#Nonsense yet some kernel in her realized it to be true.

[acourtofquestions]

Kingdom of Ash Chapter 24

"What is this place?" Manon asked Glennis as she found the crone polishing the handle of a gold-bound broom beside the fire. Two others lay on a cloak nearby. Menial work for the witch in charge of this camp.

"This is an ancient camp-one of the oldest we claim." Glennis's knobbed fingers flew over the broom handle. "Each of the seven Great Hearths has a fire here, as do many others." Indeed, there were far more than seven in the camp. "It was a gathering place for us after the war, and since then, it had become a place to usher in some of our younger witches to adulthood. It is a rite we've developed over the years—to send them into the deep wilds for a few weeks to hunt and survive with only their brooms and a knife. We remain here while they do so."

Manon asked quietly, "Do you know what our initiation rite is?"

Glennis's face tightened. "I do. We all do." Which hearth had the witch she'd killed at age sixteen belonged to?

"You're not a cold person."

He arched a brow. "Is that your professional opinion?"

Manon studied him. "You can descend to those levels when you are angry, when your friends are threatened. But you are not cold, not at heart. I've seen men who are, and you are not."

"Neither are you," he said a bit quietly.

The wrong thing to say.

Manon stiffened, her chin lifting. "I am one hundred seventeen years old," she said flatly. "I have spent the majority of that time killing. Don't convince yourself that the events of the past few months have erased that."

"Keep telling yourself that." He doubted anyone had ever spoken to her that baldly-relished that he now did, and kept his throat intact.

She snarled in his face. "You're a fool if you believe the fact that I am their queen wipes away the truth that I have killed scores of Crochans."

"That fact will always remain. It's how you make it count now that matters."

Make it count. Aelin had said as much back in those initial days after he'd been freed of the collar. He tried not to wonder whether the icy bite of Wyrdstone would soon clamp around his neck once more.

"I am not a softhearted Crochan. I will never be, even if I wear their crown of stars."

He'd heard the whispers about that crown amongst the Crochans this week-about whether it would be found at last. Rhiannon Crochan's crown of stars, stolen from her dying body by Baba Yellowlegs herself. Where it had gone after Aelin had killed the Matron, Dorian had not the faintest idea. If it had stayed with that strange carnival she'd traveled with, it could be anywhere. Could have been sold for quick coin.

Manon went on, "If that is what the Crochans expect me to become before they join in this war, then I will let them venture to Eyllwe tomorrow alone."

"Is it so bad, to care?" The gods knew he'd been struggling to do so himself.

"I don't know how to," she growled.

Ridiculous. An outright lie. Perhaps it was because of the high likelihood that he'd be collared again at Morath, perhaps it was because he was a king who'd left his kingdom in an enemy's grip, but Dorian found himself saying, "You do care. You know it, too. It's what makes you so damn scared of all this."

Her golden eyes raged, but she said nothing.

"Caring doesn't make you weak," he offered.

"Then why don't you heed your own advice?"

"I care." His temper rose to meet hers. And he decided to hell with it-decided to let go of that leash he'd put on himself. Let go of that restraint. "I care about more than I should. I even care about you."

Another wrong thing to say.

Manon stood—as high as the tent would allow. "Then you're a fool." She shoved on her boots and stomped into the frigid night.

I even care about you.

Manon scowled as she turned in her sleep, wedged between Asterin and Sorrel. Only hours remained until they were to move out—to head to Eyllwe and whatever force might be waiting to ally with the Crochans. And in need of help.

Caring doesn't make you weak.

The king was a fool. Little more than a boy.

What did he know of anything?

Still the words burrowed under her skin, her bones. Is it so bad, to care?

She didn't know. Didn't want to know.

[thetorturerwrites]

Lamb: Ch 2 - Someone Like You

***This amazing artwork was gifted to me by @elmidol​​. Please do not re-use or re-post it without permission from them and/or myself. Don’t be a dickbag.

Previous Chapter

Summary:  “You need someone in the middle—not dead, not alive.” You arched upwards, trying to get even a bit of slack, just enough to speak. “Someone like me.”

C/N:  Look - If you’re new here, this is adult shit. If you’re not new here, you know what my C/Ns are about. Be warned. 

Word Count: 3.7k

A/N: Did I ever think I would be writing about Kylo and babies? No. No, I did not.  Am I writing about Kylo and babies? Maybe.  Its a crazy, crazy world, y'all.

Special thanks to @kylorengarbagedump for helping me edit this asshole of a chapter.

***

“Retribution.” 

The word sounded ludicrous on his lips, infantile and irresponsible. Abruptly, you had a clearer picture of what was happening. In this mesmerizing nirvana, his encapsulated kingdom, you were a child, stumbling into an adult’s arena to demand attention.

Your senselessness laid bare, you stared at him, adrift in the gleam of irises that never settled on one color. The pregnant moon overhead framed him, adorning his breathtaking face with a perfect, glowing halo. He was unnaturally beautiful, the kind of king women wept for. 

“Father...”

He met your whisper with a sneer, and you recoiled. He, too, thought your trek here was juvenile; you were just a witless woman wrestling with her emotions. Your heart sank at his judgment, disappointed that he thought you naïve.

Ashamed, you fixed your eyes upon a creeping succulent. You traced thick, tear-shaped leaves and winced at inch-long thorns. You could all but feel the phantom pinpricks. The red and pink blooms made for a variegated shroud to decorate the otherwise plain shrine.

It was lovely in its lethality, a fitting summation of this place.

“The Resistance slaughtered my planet, my ENTIRE family.”

You licked your lips and tugged at his sleeve, pulling yourself up to sit. Recognizing what you had just done, you wrung your hands, as though he was a walking electric current. Even so, he was the only bit of warmth in this melancholy vale, and you subconsciously leaned into it.

“You’re a fool.” He rose to an obscene height and moved away. “I care less than a whit for your holy wars. You murder on fantasy, not truth.”

The absence of his body was nearly as painful as his lack of understanding, and the resultant shout erupted before you could stop it.

