”

“It’s fine. I had him log out and wrote a post about Coach Lasso’s surprise social media takeover from America.”

Rebecca nods. Okay, so it was all sorted. Keeley has things totally under control.

But she reaches for her phone anyway. She opens Instagram, taps through the AFC Richmond stories, and snorts at the image of Henry with the rib as big as his head.

“Are people at least being kind?” Rebecca hopes Ted logged out without seeing any messages about Henry. Not that she could see any reason for it, but people were shitheads on the internet.

“Well, wanker is still the most common response. But many of them are wanker with a little heart at the end, so I think it’s fine. We actually got a lot of responses, proper engagement and all that,” she looks up at the ceiling, considering it for a moment before rolling her head to look back at Rebecca.

“If we weren’t trying to present the team as a badass phoenix rising from the ashes, I’d say a Ted takeover isn’t a bad idea. He just needs some supervision. Maybe a phone with a better camera.”

Rebecca is only half listening as she taps to the next story.

“Aw, they went to dueling piano night. That must have been fun for Henry.”

She’s smiling at her phone when Keeley asks, “Dueling piano night?”

“Yeah, you know at Jim Bob’s Bar.”

Keeley is looking at her blankly.

“Fine. I know it’s not really Jim Bob’s bar. It’s probably not even a bar if Henry’s there. But I can’t remember the real name off the top of my head.”

She’d looked it up once, after Ted first posted about the dueling pianos. For some reason she started calling it Jim Bob’s. Ted didn’t seem bothered and had even started calling it that himself.

When she looks up again, Keeley is staring at her, eyes narrowed.

“What are you talking about?”

“What do you mean?”

“How do you know so much about some bar in Kansas?”

That gives Rebecca pause. She isn’t sure what Keeley means by the line of questioning.

“It’s not some totally random bar. Ted posts about it whenever he goes for dueling pianos.”

If he gets to the bar early or she has a particularly late evening, Rebecca catches the story before going to bed. When she does, she always asks him to put in $5 for Wannabee by the Spice Girls. She owes him a small fortune by now, but it’s worth it to see the bar explode with cheers and jeers.

Some nights she misses the story, but he puts money in anyways and she wakes up to a shaky video of, Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want.

Rebecca thinks this is a good enough explanation, but Keeley is still staring at her.

“I’ve literally no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Keeley, you know social media is not my thing. All I know is that sometimes Ted posts about this bar on his tiny friends list thing,” she waves her hand around, trying her best to describe it. “The one with the green ring around it.”

Keeley leaps to her feet, eyes wide.

“Am I not on Ted’s Close Friends list??”

Before Rebecca can say a word, Keeley is halfway out the door, texting furiously.

“Roy, better not be on there, if I’m not on there. Ted knows how I feel about being left out!” she shouts over her shoulder. “Sorry Rebecca, I need to do some investigating, asap.”

Oof. She may have just created a problem. It’s probably best to give Ted a heads up before Keeley gets through interrogating Roy.

She drafts a text once, twice, then deletes it and presses call instead.

“Hey Boss, let me guess. Keeley got a hold of you?”

It’s been a while since they’ve chatted, what with the time difference. It’s bizarre how familiar his American accent has become.

“She just left my office, yes.”

There’s a loud crack in the background and a metal clang.

“Where are you?”

“Oh, just the batting cages with Henry,” he says, cheering loudly. “Hey, do you guys have a sport called baseball that has nothing to do with American baseball? You know, like football and football?”

She chuckles, “I don’t believe we do. However there is always cricket.”

He hums, considering it.

“Now Ted, I think there’s something you should know.”

“Lay it on me Boss. I know I caused a headache this morning, what’s the damage? What do you need me to do? I am at your disposal or I’ll lay really, really low as long as you need me to.”

“It’s not that Ted. It’s Keeley.”

“Keeley?”

“Yes, she’s on a bit of a mission at the moment. It seems you left her off your Close Friends list? I think that’s right. On Instagram?”

“Huh. How did that come up?”

“I was telling her about Jim Bob’s. Apparently she had never heard of it and realized you had a whole social media life she was unaware of.”

“Right . . .”

“So do what you will with that.”

“You haven’t talked to anyone else about this yet, have you?”

Rebecca is confused by this new direction.

“No. Why? Ted, is something wrong?”

It takes a long moment for Ted to respond.

“What can I say, I’m just really bad at this social media stuff.”

It's a non-response and an overly folksy one at that. But Rebecca can’t be fooled by the aw shucks routine—not anymore. She tries again.

“Ted. Who is on your close friends list?”

“Uh. Not a lot of people.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“What can I say?” He huffs, a little frustrated. She would feel bad for prying, but she can't help herself. “The list of people I want to share silly life things with is small.”

“How small?” she wonders.

“Very small.”

The line goes silent and Rebecca swears she lost him. But then she hears him take a deep breath.

“It’s you. You’re the list.”

Rebecca feels flush. That’s not where she was expecting this conversation to go.

“I know that might be a lot. You don’t have to say anything. I just, that’s the honest truth and I’d like to get ahead of it before Keeley harangues the entire team.”

It’s a lot to take in, but it makes sense. Sometimes when she’s watching his posts, she wonders about his audience. Who else cares about his biscuit recipe improvements or Broadway Sundays (a recent development that’s turned into a shared movie night.)

“Rebecca?”

She realizes she’s been quiet for a while. The moment feels tenuous and she worries about saying the wrong thing, sending him running faster than Keeley during a social media snafu.

Finally she settles on, “You know, you’re welcome to text me silly life things. It wouldn’t be a bother.”

She brushes invisible crumbs from her desk, listening carefully to his breathing on the other end of the line.

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Maybe I can send some, too?”

Rebecca can hear his smile from across the Atlantic.

“Well, alright then.”

****

That night, Ted’s phone pings and he rolls over to see a text message from Rebecca. It’s a picture of the sun rising over her garden wall.

Something silly to start the day.

But it doesn’t feel silly. Not at all.

[xoxardnekoxo]

Movie Review: Mulan (2020)

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

Ah, Mulan. One of my all-time favorite Disney movies. I loved it so much I had a life-size plush Mushu, a Disney Beanie Baby talking Mushu, a Mulan Barbie, every action figure made, a chirping Crikee, and even a Mushu/Crikee alarm clock. It’s no surprise that when Disney announced a live action version of this movie, I was all over it. The three-time delay in theaters due to the pandemic was disappointing, but then again, so was having to pay $30 on top of a monthly fee I already pay for Disney+.

When the movie was first announced, we knew right away that three things would be lacking that were in the beloved cartoon:

1. Mushu 2. Shang 3. Songs

I immediately jumped on this band wagon at the announcement of no Mushu:

Supposedly the actual country of China strongly disliked Disney’s animated interpretation of an actual legend from their homeland. I don’t know the full details, but I do know that with that in mind, Disney wanted to make the live action version of the movie more authentic to the actual story. This really wasn’t meant to be a remake of the cartoon, but a more accurate take on real events.

I know it’s Disney and that usually means music, but honestly, I’m okay with no songs. I outgrew musicals 15+ years ago. I was even okay with no Shang (but it makes no sense when there is an obvious, if unfulfilled, love interest in this version as well).

Much as I love Mushu, I was still eager to see this movie because I’m a fan of Asian culture in general and was curious to see how this movie would play out. Imagine my surprise when I learned that this version would consist of a phoenix and a witch.

How is that any different than a dragon? Is it because dragons are kind of sacred to the Chinese? A phoenix is similar - it’s a bird that is reborn from fire. And a witch? I highly doubt that actually happened in the original story. Did it? I don’t know, but my point remains.

Unlike the cartoon, Mulan in this adaptation knows quite a bit about combat already. We can see her as a child using her skills quite often, and her father tells her to contain her (strong) chi. Speaking of chi, it’s mentioned quite a lot in this movie. Apparently what makes Mulan such a strong/good fighter and leader is her strong chi. Chi is mentioned so much all I could think of was this:

(Chobits anime)

Mulan doesn’t have her dog (Little Brother) in this movie, but she does have a little sister. Interestingly enough, the original story depicts her as having a younger brother, but he was too young to fight. So if Disney was going for accuracy, they still could have gone that route and stayed true to the source material.

As with the cartoon, Mulan does meet the matchmaker, but she doesn’t go in alone. She goes in with her mother and sister, the latter of which is terrified of spiders. Instead of a lucky cricket causing a catastrophe during this “audition,” a spider decides to scurry in and scare the younger sister, prompting the cacophony. So really, it’s the sister’s fault Mulan brings dishonor in the matchmaker’s eyes.

Mulan’s father is frequently chastised by her mother for encouraging her boy-like behavior. “She is your daughter, not your son.” Rude. But remember, this is a different era. The only way a female could bring honor to her family was to be a good wife and bear sons. Still, harsh.

So we all know what happens next. One man from every family has to join in a fight against some turd determined to take over the empire, in this case one who is using a witch to help him, and Mulan takes her father’s place since she fears for his life. But she has good reason to - the poor guy needs help walking and even her mother said he won’t return from battle this time. Way to sugar-coat it, lady.

So we get to the men’s camp... no wait, first, we get lost and a phoenix (symbolic, since it appears no one else is able to see it at all) shows up to guide Mulan to where she needs to go. Yes, instead of asking the ancestors for help, her father asked the family guardian (phoenix) to watch over her. Okay.

Eventually we get to a large tent shared by all the soldiers. Yes, this time, they don’t all get their own individual tent. And of course, all the men are running around half dressed, throwing things at each other, rough-housing, you know the drill. It’s especially amusing when one of them loses his towel and Mulan immediately closes her eyes and cringes.

Then the commander asks for a night guard volunteer. Mulan proceeds to volunteer for this every night to avoid having to shower with the men. Too bad they all start to notice the smell. Funny, in the cartoon, Mulan absolutely did not want to smell like a man at all. It takes her quite some time before she’s able to sneak into the river to bathe. Too bad one of the guys decides to follow her in and she has to hide herself. :D

During training, rules and penalties are revealed, and the penalty for pretty much doing anything wrong is death. Except one thing - dishonesty. Dishonesty brings expulsion from the army as well as dishonor to the family. Don’t talk to a woman or you’ll die, but pour out some water to make the buckets lighter during a strength exercise and get humiliated.

So we eventually get to a big battle scene with all the flying arrows, and Mulan, of course, winds up by herself fighting the witch. The witch can obviously tell that Mulan is hiding her true self, so she’s all, “You’re going to die pretending to be something you’re not.” Then something pierces the wrap Mulan uses to hide her chest and she decides the best course of action is to go back to her comrades as her female self. The whole “big reveal” scene is her taking her hair down (which she does not cut with a sword by the way - in fact, she doesn’t cut it at all) and walking out of the fog and introducing herself. To me, that was very anti-climactic.

The cherry on top of that is when, after being expelled from the army for dishonesty (weird though, another rule was to not consort with women at all and yet she actually IS a woman and isn’t killed), she returns to the camp and the men immediately accept her for who she is because she’s all, “The emperor is in danger and I know how to save him.”

So the commander allows her to lead a group of men into the Imperial City to save the emperor, who is quite a warrior himself - he breaks out his armor to fight the Hun (not Shan-Yu, I don’t even remember what his name is this time), then Mulan shows up and of course she and the witch team up because, hey, why not? They’re both misunderstood women always being told to stay in their place, except the witch is controlled by the Hun and Mulan is free.

