#Disaster Bessie

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

Netflix Markled by (unmitigated) Disaster Duchess 😂

For those of you who've for YEARS referred to her as the 'Disaster Duchess,' did you know it would become a Double Entendre! Congratulations---you were ahead of the curve! 🤭

Lady C: "I am informed that, contrary to the story being promulgated by the Duchess of Sussex that the delay of the launch of her lifestyle series withlovemeghan from this Wednesday to the 4th March, was her idea, it was entirely netflixs. They evidently strongly recommended that she use the intervening period to try to turn around the wave of unpopularity that has engulfed all of them, unbelievably to their surprise. "They thought they might have problems owing to how toxic she now is, but they've been taken aback by the depth of feeling the public have shown," someone who is Hollywood royalty told me. So what does she do? She goes and shows the public even more clearly what a ghoul she is by plugging in yet again to disaster the way she tastelesslyy did at Uvalde, once more tipping off TMZ of her and Harry's intentions to do their version of ambulance chasing. She posed up a storm beside the perfectly groomed Mrs GavinNewsom then moves off to hug a member of her detail, all the while surrounded by the cameramen who had accompanied her. She's been rightly condemned for this deathly display of opportunistic limelighting, but at least she was canny enough to dress down, which is more than could be said for the perfectly-groomed First Lady of California, who looked as if she was preparing for one of Anna Wintour's left-of-centre voguemagazine spreads. I gather the visit lasted all of 17 minutes - five minutes longer than the time spent with His Majesty The King when Harry crossed the Atlantic for that photo-op. Does this couple have no shame?"

Tragedy Vultures Strike Again

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

I know the usual role swap AU has Marcy in Wartwood, Anne in Toad Tower and Sasha in Newtopia but I think it's be hilarious to see Sasha in Wartwood, Marcy in Toad Tower and Anne in Newtopia.

Andrias encourages Anne's worst vices, her selfishness and laziness. He just gives her a room and infinite money and lets her do whatever she wants, facing no consequences for her actions whatsoever because all Andrias cares about is using her as bait for her two more competente friends to come looking for. Only thing in her favor is that she DOES have the Calamity Box, which she gives to Andrias without question as soon as he promises to send her back home. Problem is that it's uncharged, and Anne at this point is too useless to do anything about it, so he, alongside Lady Olivia, have to keep up with this spoiled brat, forcing fake smiles and praying that her friends show up soon. He even sends Yunnan to go find them, because this weird annoying alien kid is causing disasters in the city every two days and all Andrias can think about is "jeez now I remember why I never had children".

Marcy in Toad Tower has a very Entrapta-Hordak kind of relationship with Grime (without the romance) in the sense that she's too enthralled by the wonders of Amphibia to be scared. She might not have the social abilities Sasha has but she DOES have an extensive knowledge of Age of Empires types of games, her strategies are UNMATCHED. While she is terrified during the first two weeks, while she's locked in a cell (this is NOT what her isekai fantasy looked like in her head), she soon proves her usefulness when she yells strategic advice from behind bars, demanding to be let out because she NEEDS to be in that war meeting! That strategy won't work! She saw it in an a dozen different animes, she knows how this ends! Though she's not very aware of the brutal reality of Toad Tower - she really just thinks she ended up with a cool warrior order she's helping defeat their enemies.

But Sasha in Wartwood takes the cake. If she ends up with the Plantars like Anne, she's an absolute menace for Sprig and Polly because she's one hell of a bad influence. Hop Pop takes it as a challenge - he thinks she wants to force him to kick her out, and he won't give her what she wants! Plus he's very aware of the ways in which she tries to manipulate his grandchildren and he won't allow it! Every time she gets them in trouble on purpose she has to do a full day of farm work, or to clean Bessie's stables. It's his way of telling her he can see straight through her bullshit and he won't tolerate it. If she wants to turn his kids into little delinquents she will have to get through him first! She probably becomes closer to Polly than Sprig, Sprig being a bit too much of a goody two shoes to follow half of her plans, while Polly is a natural troublemaker that joins in to whatever mischief Sasha comes up with. Though seeing Polly, a small child, continue to get in trouble and suffer the consequences for Sasha's actions, kind of triggers her more protective insticts. The moment Hop Pop realized she was making progress was when he saw her admit, in front of the whole town, that she was responsible for whatever trouble they had earlier, and she only did that because she felt responsible for Polly.

Btw she gets sooooo irrationally mad when Hop Pop gets a girlfriend and encourages Sprig's frustration, whispering like a devil in his ear that this is how it starts: first he gets a girlfriend, then you stop being his priority and suddenly he has new kids and a new family and you're not part of it. Trust me, buddy, single dads getting girlfriends is bad news. We should push her into the river!

Though I do wonder if it'd be even funnier if she ended up with someone you would never expect, like Mrs. Croaker. This old woman has her clean and cook for her all day long while complaining that she's doing everything wrong but she's the only person in town who lets her crash in her couch so it's her fucking snow white arc or getting eaten by a giant mantis.

As expected, Toad Tower and Newtopia makes the girls worse while Wartwood makes them better. While Marcy is kept in the dark and used for her intelligence to commit war crimes and Anne is allowed to be even more selfish and useless, Sasha becomes incredibly protective of her new family and this little town that suddenly looks to her to keep them safe and provide.

[brokenbutunbowed]

Today after work I decided it was a good day to clean snake enclosures and decided to try to handle everyone too (which truth be told, I don't do as often as I would like).

In order (hopefully):

1 - Unnamed, new O. p. coxi male. I didn't hold him because he's brand new here, just checked in on him

2 - Bessie, snow Kenyan sand boa female. Starting to doubt the breeder about female, because she's only grown wider and not longer in ages (I'll recheck eventually). She's nippy in her house but such a sweet potato in hand.

3 - Butterball, butter berry corn snake female. She's an absolute glutton, hence her name lmao, but she's so so easy to handle she might be one of my favorites.

4 - Unnamed, Japanese blue ratsnake yearling female. I had her out, but she was trying so hard to climb up the hook and up my arms I couldn't get any photos while I was doing so, so ugly hatchling house photo instead.

5 - Cinnabar, Baird's ratsnake yearling female. One of my dream snakes and I'm so excited to continue watching her grow. Her color is already amazing in person compared to when I picked her up.

