#also I fudged slightly on my high school and college attendance years

[wowbright]

((In all seriousness, I just thought I'd contribute to the Goncharov mystique by making up a Soviet remake. BTW, Sergei Bodrov is an actual Russian director, and he did make at least one crime film (Katala) to my knowledge.))

Are you sure you made up the Soviet remake? I started high school in 1989, and one of the few American school districts that taught a full four years of Russian. I didn't take it myself, but my friends who did were obsessed with a Russian gangster movie that had recently come out that they said was based on "the Scorsese classic." Not having been born in 1973 and also living in a house that didn't own a VCR until 1992, I thought they were talking about The Godfather (because I also kept confusing Scorcese with Coppola).

It wasn't until late in my junior year, or maybe my senior year?, that they finally got a hold of a copy that we could watch--European DVDs and videotapes weren't compatible with American players, so it required somebody going on an exchange trip to Russia (a feat in itself), getting the DVD, bringing it back to the US, finding somebody who had a DVD player that could read European DVDs (IDK may be Russian DVDs were different from even European ones), and having that person transfer the Russian version to videotape.

Anyway, I remember going over to my friend Jason's house to watch it. I didn't speak Russian beyond "hello," "very," and "glasnost" (later I would also learn how to say "it [is a] factory"), but I had watched The Godfather movies every Thanksgiving for several years so I figured I'd be able to follow along fine. Also, I had taught myself this Cyrillic alphabet, which wouldn't be relevant if it weren't for the moment that the title screen came up.

"Goncharov?" I asked. "Does that mean 'godfather'?"

Everybody looked at me like I was crazy. "You're joking, right?" my friend Beth (okay actually we weren't friends at all but we were in the same friend group so you know) said.

I didn't know what there was to joke about.

"Wait. You've seriously never heard of Goncharov? The greatest mafia movie ever made?" Jason asked. He was a real cinema snob.

"I thought that was The Godfather," I said.

So many pairs of eyes rolled.

Anyway, we watched the movie. There were no subtitles. Robin, who I knew from church but didn't really hang out with otherwise, took pity on me. She sat next to me and translated the dialogue. Sometimes this annoyed the other viewers, sometimes they jumped in and offered their own translations.

Of course, I didn't need any translation to see the chemistry between Katya and Sofia. Of course, it still remained subtext mostly, and even when they kissed it was open to interpretation about whether it was a kiss of friendship or something more. We were 20 years on from the initial filming of Goncharov, but same sex romances still weren't being portrayed on the silver screen in the U.S. except in the context of Serious Art Films that You Had to Really Hunt Down at the Video Store, and I would imagine it was even more restrictive in Russia.

Still, as a young closeted queer, the story meant everything to me.

I later got my hands on the actual Scorcese Goncharov and would watch it alone in the basement, rewinding and rewatching the scenes between Katya and Sofia so many times that the tape wore out.

Later, in college, we ended up doing our freshman class play (it was a women's college, we had a lot of weird traditions) as a parody of Goncharov. Only in our version, Katya and Sofia's kisses were unmistakably romantic, and at the end of the play they left for Hawaii and got married (it wasn't legal there, but the Hawaiian Supreme Court had ruled that not letting same-sex couples get married or register in civil partnerships was discriminatory, so we were full of hope); Goncharov and Andrey fled Italy for Denmark, where they registered as domestic partners (it was the first country in Europe to recognize relationships between same-sex couples) and transferred their business skills to start a successful floral and produce enterprise.

I realize I have now gotten way way off the topic. But wow, your question just brought back a flood of memories and I'm loving it.

Anyway, I suppose it's possible that my high school friends were misleading me about this Russian gangster movie. I mean, I *thought* the women were called Katya and Sofia, but not speaking russian, I could have been mishearing the whole thing. Maybe my wholesome church friend Robin was making up her translations just to screw with me, and that's why the others joined in so adamantly at times.

And Goncharov's a pretty common Russian name, right? So it's totally possible that there's a Russian movie with that name that has only an accidental relationship to the American one.

Honestly, at this point, I don't care if my snooty high school friends in the Russian Honor Society were fucking with me or not. They introduced me to a wonderfully homoerotic Russian movie, and also to the original Goncharov (1973). And those things warmed my closeted queer heart, and kept me going until I found real queer representation in books and made-up college plays and later in films and TV.

But I sort of hope the Russian version is real. Now that we have the internet, it shouldn't be so hard to find it. If only I still remembered how to read Cyrillic ...

[demon-slayage]

The first time you and Cove Holden get into an argument is when you’re in college

-femme reader

-high affectionate Cove, long term dating

-post step 3

-some mild angst but mostly fluff

-hi I haven’t written anything in years and this just popped out at me. Sorry it can get a little specific I based the sorority stuff on some of my own experiences so it does come from a femme perspective as well as my own experiences in the game w a high affectionate sporty Cove.

-hope you enjoy!

————————-

You opted to go to a university on the opposite side of the state. You generally didn’t come home to visit all that often just because your schedules didn’t always line up that way but you and Cove made it work. He knew this would happen and you tried to make a point of visiting at least once a month. However, you had joined a sorority because you wanted to make more friends. You could tell your longtime boyfriend was a little wary since your high school and friend group was never into partying like Greek life was known for.

Once you made it into the sorority in late fall you were finally able to attend one of these said ragers that Cove was worried about. You partook in some underage drinking and sent your boyfriend a couple of Snapchats of you hanging out with some sisters who he’s seen before as well as some unknown frat brothers. He simply told you to be safe, have a good time, and call him if you needed him. Knowing full well he’d drop everything to come get you if needed. Even though your drive/flight was hours away. You told him you loved him and not to worry.