The witch can transform into a hawk or something like that (probably a shout out to Shan-Yu’s pet from the cartoon) and she actually flies in front of Mulan to save her from getting pierced by an arrow. So of course she dies in our protagonist’s arms and is all, “Take your place.” And of course, as expected, Mulan saves the day. And let me just say, how many times can one possibly kick an arrow and send it flying straight toward a designated target? It happens at least five times in this movie, and just once is a one in a million shot. Yeah, cool effect, but totally not accurate, Disney. I thought that was the whole point of this movie - more accuracy to the source content. And you also wanted to appease China. Too bad it didn’t work this time around, either.

The movie ends with Mulan being offered a position on the emperor’s army (nice cameo by Ming-Na Wen, the original voice of Mulan from the cartoon!), but she chooses to go back home - where her sister has been matched to someone who isn’t afraid of spiders.

Yay! Then Mulan’s commander and some other guys show up and offer her the same job the emperor did, only in front of her entire village, so everyone knows she has now brought honor to her family and the country, prompting the matchmaker to faint because she was proven wrong.

So then she does take the job after all, and that’s pretty much the end. Shang isn’t in the movie but there is one fellow soldier she seems to have fun with in practice combat, and he’s super eager to accept her as a woman, even saying she’s the best soldier they’ve got. But nothing comes of that - the two part ways as friends, but honestly, I think it’s okay in these circumstances. Throwing a love story into this rendition just wouldn’t work.

So all in all, not a bad movie, but I think I probably should have waited until it was available on regular Disney+ or DVD instead of spending $30 on premiere access. But I would have spent that going to the theater anyway, so I guess it’s not so bad. I do know a lot of people absolutely hated this movie and it’s gotten bad reviews. I didn’t mind it, but I think my favorite live-action Disney movie so far is Aladdin. This one is probably in second place, though. I think the reason people dislike it so much is that there are so many things missing that were in the cartoon. But again, this is not meant to be a remake of the cartoon - it’s meant to be a more accurate version. But you just can’t make everyone happy.

Overall, I’d give the movie a 7/10. It could have been better, could have been worse. I still prefer the cartoon but it was interesting to see this version as well. Now to see what other live action movies get made... and we’ll see if The Little Mermaid can beat this with a black Ariel. I think I should audition for the role of Snow White - I have the short hair, pale skin, and am always talking to animals. If Ariel can be black, Snow White can be fat!

[gottagobuycheese]

Tag Thingy

Thanks @silent--sonata for indulging my terrible sleeping habits XD

(fyi this will probably be unnecessarily long and rambly, so it’s going under a cut (EDIT: whelp the song list got a little out of hand, I’d apologize if I were even remotely sorry)) 

Rules: Answer 17 questions & tag 17 people you want to get to know better  

Nickname: Cheese (or Lactose Wedge, or Dairy Product of Unspecified Origin and Purpose)

Zodiac Sign: Gemini! 

Height: 160.5 cm/5′3″ (Bubbles I refuse to believe you’re actually that much taller than me) 

Hogwarts house: Somewhere between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff allegedly, both of which I’d be honored to get sorted into, but honestly I’d just be stoked to get sorted at all 

Last thing I googled: I think it was something along the lines of “how to speed up audio playback in GarageBand,” but but my train of thought was derailed before I actually looked at any of the results so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (and on a related note, thanks again for the magical audio editing @imperiousheiress!)

Song stuck in my head: The end credits to Legacy of the Wizard (which is SUCH a jam, thank you for enlightening me @jessicafish) Following and followers: 227 (goodness just looking at that number is stress-inducing) and...104?! When the HECK did you all get here??? I think just last summer I was happily floating about in the 50′s. Anyways, to anyone I have not said hello, hello! Hope you enjoy your stay, and I am sincerely sorry if you expected Quality Original Content, or even just regularly scheduled other people’s content. Sadly, neither of these things tend to happen here. 

Amount I sleep: During the school year it’s usually anywhere between 30 minutes and 6 hours (DON’T EVEN START BUBBLES YOU HAVE NO RIGHT), usually landing in the 3/4 hour ranges if I’m smart about it, but now that I am on Unofficial Break, it’s usually at least around 6 hours (except today was 3 because Avatar is an excellent show and the weirdos in this house have regularly scheduled breakfast at 9-something every morning). Sadly my sleep schedule can only be forced to tolerate normalcy for so long before careening back in the other direction, so we’ll see if this is just a blip or if we’re back to normal mid-Atlantic Ocean hours!

Lucky number(s): I wouldn’t say these are necessarily favorite numbers, but I do like 2 and 9. But come to think of it, second attempts at Official Things do tend to go better for me than first attempts, so maybe there’s some merit there after all! Dream Job: Don’t think I’m really cut out for dreaming anymore, haha (unless you are a theoretical future employer in which case I am Extremely Full of Ambition and Passion). The bed-adjacent metaphor has been made, and not to brag, but I can sleep on pretty much any surface. Currently studying my Not Favorite aspect of STEM (was there ever a favorite or did I just like being good at things sometimes) and learning how to People™ properly (and also learning a gazillion convoluted drug names like what the heck dude, did you just fall asleep on your typewriter coming up with these), so I’ll take whatever place hires me and pays me enough not to depend on my parents for everything, I suppose. In an ideal world, that would entail a job where I could make friends, and even more importantly, a job where my shortcomings would not cause Massive and Irreparable Harm, but I don’t think this line of work really meshes with that last one, so I guess I’ll either have to get my shit together™ extremely soon or fake my death, adopt an alias, and flee to a completely new place with no ties whatsoever before trying to get another, less high stakes job. 

(Though I guess, less cynically, I like helping people well enough? And stories are fun! Maybe there could’ve been something with that. Not that there still can’t be, mind, but there’s still a long way to go between Here and There)

Wearing: Black shorts. Navy t-shirt. Brown some-specific-kind-of-jacket-I-forgot-the-name-of jacket. Is it summer? Is it fall? Am I in middle school? Who can say, but they are COMFY so sadly I have no cares to give

Favourite song(s): way way WAY too many to list here, and I do not have them all organized in a handy playlist separately, but to name a few (and these are not necessarily the MOST favorite okay, it doesn’t mean I don’t love stuff not on this list, it means you can’t force me to pick between my children and I am going to find at least one quick thing from a few things I like before I need to hit post and go back to looking like I’m being studious, and also things I think you should listen to right now, but for everything I’ve linked assuming I mean the whole OST), here’s a spam of links in no particular order: 

LoZ Wind Waker - The Great Sea (aka the epitome of optimism) 

Undertale - NGAHHH!! (I was about to link more but then I realized it’d be the whole soundtrack lol) 

LoZ Breath of the Wild - Hateno Village (Night) 

A:tLA - Peace (bad call BAD CALL NOW I HAVE EMOTIONS) 

Legend of Korra - Final Scene/Ending Theme (MISTAKES WERE MADE MISTAKES WERE MADE) 

Kung Fu Panda - Oogway Ascends (I feel like I’m taking you on a whole little album journey now XD) 

PMD: Explorers of Sky - Dialga’s Fight to the Finish (aka the Gotta Shower Fast song) 

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Pursuit ~ Cornered (aka the HURRY UP AND PACK UR SHIT YOUR FLIGHT LEAVES IN THREE HOURS song) 

Apollo Justice: A New Trial Is In Session (very underrated soundtrack imo) and also Apollo Justice: Telling the Truth (because these two are very closely associated in my head and it’s getting harder and harder to narrow things down so maybe I should stop lol) 

Your Name: Katawaredoki (in which I am forcibly thrown heart first into the bedroom of my second apartment at approximately 12-something A.M.) 

Digimon Adventure 01: Butterfly (MASSIVE 90′s childhood anime feels, and also Last Summer Before Everything Went to Shit feels (on a general scale I mean, not personal)) 

Pokémon: Lugia’s Song multitrack cover by Jordan Moore (would that I could have a talent of that musical talent) 

Pokémon the First Movie: Tears of Life (great now I’m on a Pokémon music spiral GUESS IT’S CHILDHOOD NOSTALGIA HOURS NOW) 

PMD: Blue Rescue Team - Farewell and Run Away/Fugitives (you CANNOT make me choose between these guys okay, my brain WILL explode, and whoops now I want to link the whole ost) 

Palette by A Dear Friend (wink wonk) 

Pokémon: Alpha Sapphire - Fortree City (wow talk about mood whiplash)

Detective Conan: Main Theme (I can’t find the specific version since there are so many, but it’s a Good Theme) 

Super Smash Bros.: Brawl - Opening Theme 

Pokémon Colosseum - Relic Forest 

Song for Lindsay by Andrew Boysen Jr. (oh great now it’s time for marching band feelings I guess)

Mt. Everest by Rossano Galante 

Deltarune - Field of Hopes and Dreams and A Town Called Hometown (orchestrated) (aka the Lots of Work To Do song) and You Can Always Come Home and Don’t Forget (hey guess what I wrote a bunch of fake extra verses for) (also it looks my pathetic attempts at narrowing things down are getting even more pathetic so I’ll wrap up soon XD) 

 Guild Wars 2 - Fear Not This Night (never actually played this myself but my friend got me addicted to the music) 

Lord of the Rings - May It Be (Enya) (aaaand now I miss choir, THANKS BUBBLES) 

Lion King - Can You Feel the Love Tonight (Multilingual) by Travys Kim (aka how I remembered how fun these things are) 

Original Song by Anonymous  

(The urge to add all the other songs I’m not adding is so strong but I’ve got so much work to do so just assume I mean all Nintendo music from any game I’ve played, all Ghibli movie music, every musical I’ve ever heard, and even more) 

Random fact:

Apparently as early as the 17th century, you could guess that a child would have a shortened life span if their foreheads tasted salty. Yes, there is a specific reason, and yes, you may already know what it is, and thankfully no, that life span projection no longer holds true, assuming access to Modern Medicine! 

Favourite Authors: Okay I have not read enough various books of enough various authors to be able to answer this, so I’m just gonna go with a few books instead. They are not necessarily all-time favorites, but I enjoyed reading them very much at the time and more often than not go back to them for comfort reads: The Martian, any of first three Harry Potter books, and The Rise of Kiyoshi. (That last one’s not really a comfort read but I am drowning in Loving Kiyoshi juice so here we are)

Favourite Animal Noises: Certain kinds of birds (UNLESS it’s some ungodly hour of the morning and you’re trying to sleep)? Ooh, and crickets! 

Aesthetic: A slob, but like...a comfy slob. An incredibly disorganized hermit who is happy to mill about in the uncontrolled entropy. (Are we talking about what aesthetic I give off, or what I like to look at, visually? Because I like space, and water, and mountains, and forests, and forests ON mountains, OOH and forests on mountains at night where you can see space, perhaps reflected in a body of water. Or just water, idk. Different things are pretty to look at at different times)

WELL THAT ONLY TOOK FOREVER SORRY FOR THE OBSCENE LENGTH 

@pachelbelsheadcanon @averybritishbumblebee @shingeki-no-korra @sailorlock @yeswevegotavideo @soultheta @queenerdloser @ifeelbetterer @rogueofdragons @peppervl @amadness2method @mutalune and anybody else who wants to do this! This isn’t seventeen, and I don’t know if any of you have already done it/been tagged, but I hear people moving around upstairs so that means this break is over XD. And ABSOLUTELY no pressure to actually do this, this is pretty much just me wishing you well! (and YOU of course, my dear reader! I hope everything’s going all right, or if it’s not, that it does soon)

[kittyeekcube]

Orion, Phoenix, Hydra, Black Eye Galaxy, Sombrero Galaxy, Asteroid ✨

i ended up having long responses to these asks please bear with me 🤐 😅 thank your asks!!

