#Geniuses but silly potatoes at the same time

[katerinaaqu]

Okay now I cannot stop myself imagining what if these three went on a crazy cruise together?!

Like who would rule the ship? Who would be captain? What would the others do? What crazy adventures would they encounter? Would they talk of their wives/lovers non-stop over drinks? Would they kill everyone one sarcastic comment at a time?!

Like this is the team BBUM (aka Big Brains Unorthodox Methods)

These guys are basically both geniuses and silly potatoes at the same time! You love to hate them and you hate to love them and you follow their every adventures! Incorregible bastards and sweet souls in one package!

Disney, Dreamorks and Greek Mythology, the monster giants of epicness and iconic characters in one hell of a crossover!

[sohannabarberaesque]

Now for a few Interesting Sidelights from the Hanna-Barbera Funtastic presence at the Glenwood (MN) Waterama:

Talk About Shared Harmonies: Perhaps the highlight of the Venetian Night Parade on Lake Minnewaska as is the highlight of the Waterama was the joint performance by The Banana Splits and the Cattanooga Cats on a rather exuberantly-lit pontoon of Three Dog Night's "Let Me Serenade You" and the insturmental "Coming Home" from the movie "Local Hero". And while some thought it surprising that an electronic-pop band could actually perform with a more folk-rock-oriented such, I understand there was considerable applause at the whole.

How Many Pancakes Did He Eat This Morning?: During Saturday morning's pancake breakfast, Big H from The King's crew was seated opposite the Scooby-Doo crew's Norville "Shaggy" Rogers, no doubt attracting some attention from the curious as to how two somewhat legendary big eaters could actually pull it off. By the time things ended, Shaggy came away eating no less than seven stacks of pancakes, which prompted The King himself to remark "How Shaggy can manage to get away with an appetite as rivals Big H is beyond me."

What Works in Florida May Not Quite Work in Minnesota Dept.: Gossip among the Funtastic stable hath it that Wally Gator tried to crash the Waterama's waterskiing exhibition after an audition attempt prior to the festival proved unsuccessful. One official for the waterskiing club as conducted the performance explained that Wally "seemed too arrogant with his style." No wonder the Tommy Bartlett Show has supplanted Cypress Gardens in prestige of late!

Photogenic Indeed: For some reason, the Hair Bear Bunch can't resist being favourites for "selfie" requests where they turn up, be it in the Grand Parade on Sunday afternoon or otherwise on impromptu walkabout among the crowds. Asked to explain at a press symposium, the ursine trio's leader, Hair Bear, admitted that "we're just irresistable with the crowds, and they like us for it!"

That's The Spirit: Honourary Grand Marshals Huckleberry Hound and Snagglepuss, the geniuses behind such Character Convocations, made their Grand Parade appearence in a waterskiing-themed float, right down to the safety vests. And not to be outdone, Peter Potamus and his travelling diving party made their parade appearence in a pontoon boat decked out as a SCUBA-diving boat, complete with oversized "Diver Down" flag, all its members wearing masks, fins and SCUBA tanks ... rivalled by Top Cat and clowder making their presence in cheesy resortwear T-shirts which, thankfully, were of the "walking billboard" type for Minnesota generally.

The Gal Can't Help It: Jaws were reputedly dropping at the Waterama's beer tent when a certain Penelope Pitstop was seen walking past--in a hot-pink tankini. Sensing what was bound to happen with such beer-soaked louts, Our Gal decided to forsake the beer tent and any opportunities at selfies in favour of the Glenwood Municipal Beach.

Remember, It's Minnesota: One particularly interesting event among the Funtastics was a SPAM Cooking Competition on Thursday night into Friday morning ... and perhaps the "most interesting" SPAM creation ensuing came by way of Ricochet Rabbit and Droop-Along Coyote: Shredding up a can of SPAM and frying such as hash with some frozen O'Brien potatoes (which, for the uninitiated, are hash browns with diced peppers and onions). Close behind were The Goofy Guards (Yippy, Yappy and Yahooey) mixing diced SPAM into potato-pancake batter and the Hair Bear Bunch creating a rather immensive SPAM Submarine Sandwich using much the same makings as your typical "po' boy" sandwich of the New Orleans genre.