But knowing Cove thats all he did over the weekend. Then the week after you had to deal with midterms so you were even busier and had less time to chat with your boyfriend as you were busy studying in the library with your friends and sisters. But regardless of that fall break was coming up and you had planned your visit to see Cove after midterms.

You made sure to text Cove to tell him you weren’t going to be as available but you knew he’d be a little sad but understanding knowing how clingy he was. However being in this situation you didn’t have time to focus on that.

Friday rolled around and you’d opted to fly home instead of taking the 5 hour drive. You’d planned it to be a surprise getting there earlier instead of the usual time. You had your moms pick you up from the airport and they smothered you with hugs and kisses once they saw you walk out of the gate.

You told them about how the semester was going and told them about your organization and they were just happy you were home. They took you family condo and you immediately got dressed to surprise your-probably-worried-you-hadn’t texted-him-for-a-bit-boyfriend. You sent him a text you saying were leaving in the morning which was normal but you’d always sent a follow up once you took a stop in your usual road trip.

You made your way to the tropical place restaurant where he worked and had even stopped by a local candy shop to pick up some fudge for him.

You swung the door open with a jingle and you’d somehow caught Cove conveniently at the host podium but unfortunately the moment he saw you he started immediately choking on the water he was drinking. His boss rushed over to check on him and noticed you and started laughing.

They said “Oh Cove, ever the smooth one. Why don’t you go take a long lunch since your partner is back.” They patted him on the back as he was still hacking pretty hard but you could see tears forming his eyes. You were unsure whether they were from being excited to see you or because he was in pain from choking.

You quickly pulled your dying boyfriend outside and let him finish recovering. After clearing his throat a few times he brought you into a big hug. And kissed your face all over.

“I didn’t expect you back so early!”

“I know I flew instead of driving since I wanted to see you so bad since I have more time! Fall break doesn’t end til Wednesday so you’re stuck with me until then.”

He puts a hand to his heart and says “oh what shall I do with you for that long.” He says it with a sly look in his eyes. But you also notice a bit of sadness in his voice but choose not to comment on it. You will later but not when he has to eventually go to back to work.

“So, do you want to eat here or find somewhere else to go. I guess I have a longer lunch but I don’t want to push it.”

You both opt for eating at his workplace but sitting outside around back away from the customers. You quickly fall into your normal conversations and you tell him about the midterms and your initiation into your sorority, telling him for the first time you have a secret he can’t know. He tries to get you to spill jokingly but you won’t budge. You also sense his sadness rising but again you won’t push until you’re in private.

Eventually your hour comes to a close and you tell him you’ll see him at his apartment later. You wave the spare key he gave you when he moved in and start your 15 minute trek back to your home to grab your belongings which you had left with your moms before they dropped you off to see him.

You ran inside and gave them a quick hug, popped over to Mr. Holden’s house to let him know you were back, who was just as shocked and then made your trek to Cove’s one bedroom apartment.

His complex was actually rather close to your family homes, he now had his independence but was still close enough to pop in on both families. You’d appreciated it since you’d stay at both places when you were in town and if Elizabeth was in town you got to stay with Cove. Though there was still a room available it was mostly just a weak excuse but your families never minded.

You opened up the door and inhaled and felt at peace. The citrusy-ocean scent you were used to hit you and made you tear up slightly. You walked your bag to Coves bedroom and then grabbed your entertainment of choice and headed into the living room to wait for him to get back. Since he was working a morning shift you expected him home in about an hour.

While you waited you remembered the fudge bought for him and made sure to grab it and display it on his coffee table.

Like clockwork when the clock struck 3, your tired boyfriend walked inside. All of the exhaustion on his face completely melted away at the sight of you and in two steps, thankful to his long legs he was holding you in his arms. Very enthusiastic for someone who’d already greeted you.

“You just saw me though!”

“I know but I didn’t get to do this earlier” he brought his lips to yours and the world stood still and all felt at peace. After a few moments you broke apart and you motioned to the fudge on the table.

“I bought some of your favorite to surprise you!”

You saw tears start to form in his eyes and then tears started to form in yours and you both hugged each other again before settling in a tangled pile of limbs on the couch.

However you were still aware of the subtle sadness he was giving off and decided now was the best time to bring it up.

“Hey.”

You looked at him with worry and he immediately went wide eyed.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

“No, you tell me? I could tell you weren’t all there today when I saw you at the restaurant.”

“Oh,” he sighed. “Yeah. I’m sorry. It’s nothing.”

You looked at him and he immediately broke.

“No you’re right, sorry I don’t know why I sometimes do that still, you can read me like an open book.” He pulled you closer.

“I guess I was just feeling a little insecure.”

You were surprised. The Cove Holden. Insecure? You both trusted each other with the utmost care and neither of you had ever done anything warranting an insecurity to rise but you let him continue speaking.

“You looked like you were having so much fun in those photos, but seeing you with all those guys i didn’t know kind of got to me. And then you were busy the whole week, which I know you couldn’t help. But we couldn’t even talk about it and it just weighed on me.”

Oh Cove. You put a hand up to your mouth and tears started to form in your eyes. You pushed your face into his chest then looked up at him. He looked back at you with a deep intense love.

“I’m sorry I didn’t even think about that! Those guys joined their organization around the same time as me so we’d been getting to know each other and since it was the first time we got to drink I wasn’t even really conscious of what was happening! They’re just some good friends.”

At that he seemed to stiffen.

“What do you mean not conscious? You didn’t drink that much you blacked out?”

You were not actually a drinker at all and felt a little stung by his assumption. You weren’t even allowed to drink your entire new member process until you got initiated into the organization either so that was a first and you knew you didn’t pass your limits either.

“No Cove. I didn’t. I was fine, i didn’t mean it that way. I meant that those guys had just become part of my routine. Not that I had blacked out.” Your tone came out a little more hostile than you meant.

He looked away and cleared his throat.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I know you’re responsible.”

