#I know gorillas are apes and not monkeys but the name was too good to pass up

[webbedphantom]

Monkey Business

[@epitomees continued from HERE]

This guy was really ticking him off.

All he wanted was one quiet afternoon, just one shocking moment of peace where he could just relax and enjoy the company of one of his closest friends.

Instead, they now had to deal with someone tailing them. Whether they were here for him or for her he didn't know. And to be honest, he wasn't sure he cared. All that really mattered was this damn ape was making her uncomfortable. And that-

That was unacceptable.

Still, they didn't have many options for losing him. If they were in the Metaverse, he could just pick her up and leap up to the roof to lose him that way. But they weren't, and going in now could make things worse, either bringing in a random tagalong who got a little too close, or getting seen doing so.

Neither scenario seemed appealing.

"Not sure that would work..." He replied quietly, keeping his head facing forward while Arséne kept a third eye on the pursuing primate. "Not that many people in the bars this time of day. If they see us enter, they could easily find us inside, or just wait outside for us to leave."

He reached into his bag, thankful that Mona was hanging out with Futaba right now. It's a lot easier to search for something when you don't have a cat-adjacent creature in the way.

He didn't have many items that would work outside of the Metaverse, and the few that did, like smoke bombs, were a bit too conspicuous. Still, there had to be something in here that would-

"Bingo~"

He pulled out his grappling hook, a sophisticated device he and Morgana had made the night before their first real infiltration. It wasn't one he used too often, as his webs often did the job a lot better, if at a slight cost to his stamina, but it did come in handy on those longer Palace trips.

I'm unsure this is wise... You aren't as strong or agile out in the real world. Are you sure you can handle this?

"I'm sure. This thing was made to support up to 500 pounds, and the reeling mechanism will be doing most of the work. Besides, I may not have super strength out here, but I'm still in good shape."

Even still, you made it for the Metaverse. You have no idea if it'll even work the same way out here!

"It'll work, trust me. If there's one thing I'm an expert on, it's mechanical engineering. And unless you can think of a better way to lose Sinister Simian-"

Sinister Simian-?

"-then this is our best bet."

His Persona was silent for a moment, considering their options. They had already tried losing him the easy way, it was clear whoever this was, was going to be persistent. Still... was this really their best option?

Arsene sighed... I suggest we leave it up to our resident strategist. The grappling hook would work, but considering the risks, it should probably be saved as a last resort.

Aaron let out a small huff, but nodded. He couldn't argue with his logic... no matter how much he hated agreeing with his other self.

"Makoto, what's your take on this? Do we go with grappling hook, or try something else first?"

[arcane-vagabond]

Stranger Like Me: Prologue

Stranger Like Me: Prologue

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Reader

Summary: From a young age, the animal kingdom had fascinated you, and maybe that's why you chose to pursue that passion. You quickly became a force within the field, becoming the leading expert on ape social structures, which is how you found yourself on an expedition into the African jungles searching for a troop of gorillas. What you weren't expecting, however, was to run into the local wild man on one of your excursions... (Tarzan!AU)

Content Warnings: Talk of loneliness, Inaccurate scientific descriptions and terminology, Flirty Jake, Allusions to loss of parents, Talk of reintigrating someone into society...I think that's it.

Word Count: 1,263

A/N: Here it is! I hope y'all don't mind me making you wait too long! This blog is 18+ ONLY! As always, reblogs and comments are welcomed and encouraged!! Find me on AO3 under arcane_vagabond where all of my stories and drabbles are posted!

Series Masterlist || Moodboard 1 || Moodboard 2 || Moodboard 3

You had a running theory that there were two types of people in this world: plant people and animal people. You? You were most definitely an animal person. Growing up, you visited the zoo frequently, the employees practically knowing you by name. You did your best to memorize as many facts as you could about the different animals in each exhibit, knowing from an early age that you wanted to work with animals for the rest of your life.

You’d spend hours at the primate exhibits, watching the way the different apes and monkeys interact with each other, and you wished you could fast forward to the moment where you got to study it day in and day out.

So, you worked hard, graduating high school with honors before moving on to study zoology in undergrad, and then skipping straight to your doctorate program after that. It had been a long, grueling road that left little time for much else, but it was your passion, and once you had been greeted with the title of “doctor,” you knew it had all been worth it.

That didn’t stop your bouts of loneliness though. While your friends all went out to party, you were usually found with your nose buried in a book. And it wasn’t like you wanted to go out partying, but it still hurt when your friends stopped asking.

And then there was Jake Seresin, your handsome best friend of several years who knew he looked good and never failed to own it. The two of you had met in the early days of undergrad, having been partnered up in a biology lab, and you had hit it off immediately. Jake wasn’t interested in primates, his focus turned towards botany of all things, but he loved to tease you about your love of great apes.

“A cute girl like you studying monkeys?” He had chuckled with a shake of his head, mossy green eyes glimmering with mischief. “You must have had a wild fascination with Boots the monkey, huh?”

“First of all, peabrain,” you scowled at him, fighting back the smile that threatened to take over your face as his jaw dropped, “I study apes, not monkeys. Second of all, my fascination with Boots is none of your business.”

“Whatever you say, Boots.”

And the nickname had stuck. It followed you through undergrad and all the way through to your now budding career as one of the leading researchers in gorilla social structures. Which is also how you found yourself invited to the North Island Research Camp in the Republic of the Congo.

The camp wasn’t some grand research center, but it was well respected amongst the scientific community for gathering the most up-to-date research and hands-on experiences between researchers and local fauna. The camp was run by Dr. Pete Mitchell and Dr. Tom Kazansky, both legends within the field and rarely opening up their camp to other researchers. You had been thrilled to receive the invitation, and even more thrilled when you found out that Jake had also received an invitation to the camp to continue his research on tropical plants.

The two of you had made plans to fly out of San Diego at the same time, even choosing to stay at his place the night before your flight.

“The early bird gets the worm, Boots!” He chirped, loading up the trunk of the Uber with your luggage. How he was so cheerful at three in the morning was beyond you.

The flight to your destination was uneventful, choosing to catch up on some of your reading as well as sleep for the majority of the flight. The two of you were greeted by a bespectacled man once you departed the plane, his demeanor relaxed but his face shy as he helped you with your bags.

“I’m Bob,” he said, loading the back of his jeep with your belongings. “I’m helping out Pete and Tom with their research. The other researcher is already at the camp. He got here about a month ago.”

“Who is it?” You asked him, hopping into the front seat of the car as Jake clambered into the back.

“Javy Machado,” Bob answered, already making his way through the city and towards the jungle. “He’s doing research into termite colonies.”

“Javy’s gonna be there?” Jake asked, leaning forward with a grin. You rolled your eyes at him. Javy and Jake almost went as far back as you two did, having first met in a chemistry course their junior year of college. While you and Jake had gone to the same university for your doctorate programs, Javy had ventured elsewhere, making a name for himself within the world of entomology. The two together was almost insufferable.

“You two better behave,” you groused, settling into your seat with a glare in his direction.

“Boots,” he gasped, placing a hand over his heart in faux hurt, “I am absolutely shocked that you think we would be anything other than complete professionals.”

“Don’t give me that crap,” you snapped, turning to face Bob who glanced at you two wearily. “Those two are going to be a nightmare, I’m just warning you now.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask,” he chuckled.

The three of you settled into a comfortable conversation as Bob continued to drive towards the camp, the jungle becoming denser the longer he went. Soon, the sun was hidden behind the canopy, and you got the sense that you were truly in the wild.

“Are you sure about this, Mav,” Ice hummed, hands clasped firmly in front of him as he eyed his fellow researcher. Mav spared him a smile, running a hand through his hair as he sat on the bench opposite his companion.

“He’s been on his own for decades, Ice,” Mav grimaced, glancing into the trees. “He deserves to know companionship beyond just us.”

“He has Bob and Javy.”

“He deserves more than just four other people in his life,” he amended, rolling his eyes. “We’re lucky we found him when we did, otherwise I’m not sure he would have survived on his own. Besides, Nick and Carole wouldn’t have wanted this for him. They would have wanted him to see the world, to meet other people.”

Ice hummed at that. Of course, Maverick had a point. They couldn’t keep the boy isolated for forever. He was already butting heads more and more with the troop leader and spending more nights in the observation tower as a result. It also wasn’t like Ice wanted to keep him isolated for selfish reasons. No, quite the opposite in fact. The kid had spent most of his life right there in the jungle, never having contact with another human being until the two men had opened up the research camp once more ten years before.

And that’s what had Ice so apprehensive. The boy had little to no experience with humans, and what he did have was from the time spent with the two older men who weren’t exactly the greatest of company at the best of times. How would he react to a camp full of people his own age? Would it be too much for him?

“Bradley is smart, Ice,” Mav continued, knocking his knuckles against the table. “He’s already been asking questions about the people in the movies and photos he sees. He wants to know about the outside world. Let’s let him have that chance.”

Ice didn’t answer. Instead, he sighed, leaning back in his chair. This would be good for Bradley. It had to be.

[scruffyplayssonic]

Are the ArchieSonic comics actually an 80's/90's syndicated cartoon? Episode 64-65: TwoMulti-part finale (part 4: Knuckles in King of the Hill)

Welcome back to my look at the ArchieSonic comic series, and how it shared a lot of the same story tropes as a typical ‘80s or ‘90s syndicated cartoon! So after all that ranting about Endgame I needed to take a little break, even though I’m very close to the end of this series. But I wanted to come back fresh before I started ranting some more about Ken Penders’ writing. 😛 So let’s take a look at the first of the two stories that ran across the final three issues of Knuckles the Echidna, issues #30 - 32.

King of the Hill features Kraven Hunter the Hunter and Monk the Monkey Gorilla. …okay, I know that Sonic character names are typically very self-descriptive, but for some reason these two feel more on the nose than usual. This story is one that I’ve covered before, but it’s been awhile so let’s give this a full look rather than just skimming through it.

The story opened with Hunter the Hunter assembling a rifle and shooting down a bird, and Monkey the Monk lassoing the Floating Island from the surface of Mobius as it flew overhead, so that he could climb up it.

Damn, that’s actually a pretty impressive feat. I don’t know that even Link in Breath of the Wild could have pulled that climb off. Meanwhile Knuckles had no idea that these two troublemakers had shown up on his turf, because he was too busy reading 2001: A Space Odyssey.

But his quiet reading time was interrupted by his best friend in the whole wide world, Catweazle the Cockatoo, a bird whose very existence usually seemed to annoy Knuckles and who also famously pooped on Vector the Crocodile that one time. Catwheazle was upset because his… friend? Girlfriend? Roommate? Work colleague? Drinking buddy? I dunno, Catweazle never bothered to say who Snowpidgeon was, so let’s go with drinking buddy. Catwheazle’s drinking buddy Snowpidgeon had been murdered by some psychopath with a weapon, and quite reasonably, he was hoping that the island’s guardian would step in and do something about it. Knuckles went to investigate but was knocked out of the air when Monkey the Monk threw a rock at him, and he found himself lying at the feet of none other than his childhood bully.

Knuckles at this point had a flashback to Monk beating him up and stealing his yo-yo, whereas Monk’s flashback involved something much more traumatic.

Jesus Christ! Again, this is something I’ve ranted about before, but I still think it’s pretty appalling. Look, you will never ever hear me defend bullying - people who do it are horrible and usually don’t have any regard for how they could be ruining their victims’ lives. But this seems like an EXTREME overreaction on the Brotherhood’s part. “What’s that? Our chosen one has a bully? Well then:”

So for the crime of stealing a yo-yo, the Brotherhood decided that Monk must be executed. They could have taken him somewhere else on the planet, given him a stern warning and told him to never return to the Floating Island, and honestly, even that would have been a harsher punishment than what is really warranted for Monk’s crimes. But no, these supposed good guys abducted a teenage (possibly preteen?) boy during the dead of night, tied his arms, and tossed him over the edge of the island into the ocean below. Make no mistake, the League of Extraordinarily Racist Grandpas wanted this child to die.

So naturally, Monkey the Monk was now just a liiiiiittle bit upset with Knuckles, not knowing that Knuckles had not been in any way involved with the attempt on his life and in fact didn’t even know why Monk had one day just disappeared from the island without a trace. They got into a fight but were soon interrupted by Hunter the Hunter, who knocked Monk out by… pointing a tv remote at him? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

At this point you may be wondering why Knuckles’ dodgy ancestors hadn’t shown up and tried to execute Grape Ape all over again. And by now perhaps they would have, but somehow Hunter knew all about this secret society and had managed to disable all of their cutting edge surveillance equipment.

This suggests that either Hunter was incredibly aware and clever, or the Brotherhood was incredibly incompetent. Or I don’t know, maybe Moritori Rex, the Dark Legionnaire who infiltrated the Brotherhood, published all the Brotherhood’s security protocols on the Mobius equivalent of Wikileaks or something. Anyway, after the Grandpas couldn’t find the source of the problem within Haven itself, Archimedes showed up and he and Locke decided to go try and find out what was interfering with their systems.

Meanwhile Hunter the Hunter had had his robotic drone Aryu One-Two (...why?!) carry Monkey the Monk to his ship, and Knuckles went along with them because… Hunter asked politely, I guess? Knuckles wasn’t exactly being held at gunpoint or anything at this point, so I don’t know why he was bothering to cooperate. Maybe he was hoping to find a chance to escape with Monk, although he would later claim that he didn’t care what happened to him. 

Hunter proudly showed off his ship to Knuckles, and… well…

I’m with Knuckles on this one. For God’s sakes, Mobians are people in this universe. Having Sonic the Hedgehog’s decapitated head staring blankly at us from the page is a bit disturbing. So this is the point where the threatening actually came, with Hunter the Hunter wanting to Hunt Knuckles for sport, and threatening to shoot a photo of Julie-Su should Knuckles not cooperate. And Knuckles must have really liked that photo, because he agreed.

I would like to once again point out that Ken Penders, who both wrote and pencilled this story, copied this pose of Hunter from Francisco Scaramanga in the James Bond movie, The Man with The Golden Gun. In fact, if you google Scaramanga, that’s the first image that will come up in the search.

Man, Penders was just trying to get all the old sci-fi and action movie references into this story, wasn’t he? I’m surprised he didn’t have Hunter say, “A duel between titans! My golden gun against your… knuckles.”

Locke and Archimedes eventually found the source of their sabotaged surveillance systems and started to track the one who was responsible. But while they were fumbling around outside, Monk the Monkey had regained consciousness.

Hunter forced him and Knuckles to put on electric collars and gave them orders to run for their lives. Monk tried to head off on his own, but found out the hard way what would happen if they got too far apart from each other.

Knuckles led Monk down into Hydro City (definitely not Hydossity), where he hoped that they’d be able to escape, or at least use the unfamiliar terrain against Hunter.

And it did initially look like they’d been able to give him the slip, but when their footsteps seemed to disappear for no reason, Hunter was able to figure out there was a hidden trapdoor they’d used.

Meanwhile Locke and Archimedes had found Hunter the Hunter’s ship and invited themselves aboard, accidentally activating a self-destruct failsafe. Locke wanted to try and deactivate it so that they could investigate further, but Archimedes convinced him that they were better off retreating before the entire ship exploded.

Again with the overkill in this story. Hunter had said previously that this ship was his home, and he’d just casually blown it all up. His trophies, his mandroid, his means of transportation, all of it. I’m no home security expert, but I’d think the point of having a home security system would be to protect the home from intruders, not to blow it up should they come a-knocking. Earlier in the story Hunter had threatened Monk and Knuckles with a series of laser guns in his ceiling - why not have them programmed to pop out and shoot intruders? Messy maybe, but it’s better than coming back to a smoking crater where your flying house used to be. Also, don’t give your enemies time to escape. If you’re determined to blow up your house anyway, then you might as well do it straight away before your intruders can respond. Just saying.

Back down in the sewers of Hydro City, Hunter the Hunter had managed to catch up to his prey. Knuckles and Monkey the Monk had tried to set a trap, but Hunter had managed to spot them above him and fired at Knuckles.

It’s not entirely sure what happened here - I think what happened is that Knuckles was hit by the shot but wasn’t hurt and just lost his balance, because he is Echidna Jesus. Either that or Knuckles just fell out of the way and Kraven was unable to accept that he’d missed. With Knuckles falling away from Monk and their collars zapping them again, the livid gorilla attacked Hunter.

Unfortunately for Monk this left him wide open, and Hunter was able to fatally shoot him. Knuckles went ballistic at this and his dormant chaos powers kicked in to do…

...that. Is that supposed to be blood coming out of Hunter’s hands? Because I’m pretty sure blood’s not supposed to be that colour. I’m not quite sure what’s going on there, unless it was an attempt to be edgy while also being timid enough to not anger the Comics Code Authority. Whatever, the battle was won, and Locke and Archimedes finally showed up too late to be of any help whatsoever.

Prisoner the Hunter was stripped to his underpants and locked up in an underwater bubble with no obvious toilet facilities, and thus the final Knuckles story in his own comic book series came to an end.

As you can probably tell, I’m really not a fan of this story. Hunter the Hunter is a very obvious Original the Character Do Not Steal TM, and Monk the Monkey gets tiresome very quickly while he and Knuckles are on the run. His hatred for Knuckles is so severe that he just cannot help himself from bickering and endangering them, even while they were being hunted.

And again, while the League of Extraordinarily Racist Grandpas has always been a bit dodgy and had questionable motives, their attempted execution of a literal child, just because he’d been bullying their Chosen One, was really quite disturbing. There weren’t even any repercussions for this either! As far as we know, Knuckles never even found out about what his father and other assorted grandfathers had done to Monk. It’s possible that they talked about Monk’s unexpected reappearance at some point offscreen, but do you think Locke would admit to his son what he’d done? I very much doubt it. I expect Locke’s reaction would be more along the lines of, “Oh, he came back after all this time? After being missing for years? Wow, that’s crazy! I wonder why he left way back when?” Because Locke is a terrible person.

While that story is done with, I’m not finished with the Knuckles series yet. Those three issues also had a B story focusing on Espio, so next time I’ll be looking at Hiding in Plain Sight, The Best of Friends, and The Worst of Enemies.

[gale-gentlepenguin]

Gale Reviews: ML Season 4 Episode 8 Queen Banana

(Spoilers below)

-Marinette is costume designer for this independent movie the class is helping put on.

-So from what I got Shameless Self-insert, I MEAN Respected former student now famous director Thomas Astruc. is helping make this movie. And it gets to be in theaters... for some reason.

-The Mayor really went from hiding himself to being blatant about it

-Also Bob Roth and Gabriel are involved? Okay but WHY?

-Chloé is salty she isn't the star, and also Sabrina is feeding her bananas (so this is why the bananas were related)

-And Chloé ruins another scene the class performs. Chloé believes the city's money is her money. Thomas Really going for Chloé being an irredeemable brat to the point that it makes it REALLY funny instead of awful

-OH! I just realized it. Thomas Astruc being there is the biggest and most blatant way to say. "CHLOE YOU HAVE BEEN REPLACED."

-The art teacher has a name, and actually makes a point. HE QUOTED HER! Thats hilarious.

-And then points out she was actually WORSE! I CANT

-Chloé's CHAIR REVEAL! I LIVE FOR IT!

-And Andre is scared of his daughter. BECAUSE of course she is

-Bob Roth... truly a beacon of integrity

-Well they shooting and Marinette is snarky to Chloé. Who deserves it.

-Sabrina's sole purpose in this episode is... Banana

-Marinette is so Sassy in this. Like I am all for Sassynette, but something seems off. Not that its bad, but I am trying to figure out why this feels so... personal.

-OMG I just got this. This episode is Thomas COMPLAINING ABOUT JEREMY'S EXECUTIVE MEDDLING! I knew this felt Like Animaestro for some reason.

-Thomas aint being subtle. Chloé is Zag in this. Like just wow.

-Queen Banana was her attempt to hide a blatant Queen bee reference.

-Second script rewrite and now EVERYONE feels done with it. So my question is... How do they escape this UN-APEELING situation?

-I Like the design of Chloé's Queen banana.

-SHE HAS A CAR NOW!

-AND SCRIPT CHANGE NUMBER THREE

-Adrien is now in a cage.... Okay... I wasn't expecting that. adrinette is cute tho.

-A CAGE BEING CARRIED BY A HELICOPTER?! Is it wrong that I would totally watch Chloé's movie.

-SON OF A B****. THIS EPISODE IS ALSO A CRITIQUE ON JEREMY ZAG MAKING THE MIRACULOUS MOVIE. MOTHER F***ER WE HIT 3 LEVELS OF META

-Honestly Chloé's demands sound dumb but also like the movie would be REALLY popular in America.

-Nino my son, I feel your pain.

-AND CHLOÉ LEFT BECAUSE SHE WASNT SATISFIED.

-I love that Kim tries to make it work.

-Okay so my bet is they try to film the movie without her there.

-I was right.

-And predictably she goes to the theater to see that the movie was filmed without her, cue outrage, cue blah blah blah

-Im watching the movie they filmed... I am disappointed by the lack of Dynamite throwing gorillas. (some of the special effects were cool.) It was meh, Id probably skip this movie.

-Gabriel... ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING GOOD?! IN MY SHOW? Oh wait, he is going to akumatize Chloé so meh. I will say it cancels out.

-I was caught in the euphoria of Gabriel sounding reasonable that I forgot for a moment he is a piece of s***

-Shadowmoth's transformation looks stupid

-Adrien my boy. I AM PROUD OF YOU. I RESPECT AND LOVE YOU. YOU STOOD UP FOR YOUR OTHER FRIENDS. YOU TOLD CHLOÉ OFF. THAT IS MY SON!

-Shadowmoth saying Queen banana made me giggle.

-Chloé knows the drill. Just give her the monkey and she is ready

-She just turned that man into a banana... I can't.

-Ladybug and Chat noir enter stage left.

-You know they didn't show Chat noir transform. (Gale will remember that.)

-Ladybug just spun and Caught chat noir. Ladynoir points

-THE LUCKY CHARM ALMOST SQUASHED HER!

-Zoé stood up to Queen banana, and thats why Ladybug found out what she needed. Horray.

-Cue Iconic Akira pose on motorbike.

-Look Ladybug you can't blame chat noir on that one. Queen banana's care just up and moved. Not his fault he made the ape go... BANANAS

-ZOÉ LEE name confirmed.

-Zoé's transformation is ADORABLE! I LOVE IT

-Welp, Thats gonna leave a mark.

-Vesperia poses. I kind of see the chat noir parallels.

-Mistranslation. Plagg said Queen bee not Ladybug.

-Side note. Doesn't it seem kind of dumb that Cataclysm makes the sentimonsters go haywire instead of destroying them? There is already a Kwami that makes things go haywire. Its Xuupa.

-Chat noir got the car this time. Good. If he missed again, I would assume they really were giving him the shaft.

-Vesperia REALLY taunting Chloé. I love it.

-Ladybug and Chat noir really bullied Queen banana after that. LOL

-OOOH Ladybug made her a charm

-Chloé rejected it and Shadowmoth be like (oh it aint over yet.) What he doing.

-So Zoé stood up to Chloé and OMG SHE TRICKED HER INTO TAKING THE CHARM!

-ZOE YOU BRILLAINT! JUST IN TIME. SHADOWMOTH GOT BLOCKED!

- ADRIEN! TIKKI IS RIGHT ON MARINETTE'S SHOULDER! LOOK LEFT.

____________________________________________________________

Okay this episode was funny.

I would say this was Animaestro done... better.

I found it a bit on the nose with its criticism but at least didn't rub one's nose in it too much. But Once I saw what it was doing, I couldn't unsee it.

Well It isn't a bad episode at all. It has a lot of good moments.

Zoé is a a good character and I did enjoy Vesperia.

I like how we got to see how the charm works, thats cool.

overall

Objectively I would put it.

7.5/10

Though personally I put it more 6.5/10

There is an art to being subtle and this was a subtle as a gorrilla throwing banana explosives. Also there was no Banana noir and that in itself is a crime. No Mr. Banana. No stay peachy. Its a crime!

[feralnumberfive]

The Rewatch Academy: Episode 1 of Season 1

"We Only See Each Other At Weddings and Funerals”

I am in no way a good analyst so my little analysis and speculations probably sound a bit goofy or pretty wild and probably mean nothing at all. Everything I put into this post about each episode is purely what I noticed or thought, whether it's funny or serious. I will be making jokes, so please just leave it at that (in no way am I trying to make fun of an actor and or character!) I am also in no way saying I noticed this stuff first. This is just what I noticed while rewatching these episodes

☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂

1x01 | 1x02 | 1x03 | 1x04 |

☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂ ☂

☂️ In the Pilot script, it has a woman giving birth to a baby boy in Poland in 1984 (potentially Five or maybe even Luther??) 

☂️ “Picture Book” is an absolute bop and no one can tell me otherwise

☂️ What if someone saw this parade of carriages and noticed that there were seven? Later Reginald announces that he adopted 6 kids, so I wonder if anyone saw the carriages earlier and heard Reginald's announcement and became confused

☂️ The concert hall in the Pilot script is in New York, which I assume is safe to assume in NYC. The script also mentions later that Diego drops the monocle in the Hudson River

☂️ The Pilot script originally had Allison in LA, and Klaus in Amsterdam (which he was supposed to be levitating in that scene)

☂️ Diego was originally supposed to be pretty brutal and violent

☂️ I am a huge POTO fan so having a medley of the songs from the musical is so awesome to hear. The first time I watched this episode and heard the violin starting to play, I was like “Huh, this really sounds like POTO” and then I realized it was! It gave me chills and still does to this day overtime I watch this scene

☂️ The dark and mysterious tones of POTO really matches the vibes of TUA well. It’s just so good, especially as a way to introduce Vanya. The first song Vanya plays is “Phantom of the Opera” which is a nice symbolism when introducing the Hargreeves Siblings. The song itself is Christine discovering who her true Angel of Music is, a strange masked man that everyone knows well but they truly don’t know who he really is, like with the Umbrellas and their separate personalities and struggles as actual human beings and not just as the superheroes the public knows them as. It also plays while showing Diego, who is a mysterious masked figure at that point. 