Dress Rehearsal: Ahead of the Funtastics' next Convocational appearence at the Braham Pie Day on August 14th, Granny Sweets and the Cattanooga Cats' Kitty Jo had a silly little wager between them to see whether the former's custard pie or the latter's chess pie ("a Southern commonplace," Kitty Jo remarked, "having nothing to do with the game chess") would win out in competition. (Kitty Jo, though, let slip the fact that cornmeal and vinegar are "essential to a decent chess pie down our way.")

[cinnabutcringy]

OC-tober, Day 1: Beginnings

ahaha look at me trying things

i’m using @oc-growth-and-development‘s prompt list thingy for this since it seemed pretty fun and i wanna write, and the first prompt is..this

it’s long btw, but i had a good idea and wanted to run with it

in a nutshell this is just detailing my character Ramona’s “beginning” of being in a friend group with five other characters (Arlan, Cies, Archer, Winston, and Clair) during their early school years (think middle school i suppose)

so yeet

Well, here it was. The classroom..........door.

Fixing up her jacket and glasses, the small girl knocked on it only to be answered by a kind looking woman with pretty black hair. The girl handed the woman the papers, and silently waited as they were read.

"..Ah, you must be the new student then! Welcome, welcome, come in!"

The pretty woman let her inside. For the other students, it must've been kind of a shock, hearing that a new student was arriving today. A genius, at that, got good grades and high scores all around the board. They must've expected someone taller, someone prettier, someone who looked more organized.

But what they got was a small girl, with long purple hair in braids that slightly dragged along the floor as she walked, her bangs to the side with strands hanging in front of her face, which was round and filled with petite features. Even her horns were smaller than the average teenager.

She had a somewhat solid, cold expression, which looked kind of silly given accompanying the school uniform was a large oversized jacket, drooping from her body.

She didn't realize that the teacher was speaking, since she was more focused on every child's expressions, reading them. Some looked disinterested, others looked like they were trying to keep a flood of laughter from coming out suddenly. Some were unreadable, which was more reassuring than the ones she could understand.

It wasn't until the teacher patted her on the head that she realized she could speak up.

"....ah. Hello there. I'm Ramona," she glanced at the teacher, then the students, "Ramona Colwell. I come from the town 20 miles south. Nice to meet you all."

She was too stiff, she supposes. Everyone looked mostly uninterested by her introduction, or they just stared at her blankly. Maybe she should've tried to act a bit happier to be here. But before she could say more, the teacher gently ushered her to take a seat.

Sitting down, the only thing she registered about the people around her was that one was blonde, and two had dark brown hair. It seemed like only seconds passed before class finally started.

It passed in a flash, but maybe that's because she kind of tuned out everything that might've happened in between the silence that filled the room when the teacher stopped talking.

Somehow, Ramona felt like she wouldn't really find much luck with her peers here, either.

--

It was now lunch time, and all the kids flooded out of the school to eat with their friends, cliques, or acquaintances. Slowly, Ramona turned in her seat, rummaging through her bag for the tiny bag she used to keep her lunch in. Roasted potatoes, vegetables, and water. All spiced, except for the water of course.

The smell was heavenly and comforting, rightfully reminiscent of a meal made just for you by your mother. Though, she did help make the potatoes. There's enough here to share, but no one bothered to interact with her yet.

Probably because she was rather small and...probably more insignificant than some of the other kids. She understands, geniuses are usually built up to be rather amazing imposing figures.

She kind of wishes that they'd at least say hi to her--

"Hey, what is that?? Potatoes???"

Ramona looked up to meet the brightly shining cyan color of someone's eyes. A boy, she thinks. His skin was somewhat tanned, and his face.. He had freckles, dotting his skin quite adorably.

Oh, he was one of the ones with dark brown hair.

"I've never had roasted potatoes b'fore, can I try one?" he asked excitedly, dragging a chair over.

Ramona opened her mouth to answer before four more pairs of footsteps came in.

"Cies! You were s'posed ta wait til Arlan came in!" another boy with a short ponytail spoke, a slight lisp in his words. "Now you spoiled the surprise 'r somethin'!" this boy looked dirty, does he like to play outside a lot?

Cies laughed nervously as a tall girl went up and stood beside him. She looked quiet, but her eyes were a pretty blue color. Sharply blue, like the sea. Her hair was in braids, but she just stared at Cies with a look of exhaustion.