Orion - Favourite month?

ahh im not really sure i think i’ll go with march since it’s my birthday month haha

Phoenix - Favourite thing to wear?

I like simple clothes that are comfortable and cozy to wear with nice colors and usually long sleeves for the pressure hehe I have been wearing the same outfit of a black sweater black jeans black boots and a denim utilitarian type jacket and that’s it haha i like long jackets and boots a lot too. i also really like crystal jewelry!!

Hydra - Favourite sound?

The fog horns and buses in San Francisco musical instruments like bells piano and xylophone + any nature sounds esp water like rain ocean waves rivers streams brooks etc crickets were my fav as a kid hehe

Black Eye Galaxy - Do you believe in love at first sight?

hmm yeah i think love at first sight is def possible but i think it could also be any type of love or not always what you expect love at first sight to be

Sombrero Galaxy

Do you have a crush right now?

ahhhh yea :’) actually i have had a crush for a while now. its the first time i have really fallen for someone and it’s a lot ahaha i haven’t felt like this before so it was overwhelming for me to feel and embrace everything at first. it hasn’t been as easy as i thought it would be to express my feelings to them and im kinda scared how they could react since they are a very good friend of mine and idk what to do and im really not sure how they would react or if they would feel the same way about me at all and it might get awkward 😖 it makes me feel bad and like deceitful that i haven’t said anything yet and i don’t mean to hide my feelings at all because im a terrible liar and super honest and straightforward lol so if they asked me then i would def tell them because i really can’t lie and hate lying. but i swear im trying my best!! it’s just that every time i try to tell them about my feelings in person i can’t say the right words or speak at all 😣 maybe it’s already extremely obvious haha but they really mean a looot to me as a person so even if they don’t feel the same way towards me that’s ok! it may hurt a little at first if i get rejected but i’ll still love them very much as a friend and person and our connection overall. truly. and i hope they find someone that they love if that’s something they would like in the future and really just wish all the best for them in life because they deserve it and are such an amazing good person and friend omg 😭 ahhh i can’t usually talk about it but now it’s super obvious. yess.. i do have a crush haha 😳😅😫

Asteroid - What does your dream life look like?

hmm i feel like my dream life could easily change over time but right now my dream life would entail my family friends and loved ones having the very best lives possible. loving and giving back to my animals other animals nature and people in life. having a cozy and safe home and environment. discovering and becoming who i am and embracing and loving myself. being able to be more open and enjoy life. not being afraid to create and live again. creating and conveying warmth to others. having my work inspire and reach others. travelling and having new experiences i could never have dreamed of. feeling at peace with my life. enjoying the small things. being strong enough to endure the hard times and feel what i need to feel. being more grateful for everything i have received in my life. especially all the support and love and people i have been so fortunate to know and still know maybe more but i think i’ll wait and see 😉 ☺️

ahh finally got through all of that sorry i can get a little ahead of myself while typing! thank you!!

[omgnsfwisnsfw-blog]

The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning: Second Chapter Prologue

It was nighttime, and the waning moon was, for some reason, vividly bright. Mike McGuire was laying in the middle of the ring in their backyard, staring up through the branches. The leaves had yet to sprout, but the buds were set to start opening up anytime. Same could be said for the young plants newly set in the soil near the back porch- a small plot of land freshly tilled up, planted with varying marigolds, daffodils, impatiens, and centered in it all, a rosebush received for Valentine’s. It was nice and neat, every plant perfectly arranged. The same could not be said for the garage.

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

It had all began not even a few days ago. A few days ago after losing their beloved tag team championship belts at the biggest show of the year. They had spoken little. They showered, dressed, went to the hotel, slept, got on the plane the next morning. And somewhere over the ocean, John had turned to Mike, and in a rare initiation of conversation…

“Mike.”

John was looking out the window, like he did with every trip, and there was a quiet mesmerization about it. Mike startled a bit. He didn’t usually initiate conversation. Sometimes early on they wouldn’t speak for hours, and when Mike asked why he wasn’t talking to them he simply replied ‘you didn’t say anything.’ Him breaking his ‘speak when spoken to’ habit usually indicated he had something important on his mind, so they’d shifted and given him their full attention. “Yeah, bud?”

“I turned 42 two weeks ago.”

He didn’t sound overtly happy about it. John’s emotional inflection was a subtle, nuanced thing, but by now Mike had become very attuned to picking it out. Still, they offered him a wavery little smile, probably in an attempt to cheer the both of them up. “You shoulda told me that. Woulda made you a cake.”

John shrugged.

“Better stuff to celebrate.”

His hand touched the window briefly.

“Like us.”

He turned to Mike in his chair and spoke low.

“But what I mean is that … maybe I can continue to do this. Maybe my body holds up a little longer. But I’ve come to realization that I don’t want to.” They sat up bolt upright, their head tilting to the side. For a moment they resembled an Irish Setter who just heard a far-off dog whistle and was trying to process what in the world that sound was. “You wanna stop? Like… this minute?” It wasn’t accusatory- more like confirming that the sounds coming out of his mouth were forming words that they were understanding the meaning of.

“Yes.” “You sure?” “Yes.” They sat back in their seat, expression a little dazed, as if showing mild signs of shock. Then they closed their eyes, inhaled, exhaled. Managed a smile, wobbly for a different reason than their previous one, and reached over, giving his wrist a squeeze. “...okay.”

The declaration had caught Mike completely off guard. In a way, they thought, they should’ve seen it coming at some point- he’d made some remarks about the ugliness of the business, beginning to think past it. But they hadn’t thought it would happen so suddenly. It was like driving at 60 MPH and then suddenly slamming on the brakes, the sudden jettisoning into the seatbelt knocking out all your breath and leaving your insides hurting. They went home. He planted his garden, seeming serene and perfectly content. Mike gave Alundra a once-over- they’d had her painted in their absence, the vivid yellow and red flame paintjob traded for an emerald green with orange flame one. The new vanity plates installed- NSFW 1. Something stabbed inside them. The next day. Grocery shopping. Mike going over their particulars. So much had been provided for them that had to be taken into account now. Health insurance- the extended coverage wouldn’t last forever, and though they could easily afford it, plans for two people in their shape wasn’t going to come easily. Something pricked at their eyes. Mike kept staring at their phone. It would ring eventually, they just knew it, a gruff voice on the other end demanding what in the blue hell they thought they were doing, is this what I wasted my time on you for, pulling yourself out of obscurity and stumbling into the perfect partner just to vanish like a fart in the wind? They weren’t sure the old man would say that. But what would they think, when they heard? How would they explain ‘he wanted out and I couldn’t deny him that and I can’t keep going in good fucking conscience without him’? And so on till today. This evening. Just now. Mike found themselves in the garage. They looked around. A small box was on the table- a prototype of a new piece of merch. A snowglobe. Little figurines of them under a dome of glass filled with water. They held their title belts. Shake it, orange and green confetti glitter swirled around. Pieces of fanmail, notes on their Twitter, asked where they’d gone. Some wished them well. Some worried that they were hurt or worse. Some said they felt betrayed. Why couldn’t you have even said goodbye? We believed in you. Quitters. Mike’s grip tightened on the snowglobe, their teeth gritting together hard. ‘It got taken from me and I wasn’t ready, and it fuckin’ sucks. So bad.’ Their own words from a year past slam into their brain and with a roar, they throw the snowglobe down, sending a shatter of broken glass and glitter water splatting over the concrete floor. A t-shirt snatched from a box, the phoenix that’d been emblazoned on their viking flags torn in two with an obnoxious ripping sound, the rest of the box kicked over. Their head whipped around, glaring viciously at the cardboard face of David Scott. Screeching, all but consumed by their fury, they dashed forward, grabbing him by the top of his large, scowling head and tearing the cutout apart. They couldn’t believe their own anger. They felt robbed, cheated, resentful. And all those feelings made Mike feel even worse, because they didn’t want to direct them at John. They couldn’t have kept going if he hadn’t wanted to. They didn’t want to be one more person who knew his desires and chose to ignore them. Mike’s train of thought slowly cooled their anger. All that was left was a giant mess of broken glass, torn t-shirts, dented boxes, ripped up cardboard. Something sick heaved in their chest and they left the garage, numbly trekking through the backyard until they found themselves in the ring.

-------------- So there they were. Maybe they could salvage something. Maybe the fans they hadn’t completely alienated would still want them, for old time’s sake. If they got back into auto repair maybe they could even sell them there as a bonus. Nostalgia was always a hot ticket, and somebody in the future was bound to remember that one tag team that got super hot and then vanished without a trace out of nowhere. Raising an arm, they laid it over the bridge of their nose, shielding their closed eyes from the moonlight as they tried not to sob. Don’t be fuckin’ stupid.

John stood in the doorway of garage backdoor. Behind him was the aftermath of the disturbance that woke him. He had noticed immediately that Mike was gone. He had sat up from the bed and waiting until the noises subside. Quietly, he went to the garage and looked upon what had happened. His emotions ticked up slightly to disappointment that the quiet last few days had been a simmering pot and it had just spilled over. Soft footsteps went across the yard to the source. He stood just outside the ring, keeping his distance for the moment. He cut through the ambience of the night.

“I know you’re angry at me.” There was a long pause. The soft, occasional chirp of an early cricket or two. “‘M not mad at you. I feel shitty that I’m mad at all. S’ fuckin… complicated.” They didn’t move, their speech muted. If their anger was a fire, right now they were the embers that some knowledgeable Eagle Scout had doused with water and stirred up with a stick. Only You Can Prevent Wildfires. “...i didn’t want to not give you this. I feel like I’ve let people down. Myself a little. And then I get mad at myself cuz the alternative is what? Making you run yourself down when you don't want to anymore just to feed my own fuckin’ dream that I should’a grown out of? It… I…” Sniff. “...it just happened so fuckin’ quick. Like slammin’ a book shut ‘fore you read the end.”

John circled around to the wooden steps leading up onto the apron. He put a foot on the first step.

“I thought it would just be the end of a chapter.” Slowly lowering their arm from their face, they scooted themself across the canvas a bit away from the center- not a recoil, but an invitation. Reaching up, they curled their hand around the bottom rope. They knew that. It made them feel even more foolish for exploding the way they had, the silvery light of the moon accentuating the blush standing out on their damp cheeks. “I’m bein’ a fuckin’ dumb baby, aren’t I…”

“No. Not happy that I advertently made a decision for you as well.”

“We’re a package deal. Can’t do it without you. Don’t want to. I know what you said’s right. Our story ain’t over. Just feel like I’ve been thrown violently into the next scene without any time to brace myself. But I’ll get over it. Get over myself, maybe.” Their right arm, the one not gripping onto the rope, reaches out to the side, fingers beckoning a bit. “‘M sorry I broke all that stuff… poor Milscott…”

“It was just that. Stuff.”

He stepped up onto the apron.