“IT WAS NOT OUR WAR!”

Your exclamation bounced off shedding trees to die away in spongy, mossy hills. Sniffling, you pressed the heels of your hands into exhausted eyes. Yelling at men was an awful idea; yelling at this specific man was the epitome of lunacy.

How were you going to explain the hole in your soul to a creature who had none? To Ren, your mourning and loss were just specks in eternity, but he didn’t spend his days loving the living only to lose them. If your grandmother's stories were true, he had been this walking void since his creation.

And the brothers made themselves a land with a great vault separating light from dark. In their wisdom, they decreed the living would gather under golden sun, and the dead would gather under silver moon.  Grandfather Sky Walker gave his blessing: Let them rule over these lands through all ages. Let there be day and night, and let them usher in The Balance.

He was here. It was true.

That cast his indifference into an unusual shade of acceptance. Like this place, he existed outside of the universe’s organic stream. It wasn’t a lack of feeling; it was one colored by millennia of demise.

You were struck by the understanding that he made everything here in his image, all of it immaculate, alluring, and fatal. Just as he was.

“The Resistance decimated my planet on a rumor—a rumor that we were a First Order cult.”  Your voice was steadier than you expected. “But my family, my friends and everybody I knew...We were just ordinary people.”

You lifted your eyes and found him examining you, a curious look playing across his striking features. You huffed a pained breath and looked away again, fearing you would shatter under his scrutiny.

“My grandmother believed in the Balance, not in some notion of wiping the Galaxy clean of Soloists.”

His silence was deliberate, aimed to unnerve, and you crumpled forward, bending as though you could implore his aid into reality. When he moved, it was to stalk a circle around the altar.  His head cocked to assess your every angle.  Captured prey, you could do nothing but watch, wait, wonder.

“Belief in the Balance will not return your family. Nor will I.”

His glorious voice had bite; but where there should be an echo, there was none. Every lilting tree, every swaying vine, even the very air enveloped him, moved with him, absorbed his energy.  

Hugging yourself, you fought down your apprehension.

“No, it won’t.”

You looked past him to fat carmine leaves and marveled at how they turned their faces towards The Ren, their master. 

He only understood in terms of the absolute. 

“I came to ask you to kill them—the people who murdered my family. The Resistance.”

His circuitous pacing ended at your front, and he speared you with such a look you felt conquered. If he was the next crusade, the holy war renewed, you would fight for him, lay down and die for him. 

His long fingers slid you to the altar's precarious edge. So near to him, your comatose heartbeat increased, thudding against ribs his knuckles skimmed.

“All of them?”

You nodded, meek and uncertain. He stepped in, spreading your legs wide just by his body’s substantial design. He was the epitome of domineering, his shape meant to terrorize the weak, to endure immortality. 

Uncertain if you were allowed to put your hands on him, you braced against the slab, leaning slightly away.

The scent of this place, misty and piny and richly floral, was powerful, distilled to purity in his body. It seeped from his pores, the sumptuous belladonna curling around you like tainted tendrils.  He obscured what scant light there was and blotted out your senses, filling your light head with dread and longing.

With one finger under your chin, he lifted your face and beckoned you into such a trance you didn’t notice how he lazily caressed your outer thigh. One by one, he tugged upon the plum, plump bows keeping the rest of you hidden. 

“What price are you willing to pay for genocide, lost lamb?”

It was hypnotic—the timbre of his voice, the delicate dance of his fingertips, the starry shine of his eyes.  You blinked at his question, too caught up in the slow drag of his knuckles along your sternum and down between your breasts.

Your lips worked feebly, discarding every suggestion your brain made. What could you offer a being such as this? Prayers? He would condemn them. Offerings? Paltry trinkets. Blood? You’d already given it. Pleasure? You weren’t sure he was capable. 

It was a cruel game, and the realization burst over you like icy water, flooding your addled mind and shocking you back from stupidity.

You had nothing. Purposefully divested of everything, you sojourned here a destitute fool. 

“There it is.” He brushed a thumb across your lips, smirking. “She understands now that she has nothing, is nothing, of value with which to bargain.”

He collected your silent tears and fed them to you, salt in the wound. Chidingly, he wrapped stiff fingers around your quivering neck and squeezed until you felt your supernaturally sustained pulse drumming in your ears. 

“It is as I said. The dying lamb has no value to the shepherd.”

Fear licked at your nape, clamoring into the rational parts of you. Your mind whirred, desperately trying to unearth some kernel that would serve your purpose. There had to be something.

The memory struck you suddenly and at full velocity.  Careening, your breath stopped. The lineage of Soloists was a pastime for your brother, who made you sit through innumerable sessions and lectures.

And Solo took himself a wife, making her flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone. Their union was prosperous, and she begat him many sons, the first being...

Your body shot into motion, vacating all self-preservation. You grasped his hand and pulled it to your chest. You were even so bold as to thread your smaller fingers through his. On instinct, both legs wrapped around his hips, heels digging into his legs in a feeble hold. 

You were unwilling to renounce your argument without a fight. Hastily, the words spilled out, a wishful wine you weren’t sure he would drink.

“NowaitIcanbeyourvessel!”

A perfectly sculpted black brow rose over his eye. He untangled his fingers from yours, scoffing. Your face burned, impossible beads of sweat forming at your pounding temples. Not knowing what to do with your hands, you pressed them to your flaming cheeks and tried to calm yourself.

“Choose your next words carefully.” 

Entertained by the toddler, he was indulging your delusions, but there was a limit to his patience. Sturdy hands slid beneath your thighs, parting and lifting them so he could draw your hips further into his. You couldn’t argue; you were the one who stopped him from leaving. 

Was that an erection you felt there? Was this proof to your curiosity? The possibility sent goose flesh tingling to every inch of your skin.

“Your brother... Ah!” 

Athame in hand, he gouged the tip into your unblemished thigh, raising a lone drop of blood. 

“Your brother has many children; does he not? There are stories about his prolific family.”