Cies and the ponytail boy (who was supposedly named Archer) argued a bit, while another boy in all-black slinked over to a desk a bit far from the two, in front of Ramona. Said girl just stared silently, though she knew one thing.

Her potatoes were getting cold.

Finally, the blonde from earlier, with the somewhat curled hair, stepped up to the group and tried to remedy the situation. He seemed to be pretty convincing of a leader, because all of the kids turned to him. Though they protested and teased him for acting so leaderly, they still listened to him in the end.

The child turned to Ramona with a nervous smile.

Ramona blinked, looking up at him. Oh, he was closer to her height, that made her feel a bit at ease.

"Potatoes, eh? I like 'em, too," he started, and that was when she noticed he had quite lovely gray eyes. Though she realized he was waiting for her to answer, so she stuttered out.

"Uh, yes. But I don't think I can eat this many. I wanted to share them with people, but, like.....no one stayed long enough for me to ask," Ramona answered, her voice quiet and slightly monotonous. She was worried this would drive them away, but the boy in front of her just smiled and pulled up a chair.

"Well we were going to eat lunch in here with you, if you didn't mind. You seemed a bit lonely, is all! ...is that rude to say..?" he laughed nervously as a few of his friends threw jokes at him, which he responded to with an unamused expression.

"No, it's pretty accurate anyway," Ramona answered with a tiny smile, "I wouldn't....really mind, I guess."

The boy smiled again, relieved, seemingly. Pulling up his own tiny bag for lunch as the other kids seemingly did the same, he nodded, "Alright! Nice. My name's Arlan, by the way."

Ramona smiled at Arlan and shook his hand when he held it out to her, "Nice to meet you, Arlan," was the reply that surprisingly came smoothly out of her mouth.

"So does this mean I can try the potatoes?" Cies asked from his corner, earning a playful smack from Archer, who sat next to him, as the two kids who were silent the entire time let out two tiny laughs, Cies amused but also teasingly pushing Archer back. Arlan rolled his eyes and began to calmly eat his food, Ramona offering him a potato which he accepted with a quiet "thanks."

Ramona, despite being your typical child who wasn't immediately accepted into her class, felt at ease. Despite the slight chaos that two certain members of this group brought to the table, it felt homey. Sharing potatoes with classmates, what a way to bond.

Not that she was complaining.

[weaselle]

I put them both in one post.

I have a brother 10 years older than me and a younger brother and sister 5 and 7 years younger than me respectively. I call the older by his name, and also “dude” a lot. You know those twisty metal puzzles you have to figure out how to take apart or put back together, like puzzle rings and shit? He can do those in seconds without even thinking about it, like, idly while talking to you. He’s a daredevil bombs and blades tinkerer, and a practical joker. Once he told me he was getting out of the lake because it was noon and that’s when the sun shone straight down to the bottom and woke IT up, and then got out and snuck halfway around the lake to climb back in and swim up from underneath me to wrap a hand around my ankle and suddenly yank me down about ten feet at an angle toward the center of the lake. He went to jail for building a bomb, it’s a good thing they never found his other homemade weapons, like arrows with exploding tips, or the underslung potato gun mounted to the frame of his car. And I SAY potato gun but I saw him use his tester model to launch a wad of duct tape through a truck camper shell at the junk yard in the R&D phase, and he use to load it with a wad of something for batting topped by a snapple cap and a handfull of roofing nails and disintegrate mail boxes with it. He is a good wood sculptor and has a surprisingly delicate yet raw style when drawing with charcoal or graphite. He can take apart and put together almost anything. I could just write a whole book about his antics.

With my younger brother it’s mostly his name and “dude” quite often. Every once in a while, I will call him bro, or brother, but usually when I am low-key reinforcing our age difference. Like if he thought mom would react one way to something, but I had seen her reaction to that same thing before he was born or whatever, like, brother, I’ve known her longer. He is one of two people I know personally who may be legit geniuses. He used to play video games in the early 90′s by hacking their code and modding them - I’d walk in and he’d be 12 years old like “Instead of cannon balls, I made the cannon shoot cows that bounce around randomly a few times and explode, and I’m trying to make it so that each time a cow bounces, it spawns another bouncing cow bomb”. He has a… I want to say a Masters in Physics. His math teacher in high school tried to hold his interest by having him teach the first 15 minutes of each class. Once when the rest of us siblings were all standing around talking about sneaking out of the house, we asked if he ever did and he was like “why would I sneak out in the middle of the night… that’s when I sleep.” Now he’s a very mellow polyamorous hacker who brews his own beer and “isn’t allowed to tell you where I work, it’s so silly”