6 - Unnamed, banana champagne cinnamon ball python male. I didn't know champagne caused neurological issues like spider does when I bought him, but he has never had any obvious issue. He's so so different from the rest of the group it's almost odd picking him up (he's like a brick!). Absolute innocent angel baby.

7 - Unnamed ridleyi female yearling. She's usually endlessly snappy but after 7 or 8 tries she gave up trying to eat me. I still didn't handle her with my hands, though, as I didn't wanna push her too much.

8 - Barbara, Kenyan sand boa female. The gentlest, most floppy potato 💕 no words, she's perfect.

9 - Seviper, Mexican black kingsnake male. Honestly, I haven't held him in a hot minute because he was extremely musky and snappy when he was younger. He was, suddenly, incredibly easy to hold today. I thought he'd try and get me for sure, and he's my largest snake right now, but he just wanted to climb all over me! 💕

I need a better setup for photos. The reptile room is a disaster right now and the morning intense hazy sunlight did weird things to their colors. I truly don't know how breeders get such good photos all the time 🤣

[verdemoun]

BOO!!! Did I scare you? What's Halloween like in timewarp au? What's the gangs first experiences with it, and do others help the ones experiencing it for the first time navigate the holidays? Also sorry for being the insane Micah bell fan in your asks but does Micah get a Scrooge moment for each Holiday

yes you terrified me silly

Bessie is so careful to explain Halloween because children in costume approaching house full of gang of outlaws that are used to shooting people who come on their camp 'territory' on sight is a recipe for a goddamned disaster. Like sit down conversation breaking down the concept and answering all their questions and begging them not to eat all the candy because it's socially acceptable to egg the houses of people who do not provide candy and various other tricks.

The 1899 gang are all together for their first Halloween and do end up loving it. Lenny forces Sean and Jenny to dress up in matching Dorothy, tinman and scarecrow costumes and go out clubbing. Hosea and Bessie go out for a fancy Halloween dinner party dressed to the nines like 19th century aristocracy.

Arthur gets to take Isaac trick or treating just wearing his actual timewarped clothes complete with replacement gunslinger hat (rip he never gets His hat back).

Kieran contently watches horror movies alone snickering to himself about how fake the effects look only to still scream in terror and need to be talked through a panic attack when Bessie and Hosea got home.

--

The whole gang come around to the idea of Halloween, only because 90% of them see it as a chance to wear their pre-timewarp clothes and get drunk.

John dresses as a pinkerton one year because Abigail Jr insisted on dressing up as her daddy the rancher and wearing John's timewarp clothes. His justification was it was the scariest thing he could think of, which still did not save him from nearly getting his nose broken when he went up behind Arthur and shouted 'this is the pinkerton detective agency!'.

At Abigail Jr's insistence Abigail is almost always dressed as some variation of princess goddess fairy queen angel. She then blank stared at John and said he had to be dressed as the frog prince but still as an ugly frog no one knows is a prince. She wanted to dress as a witch.

They usually do some sort of get together for Halloween, because there's something really innocent and fun (read: cathartically traumatizing) about being able to see each other in their canon era clothing. Of course, some still insist on dressing up but that's just as fun.

With the additions of Karen and their daughter Maeve, the MacSummers quartet+child finally complete Lenny's vision of a full wizard of oz group costume. Before anyone could poke fun of them for making Maeve dress as Toto they realized she absolutely insisted on dressing as Toto as an excuse to bite people. Sean is very proud of her. Karen also insists on being a sexy cowardly lion.

Arthur and Charles going on modern era dates in their canon era clothes making up for all the time they didn't get to have being in a relationship in canon era. Big scary outlaws having milkshakes at a 24 hour diner.

Between Abigail Jr being a witch and Maeve being Toto no one was save from bitten or whacked with a magic wand as Abigail Jr cursed them.

Micah in the club in outlaw garb getting offended when he boasts his costume is the famed gunslinger Micah Bell III only to be met with blank stares and 'who??'.

Isaac and Jack, who of course dressed as the fabulous killjoys, also go hang out with Isaac's gang and will absolutely be arrested for graffiti and trespass that is escalated to destruction of property when it is discovered they mixed sugar into the still-wet concrete slab of a commercial site being built on what should have been protected land.

At least once someone dressed as an O'Driscoll. Fuck it it was probably Micah and Sadie almost sent him to the next life before she realized it was Micah and was still contemplating using it as an excuse to kill Micah when Kieran, to everyone's surprise and slight pride, absolutely walloped him with a two by four and Micah spent the rest of Halloween in emergency with a concussion.

[alecflynnarchive]

basics.

full name — Alec Bodhi Flynn

faceclaim — Nick Robinson

gender & pronouns — cis man, he/him

age — 28

birthday — 8/23/1996

sexuality — disaster bi

occupation — bartender at The Pour House

neighborhood — transient (living in a van), but mostly stationed around Forest Lake

length of time in blue harbor — all his life, with occasional bouts of traveling throughout

tldr. tw: mental illness, drugs, alcohol, child neglect (full bio can be found at the bottom of the intro)

alec is a blue harbor native. he's been cutting it up in these streets since day one. his mother suffers from manic episodes and would often leave him alone for days on end and go cause havoc around town. so locals probably know the name 'daisy flynn' and they probably don't get warm and fuzzies when they hear it. his dad is totally unknown to him

with the freedom of having absolutely zero structure growing up, alec fell into partying. he taught himself how to play the guitar, and as he got older, he used that to his advantage. he started a band, was surprisingly good at writing songs— the only time anyone caught a glimpse of emotional depth— and settled into his role as the heartbreaker

alec really thought the glory of high school would last forever, even going as far as buying a van with the intention of touring for the summer between junior and senior year and every summer after that. only, he never clued his bandmates into those plans and they actually had parents that gave a shit, so instead, he turned it into his home. eventually, inevitably, they were evicted from their apartment when his mom went off the deep end for a little too long, so he sort of had no choice

for all of senior year, alec lived alone in his van that he lovingly named ole bessy. it was about halfway through the year that he realized people were making plans outside of blue harbor. college, jobs, settling anywhere that wasn't here. but alec liked here, and he didn't really understand everyone being so hellbent on leaving

abandonment issues settled in and alec sort of became a nomad. once he graduated from high school (somehow??? like, good for him, but i genuinely don't understand how he did it) he left blue harbor to travel in his van. he played shows, settled in places for just long enough to start to feel those attachments grow and then he'd take off again

he'd roll back into town from time to time, but when he inevitably messed up, he'd leave again, coming back only when enough time had allowed to dust to settle. and the cycle has repeated itself now for years

headcanons.