Out sized, you spiraled into anxious desire. When he tired of your nonsense, pulverizing your bones would be little more than a snap of his fingers. Yet, here he was, still wedged between your thighs and feeling a lot like a man who could make you forget your name. 

“Reminding me of my brother is not the way to make your case, lamb.”

He dragged warm lips over your pulse, lathing it with his tongue. His wide palm wrapped around your generous hip, and every single thought fled on bated breath. He was woefully seductive, a wolf in shepherd's clothing.

You licked your lips and shook your head, trying to agree and clear away cobwebs, but his hands and nipping kisses befuddled you so much you could only sputter half-formed words. Switching your concentration to the blade, you valiantly tried to keep track of it and tied yourself to it's path like a lifeline. 

“But you don’t.” You splayed your fingers out wide, palms flat on the altar. "Your seed will kill a living woman, yes? But a woman already crossed over cannot carry a child."

You were about to launch yourself from the proverbial cliff. Regardless of what came next, you would be a splatter at its bottom.

“I- I can.” You begged the endless midnight sky to strengthen your resolve. “You can have me.”

He had been rubbing you up and down his rigid length, your body no more than an instrument to appease his ardor; but at your declaration, he gripped your hips painfully tight and bit your shoulder. 

Attuned to his mood, the stars dimmed to a faint radiance. It was the one detail your brain could latch onto, the way even the greatest of them conformed to his will. 

“You think that’s a novel gesture? That you’ll be the first person I’ve fucked here?” His voice was low but no less edgy. “How many would you wager have died screaming at the end of my dick?”

A pathetic whimper escaped your open mouth, and hunger set it to watering. The idea of him fucking you here, in this open clearing under his meticulously curated twilight, was salacious, tantalizing.

“Countless.” You couldn’t stop yourself from rolling your hips, trying to jump start his back into rhythm. “But I would wager very few of them have been willing to bear your children.”

He growled, a vicious, threatening promise. His soft touch turned angry, coiling into your hair and yanking your head back. Your throat seized, elongated by his grip and fully bared for execution. What had been a grazing scratch of your blade turned again to a harsh point dug into the skin. 

You could hardly speak, reduced to gaping at his flashing onyx eyes. They blazed with a fiery hatred, and you knew it was because you were right. It wasn’t easy for him like it was his brother. He had spent eons alone whereas his brother wanted for nothing.

It infuriated him.

“You need someone in the middle—not dead, not alive.” You arched upwards, trying to get even a bit of slack, just enough to speak. “Someone like me.”

He curved around you so tight you could smell the deadly nightshade on his breath, every single part of him designed to snuff out life. You chewed the inside of your cheek, wondering how each part of him tasted. 

“Someone like you?” He spat the words, fingernails digging into your scalp. “Impure? Spoiled by how many men in your lifetime? Cowed by a little death and stupid enough to make demands of me?”

He was so close to snapping your neck, and you itched for it. You would gladly die at his hand, reunite with your family. All of these morose colors blended with the sorrow in your heart, and you pictured your bones rotting to dust, anchoring you here forever.

But he held off, glaring down at you in barely-checked contempt. 

Caught between wanting to die and wanting to murder, your breathing tilted into erratic, skirting panic so closely a fallen eyelash would detonate the bomb in your chest. 

He looked at you in such a way, though, that your apprehension settled. He was angry because he didn’t know how to feel things. He was intended, to his very marrow, to only ever take. Anything else was uncomfortable and worthy of destruction. 

You nudged his nose with yours, a mirror to his earlier gesture.

“Someone willing.” It was less than a whisper, barely a breath. 

His calculating gaze roamed your face, judging the depth of your commitment. In seconds, the pointed extension of his anger sliced down your supple thigh, cutting open a large gash.  

But pain wasn’t his target.

His aim was true. The rogue missile was expertly guided. And when the thing forced into your cunt, you screamed in unmitigated horror.

“I’m no gentle lover, and this is not your marriage bed. Willing or not, the lamb is meant to be slaughtered.”

You splintered into a wrecked and blubbering mess, heaving and howling. You clung to his shoulders, gouging little crescents into his neck. You had expected to die today but not by the blade cleaving apart your pussy. Offering him your womb seemed to make him only want to carve it from your body, a trophy to mark your idiocy.

“You should not offer things that don’t belong to you, lamb.” The vibration tickled your earlobe, drawing you down from your mania. “Your body was mine the moment you crossed into my land.”

You felt it then, the shift and nudge inside your cunt. Where you were certain there had been a sharp edge, there was only an ornately ridged column, handcrafted and safe.

It was the hilt. 

The wave of frenzy crested, and you opened puffy, red eyes onto a lucent, luminous moon.

He had buried the knife’s handle into your cunt and was pumping it slowly. He held the traitorous blade without even a single red cell shed. 

You wailed a halfhearted objection because this was a profane corruption of a consecrated relic. A particularly long drag of the makeshift phallus countered and shook loose a vulgar moan, and you squeezed tight around it.

It was shameless and sacrilegious.

And it felt so, so good.

You whimpered when he licked your lower lip, barely making contact. Your thighs splayed wide, eager, and an appreciative noise rumbled in his throat. He rewarded your responsiveness with another slow, deep plunge of the weapon, and your head lolled back.

“How is your religion serving you now, lamb?”

He shoved the handle as far into you as the guard would allow and worked it back and forth, rubbing the ridges and pommel against the sensitive spots inside. You moaned sinfully loud, and grasped at him. 

He was ruthless, prodding the elusive bumpy patch until you bucked against his hand and watching you float through this immoral delirium.

You wished it was him. His mouth, his fingers, his cock. Anything but this false idol ramming into your pussy.

Your whimpers turned to pleasured cries. Your calves tensed and shook. Looking down on his blasphemous claim, you yelped and pushed at his arms, the torrent of blood splashed over your thighs and sex wrenching you from your high.

In your hysteria, you’d forgotten that he’d sliced open your leg. 

“Father, please…”

He dug his thumb firmly into the wound, gripping nearly your entire thigh in the one tremendous hand. For a moment, the throb in your pussy traveled up to swirl around the intrusion, and you writhed to get away.