☂️ “Angel of Music” is basically Christine asking her angel to guide her, which is ironic that it plays while Klaus is getting out of a place that guides him down the right path, knowing that he’s immediately going to go do drugs again and to go down the “wrong” path

☂️ I wonder if the voice in Luther’s spacesuit as he receives his message is an automated voice or his robot named “Ben” like in the comics. I doubt it’s the latter, but who knows

☂️ Okay, here’s another POTO thing. Diego picks up his knife and wipes the blood off of it and tells the family “Your family is safe now” right as the start of “Think of Me” plays. The first lyrics of the song are “Think of me, think of me fondly” which can be seen as Diego wants the family to truly view him as a hero that saved them

☂️ Aaaand here’s another! Again, while “Think of Me” is playing, one of the parts in the song where Raoul sings “Long ago, it seems so long ago, how young and innocent we were” plays while the paparazzi begins questioning Allison about her father and siblings

☂️ Okay okay, last POTO thing. I especially love that "Music of the Night" plays when Klaus wakes up in the ambulance at night. It's so awesome! Especially since the song is basically about giving into your darkest desires, which Klaus clearly did

 ☂️ Goddamn is the music in the show amazing, and I’m not just talking about all of the fun lyrical songs! Jeff Russo you get a thumbs up from me

☂️ Ta-da! Here’s some portraits that are shown of the siblings with Reginald when they were young that are shown in the show

☂️ Even the first person Vanya sees when she arrives home doesn’t greet her/welcome her back 

☂️ Emmy and Elliot really played that awkward hug and greeting between Allison and Vanya well. You can feel the awkward tension (hey sisters)

☂️ According to the pilot script, Diego wears his mask practically all the time like in the comics

☂️ Luther was literally supposed to have a gorilla body in the pilot script

☂️ “Oh, YoU gOt BiG, lUtHeR”

☂️ Godddd the song playing while Vanya looks at the books on the shelf in including her own is 👌

☂️ Ah, there’s a book called “Lunar Living”

☂️ It might just be me, but it seems like the light shining onto Five’s portrait is ever so slightly askew

☂️ Vanya leaving the lights on and sandwiches for Five reminds me of someone leaving food outside for a stray cat

☂️ Five was originally supposed to be gone for over 22 years in the pilot script

☂️ I wonder at what point in each of the siblings’ lives did they realize, or at least they thought, their brother wouldn’t be coming home 

☂️ Babies 

☂️ There’s so many ape and monkey pictures and diagrams around Reginald’s office. Foreshadowing for Luther?

☂️ I love Klaus’s theme. It’s heard in almost every episode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJa9H8SY4wQ&list=OLAK5uy_k2NJivpu0PIwxrOmPVrqN4umBZaahOGWI&index=6

☂️ Why does Reginald have two pictures of himself featuring aircraft? In one of them he’s outside a private jet and the other is him inside a cockpit

☂️ I must say that the dialogue in the pilot script definitely closely mirrors the dialogue of the comics 

☂️ “Told me I should be careful who to trust” 👀

☂️ Something behind Elliot is moving

☂️ I was hoping for this to be a gazelle of some sort above Five’s portrait, but It’s an Gemsbok. However, the Gemsbok is an antelope and all gazelles are antelopes

☂️ “The Walker” playing during the bank robbery scene is 👌👌

☂️ Luther is ready to throw hands

☂️ These robbers really decided to rob a bank at 10:05 am?

☂️ I just love Five popping out of nowhere criss-cross applesauce 

☂️ Something that hasn’t been explained/fully shown is Five’s ability to teleport objects. He teleported the gun out of the guy’s hand and replaced it with a stapler

☂️ Five’s teleportation noise reminds me of something going really fast, like an aircraft breaking the sound barrier. It’s almost like a mini sonic boom, but not as loud

☂️ Okay so I’ve noticed this in most of the episodes, but I don’t think when Five teleports he makes an actual noise. I’ll point this out more as we continue through the episodes. At the bank scene when Five is on the counter, it appears that the first time he teleports the bank robber whips around when Five speaks. The second time the robber turns to Five simply because he doesn’t know where he went and he’s searching for the threat

☂️ “That’s one badass stApler”

☂️ When Ben asks if he has to go into the Vault, he looks at Klaus for reassurance even though Luther is the one speaking to him

☂️ Five was still pretty cocky back in his youth. They, or more like Ben, have more bad guys to take care of and he’s just chilling with his hands in his pockets and leaning back/slouching like he’s bored. His tone with the robber also proves that and the way he just happily bounds out of the bank

☂️ Sir, why are you looking at the camera

☂️ Luther’s little wave to the reporters when the Umbrellas come out of the bank is cute

☂️ The pilot script didn’t include a flashback of a bank robbery, but instead to the Umbrellas training when they were younger. There’s too much to screenshot to I’ll summarize it.

-Luther bench-presses over 500 lbs

-Diego has been holding his breath for about six hours and he flips Reginald off

-Klaus levitates stuff

-Allison is slacking off and when Reginald tells her to continue her training she simply rumors him that she doesn’t have to

-Ben is fighting guards and Reginald calls him “Number Six” to which Vanya, who isn’t supposed to be down there, corrects him that his name is Ben and reminds Reginald that they have names

- Five very quickly and quite brutally rips off the heads and limbs of training dummies, snaps their necks, and stabs them. He is referred to as “A ruthless little war machine.” Reginald calls him “Perfect”

☂️ The pilot script implies that Reginald had alien life mounted on the walls of his office

☂️ There wasn’t a dance scene in the pilot script

☂️ Not to get super into detail about this, but Luther’s room is filled with a lots of models and paintings of aircraft, mainly from WWII. Almost all of them are of Allied aircraft, and more specifially Commonwealth aircraft, like the RCAF. So this could be more of a clue to the Umbrellas living in Canada

☂️ Diego giving that Wildebeest head the stink eye aways makes me laugh

☂️ Klaus is dancing with Reggie’s urn in a Waltz fashion, so maybe he’s just doing that or it’s the ballroom dancing lessons they received as children peeing through

☂️ I love Diego’s dancing skills

☂️ Fuck you Five for ruining their dance party

☂️ Honestly Five’s portal is pretty powerful. Here’s a description of it from the pilot script

☂️ I like that when Luther tells everyone to get behind him and Diego copies him with “Yeah, get behind us” Luther lets his brother use himself as a shield instead be pulling the “I’m the leader, I’m the strongest” card

☂️ When Luther and Diego are shielding their siblings, Diego has his arm stretched out to guard Vanya

☂️ In the pilot script Five’s body is smoking when he comes out of the portal

☂️ What if when Five fell out of the portal he got knocked out so he just laid face down on the ground unconscious aksdhfjsafhd

☂️ “So are we gonna talk about what just happened?” No bitch, let him make his sammie first

☂️ Diego and Klaus had some sort of bet on Five’s time traveling in the pilot script

☂️ Here’s another example of Five’s teleportation possibly not making noise. When he teleports around while his siblings are questioning him, it looks like they only look at him when he appears and not when they hear a noise

☂️ Five in the pilot script is actually 62

☂️ “What part of the future do you not understand?”

☂️ I like that Five styled his hair to the exact style it was when he was actually young, but eventually gets looser throughout the season

☂️ Five is so oddly calm when talking to Vanya in front of his portrait

☂️ “Well, there are worse things that can happen.” “You mean like what happened to Ben?” Yeah there’s also an apocalypse on the way lol

☂️ Five actually got a hug in the pilot script! 

☂️ An ironic moment from the pilot script considering that Five is an assassin and has killed tons of people but this siblings don’t know that

☂️ When Diego is talking about their names and numbers in the courtyard, Five sighs, which I’m sure he’s just bored/has better places to be and is annoyed, but I’d like to view it as “Shit, I don’t even have a name”

☂️ Funny tidbit from the pilot script during the funeral scene “Whatever the hell you are”

☂️ Diego talks about how he assumed Reginald sent Luther to the moon because he couldn’t stand the sight of him, so he must be talking about Luther being like a “failed” leader or something? Like he couldn’t keep the team/his siblings together? Diego doesn’t know about his ape-like body so he’s not thinking about that.....

☂️ I love that Klaus reaches his arm out to guard Five, and that Five simply glares at him and bats his arm away

☂️ When Luther broke Ben’s statue, I can just imagine Ben yelling at Klaus “Seriously? Klaus, why didn’t you stop them?”

☂️ So I’m sure this is just a continuation error, but you can’t see Five walking away in the shot of Ben’s statue hitting the ground. Considering that he had just left, he should still be visible in the background. Again, probably a continuation error or maybe he even teleported inside

☂️ A detail I love about Luther is that his fingernails are dark due to the gorilla DNA

☂️ The bank robbery scene in the pilot script is after the funeral. Not much was changed for the actual first episode, just a few different scenes. Also the Umbrellas were described as gods

☂️ Vanya drawing the tattoo on her wrist hurts my heart

☂️ “Together, you will stand against the reign of evil” gives me chills 

☂️ “This is your home and always will be” is great foreshadowing to S3, and hurts my heart when I think about how it is in fact no longer their home

☂️ When I first watched this episode and saw Pogo watching Vanya I knew something was pretty sus

☂️ Just some gold dialogue from the pilot script during the scene of Five, Allison, and Klaus in the kid area and Five is complaining about coffee (but in the pilot script everyone but Vanya is there)

☂️ “An entire square block. Forty-two bedrooms, 19 bathrooms” goddamn the Academy is HUGE. Also 42 is just one away from being 43 👀

☂️ “I know how to do everything.” Yeah, like survive an apocalypse and professionally kill people :]

☂️ I’ve pointed this out before, but the license plate on the car that Five takes to Griddy’s says HERMES, which is the license plate of his car in the comics

☂️ The exit sign in the background is only half lit up to where it says EX and if my memory serves me correctly that’s the door Vanya and Leonard enter the Academy through in episode 6

☂️ Diego telling Klaus to lean back is like “Ugh I don’t want him with me, but safety first”

☂️ I love that they added his feral chimpanzee smile from the pilot script into he show

☂️ “You won’t be going home.” Cocky smartass strikes again. Not to mention he smiles when he says that. He also says this to the men before he kills them in the pilot script

☂️ Before I even knew about TUA, I had heard of the “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” scene and looked it up. I remember thinking “Wow, that kid is scary.” Now I think “Wow, that old man is scary.”

☂️ I love the little salute he does before he blinks away, and the way his basically just plays with these men like a cat playing with its prey. He knows he’s going to kill them, but he wants to have fun doing so

☂️ Five had some fancy moves in the pilot script

☂️ Five teleporting his tie around the man’s neck is another example of him teleporting an object. Can we see more of this actually happen in S3 please?? I also love the fact that he takes it off the man’s body and puts it back on

☂️ The way he calmly, or tiredly, snaps the man’s neck is chilling to see from a child’s body. This was also included in the pilot script *chanting* Feral Five, Feral Five, Feral Fi-

☂️ It’s honestly such a cool and iconic scene on the show. It truly shows that Five is fully capable of handling himself, and is/was great at his job

☂️ Having the city at night in the background of Diego dropping the monocle is really pretty

☂️ I really like the way they revealed Ben. Having watched both season and now watching this scene again is a bit awkward when Ben doesn’t talk. He’s probably just tired of Klaus 

☂️ “The world ends in eight days, and I have no idea how to stop it.” This line combined with the music and the previous scene of Five in the apocalypse is powerful and chilling and I love it

☂️ I love that they have The Umbrella Academy theme playing during the credits in both seasons

-------

Feel free to comment or reblog with things you have noticed too!

[make-it-mavis]

Homesick (Entry #19)

(cw: vomiting, references to drugs) ----------

01/06/88   10:31 PM

Hey.

I’d thought that willingly bunking with Fix-it was weird. I had no idea.

You know pretty well my relationship to Wreck-it, but that’s not saying much. Anyone who sees us interacting basically knows the deal. There’s just not much more than the obvious. He’s huge, he’s dumb, and he’s got a temper shorter than a Nicelander’s arm, so, yeah, he’s my game’s resident prank and pestering dumping ground, fittingly enough. And, on the flipside, I’m small, I’m slick, I’m dang near impossible to catch when you’re that big and clumsy, and even when he does, and he throws me across the freakin’ map, I enjoy it. I’d wanna smash my face into the bricks, too, if I were him.

It felt a little close to insanity, then, thinking of welcoming myself to sleep on those bricks. I had basically nothing in my favor, other than the fact that we’ve never had a… y’know, serious fight, and very occasionally we’ll call a truce and rant about Fix-it over some root beers. Not much, but it had to count for something, right?

In any case, the arcade closed like any night. I was leaning back against my little lumpy brick knoll and idly plucking at my guitar by the time I heard those big elephant feet clomping on the bricks. I braced myself. Good or bad, it’d be uncomfortable.

“Alright, y’little guttersnipe, what did you leave me this time?”

He seemed to be talking more to himself than me. I guess he thought I’d left. Fair assumption -- why would I have stayed?

“Still here, trash gorilla.”

“What the--!?”

Stomp, stomp, stomp. He stood next to me, stance primed to smash if provoked. I didn’t bother looking up.

He barked, “You!”

“Me.”

“You wanna tell me what you’re doing in my home?”

He certainly didn’t sound happy, but I heard way more apprehension in his voice than anger. He obviously hadn’t forgotten what he’d seen on Niceland’s doorstep the night before. Remembering the look on his face just made me wish even more dearly that I had anywhere else to go. 

I paid more attention to my guitar than him, hoping he would give up prematurely. “No, not really.”

“Oh, well, in that case, sure, just hunker down and make yourself a little nest without even kind of asking me.”

“Wayyy ahead of ya.”

Buttons easily pressed, he growled, “You got until the count of five to tell me what you’re up to, before I bowl you right down into the river, got it?”

“Sure you can count that high, monkey man?”

“Y’know what, let’s make it THREE. One…”

I rubbed my forehead, sporting a vicious withdrawal headache. I’d been brainstorming all day on excuses to throw at him, but always came up short. How do I explain away willingly staying in a dump with Wreck-it?

“Two…”

I finally looked up at him, with the sharpest glare I had. “I had nowhere else to go, okay! Happy now?!”

Wreck-it wavered for a second, like I’d thrown a ball at his head. He squinted, suspicious. “Wait. What do you mean? You’ve got plenty of places to go! I mean, Felix would obviously love to put you up, and--” he slowed, bogged down with memory, “--well… I guess you… were kinda screaming and smashing stuff up there this morning, so... maybe you’re… still mad at him or… something…”

He scratched his head. “Okay, maybe not Felix. But you’ve got your own place. That forest still looks pretty intact to me, sister.”

I went back to staring at my guitar. “I can’t stay there right now.”

“Why?”

“I just can’t.”

He went quiet for a minute. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see his fist relax a bit and rap gently against his leg. When he spoke again, his voice was a bit lower, but still reluctant.

He said, “You’re trouble, you know.”

“Thanks.”

“Everyone’s talkin’ like you’re big trouble. Like you could be dangerous.”

“What do you think?”

He paused. “...I’unno. I’m trying to stay out of it. It all sounds like a really… y’know, delicate matter, and... that’s not exactly my thing.”

I wasn’t sure how I felt about a neutral party. Part of me grimaced at the inevitability of him taking the majority’s side eventually, and part of me felt… safer, I guess. Like this guy wanted to go on pretending everything would just work itself out if he ignored it, so he’d be less likely to get up in my business. I had a glimmer of hope that we could both pretend nothing was wrong, moving forward.

I fiddled with my guitar some more. “Well… that’s probably for the best, huh.”

“But,” he growled, “you’re making it real hard to stay out of it, coming here. I just know you’re gonna get me wrapped up in this stuff, somehow. I oughtta throw you out on your keister before you get the chance.”

Looking up at him again, I asked, “Are you going to?”

His brow furrowed and his lips pressed together. He looked me up and down contemplatively, lingering in odd places. I got the impression that he was remembering the sight of me torn to ribbons. And then his eyes plainly fell to my neck. Suddenly, he looked as if he’d just read the saddest sentence of his life. Up until that point, he hadn’t noticed that I was wearing things that had belonged to you, that much was clear.

I felt the way most sprites must feel when they’re seen naked. I wanted to bury myself under the bricks.

“Gnah,” he grunted and threw his hand. “Look, if we’re really doing this, we need to lay down some ground rules. And these are real rules, not cute little make-being-bad-more-fun-for-Mavis rules. Agreed?”

“But I love those. The second kind.”

“Agreed?”

“Yes,” I leaned my head back, “obviously agreed. List your terms.”

“Okay. Rule number one -- no screaming. Everything that happened this morning? Don’t do that.”

“Noted.”

“Rule number two -- no name-calling, and-- and no no no, you look at me, right here,” he snapped his massive fingers, “when I’m telling you these, okay? Remember these -- y’know what, go ahead and write these down, while we’re at it. Take notes. Never can tell with you what you’re gonna conveniently forget. Go on, get your book out.”

Could have been worse demands, but I was still literally sick and tired, and not in the mood. I just blew a raspberry at the sky.

“Mavis.”

I blew a harder raspberry.

“Gh, you little--” my entire bag smacked me in the face, and not gently. “Don’t test me, kid. Start writing or you’re outta here.”

With a mighty groan, I did what I was told, and took down greatly paraphrased notes as he continued.

“As I was saying, rule number two,” he started counting off his fingers, “no name calling. You can’t be in my home and call me ‘trash gorilla’ or ‘homo erectus’ all the time. Leave the mean names at the door. ...Y’know, the metaphorical door.”

I raised my hand. “Question.”

“What?”

“Can I get them all out now, so they don’t slip out later?”

“Wh-- No.”

“Dang.”

“Okay, rule number three -- this is a big one. I don’t wanna wake up with anything written on me, or painted on me, or in my shirt, or stuck to my hair, or shoved in my nose, and -- y’know what, let’s just go ahead and make that, ‘Leave Ralph alone while he’s sleeping.’ I don’t turn into a toy when I close my eyes, got it?”

“Fine.”

“Rule number four -- same as rule number three, but about my stump. The stump is off limits. Don’t even sit on it. It’s not there for you.”

“Weird, but okay.”

“Rule number five -- whatever drama belongs in there,” he pointed at Niceland, “does not belong here. Okay? Don’t chuck bricks at windows or antagonize the Nicelanders or scream at Felix, none of that. They see you doing that from here, while I’m around, they’ll think I’m with you on it, you know? They’re all already not big fans of me, so don’t make that any worse.”

“Sure.”

“Uh, rule number six -- anyone throws garbage in here with food in it, that’s mine. You go get your own food.”

“Sheesh, gimme some credit. I got some standards on what kind of garbage I put in my body.”

He glared. “Just stay away from mine, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I wrote it down.

“Number seven… you know, just don’t steal anything in general, food or otherwise. No sticky fingers.”

“What the cuss is there to steal, numbnuts? There’s nothing here but bricks and broken structures, and like, maybe a pie tin or two--”

“Ap, ap, ap!” He pointed at me. “Numbnuts? That’s name calling!”

Rule number two was gonna be harder than I thought. There are just too many names to call him, and you know I hate to waste names. “Okay, okay. Paws off, I get it. Anything else, highness?”

Wreck-it squinted at me, and I wondered if he was trying to decide if ‘highness’ counted as name calling. Apparently, it didn’t. But then he started looking around the expanse of bricks, obviously trying to think like me, and find any opportunities for mischief. 

“Number eight,” he continued, “don’t, uh… paint any of my bricks.”

There was a lengthy pause.

“...Why?”

“Oh, I dunno, maybe because I said so?”

“Okay, you’re really reaching, now, Wreck-it. I think you’re just about out of rules. You’ve also only got two fingers left to go,” I pointed at his eight counted fingers. “Which is, coincidentally, what she said.”

His face screwed up. “Eugh, Devs, okay, y’know what? Rule number nine -- no dirty jokes.”

“Seriously? You’re fine with Tapper’s dirty jokes!”

“Yeah, ‘cus his are nowhere near as dirty as yours! It’s GROSS, Mavis! And, just, ugh,” he pushed his hair back, pointedly looking away, “hearing how much dirty stuff you actually know about just… gives me the willies.”

“That’s what she--” the strain was nearly physical. “You’re gonna make this very hard for me. That’s what-- Ugh,” I pinched my brow, “I’m making this very hard for-- That’s-- GAHH--!!”

I threw my hat.

“Watch it,” he warned me. “Remember rule number one!”

“How can you be so squeamish!? You live and breathe GARBAGE!”

“NO DIRTY JOKES!” He pointed at me like I was a dog, continuing the trend of my cabinet-mates treating me like an animal. “THAT’S FINAL!”

“FINE! GEEZ! I’ll keep it suitable for all ages, including nine-foot-tall babies--”

“That’s name calling!”

I broke rule number one. But, to be fair, it was more of a furious shout to the stars than a scream. 

“FOR THE LOVE OF LITWAK, WHAT’S RULE NUMBER TEN!?”

“EASY, kid! This is the last one, so listen up! Rule number ten…” he had his hands on his hips, assessing me in an odd way. He was silent just a moment longer than I’d have liked, but when he spoke again, his tone was much more serious.

“Look,” he said, “I dunno what you’ve got on you, or got back in your little hideout, but I don’t want you bringing any booze or buffs here. I can’t control what you do out there, but while you’re on my bricks… you’re sober. Got it?”

I wanted to say no. My first instinct was to call it all off. The withdrawal was only flooding higher above my head with every passing hour, and the thought of being denied my release stirred up defiance in me that bordered on violent. He had no idea how useful buffs were to me. He had no idea how painfully and desperately I wanted one, just one.

But after that split-second passed, I realized there was no use getting upset. It wasn’t like I had any booze or buffs or even the capacity to get any. That would involve leaving the game, which… I wasn’t ready to think about. Besides, like I said before, the withdrawal really, really sucked. But I recognized it for what it was, and knew it would pass on its own. Hardly my first rodeo. 

The verbal reminder of how badly I wanted a buff, however, really brought back the emphasis on how bad the withdrawals were getting. Chills hit me like, well, a ton of bricks. My stomach churned and I made a grab for the bucket I’d brought with me.

“Okay,” I nodded, breathing heavy into the bucket. “Sober. Got it.”

For a second, Wreck-it seemed a mix of confused and concerned. “Are you--”

I retched. Hard.

“GEEZ LOUISE!!” His voice went way higher than natural, and I heard his feet stamp away behind me as he cried out to the Devs. Nine-foot-tall baby. From the other side of his stump, he called, “You didn’t tell me you were sick!”

“Didn’t come up ‘til now,” I didn’t have the strength to appreciate my own accidental joke. I called back, mostly into the bucket, “Don’t freak out, I don’t have a virus or anything. And don’t you dare try to make a rule about this, ‘cuz believe it or not, I ain’t doing this for fun.”

“I know that,” I could hear the eye-roll. “I’m not stupid. It just would have been nice to know what I was in for before I decided to let you stay here.”

“Well,” I was panting by that point, and the sweat was making a real comeback, “now you know. Your guest is sick. But she’ll get over it in a few days, and she’s gotten real good at silent puking.”

“...A few days, huh.”

The pounding of his fists against the brick scared the bits out of me -- just a thing he does before settling down, like a dog turning in a circle. After I heard him lie down, he asked in a tired, but not quite annoyed tone, “So… just how long are you assuming I’ll put up with you?”

I spat. “I… can’t say right now, I don’t think. But I don’t like this any more than you do. It won’t go on a second longer than it has to.”

He grunted. “If you say so, I guess.”

The conversation ended there, for a bit. I spent a while teetering right on the edge of puking, until I backed away from that edge enough to head to the river and rinse out the bucket. Since I’d started shaking so bad, climbing back up the bricks took way longer than it should have. It made me miss flying so much. Everything did.

Once I got back, I did my absolute best to arrange my nest of pillows in a comfortable way, but you can only do so much on a pile of bricks. I could feel their corners jabbing up at me no matter what. All the same, I settled in. 

After maybe ten minutes, I said, “Hey, Wreck-it.”

He grunted again.

“I’ve got some rules, too.”

“No you don’t. This is a favor I’m doing for you, in my home. You don’t get to make rules.”

“Okay,” I sighed. “Do I get to make polite requests?”

“I dunno. Are they ‘for-real’ polite or ‘Mavis’ polite?”

“For-real.” I paused. “I think.”

“...Seems unlikely. But, I’m listening.”

“Request number one -- don’t talk to anyone about me being here.”

He hummed. “Easy enough.”

“Request number two -- don’t ask me about what happened last night. About how I ended up on that doorstep. I know you’ve been thinking about it. But I’m not going to talk about it, so don’t ask. Don’t ask anything.”

“Woah, okay, okay. I wasn’t… going to. I won’t. Anything else?”

“Yeah. Don’t try to talk to me about…” my sentence derailed. I didn’t want to say your name out loud again. Felt like it would hit me too hard. “...about the 7th.”

He was silent for a long time.

“That’s fine with me.”

“...Good.” I felt just about ready to delete from exhaustion, but had the distinct feeling that sleeping would be near impossible. I was just pulling up my blanket when Wreck-it piped up again.

“Rule number eleven--”

“No. No, you’re done with those. You can’t count on your toes, now.”

“Last one, for real this time,” he insisted. “Rule number eleven -- just… just keep your dang clothes on, will ya?”

I didn’t laugh.

It was a bizarre feeling. I knew it was funny, but my sense of humor felt like wet firewood. That little spark of laughter just wouldn’t catch.

“I’ll try,” I answered, “but I still plan on bathing.”

He grumbled, but made no further comment. That was it for the night. We went about our personal businesses of trying to sleep through the wrongness of it all. It took him a bit longer than I thought it would, probably because he wanted to sleep with one eye open, but eventually, his trumpeting snores started. They’ve never really bothered me before, but getting them point-blank is really an experience. Needless to say, they were far from a lullaby. 

Not that anything resembling a lullaby would have helped. The sleeping conditions there were even worse than Niceland. Trying to sleep out in the wide open is just unnerving to me. My little nest faced away from the entirety of the map, and the dump doesn’t extend into another forest at its far end. It just fades away into blackness, farther than we’re programmed to roam. The air is cold outside of tree cover, and the bricks even more so, but nothing felt colder than that sight.

You sure can see the stars from there, though. But, of course, it was one of those nights where that’s a bad thing.

On a good day, the stars make me think there are good things even in the darkest places. The black sky here looks like it could stretch on forever, like if you flipped our game upside down, we would all fall into it and never see light again. That really freaked me out for a long time, when I first surfaced. But the more I looked at the stars and how pretty they are, the more I thought, if the sky really did go on forever, then there could be even more beautiful things out there. Including a place better than this.

But I can’t get there. That’s the bad part. Sometimes, all the stars do is make me feel trapped. The place I really belong could be out there, but I’m just stuck in a glass box I can’t break.

Feeling tiny and alone beneath that both confining and possibly endless sky, I found myself inevitably thinking of you again. I didn’t have a couch to fool myself with anymore, or any walls to imagine closing in tighter, but… I did have your scarf.

It reeked of memories. Not of events, but emotions. Smelling it felt like inhaling pure, raw panic. It made my head spin and really aggravated my nausea, but, for reasons I didn’t quite understand, I just couldn’t put it down. I knew it was keeping me up, but I didn’t care.