alec has undiagnosed dyscalculia. he doesn’t realize that numbers don’t jumble around in everyone’s heads the way they do his. it makes him feel stupid, so he tries to avoid math situations, or anything that has anything to do with numbers.

alec can be very self-absorbed. it’s not because he’s a dick, it’s just because he’s always too aware of himself to see things from any other perspective. he’s covered up his need to be loved and accepted by fooling himself into believing everyone loves him the way he loves everyone else. it’s a fun line to walk.

because alec largely had to parent himself, there are a lot of things he misses that should be obvious, but just aren't. he genuinely doesn't ever go out of his way to hurt anyone's feelings, but he definitely has left a string of heartbreak in his wake. he just doesn't know how to let people in, he doesn't understand that his inability to love isn't the same for everyone else. he just expects that people feel the way he does about things.

he writes really good fuckin' songs. you would never know he is the same person listening to his songs versus meeting him in real life, but it stems from the fact that he never learned how to deal with or regulate his emotions, so he channels it into his song writing

alec is a very physically affectionate guy. his love language is physical touch so it's not weird or out of the ordinary for alec to be touchy.

wanted connections.

childhood friends - some that he still keeps in touch with, maybe some that are starting to get tired of his shit. maybe some that have been tired of his shit for a while

bandmates - new or old. he's been back in town for a little while now, so he's had time to get the band back together (or welcome new people into it)

best friend - someone who understands him in a way that other people really don't. they might be hurt when he leaves, but they know that he'll come back and they know why he is the way he is. it's complicated but they'll always have his back

exes - alec is not known for his faithfulness or for being a good boyfriend. these would have likely ended badly and they wouldn't have gone on for very long. or maybe a few ended up friends. who knows

hook ups - a guy has needs. and those needs don't need strings. it can be complicated with unrequited feelings or it can just be a casual thing that just scratches an itch for both parties

antagonistic - enemies alec has made, people that liken him to his mom who is still around causing trouble, people that feel he's done them dirty. maybe past employers he's left high and dry. people he owes money to. anything!

honestly, up for ANYTHING. might add more as they come to me, but let's just throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks.

full bio.

Alec Flynn was born a free spirit. As a child, he was always questioning everything: who decided we have to go to school five days a week? Why is ‘because I said so’ an acceptable answer? Why do we have to wear shoes? We’re inside! (Alec was regularly in trouble in school for taking off his shoes). For a minute, he tried the Scouts thing, but ultimately it wasn’t meant to last. He didn’t do well with structure or a chain of command. He constantly questioned authority and pushed his limits as far as they would go and then some. He’d say he quit, but it was, at the very least, a mutual parting of ways. It was probably for the best, though. Being raised by a single mother who followed her every whim and regularly left her too-young son alone, sometimes for days on end, while she ran off with a new boyfriend or chased a new high meant that money was so tight it was basically non-existent. Just like the father he never knew. God forbid they spent any of that money on him.

He found his stride a little more once he hit high school. Being musically inclined since he could talk suddenly seemed a lot more interesting to his peers once puberty hit. Alec loved the attention and he leaned fully in. He started a band with a few friends. People knew him. And for the first time in his life, he felt seen. That kind of feeling went to his head. He was a serial dater, the heartbreaker, and he really fell into the party scene. With his friends at his side, he felt unstoppable, untouchable. The band found its groove and they owned the school. Or, at least, in Alec’s mind, they did. 

The insecurities began to creep in around the middle of senior year. He’d never been much of a planner, content to only acknowledge what was right in front of his face at any given moment. But Alec began to realize, as everyone finalized their college and future plans, that he’d never really given it any thought. He liked what he did and what he had here, so why change it? But in the back of his mind, it did cause panic, listening to everyone plan to leave Blue Harbor behind. 

Leave him behind.

Alec grew a little more reckless after that. He partied harder, he wrote songs with a frantic edge. He thought maybe if he could just get lost in the life, it would never abandon him. But in the end, he watched people he adored and people that adored him scatter to the wind after graduation. 

On a whim, he’d purchased a van with money he’d managed to scrape together. It was an absolute piece of shit, but it was his piece of shit. It’s original intention was to go on tour— a notion he’d had but hadn’t clued his bandmates in on until after he’d already bought it— but when he was slapped with an eviction notice after his mom had been gone on a bender for weeks, it became home. 

For years, Alec did his best to outrun the bad feelings. Abandonment issues, who? Alec was simply a free spirit. It was in his DNA after all. His mother had never been able to stay in one place, and with a home on wheels, why shouldn’t he do the same? 

So it became something of a routine. He’d roll back into town after staying gone long enough to be missed, for whatever misdeeds he’d released on Blue Harbor to be forgotten or at the very least swept under the rug. And then, when he inevitably messed up, he’d go again to start the process over once more. It kept him safe and it kept others safe from him. That was a lesson he’d learned from his mother who had become something of a fixture on the streets in Weaver Ridge, becoming the town’s burden instead of just his. 

He’d like to stop running. Of course he would. But everything catches up to you when you stop moving. And he’s not ready to face those things just yet.

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

Tracklist:

It's Not That Hard • I've Fallen in Love • Fearless • Tiny Lil Robots • Cheer Up Tear Drop • Stay True • Mon Chéri • Sweet Medicine • Freedoms • What It Is • The Real McCoy • What Do I Get?

Spotify ♪ Bandcamp ♪ YouTube

[diamondseeks]

Presenting, at last. Parallel Heroes of Sternbild City!!!! My Tiger & Bunny AU inspired by mecha shows like power rangers and evangelion. In witch the heroes are pilots working to stop creatures from destroying the world.

In this AU Barnaby has been raised by Maverick since childhood to be able to pilot the best unit in the team, while Kotetsu is a newcomer that joined because the demons destroyed his home town, leaving his family homeless. Barnaby is furious that a newcomer that didn’t train like him is able to fuse with his robot easily. Each hero has their own robot and they can fuse with each other using the buddy system.