He looked at you and picked up your hand and started massaging it.

“It’s just with alcohol, I worry about it since we never really drank in high school. You’re free to do that of course! You’re free to do whatever you want I just was worried since I’m not able to be there if anything bad did happen.”

Oh. He was right. It’s not like if you did get sick he’d be right there to be able to hold your hair back. Of course he was concerned. You were living different lives right now and it worried him that he couldn’t be a part of some of your firsts.

“Cove, I’m sorry. I didn’t even think about that. You’re always on my mind that it kind of felt like you’d be able to instantly come to my aid if I needed but you are actually 5 hours away and 3 if you fly.” You smiled sadly at him.

He pressed a kiss to your forehead.

“I trust you I really do, you know that but I’ve been realizing it’s hard for me at times watching you live this different life than me after we spent 10 years doing the same thing. I’ve never felt that insecurity before. In the back of my head I worry you’ll get bored of your boyfriend from your small hometown and want to move on to different things.”

You sighed at that, but not with any malice.

“Cove James Holden. You know you are the only one for me. Like you said, I’ve been with you for 10 years! You’re not getting rid of me that easily! And I’d never get bored of you!”

That elicited a chuckle and you pressed your lips to his cheek and then his lips.

Once you pulled apart he stayed looking at you with a soft gaze.

“I want you to have fun, have the whole college experience. I know you won’t always have time to talk to me. Thank you for sticking with me and riding out these insecurities I feel. You are my person and I know I’m yours.”

“Exactly! You are my absolute person.” You replied happily. Poking him in the chest.

“I love you,” he said as he pressed another kiss to your forehead.

“I love you two Cove Holden. Forever and always.”

——

Bonus:

You then spent the rest of the evening cooking dinner, catching up, and eventually having the nicest, deepest sleep you’re had in a while being back in the arms of your boyfriend. He had taken the weekend off so you didn’t even need to worry about waking up early in the morning.

When the sun peaked through the blinds you smiled up at the sleeping beauty who’d encased you protectively in his arms all night knowing someday you’d be doing this every day for the rest of your lives.

[priidewrought]

hi there loves ! my name’s jaz, i’m twenty-two, & i’m super excited to bring to life these 2 total messes – elias durand and heath heartfield. literally polar opposites, i always do this to myself smh. if you wanna’ plot with either of these 2 pls feel free to hit me up or like this post & i can come to you, i’m super thrilled to get into it and develop them so throw each and every one of ur ideas right @ me.

ELIAS DURAND. thirty-two, noctis circle witch, #sleepuntil11club !

TRIGGER WARNINGS: captivity, torture mention, death.

meet elias! the (current) eldest of the durand clan who has never given off the impression once in his life. a laidback dude with a way of looking at the world that almost makes you jealous, elias is warm, patient, and forgiving (and makes a mean vegan chocolate fudge cake).

he’s definitely considered the heart by most people who know him. he follows it, he listens to it, he nurtures it. this makes him pretty impulsive too, and he doesn’t care to spend time on anything that makes him or those that he loves unhappy.

elias was raised by two very devout dark witches, and has an appreciation for his craft that might not be at first evident. he owns a small, rooftop garden in the city where he raises each and every animal for sacrifice by hand. he believes in giving them fulfilling lives to imbue them with even more power, and this sort of belief echoes in everything he does. he’s a vegan, he avoids pollution by walking wherever he goes, and he’s likes to live as zero waste as possible. whilst you might think he has the mindset of a light witch, elias firmly believes his actions help him be a much more effective dark witch.

his grandfather had been an important figure in elias’ life. having been subject to intense persecution for nearly every part of his being, his grandfather instilled in elias to not be afraid of death, but to welcome it like an old friend. to live life without consequence and to love freely. that has been elias’ mantra for as long as he’s lived, his grandfather’s words ringing true in his ears more often than he even realises.

he has an immense wanderlust bug. he started travelling as soon as he left high school at age eighteen, not wanting to attend college and condemn himself to more years of education. through this he learned the dark magic ways of plenty of other circles out there in the world, fascinated by the small differences that made big impacts. he’s a lover of culture and travel, and it’s always been hard to keep this dreamer held down.

being such a beacon of positivity and adventure, however, has not protected elias from harm. on his travels when he was 25 years old, elias was unexpectedly caught by witch hunters, who had first descended upon him simply for the colour of his skin, then relished in the fact he wasn’t human either. he was caught, subject to brutal conditions, transported from place to place as the hunters sought someone who would pay them greatly for the blood of a witch. the details of his escape to this day are still fuzzy and vague in his mind, but there’s said to be a boiling crater somewhere in the south of france, forever etched with the blood of far too many men to count. he doesn’t speak about it in detail to many, he says he doesn’t like to dwell on the negative, but he isn’t sure he’s even able to discuss it.

he works at the local dispensary & really loves his job because he gets to make peoples lives better and take away their pain.

he LOVES his family more than anything in the world. even on their off days, elias loves them to bits and is faultlessly loyal. 