As I lay there awake, feverish as hell, smelling a mix of smoke and gasoline that was so distinctly you, staring up at the stars, I just couldn’t stop thinking… did you do what I never could, and find a way to get past them?

If you did, where did you go?

If you did, how could I ever hope to find you?

If you did, why the hell did you leave me here alone?

[acedesigns]

Zoo Day [Good Omens: Crowley X Reader]

Word Count: 626

A/N: I wanted to talk about gorillas and gibbons, fight me.

--

Crowley had decided to take you to the zoo. He noticed the way you would always grow more excited whenever the two of you saw an animal, even when it was just a pigeon. Originally, he thought you would be excited to see them, but you were unusually quiet.

“Is everything alright, [Y/N]?”

“Uh, yeah,” you said while fidgeting with your shirt. “Why?”

“You’re quiet and twitching.”

“Oh.” You looked down at your feet and back out at the gorillas moving around some branches. “I…I get a bit carried away when I start talking about animals. People get annoyed. I don’t want to annoy you.”

Crowley frowned and looked at you. Sighing, he took a hand out of his pant pockets and draped it across your shoulders. He pulled you close to him and pressed a kiss into your hair.

“I brought you here so you could have fun and get excited. I want to hear about them. I won’t get annoyed, I promise.”

You looked up at him with a shy smile. A spark was ignited in your eyes. When you looked back at the gorillas, your smile widened.

“These are western lowland gorillas. There are eastern gorillas, too. Those are the two species, but there are four…maybe five subspecies? The eastern gorillas include mountain gorillas. But there aren’t any mountain gorillas in captivity, so you won’t see those at a zoo. But these guys are cool, too. Their scientific name is Gorilla Gorilla gorilla.” You paused and laughed lightly. “Scientists aren’t great at naming things.”

“No, I don’t think they are,” Crowley hummed in agreement. “Tell me more.”

You leaned into him with a smile. “We didn’t officially discover gorillas until the 1840s. ‘Course, that’s just when white people saw them. Since then we’ve learned a lot about them. After chimpanzees, they’re our closest living relatives. Then, it goes to orangutans and then gibbons. In that evolutionary line, gorillas were the first to be able to drink alcohol! Orangutans can’t.”

Crowley smirked. “My kind of monkey.”

“Ape,” you corrected. “They’re really smart. They paint, solve puzzles, there’s been a couple to learn sign language, too. And if you watch them for a while, you can really see their facial expressions. They feel things. They think. They’re so close to us.”

Crowley nodded and rubbed his thumb in circles on your shoulder. “Do…Do they build nests?”

“Yeah,” you said with a grin. “They make their own beds every night. But they typically sleep in nests on the ground. Chimpanzees and orangutans sleep in the trees.”

“Huh, Aziraphale was right.”

“You thought only birds did that, didn’t you?” you said with a cheeky grin.

“Shut up.”

You giggled and pulled his hand towards the gibbons. “There are great apes and lower apes. Gibbons are the only lower apes, ‘cause they’re less than us? I don’t really know. But there are different species of them. They also don’t really have thumbs. Their hands act as hooks so they can brachiate through the trees.”

“Brachiate?” Crowley asked with his nose scrunched up. “What’s that?”

You pointed at a gibbon swinging through the branches and poles as if they were monkey bars. “That’s brachiating.”

“Oh. That’s a big word for just that.” A snort came out your nose from Crowley’s words. “Are you going to the pigs next?”

“Shut up!” you laughed and pushed him.

“So you said there are different species of gibbons. What species are these?”

“White-cheeked,” you deadpanned while watching a male gibbon with black fur and white cheeks swing through.

“I feel stupid.”

“You’re not. You’re incredibly smart. You just haven’t learned this yet.”

“Well.” Crowley moved so his arms circled around your waist. He rested his chin on your shoulder. “You’re incredibly smart, too.”

[ladyhistorypod]

Episode 9: Monkey See, Monkey Do

Sources:

Helen Martini

Museum of the City of New York

IMDB

British Pathé (YouTube)

New York Heritage Digital Collections

Further Reading: My Zoo Family,  Cubs in the Tub, Mother to Tigers

Dian Fossey

Biography

BBC Earth

National Geographic: The Renegade Scientist Who Taught Us To Love Gorillas

Zoologist Dian Fossey: A Storied Life With Gorillas

Lady Science

DW: Made For Minds

Alana’s Surprise Lady

The Age

SF Gate

Kokoflix (YouTube)

PBS

Gorilla Foundation

New York Times

NPR

Washington Post

ABC News

National Geographic

National Geographic (YouTube)

60 Minutes Australia (YouTube)

Attributions:

birdsong, water splash, Zoos & Young Animals, Under Water

Click below for a full text transcript of this episode!

Haley: A brief warning about the following episode of Lady History: this episode contains sensitive topics such as murder, violence, and racism.

Archival Audio: Gorilla at Large! The most murderous, destructive beast man has ever seen! Gorilla at Large! In 3D and color by Technicolor!

Lexi: Alana, do you want to share your good news?

Alana: I do, I have very good news. So, in– I think it was episode five– we very subtly mentioned that GW had to let me into school so that Lexi and I could live together and um… Actually the same day that episode seven came out, we found out that GW let me into grad school.

Lexi: Woohoo!!

Haley: I feel like that's a universe telling you like “here is why” if it aired on the same day.

Alana: Yeah, definitely. I really think like. My dad was like “did you put– did you talk about your podcast on your application” and I was like yeah. I listened to– the suffragist episode? I listened like four times the day it came out. I was like this is so good. We're so good at this.

(Lexi laughing)

[INTRO MUSIC]

Alana: Hello and welcome to Lady History; the good, the bad, and the ugly ladies you missed in history class. I’ve run out of ways to say that we're on Zoom but Lexi what's the difference between monkeys and apes?

Lexi: Like. You want me to scientifically give you the difference?

Alana: Sure.

Lexi: Monkeys have tails.

Alana: Monkeys do have tails.

Lexi: There's a lot more but like monkeys do have tails. And that's the easy way to tell. So please, when you take your child to the zoo do not call the chimps or gorillas or orangutans or bonobos monkeys. As someone who previously worked in a zoo, and witnessed mothers and nannies telling their children “look at the monkey sweetie” to an intelligent ape, I… Nope. Mm. Okay.

Alana: That's why I picked that question for you. Also, Haley. Haley, what’s your favorite zoo?

Haley: I am a zoo connoisseur. I love zoos. Love me some animals but I'm going to have to go with my hometown, my first zoo ever was the Bronx Zoo. I have many memories, some scary, some pleasant, some very confusing but generally just like would ten out of ten live there.

Alana: And I'm Alana and my personality is fifty percent I love aquariums.

Haley: No.

Alana: Why are you shaking your head at me Haley?

Lexi: I also love aquariums.

Haley: Fish freak me out.

Lexi: Aquariums freak you out?

Haley: Fish and birds like, scare me on a personal level.

Lexi: Those are my favorite animals! I had a fish tank in my nursery as a baby. I think that's where my parents went wrong because I got a degree in museum studies and I just want to work with living collections that would be fantastic, so hit me up, any zoo in America. Actually, any zoo in the world. I am mobile. I am single. I do have a parrot so if your country does not allow parrots to come in from foreign countries please consider me off your list. But if I can bring a parrot into your country and you want me to work in a zoo or aquarium hit me up.

Haley: Cal Academy is right for you, that's where I– very close to where I currently live and they have like their live collection. I thought their penguins were fake. Like I did not realize because the way– Okay, the way the Cal Academy is set up is that when you walk in you’re greeted with this like giant forest– like what is called, atrium? Aviary is for the birds, right? So this is just like a whole encapsule of foliage and you can see some like butterflies go around and you can see the beginning of the aquarium, and the whole bottom floor is the aquarium and it's really really cool. You also have like an albino or white alligator. I forget what the guy's name is called, but it's like a white alligator that they have to– if he ever gets hurt and like he starts bleeding, since he’s white it's very noticeable they have to like hide him to not scare the children it’s a whole thing. Oh, the penguins. The penguins are in like their African, early human wing which are all taxidermy animals or like faux bones those like display of human origins like the Smithsonian and then one wall it's just penguins and then they started moving I truly just jumped out of my skin. This was like at a…  the first time I went was at like an adult night, 21 and older, you get a drink, you walk around the like, museum.

Alana: That’s sexy. I want to go to that.

Haley: I had like a beer in me and then the penguins started moving. People have like very mixed feelings on the Cal Academy but it's mostly people who like hate zoos, and like don’t understand that like some zoos are actually decent. Like it’s– we're not talking about GW Tiger King zoo, we’re talking about like–

Lexi: That's not a zoo. That's just not a zoo.

Alana: That’s not a zoo!

Haley: The amount of people who have fought me when I'm like “I love zoos” they're like “animals should be wild” and it's like “no. You do not put a hurt penguin back with its herd.” Like the elephant missing a tusk? Is not going to do well. Like GW Tiger King zoo? Not a zoo. That’s just–

Lexi: Science is important.

Alana: Science is important!

Lexi: The zoos on Tiger King, not science. When you go to a zoo, or are considering going to a zoo, look up what their contributions to scientific research and animal welfare are. If they are not AZA certified, do not go there. There was an incident recently in which the Pittsburgh Zoo, which used to be AZA certified, became un-AZA certified. It’s still an okay zoo but like in general look for AZA certifications. But the thing about AZA zoos is they follow a species survival plan, which means they don't decide when and where the animals go. There is a larger conglomerate that decides when animals need to be moved around. And so if one zoo needs a gorilla that will breed with another gorilla because that is what is best for gorillas all over the world, they will move the gorilla. They get a private plane and they take the gorilla with the keeper to meet its new keeper and that's where the gorilla moves because it's all about the science and the species preservation.

Alana: I really like the New England Aquarium and I'm not just saying that because I hope Erin Keif is listening. Um, even though I do hope she’s listening. Hi, Erin! We think you’re really cool!

Lexi: The aquarium in your homeland is beautiful.

Alana: It's so cool. I love the big old tube and then you like walk up around the tube. I think that's dope. I love that. That's like their main exhibit and I think it's so cool. I also saw like– I was in Boston maybe ten years ago; little more, little less, and there were like jellyfish! Right off the docks! Because we’re killing the turtles! That’s what I learned at the New England Aquarium!

Archival Audio: The llama family and cousins are all in the market for babysitters. While Mrs Helen Martini serves in that capacity for 3 little tiger kittens, born of parents themselves born and raised at the zoo, the triplets are concerned mainly with calories and vitamins and rather resent the working press. They're not up to scratch, yet, but they sure know the proper facial expressions. What a picture they make! (Tiger cub meowing sound)

Lexi: So, Haley, we were talking about your favorite zoo in the world. What was that zoo?

Haley: The Bronx Zoo.

Lexi: And do you know much about the history of the Bronx Zoo?

Haley: I probably used to, you're gonna have to fill me in on this one.

Lexi: Do you know who the first female zookeeper of the Bronx Zoo was? 

Haley: Your lady?

Lexi: Yes! Helen Martini!

Alana: Her name is Martini? 

Lexi: Yes, her name is Martini. So like, wonderful. We’re already off to a great start. But yes that is when talking about today so I thought it was very relevant that you mentioned how much you love the Bronx Zoo, that it's your home turf, because it was her home turf too. So a quick preface to our upcoming story, finding digital sources on Helen is extremely difficult. I had a really hard time with it. It appears very little has been published about her, particularly online and she doesn't even have a Wikipedia page, so for information about her life I had to use an IMDB page that exists for her, which I'm not sure if it's accurate and I'm not sure why it even exists, she was not a movie star. So take all this info on her early years with a tiny grain of salt. Once she actually starts being involved with the zoo that's when the information gets a little more accurate. Helen Martini was born on June 5, 1912 in Newfoundland, Canada. Her father, Matthew Delaney, was a merchant seaman and Helen was born with an eye problem that doctors told her parents would result in her eventually going blind. After father's death in 1925, her mother took her to New York to undergo eye operations. These operations helped protect her sight. Some attribute her caring personality to this turning point in her life. As an adult, Helen married a man named Fred. He worked as a jeweler and the couple lived in an apartment in the Bronx. Fred and Helen decided to have a baby, but unfortunately lost their child due to miscarriage. Helen was told by doctors that she would never be able to have a child. Helen turned her attention to caring for fur babies instead. She and Fred became diligent pet owners and avid animal lovers. The couple also lived close to the Bronx Zoo, and frequently visited the furry friends that lived there. One day, Helen saw an ad for an open position at the Bronx Zoo. At the time, American zoos only hired men as zookeepers. So Helen did what any sensible woman in mid-century America would do. She encouraged her husband to quit his job as a jeweler and apply to become a zookeeper. Fred had no formal training or experience in zoology, but he got the job. Fred became the keeper of the lion house, which was home to an array of big cat species. In 1942, a lioness had a cub and refused to care for it. Worried it would die, Fred decided he needed to enlist the help of the best animal mom he knew- his own wife Helen. Helen took in the cub and named him Macarthur, in honor of General Macarthur. Helen cared for the cub in her and Fred’s apartment, following the zoo’s protocols for care. At the age of 2 months, Macarthur was thriving and he returned to the zoo to live among other lions. Two years later, the zoo’s female tiger gave birth to three cubs. She abandoned all of them, refusing to nurse or care for them. Helen, who had successfully saved Macarthur, was again called upon to care for the baby big cats. She cared for the three cubs in her apartment, just like Macarthur, but the zoo had no set protocols for abandoned baby tigers. There was no guide for her to follow, as the Bronx Zoo had never successfully raised orphan baby tigers before. Helen, determined to succeed and help save the animals, used her own motherly instincts, her previous experience working with lions, and extensive research to develop a method for rearing the cubs. Much of her method was improvised, and used trial and error. Eventually, she developed the perfect diet to get the tigers fit; milk and water in the early days, then the addition of chopped meat as they grew. All three cubs became strong and were able to go back to the zoo. Helen had become a successful zookeeper, all without ever being paid or rewarded in any way. So the Bronx Zoo decided to do the unthinkable- hire a woman. Helen was officially hired as a zookeeper and became America's first woman to work as a professional zookeeper. Her role was to care for baby animals, and she established the Bronx Zoo's first nursery. She converted an old storage space into a place for orphaned and abandoned baby animals. Helen still cared for the youngest babies who needed round the clock care in her apartment, but the older couples are able to thrive in a space all their own. In 1945, Helen was a household name in the Bronx, known by many as a woman with tiger cubs in her apartment. Photographers from Look magazine visited her home, documenting the unique situation of her and her husband. Baby tigers rummaged through the fridge, sat in Helen's armchair, and even rummaged through the cameraman's bag. Helen did not stop at just lions and tigers. She knew other baby animals at the zoo would not be able to thrive if their mother stopped caring for them. Throughout her career, she also raised black leopards, marmosets, jaguars, gorillas, deer, antelopes, and even skunks. Her favorite of this was still, of course, the tigers. Before her retirement in 1960, she had raised 27 tigers in total. In 1951, newsreel video of Helen shows her caring for a baby gorilla named Mambo and refers to her as an “ardent disciple of Spock and Gessell” two child care experts of the era. In the video, Helen feeds baby Mambo from a bottle and sets him in his crib for a nap. You can watch this clip on YouTube and I will include the link on our Tumblr. In 1953, Helen and Fred published a book of photographs and stories which they called “My Family Zoo.” In this book, Helen mentions personal accounts of her favorite animals- Bagheera the leopard, Ugly the howler monkey, Zambezi the lion, Dolly the deer, and Dacca, her beloved tiger cub who went on to have cubs of her own, making Helen a tiger grandma. Unfortunately, this book is out of print and extremely rare. The cheapest copies seem to cost around $60 today. Helen has also inspired several modern children's books including “Cubs in the Tub” and “Mother to Tigers” which are both about her raising the three initial tiger cubs. Helen's work establishing a nursery at the Bronx Zoo was revolutionary in the world of zoology and zoo management. Through her efforts, dozens of vulnerable baby animals were saved and went on to live healthy lives as ambassadors for their species. Her observations of their behaviour and reflections on the issues of raising baby wild animals in captivity provided a foundation of understanding for future zookeepers. Helen, who brought motherly kindness and a caring nature to the zoo, is proof that sometimes a woman's touch is all an industry needs to progress. Also, I just wanna make a quick plea that if any of you are skilled Wikipedia editors, please help my girl Helen get on there and link it to the Bronx Zoo page so that people can find her because she is so cool and there are not many resources on her out there.

Alana: I have a question. Is Bagheera named after The Jungle Book Bagheera?

Lexi: I believe so, but it could just be a coincidence. But it sounds like it, probably.

Alana: It seems like it.

Lexi: Yeah.

Alana: I remember people were talking about the… it's like my mom's favorite song from Jungle Book, where King Louis, the orangutan king, is like singing with Mowgli and people are like “that's racist” and I'm like. I have bad news for you guys. About the Jungle Book. Bad news about Rudyard Kipling.

Lexi: Ruining their childhoods.

Alana: Yeah, for real. It’s like I… I… I have bad news, you know that guy, the guy who wrote The Jungle Book? He also wrote something called “The White Man's Burden” about how it's white people's job to civilize people of color. So maybe… beating a dead horse a little bit.

Archival Audio: In a land, in a forest grim and grand, where the chimpanzees and the cinnamon trees live a simple life with the simianese, a big gorilla he.

Haley: Born in 1932, she is known as the woman who gave her life to save the gorillas. Dian Fossey lead an incredible life and this story is definitely a roller coaster. Honestly guys this might have been the like hardest story for me to write because one, there's so much information about her out there, a lot of that information is conflicting. Based on the author's bias. It is also something that like. Like 1932 is not that far away it's less than a hundred years and it's not like she was– she… born and died between like before 1950. She's kinda more relevant. She knows Jane Goodall, we'll get into all of that. A lot of that information was hard to dissect. Let's– let's hope I did a good enough job for y’all. Please don't come out– come after me if I left something out. I could honestly go on for hours this could have been like a two parter for me. Alright. Let's start this history book at the beginning. Dr Dian Fossey was born and raised in San Francisco, California and she grew up in an environment surrounded by animals. So much so that she wanted to be a veterinarian, and fun fact she was an avid horseback rider so we got a horse gal for us here. Fast forward a little bit. Dian Fossey didn't really study veterinary, but she was still in the whole helping people, helping animals– because like humans are animals– and graduated with an occupational therapy degree. Moved to Louisville, Kentucky where she was the director of the Kosair Crippled Children’s Hospital as an occupational therapist or she was the head of that department. This was in 1955 hence the dumb name. I really hope that wasn't the name but it was in 1955. There she also was living on a farm so she couldn’t super get away from animals because she did own some, had the whole farm life. But it wasn't enough to fulfil her adventurous side, and as the years went on, she was kind of itching to do something more and going back to animals seemed like the obvious choice. So in September 1963, Dian went to Africa for the first time ever. This trip not only cost her her entire life savings, but also an entire bank loan had to be taken out just so she could like go to Africa and do some research. Well, this clearly paid off because while visiting Kenya, Tanzania, and other places, she met paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey and her husband archaeologist Louis Leakey. And this is a side note like snaps they introduced her as Mary Leakey and her husband and my jaw just dropped I was like yes I was going to do this anyway! It was also the relationship that she had with the Leakeys, that she met up with Jane Goodall. And the Leakeys at this point wanted to find ways to make sure other areas– because paleoanthropology is the study of like really really old things, fossils, before human life– they are the guys who did Lucy. Af- Afric– Africanus– what was it–

Alana: Australopithecus

Haley: Austro– Someone please say it.

Lexi: Australopithecus africanus, right?

Haley: There we go. Yes, that is Lucy. It was also this relationship with the Leakeys that she was able to meet Jane Goodall. And Jane Goodall was part of this whole Leakey corporation, society, relationship, business type thing, because the Leakeys as paleoanthropologists were really interested in studying primates and how they worked genetically, historically, all that stuff with our ancestors as Australopithecus Africanus etcetera etcetera etcetera. We can truly visit this for hours and hours and hours. However, we don't have the time. So Dian kind of got the gorilla side of it and she also met with native wildlife photographers who were working on a documentary about African gorillas, and it was there that Dian was like “yes, I love gorillas, I really want to continue this, this is where I was meant to be.” And back in the States Dian kept thinking about Africa, endangered gorillas, and how she can get more involved. She ended up accepting an offer which allowed her to live among the mountain gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo and then Rwanda, because of like the civil war that was happening she had to move around, be safe. In Rwanda, she established the Karisoke Research Foundation in Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park to be like the base camp for her research. She grew her name in the primatology field and was the leader on the physiological and behavioral side of mountain gorillas. So really looking at how they interact with each other, and what individualistic qualities they resemble, so not seeing them as purely these hungry animals that will rip you from limb to limb. How did they act with their children, how did they act with their others like the male versus female, how do they act with other species in the area, all that good stuff. And her work also extended to the protection of our furry comrades by shedding light on how poachers kill gorillas and the violence against them overall. This opened up for international recognition of her work and the work to protect specifically the plummeting numbers of gorillas. So by this time, a lot of people knew her name. During this time, as she was building her framework for her research foundation, doing research herself, she obtained a PhD from Cambridge and then was now Dr Dian and continued more research through Cornell University. However, here on Lady History we have to cover the bad or the ugly. And… So… Look at the show notes for more, but I'll just give you the gist of why her as a conservationist wasn't necessarily a great woman. Like the two didn't have to blend. You can be a great conservationist but a shitty human being. Because in the eyes of the local Rwandans, they were often offended by the way she treated them. This is really like, reading this back I feel– I am getting such– just nervousness I– these are not my words, these are hers. So she would kind of call like a group meeting and go down the list of things and she just turned to locals and be like “my Africans.” It's not great. Even if it's like a little bit racist, it’s still racist. There's also instances of people not being paid on time, but I couldn't find concrete evidence more on like the foundation and research headquarters as a whole, because like she obviously, while was the head, she's not the only person in charge of things, like that’s not how like, a budding foundation worked. Many people– this is like a heavily debated topic in the fields of like how much praise do we give her because she had… she was racist at times, and she was discriminatory. But she did make these huge contributions and the lives of like endangered gorillas. She did devote much of her life to protect the “gentle gorillas” as she would call them from the human and environmental hazards. Unfortunately, her life was cut short because on December 26, 1985, she was found hacked to death. And a lot of this was kind of like circumstantial because they have not found the guilty party and prosecuted them for murder, but they believe that she was murdered by poachers at her Rwandan forest camp. Yeah, Alana’s face is dropped. It took a turn.

Lexi: You’ve never seen Gorillas in the Mist?

Alana: No!

Haley: So I watched Gorillas in the Mist, and I get to that, it's in her legacy. But my mom like turned it off or somehow– I don't remember this ending. I didn't remember that she died. And I read it again and I was like racism… Murder!

Lexi: She did that classic mom thing where you turn off the bad part of the movie.

Haley: I really think that’s what happened.

Lexi: I didn’t know there was a second VHS tape to the Sound of Music for twenty years.

(Alana laughing)

Lexi: Because the Nazis! And I’m German, so I wasn’t allowed to know there were Nazis.

Alana: Oh, that’s such a big problem!

Haley: Yeah, yeah. As you all know I like to just add a little bit of the legacy, and her legacy is still living through the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, formerly named the Digit Fund, that's also linked in the show notes. Otherwise the book she wrote in 1983, Gorillas in the Mist, was turned into a movie, as Lexi said, which starred Sigourney Weaver in 1988. I don't know. I'm kind of stuck on this girl, on whether like, I think she's a great– she's definitely not a great human, personally, but like her contributions to science. But I just want to provide all information and be like… and let's respect that she did help the gorillas out, but probably did it in a way that we all cringe now.

(Archival music)

Alana: We've been talking about zookeepers, zoologists, primatologists, you know, that's the theme of the episode. But I feel like we're leaving a key demographic out of this discussion. So my lady for today is Koko the gorilla.

Haley: What?

Alana: Yeah.

Lexi: Fantastic.

Haley: I'm so on board for this.

Alana: Gorilla ladies are ladies.

Haley: I'm speechless

Alana: I’m so glad.

Haley: Bravo. This is fabulous, I’m excited.

Alana: Thank you. I'm also excited. So Koko was born on July 4, 1971 and her full name was Hanabi-ko which means fireworks child. And as I'm saying it I'm realizing that that's a Fourth of July reference… like, fireworks. I just got that. Isn’t that fun. And she was born at the San Francisco Zoo. She was a western lowland gorilla who– they have the best Latin name ever it's gorilla gorilla gorilla. And another woman, Dr Francine “Penny” Patterson, started working with her on sign language in 1972 when Koko was only a year old. And then Dr Patterson started the Gorilla Foundation in the Santa Cruz Mountains in 1979. Koko learned a lot of sign language. She knew at least a thousand signs and probably understood about two thousand words because Dr Patterson would talk while she was signing. And that's about the vocab of a toddler. but also like what are non human animals but toddlers? Because I walk a dog, her name is Missy, I love her very much– if she won't leave the park with me, you do that thing that you do with three year olds– “okay bye Missy”– and you walk towards the gate. And what does she do, every single time, she comes running up to me. I say “bye Missy” then she comes. Really what are animals but toddlers. She had a companion named Michael who was rescued from the jungles of Africa and they were supposed to be a breeding pair because it seemed like Koko really wanted a family, in addition to western lowland gorillas being an endangered species. And that's that whole thing about gorillas getting on airplanes with the keepers and private jets, that we were talking about earlier. They didn't actually end up breeding they just became best friends. Like just best friends and they were playmates and it was very fun. He was also learning sign language and potentially learned how to tell the story of watching his mother get killed by poachers. Which… you can learn a little bit more about that I'll leave a link to that in the show notes. So Michael died of a heart condition that's very common in gorillas, and they brought in a second breeding partner whose name was Ndume... also learned sign language. Koko did get pregnant, but she had a miscarriage and couldn't get pregnant after that. So, similar to Lexi’s lady. So instead they got her kittens. Lexi is so happy about this. This is the best story ever. In 1984– 

Lexi: Kittens… I’m sorry.

Alana: I know!

Lexi: It’s just so cute!