“I believed in what we said. All of that talk about hall of fames and being the greatest. It was fun. It lit a fire inside of me. But it made me feel like we were walking down the wrong path. Like we almost did before.”

“Mouthy little shit talks a big game.” There was a dry chuckle at that. All that talk of being the first tag team in the EWC Hall of Fame would likely amount to just that. Talk. It was one of the things that’d jagged at them these past few days, that their ultimate legacy was apparently a foul-mouthed hothead who made big grandiose boasts only to bail without warning. Exhaling, they turned their head toward him, hand still reaching in his direction. “How so? We weren’t bein’ dicks again, were we?”

“No.”

He walked along the the edge of the apron, stopping just before them.

“Don’t think it was that simple. Our words, though? They started to mirror something we swear we’d never be. Started to have some folks nod along that weren’t before.”

It took Mike a moment to puzzle that one out, their mouth pursing, flicking two and fro, nose crinkling a bit. After a few seconds, though, their red-rimmed eyes popped, left hand releasing the rope and going to their mouth with a gasp. “Noooooo. You can’t fuckin’ mean… no. No motherfuckin’ way we were sounding like him. … Were we really?”

“Maybe not exactly. But it made me think. Readjusted a few priorities.”

He had finally stepped through the ropes and entered the ring. He stood over them.

“I would have gone as long as we had those belts. And sure, there were amazing possibilities on the horizon. I love the sport. But I had been wrong in the assumption that it was the only thing I was meant to do. You made me see that.” Mike looked up at him. From this angle he looked impossibly huge, and it made them feel smaller in comparison. Physically anyway. John never made you feel small as a person, and if he did, you probably deserved it. “...maybe I’ve had it backwards this whole time then. I kept seeing things as… I don’t fuckin’ know… a block building. You take out any one part of it- me, you, our home, the business- and everything falls to pieces. I mean I figured we’d stop someday, maybe in a year or two, kinda ease out of it, tell everybody where we were going an’ why. But in all those big fuckin’ pipe dreams I didn’t think about what you thought. I just assumed you wanted the same thing I did when it came to the business an’ that was fuckin’ selfish of me. I’m really sorry.”

He knelt down beside Mike, before finally sitting back, crossing his legs.

“I wanted all of that. But there’s more to us, I believe. I’d be naive to think there isn’t conflict elsewhere in the world but it is less likely than what we were doing. I had remembered what I loved about the business before it was taken all away. But more importantly, I now have something I never had.”

“...VIP customer status at Barnes and Noble?” The cheeky grin that flicked onto Mike’s face wasn’t the wavering, willing-yourself-to-smile expression she’d given him the last couple days. Like a breath of fresh air, it was real. Slowly, they pulled themself up to a sitting position, folding their legs likewise, facing him, reaching for his hands. Without hesitation, John placed his hands into theirs. He smiled in response to Mike’s joke. Sighing softly, Mike ran their thumbs over his knuckles tenderly. Even if they had been mad at him, it wouldn’t have lasted. They could be mad at a lot and hold grudges for ages, but never at him. Something about John was impossible to be angry with- least that’s how Mike saw it. “So… now what?”

John shrugged in response. But in that same moment, he felt an answer come through.

“We stop hiding who we are.”

[women-are-visual]

In a Concrete Tower

“I feel like everyone in this place wants to fuck me,” my boyfriend of twenty years says, leaning back in his chair. We’re on vacation in Mendocino and we’re having dinner at a fancy French restaurant. It’s in a Victorian house and the tables are tastefully decorated with white tablecloths, cut glass vases full of wildflowers, and glowing candles. My boyfriend is tall, six foot six, and his voice is bassy and loud. At 46, deep lines surround his mouth like parentheses and some grey is woven into his black hair, but he’s still very handsome. I will always think of him as the nerdy new waver who I met when I was 16 though, and, although he’s become a successful IT consultant, he’s hardly a lady’s man. There’s something wrong.

I look around the room. Our server is a conservative looking woman with her hair in a neat bun and she’s been nice to us, but of course that’s her job. At the table next to us, two white haired, sixty-something couples exclaim over their beef bourguignons. No one’s looking at us or showing any interest in us, sexual or otherwise, and I feel confused. Is my boyfriend losing his mind? I know he’s been depressed and has been having some sort of midlife crisis lately. I don’t know what to think, but I try to boost his ego. “You are pretty handsome,” I say.

We return from vacation and he writes a short story about cheating on his first girlfriend, an overweight punk rock, glam girl. He wants me to edit it and post it on his blog.

“Are you posting this story to let women know that you’re available?” I ask him.

“Of course not,” he says, “I would never cheat on you.”

But I discover texts on his phone.

“Amy D. is so hot. She would be a definite upgrade as a side chick,” he texts his friend. I feel stunned and devastated. Scott has always preached monogamy and stoicism and I know he’s never cheated on me in twenty years. I can’t believe he’s even using terms like “side chick,” we’re smart and we like to read.

I find her profile on Facebook and she’s a blond girl in her mid-twenties who works for a futurist organization he’s involved with. She looks very gendered and conservative, like the type of girl we laughed at in high school. We're too cool for this kind of person, I thought. Also, she’s twenty years younger than him, she would be our daughter’s age now if we had one, and that’s just creepy. My boyfriend isn’t a creep. When he gets home, I confront him about his texts.

“I wasn’t being serious, I was joking,” he says, “how could you think that was serious?”

“Who’s your current side chick?” I ask him.

“No one, that was a joke, I don’t really talk that way,” he says.

I ask my friend and her husband about the texts.

“Could they possibly be a joke?” I say.

“I don’t know, but don’t worry, he could never get a girl like that,” my friend’s husband says. But that’s not what I’m worried about, I’m worried that he wants a girl like that. And I’m 46, a middle-aged woman. I don’t think I look bad for my age, but I’m chubby and I was far from a model even in my youth.

I’m beside myself. Scott and I normally get along so well, but now we fight constantly and he’s never around. At night, alone in our apartment, I smoke cigarettes and drink until I vomit. When he comes home I tell him that I’m lonely, but he doesn’t care. While before he used to listen to and compliment me, now he ignores and insults me. He screams that I’m a burden and he doesn’t have the energy to care for me anymore. Eventually I can’t take the abuse and I scream back that he’s a robot dick.

I think about when we first met.

When I was 16, shortly after my family moved from the country to the suburbs of Buffalo, New York, a girl in my new high school handed me a note. It was written by two boys from another high school who had heard about me and it said, “Someday all boys will wear skirts.” It had a drawing of googly eyes and their phone numbers on it. I wasn’t going to call them, but eventually the loneliness of being in a new town sunk in and I did. They showed up at my door the following Saturday.

It was the 80s and new wave was popular. They were dressed like old men with their shirts buttoned all the way up to the top, but that’s where their similarities ended. One was short and sweaty and totally silent. The other one was tall, thin, and arrogant. He was the spokesperson for the two.

“We’re here to see the bald girl with sewer boots,” he told my mom.

I came downstairs. I was wearing a pink house dress, my head was shaved bald, and I was totally crazy looking. Scott was super tall and thin, wearing a green plaid trench coat. He had long bangs, a huge pimple in the center of his nose, and he smelled like fish from working at a fish fry restaurant. I was madly in love.

I thought we would easily be partners forever, but now things have changed. I check his emails and discover that he’s been having an affair. It was with some autistic girl from his futurist group who treated him badly and it’s over, but he’s not over it emotionally. He’s trying to heal from it by starting affairs with other women. I tell him that I forgive him and I’ve had one night stands too; I don’t care; I just want to stay together. But he goes off to visit his old friend Nancy in Phoenix. I agree that he can have sex with her ahead of time, I know I have no choice, and I think it might help him get over his bad affair, but when he comes home he acts more aloof and arrogant than ever.

In November, right after our 20th anniversary and right before my 46th birthday, my boyfriend, a person who I’ve known for two-thirds of my life, dumps me. He moves into an awful, expensive apartment in a concrete tower on the side of the highway in Emeryville. It’s right above a sewage treatment plant and it’s as cold as he’s become towards me.

It’s been a few months now and I still wonder about what happened. I know I was a shitty girlfriend in many ways, I didn’t work on my web design business enough or make a lot of money, but I also think I was a good companion to him. Then again, I always compared myself to my mom, who got drunk for a week at a time and shit the couch, so I had pretty low standards.

I’ve looked up articles on midlife crises and he seems to match the profile. On one site, the Midlife Club, it reads, “If your partner always cheated and he’s not middle-aged, then he’s just a cheater. If your partner has never cheated and he’s middle-aged, then he might be having a midlife crisis.” So in part I think that’s what this is. A lot of men go through them. They get older and lose their testosterone and it makes them miserable and scared about aging and death and worried about not having accomplished enough.

My new boyfriend, Jon, says his dad also had a midlife crisis, and he dumped their family and started a new one. It was with a worse woman than his mom, but his dad didn’t care. For whatever reason, many men abandon their families in midlife.

I tell Jon about the incident at the restaurant in Mendocino and he laughs. “No, he didn’t really say that!” He raises his eyebrows and scoffs. “So, let me get this straight,” he says, “he wrote a short story about cheating on you to let all these women know he was available and he heard crickets. So he went all the way to Phoenix to have sex with some burnt out mom?”

Then my anger disappears and I feel sad for my old boyfriend again. I hope he figures himself out and gets through this crazy time.

February 18, 2018

[quoteoftheweekblog]

QUOTATIONS - VIKRAM SETH’S ‘A SUITABLE BOY’ (FIRST PUBLISHED 1993)

First sentence:

‘ “You too will marry a boy I choose,” said Mrs Rupa Mehra firmly to her younger daughter.’ (Seth, 1994, p.3).

On reading:

‘She loved reading, and people knew better than to talk to her when she had a book in her hands.’ (Seth, 1994, p.32).

‘She had read; and, despite that, she had thought.’ (Seth, 1994, p.345).

‘ ... Sandeep Lahiri sat down in the station master’s office and pulled “Howards End” out of his bag.’ (Seth, 1994, p.675).

‘ “I’ve been reading one or two Hardys again.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.1249).

‘ “But I too hate long books: the better, the worse. If they’re bad, they merely make me pant with the effort of holding them up for a few minutes. But if they’re good, I turn into a social moron for days, refusing to go out of my room, scowling and growling at interruptions, ignoring weddings and funerals, and making enemies out of friends. I still bear the scars of ‘Middlemarch’.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, pp.1370-1).

‘ “ ... Proust makes me weep, weep, weep with boredom. Weep ... Weep, weep, weep ... I weep when I read Proust, and I read very little of him.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.1371).

‘ “I came in to buy a Wodehouse, but I’ve bought myself a Jane Austen instead.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.1406).

‘ “You have too good a brain to waste on English literature.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.1416).

On ‘a suitable boy’:

‘ “Now the time has come to get Lata well settled, and I must look all out for a suitable boy.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.47).

“ “I want you to find her a boy at once. A suitable boy. She is getting involved with unsuitable boys, and I cannot have that.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.594).

‘She was dreaming - of a kiss - but it was of Kabir she was dreaming, the one who was absent, the one who above all others she should not meet, the most unsuitable boy of them all.’ (Seth, 1994, p.1240).