HEATH HEARTFIELD. twenty-five, hunter, dumb bitch.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: physical abuse.

heath! what is there to say about heath! massive asshole, is the first thing. a weathered hunter despite being just twenty five, heath is no sweetheart, having little patience for anyone or anything besides his job. raised by a monster to become something much worse, he’s a pretty nasty piece of work.

whilst heath was growing up and learning the ways of hunting, his father would constantly pit him against his twin sister, petra. whilst siblings should usually unite and stand together against their common enemy, heath chose to take a much darker path, falling victim to his father’s brainwashing, seeing his twin as his enemy. his arrogance and his pride laid the path for a horrible world view. heath always had to win. he always had to be right. he always had to be the strongest.

his father had never laid a hand on him until he was eighteen years of age, when his sister had finally surpassed him, and his father saw him as truly weak for the first time ever. whatever brotherly love heath had managed to retain for his sister was gone. it was beaten out of him over a brutal 6 hour session and he was never quite the same. his main focus from that point on was survival, by any means necessary. hunting for him isn’t a job, it’s a way of survival. he survives by pleasing his father, and his father is pleased only if the blood of non-humans paints heath’s skin.

despite hunting being a large part of his life, heath also has a degree in computer science, done at a university in another state as part of a much larger, undercover mission for his father. even his own accomplishments, things he should be wildly proud of, were pushed to the side. 

he doesn’t have an actual job, to most he says he’s unemployed or working random bar jobs and he’s too caustic for people to probe any further, instead he’s always on call to his father. 

despite elias being the one who works at the dispensary, heath’s the stoner. he’s unable to sleep without a joint every night and it’s one of the few things he allows himself to keep from his family. he often finds his mind racing, and for him the drug slows him down just enough to allow him to get about five hours of much needed rest.

when it comes to love and friendships, heath isn’t entirely impenetrable, he’s just insanely unlikable, and this tends to turn people away. however, people that have been in heath’s life for a long time are treated to an ever so slightly different side of him. they gain glimpses of the boy who once loved to skateboard, who once painted strange rocks he found on the street and hid them beneath the floorboards of the family home, the boy who has a penchant for sweet things and the smell of lavender. there are many things about heath that make him human, they’ve just been expertly hidden.

[newsiegirlscout]

FHFIF Headcanons

HEADCANON TIME!!! Woo-hoo!

Today, I was thinking I’d ramble on a headcanon roll about this show by the name of Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. It was really amazing while it ran, and all-in-all was completely underrated. I just finished the last episode two weeks or so ago and, since I’m still in shock over it, well....the best thing to do with sadness and joy and nostalgia is to give it to the Internet, right? Right! So-onto the headcanons!

MAC

--When Mac gets older, he gets a job at Foster’s, much to the delight of the friends. (He used to joke about his shift ending at 2:59 just to freak out Bloo. Frankie still cleans everything, so Mac’s job is mostly cooking and messing around anyway. Y’know, keeping the more active imaginary friends busy. That, and reading bedtime stories-he has an awesome “scary” voice, but in a silly way, like Mojo Jojo.).

---Mac’s favorite flavor of ice cream is chocolate fudge with caramel and milk chocolate sprinkles. He gains control of his sugar intolerance somewhat when he’s around fourteen....but still goes hyper if he has too much. (Say, the normal sugar-hyped slight bounce for anyone else is Mac’s sugar rush.)

---Mac never actually retired his bookbag. It was intentionally way too large for  a second-grader’s homework load, so he could hide his most prized possessions from Terrence- or, at least, always keep them on his person. (On a regular day, his bag can be found holding his laptop, wallet, pictures of Frankie, library card, marbles, key chain, and water pistol. Yeah, that’s the water pistol that makes him look like an Ironman villain.) When he left for college, everybody at Fosters signed his bookbag. 

---He skipped more than a few grades. In fact, he was in a school for gifted children during the length of the series-which explains why an eight-year-old was writing an essay on the presidents. 

---Mac writes the most flowery, beautiful free-verse poetry you have ever seen. Once, it got published and he won a reward for it, but was still utterly embarrassed when the newspaper arrived at Fosters. He even snuck out around four AM to grab both his and Foster’s papers, but found Mr. Herriman calmly reading it in his study. (Herriman gave his highest stamp of approval-i.e; straightening his monocle, cleaning the lens, and remarking, “By jove!” 

---He tends to wear his hair long when he gets older-that, and typically going unshaven until Mr. Herriman tells him he looks like he’s about to attend a woodstock festival. 

---Additionally, Mac has fluffy, perpetually-askew hair because of his tendency to run his fingers through it when in stress or when he’s thinking. (Frankie’s hair is spiky for the same reason.) 

---He’s a hugger. Always has been, always will be.

---Mac, even as an adult, only prefers (as reading material) Science fiction, action, comedy, and comic books; for viewing, he prefers old movies, comedy films, and cartoons. A lot of cartoons. As in, about 63.547% of the animated films in the DVD case are movies that Mac hauled over at some point or another during his job and intentionally left there. (They all have his name in sharpie on a neat label pressed onto the back.)

FRANKIE FOSTER

--Frankie more or less decided a long time ago that she’s aromantic. The closest thing she’ll allow to love is the filial bond between her and the imaginary friends.

--Her favorite ice cream flavor is pineapple rum. (Yes, that’s a thing.) If any of the younger friends are with her, though, she orders mango. 

---She possesses a secret love for the color pink. She tends not to show it too much, as she feels it’s demeaning to her maturity, but otherwise, it’s her favorite color in the world. 

---Frankie grew up with the Foster’s imaginary friends. Her job started when Madame Foster occasionally asked her to do little chores around the house- say, rocking a baby friend to sleep or washing a pot -so that, by the time she turned fifteen and wanted to get a career so as to earn more cash, she was a first choice caretaker for Foster’s Home. 

--Frankie used to love those little toys that come in cereal boxes. She would eat bowls upon bowls of Choco-Frosted Sugar Bombs Trix and Captain Crunch, etc., until she was on sugar rushes to put Mac’s to shame so she’d get the toy and be able to get another box of cereal as soon as possible. (Her favorites were the superhero rings;((Does anybody else remember those? I feel like those were really big for a while, little plastic rings with superhero emblems?)); she once got so many, she could hook them together into a crown.)