Alana: I know! In 1984 she adopted a kitten named All Ball that she named, by signing, because she apparently loved rhyming words in sign language. And that inspired a book called “Koko's Kitten” and it's a little kids’ book and it's still in elementary schools all over. But then the cat got hit by a car and died, which is too bad. But for her forty fourth birthday, in 2015, they got her two more kittens and she named them Miss Gray and Miss Black because they were gray and black. Here's where the story gets maybe not as fun. In 2005 Koko kind of got Me Too’d? Three employees at the foundation, three other keepers claimed that Koko asked them to lift their shirts and show her their nipples, which Dr Patterson encouraged. They settled out of court, but like they were sued. That is kind of weird, but– and I was a little bit in disbelief– but also Robin Williams, who famously met her in 2001, talked about her doing that to him. It's just– it's jarring. So that's all very Tiger King, except Dr Patterson is actually like a scientist and has published real papers and isn't horrible. When Michael died, Koko actually expressed grief for him, the same thing when Robin Williams died. The Nat Geo article announcing her death, they had a quote from some guy who really had the audacity to talk shit about zoos while they were talking about how Koko died. And this person was like “yeah she did all these cool things for science but also she shouldn’t have been in a zoo.”And I was like oh my god… Let the people mourn an icon. But she is also– Koko herself has had a lasting legacy. She expanded how we think about animals and language. Like humans have to keep adding to the definition of language so that we can exclude how other species communicate. And some people think that she was only mirroring Dr Patterson or Dr Patterson and her associates were projecting, but Koko signed to herself and there's video in a 60 Minutes Australia segment where she's signing to herself. She has a hat, that is a flowered hat, it's a flower bucket hat. It's real cute, it's something baby Alana would absolutely have worn. And so she's signing “flower” and “hat” to herself. She would also invent signs. Like, she didn’t have a word for “ring” so when she saw Dr Patterson wearing a ring, she signed “finger bracelet” which is pretty much what a ring is. So I just think that Koko… it's a lot that we can learn about grief, and how animals express grief, and how we express grief, and how we can communicate with things. Because animals absolutely learn words. Like we teach dogs words. We teach them– you know– sit, stay, all that. So they know some human words. You can teach animals words in whatever language you speak. There's a dog who comes to the park who speaks Spanish. His name is also Coco! I don't think it's the same kind of Koko though, but. Yeah so that's the story of Koko. I'm so glad you guys liked my surprise.

Lexi: I love it. I'm a big nerd about the whole Koko situation because I am a big nerd about animals talking. Linguistic anthropology has always fascinated me, and I think it extends to animals, and a lot of anthropologists don't think it should extend to animals. But I read this book in high school, because I was reading all the books about birds I could possibly find because I had one, I have one still. And the book is called “Alex and Me” and–

Haley: I know that book.

Lexi: The person who is the scientist in that story was inspired by the Koko experiments to do something similar with a bird, and because birds don't have hands, it was vocal- completely vocal communication. And the bird learned to say phrases and even once asked an existential question. So… he asked “what color Alex” which is technically an existential question. And that's how he learned what the color gray was, because he was gray. So that's really interesting that animals do that stuff.

Haley: So my grandparents, I believe I've talked about this before, basically got a male and female cockatiel, started breeding them, and would often give them to their friends as like “hey you're really old, you live alone, here's a friend.” And I remember visiting one of their friends who had one of these birds and the bird would just start talking. And like she taught the bird how to speak, I– at least Spanish, because they're all Spanish speakers. And the bird I think was like a bilingual bird. Because I think he would respond to me and I'd speak English to it. And this bird would just like talk and be like “hello. How are you?” And I just remember as like a small child being like “this bird's talking to me. I thought this was just in movies.”

Lexi: There’s actually a lot of evidence that birds know their names too because parrots, specifically, their moms give each baby a name that's a sound, and while they don't sound like human names, each baby has a sound that is associated with them. So when we raise a parrot in captivity and we call it it's name, it learns it has a name which is–

Haley: Yes.

Lexi: Really, really cool.

Haley: We had them–

Alana: That is amazing.

Haley: –before cockatiels.

Lexi: You can find this podcast on Twitter and Instagram at LadyHistoryPod. Our show notes and a transcript of the show will be on ladyhistory pod dot tumblr dot com. If you like the show, leave us a review and tell your friends, and if you don't like the show, keep it to yourself.

Alana: Our logo is by Alexia Ibarra, you can find her on Instagram and Twitter at LexiBDraws. Our theme music is by me, GarageBand and Amelia Earhart. Lexi is doing the editing. You will not see us, and we will not see you, but you will hear us, next time, on Lady History.

[OUTRO MUSIC]

Haley: Next week on Lady History, it's the witching hour. We’ll be casting a spell on you and discussing some women of witchcraft, women of vampirism you name it, it's spooky season, and we're here to celebrate.

Alana: Dogs are liberal because they love people, cats are liberal because they're smart.

Lexi: Yes. Mhmm. All animals are liberals. 

Haley: I also believe dogs can't be evil.

[pen-whipped]

∞ Wold in an Inch ∞

                    ~for Carlton & Erica~ 

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∞ Prologue ∞

Never give ‘em the last inch was scratched on the wall of the jail cell next to several pairs of initials with hearts drawn around them. A 12’ X 10’ holding tank decorated with similar slogans and signatures where people seem to have thought about only two things while they were here: holding on to one final piece of anything to control and … Love. The walls, ceiling, and floor were coated with thick grey paint where the scriptures were etched; and a metallic bench, toilet, and sink matched all the blandness. Here I realized that one of the greatest motivators of the world is Love. I thought of The Trojan War. Boudicca’s Rebellion against Rome for her daughters. Rama and Sita. Fairytales and over-stretched history, of course. I also thought about ... Nationalism��the disgusting love of country. Racism—the even more disgusting love at the expense of its hatred for others. Capitalism—the love of material goods beyond need and necessity, at the expense of others. Religion—the love for some version of god or gods and the ideals and values that uphold that version. Movements and Rebellions in the name of Love. And so of course I thought about Ernesto “Che” Guevara and how when asked by a reporter, “What inspires a revolutionist,” he responded after a pause and a grin. “Amor” (Love), he said.

I realized then that the other motivator of the world is this power structure that harnesses the actions of those motivated by Love or some extension of Love such as jealousy, desire, passion, rage. Of the two locals I was locked up with, in this small shithole Texas bo-dunk town, one hospitalized a man who slept with his wife and the other had a physical fight with his own wife. A third man loved a woman so much that he joined the carnival she was part of so as to not ever be without her, and thereby revoked his probation. And me … I was headed to a wedding from Colorado to Austin, TX, where my best friend had claimed the love of his life.

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∞ Rite of Passage ∞

You forget these people exist. Even having been raised around them, with them, and by them, you just forget. I was born and raised in Texas, in their jungle like Tarzan with gorillas. And that’s actually the perfect analogy because right when the state trooper says to me, “With a Black in the White House, Queers havin’ a Christian’s marriage, and dope bein’ legalized all over God’s good country, you just cain’t be too careful these days,” what comes to mind is the evolution chart where a drawing of a man standing upright is preceded by different hunchbacked ape-like creatures. Here, barely across the border into the Texas panhandle, knuckles still drag on the ground. You spend over a decade in the land where people walk upright and you forget the knuckle draggers exist.

Karl Marx tells us that killers first make an enemy of their victims before killing them. This is how the crime is justifiable. Such sociopaths have the same characteristics of a nation that makes an enemy of another nation before destroying it. America and its fictitious WMD ploy that led to the Hussein regime’s demise. A nation ran by a Texan. “Now that’s when the country had its head on straight,” he says peeking through his rearview mirror at me behind the glass that separates the front seat from the back.

Red neck adages—they’re like poetry without everything poetic.

“A good Christian was pullin’ the reigns then,” he continues.

I wonder why they speak in parables—southern draw riddles filled with similes and metaphors. His “Christians,” sound more like “Chrust-yens.” I get it. The same way Jesus’ parables made all the rest of the world understandable for the knuckle draggers in his time, so do the redneck adages for our time. And they loves them some Jesus too. He’s everywhere.

I could take his last adage a million different directions other than the one these handcuffs connected to the yellow rope ran through them and around my waist and back up through my thighs insists that I do. He’s fucking hogtied me. I look at the cuffs and yellow rope and think how man is the cruelest of all animals, for a dog would only bite another dog, but we … we shackle and belittle, demoralize and strip identities, rape and enslave, indebt and un-educate one another to the point that we ourselves forget that others are living, breathing human-fucking-beings. But, even with this in mind, I say with a hint of delight, “And we was all better off when it was,” leaning forward to the hole in the glass divider, referring to when a good Southern Chrust-yen led the nation. Never mind that it was war, poverty, and a greater divide between the classes that he led us to.

To reverse Marx’s notion of the killer, if the victim can make the killer identify him or her as one of the killer’s own, or at the very least as a human being, then the victimization is more likely to cease or at minimum the inflictions lose harshness.

There’s a Bible in the front seat, and I’ve heard numerous Chrust-yen references and seen two crucifixes since I was pulled over: one around the narcotics officer’s neck and one dangling from this trooper’s mirror. So I continue, “Yes, sir. My uncle’s lil’ chapel in Amarillo donated all they could to support both Bushes, Junior and his daddy.” (There’s no chapel. No donations. The point is that I too am a Christian, and even greater so, I too am a Texan—though I was born in Texas, I am neither a Christian nor a Texan; he, however, should believe that I am both).

His eye brows perk up. He glances twice in the mirror before saying, “You from Texas?”

“Yes, sir. Born ‘n raised,” I pronounce with a draw that would win me an Academy nomination. “Up north they still make fun’a my accent.” He tells me he didn’t even notice the accent till now. “I hide it so much, ya know. So’s to not get made fun of up ‘er in Colorado.” … and so the game goes until I’m a human being, and then eventually I’m one of his own and he’s telling me about his family, his farm, his career, and finally I get him to admit why he stopped me. This is only an inch, but it’s something.

I’d like to thank The Academy, first; then my rhetoric teacher; followed by my redneck uncles for the southern draw and simplified grammar.

He’d been claiming I was driving over the speed limit, even though that’s anything but true. Since I don’t have a driver’s license, I kept to the limits the entire drive and planned on it all the way to my destination. Never once drove 5mph more than the limit. And so each time I’d asked how much over the limit he clocked me at, he’d just say not to worry since he’s droppin’ that charge.

“Reason I’m takin’ you in is cuz drivin’ without a DL is breakin’ the law here in Texas.”

But the reason he pulled me over … the reason two K9 Units parked on both sides of my rental car only minutes after I was pulled over … the reason the narcotics officers gave me the 3rd degree interrogation about drug trafficking … is, as he says from under his ten gallon hat, Colorado just passed a law legalizing marijuana, and well, “With a Black in the White House, Queers havin’ a Christian’s marriage … dope legalized in God’s country … you just can’t be too careful these days.”

“Now listen,” he goes on to say, “I realize I’m ‘bout as tight as bark on a tree when it comes to the law. Some may’a just gave ya a ticket and sent ya on yer way, but I believe it’s just as likely fer you to sneak back ‘cross the state line and never return to pay for yer crime. You’d just be whistlin’ Dixie up ‘er like you’d never did nothin’ wrong down here. This a’way,” he says, “You have to wait and see the judge in the mornin’. Pay yer dues and what not.”

I’m shackled like a killer who’d forgot to make an enemy of his victim first. Hogtied like a baby pig that’d escaped the pen. A one-time freed slave who’d left the North and returned South only to be caught without his emancipation papers. I’m thinking in redneck adages. I was driving without a fucking driver’s license for crying out loud!

More laws lead to more crimes lead to more criminals lead to more jobs to catch, house, and process the criminals, which lead to more revenue leading ultimately to more money circulating within the system. Criminals are filters for the process in this way, lab rats exploited for the greater good, space monkeys for the ruling knuckle draggers. Karl Marx claims that in capitalistic societies, the people are concerned more about money and commodities than they are other human beings.

Dogs, on the other hand, well … they just bite one another.

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∞ Crossing the Threshold ∞

It’s hard to believe Nietzsche’s claim that we should celebrate the rebel for reminding us of our enslavement to the system when I’m told to strip all my clothes off and lift my dick and nuts up to show that nothing’s stashed away in some secret compartment.

The first steps to make a slave of an individual are to separate them from their own kind and then strip them of their identity. Separate the rebel from his support group and give him the title criminal, thereby giving a less lustrous title and making the act of any rebellion lose any glory to others contemplating similar actions.

Ranchers hang dead wolves on fence posts for similar reasons. Other wolves are deterred from entering land when they see the carcass of what was one of their own that dared to “trespass.”

Romans left messiahs hanging on crosses to discourage other messianic aspirations.

A simple change in titles shows the power of words.

They take my cell phone and my wallet with all its contents including cash and ID card. No contact. No identity. They take my clothes, which could in many ways show identity. And as I hold my dick and nuts in my hand and he gazes long and hard at my taint, I think, I just didn’t have my mother fucking driver’s license, though I dare not utter a word.

To fight monsters is to become one, Nietzsche says.

I’m handed a green jump suit and a pair of flip-flops, and with that, a new identity. I am no longer the rebel who dared to drive to his best friend’s wedding without a driver’s license; I am now a criminal in the Republic of Texas. I’m a fucking dead wolf on a fence post. Jesus hanging next to others who did not abide by the law.

I am one step closer to the beast’s belly as they seat me next the woman who’s only job is to tag the slaves and send them to their quarters.

“98% of Colah’rahdins that we pull over have marijuana on ‘em. That’s statistically,” she says popping her gum and not taking her eyes off the computer screen for one moment.

I’m not human to her. I’m a product with a barcode that she runs across the scanner. I’m an enemy, soon to be a victim. A rebel turned criminal. I am not one of her kind.

“They come in here cryin’, talkin’ ‘bout how it’s legal up in Colah' rahda. Well it ain’t down here. Those types is ‘bout as welcome as a skunk at a lawn party.”

She’s as poetic as the trooper. Stoic.Short, round, and full of attitude. Dedicated to a system that is more unjust to those who are of no concern to it than it is unjust to those who are offensive to it. Another Nietzsche claim.

As a new challenge arises within me, I notice something in myself that I begin to notice in all human nature. I want to break this preset image she has prescribed me with, partially as a challenge of wits, but also because I want to get as much as I can from her, however little it may be. Even if … it’s just an inch. With the trooper gone and the officer who checked my taint nowhere to be found, this lady has current reign over me like a slave master.

I start the game with the presupposed idea she has of me. I can’t speak in a dialect that makes me sound ignorant and fitting to the image she has of all who come through here; and I can’t speak from the education level I have that is far above her own. I have to speak plainly. To her. Not above, nor below. All we have in common at this point is our current relationship. And that’s enough to work with.

The strategy behind me telling her, “I bet you see the worst of the worst,” is to separate myself from those who are in fact the worst of the worst. And she responds to this.

“You have no idea.”

Now, to connect more with her, I say, “Well, my cousin’s a prison guard at the federal penitentiary in Colorado; and he tells me that every four years a prison guard works, what it does psychologically to him or her is equal to what one year does to a prisoner. You’re still behind bars and surrounded by criminals in here. Man, I feel for ya’.” Now, I’ve further separated myself from the criminals she’s used to and have shown that I am more on her side of the law, even if just through a relative. I’ve also dabbled in some sort of empathy of her situation, shown understanding as to why she wears that frown and never looks a processee in the eyes.

“This job has made me never trust men again; I’ll tell ya’ that much,” she says. “Don’t get me wrong,” and for the first time she turns her head and looks me in the eyes, “I ain’t no fuckin’ carpet muncher though.”

I’m in. Ten minutes later and she’s laughing with me and barely asking the questions the computer screen tells her to: do I have this ailment or that ailment, am I suicidal or have I ever been suicidal, am I addicted to drugs or have I ever been…and so on.

“Listen,” I say during one of the most intense moments of laughter shared between us, “Can I ask a favor of you?”

Her posture shoots straight up and her frown returns. She doesn’t look me in the eyes anymore and she certainly does not laugh. She says, “I don’t know ‘bout that.”

“Calm down,” I tell her with a smile, “All I want to know is if you can prolong this processing. I ain’t gonna lie, an extra moment spent out here laughing with you is greater than any moment spent in the holding tank.”

An extra moment is an inch.

I see her body ease from its defenses. “You mean you ain’t ready to paint your butt white and go runnin’ with the antelope just yet, huh?” And she smiles.

“No, ma’am, I ain’t.”

All I’d done with the trooper was try to get anything I could from him, even if it was just the admission to why he pulled me over. With her I want as much time out of the holding tank as possible, or at the very least, same as with him, I want her to see me as a human being.

I think about life outside of here, how all we do in life is try to get a little more than we have from those who are in control of us or in control of the things we want. A nickel raise from our boss. A better position in the workforce. A higher grade from a teacher. Equity on homes. More square footage in our lofts. Return on investments. Sex from a lover. Devotion from a lover. Love, period. All we want is to get a little more of the control that controls us. And then Nietzsche comes to mind:

This world is a will to power, he says, and nothing besides.

A new rebel comes in and this lady has me stand in a corner while she processes him. She does this twice more before I realize she’s stalling for me. Rather than process me and have them wait their turns, she goes through them first; thus allowing my processing to be prolonged. I am now a human being.

After the third rebel passes through and into his new criminal identity, she finishes my questions, finger prints, and mug shots; and then says, “That was the best I can do. It’s time.”

I thank her. Tell her it’s more than enough.

“Now, walk down that hall to the laundry room," she motions the direction with her hand, "And then we’ll get ya’ in that tank”

She follows me. Doors buzz open as we arrive at them. In the laundry room she tells me to grab a mat, a sheet, and a blanket, all of which are stacked neatly on different shelves next to industrial size washers and dryers. “If you want two blankets, I can do that for you too; but you’re gonna have to deal with the others bein’ jealous.”

“Gladly,” I say.

“Then unroll ‘em and roll ‘em back up together so it looks like a mistake was made.”

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∞Belly of the Beast∞

“It’s gonna be about 12 hours before the judge is in,” she says as the door shuts behind me. The three rebels from earlier are sprawled out on the floor. Same jump suit as me. Same blankets. Same matts. Same flip-flops next to the matts. We are one and the same.

The messiah on his cross did not stand out from the murderer or the thief on theirs.

One lifts his head up and slides his pallet over to make room for me. “Don’t shit unless you absolutely have to,” he says looking at the silver toilet fully exposed in the corner. As he rolls over and back to sleep, he continues, “Even dogs don’t shit where they lay.” The others never move. I make my bed, careful not to reveal that I have two blankets.

I lie in utter silence.

I think first about Martin Luther King, JR and his Letter from Birmingham Jail, where he too was arrested for being, as his jailers claimed, an unwelcomed outsider in their state. Though I dare not think my circumstances are remotely comparable to his and his time in the Alabama jail, I am reminded of him saying in his letter, Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

And though I was not racially profiled, I was indeed profiled. With a Black in the White House, Queers getting married, and dope legalized all over, a change is slowly coming—a change that threatens the way of life where these types of comments are made. To a far smaller degree, my green and white Colorado license plates are Martin’s black skin. And, with everything stripped from me, I lie here experiencing what Martin called, nobodyness.

This cold, horizontal floor is the belly in the beast of order. All laws, all virtues, all values—all of which are based on perspective, are the means to make order from the seemingly chaotic. And this is the bottom of that order. The exploited who arrive here, or any floor like this one anywhere, are merely, as Nietzsche claims of all exploitations, consequences of the will to power, which is after all the will to life.

I’ve become the consequence of a way of life fighting to sustain itself. I represent the other life that strives to grow, spread, seize, and become predominant - not from any morality or immorality but because it is living and because life simply is… again and again I claim with Nietzsche and experience it now more than ever … a will to power.

I'm sorry that I can't praise the police department. It is true that they have been disciplined in their public handlings, but for what purpose? To preserve an evil system. I try to make it clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or even more, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. So said Martin Luther King JR in that letter he wrote from jail.

I imagine the letter I’ll write, and think that it has to be dedicated to my best friend and his new bride. Like the little drummer kid in the manger banging bongos next to bay Jesus’ crib, this letter is all I have to give. And in it I’ll mention how I thought mostly of Marx, Nietzsche, King JR, Lacan, and Campbell. It will only be a matter of time, I think, and I’ll be out of here and writing my own Letter from a Texas Jail.

That very matter of time stretches beyond all previously known flexibilities for time. No prior concept of it exists in here. I clear my thoughts of King JR when one of my fellow mates awakens and asks a passing guard for Tylenol. And when the guard returns with a bottle of pills and a sign-off sheet, he asks the guard what the time is. I’d been to Birmingham and visited the King in his cell after I watched him protest with non-violent means he’d learned from Gandhi, saw him arrested by bigots with faces as stoic and prescribed with presupposed ideals of particular people as that of the lady who’d processed each of us in this cell, I sat next to King JR while each pen stroke gave birth to one of the most widely anthologized letters of our time, and when the guard looks at his watch and says, “a quarter to midnight,” I am in utter disbelief.

You can fit days inside the minutes of a jail cell, so I learn. Centuries in its hours.

The other two wake and ask for Tylenol too, admitting quietly amongst ourselves that they don’t need it. “You might as well take what you can get around here,” one says. And it’s at this moment that we all introduce ourselves for the first time and then tell our tales of capture. After this the conversation goes directly to, and never leaves the topic of, pussy. The variations of pussy from looks to feel, from hair lengths to shaved, from menstruating bloody to (what each of them agrees is the best of all pussies:) pregnant pussy. “I wouldn’t know, honestly, never have had that kind,” I say.

But what I really want to say is …

I want to tell the guy who beat his wife’s lover to a pulp about how Jacques Lacan took one of Sigmund Freud’s studies a layer deeper than Freud himself did. Freud demonstrates that at times children will not want to play with a toy, nor will they care at all about a particular toy, until another child wants to play with it. Lacan studied infant twins who could neither speak nor barely move more than their arms and heads, but would easily and obviously be overcome with a fit of jealous rage when the other sibling would suckle from the mother’s breast. I imagine this guy probably not wanting much to do with his wife until someone else did. He threw a fit like an infinite. Something intrinsic in us seems to want to control everything, even if it is only the desire of the other. A child would rather destroy a toy it cared nothing about than to see another child enjoy that very same toy. It’s about control, holding on to every inch within reach.

I want to ask the other cell mate why he beat his wife. He never tells why they fought, but I'm certain it can be connected to Freud’s idea of the Ego being projected from within us and into our outwardly real world surroundings, creating all things we fear and hate, as well as all things we desire and love. This means all things externally felt and imagined are more than directly related to our inner selves; they are, more particularly, our inner selves externalized. Buddhists have a similar belief that all enemies are only such because we have made them so. No one is our enemy whom we have not made be; and furthermore who our enemy is says more about us than them. These ideas combined mean that all things are manifestations of the Ego. We set all challenges and obstacles in our own way. And so I wonder about this other cell mate of mine; what could he have projected from within himself onto the woman that birthed his children; what fear or hatred brewed inside himself so much that he beat the shit out of her as if she was the embodiment of that abstraction from within himself. I wonder…

I want to discuss the carnival love. This guy loved a woman and didn’t want to be without her, but he’s been cycled and recycled in the system since he was a teenager, and so he had to rebel against an order to be with her. He committed a crime as a child and has been paying for it since through a series of revocations and so on. He’s one of the oldest in our cell but he has a childlike quality to him, an innocence that none of us possess, as if this system has kept him in the state he was in when he committed his crime. I think about Nietzsche saying that at one time in history, people who wronged others in their social group were punished with a severity that equaled the crime; and after that punishment, not only did they not repeat the offenses, but they also were considered to have paid their debt for the offense. Nietzsche claimed in the late 19th century (and I would claim is even more the case in our 21st century) that nowadays people pay for a crime for the remainder of their lives, whether it be through the inability to acquire decent work based on criminal records or it be the continuous revocation of the same crime committed decades prior. The overall goal for the endless un-reconciliation is one similar to medical industries not wanting to find a cure for ailments. People dependent upon and stuck within the system become filters for the process of monetary circulation and are best kept as such, as lab rats for the greater good, as space monkeys for the knuckle dragggers.

I’m thinking these things, though I dare not utter a word of them. Instead, I join in with the dogs and bark about the variations of bitches and pussies as I know them. I would separate myself from the pack if I were to provide my insight to anything other.

It’s here I realize we’re all in this cell due to some relation to love, even if by some extension of it: jealousy, passion, and so forth. I represent the beginning stages: a wedding. The carny represents the next: giving up the self for love and fulfilling the desire of the other. The guy who beat his wife is some stage nearer the end, either right before or directly after she cheats on him. And thus the final stage, the guy beats the wife’s new lover to a pulp. And the cycle is complete in a way that makes an enemy of Love and thereby justifies the system that controls it.

I wonder if it all is really, rather than being about love … is all this … is life and the control of it all really about … I mean … could it be that as the dogs in this kennel discuss nothing more than … could all of life, directly or indirectly, really be about pussy? This is, of course, from a man’s perspective; we could say “cock” for a woman’s, or perhaps some ambiguous sexual connotation to encompass both genders (Freud and Lacan would say both genders are phallic, for even the lack of something is the representation of that something that is missing). 

I wonder ... Is love really our own childlike want to control a vagina like a toy? Do we ever leave the Oedipus and Electra Complex stages, where the moment a child first recognizes their own sexual identity, the very next step is to focus libidinal energy on the parent of the opposite sex? Then, all extensions and versions of jealousy and rage focus on the parent of the same sex. Is the guy who hospitalized his wife’s lover not the unrepressed Oedipus Complex, since his desire to possess and control the sexuality opposite his own and destroy the one that is the same as his and therefore the rival to him actually plays out, as if it escaped its subconscious repression? And he, like most of us, dared not think about sharing that vagina, as if it were his little toy that he could not stand the thought of someone else getting pleasure from. He demonstrates how we will throw tantrums that destroy others if they play with or attempt to play with things we claim as our own. We are nothing more than infant twins, each on opposite tits, sucking away and making an enemy of our own brother for indulging as we do. We will beat him to a pulp. Hospitalize or imprison him. Make a repeat offender of him to trap him within the system that supports this behavior because this justifies its existence. Even if it is all over a toy we care nothing about.

The law shapes man into its image, Lacan says, exploiting the poetic function of language to give man’s desires symbolic mediation.

I often think that we are no different from salmon, spending our whole lives trying to get back to the place we came from. We swim up streams of vaginas every chance we get until we die, and sometimes we die by them or because of them. Salmon spawning in the one place it was spawned from. I say vagina, or I say pussy, but really I understand that this is connected to reproduction. This is connected to survival of the species. We humans are a living, breathing organism that strives to grow, spread, seize, and dominate every inch of our immediate surroundings (for us as individuals) until this inch grows into all space (for us as whole organized units).