On learning:

‘Whenever she opened a scientific book and saw whole paragraphs of incomprehensible words and symbols, she felt a sense of wonder at the great territories of learning that lay beyond her - the sum of so many noble and purposive attempts to make objective sense of the world.’ (Seth, 1994, p.49).

‘ “It’s unusual for someone to be interested in both poetry and mathematics.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.52).

‘ “He says that the fresh air ‘opens up his assumptions’ ... Once, when he came down from the hills he said that like Zarathustra he had gained enough mathematical insight on the mountainside in six weeks to last a lifetime.” ‘ (seth, 1994, p.178).

‘ “Studying is a good discipline ... It needs application ... it does not matter what you study. As long as you study hard, it improves the mind.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.473).

‘ ... “we are all learning, no matter how aged ... “ ... ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.789).

On life:

‘ “Don’t add chillies to boiled potatoes.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.52).

‘I’m not a mouse or a tigress, she thought, I’m a hedgehog.’ (Seth, 1994, p.156).

‘ “God save us from people who mean well.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.279).

‘ “How do you fuck in a sari?” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.435).

‘ “For me, you will always be my baby.”

“Even at sixty?” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.479).

‘Being a bit of a layabout, he lay about a bit.’ (Seth, 1994, p.722).

‘ “The secret of life is to accept. Accept happiness, accept sorrow; accept success, accept failure; accept fame, accept disgrace; accept doubt, even, accept the impression of certainty.” ‘ (Seth, 1994. p.812).

‘ “Cricket has a lot to answer for.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.1056).

‘When all else fails, thought Lata, there is always soup.’ (Seth, 1994, p.1253).

On James Joyce:

‘ “There is the unreadable ‘Ulysses’. There is the worse than unreadable ‘Finnegan’s Wake’. This kind of writing is unhealthy for our students. It encourages them, as it were, in sloppy and ungrammatical writing.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, pp.56-7).

On religion:

‘All over India, all over the world, as the sun or the shadow of darkness moves from east to west, the call to prayer moves with it, and people kneel down in a wave of prayer to God.’ (Seth, 1994, p.127).

On exams:

‘ “You’ll have forgotten all about it in five years.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.150).

‘ “ ... there are more important things in the world than exams.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.151).

On P.G. Wodehouse:

‘ “Read a P.G. Wodehouse or two ... “ ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.167).

‘She went to Pran’s bookshelf and picked up the first P.G. Wodehouse she saw: “Pigs Have Wings”. ’ (Seth, 1994, pp.168-9).

‘She had finished “Pigs Have Wings” and had gone on to “Galahad at Blandings” ... she would have to distract herself with as much P.G. Wodehouse as possible.’ (Seth, 1994, p.186).

‘But she couldn’t concentrate even on Wodehouse.’ (Seth, 1994, p.187).

‘ ... lost in Wodehouse ... ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.195).

‘ ... the ubiquitous Wodehouse ... ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.1021).

On education:

‘Sunil Patwardhan had believed as a student that to get one true mathematical insight a fortnight was enough by way of work; for the rest of the time he paid no attention to his studies, and did excellently. Now that he was teaching students he found it hard to impose an academic discipline on them that he himself had no faith in.’ (Seth, 1994, p.224).

‘ “ ... there are three kinds of teachers: those who are forgotten: those who are remembered and hated, and the third, the lucky ones ... those who are remembered and ... forgiven.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.902).

On dyslexia:

‘Considering his almost perfect memory for objects, it was odd that he had emerged from his English B.A. Honours course with a third, and had messed up his Poetry paper with innumerable misquotations.’ (Seth, 1994, p.224).

On politics:

‘The police force before Partition was very largely composed of Muslims as a result of the sound imperialist policy of divide and rule: it helped the British that the predominantly Hindu Cogress-wallahs should be beaten up by predominantly Muslim policeman.’ (Seth, 1994, p.253).

‘ “Politics is like the coal trade. How can you blame people if their hands and faces become a little black?” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.349).

‘ “Politicians, you know, prefer to appoint mediocrities to important posts not merely because they themselves will look better in comparison or because they are afraid of competition, but also because, you see, a person appointed on merit feels that it is owed to him, while a mediocity is only too conscious that it is not.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.901).

On Jane Austen:

‘ “You should go up to your room ... and settle down on a sofa with Jane Austen.” ...

“Jane Austen is the only woman in his life.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.415).

‘ “What’ll you read on the way?”

“ ‘Emma’.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.604).

‘ “Don’t leave your book behind ... ‘Mansfield Park’? I haven’t read that one. Tell me if it’s any good.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.1407).

On Economics:

‘ “ ... economics is a pointless subject. He would have done far better to study mathematics.” ‘ (Seth, 1994. p.423).

‘ ... “economics is the worst possible qualification for running anything. It’s the mosty useless, impratical subject in the worls.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.454).

‘ “There isn’t a single decent human being I know who is an economist.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.501).

On being a writer:

‘ “He’s just a writer. He knows nothing at all about literature.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.426).

‘ “What’s wrong with writing poems and novels?” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.444).

‘ “ ... I think that the more people write, the less they think.” ‘ (Seth. 1994, p.446).

‘ “ ... I wrote it out in a single draft ... Once I counted sixteen desperate triplets building upwards to fever pitch. Can you imagine: sixteen. It drove me crazy. And then I polished it over the next few days. I didn’t really want to loof at it, and kept making excuses. I always do. I hate writing, you know.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.1209).

‘ “ ... I often like my work when it’s done - it’s just the doing that is so tedious. With a short poem there’s the inspiration of course. But with this novel I have to whip myself to my desk ... “ ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.1209).

‘ “Why, then, is it rumoured that your forthcoming novel ... is to be so long? More than a thousand pages! “...

“Oh, I don’t know how it grew to be so long ... I’m very undisciplined.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.1370).

On books:

‘ “One feels so bewildered among all these millons of books,” said Lata, astonished that several hundreds of yards of a city could actually be given over to nothing but books - books on the pavement, books on makeshift bookshelves out in the street, books in the library and in Presidency College, first-, second-, third- and tenth-hand books, everything from technical monographs on electroplating to the latest Agatha Christie.‘ (Seth, 1994, p.524).

On marriage:

‘She would not change; he would not change; he knew that she would not change; she knew that he would not change; and each knew that the other knew this,’ (Seth, 1994, p.818).

‘ “You too will marry a girl I choose,” ...“A suitable girl, that is what I want for you ... A suitable girl, and no exceptions.” ‘ (Seth, 1994, p.1467).

REFERENCE

Seth, V. (1994 [1993] ) ‘A suitable boy’. London: Phoenix.

[thelastspeecher]

NaNoWriMo ‘17 Day 19 - Birds of a Feather

Day 01   Day 02   Day 03   Day 04   Day 05   Day 06   Day 07   Day 08 Day 09   Day 10   Day 11   Day 12   Day 13   Day 14   Day 15   Day 16 Day 17   Day 18   Day 19   Day 20   Day 21   Day 22   Day 23   Day 24 Day 25   Day 26   Day 27   Day 28   Day 29   Day 30

Summary: A new phoenix joins the flock.  [Phoenix Enchantment AU] Word count: 3042

               Crack!  Angie’s head jerked up.  

               “What was that?” she chirped blearily.  Stan looked over.  

               “I think somethin’ hit the window.”

               “What?”

               “I’ll go check,” Stan said.  He nuzzled her.  “Watch the egg while I’m gone, babe.”

               “You got it,” Angie mumbled. She nestled down again and yawned. Stan looked at his three daughters, who were at the food stand.  

               “Girls, keep an eye on your ma. She’s still weird ‘cause of the pain meds.”

               “Of course, Dad,” Danny chirped.  “We promised we’d help out, since the latest egg was difficult.”

               “Thanks.”  Stan took off.  He flew downstairs, reaching the front door at the same time Fiddleford did.  Stan landed on his brother-in-law’s shoulder.

               “You heard it too?” Fiddleford asked.  Stan bobbed his head.  “Well, let’s see what it was.”  Fiddleford stepped outside.  Spread-eagled on the front porch, visibly severely disoriented, was a male phoenix. Stan felt his feathered crest begin to instinctively rise.  He left Fiddleford’s shoulder and landed next to the stranger.  

               “Buddy, what’s goin’ on here?” Stan squawked.  The phoenix looked at him.

               “Huh?” the phoenix burbled. Stan puffed his feathers up.

               “Look, my kids are too young to get any mates yet, okay?  I don’t know how it works with phoenixes, but I grew up human, so I don’t like the idea of my daughters getting married off when they’re still teens.”

               “I’m not-” the phoenix started.

               “And you better not be here for Angie, either!” Stan cawed. “She’s got a mate already.”

               “Stanley, leave him be!” Fiddleford said.  Stan frowned at Fiddleford.

               “I’ve gotta protect my flock, Fidds!” Stan said firmly.  “Angie’s spoken for, and the girls-”

               “I have no clue what yer sayin’, but ya clearly haven’t recognized this here phoenix,” Fiddleford said.  Stan blinked. “It’s Lute!”

               “What?!” Stan screeched.  He looked back at the stranger.  The phoenix was getting to his feet, stumbling as he did so.  “That can’t be right.”

               “Look at him,” Fiddleford insisted.

               “I mean, yeah, Lute left this mornin’ and we haven’t heard from him, but-”

               “Lord, it’s weird to understand the chirpin’ and squawkin’,” the strange phoenix interrupted.  Stan froze.

               “No fucking way.  Lute?” Stan croaked.  The phoenix nodded.  “How the hell did that happen?”

               “I did what everyone told me not to do,” Lute said softly.  “I went to find a way to break the enchantment.”

               “Lute!” Stan squawked.

               “My baby sister almost died!” Lute screeched.  “She almost died, ‘cause she’s stuck as a bird, and bein’ a bird means layin’ eggs.  And one of her eggs was bound.  Stanley, ya understand how scared and worried I am ‘bout Angie.  Can ya blame me fer tryin’ to fix things?”

               “Even if she was human, childbirth doesn’t always go right,” Stan pointed out.

               “Yeah, but if she was human, she’d have a proper doctor.  She wouldn’t have to go to a vet.”  Lute drooped. “I was so angry, I ignored everything I got told, and now my poor parents have two children who are birds.”

               “The two of ya are clearly havin’ an illuminatin’ conversation,” Fiddleford said, “but I can’t understand any of it.  Stan, mind grabbin’ Molly to translate, since you and Angie won’t be turnin’ human fer a bit?”  Stan nodded. “I’ll bring Lute on in and start checkin’ him over.”  Fiddleford looked Lute up and down.  “Hmm, looks like he might’ve broken a wing.”

               “Go figure,” Lute muttered.

----- 

               Molly walked into the kitchen with Stan on her shoulder.  Ford and Fiddleford were examining a very grumpy Lute on the kitchen table.

               “Can you stretch your wing out for me?” Ford asked.  Lute did as he was told, letting out a small caw of pain.  

               “You guys need a translator?” Molly asked, taking a seat at the table.

               “Howdy, Miss Molly,” Lute croaked weakly.  Molly shook her head.

               “Uncle Lute, you know better.”

               “I was-”

               “Dad told me you were worried about Mom.  But you should’ve talked to us about it!  If you had, you might not be joining the flock.  I mean, I’m kinda glad to have another phoenix around that isn’t my sibling or parent, but there’s no way you’re happy about this.” Lute chirped dejectedly.