--She loves the arcade games in an almost abnormal way. When she was about nine, she got the high score on Tetris, Paperboy, Centipede, and quite a few others. She is most often the one who will drive friends to the arcade and treat them to tokens partially so she can show off her gaming skills at the classics. (Bloo: “So by classics, you mean Halo and Call of Duty?” Frankie: “ No. The real classics. Defender. Pac-man. Astroids. Games you play in an arcade which was a building outside of your house. You would go there with your friends, listen to music, cute guys everywhere. In ancient times, they call it 'socializing'. “)

Madame Foster

--There are quite a few episodes in the series where an imaginary friend spends money. That was Madame Foster at work-when the house first opened, she distributed around five hundred dollars among the friends. With the addition of a hundred dollars every two years or so, that same cache has been circulating for years. (The trick being that they only spend it inside the house.)

---Madame Foster’s favorite ice cream flavor is butterscotch with caramel, chocolate syrup, rainbow sprinkles, whipped cream, and frosting. (What, you’ve never put frosting on a bowl of ice cream before? My sincerest sympathies.) Typically, she’ll get the chocolate-dipped cone, then have the server put it in a cup for her, so she has a large bowl of ice cream with all the toppings and a fancy cone on top of it all. (Mac starts to shake just looking at it.)

---Madame Foster has managed to scare the horror buffs senseless with her dramatic readings of existing stories, not to mention re-tellings of her own writing.

---Her room is full of stuffed animals. Enough stuffed animals to bury herself in. It is not exactly uncommon to find a stuffed animal hiding somewhere in the house. (Looking for a book? Whoop! A plush cat already beat you to it! Want some pancakes? Seems a small rainbow llama is already on it.)

---Madame Foster also harbors a love for cartoons. The other 44.453% of the animated films are hers. For reading material, she enjoys comedies, including a lot of old storybooks. (Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Black Beauty, Treasure Island, Little Men...et cetera.) She also loves reading the occasional horror story or adventure. (Do you think she’d enjoy All the Light We Cannot See? Yeah, I think so too. Then again, that was an amazing and beautiful bit of literature. Everybody go read All the Light We Cannot See.)

Mr. Herriman

---Mr. Herriman gives the cuddliest hugs. Receiving a hug from Mr. Herriman, especially when you’re somewhere around stomach-level, is the equivalent of sticking your face into a litter of warm kittens. Unfortunately, he’s not too big on hugging.

---Eduardo is by far his (secret) favorite. 

---His favorite ice cream flavor is butter almond, (and yes, he does take all the almonds out individually before consuming it), though he usually prefers a slice of carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. 

---He doesn’t actually understand Coco’s “language”. He tends to get the gist of what she’s saying primarily through another friend, Madame Foster, or Frankie, but otherwise feels a bit lonesome in that he’s the only person in that universe who isn’t fluent in it. 

---He’s a fairly pleasant conversationalist, though he likes things to be run in such an orderly manner to the point of everyone seemingly hating him in a not-exactly-inconspicuous way. This in turn can make him slightly irritated, gaining him a reputation for his short temper and high standards.

---He LOVES bad puns on an almost-sinful level.

---He also prefers classic tales, romances, and adventure dramas in both viewing and reading entertainment. And yes, when watching a movie, he is That Person ™ who insists on popping popcorn over the fire and turning on subtitles.

BLOO

---Bloo was originally created as a vehicle for Mac to say and do whatever he wanted without having to worry about getting in trouble. (For example, getting to give the snarky response to Terrence and getting away with it.) He also created Bloo as a way to prove to his mom that he was responsible enough to take care of something. (This is NOT my headcanon, though I strongly support it.)

---Bloo was the one who found the secret passages to the Secret Library, the Secret Gaming Room, and The Secret Secret Room. He also found all nineteen secret drawers in each (One of which concealed a stuffed canary named Rod Tango!) on various Adopt-a-Thought Saturdays. (Once or twice, Mac didn’t actually find him and ended up playing with the B-team-or, in other words, the members of Pizza Party.)

---Bloo’s favorite ice cream  flavor is cookies-and-cream-birthday-cake. (No, that’s not actually a flavor; he usually just gets two orders and shmushes them together into one BIG ice cream ball). Additionally, if possible, he’ll top it with M&Ms, whipped cream, chocolate syrup, caramel syrup, butterscotch, gummy bears, rainbow and chocolate sprinkles, crushed Oreos, mini peanut butter cups, and, of course, frosting- but never, never, never, Coconut. (”If you want to get these things done at all, you have to get them done right!”) So far, the only one who’s  willingly treated him was Adult! Mac and Madame Foster-otherwise, he has to go by himself. 

---His ideal adopter would be someone with year-round passes to lots and lots of amusement parks, a paddleball collection including the Automatic Paddleball, pizza every Friday, a 25-inch television with a ton of video games (”No, 50-inch! Wait, is 75-inch a thing? How about we just do like in that nerd book Mac likes, the dys-zopia, and have the TV replace one of the walls?”), and a large freezer just for ice cream, including a retractable shelf for toppings. (I blame @askblooqkazoo for this one) :)

---He loves the Powerpuff girls. Loves, loves, LOVES it. (Bubbles is his favorite.)

WILT

---Wilt’s favorite ice cream flavor is mocha swirl, with chocolate sprinkles and a maraschino cherry. He’s always the one who treats everyone else and waits patiently until everyone has their flavors before ordering, though he tries to exclude Bloo in the most polite way possible. (”I’m sorry! You see, I can’t afford all your toppings, which I’m honestly really sorry about, I mean..I can’t apologize enough for this, really! Maybe Mac will take you out for ice cream if you ask him nicely?”) He refuses to let someone else buy ice cream for him, so behind his back, Adult! Mac and Madame Foster built a mini freezer that looks like a backpack and has a special rack for ice cream, not to mention the extra two canisters of whipped cream and carton of chocolate sprinkles, just so they could treat him to an ice cream cone without his objection.

---Nobody ever actually put a nameplate on Wilt’s bed, because he always prefers to sleep under the floor. He always has ever since Bloo came-Wilt mainly just wants a monopoly on a bed so he can steal the blankets off it in the winter.