Everything we do is connected to the womb—that which we crawl out of like Jesus rolling the stone back for resurrection. To die and be born again in the same place, we have to protect the womb. We have to keep it sacred and cleanly, preserve its virgin-like and godly qualities. We have to claim it as our friend, our soul mate, our companion, our wife, the mother of our children. In other words, we build walls of illusion around it like fences around territory. And then we hang dead carcasses on posts to deter other dogs. We have to claim the womb by some way that designates us as the sole owner; meaning, we control it and only we can touch it; only we can play with it; no one else can stick their cocks in it but us; and no one but us gets pleasure from the one we claim as our own. Otherwise … we will destroy it—a Pagan temple where queues of beasts await in provocation. The goddess becomes a fallen statue in her own bed of ash, dripping, oozing, disease infested, and speaking the language of heathens from some dead religion. Decrepit and useless. There will be no rebirth otherwise.

∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫

∞Road to Trial∞

Just before the twelfth hour in the tank, when conversation was dead and sleep was impossible, I lie awake reading all the markings on the walls and floor. Hieroglyphics of the slaves. None betraying the pattern of either keeping control of something or always loving someone. I wonder by what means were they able to leave these marks, but then I see the broken pieces of concrete rock lying loosely about the floor. As an unfamiliar feeling sets in, something beyond boredom and close to devastation, I understand how scratching philosophy into the layers of paint would help ease this approaching panic. A small purpose would be given in this way, a tiny goal, something that lets us and others know we were here, alive, and real; and something that (once again) becomes our own.

I grab a rock and underneath the slogan Never give ‘em the last inch, I start my own contribution, slowly inscribing: and take

The guy who beat his wife, he jumps up as if he’d woke from a nightmare. Sweating and breathing hysterically. He pushes a button on the wall and a woman’s voice comes through a small speaker demanding to know what his emergency is. He can’t speak. He’s hyperventilating. Me being close to panic already, I feel his instability spreading to me. Like some air born pathogen. And from the looks on the faces of the others as they begin to watch, it’s spreading to them as well.

A loud buzzer. The door opens. A guard takes him out of the cell and as he does he says, “Holy shit, this tank’s stuffy’er ‘na horses face eatin’ corncobs.”

The window is completely fogged over, as if we’ve been recycling each other’s breaths for centuries now. The guard stands next to the open door allowing new and cold air to come in. I sit upright, lay a blanket across my lap, wrap another around my shoulders, close my eyes, breath deeply and slowly, and attempt the first meditation of my life. I don’t know what meditating actually is or even what it consists of, nor do I know how to actually do it. But I attempt it anyway, attempting it as I’ve heard of it being done. I eventually calm myself through the process and end up in some place other than where I am.

I journey through Joseph Campbell’s theory of monomyth. Thinking back to Colorado when I, the hero, was called to action as Campbell says is the first step of all heroes ranging from Greek and Roman mythological heroes to Buddha and Jesus. I see the mountains—snowcapped and towering in their implications of a land where it’s okay for Blacks, Queers, and drug users to be human beings. According to Campbell’s theory, after the hero begins his journey, he will first cross a threshold where some foreign creature will take him further into the land of the unknown, or as Campbell says, the entrance to the zone of magnified power … where darkness and danger reside … a passage beyond the veil of the known into the unknown. The threshold guardian takes the hero closer to if not directly into The Belly of the Whale, according to Campbell. Jonah comes to mind, of course. But also, Dionysus and Hestia. Jason and Medea. Odysseus and the Odyssey. Jesus and the Romans. Me and the knuckle draggers. The hero enters the belly of the whale where the metamorphosis begins. Once inside he may be said to have died, only to return to the World Womb anew.

“Where’d you get two blankets from?” the guard asks me, and my eyes snap open and I’m brought back into my cell. I shrug my shoulders, act clueless, and say they were wrapped this way. “Supposed to only have one,” he says and turns around. And with that our cell mate returns, pale but calmed. He apologizes and goes right to his mat and blanket. Everyone rolls their backs to one another; and still seated upright, I close my eyes to the heavy noise of the door shutting.

Campbell says the hero, upon exiting the whale’s belly, is no longer who or what he was when he entered it, and he is then ready for a series of trials and tests from some awaiting female character—either a goddess or a temptress of some sorts—who has the ability to lead the hero astray or to encourage him to continue his journey. After her, the hero meets a male father figure for atonement consisting in the abandonment of the self-generated double monster—the superego and repressed Id. This requires an abandonment of the attachment to ego itself … and one must have faith that the father is merciful. This center of belief will be transferred outside of the self.

After a few moments of being lost in the silence, I wake. I grab my piece of the floor, the small chiseled concrete rock, and I continue my contribution to the slogan. As quiet as I can, next to my two words—and take, I press the rock into the paint and drag it into figures forming the words: back every inch from ‘em you can.

With a small purpose, there is no panic. Time is irrelevant. I take careful pride in my lettering and refurbishing the part of the slogan not created by me. I add a comma after the other rebel’s part of the slogan and a period after my own, uniting them as one and the same and ending them together as such. I brush the remnants clear and blow heavily across the phrase that now reads:

Never give ‘em the last inch, and take back every inch from ‘em you can.

I read it and wonder if others will understand it, or if it will be hidden by all the other slogans like the messiah surrounded by murders and thieves. I wonder if others will add to it. I think in years it will turn into a poem—stanzas by those of us who know what it means to own nothing except that final fucking inch. In decades it will become a new decree … maybe. But really I know it will be lost and forgotten once it’s covered with a new shade of grey paint as thick and dense as the power structure that willed it to be. Winds turn sands and hide footprints this same way.

Centuries pass and then the door buzzes and the guard says, “Westerholt. The judge will see you now.”

I throw one blanket to the carny and one to the guy that beat his wife’s lover. The guy who beat his wife, he says to me, “Hey man. Larry’s the impound guy; I know him. He ain’t gonna give you your car without a license. He’s gonna bleed you for every cent he can.”

“Thanks for the heads-up,” I say. And the door shuts behind me.

A new lady sits where the first did, but they are one and the same, like Romans to a messiah.  She hands me my clothes and directs me toward the same room where I showed my dick to the officer earlier. It’s almost 10am. Within ten minutes I dress, and then I’m given my wallet and cell phone back. And with that, my own identity.

“Directly across the street's the courthouse.  Judge’s chambers is down the hall, last door on the left. She’s waitin' for ya’.”

When all the barriers and ogres have been overcome … the triumphant hero meets the Queen Goddess of the World. This is the crisis at the nadir, the zenith, or at the uttermost edge of the earth, in the tabernacle of the temple …  The meeting with the goddess is the final test of the talent of the hero to win the advantage of her charity …  And if she shuns him, the scales fall from her eyes; if she does not, her desire helps him find peace. So says Joseph in his Hero of a Thousand Faces.

Outside the sun is warm and bright and opposite everything from where I just came. I breathe and taste the air like a newborn resurrected from the womb. Squinting and yawning and stretching. Each vehicle that passes is a truck of some kind: dualies, F150s, and old farm pickup trucks. The buildings are from some other era, pre 20th century. No stop lights in either direction for as far I can see. It’s like a dream. I’m lost on some time travel expedition. If a horse and buggy came down the street and stopped to watch two gun slingers pace and draw on one another, I would not be surprised in the least.

Down the hall of the courthouse and in the last door on the left, I wait to see the judge in an office with Jesus décor all over. Crosses hang on the walls. Bibles on the shelves. Magnets on the filing cabinets: several with proverbs and one with a picture of Jesus holding a lamb. A picture on the wall shows a man and a woman holding hands and walking on the beach toward a sunset that colors the entire scene shades of orange. At the bottom of the poster it reads, Our love is designed by Jesus. And though it’s a silhouette of a male and a female figure holding hands, it’s obvious they are a white couple. A white, heterosexual, non-drug using couple, designed by Jesus himself. I am in God’s country, at least this version of god; and I am about to have one his own protégés pass the same judgment on to me as they would have he himself pass it. Since he hates Blacks, Queers, and junkies I think it fortunate, at the very least, that I am white, heterosexual, only on the proper occasion do I use drugs, and it helps that I really am originally from this god fearing jungle.

She yells from the courtroom next door that she’s ready for me and the secretary gives me a nod. “She’ll see you now,” she says as if I was too stupid or not worthy of hearing the judge’s yelling myself.

The courtroom is empty of people but filled with antique wooden chairs with red velvet cushions aligned in scattered rows. Her desk is at the front of the room. This is not the typical courtroom you see on TV depicting the 21st century. This looks like an elementary school from a time when plainsong and national athems filled the rooms. It’s still haunted by such chimes. 

An old white lady with short and tightly curled grey hair peers over the rims of glasses at me as I approach. I ask her very politely if I may take a seat at one of the two chairs across from her desk. The game has already begun; I know the one inch I want from her. I no longer use the dialect I did in the tank where pussy was the topic. I now speak with a language even elevated above that I did with the lady who gave me my slave tags. I follow our introductions with lots of yes ma’ams and no ma’ams. And when she gets a pencil out to start figuring the total fines, I quickly mention that I am an English instructor at the university back home and so math certainly isn’t my strong point. Simultaneously I have informed her of a respectable career as well as humility exposed through a personal weakness. We laugh a bit at my expense: the joy of all I’ve been through and the circumstances that caused them. I admit fault repeatedly, bring up the importance of the wedding, and I most certainly mention being originally from Texas myself. And not two seconds after she tells me the total for my fines, I ask for my inch.

“Your Honor,” I say, “I wonder if you might consider giving me anything for the time I served in your jail. I spent nearly 13 hours in the tank and just wondered if you can give me anything for that. However little it may be. I would be more than grateful.”

“Well, we don’t give anything for time less than 24 hours served,” she says. And just as I nod in understanding and tuck my chin to my chest, she says, “Usually… that is,” and she smiles. “How ‘bout this?” She scribbles through the original total she’d written down, which was just over 400 dollars, and she draws a new figure that is just under 300 dollars.

It’s not much, but it’s something.

I shake her hand and thank her. And I notice, Joseph Cambpbell was right, scales do not fall from her eyes.

∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫

∞Atonement∞

One step closer to getting out of God’s country, I call Larry’s Tow. After I tell him who I am and ask for directions to his impound lot, he says, “Hell, boy, I’m out-n-about. Only two clicks from ya’ now. I’ll pick ya’ up.”

The final step for Campbell’s hero is confrontation with a male figure who holds the key to either life or death. In my case, the final figure holds the keys to my rental car. And I’ve already been warned by my cellmate that once this Larry guy discovers I have no driver’s license, he’ll care more about money than he does about me as a human. He will see me as some sort of cash cow ready for the prostate milkin’, or something like that; I’m sure. But, as Campbell claims, the hero must have faith that this male figure is merciful. Paralleled with Freud’s claim of the Ego’s projections becoming manifestations, the hero must transfer his inner mercy outward and onto this male figure who then reflects it back as an act. In other words, I have from the time Larry picks me up on the corner near the courthouse until wherever his impound lot is to pull out all the same inch winning tricks I have so far.

As I stand on the corner in the centermost part of this Wild West remake, an oversized truck with a diesel engine’s purr pulls up next to me and the door swings open. “Hop own in,” says the old man. In a Western flick, his name would be Stretch. His boots rest at the bottom of his long thin legs that are wrapped tightly with denim. His belt buckle protects his entire midsection like a shield. Button collar shirt with stripes and his lip’s fat and full of chew. “Colla’rahda, huh? Bet it smells like pig’s shit and cow guts to ya’ll when ya’ll come down here to the panhandle.” And he’s right. The stench is everywhere. Breezes are unwelcome; all they do is spread the horror. “Ta’ us, down ‘ere, That’s the smella’ money, son.”

I don’t hold back. I fire at him with a southern draw, because I know my time is limited. I have to become one of his own and he’s already attempting to separate me from being such.

“Born an’ raised in the panhandle, sir. I know the smell quite well.” With that, I talk about Amarillo being my hometown and I thank him repeatedly for picking me up. Then I continue on with all the same previous strategies as those I used to get every single inch I could from everyone who had some control over my life within this last 20 hour period:

Get those in control to identify with you. Match your language and intellectual level with that of their own; you cannot have those in control thinking you are smarter than they are and you cannot give those in control any reason to believe that you are dumber than they are (one insults their intelligence; the other confirms their stereotype). However, you must behave in a way that lets them know you are aware that they are in control; this will keep them from feeling as if they need to remind you who is in control. This is indeed the classical dialectic of Master and Slave. The slave must know and accept his position, so that he can maneuver through all the barriers that create this position before he can free himself from those very barriers. In other words, a slave must know he is a slave and all the ways in which he is a slave before he can free himself from slavery.

The recipe for making a slave:

• Remove one individual from his or her own people: family, friends, and any other social group.

• Further separate the individual from all people who speak the same language as him or her.

• Just prior to basting, brush away any previously known identities (this includes everything from the individual’s name to associations they identify themselves with).

• Add new identity in 2 parts: Part One. Give the individual a new title, not a name in the sense of a Proper Noun (this should be something derogatory, something that lets the individual know every time he is summonsed by this title that he/she is at a lower status than his master and/or all those who refer to him by this title). Part Two. The slave should no longer be considered an individual. Their new identity should have him/her assigned to all groups similar in stature as their new position, thereby also losing any individualism. Nigger, Queer, Dope-user, White-Trash, Criminal — these are good examples for both Parts One and Two.

• Prior to adding the slave to one holding tank with no windows to the outside, an act of humiliation should precede (public nudity often works well). The walls of the tank should be painted a dull color so the slave gets no stimulation at all. The tank should also be no more than 12’X10’ in diameter. If a tank of this sort is unavailable, a cage or a shack directly behind the master’s mansion should suffice, so long as the cage or shack is in similar condition as all other animals’ cages on the same property.

• Beat, whip, or whisk the slave at your leisure and to a pulp that is to your liking.

• Serve to a God fearing Christian; and Enjoy!

And since this is the process to make a slave, the recipe need only be reversed for the slave seeking freedom:

• Do not Enjoy! Get/be/remain angry (History shows that angry people are those who shift the course of mankind)

• Do not serve the Christian god. His book and ideals promote slavery (amongst other things like homophobia, patriarchy, servitude to a master [even when not a slave as the current topic], narcissism, and murder of those that are different in any way).

• Consider all beatings, whippings, and whiskings as Nietzsche claims of all things that do not destroy us. Even if they truly do not make us stronger, believe it is so while it’s happening so that you may get through the process and eventually overcome it.

• Remove yourself from the confinements of the master’s tanks, cages, shacks, and even the shadows of his mansion. Position yourself in a way that makes it impossible to be caged (i.e. do not drive without a driver’s license).

• Get your identity back, and associate yourself with those you identify most with, and those whom encourage your self-expression.

• Master the use of language (knowing when and how to use its variations among whom)

The whole reality and its effects lies in the gift of speech, Jacques Lacan says, for it is through this gift that all reality has come to man and through its ongoing action that he sustains reality.

Never has this quote rang truer than here in this desolate Texas dirt-hole town, where language creates both a law and a belief system that imprisons someone for something so minor in its true essence because of how it is greater in its implications. That is to suggest: the act of driving without a driver’s license is not the same threat as the driver and what he represents when coming from a place where value systems are different. But language is the bridge of the dialectical process; and though language enforces, language is used to challenge the enforcer's words. Those who use language like whips and chains to control others as they will themselves into positions of power through it should not be surprised when someone uses language and lashes back in a way that calculates repositioning that same power, even if it is only by an inch in favor of the one lashing back through tongue and pen.

At the impound lot, Larry and I are like old buddies talking about high school football in Texas being better than college football in other states, and Texas women have asses like no other women on the planet (I don’t give a fuck about football. Give me Nietzsche, Freud, Lacan, and King any day. Talk about Campbell and his “follow your bliss” philosophy. Rhetoric and its power to seduce and manipulate. And I damn sure don’t care about Texas ass no more than I do pregnant pussy. But Larry doesn’t need to know any of this). I never lose faith in his mercy; and I’m projecting my inner belief outward and on to him. Tough I dare not do it without the assistance of words, for I believe in the power of language irrevocably.

In this tractor garage just on the outskirts of this shithole Texas town, the lot is filled with locus shelled cars and tow trucks and trailers. And in here, Larry sits at a desk and adds up my cost. Just as he tells me the total, another 300 and something dollars, he orders some other gentleman who's legs dangled out from underneath a truck to go fetch the red hatchback. Instead, just as I hand Larry my debit card, his partner (or employee or whatever he is) rolls out from under the truck and walks right up to us and says, “He ain’t got no DL, Larry. Trooper Walkins told me last night about ‘im not havin’ it. We cain’t let ‘im outta here in that car.”  His greasy cap and brown coveralls become the focus of my hatred.

I turn directly to Larry and ignore ol’ Skeeter, or whatever the fuck his name is, and say, “Larry, I just wanna get home. I’m 50 miles from the Texas border and all I want is to get back to Colorado. I ain’t got no one who can even come get me.”

Larry puts his face in his hands just as ol’ Skeeter, or whatever the fuck his punk ass name is, says, “Cain’t do it. Larry, you ain’t even considerin’ doin’ this; are ya’?”

Skeeter is about to get a drop kick to the fuckin’ throat and a karatee chop to the bridge of his nose right when Larry says, “I don’t know why, but I am considerin’ it. 31 years in this business, and I never have allowed it once." He pauses. Shakes his head. Looks up at me and says, "Why this time, I do not know.”

I’ll tell you why. I’ll tell everyone why … because while I was here in God’s country … I fought, through the use of language—the only tool I’d been afforded and the only tool they did not strip me of—for every last mother fuckin’ inch that was rightfully mine to begin with anyway.

∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫

∞Epilogue∞

The drive home was done at neither one mile over nor one mile under the speed limit. Until I crossed the state line into New Mexico, I felt like a slave on the underground railway. My palms were sweaty; I had cottonmouth; and I kept looking in the rearview mirror for police or troopers. All I wanted was to be back in the north. The moment I was in New Mexico, everything felt differently; and as I approached Colorado, the mountain range in the distance made me feel at ease. I felt proud to call Colorado "home."  I imagined the mountains representing this strange place where black people are accepted, gay people are allowed to love one another, recreational drug use is permitted. I imagined just over the approaching mountain range, Colorado as this land like OZ where witches and flying monkeys all walk upright and don't drag their knuckles on the ground, unicorns and fairies prance and frolic beneath rainbows, more gods than the Hebrew wolf hanging from a cross are celebrated, music plays in streets of gold, dogs chase only their own tails, and police and state troopers spend their time focusing on real crimes.

I missed my best friend’s wedding. The only request he made to his bride to be in regards to the wedding, he said that she could have everything she wanted for the wedding, the only thing he had to have … was me there. It’s been nine days since Carlton and Erica’s wedding and I have not stopped typing this essay since I got home. Every spare moment I found has been spent in front of my laptop laying down this story. I believe dogmatically that language creates and sustains our reality, controls us and gives us the ability to control. And so this story about language, told by way of language itself, is my attempt to capture a moment in time, to control the narrative before it slips away. This is my gift to Carlton and Erica. But more so, it is my apology to them both. Two of the most powerful words in the world, said in any language at any time, are I’m sorry. And though it will never make up for the ceremony I missed, I have just said how sorry I am in just over 9.6 thousand words.

Carlton and Erica, I’m sorry. 

I’m so sorry that I missed the ceremony of your union.

I love you both dearly—forever and always…

One Love.

~Harley

[hiddenbysuccubi]

My audition for Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise: “Welcome to the Jungle Cruise! Any first-timers aboard? Good for you, please tell your friends, unless you hate your ride, in which case tell your enemies!” (boarding ends, ride starts) “Welcome aboard, I’ll be your Skipper, Kyra. I haven’t lost a passenger since the last cruise. Please keep hands and feet inside the boat, there’s an extra tax for digits left along the route, believe me, the local wildlife don’t want your number.” Extra: “Remember to watch your kids! It’s... not in my job description.”

(pass by Indiana Jones line / exit) “We’re starting off on our journey. Just on your right, here you’ll see our most invasive species, the human! Wave goodbye, as you’ll hopefully never see them again.” “If you look off to the side it’s the first sign of danger! D-A-N- wait I didn’t learn how to read. Stay in school, folks! Or you’ll end up on this cruise. Again, and again, and again...” “Don’t worry though, your Skipper here knows how to interpret all signs of Danger here in the Jungle. Just like that danger there- waiting in line for 90 minutes for Indiana Jones. (I shake my head)” (head towards tiger) “And here we have the Cambodian tribe, folks. Of course we have here an indigenous Tiger - meaning for the kids, it’s here 365 - It can jump 25 feet, don’t worry though, we’re under 25 feet away. It’ll jump right over us.” (pass snakes) “And don’t worry about our snakes, folks, they’re only interested in finding Indiana Jones. He’s on the other side of the river! Of course, they can also jump 25-” “Oh the one in the water? That’s just ginger. She doesn’t snap” (pass elephants) “Now folks, we’re entering the secret elephant bathing pool. Go ahead and take a picture, they’ve all got their trunks on. Just don’t wave at them unless you want a bath. They like to wave back.” “Look at those wrinkles! Just shows if you shower too long you’ll uh, turn into an elephant.” “And this is squirt, he likes to shower anyone he thinks hasn’t bathed. Did you all take a shower yesterday? No?? Get down, get down! ...False alarm.” (goes to monkeys) “This used to be one of our safari camps... seems like its gone ape/bananas. Hey there’s my jeep! The lights are still on! That’s some battery power. We’ll never get it turned-over.” “This is the part where I like to point out my favorite plant-life. Uh, that one. And that one. Definitely that one.” “Oh look over there! Don’t make any banana sounds guys, that gorilla can jump over 25 feet!” (approaching falls) “Alright folks, we just entered the Nile river... if you don’t believe me, then you’re in.... A boat. Folks, if you were in de Nile, I’d be calling my lawyer.” (Two bull elephants) “Folks here we have two bull elephants. Can you guess their names? We wanted to call them Left and Right, but they’re Down and Up. They can’t tell direction.” (Africa) “We’re now headed into Africa, such a lovely area. Just look at all those animals gathering to watch those Lions watch over that sleepy Zebra. Ah... the circle of life. Let me just point out the animals. Furry donkey... long necked cheetah... Painted horse... Those’re lions... two sun-burned bald eagles....” “There’s some of our previous travelers, went a bit off road... just proves you never argue with a rhino, they always get their point across.” (after) “We’re headed into the Hippo-Pool folks, now Hippos are very dangerous, but like I said, I can see danger in the Jungle. Now wiggling ears and bubbles, that means danger! ....We’re in trouble.” “Now let me scare them off like I scared off my boyfriend! ‘We Need To Talk!’ and if that doesn’t work, cover your ears.” *pop gun goes off* “....Just like with my boyfriend.” (the rest) “We’re now heading into head-hunter territory, not a great place to be-headed.” “Looks like they’ve put their heads together (skulls pass on canoe) and are having a party, though, let me try to translate...” “Maca. Uh huh, Rena, uh huh. Does anyone know the Macarena?”  “Look out it’s an ambush! Spear, spear. And if you look over there, a different kind of bush....” (waterfall) “Now the moment you all waited for! The backside of water! O2H! And for those of you on the other side of the boat, the frontside of rock.” “And here we have some limestone, though most people take it for granite. I’m sure you’ll appreciate the sediment.”  (Piranha) “Watch out here, we’ve got man-eating piranha! Women and children, you’re safe. Just throw your loved one over-board if you need, here’s your chance. Men, don’t worry, if you survive, we’ve got something else to take the women away next.” (boa constrictor) “Just be careful, he’s suffocating.” (end) “We’re nearing the end of the tour, on your left you’ll find Trader Sam. He’s quite interesting, Sam is, in fact he can jump over 25 feet-” “And there’s the dock! You folks have just survived the world famous Jungle Cruise! If you enjoyed your tour, once again my name is Skipper Kyra! If you didn’t, I’m Kyle. I never liked him.” “Please stay put until we’ve reached a standstill. When you exit, please watch your step, and watch your head. If you happen to miss your step, and hit your head, please watch your language! ..This is Disney.

[carolinabronova]

Songs.

30 Seconds To Mars The Kill (Burry Me)

99 Souls The Girl Is Mine (ft. Destiny’s Child)

ABBA Lay All Your Love On Me

Adam Lambert Fever If I Had You

Adele Chasing Pavements Rolling In The Deep Send My Love Someone Like You When We Were Young

A-ha Take On Me

Akon Don’t Matter I Wanna Love You (ft. Snoop Dogg)

Alicia Keys If I Ain’t Got You No One

All Angels The Scientist

Ana Carolina É Isso Aí (ft. Seu Jorge)

Angus & Julia Stone A Heartbreak Big Jet Plane Big Jet Plane (Acoustic) Draw Your Swords Just A Boy Paper Aeroplane Yellow Brick Road

A Perfect Circle Counting Bodies Like Sheep To The Rhythm Of The War Drums

Arctic Monkeys 505 Brianstorm Do I Wanna Know? Fluorescent Adolescent I Wanna Be Yours One For The Road R U Mine? Stop The World Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?