               “Wait, what’s goin’ on?” Fiddleford asked.  “Lute got turned into a phoenix ‘cause he was worried ‘bout Angie?”

               “Yeah.  Apparently, he was upset that Mom’s last egg was bound, and it made her so sick.  So he decided to track down a way to get the enchantment undone.”

               “Lute Everett McGucket,” Fiddleford said in a low voice.  “Molly’s right.  Ya do know better!”  Lute cringed. “We warned ya that messin’ with the enchantment wouldn’t end well.  And we told ya that Angie’s fine!  The only thing what made the situation was so scary was ‘cause Angie couldn’t find anyone to translate fer her when things started goin’ wrong with the egg.  Even then, she figured it out, and got the message across.”  Lute looked down at his feet, hunched in on himself.

               “Lay off!” Stan squawked, noticing how Lute was wilting.  Molly winced.

               “Dad, not right in my ear.”

               “Sorry, rooster,” Stan cooed.

               “What did Stan just say?” Ford asked.

               “He wants you guys to stop being so hard on Uncle Lute,” Molly explained.

               “He already feels bad, stop makin’ him feel worse,” Stan added.

               “Uncle Lute already knows he messed up, so you’re just making him feel worse,” Molly said.  Fiddleford sighed.

               “Yer right, Stan.”  Fiddleford stroked Lute’s back.  “Sorry, lil brother.”

               “I really did mess up,” Lute crowed.  “I’m so sorry.”

               “He says he’s sorry.”

               “Aw, Lute, it’s okay.  Yer not the first fam’ly member what’s been turned into a phoenix,” Fiddleford said gently. He grimaced.  “Even though that doesn’t seem like somethin’ we should be so familiar with.  We’ll get ya settled in with the rest of the flock, up in the aviary.”

               “It’s really nice up there,” Molly said.  “Humans might not appreciate it, but Uncle Fidds and Uncle Ford did an excellent job on making it a good ecological match for phoenixes.”  

               “I- I don’t know how to be a phoenix,” Lute said.  

               “What, do you think Angie and I did when we first got turned?” Stan chirped.  “Hell, when Molly hatched, we didn’t know what to do.  We just stared at her until she started screaming, and then we realized she was hungry.”

               “Wait, really?” Molly asked.  She crossed her arms.  “You never told me that story.”

               “What story?” Ford asked.

               “Apparently, Mom and Dad didn’t know what to do when I hatched, until I started making noise, and they figured out I was hungry.”

               “I remember that,” Fiddleford said.  “Lord, the look on Stan and Angie’s faces when they realized ya wouldn’t eat whole food.  Even though we didn’t know Pele and Prometheus were, y’know, people, I still thought it was amusing.  They looked so lost durin’ yer first week of life, Molly.”

               “Why did Stan tell that story?” Ford asked.

               “Uncle Lute says he doesn’t know how to be a phoenix.”  Molly rolled her eyes.  “Honestly, Mom and Dad barely know how to be phoenixes now.  During the first migration, I had to explain to them what was going on, and I was only eight years old!”

               “Once the instincts kick in, things ‘ll be easier,” Stan said reassuringly.  Lute nodded, a bit calmer.

               “All right, looks like a broken wing, fractured rib, and a host of various bumps and bruises,” Ford said.  “We’ll patch you up and then send you to the aviary to recuperate.”

               “Yer goin’ to want to build a nest to relax in,” Fiddleford said to Lute. Lute stared at his older brother.

               “…How do I do that?” Lute asked sheepishly.

               “He asked how you build a nest,” Molly translated.  Fiddleford groaned.  “Uncle Lute, Danny and I can set up a nest for you, since Dad’s gotta take care of Mom.”

               “Thank you, sweetling,” Lute chirped.  

               “It’ll be nice, actually,” Fiddleford said.  “Lute, you can keep Angie company, and Stan can get back to patrollin’ the forest.  Angie’s goin’ to be off the pain meds soon, so she won’t need to be babied no more.  But she’ll still be brooding, so it’ll be lonely up there.”

               “It would be nice to spend some time with my lil sister,” Lute said.

               “Uncle Lute’s on board,” Molly said.  There was a loud squawk from upstairs.  “And Daisy says the dishes in the aviary are out of crickets.”

               “You know where they are,” Ford said.  “You can take care of it yourself.”

               “Fine,” Molly groaned.  She got up and walked over to the fridge to rummage around in it.

               “Goldarn, I have to eat bugs now?” Lute muttered.  Stan shrugged.

               “You get used to it.”

----- 

               Angie yawned and opened her eyes.

               “Mornin’,” Stan chirped at her. Angie smiled.  She nuzzled her mate.

               “Mornin’.  Lord, I slept a lot yesterday, didn’t I?”

               “Yeah, you did.”

               “If you’ll watch the egg fer a bit, I think I’m up fer gettin’ some food,” Angie said.  

               “You got it,” Stan said. Angie hopped onto the edge of the nest and spread out her wings, preparing to take off.  She froze upon catching sight of a strange phoenix dozing fitfully in a nest near the food stand.

               “Who is that?!” Angie screeched. She scrambled back into the nest to cover the egg again.

               “Angie, relax,” Stan said.

               “There’s a stranger in our home! What’s goin’ on?”

               “Chill,” Stan chirped at her.  Angie stared at the strange phoenix.  He was awake now, but hunkered down in the nest in an attempt to make himself as small as possible.

               “How can ya expect me to chill, when there’s someone here we don’t know?  What if he goes after the egg?”

               “Babe, he won’t.”

               “Lord, what if he’s here to court the girls?”

               “What?!” the stranger squawked.

               “Angie, I told ya that Lute was movin’ in with us,” Stan said.  Angie blinked.  

               “…That’s Lute?”

               “Yeah, it is.  He tried to mess with enchantment, and got turned into a phoenix for it.”

               “Lute?” Angie trilled at the phoenix.  Lute nodded.  “What made ya do that?”

               “Yer last two eggs haven’t gone very well,” Lute croaked.  “I wanted to help ya out by turnin’ ya back human.”

               “Oh, Lute,” Angie chirped softly.

               “I told ya about it yesterday,” Stan said to his mate.  “Don’t you remember?”  Angie scratched her cheek with one of her large talons.  

               “I thought that was a dream.  I was pretty loopy yesterday.”

               “I wish it was a dream,” Lute said.  He sighed.  “Fidds said he’s goin’ to call Ma and Pa today, to tell ‘em that two of their children are now birds.”

               “I wonder if Ford ‘ll give ya one of his weird names,” Angie chirped.  “If yer really joinin’ the flock, he prob’ly will.”

               “Yet another thing to look forward to,” Lute drawled sarcastically.  “Bugs, a weird name, bein’ data fer Ford’s research, lessons from my own nieces and nephew-”

               “Lessons?” Angie interrupted.

               “It seems like Lute’s instincts aren’t kicking in like they did for us,” Stan said.  “The girls, Emmett, and I are gonna help him out.  He’s definitely gonna want flying lessons, so that he doesn’t crash into any more windows.”

               “In my defense, I was discombobulated,” Lute said.  There were footsteps on the stairs.

               “Uncle Lute left this morning?”  Tate’s voice carried up to the aviary.

               “Yes.  Somethin’ came up back home, so he had to leave ‘fore ya got up.  He was disappointed he didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to you in person,” Fiddleford replied.

               “I understand,” Tate said, sounding disappointed.  He and Fiddleford arrived at the aviary, Tate carrying a large container of bird food.  “Hey, birds.”

               “Tate!” Emmett squeaked excitedly, hopping onto the edge of the nest he shared with Danny and Daisy.  

               “Hello to you, too, Percy,” Tate said with a grin.  He walked over to Stan and Angie.  “How are you feelin’, Pele?  Better?” he asked, stroking Angie’s back.  Angie cooed softly.  “Sorry I didn’t visit sooner.  Dad wouldn’t let me come here while you were recuperating, and when I tried to sneak up anyways, your mate kept chasin’ me away.”

               “Keepin’ you away was one of the few things I agreed with Fidds and Ford on,” Stan crowed.  

               “Oh, Lord, I forgot,” Lute muttered.  “Tate thinks everyone up here’s just a bird, doesn’t he?”  Tate turned around.  His eyes widened.

               “Pa, you didn’t tell me you guys picked up another phoenix!  When did that happen?”

               “Careful, Tater Tot,” Fiddleford said, grabbing Tate before he could approach Lute’s nest.  “Yer father and I found him just yesterday.  He’s not goin’ to be as civil as Pele and Prometheus are.”

               “He doesn’t seem too wild.  And anyways, I’m good with birds,” Tate said dismissively, shaking his arm free from Fiddleford’s grasp.  Fiddleford looked meaningfully at Lute.  Lute let out a half-hearted hiss.

               “See?” Fiddleford said.

               “He didn’t mean that.”

               “Come on, Lute!” Stan squawked. Lute abruptly puffed his feathers up and screeched loudly at Tate.  Tate blanched.

               “Okay, yeah, he’s serious.  I guess you’re right about not messin’ with him yet.  Is he gonna be joinin’ the flock?”

               “Yes.”

               “Cool!”  Tate frowned at Lute.  “Wait, why’s he so big?  I thought male phoenixes were small.”

               “We don’t have much data to go off,” Fiddleford said, “since, before this feller showed up, we’d only examined one adult male, and the other male, a juvenile, has stunted growth from gestational stress.”  Angie let out a small chirp.  “But yer father and I think that the new phoenix and Prometheus are opposite ends of the size spectrum fer male phoenixes.”  

               “You keep callin’ him ‘the new phoenix’,” Tate noted.  “I guess Dad hasn’t named him yet?”

               “No, he has not.”

               “Hmm, this new phoenix is a lot redder than Prometheus.  Like, super red.  I kinda think Jasper would suit him.”  Tate sighed.  “But Dad’s got a whole list of phoenix names ready to go.”

               “I like Jasper,” Lute said.  “It’s a real name, not like whatever nonsense Ford was plannin’ on.”

               “I’ll talk to yer father,” Fiddleford said after a moment.  “I might be able to convince him to let you name this one.”

               “Sweet!  It’s about time!” Tate said enthusiastically.  He stepped towards the food stand.  Lute hissed, remembering his cover as a wild bird.  “Oh.  Uh, I can’t fill the food dishes if potential-Jasper here is guarding ‘em.”

               “I’ll handle it,” Fiddleford said, taking the container of bird food from his son.  “Why don’t ya grab lil Percy and play with him a bit?”

               “You got it.”  Tate put on a thick leather glove, held out his arm, and whistled.  Emmett took flight, landing on Tate’s outstretched arm.

               “Tate, we’ve been over this, don’t try to teach the phoenixes tricks,” Fiddleford said tiredly.

               “Percy doesn’t mind.”

               “I ain’t so sure ‘bout that.”

               “They’re birds.  It’s not like they’re people,” Tate said, rolling his eyes.  Fiddleford frowned at him.  “…You can’t ground me anymore, I’m an adult.”

               “I can still scold ya.  How many times do I have to remind ya, treat these birds with respect!  Fer one thing, they’re magic.  ‘Member what happened when yer dad ticked off Pele and Prometheus? He got stuck as a toddler fer a week.”

               “I don’t think they’d do that to me,” Tate said firmly.  Fiddleford sighed.