The ouroboro demons come from a portal with an origin unknown, and have both organic and robotic enemies to fight.

Around 50 years before the start of the series, Ouroboros, a group of intergalactic monsters arrived to earth and were discovered by humans. Who foolishly took them and their technology to be studied. They used their findings to start developing new robot designs. But, of course, Ouroboros turned out to be inter dimensional creatures who’s whole purpose is to capture and decimate the new worlds they land on, and ended up destroying big parts of the world on their conquest.

Maverick, as well as Barnaby’s parents were part of the scientist in charge of studying the creatures, once the disasters started, maverick killed them to take their designs, and secretly allied himself with the monsters in order to be designated a leader once they conquered earth. He launched the NEXT initiative in order to develop the robot technology, as well as recruit and train soldiers to use said robots to fight the monsters, effectively playing both sides to his convenience.

Barnaby has grown up believing Ouroboros murdered his parents, and trained since kid to he able to pilot the robots that are the best way to get rid of the monsters, Bessie’s Maverick, other companies started to develop and train people too, so Ivan, Nathan, Karina, Antonio, etc have been recruited as well. The robots require connection between them and the user, but the one being prepared for Barnaby is the hardest to control, and he is unable to use it yet.

Kotetsu was part of the civilians defending his town from the monsters, but a cataclysmic battle ends up with the entire place destroyed, and his entire family has to move, he ends up volunteering for the NEXT program so his family is able to live in the safe zones built by Maverick to help the pilots families. Surprising everybody, kotetsu is able to connect with a robot easily, witch makes Barnaby irate because he has trained his entire life while the old man just appeared and did it.

To make matters worse, kotetsu a robot is a companion to Barnaby’s, so they enter combat as a pair, even if they don’t get along face to face. They, as well as the other teams are sent to fight when Ouroboros invasions are detected, Barnaby is skilled, but reckless with his own life, while kotetsu is clumsy, but improving. In the meanwhile, the new hero suit is still being developed, and prepared for Barnaby.

In reality, the new hero suit was created using Barnaby’s parents research and also Ouroboros technology, because it’s real purpose is to fuse with the leader demon, and allow the doors between worlds to open and start the end of the world. The heroes grow close with time, and once the secret plan is revealed, they will have to fight to stop both the evil forces from outside, as well as the ones coming from within.

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 6.15 (after 1900)

1904 – A fire aboard the steamboat SS General Slocum in New York City's East River kills 1,000. 1916 – United States President Woodrow Wilson signs a bill incorporating the Boy Scouts of America, making them the only American youth organization with a federal charter. 1919 – John Alcock and Arthur Brown complete the first nonstop transatlantic flight when they reach Clifden, County Galway, Ireland. 1920 – Following the 1920 Schleswig plebiscites, Northern Schleswig is transferred from Germany to Denmark. 1921 – Bessie Coleman earns her pilot's license, becoming the first female pilot of African-American descent. 1934 – The United States Great Smoky Mountains National Park is founded. 1936 – First flight of the Vickers Wellington bomber. 1937 – A German expedition led by Karl Wien loses sixteen members in an avalanche on Nanga Parbat. It is the worst single disaster to occur on an 8000m peak. 1940 – World War II: Operation Aerial begins: Allied troops start to evacuate France, following Germany's takeover of Paris and most of the nation. 1944 – World War II: The United States invades Saipan, capital of Japan's South Seas Mandate. 1944 – In the Saskatchewan general election, the CCF, led by Tommy Douglas, is elected and forms the first socialist government in North America. 1970 – Charles Manson goes on trial for the Sharon Tate murders. 1972 – Red Army Faction co-founder Ulrike Meinhof is captured by police in Langenhagen. 1972 – Cathay Pacific Flight 700Z is destroyed by a bomb over Pleiku, Vietnam (then South Vietnam) kills 81 people. 1977 – After the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975, the first democratic elections took place in Spain. 1978 – King Hussein of Jordan marries Jordanian-American Lisa Halaby, who takes the name Queen Noor. 1985 – Rembrandt's painting Danaë is attacked by a man (later judged insane) who throws sulfuric acid on the canvas and cuts it twice with a knife. 1991 – In the Philippines, Mount Pinatubo erupts in the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century, killing over 800 people. 1992 – The United States Supreme Court rules in United States v. Álvarez-Machaín that it is permissible for the United States to forcibly extradite suspects in foreign countries and bring them to the United States for trial, without approval from those other countries. 1996 – The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) detonates a powerful truck bomb in the middle of Manchester, England, devastating the city centre and injuring 200 people. 2001 – Leaders of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. 2007 – The Nokkakivi Amusement Park is opened in Lievestuore, Laukaa, Finland. 2012 – Nik Wallenda becomes the first person to successfully tightrope walk directly over Niagara Falls. 2013 – A bomb explodes on a bus in the Pakistani city of Quetta, killing at least 25 people and wounding 22 others. 2022 – Microsoft retires its ubiquitous Internet Explorer after 26 years in favor of its new browser, Microsoft Edge.

[percabeth4life]

No Social Skills Percy during TTC would be hilarious tbh

Percy: *accidentally insults Zeus as he trys to convince him to let Bessie live*

Thalia&Annabeth: *mentally die of sheer shock*

Zeus&Everyone other God present: *dont adress it cause haha, silly cute lil mortal is very bad at this but he trys*

He's such a disaster but he tries! The Gods are chilling understanding he's trying while all the mortals are in awe of what he can get away with.

[mywifeleftme]

90: Joe Coleman // Infernal Machine

Infernal Machine Joe Coleman 1990, Blast First

Joe Coleman emerged in the late 1970s from the alternative comix scene established by artists like Art Spiegelman (Maus), Kim Deitch (Waldo the Cat), and Bill Griffith (Zippy the Pinhead), but found greater notoriety as a painter and a shock artist. Here’s Spin’s Dean Kuipers on a performance (as his character Professor Mombooze-o) that resulted in one of Coleman’s numerous arrests:

“Boston, October 22, 1989. Reel after reel of ancient hardcore porno films flash onto a black screen onstage at BF/VF—the Boston Film/Video Foundation—grey and grainy, somebody else's fucking and sucking memories of indeterminate age. After 20 minutes, the hundred people in the audience are quiet and disarmed. The lights come up.