Aretha Franklin Say A Little Prayer

Ariana & The Rose In Your Bed (Kevin Drew Remix)

Ariana Grande Almost Is Never Enough Bad Decisions Be Alright Be My Baby Best Mistake Dangerous Woman Everyday (ft. Future) Greedy Into You Jason’s Song (Gave It Away) One Last Time Right There (ft. Big Sean) Side To Side Sometimes

Athlete Rubik’s Cube

Austin Manuel I Just Want You To Love Me

Backstreet Boys If You Want It To Be Good Girl (Get Yourself A Bad Boy) I Want It That Way

Banks Drowning

Bee Gees How Deep Is Your Love More Than A Woman Too Much Heaven Tragedy

Ben E. King Stand By Me

Beyoncé 7/11 Baby Boy (ft. Sean Paul) Best Thing I Never Had Blow Countdown Drunk In Love Ego Formation Hold Up Love On Top Partition Sandcastles Sorry

Biel Demorô

Black Keys Howlin’ For You

Blue Öyster Cult Burnin’ For You (Don’t Fear) The Reaper

BoA Eat You Up

B.o.B So Good

Bon Iver Creature Fear Perth

Bonnie Raitt Can’t Make You Love Me

Bonnie Tyler Total Eclipse Of The Heart

Breaking Benjamin I Will Not Bow

Bright Eyes First Day Of My Life

Britney Spears 3

Bruce Springsteen Dancing In The Dark

Bruno Mars 24k Magic Calling All My Lovelies Chunky Gorilla (ft. Pharell Williams and R.Kelly) Locked Out Of Heaven Talking To The Moon That’s What I Like Treasure When I Was Your Man

Bryan Adams Heaven

Calvin Harris Feels (ft. Pharrell Williams, Katy Perry and Big Sean) This Is What You Came For (ft. Rihanna)

Camila Cabello Havana (ft. Young Thug)

Captain & Tennille Love Will Keep Us Together

Carly Rae Jepsen Run Away With Me Your Type

Cary Brothers Loneliest Girl In The World

Cash Cash Overtime

Charlie Brown Jr. Me Encontra

Charlie Puth Attention How Long Marvin Gaye (ft. Meghan Trainor)

Charli XCX Boys

Cheat Codes Let Me Hold You

Chet Baker My Funny Valentine

Chris Brown Liquor Show Me (ft. Kid Ink) Strip Take You Down

Christina Grimmie Must Be Love

Christina Perri distance

Chromeo Come Alive (ft. Toro Y Moi)

Ciara Body Party

City And Colour The Girl

Claudinho & Bochecha Fico Assim Sem Você Quero Te Encontrar

Clean Bandit Tears (ft. Louisa Johnson)

Coldplay Charlie Brown Hymn For The Weekend (ft. Beyoncé) Swallowed In The Sea Violet Hills Viva La Vida

Colbie Caillat Bubbly

Counting Crows Accidentally In Love

Cyndi Lauper Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Time After Time

Daft Punk Around The World Digital Love Harder Better Faster Stronger Lose Yourself To Dance One More Time Something About Us Technologic

Damien Rice 9 Crimes Delicate Rootless Tree The Blower’s Daughter

Danni Carlos Coisas Que Eu Sei

Daughter Landfill Medicine Run Touch

David Guetta Bad (ft. Vassy)

Dawin Dessert (ft. Silento)

Demi Lovato Sorry Not Sorry Stone Cold

Destiny’s Child Bills, Bills, Bills Bootylicious Independent Women Say My Name

Disclosure Latch (ft. Sam Smith)

DJ Snake Leon On (ft. MØ and Major Lazer) Middle

DNCE Cake By The Ocean

Drake Fake Love Hold On We’re Going Home How About Now Marvin’s Room One Dance Passionfruit Too Good (ft. Rihanna)

Dua Lipa New Rules

Duke Dumont Ocean Drive

Earth, Wind & Fire After The Love Has Gone Boogie Wonderland Fantasy Let’s Groove September

Eden Project drowning.

Ed Sheeran Cold Coffee Drunk Give Me Love Grade 8 I’m A Mess Kiss Me Little Bird One Night She Small Bump U.N.I The Man Wake Me Up

Ellie Goulding Love Me Like You Do On My Mind

Elvis Presley Can’t Help Falling In Love Suspicious Minds (You’re The) Devil In Disguise

Erasure A Little Respect

Escape The Fate Zombie Dance

Etha Franklin At Last

Evanescence My Immortal

Fetty Wap 679 (ft. Remy Boyz) Again My Way (ft. Monty) Trap Queen

Fifth Harmony All In My Head (Flex) (ft. Fetty Wap)

Flight Facilities Crave You Crave You (Adventure Club Remix)

Florence + The Machine Cosmic Love Caught Drumming Song Never Let Me Go Seven Devils

Flo Rida I Cry

Francoise Hardy Voila

Frank Sinatra Fly Me To The Moon If I Had You Moon River

Gabrielle Aplin Home Please Don’t Say You Love Me Start Of Time

G-Eazy F**k With U (ft. Pia Mia) Lady Killers (ft. Hoodie Allen)

George Martin Pepperland - Remastered

Gilberto Girl Vamos Fugir (Gimme Your Love)

Glen Hansard All The Way Down Falling Slowly Lies Say It To Me Now

Grayscale Palette

Gym Class Heroes Cupid’s Chokehold

Halsey Gasoline

Hozier Someone New Take Me To Church

Hudson Thames How I Want Ya

Hurts Illuminated Somebody To Die For Stay Unspoken

Ingrid Michaelson Can’t Help Falling In Love You And I

Iron & Wine Flightless Bird, American Mouth

Israel Novaes Vem Ni Mim Dodge Ram

Ivete Sangalo Quando A Chuva Passar Se Eu Não Te Amasse Tanto Assim

James Blunt You’re Beautiful

Jammil Praieiro

Jeff Buckley Hallelujah

Jeremih oui

João Bosco E Vinícius Chora Me Liga

Joe Walsh Turn To Stone

John Mayer Free Fallin’ Gravity Slow Dancing In A Burning Room

Johnny Cash Hurt

JoJo Beautiful Girls

Jon Secada If I Never Knew You (ft. Shanice)

Jordan Fisher All About Us

Jorge Vercilo Que Nem Maré

Jota Quest Blecaute (ft. Anitta and Nite Rodgers)

Justin Timberlake My Love (ft. T.I) Summer Love

Kanye West Bound 2 Power

Kate Nash Nicest Thing

Katy Perry Birthday

Kendrick Lamar DNA King Kunta Loyalty (ft. Rihanna) Poetic Justice (ft. Drake)

Kid Abelha Como Eu Quero

Kina Grannis Valentine

Kings Of Leon Pyro Sex On Fire

Kodaline All I Want

Kyle Edwards Starboy (Harder Better Faster Stronger Jersey Club)

Labrinth Jealous

Lady Gaga Bad Romance Do What U Want (ft. R.Kelly) Edge Of Glory G.U.Y Just Dance Marry The Night Million Reasons Monster Perfect Illusion Speechless The Cure You & I

Lana Del Rey Born To Die Dark Paradise Freak High By The Beach Love Religion Ridin’ (ft. A$AP Rocky) Sad Girl Serial Killer Video Games West Coast Young And Beautiful

Lauren Aquilina Wonder

Leonard Cohen Hallelujah

Leona Lewis Bleeding Love

Lil Dicky Lemme Freak

Lil Wayne 6 Foot 7 Foot

Linda Ronstadt I Will Always Love You

Lionel Richie Just Go (ft. Akon)

Lissie Everywhere I Go

Little Big Town Girl Crush

Los Hermanos Anna Julia

LS Jack Ô Carla

Lulu Santos Como Uma Onda Sereia

Lykke Li I Follow Rivers Until We Bleed

M83 My Tears Are Becoming A Sea

Madonna Material Girl

Maiara & Maraisa Medo Bobo

Mariah Carey #Beautiful (ft. Miguel) Emotions Obsessed Touch My Body We Belong Together

Marianas Trench Haven’t Had Enough

Marina & The Diamonds How To Be A Heartbreaker Oh No! Primadonna Teen Idle

Marisa Monte Depois

Maroon 5 Feelings Makes Me Wonder Stutter What Lovers Do

Marvin Gaye Sexual Healing

Maskavo Um Anjo Do Céu

Matthew Perryman Jones Only You

MC G15 Deu Onda

MC Leozinho Se Ela Dança, Eu Danço

MC Marcinho Glamurosa

Michael Sembello Maniac

Miguel Adorn coffee Simple Things Sure Thing

Mike Posner Cooler Than Me I Took A Pill In Ibiza Looks Like Sex

Miley Cyrus 23 (ft. Mike Will Made It, Wiz Khalifa and Juicy J) Wrecking Ball

MKTO Classic

MØ Fire Rides - Night Version

Mumford And Sons Little Lion Man Sigh No More White Blank Page

Muse Neutron Star Collision Plug In Baby Resistance Starlight Supermassive Black Hole Undisclosed Desires

My Chemical Romance Helena (So Long & Goodnight) I Don’t Love You The Light Behind Your Eyes

Natalie La Rose Somebody (ft. Jeremih)

Natiruts Me Namora

Nelly Dilemma (ft. Kelly Rowland)

Neon Trees Animal Everybody Talks Mad Love

Ne-yo Closer

NF Got You On My Mind

Niall Horan Slow Hands

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds O Children

Nick Jonas Jealous Teacher Wilderness

Nigahiga Bromance (ft. Chester See) Nice Guys (ft. Chester See and KevJumba)

Ninja Sex Party FYI I Wanna F Your A Peppermint Creams Sex Training The Decision

Oasis Wonderwall

Olivver The Kid Attica ‘71

Olly Murs Dance With Me Tonight Kiss Me

Omarion Post To Be (ft. Chris Brown and Jhené Aiko)

One Direction Fireproof Happily Night Changes No Control Perfect Stockholm Sydrome Strong You & I

Outkast Hey Ya!

Panic! At The Disco Death Of A Bachelor Nine In The Afternoon

Papas Da Língua Eu Sei

Paramore Ain’t It Fun Misery Business Still Into You

Passanger Let Her Go

Paula Fernandes Não Precisa (ft. Victor e Leo)

P.Diddy Last Night (ft. Keyshia Cole)

Pentatonix Can’t Sleep Love Fantasy I Need Your Love La La Latch Love Again Natural Disaster

Pink F*cking Perfect Please Don’t Leave Me Sober So What Who Knew

Player Baby Come Back

Post Malone Rockstar

Psirico Lepo Lepo

R5 Dark Side

Rae Sremmurd Black Beatles

Raleigh Ritchie Bloodsport

Redfoo New Thang

Rich Homie Quan Flex (Ooh, ooh, ooh)

Richie Campbell Do You No Wrong

Rihanna Can’t Remember To Forget You (ft. Shakira) Don’t Stop The Music FourFiveSeconds (ft. Kanye West and Paul McCartney) Love On The Brain Needed Me Russian Roulette Te Amo Unfaithful Where Have You Been Wild Thoughts (ft. DJ Khaled and Bryson Tiller)

Rise Against Savior

Roberta Campos Minha Felicidade

Robin Thicke Get Her Back

Robot Koch Nitesky (ft. John Lamonica)

Ryan Adams Wonderwall

Sam Smith Nirvana Palace

Sarah Jaffe Clementine

Scorpions Rock You Like A Hurricane

Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox Stacy’s Mom

Scouting For Girls Heartbeat

Seal Kiss From A Rose

Selena Gomez Bad Liar Fetish (ft. Gucci Mane) Good For You Hands To Myself Perfect Wolves (ft. Marshmellow)

Seu Jorge Carolina Mina Do Condomínio

Shania Twain From This Moment On Man! I Feel Like A Woman You’re Still The One

Shawn Mendes There’s Nothing Holding Me Back

Shura Touch (Canvas Remix)

Sia Cheap Thrills Elastic Heart

Simon & Garfunkel Bridge Over Troubled Water

Skank Ainda Gosto Dela Tão Seu Vamos Fugir Vou Deixar

Sleeping At Last As Long As You Love Me Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic Venus

Snoop Dogg Sensual Seduction

Stevie Nicks Edge Of Seventeen

Stevie Wonder Isn’t She Lovely

Story Of The Year Until The Day I Die

Talking Heads Psycho Killers

Taylor Swift Blank Space Love Story Safe And Sound (ft. The Civil Wars) Style Wildest Dreams

Tears For Fears Everybody Wants To Rule The World

The 1975 Chocolate FallingForYou Somebody Else UGH! The Sound

The Archies Sugar, Sugar

The Barr Brothers May 4th

The Bird And The Bee How Deep Is Your Love

The Black Eyed Peas Meet Me Halfway

The Black Keys Howlin’ For You

The Beach Boys Good Vibrations Wouldn’t It Be Nice

The Beatles Hey Jude Yesterday

The Black Eyed Peas Meet Me Halfway

The Cataracs Ready 4 The Weekend (ft. Icona Pop)

The Civil Wars Poison And Wine

The Cure Boys Don’t Cry

The Glitch Mob Between Two Points (ft. Swan)

The Irrepressibles In This Shirt

The Jackson 5 I Want You Back

The Killers Human Somebody Told Me When You Were Young

The Last Shadow Puppets Miracle Aligner

The Lonely Island 3-Way (The Golden Rule) I’m So Humble (ft. Adam Levine) Jizz In My Pants Spring Break Anthem

The Maine I Must Be Dreaming Into Your Arms

The Middle East Blood

The Neighbourhood Daddy Issues #icanteven (ft. French Montana)

The Platters Only You (And You Alone)

The Police Every Breath You Take Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic Roxanne

The Pretty Reckless You Zombie

The Script Breakeven

The Turtles Happy Together

The Weeknd Acquainted A Lonely Night Earned It I Feel It Coming Often Or Nah (Stwo Remix) Starboy The Hills Wicked Games

The White Strips Seven Nation Army

The Zombies Time Of The Season

T.I Whatever You Like

Tim Maia Descobridor Dos Sete Mares Gostava Tanto De Você Não Quero Dinheiro (Só Quero Amar)

Tinashe Superlove Quit You (ft. Lost Kings)

Tom Odell Can’t Pretend

Toni Braxton Un-Break My Heart

Toto Africa

Tove Lo Cool Girl

Tribalistas Aliança Já Sei Namorar Velha Infância

Troye Sivan Fools for him. Wild (ft. Alessia Cara)

U2 One (ft. Mary J Blidge)

Usher DJ Got Us Fallin In Love Hey Daddy (Daddy’s Home) U Remind Me

Van Halen Why Can’t This Be Love

Vinicius Cantuária Só Você

Wesley Safadão Aquele 1% (ft. Marcos & Belutti) Camarote

What So Not Jaguar

Whitney Houston I Have Nothing I Wanna Dance With Somebody I Will Always Love You

xxyyxx About You

War Why Can’t We Be Friends

Yvonne Elliman If I Can’t Have You

Zara Larsson Ain’t My Fault I Would Like So Good

Zella Day Hypnotic (Vanic Remix)

[automatismoateo]

Had a bit of time free, so decided to answer "48 questions Atheists can't answer". Where I can I name the logical fallacy they use in the question. For 'unanswerable questions' they were surprisingly answerable. Good exercise to clarify your position, even if only to yourself. via /r/atheism

Submitted December 02, 2020 at 03:02PM by eldrad17 (Via reddit https://ift.tt/3myQVxb) Had a bit of time free, so decided to answer "48 questions Atheists can't answer". Where I can I name the logical fallacy they use in the question. For 'unanswerable questions' they were surprisingly answerable. Good exercise to clarify your position, even if only to yourself.

​

48 Questions Atheists can’t answer (answered)

I'll be honest, these questions weren't really well thought out. If I didn't get these directly from the website below I'd imagine someone was deliberately strawmanning their own arguments for some reason. I recommend having a go yourself, though, it helps to organise your thoughts on the matter! By the time I finished I figured I'd put it on here.

https://creationsciencestudy.wordpress.com/2014/06/10/clever-questions-atheists-cant-answer/

I feel I should mention there were certain questions which I felt I should avoid (specifically regarding race, rape and Hitler) but I got the sense the writers were trying to put people off of answering them, and I had set out to answer the 'unanswerable'.

1. If creationists can’t do science, then why do Kent Hovind and Duane T. Gish, who are creation scientists, have professional degrees in science?

A: This appears to be an ambiguity fallacy- Science is a broad term that covers many subjects and can be misused in certain circumstances as I think has been done in your question. If ‘creation’ science can be backed up by peer reviewed scientific journals that can be verified by other scientists around the world then yes that would make it a solid science. If Kent Hovind and Duane T. Gish have any such papers that have been peer reviewed I would be very interested to read them and check their claims. As it stands this has yet to be done.

‘Dr’ Kent Hovind in particular got his degrees from unaccredited institutions. He just added Doctor to his name so people will believe his claims which happens more than you think. I personally know someone who got his doctorate in writing a few years ago- doesn’t make him a scientist. I could go into Kent’s tax evasion here but I’d rather stick to the facts rather than commit a ‘Tu quoque’ fallacy.

2. If dinosaurs turned into birds, why are we not afraid of them?

A: Because birds aren’t a threat, we had millions of years to figure that out once the dinosaurs weren’t around. It would hardly make sense for a species to evolve and develop a fear of a predator that didn’t prey on them.

3. If homosexuality is right, then how come two people of the same sex not produce a child?

A: You’re assuming there is a morality position to take on this. Whilst I have heard there may be some evolutionary benefit to homosexuality I myself am not aware of it. Live and let live.

4. What purpose do we have if evolution is real?

A: Again you are making an assumption- this time that we have a purpose. As an (optimistic) nihilist I see no reason to think that life and the universe has any purpose. I determine the purpose of my own life.

5. You say Jesus never existed, but have you heard of the Shroud of Turin?

A: I never said Jesus didn’t exist. As for the shroud- It’s a sheet that looks like a face. I can make one at home! Jokes aside, if you can prove that it is in fact the face of Jesus and not someone else via genetic science or some other means that can accurately verify it (peer reviewed scientific journals again I’m afraid) then I will admit that Jesus did factually exist. You then have the problem of proving that he was the son of God and performed miracles as you say he did via the same means. Good luck with that.

6. Why do we not see humans being born in the zoos from monkeys if we came from monkeys?

A: The personal incredulity fallacy- because you don’t understand how something works ergo it must not be true. This demonstrates how little effort you have put into researching evolution. Monkeys can’t give birth to humans and vice versa- we descend from a common ancestor. For the final time (please!) Monkeys, Chimps, Gorillas and Humans all descended from a common ancestor millions of years ago- Apes!

7. Why do we go to church if God is not real?

A: The bandwagon fallacy- because most people think a certain way or believes something it must then be true. The most common way to explain this fallacy is pointing out that a popular opinion at one time was that the Earth was flat. Didn’t make our ancestors right back then just as I’m certain there are many things we all assume to be true that will one day be proven otherwise. It’s called progress.

Everyone likes to be reassured in what they believe, hanging out with like-minded people is a good way to do that and people are welcome to do so whether that’s at a Church, Mosque or even a pub. Personally I think it’s a waste of a good Sunday morning.

8. How did the Grand Canyon form?

A: Over millions of years due to the same naturalistic processes we can measure and observe around the world. There are many peer reviewed scientific journals that back this up.

9. Do you know that Jesus loves you?

A: Fallacy- an appeal to emotion. Trying to prove your point by ignoring the facts and attempting to win me over by making me feel good. That isn’t going to work with someone like me who doesn’t equate Jesus with love. Zombies and vampires love me too, apparently, but I’m hardly going to run over to them and make friends!

There are a lot of claims made about Jesus that require solid evidence for me to change my mind as to whether he actually existed, had a beard, was white, was male, told stories, performed miracles, whether he was the son of God and if so that there is a God. Start at the beginning and keep proving it through the scientific method (peer reviewed journals, remember) and I’ll convert. Simple.

10. If Christianity is false, then why is it popular?

A: Again, Bandwagon fallacy. Just because an idea is popular doesn’t make it true. If that were the case you might want to convert to Islam pronto as they’re soon going to take over the number of Christians!

11. If you say Christianity is not true, then why do hundreds of people continue to become saved every day?

A: Bandwagon. Belief is a fluid thing, it is different every day for every person. In the UK where I am from secularism is on the rise. Islam is apparently (so I read) on the rise in China. The demographics are changing constantly.

12. Why do we not see half trees and half carrots, fronkeys, and crocoducks if evolution is real?

A: Personal Incredulity again. Cross speciation is impossible due to genetics. Any one of those things may have evolved into existence if the right conditions for it arose.

13. Why is Richard Dawkins afraid to debate Ray Comfort?

A: He has better things to do. Such a high-profile debate would only afford legitimacy to the creationist view which he feels (and I agree) it does not deserve. Better to ask why an (actual) scientist does not take creationism seriously enough to bother debating it.

Saying this I have noticed a trend in secular/ theist debates where the Atheist side will debate the Bible/ Qur’an/ belief and its fallacies whilst the Theist side will try their best to argue the science. As interesting as it can be to watch it would be interesting to see a Theist try to debate the legitimacy of their claims rather than attack science in general.

14. Did you know Christopher Hitchens was saved before death?

A: Fallacy: appeal to emotion. I am pretty sure this was thrown in here to make me angry and make me say something you might use to trip me up. Christopher Hitchens was one of the finest minds of our time. I am sure his work will last the ages. As for being ‘saved’- again, evidence.

15. Are you aware Ray Comfort disproved atheism with a banana?

A: That depends on your definition of ‘proved’. I am going to say this is a combination of an ambiguation fallacy (‘proved’) and an appeal to authority (which would also go for other creationists brought up in these questions, like Kent Hovind).

First off, you and I need to be specific about what the term ‘proved’ means. For me it would mean that scientists around the world studied the evidence of his claim and by a majority came to the same conclusion. That would be some serious headline news.

Secondly, an appeal to authority is usually a good thing in debate as it allows the opinion of experts to weigh in on it. However, you really need be careful and study the level of authority a person has in their field. Ray Comfort is, in mine and I’m sure many people’s opinion, not an authority on Evolution, Biology, Geology, etc. etc. In fact, I’d go so far as to say he isn’t much of an authority on theology if he uses a banana!

Lastly, I hope you and Ray Comfort are aware that bananas were specifically made the way they are today by humans through selective breeding? That became a sort of (not so) natural selection. Google it.

16. Why do people laugh at evolutionists?

A: I was not aware they do. I assume for the same reason that 98% of scientists (including leading biologists, geologists, astrologists, cosmologists, historians, etc. etc.) do not take creationism seriously, which opens it to ridicule around the world.

17. How did the planets form when the Big Bang explosion all of a sudden happen? After all, you don’t see round objects form when something blows up.

A: There is a lot of misunderstanding in that question. (Personal Incredulity fallacy.) The planets formed long after the Big Bang. The early universe was filled with formless atoms that gradually started clumping together and, through a steady process of quantum mechanics and then gravitational pull started forming astral bodies, eventually forming the ones we see today.

I can’t help but add in a Tu Quoque here (yes, I know, but I think it’s relevant.) How did the human race come into existence when at one point (according to Genesis) the only people on Earth were Cain, his mum Eve, his dad Adam and his brother’s corpse? Who did he mate with to conceive the next generation whilst avoiding long lasting genetic problems in humans? Remember, according to your book they were the only people in existence.

18. If evolution is real, how can it explain gravity, angular momentum, human emotions, and why we worship God?

A: Evolution doesn’t concern itself with any of those. It simply focusses on the development of life over time. It doesn’t affect gravity, which has its own theory (The theory of gravity), or angular momentum (pretty sure that’s mathematics and physics). Human emotions are the domain of psychology but it’s easy to see how our survival as a species would depend on how we treated each other as a group, so emotions and a common focal point (religion) would have contributed to that.

God is more the domain of Theology which in itself can be said to have evolved over time- Judaism used to be a polytheism until someone decided that one God must be better than all the other (Jehovah) and eventually all the other gods were just forgotten. If ancient Greece, early Rome or the Vikings got here instead, we’d be worshipping Zeus, Jupiter or Odin instead of God (all four of them do look very similar when you think about it)

19. How did pond scum make living things appear out of nowhere?

A: Personal Incredulity fallacy. Honestly, we do not know yet. Science is still working on that. That doesn’t remove the legitimacy of Abiogenesis (or even Panspermia for that matter) - it isn’t too far a stretch of the imagination once you understand that we are essentially made up of things common to this planet- we are 80% water, carbon-based, with elements of iron, calcium, and various other squares on the periodic table of elements which can be found, inorganically, across the planet. The only two things that make us and this planet unique (as far as we can tell right now) is Protein and Chlorophyll, once we’ve figured that out we’ll have a better idea of how life began to form here.

20. How can evolution be true if we don’t see pocket watches or airplanes form by themselves?

A: Personal Incredulity (again). How can God be true if planes or pocket watches don’t appear magically after 7 days with zero human input? Planes and pocket watches are inorganic and were made specifically by humans with a purpose in mind. To assume the same with the universe and all life is demonstrating a narrow view of the subject.

21. Did you know that dinosaurs and man lived together?

A: Citation. You’re making a claim and need to provide evidence to back it up. Show me one example of dinosaur fossils being found in the same sediment as human fossils and I will genuinely start to question what I have been taught. So far, I haven’t seen a single one.

22. If evolution is real, then why do caring people like Rick Santorum argue that it must be challenged in the classroom?

A: I’m going to label this question as another appeal to authority/ emotion case. Just because something ‘feels’ right or good doesn’t make it true. Drugs feel good but I don’t take what a drug user says as gospel. People can still be caring but mistaken.

However in this case I do agree it needs to be challenged on every level. It is only when a theory is challenged we can see the strength of it. The theory of evolution has only lasted as long as it has because it has withstood scrutiny from the finest scientific minds over the last 150 years. It has changed with new evidence in that time but nonetheless still remains the best explanation we have for how life has arrived at this point today.

I am an atheist because I put both the anthropomorphic God and the Bible under scrutiny and I didn’t even need my scientific knowledge to see the various problems with them. God and creationism form at best a poor hypothesis.

Before leaving this point I would also like to add the notion of a black-or-white fallacy. It’s being implied throughout these questions that the only two options are either evolution or creationism, which isn’t necessarily the case. By implying that these are the only two options you are trying to add legitimacy to creationism by ignoring any other options that may exist. I still maintain that evolution is the best explanation for how life came to be the way it is today, but why are you ignoring all of the other creation stories in the world? Hinduism, Buddhism and various other faiths have their own claims, what makes them any less legitimate than creationism?

23. Why are youtube atheists like AronRa and Thunderf00t afraid to debate Ray Comfort?

A: This is the same question as the Richard Dawkins one. However I am familiar with Thunderf00t and AronRa and can tell you there are plenty of youtube videos that put their point across. They probably feel they don’t need to debate creationists anymore until their original videos are satisfactorily debunked.

24. Why do we celebrate Christmas if Christianity is not real?

A: I’m going to tentatively label this as a No True Scotsman fallacy. Saying that only Christians should celebrate Christmas is inappropriately glossing over all the people who celebrate Christmas who aren’t Christian.

Christmas was originally a pagan holiday celebrating the winter solstice. It’s in no way solely for Christians. It makes for very interesting reading if you want to look it up. Anyone can get behind the idea of people coming in from the cold and sharing a meal with their family, religious or otherwise. Easter was also about sex and fertility (the rabbit and the eggs anyone?) where I come from its only the religious who try to make it about them.

25. If creationists can’t do science, then why does the website Answersingenesis have proven science articles from creationists that do science?

A: Ambivalence Fallacy (again). Again, science is a very broad term covering many different areas and the term ‘proven’ is very ambiguous. If you said peer reviewed scientific journals from established experts in the fields of Biology and Geology instead, I’d pay more attention. But since we both know that isn’t the case here I’ll accept that the computer science/ theology majors that usually add the ‘Dr’ part to the names of the authors who write these articles make what you say in this question ‘technically’ true (except the ‘proven’ part). In this case it is a question of authority. I choose to listen to the experts of the fields required (biology, physics, etc.) instead of the people with a ‘Christian Science’ degree, especially since its biased groups like answersingenesis who usually hand out those degrees anyway.

26. If evolution is true, then why can’t white people compete to be good in basketball like black people? After all, white people can’t jump!