“If you call me that again,” he bit your jaw, raising a welt, “I will slit you open from cunt to crown.”

He played in the plasma, coating his fingers with it. You whined and grimaced, caught between salvation at your cunt and persecution at your leg. When his tacky thumb connected with your clit, you shouted, wracked with tremors. Like a savage, he masturbated you with your own blood, rubbing fast circles.

Rapture barreled down the length of your spine, working its way through every extremity. You were going to cum for him, at the end of your family's treasured athame, and there was nothing you could do to stop it. 

It was indecent, and you drowned in it. You collapsed back onto the altar, arching up into a delicious bow. Your knees drew up higher, and your hips worked for him, chasing what he dangled but never quite delivered. Your fingers scrambled against the uneven stone and fisted the velvet garment.

Your insides coiled, churning terror and thirst together until you couldn’t tell one from the other. Inching closer and closer to that crack of lightning, your cries built, a tumultuous, hoarse crescendo.  You thought he would make you tow that line forever, so close to bliss but never allowed to feel it.

But finally, mercifully, it came.

A blistering exaltation slid over your every nerve. Your cunt clenched and quaked, gushing a lewd prayer. The knife in his hand was the center of all gravity, and every part of you swiveled around it, rolling and bucking and shaking. You hurled a string of curses no priestess should ever know, earning a derisive chuckle.

“Such filth from that pretty mouth.”

Spent, your back finally met the slab beneath, and you fought for breath, chest stinging and throat crackly. A pained whine escaped when his torture implement departed from your slick center, but he gave you only a brief reprieve. 

He climbed above you, dropped his heavy knee onto your sensitive mound, and shoved the sullied hilt into your mouth. Your eyes flew open, but he captured your jaw and kept it in place, ensuring that you held the thing upright. 

Copper tang pooled on your tongue and wafted under your nose. On a muffled whinge, your eyes rolled back into your head. Automatically, obediently, you rocked your hips under his trap. 

“No less than you deserve.” He was all spite and venom. “Swallow.”

You couldn’t look at him, the stars in his eyes daunting and demonic.  Your tongue moved around the hilt, licking away the remnants of your vulgar display. You curled your fingers into the hem of his shirt, exhaled slowly through your nose, and complied, gulping the taste down. 

A timid glance found him studying you, but you didn’t know what he was seeking. Obedience? Passion? Reverence? The gravity of the moment was inescapable. He was deciding if you died here and now, and he gagged you from making any further entreaty.

Lithe for his size, he slid from the perch and pulled the athame from your mouth. Silently, he lifted you from the slab and dropped you on the ground. Not knowing if any of the flora was poisonous, you squealed, shot to your feet, and clutched the abused blade to your heart. A second later, you nearly impaled yourself with it when he threw the hefty book at you. 

Grateful that he didn’t destroy your remaining link to your family, you sunk to the ground and dug aching fingers into the dirt. It was cool and soothing, and you wanted nothing more than to lie down in it and die. 

Instead, you watched, benumbed and mute, as he punched a large hole straight through the center of the altar.  It should have been alarming; the crash of rubble should have scared you, but your senses were far past overstimulated.

Silently, he manipulated a chunk of the altar into a slender loop. 

It was astonishing. He was literally creating something from stone that should have been unyielding. Crouching beside you, he pushed your chin up to lengthen your neck. It was then you understood what was happening.  The thing he was fashioning out of the imbrued marble was for you.

Without a word, he molded it around your neck, cementing it with a pinch of his mighty fingers.

His masquerade as a man fell away. That shrine had stood for a thousand years, likely more, and he demolished it as though it was parchment. He had desecrated the altar to enslave you, spinning an infinite bondage into existence with his very will alone. 

The strength, the unfathomable power unleashed a yearning you weren't prepared to address. He was something wholly beyond what you'd been taught. He was profound, unknowable.

You ran your fingertips along the jagged edges and discovered his collar was perfectly measured to your size.  His fingers would fit between it and your skin, but nothing more.

Every story you ever heard about this place rang in your ears, a raucous chorus of warnings. The living could not stay here, nor could they take anything from here. 

But it was too late.

By your own hand, you now existed between life and death, trapped here by this pillaged, obsidian tether and it's king.

You didn’t know if he would do as you asked or if he would make you bear his children.

You did know that you would never be leaving.

[popculturebuffet]

Toons For Our Times: The Loud House: Strife of The Party/ Kernel of Truth

Lana plans her and Lola’s party with copius amonts of dirt and garabage while Lola tries sabotaging it and I struggle to figure out which one we’re supposed to be rooting for exactly.  Meanwhile Lincoln and Co find an abandoned news room and attempt to start their own news show with the immediate threat of cancelation hanging over their heads. You know like most shows on nick. Also Rusty gets hurt a lot which automatically makes this a winner. News Team Assemble, under the cut. 

Well this week was a mixed bag.. which granted could apply to this week as a whole but I meant it specifically for this episodes. Like last week one of them is a true classic that uses the series new status quo to create something intresting, and the other... is the worst episode i’ve reviwed so far. Yes not even one week and the show managed to go from having a boring episode to having a truly odious one. Both metaphorcially and literally as there’s a lot of grossout gags this time around. And unfortuantely since i’ts first in the pairing and the airing, I have to talk about it first. Pitter Patter, let’s get this over with. 