               “Just take Percy downstairs fer some playtime, will ya?”

               “Yep.  Bye, birds!” Tate called.  The rest of the phoenixes in the aviary chirped goodbyes at him as he walked downstairs.

               “Sorry ‘bout Tate,” Fiddleford said to the aviary as a whole, once Tate was gone.  “We keep tryin’ to talk to him, but it just won’t stick.”

               “Y’know what’ll make it stick?” Stan cawed.  “Tellin’ him the truth!”  Fiddleford looked at Stan.

               “If ya were suggestin’ again that we tell him the truth, I’ll say what I’ve said before.  We don’t want him to know.”

               “Why not?” Daisy chirped. Fiddleford shook his head.

               “I ain’t havin’ this conversation when I can’t understand ya, sweetie.”  He walked over to the food stand.  “Thanks fer actin’ like ya didn’t want him near, Lute,” Fiddleford said softly.  “He might not be suspicious at first, if the phoenix we picked up yesterday was tame, but over time, it’d be more evidence that somethin’s fishy with the operation here.”

               “It’s whatever,” Lute cawed.

               “And you don’t mind if Tate assigned ya the name Jasper, do ya?” Lute looked at him.  “Oh.  Um, nod if yer fine with Jasper.”  Lute bobbed his head.  “Good. That’ll make him happy.” Fiddleford began to fill the food dishes.  “Did ya have a good night’s sleep?”  Lute shook his head.  “Aw, shoot. Sorry, lil brother.  You’ll get used to it.  I’ll be callin’ Ma ‘n Pa after I’m done up here, to give ‘em the news.” Lute deflated.

               “Not lookin’ forward to that,” Lute mumbled.  “I just know they’re goin’ to insist on comin’ up here to chew me out in person.”

               “It’ll be fine,” Fiddleford said gently.  He scratched the top of Lute’s head.  “Oh, Angie?”

               “Yeah?” Angie chirped.

               “Don’t forget, you’ve got that follow-up appointment tomorrow,” Fiddleford told her.  Angie nodded. Fiddleford let out a small sigh. “Geez, now that yer a bird, Lute, we’ll have to take ya in fer veterinary check-ups, too.”

               “What?!” Lute screeched.

               “Actually, I wonder if the vet can squeeze ya in tomorrow.”

               “Fiddleford!” Lute squawked in protest.

               “You broke yer wing.  You need a check-up with someone licensed in veterinary medicine,” Fiddleford said shortly. “But there’s no need to panic; the vet knows our phoenixes are sentient.  She’s very accommodatin’.”

               “He’s right,” Stan said.  “You should go get a check-up.  And yeah, once they told the vet that we’re sentient, she started treating us more like people.”  Lute huddled down in his nest.

               “‘Like’ bein’ the key word there,” Lute grumbled.  “I’m not a person no more, I’m a dang bird.”

               “A very fine-lookin’ bird,” Angie said kindly.

               “Yeah, you’ll pick up a hen in no time,” Stan said.  Lute glared at him.  “…What’d I say?”

               “Stanley, I’m gay.  I don’t want to attract any lady birds.”

               “Oh.”  Stan looked at Angie.  “What do phoenixes do if they’re gay?” Angie shrugged.

              “See, Uncle Lute?” Molly called from her nest.  “They’re just as clueless as you are.”

[kahran042]

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(in response to Resulka's Let's Play of Ultima VII: Serpent Isle) The fact that Voldin is the senior member of the royal council should be proof enough that the city of Fawn doesn't banish people just for being ugly. :)

(in response to Bobsheaux's review of The Duke) Look on the bright side: at least you aren't a solid gold lion. :)

(in response to Bobsheaux's review of The Duke) Other commentator 1: You know this movie doesn't sound all that enjoyable. Me: That's like saying the Pacific Ocean is moist.

(in response to Failous' review of Beauty and the Beast Bevanfield) So...wait. You don't hate the 17th century, or you don't know why you hate the 17th century? :)

(in response to Failous' review of Cricket on the Hearth) Other commentator: Old Man makes every movie better. Me: Let's agree to disagree.

(in response to Failous' review of Anastasia (Golden Films)) Other commentator: The only credit I give to goldenfilms that they at least know about the tsar tragedy and didn't sugarcoat they're tragic deaths...While those 3 godawful  crappy animated films of titanic took a crap on the tragic deaths of the million of people whom died on the titanic............etc...... Me: How can millions of people have died on a ship with a maximum capacity of 3547?

(in response to BCSBuster's Let's Play of The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time) Maybe it's just me, but those eyespots on the back of Ruto's head are pretty disturbing.

(in response to BCSBuster's Let's Play of The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time) Counterpoint: The Deku Tree is dead, so how's he going to stop you from going inside? :)

(in response to Lewtoons' review of Beauty and the Beast) This is automatically better than Phelous' review on the ground of containing 100% less Phelous.

(in response to Bobsheaux's review of The Swan Princess 5 & 6) Other commentator: Elise should probably be more grateful for her princess title and being adopted by the unrealistically nice royalty, considering she, you know, came from a family of wood cutters? Me: Agreed. After all, Derek and Odette didn't kill her parents and destroy her village, only keeping her alive so that she could tell them where the village's secret treasure was kept.

(in response to MasaeAnela's Let's Play of Katamari Damacy) My personal theory about why people don't notice katamaris is that they generate SEP fields.

(in response to MasaeAnela's Let's Play of Katamari Damacy) What would the "hunk" constellation be, though? I picture it being Hercules or Orion.

(in response to Lucahjin's Let's Play of D*ng*nr*np*) Other commentator: Bacula is the son of Dracula from Phoenix Wright. Explaining why Bacula has the Edgeworth voice. Because Bacula is Edgeworth. Edgeworth is part of the Phoenix Wright trilogy which has three games. Triangles have three sides. Illuminati has a triangle shaped symbol with three sides. Bacula is Illuminati. Me: And my brother is my sister and my sister is my mother and Sakunoshin is my sister and Akai Homura is a woman!

(in response to Phoebe Kalinowski's Let's Play of Terranigma) And, of course, part of the path to becoming two-legged was to become a rabbit with the face of a cat.

(in response to Musical Hell's review of Peter Pan Live) I believe in coyotes and time as an abstract.

(in response to Lucahjin's Let's Play of D*ng*nr*np*) Spoiler alert: Rosebud was Charles Foster Kane's sled.

(in response to Lucahjin's Let's Play of D*ng*nr*np*) Other commentator: Aaaaaand Hifumi's dead. Yeah, no big deal. Seriously though, I still can't help but feel bad for the guy. A murder is a murder, after all. And he was a funny dude in his own way, so it's kinda sad because of that, too. Me: I officially lost any sympathy I might have had for him once he started creeping on Alter Ego. Sorry, but that's just how I feel.

(in response to Lucahjin's Let's Play of D*ng*nr*np*) Multiple killings with hammers...it must be Maxwell Edison! I know he used a silver hammer and these ones are wood, but you take what you can get.

(in response to Children's Film Riffs' commentary on Why Did The Bus Stop?) Why did the bus stop? Because it crashed. Why did the bus crash? Because Jimmy was driving. Why couldn't Jimmy drive? Because he didn't have any arms or legs. Why didn't Jimmy have any arms or legs? Because he was a potato.

(in response to Movie Nights' Mary Kate and Ashley Triple Feature #1) Say what you will about this, I do like that one twin's black tank top with the gold dragon or whatever.

(in response to Bobsheaux's review of The Legend of Frosty the Snowman) Karen doesn't need Frosty anymore because right after the first movie, she fell off the roof where Santa left her and died instantly.

(in response to Thomas the Riffed Engine and Friends' review of Fiery Flynn) "It would only make sense for Thomas the Tank Engine to have a fire engine character..." By that logic, it would only make sense for Fireman Sam to have a steam engine character to teach about railway procedure.

(in response to Phoebe Kalinowski's Let's Play of StarTropics, specifically the My Country 'Tis of Thee/God Save the Queen snippet) Let's just split the difference and say that it was the anthem of the Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen. :)

(in response to Bobsheaux's review of The Nutcracker: The Untold Story) In a world of living toys, I'd say that, yeah, toys ARE the worst things you could burn.

(in response to Lucahjin's Let's Play of Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice) Too many glands...so he's the anti-Zucotti Manicotti?

(in response to Phoebe Kalinowski's Let's Play of Equestria Bound) Other commentator: You know, as much as Mother 3 was a good game, I am still completely frustrated by its ending.  Was it a happy ending?  A dark ending?  I still have no idea. Me: It's whatever kind of ending you want it to be. Personally, I like to think of it as a happy ending because Lucas deserves one, dammit.

(in response to Top 10 Worst RPG Dungeons - PlayStation Edition) The Kislev Sewers is, indeed, the pits - literally and figuratively. :)

(in response to Miss Nightmare's review of Gumby: The Movie) I haven't seen the actual movie, but I have seen Bobsheaux's review, and you are right about the song being a total earworm.

(in response to a video of the Ritual of Fire going wrong in Ultima VIII) Other commentator: Lol in Ultima VII I would take items from dungeons and it would be "stealing," guards would come etc lol. I remember in Ultima V the best way to get good items is to steal magic keys from the merchant in Minoc then raid British's basement. I think the only thing bad it does is make the mage in Trinsic not tell you the mantra of Honor. I wish getting rich was that easy in real life! Hey could you do me a quick favor and tell me if you are able to watch my uploads or if they are blocked Me: And, considering that the mantra of Honor never changes... ;)

(in response to Lucahjin's review of D*ng*nr*np* 2) Other commentator: Remember when Lucah was so mad about Mahiru's murder? And really anxious to find the culprit? I guess we know just how much she actually cared for her. Let's not forget in our rush of sympathy that Fuyuhiko murdered a girl while in high school with a baseball bat. And that Peko murdered Mahiru. They might love each other but that does not make them good people. Me: I actually like Peko more because she murdered Mahiru. Good riddance.

(in response to Lucahjin's review of D*ng*nr*np* 2) Let me be frank: I'm mostly just watching these for the executions these days, and that last one was pretty weak. Not exactly heartbreaking, but definitely disappointing.

(in response to the Cinema Snob's Let's Play of Christmas with a Capital C) Personally, I favor Happy Boxing Day Eve. :)

(in response to MihariofMabinogi's Let's Play of Chrono Trigger) I think that those people talking about how Robo speaks were referring to the fact that in the Japanese version, he speaks in kind of a weird mix of hiragana and katakana. The closest English equivalent would probably be having him put emphasis on the wrong syllables.

(in response to Phoebe Kalinowski's Let's Play of Pony Fantasy VI) I like to think that the ghost isn't so much "unwilling" to help after that point as "unable" - the Train's influence prohibits it from proceeding any further without being taken over by its consciousness.

(in response to Treble0096's Let's Play of Mother 3) Another mole cricket fact: They're apparently edible. If nothing else, I saw them listed in an article on strange canned food in Uncle John's Ahh-Inspiring Bathroom Reader.

(in response to Treble0096's Let's Play of Mother 3) Who would make wallpaper look like a filled bookcase? Probably someone pretending to be an intellectual.

(in response to Golden Book Video Killers XXV) The song that you said was about slavery clearly wasn't, because it mentioned Jenny being paid, with the implication that she could be paid more if she worked faster.