Our youngest I call by her name, and dude a fair amount, and a combination of the word sister and her name (like if her name was Brittany I would call her Sisttany) I do call her sister more than I use brother for my fraternals, but she calls us all brother quite a bit.  I think there are some complex reasons for that, but it boils down to her having been teased terribly and given a very hard time growing up by us, her brothers, who had a certain alliance against her. Of course by now we’re forced to admit that she is awesome and special and maybe the best of all of us. Certainly the coolest. Like, my younger brother is hella cool on paper, but when you’re in a room with him, he’s a little.. the only way he pulls it off is by truly not giving a fuck if people think he’s cool, which, as we all know, instantly awards coolness to whatever you’ve got going. On the other hand, when my sister is in a room, people laugh when she decides something is funny. Someone else is often making the decisions, but everyone only agrees to go along with them if sheagrees with them. She’s not wearing those clothes because they are cool, those clothes are cool because she’s wearing them, Once she worked at the same hotel I did for a while, and I asked her what she thought of it, and she said “I only ever want to work in a hotel again if I OWN it”. She was 19. She once knocked out her (now ex) boyfriend for forcefully taking his car keys away from her too roughly when he’d been drinking. He realized what he’d done too late to save him and she pulled him down from the fence he was climbing to get away from her so she could lay him out. She ran her own business for a while doing marketing stuff for publications and wineries and things, but she felt she was working too hard for the return she was seeing, and now she works for some firm overseeing the people who manage their social media or something.

And then there’s me, the Bard of the group, basically. I travel around on lots of adventures (I was arrested by the US airforce in Germany, I got stuck in England for a summer when they took my passport away from me at Heathrow - I stayed at a circus school with a few of the circus students who had no real home to go back to for the summer, and I put together a circus busking group with some of them and that’s how I made enough money to eat every day.) I used to write and produce full length comedies for the stage. I was SO sure I was going to be a con-artist, so I studied slight of hand and magic ( I ran a crooked poker game at recess) but as a young adult, when I picked my first pocket, I found I had no taste for stealing from real people (I’ll fuck up Coke any day, where’s Amazon’s pocket? Side note: I tapped the guy on his shoulder and handed his wallet back to him and said “I think you dropped this” and never picked a pocket again, but I can still do some pretty interesting stuff with cards and coins and things, Juggle knives and torches. that sort of stuff). Anyway, I adventure, and I write songs and stories, and my siblings mostly call me by my name, and very occasionally, dude. Also, my origins are steeped in mystery and my siblings are actually my cousins by blood, but that’s another story. Okay, here is that story.

My Grandmother was left-handed and the reason I love cooking and definitely some kind of Being. Her title was The Grandma. She had 4 great grandchildren by the time she died, and so her daughters became Grandma, but she was THE Grandma. She had this way about her, like she was incredibly present, but also paying attention to everything in the whole world. And then sometimes (notably when you fucked up) it was like she pulled her attention off all those things and put the whole thing on you; it was very unsettling. And she had the Voice, which she almost never used.

The last time Grandma traveled on an airplane with us, we were going though security and she couldn’t go through the metal detectors because by then she couldn’t get out of the wheelchair for longer than twenty seconds at a time. The TSA agent said she was going to search her or pat her down instead, and reached for my Grandmother. And Grandmother said, in the Voice

“Don’t touch The Grandma”

The TSA agent blinked and looked at grandma’s eldest daughter (a celtic witch if ever there was one) who merely shrugged and said “…don’t touch the grandma”.

TSAgent hesitated as if about to reach forward and insist, thought better of it, called TSA Supervisor over. TSA Supervisor explained everything to The Grandma - it’s just a quick pat-down, everybody who can’t go through the detectors has it done, they won’t even ask her to stand - and then reached forward to pat down my grandmother

“Don’t. Touch. The Grandma”

TSA Supervisor’s hands stopped as if hitting glass. She looked confusedly back and forth between the TSA agent and my grandmother for a second, and then the confusion left her face and she stepped aside, looked at the TSA agent and said “Don’t touch the Grandma” and waived us through security. They didn’t even scan the rest of us

It’s a shame she couldn’t fly anymore after that, she loved to fly; when her first husband died, she married P, a WW2 B52 crewman who taught her to pilot small planes, and they would fly up and down the coast to any cities they wanted to visit - she knew the West Coast in a way few people do.