Strife of the Party I”m not exaggerating either. I admit I was hard on Schooled! and Family Bonding, but the former sitll had some good content and the latter was .. well it’s still a boring lazy retread with a bonkers ending, but I admitted to having seen worse. But “I’ve seen worse” is never the best defense. I’ll admit usually I avoided the worse episodes of the loud house. I haven’t seen some of the more infamous episodes of the show like “No Such Luck” or “Kings of the Con”.. because as just a viewer I could skip an episode if it sounded like toilet dinner. Sure i’ve still ran into them: “Study Muffin” was just eh when it aired but now both post me too and post chris savino being rightfully fired for being a harassing dickweasel thanks to said movement, it’s realy fucking creepy, has Lori at her worst (Actively trying to cheat on bobby), and .. I have no third thing. All we really got out of it was Lynn Sr’s obsession with the British. And “The Green House”’s reputation proceeds it and there’s a reason I couldn’t finish it. Point is i’ve been lucky to only step in a few cowpies in the field of this show, and now i’m watching it as it comes out i’m accepting the hard truth that with the show’s hit and miss quality, i’m going to have to go panning in shit creek some weeks if I want to find the nuggets of gold.  Now I will grant this episode doesn’t sound NEARLY as bad as “No Such Luck”.. but as opus would say....

Exactly my Pengy pal. Again not being worse than the worst episode of the show, still dosen’t make you a good episode. It just makes you marginally less terrible. It’s like saying Creed isn’t as bad as Nickelback. While tha’ts true they both still sound terrible, it’s just playing Creed isn’t a warcrime in some countries. And yes I just compared two episodes of a children’s show to bands my audience thankfully likely weren’t aware ever existed, I don’t care. If you haven’t left my blog running and screaming your either new here or tolerate me being an obscure weirdo.  

Before we get in proper, I haven’t covered the twins yet so let’s do that quick. I haven’t really watched a ton of Lola and Lana’s episodes, their not bad characters htey just don’t intrest me much as i’ve seen their gimmicks a lot, but I will say lola’s slightly better and I will say I like Lana more when she’s doing animal antics instead of grossout. Not terirble characters and their acted well, just not my cup of tea is all. Okay enough stalling , pitter patter!

We open with Lola planning the twins upcoming birthday and talking to her stuffed animals which is cute and all.. before a POSSUM CHESTBURSTS OUT OF LOLA’S UNICORN DOLL. 

The.. the fuck. Look i’m all for scaring the crap out of kids in children’s entertainment. I loved Courage the Cowardly dog as a kid and as a grown ass man writing about children’s entertainment. I love the lich from adventure time, i’m okay with scaring kids. But this is just.. a bit too realistic. Yes really. While  doll that size probably can’t fit a possum it could sure fit something else and i’ve seen stuffed animals big enough for a posssum, so yeah.. this could actually happen to one of my nieces and that thought terrifies me. It happening to me also terrifies me but I’m a grown man not a small child who’d be scarred for life. Christ.  The episode does get better, for a second I didn’t bitch for a few paragraphs for nothing. Lana comes in, claims the demon possum, and tells Lola she’ll fix the doll. Uh Lana i’m not sure she wants it back.. you’d be better off burning it and setting the possum free in a republican center’s home where it belongs. 

Anyways Lana has a good point, Lola’s been plannig their parties ‘since before they were born”.. literally as the image above shows which is just.. fucking amazing. I cannot belivie they got to go there and it’s glorious they did. I can’t think of many, if any, other chlidren’s cartoons that showed a fetus on screen so kudos. 

But yeah that was the one good moment of the episode. Next our twins go to a party suply store where Lola, clearly knowing the host well because these kids have connections, has her stash all the poop colored stuff away... which backfires as lana instead goes to the garbage for party favors and decorations. It fails to get better: Next they go to a bakery where Lana makes her own literal garbage cake and then go to flips for entertainment i.e. a bull. NOw i’ll grant both stops have good bits: The cake store guy asks if Lana’s a cop when she asks for grime and Flip has them sign a waver for the bull. And the bull being lana’s idea of entertainment makes sense.. but overal it just comes off as gross and mean spirited. I mean yes Lola’s about to do some terrible stuff herself and yes Lola ouvershadowed lana.. but she dosen’t deserve this abuse and none of this is healthy or tolerbale for.. well anyone, and could get the Loud Parents in serious trouble, which also leaves the obvious plot hole of “why don’t they step in in either situation. “ 

The episode would’ve made more snese if Lana went to them to get them to let her host the party and their guilt over letting Lola always do it means they don't’ reign her in despite wanting to. Instead their just.. there at the end for a great bit we’ll get to. It’s always the bad episodes that paint the loud parents as terrible parents honestly. No Suck Luck had them cast their son out into the cold over nonsense, On Thin Ice had Lynn Sr decide forcing his children to embarass themselves was more important than teaching one of them that maybe sometimes you don’t always get to force your family to obey your whims for dumb reasons, and the april fools eps have Lynn Sr so terrified of pranking retribution instead of you know.. GROUNDING Luann for going full joker on their asses. IN most episodes their kind and reasonable but it’s always the bad ones where they instead make Homer Simpson look like a good parent. 

But yeah my rant aside the episode COULD work if Lola, encouraged by one of her other siblings, Luann would be a good bet as she could easily slide into the party setting when appropriate without being too distracting, realizes she’s been selfish and tries to hold her tounge for lana’s sake. Maybe then she tries sabotage.. or better she DOSEN’T, but both of them realize something; Lola realizes she’s been doing this to lana their whole lives by forcing her into a party she doesn’t  like so LOLA can be happy while Lana realizes she’s being no better. Hell even if Lola did complain, which is in character, this plot woudl still work. instead.. Lana is just as bad as Lola while Lola is still pretty terrible.  See the big problem is that NEITHER girl is likeable. As I’ve made clear Lana pushes a gross, dangerous party on her sister she clearly doesn’t like, and Lola, instead of trying tot alk to her parents or get Lana to tone it down.. tries to guide her to what she wants, then when that fails sabotages the party, makes it so Lana has nothing and gets her party. Both sides are being really bad, but instead of them realizing this, lana is treated as the one we should be sympathetic to when she gets mad when she finds out about Lola even though NEITHER of them are sympathetic or likeable and deserve to win 100%. But Lana does, lana gets her way, Lola apologizes and hte paradigm just shifts from one sibling being unhappy to another. We do get that one gag I talked about where when lola goes to make things right she has Lynn Sr stall and he pulls out a cowbell “You thought I wasn’t going to need this”. No bud, Rita HOPE you wouldn’t need this. There’s a difference. Thank god it’s the end. 