(in response to Autumchild's Let's Play of Breath of Fire III) I recently had a dream about using the dolphin's battle form as transportation in another game.

(in response to His Theme from Undertale: The Musical) I'm not normally the type to cry over fictional characters, but this song can come pretty drat close to making me do so.

(in response to SlimKirby's Let's Play of Lemmings) Me: If I'm not mistaken, I think almost every level without a unique tileset gets remixed at least once. SlimKirby: you are mistaken. There are definitely some levels that are unique beyond that classification. Me: That's why I said "almost". :)

(in response to Musical Hell's review of Happily Ever After) "There's only one Shadow Man!" (referring to Dr. Facilier) I'm guessing you've never played Mega Man 3, then?

(in response to Bobsheaux's review of The Swan Princess 2 & 3) Other commentator: I think all of these characters’ mothers were hamsters. Me: But did their fathers smell of elderberries?

(in response to Laws Broken: Dark Knight) Can Batman use self defense? Yes, because he's motherbleeping Batman.

(in response to Lucahjin's Let's Play of Suikoden II) Ah, Coronet. Jowston's leading producer of cheesy educational shorts.

(in response to MasaeAnela's Let's Play of Banjo-Kazooie) Clanker's Cavern is definitely the worst level in the game, but at least that means that it can only get better.

(in response to Top 6 Worst Characters from Good Cartoons) I know it's weird, but there is no South Park season 20. It just goes right from 19 to 21. Kind of like how there's no Leisure Suit Larry 4, I guess.

(in response to Bobsheaux's review of Miracle in Toyland) Other commentator: There is a woman with the word Nazi In her last name? Me: Ironically, Eskenazi is actually a Jewish surname. If you don't believe me, Google it.

(in response to Phoebe Kalinowski's Let's Play of Final Fantasy Tactics) If you're using Brett, better watch out for stray bullets. :)

(in response to The End of Time from Chrono Trigger: The Musical) "Unless time gets very desperate, in which case you could risk it." Anyone else have a feeling that this is foreshadowing?

(in response to the Media Hunters' review of Titanic: The Legend Goes On) Other commentator: The uncut version is somewhat better but that’s not saying much Me: Which is like saying that Death Valley is somewhat cooler than the surface of the sun.

(in response to the Cinema Snob's review of Gotti) Looks more like Ingeni-theta-us to me.

(in response to Phoebe Kalinowski's Let's Play of Illusion of Gaia) You say never to trust a man named Edward, but what about a blue engine named Edward?

As before, they literally are my comments unless specified.

[embyrr922]

hey so ik ur really into reptiles. im considering getting a bearded dragon thoughts?

Okay, bearing in mind that I’m not an expert, and you should definitely do research on your own, I’m really happy that you asked me and super excited for you.

Beardies are great for first-time reptile owners because they’re quite hardy, reasonably sized, pretty docile for a lizard, and common enough that any vet who treats exotics will have experience with them.

So, first and foremost, unless you’re going for a super fancy color morph, the enclosure is going to be the biggest, or tied for the biggest, upfront cost. A 40-gallon aquarium should be the absolute minimum size for an adult beardie, and the bigger the better. You should expect to drop $150+ on the tank setup unless you can find a good deal on a used one (Wulfie’s enclosure is huge and custom built and cost an arm and a leg, but you don’t need to be quite that extra). You need to have your whole tank set up with lights and substrate and furniture before you get your lizard, and I would suggest that you run as far and as fast as you can from any store that lets you buy the tank and the lizard at the same time, or any breeder who doesn’t want to hear what kind of tank setup you have.

You should also try to find a local vet that treats exotics before getting your lizard, and if you have the funds to do so, take your lizard in for a well patient visit within a couple of days of getting it. (My vet looked like she wanted to cry or hug me when I came in with a new lizard and already knew the lighting and temperature ranges she needed. The fact that you’re doing any research beforehand apparently puts you ahead of the pack already.)

Probably the most relevant day-to-day concern with keeping a lizard is food. You are going to be feeding your pet live insects, which means that you are going to be handling live insects every day, and I do mean picking them up with your hands, it’s kind of unavoidable.

The most common feeder insects are crickets, they’re cheap and you can buy them at almost any pet store. They’re also noisy, stinky, and can escape from anything. If you live somewhere with a garage or shed or something where you can keep them outside, go nuts, but I live in an apartment and they would absolutely drive me up a wall.

I would suggest dubia cockroaches. You can buy them relatively inexpensively online, they don’t make noise, and they don’t smell particularly bad. They’re also escape artists, so you may occasionally find one or two have gotten out of whatever you’re keeping them in, but these aren’t the kind of cockroaches that infest your house, don’t worry. If you buy the small or medium size, they’re too young to breed, and unless you regularly leave veggies on your floor, they won’t find anything to eat, either.

If cockroaches are a no-go, mealworms are also cheap, if not an ideal food, and hornworms and phoenix worms are great, but they’re a bit more expensive.

One more thing to keep in mind, do not get a hatchling for your first lizard. They’re much easier to accidentally kill, and it’s harder to find insects small enough for them to safely eat. I’d recommend getting a subadult or adult lizard, and strongly suggest adopting a rescue over buying. The adoption rate for reptiles is pretty low, and you get a lot of people who get a lizard without knowing what they’re doing who end up abandoning them. Check to see if there’s a reptile rescue in your area, or ask whether your local animal shelter takes in reptiles. Even if they don’t, they may be able to put you on a list of people to call if someone shows up wanting to surrender a dragon.

For more reading, I’d suggest the Animal Planet bearded dragon guide. It’s really well laid out and has a lot of great information, and the section on feeding is wonderfully comprehensive.

This became… kind of a lot, but I hope it’s helpful. I’m super excited for you, and definitely keep me updated and let me know if you have more questions!

[yayforstuffs]

3, 9, 15, 30, 33, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 50, 56, 63, 87, 88, 91 and 96

(3) Can You Whistle? yup

(9) How Many Followers? 262

(15) Grab The Book Nearest To You, Turn To Page 64, Give Me Line 14.“Hannah liked to knit; Hannah was, probably, or would” From Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, which as far as I can tell from reading the first chapter, seems to be an off-brand Anne of Green Gables. I have low expectations for this book.

(30) Do You Study Better With Or Without Music? depends on my mood tbh

(33) PlayStation Or Xbox. playstation

(40) Do You Have Any Obsessions Right Now? yup- i tend to generally have one at all times, it just changes every now and then. right now i’d say it’s the story that aron and ivan are in.

(41) Have You Ever Caught A Butterfly? not to my memory, but i raised one in elementary school

(42) Are You Easily Influenced By Other People? unfortunately, yes

(43) Do You Have Strange Dreams? compared to what ppl around me usually dream, apparently i do all the time.

(45) Name One Movie That Made You Cry. inside out

(50) Do You Fear Thunder / Lightning? no, but it is rather annoying when i’m trying to sleep bc the sudden noise does keep me awake.

(56)What Are You Craving Right Now? nothing, actually

(63) Favourite Pokemon? charmander and it’s evolution chain. first starter’s always got a special place in my heart.

(87) Are You A Day Or Night Person? night, judging by how late i tend to stay up

(88) List All Of Your Video Games On Your Phone, Console Etc. all of em? oh wow this is gonna be. a lot. coughs. welp.

n64

mario kart 64

paper mario

starfox 64

gbc

catz

gba

kirby and the amazing mirror

legend of zelda: link to the past / four swords

fairly odd parents: clash with the anti-world (which i think somebody else gave to me, because i don’t recall ever actually playing it)

fire emblem

fire emblem: sacred stones

lord of the rings: fellowship of the ring (which is hilariously bad)

lord of the rings: two towers (which is a classic)

rocket power: dream scheme

and the first game i ever owned- kim possible 2: drakken’s demise

gamecube

final fantasy: crystal chronicles

harvest moon: a wonderful life

ds

new super mario bros

super princess peach (yup. i have that game)

mario party ds

lego star wars: the complete saga

final fantasy: crystal chronicles: ring of fates (fav)

legend of zelda: phantom hourglass

super mario 64 ds

my sims kingdom (drastically different from the wii version, which disappointed me very much)

animal crossing: wild world

harvest moon: island of happiness

legend of zelda: spirit tracks

glory of heracles (which, for an unknown game, is a lot better than i was expecting it to be)

kirby squeak squad(untouched)

sonic rush adventures(untouched)

kirby super star ultra

mario & luigi: partners in time (a fav)

the world ends with you (also a fav)

pokemon soulsilver

pokemon white

okamiden

fire emblem: shadow dragon

harvest moon: grand bazaar(untouched)

wii

okami

rune factory: tides of destiny

3ds

starfox 64 3d

mariokart 7

harvest moon: a new beginning

fire emblem: awakening

super smash bros 3ds

tomodachi life

animal crossing: new leaf

legend of zelda: link between worlds

paper mario: sticker star (we don’t speak of this)

super mario 3d land(untouched)

legend of zelda: majora’s mask 3d

professor layton vs phoenix wright

pokemon alpha sapphire

pokemon mystery dungeon: gates to infinity

pokemon super mystery dungeon

fire emblem fates: birthright/conquest/revelation

pokemon sun

story of seasons

story of seasons: trio of towns

fire emblem: echoes

pokemon x

harvest moon: tale of two towns

3ds eshop

harvest moon (untouched)

harvest moon 2 (untouched)

harvest moon 3 (i’m tryin to get all of em, cept the new ones bc they’re awful. also untouched tho)

shantae

pokemon red

i don’t currently have any on my ipod; as soon as i played em i deleted em bc of how much space i don’t have. but i have played layton brothers: mystery room (which is absolutely fantastic and i’m hoping they release a sequel), and mystic messenger. i’ve also had like. solitaire and stuff like that.

on my laptop, let’s see. i’ve got

ecstasy

eihma

ib

alternian turnabout (hs fan game in the style of ace attourney)

mr president (not the donald trump one- the original mr president game)

minecraft

and on steam

antichamber

castle crashers (untouched)

child of light (untouched)

deadcore (untouched)

dungeon fighter online (untouched)

elder scrolls online (there was an attempt. a very laggy attempt.)

elder scrolls v: skyrim

fausts alptraum

freddi fish 1 & 3 (nostalgia and three dollars are very powerful things)

garry’s mod (untouched)

goat simulator(untouched)

gta v (there was an attempt at this too, but my laptop couldn’t even load it. so. there’s that.)

l4d2 (a fav)

maplestory

no time to explain (idk what this even is it just. showed up one day???)

octodad(untouched)

portal

portal 2

rwby: grimm eclipse (again, laptop couldn’t load it properly- suuuuuper laggy)

speedrunners (luc jadore is the best)

stanley parable

turbo dismount(untouched)

undertale

ok i thiiiink that’s all of em. whew.

(91) What Sounds Are Your Favourite? can’t say i’ve ever had a favorite sound. um. i guess nice ones are the gba startup, crickets, cicadas surprisingly, and the nintendo switch ‘click’ sound effect thingy. also rain on the roof / skylight is nice.

(96) Favourite YouTuber? kinda a mix tbh. i like some of videogamedunkey’s vids, some of markiplier, some of alpharad, every now and then i’ll go back to some chuggaaconroy, or some achievement hunter; inthelittlewood is also nice- i like his ni no kuni let’s play. ummm. i know i’m leaving some out, but there’s a few of em, at least.