Joe Coleman instantly comes whapping through the film screen from behind, hanging upside down from a climber's harness attached to the ceiling, screaming and choking like a man condemned. This is the man everyone came to see. Green flames and acrid smoke belch from his chest as strapped-on explosives detonate under layers of shirt, ratty duck jacket and lab coat. Half a minute later, the booming and gnarling subside and Coleman's wife, Nancy, leaps out and douses him with goats’ blood to put out the fires. She cuts him down and he tears away what's left of the black screen to reveal a dead goat hanging upside down, twisting slowly. The goat is real. The odor of spattered blood and gunpowder seeps into the stunned crowd.

'Here are Mommy and Daddy!' cries Coleman, rushing to the front of the stage and pulling two live white mice from his pockets. He sits down on the edge of the stage and holds Mommy and Daddy up to his scorched beard and talks to them. Meanwhile, Nancy pulls out her Zippo and torches a cloth/plastic effigy of Coleman. The stage is consumed by fire as Joe screams at the squirming mice, 'I'll eat the cancer out of you!' and bites the head off Daddy, spewing it back into the audience. Then he snaps Mommy's head: hers he swallows.

This is Joe Coleman's stone ritualization of his mother's death. Four days earlier, she had died of cancer.

The befuddled firemen who arrive minutes later are sure that this must be the meeting of a satanic cult. As police investigators pick through the chaos of greening humans, brown smoke and bloody carcasses, the owners of BF/VF finger Joe and Nancy, then fire manager Jeri Rossi. All three are arrested and Joe is charged with—among other things—an old Massachusetts blue law charge that hasn't been used since the 1800s: Possession of an Infernal Machine."

(You can watch an excerpt of a similar performance in the 1988 pseudo-documentary Mondo New York, though I do not recommend doing so if you’re troubled by animal cruelty.)

The Infernal Machine LP is a figurative soundtrack to the Mombooze-o character, which he retired following the Boston bloodbath. Side one (“Homage to Mass Murderers”) intersperses vintage country and blues murder ballads with exploitation film clips and interviews with murderers Ed Kemper and Charles Manson. Side two (“Infernal Machine”) is a collage of clips from TV shows and ‘40s films noir, audio from Coleman’s Mondo New York performance, and early live recordings by NYC noise punks Steel Tips.

The overall effect is eerie, and there are some powerful juxtapositions. The way the clip of Kemper’s tearful description of murdering his own mother segues into Eddie Noack’s 1968 recording of “Psycho” underscores the song’s unnerving potency; tucked between relatively jaunty tunes by Bessie Smith and Tex Ritter, a long clip of character actor Don Russell’s genuinely moving performance as a kidnapped schoolteacher begging for his life from 1963’s The Sadist (based on the Charles Starkweather murders) seems to represent man’s powerlessness in a capricious universe. Side two is bookended by excerpts from the 1947 film Nightmare Alley, in which a series of disasters reduce cocksure Stan Carlisle (played by Tyrone Power) from his position as a carnival barker to the role of a despised geek who earns a meagre living by biting the heads off chickens in front of jeering crowds. The implication is that, as Mombooze-o, Coleman himself has been similarly forced into the role of a freak by the diseased contemporary world.

The LP includes a twelve-page booklet of Coleman’s paintings and, most interestingly, a picture-disc reproduction of details from its cover image, Portrait of Professor Mombooze-o. I’m not normally much interested in picture discs, but the sight of Coleman’s zombified head spinning on the table (or the dead fish bursting from his crotch on the flip) really does complete the package. It’s as a visual artist that Coleman’s chief gifts reveal themselves. His obsessively detailed paintings, which he works out over months and sometimes years using a single horsehair brush, are the most successful transference of an alt. comix sensibility to the gallery I’ve come across. If the work in R. Crumb’s classic Weirdo anthologies could feel like a mutated, devolved descendent of the feverish iconography of sixteenth century religious art, Coleman’s paintings are that mutant culture’s return to high art.

Coleman frequently conflates people like Charles Manson with Jesus Christ, saying in a ‘90s tour of his collection of oddities that he keeps a lock of Manson’s hair and a sample of Christ’s marrow. Falling back on the Blakean idea of a marriage of heaven and hell, he claims that if the pair’s DNA could be mixed in a clone it would create a perfect Messiah. However, the mingling of deviants and prophets in Coleman’s hagiographic art does not, as Coleman seems to mystically intend, elevate the former towards divinity so much as it pulls the latter earthward. Serial killers are, almost without exception, insipid creatures, powerless to explain their own behaviour with any real insight—as are for that matter, many holy men. Maniacs and religious figures are akin in the sense that each possesses intense evocative potential. A crazed killer’s actions, which seem both primal and alien, tear at the fabric of our notion of a shared reality. It is tempting to read their murders, being as superficially inexplicable as miraculous events, as signs or portents, the killers themselves as visionaries. Put another way, both religious phenomena and psychopathic behaviour create a void of ostensible meaning that humans are agitated to fill. Meaning does not arise from their actions but is imputed to them by witnesses. In Coleman, these boring, broken men who kill find a witness capable of making them a genuinely mythic force.

Portrait of Charles Manson, 1988 I find Coleman’s art as inspired and fascinating as I find his philosophy stunted and dull. In an interview with Richard Metzger on the BBC series Disinformation, Coleman says, with reference to mass murderer Richard Speck, “I don't want to kill anybody, but I want to express that pain. I want to express what he was trying to express. What if he didn't have to do that? And maybe, just maybe, art is a thing where you can do that.” Ten years previously, Coleman told an anecdote in Mondo New York about covering himself in blood and harassing random women at New York bars; when their boyfriends would intervene, he’d light the fuse on the hidden explosives attached to his chest and then calmly walk out of the bar in the confusion, enjoying the screams and smoke. Whether he’s spinning a yarn or recounting something he actually did, it’s clear he gets the same petty thrill out of terrifying strangers as the sickos (both real and fictional) excerpted on the Infernal Machine LP do. This doesn’t make him a monster, but it does clarify that when he talks about “expressing” their pain he also wants his share of their freedom to do violence. Of all the reasons it’s good for Coleman that he ended up an artist instead of a cut-rate David Berkowitz, the most telling is this: if he had, what artist of his quality would’ve wanted to take him as their subject?