Final Thoughts for Strife of the Party: They should be obvious but to be clear this is hippo excrement. i’ts not funny, it makes both it’s leads look bad, the parents look worse by inaction and  just isn’t pleasant ot watch. I do GET the show has a young audience, and they like grossout, I get i’m not the target demographic, so I probably would just be okay with a good version of this episode.. but even with that in mind both twins come off so unlikeable it’s just not fun to watch or to see Lana win as she didn’t feel like she earned it. It’s bad and it should feel bad, and i’ts the first truly odious episode i’ve had for weekly coverage. I’ve had okay or eh ones, but this one is truly bad and belongs in the pantheon of bad loud house episodes.. or at least in the honrable mentions. Good gravy this blew. 

Kernel of Truth

Okay now we’ve panned the gold nugget out of the crap creek, we can get on with the GOOD episode this week. I was excited for this one.. I was excited for both actually, even not being a huge fan of the twins I liked the idea of a loud birthday but as we just saw,.. didn’t work out so good. But this one while I thought it would just be average, promised another lincrew shenanigan and I like most of those i’ve seen, and plus I knew it’d allow me to refrence anchorman a bunch so i was llike :Fuck it let’s go”.. and this one ended up being REALLY damn good and probably one of the best episodes with this group i’ve seen, right up there with “Be Stella My Heart.” I’ts good stuff. But before we get into it you probably noticed my ranting about girl jordan but turns out, while I haven’t watched that episode, she’s in the sand field trip episode from last season hanging out with stella so I have an answer to if they forgot abotu her, they didn’t they just need to use her more, and a new ship so i’m satisfied and I apologize for bitching about it. Next time i’ll just check the wiki and see before I bitch about something. ON with the review. 

We open with our motely crew searching for a hidden Game Room rusty’s cousin claims exists, with Stellas as lookout and the guys.. er all in stacks that make it look like their doing a team up move from donkey kong country 2? 

I mean I have been playing the game a lot since it came to switch online, seriously if you have the service go play it, but i’m not hte only one seeing this right? Right.  So yeah the kid stack fails and Zach doubts Rusty’s story.. because when has rusty ever been right.. well apparently just this one time, but we’ll get to that. They even checked the boiler room. 

And then promptly vowed never to go back to the boiler room while Principal RAmierz just sighed at having to deal with a freddy kruger infestation again. They loose more children that way and the school board JUST got him out of the high school.  Liam also gets the line of the episodes when he calls the group “Fellas and Stellas” Which is just objectively amazing and needs to be used every time this group appares from now o. Luckily= Stella noticed another closed door, this one taped off instead of just with a keep out sign and the Fellas and Stellas make their way inside and find themselves in.. a news room! But it’s nto a fox news room so it actually had news in it once and not Tucker Carlson, the answer to what happens to an 80′s or 90′s yuppie scumbag villian after they fail to get the orphange paved over for condos

Anyway, our heroes alll ohhh and all while Zach thinks this is where children are harvested. Nah Zach they just call them up on the pa system.

So everyone does what’s natural to them: Zach and Liam inspect the cameras, Stella looks at the old mic because she’s a natural for being an on camera personality and Rusty.. oggles an old group shot of the news team. You know I may not hate him with the hatred of a hundred suns, but he’s still objectively the worst. Zach gets mad at him over it because “That’s my mom”. Rusty defends himself by calling her hot and while th. no please god no dont’ talk about women like that you creepy little weatherbeaten Chucky doll that somehow became a real boy, or had dustin diamond transfer his soul into it befrore he died. Either is possible. The point is Ewww. The other point is while Rusty’s being his usual living proof of while he’ll die alone Zach has no right to get upset , AT FIRST because how the hell would Rusty know that’s hsi mom. You two have the combined braincell of a dead feret. Stella is the only one out of all 6 of you evenmy boy liam who has more than one brain cell. This argument is stupid and I hate you both,  just settle things in the most humane way possible.. or at least THIS is what I consider the most humane way possible. 

So while those two are being as stupid as expected, Lincoln suggets fixing the place and becoming the new school news crew. I mean they’d need new equipment since even if the stuff there still works’ it’s all worn out 80′s tech none of you know how to use but given their seen with a modern camera later int he episode, I assume they just sold this off and got new cameras. Even if the show flopped, more on that in a minute, the principal could still use those for other projects so it’s a win win. Stella Zhau agrees.. and FINALLY has a last name. Like holy shit i’ve been waiting a full season for this and it feels like that bit was JUST to give her a last name. Now they just need to do Liam but still, I needed this one more. Plus it also means we can now firmly say she’s chinese. Neat!

So after that blockbuster reveal Stella wonders where Rusty is, because fuck if I know, and they all find him continuing to oggle zach’s mom at their age....

Zach snatches it away and crumples up understandably annoyed. Rusty’s response is about what you’d expect. 

So once Liam’s done throwing that calender into the school furnace, and saying hi to freddy as he passes the boiler on the way, our team heads to the principal to plead their case. They run into Meryl, the identical in personality, plot function and apperance outside of wearing pink instead of yellow to Cheryl, the receptionest at the elementary school who I really liked and it’s a clever way to keep the character at both schools and pays off the runnig gag of Cheryl asking liincoln or clyde who looks better her or her sister by having said sister show up and ask the same. Good stuff. 

Meryl ends up agreeing to let them go see the wizard, I mean Principal Rameriz, because her soap is on. Also clyde’s a fan to his friends blank stares. Come on guys he watches romance movies, of course he’s going to love drama shows, even the non teen ones. I now imagine he joins the loud sisters on their riverdale nights. Riverdale the clusterfuck that has something for all of them: Teen drama and shirtless hunks for Lori and Leni, Music and scantly clad “teens’ of both genders and neither gender for Luna, something to laugh at for Luann who probably loves mst3king stuff, and violence for Lucy.. dosen’t seem like it’d be Lynn’s thing honestly but I rest my case. Also the rest of the sisters are too young but the parents figure Lucy’s desentised enough to violence and blind enough to sex to make an exception. 