---He is fully aware of how brash he can get in later episodes, so he builds up his “Sorry!” to compensate, until it became, “I’m sorry-if that’s okay!”

---He once got a PhD to help out a struggling college student by tutoring him in neuroscience and quadratic equations. (Yes, he never quite got the hang of it until Wilt taught him.)

COCO

---Coco dabbles in the dark arts. (Check the Wiccan Spellbook she was reading in “Fools and Regulations.”)

---Coco knows something the rest of you don’t. Don’t believe her? Look again, she may have noticed that detail you completely passed over. Maybe it’s just the orange juice in the fridge that’s a day past the expiration date; maybe it’s the ending of the world before your eyes. 

---No one is quite sure what ice cream flavor Coco likes the best. Whenever she goes to the ice cream parlor, she’ll say a few phrases and give a slight nod to the server. No matter who, they always come back with an elaborate sundae, topped with a firecracker, at the price of a regular ice cream cone. 

---Coco is an amazing actress. Just amazing. She once got a role in a high-budget movie for her acting skills. (Not to mention that, once the director came to the door asking for her, she laid a pair of reading glasses and went through every single page of the contract. Then, once satisfied, she laid a silver ballpoint pen and signed it-though by then, the director was on his phone, scrolling through random web pages. “Ya done yet?” “CoCo Cococo Co!” “Well, of course I’m not going to put you in a cage and make you perform for long hours with no sleep! Whaddya think I am, the guy from those Deo commercials?”)

---Nerds (See the “Good Wilt Hunting” Nerds) believe that she was created by a very confused islander child, possibly one who has never seen contact with another human being. She is part plane because of the occasional air crafts passing the island, part bird because of the exotic tropical life, and does not speak English because the child never learned how and instead made up a language that only they could understand. 

EDUARDO

---Once, Eduardo got his picture taken with the actress of Lauren Goes Explorin’. (And got it autographed!) He was super excited about it, and eventually got it framed with the same heavy-duty frame that Frankie used to mount her cereal-box ring crown.)

---His favorite ice cream flavor is bubblegum, partially because of the color (”Pink is my favorite! I like it muy, muy, much!) and partially because of the fact that it’s candy as well as ice cream, so he can take out the bubblegum balls and put them in a separate cup for his Malibu Mimi dolls. 

---Wilt is his favorite, though Adult! Mac comes close. (He eventually learned to settle petty disputes, Frankie-style (A la’ Destination Imagination), so he takes care of most of those-often tipping a Bloo/Eduardo argument in favor of Eduardo while still making Bloo satisfied with the outcome.) 

---Eduardo’s tears do not dehydrate him, nor are they made of salt water. He doesn’t even sniffle beforehand, unless he’s trying really hard not to cry-whenever he’s upset, he just gives a stream of fresh water from his eyes. 

---Yep. He’s a hugger. Was there ever any question?

---Eduardo’s strength was added so he could pick up and cuddle people easily. Nina’s parents have quite a few photos of him carrying her home from a late, late rehearsal, school play, or day-long trip to the park while she sleeps peacefully in his arms.

---No, he doesn’t run out of energy when walking long distances or running. His feet sometimes hurt slightly from pounding the floor too long if he’s been running, but he always has the energy to run, or fight. 

GOO

--Goo has actually wrapped her lunch like a present before. (Her usual lunch consists of a bag of chips, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a cupcake she injected with more icing in the center, an apple, and a juice box. It has been observed by Mac jokingly as being “strangely normal.”) She only does it for special occasions, (It makes everyone jealous around Christmas until they see why she brought it to lunch.), though Goo includes “The third Tuesday of March” and “August thirteenth” as major holidays. 

---Goo likes to celebrate her birthday at Foster’s whenever possible. She additionally actually likes Cheese, because she thinks he’s funny and she’s good with him, so he’s almost always helping her open presents or eating streamers as she decorates the table

---Her favorite ice cream flavor is rainbow sherbet, but she also likes (”blueberry, gold ribbon, cookies and cream, and birthday cake! Well, really I like almost every flavor except not coffee since that one’s really gross and I also sometimes make up flavors that I think they should have, like gummy bear sprinkles, and then sometimes there are flavors that sound made up except they’re really not, like pizza and pear with blue cheese, ew, isn’t that gross? Oh! And did I tell you about my idea for an ice cream burrito where instead of the cone, they make it a tortilla instead with the sugar cone stuff?”) She’s definitely the person where, if she’s alone with a month’s allowance, she’ll try to stack the scoops as high as possible and roll each one in a bowl of toppings. (She prides herself on the fact that she once got the server to coat three scoops in gummy bears, rainbow sprinkles, and chocolate chips respectively, and even got him to pour some gummy bears in the cone.) If she’s with someone else, and they’re treating, she’ll just get rainbow sherbet.

---She’s not a hugger. She’s affectionately physical in other ways-friendly slaps on the back, pats on the head, fixing someone else’s shirt collar-but doesn’t really hug a lot. She’s more of a high-fiver, to be honest. 

---When she gets older, she has everybody write a story about Foster’s in an anthology she publishes under the name “Hillary-Britney “Lollipop” Starr”. (Involuntarily included? Mac’s poetry.)

---Goo is the karaoke queen. 

GENERAL

--The soda fountain guy has been through everything. (If you need further proof, just look at the way he casually throws out Mac when he orders all those milkshakes...all, “Dude, I make seven bucks an hour. I’ve seen it all.”)

---Cheese was created with an innate sense of technology. He actually knew full-well what he was doing when he memorized the code to the electronic security system, and sometimes, Frankie has to ask him for his help when fixing her computer. (Usually with her head in her hands while Cheese jumps up and down on the chair and says “No no no, you put too much stuff in the computer! Throw some away! See in the hard drive? See, see, see, see, see? That’s why it’s so slowwwww!”)