90/365

[byneddiedingo]

Johnny Mack Brown and Mary Pickford in Coquette (Sam Taylor, 1929)

Cast: Mary Pickford, Johnny Mack Brown, Matt Moore, John St. Polis, William Janney, Henry Kolker, George Irving, Louise Beavers. Screenplay: John Grey, Allen McNeil, Sam Taylor, based on a play by George Abbott and Ann Preston Bridgers. Cinematography: Karl Struss. Art direction: William Cameron Menzies. Film editing: Barbara McLean.

Is Mary Pickford's performance in Coquette the worst ever to win a best actress Oscar? It's certainly a bad performance, full of cute mannerisms and telegraphed emotions, along with a terrible attempt at a Southern accent. At 37, Pickford was about 20 years too old to play the flirtatious young Norma Besant, a fact that becomes especially clear when she sits on the lap of Louise Beavers, who plays her "mammy," the black servant who raised her; Beavers was ten years younger than Pickford. But this was Pickford's first talkie after 20 years in silent films in which she become the movies' first superstar, and unlike some silent stars, she demonstrates a perfectly fine speaking voice. Still, after three more features that did only passable box office, she took the hint and retired. The main problem with Coquette is not Pickford but the creakiness of the vehicle, which had been a stage hit for Helen Hayes. The melodrama, about a flirtatious girl whose carelessness brings about disaster for both the man she loves (Johnny Mack Brown) and her father (John St. Polis) who objects to their love, is stagebound, largely because of the limitations of early sound technology, but also because screenwriter-director Sam Taylor had not made a sound film before. Pickford appears game throughout, and she's certainly a better actor than Brown or St. Polis, not to mention the callow William Janney, who plays Pickford's younger brother. (In one scene Janney wears one of the most eye-offending outfits ever seen on-screen: a plaid sweater tucked into deep-pleated striped pants. My retinas have yet to recover.) There were no official Oscar nominations that year, but Academy records show that Ruth Chatterton in Madame X (Lionel Barrymore), Betty Compson in The Barker (George Fitzmaurice), Jeanne Eagels in The Letter (Jean de Limur), Corinne Griffith in The Divine Lady (Frank Lloyd), and Bessie Love in The Broadway Melody (Harry Beaumont) were also under consideration for the award. I've been unable to see the performances by Chatterton and Compson, but my pick so far would have been Eagels.

[auldsusie]

#Merlin (BBC)#Your vision is great#...don't do this Agap don't write a fanfic about this concept#-It is a completely normal if borderline boring morning while Merlin is busy scolding Bessy for building her webs in his rosmarine again.#They've been over this before. There's no reason to repeat this conversation every two days.#That's when the telly cheerily interrupts his mood announcing that some cunt in a medieval cosplay fell into the lake so utterly stoned-#-that he's still convinced he's the Real Arthur even as the ambulance tries to haul his arse to the hospital.#Trying being the keyword because the guy somehow got his hands on a real sword and he's not stopped swinging it around since.#Merlin only half listens between chatting with Bessie as she's being very reluctant at relocating in his paper cup but he dares to bet-#-the idiot's got to be one of them Americans on a pub-crawl bus tour. Embarrassing idiots the lot of them.#That's roughly when Bessie finally marches her fat backside in the cup with all her eight spindly legs and Merlin cheers at the victory and-#-looks up at last.#''Oh bloody hell''#Ruffled to eight stages of disaster and soaked to the bone and covered in wet musk is none other than Arthur Pendragon himself#And for all the journalist won't stop talking over the live feed of the lake rescue Merlin has had enough experience to read his lips.#''MERLIN! You idiot get me out of here NOW!''#Then of course he tries to stab a police officer.#Merlin slumps in his seat and counts to ten then begins the incantation to magic himself a law degree because they will really need it.#Bessie takes her chance and makes her escape quietly.

resurrected arthur but it’s a sitcom. merlin sees a blond guy in armor being fished out of a lake on the news and the first words out of his mouth are “what the fuck”. he keeps telling people arthur is foreign and that’s why he has a strange accent and keeps being rude. he has to stop arthur from stabbing a wet floor sign with a letter opener. merlin repeatedly threatens to dump arthur back in the lake if he keeps misbehaving. arthur brings home a dog on his first ever outing by himself and from then on arthur and merlin have a dog. everyone keeps mistaking them for a gay married couple. see my vision.

[faithbasedsims]

Morning of the Wedding...

Nothing says "happy wedding morning" like the sound of cows mooing, chickens clucking, and roosters doing their best alarm clock impression—classic Henford vibes. Noah rolls out of bed, ready for the day, and decides to milk his cow to kick things off. You know, start the day strong.

Well... not so much.

He tries to milk Bessie, and it turns into an "udder disaster!" Milk everywhere—on the floor, on his shoes, and even a little on Bessie herself. He lets out an exaggerated sigh.

Noah: "Come on, Bessie. You’re supposed to help me out here! It’s my wedding day."

Bessie looks unbothered, chewing cud, completely unaware of the disaster she just caused.

After cleaning up the mess, Noah gives her a gentle pet, rubbing her nose.

Noah: "You know I still love you, right? Even if you're the reason I smell like spoiled milk today."

Bessie gives him a look that says, “I did nothing wrong.”