Now that fun headcanons out of the way our heroes pitch the principal whose skeptical, as the 80′s news show ended because it was boring, much like why that 80′s show ended. That and it was a bunch of 80′s pop culture refrences strung together. I do have a minor nitpick that it seems odd a school room would be in disuse for this long, but given the Principal has apparently spent years looking for aformetioned game room as we find out in the end, the school blueprints are apparnelty lost to the ages or if they exist are some sort of ancient treasure map buried beneath the school drawn in blood by an old witch. I mean this universe has cherry hating peach loving spies now, i’ not ruling anything out. 

But our heroes beg them: Clyde has journalism experince on the school paper, Stella has the dedication and heart and Rusty .. thinks people need to see his face on camera. Rusty as far as we know your face functions like the vdieo from the ring and everyone in school is going to die 7 days after seeing it on film. That’s my theroy and i’m sticking to it. Thankfully everyone else is just as annoyed with him as me for once, and we get the glorious shot above of everyone just looking.. done with his antics and wondering why they keep him around. Finally for once I agree iwth the characters on something rusty related. Let’s show that agian. 

Poetry. You can just feel the levels of “So done with this crap” seeping from every poor.. except for Poor Lincoln who just wishes his best friends and rusty woudl stop using him as furniture, and Liam whose covered but probably very much on team “Rusty Stop Being Yourself your blowing this for us”. They even have an action news pose.. which is botha dorable and breaks the principal’s bust of herself, so she relucntantly agrees to get them out of there. Plus as I said there’s really no loss for her here. If their sucessful the school gets a new elective, something to put on the tv’s every morning, a way to do announcments so she dosen’t have to, and free good publicity for her next bonus. If not.. then she has somehwere to store her new cameras she can use for other stuff, and come up with something else to do with the media lab. Either way she wins. Plus iwth phones and stuff noawaydays they only need the one new camera.  Okay before we move on confession time: I was on a school tv news show’s crew myself. Not in middle school, we werne’te that lucky but in high school we had video media, an elective where seniors edited news segments and what not for the school’s WhamTV program. I hope i’ts still around honestly. I started on a field crew doing stories but my awkardenss and a blow up at my partner where my awkward rage prone ass threatned him by accident, got me bumped to doing credits.. which I genuinely loved. I got to something fun, creative and unique, I was still part of hte intros every week, and I got plenty of time to goof off and watch videos. It’s how I found channel awesome and first got to watch atop the fourth wall since it wasn’t on youtube back then, back before you know, it turned out Doug was abusing all of them and younger me was just unaware of it. But it was still good times so this episode does feel a bit nostalgic for me. But enough teary eyed reminciings of ten years ago, back to the plot. Our heroes air their newscast. It’s the Middle School Action News with with your Anchors Lincoln Loud and Clyde McBride, Stella Zhao in the field, Rusty Spokes on Sports for.. some reason, Cameraman Liam Wedon’tknowhislastname and Zach Gurdle somewhere out of the way. Middle School Action News, always on, always free.. no wiat tha’ts pluto. Middle School Action News, Taste the rainbow. Middle School Action News.. The Good Guys Always Win, Even in The 80′s. Yeah that’ll do! 

But yeah while our heroes try their best, and to their credit this does feel like a middle school news show. The writers not our heroes. Anyways Lincoln and Clyde banter and we get our first segment Stella trying to interview mr. Bohlmer about his birthday.. which goes about as well as doing anything for him on ron swansons’ birthday. 

Next we have Rusty on sports.. which I questioned when I first say this but as obonxious as Rusty can be.. yeah this is the best place to have him. Stella has the drive and the talent to be their field reporter, Clyde and Lincoln have a lifelong report that does well for the desk, Liam is nice and patient enough for camera work, and Zach is a paranoid weirdo so he probably has experince editing since thats where I assume where he is since htey ddon’t do weather and even if they did Liam’s just not the right shade of oblivoiusly nuts. 

I do however at least get why they keep him around as Rusty needs someone to get fed up with him.. but as the above moment showed Clyde and Stella can do that easily, as can Lincoln, so he really has no functional purpose other than as a B-Grade dale gribble. ANd I know kids don’t know who that is but they frankly deserve better. Seriously Zach...

Okay getting back to the segement. For starters Rusty does a breath spray first.. but suprisingly despite interviewing a lady, specifically Lynn, he DOSEN’T hit on her and is actually professional and manages to get a quote despite her disintrest. LIke I know it’s the bare minimum but you’ve met rusty right? the Bare Minimum is hard for him to grasp. Earlier this episode he was oggling old pictures of his friends mom and saying he should take it as a compliment which, Hard No. So the fact hours later he’s talking to a woman without radiating creep after that is an achivment. For him and him alone mind you, most kids should know better. But still I may be hard on the kid, because DAMN is it fun and damn if he dosen’t give me plenty of joke fodder, but I will give him credit even if it’s the bare minmum. Good job rust you passed the very basic plateau of human decency. 

Stella wraps things up with a look at the cafteria that’s about what you’d expect from a kids cartoon, shoe int he beans etc. Unfortuantley bean shoes, sportz and angry assholes aren’t enough to float the show and the principal is ready to can it.  On hte bright side they have their first lawsuit from Mr. Bohlmer. I mean John Olvier idnd’t start getting sued by dickheads with no real case till he was 30, nicely done kids. And it’s not even why, it’s just boring and the kids aren’t enjoying it. So Stella, being again the one with her own brain cells here, proposes to let them find a big story, and Ramirez reluctantly but graciously agrees. And that’s why I like her so far. Don’t get me wrong having Steven Tobolowsky as principal was great, but I like Rameriz better: she’s smart, weary of the crap she puts up with and tough but fair.. which is a cliche btu fits here: She’ll be honest with her kids but will give them an honest chance and sees our news team really doees want this bad and her giving htem one more day to find something actally intresting is more than fair.  So our heroes spitball about what to do for news. LIam suggests alien because again he has about one character trait, so everyone tells him for hte last time no. I mean it isn’t much worse than his last suggestion. 