---It is impossible to accidentally create an imaginary friend. It’s more of a left-brained thing than a technical thing, and you usually have to have a pretty clear idea of their personality beforehand. Goo’s imagination works at ten miles a minute, so she is the one exception.

---Imaginary friends do not age. Friends like Scrappy (Remember that little guy with the Brooklyn accent and Victorian clothing? That was one of my favorites..) are deemed older by how long they’ve been at Foster’s and how much they’ve matured emotionally. 

---Larry John McGee (Goofball’s creator) had a very silly sense of humor in creating Goofball. He wanted his friend to act as a big brother, and knew that if he ever got lost, he’d go to Foster’s for help and weird out the staff. Goofball did almost all of what he was doing with a straight face to make everyone else in the house laugh when Frankie pulled off his rubber nose to reveal...an imaginary friend. 

---Youngman Rivers actually turned out to be a pretty cool guy when he got older. 

---Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends did not go away after the series finale. Foster’s lives on with many more adventures of its own, including more and more characters as time goes on, until Mac grew into an adult, still coming to tackle Bloo on the first floor every day.

[the-master-cylinder]

Bug (1975)

SUMMARY An earthquake releases a bunch of mutant cockroaches that can create fire by rubbing their cerci together. Eventually, most of the bugs die because they cannot survive in the low air pressure on the Earth’s surface, but a scientist, Professor James Parmiter (Dillman), keeps one alive in a pressure chamber. He successfully breeds the mutant cockroach with a modern cockroach, creating a breed of intelligent, flying super-cockroaches.

DEVELOPMENT/PRODUCTION Filmed in Panavision and Technicolor by cinematographer Michel Hugo, “Bug”, based on Thomas Page’s novel “The Hephaestus Plague”, is brought to the screen as a William Castle Production for Paramount Pictures. Jeannot Szwarc served as director. The assignment marks Paris-born Szwarc’s second credit as a theatrical film director. Szwarc also has a long list of credits as a writer, producer and director of television shows and made-for-television movies. The screen adaptation of “Bugs” was written by author Thomas Page and producer Castle.

In “Bug”, a deadly force is loosed among us. Not Martians or lethal bacteria from outer space, but fire roaches, thousands of them swarming, black and eyeless from a chasm opened in California by an earthquake.

As old as the dinosaurs and intelligent as the primates, they feed upon carbon, creating their dinners instantly by burning cars, houses, people, animals, whatever is in their path, with a flame that spurts from their exhaust. Moving by an ingenius method and shrugging off all attempts to destroy them, the bugs threaten to ignite the entire city of Riverside, California, before moving on to take over and destroy the rest of the country.

The plot becomes increasingly tense with the slow realization that something is terribly wrong. Events slide imperceptibly from what is real to what is conceivable and then perhaps beyond. Then, the fascinated scientist, who has come to identify himself with the dreadful bugs, discovers how to kill them, and they are killed-except for one that he breeds to a common roach. Then emerges the second generation: more deadly, alarming, intelligent and versatile than before.

The principal cockroach actors playing title roles in “Bug” are laboratory-grown cockroaches trained for their screen chores by an entomology scientist at the University of California at Riverside. Two weeks of location scenes were filmed at Riverside and its surroundings. Numerous outdoor sites were utilized by the camera as background in this historical territory, including the University of California (Riverside). The script called for the story to be laid in a small university town, and Castle felt that Riverside was an absolutely perfect choice.

The location filming generated extreme interest with the local residents, with many natives and UC college students hired to work as actors in the film.

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Hollywood has a stimulating effect on a town whenever a film unit arrives to shoot location scenes. To begin with, a record fleet of equipment-carrying vehicles, including an $85,000 Chapman camera crane truck, rolled into Riverside for the shooting. Almost 100 studio technicians scurried about, changing local landmarks to fit the script’s requirements.

“Bug” was a real event to the residents of this quiet, agricultural center, which is the home of the first navel orange grown in America, and the filming meant a huge financial boost to Riverside. Motels, banks, restaurants, sporting goods stores, gift shops, etc., were all the recipients of a financial bonanza as the result of the movie company locating there. Producer Castle estimates that a half million dollars was spent in Riverside before the company headed for home and the interior scenes filmed on the sound stages at Paramount in Hollywood.

The living room and kitchen sets from The Brady Bunch were reused in this film, although the living room set was rearranged slightly to a smaller footprint. Aside from a paint job, the kitchen set was otherwise unaltered.

CAST/CREW Directed Jeannot Szwarc

Produced William Castle

Written William Castle Thomas Page

Based The Hephaestus Plague (1973 novel) by Thomas Page

Bradford Dillman as Professor James Parmiter Joanna Miles as Carrie Parmiter Richard Gilliland as Gerald Metbaum Jamie Smith-Jackson as Norma Tacker Alan Fudge as Professor Mark Ross Jesse Vint as Tom Tacker Patty McCormack as Sylvia Ross Brendan Dillon as Charlie

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Quasimodos Monster Magazine#07

  The Nest (1988)

SUMMARY The sheriff of this small island town called North Port has a roach problem in his house. According to the local exterminator Homer (played by Stephen Davies), it turns out the whole town is about to have a big roach problem. Pets, and then people, begin to disappear or turn up dead and mutilated.

Although Sheriff Richard Tarbell (played by Frank Luz) is dating Lillian, the owner of the local eatery, his high school sweetheart Elizabeth Johnson returns to the island after a four-year absence and their romance blooms again. Elizabeth (played by Lisa Langlois) happens to be the daughter of the town’s mayor, Elias Johnson (played by Robert Lansing), who is in cahoots with an evil corporation called INTEC that has been secretly breeding mutant roaches that are immune to normal insect repellants. They also seem to have the ability to assume the form of anything they kill, leading to some animal/roach hybrids and even 2 roach/human combos.