A: Personal Incredulity. I would also add the begging the question fallacy and possibly red herring to this as well. You’re trying to frame the question in such a way that the answer you want is in the question- and moving the argument in a direction that doesn’t add to the conversation but instead to a place where you think I won’t come out well. Also, I’m fairly certain there’s exceptions to this rule- I’m pretty sure there’s some good white basketball players out there. I come from the UK where basketball isn’t such a big deal so I have no background knowledge on this, so I could be wrong.

However, saying this, it isn't ridiculous to imagine that any general variations between races may be due to different environments that favoured different traits (Africa is different to Europe, Asia to America, etc.) I am no expert in this, so I won't comment further.

27. Where do you decide to fit God in your everyday life if you don’t believe in him?

A: Begging the question/ Burden of Proof. You’re assuming your position is the natural stance to take and putting me in a place where I have to justify my stance. Here it is anyway- I place God in the same place I fit Santa, the Tooth fairy, Leprechauns, Unicorns, etc. etc.

28. Why is Christianity the fastest growing religion if it’s false?

A: Citation. Last I heard it was Islam and non-belief that were rising. Even if Christianity were rising it doesn’t change the fact of whether it is true or not. A billion people could believe the Earth was square but I would still call them wrong.

29. Do you feel free to commit murders, homosexuality, go to strip bars, steal, commit adultery, and do other sins since you believe there is no God?

A: I will throw my hands up here and say that this is actually a good question to ask an Atheist. I did have to think about this one so well done on that. There’s nothing wrong in admitting your debating opponent has made a good point or asked a good question.

Whilst I do not believe in any moral absolutes in the universe I do believe in the Golden Rule: Do unto other as you would have them do unto you. It’s simply the best way to function in a society, hence why I don’t care about what people do in the bedroom or do with their bodies- it’s their choice so long as they leave me to make my own.

However if extreme circumstances dictated it necessary (i.e. my own survival) I can’t say I would be able to keep to that rule, but that’s only in extreme circumstances, and I would dare anyone to admit otherwise to that.

30. Why do the fossils say no to evolution?

A: Citation to your claim. Fossils don’t say anything. They’re rocks. If you are hearing rocks talking I suggest you seek help. OK in all seriousness show me the evidence (remember, from peer reviewed scientific journals from unbiased geologists across the globe) and I would start to question what I know. Simply asserting that fossils say no to evolution doesn’t make it so.

31. Why did Darwin admit that how the eye formed is impossible?

A: Again, Citation to your claim. I’d certainly be interested in knowing if this was true. Even if it was though it is true that Darwin had a lot of issues with his theory. He spent the rest of his life working on it.

When a Theory is first made it rarely remains the same in the face of new evidence. Over 150 years it has been fine-tuned with new evidence so that the current model fits best with what we know. One solid piece of evidence to counter evolution would throw the whole thing into question. Darwin wouldn’t recognise the theory of evolution today.

We have since been able to explain the eye and have even found species that still have remnants of an eye in early evolutionary forms as well as species that have evolved to not need eyes as much as they used to. We have seen how the eye can change over time.

32. Where did everything come from if there is no God?

A: The God of the Gaps argument. ‘We don’t know the answer, so God.’ In short, we don’t know either, just like you. Current science can only take us back to a moment after the big bang. There are a lot of ideas floating around at this stage and I for one look forward to what we find next.

I’m personally drawn to the ‘Big Cheese’, ‘Multiverse’ and 'One Electron Universe' theories which sound promising as well as exciting. None of this requires that a supreme intelligent being started it all- and even if it did, it would then beg the question of where that supreme intelligent being came from.

33. If there is no God, then why do we have laws that govern us, such as speed limits?

A: Because society had to function. I don’t look at society as something formed around the collective worship of deity but rather as a collective agreement that this is the best way for us to get along, rather than hitting each other with clubs.

I’m curious about this now, thought: what is the Bibles stance on speed limits?

34. Do you know where you are going when you die?

A: Another good question to ask! These types of questions are genuinely making me think about my stance and if you want to convert me someday then that is what you need to do.

I personally want to be cremated and placed in a biodegradable urn with a tree seed that could feed off the nutrients in my ashes. That way I could help towards keeping the planet clean and not just be some boring old gravestone. Those are creepy. I’d probably visit passed loved ones more if graveyards were vibrant forests rather than morbid tombstones everywhere.

As for the next life I don’t know and frankly I’m not too concerned- I’m in the same boat as every living thing that has ever existed, currently exists and will ever exist. Not existing isn’t something to be scared of- it didn’t bother me before I was born!

Having said that, however, if I were brought before God (if!) for judgement when I die, then it would depend. If I were judged by the quality of my actions and words in life, then God would be just and I should have nothing to fear (the golden rule, remember?)

If, however, I am to be judged based on how many times I exclaimed I loved God, attended church and never questioned dogma, then that is an unjust God who isn’t worth worshipping and I will happily walk into hell with the moral high ground.

If there is no God, then I will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of my loved ones.

I thank Marcus Aurelius for this observation.

35. Why do we not act like monkeys if it is true we came from monkeys?

A: Personal incredulity (Again!) I’m guessing these questions were written by different people because I’m genuinely impressed by some and slapping my head with the others. This is the latter.

Who says we don’t act like monkeys? I love climbing trees and eating bananas! I’m glad of my social circle and I groom a lot (well, as much as a bald man can!)

This question seems to imply that man is somehow superior to monkeys, but I think the implication is backwards- Theism and Creationism seem determined to prove that the universe is governed by an anthropomorphic being (one that has human characteristics- awareness, rules, jealous, loving, etc. etc.) but the way I see it the universe is completely indifferent to our existence- mountains don’t care if we fall off of them and water doesn’t care if it drowns us. The universe is what it is.

By comparison, primate species are incredibly anthropomorphic- they have tight family groups that they love, they can be jealous, they have rules, they have a mild awareness (enough to use tools and sign language) so it really isn’t that big of a stretch to think that we are distantly related, especially when you consider the fossil evidence!

36. Why do we display The Ten Commandments in the courtrooms if you say the Bible is not real?

A: Appeal to Authority. Which in this case doesn’t apply to me because I’m not in the US. I’m British and we don’t have that, I think. I’ve never been in a courtroom.

However, there is nothing wrong with a society remembering its roots- the UK has almost 1000 years of history and Christianity has been there throughout (remember- doesn’t make it true!)

As for the US system it has only been in recent times that these have popped up- America was founded on secular principles (something I feel we could do more with on both sides of the Atlantic) it’s nonsense that it was based on anything otherwise. Google any of the founding fathers and I’m sure you’d find similar sentiments, or even in the constitution. As a Brit I feel I shouldn’t need to have to tell you about the very piece of paper that cemented our loss in the war for independence!

37. Why should be it wrong to rape if God is not real?

A: Red herring/ appeal to emotion. Moral implications shouldn’t impact on a debate about the existence of God, Jehovah or otherwise. You’re attempting to frame the question in a way that provokes an emotional response and makes my stance appear less valid (but only appear!) (Again!)

As before- Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It’s very simple. Rape in particular is a horrendous crime and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. As a society we have in place the means to severely punish those who rape as well as the social stigma attached to it (even in prison) to act as a deterant to would-be rapists. None of that, however, is dependant on the existence of a God.

38. Why is The Passion of The Christ very high on the Box Office?

A: Red Herring/ Bandwagon fallacy. This quiz is probably very old- again I have to reiterate that just because something is popular doesn’t make it true! At the time of writing Avatar is the highest grossing film of all time, it doesn’t mean I’m going to preach about how we need to find Pandora. I don’t believe in the force because Star Wars is so popular, or Hogwarts because of Harry Potter.

I would also argue that box office ratings have nothing to do about the existence of Jesus of the veracity of the Bible. I find it weird that I need to point this out.

39. How can America not be a Christian nation if there are way more churches than mosques?

A: Bandwagon (again). America can have as many churches, mosques and temples as it wants. It doesn’t change the fact that it was founded on secular principles. Calling America a Christian country marginalises the other religions who are protected by the constitution to practice their faith (or non-faith) freely.

I may also argue that there are more McDonalds in America than pizza huts- does that make America a burger nation?

40. How is the bible not real if it’s the most popular book read by man?

A: Citation for your claim and bandwagon fallacy (again! This is becoming a habit!) At the time of writing the most popular book by number of sales is the Qur’an- 3 billion copies sold compared to 2.5 billion Bibles. Again, I have to reiterate (and it’s getting repetitive) that just because something is popular doesn’t mean that it’s true.

41. How did the moon form?

A: Red Herring. What does this have to do with the existence of God? I’ll indulge anyway.

As I understand the moon formed when, some 4.5 billion years ago, a mars sized planet name Theia crashed into the Earth. The resulting chaos threw a lot of debris into Earth’s gravity that came together to form the moon.

Again, I’m curious to know where creationists think it came from.

42. Did you know that famous scientists like Newton, Sir Richard Owen, Einstein, Galileo, and Copernicus were creationists?

A: Citation needed/ Appeal to Authority. Newton, Galileo and Copernicus I can understand since they were from a time where that was the norm. It doesn’t impact their contributions to science or lessens their impact on history.

Sir Richard Owen I would find hard to believe since his only problem with the theory of evolution was that it was too basic and was likely to be more complex (in a way he was right) and Albert Einstein only ever referred to God in a pantheistic sense (i.e. he believed in a non-anthropomorphic God which is against what is taught in the Torah- he was from a Jewish background) I find it highly unlikely that he was a creationist.

Admittedly the first three I just applied common sense to and the other two I had to look up (I didn’t know who Sir Richard was) but a simple search brought me the answers there.

43. Why do we not see black people come from white people?

A: Personal Incredulity. Because, as I explained before, genetic traits get passed down from one generation to the next. They can’t leap from one person to the other without somewhere to come from.

I would again add begging the question and possibly red herring fallacies to this as well. Again, you’re trying to frame the question in such a way that the answer you want is in the question- and moving the argument in a direction that doesn’t add to the debate but instead to a place where you think I won’t come out well.

This is a very vague question, by the way. It seems to imply that black and white people can't produce offsring together, which is completely incorrect.

44. Why are fruitflies still fruitflies in the lab experiments if they are claimed to prove evolution?

A: Personal Incredulity. Because a fruitfly isn’t going to be able to evolve into something that isn’t a fruitfly in the short time we’ve been able to observe. Give it a few thousand generations and maybe you’ll be surprised.

45. Did you know that the Piltdown Man was a hoax used for Darwinist propaganda?

A: The composition fallacy! At least this question is different. The argument being that because one thing wasn’t true the whole argument shouldn’t stand up. We have so much evidence pointing to evolution that it is no longer a question of if it did happen but how did it happen. Mistakes are going to be made as it would be in all endeavours, scientific or otherwise, but it doesn’t change the facts.

46. Why do we not see frogs turn into birds?

A: Personal Incredulity. This question has been asked multiple times in different versions. Refer to my previous answers.

47. Why is Fox News dishonest if it is a network run by truthful Christians?

A: Citation for your claim/ Red Herring/ Begging the question/ Appeal to emotion. You would need to prove beyond reasonable doubt that all Christians are truthful. The Vatican wasn’t exactly honest in its dealings with the paedophile ring it tried to cover up! (A low blow I know!)

There are many examples of untruthful Christians as I am sure there are many examples of untruthful Atheists, Muslims, Buddhists as well as communists, capitalists, feminists, etc. etc. and etc. Christians don’t own a monopoly on honest or dishonest behaviour.

As for Fox news, I’m not so sure a network with such a heavy political bias can always be considered ‘honest’, I genuinely thought Bill O’Reilly was a comic character like Borat when I first saw him! The rest of the world can see Fox news footage and generally laughs at it- ‘Tide goes in tide goes out, you can’t explain that!’ Really?! (It’s the moon, by the way, Bill. Were you not taught that at school?)

Again I need to state, though, that the honesty/ dishonesty of a television channel, intentional or otherwise, doesn’t impact the debate on whether a God (or Gods) exist.

48. Why did Hitler fail to make a superior race if evolution is true?

A: Appeal to emotion. Subtly trying to equate Hitler and Evolution is another logical fallacy. In fact I’d also say it’s a combination of a loaded question mixed with a genetic fallacy. You don’t want me to answer it, you want me to say something that may be taken out of context and perhaps later use it for an ad hominem attack whilst also assuming that absolutely everything Hitler believed/ did makes it evil by association, like you did with the questions about race and rape. Adolf Hitler was a human being- he was also an artist, does that make art evil? He also breathed oxygen, are you really going to breathe the same air as him? He was also confirmed catholic…

As for the ‘Master Race’ thing I’d say that he may well have created a new breed of human if any eugenic plans he may have had carried on as they did. Thankfully he was stopped before we had a chance to find out.

As for eugenics in general, setting aside the moral implications of human breeding programs, we have today certain species (particularly dogs and, as mentioned above, bananas) that have been successfully bred into certain forms. The British bulldog wouldn’t exist today if it weren’t for selective breeding. The fact is as with any eugenics project it would take a lot longer than the time Hitler had to see the results. The Bulldog in particular was a process that started over a century ago and even with modern genetic science we are scratching the surface on what we might be able to do.

Of course, there is still a lot to discuss in terms of what would be immoral and what could be allowed- modern purebred Bulldogs are generally suffering with genetic problems no one could have foreseen when they first started breeding them, and history is unfortunately littered with royal families whose genetic flaws due to inbreeding were all too well known.

​

If you made it this far then thanks for reading- I feel I should mention, again, there were certain questions which I felt I should avoid (the race, Hitler and rape related ones specifically) but I got the sense the writers were trying to put people off of answering them, and I set out to answer the 'unanswerable', so I did to the best of my ability.

[nightwing-is-babe]

The Ape Woman pt. 2

Relationship: Damian Wayne x Reader

Summary: Kinda like Tarzan, but fem!reader. So…yeah.

Key: Y/N= your name

Part 1 here

When you and Damian both reached his camp, you found Terk there. You stormed over to the other gorilla excitedly.

“Terk! Hey! Look, look at what I found. Look at it! It looks like me.” Terk looked to the beast that stood behind you. Then looked back to you, stunned.

“Wow, Y/N. It’s just like you, but is it safe?” You nodded and bounced over to Damian. You grabbed him and dragged him over to the tentative Terk. Terk moved back defensively. You tried to explain that it was safe, but you realized that Terk wasn’t looking at Damian, he was looking at Kerchak.

Kerchak stood there, ready to attack Damian, when he noticed you. “Y/N! Come now. We are not staying here.” You began to speak and was silenced by your mother.

“Dear, it’s best we do what he says.” She grabbed your arm and dragged you away. You watched Damian for a moment before leaving.

Damian watched as you ran away. He stood still there even after you were gone. Then he heard his father.

“Damian! Where have you been? Are you alright,” Bruce grilled the boy who stood, looking off into the distance.

Damian broke out of his trance, “Yes father, I’m fine. But you’ll never believe what I saw!” Damian began to retell the tale of the baboons chasing him and then you. “Father, she was amazing! She swung through the trees with grace, but she didn’t speak any English, and she talked to the monkey! Then, she got up close to me and made me listen to her heart. Also, she had no respect for personal boundaries-”

Bruce cut him off, “Who Damian?”

“Y/N,” He looked off into the trees, “the ape woman.”

The next day, Damian took to try and explain you to Bruce better. He took out the whiteboard and the assorted colored dry-erase markers. He began to sketch you out.

“So she crouched like this. Then she supported her weight on her knuckles, like a gorilla!” Damian got into the position he drew to demonstrate. “And she walked like this.”

Bruce was fascinated. A feral child wasn’t very common, and one about Damian’s age was probably the most shocking. “So, she was raised here? In the jungle? Amazing.”

“Yea, but the most interesting part is that she can imitate sound and can still learn.” Damian then went back to his drawing to finish it. “She also had such a concentrated, determined look on her face. Like a puzzle was being put together in her head. And her eyes were so…” Damian trailed off as he thought about you.

“Damian,” Bruce chuckled, “do you need a minute?” Damian blushed, but played it off. He wasn’t weak and he most defiantly didn’t want Bruce to see him blush.

“I don’t believe it,” Lincoln, the jungle guide stated, “There’s no way that a woman has been living in these jungles for so long and no one has noticed. People have taken very good observations about the gorillas that live here. I’m sure they would’ve found her by now. She has to be some figment of your imagination.”

Just as he finished, you dropped down from the trees and approached Damian. Bruce watched you, with his mouth hanging open. “Oh my! Here she is! Damian, do you realize what you’ve found.”

“Yes father. A human being,” he said pointedly. “Hello Y/N.” You bounded over to him.

“Damian!” You circled him excitedly, waiting for him to start playing. When he didn’t you grabbed his arm and pulled him down, trying to fight. Damian fell due to the shear shock of your strength. You rolled on him and then spotted something shiny. You ran towards it, grabbing it and inspecting it by sniffing, licking, and smelling it.

“She studies the spoon like any animal would,” Bruce commented. Damian shot him a disgusted look.

“She’s not just an animal.” He walked over to you and took the spoon. “Y/N,” he tried to get your attention, “this is a spoon. S-p-o-o-n. Spoon.” he pointed to the spoon as he spoke.

“Spoon,” you mimicked his sounds. They were strange and foreign, but they also felt…right.

“Very good!” He praised you. Then he pointed to the spoon again, “Spoon.” He hopped you understood because now you were on the next new thing.

“Damian,” Bruce interjected, “You don’t think she know where the gorillas would be, do you?”

Damian thought about it, “Well, gorillas live in family troops, so she probably knows where her family is. Yes, she most likely does!”

Lincoln perked up, “Then we should ask her!” He marched in front of you and started to talk, “Do you know where the gorillas are? Can you take us to them?” You didn’t respond. “G-o-r-i-l-l-a-s.”

“G-o-r-i-l-l-a-s,” you copied excitedly.

“No! Where are they? Where are the gorillas?” You ignored him and went on to the next new thing that interested you.

“Lincoln, I think I’ll take over,” Damian declared smugly.

Damian went on to teach you as much as he could about humans in the month they were to stay there. You eagerly learned every new thing you could including English and art and math. Everything was new and exciting.

One day you came back to find Damian and Bruce in a very frazzled state. You stood there as they paced back and forth speaking too fast for you to really understand.

“Damian?”

“Oh, Y/N, hi. Sorry, it’s just,” he sighed, “we have to leave in a few days and we haven’t even found what we came to study.”

“Study what,” you asked. You felt bad that Damian wasn’t happy and you wanted to change that.

“Gorilla,” Lincoln yelled at you. “We wanted to find the gorillas, but we indulged you! And now we have nothing to show.”

“Don’t yell at her!” Bruce approached you, “We were happy to help you.” He gave you a sad smile.

“Damian wants gorillas?” They all nodded, expectantly. “I can’t. Must keep family safe, please.” You looked to Damian with heartbroken eyes, “Sorry.”

Damian bobbed his head, “I understand.”

“Mother please,” you begged, “just come and look at them!” You were trying to get your mother to meet these ‘humans’, the people who looked like you. “They aren’t dangerous. Just…different.”

“Y/N I would, but no. It’s forbidden.”

“Mother! They will leave if they don’t see you.” You understood that Damain would go away if he didn’t see the gorillas, and you didn’t want him to leave. You pulled out your best doe eyes, “Please mom, for me?”

She looked at you long and hard before sighing, “Only if Kerchak won’t know. Okay, I will allow it.”

“Thank you.” You gave her a giant hug and went to plan a distraction with Terk.

Damian was packing up his things. The boat had come early and he was angry. Angry that he didn’t have more time to spend with you. He didn’t even know if you would see him before he left, but his questions were answered as you fell right in front of him.

“Damian, come.” You grabbed his arm. Bruce noticed and walked towards the both of you.

“But Y/N, I have to pack. I have to leave.” You didn’t seem to care as you dragged him to a dark area with Bruce, and unknowingly Lincoln, on your tail.. Then Damian saw it. A gorilla just standing there. “Oh, wow. She’s gorgeous.”

“My mother.” Damian spun his head to look at you. You looked at him proudly.

“Your- your mother?”

“Y/N I can’t, this is no longer safe,” you mother declared as she backed away.

“No, mom it’s okay. Mom it’s okay,” you repeated to her, trying to get her to understand. Damian joined in which surprised you, but it was nice. She accidentally led Damian to the nest while she tried to escape. Damian looked up to see a plethora of gorillas appear in the trees. They came out scared and curious, but, with Damian’s stillness, they investigated these new beasts.

After awhile, they began to play with Damian and Bruce. You were ecstatic and so was Damian.

“Damian stay?”

He turned to you, taken aback, “Y/N, I can’t stay. I have to go back to Gotham with Bruce. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” You sat there and thought about the situation. “I go with?”

“I mean, I would love for you to, but you can’t just leave your home. Well, you do belong with other people. No, I don’t know. Do you really want to?”

You began nodding slowly. You understood that if you left, you wouldn’t come back. It was a terrible thing, but you felt like you had to. You didn’t belong here. You belonged with ‘humans’ and, though it was painful to leave, you wanted to learn even more. “Yes Damian. I will go.”

A year later, you were living in Gotham with Damian and his brothers at Wayne Manor. Alfred, the man who usually takes care of you, was trying to get you into shoes, but you wouldn’t let him.

“Really Miss Y/N, Shoes are a part of human society.”

“Really Miss Y/N, Shoes are a part of human society,” you mocked, with a very convincing British accent.

“As always, very impressive, but please. You are going to a gala tonight and you must be dressed appropriately or else Master Bruce will be disappointed.”

“And Damian?”

“Yes and Master Damian,” the butler huffed. “So please, put the shoes on.” You obeyed, less than thrilled about the contraptions that restrained your feet. “Thank you.” You stuck your tongue out at him playfully. He laughed and let you walk out the door, down to the ballroom where the party was being held.

The party was in honor of your first year in a human society. As you stumbled down the stairs, people clapped for you. You found it overwhelming, but you just had to grin and bear it for Damian. 

The party was long and boring and everything you were wearing made you want to scream. Soon, Damian appeared from behind you. “You look very nice Y/N, but very uncomfortable.” You nodded fiercely. “Come on, you’ve been here long enough. These stuck up nobodies won’t miss you.”

You were grateful for Damian and all he had done for you. He became your tutor for when you decided to live in Gotham, with the help of Alfred. He knew your limitations and your boundaries when it came to ‘civilized society’. He only wanted what was best for you, and seeing you here, he knew you weren’t happy.

“Y/N,” he mumbled as you finished changing out of that hideous contraption, “do you miss the jungle?”

“Yes,” you sighed, “but I am happy.” You looked at Damian. “With you.”

He smiled and took you into a hug. “I’m happy with you too, my beloved.”

You had never heard that word before, but his voice made it sound so perfect. You imitated him, “My beloved.”

[terryblount]

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey – Review

I never understood why people would say that a game “won them over”, or that they hated a game when they started playing, but then they grew to love it. I am more much more binary when it comes to my opinion of what I play. Either I like something or I don’t, and it has never taken more than twenty minutes to make up my mind. That is, until I reviewed Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey.

After playing for about an hour, I had originally vowed to write an utterly scathing opinion piece on this trash. I hated it, and such a poorly-made game deserved to be thrown to the wolves. Still, in the back of my mind I knew I was missing something which made me pick it up one more time just for the sake of being objective. To my absolute surprise, I now find myself… a little obsessed, really.

Monkey see, monkey do.  The green orb at the bottom is a general indication of your current character’s overall vitality, including thirst, hunger and sleep.

I still don’t think Ancestors is a masterpiece, and I will mention some of the lamentable (but inexcusable) booby-traps that Panache Digital Games have stumbled into. However despite the cryptic nature of the gameplay, I eventually found an interesting and refreshingly original rendition of the survival genre here once I was willing to dig deep enough.

A monkey’s tale

Be honest, we all bolted upright like a dog hearing its food bowl at the mention of Patrice Désilets’s name. He’s the guy who left Ubisoft from the Assassin’s Creed and Prince of Persia franchises and founded Panache Digital Games to make Ancestors.

Unlike Patrice’s previous undertakings though, Ancestors is not an action RPG. This is a purebred survival and crafting game set in prehistoric Africa where our forefathers first walked the jungle.

The game opens with an exhilarating cut scene of fearsome animals like crocodiles, razor-beaked birds and sabre-toothed cats ravaging one another as just another day in prehistoric Africa. The message is clear; this is a hostile and dangerous world for the early humanoids. Yes, the word is ‘humanoid’ and not a monkey or a gorilla as people who don’t know their evolution keep saying on YouTube!

As someone who lives in Africa, I can attest this happens every day… when you go on safari

I took on the role of an alpha female as part of a clan that have settled at the foot of the waterfall, and I was instantly impressed with the world that the developers have set their game in. The vast, lush jungle (complete with day/night cycle) was enormous filled with gigantic trees, lakes and rocky cliffs probably rendered to scale. It is all yours to explore, to look for food and for gathering resources.

Unfortunately, the camera handles like it was being held by a an ADD 5-year-old chugging Red Bull. If it’s not bobbing like a cork or veering off, the player is constantly staring up our early ancestors’ arses. Throughout my entire playthrough, I felt like I always had to fight a bit with the game to aim the camera where I needed it to go. It felt like Ancestors was training me to be a primate proctologist.

I started following the first and only objective that the game will ever give you: Find and rescue the clan’s lost baby. These early humans possessed a heightened sense of smell, hearing and vision which the player can use to identify most of their surroundings. After locating the baby, I slid down a tree with all the dexterity of a seasoned primate and proceeded towards the objective marker.

Son, please don’t run off again while your mother and I mate in front of you, okay?

Mistakes were made

The little guy was hiding underneath a rock and I gave him a piggyback ride back to the nest just like the monkeys I saw on BBC the other day. It was then, once I returned to the nest, that I experienced exactly what about 95% of all day one players ran into: Absolutely no indication of what to do next. No further objective markers, no tutorials and no stats meters. Bugger-all.

Suddenly I appreciated the true gravity of these words in the opening scene

I get that this experience of the unknown was meant to replicate the situation of our actual ancestors, but it is all just too much too soon and the game punishes you severely for getting it wrong. Every now and then I like a game that doesn’t hold your hand, but it needs to happen more organically and logically through the gameplay. I cannot say that is the case here.

This is even more bizarre when you consider Ancestors actually lets you adjust how much on-screen info you want before starting your new lineage (or clan). Why even bother if players who stipulate they prefer some help are not going to be assisted anyway? No wonder so many people were put off.

I would be equally happy for discovering this egg if I knew what it was for. Also, notice how dark this game is? I wish they had gone for a more vibrant colour scheme.