So once agian it’s RUSTY who saves the day, bringing in beet snacks.. which he tries to get them not to stone him over over the fact the popcorn was all gone.. which okay 1) I get the show’s tring to be healthy so maybe ther’es not chips, but I have a hard time buying that there’s no Chez Its, snack packs or other goodies between “Popcorn’ and “something with beetz that only two men would eat” For the record those two men are Dwight Schrute, for obvious reasons, and this guy my boy Tony Chu. 

I highly recommend this comic, Chew for the record, to anyone. Just.. anyone whose not a children it gets voilent, but it is sublime. We’re not here for that, but I thought i’d plug it. It also has a spinoff currently running, Chu, following his criminal sister. Also real good and dosen’t really spoil anything for hte main series thus far so you can hop in there instead. Either way your in for a ride.  Back on topic, while Rusty failed with snacks he actually brings up a good point: The popcorn isn’t just gone because it’s late in the school day, but because as the kids notice, it’s just missing in general despite the trucks arriving. They have their story and head out to investigate.  And suprisingly, unlike last week’s investigation they find something: A mysterious hooded figure bribing the driver for popcorn, and taking it off somewhere. They fail to catch her, as Rusty dives over her telling Liam to “Make sure you get this”.. he instead gets a shrub and video of him attacking a shrub. I’ts a good runner and shows the writers are leanring to use Rusty better.  They take the footage to the principal, who is impresssed, but states they need to find out who dun it for the story to be complete which is fair enough. They stalk out the nexxt delivery time later that night, but find the drivers have been switched and the mystery person has fled to canada. Rusty once again tries catching her and fall sin the water. Liam once again responds with a cheerful “Don’t worry rusty I got it”.. okay this dynamic is honestly better than him and Zach: Cheerful oblivious Liam and scheming dumbass rusty. Why isn’t THIS the “Those Two Guys” dynamic in the group, honestly. 

Anyways Lincoln is dispondent the next day as iwth no leads, they have no programa nd prepares to do a spider-man no more with his anchorsuit.. which okay 1) you can use that for other things man. Peter Parker can’t really use a spider-man suit for anything but spider-manning but you can use that suit for dates and dances and stuff. and 2).. whya re he and the clyde the only ones with outfits? I mean.. it’s clear from this episode there will be more school news stories nad it just looks weird that they get to play dressup in suits but the rest of the crew isn’t. Liam at leat is working the camera and Zach is Zach but rusty and Stella are field reporters. Field reporters, while not always, usually get nice suits too guys. 

ANyways Lincoln finds something in the garbage. And not his sister this time, as Lana oscar the grouched it up lat episode in sadness. Which to be fair will be her future career mark my words. At least I think that’s a career. Anyways, our heros find a ferry ticket meaning whoever fled to Canada is in the building. They trail some popcorn from the ticket to the locked door from earlier, which Rusty, finishing the rule of three, tries knocking it down hwile Liam gets it. Stella, again proving to be the real hero of this tale, uses her hair as a lockpick. Is.. is there anythign this child can’t do? She and Marcy should swap notes sometime damn. 

And the culprit is MERYL! She was using the popcorn for insulation to get a quite room to herself and begs the kids not to tell which. is the weaker part of the episode> We don’t have the investment in Meryl we do in Cheryl, and she did you know.. steal school property.. or at least buy it off under the table. But the kids being the sweet kids they are understandably, schemes or not don’t want her  to loose her job, and agree to not tell on her even if they loose their show. And to their creid and what keeps this from sinking the episode Meryl is genuinely greatful for this gesture, and gives them the scoop.  And as i’ve been mentioning turns out RUSTY WAS RIGHT. Yes Rusty. That Rusty. Was Right about something. The Game Room exists. They find it thorugh a hidden locker entrance and unlock it from the inside, with af lodo of viewers coming in. Granted at first I didn’t know why Meryl didn’t just use this room but then I thought “Oh yeah she’s a full grown adult and can’t fit in the entrance and i’m assuming it was locked from the other side to the rest of the school”. So the kids have a new hangout and as the principal joins them, they havea  show! Turns out she’d been looking for this place for years.. and doesn’t turn it into something else. What a legend. She plays Air Hockey with Meryl, is there something going on there or are my shipping goggles acting up.. probably both. Anyways our heroes have genuine thanks, a fun new hangout at school, their own headquarters and their own news show. It’s a heck of a day but it’s no time to rest as Rusty tells them he has another tip and i’ts off... to pick up a broom to sweep up the gumball machine they knock over.. THEN they can go find the hot tub for the teachers lounge. 

Final Thoughts:  OH me mow, this was a great one. For one the main complaint I had I mentioned at Schooled! of it not feeling like Lincoln’s friends were given enough personality sometimes? Gone enitrely. Everyone except Clyde and Zach get a moment and Clyde is still fully present and has gotten several focus episodes at this point, while Zach again should just leave already. But the rest of them? All on form. Stella continues to prove her competence, energy and adorability, Rusty is not only actually useful for once but was actually really funny his episode. The gag with Zach’s mom was actually pretty hilarious, my jabs at him aside, and the runner of him trying to do some epic stunt, telling Liam to film it and then humiliating himself while his pal cheerfully tells him he got it is just great and Lincoln’s Spider-Man no more moment with his suit was both said and kinda funny and I love him and Clyde’s reporter outfits. It’s why I wanted everyone to have them, especially since this will be a recurring theme and looks to be a fun one. It was fun, creative, and took me back a decade. It was a REALLY damn good one and I’m glad I watched this one first, a true highlight of the series and a true good sign that the season can, even with some hiccups, will apparnetly have some REALLY great episodes on average even with the weaker ones.  That’s it for this week... and somehow for loud house coverage as, for now, their doesn’t’t seem to be any new episodes in October, but that could change. Until then, follow this blog every Monday for regular ducktales coverage and come back in October for more loud house, more the Casagrandes  and some spooky spooky fun Until then, Go team venture.