One morning in the deserts of Nevada a year after P’s death she woke me up and said “get dressed, were going to into town to the casino; P visited me in a dream last night and told me I’d win a video poker jackpot with a royal flush today” and we drove into town so she could spend fifteen minutes playing video poker. I say fifteen minutes, because after fifteen minutes she hit her jackpot with a royal flush in hearts, and we went back home.

She used to sit in her chair in her living room with her back to the kitchen wall, and I’d go to leave the kitchen and I’d hear her from the other room “don’t you leave my kitchen mat like that” and I’d look over my shoulder at the mat in front of the sink, and sure enough, it would be all rumpled up; sorry grandma.

Grandma and I shared a birthmark, a red stain I won’t describe fully. And my grandmother and I were both adopted. Let me explain.

My Grandmother was adopted by a nice family.

And then that family all died, and she was adopted AGAIN.

She grew up and married a man whose Irish father I am named after: K, who came here from Ireland to work the Alaskan gold rush. She and her husband lived with his father K for a while, and this is a story about that:

Every Sunday. great grandpa K would go off on his own for a couple hours to “walk in the woods”. Grandma followed him one day. K walked into the woods, packed a pipe, sat down with his back to a tree, and took a small handful of nuts and seeds and fruits and leaves out of his shirt pocket. He scattered them around. Soon, as if expecting him, several animals came and helped themselves. The squirrels climbed all over him, on his head even. The raccoons sat in his lap. The birds sat on his knees and shoulders and in his beard and peered into his face. The deer checked his jacket for more snacks. After they hung out for about an hour, they all went on their way. Then K smoked his pipe and went home.

Grandma and K’s son had 5 kids.

One died as a child.

The eldest became an ER nurse and a savant witch. She would never admit she is a witch, but there’s a horseshoe over her door (not the front door, mind you, but the door she actually uses) and she’s the one who taught me to always leave a single spider in your house when you clean. She has a natural way with plants and animals -  the deer eat everything but her herb garden, which isn’t even fenced. This year one of them stayed in her backyard for nearly two months raising twins to be big enough to take back to the herd. She recognizes the individual squirrels and birds in her yard and knows their personalities and habits and things about their families. And of course as an ER and ICU nurse, she’s a hell of a healer.

The youngest was a witch, but sadly neglected, remained immature. Still, she had talents. She could fool people and make them laugh as easy as breathing, like some kind of glamour. Every long line of strangers she ever waited in became a party among friends. Could literally smell if you were lying to her. As in, she’d lean close and take a couple deep sniffs and then be like “Nope. Tell me, where did you really go after school?”

The only brother became a wandering holy man of sorts. Used to hitch-hike around the country in robes and junk, with a small, like, cult; then he quit them to just grow his own holy experience. He died in his 30s.

And the middle sister was my mother. She was double jointed and very dyslexic, and everyone says she was incredibly gifted in many ways. She did intricate artwork in ink, fractal gardens and faux woodgrain that was made of salvador dali faces, stuff like that. She was self taught on the piano, used to just walk up to a piano and play songs she made up on the spot that sounded how she was feeling and little crowds would gather. Made her own exercise equipment. Could pick up an accent within minutes and become semi-conversational in days. She had me with a half Japanese guy in the Air Force (he didn’t stick around). Then when I was about three, she sent me to live with her eldest sister, because her life got too, ah, interesting. Like, her partner had a hit put out on them. It wasn’t safe for me. By the time I was six it all caught up with her, and she died in an accident when she jumped out of the passenger side of a car and tried to run away as it stopped at a red light.

That’s when her eldest sister adopted me. The paperwork was messed up and my name is different on my birth certificate, my SS card, and my ID. Then, the person who filled out the “messed up” paperwork was fired, but I’m still a mystery to the bureaucratic world.  

So here I am, same birthmark as my psychic grandmother, orphaned son of a savant creative criminal and a Japanese-American soldier, named after my Irish, gold hoarding, bearded, pipe-smoking beastmaster great-grandsire; raised by a celtic witch, hidden away from the official world. Sometimes I feel like all those hero origin stories are trying to call me out of hiding. More about my adventures soon.