DEVELOPMENT Made by Concord Pictures, directed by Terence H. Winkless, who will be making his debut. He is a co-author of The Howling (1981) script and a horror movie freak. Kelly Howe, who is also a member of the SFX team “Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)” is in charge of SFX. He is a newcomer and creates a powerful monster that is as competitive as a real cockroach flock.

The filmmakers utilized 2,000 flying cockroaches during filming at Quicksilver Studios in Venice, Los Angeles. When some of the insects escaped into nearby dressing rooms, the American Humane Association were unable to assist them as the organization must be contacted prior to shooting on matters concerning insects.

The result is yet another first: the first solid, quality horror film from Concorde, which usually turns out campy cheapies like Munchies and Chopping Mall. Not only is it gut-level effective, but it sports a surprisingly slick, polished look for its budget of less than $1 million. Based on a novel by Eli Cantor (published under the pseudonym Gregory A. Douglas).

What attracted Winkless to Robert King’s screenplay, however, was not the horror as much as the story’s potential for humor. “What I liked about the script was the fact that you could do some comedy with it,” he explains. “If you try to take the bugs completely seriously, you’re going to fall on your face. I think the movie bears that out. Life gets really absurd sometimes, and what better way to talk about how absurd it is than when the fat lady is lying in bed and the bugs are crawling down her cast? You can’t take it seriously; it would never be true horror like Halloween or ALIEN, but it could be sort of comic horror.”

The movie’s best comic achievement is the character of Homer (Stephen Davies), the island’s resident exterminator, who prefers to be called a “pest control agent” and is barely fazed by the horrific goings-on around him. “Ostensibly, the hero of the piece is the sheriff (Franc Luz), but I’ve always been sort of a closet anarchist, so my hero in the movie is Homer. He’s really the guy who winds up saving the island.” Winkless reserves special praise for Davies, an old friend he fought Concorde to use. “He’s a brilliant actor,” raves the director. “One of these days he’s going to be a big star.”

Winkless first met Davies through fellow USC film school alumnus John (The Razor’s Edge) Byrum, who wasn’t the only classmate of his to become well known; John Carpenter, Dan O’Bannon and Nick Castle attended the school at the same time. Prior to working behind the camera, Winkless’ first professional job was as an actor of sorts, playing the gorilla in the kids’ TV show The Banana Splits. He went on to become a scriptwriter, his best-known credit undoubtedly the one he shares with John Sayles for the screenplay adaptation of Gary Brandner’s The Howling.

According to Winkless, though, this work was not collaborative; he has never actually met Sayles. “I worked only with Joe Dante and producer Mike Finnell,” Winkless recalls. “They had bought the book, and all they kept was the title. They threw out the book, and we started from scratch. I did my draft, and then they had Sayles do another draft after me. I admire his work – and I hope he admires mine!”

Winkless had been in constant contact with Concorde president Roger Corman since then, and his agent was a friend of Corman’s wife Julie, who produced The Nest. When said agent found out that the Cormans needed a director for the buggy saga, he advised Winkless to go for it, and Winkless found himself attaining every scriptwriter’s dream: directing his first feature. He describes the experience as “my greatest fantasy and my worst nightmare. The scariest thing about it was that, to a certain extent, I could predict what the actors would do, what the cameraman would do and what the editors would do, but you couldn’t at all predict what the bugs were going to do. For a first-time director, having this great unknown factor was a thrill.

“Actually, that was more humorous than anything else,” Winkless continues. “I was constantly shouting, More bugs! More bugs! Of course, there were never enough bugs, and they were always escaping. I kept stooping down and picking them up, and I’d get pissed off finally and start stepping on them because I was angry that they were getting away. Then I would stop and think, ‘My God, I’m stepping on my stars!

As the movie’s roaches continue to mutate, they begin to genetically combine with the creatures they eat, resulting in a number of grotesque hybrids. FX man Cary Howe was responsible for creating the monsters, including a feline roach creature and a man transformed into a humanoid insect. There’s also a giant roach/human “queen” that is faced down by the sheriff and the mayor’s daughter (Lisa Langlois) in the finale.

Originally, this last monster was to have lurked in the shadows, but Winkless found Howe’s work impressive enough to bring it out into the light. “Cary had put an arm on it that would move, and the producers said, “Gee, that’s terrific, can you put another arm there, and there, and over there?’ So they kept adding appendages. It was all for the same money, so Cary had his work cut out for him. But it worked out great.”

The genesis was that I had the type of assistant everyone needs, and that is someone who comes in Monday morning and says, “You haven’t read this script, you need to have this meeting” and gives you the agenda for the week. Her name was Lynin Whitney. She came in one Monday morning and said, “Hey, wanna make a bug movie?” and I said, “Only if you do all the work.” The Nest was a novel [by Eli Cantor, using the pseudonym Gregory A. Douglas] Lynn found. We acquired the rights, and the screenplay was written by Robert King, who went on to create the series The Good Wife with his wife, Michelle. The director, Terry Winkless, was originally an actor-a clown, in fact-on television, so he is very good with actors. He went to film school and became a director. I think The Nest is underrated. – Roger Corman on The Nest

CAST/CREW Directed Terence H. Winkless

Produced Julie Corman

Written Robert King

Based on The Nest by Eli Cantor

Robert Lansing Lisa Langlois Franc Luz Terri Treas Diana Bellamy

Music Rick Conrad

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Gorezone#02 Fangoria#328

DOUBLE FEATURE RETROSPECTIVE – Bug (1975)/The Nest (1988) Bug (1975) SUMMARY An earthquake releases a bunch of mutant cockroaches that can create fire by rubbing their cerci together.