Okay, I thought, my overgrown chimpanzee must want food, right? There is a green orb at the bottom of the screen that was beginning to fill with red, which means it has to eat or drink I’m guessing. Either that or it is preparing to fling poop at something. I spotted some berries hanging from a bush and followed the prompt to gorge myself on the red fruit.

Big mistake. Turns out the berries give you an upset stomach, meaning the humanoid looked like it was REALLY about to fling poop everywhere. Here Ancestors also committed one of the Seven Deadly Sins of gaming: It makes the screen go all wobbly and wonky to simulate the ape’s churning gut.

In fact, whenever you get poisoned, high off mushrooms, cold, frightened, or for no particular reason, Ancestors simply loves to make your screen go bonkers. I HATE it when games do this since this is a hopelessly outdated way of simulating a characters experiencing trauma. Too many other games have found better ways of conveying these situations to the player.

The only thing I could see around the nest was more berries, so I broadened my search to find some primordial antacid. It was then with my poor visibility that I missed a jump, causing my already suffering alpha female to plummet off a high branch and break a bone when she hit the ground. So now my clan leader is both sick and limping. The human race is really off to a rocky start.

I finally figured out that water helps with the stomach problems at least, so I waded deeper into the river to settle in for some drinking… which is when a green mamba locked its venomous fangs on the ape’s arm from behind a tree. Now I can add poisoning to my list of woes, and the screen looked like vomit at this point making it really hard to see anything.

“No,” I said as I hit exit, “no, no, no. Screw this. Maybe the human race was meant to go extinct. You’ll thank me later mother earth.” I left the game, and didn’t play again for a day as I plotted my review vendetta.

Let’s do the monkey

Before I munched on those deadly dingleberries, I did some exploring around the settlement and noticed a variety of interactions and crafting options that I did not quite understand (because the stupid game failed to explain them). Perhaps the answer lay here. Perhaps there was something more beneath this horrid first impression and the developers’ pathetic attempts to help you in their game.

It was at this point that I stumbled upon a streamer by the name of TagBackTV on YouTube. If my attempt at playing Ancestors was a patient in the head injury ward doing a cowbell solo, he played like a symphonic orchestra conducted by Hans Zimmer. This guy had evolved the hunched little clan of simians into a bipedal army holding hunting expeditions through the Savannah wielding stone tools and weapons.

According to my friends, this is still pretty much how I cook today. Seriously though, bashing the leaves with a rock makes a medicinal paste.

Confident that it could be done I spent hours on Reddit, watched instructional videos and finally summoned the courage to try again. This time, Ancestors felt like a completely different game. Now I was watching my clan grow and survive because I was teaching them to adapt and become smarter. Suddenly, it was 2:30 in the morning and JUST ONE MORE GENERATION AND I PROMISE I WILL GO TO BED.

Like all good survival games, Ancestors has this internal rhythm and momentum for the player to fall into. Once you learn a set of basic gameplay mechanics, you gain the confidence and knowhow to apply them in more complex tasks. In other words, once you understand the law of the jungle, it becomes a place of exploration and opportunity rather than one big death trap.

See, the aim of the game in Ancestors is to help your little clan of humanoids survive the harsh landscape of prehistoric Africa by building up their neuron cells. In other words, the player must give the early humans bigger brains, which in turn makes each successive generation (the babies) smarter and more capable in their environment.

Ancestor’s version of a ‘tech tree’. The white orb in the middle is how much neuronal energy you have to make links to other neurons. More babies makes you gather neuronal energy much faster.

In the opening sections, players will mostly learn the ABCs of just getting around the jungle, what to eat and avoid, and how to keep a keen eye out for predators. While the latter becomes annoying at times, the developers have programmed their AI really well since they can sneak up on you completely silently. I needed to change my underwear a few times after a crocodile lunged at me out of the water, or a sabre-toothed cat suddenly jumped out of the undergrowth.

Example of an upgrade as you develop the brain of the apes

After those neurons have been developed and you have passed through a few generations, you find that you can eat even the most poisonous foods and kill even the most intimidating predators with a self-made spear. Players will learn how to use stone tools not just to make weapons, but also to grind plants into paste for making medicinal products.

After every major evolution the distant descendants of the clan you started off with will find themselves in a new environment. From the jungle the player will eventually move to grass planes, the arid savannah, and even the sea shore. Again, these environments are HUGE and each one presents a unique set of challenges which is a great way to keep the repetitive gameplay fresh and engaging.

Staying in touch with your roots

The survival genre is an exciting area to explore for gamers these days. Games like Subnautica, the comeback of No Man’s Sky, and now Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey show that studios have a unique confidence here to turn some interesting concepts into games. As a community we should consider supporting these flawed but ambitious projects so that they can evolve into bigger and more refined products, and Ancestors is no exception.

That’s what you get for attacking my clan. Oh crap… did I just cause cats to go extinct!?

Do try this game if you have the means or the time, but make sure you do a substantial amount of background research before you click that icon. While the developers were morons for not easing the players into this complex experience, all gamers should try their hand at witnessing the very birth of our species.

Big world to explore

Vast and engaging skill tree

Rewarding exploration

Interesting concept

Decisions matter

Needs more player guidance

Frustrating camera

Screen distortion effects

Mediocre graphics

Can be repetitive at times

        Play time: About 27 hours total. Most players should reach the final stage of evolution between 35 – 40 hours

Computer Specs: Windows 10 64-bit computer using Nvidia GTX 1070, i5 4690K CPU, 16GB RAM – Played using an Xbox One Controller

The post Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey – Review appeared first on DSOGaming.

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[ancientbooshartifacts]

More Tomfoolery

Author: The_Leechwife

Year: 2006

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Naboo/Saboo

A swollen moon hung low over Wickham Caves, casting its wan light over the packed field of revellers, heaving like a huge single-minded disco-entity in time to pounding music. Somewhere near the middle of the throng, a very small man in a lopsided blue turban and a tall individual with ginger hair and a raincoat accidentally knocked into each other. “’Right Barry!” Naboo yelled over the thumping trance. Barry squinted through the strobe lights and his face lit up with recognition. “Alright Naboo, haven’t see you in ages!" The gangly Welshman slapped Naboo on the back so heartily that he was almost knocked of his feet. “Not since Morocco last year!” Naboo grinned fondly at the recollection. “Yeah, you ate that whole sheet of acid because you didn't think you could get it through Carpet Customs.” “I know, I lost two days!” Barry wiped a tear of merriment from the corner of his eye. “What’s new with you, Naboo?” “I’ve found myself a new familiar, met him at the zoo, he’s alright. Hey Bollo!” “Huh?” The gorilla was accosted mid-boogie and turned round, lowering his two handfuls of glow-sticks. “Barry, this is Bollo. Bollo, Barry.” “Alright Bollo!” Barry shook hands with the ape as best he could. “Alright.” Bollo peered over his holographic visor to regard this strange cagooled figure with the massively dilated pupils. Naboo had only hired Bollo three weeks previously, and this was his first festival as an official familiar. He'd never seen so many people off their tits in one place! “’Ere, Naboo, I can’t hear bugger all, let’s pop in there for a bit.” Barry nodded at a huge white marquee at the edge of the field. “Yeah alright, c’mon Bollo” The trio entered the chillout tent and picked their way though the groups of wizards, shamans and assorted occult personages in various states of intoxication. Barry and Naboo found a place on a heap of cushions set up round one of numerous hookahs, there were several other figures in white robes sprawled nearby, but they were mainly transfixed by the patterns of the blue lights, staring up and giggling intermittently. Both shamans picked up the nearest hose and inhaled. “That’s better,” Barry looked around in satisfaction, “I was goin’ a bit mad out there. I’m pilling my face off!” “Get us some drinks, would you Bollo? Get one for Barry too while you’re there.” Naboo patted the gorilla on the arm and he lumbered off with minimal complaining. Barry squinted at his hairy back though thick glasses. “He’s a bit bigger than you usually go for isn’t he?” “Yeah, those frogs were doing my head in, cheeky sods. And there’s no chance of me accidentally smoking Bollo either.” “Ha ha, yeah. You and those frogs. Mental.” Barry turned to pass the hookah hose to the person next to him, and did a double take when he managed to resolve her features into a coherent picture. “Alright sexy, I’m Barry. Remember that name, you’ll be screaming it later.” The ample woman adjusted her robe around her frankly enormous bosom. “I’m Blossom, I’m here with my sisters.” She giggled coyly. “Sisters?” Barry’s smile widened. Blossom gestured to the two prone figures beside her, both in the same shapeless white dresses, “Not actual sisters, we're druids. This is Peaches, and that’s Acorn.” Peaches, a slimmer version of her sister, managed to raise a languid hand in greeting but Acorn, a tiny woman with scruffy pigtails, had long since passed out. “Ladies.” Barry beamed courteously if redundantly. Naboo chuckled at Barry’s indefinable appeal with the opposite sex. He was a divvy in a raincoat, but no one ever seemed to notice. The tiny shaman noticed Bollo, laden with drinks, looking lost. He waved and caught Bollo’s eye, but as the ape changed trajectory he smacked straight into a tall man in black heading in the opposite direction. He was knocked right over, and insult was added to injury when the three glasses Bollo had been holding were emptied onto him. Bollo looked blank for a second. “Shit.” He managed. Naboo and Barry hurried over as Bollo helped the unfortunate newcomer to his feet and received a barrage of curses. “Damn you, you complete and utter knob!” raged the soggy individual as the wet feather on his hat drooped down into his eyes, “I’m with the Board of Shaman you know! You’ll get what’s coming to you, mark my words!” “Hey, it’s that Saboo chapie.” Barry grinned, too blissed-out to acknowledge bad tempers, “Naboo, you remember Saboo?" "Yeah, I went to his workshop on 'Dimensional Portals You Already Own' last year. Good stuff." "Alright Saboo?” “Alright? No I’m not all right! This idiot monkey has just soaked me!” Bollo’s face darkened. He thought this fellow was over reacting slightly, even if he was slightly drunk. Though a pacifist by nature, the put-upon primate was beginning to think that this Saboo character would benefit from a ‘Chico’ haircut. “Chill out, this is supposed to be a party.” Naboo raised his hands, placating, “Let us get you another drink.” “Yes, Mick Jaggers all round!” Barry cried jubilantly, “Come and sit with us, we’ve just met these three gorgeous girls. Three of them, three of us…” Saboo looked as though he was trying to stay in a bad mood, but eventually conceded. Bollo went off to make a second attempt at getting drinks while Barry and Naboo led Saboo to their little nest. "He might just have a chance with the unconscious one." Barry added as an aside to Naboo, who sniggered and elbowed his friend into silence. Saboo's dark eyes flicked about pensively as he sipped his third drink and regarded everyone with a critical and slightly squiffy gaze. His feathers had begun to dry out and fluff up again, and this drink, whatever it was, apparently just sugar and alcohol, was excellent. He hadn't meant to lash out a Bollo like that, but he'd only been with the Board a few weeks and found he was always edgy and paranoid as to what was expected of him. He was embarrassed about this weakness, and to cover himself he glared daggers at the ape who he'd somehow ended up sitting next to. Saboo also did not reckon much to the talent round here; Barry was whispering sweet nothings of ever increasing lewdness to Blossom, who was practically offering herself up to him, the second girl, Peaches, had only just come round and looked set to keel over again any second, and the scrawny one had begun to snore. There wasn't enough booze in the world, Saboo thought to himself. The short-arse with the ridiculous 'jack of clubs' hair do was prettier than these three. He opted to draw a line under that train of thought immediately. "Alright?" Saboo started, he hadn't realised he'd been staring at Naboo. "Yes, fine." He snapped, looking over at Peaches who was spinning her wand on the ground, apparently fascinated. He looked up again despite himself to watch Naboo conversing in low tones with his familiar. Naboo peered up into Bollo's face; he could tell Bollo was really drunk, because he had gone all blurry. "Run that by me again?" "I met dis Valkyrie before, said she could get me a shot as DJ at club in town." Naboo looked doubtful. "Aw please. Anyway, dis guy keeps lookin' at me like he wants a fight." He cocked his head at Saboo, making no effort to be discreet. "Oh alright then, off you go." Naboo conceded, "I'll see you later, yeah?" Bollo clambered to his feet. "Meet you by the hemp turban stall?" "Cool." As Bollo plodded off back to the dance floor, Naboo smiled amiably at Saboo and patted the cushion where the ape had been sitting. Saboo shifted over apprehensively. "Bollo's alright really, he's just new. He didn't mean any harm." Naboo was determined, in his hazy way, to smooth things over. "Yes, well." Saboo tried to remain disapproving. Naboo just smiled with the innocence of one who is too far out of his head to begrudge anyone happiness, and held out his hand. Saboo relented and shook it. "What's your name again?" "I'm Naboo, that's who." Saboo was silent for a while, then: "Did you really like my workshop?" "Yeah, it's come in really handy a few times actually." "Oh?" "Yeah. I've got these friends, they're basically idiots but they're alright, and they're always-" "Hey!" Blossom's high-pitched squeal cut in and made them both wince, "That's a great idea!" She snatched the wand from Peaches and spun it on the floor, slightly frustrated when it didn’t point to anyone in particular. Peaches looked bewildered, took a long drag from the hookah, and passed out next to her slumbering sister. "What?" Naboo looked misty-eyed and confused. “We used to play this at summer camp, you have to make out with whoever it points to!” "Good grief, how old are we?" Saboo scoffed. “Are you allergic to fun?” Saboo gave a snort of derision, “You’re the only woman still awake, what if I have to kiss one of these two?” he waved his hand vaguely at Naboo and Barry. “Are we not quite secure in our masculinity?” Barry mocked good-naturedly. “Of course I am.” Saboo brandished his glass, sloshing liquid down his hand, “I’ll take on any one of you. If you felt the power of Saboo, you’d be bent for life, my friend.” Barry wasn’t listening, and had spun the wand and stopped it blatantly with his finger when it pointed to Blossom. Blossom grabbed hold of Barry and bent him backwards over her knee, kissing him with full-force. Naboo spluttered with laughter, his smile lighting up his face. Saboo pretended he didn't notice. "Get a room!" Blossom released Barry with a noise like a blocked sink. His eyes uncrossed and he glared at Saboo. "Fine. It's your turn." "This is so purile." Saboo rolled his eyes, but spun the wand with a flick of his wrist. Barry was not keen on people who were opposed to a good time. He was moving into the 'hallucination phase' of his evening, but had enough consciousness left to stop the wand with a discrete bolt of magic as it pointed to Naboo. Naboo raised an eyebrow. Saboo panicked. "I'm not kissing him!" "What's wrong with me?" Naboo took on an expression of mock indignance, "I've been told I'm charming." "It would be unethical for a man in my position to-" "Methinks the shaman doth protest too much." Giggled Blossom. "Hey, if he's uncomfortable with his sexuality, leave the man alone." Barry laughed. "You're all mouth and no trousers." Naboo jibbed. "It's not that! I'm just-" Before Saboo knew what was happening, Naboo knocked his hat off with a deft back-swipe, took hold of his face with both hands and kissed him hard on the mouth, then sat back smugly. Saboo blinked in astonishment, and tried to frame some sort of retort, but nothing seemed forthcoming. "I knew it." Naboo slurred triumphantly, "You talk loud enough, but when it comes to the crunch-" "The Crunch? Don't you bring the Crunch into this," Naboo had inadvertently touched a nerve, "I practically invented the Crunch!" And with that Saboo grabbed the smaller man by the shoulders and kissed him back. He tasted sweet and sticky from the alcohol, and was soft and responsive as their tongues met tentatively. Much to Saboo's consternation, the look in Naboo's twinkling eyes when he pulled away did not say 'Well, that taught me a thing or two about the nature of the Crunch'. Saboo determined to teach the insolent tyke a lesson if it took him all night, which he rather hoped it would. It occurred to him that he shouldn't be getting into it this much and that he'd regret it tomorrow. He felt Naboo's hands inside his jacket and decided that rather than worrying he would gently push the little shaman back onto the cushions and make out with him some more. Through his scrambled consciousness, Naboo concluded that this Saboo wasn't as much of a twat as he'd first thought. He sighed happily as he breathed in the smell of burning paper and incense. He felt slender fingers slide over his hips and fumble with the sash at his waist, and in return he pressed himself against Saboo's hardening crotch, satisfied at the sharp intake of breath this produced. Saboo pulled away for a moment and looked Naboo in the eyes; having never propositioned a man before, he was at a loss as to how to put it. "Listen, Naboo, I'm… I really…" Naboo smiled, "I know, me too." Saboo sat up, taking Naboo's hands and pulling him up too. Naboo got to his knees unsteadily; getting up had produced the revelation that he'd really had way too much to drink, and was beginning to feel distinctly dodgy. An ominous stirring in his stomach told him he had to get out of here right away. He put a finger to Saboo's lips and tried to look at him with what he hoped was a seductive and fathomless gaze. "Hold that thought, I have to, y'know, take care of something. I'll be back, wait here for me." "Don't be long." Naboo staggered to his feet and swayed perilously for a moment as his head protested against standing vertical. "I won't. Stay just as you are." He attempted to wink, though he suspected he was just squinting, before hurrying out of the tent as nonchalantly as possible. On his way out he noticed Barry speaking garbled, unrelated nonsense to Blossom, who was beginning to realise this man was in no state to give her the sweet loving she'd been promised. "I can see outlines as if they were… colours… look at that!" Barry had become fascinated by a cushion tassel. When he got outside, Naboo looked about urgently. Most people had gone back to their tents or fallen asleep where they fell, a few were still dancing or wandering from one place to he other. The booze was really fighting back now, and Naboo realised he was going to be sick. He managed to get a few paces before his legs gave up on him. "Ooh it's all gone wrong." He observed meekly as he sank to his knees. His stomach lurched and, finding no better alternative, he took off his turban and threw up in it. Bollo had been roused by a bad feeling, and had gallantly left the dance floor and his potential conquest to look for Naboo. He spotted a small, unmistakable figure hunched on the ground, his glossy black head bent over something he clutched in his hands. Bollo decided he was getting good at this whole intuition lark. Naboo looked up through bleary, watering eyes and spat blue as Bollo approached. The ape knelt down in front of him and gently lifted his head. "You're the best familiar ever, you are." Naboo conjectured before hiccuping and slumping forwards. Bollo caught him before he landed in the mess he'd made and picked him up. "Come on den." He sighed, hefting the limp little body over one shoulder and picking up the discarded turban with his free hand. Naboo moaned something indistinguishable as he was carried back to his own tent. As they made their way across the field, Bollo noticed Barry running wildly with his anorak tied round his shoulders like a cloak, holding a cushion out in front of him and yelling at the top of his voice. These shamans, when they let go they really let go. "Ooh, my head. What did I do last night?" Naboo groaned as a tremendous hangover descended upon him the next morning. "It must have been pretty good for me to end up like this, eh?" Bollo merely grunted as he handed his boss a plastic cup of coffee and two aspirin. Later, they loaded their tent and bags onto Naboo's magic carpet, unaware they were being observed from a distance by a dark, glowering figure with a high feathered collar and hat. Saboo hadn't been this furious since that time in college when Tony Harrison had told Saboo's girlfriend he had crabs. He had waited most of the night for this hot shaman sex he was promised; that idiot Barry had got so far off his chops that he had run off screaming with a cushion, the fat girl had gone to find him, and Saboo had sat there with two unconscious women for three hours feeling like a complete fool. He was vexed and humiliated and all manner of fumingly, seethingly, angry. One day, he thought, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day he'd deal that little bastard such a slice of Crunch he wouldn't know what hit him. He shook his fist in impotent furry and stalked off to pack up his things.

[wishingfornever]

10/21/17 – No Contact: Concrete Box

I had a dream about eggs.  I was trying to cook four fried eggs at the same time.  A lot of problems I was having.  Wouldn’t call it a nightmare, but it wasn’t the best case scenario.  That’s what I’m needing right now.

That said, Shane told me he was deleting his Facebook.  I asked why but I already knew why.  The drama between me, Esther, and Dennis.  Let’s just call it SED, though it should probably be DES or EDS because I should be last because grammar has laws, apparently.

However, SED is appropriate because it’s all he SED she SED bullshit.  See what I mean?

Been talking to Ariel a lot more.  Which is nice.  As I write this, know it is almost 5 in the afternoon.  Basically spent the whole day talking to her and I woke up before 11am.  Short post today, it seems like.  Maybe in a week, I’ll start missing days.

It’s a good thing.  Today, I was thinking how everything could have been settled had Dennis or Esther just spoken to me sooner.  Both were afraid of me for separate reasons.  I find it insulting, really.  Like… I’m responsible for my own words, but this misunderstanding shouldn’t go unnoticed. Dennis and Esther refused to speak with me.  My only view into their world was what Shane told me.

So, yeah.  It was skewed.  It’s why I panicked.

Had they just joined me and Daniel for dinner, then they’d have seen I was ready to forgive and forget.  Of course, I still harbored some agitation towards Dennis but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.  When he said, “I don’t know what to say” he should have said something more.  He should have confronted me saying, “Listen… the thing with Esther.”  Even if he wasn’t going to apologize, he should have tried to clear the air.

But they didn’t.  Esther and Dennis were too afraid of me.  Why?  Esther has a reason.  I get angry, but I never yelled at her since this all started.  Dennis said he was afraid of me with my guns but Daniel could have confirmed that I’m not armed.  Honestly, I’m pro-gun.  However, I’m not sure I like guns.  Supposed to wear ear protection but they’re still incredibly loud.

No.  If I were to murder Dennis, I’d use a knife.  It’s quick, it’s easier, and it would prove the point that I’m angry and this is personal.

That’s if I were to murder him.  Obviously he is still alive as of the time of writing this. I’d have a lot more problems if he had died.

Anyways… I promised I’d talk about Ariel, didn’t I?  Well, fuck.  I’m… really tired.  Like, I need to do the dishes for tomorrow.  Also… cut some spinach, too. Might do that first.  Then dishes.  As for Ariel… I’ll talk about her tomorrow.

I know, I know.  I’m a piece of shit.  I swear, I’ll tell you more about her tomorrow.  I’m just so tired.  But I’ll go to bed early tonight.  I’ll get my sleeping schedule up to par and then I’ll be more available to do EVERYTHING because life is ran by the fucking daywalkers.  >:C

I’m more nocturnal than anything else.  I know this because that’s when I get my best ideas.  Or maybe that’s when I’m the most crazy.

Doesn’t matter.  I need to do dishes.  I’ll be back later.

Before I go, know I had to go out to get avocados.  When I came back, the garage door was locked. I was basically stuck in the garage, texting my cousin and trying to get her to open the door and let me in.  Thing is, she was asleep.  I had to call her.

Not sure if you realize this, but it can get quite hot.  Being stuck in that garage, I realized that heat.  It sucked.  I didn’t lose my temperature, I was just miserable for a little while.  It wasn’t that bad but Adela said I’d have a code. Unfortunately, I don’t have a code yet. Whatever.  I’ll be fine.  I’m just tired.  Not that grumpy, surprisingly.  Possibly good thing?

Idk.

Finished with the spinach and dishes.  I had several cops of water.  Strangely, that seemed to have woken me up.  Almost like I had a cup of coffee instead of three cups of water.  It’s a weird concept.  Maybe I wasn’t tired, just dehydrated.  I’m tired now but I found the energy to get my chores done.  Energy well spent, maybe.

I have a confession to make. Being vegetarian… I actually had a burger today.  I could make a bunch of dumb excuses like how the night before I saw the video where Arin from Game Grumps goes to the main hub of Wendy’s and tries all these really delicious burgers or how I was feeling super depressed and used it as a comfort food.  But, I have no excuse.

I ate meat.  I consciously ate meat and felt bad as I ate it.  Didn’t even taste that good. Ironic because it was Whataburger and they’re great normally.

I’m feeling depressed now. Can’t eat anything now because I basically had my calories for the day/week.  I want pizza.  I’ll order a pizza sometime this week. That’ll make me happy.  Fatty foods… then hating myself as I spend too much food getting fat.  Fuck.

Whatever.  Watching more GG (Game Grumps) and they’re playing Funhaus in Overwatch.  Never heard of them.  There is this character I really like named, “Winston.”  Mercy I really like her design but Winston… I find his entire character interesting.  He’s a gorilla with a prescription.  He wears these little glasses, is an intellectual.  I find it very charming.

I remember… when Overwatch (or BlizzFortress 2) was announced.  I saw all the trailers because Blizz was complaining about porn (porn is great free advertisement, tell someone not to make a porn of a character and they’ll do it twice as fast).  The only really interesting trailer I thought was with Winston.  There were the two Japanese gentlemen, Soldier 82, and Tracer trying to save Robo-Gandh1.

I’ve got to say, Winston was the best.  Like… it was charming.  He was a cute monkey pup, too. Well… ape.  The action part was okay.  But I absolutely adore Winston’s character.  It was touching.  I love how he had tires and ate bananas and peanut butter.  Like, he is super smart but he’s still an animal.

I actually googled the trailers right now, just to recap.  APPARENTLY, it’s not 82 but 76.  Soldier 76.  I hate numbers.  -,-

Anyways, rewatching the trailer. I love how fatherly that scientist is.

Oh, shit!  I didn’t realize skullface guy was there.  All I remember of the action part was that he said, “I’m not a monkey… I’m an APE!!!”  Hasn’t happened yet.  The dude who lets go of his gun as Winston swings everything around was pretty smart.  He’s going to go places.  :3

God damn, that is a cute mother fucking monkey.

Oh, he says he’s a scientist. I was wrong.  And then Tracer opens who fucking mouth.  Low point of the trailer.

Anyways, yeah.  Really like Winston.  I’d watch a full length movie about him.  And because he’s a gorilla, I’d fucking cry in the middle.  Idgaf.

Now that I got that out of the way, I doubt I’ll actually ever PLAY Overwatch.  Like ever.  If I do, it’ll be because someone asked me to.  And if I do play, I’ll probably play as Winston.  I think I heard he was pretty underpowered which was weird but I think they patched him if he was too underpowered.  It’s been a couple years.

Oh, I forgot!  There was another trailer I liked with the robot dude.  Bastion.  I liked his story, too.  I guess I really like non-human characters AS WELL as blondes. :/

Hrm…  Esther came onto NationStates.  Didn’t do anything.  Weird.  Maybe she messaged NSRF.  Going to see if my story checks out.  That’s if I had to guess.  I don’t blame her.  After what happened, she’s checking sources.  I told her to do this with Dennis when he told her that his mother didn’t like her hanging out with me and thought she was using Dennis.  If I’m right, she’s checking on me.

She’s doing what I told her to do.  Clever girl.