[verdemoun]

WHAT SHIPS DO YOU LIKE?!?!?

many. many ships.

kierthur will always have a special place in my heart as my first rdr2 ship. esp when people use it as a chance to really play with their interpretation of kieran. a softspoken kieran with that understated confidence that lets arthur feel vulnerable? a nervous wreck who leans into arthur for protection and arthur compulsively falls in love with people he thinks he can rescue? either, good soup

charthur and jovier admittedly i just enjoy because they're the most common in the fandom and it'd be kind of miserable if you didn't ship them at least a little. but i mean damn 'i'll stay too' that was so homoerotic it made me cry. 'i always loved you, even now?' smash. i just think javier deserves better

JOHNIGAIL TRUTHER THEY ARE SO CUTE TOGETHER IT IS REALLY HARD TO SEE EITHER WITH SOMEONE ELSE

vandermatthews come on if that wasn't meant to be read that way they have a funny fucking way of showing it. the hand touches. the sheer emotion in dutch's voice when hosea is shot. even negotiating, the tremble that undermines his confidence. old girl. it's just. it's real to me.

macsummers. i just think they have better chemistry than sean x karen but i ship that too i am a disaster.

extended list of ships i would consider writing for, including some absolute crack of my own creation: kieran x javier, bill x javier, dutch x micah, molly x micah, bill x micah, bill x alden, charles x javier, charles x kieran, kieran x mary-beth, mary-beth x tilly, karen x molly, sadie x molly, trelawney x kieran, mac x bill, davey x sean, lenny x jenny, jenny x karen, sean x karen, micah x mac, mary x sadie, mary x eliza, mary x arthur, albert mason x arthur, albert mason x winton holmes, eagles flies x paytah, annabelle x grimshaw, black belle x kieran, annabelle x bessie, sadie x jake, probs many more but these are the fun ones

semi-popular stuff i don't mind, power to you if you ship it: molly x kieran, sadie x abigail, trelawney x arthur, sean x kieran, micah x arthur

stuff that makes gives me the ick but you do you boo: bill x kieran, john x arthur, molly x dutch

[lazyrants]

The Case of the Swiped Sweets (prod 109)

Original airdate: August 20, 2004

Story by Magnus Scheving, Mani Svavarrson

Written by Noah Zachary, Cole Louie, Tom K. Mason, Dan Danko, Magnus Scheving

Directed by Steve Feldman, Magnus Scheving, Raymond P. Le Gue

Executive producers - Magnus Scheving, Ragnheidur Melsted, Raymond P. Le Gue, Mark Read, Brown Johnson, Kay Wilson Stallings

Starring Magnus Scheving, Stefan Karl Steffanson, Julianna Rose Mauriello

Puppeteers - Ronald Binion, Gudmondor Thor Karason, Jodi Eichelberger, David Matthew Feldman, Julie Westwood, Amanda Maddock

Swiped Sweets is easily one of the most recognizable episodes of LazyTown, thanks to the featured song 'Cooking by The Book'. That aside, is it really a good episode?

Sportacus wakes up after a good nights sleep, feeling like he can do anything. He decides to make some orange juice.

He literally karate chops the orange in half, then squeezes it into his cup then takes a sip. What a great way to start the day. In Milford's house, he is talking to himself about how he doesn't know what to get Bessie for her birthday. The kids are listening to music (that was taken from the Latador CD in 1998) and Stephanie realizes that Milford has Bessie's birthday on his mind. Stephanie tells him that if he messes it up like last year (Milford gave Bessie sunflowers, not knowing she is allergic) that Bessie will never talk to him again.

However, Bessie has gave Stephanie a large book of gifts so she knows what she wants. (In my opinion, just ruining the surprise.) They flip through the book and look through 3 possible gifts - a cruise boat (too expensive!), a vase (too breakable!), and a cake. They ultimately decide to bake a cake for Bessie.

However, Milford says he is too nervous to make it, so Stephanie offers to bake it for him. Pixel, Stingy and Ziggy sing the word "hellooo" as a choir and Pixel analyses some data. If I was Milford I'd just buy a cake, because with two six year old puppets and one eight year old puppet baking a cake for you, disaster is bound to happen. Anyways, they finish baking the cake and Pixel says it's time to decorate it.

Pixel puts some whipped cream on the cake using Milford's cake decorator but Stingy takes it claiming it is his, then Ziggy takes it not knowing what it is and squirts cream all over the cupboard doors.

Anyways, they start throwing cake, lollipops and whipped cream around the kitchen thus creating a food fight. Milford comes to check out what's going on and he gets squirted with LOTS of whipped cream.. *sigh* People have made hundreds of jokes about this and I really wish I didn't get them.

Sportacus' crystal beeps and he visits the Mayor's house with two ping pong paddles. The two hide behind a counter, and I could swear this was a war movie if there was different music, the lighting was darker and it was in the movie aspect ratio. Anyways, Sportacus flips onto the kitchen counter, dodging all the cake and candy that comes his way.. for about 3 seconds until getting hit in the face with some cream. Sportacus says that food is for growing and not for throwing , and Ziggy tries to explain they were making a cake (a.k.a. a big lump of bread with pink cream all over it..) Sportacus tells them to try it again but without the mess.

He then goes back to his airship and the kids perform "Cooking by the Book" (an undeniably pretty good song..) while baking a proper cake for Bessie. I guess the cake was so good, because Robbie smelt it all the way from his lair. Robbie sees the cake and decides to make his own, but ultimately ends up saying swiped cake is better.

He does his classic DISGUISE TIME! And ends up with a detective disguise. He calls himself Hintslock Foams and actually comes up with a good plan to swipe the cake and convince everyone it was Sportacus. Anyways, his costume comes on the big plate like it did in Sports Day and knocks him over. He puts on the hat and reacts satisfied. LOL!!

Back at Milford's house, the cake has gone amazingly well, but Milford is still paranoid, saying that Bessie could be allergic to cake too (another LOL moment!!). Anyways, they leave the cake out of sight while Milford calls Bessie.

He doesn't know what to say, so Stephanie tells him to say "I'd like to invite you over for a nice surprise", but he somehow stuffs it up and says "I'd like to invite you over to put flies on your eyes." I don't know how he won the election, but it makes for a lotta funny moments in this show. Anyways, Bessie says she will be there as soon as she can and Robbie takes the cake while nobody is looking. He puts some of the frosting on Sportacus' ladder. I ain't no Robbie enthusiast, but this is geniunely an amazing plan. The plans he has in the series are good, he just executes them terribly.

Bessie visits Milford's house, but when the cover for the cake is lifted off, it reveals nothing there and Bessie declares another one of her birthdays RUINED (one bad gift doesn't ruin an entire day, Brattie Busybody) Robbie is right outside and he comes in the house, SLAMMING the door on Milford TWICE to introduce himself.

He says the best way to find a cake burglar is to find cake clues. (Personally I think DNA, but OK) Just right then, Sportacus jumps out his airship, and his hand touches the exact ladder step that Robbie covered with cake (coincidences..) Robbie goes up to Sportacus asking to see his hands. Covered with cake!

Robbie arrests Sportacus and puts up the stage now. Court is in session and for some reason Milford is already in a judge costume. Anyways Robbie asks Sportacus the classic question - "Did nobody see you NOT eat the cake?" Which doesn't make any sense until you think about it. Anyways, after 10 seconds, Robbie rests his case. Robbie tells Milford to cover his right eye and read one of those papers you see at the eye doctors that says "E S P O R T A C U S I S G U I L T Y". He reads it wrong the first time (which was not really that funny) then reads it right the second time.

Robbie tries pushing Sportacus to jail, then he walks himself, then for some reason Robbie just falls down? It's so random it's.. funny. Anyways, Robbie uses something that looks like a handcuff then throws it behind him and it makes a jail. Funny enough, you can actually see the jail already behind them. Come on guys, the budget was nearly 1,558,604 AUD. Anyways, everyone is watching Sportacus being put in jail.

It turns out Sportacus has no problem with being in jail. He even reminds Robbie to lock the door (but he stands up and can easily get out). If I was Sportacus I would just climb out of there considering I did nothing wrong, but I guess he had faith.

Inside, Ziggy realizes that Sportacus has sugar meltdowns if he eats cake (took ya long enough), but he was stretching in the cell, meaning he didn't eat the cake. I don't know why Sportacus just didn't say that himself. Anyways, Ziggy realises that no meltdown means no sugar and no sugar means.. actually, he forgot. How did the dude who solved it forget what he was trying to say?? Anyways, they start going detective mode while Sportacus is working out.

During the montage, Trixie appears in an eight second cameo. I'm glad she isn't in the episode for much. Ziggy finds lollipops from the cake they baked and follows a trail of them, and they come from Robbie. He then realizes that he stole the cake!! (Shocker.) They decide they have to get the key. Pixel puts an antenna (how did an eight year old make that?) on Stingy's car and Ziggy sits on the hood. Stephanie is in charge of the remote. She drives the car over to the tree where the key is.

Ziggy stands up and jumps to reach the key. However he's too short so he uses a lollipop but the kids yell NO!! and tell him not to do it. What, did they think he was gonna throw it up the tree? Anyways, he licks the lollipop and sticks it to key. Success!!

Ziggy unlocks the cell and everyone is happy. Especially Stephanie who turned Asian for a while. She puts her hands up in a shape that looks like she is holding invisible katanas. Anyways, they go back to Milford's house and bake an unappetizing looking cake (turn that frosting brown and it looks like something from a deleted scene of the Two Girls One Cup video.) to lure Robbie into.

Milford comes to the house and asks Sportacus if he broke out of jail (does Milford really think he did it?), but Sportacus reveals that the kids found out who really did it. They place the cake in the cell veeerryyy carefully, which I found useless, because Robbie wasn't gonna hear them.

Robbie wakes up and smells the cake then he falls down from his sleeping paddock then sees a trail of cupcakes leading to the jail. Someone slams the door shut and everyone realizes it's Robbie.

Robbie tries to decline he swiped the sweets. Ziggy says that he has frosting all over his face, then Robbie takes some and flicks it on Bessie. (In my opinion, that didn't help, because he had tons more on his face.) Sportacus gives Milford the cake, and Robbie goes back to his lair (he carries the jail with him, LOL). Milford gives her the cake and they all sing the Bing Bang song.

Actually a pretty good episode. Not much to say, although that the lack of Sportacus scenes was annoying. Good episode, though.

7/10

[coralsgrimes]

It’s just really funny that Kevin has a new song coming out and a small gig tour in a couple of months, and Ben has completely ignored both of them. Kevin barely posted Ben’s album party disaster, and his was the only comment on Ben’s post that Benny ignored. Now he’s got a new song and a few gigs lined up with someone else in late April, so it doesn’t sound like he would be available if Ben was planning anything for Europe if he’s there for reshoots and that S&B convention mess.

Calahan’s also releasing a spoken word album later this year, and has been posting short films from it, which Ben has also ignored. It’s mediocre crap, but it’s still better than Benny’s writing, and you can tell that song Stolen Time the other poster was talking about them both working on was mostly Calahan.

And other mutual friends of theirs have commented on both, so it says a lot that Ben hasn’t acknowledged any of it. I wonder how often people just get tired of him. Forget partner, he doesn’t even sound like this wonderful friend he claims he is either.

See despite them calling each other friends or whatever glue to life Benny's smart mind came up with, I do think Kevin still is/was boy's employee as much. And I doubt he can make a living off of Benny cuz as we know Benny likes to cash on freebies, is extremely cheap and has no real job.

THO! This brings me to 2021 when he first released the music. He was very obviously trynna cash lotsa favors then and he was getting friendly (or more like look at us we are besties) with Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. Remember that premiere where he looked like he got lost and showed up there by accident lol?

So back then me and a few muffins brought back some more instances of Benny being a climber. Majority was obviously based on his social media activities and whatnots but the conclusion was that he was 'friends' with whoever could take him higher or offer him something. When he was done, the friendsy vibes were gone in an instant.

And many muffins were like - ye gotta ease on them shrooms cuz this is getting ridiculous Coral. Which I get, skepticism is good. Honestly I actually can see it being half assed back then from where Imma currently.

THO LO AND BEHOLD! It is happening again, clear as day. I'd say no surprise here lol

And lemme add. He is either friendly with people who he works with but their friendship works to his advantage mostly (see gymbros, breddy, bessie), he is 'friends' with people who are professionals who he actually employs (see kevin, and that piano guy I wanna say Charlie??), and finally among these two groups he is friends with people who are younger than him, or I would even add some of them are significantly younger than him.

And then ye know, his old friends, who he never can be seen with or he looks like deer in them highlights lol ye know the old crowd. The original lion face lady, or Jules herself. OH or the latest exhibit. He hid Zelda so well that a while back a nonnie send me an ask asking who is that girlie with him. And it was Zelda lol

Oh and obvi then there's the cool cali kids club that he wanna be a part off. But that's like another can of worms lol

TL;DR yeah he is a bad friend and he is being a good one when he needs something. Just another one into the how Benny really is like portfolio.